Leslie Gray Streeter, BLACK WIDOW
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zive Owens and you're listening to the award-winning podcast.
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[2:39]quarantine. I had the best time talking to Leslie Grace Streeter, who is an award-winning
[2:44]columnist and pop culture critic for the Palm Beach Post, where she has worked since October of
[2:48]2002. She's a graduate of the college of journalism and the University of Maryland College Park.
[2:53]And she wrote a beautiful happy, sad look at being a widow called Black Widow, a sad funny journey
[3:01]through grief for people who normally avoid books with words like journey in the title.
[3:06]If that sounds funny, you can get a glimpse of what she's like. I had so much fun talking to her and
[3:12]also doing an Instagram Live, which if you would like to watch, you can go to IGTV at Zibi Owens
[3:18]and check out what it was like for us to chat in person. I'm so sorry. I know you're like sitting
[3:23]there waiting. I'm so sorry. I'm just going to put this up on this thing so you don't have to
[3:26]hold it. Who is on your mug? These are people who used to be on all my children. This was from
[3:32]when all my children was first canceled by ABC. And they did these live traveling things.
[3:37]So these were dudes that like were on all my children. My husband bought me this mug because we
[3:42]both watched all my children. And he's the kind of work that would drive me and my best friend
[3:46]to the casino to see them. And he didn't actually get to go in because I only had two tickets,
[3:51]but he hung around and bought me a mug. So there we go. That's amazing. My husband actually just told
[3:56]me that there's a new memoir out by someone from General Hospital and he's like, the guy on your
[4:01]podcast. I love it. I love it. And by the way, I feel like you don't have to tell me what kind of guy
[4:07]your husband was because having read your book, I feel like I know a lot about him and that doesn't
[4:12]even surprise me. Well, your book was so great. Thank you for writing it and sharing it. And
[4:20]do you have a copy you could hold up or? Yes, I do. Because I of course left mine in the room next
[4:25]door. Okay. Great cover. Great title by the way. So funny. I mean, the whole package.
[4:33]Well, what's so funny is because I would say that when people say what's your book called,
[4:38]to the it's about you breathe from the go. And I go, it's called Black Widow. And they laugh
[4:43]because they're like, is it inappropriate to laugh at them? Like no. And I go, because it's true,
[4:47]black and widow. And they go, oh, okay. And then they kind of know what the book is. And it's a
[4:51]serious book about a funny book about a serious thing. And it goes back and forth. Because I think
[4:56]that's what life does. I was describing it. Who is I just grabbing to? And I was, I started to say
[5:02]funny. But then I was like, no, I feel bad saying that it's funny because it's a bad grief. And I
[5:06]should I not call it funny? Like is that inappropriate? But in fact, it was funny. You have a great
[5:11]sense of humor. And you saw the humor and these really not humorous situations. And I am sure I'm
[5:20]lying to close to the sea, but I am so sorry for your loss. I mean, thank you. And the suddenness
[5:25]with switch came and all the rest of it. And anyway. No, I appreciate that. And I just, I've
[5:32]obviously doing this book and being sort of like in a widow place all the time. Not another point,
[5:38]five, it's been almost five years before years in July, where I feel like I'm on the helping side of
[5:43]it, which is a great place to be because you don't feel so desperate off all the time. And so I've
[5:48]been doing a lot of zoom stuff with, you know, widow's groups and with more nerves and that kind
[5:54]of thing. And you would be surprised how much people laugh in those groups. So, no, you have
[5:58]when something crappy happens to you sometimes there's nothing else to do. Sometimes in a gallows
[6:03]depressing way, but it's always good to have that. And I think that in this time where we are right
[6:09]now, where we are grieving, you know, even though we're grieving people who have been lost and also
[6:15]grieving sort of like the life we knew a month and a half ago, we're grieving our vacations and
[6:20]our ability to go sit at a bar and flirt with key people. Oh, that's just me.
[6:24]You know, so I think that that's sort of the space we're in. And like, I can talk about that.
