The Beloved Judy Blume

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Beloved Judy Blume"

Stuff You Should Know – iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Air Date: July 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Stuff You Should Know" is a heartfelt tribute to iconic children’s and YA author Judy Blume. Josh and Chuck reminisce about their own connections to Blume's books, dive into her life story, examine her impact on generations of readers, and confront both the acclaim and controversy that have accompanied her literary career. The conversation weaves through Blume's upbringing, her unconventional path to writing, the themes in her groundbreaking books, and her ongoing legacy as an anti-censorship advocate and beloved literary figure.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal Connections to Judy Blume Books

Timestamps: 02:15 – 06:04

• Both hosts read several Judy Blume books as children, bucking the stereotype that her novels are "for girls."
  • Chuck: “I think Judy Blume and her books get associated with young girls...was I an outlier? Because I read six or seven Judy Blume books and, like, loved them all.” (03:36)
  • Josh remembers reading Ramona Quimby books, marking the end of his childhood interest as an “adolescent awakening.”
  • Both note their parents were mostly unaware or unconcerned about the mature themes.

2. Blume’s Unique Insight into Adolescence

Timestamps: 05:32 – 06:24

• Josh praises Blume’s rare ability to understand and express the confusing, emotional landscape of growing up:
  • “It’s just so rare for an adult to have that level of insight into what it’s like to be a kid growing into, well, an adolescent again...the feeling and being able to convey it again, that is long gone.” (05:32)

3. Early Life: Family, Anxiety, and Imagination

Timestamps: 06:27 – 15:14

• Judy Blume, born Judith Marcia Sussman in 1938, grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in a typical middle-class Jewish family.
• Despite a stable family, Blume experienced significant childhood anxiety, including OCD behaviors and “making deals with God,” especially after witnessing relatives die young and being temporarily separated from her father due to her brother’s illness.
  • Chuck: “She was just always worried about her dad and...doing kids stuff like, you know, making a deal with God, like, hey, if I ace this test, it'll help my dad live. It's just so...heartbreaking.” (11:43)
• The devastating trio of plane crashes in her neighborhood deeply affected her and later became the root for one of her adult novels.
• Her creative imagination was evident from childhood – inventing backstories for dolls, tracking imaginary piano students’ progress in notebooks.

4. Education, First Marriage, and Discovery of Writing

Timestamps: 15:14 – 22:44

• Attended NYU in the 1950s, embracing bohemian culture and “beatnik” circles.
• Married John Blume, a lawyer, at 21; her father died of a heart attack a month before her wedding, an event she'd long feared.
• Initially planned a conventional homemaker path but turned to writing once her children entered preschool, searching for fulfillment beyond domestic life.
• Josh: “She started writing because she was like, I need to do something else besides just, like, raise kids and sit at home and dust. That just was not enough to fulfill her as a person.” (20:54)

5. Breakthrough and Early Career

Timestamps: 22:44 – 30:41

• Persistent in face of rejection (receiving “like six 'no' letters per week” for years), Blume took a writing class at NYU, which led to her first success.
• Published The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo and then, in 1970, Iggie's House, which addressed racial integration from a child’s perspective.
• Followed by the paradigm-shifting Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), which candidly explored puberty, faith, and adolescent struggles from an 11-year-old’s point of view.
  • Chuck: “Can you just imagine starting your career out with a stone cold classic like that...” (23:52)
• Margaret’s focus on real-life issues (menstruation, anxiety, longing) was revolutionary for children's literature.
  • Notable quote: “She was one of the first people writing this kind of book for this age group...it was just totally different from other books for kids at the time.” (25:30)

6. Writing Style & Content: Realism Over Morality

Timestamps: 25:53 – 31:35

• Blume's novels were hailed for their realism, eschewing tidy moralizing in favor of honesty about adolescent pain and confusion.
  • Chuck: “She thought I'm just writing in a very frank way about how kids really are...she was doing a service by, like, portraying the realism of childhood and teendom.” (34:20)
• Forever (1975) addressed teen sexuality and safe sex, a radical subject for the time.
  • Josh: “The book itself...described as essentially a self-help manual for having safe sex...laid out like: this is what's happening to Catherine. But reader, I'm really talking to you and making it as plain as possible...” (30:41)

7. Controversy, Censorship, and Cultural Impact

Timestamps: 31:35 – 36:36

• Blume’s frankness made her books perennial targets of censorship and book banning—especially Forever and Are You There God?
• Hosts examine the root of these challenges in the cultural push-pull between second wave feminism and conservative parenting ideals.
  • Josh: “Judy Blume was the epitome of second wave feminism...And the arch rival to second wave feminism in the 70s and 80s...is conservatism. They don't want kids shaped like that.” (32:17)
  • Chuck: “A lot of what that frame of mind comes from is I want to be the decider of my kid, learning what they learn when they learn it, as far as sexuality goes.” (34:01)
• Despite the backlash, her books continued to thrive, often serving a vital educational role in young readers’ lives.

8. Influence Beyond Children’s Literature

Timestamps: 40:01 – 42:10

• Blume also wrote successful adult novels (Wifey, Smart Women, Summer Sisters, In the Unlikely Event), often exploring themes from her own experience.
• Despite critical accusations of “simplistic writing,” Josh and Chuck defend her accessibility and her refusal to talk down to young readers.

