Claire Dederer, LOVE & TROUBLE
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books. This episode of Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books
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[0:31]I'm here today with clear debtor, the author of two critically acclaimed memoirs,
[0:34]Love and Trouble of Midlife Reckoning, and Poser, My Life in 23 Yoga Poses,
[0:39]which was a New York Times bestseller and has been optioned for TV and adapted for the stage.
[0:43]I also reviewed this book a long time ago in the observer playground magazine,
[0:48]which I used to write for. She has contributed to the New York Times, the Paris Review,
[0:52]the Atlantic, the nation, Mary Claire, Elle, real simple, and many other publications.
[0:57]She's a fourth generation Seattle, native, and currently lives on an island in Puget Sound,
[1:01]with her husband and children. Welcome, Claire. Thanks for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read
[1:05]Books. I'm so excited to be interviewing you. I've told you this before, but I read your memoir,
[1:11]Poser, My Life in 23 Yoga Poses when it first came out, and I just absolutely loved it and haven't
[1:16]forgotten it all this time. I always think about it, so I'm really delighted to be interviewing you about it.
[1:20]All right. Thank you for reading. It's funny I can barely, that book is, I think 10 years old now,
[1:29]and so it's sort of, I had to, you know, I'm reaching back in the recesses of my memory.
[1:34]Well, we can still see what happens in it. I know you've written another book since Love and
[1:38]Trouble, and we can talk about that, and I want to hear about the one you're working on now as well,
[1:42]but I can jump around a little bit. What was it that made you write your first memoir? Like,
[1:47]what inspired you to write it? Well, I didn't have any idea that I wanted to write a memoir at all.
[1:53]I had been a book critic and a film critic and a journalist for maybe 10 or 15 years, and I
[2:00]would never have occurred to me to write a memoir, but at the time I was doing a lot of yoga,
[2:04]and I was reviewing a lot of yoga books. I happened to be writing a lot at that time for yoga journal,
[2:10]and so I would review yoga books for them, and honestly, they were just, you know,
[2:14]they were terrible, and they were intolerable actually. It was just every single book I picked up
[2:20]was about, like, paths, intention, destiny, these sort of big, boring, non-literary words.
[2:27]And this was in, I'm going to say this was maybe in 2008, and there were no books that dealt
[2:35]with yoga that were, you know, smart and funny and literary, which many of the people I knew
[2:41]who did yoga work, right? And I just thought, geez, we're missing this book, and I had participated
[2:48]at that time in a couple of few anthologies, and I thought, well, why don't I do an anthology
[2:56]of different, smart, funny, literary people talking about different yoga poses, right? So I knew
[3:02]of certain people who weren't yoga experts, but were good writers who could write well,
[3:07]and each could select a different pose. So I proposed this idea to my husband and also to my now
[3:15]agent, and they both said, that sounds like a great idea, but why don't you write the whole thing
[3:20]yourself? And I just thought, well, how could I do that? How could that be possible? Because nothing
[3:26]has ever happened to me. Oh, stuff. And how can I write a memoir if nothing's ever happened to me?
[3:32]And, you know, not only, of course, did it turn out I was wrong. Plenty of things had happened to me.
