NYT Bestselling Author! Allison Pataki, FINDING MARGARET FULLER
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens, and I am the host of this podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:08]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel, Blake.
[0:14]I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats,
[0:20]a bookstore, and more. Learn more at ZiviMedia.com or follow me on social at Zivi Owens,
[0:26]or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Allison Potaki is the author of Finding Margaret Fuller, a novel.
[0:35]Allison, who's been on this podcast several times, and who has become a good friend on the course of getting to know her,
[0:41]which is really honestly one of the perks of doing this podcast, is getting to know such amazing women.
[0:47]Allison Potaki is the New York Times best-selling author of Finding Margaret Fuller,
[0:51]The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post, The Queen's Fortune, The Traders' Wife,
[0:55]The Accidental Empress, CC Empress on her own, Where the Light Falls,
[0:59]as well as the nonfiction memoir Beauty in the Broken Places, which, oh my gosh,
[1:03]I was obsessed with and did an event for Allison here. It was, you have to read it.
[1:07]And two children's books, Nellie Takes New York, and Poppy Takes Paris.
[1:11]I also want to read her for that. Allison's novel has been translated into 20 languages.
[1:15]A former news writer and producer, Allison has written for The New York Times,
[1:19]ABC News, The Huffington Post, USA Today, Fox News, and other outlets.
[1:23]She has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, Good Day New York,
[1:27]Good Day Chicago, and MSNBC's Morning Joe.
[1:30]Allison graduated cum laude from Yale University with a major in English,
[1:33]and spent several years in journalism, before switching to fiction writing.
[1:37]A member of the historical novel society, Allison lives in New York, with her husband and family.
[1:42]Welcome, Allison. Thank you for coming back on Mom's End of Time to read books for what, like,
[1:46]the fourth time, fifth time, I don't even know, you're too prolific to talk now.
[1:49]I was wondering, I was trying to think.
[1:52]I don't know what time.
[1:53]I know last time, I think we said I was the three Pete, because you had had a few three Pete's.
[1:57]So this must be the fourth.
[1:58]I don't know if you have a word for that.
[2:00]I think you're one of the, that must be one of the most ever frequent flyer pass, you know.
[2:05]We go way back, Zippy. We go way back.
[2:07]When we get to five, I'll, I don't know.
[2:09]Maybe I should give out prizes for something.
[2:12]We should give prizes. No, no, no.
[2:15]Okay. And for anyone listening by the way, Allison is wearing a perfectly matched shade of green to the skirt on the cover of finding Margaret Fuller, which is a gorgeous color.
[2:25]And it just is the type of detail and thought that Ali puts into all of her work. So there you go.
[2:31]Okay.
[2:32]Tell listeners what finding Margaret Fuller is about, please.
[2:36]Absolutely.
[2:37]So finding Margaret Fuller is a biographical historical fiction inspired by America's forgotten leading lady.
[2:43]So we all grow up reading the canon of great American letters, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Scarlet Letter.
[2:52]Of course, we read Ralph, although Emerson, we read, Henry David, the row.
[2:56]I would reckon to say that there are quite a few people out there who don't realize that all of these great thinkers and writers were living together.
[3:05]They were falling in and out of friendship. They were falling in and out of flirtation and drama.
[3:11]In this one moment in time in this genius cluster in Concord, Massachusetts.
[3:16]And Margaret Fuller was the leading lady at the center of it all. Margaret Fuller was who Emerson described as the radiant genius and fiery heart at the center of them.
[3:27]And she was Nathaniel Hawthorne's inspiration and writing the character of Hester print.
[3:32]She was a role model to Louise May Alcott, a mentor to Elizabeth Katie Stanton, an idol of sorts to Susan B. Anthony.
[3:40]So I could go on enlisting her accolades in the details of her life, but the main point here is, why don't we know her name.
[3:47]How we know about everything she's done. And so this is a biographical historical fiction to pull Margaret from the footnotes from the supporting cast and put her center stage with this sweeping iconic legacy that we should know more about.
[4:03]But why? Why don't we know more?
[4:05]I think there are a few huge pieces there. I think number one, she was a woman in a man's world.
[4:11]Maybe more than a century ahead of her time. This was the mid 19th century.
[4:16]So she broke down barriers for women to be sure.
[4:20]First woman to study at Harvard, first woman to write what is considered the founding document of the women's rights movement.
