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- [00:01]
Zibby Owens
Hey everyone, it's Zivi. I am so excited to tell you about something I've created just for you, the Zip Membership Program. ZIP stands for Zivi's Important People. It's for anyone who loves books, stories and wants a little peek behind the scenes at what I'm up to and what's on my mind as a Zip member. You'll get exclusive essays, a new podcast called Zivvy's Voice Notes. No interviews, just usually discounts at Zibby's Bookshop, a free ebook, and more perks. I wanted to create a space to connect authentically and deeply, and I'd love for you to be part of it. If that sounds like your kind of thing, become a Zip today. You're already important to me. Now let's make it official. Go to zibioens.com and click subscribe. And if you already subscribe, you can upgrade to the Membership program. And now onto today's episode of Totally Booked with Zibby. Thanks for listening.
- [00:56]
Sponsor Voice
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- [00:56]
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- [01:27]
Turn, it's New Year, New Me. But growth isn't a glow up trend, it's a practice. Grow Therapy helps you do the real work with licensed therapists who meet you where you are, not where anyone else says you should be. Whether it's your first time in therapy or your 50th, grow makes it easier to find a therapist who fits you, not the other way around. They connect you with thousands of independent licensed therapists across the US offering both virtual and in person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters like insurance, specialty, identity or availability and get started in as little as two days. And if something comes up, you can Cancel up to 24 hours in advance at no cost. There are no subscriptions, no long term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. Whatever challenges you're facing, Grow Therapy is here to help. Sessions average about $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Grow accepts over 100 insurance plans, including Medicaid in some states. Visit growtherapy.com acast today to get started. That's growtherapy.com acast growth acast availability and coverage by state and insurance plan.
- [02:50]
Interviewer
Foreign.
- [02:54]
Jenna Buchaeger
Hey guys, I'm Jenna Buchaeger from the Today show and I'm thrilled to bring you my podcast, Open Book with Jenna. Every week I sit down with fascinating people, authors, celebrities and friends to talk about life and the books that shaped them. If you love great conversations and discovering your next favorite read, join me on Open Book with Jenna. Listen now wherever you get your podcast.
- [03:24]
Zibby Owens
Hi, this is Zibby Owens and you're.
- [03:26]
Interviewer
Listening to Totally Booked with Zibby.
- [03:28]
Zibby Owens
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.
- [03:39]
Interviewer
Is worth your time.
- [03:41]
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 zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram Ibbeowens Alyssa Sheinmel is the author of Such Sheltered A Novel. I recorded this live at the Zibby's Bookshop Pop up at the Minnie Rose.
- [04:16]
Interviewer
Boutique in New York City.
- [04:17]
Zibby Owens
Alyssa Sheinmel is the New York Times best selling author of several novels for young adults, including A Danger to Herself and Others, the Castle School for Troubled Girls and Faceless Such Sheltered Lives is her adult debut. Alyssa grew up in Northern California and New York and currently lives and writes in New York.
- [04:36]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Welcome.
- [04:36]
Interviewer
Congratulations.
- [04:37]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be here.
- [04:40]
Interviewer
Oh, it's my pleasure. I really love this book. Really. I mean truly and truly. Tell everybody what your book is about, please.
- [04:47]
Alyssa Sheinmel
So a few years ago I read an article in the Guardian about a exclusive rehab facility for ultra high net worth individuals that was in Zurich. And I read a friend of mine sent me this article. I read it and the setting just rattled around my brain for months. I just knew there was a book there and before long three characters kind of emerged in my head. Florence Bloom, who is an underappreciated rock star who is struggling with pretty much everything. Amelia Blue Harris, who is struggling with an eating disorder and also the grief over the loss of her parents. And Lord Edward of Essex, who is the second son of an aristocratic British family who's trying to figure out who he is outside of his family of origin and also is struggling with addiction. And I had these three characters in my head, and I knew I wanted to place them in an exclusive facility. But my background being in YA I really struggled with Do I want to make this. I could see a way into the story as a young adult book, and I could see a way into the story as an adult book. And so I went back and forth kind of which way was the more interesting way in. And I actually ended up writing two versions of the opening chapters. I wrote a young adult version and I wrote an adult version. And I honestly really liked both and was excited by both. But the adult version just felt like I would get to delve into some things and give my characters more of a pass than I could my teenage characters. And so that kind of really sucked me in. So the book opens with a mysterious dead body. We don't know exactly whose it is. And then the story begins from the perspectives of these three different characters and alternates between the three of them as they find themselves in this very exclusive facility. And I was just fascinated by what would lead someone to a place that most of us have never even heard of. Most of us don't know this thing exists. And why would these characters end up there?
