Caroline Leavitt, WITH OR WITHOUT YOU
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[1:05]It's such a nice time talking to Caroline Levitt. She is a New York Times best-selling author
[1:10]of 12 novels, many of which have been on the best of the year lists.
[1:14]She's also the co-founder of A Mighty Blaze, which is the initiative that helps authors and bookstores,
[1:20]and just was formed during the pandemic, and it's been written up in the Boston Globe,
[1:23]The Washington Postbox, NPR, and more. Her 12th book with or without you is just coming out
[1:30]and received a start review from Kirkus and Reeves from many other publications.
[1:35]As a screenwriter, Caroline was a Nickelodeon screenwriting fellow finalist,
[1:39]first round finalist in the Sundance screenwriting lab competition for her script of
[1:44]is this tomorrow, and has many, many other prizes from the National Magazine Award,
[1:50]and an honorable mention for the Goldenberg Prize for Fiction for the Bellevue Literary View.
[1:55]I mean, she's just amazing. She's appeared in the today's show, and many other TV shows,
[2:02]and all the rest, she lives in Hoboken, New Jersey, which she calls New York City's unofficial
[2:06]sixth borough with her husband and has an acting student's name X. I should also say she
[2:11]founded A Mighty Blaze with author Jenna Bloom. Welcome, Caroline. Thank you so much for coming on
[2:16]mom's don't have time to read books. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited. I love your
[2:20]podcast. I feel like I've been just like so in awe of what you've been doing since the pandemic
[2:27]started with a Mighty Blaze and all this stuff, how you're helping out all these authors,
[2:30]and I just love watching. I've been trying to help as well, and I get, I like him so inspired
[2:35]about what you guys are doing. Thank you so much. I grew up being the polyanna of my family where
[2:41]something was wrong. I was always determined like, no, no, I'm gonna fix it. And when the pandemic
[2:47]happened, I had a big event. My first event was at this library association in Texas, and they
[2:53]canceled it. And I remember walking around and saying, no, nothing is canceled. Nothing is canceled.
[2:59]So I put the word out to authors that, you know, don't worry, nothing is canceled. I'm gonna put
[3:03]all of you on my blog. Just make me a short video, shout out to another writer, shout out to
[3:08]an indie bookstore, and all of a sudden I was inundated, and I got more and more inundated, and then the
[3:15]Washington Post called me, and I said, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just from doing it,
[3:20]and I'm lucky for me, Jenna Blung called me up and said, do you want a partner with me on this?
[3:25]And I said, yes, thank God, yes. And then it blew up even more, and it sort of, we have a staff of
[3:31]20 now, all in pain. No. Yep, everybody's unpaid. Everybody's passionate. I said no about the fact
[3:37]that there were 20 people, not about the unpaid. That's also... Oh, be unvery impressive.
[3:42]Yeah, there's 20 people. And we need more. We actually need more. It's just so overwhelming that
[3:48]I feel like Jenna and I always say, we're just two women writers and yoga pants, and we're flying a
[3:53]plane, and we have no idea how the plane works. But it feels good to do something, and it's also
[4:00]really fun to connect with the writers and to help. I get that. That's amazing. Wow. Well, good for you,
[4:06]and now I have to figure out how to get anybody who helps me to do it for free.
[4:11]No, I'm begging work. Yeah, begging. Yeah, maybe I'll try that next.
[4:17]But Mighty Blaze aside, which everybody who's listening should go check out right away and see
[4:22]just amazing author conversations all the time, and everything you guys are doing.
[4:26]But let's talk about With or Without You, your new book coming out, which was so good.
[4:31]Oh my gosh, I've been reading it in bed night after night on my iPad.
[4:35]In the dark with just the light of my screen and keeping me company.
[4:39]Thank you. So it's been really great. And now I feel like I'm in this like,
[4:44]coma-like alternate universe that you're trying to create here.
[4:48]So it's the whole alternative universe. That's the thing that would show interesting.
