Michele Filgate, Kelly McMasters, and Joanna Rakoff, WHAT MY FATHER AND I DON'T TALK ABOUT: Sixteen Writers Break the Silence

Summary

Podcast Summary: "WHAT MY FATHER AND I DON'T TALK ABOUT: Sixteen Writers Break the Silence"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Totally Booked with Zibby
• Host: Zibby Owens
• Episode Title: Michele Filgate, Kelly McMasters, and Joanna Rakoff, WHAT MY FATHER AND I DON'T TALK ABOUT: Sixteen Writers Break the Silence
• Release Date: May 29, 2025

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Introduction

In this deeply moving episode of Totally Booked with Zibby, host Zibby Owens engages with esteemed authors Michelle Filgate, Kelly McMasters, and Joanna Rakoff to discuss their contributions to the anthology "What My Father and I Don't Talk About: Sixteen Writers Break the Silence." This collection delves into the often unspoken and complex relationships between fathers and their children, offering raw and heartfelt narratives that resonate with many listeners.

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Guest Introductions

Michelle Filgate is the editor of What My Father and I Don't Talk About. Her writing has been featured in prestigious publications such as Long Reads, Poets and Writers, The Washington Post, and The Paris Review. Michelle holds an MFA in fiction from NYU, where she received the Stein Fellowship, and currently teaches writing at the New School.

Joanna Rakoff is an international bestselling author known for her memoir My Salinger Year and the novel A Fortunate Age, which won the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction and the Elle Readers Prize. Her works have been translated into 20 languages, and My Salinger Year was adapted into a film released in 2021. Joanna's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Oprah, and Vogue.

Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, and mother, with notable works including Leaving A Memoir and Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town, the latter inspiring the Sundance Selects documentary The Atomic States of America. She co-edits the anthologies Women Writing About Desire and Women Writing About Home. Kelly is an associate professor of English and Director of Publishing Studies at Hofstra University.

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Origins of the Anthology

Michelle Filgate explains the inception of the anthology series, which began with her viral essay "What My Mother and I Don't Talk About". Observing the widespread response, she identified a significant demand for stories about paternal relationships, leading to the creation of the father-focused companion anthology.

"I wanted to do an anthology because the subtitle of both of these anthologies are... writers break the silence." — Michelle Filgate [06:45]

Joanna Rakoff discusses how TikTok played an unexpected role in popularizing the first anthology, with young women sharing their love for the book, resulting in millions of views and driving demand for the sequel.

"They just were talking about how much they liked the book. It was like a quick video that was like maybe a minute long..." — Joanna Rakoff [07:45]

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Joanna Rakoff’s Contribution

Joanna Rakoff delves into her essay titled "Thumbs Up", reflecting on her relationship with her father and the subtle ways he communicates love and connection. She explores themes of emotional distance, legacy, and the evolving nature of parent-child relationships.

"He is obsessed with collecting memorabilia that reminds him of his youth." — Joanna Rakoff [26:14]

Joanna highlights the difficulty of writing about someone close, emphasizing how her insights deepened her understanding of her father's character and their interactions.

"I really love my mom a lot, and our relationship is complicated, and I love my dad a lot, but I'm really close with my dad..." — Joanna Rakoff [26:14]

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Kelly McMasters’ Contribution

Kelly McMasters shares her heartfelt essay, which intertwines her experiences growing up with her father and the emotional complexities that have shaped their relationship. She reflects on her father's methods of communication and the impact of his passing on her understanding of fatherhood.

"He couldn't talk to me about what he necessarily wanted to be talking to me about... but he did it in his own way." — Kelly McMasters [24:28]

Kelly discusses the therapeutic process of writing, describing how crafting her essay felt like a personal breakthrough and a way to honor her father’s legacy.

"I had a lot of trouble writing this essay... but I did, and it was much easier in that setting." — Kelly McMasters [30:03]

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Michelle Filgate’s Insights

Michelle Filgate reflects on her role as editor and contributor, sharing how writing about her own father provided a sense of closure and deeper understanding of familial bonds. She discusses the universal desire to explore and articulate complex feelings towards parents.

