Jen Spyra, BIG TIME: STORIES

[1:39]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time To Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, My website is zibbyowens.com. Okay, now back to this amazing podcast. Today is the last day of my official book blast, and these did not fit into any neat categories, but they were still here, so I'm putting them all together. We have one thriller, one story, and one travel book. So I am calling this thriller, travel, and tales. Enjoy this last day. I hope you've had fun following along on the book blast where I've released multiple episodes a day. Sometimes I do this when I don't schedule properly and I have too many at a time. So I hope that you have found in the last, what, twelve days or something, books and episodes that spoke to you. I hope you've ordered some of the books and enjoyed. And keep listening because I'll have an episode, least one episode a day all summer long. Jen Spira is the author of Big Time Stories. Jen is a writer and performer. You may have seen her stuff on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert where she was a staff writer for four seasons. Before that she was a senior writer for The Onion where she also headed the editorial video department as a writer, director, and producer. Her debut short story collection, Big Time, is published by Random House. Beyond The Onion, her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Mick Sweeney's, the Wall Street Journal, the Daily Beast, and elsewhere. As an improviser, she's performed on teams at IO Chicago, IO LA, and at UCB in New York. She voiced the character of Hillary Clinton on Showtime's Our Cartoon President and is the announcer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Welcome, Jen. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books to discuss big time stories.

[3:47]Jen Spyra: Oh my god, Zibby. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so honored to be folded in in some way into the empire. Aw, that's a nice thing to say. I I did.

[4:00]Zibby Owens: Exactly. Love it. Okay, your stories. You are funny, you are dark. You are like your mind goes to these crazy places. I was reading, I was like, oh, this is an she is interesting. Let me talk to her. Oh

[4:15]Jen Spyra: my gosh. Tell me about writing these stories. Like, first I mean, oh my gosh. How did this all even happen? Oh my god. Okay. First of all, thank you so much. That is awesome to hear. I mean, it happened because I've been on I've been on comedy staffs for the past seven years. First, three years of The Onion and then four years of Colbert and the late show with Stephen Colbert. And, I mean, during that time, my kind of, like, fun hobby and the way that I felt like I could cope with the daily rejection of those jobs was to do my own stuff where no one could tell me no and where I could be the boss and also explore things that weren't necessarily appropriate for the editorial voice of this of wherever I was working. And so these are like this the book started as like, I started writing these one pager funny stories for The New Yorker in their shouts and murmurs column, which, you know, made me feel so fancy. And, I mean, I I I tried to do I I had like eight years of rejection before they took one of them. So, I mean, there was a lot of that. And then then I, on my own, just started to, in the teeniest little segments, like I was doing one pagers. And then I did a five page story and then a seven page story. Can I do a 10 pager? Can I do a 20 pager? And then the the last story is a novella and it's a 100. And so that was it was it was there was so much learning on the fly about fiction and about about prose because I I have written, I mean, so many sketches and monologue jokes and monologues and all of the all of the the stuff that you have to include in a story for pacing, for breathing, for the reader, that's all stuff you can't that I was trained never to include because it's all fact and the old stuff I used to write. So getting to include that, that was the real like learning. But anywho, terms of where it's all coming from, I mean, was really fun to write things that were not TV friendly.

[6:17]Zibby Owens: So I feel like the beginnings of most of your stories start off on you know, traditional, right? Like, okay, a bride wants to get ready for her big day and, oh, I treat my first kid different than my second kid, backyard building a snowman or like, all these things I'm doing seem okay. And then next thing you know, like a page or two and you're like, Oh, wait, what? Oh my God. And now the bride is stuck in some horrific, I don't even know, cult world in a cave and the daughter is like, it's like crazy. So I love this sense of imagination that you have that veers off. So I guess, and I understand your background and all of that, but when you start to go off in these funny ways, is that just the way your brain kind of works when you think about funny situations? Or is it like a shock tack? Not shock, but just explain that when those turning points happen in all your stories pretty much. Yes. Okay. That's such a good question. And it's all of those very silly,

