 Hello, everyone. Welcome to Web Chat Wednesday. My name is Ryan and I'm a studio guide at the Long Beach Public Library and I'm here with Chris. Hello, everyone. Thanks for stopping by to Web Chat Wednesdays. In celebration of National Normal Writing Month, our special guest is Suzanne Greenberg. Suzanne is an award-winning author based in Long Beach. She received her BA from Hampshire College and her MFA from the University of Maryland. She teaches creative writing at Cal State Long Beach, where she's a professor of English. Her works are part of the Long Beach Public Library's collection. Thank you for joining us, Suzanne. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Great. Awesome. Is there anything else you would like to share with the viewers that we may have left out in your bio? I don't think so. I've lived here now for longer than I've lived anywhere else, which always startles me and moved here for the job at Cal State Long Beach in 1995. So I've been teaching at Cal State Long Beach for that long. So November is National Normal Writing Month and we wanted to know what are your thoughts on writing a novel in a month and are you participating? No, I'm not participating. I can't imagine doing it. I say bravo to people who do it. They're sort of like maybe the marathon runners of writers. I think it's a fun idea. I've had students. I had one student who did it many years in a row, actually, but no, I've never tried it. And I don't think I'd have the stamina for it. Also, I write really slowly. I don't think I would get to sleep at all that month. Yeah, definitely not. People who do that definitely don't sleep when they do it. Oh, do you remember when you first started writing stories? Yes, I didn't really start. I wrote a lot of poetry first, pretty bad poetry when I was younger. And but the poetry helped me even though I'm not a good poet. I mean, I've written a few poems that I'm that I'm not too embarrassed about. But for the most part, I consider myself much more of a prose writer. But the poetry helped me to learn to pay attention to each word and each phrase. And so I consider myself a kind of sentenced by sentence writer. And I didn't really start writing seriously until maybe end of high school into college. When I went to college, I went to Hampshire College where I can say Ryan also went. So we have Hampshire. Oh, what are we? Do we have a do we have a mascot? I don't know. It's changed so much, I'm sure. Well, it's not really a sports school, let me say. Small Liberal Arts College. But I was I had the opportunity there to do something that you might know as a senior thesis there. They called it Division Three and I got to write a novel, you know, there. A bad novel wasn't good, but I wrote it. And I wrote it in probably a year, which is as close to writing an novel in month as I'll ever get. Hampshire is definitely like a fun place and like a very it like informs who we become, I guess, being able to do that Division Three thesis. It's really important and crucial in our academics and our growth. Yes, yes. And speaking of that, can you talk about like that alternative education and kind of what even is alternative education and how it maybe has influenced the way that you approach writing? Sure. So for me, I think the alternative education at Hampshire, what it provided was really an opportunity to create your own education to really go go towards what you wanted to do. There were not traditional requirements. There weren't traditional grades. And so it was sort of about going towards what you love, trying to find your passion and pursuing things that really interested you, which really should be how we approach life. I think for the most part, there's a lot of stuff we have to do. There's a lot of tedium, especially as you get older, things you have to take care of. But the idea of going towards your passion, I think, and not grading excessively. The way it's informed my own teaching, I'm very much workshop oriented, creative writing instructor. I try not to give grades out until the end of the semester when I have a portfolio that my students turn in. So I don't grade until then, generally. And all along, they're writing, taking chances, growing, writing things that maybe aren't so good and then making them better, but not feeling as if they're being graded or evaluated until the end. So I think it's informed my teaching, at least in that way. And then maybe one other way, at least, is one of the big, the motto. Ryan, you can tell me if it's still the motto, but I remember when I was there, question authority. That was, there were buttons that might have come from Hampshire. And I feel like I try not to be a big authority figure to let the students find their own authority in their voices as writers. Certainly, I have more experience and I have things I hope that I can impart as an instructor, but I try not to be that authoritative voice. I try instead to let my students come to their own authority as writers. That's awesome. And school sounds awesome. It was, you know what, I think I know I've talked to Ryan a little bit, but it's changed when I was there. There were people who transferred out after three years with nothing. So it was really great for some people. It was great for me. I actually graduated in three years because I was super motivated. And I don't know why I wanted to get out in the real world. That was a mistake, but I did. And, but I felt for me, it was it was really good. But for some people, it was hard, but it was it wasn't definitely for me. Any profession that has to do with like creativity. I think it does take a lot of like self motivation to to make it or just to create something. Because you don't want to create. You can't just go to school and then you're not going to learn exactly like how to make the perfect. Whatever you're trying to make. I'm