Charles Yu, THE ONLY LIVING GIRL ON EARTH
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:53]Hi, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but I have an anthology coming out called Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:01]And it comes out on February 16th and has essays by 60 plus of the authors who have been on this podcast.
[1:09]So first of all, please pre-order this book. I think you will love it. I'm so excited about all the authors who are represented.
[1:16]Just to give you a few, Chris Bajillion, Jewel Parker Rhodes, Ashley Prentice Norton, Gretchen Rubin, Rima Zaman, Eileen Zimmerman, and that is just from the first page of the multi-page table of contents.
[1:30]So please pick up this book. Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology.
[1:34]It's available anywhere you buy books, Amazon, bookshop.org, and your local independent bookstore.
[1:39]So please pick up a copy. And also, I want to invite you listeners to my fundraiser slash launch party.
[1:49]The night it comes out on February 16th, the Tuesday at 7 p.m.
[1:53]Bookhampton and the Children's Museum of the East End are co-hosting it for me.
[1:58]And 50 of the authors who wrote essays in this book, as well as many of the amazing authors who blurbed this book,
[2:06]who wrote little praise worthy quotes at the front, will be there. And you can be there too.
[2:12]So if you go to my website zibbyowens.com and just click on anthology and go to book tour,
[2:18]you will see a whole fundraiser section. And for $50, you can attend. You'll get a copy of the book.
[2:27]And you'll get to schmooze on zoom with all of these amazing authors. This is like
[2:33]going to be the literary happening of February. So please come. I would love to see you all in person
[2:39]on zoom, I guess. But even see some of your faces. I know so many of you are really loyal listeners
[2:45]and that makes me really happy. All proceeds of the book and the fundraiser are going to the
[2:51]Susan Felice Owens program for COVID-19 vaccine research at Mount Sinai Health System. And it is named
[2:58]after my husband's mother who passed away from COVID over the summer, which many of you followed
[3:04]along on Instagram as I recounted that horrific experience. So all the proceeds are going there,
[3:11]the cost includes the price of a book. So thank you for supporting this effort. And for supporting
[3:17]my book, I can't wait to see you there. Today's episode is brought to you by Page and Pairing.
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[3:52]again sign up for free at page and pairing.com. Charles Yu is the author of four books,
[3:58]including his latest interior Chinatown, which won the National Book Award for fiction.
[4:04]It was also a finalist in Lippree, Medesi et Tolge, and longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie
[4:10]Medal for Excellence in Fiction. He has received the National Book Foundation's 535 Award,
[4:16]has been nominated for two writers' Guild of America Awards for his work on the HBO series
[4:21]Westworld, and has also written for shows on FX, AMC, Facebook Watch, and Adult Swim.
[4:27]His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in a number of publications, including The New Yorker,
[4:32]The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Wired, Time, and Plowshares. Charles' book that
[4:38]we're talking about in this podcast is called The Only Living Girl on Earth, and it was a scribed
[4:44]original SCRIBD. And if you aren't familiar with scribed, you definitely need to check it out,
[4:51]because I didn't know about it to be honest with you, which somehow I don't know how I missed it.
[4:55]But anyway, it has amazing original works by fantastic authors like Charles Yu and Elizabeth
[5:01]Berg and so many others, and also copies of lots of children's books, so now my kids can pick
[5:07]out a copy of their favorite book when we're at bedtime, and we get to go and scribed, and they
[5:12]pick a book. So anyway, SCRIBD, and we're talking about Charles Yu and his scribed original today.
[5:19]Welcome, Charles. Thanks so much for coming. On mom's, don't have time to read books.
[5:23]Thanks, Ruby. I'm excited to be here. He sounded.
[5:28]I'm sorry. I am. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. You don't have to sound it.
[5:33]I'm excited to talk to you because I just finished, like, when was it last month watching
[5:38]the National Book Awards on my iPad, as I, at not my iPad, on my laptop, as I took it through
[5:42]the house, as I put all my kids to bed and was watching and watching, and then I saw you on
[5:46]their winning and crying and being so excited, and I was like, who's this guy? I've got to get to
[5:50]know him, and here we are. So it was great. So congratulations.
