Debut Novel! Rowan Beaird, THE DIVORCÉES
[0:02]Hi, I'm Sivi Owens and I am the host of this podcast, Mom's 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,
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[0:25]at Zivi Owens or join the community at ZiviReaders.
[0:31]Rowan Beard is the author of the Divor Seis, a novel. Rowan is a fiction writer,
[0:36]whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Canyon Review, the Southern Review,
[0:40]and the comment among others. She is the recipient of the Plowshares Emerging Writer Award,
[0:45]and her work has been nominated for a push cart. She has received scholarships
[0:49]from the Breadloaf Writers Conference and Story Studio, and she currently works at the
[0:52]School of the Art Institute of Chicago. This is her first novel.
[0:56]Welcome, Rowan. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time to Read
[0:59]Bex to discuss the Divor Seis. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Also, before we get started,
[1:06]I just wanted to say congratulations on Blake. Oh my gosh.
[1:09]Thank you. That's very sweet to me. Yeah, of course.
[1:13]I know, it's so funny. I've been doing this podcast for, I guess, six years now,
[1:17]and where I, you know, the idea that anyone would come on congratulating me in the beginning
[1:21]seems so ludicrous. So it's just, you know, have to take a moment to be like, wow, that's
[1:26]that's cool. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Of course. What a road, which, you know, as an author.
[1:32]I'm excited to hear more about your road. But anyway, start by telling everybody what
[1:38]the Divor Seis is about, please. Yeah, of course. So the Divor Seis, it's set in 1951,
[1:44]and it's about this sheltered young woman named Lois Saunders, who journeys to one of Reno's
[1:48]famous divorce ranches to separate from her husband. And while there, she becomes obsessed with
[1:54]this mysterious glamorous fellow guest named Greer, who both offers Lois a new life, but also
[2:02]threatens the freedom that she really craves. So I could not believe as a Divor Seis. Well,
[2:07]I'm married now. I'm still a Divor Seis. I was. I, you know, are you always a former Divor Seis?
[2:13]Former Divor Seis. Yeah. Next to Vors Seis. The idea that there was a time when I would have had
[2:18]to, you know, be whisked off and like, I don't have to go horseback riding every day just to like
[2:24]get through all that and like live with a couple other women and just be completely sequestered
[2:31]like a shameful, terrible thing. Yes. You know, is wild. So did this really happen? Like, where
[2:39]did this come from? It really happened. So I learned about the existence of divorce ranches
[2:45]hilariously enough on my bachelor at weekend in the last few years of all times and places. And
[2:53]we were visiting this place called the Neon Museum. And we had this really amazing tour guide who
[2:58]knew a lot about the history of the state. And she shared that starting in 1931 to help recover
[3:04]from the Great Depression, Nevada made two really important decisions. So one, they legalized gambling.
[3:09]And two, they changed their divorce residency requirements. So that like in the novels, you know,
[3:15]if you move to the state for just six weeks, you could separate from your spouse for pretty much
[3:20]whatever reason, which was radically different than everywhere else in the country at the time,
[3:26]you know, in New York, for example, you could really only separate from your spouse if they
[3:30]committed adultery. You needed proof of it. The judge then could even still deny your claim.
[3:36]And so as a result, Reno, because it was already a tourist destination, it became the divorce
[3:42]capital of the world. And if you were amongst the rich or the famous when you went to Reno,
[3:49]you'd stay at a divorce ranch, which as you noted, you know, you'd spend your days writing horses,
[3:54]you'd spend your evenings going to casinos. And when I learned about this, I was just so fascinated
[4:00]by it because it really felt like this lost chapter of history. Totally. Oh my gosh. But it wasn't
[4:06]everything because in the book, it's outlined what the acceptable causes are, right? So
[4:11]including impudence, by the way, how are people proving this? Are they like dragging there for
[4:16]husband's question? Yes. Right. Because she was sort of like, you know, there's no box for like,
[4:23]he was just an asshole. You know, like there was just no box for, you know, I just wasn't in love
[4:29]with him anymore. It had to be something so extreme. You know, and even one of the one of the girls
[4:35]said to the other, like, well, you know, unspeakable, quote, like, why if he didn't do one of
[4:39]these things, why did you even need to get divorced, right? Something like that. Oh, totally. It's,
[4:44]it was really incomprehensible at the time that, as you said, you've leave your husband just
[4:48]because you didn't want to be married anymore because you didn't love them anymore. Yeah.