- [06:29]
Interviewer
Amazing. So the facility itself is actually on Shelter Island. Has anyone been to Shelter island in this room?
- [06:34]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yes.
- [06:35]
Interviewer
Which is a ferry ride off of other places adjacent to the Hamptons, perhaps. Do we include them in the Hamptons.
- [06:42]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Or included in the Hamptons? Okay. You know, Hamptons esque.
- [06:45]
Interviewer
Hamptons Light or something. Anyway. And the way you describe the facility and how the characters sort of inhabit these glass houses and cottages, really, that they call them, and how they sort of situate themselves in this landscape is a piece of what is so chilling about the book. So talk about why set it in Winter in Shelter Island.
- [07:06]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Well, initially, when I started writing those two versions of it, I actually set it in Zurich, which was where the place in the article I had read was. And it just wasn't working. And I. Every book I've ever written has been set in some place that is meaningful to me. It doesn't necessarily have to be a place that I personally lived. It was a place that took up a huge space in my imagination. And Zurich Fence to Zurich just didn't have that sort of hold on my imagination. And so I kind of stopped writing and took a step, beat away and had the idea to place it in Shelter island because the east end of Long island is my home. It's a place that's very important to me and that I love. And it's so beautiful, and I really love it most in the off season. I think there is sort of a magic and a strangeness in the off season where it's empty, but you. There are shadows of how crowded it is in the summertime, but it has this weird stillness and it's at once very bustling. Many people do live there year round, and it still has this feeling of sort of desolation and emptiness all at the same time. And so it just seemed like. And as soon as I moved the book to Shelter island, it became crystal clear to me. The setting, the glass houses, the glass cottages, the winding roads, like, it all seemed. I knew exactly what it looked like. I knew exactly what it felt like. I knew what it smelled like. Like it felt completely real in a way that when I had been trying to write it in Zurich, even though I had fantasies of taking a trip to Zurich for research, just work, once I placed it not only place that I'm more familiar with, but in a place that kind of has a real hold on my imagination. Oh, I knew that was the right place.
- [08:39]
Interviewer
Well, I'm not surprised because the way you write about it, the reader can feel and smell and have all of this, oh, thank you feelings too. So thanks for taking me there.
- [08:47]
Alyssa Sheinmel
It's really tricky because sometimes when it's so crystal clear to me, I feel like, oh, well, you can tell. I don't. I forget to put it on the page because it's. I'm like, oh, you can tell when I'm talking. Miming, typing. As I'm saying this, you can tell what I'm talking about. Right. I need to sometimes remind myself, oh, just because it's so clear to me doesn't mean it's as obvious to everyone else. So.
- [09:08]
Interviewer
Well, it worked. Whatever you did, it worked. Each of the main characters has something, not only the response to whatever is going on in their life, that is an addiction or an insurance or whatever, but they've had something really painful happen to them or that they are contending with. Can you take us through that? And why did you pick these things? Why the leg? Why the.