very lucky where I teach at Cal State Long Beach. We do cap off the creative writing classes around 20. So that's pretty small. It's not a small some of the Hampshire classes, but small enough. And our graduate program has even smaller classes. We have a generally around 12 in those workshops. So I get to focus on individual writers. Yeah, that kind of intimate teaching environment is really beneficial, especially for writing, I'm sure. Absolutely. Yeah, and then speaking of writing, how do your writing and your teaching practices like inform each other? So I get inspired a lot by my students. The students at Cal State Long Beach, maybe most of them may come from the general geographic area, but they also come from other countries and other life situations. And they have a lot to write about. I'm really lucky that I get to teach a class in creative nonfiction that I actually help design and pass through all the hoops and how to go through this. We have to a 200 and 400 level creative nonfiction class. And in those classes, students are writing exclusively from their life experience. And so I mean, they're really inspiring. It makes it fresh for me to read new writing. And we've got really good writers coming out of Cal State Long Beach. Sometimes shockingly good. I'm like, oh my God, I'll call up a colleague or friend and say, listen to this. So I mean, not everyone, of course, but we certainly have our share of really good writers. And so they can inspire me in my writing. And it's a lovely balance when it's working well, because I'm not a total introvert. And writing is such a thing you do by yourself that I like getting out and talking about writing and talking about books. The fact that I can do that for a living is just amazing for me. That was actually our next question was if your students influenced your writing. Oh, I skipped ahead. I try not to. I mean, it's a different to be influenced then to like, you know, steal from them, which I don't do, you know, but I certainly have like ideas. And I think more than anything, I can kind of get re-energized because I can feel like plotting along and then someone gets excited about a story. And I'll think, oh, I want to get back to my writing. When you read good writing, it can make you want to get back to your own. Oh, I totally agree. I feel like working with like Ryan and all my coworkers, like they're all super creative people. And also my partner, she's like really creative too. And like just like, I get it. Like being in a group of people who are doing something creative makes you want to jump in and join the fun. And just like, yeah, absolutely. So how do you offer feedback to other writers without incorporating your own writing style? When I'm teaching a class, what I try to do is figure like each person writing is what they're trying to do is really establish their own voice as a writer. So I think your job when you're guiding students in writing is to help them find their voices and their voices are not your is not your voice. And so it's important to sort of try to get a sense of the rhythm of the piece they're working on and help them grow towards the best that piece can be or who they can be as writers, which is some writers write things that have a lot of humor. Some writers write things that have a lot of sadness. Some writers, you know, really observe minutiae. Some writers are looking at the bigger picture and they're maybe incorporating something political. And you really need to look at what they're striving for and help them find it, I think, when you're teaching and not impose your vision. It's hard. I mean, I certainly tell students that I have my biases. I mean, I'm very detail oriented person about craft. I care a lot about sentences. I'm going to focus on that. I'm going to want sensory details. There's things that I'm going to be kind of looking for that are certainly my biases, but they're also things that make writing generally stronger. So, yeah, but I try not to impose too much of my vision and let their vision emerge. How would you describe your writing style? I know it might be maybe a big question. So I think I'm a lot darker than people think I'm going to be. Sometimes, yeah, you're nodding and like a dark person. And so and I'm actually not a super dark person. But when I write, I can get into and I love to read really dark books. And so I think that surprises people. But I think I also have humor, I hope, that will dot some of the darkness and keep people reading. I'm always surprised if I have a reading and where people laugh. I'm like, oh, that was funny. I thought that was sad or that was that wasn't funny. I thought it was. So it's really hard with your own writing to get a total grip on it. I'm working on a revision of a story that a editor has responded to. And I was looking at his very good advice and going, oh, yeah, that's true. So, yeah, I think sometimes it's hard for me to know, but I think my writing, the one thing I would say about it is it might be a bit darker than people expect. And also, I hope a little funny. Yeah, me and Ryan were talking about that before this, like the darkness, but also like there's parts that I found that were kind of funny. And I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be funny or it's funny, but also like empowering. Like I think I was just laughing. I read the short story about the mother and, you know, she's she's at the school and she sees her daughter and she goes into the restroom and she does some graffiti. Is the Queen of Laundry from another story, which I see behind you. I see your other books behind you. And that part kind of made me like laugh, but only because I'm like, I think that's really like it's just like an expression of like raw feeling. Yeah, and maybe a little bit of nervous laughter, maybe. Yeah, I think it is like nervous laughter. You