Kerry Clare, Definitely Thriving, and Camille Pagán, Dog Person

Summary

Totally Booked with Zibby — Episode Summary
Kerry Clare & Camille Pagán (May 27, 2026)

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Main Theme

In this special two-in-one episode, host Zibby Owens brings listeners insightful, heartfelt conversations with acclaimed authors Kerry Clare and Camille Pagán, delving into themes of reinvention, the transformative power of books and community, processing grief, and writing as both craft and healing practice. Both interviews were recorded live at Totally Booked Live, featuring two authors who foreground women’s voices and unusual perspectives in their new works.

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Part 1: Kerry Clare — Discussing Definitely Thriving

(Interview starts at 03:08)

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Overview & Purpose

• Kerry Clare’s “Definitely Thriving” explores the chaotic but empowering process of reinventing oneself after life falls apart.
• Humorous and bookish in tone, the novel follows Clement, a woman who upends her life via a scandal, moves into a new apartment, and resolves to live deliberately, discovering herself anew amid eccentric neighbors and a dusty, disorganized bookstore.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Premise and Character Arc

• Clement’s Journey: After an affair ends her marriage, “she resolves after that to build a new life from scratch and to become a woman of substance… But she’s a human being, so things don’t quite go that way… comedy ensues.” (Kerry Clare, 03:15)
• It’s about agency, self-discovery, and refusing to follow prescribed roles like marriage and motherhood.

Strong Sense of Place & Community

• Zibby calls out the novel’s “strong sense of place” and “understated, British wit,” emphasizing the main character’s delight in her newfound independence despite others’ skepticism. (04:13)
• Neighbors as Central: “She connects with some eccentric people and they end up being really important to her… learning to accept other people and our neighbors as who they are rather than sort of fighting against it.” (Kerry Clare, 05:07)

Bookstores & Books as Metaphors

• The local, messy bookstore Clement finds mirrors her internal transformation.
• “It gives her a little bit of agency. She gets to reorganize the world a little bit. Like, isn’t that the dream, to be able to organize the world?” (Kerry Clare, 07:03)
• Conversation on the role of women’s fiction in stores—a comment on literary value and gendered shelving.

Writing Life and Bookishness

• Clare shares her lifelong passion for books: “Books are my very favorite thing. It’s a great way to engage with other people … Books are how I engage with everything.” (08:34)
• Zibby and Clare share a playful exchange about color-coded bookshelves. (08:06–08:21)

Unconventional Romance

• Leading men in her novel break typical romantic conventions—one is described as “like an undertaker… very introverted, allergic to literally everything… pale and whiny.”
• “He’s a weirdo. But this book also is about embracing weirdos and like understanding that the strangeness of other people, like, isn’t a problem that needs to be sorted out.” (Kerry Clare, 12:39)

Friendship & Community as Narrative Tools

• “Friendships are just the best relationships in general… friendships are as interesting to write about as romantic. I think they’re more.” (Kerry Clare, 13:12)
• Zibby: “It’s like all these little tiny ecosystems of gossip and concern and where is the line?” (14:08)

Themes: Reinvention & Female Agency

• “It is figure out what your desire is and, you know, and prioritize that. I think women also are not meant to prioritize our own wants and needs.” (Kerry Clare, 14:52)
• The book is not prescriptive, but encourages women to think deeply about their desires and choices.

Writing Advice

• “You can write a little bit at a time and little pieces add up to something whole. … If you can write 200 words in a little period of time and then return to it, it will add up to something. So just do that.” (Kerry Clare, 16:35)

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Notable Quotes

• “She gets to reorganize the world a little bit… Like, isn’t that the dream?” (Kerry Clare, 07:03)
• “She’s a woman of appetites, and I think that’s really beautiful and inspiring.” (Kerry Clare, 14:52)
• “I justify… my passion for gossip. You know, I’m just very interested.” (Kerry Clare, 14:17)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:15] — Book premise and Clement’s journey
• [05:07] — On neighbors and accepting others
• [07:03] — Bookstores as spaces of agency and symbolic transformation
• [08:34] — Kerry’s lifelong relationship with books
• [12:39] — Crafting unconventional leading men
• [13:12] — Writing close female friendships
• [14:52] — Central theme: knowing and prioritizing your desire
• [16:35] — Writing advice for aspiring authors

