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Shaunna J. Edwards and Alyson Richman, "The Thread Collectors" (Harper Collins, 2022)
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- [00:00]
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- [00:46]
Alison Richman
Welcome to the New Books Network hello,
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with both of the authors of a book published by HarperCollins in 2022 titled the Thread Collectors that takes us into the mid-1800s, the period of the US Civil War, to examine kind of some of the complexities of that time period through fiction. So I have with me today Alison Richmond and Shauna Edwards, who are here to tell us about the book that they wrote together. Alison and Shauna, thank you so much for joining me.
- [01:25]
Alison Richman
Thank you for having us.
- [01:26]
Shauna J. Edwards
Thank you. Absolutely. And this is Shauna J. Edwards. The Thread Collectors is my first novel and I was so pleased to write it with my friend Allison.
- [01:36]
Alison Richman
I was so happy to as well be able to write this with Shauna. We have known each other for over a decade. Actually, now that you know the book came out in 2022, it's probably close to 15 years. So it's just a joy to be here today talking with you, Miranda.
- [01:53]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
It's very pleasing to have both of you, given how much it's clear from reading the book that you work together on this project. Do you each want to maybe introduce yourselves a little bit and tell us more about how you came together? Perhaps, Shauna, you want to start us off?
- [02:06]
Shauna J. Edwards
Sure. As I mentioned, I'm Shauna and this is my first novel. In my day job, I am a reformed lawyer. I now do talent management for a big law firm. I'm an old mom, as I say, I have a 20 month old who has the same name as a character in the book and I live in Hartford, Harlem, but I'm originally from New Orleans, Louisiana.
- [02:28]
Alison Richman
I am Alison Richman. I have been a historical novelist since basically I graduated university. So, you know, that's eking on 25 years now, the Thread Collectors was, I believe, my ninth book when I wrote it with Shauna in 2022. I live on Long island with my husband. I am recently an empty nester. I have two children. One's in college now, the other just recently graduated from Colle. And yes, this has been just a, you know, a wonderful collaboration with Shauna to write a book that, you know, is steeped in history, but also weaves a lot of our own personal family history in it as well.
- [03:10]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
So how then did you come together to write the book?
- [03:13]
Alison Richman
So it's kind of a, like, I think, of a really fun and, you know, fascinating story to share with your listeners. Shauna and I, as I mentioned, have known each other for a decade, you know, over a decade. And I met Shauna when we were basically online at a reception in Las Vegas. My husband is an attorney. At that time, Shauna was an attorney. And it was this party where I was letting every single man cut in front of me for a drink. And Shauna came over and said, why are you letting every single man cut in front of you? And by the way, I like your dress. And we started talking and I learned that she loved literature. She was a literature major in college. And she seemed to be super interested to meet an author at one of these receptionists. And even mentioned at that first meeting that she had always wanted to write a book. So as we connected and became friends after that initial meeting, she became the person that when I had an idea for a book, she was my first go to person because she's incredibly brilliant, curious, she loves history and always gives me her honest opinion. So I would say in 2019, I was contemplating writing a historical novel that was based on my family's history with the Civil War. I had learned from my grandmother that I had two great, great, great uncles who fought on opposite sides on the Civil War. One was a musician in the Union Army. Another was an uncle who had moved down south and had a mercantile emporium who ended up fighting on the Confederate side. And I had always wanted to write this book, but wasn't really sure how I was going to go about doing it. And I had a documentary in which it was a Ken Burns documentary that highlighted the involvement of black soldiers in the Civil War, and that often they were the ones who were responsible for burying the white Civil War dead. And sometimes maps were created where they outlined how they had buried certain soldiers. And I thought, wouldn't it be interesting if there was this sort of unexpected friendship between a Black soldier and a Jewish soldier, because my uncles had, in fact, both been Jewish. Jewish. And I thought it would be interesting to sort of highlight an unexpected friendship between two men who come from different backgrounds, religions, but are yet somehow bonded in music. And so I said to Shauna, what do you think about this? And maybe, Shauna, you can sort of jump in and say what your initial reaction was to my idea.