know, it's like, yeah, like I'm like rooting for the character. But at the same time, I'm like also like, I don't know. Like I'm there's like some like dissonance in my head. It's I love your description. Thank you. That's exactly what I want. No, but I don't really know. But it's this idea that I think people are surprising and they're not what they look like always. You know, you can't judge by the surface and you can see people. And I want this is something that I've had the amazing advantage from teaching and getting to know my students. And I could have a student that looks like, I don't know, maybe she spends her weekends shopping at South Coast Plaza and whatever. And I find out that she's been in jail for DUI, you know, and you don't know that to see her. You don't know who's going home and giving a grandfather insulin shots and whose, you know, people look one way, but their lives are often very different. And so I like with my characters for them to have some behaviors and things that are like, oh, what's the mom doing that? That's not what a mom should do at an elementary school. Yeah. No, definitely. I think that's a really, you know, great way to approach writing and just like philosophy in general. I'm just like, yeah, I always look at people and think about wonder, you know, what's going on beyond the surface level. You know, we all have, you know, our own lives. Right. And it's much easier to look at the surface level, but it's not it's much more dull. I mean, I remember as like, you know, sitting on the boardwalk and I was a kid and like watching people walk by with my friend and sort of making up stories about them. And I still do that now. You know, like, oh, well, they're together now, but I think she used to be with a lot. That's a good exercise. I can imagine taking your class out to the pier here in Long Beach. Yeah, I used to give. I mean, this is how much times have changed. Well, right now, of course, things are really different. But even before this, I used to give this eavesdropping exercise where you would go out to like a restaurant, Danny's anywhere, you know, sit around and listen to conversations. And don't write them down, but then go home later and write down what you remember, what's good dialogue, you know, what what makes good dialogue and the prevalence of texting and cell phones have really messed with that exercise because people don't talk as much in public and they're texting. I'm like, and I said, somebody asked me once in a clock. And now, of course, people, you're not, if you were sitting that close to somebody less than six feet away, I think they would be like, get away, you know, we got a pandemic. But so this exercise is definitely not happening this semester. Getting back to your writing style really quickly. How has it changed over the years? How is it like, is it the same as it was before? Like, do you still, like, write the same, like find yourself writing the same way or isn't very different than it was before? So hopefully your writing gets better as you get older. It's a funny thing. Like, I'll tell my my students, unlike it's sort of a secret about writing, which is that even like, you know, if you're playing, if you stop playing piano and you just start playing a piano again, you're going to suck probably for a while. Right. But writing is kind of weird. If you just get older, you just gain more perspective, you know, about the world. So it's helpful, I hope, with my writing that I get older. I I think my writing style, I don't really know if it's changed all that much. Certainly I've gotten longer, longer, some longer stories, some longer sentences, some more attention to maybe nuances that I hadn't noticed before. I know one thing that I used to be very afraid of when I was younger was that people would think that my fiction was about me or about people I knew. And so I worked really, really hard at dispelling that. So I often wrote in an earlier pieces in a male character's voice or in an older person's voice or in a child's voice because then people wouldn't say that's you. Now I don't care so much about that. Like people thought it was me anyway or they thought it was somebody. You know, I'm like, okay. I mean, for me, the fun of fiction writing is inventing a lot of things and not basing it characters on actual people, bits and pieces of people. But I used to worry a lot more that people would think it was about me and I don't know as much. We actually had a question about that later on that I'm gonna plug in now since we're up now. So have some of your writing been based on moments that have happened to you and like are there risks or benefits to doing that? Absolutely. Writing is based on moments that have happened to me. What I like to do is take the moment and kind of go somewhere else with it. A new story that I wrote very recently in it. It's the people are hiking up the Hollywood trail and I've hiked up the Hollywood trail. So I know that experience enough. There was an incident with a dog in the story. There was basically an incident with a dog in my neighborhood, a different incident. But again, for most of my mind, this idea of a dog off a leash. So things like that, absolutely. But I try to change them up, but they definitely use them as kind of starters or connections. That's really funny that some people were, I don't know if accusing is the right word but saying like, hey, that sounds like something I know or like, is that about me? It's funny to hear people say that. Lots of people think things are about them. They'll say, put me in your story. I'm like, I don't really know how to do that. But okay, you have permission, use this story. I'm like, okay. So when you're writing, do you have a general writing process or routine or like how do you even start a story? You're talking a little bit about the inspiration of something in