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- [00:00]
A
Hey everybody, it's me, Tracy, and I've got some exciting news for you. This year, the stacks is turning 8 years old and we are celebrating with our very first Meetup day on Saturday, April 4. We are inviting you all to meet up in cities across the country and around the world to hang out, play games and build community around our shared love of all things books, reading, and of course, snacks. Head to the stacks podcast.com meetup for more information. Over there you're going to find a list of all the cities we have meetups scheduled for. You'll be able RSVP and if you don't see a meetup near you, there's also information on how you can host one again. The website is the stacks podcast.com meetup and meetup day is April 4th.
- [00:44]
B
Both books for me were pretty similar in terms of overwriting. And then the act of discovery was like, what is this that I'm writing toward? I don't actually know until I have those thousands of pages and then backing up and saying like, oh, what's actually the spine here? Like what? What is the shape? What's the story I'm trying to tell? And sometimes I would go each day and say, okay, I'm going to put each of these characters into a dinner party scene and see what their relationship is to food, to people at the table, to a menu. So I prompt myself through these different little questions or prompts just to give myself an exciting writing day to get to know the characters.
- [01:30]
A
Welcome to the Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Tracy Thomas and today I am joined by award winning author T. Kira Madden to talk about her newest book, Whidbey. This novel follows three women whose lives intersect in the wake of one man's murder. While this is not T. Kira's debut book, she wrote a memoir a few years back called Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. Whitby is her first foray into fiction, so. So we talk about the difference between writing fiction and nonfiction and we talk a whole bunch about how she writes her books. This part of the conversation is totally fascinating, so stay tuned. Our book club pick for March is Paradise by Toni Morrison. We will be discussing the book with Namwali Serpell on Wednesday, March 25. Everything we talk about on each episode of the Stacks is linked in our show notes. And if you like this podcast, if you want more bookish content and community, consider joining the Stacks Pack on Patreon and subscribing to my newsletter. Unstax stacked on Substack. Each of these places offer different perks like community conversations and virtual book club over on Patreon and my writing and hot takes on the latest literary and pop culture news over on Substack. And when you support either or both of these places, you make it possible for me to make this podcast every week. So thank you to the folks who already support and for those of you who are not there yet, now just might be your time. Head to patreon.com thestacks to join the Stacks pack and head to Tracy thomas.substack.com for my newsletter. All right, now it is time for my conversation with T. Kira Mahalini Madden. All right, everybody, I'm so excited. I'm joined today by T. Kira Mahayalani Madden, whose brand new book, her first novel, but her second book is called Whidbey. It is. Well, actually, I'm gonna let you tell the people what it's about. So first just welcome to the stacks.
- [03:27]
B
T. Kira, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
- [03:31]
A
I'm so excited to have you. Okay. I'm actually really excited to hear you do this. Can you tell people in like 30 seconds or so what would be is
- [03:41]
B
about Whidbey is doing My best would be is the story of three women who are connected after the murder of one man who has impacted them all. Two of the women are adult survivors of his sexual abuse and one of the women is the mother of this abuser, which is. We meet them mostly in the aftermath of his death.
- [04:02]
A
Okay, that was good. That was good. All right. A thing that I love to talk about here on this podcast is genre. And I love when I read a book like your book that is sort of a genre. Cool. I don't know, it's sort of multi genre. Ed. What do you like? If. What do you think that this book is? How do you tell like what's the vibe? How would you describe it in that sort of frame?
- [04:29]
B
I would describe this book as literary fiction dressed up a little bit as a thriller or suspense book. I think straightforward thriller readers would not find exactly what they're looking for here because it is more of a psychological work. But it does have a whodunit. Why done it at its core. And my hope for the book is that it also kind of interrogates the idea of genre. Like what is the answer that's most important here? What is driving you? Reader?
- [05:03]
A
Yeah, I always, I love books like this where as I'm reading it, I'm like I'm so curious, like, what do I think this is? Because when I started the book, I was like, okay, this fits sort of in that, like, literary thriller landscape. And it sort of reminded me a little bit of, like, God of the woods by Liz Moore. Like, that same kind of, like, it's thrillery, but it's also very, like, character based. And then as I kept going, I sort of was like, I don't really care who's done it. Like, I sort of was like, I feel like the thriller part has sort of disappeared for me in a way that is really rare. So I'm wondering, for you as a writer, how much did you care, or do you care about that piece of it versus sort of the building these women and creating these characters?
- [06:00]
B
What a fantastic question. I will say I wanted the. Who done it at the center, but I always knew I wanted to challenge that very question. Like, why? Thinking about the true crime phenomenon and kind of how those episodes and how those stories are often built. It's, you know, what made this man the way he is often. And then there's the violent crime. And then we never really sit with the aftermath or the things that are less climactic, maybe. And so I always knew there would be this whodunit to maybe keep the pages turning, but I really wanted it to be a deep psychological look at aftermath of trauma and. And how if we remove the big bad boogeyman from the equation, does it disappear? Does this trauma disappear? Are things solved? Are they healed because he's gone? I don't think it's a spoiler to say, of course not. And so it was important for me that it be this complicated look against the perfect survivor narrative. And also, I hope, keep that ticking clock of also, who did this? There is this mystery at the center. And who. Who do we think as a reader is capable of violence because of their proximity to power, proximity to whiteness, proximity to the crime itself? Who do we think is reliable?
- [07:24]
A
Right? Nobody. Nobody's reliable.
- [07:27]
B
Right?
- [07:28]
A
I mean, in general, though, I do think you've got a lot of unreliable people in this book, which is sort of fun. I mean, one of the things that I was thinking about as I was reading the book and as people are listening and as we're talking this month on the podcast for Book Club, we're doing paradise by Toni Morrison. And Namwali Serpell came on, and she's written this book about Toni Morrison. And one of the things she talks about is, like, Toni Morrison teaches you, the reader, how she wants you to read each book. And so as I was reading Whidby, I was sort of thinking, like, what does T Kira want me to. Like, what is she trying to do to me, the reader? And one of the things I noticed, of course, is that there is no quotation marks in the book. And we've got these, like, sort of shifting points of view. Some are first person, some are not. We've got letters. We've got, like, it's. There's a lot of sort of shifting and uncertainty. And so I'm curious for you, as a writer, is that something you're thinking about, how. How these things impact your. Your reader? And also, I guess, on top of that, how do you come to all of these pieces to make sure that it fits right and the balance is right?
