LaToya Watkins, PERISH: A Novel
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now.
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms don't have time to read books.
[0:10]It is a daily podcast, 365 days a year, and each day we talk to an author about all of the things related to their career,
[0:18]their book, their life, and more in 30 minutes or less because who has time?
[0:22]I am now an author myself, although I wasn't when I started this podcast, and you can get my new memoir,
[0:28]bookends, a memoir of love, loss, and literature, wherever books are sold starting July 1st, and my children's book prints is charming.
[0:36]You can learn more about me at Zivi Owens.com, but really you're here to learn more about the authors and that is what we're going to do.
[0:43]Also, be sure to check out all the other podcasts in the Zcast podcast network.
[0:48]You can learn more at zcastnetwork.com and definitely check out those shows as well.
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[1:04]Go to ziviowans.com and you will find the Zivi Awards, open submissions where we celebrate all the under-celebrated parts of a book, like the best spine, the best authors note, the best table of contents,
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[1:52]Thank you for having me here. I really appreciate it.
[2:08]It's wonderful. Can you please tell us, nurse, what your book is about?
[2:13]In simple terms, the book is about family with problems that they are trying to push through because as difficult as it seems they really do love each other and they are trying to learn how to do that in healthy way.
[2:30]You have to go deeper than that.
[2:35]Oh my gosh.
[2:36]The letter you wrote in the beginning, by the way, with your love of the books that you read growing up, I just wrote a memoir called Bookends and I literally was saying all the same things.
[2:46]This is what I did. I read all of these books and obviously our experiences are different, but we gravitated all the same stuff, all the same books on the shelves and things that were available.
[2:57]Anyway, talk about your reading and how that became this book.
[3:01]That's awesome. That's awesome.
[3:03]My reading, I grew up in a place where the first decade of my life, we didn't have a group in a neighborhood in West Texas where the book is set, where there were no libraries or bookstores, but my mom was a reader.
[3:18]She was, as you know, from the letter, she was also a factory worker.
[3:22]We didn't have a home library or anything like that, but she would have these mass market paperbacks.
[3:29]Sometimes they would be from the library or she would buy them and they weren't for me.
[3:34]I didn't think that they were for me at all, not Daniel Stills or Jackie Collins or Stephen King, but I would read them.
[3:42]I'm so sorry for that. I would read them after I knew that she was done and I didn't know that she knew that I was reading these books.
[3:50]So all of her favorite books became my favorite books and there were no books.
[3:56]I think the first book that I found there that I could really relate to was a Prince of Taught, not relate to, but that I saw this like messy family with all these problems and it wasn't just some beach read.
[4:11]was the Prince of Taught. There was so much emotion there, the Prince of Taught. There was so much emotion there and then later on Alice Walker is the color purple.
[4:21]I saw that there and, or I read that through my mother and she actually ended up finding me reading that one and you know, that's when I found out that she knew I was reading the books.
[4:35]And we started kind of reading them together or she would bring them to me when she was done reading them.
[4:42]And that's how I became a reader and I also had siblings, but none of them were sneaking the books, dealing the books are reading so I guess I was the only reader in the bunch.
[4:53]So there were a lot of things that we would do around books if there was something in a book that a meal that I'd never heard of.
[5:01]Mom would try to recreate it so that I could have what was in the book to give me some sort of culture after we moved away from West Texas.
[5:10]We had libraries in our neighborhoods, we have book fairs at school so our reading together relationship kind of change, but I did come into it in a very sneaky way that like I thought was wrong for really long time until you know, she showed me it wasn't.
[5:27]I would love for my kids to steal my books.
[5:31]Like please read this catalog just do it something.
[5:36]Yeah, you never know maybe one day.
[5:41]And I don't know how the very it was that the very sad stories are what stuck out to me, but they were.
[5:48]I'm not sure if it was because of the way the characters were drawn in those stories or that I like to be moved by tears, but those were the ones that when I first decided to write something I was like I'm going to write something that makes me cry.
[6:06]So I think that's how I came to write a book like come up with characters like Helen Jean and Jan, a book like parish because when I was writing it it made me cry.
[6:20]Well, that is also the effect on the reader so there you go.
[6:24]But I thought it was so funny because I feel like particularly back in whatever the 80s or the 90, whenever these books originally came out they always had family trees, you know, and when I was like thinking like they thought there were all these like epic family stories and then I opened tears and I was like oh yeah, well here it is.
