Ruta Sepetys, I MUST BETRAY YOU
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[0:58]Ruda Saperes is the author of I Must Betray you. She is an internationally acclaimed number one
[1:04]New York Times best-selling author of historical fiction published in over 60 countries and 40 languages
[1:09]Saperes is considered a crossover novelist as her books are read by both teens and adults worldwide
[1:15]Her novels between shades of gray out of the easy and salt to the sea
[1:19]Have won or been shortlisted for more than 40 book prizes and are included on more than 60 state award lists
[1:25]Between shades of gray was adapted into the film ashes in the snow
[1:29]And her other novels are currently in development for TV and film winner of the Carnegie Medal
[1:33]Ruda is passionate about the power of history and literature to foster global awareness and connectivity
[1:39]She has presented to NATO to the European Parliament in the United States Capitol and at embassies worldwide
[1:45]Ruda was born and raised in Michigan and now lives with her family in Nashville, Tennessee
[1:49]Oh shoot, I forgot to look her up when I was there. Anyway next time follow her on Twitter and Instagram at ruda
[1:55]Welcome Rita. Thank you so much for coming on mom's don't have time to read books to discuss. I must betray you
[2:02]Thank you so much for having me on
[2:04]I learned so much about Romania in this book and I had no idea and I feel very foolish for admitting this but I didn't know the
[2:14]extent of the communist
[2:16]Protocols the extent of
[2:20]how watch everybody was how
[2:23]Similarly everyone is forced to live. How much brutality. I'm like all the things in the book are just not only
[2:30]The story itself, which was incredibly compelling
[2:33]But even all all of what you wrote about it at the end and the sources and the pictures and
[2:38]I had no idea
[2:40]I just didn't even really I had
[2:42]Sliver of an idea, but certainly not an idea in this book just completely
[2:47]Brought this all to light for me. So first of all, thank you and second of all
[2:52]You know now that I've rambled but talk about what your book the story is about and and and what compelled you to write it
[3:00]Well, I will start with the second question first and thank you so much
[3:04]But do not feel foolish
[3:07]Exactly what you you've expressed that you did not know about
[3:11]Romania you did not know what happened to the Romanian people. I didn't either and
[3:17]I'm the daughter of a victim of communism
[3:21]My father fled from Lithuania when he was a child and spent nine years in refugee camps before coming to the states
[3:28]And so I
[3:29]Wrongly thought you know assume that I had you know an understanding of post-war communism
[3:36]And when I was on tour in Romania for my first book. I realized I knew nothing
[3:42]About what had happened to more than 20 million Romanian people. How do we not know this story?
[3:48]All of us and all of your listeners
[3:50]We probably know Romanian people and we don't know their story
[3:54]So that's what inspired me to to write the book
[3:57]I'm drawn to these underrepresented parts of history
[4:01]And the story follows a 17-year-old guy Christian florescue
[4:07]Who is blackmailed by the Romanian secret police to become an informer for the regime?
