NYT bestselling author! Attica Locke, GUIDE ME HOME

2024-09-05 · 26:42 · Attica Locke · Podcast Audio

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[0:42]At a collock is the author of Guide Me Home, a Highway 59 novel.

[0:46]She is a New York Times bestselling author of six novels, including Heaven, My Home, sequel to the Edgar Award-winning Bluebird Bluebird, Pleasantville,

[0:54]winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and Longlisted for the Bailey's Prize for Women's Fiction,

[0:59]the cutting season, winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and her debut Blackwater Rising,

[1:05]which was nominated for an Edgar Award, an NAACP Award, as well as the Los Angeles Times Book Prize,

[1:11]and was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, a former fellow at the Sundance Institute's Feature Filmmakers Lab,

[1:17]Attica is also a screenwriter and TV producer with credits that include Empire,

[1:22]when they see us in the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere for which she won an NAACP

[1:28]Image Award for Television Writing. She co-created an executive produced an adaptation

[1:33]of her sister, Tempe Locks memoir from scratch, a memoir of love Sicily and finding home for Netflix,

[1:39]which was a top 10 hit in 50 countries during its first weeks on air.

[1:43]In native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband and daughter.

[1:49]Welcome, Attica. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss

[1:54]guide me home. I weigh 59 novel. Congrats. It will make out. Thank you so much for having me.

[2:00]Oh, it's my pleasure. Okay, tell everybody about guide me home, but also give a little back story,

[2:05]and this is the third book in the series about Darren Matthews and everything. So give a little back

[2:11]story on Darren and why it's such a big deal that his mom is coming back. I mean, this is a huge deal.

[2:18]The uninvited mom who hasn't had that happen. Oh my god. Yes. I started this book series

[2:25]where I wanted to do crime stories along Highway 59 in East Texas because all of my people are

[2:31]from around these little towns up and down this highway. And I thought, wow, every book would

[2:36]be a new town, a new crime. And I decided that the main character would be a Black Texas Ranger

[2:43]who's actually quite ambivalent about the power that he holds. And I thought that that was interesting

[2:48]and that made him an interesting character to write. It made it easier for me to write a police officer

[2:55]because he's so conflicted. And he does have a very crazy mom, is at the beginning of guide me

[3:03]home. And I invite everyone to read the first two books in the series, Bluebird, Bluebird,

[3:08]and and heaven my home to find out about his mother, Black mailing him. She is in possession

[3:14]of a weapon that is connected to a crime that could get him in very big trouble. And she is a mom

[3:20]who is Black mailing both for a case of beer. Could you clean out my gutters? But also like

[3:27]Black mailing for love. Like Black mailing for pay attention to me. Like I'm just going to demand

[3:34]that my son pays attention to me. And it's just an interesting psychological dynamic. And she is

[3:39]so much fun to write. And so in guide me home, it all comes to a head between son and mom.

[3:47]This is like the book to give someone a mother's day to be like, you don't actually have

[3:52]it that bad. It's totally fine. But at least speaking of that, I remember when I made my daughter

[4:00]watch mommy dearest. I was like, let me show you a mom who's out there.

[4:09]Yeah, we got we need some context here, you know, context and contrast. Well, this book opens with

[4:17]a scene of a young boy coming back to a spot in the woods and finding a t-shirt of a girl he had

[4:25]previously thought was kind of giving him the cold shoulder. I'm sure there's a more current

[4:29]expression for that, but blowing him off or whatever. And worrying that his discovery of it

[4:35]would be, would implicate him in some way and deciding not to share this. So immediately we're like

[4:41]gripped and like, oh no, this is a bad decision on like page one. What next? And then we get to go into

[4:48]to Darren's life and find out more about him and how everything is going to intersect. So tell me a

[4:54]a little bit about when you tell stories and write stories, either books or screen or whatever,

[4:59]how you pull in a reader right away, like any tricks of the trade and how you came up with

[5:07]all the characters in this story to surround him. I made a rule for myself about this trilogy

[5:13]that if it was going to be so steeped in these texts that he would always open in a pastoral setting.

