Alli Frank and Asha Youmans, NEVER MEANT TO MEET YOU: A Novel
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[0:58]Ali Frank and Asha humans are the co-authors of never meant to meet you a novel
[1:03]Ali has worked in education for over 20 years in San Francisco and Seattle
[1:07]From an overcrowded public high school to a pristine private girl school
[1:10]She's been a teacher curriculum leader coach college counselor assistant had private school co-founder
[1:16]Sometimes pastor often mayor and de facto parent therapist a graduate of Cornell and Stanford universities
[1:22]Ali can still be found during the day skiing or running down mountains
[1:26]And by night with her nose deep in a book
[1:28]She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband two daughters and burn a doodle
[1:33]You can also read alleys essays in momstone have time to a quarantine anthology
[1:39]Which is my anthology from 2021 frolic and medium
[1:43]Asha humans her co-author was raised in Seattle and is a two-time city champion double Dutch team member
[1:51]Among other amazing accomplishments
[1:54]Asha graduated from lakeside school from which her father earned a diploma as the school's first black graduate
[2:01]After writing her own major program and graduating from the University of California, Berkeley
[2:06]Asha returned to Seattle where she taught in public and private schools for 20 years
[2:10]Together they have written never meant to meet you
[2:13]But their first book was tiny imperfections and they have some news which they'll share about their next book
[2:18]Which will be
[2:20]TV and
[2:21]Produced by Mindy's book studio, which is part of Amazon
[2:25]Welcome
[2:25]Ali and Asha. Thank you for coming back on momstone of taintry books now to discuss never meant to meet you a novel. Bye for me
[2:33]Okay, ladies never meant to meet you tell everybody what this book is about and why this was your follow-up to tiny imperfections
[2:42]And we'll start things never meant to meet you is a story about a group of women
[2:48]Specifically two women who are neighbors
[2:50]one is a black Baptist woman named Marcia
[2:54]and her next door neighbor is Noah Abrams a white jewish woman and
[3:01]For some reason they've sort of avoided each other. They haven't gotten to know each other. They haven't crossed the driveway to
[3:08]Meet or associate much, but something draws them together one day
[3:13]There's a tragedy in the neighborhood and they end up creating a really beautiful friendship that gets them both through
[3:22]some tough times in their lives and
[3:24]They come to realize that despite their
[3:29]Difference in race and religion
[3:31]Outward appearance or any of those other things that we sort of judge each other on when we first look at someone
[3:39]They really have a lot in common
[3:42]Not just as two women two moms two working moms, but their backgrounds
[3:48]Being black and being jewish their shared history in this country and beyond
[3:53]There are some things that they recognize in each other and it creates a beautiful friendship that turns really into found family
[4:01]And it's a funny story. It feels like oh, there's a tragedy in the street. Yikes. That's gonna
[4:06]I'm gonna get the tissues out
[4:08]But they come together over shared joy
[4:12]laughter like a misery about life
[4:15]And in the end it's just I think a great tale
[4:20]about
[4:21]How even friendships that you find later in life can be a saving grace
[4:26]so true
[4:29]And the topic came to be as you know zippy because you were writing a book
[4:34]During COVID is that you know creative input comes from being out
[4:38]in the world and
[4:40]Our first book tiny imperfections launched in May of 2020
[4:45]Which was not great timing great book not great timing
[4:49]But then our agents like okay, you know, you got to get on that sophomore novel
[4:53]And basically we had our families and we had each other
[4:57]So it's not really surprising that the story that came out of it was about a black Baptist woman and a jewish woman
[5:06]and dealing with the
[5:08]Ever expanding and shrinking in different kind of grief that was happening in the world that was happening within our own lives
[5:16]That was happening in everyone's lives and how do you heal from grief?
[5:20]And the big question particularly of the time was is grief ever funny?
[5:25]I can you ever find humor and this is very
[5:29]Disparaging hard time
[5:32]So the book came from really just looking at each other on lockdown and COVID
[5:38]Have you read Catherine Newman's new novel?
