Ep 458: Live from Nashville: good conversation about creativity and community with readers and writers
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Hey readers, I'm Anne Bogle, and this is What Should I Read Next? Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader. What should I read next? We don't get bossy on this show. We take a personalized approach to the reading life, and every episode, we strive to give you the information you need to choose your next read.

We have a really fun live episode for you today, and I can't wait to share it with you. But first, we have so much good stuff coming up right here at the end of the year. And first off is our team's best books of the year. This has become a tradition in the Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next world because it's so fun and so many of you tell us you look forward to this every year. Now, if it's new to you, I'm sure you know all about our events like the

Summer Reading Guide and Associated PDF. And I hope you know we have similar events in the spring and fall, our book previews. We refer to these as our marquee member events, along with Team Best Books coming next week. On Thursday, December 19th, our team members are sharing their best books of the year live with both our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club and What Should I Read Next Patreon members.

This event is a member favorite. You get to hear from much of our team with their favorite books, which span all different genres. We read in different ways. You'll hear 2024 releases plus older books that we've just gotten around to reading. And I will be there too, not just hosting, but sharing my favorite book, book, book,

Or maybe books, plural. Not more than three are the instructions of 2024. We'd love for you to join us. And when you do so, you support our ongoing work as well. We could not do this without your financial, tangible support. Become a member at patreon.com slash whatshouldireadnext.

If you're interested in checking out the book club, that's at members.modernmrsdarcy.com. But our Patreon, patreon.com slash whatshouldireadnext is built on the back of the podcast where we share bonus content, more great books, and help you get more out of your reading life every single week. Then when you join, join us on the 19th for a fun, fast, festive look back at our reading year. It's going to be a blast and we're so glad to be reading with you.

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Now for today's new episode, I'm bringing you a conversation from my recent trip to Nashville to speak at WriterFest, which is such a wonderful creative gathering for aspiring writers, published authors, screenwriters, poets, and songwriters in Nashville. It's for writers of book, song, and screen, and for those who want to be.

Those who go to WriterFest get to enjoy keynote talks by the best book, song, and screenplay writers in the business, plus in-depth breakout sessions with professional editors, literary agents, filmmakers, and music industry insiders. What you are about to hear is my keynote. It's a conversation between me and WriterFest co-founder Amy McConnell, and it is so good. Right before we got talking, I asked Amy, hey,

what do you hear from everyone you've been talking to about what people are experiencing in their lives and in their creative lives right now? And she told me a little bit of what she'd observed. I did the same, and we sculpted our session around what we were seeing was happening right there in front of us in Nashville that weekend. It's such a good conversation, and I'm so excited that Amy and Sarah's amazing team at WriterFest recorded this audio for us so you could listen. But

But there's one thing I want you to know. You will hear Amy ask me, Anne, have you been reading any great books lately that you feel like we really need to hear about from you? And, you know, of course I went like, what is a book? What are book titles? But can I tell you what I wish I had shared?

This gathering was for writers of book, song, and screen. And the book that I found myself talking about the entire weekend was Colored Television by Danzey Senna. Senna's protagonist is a novelist who decides she wants to be a screenwriter mostly for financial reasons. And her struggle to move from one to the other and the various hijinks that ensue make up the entire story in the book. It's so good.

Although I do love the book I did share. And some of the things that came up out of talking about that book were things I also talked about in Nashville the whole rest of the weekend. Both are a good time, but I just wanted to tell you what I was thinking about after the session.

I hope you enjoyed listening. Thank you again to WriterFest co-founders Amy McConnell and Sarah Weigel for making this conversation possible. And thank you to their amazing teams and volunteers who did such an incredible job of not only taking top-notch care of everyone over the course of the conference, but also captured this wonderful audio for you today. Let's get to it. Welcome back to WriterFest. Day two. Day two.

Thank you so much for being here. I'm here with Anne Bogle for our keynote session this morning. We're doing this crazy thing that we've never done before. If you've been to WriterFest, you know that we like to do things in a new way every year. So you never know what you're going to get. And this year, Anne and I decided we were going to collab.

in a way, because I have a WriterFest podcast and she has the What Should I Read Next podcast, which is way bigger and better than the WriterFest podcast. And she agreed to do an interview with me where I interview her. Therefore, you can relax a little bit because you're not in the interview chair where it's like there's a lot. I know that's a lot for you. At any rate, so Anne is here with me.

on the WriterFest podcast to talk about all the things writerly. As you know, WriterFest is about celebrating one writer at a time. That's why we're WriterFest. We say sometimes we're a conference, but we don't like to talk about the conferencing part. We like to talk about the fest part. So Anna's already been festing with us, and she's feeling comfy, I think. So we're going to get started with our conversation.

Good morning. That sounds amazing. I love to try new things. And we were just talking in the green room about how we both love to wing it. So watch out. What Anne actually said were pantsers, to which Olivia replied, wait, what? Pantsers? We had to promise we wouldn't remove anyone's pants.

Bottoms. No pantsing. That would be rude. So, Anne, I love what you do in your sense of gathering writers in community and also pointing us in the right direction on what to read next. In my discovery of you, I originally knew you only as...

The modern Mrs. Darcy. Well, I'm glad you brought that up because I am not her and do not play... Well, I don't even play her on the internet. That's a brand, y'all. That would be really presumptuous to be like me and Jane Austen.

Yeah, that is my site. That is your site. Exactly. I used to hear from my marketing team, oh my gosh, we got a hit on the modern Mrs. Darcy. Like she's going to review one of our books. We're celebrating in the hall. So I didn't even know your actual name for a long time, but I knew how helpful you were in helping readers find books. Tell us a little bit about the origins of that. Oh, gosh. Yeah.

Well, it starts with sad days in the legal field. Y'all, you know that you're a writer when you enjoy writing about boundary line disputes. If that is the best part of your day, one, maybe you should find a different line of work. But two, maybe there's something there in that writing thing. And I needed a creative outlet.

So one year around New Year's 2010, my husband and I were having a late night, which back then it was probably like 830, conversation about how did the year go? What do we want from the year to come? And he'd done a little bit of business blogging for his job.

