Stephanie Storey, RAPHAEL, PAINTER IN ROME
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zive Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast,
[0:11]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Thanks so much for listening to my podcast. If you like what
[0:16]you hear, please follow me on Instagram at Zive Owens and also at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[0:21]Books. Thanks so much for listening. Enjoy it.
[0:23]I'm so excited to discuss my sponsor today, which is Page One Books, because my summer
[0:29]book bundle is ready on PageOneBooks.com. And the bundle that I've fit together includes three
[0:35]books that I picked. Montauk by Nicola Harrison, more myself by Alicia Keys, and I miss you when
[0:40]I blink by Mary Lorafilpat, all of which have been on this podcast here. It includes a
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[0:57]Page One with the number one. So Page Number One Books.com, and check out my Page One Books Summer
[1:04]by it is a gift to housewarming if you actually go somewhere, or just give it to yourself. Everybody
[1:09]needs a treat without a long spring. PageOneBooks.com. Welcome to Day Four of my July Book Blast. Today
[1:18]I'm going to be calling this thrilling Thursday, and there are a bunch of thrillers and suspenseful
[1:24]reads that I thought you'd really enjoy and that would make great summer reads. A lot of these
[1:29]came out during the pandemic, and they're really worth your time, so I wanted to get them out. I
[1:33]hope you enjoy them. Stephanie Story's debut novel, Oil and Marble, was hailed as tremendously
[1:38]entertaining by the New York Times, has been translated into six languages, and is currently in
[1:43]development as a feature film by Pioneer Pictures. Story is also the author of Raphael,
[1:48]Painter and Rome, and has a degree in fine arts from Vanderbilt University, and attended a PhD
[1:53]program in art history before leaving to get an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College.
[1:58]She has studied art in Italy and been on a pilgrimage to see every Michelangelo on display in
[2:03]Europe. Stephanie has also been a national television producer for nearly 20 years in LA for shows
[2:07]including Alec Baldwin on ABC, Arsenio Hall for CBS, and Emmy nominated The Writer's Room on
[2:13]the Sundance Channel, when not writing novels or producing television. Story can usually be found
[2:17]with her husband, Mike Gandalfini, an actor, and Emmy-winning comedy writer, traveling the world
[2:23]in search of their next stories. Thanks Stephanie. Thanks a lot for coming on mom's
[2:27]and I have time to read books today. Oh, thank you so much for having me even in the middle of
[2:31]all of the crazy world we have going on outside of our doors. I appreciate having any opportunity
[2:37]to talk about books and getting a little bit of an escape for a moment. Yes, I'm happy to provide
[2:43]the forum for that. So you have such an interesting background. You wrote your first book was Oil
[2:50]and Marble, which took the world by storm, and is now becoming a feature film, is that right? Is
[2:55]that still happening? It is still happening. The pioneer pictures is making the movie.
[3:01]They're great group of guys. I believe they have just sort of finished up getting the screenplay
[3:06]solid. So now they are going out and attaching other elements and still hoping to plan on shooting
[3:12]and Italy once all of this closes down. So there will be news forthcoming on that, but the
[3:17]movie making process is slow. So yes, I'm I'm acquainted with that a little bit.
[3:23]Oh, nice. Just filming in Italy sound just even the idea of being able to travel. I mean,
[3:29]right? I know that's the least of it these days, but just you know the ability to to be in
[3:33]other parts of the world. Just the ability to think about going back to Italy,
[3:38]you suves me in some manner to think about being able to head back to Rome or head back to Florence,
[3:45]or just do something that feels a little bit more global than being sheltered in place in a house
[3:53]right now, which I understand is important and I'm all for it, but it is nice to be able to dream
[3:58]of going back to Italy at some point. Yeah, filming there would be amazing. Oh my gosh. I was looking at
[4:02]this picture. I have this photo of like a pier with like the Mediterranean Sea around it and like
[4:07]all these people. And there's like this one woman who's like walking down. And I did this like,
[4:12]I don't even know what it was like mindfulness. I don't know what it was, but I was like,
[4:16]I'm going to imagine that I'm her and I can like hear the sounds and smell the water and like
[4:22]pretend that I am there because instead I am in my same place that I've been now for I don't know
[4:27]weeks and weeks and weeks. Anyway, and then imagine yourself going and eating pizza or some pesto
[4:34]or something like that would be really nice. But anyway, I feel like you're going to get to Italy
[4:39]before me. So you are now required to like send me some pictures or some footage of that trip
[4:44]because I am like craving that experience. Okay, so you have oil and marble. And now you have a new
[4:50]book and you art historical thriller coming out. Tell me about that. I see it. I see it behind you.