[3:35]I just didn't recognize them as a event, but I also learned that my favorite kind of memoir
[3:42]is memoir of ordinary life, which is what I came to write. The way you had it structured, how each
[3:47]chapter was a different pose. I've been hearing all of this, like, anti essay book sentiment,
[3:53]but essay books aren't as popular. And I don't know why I love reading essays myself. And I
[3:58]felt like yours, although it was a strong narrative, obviously, you still broke it up into little
[4:02]discrete sections like that. What do you think about this whole, like, people don't want to read
[4:07]essays. Do you agree with that? Yeah, that was interesting. When I sold the book, there was definitely
[4:14]some concern about it being too essayistic. I was lucky enough to get to talk to a lot of
[4:19]different editors when I sold it. And I think, especially having been a magazine and newspaper writer
[4:24]myself, they were concerned that it would be too broken up and that it would have this essayistic
[4:32]and that was a big, big concern. So the idea of building a narrative arc out of small chunks
[4:38]was very much at the forefront of my mind when I wrote that book. So I do think there's
[4:43]attention in it between these sort of nuggets and this larger structural shape, which is the case
[4:48]with my second book as well. However, all that said, I feel like this idea of a problem with essay
[4:56]books is starting to fade away a little bit. I feel like there have been more popular essay books and
[5:01]that people are more open to that form now. But of course, we're in this moment that's just
[5:06]problematic all the way around for personal writing. You know, it's getting much harder to sell
[5:12]literary memoir. It's getting much harder to sell any kind of book of personal essays. We do see
[5:17]these breakout ones that do really well, but sort of the markets are really constricting,
[5:22]which is interesting because I don't really think that the readership is constricting in my
[5:28]experience. I mean, of course, that's anecdotal. I agree with you. I totally agree. Plus the fact
[5:32]that now in magazines, there's less and less space for people to even read the essay. So I feel
[5:38]like people are reading essays like crazy online. And yet there are so few places to read them
[5:44]like in your hands. Like it doesn't make sense to me. But anyway, right? Yeah, right. I
[5:49]totally agree. And I wonder if that has created a perceived devaluing of personal writing. Oh,
[5:55]I don't know. And I mean, of course, it's not probably coincidental that there's a kind of
[6:01]devaluing of this form when it's dominated by women. Interesting. And read by women.
[6:06]Also interesting. Well, I'll tuck that in my back pocket. Anyway, like 50 other things I want to
[6:18]talk to you about. But now we're talking about that. So first of all, I am not like a big yoga person
[6:24]and I don't think that matters at all. Like I feel like this is the most universal book,
[6:29]because it's really about motherhood and coming into your own and finding your way really. I mean,
[6:35]and you just, it's just like a tool that you used. And I think it was so funny in the beginning of
[6:39]your book. You were making so much fun of what you thought. The yoga people were like. What did you
[6:44]say? This is something so funny. You said now that I've been doing yoga for 10 years, I'm tempted
[6:48]to say something wise, such as I was ready to ween and my body made the decision for me. But back
[6:53]then I didn't believe in that kind of crap. Which is just so funny. I just wanted to appreciate that.
[7:00]Didn't take you a while to sort of get over the, I mean, I don't want to say prejudice,
[7:05]because that's the wrong word. But the like stigma attached to a avid yoga goer or do or
[7:11]practice her. I think that the book is a little bit about that. I mean, I came to yoga,
[7:16]I think it's about that getting over the stigma. Yeah. And I think that there's sort of cultural
[7:21]elements of that, which is, I think I, you know, came from more of a punk rock background. And I
[7:29]was a book critic. And I sort of perceived myself as maybe a little more intellectual. And I also was
[7:35]just sort of an embedded maker funner of things. And yoga is, you know, ripe to be loathed
[7:41]on every front by everything I just said. But there was something in it that I sensed I needed.
[7:48]And the book really deals with this idea that I started doing yoga because it fit in with this
[7:54]overwhelming project that dominated me in that time in my life, which was to be a good mother.
[8:02]That was what I was extremely preoccupied. I mean, preoccupied isn't even the right word. It was
[8:06]controlled every aspect of my being, being a good mother. And that force of wanting to be a good
[8:13]mother was more powerful than anything I'd ever encountered in my life, including all those
[8:17]qualities I just enumerated earlier. It dominated everything, it knocked everything out of
[8:22]the park. And I think that yoga did dovetail with that idea of goodness really closely. So in this
[8:31]effort to be like this good North Seattle organic, you know, all these kinds of motherhood that
[8:37]that we all participate in, not all of us, but I participated in a time yoga fit right in there
[8:44]and fit an image I had, but also sort of an emotional project I was on to be good. And I think that
[8:52]that is what I find in the book is that that's not actually what yoga, what I, in the end,
[8:58]learned from yoga. You know, that I learned the opposite that maybe being good was not the correct
[9:06]project for me. So that gives you a little background in how I came to yoga and how I kind of came
[9:12]to this idea of writing the book, because it wasn't just that I sort of had something to say that
[9:17]was, you know, funny and smart about yoga. It was also the way I had changed my relationship to it
[9:21]was really interesting to me. That was the perspective I wrote from. Yes. So I answered my question.
