Amanda Eyre Ward, ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES + Laura Lekkos, ALL THE LITTLE WAYS
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked. I'm Zibi Owens. I've interviewed more than 2,000
[0:06]authors on this show and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention and life itself because when you talk about books, you're really
[0:14]talking about life. So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling, and the not yet discovered. Come find your next great
[0:22]read and that the story behind it. Enjoy.
[0:26]Amanda Airward is the author of Arrivals and Departures, which is a join episode
[0:31]with Laura Leicos, All the Little Ways, a novel. Amanda Airward is the New York
[0:37]Times best-selling author of Seven Novels, including the Jetsetters,
[0:41]a Reese's Book Club pick. She lives in Austin, Texas with her family.
[0:45]Laura Leicos is a screenwriter and author. Her credits include Amazon,
[0:49]MGM's relationship goals, and she is adapting Marine Goose
[0:53]somewhere only we know for Netflix. She's especially passionate about
[0:57]writing female-focused stories and has worked with various studios, including
[1:01]Amazon, Netflix, Sony, Universal, and Lionsgate. She lives in Los Angeles
[1:05]with her family, and we were lucky to do this together in-person
[1:09]at Zibi's bookshop. I hope you enjoy both of these episodes from these
[1:14]fabulous female novelists. Welcome back. Amanda is so excited to have you
[1:19]here to talk about Arrivals and Departures on your publication day.
[1:23]Congratulations. Thank you so much today's the day.
[1:27]Wow. How does it feel? Especially not as your first book. Do you still get
[1:31]super excited? I'm excited. So excited. You know, you know
[1:35]as an author, you just I mean, I grew up reading books.
[1:39]It was all I ever did was hide in the corner and read a book.
[1:43]And then it was my biggest dream to write a book.
[1:47]So being able to do that is just, I mean, I texted my whole family this morning.
[1:51]Like, I published a book. You know, you're holding it.
[1:55]It's so incredible to me. When I first moved to Austin, I was working
[1:59]at a country radio station and I used to go to book people and stare at
[2:03]the W section and just be like, wow.
[2:07]And you know, wow. Oh my gosh. You manifested it.
[2:11]Right. I know. That's what you know, Sadika Johnson.
[2:15]Yes. She's been trying to get me to manifest.
[2:19]And you have to say what is true. So instead of saying,
[2:23]I really want to get, you know, to write a television show, you say,
[2:27]I've already written a television show and I bought it yet.
[2:31]And I'm inviting you on it. And so every time I say to her, I hope this will happen.
[2:35]She's like, no, it is happening. Wow. Okay.
[2:39]Well, we'll take her advice. That's amazing.
[2:43]Well, it's no surprise in a way that you happen to be on a boat today
[2:49]with the little shiphole, whatever you call it right behind you.
[2:53]Yeah. When we are talking about a beautiful travel,
[2:57]escapist read that takes us all to Greece and around the world really.
[3:02]Yeah. Tell everybody about arrivals and departures.
[3:05]Well, I actually didn't know it would feature the characters
[3:09]from the jet setters till a very late draft.
[3:12]And I started with an obsession with romance scammers.
[3:16]I had a friend who was scammed.
[3:18]And I started from the point of view of like, could I be scammed?
[3:22]You know, this is a smart person and she fell for this.
[3:25]And the more I looked into how pervasive they are
[3:29]and how organized and honestly smart they are, I became fascinated.
[3:35]Then when I interviewed scammers all over the world
[3:39]and actually in Austin, I started thinking, wow,
[3:43]I kind of relate to these like a lot of them are in desperate situations.
[3:47]And so that was a weird thing. Anyway, so I worked on the book.
[3:52]I knew it would be in Greece. I had lived in Greece after college.
[3:55]And I had felt so lost and dislocated because I couldn't read one sign.
[4:01]I didn't know what was going on.
[4:03]I was paid in Dracma. I was a teacher.
[4:06]So I wanted my character to be similarly dislocated.
[4:10]So she would fall for this scam.
[4:12]So I wrote a draft or two of the book before I thought,
[4:15]wait a minute.
[4:16]These, this is the family from the jet setters.
[4:18]It's the Perkins.
[4:20]And it was actually inspired by Elizabeth Strout,
[4:22]who uses the same characters again and again.
[4:25]And you know, I've been writing books for a while now
[4:28]and I have a lot of good characters.
[4:30]There I was creating new ones from scratch.
[4:33]And I thought, wait, that's going to be this family.
[4:36]So I said to my editors,
[4:37]I said, okay, if it's the characters from jet setters.
