Leslie Gray Streeter, FAMILY & OTHER CALAMITIES
[0:00]Welcome, Leslie! I'm so excited you're here to talk about family and other
[0:07]calamities. A novel. Congratulations. Thank you so much. I'm happy to be here.
[0:11]Yay! Alright, I'm going to read a little bit about you for everybody listening.
[0:15]Leslie Grace Treater is an award-winning journalist and columnist for the
[0:20]Baltimore Banner. She's the author of the memoir Black Widow, a sad, funny
[0:25]journey through grief for people who normally avoid books with words like
[0:28]journey in the title. The coat is the co-host of the podcast Fine Beasts
[0:33]and Jesus, and a frequent speaker on grief. She is also a slow runner, an
[0:38]amateur vegan cook, and a fan of Law and Order. Leslie lives in Baltimore
[0:42]Maryland with her son Brooks. Welcome. Thank you, welcome. Yay! So I met Leslie
[0:49]during the not met, but met online the way we all do these days. During the
[0:56]pandemic when her first book came out and we talked to all about grief and
[1:00]that book helped me through a really hard period of time in my life and so I've
[1:04]had this special relationship with you even though I haven't met you
[1:06]because of your candidness and openness around your own grief which was totally
[1:11]different from mine but there's obviously something in grief that unites
[1:14]everybody and most people have been through grief of some kind and the way you
[1:17]wrote about it was particularly amazing. So thank you for that. And I've gotten
[1:23]that a lot from people. I think I wrote the book about my husband dying and
[1:27]my first year of widowhood and then it came out seven days before lockdown in
[1:31]2020. So and that in itself was grief you know because nothing was going the
[1:37]way that I thought but then of course the world was in grief so I was like it
[1:40]wasn't like a plot against me to ruin my book tour. You know it was actually a
[1:44]terrible thing and everyone was at home focusing on things that they had lost
[1:47]and I think that the book the even though it didn't work the way that I wanted
[1:52]in terms of like sales or a tour. I had so many people say to me you spoke to
[1:58]something that I didn't know that I needed until it happened whether it was
[2:02]the physical loss of a loved one or their way of life or their last year of
[2:07]school or their prom. It was everyone lost something and to sit in your house
[2:15]and say someone else gets it. I think was really it was a privilege I didn't
[2:21]know that I was going to have to do that for people so it was great to know
[2:24]that. See nothing ever turns out the way you think it will with a book launch.
[2:29]I am so sorry about your experience that you had to write a book about grief or
[2:35]that you chose to write a book about grief. This is a preamble to talk about
[2:39]your new book but maybe give a little more of the story of what happened with
[2:43]your husband and what was behind that book and it'll set more of a context for
[2:48]your new book. Thank you. So Black Widow was about the first year of my
[2:51]childhood. My husband Scott died. It'll be 10 years in July and he we've been
[2:58]married only for five and a half years. We know each other since high school met
[3:02]again later in our 30s in Florida or from Baltimore and it just seemed like oh
[3:08]it's I was I'm right about entertainment so I speak of things in terms of sitcoms.