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Part 2: Camille Pagán — Discussing Dog Person

(Interview starts at 21:24)

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Overview & Purpose

• Dog Person is an emotionally resonant novel told from the perspective of Harold, an aging mutt trying to help his grieving owner, Miguel, find love again after the loss of Miguel’s partner—a romance novelist.
• Pagán talks about processing her own grief through writing and the empathetic nature of dogs, interweaving heartfelt emotion with wit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Story and Real-Life Inspiration

• Inspired by her own dog, Pagán describes Harold as “trying to help his now owner… find love again because that was the last thing that his owner told him to do before she passed. … It is very much a weeper, but it’s a witty weeper.” (Camille Pagán, 21:32)
• The novel was written during a period of personal grief after losing a father figure to suicide, with her dog offering comfort during tough times.

Dogs and Emotional Connection

• “Dogs know a lot. In addition to words, they smell our emotions…. Anxiety, stress, grief, joy…they can actually smell the way that we are feeling.” (Camille Pagán, 23:48)
• Zibby marvels at how this dog perspective alters narrative conventions: “It’s a different way to show, don’t tell in writing when you have a totally different perspective.” (25:04)

The Bookstore Setting and Meta-Narrative

• Miguel, the protagonist, owns a struggling bookstore. When a high-profile author fails to attend an event, he embarks on a quest to uncover the truth—a plotline that mixes grief, mystery, and a love letter to bookstores.
• “It was like all of my favorite things. … I want my readers to get that too.” (Camille Pagán, 25:10)

Male Literary Culture and Authorship

• The book, set in 2003, probes gender and literary authority: “Who has the right to tell a story, who really has the right to be visible… this book is about female voices in literature very much.” (Camille Pagán, 27:03)
• Discussion on anonymity and pen names in publishing, referencing Freda McFadden’s recent reveal: “A lot of my writers who use pen names are the happiest… because there’s a layer between themselves and the world.” (28:09)

Character Creation and Grief

• Pagán crafted Miguel as a complicated, sometimes unlikeable character: “My agent kept telling me, make him more likable… And so the process in Miguel was very raw. It very much mirrored my own grief…” (29:08)
• Found family and community as lifelines during loss: “People just showed up for me in ways that I didn’t know that I needed… Harold the Dog observes, too, the gift of listening to someone.” (30:19)

Writing as Self-Healing

• “I very much wrote that book for me… this one is for me, it was very healing.” (31:14)

On Voice, Craft, and the Writing Life

• Advice: “Wait for the voice that you can’t ignore… Voice comes from your worldview, and there’s no one who can teach you that.” (32:02)
• Pagán views her early, unpublished novels as her personal MFA: “No work is wasted, which is so painful when you are, we’ve all been there, sitting there, working on something, thinking, this is it. And you get to the end, you’re like, this is not it.” (33:01)

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Notable Quotes

• “Dogs know a lot… They can actually smell the way that we are feeling.” (Camille Pagán, 23:48)
• “I just noticed people were listening to me. I’m usually the listener, and that was really moving to experience.” (Camille Pagán, 30:19)
• “Wait for the voice that you can’t ignore… voice comes from your worldview.” (Camille Pagán, 32:02)
• “It is like running around a neighborhood in your underwear and asking everyone to tell you what they think of your body. It’s terrible.” (Camille Pagán, 33:32 on the vulnerability of publishing)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [21:32] — Introduction to Dog Person and its inspiration
• [23:48] — Dogs sensing emotion and doggie narrative device
• [25:10] — Bookstore as haven and meta-literary elements
• [27:03] — Gender in literary culture & authorship discussion
• [29:08] — Miguel’s character and writing grief authentically
• [30:19] — Found family, community, and the healing power of kindness
• [31:14] — Writing as self-healing
• [32:02] — On finding (and waiting for) your unique writing voice
• [33:32] — The vulnerability of putting your novel into the world