[6:31]That I don't know a lot about math or driving. I'm really bad at it, but I know a lot about grief
[6:37]and about being funny. So I figured I might as well write about that because I don't have anything else.
[6:42]I mean, if there was a way, I'm impressed you could even find a negative, negative way to spin
[6:48]this enterprise. Seriously, that was, I mean, but yet so deprecating all the way.
[6:56]What can you tell from people who don't know what your book is about? Can you explain that?
[7:01]The book is about the first year, it's a memoir about the first year of my widow, whom 2015
[7:07]when my husband Scott died. And very suddenly, as you mentioned, I have a heart attack. And it
[7:12]goes literally from the moment that I'm supposed to be at a happy hour, but I'm trying to buy a
[7:17]a grave site and not really knowing what's happening to the next year was almost a year of the day
[7:24]because God's timing is funny where our son's adoption was finalized. So I guess so late July won't
[7:29]suck all the time for me. There's good and bad stuff. And that's what the book is. And it's
[7:33]flashback to our love story and how we got together and that kind of thing. And it's sort of like,
[7:38]I break the fourth wall occasionally. I talk about, you know, God and sex and drinking,
[7:44]which are their really cool fundamental parts of life, I think. And, you know, trying not to get
[7:50]fat as a widow and then being okay with being in just friendship and family. My mom moved in with me
[7:56]as my co-parent. So that's a sitcom right there. It just I feel like if that hadn't happened to me,
[8:04]I would have hopefully been covered up to write this kind of thing. But I don't think I could ever
[8:08]could have imagined that all this stuff will be packed in the one year. That's just one year.
[8:12]It's been five since he died. That was a real eventful year. And you told it in such
[8:16]decent, like, I feel like I was there. Like when you were debating, like what you call the
[8:21]crypts of how to bury your husband. I mean, instead of it being like you're sitting there crying,
[8:26]you have it be like, you just find the the craziness and all of it, which is the relatable moment,
[8:32]really. That's, you know, I was talking to someone the other day about it because people don't
[8:37]really think about or they don't want to think about grief. But when you look back at funerals,
[8:41]you've been to memorial services or whatever, if you've thought about it, there's something
[8:46]happened like somebody showed up in an inappropriate dress or like somebody's ex-wife, they didn't
[8:51]think was going to come showed up and there's a whisper whisper whisper or someone brought the wrong
[8:55]thing to the shiver, whatever it is. And there's stuff that makes you go, hmm,
[8:59]analysis that makes it tolerable. It's the stuff that makes it human that makes you remember that
[9:04]you're still breathing and that you can get through this. And that's what how I've always written.
[9:10]And I think that I didn't really have any choice, but to process this experience that way and
[9:15]focus on what's not like in a desperate like slipping on banana peel funny sort of a way.
[9:20]It was more of a, these are things that I noticed. And I wrote them down on my phone. Or I,
[9:25]you know, went and jotted things down in a never ending file and word, you know, stuff that
[9:31]or I just remembered it. And I, as a columnist, I remember things in detail that way. Fortunately,
[9:36]I'm sure there's stuff that I forgot like I'm a friend of mine who reminded me because why
[9:41]it wasn't this in your book. And I forgot that my first birthday after Scott died. My friends gave
[9:46]me a cake that said, well, at least you're pretty, at least you're still pretty.
[9:52]So funny. And it's, it's rude in a really funny way, but that people that love you know
[10:00]how to talk to you and what to say and what's going to make you go, ah ah.
[10:04]And so that's what my life is and that's the people I surround myself with and that's what I wrote about.