[4:56]It is. Yes. It is behind me. Not that anybody else can see it right here. Not that you can see.
[5:01]Sorry. We're on Skype, but it came out on April 7th. So it just came out. So the oil and marble was
[5:07]about the rivalry between Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci when they were both living in Florence.
[5:11]At the end of that book, this is not really a spoiler because it doesn't really give much of it.
[5:15]But at the end of that book, a guy by the name of Raphael shows up on the scene. And so my newest
[5:22]book sort of in a way picks up where or the marble left off, although it's very different,
[5:28]we follow Raphael down to Rome where he then engages in this high stakes rivalry with Michelangelo.
[5:34]So while Michelangelo was painting the Sistine ceiling, Raphael is just down the hall decorating
[5:39]the Pope's private apartments. But this newest novel is written in first person from Raphael's point
[5:44]of view. So you only get this sort of this big rivalry between these two huge artists from the
[5:51]eyes of Raphael. You only see Michelangelo for the eyes of Raphael. He's like sitting across a
[5:55]tavern table from you, the reader, telling you this story of how he engaged in this huge rivalry
[6:01]with Michelangelo and the story. And how Michelangelo does create the Sistine ceiling during that.
[6:07]And how Raphael deals with his rival doing such amazing things on a ceiling and how he counters that.
[6:14]So I mean, these days, like someone's rival might get like, I don't know, more likes on Instagram.
[6:19]These days they're painting, like then they're painting the Sistine Chapel. You're like,
[6:23]things are so much more impressive. Right, the Sistine Chapel. And then, and then Raphael, it's so
[6:28]funny because I've been talking to book clubs and people who have already read Raphael. Now,
[6:32]like, oh, well, I went to the Vatican to go see the Sistine, but I don't remember seeing Raphael's
[6:36]rooms, the Pope's private apartments. I don't know if I went through them. Like, oh, no, you have
[6:41]to walk through them in order to get to the Sistine. The Vatican forces you to walk through the
[6:46]Raphael room. And they are gorgeous. They are little jewel boxes of rooms of these amazing
[6:52]masterpieces. But people are so focused, I think, or at least Americans are so focused on seeing
[6:58]the Sistine that they forget and they don't stop and pay attention to this other amazing art.
[7:05]So I'm hoping that my book can do a little bit towards reviving Raphael. He was the most famous
[7:12]of the three of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Raphael during his lifetime. He was the most beloved.
[7:19]He was the one that everybody held up at this as this perfect painter. And this year was the
[7:23]500th anniversary of his death. So it was supposed to be this huge global celebration going on
[7:30]of Raphael's life. And this huge exhibit in Rome got shut down days after it opened. And I was
[7:36]heartbroken for Raphael, not for me for him. I was like, this was supposed to be your moment.
[7:43]Yeah. So I guess that's why I wrote it because I'd get all flustered and weird when I talk about
[7:47]how we're missing out on Raphael's art and his brilliance and how we need to go back
[7:55]and reconnect to it because he was a nice guy. So he gets left out of the history too much,
[8:00]right? Like people go, he was so nice, so generous, so humble. He's not interesting. No,
[8:06]he's really interesting. Trust me. So you have a PhD in art history. No, you don't. You don't.