- [05:59]
Shauna J. Edwards
Absolutely. So I thought it was fascinating, Miranda, and particularly having that level of historical intrigue in one family. Because what Alison's not mentioning is there were less than, like, 15,000 Jewish soldiers that fought in the Civil War. So to have two great, great, great uncles fighting on opposite sides, incredibly unique. But one of the things that I wanted to interrogate more, I am a black woman, was, well, what is the black soldier's journey? How did he arrive at this point in time where he's helping to bury the Civil War dead? Was he formerly enslaved? What is his home life like? So I thought of it, and I had this flash. I can't. I now know where it came from, but I couldn't have told you at the time. I saw this black woman, and she's like, sewing a map with thread to help her beloved run away to join the Union Army. Like, that is how he gets to the battlefield. And I mentioned that idea to Allison, and she was like, oh, I had never really considered, I don't know, bringing love maybe into it in that way.
- [07:09]
Alison Richman
And that's true. I was only seeing it from my own family's perspective and then trying to weave in this sort of new chapter of history that I wasn't aware of about black soldiers creating these maps. And so after I left that. That initial luncheon with Shauna where she shared her, you know, initial thoughts on the idea, I shelved it. I just felt like it was so intriguing what she said. But the zeitgeist didn't feel right for me to start writing that book. And I went on to write another book at the time. Then fast forward to Covid in 2020. We were all sheltering in place. There was the, you know, tremendous, you know, social outcry after the murder of George Floyd. And I started to feel in, you know, the zeitgeist, this feeling that the parallels now in the United States with what happened during the Civil War seem more palpable than ever. And I started to think that maybe now was the right time to revisit this story, that it seemed very timely. But also, when I reflected upon my thoughts on the book and the overall plot, of the book. It no longer felt like it was wholly mine. Shauna had imparted so much wisdom and personal thought. She made me think about the book in a different direction, that I thought maybe I would reach out to her and see if maybe we could collaborate it on together and create something really rich and unique.
- [08:33]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That's such a cool backstory for the book. And so many of the things that you've both discussed there come through, I think, in the finished version. I mean, for one thing, listeners should have a pretty good sense by now of kind of why it's titled the Thread Collectors. Right. We've talked about sewing as being a really key part of this, but you also mentioned that music is a big part, too. So why was it important that two of the key characters be musicians?
- [08:57]
Shauna J. Edwards
Well, maybe I'll jump in here, Alison. So the first thing is, because so much of our personal lineage is woven into this book, Alison's ancestor, who was also named Jacob Kling, which is the name of our German Jewish hero, he was a musician in the Union Army. So to be able to honor that heritage was really important for us. And then, importantly, most troops during the Civil War were segregated. White troops would be in one regiment, black troops would be in another regiment, with the exception, however, of musicians, who, because of their unique role, they sometimes spent time in the medical tents because they had extra time when they weren't running drills and things of that nature. And that is literally where our two male heroes meet. William, who is our black hero, and Jacob. So it was important for us. It's always important for Allison and I when we're working on a product to stay true to history. So we wanted to honor the history. There's another reason, however, that we wanted them to both be musicians. There is that connective language that bonds them together, that transcends different backgrounds and religions. And I also knew that if we made William the black soldier a musician, we could talk about my hometown, New Orleans. So I think it's the most musical city in the US if you have listeners that are from Chicago or Nashville, they would vehemently disagree with me. But I'm talking now, so I will say that I think it's the most musical city. And importantly, New Orleans occupied a different milieu and race relations at that time. It was very multicultural. So there were enslaved black people there. There were white people there. There was a significant population of free people of color, which many people may not know that there were free people of color in the south during the Civil War in the United States, and it also had a thriving Jewish population. In 1861, a third of all Jewish people in America actually lived in Louisiana. So being able to place a lot of our history and our plot there and have the musical connection to New Orleans was really important, and I think just made the book richer and certainly, for me, more personally meaningful because I could do so much of the history and the research where I'm from.
