Latest / Romancing the Threshold / Kelly Jarvis on the Power of the Small

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Kelly Jarvis on the Power of the Small · Romancing the Threshold

• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Picture a shoreline,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: the tide going out and the sand wet and shining,
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: that bright seam where the water hands the land back its edge.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is an ancient edge between us humans and the gods and their magic.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: The Greeks said the goddess of love was born here,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: rising out of the sea foam,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: arriving on a shell already herself.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: The land of Venus, where love comes ashore.
• 0:57
  And there's a certain kind of person who walks a beach like
• 1:00
  this and cannot stop
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: bending down to pick up things.
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  A shell,
• 1:07
  a smooth piece of sea glass,
• 1:09
  a stone with a hole worn clean through it.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: They don't always know why they pick this one and not that one.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: They just know it's worth keeping.
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  And if you're lucky,
• 1:21
  they will hold the shell to your ear and tell you what the sea
• 1:25
  is saying.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: My guest today is one of those people.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome to Romancing the Threshold.
• 1:32
  I'm Vanessa Couto and I'm so glad you're here with me and my
• 1:36
  guest Kelly Jarvis who
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: is a writer,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: a poet and a professor of literature.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Which is to say,
• 1:43
  she has spent her whole life walking the short line of stories
• 1:47
  and pocketing the
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: pieces that the so-called serious world steps right over.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's fairy tales, folklore.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The genres we are taught they are too small to be worth much.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Her debut novel,
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sea and Stars,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: comes out July 7th,
• 2:07
  and it's a gothic retelling of Beauty and the Beast set between
• 2:10
  the wild fairy
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: country of the Eye of Skye in Scotland and the old wailing town of mystic
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Connecticut.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to listen to.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Kelly comes at all of this through literature,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: climbing up through the text the way she was trained to.
• 2:30
  I come at it from the other direction,
• 2:33
  down through myth and psychology,
• 2:36
  and yes,
• 2:37
  the stars.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And right in the middle of this conversation, we meet.
• 2:42
  She has a lovely old name for that meeting,
• 2:45
  borrowed from the world of fairy tale.
• 2:48
  She calls it sky magic and earth magic So this is a
• 2:52
  conversation about small magic
• 2:55
  The kind that lives in herbs and tea And the choice to really
• 2:59
  see someone And
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: underneath it,
• 3:02
  the question I keep circling back to Why is it always the
• 3:06
  things we've been told to
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: dismiss?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: The fluff,
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: the fairy tale,
• 3:11
  the love story That turn out to be carrying the medicine So
• 3:16
  let's go find out
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right, Kelly, how are you doing?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm good.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: I love your podcast and I'm delighted to be a part of it.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:29
  I've loved your book and it's been really good having our
• 3:33
  little chats on Instagram
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: since we met through the magic of Instagram.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And well,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: thank to Sharon Lynn Fisher,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: too,
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: because I think that's how we met through the podcast I did with her.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 3:48
  one thing we were just chatting before I started recording is
• 3:52
  the experience of
• 3:55
  writing you as a professor and teaching literature and now as
• 4:01
  the writer and how
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: now meeting readers and getting to hear what they see in your book.
• 4:10
  And you just before we hit record,
• 4:12
  you mentioned something that Emerson said.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we could start there.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was an interesting
• 4:18
  I think it was Emerson who said that there's creative writing
• 4:26
  and there's creative reading.
• 4:28
  So the writer brings something to a story,
• 4:31
  but the reader also brings something to a story.
• 4:34
  And I've always believed that the meaning of a story is created
• 4:37
  in that liminal
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: space between the writer and the reader.
• 4:42
  so it is interesting to be both a teacher of stories and a
• 4:46
  writer of stories
• 4:47
  because I am simultaneously thinking of the story that I want
• 4:52
  to tell and the story
• 4:54
  that someone will one day be reading and how's that process for
• 4:58
  you is it does it
• 5:01
  help you like put the let the flow of creativity run through
• 5:06
  you or does it play
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: out in a different way
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: My process is probably a little bit of a mess because of it,
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: because I think about things from every possible angle.
• 5:19
  So I don't know that I have the most efficient process for
• 5:22
  writing,
• 5:23
  for sure.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it's just the way that my brain works.
• 5:27
  I've been thinking about stories and talking about stories for
• 5:30
  so long that I see
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: them as separate from myself even when I'm writing them.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, two things I hear that I think it's already interesting.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: One,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I have heard this from other authors,
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  SPEAKER_00: so I think it's really interesting to our culture.
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  SPEAKER_00: It says something about our culture.
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  SPEAKER_00: The writer is saying, oh, my process is messy.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if this is how you feel,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I feel even for myself when I say,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: my process is also messy.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: There's a tone of judgment as if it shouldn't be.
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  SPEAKER_00: But part of me is I call creativity in general is to me,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: at least more of a spiral rather than a linear process.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if we want efficiency,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: then we'll just give it to computer and I will just give it to them.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they will do the efficient thing.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: But as a creative, I feel.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's a there's a pregnancy, there's a gestation and
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Labor and labor is messy, you know, it is messy.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, why do we think it needs to be neat?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just your process.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: I love your image of the spiral,
• 6:49
  because I think that definitely speaks to the way I certainly
• 6:53
  create that idea of
• 6:54
  looping back around and going back to the beginning after you
• 6:57
  move forward.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: That that's just very much.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: much encapsulates the way that I tend to write.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that you don't judge the fact that creation is messy.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes in creation stories,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: right,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: stories about the creation of the universe,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: you have this idea of creation from chaos or someone diving down into the
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: primordial ocean and bringing something up.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: from the depths.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think that none of that is neat or efficient either.