[7:26]Jen Spyra: whimsical, fantastical, and then often dark turns. They're so rooted in real experiences that I've had that have then generated these very real relatable emotions, anger, jealousy, anxiety. And then so the stories all start like the bridal body story, which is about a bride who wants to get hot for her wedding day. So that was just like me. I just fell into that trap really hard. I ended up spending so much time focusing on like, it was almost like a game I was playing with myself where I was like, okay, how far can I take this? How hot can I get in my life? And then the absurdity of what I was doing and how beside the point it was for the actual wedding, that started to strike me as funny. And then I started just doing these thought experiments of, gee, like, how far could it go? Could I get so hot that I would be so hot that the only guys left in my league would be Timothee Chalamet and The Rock. And it would render my wedding not even necessary. So thoughts like that started to pop up as I was like, Gee, I'm wasting so much time on all these just like exercise classes and various treatments. And and so then and I also wanted to get I wanted to bring some creative success out of all that wasted time that outside of work, I was doing all this other stuff and I was like, I better get some freaking copy out of all this time I'm I'm wasting. And then for the first kid, second kid, it's funny because everyone thinks that I'm the second kid, but I was actually I was the daughter with the canopy bed. I was the first kid. And just thinking about all the ways that my sister didn't, the attention that she didn't get and the attention that I love so much. And if I didn't get that, what would I have been? I would have been a monster. So they actually, as crazy as they get, they usually start from like,

[9:13]Zibby Owens: you know, places of empathy and places that I've been. Yes. And that so many of us have been. I mean, I was even like, I feel like I did like an hour and a half yoga class, like the morning of my wedding. I remember like walking to the park and being like, Oh, the only one is the exhale on Central Park South. I used go to that

[9:34]Jen Spyra: particular studio. I know that exhale. And

[9:37]Zibby Owens: then I ran to Weight Watchers and I was like, Now I have to weigh in and like, Oh no, I'm a pound higher. I was so in my head at that time about that. Oh my god. Oh

[9:48]Jen Spyra: my god. Sleeping. Oh, I love I was not sleeping. I love that you said you went to Weight Watchers right before. Oh my god. I mean, I I Weight Watchers. I've done Weight Watchers since I'm 12 for different oh, god. I love Weight Watchers. But yeah, no, I remember it's funny. I remember doing my, like, last, like, arm, you know, exercises the morning of it just being like, oh, there's nothing else I can do. Like, like, looking in the mirror and being like, oh, alright. That's it. Because there's nothing else. It's happening now. Yeah.

[10:14]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Of course then we're all setting ourselves up for what? These unrealistic I mean, I've never I'm never gonna go back to that.

[10:23]Jen Spyra: Oh my my god. I thought it was when I was 20.

[10:27]Zibby Owens: Really? I don't know.

[10:30]Jen Spyra: Totally. Totally. No. It's it's like a it's definitely a besides the point game. And I've I've been so impressed with friends who buy their wedding dress a year before. They have no thought of their goal weight. They're just like, oh, this one looks good. And I'm like, that's Well, I have how I did not to talk

[10:49]Zibby Owens: about me. But for my second wedding, I got a chance to do it all better, you know, quote, unquote. I was much older. Had four kids. I was like, okay. This wedding is about our relationship. It has nothing to do with, you know, and I literally was like, I'm not going to try to lose weight for this wedding. Like, this is who I am. And like, I bought a dress that fit that day and it's okay. But like, had to be almost, I was like 40 years old by the time I figured that out. Wow. That's

[11:14]Jen Spyra: so freaking cool though. But whatever.

[11:17]Zibby Owens: Anyway, point is I could completely relate to that essay and Oh. Or not essay, sorry, story. Yeah. And oh my gosh. And you're so funny too with your voices, the Uncle Mickey or whoever with the story. Like, who are these people? It's crazy.