[5:55]Thank you. What was that experience like for you? Let's just jump in there.
[6:01]It was really strange. I was not expecting at all to win. I literally didn't write anything down.
[6:11]So I was Roxanne Gay said my name, or said the title of the book, and my son who was sitting
[6:16]right next to me, he's 11. He and I just started screaming at each other. Like, we didn't know what to do.
[6:22]My wife was one chair over, and she and I had been drinking champagne that my publisher had sent,
[6:28]you know, like, congratulations. It's so exciting to be a finalist. And I was honestly ready to
[6:33]like, I thought this was going to be a teachable moment. Like, this is how you experience,
[6:38]you know, disappointment in front of your kids, and then I didn't, you know, and then I won.
[6:45]And I was so excited that I forgot to thank my wife and kids and my parents.
[6:50]A lot of them, you know, their stories and experiences inspired the book,
[6:55]and I just felt gutted right away. So it was like this mix of one of the most exciting times in my life,
[7:00]and then immediate, like, I literally blanked. It was awful.
[7:06]Oh, well, I'm sure they didn't hold it against you. I mean, everybody understands, right?
[7:10]I hope. I don't know. I feel it against myself.
[7:14]Oh, well, I mean, maybe this speaks to your bigger character that you could go and win,
[7:18]like this big accolade and yet find the negative in it. I don't know.
[7:24]I'm maybe I should just write things down.
[7:26]Yeah, next time you'll be prepared to win,
[7:28]setting expectations. So your new story, first of all, I had not even been familiar with
[7:33]Scribed until I read your story, and now I am obsessed, and my kids are using it,
[7:37]and I'm using it. And it is the greatest app for all sorts of books and stories,
[7:42]including Scribed originals with your new story, the only living girl in the world is featured on.
[7:48]So how did you link up with Scribed? And then I want you to tell listeners if you don't mind
[7:52]a little about that story. Sure, definitely. So I had known Amy Grace Lloyd for years.
[7:59]She edited a story of mine. Sure, she had acquired a story of mine and helped me edit it
[8:04]for Playboy, actually, about a decade ago. And I just, we had always stayed in touch, and she came
[8:12]to me late, not late, actually early about a year ago saying, you know, do you have anything that
[8:18]might be sort of long-ish and enough that it could stand alone, you know, not a short story,
[8:25]but something that someone might want to read for a decent amount of time, I thought, well,
[8:29]one, I thought that's a cool idea. You know, just like how often do I just want half an hour,
[8:34]or like 45 minutes worth of reading? I can't quite get into a whole book right now. I've got kids,
[8:39]so I'm like, well, how do I find that thing? So I thought that was cool. And I had this story that
[8:45]I've been working on for years that, you know, needed some polishing up. And so Amy and I
[8:50]worked on it together over the course of several months and Scribed is publishing it, which is really
[8:55]exciting to me. So neat. And tell me about this vision of yours is sort of Earth in the year
[9:01]2021 or so, where the gift shop is sort of all that's left, the remnants of a amusement park
[9:09]that was a failure. And so now all you have is the best part of the amusement park theoretically,
[9:13]the gift shop, Earth's gift shop or whatever, there was a lot of debate of what to call it in the
[9:17]story. Where did this whole vision come from, this abandoned earth because of climate change and
[9:22]all the rest? Yeah, it came from, it was inspired by a story of Ray Bradbury's that will come
[9:27]soft rains in which, you know, the story is basically told through the point of view of like an
[9:33]automated house. You know, I guess when he wrote it, it was, you know, far sci-fi. Now it's almost
[9:39]reality, right? This might be a complete smart home and all that survives are kind of the gadgets.