[4:13]And Christian is expected not only to inform on his neighbors his friends his girlfriend
[4:20]And really betray everyone
[4:22]But he decides that he's going to turn the tables and he's going to inform on the regime
[4:26]And he is going to get information to the American embassy
[4:30]So the betray becomes the betrayer who betrays who and that's a little bit about this story
[4:36]Wow, it's hard to even comprehend
[4:39]I mean a lot of the books on this podcast a theme is the corrosive power of secrets
[4:45]Right having to keep a secret what happens when you're the keeper when someone keeps it from you when it enters into a dynamic
[4:51]There's this distance that it immediately adds to any relationship
[4:56]which then breeds a sense of loneliness and all of that right
[5:00]all of which have been happening here in your book but
[5:05]To extrapolate that to an entire nation of millions of people
[5:10]The ramifications of something like that are just almost unfathomably
[5:14]Large and pervasive and when you make it a generational generational thing as well
[5:21]I mean, it's crazy
[5:22]Anyway, not to mention all the brutality and you even had some
[5:26]statistics about the Jewish population and how
[5:30]And I should look I think I underlined it at some point
[5:32]But now there are about 3,000 Jews in
[5:36]In a millions and millions of
[5:38]Among millions and millions whereas before I feel like you said there were something like 280,000
[5:43]Jews and just how and the forced anyway, I have so many thoughts
[5:48]The forced experimentation on the women in the workplace this fertility experimentation
[5:54]All this is
[5:55]Unthinkably horrific
[5:57]But it sounds dystopian right? Yes
[6:00]Living in this dark world of enforced obedience
[6:04]Your nutrition is controlled
[6:06]The electricity is controlled
[6:08]And the utilities you don't know when
[6:11]You know the lights will turn on or off or when you'll have water
[6:14]Or and that was a form of
[6:16]Control and then recruiting
[6:19]civilians to be informers
[6:22]Was so
[6:23]Terrible the Romade there were so many Romanians who helped me with this book
[6:27]They're really my co-writers
[6:28]I could not have done this without these true witnesses
[6:31]Who imagine how traumatic that must have been to revisit these
[6:36]Times and discuss them with me and with regard to your comment about secrets in the corrosive nature of secrets
[6:44]Many Romanians told me that
[6:48]This form of control and power and
[6:51]You know not knowing
[6:53]Who you might be able to trust if someone in your own family might be an informer
[6:57]And they explained to me that this dictator Choshescu
[7:01]That you know he betrayed other countries
[7:03]I mean the United States and England
[7:05]You know they were all thinking he was this benevolent guy and working with him
[7:09]And in some cases supporting him
[7:11]But that in betraying others
[7:14]The Romanians told me that they felt that sometimes they were forced to betray themselves
[7:20]And and that feeling of being a traitor to your own soul
[7:24]It broke my heart and then to have the story misunderstood or as sometimes happens
[7:31]Narrative form right so the narrative about the fall of communism is often the fall of the Berlin Wall
[7:38]And the narrative about Romania and the early 90s was that of orphanages
[7:42]But we didn't have the full story
[7:44]You know and we were missing so much and I feel that's so unfair to the people who experienced it
[7:50]I even watched a documentary about Nadia Kamenichi
[7:53]So I like I actually had some of this knowledge
[7:56]But not in the way that you communicated it
[7:59]And I know that she was a participant in your research which is amazing
[8:03]And talk about generous as well
[8:05]I mean and and Nadia is so humble
[8:09]She of course I was a super fan and I had all these questions
[8:13]But rather than speaking about herself
[8:16]She was so intent
[8:17]Abant upon me understanding what the average Romanians citizen must have experienced
[8:24]And the importance that I focus on
[8:26]Let's say the mom
[8:28]You know, here's a mother who's trying to provide for her children
[8:31]And and amidst this atmosphere of terror
[8:34]How some Romanians still found it in their heart to be generous to help each other
[8:39]Even at you know at the cause at their own cost, you know
[8:42]And that was really really interesting to me
[8:45]And a note about Nadia growing up you know as a Lithuanian American
[8:50]When the Baltic nations were occupied
[8:53]You know the names Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
[8:55]They were just taken off the map and it just said Soviet Union
[8:59]And I remember watching the Olympics you know in 76 with Nadia
[9:04]And remarking that the Romanian athletes when they were walking into the opening ceremony
[9:09]They were dressed in their own colors and the word Romania across the back of their you know warm-up suits
[9:16]And I remember thinking
[9:18]How lucky they were
[9:20]How fortunate oh my goodness
[9:23]Well, you know boy
[9:24]It must be so wonderful in Romania and they're not suffering and how wrong I was
[9:30]And it took you know decades for me to realize that I did not know the story
[9:35]Oh my gosh
[9:36]Well, you said earlier about electricity and how it would turn on and off
[9:40]You have this one scene of the neighbor who you described as having a fallen face that aged 20 years after the electricity went off
[9:49]In the hospital and her child or newborn baby who was an incubator died
[9:55]I mean the idea that you could trust a hospital put your baby in the incubator
[10:00]And then have them just decide, like,
[10:02]okay, cutting electricity tonight,
[10:04]that's a life right there.