[4:55]When I start to write this book, I just thought, well, I'm going to fret about coma because
[5:01]actually, I wasn't a coma. And unfortunately, when I was in a coma or fortunately,
[5:07]they gave me memory blockers. So I didn't remember anything about what happened at all.
[5:12]And nobody thought I was going to survive. So they thought, well, that's okay anyway.
[5:16]But I did survive and I did get well. And the thing is, my brain didn't remember anything,
[5:22]but my body did. And I would walk in a supermarket, and I'd be with my husband,
[5:26]I'd see a package of soup, and I'd break into a cold sweat and get into a panic attack.
[5:32]What is this? And Jeff would say, oh, that's the only thing you would eat when you came out of
[5:37]the coma. And I just didn't remember. And the other poem was that anybody who was around me
[5:42]at the time on my friends and family, when I asked them what happened, nobody wanted to talk
[5:47]about it because they were so traumatized too. So I thought, well, how am I going to get through this?
[5:55]One of my friends who was a psychologist said, you know what, you can create a memory. Your writer,
[6:00]it's like hypnosis. If you tell somebody and hope no, it says, oh, you're burning up,
[6:05]well, this will appear on their skin. The brain doesn't know the difference. So we said,
[6:09]create somebody and live through them and you'll feel better. So I started doing all this research
[6:15]on coma. And to my surprise, the most interesting stories were about all these people who actually
[6:21]got better. You know, they became better people out of coma. One woman woke up and she had never
[6:28]played a note and suddenly she was playing the violin perfectly and she went on to play concert halls.
[6:34]This other guy woke up speaking fluent Mandarin and he quit his job as a computer specialist in
[6:41]a mood to China and he became a translator. And my favorite was this guy who woke up and he thought
[6:46]he was the actor Matthew McConaughey. And nobody could just abuse him of it. They showed him
[6:52]a mirror and said, look, here's you, here's a picture of Matthew. And he said, they're both me.
[6:58]They're both me. And he kept saying, what is my agent going to call? Where do you call my agent?
[7:02]And it took him six months to finally realize that he wasn't, even though part of him still really
[7:08]felt that he was. And I thought that that was so fascinating that I thought, oh, I want to write
[7:14]about that about somebody who totally changes. And there's this whole other world and how it
[7:20]impacts her and how it impacts the people around her. And that's how the book came about. And it
[7:26]did heal me. It didn't make me feel so much better. I don't have a song triggers. I'm still really
[7:31]afraid to go to sleep at night. But other than that, other stuff is fine. So I was able to get
[7:38]away from that. Well, let's back up. And I know the story because I read your amazing piece in the
[7:42]Daily Beast about what happened to you. But had I not, I would not know what you were talking about
[7:47]the tell, tell me, go back to what happened and how it was right after you gave birth and the
[7:51]blood, the rare blood thing. And I had a perfect pregnancy, a perfect easy delivery the day I was
[7:59]supposed to go home. I took a shower in the hospital. And I noticed that my stomach was really hard
[8:05]and really big. Like I was 10 months pregnant. And I last and I remember saying to the doctor,
[8:11]look, this isn't it's weird. And he said, well, you had a C section. It's probably just a
[8:15]blood clot. We'll like to do a little operation. You can go home tomorrow. And I said, fine. That's
[8:21]fine. The next thing I remember is it was really sort of terrifying. I do remember waking up. And
[8:28]I thought I was going to TV show that reality had changed because everything was in black and white.
[8:35]And I heard a soundtrack and a laugh track. And I was in this big tall building that was all
[8:42]steel. And on the wall, there was this big huge photograph of Max, my baby. And underneath in my
[8:48]husband's writing and it said, get well, Sue and mommy, we miss you. And I must have tried to get up
[8:54]because all of a sudden everything went black again. So the next thing I remember it is,
[8:59]I woke up again. And it was again, the things were in color. And again, I thought,
[9:04]must be a TV show because there were all these doctors and people around me saying,
[9:08]you know, the cliche. Do you know what day it is? Do you know what happened to you? Do you
[9:13]know your name? And I kept saying, yeah, like what's going on? And they told me that when they
[9:20]took me down to operate on the clot, they said it was like the shining. They opened me up and all
[9:25]this blood just poured out and out and out and out and out and they didn't know what to do.