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Memorable Moments

• On shelving women’s books: “She’s dismayed when women fiction authors have their own shelf and are not in the literature section with the other books.” (Zibby, 06:37)
• On weird leading men: “He looks like an undertaker.” (Zibby, 09:55)
• On gossip as data: “That’s how I justify, I think, my passion for gossip. You know, I’m just very interested.” (Kerry Clare, 14:17)
• On writing and vulnerability: “It is like running around a neighborhood in your underwear and asking everyone to tell you what they think of your body.” (Camille Pagán, 33:32)

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Takeaways

• Both authors use humor and warmth to tackle reinvention, grief, the importance of honest female agency, community (found and inherited), and the enduring influence of bookstores and the book world.
• Writing can be a slow accumulation—a little everyday—or a lifeline during periods of profound change.
• The “weirdo” or “unlikeable” character is often more real—and more healing—than the conventionally perfect one.

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For more, follow Zibby Owens on Instagram and visit zibbymedia.com. And, as always: buy the books!

Transcript

[Zibby Owens]

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[Carrie Claire]

Thank you.

[Zibby Owens]

Welcome.

[Carrie Claire]

It'd be lovely to be here.

[Zibby Owens]

Why don't you tell everybody what your book is about?

[Carrie Claire]

My book is about a woman who blows up her life by getting into an entanglement with her next door neighbors. And all that happens before the book begins. And that's the end of her lackluster marriage. It was the only way out. And she resolves after that to build a new life from scratch and to become a woman of substance. And so she's only going to do serious things and make good choices. But she's a human being, so. So things don't quite go that way. She has inevitable complications. She decides the romantic part of her life is over, but then finds herself embroiled in attractions to two very different curious men. The book is about a woman who is determined to make her own choices and follow her own path instead of doing what she's supposed to be doing. You know, the marriage and the motherhood. And she decides she's going to listen to her heart for the first time. And comedy ensues.

[Zibby Owens]

It does. The writing of the book is so clever. I mean, it's funny. Like even ordinary moments become hilarious with your wit that like, kind of understated, almost like a British wit. What I love about the book is you're. It's such a strong sense of place. So when the book opens, we have her moving into her own apartment after years of her married life. And here it is. And it's on top of this sort of dilapidated building, but it is hers and she is free from her marriage and she does not care. She loves it. She's relishing it, even though her family and her friends are like, it's kind of smelly. And she's like, it's fine, you know, it's totally fine. And we watch as she then grows and she literally, we watch her wander out like a, like a newborn as she starts introducing herself to the local shopkeepers, which ends up completely changing her life. Talk a little bit about that and I Noticed that you dedicated it to your neighbors, which is so sweet.

[Carrie Claire]

Well, it is sweet, but sometimes I wonder if they might take it the wrong way because not everyone she encounters, you know, is true. She has all these cozy ideas of who other people are. And then when she goes into the neighborhood and meets them, she discovers that everyone has their. Everyone's the main character in their own story. And she has to sort of grapple with that. And I think that is a challenge that a lot of us have to understand that the ideas we have about who other people are and how they should behave, they don't always comply with it. And that can be frustrating. And so learning to accept. Accept other people and our neighbors as who they are rather than sort of fighting against it, that's something that I've had to work through in my experience. Just understanding I can't control everything and that people are who they're going to be and sort of finding the beauty in that is maybe the key to having a bit of mental health and, you know, finding some harmony. So, yeah, she connects with some eccentric people and they end up being really important to her.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow. Well, as she goes from store to store, she stumbles upon a very dusty, disorganized bookstore, which becomes a central place in the story. In fact, I feel like this would make such a good play because you could just have like a couple different sets, like her room, the bookstore, maybe the place where they have that, you know, the flag sale. What do you call it? The Mayfair.

