Sally Hepworth, THE YOUNGER WIFE: A Novel
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[2:30]Sally Hepworth is the author of The Younger Wife, a novel.
[2:34]She is the New York Times best-selling author of Seven Novels.
[2:38]Most recently, The Mother-in-law from 2019, which was option for TV by actress Amy Poehler's
[2:43]production company, Paperkite, and The Good Sister, an instant New York Times bestseller.
[2:50]His books have been labeled Enchanting by the Herald Sun, Smart and Engaging by Publishers
[2:54]Weekly, and New York Times best-selling authors Leanne Moriarty and Emily Giffin have praised
[3:00]Sally's novels as women's fiction at its finest and totally absorbing.
[3:06]Sally's novels are published in more than 20 territories worldwide.
[3:10]Sally lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband and three children.
[3:14]And by the way, we were lucky enough to do this interview in person in my office in New
[3:19]York City, which was just the best thing.
[3:22]And last thing, you have to follow her on Instagram because she is like a comedian and
[3:26]amazing.
[3:27]So check her out on Instagram as well.
[3:29]Welcome, Sally.
[3:30]Thank you so much for coming.
[3:31]To do moms, don't have time to read books live in person, not live, but in person, which
[3:36]is very exciting for me.
[3:37]So thanks for being here.
[3:38]In the most beautiful library I've ever been in, so the pleasure's mine.
[3:41]Oh.
[3:42]Okay.
[3:43]Can you tell us, then there's what your book is about, The Younger Wife, a novel.
[3:48]Well, The Younger Wife is a small part of it, but actually I describe it as being about
[3:53]the whole family that is at the heart of this book, which is the Aston family, which is made
[3:58]up of Stephen Aston, who is the patriarch of the family.
[4:02]He's a man around 60 odd.
[4:04]He's a heart surgeon at the top of his game, so about his wife, Pam, who is the mother
[4:09]of his two adult daughters, Rachel and Tully.
[4:13]And then it's about Rachel and Tully, who are both in their 30s.
[4:17]And the book kicks off, and this is where the title ties in, with Stephen announcing to
[4:23]his daughters, that he's going to marry a woman who is younger than they are, which
[4:27]is a decision which is controversial enough without taking into account that his wife
[4:33]is in a residential care facility within stage dementia, and he's going to have to
[4:38]divorce her in order to make this union happen.
[4:42]And it's what I call an upside down book where it opens with the wedding between Stephen
[4:47]and his much younger bride, and it's told from the perspective of a mystery narrator
[4:53]who's a wedding guest, and she watches the couple get married, and then disappear into
[4:58]the sacristy to sign the paperwork, and then a few minutes later they hear a scream, and
[5:04]the celebrant runs back out onto the altar, and her pants suit is covered in blood.
[5:10]And from there we go, a year back in time, and we find out all the events that led up
[5:15]to that moment, and start to unravel, who was injured, who did it, and why?
[5:21]I had many theories of this.
[5:24]All of which were wrong.
[5:25]By the time I found out what actually happened, so I am literally like the worst at guessing,
[5:30]but which I guess is good, and I'm like, you know, a reader about to be duped, so.
[5:35]you had so many different elements in the book.
[5:37]You have dementia, Alzheimer's, like the loss you feel at, like watching the mom slip
[5:43]away with the daughters, I mean, that was really powerful, and then you have the daughters
[5:47]each with their own story.
[5:48]I mean, one of the daughters, and it doesn't come out to it later, like why she has developed
[5:53]the...
[5:54]Yeah.
[5:55]Well, both.
[5:56]One daughter, why she's developed the coping mechanisms and the anxiety and all the stuff,
[5:59]which then gets passed to her child as we do as moms, I guess.
[6:03]The other who had something happen, and her life has taken a turn, and how everybody
[6:08]is sort of interrelated and all affected by...
[6:13]I mean, when you have the mom of the family, you're like, oh, I have a daughter named Rachel
[6:18]too.
[6:19]Yeah.
[6:20]What does that affect you?
[6:21]Tell me about the Alzheimer's piece, and if you did research, if you know somebody, or
[6:25]how this felt so real.