[9:27]It wasn't that good a question. So you did a great job. Maybe we should fast forward because this
[9:32]idea of being a good mother, I feel like is something you're still sort of working on because I
[9:38]in your, in your more recent article that is now becoming the book monster, if I'm not mistaken,
[9:43]you talked a lot about how you can be a good mother and a good artist, which I found really
[9:49]fascinating because people don't really talk about that. And so you said that every mom quietly
[9:52]asks yourself if her work is making her less good mom or if motherhood is making her less good
[9:58]writer. And you say maybe.
[10:00]He has a female writer.
[10:01]You don't kill yourself or abandon your children,
[10:04]but you abandon something, some nurturing part of yourself.
[10:07]When you finish a book, what lies later on the ground
[10:09]are small, broken things.
[10:11]Broken dates, broken promises, broken engagements.
[10:14]Also, other more important for getting and failures.
[10:17]Children's homework, left unchecked, parents,
[10:19]left untelephoned, spousal sex, forehead.
[10:22]Those things have to get broken for the book to get written.
[10:25]Wow, so tell me, tell me more about this.
[10:29]Oh, I think that this idea of this will be my third book,
[10:33]and which is an amazing thing to get to say.
[10:36]I feel so lucky, but I think that this idea of goodness
[10:39]has really preoccupied me as a writer,
[10:41]and I think it's something that is for some women
[10:45]a really powerfully shaping force,
[10:48]this idea that we ought to be good,
[10:50]and in particular ought to be a good mother.
[10:53]And I think a lot about this idea of who we ask to be good,
[10:58]this idea of a good mother,
[11:00]or the only other person we really think of as good
[11:02]in the same way are children.
[11:04]It's sort of like we talk about good kids,
[11:06]or a good daughter, but in general,
[11:09]there's not this sort of prescribed set of behaviors
[11:13]from the rest of the world, and yet as a mother,
[11:16]I do feel like there's this ideal of what I ought to be,
[11:20]and that ideal of good motherhood
[11:23]is sort of what I keep coming back to over and over.
[11:25]So in terms of this essay that was in the Paris Review
[11:29]about monsters, what I was getting at was the feeling
[11:33]that the selfishness required to make a piece of art
[11:38]is in conflict with that idea of motherhood.
[11:43]And I think that the word selfishness is problematic
[11:48]and true for me.
[11:49]I think that it's, you know,
[11:52]you don't have to put that value charge on it.
[11:54]You don't have to say it's selfish to break a date
[11:56]or to shut the door and to get your work done.
[12:00]But I think for women, it can feel selfish, right?
[12:03]So it has to do with this internal feeling
[12:06]that when I don't call my mom back so I can go to work
[12:10]that somehow I am not being a good person,
[12:14]and that my artist and my motherhood,
[12:16]my personhood, my daughterhood are in conflict.
[12:19]And I think that living with that feeling
[12:22]is a part of what a lot of women
[12:24]and honestly a lot of artists live with.
[12:27]It's funny because it's the opposite of selfishness, really,
[12:30]because what you're doing is taking your own life
[12:33]and trying to help other people
[12:34]by sharing your experience of it.
[12:36]But it's only selfish in that maybe you're not benefiting
[12:39]the few people around you.
[12:41]It's like people who like go off to war to, I mean, not to make,
[12:46]but you know, like they have to leave their own family
[12:49]to go off and fight for the country, right?
[12:52]Like it's like a personal sacrifice versus, you know,
[12:55]do you see what I'm saying?
[12:55]A little bit.
[12:56]Yeah, I actually have thought about that analogy
[12:58]before as embarrassing as that is.
[13:00]Okay.
[13:01]So not crazy.
[13:03]Yeah, no, no, no, it's, I hear it.