[8:14]I went to a PhD program. Okay. I attended one. I did not finish because academics do not like
[8:21]it when you make stuff up. So then you left to your MFA because I was like, then I went to go
[8:27]to all of these things. Well, old, I don't know, I'm 45 now. So my first book came out when I was
[8:34]40. So I'd already had time to go to a PhD program, drop out, go get my MFA, move to Hollywood,
[8:40]produce a bunch of television, and then come out with a book. So I don't know. It's an obsession.
[8:46]I'm obsessed. But you can tell like the passion and your voice, like now I all of a sudden care
[8:52]about Raphael, like I was just going about my business, not really, you know, I thought I had enough
[8:57]of an impression of what he was like before, but now I have to revisit the whole thing.
[9:03]No, you have to. That's the point. Since he got, he got left out. Now he's just a teenage
[9:08]ninja turtle. Exactly. Oh, come on. I'm like, oh, it's more than that.
[9:15]Wait, but back up a little bit. How did you go from, so you were a TV producer also for a long
[9:21]time before this. So how did you decide to sort of quit your day job and pursue fiction writing?
[9:27]I have written novels since I was our books fiction since I was seven years old. Like I wrote my
[9:33]first hoarding the hog ghost of school when I was seven. And I've written fiction every day
[9:39]since. But everybody told me that's not a real gig, even though I have my MFA creative writing.
[9:46]So I moved out to Hollywood because I heard there was this business where people told stories,
[9:51]and it was an actual industry where you could get a job and make money. So I did.
[9:55]It was however Hollywood was my total plan B. It was like I'm only doing this until I get an
[9:59]novel.
[10:00]I don't know.
[10:01]So I went out there and I produced primarily news and talk television.
[10:06]So Candace Bergen had a talk show and Carrie Fisher had a talk show Governor Jesse Ventura
[10:11]to have a smiley.
[10:12]Arsenio Hall is relaunched to CBS.
[10:15]Alec Baldwin just had a talk show a couple of years ago on ABC that I produced.
[10:18]And I did that forever while in the mornings and at night and on weekends.
[10:23]I was writing screenplays for a while with my husband.
[10:27]And then I have one of those moments in 2011 where you realize life is really short
[10:34]and it's not going to last forever.
[10:36]So you better do what you really want to do and I was terrified of writing a novel.
[10:41]I thought, oh man, what if I'm not good enough?
[10:43]What if I'm only good enough to write a screenplay and television like I'm not good enough
[10:46]to write a novel?
[10:48]But I really wanted to and I really wanted to tell the oil and marble story that my
[10:51]Michelangelo versus Leonardo story.
[10:54]So I just sort of bucked up and did it in 2011.
[10:57]So I was 36 when I started, when I really sort of said, I'm not just going to write fiction
[11:03]for myself.
[11:04]I'm going to try to head seven novels or something in a filing cabinet by that point that
[11:08]we're never going to see the light of day, you know.
[11:10]And this was the first time and I said, okay, I'm going to try to make one good enough
[11:14]to get it published and send it out into the world.
[11:17]So I don't know.
[11:18]And then I sold it.
[11:19]And then we sold my husband.
[11:20]I sold our condo when I booked to work because I thought, well, that would take three
[11:24]months.
[11:25]We don't need to pay the mortgage in the Marriott, too.
[11:27]And up until this pandemic, we were still traveling full time with gigs and writing events
[11:33]and speaking events and so I don't know how it happened.
[11:36]I just looked up and went, I guess I have an off link career now.
[11:39]Wow.
[11:40]That's really impressive.
[11:41]So essentially you're homeless.
[11:42]You've just been bouncing from one place to another.
[11:44]I do.
[11:45]I am very lucky.
[11:46]My parents have property on a lake in Arkansas and they have a guest house.
[11:50]So whenever we need to stop down and do some laundry or have a home cooked meal, we stop
[11:56]and at the guest house and then we leave again for the Marriott.