[6:44]I see why where this is coming from.
[6:46]I also loved Pat Conroy and I remember reading beach music and like just getting so into it and they were long and dense and then many of the books then I feel like more so now but maybe that's just my misguided perception where these just like sprawling family.
[7:02]Sogas with generations and yet they felt so contemporary because they ended up like right where you were you know so anyway I don't know that's my trip down memory lane here.
[7:14]Oh my goodness so you start the book talking about Helen Jean and going back in time into the 1950s and going through something that is very topical now with all of the talk about abortion and the rules and craziness that's going on.
[7:32]I shouldn't put my own opinions.
[7:34]It's abortion is in the news these days and that's a topic in your first chapter. Why don't you talk about that first of all I didn't know that it was going to be in the news in the way that it is but it has always been something very visible in in Texas.
[7:53]When I was in high school I worked I had a job at in the daycare of a fitness facility and there was a there was like this little business center in front of like kind of wrapped around the daycare and it was one of those.
[8:10]It was in a very like by the Southern Methodist University in that area like this very elite area and there was a Planned Parenthood in that business center.
[8:21]So when I would go to work there would be protesters out there all the time and that was really almost I went three times a week and it was very jarring to see these people with these signs these visuals these photos kind of.
[8:39]Almost attacking the people who were walking into the clinics the clinic for whatever reason and when I was doing research that was one of the things that I looked for when I went back to Texas because I know that it is like there's a conservative population there and I didn't see a whole lot of it.
[9:01]But one of the things that I also paid attention to is I was looking at the populations of people like black and why, and when I did kind of stop by some of those clinics I didn't see a lot of black people.
[9:19]It brought into the question like where they were I know they were you know having babies or getting pregnant why weren't they at the clinics and when I started asking those questions a lot of the responses rolled back to the 1950s of the 1960s even the 1970s and they talked about the back alley abortions.
[9:44]So I asked a lot of questions about what those look like and they were so there were so many types and tools that people used, but the one that stood out to me the most that seemed the most dangerous but also seemed like the go to because.
[10:00]because it was easier to get to was the turpentine abortion.
[10:04]And I even asked about that particular procedure.
[10:08]Like I went to my mother and asked about that procedure.
[10:11]And she was like, yeah, I know people who did that.
[10:16]I know people who used hangers,
[10:17]I know people who used wrenches.
[10:20]So we kind of got into a conversation
[10:23]about the dangers of that and how common it was
[10:27]and how common it is even after in the black community,
[10:31]even after Roe the way.
[10:34]Wow.
[10:35]Well, I'm hoping it doesn't make a huge comeback.
[10:39]I mean, the health implications of these methods
[10:42]and the way you describe them and even how the time it works
[10:45]and the time it doesn't work and like going through that.
[10:48]And you're such a good writer.
[10:50]I mean, you're like in these scenes.
[10:52]It's like, you know, you want to like hold your stomach almost.
[10:55]You know, it's like, but you're immediately in it.
[10:58]Like the style is so propulsive.
[11:01]And anyway, it's quite a launching off point for the story.
[11:06]Thank you.
[11:06]And then of course you go back and now we're in 2018
[11:11]and we're back with Lydia.
[11:13]So tell me about this story line.
[11:15]Lydia is, she's a significant character because I wanted
[11:22]to kind of explore what someone looked like
[11:26]when they were kind of taken out of this environment.
[11:30]That's almost like a trap.
[11:32]It's almost inescapable.
[11:35]And she is away, but ends up being away,
[11:40]but it's still very much connected.
[11:43]And there's a lot of I think of unknown and shame.
[11:48]There are a lot of things that are like swirling around her
[11:51]that keep her from moving forward, these expectations.
[11:55]But I think with her, I wanted to explore why it's so important,
[12:02]or if it is important at all, to kind of go back
[12:07]to like where you're from or your past or your people
[12:11]and resolve or understand in some way.
[12:14]And what that means for like independence or personal growth.
[12:19]And I think she's the character that is most kind of connected
[12:24]to the hope that I felt when reading or writing about it.
[12:30]So tell me how you even got into writing.
[12:33]Oh, I think writing has always been something that I was drawn to
[12:41]as a way to, I didn't come from a family or a community where
[12:45]if you were having problems, if you were grieving,
[12:48]if anything was going on, they would say, let's go take you to a therapist.
[12:52]It was just, it was kind of, you just pushed it down and moved forward.