- [08:48]
B
You know, so my first book, and I know you're a nonfiction person as well, but my first book was memoir. And I thought a lot about how I wanted to depict or animate conversations and dialogue and memoir. Because I was like, quotation marks feel so official. They feel so like, you know, I didn't have. I used to always make the joke like, nobody has a recorder everywhere. They go before our current times and iPhones. But, you know, to render conversations and dialogue that happened when I was a child, it felt strange to use quotation marks. So I leaned into italics for that book. And so going into Whidbey, I wanted to use that kind of problem or that challenging thing that I've been balancing. What is true, what is of the record. When can we use quotation marks? And I realized I wanted the book's style and its structure to do as much of the storytelling and tap on the themes as much as the characters are themselves. And so I knew right away I did not want to use quotation marks for the first two sections when we are close to these three words, women, Birdie, Lindsay, and Mary Beth, as we get to know their stories. Because I wanted the lived experience, the consciousness and what's said to almost feel a little bit dreamy or unreliable of, like, what is she really saying versus what she's thinking? And for a reader to kind of sit with the uneasiness of that. And then we move into. And this has been written about a lot. I don't know if it's too much of a spoiler, but we move into an omniscience eventually who does use quotation marks? And the point of that is for a reader to then sit with, oh, does this feel more of the record now that I have quotation marks? Now that I have this big bombastic voice kind of telling me what I should believe, do I then believe that over the women? Do I believe that over the stories I've been told up to this point in the book? So my way of thinking about teaching, you know, how do we, you know, a book or an author teaching the reader how to read it. I love that. I always. I always think about that is I want a reader to feel really engaged and almost complicit of what. What judgments have I made already? How have I maybe prejudged these characters based on letters, excerpts of a memoir, other documents or other, you know, the distance of third person versus first before I get to, you know, maybe the truth? I won't say if it is or not, but.
- [11:18]
A
Right.
- [11:19]
B
Yeah.
- [11:19]
A
And why. I mean, I keep hearing you kind of talk about this. This idea of, like, unreliability or the truth. What is it for you that is interesting to explore as a novelist around this idea? Like, why is that sort of the center of this book?
- [11:40]
B
Yeah, that is the question, I think, because. So I was going through my own court case that went all the way to federal trial when I was starting this book. And at the same time, I was also publishing my first book, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls. And with memoir, I was. It was my first ever work of nonfiction. I was thinking so much about, like, what makes a likable narrator for a memoir. What would make a reader believe me or sympathize with me or find compassion for this narrator or character of myself? And so I'm packaging this. I'm talking about this. This trauma narrative. And at the same time, I'm living in this place of. Of suffering and reliving this trauma from my childhood in a real way, not the narrativized, polished way, but showing up to court. And I realized when I took the stand in federal trial, when I wrote a victim impact statement, when I had. When I was interrogated in these rooms that we find in. In Whidbey and Whidby's pages, how it was almost this, like, funhouse mirror of that experience, of what makes me likable, what makes me believable, how do I do my hair or dress or speak or articulate this story for a jury or a judge to consider me credible or to believe me or like me, which is such a silly thing to say, but I think. I mean, we see that. We see that over and over again when we look at cases, any case, like Amber Heard. Like, we see how the public can kind of decide what makes somebody unbelievable and therefore their suffering doesn't matter, or it's not real, or we let it go. And so I wanted this book about the system, largely about the carceral system, the criminal justice system and the. And the hierarchy, the victim hierarchy, to really push on. Well, to really show us some unlikable and unreliable narrators, and then to ask a reader still, but do you care? But do you believe them with the thing they do? Remember, the thing that they do say is true. But to have these stylistic choices, like, without quotation marks, to kind of have a reader question that, the way that one would in a courtroom or in a jury, and say, what makes me take that story over this one, her word over the other.
- [14:04]
A
Did you find yourself doing things, like, purposefully to your characters that you could. That you felt like you couldn't do? Like, choices, maybe, like what they were wearing or like how they were engaging in conversation or whatever, where you were like, I wish I could do this in court. But, like, you know, like, were you kind of like living out any fantasies in your characters for yourself?
- [14:27]
B
Yeah, I think for me, as a nonfiction and fiction writer, I always think nonfiction. For me, when I know it's a work of memoir or essay, it's like coming from a place of grief or longing for the past and kind of reanimating that past. But fiction for me is all about desire. It's all about fantasy. And I want my characters. And I know, you know, so many readers and writers and listeners are probably really interested in auto fiction and kind of moving a version of themselves through a story. For me, I want my characters to be so different from me because that's what's fun. Like, I love to be. To make horrible decisions in fiction and to go to extremes because then I can live kind of safely in my life and save the chaos and the fire and like, the. I don't know, I like bringing that to my characters. And then I get to kind of play out these fantasies, see where they take me, see where these. I think when the work becomes alive enough, the characters kind of start to tell you where they want to go and what the story really is. And so every single character in here is making decisions that I would never make. And that's really fun. You know, they're talking back, they're indulging in the revenge fantasy. The book started because of a real proposition, a real request moment that I was faced with on a ferry boat to Whitby island when I told a stranger what had happened to Me. And the stranger said, would you like me to kill him for you? No one would know we ever met. I said no, because I'm should have said yes.
- [16:04]
A
Yeah,
- [16:06]
B
I said no. And I was like, okay, goodbye, stranger. And that was it. But the book started from the place that you have that you're articulating of, like, what if. What if I did say yes? What if I did give a name and then was. Was sitting and wondering, like, what will happen to this man and am I responsible? And so that is how this book was born was from that moment of indulging in the revenge fantasy when I haven't been able to do so in my life.