[3:12]So it felt like a sitcom. It's like he's this like fun Jewish dude and she's this
[3:17]quirky black lady and they meet each other again on Facebook and it's wild man and
[3:24]it was going that way and they find this you know they want to have a baby and
[3:29]they're not able to and then a family is born into her a baby's born to her
[3:34]family and they find this little boy. He's now not small and sitting back there
[3:39]and it's going really well and then it went screech and so the book in a way
[3:45]was my way of processing that it was like therapy. I remember my therapist said
[3:51]you should write a journal and I said oh I am I'm writing a book and she's like
[3:56]what and people would say well it's okay if no one ever reads it's like
[3:59]this is the journal I wrote for everybody to read because I basically felt like
[4:04]books about grief seemed to be like about the end like and this is how I was
[4:09]okay and this is how I solved it and this is how I healed without the messy
[4:13]stuff when you're like eating I have a chapter called grief cake we're eating
[4:18]cake at two o'clock in the morning and I talked about how I lived in Lake
[4:23]North Florida there was a dive bar and a pie shop right next to each other and I
[4:28]would visit them too often like sometimes like let me go back to the pie shop
[4:32]and so no one writes about the messiness and the can I do this and the scrolling
[4:39]on Twitter at the time and just like the weird stuff that goes through your
[4:43]mind they write about and how we healed and now we are okay and I am okay
[4:48]but there's that large swath in the middle I felt will be helpful to write
[4:53]about because how do you know you're gonna be okay if you don't acknowledge a
[4:56]crappy went through right so that's what that book was was about and it does set
[5:02]up the novel has some similarities the characters like oh this sounds
[5:08]familiar but then it goes in a completely weird situation because it's my
[5:12]first fiction so Dave you're not all exciting okay family and other calamities
[5:19]can you tell us what this book is about this book is in the you're gonna
[5:23]wait we just heard that it's about a black female journalist who writes
[5:26]entertainment who moves to LA with her husband who is a Jewish dude okay he
[5:30]dies of and it's like wait a minute no but then something like he happens she
[5:34]has to come back to Baltimore which is like I said where I'm from two
[5:39]berries ashes and finds out that a long ago former friend now nemesis who stole
[5:44]the story from her as a journalist years ago was making a movie out of it and
[5:48]she's the villain dah dah dah and so she has to deal with that she has to
[5:54]be able to fact that she'd been kind of avoiding her family for 30 years
[5:56]including her sister who was the whistleblower based in the case that she wrote
[6:01]about her mother who has decided to throw herself a birthday party because
[6:05]she's never come to visit some throwing my party while you're here her brother-in-law
[6:09]who was she was never close to who she all needs to help her out and a
[6:13]mysterious R&B diva because why not because why not she was a great character
[6:19]thank you I loved her she was great I mean they were all great it starts off
[6:24]being on a plane and having someone from your past in the seat above you in the
[6:29]seat right in front of you and what do you do do you say the horrible things
[6:33]you want to say do you keep it all inside and I feel like that is such a it's
[6:38]like a symbol for everything that comes next in this whole story what because
[6:42]so much of it is about regret and how you told how you've told the story of your
[6:47]past for 20 years 10 years last week I'm like you know you call your friend you
[6:53]go girl I can't believe what she said to me and they goes well that's not what
[6:56]she said to me and it's like well it was true and the further you get from
[6:59]that phone call the further you get from that thing you're very happy deciding
[7:03]that happened the way that you wanted it to so like dawn the character who was
[7:07]named after the Frankie Valley song because why not is in the plane behind Joe
[7:13]and so she flashback it's thinking of all the things that starts to tell the
[7:18]story in her brain like how did this happen how did we get here and she's
[7:22]resisting kicking his chair she doesn't get kicked out of first class so she
[7:27]doesn't do that and so she has these this moment where she's like it's like
[7:31]you regret like what you didn't do what you didn't say and that's one of
[7:35]reasons I don't have a lot of regret about things because everything's like
[7:38]butterfly effect like if you don't do this thing does it affect this thing
[7:42]and if you don't do this thing and then do you wind up in a completely different
[7:45]life and a completely different person which I think is part of what she
[7:49]thinks is that she's like if I had just said something if I hadn't made
[7:52]this mistake in my 20s would I be in a different place but then what I
[7:56]not have wound up with the life I have which I really like but I still hate
[8:00]this guy and can I take his chair with nobody noticing so there is a long
[8:04]lasting tale to decisions we make in our 20s that really shouldn't be allowed
[8:09]because in your when you're in your 20s what do you even really know
[8:13]nothing I shouldn't say that we just had someone earlier today who knows more
[8:17]than I do so I did not know anything there's a writer you know Nora
[8:21]McInerney I had a video the other day very short when she said in a long
[8:26]landing series that I could call advice that I would have given myself to my 20
[8:30]my 20s that I wouldn't have taken and I was like yes and she was basically this
[8:34]one was about how no one who you have to chase is really in love with you and
[8:39]I was like oh it's like how dare you because my friend who is here had
[8:45]lived with me through eight of those things so she understands she could
[8:48]tell you stories but yeah it's the kind of thing you look back even though
[8:52]you I regret mistakes only because I feel like if they hurt people or they
[8:56]caused me to waste time focusing on something that I shouldn't have focused on
[9:01]but then again you go but you've learned from those things I've not I made
[9:06]not the same mistakes I made different mistakes you know we're also done but
[9:10]usually not the same done mistake sure I know I feel like I waste too much time
[9:14]rethinking well what if this had gone what if I had done it this way what if
[9:18]this had happened and truth you make the best decisions at every moment in
[9:22]your life based on the information that you have at the time and you can't be
[9:26]yourself up because you learn more now you really can't and you can't judge
[9:30]yourself to that young woman girl really in her 20s or 30s did not have the
[9:36]information like you said and because it's like there's a very old movie Peggy
[9:41]you still got married I love you guys thank you I always think about that
[9:45]I love that movie because Kathleen Turner is medically sent back to her high
[9:51]school days and she's like do I marry Nicholas K. Chu is a raging jerk do I
[9:57]actually talk to the nice quiet guy
[10:00]who's a rebel and he's aware of the jacket and he's awesome.