[4:28]Woman in the 19th century was considered by Lucreta Mott, Susan B. Anthony Elizabeth Katie Stanton to be their founding document.
[4:36]But in spite of that, the tragedy here, and this isn't a spoiler because it's in the prologue. She died too young. She had this really tragic end of life experience, which you have to read about to know more about, but I think it cut her voice out of the conversation decades too soon, tragically so.
[4:58]I think in the shipwreck in which she lost her life. She also lost what she considered her greatest written work.
[5:05]And I think that we can only imagine and conjecture with fully so how it might have been different had that not been the case, but just like an interesting morsel here.
[5:17]And she went on her way back to America, Margaret Fuller in the summer of 1850, and she had been offered the role of president to run the convention when the national women's rights movement convened for the first time that October in Worcester, Massachusetts, instead, the convention opened with a moment of silence in her honor.
[5:39]And that says it all that speaks volumes or quite literally the opposite about the way her voice was silenced too soon.
[5:46]And so, you know, yeah, so now people have to read this book and figure out every all the amazing things she did because it's a, it's a travesty. We don't know it.
[5:55]And you said in the book too that she used to have nightmares her whole life about the water.
[6:00]It's true crazy. Margaret had this phobia of water and drowning. She would have nightmares that she was would wake up soaking wet. She had a few crazy experiences on the water in her life.
[6:13]And interestingly, her count her Italian lover, the man with whom she sparked an international scandal, which you can read about and see why she was the character of Esther print in real life.
[6:23]He had a prophecy in his family because he was from this Italian noble family that they ever left Rome.
[6:30]They would perish at sea. So it's interesting to see both of those tie-ins and how it plays out. Oh my gosh, I am one of the, you know,
[6:38]the civilian people who did not know anything about Margaret Fuller. And I didn't realize that all these different historical figures were just like hanging out and saying hello and like, you know,
[6:49]talking on a hill and taking walks and that David Henry David Thoreau was Ralph Waldo Emerson's handyman.
[6:57]He was living in the Emerson house rent free. And then when he moved out to that famous one room cabin on Walden Pond and wrote a book that a few of us have read that was also Emerson's property.
[7:11]He put in the Hawthorne's vegetable garden as a wedding gift to them from the Emerson. So Margaret was interacting and exchanging with all these people. It's like the prequel to friends, like the first season of friends in your American style.
[7:25]Totally. I think we forget when we read about people like so prestigious and so famous that they were kind of young and maybe cute and that they were like, they're in their twenties and thirties.
[7:38]That's not that old. Like to me, in my head, they all have white, long beard, you know, but no, you captured them all. I mean, Luis Mayakod is like, you know, has ribbons sort of falling out of her hair and is like, you know, her dad's all annoyed with her. And I'm like, she's the little kid who goes on to write little women. It's crazy.
[7:57]The little kid who had a childhood crush on Henry David Thoreau who was her tutor who would take her into the woods to, you know, look for butterflies and fox kids.
[8:07]And she really looked up to Margaret Fuller who was a woman in her twenties and thirties that the ripe old age. And she would come to write little women and change.
[8:20]The name of the eldest sister from Anna, which was what it was in real life to Margaret to Margaret, her hero, her heroine Margaret Fuller and she would, she would loosely and base some of her strong female protagonists on her childhood hero and Margaret Fuller and to your point that they.
[8:39]were just people. They were flawed people having drama, living together, coming and going in each other's lives. And that was what I really wanted to get at with this book.
[8:51]And what I initially found to be the hook. So juicy to me was we know their stories that they wrote.
[8:59]And they're interested in the stories behind the stories and that these people had their own lives and drama and back stories.
[9:07]And Margaret was the most compelling of them all, I would argue. And so that's what I'm trying to do here is tell the story of just these people as characters.
[9:15]Yeah. I didn't even know that Ralph Waldo Emerson went by Waldo.
[9:19]Or that the row had like, you know, really hairy hands.
[9:23]I mean, I mean, details you put in. It's like, huh, okay. Now. And like his hair was all wild.
[9:28]Just even the way you describe them physically. Like I just don't think of them in my head is people with physical attributes.
[9:35]It sounds so silly when I say it out loud. But it's amazing.
[9:38]It's so true. They have become just the legends that we study in classrooms. And as you said, we think of them with white beards. Margaret did not have a white beard.