[Carrie Claire]

The jumble sale.

[Zibby Owens]

The jumble sale. Sorry, yes, the jumble.

[Carrie Claire]

That was a British. Isn't. My editor was like, wouldn't we call that a rummage sale or something? But for the Barbara Pym reasons, I insist, listed on the Britishism. So, yeah, jumble sale.

[Zibby Owens]

So as she remakes her own life, she is also metaphorically and quite literally cleaning up the bookstore, organizing it. She's dismayed when women fiction authors have their own shelf and are not in the literature section with the other books. Talk about using books and the bookstore as this place where there is passion and growth and plot developments and then the books themselves.

[Carrie Claire]

Well, you would know. Bookstores are everything, right? The whole world happens in these spaces. And yeah, the one she encounters, it needs some help. It doesn't really have many customers. It's not a very hospitable place. And, yeah, the women are relegated to, like, a second shelf. And she resolves to do something about that. And it gives her a little bit of agency. She gets to reorganize the world a Little bit. Like, isn't that the dream, to be able to organize the world? And so she gets to do that in that dusty little corner, and she finds love there, and she finds friendship, and she gets to set things right a little bit and put the women on the shelf where they belong.

[Zibby Owens]

And you have a whole other life in book writing about books and your own shelves, so to speak. Actually, there's a joke in here about somebody who color codes their bookshelves, which I do. So I was trying not to take it personally. Not all my shelves, but definitely this one main wall I have.

[Carrie Claire]

I think if you're reading them, it's fine. It's the people who have them just for the aesthetic. I don't know. I have trouble with that.

[Zibby Owens]

Okay. I mean, I had read them. I didn't read them anymore. I mean, they just. Anyway.

[Carrie Claire]

No, exactly. But they're there to be read, and they're beautiful. You get both.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[Carrie Claire]

It's fine.

[Zibby Owens]

We're friends now.

[Carrie Claire]

That's.

[Zibby Owens]

Take us to your own life and all the writing you do about books and how you got interested in books. Like, what is your life story?

[Carrie Claire]

Well, like many bookish people, I think I came into the world interested in books and engaging with stories and going to the library and showing a little bit of talent for creative writing. Like when I was, like, seven, and I was like, that feels pretty nice. And so I just kept going with that. And books are my very favorite thing. It's a great way to engage with other people, to connect with other people. Like, talking about what people are reading is my favorite conversation to have. It's just either it's a book I love or I learn something new. Like, it's just those are my favorite conversations. So I think I engage with the world through books and reading, and it's an escape. But also, it's not like they take us deeper into the world. And, like, more so than my Instagram scrolling. Right. Like, when I am wondering about things, like, just, I can go into a book and kind of get a little closer to figuring it out. So books are how I engage with everything. And so to have written a bookish book is kind of a longtime dream of mine because I love bookish books. I love Ann Fadiman's essays about reading. I love books about books because I love books. So, yeah, like, a lot of my favorite authors found their way into this book. And, you know, my house is full of dusty bookshelves, too, so I didn't have to reach very far for those References.

[Zibby Owens]

The main characters, the leading men, so to speak, are quite different than what you might expect in a rom com or a book. They're not necessarily, well, maybe one more than the other, but one of them in particular is just someone who, when she finally. Well, I don't want to give anything away, but when someone else meets this gentleman, they're like, wait, him? This guy is the one? He looks like an undertaker. Talk about making a leading man who is not particularly social, like very introverted, allergic to literally everything under the sun. It's hard for him to sort of exist in the world. Like he is thin skinned to a fault and also not particularly friendly or attractive. So anyway, talk about making him the leading man.