- [09:30]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Well, I think. Well, I'll start with Amelia Blue Harris, who, to me, kind of feels like even though all of these characters inhabit very rare by There and come from a very privileged and unusual background. Amelia, to me, is the character who feels a little bit the most like a stand in for the reader because she, she was born into this world. Her parents are famous, but she is not famous. And so she feels at once of this very privileged world of fame and completely outside of it. So she almost feels like a stand in for the reader because I feel like she's at once observing it and outside and in it. And her mother passed away. And I think, look, my own mother passed away several years ago. And since then, every single book idea I've ever had has a dead mother. I'm not doing it on purpose. It just is obviously something that looms very large. And it's probably something I'm trying to work out, whether I realize it or not in my writing. So I think writing about grief is just, if you read my books, you're going to be stuck reading a lot of grief for the next few years. And so for me, that just kind of was a natural. Again, not intentionally. I just. Having her mother be gone and just kind of what that means for the relationship you have for the person you lost because just because they're gone, the relationship doesn't end. And there's still so much you can learn about them and even try to communicate with them because you're still hearing from them. In Amelia's case, that's quite literal because she's found her mother's old diaries, so she's learning and hearing from her mother in ways that she hasn't before. Amelia is also struggling with an eating disorder, which is something I struggled with in the past. And I think that's something that also looms large in a lot of my books. Anorexia is the mental illness with the second highest mortality rate. And I just don't think we talk about that enough. So it ends up sneaking its way into a lot of my books because it's so deeply important to me.
- [11:11]
Interviewer
Were you, Were you ever. Can I ask you about it first? Were you ever hospitalized for it?
- [11:16]
Alyssa Sheinmel
No, it was something I kind of at once refused to acknowledge. I just, I struggled with it for years, probably in high school and college and a little bit after. And I kind of, in my stubborn, pigheaded way, just kind of refused to acknowledge that it was a problem. And then I kind of stubbornly and pigheadedly decided I was done with it. When I was about 24, I was just like, okay, I'm done with this. So possibly maybe the reason it keeps showing up in my Books and I keep having characters in therapy for eating disorders is because I was never in therapy for my eating disorder. So maybe I'm working it out in my fiction. I never thought of it that way, but it's entirely possible. And I think with Edward's character. So Edward is the son of an aristocratic British family who has been in a terrible car accident, has a leg injury, and is also struggling with the opioid addiction that from the drugs that they gave him to manage the pain of this injury. He's now addicted to them. That character, to me, felt like he comes from this world of such extraordinary privilege, but also extraordinary restriction. And he does, because he doesn't quite fit into. Never felt natural to him to be kind of of the aristocratic world. He never was. It didn't come as naturally to him as it did to his older sister and to his father. He's trying to figure out who he is outside of that family, which even though, again, his situation is so unusual. I think all of us at a certain point have to figure out who we are outside of our family of origin and how much of our family of origin affects our day to day and how much it doesn't. And I think. And how do we build a life that doesn't that maybe is outside of our family of origin? And I think that's something Edward is struggling with, that we all have to figure out at some point in our lives. I was also fascinated by what in the world of sort of primogeniture, where, like, your elder sibling inherits everything and you don't and you have to kind of make your way in the world, what does that do to your sibling relationship? So he has kind of a fraught relationship with his older sister. And then finally Florence, who I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but I can't pretend she's my favorite character to write. Her chapters are my favorite. I love Florence, and she was, like, deeply inspired by my favorite artists from the 90s. I have just an abiding love for 90s trends, 90s fashion, 90s music. I think I never quite got over that. And I have this character in Florence who is still dressing and acting like it's 1995. I love her. And so she was, like, deeply inspired by Tori Amos and Courtney Love and Fiona Apple and sort of these rock stars who were rock stars, but also singer songwriters from the 90s. There's also a little bit of Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks in there, two of my other favorite artists. So it just. She was Such a joy, a joy to write. Even though she's not a joyful character, for me, selfishly, it was a joyful exercise to write her chapters.
- [13:52]
Interviewer
Are you going to do one of those, like, book soundtracks on Spotify?
- [13:55]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Oh, my God. I do have, like, playlists written down, so I probably will. I have. There were certain albums that absolutely inspired and certain songs that absolutely inspired the Florence chapters. And so, yeah, I'll probably have to make a spot. Spotify playlist.