• 7:28
  So I definitely don't mean to judge my process or anyone's
• 7:32
  process by saying that
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: it's messy,
• 7:35
  but it's a hard thing to talk about because it is not something
• 7:38
  that happens in a
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  SPEAKER_01: linear fashion.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I feel
• 7:45
  Just in terms of the culture that we live in and this
• 7:47
  optimization and improvements
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  SPEAKER_00: and I feel like stop.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just allow it and see how it goes, you know, a little bit.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have a container for it, but let's see how it goes.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe we will become a culture that is less neurotic.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's my that's my hope.
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  That's just my Pollyanna,
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  you know,
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  hope that if we normalize it,
• 8:11
  it becomes a bit more.
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  SPEAKER_00: It just is.
• 8:14
  yeah romanticize it and cherish it and we know romance is messy
• 8:20
  romance is messy as
• 8:22
  well yes so well just a little bit background for the for the
• 8:28
  listener here and of
• 8:30
  course I'll have this in the beginning but one of the things
• 8:33
  that we met through
• 8:34
  Instagram and all that but I got to read your book that's
• 8:37
  coming out in July July
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  SPEAKER_00: 7th yes uh so
• 8:42
  I'm pitching already run pre-order get it it's nothing else
• 8:47
  it's a beautiful cover
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  um but the book Sea and Stars and I had a pleasure of reading
• 8:53
  it and I loved it
• 8:55
  because it was so it had a feel you know it's one of these
• 9:00
  books that I felt like I
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: still go there it's like you know when you finish a book and you miss it
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And even when you're still reading it, you miss it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: you go about your day,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: you had to pause and you're like,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just I'm ready to go back.
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  You know,
• 9:17
  I'm ready to go back to the to that to that vibe,
• 9:21
  you know,
• 9:22
  to the vibe of the book.
• 9:25
  And and it's interesting because it's not a part of I have not
• 9:29
  read a lot of
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: historical novels of romance,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I love history.
• 9:36
  But to me,
• 9:37
  mid-1800s in the U.S.
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  is not a part of history that I'm a huge fan.
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  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, but I was transported by it.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was really.
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  And so it kind of even changed my mind around that,
• 9:52
  you know,
• 9:53
  this time in history of the U.S.,
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  But I was curious here as the creator,
• 9:59
  how did sea and stars arrive for you?
• 10:02
  I know you have a little bit in at the end of the book in your
• 10:05
  notes of how it came to be.
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  SPEAKER_00: But tell us,
• 10:08
  what was the first thing you saw or felt or kind of felt
• 10:14
  touched by the characters
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  SPEAKER_00: of this story?
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  SPEAKER_01: Well,
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  first I want to thank you because that's one of the kindest
• 10:21
  things I think you
• 10:22
  could say to someone who's written a book is that you miss the
• 10:26
  book or you think
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: about the book even after you've put it down.
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  SPEAKER_01: So that just means the world to me.
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  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for saying that.
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  But Sea and Stars did begin as a little character vignette that
• 10:37
  I had written for
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: the Fairytale magazine.
• 10:39
  It was called Midsummer Magic and it was about a woman named
• 10:43
  Arabella Porter who
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: was the last in a long line of
• 10:46
  fairy healers from somewhere in Scotland and she was just
• 10:51
  wandering around through
• 10:52
  the woods collecting ingredients for her potions and her spells
• 10:55
  it was very very
• 10:56
  short and when I sent it to my editor at the magazine she said
• 11:00
  to me Kelly I love
• 11:02
  it you have to give her a romance that that was her immediate
• 11:05
  reaction to the story
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: that I had written so
• 11:10
  I the next year she asked me to write another piece for the
• 11:13
  summer solstice and I
• 11:14
  returned to the character of Arabella and this time she had
• 11:18
  moved across the ocean
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  to America she was isolated alone and she did the little ritual
• 11:23
  that she does in
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: the book on
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: on the Summer Solstice and met a character named James Alden.
• 11:28
  And again,
• 11:28
  it was very short,
• 11:29
  only 1500 words,
• 11:31
  and it stopped just after they had met.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I submitted that to her and she said, we are not publishing this.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: You are going to write this as a romance novel.
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  So it very much began with the characters and the feel of the
• 11:45
  characters and the
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: love that they had for one another.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And everything grew out of that.
• 11:52
  I wasn't really sure when I was writing those early pieces
• 11:56
  exactly what the
• 11:59
  setting was either the the physical setting or the temporal
• 12:02
  setting it was just
• 12:03
  something that happened in this world of story and in this time
• 12:07
  of story and it
• 12:08
  wasn't until I started researching to write the novel that I
• 12:12
  really assigned places
• 12:15
  and a specific time to the story and I landed on the 19th
• 12:20
  century because for me
• 12:21
  the 19th century is my comfort century more the British
• 12:25
  literature right I love
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: that's
• 12:27
  that's what I would say too yeah right oh I love Regency
• 12:31
  romance and I love
• 12:32
  Victorian romance um but but as you say in America in the 1800s
• 12:38
  that's that's a
• 12:39
  little bit of a different thing um but but I just kind of went
• 12:44
  from there and and
• 12:46
  that's how the story turned out yeah no I'm with you you know
• 12:50
  I'm a Jane Austen
• 12:51
  girl you know the Victoria you know all that you know you got a
• 12:54
  top hat you know
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm
• 12:57
  corset sign me up there's a castle I'm in yeah you know you
• 13:00
  can't beat a corset in
• 13:01
  a castle cannot period BBC right there of course in a castle
• 13:07
  absolutely um but this
• 13:09
  is interesting but I'm maybe you might not even remember but
• 13:14
  I'm curious how did
• 13:15
  you know Arabella even come to you from that little vignette
• 13:19
  how did she knock on
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: your door
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good question.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was a long time ago that I first wrote that story.