real life. Is that like all of how like most of your stories start or do you have a like one way? Yeah, so sometimes there's like a little something nagging me and I don't know why. So it's usually best if it's something I don't feel resolved about, but I just keep thinking about it. Like, why am I thinking about those kids at the playground that were wearing swim trunks and had matted hair and they were speaking French or like, I was like, why is that on my mind? So it's something that kind of is plugging into something creative, but I don't really know why and those are the most interesting things. If I've already have a feeling about it, if it's a story I've told, probably forget it, because there are stories we tell and then there are stories we write. And stories we tell are usually pretty processed already. It's sort of like a processed lunch meat or something. It's already been done and you know where it's going. So if I have to be surprised by what I'm writing and not don't know where it's going, but often triggered by a little something, sometimes a smell, I mean sensory stuff can be big. Just sometimes a funny little moment where I'll go to it. Are there any other sources of inspiration that you draw from? I read all the time, like a huge reader. So definitely I will be reading and I'll just think, oh my God, this writing inspires me. Just like the, so maybe the way a painter is inspired by a painting someone else's. I do love going to art museums back when we could go. And I don't know that I'm inspired to write so much by visual things, but I love looking at art and I care a lot about it. But I think probably inspired more by good writing. Re-reading something and I'll think, oh, it makes me want to write. Or sometimes it'll be so good. I'll think, oh, I should even bother writing, you know, but they can have that effect as well. Oh, no. No, I can relate to that effect. Like sometimes, well, I make music and I also make art, but like music, sometimes I feel like that. I'll listen to a song and I'm like, I'll never write a song as good as this. But even like bands like, you know, big bands, there's a band called MGMT, they're pretty popular, but they have a song called Brian Eno. And the whole song's about them never being able to be as good as Brian Eno. Brian Eno, right. But you know, the thing is I always like think, well, if you can appreciate why something, you can appreciate something, you can aspire to it, right? And the problem is when you don't appreciate something, when you're not humble, when you're like, oh, that's, I could do that. You know, there are people who'd be like, well, if I only had time, I could, you know, be a painter or I could be a musician or I could be a writer. And you're like, you know, not really, it's time, but there's lots of other things involved, not just to sway people because people should all practice and enjoy whatever art they'd like, but it's not like, and none of it's easy. Yeah, definitely. And so the fact that you appreciate, that's a funny song, I'll have to look it up. I remember listening to lots of Brian Nino in my vest. Yeah, he's pretty amazing. Do you guys like talking heads? Have you seen the- American Utopia? Yeah, we actually got to see that. I want to say maybe in LA, I think it was at the shrine. He originally did that before he went to Broadway. Oh. It was incredible. It was just incredible. And then it went to Broadway pretty much exactly the way we saw it. I think it was at the shrine. But anyway, just talk about writing and art. Yeah, no, I think it's interesting. I'm like maybe a quarter way through. I like it, it's on HBO right now. Oh yeah, that's what I know. That's why, yeah. And it's cool, Spike Lee directed the recording. That's a cool collaboration. Yeah, I haven't seen the HBO. I just was lucky enough to see him perform it. Well, I'll definitely finish watching it. And yeah, David Burn, he's awesome. He writes stuff too. Besides music, I think he has articles and stories and. Yeah, smart guy. So many things. Yeah. Chris, you actually bring up a good point about cool collaborations and stuff like that. And Suzanne, you have collaborated with other writers. What is that like to write a piece of literature with other writers? So I've collaborated a little bit. A little bit. So much fun. I've collaborated on the children's books. Abigail, the Abigail Iris books I've up there that are in the library with Lisa Glad, who's a good friend and colleague. And those were super fun to collaborate on because we went back and forth where she would write a chapter and email to me and then I would write a chapter and email to her. And it was sort of like, like you guys are too young to know about like pen pals, but it was like you're sending things back and forth through each other waiting. I'm like, ooh, the email came, you know? And then we would edit each other. So that was so much fun. So collaborating is great. It's just very different than what I normally do. And it's, I can see why people must love working in writing rooms and things where you're collaborating because it's lonely working by yourself. But there's also joy in that. So yeah. Yeah. Like what's your process of developing characters? I had a great writing teacher once who said, if you can find two really unique idiosyncratic things, things is the wrong word, about a person, you got it. And also look for the things that are not traditionally beautiful, you know? Like, oh, she was, you know, five, nine, and no, nobody cares. What they care about is one earlobe is slightly longer than the other, you know? Or, you know, somebody's dropping their food to the dog while they're eating. You just have to find the things I think that that express who that person is in how they behave and it's hard. I mean, I don't know that I always, you know, get it for sure. No, that's so true