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SWRT 355 | Magical Realism with Sherry Roberts · Story Works Round Table | Conversations About Craft

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is the Story Works Round Table.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Conversations about craft for writers and readers curious about writers.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know those times in life.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: They come up every so often.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: More for some of us, less for others.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: When big change is not just coming, but you're in the middle of it.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in the middle of big change right now.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: After 18 years in my current home in Minneapolis, I'm moving.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm quitting the big city and heading for the country.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be not just a change of locale,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: but of lifestyle,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: of how I spend my time, who I know, and even of what matters in a day.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to settling in and discovering the shape of my new life.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm excited for it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I've been thinking about how when you're willing to change,
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: when you're open and responsive to whatever is happening right now,
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_01: when you're not only dreaming but believing in the dream,
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: that's when things happen, big things, the things that life turns on.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's magical.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like, the universe has all this good stuff ready for us, and it's just been waiting on us.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Waiting for us to say, okay, I'm ready and willing.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm stepping onto the ride.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go for it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about magic today with our guest, Sherry Roberts.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sherry and I met last fall.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're both winners of the Minnesota Author Project Award,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: and Both writers of mysteries and of magical realism.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was a real pleasure to have Sherry join us at the Story Works Round Table to talk
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: about writing magical realism and her award-winning novel Up There.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: We dive into the craft of using magical realism and How
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: the magical elements interact with the mundane.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: How to introduce it so the reader accepts it as openly as they would a character driving a car.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we get into the deeper thematic consequences of using magical realism,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: among other things that I'm sure you'll enjoy.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Here's today's episode with Sherry Roberts.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a dedicated writer who is ready to grow,
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: if you've got a novel you're meant to write,
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: if you've been looking for a place where craft,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: accountability,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: mentorship, and author development come together, join me in the novel journey.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's a year-long mentorship in novel writing with a small group of peers designed
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: to support your development as a writer while you draft your novel.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: The novel you are uniquely meant to write.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: The Novel Journey is for writers who crave a guided developmental process from idea
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: to finished novel while simultaneously becoming the kind of author who can sustain
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: a writing life well beyond one book.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Get the details and schedule a free discovery call at wordessential.com slash fictioncoaching.
• 3:36
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• 3:38
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• 3:43
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• 3:53
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• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And now...
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy this conversation at the Story Works Round Table.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to this week's Story Works Round Table.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Today, Kathryn and I are delighted to be joined by Sherry Roberts.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Sherry is the author of award-winning contemporary fiction,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Down Here,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Up There,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Book of Mercy,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Maud's House,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: and Cozy Mysteries, Down Dog Diary, Warrior's Revenge, and Crow Calling.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Up There won the 2024 Minnesota Indie Author Project,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: presented by the Minnesota Library Association.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Several of her books are also Indie Author Project select titles,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: as well as finalists in the Midwest Book Awards.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Sherry has contributed essays and short stories to various publications,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: including St.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Paul Almanac,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Mystery Magazine,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Minnesota Not So Nice,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Dark Side of the Loon, And it was a dark and stormy night, don't you know?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: She lives in Apple Valley, Minnesota, and I am cracking up by the Minnesota-isms there.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Sherry.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure to
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: be here.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and we are fellow Minnesotans,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: fellow Minnesota Author Project Award winners,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: and we've actually had the chance to meet and Hang out and have coffee.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm excited to have you on the show today.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to talk about Up There and specifically writing magical realism into stories.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: So to get us rolling, why don't you give us the synopsis for Up There?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: What is this book about?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Up There is the story of a woman who was born with the gift of flight.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this is a gift that comes down through the women in her family.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so I start off the book,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: in her childhood,
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: trying to figure out how to deal with the wind and the sky
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_02: and what Up There is like.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Up There is her name for wind and sky.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it She becomes,
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: she has to,
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: her mother makes her wear very heavy shoes to keep her grounded to the earth.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that, of course, makes her ostracized in classrooms and school friends.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so she spends a lot of her childhood being the other, being not normal.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: And she wishes more than anything to be normal.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: The book moves into when she becomes an adult and she has by that time decided
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: the only way to be normal is to not go up there.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: So she denies herself for several years until she once again is called back to
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: the family farm in this little town called Cosette, Minnesota and faces her fears.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: What inspired The story of a girl who was born with the ability to fly.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Where did this idea come from?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: It came from a video that I saw of a competition in Europe of people who compete
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: in wind tunnels.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: They go into wind tunnels and they do all kinds of acrobatic moves.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: And they look just really cool.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, wow, what if someone could actually do that?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's interesting because I have so many people who say to me,
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: I always dreamed of flying.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I dreamed of flying all the time.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that the dream of flight,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: the dream of flying,
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: it's a dream of transcendence, a dream of becoming something other.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what Ariel Lee, the woman in this book, is.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: She wants to become something else than what she is.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: But what she finds is that she gets her real strength from being up there.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: But that's where it sort of started,
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: was that video of seeing those people floating around,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: they've got their legs crossed in lotus position and they're just,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: you know, sipping tea or something in this window.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I just imagined that's what it would be like for her.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want to see this video.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_02: And who knew that they made a competition of it, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's so cool.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Are they wearing like squirrel suits or anything to kind of have wings?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, wings are not part of it all.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: In fact,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: I very specifically did not write wings into this book
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: because I didn't want anyone picturing them flapping their arms like crazy in
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: the air, right?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't want that.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: So what you'll see is you'll see people in these aerodynamic suits
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: and helmets wearing That go through this doorway and as soon as they step through
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: the door, they're swished up into this big cylinder that they can then do their act.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to try it, but I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to get out of the cylinder.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because it seems to me the hardest part of it is walking in,
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: walking,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: getting lower enough that you can walk from air to nothingness through
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: that cylinder, the little tunnel that gets you into the cylinder anyway.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: So I didn't try it personally, but I think that Ariel would.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that'd be really interesting research to do for your book.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the things we do for our art.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So when you wrote this, you said, okay, what would it be like if you can fly?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to write this story.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: Were you thinking about magical realism as...
