Ep 458: Live from Nashville: good conversation about creativity and community with readers and writers

Summary

Episode 458 Summary: Live from Nashville – A Deep Dive into Creativity and Community with Anne Bogel and Damian

In this vibrant live episode of What Should I Read Next?, host Anne Bogel joins forces with Damian from the Writer Fest podcast to explore the intricate worlds of creativity, community, and the writing journey. Recorded live from Nashville on December 10, 2024, this episode offers listeners an intimate look into Anne's experiences as a reader, writer, and community builder.

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1. Introduction to the Live Nashville Episode

The episode kicks off with Anne expressing her excitement about the live format and the collaborative spirit of Nashville's creative community. She sets the stage for a heartfelt conversation centered around creativity and fostering meaningful connections among writers and readers.

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2. Anne Bogel's Journey as a Reader and Writer

Origins of "Modern Mrs. Darcy" Blog

Anne shares the humble beginnings of her blog, Modern Mrs. Darcy, which started as a creative outlet during a challenging year in her legal career. Reflecting on her initial reluctance, she recalls:

"[11:58] Anne Bogel: ...one year around New Year's 2010, my husband and I were having a late night conversation about how did the year go?... he was like, you should start a blog. And half an hour later I was […]."
— [11:58]

Transition to "What Should I Read Next?" Podcast

From her blog, Anne organically transitioned to creating the What Should I Read Next? podcast in 2016. She emphasizes the importance of genuine conversations about books, helping listeners navigate their reading choices without the pressures of trends or marketing hype.

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3. Building a Community of Readers

Experiences at Writer Fest

During the Nashville trip for Writer Fest, Anne and Damian delve into the significance of writerly gatherings. Anne reflects on the sense of community she witnessed:

"[15:07] Anne Bogel: ...we're like a bunch of nerds who want to talk about books and life. I love my corner of the Internet and it's been great."

Anne discusses how online communities can foster deep, meaningful relationships that transcend geographical boundaries, leading to real-life connections and collaborations.

Online Connections vs. Real-Life Communities

Anne contrasts her initial skepticism about online friendships with the rich, supportive community she now enjoys. She describes how meeting online friends at conferences like Writer Fest has enhanced her writing journey and personal growth.

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4. Anne's Path to Publishing

First Book: "Reading People"

Anne recounts her first foray into writing with Reading People, a handbook on understanding personality types. She shares the challenges of writing her debut book while navigating the publishing world.

Second Book: "I'd Rather Be Reading"

Transitioning to her second book, I'd Rather Be Reading, Anne explores the essence of being a dedicated reader. She discusses the inspiration behind the book and how it reflects her passion for nurturing a thoughtful reading community.

Third Book: "Don't Overthink It"

Her latest work, Don't Overthink It, delves into strategies for interrupting negative thought patterns and fostering positive habits. Anne narrates her personal struggles with overthinking and how writing this book served as a therapeutic outlet. As she puts it:

"[26:58] Anne Bogel: ...I wrote the book for people more like myself, who saw that they could use some guidance, but from someone, like, who had been there too."

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5. Creativity and Decision-Making

Life Hacks to Minimize Decision Fatigue

Anne shares practical tips to streamline decision-making, freeing up mental energy for creative endeavors. One notable strategy involves limiting daily choices, such as deciding on specific colors to wear to reduce unnecessary decisions.

Routines and Habits that Support Creativity

She emphasizes the importance of establishing routines that align with one's creative rhythms. For instance, Anne adjusts her schedule seasonally to ensure she spends time outdoors, which invigorates her creative process.

"[30:34] Anne Bogel: Routines are huge. Like, mine changes with the season. I get cranky when I sit at my desk all day."

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6. Engaging with the Wider Creative Community

Valuing Insights from Various Creatives

Anne expresses her fascination with learning from diverse creatives beyond the realm of writing. She appreciates the unique perspectives of poets, musicians, and screenwriters, which enrich her understanding of the creative process.

"[36:58] Anne Bogel: I'm just an appreciator, but I love hearing how any creator conceives of and relates to their work. I just am endlessly fascinated by that."

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7. The Importance of Authentic Content and Community

Differentiating Community from Noise

In a saturated market filled with book promotions and social media buzz, Anne discusses the challenge of creating content that fosters genuine community rather than adding to the noise. She highlights the role of her dedicated team in ensuring that their content remains meaningful and supportive.

"[66:48] Anne Bogel: ...let's see if this is needed here. Because this is now an available resource. And we decided no."

Authenticity in Content Creation

Anne emphasizes the necessity of producing content that she truly believes in, ensuring that it resonates with her community. She prioritizes authenticity over popularity, aiming to create a space where readers feel valued and understood.

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8. Audience Q&A

Dedication to Writing

Listener Georgia asks Anne about the pivotal moments that cemented her commitment to a life of writing and storytelling. Anne reflects on ongoing self-dialogues that reinforce her dedication:

"[60:33] Anne Bogel: ...remembering that hard writing makes for easy reading... it matters. And just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing."

Turning Small Starts into Successes

Anne shares anecdotes about early milestones, such as earning commission from affiliate links, underscoring the importance of persistence and celebrating small victories in the creative journey.

"[61:42] Anne Bogel: ...I made 27 cents. And I was like, you can't actually buy anything at Kroger for 27 cents. But this could be a start."

Encouraging Community Support

She closes by highlighting the generosity and trust within her community, appreciating listeners who share their personal stories and allow Anne to guide them through their reading lives.

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Conclusion

Throughout the episode, Anne Bogel and Damian engage in a thoughtful dialogue about the intersections of creativity, community, and personal growth. Listeners are left with inspiring insights into building supportive communities, overcoming creative challenges, and the enduring power of authentic storytelling.

As Anne aptly summarizes her philosophy:

"[66:48] Anne Bogel: ...if it's not coming from the gut, then what are you doing? Like, that's bad work. And also it's bad art."

This episode serves as a testament to the importance of staying true to one's creative passions while fostering meaningful connections within the literary community.

Happy reading, everyone!

Transcript

[Anne Bogle]

Foreign.

[Amy McConnell]

Hey readers, I'm Anne Boeckle and this is what Should I Read Next? Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader. What should I read Next? We don't get bossy on this show. We take a personalized approach to the reading life and every episode we strive to give you the information you need to choose your next reading. We have a really fun live episode for you today and I can't wait to share it with you. But first, we have so much good stuff coming up right here at the end of the year and first off is our team's Best Books of the Year. This has become a tradition in the modern Mrs. Darcy and what Should I Read Next World because it's so fun and so many of you tell us you look forward to this every year. Now, if it's new to you, I'm sure you know all about our events like the Summer Reading Guide and associated PDF. And I hope you know we have similar events in the spring and fall. Our book previews. We refer to these as our Marquee Member Events along with Team Best Books coming next week on Thursday, December 19th. Our team members are sharing their Best Books of the Year live with Both our modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club and what Should I Read Next Patreon members. This event is a member favorite. You get to hear from much of our team with their favorite books, which span all different genres we read in different ways. You'll hear 2024 releases plus older books that we've just gotten to reading and I will be there too. Not just hosting, but sharing my favorite book.

[Anne Bogle]

Or maybe books plural. Not more than three are the instructions of 2024.