[9:46]And it's just such an interesting lens through which, you know, you can look at, you know, who we are
[9:51]and what we leave behind, but also, I mean, yeah, really to me that it was this kind of like
[9:55]form of, I guess, archaeology or anthropology told. And so
[10:00]I wanted to, so I was invited years ago to write in a tribute anthology to Bradbury, and
[10:06]so I took it, that story's my inspiration and thought of what if, you know, all that survived
[10:12]of human civilization was our souvenirs and our Chosh East and stuff you'd find in like a
[10:18]gas station gift shop. So that's where the seed of the story came from. And I imagine
[10:24]Jane, this young woman who whose job it is to basically sit there all day and wait for
[10:30]the occasional tourist, you know, in their spaceship to fly by and try to hawk, there's, you know,
[10:35]the key chains, like come to Earth, it's really fun, you know, that sort of thing, so.
[10:40]And I like that you found a way to get some mother-daughter drama right in the beginning there of,
[10:45]you know, pushing the limits and fighting and, you know, real-life dialogue, except of course,
[10:50]the limits are like outer space and instead of like, you know, going down to God knows where, but
[10:57]yeah, Jane's mom works off planet, you know, but it is, you're right, it's the same
[11:02]mother-daughter dynamic, which we've got a 13-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son, so I'm
[11:07]witness every day to many mother-daughter conversations quarantining with teens.
[11:14]A unique challenge. Very interesting time. Another planet sometimes might sound nice, but
[11:23]so how did you get into writing to begin with? When did you know you were a writer? How did you
[11:27]get started? I started writing, well, I guess going way back, I started writing poems when I was
[11:32]a kid. We took a class trip to Yosemite and I don't know what got into me, but I, you know,
[11:37]I just started writing these little things down. I guess they're, I call them poems, I don't
[11:42]really know what they were, but my teacher thought they were, you know, my teacher wanted to
[11:46]encourage them and so he sent them to like the local paper and the local paper printed them saying,
[11:52]look, there's eight-year-old kid wrote some poems. I guess that got me the kind of publication bug
[11:56]that was pretty exciting, but I didn't actually start writing again until college. I wrote,
[12:01]I wrote poetry at Berkeley. It was my minor. I was a biology major. I was supposed to be a doctor,
[12:07]but that didn't work out. So instead I went to law school and sometime after law school or
[12:13]sometime in law school, I realized, oh, I missed fiction. I started reading again. And right after I
[12:19]graduated when I started practicing law, I also, at the same time, I think some consciously wanted
[12:25]a kind of creative outlet. Like, I'm going into this law firm. It's going to, you know, crush my
[12:30]soul or whatever. And I thought, well, I need to have some outlet. So I started writing these really
[12:36]tiny short stories like in the margins of note pads or like I scribble an email to myself and
[12:42]shoot it off and just say later tonight when I have time, you know, like 11 o'clock, I'll come back to
[12:48]this. So I started writing those short stories right at the same time. I was practicing law.
[12:53]And then it just took off from there. It was a very slow build. Do you still practice law on the
[12:59]side or no? I stopped a few years ago because I started writing for TV and that became the new day job,
[13:05]but I was, for more than a decade, I was writing stories. I started to get them published. I
[13:12]turned into a first short story collection for which I was paid like, you know, less than I made
[13:17]as a lawyer in like two weeks or something. It was, it was like, this is, you know, it's very clear
[13:22]from the beginning. This is not going to be a replacement for your job. This is something I love to do.
[13:28]And I think a lot of ways I was liberating to not think of writing as my livelihood, you know,
[13:34]and so, but I kept publishing books and eventually started to, I think especially because I live
[13:40]in Los Angeles, or I did at the time, I started to meet people in TV and film and through one of
[13:46]those people in an executive at HBO. I think I got kind of in the mix for this TV job on HBO.
[13:52]And I got the job. I don't know how. And so that that's when I switched about six years ago.
[13:58]And tell me about the TV shows you've been involved in. I know there have been many.