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like a part of your genre, like, okay, I'm writing a magical realism story.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is what I have to do as an author.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: These are the parameters or was it more just here's a girl she's born with flight.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is what it looks like.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious if you were sort of consciously thinking in terms of the mechanics
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: of writing or what that, that creative process was like as the story was evolving.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't thinking of the mechanics.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking of wonder.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted the audience to wonder.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what I look for a lot in books and I look for that in life,
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: that I wanted to create art that the reader would encounter with wonder and say,
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: oh, that's cool.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could do that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: So the story sort of evolved from that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: I really didn't study the mechanics of magical realism,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: although I've read,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Sarah Addison Allen's work or Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: you know, 100 Years of Solitude, who hasn't read that?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: The Night Circus by Aaron Morgensen.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: I've read those things and I've just, the magic catches you.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what keeps me reading.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wanted the reader to be captured by the magic of Ariel
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: and the magic of up
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: there.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what kept me going.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think it wasn't I wasn't following any rules.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: I was and the rules that I did follow was the rule that was character development.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: I really,
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: really studied a lot about character development while I was writing those books
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: because I wanted to show growth and what was going to happen with character
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: with Ariel.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: How was she going to develop?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: What was she going to fear?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: How was she going to get over her fear?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of person was she going to become?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I wonder if that's true of all the writers who write magical realism,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: if that's maybe one of the sort of lines between magical realism and fantasy.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I wrote A Stone's Throw, I would say exactly what you said.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't thinking about the mechanics of it.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was just thinking about And as this is happening, what would it be like?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And how would this come about?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think because the magic is in the world and is real
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: and it isn't like something people are trying to do with spells or wands or,
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know, we aren't inventing a system of magic in our world building.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder, I'm just thinking that off the cuff.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I wonder what you would think, Sherry, if you agree.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: I like
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: the contrast between reality and magic in reality.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: I like that you're dealing with,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: you're grounded in a realistic place that just has some really odd
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: and unusual magical things that are happening there that you can still relate to.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if, for example, you know, I can relate to trees talk to each other.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they protect each other.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's magic.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: You know, water and wind carry memories.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's magic.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, a smart crow can trick a car into smashing its food so it can eat better.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: All those things express wonder in me.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what I wanted in the book.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted people to say, oh, yeah, I wanted to fly at one time.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: I dreamed of flying.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: So why start with Ariel as a little girl in the heavy shoes?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: Was that always the plan or did you have her starting?
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: Later as an adult character and then decide,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: no, you really needed to write in this childhood part.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious about the development of the story arc and your structure.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I,
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: a lot of times I will get a scene in my head,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_02: not just a scene, but an image and the image of a child in heavy shoes.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_02: That was the image in my head and that started out with the book as well,
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_02: is that I wanted to show this kid is having a lot of trouble and
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: the mother is having trouble because the mother is not born with the gift of flight.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: So she can't guide the kid.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: So she's trying to figure just how to protect,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: she's a single mother trying to protect her kid from all of the bad things
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: that are coming to her in the world.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: So she puts these very heavy shoes on her to try to keep her grounded.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually, Ariel has to learn to partner with the wind and control the wind.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And when she does that around the age of 10, everything changes.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't have to wear the shoes anymore.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: But she's still considered an outsider at school and among kids and the bus
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: and things like that.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to start out young and show that That she had a tough time from the very beginning.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so the whole first act is just her childhood, those from age five to 16 or 18.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then from act two on out, she's an adult.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: She's a,
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: she's a 29, 30 year old woman who is still trying to find her place in this world.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I wrote this entire, the first draft of this book entirely during the year of the pandemic.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, I was, you know, we were locked down.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: No one was going outside.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: But every day I got to sit at my desk and go outside with Ariel Lee.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that was the coolest thing.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know,
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think that I just wanted to start her young and each chapter shows her
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: a different age.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we go through her childhood fairly quickly in act one.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: We're not going to...