[10:09]And do you still write for the Palm Beach Coast? I should write for the Palm Beach
[10:13]Coast right now and writing from home as everyone is. I just wrote about our big music festival
[10:18]every year that's been canceled because everything is canceled. So that was what I did this
[10:23]morning. You were mentioning before on your previous interview about sort of like everything that
[10:28]you do that we used to do that we left the house and now we're doing it all in the house and
[10:33]are we going to actually get to the point where we need to do a lot of that stuff. And like are we,
[10:38]am I going to go and go and stand in a music festival next to a bunch of drunk people, you know,
[10:43]or am I going to want to go just interview random people this close to their face? Again, no,
[10:51]I don't know when that's going to happen again. So right now I think we're getting a lot of what we
[10:56]need to do at home and I'm not working any less hard. I'm just working differently and I kind of
[11:02]like it honestly. I know sometimes I wonder if this whole thing can happen at a much more social time
[11:08]in my life. Like when I think about younger people or like when I was in college or I really
[11:12]depended on my social scene versus like being at home with my kids and I had already gotten to a
[11:16]place where I would be happy not to ever leave the house after 8 o'clock at night again.
[11:22]It was so weird. I was talking to I was on a widows briefing yesterday and there was a gentleman
[11:27]who lives in Manhattan who is older. He lost his wife a couple months ago and he said,
[11:32]I got to be honest. He said, and this guy's a physician. He goes, my physician brain is very
[11:37]attuned to what's happening with COVID, but my widower brain doesn't care because I don't want to
[11:43]talk to anybody anyway. I don't want to leave the house. I don't want to like have to deal with
[11:47]people's stammering about how they're sorry and trying to feel weird about it. I just kind of
[11:52]want to I want it to be in this cocoon and I'm sorry obviously this is happening, but if it was
[11:56]going to happen, that's a good time for this to happen with every other bad thing that's happening
[12:00]in my life. I, you know, on the other hand, released a book into a pandemic. So that was fun.
[12:07]And I, you know, I had all these things to do. I was supposed to be in New Orleans last weekend,
[12:13]supposed to be in two weeks, reading at the eggarong po house in Baltimore. None of these things
[12:18]are happening. I was supposed to be a book con, which is now going to be online. So I had all
[12:23]this really great stuff happening. And it's not, but I can't really do anything about it. And it's
[12:27]not personal. I think that's something that when grief happens, I would have these melodratic moments
[12:33]where I would be like, God, why did you do this to me and forsake me underclapped underclapped underclapped?
[12:39]And stuff just happens to people. I don't think it wasn't personal. He wasn't like set out to
[12:44]ruin my life or anything. It's just what happened. And I think that we're all kind of going through
[12:48]that right now that what's happening is what's happening. And we kind of have to figure out how to
[12:54]to best deal with it and not be so be melodratic is fun though.
[12:59]Can be. Yeah.
[13:02]You know, another element of your book that I found really interesting was how you wrote about
[13:06]fact that you had been married to a white Jewish man as a black Baptist woman. And that came up a
[13:13]lot in so many different scenarios in the book and how in some ways there were a lot of commonalities
[13:18]and then in other, there were these horrible moments where, you know, people at restaurants
[13:22]refused to believe you were like on the same check and like, you know, so that was I loved how
[13:28]open you work is I hadn't really read anything that specifically open about interracial marriage.
[13:35]What's so interesting to me is that I wanted to make the book about being a widow from my perspective.
[13:40]It wasn't a book like just about like in a very 80s movie of the week way interracial relationships
[13:48]where everything in the movie is about conflict or the differences or whatever. It's just the way
[13:54]my life is so we had a lot of common like all my children and we had things that were not in common
[14:00]our races or our religion. And those just kind of go into our story not in like a, you know,
[14:08]neon signway, but that's just part of my life. And I think that there were people who read it who were
[14:12]like, well, does it have to be so much about race? I'm like, yeah, because that's part of what it
[14:17]was. It's not about race, but it is in a way because that's part of our existence. And also it's
[14:23]a way that people responded to us when we walked into a room together or did not respond because
[14:28]they didn't think that we were together because they're dumb. And it was 2015. It's like,
[14:34]so some people don't think about that. But I wanted to present there's no like the book about
[14:41]these things. I mean, literally can be locked, you know, who wrote from scratch also was married
[14:46]to a white man who also died and wrote a book about that experience. And it's about being a widow
[14:53]who was black, but it's completely different books. So there's no like one experience way to do it.