"We were just at the LA Times Book Festival... sometimes the whole piece is just throat clearing until the final graph." — Michelle Filgate [32:04]

Michelle emphasizes the evolving nature of parent-child relationships and how sharing these stories can inspire listeners to reflect on their own relationships.

"What stories would I write about my dad? And should I go write them?" — Michelle Filgate [29:28]

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Impact and Reflections

The conversation turns to the emotional impact of sharing such personal stories and the communal healing that can arise from breaking silence. The guests express hope that listeners will find solace and understanding through the anthology, encouraging them to explore their own unspoken narratives.

Joanna Rakoff remarks on the fluidity of personal narratives, acknowledging that perspectives and feelings may change over time.

"My story is gonna change, just like I would change the essay in my first book." — Joanna Rakoff [30:03]

Kelly McMasters discusses the empowerment that comes from redefining legacies and the importance of open conversations about fatherhood.

"It feels empowering and I'm glad that I have that now to know, to have a new understanding of what he had to work against, to parent in the way that he did." — Kelly McMasters [34:15]

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with heartfelt thanks to the authors and contributors for their courageous sharing of personal stories. Michelle Filgate congratulates the team on the anthology's launch, highlighting the collective effort in bringing these narratives to life.

"Thank you so much to all of you and to all the contributors for contributing to what my father and I don't talk about. Congrats." — Michelle Filgate [34:15]

Zibby Owens wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to engage with the anthology and support the authors by purchasing their books.

"If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram @zibbyowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books." — Zibby Owens [34:31]

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Key Takeaways

• Personal Narrative as Healing: Sharing deeply personal stories about father-child relationships can be a powerful tool for healing and understanding.

• Evolving Relationships: Relationships with parents are dynamic and can change over time, influencing how we perceive and relate to them.

• Community and Connection: Anthologies like What My Father and I Don't Talk About create a sense of community, allowing individuals to see reflections of their own experiences in others' stories.

• The Power of Writing: Writing serves as a therapeutic process, enabling authors to explore and articulate complex emotions and relationships.

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This episode offers a poignant exploration of father-child dynamics, enriched by the authors' candid reflections and literary prowess. Whether you’re navigating similar relationships or seeking to understand the intricacies of familial bonds, this discussion provides valuable insights and heartfelt narratives.

Transcript

[Zibby Owens]

Clips from the Totally Booked Live series are now up on Instagram totallybooked with Zivi. Check it out.

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[Zibby Owens]

Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think.

[Michelle Filgate]

Is worth your time.

[Zibby Owens]

As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to stay in the know, get insider insights and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbedia.com and follow me on Instagram. Iby Owens.

[Michelle Filgate]

Welcome back to Totally Booked. I am so Excited to be talking to so many contributors and the editor, Michelle Filgate, of what my father and I don't talk about. Sixteen writers. Break the Silence. And I'm here with Kelly McMasters and Joanna Rakoff as well. Such a treat. Oh, my gosh.

[Joanna Rakoff]

Thank you so much for having us.

[Michelle Filgate]