• 13:27
  I think it was in 2021 that I wrote that for the magazine and
• 13:31
  my editor had just
• 13:33
  asked me to write a piece for the summer solstice so that we
• 13:36
  could post it on our
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: socials and
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking about what I could write about and there she was.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sure exactly where I found her or where I get any of my ideas.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think they come from somewhere outside of myself.
• 13:54
  I like to use the analogy of walking along the shore and there
• 13:57
  are all kinds of
• 13:58
  shells and rocks and bits of broken glass along the shore and
• 14:02
  as you're walking you
• 14:03
  pick up the pieces that catch your eye and I think that telling
• 14:06
  stories is a lot
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: like that you just find little things that catch your eye and somehow you
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: metabolize them into a fully formed story.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 14:18
  I'm just thinking here the way I felt the character of Arabella
• 14:23
  was that she had
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: this quiet,
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: very grounded presence.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: But at times I felt that
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like the story was about him,
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: not so much about her,
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: but that her magic,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: if you will,
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: her presence was a catalyst.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: There was a gentleness to her.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So as you're telling me how you felt her,
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of sensing as if she's to me,
• 14:50
  she showed up to you in the kind of in the same way I felt her
• 14:55
  presence in the
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: story.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever the veil she crossed to your story,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: it was just as gentle as sort of,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: not pushing.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: She was in demand to give me the whole book.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: She was like, no, I'm OK.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, it's fine.
• 15:11
  that's really beautiful yeah and I have had people who read the
• 15:14
  book and feel it is
• 15:15
  more centered on Arabella and then some people feel it's more
• 15:18
  centered on James and
• 15:20
  some people feel it's about their relationship and other people
• 15:24
  feel it's about the
• 15:25
  magic and I suppose it's about all of those things in part and
• 15:29
  then it's what the
• 15:29
  reader brings and what the reader sees in the story so I love
• 15:34
  that you do love
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: James as a character because I also love James
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: How can we not love James?
• 15:40
  I'm just I'm not giving any more,
• 15:42
  but,
• 15:42
  you know,
• 15:42
  I'll leave it to the listener.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, yeah, can't.
• 15:48
  But he also mentioned that,
• 15:50
  you know,
• 15:50
  it is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we're getting to your story.
• 15:55
  wheelhouse here of fairy tales what is it about beauty and the
• 16:01
  beast and what's the
• 16:02
  other myth that's even kind of in the story east of I always
• 16:06
  confuse I love that
• 16:07
  story and every east of the moon west of the sun east of the
• 16:09
  sun west of the moon
• 16:10
  yeah love that story can never remember the title but um what
• 16:15
  is it about these two
• 16:17
  fairy tales and even a little bit of the dash of a little blue
• 16:22
  beard happening um
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is it about these fairy tales that sort of inspired you?
• 16:30
  So Beauty and the Beast has always been my favorite fairy tale
• 16:33
  since I first saw it.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: And my first introduction to Beauty and the Beast was the Disney movie.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: I went to see it when it came out.
• 16:40
  I think I was in high school at the time and I went to see it
• 16:43
  with my boyfriend and
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: I absolutely fell in love with the story of Beauty and the Beast.
• 16:49
  and I loved the character of Belle in the Disney movie because
• 16:53
  she had brown hair
• 16:55
  and she loved to read and she felt like she was outside of the
• 17:00
  world that she lived
• 17:01
  in and she dreamed of something more that she could only
• 17:04
  articulate as adventure in
• 17:06
  the great wide somewhere but she wanted it so fiercely and she
• 17:11
  was also beautiful
• 17:13
  and I thought that that was really interesting because
• 17:16
  everything that I had read
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: up until that point
• 17:19
  The smart girl or the girl who liked to read was never the
• 17:22
  beautiful one or the desirable one.
• 17:25
  So I really loved that Disney in their iteration of Beauty and
• 17:29
  the Beast gave us
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: this character who didn't have to fit into one of those two boxes,
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: but that she could occupy both.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I really loved that.
• 17:39
  And it wasn't until I was older that I read Beaumont's version
• 17:42
  of Beauty and the
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Beast and East of the Sun West of the Moon,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: which is an older,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: earlier orally circulated variant of Beauty and the Beast.
• 17:51
  And I think that the thing that I really love about all of the
• 17:55
  Beauty and the Beast
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: variants is the emphasis on choice.
• 18:01
  Some people will say Beauty and the Beast is a story about
• 18:03
  Stockholm Syndrome.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually disagree.
• 18:06
  I really think that Beauty and the Beast is a story that gives
• 18:11
  the protagonist choice.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think it's a story...
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: that has a thread of authenticity to it,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: that the beast loves beauty,
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: not because she's beautiful,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: but because of who she is.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And beauty loves the beast,
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: not in spite of the fact he's a beast,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: but because of who he is as well.
• 18:32
  And I think when someone loves you in that very authentic way
• 18:36
  and chooses you,
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: that that can be a really empowering thing.
• 18:42
  So I think I've always been drawn to the fairy tale of Beauty
• 18:45
  and the Beast.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: Bluebeard is in many ways the shadow tale of Beauty and the Beast.