[11:32]Jen Spyra: You are so right. Actually, that one and sidebar, the guy the actor that reads that in the audiobook is Dan Stevens. He's this British he he was the beast in Beauty and the Beast. He reads all these fancy audiobooks. He does the agate Christie estate. He does the Ian Fleming estate, the Roald Dahl. And anyway, his voice is his New Jersey accent was hilarious. That is really honestly my dad. My mom and my dad are like so from two different worlds. My mom is like from this sort of like sophisticated Jewish world in Pittsburgh. And my dad is also from Pittsburgh, but it's it's literally the other side of the tracks. And he's this he was a Polish Catholic and they are like they just really and my and my dad's a lawyer, but he has this he's all these friends and workers, and I've grown up around these guys. And so they're just one of those guys to me. I mean, I know I put I made it be New Jersey, but I think of these things in, like, Pittsburgh accents and these weird Pittsburgh cities.

[12:26]Zibby Owens: Wow. Yeah. So and by the way, what you said about like having something to the side, I was just with Liz Astroff, who I became friends with after she was on my podcast like two years ago or something. She wrote this hilarious book and she's a screenwriter and a TV writer and everything. And and she's like, I write essays because like there doesn't have to be any input and I can do what I want. And, like, I you know? So I I feel like you guys should meet because you Oh,

[12:49]Jen Spyra: that's so cool that she had that, that she also came from the TV work or from the screenwriting world. Yeah. I know that that I was expecting so much more note giving as I was working with my editors at Random House. I had no idea the kid glove treatment you get. It's super sweet.

[13:03]Zibby Owens: And so are

[13:05]Jen Spyra: you now hooked on books? What's the how did you feel about that? Oh my god. I am so hooked. I what I wanna do is just keep doing both and keep doing books on the side and always have it as a valve because the freedom once you taste the freedom, it, like, scrambles your DNA and it is it's just oh my god. It's your fantasy. It's it's whenever you're on a staff and there's you're just there's you always hear no for different good reasons. You know? Like, I mean, there's there's different reasonable reasons why things don't make sense, but for for the for the you want to do, but this was intoxicating. So I wanna keep doing this and then definitely still do TV. And I'm hopefully, there will be adaptations of things from the book and and just I just would love to write my own ticket more in TV. That's the diff. Yeah, that sounds good. Yeah, it does. It really does. I know. It'd be cool if it could happen. Yeah. And I wanna be in that room, Zibby. That's actually the only thing I'm really gunning for is to make that room that you're in and have it be my room. I I your room is gorgeous behind you. I'm looking behind you. I mean, just come on over. I mean, you can Oh my god. Is it New York, by the way? Where do you I it's so I'm on I'm in New Orleans in a hotel right now. I am on route back to New York. My husband and I did a crazy thing where we literally just lived in Savannah when COVID started. We just put our stuff in storage and we don't know anyone in Savannah, but we just I needed to finish the book and I knew that I needed to have space, like, outside of the cafe to write because that's how I do it, and it wasn't gonna happen in the city. So we're coming back, though, in a few weeks. So I'm thrilled. Alright. Well, so you can just come to the panel. You don't have to. Cool. I don't have to. Okay. It doesn't have to be a lifelong, yeah, lethal project. Today's

[16:55]Zibby Owens: So what do you like to read? Do you like similar of dark what's your go to?

