Kevin Kwan, SEX AND VANITY
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[1:32]I had the most fun ever laughing and talking to Kevin Kwan, who is the author of Crazy
[1:38]Rich Asians, the international best-selling novel that has been translated into more than
[1:42]30 languages.
[1:43]It's sequel, China Rich Girl Friend, was released in 2015 and Rich People Problems, the
[1:48]final book in the trilogy followed in 2017.
[1:51]For several weeks in 2018, the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy commanded the top three positions
[1:56]of the New York Times bestseller list in almost unprecedented single author-try-fect-up.
[2:02]The film adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians became Hollywood's highest-grossing romantic comedy
[2:06]in over a decade.
[2:07]I saw it.
[2:08]It was so good.
[2:09]I don't know if you've seen it.
[2:10]Go see it.
[2:11]It's so funny.
[2:12]In 2018, Kevin was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people
[2:16]in the world.
[2:17]His latest book is called Sex and Vanity.
[2:19]I hope you enjoy our conversation and by the way, in parentheses, well, I'm not even going
[2:23]to tell you my school, but think about what your school is saying about you and you
[2:27]can imagine putting yourself in our conversation.
[2:29]Well, welcome, Kevin.
[2:30]Thanks so much for coming in.
[2:31]My mom's don't have time to read books.
[2:32]This is such a treat.
[2:34]It's really a pleasure to be here.
[2:35]So congratulations.
[2:36]Your next book, Sex and Vanity is coming out.
[2:39]You excited?
[2:40]You still get excited after you've had three amazing bestsellers or is it just an excitement
[2:44]die down over time or not really?
[2:46]No.
[2:47]I really do get excited because each book is like a new baby and why wouldn't you be excited
[2:53]about a new baby?
[2:54]You know what I mean?
[2:55]It's like you really want to birth it and make sure it gets the right start in life,
[3:01]is this not the right time to tell you about how I felt when I was about to have my fourth
[3:05]child?
[3:06]But no, I'm kidding.
[3:07]Yeah.
[3:08]Yeah, maybe people will, you know, different people might feel differently.
[3:11]But for me, it's a very exciting time.
[3:14]You just never know, right?
[3:15]It's like our people bored of reading my books.
[3:18]Are they going to care?
[3:19]Will they want to read it?
[3:20]What will they think?
[3:21]So it's very fraught and very exciting and very stressful all the same time.
[3:25]Wow.
[3:26]You know, it's so funny because I'm sure people would just assume that you wouldn't
[3:28]be nervous at all, right?
[3:30]And yet you're just a human being like everybody else, you know, like I think that's
[3:33]one thing is that as readers, we assume that authors have all this confidence and that
[3:38]every book that comes out will just naturally be a success.
[3:41]But I think that the authors are just so worried about it all the time.
[3:45]It's continually a surprise to me.
[3:49]Maybe it's just me.
[3:50]But like I feel like everything is an experiment and you just never know like what people
[3:54]will think.
[3:56]I've gone on a limb to do something different and I hope readers will come along with
[4:01]me on this ride.
[4:02]You know, it's quite different from my last three books, but hopefully no less fun.
[4:08]I thought this book was super fun and I am so appreciative that you essentially whisked
[4:13]me off to Capri for the time I was reading it out of the confinement of, you know, the quarantine
[4:19]itch situation.
[4:20]So I thought it was great.
[4:22]I thought it was great.
[4:23]Yay.
[4:24]Wow.
[4:26]I love so great to actually also be talking about that I actually read the book.
[4:31]Yes.
[4:32]You'd be amazed.
[4:33]No.
[4:34]I read the book.
[4:35]I appreciated all of the details and all the rest of it and I wish I could meet somebody
[4:40]who would offer up their hotel room to me next time I get a terrible room in a hotel and
[4:45]I mean, you never know, right?
[4:47]Hope it's been the tunnel, you know, you never know.
[4:50]You never know.
[4:51]We'll see what happens.
[4:52]Where do I have?
