I Keep Just Thinking “How Is This Happening?”

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Tallulah Get Off My Desk. She's Crawling All Over My Desk. Girl. Again. Again. Yes. My God. She's Beautiful, But She's Bad.

[00:00:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Incoherent Fangirl. Where we have a double header of guests today is a double header, double hitter, double header. That's what I thought. But then I was thinking baseball is it hit? Okay.

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Go sports ball. Yeah, I'm Karen from the Oklahoma Academy of Math and Sciences. And I'm Mandy of Cumberland. I actually really hated saying that because math and science.

[00:00:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you have fun with that. I'm gonna be with Scottish Princess. So

[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_04]: yeah, you have it better. It's

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_04]: better.

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I'll figure it out.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_04]: You're not gonna have it very good right now though.

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_04]: Because in our timeline, it is August 22. And then y'all's timeline. It's August 30.

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_04]: This is freaking me out.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow. I swear to God, it was just June. How? How?

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_04]: This is rude.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Not a fan.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't like it.

[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Not a fan at all.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Don't like it.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_04]: That sound means we have an intruder alert.

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_04]: It's an intruder.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Y'all.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Very exciting intruder.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Very exciting. We have Ava Reid, the author of Lady Macbeth, among other wonderful books, joining us today. We're very excited to have you. Thank you for being here.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_04]: So the first thing we usually ask our guests is if you could give us like a quick elevator pitch of the book for anybody who hasn't heard about it.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely. This is the easiest book to elevator pitch because it's pretty much what it says on the tin. Lady Macbeth is a reimagining of Shakespeare's Macbeth. But from the perspective of Lady Macbeth, it's a work of feminist gothic fiction, maybe more like historical fan fiction than historical fiction, but still I think staying true to a lot of the core themes and ideas presented in Shakespeare's play.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Man.

[00:02:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Historical fan fiction is like the genre that I didn't know I needed.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah. I'm borrowing that from Shelly Parker Chan who describes their books the same way.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Love it.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I love that so much.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So what's it like writing a reimagining of an already well known story, especially like one by the Bard himself?

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was definitely, you know, a bit intimidating to reimagine this, you know, very beloved story and such an important and influential character. Whether you love her or you hate her, Lady Macbeth really is iconic in every sense of the word. She like looms so large in our collective mind.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, Shakespeare retellings are also a canon in and of themselves, you know, their plays. So they're meant to be adapted every single time this is put to stage that is a reimagining of the words on the page.

[00:03:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I was aware of the fact that I'm entering my story into that existing canon, which was really cool.

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I had kind of the beats from the original that I really want to include like the major themes of ambition, the capricious nature of power, guilt, fate versus free will, ruminations on gender and womanhood.

[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so it was it was intimidating, but it's also a joy because this is a story that I love too.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Where did you originally get like the idea to approach it in this way? Because, you know, even though it is a reimagining of Macbeth, it comes at it from a different POV than we normally get.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so my first kind of when I decided I wanted to, you know, kind of reimagine the story, I went to Shakespeare's primary source, which is this very interesting work called Holland Sheds Chronicle of Scotland.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Holland Sheds was considered the primary historical reference of Shakespeare's time, but it's also not actually historically accurate.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_00]: It was this like politically conceived work of mytho history that was very much intended to create a national mythology for the countries and the peoples of the British Isles.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: You can tell it's not historically accurate because while Macbeth was a historical king, the story of the witches and the prophecy that is in Holland Sheds.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was where I kind of went first, and it was actually very hard to get my hands on a copy of it.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I could not find a physical copy of this anywhere.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was like reading it on Project Gunnberg.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And one thing that stood out to me was when Holland Shed is describing the witches, they're not actually witches.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: He calls them fairies, which was super interesting because obviously, you know, fairies are also so important and have this huge place in the folklore of the British Isles and of northwestern Europe.

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was kind of the first light bulb thing that went off in my mind.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And if you've read the book, then it's obvious how that influences my version of the story.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that is so cool.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: That is fascinating.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, because I never would have imagined fairies in the setting, because it's already got witches.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_04]: And so to have that, that's so cool.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I started really thinking about like, OK, why?

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: To me, Shakespeare probably made this change because he wanted this spooky supernatural atmosphere that Macbeth is going on.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: But thinking about what role fairies play in folklore and looking at some famous fairy tales and some famous examples of fairies and folklore like the Melocene, who's referenced in Lady Macbeth as well, who's this half serpent.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: She's referred to as a fairy, but she's a half serpent, half woman creature, essentially.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And her mating with a mortal man was said to have begotten the line of the House of Anjou, which is this obviously the noble house of the Anjou people.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was super fascinating.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_00]: That obviously made its way into Lady Macbeth because you're thinking about the iconic line, look the innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath it.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And Melocene is this serpent woman and it all just comes together.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, to this album that eventually produced a book.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: How difficult was it to marry up all of the different languages?

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that so many characters have like four different names based on the tongue where they're speaking it or where they come from.

[00:06:24] [SPEAKER_01]: What was that like?

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: That was great because I am a huge, huge lover of linguistics and especially the social and political implications of language.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was obviously the author's note at the beginning of the book where I sort of explained my reasoning for the major characters having these different names.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Roskille, the main character, Roskille is a Breton name, but she also has the Scottish variant, the Saxon variant.

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And I wanted to really represent the fact that in this time period and location, you know, the world didn't necessarily have this rigidity that we have today or that we sometimes imagine that history had.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, borders were contested, rights were contested, you know, language was very fluid.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, everything could change very quickly.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the main themes of the book as well, I think, is that very capricious, almost arbitrary nature of power and slipping between these different languages and these different names, I think was also intended to kind of reflect that theme.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I also just thought it was like fun in a meta sense because Lady Macbeth and Shakespeare doesn't have a first name.

[00:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, well, now she has five.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I love it.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_01]: That is so fun.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's true.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't really think about that.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_01]: We were talking last week about how it's been so long since I had studied Macbeth.

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I saw it with my mom in high school outside of school.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not even sure that I've ever like read or seen the play, like as I was reading it.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_04]: So I was like, wait, do I know this story?

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely brought it back.

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, did you have that in mind?

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_04]: Like whether did you make any adjustments for whether like if somebody knows the source material or not?

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Or was it just kind of like straight up?

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_04]: This is a story I'm going to tell.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_04]: And if you know, you know.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I always I made the decision pretty early on.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I knew I was going to deviate from the original play in some pretty major ways.

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And I made that decision early on.

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And I really I tried not to one of the things I also did is I tried not to use any direct lines from Shakespeare because I didn't want to be relying on that.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I didn't want to write, you know, try to write in his voice because like that's just a losing battle.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like you're never going to I didn't want to.

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to, you know, evoke more than imitate.

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I would use kind of some of like the syntax and like the sentence structure of, you know, of lines.

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_00]: But I wouldn't take anything directly.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But sorry, it was a question.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Just like did you did you write it kind of just I think you kind of answered it just in in your own way.

[00:08:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Or did you want to affect it like readers of Macbeth or people who are familiar with that versus people who aren't in a different way?

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think I've heard from you know, as the book has come out, I've heard from obviously both people who are very familiar with the play and people who are not.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that it definitely from what I can tell, it's been working for both audiences.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it absolutely can be read on its own.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it needs to have you need to have any familiarity with the play to, you know, fully understand and engage with the story.

[00:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that it's almost better in this sense, I think, to go in without, you know, expectations of it, you know, rigidly adhering to the story because it is it is very much its own story.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that it's a reimagining, but it's it's a reimagining in like a very meta sense where it's very much engaging with the fact that it is an adaptation.

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think, yeah, I think that I wanted it to be able to very much be enjoyed as its own separate work.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_04]: I enjoyed it. And I was like, I really went into it thinking, do I know Macbeth?

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And then I realized I was like, I don't actually think I know anything about Macbeth.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And I enjoyed it.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_01]: This is kind of a spoiler.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So if you're listening and you're in the middle of Lady Macbeth, maybe take a break for a second.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_01]: One thing that Macbeth didn't have that Lady Macbeth has is dragons.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_01]: What's it like bringing dragons into shapesphere?

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And did you know going into it that you wanted to add more fantasy elements or did it just come naturally?

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, definitely. So this was another thing where I kind of alluded to it in my previous answer was this is a book that's very aware of the fact that it's a retelling.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the things that I wanted to do was, you know, OK, let's treat Riscalee, the main character, as a real medieval noble girl.

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: What would she be reading?

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And she would be reading the popular medieval literature at the time, which is essentially the tradition of chivalric romance.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So if she was kind of then telling her story, she would be in some way mirroring the fiction that she was reading, like, you know, in laypeople's terms, like she's a romance girly.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So she's reading these romances and then she's kind of taking the tropes and, you know, putting them into her own story.