[6:27]Oh, thank you.
[6:28]I actually wrote a book, my second published book was called The Things We Cape, and that
[6:33]was about a woman with early onset Alzheimer's, and thought that book I had to do a lot
[6:38]of research about that, that I went as well as more general dementia.
[6:44]And so a lot of the material that went into creating character of Pam, I kind of leaned
[6:49]on that.
[6:51]In addition to that, I have had a family member with dementia, and also my sister-in-law's
[6:55]mother had Alzheimer's, and I spend a lot of time with her.
[6:59]And so yeah, I mean, there is the things we know about Alzheimer's, of course, from a medical
[7:05]perspective, but what really I tried to kind of lean on with this book was those emotional
[7:10]experiences, particularly for the ones who love that person with dementia, and things
[7:16]like having to answer the same question over and over again without being snappy because
[7:20]to that person, it's the first time they've asked, and having to make them feel comfortable
[7:26]in situations that are scary to them, and yeah, those strange little comments that
[7:32]come up that seem like they are completely, you know, nonsense that were, and when you
[7:39]actually scratch the surface, you realize that, no, that did mean something, but without
[7:44]the context of the rest of the words that that person was missing, they weren't able to
[7:49]get it across, and certainly with my sister-in-law's mother, we found that to be the
[7:53]case quite a lot.
[7:54]It's sort of a terrifying thought that all of a sudden you'll get to a place in life
[7:57]where there is no filter.
[7:59]I know.
[8:00]It's like shoved inside.
[8:01]Yeah, like so much for like, even a secret or like, you know, what you really think about
[8:05]people, especially if I may, I don't have much of a fusion now, so I don't know what happens
[8:10]to me.
[8:11]My grandmother had dementia, and I remember sitting with her and bringing my twins to
[8:15]now their one was 15, but they were younger then, and she was like, oh, you know, I have
[8:19]twins too.
[8:20]And I'm like, well, I know that, they're my own, you know, my no, you're my dad, anyway.
[8:24]But yes, in the same like repeating and like a minute, did you know I have twins?
[8:29]And I'm like, no, I know you just said that.
[8:30]So there's that element, but of course, Pam's life and some of the things that she
[8:35]slips out and says end up being like, really important to the story.
[8:38]Yeah, that's good.
[8:39]The thing I loved about this book in particular was I was like, I love this author, because
[8:45]you said some of the funniest things starting page one, where you say, which I want
[8:49]to like put on a pillow or something, the catharsis of a shower cry could not be overstated
[8:54]for a woman in her 30s.
[8:55]Oh, right.
[8:56]Yes.
[8:57]Yes.
[8:58]Yes, yes, yes.
[8:59]I'm so baffled when people don't understand that.
[9:00]I'm like, sometimes I go to have a shower specifically to cry, and it's the most joyous
[9:05]thing after, you know, afterwards, the release of it, it's just, especially with the pandemic.
[9:11]I mean, what else did you have to do?
[9:12]Yeah.
[9:13]Sometimes I have a good shower.
[9:14]Sometimes I just have to get in the bathroom.
[9:15]I can't even make it into the shower.
[9:16]Something about the tiles that just bring on the tears.
[9:20]This, by the way, was like, you read my mind, Rachel, on the other hand, couldn't
[9:24]realize this is when she's out at a restaurant.
[9:25]Rachel, on the other hand, couldn't relax until she knew her main course was in the oven.
[9:29]Rachel's family laughed about it, considered it a cork of hers, a trademark of being
[9:32]a foodie, usually Rachel considered it in the same light.
[9:35]Only occasionally did she hear a little voice at the back of her head that told her there
[9:38]was more to it than that.
[9:40]Like, I cannot.
[9:41]My family makes so much fun of me.
[9:42]Oh, wait.
[9:43]In the sentence before, you said, Rachel got terrible anxiety whenever she wasn't in control
[9:47]of the catering.
[9:48]And particularly when she was with dad, who always wanted to start with a drink, then maybe
[9:51]some bread and dip or an appetizer.
