Marie Benedict, THE MITFORD AFFAIR: A Novel
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[0:58]Marie Benedict is the author of the Midford Affair, a novel. Marie is a lawyer with more than 10 years experience as a litigator at two of the country's premier law firms.
[1:08]She found her calling, unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. Her mission is to excavate from the past the most important complex and fascinating women of history,
[1:17]and bring them into the light of present day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues.
[1:26]She embarked on a new, thematically connected series of historical novels with The Other Einstein, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein's first wife, a physicist herself, who knew, and the role she may have played in his big theories.
[1:39]The next novel is the USA Today Best Selling Carnegie's Made, and the book that followed was New York Times Bestseller and Barnes and Noble Book Club Pick, The Only Woman in the Room, the story of the brilliant inventor,
[1:51]Hetty Lamar. Then she released Lady Clementine, the story of the incredible Clementine Churchill, which was an international bestseller.
[1:59]Her next novel was an instant New York Times and USA Today Best Selling book called The Mystery of Mrs. Christie.
[2:06]Then she co-wrote a book with the talented Victoria Christopher Murray, which became an instant New York Times bestseller and a good morning American book club pick, The Personal Librarian.
[2:16]Then there was her hidden genius. How did she even keep track of all these women? Oh my gosh. Then came her hidden genius about the brilliant British scientist Rosalyn Franklin, who discovered the structure of DNA, but whose research was used without her permission by
[2:29]Crick and Watson to win the Nobel Prize. And now she's released the Midford Affair, which explores the role that history's most notorious sisters, the beautiful brilliant eccentric midfords played in the rise of World War II, both for and against the Nazis.
[2:43]Writing as Heather Terrell, Murray also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map, Thief, and Bridget of Kildare.
[2:51]Murray's novels have been translated into 29 languages. Welcome, Marie. Thank you so much for coming on Moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss the Midford Affair.
[3:00]Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. As you know, I am a fan girl. So to be here and chat with you about my latest is like such an enormous street.
[3:11]Well, you were being so complimentary, which is lovely. But what I was saying before is that what you do is so impressive, especially with this book because you have so many different points of view.
[3:22]On the same events a lot of the time, like different picking up different threads of the same thing with different perspectives as if you're like jumping into different people's bodies around the same table or something.
[3:33]And weaving in so much history and fact and context. And it's I'm like, how is she doing this? So it's it's really impressive.
[3:46]I mean, I will say I didn't know what I was biting off when I decided to write this one because I usually do stick with the perspective of one historical woman see her through the the important arc of her life and kind of explore her contributions and her struggles.
[4:02]But one of the things that fascinated me about Nancy Mifford and the Mifford's in general was the interplay of those sibling relationships.
[4:11]You know, I this Mifford sisters were people who don't know were like the aristocratic girls in like the 1920s and 30s each more eccentric, beautiful, brilliant,
[4:22]coco than the next right. And I felt like exploring the way in which they shaped each other's personalities and destinies was so fascinating, especially because I'm one of six myself.
[4:36]And I have seen play out in my own family how we become who we are because of in spite of sometimes of our siblings.
[4:46]And it was an interesting theme for me to explore. Fortunately, we don't have relationships like these Mifford sisters. We're much closer and not a lot of stripes, but we are definitely, you know, kind of experiencing some of the same things these sisters are.
[5:01]Well, I have to say normally when I read books that I when I read books that I book for the podcast, I don't go back and read the back cover or anything when I start. I just like know it's coming up.
[5:11]And so like everything surprises me.
[5:15]Those back covers are sometimes have a lot of spoilers. Yeah. Yeah. So when I was reading your book and I was like, wait a minute, seriously, they're like now we're interacting with Hitler and shoot they're on the stage.
[5:27]And like this is intersecting with everything and I'm like wait, but I was like feeling really sympathetic towards these characters.
[5:36]But I was like, but wait, now they're bad. Now they're bad guys like what's going on here. So yeah, I mean, and what you're describing is something I struggled with so much in the book, you know, without giving way too many spoilers.
[5:48]One of the things that was fascinating about these sisters is that there's a whole story about them, which most people don't know.
[5:55]People mostly think about them in their lives through the lens of Nancy Mifford who wrote about them famously in the love and a cold climate in the pursuit of love.