9. Legacy: Advocacy and Continued Relevance

Timestamps: 43:29 – 49:08

• Blume became a central anti-censorship figure, working with the National Coalition Against Censorship and other organizations.
• She published Letters to Judy: What Your Kids Wish They Could Tell You (1986), a collection of candid reader letters reflecting the trust and connection Blume built with generations of children.
• Despite decades of success (90+ million books sold, 40 languages), she remains engaged on issues like intellectual freedom.
  • Responded publicly to mischaracterizations of her views and affirmed her unconditional support for the trans and LGBTQ+ communities (45:54).

10. Recent Years and Personal Life

Timestamps: 47:05 – 49:08

• Now in her late 80s, Blume runs a bookstore in Key West with her husband, George Cooper, continuing her support of literature and readers.
• Renewed media attention: 2023’s acclaimed film adaptation of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, the documentary Judy Blume Forever, and multiple biographies.
• Despite some controversy (publicly disavowing an unauthorized biography), Blume is recognized for her lasting courage and service to generations of readers.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It’s just so rare for an adult to have that level of insight into what it’s like to be a kid growing into, well, an adolescent again...the feeling and being able to convey it again, that is long gone.” – Josh (05:32)
• “For 16 years, writing saved me and my marriage. But by the mid-70s, the rules had changed.” – Judy Blume (as quoted by hosts, 29:24)
• “She was one of the first people writing this kind of book for this age group...it was just totally different from other books for kids at the time.” – Josh (25:30)
• “That’s just the conservative outlook...if you don’t teach kids stuff, they’re not going to do it. And yeah, it seems preposterous to me too...” – Josh (32:17)
• “She wholly supports the trans community...I stand with the trans community and vehemently disagree with anyone who does not fully support equality and acceptance of LGTBQ people. Anything to the contrary is total BS.” – (Judy Blume's statement, 46:49, as read by Chuck)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:15 – Back-and-forth on books they read; challenging the “for girls” stereotype
• 06:27 – Judy Blume’s family background and early anxiety
• 11:13 – WWII-era fears, OCD traits, and trauma
• 13:37 – Real-life plane crash trauma influences later writing
• 15:14 – College, early adulthood, first marriage
• 22:44 – Rejection letters, first classes, breakthrough
• 23:52 – "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" launches career
• 30:41 – “Forever,” and the controversy over teaching safe sex
• 31:35 – Censorship and book banning: cultural clash
• 43:29 – Blume’s anti-censorship activism and "Letters to Judy"
• 45:54 – Clarifying her support for the trans and LGBTQ+ community
• 47:05 – Late-career activities, resurgence in popular culture
• 49:08 – Hosts reflect on Blume’s bravery and lasting influence

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Final Thoughts

The episode closes by celebrating Judy Blume’s courage, honesty, and legacy. Josh and Chuck encourage listeners of all ages to (re)read Blume’s works, support local libraries and bookstores, and recognize the value of telling young people the truth about their lives.

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Additional Resources Suggested by Hosts

• Visit Judy Blume’s bookstore, "Books and Books at the Studios of Key West"
• Watch “Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret” (2023 film)
• See the documentary “Judy Blume Forever”
• Read “The Genius of Judy” by Rochelle Bergstein and “Judy Blume: A Life” by Mark Oppenheimer
• Check out the anti-censorship work of the National Coalition Against Censorship

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Transcript

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[Narrator/Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and it's just us. Jerry's on vacation actually, as usual. And this is stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Have you read any Judy Blume books?

[Josh Clark]

Yes, I've read a bunch of them. I was going down the list, checking off the ones I've read.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, interesting. Me too. I had a feeling you hadn't for

[Josh Clark]

some reason Because I'm soulless and robotic

[Chuck Bryant]

meat. Morp. Yeah. I bet you we've read a lot of the same ones. So let's go over that.

[Josh Clark]

I bet, too. Oh, right now. Okay. You ready?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

We'll say them all at the same time.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, you say yours and I'll say whether that's one of mine.

[Josh Clark]

All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Freckle Juice did not read that one.

[Josh Clark]

I did. It was a good one. I'm going to say that about all of them. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.

[Chuck Bryant]

I did read that.

[Josh Clark]

I did, too, but I didn't remember what that one's about and I didn't go look it up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Otherwise known as Sheila the Great.

[Chuck Bryant]

I read that.

[Josh Clark]

That was a good one. Blubber's the one. Aside from Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret, that I remember the most.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I read both of those and then

[Josh Clark]

I think that was it for me.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. I think I read all the. I read. Then again, maybe I won't.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I also read Super Fudge.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I did, too. I'm sorry. I did too. I read Super Fudge.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So I think I read six or seven of these and I had a

[Josh Clark]

question mark next to. Then again, maybe I won't. I may have read that one or I just may have been aware of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And then the one. What is it? Tiger Eyes sounded familiar, but I'm not sure if I read those. But I think, like, you know, one reason I wanted to ask because I think Judy Blume and her books get associated with young girls.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I was like, was I an outlier? Because I read six or seven Judy Blume books and, like, loved them all. Or, you know, maybe we're both outliers.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so. I don't remember it being particularly odd or weird, at least in my elementary school. So the fact that you did, too, I would guess it was probably fairly normal. I also read a lot of Ramona Quimby books. Did you read any of those?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I never read those.

[Josh Clark]

I knew the day I became at an adolescent, I guess because I was halfway through a Ramona Quimby book.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're seven.

[Josh Clark]

And I realized I didn't give a good damn what was about to come next in Ramona Quimby's life. All of a sudden.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, no.