- [16:34]
A
Yeah, I think it's so interesting that you said readers are interested in auto fiction because to me, I find autofiction to be the worst. I hate auto fiction. I'm so not interested in it. I don't know. I feel like for me, what I don't like about it is I'm like, just write the memoir or go there and write the novel. But to me, the auto. I'm just like, oh, I feel like this is too close and also like, not close enough. Do you know? Like, I don't know. I feel like I've read a lot of autofiction that's around, like, divorce, and I think that's part of why I don't like it, because I'm just like, oh, so did he really say that to you or are you making him sound worse so that will like you more? Like, it feels like very manipulative to me. I don't know. So I prefer either memoir or just fiction. Like, I just. Just. Why don't you just tell me a really good story? I don't need it to be true. Like, hello.
- [17:36]
B
Yeah, for me, it depends on the book completely. I have definitely shared your feelings before, especially having written a memoir. I'm like, come on, go there. I did it. Like, be brave. Do this thing.
- [17:48]
A
Yeah.
- [17:49]
B
And then in other cases, like if I hear it was loosely based on someone's life and they took it to such an imaginative kind of different place, like we the Animals. I think you love that book, right?
- [18:00]
A
Yeah, I love that book, but I don't think that that is auto fiction.
- [18:03]
B
I don't either. But, you know, that loose kind of. He has said that it is autobiographically closed, at least when he was making the film. And I think that is taken to this place of almost surrealism. And the fragmentation and style and lyricism is just outstanding. And so I think it depends on the Book for me. And what.
- [18:23]
A
Depends on the book.
- [18:24]
B
Yeah. And what someone calls the word.
- [18:25]
A
Yeah. I think for me, it's like, the least. The less it feels like a memoir, the more I like it. Like, if you're using pieces of your life to write a novel, I'm like, great. Like, great. But I feel like when it's like auto fiction, when it's classified as that, there's something about it that is like. I get. I think I. Even when I just hear the word, I'm like, yuck.
- [18:48]
B
Yeah.
- [18:48]
A
I don't know. Okay, I want to talk about this because one of the things this book does in a lot of ways is sort of humanize the bad guy. Right. Like, as you mentioned, there's these two women who are the adult survivors of his sexual abuse, and then the third woman is his mom, and she likes him quite a bit. She is not a mom who's like, what have I done here? She's a mom who's like, my child is sort of misunderstood. So a third of the narrative sort of is like, humanizing the bad guy. And I'm curious why you wanted to kind of take that approach and maybe like, what questions were you trying to answer for yourself or for your reader in doing that?
- [19:28]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. I don't necessarily see it as humanizing the bad guy, but humanizing the bad guy's mother and seeing him through these three very different perspectives. Because they're all looking at him in a way. They're all looking at him, and they're looking at each other and themselves. And there's all these self betrayals and self lies. And I think they all have a lot of mismanaged and misprojected rage and pain. For example, Birdie Chang, one of our main characters, rather than all of her rage being toward Calvin, the abuser, she really hates the memoir. She's really angry at the woman who she believes is capitalizing on their suffering. And I think that is true to life and how women can turn against women rather than the person. Person who's caused all of this harm. So I knew. I knew from the very beginning I didn't want to take on Calvin's perspective, but I wanted to see him through these three different women who both loathe and despise him, and also his mother, who is in this deep well of denial because it's a real. I always find it more interesting for me to write into questions that I find really difficult and almost unanswerable rather than coming in with, you know, A hypothesis or here's my politics. Here's what I'm trying to say. That writing often feels really flat for me when I read it and when I write it. So for me, showing up to court, showing up to trial, and having my abuser's parents show up every time, and seeing this in many cases, how not only parents, but the friends, the loved ones, someone who knew you in high school can take a stand and say they would never do this. I know them. They were really cool. I think that is really common and needs to be interrogated and looked at a little bit, taking the mother piece out of it. And so my. My driving question for Mary Beth was what is the. What is the potency of denial? Like, how deep does that go? What does she really know? And how. How strong can love and denial coexist in this way that would allow her to keep showing up over and over again? And does she keep showing up once he's dead, Once she's left with only the remains and the stories and the evidence of this violence, which a reader will have to read to find out. But that was really just the driving question that animated her. And of course, she has these qualities about her son that she chooses to hang on to. And then there are scenes where she's holding direct evidence in her hands and she maybe can't look at it. But I hope to not necessarily humanize him, but build a dynamic character that doesn't feel like a paper doll villain by seeing him through these three women's perspectives.
- [22:23]
A
Yeah, you just articulated sort of your central question for Mary Beth. Do you approach your other main characters and they each have their own central question. Is that something that's, like, part of your process?
- [22:34]
B
Yeah.
- [22:35]
A
What are your other. What are the other central questions for the characters? I'm so curious, I would say.
- [22:40]
B
I mean, they have. So I have lists and Sinless. For Birdie. I thought about how. How ruthless could Birdie be? How. How many different ways could her rage be misdirected at the wrong people? But really her ruthlessness. I wrote. I mean, this book was a thousand plus pages before it was shut down. And there are many storylines that didn't make the final cut, including when I put Birdie in a scene. This is not in the final book, but towards the end, she meets this group of kids on Whidbey island, and she has a choice of if she will help one of them or not. And that was kind of me getting to know. How ruthless is she? How selfish is she? How selfish can her suffering be? For Lindsay, I thought a lot about. While Birdie is obsessed with her injustice in the court system, Lindsay has repressed so much. So my questions for her was, what does that repression look like in the psyche, in the body, for someone who has not at all processed her suffering or trauma and instead has only the framework of how other people tell her she is a survivor or a victim? So hers were largely about repression and what that does to. To someone psychologically.
- [23:57]
A
Okay, so this book was over a thousand pages, which is crazy. How do you cut it down? How. How painful is that part? Or is that part thrilling for you? Like, I. I hate to write, but I have a substack. It's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. And every time I write my substack, every week, I write all these words, and then I go back and I read it, and I am giddy with deleting. There'll be like six paragraphs, and I'll be like, it's a sentence. And it is the thrill of my life. Mostly because I have psychological issues where I'm like, I hate writing. Nobody wants to read this. This is bad. So I'm like, get rid of it. I. But I know for some people, the editing process can be really challenging and really painful. And you spend all this time kind of creating this world, and it's not a weekly newsletter. I don't mean to compare your novel to my trash, but. But it can be really hard to find the things that need to come out. So how is it for you? Because this book is. I think, like, my copy is like, 360. I think 368 or something like that. So that's a lot of things that are gone.