[9:54]My mom is like, no, let's relax and have a drink.
[9:57]It's the light I need in my order to take in.
[10:00]before I can relax.
[10:00]What is wrong?
[10:01]Just to know that it's on its way, right?
[10:03]I actually sometimes refuse to let my family talk
[10:06]until they have to select what they want
[10:09]because the fear of the way to coming
[10:11]and then one person not knowing
[10:13]and sending them away, it's too much for me.
[10:15]This is great if we ever have lunch.
[10:17]Yeah, it's gonna be perfect.
[10:18]Yeah.
[10:18]We can bring ahead and tell them what we're having
[10:20]and then we can just sit down and...
[10:21]I would be happy doing that too.
[10:22]Yeah.
[10:23]Sometimes I read the menu ahead of time.
[10:25]So we'll do.
[10:27]And then you had another line
[10:29]which I also sadly relate to.
[10:31]This is Rachel who copes with a lot of life by eating
[10:34]which I understand.
[10:36]She threw a couple of chocolate buttons into her mouth
[10:38]and then realized the packet was finished.
[10:40]The second packet she'd finished this morning.
[10:42]This morning when she got dressed,
[10:43]her underwear had felt tight.
[10:45]Her underwear.
[10:47]I was like,
[10:49]do I not mention that this was the reason we have it?
[10:51]I was like, oh, oh my end of my mouth is shrunk
[10:53]at the same time.
[10:54]It's so weird.
[10:54]I wonder what's going on with the dryer.
[10:57]I actually stole that from a friend of mine
[10:59]who said during the pandemic as well
[11:01]that her underwear felt tight and we laughed so hard.
[11:04]And I said, that's gonna make it in total gonna be.
[11:06]Yeah, there you go.
[11:08]I could go on.
[11:09]I could give you more.
[11:11]And then you have Darcy who has the funniest sense
[11:15]of humor.
[11:15]Oh my gosh.
[11:17]So instead, he looked down at the cake.
[11:20]I'll stop reading for the book.
[11:20]The second.
[11:21]I closed his eyes and whispered,
[11:22]I love you into the cake box.
[11:24]Rachel stared in him a guest.
[11:26]Sorry, he explained.
[11:27]It's just that the last time I forgot to tell a cake,
[11:29]I loved it.
[11:30]It burst into tears.
[11:32]Oh my God.
[11:34]I laughed at that.
[11:35]I have to say, I had a lot of fun researching cake jokes.
[11:39]That was a real good time pass of me.
[11:43]But I did that one with my favorite.
[11:44]So I'm glad you liked it.
[11:45]Oh my gosh.
[11:46]My dad shares this like fun sense of humor, you know?
[11:50]Dad jokes.
[11:51]Dad jokes.
[11:51]Dad jokes.
[11:52]Thank you for putting that in here.
[11:54]So tell me how you got started as a writer.
[11:57]You've written so many books.
[11:58]You just casually mentioned Amy Poehler, you know?
[12:00]Oh, just, just drop things here, you know?
[12:02]I'm dropping.
[12:03]Yeah, that's okay.
[12:04]So tell me how it started and how everything's just taken up.
[12:07]The beginning, well, it's funny.
[12:09]The beginning happened while I was reading
[12:11]an Emily Giffon novel, something borrowed.
[12:15]And I was living in Canada at the time.
[12:18]My husband's job moved us over there.
[12:20]And I was reading that book.
[12:21]And there'd been a lot of talk about
[12:23]that, particularly in my life.
[12:25]And I was like, oh, you know, that was really having a moment.
[12:27]But this book, and it's so lovely,
[12:29]because I'm having an event with Emily Giffon tomorrow.
[12:31]Oh, amazing.
[12:32]It's a beautiful, kind of full circle moment.
[12:35]I was reading about these women who were flawed,
[12:38]but so lovable.
[12:39]And so, you know, that feeling we have as women
[12:42]when you feel seen in a book.
[12:44]And I thought, I want to do this.
[12:46]I want to try and do this.
[12:48]I didn't have the audacity to think that I would be any good at it.
[12:50]I want to do this.