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was reading these chivalric romances, particularly the works of this female medieval author, Marie de France.

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I was looking at them and seeing what the recurring motifs and symbols were.

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And one of a big one is these animal transformations that are also really common in fairy tales like the French fairy tale.

[00:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: The green serpent was one that I looked at as well, which has parallels in these chivalric romances.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Another thing you see really often in these romances is infidelity, which is kind of sounds really bad to us.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00]: But you have to understand that for these people in that time period, love and marriage had nothing to do with each other.

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, and all of these.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, cheating on your spouse doesn't have the same connotation.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the biggest, you know, most iconic romances of the age, you know, like Lancelot and Guinevere, Tristan and Eazle all have that aspect of infidelity.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: That was like peak romance to, you know, the nobles of the Middle Ages because they lived in this society with very rigid rules of conduct.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, no marriage was for love.

[00:12:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Every marriage was arranged.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So you can see those are kind of the elements that I looked at and how I built that aspect of the story.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is the biggest deviation from the source material.

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's also like something that I was very, very much set out to do.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, something you said in that answer make me like it made my eyes start to want to weep.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_01]: The fact that like you went into research and really know your character enough to like look at what she would have been reading.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And you went and read stories written by a medieval woman who would I don't know that if she was here today, would she believe that someone hundreds of years later is still reading the words that she wrote down?

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: That's incredibly moving.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope. Yeah, I hope that you heard.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Lays are amazing. They're so witty.

[00:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: They're so funny.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I would recommend them to anyone.

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: I wish that I could have read them in Franckianne, but, you know, I don't know medieval French.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: The translations are very...

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Why not?

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You know some like modern French, so you can kind of make it out.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like reading like Chaucer where it's like...

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Where is it?

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh gosh.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Like maybe kind of...

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Dawning.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, speaking of texts that is like hard to read and I'm not saying it's hard to read, but I think that for me personally, I don't think I'm smart enough to read your books sometimes because I think the language that you use is just so beautiful and like elevated.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like over here like I am reader.

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_04]: What is happening?

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_04]: I like words.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I know words.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_04]: So I kind of love that you said that because I'm like, I kind of feel that way about you sometimes.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Like, oh man, I really wish that I could understand this better.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a compliment by the way.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_01]: We joke that we share a brain cell.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sorry.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean that in the best way.

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, it's so good that I'm like, I am not smart enough.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean honestly, I love writing like that.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Like my favorite book series, like My Roman Empire, My Angrat is the Gorman Gas Trilogy by Mervyn Peake, which is this mid 20th century trilogy of Gothic fiction.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And it is like one of the most incomprehensible things ever written.

[00:14:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I all of the characters just speak in this incredibly strange way.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just like this dense, you know, Baroque pro style.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And it also has this kind of fascinating meta storyline of the author Mervyn Peake, who was as he was writing, he was dying of a very aggressive form of early onset dementia.

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So as the series goes on, it gets more and more incomprehensible because his brain is literally dying and his thoughts are pretty fucking scrambled by the end.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But it's like the best thing I've ever read.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So I definitely take that as a compliment.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like it's something that will be like your work will be studied.

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was actually my nieces live with me and they're in 10th grade and they were talking earlier about like their dad will say like you don't like this teacher now, but they're going to you're going to appreciate them one day.

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And I mentioned that I had a British literature teacher in high school who made us write a bulleted list every time we read anything, write a bulleted list out of anything that you think might be important.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I used it in college, like that tool that she taught us.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like it made me notice things that just like a cursory read through I wouldn't have.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like your writing is something that like there are so many layers that like take notes while you're reading because then the things like that you wouldn't notice on just a quick pass through are going to jump out and be like, oh my God, this, but this means this.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And this points over to this.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And this could be a reference to that in history, you know, and that is so cool.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It's really cool.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I actually heard from well, actually someone that I met at one of my tourist up said that she wrote her like master's final paper on Juniper and Thorne and she like sent it to me, which was so cool.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I read it on the plane.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like this is like absolutely true.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's the best thing ever.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_04]: That is so incredible.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Author goal unlocked.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_04]: OK, so we're going to switch a little bit for some fun things.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Not that this isn't fun, but this is more silly.

[00:16:22] [SPEAKER_04]: We have a segment that we call fictional Boyfriend of the Week on the podcast and we basically pick a character from like movies or books that we've really glommed onto.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_04]: I think last week I was like, Lissander is.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I was gonna say he would be mine this week.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: He's mine.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And so we just want to know like who is your fictional character that you really like and it doesn't have to be like a boyfriend.

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_04]: It could be like a bestie.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_04]: I've had a fictional granny in the past, just kind of somebody who you think people should meet.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my God.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So this is very silly.

[00:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: But my husband and I have been rewatching Supernatural, which was like my teenage obsession.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I am such a Sam girlie.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I love him so much.

[00:17:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I know that everyone out there is like a Dean girl.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Like Sam is literally like he's like, yeah, like he needs to be protected.

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So Sam at all costs.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_00]: He really does.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like every I can't like watch him with it.

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not even like like a romantic thing.

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like having like maternal like energy towards him.

[00:17:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Like he just is like so.

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I just have to protect my baby.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I just have to keep him safe.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be so mean to him.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: He's so like doomed by the narrative too.

[00:17:32] Like.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that's such a good one.

[00:17:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to rewatch.

[00:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: You should.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so good.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It like not everything holds up, I will say, but like it's such fun.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the series, like the first five seasons are actually just excellent

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: television.

[00:17:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I will never forgive the, the it's not the writer's fault, but the

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_01]: writer's strike derailing so much of the plot.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Like they were dropping their nuggets about like all of the mom's friends had

[00:18:03] [SPEAKER_01]: yellow eyed demons a bit, and then they never really went back to that.

[00:18:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, then I had like the spin-off or whatever, like the young

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_00]: like Winchester's or whatever.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't watch that, but yeah.

[00:18:14] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm still upset that they didn't do the spin-off where it was going to be.

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh God.

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_04]: What was it?

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Like something with, with the girls with Jodie and they were going to do

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_04]: a spin-off with like a bunch of the girls.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And I was like, I want that.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_04]: They never did.

[00:18:28] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that does not hold up very well is the writing

[00:18:31] [SPEAKER_00]: of the female characters.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I will say like it's not great, but I can imagine that's yeah,

[00:18:41] [SPEAKER_00]: times I'm just kind of like, okay.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to look at it.

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Like you do the office where it's like that would never fly today.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good one.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:18:53] [SPEAKER_01]: You're making me want to go back and my sister and I, every

[00:18:56] [SPEAKER_01]: New Year's Eve for years, we would just start with episode one of

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Supernatural and spend like all of New Year's Eve and New Year's

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Day, just getting as far as we could rotting on our couch.

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so good.

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It's genuinely just like, I work to it like after dinner every night.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, it's Supernatural time.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's one of those ones.

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Like it starts off so good too.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Like sometimes with like first season, first seasons are not always great,

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_04]: but it starts off strong.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It really does.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: The second episode, like is actually so scary.

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the Wendigo one actually is like low key terrifying.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And the asylum one, where he turns around and the doctor is just

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_00]: like holding his, grabs his face.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_00]: In the, I think it's not until season four where it's like the

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_00]: children living in the walls and they think they're ghosts, but

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: they're actually just like Pharaoh.

[00:19:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember that one?

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Literally haunted me for years.

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it was the most horrifying because I grew up in a really,

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_00]: really old house with like secret rooms and like areas.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So like the most terrifying thing for me ever is the idea

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_00]: of someone living in my walls.

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there was a movie like that too.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's like the most terrifying thing ever.

[00:20:10] [SPEAKER_00]: So that episode lives in my mind run free.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Like when we get to that point in the rewatch, I don't even

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_00]: know what I'm going to do.

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_04]: I need to leave the room.

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't know.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, all right.

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Another thing that we always like to ask is book recommendations.

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: We know we love your books, but what books would you recommend that we read?

[00:20:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I already told him that one's a real deep cut.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I actually just finished a reread of the series of unfortunate events books.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Because those were my absolute favorite books growing up.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And like for my newsletter, I did like a ranking of like one through 13.

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Um, all of those, those are incredible.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And right now I feel bad saying this because you're not going to get to

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: it for a little while, but I'm reading Rachel Gillig's new book, The Night

[00:20:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and the Moth, and it's incredible.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_04]: That's exciting.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_04]: I love Rachel Gillig.

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_04]: That's going to be exciting.

[00:21:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of books we can't read quite yet.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_01]: You had a cover announcement today.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Today has been a lot, but yeah, my next book is Fable for the end of

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the world, which is a YA dystopian enemies to lovers sapphic romance.

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, the cover was just revealed and that is out.

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_00]: In March, super excited.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_04]: It is so swoony.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_04]: I am so excited for it.

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_04]: It's been on my like Amazon wishlist as soon as I like found the listing.