Oh, it's so much fun. Okay, I'm gonna read quickly all of their bios, like, really, really fast so that you know who they are. Michelle Philgate is the editor of what My Mother and I Don't Talk About. Her writing has appeared in Long Reads, Poets and Writers, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Paris Review, I'm Gonna Just Stop, and many other publications. She received her MFA in fiction from nyu, where she was the recipient of the Stein Fellowship. Michelle teaches writing at the New School. We also have Joanna Rakoff. I hope these are alphabetical, and if not. Okay, okay, Joanna Rakoff. And by the way, all of these authors have been on my podcast before, and I love them all. Joanna Rakoff is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and the bestselling novel A Fortunate Age, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction and the Elle Readers Prize. Rakoff's books have been translated into 20 languages, and the film adaptation of My Salinger Year opened in theaters worldwide in 2021 and is now streaming, which I saw. She has been the recipient of fellowships and residencies from McDowell, Yado, Malay Arts, Sawani, Breadloaf, I'm Gonna Stop There so Many. And has taught at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, and Aspen Words. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Oprah, Daily Vogue, Elle, Porter, and elsewhere. Her new memoir, the Fifth Passenger, is forthcoming from Little Brown in 2026. Which we keep teasing for, like, years now, so I would really love to get that out. I can't wait to read it. I can't wait to read it. And finally. Kelly McMasters is an essayist, professor, mother, and former bookshop. She's the author of the Leaving A Memoir and welcome to Shirley A Memoir from an Atomic Town, which was the inspiration for the Sundance Selects documentary the Atomic States of America. She is also the co editor, along with Margot Kahn, of the anthologies Women Writing About Desire and this Is the Women Writing About Home. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the Atlantic, Lit Hub, the New York Times, Orion Magazine, the Paris Review, Daily River, Teeth, vqr, and more. She is an associate professor of English and Director of Publishing Studies at Hofstra University in New York. Find her on Stubstack at the Magpie [e-mail] Are you impressed by these women or what? Okay, Michelle, tell us about this project, the. The one that came before and how this one came to be.

[Joanna Rakoff]

So my first book came about because I wrote an essay that was published by longreads in 2017, right when the MeToo movement took off and my essay went viral. It was about my stepfather abusing me and the fracture that caused in my relationship with my mom. And I think the essay did not just go viral because of the content, but also the title of the essay, which was what My Mother and I Don't Talk About. I kept hearing from so many writers who said, I have a story about what I don't talk about with my mom. And I realized it was a great writing prompt. So I quickly put together a proposal and sold that as an anthology. I wanted to do an anthology because the subtitle of both of these anthologies are. The first one is 15 writers break the Silence. This one, the father collection, is 16 writers break the silence.

[Michelle Filgate]

You just couldn't cut the one extra pack. It would have been so much easier.

[Joanna Rakoff]

I know, but I wanted to do this as a group because it's so much easier to stand on a stage with others, to be in a book with others, writing about something that is so vulnerable. No matter how close you are or not to your parents, it's a very difficult thing to write about your parent. And it's something that speaks to so many people because everyone starts to think about what their relationship is like with their parent when they read these books. So the first book went viral on TikTok twice a few years after it came out.

[Michelle Filgate]

How did you make that happen?

[Joanna Rakoff]

I didn't do anything. I watch TikToks, but I've never made a TikTok myself. But these wonderful young women in their 20s who I had never met before, read the book, loved it. And the first one had 1 million views. The second one got 5 million views.

[Michelle Filgate]

What did they do?

[Joanna Rakoff]

They just were talking about how much they liked the book. It was like a quick video that was like maybe a minute long about. The first one was talking about the book. The second one had music playing with some text on the screen.

[Michelle Filgate]

But I'm looking for tactical tips here.

[Joanna Rakoff]

Yeah, I know.

[Michelle Filgate]

For a friend, what is it that.

[Joanna Rakoff]

Makes a TikTok go viral? Who knows? But I quickly realized in the comments and also as I was traveling the country doing book events for that first book, so many people were asking, where is the book about Dads. And so it just really made sense to have this companion book that could have been, honestly, twice as long. And, you know, there are so many amazing contributors in here, including Joanna and Kelly, who I'm so pleased to be on stage with today. So it was an extraordinary experience to work with all of these writers in this book. And I have two writers in the anthology who contributed to the first one because I thought it would be interesting to see them write about their mom and their dad. So Naomi Minavira and Dylan Landis are both in. In both books.

[Michelle Filgate]

And Dylan was in the audience at the LA Times Festival of Books. And we were both there.

[Joanna Rakoff]

Exactly.

[Michelle Filgate]

It's lovely to meet her. Well, I was so excited when I saw this coming out, and I'm like, it's about time. I loved the first book. Okay, Joanna, talk about your essay, and welcome.