[12:57]Well, I would write and I actually started out, I think I wrote my first poem
[13:01]when I was seven. And I would write these things.
[13:05]And my mother would read them and tell me that they were beautiful.
[13:08]But even then, I understood she was my mom, like everything that I did
[13:12]had to be beautiful in some type of way if it was good.
[13:15]And I just did that until adulthood.
[13:19]I believe just I wrote store, I started writing stories.
[13:22]But I remember I had a, my education, my college education wasn't traditional.
[13:27]I already had a family. I had children when I tried to squeeze that in,
[13:31]which was like, I don't, it doesn't make sense at all.
[13:36]I was always late. I think everyone thought I was a slacker,
[13:39]but I had three children. So when I was an undergrad,
[13:43]I took one creative writing workshop. And this is, this is,
[13:47]this is how important mentors and instructors are to students.
[13:52]I had a, I wrote a poem, I wrote three poems in that course.
[13:57]And at the end of the course, the professor told me like that,
[14:00]I had no future in writing, like, that I should kind of give them.
[14:04]And I did it.
[14:06]No, I did. And we had gone through craft elements and a lot of different things.
[14:12]And I don't think my work worked for that person.
[14:16]So I stepped away from it for a while, even as a way to process
[14:21]what I was going through. And then I had a cousin who told me I should write something.
[14:27]And I did. And I was like, you know what? This isn't bad.
[14:31]Like, I wrote it myself. It was the first time that I read my own work.
[14:35]And I thought it wasn't bad. And by then I had graduated from undergrad and actually applied
[14:41]to law school. I was going to try and do that.
[14:44]Even though I just didn't know what to do next.
[14:47]And when I wrote that and read it, I said, you know what?
[14:51]I think I'm going to apply for grad school.
[14:54]I couldn't apply to an MFA. We didn't have one in DFW.
[14:58]I couldn't because I couldn't leave my children.
[15:00]But I did apply for at the same school that I'd gotten my undergrad at.
[15:07]And when I went in, I started asking students who's the
[15:12]worst, not the worst, but the best critical kind of reader in the who taught creative writing.
[15:20]And they told me and they told me to be where they told me this person was a monster.
[15:24]And that's the class I enrolled in because I just wanted to get it over with.
[15:29]I wanted to know whether or not like I had what it took to actually write professionally.
[15:35]And if I didn't, I was going to try a different track.
[15:37]And when I went into that class, I knew that that person was going to tell me that I wasn't
[15:42]a writer. And in the end, after I submitted my workshop story for that class,
[15:50]it was a novella. And that's what he was. That man was brutal.
[15:55]I'd seen people leave their crying, mad, cursing his name.
[15:59]So I knew it was going to be bad, but I was just going to, you know,
[16:03]green and bear it. And he did. He tore it apart. But when he finished, he told me how
[16:10]wonderful it was and how much potential it had. And that I should revise it.
[16:14]And it was actually a version of this story, this novel that we looked at.
[16:20]So that's how I began to study craft and understand what it is to be a writer and try to kind of
[16:31]do that. Wow. Wait. So what happened after that? So you worked on the story together. Then what?
[16:36]We worked. Well, we created the story together. And then I put it away and wrote a lot of other
[16:41]stories. I think while I was in that program, I made sure. I went all the way through and got a PhD.
[16:47]So I was there for about seven years. And every semester, I took workshops, creative writing
[16:54]workshop, because I wanted to practice that as much as I possibly could. And I wrote a lot of stories
[17:01]that I love. And it became like, I think my dissertation was a academic essay that centered
[17:10]story collection. And my committee, when I was defending my dissertation was like, we love this
[17:16]collection. But this last story in it should be a novel. And it was Paris. And it was the hardest
[17:25]story in that collection to write. But I do think it was the one story that needed more or that
[17:33]want it more. So it was the one that I chose to expand on. Wow. What a story. And then how long
[17:42]did you work on how long did you work on it from becoming a story into a full novel?
[17:48]I think I worked on it. It was probably in total about three and a half years. And that's because I was
[17:59]again a parent. And it's just like you have to, you're on their schedule as much as I think we
[18:09]try to create a schedule and try to situate them within it. They're the ones creating the schedule.
[18:16]And we just have to kind of get in where we fit in. So I wasn't able and then I was teaching.