[4:52]Mind blowing. I know. What else did you find? Because now I'm totally curious. What else?
[4:56]Like, how many people went through a ranch? And what happened to those people after? Because,
[5:02]you know, even in the book, there's this expectation that, well, yeah, this is a stuff get
[5:07]measured until you somehow get in a respectable position again. Right. It wasn't supposed to be,
[5:12]like, because when what is her name? Lois, the main character suggests that afterwards she's
[5:17]going to just like live by herself. It's completely like scandalous. And they're like,
[5:23]people are against would ever do that. Exactly. Well, that was, you know, part of the joy of
[5:30]of writing this novel was doing the research. And one of the really incredible resources that
[5:35]I found was created by the University of Nevada. And it's the thing called the Reno divorce
[5:40]history project. And as part of that, you know, you can imagine because of this time period,
[5:45]unfortunately, a lot of the women that went to Reno were no longer with us. But earlier,
[5:50]they had interviewed a lot of these women. And so you can go on this site and read transcripts
[5:54]of women just talking about their time in Reno. And what that time was like and what it meant to
[6:00]there's also some interviews of, you know, because sometimes women would leave their children
[6:05]at home. But sometimes the children would come with them just because there wasn't alternate child
[6:08]care. And of course, you couldn't leave the child with the husband. And so there's also interviews
[6:13]with some of the children that are remembering going to Reno for six weeks and what sort of
[6:18]sense they made out of it. And, you know, some described it a little bit like summer camp where it
[6:23]just felt like a vacation and others understood the gravity of the situation a bit more.
[6:28]But, you know, because of this change in legislation, there was a huge rise in divorces in Nevada
[6:35]as you can imagine. So thousands of women traveled to Reno to separate from their husbands.
[6:41]And, you know, divorce branches specifically, you know, as I said before,
[6:46]there were some that catered more to like, to middle class women. But primarily they were
[6:50]really for the rich and the famous, you know, actresses like Rita Hayworth went to divorce
[6:56]ranches to separate from their spouses. And so all of the stories were just so incredible to
[7:03]read about. And as you said, you know, some women, did you do frame it? Like, God, it was just such
[7:09]a relief. I was so ready to leave my husband. And they did find community in these ranches and people
[7:16]that were going through the same sorts of experiences. But like in the novel, you know, so much
[7:22]of what lay ahead of them beyond the ranch was the real unknown and the options that were
[7:28]open to them were so limited at the time. I love this whole notion of this blanket term of
[7:33]unspeakable cruelty. And they just like throw that out as a, you know, and you're like, well,
[7:38]what does that mean? And, you know, there's all this intrigue and it's terrible. And anyway,
[7:44]I find this absolutely fascinating that did you think about calling this book the divorce ranch?
[7:48]Was that ever a title? You know, we went through a couple of different titles. I am horrible at
[7:54]titles. I don't know if they come easily to you. No, yeah. I actually just found an email that I had
[8:01]sent my editor about bookends. And the subject was eight million ideas. And they were like 200 titles,
[8:08]none of which ended were booking it. Yeah, it's so hard. And so I, I originally, and when it went
[8:15]out on submission, I had just called it the Golden Yara, which is the name of the ranch, because
[8:19]when in doubt, I just default to locations. So yeah, and divorce ranch. I mean, whenever you say
[8:24]those words, people are always immediately intrigued. Like, what, look at that possibly be so
[8:30]kind of a good title. Well, it's not just the setting and premise of the book that are good,
[8:36]but your writing is beautiful. I mean, this is like a, you're a literary writer. I mean, it's
[8:41]beautiful depiction of, of all of it from scenery to relationships to, you know, feeling ousted by
[8:48]your dad and not, you know, disappointing your family. And like, there are these themes that are
[8:53]relatable, but you write them in a, in a really beautiful way. So then I wasn't surprised to
[8:58]read your bio and be like, Oh, okay, all these like literary journals and, you know, this
[9:02]award she got in blah, blah, blah. So tell me about your background and how you became a writer.
[9:08]Yeah. So, you know, I'm lucky and that I've had parents that were always really great readers
[9:15]and my mom herself is a poet. And so growing up, there was no shortage of books in our house,
[9:20]and that was in many ways how I sort of accessed the larger world. But for a while, I actually thought
[9:26]I was going to be a painter. I really loved fine art. And then in high school, my canvases started
[9:31]slowly becoming lines of poetry and words and some hopeful teachers were like, this actually
[9:38]isn't the field for you. And maybe you should go into the lucrative field of creative writing,
[9:42]you know what I was going to say. Bank on the poetry. That'll be good.