[Amy McConnell]

We'd love for you to join us and when you do so you support our ongoing work as well. We could not do this without your financial tangible support. Become a [e-mail] whatshouldireadnext if you're interested in checking out the book club, that'[e-mail] but our patreon patreon.com whatshould I read next Is built the back of the podcast where we share bonus content, more great books, and help you get more out of your reading life every single week. Then when you join, join us on the 19th for a fun, fast, festive look back at our reading year. It's going to be a blast and we're so glad to be reading with you readers. With all of the products and services out there these days, it can feel like the B2B market is pretty crowded. If you are refreshing your business's marketing strategy for 2025, make sure your ads are finding the right audience. LinkedIn ads helps you do exactly that with their targeting capabilities that put your ad in front of the professionals who will find it most relevant. You'll connect directly with the people who have the power to make decisions. LinkedIn partners with companies just like yours and respects the B2B world you operate in. With proven results in technology, for example, LinkedIn generated two to five times higher return on ad spend than other social media platforms. With LinkedIn, you'll be confident that you'll stand out from the crowd. Start converting your B2B audience into high quality leads today. We'll even give you a hundred dollars credit on your next campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com ReadNext to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com ReadNext terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to Be, To Be Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns readers. No matter your goals for 2025, finding ways to shortcut or automate your progress can make a big difference. I've always found that small changes can really make my resolutions feel more achievable. For instance, if I want to read through my unread pile, I'll stack those books on my bedside table instead of leaving them on the shelf. If you have money goals for 2025, automation might be just what you need to achieve them. Tools like Acorns, the smart investing app, make it simple to get started. It only takes five minutes to open your account. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids and your retirement. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns lets you invest with the spare money you've got right now. You can start with $5 or even just your spare change. Basically, Acorns does the hard part so you can give your money a chance to grow. Head to acorns.com readnext or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing for your future. Today, paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns tier one compensation provided investing involves risk. Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor view important [e-mail] Readnext now for today's new episode, I'm bringing you a conversation from my Recent trip to Nashville to speak at writerfest, which is such a wonderful creative guest gathering for aspiring writers, published authors, screenwriters, poets and songwriters in Nashville. It's for writers of book, song and screen, and for those who want to be those who go to Writer Fest get to enjoy keynote talks by the best book, song and screenplay writers in the business. Plus in depth breakout sessions with professional editors, literary agents, filmmakers and music industry insiders. What you are about to hear is my keynote. It's a conversation between me and Writer Fest co founder Amy McConnell, and it is so right before we got talking, I asked Amy, hey, what do you hear from everyone you've been talking to about what people are experiencing in their lives and in their creative lives right now? And she told me a little bit of what she'd observed. I did the same and we sculpted our session around what we were seeing was happening right there in front of us in Nashville that weekend. It's such a good conversation and I'm so excited that Amy and Sarah's amazing team at WriterFest recorded this audio for us so you could listen. But there's one thing I want you to know.

[Anne Bogle]

You will hear Amy ask me, anne.

[Amy McConnell]

Have you been reading any great books.

[Anne Bogle]

Lately that you feel like we really need to hear about from you? And you know, of course I went like, what? What is a book?

[Amy McConnell]

What are book titles? But can I tell you what I wish I had shared? This gathering was for writers of book, song and screen, and the book that I found myself talking about the entire weekend was Colored Television by Danzie Senna. Senna's protagonist is a novelist who decides she wants to be a screenwriter, mostly for financial reasons and her struggle to move from one to the other and the various hijinks that ensue make up the entire story in the book. It's so good. Although I do love the book I did share, and some of the things that came up out of talking about that book were things I also talked about in Nashville the whole rest of the weekend.

[Anne Bogle]

Both were a good time, but I.

[Amy McConnell]

Just wanted to tell you what I.

[Anne Bogle]

Was thinking about after the session. I hope you enjoyed listening.

[Amy McConnell]

Thank you again to Writerfest co founders Amy McConnell and Sarah Weigel for making this conversation possible. And thank you to their amazing teams and volunteers who did such an incredible job of not only taking top notch care of everyone over the course of the conference, but also captured this wonderful audio for you today. Let's get to it.

[Damian]

Welcome back to riderfest Day two. Thank you so much for being here. I'm here with Ann Bogle for our keynote session. This morning, we're doing this crazy thing that we've never done before. If you've been to Writer Fest, you know that we like to do things in a new way every year, so you never know what you're gonna get. And this year, Ann and I decided we were going to collab in a way, because I have a Writer Fest podcast, and she has the what Should I Read Next? Podcast, which is way bigger and better than the Writer Fest podc. And she agreed to do an interview with me where I interview her. Therefore, you can relax a little bit because you're not in the interview chair, where it's like, there's a lot. I know that's a lot for you, at any rate. So Anne is here with me on the Writer Fest podcast to talk about all the things writerly. As you know, Writer Fest is about celebrating one writer at a time. That's why we're Writer Fest. We say sometimes we're a conference, but we don't like to talk about the conferencing part. We like to talk about the fest part. So Anna's already been festing with us, and she's feeling comfy, I think. So we're gonna get started with our conversation.

[Anne Bogle]

Good morning. That's amazing. I love to try new things. And we were just talking in the green room about how we both love to wing it, so watch out.

[Damian]

What Ann actually said were pantsers. To which Olivia replied. Wait, what? Pantsers.

[Anne Bogle]

We had to promise we wouldn't remove anyone's bottoms.

[Damian]

No pantsing. That would be rude. So, Ann, I love what you do in your sense of gathering writers in community and also pointing us in the right direction on what to read next. In my discovery of you, I originally knew you only as the modern Mrs. Darcy.

[Anne Bogle]

Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because I am not her and do not play well. I don't even play her on the Internet. That's a brand, y'all. That'd be really presumptuous to be like me and Jane Austen. Well, that is my site.

[Damian]

That is your site. Exactly.

[Anne Bogle]

2011.

[Damian]

I used to hear from my marketing team. Oh, my gosh. We get. We got a hit on the modern Mrs. Darcy. Like, she's going to review one of our books. We're celebrating in the hall. So I didn't even know your actual name for a. A long time, but I knew of how helpful you were in helping readers find books. Tell us a little bit about the origins of that.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, Gosh. Well, it starts with sad days in the legal field, y'all. You know that you're a writer when you enjoy writing about boundary line disputes, if that is the best part of your day, one, maybe you should find a different line of work. But two, maybe there's something there in that writing thing. And I needed a creative outlet. So one year around New Year's 2010, my husband and I were having a late night, which back then it was probably like 8:30 conversation about how did the year go? What do we want from the year to come? And he'd done a little bit of business blogging for his job. So in 2010, I started reading a blog and it was his. I didn't know anything about the blog space, but we were talking and he was like, I've been thinking about blogging and I've been thinking about whose blog I'd really like to read. And I was like, oh my gosh, who's. And he was like, you, you should start a blog. And I was like, I love you, but I don't read blogs. This is a terrible idea. But I speak personality types. I'm an enneagram9, easily persuadable. You can talk me into anything in the lobby later. And half an hour later I was do talk. What do we call it? What am I gonna write about? Cause I just really. I think I needed. I love new projects, like you said. I like to try new things, and I just really latched onto that. I also really love to read. And it never was intended to be a books and reading blog, but it wasn't long before I realized that's the. I'm an introvert. I'm never gonna be like, hey, tell me what you're pondering in your soul late at night. But we could connect over a wonderful novel and get to the same conversation really quickly in a way that's not totally socially awkward. So I realized that books, conversation starters, Amen.

[Damian]

They do make great conversation starters. In fact, they're often a conversation just with the book, right? I mean, just the book itself is a conversation between the author and the reader. Is that not true? I think sometimes that I read just so I can talk about them, though, because it's so fun to talk about books. So how did that grow from a blog into where you are now?

[Amy McConnell]

Slowly.