[6:04]And people think of them as kind of this like idyllic corky English aristocratic group of sisters, but the reality is there was a dark undercurrent to their existence and it very much reflected the dark undercurrent that was going on in Europe at that time in this interwar period.
[6:22]And I was, you know, fascinating and capturing how these otherwise, you know, sympathetic, like you said engaging women suddenly transformed and eyes and how that happened is something that really fascinated me and getting into the things that sway people in their beliefs and then how that plays out on a family level was really interesting to me.
[6:50]And so sometimes I really struggled with the scenes because as you know, two of the sisters become enamored a fascism. I mean, more than just enamored they become.
[6:59]And in unity, one of the sisters in particular is like part of Hitler's inner circle and it was like appalling to write him through her eyes and yet to understand how she came to do what she did and believe what she believed.
[7:16]So yeah, it was it was a struggle, I'll be honest. Yeah, that was tough. I like how you even have the parents are weighing in like in such a casual way we were like every so often dad would ask unity to take down the swastikas.
[7:33]It's like just like as a side as if it was like a poster of like Ralph Machia or something. Do you know, I mean, please take that down. We don't like your Pokemon.
[7:41]You know, but you know what that's a tremendous analogy because she was she was like a teenage band girl. Yes.
[7:51]And you know, we know what we know now, of course, about the fascists and what ultimately happened. They of course did not have the benefit of hindsight there.
[8:00]But at the same time, shouldn't the alarm bells have been ringing for the parents right.
[8:05]And that is becomes a theme in the book at what point do you intercede at what point do you pull your teenage daughter out from the clutches of Hitler in Munich and and say that that's even if you don't know what his ultimate scheme is that's not appropriate.
[8:23]And so that theme of at what point we sort of act on our beliefs act on our suspicions is a huge sort of core issue in the book that that raises its head ultimately through Nancy and her kind of decision making.
[8:39]But is it is a big factor earlier on with the parents like you can't believe it. And yeah, what was also fascinating to me. And I just kind of touched on it in the book without delving too much is that this time period.
[8:54]There's so many upper class English people who sided with not see as them, you know, they saw communism on the horizon and they were more fearful of what communism might do to their estates and their titles.
[9:08]And they thought they might have a stand a better chance at keeping all that with Hitler. And so there was a certain amount of sympathy towards him in the separate class, which is something I was not aware of.
[9:18]Yeah, just when you think you can't learn anymore.
[9:22]You open.
[9:25]Well, and that was what attracted me to this. You know, there's been a lot written about them at freaks and I usually write about unknown women with the exception probably like Agatha Christie.
[9:36]But again, when I choose one of these better known women. I'm looking at something about them that is secretive and hidden. But that is important and helps us kind of switch out that lens through which we look at the past.
[9:52]Well, I have to say the way you wrote Diana, the sister Diana, the older sister. Oh, she's not the oldest. Is she the oldest? No.
[10:00]Nancy's the oldest and she's the second oldest, right?
[10:03]Yeah.
[10:03]She's so glamorous and yet then she, I mean, I think I can say this because on the back
[10:08]cover.
[10:09]But I was surprised since I didn't read the back cover how, you know, she, she's married
[10:14]to like a Guinness air and sees this cute guy who she like is totally like in lust with
[10:24]across the room in your opening scene.
[10:27]And then fast forward, she leaves her husband to be with this guy, but not even to
[10:32]marry him, which in today's world would be one thing.
[10:36]But like I had to imagine back then, this is like, wait, you're doing what?
[10:40]Like, this is insane, she is, she's considered the most beautiful woman of her generation.
[10:46]She has her pick of men.
[10:47]She picks a golden boy.
[10:49]She pick, you know, Brian Guinness, who's stunning kind of adores her beyond measure, has
[10:56]the riches of dreams, right?
[11:00]And yet he's not enough for her.
[11:02]He there's something missing and, and I hate to say it, but it's like, it's almost like
[11:06]he's too nice to think too doting upon her.
[11:10]And when she leaves him for Oswald, mostly who's married, right, and it's all over
[11:16]the headlines, Diana has this strange self, not just self awareness, but like confidence
[11:22]and unusual confidence that she lets all of that roll off her as she proceeds down this
[11:28]most unacceptable path.