[Kelly McMasters]

Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to be here. So I. Well, I'll just say I loved what my mother and I don't talk about. I've read some of the essays in it a few times, and I love anthologies in general. I'm like an anthology person, and I love essays. I think Kelly is the same, probably like an essay junkie. And I was so, so excited when Michelle asked me over a barbecue dinner at an AWP a few years ago to contribute something. And I was sort of like, here's my two second pitch. And the other people at the table were weighing in, like, maybe it should be more like this. Maybe that's kind of boring. Maybe it should be more like this. So anyway, it was very, very exciting to be asked to do this and also to work with Michelle, whom I've known forever and who I love. But my essay, which will be woven, it is woven mostly into my new book, which is called the Fifth Passenger, is about one secret. My family has a lot of secrets, a lot of things we don't talk about. And that book, as you know, Zivi, is about growing up with this enormous secret that I grew up believing. I had one sister who's almost 19 years older than me. People would think she was my mother and that kind of thing, and discovering about middle school age that there were two kids in between us who had been killed and I didn't know why. And in the book, I kind of go and report out what happened, which is taking a very long time. So initially, Michelle said, please. We thought the book, the Fifth Passenger, was going to come out before this book. So she said, please don't write about your Siblings. And thus I chose a different secret. So, finally, what my essay is about is basically something related to this, which is essentially growing up with this idea in my family that my father was from this kind of scrappy, Lower east side, poor socialist background. He'd kind of raised himself on the streets. He was, like, fighting gangs and running away from bullies and that kind of thing, like something you would see in, like, a 1940s movie. And my mother was a kind of coddled, wealthy, beloved child from a rich family in the Adirondacks. And there were lots of holes in this story, including the big one being that my father would always say, don't ask your mom about her childhood. And it turned out that, in fact, this was constructed basically by my father, possibly as a way of kind of glamorizing our life. He had given up a career in the theater to be with my mom. And I think he sort of was always a little bit sad. In a small way, though, he didn't show it, about this loss and about the kind of, like, suburban pedestrianness of our life. I'm not entirely sure my parents passed away, my dad, a long time ago. But in this essay, I kind of look into how this all came out and these holes and what this secret did to our family.

[Michelle Filgate]

Your essay was so powerful. I mean, it was amazing. And every time I feel like I read anything of yours, I'm just, like, so eager for more details. Because you share in, like, dribs and drabs all about your life in all these different places. The memoir and this and that. Now I'm like, oh, no way. That's what her relationship with her mom was like. I mean, because it was. There was quite a distance, right? And you had this moment in the car with her where you're just, like, trying to be, like, with your dad, being like, why does my mom not like me? I mean, that's. That's so hard.

[Kelly McMasters]

It's true. I'm, like, about to cry. It's true. I think many people were raised by this kind of mother. Like, this is a little bit the plot of Gilmore girls, my favorite TV show. But when that show launched in 2000, people were sort of calling me, saying, is Emily Gilmore based on your mom? And I'm not making that up. And there was this kind of enormous distance between us, I think, because my mom, for lack of a better term, kind of leaned into this mythology and kind of created this Persona for herself of this kind of, you know, fur coat, clad, always perfectly made up, sort of Upper East Side ish lady who really believed. And I know this is partly a generational thing, but it was also a very. Her thing believed that her job was not to be my friend, was not to show me who she really was, but to kind of show me how to be a lady by example, kind of. It wasn't to take care of me emotionally or to get to know me. It was to kind of show me how to properly put on the right brand of stockings and what heel height was appropriate for what occasion did I get it right? I don't know. I don't know. And that kind of thing.

[Michelle Filgate]

Well, at the end, when she finally opens up to you and shares more about her own life and you could have that moment, I mean, like, the sense of closure, don't you feel like was so wonderful in a way? I mean, hard earned and maybe not in time, but.