[Anne Bogle]

And I've had so many conversations with people this weekend who are in the middle of a project or are just starting out and are not sure how they're going to do it in today's Landscape. And I'm sure 2024 is different than 2011, but I felt like I was so late in 2011, like, the moment had passed. There was no, like, avenue to people actually finding me blogging back then. Bless my heart. I thought I should have started in 2008, but I didn't know what a blog was in 2008. This is all I have, and it's kind of fun doing in my basement in my pajamas, so I guess I'll make the most of. But I just started writing, and I didn't tell anybody. I felt pretty embarrassed about it, I think, because still, the word blog sounds like nonsense when spoken out loud.

[Damian]

Isn't it a dumb word?

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, I didn't want to talk about it.

[Damian]

Could somebody in this room. Because we got a lot of writers. Maybe somebody could invent a new word for that. I would take that the worst.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe that's why substack is getting so popular. Yeah, it sounds real better in a way that blog does not. Yeah, I'm not on substack yet, but I just. I mean, I just started writing and found, like, this is fun. Like, I've always written to figure out things I don't understand. And that's still true in my work, and that's still true in all my conversations, like, on what should I read next? Every week, I'm having conversations with readers, helping them understand things about themselves and their reading life that they don't get, even though they're the ones living inside that experience. But I really enjoyed just making long, handwritten lists of topics I wanted to explore because I wanted to learn about them. And there's something that's so, for me, just so fun in that incubation stage when it's all possibility and you haven't screwed it up yet and you haven't run into the wall. You're just like, look at all the things I could do. It was great. It was four months before I told my mom I had a blog. Like, that was my situation. Everybody jokes about how, like, my mom's the only one who reads my blog. Well, you have to tell her or she won't know.

[Damian]

That's exactly true. Okay, so move us forward a little bit on the timeline. I know you're not a linear girl, but let's go a little bit forward into how that has morphed into where you are today.

[Anne Bogle]

I mean, I kept doing it and slowly, slowly realized from my basement and my pajamas that the best part about blogging was actually this community that I Had no idea existed. Because back in gosh, I feel like such an old lady. Back in 2011, the way people found your blog was you went to their actual site with its own design and its own. Weirdly, like there wasn't even Canva. Then, you know, PicMonkey designed header and you go to the comment section and.

[Amy McConnell]

You'Re like, hey, I really like this post. This was great.

[Anne Bogle]

Thanks for telling me how to clean my trash can. And then you'd leave your URL back to modernmrsdarcy.com and back then, like, people.

[Amy McConnell]

Read the comments because they were good.

[Anne Bogle]

And like, on the whole, I've always said that modern Mrs. Darcy is the kindest place on the Internet. I mean, we're like a bunch of nerds who want to talk about books and life. I mean, we're good people, we're safe people. And sometimes late at night people get mad and say kind of crabby things. But mostly like, I love my corner of the Internet and it's been great. But like, you'd read the comments and you'd find you develop these relationships with people. And I remember trying to explain to my local friends and God help me, my mother, that I was going to go meet this person from the comment section of My God help me, my mother. Or I mean, you know, I love my mom, but also it's 2011 and you're explaining to your mom how you're not going to get murdered when you go have coffee with the person you met on Twitter.

[Damian]

Like, this is very historically accurate moment, right?

[Anne Bogle]

Because it was a moment and I felt so weird about it too. Like, who am I that I'm meeting strangers on the Internet for? Like, can I not build community in my real life? But it was different because very few people are as hardcore nerdy about books and my physical life as I am. But on the Internet you have a wider reach. And I was really hungry to have those, like, super nerdy and also like really philosophically, like, let's explore how we feel in our souls conversations. I'm way too earnest for some of my in person friends, so I gotta go to the Internet to find that. But then what happens is you get to know them and you have lots of coffee and you take trips together and then you run into them at conferences like writer fest in 2024. And you're really glad you invested in those relationships back then when it was so weird to tell people I only know them on the Internet. Gosh, that sounds like Kathleen Kelly.

[Damian]

I think that some of those relationships are happening today in 2037.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, you're gonna say, I remember. I remember when I met Joy at Belmont in 2024.

[Damian]

Oh, I had to do the math real quick.

[Anne Bogle]

That's.

[Damian]

Think of what you did parallel math.

[Anne Bogle]

Between now and then, you did the parallel math. Writers are not renowned for being amazing at math, but no kidding. We run businesses, we read royalty statements.

[Damian]

Are we a lawyer too, along the way, lawyerly work where you looked forward to writing. I'm recapping for those of you who are taking notes, lawyerly writing where you discover you liked the writing better than the lawyerly work. Am I, am I getting that right?

[Anne Bogle]

Yes. I like the writing so much that I write about how the factual inaccuracies in the contract and paragraph 47D like. You like the writing. If you can do that. Although I don't recommend that kind of writing.

[Damian]

It's also reading, if I may point out.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh my gosh, you were also reading.

[Damian]

Very closely, carefully reading the contracts and then having dialogues in a way with the words themselves on the page. Which is I, I would contend is what you're doing currently having dialogue with the words on the page in all kinds of venues.

[Anne Bogle]

But I digress. You know what's funny though is my degree is in non formal education and my whole college career, everybody was like, but what are you going to do with that? But what are you going to do with that? And I didn't use it at all in legal that I got suckered into because it was the family business. But now every single day, like that's how I'm thinking.

[Damian]

Okay, Pantser. So I'm going back to our timeline. So the recognition of this love for the reading and the interacting with the text goes to basement pajamas, blogging goes to coffees with strangers, goes to next piece is the cultivating that corner, cultivating that community of readers. Right. And then along the way, somehow you began to write yourself, writing books yourself. I think you have three books now. I've got one here and I think this is the probably the prettiest. So it is the prettiest I'd rather be reading book. Tell a little bit about this or give us the origin story of I'd rather be reading which Parnassus is selling there out there on the home screen.

[Anne Bogle]

That's so kind of them. This is my home library on the COVID That's legit.

[Damian]

Your house?

[Anne Bogle]

That's legit. It's my house. You can come sit in my blue chair. It's a world market.

[Damian]

I bought it on Sale I'm having.

[Anne Bogle]

The flowers are from Trader Joe's. Little five dollar roses in a pot. They're great.

[Damian]

Amazing.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah.

[Damian]

The origin story.

[Amy McConnell]

Yeah.

[Damian]

Is that a good prompt or no?

[Anne Bogle]

Well, it is, but it's a different time. And I wondered if I should say out loud that I was approached by an agent because I had a blog and a platform at a certain point.

[Damian]

Oh, that is disheartening.

[Anne Bogle]

It can be, but go ahead and say it. So I kept writing and kept connecting with readers about books. And the thing that I love about the Internet, and I'm sure you've heard this before, is that there's so many opportunities to have this moment of realization when you find a site that feels like it was made just for you, where you're like, oh, my gosh, I thought it was just me, but look at all these nerds or whatever it is that you love all gathered in this space. Like, if I tried to start a conversation like this at, like, Saturday morning coffee with my friends, they'd be like, stop it. But like, here the conversation is just ongoing and has been for years. So I am so grateful to the people who had been in the space before me who really paved the way, who found my site and were like, oh, this is kind of fun. And they would tell their friends and they would tell their readers and they would give me hyperlinks. And that is how I built an audience. Just building relationships.

[Damian]

It was one relationship at a time, essentially.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, beautiful.

[Damian]

Okay, so let's. But I do want to hear the origin story of the book because we love talking about. What is that, what's the phrase, Risha? Paths to publishing. Which does not roll off the tongue. Paths to publishing. What was your path to publishing?