[11:30]I mean, this story was everywhere.
[11:32]I mean, the, the, the midverts were the regular stuff of headlines.
[11:35]Let's be so.
[11:36]Who are the midverts today?
[11:37]Are we thinking like Jazelle and Tom Brady type of thing, are we thinking Kardashians?
[11:42]Or is it more like actual like royals, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's tough
[11:48]because we don't really have those kind of stratification of society anymore.
[11:53]So that, you know, they're the stuff of headlines, but yet there's still on a pedestal.
[11:58]They're definitely Kardashian ask in the amount of newspaper coverage there is about them.
[12:03]But they're, you know, Kardashians aren't on our nobodies pedestal.
[12:07]So, you know, that's not an exact analogy.
[12:10]I mean, they were on in the headlines so frequently that their mother was famously
[12:14]quoted as saying, anytime I see the phrase peers daughter in a headline, I know it's
[12:20]going to be about one of you six.
[12:22]I mean, that's that each one of them, I mean, these three are just three of the six.
[12:25]The others three have their own host of headlines before during and after this time period.
[12:31]So, and a direct analogy, I don't know if there is one, but the level of fame and the
[12:36]amount of press coverage Kardashian like, yeah.
[12:40]Maybe it's like if Princess Kate had a couple siblings.
[12:43]Yes, that would be a good one.
[12:46]That would be good because there's more access and coverage.
[12:49]Yeah.
[12:50]But definitely more scandal, if she had a whole bunch of siblings in each one was like up
[12:55]to no good, that that would be about it.
[12:57]Yeah.
[12:58]Yeah, which would be amazing.
[12:59]I would love that.
[13:00]That would be like my future stories.
[13:03]Yeah.
[13:04]They're real galore, but they're too buttoned up.
[13:07]Yeah, they're kind of aware of the media coverage.
[13:10]The thing about the mid-fruit sisters is that they think nothing, they thought nothing
[13:14]would stick to them.
[13:15]It would all pull off.
[13:17]And that's why they behaved with such complete, just, I don't want to say impertinence,
[13:21]but lack of care what other people thought, but it does catch up with them in the, and
[13:27]it catches up right in, in my book and it catches up at the hands of someone close to
[13:33]them.
[13:35]I mean, I thought it was really interesting also how you, how you developed unity as a character
[13:44]and how we see her as so awkward and even her like random gray teeth, like how she doesn't
[13:54]fit into anything and she's just always tripping over herself and, and you see how she finds
[14:00]herself in this cause.
[14:03]And I feel like that is so, that is something that repeats itself through history all the
[14:07]time.
[14:08]Even today, out sort of outcasts, quote unquote, who like are searching so hard to find
[14:13]their place of belonging.
[14:15]And there's a movement that is very inclusive of anyone who believes.
[14:18]And so you're willing to believe anything to feel like you're a part of something.
[14:22]That is unity in a nutshell, gray teeth and all.
[14:26]I mean, this is a girl who brings her pet rat, Ratchiller, you know, I mean, she, she's
[14:32]so insecure and sort of, she doesn't like you said, she doesn't even fit in with her sisters.
[14:38]I mean, her sisters are these celebrated beauties and she doesn't attract a girl if you
[14:42]look at pictures, but she never has this up confidence that her siblings do.
[14:47]And you know, they're, they're merciless to each other, those siblings, they're, they're
[14:50]like a feral pack of dogs out in the countryside on in a state, the parents don't send
[14:56]them to school.
[14:57]They have occasional tutors, they're basically left to raise themselves.
[15:01]And they could be very cruel to one another.
[15:04]I mean, they had occasional support systems and private languages and secrets and good
[15:10]stuff, but there's also a lot of very difficult sort of hazing behavior.
[15:16]And the other one's kind of rose up, but unity, it created a, you know, a whole inside
[15:21]her that, that exactly as you said, that this are this, you know, really extreme political
[15:28]group filled for her.
[15:30]But what she didn't see is that they were using her to, you know, on her end, it was
[15:35]all one side.
[15:36]And she, she loved Hitler, she loved what he was doing, she became swept up in this cause
[15:41]they embraced her with open arms and, and she thought she'd arrived, right?
[15:46]Finally, someone was loving her for her.