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's when her insecurities start.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that's when her fears really become enhanced.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what pushes her into a different type of an adult.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned the magic.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've got magical realism.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've got the magical world.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: We've got the real world.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned going outside in nature.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nature is such a strong presence in the story.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: The way you handle setting is really impressive in this.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: Are you born and bred here in Minnesota?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Is this what your hometown was like growing up?
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: It is, but my hometown was in Missouri.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was a small town in Missouri.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I have always been really connected with nature.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: I continue to go out in it every day.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: I love to figure out the names of wildflowers and feed my birds and hummingbirds
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: and all of that stuff and identify birds when I'm out on my walk.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very much into nature.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: I'm very supportive of natural causes, environmental causes.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: Environment was a big part of this book as well because I was thinking a lot about
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: that at the time So yeah, I'm used to small towns.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: My town was less than 5,000 people in Missouri.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so I kind of know how those people think and how they would really step back
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: from somebody who was that odd.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've all had those kids in school who,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: you know, those are the kids that are made fun of.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I've also considered myself pretty much An outsider like Ariel.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: I never felt really comfortable in school.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: I never felt really comfortable in high school.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: I've always felt I was the person looking in from the outside.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that was also what she was feeling, I think.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: So what steps did you take?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's 2020.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: You're in lockdown.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just hop in the car and drive to Central Minnesota and get the flavor of,
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: you know, like country of towns like Cosette.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So what steps did you take as a writer to really bring your setting to life and
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: to ground us in that realism while writing this magical story?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: Well, one of the things that happened when I first moved to Minnesota
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: about 20 years ago is my husband took up geocaching.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we traveled all over Minnesota geocaching.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: We were in little towns, big towns, out in some farmer's field.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_02: We were just in a lot of weird places because our goal was to find a geocache
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: in every one of the 100 counties or whatever of Minnesota.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of that is,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: when I look at the Statue of Harriet,
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: Which I make up in, I make up Paul Bunyan's Sister Harriet for this book.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I put a statue in the town's park.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, I saw the statue of Paul Bunyan's girlfriend in that little town up north.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: And it was very much in my mind when I was writing that scene.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, a lot of times I will just, what I did was I picked a town, a small town in Minnesota.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I researched it in terms of demographically,
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: would this town have,
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_02: it was small,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_02: but would it have enough people to have a hospital or a clinic or a library?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: So I did all of that type of thing online as I sort of searched around
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: for Minnesota towns that were in that size and what did they have
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: and how were they laid out?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: But a lot of it is just from traveling around Minnesota and picking up odd things.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us what the story is about.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: And there, let me unpack the question a little bit.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there's all, you know, stories are always about multiple things.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's layered.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's the plot level and there's the theme level.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And we know the stories about a girl who can fly, right?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also very much about environmentalism versus economic opportunity in
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: a small town like this.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you weigh one versus the other?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And There are multiple themes in this story.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: You've already identified a couple,
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: but I'd like you to speak to what you think the story is about and the interplay
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: of these different story threads and maybe even what you want readers to take away
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: from the story.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think that I want readers to connect with the idea that being different is okay.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I wanted again and again.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm a grandmother.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm seeing my grandchildren dealing with stuff in their schools.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted all of them to say, it's okay to be different.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay not to do what everybody else does.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay not to, you know, go off the cliff like all the other lemmings.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just, that was one of the big themes that came coming in my head again and again.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay to be different.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay to,
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: But also during that time frame that I was writing this book,
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: which was during the pandemic, it was also a very political time.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: There were lots of things going on with our country.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: People who were refusing masks,
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: people who were wanting masks,
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: people who,
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: couldn't understand why someone would support someone who doesn't want a mask.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_02: There was all that going on at the time.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was, you know, kind of thinking, we're living in a changing world.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And how do we handle it?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: Who do we become?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Don't we all change all the time in a changing world?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: Don't we all become something else?