[Josh Clark]

And that was it for me and Ramona. I always have fond memories of her. Those were great, fun books.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, I think it's cool that we both read this stuff that our parents were. And my Suspicion is that it was the same in my house, is that they weren't paying attention enough probably to say, hey, should you be reading this book about, you know, a young girl going through menstruation and discovering her sexual awakening?

[Josh Clark]

Right, exactly. My parents paid enough attention. I remember my dad, like, some tense conversations I barely overheard. The only word I could make out was fruity.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man. Goodness me.

[Josh Clark]

He was a real jerk growing up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, here we are, though. Well adjusted and kicking butt in life.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, it's great is I can't wait to get the one or two emails where they're like, that was really mean of your dad to call you fruity. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Get some support.

[Josh Clark]

Right. He didn't really everybody is what I'm trying to say.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

I think you make a great point though, Chuck. Like, I think it's whether it's normal or not. I feel like it was great that we read those books. They were great books to start with.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally.

[Josh Clark]

But also, like, it's just so rare for an adult to have that level of insight into what it's like to be a kid growing into, well, an adolescent again. Right. That's just. People have memories of that. I have memories of it. But the vibe, the feeling and being able to convey it again, that is long gone.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I totally agree.

[Josh Clark]

So she was good at what she did and she was a trailblazing pioneer of the first kind.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally. And when you say was. Judy Blume, amazingly, is still with us in her late 80s, living down in Key west, but I think she's basically given up writing. She hasn't put out a book in a while. She does run a bookstore down in Key west, which I would love to go to sometime.

[Josh Clark]

I wish I had known the one time I went to Key west because I definitely would have popped in to see her.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So today we salute Judy Blume. And I guess let's go back to her childhood.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because she was born Judith Marcia Sussman on February 2, 1938, in Elizabeth, New Jersey, just outside of New York, and grew up in a pretty. Just normal middle class Jewish family. Her dad was a dentist, her mom was a homemaker. And she seemed to have a.

[Josh Clark]

I

[Chuck Bryant]

was about to say a happy life. But she was a fraught kid about some stuff. But not because she had some awful life. It was a pretty normal life, but a lot of angst, it seems like.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And fairly well earned, I feel like.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

But not because her family dynamic was screwed up. It was like her father Was her confidante her entire childhood. Sounds like a really good father. I didn't get the impression that her mom was anything terrible, but I think her father played a more prominent role.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think so too.

[Josh Clark]

But what her mom gave her was the gift of loving to read, which is, man, there are a few gifts you can give a kid better than that, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, no kidding. And I know you and I have talked about this privately, but, you know, when Ruby was diagnosed with dyslexia, we were both, as avid readers, just, you know, sort of afraid that meant she wouldn't have that joy. And she's gotten over it to the point where she's an avid reader and it just makes us so happy. And you always wonder what your kid's gonna be like. And when I was reading about young Judy Blume making up stories, like life stories and backstories for her, dolls and playthings and creating characters and scenarios, like, Ruby does a lot of that stuff. And I'm always wondering if, like, you know, she writes stories and stuff, like, is that her path? And like, who knows? But, you know, just like Judy Blume, they both had these active or have these active kind of make believe lives, which I think is super cool and healthy and awesome.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The thing that stuck out to me was that she would take piano lessons, and then while she was practicing the piano herself in her head, she was teaching imaginary students, like made up characters. I love that she was giving them piano lessons. And, you know, that's pretty cool in and of itself. She actually kept a journal, a notebook to chart their progress. The imaginary student she was teaching progress in her notebook, like, that's how refined her imagination was. And as far as character development goes as a kid.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's super cool. And that reminded me, and again, not to just keep bringing Ruby into it, but I know you're a fan, so you don't mind.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I do.

[Chuck Bryant]

But when I took her to her first Hawks game when she was like eight or nine maybe, she sat there and I don't think I've told this before, but I looked and she brought her a little notebook like she always does, just in case she gets bored. And she was keeping notes. And finally I was like, what are you noting? And she had noted all the players and all of their shoes and what brand and what color shoes they had and what number they were and everything. And I just thought, what an interesting thing to do.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, I was never into that kind of thing. No. Yeah. I feel like I'm definitely looking at it from the outside in.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I just, you know, when you're a parent, you're always like, what does that mean? And like, maybe one day I'll look back and go like, oh, it all makes sense now. Or whatever.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe she'll be in inventory or something.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

What's it called when you manage

[Josh Clark]

logistics?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, logistics.

[Josh Clark]

She'll be in charge of logistics of moving basketball players around the country.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's cool. That's a great story. And, yeah, I can't quite get it either. I mean, is it like a calming thing?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. I have no idea.

[Josh Clark]

Well, let me know when you figure it out, because I'm interested.

[Chuck Bryant]

It'll be in like, 20 years, probably.

[Josh Clark]

So even though Judy Blume was like, she came up with characters and had a very rich internal life as a kid, she apparently never particularly aspired to be a writer. She ended up wanting to find essentially, like, a creative outlet later on, as we'll see. But as a kid, that wasn't. She wasn't like, that's what I'm going to be as a writer. And so that comes later in between then and now, but the opposite. So now would be while she was a child. Then would be as she's grown up, a little more.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