So in 2010, I started reading a blog and it was his. I didn't know anything about the blog space. But we were talking and he was like, I've been thinking about blogging and I've been thinking about whose blog I'd really like to read. And I was like, oh my gosh, whose? And he was like, you, you should start a blog. And I was like, I love you, but I don't read blogs. This is a terrible idea. But I speak personality types. I'm an Enneagram 9 person.

easily persuadable. You can talk me into anything in the lobby later. And half an hour later, what do we call it? What am I going to write about? Because I just really, I think I needed, I love new projects. Like you said, I like to try new things. And I just really latched onto that. I also really love to read and it never was intended to be a books and reading blog. And

But it wasn't long before I realized that's the way. I'm an introvert. I'm never going to be like, hey, tell me what you're pondering in your soul late at night. But we could connect over a wonderful novel and get to the same conversation really quickly in a way that's not totally socially awkward.

So I realized that books make great conversation starters. Amen. They do make great conversation starters. In fact, they're often a conversation just with the book, right? I mean, just the book itself is a conversation between the author and the reader. Is that not true? I think sometimes that I read just so I can talk about them, though. Because it's so fun to talk about books. So how did that grow from a blog into where you are now? Slowly. Slowly.

And I've had so many conversations with people this weekend who are in the middle of a project or are just starting out and are not sure how they're going to do it in today's landscape. And I'm sure 2024 is different than 2011. But I felt like I was so late in 2011. Like...

The moment had passed. There was no avenue to people actually finding me blogging back then. Bless my heart. I thought I should have started in 2008, but I didn't know what a blog was in 2008. This is all I have, and it's kind of fun doing in my basement in my pajamas, so I guess I'll make the most of it.

But I just started writing and I didn't tell anybody. I felt pretty embarrassed about it, I think, because still the word blog sounds like nonsense when spoken out loud. Isn't it a dumb word? Yeah, I didn't want to talk about it. Could somebody in this room, because we got a lot of writers, maybe somebody could invent a new word for that. I would take that. Because that's the worst. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's why Substack is getting so popular. Yeah, yeah. It sounds real in a way that blog does not. Yeah. I'm not on Substack. Yet. Yet.

But I just, I mean, I just started writing and found like, this is fun. Like, I've always written to figure out things I don't understand. And that's still true in my work. And that's still true in all my conversations. Like on What Should I Read Next every week, I'm having conversations with readers about

helping them understand things about themselves and their reading life that they don't get, even though they're the ones living inside that experience. But I really enjoyed just making long handwritten lists of topics I wanted to explore because I wanted to learn about them. And there's something that's so...

For me, just so fun in that incubation stage when it's all possibility and you haven't screwed it up yet and you haven't run into the wall. You're just like, look at all the things I could do. It was great. It was four months before I told my mom I had a blog. Like that was my situation. Everybody jokes about how like, my mom's the only one who reads my blog. Well, you have to tell her or she won't know. Yeah.

That's exactly true. Okay. So move us forward a little bit on the timeline. I know you're not a linear girl, but let's go a little bit forward into how that has morphed into where you are today. I mean, I kept doing it and slowly, slowly realized from my basement and my pajamas that the best part about blogging was actually this community that I had no idea existed and

Because back in, gosh, I feel like such an old lady. Back in 2011, the way people found your blog was you went to their actual site with its own design and its own weirdly, like there wasn't even Canva then, you know, PicMonkey designed header and

And you go to the comment section and you're like, hey, I really like this post. This was great. Thanks for telling me how to clean my trash can. And then you'd leave your URL back to modernmrsdarcy.com. And back then, like, people read the comments because they were good. Right.

And like on the whole, I've always said that Modern Mrs. Darcy is the kindest place on the internet. I mean, we're like a bunch of nerds who want to talk about books and life. I mean, we're good people. We're safe people. And sometimes late at night, people get mad and say kind of crabby things. But mostly like, I love my corner of the internet. And it's been great. But like you'd read the comments and you'd find, you develop these relationships with people.

And I remember trying to explain to my local friends and God help me, my mother, that I was going to go meet this person from the comment section of my blog. God help me, my mother. Or, I mean, you know, I love my mom, but also it's 2011 and you're explaining to your mom how you're not going to get murdered when you go have coffee with the person you met on Twitter. Like this is a very historically accurate moment.

Right. Because it was a moment. And I felt so weird about it, too. Like, who am I that I'm meeting strangers on the internet? Like, can I not build community in my real life? But it was different because very few people are as hardcore nerdy about books and my physical life as I am. But on the internet, you have a wider reach. Yeah.

And I was really hungry to have those like super nerdy and also like really philosophically like let's explore how we feel in our souls conversations. I'm way too earnest for some of my in-person friends. So I got to go to the internet to find that. But then what happens is you get to know them and you have lots of coffee and you take trips together and then you run into them at conferences like WriterFest in 2024. You're really glad you invested in those relationships back then when it was so weird to tell people. I only know them on the internet. Yeah.

Gosh, that sounds like Kathleen Kelly. I think that some of those relationships are happening today. In 2037. Yeah. You're going to say, I remember. I remember when I met Joy at Belmont in 2024. Oh, I had to do the math real quick. Think of all the words you could do between now and then. You did the parallel math. Writers are not renowned for being amazing at math. No kidding. We run businesses. We read royalty statements.

So along the way, lawyerly work where you looked forward to writing. I'm recapping for those of you who are taking notes. Lawyerly writing where you discovered that you liked the writing better than the lawyerly work. Am I getting that right? Yes. I like the writing so much that I write about how the factual inaccuracies in the contract in paragraph 47D. Like, you like the writing if you can do that.

Although I don't recommend that kind of writing. It's also reading, if I may point out. Oh my gosh, yes. You are also reading very carefully. Close reading. Carefully reading the contracts and then having dialogues in a way with the words themselves on the page, which is, I would contend, is what you're doing currently, having dialogue with the words on the page in all kinds of venues. But...