[9:46]But she had great long flowing brunette hair.
[9:50]And we all know the scene the Scarlet Letter where Esther lets her hair down and she embraces her wild self in the woods and the red flowers.
[10:00]And she sort of eschews the damning label of adulterous
[10:05]and embraces the wildness of the woods.
[10:08]And that was Margaret though, that was awesome.
[10:10]They were transcendentalists.
[10:12]They were seeking these rapturous transcendent experiences
[10:16]where the soul came out of the body.
[10:19]And God wasn't some judgmental white bearded figure
[10:25]in a cold church pew.
[10:26]God was the flowers, God was the birds,
[10:29]God was the sun-warmed grass.
[10:31]And Margaret was like the leading lady of this movement.
[10:35]She was the editor of their magazine.
[10:37]She was the muse.
[10:38]So it's a really beautiful moment in time.
[10:41]And Margaret has very clear ideas on marriage,
[10:45]which she talks about in the book and how Waldo,
[10:49]I'm gonna go by his first, you know.
[10:50]Yes, Waldo is talking about how she views it as entrapment
[10:55]and how love versus law factor into relationships.
[11:01]And she's like, I'm not gonna say never,
[11:04]but this doesn't seem like this makes any sense.
[11:08]The whole institution of marriage,
[11:09]which to question at that time is a huge deal.
[11:13]Exactly a century ahead of her time, arguably more.
[11:16]She said she couldn't enter willingly into an institution
[11:22]that would become for in so many ways for a woman,
[11:25]as a status of lesser than or bondage
[11:29]where your property becomes your husband's,
[11:31]your children become your husband's.
[11:33]Your home becomes your husband's.
[11:34]You're right to your own thoughts in many cases
[11:37]became your husband's.
[11:38]And she, that was really huge for her
[11:40]and starting her conversations.
[11:42]Her, it wasn't a lecture series
[11:45]because she didn't want to stand up in lectures.
[11:48]She said, I know how to read and come up
[11:51]with an argument and state my case and stick to my case.
[11:55]I don't want to just lecture women.
[11:57]I want other women to learn how to do that.
[11:59]And because they had been denied education
[12:03]in so many instances where they had learned
[12:05]how to form their own thoughts and their own opinions,
[12:08]she wanted to offer that to women.
[12:09]So she was one of the first to offer.
[12:11]The series almost have like seminars, classes
[12:14]where women would read the classics, Roman or Greek,
[12:19]the legends or they would read politics.
[12:21]And then they would come and they would argue
[12:24]and she would say, it's okay for you to disagree.
[12:26]We don't all have to end in this place
[12:28]of comfortable consensus where we're making sure
[12:31]everyone around us is comfortable.
[12:32]She said, we're allowed to have our own opinions.
[12:34]We're allowed to state our own case.
[12:36]And that was really very dangerous
[12:39]and very progressive for her for society at the time.
[12:43]But the idea caught on.
[12:45]She soon was wait list only.
[12:47]Women were willing to pay the high price
[12:49]to come to her classes and Margaret loved to empower others,
[12:54]especially women in ways like this.
[12:57]Margaret was always looking for ways
[12:58]to encourage people to think freely
[13:01]and speak freely and question molds
[13:05]and boundaries and barriers.
[13:07]And she was always just breaking right through them.
[13:10]And where did you stumble upon Margaret
[13:14]and this whole backstory?
[13:15]And I mean, I feel like it is a treasure trove.
[13:18]That was how I felt too.
[13:19]That was how I felt too.
[13:20]And I always like starting from a place exactly as you said,
[13:24]which is I had no idea.
[13:25]I didn't know anything about this.
[13:27]That's how I always begin my process.
[13:29]And so I love to start from that place with the reader as well.
[13:33]And how it happened for me was
[13:35]a couple months after I had my third baby.
[13:37]I was stuck indoors.
[13:38]It was a rainy weekend.
[13:40]My mother-in-law was coming to visit.
[13:41]My in-laws were coming to visit the baby.
[13:43]And we couldn't do anything because the weather was horrible.
[13:46]So my mother-in-law passed me this book.
[13:48]That was a nonfiction account called American Bloomsbury,
[13:52]which was about this genius cluster of Emerson,
[13:55]the row, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller
[13:58]was the one character in the book whose name I had never heard.
