Latest / The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of / Eli McCann Stitched Interview from October 29th, 2026

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Eli McCann Stitched Interview from October 29th, 2026 · The Radio From Hell Show - Best Of

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We are in the presence of a man right now
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: in our studio who the New York Times, what was
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the date on this sometime? October 9th. Said, the quilting
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: novel that stormed the bestseller list. Eli McCann had a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: surprise hit with his debut novel, Stitched. He talks about
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: how he came to write the book and what its
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: success has meant. Good morning, Mr. McCann.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Good morning. Thanks for having me.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: It's my pleasure.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: So we've had Eli on before because he had a book,
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: which is mostly just a compilation of your columns in
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: the Salt Lake Tribune.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll come back anytime you guys will give
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: me attention.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: So you put together those columns, and that sold pretty well.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: We're thankful for the moisture.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're thankful for the moisture.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: We're thankful for the moisture. And so you wrote this novel, Stitched.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Why don't we just begin by telling us what it's about?
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: This is a book about a group of older women
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: who have been quilting together for decades, preparing for a
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: competition against their bitter rivals. And in the process, they
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: invite two younger gay men to join their group and
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: teach them how to quilt.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: And the women in this book are based out of Ogden, Utah.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah. My hometown.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Your hometown.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: And the rival group that they hate, the villains, are
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: based out of Logan, Utah.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I would have made it Brigham City. Or
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: North Ogden. Because people in Ogden hate people in North Ogden.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. The competition that they're all attending is
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: in Smithfield, Utah. Oh, perfect.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we've got small-town drama going on here. Part
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: of it takes place in Salt Lake City, Sugar House area.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: How do you do a quilting competition? And how do you,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: as an author, find out about all of that? Or
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: were you one of the gay men who were invited
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to do it? No.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: So this book was inspired by my mom and her friends.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: My mom has been in her quilting group for 47 years.
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: They're called Common Threads. And I grew up under a
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: quilt frame and grew up around this. And about five
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: years ago, I was at dinner with my husband and
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: my parents, and my mom suddenly leaned across the table
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: and said, There is so much drama going on in
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: the quilting world right now. And then she spent the
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: next two hours at dinner telling us about all the
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: drama that was going on and the competition that she
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: had coming up and how they participated.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: And we found it riveting.
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: And so when we left dinner that night, my husband
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Skyler said to me, you need to write a book
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: about this.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: This is really funny.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: And so he and I came up with the idea
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: for the story of what ended up being the story
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: of Stitched. And so I started writing it, and I thought,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: I don't know if anybody's ever going to read this,
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: but I wrote the damn thing, and it was kind
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: of fun to write.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: You enjoyed it. You enjoyed the process. So how do
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: they compete? That's what I don't understand. How do you
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: compete in a quilting?
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so in the book, they enter a competition where
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: there is a theme for everybody's supposed to make a
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: quilt on theme, and the theme in the competition is,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: I wish I knew how to quilt you.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Which is a play on Brokeback Mountain.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: And it's, it's supposed to be quilts in the, in the,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: in the vein of forbidden famous relationships. And so the,
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: everybody's supposed to come up with an idea to design
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: a quilt around a famous forbidden relationship. And so, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: then they, they all there, you know, there are criteria
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: they're supposed to hand quilt. They're supposed to, create quilts
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: of a certain size, and then groups can enter their
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: quilts into this competition, and they're all judged against one another,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: and they all get scored.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I was sort of picturing, for some reason, that they
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: were all sitting there quilting at each other, but they
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: make the quilt, and then they take them and have
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: them do it. Is Lilith involved in the relationship? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: No, it's no, it was, it was really fun to
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: write the book. And by the way, it was so
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: hard for me to get it published. I looked for
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: a publisher for like a year and kept being told
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: by publishers across the country. We're not sure that there's
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: a market for a book about older women in Utah quilting.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: And yeah, truly. So then do you go to them
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: with your New York Times listing?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, how do you like me now?
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's been pretty vindicating.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the book debuted at number five on the New
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: York Times list last month. And and I had been
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: pressured by so many publishers to change it and write it,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: rewrite it and have it be about younger women and
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: write romance into it and all this stuff. And it
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: was so frustrating to me because I just thought, who wouldn't?
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: This is so funny to me. And I was also
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: pressured to rewrite it and have it take place like
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: in a coastal city because people thought like nobody wants
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: to read about people in Utah, which was offensive to me.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And finally, I ended up working with Torrey House Press,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: which is a local publisher, nonprofit press.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: They're located in Torrey?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: In Salt Lake City.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: They're in Salt Lake City, but the founder came from Torrey.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: And so that's why she named it Torrey House Press.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: And they were they've been an incredible partner for me.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: And sure enough, the book, there was a market for
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: it and it's done really well.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that you. So I know that
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in the writing process, when you're trying to get something published,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you work with editors and they. read it, and then
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: they make all these suggestions of how you should change it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And you didn't crumble under any of that?
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't crumble under that with publishers that were trying
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: to get me to rewrite it to be something completely different.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Once I started working with Torrey House Press, the editors
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: at Torrey House Press had a lot of really valuable suggestions.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: And so I ended up working with them quite a
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: lot on Improving the story, but they did not want
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: to change it into something different.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: They just wanted to improve what it was.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: And then they– so they submitted to the reviewers at
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the New York Times and reviewers around the country. And
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: were you– what was– as you waited for that to
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: come in– I mean I remember being in plays and
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: waiting for the reviews to come in the next day
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: or that night or– What was it like waiting for that?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: I was nervous.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: This is my first novel, and I thought it was good,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: but I could have been wrong. But we started getting
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: reviews from the trade magazines, the trade publications, late this summer,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: and they were all really glowing and really positive. And
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: then once it made the New York Times list, the
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: New York Times did a review and wrote a profile
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: on me, and it was glowing. And so I feel very...
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: vindicated in that way validated yeah so.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: It debuted at number five on the new york times
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: list it's called stitched by our the guy we're talking
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: to eli mccann uh on september 27th is it still on.
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: The list um i it wasn't on the list this
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: week it's been on and off the list and usa
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: today so yeah.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: They they have really good things to say about it
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: in this review yeah in the new york times it's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: just uh And they quote you as telling the story
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: that you just told us. Yeah. That's just fantastic. How
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: do we get this to Gene Smart?
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: And make a Netflix series out of it.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I'm casting it right away.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: That's a great idea.
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what I can tell you is I've had a
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: lot of meetings with people who are interested in optioning
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: this for film or TV, and I'm very close to
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: finalizing a deal for film right now.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And you can't tell us anything more than that.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Not right now. Maybe next week I could.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: We'll have you back when you can tell us.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: As soon as you have news, let us know.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: It's Eli McCann. It's Stitched. I'm sure you can get
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: a Kindle version of it if you want. Yep.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I also recorded the audio book. Yeah, you're the perfect
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: person for that.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, you're a good storyteller and telling your
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: own story here. This is great.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to read it.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to read it, and I'm excited for you,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: and I feel like I know somebody really famous now.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Thank you, guys. I really appreciate you having me here.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: It's Eli McCann, and the book is Stitched, Get it now.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Torrey House Press is the publisher and supported by Back
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: of Beyond Books, Brightside Bookshop, and King's English, of course.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, go up to King's English.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go get it at King's English. We got a
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: free copy. Yeah. Thanks, Eli. I want to sign it.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I'll sign it. I'll be happy to.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Eli.