[15:49]And yet the sad part of it, of course, is that it was all part of a propaganda campaign.
[15:54]You know, as I mentioned, there was this faction of English society that accepted the Nazis
[15:59]that welcomed them and Hitler and his propaganda team wanted to foster that.
[16:05]And wow, if two of the mid-ford sisters that are aristocratic, you know, it girls cousins
[16:11]to Churchill, if they liked us, well, well, there's nothing wrong with us.
[16:15]It was their way of kind of smoothing over the bad press in those early days in the
[16:19]lead up to World War II.
[16:21]But, you know, unity couldn't see that.
[16:23]She didn't want to hear it, Diana, on the other hand, knew it and exploited it for her
[16:29]own purposes.
[16:30]You know, when you look at these two sisters and the way in which they become wrapped
[16:35]up in Nazis, I'm not just fascism, but Nazis, it's for very different reasons with very
[16:42]different levels of awareness and intentionality.
[16:47]And in my mind, varying degrees of awfulness, right?
[16:52]I mean, unity's awful in her own way.
[16:54]And so, Diana, but there's a part of unity even at the end.
[16:58]She can't help but pity because of why she's a trend to it.
[17:03]Diana, I don't know, I don't know, but I have a very different feeling about Diana.
[17:09]If you ever, what's fascinating too is, you know, these sisters were famous.
[17:13]So, you know, I do a ton of research and so I've watched a bazillion video clips and
[17:18]read a million memoirs.
[17:19]I mean, they were their own stories over and over, which were, you know, arguably not
[17:24]totally trustworthy, but there's a video interview of Diana much later in life, still
[17:30]beautiful.
[17:31]She's in her 60s or 70s stunning and to listen to her talk with that extremely upper class
[17:36]accent and describe these events.
[17:40]That's where I got the Diana that's in the pages of this of this book, The Chilling Diana
[17:45]That's in the pages of this book.
[17:47]She is a singular creature and a scary one.
[17:52]Wow.
[17:53]Yeah.
[17:54]And then you have Nancy, who's like, like the Nora Ephron of the family is, right?
[17:59]I don't know how, I didn't have to use that.
[18:03]That is exactly Nancy.
[18:06]She's funny self deprecating, biting, she'd be really mean.
[18:11]And yet she, you know, attracted this group of social beings and she was celebrated.
[18:18]And yet things didn't always go so well for Nancy and she was trying to find her own way
[18:23]and she felt very strongly that the neglect of her parents probably in a way that her other
[18:28]siblings didn't, you know, as oldest, she was often alone.
[18:33]And she could watch what was happening beneath her.
[18:37]And that I think really stayed with her, at least my version of Nancy, right?
[18:40]I write fictional versions of really it.
[18:42]I'm not saying she was totally sympathetic either.
[18:45]That's for sure.
[18:46]There are lots of times I wanted to shake her and say, what are you doing?
[18:50]Her biting wit and her eventual moral compass do kick into play there.
[18:56]Thankfully for all of us, because no, you know, looking at this story and looking at the
[19:03]legacy of these women, I was looking at the possible, you know, really traumatic legacy that
[19:10]could have happened, a legacy that I think did, but really we are aware of.
[19:16]And a core of that is the risks that, you know, when you look at it at a huge historical event,
[19:22]like report to the way it could have played out and how it could have played out.
[19:27]And there's so many what ifs that we often aren't aware of that we are very beholden to today,
[19:34]right? Things that didn't happen that people that we aren't aware of that played a role in that
[19:39]I can't. I'd start to say that, which I don't give it away.
[19:43]That's what I'm saying. And that bad stuff did happen though. So it's like horrible, right?
[19:50]That was, I mean, I'm joking. I know beyond bads beyond horrific. So it was it was crazy to see
[20:00]this different side of things, like the back,
[20:02]honestly, the backstage of.
[20:04]That's right.
[20:05]So, and also fascinating the way in which,
[20:09]and I don't know that this is so true today,
[20:11]but the way in which high society
[20:13]and governmental leaders overlapped.
[20:16]Yes.
[20:17]Yes.
[20:18]Our echelons of society were also the leaders of society.
[20:22]They're really what they were one and the same.
[20:24]And so these girls who had nothing to recommend them
[20:29]other than their titles and their looks and their own wits,
[20:32]were able to literally claw to the epicenter
[20:36]of the lead up to World War II.
