Katya Apekina, MOTHER DOLL
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens and I am the host of this podcast, Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
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[0:31]Katya Appakina is the author of Mother Doll, a novel. Katya is a novelist, screenwriter, and translator.
[0:37]Her novel, The Deep Where the Water, The Ugly or the Fish, was named a best book of 2018 by Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Lidhove, and others.
[0:43]It was a finalist for the LA Times book prize and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan.
[0:47]French, German, and Italian. She has published stories in various literary magazines
[0:51]and translated poetry and prose for night wraps the sky, writings by and about Mayakovsky.
[0:56]Shortlisted for the best translated book award.
[0:58]She co-wrote the screenplay for The Future Fell in New Orleans, Monomor, which premiered it
[1:02]south by southwest in 2008. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Grant
[1:06]and Olin Fellowship, the Elena Wilson Prize, and a third-year fiction fellowship from
[1:10]Washington University in St. Louis, where she did her MFA.
[1:13]She has done residencies at VCCA, Playa, Euchras, Art, Omee, Writing, and Foundation,
[1:18]Jan, McCloskey, and Switzerland. Born in Moscow, she grew up in Boston
[1:22]and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and doc.
[1:25]Welcome, Katya. Thank you so much for coming on Moms.
[1:28]Don't have time to read books, to discuss Mother doll a novel.
[1:32]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:34]Listeners, Katya is in LA right now, and it is five in the morning,
[1:39]and she is still doing this podcast.
[1:41]So for everybody out there, even like in your cars or wherever you are,
[1:45]just like stop and applaud that Katya got up so early for this.
[1:50]Go follow her on Instagram and read her book and do all the things,
[1:55]because this is like true dedication.
[1:58]Thank you so much. It's really exciting to be here.
[2:02]Okay, so Mother doll, please tell listeners what your book is about.
[2:08]So my book is about this woman, Jaina, who is in her early 20s,
[2:13]living in Los Angeles. She's pregnant.
[2:15]She's in a relationship. She sort of sleep walked into.
[2:19]And then she gets a strange phone call from a medium,
[2:22]who's channeling her dead great grandmother,
[2:27]who had been a Russian revolutionary,
[2:30]and who had abandoned her grandmother in Russia,
[2:34]well, in the Soviet Union by then.
[2:37]And she is in the sort of purgatory place,
[2:40]and she's hoping that by confessing, you know,
[2:43]these things that had happened,
[2:45]she will be able to sort of become dissolved.
[2:48]She lives in this kind of cloud of ancestral grief.
[2:52]And Jaina is kind of reluctant to like receive all of the story,
[2:58]but at the same time in the process of hearing about the story,
[3:04]or the sort of like ancestral trauma and really understanding it,
[3:08]she's able to change her life and become like more of a realized adult.
[3:13]Amazing. Your voice in the book is so great.
[3:17]I was like, it's funny, but like, it's like dark humor,
[3:22]but relatable, and the way you write about sex is like so funny.
[3:27]It times where it just inevitably starts happening in your story.
[3:33]And they're like, all these things, you're like, and then, you know, these characters are messy.
[3:38]So there's a lot of, it's amazing.
[3:41]Her relationship with Ben, who at the beginning,
[3:45]she's in this sort of relationship.
[3:47]You also describe it in such a funny way that like,
[3:50]their lives sort of evolved in parallel as they moved to LA and tried to make it.
[3:54]And then a few years later, okay, fine, they just like got married.
[3:58]Yeah, it's not the most romantic exciting relationship.
[4:02]You know, they're very young too.
[4:05]So I feel like it's not that it was necessarily a bad relationship,
[4:09]but it was like a very young relationship.
[4:11]So you start early on with abortion,
[4:14]which can be a hot button issue,
[4:16]but you do talk about it and how it feels at different points in life,
[4:20]even though it's still the same cells,
[4:22]which I found very interesting,
[4:24]how you feel about it at different points can be really different.
[4:27]Can you just like speak to that?
[4:29]Yeah, so she is pregnant by accident.