[11:59]Although this is we are sheltering in place by lake in Arkansas, which has turned out to
[12:03]be great.
[12:04]We're away from humanity.
[12:05]I only go to the grocery store and it's a quiet place to write my next novel.
[12:09]Wow.
[12:10]What's your next novel about?
[12:12]All I am saying about it at this point is it's still art historical fiction.
[12:16]Because I hope to be writing that to the day I die.
[12:19]Like Michelangelo.
[12:20]Michelangelo was still carving the week before he died when he was 88 years old.
[12:24]He was still carving marble.
[12:26]Come on.
[12:27]And Raphael dies when he's 37.
[12:28]So he's still like painting his greatest masterpiece like two days before he dies.
[12:32]Anyway, so I hope to be doing that art historical fiction.
[12:35]But the new one is leaving the Italian Renaissance for now, not that I won't be back,
[12:40]but I have other eras of art history that fascinate me.
[12:44]So I'm leaving both era and I'm leaving the country, I'm leaving Italy to go to a different
[12:48]country too.
[12:49]But it's about all I'm saying about it.
[12:51]I mean, unless you follow my social meeting in this case, you might be able to figure out
[12:55]what country I've been obsessed with lately.
[12:58]So that's that go back and I've talked to work.
[13:02]What happened in 2011?
[13:05]What happened that made you rethink your life and decide that now is the moment?
[13:08]My husband had a stroke and he was 49 years old and we were on a hospital.
[13:14]And I thought and he's the healthiest guy.
[13:16]No, he was a vegetarian.
[13:18]He doesn't drink.
[13:19]He doesn't smoke.
[13:20]He runs every day.
[13:21]He's does yoga like he is literally the healthiest guy I know.
[13:27]And I'm sitting there and at the time, I'm, you know, 36 and going, this is crazy.
[13:34]How can the healthiest guy know have had this big of an event and we didn't know at
[13:38]the time when I'm sitting in the hospital room.
[13:40]He's fully recovered now.
[13:41]Now you'd never know.
[13:42]But at the time, you're like, well, this is bad.
[13:46]We're in for physical therapy and we're in for a long journey and I don't know how
[13:50]he's going to be.
[13:52]And it just the beeping machine.
[13:53]I could still just back there, you know, the beeping machines and the, not moment you
[13:58]go, well, this isn't, this isn't going to last forever if this can happen to my husband.
[14:04]It can happen to me.
[14:05]He's healthier than I am, you know.
[14:07]How did this stroke present itself?
[14:09]How did you even know what was happening?
[14:10]It turned out it already had a smaller one earlier in the air, which we didn't identify.
[14:15]He just like started walking like a drunk cartoon character and we were like, well, that's
[14:19]weird.
[14:20]But the morning of I had already gone to work was produced in television.
[14:22]So I was up really early in the morning and I got a phone call at my office phone from
[14:27]a neighbor saying, hey, I'm with your husband.
[14:30]He's asking you to come home.
[14:32]It gives a phone to my husband and my husband says, come home.
[14:35]Something's happened.
[14:36]I don't know what.
[14:37]So I get home.
[14:39]This is, I don't know what's happening.
[14:41]He just, he woke up and his arm flew up in the air without him doing it and then he
[14:46]couldn't dial the phone himself.
[14:48]He was sort of confused.
[14:49]We go to the hospital.
[14:50]It's a very long story.
[14:51]I'm going to make it very short.
[14:53]We go to the hospital and they run some tests.
[14:55]They do not run an MRI.
[14:57]So they send us home telling him he's dehydrated.
[15:01]That was at nine o'clock in the morning.
[15:04]And that night he kept getting worse, but they had sent us home.
[15:08]They told us he was okay.
[15:09]So I just wanted to get him to bed.
[15:11]Went to a friend's house for dinner and he can't, he's not talking right.
[15:14]Like something's not right.
[15:15]And then he woke up in the middle of the night, he was choking.
[15:19]And I said, what's wrong?
[15:20]And he said, oh, go, go, go, go.