[17:01]Jen Spyra: Oh my God. I mean, I it's well, I I have I do it for pleasure, but I also have to do it for comedy stuff. In comedy, you know, you need to constantly be folding in other people's experiences and other worlds and languages. So I'm always reading like historical high stakes nonfiction so that I can literally give myself new metaphors to use. You know? And so I'm I'm doing that. I was I was recently reading the David McCullough Johnstown Flood book. It's just really interesting. I mean, so so I'm always trying to find those out. For my own fun pleasure, the, yeah, the thing that I wrote is some it's funny. I'm thinking of this this quote that I love that's so insane from Jaden and Willow Smith where there was a crazy interview they did where they said that they only read books that they write. Mean, it's like, I know it's it's so amazing, but it's true that the thing that I wrote is a thing that I would like to read. And so I do read things that are that are kind of similar. I love Simon Rich's work. I don't know if you've ever, yes, really fun. Oh, what do you have? Yeah. His new book. Hits and misses? Hold on. Maybe I'm- Oh, you have his new one, Baby T. Yes, yes. Yeah. Oh, no, no. I forget. Of course, Zivia. Have been- Yes. Yeah. I don't know where it is. Very cool. Very cool. No. Yeah. No. I I love his stuff. And, actually, I always get recommendations, like, from the authors I love. I find out the stuff that they love. So I've naturally gravitated to Simon. I love Jack Handy short stories. I recently found Gene Kerr's Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Have you read that? No. Oh, my Zippy, you have to read that because it's so I'll write it down. No. No. No. Zippy, I feel horrible because I am absolutely on the floor. I'm so impressed with your output, how much you read, and how much you do. I I so I feel actually disgusting giving you anything to do. But it's it's it's from 1954. There was a Doris Day movie based on it. Jean Kerr was married to Walter Kerr, who was, like, the big New York theater critic. But anyway, it's it's a story about actually, it's about like the tensions of being a mom and and also working and writing. And it is it's from 1954. It's so fresh and modern and funny. I was I was blown away That but sidebar, Simon is obsessed with Roald Dahl's fiction for adults, and I have just been I mean, I've just been blowing through them. This is my uncle Oswald, but Roald Dahl's fiction for adults is I found it, like, two months ago. I'm, like, furious I haven't had it in my life, my whole life. Wow. Yeah. I yeah. Ozubi. Yeah. So wait, Jen. So how did you become a comedy writer to begin with? Like, how did you get involved with the Stephen Colbert show? And, like, how did this all happen? It's so funny because all of the all of my friends, they were so not like me, and they were, like, the normal way you get into it where, like, as a kid, you're obsessed with late night and comedy, and you read about comedy. I just, oh my god, that wasn't me at all. I never watched late night. I wasn't aware of comedy as a career. I mean, I got into I got I got the late show because I had worked at The Onion. And so I already had been sort of sparked. I'd sparked a comedy. But, I mean, I was yeah, I did get the break of getting picked out of a slush pile for Colbert, which truly which really was the that was the most exhilarating call, the most exhilarating interview with Steve. It was because it kind of felt like it was so the small time that I was in. And then it was like everything changed in one day and it was so cool and and fun. But I know that he was impressed that I'd been at The Onion because he's a fan. I mean, and I was a fan before I was writing there. And then getting the onion, that was the real, like, break where it was like, they have they have a really deep bench of people that they that they groom. I wasn't on it. I had no friends there. I heard from a friend of a friend, like, here's the application if you want to apply. And the app I I just worked like a dog for two weeks on on the on the packet. And I was so scared because I always thought my whole life, oh, I'd be really good at that, but I never tried. And then and then it was like, well, here's your chance. And as I was doing it, it was such a reckoning because it was like, oh my god. Like, felt like my identity as a funny person was on the line. Like like, put your money where your mouth is. You think you're good at this? Okay. Well, let's see if you're really good at this. And and then amazingly, I did get this lucky break where they they get they let me come on as a fellow. And that was what I was applying for a fellowship. It's a six month audition. That's how they get their new people. And then I just I've never worked harder in my life than I did for that six months. And then you get it. And then of course, at the jobs that I've had, there's that part in the beginning where you're just working like a dog. You'll do anything. And then you get you, like, notch up your successes. You get your respect. And then when you get to that beautiful coasting area I mean, I shouldn't say coasting because that sounds like I wasn't really giving it my all, but at a certain you just have to work for the respect in the beginning. And that's always that's always hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I that was way too much. That was way too much of it. Oh, okay. Not at all. I think that's great. I mean, you're Yes, yes. Yeah. So what are you working on now? Do you have more stories up your sleeve? I mean, I'm basically figuring out It's such a luxurious position that I've really never been in. I'm figuring out what I wanna work on and I am not working on the things that I'd rather not work on. And it always feels surreal to me to turn things down when I'm like, have, you know, I mean, I'm 35 now. I started in this, like, over ten. I start I mean, I've been doing this since out of college, and it's in your muscles. You take anything. You know what I mean? Like, you just take anything and you build on it. And so I'm at a at a new place for me. And so it's based I'm sketching out a novel, and I'm I'm trying to keep myself from writing the short stories because I'm now trying once I cracked that last story, which is longer, I was like, oh, maybe I can, like, take down the big game. And I was actually just so inspired. I was I was watching that the new Hemingway doc, the PBS Ken Burns, Novak doc. And there was a point where he was saying, like, he'd only written short stories. And he was like, how do you do a novel? Like, can I do that? You know, like, mean, because that's how I feel. But I I feel like I have to. It was so exciting keeping challenging myself and writing longer ones that I kind of it it it's almost like doing another short story collection. It's like, oh, I'd love to see if I could do a bigger boy. So that's what I'm working on. And then TV stuff, I'm working on some adapt, like early stage adapting things as well. It sounds awesome. Zippy, thank you. Thank you for asking.