I digress. You know what's funny though? Doing the timeline. My degree is in non-formal education. And my whole college career, everybody was like, but what are you going to do with that? But what are you going to do with that? And I didn't use it at all in legal that I got suckered into because it was the family business. But now, every single day, that's how I'm thinking. Okay, pantser. So going back to our timeline. So the recognition of this love for the reading and the interacting with the text goes...

goes to basement pajamas, blogging, goes to coffees with strangers, goes to next piece is the cultivating that corner or cultivating that community of readers. Right. And then along the way, somehow you began to write yourself, writing books yourself. I think you have three books now. I've got one here and

I think this is probably the prettiest. It is the prettiest. The I'd Rather Be Reading book. Tell a little bit about this. Give us the origin story of I'd Rather Be Reading, which Parnassus is selling out there on the phone course. That's very kind of them. This is my home library on the cover. That's legit your house? That's legit. It's my house. You can come sit in my blue chair. It's from World Market. I bought it on sale. I'm having Andy. The flowers are from Trader Joe's. Little $5 roses in a pot. They're great. Amazing. Yeah. The origin story.

Yeah. Is that a good prompt or no? Well, it is, but it's a different time. And I wondered if I should say out loud that I was approached by an agent because I had a blog and a platform at a certain point. Oh, that is disheartening. It can be. But go ahead and say it. So I kept writing and...

kept connecting with readers about books. And the thing that I love about the internet, and I'm sure you've heard this before, is that there's so many opportunities to have this moment of realization when you find a site that feels like it was made just for you, where you're like, oh my gosh, I thought it was just me. But look at all these nerds or whatever it is that you love all gathered in this space. Like if I tried to start a conversation like this at like Saturday morning coffee with my friends, they'd be like, stop it.

But like here, the conversation is just ongoing and has been for years. So I am so grateful to the people who had been in the space before me who really paved the way, who found my site and were like, oh, this is kind of fun. And they would tell their friends and they would tell their readers and they would give me hyperlinks.

And that is how I built an audience, just building relationships. It was one relationship at a time, essentially. Yeah. Yeah.

Beautiful. Okay. So let's, but I do want to hear the origin story of the book because we love talking about what is that? What's the phrase, Risha? Paths to publishing, which does not roll off the tongue. Paths to publishing. What was your path to publishing? Well, I was approached by an agent. I mean, I was approached by a lot of agents and I'd review the pitch every time and be like, that is so kind, but like, I don't, this doesn't sound right.

like a good time like it's legit because there were there were and still are a fair amount of like bad actors yes that's a great way to summarize that thank you amy but i was approached by an agent um who like represented some of my friends and i was like oh okay this is actually in fact a friend referred and said do you know ann bogle you should check out her work

And I think that that's something that's still so true. Like this has only been 10 years, but also 10 years feels like a long time in publishing right now. But it was a friend saying, hey, I love her work. Go check her out. And it's such a gift to give other people or to be the recipient of whether you're saying like, hey, I read this novel. I loved it. Or, hey, professional colleague with power and influence. I love this person's work. Go check it out. It's such a gift. And it's something that I'm always trying to

put into the world when I can.

But I'd Rather Be Reading was contracted as Bogle book number two. My first book was about personality types. And I don't know if it's on the table. It's called Reading People. I just, I didn't know what I was doing. I really enjoyed writing that book. I learned a lot. At the time, I was obsessed with personality types and wanted to write a good... I think a lot of us are, honestly, in this room specifically. I wanted to write a good handbook about understanding the various types like Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, StrengthsFinder, etc.

all that stuff. I think there's six or seven in the book, but always like I'm writing to figure out things I don't understand. And there was a lot I did understand and I knew how it helped me, but I didn't really understand why and like thoroughly what the implications were for like life, work, relationships, faith. And that's what I explored in that book.

And at the time, the publisher I signed with was like, can we just like slide a second book into this? I will also say that was very good work making it reading people. I mean, it was a strong title. You guys had a great hook there. That was the 11th hour last minute title. Well, take the compliment. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. Thank you very much. Yeah.

But I, gosh, it's so funny to look back on my path because I think especially because the pandemic has broken my brain in regards to time. I'd Rather Be Reading came out in 2018, which both feels like not that long ago and not that far into my writing career. And also like a million years. All at the same time. Yeah. Pre the flood. Yeah. Yeah.

But in 2018, or I guess 2016 and 17, when I was writing that, I felt like I had learned so much talking to so many readers about the books they love and why they love them or the books they don't love and why they despise them. And like so many times people don't understand their strong reactions to books or why they have a very meh reaction to something that everybody else seems to love. Also, my blog is called Modern Mrs. Darcy. And if you don't know, I will spell it out for you.

Elizabeth Bennett is a character in Pride and Prejudice who marries Mr. Darcy, Colin Firth, to some of you who may... For those of us who don't. So Modern Mrs. Darcy is a Jane Austen riff, which means that for my entire career, people have been coming up to me, pulling me aside and saying, I have to tell you, I've never read Jane Austen. Can we still be friends? Yes.

And my answer is always, absolutely, yes. But I thought it was so interesting that people felt compelled to tell me this and not infrequently with a good amount of like blushing shame. Yeah. Like there's no need for that, y'all. But like, why do you feel that? So in I'd Rather Be Reading, I really wanted to explore what it meant to be a reader and some of the things I'd learned and some of the things I'd seen and some of the things I'd experienced.

And I said, hey, Christian nonfiction publisher, this isn't really your jam, but can I write this book? And they said, sure. So I did. Well done, you. Thank you. And you got a gorgeous illustration out of it to hang in your home. I hope you did. But do you want to hear something absolutely tragic? How are you supposed to answer that question? I'm going to tell you something. Yeah, I really want to hear something absolutely tragic.