[4:53]Where do I have?
[4:55]Yeah, exactly.
[4:57]I also just every time you, so whenever you introduce a character, you put a parenthesis,
[5:01]they're entire educational background and that just did not get old.
[5:05]I thought that was so clever and funny and just like so far for the course, you know,
[5:10]my husband sort of entered into the squirrel from Florida and he's, he was like, why does
[5:16]everybody immediately ask and explain why everybody else went to school?
[5:19]He's like, that was like not a question that we asked growing up.
[5:22]Nobody cared.
[5:23]Anyone you meet at a party is like, oh, yeah, well, where'd you get a college or did
[5:26]you get a business school or did you do this?
[5:27]And he was like, what is going on?
[5:29]Bingo.
[5:30]This is exactly why I did that because like, I grew up in suburban Texas and maybe it was
[5:36]just my friends or like, we were like the most low achieving people you could pop or imagine.
[5:40]Like our dream was like to get into like the state school, you know what I mean?
[5:44]So fast forward, like 10 years later, I'm in New York and everyone, it's just obsessed
[5:49]with their schools, you know, not just their colleges.
[5:52]It goes back to their kindergarten, especially, you know, this particular breed of New
[5:57]Yorkers.
[5:58]I went outside.
[5:59]I would say preschool counts too.
[6:01]I wouldn't discount preschool.
[6:02]Definitely preschool.
[6:03]Yeah.
[6:04]And even like your mom, like which, which, like, class she went to for like her mamas or
[6:09]whatever.
[6:10]You know, like, yeah, dates back as early as the monthly date.
[6:14]And so it was always, you know, like snobbly fascinates me in all shapes and forms.
[6:19]So like, I remember, you know, one of my first jobs, like my co-workers, like, what's
[6:24]cool did you go to?
[6:25]You know, like, and I'm so proud to have gone to a state school.
[6:28]Like I thought I got a great education, a quality education.
[6:31]And I would, I would like proudly say that and they were just the looks on their faces.
[6:35]It was like so that's sad and a little to them.
[6:37]I didn't go to like Ivy League or like one of the cool colleges in the East Coast.
[6:42]So I just felt this was a really fun way to like capture that story of that social group
[6:46]number one.
[6:47]I think also I played a game where like if you know these schools, if you know these
[6:52]world, just even in that parentheses, you can see someone's whole life story in just those
[6:59]four schools, right?
[7:01]Totally.
[7:02]And then sometimes you go, oh, wait, what happened there?
[7:04]Why did she go from this really prestigious prep school to this college?
[7:07]Exactly.
[7:08]You know, like what happened?
[7:10]You know, and then she did this, you know, so I really played this game.
[7:13]And to me, it's yet another layer that hopefully lends more richness to each character.
[7:19]No, it's so it was so it was just such a perfect like cliff notes version of character
[7:25]description.
[7:26]It was great.
[7:27]And I read there was a quote you had about snobbery actually in your recent piece in
[7:31]the Atlantic about the social codes of the very rich.
[7:33]And you said you've always had a lifelong fascination with snobbery that's strange, sometimes
[7:37]tragic, often funny dance people take part in to prove their richer or smarter or better
[7:42]stationed than someone else.
[7:44]So tell me a little more about when this sort of interest in snobbery started.
[7:50]I've heard you described yourself as a total observer at times.
[7:54]So tell me about where that came from.
[7:55]I mean, it really began at grade school.
[7:57]So I grew up the first love in years of my life in Singapore.
[8:00]And I went to, I did not know because I didn't, you know, enroll myself there.
[8:04]My parents put me there apologizing, you know, preemptively.
[8:09]I went to this school called ACS, which was like the snobious school in Singapore, you
[8:15]know.
[8:16]And I was known that all the snobs went there.
[8:19]And I didn't know that I was going to be classified as many little snobbs.
[8:22]But when I got there, you know, and I really realized how quickly like there were certain
[8:27]kids that were like the off the kids, right?