- [14:08]
Interviewer
So I found some of the relationships between the characters and the therapists really interesting how they each handle. Because they're in this cottage treatment center, everyone has like around the clock concierge therapist who like, won't leave them alone, checks on them in the middle of the night and just like appears magically basically all the time. And they have like a chef who's also a bodyguard, is also, who knows with like tattoos and, you know, whatever they want to eat. And anyway, they just have all these people out disposal. The housekeeper plays a really big role, but the therapist too. And how they get to talk to the clients or they don't call them clients. Call them like guests.
- [14:47]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Right.
- [14:47]
Interviewer
Guests in particular. With the eating disorders conversation, I think that was the one where she's. Amelia is so jaded by the treatments that she's just like, okay, what are we trying here? We're doing cbt. Are we doing this? Like, well, how are you going to get me? How are you going to make it better? So talk a little bit about the therapy itself and how you included those very fraught relationships.
- [15:08]
Alyssa Sheinmel
I mean, I think with the eating disorder, with Amelia's chapters in particular eating disorders, so many different types of therapy unfortunately are ineffective for eating disorders, particularly anorexia. It's very difficult to treat. And historically, therapists don't always like patients with eating disorders because they're really difficult. They're. I mean, I think it takes a very particular type of therapist to want to work with someone with eating disorders. Even though there's new research, I get very like up in arms about unfair treatment of people like that eating. Patients with eating disorders have been like, unfairly labeled difficult when really there's new research that shows that neurobiologically they may experience hunger differently. So when they're in therapy, they're not being difficult. They're actually being told to do something that goes against the way their brains are wired. This isn't obviously true for all patients with anorexia and bulimia and other eating disorders, but there is new research emerging about that. So I do get a little, I'm like very defensive for people with eating disorders who've been treated as being difficult patients. But I think, you know, the tricky thing about this therapy is are these therapists good and actually trying to help the patients or are they bad? Because there is this sense throughout the book, at least I hope there is, if I did my job right, that this place for all the luxury and the private chef and the nurse and the acupuncture in the yoga classes and cold plunge and sauna, that something is not quite right. Is this, is the, are these there. Do these therapists really have their patients best interest in mind or are they just running a for profit facility and they're trying to make money? So I tried to kind of play with that sort of gray area where maybe they're helping. And I do think, I hope by the end of the book the characters have been somewhat helped by the therapy. But at the same time, maybe, you know, how much can they be helped when the therapist's goal is not necessarily for you to leave, they want you to stay because they want you to continue being a paying customer and kind of wear that how exactly you kind of fill in that gray area.
- [16:58]
Sponsor Voice
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- [19:48]
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- [20:21]
Interviewer
Well, I feel all the characters have a lot of anger which you channel really effectively and and they kind of act out in different ways. And I really responded to Edward's fury, really not just about how he grew up and how he was under the spotlight and one time dropped a piece of cake on and like society never let him live it down and all of that, but because of his recent Injury and just how he forgets about it and runs one time. He just cannot deal with the fact that this is actually now a permanent condition caused by the accident. And what does that mean for him? And just his, his rage at having his life sort of changed in that way. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [21:01]
Alyssa Sheinmel
I mean, I think any of us who've been through any sort of life altering injury or surgery or, you know, diagnosis, you know, there's a grief that comes along with that and I don't know that it's always acknowledged as being as big of a grief as the loss of a person or like, I think sometimes we don't use the right language that something like that deserves grief. And even though I don't really believe in the stages of grief, one part of grief is anger. And that definitely is where Edward is stuck. And I think it takes a long time to accept that you, your body is not going to look the same or feel the same or work the same after a diagnosis or an injury of that sort. And I think Edward is stuck in that part where he's like, well, maybe he hasn't quite figured out how to live this way. I mean, a huge part of grief, whether it's for the loss of, you know, a healthy life that you had before a diagnosis, the limb you had before an injury, or the relationship you had before someone passed, a huge part of grief is that it doesn't end. It's just you learn how to live with it. And I think we, when it begins, we have this expectation that grief will end, that this is a part of my life that I have to deal with. And then at some point I'll go back to feeling the way I did before. And grief doesn't end. You just get used to it. We're hugely adaptable. So again, not to make, not to bring everybody down talking about the death of my mom, but I think my grief for her and my sister is here and I can see her nodding along. My grief for her has never ended. It has changed, it has grown. But it is my constant companion. It is never not with me. And I think a huge part of the way I have managed the loss of her is learning, oh, this is never going to end. This is. I have to kind of give my grief a comfy chair to sit in beside me all the time. And I don't get to be without it ever. Sorry.
