 I'm Gayle. I now spend three months every year in that Rouge where my dreams of it look so wonderful. So this was familiar to me. I'm Whit. Is that you? Whit. I'm sorry for Whit. I know Barbara, but guess if I wanted to be here, you would be here. Oh, that's very nice. Thank you. Maybe I'll start coming back. I'm Mike. Shelley. Nancy. I'm Pat. Ben. Bill. Joan. Amy. Paul. Sarah. What's your dog, Sam, Sarah? Oh, sorry. The most important part. Zelda. Zelda. The most important part. But you know, she's with us. Zelda just did the full line of your book. Sorry, she didn't read book though. I mean, I'm most people down. It's what happens. It's okay. That's it. And just to run out of pretending that she's not the best. Susan's back. They're reporting this for work. Hi, Susan. Who was I not supposed to do that? Don't look at the camera and don't wave at the person behind the camera. Sorry. Sorry. I've noticed one. Yeah. So then it's okay. You can cut that. I'm Cherie. So. Hi, everybody. Hi. So this is a regular line of your book. This is. And usually you read history. So I guess you started asking me that. We did. Yeah. Yeah. But then you moved on early. Well, I got ordnance because of that. So much. And I thought, you know, we're supposed to suspense in it. It's a dystopian novel. It's suspense. Did that judge. Okay. With you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, we really have no points at all. Whatever the heck you want. Last month we met with a sci-fi group. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Bridge. What was that? Dark matter. Dark matter by Blake Crouch. And look at this. John Scalzi's novel. Lock in. Lock in. Lock in is actually a classic kind of hard boiled. Side of an eye mystery. And it's doing the science fiction aspects. Because a lot of people are living. Their bodies don't function. So, here's what you have to find in the book. Okay. You also read young adult stuff for all young children. Yeah. Yeah, it's really nice about this group. There's a lot of good young adult YA, and there was a little spate of a young adult mystery, but there's a little spate of young adult noir. So, that's how they do it. I'm currently reading something I don't remember the most of the writer. It's The Long Tank. It is noir novel written in verse. So, it's not writing, it's blank verse, but it's sort of fascinating. It's a real portrait of Los Angeles where I lived in San Francisco so far. I haven't finished the book. I don't think a portrait of something else, but it is sort of your typical down on his heels veteran after World War II finds himself drifting from city to city unwilling or unable to go home. So, it doesn't have some of those detective elements of a haste or a body or anything like that, but it has all of the pain and remorse and sense that there's a great line, and there are a lot of great lines in the book, but one of them was, we've won the war. We won the war, but we're living like we lost it. And we sleep it. Yeah. I guess it was up for the book. It's unbelievable. Yeah. It's been up for the man Booker Prize. Yeah. Enjoyable. Well, it's funny that you guys read Orleans as a mystery club because when I was writing that book, my husband is being friends with a guy who came up in old Hollywood, and he'll tell these stories, and he'll be like, oh, you know, Hitch, you always say, you know, like Hitchcock. And it's not a quote from an article. It's something Hitchcock said to him. He was Sam Peckinpaw's writing partner for a long time. And so, you know, he was like, let me read a couple of my manuscripts. And with Orleans, probably the most frustrating thing he's ever said, all of the manuscripts he's read is, you know, you'll give him something that he worked on for years, and it's like, this is the thing. And he'll go, that's all right. You don't know what it's about yet. I know exactly what it is. It's a mad thing. And then you go home like, do I not know? And try to dig a little deeper. But for Orleans, he said, you have to ask yourself, is this a thriller or is it a mystery? And I just, I didn't, I had not asked myself that. I was like, it is a book. I don't know. And what it was, you did not know what Daniel was carrying. Because I was using him as just like, let's get him in and it'll be revealed. You know? And like, he's going to use him to go for it. Yeah. And he is and he isn't. Because it could have, like at that time, it could have played into it in a different way. I didn't know. I was still sort of, you know, who knew what it could have been. But the way it started was like, it was going to be a big musical sting when she realizes what's here. And, you know, and we all realize that there's a big gasp and everybody goes, oh my God, let's make this a movie and give her money. And he pointed out, because it's speculative, and I read and grew up on a lot of speculative fiction, but I have not written it yet. There's a lot of unknowns, right? In a world that is not our own, there's a lot that you don't know. And so he felt that to make, to add a mystery into a world that was already too mysterious for, you know, the mundane reader to grasp was just like a bridge too far. It's going to be too complicated. And so he said, a mystery, you don't know what's happening. A thriller, you know exactly what's happening. You do not know if it'll succeed. And so much more of a ticking clock. And that was interesting. So I was like, oh, I guess it's a thriller. One time I didn't know what this book was about, but my other book, I totally knew what it was about. So it's interesting to have a group of mystery readers. Did you always have a father drama? Yeah, I did, because I knew she had somebody who she'd go to a couple, somebody that she thought would be useful. And you know, there's a bad mother and a bad father archetype in the book. And we've read it. Who has not read the book? I guess that's the easy one. And we will not shame you and bring a bell. We're still talking about Orleans. Yes, we're talking about Orleans. Zelda, shame. It's not printed in dog yet. And when it is, she will read it or maybe she reads German. I think she reads Grail. Would it be great to make dog books that were just scents, smells, and flavors? A Lick-It Martin book. One could make that a pure book. You're probably good. You're probably good. Wow, this smells like scratchy books. They're scratchy. I had a scratchy book that I had. It's like a product when I was a little kid. There was a hot chocolate sticker. That would be for diamond of dogs my life. Humans would probably buy it at least once. I really like the roof top seat. I'm glad to see that thing disappear down into the box. No, it is. Very powerful. Thank you. Thank you. That was creepy. Yeah, it was really good creepy stuff. It's a lot of good creepy stuff. Well, you know what, when I think maybe, I can talk about the book, I kind of would like to hear you guys talk about the book, and then like your questions, you know, I'm here. I can say that I loved the language. I loved the lingo, and there was a bit of a mystery there too. Right, I understand. Well, not even understanding. It's just where did it come from? Why is she speaking this way and her parents didn't? And then for it to become tribal, and you know, and the tribes were divided by blood, and you know, so there is revelation there, but the language is very consistent, I think, and very beautiful. I'm going to write a letter to my editor on that book because her voice came to me. And I just wrote it, how I heard it, and then my editor was like, well, what are the rules to her language? I was like, the rules are, she says it, and I write it down, you know, like why do you have to bind me down to the rules and grammar? And I said it, it feels right. So this is how it's going, and she, because when you write a book, you work with your editor after, you know, maybe after you have a draft or 20, you work with your editor to make it better, and then they bring in a copy editor, who is the giant red pencil. It's just like, you know, you called her Mary here, but her name was Jane on this page, and that place doesn't exist, or you know, like they go through antipodes and everything else and logic questions and grammatical things, and she knew that the copy editor was just, was going to formalize the language without my input, you know, like would go through and auto correct everything basically. So we sat down and talked about it, and I think we ended that conversation with please leave me alone, or you tell me what you want it to be, and then I will tell you if that is wrong, or okay with me. So she did, she was like, it seems like mostly this and this, and so every time she does this, you know, this corresponds, and this is how she'll use pronouns, this is how she'll use verb tenses, and she gave me this little cheat sheet, and I hated it, it was like, Latin, you know, I just, suddenly it didn't feel like a, like a living language to me, but I realized that nobody else could hear what I was hearing, and if that made it more intelligible for people, then that's what I would do, and so it's not really far off, they're just sometimes where it's like, you meet, you don't meet people, I don't know why I was going to say, I'm saying the and that, but you never meet people who say the and that, but like you read things, and sometimes it seems like