[14:03]I didn't know anything about her.
[14:04]And for me, she leapt off the page.
[14:07]I was an English major at Yale.
[14:09]I studied these people.
[14:11]I had willingly voluntarily done
[14:13]like the dorkiest walking tour of Concord, Massachusetts.
[14:16]Like visited their homes.
[14:17]I considered myself as having known a fair bit about them.
[14:21]And yet I'd never heard of Margaret Fuller.
[14:23]So that to me was that aha moment, which is like,
[14:26]I would want to read books about her,
[14:28]but there is not a historical fiction about her.
[14:30]So I'm going to write the book about her.
[14:32]And then for me, it really became about going to Concord
[14:35]and finding her, tracing her footsteps,
[14:39]immersing myself in the details, in the homes, in her world,
[14:42]and just learning as much as I could about the raw material.
[14:45]As you said, it was a treasure trove of just historical drama
[14:49]and fun facts.
[14:51]How much of Concord, Massachusetts,
[14:54]has been frozen in time?
[14:55]I haven't been there.
[14:56]So like when you do a walking tour, because now I'm like,
[14:59]oof, should I put that on my list?
[15:00]So what is that like?
[15:01]You should absolutely put it on your list.
[15:03]It is so worth the visit.
[15:04]Concord is a town that adores its history
[15:08]and really honors it and still cherishes it.
[15:10]And so you really get the sense when you were there.
[15:12]They had two really glorious moments.
[15:14]The shot heard around the world, which is the start of the American Revolution
[15:18]happened, you know, battles of Lexington and Concord.
[15:20]Also on Emerson land, it was an Emerson pasture where that fight,
[15:25]you know, that showdown went between the men and the red codes.
[15:28]So they love their colonial history.
[15:32]And then the other glory days for Concord
[15:34]was this transcendentalist genius cluster that was the mid 19th century.
[15:39]So you can visit Emerson House.
[15:41]You can visit Orchard House, which was Louisa Mayau,
[15:43]who caught little women.
[15:44]You can visit the old man's where Hawthorne and his bride lived.
[15:48]And you can see all the places where the scenes are from finding Margaret Fuller.
[15:52]And what I will say is you go there and streets are named after all of them.
[16:00]Their homes are still standing.
[16:02]You go to the cemetery.
[16:03]There's authors, Ridge.
[16:04]They're all buried together.
[16:06]But Margaret, I was like, dang is all here.
[16:08]Except Margaret was always kind of an outsider.
[16:11]She left Concord.
[16:13]She said the problem with Concord is that it's lacking in discord.
[16:17]And she wanted more than poetry.
[16:18]She wanted more than, you know, extra marital tension and philosophy and transcendentalism.
[16:24]She wanted to get her hands dirty in the gritty work of humanity.
[16:27]So she went to New York and then she went to Rome and London in Paris.
[16:31]And it's all in there.
[16:33]It's sparked an international scandal.
[16:34]So Concord preserves it all, but Margaret is a bit of an outsider.
[16:38]But like, so you know, you know my co-author, my children's books, Mario Myers.
[16:42]who also was my Yale roommate.
[16:44]We met for dinner at the colonial inn when I was in Concord researching because she lives
[16:49]up there.
[16:50]And we walked out and there's just a revolutionary era of Fife and drums band in full costume
[16:55]playing revolutionary war marching music.
[16:58]So to your point, Concord still honors its history, loves its history, definitely worth,
[17:03]I would say, like bring your kids and you can just totally dork out to all things American
[17:08]history.
[17:09]You should do like a big tour.
[17:10]Like I wouldn't let them go and have you like show us all the scenes.
[17:14]I want you to send a log.
[17:16]This is Margaret Fuller's son warmed boulder where she sat and edited the dial and this
[17:22]is where her guest room, which caused a lot of tension in the Emerson household because
[17:27]it was literally right next door to Waldo's office and Mrs. Emerson's bedroom was tucked
[17:31]away on the other side of the house.
[17:33]Her guest room is now the gift shop.
[17:34]So there's her band and then there's the gift shop.
[17:37]To me was like the perfect exemplar of just the ways her legacy has sort of been pushed
[17:43]under the rug compared to the others.
[17:45]Wow.
[17:46]When you see her in your mind, I know you described the long flowing hair and like the
[17:51]bluest eyes and all of that is in the book.