[14:58]And I love that both of these books exist in the same place because everyone else's gets to
[15:04]to, you know, Joan Diddy and gets to exist in the same place as for a standard, you know,
[15:09]everyone gets to do that and have their stories told and not be thought of as this is the,
[15:14]this is definitive only of this, you know, experience. So I'm glad that I was in my dude and
[15:20]glad that people got it and that people didn't say, well, this is about a black person because
[15:24]I can't read it because I love the hell out of your magical thinking, which had nothing to do.
[15:29]I mean, I read it before I was even widowed. So nothing to do with my experience at the moment.
[15:32]It was just a really beautifully while written book. And I hope that my book is super like
[15:39]on the other side of elegant because that was an elegantly written book. My book is like
[15:43]cussing and drinking and, you know, making out with people. So it's not the same book,
[15:47]but it's a similar experience. And I hope that there's room for all of it.
[15:51]I'm sure. And I obviously have not read from scratch as you, and I'm sorry because I have heard of
[15:56]it, obviously, because it's a club and I, but I don't know that I didn't want to read that and I
[16:01]want to read this. So I don't know. Make of that what you will. Thank you. Exactly. And it is really
[16:06]a beautiful book. And she wrote a book for the back of my book. And it's so funny because when it
[16:11]happens, every time you get when you're like for real, because you asked all these people,
[16:17]you sent out in the universe. And there were some people that I knew like I know Laura
[16:20]Whitman a little bit. And I know James Patterson, which is a whole other thing. And I know
[16:24]I'm Rob Sheffield. But Tim B was a friend of a friend who had told her that, oh, I know someone who's
[16:30]written this book. And so when I reached out to her, and she was literally the last person,
[16:35]and it was past the deadline. She goes, is it okay? And I'm like boarding it. And I'm like,
[16:40]yes, it's going to be okay because I really needed that validation from another
[16:45]person. So it was cool. Yeah, it's a great book. It's not funny. But it's it's beautiful. It's like
[16:50]you're magical thinking and a travel log with a pre-love and under the Tuscan sun,
[16:56]book with black people. Okay. I will put it on the list. If that got the list,
[17:02]I'm sorry. I know. I have there's so many great things. I love your podcast. It was about
[17:08]moms having time to read books. So you have not to apologize. We're not being able to cram
[17:12]everything on the world. I do all the time. I do that. And I do. Yeah. Have you read, by the way,
[17:20]Nora McInerney's books about being a widow? Yes. And she's also on my on back my book. I know
[17:26]I'm great. Okay. No, she's I'm so glad that I read her book after I wrote mine because I would
[17:32]have thought, oh, no, am I stealing from her because she has a very, she has a similar, a
[17:38]reverent sort of a like, I'm a total mess. And I don't know how that I'm doing this. But I'm not
[17:43]here. And I have to keep children alive and stuff. So I have to do. And we have different approaches
[17:48]to that. But it's it's very much her books are so both on what is club and no happy endings,
[17:54]which is hilarious. The follow up. It's hilarious and sad and brutal and she's super hard in herself,
[18:00]but in a really funny, real way like your friend would be. She's I cannot say enough good things
[18:05]about about her. Me too. She's hilarious. And also with the grief and the funny. And anyway,
[18:12]but now I feel bad. We're doing like a roundup of all these other grief books. We should
[18:14]be talking about your life. How long did it take you to write your book, by the way? Oh, gosh,
[18:20]well, you know, it's there's how long it took to write it. Well, and I thought I was done. And then
[18:25]when my editor saw it was done. So that's all the process. I think I started writing like the first
[18:30]chapter about being in the in the graveyard. I wrote like a month or two after Scott died.