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I know myself that I discovered things about myself during that time that I didn't know.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I might have said, oh,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: I thought that neighbor always thought the way I did when he doesn't or she doesn't.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then how do I handle that when I see them on the street or hiking trail or wherever?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that that was a big thing, too, that I was trying to figure out.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: The world is not going to stop changing.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it hasn't since then.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: It keeps changing tremendously.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so we have to keep adapting to it and we have to keep changing.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes people don't want to change.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then what happens to those people?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I was forcing Ariel to face this changing world that she was in and just
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_02: to start taking stands.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think that we have to figure out how to take stands and still live with each other.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: That thematic idea of changing and then you have that element of the magical realism
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: with the wind,
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: which is like maybe the most changeable element of weather or,
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know, the things that we interact with in the world.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about the way that you handle perspective and kind of using that idea
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: of the wind.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: For me, after the first couple of chapters,
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of felt like we were blowing through the town.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And getting into whatever the wind was in,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: the wind kind of directed us through that and being able to see the changes,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: not just in Ariel, but in the town and in the people that surrounded her.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So can you talk about the choice of that,
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: the way that you use the perspective and the wind in that way?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Before I, as I was writing this, I started setting a challenge for myself.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: To see how many times I could use wind words without saying wind.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, I had a whole list of wind words, squall, you know, dervish.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: It just went on and on and on.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I was trying to think,
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: how can I use these in this book without continuing to say wind and wind and wind.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, so...
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's part of the flavor,
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think,
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: that you're finding in the book is a little bit is
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: that there's always some different terms for wind in there,
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: but there's also some ways of using wind terms for other things.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to remember an example in particular, like their hair.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: I always often zoned in on what was happening with their hair because their head was
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: If you're outside in the wind all the time,
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: your hair is always a mess and it's always tangled.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was part of the thing of their personality.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really get into characters' eye colors or that kind of stuff.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: I really want to know what's impacting them from their surroundings.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And wind was definitely one thing that was impacting Ariel and the other people in their lives.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: And it And then you have the whole meteorological aspects with Ruddy,
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: the boy who is the love interest in this book.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's a kid who went to school with her and he's always known what he wanted to do.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: He's the opposite of her.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: She's never known what she's going to do.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: She's never known how to go forward.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: And he has always known I am going exactly where I'm going to be.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to be a meteorologist.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: So he was a fun character too, is to think about how he was going to face meteorology.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: How does a meteorologist go out the door every morning and look at the clouds
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: and go, cool, what's this day gonna look like?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: And then,
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: they're just,
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: I read Paul Douglas every day in
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: the newspaper because I like the way he writes
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: about weather.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: But so that was a part of the thing,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: writing some weather words To do with Ruddy and the meteorology
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: and contrasting those two.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then there are times when things got really calm in the book.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: Where is the wind?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: when she's at the age of 10,
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: when she discovers that she's just tired of the shoes and she throws them away
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: and suddenly the wind is picking at her,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: picking at her hair and saying, come on, let's play, let's play.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_02: And she's just angry and she doesn't want any part of it.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_02: And she just says, stop, leave me alone.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: And when the wind leaves her alone, it's like living in a vacuum.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's no air.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing is surrounding you.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing's pushing or pulling you.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: You're just there.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: And she didn't realize that she didn't like that.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: The wind was so much a part of her by then that that's
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: when she started really learning how to work with the wind and to walk the wind.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Walk the stairway to heaven.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_02: I love thinking of a mime, walking the stairs up into heaven with that wind supporting her.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I think, I just think wind is so cool.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_02: I love wind in Minnesota.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: I'm outside in the wind all the time if I can be there.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love how the wind is personified and I felt like the wind's presence Grew as
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: the story went on.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, earlier on, it seemed like an element, a natural force.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: And yes,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Ariel spoke to it and it responded some,
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: and then she has her period where she's in the cities and she's rejecting who she is
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: and then comes back to the farm in Cosette and, um,
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: From that point forward,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: the wind really seemed like more of a character,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: like it had more of an identity, if not a personality.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't go so far as to say it was anthropomorphized,
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: but it just... And I enjoyed the expansion of the wind, the way I felt like...
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe, and I don't know if this is what you were thinking,
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: but maybe as a child, Ariel can only relate to it as a child.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a little more amorphous,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: a little more of a presence than a being,
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: even though I said I wouldn't anthropomorphize, right?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought that was interesting.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Were you conscious of that while you were writing or revising?
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Were you developing the wind over the course of the story with An eye to,
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: you know, how the reader would perceive and conceptualize its role?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think it evolved.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: It evolved because in the beginning of the book, she's a kid.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: And what do you know about the things around you?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_02: You just kind of take them.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: You don't analyze.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: And as when she's older, She's,
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_02: the relationship between her and the wind becomes even stronger because she's older,
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: the wind is more demanding and she's more demanding of the wind.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: So she, her relationship with the wind gets,
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: she realizes that she can do things with the wind that she wasn't,
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: she never thought of doing when she was a kid.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: The kid was just, oh, float in the air, this is fun, you know?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: But as an adult,
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: she's gotta figure out some ways To figure out what she's supposed to be doing with
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: the wind.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's part of the book is that, you know, what is her purpose in life?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_02: She's got this special gift and the wind is there to show her,
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_02: to sort of teach her what's in store for her or what she needs to do.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so then I started adding a little more conversation between Ariel and the wind
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: as the book got along.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because I guess the wind got stronger.