[4:39]And she said, yeah, go ahead.
[4:41]So that's what it ended up being.
[4:43]Oh, my gosh.
[4:44]That is so great.
[4:45]Well, tell me about your being scammed yourself because I read on
[4:49]Instagram at least that you said that you thought after all that,
[4:52]you would never be scammed and then you were.
[4:54]So what happened to you?
[4:55]Yes.
[4:56]I mean, my story is not as dramatic as a romance scam
[4:59]because those are really tough.
[5:01]I've actually, I've been scammed a few times in small ways.
[5:05]You know, when you get it for one thing,
[5:07]one of, I learned all their strategies and found all these
[5:11]manuals, but one of the strategies is being,
[5:14]it's pressuring you with time.
[5:16]So I was checking my phone and it,
[5:19]and I saw, oh my God, I have a parking ticket.
[5:21]Oh no, I need to pair a speeding ticket.
[5:24]And I thought, I didn't know I had a speeding ticket.
[5:26]So I went and put my credit card and nothing happened.
[5:29]And then the next day I got it again,
[5:31]a different credit card thinking it's just like I just wanted to get things done.
[5:36]Like fine, let's just deal with it.
[5:38]Well, when I got it the third time, I said to my husband,
[5:41]oh, will you help me?
[5:42]I can't seem to pay this stupid speeding ticket that I never got.
[5:46]And he took my phone and he said,
[5:48]this is not even spelled correctly.
[5:50]So I had to shut down all of those credit cards.
[5:54]I used my card at a gas station and it was punched.
[5:57]I now know the term for, and this is what a lot of the teenagers do.
[6:01]There's rappers who tell them how to punch cards.
[6:05]So they steal your credit card number when you use a gas station or something.
[6:10]So that has happened to me.
[6:12]And that I realized when I looked at my credit card bill.
[6:14]And one day there was a 37 charge from McDonald's.
[6:18]Then there was charge from diamond warehouse.
[6:21]And then there was a charge from a men's club in Atlanta.
[6:26]Oh, my gosh.
[6:27]And then I also was going to buy a Peloton machine.
[6:30]And, you know, they're expensive.
[6:32]And I saw one that was something like $700.
[6:36]And that's really cheap, but it's not $50.
[6:40]You know, like it seemed reasonable because the woman was getting divorced.
[6:45]And so to mail the money, I had to send the money via some weird way.
[6:50]and she couldn't go back to her house, but I could go there and get it.
[6:54]Because the ex husband, I mean, I got really far into this before I realized.
[6:58]Oh, my God.
[6:59]This is a scam.
[7:01]Facebook marketplace just don't even.
[7:04]It is like a hot bed of scam action.
[7:07]Oh, my gosh.
[7:08]Well, so many themes too, because you also tackle some really heavy topics like mental illness,
[7:15]bipolar, unpredictable characters.
[7:19]What happens when your mother is the one who is going off and doing things that you can't control.
[7:25]You have the role of a grandparent as sort of a sobering influence.
[7:29]Like talk a little bit about that.
[7:31]And what happens when one poll of the family system is a little bit.
[7:35]A little bit off.
[7:36]And also tell me about the grandmother's golf club because I really want to go there.
[7:40]That's such a great question.
[7:43]Yeah, you know, all of my books tend to I const I am sober.
[7:47]And I always end up writing about alcoholism.
[7:50]It's a big part of my life, even though I'm sober because I grew up in an alcoholic household in rye.
[7:56]And so I think about it a lot.
[7:59]And I keep trying not to write about it.
[8:02]But then, of course, when I brought the characters from the jet setters, they were already having these scenarios.
[8:07]So for one thing, Lee has a mental illness and she's managing it badly.
[8:14]And that was inspired by I have a connection who had bipolar.
[8:20]And I understood when she was describing me what was going on.
[8:24]She was not diagnosed.
[8:26]She described what it was.
[8:28]And I thought, oh my God, that's infinite just.
[8:31]Like David Foster Wallace wrote very clearly, which I quote, I can't believe how much they let me quote.
[8:36]About what it felt like to be in a deep depression.
[8:39]And so I immediately thought, oh my gosh, this is a manic depression going on.
[8:43]And you know, it is treated.
[8:45]It's treatable.
[8:46]It's hard to treat.
[8:47]But anyway, so I hope I really thought, well, I'm going to lean into this and write about what what it's like to have this kind of mental illness.
[8:55]In the hope that somebody, you know, will read the novel that's a sun drenched beach adventure.