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, I need this guys.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_04]: This, this needs to happen.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_04]: But speaking of your next book, uh, this is the part of the

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_04]: interview where I do have to tell you that now that you have been on

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_04]: the podcast, you're actually legally obligated to come back for all book

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_04]: releases.

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so sorry.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_04]: We don't make the rules.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: It was in the five super fine print.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Super.

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_04]: I will happily come back.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_04]: So, yeah.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh gosh.

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And you have, you have quite a few things coming down the pipeline, right?

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, lady Macbeth just came out.

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_04]: We've got the special edition of a study from drowning, which is stunning.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm so obsessed.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, how many copies of this book do I need?

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_04]: I know.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I just got my first author copy of it and it's so beautiful.

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just sitting on my shelf right now.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you've got fable coming in March.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Is there something else that I'm forgetting?

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_00]: There is fable in March.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: There's secret thing I can't talk about yet in June.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And then in August, there was a theory of dreaming, which is the

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_00]: sequel to the story of drowning.

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes.

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I can't wait.

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, I know there's something else and I can't, I can't think of it.

[00:22:45] [SPEAKER_04]: That's so exciting.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be so great.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_04]: What's a good year?

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Switching between YA and adult though.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, just because of the way that publishing just has these really long

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_00]: timelines, usually it's not, I'm not really going back and forth when I'm

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: writing like I wrote cut, I wrote all of the theory of dreaming earlier this

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: year, and then I wrote fable last year and then so it was two YAs in a

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: row.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So just anyway, publishing is extremely chaotic.

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So it seems like, you know, I've had a lot of stuff coming out and I do, but

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00]: it's stuff that I have been working on for years and years.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just that publishing takes forever.

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So it just happened to all converge this 12 month period of time.

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I did not want it to be this way.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Trust me.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We are very excited about it on our end, at least.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm no, I'm excited too, but I'm like this what happened this year can

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: never happen again.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's going to be exhausting because you got a market in all of that too.

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Like it's not just the writing.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Wow.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we were thrilled for you, but we also hope you get time for like

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: supernatural binges so that you can save my mental health, frankly.

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I'm coming to the end of kind of promoting lady Macbeth for

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: a little while.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So at least that's kind of coming off my plate.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Very nice.

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we don't want to keep you too long, but we're very, very happy

[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_04]: to have had you here.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody please go and check out lady Macbeth.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Especially with this naked hardcover.

[00:24:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm obsessed with this.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_04]: I can't pull it off.

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_04]: It's okay.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not coming off, but that is gorgeous.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Go pick it up.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_04]: It is out now and stay tuned for all the other stuff that's coming up

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_04]: because it's all very pretty and we can't wait for the stories to come.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you Ava for hanging out with us for a little while.

[00:24:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for having me.

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Tell Sammy we said hello.

[00:24:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I will.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I love Ava so much.

[00:24:56] [SPEAKER_04]: My gosh.

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_04]: They're so like, ah, just everything.

[00:25:01] [SPEAKER_04]: I feel smarter just sitting here.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_04]: My gosh.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I'm going to be bragging to the kids in college one day.

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that book you're studying.

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I interviewed the author back in my day.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_04]: Back in my day.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be like, all right, granny, let's get you back to bed.

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to be like, no, I really did.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_04]: There's proof on the internet.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Is that so?

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be like, what is the internet?

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_01]: YouTube?

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It's all chips in our brains right now.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_04]: What?

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_04]: God, can you imagine?

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_01]: We've got supercomputers in our brains.

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Can you imagine what the future would be like?

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't want to.

[00:25:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Wild.

[00:25:46] [SPEAKER_04]: That sound means we have another intruder alert.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_04]: This is so exciting.

[00:25:53] [SPEAKER_04]: We have author Kelly Vinson, author of ugliest as well as other things.

[00:25:59] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm here to talk to us today.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome Kelly.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_04]: We're so excited.

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_04]: So the first thing we usually ask our guests is if you can give us

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_04]: a quick elevator pitch of the book and just kind of let us know what's going

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_04]: on for anybody who hasn't heard of it.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_06]: So ugliest is the third in the series, but it completely works as a standalone.

[00:26:19] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's about my character, Nick, who's a agender teen artist.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_06]: And they've gone to a boarding school and they've met a group of friends,

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_06]: their first real friend group.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And the group gets involved in basically ultimately gets involved in activism

[00:26:35] [SPEAKER_06]: for LGBTQ rights, because they live in a very red state and they're all

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_06]: LGBTQ identifying in some way.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's just a really, I feel like it's just works as an uplifting,

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_06]: motivating, inspiring book that reminds us that even teenagers can do a lot,

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_06]: especially if they band together.

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, absolutely.

[00:26:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Teenagers, especially nowadays are very active and give me so much hope.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_04]: So I saw that you, this series as a whole kind of came about, you had like a writing

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_04]: exercise that you were doing that kind of led to this.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Can you kind of talk about that?

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it wasn't like an assigned kind of anything.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_06]: It was just more, I wanted to kind of tell my story and I wasn't sure if

[00:27:18] [SPEAKER_06]: anybody would be interested or if it was worth telling.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_06]: But I basically imagined myself as a teenager today because I grew up in Oklahoma

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_06]: and the whole concept of this non-binary gender thing was new to me as of just a

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_06]: few years ago, and it made my childhood make so much more sense.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So I kind of imagined myself as a teenager today and was thinking like, well,

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_06]: so what would happen if these things happen?

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_06]: How would I deal with that if I were a teenager now instead of back then?

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_06]: So that basically almost everything in the first book, which is called Ugly,

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_06]: is real stuff that happened to me.

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Although I did tweak a lot of it a little bit because life doesn't usually

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_06]: translate perfectly to fiction.

[00:27:55] [SPEAKER_06]: But so yeah, most of it is stuff that happened to me and I just kind of

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_06]: like imagined how I would deal with it.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_06]: And when I finished it, I felt like I'd really, you know, that it was actually

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_06]: worth a story worth telling and it was a perspective that I just hadn't seen

[00:28:08] [SPEAKER_06]: a lot or really at all in what I had seen in YA.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_06]: There's a lot of LGBTQ stuff coming out, but there wasn't a lot about

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_06]: gender identity back when I wrote it.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_06]: So I just, you know, I was really pleased with how it turned out.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_06]: And then the next two books were basically just entirely fictional

[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_06]: sequels, imagining my character's journey from a very shy, bullied,

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_06]: uncertain, confused teen to someone who's confident and amazing in the

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_06]: last book as anybody could be.

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, the journey is quite something.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I really watching Nick Bloom was just so lovely.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_04]: So amazing.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:28:44] [SPEAKER_06]: It actually was fun for me because it was almost like me.

[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_06]: It kind of like made me feel like, you know, I had accomplished these

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_06]: things, so it was really, it was an interesting experience as an author

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_06]: different from other books I've written.

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's, it's relatable too.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you mentioned them being in a deeply red state and being

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_01]: different from the norm.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm in Georgia, which is getting better, but it's still relatable.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Like growing up in a different time and knowing how people were treated

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_01]: for not being cisgender white straight people, you know, to how I see my

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_01]: teenage nieces treating people.

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's night and day and so refreshing.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's the story that I wish we had back then, you know, in the early 2000s.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh.

[00:29:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm aging myself.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Hold on.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_04]: Can you talk about your writing process?

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Like, are you a plotter or are you a pantser somewhere in between?

[00:29:44] [SPEAKER_06]: So I really would consider myself what I usually call myself a plantser, but I'm

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_06]: more pantser now than I used to be.

[00:29:52] [SPEAKER_06]: But I actually still usually write out a full, I don't want an outline,

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_06]: but I actually use, I use Scrivener.

[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So anyone familiar with that?

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I basically write, I make it create a, basically a file, not a true file,

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_06]: but like for each scene and I write like a paragraph or so summarizing

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_06]: what I think will happen in that scene.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_06]: And usually I have most of the book, if not all of it done.

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_06]: But the thing is I, I deviate from that right away.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_06]: Like I never stick to it.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_06]: It just helps me to have this kind of idea in place and then I'm, and

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_06]: then I'll move forward and if I change something dramatic, then I'll rewrite

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_06]: the summaries as I'm going, but I don't usually rewrite the old ones

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_06]: as I make changes, so like it's kind of messy, but, but basically I,

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_06]: I need to know where I'm going, but I'm changing that all the time.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_03]: That's so validating because that's exactly how I write.

[00:30:39] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, I have like a paragraph.

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, this is what happens here.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is like the worst thing I've ever written because it's so basic.

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_04]: It's like they do this and they do that.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And then I'm like, this is so bad.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_04]: But then you like actually go in and flesh it out.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, I can do this.

[00:30:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I can move this around.

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I can change this.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Scrivener was a game changer.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's a great thing.