[4:34]Her husband had had a vasectomy.
[4:36]So they weren't planning on it.
[4:38]She had had an abortion in high school,
[4:41]and it had not been like this traumatic events,
[4:43]nor had it been like something she'd really like thought about much,
[4:47]which I thought was important to portray because I feel like often abortion is shown as just this like,
[4:53]that's supposed to be so traumatic that people just like think about constantly,
[4:59]you know, and that wasn't her relationship to it at the time or later,
[5:03]but then when she's pregnant this time,
[5:05]she just feels like that's not an option for her,
[5:09]even though it definitely is going to blow up her life,
[5:13]you know, because her husband does not want a child,
[5:16]and she says like it's messed up to force a person to have a child
[5:21]that doesn't want one, and at the same time,
[5:24]she just doesn't see at this point in her life that it's an option at all.
[5:29]She is already thinking about this cluster of cells as a baby,
[5:35]and that shift in the way she's thinking about it just makes her,
[5:40]you know, willing to blow up her life.
[5:43]And also I think she's a person who's like constantly on the verge of wanting to blow up her life.
[5:48]So I think it works out ultimately.
[5:51]There's so many things I want to get to,
[5:54]but the relationship she has with her grandmother,
[5:56]who by the point when the book starts is sort of non-responsive,
[5:59]but they're so close that she wants to tell all her news to her anyway,
[6:03]because maybe she can hear.
[6:04]But then you get a lot of flashbacks to her relationship with her grandmother,
[6:08]and how that is so meaningful to her,
[6:10]and then of course her whole matrilineal lineage is involved in the story
[6:14]as we go back and learn much more,
[6:16]but that special bond between the two of them,
[6:19]and how it almost leaves out her mom in a way, right?
[6:22]Because of what they have.
[6:24]Tell me a little more about that,
[6:26]and your own relationship maybe with your grandmother,
[6:29]or where I know that you mentioned in the back a lot of this,
[6:31]and you did a ton of research,
[6:32]and I'll tell the history and your own family history and all that,
[6:36]but I don't know.
[6:37]Tell me about that special relationship.
[6:39]Yeah, so she immigrated to the US from Russia with her grandmother and her mother,
[6:45]and her mother, and she did not know her dad at all.
[6:48]And her grandmother was like,
[6:51]this nurturing, loving presence,
[6:54]and she sort of like took over that role,
[6:58]that maternal role,
[7:00]and there wasn't really space for her mother
[7:02]to eat in their relationship.
[7:05]And her grandmother was a really warm and wonderful grandmother,
[7:09]but as a mother, she had been, you know,
[7:12]really, she had gone through a lot of trauma,
[7:15]and she was not like a loving mother to my demon,
[7:19]to Jane's mom.
[7:21]And then she was sort of able to be that person for her granddaughter
[7:25]in a way that she hadn't been able to be that way for her mom.
[7:29]And it's interesting too,
[7:30]because when Jane has her kid,
[7:32]her mom is like, really wants to step into that role of grandmother too.
[7:37]And Russia was really common for people to have kids really young,
[7:41]or grandparents to either and like raise their kids.
[7:46]And I grew up when I came to the U.S. I came with my mom
[7:50]and her parents, and my dad came later.
[7:53]And so, yeah, I had a very close relationship
[7:56]with my grandmother and my grandfather.
[7:59]And then when my, after my dad came,
[8:01]his parents came over.
[8:03]And my paternal grandmother,
[8:05]and I were pretty close.
[8:06]And after she died, she left me these memoirs
[8:10]that she'd written about her own traumatic history.
[8:14]She had, her family had been killed during World War II.
[8:19]She basically escaped on foot.
[8:23]And she was coming from Poland.
[8:25]She basically walked and then was on a train through Russia.
[8:30]And she had nobody.
[8:32]It was really like just such a horrific story.
[8:36]So yeah, she left me these memoirs,
[8:38]which was such a gift.
[8:39]And I started translating them so that my daughter would one day be able to read them.
[8:43]And it was so interesting because in the process of translating them,
[8:47]I felt like I was having a conversation with her.