• 18:49
  And oftentimes I teach them together when I'm teaching my fairy
• 18:53
  tale and folklore
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: class because,
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: beauty follows.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's why they manifest in my story.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: When I went to turn my vignettes into a novel,
• 19:20
  of course I looked to fairy tales to help me do that because I
• 19:24
  do work for the
• 19:25
  fairy tale magazine so I spend a lot of my time rewriting and
• 19:29
  reworking fairy tales
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: for adult audiences.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: I chose Beauty and the Beast because it is my favorite story,
• 19:36
  but also because Arabella's name sort of fit into the idea of
• 19:42
  Beauty and the Beast.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, it means beautiful and it means prayer.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And the first part of the name air,
• 19:48
  the air in Arabella reminded me a little bit of Jane Eyre right
• 19:53
  from Charlotte
• 19:54
  Bronte's novel and I would argue that Jane Eyre is also a
• 19:57
  Beauty and the Beast and
• 19:58
  absolutely as well so I think it sort of made sense from there
• 20:04
  to use Beauty and
• 20:05
  the Beast as a template for putting James and Arabella together
• 20:09
  in a romantic story
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I Beauty and the Beast is also my favorite fairy tale.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was not introduced by it with Disney much earlier.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: My mother gave me this mass.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was a giant book big that all these fairy tales and they had that one.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't the Disney.
• 20:30
  but like yourself what I liked about beauty was in a way that
• 20:35
  she let's just say
• 20:36
  she was the intellectual heroine I mean she was well read she
• 20:40
  liked to read and as
• 20:41
  a book lover I was even as a kid I was like this is my girl
• 20:45
  this is my girl but I
• 20:48
  think even then as a kid and then later as a teenager I've
• 20:54
  always felt attracted to
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: that story because to me it's the
• 20:58
  it's the ability to see beyond the appearance and it always
• 21:04
  stayed with me so to
• 21:05
  this day any story that says oh it's based on Beauty and the
• 21:08
  Beast I'm like sign me
• 21:09
  up I'm here I'm here for it at a castle and I'm really in it
• 21:15
  but I think it's a
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: deeply psychological story and I
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can see why people would say it's the Stockholm syndrome,
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: which,
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: by the way,
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: just recently I read that it was a kind of a fake diagnosis.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: The woman who they they played,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: they say,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: she was the reason why the guy,
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: the psychiatrist came up with the idea of a Stockholm syndrome.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: She has written and said it was not that, you know, so.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what's interesting about Beauty and the Beast
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: for these times,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: because as we're seeing,
• 21:53
  there are a lot of retellings of fairy tales and romance
• 21:58
  authors are using fairy
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: tales one way or another.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that and even because I'm a lover of monster romance,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: that's an homage to Beauty and the Beast.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something the zeitgeist is saying,
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 22:11
  this is needed because we are living in a culture that we can't
• 22:15
  tell what we see.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Appearances are no longer factual in a way.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it plays to a deeper part.
• 22:28
  There's something very embodied about the beast as a character
• 22:33
  and falling in love
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: with the beast as a beast,
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: She doesn't think he's going to transform into a prince.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the reason she falls in love with
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: She truly loves him as he is.
• 22:43
  And there's something appealing,
• 22:45
  I think,
• 22:45
  about the animal parts of who we are.
• 22:50
  And I think we do culturally tend to dismiss the animal parts
• 22:54
  as being less important.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a real invitation back to the body, right?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is, all their senses are very pronounced, right?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if you think about,
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 23:28
  since you work with fairy tales and this fairy tale has stayed
• 23:34
  relevant on and on
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: through the centuries,
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: what does it keep teaching you as an individual?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And having written a whole book kind of inspired by it,
• 23:47
  what did what did it ask of you this time around that's such an
• 23:51
  interesting
• 23:52
  question and I think that you're hitting on something about how
• 23:56
  fairy tales work in
• 23:57
  general which is that they on the surface seem to teach such
• 24:01
  simple lessons right
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: look beneath the surface learn to
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: vanessacout
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: for that reason.
• 24:32
  Beauty and the Beast is one of the oldest and most popular of
• 24:36
  all fairy tales that
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: have been circulated.
• 24:39
  You can trace its history back,
• 24:41
  you know,
• 24:42
  further than many other fairy tales.
• 24:44
  And I do think there's something about the animal nature of our
• 24:50
  human existence
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: that is important to that tale and that keeps that tale relevant.
• 24:56
  Because no matter how intellectual or how rational we are,
• 25:02
  we are bodies,
• 25:05
  right?
• 25:05
  We are born and we live and we die and we live this sensing
• 25:10
  existence on this earth
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: and I think the beast has some lesson to teach us about that.
• 25:17
  When I was using Beauty and the Beast for my book,
• 25:20
  of course,
• 25:20
  mine's not a monster romance.
• 25:22
  Not that I don't love a good monster romance,
• 25:24
  but I don't have a monster in my book.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: So James, my beast character is beastly in other ways, right?
• 25:32
  so I had to really think about the story of Beauty and the
• 25:36
  Beast metaphorically you
• 25:38
  know what is it that makes Beauty beautiful beyond her surface
• 25:42
  what is it that
• 25:43
  makes the Beast beastly beyond his surface characteristics and
• 25:48
  I think that writing
• 25:49
  Sea and Stars helped me to explore the beauty and the
• 25:53
  beastliness within the human
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: as I was telling the story
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was much more psychological to me.