[12:51]And I then became pregnant with my first child,
[12:55]living in Canada, those glorious people pay you
[12:58]for a year of maternity leave.
[13:00]I mean, can you even imagine?
[13:02]And so I thought, well, I'll try this year and do it.
[13:06]And I should be clear,
[13:07]because when I say that some first-time moms say,
[13:10]what is wrong with you, how could you write a book?
[13:12]While you've got a new baby, I had a robot baby
[13:15]who, and still is, bless his cotton socks,
[13:18]he would just slept and ate
[13:19]and just did what he was told.
[13:21]And so I did write a book that year,
[13:24]worst book, you can possibly imagine, worst book in the world,
[13:28]but I fell in love with writing.
[13:29]And so I then wrote another book and another book.
[13:33]And it was the third book that I wrote
[13:35]was The Secrets of Midwives,
[13:37]which I had found in agent by that point.
[13:40]He pitched it to a number of New York editors.
[13:43]And one of them on the list was Jen Endellan,
[13:46]who published something borrowed,
[13:48]which was a different book than I loved.
[13:52]She bought it and she sent it to Emily,
[13:55]and she blubbed that first book.
[13:57]And tomorrow we're doing an event together.
[13:59]So, and this is, I guess, almost 10 years or 12 years
[14:04]because my son's 12 on that I kind of pinch myself
[14:07]that I'm now sitting here, talking about it.
[14:10]But I've glossed over a lot of rejection in there
[14:13]and a lot of books that didn't get published
[14:15]and even since becoming published the kind of ups
[14:18]and downs of that road.
[14:20]But ultimately, I'm here on tour in New York.
[14:24]And it's just, I'm pinching myself how lucky I am.
[14:27]So cool.
[14:28]I know in your acknowledgements,
[14:29]you said something like, thank you to the publisher
[14:33]and Sam Martin, sort of sticking with you
[14:34]through some, the bumpy times, you were trying to dispel
[14:38]the myth that publishers don't actually stick
[14:40]by their efforts.
[14:41]It has not been my experience, the opposite is true.
[14:44]The team at St. Martin's have been,
[14:46]and I'm not just saying that because one of them is here,
[14:48]but I'm so blessed and so lucky the way
[14:52]that they have cared about my books,
[14:54]but because they love books and, you know,
[14:56]that's definitely been my experience, luckily.
[14:59]Well, so the characters in the book,
[15:01]let's talk about the idea also of this younger wife
[15:05]and having any sort of interloper step parent.
[15:08]I mean, so many people deal with that.
[15:10]I had a grandmother, this is a different side of my family
[15:13]who was younger than the step grandmother
[15:15]was younger than my mom.
[15:16]Like, she literally had the same thing.
[15:18]You could have interviewed her for the book, yes.
[15:20]But what that dynamic does to a family
[15:23]and how do you like make a new blended family?
[15:26]I mean, not this way where, you know,
[15:27]they like meet up and everything happens very quickly,
[15:30]but, you know, what is the right way
[15:32]to introduce your new loved one to your kids, you know?
[15:35]It's such an upheaval and I'm 41 and so I'm in that age
[15:41]where our peoples are happening to adult families
[15:44]in my life, whether it is a new younger wife from,
[15:47]you know, the father, you know, my friends' fathers
[15:51]who were, you know, in their 60s and 70s,
[15:53]also siblings getting divorced,
[15:54]all of those kinds of things.
[15:56]You think you've got your family settled
[15:58]and then come the disruptions and the other peoples.
[16:01]And one thing that I was witnessing was
[16:04]some one of my very good friends' father
[16:06]and another very good friends' father-in-law
[16:08]had both met women younger than their daughter-in-law.
[16:12]And one of the things that sort of shocked me about it,
[16:17]I'm not, you know, all the perspective was different
[16:20]was that these girls were women.
[16:23]Yes.
[16:24]We're, you know, distressed and they were dealing with it,
[16:28]but both of them, their lens was about trying
[16:31]to keep their family together.
[16:33]It wasn't about hating on this new woman
[16:36]or trying to get her out or branding her as, you know,
[16:39]a gold digger or any of those things.