the and that, and sometimes it seems like you and I, and they're not married to one, or like sometimes you say y'all, and sometimes you say you, and so I felt like you could have that sort of leeway, and she wanted it to be like always the same, and I'm glad she did, because well you just complimented it, so that's awesome, but also I did, I've met some readers who, I met a woman who was just like, I wanted to read this book, and I hit that language and just couldn't do it. Couldn't do it, wouldn't do it, and don't like things like that, and so she never read the book, and then still felt the need to come to an event, and let me know, which was kind of like, I'm feeling it's a real barrier to entry, and apology, and so... She's not a mystery, but you're the one. Right, you know, I think knowing that it was at least standardized, you know, and its own system hopefully made it easier for people who might have passed that, you know, I don't understand. I think if people have a hard time with it, it's like a block I have for math. Right, and then they're not going to even, they're not going to put in the work. Yeah, I haven't gotten a lot of complaints about it, but essentially, whereas other people didn't even really notice it, until like a different voice came in, until they came in, or something, and they were like, oh right, yeah, Daniel's in a different tent. Yeah, and I was still like, that. He's always got the suit on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess some of you are dead in there. Yeah, she's... The only first flight? The suit. So she's first person, present tense, and my, I don't know yet, why are you doing this, because he's third person, sort of narrative past tense, and she's like, do you realize, I'm like, yeah, I'm like, why are you doing this? And I'm like, because he's trying to stop that suit on. But because, in my mind, she lives in Orleans, it's life or death, it's an immediate world, an immediate experience. He lives, he comes from a safer place, where there is more, more time for reflection, more everything, you know, like, he's just not living on the edge. And I had thought about, the longer he was in Orleans, sort of speeding up and changing his tense, maybe, but decided that would be too confusing for the average reader. So we didn't do that. But yeah, so that was a conversation that went back and forth. And here you are, like, immediately, like, she lives in a different world. I'm like, thank you! Well, that's my other business. Like, I did just seem completely natural, and I didn't make sense. Thank you. Thank you. It sounds like your editor is really involved. I hear a lot of, they're still agents for some of the editors. So, the way it works is, in most fiction these days, it didn't always used to be this case, in most fiction these days, you need to have an agent. And the reason, one of the reasons is, there's so many manuscripts out there. And only a handful of gatekeepers who can read them all. So an agent, sort of is the first filter. This book seems publishable. And then there are different types of agents. Some agents are really developmental, and they want to dig in with you and help you craft this thing. And others are just like, great, let's try to sell it. And then, with editors, it can be kind of the same too. Some that are really like, let's dig in, and some that are like, want to just, you know, type it up, clean it up, you know, spell check once and go. And you've read those books, I'm sure, where you're like, did anybody look at this? So, it's actually famous authors who were a lot longer than this. Oh, isn't that interesting? I think that there are, I think there's Stephen King. I mean, I just like, there's an interesting name, which attention. Well, do you make enough money? You're bringing up a name, they trust you, they're like, well, nobody's complained yet. You know what I said? And dude, I asked a writer, China Meadville, writes speculative fiction, weird fiction. I asked him, because I read books all the time, where I'm like, my editor would never let me do that, you know? And I said, how do you, how do you get away with it? I didn't even say with what? I just said, how do you get away with it? And he had been walking away from any stop, and he looked back and he goes, I get away with it, and walked away. And for him, I think there's a perception, the guy's got like, I don't know, PhD in economics, he looks like Mr. Clean with tattoos, he's a Marxist, and he's got earrings, and like, people just think he's cool, and he's smart, and who am I to question? Who is this? China Meadville is his name. He writes speculative fiction. His first book was called King Rat, maybe 10, 12 years ago, but the next book, which was bigger, was called Perdito Street Station. It's off, we carry on. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do. And he's got a history, the city and the city, it's a police procedural set in a reality in which, too, they seem like eastern block countries are superimposed over each other. So it's like an interdimensional, and so the victim is from one dimension, and the body's found in another, so it's a cross, it's a departing procedural, and it's bizarre. It's a bizarre, but interesting book. You can sometimes see people in the other city, and you would want them. That's the rule, it's like you don't see it. So it's hard to find witnesses to a murder that happens. It sounds like you have a sort of an old-time editor where his current editors are very uninvolved. You have to get your own editor, you have to get your own PR. Well, you still have to get your own PR, and I'll counter that, because it does depend on the editor and the editor is different, and I actually no longer have the editor who worked with me on Orleans, and she worked with me on Orleans and the early passes of Pasadena, and then she did what so many of my editors have done, she had a baby, she got married, had a baby, and then went to raise her kid and keeps trying to come back and then just keeps having babies, and I'm like, you can fix that really easily. It hasn't happened, so that was a surprise to me. And I'm like, it's never a surprise. There was only the once. Right, right, right, right. It surprises you, you haven't figured out the connection. So I was actually, I think my first novel, Lucy the Giant, I had three editors on it, because there was something that bought the Man with Scratch. It was like, I want to make this, and then decided to go home and be a stay-at-home mom, and there was someone coming off of maternity leave who was like, I love this book too, I will be the editor, and the day the book came out, it was my first book, and I'm like, oh, you do a thing, right? So I like, I flew to New York, and I had lunch with my editor, and we're sitting there, and there's this other woman at the table, and I'm like, who's that? And she said, that's your new editor. I decided to go home and raise my child. So that's really true in kid-lift, I think, but there are a lot of young, attractive women, many of them blonde, and they, she was that, she was my only cadet, but a lot of pretty blonde women who have lots of babies today. No, they don't, I think they don't tell anybody a sentence, I'm just going to say, is that, they're publishing in Manhattan since the 50s has been like a finish in school. But, you know, like, young women from well-to-do families go get their MRS degree, and they have to, they have to be well-to-do. Yeah, you kind of see to live off them, to live off of what an editor makes, you do, so, and then that's what happens, is like they come and they, you know, Jeff Kennedy is probably the best example of it, you know, you build up your ability to be a, a scintillating dinner party, and that's not true for all of them. There are some that are definitely in it as a career, and this is what they want, but I feel like I've had both. I've had both, and I've come to tell them that if you are single, if you're dating, but want to get married, edit me, because he's got to propose within six months of you agreeing to work on a book with me, and you will be married by the time the book comes out. You'll have a baby by the time you try to start it, and they go, oh, that's not, that's not! I agree, I've got some news, and I'm like, a matchmaker, but it's so, so that can be a challenge. I did have one guy, one male editor, and that's who I worked with on, Orleans for half of Orleans. And he had a very different idea of what the book should be, so it was probably for the best that we stopped working together, but he actually got laid off. I've had two editors get laid off, I've had seven editors, and I've written the nine books. Yeah, and he got downsized. And then, and so his thing was, you guys have all read the book, when I started writing the book, I was trying to write it just from Ben's point of view, and then I was like, you know what, I'm gonna do a bunch of points of view, because I wanted to slip into heads and see the world from a bunch of different people's points of view, and he pulled out some book called Enchantress from the Stars, it was a kid's book that he had loved when he was a kid, and he goes, no, it should be structured like this. And there was three voices, A, B, C, and he's like, this is what you should do. And I was like, well, I've mostly got Fett and Daniel, I don't, you