• 32:42
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• 33:29
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• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I do wonder,
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: cause I think the magical realism really does bring a different dimension to
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: the story that wouldn't, I mean,
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: obviously it wouldn't be there without it,
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: but you know,
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: we do have at the very base level,
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: we have this story of this girl who is getting overcoming fears.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what drew you to using that magical realism to like punch that up rather
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: than just letting her go through something that was kind of a more normal,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know, occurrence in people's lives?
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, One of the things about fear is that she's afraid of letting her secret out.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_02: So this book is a lot about secrets.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she lives a secret life and she and her mother is drilled into her.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: You don't let anyone know what you can do,
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and so she has lived a secret life even with her best friend.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't tell her best friends.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't tell anyone.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that that The secret part is very important
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: because I think we all keep secrets and they change us.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they change us for the good and sometimes they change us for the bad.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they lead us down different paths depending on how much we want to protect them.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: So that was,
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think I have forgotten your question now,
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_02: but
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: that was the idea was fear and secrets.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Came up together in my head again and again.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_02: And what can you fear?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: What secret can you fear?
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_02: You can,
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: revelation,
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: you can fear that someone is going to find out what you are and who you are.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: And especially if you are Ariel and you,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_02: she's not ashamed of what she is, but she just doesn't like it.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: She just wants to be an ordinary person, an ordinary kid.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_02: there's something in the book that says,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_02: you know, Blinka, her best friend, is sort of an oddball kid.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: And she has an oddball grandmother who gives her a lot of courage.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: the grandmother Trout,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: Blinka Trout's grandmother would say, you know, everybody is, no one is normal.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody is not normal.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, Ariel would reply that not being normal is the worst thing in the world to her.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and her, with the magical realism, with the wind, she's the epitome of not normal, right?
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's nobody else
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_02: who can do what she can do.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: There's nobody else that can do it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so that means that if no one else is going to be able to do it,
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: that means there must be a reason she can do it.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: What is her purpose in life?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you get to that by the end of the book.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I want to spoiler alerts, but you get to that at the end of the book,
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: finding out when she truly discovers what her true purpose is.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why tell the story of it's okay to be different, right?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: And conservation and the other themes running through this with the magical realism
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: of this girl who can talk to and walk and fly the wind as opposed
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: to just giving her some other obvious difference as a child that makes her grapple
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: with Her identity and whether this makes her an oddball or as a gift
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: and all these other issues.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Why choose magical realism for the story?
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_02: I think I chose magical realism for the story because of the environmental aspect.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because I didn't want her to
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: disabled in any way.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want her to have a, You know, have
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: emotional or psychotic, you know, problems.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted the environment to have an impact on her.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted her to realize that the environment was important,
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_02: not only to her, but to everyone, to all of us.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I've been a very big supporter of environmental causes for the last few years.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_02: And my last
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote the book before I wrote this was a mystery and that had a lot
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_02: of environmental stuff in it too.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I was already on an environmental kick as
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was going into this book.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it became natural to have Ariel being an environmental writer.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: It became natural for her to make friends with a retired science teacher
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: who was there at the original
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: Days of environmental activism.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that gave me an opportunity to do a little bit
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: of info dumping, I guess.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: But it was fun that way.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I liked doing the research on that and doing the Earth Day research
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_02: and having her connection with Earth Day and having the teacher's connection
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: with Earth Day.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_02: And there being a reporter, a journalist, she would do a story about Earth Day.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_02: That was a natural.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that the key to putting magical realism in is making it believable,
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: but not just believable, but for me not to explain it.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_02: It just is.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: It just is.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I started out with that very young scene of her Forgetting
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_02: to put her her heavy shoes on and going outside and the wind just taking her up in
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_02: the air and whipping her around and banging her into the house and breaking her arm.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that you know to think my kid is up in
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_02: the air floating around up there being whisked around playing with the wind
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: that you know that was magical realism and it was accepted from the very beginning
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: then because we knew that something was gonna She had a part with us.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_02: She had a part in the winds story.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_02: I think this is a wind story, too.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I did.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_02: I've done a lot of and a lot of research about wind and storms
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: and what what what happens in those.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: As a reporter,
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: I used to do things like chase tornadoes,
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: you know, trying to
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: As I was covering tornadoes in
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: Missouri, I would do that.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_02: And wind is something that Minnesotans are very conscious of.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: Wind and weather.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: We always talk about the weather.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think you touched on a really important point about magical realism
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: that what distinguishes it from fantasy is that it is accepted As maybe not normal,
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: it can still be exceptional or weird, but it's within the realm of the story.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's just this thing that happens.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so the magic has to be as real as everything that is ordinary,
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: that is the realism part of it.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: And thinking on the question I asked you,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: why use magical realism instead of something And then applying that question
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: to my magical realism,
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: the stone's throw,
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's absolutely fine just to say that's what I was inspired to write, right?