[15:22]And I went, what?
[15:24]And he said, oh, go, go, go.
[15:26]What he thought he was saying is I just sneezed.
[15:28]So I got up and raced him back to the hospital.
[15:30]And by that point, it was obvious his whole left side was flat.
[15:33]He couldn't move his arm.
[15:34]He couldn't walk.
[15:35]At that point it was beyond anything I would have, and there was no doubt when she
[15:40]got back to the hospital then.
[15:41]And then the hospital goes, oh my gosh, we sent him.
[15:45]Yeah.
[15:46]I don't usually tell that story.
[15:48]You're very good.
[15:49]Oh, I'm sorry.
[15:50]I'm just, I didn't mean to pry into your life.
[15:52]I'm sorry.
[15:53]I'm just so interested.
[15:54]I'm sorry.
[15:55]No, no, I don't, it's not something I keep that I don't share.
[16:00]I just don't usually talk about it.
[16:04]So it's interesting that I did in this scenario.
[16:07]Thank you for talking about it.
[16:08]I'm sorry you had to go through that.
[16:10]That's a lot.
[16:11]I mean, that's terrifying.
[16:12]And oh my gosh, that's a lot to handle.
[16:16]And I see why it made you sort of pivot in the rest of your life.
[16:19]Right?
[16:20]I mean, that is like when someone you love goes through something like that, there's
[16:24]everything changes.
[16:25]That's it.
[16:26]Well, and you're still helpless.
[16:28]Right?
[16:29]You can't do anything to help.
[16:34]And all you can do is sit there and go, well, I can help him recover.
[16:37]And then I can re-examine my life and say, what's actually important to me.
[16:42]And what's actually important to him and what's actually important to us is a married
[16:46]couple.
[16:47]How do we navigate forward to try to make the best of the life that we have?
[16:50]I don't know.
[16:51]I guess for me that meant writing about 500 year old dead artists.
[16:57]I might not pick the same sort of, you know, item in the toolbox.
[17:03]But to each his own, it's a weird choice, but I guess that's what came up because that's
[17:09]what I've done.
[17:10]Well, clearly there's like how great that there's a demand for it too.
[17:16]I mean, it's also so unique.
[17:18]I'm sure that's what Drew publisher's to it, right?
[17:21]And you're passion for it.
[17:22]I know I already said this.
[17:23]But I mean, this is like intense love of these artists and this time period.
[17:28]I mean, I took art history every semester of college and I like to think that I like
[17:32]really do care about art and I'm interested and I like the backstory, but I am like,
[17:37]you know, nothing.
[17:39]This is like a whole new world.
[17:41]I just, I just care so much that they're real people.
[17:46]That's what bothers me if people walk into museums.
[17:49]And they look at these artists as though they're just up on these pedestals.
[17:53]And they're just, they're untouchable, right?
[17:56]They're not like you and me.
[17:57]They're these geniuses who fell from earth to create these pieces of art to change the
[18:01]world.
[18:02]And that's BS.
[18:03]Yeah.
[18:04]They are real people who faced real struggles and really fought hard for the work that
[18:08]they created.
[18:10]And so I think those are the stories that I'm trying to tell is that story of creativity
[18:15]and fighting for creativity is part of humanity.
[18:18]And I think that's what that and, and in addition to writing about art and humanity
[18:23]also throw in a lot of fires and floods and, and, and traumatic murders and all kinds
[18:29]of fun things because it's a book and, and this period of history is full of that stuff.
[18:34]You know, it's full of popes poisoning other popes and dukes killing cardinals and, and
[18:40]it's just full of fires and floods and all kinds of exciting things so you might as well
[18:44]throw them in.
[18:45]So I think that's the other thing.
[18:46]If I try not to make my art history, like you had it in your art history class where
[18:50]you just look at a slide, you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[18:52]This is the name and the date and the, and the title and the artist name and then you move
[18:57]on.
[18:58]It's all, it's all the most important stuff in the world to be a comparison.