know, I have a C voice, maybe, but do I have, you know, okay, I'll try it. And we had done Fly Girl together. And Fly Girl went well, so I was like, okay, we'll try it. And the third character, because I do have more story for her, is Priscilla, who the caretaker for the professors. And so I tried. I gave her a full third of the book, and it wasn't working. She deserves part of the book, she doesn't deserve a third. She could probably have more than what she has currently, but not a third. And he just couldn't hear that, and I didn't know what to do. And it went on a retreat, and met a woman, another writer, Rodericka Rosuno, who's got a thriller about Shadow Child, and she said to me, how beautiful. And she teaches, I got it too. And she said, do you want me to read the tarot cards for your book? Which no one has ever said to me in their life, so I was like, sure, let's see what that's like. And she'd never read the book, but I guess she went back to her, we were at Hedgebook, which is a women's writing retreat on an island, an imputed sound. And we each have a little cottage in the woods, and she had a vector cottage in the next day. She was like, okay, I've read the cards, and she recreated the layout for me. And there's this crazy card that was like a rock blocking the flow of a river and like a cave. And she's like, yeah, it feels like, there's like three things, and one of them is a working, and it's blocking the creative flow of the story. Does that make sense to you? And I was like, yeah. It totally makes sense. It's for Sylla. She's the problem. We've got to take her up. So I finally trimmed her, rolled back with the idea of saving her friend the book. Because when I originally pitched this idea, I wanted it to be a trilogy. And they said, sure, you know, nobody's doing trilogies. And they said, wow, you lied directly in my face. Everybody's doing trilogies, but they were uncomfortable with it, so they were like, let's see how the first book goes. So Sylla's got a whole other life. So we may not have because it's written long, ten? Well, for all practical purposes, you have. Because as much as people seem to like that book, it didn't do the numbers that the publisher wanted. So I don't get to do a sequel, or maybe one day when I'm, you know, I'm Stephen King, they'll say, whatever you want, they'll go, keep posting to Arlene. Just wait for the next editor. You know, I try. It hasn't worked yet. I try. And they go, what are you thinking next? And I'm like, what? And they're like, no, because the numbers live forever. The editors come and go, publishers come and go, and the numbers. Does they have numbers on your audience, the demographics of your audience? No, I don't think so. You know, the way, the numbers that I get to see are basically just sales numbers. And so that, like I can go online and see how many copies of a book they shipped to booksellers. And then I can see how many copies actually sold because booksellers can return books. And, and so, you might think, oh my gosh, great. I have 10,000 copies. And then a year and a half later, the accounting shakes down. And it's like, you sold 2,000 copies. You're like, what happened to the whole 10,000? So, but that's as, that's as deep a level as I get. I can probably hire a marketing firm to try to figure it out. I could probably get, I can get numbers to say, like this went to book clubs, like Scholastic, because it's kids books. So Scholastic Book Club, or the Junior Library Guild. So I know that those were for my institutions. But, no, I don't get the breakdown of, like, you know, female age, dada dada dada, upper middle class, you don't get the breakdown. Yeah. It really seems to have so much of a movie impact. Thank you. Thank you. So, to film, I was wondering, can you think about that? That looks great. Yeah, I do. I'm going back to, I was like, I'm going to avoid the books. And actually, like, yeah, we're interested. It's nice. It's nice. Yeah, I went to New York University for film and broadcast journalism, and I studied film, studied screenwriting a little bit, and I do try to break a little visual element to my books. Orlean's was optioned as a movie by a fancy producer who brought in a fancy writer, the guy who wrote the screenplay for the book thief. And they wrote up a treatment, which is, I don't know, it's like, probably like a 20-page document, their version of the story. And it was interesting because it was not for Lean's. It felt more like road more air, like there were cars, trucks, like people, you know, tribes drove around, and I was like, but where's the gas? Like, yeah, that's not the world that this is. But also, like, when I make a movie, go ahead, because that'll only help with sales and the book, and they'll maybe help me write the other books. And so, unfortunately, they couldn't get it together. They didn't get enough interest in it, which I kind of believed because what they created was derivative of other things rather than Orlean's, but I don't know. And at the time I had, my, at the time my agent was a big agency that had, so I had like my literary agent, I had a book to film agent who would try to sell it to the film industry, and I had a book to TV agent that would try to sell things to TV. And so they were like, oh, we're so sorry that didn't work out, but, you know, we've got a TV production company that's interested. So, then they were in talks to make it a TV series, which I thought was a better idea, because it's a really big world. You get the one story in it, but like there's a lot of room to play, I think. So I was very excited about that, and and then there was a problem, there was some hitch. Like I had, my first person who represented my work was a manager and not my current agent, and who sort of knew to things, and I guess had left a clause in the contract with the publisher that allowed them to keep some rights that that the production company wanted, and for some reason they didn't agree. And I don't know what that was actually what happened, but this was a story that was finally told me that I'm going to an agreement, so there are three sets of lawyers in the room, and then silence, and then one day I was at a book event and I saw my book to TV person, and I said, hey, how's it going? And she goes, you got too bad that didn't work out. And I said, well, what? What? And she was like, yeah, and I said, well, we'll take it somewhere else then. And she said, no, nobody will ever be interested ever again. And I was like, wow, oh, okay, you know, and then you wander the streets lonely while I live, and I said, you know, I've been excited and I felt like something was, and I have been told when something gets optioned to be made into TV or a movie, it's like a very long bus ride. And you celebrate when you get that ticket. You celebrate when you get on the bus. You might get kicked off at any point before you get to the destination. So, no, so I didn't really make it out of the station there, but did you find out why it was killed? Well, the story they gave me was that they couldn't come to an agreement to remove this clause. I have a new agent and I said, get them to remove that clause, so we have another shot. And there was a lot of, and it didn't make sense to me because if they had just, I don't know what the rights were for, but if they removed it, then it would have helped book sales. Because it's not like the publisher was doing anything to promote the book any further anyway. So it would have only been landing out, so we could call it in New Orleans and a gravy, as we call it everywhere else, I guess. So that was very frustrating. But flash forward now, countless numbered years because I don't feel like counting them, but many years forward. You may or may not be aware that there's a big fight going on in Los Angeles right now or in the entertainment industry. The Writers Guild of America that represents TV and screenwriters has asked the union, they're a union, they have asked all the writers to fire their agents. The Association of Talent Agents has, since the 60s or 70s, I think it's since the 70s, been profiting off of their clients in a way that doesn't benefit their clients. An agent works for you. You say, I've got this piece of intellectual property, I've got this book, I've got this screenplay, and they go out and work with a deal and they get paid 10 percent or 15 percent of whatever money is made, but what the big agencies are doing now is they're packaging things and they're saying, well, we represent this writer, we represent this director, we represent this actor. We're going to bundle this package and try to sell it. And then if we bundle the package and sell it to a studio to make it, then we get producing credit and we get a bigger chunk of the pie. Which then means they're negotiating in their own interest, and so if the studio's like, I think we can make a deal, but your writers ask you through too much money, they'll go, well, we'll give them a little less. And so with me, when they said no one's ever gonna want this project ever again, I realized only this year what that actually might have meant was we couldn't make a deal that made us enough money. And we don't represent enough people in the mix to make this show, so we're never gonna do anything like that. It's not the same thing as you'll never find another studio to want it, it's just it's not worth our time. So it's an interesting time now because a lot of writers are going around their agents, and we'll see what happens. Yeah, it's too bad because, you know, Fenn is such a incredible character. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, she really deserves a wider audience. Yeah, I wanted to go back to, you know, I thought that, you know, the two points of you, that really added something to the book for me. I don't know what other people thought of her there, but I'm just, it was like, you know, she was so intense that you go over there. So it was like, like, I can see. I'm going through there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So it was like, it was like, it killed the end. It killed the end. It was like, okay, make it the break. But like, it was like, it was a normal person with the average person fare any better. I get a lot of teenagers, you're like, why is Daniel so dumb? And I'm like, what would you do? What would you do? You don't know. You think you know, you have no idea what he was doing. Yeah, Daniel's so dumb because she says he's dumb. Yeah, she calls him dumb. Right. It's actually very smart in his way. Yeah, so it's like, is he really dumb? Yeah. No, it's because she's calling him dumb. And she's got an expectation. Well, she's smart, but he's not. Yeah, and he's not. Yeah. But smart, straight, smart. And she's also a product for 12, 15 groups. You don't think you know who he is, right? She's in the 16s. Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting with that because my editor, who wanted the three points of view, got laid off. And then I get a call from the publisher, and the publisher, it's weird because the publisher is your company, but it's also a person, the person who runs the imprint. And my new publisher was like, she was a new hire, so it was a regime change. And she's like, I'm going to be your editor. And my one note for you is to undo everything he had to do. Tell it from one point of view. And at this point, I'd already had the tariff cards read. And I was like, well, I can't. Because there's scenes in this book that you love that can't happen from a fan's point of view. The entire super job moment, which I love, is Daniel has to be Daniel or someone like Daniel. And I don't want to get rid of that. And her response was, we're sure you'll figure something out. And so I stopped listening to them. And I just started redoing the story the way, fixing the story to be what I thought it should be. Which is ultimately what it is. And it was in that process that that publisher slash editor actually stopped being responsive to me. And I said to my new agent, I said, you know, I'm not hearing from her. And I don't know why. And he goes, you know, I was talking to an assistant editor over there. And she's your editor. I don't know why you think the publisher is your editor. And I was like, because she called me and said, good news. I'm your editor. So I ended up with this other person who had been the assistant to the guy who got light off. And she'd been bumped up to assistant editor. And she is the one that I finished the book with and did Pasadena. I did Toymakers of Prentice with her. And she is an amazing, she was amazing. And she's the one who wants to be in this as a career who keeps making people. What's that people? That's my news. So I'm going to be marriage outside of that. Well, she's come doing nothing. Well, it's a thing. It isn't nothing, right? You could take her to your editor. Well, that's what I had thought about. I have a new editor currently because after her, she went on the trailer leave. And I was given a young woman who was just supposed to be like with me till Pasadena came out. And then my editor was coming back. And I feel bad because I've now forced my editors to have family planning conversations with me. And you're not allowed to do that. So I'm like, I'm not asking, I'm just asking. How many kids do you want? And so she was supposed to come back. And so I had this young woman and she was very new, very green. And then we found out that my editor wasn't coming back. And what she was afraid to tell me and had to like have someone else call me to say, she needs to tell me something. Don't be bad. I was like, I knew it. I could feel it. There was a shipper in the air. So then I had this young woman and we she was very new. And then because she had me as an editor, her boyfriend proposed. We got a job out of the city. And so she left the industry and my current editor, who I've just completed my next book with, we had a very awkward conversation where she's like, so your agent didn't want to say anything, but he said, you're worried about people having babies. And I'm like, it's not a phobia. It's just, it's business, it's business. And she's like, no, I'm in this for the long haul. And I really like her. And I think we've done good work together. And I would not insult our relationship by going outside to hire my old editor. You know, I think that if I was writing something that wasn't her wheelhouse at all, or something they didn't want to publish, I might go back to my old editor and say, can I hire you on the side? But I wouldn't. I'm looking to build more new relationships. So what's your New Orleans connection? So if you look in the dedication to the book, it's dedicated to my mother, John Marie Max Smith. She was born and raised in New Orleans. I never lived there, but you know, we visited the grandparents in the summer. Loved the city. My mom and mother was a Katrina survivor. So the book actually came out of that experience. My mom had moved back down to New Orleans to take care of her parents until they passed away. And she was there trying to renovate her house. She was remodeling the house so she could sell it. And moved out to California where my brother and I lived. And won Katrina. And she tried to get a flight out, but they had closed the airport. She had a decision to me. Like, do you drive out, maybe get stuck in your truck in the storm? Or do you shelter in place? They had a house that was over 100 years old in her parents' house, and had never gotten any significant storm damage. So she decided to shelter in place. And the eye was calling her throughout. I reached her during the eye of the storm. And she said that she'd been in her bedroom watching her sound like a truck hitting the house. And she jumped up out of bed and ran into the living room in the ceiling of her bed collapsed. And she was okay, but didn't know what was going on. And it's, you know, it's the middle of the night. All of this is happening. And so I said, you know, she was going to stay awake. And I was going to call her as soon as the storm blew over, because you lose the connection when the eye passes. And I called her the next day. And it turned out that a neighboring building had like a structure around their big industrial air conditioner. And one of the two by fours had blown off and pierced the roof of our house. And the rain came in and that made the drywall weak and collapsed the ceiling. But other than that, she was okay. It just, it was a bad storm, but it was just a storm. There were some trees down and that was it. And then it started trickling in that it's not just a storm. Because she said, call the insurance. She's like, I'm trying to call the insurance company, but they're not answering. So I tried calling the local company. And then I tried the state company. And then I went to a parent company before I could get anybody. And it became very clear that it wasn't just a hurricane, the average hurricane. She was on high ground. There was no flooding there. But she could not get out of the city. And she tried to drive out and got swamped in flood waters. Somebody passed in by and swamped over us near her. She had to walk a couple of miles to find a drugstore, which of course all the stores were closed, but looters had broken in and set up care stations when we were handing out water. Because they were refusing to let the Red Cross into the city, because the powers that be had this great idea that they could get people to leave, that they just smoked them out. If we don't help them, then they'll have to leave. Not stopping to do the simple calculation of the people that are stuck there are elderly, disabled, poor, or stumped. Just stumped. So I was trying to figure out how to drive down to get her. I was going to drive from LA to New Orleans to get her. When reports came in that the police in the neighboring towns were blocking the entrances and shooting people. And all law enforcement had fled in the city. So I told her, I'm listening to the news mom, they're starving up the shelter at the Super Dome. She dove there. And she said, I don't want to go. And I said, why are you doing that? She said, because I'm your mother. And the next day, I heard reports that people were being assaulted in the Super Dome. So thank god she didn't go. One time, I'm like, thank you for not listening to me mom. And we didn't know what to do. We didn't know what to do. We couldn't get in from her. We couldn't get her out. And I just started calling. And eventually I called the Coast Guard. I don't know why to this day. I'm not sure why. But I said, my mother's a diabetic. Her insulin was running out. It wasn't refrigerated. It was like a god, a seven-year-old