[5:20]So each of the three books opens outdoors and in some very Texasy place either, you know,

[5:26]long a highway or on a lake. And this is in the middle of these East Texas woods. And I love

[5:34]when regular people make a bad decision. I mean, I think we've all been

[5:40]confronted with situations where you ask yourself what would I do in this situation? And if I

[5:48]came upon, if I worry person that that character, these speak of this young boys, let's, you know,

[5:53]he is not, he does not have papers to be in the States. If I stumbled upon an article

[5:59]closing that had blood on it, I don't know that I would just walk that to the police. But then

[6:05]I touched it. So what in the world do I do with it? I'll just take it with me, which is not a good

[6:11]idea. But I also understand it. So I love situations where like regular people stumble upon an

[6:19]extraordinary situation that has a kind of danger to it. And then what do they do? The opening of my

[6:25]first book Blackwater Rising takes place on a boat. And it's a story that happened to our family

[6:30]about a woman who was screaming for help in the in the darkness and we heard gunshots. And we didn't

[6:35]know what to do. And we also really didn't do anything. We called the police. We were like, I don't

[6:39]want to get involved. But you know, you just think about what happens when you stumble upon,

[6:44]you know, a person by the side of the road that's getting their tire change. Do you help,

[6:49]or is there something about the situation that could be a set up? I'm just fascinated by all

[6:53]these kinds of things. And I think, I think women are, I think we're always scared about safety

[6:58]when thinking about situations like that. And so for me, openings like that suck you in. And

[7:04]hopefully I'm writing prose in such a way that makes you feel like you're being transported.

[7:10]If you've never been to the East Texas woods, maybe you get the sink in and feel like,

[7:14]oh, I'm some place new. So that's kind of the hope too. Well, I feel like I definitely got a dose of

[7:20]Texas food. You must be a total food. I feel like every other page was it or like you were

[7:24]really hungry writing the book or so. Because like, there's food everywhere. And it all sounds

[7:28]so good and sizzling. And like, you know, even how you describe, I don't know, mushrooms at

[7:33]every word. I was like, oh, that's a good choice of word. Oh, interesting. You know, it's so

[7:37]food immersive. Thank you for that. In fact, I'm not really a foodie. My sister is the foodie and

[7:43]the family. But writing about food is really fun. It's, it just taps into being able to write

[7:50]about something very sensual. And again, I really want people to feel the East Texas of it. And

[7:56]so that's, you know, one of those big markers of culture, those music, those food, you know,

[8:00]those are things that are really important to me. And what about when you plotted out the whole

[8:05]story? Do you have it from the outset? Do you, did you wait? Like, no, you just,

[8:11]no, I basically just go. Okay. And then I get about 50 pages in and I go, whoa, I don't really

[8:22]know what I'm doing. But I need that just like blue sky to just like start. Then I, then I plot

[8:28]like the next little chunk. And then I'll write that. And then I'll plot the next little chunk.

[8:34]I almost never see it all the way to the end. And part of this I almost don't want to,

[8:39]because there's kind of fun in the discovery. It means that I sometimes have to circle back and

[8:45]redo things at the beginning. But that's a better process for me because it just has more discovery

[8:51]in it. So I almost never, I mean, I kind of knew and I don't want to give anything away,

[8:56]but I kind of knew in this book, who the big bad was I just didn't know how I was going to get there.

[9:04]Interesting. So how did you become interested in writing both? And you do lots of

[9:10]lots of different types of writing. So how did you, and I mean, your sister, what was going on in

[9:16]the house that you both ended up being, oh, there's, how do I put it in my house for wagons? And

[9:21]just tell me about how you got into this professionally and how, yeah, just how did it start?

[9:28]I will say, you know, from a mom point of view, I can say we were very lucky that we had parents

[9:34]who said yes, who just didn't, their immediate thing wasn't know. And I feel like our parents and

[9:42]I will say specifically, my grandmother summers with her any sexist, she just let us play

[9:49]with no parameters. She would let us literally reorient her entire living room if we felt like it

[9:56]because we wanted to play in a certain way. And as long as we put it back,

[10:00]she just went go ahead guys and I think because we had people looked at our play and gave it space

[10:07]and kind of showed it respect that I think it allowed us to find our ways you know first Timbi as

[10:12]an actor then Timbi as an author then me as an author and TV Purdue like it allowed us to find these

[10:19]spaces and I started writing when I was a little girl not really getting that it was anything

[10:25]other than something fun to do I it's funny we're not funny I want to say a moment to say

[10:30]that her name is for a sprint scene pass quail oh yeah that's why I passed away and they were talking

[10:36]about that I'm in PR yesterday and I was with my daughter and I was remembering that when I was in

[10:41]middle school I got it in my head that I could write my own series of books and like pass them

[10:46]around in the halls at middle school and I never got past writing one little short story but

[10:51]I just was fascinated by the fun of like making stuff up and a lot of my early stories you

[10:58]would love stories and just things like that and I just I at a very early age realized that