[17:53]Who do you see?
[17:54]Like is there anybody to conjure up who lives today or just, you know what I mean?
[17:59]I really see Natalie Portman because the first time I met Natalie Portman was at the Star
[18:06]Wars premiere.
[18:07]She was a young woman student at Harvard.
[18:10]Margaret Fuller was the first woman to study at Harvard.
[18:12]So in my mind, I just see them.
[18:15]It has to be a woman who is dynamic and strong and charismatic, but also incredibly like
[18:22]it in so many ways feminine and Margaret Fuller was just this captivating, leaving lady.
[18:28]And I think Natalie Portman has that charisma and that gravitas and that, that like intellectual
[18:34]and like emotional heft tour when she brings a performance.
[18:40]So you talk to set up Margaret and why she is the way she is.
[18:44]It's all about her relationship with her dad and how he she was the oldest of eight.
[18:48]He wanted to make sure she knew everything and it wasn't about formal schooling and she
[18:52]I guess went to Gratton for part of the time.
[18:54]But more about what he taught her with Greek and Latin and all of that and just that it was
[18:59]okay that he thought it was okay for women to be treated this way even though she calls
[19:03]it quote unnatural.
[19:05]So natural.
[19:06]Tell me about that and what does that say for you know today's dads and moms and what we
[19:11]can do with our kids.
[19:12]Yes.
[19:13]She was the eldest child and he recognized this incredibly precocious brilliant mind and
[19:18]so he said he was going to educate her like a boy and he was in her words exacting and
[19:24]severe and he just drilled her like a drill sergeant and by the age of five she was fluent
[19:31]in Latin and Greek and he got mad at her because she snuck this rag into her bedroom
[19:37]to read this todry reading material that was so beneath her and it was the complete
[19:41]works of William Shakespeare and he was like why are you slacking off by reading Shakespeare.
[19:46]My five year old is not reading Shakespeare and if she was I would be quite okay with
[19:50]that but he really he he drilled her from sign up to sundown so she described her childhood
[19:56]and in some ways that were there there was a very real human toll.
[20:00]alone her that led, that was when the nightmares began
[20:03]and the anxiety and the insomnia.
[20:05]But it also did create in her this singular mind.
[20:10]She was known by her 20s as the most well-read person
[20:14]in America.
[20:15]Edgar Allan Poe, her frenemy, said,
[20:18]their vanity can be divided into men, women,
[20:20]and Margaret Fuller.
[20:21]She really existed on a plane of her own.
[20:24]And so then what became so compelling to me
[20:28]was what she did with that brilliance.
[20:31]She wanted to spread it to other women.
[20:34]She wanted other women to feel empowered and educated
[20:37]inspired as well.
[20:38]She was leaving boarding school after a year
[20:42]because she was already more educated
[20:43]than all the teachers.
[20:44]It was like a waste of her time and money.
[20:46]So she really was largely self-educated.
[20:49]And then when she plugs in to this genius cluster
[20:53]at the invitation of Emerson when he's
[20:55]collecting the circle of great thinkers,
[20:58]that's the first time.
[20:59]She's in her mid-20s.
[21:01]That's the first time where she's finally
[21:02]meeting people who are on her level
[21:04]and where she can be full Margaret.
[21:07]And that's when really transcendentalism takes off
[21:10]for all of them.
[21:12]She describes it with Waldo in a particular,
[21:14]this intense connection they had,
[21:17]much to the chagrin of Mrs. Emerson.
[21:19]She describes this union of the souls.
[21:22]It was this surreal experience for both of them
[21:26]to connect in this way.
[21:28]And Emerson, apotheo sized her.
[21:31]That's what Hawthorne said.
[21:32]He made her into this goddess in his mind.
[21:35]And he told Hawthorne, Waldo, Emerson, told Hawthorne,
[21:38]that Margaret Fuller was the one woman in the world
[21:42]worth considering of ancient or modern times.
[21:45]So this was like lofty stuff.
[21:47]And as you can imagine, that has interpersonal consequences
[21:50]with their personal relationships.
[21:52]But yeah, they saw Margaret as this muse, this goddess,
[21:56]this rock star.
[21:57]They really admired and loved her intellect.
[22:01]And that was sort of the first time that men in her life
[22:05]other than her father, seen that as a good thing.