though. Like when we meet new people, like those are the things that we noticed first about them and that's what really draws us into them. So that would totally make sense. And we're attracted, and we're attracted, I'm talking about this physical attraction, but just attracted to friends. You know what? I will tell people like my writing students, like nobody likes anybody who's perfect. I mean, like we want to run from that person and we're not perfect. And if we allow ourselves to be human and our characters to be human, then we're more interested in flawed people. We're interested in conflicted people, yeah. Definitely. When do you feel the most creative? And like, do you have a place where you also feel the most creative? Like you have a favorite place to write? It looks like you're writing. Well, both the academic has been hard on me that way. I traveled to different rooms of my house. I used to love when I got stuck to go out to get coffee somewhere inside. I don't do that anymore. And sitting outside, I work on a computer on a laptop. That's hard. So, but this is my office that you're seeing behind me. I put out some books and all that. I was there just, you know, for this, but I'm surrounded by my books and I do most of my writing out here. It's separate from the house. It's attached to my garage. So that's a nice thing. I can come out here. I also, when I get bored these days with my space, I'll go in the house and I'll write at the dining room table or I'll take my laptop and I'll go out to the patio if it's not too sunny and sit out there and work. But I used to really feel it. I am a morning person. I'm a ridiculous morning person. Like I cannot, like if I actually sent the emails when I woke up, people worry about me. So I don't push send until it's like, okay, six now. Okay, let's wait till 6.30, you know? So I, but I love to work in the morning. Definitely my best time, but I have children who are grown now, but when they were little, I really learned just write when you can. And don't just say I can only write in the morning because that might mean you're not writing. You're teaching or you're changing a diaper or you're dealing with some of these temperature, temper tantrum or whatever. So I am now just when I feel like I have, oh, I've got an hour, hour's good, you know? It's not, sometimes it's hard to have like a whole day. It can be like a lot of pressure. So you mentioned that you have kids and you have written books for kids. How's the process different for writing books for adults versus writing books for children? Very different. I mean, the children's books were collaboration. So they were very different that way. They were like kind of just fun for us to do. They didn't feel nearly as loaded maybe. We felt there was a need for the level of book we were doing at that time, which was a chapter book sort of at that grade level, that age level. We really wanted something that was very California. So we created this California girl. And we wanted her to like go up the coast and be from Long Beach. So we really celebrated Long Beach in those children's books and have like farmers market. Truthfully, it was like the elementary school down the block from me, you know? So I put a lot of stuff and my kids and their friends certainly helped me get into the mode of being a kid again and remembering that age. That's awesome. That's really fun when you're like a kid. They were fun. And they were really fun to go to the elementary schools because when you give a reading normally, sort of people ask a kind of erudite question or maybe something like, but the kids would be like, and they'd raise their hand, you'd be like, yeah, and you're like, I have a best friend. That's not a question. I like, good, you have a best friend. That's great. Or like, do you like soda? Like, you know, they were just so much fun, those readings. Really humbling. Definitely humbling. Oh yeah, I worked with kids for a long time. Well, I worked with Parks and Recreation and like after school programs and stuff. Even right now we're doing workshops with like younger kids and they do that still. Like we'll be doing a workshop and then we'll ask if anyone has any questions and then someone will do exactly what you described. But it's awesome. It's great. I love to work with young kids again at some point. Have me in for something with them. I would love it. I, with writing, I miss that because my kids are growing now and my students are younger than I am. I met most of them anyway, not all of them, but not like young kids, special kind of fun. Yeah, definitely. So just a few other writing questions and then getting into like some other like fun questions. How do you know when something you've written is done? When do you decide to start over and scrap a project? So, I mean, I have many things that I thought were done that no one else did or they didn't get published or they're waiting, some that I've gone back to, things like I was telling you I'm editing a story now and I think I definitely get why it wasn't done. Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes even after something is done and published, I still wanna kind of change it. There's one short story I have in the collection that came out where I changed like one word, and they changed a lot of words, I had a great editor, but there's one word that she changed that I didn't really wanna change and I felt like it was done before and I changed it. But when I read the story aloud, I read it with my word. I was like, so I don't always know, but there is a feeling, there's a feeling when you're writing a short fiction that it kind of lands, you know that it lands the way a gymnast lands at the end, like, okay, it landed. And it doesn't mean it's all wrapped up at all, it just means that moment has those moments that you were balancing out. And sometimes I write things that are bad and I just have to say they're never gonna be anything and they're not, when I say bad, that sounds judgy, but I can be judgy for myself, but there'll be moments in them that are fine and even good, but overall, it just never came together, but I have to feel like that's part of the process of writing and that helped me write something else because I wrote that. Is writing with an editor, they mostly read it and they proofread it and make sure you don't have any grammar errors, but do they also adjust your stories and tell you if something makes, do they pitch ideas to you as well? I've been lucky to work with good editors who haven't really changed things, but they have definitely challenged me on some parts, had me rewrite passages, explained to me how something might be misinterpreted that I wrote. So, yeah, editors are amazing, a good editor is amazing. I don't know if this was necessarily a current project but that you were talking with an editor about something that you had gotten something back recently from an editor. And that made me wonder, are you writing anything currently or are you working on any projects? So, I finished a novel that's currently that was a finalist in a contest, which was great, but that didn't get published. But I have, I do have an agent who's sending it out. It's a revision of a novel and I just finished working on that over the summer. It takes place in Camarillo, kind of some of it's real Camarillo, but some of it, I don't know, like I put a JCC there. I don't know if they have one. I do certain things. But that piece was, it's a novel. And right now it's called, it's called, it was called Half Mind. And I'm trying to remember what my working title is. I'm spacing out for a minute, I'll think of it. But it's based on some current events and then characters that are not, I mean that are fictionalized characters, it's Keep On, that's the working title I'm using now, Keep On, but anyway, it takes place in Southern California and there's a shooting that happens and some people die who were not supposed to die according to the shooter. And then it's how these people come together afterwards and connections that they make and some misdirection that things go in. Yeah, and so that was, it has lots of serious dark stuff in it. I think also some moments of humor, I hope, but it's not super light piece. And it's written in three different point of views. One point of view is a little girl. One is a mom, not her mom, but a different mom and another one is a 15 year old boy. So those are the three point of views. And then I'm working, so that's done right now. They'll probably end up going back to it again. This draft of it is done. I've been working on this stories that are connected. I've been working on individual stories that are not connected and then this kind of connected stories that are kind of a novel, I'm not sure. I'm not sure yet if it'll be a novel. That's so exciting. Congratulations on both of those. Thanks, I mean, there's so much in this world of writing. I mean, truthfully, there's just so much from my experience of rejection, of not getting things published. You just have to like, oh, it almost got published. Has to be a moment of something, but it's hard. I always encourage my students to have other things to make them feel good about themselves besides getting published because that's what you're waiting on. You're gonna feel bad a lot, you know? That aligns with the way a lot of creative industries work to people who are like making television shows and have ideas. They just always get like almost green lit and then they just get rejected at the very end. You develop such a thick skin. I'm sure in that industry it's even thicker, but I've had to develop. I tell my students, well, it's your work that's rejected. You aren't rejected. And then I say, well, kind of. I mean, if you're invested in your work, you just have to accept, okay, I feel kind of rejected right now, but that's okay. Now I'll move on. I know Ryan said that was the last question about writing, but I had another thought that came to my head and it was like, do you ever start a story off like in your head, like with the ending first or like the climax? Or do you like have these characters who don't have, there's like no conflict and then like you kind of make the conflict? Cause like in my head, sometimes I listen to music and I'll make stories. Like cause I do want to make a movie or a short story eventually. And in my head, I write it, but for some reason my head always goes to like the high point. And then I'm like, I work backwards, but I don't. I like it. No, I don't usually, I usually have, I mean, I might have something that's in the middle that I want to go towards, hardly ever have the end in mind. I just don't, but usually it's more like I'll have, usually I'll have the beginning. When I love exercises, I do a lot of exercises my students and sometimes I do them too. And an exercise will force you to like take a topic, take something on and I'll try to use that material in a story I'm working on. So surprise myself. What I'll tell my students is like, who came to the door? Could someone come to the door? Open the door. Let someone else in this story, because then it gets you out of like, what you think is going to happen and gets surprised a little bit. Yeah, that's awesome. It's like an exercise of the subconscious. Just, just. Yeah, good way of putting it. So we're almost towards the end. We just got a few light questions. What's the best thing you read recently? Well, I've been reading a lot. I'm reading, I'm teaching a graduate class that's so much fun. We actually read a book a week in that class. And so yeah, I'm re-reading a lot with them. We did a book called Love, War Stories. Rodriguez is the woman's last name. Eva Lisa, I believe. Really interesting