[8:30]And even the teachers would hand it at them, you know, like even to the point where
[8:34]it's like, I would raise my hand to answer a question, no one would ever let me answer
[8:38]your question because I wasn't special enough, right?
[8:42]There were like four admitted boys that would get to answer every question and prove their
[8:46]balance.
[8:47]And it's the, I mean, these four boys came from these tea families that were like household
[8:52]names on the island.
[8:54]So it was so interesting to really start to realize that at age six, like, oh, I see what's
[8:59]going on here and then you start to see the kids behaviors.
[9:03]And so it was just sort of with kind of, I don't know, it was fascinating because
[9:08]I, it was so different from how I was at that point raised.
[9:14]Like I, my father was the most unpretentious person you'd ever meet.
[9:21]And his father was an extremely, extremely humble man.
[9:24]And so I didn't have this type of energy in my life.
[9:29]So the seed for the first time and then to see it kind of blow up even and get worse
[9:35]and worse and worse, year by year, because I guess this was in the early 80s and Singapore,
[9:40]you know, where the country was truly like prospering by leaps and bounds every year.
[9:45]And so you'd feel in like real time, you know, like which kids couldn't buy that to the
[9:50]special birthday party and I'd never got invited, you know, to anything, right?
[9:54]I'm sorry.
[9:55]I'm sorry.
[9:56]No, it's totally fine.
[9:58]Like I didn't care.
[9:59]I didn't, I wouldn't.
[10:00]You know, when you're six years old or you're seven years old, like, it didn't matter.
[10:03]Like, I had my whole life at my friend, that my neighborhood, you know, like, I didn't care
[10:08]if I didn't invite it to some random kids birthday party, but I would hear about it come Monday.
[10:11]Like, oh, my God, we went to like, so-and-so's house and there were all these Roman statues
[10:17]all over the grounds of this enormous mansion.
[10:19]You know, I mean, so I would hear stories and, you know, and then suddenly you would see the
[10:24]teachers begin to suck up with the kid that before was just this lovely little kid.
[10:28]He was actually my friend, but suddenly the teachers all heard about Roman statues.
[10:33]Yeah, on the ground with his house and like, suddenly he got special treatment.
[10:37]So it was, it was interesting. And then, you know, coming from that and being plopped down,
[10:42]you know, at age 11 to just a normal American middle school was such a shock to a system.
[10:49]I bet.
[10:50]But I also noticed, you know, in this school, like, there was a kid who was popular
[10:56]and I didn't really understand why he was popular. He was, you know, nice enough. But like,
[11:00]he almost had this mystique around him. Everyone was like, oh, my God, this kid, this kid, this kid,
[11:05]and I found out that, you know, back in great school, his mom drove a mozzarotti.
[11:11]And that's all it took.
[11:12]And that's what he's known for.
[11:14]Or at that time, that was what he was known for. This is the kid whose mom drove a mozzarotti.
[11:19]You know, so it was sort of fascinating to me from an early age.
[11:23]And then it's funny how in Singapore, like, the thing that gets the attention or random
[11:28]statues. And yet when you go to Texas, it's all about the cars and, you know, different cultures,
[11:34]I feel like you should probably ride a thank you note to those four boys though from your first
[11:38]school to thank them. Because maybe without them, you wouldn't have written all this stuff and
[11:42]become like this mess success. And maybe deserve some things or their outrageous lifestyles.
[11:48]Yeah, I wish I remember their name.
[11:50]I really would love to get back and touch with some other kids and see, you know, where are they now?
[11:54]But I just like, I laughed when I was 11 and sadly, it was like really
[11:59]I only kept in touch with like one kid, like my one best friend.
[12:03]Yeah. And the rest just kind of thought by the way side and yeah.
[12:08]And it's so funny because I read that you said about yourself that you're not a creative person.
[12:13]So tell me about that because I would argue that you are a creative person even though,
[12:18]obviously I don't even know you, but just having read your books. Why do you think you're not
[12:22]creative? Like you think that all the material just sort of fell from the heavens, they're big.