You said that she had a kind of a fraught childhood. And as a result of that, she definitely suffered from anxiety as a kid. And this is like 1950s anxiety. So, like the real deal kind where you saw, like, a psychoanalyst sometimes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Certainly starting out in the 40s, when you're a little kid, especially a Jewish American kid, and World War II was going around, there was a big preoccupation in her family and, you know, every probably Jewish American kid's life about what was going on overseas, afraid that could happen to them and their family, that kind of thing. And then really, this is so sad. She was always just worried about her father dying because a couple of her uncles died when they were younger, in their early 40s of heart attacks, I guess. Heart failure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And she was just always worried about her dad and, you know, doing kids stuff like, you know, making a deal with God, like, hey, if I ace this test, it'll help my dad live. And just. It's just so sort of heartbreaking to hear that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And if that sounds a little familiar, then you probably have read, are you there, God? It's me, Margaret.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, that was a big deal. Like, that kind of guided her outlook and that's a lot to worry about as a little kid, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So another thing that happened. Remember I said her dad was, like, one of her. Her biggest, most prominent figures in her entire life. As the kid, there were two years where she and her mom and brother moved to Miami beach because her brother had suffered some sort of chronic illness, I believe. And they were like, go to Miami. Apparently, the 110% humidity will do you good.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And her father stayed back in Elizabeth, New Jersey, because he was a dentist, so he had to stay dentisting. And that separation, apparently, was so significant that she developed an obsessive compulsive disorder. Not only would she, like you said, kind of make deals with God, she would maybe turn a doorknob handle X number of times. And as long as she remembered to do that, her father would stay alive. Like that kind of stuff. Again, we're talking about a kid who's less than 10 years old.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's a lot to take on. It just made me real sad to hear that. But she also had a few. And, you know, as we'll see, she wrote a lot about stuff that she knew, either places where she lived or about things that were, you know, like you said in Are youe There, God? It's me, Margaret, kind of writing about that. She also wrote later in life about a family who experienced these three plane crashes sort of near their house that affected their household. And that really happened to her, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Over the course of 58 days, less than two months, there were three separate plane crashes from the Newark Airport, which apparently was, like, right there. The runways were pointed essentially at Elizabeth. Yeah. And 100 people died from those three crashes, 11 of which were, like, neighbors, friends and neighbors, like, town folk from Elizabeth who had been on the ground in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So that's obviously gonna, you know, color a young kid's psyche, you know, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, what are the odds of something like that happening? I guess it was bad enough that they closed the Newark Airport for a year and rebuilt the Runway so that they weren't pointed at Elizabeth anymore.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's terrible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So all those things together certainly, like, shaped her childhood, her pre adolescence.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think so.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then as she, like, kind of grew up, like, her life was pretty normal, 1950s, early 1960s type life, although she was a little more on the alternative side, it looks like. It sounds like she was a bit of a beatnik.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think she gravitated towards that, like, when she graduated and she graduated you know, high school at the top of her class and then went to NYU and then there in the 50s at NYU, it sounds like she was definitely kind of slanted toward that bohemian culture and drawn to the beatnik types.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, she was hanging with Llewellyn Davis.

[Chuck Bryant]

Should we take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We'll take an earlier break. It seems like a good college. Seems like a good breaking point to me.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I agree.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We'll be right back.

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[Josh Clark]

So we're back. Chuck and Judy Blum is stuck in college because we took an ad break. And we're going to dislodge her. She's a Junior. It's 1959. She. She meets a guy named John bloom. She was 21 at the time. He would have been 27.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

He was already, like, well out of school, established himself as a lawyer, and he said, hey, toots, how about we get married? And she liked that idea. So they got engaged, and they got married that year. Sadly, very, very sadly. I'm sure this hit her quite hard. Her father wasn't there to walk her down the aisle because, like, a month before the wedding, he died from a heart attack. He wasn't early 40s, but he was early mid-50s, which is still very, very young.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, to see your fear realized like that, like, the one thing that she was worried about, specifically the heart attack, too, must have been devastating. So she gets married in 1961. She graduated from NYU with a degree in early childhood education. And the plan was to sort of, you know, you mentioned earlier, she didn't want to be a writer necessarily. And, you know, one of the big reasons because is in the 1940s and early 1950s, when she was a kid, that just wasn't an avenue that was as open to young women. It's a big reason that S.E. hinton kept the initials S.E. hinton when she wrote the Outsiders and all those books. You know, I didn't know S.E.

[Josh Clark]

hinton was a woman.

[Chuck Bryant]

Are you serious?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, dead serious. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I thought it was like, Stacey Hinton was a teenage girl when she wrote the Outsiders.

[Josh Clark]

I had no idea. Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I thought that was Steven Edie Hinton.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That's why she did it. I mean, it worked. I guess. She's like, I Gotta be able to fool Josh Clark.

[Josh Clark]

No, but I mean, like, I had no idea. This is literally the first time I'm hearing that. It's not even like, oh, that vaguely rings a bell. I have never heard that in my entire life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, there you have it. Pretty cool. She was a teenage girl in high school when she wrote the Outsiders.

[Josh Clark]

That's really cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

But again, that's why she kept the name S.E. hinton. Because just publishing wasn't so open to young women writing books. So that's why Judy Blume didn't. And when she was graduating college, she was just sort of on that track. She was like, I'm gonna get my degree. I'm gonna get married. Which I already did before I graduated. I'm gonna have kids and be a homemaker. And within a couple of years of graduating, she had a daughter named Randy Lee and then a son named Lawrence Andrew, and was, you know, very happily, it seems, back in the New Jersey suburbs while her husband was attorneying.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. So I had said, though, that she was. She started writing because she was like, I need to do something else besides just, like, raise kids and sit at home and dust. That just was not enough to fulfill her as a person. So once both of her kids were in preschool, she was like, I'll write some books for my kids, or at least my kids friends if the kids don't like it. So she started creating picture books. Essentially. The first one she came up with, or at least the first one, her first published book was a children's picture book called the one in the middle is the Green Kangaroo, which is a great, great children's book name. But that didn't come, like, easy. That wasn't like a first try. And she got her big break.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, it's. I think she went a couple of years, like two, two and a half years, getting, you know, rejection letter after rejection letter. I think they dug who helped us with this one.