[20:38]I mean, that kind of access and influence.
[20:41]It really blows the mind.
[20:45]And yet it really, really happened.
[20:47]So how did you go about writing this whole thing?
[20:51]Like, did you have piles of research?
[20:54]Did you divide by a character?
[20:56]Did you, like, how did you attack this project?
[21:00]That's a great question.
[21:01]And if you had seen my desk at that time,
[21:04]a hot, hot mess of unorganized piles.
[21:07]You know, I love my original source material.
[21:09]And my god, there's no shortage of it with the mitt ferns.
[21:12]You know, you always want something in their own hand,
[21:15]letters, journals, there's tons of those.
[21:18]They wrote to each other constantly.
[21:20]Most of their letters are public.
[21:22]But the sisters, unlike anyone else
[21:24]I've ever written about, almost every single one
[21:26]of them wrote their own memoir, right?
[21:27]Or multiple memoirs, or essays, or, you know,
[21:31]and in a Nancy's case, she also wrote two fiction books
[21:36]before during this time period, which
[21:38]her little known weights on the green and pigeon pie,
[21:41]which are exact mirrors of what was going on in her life.
[21:45]So really, it was about kind of reading all of that,
[21:49]creating a million timelines.
[21:51]Because as you said, sometimes I'm literally
[21:54]looking at exactly the same event through all three sets
[21:57]of their eyes, making timelines, and then stepping back
[22:00]and writing, and having all that material at hand to draw on
[22:04]as I kind of, you know, went to each of their perspectives
[22:08]for those scenes.
[22:10]It was very tricky, because I wanted to show the reader
[22:15]the way the world looked through their eyes
[22:18]without repeating the same scene over and over again.
[22:22]So it was tricky.
[22:24]It was rewarding, but it was also, as I said earlier,
[22:26]sometimes really tough, because some of the interactions
[22:31]these characters have with leaders of the Nazi Party,
[22:35]unsavory characters in the British government and society.
[22:40]They were almost unpalatable.
[22:41]And yet I felt like in order to go through this exercise,
[22:44]I needed to do that.
[22:46]I myself wanted to understand how people
[22:51]made their own political decisions,
[22:54]how they found groups and affiliations.
[22:58]And I kind of had always thought that people
[23:00]started with the political belief.
[23:04]But in fact, what I think after writing this book
[23:07]is that people are attracted to political beliefs
[23:10]because of personal things, as one of the things in the book
[23:14]is that the political is very personal.
[23:16]And I felt like I needed to go through the personal
[23:19]for each of those characters to understand
[23:22]how they arrived at their political belief system,
[23:25]some of which were unfathomable to me.
[23:28]And it helped me understand society then,
[23:33]not that it made me sympathetic to a lot of the choices,
[23:35]but it helped me understand it in society today, of course.
[23:39]Yeah, I feel like there's so many parallels.
[23:42]It's frightening, the movements and the groups
[23:47]and conviction, and it's just very easy to fall into things
[23:53]and not look around and say, wait a minute.
[23:56]Like what exactly is going on here?
[23:58]Where is this leading?
[24:00]And I don't know.
[24:03]There's just, I feel like there's a lot of undercurrents
[24:05]at the moment.
[24:06]That was my intention to draw those parallels.
[24:10]And the way in which we ignore the unsavory parts
[24:12]because the rest suit us.
[24:15]I mean, the Mifford parents are great examples of that.
[24:18]I mean, some of the sisters as well,
[24:20]but they started off having one very specific belief system
[24:24]and completely flip-flop because it suited
[24:28]their certain personal gains.
[24:32]And that was interesting to watch as well.
[24:35]The way in which the peripheral players got swept up
[24:38]and changed their views for personal reasons
[24:41]and ignored some of the really awful stuff
[24:45]that was going on that they did know about.
[24:46]I mean, they knew what was happening
[24:48]to the Jewish people in Germany.
[24:50]They knew.
[24:51]And yeah, the time and time again,
[24:53]that was mischaracterized, that was glossed over,
[24:57]that was swept into the rug.
[24:58]And it's so awful to watch that happen.
[25:02]And yet, I felt like I needed to do it.