[8:50]And in some ways that conversation was actually a lot more honest.
[8:54]And I think the kind of conversation I could have had with her when she was alive.
[8:58]Partly because I had been much younger.
[9:00]And there was like, you know, there's like just some cultural barriers.
[9:04]Or I felt like I couldn't be like I couldn't argue with her, you know, necessarily in real life.
[9:10]But I found myself on the page just like arguing with her.
[9:13]And then it was also really interesting that like even though she was not a writer,
[9:18]there were so many like details or the kinds of things she would notice in her memoir.
[9:24]That are like exactly the kinds of things that I noticed and write about.
[9:29]And that I think like are funny, you know, their details where like things that are just not particular that are like pretty innocuous,
[9:37]suddenly feel like full of danger in this way for me.
[9:41]Or things that just feel so weird and off kilter that are just like disorienting for me.
[9:47]And I like never really put it together until reading her memoirs that like where that was coming from.
[9:54]You know, this like kind of sense of being like hyper vigilant that has made it.
[10:00]it's way into my life. Of course it comes from this ancestral trauma that was passed down to me
[10:06]from my relatives who, you know, had been through a lot, like even just living in the Soviet Union
[10:12]in a totalitarian country just is very stressful and creates a lot of issues for people, I guess.
[10:19]Yeah, but then, you know, their grandchildren can then like work out through novels and therapy.
[10:27]Interesting. Well, now it kind of makes sense that you had Genia, as I pronounce it,
[10:32]literally like receiving these transcripts through this medium poll, which is such an interesting way
[10:38]that you decided to do that. I mean, you could have done this in so many ways, like just from
[10:42]the writing standpoint to try to communicate a grandmother's story and the impact through history.
[10:47]But you chose to do it through this funny medium who she's like, why am I even on the phone with
[10:53]them? And to the point where, you know, at some point her grandmother is like literally inside her,
[10:59]which was such a moving part of the book, by the way, when she's really going into the worst
[11:04]parts of what happened to her from the inside. And you said she feels like all what do you say like
[11:09]ashy or like, I can't, it felt like so burnt. Almost what was happening? Oh my gosh. Anyway,
[11:15]so you have these like moving scenes where we're like in the trauma and then you have these
[11:19]like funny scenes of like motherhood with her friend Chloe and like, they're done. And like,
[11:23]you know, it's, but you also have this like Greek chorus where you're like, what is going on
[11:28]here? And so you realize your dead people, right? Like talking to each other and you're,
[11:33]anyway, where, where does it come from? How did you start on this structure and all of that?
[11:40]There's a lot of, yeah, different textures in the book with the medium shape. Like, I actually
[11:45]took medium shape classes during the pandemic and before. And that definitely inspired me. And
[11:51]I find the process of writing as and feels like you're channeling something, which seemed very
[11:57]similar to medium shape. Wait, you can become a medium, but you don't, like, can you develop
[12:04]those skills? I thought you were born with that ability or not. I don't know. I mean, I think
[12:09]there are definitely classes that can kind of teach you how to use those, how to tune into those
[12:16]skills that probably most people have, right? I don't know if like what I was experiencing through
[12:23]the classes was not, you know, I wasn't contacting the dead. It was more just like this kind of
[12:29]meta, like a deep meditation or a guided meditation. And a lot of the kind of spaces that I was
[12:36]kind of in when I was doing that ended up being represented in the book in the afterlife.