[10:05]I mean, it's like, it's so cold-hearted, all of it.
[10:10]It is that the level and scale of the human rights abuses
[10:14]were just incredible.
[10:16]And what also was incredible was the endurance
[10:19]of the Romanian people and how,
[10:23]that their, you know,
[10:24]Romanians are just brilliant in so many ways
[10:26]and how they, you know,
[10:29]they combated this in their own ways.
[10:31]For example, they would come up with jokes
[10:33]and they would joke and imagine the danger
[10:37]of joking about the regime.
[10:38]It could fair you straight to the secret police office,
[10:41]but they didn't, anyway, they found these,
[10:44]I guess I'll say release valves of,
[10:47]and they were so creative and so brilliant
[10:49]and it taught me so much about resilience,
[10:52]researching and writing the book.
[10:54]And the dependence on,
[10:56]and the eventual sort of mind shift provided
[11:00]by American films and how watching them
[11:03]was a huge lifeline.
[11:05]Like, there was one scene when I'm always
[11:08]so bad with names, Nicholas, I think,
[11:09]Nikolai was like,
[11:10]could this actually be reality in America?
[11:13]I couldn't, right?
[11:15]It was so unfathomable.
[11:17]Well, and that was an interesting part of my research,
[11:20]sitting down with, you know,
[11:21]Romanians who were young in the 80s
[11:24]and many people when I do research,
[11:28]many people will tell me similar things,
[11:29]many people tell me different things,
[11:31]but one of the similar threads was the impact
[11:34]of movies from the West.
[11:36]And there was one woman who dubbed these movies
[11:39]into Romanian and she looked for that was the voice of freedom,
[11:43]but there were several people who told me
[11:45]that when they first started seeing movies
[11:46]and I'm talking about movies from the 80s.
[11:48]So like, pretty woman, top gun,
[11:51]which, you know, now it's having this renaissance,
[11:53]and that they said that initially when they saw those movies,
[11:57]they thought it was all fantasy.
[11:59]You know, these people were choosing their own jobs
[12:02]and they would go into the kitchen
[12:04]and, you know, turn a faucet and water would come out
[12:07]and this was crazy.
[12:08]And then the older that they got
[12:10]and word on the street and conversations,
[12:12]they realized, wait a minute,
[12:14]this is real what we're seeing.
[12:18]And there was a historian I met with
[12:19]that said that those movies, those VHS tapes,
[12:23]they loaded the guns that eventually killed
[12:26]Chashescu, the dictator.
[12:27]That's how powerful exposure to music,
[12:31]to art, music, you know, that freedom of expression,
[12:35]that intellectual freedom that they didn't have,
[12:39]but that exposure to it.
[12:40]It, you know, for the young people, it motivated them
[12:43]and it was the young people who were the bravest
[12:46]when the revolution arrived, who took to the streets
[12:48]with nothing, just their bare hands to attack tanks
[12:51]and so many gave their lives, you know, for this.
[12:54]So, yeah.
[12:55]Wow.
[12:56]Even just them noticing the individual choices,
[13:01]even something as simple as what to eat and what to wear
[13:05]and even noticing like, wait a minute,
[13:08]all of this is up to the individual to decide,
[13:11]like, blew my mind.
[13:13]It just blew my mind that that would be so anathema
[13:16]to their own experience.
[13:17]And yes, and then ultimately led to this huge, you know,
[13:22]showdown, if you will.
[13:23]Yeah.
[13:24]And what I didn't realize prior to researching the book
[13:29]was that when Romania finally did, you know,
[13:33]fight for, you know, independence and sadly,
[13:37]a replacement set of communists took over.
[13:39]Yeah.
[13:40]And their suffering was extended for several more years
[13:42]and these young people who had fought for freedom
[13:45]felt like their revolution, you know, had been stolen from them.
[13:48]And the book in the end kind of, you know, reflects that.