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's the story that came to me.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's what I wanted to play with as a writer.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: We get to do that.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: But then beyond that,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_01: like with A Stone's Throw, the protagonist, Simona, is pregnant and she's a painter.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_01: She's an artist.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: So there's all of this creative energy sort of running through her and through the story.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she's longing for something.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: She never knew her mother.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_01: So she's longing for a connection to not just her mother,
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: but to mother wisdom,
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: to guidance,
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: to sort of a female Community that can kind of mentor her through this time.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so then the woman she's painting in a mural comes out of the mural.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of comes to life and that's the magical realism there.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there's also this kind of logic and internal logic to the story that I think I was
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: Conscious of inventing, but was, you know, like you needed, it's necessary
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_01: the story.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I wonder if you feel that way about the backstory with Ariel's grandmother
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: and even like if her mother hadn't seen the grandmother flying,
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: if she hadn't grown up with her own secret,
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: it would have been that much more terrifying to see Ariel Get picked up by the wind
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: and everything.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just wondering if you have thoughts on that kind of internal logic
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: of magical realism.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think what makes magical realism work is that the characters accept it.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: Not the reader necessarily, but the characters accept it.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: So from the very beginning,
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Ariel and her mother accept this condition that she has,
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_02: or it's not a condition, it's a gift, that Accepts this.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, life is going to go on.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: How do you raise a five-year-old kid who can float the wind?
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got to do something.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_02: You've got to buy special shoes and try to keep on the ground.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: How do you, you know, how does you, and then you have to send her to school.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't want her floating around in the school.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: she couldn't go to a birthday party at a swim pool because suddenly if she has
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: to take her heavy shoes off to go in the swim pool,
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: the wind can whip her into the air.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: So
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_02: they accept these problems and these issues that are related to magical realism.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that, once again, they just are.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Magical realism just is.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is what is happening now.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And it's not something you have to explain.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's not something you have to, you know, find it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: Find a clear and distinct reason for.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: Magic realism is kind of fuzzy in some ways.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's, you know, yeah,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna step,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_02: you're inviting the reader, step out on the limb with me and you will have a fun.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you're saying with magical realism.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think of magical realism as a miracle It's the aberration.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the spark that happens that is unexpected and unknown, but it's not a system.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's not systemic.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: There aren't 18 people throughout the world that have the ability to fly.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the one...
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's this miraculous thing that has happened to her.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is a gift and it's an opportunity.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's kind of an obligation a little bit.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's got that like duty portion to it.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like you talked about her purpose where it's like,
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've been given this gift, this miracle, this opportunity.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_00: What am I going to do with it?
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the same thing happens with Simona in Alida's book too.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like she feels this obligation to spend time with them and to understand and
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: to gain this wisdom because she's been given this gift.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: She understands it's fleeting.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ariel, too, she has that statement.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: I can choose to be there or not, and this gift is rejectable.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's for me,
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: that's the line between where it's magical realism versus like a magic system is
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: that it's this miraculous moment and this opportunity for the character to interact
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: with something beyond rather than like an act like a layer of story.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I like the word miracle because that's exactly what I think you have to have.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_02: You have to have a belief in miracles to to write Magical realism and to read magical realism.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: Because,
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_02: the most important question that you ask yourself
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_02: when you're writing magical realism is, what is possible in this world?
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what is possible?
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you have to have a belief in magic and miracles.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I guess I do.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_02: I do believe that.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: There are too many unexplainable things in this natural world that just knock my socks off.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_02: So...
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_02: I really think that one of the things that people who are intending
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_02: to write magical realism is don't explain the magic too much.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just let it infiltrate the book.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: Just let it be.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, that's one of the rings.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: As I said, I never used the word wings.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want them flapping their arms.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: I very seldom use the word flying.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_02: I use the word gift of flight, but I use when walking and when riding.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know, things just are.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: An oak tree can bloom roses, a cake that can make you experience the feelings of a baker.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: Those just are.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_02: And if people from the very beginning of the book accept that, then I think the reader will too.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's another good takeaway as well as not to explain it, you know?
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: So even though you might have that kind of internal logic of the story,
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: which we need for consistency,
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: we need for coherence through our narrative,
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: it's not something that gets dissected and analyzed within the story.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's, as you've said, accepted.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: think that...