[Carrie Claire]

So my main character is called Clements and this is a moment in her life where she is in firm ownership of making choices that other people don't agree with and doing what feels right for her. And like, she's not committing her life to Toby, this questionable character. And she knows the ways in which she's not necessarily good for her, but she's just following her heart and doing what feels right. He was sort of inspired by Tibby from Howards End. He was. When I read Howard's End, it had the word dyspeptic in it. And that's how I remember learning that word. Because, yeah, he was, he always had like a stomach problem and he was just really annoying and pale and whiny and I think he is a little bit a tribute to the questionable men that I found myself having crushes on when I was younger. And also maybe not making the best choices, but there was just something about like, their neediness that, I don't know, I was like, I can take care of you. And then I grew up. So that was good. But you know, I just, I don't know. They talk about in the book, I talk about him being like Keats because he's like, he kind of looks like he might have tuberculosis. And I don't know, maybe there was a time when I was into that. It's very literary. So, yeah, you know, when I resolved, I was like, I'm going to write a normal book. I'm going to write a straightforward rom com. And then like five pages in, like, I just steered right off the road. And so this book is a little off the beaten track. He's a weirdo. But this book also is about embracing weirdos and like understanding that the strangeness of other people, like, isn't a problem that needs to be sorted out. And he doesn't Treat her badly. In the end, I think he does redeem himself. He shows up for her, but, yeah, just sort of making choices that are a little less straightforward than we're meant to do. That's what she does, and it pays off for her. And, you know, I think she gets a good story out of it.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, we definitely get a good story. So that's nice.

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

You also show us through her two close girlfriends, we get a lot more perspectives on things and we have a foil with a family that seems absolutely perfect. And then what happens with that storyline as well. How did you use friendship as a tool to drive the story?

[Carrie Claire]

So I find friendship such an interesting tool as a novelist, because characters, friendships are the greatest way to establish who they are and who they've been and what they love and what their conflicts are like.

[Camille Pagan]

It's just.

[Carrie Claire]

It's a wonderful character development tool. But also, friendships are just the best relationships in general. And so I have so much fun writing about that. And I have two very close friends in my life, and all my characters end up having two very close friends. And in this one, my friends were quite thrilled because they were like, that's not us. That was nice. But I think friendships are as interesting to write about as romantic. I think they're more. Because they're enduring and they change and they grow. So, yeah, writing about friendships is. I love doing it. And writing about Clements's friends who all, like, there's three of them. They've all made very different choices in their lives, but they find their way to connect with each other and to try to understand each other and then try not to talk to the other friend behind. Because there's three of them. Right. They try, like, when one person's doing questionable things, they. They try to refrain from. From gossiping because.

[Zibby Owens]

And siblings, too. I mean, it's like all these little tiny ecosystems of gossip and, you know, concern and where is the line?

[Carrie Claire]

It is. It's data. People are so interested. That's how I justify, I think, my passion for gossip. You know, I'm just very interested.

[Zibby Owens]

Yes. I have a curiosity about.

[Carrie Claire]

Yes, isn't that honorable?

[Zibby Owens]

So funny. So when you think about some of the messages of the book and about starting over and is it ever too late and all that is one of the takeaways here, that it is never too late to rewrite the story? Or is it that in so doing you may find that the outcome is just completely different than you had planned or. Or both?

[Carrie Claire]

I think it's both. And this is the first book I've written where the character's life is so different from my own. I have two children. I've been married for 20 years, and I. So what Clements does isn't a prescription for what a woman should do to fix her life, but it is in a way, because what she does is she just thinks very deeply about what she's done and what she wants. I think so many women don't know what they want. And so we think about what our children want and we think about what other people want, because focusing on what we want and what we desire is like, sometimes it's like staring into an. It's staring into a void. And that's. That's a really hard thing to grapple with. And so I think, you know, I've made more conventional choices in my life than Clemens, but I feel like the same deliberateness is there, being thoughtful about it rather than just doing it by rote. And so the prescription is don't have a threesome with your next door neighbors and blow up your marriage. It is figure out what your desire is and, you know, and prioritize that. I think women also are not meant to prioritize our own wants and needs. Like, Clements is a woman of appetites, and I think that's really beautiful and inspiring. And so I think consideration what your own appetites are and what you're desiring and follow that. And, you know, there's so many advice books in the world about, you know, how to. How to lose weight and how to read more and how to write. I don't think there is one answer ever. I mean, those books are helpful and we can read them, but in the end, you have to find your own way.