[9:30]So they put me in the coma. And for two weeks, they kept doing operations to get the blood out
[9:35]and nobody knew what was going on. And they all thought, well, she's dying and we don't know why.
[9:41]She's just bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. So finally, they had this little German hematologist who
[9:46]was about to retire. She was literally like real 45, about to retire. 78 years old. And she said,
[9:54]I think I know what it is. And it's this really rare thing, but we have to do a test because the
[10:00]So brutal and the hospital which was and why you said well, that's a really expensive test and we don't want to do it
[10:07]And my husband said I will pay for it. Do the goddamn test and they did the test to turn up
[10:12]It showed this protein
[10:15]Apparently, I don't want to scare any pregnant women out there because it's very rare and they do have treatments for it now
[10:20]But apparently like once we have a baby your immune system is getting back together
[10:24]And there can be this very rare or glitch where your body produces this protein which stops all your blood from clotting
[10:31]Like everything your brain your eyes your hips your this or that and
[10:35]The way they once they found that out the way they treated us they gave me hundreds of transfusions of
[10:42]Factory which is the protein to stop it and when that didn't work
[10:47]They had to give me this other transfusion of poison thing
[10:50]They took me down and they had to glue my brain my my my my brain's my things
[10:56]Shut so the bleeding would stop and through all of this I was a really heavy dose of the more thick
[11:01]So while I sort of understood what was going on. I was hallucinating madly
[11:06]So I kept thinking that at one time I thought Madonna was in my room and I kept asking her to leave
[11:12]Another time I honestly thought that the hospital was a sex clinic and that they were coming into this stuff
[11:17]And I was screaming at the doctors. I can't participate. I can't participate. I'm sick. I'm sick
[11:23]And the worst thing was that while I was hallucinating they didn't want me to move because they were afraid if I moved
[11:30]I would hemorrhage, but if I didn't move then all my muscles would atrophy
[11:36]So it was always this weird thing so I was on morphine and in the hospital for two months
[11:42]I was in the coma for the coma was two weeks
[11:45]hospital was like two months I believe and they wanted to keep me in the hospital longer
[11:50]But insurance refused by then my bills were over a million and insurance said no, we're not gonna
[11:55]We can't pay for that you can go home and we'll pay for a nurse a private nurse. I came home had a sand bed had a private nurse
[12:04]Still was under so much medication that time was so fluid
[12:10]You know, I didn't know if I was in the present or if I was in the hospital
[12:14]Everything was sending me off. It took me about a year to get better physically better where I could walk and hold my baby and all this other stuff and
[12:23]You know, then I started getting all the post-traumatic stuff
[12:27]although the triggers started coming and I didn't know why and
[12:31]Nobody would talk to me about it and the message was always you know what be glad you're alive
[12:36]Everything is fine. This is never gonna happen to you again
[12:40]But I still had a good doctor's I had to go back to the hematologist every day for five years
[12:44]Oh my gosh every day for five years
[12:48]I finally told him and the thing is like with hematology
[12:51]Those are the really six sick people so I would walk in and I would feel like well
[12:56]I'm walking and hear all these people in there
[12:58]They looked really really sick and I find it to the hematologist
[13:01]I can't do this anymore and he said well you have to you were so so sick
[13:05]and I made a decision that I was not gonna go back and so I never went back and
[13:11]I was my husband was not happy about that and the hematologist obviously was not happy about that
[13:16]But I kept saying look it's been five years and I'm fine and nothing's happened
[13:21]And I know what it feels like to be sick and if anything happens I will come back and
[13:26]He finally called me and said okay, look the only reason I'm saying okay is because they actually found a new cure for it
[13:33]Well not a cure but a new treatment so they can get rid of it really quickly and
[13:39]I mean that was like 10 years ago, so I've never been back and I never will go back
[13:44]Why could I have a tolerance ever ever again?