[12:42]The way I sort of described the afterlife is sort of the weird spaces I was in when I was
[12:47]doing these guided medium shift meditations. But I have been visited by, actually, really, by both
[12:56]my grandfathers, those are the people who have visited me in my dreams. And those felt like kind
[13:02]of context with the dead. But that's kind of, that wasn't through any sort of like me seeking them
[13:09]out. It just sort of had to happen where I just felt their presence in my dreams and it felt
[13:14]very, it felt like a visitor felt different than just a regular dream about them. But yeah,
[13:19]to be honest, I don't know how much I even believe in medium shape. And it was like really fun
[13:24]to kind of explore it. But during, during the writing of this book, my grandfather, who I was very
[13:31]passed away. And I felt myself like when I was doing these medium shift classes, it felt more like
[13:37]I was just really trying to contact him. You know, because I missed him. And it felt like my
[13:45]that desire was like, like I just felt like that kind of desperation that made it seem like,
[13:50]oh, I could totally see how I would just be gullible and just want it so badly that I would
[13:56]like believe anything that anyone kind of told me. And usually, you know, mediums are telling you,
[14:01]like this person wants the best for you and they forgive you and you can move on. You know, so
[14:08]it's not like there's something like really sinister about that. But it did kind of feel like,
[14:13]oh, I'm just sort of willing to believe anything because I missed someone and want to make
[14:19]contact, you know? And so it didn't feel great to be like in that space. It didn't feel like when I
[14:25]was doing it before the medium shift stuff felt more like kind of abstract and exciting.
[14:30]But when it became really concrete in this way, it just felt sort of, it just felt too sad,
[14:35]maybe. But yeah, so that's where the medium shift stuff came in. And I thought it was like really
[14:41]fun to have this external person involved in the retelling of this family history because it's
[14:49]like an outside perspective and it's fun to get that, you know? And then also it's funny because
[14:56]he doesn't speak Russian at first. And then goes, it's just like, like, so he's just like kind of
[15:02]speaking in tongues basically that then Jaina has to translate to like understand the story.
[15:08]So it just makes the story sort of like an nesting doll like the title of just these
[15:14]kind of stories within stories and stories. And then these sort of obfuscations or
[15:19]confusions that then like, you know, get sort of trends made from each generation. You know,
[15:26]there's like, you need to translate it. It's being channeled through another person. There's just
[15:31]all these sort of layers through the story being received, if that makes sense.
[15:37]Yeah. Wow. So what is your takeaway on the effects of family history, family trauma,
[15:46]knowing what came before you? Like, what do we do with that knowledge? Like, how does that effect?
[15:52]Like, now you understand more about why you see things a certain way. Now what? Like,
[15:56]because we all have our family histories circling around us, what we know, what we can imagine,
[16:02]the pain, the things, you know, all the stuff that is left unsaid that we will never know.
[16:07]Like, what do we do with all that? That's such a good question.
[16:13]In the book, there's like a very kind of cathartic release that is like,
[16:20]I don't want to give any spoilers, but like, I think there's something that really happens
[16:25]where Jania is able to sort of transmute all of that and heal it, you know. And I think that like,
[16:34]just knowing where a lot of these sort of traumas come from and just being aware of them and
[16:40]accepting them, like allows us to heal them and to move forward and to not be like acting
[16:47]unconsciously and not sort of realizing how we're reacting to things. You know, it was so interesting
[16:52]with my grandmother's memoirs. She had actually given them to me before she died, but I only
[16:59]started reading them after she died because, and I just kept thinking like, why, you know, I'm so curious.
[17:08]I was so curious about her story, but there was something in me that was like,
[17:12]oh, I can't, I can't do it. I can't do it. But then the night of her funeral, I started
[17:18]reading them and it was like such a gift to have them because, you know, you always regret not knowing
[17:23]more about your family. And then I sort of realized like, oh, I think that I had felt like if I read
[17:30]her story, it would be my problem sort of to take off. Like, I would have to carry it. But when I read
[17:36]it, it was like, oh, I've been carrying this. I just didn't know what it was that I was carrying.
[17:42]And when I was able to sort of understand what it was that I was carrying, I was really able to
[17:48]like, understand myself in a much deeper way. I don't know that I was able to like, transform
[17:52]or become a completely different person over night, reading her book, but I did find it really
[17:58]helpful. Well, I just love this notion of writing as mediumship as well. I mean, I always wonder,
[18:06]and I love all your attention in the book to souls because I think about souls so much, you know,
[18:11]not that I don't have the same habits of, you know, crossing myself so they don't escape or,
[18:16]you know, but there's a lot of discussion of souls. And I always think about that, especially
[18:21]with characters and all these books, you know, like sometimes the senses do. I'm like, who are all
[18:27]these characters? And I live in a room with books, you know, like, do they come out? Do they know
[18:30]each other? Like, I want to introduce some of them to each other? That's always been like,
[18:34]my dreams is like, oh, my gosh, well, that character would really get along with that character.