[10:03]And so how will that affect my life?
[10:05]What is that do?
[10:08]Although the best part of it, my favorite scene,
[10:10]because I say it all the time to my kid,
[10:11]is when she realizes that her mother is standing up
[10:14]and doesn't eat.
[10:15]She's another serving all the food before she sits down.
[10:19]And she goes, no mom, sit with us.
[10:21]And it's not only revolutionary to the brother
[10:23]and the dad, but to her mom,
[10:25]because her mother never considered,
[10:27]what if I take care of myself first,
[10:30]which also I think is a theme in both.
[10:32]I'll be 54 next week.
[10:34]And so I have a good day.
[10:36]Thank you.
[10:38]And so I think a lot about that,
[10:39]about what are times where I could have stuck up for myself.
[10:43]But I didn't know that I could have.
[10:44]I didn't know it was an option.
[10:45]The mom didn't know it was an option.
[10:46]Right?
[10:47]And so I think that when we look back at our lives,
[10:50]the only things I would change,
[10:52]you can't help you.
[10:53]There should be many people out of God.
[10:54]I wouldn't date it to the guy.
[10:56]And then you learn from it.
[10:57]But stuff like, did I learn to stick up for myself?
[10:59]Did I learn to go back?
[11:02]Could I go back?
[11:02]And even if I couldn't change it,
[11:03]what I tell that girl,
[11:05]either don't date that guy would say,
[11:06]maybe don't date him so long
[11:08]or maybe listen to your friends.
[11:10]I don't know, but you can't change it.
[11:13]The reason we keep talking about this is the crux
[11:15]of this novel is that a decision someone makes
[11:19]with the best information that they had
[11:21]changes the course of their life.
[11:22]And how can you then revisit it decades later
[11:27]and make things better?
[11:28]Can you or can you not?
[11:29]Is it too long?
[11:31]Do you get measured on the same standards as today?
[11:34]Really interesting question.
[11:36]I think it is too because so much has changed.
[11:38]Like my son is 11.
[11:41]And if it takes two seconds for a video to load,
[11:44]he's like, oh my God, the world is ending.
[11:46]And so I have to explain things like AOL.
[11:48]And like, it could take,
[11:52]you could go burst your teeth and come back
[11:54]and maybe it still hadn't loaded.
[11:55]And so that's the information he looks back
[11:59]at situation I tell my story to go,
[12:00]well, I don't know how I would have done that.
[12:02]It's like because it just wasn't available.
[12:03]So last time I was in the city,
[12:05]he was not gotten at his phone this whole time.
[12:07]No, he's right there.
[12:08]Oh yeah, here we go.
[12:10]The last time I was in the city,
[12:11]I didn't have my phone because I dropped my phone
[12:14]on the recycling that morning.
[12:15]And which is, once again, I'm a, I'm a whole sitcom.
[12:19]I dropped my phone.
[12:20]And so my friend who was here,
[12:21]I had to meet her through series
[12:23]of like messages sent from the train
[12:24]and like barring some lady's phone or whatever.
[12:27]And so you figured like you figured it out.
[12:30]You know, it's not as easy as it was,
[12:32]but you figured out.
[12:33]So Dawn, and I don't want to give too much of it
[12:35]in the book, makes a decision in her 20s
[12:38]to share some information with someone she thinks is a friend,
[12:40]to help her with her story she's writing.
[12:42]And she doesn't, she's not reading
[12:44]but he's actually a weasel.
[12:46]And he's going to steal it from her.
[12:47]And so she makes a completely flaky decision
[12:51]in the moment when she figures out that she's been lied to
[12:55]that, you know, messes up a lot of stuff.