- [25:07]
B
Yeah, it's a lot. It's. And I think, you know, newsletter and all. It's all the same. It's like, it's hard. It can be hard. And I think you need to tune. The best gift we can have as writers is not to be precious and to fine tune our ear, to say, is this necessary? Is this line necessary? Is this moment necessary for a reader to kind of understand what I'm putting down? It can be really hard. My. My process is I write on a typewriter, my first draft of every book, and I transcribe onto a computer and what that means for me. The reason I do it is because I have to challenge every single sentence as I'm transcribing it onto the computer. I don't think I would have the energy or the patience or the discernment to really challenge every single word if it were already in a word document of a book. Because it's hard. It takes a long time. And so I do that process. So I'm, I will never break that process because I need, I need to do what you're saying and say, you know what? This scene, I am too. It's not good enough for me to spend another few hours to transcribe. It's got to go. And that does feel good. Sometimes when you're tired and I have carpal tunnel and my fingers are aching, so it already gets cut down. And every line is challenged when I transcribe it onto the computer. And then it's often the great assistance and help of my first readers. And I have a great editor, Jessica Williams, at Mariner, who helped me cut this epic beast of a novel down again and then again and again. And we would bloat it, and then we would cut it down and bloat it and cut it down. There are so many storylines I still miss. Mary Beth had a whole love story. There is so much. And just thinking about how much could a book possibly contain? Contain. And this book does have a lot of characters, a lot of topics, a lot of stylistic choices. It couldn't really contain all of these extra storylines as well.
- [27:07]
A
Yeah, I need to know more about this typewriter. Well, actually, let's take a break and then we're gonna talk about this typewriter. We are finally transitioning into spring. And as the weather begins to change over the coming weeks, there's one thing you can count on staying the same. It's your weekly dose of great reads, exclusive author interviews, and behind the scenes book gossip, AKA this very podcast. Your support on Patreon and Substack is what makes it possible for me to consistently deliver you the bookish nonsense of your dreams on Patreon, which you can find@patreon.com the stacks. You can join the Stacks Pack community. We do a monthly meetup where we discuss our book club pick. There is a private, extremely active discord. Plus members get an exclusive bonus episode every single month. If you're looking for other book nerds to geek out with, the Stacks Pack is your place. And then over on Substack, which is tracy thomas.substack.com you can subscribe to my newsletter. It is called Unstacked. And that is where I drop my hot takes on all things like books, but also pop culture and sports and so much more. That is where the nonsense lives. Plus you also get that bonus episode if you are part of the substack. And listen, I know you might not have a few dollars to spare these days. Don't worry, there is a free option on both the Patreon and the Substack. But I do want to say that making this podcast is a team effort. So much goes into every single episode. And by joining on a paid tier for the Patreon or the substack, you make it possible for me to dedicate my life to making the show and also to pay my amazing team. Come hang out with me on Patreon or Substack or both. I would love to have you. Starting a business can be absolutely terrifying. You sit down with an idea, you take a leap of faith on something you're not even sure will work out. Trust me when I say that when I launched this podcast, I was immediately faced with a ton of what ifs. First and foremost, what if no one listens? Second, what if nobody wants to be a guest? Then what if we fail? Well, as you can see, I was able to push past those fears and create the very podcast that you're listening to right this second. But that wasn't without a ton of hard work. And there's no better partner to help you along the way than Shopify. There's a reason why Shopify is the e commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. It makes starting your own business feel way less terrifying. With hundreds of ready to use templates to build your brand identity, AI tools to help you write, copy and enhance images, and built in marketing tools to create bespoke email and social media campaigns and reach email even more customers. Plus, you can manage all your tasks in one place, accelerating your efficiency, making your life easier and helping your business operations run more smoothly. It is time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify Today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com the stacks go to shopify.com the stacks. That's shopify.com thestacks
- [30:15]
C
this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it@progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates price and coverage match limited by state law not available in all states.
- [30:38]
A
Okay, we're back. I'm so excited. You know I love to ask people about how they write and you planted the seed in my brain with this typewriter. A typewriter is a physical object so you can't really like do you take it places with you? Does it live in a particular room? Does that mean that when you're writing the draft you don't go anywhere? Like I need to know how this works.
- [31:02]
B
So I have, there's a lot to say. I have a different machine for each of my books and they are, you know, the color, the model, everything about it has to feel like the energy of this book. So I wrote all of Long Live the Tribe on a Smith Corona Coronet Electric baby blue. And it just felt like that book. And when I was trying to write Whidbey on it, it something about that baby blue bubblegum key, it just felt too light and playful for Whidbey. So at a. And I. I've been a collector my whole life. I learned to write on a typewriter on a Selectric when I was a kid that my grandmother gave me. So I've always collected, I've always tried to repair on my own when I can. And so I was at this junk garage sale and I found this Selectric 2. It's a beast. It's 45 pounds, bright red. It was an extra in Mad Men. I was told, oh my gosh.
- [32:00]
A
And it was absolutely a famous typewriter.
- [32:03]
B
Do we know if that's true?
- [32:04]
A
I don't know, but it's gotta be true.
- [32:06]
B
$25. Yeah. And it was just, it was beat to shit. It was so broken. And I took it to. I go to Philly Typewriter. I always drive my machines to Philly Typewriter in Philadelphia, one of the last typewriter shops available. And they said they could fix it and they refurbished it and it became just this gorgeous beast of a machine that felt so perfect for this beast of a novel. So that became the machine for Whitby. It's £45, like I said. So it lives on my desk where I do the most work and then I have the smaller machines at other desks like at school and at my parents house like so when I'm traveling I always have a machine there. But those are smaller or more portable. I don't take a typewriter to a coffee shop or something, but I have taken them to residencies and shipped them to residencies.
- [32:57]
A
Do you also have a laptop and do you take that places with you? What's your relationship to your laptop?
- [33:03]
B
Yes, I have a laptop. It does go with me. But that's really, you know, I'm a full time teacher. So my laptop is kind of like where I live as a teacher when I'm doing my Work and grading. And that's why I love the machine being something else. The typewriter. Because that's when it's like, oh, I can leave my teacher hat behind, or my daily tasks. And here I am to write without the distractions of the Internet. It's time to work. Once I hear it go on. I use an electric typewriter. So once I hear that buzz and then the thunder of the keys, it's almost like this sonic cue. Like it's time to write without distractions. And so I like kind of having that on, off switch with the two different devices. And during the semester, that's usually when I just transcribe. I'm not really writing in the semester, but I'm transcribing pages and editing.
