Anna Mitchael, THE WILL TELL YOU THE WORLD IS YOURS: On Little Rebellions and Finding Your Way

[1:34]Zibby Owens: Hi. This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibby owens. Anna Mitchell is the author of They Will Tell You the World Is Ours On Little Rebellions and Finding Your Way. Anna is a Louisiana born writer based in Texas. They Will Tell You The World Is Yours is her third book, but her first about the spiritual life. Welcome, Anna. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Bucked. I'm so excited to talk about they will tell you the world is yours one

[2:38]Anna Mitchael: sorry, on little rebellions and finding your way. I need my glasses on. It's so pathetic. Anyway, congrats. Thank you. Yeah. No. It's a it's a long title in subhead. Had a lot to get in there.

[2:49]Zibby Owens: But it it works. It, like, tells the story. You get a total sense of what it's like. Okay. Talk about what the book is about. Talk about how it's taken you all this time that you had this idea so long ago, and it's finally come into fruition. I'm so happy to hear that. Yes. So the book, it's different. It's

[3:06]Anna Mitchael: 85 vignettes, little short pieces, and they basically just track a woman's life from birth pretty methodically all the way up through midlife. And it's the beginning of the book. It kind of ramps up as she's just growing and learning and taking everything in and just really not even realizing all the ways in which the world is influencing her and kind of turning her and directing her. And then there comes a point where she starts to see what's going on and there's just kind of her reaction to that, which sometimes is kind of a beautiful and hinging and sometimes is messy. Then there's the resolution in the end. So I have written vignettes, I think what you're referring to, a very long time ago, more than two decades. And I was told at that point that they were not publishable, which is probably very true, like very good advice. I was starting out, hadn't published anything. And so I walked away from it. I was like, well, I'll just learn to go write a novel and do all those things. And so, which I did, which Yes. And I've also, I've worked as a writer for a very long time. I worked in ad agencies first. I've worked in editorial. So, but I was kind of maybe a little bit along with the main character in this book, of doing what everyone had told me that I should do in order to progress. And so it's not that I didn't love what I'd written, but I just hit this point, I guess four or five years ago, where I was like, I have just been writing what other people want me to write for so long now. And it was like, it wasn't that I didn't like the projects or the people I was with, but I just felt like it had been a very long time since I'd written anything that was like, had gotten deep in me and pulled anything deep in me out. And I was like, you know what? It probably won't be publishable, but I'm just going to do it. I don't really care. And so that's when I started this book and kind of returned to the vignette form and just kind of came alive for writing again. I don't know. Just thought it was so sweet. I'd really given up. I mean, I literally, my husband was like, when I finish this, this is really the point. I'm gonna go find something else to do with my life. But then by the end, he was like, you're different about writing again. I don't think he'd ever even in our time together known me to love writing. I think it had always sat on me a little bit of something I was striving for. You know? Interesting. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, you had written this column,

[5:37]Zibby Owens: this monthly column. Are you still doing that? Boots? Yeah. So you write advice regularly. And to do that, it uses one part of your brain that this is this is like a different part of the brain. Right? The not that one is better or worse, but just like, yes, writing, but there's so many different pieces of the writing puzzle.

[5:57]Anna Mitchael: I think that's so true. And I feel like it's it's been a constant balance in my life because just with writing professionally to, like, pay the mortgage and do all the things, like, you're always answering to a client. Right? And so then there's that side. And then there's the part of me that wanted, I really wanted to write something in my community. I live in like a small town in Texas, and we have a magazine here. And I was like, I just, I want to be writing here. So for fourteen years, I've written a monthly column for them. And it is, it's like advice and it's humor and it's, like in the voice of a country woman. And she's very gritty and raw and probably gives really misguided advice a lot of the times. But the point is more just to kind of look at the bigger picture of life instead of getting. And so it is, those are all different facets of this bigger picture. And I, in my life, have found so many times where I've just had to like recalibrate and be like, I've gone too far, you know, into one side. And that's what this book was a little bit was just coming back and saying like, why are you, why are you here in the beginning? You know, why are you doing this? So, but I do love having different projects and different things to jump around to. It just, I mean, it's like anything, it's just being able to acknowledge like, oh, wait, I've gone too deep here.