[9:01]And then think, you know, in 20 years, oh my gosh, this person is describing bipolar to me.
[9:07]And I can help them.
[9:08]So it definitely is about how you save people in your family, how you should not always save people in your family.
[9:17]And so of course, if chord, my beloved chord character ended up going on a bender.
[9:23]So he drove to my mom's place in real life in Savannah, Georgia.
[9:28]It is called the landings and we should all move there on.
[9:32]It is this idyllic golf club on the outskirts of Savannah.
[9:37]And it's about half young people from Savannah and half retirees just driving their golf cards around drinking very cheap shard and a go to these parties.
[9:49]And they have a bartender wearing a bow tie and they're poor and barefoot.
[9:53]So my gosh, I just thought that's the perfect place for chord to where his mom's bathroom and wander.
[10:00]around. But he's based on my best friend, Clay Smith, not not really because
[10:04]Clay's not an alcoholic. It's like my personality and Clay's glamorous gay
[10:09]lifestyle. So I told Clay, you're going to go on a vendor and go to my mom's
[10:13]house because he's been there. So he's like the right place.
[10:18]Oh gosh. Sisterhood as well. Talk a little bit about that. Sister, you know, you
[10:24]have a sort of plot twist, I would say that we weren't expecting of it,
[10:28]obviously that is a plot twist. But anyway, like three quarters of the way
[10:31]through the story and some sort of very tense times there, especially given
[10:36]that it all happens in Greece. Yes. I know. I mean, it all comes back to this
[10:40]question of what what a healthy boundary is in a sibling relationship
[10:46]or in a familial relationship. I mean, I am endlessly fascinated by the fact
[10:51]that we all kind not all. I'll say I returned to my childhood self when I'm with
[10:57]my family. Not my family in Austin, you know, I live there. I don't I'm not in
[11:02]touch with a ton of people from my boarding school days and college days. So
[11:06]I have this whole separate thing. But when I go back into my family, I become
[11:10]the bossy big sister who's always trying messier than I normally am.
[11:15]I'm bossy and I try to inject myself into scenarios where no one is asking for
[11:20]my help. So in that sense, I'm a lot like the lead character.
[11:24]So I'm always writing the character of the sister who needs to stop
[11:29]trying to control everything in her own life, in her family's life. I mean,
[11:34]it's just codependent in measurement is what my therapist calls it and my
[11:39]recovery groups call it. But that's so hard for me to know. It's just something
[11:45]I think a lot about, you know, like how what a healthy relationship is with
[11:50]a family member who needs you. It's hard navigating all of that. And I feel like
[11:56]there are no right answers when it comes to sibling relationships and
[12:00]particularly as we all get older and have our own demands of our own families.
[12:04]Yes. All of that. It's so challenging. And you know, I have my
[12:08]sons are young men now and then I have a teenage daughter. But I see them,
[12:14]you know, they're making their way in different ways in the world. And I see
[12:18]how strange it is for them, as it was for me, as, you know, one brother can afford a car,
[12:23]one brother can't even afford a moped, you know, because they're making different
[12:26]decisions. And it's, it's strange, you know, because you, you still act toward each other as
[12:32]if you're toddlers, I think. Yeah. That regression, at least we can count on the regression
[12:37]happening. I know. Would you please make me some cookies and I think that's right.
[12:43]I wanted to do the best interview with I was interviewing, um, Jeffrey Genetys. And he said,
[12:49]I think everyone is really who they were at 12. He said, for example, you can kind of see who
[12:56]our president was at 12. That's very interesting. But I think it's true. When you write about adult
[13:03]characters, you should be able to describe who they were at 12 because most people don't change,
[13:09]even though they try. I'm thinking about my 12 year old daughter. And I'm like, okay, interesting.