diabetic woman. And she needs to get out. And the Coast Guard said, we'll go. And they sent an ambulance for her. And they got her out and took her to a convention center in downtown. They got her on another bus. They took her to the airport. The airport, they put her through these tents through this processing thing and put her on an airplane. And then she landed somewhere and got on another bus. It was taken to a stadium where the Red Cross had always caught setup. And there were stations that you had to go to. And she just said, I just want to get to California. I've got family waiting for me. And they gave her a gift card for $300 and said, just wait. We're going to finish processing you. And she's like, I don't want to wait. So she left. She's got a couple of waterlogs, cases, and that big mom purse that moms have that have all her papers in it or whatever, just let it all be swollen and soaked in blood waters. And she calls me. And she's like, Shari, I'm in a cab on the way to the airport. I'm coming to you. And they said, Mom, where are you? And she said, hold on. The cab driver, what city is this? Because they never bothered to tell her what to take care. And she was in Charlotte. And they said, Mom, hold on. I might know people in Charlotte who could help you. And she said, no, I'm coming to you. She got to the airport. And she went to United, which was her favorite airline, and said, I'm a Katrina evacuee. And I'm trying to get to California LA. And all I have is I have this gift card. And they said, oh, well, last minute it took her $300. And she's like, perhaps you didn't hear me. So she went down the road and got to US Airways, which no longer exists. But Charlotte was there. And they said, Miss Smith, how much do you have on that card? She said $300. And they said, we'll sell you to give her $250, so you don't have to get a cab. And that's how she got out to LA. And it was three more months before we could get back into the city. But in an air crisis, I do a lot of news gathering and research. And I was reading articles about how the emergency response was terrible because it was a predominantly African American city. It had been a white city. But there had been a bigger response. I've read that law enforcement had fled, but the street gangs were protecting their own neighborhoods. And I thought to myself, what if it wasn't about skin color, but something you couldn't see in my blood? And I thought, what if it wasn't gangs? What if it was trunks? And then one day after my mom got out to LA, I was driving home. And I heard a voice in my head that said, oh, Nick Davis, he's beautiful. I had greeny-gray eyes, like agate. And I was like, what is that? Hello? So you get used to this. I was a writer. I called my office. I had a date that worked at a comic book company. I called my voicemail and just said, oh, Nick Davis, he's beautiful. I don't know what it is. But and that's how the book started. The stories shouldn't be tensed up. So we raised her story. Her voice was, that's why I said it felt right. Like, that's how she was telling it. That's how I was writing it. So having my editor come and say, can you formalize this? Felt like having someone come and say, you know, you're speaking wrong. You have people who gently correct everything you mispronounce as you're talking. And you're like, so I decided to get a bow on my phone. Yeah. And then I had a good morning from going, yeah. Yeah, I get it. Yeah. Your use of the Institute. And I spent a lot of time thinking about the Institute and then thinking about your use of the Institute. OK. Because it was Daniel's chart. And then I was going to be the answer. And that was going to be when they were going to do great scientific stuff. Then when you got there, it was a bust. Yeah. It was a real bust. And it was a bust in terms of what they were doing. But it was also a bust in terms of what the bug they were doing. That's where I kept my superpowers. OK. You think he would have been better informed? Well, I think he would have been better informed. But there are a lot of. So one of the things that I sort of need to go over. One of the things I was really playing with there was the Testiki experiments. Syphilis experiments on hung-winning American and how what the official line of what we're doing is. What we're doing is good for humanity. But what's actually being done is not. And so Daniel from the outside only has sort of the company line. This is what they were doing. This is what the headline said. This is what we were told they were doing. And you show up and discover that that's not the case. It's much, you know, I think similar things happened in Nazi Germany with Action T4 where they're telling people that we've got care facilities for your mentally challenged children. Send them to us. And oh, they died of a cold or something when that's not act. You know, they're testing out the final solution. So that's what I think I thought and he thought that it was a hard science, biological science. Because that makes sense, right? That there would be a social science people running around and not doing his work, not doing his kind of work. Not trying to solve or cure the fever. But think about this opportunity. You're building a quarantine space and now you can run social experiments in it. And what I said before, if it's not about skin color, what is it about? It's human nature to divide. You know, it's sort of human nature to categorize, which leads to tribalizing. And so it seemed to me, if you're a particularly heartless person, like a fantastic opportunity. It doesn't come along every day, you know, to be able to study this enclosed environment. And in theory, if you made discoveries, if it worked out that you learned something about, can we end racism? Can we end hate? By, you know, shifting our focus onto something else. It could, you know, some things have been done with the greatest sort of excuse of altruism in mind. Like what might that have done for humanity if they had made discoveries? But of course, they succumbed to their own hubris. But also, secrecy breeds, you know, corruption. And there's that wall, you know, so it's not like Orleans had a media. Right. No, it's the ultimate secrecy. You can be doing whatever you want, really. They could have been, you know, openly experimenting on things or dressing up like puppies every night and having a party and, you know, only the military satellites would know. And it's also, it's a war zone, but it's only them, you know. It's like that Northern America can look down and say, well, it's them. But they don't even know they're there anymore. Which is what we're doing now, anyway. So it's very current. Yeah, well, it's interesting, because the book came out so many years ago, but it is the idea that you, they think it's all dead, right? Because you don't have any media. You don't, you're not hearing anything anymore. And that disease was so terrible, nobody could have possibly survived it. You know, I wonder how many times we think that. Like, I was marvel when there's a famine somewhere. There's some areas of this world have been so famine-stricken for so long. How is anybody still there? How is anybody still alive? But humanity adapts and we keep on ticking. And then there's still that sense of that's them. That's them. It is not in our country. It's not in our, you know. And we have our own problems. You know, and I hope you got a little bit of a sense just from seeing Daniel leave the outer states that the outer states has its own problems. And so. Did you have a hard time writing, for lack of any other term, dystopian? Sorry, because I was kind of worrying about you. I was thinking, my gosh, she's going back to the story and all these terrible things are happening. There's no positive vision here. Well, it's interesting because, first of all, there was a positive vision, but it was a trilogy. And so it's interesting because I do get adults saying, well, it's all so dark. And I'm like, it didn't have to be. But you were literally like, I'm afraid of the dark. And then said, please leave me in the dark. And I'm like, okay, that's what you get. And I do, I feel that the story ends with a certain amount of hope. I do think that young adult literature in particular should end with some hope. But what was hard was all of the hurricane research, all the Katrina research and sort of reliving that. My mother, we got her back into New Orleans and she remodeled her home for a second time and then she passed away. And I consider her one of the victims of the storm, even though that's not how they calculate these things, they really need to because the stress, it took her. She actually had to fly to Florida and sit in the front offices of the parent company of her insurance company to get the money that was due in order to repair her house. So that was hard. But it also made the book an imperative for me. New Orleans didn't even, New Orleans was devastated and still wasn't even the worst of it. And it's never going to be the same. I just felt like people need to remember. So it feels more current now than when you wrote it. I mean, the wall is so much more, you know. You know, it was like, you know. I believe that's correct. And the rain and the number of hurricanes that have been since then. Well, it's funny. I actually had to change some of the hurricane