- [22:44]
Interviewer
Can you tell us about your mom?
- [22:46]
Zibby Owens
What was she like?
- [22:47]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Oh, I'll really cry. My mom was magic. She was very, very beautiful. And I think, you know, to bring it back to the book. One of the reasons I wanted to write Amelia is losing someone who is beautiful and brilliant and lights up every room she goes into, but also incredibly complicated and whom you never got to ask all the things. I mean, this happens with everyone we lose. We always have questions we didn't get to ask and things we didn't get to say and things we didn't like. I always knew my mom was magic. It's not as though I didn't know that when she was alive, but when she was gone, it was like, oh, my God, the amount of magic that has gone from my life without her. And it's so funny, because she wasn't magic the way that some mothers are. My sister and I were talking about this recently where she wanted to. She didn't want to let us have a magical childhood. We knew from a very young age there was no Tooth Fairy, no Santa Claus, like she. There was no magic in our life in that way. But she was magic because every room she walked into, I mean, she was unbelievably beautiful, but every room she walked into, she was smarter than most people. And she knew it. She knew she was beautiful, she knew she was smart, and she walked into a room owning that, which was, as a child, I found embarrassing, especially as a teenager and as an adult, I'm like, oh, my God, I want to learn how to be that. Like, to walk in with that kind of confidence. And so, like, she made friends just walking down the street. She made. Her very best friends were people that worked at stores like this, that she befriended the salespeople, and, of course, always got the friends and family discount all year round. Like, she. She was just a magical person and very beautiful, very brilliant.
- [24:16]
Interviewer
Thank you for sharing a little bit of her. And I know in Courtney's essay, in the book, too, she has. Well, you'll just have to read it. The connections to people after they pass and the signs and how all that works.
- [24:29]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yes, yes. Courtney and I talk. My sister and I talk about this often, that we get signs and moments from her. You know, my mother loved butterflies. And every so often, like, the randomest appearance of a butterfly will happen in my life, and I just know that's a visit from her. The other thing that she and I shared, this will sound so silly, but my eulogy, which was three pages long, two pages, were about Jeopardy. And so every so often when I'm. She and I both love Jeopardy. And it was something we shared, and every so often, I'LL be watching Jeopardy. And there will be a clue that is somehow personally connected to her. And I'm like, oh, my mom's visiting during Jeopardy. It's like a little visit. Very nice.
- [25:06]
Interviewer
So nice. Yeah. My husband Kyle's mom passed away, and her sort of sign is rainbows. I have seen, like, a thousand rainbows in the last couple. I'm like, I'd never even seen more than maybe two in my life. And now it's like, oh, she's here to say hi. Look, she's here with us.
- [25:20]
Alyssa Sheinmel
It's really wonderful. And it is. As painful as the loss is, knowing the relationship isn't over is a comfort. Like knowing that, you know, that she's still a part of my life and always will be as very, very comforting, as awful as I'd rather she were the other kind of part of my life. It's nice that she's still with me. And I think, certainly with this book, I was trying to work that out with a character who had much more complicated questions that she never got to ask her mother and a much more complicated relationship with her mother than I did, that she is learning how to. I think she shut herself off from the signs and wonders of knowing that her mom was still with her. And I think this book is her opening that a lot of her journey in this book is realizing, oh, she's. I still am having this relationship. This is ongoing.
- [26:05]
Interviewer
Well, I feel like this has one of the best titles ever, because it's not just about that it takes place on Shelter island, but it is that these characters should be sheltered by their privilege and lifestyles and all of the things, all of the gifts, and yet they're not at all. Everything is cracked and painful, and there's bad things happening around them. And so it's almost like no matter how much we can we try to protect ourselves or no matter how much we believe our life is protected, it just isn't.