[18:38]But like, where do these characters come from that we, and how do we just invent people and
[18:43]do they exist in some plane and they're just coming in? Like, why do characters just like do things
[18:49]when we write? You know, that's why everyone's like, get in the chair because like, literally,
[18:52]you need to, you know, it's like putting your fingers on a Ouija board really at the keyboard.
[18:57]Yeah, absolutely. And you know, those just a very strange feeling that's hard to have
[19:01]to describe where when you get into the zone and you're just hearing your characters talking
[19:08]and you're just transcribing it. And it's not like something that happens automatically,
[19:13]you do need to get in the chair and show up and show up and show up. And then it starts happening.
[19:18]And then it stops happening. And then it starts like it's not like it's continuous.
[19:23]And like, where are they?
[19:25]Careful voices, come back, come back exactly. Yeah. With this book, it was so helpful. Like,
[19:32]I did a ton of research for that historical stuff that was set during the revolution.
[19:38]And because I was just reading so many like memoirs and oral histories and novels that were
[19:46]just set during that time that were written during that time, I was just really fully immersed
[19:51]in the research. And because of that, I was really able to just tap into that sort of
[19:57]channeling type of energy very easily.
[20:00]And so like all of those sections just would come out of me.
[20:03]It was really, it was really fun to be able to do that.
[20:07]I think like research can be hard in a novel
[20:10]because a lot of times, you know,
[20:12]I don't write normally like a ton of historical fiction.
[20:16]And so it's intimidating to write about something
[20:19]that you've never witnessed,
[20:20]that you've never been a place you've never been to,
[20:24]you know, I've been to some of these places
[20:27]that I haven't been there during the revolution, you know.
[20:30]So just writing about that stuff is, it feels like intimidating
[20:34]and like, oh, I don't have the authority,
[20:36]I'm not an expert on this.
[20:37]I'm just going to keep doing research forever and ever and ever.
[20:40]And that is what I did for like several years before I even started writing the book.
[20:44]But once, you know, once I started writing,
[20:48]it was really nice to have that research as sort of like a
[20:51]soupy sort of place to be in while I kind of was able to figure out
[20:56]who my characters were and tell the story.
[20:58]And how did you get your start as a writer?
[21:01]So I feel like people are always like,
[21:03]oh, I wanted to be like,
[21:04]like, since I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer.
[21:07]I hated writing as a kid.
[21:11]I wanted to be a photographer.
[21:13]And even in college, like I started off,
[21:15]I went to Columbia and I was doing like visual.
[21:18]I thought I was going to be doing photography.
[21:21]And then I just took a writing class in college as an undergrad
[21:25]because my friend shout out to Matt Grice,
[21:28]who lived next door to me freshman year,
[21:30]was like encouraged me to do it.
[21:32]And then I was like, oh, this is kind of like photography
[21:36]in the sense that I can like create these scenes.
[21:40]But I don't need any equipment.
[21:42]I don't need other people.
[21:44]I can just do it.
[21:45]I don't need to be like in a dark room full of like stinky chemicals.
[21:48]I can just sit at my computer and, you know,
[21:51]create this stuff in my head.
[21:53]And that just seemed easier.
[21:56]But then it wasn't really easier.
[21:57]Like once I kind of got into it.
[22:00]But that's where I started.
[22:01]And then I did an MFA like several years out of college
[22:05]at Washington in St. Louis.
[22:08]And that was just like such an amazing experience.
[22:10]It was such a nurturing program.
[22:13]And it was like really small program.
[22:15]There was five, it was a two year program
[22:18]with five fiction writers each year.
[22:20]So there was like 10 of us in the workshop.
[22:23]And we were just so, I stilled to this day in a workshop
[22:27]with people from that program.