The original watercolor was going to be a gift to me from the publisher and I was going to hang it in my office, but it was lost in the mail over the Atlantic. Yeah. Well, I have a nice twist for that. In Amy's world where I'm an Enneagram, well, whatever, I am going to reframe it in a positive way. We'll talk about that offline. I will say in my storyline, it gets found.

somewhere and someone else is intrigued by it and they reach out to you. Okay. So The Watercolor is a family secret. And what year was it lost in? Can somebody turn that into a novel? I feel like Patty Callahan Henry would write that. Doesn't that feel like a Patty Callahan Henry book? That's my suggestion. If you're listening, Patty, which you should be, please turn this into a novel. All right. So then there's a third book. There's a third book. There is, yeah. Let's talk about the third book. Oh, gosh. Okay. Okay.

One of the things that happens if you write a book and it gets published is you have to talk about it, and that can be kind of weird. So this book is called Don't Overthink It, which was a book that I need, which is a book I care deeply about. It's a book that came out on March 3rd, 2020, which was terrible timing if you want to sell things, but amazing timing if you want to read a book that people need at the moment they need it. But I always feel saying I wrote a book called Don't Overthink It, I feel really bossy. Like...

You know, you should know better. And I don't mean that at all. I mean like, wow, this is something I've struggled with. I've been on a journey and I had some things I needed to figure out. And writing helped me figure them out. And these are the things I learned in a book. Actually, Ian Cron interviewed me for his podcast about Don't Overthink It. And he said, wow, in Enneagram 9...

A wishy-washy type who hates conflict and is chronically indecisive. I don't know if this is the most brilliant thing ever that you wrote this book or just a terrible idea. I was like, well, Ian, it's already out. So let's go with door A. I think it's great because it feels like the words on the bottle of the elixir are exactly what the sick person needs to hear, right? So I just think it immediately addresses a felt need, which is what marketers always want. And I think...

For I'm not naturally decisive. I like to see all the possibilities. If you're making a decision about like jam, you don't want all the possibilities. But that applies to more like meaningful things in life as well. And I couldn't learn the things I needed to learn from somebody to whom it came naturally because they never had to think about it, you know? And also they didn't see the nuance that I thought was so interesting. So I...

I wrote the book for people more like myself who saw that they could use some guidance, but from someone like who had been there too. And I had a really hard time talking about that book. I still have a hard time talking about that book because I initially conceived of it, oh gosh, it's been a long time since I've talked about this, in three ways. Like one, how do you interrupt negative thought patterns? You know, when you start spiraling or

start talking bad thoughts to yourself. That's a reinforcing loop and there are ways to interrupt it, but you can only use them if you know what they are. And then I wanted to talk about creating more positive thought patterns, things like making decisions and creating structures in your life that would be really useful and set you up to not go down the overthinking road in the first place.

And I'm someone to whom structure does not come naturally, but when I find a good one or it is given to me, like my whole being is like, ah, this is so good.

And for writers, that's really practical in a sense because writing is just decision after decision after decision. Like choosing all the words and what order each one is going to fall in. Like that's a lot of work and you got to have a good head to do that and you can't be exhausted or it doesn't work. So I talked about that. But I also wanted to talk about like the bigger picture. Like if you're approaching life with a more...

I love that Emily Dickinson quote, I dwell in possibility. But with a more expansive mindset, you can bring in so many positive things. And I ended with a, oh gosh, a blessing by who?

I don't even remember. It's the very end of Don't Overthink It. I remember quoting Wendell Berry. But in the book, I'm talking about like, make better decisions. But also, when we are able to focus on like bringing in the good and beautiful, it changes our life. It changes our relationships. It changes our world. Like, some of the decisions we're making are low stakes, but the results can actually be huge. I love this conversation. I mean, this, we could talk about this a ton. Does it

Does anybody else have trouble making decisions in your creative life? I do sometimes. One fun, fun life hack for that I discovered from my painter friend who decided that

He was making too many creative decisions in his clothing. So he limited it to just two different colors that he would always wear. Like just either a black shirt or a white shirt, either black pants or blue pants. And he said that just freed his brain up for the creativity of the rest of the day, which I thought was a fun life hack. Can you share some of your life hacks from that middle portion of the book that you were talking about, about habits or routines that can be freeing for your brain? Yes.

Yeah. Or from your own life. Routines are huge. Like mine changes with the season. I get cranky when I sit at my desk all day. So like I decide like when during the day I'm going to get outside. But I'd rather share one from the later part of the book that came immediately to mind. There's a shopping cart full of flowers on the front of the book. And it comes from a story that I tell later in the book about just simple abundance. And I...

was very thoughtful about including examples that didn't cost money in addition to some that do, because you can't just buy your way to solutions. That's, that's lazy. But, um, I mean, I don't mean it like that. That's not possible. A lot of times is what I do mean. But, um,

I found myself so frequently then going to Trader Joe's and looking at all the pretty flowers and they're not very expensive, but do I need flowers and they're going to be dead in a week. So I either wouldn't put them in my cart and I drive around the store. I mean, steer my little cart and think, should I go back and get the flowers or I'd put them in my cart and I'd be like, but do I really need these? And it's $4.99, which isn't a lot of money, but like, it's not not money. And

So I made the decision, like, Anne, you're being ridiculous. Do you have $4.99 for flowers? I think at this moment in your life you do. So when you go to Trader Joe's and you haven't been there in seven days or more, you will pick out the flowers and you will put them in your cart and you will not think about it again unless the peonies are blooming, in which case, like, you've got your peonies on your island. You're great. And you'll just bring them home. I love a peony. And so you'll have these beautiful flowers that you look at every single day until they die. Right.

And also, you didn't use all your energy deciding if you're going to buy the Trader Joe's hydrangeas, you can come home and write your words and decide which adjective to use instead of whether or not to put back the thing that you already put in your cart. I am so into that. I love that. That is a very good example. If you're not into flowers, then that is not your thing. And you may have your own version of that. Like, we're writers, right? In the book, I also talk about...

The moment I decided that I didn't have to use the free pens for my doctor's office, I could actually give Target $1.99 for the really nice Paper Mate flares.

That's not actually... Simple pleasure. Right now... That is such a simple pleasure. I'm a uniball pearl girl. But back then, it was the Paper Mate flares. So... Because it's $1.99. And I'm a writer. It is a freaking tool, y'all. I can spend $1.99 on a pen. Also, I would say it's also a tax write-off. Yeah. I think David and I have the same... If Spleet apps do more here, he'd be like, tax write-off, babe. Yeah. Yeah. That totally goes in that receipt column. Yeah. I love this. This is so good.