[13:53]But it just gave me an insight, you know,
[13:56]into a culture that I knew so little about.
[14:00]And Romania is a gorgeous country.
[14:02]It's absolutely beautiful.
[14:04]And when they were describing to me how Bucharest had been
[14:07]turned, it was once a luxury stop on the Orient Express
[14:11]and had been turned into this apocalyptic landscape
[14:15]of the lost.
[14:16]It was just, I wanted to convey that atmosphere to the reader.
[14:19]So you would feel like you're there.
[14:22]No, I felt it felt like I was in the cement,
[14:25]one bedroom apartment with like the grandfather
[14:28]and the kitchen and living in the closet.
[14:30]And you could feel the coldness.
[14:33]And I think that's, that's something that is just
[14:36]so one of the overwhelming things
[14:39]that the whole nation was just cold, right?
[14:42]Like, A, cold outside.
[14:44]But B, you know, taking away the warmth among people
[14:49]and the cold-blooded nature of so many of the acts.
[14:53]Anyway, I worry that I'm making this book sound like a history
[14:56]book, whereas actually it's very much about people
[14:59]and characters.
[15:00]And the way you wrote it is so page-turning, right?
[15:03]You just want to find out what is going on,
[15:06]what's going to happen with Nikolai and his, you know,
[15:08]the girlfriend and, you know,
[15:10]even scenes like them protecting the girl
[15:13]who's walking home and gets attacked by wild dogs.
[15:16]I mean, all of these things, like you paint such a picture
[15:18]of the environment, but then ultimately it's the interior
[15:21]lives of the characters that just like fly off the page
[15:24]and it make it a story, not like a history book.
[15:27]Oh, I hope so.
[15:28]I did try to write it as a suspense novel.
[15:31]Those who've read my books know that my style
[15:34]or I should say lack of style.
[15:37]Short sentences, short chapters,
[15:39]but I've found through, you know,
[15:42]writing about times of adversity, you know,
[15:44]despite what's going on, there are universal themes.
[15:48]I mean, amidst war, people are falling desperately in love
[15:52]and they're forging friendships through shared experience.
[15:56]And that's what happens here, the main character.
[15:59]There's a girl across the street that he's in desperately
[16:02]in love with them.
[16:03]So we see these, I think, you know,
[16:06]hopeful universal themes despite the hardship.
[16:09]Yes, absolutely.
[16:11]Well, it was, you know, immersive and, you know,
[16:14]I want to say appalling, not the conditions
[16:18]in which these characters are living
[16:20]or just like, like, could this have happened?
[16:22]Like this, really?
[16:23]And then learning that it could have was just
[16:26]in be this whole other layer of meeting
[16:28]onto the day-to-day life of your characters
[16:31]and what they've decided and everything.
[16:32]So, yeah, a little bit of everything packed in here.
[16:36]And also makes us realize, though,
[16:39]how humble Romanians are that they speak very rarely
[16:45]of what they endured and how they endured it.
[16:49]And they're so generous to speak about you
[16:52]and to ask about you and, you know, what's going on.
[16:54]And whereas, like, Lithuanians, we're so open to say,
[16:59]oh, you know, my family went to Siberia.
[17:01]This is what our family experienced.
[17:03]And I just really hope that it might open a door.
[17:07]Of course, this is fiction.
[17:09]But I hope it might open a door.
[17:11]So people might research on their own
[17:14]and it might lead them to the work,
[17:17]nonfiction work of Romanians
[17:19]because my, you know, historical fiction sits on the shoulders
[17:22]of nonfiction and memoir and testimony.
[17:25]And in this case, so many Romanians were my co-writers
[17:28]with this and I really want to give voice
[17:31]to their story and this underrepresented history.
[17:34]Well, I have to say that in fifth grade,
[17:37]for whatever reason, I was assigned a research project
[17:39]on Lithuania, that was my country.
[17:43]Everybody got like a different place.
[17:45]And I don't know why.
[17:47]Anyway, that was mine.