- [11:18]
Alison Richman
And I think we also really, you know, from the moment we started to conceive of this novel, we were, you know, cognizant of the fact that we knew that these two men had to have a shared language that bonded them and that music was going to be the thing that tethered them. In the same way that when we see our two female characters, Lily and Stella, it's the use of thread and resourcefulness with their sewing that will bond them, too.
- [11:44]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's a really key element to make sure that characters are different but also have places of connection. Are there any other key aspects of this collection of main characters that we want to discuss as being kind of important when you were creating them?
- [11:57]
Alison Richman
Well, you know, maybe, Shauna, you'd like to discuss a little bit about Teddy, Because I know on that first meeting, when we were talking about what characters we wanted in this book, that was something that you knew right away that, you know, this little drummer boy, this black drummer boy that we have in the novel, why he's there and why he plays such an important role.
- [12:16]
Shauna J. Edwards
Absolutely. So in addition to our two main couples, William and Stella, our black couple, and Jacob and Lily, our Jewish couple, we have the two men meet, as Alison alluded to, this little boy named Teddy on the battlefield. And he is emblematic of those young drummer boys that did enlist in the Union and Confederate army and was there on the battlefield seeing something that was incredibly dramatic. Teddy, in our novel, is a free person of color. So that is the way that we are introducing our readers to that part of history. And we're also introducing them to this idea of how childhood is perceived, particularly for me, as I mentioned, as a black woman, sometimes black children are not necessarily given the full latitude of childhood that others may be. For instance, they may be perceived as older, they may be perceived as more resilient, so they're able respond differently to trauma, that they are not necessarily in need of protection. And so to keep that character and to have him almost be sheltered by these two men, he is living through adulthood in a way, but he's still, you know, he's. He's still Protected by them. And that was really important. I wanted to have a young black child and force the reader to think about how we protect all forms of childhood. And then at the same time, I also think Teddy's another person to root for. You know, we're rooting for our two main couples. But there's something about Teddy you're thinking about this young child. He's alone. I'm not going to get into the circumstances of why he's alone, but I think it gives the readership a heart to. To really hold on to. And when we speak to our readers, I will say that most of them are really, really. They fall in love with Teddy.
- [14:11]
Alison Richman
Yeah, I think he becomes one of everyone's favorite characters. And he also becomes another connection between William and Jacob too, because they both end up, you know, really wanting to protect Teddy. And he's also musical. He's a drummer boy. So that's. They also, you know, he becomes that third character who is also connected to them through music.
- [14:34]
Shauna J. Edwards
Yeah.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
It's really key, obviously, to have these characters that. That bring so many things together in the book. But of course, I am guessing that sort of figuring out the characters you wanted to have and how they would interact was not the only sort of research and thinking that had to go into this. What other sorts of research did you investigate to kind of make this world so evocative?