[22:29]And we share, you know, we share our work.
[22:31]And it was just so nice.
[22:33]It was a funded program.
[22:34]So everybody was, you know, not having to worry about like working
[22:38]at the same time as being in school.
[22:40]And that was really nice.
[22:42]And yeah, everyone was just, they did a really good job
[22:46]picking people who were just like really, you know,
[22:49]aside from being really talented writers were also just like
[22:51]really kind to people who were really good editors
[22:54]for each other.
[22:55]And yeah, it was just a really nice experience.
[22:58]But then I didn't start writing my novel until actually
[23:01]after I graduated from that program.
[23:03]And that was such a different type of writing
[23:05]than writing short stories where like it's this ongoing thing.
[23:09]And sometimes showing that to other people
[23:12]before it's ready is like a little bit tricky.
[23:14]Like you have to just find like people who basically will read it
[23:18]and be like keep going, but not really give you too much feedback.
[23:22]It's a little deflating, you know, if it's too early in the process.
[23:26]So luckily from the program, there were like a few people who,
[23:29]we, you know, we've served that function for each other.
[23:32]And we read each other's very, very early drafts, you know,
[23:35]that aren't really ready for prime time.
[23:37]Yeah, that's really good advice to anybody who is an early reader for anyone else.
[23:42]You know, go easy.
[23:43]Just like, I just made a mistake of reading.
[23:47]I wrote like a thousand words of my next novel.
[23:50]And I read it to my son who is like the greatest reader,
[23:53]even though he's nine.
[23:54]Anyway, so I started reading it and he was like, mom,
[23:58]you need a strong lead.
[24:00]And I was like, I was like, you know what, you're right.
[24:03]And then I kept reading the first page.
[24:04]And he's like, why are you telling us all of this now?
[24:07]And I was like, you're right.
[24:08]I should say, well, that's really true.
[24:11]But then I was like, they're discouraged.
[24:13]I couldn't get back into it.
[24:14]So I was like, it's all a waste.
[24:16]That was all a waste of time.
[24:18]That whole like afternoon that I spent, you know,
[24:21]but of course, it's never really a waste because you can't get where you're going
[24:24]unless you write the first part.
[24:25]But still, of course, yeah.
[24:27]And I'm sure all of that information, even if it's not,
[24:30]it doesn't end up being beginning, will be in there, you know.
[24:33]Yeah, some way.
[24:35]I always have like a save for later doc.
[24:37]So I don't feel bad, right?
[24:39]Do you do that?
[24:39]Like, keep what you cut over here.
[24:42]I don't, I don't even know what I do.
[24:44]Yeah, I think, I mean, I was for a while using this program where you could,
[24:49]um, I think it's called Scribner where you can like put,
[24:52]you can kind of keep like a lot of different information in an organized fashion.
[24:58]So you can like be like, oh, this is where I'm going to have my descriptions of
[25:01]X or whatever.
[25:02]And it's like labeled.
[25:04]And it was very convenient, but I haven't used that in a while.
[25:08]That would probably, that would probably be better.
[25:10]I always have like four different docs.
[25:12]Like, my character is because I can never remember who,
[25:15]I'm like, what was her name?
[25:17]I don't know.
[25:18]Anyway, are you working on a new book now?
[25:20]I'm in like very, very early stages.
[25:23]Like definitely too early to really even be able to like talk coherently about it.
[25:28]But yeah, I usually start with like some research.
[25:32]And so I have that research.
[25:34]And I don't even, you know, I don't even know exactly what it's going to be,
[25:38]but I have just a sense like usually I can just kind of feel it.
[25:42]Basically, like am I going in the right direction?
[25:45]Like, does this seem exciting?
[25:46]And so when I'm working on it, I'm like, when I was working on it, which is like several
[25:52]months ago, I was like starting to get somewhere.
[25:55]But it is hard.
[25:56]It's like you have to like a snowball or something.
[25:58]Like you need to get to like a certain point before it feels like it won't just like
[26:04]disappear from your head completely if you step away from it.