[5:41]I shouldn't do it. We all want impossible things
[5:44]but it's a humorous
[5:46]Tale of hospice, but that sounds terrible
[5:49]But it that's like kind of what it is getting through the darkest times with humor
[5:54]Which I feel like I don't know if it's a confidence necessarily
[5:57]But anyway, just to your point on trying to find the humor in the darkest places at times is essential
[6:03]Tell listeners. I know we talked about this last time
[6:05]But it was a while ago. So how the two of you teamed up to write books together in the in the first place
[6:11]We both have been teachers for years
[6:14]Around 20 years plus each of us and we met at a small private school in Seattle
[6:21]And Ali was assistant head of school and I had the classroom below her
[6:26]I was the pre-K teacher and we did admissions together
[6:29]And we had you know, they're very serious meetings that you have during admissions
[6:33]Where you talk about three-year-olds and how they will add to your school community
[6:38]And how we may serve these three and four-year-olds
[6:42]Very very important stuff
[6:43]but after those
[6:45]Moments Ali and I would retreat down to my classroom kitchen and grab a snack and sort of
[6:51]joke about what we had done during the day like oh my gosh that one kid his mom was going to have a hard attack
[6:56]But he couldn't take his finger out of his nose
[6:58]You know things like that just the lighter side of being with children the wonderful side of being with children
[7:05]How much they taught us on a daily basis and how much they taught us to laugh through the honesty of life
[7:13]And we would joke together. Oh my gosh when I write a book it's gonna be I'm gonna put that story in there when I write a book
[7:18]I'm gonna put that story in there
[7:20]Years later we left to the school
[7:23]Ali called me up one afternoon and said hey I got an idea for a book
[7:27]I want to know if you'll write it with me and I said
[7:31]Okay, and that's what we did we had no idea what we were doing
[7:35]But we had no idea what we weren't doing either so there wasn't much to stop us
[7:42]And I would argue I mean I've sent this over and over that
[7:45]You know the true experts on humanity out there in humanity from age three to age
[7:51]83 are
[7:53]Educators because we are in constant observation observation of humanity and children and
[8:01]The era of parenting and then the gorgeous era
[8:05]Being able to be a grandparent between us and I we have 40 plus years of just observation of people and action and so
[8:17]You know for us the creation of stories not that
[8:20]Difficult we've had a massive
[8:23]trajectory on okay. How do we do this thing called write a book and then try to get an agent and then get it published
[8:30]but
[8:31]We've got so much
[8:33]Story in our lives that
[8:36]It's just fun recounting it all together and
[8:39]Laughing about ourselves because we've been parents. We've had kids in schools all those things
[8:45]Were daughters were wives
[8:47]But also not taking to this seriously as everyone else because we've seen you know whole generation come out the other end
[8:55]Yes, totally get that
[8:58]So tell me about
[9:00]The Jewish black dual perspectives and where the commonalities you two have found in writing in the stories and your characters and in your own lives
[9:10]Sure, you know, we really wanted to
[9:14]again
[9:15]during
[9:16]2020
[9:18]You know a massive rise in antisemitism and the topic that you know antisemitism is the oldest
[9:26]Persecution in the history of the world
[9:29]Yet, it's the least
[9:31]Discussed it's the least recognized it gets the least media attention because it's persecution of white people and
[9:40]We have a real interesting history in our country
[9:43]Jewish people and black people
[9:46]Coming together because there is similarity of experience even if that were to periods is different. There's similar you experience
[9:53]There's similarity of
[9:56]Joy and overcoming and becoming
[10:00]Complished when the world doesn't want you to.
[10:04]And there's similarity of navigating the world.
[10:08]And that's something that we wanted to explore
[10:12]through sharing the joy of the two cultures,
[10:14]again, not just the tragedy.
[10:17]We are in this time in our culture
[10:19]where learning about other cultures,
[10:22]other ethnic, ethnicities and races is through their pain, right?
[10:28]I mean, how many books and how much learning about the Jewish people
[10:33]is through the lens of the Holocaust,
[10:35]how much of the learning about the black culture in our country
[10:39]is through the lens of slavery.
[10:41]And there's so much more that's joyful and beautiful and full of love.
[10:48]And that is what we want to do in all our writing,
[10:52]but that was really important to us, particularly in this book,
[10:55]because while Marjette and Noah aren't exactly at Asha and I,
[10:59]they do represent what we come from and what we love.
[11:02]And we're joyous people.
[11:05]We love who we are and we wanted to put that out there to the world.
[11:09]Excellent.
[11:10]I feel like there has been some social media banter.
[11:13]And I don't know if you feel like opining on this in any way,
[11:16]and you totally don't have to.