[12:57]And then you go back and you go, like she says,
[13:00]if I had made a decision and fled town with this guy
[13:02]who's a source that I shouldn't have been sleeping with
[13:04]but I kind of did, who turned out to be 30 years later
[13:06]her husband who she loved and had a great marriage
[13:08]and no one really talks about the other stuff.
[13:10]And she's decided that it's okay.
[13:13]because it worked out okay, until it's wide open.
[13:16]And so everyone's going, well, why would you make
[13:18]that decision?
[13:19]And her family's like, and you left us here to hold the bag
[13:22]and her sister particularly and she has a younger journalist
[13:25]who's asking her questions like, well, why would you?
[13:27]That's really stupid, you know?
[13:29]And so she has to confront all the stuff and make things
[13:32]right with her, not only her family and her husband's family
[13:37]but a guy that she could have dated that kind of figures
[13:40]in the past and you see some flashbacks
[13:43]how he was significant and if you have these choices
[13:46]I love writing reality, like you watch movies
[13:49]there's always like, there's three choices of guys, you know?
[13:51]And I'm like, is there really?
[13:53]It's not always usually the case I think in real life
[13:56]but in this thing she has choices and she makes them
[13:58]and you have to sort of reconcile those choices
[14:00]and be honest about how your version of events
[14:03]is not everyone's versions of events.
[14:06]So speaking of choices, why did you write a novel?
[14:10]Because I thought it would be fun.
[14:12]I'm a journalist and I write real stuff
[14:15]all the time, I'm not a columnist so I write
[14:16]and first person often reviews or just like things
[14:19]off the top of my head, sometimes very serious things
[14:22]but it's true, it's based on fact,
[14:24]I researched things very well, I wrote a memoir
[14:26]it was about me and even my own stuff
[14:28]I had to call people and go, was that actually in 1980?
[14:33]Like am I remembering this right?
[14:35]And I sent pages to people who were in it
[14:39]so it's not so much like tell me it's okay
[14:41]but like did this happen this way?
[14:44]And most of the time it did and I'm only like did I, okay?
[14:47]But I wanted to write a novel
[14:49]because I thought it would be fun to be that girl
[14:51]that I was when I was when you first start to write
[14:53]and you're creating stories about princesses
[14:56]and dragons and like little girls who solve crimes
[15:00]I grew up in the 70s so I was either Nancy Drew
[15:03]or encyclopedia Brown or one or the other
[15:06]and so that was fun and the story ended
[15:09]the way that you wanted it to
[15:10]and I think I forgot how much fun it was
[15:14]to create a thing that you could control
[15:16]when I wrote my first book,
[15:18]someone who used to read my column at Palm Beach posted
[15:20]I was very disappointed at the end of your love story
[15:23]I go, me too girl, it's like it was a novel,
[15:28]sweetie was my life and I would have killed them off either
[15:33]that would not have been the ending that I would have chosen
[15:35]so people are weird
[15:38]but it was really fun once it's to write a story
[15:42]even though there is grief in the book
[15:44]that maybe something good happens
[15:46]and maybe this person and she talks to her husband
[15:50]and her head and he's like so down girl stop, okay stuff
[15:53]so she's, because you continue to talk to people
[15:57]and not like in a movie where the person is sitting there
[15:58]sort of steeper tone and there's sweater on the dresser
[16:01]or whatever but you have conversations
[16:03]I talk to Scott often when I'm about to do something dumb
[16:07]and he's like girl but it just was really neat
[16:10]to remember how much fun it was to create a whole world
[16:13]I am not a fantasy writer, I'm not gonna like,
[16:17]I don't think I could create a whole universe
[16:20]or that's not sort of where my art could
[16:22]but it's not really where my head is
[16:23]but being able to write something fun
[16:25]where you get to pick random characters
[16:28]and song references and what they're wearing
[16:31]and it's all something you made up is really fun
[16:34]by the way Leslie's publisher has gifted you all copies
[16:38]of the spec and they're out front after
[16:40]so thank you so much for that.
[16:41]Thank you.
[16:42]I'm very excited.
[16:43]Oh my gosh.
[16:44]Was writing the novel is fun,
[16:46]I find it can be quite torturous sometimes writing a novel
[16:49]sometimes fun.
[16:51]I think sometimes it depends on what stage it is
[16:54]because like you just write it
[16:56]and then your editor will go
[16:57]but what if that person was a different gender
[17:01]and that person would go, huh?
[17:02]And then you go, is this fun?