[22:08]Because she had sort of a shoot the role,
[22:10]which could have been hers, of Debutant and society
[22:14]bride and wife and hostess and mother.
[22:16]So she's this very kind of controversial,
[22:20]dangerous figure.
[22:22]Like people see her as disrupting the domestic order
[22:24]because she's this woman out there living on wed
[22:27]without children living on her own,
[22:29]working on her own, writing these big ideas.
[22:32]So she was a rock star.
[22:35]Wow.
[22:36]So Margaret is so inspiring.
[22:37]Like I feel inspired and you're obviously so passionate
[22:40]about her.
[22:41]And by the way, like you're intellect,
[22:43]I'm sure rivals hers.
[22:44]You are so smart.
[22:45]No, I love just even listening to you talk.
[22:48]Ali, it's like the way you come,
[22:50]you speak in full paragraphs.
[22:52]And it's, you know, you're just so, you're so bright.
[22:55]It's amazing.
[22:56]No, it's fabulous.
[22:57]Nobody could make, nobody,
[22:59]like that could not mean more coming from anyone.
[23:01]But you, because look at you.
[23:03]No, no, no, no, no, this is a whole different.
[23:05]This is a whole different follow-ax.
[23:07]So when you get really excited about something,
[23:10]like what do you do first?
[23:11]And what do you, like I feel like that you don't want
[23:14]to end with this book.
[23:15]I feel like this book is like a launching off point for you.
[23:18]Maybe I'm wrong.
[23:19]Thank you.
[23:20]I hope you're right.
[23:21]Yes.
[23:22]I hope readers will let me talk about Margaret
[23:24]for many, many decades to come.
[23:26]Because that's really what's happening when I,
[23:27]when I like pick this, oh, a woman.
[23:29]And I know I've met my next subject
[23:31]or my next heroine of the book.
[23:33]I tell Dave, my husband, I'm like, I've been bitten.
[23:35]I just know.
[23:36]I know the story gets its teeth in me
[23:38]and I'm obsessed and it's a compulsion.
[23:41]It's like there's not going to be any turning it off
[23:43]in my head.
[23:44]So then it becomes this process of researching,
[23:48]front loading the research up front.
[23:49]So with Margaret, it was going to conquer it.
[23:51]And I was just on this high visiting Walden Pond
[23:54]and visiting the Emerson house and the Orchard house
[23:58]and walking Margaret's footsteps sitting on her boulder
[24:01]where she tantalized Nathaniel Hawthorne
[24:03]beside the banks of the river.
[24:05]And so going there first, whoever, if it's Marjorie,
[24:09]if it's CC, if it's Desiree, if it's Margaret,
[24:12]going there and walking her footsteps
[24:13]and soaking up as much of the richness of her world
[24:17]and the context and the details as I can.
[24:19]And then really it's just reading a really hearty diet
[24:24]of nonfiction facts and biographies.
[24:26]And then it all kind of brews in there and marinades
[24:29]and I get to a point where I've ingested
[24:32]as much of the raw material as I can.
[24:35]Let's say I have the bones.
[24:36]I know my beginning, my middle, my end.
[24:38]I know my dates, I know my characters.
[24:41]In this case, it's the titans of American letters.
[24:45]I know the scenes I'm gonna hit, the moments.
[24:48]And then at that point, I know I'm ready to begin writing.
[24:51]Then I'm ready to go and put the fictional flesh on top.
[24:54]And that's where Margaret as a historical figure
[24:57]in my head morphs into this like living breathing character
[25:00]who begins to sort of lead me into her story.
[25:02]And then I know the scenes I wanna hit,
[25:05]but then that's when they really come to life for me.
[25:08]And we get to enter as the reader hopefully
[25:11]and the writer into those moments, into those scenes.
[25:13]And there's this great quote, which I'll just paraphrase it here.
[25:18]The biographer tells you what happened.
[25:20]The novelist tells you how it felt.
[25:22]And that's what I'm going for with historical fiction.
[25:24]It's Eel Doctoral.
[25:25]But just putting us in those moments,
[25:28]imagining the heart truth,
[25:29]imagining how it might have felt to inhabit those moments
[25:32]with, you know, through the eyes of our, in this case,
[25:35]our dynamic leading lady, Margaret Fuller.
[25:37]Wow. Do you have your next, have you been bitten?
[25:40]I do.
[25:41]I do.
[25:42]It's another woman in America.