- [14:54]
Alison Richman
Well, writing about the Civil War is certainly a daunting task to do for two novelists because there's a copious amount of information out there and you're writing about one of the darkest periods in American history, about slavery, and you want to get everything right. For me personally, writing about my relatives who were Jewish during America, both of them soldiers in the war, it's sort of an unknown told story, I think, in historical fiction about Jewish soldiers who partook in the war from both the Confederate and the Union side. So I. I think the first thing that I set about to do was to sort of see if what my grandmother had shared with me if it was valid, because as a child she would tell this dramatic tale that I had relatives in the south that were connected to the uncle who fought on the Confederate side. But her family had completely broken with them after the war. I mean, so she had lost touch with them. She joked, saying that they were Baptist and while her family had still practiced Judaism and. And I wondered if any of this was actually like her being overly exaggerating. Family lore. There is a foundation called the Chappelle Manuscript foundation that basically has taken upon itself to try and harvest as much material about Jewish soldiers who fought on both sides of the war. They have incredible resources at their disposal. And when I wrote to them saying that Shawn and I were trying to write this book and I had the name, the names of both of my uncles, their regiments, and the positions that they served in the military, I asked to see if those could be validated and if they had any supportive material about my uncles. It ended up that in their files, they had the will from my southern uncle who, where he disowned his uncle, I mean, his brother who fought on the Union side, saying that he did not want him to have because he had never married any of his money after the war, should he die, he would not be able to inherit anything. I guess my grandmother's information that the brothers never repaired their relationship was true. The head at the manuscript foundation also suggested a whole reading list for us to do about Jews who did partake in the war. That was very, very helpful. Sean and I did travel to the Gullah Geechee Islands to do research for the book because we knew that we wanted to have William the Black Soldier's history rooted in basically in one of the islands there with the rich indigo trade. So we made that journey there. And one of the most moving, I think, chapters of that trip that we took together was that we had a tour given to us by two descendants of enslaved people who. Who arrived at these islands during the time, you know, prior to the Civil War. And they took us to a prayer house where they began to sing the music that had been passed down from generation to generation. And when I tell you that you could feel in the vibrations of this little house, the ancestors almost awakening within the floorboards, the music, what it had stirred in all of us, it was just so profound. So I know Shauna can add in about more research that we did as well, from her perspective.
- [18:25]
Shauna J. Edwards
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Alison Richman
They.
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Shauna J. Edwards
They had family. He had wanted to go to his aunt's house to celebrate Mardi Gras. In that year, because of the occupation, the parades were canceled, and he was frankly ticked off about it. He had expected a party during wartime. So I think that tells you a little bit of something about New Orleans. And then lastly, I also went to Port Hudson. So there are some seminal plot points that take place during a battle of Port Hudson, and that was during 1863. It was one of the first times that African American Civil War soldiers, Union soldiers, were allowed to fight and to fight, frankly, for their freedom. Before, they had been relegated mainly to menial labor, burying the dead, digging ditches, fetching water, that type of thing. But these black men really did want to fight, right? They had their entire existence on the line. And in this battle, they were led by a really brave soldier named Andre Kalu, who was thought to be the first black officer who was killed in battle during the Civil War. But it turned out, for many reasons, to be a rout in the early battles and bodies laid on the battlefield for over a month. And he was eventually, when his body was reclaimed, it was taken back to New Orleans. And there was a big parade and I got to go to Port Hudson, and I went there with my now husband, and I thought about all of the sacrifice, and I also thought just. Just a little bit about the erasure and deprioritization of history. I grew up about an hour and a half from Port Hudson, and I went to a school that was very focused on education. And I would tell you that we went to so many field trips, and never once did I go an hour and a half to go to this battlefield, which is now a national park. And I think it just. It makes you think about the history that we prioritize, and where are the missed opportunities to really go back and study our heritage, which, yeah, I definitely
- [22:05]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
think that's very important to highlight as well as the people that are doing this kind of work to preserve it. But as you said, not often with the sort of support that they would ideally really need. And I think this comes through in sort of where you're focusing on in terms of people's involvement with the war.
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Shauna J. Edwards
Right.
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Dr. Miranda Melcher
We've talked about the music of it. That's probably not what we think of in terms of the kind of skill set of people involved in the conflict. And yet it's really crucial throughout the book. Similarly, you know, fabric arts and women's work are often things that are ignored or more ignored in history when we think about kind of bigger, fancier things instead. So can you maybe tell us a little bit more about why sewing and threads was so important to this?
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Alison Richman
Do you want to start with the quilting, Shauna? And then I can go into.