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: I don't, I didn't ever want to say how she does this.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to give a background of why she can do this from her heritage.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_02: But it's kind of,
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: the wind and her heritage are the two things that really combine
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: to give her this gift.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, and I think that That a little bit isn't connected to the land as well, her farm.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_02: Her farm becomes some place that she really feels the closest to her wind.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I've written a second book,
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_02: I can't talk,
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I can talk about that or not,
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: but down here is the second book to this.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_02: And in that book, I continued to talk about people who are looking for their wind.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_02: Her wind, where is her wind?
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: Her wind is on her farm,
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_02: but she has a child and maybe her child will find her wind someplace else.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Where did her grandmother find her wind?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I kind of look at that as this very personal,
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_02: the wind choosing you in that place
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_02: is
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_02: the land is part of it,
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: the land and the nature.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_01: So why do you think magical realism, these miracles, speak to us?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Why tell these stories?
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: What is it about them?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think it comes back to transcendence.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: It gives us an opportunity to be something else.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_02: It gives us an opportunity to grow, to advance, to...
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_02: Be in another place, in another person's mind.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, sure, fiction always does that.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: But magical realism talks about possibilities.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_02: What are the possibilities here?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_02: And wouldn't it be great if you woke up one morning and you could fly?
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe you were dreaming last night of flying.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've had one woman who told me, I dream of flying all the time.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I asked her where she goes.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, I go over the school ground and I look down and I laugh at the teacher.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I want to do.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it brings out some other, maybe other issues you might have.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what are the possibilities?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: What if I could fly?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: What if I could read minds?
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_02: What if I could,
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: There are so many things that magical realism can do,
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: but by connecting them with the realistic elements of day-to-day life,
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_02: they become even more special and precious.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's interesting.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_01: I like what you said about possibility,
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: you know, and I think maybe the flip side of possibility is desire or longing.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: If I, as a reader,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: invest in Ariel and her gift, and I start thinking, what if I could fly, right?
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there's that yearning there.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: To transcend, to accept my gift, to be exceptional in whatever way is possible for me, right?
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_01: So should we take the miracle in the magical realism story as a metaphor for possibility?
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I suppose so.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, probably possibilities.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's a good idea.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's also, well, no, that's too science fiction.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to say that.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking Star Trek's going where no man has gone before.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_02: But
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: yeah, it's exploring possibilities and realizing that you have possibilities.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, one of the things is that this book is Being different is beautiful.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: Exploring that possibility is very cool.
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I wish that every kid,
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: every junior high and high school kid could recognize that,
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_02: to not shut themselves down.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I noticed that.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_02: You notice with kids who are getting,
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: they're just open and wonderful and talkative and loving to explore things.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: And then they reach about seven or eight and then the peer pressure starts coming in
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: and they don't want to be weird.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: They don't want to be different.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: that being different was actually kind of cool.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot more fun.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: But then, you know, you have to develop the type of skin that you don't care what people think.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not something that kids can do.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: So that's why I wanted to start the book a little bit with her in her childhood.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: Because you don't develop a thick skin in childhood.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_02: You develop it later.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what growth is about, I guess.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where you start recognizing possibilities.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_02: I think that we stop growing.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: When we stop thinking of possibilities, when we think, oh, I'm just going to sit here.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing I can do today but grow old.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: What are the possibilities?
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, maybe I could stand up on a paddleboard.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe if I had good knees, maybe I could.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_02: Those are possibilities.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: Will I try that?
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, but maybe someday.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: Possibilities.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_01: Kathryn, you were looking thoughtful a moment ago.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think it puts a point on purpose and a little bit on destiny too,
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: because I feel like this idea of finding your wind,
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: the one place you're supposed to be in this world.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the end of the book,
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: that purpose to be in the community that she's in and to support and be a part of
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: that wind.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Magical realism and that miracle gives you that.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_00: It defines more permanently that purpose,
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: and that destiny,
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: and it invites you to fulfill it in a way that is both fulfilling for you and for
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: the story, obviously.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like possibility, yes, but also the possibility.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: This purpose-driven, you know, like you have been given this gift.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do about it?
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are you going to,
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: are you going to fulfill it in a way that matters,
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: that makes the difference, that satisfies that gifting?
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, we don't capture the wind.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's impossible to capture the wind.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why the wind is it.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's full of impossibilities.
• 56:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can't catch it.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: You can't change it.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: But she tries.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: She tries very hard to do that and discovers that the only way that she can do
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: that is if she partners or has a relationship with the wind, you know.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I think if we want to take that out farther, you know, it's like if we want to
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_02: If we want to change our natural world, then we've got to be out there doing something with it.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: We've got to establish a relationship with the birds and the trees
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: and everything else in order to affect change.