[25:44]It's coming to the 20th century this time.
[25:46]So a little, a few decades closer to us.
[25:50]And it's, it's juicy, it's dramatic.
[25:53]It's sexy.
[25:54]I'm, I've got a little more book travel coming up for Margaret.
[25:58]And then I'm gonna get back to my desk
[26:00]and I'm gonna send it off to my editor.
[26:02]And then I'm gonna share who it is.
[26:04]But it's another American woman who I just was gobsmacked to see.
[26:07]I didn't know her name.
[26:09]But as always, we know enough of the touchstones to the story.
[26:13]We know the context.
[26:14]We know the men.
[26:15]We know the time period.
[26:17]And that's, that's always the way in.
[26:18]It's like, oh, but then there was this woman hiding
[26:20]in plain sight in the midst of it all.
[26:22]So it's another woman like that.
[26:25]How are you just cranking these out?
[26:27]I mean, look who's talking.
[26:30]No, I mean, I mean, there's, this is so much research.
[26:32]And I mean, the amount of material,
[26:35]even just to reconstruct it
[26:37]and to get to that, I'm ready to write point.
[26:39]I mean, just doing all that research and then writing it.
[26:42]And then, I mean, Marjorie Mary by the post book,
[26:45]that was like, that couldn't have been more than two years ago.
[26:47]A year ago?
[26:48]What went to that?
[26:49]A few years.
[26:50]Two years.
[26:51]Okay.
[26:52]That was two years to write.
[26:53]So I'm always on the schedule.
[26:55]You know where we're wearing many hats as writers.
[26:57]As you know, we're researching one.
[27:00]We're writing or editing one.
[27:02]And then we're talking about one or hopefully more than one.
[27:05]People will have us.
[27:06]And so I've got like, I'm always kind of thinking about something
[27:11]or researching something.
[27:12]And then one day, that's happening.
[27:14]And then the next day, if I'm getting the manuscript back
[27:17]from my editor, I'm editing or I'm writing.
[27:19]And I've settled into a nice rhythm,
[27:21]because I've done 10 books and 10 years.
[27:23]And it's a lot, you know, as we know,
[27:25]we've got a lot of things going on as women, as mothers,
[27:28]as we, you know, we're running our own businesses.
[27:31]So I'm going to settle into a nice rhythm of a new book every two years.
[27:36]That's what I'm going for.
[27:37]So, you know, I'll have downtime where the book is in production,
[27:42]you know, takes nine months to make the actual physical books.
[27:45]So then I'm working on my next one.
[27:47]And, you know, it's Zibi.
[27:48]It's we send our kids to school in the morning.
[27:50]We drink all the coffee, sit around.
[27:53]We write.
[27:54]We crank up our playlist and then we drink some more coffee.
[27:58]And then we take our time.
[28:00]You know, we, we seize our moments when we can.
[28:02]And it's what any working mom has to do.
[28:06]You know, we've got a lean on play dates and sports.
[28:09]And, you know, husband's shuttling kids here and there.
[28:11]And amazing babysitter that I have who makes my entire life possible.
[28:15]So, you know, it's a season of life that we're in with the little kids.
[28:19]And also feeling very strongly that this piece of ourselves,
[28:23]this, this creative writing author piece is also important.
[28:27]And so, as you know, we make time, right?
[28:31]We make the time.
[28:32]We steal the time.
[28:33]So I sit down and I write whenever I can.
[28:35]Well, and it's not just your kids.
[28:37]You wrote, as you know, I'm obsessed with your book Beauty and the Broken Places.
[28:41]And what happens when you have a husband who has something going on.
[28:46]And you're also a caregiver, even though I know Davis is in such a good place right now,
[28:51]but maybe just share a line in case people don't know.
[28:54]Yeah, life, like all the stuff that happens in life.
[28:57]And in this case, my husband, Dave, at the age of 30, had a massive, near fatal stroke.
[29:03]And we didn't know he would survive or not.
[29:05]And it was just, as the doctor said, the world's worst lottery ticket.
[29:09]It was the most random stroke for a healthy, 30-year-old doctor, athlete, non-smoker,
[29:15]just there was no reason why it should have happened.
[29:17]And he had this massive stroke.
[29:18]And he, he did survive miraculously, but he woke up less functional than a newborn.
[29:24]Because, you know, newborns can swallow and drink milk.
[29:27]They can cry.
[29:27]He couldn't breathe.
[29:29]I'm as long as he couldn't swallow on his own.
[29:30]So he's going to like, a complete state of life support.
[29:34]And then when he did wake up and got off the machines,
[29:39]he was still totally amnestic.
[29:40]He couldn't remember anything for well over a month.
[29:43]So we nursed him.
[29:45]We fought his way back to a place of functioning and,
[29:50]and like reengaging as a human being in society.
[29:54]So that, that was in 2015.
[29:56]That was almost 10 years ago.
[29:57]That was how we first did.
[30:00]That was the first book we spoke about together. But yeah, so when you're human being and you're in
[30:05]relationship with other people and you love other people, whether it's your spouse or your children
[30:10]or your parents or your friends, whatever. Yes, stuff is always coming up, right? So that's
[30:15]that's what we're all we're all carrying that. And you know, even on a good day where I'm like,
[30:20]okay, I'm going to sit down. I'm going to have three hours of uninterrupted writing time,
[30:24]get the skull from school. Your daughter is, you know, just threw up and needs to be picked up.
[30:30]It's like you never or there can be a total solar eclipse today. So you're going to
[30:33]feel like you're, you know, you just, you never know what's going to happen. So it's like, you know,
[30:38]it's whack a mole every day to make the time to work and do what you love and be with the people
[30:44]love. What is, I don't have a playlist. What's on your playlist? So it depends on what I am working on.
[30:51]So I like to write from home because I want to control like the coffee and the water and the
[30:57]the music. And then I've got my dog here, the temperature. So I'm not like a coffee shop or a
[31:03]library writer for that reason. But I have the Amazon Alexa. She's probably going to hear me and
[31:08]start talking. And so I will just sort of channel whatever I'm vibing for the book I'm writing.
[31:16]So when it was CC, it was a lot of like Johann Strauss and Faulkner and Leash because I wanted
[31:21]the Habsburg playlist. And then when it was Marjorie posted, it would be a lot of like Gershwin and
[31:29]like jazz age. They were like great, that's me. And then this was a lot of classical. So well,
[31:37]Margaret Fuller was like always taking walks in the woods with Waldo or Hawthorne or Louisa Mayall
[31:44]cut. And it was kind of like even the cover. It's like the green and the nature. I'm like channeled
[31:49]now. So just a lot of like gentle, instrumental music. Like I'll just say, like I would just
[31:56]be like Alexa, play songs like Gustav Mahler. And then Alexa makes me my playlist. So I don't
[32:01]I don't necessarily have a playlist now. It's more just like what I'm vibing with. So it's Taylor Swift
[32:06]all the time once my kids get home. It's the classical before they get home, mostly no lyrics
[32:13]so that I can keep that, you know, headspace clear. We're in a big Olivia Rodrigo kid phase at the
[32:18]the moment. Oh, okay. We're not we're not there yet. Okay. We're a little older. So
[32:23]for which we yes, should I try and well, no, I don't don't. It's fine. No, there's a little
[32:28]advance. So I know you can't say who your next person is of interest. But can you say who
[32:38]the playlist is inspired by? Like what do you say to Alexa? Oh, for the next, for the one I'm
[32:43]currently writing, it's coming back to jazz. Like it's coming back to the early 20th century,
[32:50]New York in this moment of like this brand new stuff called electricity and this like ambitious
[32:57]new thing called the subway and the telephone and intercontinental travel and like all these
[33:05]breaking news developments that were happening with Thomas Edison and the lightbulb. So like
[33:11]that era of just like the gritty flashy kind of sparkly New York City early 20th century. Amazing.
[33:18]I'll tell you. And if people want to know first, they can find out by connecting with me online
[33:23]and social media. Did I to you that one up? Where should I? Where should they follow you on social media?
[33:28]So it's just my name, Alison Pateki. So I'm on Instagram. X Facebook and my website is just
[33:34]AlisonPateki.com. And so I will share the news on my next lady. They're first perfect. We will
[33:41]all be waiting with faded breaths. Congratulations. So impressive. Per usual. I'm just such a fan of
[33:49]yours. Congratulations. Thank you Zibi. Likewise. Thanks everybody. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
[33:57]Thanks for listening to moms. Don't have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review
[34:01]and follow us on social at Zibi Owens and at Zibi readers.