[9:50]But, you know, I started writing, I started writing poetry at first and then kind of gradually
[9:54]started writing short fiction. I went to study English literature in college.
[10:00]And really thought I might be a professor, you know, writer in my, in my mind, even then I didn't think, well, is this a viable career path, especially graduating into the recession.
[10:11]I just felt like, you know, I needed some other idea of how to make my way in the world.
[10:16]And so I actually turned to working in nonprofits.
[10:20]I've done mainly communications work and program management work for different arts and education organizations and, you know, I always kept writing throughout it.
[10:30]I would just steal time in the mornings and the evenings and all the weekends, but I could not conceptualize writing a novel. It just felt so overwhelming.
[10:41]But the idea of how to structure it, how to pace it. I just felt like my brain didn't work that way.
[10:47]And then, you know, I think like many writers, I do have a failed novel in a drawer that just did not really work out.
[10:54]And that was kind of my first attempt and I think, you know, it didn't exactly teach me how to write a novel because I think that with each novel it's just a totally new creative endeavor, but it did teach me that this is something that I was capable of.
[11:09]And so when I had that spark of an idea for the divorcees, I honestly thought about God could this be a short story, like is there any way I could kind of make this a least story exactly in my comfort zone.
[11:23]But the more time I spent with it, I was just like, oh, there's just no way there's, and part of it was because there was just so much there in terms of research and that part was really exciting.
[11:34]And that's eventually I sat down and sort of outlined it and structured it. And luckily, by that point, I had an agent because of a short fiction contest that I'd won.
[11:44]And, you know, my agents, they've been so helpful in steering this project to what it is today and same with my wonderful editor at flat iron Carolyn leaky.
[11:53]But I'm honestly kind of still in shock that I wrote a novel and I'm talking to you right now.
[12:00]So back to the novel a bit ended up not selling. What was that about and what was that process like versus this one in terms of time or anything that you definitely spent less time on it.
[12:13]It was much more of a quiet family drama.
[12:17]It was about their relationship between two siblings and a brother who goes missing in a national park. And I, you know, I still feel a little bit attached to it.
[12:27]Every once in a while in the back of my head. I'm like, gosh, should I go back to that.
[12:30]But I think that why I eventually abandoned it and we didn't even send it out. It was a sort of thing where my agent came back with some notes and going through her feedback.
[12:41]I just realized that I didn't have an ideal version of the book in my head. Like, I couldn't figure out what I was really working towards and even when the message never gets.
[12:53]It's not just that the road is hard. It's just you can't see the road. You're just like, I don't really know how to do this. And I just never felt like that with the divorces. I always felt like, okay, I know what I want this to be.
[13:06]I'm not there yet. But I have an idea of the shape of it. And so, so I don't know. I think that novel might just stay in a drawer. I feel like it's a great passage.
[13:17]And tell me about the contest that you won.
[13:20]Yeah, so that was through plouchers, which, you know, it's this literary journal out of Boston. And gosh, that just felt like such an incredible stroke of luck. It was the short story that I've been working on that was about the, you know, very unsexy topics of grief and moving forward in life.
[13:41]I am. I'm not a very fast writer. I moved very slowly and I put so much time and thought and effort into this short story. And, you know, I kind of just sent it out on a whim. It's this contest called the emerging writer contest and this writer that I love Garth Greenwell was judging it.
[13:57]And so a part of me thought if I could even just get to the point where he reads that story, that would mean the world.
[14:04]So when I got the email that he had selected it was, I mean, full body shock. I still remember I was at work. And I was sitting next to a co-worker and I just let out this like huge.
[14:16]And take a breath and they're like, oh my gosh, is everything okay, what happened.
[14:19]But that was really kind of a life changing moment because it just it got more people to read my work and agent started reaching out and all of a sudden just this door opened. So that was pretty incredible.
[14:31]I think that's something we don't give enough advice to young writers about is entering contests. I mean, almost never, no one, almost nobody ends up saying that as advice, but it really can help.
[14:43]I mean, I've had enough people who have won like a pitch contest or a short story contest or whatever national writing whatever. I don't know.
[14:52]That's it. Like that's one path to discover it's not like, you know, a sure thing, but no one's got to win.