[13:04]Yeah, I think that the problem is that most writers
[13:08]hate themselves and it's so universal.
[13:13]So you're sitting alone in your room doing your work
[13:15]and you're trying to believe in this moral compact.
[13:18]You have the reader, right, or this moral contract
[13:20]or you're saying something true
[13:22]and the reader feels less alone.
[13:25]And I really believe in the morality of that.
[13:27]I believe that that's the function of personal writing
[13:29]of memoir.
[13:30]I believe I've seen with my own eyes and felt as a reader
[13:34]how important that relationship between writer and reader is.
[13:38]But when you're sitting alone in the room
[13:41]with just your computer and your self-loathing for company,
[13:44]it can be really hard to remember that
[13:46]and not feel bad about doing the other things
[13:49]but tending to your family or your friends or whatever.
[13:53]I'm gonna send you like some of those little plastic figurines
[13:55]like G.I.J.S. and you can like put them next year,
[13:57]left after something.
[13:59]It's a little reminder, you know, going into battle
[14:02]for everyone's sake.
[14:04]Wait, so tell me what this new book is gonna be about.
[14:07]I know I haven't talked a lot about poster
[14:08]or love and trouble, but I'm so eager to hear more about it
[14:11]for Monster.
[14:12]What's it going to be about?
[14:13]Well, so in my book club and trouble,
[14:16]I wrote a lot about the filmmaker Roman Polanski.
[14:19]I was writing about my own experience growing up
[14:23]in this sort of hyper-sexualized environment
[14:25]of the 1970s, right?
[14:27]And being a kid navigating a girl, not just a kid,
[14:29]but a girl navigating that world.
[14:32]And so one of the things I do in the book
[14:34]is sort of play with this idea of Roman Polanski
[14:38]as the kind of totemic figure of that time
[14:41]or sort of this story through which I'm able
[14:45]to think about my own experience
[14:46]of having been sexually predated during that period,
[14:49]which is very common for a lot of women my age,
[14:52]the 70s and early 80s.
[14:54]And so I take Polanski's rape of Samantha Galey
[14:57]and sort of put the two stories next to each other,
[15:00]not to co-opt that story, but just as a way
[15:02]of reflecting and looking at my own personal history.
[15:05]So I did a lot of researching on Polanski for that book,
[15:08]which has two long sections about him.
[15:11]And I've fascinated by him.
[15:14]I became fascinated with his biography, his parents,
[15:18]were persecuted in the Holocaust.
[15:20]He hit out.
[15:21]He came to America.
[15:22]He's the great.
[15:23]One of the greatest filmmakers ever.
[15:25]He was wife is killed in the, which is newly in the news
[15:28]because of the Tarantino film.
[15:30]His wife is killed in the Manson killings.
[15:32]And then he enacts this terrible crime.
[15:35]So it's like all of 20th century blows.
[15:37]You can see I'm getting excited.
[15:38]Yes.
[15:39]Character.
[15:40]And then he sort of takes all that badness
[15:42]and does this terrible act.
[15:43]So I became really preoccupied by his story.
[15:46]And at the same time, I still love his films.
[15:50]And I would still watch Chinatown
[15:52]or Rosemary Baker, Rosemary's baby or repulsion
[15:55]or even his later work that he's made in the last 10 years.
[15:58]And I would buy it.
[16:00]I would pay for it.
[16:01]And so I became really interested.
[16:03]This was probably in about 2015
[16:05]in what exactly I was doing, right?
[16:08]What am I doing?
[16:08]I have all people know more.
[16:11]I'd read all the depositions of the girl he raped.
[16:13]You know, I knew everything he had done.
[16:16]And yet somehow I was still able to consume the art.
[16:19]And that problem of me as an audience member
[16:23]became really interesting to me.
[16:25]And I started to think about, you know,
[16:27]terrible people who'd made great art
[16:29]and sort of what to do about them.
[16:31]And I was less interested in them
[16:34]as in us, you know, us as the audience.
[16:37]I became interested in this idea of trying to write
[16:39]an autobiography of the audience.