[14:01]Yeah, the first show I was on was Westworld, which was this big, is this big sci-fi. I guess it's
[14:10]safe to say it's dystopian. It's set. It's based on the 1973 Michael Creighton film of the same name,
[14:16]where it's this futuristic theme park where rich people can go and like basically play
[14:22]pretend to be served in the Wild West, whatever narrative suits them. On top of that, though,
[14:27]there's this kind of meta element, because the show is not just about the people enjoying the
[14:32]park, but it's actually in many ways it's more about the people who work at the park and are
[14:39]creating these robots and also telling the stories. So it was like meta science fiction, I thought,
[14:46]I literally thought I had it created a skill set of writing meta science fiction that nobody
[14:51]ever will hunt, but it turns out somebody wanted it. So I got that job. I think it also helped
[14:55]that one of my bosses, Lisa Joy, was a former lawyer. So maybe she had some like sympathy.
[15:02]So I worked on that and worked on the show for AMC called Lodge 49, which is no longer, but it was
[15:08]this great kind of world of characters and atmosphere created by a fiction writer named Jim
[15:14]Gavin. And he's just incredibly talented writer and he made this show along with Peter Oko,
[15:21]who's an experienced showrunner. And so I got to work on that for a bit and see a very different
[15:27]kind of vibe. I've worked on Legion for FX, which is Noah Holly's show. I worked on a really,
[15:33]really fun show on Facebook Watch. We're starring Elizabeth Olson called Sorry for Your Loss.
[15:40]And it's about a young widow who is basically dealing with the aftermath of losing her husband
[15:46]like the age of, you know, 30. And it's just incredible performances and created by this
[15:51]writer named Kidstein Kilner, who has already done many things. But I know we'll be like,
[15:57]we'll go on to write so many more things because she's incredibly talented. And so yeah, that's
[16:01]oh, and I worked for Alan Ball on the show called Here and Now on HBO, which lasted one season with
[16:07]a really fun group of writers and getting to meet and work with Alan Ball was amazing because
[16:13]I loved six feet under, you know, there's a lot of things that I didn't want to write for TV actually.
[16:17]And then to actually meet him and then have him be my boss. That's amazing.
[16:24]I didn't know I'd give you my whole resume. That was too much probably.
[16:27]It wasn't. I'm interested. I mean, I had read about it. I had read about you and your work and
[16:32]everything. But so he's really neat to hear, you know, from the person who's been doing all this
[16:36]stuff and how that it's sort of tracked in your own life. So no, don't worry about it. That was
[16:42]great. There's obviously a different, my understanding of TV writing is a lot of it
[16:47]happens in writer's rooms and you have to be very collaborative. Whereas short story writing,
[16:51]perhaps their novels and fiction is much more of a solitary pursuit. Do you have a preference or do
[16:56]you like having the mix of both in your life? I mean, if I had to choose only one, it would be
[17:00]solitary. But I do enjoy the mix. It's I think the two things are sort of, you know, feeding each other.
[17:08]And I like being around people, especially in an environment where there's like free food.
[17:14]And it's really fun. I mean, it's not something that most, you know, short story or novelist,
[17:20]short story writers and novelist experience this. Some people call it like a team sport.
[17:25]It sort of feels like soccer or hockey. You know, it's like you pass the ball. You don't know
[17:33]exactly where it's going to lead. And then sometimes you'll just see the conversation develop.
[17:38]into something that you just couldn't have been, you know, anticipated just a few minutes ago.
[17:44]And and just also getting to see how other writers minds work, you know, in a really deep way.
[17:49]I mean, other than reading like the, you know, the art fiction interviews and the Paris review or
[17:54]places like that where they go really deep and you're like, okay, this helps me understand how this
[17:59]person thinks in the works. It's really hard to get that kind of insight in someone else's,
[18:04]you know, method, I guess. So seeing it firsthand is pretty fun. What do you have coming up next?