[16:41]It was about, right, this has happened,
[16:43]but this is my family and I love my dad
[16:45]or I love my father-in-law and I wanna make it work.
[16:49]And that was an interesting perspective to me
[16:52]because I think that the younger wife is, you know,
[16:56]we've said, that's nothing new, right?
[16:57]We've read books about it, movies about it TV series.
[17:01]But it always is this younger wife is painted
[17:05]as a gold digger with daddy issues.
[17:08]And we never investigate the older husband.
[17:12]Like we really just accept that he's obviously made
[17:14]that decision because she's a young pretty, you know,
[17:17]bit of comfort as we say, and that's it.
[17:21]And why do we not give him more agency?
[17:24]Why don't we look at his potentially nefarious kind
[17:26]of, you know, perspective?
[17:29]Or just, you know, as we know,
[17:32]Catherine's either joins in Michael Douglas,
[17:33]they are real love interests, you know, age defies.
[17:37]So it's not about kind of demonizing anyone,
[17:39]but I really wanted to challenge the cliche,
[17:43]look at the perspective of an older husband
[17:47]with agency and write that book.
[17:50]So that was the kind of jumping off point.
[17:53]Well, you did a nice job.
[17:55]And I feel like my feelings towards Heather,
[17:58]like I could feel them arcing the whole time.
[18:00]Like I started off with all these prejudices against her.
[18:03]Well, we all do.
[18:04]And that was my intention and that hatred of cliches,
[18:08]which I also tried to challenge with the mother-in-law
[18:11]when I had, you know, I don't believe
[18:13]that every mother-in-law could be evil.
[18:15]And, you know, so that book was about exploring that.
[18:18]And this book was about exploring, you know,
[18:21]not every older husband is going to be
[18:23]probably thinking with his parents.
[18:24]And so, you know, I love to see readers
[18:27]following that evolution of character.
[18:29]Wait, and tell me now what it's like seeing your
[18:31]characters being developed in a new format
[18:33]with Amy Poehler and all of that.
[18:35]Tell me about like the nine lives of your books.
[18:39]Oh, it's amazing.
[18:40]I've read a couple of scripts of the mother-in-law,
[18:43]which was the one that Amy Poehler's production company
[18:46]optioned and also the family next door
[18:49]has been optioned by an Australian production company.
[18:52]And I've read scripts of both.
[18:54]And the thing that's so great,
[18:57]which everyone seems to say to me,
[18:59]are you worried they're going to book your book?
[19:01]Are you worried they're going to make changes?
[19:03]And I say, I'm worried they're not going to make it better
[19:06]because here's an opportunity with an amazing writer
[19:10]to make me look good, right?
[19:11]So, and in both cases, I'm very happy to say
[19:14]that they have made small changes,
[19:16]not so much to the plot.
[19:17]Like, for example, they've introduced more diversity,
[19:19]which has been something that I kick myself
[19:22]because I, you know, things that I should have done,
[19:26]it's like getting another go.
[19:28]they've introduced more attention to certain, you know, scenes
[19:33]and just really added to the book.
[19:36]So I can understand some authors being nervous,
[19:39]particularly if they take the book in a direction
[19:42]that you didn't intend.
[19:43]But as the author, I guess, they're the conversations
[19:46]you have with them up front to see if they really understand
[19:50]your vision for the book.
[19:51]And I felt in both cases that they did
[19:53]and that has proven to be the case.
[19:54]That's amazing.
[19:55]Oh my gosh, I must be so corner.
[19:57]Now you're gonna see all that and the characters
[19:59]that you think.
[20:00]over your mind that they're there anyway.
[20:01]What about this thing?
[20:02]Is it an option yet?
[20:03]It hasn't yet.
[20:04]We've had a few conversations,
[20:06]which have been really fun.
[20:08]And again, it's just kind of pinch yourself moments
[20:11]that people have even read it,
[20:13]and want to have a conversation about it.
[20:14]So I feel like it's so visual with the wedding
[20:17]and then the cake business.
[20:19]You know, that it's like very flower spinning
[20:22]and the eating of the cake.