[11:17]But I feel like there was when Black Lives Matter was going in that time in June
[11:24]all of the horrific events that happened.
[11:27]And the Black Squares on Instagram were pervasive, right?
[11:30]Everybody was putting Black Squares up.
[11:32]But then I heard when people were putting up blue squares,
[11:35]where there was more antisemitism that it wasn't being reciprocated on social media.
[11:41]Whereas, do you know what I'm saying?
[11:43]Like, did you hear about that?
[11:44]Do you know why is it not even worth discussing?
[11:48]Or does it go both ways to support?
[11:52]Well, I would argue that, I mean, the blue squares was not as big of an event
[12:02]as the Black Squares was.
[12:04]I didn't even notice it.
[12:06]I didn't see that campaign to support the Jewish community in that way.
[12:13]What I did see was recent comments by very well-known people.
[12:20]And that affected me greatly.
[12:23]And I have to say that, you know, we can talk about whether or not something was popular
[12:28]enough or reciprocated.
[12:29]But I think that the most important point is to speak up when you see it.
[12:35]When those comments came out by an artist that's globally known,
[12:41]I had to go to Ali and ask her, is it okay for me to respond to this?
[12:49]I'd like to do this with you because it's hurting me.
[12:52]So I think the greater issue is when you see it, you gotta say it.
[12:58]Jamie, the Curtis went on the today show.
[13:00]And so, eloquently said, and I'm not going to quote it exactly, but what does it mean
[13:06]when you hear these things and you don't say anything?
[13:09]What does that say about you?
[13:12]So my commitment is just, if I see it, I have to say something.
[13:17]And I do think that Ali's point that, you know, discrimination against white people is one
[13:22]thing, but I don't think people actually get that there's a cultural aspect to being Jewish.
[13:30]And one thing that I have to say is so when it was probably the most emotional moment
[13:37]of writing never meant to meet you with Asha, when we wrote tiny imperfections,
[13:42]we had a lot of challenging conversations about race because our protagonist and her family
[13:50]was black. And, you know, I had a steep learning curve.
[13:54]It was amazing at times it was hard because Asha and I write collectively
[14:00]through the lens of humanity, I'm not writing the white characters and she's writing the
[14:05]black characters. We write everything together, but when we were writing never meant to meet you,
[14:11]and January 6th happened. And there was media footage of one of the men who had on a t-shirt
[14:21]that said 6 million is not enough. And Asha was really horrified by that and felt deeply
[14:32]when she saw that and was shocked by it. She was the only one I heard from within my wide network
[14:40]of people. And I felt like, okay, Asha's learning something in this process of our creativity
[14:49]about being Jewish and what it's like to be Jewish. And I just feel that there needs to be
[14:56]more this creative reciprocity among people and acknowledgement that we all have differences
[15:06]to really watch for and listen to. But that was a really important moment for me in our
[15:13]relationship. And now I think I've gotten better at being black and Asha's gotten much better at being
[15:19]Jewish. Can I mention one last thing about the connections? Food, yes. There's food in our book.
[15:28]And for a good reason, Ali and I both appreciate food. It is something that as human
[15:35]beings is the thing that we can all agree connects all of us. We all have to eat and drink.
[15:45]We must eat and drink. We don't have to live in the same type of home. We don't have to have
[15:51]the same skin color, but we all have to eat and drink. And we're the only species on this planet
[15:55]that cooks and shares food together. And that means something. And let me tell you, when I go to
[16:03]Ali's family's functions, I got to go to her daughters. But miss from this last year,
[16:11]the food was amazing. And when she's with me, I cook up a storm. I just broke in her new,
[16:20]she built a new home and beautiful kitchen. I went and fried chicken like you would not believe
[16:25]in that kitchen. They were cleaning up cooking oil for days after me. And those things are important
[16:33]in both cultures. And I think to human beings in general. So food is a big, it has a big spot in this
[16:40]book. Yeah, it's funny. My, I'm Jewish and my husband now is Italian, although he converted to Judaism.
[16:47]But I feel like food is so important to his Italian family as well. So I feel like there's so many
[16:54]when you can unite over something you care about and like literally
[16:58]ingest together, right, creating community, breaking bread, the old expression. Right.
[17:03]It's, it's so uniting when there are so many other differences or potentially can be viewed as
[17:08]so many other differences. So yeah, it's different. And I think you bring up the perfect,
[17:12]the perfect word uniting is the perfect word. And what we need to do is find more commonalities,
[17:19]simple daily things to unite on rather than looking at these big schisms that divide us.