[Anne Bogle]

Well, I was approached by an agent. I mean, I was approached by a lot of agents. And I'd review the pitch every time and be like, that is so kind. But, like, I don't. This doesn't sound like a good time. Like, it's legit. Cause there were, there were and still are a fair amount of, like, bad actors. Yes. That's a great way to summarize that. Thank you, Amy. But I was approached by an agent who, like, represented some of my friends. And I was like, oh, okay. This is actually, in fact, a friend referred and said, do you know Anne Bogle? You should check out her work. And I think that that's something that's still so true. Like, this has only been 10 years, but also, 10 years feels like a long time in publishing right now. But it Was a friend saying, hey, I love her work, go check her out. And it's such a gift to give other people or to be the recipient of. Whether you're saying like, hey, I read this novel, I loved it, or hey, professional colleague with power and influence, I love this person's work, go check it out.

[Amy McConnell]

It's such a gift.

[Anne Bogle]

And it's something that I'm always trying to put into the world when I can. But I'd Rather Be Reading was contracted as Bogle book number two. My first book was about personality types. And I don't know if it's on the table. It's called Reading People. I just, I didn't know what I was doing. I really enjoyed writing that book. I learned a lot at the time. I was obsessed with personality types and wanted, like to write a good.

[Damian]

I think a lot of us are honestly in this room.

[Anne Bogle]

Specifically, I wanted to write a good handbook about understanding the various types like enneagram, Myers Briggs StrengthsFinder, all that stuff. I think there's six or seven in the book. But always like, I'm writing to figure out things I don't understand. And there was a lot I did understand and I knew how it helped me. I didn't really understand why and like, thoroughly what the implications were for like life, work, relationships, faith. And that's what I explored in that book. And at the time, the publisher I signed with was like, can we just like slide a second book?

[Damian]

I will also say that was very good work, making it Reading People. I mean, it was a strong title. You guys had a great hook there.

[Anne Bogle]

That was the 11th hour. Well, last minute title.

[Damian]

Thank you.

[Anne Bogle]

It worked well. Amy, thank you very much. Yeah, but I. Gosh, it's so funny to look back on my path because I think especially because the pandemic has broken my brain in regards to time I'd Rather Be Reading came out in 2018, which both feels like not that long ago and not that far into my writing career. And also like pre. All at the same time.

[Damian]

Yeah, pre the flood.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah. But in 2018, or I guess 2016 and 17 when I was writing that, I felt like I had learned so much talking to so many readers about the books they love and why they love them or the books they don't love and why they despise them. And like so many times, people don't understand their strong reactions to books or why they have a very meh reaction to something that everybody else seems to love. Also, my blog is called Modern Mrs. Darcy. And if you don't know. I will spell it out for you. Elizabeth Bennet is a character in Pride and prejudice who marries Mr. Darcy. Colin Firth, to some of you who may.

[Damian]

For those of us who don't, so.

[Anne Bogle]

Modern Mrs. Darcy is a Jane Austen riff. Which means that for my entire career, people have been coming up to me, pulling me aside and saying, I have to tell you, I've never read Jane Austen. Can we still be friends? And my answer is always, absolutely, yes. But I thought it was so interesting that people felt compelled to tell me this. And not infrequently, with a good amount of, like, blushing, like, shame. Yeah. Like, there's no need for that, y'all. But, like, why? Why do you feel that? So in. I'd rather be reading. I really wanted to explore what it meant to be a reader and some of the things I'd learned and some of the things I'd seen and some of the things I'd experienced. And I said, hey, Christian nonfiction publisher, this isn't really your jam, but can I write this book? And they said, sure. So I did.

[Damian]

Well done, you.

[Anne Bogle]

Thank you.

[Damian]

And you got a gorgeous illustration out of it to hang in your home. I hope you.

[Anne Bogle]

I did, but do you want to hear something absolutely tragic? How are you supposed to answer that question? I'm going to tell you something. Yeah.

[Damian]

I really want to hear something absolutely tragic.

[Anne Bogle]

The original watercolor was going to be a gift to me from the publisher, and I was going to hang it in my office, but it was lost in the mail over the Atlantic. Yeah.

[Damian]

Well, I have noticed for that in Amy's world, where I review, I'm an Enneagram. Well, whatever. I am going to reframe it in a positive way. We'll talk about that offline. I will say, in my storyline, it gets found somewhere and someone else is intrigued by it, and they reach out to you.

[Anne Bogle]

Okay, so the watercolor is a family secret. And what year was it lost in? Can somebody turn that into a novel?

[Damian]

I feel like I don't want to write it. But Henry would write that.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, yeah, that'd be great.

[Damian]

Doesn't that feel like a Patti Callahan Henry book? That's my suggestion. If you're listening, Patti, which you should be, please turn this into a novel. All right, so then there's a third book. There's a third.

[Anne Bogle]

There is. Yeah.

[Damian]

Let's talk about the third book.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, gosh. Okay. One of the things that happens if you write a book and it gets published is you have to talk about it. And that can Be kind of weird. So this book is called Don't Overthink it, which was a book that I need, which is a book I care deeply about. It's a book that came out on March 3, 2020, which was terrible timing if you want to, but amazing timing if you want to read a book that people need at the moment, they need it. But I always feel, saying I wrote a book called Don't Overthink It. I feel really bossy, like, you know, you should know better. And I don't mean that at all. I mean, like, wow, this is something I've struggled with. I've been on a journey and I had some things I needed to figure out, and writing helped me figure them out. And these are the things I learned in a book. Actually, Ian Cron interviewed me for his podcast about Don't Overthink it, and he said, wow, an enneagram 9, a wishy washy type who hates conflict and is chronically indecisive. I don't know if this is the most brilliant thing ever that you wrote this book or just a terrible idea. I was like, well, Ian, it's already out, so let's go with Door A.

[Damian]

I think it's great because it feels like the words on the bottle of the elixir are exactly what the sick person needs to hear. Right? So I just think it immediately addresses a felt need, which is what marketers always want.

[Anne Bogle]

And I think for I'm, I'm not naturally decisive. I like to see all the possibilities. And if you're making a decision about, like, jam, you don't want all the possibilities. But that applies to more, like, meaningful things in life as well. And I couldn't learn the things I needed to learn from somebody to whom it came naturally because they never had to think about it, you know, and also they didn't see the nuance that I thought was so interesting. So I wrote the book for people more like myself, who saw that they could use some guidance, but from someone, like, who had been there too. And I had a really hard time talking about that book. I still have a hard time talking about that book because I initially conceived of it. Oh, gosh. It's been a long time since I've talked about this in three ways. Like, one, how do you interrupt negative thought patterns? You know, when you start spiraling or start talking bad thoughts to yourself? That's. That's a reinforcing loop. And there are ways to interrupt it, but you can only use them if you know what they are. And Then I wanted to talk about creating more positive thought patterns. Things like making decisions and creating structures in your life that would be really useful and set you up to not go down the overthinking road in the first place. And I'm someone to whom structure does not come naturally. But when I find a good one or it is given to me, like, my whole being is like, ah, this is so good. And for writers, that's really practical in a sense, because writing is just decision after decision after decision. Like, choosing all the words and what order each one is going to fall in. Like, that's a lot of work and you gotta have a good head to do that. And you can't be exhausted or it doesn't work. So I talked about that. But I also wanted to talk about, like, the bigger picture. Like, if you're approaching life with a more. I love that Emily Dickinson quote. I dwell in possibility, but with a more expansive mindset, you can bring in so many positive things. And I ended with a. Oh, gosh, a blessing by who? I don't even remember. It's the very end of don't overthink it. I remember quoting Wendell Berry, but in the book, I'm talking about, like, make better decisions. But also when we are able to focus on, like, bringing in the good and beautiful, it changes our life, it changes our relationships, it changes our world. Like, some of the decisions we're making are low stakes, but the results can actually be huge.