[14:59]Exactly. Exactly. And yeah, I mean, I always tell people and you know, sometimes I do think of that as a sliding doors moment, you know, what if I was just like, oh, this isn't worth it. There's, you know, there's always entries views and I don't know what are the odds out of thousands of people I could win.
[15:16]But as you said, somebody has to and and it really was life changing.
[15:20]That's amazing. Signing doors is like my favorite movie. Oh, so good. I just rewatched it.
[15:25]I did too. I rewatched it. I was like, wow, this is held up over time. You know, I showed my kids. I'm like, this is so important because this is like life.
[15:33]It's so true. I think about it so often.
[15:36]Yeah.
[15:37]All these little tiny decisions that just set up.
[15:40]Yeah.
[15:41]So you spoke about writing slowly. Your sentences themselves are beautiful and, you know, the fact that you have a poetess above and all that is not a surprise.
[15:50]Is it slow because you're taking your time and perfecting each sentence and then do you let yourself just like delete them after.
[15:58]I mean, I try to plow through as fast as humanly.
[16:02]I get that.
[16:03]I just wish I were.
[16:05]I know.
[16:06]Yeah. And I have had to get to a point where I've actually set myself word count goals to kind of get over the feeling of preciousness that I do feel sometimes I have with my work because as you said, you get to a point where you do just have to cut a lot.
[16:20]And when I was, you know, younger and an early state of my writing journey, I just it was so difficult to do that because I just knew the amount of time that I had put into those sentences.
[16:30]And I just became so attached to them that I was evaluating the pros itself and not what it was doing for the engine of the story.
[16:39]And so that was, I think, so much of the work of writing this novel.
[16:44]And partially, I mean, I have to credit the other writers who gave me feedback and my agents and, you know, my wonderful editor who helped me.
[16:52]Because you do just get really attached to things because I do, I mean, I sit down and I really, there are days where I write for two hours and I've written paragraph and a half.
[17:02]And I don't necessarily feel great about that.
[17:05]It's always so attractive and positive.
[17:08]But I have been trying to push myself to to again, just think about, okay, what is, what is this paragraph doing in service of the story, what is it doing in service of the characters.
[17:20]You know, I love atmospheric writing. I love really beautiful, powerful prose, but more than anything else. I mean, I'm drawn to a novel because of its story.
[17:30]And so that's that's a lot of the work of, I think shifting to novel writing is really putting that front in center and knowing that, you know, as a famous line goes, you have to kill your darlings and and just be pretty ruthless when it comes to the editing process.
[17:46]Amazing. You mentioned a short story about grief. What has your experience with grief and like, Ah, you know, it's really evolved. I think that my most difficult grieving process was actually during the pandemic.
[18:01]So I'm profoundly lucky in that, you know, my parents are still with us. You know, I haven't lost anybody really early in their lives.
[18:08]You know, I had to go through probably the process of at this point in my life losing my grandparents and people like that that were really important to me.
[18:15]But the most profound grief that I've experienced during the pandemic, I was trying to get pregnant and during that process I had unfortunately to pregnancy losses.
[18:26]Yeah, within six months and I'm so lucky and that I now have a beautiful almost two year old daughter who insanely enough I actually gave birth to her the day after this book went out to editors.
[18:41]So yeah, so she is, I mean so closely linked in my mind in terms of the gestation of this project because I was just eating her own with it.
[18:50]But I think that really acquainted with me with a new a new type of grief that felt really all consuming and I think that before that process I subscribe to the, the idea of you go through grief and stages and it's this linear process and eventually if you
[19:09]you put enough work into processing this loss, you'll come out the other end and now what I've realized and especially as I've talked more to people I know that have lost really close loved ones or that have had similar losses to me.
[19:25]You are cycling through those stages all of the time and any given moment and sometimes you wake up and you realize that you've taken four steps backward.
[19:35]And you have to make peace with that and give yourself grace because you know there are moments where you wake up and all of a sudden it feels like the day after you experience that loss and and that's okay and that's part of the process as well.
[19:50]That's that's been a really transformational kind of part of my my journey as a human, you know, I kind of go and parallel to my journey as a writer a lot at the time.
[20:00]Yeah, I'm very sorry. Very, very sorry. You had to go through. Oh, thank you. I know it's you know
[20:05]I think that the other powerful part of that was just realizing how many women have gone through the exact same thing and
[20:10]I think I've made a lot of really deep connections with people through it
[20:13]So I never want to say I'm grateful for having gone through that because I don't I don't wish that on anybody
[20:17]But I do think that it was kind of transformational in its own way. How far along were you each time?