[Kelly McMasters]

No, I really do. My mom passed away about a year and a half ago. I wrote an essay about this for cup of Joe. If you want to see it. There's a little more detail. And in the final year or so of her life, possibly because she had dementia, she opened up in ways she hadn't and revealing all sorts of unhappiness and also her actual history. And in the book, you'll see there's a lot. There are these kind of reveals throughout the new book where she does reveal other things to me as well. And it did. When she died, I felt closer to her than I ever had. So there was definitely. And yet I wonder if any of you all you feel this way about anyone in your life. That closeness at the end really made me want just more time with her. It made me wish that we could have had years in which I knew more of the actual her and there wasn't this distance between us.

[Michelle Filgate]

I remember when my grandmother had dementia and at Thanksgiving, I overheard my dad talking to my uncle and he said, you know, how's Mom? And one of them said, not good. She said, I love you.

[Kelly McMasters]

Exactly.

[Michelle Filgate]

Anyway, Kelly.

[Kelly McMasters]

How do I follow that? My goodness. And that essay is just luminous. Both your essays, the cup of Joe, one about your mother and. And the one in this book. So. Right. I mean, how do we not cry when we talk about these essays? They're everything for us. And I think when Michelle approached me to be in this book, and I'm so honored to be joined, to be in a chorus in this kind of beautiful chorus of these writers, I thought I was going to write about my father's hatred of grass because we growing up we lived on golf courses. And I grew up in the golf course, not in the way that you may be thinking, but because my dad worked at the golf course. And so I actually, when I was very little, believed the entire thing did belong to us. We were, you know, stuck in sort of the, like, drafty back wings of the clubhouses or, you know, in a little cottage at the very ed. And, well, what I thought was a cottage. When I was reporting out this story that I ended up telling, I realized it was actually a single wide trailer. And my mom sent me the photo, and I thought, because she knows that I loved that house. We lived in many houses, but that was my favorite. And I said, this can't be the house. And she said, this is absolutely that house with the potbelly stove and this and that. And there it was on cinder blocks and this sort of sagging little scrappy place that was so magical to me, right? So as a kid growing up in these situations, I never thought about my dad as someone's employee. And what I realize now is he. I looked at him and he just seemed like the person everybody wanted to talk to as the golf pro or, you know, he would sometimes sell sodas at the tennis court and things like this. And so while I thought that I would be writing about the way we speak and plant, that's what I talk about. He loves gardening, so whenever we talk, we talk about rhizomes. It's kind of a joke. It's his favorite. Every conversation will come back to, well, you know, the way rhizomes work is they go underground, and you have to, you know, so it always comes back to rhizomes. And what I understood through writing this piece is, yes, that's how we communicate. And I understood why. And it's because he actually, although his father lived in the house with him, he was not much of a father. And my grandfather's father abandoned him. And what I learned through writing this, and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to write through it, just to see it, was the intentionality that my father brought to being a father and being a parent. And I think for myself, when I was going through a divorce, I have two sons, and my father would not really want to talk about it, but we would garden next to each other, and he would show me how to split hostas and say, look at how much more growth you get when you split the hosta at the right time and things like this. And I realized he couldn't talk to me about what he necessarily wanted to be talking to me about or what I wanted him to be talking to me about, but he did it in his own way. And then as my children were growing up in a home without a father, I felt such a hole and an absence and tried to fill that space myself. And I was so grateful that my father was there to help me fill that space. And so it was plants, but it was, you know, and he hates grass, which I hate grass too. It's just an American thing. And so it's an essay that I thought would be funny and turned out to be probably one of the most vulnerable pieces. And I've written a lot of memoir, but it turned out to be one of the most vulnerable pieces I've ever written.

[Joanna Rakoff]

So thank you to both of you for these gorgeous essays.