[12:27]I really think that as a writer, right, there are some people who can just dream up worlds,
[12:32]you know, like people who write sci-fi or fantasy books and even some novelists can really,
[12:40]especially the bright, bright period pieces that my 16th century friends, whatever,
[12:44]there's a pure imagination that I just don't have. You know, my story is all really
[12:49]come from a place of observation. If I can't see it, if I haven't been in the story,
[12:54]haven't witnessed the situation, I can't write about it. I can't just make up a character from
[13:00]nothing. Just like I can't make up a situation from nothing. I'm intensely visual and so so much
[13:06]of it comes from my visual memory. So in that sense, I feel like I'm not a pure creator.
[13:11]I'm really someone who just remembers and who's observed, and I'm resetting it on the page
[13:16]and we're telling what I've seen. So does this mean you've gone to a wedding, like the when you wrote
[13:20]about in Sex and Vanity? Like the whole week of activities and you know, company address codes and
[13:26]everything? Yeah, totally. I mean, it wasn't that wedding per se, you know, I've been to weddings
[13:30]like that. And so I was able to use that the partial point and really kind of restyle and make
[13:38]it even more over the top in this book. And how did you pick that? You've obviously been in
[13:43]lots of different outrageous, awesome situations that you could have written about. Why did you pick
[13:48]this format and a wedding like this in these particular characters? Like how did you arrive at that?
[13:54]Well, interestingly, I mean, with this wedding in particular in Tapri, it takes place at
[13:59]Bill of Isis, which is one of the most beautiful villas on the planet. And it's not a public
[14:04]museum, you know, so like I've been there several times. And even my first time going to
[14:09]Bill of Isis and visiting it, the setting is so spectacular. And I was like, whoa, this would be a
[14:17]great spot for like a party or a wedding. So already I launched out of my hat. You know, this is a
[14:21]book that I've been writing in my mind for like 10 years, right? Every time I would go to Tapri,
[14:25]I would collect places, I would collect situations and it'd be like, how can I weave this into my
[14:29]story? So definitely being there, being at this beautiful villa, I could see, I could just see a
[14:36]whole wedding take place there. And then a few years later, I made a new friend and she got married
[14:42]to Bill of Isis. She literally had the wedding for dreams there. And it was photographed in the
[14:48]vogue. You can Google it, you know, you just Google Bill of Isis wedding. You will see her amazing
[14:55]beautiful wedding. It's gorgeous what she did and how she transformed the palace. You know,
[15:01]so that was another inspiration point. Seeing, oh wow, like she really made it happen. But I
[15:05]think in her case, she also helped to pay for a lot of the restoration of the place, which is really
[15:09]great. They were able to build like new structures and the property and stuff like that, you know.
[15:15]And you know, so that was another inspiration point. Seeing a real wedding happened there,
[15:20]you know, unfold in these beautiful pictures and then using that and using many other weddings,
[15:24]like then to kind of cobble together, my sort of dream wedding for this couple.
[15:30]You know what I mean? Yeah. So like I are directed at this wedding out of so many different
[15:34]inspiration points. I have now Googled and I'm looking at all the pictures of the wedding at Bill of
[15:39]Isis. Well, I mean, are they not? Are they not? Oh my gosh. It's unbelievable. And it's, you know,
[15:46]she did it in such a classy way. You know what I mean? Like it was so intimate, so full of love
[15:53]and it's over the top, but it's still just mixed with it. You know? Well, this is, this is
[15:58]no on my wish list is to find somebody I know who will get married here and invite me.