[16:41]What are we doing?
[16:42]What's our story?
[16:44]How does the film change when we know what we know?
[16:47]So I sort of floated this idea for a book
[16:49]to my editor and my agent and they were excited about it.
[16:52]And I had probably been working on it
[16:54]for a year and a half when the Weinstein allegations
[16:58]came out and me too hit.
[17:00]And all of a sudden the whole country
[17:02]was preoccupied with this question.
[17:04]So I took this first chapter of the book
[17:06]and published it in the Paris Review
[17:08]and it had this sort of explosive response.
[17:10]And that's basically where I jump off from there is,
[17:13]I just keep exploring different aspects
[17:16]of how we as the audience respond to this work.
[17:19]But it's been a really strange experience
[17:21]because it was kind of a lonely project
[17:23]that I was thinking about by myself
[17:25]that suddenly became this globally interesting project.
[17:30]So that's sort of one part of the book,
[17:31]but then the other part is,
[17:33]does it take some kind of selfishness or monstrousness
[17:37]to be an artist?
[17:39]And what do we do as writers or artists in the face of that?
[17:43]So there's sort of a half of the book.
[17:45]You can tell I'm really working on this
[17:46]because it's-
[17:47]It's awesome, I love it.
[17:48]I'm blaming with it.
[17:50]There's half the book that has to do with us.
[17:51]His audience is in half, like,
[17:53]how do we work this out as artists?
[17:55]And really, what do we do about the problem of love?
[18:01]What do we do about, none of this would matter
[18:03]if we didn't love the work, right?
[18:06]And we get really focused on these moral elements
[18:08]of what he did wrong and what he did was wrong.
[18:10]And at that moment of saying what he did was wrong
[18:13]is so important, like we're at this incredibly valuable
[18:17]cultural moment, but there's also the love for the work.
[18:21]And that part is harder to talk about
[18:23]and doesn't get talked about, you know,
[18:25]it doesn't come attached with such
[18:27]straight and powerful online ready language, you know,
[18:30]to say how much a book means to you
[18:32]or how maybe a movie saved your life,
[18:34]those are things to talk about too.
[18:36]So interesting.
[18:36]Do you have a due date or anything?
[18:38]When is that coming out?
[18:39]Yeah, yeah.
[18:40]Not just stress you out or anything, but I have a draft.
[18:48]And I'm just kind of leaning it up.
[18:50]Nice.
[18:51]So I have another question for you,
[18:54]which is I was looking at your Instagram account.
[18:56]And I noticed your in conversation often
[18:58]with other authors at your bookstore by,
[19:02]I mean, it must be by where you live or something.
[19:04]So when you are in conversation,
[19:06]because I've been starting to do that more myself,
[19:09]I'm looking for any tips.
[19:10]Like what have you found that's been really helpful
[19:12]when you're talking to other authors
[19:14]and interviewing them yourself?
[19:16]What secret sauce, please?
[19:18]That is a great, great question.
[19:20]And I do, I want to say first that I love this movement
[19:23]we've had away from the author standing alone at the lectern
[19:28]reading and not meeting the eyes of the audience
[19:31]to a dynamic between two authors,
[19:33]which mysteriously opens up the dialogue more to the audience.
[19:37]I think you find that when two authors are in conversation
[19:39]that the Q&A is often more lively
[19:41]and it just creates this feeling of openness.
[19:44]It's interesting.
[19:45]I just did an event with Lisa Todello who wrote pre-women
[19:48]and she didn't read at all.
[19:49]She refused to read.
[19:51]She was just on my podcast.
[19:52]Oh, right.
[19:53]Oh, yeah.
[19:54]She's so great.
[19:54]Yeah, yeah.
[19:55]She's wonderful.
[19:56]And so smart.
[19:57]And of course, the process of that book is fascinating.