[13:48]But I'm fine now, but I do know that I do have this thing that's to live in my body
[13:53]And the only way I can ever come back is if I get
[13:57]Repeated by to the flu or a cancer. I'm a little worried about COVID
[14:03]But I've been okay for so long that I just feel I'm going to be okay. I mean
[14:09]I'm gonna be okay. So it's not a problem. So that was what happened. It's called a fact-rated inhibitor
[14:14]It was really really rare, but I got through it and and what did you do?
[14:20]Like how was it to also be a new mom at that time it was terrible
[14:24]It was terrible because when I was in the hospital, they were not bringing the baby in and I finally told them
[14:31]If you don't bring the baby in, I'm not gonna let you take blood
[14:34]I'm not gonna take transfusions. I'm gonna refuse all treatment and I'm going to scream and
[14:40]I was nervous
[14:41]Stearical and they finally said are I any right and they brought the baby in and it was so strange because
[14:47]He was this tiny little stranger and he didn't know me
[14:52]You know, he didn't know who I was and he was very upset and he was looking for his dad and just said don't worry don't worry and
[15:01]Jeff took videos of the baby and he brought them in for me and the nurses who were just
[15:08]Amazing gave up their break room for us and they said you can watch the movies in here and all the nurses gathered around with me and jump
[15:15]Too much these movies and my baby was like first there
[15:20]You know all his other first things and I said they cry and just saying thank you. Thank you
[15:26]When I got home, I was not allowed to pick him up because they were afraid
[15:30]That there would be another bleed, but they would bring the baby into me every day so we could sort of get to know each other, but he
[15:38]It was very hard for me because it took a really long time for him to bind with me
[15:43]He was always looking for his death and always looking for the baby nurse and then finally one day
[15:51]It was it was like six months and I
[15:55]Really emotional about this six months and he was laying beside me and he just looked at me and he put his hand on my face and I thought
[16:03]Okay, and then we bonded after that and you know, we just my son and I had he's
[16:09]He's 23 now, but we began this intense intense bond and love affair and everything was fine
[16:17]But before that it was really really hard because I could feel feeling like
[16:22]You know what happened like I never go up those I have read every single book about parenting
[16:27]You know what you're supposed to do the first three months and all this stuff and every day
[16:32]I was carrying him I used to sing to him and talk to him and so that was hard
[16:38]That part was really really hard
[16:40]But the other part that was hard too was that I actually looked like a totally different person because I was on high doses of steroid
[16:47]I was like, I mean, I really look like I was way way overweight and my skin turned gray
[16:52]Like literally gray and I lost all my hair so I
[16:57]Didn't want to go out of the house and my husband just lost his job because they said you're spending too much time taking care of your wife and your baby
[17:05]So we had no our our money was dwindling and I thought I have to get a job
[17:10]So I was doing fashion copy writing then and I called all my friends and said please if you have any work
[17:15]And one of my friends who are a big tourist secret said I will give you a fashion book to write
[17:20]$10,000 you can do it in your sleep
[17:22]Just come in and pick it up and I said please don't make me come and pick it up
[17:27]Can you just send it to me because I look really different and it's gonna be terrible for me
[17:32]Don't be silly. Don't be ridiculous. Nobody cares. So I had to go in there
[17:37]The only thing I could get into was this moo moo. It was this red moo moo dress
[17:44]And I put it on and I thought what am I going to do about my hair?
[17:46]And I put like the schmatter on my hair
[17:49]I tried to put on makeup, but we've grays gonna look ghastly
[17:54]And I got on the subway and this was you know Manhattan and there were these teenage girls there
[18:00]And they were snickering at me and I thought oh my god. Oh my god. So I said like this is okay
[18:06]I can do this and I got to a tourist secret and of course everybody working there was
[18:12]Young and beautiful and thin and wearing gorgeous clothes and here I come in a moo moo
[18:18]schmatter on my
[18:20]Head and they sort of looked at me and they said okay, we'll go get Catherine
[18:25]Catherine came out and I saw her face changed. I saw her face literally go from two
[18:30]And she came over to me and she said oh, I'm so sorry. I shook told you the project was canceled
[18:36]No, maybe the work. Yes, she did. She said the project was canceled and I said that's okay
[18:41]And I was really polite and then I went home and I just cried and cried and
[18:46]This is like well, it was a good thing because we haven't realized it. You know what?