[Zibby Owens]

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[Michelle Filgate]

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[Zibby Owens]

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[Joanna Rakoff]

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[Kelly McMasters]

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[Michelle Filgate]

Kelly, in your essay, you have a moment where you're on the phone with your dad. I think you're on the phone and he that he wanted to talk to your son about something and to tell him that how proud he was of him and how he had sort of come through this divorce well, and how he's really just proud of the way he's aging and you choke up on the phone and can barely talk because you're like, of course you can tell my son this. Do I want you to notice, to express that you notice that what I'm doing is working and oh my gosh, it was so moving. I'm not explaining that very well.

[Kelly McMasters]

But no, you are. And I couldn't talk to him about what that meant to me either because I realized in writing this I talked to him about implant as well it's just how we communicate. And I hope I did ask him to read this before I sent it in. And actually my mother as well. And he, you know, he thought. He thought, sure, you can write whatever you want. He didn't have any changes. And the only change that my mom had was can you just call that. Just don't use the word trailer. So I think I did change that to just single wide. But, yeah, it's interesting. I think as a writer, I find it so much easier to write him a card or write an essay that I'm going to share with other people and be terrified when he reads it than just be on the phone with him or be next to him and talking. So I'm grateful for at least having that outlet to share with him. So he knows. I think he knows. I think he knew before he read the essay, but so he knows how much the way he fathered me and taught me how to parent really means to me.

[Michelle Filgate]

It was really beautiful. And, Michelle, you also wrote about a way of communicating with your dad. Both of you have adhd and the way you kind of talk at each other, but that's the way you're connecting. Talk a little bit about your essay and what that was about.

[Joanna Rakoff]

Yeah. So my essay is called Thumbs up, because that's my dad's favorite emoji. That's how he shows he cares, is he often will send me a thumbs up in response to texts or Facebook messages I send him. But I initially, when I started writing my piece, the focus was gonna be more on my uncle, who took his own life in 2019, and he is in this piece. But I realized as the piece was evolving that what this piece was really about was how after my uncle died, my dad, that was his best friend. My dad is one of four boys, and they were so close, they would talk a million times a day. They were in bands together. And so once Uncle Jim died, my dad tried to fill that hole in his life by calling his daughters a ton as much as often as he would call Uncle Jim. But our conversations are very much on the surface, partially because I think this is a common dad thing where it's really hard for dads to have some dads anyway, to have serious emotional conversations. So he shows his love in other ways by calling to check in, just to ask how I'm doing. But it's often at very inconvenient times, like while I'm waiting for the subway or, you know, in a zoom meeting, meeting at work, or, you know, and he'll be like, are you at work? And I say, yes, and thumbs up. It's like he's just. He's just calling to check in. And I've learned that that is his way of showing love. And the piece is also about how objects are something that mean a lot to us, and that's another way we communicate. So my dad. Oh, my gosh. He is obsessed with collecting, like, memorabilia that reminds him of his youth. He's in his 70s, and office at home is lined with toy Studebaker cars, because when he was a kid in the 50s, his dad had a Studebaker. He's got all these things that he has a shrine to his youth, basically in his office. He keeps his office locked at home, like someone is going to break into. And I've learned that I also have this need to hold on to objects, too. So it is about the ways that we understand each other, even when I don't think we understand each other. And I'm very close to my dad. And it was an interesting challenge to write about that. I don't know if either of you felt this way, but it was easier for me, even though it was the hardest thing I've ever written, when I wrote about my mom, who, by the way, I'm in a good place with her now, which is an extraordinary thing. But I. I really love my mom a lot, and our relationship is complicated, and I love my dad a lot, but I'm really close with my dad, and I found that it is really hard to write about someone you are close with. And so that was such a challenge as a writer, but a good challenge. And I enjoyed that challenge.

[Michelle Filgate]

I was sitting, reading these, and I was thinking, what essay would I have written? Like, what story? And I feel like, of course, that's probably what we're all thinking when we read a collection like this. Like, what stories would I write about my dad? And should I go write them? And I probably should, but I'm not going to da, da da.

[Kelly McMasters]

And then I would anyway.