[11:06]there is great pleasure in spending time alone with yourself and in and alone with your own mind

[11:12]and I've been kind of seeking that in a lot of ways ever since interesting well my mother would

[11:19]definitely not let us rearrange her furniture let me just put it that way

[11:25]so in terms of having a grandmother who let the kids do that I don't know we're going to strike

[11:28]out there but we'll find other ways okay so writing then how did you get into screen writing and

[11:35]I've read interviews with you or you say you know they're so totally different one is interior

[11:40]one is like with the group of people and it's a totally different you know apples and oranges

[11:44]talk about that and and the skill sets you know start going back and forth do you like the dichotomy

[11:50]of it I think I probably couldn't do one without the other meaning they're so I thought I was

[11:58]going to be a movie director I thought I was going to be you know I saw it in a wine buddy let

[12:05]me see this movie in high school but I saw she's got to have it when I was more in high school

[12:09]when I was like wait what I was the first time I was seeing not only just black people on screen

[12:15]but a black creator doing this kind of indie aesthetic and I was like I want to do all of that

[12:21]and so my plan and I went to Northwestern to be a film director I was a film student

[12:27]came out of that within a few years of graduating I did the Sundance Labs to be a movie director

[12:32]and for me writing was just how can I get a camera like writing was I'm going to write the thing

[12:37]I'm going to shoot and that will give me you know my full voice and then it just really didn't

[12:43]work out it just it just didn't work out I I was probably it's not fair to say it's giving me

[12:53]way too much credit to say ahead of my time but all the things that we see with great movies like

[12:58]Ryan Kugler doing Fruitvale station or you think of Barry Jenkins and Moonlight all of these

[13:03]indie rich black films this was 20 years before that and and basically when the studio that I was

[13:11]working with was trying to raise foreign financing they had a very old narrative in mind that

[13:16]that that foreign financiers don't care about black American life and so we're not going to be

[13:22]able to raise my and what's funny is that my first movie I went to the Sundance Labs with a story

[13:28]that was a sketch of what became bluebird bluebird talk about full circle kind of crazy thing

[13:34]so when my movie deal fell apart I was a child I was like 24 I just I was like I don't know what

[13:40]it's happening I am or I was broke I was newly married at 24 he was about to go to law school

[13:47]my husband same husband is now he has been here we've been together for a billion years and

[13:53]we were broken I just knew I could write so I thought well I'll be a screenwriter for

[13:57]hire out that's what I'll do because I don't think Hollywood is interested in my stories but I

[14:02]can make a living doing this and I did that successfully for a very long time it's success means

[14:07]money and unfortunately unfortunately for me money is not enough of a day of a goal so that even

[14:14]though I was working all the time I felt so empty inside that I nothing was ever getting made

[14:20]and I thought wait I made this trade off right no reason and that's when I said I'm walking away

[14:25]from Hollywood I don't want to do this anymore and I decided to write a book and I just walked away

[14:31]and and turn my light over to publishing thinking I was never going back to Hollywood ever again

[14:36]and then I did because television became so incredibly rich television became the space

[14:44]where all of this deep character work and interesting sociopolitical commenting women characters

[14:51]that are where so all of it was moving to television and then I was like hello can I come back

[14:56]I want to get I want to back in and so what's great about the two things is nothing will be

[15:04]the interiority of writing a novel I liken it in some ways to training for a marathon you know

[15:10]you're just really only in competition with yourself you're in conversation with yourself

[15:17]no one's asking you to do no he gives a shit excuse my language if you run a marathon or not

[15:22]and nobody cares if you write a book you know but but you're doing it because something's pushing

[15:26]you inside to do it where's then there's this other thing and I'm not a sports person so maybe

[15:31]this is a horrible analogy but then there's like being on a basketball team where you're also

[15:36]or soccer's probably better because you're also running a lot you're running a lot but you're

[15:39]also then passing the ball and you're reading cues from other people and like they're both these

[15:45]valid experiences but they give you different things one gives you this kind of deep quiet

[15:51]soul fulfillment one makes you believe and you had it it like one makes you believe in how cool it

[15:57]is that we have like we get a shared like group think brain and I've called writing and working

[16:03]in television symphonic where you have this feeling of like oh the camera department is bringing

[16:10]the horns and then costume is just they've got a percussion thing going oh and then wait a minute

[16:16]the actors over here doing something really interesting with the flu and somehow you've made this

[16:22]beautiful thing that literally could not exist if it wasn't all of these people and when it's