[7:15]Zibby Owens: Like pull back, you know, It's it's And we all do that. I know. It's like we all live in one of those sound rooms where, like, someone's singing. I don't know how to describe it. And, like, all those buttons, there's so many buttons, so many levers to adjust constantly. And then, of course, something changes. Like, because every time a new singer comes in, you have to readjust. So It's so true. Can I read one of these? Do you mind? No. That that There's so many. I'll try this one. I have, like, 20 dog eared I don't know. Sing I'll tell you some of the ones I loved. On Learning, Sing Cicada Sing. I'm gonna read Violent Skies. I also loved Conspiracy Theory and Wherever You Go part three. But anyway, here's Violet Skies. They will tell you the sky is violet. Your eyes, you will be told, see blue because they can't handle the truth. This will shake you more deeply than you expect. You will stay up three days in a row just to see if you can, just to see if needing sleep is a myth too. This is what your eyes will see. Bolts of lightning on a sunny day, corn on the cob in an empty bowl, a naked man invisible to everyone else standing in the doorway. When you tell this list to the friend who walks with you to physics, he will say it sounds like something that might happen in Amsterdam. This will make you cry because Anne Frank, she never even made it to the age you are now. You will say you don't know why you are crying. You've never even been to Amsterdam. And he will put his arm around your bulging backpack and say, you probably just need to get some sleep. Oh, but sleep. For so long, you thought it was the thing that couldn't be trusted. Dreams of all those people and places mishmashed in in ways that were shockingly out of sequence, yet felt so right. You would wake up ready to shake it all off because after all, it wasn't real. But now here you are in the middle of the day, moved by thoughts of a dead girl kept away from a purple sky. How to know which is the truth, how to know what you need to live by.

[9:01]Anna Mitchael: So good. Oh, I'm glad you like it. I was like, you know, I think it's just been it's been such a gift to get to, like, step into just or step off, I guess, just the train of, you know, of where everything has to be linear and move forward and get in it. And so I don't know. It was just really beautiful to hear you read it. I'm like, that's like kind of what I would have always labeled as like all my weirdness. It is just, you know, we finally like kind of let just let out who how you think and who you are. And it's just been a really different process for me.

[9:35]Zibby Owens: Well, all your weirdness, so to speak, that's the art that people respond to. Right? I mean Yeah. You just put out the generic stuff. Nobody ever really sees themselves because it's just so anodyne, I guess. Right? Right.

[9:50]Anna Mitchael: But I think now where we are with where it's just this constant, it's just this constant call for more and more content. Right? So then it is like to, I think, I feel, I feel that a lot of just like produce, produce, produce, whether in the professional side or wherever. And so I think that that that's like an interesting challenge, I think, to resist against that because you can't you can't get to the stuff that's different and true. Yep. And what about so you're also deputy editor of Magnolia. Are you still or not anymore? I was. I'm not anymore. Yeah. I've worked so Magnolia is based here in Waco, and I spent many years over there and loved it. But now I freelance pretty full time. So Because

[10:32]Zibby Owens: that's also, you know, being responsible for writers and getting the best from them too, which is yet another skill set that you have to that comes to bear on writing. And I do. I love editing, and I love I love that process of, like, building writers up. And I think especially just having

[10:48]Anna Mitchael: been on the other side of it for so long where you're like, oh, will somebody answer my pitch? Oh, will somebody you know, I had I had always been in advertising kind of trying to get into editorial, into books and all the things. And then when I had this opportunity to work on the magazine side, I was like, oh, well, now I get to be that person. Like, just create the culture of just, I don't know, finding writers and like, and lifting it up and having it be a good experience. So, but I also just really love shepherding stories from start to finish. Think that's, and it makes you appreciate as a writer kind of that process too. And what people are bringing to your stories. Like, don't fear it now. Like, I used to fear it. Like, what are they gonna change? What's it gonna be? You know? But now I'm like, oh, they're gonna bring, like, a whole other side. It's gonna be it's gonna be interesting. You know? I still fight for what I want, but I listen a lot more to what people offer now that I've been an editor. Wow.

[11:43]Zibby Owens: What is something you expected? Obviously, this is the crux of the book. Right? But you personally, something that you thought was so expected in life and then, of course, is completely different. Because that's kind of what it is. Like, all the things people tell you to expect, and then, of course, life goes a different way. Nothing is safe. Nothing is you can't take anything for granted. Like, you know, what is it what is, like, your main thing that you would say? I don't know. All I can think of is, like, marriage. I haven't seen that. It's

[12:11]Anna Mitchael: just, like, not you know, I so I think that that just the, you know, that experience of that of, of having one person that you're just like, you know, walking through and just the depth and the difficulty of it. I just think I, I just didn't know, you know, I hope that now in our culture with like our podcast culture, our like informed people of everything culture, I wonder what it'll be like for people that are stepping into like long term relationships in their lives, if they'll be a little bit more better equipped than I personally felt for like just how hard it can be. Yeah. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

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[15:04]Zibby Owens: I was at an event recently, and this I was I may had made some joke in my talk about, you know, the stress of having kids or something like that. And she, like, quite seriously said to me after, she's like, do you regret being a mom? And I was like, no. Of course, no. It's like the greatest thing of my life. And she's like, oh, okay. Because, like, I don't know. I'm debating. And I was like, okay. Great. And she's like, you know, a lot of people, there's this whole thing now of, like, regretting, you know, motherhood regrets or something, like, on TikTok. And I was like, what? She's like, yeah. My whole feed is about moms who regret ever becoming moms.

