 Vanessa, I noticed that we're in the children's room of the library. I knew we were going to the library, but I didn't realize we'd end up sitting on beanbags in the children's room. What's up? I'm quite familiar with children's rooms of libraries all over the Bay Area. Not only to get books with my six-year-old twins, but also because there's always something going on at libraries. It's true and free. Yes, free. Legos. One time I saw a dog show. There's many things that libraries could offer you at all. It was wonderful. Is that hygienic? There was jumping through hoops, and then they had drummers. I feel like libraries have changed a lot since we were kids. They have, but you know I've been going to libraries since I was, I don't know, five, six. We used to go to this tiny little library in my hometown. It was actually in a house, but I swear I went every week. My parents took me every week from then until I graduated high school. Oh, I once had a goal to read every book in the library. How did that go? You're such a super-achiever. I'm still working on it. Are you a book omnivore? You can read everything in the library? The encyclopedia has tripped me up a bit, but I did make my way through a lot of the mass market sci-fi paperbacks on the carousels. Oh, I totally remember. That's how you get into Stanford. Yes. It's true. Proven. It's proven. It works. But I eventually had to leave the children's room because of my interest change and also because they were no longer a child. You were no longer a child. Take kindly to a middle-aged man hanging around the children's room alone. Oh, no, you shouldn't do that. I have not been to the children's room in a long time. My kids are teenagers. I miss it. Yeah, my kid's 21. It's been a long time since we perused Captain Underpants. But there is so much the library can offer you at all stages. Everything from discover and go, free tickets to museums. When you want to use research, I love Link Plus. Oh, yes. You can get any book anywhere in the world delivered. It's such a gift. This is all true, and yet we find ourselves in the children's room. There's got to be another reason besides these groovy beanbag chairs. Well, the book I picked lives here. Or rather, the series. I was going to say, did you pick a book? I always think of you as a sophisticated yet when it comes time to pick your favorite book. Here we are in the children's room. But you know what? You could still be very sophisticated, and choose a kid's book. This is true. It's out. Well, I mean, think about the books that you read not just over and over, but maybe multiple times a year. Where you knew where the illustration was on the page. And it's sort of like, you know what's going to happen, and yet you like entering the room again over and over. And actually, I never did that with movies, really. But books, you know, through high school, I would read them over and over. We would watch movies again. Remember? I mean... Right. It was a little harder back then to watch movies. Maybe you guys. Right. During our days, we had a bird that tapped them out on a stone tablet. I do wealth. But this is a good point. Let's talk about our favorite book. It's not necessarily a book that we enjoy reading. It's a book that also impacted us in a huge way. Yes. And that's what you're saying with the series of books that you're about to unveil that got us into the children's room. We gotta know what it is. Yeah, it's time. Are you... Am I... It's not my favorite book. Okay. You'll have to look around. I wanted you to have to get up off the bean bags and not me. Ah. These are a newer edition than what I have stocked at home. So what do we got here? We have Little House on the Prairie, which is first in the series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. And Little House on the Prairie was a bit further down in the series. But I love them all because of the ups and downs that are in both books. And I'm really looking forward to talking tonight about what it means to be a writer, what it means to be a stranger in a strange land, and also what it means to collaborate. And I believe, you know, interestingly enough, Laura Ingalls Wilder did come here with her daughter, who was a newspaper journalist, much as I am. And they collaborated on this series of books. So I think we'll have a lot to talk to. And the timing's great because isn't there also a new biography of Laura Ingalls? Am I going to have to mis-say Laura Ingalls Wilder? Maybe, every time. The number of times. I believe it just won the Pulitzer. Yes. The story behind the story. Correct. So we talked about that tonight too. I guess this means it's time for us to get out of the bean bag chairs too. I'm scared. I'm a little scared too. But let's go ahead down to the auditorium. Oh, gentlemen. It's time to go down to the auditorium and talk about Vanessa's favorite book. Down that yellow brick road. I almost broke my ankle. It's almost like we passed through a time portal or something. It was like the Willy Wonka elevator. It was incredible. Once I stood up, I knew I was going to be okay. Ooh, listen to me. I'm louder than you. Oh, I like it. Hello. Welcome to the inaugural episode of The Grotto Pod, my favorite book. Those of you who can't read the screen can read my chest. Yeah. Our first guest is Vanessa. Well, thank God because we can count on Vanessa. But I want to give you a little background. Vanessa is the author of one collection of short stories, deceit and other possibilities, which was the winner of the Asian Pacific American Award for literature and a California Book Award finalist. Her next book, River of Stars, is a novel that comes out in August, Bridget. It looks like that. Ooh, pretty. And you may recognize her name because she is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. So welcome, Vanessa. Thanks for having me on. Oh, absolutely. So Vanessa, let's dive right in. Your favorite book is not actually a book. It's a series. And that series is? The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. So I actually want to start with a question. I see some fellow males out there. How many guys out there have read these books? Thank you, Alejandro. The librarian. The librarian has read the book. I don't realize male. Larry, how about you? I read one today. I read Little House in the Big Woods today. And? I know how to cure meat now. And make butter. And make butter. And make a balloon out of it. And make a doll out of a corn cob named Susan. But let's start at the beginning. But there was hunting. There were manly pursuits in there. They were like off-camera, though, weren't they? No, there were a lot of encounters with bears. But later, there's paws hunted by a panther. They have to ford or raging river. There's many acts. There's blindness. Well, we're going to get into that. I don't want to get bogged down with that now because I really want to start by talking about how you encountered the book. Let's talk about our favorite book. When we first came up with this idea, the idea of your favorite book can be anything. It can be a book you go back to over and over again. It can be a book that had a huge impact on you as a writer or even as a person. So let's kind of take that lens and start with when you first encountered these books. Well, I have an older sister. She's eight years older. And as with many books I first got introduced to, it was probably because they were just sitting on the shelf. So somehow it passed into the house and I sought it out. So there was never any, Vanessa, you should check this out. You just picked it up? Yes. My parents were into free reign parenting before. It was a thing. Yes, mine as well. Well, it's a good thing that's all you picked up happenstance. At that age. Yes. At that age. So what was it about the book or the books that were you captivated by them right away? I think I found the idea of adventure and