[17:48]And we didn't know anyone from there.
[17:49]And my mom's like, well, so and so was from Estonia.
[17:52]Why don't you talk to her?
[17:53]And I remember interviewing her at the time.
[17:56]Anyway, I don't even know this.
[17:58]I've been related to what we're talking about.
[17:59]With your Lithuanian past, it was,
[18:02]this is like the 80s that are in the 80s.
[18:05]This is what we were doing in school.
[18:07]So, but you know what, good for your teacher
[18:10]because in the 80s, Lithuania wasn't even on the map
[18:14]as its own country.
[18:15]It was only after 1991.
[18:17]And people from these underrepresented countries,
[18:22]it becomes a bit of an identity struggle
[18:24]because I remember growing up in the States,
[18:28]people call me rutas sepetes.
[18:30]My Lithuanian name is rutas sepetes.
[18:32]And when people would see my name,
[18:35]they'd say, what are you?
[18:36]And I'd say, I'm Lithuanian.
[18:38]And then the conversation would just end.
[18:40]And I remember watching movies,
[18:42]like there was an Adam Sandler film
[18:44]where they were trying to make a joke about like,
[18:47]oh, the character had a girlfriend and they said,
[18:50]oh, she's from Lithuania.
[18:52]And then this woman came in who was bumbling and odd.
[18:55]And it was, it was a joke.
[18:57]Because no one knew it was like this very far-flung,
[19:00]remote place.
[19:02]But people, I think that when their stories
[19:06]remain hidden in the shadows and the histories
[19:08]of the countries remain hidden in the shadows,
[19:11]people can feel misunderstood.
[19:13]And I know even for myself, when I would say,
[19:15]I'm Lithuanian, very rarely would someone say,
[19:19]oh, well, what is it like to be Lithuanian?
[19:21]Or what's the history of your country?
[19:23]And I just think we don't do that.
[19:25]And if we understand the backgrounds and histories,
[19:29]we might better understand our neighbors even.
[19:32]And then once we understand their background,
[19:34]we understand their motivation.
[19:36]And that facilitates human understanding, I like to think.
[19:40]And I think that's one of the hidden powers
[19:43]of historical fiction is that, you know,
[19:46]power for dialogue and human understanding.
[19:49]So true.
[19:50]I interviewed recently a man named Maddie Friedman
[19:53]about when Leonard Cohen went into the Yom Kippur Wars
[19:56]in medsetting, and he was saying in Israel at that time,
[20:00]When you asked where people were from they just said I'm from the Holocaust
[20:04]Like that's where I'm from like I'm it doesn't matter like here's where I am that's where I'm from and there's some things
[20:10]They're similar in that like you know
[20:12]I am from this place this place has changed like who does that make me what is my identity when my nation is
[20:18]You know, and I think about all the crannians now, too
[20:20]Like what is what are I mean? Obviously they identify so strongly and I have so much respect for them
[20:25]But you know what happens when you're all booted out of your country and where is who are you who do you become?
[20:30]Anyway, I'm rambling. I'm sorry, but no
[20:34]Rambling at all because I think we see that people become you know
[20:39]courageous
[20:40]Lamplighters and we see the power of the human spirit when families are separated and people are
[20:47]Displaced and it's of course it's awful to see history repeating itself
[20:53]But I really try to
[20:55]Also cling to the strength that that you know the Ukrainians are are showing the world. It's so inspiring
[21:03]So when you're writing about how do you go back and forth with your regular life like
[21:08]Tell me about a day where you're like sitting there and like how often you're and then what happens when you like shut
[21:13]Your computer down and get up and like is it easy for you to go from this intensity to then whatever else you're doing?