[Josh Clark]

Julia.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Julia found that she was getting like 6. No letters per week before she became, like, an overnight success. You know, that's how the media, like, tends to view those things. But it seems like the big turning point was when she took a continuing ed class at NYU in the late 60s, like a writing class for, like, tween writing and teen writing. And she told NPR a few years ago that it was like, such a monumental thing for her to, like, to know that she was going to leave every Monday, leave her family, go to the bus to New York City, and, like, her husband was going to feed the kids. And she wasn't going to be home until later that night. And just knowing she had that creative outlet really freed her up mentally, I think, and led to that children's book and then eventually led to the publishing of her first novel, Iggy's House.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was a children's book, I guess, maybe young adult book about a. It's from the viewpoint of a little white girl named Winnie who lives in a neighborhood where her best friend has just moved and a black family moves into the neighborhood. And it's all about the racial tensions that develop white flight. But it's rather than Judy Blume trying to make it from the viewpoint of the little girl from the black family that just moved in, I think she very wisely did it from the viewpoint of this little white girl who's looking at it from the outside and was kind of innocently trying to figure out what the problem was, what was going on. And this is 1970 when it was published. And this was not the kind of book that children were finding in the library at the time, by any means.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. So that's her first one published in 1970, as far as the novel goes. And then right out of the gate, her follow up book, again also in 1970, was Are youe There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Wow.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, I mean, can you just imagine starting your career out with a stone cold classic like that was eventually made into a movie. That was actually pretty good. I know she wasn't. Yeah, it wasn't bad. You know, it's hard when you have such a beloved book from your childhood. And I think that's why she waited so long, you know, overtures for years and years and years to like decades to try and get it made into a film. And she always said no. And I think she finally found, you know, that it was time and it turned out pretty good. I'm waiting, you know, Ruby saw it and I'm waiting for her to want to read these books. Yeah, because we got them all like, you know, ready at the gate, waiting for.

[Josh Clark]

They're just idling in the bookshelf.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah, they're ready.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't see it. I saw it. Had a 7.3 on IMDb, which is definitely respectable and 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. So. Yeah, you're not the only one you thought was pretty good. So this book that comes out. Let's talk about Are youe There, God? It's me, Margaret, for a second. Okay. The reason we referred to Judy Bloom is a trailblazer is because she was. She was one of the first people writing this kind of book for this age group. S.E. hinton. Her book, the Outsiders takes place among high schoolers. Same with, like, the Chocolate War by.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Robert Ludlum. Yeah, Robert Ludlum's Chocolate War. And then also there's another one called the Cat Ate My Gym Suit by Paula Danziger that was fairly. All of them had to do with ninth graders or up. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

She's writing about, like, 11 year olds going through the beginnings of what high schoolers are now dealing with. Right. And the only person who beat her was Essie Hinton, from what I could tell. I think the Outsiders came out in 1967. Are you there? Are you there, God? It's me. Margaret came out in 1970. And again, it was just totally different from other books for kids at the time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, kids books are still like this in a lot of ways, although there's a lot more variety now, thankfully. But back then, it was kind of like, you present a big problem, maybe there's a moral issue or something, and there's some big grand solution that teaches a big grand lesson. And she was like, you know what? It's not that easy and it's not that clean to grow up and. And black and white. So, like, I'm gonna write books about how messy it is and how maybe it's just a struggle sometimes. And, you know, there's just a lot of realism in her books of, like, what it was really like to be an adolescent. And, you know, critics liked them right away. The buying public loved them. I think it was. Are you there, God? It was a New York Times bestseller and a New York Times Book Review outstanding book of 1970. And just kind of launched her right out of the gate, you know, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I saw it also really took off when it came out in a trade paperback version in 1972 at a price that, like, younger kids, her audience could afford.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like, they didn't have to ask their parents to buy it for them anymore.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the things that Judy Blume is credited with is essentially approaching adolescence, approaching not just menstruation. Chook, but Monarchy. Remember that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Monarchy used to be like a guest character, a recurring guest character on Early Stuff. You should know, weirdly enough.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's just a good trivia word for sure.

[Josh Clark]

But she approached it as like, it's a good thing. This is exciting. Like, her characters are like, hurry up. I want to hurry up. And one passage that's very, very famous is when Margaret and her friends, who all collectively make up the Preteen Sensations. It's their little secret club where they get together and talk about this stuff. One of them has the idea they want to basically grow breasts, I guess is the best way to put it. And so one of them suggests they move their elbows back and forth alongside of their. Like, they're basically pumping. And while you do that, you have to say, I must, I must, I must increase my bust.

[Chuck Bryant]

Classic.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't know that came from that. I always associate that with the Lords of Acid. Remember that song?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I had no idea that Jade for your from Lords of Acid, was a Judy Blume fan and was citing. Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty cool. And Essie Hinton was a teenage girl when she wrote the Outsiders.