[20:00]she came to write it. So that's a lot of what you want to hear. But I think it's interesting
[20:03]that the conversation is now sort of replacing the reading. And I really appreciate it both
[20:07]as an audience member and an author myself. So all of that said, the number one thing, and this
[20:14]goes for all interviewing. And I've learned this the hard way. The big dumb question is the better
[20:20]question. So the job of the interviewer is to not make the interviewer shine, but to make the
[20:29]author shine. And what I see in bad Q&A's over and over is when the interviewer has a long
[20:36]complicated question that is designed to show how smart the interviewer is and how much research
[20:43]the interviewer has done and doesn't open up the space for the author or the person being
[20:48]interviewed to say what they need to say. Which is really the objective of everyone present
[20:53]is to hear what the author has to say. And so I think that the audience usually has questions
[21:02]that are pretty simple. Like how did you come to write this book? Why were you interested in this thing?
[21:07]And those can feel sort of quote unquote dumb when you're an interviewer. But they almost always
[21:16]create this room for the author to say what she has to say. So that for me is by far the most important
[21:23]thing. I also think I was just interviewed by a director for a documentary just last week and she
[21:28]was a master interviewer. So I was sort of being interviewed by her and observing her at the same
[21:34]time and thinking afterwards about what made her so special and strong as an interviewer. And I
[21:41]think it was that she had an ability to ask follow-up questions that might be perceived as
[21:49]challenging if they were stated in a different tone. But she was careful again to always ask them
[21:55]in this very open-ended way. So she might pick up on something I said and have a different perspective
[22:00]on it. But she avoided any language that was in the department of starting with the word but
[22:07]or don't you think or isn't it true? Anytime you open with a negative like that you come even
[22:13]subconsciously into an adversarial relationship with your interlocutor and that is no fun for anyone.
[22:23]It puts the author kind of back and again it's more in the interest of making the interviewer look
[22:30]smart. So always remembering that the author is there to shine and the interviewer is there to
[22:36]make that happen and maybe at best look friendly while they do it.
[22:42]Thank you. I hope I let you shine with that question.
[22:47]I mean do you have any what are your thoughts about interviewing? You've done it a lot now.
[22:52]No, I just feel like you have to actually be interested in the person you're interviewing.
[22:55]Like I feel like I don't interview people if I don't really care or I don't enjoy what they
[23:00]read and so I legitimately am interested in what they're saying so I listen really carefully
[23:05]and then I usually ask follow-up questions because I want to know more. So I think if you
[23:09]you know if you're thinking of yourself as like I'm an interviewer like I don't think of myself
[23:14]as an interviewer I you know I just get to know people. Yeah I guess I agree. I think being
[23:20]interested is really important but as someone who and as someone who has been a terrible
[23:26]interviewer in the past I will say that when I started out as a film critic I used to have
[23:30]to interview filmmakers and I would be so excited to talk to say Errol Morris who was a hero of mine
[23:38]and I would do all the research and I'd be so excited and so interested and then I would have
[23:44]to do this thing where I would sort of spritz my knowledge and excitement all over the place
[23:49]and then I would have to go back and transcribe the interview and it would just be
[23:54]so much me and so a little Errol Morris so that learning to hold back was really important
[24:02]embarrassing but true. Not embarrassing. Yeah my answer was too simplistic. You're right I'm not
[24:08]just like excited. I don't know. What I'm saying that you seem to be really good at translating that
[24:14]interest into opening up questions for the person you're interviewing. Oh thank you. Let's talk about
[24:19]me some more. So tell me just I know we're almost at a time and this has been such a meandering
[24:27]conversation so you're probably thinking I'm terrible at what I'm doing but tell me about your
[24:33]teaching right now because I saw that you have a new lab or something you're doing where you
[24:39]have a memoir like an intensive workshop and you write you work for an MFA program and just tell
[24:43]me more about your day-to-day teaching life. Yeah I teach with the Literary Center in Seattle which
[24:48]is Hugo House. I'm just restarting teaching with them we're going to do a year-long book lab which
[24:54]will work with people on completed or almost completed manuscripts and then I'm teach in the Pacific
[25:00]University MFA program in Oregon which is a low residency program so like we all meet up twice a year