[21:21]No
[21:22]It's not if I mean and I would think it would be a little bit weird if I could write about
[21:28]You know pain and death and destruction and then be like oh now it's time to make dinner
[21:32]No, but but you know someone once told me that compassion is being able to hold both
[21:39]You know hope and hardship and love and loss at the same time and that made sense to me and I think to write
[21:47]authentic historical fiction where the reader
[21:51]Feels connected to the character and feels empathy towards what they're experiencing
[21:58]I have to kind of get into trenches
[22:00]So what I do is I carve out large blocks of time to write and allow myself to go there
[22:08]You know into the trenches and also I feel a great debt to the to these people who help my research and I
[22:16]I want to deliver something great just you know for them
[22:19]You know to honor them and and so I really I do allow myself to go there and then I have to sort of slowly
[22:25]Come out of it. So on the the tail end of let's say a writing bender
[22:31]I will instead of writing 14 hours a day or being in it 14 hours a day
[22:35]I'll sort of wean myself off and that and that helps but yeah, it's
[22:40]I'm a probably a really bad candidate for this
[22:42]I get so emotional, but then I think well, maybe it's the fact that I care so deeply about these human beings
[22:50]I feel really really invested. I
[22:53]Laugh with my other friends who write historical fiction because they say rooted your nuts
[22:58]You are not I will go to the end degree to hunt down a detail for authenticity
[23:04]You know and and
[23:06]We lie laugh with my other friends who write historical fiction
[23:09]They're like you're crazy and don't tell anyone you do that because they'll expect us to do it too
[23:15]Oh my gosh. So on a day when you're not writing
[23:18]What do you what's your life like like what do you love to do when you're not working?
[23:23]I live just outside of Nashville and I it's lovely and I love to walk
[23:28]I love to be outside and it doesn't matter if it's winter or summer
[23:33]You know, there's that saying you know to go to truly go inside you need to go outside and I believe that I get my
[23:39]Best ideas for plotting and dialogue when I'm taking walks and how cliche is that right like the writer who takes a log
[23:49]But for me it really works that that combinatory play of
[23:55]Moving physically moving and either listening to music and activating a different part of my brain
[24:01]I can put together plots and scenes and dialogue so even when I'm not writing
[24:07]I am kind of writing and crafting and reflecting on story and history and things like that
[24:15]Love it. Yeah, you can't can't really escape it. Right. It follows
[24:20]The books kind of follow you everywhere you go. Well in story follows story
[24:25]And something I do is I go to and I think a lot of writers probably do this
[24:29]But here in the south these these estate sales are really great
[24:32]I go to a lot of estate sales
[24:34]And I'll wander through these estate sales and every item
[24:38]Has a story attached to yeah to it the way shoes are worn at the heels
[24:44]I'm thinking oh my gosh, this woman
[24:46]She danced herself to death or a dress that has a cigarette burn in a really odd place
[24:53]Everything to me is story and at these estate sales
[24:57]I don't know. I just I love going to estate sales and I don't
[25:00]You know often buy too many things or it's not that I'm buying things
[25:04]But I'm I'm looking and immersing myself in those stories
[25:07]And so that's like a little hobby of mine. Hmm. They're like artifacts
[25:11]Yeah, exactly looking at artifacts in the museum or something. I actually I was in Charleston
[25:17]years ago, maybe six years ago and we went to one of these
[25:21]Like jewelry stores
[25:23]I cannot consign my jewelry shows. Anyway, that's where I ended up getting my ring with my husband
[25:27]And I remember sitting there in the store and like holding it and I'm like well
[25:31]Who is the woman who wore this before me right? What was her story like who could she have been
[25:37]Like it could be anything. Did she live around here? Like
[25:40]Which house did she live in like I'll never know and yet it would be around my finger
[25:46]Forever the way it was around her finger forever like it's just so wild
[25:51]Think that way I know that you think that way because it does have story
[25:56]I tend there's a story there. There's a plot. There's a setting
[25:59]I mean for writers, you know, there was dialogue
[26:02]There was all the elements of story are in that ring and then of course you created a whole new
[26:08]You know story around it. Yeah. All right. Well, maybe I'll try some historical fiction
[26:14]I think you should