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Because obviously we've gathered screenwriters, songwriters, and book writers in this room. So we're really dying for some tips from you, Anne, because you've successfully published three books. A writerly tip. Yeah. I would say... No, I'm not really an advice giver, but let me tell you what's helped me. I am a writer of words that go into essays and stories and books. Okay.

And I love hearing how writers do it. Like, I want the behind the scenes. I want the process. I want the pen. I want the software. I want the... What was the moment where you saw the thing on the sidewalk that made you think, ah, this connected to this thing that happened to me 22 years ago, and here's my novel. Like, I want to hear all about that. But also, I think sometimes hearing writers of...

On the page, I'm trying really hard to distinguish from like screenwriters and lyricists in my mind. That's what I have in mind. Now we're all on the same page. But I think sometimes that's too close to me. And I love hearing from poets and I love hearing from songwriters and not even songwriters, but musicians who are making music, who are writing notes and not words. Because they talk about making things and they talk about the creative process. And I think there's something about that

So close and yet so far. That's so good. That engages a different part of my brain. I'm not at all thinking tactically. I'm thinking more about the possibility, the expansiveness. The go amalink Dickinson again, right? Right. Right. The, oh, I just had no idea it could be like that. And I think that hits me on a deeper, more basic level than...

If I'm listening to somebody talk about the notes, that's never going to be a how-to for me. It's never going to be advice. It's how do I think about this thing I'm bringing into the world. Oh, that's so good. Yes, yes, yes. But you're not the audience in this case. I mean, I agree. I think what I heard you say, I'm going to do the active listening thing again. What I heard you say is it's helpful to you to hear from people who are craftspeople outside of the craft of writing books.

books and essays and blogs, et cetera. So you like hearing from the poets and the screenwriters and the musicians who don't necessarily write lyrics but write all kinds of things. What other creation might speak into that? Are you inspired by painters and other... Do you get out and explore other kinds of arts? I'm just an appreciator. But I love hearing how any creator conceives of and relates to their work.

I just am endlessly fascinated by that. I'm with you. One year we had a painter come and be in dialogue with Lisa Donovan. I would love to hear. Does anybody remember Lisa Donovan being in conversation with a painter? We got a few people who need to bring a painter back and have them on.

the podcast with us, right? That would be amazing. That would be fun. Talk about your experience here in Nashville. This is a little bit of a pivot, friend, but can you talk about your experience here in Nashville? I know you've been here a number of times to Belmont to visit as well as to...

I've been to Belmont. How about on your own, though? Is it a little different to be here on your own without the children? I mean, I've done a fair amount of that, too, over the years. Nashville has such a robust writerly community. And I've often wondered, do I have so many writer and creative friends here because y'all know each other and hang out and you've folded this Louisville girl into your circle? Yeah.

Or is it because Nashville is so richly concentrated with creators? Maybe some of each. Maybe a little bit of each indeed. The specific visit, has it been different than your other visits? And if so, why? I mean, I have to say that the Belmont Rider Fest experience is definitely different than the admissions tour. In what way? Yeah.

Which tours did you go on when you were here? Were you in the same department in the Mike Kerb College of Business Entertainment? No. Oh, different ones? No. Okay. Wink, wink. We'll talk about that. I've been on a lot. I have a lot of kids. How many kids have you? You have four? I have four. I have four. Yeah. But y'all don't want to hear about that. It's not a competition. It's not a competition on how many children we have. You can say that because you know you'd win.

Let's talk about the contagious enthusiasm part of the show. Let's do that. Should we do that? Yeah. So on the WriterFest podcast, we always talk about what we're excited to read or experience as far as the writerly things go. So film, song, book, poem, anything that's written, we like to share our enthusiasm around it. Are you ready? Yeah.

Because certainly we want to know what should I read next. Although, like, I have to tell you, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom 2024 has been a really, like, tender year. Tender is a good word. And for me, interacting with...

books, and books and song, especially. We've been joking about like what our Spotify raft is going to look like in my household I live with. Gosh, mine's going to be scary. But that is really, you've got to go down that rabbit hole. What in the world? What do you mean it's going to be scary? My Spotify raft? Okay. Why would that be scary? Come clean.

Oh, it's not coming clean. It's like therapy. This is kind of a big therapy session. I'm someone who really, gosh, because I'm a human maybe more like, I turn to art in times of big emotion. You know, like when you're happy, you want a song. When you're sad, you want a song. And...

Like, I suffered some losses this year, and, like, my brain has just assigned a song to, like... Multiple songs or just one song? Oh, every loss gets a song. Oh, okay. This isn't, like, something I recommend. Again, not how to, but, like, maybe there's something here for you. This is just a share. So, like, I'm going to look at my Spotify raps, and I'm going to see, like, oh, that's the one I listened to on repeat when that happened, and that's the one I listened to on repeat when that happened, and that's the one I listened to on repeat. And that's going to...

I know what it's going to say, and yet it's different. Well, I imagine it'll be different when I actually see, here's your Spotify wrapped. And Spotify is going to be like, ta-da! And I'm going to be like, oh, so many tears. The memory of so many tears. But I think there's an important thing there about art. Like, I'm not... I'm noticing that...

in times of great emotion when I can't necessarily find the words or I'm looking for the words, I'm a writer, y'all. I like to have the words. I feel like until I can put it into words...

I don't really understand what it is. And that's something I help people do on the podcast. Like let's try to assign words. Some things are inexplicable. Like you don't have the right words. But if you can get close, that can be really helpful for you to identify what's happening. I have a friend in the audience, Kevin. Kevin, there's Kevin over. He uses this phrase, the soup of signals.

which for us has come to mean all the biological conditions

chemistry that's going on in your body in a certain moment. It's a soup of signals, right? It's the hormones, it's the dopamine, or it's the cortisol or all those things. And sometimes they can be expressed for me, at least by way of a song. I can go, oh, that song really expresses that for me. And it is reflecting that. It's mirroring it back to me in a way and saying, this is a thing. Yes, this is a thing. Or for a more...