• 26:05
  And the scene that comes to mind for me that really stayed with
• 26:08
  me is when he does
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: not kill the whale when he's younger and he gets beaten for it,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: for disobeying the captain.
• 26:17
  And that really stirred me because I felt this was a great
• 26:22
  scene that encaptures
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: how,
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: in many ways,
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: men are made into beasts.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: by the very system that captures them, if you will.
• 26:33
  The society,
• 26:36
  the culture strips the sensitivity out of them,
• 26:40
  literally whipping it out of them.
• 26:42
  And I thought that scene,
• 26:44
  even though it was sort of a small scene,
• 26:47
  it fell to me.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could see the monstrosity that James was made into.
• 26:53
  and in a way that he thought he was and how being with Arabella
• 26:59
  was a catalyst for
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: him coming back to be humane.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And he was doing things to be humane.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, yes, it was very psychological.
• 27:09
  I think it's a good point to see how do we see the beast and
• 27:12
  the beauty when the
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: surface is,
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: doesn't look like it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:21
  um I was thinking also here about when you're talking about the
• 27:25
  body um this is I
• 27:29
  don't know maybe four years ago now actually I um I did an
• 27:35
  ayahuasca I was in an
• 27:37
  ayahuasca ceremony and it was it really changed my life like it
• 27:41
  was one of those
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: sort of experiences that um
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you will,
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: if you ever seen this illustration,
• 27:46
  it shows a man looking beyond sort of the dome of the sky and
• 27:51
  seeing the universe.
• 27:52
  It's an old woodcut image of a man kind of on his knees and
• 27:58
  he's peeking beyond the
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: the sky dome and he sees the universe.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like that.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was sort of like mind blown.
• 28:07
  And one of the things that stayed with,
• 28:09
  well,
• 28:09
  many things stayed from that experience.
• 28:11
  But one of the things that stayed with me was the relationship
• 28:16
  with the body and
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: the experience of feeling like,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: my God,
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: this body,
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: it isn't just a vessel to carry the soul of the spirit.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was a true companion.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't its twin.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was no spirit or soul without the body.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember coming back from that experience really like,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: wow,
• 28:40
  the body isn't just this performance machine that I got to eat
• 28:45
  the healthy stuff or
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: to keep it going.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is not.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is the true container.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it really changed my relationship with the
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: the things that are physical.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you look at the world around you,
• 29:00
  you can start seeing I really got me thinking about the non the
• 29:05
  non-human in the
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: world.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we are so human focused because, of course, it's us.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a whole universe around us speaking other languages,
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: but they just don't happen to be human.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I really was drawn to monster romance.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love Beauty and the Beast, but
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it has to do with the sense of the body,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: the bringing back of the wild,
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: the wild element that isn't fit for cocktail party conversations.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that wild element is so important.
• 29:42
  And even the magical systems in my book,
• 29:45
  I think lean into that wild element.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: element.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: There's not a lot of high fantasy in my book,
• 29:51
  but there's just a hint of fairy magic sort of out of the
• 29:54
  corner of your eye.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's very much associated with the earth.
• 29:58
  I love that you say you felt like Arabella was very earthly as
• 30:03
  a character because
• 30:04
  she is very much associated with the earth and the herbs and
• 30:08
  the growth of plants
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: and that sort of fairy magic that does come from
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: from the land itself.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the plants,
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: maybe the sunlight,
• 30:18
  maybe the ocean water is speaking to us in ways that we just
• 30:22
  can't comprehend.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that is in some way a form of magic.
• 30:27
  So it all kind of loops back around together that we do have
• 30:30
  this embodied
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: experience on this earth in this life.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: We only know this life through our bodies.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's no...
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: The sense I had from that journey is that there's no rising,
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: if not through the deepening of the body,
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: of the physicality.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is the whole, if you will, program of this planet.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the physicality.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: We go through the physical.
• 30:57
  So there are parts in the book when she's talking about the
• 31:00
  plants and the tea.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was all very, if you will, kind of like small magic, everyday magic.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: It just is.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And but it was her
• 31:12
  the way she her perspective into doing those things to me felt
• 31:18
  we can do this.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: We probably do this all the time.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're just not aware that.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's really what love is, too.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I think it's a perspective.
• 31:27
  It's seeing someone and seeing the potential that you have to
• 31:32
  build a life with this person.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's it is a way of seeing romance, I think, to some extent, maybe.
• 31:40
  so it's I don't know it's cool to think about how all these
• 31:43
  things come together
• 31:44
  yeah well another part that I felt was a sort of two other
• 31:50
  characters in the book
• 31:52
  were the locations yes Eye of Sky and Mystic Connecticut
• 31:57
  Connecticut and how tell
• 32:02
  me a little bit about that sense of these characters the
• 32:05
  physicality of these
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: characters for you um
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: your choice in making them.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: So Sea and Stars is a Gothic romance.
• 32:15
  And in the Gothic tradition,
• 32:17
  the setting really acts as a character,
• 32:20
  right?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's reflective of the characters who live within it.
• 32:23
  So I knew because I wanted to tell a Gothic story that the
• 32:28
  settings would be very important.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: and Arabella came to me sort of vaguely Scottish.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: So when I was looking to set her in a specific location,
• 32:38
  I very quickly settled upon the Isle of Skye because it's
• 32:41
  steeped in fairy magic,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: as you know,
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: because you made a pilgrimage there,
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 32:46
  And there's the fairy glen and the fairy pools and all of this
• 32:49
  fairy lore associated with it.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it really made sense that she would come from this particular place.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted the place to reflect
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: the beauty and the tenacity of the whole Porter line, right?