exploration to be really compelling. My own daughter of Chinese immigrants born in the U.S. myself. But just that notion of picking up our family crossing oceans and her family crossing the prairie, I found a certain kind of kinship. And I think just that idea, I mean, Laura as a character is very feisty and getting herself in trouble. And that was something else I could relate to. And also she wanted to be a writer. Even though it's interesting in one of the later books, she even reprints an essay that she wrote in class that it turns out she saved her entire life. Like this essay she penned as a teenager meant so much to her. And it was just this idea that even if she didn't portray herself as a writer in the series, her name was on the cover. So I knew that she was a little girl who grew up to write books. That's interesting to me because like I said, I read Little House in the Big Woods today. It can be done. And I had the advantage for this conversation of reading it, thinking of you the whole time and thinking how would this speak to Little Vanessa? Like how old were you when you first read it? I don't remember. It was, it's always little, yeah. But out there in the suburbs and reading about this girl, and I guess it's interesting that you used the word adventure because I would say to me it didn't seem like adventure. Now I haven't had the advantage of reading the other books where apparently they forge streams and are attacked by people and all kinds of stuff. All the good things. Did you see adventure even in this first book where they're churning butter and making... It just seems so self-sufficient. Right. Like you don't need to go to the store. Just make, you can make the butter at home. And there's something really for a suburban kid. Was there something really exotic about that? I mean I suppose or just I didn't go around. Like it's of a different time, right? They ride sleds, they're in a wagon and it just seemed like... They play the fiddle at night. They play the fiddle at night. That I found actually really attractive because considering the world that we live in now where nobody plays a fiddle at night. There must be somebody. You could listen to fiddle music. Depends on if you're a fiddler. We could download some MP3s of fiddle music. Just this idea of how tactile and immediate everything was for them. Did that really speak to you as a suburban kid? Or just again the self-sufficiency. It's like if you needed a wooden floor you had huge logs to do it. If you needed to make a roof you... I think I remember there was some detail like they didn't have nails. So they like carved out pigs to hammer in the pigs. Yeah. And there's a big chapter about him making bullets. Right. Which always fascinated me. I know. What's there not to like? There's lots of it. Like waste not want not. Every single thing matters. Which is maybe in a way like kind of immigrant too. Because my parents even growing up it's like if there was like a bite left of the sandwich we'd take it home. And don't look in our freezer now because there's a lot of delicious things. Rinds. Rinds. Oh well. Delicious leftovers. Delicious leftovers. Do you take rolls out of restaurants too? We waste not want not. Okay. Okay. And what about... You know one thing that struck me is how these girls would be so psyched at having like a broken cup to play with. I wonder if we have to set the scene a little bit. Like does everyone know the Little House books? I mean there's that TV show. Except for the guys in the room. And Alejandro. Well and maybe some people have seen the television show but this one over here. Yeah this adventurer she knows nothing. I think it would be good to maybe just give a little overview of what the Little House books are. So it's about a pioneer family. The Ingalls family. And as portrayed in the series it's Ma, Pa, Laura, her sister, Mary, and Carrie is a baby. But it turns out they're actually a son too who passed away. So I mean that's something else we can talk about. That they're sort of what she portrayed in the series and kind of the story behind the story. Because I think there's a little bit of a lesson there for writers. This is a writing podcast that she wrote them originally as adult books and recast them. She wrote the first one in 1930 as... Wait, wait, wait for it. Pioneer girl. Pioneer girl. Look at you. You know your history. You're Laura Ingalls Wilder. So I don't deign to be... There are many experts with far more knowledge. Oh for sure. Yeah. In case you don't know, the 2018 Pulitzer for Biography is a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Prairie fires. And then there's people who use survivalists, who use her book as manuals. Oh no way. Oh yeah. Because they want to learn when the end times come, you're going to want your butter and make your bullet a wood floor and your bladder balloon. Oh, named Susan. Okay. Noted. You know, I want to back up a little bit because in the intro, you know, we're up there in the children's room. Just right now. Just right now. Moments ago. Still a lot of breath. You had said, specifically you mentioned collaboration that this book meant something to you in terms of collaboration. That said something about collaboration. Can you expand on that a little bit? Well, I didn't of course know about the collaboration until later. Yeah. Not as a kid. It was just Laura Ingalls Wilder on the cover. But it was interesting. It's a really interesting mother-daughter story. Right. Tormented, in fact. And with a little bit of a local flavor. Yes. So her daughter, as I mentioned in the intro, was a journalist here. And I think the last book in the series even sort of touches upon Laura's adventures in San Francisco. And growing up in the Bay Area, I felt sort of, even though we were separated by decades, you know, I too had been by the Exploratorium, which was then, which used to house the world. The Pan-Pacific Exposition. Yeah. The Pan-Pacific Exposition. So it was that feeling of like we sort of had passed in the same space somehow. Like I felt a sort of connection. And San Francisco is a really good place for that because so much old stuff is still here. You could actually go to the Palace of Fine Arts. Well, didn't a lot of stuff burn down in the fire, too? Well, it was. No, this was after that. If I could just step in. It was supposed to all be destroyed. Right. Or be allowed to fall back into its natural state. But San Franciscans loved it so much, the Palace of Fine Arts, that it was maintained. This was after the earthquake. Okay. It was never intended to stay forever. In fact, it was supposed to be San Francisco showing the world. We're back. Okay. Yeah. Was the Eiffel Tower supposed to be knocked down or? The Eiffel Tower was not supposed to be permanent either. It was made for the World Exposition of 18, or yeah, 1889. See, you came to hear about Little House in the Prairie. And it was not, it was not liked. Today we have Sales Force Tower as our monument for the Eiffel. Which is not temporary. I'm so excited. So, 1915 was when Laura Ingalls Wilder came here to hang out with her daughter at the Pan-Pacific Exposition. And out of that was born the beginning, was that the beginnings of the collaboration? I believe, you know, money was always an issue. Weird issue. Yeah. Well, I mean, they were, I mean, you don't pick up and leave unless. No, I mean, as far as daughter giving them money. Oh, right. And borrowing money. Yes. I mean, if you read the Prairie Fire, I was really surprised to learn that there is this sort of like control issue between them, you know, throughout their entire relationship. She even built them a house, a fancy house that they really didn't want on their farm. And then they, like after a few years, moved back into their old house they built by hand. So. I think that was a plot of the Beverly Hillbillies once, too. Oh, okay. But I'm not sure. Maybe