[Damian]

I love this conversation. I mean, this. We could talk about this a ton. Does anybody else have trouble making decisions in your creative life? I do sometimes. One fun, fun life hack for that I discovered from my painter friend who decided that he was making too many creative decisions in his clothing, so he limited it to just two different colors that he would always wear. Like just either a black shirt or a white shirt, either black pants or blue pants. And he said that just freed his brain up for the creativity of the rest of the day, which I thought was a fun life hack. Can you share some of your life hacks from that middle portion of the book that you were talking about? About habits or routines that can be freeing for your brain?

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah.

[Damian]

Or from your own life.

[Anne Bogle]

Routines are huge. Like, mine changes with the season. I get cranky when I sit at my desk all day. So, like, I decide, like, when during the day I'm going to get outside. But I'd rather share one from the later part of the book that came immediately to mind. There's a shopping cart full of flowers on the front of the book. And it comes from a story that I tell later in the book about just. Just simple abundance. And I was very thoughtful about including examples that didn't cost money, in addition to some that do. Because you can't just buy your way to solutions.

[Amy McConnell]

That's lazy.

[Anne Bogle]

But I mean, I don't mean it like that. That's not possible a lot of times is what I do mean. But I found myself so frequently then going to Trader Joe's and looking at all the pretty flowers, and they're not very expensive, but do I need flowers? And they're going to be dead in a week. So I either wouldn't put them in my cart and I'd drive around the store. I mean, steer my little cart and think, should I go back and get the flowers? Or I'd put them in my cart and I'd be like, but do I really need these? And it's 4.99, which isn't a lot of money, but, like, it's not not money. And so I made the decision like, Ann, you're being ridiculous. Do you have 4.99 for flowers? I think at this moment in your life, you do. So when you go to Trader Joe's and you haven't been there in seven days or more, you will pick out the flowers and you will put them in your cart and you will not think about it again unless the peonies are blooming, in which case, like, whatever, you've got your peonies on your island, you're great. And you'll just bring them home.

[Damian]

I love a peonies.

[Anne Bogle]

And so you'll have these beautiful flowers that you look at every single day until they die. And also, you didn't use all your energy deciding if you're going to buy the Trader Joe's hydrangeas so you can come home and write your words and decide which adjective to use instead of whether or not to put back the thing that you already put in your cart.

[Damian]

I am so into that. I love that. That is a very big example.

[Anne Bogle]

If you're not into flowers, then that is not your thing. And you may have your own version of that. Like, we're writers, right? In the book, I also talk about the moment I decided that I didn't have to use the free pens from my doctor's office. I could actually give target $1.99 for the really nice Papermate flares. That's not actually simple pleasure right now.

[Damian]

That is such a simple pleasure.

[Anne Bogle]

I'm a Uniball Pearl girl. But back then it was the Papermate flares, so. Cause it's $1.99 and I'm a writer. It is a freaking tool, y'all. I can spend $1.99 on a pen.

[Damian]

I would say it's also a tax write off. Yeah, I think David and I have the same spleet apps and we're here. He'd be like, tax write off, babe. Yeah, yeah, that totally goes in that receipt column. I love this. This is so good.

[Amy McConnell]

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[Damian]

Can you give us another writerly tip for the. Because obviously we've gathered screenwriters, songwriters and book writers in this room, so we're really dying for some tips from you, Ann, because you've successfully published three books. Yeah.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, I would say no, I'm not really an advice giver. But let me tell you what's helped me. I am a writer of words that go into essays and stories and books. And I love hearing how writers do it. Like, I want the behind the scenes. I want the process. I want the pen, I want the software, I want the. What was the moment where you saw the thing on the sidewalk that made you think, ah, this connected to this thing that happened to me 22 years ago, and here's my novel. Like, I want to hear all about that. But also, I think sometimes hearing writers of on the page, I'm trying really hard to distinguish from, like, screenwriters and lyricists in my mind. That's why. That's what I have in mind now. We're all on the same page. But I think sometimes that's too close to me. And I love hearing from poets and I love hearing from songwriters, and not even songwriters, but musicians who are making music, who are writing notes and not words, because they talk about making things and they talk about the creative process. And I think there's something about that, so close and yet so far that's so good. Yes. That engages a different part of my brain. I'm not at all thinking tactically. I'm thinking more about the possibility, the expansiveness.

[Damian]

There's go Emily Dickinson again.

[Anne Bogle]

Right, right, right. The. Oh, I just had no idea it could be like that. And I think that hits me on a deeper, more basic level than if I'm listening to somebody talk about the notes. That's never going to be a how to.

[Amy McConnell]

For me.

[Anne Bogle]

It's never going to be advice. It's how do I think about this thing I'm bringing into the world?

[Damian]

Oh, that's so good. Yes, yes, yes. But you're not the audience in this case. I mean, I agree. I think what I heard you say, I'm going to do the active listening thing again. What I heard you say is it's helpful to you to hear from people who are craftspeople outside of the craft of writing books and essays and blogs, et cetera. So you like hearing from the poets and the. The screenwriters and the musicians who don't necessarily write lyrics, but write all kinds of things?

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah.

[Damian]

What other creation might speak into that? Are you inspired by painters and other. Do you get out and explore other kinds of arts?

[Anne Bogle]

I'm just an appreciator, but I love hearing how any creator conceives of and relates to their work. I just am endlessly fascinated by that.

[Damian]

I'm with you. We had one year. We had a painter. Come and be in dialogue with Lisa Donovan. Does anybody remember Lisa Donovan being in conversation with a painter? We got a few people who we need to bring a painter back and have them on the podcast with us.

[Anne Bogle]

That'd be amazing.

[Damian]

That would be fun. Talk about your experience here in Nashville. This is a little bit of a pivot, friend, but can you talk about your experience here in Nashville? I know you've been here a number of times to the Belmont to visit, as well as to.

[Anne Bogle]

I have teenagers. I have college kids. Yeah, I've been to Belmont, however, too.

[Damian]

How about on your own, though? Is it a little different to be here on your own without the children?

[Anne Bogle]

I mean, I've done a fair amount of that, too, over the years. Nashville has such a robust writerly community, and I've often wondered, do I have so many writer and creative friends here because y'all know each other and hang out and you've folded this Louisville girl into your circle? Or is it because Nashville is so richly concentrated with creators?

[Amy McConnell]

Maybe some of each.

[Damian]

Maybe a little bit of each. Indeed. The specific visit. Has it been different than your other visits, and if so, why?

[Anne Bogle]

I mean, I have to say that the Belmont writerfest experience is definitely different than the Admissions tour.

[Damian]

In what way? Which. Which tours did you go on when you were here? Were you in the same department and the Mike Curb College of Business Entertainment?

[Anne Bogle]

No.

[Damian]

Oh, different ones. Okay, okay. Wink, wink.

[Anne Bogle]

We'll talk about that. I've been on a lot. I have a lot of kids. How many kids have you?

[Damian]

You have four.

[Anne Bogle]

I have four. I have four. Yeah, but y'all don't hear it.

[Damian]

It's not a competition. It's not a competition on how many children we have.

[Anne Bogle]

You can say that because you know you'd win.

[Damian]

Let's talk about the contagious enthusiasm part.

[Anne Bogle]

Let's do that.

[Damian]

Should we do that?

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah.

[Damian]

So on the Writer Fest podcast, we always talk about what we're excited to read or experience as far as the writerly things go. So film, song, book, poem, anything that's written, we like to share our enthusiasm around it. Are you ready? Because certainly we want to know, what.