- [33:53]
A
Oh, my God, I'm obsessed with this. This is incredible. This is really good. Other people have mentioned using a typewriter, but not. Not like this.
- [34:01]
B
No, I'm very, very serious about it. I'm building a whole new one for my next book right now with a custom paint job. It's a glittery royal blue.
- [34:11]
A
Okay, well, can you tell us anything about the next project?
- [34:14]
B
It's a novel about Hawaii. It takes place on a cruise ship. I think of it as White Lotus meets There There.
- [34:23]
A
Okay.
- [34:24]
B
Is how I'm thinking about it. Thank you.
- [34:28]
A
And glittery blue. I feel like, though now knowing about the typewriter, I'm a little disappointed there's not some bright red on this cover. Because I feel like if I. If that is like. It's like you gotta have the tie in to the typewriter because there's some blue baby blue on the COVID Both covers of your memoir, it shows up a little bit.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah.
- [34:49]
A
When we get the paperback, we gotta. Maybe we need some red. Like, it's gotta. It's gotta be like a hint for the people who know about the typewriters to be like, oh, that's the typewriter thing.
- [35:02]
B
Like, oh, I like that.
- [35:03]
A
We gotta talk to the marketing team. And so, yeah, for sure we'll send some emails. Don't worry.
- [35:08]
B
I did only. Just realize I only thought of this the other day, that a tie in that feels like it exists in the book is Birdie is a projectionist. And she. She in the book is obsessed with her machines and her century JJs and how it feels like a sacred extension of her body. And I was thinking, that's me and my typewriters, like, oiling that up and taking care of that machine, like, really feels like this. Almost like caring for myself because the machines are so Beautiful.
- [35:37]
A
You gotta send us a picture so I can put it on Instagram of the red typewriter. Like when the episode goes up, there's like in the stories or something. I feel like I gotta see this.
- [35:46]
B
Of course.
- [35:48]
A
In addition to the typewriter, what else is part of your writing process? Do you have snacks and beverages? Do you listen to music? Like obviously with the typewriter you're dealing with a lot of physical, physical pages. Where do you keep the pages? Do you have a binder? Do you have a stack? Like how do you go back and find it? I'm just legit. There's just so many logistics about all of this.
- [36:12]
B
I'm very ritualistic with writing. I know that that is a great privilege. And you know, my last book I wrote, I was working a 9 to 5 and it was very different. I had my laptop, I mean I had my drafts that I did on the typewriter of Long live at a residency, but I had a laptop that I took to the Nomad Hotel in the morning before my nine to five in the Flatiron district where I was just writing at six in the morning when I could between hours. With this one, I've. It's been more long stretches. So summer break and winter break, between semesters. It's not a book I've been able to dip in and out of with an hour here, an hour there because of how heavy it is and because of how once I get into these characters I can't really snap out of it and into Teach yourself. So it's been more winter summer vacations or summer breaks from school. I work in a little office. I don't need much. I. I write in the dark. So on the typewriter I can barely see what I'm typing. And that feels really good to me because I can't again get too fixated. So I'll close the blinds and ideally if it's dark out, I keep the lights off and I just have a tiny little lamp somewhere. So I write in the dark. I don't want to see too much of what I'm writing. I have to have the heat cranked up as high as it will go. For some reason, my wife says it makes her nauseous when she opens my office door, then knocks her out. I think there's something about being born and raised in Florida and being a Hawaiian, like that humidity and almost tight chested heat makes me feel like it's time to make something or time to create or puts me in the atmosphere. I don't know what it Is. But I need to write in the heat if I. I can. No music whatsoever. Just the thunder of the keys and the rhythm of that. Snack, some beverages, popcorn. If I have a good writing day. Otherwise, I write best when I'm hungry, and I try to write until I have to eat and then I'm done once. Once I eat dinner or a huge lunch, then it's reading time the rest of the day. I write best when I'm hungry. It's kind of a superstition. But popcorn is. Is always the final drafts and always when I have a good writing day, I make myself some popcorn as if, like, I'm gonna. I'm gonna entertain myself today. I don't know what that cue is.
- [38:33]
A
I love it. But something I'm noticing about you is you're very physical. Sounds like you're a very physical, creative person. Have you noticed or did you notice a difference in process when it came to the. I mean, obviously you said you had a 9 to 5, so it was like, different time for the memoir and the novel. But, like, one of the things I think about is, like, with a memoir, you might not know how the story's gonna work or, like, but you sort of know what the story is. And for a novel, you're creating something sort of out of. I mean, not sort of. You're creating something out of whole cloth. So did you run up against any, like, writer block, ish type things? I know some people don't like that phrase. But, like, did you run up against things in the novel where you're like, I don't know where this is going, or, I don't know who this person is, or, I don't know why this matters, or, like, does that stuff happen for you?
- [39:26]
B
Always. Always. And I think, you know, with many people with memoir, they do know the story they're trying to tell. Or roughly, you know, we think of my year of magic, the year of magical thinking. It's like one year in a person's life with. But with my book, like, it spans my whole life almost.
- [39:44]
A
Yeah.
- [39:44]
B
A regret I almost have because it's like, well, I spent it all in the first one. But I say that because both books for me were pretty similar in terms of overwriting. And then the act of discovery was like, what is this that I'm writing toward? I don't actually know until I have those thousands of pages. In both cases. Oh, what's the actual through line I can find here? They were both really, like, so much typing just in this exploratory Mode of. I have these questions. Here's me trying to ask them through scenes, through memories, through fragments, through xyz, how I move my characters through the text. And then it's not until finishing and then backing up and saying, like, oh, what's actually the spine here? Like, what. What is the shape? What's the story I'm trying to tell? So they're actually very similar. This act of, like, discovery and not really trying to impose any sort of, here's exactly what the story wants to be. I think that would feel. It's almost like writing on the. On the computer that would feel too rigid to break. So if I just keep writing the scenes and I just prompt myself through the questions I already mentioned that each character has. And sometimes I would go each day and say, okay, I'm going to put each of these characters into a dinner party scene and see what their relationship is to food, to people at the table, to a menu, to, you know, can they afford this meal? Like, just asking these questions I did that I asked another day was, I'm going to put each of them in a sex scene and see what's their relationship to power and their body and shame. And so I prompt myself through these different little questions or prompts just to give myself an exciting writing day to get to know the characters better. Some of those scenes did end up in the final draft, some didn't. But only then can I see what they're made of, the decisions they would make. And then they begin to build a
- [41:44]
A
story, I think, yeah, that's so interesting. Sort of like, just like exercises, like. Yeah, like, like little, little, little dalliances into the world.