[00:31:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm pretending to be in the 1950s.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_01]: So I printed my first draft out and now I've got a red pen.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm going through it with a red pen.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_06]: I used to do all my editing on paper.

[00:31:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It took me, I mean, literally probably five years and I got a great laser

[00:31:17] [SPEAKER_06]: printer and I mean, I worked that thing.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's totally legit, but I finally, I've kind of learned

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_06]: to be able to edit on the computer, which is more convenient,

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_06]: especially when you're like a group and you've got like five critiques.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_06]: It's easier just having the computer on paper.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01]: My husband was like, why aren't you doing this on your laptop?

[00:31:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to hold it.

[00:31:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to hold it now that I'm holding it, I want to write in it.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_06]: There's something about holding a pen and just doing things physically.

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I mean, I still prefer reading physical books.

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just like a different thing.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_06]: I think it's totally legit and I'm, I just find it

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_06]: convenient that I changed.

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_01]: But so Karen's further into ugliest than I am.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_01]: But we were talking about Nick's.

[00:32:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Tick tock.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Can we get those in real life?

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_01]: No, because I feel like they're important.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they're needed.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, it's actually funny.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_06]: So I actually tried having a tick tock, you know, book talk as an author.

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And I didn't, I hadn't even really started ugliest at the time.

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And I have quite a few followers, but tick tock is throttling me.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_06]: I never get past 200 or 250 views.

[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_06]: So I finally just gave up, but if I, if it had actually worked, I probably

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_06]: would, I'd probably go in and like create some of the posts that they do.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Cause that would be really fun.

[00:32:31] [SPEAKER_06]: But, uh, I don't have a lot of time.

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_06]: I was like, that would be really cool if they could exist.

[00:32:38] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, maybe one day I'll do it.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Who knows?

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to, I'm going to have to go.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to go follow you on Tick tock just in case.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:32:45] [SPEAKER_04]: It'd be a cool like interactive thing too, like reading the book and then

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_04]: being able to see like a video that you just read about in the book.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, Oh, yeah, fun idea.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_06]: It really is.

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So how much of the, how much research did you have to do to pull up?

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Because there's a lot of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of, of,

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_04]: legislation that's, that's being proposed and being put into action.

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_04]: Um, how much like, how much research did you have to do in that?

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_04]: And how did you like manage your mental health when, when doing that?

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Because honestly, like if I had to look at as much of that as they did, I

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_04]: feel like in a ball in the corner, like nobody can talk to me.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it was tough.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_06]: Um, I actually stumbled on something that's actually mentioned in the book.

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_06]: It's the blog, Erin in the morning by Erin Reed.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And I literally, she's amazing.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And she just posts basically almost every day things that are happening.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_06]: So I use that as a guide and then I was able to go like research, you know,

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_06]: confirm that everything she mentioned was correct.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I knew it would be, but I'd go kind of check on things and then see

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_06]: if there's anything else I wanted to mention in a different way.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, it was the, it was not so great for my mental health to

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_06]: kind of be focusing on that.

[00:33:55] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I, you know, I, it just made me feel like I need to be more

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_06]: of an activist, but again, there's only so much time in the day.

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_06]: So, but you know, it kind of really had me and then, but yeah, it was,

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_06]: it was definitely something I had to kind of like try to

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_06]: step away from occasionally.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_06]: But yeah, but that actual blog was pretty much the extent of my,

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_06]: you know, information.

[00:34:14] [SPEAKER_03]: So that is so, I didn't know that was like a real blog.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_03]: That's so cool to have.

[00:34:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_06]: I think I mentioned it in the, in the end of the book, like the

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_06]: back matter as, you know, she's so close.

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm so close.

[00:34:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm so close to the end.

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm just like, got to read faster, but I have to go talk to people.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_01]: You bring up an excellent point though, that I don't think that a lot of

[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01]: people consider is that you want to be an activist and you won't want to help,

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_01]: but at what cost to your personal mental health and you can't, or from

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_01]: an empty cup, so like how do we find that balance between taking care of

[00:34:51] [SPEAKER_01]: yourself and standing up for people who can't stand up for themselves?

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_01]: That's such a hard thing.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:34:58] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's even, there's another question that we don't always talk about, but

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_06]: it has to do with why is it that all these people who are at a disadvantage

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_06]: have to spend their time trying to improve their lot and everyone else's

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_06]: lot while the white cis men can just sit around and paint or write books

[00:35:14] [SPEAKER_06]: or whatever, everybody else has to spend all this time and energy

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_06]: uplifting themselves and others.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's not fair.

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_06]: So it's like, I think it really is important to look at yourself and say,

[00:35:25] [SPEAKER_06]: can I really afford to do this emotionally, time-wise, everything?

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's no obligation.

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_06]: But I think the problem is a lot of us feel like an internalized

[00:35:35] [SPEAKER_06]: obligation, like we want to do it, but you just, I mean, you have

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_06]: to just create your boundaries and just really pay attention to yourself

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_06]: and how it's affecting you.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And there are probably lots of different ways to be an activist.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_06]: And in some ways I feel like writing this book was kind of bad for me.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_06]: And that's something I can do.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_06]: I can emotionally handle more than perhaps getting out and marching.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_06]: I never go to anything like a march.

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_06]: I just don't feel comfortable in those situations.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I've kind of learned to recognize that and just do what I can do.

[00:36:08] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, if you have money, donating money is a great way.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, I mean, just kind of look at what you can do and try

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_06]: to pick something that is affordable.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm with you on, I want to go to marches too, but I always have safety

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: concerns, especially in this day and age.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I have children living in my house and it's like, I can't in good conscience

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_01]: take you and potentially endanger you and expose you to something

[00:36:32] [SPEAKER_01]: that could end so terribly.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's a hard thing.

[00:36:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And I have, I have a nine-year-old who would love to go to these

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_04]: kinds of things, like to marches, even to just pride the parade

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_04]: and things like that.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_04]: She would love to, but at the end of the day, I'm like, I'm your only

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_04]: guardian, like I, we, I can't put you in that situation.

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's so hard because I'm like, I want to celebrate who we are.

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And you're proud of her for wanting to go too, but it's like, it's so hard.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_04]: The world sucks.

[00:37:01] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Can we talk about something a little bit lighter?

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Like for example, the art, so there's a lot of like technical art stuff

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_04]: in here because Nick is an artist and they're learning a lot from their

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_04]: future who less people in the arts, less adults in the arts who are,

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_04]: who are helping, you know, our youths.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_04]: But there's a lot of technical stuff in there.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Like was that stuff that you had to research or are you also an artist?

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Is that something that you-

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_06]: So yeah, so I was an artist as a teenager, which is one of the

[00:37:33] [SPEAKER_06]: reasons I made Nick an artist in the first place, cause it kind

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_06]: of fit that where I was at the time.

[00:37:38] [SPEAKER_06]: But I actually am an artist.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm just not very good right now because I don't put enough time into

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_06]: it and it's one of those things like everything you have to do it

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_06]: to get better.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_06]: But I actually wanted to get better during the pandemic and I started a BFA

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_06]: in illustration.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_06]: So all the technical stuff is stuff I learned on the BFA.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And so normally it's not taught in a high school, but, but that's

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_06]: what I kind of did that made it special and really exciting for Nick

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_06]: to be sort of like learning and kind of an advanced way.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_06]: So that was a lot of fun.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_06]: So like all the concepts they talk about like, Oh, why am I

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_06]: freaking the term?

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Thumbnailing.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like-

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Thumbnailing.

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_04]: That's one that like-

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_04]: That's so cool.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_06]: It's totally, and you know, I, I was really resistant to a lot of those pre-work.

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm usually like, I just want to do the thing, but it is so valuable to do

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_06]: those things, even though it kind of sometimes feels like wasted effort,

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_06]: but it is, if you're trying to produce a really good piece, doing some

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_06]: pre-work on it is really valuable.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's why I threw that in there because it was kind of fun.

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_06]: And, um,

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_04]: It is very cool.

[00:38:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I'm not artistically inclined at all.

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I, I, I do words.

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't do things.

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I need a stick figure that would blow your socks off.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_04]: It's funny because you're like, you're, you're describing like the pre-work

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_04]: and I'm like, I'm sitting here like, Oh, does that mean I have to

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_04]: outline before I start writing?

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, wait, I can't do that.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I could, but I can't.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:39:02] [SPEAKER_06]: For me, I, that's where I came from too.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't do any sort of pre-work really, except for the scene

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_06]: summaries or whatever, but it's very minimal on my writing.

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Like a lot of writers I know love to journal.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_06]: They write letters to their characters.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_06]: They do all these things to kind of like develop the ideas and

[00:39:18] [SPEAKER_06]: the characters in their minds.

[00:39:19] [SPEAKER_06]: And I totally respect that, but I will not do that.

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I can't, but that is so cool that you can.