- [22:50]
Shauna J. Edwards
Well, maybe I. I'm happy to, since I. I brought sewing into the circle. That was my little pun. My mother was born on. I know, I'm silly. My mother was born on a sharecropping cotton farm in North Louisiana. So incredibly humble means, but very resourceful people. And as many people do when they are of humble means, they repurpose everything. You know, nothing is thrown away. And so the heirlooms in my family are the quilts that was sewn by my grandmother and the great. My great grandmother. You know, the hand stitching and the little piece of fabric that might have been, like, fallen off a dress, can't wear it anymore, or a burlap sack. I have a quilt that is so old that you can still feel the cotton seeds and the batting, because it's just like cotton that was picked and it wasn't properly ginned. And so for me, it has always been that idea of textiles are not only beautiful, right? They adorn your beds. They can adorn your walls. Obviously, they adorn ourselves, if you're into fashion. But it's also that, like, connection, that familial connection between. I may not have much, but I'm giving you what I can. And so for our black heroine, Stella, who in many ways is disenfranchised, right? She is enslaved. She's not in control of her body. She's not in control of where she can go, but she is control of the skill set that she has, which is embroidery, which is sewing. And this knowledge she gains surreptitiously which is how to direct enslaved men to flee, to join the Union army. And she puts those two things together. So it is that continuing line, that continuing thread of how do you be as resourceful, as impactful as possible, even when your means are very limited? And I think in many ways, that is the story of women throughout history, right? Like, how do you make something happen when you have next to nothing?
- [24:54]
Alison Richman
So for me, you know, one of the things that I wanted to bring in with the sewing was the, you know, way that our female heroine, whose name is Lily, who is Jacob Kling's wife back home in New York, how is she using threads and resourcefulness and contributing to the war effort? And through our research, Sean and I discovered that there were these amazing sewing circles, you know, in the Northeast during the Civil War time. They were a wonderful way for women to come together to find connectivity within their community. They fundraised making quilts, and much of the money was sent to help their fellow brothers and husbands, and just Union soldiers in general, keep warm during the cold winters when they were fighting. And. And so it was a way for us to sort of highlight how women were coming together, how they were being resourceful, how they were contributing to the war effort, but also how they, in some cases, found unexpected friendship within those circles as well. So we love these. Just always trying to have this dance between ourselves of, well, if you're writing about one of the female characters, is there a way that we can show another parallel what's going on with the other female character and the same vice versa with William and Jacob, to just to continue to find. To literally without, you know, having too much of a pun, knitting them together in unexpected ways.
- [26:27]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
How did that work logistically in terms of doing this research and writing together? I mean, you mentioned kind of going on some trips together, but sort of on a more mundane level, like, did one of you write a chapter and send it to the other? Like, how did that work?
- [26:40]
Alison Richman
Well, I think it's important, Miranda, to emphasize that also this was was during COVID that we began writing this book. In basically June 2020, we had our first meeting outside in a park. We pulled our masks down, and we started dreaming and thinking how we were going to write this book together. And I had never done a collaborative novel before. This was Shauna's first novel. But we knew that we needed to create sort of a sacred trust between each other that we were always going to tell each other of something rubbed us the wrong way or a word didn't seem right. That Every word that we would finalize that would become part of this finished manuscript, we both had to feel comfortable about. And so, you know, we decided that maybe the best way to write this book was on Google Docs. I had always written, you know, just a word document before in the past, but Google Docs Enable enables you. I mean, most of your readers obviously are going to know this, but for those who might not be familiar with it, you know, people can edit each other. You can. You can. You can mark it up with. With comments and highlight, and it becomes almost, you know, instantly a collaborative canvas. You could say. So what we decided to do is that I often would create the first pass after every Sunday night. We would. We would talk about what we wanted to happen in the book, sort of 20 pages at a time, and we would have a, you know, a real in depth conversation saying, you know, this is what. This is how we want to move the plot forward. These are the things that we discovered in our research that need to be woven through, you know, into. Into the next few chapters. And I would do the first pass. It would be very, very rough, just trying to get a sense of. Of the content and the historical detail that we wanted to put in. But I would leave blanks, too, where I would say, there needs to be dialogue in, you know, here that's in dialect, or can you add some textual, descriptive language about New Orleans here? And. And then I would return it to Shauna, and Shauna would do another pass, and she would insert all those different things, and she might change some words that I had written. She might adjust the dialogue, and it would just be sort of that layer upon layer. Maybe we'd go back and forth three or four times, 20 pages a time, until every single word on the page felt like it made sense to us. And there would be times, you know, where certain words would be flagged. And I feel that this was sort of the most wonderful and profound aspects of writing this novel with Shauna, because you learn how other people from different backgrounds sometimes hear language differently. So, for example, there is a scene in our book where Lily goes down south and there is a young black child that has essential information for her that will sort of set her on the correct path. And in my first pass, I said, lily was surprised but delighted that the child knew this information. And I didn't give two, you know, seconds of thought to the word surprise. And Shauna highlighted and she said, can we discuss this? And I said, sure. So on our Sunday night, she said, oh, I just wanted to ask you about the word surprise. Tell me how you see this scene. And I described it as I had just described it to you. And she said, you know, I, I really want to emphasize the child's intelligence and resourcefulness here because even if she's six years old, she would have had access to the, you know, to, you know, being on the streets here. She would have, you know, known the right way to go. She had that information. So rather than having showing surprise, how about we highlight, you know, just, you know, how, you know, how resourceful she was. And I, I understood exactly where Shauna was coming from. And it made me realize that every word has power. And how we hear those words, you know, is important. It's important to be respectful. It's important to make sure that you are always listening to people and learning from them as well.