collection. Really good. That was a lovely surprise for me to discover that writer. What else have I read recently? It's good, I'm in the middle of reading. I just finished, I said the middle. I just finished this morning a book that I really liked by Emma Klein called Daddy, A Collection of Stories. She wrote an amazing book called Girls, A Novel. And she's a really good writer, very dark actually. I'm like, I was like sad to finish, but also glad to finish. I'm like, okay, I need to get out of this world for a little while. So recently I've read those. I've read Trevor Noah's book, which I thought was terrific. We're using that in a class. Just talk about using humor in really dark moments. Just really good writer, boy, yeah. Yeah, so that's a few, I guess. Do you ever consider turning one of your stories into a film? I would be so open to that if somebody were interested, but I myself don't know much about that. I never took screenwriting classes. It feels like a very, very different form to me. I love dialogue. So I've had a friend that said, why don't you try doing something like that? I'm like, I don't know. It just feels very, very different to me. And there's only so much time. But it'd be fun to do. I was a writer named Sally Shore did a reading, a staged reading of some of the stories when Speedwalk came out. And that was a lot of fun. The actors on stage read the different parts of some of the stories. And she does that. That was a lot of fun to see the stories come alive in that way. Wow, that's really exciting. It was fun. Yeah, it's cool that they did that too, because there are multiple stories in that collection. Can you imagine which story, either from that book or something else that you've written that you would prefer to see become a movie? And can you imagine which actors would play, which roles, and who would direct it? I'd have to get back to you on that one. I don't know. I don't really think that way. But that's a lot of fun to think about. Yeah, I don't know. Is there something that you think of, Ryan? I mean, you guys, I just don't think that way, I guess, about my own work. But I certainly have fun to think about. But yeah. Maybe like Ben Diesel in the Fast and Furious cast. Not just kidding. I like it. People might actually go, right, although? I was telling Ryan, I was reading your story. And it was like, yeah, it was kind of dark. And in my head, I was thinking kind of like Wes Anderson. But only because he does like these really bright colors. But actually, if you like some of the movies, like the World of Tenant Bombs, it's like pretty sad. It's like pretty dark and sad. Oh, the Isle of Gods. I mean, I'm very flattered by that. Thank you. I would love that. Yes, he's really interesting. Also humor, some very dark humor in there. Well, be sure to invite me and Ryan to the screening. OK, we're almost done. I have one more fun question. Do your characters or plots ever appear in your dreams? Oh, I wish they did. Not really. I mean, I love like if you're right, it's like, I woke up and I just got up and I wrote everything down. I dream the whole thing. I'm like, I dreamed that my dog was sick. And then I had it like, oh, my dreams are so prosaic and boring. I mean, I do have, or they're just like fantastical and nothing that I would really write about. I guess sometimes I've had things that have been in dreams or I'll be very immersed in something. But generally not. I have to do that hard, awake work of writing. It still seems like to those exercises, you're still exploring like the subconscious. So I really, it's really, I think that when you're writing or when you're doing any art, you actually are in many ways leaving the world. I mean, that's the fun of it, right? So you have, I mean, when I'm not writing a little bit, I mean, things are boring, right? Like things can get really boring. It's like, oh, I mean, I love a lot of my life. I'm very, very lucky with my life. But there's still something like I could smile all day if I wrote a sentence that I loved. It doesn't matter that that sentence, nobody will ever say it maybe it's in a story. It just, I'll be like, yeah, that's it, you know? So yeah, I think it makes your world richer. And I do think it doesn't make any sense. And that's the subconscious part. I love how personal and like validating that is as well. Like in addition to like this worldview that you can create, that's really liberating, I think. It is. I mean, I think creating things makes you feel more alive, right? And that's open to everybody. I mean, that, and I think whatever we're creating, and for some people that might be creating a garden or creating a recipe or creating, you know, a friendship. I mean, like we all have our own ways of what feels creative, but I think when we're not tapping into that, it's hard to feel engaged in the world and the more, much more mundane things that we have to do. We're about the very end. I want to ask what you get to someone who's experiencing writer's block, you know, especially during this month where they're supposed to write a whole novel. So... Do you know people who are writing a novel? No, I don't know anyone who's trying to. So, some writer's block is interesting, right? It's an interesting phrase. I mean, I think sometimes what it is is just like, if I'm not writing like the other day, I just cleaned out all of my miscellaneous, like costume jewelry and other jewelry and got things untangled. I'm like, oh, what am I not doing? So it can look like... I think it's really just another word for procrastination because when I'm procrastinating, I never look more productive. Some people procrastinating might be lying on the couch, watching TV. I'm not that I don't like to do that, but that's not me procrastinating. That's me relaxing. Procrastinating looks different. And I feel like writer's block is really