[18:21]So I wasn't able to write as much as I wanted to. So I learned early on that I had to sometimes
[18:31]get away. Residencies, self-made residencies, anything to kind of separate myself from mama
[18:39]homo because that's a thing. Like you're concerned, you are only using half of your senses when you
[18:50]are kind of in that mode. So I would have to totally separate myself from the children in order to
[18:58]really get into character and not take on these personalities, the personalities of my characters
[19:07]and become those people for my children. So it took a while. That's really not bad. I mean,
[19:14]three and a half years is not bad for someone who's sitting at their desk all day every day trying
[19:18]to do it with nothing else going on. You know, those stories I hear all the time too. So,
[19:24]wow. So wait, how old are your kids now, by the way?
[19:28]My kids are 22. I'm sorry. I have a set of twins. So I'm always trying 22 and 24.
[19:37]So after I, it took longer to revise the novel than it did to make it a novel. I think in the
[19:46]beginning, there were like 22 narrators. Wow. I had, there were a lot of narrators. I'd been
[19:55]reading Ernest Gaines and William Faulkner, Laura's Conde. So it's
[20:00]So I had a lot of, it was very ambitious.
[20:04]So it took a lot longer to revise the novel
[20:08]than it did to make the story a novel.
[20:12]I have twins too.
[20:13]Awesome.
[20:14]Really?
[20:15]How y'all know me?
[20:16]They're 15.
[20:18]Oh my goodness.
[20:20]Yeah.
[20:21]Oh my goodness.
[20:23]That was the biggest prank that has ever been played on me,
[20:26]twins.
[20:27]Oh.
[20:28]I wasn't expecting that.
[20:31]Our years boy girl or their girls?
[20:34]Their girls.
[20:35]Identical or fraternal?
[20:36]I didn't.
[20:37]Identical.
[20:38]Oh my gosh.
[20:40]Are yours boy girl?
[20:41]Boy girl.
[20:42]Oh yeah.
[20:43]No, they could not be more different.
[20:45]I love the look of respect that crosses people's faces
[20:47]when they have one kid.
[20:48]And they're like, wait, you had two at the same time?
[20:51]Oh my gosh.
[20:52]Oh my gosh.
[20:53]That was the big eye.
[20:54]I was just like, wait.
[20:56]Two at the same time.
[20:58]Yeah.
[20:58]That's incredible.
[20:59]Yeah.
[21:00]But I do like to multitask.
[21:01]So then I had two more.
[21:06]So I have four kids.
[21:07]So I'm always off in different directions.
[21:10]But you know what I'm suggesting?
[21:12]It does.
[21:12]Especially if you want to keep them busy and active.
[21:16]It does.
[21:17]They're interesting.
[21:19]It was fun.
[21:19]The multitasking motherhood, being a writer,
[21:23]being a student, being a teacher, all at the same time.
[21:26]And for a little, four years of that,
[21:29]I was also homeschooling.
[21:31]So my gosh, stuff.
[21:35]So yeah, it was pretty busy times.
[21:38]I don't think I could.
[21:39]I don't know how you got through that.
[21:42]I can't even explain it now that older,
[21:47]it's just like, I don't know what that was about.
[21:51]I don't think you need sleep.
[21:52]Yeah.
[21:54]Did you have a good support sister there?
[21:56]I did.
[21:57]My family always lived in the same neighborhoods.
[22:00]So like when we were homeschooling,
[22:03]I would have a house of seven kids on one day
[22:07]because I taught certain subjects.
[22:09]My sisters would all take their day.
[22:12]Even my parents took a day.
[22:13]So it was, we worked together to do it.
[22:17]Well, that's good.
[22:18]Oh my gosh.
[22:19]Wait, let's go back to the timeline of the book.
[22:21]I'm like hanging on every word here of this story.
[22:24]So you revise it.
[22:27]You cut out some of the narrators
[22:29]and then tell me about selling it.
[22:32]Oh, that was the, oh, I think,
[22:35]I think that was the hardest thing.
[22:37]And not just the selling it,
[22:41]not the selling it wasn't as hard as the revising it.
[22:44]Like it took me a really long time
[22:46]to get it to a place where there was some light,
[22:52]some hope in the book.
[22:54]Because it was a mixture, I think,
[22:57]of things that became during my research.
[23:01]Like, and I was a mother,
[23:02]like my deepest fear for fears for my own children,
[23:06]like for myself, kind of nightmares.
[23:09]And I had a trouble like finding places for light
[23:14]in the book.
[23:16]So it took me a really long time to get there.