[20:24]Oh my God.
[20:24]Like those are great.
[20:25]They're such, it's very visual.
[20:27]Yeah, I know.
[20:28]I write in scenes.
[20:29]That's just how it kind of comes to me.
[20:31]And the two that have been optioned,
[20:34]they've said that that makes their job easy,
[20:36]which is not my intention.
[20:37]I write, I like writing novels.
[20:39]I'll never switch to screenplays,
[20:40]but you kind of write the way you write
[20:43]and you can't do it any different.
[20:44]So, and so you started out writing in Canada
[20:47]with a year, basically, of sanctioned writing.
[20:49]Yeah.
[20:50]How do you do it now?
[20:52]I have been through the whole thing.
[20:54]So back then, yes, I wrote with a baby at home.
[20:57]I then kept writing when I was back at work part time.
[21:01]I had another baby during all of that time,
[21:03]my husband was working full time
[21:05]and I was kind of at home with a bit of work.
[21:08]When I was at home after my second baby,
[21:11]I got the contract for the secrets of midwives
[21:13]and at that point I became a full-time author.
[21:16]So at that point, my husband and I were both working
[21:19]full-time, you know, with help with our kids.
[21:22]And then about two years ago,
[21:25]my husband quit his job
[21:28]and he's now the state home dad
[21:29]and I am the full-time author or the full-time worker,
[21:33]the primary breadwinner as it ever happens.
[21:36]So I've been through all of the bits of it.
[21:38]And again, like I just now feel so lucky
[21:41]that this is my job, people pay me for it.
[21:44]It's what I love to do.
[21:46]And I've been in the great position
[21:48]that St. Martin keeps buying my books
[21:51]so I get to keep doing it.
[21:52]So the goal is that if I can keep doing this
[21:56]for the rest of my life
[21:57]and it gets to be my full-time job,
[21:59]I mean, what a privilege that is.
[22:01]Especially to have a husband who packs through you.
[22:03]I, I, I, why should Instagram feel?
[22:07]I'm like, that's not really her husband.
[22:09]She must have like hired somebody to pack
[22:10]for her, which I also thought was really interesting.
[22:12]She needs the trick to that.
[22:14]And to most things about getting your husband to do stuff,
[22:18]I've only just realized this
[22:20]is to be very useless at doing it yourself.
[22:23]Because for a while, he stood and watched me and switched.
[22:27]And then I just said, if you want to do it yourself,
[22:29]and now he does most things for me,
[22:31]I've got a very specific set of skills,
[22:33]which is writing books.
[22:36]And he's got a very specific set of skills,
[22:37]which is everything else.
[22:39]So it works for us until I'm here in New York
[22:43]without any skills.
[22:44]So that's kind of gets me lost a lot.
[22:46]But I'm surviving.
[22:47]The idea that you can even be so self-deprecating
[22:50]is like hilarious, you know.
[22:52]Would that see Australia in way?
[22:54]Yeah, yeah.
[22:55]But it's also true.
[22:57]Yeah, stop.
[22:58]No, no, no.
[22:59]So now what book are you working on?
[23:02]So I've just delivered the book that will be
[23:04]in the States this time next year.
[23:06]It's called The Soulmate.
[23:08]And as you can imagine, there's a twist on that.
[23:10]It's not a kind of happy story,
[23:13]but it is in the same vein as all of my other books
[23:16]family dysfunctionality.
[23:18]And this one is based around the most dysfunctional
[23:22]of relationships, which is marriage.
[23:24]And I had the idea while in lockdown with my husband.
[23:28]And so no surprise, there was some murder in that book.
[23:32]And I'm really excited about this one
[23:34]because I think that marriage,
[23:37]it's just so much material there
[23:39]even without getting to and it get like with all of my books.
[23:42]I don't go that kind of stereotypical route of,
[23:45]you know, he's awful or she's awful,
[23:48]but it's based around a couple who live on a cliff
[23:51]and on that cliff, there is an notorious suicide spot.
[23:54]And the husband has made his life's work
[23:57]out of talking the people off the cliff.