- [30:46]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That's a very powerful example and a really helpful one, right? To kind of the practicalities, like, I love Google Docs. So glad to hear that that was a helpful mechanism through this process. Was there anything that surprised either of you about going through all of this? I mean, we've mentioned a few kind of amazing discoveries in the archive or kind of things that the conversations brought up, but anything else you want to throw into our discussion?
- [31:11]
Shauna J. Edwards
So I think for me, maybe there some history that I just didn't know. And we got the opportunity to highlight. I think in America we're taught a very dichotomous view of the Civil War, which is in the North, Kumbaya in the south, bad. But when you read the history, it's more complicated than that. And particularly with respect to the Union army and anti Semitism. It wasn't until I was reading more extensively that I realized that there had been ongoing anti Semitism in the Union army, which. Which unfortunately shouldn't surprise us since there was ongoing anti Semitism at that time and moving forward in the United States. But that General Grant, who is considered to be a revered character, had actually at one point issued an executive order expelling Jewish people from his military districts, which were parts of Tennessee and Mississippi and Kentucky, because he had been enraged by what he thought was inappropriate cotton speculation by some Jewish merchants. Obviously, the order was required to be rescinded. That is very good. But the idea that that type of scapegoating was happening in the folks that we were rooting for, you know, I think just highlighted the complexity of the Civil War and really made me. Once again, we've already talked about it, Miranda, but just question, again, the really surface level way that we are sometimes engaging with history and trying to figure out how can I do more, even just for myself, to dive more deeply when I'm presented with a historical fact or story.
- [32:54]
Alison Richman
And for me, I think one of the aspects of history that I was completely unfamiliar with, and I actually also remember reading it and calling Shauna and saying, did you learn this in school? Because I had absolutely no idea. Which was the burning of the Colored Orphans Asylum during the Draft riots. And this episode in history, which took place in New York City, was one of the most violent and upsetting chapters of history I think I've ever read about. There was this orphanage for black children, many who had lost their fathers, who had enlisted as soldiers in the Union Army. During the Draft riots, someone tried to burn all 250 of the children inside. They barricaded the doors. They had every intention of making sure there were no survivors. And luckily, one of the teachers was able to shepherd out all the children and find a way to get them into safety. And had it not been for a very resourceful black child who swept into her arms the Bible that was sort of outside, I think, the dining room and saved that, that is the only artifact that remains of the asylum because the entire building was destroyed. That particular Bible now is on display in New York City at the New York Historical Society. And Sean and I were able to visit in to see it. But we knew that we wanted to weave that into the book because. Because both of us had never learned about this episode. And so we decided that we wanted to have the character of Lily write letters to Jacob so that you could hear in her own words and her own lens, as she's living in real time, of what's happening in New York and these horrifying examples of racism and barbarity in a place that, again, to echo what Shauna said, where we are taught in a very simplified way in school that, you know, the north was good and fighting, you know, to abolish slavery, when in fact it was having these. Their own. Own, you know, abhorrent episodes, you know, of. Of. Of racial violence.