- [41:55]
B
It has to be fun. I have to keep it fun. It takes so long. It takes eight. It took eight and a half years for a sad book. So if I don't. And I work with animals, I've worked with horses my whole life. If you don't keep things interesting and fun, it's like they will sour to the ring. They won't go in and work because they'll know, oh, it's going to be hard. This is the same thing every day. And some days you just walk them around and they think they're going to go to work. But no, you just get a treat. You just get to hang out. I'm just going to brush you today. And that's how writing is for me. I have to keep it playful.
- [42:29]
A
And you do that. So you intentionally sort of like, trick yourself.
- [42:33]
B
Yeah, always. And some of that work is you asked about process I. I believe in redecorating my desk. Desk for every project. So finding, like, tactile things for my desk, like toys and smells and for. Long live. I had. I only wrote by lava lamp and had just, like, glossy tabloids and Tamagotchis on my desk so the tactile objects and the smells of them could bring me into that place. And for this, it was like models of slugs and pine needles and driftwood from Whidbey Island. Like. Like all of these things that I could touch and taste and smell that brings that element of play back when it comes to.
- [43:17]
A
You're like a method actor, writer. Like sense memory, like writer. I love this.
- [43:25]
B
Thank you.
- [43:26]
A
You are the Marlon Brando of writing. You're like, I gotta be. I gotta be in it. I gotta have the lava lamp. Like, we're going back to the 90s. We gotta get the Tamagot.
- [43:36]
B
I take it very seriously. I shadowed a projectionist to write Birdie as a projectionist. So I take it all very seriously.
- [43:43]
A
I love that so much. Speaking of Birdie, how do you name your characters?
- [43:49]
B
Oh, I find it so difficult.
- [43:52]
A
Yeah.
- [43:52]
B
Sometimes I think. I don't know, sometimes the name just comes out of nowhere. Birdie's name was when I started this in early 2017. Her name was Corey, which I forgot about until recently. And I don't know when she became Birdie, but I was reading a lot of Jane Ledger, or. Sorry, Jane Hirschfeld, her book Ledger. And she has this poem called the Bird Net. And the epigraph of Whidby is from that poem. It says, I once decided to pretend to be angry than I was. And that's the epigraph. And I think Jane Hirschfeld's birds from her book Ledger really stayed with me. So maybe that's where Birdie came from. I think Lindsay's one of those that came out of the blue. Lindsay with a Z. And Mary Beth is named after my godmother whose name is Mary Beth. They're very different people, but they have a similar syntax and moxie and energy to them.
- [44:51]
A
Hard to know. There's a trace in the book. And then there's also a brief moment of a Tracy with an eye, which obviously I was like, thank you. I'll take that. You and Alejandro Varela both have Tracy's with eyes in your books. So you two are my favorite authors to have ever existed. I was like, oh, hello. This book must be perfect. Tracy with the I working at TSA or whatever.
- [45:17]
B
Yes, I write with an Alphabet, too. Above me always Another process thing so that I don't have.
- [45:25]
A
What does that do for you?
- [45:26]
B
Well, it's a few things. This book has more than 115 characters listed in it, which I didn't realize until the copy editors, they send you kind of a cast list. So it's something like 115, 120 characters. And so for one reason is I don't want too many characters with the same letter that begins their name. That could be confusing. And so Tracy. I love Tease. I had to get a Tracy in there. T, Kira. And the other is, I think that we tend to. At least I tend to lean on the same words and sounds often. So I love an alliterative S, for example, Like, I lean on that. And I have my same kind of moving word bank in my head as I speak and as I write. So if I have random words written down beside me and also the Alphabet, I can look up and say, what's. Oh, let's lean into F. Let's think about. I don't know. It's just kind of a game I can play with myself to lean into different sonic resonances on the line level.
- [46:35]
A
When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
- [46:38]
B
When I was a little kid with that typewriter. That's when I really. I know it might sound like a romantic story, but I really did write, like, early books when I was a kid. Like, that was what I wanted to be. That's all I wanted.
- [46:51]
A
It's so interesting because, like, hearing you talk about all the little, like, tips and tricks and, like, little things that you do to kind of, like, get yourself in. Into the ring, to continue your metaphor, it. It reminds me of other people I've spoken to who came to writing later in life who have sort of had to, like, trick themselves into doing it in some ways. So I thought. I wasn't sure if this was, like, something that came to you later in life and that's how you'd sort of, like, gamified it for yourself or, like, not gamified, but, like, found ways to keep it going.
- [47:21]
B
I think I've always wanted to be a storyteller. I just wasn't sure how I wanted. I was a musician as a kid. I was a drummer. And so I think even that. That love of percussion, I hope, comes through in my sentences and sounds. I went to Parsons School of Design for college, and at that point, I wanted to be a fashion designer. And so playing with colors and draping and telling a story with a collection, I think is not so different. Than being a writer. So I had these different moments of art making sense. And then I decided, okay, it's the written word, but I hope the music, the color, the texture, all of that play is still present.
- [48:04]
A
This makes a lot of sense now. This is what I was trying to. I was trying to figure out. I'm like, this is where the sensory stuff comes in. Like, it's like you've got these different creative versions of yourself that are all kind of at play when you're writing. It sounds like the physical and then like, the sound of the typewriter writer and, you know, the color and the light and all of that. Like, it's like, very clearly coming from a lot of places. I couldn't quite figure out where it was coming from. But as you're saying that, I'm like, yes, this makes so much sense. I love. I'm. I'm fascinated. I'm very obsessed with this. I did not know we were gonna be spending this much time on this today, but I very happy to be here. One of the things you mentioned earlier is once you've written to the point where you have to eat, you eat, and then you go read, what do you go read?