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: That they were,
• 33:08
  that Skye was so embedded in their sense of who they were that
• 33:12
  it almost couldn't
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: be separated from them.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had Skye first and I knew that she was coming to America,
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: but I hadn't really settled on a place that
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I decided to use Mystic,
• 33:26
  which surprised me when I first realized that I would set the
• 33:30
  story in Mystic
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: because this is a place,
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: unlike Skye,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_01: that I have been to quite often.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: I don't live that far from Mystic.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in central Connecticut and it's on the coast.
• 33:40
  But we go to Mystic all the time and my husband and I love
• 33:43
  Mystic and our kids have
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: grown up in Mystic and we go there year round.
• 33:48
  And it was interesting to set a story in a place that I had
• 33:53
  been because Sky and
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: the setting of my first book,
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: which was Orkney,
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: an archipelago of Ireland from Scotland,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been to either place.
• 34:05
  So I had to really learn to look at Mystic through the eyes of
• 34:09
  someone who had
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: never seen it before.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: And in some ways that was a little bit harder to write about.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: In terms of using Sky and using Orkney for my first book,
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very called to those places,
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_01: to those wild kind of Celtic environments.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know why.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love the stories.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: I love the settings.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love the way those places look.
• 34:34
  I would love to travel to them one day I told my husband I'm
• 34:36
  going to keep writing
• 34:37
  about them until he brings me there so eventually he'll have no
• 34:41
  choice but I do
• 34:42
  have Celtic ancestry mostly Irish and I don't know if that's
• 34:47
  one of the reasons why
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: those places appeal to me sometimes I think about
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: That call that we have toward a particular place.
• 34:56
  And I remember when my kids were little and we'd put them each
• 34:59
  to bed to sleep in
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: their own beds in their own rooms.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: And inevitably,
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: they would always in the night,
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: come into our beds,
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: wake up in the morning.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be right between my husband and I,
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: or when my kids were sick or sad or scared,
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: they would make a beeline straight to me,
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: not because anything I had to say would comfort them,
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: but I think simply because being in my presence was comforting.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think in some way,
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: as humans,
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: this is maybe a bodily thing,
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: but we're drawn back
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: to our origin or the place of our making in some way.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if that's why I'm so entranced by these Celtic lands,
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: but I like to think maybe it's my blood drawing me back.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope that I do
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: these places justice when I describe them and set my books there.
• 35:49
  But I very much wanted those two settings to function as
• 35:54
  representatives of James
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: and Arabella and the Porter family and the Alden family.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:02
  Now,
• 36:02
  I mean,
• 36:03
  it's interesting because,
• 36:04
  of course,
• 36:04
  the midnight was like,
• 36:05
  oh,
• 36:05
  I'll sky.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sign me up.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like yourself, I was always drawn to those places.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I
• 36:13
  it's kind of a joke like whenever March 17th comes around you
• 36:17
  know everybody goes
• 36:19
  Irish and I'm like I really wish I had a drop of it I have
• 36:22
  nothing but I've always
• 36:26
  been drawn to the Celtic stuff always and I apparently I have a
• 36:32
  little tiny dash in
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: it that's all you need
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's all you need.
• 36:38
  I mean,
• 36:38
  I'm really just claiming that I've done the ancestry like the
• 36:42
  DNA ancestry.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that northern Portugal, a lot of my ancestors came from there.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was Celtic.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Portugal was Celtic.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, I'm sticking to some Celtic there.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: But there's something to the land of sky for sure.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: And Orkney as well that you are like, oh, I am in a liminal space.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is different.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: You you are.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I had the experience and I was very glad to be able to go.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like a pilgrimage because it was so different.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sky was extremely powerful.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those mountains mean business.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Those rocks mean business.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so in reading Arabella,
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 37:22
  like I could see the tenacity because you need the tenacity to
• 37:25
  live there.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Orkney.
• 37:29
  Orkney felt like you were outside of Scotland and not quite yet
• 37:33
  in Scandinavia.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was sort of in between.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Extremely windy.
• 37:38
  and very different and actually was more soothing that our sky
• 37:44
  felt more sort of a
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: crossing the threshold with the dweller at the threshold being like,
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: this is what's happening.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a power to the land.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I always have reflected on why are we attracted to certain places?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: In your case, you have the ancestry.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even have necessarily the ancestry,
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: but if you're called soul wise,
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: it's like that's my land.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: But one thing I remember,
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: and it would be interesting when you do go,
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: is it was through the work of the union analyst James Hollis.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he has a whole book about our ancestors.
• 38:27
  And he said that there's something when you go back to the land
• 38:30
  of your ancestors,
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: that even if you don't know very much about it,
• 38:35
  Something sort of saddles within you as if your ancestors are
• 38:38
  like,
• 38:39
  oh,
• 38:40
  thank you.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: You've done the spiral.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've returned.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt that when I went to Portugal.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was not a country I wanted to go per se.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: The history of Portugal colonization, I was not a huge fan.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: But we did go to Portugal.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember my mother, we did the strip together.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everything is just sort of all the little Lego parts just fell in peace.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we're like, we get it.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: I understood like there was a there was a sort of a calming inside of.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, our ancestors came from here.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I understand certain things now.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't quite name it, but there was a sort of a calming of it.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll be beautiful.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I could see why you would be drawn to.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: in your profession, your line of work, just to liminal spaces, right?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because liminality is something that attracts you in your work.
• 39:38
  And it's definitely something that attracts me in studying
• 39:41
  literature and fairy
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_01: tale and folklore,
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: like they always take place.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: in liminal spaces of transition, right?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's the setting of the fairy tales.