that's where they got it. But Rose Wilder became her mother's editor pretty early on. And encouraged her to write. Yeah. As a writer, then you mentioned collaboration. How does that speak to you then? What's your experience with collaboration as a writer? So since I'm a newspaper journalist, I have experience being edited and working with like, you know, the editor or a photo editor or just like working in a team. And, you know, I love how if you go out on assignment, you can sort of, you and the photographer can work together and play off like in terms of getting the best interview. I know speaking to the editor of my book that sometimes they've, or my agent, they've said that sometimes some writers aren't that open to or used to being edited. Whereas I've gotten used to my favorite line getting cut out of the story many, many times. So, but at the same time, I remember I worked on a TV segment and that takes collaboration to another level where everyone's writing notes and you're like, Are you talking about like the writer's room type of experience? It was for a documentary, but just everyone was, we're reading the lines over of the script over and over again. And it just seemed sort of, and everyone had something to say. And I realized it's just their process. But I guess overall I'm just saying that, you know, I enjoy collaborating, but I also find it interesting to say I've never written a book with someone. Do you think... I can't imagine. Do you think writers in general and you specifically come by collaboration honestly or is it something we have to learn? How to collaborate or... Yeah, I'm getting good at collaborating. I mean the act itself, the act of writing itself is so solitary. That's true. Well, and it's interesting because sometimes you'll go to writing workshops and sometimes, or often it's all women and it seems in some ways men have some more trouble being open to criticism. To reading Little House on the Prairie. To reading Little House on the Prairie. I think we need to go there because Larry keeps bringing it up. No, no, you don't have to... No, I think we do. So you feel... So I know, I'm seeing empirical evidence that I've found that it's interesting when I said we're doing this book. I started kind of doing informal polls of people I knew and most of the women's, this, oh man, I love this book growing up. Oh, I loved it. And most of the guys who had not only had never read the book but they never watched the TV show either, me among them. Oh, I didn't watch the TV show really. You didn't, I was going to ask you that. No, but she's too young. That's why. Like when I was a kid, I actually wasn't interested in Little House on the Prairie of the TV show, but we only had two channels. And so I would watch whatever I could get. I watched a lot of terrible stuff. Well, you didn't have to watch it because you lived in Montana. You could just live it. Right. Well, that's actually funny because I was... Did you make butter? We did all that stuff. We were not survivalists, but we could have been. But that's why I never read them when I was a kid because I resisted. I felt like it was too close. But maybe that's the thing. Maybe it's because I'm from the suburbs in New York. Right, it was exotic to you. And so I didn't read them until I had kids of my own and read them to my kids who really liked them. Well, you keep saying the word exotic. I mean, it was different, but I don't know if I held it as exotic. Exotic is a loaded term. Far off lands type of thing. Yeah. Okay, all right. I mean, to me, it felt way too close to home. I grew up on a dairy. I would look at the pictures. I would look at the cover and just be like, oh my God, I don't want to know. Can I come in with bears? Did you ride bear back? No, I did sometimes ride bear back. Not like that. With your petticoat? Not with petticoat. I once had my tube top fall down, red bear back. That was a very bad thing at 12. I almost never got over it. I can't believe I just said that. While riding a horse? Yes, it was horrible. And Blaise Jelenick was right there and saw everything. Wait, his name was Blaise or was that his real name? That's a nickname. That was his real name. Really? We are Facebook friends, if anyone wants to find him. But so... My point though, that I sort of happened upon today, I thought maybe the reason why young boys didn't read this series was because for whatever reason, young boys are reading adventure. Call of the wild. Maybe more exotic. Maybe it isn't the type of exotica that young boys like. I can't speak for myself because I was reading sports biographies. Well, I read... My brother had this series. I forget... It was like boys' books that all had to do with... But no, no. Well, it had something to do with sports. And there would be always a climactic sports scene. Yeah, there were those and there were hearty boys and junk like that. But there's certainly books, children's books that both... Right. So do you read them to your boys? Tales of the fourth grade nothing or whatever the... Do you think that's changed? Do you think that's changed in the last 20 years since we were kids? I mean, we were kids a lot longer ago. I know. We're older than you. But that's more gendered or... No, it's less gendered. There's more of a crossover now. We're not in our silos. Because, yeah, I mean, I was getting just handed sports... Here, read this, read this. Sports biographies, cars... I don't think that happened to me, actually. I mean, we're still at the stage where we're reading, like, Gerald and Piggy, which seems to be... We went to your kids. To my kids. Yeah, or they're reading them. How old are your kids? They're six. Oh, so you're... So for those who don't know, Vanessa has twin boys. Do you think you'll read them? The little house books? Or maybe I will have them on the shelf and they will come to us and tell. Exactly, that's also true. So you put them up there and then, like, you can do a little experiment. Put that up there, put a little call in the wild and then put Captain Underpants and then they'll read that. So the second book in the series is Farmer Boy. That's what I've been told. And there's another book that's about a boy I can't remember. So they're not super gendered in that way. The series. I'm trying to remember. It's been a long time. Yeah. Well, there's only... Well, Farmer Boy... A Farmer Boy, yeah. ...is about Almanzo, her husband as a kid, and then the long winter is about half. Oh, right. I mean, it's still from Laura's point of view, but it shows how he, like, went through a blizzard and saved the town. That's adventure. There are many adventures in that. Yeah, I can see that. You know what struck me reading this book today? And again, I only read the first one, but wow, I mean, they're just... They're in that house. They don't leave. Or... They're out of town, like, once every two months. Right. Far from town. At a certain point, I realized, like, wait, they only get candy once a year and it's whorehound. I know. What is that? Not even refined sugar. You know what? They get a chunk of maple syrup. Yeah. All the kids used to talk about these books was that they got an orange at Christmas. That was like a big thing. Candy cane. But I actually, I found that chapter really touching. It's like, wow, that'd be great to just be over the moon because you got a pair of socks and a candy cane. You know, the real homestead is in, I think, South Dakota? Dismet? Is that North Dakota or South Dakota? South Dakota. But it's the high plains. It's... Like, winters are insane and I just cannot... Like, it's incredible to me to think people lived through that in the way that they did. In a tar-paper-shirt. Yeah. Like, oh my God, unbelievable. Well, is she reading biographical information about her that when they got to that point they were moving into town for the winter? Right. Yes, makes total sense. They were staying out in the tar-paper-shirt. I mean, how much were they venturing? But they lived in a hole in the ground. They were hobbits for a while. Right. What are they... Well, they had the furry feet people wore. Earthen, like, yeah. Right, but the stovepipe. Right. The mean badgers. That's nice and warm. Yeah. Being in the Earth. How much more adventure do you want? I want adventure where you actually leave the house. No, no. You want adventure that stars a boy, Larry. Yes, I think so too. I think you're projecting Vanessa. Okay, name one adventure that stars a girl that you're like... You're first. Me? Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna say... Let me think. Ronja... Ronja Ravens' daughter, is that what it's called? The Scandinavian one with the girl... Pippi... Pippi Longstock. Pippi Longstock. Yeah, but it's by the same... By the same... By the same... Oh, yeah, that's a really good one that I really liked. Well, I'm gonna have to reveal some here is that I don't actually read adventurous books. Oh, because you read sports books, but sports are their own little... I think I read the Mary Lou Retton bio when I was a kid. Oh, my God. My husband had a crush on Mary Lou Retton when he was... Well, the hair was so cute. Oh, my God. Really? Yeah. And the 84 Olympics. Yeah. I mean he was in elementary school. That's the thing about these books is that my daughter loved the Little House books and... And she grew up in the city. And she grew up in the city. And she grew up in the city and her favorite movie at the very same time that she really loved the Little House books, her favorite movie was Miracle on Ice, which is the story of the 1984 US hockey team. 1980. 1980 US hockey team. So it's not like she's so girly and loved girly books, but I think it was the self-reliance part that she was really into. Like being out in the world and facing the elements. Yes. I don't want to get derailed in a discussion about if this is a girly book or not, because I think what is probably what really speaks to us, you know, non-calist city slickers is just this idea of being self-reliant and doing all this stuff on your own. I mean, the idea of like, what's your dad do for a living? Well, he leaves every day and kills a bear. And then he comes home and we eat it. And he's too tired to even play the fiddle. He's too tired to play the fiddle. Yeah. But as we saw in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, often he was like a laborer working 300 miles away. Yeah, that surprised me. And then he got a job working in the railroad station as a clerk. Well, I mean, they are a kind of... It was a hard scrabble life. Right, it was definitely... Their entire lives were hard scrabble, but there is something about her vision of what it was where she telescopes into these moments, like playing the fiddle at night and being around the candlelight at night together. Or just the emptiness of the prairie on a summer's day. Yeah, exactly. And you can feel that there were these childhood moments that resonate through her life as... I mean, by the time she was writing the books, it was kind of becoming a lost world. For sure, it was already a lost world, yeah. But also, I feel like the lens through which she sees both of her parents is very heroic. As a kid, when did you grow up? 70s, 80s? I was born in 1975. 1975, okay. I just heard somebody else go, ugh. I know there's people in this audience who are born in the 80s. Or maybe even in the 90s. Reveal yourself. Really? No, but how do you contrast that? Because we don't live in a time where parents are held up in that manner. You are not Chinese. That is no secret. But you're supposed to hold them up like that. Right, but I think if your dad goes out and comes back with a deer draped over his shoulders every day, that's probably a little more... And then plays the fiddle. I think it's a different way of looking at things. Yeah, I mean, but it wasn't like... I did something like bowed to my parents when I entered the house or anything like that either. But good to know. That is good to know. But I'm just saying, there was just so much unspoken in terms of knowing what they had... The sacrifices they made to come to another country to give up their family, their language, and all that. I mean, a lot of that is the story, right? Stranger in a strange land, coming to this new place, having the family as what they're looking to... A sort of... And Laura didn't necessarily feel like she fit in. Like she was the country girl, the outsider. She was an outsider. I also was really struck when you... Are there any books where the narrator is an insider? No, it was great. I know it's like, well, you have to have conflict. But also, I think that's part of what makes a writer is that moment of knowing that you're standing apart and watching. Yeah. And that realization that you're seeing it happen. That brings up something I wanted to talk about too. She's not only an outsider to the outside world, even within her family, she always feels like she's the second, the lesser child. She's got the mousy brown hair. She's got the rage. Yeah, she's got the second child rage. That's what makes her so likable, don't you think? Yeah, a little bit. But not knowing what your family situation growing up was, did that speak to you as well? Or were you married? Was I married? Yeah, did you have beautiful golden curls? I don't... I mean, actually, I never... Don't answer that. I mean, I know some people say they have said, like, oh, I wish I had blonde hair if they were Asian. But that was nothing I ever felt. I felt proud to be Asian-American. But I definitely also felt different in that we were perceived as different by neighbors or people at school or, you know, just the inside of our house was different than the houses I saw on TV or in books or in friends' houses I went to. What about within the family? Are you the oldest child? I am the middle child. But the spacing is interesting. As I mentioned, my sister is eight years older and my brother is 11 months younger. So in some ways, I got to be the youngest child. In other ways, I got to be the oldest child. Okay. That's nice. You can kind of play it however you want. But I was really struck when you chose the book. When I started thinking about it, how much you do have in common with Laura Ingalls Wilder? I mean, it really is true because... Grew up on the prairie. Well, besides that, like, she was a writer. She was a teacher. She was a columnist. She was a journalist. Well, yeah, it was interesting. She started writing in the newsletter about her expertise in raising hens. Right. And then she built her way up. Yeah, and where did that newsletter go? It was like a farmer's newsletter. Like a poultry. Yeah. Right, but it went from this... She became really a poultry professional to being a really a professional writer who was admired during her lifetime. Like, that's a pretty amazing leap. Well, and I think, I mean, of course, this was not something I thought about as a kid. It is interesting that she was able to arrive at that career later in life. And so often, I think, as a writer, you can get hung up on, like, younger is better, hot new thing is better. Or even, like, can you be a writer and have kids, which is, like, sort of a debate floating around on there? It sure is, right? What is happening right now, yeah. So, yes. But could she have even been a writer if she hadn't had Rose? I wonder how much she think Rose was... I always wonder how much heavy lifting Rose did always. I just read the book today. Well, not even in terms of ghostwriting it, but in terms of saying, Mom, you can do something about it. I think that's been debunked. I think that was a big part of saying you can do it. Yeah. I have to kind of... You got a passage to read over there? Well, I would like to read a passage, but also I just want to say that this book, which I had bought when my kids