[Anne Bogle]

Should I read next? I have to tell you, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom 2024 has been a really, like, tender year. Tender is a good word for me. Interacting with books and books and song especially. We've been joking about, like, what our Spotify raft is gonna look like in my. My household I live with. Gosh, mine's gonna be scary, but that is really.

[Damian]

You've gotta go down that rabbit hole. What in the world? What do you mean it's gonna be scary?

[Amy McConnell]

My Spotify rap.

[Damian]

Okay, why would that be scary? Come clean.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, it's not coming clean. It's like therapy. This is kind of a big therapy session. I'm someone who really. Gosh, because I'm a human, maybe more like I turn to art in times of big emotion. You know, like, when you're happy, you want a song. When you're sad, you want a song. And, like, I suffered some losses this year and, like, my brain has just assigned a song to, like, multiple songs.

[Damian]

Or just one song.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, every. Every loss gets a song.

[Damian]

Oh, okay.

[Anne Bogle]

This isn't like, something I recommend. Again, not how to. But, like, maybe there's something here for me. This is just a share. So, like, I'm gonna look at my Spotify wrapped and I'm gonna see like, oh, that's the one I listened to on repeat when that happened. And that's the one I listened to on repeat when that happened. And that's the one I listen to on repeat. And that's gonna. I know what it's going to say. And yet it's different. Well, I imagine it'll be different when I actually see. Here's your Spotify wrapped, and Spotify is going to be like, ta da. And I'm going to be like, oh, so many tears. The memory of so many tears. But I think there's an important thing there about art. Like, I'm not. I'm noticing that in times of great emotion, when I can't necessarily find the words or I'm looking for the words. I'm a writer, y'all. I like to have the words. I. I feel like until I can put it into words, I don't really understand what it is. And that's something I help people do on the podcast. Like, let's.

[Amy McConnell]

Let's try to assign Words.

[Anne Bogle]

Some things are inexplicable. Like, you don't have the right words, but if you can get close, that can be really helpful for you to identify what's happening.

[Damian]

We have a friend in the audience. Kevin. Kevin. There's Kevin Hoverth. He uses this phrase, the soup of signals, which for us has come to mean all the biological chemistry that's going on in your body in a certain moment. It's a soup of signals, right? It's hormones, it's the dopamine, or it's the cortisol, or all those things. And sometimes they can be expressed, for me, at least by way of a song, I can go, oh, that song really expresses that for me. And it is reflecting that. It's mirroring it back to me in a way and saying, this is a thing. Yes, this is a thing.

[Anne Bogle]

Or for a more. I'm a mom. I mean, I remember, like, my kids now when they're teenagers and when they were very young. Like, there's a difference between feeling, you know what? I still do this today, and I'm not 12. There's a difference between knowing that you just feel like, you know, a little verklempt and being able to say, oh, it's because I forgot to pay the cable bill. That's why I feel, ugh, right now, y'all, we don't even have cable. But maybe that's. Yeah, the. The. The inarticulated jumble. It's really helpful for me to make that into words. And also with the. The books that I love, like, I love emotionally resonant fiction. I mean, I love a good plotty thriller sometimes, but if I read too many of those in a row, I feel like I'm not reading anything. Like, I want ones that make me go, yes, that is what it's like. Or make me go, oh, that is what it could be like. And I've learned that that is what really appeals to me in a book. And when I'm choosing what to read, like, what will be worth my precious and limited reading time, that's the kind of experience I'm looking for. And so this year, knowing where I am in my life, like, even though I read widely for my work and because that is something I enjoy, like, to sample lots of different things, authors who can put into words experiences that I relate to or would like to understand better are really valuable to me. And that's true in song as well. Which is why my Spotify wrapped is going to kill me this year.

[Damian]

Are you avoiding this?

[Anne Bogle]

There's still time to change it.

[Damian]

Are we avoiding this question?

[Anne Bogle]

What's the question?

[Damian]

The question about, like, what are the specific songs in the Spotify rap.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, here, I can tell you. Jason Isbell, Indigo Girls. The Mountain Goats have been big in the past.

[Damian]

She just said Indigo Girls, y'all. Which. Which. Which album or which song?

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, we'll have to talk about that later.

[Damian]

This is. We're the same.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, that's not going on the record.

[Damian]

It's not going on there.

[Anne Bogle]

Okay, well, maybe you parse it and that would be weird. Like, your taste in things says a lot about you.

[Damian]

I mean, that's cool. We can talk about it offline. But I'm gonna say let It Be Me is one of my all time favorite songs. Indigo Girls. Do you know that song?

[Amy McConnell]

I do.

[Anne Bogle]

I'm a 90s child. Of course I do.

[Damian]

I love them. I love that. Okay, so that was very. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, so what about books? Can we talk about books you're excited about? Or is that. I mean, are you saving that for. Or what should I read next?

[Anne Bogle]

Well, much of what I'm reading right now is coming out in 2025, because something we do three times a year for modern Mrs. Darcy. And what should I read next is we do previews with fiction that's coming out and we really, like, give it our all. It's mostly. I mean, my team supports me, but the reading is mine. I don't know where I started using the Royal Wheat, but I absolutely do. But there's so much to read. And something I really noticed maybe five years ago was that readers feel so overwhelmed by all the books coming at them on Instagram and book talk and marketing and everything sounds really good. And everything sounds like a must read. And it can be really difficult to suss out, even for me. And, like, I know how the marketing copy is written. To discern.

[Damian]

I write it.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah. To discern. I do.

[Damian]

I truly do.

[Anne Bogle]

What is good for me versus what might be good for a different reader. And I like, firmly believe in, like, taking chances on stuff outside your lane. And, like, you should be reading stuff you don't enjoy, like, on a regular basis. If you're not, then you're not.

[Damian]

Like, if you can. If you have space for it. Right.

[Anne Bogle]

Yes.

[Damian]

You said should. And I know you're not a big.

[Anne Bogle]

No, I'm not a should person. This is what I tell myself. I can tell. But I probably shouldn't actually. Should. Shouldn't.

[Damian]

Whatever.

[Anne Bogle]

Let's start that over.

[Damian]

Rewind. Risha.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, yeah. No, I don't want you to hear. Like, if you. If you really know yourself, then you'll love everything you read. Five stars. Like, I don't. I don't think that's reality. I don't think that that's the goal. But it can be hard to look at all these books being promoted on Instagram that influencers sharing now. And everyone's saying, this is amazing. You have to read it and you don't have to read it. And something that I've done for my audience is try to help them just see some titles they could focus on, like dozens, not thousands, of books coming out every Tuesday. So I'm really reading with that in mind. We have our spring book preview in January. And so some of the books I love so much, you can't read. That's so mean. Until March. It really is. I'm trying to think. I usually listen to audiobooks that are already published, and I'm trying to think.

[Damian]

What I'm listening to while you're thinking about it. Can I buy us some time and tell a book that I'm reading right now?

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, yes, please do.

[Damian]

And I don't do a ton of this, but. Karen Anderson, are you in here? Okay. Karen Anderson thrust into my hands a book called Theo of Golden and said, I don't do this a lot, but I'm going to insist that you read this book. And I was like, lots of people say they insist things. I will not always do things that people tell me. But Karen was insistent, and so I gave the book to Fleet promptly. That is truly, truly what happened. I said, karen says, we have to read this, so you get to read it first. And so Fleet read it. And he said, you have to read this. So. And with Karen endorsing it and my husband reading it, I was endorsing it. I was like, okay. It has been such a delight. It's called Theo of Golden. If anybody. Alan Levi. Alan Levi is the author and it is self published and it's killing it in the world. So I'm excited about that. And it is not a page turner in the sense of you must read this book, but it is such a delight every day to read that. It's one of those where you go, oh, this is the happiest part of my day is reading this book. So I'm fond of that. Did I give you enough time to.