[13:15]What, or what you were like at 12? Do you change the ton? I think we all changed a little,
[13:21]but no, I think who I am was sort of, it's baked in honestly. Yeah. Yeah. I think we would have
[13:26]been friends at the library. Oh, totally. Totally. We, yeah, 100%. I was over in the rye
[13:32]reading room. Yes, I was definitely knows in a book much of the time. Yes. If somebody were to
[13:41]read your book this summer and then get inspired to take their own vacation in Greece, where should
[13:46]they go? Oh, that's such a fun question. So I lived there for a year with these wads of drop mine. I
[13:52]went all over the country. So I love, I love Athens. It's a wild city. And it's kind of hard to
[14:00]navigate. It's almost like Cairo and New York together on the beach. So that's very fun,
[14:07]especially for younger people. There's a lot of nightclubbing. And I have some of that in the novel
[14:11]because they go out to these beach nightclubs. But then the islands are beautiful. My favorite island
[14:16]is seafnose, which used to be really hard to get to. And now is not. So it's just, it felt like
[14:23]when I was there, it was off the beaten path. I also love Idra, Crete. And then if you go up north
[14:30]to the Peloponnese, there's an area called Monambassia and Naphleo and Naphleon. I can't remember
[14:37]how to pronounce it. Naphleon is a wild city. So the whole thing is like you're inside a castle
[14:44]and there's things to climb and peek out of. And it's wonderful. Love it. Are you going to make an
[14:50]itinerary for everybody? Yes. I would be more than happy to travel is my favorite thing. And
[14:56]so when I was in Greece, I was teaching with another teacher named Heather who married someone
[15:01]and still lives there. So the book is dedicated to her. And I got to go back and visit her to research
[15:06]the book and ask her all the questions. They're required research for for the novels. You know,
[15:13]like my new book said in Hawaii and tell you, right? What can you share about that book?
[15:18]Why not? You know, well, I'm obsessed with the movie, the holiday. I love the idea of changing
[15:24]your life by changing your locale. Yep. So right now, it's the story of two people. And who
[15:30]one Hawaiian man gets a job pet sitting a facet hound in Telluride. So he's out of water,
[15:39]then the woman is flying for a work event and ends up stranded in Honolulu. And so they kind of
[15:45]inhabit each other's lives and fall in love. Hopefully. Love that. I keep trying to write fun
[15:50]in romances. But I'm trying again. I was just describing the smell of plumeria. I was just
[15:58]sitting here going. How do you ever describe that? Because it's so distinctive around my daughter
[16:04]goes to summer camp in Hawaii. So I just love that smell. So I just spent 20 minutes trying to figure
[16:12]that out. Well, now when we read it, we'll know exactly where you were when you were thinking
[16:17]about that section of that book. Can't wait. What chapter would you say you were in and what chapter
[16:24]are you leaving of my life of your life? I think that at 54, I am leaving the chapter
[16:35]that cares what anyone thinks of me, which is really unbelievably freeing and has taken me a lot of
[16:43]time of worrying what every single person thinks. I'm leaving that chapter and I'm entering,
[16:49]trying to figure out what makes me happy. It's a little late, but that's the truth. Never too late.
[16:57]Yeah, exactly. Amanda, congratulations. Enjoy your ship from Friday to Club Day.
[17:06]Congratulations and thanks for taking the rest of us along on all of your adventures as usual.
[17:11]Thank you. I hope to see you soon. You too. Okay. Bye. Welcome, Laura. Thanks so much for coming on
[17:17]totally book to talk about all the little ways. Congratulations. Thank you and thank you for having me.
[17:21]It's my pleasure. And we were just talking. So nice. We have the same literary agent.
[17:26]It's Joe Meltry. Hi, Joe. How are you? Great, Joe. Okay. All the little ways.
[17:30]Discuss. What is the book about? The book is about two women who are on the verge of motherhood
[17:36]that great leap into the unknown. And for various reasons, neither of them have close female
[17:42]friendships. And so they find themselves needing the village. They also don't have close relationships
[17:47]with their mothers. So they're really needing that feminine energy. And they're very different from
[17:53]each other. So they form this unlikely friendship and having met because they're both due around
[17:58]the same time. So they mean one of those mommy groups, which are either wonderful or horrible
[18:03]depending on your experience can vary. But they meet and they form this bond that's truly
[18:09]life affirming and life changing only for that friendship to become threatened by a shocking
[18:15]twist and discovery. And they have to decide whether or not they can continue their friendship and
[18:20]also address how it affects the other relationships in their lives. When the twist happened, I was like,
[18:25]wait, no. Are you sure? And then I like went back a few. I was like, did I miss? No, really? Oh, my gosh. So,
[18:31]yeah. That was very clever. Oh, okay. I'm glad that you were surprised. I was only one
[18:35]person who has guessed it. Really? My editor. She was previously in mysteries. So she had a
[18:41]sleuthing background. I didn't even know we were getting a big twist. So you kind of buried it.
[18:46]Yeah. To advertise the twist. No, it's truly a friendship story. But I thought, how do I complicate this?
[18:51]Yeah. And to mess up. Yeah, it must it up. Yeah. Wait, back to the mother's groups.
[18:57]Were you in a mother's? Are you a mother? I am a mother. I have a six year old daughter.