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_01: So true.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what haven't we talked about related to magical realism?
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything we're missing from this conversation?
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_01: We talked a little bit about how it's different from fantasy,
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_01: maybe where that fuzzy line is and the importance of characters accepting it,
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: not explaining it to the reader,
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_01: how it functions as the miraculous in the story and opens up ideas of possibility
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: and purpose.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pretty good list of takeaways, actually.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: Good summary.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_02: This has been fun.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, the little section that I just started to read gives you more explanation about wind.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I thought it might go into what we were talking about.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_02: This is a section when she's 30 years old,
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_02: she's back at the farm wondering what she's supposed to do.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_02: And she finds a note from her grandmother, whom she inherited her gift from.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so it goes,
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_02: Dear future granddaughter, if you are reading this, it means I passed before we met.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could see you, hold you, guide you through this time.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: I have recently become certain that the wind does not call to my daughter, Sahara.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: Since our gift sometimes skips a generation,
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: I am guessing that you, future granddaughter, will be a wind rider like me.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_02: I know that is scary.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_02: There will be days when you curse this friendship with the wind,
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: and there will be days when it literally makes your heart take flight.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_02: When we who ride the wind are young, it is hard.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_02: It takes time to realize the connection, how the wind binds with our emotions and responds.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: And as kids, our emotions are jitterbugs on the water all over the place.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: I can't tell you how many times I accidentally wind wrecked something because I was
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: in a smit or thoughtless.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: I call this confused bratty wind.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_02: Then you will grow older and learn to dance with the wind.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: You will fly.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_02: The air will lift you, fill you, and your heart will sing at every new experience.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: You will have fun and can't wait to step into the air.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: I call this playmate wind.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_02: Finally, though,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: you will discover that you have the power to meld with the wind,
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: work with it, and partner with it.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: This is when you realize that you are not just wind, but you are sky and trees and grass.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: You are of the elements.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: Your heart beats with theirs.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Your cells respond to the call of their cells.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: You hear the hum of the earth.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_02: I call this true friend wind.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: You probably found my journal in the loft, in the barn, my writing place.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_02: It is like a treehouse there, and I feel comfortable in trees.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: Is it the same with you?
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: When no one is looking,
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: I would stand by the hay door,
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_02: call for my husband Will, and then step out into the air and float into his arms.
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was like drifting home.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_02: Granddaughter, I am sure of one thing.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: This land and the wind that roams here will never abandon you.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_02: They will rejoice with you in your happiest times.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: They will heal you in your darkest moments.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_02: The wind will comfort you, whisper to you, sing to you.
• 1:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: Answer it.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: Listen to it.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_02: Do not be afraid of who you are.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do not be afraid to be extraordinary.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's lovely.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's a calling.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: It strikes me as a calling,
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: not just to Ariel,
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: but to the readers as well and to every person to recognize our connection
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: to nature,
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: to the trees,
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: to the sky,
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_01: to the land,
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: and to answer that call on the level of awareness and appreciation for the gift that
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: the earth is,
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: but then At the end of that letter to answer the call to not be afraid
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: to be exceptional.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: Lovely.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's one of the themes.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: A very strong theme in this book and a beautiful one.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for reading that.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for letting me come and talk to you.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's been delightful.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Our pleasure.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: Sherry, where can our listeners find you and your books?
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have a website, sherry-roberts.com.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_02: All my books are available there.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I talk a little bit about what's going on with writing the book and where I came
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: from for that.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah,
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: I have people go to sherry-roberts.com and send me a note on the contact page
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_02: or read about the books.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: There are seven books now.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_02: Up there is the sixth and down here is the seventh.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: And up there is really about learning what she needs to learn up there.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: And down here then realizes that she's got to learn a whole new set of things
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_02: to deal with life down here on the earth,
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: given her skills and her, you know, it's a,
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: The down here is five years, six years after up here.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_02: So by then she is married.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_02: She has a child who has inherited her gift and she's got to teach her child how to deal with it.
• 1:03:15
  SPEAKER_02: And she has to face her old shadows.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: She does not want to put the heavy shoes on her child.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: She has to teach her child to figure out how to deal with the wind early on,
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: but she also has to teach her how to keep secrets.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: And do you know how to keep a five-year-old how to keep secrets?
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's very difficult.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_02: So the book that follows up is another different place as well.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was interesting when I was writing the second book,
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_02: I actually felt a maturity in her character.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: That I hadn't felt in the first book.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's what happens when you become a mother and a wife.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_02: You just, you know, start tackling things a little differently.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's interesting.
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_01: We could do a whole nother episode on the growth of our characters.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much for joining us at the Story Works Round Table.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: This has been such a pleasure.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: It was a lot of fun.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love talking to you ladies.
• 1:04:32
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• 1:05:15
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