[26:08]So yes, it definitely can.
[26:10]And yeah, I'm not, but I'm definitely not at that point yet.
[26:14]But I will be sure when I am not to be to see your children.
[26:19]Yeah, don't read it to myself.
[26:20]No, I'll get better.
[26:22]You know, I have to train it.
[26:23]I'll play him this part of the thing and explain
[26:28]my dad needs 10.
[26:29]And she's also very honest, which I appreciate.
[26:33]Yeah, it's good to get the brutal feedback.
[26:37]I mean, I'm from like a critical Russian family.
[26:42]So I grew up on a lot of brutal feedback.
[26:44]Yeah, I'm from a Jewish family and nobody holds back at all.
[26:48]Yeah, especially my grandmother who really connected me to my both my grandmothers, honestly.
[26:55]Okay.
[26:55]What advice do you have to aspiring authors?
[26:59]No, I guess to keep going, I feel it's like the best advice really.
[27:04]I think there's a lot of rejection that happens when you're writing and you can't really,
[27:09]or when you're trying to publish stuff and you just can't take it to personally.
[27:14]And if you know that like all the writers that you love,
[27:17]we're rejected many, many, many, many times.
[27:20]And that it's not a reflection of quality necessarily at all.
[27:26]I think that can be really encouraging because I do feel like I have a lot of friends
[27:31]from, you know, from college, from grad school, who are really, really talented writers,
[27:36]but they stopped writing, you know, and I think that like a lot of it just is about persistence
[27:44]and you definitely just improve through just doing it over and over and over and over again.
[27:49]So I think that's probably the best advice.
[27:51]And I guess you screwed me up, you need to work it through.
[27:54]Yeah.
[27:54]I've heard about, I've heard others talk about it before in Scrivenor, but I didn't realize
[28:01]that it had that capability.
[28:02]All right, maybe I'll figure out how to use it.
[28:04]And this cover, which is so cool and the title, just two seconds on that.
[28:08]Was this always the title?
[28:10]Did you have input on the cover?
[28:11]Did you always see it as sort of a Russian doll, you know, the thing?
[28:15]You know, the title originally was like something, I don't even remember, but it was much worse.
[28:20]My agent came up with the title and when he said it, I was like, yes, that's it.
[28:25]It's perfect because the story is like a nesting doll of the generation of women.
[28:33]And it's all about mothers, you know?
[28:36]So I like that it wasn't like Russian doll or nesting doll.
[28:40]I like that it was mother doll.
[28:41]It was kind of like a little different take on that because, you know, also you think of like,
[28:46]baby dolls.
[28:47]So this was just like that, you know, there's something about that.
[28:50]So when you said, because we were kind of going through like potential titles and that one was just
[28:55]great.
[28:56]And the cover is just, yeah, the only input I had on the cover was I was like, oh, what if we added
[29:01]like a word collage element to the tears, which, and I think that looks, it looks really good.
[29:08]Yeah, it's so funny, right?
[29:09]When your book gets like a face and suddenly you're just like, that's my book.
[29:14]Yeah, I'm really happy with and I guess literally my book has a face on it.
[29:18]So yeah, well, it's it's so original and the voice is so great.
[29:24]And it's so creative.
[29:25]It's just really awesome.
[29:28]Very cool.
[29:29]Very cool book.
[29:29]Thank you so much.
[29:30]Congratulations.
[29:31]Really enjoyed it.
[29:31]Thank you.
[29:32]Thank you so much.
[29:33]Okay.
[29:33]And thank you again for joining so early in the morning.
[29:36]I am so sorry.
[29:37]So so sorry.
[29:40]Thank you.
[29:40]This is great.
[29:41]Okay.
[29:42]Awesome.
[29:43]Thanks.
[29:44]All right.
[29:45]Good luck on your trip.
[29:46]Thank you so much.
[29:47]Okay.
[29:48]All right.
[29:51]Bye bye.
[29:52]Thanks for listening.
[29:53]Two moms don't have time to read books.
[29:54]If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at city Owens and at city
[29:59]readers.