were a little west from home, are letters from Laura Ingalls Wilder to Almanzo when she was here in 1915. And they're so amazing because so many things in San Francisco are still the same. Yeah. And are still... But reading the letters, you can see she's a naturally really good writer. Like, she really sets scenes and tells stories. I can't imagine what it must have looked like to her. If she's the person who was a little girl who was blown away by whatever that pep in Wisconsin, which now has 700 people in it, to come here, it must have just completely... Or to see the ocean for the first time? Right, we're seeing the ocean for the first time. You know, I have never cared for cities, but San Francisco is simply the most beautiful thing. Set on the hills as it is with glimpses of the bay here and there and at night with the lights shining up and down the hills and the lights of ships on the water. It is like fairyland. That's very beautiful. And apt. And apt. And so like it is now. But yeah, she put her feet in the Pacific Ocean, saw it for the very first time. The salt water tingled my feet and made them feel so good all the rest of the day. And just to think, the same water that bathed the shores of China and Japan came clear across the ocean and bathed my feet. In other words, Almanzo, I have washed my feet in the Pacific Ocean. It's beautiful. Yeah. Well, okay, that's a good jumping off point. You talk a little bit about her skills as a writer and how you saw that as a young girl. How that, because you didn't wait until late in life to become a writer. You started early, right? Well, I was a journalist first. Yeah. Well, though I was writing stories. Did you say a journalist isn't a writer? Well, writer of books. Okay. Yeah. But the language and it's pretty economical. It's pretty tight. It's pretty structured. Did you notice those things when you were a kid? I think you just absorb them. I mean, it was at a level where, I mean, I read these books multiple times. How many times do you think you've read them? I mean, at least once a year, maybe more. Just, it was like, I remember being a kid and reading so much that my eyes would cross at the end of the day. Has this happened to any of you guys? Oh yeah. Well, you can't focus anymore. Yeah, your eyes would burn. Did you ever do that thing where you would be reading, reading, reading, reading, reading, you'd get up to do something and your eyes couldn't refocus fast enough and you'd like walk into the wall or anything like that. Did that ever happen maybe? No. Not to me either. Not to me. Yeah, I don't know. Nope. So I guess I'm saying like anything, what is it Malcolm Gladwell's like 10,000 hours to achieve a skill? That's why sometimes I think about all this structured reading that kids are supposed to do compared to the kind of reading I did when I was a kid. I do think there's value in just reading anything. I really believe that. I know that's not what everyone thinks. Well, it is the start of summer reading days. Oh, I know. And how does that work Vanessa? Well, actually my sons were really excited about it because where we live, if you fulfill, if you read the, you know, enough books, you get entered into a drawing for a Nintendo Switch. Wait a minute. So even though they love books, he keeps talking about this Nintendo Switch, but I'm trying to explain to him that it's a drawing and not a guarantee. Oh, what is a Nintendo Switch? I'm a little out of it. It's a handheld. It's some kind of electronic device. It's like a next generation. It's not a book. I can tell you that much. And he asked or whatever they were, the Game Boy became a Switch. It's a handheld gaming. You know what the problem for you is? There's two of them. Let's start. Fighting will ensue. Oh, right, right, right. If one wins. Yeah. The odds are unlikely. Let's hope. We'll cross the fingers that you don't win. I mean they read all the time anyway, but this is just, but this is a thing I hear from people a lot. Like that they don't like what their kids are reading or they're worried that they're not reading things that are up to grade level or that are serious enough. And I just wonder if that's a problem. I just don't think it is. I don't know. Well, I think if you just love to anything from the back of cereal boxes, that's what I think you should never, or sometimes people might say like, oh, I'm reading this corny book or, I'm like, it doesn't matter to me. I'm not. I know. Totally. I do like Kindle so that people can't see what I'm reading sometimes. We talked about that. You put the bad books on your Kindle and the good books you buy so everyone can see you're reading them. Or you can put the jacket of the National Book Prize on the trashy book. That's, I had not thought of that. No, but I actually feel pretty strongly about this too. When I taught high school, there was an issue always about what is appropriate curriculum for kids. And once when I was teaching British Lit, I had a free, you know, choose a book, write a book report, and I let them, I was reading, one kid read Irvine Welsh and I'm like, great. Oh, that's fantastic. Because it's a muscle that you have to develop and you can develop it by reading anything, I think not. I mean, yes, there's different levels of challenges the books present. That's a great book. Yeah. I mean, there's the pleasures that come from reading, but also it's, you know, when kids are studying for SATs and like doing flashcards at age 16, it's almost like, that's too late. You need to pick up these vocabulary words from reading throughout your childhood. I'm saying, I think it's easier to get them to love reading by letting them read stuff they love. Well, my husband, when he was a kid, his mom would let him stay up an extra half hour if he would read, and she would check out a stack of books every week from the library. So. And did that work? Oh, yeah, he loves to read. Did she vet the books? I think she, I don't know, maybe she picked a ball out of sports books. I don't know. It was just from the kids section. When I was a kid, we actually were required to have a book at the dinner table, even though it's usually the opposite. Wait a minute. Well, it was so we didn't talk. You came from a big family. Hang on a second. So there's nine kids. Yep. Eating smoked meats that you smoked yourself. Home butter with fresh butter. Cured butter. Cured butter. Flying the, the, what you bladder balloons. Uh huh. And you're all reading, you're not talking. Well, my father had a very small television and he would watch that and the rest of us were supposed to read and not interrupt him. Wait, you know, it sounds like those silent discos where everyone has headphones and is in their own world. It was like that. Did you talk about the books you were reading? No, the idea was to not talk. That was the point. Wait, how was the table big enough? We had a huge day. Yeah, it was like a big old vlog table. We had two tables. This is not about me, but I was raised in a way where like books were a punishment. Basically. Oh no. And they were child control. Now you're a writer. But who are? But I loved, I loved books. Yeah. And I still have books. Well, I don't think, I don't know what I'm trying to say. Just there was no, there was nothing, there was no aura around books when I was growing up that there was something high-minded and, and virtuous about them. They were like child control devices. Like an iPad. They were iPads. Yeah. Yeah. We, in my family, we just consumed them. You know, we just, and I don't think my parents read good books, what we would consider good books. Boy, they were at the library every week. Just a big old stack of books. So I was there too with my big old stack of sports books. Same. Did you, did you go to the library growing up? Oh yeah, I remember like just getting huge stacks. Better say yes. And also, how much you could take? I feel like we used