names because those hurricanes hit. Like as I was writing that, and I was like, oh. And the book was about to come out and they were like, could you not? And I'm like, yeah, because I had been going off of, they have the list of hurricane names and I decided to create names. Is that why you picked Haitians? That's why you picked Haitians? Yes, because you can have fun with it and it's not on the list currently. So, yeah, but I did, I wondered about that and paid attention to that. With the wall, it's funny because it is current now, but something that's always stuck with me. When I was a freshman in college, everybody had to take Psych 101. And I don't think it was for our enrichment. It was because the Psych majors needed guinea pigs. So you had to sit in Psych 101 and then you had to sign up to be a lab rat for a certain number of hours. I've had cathards on me. And one of the things in our textbook was about the Berlin wall being a physical manifestation of schizophrenia in our society. And that kind of says it all. And so whenever I think of the wall, and so I happened to be the following year, I guess it was the following year the wall came down. And I remember standing in front of the TV in my dorm room sobbing. And that summer I studied in Europe and one of the kids in my class, he went to see Pink Floyd at the wall and played the wall at the wall. And he brought back chunks of the wall for everybody. And it's always sort of stayed in my mind. So whenever I think about building like a really divisive wall, that's what it is. And so that's what I was thinking because the response to Hurricane Katrina was really fracturing in this country. I think that there was a real, there was a us and them showed up, but it were all us. So how does that work? And I can only imagine what that must have been like for Germany to one day be Germany and the other day next day be something else. So yeah, seeing it happening again on our own soil, I think it is an illness that is cyclical. And we have to be vigilant. Also I don't think Germany has ever, I mean, even though they've recovered quite a bit, I don't think they ever really recovered. We still have scar tissue, right? Yeah. It doesn't matter. Big time. It's going to take a long, long time before. And we don't have time because history repeats itself every 30 years. And they've got like huge white supremacist groups there. All over the place. And honestly, we might be next. We might be, it's everybody gets a shot. In the long take book that I'm reading, they were talking about McCarthyism. There's a conversation with a Jewish German professor who he says, you know, we fought Hitler and then we created our own. Like, can't they see that? And so, you know, I'm not making any direct comparisons today, but it's something that I worry about. You can. Well, I mean, you know what, everybody's got their, everybody's got the thing that keeps them up at night. And it's not all the same. Some of it really is, but then what they think the cause or the solution is, is not the same. So we all just want to be happy, free, fed, safe, loved. Could I shift gears to Pasadena? Because I want to make sure we have some time to talk about that too. You were talking about author control and decision making. Did you choose the cover? Oh, no. So the way covers go, sometimes they're just like, and here's your cover. And you're like, yay. Or you're like, oh my gosh, it's amazing. So like with Orleans, actually, they had a totally different cover that was like sort of this murky silhouette of a girl and a wrought iron fence with flirtedly tops and like a bloody darkness in a street. And then they were like, we think this is going to be a bigger book. We're redoing the cover. So they did that cover, which is a lot of movies and books have done a cover that is the same sort of style that's all based off of like a Scottish romantic painters painting. I can't remember. It's called The Wanderer or something. That was totally a trilogy cover. You're absolutely right. Yeah. So there's that cover. But from Pasadena, they gave me, sometimes they'll say, what do you think? And sometimes I will have an idea and sometimes I don't. But I like to see what they come up with. They gave me three different versions. And one of them was predominantly black. And I was like, that's going to wear terribly in shipping for a hard cover. Because black always seems to get scuffed up. But I didn't really like it. It was like a strip of film and negative image, negative image and a positive image or something like that. And the other one was a play on that and I didn't like that. But they showed me this one and it was a no-brainer. I was like, well, this is it. And it's such a beautiful, sophisticated cover. And so all I had to do was say yes, please to this one. And there's a book blogger out there who puts herself does photos of herself with covers. So she did a picture of herself where she's the torso to the legs on the covers. She was like, it's really funny. She sent it to me on social media. This isn't a fair question. So you don't have to answer it. Really, I'm fine. Fascinating. It's not going to be a fair question. Did you begin with the end in mind when you started the book? Did you begin with that ending in mind when you started the book? For Pasadena. Wonderful. I loved it. Oh, thank you. I loved it. I cruised through the book and then I got to that ending. I was like, man, that's a great ending. Wow, that's really something. Oh, good. But did you start with it? No, so Pasadena was a lunchtime project, I called it, because I was working on Orleans. I was working on other things. And what I did was I had a legal pad. And every day at lunch, I'd go to this place called Sharkies and order a tray of nachos. And I would write three pages longhand. And the story of the book came about because my husband is a big film noir fan. And we don't have a family room like normal people. We have an art deco home theater and that he's built himself and this giant screen. And one night he was in there watching noir. And I sat with him for a little while and I said, huh, I wonder if I could write a noir. And he goes, you think? And I said, sure. And I left and the next day he was like, the thing is, Shari, about a noir is there's no heroes. Everybody's damaged. You got to understand. I'm like, I went to film school. And thank you for clarifying. And so the book is dedicated to him. But so I thought, well, who are the most damaged people I knew, most damaged place? High school, most damaged people. And so Maggie is a bit of an homage to someone. It is not her detail-wise, but the pension for drama. And so I knew who the dead girl was. And I knew who my protagonist was. I knew I was writing it first person. So I just started writing. And every day I would look at that last sentence so I didn't go, well, what would I do next? And that's how I got to the end of the book. So now I didn't know that. I didn't know how it was going to end. Really? Yeah. Having reached the end and sort of blind things. So I finished the book. And it's 50 pages. And I said, this is perfect. And I gave it to my friend who'd read the tarot cards for Orleans. And I said, you want to read something perfect? And she goes, but what is it? It's not a book. That's not even really a novella. You can't publish this. And I said, shut up. That's perfect. And then I begrudgingly went back and I added another 50 pages. And I was like, perfection. And she was like, you know, Shari, you got to stop with that. Because I never thought anything was perfect. But for some reason, I kept thinking that that was nailed it. And she encouraged me to make it bigger. And I did. And still it was approaching 200 pages, which is still quite small for a novel. And at this point, I was looking for a new agent. Because the Orleans thing had happened. Because when Orleans came out and when Orleans was sold and they said that it was only going to be one book, I then was reading in the trades somebody had a similar sounding title that they just sold as a trilogy. And I got angry at my manager and was like, you know, doing a new job. So I had outgrown him. And I was looking for a new agent. And a friend of mine recommended hers. And I gave her something, my unpublished novel, which is a mystery, actually. That's the one mystery I felt I had written. And he bizarrely said to me, he said, well, he said, it's too commercial. Do you have anything more literary? And I was like, no agent in the history of the world has ever said something like this. This might make money. No. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Yeah. But I said, well, I've got this thing. It's called Pasadena. And it's not done. And I don't know what it is. It's too short to be a book. But sure. And I sent it to him. And he was like, oh, I love it. It's evocative. It goes, the mystery is well, you know. But I really, you know, the language. And so I was like, OK, I'll take that. It was like he sounded like 50-50. And he signed me. And so that was our first book together. So yes, I was encouraged again. I got my editor who was just like, OK, let's fill in some of the gaps. And so that's what I did. So how do you get, I mean, I know a lot of literary writers who can't get audio. And they keep saying to me, oh, well, my publisher never went there. And I'm like, because you have to go to them and say, I want audio. Because I've had a couple of friends who've done that. So why are you, I mean, you're available. I've had friends who've done that and been told no. I didn't bother. That you're out there. Well, so what happened was I was sitting at home one day. And I got an email saying, hey, good news. Pasadena's going to be an audio book. And I said, what? OK. That's so exciting. Can I come to the taping? Can I? And they're like, and I'll probably be in New York. And I'm like, I don't care. I'll go. Because that's cool. And I need something on my blog. And I can blog about it. Let me come. And they said they'd let me know. And then one day a box of tape showed up. And CDs. And I was like, what about that? And they're like, oh, yeah, sorry. And I was like, that's OK. Because here it is in the flesh. And I called my husband into my office. And I popped it into the CD player. And they start up. And it says, Pasadena by Sherry L. Smith, dedicated to Kelvin. And my husband starts to laugh so hard. Because I go, no, because I've got my name wrong. And they've got his weird name right. And he's just like, that is rich. And I'm just like, shut up, get out of here. So I called them. And I'm like, to Sherry. And my editor was like, oh my god, they never asked me. And the people were so embarrassed. And of course, they've printed all these CDs. And they're like, we can change it on the audible download. But we can't change it on this first batch of printed ones. So we're so sorry. And I was like, OK. That's amazing that they didn't ask. No, they didn't, so then. I get the good news. There's more. There's always more. How was the reading? Did you like the reading? I did not like it at first, because it's noir. And it's meant to be deadpan. So you've all read it, so I can use the language. But that opening line, Maggie always was a fucking trainwreck. It's a great first line. So thank you. I had to fight for that. I had to fight for that F-bomb there. And I did. And I won. And there it is. But the audiobook, she goes, Maggie always was a fucking trainwreck. Valley Girl, angry much. I was like, no. And she seemed to realize, as she was going on, that that was not the tone. And so it shifts. It improves. She makes Joey sounds like a puppy come to la-hoo-hoo. And I was like, ah, she makes all the boys sound sort of dumb. What's the company that does it? I don't know. Because they're different audio companies that contract it. Because some are good, and some stop. But the reader, but what it really is, I think, yes, it could be directed differently. But they don't ask for any information. That's why I would have loved to have been in the room. But that's probably why they don't have us in the room. And I'd be like, can you do it again? But like, so. You might have corrected your name. I could have at least done that. So she, who, just to me and my mom, you know, listen, I appreciate that. But so she does it. Ultimately, it was really compelling to listen to. I was surprised. I was like, I'm really enjoying this. She does great, softly accented Korean and Chinese. Like, just really nice job there. And then I get an email. Good news. We're turning Fly Girl into an audio book. And Fly Girl has been out for years. But it's my best-selling book. And I was like, well, that's exciting. And they're like, we've got this woman, Bonnie Turpin, who has done a lot of big books. And she's a great voice actress. And so I went on to Twitter and was like, Bonnie Turpin, you're doing my book. I'm so excited. And my Twitter page, it says Shari, rhymes with Capri. And she wrote back, I wish I'd known. That's how your name was pronounced. Oh, no. And we just did all the fixes. So sorry. And yeah, so they did it. But I think it was a different production company. And didn't get the memo, apparently. And it was good. So yeah, so if you, you know, a collector's item, if you want to go out there and buy the first CD pack, you can have my new best friends. Well, when it goes on to talking books, they have the ability to edit. Well, that should be corrected. But if it's something that has a download, it should be corrected. But yeah, so that's life. So I wanted to say that one of the things that I loved about Pasadena was the visualness of the entire thing. You really didn't need to say that you were a film-war fan. Right, right. Or that your husband Pasadena was like, oh my god, there's so many tributes in there. Like the one piece of black swimsuit, the cigarettes, the sunglasses, the floating in the pool. The one really funny line about, well, nobody went out until the pool guy showed up. Right. Actually, the way it was. At least until the pool guy showed up. Yeah, that is a book that I could just see, you know? And so I was just, like I said, I was just sort of narrating it. I knew the tone that I was going for and just went for it and didn't pull back from cliches. And I really enjoyed writing it. And I enjoyed sort of writing a love letter to Pasadena. I had gone to Pasadena, but my husband turned 40 for his birthday. We had a big party, and I had these little miniature, these sculptures made of him, like a cartoon version of him to give his gifts, because everybody wants a small version of my husband. And the guy who was making them lived in a pool house in Pasadena. And he was supposed to paint them in full color and had run out of time. And I said, can you just do a matte black finish like the Maltese Falcon? Because my husband likes that movie. And he was like, yeah, I could do that. So it's the Maltese Kelvin. And I had gone to him to see the first Maltese Kelvin. And I'm driving up his road, and it's inspired the road that Maggie's parents live on, because it had the tall palm trees and these beautiful old houses that have seen better days. And you could just see the curtains twitching back and probably some toothless starlet who's now an old, crotchety lady looking at it. And I pulled up, and I got to his face. And it took him a little while. I answered the door, and I was getting creeped out. And I said, when he answered the door, he said, this is creepy. This is like Southern Gothic creepy. He's like, I know. Something weird? And said, that always just stuck with me. Because Pasadena is such a beautiful city, but it is a Southern city in a lot of ways. They have the rose parade. So they have debutante ball. And the Tournament of Roses, all those young ladies up on that are debutantes. And it's just fascinating. So that occurred to me after I finished reading Pasadena. Because I read Orlean's first, that they're totally different books. And yet there's always a woman who is kind of giving up something, or giving up her life, or the greater good. So in Orlean's pen, you don't only know whether Fen's alive or not at the end. You hope that she is. But she's taking one for the grade. And then Maggie decides she's going to give it up so that her brother has a chance. That's interesting. It's always nice to find out what you've done when you talk to people. Somebody once said that your characters are like an acting troupe. They show up in every book. But they have different names, different costumes, and everything. But that's the story that you're always going to tell. But every writer has that one story that they tell over and over again. So that's interesting, particularly kids. And I don't equate the two at all. Because now you could have just been a dastardly person. But she was a contradiction. She was meant to be a contradiction. Fen is really, my mom is Fen and Lydia. I wonder if that's true. Yeah. She's Fen and Lydia combined. And so it was sort of interesting to splinter the two. Because my mom was a lady. She was intelligent, well-educated, just a powerhouse, an amazing woman. But one day she said to me, I wrote a short story about this. One day, we're talking about something. She goes, reminds me of when that girl went after my teacher was a knife in elementary school. And I stood up and smacked it out of her hand. And I was like, you were in a knife fight in grade school? What are you talking about? And she was like, oh, yeah. She pulled a knife on the teacher. And I got up and knocked it away. And she said she was going to get me after school. And I was like, what did you do? She said, I left school early. I ran home. And she said, I was like, wow, you were a badass for like five minutes in that story. You were incredible. And then you were realistic. So I wanted Fen to have that sort of toughness, too. But with Maggie, yeah, I think it was the contradiction. And I like the idea of this is something actually that happened after my mom died. She died suddenly. We had to do a quick funeral. The rules in New Orleans are all based off of malaria laws from way back when. And my brother and I were trying to plan a funeral like in a day. And it was this weird conversation of he was there. He had flown there. And I was gathering things in the city, in LA. And he was like, I'm looking at three coffins. And there's one that is cherry wood, one that's mahogany. And I said, oh, well, the cherry sauce. And he goes, oh, she hated cherry wood. Like, first of all, who hates cherry wood? And how do you know that? Like, what conversation did you have with her that told you that? And then he's like, oh, and then there's just one. It's got this sculpture. It's like