[18:35]I just to get it off my chest literally because it felt like it was on my chest. And then
[18:40]it said it was 15. I think I finished a first version probably in 18. So two and a half years
[18:47]and after we sold it. And then I sent it in and they're like, oh, at it's at it. So it was like
[18:53]done done sometime last year, but I thought it was done sometime in like 2017 slash 2018 like
[19:02]that. So it took about a year and a half to years to complete it. And as James Patterson said to me
[19:07]once, everyone doesn't need to know everything that you know. And everyone doesn't care about
[19:12]everything you write. I was like, oh, brutal, but true. So it's like they kill your darling thing.
[19:16]So when something like this happens, I know that you interview memoirs like your previous guest,
[19:21]it's so hard when everything seems super important to you because that's why you wrote about it.
[19:27]And then someone else comes back and says, do we need this part? And there were one or,
[19:32]you know, there were one or two things where I was like, yes, we have to have that like there's
[19:36]a I can person to share it. Okay. So there's a line in the first couple of pages where I said
[19:43]my life was it was a great sparkly cluster fuck. And editors kept taking that out. And I would
[19:50]write it back in. And that's like, because it was a, I thought it was funny. I'm easily amused.
[19:56]And to me, that's what it is because like,
[20:00]When you're in that thing where something bad has happened and it's like super super capital
[20:05]Be bad
[20:07]But it's so spectacularly rotten and awful that it seems special somehow that like it didn't just blow up a little it blew up a lot
[20:15]You're like damn that was really impressive how much my life just blew up right then and that's what it felt like so I fought for that
[20:22]There was some things like there was some chapters where I was like I could tell it was rocks
[20:26]Some super angry about stuff like the scene when we're in the hospital and people in the hospital weren't nice to me
[20:33]And I wrote a lot of really pointed things that honestly should have been kept in a journal somewhere and because they came off as angry
[20:41]And it's angry enough, you know, and it's but and I am glad that it was edited
[20:46]I went back and we wrote some things that were more on that the belolder tip rather than just the I hate this person so much right now
[20:54]It wasn't necessary editors are really good because otherwise it would have been 500 pages and nobody wants that I
[21:00]Thought the way you handled that scene though in the hospital when you were like kind of losing it at somebody and then giving yourself permission to lose it at this person
[21:08]I thought it was interesting how you did that I mean because you didn't just lose it and let it go you caught you had like commentary
[21:14]You checked with your friend and it was like I don't know
[21:17]Well, what's so funny is you know that as women we do that all the time like
[21:21]Well say something to a waiter and immediately the waiter leaves were both I too was I too hard on that person was I took whatever and that's an
[21:27]a normal
[21:28]situation like
[21:30]bartenders and waiters and like the
[21:32]Born when he's taking too long to check you under your flight, you know without ordinary
[21:35]But at this moment, I just felt like I used the word untethered that I could feel all of it
[21:41]Rising out of the ground the spike was gone and the pop on was high terrible and was gone
[21:47]You know and I
[21:49]New that I should probably care and I decided I didn't care because that was her job
[21:54]And I don't I don't want to think it will feel bad about themselves
[21:57]But I think if you get to focus on how you feel the moment where you're being told your husband is dead is probably that moment and
[22:04]No one else back to feel cater to it's like but how do you feel person with the band use?