• 39:50
  So obviously Skye and Orkney are such liminal places and Mystic
• 39:55
  is quite a liminal
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: place as well in a different way,
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_01: but it is carved out
• 40:00
  of two different towns and it straddles a river,
• 40:04
  which is a tidal estuary.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it pushes in from Fishers Island Sound.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there's just a very liminal feel to mystic.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I was reading something and I don't know how accurate this is,
• 40:15
  But I was reading something about geography and the geography
• 40:18
  of the earth and the
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: history of the earth and that the mountains of sky and the highlands,
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: right,
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: were in at one time,
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: at least in theory,
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: connected to the Appalachian Trail.
• 40:30
  which is something that actually begins in Connecticut the very
• 40:34
  tail beginning of
• 40:35
  it we don't have many mountains in Connecticut but the very
• 40:37
  beginning of the
• 40:38
  Appalachian Trail is situated in Connecticut and I like the
• 40:42
  idea that even though
• 40:43
  those settings are so distinct and they represent two very
• 40:47
  different families and
• 40:48
  two different systems of belief that maybe there is some
• 40:53
  historical connection
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: between James and Arabella and the lands that they live in and I think
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: Consequently, too, we're all from all of these places, right?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Even though,
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: whatever drop of blood we might have,
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: things have been so mixed over the years,
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 41:11
  That we can probably connect with the ancestors from any place
• 41:16
  because it's
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: probably deep within our blood somewhere.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely, definitely.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have read that too.
• 41:24
  I did read that on a book about the history of Scotland and how
• 41:28
  eons ago it was meshed together.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's probably why the South,
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: certain parts of the South,
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: did attract so many Irish and Scottish and,
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: a huge influence on the language and the music.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: So we gravitate.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's something.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I feel like it's the...
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: the installment of the world.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: It calls to you.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not just us going.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: We get called.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing is kind of like a sharp curve now turn here,
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm just curious because I am reading,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: your notes at the end of the book.
• 42:10
  You mentioned something about the sort of ineffective father
• 42:14
  and Arabella's father.
• 42:18
  OMG I'm not gonna swear my podcast but damn and while the whole
• 42:27
  time I'm like oh I
• 42:29
  want to go in there and just shake him but but at that point
• 42:34
  was interesting to me
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: because
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Beauty and the Beast, a lot of these fairy tales.
• 42:42
  And to a certain degree,
• 42:43
  I kind of take them all back to Persephone and Hades.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, to me, that's the OG of the Beauty and the Beast.
• 42:53
  I don't know if it's academically sound to say that,
• 42:57
  but to me,
• 42:57
  I feel that resonance.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the fathers are ineffective.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're either not present or
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: they're a hot mess or they they they're not helpful.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you think about that?
• 43:17
  These stories where the father is the parental figure is so
• 43:27
  what I would call it a
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: loose handshake,
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: limp handshake.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's so prevalent in fairy tales and you see it in Beauty and the Beast.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: You even see it in fairy tales like Cinderella and Snow White.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: We might not realize it because,
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 43:42
  those stories tend to come to us at least popularly through
• 43:45
  Disney and Disney.
• 43:47
  Kill off the parents rather than leave them there to be
• 43:50
  ineffective because Disney,
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 43:52
  has a good marketing strategy and knows that the parents are
• 43:55
  paying the money.
• 43:56
  But but a lot of times those fathers are present while their
• 44:00
  daughters are being
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: persecuted by stealthy.
• 44:02
  mothers or by people,
• 44:04
  and they're just not doing anything to help the daughters.
• 44:08
  So it is definitely something that is prevalent in fairy tales
• 44:14
  and something I
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: wanted to explore in in my book as well.
• 44:18
  I think sometimes that the fathers are ineffective or sometimes
• 44:22
  the mothers are
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: ineffective or they're killed off in fairy tales,
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_01: in part because fairy tales tend to focus on the protagonist.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes you see this in children's literature.
• 44:33
  to or young adult literature in order for the young character
• 44:38
  to really move into
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: the space of adulthood,
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: the blocking figures need to be removed.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 44:45
  So a good parent who is either going to protect their child
• 44:49
  from danger or usher
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_01: their child safely through the world.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: is a good thing in real life,
• 44:55
  but in terms of storytelling is not always a good thing because
• 45:00
  it prevents the
• 45:01
  child from actually encountering the struggles that they need
• 45:05
  to encounter to move
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: through the world and transition.
• 45:09
  So I think a lot of times fairy tales give us those templates
• 45:13
  for ineffective
• 45:14
  parental figures because the focus is on the younger character
• 45:19
  and the younger
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: characters need to
• 45:21
  begin a life of their own rather than live the life that their
• 45:25
  parents have chosen for them.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 45:29
  I'm just thinking here in terms of sort of bringing the sort of
• 45:36
  family systems and
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: depth psychology,
• 45:38
  it's interesting how many stories then we have where there's a
• 45:43
  lack of elders,
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: that the parents who should be at that point an elder
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: is shown as ineffective.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if there is going to be an elder character who is mentor wise,
• 45:58
  is going to come as a fairy godmother or sort of an encounter
• 46:04
  that the character
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: has,
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: but it won't come from the parent per se.
• 46:09
  Yeah,
• 46:10
  and I think that's true of the fairy tales that we culturally
• 46:14
  circulate for sure.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_01: But there are fairy tales that do have those older, wiser characters.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're just not popular in our culture.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you can look at the stories that we tell culturally and
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can learn something about our culture from that.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: We are a very youth obsessed culture.