[15:35]Anna Mitchael: Did you know that this was happening? No. I didn't know that was happening. No. I'm like, TikTok can make people think anything. This is, like, the extinction of our species right there. I know. Really can. But I do think that's interesting because it's like, I think I have a tendency too to joke about things that are going on in my mean, because to me, that's where I really connect with people. I'm like, Okay, this is hard. Is this hard for you too? Let's laugh about it because it And so I think that especially, I do that a lot with marriage kind of within the context of writing and like boots, my column, like things like that. And so I have wondered before if people take that of like, oh, you know, but I think it's good to be able to talk about the bad and the good. It doesn't necessarily mean that you want to like unspool everything. Exactly. You know, it just means that you're trying to, I mean, a lot of times I feel like it's because I'm trying to figure out how to go farther in. But because my everything in me is like, oh, run. But I'm like, I want to figure this out. So And get advice. Right? Yeah. And, like, how does anybody anybody have suggestions?

[16:41]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Especially when we're not supposed to talk about marriage as much. Right? You can't it's not like it used to be and all of a sudden, you know. Right. But yeah. When you think about all of the vignettes, are there favorites of yours? Or is there one that you're like, oh, thank god for this one because this is the one that kept coming back to me in my head where I was like, someday, I'll get this out or I really wanna get this one out. You know, so the vignettes are like I think it's funny because a lot of people and people can read them and take them as they want. But I think it the way the book feels, it feels like it's kind of about my life specifically.

[17:14]Anna Mitchael: And so I've gotten a lot of people being like, even though it's fiction, like kind of being like, but is it really, you know, and I guess people always think that to an extent, you know, but I've gone back and looked at them because because really they're all such collages kind of of I can even I can pinpoint in so many like stories that close friends told me or experiences that I had or like one Easter best is actually kind of based just on a picture that I have of like a childhood Easter by a large tree in Like Charles where we were living at the time. And it just kind of that picture, that image from my childhood had always been there. Then like a story just kind of grew out of it. So I think I love the ones that are that have like those kinds of visual images to me. Like on learning is another one. I love that. I was like pulling something out of the oven two days ago and just like all of a sudden started because I do kind of have most of them memorized now. It just started running through my head and I was like, oh, I think this is a good sign that it's actually like really penetrated in me, you know? But I love the repetitive nature of unlearning because I think that that speaks to how we just kind of go through our days and we just don't even realize all the things that we're picking up or we're showing. And it's not necessarily something to change, but I think just being aware of it adds kind of a depth and a beauty too,

[18:34]Zibby Owens: you know? Totally. Oh my gosh. Do you have more? Like, now that this has sold and finally, you're like, yes. Will this set the stage for future vignettes? Or I know I've been on your Substack and everything, so I know you're constantly writing. Yeah.

[18:50]Anna Mitchael: I did I started a Substack that sends out a vignette every two weeks because I mean, it's so awesome just to, I don't know, be able to like, these things don't sit in our computers anymore. You know what I mean? Remember it's like, having written for a long time, it's like, just write things like, is the world ever going to see it? And now it's like things like Substack. I just love being able to connect and send out vignettes more immediately to people. But, but I have been working on a larger book. It's about, grief and like every day, like the everyday small griefs. And it's more around this idea that where this one's around, they will tell you kind of is the beginning. This is around it can happen like this, but like grief and then like also the process of healing and how those two weave together. Wow. Accidental. Amazing. I, yeah, I decided to tackle something super light and easy. Yeah. Was like, why not?

[19:44]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh. Are there models or maybe not models, but books that you take a lot of inspiration from, and are they poetry? There's something very poetic about this. I feel like you have, like, a Maggie Smith kind of vibe in a way. Oh, I love Maggie Smith. Yeah. I do. I mean, I do. I read a lot of poetry.

[20:02]Anna Mitchael: I read a lot of things that I don't write. You know, like, I read outside. I read a lot of, like, nonfiction. I think nonfiction, like, theology, there were there were a lot of things like that that I was reading that I was really inspired by at the time. So I don't think it's necessarily there's not one place that I go. I usually, my stack is usually just a total mix of like 18 different random things. And I could draw a line for you, but like, it probably wouldn't make sense to anyone else. You know? That's okay. I think that's what I love. I don't know. That's what I love about the library, I guess.

[20:39]Zibby Owens: So how would you answer this today? They will tell you the world is yours, but

[20:44]Anna Mitchael: They would just be I don't know. I don't I guess they would they'd be trying to keep you from seeing the truth. You know? I just I think that that's how I view it is, like, a lot of things are just a big misdirect, you know, of keep you busy, keep you distracted, keep you running and as opposed to,

[21:04]Zibby Owens: like, having goodness, like, right here. I love that. Oh my gosh. Anna, thank you so much. This is great. They will tell you the world is yours. Congratulations. And I'm so glad that you showed us your weird side because it's pretty awesome. Thank you. Okay. Thanks so much. Okay. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Sibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.