I'm a mom. I mean, I remember like my kids now when they're teenagers and when they were very young, like there's a difference between feeling... You know what? I still do this today and I'm not 12. There's a difference between knowing that you just feel like, you know, a little verklempt and being able to say, oh, it's because I forgot to pay the cable bill. That's why I feel right now. Y'all, we don't even have cable, but...

Maybe that's, yeah, the inarticulated jumble, it's really helpful for me to make that into words. And also with the books that I love, like I love emotionally resonant fiction and

I mean, I love a good plotty thriller sometimes, but if I read too many of those in a row, I feel like I'm not reading anything. Like I want ones that make me go, yes, that is what it's like. Or make me go, oh, that is what it could be like. And I've learned that that is what really appeals to me in a book. And when I'm choosing what to read, like what will be worth my precious and limited reading time, that's the kind of experience I'm looking for.

And so this year, knowing where I am in my life, like, even though I read widely for my work, and because that is something I enjoy, like to sample lots of different things, authors who can put into words, right?

experiences that I relate to or would like to understand better are really valuable to me. And that's true in song as well, which is why my Spotify rap is going to kill me this year. Are you avoiding the question? Are we avoiding the question about like, what are the specific songs in the Spotify rap? Oh, here. I can tell you Jason Isbell, Indigo Girls, The Mountain Goats have been big in the past. She just said Indigo Girls, y'all. Which album?

Or which song? Oh, we'll have to talk about that later. This is our, we're the same. Yeah. That's not going in the record. It's not going in the record? Okay. Well, maybe you parse it and that would be weird. Like your taste in things says a lot about you. I mean, that's cool. We can talk about it offline, but I'm going to say Let It Be Me is one of my all time favorite songs. I love that for you. Do you know that song? I do. I do.

I'm a 90s child, of course I do. I love that. Okay, so that was very... Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so what about books? Can we talk about books you're excited about? Or is that... I mean, are you saving that for... What should I read next? Well, much of what I'm reading right now is coming out in 2025. Because something we do three times a year for Modern Mrs. Darcy and What Should I Read Next is we do previews with fiction that's coming out. And we really like...

Give it our all. It's mostly, I mean, my team supports me, but the reading is mine. I don't know where I started using the Royal We, but I absolutely do. But there's so much to read. And something I really noticed maybe five years ago was that readers feel so overwhelmed by all the books coming at them on Instagram and BookTok and marketing. And everything sounds really good. And everything sounds like a must-read episode.

And it can be really difficult to suss out, even for me, and I know how the marketing copy is written, to discern... I write it. Yeah. I do, I truly do. What is good for me...

versus what might be good for a different reader. And I like firmly believe in like taking chances on stuff outside your lane and like you should be reading stuff you don't enjoy, like on a regular basis. If you're not, then you're not like... If you can, if you have space for it, right?

Yes. You said should, and I know you're not a big should. No, I'm not a should person. This is what I tell myself. I can tell myself should, but I probably shouldn't actually. Should, shouldn't. Whatever you like. Let's start that over. Rewind, Risha? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I don't want you to hear like, if you really know yourself, then you'll love everything you read, five stars. Like, I don't think that's reality. I don't think that's.

the goal. But it can be hard to look at all these books being promoted on Instagram that influencers are sharing now and everyone's saying, this is amazing. You have to read it. And you don't have to read it. And something that I've done for my audience is try to help them just see some titles they could focus on, like dozens, not thousands of books coming out.

every Tuesday. So I'm really reading with that in mind. We have our spring book preview in January. And so some of the books I love so much, you can't read until March. It really is. I'm trying to think. I usually listen to audiobooks that are already published. And I'm trying to think what I'm listening to. While you're thinking about it, can I buy us some time and tell a book that I'm reading right now? Oh, yes, please do. And I don't do a ton of this, but Karen Anderson, are you in here?

Okay, Karen Anderson thrust into my hands a book called Theo of Golden and said, I don't do this a lot, but I'm going to insist that you read this book. And I was like, okay.

lots of people say they insist things. I will not always do things that people tell me, but Karen was insistent. And so I gave the book to Fleet promptly. That is truly, truly what happened. I said, Karen says we have to read this so you get to read it first. And so Fleet read it and he said, you have to read this. So with Karen endorsing it and my husband reading it, I was endorsing it. I was like, okay, it has been such a delight. It's called Theo of Golden. If anybody, Alan Levi is the author and it is self-published.

And it's killing it in the world. So I'm excited about that. And it is not a page turner in the sense of you must read this book. But it is such a delight every day to read that it's one of those where you go, oh, this is the happiest part of my day is reading this book. So I'm fond of that. Did I give you enough time to think? Oh, that's amazing. No, you know how it is. Somebody asked you what you've read lately and it's like, what is a book? What is a book title? I...

I live near a local independent bookstore in Louisville. By the name of? Oh, Carmichael's. Carmichael's. It's great. Hi, Carmichael's. And I popped into an author signing recently for Simon Van Bui, who wrote this book called Sipsworth that honestly sounded a little too precious for me because it's about an 80-year-old woman who adopts a mouse. And it... We had some laughter. Because Sipsworth...

When she puts him in a teacup, he doesn't fill the whole thing. Like, he's not even a sip's worth. He barely fills the spoon. And a bookseller, hi, Elizabeth Barnhill at Fabled, said, I love this book. You might want to consider reading it. And I did. And I love listening to it on audio. Now, the narrator was British. So for this Kentucky girl, that's a huge head start on an enjoyable reading experience.