[26:16]Yeah, well anyway, it turns out I bought the ring or we bought the ring and then brought it up to New York where I live
[26:21]And I needed it resized because it was too big another clue about this woman and
[26:27]When the jeweler went to resize it
[26:29]They said actually there's a huge crack that you can't see with the naked eye
[26:32]But the diamond is is cracked
[26:34]But the place I bought it had like I had taken out the insurance or whatever
[26:38]So point is we got to send it back and I got my money back
[26:42]So the actual ring went there
[26:43]But then I had the jeweler here make an exact copy of what it looked like
[26:47]So that's it. That's an even better story
[26:50]You wonder how did that diamond get cracked cracked
[26:55]Did she clobber some all yeah, did she fall did she you know
[27:00]Oh, that's where you died where you tempted to keep the cracked diamond and ask for a discount or
[27:08]No, you didn't know you didn't know
[27:09]No, I thought about it a minute
[27:11]But then maybe this was a sales hook but the jeweler of here said you know over time
[27:17]It would get worse and like there were reasons
[27:20]Why you should not wear a cracked diamond or whatever even if I got in the discount
[27:25]But yes, I think I was tempted because I liked the history of it and like
[27:29]I love the idea wearing an antique ring and everything
[27:31]But not if it's totally broken
[27:34]Right, right. Okay. I don't even know how he ended up on that tangent
[27:37]But I guess material from the south is rife with story and who knows where it will lead
[27:43]Backly exactly. What book? What are you writing now?
[27:46]What do you work well? I just finished a book sort of that it pertains to what we're talking about
[27:52]My books require a lot of research and I have to travel for this research and during COVID
[27:57]That just became impossible
[27:59]I was not able to work the way I was accustomed to working to being you know boots on the ground in another country
[28:06]So I wrote a book helping
[28:09]Writers craft their own story and just I believe every human being has a story
[28:14]And sometimes it's intimidating
[28:16]To get started and I wanted to show them an easy prompts and easy ways how they can open the door to their memory
[28:24]And all the elements that we've been discussing
[28:27]Character plot setting they're all there and even if someone doesn't want to publish a novel or or write a memoir
[28:35]I want them to be able to archive their own story. I think every adult wishes that we
[28:41]You know had asked our parents or our grandparents that we had better archived our story
[28:46]So the book is called you the story and I just finished that and that'll be coming out next year. That sounds great
[28:54]A writer's guide to craft through memory
[28:57]That's I mean very very useful
[28:59]You should team up with Rabbi Steve Letter has a book that's coming out this June
[29:03]About how to write letters for the people you love right like what to leave
[29:08]It's it's called like how to
[29:10]Write a life or something but it's something similar right it's taking memory and and packaging it for
[29:16]You know future generations, but I don't know you do have it
[29:19]I think you would have an interesting conversation. He's great. That book sounds absolutely amazing. Yes. I would love that
[29:27]Okay, well, I'll put you in touch if you need the help
[29:30]I love it. Great. Well, Rita. Thank you so much. Thank you for teaching me so much about remaining in history for opening up this vast
[29:39]Sympathy feeling and understanding and of an entire nation state and you know filling some gaps in my obvious
[29:47]terrible history repertoire
[29:49]Anyway, and and and then the story itself and keeping me so engaged and and rooting for someone and
[29:56]You know the crying with the sister and
[30:00]you know just all the emotions that the story evoked. So thanks. Thank you so much for having me and I
[30:04]hope your listeners might pick it up. It's a quick read. Yes, I must betray you, but I won't betray
[30:10]you. Okay. Thank you so much. Take care. Thank you so much. I was so grateful to do this. Oh,
[30:17]it was my pleasure. And I'm sorry I'm gonna miss your event here. I'll have to take you. That's okay.
[30:21]We're special. Maybe I'll catch you somewhere else. I'd love to meet you in person. I would love to
[30:25]meet you in person too. That would be fun. All right. Take care. You take care of the bye.
[30:30]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[30:34]follow me on Instagram at zibbowens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter
[30:40]at zibbowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every
[30:45]other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan. Heck, texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to
[30:50]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.