a woman holding a guy. And I'm like, it's the piano. That was she loved that sculpture. And he's like, why do you know that? Because I went to Italy and saw it and came back and told her about it as if I had invented it. And she's like, Shariah, I know what the piano is. I took her to see what she felt that you don't remember it. Yes, I love it. So it made me realize we only know the version of the person that we know. And it's like, after they're gone. That was a really good part of that book, was everybody had a different take on me. Yeah. And it lets you know how complex we are as human beings. You must have done a lot of eavesdropping. Because there's so many great lines. These funny lines about place in there that you may, as you were writing the book, I was wondering where you heard all that. There was so many nice turns of phrase. You know, I have no idea. Right in his mind is like a hoover. You suck it all up and it shows up one day when you dump the bag out. I don't know. Some of it just comes into your head. Some of it you do over here. Yeah, if you gave me a specific line, I could try to tell you. But honestly, it just. Part of it, right? Park and ride. Park and ride. That just showed up. That just showed up. Yeah. It's interesting because both books have a really, really strong sense of place. I mean, it's like the places are kept in their name for the places. And it's like the places are characters. And they reflect the story. But it's a strength of yours. It's a writer, I think. I don't know about your other books, but certainly in these two. For these, it was very deliberate. But I do like to. Why not use your set? Yeah, I agree. And it's so evocative. And if you've been there, or even if you haven't, so yeah, Place has always been my first book set in Alaska. And in fact, one of my notes, I got very few notes on that book. But the first was more Alaska, please. And I was like, OK. And I had already done like a, wait, I'm not writing Alaska. I'm writing a story that can happen anywhere. So let's make this Alaska and changed a lot in order to do that. And then they still want it even more. So yeah, I try to. I like to travel. And a lot of people can't. So you might as well bring it to them. What was the title of the book? It's so balanced. Lucy the Giant. Look at that. Down at the front. Lucy the Giant is about a girl who is nicknamed the Giant because she is big, is a really big man. And she's like 6'4". And she comes from a broken home in Sitka, Alaska. And when things get to be too much, she is always being mistaken for an adult. So she impersonates an adult and gets a job on a crabbing vessel in the Bering Sea, which now we all know is the deadliest catch in the most dangerous job in the world. And here she is, this teenage girl pretending to be an adult and doing it. So yeah, that was my first novel. I used to be a development executive at Disney for TV animation, come up with ideas for animated sequels to all their big animated movies. And I was visiting a writer that we worked with in Alaska. He kept saying, come on up. And the minute I got there, he was like, go and see things and don't be here. Sit me away again. But I traveled around a little bit in southeastern Alaska. He had another guest with him, and she took me to the University of Alaska, had a totem pole. And we're standing under the totem pole. And she's telling me about this group of kids she used to teach at this school for words of the state. And she said, oh, and then there was Lucy, Lucy the Giant. And I heard gong. I said, what did you say? And she said, Lucy the Giant, gong. And I'm like, I'm staying here. And I didn't know what was happening. And I was like, OK. And that was a girl who was heavy set. And she told me about her. And I ended up writing it down. And I was writing notes. And I was on the Alaska Marine Highways, these fairies that take you from town to town. Sitting in the cafeteria, and this Canadian family was eyeballing me from another booth. And I was like, what are they doing? Because I'm a city girl, and I'm suspicious of everybody. And the mother comes over to me, and she goes, excuse me. Are you a writer? And I said, no. She looks at my legal pad and goes, but you're writing. Your logic is astounding. And she was my angel, like, coming over to say, thank you. All right. I realized later on that I was writing notes for my first novel. One of the things that actually Pat and I were talking about at dinner, we have another book group. And we've made a lot of books where the environment and problems in the environment are primary. And sometimes it feels like you're being lectured to. And I really appreciated the environmental parts of your book, which spoke to problems but weren't in your face lecturing the fires in Pasadena. And the New Orleans, the hurricanes, and the wave landscape have changed. So I really like that. That's actually another great line, is this is Southern California. Let's go watch something burn. Let's go watch something burn. Yeah. Right. Right. Let's go watch something burn. What was the line? This is Southern California. Let's go watch something burn. Yeah, when I first moved to L.A., it was like a big, there's a huge fire in Malibu. And yeah, my brother and I were roommates. And we were like, you want to go see the fire? So in Santa Monica, which is on the coast, and it curves out to Malibu, there's a place called Pacific Palisades. But there's a cliff and a railing and a little pathway. And it was like a Godzilla movie. We were all these people. We were all lined up just watching the ridge of flame. And I was like, wow, this is what people do in L.A. It's weird. Because I'm looking because I'm afraid it's coming towards my house. And then there's the just like, let's go see. That's a Vermont thing, too. My parents lived in the same house for about 50 years. And the house up the road from there on the dirt road. You know what it is. Walked fire. And they saw the fire trucks go by. And they were like, all right. So they got in the pickup. And they drove up there. They just took chairs up the back of the pickup set. They're watching. I mean, they don't really see a snooker than they should do. They don't see a snooker. They see the fires. And they just look around to see the fire. That's why I left California. And my fire season turned into 365 days. And it is really, really brutal right now. Yeah. I've been thinking about writing a fire book. Five years of drought and I left and I started raining. Oh, right, right. El Nino comes by once in a while to make things better. And then, yeah, I've been thinking about writing fire because the Paradise Fire this past year was so devastating. And if you're going to write climate fiction or clarify, as they call it, to be able to, you've got to cover all your bases. You guys have the snow. That's the snow of the fire debris. Oh, we get ash. Everything, I mean, I was in Santa Barbara. So you go out and all the cars are just covered. It's covered in LA too. And I got married in Ojai, which is halfway between Santa Barbara and LA. And there was a huge wildfire coming towards Ojai. And so our last wedding picture is, if you look up there, that the stars are coming. Oh, when you were getting married, it was coming. When we were getting married. So that poster for the stars are fire, the Amida Shreve. Our last wedding picture is like a blood red sky with a palm tree. And there was ash in the street swirling like snow when we went to dinner. Yeah, because my brother, the last thing he said to me at the brunch the next day was, you need to lead your mother away from the fire because everybody was driving home. And we had to have a friend that was like, I just got married. I'm not leaving yet. We had to have a friend like make sure she got out. Everybody got out safe. Crazy. And we went to Hawaii and watched that fire on the news for the entire honeymoon. It burned for almost like three or four weeks. I could have saved so much money just by taking the pick up and pulling out the chairs. Right. Right. And the entertainment for this wedding is a fire. It's a must. Marshmallows forever. So I have an off the subject question in the end. And you know, you're whatever the credits. You thank Claire Ditterer. How do you know Claire Ditterer? Claire and I were at Hedgebrook that women's writing a dream together. And I was, is that in Pasadena or is that in Orleans? I don't remember. Orleans. It's in Orleans. OK, I couldn't. So I've been to Hedgebrook a few times. And both, I wrote the draft of Orleans there. And I wrote the additional 50 pages of Pasadena there. But she was there working on Poser, my life in 23 years. We all got the first one. She had her first book. And she found me sitting in the woods on a rock. And she was new. And like as people come and go, and I was sitting there and I looked up and I saw her but didn't say anything. And she walked towards me like, and then she walked away. And we kept going. And at dinner she was like, I was going to introduce myself, but I could see the deadline in your eyes. So we became friends. There's a deadline? And I was like, yeah, that is like seeing without seeing. And yeah, she's great. She's really great. And we helped each other just to work out story stuff. So yeah. OK. OK. Thank you so much. Thanks for the week. Clap for me. Thank you. Have a good one.