[17:04]Am I just writing an order?
[17:05]You go, no, actually have fun with it
[17:07]and you explore things that was fun
[17:09]because I'm a journalist so I'm used to editing,
[17:12]I'm used to people going, how about that?
[17:15]What about this?
[17:16]And have you considered it and I love feedback
[17:19]but sometimes then you have to go,
[17:21]okay, this is what I really want it to be
[17:23]and you can push back and say,
[17:26]no, this is what it's supposed to be.
[17:27]So it was fun in that,
[17:31]if you just sat in the morning,
[17:32]I would take a day off or do it when my kid was asleep
[17:35]or do it if I had a time in a hotel
[17:37]where he was not around or whatever and just write
[17:40]and just go for it and you look up
[17:41]and it's three hours later and you go,
[17:43]oh, I was lost in it man, you know,
[17:45]I was like really into it.
[17:48]It's the doing it by numbers I think
[17:50]that would be hard if you had to do it.
[17:52]I mean, it's not columns even.
[17:54]I kind of want to let myself go and you write it
[17:56]and sometimes you get up and you get a drink of water
[17:58]and you come back, you watch an episode of Law and Order
[18:02]and then I watch a Law and Order, it's in my book
[18:05]and then you come back and just also sort of like figure out
[18:08]where someone's read back and go,
[18:10]oh, that's what I was reading or eating
[18:12]or watching at that time
[18:13]because that's stuff that came into my brain.
[18:16]It just letting myself go,
[18:17]letting myself go was the fun part.
[18:19]I feel like today should be sponsored by Law and Order.
[18:22]It's came out basically in every show.
[18:24]as Law and Order does.
[18:28]If Scott could see you today, what would he think?
[18:32]What would you want to tell him about how life has changed
[18:35]after his passing?
[18:37]What a good question.
[18:38]I think he would be so excited for us, you know,
[18:42]because he died in 2015, which is, you know,
[18:46]way before COVID,
[18:47]I think would have been,
[18:49]and I hope we're not, I think for everybody, right?
[18:50]I think about like how he would have responded to it
[18:53]and how he would have dealt with us
[18:55]because he was like, I want to live in Florida forever
[18:57]and we moved in 2020 in the midst of everything,
[19:00]back to Baltimore,
[19:01]and I think about what he'd be like,
[19:02]why are we in Baltimore?
[19:04]Why are we living in a place with the parking?
[19:06]Because I live like right downtown,
[19:08]but I think he would be so,
[19:10]oof, he would be so pleased that, you know,
[19:13]I'm writing for another publication.
[19:15]He would be pleased that my voice is being heard.
[19:17]He would get the biggest kick out of the kid back there.
[19:20]He would, I say all the time,
[19:22]he would just eat him up with a spoon.
[19:24]He would probably be dressed
[19:26]to have to tell any of the ravens or oil stuff right now.
[19:29]His name is Brooks Robinson,
[19:30]named after the famous baseball player,
[19:32]my kid's name is Brooks Robinson,
[19:33]Streeter servits.
[19:35]I think Scott would love that I was having a good time
[19:38]because he always wanted me to have a good time.
[19:40]He loved like, he would buy me weird stuff
[19:43]and he'd go to the gas station.
[19:44]Right before he died, he bought me the sake
[19:46]from a gas station because it was funny.
[19:50]And he was like, so,
[19:53]and it's in the first book, a couple of days later,
[19:56]I'm like, I'm just gonna sit here at one o'clock
[19:57]in the afternoon and drink.
[20:00]this gas station, Saki, and people
[20:01]like, no, it's like just let me drink the Saki.
[20:04]So I think he would enjoy that I would like,
[20:08]I like, I got new food to be like,
[20:09]yeah, I would have bought you this putt, you know.
[20:13]He would have fun knowing that we were having fun
[20:17]and we are having a good, and that we're not.
[20:20]We're sad obviously, and I think a lot about
[20:23]like said the relationship that they would have had
[20:26]and where we would be, but he would want us not
[20:29]to be destroyed by it.
[20:32]I know that, and we would be happy that we traveled
[20:35]and that we had Disney passes for a long time, you know.
[20:38]And that we had like, we have like,
[20:42]we were movie marathons, we watched all of the jaws
[20:46]it's even the bad 3D one, and we watched
[20:49]all the Indiana Joneses, even the later ones
[20:51]that once were so great.