[19:02]No, it's not embarrassing.
[19:03]It's awesome.
[19:04]I love it.
[19:05]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors, particularly because you said in the beginning
[19:09]that you just have drawers and drawers of these manuscripts and you've written so many novels
[19:13]and that you decided to, they finally write a one that was good enough.
[19:17]Tell me about that journey and why you didn't give up.
[19:19]Like what's your advice?
[19:20]I'm not giving up there.
[19:21]Oh, my advice I'm not giving up, boy, I don't know because it's, you have to really
[19:26]want to do it because a really, really hard job and a really, really hard process.
[19:32]My best advice to aspiring writers is if you are going to try to go publish something, if
[19:37]you are going to go aspire to put it out into the world, make it as good as you can
[19:43]possibly make it before you send it to anybody.
[19:47]Like I see so many young or as we're older about aspiring writers who write a draft of
[19:54]maybe they edited it and then they go, well, yeah, this is good.
[19:57]I'm like, no, compare it to Goldfinch.
[20:00]Parrot to atwood's handmaid's tail,
[20:03]compare it to damn brown,
[20:05]compare it to pick, like compare to JK Rowling,
[20:09]pick the biggest stuff you see on the shelves.
[20:12]And honestly, look at your work
[20:16]and compare it to the work that's out there
[20:18]and force yourself to get it as close to that
[20:21]as you possibly can.
[20:22]And I hate to tell you that means like a hundred drafts,
[20:24]not like two.
[20:26]Good, good point.
[20:28]I mean, that's the reality of it.
[20:30]And I just, they're so,
[20:32]particularly when you get into the business,
[20:33]there are so many books out there.
[20:35]Mm.
[20:37]It's daunting.
[20:38]So you might as well aim for the planets, you know.
[20:41]There's a famous quote online
[20:43]and it's attributed to Michelangelo.
[20:45]I haven't found the actual primary source
[20:46]but I'm gonna give it to him anyway.
[20:48]The problem for most of us isn't aiming to high
[20:51]and missing our mark.
[20:52]It's aiming to low and hitting it.
[20:55]And that's the truth.
[20:58]Aim high, even if you miss it,
[21:00]I think you'll hit something more worth putting out
[21:02]into the world.
[21:03]And we need new stories and you are out in the world right now
[21:07]because we need to all unify and find hope
[21:10]and move toward bending the world
[21:12]towards some sort of beauty
[21:14]instead of where we are right now.
[21:16]So.
[21:17]Preach.
[21:18]Love it.
[21:19]I can't help it.
[21:21]Thank you, Stephanie.
[21:22]Thank you for coming on my show.
[21:23]Thanks for opening up and I love talking to you
[21:25]and send me those pictures if you ever get to Italy.
[21:27]I will.
[21:29]Okay.
[21:30]Thank you so much for having me.
[21:31]And for making me comfortable
[21:33]and I have to tell you a story.
[21:34]I don't usually tell.
[21:35]I appreciate it.
[21:36]No problem.
[21:37]Okay.
[21:38]Bye.
[21:38]Bye.
[21:40]Thanks for listening to this episode
[21:42]from Thriller Thursday, part of my July book blast
[21:45]to get great authors into your hands
[21:47]while the summer is still going on.
[21:49]I hope you enjoyed this episode.
[21:51]Thanks again for listening to my podcast.
[21:53]Moms don't have time to read books.
[21:55]If you liked this episode,
[21:56]please follow me on Instagram at zivioins
[22:00]and at moms don't have time to read books
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[22:05]So you can always hear about the latest things I'm up to.
[22:08]Thanks a lot.
[22:09]Thanks so much to page one books for sponsoring today's episode.
[22:11]I hope you'll all check out my summer beach bundle
[22:14]at page one books.com.
[22:16]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[22:18]for the sound editing.
[22:19]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[22:21]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[22:24]Thanks for listening.
[22:25]You could always email me at zivioins.com.