[17:28]Because they are the small things. Everyone has to get their kid to school. No matter who you are,
[17:33]you know, everyone has to eat. And those are all uniting daily experiences.
[17:39]I wrote this essay a while back. And so I meant how stressed I was as a mom. And you know,
[17:44]I had to sign up for parent to your conference on my phone or something. And how, you know,
[17:49]my husband was like trying to like put his hand up my shirt or something. And I was like,
[17:53]no, I have to sign over this or whatever. I don't know. It was a whole thing. And there's a black
[17:57]mom who was in my kids class. And she came up to me after. And she's like, and she had never
[18:01]been like particularly nice to be honest with you. You know, she's very standoffish whenever. And she's
[18:05]like, you know, I never thought we had anything in common until I read her essay. And she's like,
[18:10]I feel like the same way, you know, I feel like even though our lives are so different,
[18:16]the things we're going through raising kids are so similar. It was like a shock, I think, to her,
[18:21]you know, like, yeah, we're all people, you know, hello. Anyway.
[18:26]And that's a perfect one like set, right? Everyone, everyone is a sexual being. And every mother
[18:35]out there has had her husband or partner try to come up with your like, oh, no, it's like bad timing,
[18:44]bad timing. Anyway, I don't even know why I bring this up. But so what what project are you working
[18:50]on now? Oh my gosh, we are in that cop. Oh my gosh, let me know if I'm listening. We're in copy
[18:59]editing mode of our third book. Yes, which has some super huge news tied around it that we can't
[19:09]say yet, but we're really, really excited. And but that when I always forget, I should
[19:16]it should be out in July of July three. Yeah, a better half. And so that's all exciting and wonderful.
[19:24]But then on the flip side, we're at that point with book four where it's like chapter nine.
[19:32]It feels weird. I like it until like pants the don't fit. And it's just like uncomfortable. And
[19:39]you don't know. Do I want do I want these characters? Do I want this?
[19:43]It has a hard time moving on to be she falls in love with families in our books and feels like
[19:49]she's cheating on them by writing about a whole new family. So I encourage her that you know what
[19:55]you can like this family and that family.
[20:00]It is an unfortunate, yeah, I became a little bit of a mean girl at the beginning of every
[20:06]new become like, you know, I don't really like them. They're not that interesting. Like,
[20:11]and yeah, Aasha just rolls her eyes at the point. Like, now we don't even need to talk. She just
[20:16]gives facial truth. And do you still work on zoom? Yeah, we do a lot of
[20:24]timing. Lots of calls during the day. And we visit each other. I was just in Idaho where
[20:31]Ali lives. She wasn't Seattle the week before that. Then she wasn't Seattle the week after I was in
[20:36]Idaho. We'll see each other again in a couple of weeks. So we're very close. It's not hard to fly
[20:43]to see each other. And we do our big work at that time. Lots of reading out loud. Lots of just,
[20:51]fighting, you know, fighting through the hard issues, making sure the story's right. We do all the
[20:58]big parts in person. Because we want to feel it together. Since again, it's a black woman and a white
[21:05]woman writing every word, every punctuation together. We believe that we need to be in person,
[21:13]and agree on everything. So we can go out into the world and defend what we write and defend what
[21:21]we do. Because we, it was 50-50 the whole way. So when we get those really mean when I start comments,
[21:32]I guess I guess we're both awful. When we get the grape by star, I guess we're both fabulous.
[21:39]20 because you mentioned Zimmy that you had this woman that, you know, was sort of standoffish.
[21:45]And that's kind of how Marjette felt about Noah, right? Like you have a perception of a person.
[21:50]And perhaps that person felt the same about you. But then you realize, wow, that's just how I'm
[21:57]perceiving the world. I got to really actually be in it. And Ali and I faced those moments
[22:03]when we're writing together as well. There's a scene where a possible mistress from the past
[22:09]shows up. And Marjette, our character, who's the main voice in our story, she wants to go
[22:16]hands-on with this woman and give her all the smoke, you know? And Ali was like, wait a minute,
[22:23]no, no person would act that way. And I'm like, someone I would. So we have to figure out, okay,
[22:28]what's the in between that I'm satisfied both of us? Because I was like, I wouldn't even
[22:34]break a nail over some guy. And I'm like, I will break a lot of nails over.