[18:50]I never ever going to
[18:53]Not that I did, but I was never ever ever going to make anybody feel weird about their appearance
[19:00]ever again. I was gonna couple a couple of people and I actually started this thing afterwards
[19:05]Where every day I would say something nice to someone on the street like especially if I looked like somebody
[19:11]Who didn't get many compliments? It was a really old lady. I would say oh my god
[19:15]You're a hat is so cool or where'd you get those shoes or whatever and just to feel like okay
[19:21]I'm erasing that memory and so planting it with good memory
[19:25]And it was actually an interesting thing because it took me about another
[19:29]Year to get back where I look like I had and I lost a lot of all my obsessions about oh
[19:35]I don't have the right lipstick
[19:37]No, my hair looks stupid. I was just so glad to have hair coming back in
[19:44]And to be able to fit in my clothes
[19:47]That it changed me and that's what I wanted to write about that
[19:51]You know you can have these incredible
[19:53]Changes in your life and they may seem terrible and tragic at the time, but actually
[20:00]They create goodness, you know, like these really profound amazing things can happen and change it for the better.
[20:08]I feel like that's what happened to me. And that's what I wanted to give my character.
[20:12]Oh my gosh, what a story.
[20:15]I know, I appreciate it.
[20:17]No, I thank you for sharing it. And I am just, I can't believe you had to go through that.
[20:22]And that you can sit here and like talk about it 20 some odd years later. And it's still, it's just as raw.
[20:28]It's like, yeah, it's just awful. I mean, all these, the body is so weird.
[20:34]It's like, unless something goes wrong, you don't think about it that much.
[20:38]And then the sooner things go off course, it's just, that's it. I mean, I know that's such an obvious thing to say.
[20:43]But it's just, it blows my mind to hear stories like yours. And I just, my heart goes out to you.
[20:49]I can feel the pain from that time. And just, oh my God, I'm so sorry.
[20:54]Yeah, but it's like, you know, tragedy lives beside coming and happiness.
[20:59]That's the weird thing.
[21:00]I'm a really, really happy person.
[21:03]I mean, outside of what's going on with the world and the pandemic and all that stuff.
[21:07]I feel there isn't a day that I don't wake up and think, oh my God, I'm so incredibly lucky.
[21:12]I'm just, you know, I'm so grateful and really happy.
[21:17]I think part of why I can be happy is that I put, I put a lot of the tragedy in my books.
[21:23]So it sort of reaches out of there.
[21:25]But I, I have a very positive world view.
[21:30]And I think that's how you get through these terrible things.
[21:34]You're absolutely right.
[21:35]So when you're writing, does all the emotion like, are you crying? Are you in it?
[21:39]Like, are you just feeling all the feelings as you're typing or like does it all just come out?
[21:45]And then you shut down the computer and you can walk away and be okay?
[21:48]Like, what does that like?
[21:49]Yeah.
[21:50]It is like that.
[21:51]It's exactly like that.
[21:52]There's some scenes when I had to write.
[21:54]I knew like, oh my God, I don't want to write this.
[21:56]I don't want to write this.
[21:57]I did not want to write Stella in the coma because it felt a little too close.
[22:05]So it that took me a long year, a few weeks to get into that.
[22:09]And then once I did, I was, I go into the zone where my husband couldn't shut out the houses
[22:14]and fire.
[22:15]We have to leave.
[22:16]And I wouldn't hear.
[22:17]So I was very, very deeply in the zone.
[22:18]And then as soon as I stopped, I felt a little better.
[22:22]And usually what I have to do when I stop writing something like that is I go online.
[22:26]And I look at like 10 celebrities who had bad plastic surgery or, you know,
[22:33]something like that.
[22:35]Just to give me in the frame, in the right frame of mind.