[Josh Clark]

I'm just finding out all sorts of big stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was pretty cool. I mean, monumental book. Right out of the gate she is, at the same time this is going on, kind of playing this housewife role. But again, realizing, like, I don't know if that was the life for me. I got married when I was young. I never had sort of the freedom and adventure that I longed for in her life. And she said, you know, there was a quote where she said, for 16 years, writing saved me and my marriage. But by the mid-70s, the rules had changed. So by 1975, she's like, you know, I think I want a divorce. And she did that. She divorced her first husband, moved to New York, and then a year later married a physicist named Thomas Kitchens. They were only married for about four years, but they had a pretty adventurous life. They lived in London and in New Mexico.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I think at Los Alamos.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

So also by 1975, when she decided to get divorced from her first husband, the lawyer, she had put out 10 books between 1970 and 1975.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Basically almost all the ones that you and I read came out in that first, like 10 year spurt. Like she just wrote classic best selling kids books just right out of the gate. It's just really cool how much she was able to do. How much she was able to just connect with little kids. I still don't get it. Like, I do not understand how an adult can do that. I'm just in awe of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. I know her 1975 book Forever is not one that I read, but that's a very big book for Emily and I know a very big book for a lot of like probably girls of all generations, but Gen X girls in particular, because that was the one where she had kind of been building up to, you know, talking about prepubescent stuff and adolescence and puberty and then finally and forever. It's like finally a character that wants to try and have sex for the first time. And Emily was just like, oh, man. Like, to read that book as a kid, it was like a really big deal.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. And the book itself, I've seen it described as essentially a self help manual for having safe sex. Because she follows the main character, Catherine, throughout, like this process where she meets the dude, she falls in love, she decides to have sex, and then before she has sex, she goes to like Planned Parenthood to get condoms. Yeah, she, like, she basically learns anatomy and reproductive stuff. Like all sorts of different things that are laid out. Like, this is what's happening to Catherine. But reader, I'm really talking to you and I'm making it as plain as possible, if you're going to have sex, do this stuff because this is how you have safe sex. And of course, as we'll see, like, that just made it an absolute target for book challenges, where you formally request a book be banned or removed from a library.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, we can go ahead and talk about that if you want. I mean, as much as people love Judy Blume, there was another set of people that hated an author, a grown woman writing about the realistic challenges of like, being a kid and being a tween or a teen and going through puberty and all that stuff. So she was a target right out of the gate for book banning, like you said, and is on a lot of lists. As you know, some of the most banned books of all time have been Judy Blume books, which is like, to me, a feather in your cap as an author. Cause that means you're probably telling the truth about something.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But as we'll see, that drove her crazy. Like, she is not one for censorship, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

So the key I saw to understanding why everybody wants to ban Judy Blume books is that Judy Blume was the epitome of second wave feminism. Like all the stuff that Betty Friedan talked about, the feminine mystique is embodied in the writing of Judy Blume. And Judy Blume is talking directly to the next generation of kids, essentially saying, this is the way to be. This is a good. This is a good way to become a good person and love yourself and treat other people kindly. And the arch rival to second wave feminism in the 70s and 80s and I think still today is conservatism. They don't want kids shaped like that. So when they see people, when they see books like that, Judy Blume books in their library, they don't want their kids anywhere near it, so they request the book be removed. That's why those, those books get challenged all the time, is because they're a challenge themselves to conservative ideology, which largely revolves around the idea that if you don't teach kids stuff, they're not going to do it, they're not going to think of it themselves and they're not going to do it. And yeah, it seems preposterous to me too. And it gets proven wrong time and time and time again. But that's just how, that's just the conservative outlook. That's just they don't feel comfortable trying a different way in that respect. And you know, I mean, that's a lot of people's viewpoint. It's not necessarily mine, but I think, you know, it doesn't mean it's inherently wrong. I just, I just don't like the idea of banning books, even though I get to an extent where they're coming from, they're trying to protect their children, not tick off Judy Blume or the liberals.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think a lot of what that frame of mind comes from is I want to be the decider of my kid, learning what they learn when they learn it, as far as sexuality goes.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I want to be in charge of that. I don't want it to come from some book from some lady that they happen to check out at the library

[Josh Clark]

because they had a good, like, cover illustration.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, I get that to a certain degree. But like ts, you know, for Judy, as far as she goes, she didn't think she was being very controversial. She thought, I'm just writing in a very frank way about how kids really are. Like I was writing the truth. Like Chuck Bryant will one day say she didn't like the sterilized adolescence that she saw portrayed in other kids books and books that ignored the angst of what was going on in kids lives. So she thought, and I think she was very much correct, in my opinion, and I'm sure yours, that she was doing a service by like kind of portraying the realism of childhood and teendom.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Better to learn this stuff from an adult who knows what they're talking about, who's been through this and knows how to describe the process of having safe sex than from Tina who has an older brother that mentioned to her, like you know, one time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

So, yes, she has been. I think she's not just been one of the most banned authors of the 80s and the 90s, but also the 21st century. I think even in 2025, 2024, 2025, school year, she was. Her novel Forever was on the list of most banned books. The one that had. It was basically a safe sex self help manual. So, yeah, you can kind of understand that. But it's not just that. There's been other ones too. Like Tiger Eyes is about a girl whose father is killed during a robbery of the 711 that he works at and her coming to terms with that and suffering from grief and depression. And one of her friends is an underage binge drinker. I mean, that book gets banned a lot too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, man. I just think it's so cool that she was brave enough to, like, write these stories, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, she was very brave, especially after it became clear, and I think it did fairly early on, that there was a large segment of America that viewed her books as controversial. And so, yeah, every time she sat down and wrote one of these, it was a greater and greater act of bravery.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And a bigger and bigger middle finger.

[Josh Clark]

Pretty much.