to take a lot of books. I'm sure I maxed it out. Oh, there's no limit. I don't think there was at the time. Then they went to eight. Well, you could stamp them too. There was 50? You could take 50 books. Alejandro says you can take 50 books out of the library. We're all meeting afterwards. What? We're all taking 50 books each. How do you get them home? How do you leave with it? Oh, you don't have to bring them all back. You don't have to take them all at once. Uh-huh. Okay. Well also, it used to be sort of more nifty when the, Oh, I like that. Yeah. And then you can kind of like, did you ever go into the library stacks and you'd find a book that had not been checked out? In my case, since like 1951, you'd be like, what could it be? And sometimes they were good. Yeah. Vanessa, do you presently own all nine books in the Little House series? I do not. Really? I have not, the period of re-reading them again and again kind of ended in high school, at the end of high school. And it's not like I grew up or like to be too big for, like to be too grown up for the books, but there's just other, and the stream of books coming my way is endless. Oh yeah. That is true. Yeah. I'm surprised that you don't have them around because how else are the boys going to find them? Well, it sounds like, well, there's the library and also it sounds like I should maybe fill out the rest of the collection. Perhaps you should. Can I just recommend the audiobooks are excellent. Oh, okay. Is a narrator male or female? Female. And she's some famous actress whose name I don't remember, but she's really good. Do you have an audiobook version of your book of short stories? No. But there will be one for the novel. The novel. Do you get to do it yourself? River of Stars. River of Stars by Vanessa Waugh. It's so frickin' good. And you know, I actually had the experience with reading Vanessa's book where, as hardly ever happens as an adult where you think, I have to go to sleep, I have to go to sleep, but I'll just read like a little tiny bit more. And I stayed up too late and I was very crabby, but oh my gosh, there's some twists that are amazing. I'm so impressed by the plotting of this book. Oh, thank you. How does it, how does she do it? But don't get people. I know I can't talk about any of it. I'm sorry. I know it's August. You could pre-order it though. Everyone's looking at me like I'm going to say something. I don't know. You look like you're going to say something. Or request it from your local library. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah. That is a good idea. Get on the list. So looking back at, because we've got about 10 more minutes before we're going to do a little Q&A afterwards. You've got any questions for Vanessa? This is, you chose this as your favorite book. We came, you said Vanessa, what's your favorite book? You didn't spend too much time thinking about it. You went boom. I know. No, I mean, I actually debated whether to pick little women because I've answered that way in the past. It also stars. There's one of the Joe March. It's the 150th anniversary. Joe March. Oh, it's the 150th anniversary. That's why there's a new like Masterpiece Theater. Oh, I didn't know this. With it. And Joe March is a character in the book who is a writer. She's also feisty. She also is also they're both kind of tomb boys. Yes. Yes. Although I don't know if I was initially a tomb boy, but just as characters. I mean, there is some similarity between Joe March and Laura. Right. Or yeah, yeah. So I think you just answered my question because I was going to ask what drew you to this book other than finding it on the shelf. I'm sure you found lots of books on the shelf that you're not talking about. I read Candide in the fourth grade. What are you like? What's that about? Well, no, I totally... Oh, an animal farm. Like I... You thought it was like a book about... Hey. I thought it was like animal... I mean, I just... It totally flew over my head. The farm. Yeah. Bad things happen on the farm sometimes. Yes. Do you continue to to find books? Were you identified with the main character like that? Are your main characters like that? Oh, that's a good question. Well, I mean, I think any character whether they're male or female, Chinese, a mother or not, I think are all going to reflect things that I'm interested or curious or passionate about. So... But it's not... I don't think it's like on the nose, one-to-one correlation between my biography and my characters. It's more like what... They're a map of what compelled me during the time I wrote the book. Right. The themes and ideas that interest you. Well, then what is the lasting impact of reading these little housebooks on you? And really, just to sort of build off that, to what degree do you think they nudged you a little bit toward becoming a writer? Oh, they definitely led me to become a writer because, as I said, they just gave me like a very... Besides just taking me through all those adventures, I knew that this woman, this girl grew up, we went through her life and that she was able to become a writer. So it opened the possibility. And I do believe in the importance of representation and it would have been nice if when I was growing up there was something about it, you know, if something like the Joy Luck Club had existed, but it didn't. And so, I mean, in that same way, I've had people write me either about my columns or my books saying, like, look, I'm not Asian. I'm not a woman, but I still... You hope that books can build bridges, even if they're not exact mirrors. And then there's a universality of what's happening in the themes. Yes. It looked like you were about to ask something over there. You're just shuffling your cards. No, I'm reading my cards so I don't want to forget anything. I wanted to go back to her novel a little bit. You just want to talk about the novel? Well, because I just finished it a few days ago and it was so good. But she can't talk about the novel because she could say it right. Can I just say one thing about it? Sure, go ahead. Okay. Go on. Please. Tell me more. Because when you were talking about... I mean, it's a little bit embarrassing to say I've lived in San Francisco for 20 years and of course I've been to Chinatown but I've never thought of it as a neighborhood where people are really living. Like, I had even a kind of tourist relationship to... You saw everything on the ground floor. Exactly. And when you were talking about empathy, it just made me think about how much I learned about people in my own city from reading a story from the inside. Right? I mean, it's incredibly important that everyone has the ability to look through the eyes of other people and I don't really like the idea of literature being instructional, that that's some necessity but that's one of the amazing benefits of it, that your whole world gets bigger. Yes. I mean, especially now we live in a time where the country seems so divided. Literary fiction is really a way that we can make our lives bigger because, you know, go beyond the lines that we've drawn. Well, and I think that's what I was shooting for when I kept referring to this book as exotic to you. It's showing you an experience that you may not have, but you're fine in the universality. Let's just use a different word. You don't like exotic, right? You don't tell an Asian woman that she likes things because they're exotic. It's fraught. I see. I have another phrase. A brothel in reverse. That's a great line. Not Laura Engels-Wilder, but my novel. I'm going to end with that because I just thought that was a brilliant way of describing. Yeah, actually, I think we can wrap that up and leave some time for questions for Vanessa. Don't be shy because I can see all of you. And I don't think we need a mic out there. We can just shout it out. Repeat it. Yeah. Oh, we do have a mic. Oh, hooray. Thanks, Lindsay. I love the Laura