[Zibby Owens]

Any advice to aspiring authors?

[Carrie Claire]

I became an author based on being a blogger, and I learned that you can write a little bit at a time and little pieces add up to something whole. And so I think that's my favorite piece of advice. You don't need like eight hours to sit down and craft your book all day long. If you can write 200 words in a little period of time and then return to it, it will add up to something. So just do that.

[Zibby Owens]

Amazing. Kerry, thank you so much.

[Carrie Claire]

Thank you. This has been great.

[Zibby Owens]

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[Camille Pagan]

Oh, thank you Zibby.

[Zibby Owens]

Dog Person, tell us what it's about.

[Camille Pagan]

Oh, it is the story of Harold. He's an aging mutt based very much on my own aging mutt and he was adopted by a romance novelist, gosh, 13 years earlier than when the book begins and she has passed. And so he is trying to help his now owner, which was the romance novelist's partner, find love again because that was the last thing that his owner told him to do before she passed. It is very much a weeper, but it's a witty weeper. Writing this book took me through a very difficult time and was just a wonderful experience. Very proud of this one.

[Zibby Owens]

What was your difficult time?

[Camille Pagan]

Oh, well, coming out of the pandemic. But I lost a dear. Basically a father figure to me who was the person who encouraged me to be a writer. I grew up in a blue collared town. My family said go be an engineer. Do something very practical. And this person in my life said no, go do what you want to do. So I became a journalist and When I was 30 I started writing novels and he died by suicide. And it was really rough. Yeah, really hard. Different kind of pain than I experienced. I'D lost people.

[Zibby Owens]

This was different.

[Camille Pagan]

And my dog, who's actually a female, not a male, I had had her. I'd adopted her, gosh, 11 years earlier when this all happened. And she seemed to sense my pain in a way that was. I know dogs get us, but this was different. She would come sit on my feet. She would. If I was working too much, because I tend to lose myself in work as a coping mechanism, she would put her head under my hand where I was using the mouse, and lift it up. She really just seemed to understand what I was going through. And I had already been thinking about writing a book about a dog, but this inspired really, the story that became Dog Person. And it turns out I did a deep dive in research. Dogs know a lot. In addition to words, they smell our emotions. They really understand humans in an interesting way. And so it became a book.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah. I'm so sorry for your loss. Complicated.

[Camille Pagan]

Complicated Grief. Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

What do you mean, smell our emotions? Tell me the research. I need to know what my dog knows.

[Camille Pagan]

So, you know, not a vet. I read a lot of research. My background is in health and psychology, and I just go down a research rabbit hole. But the way that we sense other people's pheromones, you know, looking for mates, they can smell anxiety, stress, grief, joy. They can actually smell the way that we are feeling. And of course, they also pick up on other cues. But I just thought that was fascinating because I'm thinking, how are you understanding what I'm going through? And in a way that their sensory experience is very different from ours. So that was a lot of the editing I did was going through and thinking, well, this dog is narrating a story. He can't tell it like a human. I had to go back and put in a dog's way of looking at the world to the best of my ability, obviously.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow.

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, the way the dog internalizes the grief and the way you have him sort of notice, like, oh, you know, it hasn't been since my person did this and this, like that, you know, he would smile or just like the way that he told the events of the world made us realize, like, oh, well, that's. Cause this. He hasn't been shaped. Or, you know, whatever. All the little details. I'm not saying that very clearly.

[Camille Pagan]

No, I'm following him.

[Zibby Owens]

You're. It's a different way to show don't tell in writing when you have a totally different perspective.