[25:06]which is very fun and that was sort of I don't have an MFA I don't come from an MFA background
[25:12]so when I started when I first published publisher and started being asked to teach I was sort
[25:18]baffled by why anyone would want me to teach but I think that there's something you know I think
[25:25]that it turned out I did have something I was really interested in as a teacher and it goes back
[25:30]to what we were talking about at the beginning of this conversation which is my strong belief in the
[25:36]power of the memoir of ordinary life I really really believe in it as something that is this
[25:43]important form it's an important female form and it's an important literature from the point of view
[25:50]of female readers in that there is this quality of seeing their own life experienced in non-fictional
[25:57]form that makes women feel less alone and I think that that you know there's a lot of pushback
[26:04]against memoir as being too narcissistic or too self-involved but if it's done with this sort of
[26:11]relationship in mind there is this moral quality to it which is your job as the memoirist is to
[26:18]say what is true and what is really difficult and make the reader feel less alone and when I published
[26:23]poser I really saw that the parts of the book that were the most difficult for me to write
[26:29]the most embarrassing were the things that readers loved the most right that they would actually
[26:34]come up and be crying and hugging me saying thank you for saying this it's it's exactly my
[26:39]experience so having that experience of publishing a book and having that response and then doing
[26:45]it again and again I think that that's something that is the core of my teaching to you know
[26:52]there you have this writer who's the self-loathing person alone in the room trying to figure out
[26:57]why they're doing this and as a teacher I can say no this matters you you know this ordinary
[27:03]story you're telling is important and you're going to reach someone and you know you need to do
[27:07]your best to go into the most difficult part of it so as a teacher I kind of am on a mission around
[27:13]that and it's been really satisfying in a way I could never have predicted when I started out
[27:19]Wow that's awesome I love that the student stories are incredible I bet I mean I love reading
[27:25]people's everyday stories that's what life is all about I mean how few of us are actually
[27:29]I don't know running countries or I mean you know the every day is that's what we have to go on
[27:34]really I mean and to find something that's a document of ordinary life that's well written is just
[27:39]it's the most satisfying thing to me I agree I'm like obsessed with reading memoirs so I'm
[27:45]oh you are yeah my favorite yeah I know what are other memoirs that you love that Paul and
[27:49]that category not it's always that's putting someone on the spot but Danny Shapiro has been one of
[27:53]my favorite memoirs for a long time I read slowly I read slow motion when I was in my early 20s or
[27:59]so and it stayed with me forever and now I've actually reconnected with her I'm interviewing her
[28:03]tomorrow night actually or Friday night and inheritance was also amazing and just hearing it it's
[28:09]like you're sitting and talking to someone I mean those are just too offhand but you know slow
[28:14]motion was really an influence for me and she's been incredibly helpful she's such an amazing
[28:19]supporter and helper of other writers but yeah slow motion really does do that she passed away but
[28:25]there was a memoir I loved called drinking a love story by Caroline Knapp did you ever read that
[28:30]that was so good these and now I'm going way back on my all-time favorites but that was one of my
[28:35]no I love it it was so good and I reread it again recently and I made a different place in my life
[28:40]than I was then but I don't know just stays with me that's amazing I read it when it came out I
[28:46]loved it and I just reread it this year I actually was funny audio yeah exactly and it was even
[28:51]better when I when I revisited it I was more impressed by it yeah it's a great book and then I
[28:57]felt like when she died like I knew her which of course I didn't really but but you developed
[29:02]these relationships anyway that was heartbreaking so memoir yes the mission I'm all about it thank
[29:08]you for sharing yours and thanks for sharing your story because like all your other readers it
[29:12]stayed with me for all this time so well I'm so glad yeah I love hearing about love for that book
[29:16]that's great thank you for the thank you of course all right well thanks for coming on mom's
[29:21]don't have time thank you thanks for having me in real life at some point I would love that
[29:27]me too okay take care bye bye bye thanks again to today's sponsor of mom's don't have time to
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[29:47]sound editing and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[29:52]now trim music thanks for listening you could always email me at zibby at zibbyoins.com