[20:24]They don't have to say. Oh, no, it's fine. You know, I was lucky in that I mean
[20:28]It's got so odd to use the words lucky lucky in all these sorts of things
[20:31]But I was in my first trimester for both so I was about eight and six weeks
[20:35]But yeah, worst the worst. I'm so sorry it is. It is. Oh, thank you for what what are you working on now?
[20:41]So I you know, it's I did not do this intentionally, but I am working on a wedding novel
[20:48]From divorce
[20:51]I mean, I assume it's that are you married. I should have shouldn't yes. We're still married
[20:57]But you know, I've always wanted to set a novel over the course of a wedding weekend
[21:01]I think as you know, that's just such a charged time and
[21:06]It's a moment in your life a rare moment when you know everyone you know everyone you've ever loved is all on one roof with you and so
[21:15]You know luckily or at least as far as I know people were there supportive of my marriage and wanted me to get married
[21:21]But I wanted to write about a marriage that not everybody was supportive of and sort of the idea of that that lit match of
[21:29]What if it's you know a marriage that all of your loved ones have questions about and kind of what could unfold then so
[21:36]It's a yeah, I'm you know, I would never want to say writing is fun because it's work
[21:43]I mean, there's joy to be had in it, but for me. It's often you know
[21:47]It's often difficult and arduous in its own way, but I am finding
[21:52]Joy and just writing again, you know as you know
[21:55]Sometimes the process of promoting a book it can make you feel
[21:59]Separate from the actual work itself. So it's it's been nice to just kind of get back to the page
[22:04]Let's maybe you should call the next one the fiance's
[22:07]I would love that. I mean next to Rachel. You know, those look good, right?
[22:13]Then you can have like a trilogy. What could the third one be? I know what is the answer is the date versus
[22:20]I don't know the wives. I know, but that doesn't sound good. I know
[22:24]We'll both have to think about it. Exactly. We'll get there. We'll get there
[22:29]What else ends in that, you know, I know that's it with that accent. Yeah, okay. I'm wasting time here. I think he caps on. Yes
[22:37]In the grace. We're about the imma grace. Oh, yes. I could be good
[22:41]That could be not wedding related, but not wedding related, but still, but still we got the ease. Yeah. Okay
[22:48]We don't have a website. Well, you just like you know the E. E. S. Yeah
[22:55]Okay, what is your advice for aspiring authors? Gosh
[23:00]You know the first two things that I think of one
[23:03]Get comfortable with rejection
[23:05]You know rejection as you know, it's just it's such a part of everybody's journey and
[23:11]I think you have to do two things like one you have to get
[23:15]Comfortable with it. You can't take it personally, but you also have to learn from it often that I've found really important lessons in the
[23:24]rejections that I've received
[23:26]And the other thing I'd say is just everybody has to find community. I mean, I think that's such a beautiful thing that you've done
[23:34]You've created such an incredible literary community and that's just so critical to writers because so much of the work is solitary
[23:41]We're alone at our desks at our computers or with a piece of paper
[23:46]And the only way I really think that we can create is sort of work that we want to create is through the
[23:52]Encouragement and feedback of fellow writers and also of readers and I can't imagine this novel or really any piece of writing
[24:00]I've ever worked on without the the amazing community that I've managed to make for myself over the past
[24:08]Gosh, you know 20 plus years. So I'd say yeah, find your people and unfortunately get comfortable or trick with rejections
[24:17]I love that well congratulations on the divorce days. This is awesome and I hope that this summer we see a lot of people
[24:25]Reenacting this cover which is a woman in a pool. It's like this cute string
[24:29]I mean you can't really see the beginning, but it's like the same beginning with this cool white sunglasses and a book on her head and
[24:36]I mean that is just so perfect. I will try to reenact this, but I might please do. I might not feel comfortable showing this
[24:44]But maybe to you if you don't share it on social
[24:48]I don't even own a bikini, so let's just see that
[24:51]Anyway, well, thank you so much Rowan. It was lovely to meet you. Oh, thank you so much
[24:55]This has really been a pleasure and an honor. So thank you and hopefully Chicago and May. Yes, fingers
[25:00]Okay, thank you scratch. Okay. All right. Take care. Have a great day. Have a good rest your day. Bye. Bye
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