[25:05]Mm-hmm, oh my gosh.
[25:07]Okay, so you finished this book.
[25:09]And now what do you have coming up?
[25:11]Like what are you working on?
[25:12]Do you have a similarly disorganized desk?
[25:15]Oh, that's something else?
[25:17]Looking at this at the bad stuff,
[25:19]you only see the clean side.
[25:21]Yeah, I have another book coming out in June.
[25:23]It's my next co-written book with Victoria Christopher Murray,
[25:26]my co-writer, my wonderful sister and partner
[25:29]from the personal librarian.
[25:31]And that book is the story of the friendship
[25:35]between Eleanor Roosevelt and someone who should be
[25:39]as well known as Eleanor Roosevelt,
[25:41]which generally isn't, Mary McLeod Bethune.
[25:43]She was the 15th child in the family.
[25:46]She was the first born free.
[25:48]She was a self-educated, founded a college in Florida
[25:53]and a current HPC within equipment.
[25:55]And she rose up to become during her lifetime,
[25:57]one of the most famous black advocates.
[26:00]And she and Eleanor became like BFF in the 1920s
[26:06]before Eleanor was the first lady
[26:07]or the first lady, New York even at a time of segregation.
[26:12]But when I'm even found a place to go get a cup of coffee.
[26:15]And then these two women worked behind the scenes
[26:19]to really form the foundation for the civil rights movement.
[26:21]And people are really just don't even know.
[26:23]It was so hard to find source material for this story
[26:26]because I really feel like their friendship
[26:28]has hardly been examined at all.
[26:31]And it's really important one
[26:33]that we benefit from today.
[26:35]So that's like that's in June.
[26:37]Oh, gosh, that's so soon.
[26:38]I didn't even realize.
[26:39]It's like, oh, who's born again?
[26:40]Yeah, and I'm just turning in my book for next year.
[26:43]Oh my gosh.
[26:44]And what is that?
[26:45]That it's currently called.
[26:48]We'll see the title sticks, you know how that goes.
[26:50]The archeologist and about Lady Evelyn Herbert
[26:55]who was the real-life daughter of the fifth Lord
[26:59]Carnivom, who, Carnarvon, I can't pronounce it,
[27:02]who owned a high-cler castle, which was really don't know.
[27:05]You know that, yeah, yeah.
[27:07]And he was an archeologist, founded all these excavations
[27:12]in the 1920s.
[27:13]And she was an archeologist as well.
[27:16]And together, along with the now famous Howard Carter,
[27:20]they uncovered the tomb of Tutankhamen.
[27:23]But there's a whole additional story
[27:26]about the real thorough that they were looking for,
[27:29]which was a woman.
[27:31]And so we examine a whole other part
[27:34]of historical women, ancient historical women,
[27:37]the quest to find them, why,
[27:39]and how they were erased from the past
[27:42]and the role that she plays that really know and knows
[27:44]in all of that.
[27:47]Well, gosh, we have so much going on.
[27:49]That's awesome.
[27:50]It's really good.
[27:51]I'm not running an empire as well.
[27:52]Oh, stop.
[27:53]I can spend a few points.
[27:55]I can spend a few points.
[27:56]But yeah, I'm very, very fortunate to do what I do.
[28:00]And I feel a huge responsibility
[28:03]towards the women I write about.
[28:06]How do you even pick, like who's coming up after that?
[28:09]Or do you just have like a list on your bulletin board?
[28:12]I literally have a list.
[28:13]Yeah.
[28:16]There's like probably 50, 75 women on it.
[28:19]And any one of them, you know,
[28:21]if you make the list, you've met my rubric, right?
[28:24]You have done something magnificent
[28:26]that we still benefit from today.
[28:28]And you've grappled with an issue
[28:31]that's really modern in tone and in nature.
[28:33]So readers today can relate to it.
[28:36]And then it's kind of,
[28:37]the way I kind of select from that is what speaks to me.
[28:42]You know, if I'm personally dealing with an issue,
[28:45]I might be attracted to one woman's story over another.
[28:48]If something is really timely happening in our society
[28:51]and it really ties in with a particular woman's story,
[28:55]I might choose her.
[28:57]So each one of them, and sometimes I pick one
[28:59]and I don't know why, but as I'm reading it,
[29:00]I figure it out, right?