[20:52]And that I was like telling about like baseball
[20:55]and he placed baseball season starts this weekend
[20:58]that we were just doing good, that's what he would want.
[21:01]I'm so glad, thank you, oh my gosh.
[21:03]And Scott was Jewish, and I've noticed
[21:05]you've been posting multiple soup on your feed.
[21:08]So have you adopted all of the customs
[21:12]at what is your relationship to Judaism as a result?
[21:15]I never converted, but when, and I put this on my
[21:20]Instagram feed, I made multiples, I started making them
[21:23]from scratch, and I make them with sage.
[21:27]I hope that doesn't like,
[21:29]because there's something bad that I'm not supposed to be doing that.
[21:31]But still allow it, yes.
[21:33]But I make them, I don't make them a lot
[21:36]because I'm trying to eat less bread or whatever,
[21:37]but it was, you know, pass over it was coming.
[21:40]It's like, I'm gonna make multiple soup,
[21:42]and I am eating less salt, it's like, oh this sounds
[21:45]like no fun, but so I make my own broth
[21:47]and I make my own bullion, it's vegan, it's a whole thing.
[21:50]I don't use chicken, I don't eat chicken,
[21:52]you're like, this sounds terrible.
[21:53]But we will not be distributing this recipe.
[21:58]When he, right before he passed, I had some friends
[22:01]that were in my friend, that I was not really close to,
[22:03]but they invited us to go.
[22:05]They would always invite us over to the holidays.
[22:07]So when he died, they said, would you consider continuing
[22:10]to come to our house for, for Passover and for Hanukkah?
[22:14]And I was like, absolutely.
[22:15]And so we did it, and that's been five years,
[22:17]but I always call them, we always call each other.
[22:20]And so I posted it and I sent them a copy of it.
[22:24]And even, and the picture was great,
[22:26]you couldn't tell that there was not a lot of salt in it.
[22:28]So it looked like it tasted good.
[22:29]But his Scott's family, his cousins particularly,
[22:34]have adopted us in that, like we went to,
[22:38]his cousin's daughter's bought Mitzvah last year.
[22:40]And even though we were not Jewish,
[22:43]works was able to be the kids that like go
[22:45]and give the candy out or whatever.
[22:47]And we were family, so we're at the family table
[22:50]and nobody said, who are those black people from Baltimore?
[22:54]You're being, you know, we're like, what's up?
[22:56]It was in Northern Virginia as it was really like,
[22:59]kind of fancy and it was very cool,
[23:02]but they've been so embracing of us.
[23:06]And that's something that he would have wanted.
[23:08]And so the traditions, like the observations
[23:13]and the, you know, they were kind of remind me,
[23:15]remember the day is whatever, I go, that's right, it is.
[23:18]It's been the welcoming part of it
[23:22]is what he would have loved.
[23:24]And I think that they know that he would have wanted,
[23:26]but also they like me.
[23:28]And as it's not an obligation anymore, you know,
[23:30]it's something that we went to a raven's game
[23:32]with his cousins, which was really cool.
[23:35]And we got to just like hang out
[23:38]and we have some plans to do some other stuff.
[23:40]Our anniversary, our 15th anniversary,
[23:43]would have been in February.
[23:45]And I had a big little karaoke party.
[23:47]And I invited them and were able to come,
[23:49]but they said, can you take video and can you,
[23:52]like send it to us, like we were there?
[23:53]And it just, it's just so lovely.
[23:55]And like said, and so at that point,
[23:57]when we first got married, people would go,
[23:59]what does his mother say?
[23:59]Does she like you?
[24:01]You know, like older Jewish ladies would ask me this,
[24:03]like, is she all right?
[24:04]And I was like, no, she loves me, it's great.
[24:06]And so I love that that difference never,
[24:11]it didn't, it enhanced things, right?
[24:13]It doesn't, it wasn't ever a, once again,
[24:16]sitcom, it wasn't like, oh, she's terrible.
[24:17]No one likes her, we don't understand these people.
[24:19]It was like, we brought the traditions,
[24:22]which I think in some ways,
[24:24]family is important, I was raised Baptist,
[24:26]you know, and I'm obviously black.
[24:28]And so family and tradition and the history of people
[24:31]may be being out to get you and all these things,
[24:34]you know, there's a quote,
[24:36]and it's another one, I'm sorry,
[24:38]that I see, said that he and Richard Bells
[24:43]are got along, because he goes, I'm black,
[24:46]he's Jewish and the clans after us both.