[22:39]So.
[22:40]And then I'm fine.
[22:41]And then I'm fine for the day.
[22:42]And then I feel like, oh, good.
[22:43]Okay.
[22:44]That person.
[22:45]Now I can move on.
[22:46]Wow.
[22:47]And I read somewhere that when you wanted to write with or without you because you had already
[22:51]written a book involving someone in a coma.
[22:53]Your agent had told you not another coma book.
[22:55]Is that true?
[22:56]No, she didn't.
[22:57]My agent is very late.
[22:58]She's a girl.
[22:59]Who's wonderful.
[23:00]And she's very blunt.
[23:01]She was like, she's wonderful helpful.
[23:02]And she was like, really?
[23:03]You think people want to read about that?
[23:06]And when I told her about this book, she said, really?
[23:08]Not that coma.
[23:09]And I said, gale, this is different.
[23:11]This is really different.
[23:12]And it was different because the first coma book was right after the coma.
[23:16]And it was very close to, you know, woman who didn't remember anything.
[23:20]And it was more about her and her husband.
[23:23]And when I wrote it, I felt a little bit better.
[23:25]But obviously, I didn't feel healed because I still was thinking about it and thinking
[23:31]about I'm sort of a quantum physics junkie.
[23:34]And I love the whole idea of that.
[23:36]You know, there was no time that it's man made that everything sort of exists in the same period.
[23:43]And maybe you can access it and maybe you can't.
[23:46]And I kept thinking, well, that's interesting.
[23:48]I'm going to try to access this coma.
[23:50]And to it again and see how it makes me feel and how it makes my character feel.
[23:56]And I just got immersed in it.
[23:58]I just found it so completely fascinating.
[24:03]And I wanted to put the spin on it about that people could get better.
[24:07]The first book was most about like, no, it's a terrible thing.
[24:10]And thank God it's over.
[24:11]This book was more about the wonder.
[24:14]You know, that the brain is very fluid.
[24:17]And I have this friend, Joe Clark, who's at the University of Cincinnati,
[24:22]who does research on comas and neurology.
[24:24]And we just talked for hours.
[24:26]And he's just so brilliant.
[24:27]I would ask him all these questions like, well, could somebody go into coma and come out?
[24:31]And would they have the ability to heal?
[24:34]And he would say, well, you know, they might.
[24:37]And I thought, wow, that's so great.
[24:39]I want to know more about that.
[24:41]And his whole thing was that the brain is very weird.
[24:44]And we don't understand everything about it.
[24:46]And you can literally become a different person if the norms are firing in a certain way.
[24:52]And that was, I wanted this book to have a sense of wonder.
[24:56]I really did.
[24:57]I wanted it to be more like, wow.
[24:59]This is amazing.
[25:01]Where is the first coma book was more like, oh, what a tragedy.
[25:05]I prefer the wonder to the tragedy.
[25:07]It was also how, I mean, Stella is not the only character who changed.
[25:11]Right.
[25:12]The partner changed so much.
[25:14]Like watching his trajectory while she was in the coma, even.
[25:17]It was just like really, I mean, really significant with how he started realizing
[25:22]what was important and all the rest making all these career changes and everything.
[25:27]And so I was like, oh, that's awesome.
[25:29]I also wanted to.
[25:30]The funny thing was that that's me by surprise.
[25:32]I really didn't think that I was going to be writing about like fame and what it means and so that.
[25:37]And I was thinking a lot about it.
[25:40]Like what does it mean?
[25:42]Because in the writing community being so many different things.
[25:45]And I mean, I don't know if you know my publishing story, but it's very weird.
[25:49]I mean, my first novel.
[25:50]I was a sensation.
[25:51]I was like, flavor the month.
[25:53]And I was really young.
[25:54]It was like 20 years old.
[25:55]And I thought, oh, it's always going to be.
[25:56]in this way.
[25:57]Of course, it wasn't.
[25:58]But my second book, I published one out of business, third book, published one out of business, fourth book, went to a big publisher.
[26:05]They did no publicity.