But I really loved the story, going back to my love of emotionally resonant fiction, how this woman through a mouse found her way back into a community after she had excised herself. Like she's been living alone and lonely for a long time. And this mouse brought her back to life. And it turns out she had a real interesting backstory there.

which was fun to read about. And I'm not going to say any more about that, except Simon Van Buey talked at his author signing about how he thought his

Well, he had a professor who said once that every writer has a story they tell and they tell it over and over and over. The context changes, the story changes, but the theme is the same. So I was like, hang on, like, do you believe that? What are all your books about? And he's like, oh, I totally believe that. And my books are about people who have either been cut off or cut themselves off from life and

who find a way back again after they thought that door was closed forever. And I thought that was so interesting to look at his body of work and see, I mean, his novels look very different. Like, you would not say, oh, you keep writing the same story over and over and over. But for whatever reason, the thing that he continues to be drawn to exploring is lonely people who think a meaningful life is over for them keep going.

finding their way back or being pulled back into life kicking and screaming. So it's a story about a mouse, but also it's a story that like has some deep gut level oomph to it.

That sounds delicious to me. Sounds fantastic. So something I love about books is you can be at a conference and you can't say to someone, look, I'm not going to say to you, I'm not going to tell you what you can or can't say, but I'm not going to say to you, hey, what's the thing you obsess about on a gut level that you keep being drawn to over and over that keeps you awake at night and maybe that you talk about in therapy? What's that thing? But what kind of books are you drawn to?

What themes are you exploring in your work? You can totally say that. Is that something I love about books? I have a segue that's happening in my brain. I don't know if I can articulate it in a meaningful way out loud. But last year we had Julia Whelan here as one of our keynote speakers. She's fun. She is fun. She's a novelist and also one of the best narrators in the audio space. You were just talking about audiobooks, so that's probably why I started thinking about it. And then when you were talking about the idea of every book may have a similar theme,

sort of heartbeat that you may or may not recognize at the outset. She said something last year that I don't know that I'll ever forget. And she, it was, does anybody remember Julia Whelan talking about the alien fish?

Do you remember this? So she was, and this, I was like, oh, never heard that before. She said, most of the book is going to be surface level, interesting about the ocean. Like oceans are fabulous and so interesting. And so there's going to be stuff happening on the surface. And she said, you get one chance in the book to go down deep and get to spot the

the alien fish at the bottom of the ocean that is so ugly and also probably should never see the light of day but we're gonna we're gonna see it one time and we're gonna experience that terror of the alien fish and then we probably need to go back to the top so that we can like finish out the book and she said every book has an alien fish where it should

That's a really helpful insight. Don't know what my alien vision would be, but something for the writers among us to think about at least. Oh, gosh. Now I'm thinking of all the books she's narrated that I've listened to. Has anyone read Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur? It's a memoir. Yeah.

I'd be interested in hearing her take on that because there may be more than one alien fish. Have you had Julia on your show yet? Yes, but she didn't talk about alien fish. Well, you should have her back and say, what the heck with the alien fish, guys? Interesting idea. Okay. Would you be comfy if we opened it up to questions? Yeah. I love questions. Okay.

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Still tastes the same like back in the day. Right now, get two pieces of chicken starting at only $2.99 or 10 pieces starting at only $10.99. Churches. Offer valid at participating locations. Hi, my name is Damien. Hi, Damien. What's the recurring theme that happens across all of your books that's told with different contexts? Ooh, okay. I've written nonfiction so far that's been published. So I am writing to figure out the things I can't understand. Okay.

But can I say the thing I keep coming back in the works I'm reading? I love family trauma and family secrets. And what I really want to read about is how the thing that was never said or never acknowledged is still very much present and influencing everyone in the blast zone, whether or not they have any clue that's what's actually happening.

That's what I'm looking for. Yeah, I'm raising my hand to say it. And sometimes I don't even know it. I'll be surprised to be like, oh, page 200, and here we are. Like, did my radar pick that up? Or is that a happy coincidence? Is this family tragedy a happy coincidence? Exactly. I love that. I love that. Satisfied, Damien? That's a good question. We have another question. Hi, I'm Georgia. Hi, Georgia. I'm wondering, what was the moment or series of moments that

Where you kind of decided like, I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to writing and telling stories and figuring it out no matter how difficult sometimes. Was there a specific Baja moment or series of things that kind of led up to that at all? Okay, Georgia. Georgia has a great voice, doesn't she? There's a lot. Yeah. Have you thought about podcasting? Do you have one? No.

We can talk. We can talk. Okay. I'm noticing that there's a lot assumed in that question that I have dedicated my life to writing and telling stories forever. And I think I'm dedicated to that. But y'all, when it gets hard for real, I think, do I really want to do this? Because this is hard. And I think the thing that keeps me coming back to it is

is remembering. I love Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. It's a wonderful book. There's this almost throwaway line in it that I quote all the time. The protagonist in Crossing to Safety is a novelist, and he's working on a book at some point, and he's talking about how it might kill him.

And his friend says to him, like, you know, you got to do the work because hard writing makes for easy reading. And hard writing makes for easy reading. I think of that all the time. And sometimes I think about that when I'm reading a Julia Wayland novel. When she's written, not just narrated. Or Emily Henry. Like, those books that you can fly through were not flown through on the part of the author. Or reading wrenching literary fiction, like...

I project on them and think this had to have been a, just an emotional nightmare to write. Oh gosh, I'm reading a mystery right now. That's brutal. And I think, oh, you poor thing, you had to write this scene.

But hard writing makes for easy reading. Not easy necessarily emotionally, but easy in the sense as a reader, like we can engage the work and learn from the work and grow with the work and really absorb the work. And if it's not written well, you can't take it in. And if you can't take it in, it can't change you. And I think that's what good writing really does.

So I suppose to answer your question, this is a conversation I continue to have with myself. And I don't know that there was like one moment in time where

but continuing re-reminder that it matters. And I think also this is something I need from my community to hear like the work we're doing is hard. Like it is hard and also it matters. And just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. And just because it's hard doesn't mean it can't be done.

Okay, can I answer a lighter question? I really thought you were going to say, at what moment did you think it was going to work? And my answer to that question is extremely shallow, but like real. I remember in maybe like June 2011, somebody bought a pack of vitamin D on my blog through an affiliate link and I made 27 cents. And I was like...

You can't actually buy anything at Kroger for 27 cents, but this could be a start. And sometimes the starts we have as writers or creators are so small, but a start is a start. That's good. That's really good. I got a royalty check recently that was for $1.98. And I was thinking, boy, I'm going to need to write a lot more books. Olivia, what?