just procrastinating because it's hard and because you've got to get to it and sit down and do the hours and do the work. And there's a lot of other things that are more gratifying instantly, like I'll go in and make something to eat. That's gonna be better or catch up on those emails or so many things. So yeah, I don't know. There are people that do have serious blocks, I think writers. But I think most writers will say, yeah, I was just being lazy or I was just not focusing. And for me, the calmer my life is, the more I'm able to write. I'm not somebody who writes really well. There are people who are like, going through crazy times in their lives and writing. I'm like, oh, I am not, but I can look back later at those crazy times and write about them later. But I write fast when my personal life is relatively calm. David Lynch describes it as basically going fishing for ideas, you have to go out and throw down the line and just put in the time and maybe you'll catch something, just do the work. That's a great description. He's another really interesting person. I think it's so hard these days because we all live in this culture with so many distractions and maybe even more of them now that we're online all the time, right? So many places with messages coming in on so many different social medias and it's hard to turn it all off. I mean, this summer I went to some national parks. I was really lucky to be able to do that. And when I was in Zion, now in Zion, let me tell you, you cannot get internet or sell reception. Wow. That's big, right? Neither. I don't want to just say not reliably but really hardly at all. If you stay there in the cabins or go camping. So you really want to get away from stuff. It's really, it's pretty long drive but worth it. But there are places you can go, right? I wasn't there exclusively writing last summer but I could see how that could be a thing but it's hard to turn everything off. It's hard to not respond to attacks. People think something happened, why didn't you respond? It's hard not to keep up with what's going on in the world for a couple hours. Yeah, but it can be so gratifying when you do it because Zion is a gorgeous place and you can like really immerse yourself in its beauty. Yeah, Yosemite, like the valley is beautiful but there's internet and sell all over that place. It's not great but I can tell you where you can go. Like yeah, there's places because I'm just as bad as anyone else. Okay, so we have our last question now that we like to ask all of our web chat Wednesday guests because we are the Long Beach Public Library. We wanna know what your favorite library memory is and I feel like this is especially exciting because your books are in the Long Beach Public Library catalog. So in Long Beach, some truthfully some of my favorite library memories are going to the library with my kids when they were little. We always signed up for that summer reading club at the Bayshore Library. We would go in every week and they'd get like bookmarks or little prizes and read the books and go to like that. We go to the magician and there were certain things every summer. I loved our little, I love our little local neighborhood library in Beaumontshire. I live in Beaumont Heights and we'd walk down there and there's always a ritual in the beginning of the summer. And I grew up going to the library. I grew up in a family of readers. My mom is a reader and writer and I have a funny library story. Do you have time for that? Sure, go for it. Well, I was in high school in the town where I lived in New Jersey. I was out with a bunch of friends and I was walking down the main street which is called Nassau Street and my mom, but I hear her car, she pulls over alongside. I'm like, she's get over here. And I'm like, oh no, I'm a teenager, right? So I've done a lot of things that I think I might be getting in trouble for. I'm like, oh no, I'm going through like in my head all the things that I might be getting in trouble for. And she goes, what's that? Look back there. And I look in the backseat of the car and strewn across the backseat are my overdue library books. She goes, these are all overdue. And I said, oh, I'm so sorry. I was like so happy that that's what I was in trouble for. So after that, but the other thing was it really did make an impression. She goes, you know, other people want to read those books. And so I don't, after that, no more overdue library books. Yeah. Wow, you're a good person for that. I think I'm a wanted man at several libraries across Los Angeles and not Long Beach though. Not Long Beach, Long Beach. I mean, I may have had one or two, but I really, it made such an impression on me. And also I read that I'd use the library Kindle app now too. They just disappear when you're done on that one. You don't even have to return them. They're just like, it's gone. That's easy. Yeah, kind of. I was going to say that's such a relatable story. You'd be surprised to learn that a lot of the people who work at the library have overdue library books from the library. From the studio. Yeah. Because we're ambitious, right? We want to read them all. We just have a couple more days. Yeah, definitely. Well, thank you so much for like the stimulating conversation. What a joy. Thank you. I learned a lot and I appreciate it. Yeah, do you have like any self-promotion that you would like to pitch? It's relatively current. It's just my name Suzanne Greenberg.com. And I put some things on there. Yeah, I've got a reading coming up at school. I think it's on Wednesday. I'll post it. I have a Facebook page where I'll post things like that. But yeah, it's just really, I really enjoyed this so much with you guys. What fun this was. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye, have a great day. Bye, you too. Bye. See everyone in person eventually, right? Yeah, definitely. Bye.