Engels-Wilder books, too. And I read them. I would read those Happy Golden Years. I never really cared for the first four years. That kind of bored me. I would finish that one and then I would go back and read the whole series. The Happy Golden Years is the romance. Right. And it's one of the best covers, I think. But I'm curious because I have my definite favorites among the series and my ones that I didn't love as much. I'm wondering if among of the eight books or whatever, nine books, one or two that were your favorite over some others? Just curious. I definitely liked these Happy Golden Years as well, especially when I was a teenager. The first book, you know, like I don't know how many times I read it. I mean, I just, like it's like embedded in my, I remember when my husband and I started dating, I actually said, you can make butter from cream. And I put it in a jar. He didn't believe me. And we shook it forever. And it was turning into whipped cream. And then suddenly it was like butter. You keep coming back to this butter thing. I think we should have brought... I'm so blown away that you did it. Oh. You did it. It's a handbook to life. But, and then let me, and I mean, I read the one where they... I'm just like, you're my dream girl. Oh, to any guy in Montana, to any girl in Montana. And also the one where they lived in the den, the house on Plum Creek. Is that where they lived? Yeah. Well, and then even the one where, I mean, there's episodes in every book that are just really captivating, where they ride a train for the first time, or, yeah. Well, I loved, I loved all your talking about the reasons why this book is so rich or this series is so rich. But one thing I wanted to just contribute is this idea of our grandparents. And I love this series because I could imagine my grandparents doing these things. And, you know, my father's parents did, you know, come across the country and they lived in a sod house and, you know, all, and I didn't know all that and they didn't want to talk about it. So this was a window to a world that I felt was almost mine, but not quite. So I think the book really meant a lot to all of us. And I do want to underscore that the fact that there was like a female heroine was a big deal. No slight hair, Larry, but it's just there weren't a lot. Maybe there were female heroines in books, but there definitely weren't female heroines in the world. I felt very much like women were not allowed to shine. So it was also nice. Well, this really you did cover I think very well. But I just wanted to say that was a big draw as well. And, yeah, thanks. Yeah, no, I can imagine if you came from a pioneer family or descendants, like how magical that would have been. It's a different relationship, but... It is interesting that the two books you have said are probably your favorites are not just female centric, but also written by women. I mean, that's a completely different kind. You could say, oh, Madame Bovery is about a woman, but it's not the same. It's not the same. Yeah, like those are badass women in Little Women and in Little House Books. I don't want to harp on the boys' book, girls' book thing, but it strikes me that when we were growing up I did not read. I started it. I think I might have been bored with it, but I wish in some ways it had been assigned reading in our school, since it sounds so historical. And I think it wasn't because it was viewed as a girl's book. And when we were growing up, we read for a assigned fourth grade, fifth grade. It was Shane. I think Shane was written by a woman, wasn't it? Just an observation. Shane that they made into the movie? Yeah. Lord of the Flies. All these books that girls just assumed that they would read. It was a little bit like what we do with movies. And then boys would like to read and then girls would just, girls are sort of more open, it seems. And that's a shame. And I think that it would be, is there a way do you think to get this into the curriculum? Because are you going to champion this book? What's next? Use your power to champion this book. You raise a really interesting point, Caroline. And I wonder if the issue was how are we going to get boys to read? Because like you said, you know, how are you going to get boys to read? They don't want to read. Oh no, I didn't say that. My boys love to read. You go on with your agenda. No, no. How do you get boys to read books that star women? How do you get boys to go to movies that star women and are directed by women? How do you get boys, slash men to do any of these things? Okay. You go ahead. That was very powerful that said how important it was. The boys do read girl books because when they don't, they don't empathize. Yeah. Because that's what books are about. They're about, as Bridget, you said they're about crossing over into another world. And if you refuse to cross over into the world of the feminine as a male, first of all you're cutting out all that's feminine in you and not getting in touch with that. That's what I'm talking about. That world of girls and women. And this woman made a very powerful argument that that leads to rape culture. So that we should really be starting very early with our boys reading girls' books. And that a lot of boys want to read these books, but they're ridiculed at such a young age. And so really as libraries and schools and parents, we should start changing that. Definitely. I'm trying to think about because I have a boy and a girl and what kind of books and they're teenagers now and what kind of books they were reading when they were young. And I do feel like they're less gendered than books were when we were a kid. Yeah, I think there's been an effort. And even just, I don't know if it's the same beyond effort like what kids are interested in they're just allowed to be interested in just where we live. I don't know. I do feel like there were a lot there was a lot more available than there was when I was a kid. I was also thinking about the Chronicles of Narnia. That was a series that I really liked when I was a kid and that had both boys and girls. Oh, and the women were heroes. Yeah, the girls were heroes. The boys were heroes. And some of the books starred a girl some of the books starred a boy. Or Wrinkle in Time. Was Wrinkle in Time ever considered a girls book? Yeah, I don't know. Did you read a Wrinkle in Time when you were a kid? Didn't know. I read all those books and I loved them. I was really into those. But I was mostly into boys' books, I think. So I also love The Little House on the Prairie books and I was also an Asian immigrant girl growing up in the suburbs. And I think what I liked about it was actually it's anti-exoticism the fact that it was so all-American and it seemed to me what America was about. And I also the other aspect that I really liked about it was the the self-sufficiency of it and the other books that I really loved growing up was My Side of the Mountain which is about a boy who escapes from New York City and goes into the Catskills and is self-sufficient himself. And then from there I went to Call of the Wild and things like that. Was that self-sufficiency aspect also something that became a theme in your reading? Yeah, definitely. I've always thought that I mean I don't know I don't know if this was conscious but I've come to think to understand how much immigrants and immigrant families are strivers and that's also part of self-sufficiency like figuring out how to do something even if you've never done it before or figuring out a way even though coming up with a solution for something I maybe could see that modeled in my family and it was something that I admired in the books. Definitely. You know these books wouldn't appeal to me at all because I grew up in New York City at least that's what I think the reason is. Interestingly I read the Harry Potter books because I never thought I'd be interested in them either but