[24:49]And I was like, yeah, man.
[24:51]And so Scott and I would say that laugh hysterically.
[24:54]So, yeah.
[24:56]Gallo is humor and it's best.
[24:57]So, are you writing a new book?
[25:00]What is coming up for you?
[25:01]I have two things that I'm working on.
[25:04]One was, I don't want to be a political,
[25:06]it was said in Panama, it's like,
[25:07]maybe not Panama, it's maybe Americans
[25:09]won't be going to Panama.
[25:10]And then I switched it to Canada,
[25:11]and now maybe Americans won't be going to Canada.
[25:13]So, now it's in New Orleans.
[25:15]So, it's a whole thing.
[25:17]And it's the usual thing of family,
[25:20]and you know, a woman's grandmother dies,
[25:24]and she wants of inheriting her aunt who no one likes.
[25:27]Basically to take her to New Orleans,
[25:30]to settle a score about a story
[25:32]that nobody knows about, and she has to take her mother
[25:35]who doesn't like the aunt either in her daughter,
[25:37]who would rather be anywhere else,
[25:39]but on a trip in New Orleans with older people.
[25:42]And so, and we're going to New Orleans this summer.
[25:44]So it's like, where am I going that I could actually go?
[25:46]It's like, ah, in New Orleans, is it's own mystery, you know?
[25:49]Can't you write it off now?
[25:50]Work expense, there you go.
[25:52]Yes, I am.
[25:53]And then I, something that I started working on
[25:56]that I was reminded by my friend,
[25:58]we were in a band, we were at that good.
[26:01]And in the 90s, we were back up singers
[26:04]who never learned the song,
[26:05]so we'd chill up late, and then we were shocked
[26:07]when they stopped telling us where rehearsal was.
[26:11]Just talk.
[26:12]And so I had this idea of back up singers
[26:16]who come to a funeral of another band member,
[26:18]and then someone gets killed at the funeral,
[26:21]and they're all at like some dudes cabin,
[26:23]and the back of singers have to figure out
[26:26]how to solve the murder, and so, yes, it's funny.
[26:30]You have a title, working title?
[26:36]Bitzy and Wanda solve a thing.
[26:38]Yes, that's a working title.
[26:41]I wouldn't say solve some, but it's probably,
[26:43]I can't put bad words in the titles, but yeah,
[26:46]it's Bitzy and Wanda, she doesn't love the name Bitzy,
[26:49]but we're working, or we're chucking, or we're chucking.
[26:53]In progress, last question,
[26:55]do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[26:58]I do.
[26:59]I think when people say that there are aspiring authors
[27:00]or writers, it's like, if you write your writer,
[27:03]you might aspire to be a writer who gets paid,
[27:06]or a writer that has a following,
[27:09]but I think that if you have words that you put to paper
[27:12]and you believe in them, and you're constantly loving them,
[27:16]and honing them, and making sure that they make sense to you,
[27:19]and then maybe you show it to somebody else,
[27:20]and they really like it.
[27:22]Maybe you post a little bit of on Facebook,
[27:23]or an Instagram, or whatever.
[27:25]You're a writer, and I just want to encourage you,
[27:28]there's no magic to, there's a magic when it makes sense.
[27:32]But we're all writers love what they do,
[27:35]but we're not magic, we're not like angels, or gods,
[27:40]or whatever, we're just people who figure out how to do it,
[27:43]and I want to encourage people to just talk to that little girl,
[27:47]or a little boy that used to write about dragons
[27:49]and princesses and stuff, and you wouldn't have told her
[27:52]to stop, or him to stop, you would tell them
[27:54]to keep going, and write that dragon, make them higher,
[27:57]make them purple, make the trees polka dot, whatever,
[28:01]and so my advice is whatever your sky is,
[28:05]write that thing, and then see how it goes.
[28:07]Love it.
[28:08]Leslie, thank you so much for coming on.
[28:10]Congratulations on becoming a debut novelist,
[28:13]very exciting, and we're wishing you all the best.
[28:16]Thank you so much.
[28:17]Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibi,
[28:21]formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[28:24]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[28:27]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens,
[28:30]and spread the word, thanks so much.
[28:32]Oh, and buy the books.