[22:09]Yeah, I mean honestly one of the most impressive parts of the book to me was that your husband got up in the middle of the night to check on your
[22:16]Son and came back in and started hooking up with you and you did
[22:23]I'm like that's impressive to me. I don't know. It's like three of them or whatever anyway
[22:28]What power do you I'm glad you see the moment? Can you imagine how awful I would feel to this day if I hadn't you know
[22:35]Oh, if I if I'd gone
[22:37]Because I always say that's like when people die and you go oh my god
[22:41]If I had just called her back when she called me
[22:43]We would have made up or it was weird last time when we left and I didn't do that
[22:46]That literally there was no doubt how we felt about each other at that moment because we were we were making up and that was really
[22:52]And his cousin think it's hilarious
[22:54]There's something that didn't make the book. There used to be the show on A&E
[22:57]I think called sex sent me to the ER and his cousin whose birthday it was his cousin Kenny who did the Jefferson sing along
[23:04]It's funeral Kenny drives up from Fort Lauderdale and says two spots body. Dude if you had just survived this you could have been on that show
[23:12]All wrapped up in the mean staff. I'm sure it was in the corner going at that's right
[23:19]They're evil, but it was that no it just it broke up
[23:22]The things it was the most horrible moment
[23:25]But it was a really funny thing to say and he wasn't I don't know if you're trying to be funny
[23:29]We're just on his head or he was in shock and grief as well
[23:32]And Scott. He said I'm always gonna blame for dying for ruining my birthday by dying on it
[23:37]Gosh
[23:39]So what's coming next for you do you want to write more books you and I keep you're obviously still a journalist I do
[23:45]I want to do a lot of things all of involving writing because I don't know how to do anything else
[23:49]I really
[23:50]Every once in a while ago like I auditioned for the voice a couple times did not happen
[23:54]It's like I'll do something new because journalism and then now this is all I know to do is to write things on paper
[23:59]So I'm working on a book
[24:01]Right now the very early stages of fiction actually it's a rom-com and of course it has elements of like you know
[24:08]Middle-aged black people in love and there's adulthood and there's all that kind of stuff too
[24:12]But it's based on a screenplay
[24:14]I wrote by long-hand in a notebook 20 something years ago. I never did anything with and this is just this
[24:19]The characters old and no one knows who they are because I never did anything with it
[24:23]But it seems real personal to me, but it's like I have this sitting here. I might as well do something with it. I'm recycling
[24:29]All right, love it. That's great. Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[24:34]I do
[24:35]First is just to write when people say like they're aspiring writers like if you write you're a writer
[24:39]I think most people that they mean is I want to get what to as I aspire to be paid for writing
[24:44]I aspire to be admired for my writing and all you have to do is just start writing
[24:48]I mean, there's never been a better time
[24:50]particularly right now because people are home and looking for things to read to
[24:55]Even a blogging isn't as big as it used to be
[24:58]Have a blog to do something really cool on your Instagram to write poetry to get stuff out there
[25:03]I think people are looking for connection
[25:06]Real solid human connection and if you've got something in your heart that you need to write that will connect to people
[25:12]I think this is a perfect time
[25:14]To do it to follow writers online
[25:17]Don't ask them for anything yet
[25:19]But just to follow them and see what they do to read everything
[25:22]What you were saying in their previous interview was just about like reading and I have to piggyback on what
[25:27]She was saying that this is such an amazing
[25:29]I've always loved the title of of your podcast and of this
[25:32]Instagram because it's just it speaks to such a specific experience and need
[25:36]That moms and everyone have even when you're busy to do stuff
[25:40]So I think people like you who love books and who love words
[25:45]And who want to keep people reading and writing are so important
[25:49]I think it's encouraging to aspiring writers that these platforms exist
[25:54]So thank you. Thank you for being able to do that
[25:57]I mean, it's true
[25:59]Thank you
[26:00]Well, I love it
[26:01]I mean, I guess it's such a great women like you who I'm not like I'm talking about
[26:05]And Nina, so yeah, it was a great day
[26:07]Thank you so much for coming on and thanks for sharing your
[26:10]innermost life in your book
[26:13]So that people like me could sit in my bed and I didn't enjoy it and honestly
[26:17]I mean, it's a gift. It's really a gift
[26:19]Thank you. I really appreciate it and if one person is moved by it, then it was worth it to
[26:25]To write it and to go through the bottom writing list to do it
[26:29]So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for having me my brother
[26:33]Thanks again for listening to my podcast moms don't have time to read books
[26:37]If you liked this episode, please follow me on
[26:40]Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books
[26:44]And sign up for my mailing list at zibi Owens.com
[26:48]So you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to. Thanks a lot
[26:51]Thanks to Blue Land Cleaning our sponsor for today's episode
[26:54]Blue Land Cleaning get your single-use
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[27:02]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing
[27:06]And thank you to Morningmoon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music
[27:10]Thanks for listening. You could always email me at zibi at zibi Owens.com