- [26:39]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you, because I struggled so much to find the title. So I'm glad it's a good title.
- [26:44]
Interviewer
So good.
- [26:44]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Round and round. But I think, you know, if, you know, everyone knows the expression, of course, money can't buy happiness. But I feel like this book is like, money can't buy mental health. Like, you know, even if you can afford, you know, what is supposedly the best care money can buy, even if your family like it, just there are some things that money cannot protect you from and cannot shelter you from. And, you know, I think that's what with these Characters, despite their incredible privilege, they're deeply hurting. And I think that makes them. I hope that makes them relatable, despite the sort of, you know, very rarefied air they inhabit.
- [27:16]
Sponsor Voice
Yeah.
- [27:16]
Alyssa Sheinmel
100.
- [27:17]
Interviewer
So when. When did you start writing? And like, what was that? Something that was part of your whole life, or is it something that you've used more recently to cope? I know you've written many books, so it couldn't have been overnight, but, I.
- [27:28]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Mean, I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I was one of those little kids who, like, when in my free time, I filled up notebooks of stories and whenever there was a creative writing assignment at school, I was the most happy. And I loved, like, getting to read my work in the classroom, although I outgrew that very quickly now. I hate it. But, yeah, I always just. I think from the point that I knew being a writer was something you could do as a grown up, I wanted to be a writer. I've always been writing. Just. It's just how I. Oh, I mean, I wrote. Had journals and I wrote poetry that was terrible in middle school. And, you know, I just always. This was always what I wanted to do, always what I wanted to be.
- [28:04]
Interviewer
And how did your transition from wanting to be an author into being a published author who now has more books coming out? You've, like, become part of the machinery of the industry. How has that become.
- [28:14]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yeah, I mean, I was very lucky. I worked in publishing before I published my first few books. I worked at a literary agency and then I worked at Random House. So I knew a lot about the machinery of the business, which I think has served me very well. I kind of my, you know, I understand how the business works, and I feel very grateful for that. And so my first book was published when I was 29 years old and I was working. It was published by the publishing house that I was working at at the time. So I really got to see the behind the gears, you know, behind the scenes. They tried to shelter me as much as they from it, but it was, you know, I was a little spy. I found things out. But yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things where every so often you stop and say to yourself, okay, I know I'm sitting in this and I'm struggling, like, will this book work? Will people like it? Will it get sold to a publisher? Will the publisher, you know, support it? And what's going to happen? And then you kind of have to step back and be like, okay, all I ever wanted when I was a little kid, was this job, and now I'm doing it, like, and you kind of have to remind yourself how wonderful that is. And I love my job, so I don't actually have to remind myself of that very often because I'm usually sitting in that feeling of, you know, loving my job. But every so often you have to be like, okay, this was all you ever wanted and you did it.
- [29:19]
Interviewer
It's amazing.
- [29:20]
Alyssa Sheinmel
It's very nice.
- [29:21]
Interviewer
It's really, it's really nice. It's really amazing. And why did you end up starting with. With younger readers?
- [29:27]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Well, so when I worked at Random House, I worked in the children's division and I worked on a lot of young adult books. And I think when I was growing up, the YA section of the bookstore was like one shelf of like young adult romance novels. And you know, you skipped over that immediately to go grown up if you were like a really big reader, which I was. And it wasn't until I got to Random House that I was like, oh, YA is very different now. This is a much more multi layer genre. There's a lot more you can do. And it was so exciting to me that it just so happened then that the first couple ideas I had for books were young adult books, because I think that was what I was surrounded by and what I was really excited by. And then that just kept going. Like, it was never an intentional, oh, I only want to write ya. It's just those are my ideas. Kept, kept being. And like I said, when I got the idea for this book, I even had two versions of it in my head because I was so used to writing ya and that's where my imagination immediately went. But I also wanted to challenge myself and push myself to do something new and different. And I also, like I said, got really excited about the possibilities of what this could be as an adult novel. And it was so interesting writing those early versions where I had both a YA version and an adult version was how similar they were. The character, you know, take Florence, for example, she's nearly 40 years old in the events of the book, but she still kind of behaves like a petulant teen. So her voice wasn't different, it was just, it was slightly different in her circumstances where, okay, this was her first trip to rehab, not her, you know, 12th. And her mom was her manager, not, you know, someone that she's been bossing around for years. So there were circumstantial things that were different, but that voice of hers was the same. And that actually made Me even more excited to write her as an adult because writing this adult who was still kind of trapped in her adolescence and trying to put on a brave face like, oh, this is my 12th visit to rehab, what do I care? I know what I'm doing. But actually she's just as scared as the 16 year old version of her that I had written. And that made me so connected to her. That made me just want to write that character.