- [48:48]
B
Oh, it depends on the day. Sometimes when I'm really in the work, if I'm lucky enough to be at a residency, for example, and I'm just working on the project, I'll usually be reading things that feel directly related to the project, whether it's research about it or voices that feel somehow aligned with the voices of the text. So with this book, I read a lot of Adam Johnson when I was reading this book. His. I think he's a fantastic writer. I couldn't believe he blurbed the book. I did not know him. I wrote him a letter out of the blue fan mail, and he asked to read it, and he. He gave me that beautiful blurb. But I read his. His book a lot. Dark Meadow is a short story in Fortune Smiles about a child sex abuser. So reading that at the same time reading the works of, you know, Joy Williams and Margaret Atwood, and you mentioned Toni Morrison. I think in terms of sonics and music and composing a work of music for each project, that's someone who, you know, I'm never going to write like Toni Morrison, obviously. I don't think I write like any of the writers I just listed, but to feel their musicality and to feel, like, how they articulate scene and psychology and moments of the sublime or, like, all of it feeds what I'm doing. So I Usually have some North Star texts for everything I'm working on and for myself. Book aside, I read cookbooks.
- [50:18]
A
As strange as it might sound, I love cookbooks. I love a cookbook. What are some of your faves?
- [50:25]
B
Oh, my gosh. I love the writing and work of Hetty McKinnon. She's.
- [50:31]
A
Yes, I love her. I love her. She does all the vegetables, right?
- [50:35]
B
Yep, yep.
- [50:36]
A
Yeah.
- [50:37]
B
Vegetables. Yeah. She came to my book launch last night, and I was so starstruck.
- [50:42]
A
Had you met her before?
- [50:43]
B
No, I'd never met her.
- [50:45]
A
So she just. It was just. This is just, like, a coincidence that she likes you and you like her.
- [50:50]
B
Yeah.
- [50:51]
A
Oh, my God, how cool.
- [50:54]
B
She's friends with the person, Shirley Kai, who shot my author photos for Whitby. So. So I think she heard of it. But I'm such a fan of Hetty McKinnon. I love the food writing of Helen Rosner. I think she's incredible. And Tamar Adler, who wrote An Everlasting Meal, which is almost like a memoiristic cookbook. Ish. But I will read. I mean, I'll read books from around the world. I'll read really dated books because I find them fascinating and funny. They're so great. I just. I read them, like, novels before I go to sleep every night, and it feels like traveling, and I think the tedium helps, like, calm my nervous system before I go to sleep. I read every step. I read recipes that I would never make. I read recipes for meat, and I don't eat meat. I just read it all. I love it. What's your favorite?
- [51:49]
A
So I am new to cookbook reading, and we did Salt, fat, acid heat on this podcast for book club, like, in 2019.
- [51:59]
B
I love Samin and her writing.
- [52:02]
A
So she came on the show last year, and I love her writing. I also loved Sola Elway Lee's book. Love that book. I love to cook, and that book was, like, huge for me as a cook. Like, I was, like, marking it up. Like, this is so useful. Putting your. Putting your sheet pan in the oven while the oven heats up, up. Revolutionary.
- [52:23]
B
Yeah.
- [52:23]
A
Crispy. For crispy roasted broccoli. My God, it's changed my life. So, like, that one, I love. I. I love the recipes in Alison Roman's cookbooks. I think she's, like, fantastic at recipes, but I hate her writing. I. It is so 2015s to me.
- [52:42]
B
Have you read the new one?
- [52:44]
A
I haven't. I want to. It's.
- [52:46]
B
It.
- [52:47]
A
Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'll read it. It's on my List, Like, I'm excited about it. So those are the ones that stick out to me. But, like, I've got small kids, so I read this cookbook, like, called Feeding Little's Lunches, and, like, was horrible writing, but so helpful. So, like, sometimes, because I really like to cook, I can sort of separate these two things in my brain in. In a way that, like, I know people who like literary fiction and then also, like, a thriller can separate prose and plot, depending. I can kind of do that with cookbooks where I'm like, I really like the writing here, but I'm not, like, these recipes are not great or vice versa. I also like Smitten Kitchen. I like that.
- [53:26]
B
Yeah. Yeah. These are. These are great wrecks. Samin, like, one of the. One of my two truths and a lie, like, most amazing facts that I love, that I hold dear is that Samin cooked for me once before Salt Acid Heat came out, and we were at a residency, and she was just like, oh, I'm working on a cook cookbook. So humble. Before the book came out, and she asked if she could cook us all lunch. And I was just such a dope. I didn't know much about cooking at the time, and I didn't read as many cookbooks. And I'm just asking her these basic questions at the lunch table. And she was just so generous and kind in explaining what her book was about and these cooking techniques. And I'm. I'm just such a fan. I. I keep in touch with Samin, and I love her writing. I love her new book, too.
- [54:12]
A
Yes. So she did the show last year for the new book. It was great. It was so great, too, because it's, like, so. It felt so different and, like, such a. I think you can see growth in a writer in any kind of writing, but I think in the way that those two books feel so different, and both are so good. I was like, oh, you can tell that this person has, like, lived so much more life between these two books. And I thought that was really exciting as a reader. Yeah.
- [54:44]
B
Completely beautiful. Yeah. It's so beautiful to look at, like, quoting June Jordan and talking about nudity.
- [54:50]
A
That's what we talked about. I was like, you're really. You're really giving me literary references here. There's so many.
- [54:56]
B
There's so many incredible.
- [54:58]
A
Yes. I love that we share this love of cookbooks. This is such a treat. Most people are like, you read cookbooks. I'm like, I know, it's so weird, but I love it.
- [55:05]
B
I love that we have this. Yeah.
- [55:07]
A
Yes. I. I'm always trying to convince people who listen to this podcast to read cookbooks. I just. I'm like, it's fun. It's really fun. Okay, before we get out of here, I want to know, you've written this book that you know is pretty. You've said it yourself. It's, like, kind of dark. You know, it's about. It's about a sexual predator. Not super light. It's not a comedy. And as you mentioned, like, you were going through this experience that is, you know, related. So how do you sort of tap into. Preserve your own creativity when you're writing into something like this?