[22:39]I'll break a letter. I'll be doing empty time.
[22:45]So when we talked about really collaborating, I mean, you know, that's one thing I hope people get
[22:51]when they read our books is that it's possible to collaborate very deeply and very personally
[22:58]with someone, even who looks opposite of what you think they you are. And that's I think what
[23:05]comes in really beautifully in this story. And so what if people are contemplating collaborating
[23:13]with somebody, what would your advice be on finding the right partner?
[23:20]Well, I would say my advice comes out of us doing none of this, but just being hugely fortunate.
[23:28]So it just randomly turned out that my strengths or ashes weaknesses and ashes
[23:36]weaknesses are my strengths. We did not know that going in. And when we say that, it's from the
[23:43]creating the book side, but it's also from the business of books side, you know, negotiating contracts,
[23:53]social media, speaking all that stuff. So looking at both sides, we just got stupid lucky that
[24:01]that turned out for us. But for people who are consciously considering writing with someone,
[24:09]I think really making personal strength and weakness charts and sitting down together and comparing
[24:18]and contrasting those is really important because then you do know not just personality wise,
[24:24]but skill wise, what you're what you're getting into. So step one is self awareness of your own
[24:31]strengths and weaknesses. Yes, total. And you know, I think part of that, I hate to say if it comes with
[24:41]our age, too. And, you know, we're self aware, but and I think it also comes up for us. When you
[24:50]work in schools and kids are so painfully honest, we've had so many years of like a lot of feedback
[24:58]to get kids and parents. We had no ego in this game going into it. We don't really get bothered
[25:05]when we get, you know, negative feedback from editors or publishing houses or, you know, our
[25:14]agent, it's really easy to just let it go off our back. So I think that's another really important
[25:19]conversation is how do you take criticism? I would say when you find those issues that you just can't
[25:28]agree on at that moment, I'd like to say that it's good to give the person the grace of space
[25:38]to sit with what the issue is and to really reach for empathy. Not every experience that I've had
[25:47]is one that Ali can understand or that she's been through and the same for me for her. And we might
[25:57]have had experiences that, you know, I might say to her, well, I have Jewish friends and they do it
[26:02]this way. It's not enough to just have a few Jewish friends and think that I know what that means.
[26:12]And it's the same for Ali, you know, I have a few black friends and this is how they did it.
[26:18]Well, those could be outliers, maybe the 1% or something that the entire culture may have a hard
[26:26]time swallowing as the norm. And we've had to let each other have a day or two.
[26:32]Yep. To go deeper into ourselves, not to fight the point, but to really search for empathy
[26:41]and look for the resolution. So for collaborating, I think that's critical.
[26:47]Pranae Brown talks about empathy as being the epitome of believing someone's story when they tell you
[26:55]it. When someone says, this is my experience, you don't doubt them and say, and that doesn't happen.
[27:06]You take their word for it. And that I think is so important in our working relationship.
[27:11]I love that. I need to feel seen and heard, you know, I will say the one thing on a
[27:17]less deep moment. It is also funny when you're writing together. So one thing that Ash and I have
[27:23]found in this process, it's really familiar that we're challenging ourselves on each book is
[27:29]because Ash has been with her husband since she was 18. And I've now been married for a while.
[27:35]We both have been really challenged at writing any of the romance or sexual parts of her book.
[27:44]Now both first kids of life and how really happened and it's funny, people have read our books.
[27:50]I hope they see and acknowledge that with each book, we're trying to like dip our toes until
[27:56]something a little more sexy and then a little more sexier. But that has been our hardest part.
[28:03]That sounds funny.
[28:04]Of right.
[28:05]Which is just hilarious.
[28:07]Oh, there's like on the flip side is that people say that we write divorce situations
[28:14]and feelings of a woman that she goes through or issues she goes through after she's been divorced.
[28:20]And both of us have been partners for so we haven't been through a divorce. It's like,
[28:26]maybe that's where our fantasy lies.
[28:30]Interesting. Interesting.
[28:31]Okay. All right. Well, thank you both so much. Never meant to meet you.
[28:36]Asha, you man. Ali Frank.
[28:39]Get it today. Thank you so much.
[28:46]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[28:49]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[28:54]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[28:59]meet lots of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[29:03]texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[29:08]this fantastic intro and outro music.