[26:06]So to die.
[26:08]Next publisher had a three book deal.
[26:10]Again, no publicity.
[26:11]So then I wrote this book.
[26:13]It was my ninth book.
[26:14]And it was on contract.
[26:15]And my then publisher said, you know, we're not going to publish it.
[26:19]It's just not special.
[26:20]And I said, what?
[26:21]You know, we kind of can I make it special?
[26:24]And she said, well, we all here don't think that you can.
[26:27]And I said, well, we just look at another book.
[26:29]And she said, there was a science again.
[26:31]She said, no, I don't think we want to.
[26:34]So I hung up the phone and I called my agent saw him and say, this is my ninth book.
[26:39]Nobody knows who I am.
[26:40]And they did it.
[26:41]Nobody knew who I was.
[26:42]I had terrible sales.
[26:45]When I got reviews, the reviews were great, but I would get like two reviews, maybe.
[26:50]I said, what publishers going to want to take a chance on me?
[26:53]She said, don't worry.
[26:54]Don't worry.
[26:55]We'll figure it out.
[26:56]And I happened to have a friend who was at Algonquin.
[26:58]And she said, I love my editor.
[27:00]And my bitch, she would love your book.
[27:02]Can I show it to her?
[27:04]And I said, yeah, but I don't think nothing's going to happen.
[27:07]So this editor called me up and she said, you know, I really love your book and blah, blah, blah.
[27:12]And I felt like I had to be honest.
[27:14]And I said, I had to tell you, I don't sell books.
[27:17]Nobody knows who I am.
[27:19]And she laughed.
[27:20]And she said, well, I think when I know who you are now,
[27:22]and you're going to sell books, we want to buy it.
[27:25]So they bought the book for small amount of money.
[27:28]And I was thrilled.
[27:29]And they took that non-special book.
[27:31]And they got them in six printings before it was published.
[27:35]Made the New York Times bestseller list a second week ago.
[27:38]It became a Costco penny spig.
[27:40]And all of a sudden, all the people who had never returned by emails of my calls
[27:46]were calling me, including the editor who had said it was not special.
[27:50]Well, who wanted to know if I wanted to come back.
[27:53]No.
[27:54]Yes.
[27:55]So I have this very weird view about, you know, fame now where I thought, OK, you know what?
[28:02]It doesn't really, it's nice when it happens.
[28:05]It's wonderful when people respond.
[28:08]But when it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily mean anything.
[28:11]Because all of those other books that, you know, did nothing.
[28:16]I still think they're good books.
[28:18]And I just think, you know, the timing was wrong when everyone was wrong.
[28:21]I'm doing OK now.
[28:22]But who knows?
[28:23]Maybe, you know, maybe this book won't sell.
[28:26]Or the next book won't sell.
[28:28]Or it'll take me four more books to do it.
[28:31]It's not why it's sort of like, I don't think about that anymore.
[28:34]I think more about the pleasure of getting to write.
[28:37]And I just feel it's much more important to have that kind of relationship
[28:42]where one person celebrates you for real than, say, 100,000 people celebrating you.
[28:50]And wanting to know you because they think you're famous.
[28:54]And I wanted to give that to Simon, who, you know, he needed to grow up.
[28:59]And he needed to figure out that, you know, what's more important that I, you know,
[29:04]being loved by 100,000 adoring fans or being loved by one person.
[29:11]And I wanted him to make the right choice.
[29:14]That's why I did that.
[29:15]It's almost like you took all your life experience.
[29:18]And it's like an egg that like you cracked in the side.
[29:21]And then like the eggshells and have it in a little bit of every character
[29:24]until it was like all this one big soup of your, your sweater eggshells or something.
[29:30]And yes, that's why that's why I told you, you could ask me anything.
[29:34]I never set out to write a personal book.
[29:37]I mean, I never really do.
[29:39]And it always becomes about me.
[29:42]That's why I laugh.
[29:43]And people say, well, your book's not a biographical.
[29:46]Well, yeah, you know, I kind of would have made and there they are.