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, is it everything is work even if you love it, but is it

[00:39:36] [SPEAKER_01]: pre-work if it's something that it's like your hobby that you enjoy?

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_01]: So even if it's pre-work of art and learning art and honing your craft,

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_01]: if you're getting something out of it for you, that's what matters.

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Do the pre-work or don't just let yourself get the thing.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:39:51] [SPEAKER_06]: I think that, you know, everything is learning.

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, everything you do makes you better at whatever it is you're doing.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So I, you know, I totally like it, you know, do your thing.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_01]: We have, we talked a little bit last week about how excellent you are at

[00:40:08] [SPEAKER_01]: speaking like a teenager and like having it, like the voice, right.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And I live with two of them.

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, I'm right at home.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I was sitting there.

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, hold on, wait, what can you grow up?

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_03]: Can your brain finish for me?

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_03]: But like that's, that's the thing is like, you're doing such a good job

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_03]: that I'm like, why are you a teenager?

[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_03]: You're so annoying, but like you're supposed to be.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's kind of funny because so as far as like dialogue

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_06]: and stuff like that goes, I think I get that because I actually

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_06]: still kind of talk that way.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_06]: I talk very casually, but also I read a ton of YA.

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_06]: So most of my knowledge comes from reading other good YA.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_06]: And, um, but also for this series in particular, I remember

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_06]: how I felt in those situations.

[00:40:58] [SPEAKER_06]: I remember the teenage outlook and I writing this book actually kind

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_06]: of helped me overcome some of the ways I've interpreted things,

[00:41:06] [SPEAKER_06]: not quite correctly, but as a teenager would.

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_06]: And so I, you know, the growth that Nick goes through from the

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_06]: very first book to the very end, I mean, they're really, really

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_06]: different because they've grown so much.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And part of that is like, I forced them to, because I'm an adult

[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_06]: and I know what they should have done, but like it's like the

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_06]: thing where Nick hates normal people.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_06]: I still felt that way for a long, long time into adulthood.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's not fair.

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And Nick learns that long before I actually did.

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I did learn that, but, um, you know, it's just like just this sort

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_06]: of resentment towards people who can, who can be comfortable and

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_06]: sort of being normal, which like, you know, was just, Nick thought

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_06]: of that as a bad thing and it's, it's not right.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that was kind of something I did consciously in the books.

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_04]: So I want to know.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_04]: So the copy that I have doesn't have like list of resources,

[00:42:04] [SPEAKER_04]: but I would like to know if that workbook that Nick does is a real

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_04]: thing.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_06]: That's a real book that I got and worked through so that I could

[00:42:13] [SPEAKER_06]: have Nick work through it.

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_06]: I kind of did it for myself too, because, but yeah, Nick,

[00:42:17] [SPEAKER_06]: it's a real book.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And I, you know, now that you're mentioned, I probably

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_06]: should include that in the book.

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Real book.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_06]: I can probably add that eventually.

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I do.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_06]: The resources I didn't get together until the, I mean, now

[00:42:28] [SPEAKER_06]: there's a version of the book with an actual cover and that

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_06]: work has some extra stuff in it.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, I mean, listen guys, we got a lot, we got an early

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_04]: copy.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's like not, so there's a reason that the resources

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_04]: aren't listed.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay.

[00:42:43] [SPEAKER_04]: It's not that they forgot them.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just, we have a very early copy, but I was just, I

[00:42:48] [SPEAKER_04]: was just thinking about it.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, that is so cool.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I never would have thought of like a workbook to work

[00:42:54] [SPEAKER_04]: through your gender, you know, and if you're questioning

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_04]: and I'm glad that's a real thing for people because, you

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_04]: know, I've never, I've never struggled with it.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_04]: So I, I don't know, but like, I'm sure it's amazing for

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_04]: people who have no clue.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_06]: There's actually several, I found several when I was

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_06]: searching and the one I got, I liked, although it did get

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_06]: a little, I don't know, maybe woo woo at times.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_06]: I am very literal and everything is concrete.

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_06]: So for me, but, but the great thing about these

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_06]: books is that they, so if you're, if you're wondering,

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_06]: you know, is my gender different than what everybody else thinks it is.

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_06]: It's scary for one.

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And I mean, nobody really wants to be different, but what

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_06]: you'll find is that a lot of times the questions that are in there,

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_06]: you're like, I never even thought of that, but that's huge.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that it makes, it starts to make you feel like, yeah, this is not crazy.

[00:43:44] [SPEAKER_06]: This is something other people are growing through these questions.

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_06]: These are like a list of questions that the answers to are different

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_06]: for me than they would be from all, you know, from most people.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_06]: And so then you start to realize that there is something there,

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_06]: but it also helps you consider whether you really want to come out.

[00:44:00] [SPEAKER_06]: What do you want to wait?

[00:44:01] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, is it safe?

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_06]: You know, there's a lot of considerations, practical considerations.

[00:44:05] [SPEAKER_06]: And my personal feeling is that often just recognizing it for yourself is

[00:44:11] [SPEAKER_06]: enough if you're in an unsafe place, just knowing that you're not crazy.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not that that's not the thing.

[00:44:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Validating.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:44:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it is.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that obviously one of the themes throughout the, the, it's

[00:44:23] [SPEAKER_01]: series, even though it's, they can be read as standalones is bullying.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And before today, literally today, I would have told you that's not really a thing

[00:44:32] [SPEAKER_01]: that much anymore in high schools because I don't, you know, I never really

[00:44:36] [SPEAKER_01]: heard about anybody being bullied when I was in school and I never really hear

[00:44:39] [SPEAKER_01]: about it with my nieces until we sat down at dinner and my niece said,

[00:44:42] [SPEAKER_01]: let me tell you about this awful girl in my math class.

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Another girl was adjusting her shirt and this girl looks over at her and

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: says, you've got belly rolls and calls her belly roll for the rest of the

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_01]: class period.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And my, and my niece is like, I wanted to like stop, but I can't disrupt

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_01]: class cause like she's doing it under the teacher.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, I don't know how to handle this, but like she just

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_01]: keeps calling her that.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And then there's no reason.

[00:45:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Then she's like this, there's nothing wrong with this girl.

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why she's, you know, nobody has 0% body fat at all.

[00:45:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, I don't, I don't get it.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, I was sitting there, like, I was convinced that bullying

[00:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: really didn't happen that much anymore.

[00:45:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Like we'd evolved away from it.

[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: No, it's still very real and very, very prevalent apparently.

[00:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So reading stories like this could be super helpful for kids.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And I mean, I think that, you know, different schools have different

[00:45:32] [SPEAKER_06]: cultures in terms of bullying, but in a lot of places like, like

[00:45:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Oklahoma, the adults are almost as bad as the kids.

[00:45:40] [SPEAKER_06]: They may not be calling names, but they do nothing when they see it

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_06]: happen, or they tell the victim, well, it's your fault.

[00:45:46] [SPEAKER_06]: You should conform or whatever.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_06]: And those things really did happen to me.

[00:45:50] [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't know if you guys heard about the trans boy in Oklahoma

[00:45:55] [SPEAKER_06]: who died recently, next Benedict.

[00:45:57] [SPEAKER_06]: He was bullied incessantly.

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm like, that's, I mean, that whole story was very upsetting for

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_06]: me because it was like, he could have been in my book.

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, he is exactly what I was writing these for and thinking about.

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_06]: And one teacher had stepped up.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Nobody helped him.

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_04]: One admin, one teacher.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:46:16] [SPEAKER_04]: One kid, literally anybody, literally just one person.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Speaking of next Benedict, I do know that you, you pushed up the

[00:46:24] [SPEAKER_04]: release of this book after that had happened and, and, and, you know, in

[00:46:29] [SPEAKER_04]: a response to kind of all the anti-trans legislation that was coming out.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Can you, can you kind of talk about that process?

[00:46:36] [SPEAKER_04]: I know it's, it's a little bit different, like trad versus indie

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_04]: pub, but like, can you talk about that and, and maybe let the people

[00:46:43] [SPEAKER_04]: know like why this specific thing was so important to you.

[00:46:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_06]: So normally when I finish a book, I release it less than a month later,

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_06]: you know, pretty quick because I am self-published for most of my books.

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And this one, I wanted to hire a publicist because

[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_06]: I want to get the message out.

[00:47:00] [SPEAKER_06]: That's it's not about like getting sales.

[00:47:01] [SPEAKER_06]: It's about getting this message that I consider very important out.

[00:47:05] [SPEAKER_06]: And one of the things that that was tricky for me is that they needed it

[00:47:09] [SPEAKER_06]: already many months before it would actually come out.

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, Oh, so I had to pretty much rush it and it was hard.

[00:47:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, that was really tough.