[Anne Bogle]

Think, oh, that's amazing. No, you know how it is. Somebody asked you what you've read lately, and it's like, what is A book. What is a book title? I live near a local independent bookstore.

[Damian]

In Louisville by the name of.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, Carmichaels. Carmichaels. That's great. Hi, Carmichaels. And I popped into an author signing recently for Simon Van Bouie, who wrote this book called Sipsworth. That honestly sounded a little too precious for me because it's about an 80 year old woman who adopts a mouse. And it we had some laughter because Sipsworth, when she puts him in a teacup, he doesn't fill the whole thing. Like he's not even a sip's worth. He barely fills the spoon. And a bookseller. Hi, Elizabeth Barnhill at Fabled said, I love this book. You might want to consider reading it. And I did. And I love listening to it on audio. Now, the narrator was British, so for this Kentucky girl, that's a huge head start on an enjoyable reading experience. But I really loved the story, going back to my love of emotionally resonant fiction, how this woman, through a mouse, found her way back into a community after she had excised herself. Like she's been living alone and lonely for a long time. And this mouse brought her back to life. And it turns out she had a real interesting backstory, which was fun to read about. And I'm not gonna say any more about that, except Simon Van Bowie talked at his author signing about how he thought, well, he had a professor who said once that every writer has a story they tell, and they tell it over and over and over. The context changes, the story changes, but the theme is the same. So I was like, hang on, do you believe that? What are all your books about? And he's like, oh, I totally believe that. And my books are about people who have either been cut off or cut themselves off from life who find a way back again after they thought that door was closed forever. And I thought that was so interesting to look at his body of work and see. I mean, his novels look very different. Like, you would not say, oh, you keep writing the same story over and over and over. But for whatever reason, the thing that he continues to be drawn to explain is lonely people who think a meaningful life is over for them keep finding their way back or being pulled back into life kicking and screaming. So it's a story about a mouse, but also it's a story that, like, has some deep gut level oomph to it.

[Damian]

And I'm just saying that sounds delicious to me. Sounds fantastic.

[Anne Bogle]

So something I love about books is you can be at a conference and you can't say to someone Look, I'm not going to say to you. I'm not going to tell you what you can or can't say, but I'm not going to say to you, hey.

[Amy McConnell]

What'S the thing you obsess about on.

[Anne Bogle]

A gut level that you keep being drawn to over and over that keeps you awake at night and maybe that you talk about in therapy? What's that thing? But what kind of books are you drawn to? What themes are you exploring in your work? You can totally say that. Okay, that's something I love about.

[Damian]

I have a segue that's happening in my brain. I don't know if I can articulate it in a meaningful way out loud. But last year, we had Julia Whelan here as one of our keynote speakers.

[Anne Bogle]

She's fun.

[Damian]

She is fun. She's a novelist and also one of the best narrators in the audio space. You were just talking about audiobooks, so that's probably why I started thinking about her. And then when you were talking about the idea of every book may have a similar sort of heartbeat that you may or may not recognize at the outset, she said something last year that I don't know that I'll ever forget. And she. It was, does anybody remember Julia Whelan talking about the alien fish? Talking about. Do you remember this? So she was.

[Amy McConnell]

And this.

[Damian]

I was like, oh, never heard that before. She said, most of the book is going to be surface level interesting about the ocean. Like, oceans are fabulous and so interesting. And so there's going to be stuff happening on the surface. And she said, you get one chance in the book to go down deep and get to spot the alien fish at the bottom of the ocean. That is so ugly and also probably should never see the light of day. But we're gonna. We're gonna see it one time, and we're gonna experience that terror of the alien fish. And then we probably need to go back to the top so that we can, like, finish out the book. And she said, every book has an alien fish, or it should. I was like, oh, man, that's a really helpful insight. Don't know what my alien fish would be, but something for the writers among us to think about, at least.

[Anne Bogle]

Oh, gosh, now I'm thinking of all the books she's narrated that I've listened to that. Has anyone read Wild Game by Adrienne Brodeur? It's a memoir. I'd be interested in hearing her take on that, because there may be more than one alien fish.

[Damian]

Have you had Julia on your show yet?

[Anne Bogle]

Yes, but she didn't talk about alien fish.

[Damian]

Well, you should have her back and like, say, what the heck with the alien fish guys. Interesting idea. Okay, would you be comfy if we opened it up to questions?

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah, I love questions.

[Amy McConnell]

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[Damian]

Hi, my name is Damian.

[Anne Bogle]

Hi, Damian. What's the recurring theme that happens across all of your books that's told with different contexts? Ooh. Okay. I've written nonfiction so far that's been published, so I am writing to figure out the things I can't understand. But can I say the thing? I keep coming back in the works. I'm reading. I love family trauma and family secrets. And what I really want to read about is how the thing that was never said or never acknowledged is still very much present and influencing everyone in the blast zone, whether or not they have any clue that's what's actually happening. That's what I'm looking for.

[Damian]

Yeah. I'm raising my hand to say I.

[Anne Bogle]

And sometimes I don't even know it. I'll be surprised to be like, oh, page 200. And here we are. Like, did my radar pick that up or is that a happy coincidence? Is this family tragedy a happy coincidence? Exactly. I love that.

[Damian]

I love that. Satisfied, Damien? That's a good question. We have another question.

[Anne Bogle]

Hi, I'm Georgia. Hi, Georgia. I'm wondering, what was the moment or series of moments where you kind of decided, like, I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to writing and telling stories and figuring it out, no matter how difficult sometimes, what was there specific Baja moment or series of things that kind of led up to that at all? Okay, Georgia.

[Damian]

Georgia has a great voice, doesn't she?

[Anne Bogle]

There's a lot. Yeah. Have you thought about podcasting? Do you have one? We can talk. We can talk. Okay. I'm noticing that there's a lot assumed in that question, that I have dedicated my life to writing and telling stories forever, and I think I'm dedicated to that.

[Amy McConnell]

But y'all, when it gets hard, for.

[Anne Bogle]

Real, I think, do I really want to do this? Because this is hard. And I think the thing that keeps me coming back to it is remembering. I love Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner. It's a wonderful book. There's this almost throwaway line in it that I quote all the time. The protagonist in Crossing to Safety is a novelist, and he's working on a book at some point, and he's Talking about how it might kill him. And his friend says to him, like, you know, you got to do the work. Because hard writing makes for easy reading, and hard writing makes for easy reading. I think of that all the time. And sometimes I think about that when I'm reading a Julia Whelan novel, one that she's written, not just narrated or Emily Henry, like those books that you can fly through were not flown through on the part of the author or reading wrenching literary fiction like I project on them and think, this had to have been just an emotional nightmare to write. Oh, gosh, I'm reading a mystery right now. That's brutal. And I think, oh, you poor thing. You had to write this scene. But hard writing makes for easy reading. Not easy necessarily emotionally, but easy in the sense as a reader. Like, we can engage the work and learn from the work and grow with the work and really absorb the work. And if it's not written well, you can't take it in. And if you can't take it in, it can't change you. And I think that's what good writing really does. So I suppose to answer your question, this is a conversation I continue to have with myself. And I don't know that there was, like, one moment in time, but continuing re reminder that it matters. And I think also this is something I need from my community to hear.

[Amy McConnell]

Like, the work we're doing is hard.