[16:27]when it's doing that it's kind of amazing to watch and it is a kind of beautiful thing about

[16:33]people coming together I am in a gregarious introvert so sometimes I will be honest and exhaust me

[16:40]where I'm like oh that's a lot of talking to people but then other times when my people are

[16:44]so cool aren't we cool like we work together so I just think the balance of the two things is

[16:49]great and in terms of skill set I think both novels and being a showrunner require you to be able

[16:58]to hold a lot of plot scaffolding and I think each has helped me do the other being a novelist

[17:04]and having to hold an entire book or book series means that I can hold eight episodes in my

[17:10]head and know that a choice that we're making on set in episode three how it's going to affect

[17:15]episode seven and then in writing this last book which I finished it after having done from scratch

[17:22]you know what really changed the way that I write having gone through post-production and editing

[17:28]and realizing oh you could take this a great passage isn't long there what if you have to hear

[17:34]what would that and like just I wrote much more linearly I put so much more permission to play

[17:40]as if I were moving blocks around which is the thing that you end up doing in post-production

[17:45]so that I'm very grateful to have had that post-production experience because it did affect now

[17:50]how I look at pros and how and I know other pros writers have always acted like that have

[17:56]always written that way but not me so that was a new thing for me that was really kind of cool

[18:01]that I could see my brain could do that because of this other experience that I'd had

[18:05]that is that is super cool oh my gosh so you said a minute ago you know screenwriting being

[18:10]screenwriting for hire you didn't feel successful do you feel successful now yes I do feel

[18:17]successful and it's it sneaks up on me though because sometimes I'm very much what's happening

[18:23]right now so I would almost have forget that I wrote it such as such a book or not that I forget

[18:30]that I did from scratch because it changed my life but sometimes people come up like oh my god that

[18:34]really I'm like oh you watch that like it's like it's like I completely forgot oh yeah that's

[18:41]still on Netflix people are still like experiencing it so I'm normally just going through my

[18:46]life doing my thing and everything now and then I'll realize the success is the feeling that oh

[18:52]what did actually matter it actually touched somebody so that's the thing that sneaks up on me

[18:58]and is so fulfilling is to realize oh because I've always believed when I'm reading a book

[19:04]or I'm watching a TV show that it has made me feel closer to other people or is maybe

[19:10]understand the world in a different way oh I'm doing that for other people too so that is a

[19:15]feeling of success when that happens yeah I mean I think you're successful so there's that

[19:21]or what it's worth I think it's just like when you're like in your normal life

[19:27]thinking a mom or you're just like getting groceries or you're making your little yogurt but you're

[19:32]still thinking about anything but like being just alive and normal and just I literally will forget

[19:39]sometimes that I didn't just write books in a vacuum but they're being consumed and I'll get an

[19:46]email from someone saying something nice and I'll be oh yeah that's right people actually read it

[19:50]that's cool oh that's the best when you said from scratch totally changed your life elaborate

[19:57]oh my word roll it was the hardest thing I've ever

[20:00]not an ever. I had to learn and stretch myself so much. I had to learn about trust. I had

[20:07]to learn about standing in my power, how and when to use the word no. I learned about what I

[20:14]call elegant conflict or respectful conflict that when you gather and work with people that you

[20:22]really respect and trust, it's actually a good thing if you disagree. Like you're going to make

[20:29]the work better and it took me a while to realize, you know, I think as women or I'll just say

[20:34]for me, I wouldn't consider myself a conflict diverse person, but I get a little anxious like,

[20:39]why aren't we agreeing? Oh, no, why aren't we agreeing? And I got deep into production before I

[20:44]realized, oh, not agreeing is making this show better because then that person had an idea that I

[20:50]I was like, no, but then I'll go, oh, actually, yeah, or then that would happen when I had an idea

[20:55]that someone would say no to you and they'd go, wait a minute. Yeah. And then or you disagree,

[21:00]you do four different takes in an editing. You realize, oh, thank God we had all these takes because

[21:06]now I can piece them together and tell this story with a great kind of level to it that I maybe

[21:12]wouldn't have done if we'd only done it one way. Like I really learned that and of course,

[21:17]I was blessed in that situation. Obviously to work with my sister, but I was surrounded by women.

[21:22]Our director was a woman, our producers were women. We had one male producer who rolled with us

[21:28]and just let us take the lead with our very female energy, but it meant that we can all disagree

[21:35]and still get in the van on the way home from setting laugh and hug and do all these things.