[16:05]I'll have to. Me too. Or as I told my father, I wish I could like get in a time machine that we would
[16:09]have met like two years earlier and then I've been invited to your wedding. Yeah, maybe my kids,
[16:14]maybe I can start campaigning for it. Yeah, I'm wedding here. I'm wearing that, you know, 30 years to
[16:20]work on it. So totally. Yeah, but yeah, so it's a beautiful fantasy thought. And, you know, like
[16:26]with all my books, I'm trying to transport people and just give them a really fun ride, you know,
[16:31]into a world that's just fantastical and yet rooted enough and grounded enough in reality where
[16:37]they can actually relate. So it's this whole funny thing in society right now, I feel like, because
[16:43]there's so much anti-wealth sentiment, right? Everybody in every article is just like
[16:49]down with the wealth, like it's like, you know, a crime to be a wealthy person. And yet,
[16:54]there is obviously this enormous fascination, right? The proof is in the pudding of your selling,
[16:59]like Brazilian copies of your books because people want a piece of it. So they want to see it and
[17:04]yet they have to publicly discount it. I don't know. What do you make of that whole thing?
[17:08]I think there's a fascination and a revolution because I also see, like, you know, I get
[17:14]comments on my Instagram and I see some people, they're like, we love the story, but like
[17:21]we wish the people weren't so wealthy, you know. And I'm like, do you really, I mean, would you
[17:27]actually be interested in reading about them if they were just like crazy middle-class Asians?
[17:32]You know what I mean? Like, what's the whole other book? You know what I mean? Like, and that's
[17:37]very valid, absolutely. But I think since the beginning of time, people have been fascinated by,
[17:43]I think, power and the people who are at the top of the pyramid beginning with the pharaoh.
[17:48]Yes, you know what I mean? The beginning of the stories of the pharaoh that was passed down through
[17:52]Grokossip to stories in the Bible by the rich and powerful, to Machiavelli, to Shakespeare.
[17:59]You know, even during the Spanish flu, people were reading Edith Horton's books and Henry James's
[18:03]books and sort of escaping into these worlds. And I think what also is important is that
[18:10]I think for people who are not in that one percent, it's kind of gratifying to see that,
[18:17]you know, these rich people have problems too. You know what I mean? There is a universe
[18:23]experience. It brings them down. It brings down these characters to have to reckon with the
[18:28]face and to have to experience the tragedies and the traumas of their lives. So I think people are
[18:34]always riveted, you know, by that. You know, certainly in my books, like, I go to great lengths,
[18:41]I'm not glorifying the wealth. You know, I'm just portraying it as I see it. And I'm also
[18:45]revealing that in these worlds, there are different people who understand and who realize that they're
[18:51]extremely privileged, you know, in a world that's completely full of inequality and who are
[18:56]trying to make a difference. So really, you're doing a public service. You're like helping out
[19:02]all groups of people. It's very nice of you making people relatable.
[19:07]I know we can say that.
[19:11]And I think especially with sex and vanity, you know, like in Quasarous Asians,
[19:14]I really doubled down on like the lavish descriptions and the brand name dropping and all of
[19:21]because that to me captured how these people really are, you know, it's interesting because
[19:28]like I would go to Hong Kong and I would meet friends and present relatives and everyone
[19:33]is just name dropping, brand name dropping a mile a minute and they're fascinated by like,
[19:37]oh, what are you wearing? Who made your shoes? Who made your watch? You know, like stuff that would
[19:40]never come up in a conversation in the United States. It is a cultural difference over there.
[19:45]It's not seen as rude to ask like, oh, who made your shirt and how much you pay for it?
[19:50]You know what I mean? So I wanted to really accurately portray that world. And it's satire,
[19:55]you know, and making fun of these people. That's what, you know, a lot of people failed to like,
[20:00]for. And in this new series, it's, they do come from privilege, but that's sort of
[20:05]beside the point in many ways. And just, you know, I, I, I hope you agree, you know,
[20:13]it's, it's, you know, Lucy isn't driven by money in any way. So for shape or form, like
[20:18]she's got other issues, she's dealing with. Yes, it's just a backdrop. It's just like
[20:22]one character element. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not her defining elements as it is for some
[20:29]people, you know, like Eddie in my crazy rotation series, he's completely fine by his
[20:33]status and bowls and his position and as well. And his, you know, average net worth every
[20:38]day, whereas Lucy and George and, you know, some of the other characters in this book,
[20:43]they're, they're totally have complete different values. Right. And maybe that's reflective
[20:48]of where they come from. And maybe there's more of a relatability factor in that, in that
[20:53]they have, you know, normal thoughts and feelings. And maybe it's easier almost to put
[20:57]yourself in their shoes and feel like you're living this life. I don't know. I mean,
[21:03]yeah, everything was great. But I did what you sympathetic to their plight. Oh, did you
[21:10]want me to be? Did you want me to be? No. Yes, I am sympathetic to their fleet. I mean,
[21:15]I don't have anything against any groups of people. I mean, you can't help the family
[21:18]you're born into. And there are wonderful people who have all different levels of wealth.