[00:47:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And it was just a weird experience because it's all done and I have

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_06]: nothing to do on it, but it's not coming out for months, but that's why

[00:47:25] [SPEAKER_06]: I did it was because I wanted to get as much publicity on it as possible

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_06]: to get the message out.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_06]: And I wanted it to come out before the election because I want it to

[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_06]: influence people who read it and make them realize they need to get rid

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_06]: of these horrible people who are passing all this anti LGBTQ legislation.

[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, like obviously the president election is hugely important,

[00:47:46] [SPEAKER_06]: but in some ways, well, it's usually important.

[00:47:49] [SPEAKER_06]: But even if it goes the way I want it to, it's still hugely

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_06]: important that we take care of all the problems at the state level as well.

[00:47:56] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not it's not the only one that matters.

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's actually why I did it.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_06]: And I pushed it up as far as I could between getting it ready and,

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_06]: releasing it enough in advance for the publicist to be able to do that thing.

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Because I've never worked with a publicist before, so I didn't know how

[00:48:12] [SPEAKER_06]: that would work, but yeah, so that's basically what happened.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I was screaming the same thing literally at dinner.

[00:48:18] [SPEAKER_01]: You don't just vote in the presidential election.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_01]: You have to vote for all of the, because my nieces are 15, you know,

[00:48:24] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'm not, I'm not going to tell them how to vote or anything,

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's like if you believe in something, you have to vote at the local

[00:48:30] [SPEAKER_01]: level too, because that's going to impact your life probably more than the

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_01]: presidential election will ever impact your life.

[00:48:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Your local elections is where it starts and I went on a tirade.

[00:48:42] [SPEAKER_01]: So this timing is funny.

[00:48:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm incredibly lucky because I live, I live in the San Francisco Bay area.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, yes, the state and local elections are still important, but

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_04]: my, at least assuming the presidential election goes the way we want it to

[00:48:57] [SPEAKER_04]: my, you know, knock on all the things, you know, my rights living here

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_04]: aren't as in danger.

[00:49:05] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's still, it's still like, I have my friends, Mandy's in Georgia.

[00:49:10] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, one of my best friends is in Oklahoma.

[00:49:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And so it's like, you guys read this, tell everybody about it.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Tell everybody to vote because yeah, the local elections are where the big

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_04]: changes are going to happen and they're going to affect people the most.

[00:49:26] [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm checking my voter registration, like every day since Georgia has

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_01]: instituted that new, Hey, you just need to know somebody's information,

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_01]: all which was leaked recently.

[00:49:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Georgia is, and you can cancel their voter registration.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Bonkers.

[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.

[00:49:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:49:43] [SPEAKER_06]: It's, it's really like surreal what's happening, honestly.

[00:49:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Like, I mean, if you look at the things people are doing and they're

[00:49:50] [SPEAKER_06]: like, I think Florida has a law that says it's, it's illegal to call

[00:49:54] [SPEAKER_06]: somebody like anti LGBTQ or something like this.

[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it's just like, it's like they know what they're doing is wrong.

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And they don't care at all.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_01]: And then they're doing it because it's wrong.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_06]: I know it's, I have this feeling that people are just doing things

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_06]: like if they're in a video game and they're pressing buttons to see

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_06]: what they can get away with.

[00:50:14] [SPEAKER_06]: That's kind of how it feels.

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_06]: It's people are just doing crazy things.

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, you know, we were just, we, we had a conversation before

[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_04]: you came on about some like unrelated book things happening on threads and

[00:50:27] [SPEAKER_04]: how, like, you know, at this point, it just feels like people are looking

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_04]: for engagement and that's kind of what this whole nonsense kind of

[00:50:34] [SPEAKER_04]: feels like sometimes we're like, you can't possibly actually believe this

[00:50:38] [SPEAKER_04]: stuff.

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Like you're, you're, you're saying this just to get people riled up.

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Right?

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Like, you don't, I don't, I cannot compute.

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Does not compute.

[00:50:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Like I don't understand how my living, my life is going to affect

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_04]: you all the way in Florida.

[00:50:53] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Please explain that to me.

[00:50:55] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't get it.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just the strangest thing.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_06]: The way these people are obsessing about other people's lives and

[00:51:02] [SPEAKER_06]: presentation and feelings.

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_06]: It's just like incomprehensible to me.

[00:51:06] [SPEAKER_06]: I cannot imagine other people like forcing other people to be like me in

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_01]: some way, like by my honor code.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Why?

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_06]: And they're not even, they're not even like honest.

[00:51:19] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, like, you know, they have all this, you know, they're supposedly

[00:51:21] [SPEAKER_06]: these good Christians going against all sorts of Christian values.

[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, I mean, it's just like, they just keep saying things

[00:51:28] [SPEAKER_06]: that are just patently untrue and somehow that works for people.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Some people, right?

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_06]: But it's just like, I just, I keep just thinking how is this happening?

[00:51:38] [SPEAKER_04]: But it is one of the things that actually really struck me.

[00:51:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I just remember this right now when I was reading is when, you know,

[00:51:46] [SPEAKER_04]: when Mac and Nick get forced into the girls' dorm and they're talking about

[00:51:51] [SPEAKER_04]: how not only are they uncomfortable, but like now literally all the girls

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_04]: that aren't okay with it are also uncomfortable.

[00:51:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And yeah, they're going to be bullying and they're going to be

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_04]: like awful to Nick and Mac, but like you're now not only punishing,

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_04]: you know, the people who are different, but at the same time, it's kind of,

[00:52:10] [SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I don't think of it as punishment, but like, you know, like the norm.

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_04]: Uncomfortable. It's a different situation for everybody involved.

[00:52:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. Why if you're uncomfortable with a trans person, period,

[00:52:23] [SPEAKER_04]: why are you now forcing them into your same space?

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. And I never thought of it like that.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_04]: And it's it's that was something that was brought up in the book.

[00:52:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm like, oh, I'm learning so much.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, sorry. I just thought of that and I'm like, oh, this is something we should

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_04]: talk about because it's like, seriously people, what is happening?

[00:52:44] [SPEAKER_06]: What? Yeah, it's never it's never about protecting the kids or all these things.

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_06]: They say it's not at all about those things and control it.

[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, control. Yeah, that's all it is.

[00:52:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we do have a couple questions that are much lighter that

[00:52:58] [SPEAKER_04]: we always ask our guest, one of which is relates to one of our other

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_04]: segments on the podcast, which we call Fiction.

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_04]: Boyfriend of the Week, where it doesn't have to be a boyfriend,

[00:53:08] [SPEAKER_04]: but we like pick a character from a fictional character.

[00:53:11] [SPEAKER_04]: So movies, film, movies and film are the same thing, Karen.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to let you roll with it.

[00:53:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't even notice.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_04]: I was like, movies, film, yeah, film and television and books,

[00:53:23] [SPEAKER_04]: just a fictional character that we really vibed with.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And we're like, everybody should know this person.

[00:53:28] [SPEAKER_04]: Do you have any characters like that that you think people should know?

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Like this, this character, they're my favorite.

[00:53:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody needs to know who they are.

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_06]: So I recently read a bunch of YA about acting, teen activists.

[00:53:40] [SPEAKER_06]: And one of the books had a it's called Anger is a Gift.

[00:53:44] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's by Mark Oshiro, I think.

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_06]: But it it's about a teen boy who, you know, experienced something

[00:53:51] [SPEAKER_06]: like deeply, deeply traumatic when he was a kid.

[00:53:54] [SPEAKER_06]: And he has a lot of anxiety from it.

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And this is his father was killed in front of him by police and they're black.

[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_06]: So it was and he lives in a black neighborhood.

[00:54:02] [SPEAKER_06]: So he's kind of famous in the neighborhood, even though.

[00:54:05] [SPEAKER_06]: And so they will say things to him, meaning good intentions,

[00:54:08] [SPEAKER_06]: but still it's very triggering for him.

[00:54:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And so he you know, he's really struggling a lot.

[00:54:13] [SPEAKER_06]: But in the book, he something really terrible happens again

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_06]: and or something else happens.

[00:54:19] [SPEAKER_06]: And and he he is, of course, destroyed, but he finds strength

[00:54:24] [SPEAKER_06]: and he finds his voice and he he realizes that he, you know,

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_06]: he's angry and that he can use that to inspire people.

[00:54:32] [SPEAKER_06]: And he has he kind of has that already has that sort of leadership position

[00:54:36] [SPEAKER_06]: because of being, you know, the son of someone killed that way.

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_06]: So it was it was good.

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_06]: I really like the book.

[00:54:42] [SPEAKER_06]: But I just I really related to him because of his sort of,

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_06]: you know, mental health challenges.

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And and I just I love to see, you know, kind of how he grew in the book.

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_06]: So anyway, sorry, I took that down another sort of dark path.

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_06]: No, but I definitely not a not a book boyfriend because he's a teenager.

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm very much not.