[23:34]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh, don't be silly. So what advice do you have for aspiring authors? Oh my God. I love one of your

[23:42]Jen Spyra: I forget what you've written this on, but make the time. I only read this book once. There's a book called The War of Art and the whole thing You read that? By Sun Tzu? Is that a no? Oh, no, no. Not The Art of War. Oh, sorry. Yes. I'm actually slightly dyslexic. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's it's The War of Art. No, no, no, exactly. Sun Tzu. Actually, sidebar, I was reading The Art of War recently just because it's so like, you know, it's it's awesome. I mean, like, it's it's crazy, and it's, like, such a specific voice. Anyhoo, no. The war of art is it's sidebar, you don't even have to read it. I'll tell you. Although I don't wanna, like, shortchange that that author. It's a cool book. But the whole thing is overcoming resistance to literally just sitting down. That's that's the war. Like, that's it. And so No, I get it. The war. Yeah. Yes. And so the the the advice I would give is really just steep yourself in the stuff that you think is so good that you want to the stuff that you love that really entertains you that you think is so good. Be a yeah, try pronged approach. Steep yourself in stuff that's good. Be aware and inspired by all the stuff around you that you think is mediocre. All that. And actually, I think that that's the try. Then the other thing is just and then just set. I do the Pomodoro thing where I set my twenty five minutes on my phone and I just have to write during the twenty five minutes. I can't check email. I can look up something that's related to what I'm writing if I need to research, but I just can't if it if if, you know, obviously, I wanna see any updates on the John Mulaney, Olivia Munn, Anna Marie Tendler thing. I just can't Google anything. I I have to do that. So I find that really helpful. But, I mean, I think the most inspiring thing if you're starting is even looking at a book and being like, was published. Do you think this is that good? No. Maybe you can do something just as good, at least just as good as that. I find that so inspiring. I know it's like a it's negative,

[25:38]Zibby Owens: but I find it really helpful. No, I don't think it's negative. It's like it's Okay. Whatever you can use to put some fire under your whatever the expression. You're right. You're so right. Yeah. I feel like I used to read books and be like, Oh, well, I could do that. But then like, sit down and you do it. You're like, Oh, well, yeah, it's not that easy.

[25:57]Jen Spyra: Oh my God. No. Okay. Exactly. Because I like, I literally would whenever I go, like, to a cafe or even if I'm working at home, I will have a book next to me or a few that I'm that I love that really inspire me because I'm like, I have to even remind myself and physically sometimes pick up the book to be like, someone has written a book. Because as I started doing it, was like, this is not possible. No one's done it. This cannot be done. It it felt so yeah. It's it's really hard. As you know. Sidebar, congratulations on the anthology.

[26:28]Zibby Owens: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Jen, it was so nice getting to know you. I hope you'll come over when you're back in town. I have author stuff here all the time and I hope to start So that yeah, and thanks for being so nice.

[26:42]Jen Spyra: Are you kidding? Oh my God. The author stuff, wow, that would be so fun. And it'd be fun to see you in any capacity in the city. Thank you for having me, Zippy. I'm so honored to have been on. Oh my gosh. Don't be silly. You too, but you're that was great. Anyway. Thank you. Alright. Well, have a great And thank you And, so

[26:59]Zibby Owens: yeah, I can't wait to read what comes next. Oh, thank you, Zibby. Ditto. Alright. Take care. Okay. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to part of my June Book Blast. I hope you enjoy it. Come back tomorrow for more. Thanks

[27:25]Zibby Owens: and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.