[Anne Bogle]

Like, it is hard. And also it matters. And just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing. And just because it's hard doesn't mean it can't be done. Okay, can I answer a lighter question? I really thought you were going to say, at what moment did you think it was going to work? And my answer to that question is extremely shallow, but, like, real. I remember in maybe like June 2011, somebody bought a pack of vitamin D on my blog through an affiliate link, and I made 27 cents. And I was like, you can't actually buy anything at Kroger for 27 cents. But this could be a start. And sometimes the starts we have as writers or creators are so small. But a start is a start.

[Damian]

That's good. That's really good. I got a royalty check recently that was for $1.98. And I was thinking, boy, I'm gonna need to write a lot more books. Olivia, we have a question. What's your name? Yes.

[Anne Bogle]

Hello there.

[Damian]

My name is Chris.

[Anne Bogle]

Hi, Chris. In my life's work, I do mental health, substance abuse therapy, and, you know.

[Damian]

In my creative mind, I'm creating phrases and thoughts, and that's what I write on and create. And so I'm curious where your knowledge base comes from. And here's why I'm asking that.

[Anne Bogle]

Because very recently, one of the newest.

[Damian]

Phrases that came to my mind is curiosity equals knowledge. And I'm just listening to you, and.

[Anne Bogle]

You seem to embody that. That is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for that. Truly, I am so grateful to 2010, 2011 Ann, who set up the situation where you all talk to me about your reading lives every single day. And I started what Should I Read Next? In 2016. And the format of that show is most weeks A. This is not my phrase. This is our reader's phrase. Back to us, a regular reader, someone who's not a writer, a publishing professional, someone whose name you do not know. Like, someone who could be your mom or your kid's teacher or your dog walker or your neighbor or your grandma or your friend, comes on the podcast to talk about three books they love, one book they don't, and what they've been reading lately. And says, ann, what should I read next? Like, help me figure out the situation here. Like, what common threads do you see? Why didn't I like that book I didn't like? I cannot figure it out. And then sometimes they come to us. We have on our submission form for the podcast is called what Should I read next? Podcast.com guest and I wish we could talk to everybody, but we only put out 48 episodes a year. We have this. What's, like, something that you want to talk to Ann about? And people say things like, I cannot figure out why this genre is the only thing working for me right now. Or, I cannot figure out why I cannot read historical fiction. Or I can't figure out, like, they have this thing they can't figure out in their reading life, and I get to talk to them about it on the podcast. And I really think my informal education has come from talking to, at this point, thousands of readers about their reading lives. And, like, there's such generosity there. Because when you're talking to somebody about the books you love and the books you don't and why that can get real personal and real deep really quickly. And I'm so grateful that they trust me with that and sometimes want to talk about it enough that they will do so in front of tens of thousands of people on a podcast. Although it feels like we're having coffee when we're having the conversation. And it's such a gift to the listeners, I think as well, who maybe they will never have a conversation with me, but to hear someone else process what they love, what they don't, and why, what their sticking points are and how they might overcome them, sometimes I say, this is your sticking point. Awesome. Live your life. Don't worry. You have my blessing to not worry about it. If you can do that. Yeah. Talking to readers every day. Hi, I'm Savannah. Hi, Savannah. You mentioned how the market is just so saturated with book talk and Instagram and everything like that. I'm curious how you make your content feel community and not noise. Like, how do you differentiate yourself from that? Oh, what a question. How do I make what we make feel community driven and not noise? That's a good question. And that's also one that we talk about. I have a team that helps me do what I do. And like, that's something we talk about at our team meetings almost in those words. And something that I'm asking everyone all the time is, is our voice needed here? Like, for a long time. We did our reading challenge at the end of December, back when, believe it or not, that wasn't really a thing. And something we asked every year for years was like, is our voice needed here? Because this is now an available resource. And we decided no. But we do a summer reading guide every year that I love and adore putting together. And every year we ask ourselves, is our voice needed here? And every year we say, yeah, because I read every single one of those books and I so enjoy doing it. So we keep doing that. I think really carefully about what I'm thinking about making what it will feel like to make that. How do I feel about that? Do I believe in it?

[Amy McConnell]

Why?

[Anne Bogle]

Why does this matter to me? How might this help other people? Like, am I creating something that's going to feel like noise to me, in which case I'm not going to make that thing? And I feel like that sounds a little, you know, self, but as a creator, self aware. That sounds self aware. I mean, I want to read the work that you put your heart into, not. Not the things that you're phoning in. And this is actually making me think. Anyone who heard Paul Young yesterday, I.

[Damian]

Was thinking the same thing.

[Anne Bogle]

Yeah. He talked about, if it's not heavy, heavy paraphrase, but if it's not coming from the gut, but you're just saying the things that you think ought to be said, then what are you doing? Like, that's bad. Work. And also it's bad art. So that's a great question. I'm going to keep thinking about it, but. But I'm very aware that I'm thinking about, do I believe in what we're making? Do I want to make it? Because if I don't want to make it, then you don't want to see it. You might think you want to see it. Going back to music. I remember hearing. Oh, gosh, who was it? Some musician speak at a conference in Nashville in, like, 2012, and he said that his favorite album was from one of his favorite. I think it was Wilco. But he said they didn't make the album I wanted. And I didn't understand it the first, like, 10 times I listened to it. But they made the album that they knew needed to be made. And, like, I found in it something I didn't even know I wanted. And so something that we're asking. Thank you for verbally processing this with me, everyone. Something that we are, that I'm constantly looking to do is make the things not necessarily the people say they want. Although I. I definitely pay attention to that. Like, we have a what should I read next? Member community, and I do these bonus episodes called Industry Insights, where I help people understand publishing better. And I'll do things like break down how book advances work and how do contracts work and how do authors get paid the ins and outs of podcasting. Because I think the more you understand about the industry, the more informed you can be as a reader, and it changes how you interact with that. And that's especially true for writers in another way. But also, I think some of the most valuable work that I've had the pleasure of enjoying wasn't made because I asked for it. Like, an artist is making something that nobody knew they wanted, but it's good and people will be glad to get it. Okay, last thing. I'm also very conscious of which space we're putting our work into. We have some private member communities. I've written books. We do PDFs, we have the podcast, we have the blog. I'm thinking about which audience the work goes into. So sometimes it's not noise because of the level of intimacy in it. So the public version of it might be noise, but the private version, where there's a little more trust and I'll go into a little more detail and put a little more of myself into it, will feel real.

[Damian]

All right, let's give it up for Anne and Amy.

[Amy McConnell]

Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my keynote conversation with Amy McConnell from Writer Fest. If you'd like to hear more about the festival or about the writing process, whether that is book, song or screen, check out the Writer Fest podcast. Wherever you listen to this show, we'll have links to the books Amy and I talked about, the Writer Fest podcast and the conference itself, all@whatshould I read next podcast.com if our show is on your weekly must listen list, would you please share it with a friend? We recently posted a fun template to our Instagram highlights where they're at what Should I Read Next? That you can fill out to share your favorite episode of our show, where you listen to the podcast and more. We would love to see your replies. Be sure to tag us and your favorite reading buddies in your story. You can also help others find our show by leaving a review and a five star rating on Apple Podcasts. And make sure you're on our email list so that you get updates on our show and the wider reading world. Sign up for our free updates at what Should I read next podcast.com newsletter. Thanks to the people who make the show happen. What Should I Read Next? Is created each week by Will Bogle, Holly Wilkachevsky and Studio D Podcast Production. Special thanks this week to all the good folks at Writer Fest for making this episode possible readers. That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening and as Reiner Maria Rilke said, ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading. Happy reading everyone.