[21:24]And I think that any issues you're having are your own issues to deal with. And just because
[21:30]you might be more privileged in some ways than others doesn't mean the pain is any less.
[21:35]Like the pain of grief or loss. And I don't know. I mean, it doesn't matter what you have.
[21:40]It love and loss and connection. That's all the same stuff. The outside is just the,
[21:47]the backdrop for it in a way. But anyway, that's my own two cents.
[21:51]I absolutely agree. And I think actually wealth amplifies that and in a lot of times
[21:56]complicates and makes things worse. It can. Yeah, you're totally right. People it can't get
[22:01]out. Well, especially because people assume if you are wealthy that nothing should be bothering
[22:06]you ever. And that's not fair. Right. Is it your characters have things bother them? They
[22:11]sure do. Otherwise it wouldn't be interesting. Exactly. Why would you be meeting? Right. Yeah.
[22:17]Totally exactly. Tell me a little more about your writing process. Like, how much of
[22:22]this book do you have outlined? I love how you did it by, you know, the place of all the events
[22:26]and all of that. Like, do you have all of that thought out before you start writing or
[22:29]does it happen as you go? What's your process like? It's totally, I'm like the messiest,
[22:35]most haphazard writer you'll possibly meet. So it's like I'm handling this big muddy block
[22:41]and I'm slowly just shipping away at it. You know, until it becomes something that I want to
[22:46]look at. So I don't really outline at all. I have an idea. And I write actually chronologically,
[22:54]you know, so it just keeps building. Like, I can't skip from chapter to chapter. I can't write,
[22:59]you know, something sweet three chapters down. So I really tell the story as it evolves. And the
[23:05]characters really, you know, once I set an idea, the characters really take over as a dialogue that
[23:11]comes out and the situation could happen. Like, because I write so quickly, you know, I almost
[23:17]am like a trans state when I write, you know, I always write. It's just sort of like, I let it all
[23:22]come out. And then the next morning, I'll go back and read it. And like, every day I go back and I
[23:27]go, wait a minute, what happened? You know, like, who wrote this? I really see that in many,
[23:34]many of my chapters and scenes, you know, especially with the crazier characters, like, you know,
[23:40]express themselves. It's like, I don't know where this came from, but okay, let's go with it because
[23:45]this now changes situation, right? And let's just go there. So I'm very, very experimental
[23:51]in how password and in what I do. And I kind of, I can't imagine writing about online and
[23:58]being like having to commit to like a structure. That's just not how I work.
[24:04]So how long did this book take to write? It actually took four months.
[24:09]Wow. This is the fastest book I've written. And I think a lot was because I was really,
[24:15]I was sort of, I was given a break in between a TV project to really like have some time
[24:20]right on a novel. So I really wanted to maximize the time. This is all pre-COVID, had I known that
[24:27]this would happen. I would have been like, give me a year and let me see how from this volume.
[24:32]It's socially isolating, but, you know, it worked out the way it did.
[24:35]No, it's totally clapping. Yeah.
[24:38]Sometimes too much time can be, you know, sort of a devil, you have to work against as well.