[29:51]And I don't really intend to.
[29:53]But that's what it is.
[29:54]It's like all those all my feelings and obsessions.
[29:57]And Connor raised said that your obsession is never.
[30:00]believe you. Like, they're always like, that's why he always writes about loss and people
[30:06]he loves dying or bears or whatever. He said, because always there. And it always comes
[30:11]out whether you want it or not. And I think that's true. It does. It just sort of comes
[30:17]out. And in a way, it's very healing because no, I feel like, okay, I most definitely am
[30:22]never going to write about Coleman again. I'm done with that. And I have no idea like
[30:27]what is going to come next in my obsession, but I'll find out as I'm writing. That's
[30:33]what happens. Wow. Do you have any, you just gave so much amazing life advice and writing
[30:39]advice even and just how to keep it all into perspective, but do you have any other sort
[30:42]of parting advice for aspiring authors? Yes. Do not give up. Never, never, ever give
[30:48]up. It's persistent accounts. Also, you were only seeing the tip of the iceberg when
[30:53]you're looking at the literary community. You're seeing the people posting about their
[30:57]great reviews or their great major book deals or their movie deals or whatever. But you're
[31:03]not seen underneath that maybe that person who's got a movie deal has had 18,000 rejections
[31:08]before that. And you're not seeing the 18,000 writers who are still struggling and they're
[31:14]not sure what they're going to do next. And they're very talented and they still haven't
[31:19]hit their niche yet. Also, no does not necessarily mean no. When someone tells you no and
[31:24]reject you could because they're having a bad day, could be because they're worried
[31:28]about their job, could be that this particular book or essay or whatever is just not
[31:33]for them. Don't give up. The other thing, my best piece of advice was given to me by
[31:38]Carolyn C, the writer and the book critic. She told me at a party where I met her that
[31:45]the best thing I could do, I was a young writer then was every week, write a nice letter,
[31:51]a handwritten letter to an author you admire. Don't ask for anything. Just write to them
[31:57]and tell them how much a book of theirs meant to you. She said, they will love it. They
[32:01]will appreciate it. They will write back to you. And that's how you build community and
[32:06]it's a good, karmic thing to do. And I thought, oh, that's ridiculous. Never going to
[32:10]happen. I did it. And I actually wrote to John Irving. I tracked him down and I got
[32:16]a handwritten letter back from him. And the first paragraph was, you know, I read your
[32:21]letter twice because I kept looking for the ask and there was no ask. There was just this
[32:26]beautiful letter about what my work meant to me. And so I had to write you back. And that's
[32:32]why we made a connection. And I've been doing that ever since. I always, I just write to
[32:36]editors and write to people. It's a wonderful thing to do. It puts kindness out in the world
[32:41]and people don't get enough of it. And what I have to do is just say, I wanted to tell
[32:46]you how much I love your work. And thank you. And that's it. And you can do it by email
[32:51]and it has the same thing. But mostly never people. Never good. Wow. Thank you. That was such
[32:58]a powerful conversation. Thank you so much. That was so great to talk to you and hear your
[33:03]stories and your perspective on the world and your unique point of view. So oh my gosh,
[33:08]thank you. And now I see why with her without you was so good. And where it came from and
[33:12]then it makes it so much more meaningful for me as a reader. So thank you. Thank you so
[33:17]much. So this was so much fun. And of course, anything you ever need for me or for the
[33:23]blaze, you know, you just ask. Thank you. Me too. Okay. Thank you. Thanks again for listening
[33:31]to my podcast. Moms don't have time to read books. If you liked this episode, please follow
[33:36]me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms don't have time to read books. And sign up for
[33:42]my mailing list at zibi Owens dot com. So you can always hear about the latest things
[33:46]I'm up to you. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much to Rockets of awesome for giving us a discount
[33:50]of 20% off your four times a year boxes rockets of awesome dot com slash books and discount code
[33:57]books. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan like texture sound for the sound editing. And
[34:02]thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[34:06]Thanks for listening. You could always email me at zibi at zibi Owens dot com.