[23:18]I'd say it took me three and a half years
[23:21]to turn this in the novel.
[23:23]It took another four to revise it.
[23:25]And then I was also working on other things
[23:29]while I was doing it and unagent for some of that.
[23:35]So finding an agent wasn't as hard for me
[23:38]as I didn't have as many, well,
[23:40]I didn't have the horror stories that some people have
[23:43]because I did a lot of residencies
[23:46]and conferences that were kind of jurid applications.
[23:50]So a lot of times some of those things included
[23:54]sitting down with agents, agents reading your book books.
[23:58]So or your work.
[23:59]So I went that route.
[24:00]Finding an agent wasn't the hard part,
[24:02]getting the book ready again was the hardest part.
[24:05]But what happened was during the pandemic,
[24:10]I got a residency to Comargo Foundation in France.
[24:15]So in March of 2020, February of 2020,
[24:19]I went to France and I was gonna read the manuscript
[24:23]one last time, send it to my agent
[24:24]and our plan was for her to send it out
[24:27]that April or something like that, March or April.
[24:30]Well, when I was in France,
[24:32]every that's when everything kind of shut down.
[24:35]So we finished and my agent was like,
[24:38]well, I don't know, things are kind of strange.
[24:41]Let's just kind of see what things,
[24:45]what they look like.
[24:46]And then she came back and it was like June after I was home.
[24:51]And she said, let's go ahead and try to give it a go
[24:55]and we sent it out and it was incredibly scary
[25:01]because it was cricket.
[25:03]Like no one knew what was going on,
[25:05]what publishing was gonna look like,
[25:06]what the world was gonna look like.
[25:08]when we came out of this, if we came out of this.
[25:12]So we didn't hear anything back and she was touching base
[25:17]with editors and we just didn't hear anything back.
[25:21]So I'm Google playing, reading all these horror stories
[25:24]about people who wrote these books that just died,
[25:27]that didn't do anything.
[25:28]And I was like, that's what this book is.
[25:30]Like it's not gonna sell.
[25:32]And then and I think we took it back out later that year.
[25:38]And we got responses.
[25:40]I think people were kind of getting their footing
[25:44]and understanding publishing and whatever way
[25:49]they were to understand it.
[25:51]And another thing had happened.
[25:53]We'd the George Floyd murder had happened.
[25:56]And then so you had all of these kind of people
[26:01]in all of these different areas looking
[26:03]at the treatment of black folks.
[26:06]So publishing was one of the areas
[26:08]where they were doing that.
[26:10]So there were the formations of all of these new imprint
[26:15]and my imprint didn't exist before then.
[26:20]So that's why they didn't respond to the first.
[26:24]So yeah, but it was amazing to get on the phone with them
[26:31]and talk to them about the book.
[26:34]When I had that first meeting, when you're meeting editors,
[26:38]like I knew it was like the way,
[26:39]the passion that the editor felt for the stories,
[26:44]both of my books was just incredible.
[26:47]And I knew that they were the ones that I would go,
[26:51]that was the home for parish.
[26:53]So it was pretty incredible experience
[26:57]because I didn't think it would happen
[26:59]after the first time we sent out.
[27:02]I'm glad it is.
[27:03]Oh my gosh.
[27:04]Latoya, I'm so excited for you.
[27:06]I'm sorry that this time is up.
[27:08]I had like so many questions.
[27:09]I'm sorry I was like dragging it.
[27:11]I want to hear more about all of it.
[27:14]But I'm just so excited for you in your book.
[27:16]I can't wait for everything to come.
[27:18]I'm so excited.
[27:18]Do you want with tiny reparations?
[27:20]I feel like they have the best books.
[27:22]Seriously.
[27:23]They're really great.
[27:24]Really awesome.
[27:26]And just congratulations on everything.
[27:28]And I'm just like gonna follow along.
[27:31]So excited for you.
[27:32]So thank you.
[27:33]Really inspiring.
[27:34]Thank you so much for reading parish
[27:37]and being inspired by it.
[27:39]And for having me here.
[27:40]My pleasure.
[27:41]Okay, bye bye.
[27:43]Bye bye.
[27:44]Thanks.
[27:45]Thanks for listening to this episode
[27:47]of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:49]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[27:51]at Zebioans and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:54]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebioans.com
[27:57]and sign up for my virtual book club
[27:58]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[28:01]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan Beck,
[28:03]Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[28:05]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[28:07]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.