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah. Oh, I love that. I wasn't really conscious of that, but yes, the dog is Observing everything and seeing Miguel, who is his now owner, owns a bookstore. So this book is really all of the things I love. I think a lot of people I work with writers, it's like the second half of my day and I just noticed I wasn't the only one going through a hard time. I think the last couple years have been tough on a lot of people for many reasons. And I kept losing myself in books, which you do all the time, but I just really was reading a lot of romance, a lot of uplifting self help, and going to a lot of bookstores. And so in addition to my dog, there's these couple things that were really getting me through. And then I was like, I'll just put them all in a book. It was like all of my favorite things. Yeah. So I want my readers to get that too.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, one of the things that happens is in this bookstore there's a big deal author who's going to come speak, and Miguel gets the whole, you know, sells out the tickets and there they are waiting, and the big deal author never shows up. Right. And so Miguel decides he has to figure out what happened. And he's not content because he needs the money from the tickets to save the store, which was, you know, his beloved's dream. So he can't afford to let this happen and he wants to go track her down. And we end up in this, like, adventure situation in downtown Chicago, I think. Is that where it was? Yes, where he's trying to follow clues and figure out who the author is. And so it's also like a mystery. Yes. We have the heaviness of the grief and the creative of having a dog narrate. But it's also figuring out, like, what. What happened? What ha. What. What does it mean to be a talent? What does it mean to be an author? What do we have to do? What do we have to show up for?

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah, discuss. So the book is set in 2003, and I've worked in publishing my whole career. And during that particular era, there was kind of the male wunderkind, literary genius moment going on, which we still see today. But it was very much a thing then. And that was when I think a lot of authors had to reckon with the fact that you are a public person in the age of the Internet. I remember a land before email, so it's very, very different. And I just began thinking about who has the right to tell a story, who really has the right to be visible. I don't want to give away too much, but this book Is about a male dog following a man around. A man around. But it is about female voices in literature very much.

[Zibby Owens]

What do you make of Freda McFadden's recent

[Camille Pagan]

reveal that I only sent that article to a million people.

[Carrie Claire]

Right.

[Camille Pagan]

Oh, I mean, good on her. I hope she didn't feel pressured to reveal that. I thought that was really interesting. Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah.

[Camille Pagan]

A lot of my writers who use pen names are the happiest, I've noticed, because there's a layer between fiction authors in particular, there's a layer between themselves and the world. I did not use a pen name. And sometimes I think about that, like, wouldn't that be nice to just have a remove?

[Zibby Owens]

But then you couldn't post all the time, could you?

[Camille Pagan]

A lot of them, they become their public Persona. Yeah. At least within social media, which I think is fascinating.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, I'm referring. You all know Freda McFadden and how the author, she was like, wearing a wig and with a different name. I don't know. Anyway. All right, we off topic. But on the discussion of authors in hiding, so to speak. Anyway, just came out. Okay, so when you were tracking down the author and plotting, you know, who are the co conspirators and who's going to come on this ride and how is Miguel going to change throughout the course of this story? What was his path for you? Like, where did you want him to start and end?

[Camille Pagan]

My agent kept telling me, make him more likable, which I think is fascinating, because if there are any female novelists in the crowd, that's something that we're often told about female characters. And I write away from that. In general, you'll find in all my books, I write very real people. Readers will often say, like, I wanted to shake her. And I'm like, I'm against violence, but I'm glad you felt something. And so the process in Miguel was very raw. It very much mirrored my own grief, but also just, you know, again, I have this privilege of working with a lot of novelists and hearing their stories. And as a journalist, I talk to a lot of people. And so just seeing what grief manifests as. We often think it's supposed to look a certain way and it rarely does. So putting in his confusion how everyone around him could see the most obvious thing to do when he couldn't see beyond his own nose, which I think is really common.

[Zibby Owens]

He also had a complicated relationship with his in laws.

[Camille Pagan]

Right, Correct.

[Zibby Owens]

His late in laws, which always makes things a little harder. But very close with his sister. So that was Good. Yes. It's interesting to see how family comes into play during times of stress. How did your family help you through that time?