[24:43]I feel like if you get, you know, it's like that whole expression, give a busy person something to do
[24:46]and you'll get it done. But I don't know. Yeah. No, absolutely, absolutely. So it, you know,
[24:52]it happened when it had to happen. And I'm really, I was worried at first I wouldn't have
[24:57]enough time and it would be haphazard to haphazard and end up being, you know, just exactly right.
[25:04]And I like turned in my final draft right before we all went under lockdown. And I'm glad I did,
[25:10]because I don't know if I would be able to channel that kind of joy.
[25:15]You know, in these times, you know, like, I think if I was still writing it when we went
[25:20]to lockdown and when the pandemic was, was happening, it would probably have a very different ending.
[25:25]It would probably be a lot darker, you know, because you are affected by what's happening in the
[25:30]world. But now we need the joy in this book more than ever. I mean, it could not be more welcome
[25:36]than the more welcome through distraction from the current state of the world. It's like the perfect
[25:41]antidote at this exact moment. I really hope so. I really hope so. But it's really kind of all I'm
[25:47]trying to do. I'm just trying to heal through laughter. That's awesome. I love that. That is what
[25:52]and as they say, are you already working on another book or no? Sounds like no, but you must be.
[25:58]The minute I finished, the minute I finished and handed in the mask, I just start back on this
[26:03]TV series that I've been developing. So I'm back in TV land, writing a script every day.
[26:08]Wow. And it's a whole different process because it's collaborative. You know, I remember
[26:11]a whole team of writers. So that's the new adventure for a moment.
[26:16]That's exciting. Very cool. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[26:21]I always say like you really don't be afraid to like really take a chance and let your freak flag fly
[26:32]seriously. Because that's what I did. You know, I wrote a book called Creates Rachations about these
[26:36]crazy people and I wrote stuff that I in in my normal life would never write. You know, even as
[26:43]someone who studied writing, creative writing, like I used to write these very composed, very kind
[26:48]minimalist essays and poems and stuff like that. And like here, this is just this crazy mess
[26:55]of a book that just I think people really respond to because I was able to, you know, to really
[27:01]tap into this very authentic weirdo that's in me. That if I tried to overcraft it,
[27:07]you know what I mean? If I tried to turn in like to polish the thing that appealed to certain
[27:11]demographic or you know, like I think a lot of times people try to write what they think other
[27:17]people want to read. And I think that's really, really self-destructive. You know, just write for
[27:22]yourself. Write and express your real voice and your real story. Tell it like you want to tell it.
[27:28]And don't think about how it can be received because I really didn't, you know, I didn't
[27:32]intend for my book to even be published. I was just going to write them and like self-publish
[27:37]and share them with a few friends that know me well. So like I felt like I was in a safe space.
[27:41]And I could really go there and like write these strange stories that have nothing to do with my
[27:47]everyday life. And then look what happened. Oh, look what happened. Yeah. So I just, that's
[27:51]my encouragement to people. Like, you know, dare to be original, you know, and dare to tell the truth,
[27:57]your own truth. I love it. Well, Kevin, thank you. Thanks so much for coming on mom's
[28:02]time to read books and that was so fun. This was really, really so fun. And I do find, you know,
[28:08]I hope everyone's doing well and people will find a little bit of, you know, peace and calm
[28:13]from reading, whether it's my books or someone else's books. I know I've been reading more than
[28:17]I ever have read in the last four months of reading a lot more fiction because I need that escape too.
[28:23]Totally. You know, I'm right there with you. Yeah. Tell it, you know, I have to like,
[28:29]you know, now I've like rationed my news every day. So I don't get too mad on the morning.
[28:34]And then I go to go to sleep every night reading like a good piece of fiction.
[28:38]Totally. That's the recipe for surviving these times. Exactly. Well, that's a flak.
[28:45]You too. And thank you so much. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Okay. Bye. Bye.
[28:52]Thanks for listening to mom's don't have time to read books. Please don't forget,
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[29:02]Thanks so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much to Riley versus
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[29:10]and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for
[29:15]providing this fantastic intro and out trim music. Thanks for listening. You can always email me at
[29:20]zibbyoins.com.