[19:01]Okay. And it was one of the inspirations for this book. I'm a screenwriter primarily. And during
[19:07]the writer's guild strike, I thought I've always had the stream of writing a book. It was kind of a
[19:11]pipe dream like one day when I'm older and retired. I'm a vineyard in Italy. I'll take a
[19:16]stab at writing a book. And I thought, this strike isn't gonna be a result anytime soon. So the time
[19:21]is now. And having, and I knew it wanted to be a friendship story. And having had the experience
[19:26]recently of embarking upon motherhood and going through the mommy groups and the group chats
[19:33]and the friendships that I was very grateful for on that journey. I thought, this is a really
[19:39]wife arena to explore in a friendship novel. And you're so funny too. With even all your supporting
[19:45]characters, you would like get to 49 or not. I love the assistant Hannah. She's so funny.
[19:50]It's fun to cast them in my head. Wait. So go back to your screenwriting. How did you get into that
[19:55]whole industry? Tell me about some of your projects I read all about them.
[20:00]actually was a little bit full circle with this book because I was always a writer. I wrote
[20:03]for magazines when I was in high school. I wrote for girls life in 17 and then I was
[20:08]interning at 17 too. It's been great. I remember when those magazines would come in the mail and
[20:14]it was something that I don't think this generation experiences are just so sad because I would
[20:19]be so excited and rip out pages and dog hair pages and it was my Bible. So,
[20:24]for sassy and gay. No sassy and YM of course. And then there was a fleeting moment of teen
[20:29]vote, teen vote. So, I interned at 17 in the summer after my junior year of college and there wasn't
[20:35]a ton to do in the editorial closet, but I also, looking back, think I should have advocated for myself
[20:40]more. Instead, I took a stab at writing a really bad novel, which obviously didn't get published.
[20:47]But the literary agent read it and instead of saying, go to law school, she kind of gave me a throwaway
[20:53]compliment and said, you've been here for dialogue. I'm being 21 with the hubris of youth and not
[20:57]knowing everything I didn't know about the industry, which was nothing. I said, okay, great. I'll be a
[21:02]screenwriter. So, I took one screenwriting class. I was in school in Philadelphia and then I moved out
[21:08]to LA after graduation and gradually made my way and did it. Okay, made my way into it.
[21:16]Like, a thousand people in coffee shops all over the night are crying now, being like,
[21:21]that's not what happened to me. Well, there isn't one path. I wish you could say, like, you do
[21:26]A, B, and C, you'll get to D and you'll get to where you want to go. And it's just not that way in
[21:30]screenwriting. There are myriad ways to get there. I did take a two-year writing program when I came
[21:36]out because, wisely, I thought, I really don't know a lot about screenwriting. I'm trying to do this.
[21:41]And I read a lot and there's an element of luck. I got an agent off of a spec script and
[21:49]he was the head of the Lit Department at my agency and he was looking to nurture young town at
[21:53]the time. And so, you know, various failures and a few successes and you just have to keep going,
[21:59]amazing. And so, what are some of the things that you've written or had a hand in writing that
[22:04]we would know then? Relationship goals premiered on Amazon in February when the
[22:09]LA Rowland and Method Man and they were incredible. That was a really fun experience.
[22:13]And I'm doing a lot of book adaptations now, which I love. This is being announced in deadline
[22:18]Monday. So, I can talk about it today. But I'm adapting the marriage bargain by Jennifer Pro for
[22:24]20th century studios. So, really fun, sexy, swoony, funny, rom-com. It was on the New York Times
[22:30]bestsellers. It was for 26 weeks. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, I'm excited about that. There's one other
[22:36]big book adaptation that has been announced yet, but I'm really excited about that one too.
[22:41]Amazing. So, yeah, a lot of fun projects. It's amazing. Awesome.
[22:46]Are you writing another book now? I am not yet. I have an idea. I've had six movies with
[22:50]the moment. Oh, my gosh. Wow. So, they're all on different stages, but I haven't started the next
[22:59]book, but I have just kind of jotted ideas or somewhere to how I wrote this book. I was driving
[23:04]down the 405 and the opening of the first chapter came to me. So, I do have an idea that's
[23:09]crystallizing. I'm taking form, but I wouldn't say I've actually started it. Wow. Amazing.
[23:16]Laura, thank you so much. I'm so excited for it to come out and for your characters to
[23:21]meet the world. And I want people to like, you know, email me when they get to the twist.
[23:26]Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, of course. Thank you for listening to totally booked
[23:30]with Zibi, formerly momstone of time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend,
[23:36]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much.
[23:42]Oh, and buy the books.