[Joanna Rakoff]

And that's what I'm hoping will happen as people are reading this book. Like, what would they say about their dad? Right?

[Michelle Filgate]

Do you feel, like, a sense of relief? Or, like, how do you all feel having gone down this path and explored not only the many things you could have written about, but what you ended up saying?

[Joanna Rakoff]

I personally feel like, if you ask me, a year from now, my story is gonna change, just like I would change the essay in my first book. And I feel like our relationships to our parents are constantly Evolving. And so who we are a year from now might transform what we would say. Even if I am happy with what I wrote, but as a writer, I'm always thinking about the evolving relationship, too. What are you?

[Kelly McMasters]

I may be slightly different because my father passed away in 2010, so it's been some time, but. And yet my relationship with him, in my mind, my understanding of who he is has changed a lot, especially over writing this book and the endless research for it and uncovering things about him that I didn't know, which we won't discuss. Some good, some bad. But I had a lot of trouble writing this essay, as in, I wrote the first part, and I kind of knew what the framework would be. And then when it got to the point where I had to kind of go deeper to the actual heart of the essay, there was something kind of stopping me. I would sit at my desk and then be like, why not clean the kitchen now? You know, you guys all know what this is like. And I eventually, my closest friend has a country house and was like, you're coming to my country house for four or five days and you're writing this essay. You have to write this essay. And so I did, and it was much easier in that setting. And I remember when I finished it, I almost felt kind of like. I don't know, like I had run a marathon or I had slept for a week, or there was this feeling that I haven't quite had with other essays, in which I suppose what it was was simply that I felt that I had worked something out for myself, that I had figured something out that I hadn't known before. And when you write essays, there are always things you don't know, but sometimes you know a lot more. And with this one, I think I really didn't know fully what the story was until it was done, you know, Definitely.

[Michelle Filgate]

We were just at the LA Times Book Festival, and Jordan Blumetti was one of the editors on one of the panels. Said he's found as an editor that often the last sentence of an essay is exactly where it's supposed to begin.

[Kelly McMasters]

Yes, that was one of my. When I worked as a magazine editor, I would often, even with reported stories, I would be like, you can all of this. My boss, Blake Eskin, who founded the New Yorker Online, used to say to all of us sub editors, sometimes the whole piece is just throat clearing until the final graph.

[Michelle Filgate]

Yes.

[Kelly McMasters]

And you just have to cut the throat clearing.

[Michelle Filgate]

So maybe that was what he was talking about. Maybe he was quoting that. Okay, well, whatever yeah, same concept. What did you think?

[Kelly McMasters]

Oh, yeah, I think, I mean, essay is my primary form of writing. It's the way that I work things out. I think that sounds very similar. This was tricky because usually I think about when an essay occurs to me, it's because of some darker tension. And I didn't know when I started this essay where it was going to go. And I think in one moment when I was interviewing my mom, I had a moment where she said to me, you know, he never really had a father. And I realized she could have been talking about either my father or my grandfather. And I'm so glad that I understand that now, while we still have time to open those conversations and have those conversations, to talk to my sons who are now 13 and 15 about that sort of fatherhood legacy. And it gives me some relief as a single parent that I can change the legacy. Right. It feels empowering and I'm glad that I have that now to know, to have a new understanding of what he had to work against, to parent in the way that he did. And, and I'm glad that I wish I had it when my kids were much younger and I felt so hopelessly underwater with everything, but I'm so grateful now that I have it.

[Michelle Filgate]

Amazing. Well, thank you so much to all of you and to all the contributors for contributing to what my father and I don't talk about. Congrats.

[Kelly McMasters]

Thank you, Sydney.

[Michelle Filgate]

And thank you to everyone in the audience. Thank you all for being here today. Thank you. I hope you had fun.

[Zibby Owens]

Thank you for listening to Totally Bucket 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 ibyoans and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

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[Zibby Owens]

Shop now at Walmart. Clips from the Totally Booked Live series are now up on Instagram totallybookedwithzibby. Check it out.