[Chuck Bryant]

Should we take our second break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We'll be right back, everybody, with more on Judy Blume.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Who will you trust? Your friends and neighbors? Who will you trust? The people five miles overseas.

[Guest Narrator/Reporter]

This is a story about neighbors turning on each other. And what happens when a forgotten place

[Josh Clark]

decides it's had enough?

[Chuck Bryant]

We reached for a feeling that exists in this city. But we're not stopping, are we?

[Guest Narrator/Reporter]

I'm Ben Ndiff afri, and for my

[Josh Clark]

new series on revisionist history, I took a deep dive into Staten Island's attempt

[Guest Narrator/Reporter]

to secede from New York city in

[Josh Clark]

the 1990s and what it all has to do with the politics of resentment that dominate America today.

[Guest Narrator/Reporter]

Listen to revisionist the Staten island problem

[Josh Clark]

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Declaration, which is full of these beautifully rendered, you know, sentences and paragraphs about enlightenment ideals, does also have this darker history to it.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution? Why is it important that Americans know about it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, if we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself.

[Narrator/Announcer]

I'm Rebecca Nagle. Gohin Tawa Don Jalika Yetli Que la citizen of Cherokee Nation. Are you guys big Chiefs fans?

[Josh Clark]

Hell, yeah.

[Narrator/Announcer]

This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so I did mention, and, you know, this isn't the most revealing thing in the world. A lot of authors write about what they know. But Judy Blume definitely did that when she was living in Maine. She wrote a story set in Maine. When she lived in New Mexico, she wrote. I think it said movie. She wrote a book. You know I'm talking about books here, right? She wrote a book. Did I say movie?

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. I thought it said movie.

[Josh Clark]

If you did, I'm sorry I missed it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Anyway, a lot of times she wrote books like Set where she was living or about sort of veiled, thinly veiled sort of things that happened in her own childhood. Not super unusual, but she also did the same thing. You know, she wrote adult books, too. We're talking about her kids books. She wrote four novels for adults. They were all bestsellers as well. And they were all sort of about her life experiences, starting with wifey in 1978 about a woman who was in a sort of traditional marriage who wanted to break out of that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, pretty autobiographical. There's also Smart Women, which was about women navigating dating and relationships after, like, post divorce. Yeah, there you go, that was 83. There's also one that came out in 98 called Summer Sisters. It's about a female friendship. That sounds pretty sweet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Summer's in the season.

[Josh Clark]

And then in the unlikely event from 2015, that was the one you mentioned that she wrote about a family going through those actual plane crashes that she went through.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. And you know, I said that critics, they certainly didn't love Everything. I Know. Are youe There, God? It's Me, Margaret. And a lot of her best sellers got some good marks with critics, but a lot of critics kind of dunked on her for being a simplistic writer. There was one critic who compared her writing to a shopping list. And I always just thought her work was just very readable for her audience. If that's simplistic, then I guess it works, in my opinion, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, we're talking about 11 year old readers who may have only been reading for the last handful of years, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, totally.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But the difference is she didn't write down to them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right, Good point.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think there were just people who just didn't like what she was writing and were taking potshots wherever they felt they could.

[Chuck Bryant]

I want to. This made me kind of want to reread one of her books and just see how it grabbed me as an adult, you know?

[Josh Clark]

Same. Yeah, I ran across a couple of people who were talking about some of these books and they were like, yeah, I spent three hours reading this and it was well worth it. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You could just blaze through it.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I feel the same way that I'd like to read some more. Just at least one or two and then the entire catalog of Sweet Valley High.

[Chuck Bryant]

Emily read those too. Man, she reads a lot and read a lot as a kid.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, well, they were huge when we were younger.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And the other one for Emily was the Nancy Drew books. She still has her collection from her mom, from when she was a kid. And she read all of those.

[Josh Clark]

That's really cool. Yeah, my sister's read those and the Hardy Boys a little bit.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I was a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. Remember them?

[Chuck Bryant]

Why does that sound so familiar?

[Josh Clark]

It was like Alfred Hitchcock's nephew. And every once in a while they could call on Alfred Hitchcock.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but they might have read some of those.

[Josh Clark]

Investigate some. It was very Hardy Boys esque.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I liked them for some reason.

[Chuck Bryant]

What a time.

[Josh Clark]

What a time to be alive.

[Chuck Bryant]

So because of all of the book banning and stuff that went on, it's probably no surprise that she became very much a kind of central person in the anti book banning movement. She has worked a lot over the years with the National Coalition Against Censorship. She had a couple of projects in the 80s trying to get like parents and kids talking more. And one was called the Kids Fund, Capital K I D s in 1981.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, very cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's to develop programs that encourage communication between parents and teens, that foster parent child discussions through books. And then she had a book I don't think we mentioned. One of the things that she got a lot through her career was letters from kids who often told her things that like they would never tell their parents and were just very open and expressive. So she hopefully had permission. But she eventually put those out in a book called Letters to Judy Colon, what your kids wish they could tell you. And this was in 1986.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, same.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, she's the real deal. She's not just in it for the dough, although I'm quite sure she's made quite a bit of dough because I think she sold like 90 million copies of her books over the years in 40 different languages.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's amazing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, so she has made quite a bit of money. But she's also legit in the fact that she really genuinely wants to figure out how to bridge the gap between parents and their kids to help both groups. She also. You said that she was like really against censorship. One of the things that she took a stand against was back in 2023, was a cancel culture. Basically any kind of intellectual censorship or anything that that was against any intellectual freedom. She was, she was against. And she was talking about this in an interview with the Times of London in April of that year. And apparently they asked her about J.K. rowling, who at the time, and I think still basically every day was controversial because she made some like repeated double down comments about that were just transphobic, essentially.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And out of that context, in a different context, they asked Judy Blume about that, about J.K. rowling, and she said that I love her, I am behind her 100% as I watch from afar. And the way that it was printed in the Times of London article, it made it sound like she was like, yeah, I'm backing up this person's transphobic comments. I'm behind her 100%. So she had to take the social media to be like. That was out of context.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In fact, I think we should read her quote. Even she said, I wholly Support the trans community. My point, which was taken out of context, is that I can empathize with the writer or any person who has been harassed online. I stand with the trans community and vehemently disagree with anyone who does not fully support equality and acceptance of LGTBQ people. Anything to the contrary is total bs.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I love that she took such a hard stance of like, hey, hey,