- [55:46]
B
I find this work. I know it might be surprising for folks to hear because it's such a dark work, but I. I find writing energizing no matter what. And I think, like we've talked about today, one might be really surprised that a book like this would be so full of play and fun. But it was, for me, writing. I know, again, that the content is heavy and some of these scenes are really, really heavy. But, you know, it took me on a really wild adventure for a decade and ultimately became a place to kind of put that pain and suffering and questions I had, because I didn't have to just sit with the experience alone and do nothing with it. When I'm writing, it's almost like taking pain or suffering and finding a use for a function. And so it took me to Whidbey island, this gorgeous island off the coast of Washington, over a dozen times. It took me to Florida. It took me into working with a projectionist and shadowing them, working with gas station attendants and shadowing them, working with a poison expert and learning about science writing takes me into places of research that really, you know, ultimately make up a life. This took up a quarter of my life, and that's not nothing. And so it feels like it fuels me and finds meaning and purpose to what's been kind of sitting in the body. So I. I always reject the idea that, you know, writing heals or it's simply cathartic. But in a way, like, the process of it has help me find a landing place for some of these feelings that feel so otherwise. Messy and uncontrollable and unwieldy. I can put it to the page.
- [57:33]
A
I read a lot of things that other people tell me are dark and heavy, and that's fine. That is the truth of my life. But one of the things. And hearing you talk about your process and sort of the play and all the different Ways that you're sort of finding a way into the work and into the story. I actually think that this book was surprisingly not heavy, given the topic. Like, Mary Beth is such a fun character. There's a lot going on, but she is funny and she is sharp and she says things that you're like, I wish I said that to my sister. She has a sense of humor. And there's so much sort of. I don't know. I don't even know the right word. But there is a levity to this book that surprised me because I knew the subject matter. And I do think that that probably comes from the ways that you're kind of fine tuning and going back and making it energize. Energize. Or the writing is energizing for you. And so some of that, I think, comes through the book. I think when you say, like, this is a book about a person, a person who sexually abused children, it sounds like it's going to be one thing, and it is. That is a fact of the book. But it does not, not feel like what I think many people assume that it will feel like. If that. I don't know if that feels true to you, but that's my experience, and
- [58:55]
B
I. I really appreciate you saying that. I've. I've read many Goodreads review. I know we're not supposed to read Goodreads.
- [59:02]
A
You're not supposed to.
- [59:03]
B
I know, I know. But one is curious. I get curious. And many have said, oh, it's. It's so dark. It's too dark. And. But for me, I do. I do find there to be moments of levity and humor. I'm very interested in black comedy. My favorite writers, that's kind of their tone, and I love that. And sometimes it takes reading aloud to an audience, to a room at a reading before I ever hear someone laugh. And then they'll say to me, I didn't know I could laugh until I heard the way that you read it. There is a spiritedness and a life and an absurdity, almost like this Bocchettian, like, dark humor to it that I hope a reader can pick up on. And I know my sense of humor is not for everyone, but I think many people who have survived, you know, trauma or had dark times, like, we tell a story and we can laugh at it, even though everyone in the room might be like, whoa, that's pretty dark. Because we have to find those moments of humor to survive them.
- [60:04]
A
And I think darkness is, like, very relative when it comes to, like, yeah, I mean, life, but also books. You know, people like, oh, you only read dark books. I'm like, no, I read light things all the time. And then I'm like, okay, well, actually, sure, I guess for you it is dark, but for me, you know, so I. I do think there's some. But I. I personally think that the COVID hints at that levity. Like the font. To me, I do the font, the art, and then the font, I was like, oh, there's a. I don't know. But I feel like I picked up on it right away. And so that's why I think maybe it's the COVID Because usually the COVID really. I'm deeply impacted by covers. It's really hard for me to, like, shake a cover.
- [60:48]
B
That's so interesting. I have not heard that yet, but I find it fascinating. But yeah, I'm interested in satire and absurdity. And again, opening this conversation with genre, it is, to me, playful in that way, a little bit.
- [61:02]
A
Okay, I have two more really quick questions because I already sort of asked you what books are in conversation with your book because you shared the things that you were reading, kind of like tied to the book. So I'll skip that one. But what is a word you could never spell correctly on the first try? Or are you an incredibly good speller?
- [61:18]
B
Oh, I'm dyslexic.
- [61:19]
A
Okay.
- [61:20]
B
So I was gonna say every word. Okay, every word. Even the most basic, like, still received.
- [61:28]
A
Oh, sure. Yeah, same.
- [61:29]
B
I swap those eyes and E's every time, no matter what.
- [61:32]
A
Okay, great. And then if you could have one person dead or alive read this book, who would you want it to be?
- [61:39]
B
Oh, my gosh. Probably my favorite writer in the world, Linda Berry. But then I would perish if she hated it.
- [61:49]
A
The double edged sword of this question.
- [61:51]
B
She's my favorite writer.
- [61:53]
A
Well, Takira, thank you so much for being here. Everybody. You can get your copy of Whidbey. Wherever you get your books, it is out in the world. There is an audiobook. I listened to a very quick portion of it, but it exists if you're an audiobook person. And this was so great. Thank you so much.
- [62:11]
B
Thank you, Tracy. This was a blast.
- [62:13]
A
And everyone else, we will see you in the stacks. All right, y', all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And thank you again to. And thank you again to T. Kira Madden for joining the show. I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Eliza Rosenberry for helping make this episode possible. Our book club pick for March is Paradise by Toni Morrison and we will be discussing the book with Namwali Serpell on Wednesday, March 25. If you love this podcast, if you want insight side access to it, if you want to earn a few little Perks, head to patreon.com the stacks to join the stacks pack and check out my newsletter at Tracy Thomas substack.com make sure you're subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, will you please take a moment right now to leave us a rating and a review? For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media at the Stacks Pod, on instagram, threads and YouTube and you can check out our website@thestaxpodcast.com today's episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenas with production assistance from Sahara Clement, additional support provided by Sheree Marquez and our theme music is from Tagirigis. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Tracy Thomas.
- [63:29]
C
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