[18:09]What are you working on after this? I'm adapting interior Chinatown for Hulu. So hoping you could
[18:15]figure out how to do that. And, you know, I'd like to write another book, but this one took
[18:21]seven years. So I, you know, I don't know. I'm not trying to rush it at all. And I'll definitely
[18:27]be writing more short stories. I mean, you know, writing, working on this with Amy and scribe,
[18:33]it's just so fun because it's one, it's nice to finish things and have them out in the
[18:38]end of the world. And, you know, I love the short story. It's how I started to write and there's
[18:44]something about it that is if anything more, it's more demanding and it's more pure than a novel,
[18:50]you know, you can actually imagine, not to say writing a flawless short story. That's not how
[18:55]I would gauge it. You know, it's not as if there's flawed and flawless stories, but you can actually
[19:01]imagine the feeling of pulling off what you're trying to do, you know, and in a sort of finite
[19:07]amount of time, rather than a novel, which is just sort of like, eventually someone's just going
[19:11]to rip it out of your hands. What you're going to send it in just an active like exhaustion.
[19:16]So yeah, I think I'll be hoping to write more short stories soon.
[19:20]Well, it's great for the author to feel that sense of accomplishment and also for the reader,
[19:24]like you mentioned earlier, you know, that it's not as big an undertaking and yet you can
[19:28]still get a taste and then see, you know, when I was on scribe, there's so many authors who've written
[19:32]these original works for them, even authors I've had on like Elizabeth Berg and I was like,
[19:37]oh my gosh, well, I have to read her story and I have to read this and that and it's not such a big
[19:41]commitment. And I think it'll be good for other people who don't aren't as familiar with people's
[19:45]work to get, you know, like a little sampler, like trailers for books or something.
[19:50]Anyway, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[19:54]Well, I don't know if it's your website or the podcast website, but I love what you're saying
[19:58]about listening, you know.
[20:00]No, I think that's just, I'm botching the quote,
[20:03]but it's, you know, what is it exactly so I don't know?
[20:07]You mean when I said something like,
[20:08]I believe in the power of listening
[20:09]and hearing other people's stories
[20:11]and all that good stuff?
[20:13]I don't even remember what I said, I can look it up.
[20:15]No, I'm sorry.
[20:16]No, I'm glad you read my website.
[20:18]That's so nice of you.
[20:19]I said, I believe in the power of stories.
[20:21]I believe in the healing power of a good conversation.
[20:24]I believe that listening is far more important than speaking.
[20:26]I believe that the right book can change everything.
[20:29]So, would you, man?
[20:29]Yeah.
[20:30]Yeah.
[20:31]All of that, I can't really do better than that.
[20:33]I think the part that so true is, you know,
[20:36]listening rather than speaking and, you know,
[20:38]paying attention and that means usually reading
[20:41]or listening rather than talking.
[20:42]Here I am talking and saying that, but I think it's so true.
[20:47]And yeah, I read so many short story collections
[20:49]when I started right and just getting other people's voices
[20:53]in there, you know, in my head and just the feeling
[20:56]it gives you, you know, reading,
[20:57]but like Lori Moore or Raymond Carver or George Saunders,
[21:01]I mean, the sort of just the way it kind of lit me up
[21:05]and said, I don't, I could never do this,
[21:08]but I want to try to make someone else feel this way.
[21:11]I don't know that sense of wanting to connect with people,
[21:13]you know, and always using that as a kind of North Star,
[21:17]I guess.
[21:18]I think it's fine.
[21:19]Well, it's always nice to have my advice quoted back to me.
[21:21]That's it, that's it first.
[21:24]Anyway, well, thank you so much.
[21:26]Thanks for coming on my podcast.
[21:28]Thanks for letting me enjoy start to finish a short story
[21:32]and give me a feeling of accomplishment this week in particular.
[21:35]So thank you for taking the time to talk to me.
[21:38]Thanks, Olivia.
[21:39]It's nice to speak with you.
[21:40]Okay, bye.
[21:42]Thanks to page and pairing.com for sponsoring today's episode.
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[21:54]please pre-order a copy of my book,
[21:56]Moms Don't Have Time to A Quarantine Anthology
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[22:15]Thanks so much.
[22:16]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[22:18]to Read Books.
[22:19]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[22:21]at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[22:31]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at the Texture Sound
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