somebody gave me an e-reader and I was traveling and so I read all of them and they were like wow these are great books and did you read those books? Oh yes and my favorite Prisoners of Azkaban that's sort of like the return of the Empire Strikes Back of the series where the fate of the everything is in balance and it's sort of dark days so I think that's my favorite book of that series. Did you recommend the book after you read it? Oh definitely. Did I recommend Little House in the Big Woods? You know it's very fresh in my mind because I just read it this afternoon Do you think you could make butter? Like right now? No I don't think I could make butter or make a fashion and bullet I know what we're going to be doing the next time we get together It's butter churn and time Bring that bread! And I will turn water into wine It's harder to do than butter I mean it depends on the age group I would say because they're really well written you know and actually I have to say for me the part because I only read the first one the part that didn't really work for me was just sort of pick a risk it just kind of went along it's like oh this is the fall this is the spring this is the winter this is what we do and then we play the fiddle but I think the other ones sound like there's more things happen but yeah I think I'd recommend it Their life is in peril like every other page and the later ones right? Yeah yeah I mean there's bears in this one but the bears don't come that close I mean if you're a settler they're not empirically bad they're like the panther running through the treetops Oh yeah That's right I mean I don't want to give anything away but really bad things happen to the family and the thing is it's not even the worst of what happened to that family Oh I know oh my god totally when you read what her life was really like it's like the sanitized version in terms of what they lost and what was at stake by that too just how heroic the father figure was in the books and then reading his life story does not sound like the story of a heroic person Well I don't know I mean surviving and taking care of your family that seems pretty heroic to me Did he take care of his family? Yeah I mean there was a lot of down times Well I think you mean because financially down times? Moving around a lot getting whatever jobs Make sure you do what you gotta do I know that they were homesteading like in some cases I know that at one point they go to Kansas thinking that they were homesteading and it turned out that they were actually on reservation land and so they had put all this time and effort into creating a farm and had to abandon it With glass windows That was actually on one of the episodes And did you say that it's kind of a sanitized version of the father as well? Well it's a simplified version for sure And I also don't feel like it's a like this vision of he's this perfect heroic simpleton something I don't know there's something gritty about even in this children's view of her parents You see their struggle Yes I mean you they know I mean it's just unspoken She understood her they had to move because her parents were failing but they weren't going to discuss their finances with her She was a child In book one both parents seemed pretty unflappable Yeah Whatever comes their way and he laughs off Oh I thought it was a bear and it turned out to be a stump Thank God And they Discipline But it always seems to make sense I know they seem pretty It's a kids book Larry They're good people Yeah of course they were much more complicated I mean if you read the prairie fires you also find out these things that happened in town that were truly horrific that don't make it into the book like emulation of drunks and things like that Yeah no drunks in a No in the children's version Maybe we have time for one more or no more Didn't you just say that she wrote it for adults? Oh I'm sorry So she wrote when she originally conceived of the book it was for adults and it was called Pioneer Girl and I think she tried to shop it around and it didn't sell Right and then someone gave her the advice that she should write in those children's books The story is it was her daughter Oh it was her daughter So I don't know I don't know that I think that manuscript might exist somewhere but not sort of It's been republished in a kind of truncated version but it's never been I don't think it's been republished in any way It was in some ways just like episodic summary it wasn't sort of lyrical and elaborate upon as it is in the children's book I mean the thing about a children's book is it gives it its own arc which is what's going to happen to this girl and what's going to happen to this family and that's nice and that's one of the reasons why version after version is kind of exciting is because they keep moving to these slightly new places and you're hoping they're going to get ahead and it does, they fall in love Yes So Vanessa can't answer this question but how faithful was the TV show to the books? Oh because you never saw the I mean I think I would see an episode or two from what I heard but even in the books everything with like composite characters I will say this wasn't there a very memorable TV villain, Nellie? Oh yeah I mean I remember that I was like Nellie Olson Nellie Olson It was nothing like Yeah, it was about him He did the kind of hair Oh that hair From where I sit And I never really liked it that much It was the same thing like it was too close it was kind of the opposite experience too for reading something that seemed I don't know like your grandparents it seemed too close when I would watch the TV show I just think this is so stupid but it's so interesting that the show became about him Well, he's the star Did he produce it too? Yeah, I think so It really was about him Although she was a big character it was never clear to me watching the show why Laura was the main character Like, you know what I mean? Yeah No I don't mean to go off on the show It was just a goodie-goody on the show I mean I was also I wasn't watching the show religiously because I was too old to be interested by the time it came out I was really into They adopted a boy that must have been to bring in boy viewers and I thought he was very cute He was in Tiger Beat magazine I don't remember his name though Oh, I vaguely remember that You were reading Tiger Beat? No, no, I remember seeing the cover He was super cute I don't think he was in any of the books Also, the way I know him is to jump the shark when they have to adopt It's cousin Oliver What we are out of time Vanessa tell the people in the audience how they can find you online Sure I'm at www.vanessahua.com I also have a mailing list in the back I'll tell you about events giveaways, all fun stuff There's also postcards for my novel more about the San Francisco Writers Grotto, which is where we are all housed. You can take classes there, there's also information back there as well, and about the podcast which you should subscribe to on iTunes. Yeah, you can actually follow us on Twitter at thegrottopod and email us at grottopod at gmail.com. Yeah, you should. You should do that. And you know what? I'd like to thank the San Francisco Public Library, our partners, and for this great evening. And to all of you. I know. Thank you for coming, for pushing your way in. And I also want to thank our partners, Babylon Salon, San Francisco's premier reading series. And you guys, if you're interested, you can go on Saturday, June 2nd at 6 p.m. to the Armory Club and see some great readers and have a great evening in SF. Free. Free. And our next event here will be July 24th. With Matthew Zapruder. Matthew Zapruder will be our guest. Poet. Poet and awesome personality. And this isn't our usual setting, but I'm going to have us go out the same way we always go out, which is Bridget saying. Oh, yes, I say read, write, and just keep working.