- [35:05]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's definitely a key one. I can imagine kind of the moment of going, wait, hang on a second. Did you come across this right, Shaun, is there anything you'd like to add?
- [35:14]
Shauna J. Edwards
I think the only thing else I'll say, and it's not about history, it's just about the process of being a writer, a burgeoning writer, is that it is hard work, particularly to be a historical novelist. And when you're doing something with Alice in has to be on point. Like, I pride myself in the fact that we really did seek to characterize history fairly. But also it's an amazing opportunity to speak to the people around you and really find out things you never would have found out about. You know, it was an opportunity for me to sit with my fabulous 80 something year old mother. She probably is not going to be happy that I said her age out loud to look through some of my family history, even some of the people we spoke to after we published the book. I remember we spoke to a venerable Louisiana judge who was telling me about his own connection to Port Hudson. And I think we just don't make enough time for connection. And sometimes literature and then the process of bringing a story to life really gives you a great excuse to have those conversations.
- [36:23]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
No, that's really lovely. The kind of process and behind the scenes of all of this is definitely worth discussing in a forum like this. But for listeners who might want to pick up the book or kind of maybe have already read it, if they're just kind of looking at it from the text on the page, what do you most hope readers take away from it?
- [36:42]
Alison Richman
Well, I think Sean and I always, from the very beginning when we came together to write this story, we wanted to write something that, that, you know, built bridges between communities to show, you know, what really connects us. It's, you know, you can, you have all of our characters, they do, as we mentioned before, come from different backgrounds, they come from different faiths, they come from different areas of, you know, of the United States. But somehow they find profound connection and friendship. And I think we really wanted people to pause and to think about that and to think about humanity and to, you know, how we do have, you know, universal emotions and feelings and things that connect us and in such a divisive, divisive time, unfortunately, when you think about, you know, we were thinking that in 2020 and it hasn't changed, it's probably even grown worse now in 2026 that we want, you know, to really highlight what bonds us to each other.
- [37:38]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
That's definitely a relevant takeaway in 2020 and 2022 and now in 2020 to advance as well. Shauna, anything you'd like to conclude our discussion with?
- [37:47]
Shauna J. Edwards
I think Alison said it perfectly. We share a brain now sometimes.
- [37:51]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, no, that was a very good, I think, place to end our discussion about the book. Is there anything either of you would like to highlight of work you're currently doing? Whether or not it's fiction, whether or not it's together. Anything you want to give us a sneak preview of now?
- [38:04]
Alison Richman
Well, Shauna, maybe you want to tell a little bit that we have another joint project we're dreaming of at the moment.
- [38:10]
Shauna J. Edwards
Moment, absolutely. So we are sticking with our love of music and we are writing a book about two maternal influences of the great Louis Armstrong, who in many ways is the most important jazz artist of, well, he's no longer with us, but of the 20th century, obviously. He had a black mother. He's originally from New Orleans, but he also stars started working for a Jewish Lithuanian family when he was seven years old, the Kardnowskis. And the matriarch of that family, Tilly Karnovsky, was very important to him. So Alison and I are continuing our legacy of building bridges between the black and Jewish community. And we are having a lot of fun writing this book. So far, we have already trekked out to Louis Armstrong's house in Queens. I've been listening to it nonstop. And we hope to continue that project and bring it out to our readership.
- [39:07]
Alison Richman
Yes, absolutely.
- [39:09]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Well, that certainly sounds like a fun project for the both of you to continue to work on. And of course, in the meantime, if listeners want to read the project you both have finished together, the book we've been discussing is titled the Thread collectors, published by HarperCollins in 2022. Alison and Shauna, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [39:26]
Alison Richman
Thank you so much, Miranda, for having us.
- [39:28]
Shauna J. Edwards
Thank you. And Random Sam.