[24:00]And they of course have got a past
[24:02]and they've moved away to get away from their past.
[24:04]And he's got 100% strike rate of being able
[24:06]to talk people off the cliff.
[24:08]But in the first scene of the book,
[24:10]the wife is watching through the window
[24:12]as he's doing his thing and she turns away for a minute.
[24:15]And then looks back and the woman has gone over the cliff.
[24:18]And he's holding his hands out with palms up in a way
[24:21]that looks a little bit like he might have pushed her.
[24:24]And we then kind of unravel what we think has happened there
[24:28]and going deep into those marital ties.
[24:33]So yeah, it was a fun book to explore.
[24:37]It's got all of the things, all of the murder
[24:39]and the nuance and the twists.
[24:41]So yeah, I'm looking forward to talking about that one too.
[24:45]Did you always know you wanted like,
[24:47]oh, this like murder?
[24:48]Like, did you know you had this dark side to you?
[24:50]Yes.
[24:51]I watch a lot of law and order SVU,
[24:54]which my husband calls my nasty shows.
[24:57]It's oh, you're watching your nasty shows.
[25:00]And it's funny because I'm a very happy person.
[25:02]If you can't see me, I'm wearing all pink,
[25:04]which is quite classic of me.
[25:06]And I smile a lot.
[25:08]And yet I've got this really creepy dark side of things
[25:12]that I like the stakes to be high.
[25:14]It can stay different, by the way.
[25:16]I'm keeping you like right in front of me the whole time.
[25:19]I need things to be, the stakes to be high for me to feel.
[25:24]And so I balance that with that kind of dark humor,
[25:27]which I love, but you know, you should be worried in a book,
[25:31]I think that something can go wrong.
[25:33]So that tells tend to be a theme of my books.
[25:36]All that.
[25:37]What advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[25:41]I mean, it's the classic one of reading,
[25:43]which I probably balance that with just read a lot,
[25:47]read as much as you can.
[25:49]And then write as much as you can.
[25:51]And don't get caught in that kind of silo
[25:57]that I see people get into where they just want everything
[25:59]to be perfect before they write.
[26:00]Maybe they want to go and get that writing degree
[26:03]or maybe they want to, you know,
[26:05]buy all of these writing programs
[26:08]or read every book about writing or get a PhD in history.
[26:12]If it's a historical novel.
[26:13]And I see that in so many cases, which is fear, you know,
[26:18]fear of starting.
[26:19]And I think that the only way that you can do it
[26:22]is to just dive in because that's how you beat the fear.
[26:26]You just dive in and write a really bad book
[26:29]because then you can just,
[26:30]and like I said, my first book, Worst Book in the World,
[26:33]I can back that up as well.
[26:34]That's not just self-deprecating because
[26:37]wrote that book, sent it off.
[26:38]It was published as it happens in German,
[26:41]thank goodness because now no one else can read it
[26:43]because unless they're German and I tell the Germans
[26:45]don't read it because that was a really bad book.
[26:48]Since then, I've gone on to publish all of these other books
[26:51]and we've had offers from other publishers
[26:53]to publish it in English and my agent said,
[26:56]what do you think should we do it?
[26:57]And I said, no, because I don't want anyone to read it.
[27:00]And he said, I can't be that bad, can't it?
[27:03]And I said, I'll send it to you.
[27:04]So I sent it to him within about two minutes.
[27:08]He replied and said, yeah, you know what, let's leave it.
[27:13]The point of that to the aspiring author
[27:15]is that it's okay for your first book to be really bad.
[27:19]That's, you've just got to write it
[27:20]and then you write the next one
[27:22]and you get your 10,000 hours to become an expert
[27:25]and you're not going to get that
[27:26]if you're stuck trying to get everything lined up
[27:28]and make it perfect before you start.
[27:31]And you mentioned Emily Giffon is one of your favorite
[27:33]or one of the writers who inspired you.
[27:34]What other, do you have other go-to authors
[27:36]or something you're reading now
[27:37]that you're like really passionate about?
[27:39]Yes, I love Sarah Peck in an Ingrid Hendrix.