- [31:23]
Interviewer
So are you like a 9 to 5 writer? Is this like, how does that, how is your, how is your work day? What does that look like?
- [31:30]
Alyssa Sheinmel
I'm very regimented. I like to work in the morning. So usually I get up, I do yoga, I have my breakfast, I make my tea and then I have to have my tea when it's writing time. So I go through several mugs of tea a day and then usually I do most of my writing, I would say between like 10:00am and 1:00pm I really like to get my work done in the morning. I'm just. This was true when I worked in an office. Like everyone knew not to set a meeting with me after three. I just kind of, I lose all momentum. If you want to set a meeting with me at six in the morning, I will get up and be there three in the afternoon.
- [32:00]
Interviewer
I just kind of, I literally emailed my team today and I was like, we're closing the office every day at three. It's too dark. I can't deal with this. Exactly.
- [32:07]
Alyssa Sheinmel
So I tend to do all my work in the morning. Obviously if I have to work in the afternoon, I will. If I'm on deadline or I have, you know, I think also I trend, I try to reserve the afternoons for email and marketing and social media stuff so that I really kind of have that morning time kind of tucked away for writing time. But I'm very boring. I'm so regiment. I do the same. I like to work at my desk. I don't like to take my computer somewhere. I just like to sit there with my teeth and my computer and no music. Just like, you know, I'm very boring. The only interruptions are my dogs.
- [32:36]
Interviewer
It is not boring. It's. Everybody has a process and look what you're doing with your mind. Your body might be sitting there, but.
- [32:43]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Look what you're creating. You're creating stuff every day.
- [32:46]
Interviewer
It's pretty awesome.
- [32:47]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Thank you. That's nice.
- [32:49]
Interviewer
Working in a cafe doesn't make you, no offense, I mean cafes are great and all that, but you know, but.
- [32:54]
Alyssa Sheinmel
I do think a lot of people get energy from being around other people. I get. I mean, I'm such an introvert. I get energy from being alone. So I think, you know, for. For a writer who's an extrovert, and I have some friends who are, you know, pure, pure extrovert writers. I think because this is a job that's so solitary, they need to be somewhere where there are people around. They need to be in a cafe or a shared office space. And I completely understand that because it gives them some energy just being around other people. To me, that sounds exhausting. I've come to the conclusion that I.
- [33:22]
Interviewer
Get energy from both.
- [33:24]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yeah.
- [33:24]
Interviewer
Being alone and being with other people.
- [33:26]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Just everything. Yeah. I mean, most of us are a mix. Like, I'm definitely a mix, but my writer brain is like, tuck me away. And, you know.
- [33:34]
Interviewer
And what kind of a reader are you?
- [33:36]
Alyssa Sheinmel
I mean, I am. I read everything. Like, I, I. There's not, like, one genre I love above another. I will read everything that is good. So I don't read as fast or as quickly as I used to. I think the more that I write, it cuts into my reading time a little bit. But I just, I will read everything that you put in front of me. Actually, one book that I read in two days was a book that I picked up because of your podcast, Heart the Lovers. I did read that one very fast. I loved it much, but. Yeah. And I'm very susceptible to suggestions. Like, I, you know, I love when someone tells me there's a book they loved and I have to read it. That's just the best feeling.