We have a question. What's your name? Yes. Hello there. My name is Chris. Hi, Chris. In my life's work, I do mental health substance use therapy. And, you know, in my creative mind, I'm creating phrases and thoughts. And that's what I write on and create. And so I'm curious where your knowledge base comes from. And here's why I'm asking that. Because very recently, one of the newest phrases that came to my mind is curiosity equals knowledge. And I'm just listening to you.

And you seem to embody that. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for that. Truly, I am so grateful to 2010, 2011 Anne, who set up this situation where you all talk to me about your reading lives every single day. And...

I started What Should I Read Next in 2016. And the format of that show is most weeks a, this is not my phrase, this is our reader's phrase back to us, a regular reader, someone who's not a writer, someone

a publishing professional, someone whose name you do not know, like someone who could be your mom or your kid's teacher or your dog walker or your neighbor or your grandma or your friend comes on the podcast to talk about three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately and says, and what should I read next? Like, help me figure out

the situation here? Like what common threads do you see? Why didn't I like that book? I didn't like, I cannot figure it out. And then sometimes they come to us, we have on our submission form for the podcast, it's called what should I read next podcast.com slash guest. And I wish we could talk to everybody, but we only put out 48 episodes a year. We have this, what's like something that you want to talk to Ann about? And people say things like,

I cannot figure out why the genre is the only thing working for me right now. Or I cannot figure out why I cannot read historical fiction. Or I can't figure out... Like, they have this thing they can't figure out in their reading life. And I get to talk to them about it on the podcast.

And I really think my informal education has come from talking to, at this point, thousands of readers about their reading lives. And there's such generosity there because when you're talking to somebody about the books you love and the books you don't and why, that can get real personal and real deep really quickly. And I'm so grateful that they trust me with that.

And sometimes want to talk about it enough that they will do so in front of tens of thousands of people on a podcast. Although it feels like we're having coffee when we're having the conversation. And it's such a gift to the listeners, I think as well, who maybe they will never have a conversation with me, but to hear someone else process that,

what they love, what they don't, and why, what their sticking points are and how they might overcome them. Sometimes I say, this is your sticking point. Awesome. Live your life. You have my blessing to not worry about it, if you can do that. Yeah, talking to readers every day.

Hi, I'm Savannah. Hi, Savannah. You mentioned how the market is just so saturated with BookTok and Instagram and everything like that. I'm curious how you make your content feel community and not noise. Like, how do you differentiate yourself from that? Oh, what a question. How do I make what we make feel community-driven and not noise? That's a good question.

And that's also one that we talk about. I have a team that helps me do what I do. And like, that's something we talk about at our team meetings, almost in those words. And something that I'm asking everyone all the time is, is our voice needed here? Like for a long time, we did our reading challenge at the end of December back when, believe it or not, that wasn't really a thing. And something we asked every year for years was like,

is our voice needed here? Because this is now an available resource. And we decided no. But we do a summer reading guide every year that I love and adore putting together. And every year we ask ourselves, is our voice needed here? And every year we say, yeah. Because I read every single one of those books and I so enjoy doing it. So we keep doing that. I think really carefully about what I'm thinking about making next.

what it will feel like to make that. How do I feel about that? Do I believe in it? Why? Why does this matter to me? How might this help other people? Like, am I creating something that's going to feel like noise to me? In which case, I'm not going to make that thing. And I feel like that sounds a little, you know, self, but as a creator-

That sounds self-aware. I mean, I want to read the work that you put your heart into, not the things that you're phoning in. And this is actually making me think anyone who heard Paul Young yesterday. I was thinking the same thing. Yeah, he talked about if it's not...

heavy, heavy paraphrase. But if it's not coming from the gut, but you're just saying the things that you think ought to be said, then what are you doing? Like, that's bad work. And also, it's bad art. So that's a great question. I'm going to keep thinking about it. But I'm very aware that I'm thinking about, do I believe in what we're making? Do I want to make it? Because if I don't want to make it, then

You don't want to see it. You might think you want to see it. Going back to music, I remember hearing, oh gosh, who was it? Some musician speak at a conference in Nashville in like 2012. And he said that his favorite album was from one of his favorite, I think it was Wilco. But he said, they didn't make the album I wanted. And I didn't understand it the first like 10 times I listened to it.

But they made the album that they knew needed to be made. And like, I found in it something I didn't even know I wanted. And so something that we're asking, thank you for verbally processing this with me, everyone. Something that we're,

that I'm constantly looking to do is make the things, not necessarily the people say they want, although I definitely pay attention to that. Like we have a What Should I Read Next member community. And I do these bonus episodes called Industry Insights where I help people understand publishing better. And I'll do things like break down how book advances work and how do contracts work and how do authors get paid? The ins and outs of podcasts,

Because I think the more you understand about the industry, the more informed you can be as a reader and it changes how you interact with that. And that's especially true for writers in another way. But also I think some of the most valuable work that I've had the pleasure of enjoying wasn't made because I asked for it. Like an artist is making something that nobody knew they wanted, but it's good and people will be glad to get it.

Okay, last thing. I'm also very conscious of which space we're putting our work into. We have some private member communities. I've written books.

We do PDFs. We have the podcast. We have the blog. I'm thinking about which audience the work goes into. So sometimes it's not noise because of the level of intimacy in it. So the public version of it might be noise, but the private version where there's a little more trust and I'll go into a little more detail and put a little more of myself into it will feel real. All right. Let's give it up for Anne and Amy. Thank you.

Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my keynote conversation with Amy McConnell from WriterFest. If you'd like to hear more about the festival or about the writing process, whether that is book, song, or screen, check out the WriterFest podcast wherever you listen to this show. We'll have links to the books Amy and I talked about, the WriterFest podcast, and the conference itself, all at WhatShouldIReadNextPodcast.com.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next is created each week by Will Bogle, Holly Wilkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Special thanks this week to all the good folks at WriterFest for making this episode possible. Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. Happy reading, everyone.