[Camille Pagan]

So, interestingly, I relied more on my found family, which I think you'll find in this book, too, than my immediate family. I'm very close to my two sisters, so they showed up a lot for me. But it was my book community, my community in Ann Arbor, where I live now. People just showed up for me in ways that I didn't know that I needed. Bringing meals over, and I'm not like, oh, bring me food person. And they'd just be like, I brought you something. And just acts of kindness, something that Harold the Dog observes, too, is the gift of listening to someone. And I just noticed people were listening to me. I'm usually the listener, and that was really moving to experience.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow.

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, after reading your book, I now feel even more guilty anytime I don't bring my dog with me anywhere.

[Carrie Claire]

Me, too.

[Zibby Owens]

Right after writing it, do you feel like you were in a moderately better place with.

[Camille Pagan]

Oh, by far?

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah.

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah. I mean, there was a lot. I'm a big believer in therapy. I think if you're struggling, go see someone who is trained in that. But I very much wrote that book for me, all of my other books, I've thought about one person that I don't know, a faceless person. And I think because my books are really about making the most of life, even though they're fiction. And I always think, someone's going to need to read this. And this one, when I was through, I think the second or third draft, I thought, oh, this one is for me, it was very healing. Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

How many novels have you written now?

[Camille Pagan]

Eleven.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I love it.

[Camille Pagan]

It's a compulsion. Compulsion.

[Zibby Owens]

I can't stop it.

[Camille Pagan]

Yeah.

[Zibby Owens]

What are you working on now?

[Camille Pagan]

My next one is called About Last Summer, and it's out next April.

[Zibby Owens]

So what advice would you have for aspiring authors?

[Camille Pagan]

Wait for the voice that you can't ignore. Every one of my books that I've written has been some little nagging character speaking to me. And I do believe Voice is the piece you can't teach. I think you can learn plot. I have to relearn how to write the middle of a novel. Every book I write, it's so hard. You can learn structure. You can unlearn the passive voice. I had to do that, too. It turns out. I don't ever use that as a journalist, but in my fiction, it's just littered with passive voice. But voice comes from your worldview and there's no one who can teach you that. And so I think if we're willing to listen. This book, I think is a bit of my own unlearning, having been raised in a certain era where male voices were elevated.

[Zibby Owens]

How many do you have in a drawer? So are we thinking like 20 novels at this point?

[Camille Pagan]

At least five in a drawer that will never see the light of day. Unfixable.

[Zibby Owens]

Yeah, but how do you then move past those and not feel dejected and discouraged?

[Camille Pagan]

I didn't go to an MFA program and I went to a school where I took maybe two creative writing classes. It was all just studying literature and kind of that path. And I really do think of those drafts as my one woman MFA program. Yeah, that no work is wasted, which is so painful when you are, we've all been there, sitting there, working on something, thinking, this is it. And you get to the end, you're like, this is not it. But that's just part of the job.

[Zibby Owens]

And yet it's a job that only the brave hearted can really stick to.

[Camille Pagan]

You know, truly, it is like running around a neighborhood in your underwear and asking everyone to tell you what they think of your body. It's terrible.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh my gosh, Camille, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, Follow me on Instagram ibeowensk and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books. Then I thought, what if I've scaled businesses? What if I scaled my philanthropy? What if I did as much in one year as I've done in my whole life? See how your wealth could have even greater [e-mail] impact. This is a vacation with Chase Sapphire Reserve. The butler, the spa. This is the edit, a collection of handpicked luxury hotels and a $500 edit credit. Chase Sapphire Reserve. Now more rewarding. Learn [e-mail] SapphireServe cards issued by JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC subject to credit approval.

[Camille Pagan]

I'm Dr. Susan Swick, a child psychiatrist and the host of Talk about Able. This season, I'm talking with parents and experts about how we tackle the everyday challenges of raising kids. We'll get real about those pebble in the shoe issues we all face as parents and how to build resilience and community through our own experience. Experiences. Talk About Able Season 2 from Lemonada Media, in partnership with Montage Health and their Ohana center for Child and Family Mental Health, is out now.