[27:42]Every one of their books has been better than the last.
[27:45]I just finished the Golden Cup couple,
[27:48]which was I think the best, Kelly Rumors,
[27:51]another Australian author who wrote the Warsaw often.
[27:54]It's her most recent one,
[27:56]but also the things we cannot say
[27:58]is one of my favorites at Leanne Moriarty as well.
[28:01]I adore Jane Harper.
[28:03]I mean, I just, I'm going to forget them.
[28:05]Oh, Sue Monk Kid.
[28:08]I adore her.
[28:09]Yeah, we're just so lucky.
[28:11]All of my favorite authors are women,
[28:14]which is, I do read male authors,
[28:16]but I do think that there's something about women
[28:19]describing women that just I connect with
[28:22]and that's what I love to read.
[28:24]I love them.
[28:24]We started out talking about crying in the bathroom
[28:27]what, you know, as this is almost over everybody.
[28:31]What's making me cry?
[28:32]What's making you cry in the bathroom?
[28:33]What are the last couple times you've had to go in there?
[28:36]What's caused it?
[28:37]Oh, actually, I haven't cried since I've been in New York
[28:40]because what is there to cry about here?
[28:43]What is it?
[28:44]Do you know what the funny thing about it is,
[28:46]is that I would very rarely connect a shower cry
[28:50]to a particular problem.
[28:52]It's more of a just general kind of,
[28:56]it's almost like exercise or therapy, you know,
[28:58]it's like a cleansing of all of the feelings.
[29:02]And so I think state of the world in general
[29:05]always brings on a few different things
[29:07]when you think about it too, definitely.
[29:09]Anything to do with your child
[29:11]and, you know, my oldest child is autistic
[29:14]and classic Asperger's super smart, super funny,
[29:18]you know, just a brilliant, beautiful child,
[29:21]but fears about, you know,
[29:23]he's not, you know, being accepted and things makes me cry
[29:28]even though in general he is, you know,
[29:29]as mothers you bring so much to your, you know,
[29:34]fears for your children.
[29:36]But in general, it's mostly, you know,
[29:38]either a general cry or shampoo in the eyes.
[29:45]Which can hurt, especially the purple shampoos,
[29:47]you know, they can really be hard to get out.
[29:49]I have one of those.
[29:50]Yeah, blue shampoos.
[29:51]Yeah, yeah, yeah, to get the broth
[29:53]inside of the blonde.
[29:54]Yeah, yeah, all right, look.
[29:56]Okay, good to do.
[29:57]Thank you for sharing that about your son, baby.
[30:00]We're very proud and I have his consent to talk about that as a family, a neurodiverse family,
[30:07]my husband's autistic, my son is autistic, my daughter has ADHD and I have ADHD and we really
[30:14]celebrate that and are a big part of the community because we need these brains in the world.
[30:19]In fact, when my son was diagnosed, our pediatrician said to me, oh, so you're an author,
[30:25]so it hasn't come from you. So is your husband a doctor, a scientist, an engineer,
[30:31]or an accountant? And I said, he's an accountant and he said, oh, and then he turned to my son and he said,
[30:37]these are the brains that we need in the world to be able to fix climate change,
[30:43]cure disease. And it was the most glorious way to deliver that to him, but it also as a family
[30:50]has really made us so proud of the people that we have in our family and what they're going to
[30:56]be able to contribute to the world. So it's not something we don't talk about. And that's awesome.
[31:01]Yeah. Very cool. And also, nice said, each of you know what your child is going to get. Yeah,
[31:07]exactly. And their strengths, you know, which come out of that too.
[31:12]There's so many types of brains and there's no one clear path and yeah,
[31:17]creativity comes from our places. And in fact, ADHD is very common among writers, musicians,
[31:24]and artists. So dyslexia too. That's true. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Amazing. We've covered
[31:33]it all. I mean, anything else you want to get out of your chest today? This has been a great
[31:39]therapy session. Oh, good. All right. Thank you so much for having me.
[31:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:48]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:53]Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[31:58]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. In fact, texture sound for
[32:03]the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro