Mindy Kaling Pick!! Sheila Yasmin Marikar, FRIENDS IN NAPA
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens and I am the host of this podcast Momstone have time to read books
[0:07]I am also a newly minted USA Today best-selling author of the novel Blake and created a whole community of book lovers
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[0:30]Sheila Yasmin Mary Carr is the author of Friends in Napa a novel
[0:35]Sheila is the author also of the goddess effect
[0:38]She is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker the New York Times the economist
[0:43]Fortune Bloomberg Businessweek Vogue and many other publications her New York Times magazine profile of the chef
[0:49]Gaga Anand was selected for the 2021 edition of best American food writing
[0:54]She lived began her career at ABC News a native of New Jersey
[0:58]She is a graduate of Cornell University where she studied history
[1:01]She lives in Los Angeles with her husband. Welcome. She led. Thank you so much for coming on momstone
[1:06]Have time to read books to discuss your latest novel friends in Napa, which is the Mindy's book studio pick or publication
[1:15]Thank you so much for having me Zippy. It's a pleasure to be here and we both work with Carmen Johnson
[1:21]He's like my favorite person
[1:23]She is wonderful and I just got to meet her in person for the first time a couple of weeks ago in New York
[1:30]at my launch event there and what a delightful
[1:33]It was just delightful and I feel like she knows me front and back despite it's never
[1:38]Having been in the same room. Yes, it's very nice having an editor who kind of gets the writing and all the stuff
[1:45]And as I was reading years I was like oh, I love this writing stuff like this I get this is like I'm so
[1:50]Of course like Carmen is drawn to this as well
[1:54]I am too. Anyway, it's great. Well, it's very similar to what you do your style and blank
[2:00]You know, you just you drop in and there you are and these are characters that could be your best friends or your sister or
[2:07]They're just people I like to write people that I feel like I meet in life
[2:12]You know, they're not in an ivory tower somewhere like looking down on the rest of civilization
[2:18]Yeah, and observational too. I mean how funny you were about even like in the opening seed like the
[2:24]Women on the plane who I ever like milfs whatever milfs what was it milfs I can't
[2:31]Something like milfs without borders. Oh, right actually something that I heard a woman on a plane once say she described herself that way
[2:39]Oh, my gosh, what else and I was like this is that's just hilarious like good for you woman
[2:46]Thank you for inspiring me and you're like and not only that then she had sold like 36,000 sweatshirts
[2:51]And you're like, oh gosh, and you're a working mom, too
[2:53]And you're like you did drinking mama, you know, it's it's it's like the it's one way to show
[2:59]Envy and respect at the same time and just like the ludicrous nature of life and that we can all arrive in the same spot
[3:07]And yet look and feel so different and yet aren't there things that are the same
[3:11]So I mean you're the not you your character is a working mom
[3:15]Or say you know mom on the plane away from the kids and finally trying to take a minute and
[3:20]We've all been in that. Well, I shouldn't say we all okay. Let me back up. There's like so much. I want to talk about
[3:25]Why don't you tell listeners what your book is about?
[3:28]Sure, so so friends and Napa is about a group of college friends who reunite after a long time of not seeing each other in
[3:37]wine country and one of them ends up dead
[3:40]That's the that's basically my elevator pitch, but if you like the white lotus
[3:45]This is a lot like the white lotus and the bane of like it's a dark comedy
[3:50]It's a satire
[3:51]But there is also a murder kind of wrapped into it and you do have to read until the end to figure out who
[3:58]was killed and why it happened and what happens afterwards and you know
[4:04]I wanted to create something that was like
[4:06]Vengeable in the same way that a TV series would be I've heard so many people say they've read it in one sitting or in
[4:13]24 hours and they just you know couldn't wait to keep keep coming back to it and
[4:18]Those are exactly the types of books that I love to where I almost want to savor them for longer
[4:24]I want to spread it out over a a longer course of time, but
[4:28]You're just like drawn. You're like I gotta I gotta keep flipping the pages. I'm gonna stay up too late
[4:33]I'm gonna you know like I'll be a little tired tomorrow. It's okay, but yeah, that's the book
[4:39]That's the best feeling when a book gets you just the right way. How did you get involved with
[4:45]Mindy Kay like like how does that work? I don't I'm not as familiar with that piece of the puzzle
[4:50]So so Carmen actually works with Mindy as well and
[4:55]From the beginning the the idea with friends in Napa back then it was called wine country
[5:01]That was the working the working title and that's also the name of a film that
[5:07]Tina Fey and Amy Poehler did for Netflix about wine countries, so we decided you know what well
[5:12]We'll do something a little bit different, but it initially
[5:16]You know the idea I had was a girls trip gone wrong and it was just going to be two women
[5:21]You know at different like kind of personal and professional professional junctures in their life going to wine country to
[5:28]To get away from their problems and Carmen and I started talking and she said, you know if if you're into it
[5:34]We'd love to try to develop this for Mindy for for her imprints, but she's not going to
[5:40]She wants to read a full manuscript before she decides what's going under her umbrella
[5:46]So write it and if it doesn't work for Mindy then it'll go with little A
[5:51]Which is the imprint that that you're on that
[5:54]The goddess effect my my first novel was published under and
[5:59]Yeah, so that to me felt like all right sure
[6:01]Let's shoot for the stars and hope that hope that she loves it and as I was writing
[6:08]Especially the character of Anjali who is the working mom who is a little bit
[6:12]She's certainly disgruntled when you first meet her. She she's wanting
[6:17]She's wanting a life that that she feels like is out of her reach
[6:21]I feel like there's so much
[6:23]Similarity between the characters that Mindy plays and the characters that she creates and Anjali
[6:28]And I was just picturing Mindy in my head as I was writing this character
[6:33]And I could totally see her especially that airplane scene just being like
[6:37]Like it's not fair that I don't get to use the first-class bathrooms
[6:40]Like what are you talking about?
[6:42]Sure, can I read just like a little bit of the beginning just to show your voice and all that please do oh yeah
[6:48]I'd be honored
[6:49]Even the things you're saying like
[6:51]The tiny Ziploc bags that even like an apple has to squeeze into to fit
[6:55]I mean, what is with those little bags? What are they for things are always falling out
[6:59]I don't get it
[7:00]Idea I ordered them by accident once and I was like what what am I going to do with this
[7:05]You had a line you said and this is not what I was the whole paragraph
[7:07]But just one line you said she wondered if the condition of being an adult
[7:10]Was that you always thought you should be doing something other than what you were doing
[7:14]I love that. I'm always like that. I should be doing this. I should be doing that
[7:17]I you're not the first person to say that either and it is something that I think
[7:22]Multiple times a day like like oh, I'm working on this thing
[7:25]But like wait, no, I'm gonna just stop that and switch to this and I think we all feel like that
[7:30]So pulled but that's like the art of it right making that feeling putting it into words in a different way
[7:36]So that we all kind of feel seen
[7:38]I mean, you're so funny. You said was your ex still a company
[7:42]I like chuckle at all these lines so much
[7:44]Because that's the way I think too
[7:45]I'm like did it and then I'm like wait, Xerox is your ex still a company and then you put it
[7:50]It's just so funny
[7:51]You said she wish she was the sort of woman who would accept a tennis bracelet as an apology
[7:57]Well, she wouldn't turn down a tennis bracelet
[7:59]She wasn't made of stone
[8:00]But it wouldn't even occur to David
[8:02]Her husband to make a grand gesture like that
[8:04]Even if they could afford it
[8:06]The problem with joint credit cards if he spent $7,000 activities
[8:09]She'd get a fraud alert as if she didn't already know charitable thoughts
[8:13]She was supposed to be thinking charitable thoughts about her partner about her marriage about their life
[8:20]I love that you you recognize the humor and that and
[8:25]Yeah, that's just it just struck me as something
[8:28]I'm sure it often happens
[8:29]You know people who have joint credit cards my my husband and I do have a joint card
[8:34]But any kind of shopping that I'm doing I'm doing that on my own
[8:39]Yeah, I'm less I'm less of a buying something together
[8:42]He's getting me a gift or something like that. I I do not want
[8:46]To explain why why did I spend $500 on a vintage jewelry website that I just found on a random Tuesday morning
[8:56]I you know, yeah, that's that's just what happened. Yeah, private business
[9:00]I know every so often I look into my husband's like credit card expenses
[9:03]I'm hoping he's not doing this in just like like what was this about? You know, tell me a little bit about this one
[9:10]It's you just yeah
[9:12]Yeah, if I look at my husband I have I do not want to I don't want to
[9:18]I got a lot of too many questions. Yeah, everyone should have privacy
[9:23]So talk about the Napa setting
[9:24]I understand that you thought of this
[9:27]We can't totally remember the conversation and I was just saying I listened to your conversation that you had
[9:31]I'm sorry. I couldn't be there for your lunch a minute
[9:33]So these bookshaft and you were talking about that and everything tell me about the lunch and if anything
[9:38]Happened that you didn't expect or anything like that and then talk about the Napa setting
[9:43]I mean why not sit in an app. It's like amazing, but
[9:47]Yeah, well as far as the Napa setting, you know, I mean I just thought I love the idea of doing something in wine country
[9:56]It's a place that I think so many people whether or not you're
[10:00]or a wine connoisseur, or even if you don't really drink that much wine or drink in general,
[10:06]I think in the popular imagination it just has, we have this idea that it is this like beautiful
[10:11]rolling hillsides and vineyards and sunshine and there's the sense of, especially if you do drink
[10:18]like this, like your glasses never going to be empty. There's always going to be another
[10:23]another winery to go to, another bar to visit, another great meal to have because there's
[10:30]fabulous cuisine in wine countries all around the world. And there's also a sense of, I know I've
[10:35]experienced this with my own friends, like, like, okay, it's like a like a real booze-filled getaway.
[10:42]And who knows what can happen? I get to let my hair down and really like like sort of party,
[10:49]which I say in quotes, but with like a little bit of a sheen of like, oh, this is also like culture,
[10:55]it's not like you're, you know, doing shops on top of the bar, which does happen in wine
[11:00]country, but you're not like, you're not going to like a typical spring break destination, let's
[11:05]say. So it felt to me like a place where we're, again, this group of college friends getting
[11:11]together, anything could happen. It could be a very buttoned up and kind of proper weekend,
[11:18]but it could also just be like they could rediscover their love of binge drinking or these
[11:23]grudges that have been simmering for too long. And you have one, too many glasses and all of
[11:28]a sudden you're saying things that you maybe can't take back. And, and yeah, Nappa to me just,
[11:34]I've been there more times than I can count being a resident of California. I lived in the Bay
[11:39]area for a year and a half. So I would sometimes be up there multiple weekends a month. It,
[11:45]well, I'd never lived there. It is a place that feels very familiar to me. And I have a lot of
[11:49]friends, actual friends in Nappa who are thankfully not like this group of people. I would,
[11:55]I would never want to be friends with. But yeah, and then the, the event at Zebee's bookshop,
[12:02]I mean, what first of all, what an amazing place. I, I live on the east side of Los Angeles. So
[12:08]I'm not in Santa Monica that often, but I'm definitely going to be coming up with excuses to go
[12:14]there because the way that it's curated and it just, it feels cozy. And like, you want to spend
[12:21]time there. I had to, I found myself having to like tear myself away from browsing the stacks
[12:27]before the event. Like, oh, wait, oh, I have to have to go sit down now and and do something.
[12:33]And then we had, we had wine from Sipwell and we had Ashwarya Iyer, the founder of Brightland,
[12:39]Olive Oil, who I is a very good friend of mine. And, and was such a great host. She's never done
[12:46]something like this before. And she just had like, truly, I felt like she was handling barber
[12:50]Walters or like Diane Sawyer. She was like, I got my questions and we are going to get right into it.
[12:57]So it was, it was a delight to pick off my book tour there. Oh, I'm so glad. And thank you for
[13:02]saying all that. And again, I'm sorry I wasn't there, but I mean, living on the east side of LA,
[13:06]you might as well live in Northern California. I mean, honestly, the division between the
[13:10]views, all, I mean, it's far. It's totally, it's really fun. I'm probably in New York more often
[13:17]than I'm in Santa Monica or Venice or the West Side of LA. I joke because we're in the palisades.
[13:23]And originally, I wanted to put the bookstore there. And the spot that was available was in
[13:27]Santa Monica. And I'm like, oh, no, no, that's too far. But meanwhile, I live in New York City.
[13:30]Do you like, I would come up? It's so stupid. It's, you know, I mean, I think it's like the New
[13:38]York equivalent of, you know, if you live on the Upper West Side, how often are you going to like
[13:42]like Brooklyn or I don't know, like Green Point, let's say, it's you really have to get out of your
[13:48]comfort zone. And we all have our, you know, our routines, the places that we frequent often. But,
[13:54]but yeah, it was just, it was a nice, it was a nice excuse to get out there and realize like,
[14:00]oh, yeah, it's also not that far. It's also R&D kitchen. Yeah, which is so good. That's where we
[14:07]went afterwards. And I, I really need to get back there to say the phenomenal burger. And it was
[14:13]the perfect place to celebrate. Well, one time when I'm out there, we should, we should do that on
[14:18]purpose. I am down. I am 100% down. I was scrolling through some of your
[14:24]bylines at the times and all these other venues in the New Yorker and everything. I was like,
[14:29]oh, I read that one. Oh, I read that one. That one too. Oh my gosh. That's amazing. How did you get to be
[14:37]like a prolific journalist at all these big deal publications? Thank you. Thank you for reading,
[14:42]reading my work. And it's often one of the biggest compliments that I get from friends and
[14:47]people who know me sometimes is that they'll, they'll read something say in the New Yorker or the New
[14:51]York Times and then say that they got to the end and they didn't, they didn't realize it
[14:55]was me at the beginning. But then as they were reading, they were like, wait a minute, this is
[15:00]totally a Sheila story. And I like that people can pick me out of a crowd in that way. But how did
[15:08]I get to writing for them? Well, I started my career at ABC News five days after graduating from
[15:15]college. All I wanted to do was live in New York. I grew up, well, not grew up, but like high school
[15:24]college was spent watching Sex in the City and just thinking I got it. I have to have my own
[15:30]version of that Cary Bradshaw lifestyle and my parents said, sure, but you're going to pay
[15:35]for it. We're not, we can't, you know, pay for your Manhattan apartment. So I figured, okay,
[15:41]gotta get a place in the city, have to get a job that doesn't have much to do with math because
[15:47]that is not my strong suit. So what do we get to do? And after series of internships, media was
[15:54]something I was very interested in. And yeah, I started as a desk assistant on the overnight shift
[16:00]at the world headquarters for ABC News on the Upper West Side. And for seven years, I, I moved
[16:07]my way up the ladder. I was eventually the entertainment editor and reporter for ABC News.com.
[16:14]This was the time when TMZ was really taking off and Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan and
[16:21]this whole group of people were, were kind of in and out of their own legal battles and dramas.
[16:27]And I was having to chronicle this stuff that I never in a million years had wanted to do. I,
[16:32]I felt it was making me feel really terrible inside. There was one particular list of Britney,
[16:39]like all the bad things Britney has done or something where I said, I don't want to,
[16:43]I almost got fired because I didn't want to put my name on it. And it was, it was just
[16:49]reprehensible to me. I, the day before my 30th birthday, I decided I cannot, I cannot turn 30 and still
[16:56]be doing this. I just, it's like, it's really like crushing myself. So I quit. And I had always
[17:03]wanted to write for the New York Times. I had a friend who was freelancing for them. She gave
[17:09]me her editor's name. And I sent 12 ideas before they said, okay, here, sure, like, like, give it a
[17:16]shot. Let's see if, if, if you can do it. And I don't think I'd ever been so nervous reporting a story
[17:24]and just, you know, just so thorough because I knew if I messed this up, but I'm not getting
[17:29]another chance with them. And thankfully, I did not mess it up. And that led to more stories with
[17:35]them and other magazines and the New York or I started writing for in 2016, so about eight years
[17:43]ago. And yeah, that's how that's a very long answer to your question of how, how I got to be
[17:50]where I am now. No, I love it. I wanted the backstory. So that's great. Where do you want to
[17:57]take your whole career? More books, more journalism, more of everything, something different. What's
[18:03]going on? Take question. Where do I want to take my whole career? I do love writing novels. I,
[18:10]I definitely, I am kind of coming. The idea for book three is on the back burner right now, sort of
[18:18]simmering. And it's like, like a slow cooker, something or the other. There's a little bit of time
[18:25]that it needs to kind of gel together. I would love to, to adapt these my works of fiction for
[18:33]film, TV, I friends in Napa, especially as well as the goddess effect. I really do see a lot of
[18:40]cinematic potential, you know, and whether that means something on TV on a TV screen or a movie screen,
[18:47]I just would love to get those made and be a part of making them. And then I, I would like to write
[18:54]a memoir or some kind of essay collection, something nonfiction, haven't quite figured out what the
[19:00]conceit would be yet, but I'm not, I'm not in a great rush to do it because I think that that's
[19:07]the type of thing. Like often with fiction with, with pretty much anything, you really have to feel
[19:12]like excited. And, and of course, there are going to be points in the writing process where you're
[19:18]like, I hate this thing. I can't believe that I got myself into this. Like why this is just such a
[19:24]slog. Why am I doing it? I want to quit. But there has to be that point of inspiration at the beginning
[19:30]where it feels like this is urgent and needs to be told. And I need to be the one to do it. And
[19:35]I'm excited to do it. So that's how I'm feeling about maybe a nonfiction book for now. But
[19:42]I also, you know, the access that I get through journalism and the rooms that I'm able to be in
[19:48]because I'm there as a reporter. I couldn't ask for a better inspiration or a better
[19:54]well to draw from for, for all of my ideas. And I do want to
[20:00]keep doing that and keep doing stories that I love that I also
[20:03]peeled call to and that that I think I can hopefully do justice.
[20:08]Amazing. So exciting. Okay, so what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[20:14]Ooh, advice for aspiring authors. It's not original, but read you've got to, you know, read
[20:21]everything and it doesn't have to be read read the things that you want to read I should say.
[20:26]You don't have to read like everything on the bestseller list. You don't have to read
[20:30]that big book that everyone is talking about that you feel like you should be reading, but you're
[20:35]like, oh, I'm not really like excited about it. I think someone other than me has said
[20:41]that life is too short to read books you don't like. And I, I truly believe that if you start
[20:46]something and you're not into it, unless you, you know, have to do it for some type of assignment,
[20:51]put it down, just start something else. Find what really speaks to you because I think that
[20:58]the more we read, the more like kind of, the more literature you consume, the better writer you're
[21:05]going to be. It's, it's, it's a pretty direct relationship. And then I would say keep a journal,
[21:12]keep some, it doesn't, it can be in the notes app of your phone. It can be, there's an app called
[21:17]day one that I really like. That's kind of a digital journal that you can add pictures to and
[21:23]video and all sorts of things or it can be a Google doc or it can be, you know, physical kind of
[21:28]journal. A more traditional thing. But I think that, you know, I, I do not journal or write in a diary
[21:35]every day. I try to, but it doesn't, you don't have to kind of follow that narrative format of
[21:41]like, dear diary, here's what happened today. It could just be like something like words or some,
[21:47]some interesting thing you saw on the street or, or something you ate or just, just something that
[21:51]made an impression in your mind for one reason or another doesn't need to make sense. But I think that
[21:57]when you go back and kind of read through that stuff or when you're searching for like, wait,
[22:03]what happened that, there was something that happened that one day and it like kind of stuck in my mind
[22:08]as like, what if I wrote a story based on this or this was a character, a point of inspiration.
[22:15]It's just really useful to have that repository. And I think that the active writing also,
[22:21]I know for me, it helps me remember things that have happened in my life. And yeah, it just makes
[22:26]it all feel a little bit more real. Sheila, this book so great. And by the way, fabulous cover.
[22:31]I feel like I need to put you in touch with Michelle Wilden, who wrote Wine People, which is a book that
[22:35]we published at Civivux, which is very different, you know, more like inside the working in the
[22:41]wine industry. But anyway, feel like I should have some sort of event or something at this, I don't know,
[22:46]it would be fun. I would love to do that. That is, yeah, that sounds fantastic. And that sounds
[22:52]like a really great foil for this, you know, fictional group of people just just behaving badly in
[22:57]wine country. But to talk about that with someone who actually has experience in this world,
[23:02]that would be really cool. Okay, I will put you in touch after this. All right. Okay, thank you, Sheila.
[23:09]Thank you, Zibi. All right, so good to be you. Hi.
[23:16]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review
[23:20]and follow us on social at Civiv Owens and at Civiv readers.