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_04]: We like to say we always like to say that every book character

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_04]: that we read is actually our age, regardless of like, yeah.

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_01]: When I read Shatter Me, Aaron Warner was Tom Hiddleston.

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And he is decidedly not.

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_01]: No, he's not a teenager at all.

[00:55:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, like we understand we are often picking YA characters as well.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_04]: And we're like, listen, guys, just remember,

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_01]: just remember they're actually I was pictured Ben Barnes here.

[00:55:28] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, I was pictured in Grown Man.

[00:55:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Not not a child, not that we're not picking children.

[00:55:35] [SPEAKER_01]: OK, so we also like to ask and you've kind of given us one already,

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_01]: but what are you reading?

[00:55:41] [SPEAKER_01]: What books would you recommend?

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_01]: We know we're going to recommend your books to everyone.

[00:55:46] [SPEAKER_01]: But what would you recommend to us and to our listeners?

[00:55:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Alma said readers.

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a brain.

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Most of them probably are readers, too.

[00:55:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:55:56] [SPEAKER_06]: I so I've actually been reading a lot of nonfiction lately.

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And but I'm reading the Heartstopper series finally late in the game,

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_06]: but I'm enjoying them.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, I mentioned that I recently read

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_06]: a lot of those books about teen activism.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And there was another one in there that was really good called I Rise.

[00:56:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, gosh, they're right there.

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_06]: I haven't turned the wrong way,

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_06]: but actually posted on my Instagram about these specific books,

[00:56:22] [SPEAKER_06]: if anybody is really interested for more.

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm actually planning to compile a page that talks about a whole bunch

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_06]: of books about teen activism so that a teacher could maybe make a unit

[00:56:32] [SPEAKER_06]: in an English class.

[00:56:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, my gosh.

[00:56:35] [SPEAKER_06]: But it's taking me time to produce limited time.

[00:56:38] [SPEAKER_01]: That's really cool, though.

[00:56:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my my dream job was to be a high school English teacher.

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It didn't end up being my path,

[00:56:47] [SPEAKER_01]: but that's something that I would have loved to have had and been able to use.

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And that I feel like that'll help a lot of people to.

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_06]: There's a lot more out there than you might realize about that kind of stuff.

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_06]: But one thing I haven't been able to find is much.

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I really didn't find any books that had to do with LGBTQ related activism.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Most of it has to do with race.

[00:57:09] [SPEAKER_06]: And I mean, these are obviously important,

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_06]: but I just I was looking and looking.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_06]: I just couldn't really find any.

[00:57:14] [SPEAKER_06]: It may not be true that there's none.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_06]: I just it was a struggle.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_06]: I kept trying to find more and I just couldn't.

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_06]: I just couldn't find them.

[00:57:20] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't even think of anything off the top of my head.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if anybody.

[00:57:25] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, calendar book that I'm thinking of.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, yeah.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_06]: But I was really being kind of narrow in what I defined as activism.

[00:57:32] [SPEAKER_06]: The I can't remember.

[00:57:34] [SPEAKER_06]: I know what book you're talking about,

[00:57:35] [SPEAKER_06]: or at least I'm assuming it's the first one.

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, my gosh. I read it.

[00:57:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I know I can't.

[00:57:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I can't remember the name of it.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_01]: The main character has this like stellar best friend too

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_01]: that I would consider like the biggest activist of the whole book.

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_01]: What is it?

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Is it? Oh, gosh.

[00:57:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to Google it.

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We're doing really well.

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, so it's possible I miss something for sure,

[00:57:54] [SPEAKER_06]: but I was trying to do things that were more not so much about like one person

[00:57:58] [SPEAKER_06]: standing up for themselves.

[00:57:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, those are important, but this is about activism,

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_06]: like getting involved and sort of a way for.

[00:58:05] [SPEAKER_06]: So that was just for this particular purpose.

[00:58:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And there's actually a lot out there like that.

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_06]: So so it was actually really fun.

[00:58:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And I wrote a list for Shepherd Dotcom

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_06]: and I read these five books and then talked about them for this list.

[00:58:18] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm not sure if it's been published yet, but but I talked about each book

[00:58:21] [SPEAKER_06]: and why I thought it was good.

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_06]: And so that was that was cool.

[00:58:24] [SPEAKER_06]: But then I found so many more in the process

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_06]: that I just didn't have a chance to read yet.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_06]: So but as I'm reading them, I'm planning to put them up on my website.

[00:58:32] [SPEAKER_06]: I haven't released the page yet, but sometime.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.

[00:58:36] [SPEAKER_01]: The book by Case and Calendar that I was thinking of was Felix Ever After,

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_06]: which is I don't know that Felix is a super activist.

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_06]: No, I've read that and I like that book a lot,

[00:58:45] [SPEAKER_06]: but it didn't fit my narrow right.

[00:58:48] [SPEAKER_06]: Right. Activism.

[00:58:49] [SPEAKER_06]: So, yeah. So, yeah.

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_04]: OK. So can you tell us, do you have anything coming down the pipeline?

[00:58:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Like what's what's next after Uglies?

[00:58:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So right now I'm actually not working on any fiction, which is sad,

[00:59:01] [SPEAKER_06]: but I'm working on a book related to my day job, which is data science.

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'm working on a book for a tech press.

[00:59:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And my hope is this actually makes me money because my fiction does the opposite.

[00:59:13] [SPEAKER_06]: And so so, yeah.

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's supposed to be done by December, but I'm actually having some trouble right now.

[00:59:18] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm not sure I don't they are being really slow about something that's stopping me.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_06]: So now I'm like not sure if it's going to be done in December or not.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_06]: But I have two projects after that.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Both of them are way both of them actually have a paranormal element.

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_06]: One of them is a book.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_06]: I was my second book I ever wrote.

[00:59:34] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm kind of revamping it.

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_06]: And that one is pretty dark.

[00:59:38] [SPEAKER_06]: But that's probably the one I'll do next once I can return to fiction.

[00:59:43] [SPEAKER_06]: And and then the other one.

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_06]: So that one's about a girl whose younger sister is murdered and it's terrible.

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_06]: But a lot of good comes out of it.

[00:59:53] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, not really. But you know what I mean?

[00:59:56] [SPEAKER_06]: And and the next one is about two girls who are science kids

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_06]: and they end up proving the existence of ghosts

[01:00:07] [SPEAKER_06]: against even though they don't believe in them.

[01:00:09] [SPEAKER_06]: And they're like, this can't be right.

[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_06]: So I just kind of play with that idea.

[01:00:11] [SPEAKER_06]: And so, yeah, those are two that are in my head.

[01:00:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited. My husband is a paranormal investigator.

[01:00:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I'll have to share them with him, too.

[01:00:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, we do have to let you know that now that you have been on the podcast,

[01:00:27] [SPEAKER_04]: you're actually legally obligated to come back for future book releases.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_04]: So we'll talk to you soon about those.

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to see Karen write up some interview questions about a tech book

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_01]: in December.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_04]: That would be that would be very amusing.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I don't know that I can do it.

[01:00:46] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know that I could do it successfully, but we'd still have fun.

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, it's it's not going to appeal to everyone.

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_06]: But there are lots of stories in there.

[01:00:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I have examples of everything I'm covering.

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_06]: So I have a story in there about the Challenger disaster

[01:01:00] [SPEAKER_06]: and how I experienced that as a fifth grader.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And and then I tie all these things back to basically data in some way.

[01:01:07] [SPEAKER_06]: And that that whole, you know, tragedy was completely avoidable

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_06]: if people had shown a different chart to some people.

[01:01:15] [SPEAKER_06]: And I mean, you know, presumably they would have listened better

[01:01:18] [SPEAKER_06]: if they had a different chart. That's the idea.

[01:01:19] [SPEAKER_06]: So there's a lot of stories like that in my my writing groups

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_06]: are not members are not technical.

[01:01:24] [SPEAKER_06]: So I usually have them read that stuff and they usually actually enjoy it.

[01:01:28] [SPEAKER_04]: So very cool. Exciting.

[01:01:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Kelly, for hanging out with us for a little bit, everybody.

[01:01:34] [SPEAKER_04]: It's out now. This is not the cover.

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_04]: It is out now. The whole series is out now.

[01:01:40] [SPEAKER_04]: You can get The Art of Being Ugly.

[01:01:42] [SPEAKER_04]: It's three three books, Ugly, Uglier and Ugliest,

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_04]: and you can get them now. Please do.

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_04]: There are excellent.

[01:01:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Just remember, Nick is a teenager.

[01:01:51] [SPEAKER_04]: So when they talk, it's it's a teenager talking.

[01:01:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Don't get too annoyed. I promise it's wonderful.

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, Kelly.

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you for having me.

[01:02:02] [SPEAKER_06]: This was really fun to talk about it.

[01:02:05] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we've had so much fun and we can't wait for you to come back.