[29:01]You know, right?
[29:02]It's a way of processing our own sort of couples
[29:06]and humanity and sometimes it's by writing
[29:09]that I'm actually processing, you know, all that too.
[29:13]So sometimes I don't know until the end,
[29:15]but yeah, there's no shortage of women
[29:17]just a shortage of time.
[29:19]You know, what you should do in your spare time
[29:22]is do a children's book with all the women
[29:25]and have like a picture of the women
[29:27]and then say like issue that they're dealing with,
[29:30]like how it relates, like just what you were saying,
[29:32]like the issue they're grappling with, you know,
[29:35]how it relates to today.
[29:37]Okay, next project, I like that, right?
[29:40]I mean, I feel like, you know,
[29:41]my books are not certainly readers as young as middle schoolers
[29:45]could enjoy them.
[29:46]There's nothing to be scandalous or inappropriate in them,
[29:49]but they're often dealing with issues
[29:50]that might not be exciting for middle schoolers
[29:52]or maybe.
[29:54]That's right, but the core,
[29:56]but the core accomplishment and issue
[29:58]is one that they should know about.
[30:00]And, you know, I just didn't, I did two events in the past couple weeks.
[30:04]One was for a high school, specifically the biology department.
[30:07]I talked about Rosalyn Franklin, who I wrote about in her hidden genius, who discovered
[30:11]DNA and had that discovery taken from her by two men, Watson and Crickoo and the Nobel
[30:16]Prize.
[30:17]And at another school, I talked about a Carnegie's Made, which is a book I wrote that's
[30:21]really about Pittsburgh and Andrew Carnegie's philanthropy.
[30:26]And, you know, was it for, I was talking to younger readers, really close up in personal.
[30:31]And you're right, those stories do resonate, those histories do.
[30:36]Or maybe it's not a children's book, I'm going back on myself.
[30:39]Maybe it is more of like, but I still see this as like an illustrated book, but it could
[30:44]be called like, what would you do?
[30:46]And just like, pose it as a dilemma for the reader in each one.
[30:51]I like that.
[30:53]This spoken like a publisher looking at them, I know, but you're right.
[30:59]You know, having them look at it, because that's how I look at the women, right?
[31:03]As a lens through which we're dealing with an issue or a topic or, you know, recognition,
[31:09]which is so often taken from women.
[31:11]I love that.
[31:12]But it could also like for this book, it could be, you know, what would you do if two
[31:16]of your sisters were suddenly, you know, siding with the bad guys?
[31:24]What would you do?
[31:25]Would you tell?
[31:26]It could even be like quizzes.
[31:27]Would you tell, you know, like, would you be, I don't know.
[31:29]I don't know.
[31:30]It's, it's just like an interesting way, like, you know, you're right.
[31:35]Like that, um, those books, I love them when we were growing up.
[31:38]You had choose your own adventure called, but choose your own adventure.
[31:41]Yeah.
[31:42]As you choose, you can see the way historical events fall one way or the other.
[31:48]Yeah.
[31:49]You really get to see the implication of decisions.
[31:53]Yeah.
[31:54]Of that.
[31:55]Right?
[31:56]It could be.
[31:57]Oh, you can open up a whole pandemic.
[31:58]I love it.
[31:59]Love that.
[32:00]Okay.
[32:01]Well, you go work on that.
[32:02]I'm going to go back to my life.
[32:03]You know, now there's nothing with this huge new idea.
[32:07]Thank you.
[32:08]I didn't expect that today.
[32:10]Thank you.
[32:12]I thank you so much for, for reading the myth for a fair, for chatting with me about
[32:17]it.
[32:18]And for doing all you do.
[32:19]No, it's good.
[32:20]I really learned a lot.
[32:21]And I found it, I found it so interesting.
[32:23]I love learning and it was great.
[32:25]So thank you.
[32:27]Okay.
[32:28]All right.
[32:29]You enjoy your holidays and enjoy that.
[32:31]My pleasure.
[32:32]So, okay.
[32:33]Yeah.
[32:34]We'll see if that happens.
[32:35]Okay.
[32:36]Bye.
[32:37]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[32:41]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[32:46]Books.
[32:47]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[32:51]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[32:53]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[32:55]In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[32:57]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.