[Narrator/Announcer]

hey,

[Chuck Bryant]

don't misunderstand my words. Like, I'm Judy effing Bloom.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. That was pretty much what's between the lines there for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So let's see, you said that she lives in Key west now. You can go to Books and Books at the studios of Key west and say, hi, maybe buy something. And then she's. I mean, she's just basically been really back in the spotlight in the last few years, even though she's, from what I understand, still on hiatus since 2015 from writing or at least publishing. But starting in 2023, there were not just that movie for Are youe There God? It's Me, Margaret, which like you said, people have been waiting decades for. There's a documentary that came out that year, Judy Blume Forever.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's great.

[Josh Clark]

And yeah. And then in 2024 there was a biography, the Genius of Judy by Rochelle Bergstein, that was kind of like a scholarly exploration of how Bloom's work impacted kids. And then there was another one, it was authorized and then unauthorized autobiography called Judy Blum A Life that her friend Mark Oppenheimer published in March 2026 and that she publicly removed her support from cut off contact with Oppenheimer and then didn't explain to the public or Oppenheimer why.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I don't know why.

[Josh Clark]

No. No one knows why.

[Chuck Bryant]

She didn't tell me.

[Josh Clark]

Pored over those books and have been like. Or that book and have been like, maybe this is it. Is this it? I don't know. Mark Oppenheimer's like, I have no idea. She didn't explain it to me. There wasn't anything controversial she like. But she read the first draft and that was it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. Who knows? You know, I know what you mentioned. She had those two divorces. But you'll be glad to know that she found long lasting true love. Sometimes it takes a couple of times to get it right. But she met a guy named George Cooper in 1979 and they moved in together after their very first date and got married eight years later in 1987. And that is who helps her run that bookstore down in Key West. So they're still together after all these years.

[Josh Clark]

That is super cute. Yeah, he's like. He's like a civil rights law professor, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that sounds about right.

[Josh Clark]

What else you got?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

I don't either. Hats off to Judy Blume. Even if you don't agree with her writing and what she writes about to kids, you still gotta admire her bravery and courage.

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

And if you want to know more about Judy Blume, doesn't really matter what age you are. Go read some of her books. And while you're doing that. And you know what? You could do a lot worse than checking it out at your local library to support its existence there.

[Chuck Bryant]

True.

[Josh Clark]

And. Or could do both. Buy one from your local independent bookseller.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Maybe from Judy Blume herself.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

If you're in Key west.

[Josh Clark]

Or if you find a dude selling books out of the trunk of his car. That is as independent a bookseller as you can find.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wonder if he bought one from Judy Blume herself in her own bookstore. And you're like, oh, my God, will you please sign this? She's like, I don't sign books on Judy.

[Josh Clark]

I think. Bloom, please leave. Here's your receipt.

[Chuck Bryant]

Middle finger.

[Josh Clark]

Let's see. Chuck just made himself laugh, which is wonderful. That means it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

That means he's awake. Bonjour, Josh and Chuck, my husband and I finally had a chance to see you live for the first time at Massey hall in Toronto this June, which in real time was just a couple of nights ago for us, and it was the greatest show on Earth.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we got a standing ovation.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was really something. We are from a small community about two hours and a half north of Toronto, and we're definitely not city people, but we figured it's worth it for Josh and Chuck. My husband's been a huge fan and loyal listener for many years. I'll admit that I personally listened because it gave me something to talk about with a guy who would eventually become my husband. But it didn't take long before I genuinely fell in love with the show myself. And because of that, I've always associated both of you with the very beginning of our relationship.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Your show at Massey hall far exceeded our expectations. I just wanted to thank you for giving us such a wonderful evening. The atmosphere was warm, relaxed, genuinely fun. My husband was smiling from ear to ear the entire time. And despite the anxiety that events like this can sometimes bring, he was comfortable and able to simply enjoy himself. And that alone meant more to me than I can express. So thank you both for doing what you do despite all the craziness in the world right now. It brought me so much joy to see a room full of people come together simply to laugh and learn and enjoy a couple of hours of together. I think your Canadian listeners know just how kind and genuine you both are, and we truly appreciate that you made the trip to spend some time with us here in Canada. We'd be lucky to have you back anytime because you're always welcome here. Thanks for such a memorable experience. Warmly, Kelsey and Andrew.

[Narrator/Announcer]

Sweet.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that is a world class email, huh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe best ever.

[Josh Clark]

That's the kind of email that removes borders and just turns us into one great big North American continent, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed.

[Josh Clark]

Well, thanks a lot, Kelsey and Andrew. Thanks for coming to see us. And thank you, Kelsey, for such a great email. And if you want to try to top that, let's see what you got. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcastheartradio.com

[Narrator/Announcer]

Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.