- [34:10]
Interviewer
Well, we should talk. I have lots of recommendations. There was a part in the book, I think it was Amelia Blue, and she was saying that actually her family used to be the Blouse, and they came over from Germany and they changed their name, and she feels she would never do that, but her family kind of sold themselves out. Talk just a little bit about that and how identity really is at the heart of everybody's story.
- [34:36]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yes. I mean, just in terms of blah. It's very important to me to always have Jewish characters in my books. So. And I. It's not something that is what the book is about, but having a character, it's actually Florence's parents who changed Blau to Bloom. And she is very protective of the fact that Blau. That she wanted to somehow find a way to embrace what the real meaning of the name. But I think all of these characters are struggling with identity because, like I said, Edward comes from this family of privilege and all of that privilege Comes with so many restrictions about the sort of person you're supposed to be, the sort of job you're allowed to have, the sort of person you're allowed to marry, where you're allowed to live. And figuring out kind of who he is outside of those restrictions is really, you know, for him, the challenge of his life. And he has this example in his mother, with whom he doesn't have a relationship, but who divorced his father when he was very young. And one of the requirements of the divorce is that she not be in her children's lives. She had no custody and no rights. And I think even though obviously that's incredibly difficult for him as a son, over the course of the book, he's like, I understand why someone would be like, I would do anything to get away from this family and to make my own way in the world. And I think all of these characters are trying to figure out, okay, how do I make my own way in the world? While still, I think for Amelia and Florence, accepting the family that they have, I think actually for Amelia, her struggle is to be more in her family and more of her family. Her parents both died when she was young, and she. She thinks those relationships, like we said, have ended. And figuring out how to still have a relationship with that family and how to figure out who she is when she is not rejecting her parents. It's interesting. I haven't put it quite this way before, but Edward is trying to figure out who he is if he does reject his family. And I think Amelia is trying to figure out who she is if she doesn't reject her and if she actually embraces where she came from.
- [36:22]
Interviewer
You can just take that on the road now.
- [36:24]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Yeah, I'm gonna use. I'm gonna write it down after and make sure I don't forget.
- [36:29]
Interviewer
What advice would you have to aspiring authors?
- [36:31]
Alyssa Sheinmel
Again, very boring. I just say to people, okay, very cliched. I just say, to read absolutely everything that you can get your hands on, you never know where. I mean, this came from a newspaper article. Another book of mine came from a tweet. Another book of mine came from a fairy tale that I love, love. I think ideas can come from absolutely anywhere. And I also firmly believe that every single thing I've ever read has taught me something about writing, even the things that I've hated because they've taught me about the kind of writing I don't want to do. I think that textbooks I have read have taught me about writing, because a well written textbook makes the thing you're Studying more interesting. And that was very educational to me. I always go back to my favorite psychology textbook in college. It was this huge, like, you know, thousand page tome. But the, the author of it inserted humor in random places and would make like Shakespearean references and things that really made the psychology come alive. And so that became one one of my favorite subjects, I think in large part because that textbook was so good. I think, you know, I read every genre. I read genres that are very different from mine. I was thinking the other day, Elizabeth Strout is probably, I don't know, my favorite living author probably. And she, her books are very different from mine, but something she does so beautifully is tell a story from different angles. And that's something I try to do in my books as well, you know, for a very different purpose. I'm trying to build suspense and she's just trying to like build a richer world. And I hope I'm also building a richer world when I do that. But she's taught me so much about how to do that. How do I tell the same story from different angles and different characters perspectives and then they're all inhabiting the same world. So I think my advice is just read everything. Everything has something to teach you.
- [38:08]
Interviewer
I mean, I didn't find that boring. Wow. Alyssa, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on Totally Booked. Thank you for such sheltered lives and for all the conversations that I know are going to come as a result of this book and all of the issues that you tap into in such a beautiful way while still making it a propulsive sort of mystery murder thing as well, which we didn't even go into.
- [38:31]
Sponsor Voice
So.
- [38:33]
Interviewer
So thank you so much and thanks to everybody for coming.
- [38:35]
Zibby Owens
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 ibbeowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.
- [38:57]
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