[21:40]And that was a real revelation to me and a reminder that going forward in my life, I hope

[21:46]that I do consistently surround myself with people I trust and that it's okay to disagree

[21:52]if we're doing it with great respect. So that was just the real and from scratch, what kind of

[21:58]magical quality. It just, it just, the idea that I just happened to bring it up one day

[22:04]to Reese Witherspoon's company and they read the book was like, yeah, it's just all so

[22:10]serendipitous. And it also taught me this thing that Timby says all the time. You know, we had such

[22:17]a magical experience where we'd be like, why is this happening? When he gets the woman who's playing

[22:23]Lino's mom, how is she best friends with Timby's late husband's childhood friend? Like,

[22:28]you know, is this happening to them? And Timby at one point said, why don't we stop asking why?

[22:33]Because I don't think we'll ever really know why. Instead, let's just say thank you.

[22:37]No. And if you came this way of going through life of thinking, I don't know why sometimes,

[22:44]but I can just say thank you. I'm really glad that this is happening.

[22:47]I can say goosebumps actually. I love that. My, as you know, my sister's a very

[22:53]exceptional person and has a wonderful, very deep way of looking at the world. And I feel very

[23:00]blessed that I get to do a part of my artistic life with her. It's a real blessing.

[23:06]That's awesome. It's so wonderful. And so what, what next? Not that you have to have anything

[23:11]next, but I'm sure you have a million iron, iron's in the fire. Well, we are trying to do more

[23:16]wonderful things together. We have this producing and writing deal at Universal Television.

[23:21]We are now adapting one of my books, which is the, the, the bluebird blooper, which is the first

[23:26]in this guide me home series. We are now adapting and figuring out how to make this character,

[23:32]this Texas Ranger Live on screen. And that's like a reversal of what we were doing before when

[23:37]it was her book. So that's fun. And we've got another, we've got a couple of other book adaptations.

[23:42]One, one about a family that inherits that actually siblings that inherit a vineyard in Napa.

[23:48]And it's like kind of a soapy family drama. There's something that was just announced where we're

[23:52]going to try to adapt a book that's about the twin sounds of blues and country with a black woman

[23:59]at the center, who's maybe starting a life as a, as a black country artist. So we're just playing

[24:05]around with lots of things and are being, you know, just having fun, just trying to have fun.

[24:10]And, you know, I'm, I'm of course thinking of my next book and figure out how that's going to

[24:15]fit in with all these other wonderful things I have going. And I think what's so interesting is my

[24:20]husband said, how funny that your daughter, our daughter's going off to college and you wrote a

[24:26]a college student that goes missing. Are you trying to express some kind of fear? And I was like,

[24:31]I haven't even thought of that. Wow. And I haven't thought about another book that has to do

[24:36]in college. And I probably am some part. I don't even know if I'll write it, but it's on my mind.

[24:41]And I think part of it has to do with me working through this big shift that's happening,

[24:46]which is my kid leaving home. Oh my gosh. I'm not ready for that.

[24:51]It's like hard enough when my kids went to boarding school, but wow, impressive, so much great stuff.

[24:57]Just really awesome. So what advice would you give to aspiring authors?

[25:01]Oh, my. Well, there's the classic of read, read, read, read, read that that's really a way to both

[25:07]be inspired, both to challenge yourself to make sure that you're not falling into tropes because,

[25:14]you know, there's a joke between authors about what is the thing that ever like so many people

[25:20]have books where they have characters that have gray eyes. There's like, that's like 0.5% of the

[25:25]population. Like when you read a lot of books, you realize, oh, there's like a lot of tropes out there,

[25:29]and maybe you'll challenge yourself to not fall into them. But the other thing I'll bring up,

[25:33]I talk about this woman all the time, Jane Smiley, and I talk about her book 13 Ways of Looking

[25:38]at the Novel. And she says in that book that the only way that you can fail at a first draft is to

[25:45]not finish it. So I believe you have to go forward if you want to write a novel with great

[25:54]compassion for yourself and great patience. And also figure out a way to make it fun. Again,

[26:01]no one's asking me to do it. So you might as well have fun. You might as well, if music is your thing,

[26:07]if it's making tea, if it's scotch, if it's, you know, going to a cabin, if you, whatever it is,

[26:13]because no one's asking you to do it. So, and it's going to take a significant portion of your

[26:17]life. So why not make that portion of your life joyful and fun? That would advise you.

[26:23]I love it. I like it. Thank you so much. Really, thank you so much.

[26:26]Maybe this has been delightful. Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.

[26:32]If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at City Owens and at City Readers.