[01:02:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

[01:02:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I love them so much. Oh, my gosh.

[01:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: One of us, one of us, one of us.

[01:02:17] [SPEAKER_04]: A hundred percent.

[01:02:18] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to look up this workbook and see if I can add it to our list

[01:02:22] [SPEAKER_04]: of because that was I thought that was so cool.

[01:02:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Like it's and so helpful for people because.

[01:02:28] [SPEAKER_04]: And the way, you know, and I forgot to talk about this,

[01:02:31] [SPEAKER_04]: but like the way that Nick is talking about their experience,

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_04]: there's one of the TicTocs is Nick basically telling their journey

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_04]: of how they came out as a gender.

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And so it's like it's so enlightening for somebody who is cis who has.

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I never would have thought about, like you said,

[01:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: about how helpful that could be for someone.

[01:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's not my life experience and it broadens your view.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And I really, I really think like not the crazy right wing people,

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_04]: but like people who are more middle of the road or left leaning,

[01:03:06] [SPEAKER_04]: who are kind of more quiet about it.

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Reading this series, I feel like will embolden them to

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_04]: move in the right direction.

[01:03:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So I think everybody should read it.

[01:03:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Everybody go give it to all your people who are like,

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_04]: my vote doesn't count. Like, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[01:03:25] [SPEAKER_04]: We're not doing that.

[01:03:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I got some teenagers in the house that we're not reading this to.

[01:03:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's excellent.

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_04]: So and God, Kelly, love them.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Love them so much.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Love them so much. So much fun.

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. OK, so announcements. Announcements.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_04]: So we are wild this this month, I guess.

[01:03:46] [SPEAKER_01]: What we're doing to ourselves.

[01:03:47] [SPEAKER_04]: We're a little bit cuckoo bananas, but it's fine.

[01:03:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Next week, we again have two wonderful guests.

[01:03:55] [SPEAKER_04]: We've got Abigail Owen, who is the author with me.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_04]: The games gods play, among other things.

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And Kaylee Smith, who is the author of the upcoming phantasma.

[01:04:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Also of other things.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't have it.

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_04]: It's OK. I've got them both and they're real pretty.

[01:04:12] [SPEAKER_04]: So we're going to talk to both of them next week.

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So excited about it. Can't wait.

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_01]: We also got some really freaking insane news today.

[01:04:21] [SPEAKER_04]: My God. Wild. This week has been impressive.

[01:04:25] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm impressed with us. Oh, yeah.

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm so excited. So legit.

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_04]: This is so much fun. I can't wait.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah. And then I think it's time for a spiel.

[01:04:34] [SPEAKER_04]: A spiel. Yeah.

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_04]: All right, friends, if you enjoyed this episode,

[01:04:38] [SPEAKER_04]: please like, follow and subscribe wherever you are listening to us.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Please follow us on social media.

[01:04:42] [SPEAKER_04]: We are at the incoherent fangirl on all the things.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I would like to point out that if you see us posting on threads,

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_04]: it's probably me because I'm obsessed with threads.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: It's I love it. Yeah. Crazy over there.

[01:04:55] [SPEAKER_04]: I love it so much.

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Please also visit our website, the incoherent fangirl dot com,

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_04]: where you can also stream all of our episodes as well as read our blog,

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_04]: which we will eventually update again.

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_04]: I promise. Yeah. Time, life, whatever. Yeah.

[01:05:08] [SPEAKER_04]: We're getting there.

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_04]: But if you would like early access to podcast episodes, full video episodes

[01:05:13] [SPEAKER_04]: or bonus content, which will be coming probably in many bursts

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_04]: over the next couple of weeks, because there's a lot of content

[01:05:21] [SPEAKER_04]: that I need to mine through.

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_04]: You're going to want to head over to our page

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_04]: on the incoherent fangirl dot com slash Patreon to subscribe.

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_04]: And if you're looking for some merch, we got that to head

[01:05:31] [SPEAKER_04]: to the incoherent fangirl dot com slash shop to buy all of the cute stuff

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_04]: that Mandy over here made. It's very cute.

[01:05:38] [SPEAKER_04]: She is awesome. We love her.

[01:05:41] [SPEAKER_04]: And if you have any comments, questions, concerns, suggestions, design ideas,

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_04]: you want to tell us that we're pretty.

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_04]: We will accept all of that in our inbox.

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_04]: The incoherent fangirl at gmail dot com.

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_04]: We love hearing from you all.

[01:05:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And of course, one last way to support the podcast is to rate

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[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Please give us your words.

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_04]: You know how we love words here.

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Let me tell you a funny, the Beacon TV app is out now.

[01:06:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And so the twins downloaded it and rated it.

[01:06:09] [SPEAKER_01]: But one of them accidentally gave it four.

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: She's fixed it now.

[01:06:14] [SPEAKER_01]: She's thrilled with Beacon and no one's been coerced into

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: leaving specific reviews, but we knew it was a mistake.

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_04]: That's so funny.

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Josh was like, somebody tanked our reviews already.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I love them so much.

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, my gosh. All right.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And she is that Mandy Purve on all the things.

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_01]: She's that miss made in China on all the things.

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_04]: And once you have followed us on social media

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_04]: and you follow the podcast on social media,

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER_04]: you can head over and visit our Internet besties

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_04]: who you know we love very much.

[01:06:46] [SPEAKER_04]: First stop, you're going to head over to here comes the nerd dot com.

[01:06:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Use code fangirl and you'll get 20 percent off your first order.

[01:06:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Then you're going to head over to once upon a book club dot com.

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Get some bookish goodies to go with your art.

[01:06:57] [SPEAKER_01]: We have two codes. You have to pick one.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_01]: They don't stack, but we love you no matter which one you use.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Use either code Karen 10 or Mandy 10 to get 10 percent off.

[01:07:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Just make sure you spell Karen right or you'll get no percent off

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_01]: and we will point and laugh at you and make fun of you in our text.

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_04]: And once you have done that and not been laughed at in our text,

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_04]: you're going to head over to visit our dear friend

[01:07:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Amber D Lewis at Amber D Lewis dot com

[01:07:27] [SPEAKER_04]: where you will add 10 of everything to your cart

[01:07:30] [SPEAKER_04]: because you will absolutely need extras.

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you're going to use code fangirl 10 to get 10 percent off

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_04]: the 10 of everything, thereby saving everybody money.

[01:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: Obviously, I feel like we did the math that that's one one thing free.

[01:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. If you get 10 of everything, then the 10th one is free.

[01:07:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly. I'm going to say it very confidently so that you believe us.

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_04]: That is math.

[01:07:54] [SPEAKER_01]: You're from the Math Institute this week.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly. So we trust you.

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_04]: It's legit. It's legit.

[01:08:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And once you've gone and bought all of the things from Amber,

[01:08:05] [SPEAKER_01]: you're going to go support the show husband.

[01:08:07] [SPEAKER_01]: So we've got searchers believe dot com, The Paranormal Mind and Beacon TV.

[01:08:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So Beacon TV is our new streaming platform stream Beacon TV dot com.

[01:08:16] [SPEAKER_01]: If you use code fangirl 10 to subscribe, you'll get 10 percent off.

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Then also on the searchers believe website, searchers believe dot com

[01:08:25] [SPEAKER_01]: plus shop. If you if you use code fangirl 10 there, that was a mouthful.

[01:08:30] [SPEAKER_01]: You also get 10 percent off of merch designed by yours truly.

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_04]: So she's out here designing merch for everybody.

[01:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I just it's yeah.

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Great times. Also, actually speaking of merch, some exciting news to share.

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about until this very moment.

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_04]: We officially have licensing to use Lauren

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Keng-Jessen's book covers, so that is coming soon.

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_04]: So keep an eye out.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_04]: It's very exciting.

[01:09:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And a reminder to everybody, if you follow us on Patreon or you're subscribed

[01:09:06] [SPEAKER_04]: to our Patreon, we do also have recommendations listed on Patreon

[01:09:10] [SPEAKER_04]: so you can visit our friends.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Here comes a nerd, Grim Marti and the searchers.

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, Patreon does not let us recommend 18 plus content,

[01:09:19] [SPEAKER_04]: which is nonsense.

[01:09:21] [SPEAKER_04]: So we're not able to link directly to Amber Dillewis,

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_04]: but hopefully one day Patreon will get it together and we'll do that.

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_01]: But as of now, just go subscribe to Amber's Patreon too.

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We just can't link you there on our Patreon.

[01:09:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And I believe that is the incoherent fangirl.

[01:09:37] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the incoherent fangirl.

[01:09:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening. We love you.

[01:09:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Bye.

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_02]: We are sponsored by our friends at Here Comes the Nerd.

[01:09:47] [SPEAKER_02]: Pins, stickers, magnets and more.

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[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_02]: New customers can use coupon code fangirl during checkout

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