• 46:33
  We don't have a lot of reference for the type of wisdom that
• 46:37
  does come from age.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: that that is something that's missing in our culture.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it would be nice to have a little more of that.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wisdom and age are not always aligned together.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: No,
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: but when they are aligned together,
• 46:55
  I think that's a really purposeful and productive thing for
• 46:59
  society as a whole.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's really interesting.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is more of a
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: perspective on how we see things because the stories are there.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not using them.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're not circulating them.
• 47:14
  And so I guess two things kind of I can sort of sense is one is
• 47:23
  maybe there is a
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: need to start speaking to that,
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: start entering.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, in your book,
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: James' grandmother in some ways to me was that elder.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she had her prejudice, but she was helpful.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: She used it, her power in the way she could to help Arabella.
• 47:45
  So I think we need that to start to have that kind of sense of
• 47:48
  representation.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when you said age and wisdom don't go together, I absolutely agree.
• 47:55
  And my little particular soapbox is the Gen Xers as a
• 47:58
  generation are having to
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: learn to elder,
• 48:01
  but we don't have a model of eldering because the boomers gave
• 48:06
  us other things,
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: but they did not give us elders.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: The government, as we see, they're not eldering.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: But turning it around a little bit about the actual writing process,
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: what was the hardest part for you in writing and what did it ask of you?
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_00: What growing edge did you have?
• 48:34
  The hardest part of writing the book would be just the fact
• 48:38
  that I'm doing it
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: Laura Couto vanessi
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_01: of the book
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: to the book shows, I have so much help.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't mean to say that I'm a one woman show by any means,
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: but I feel like I am writing on my own to some extent,
• 49:20
  at least when compared to the writing that I do for the
• 49:23
  Fairytale magazine or
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: Eternal Haunted Summer or when I submit to a call for submission.
• 49:28
  Because when I submit to those calls or I'm fulfilling an
• 49:32
  assignment that one of my
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: bosses gives me,
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: I have their
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: needs in mind, right?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: I understand that they have certain expectations.
• 49:41
  I understand that there's a readership for the magazine or for
• 49:45
  the anthology that
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: will have a certain expectation.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that I cater my writing to those expectations.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: vanessacouto
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was writing Sea and Stars and Selkie Moon,
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: which was my first book,
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: and I was really writing them for myself,
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: for my own label,
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: Incantation Press,
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: there wasn't anyone over me sort of giving me that expectation.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that was a really difficult thing for me to come to terms with,
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: that I had to sort of navigate this journey.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: On my own, there were ineffective parent figures.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't they weren't guiding me.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I had to learn to do that.
• 50:42
  And I think in some ways that has been a really good struggle
• 50:47
  for me to go through.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: because on the other side of that,
• 50:51
  I've been so surprised to find that there are people who are
• 50:55
  now coming to my
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: writing through my books that don't know my work through the magazine,
• 50:59
  but they're kind of coming to me through these things I've
• 51:02
  written on my own.
• 51:03
  And I think that that gives me a little bit of confidence in my
• 51:08
  ability to tell a
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: story from a place that is very authentic.
• 51:13
  But that was definitely the hardest thing for me was feeling,
• 51:17
  am I doing it right?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: Am I going to I think I'm a people pleaser.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: So am I going to give people what they want,
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: not knowing who the people that I'm giving the book to are going to be?
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was very difficult for me.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's really interesting.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking here about
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh,
• 51:40
  I was thinking as we grow and and I know that from our chats
• 51:46
  that we know we have
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: both have lost our mothers and why and I,
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: my father as well.
• 51:53
  So I've I felt there was a sense of really coming of age in not
• 52:00
  having a parental
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: figure,
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: whatever the relationship was,
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: all of a sudden it's like there's nothing there's no one above me.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as you were talking,
• 52:10
  I was thinking how interesting that when you're writing for a
• 52:13
  magazine or for your
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: teaching,
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: for whatever,
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: there's a container.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the container,
• 52:17
  there's an expectation and it helps you craft because there's
• 52:23
  that sort of,
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: this is the container.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what you do.
• 52:26
  But all of a sudden,
• 52:28
  you're creating something that you can only answer to yourself.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: What does Kelly want?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 52:35
  and the reader is this amorphous figure on the other side that
• 52:38
  you might not know
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: yet.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: And but you're having to put things in the story that are yours.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_00: What is what do you want?
• 52:46
  And I think that's interesting because I think one of the gifts
• 52:49
  of romance,
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think other stories as well,
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: but romance works a lot around desire.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: What does one want?
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: So in some ways,
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: kind of like Arabella yourself,
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: you were going to be like,
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: am I going to get on this ship?
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to go over?
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to do this thing?
• 53:08
  You know,
• 53:08
  and it is a growing edge to all of a sudden say,
• 53:13
  I want to do what I want to do.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it's both frightening and empowering at the same time.
• 53:21
  And I love the way you've spoken about all of that and the
• 53:24
  complexity of it,
• 53:25
  because it is
• 53:27
  I do think especially when we lose our mothers maybe like we we
• 53:31
  are a child again
• 53:32
  in that grief and it's kind of like you just said about fairy
• 53:37
  tales the reason you
• 53:39
  have or at least the stories we tend to sort of keep pumping
• 53:42
  into the culture more
• 53:44
  and more is that the character the main character doesn't have
• 53:47
  the parents in some
• 53:48
  degree so that they can express their sovereignty and by making
• 53:55
  the choices and
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you did it.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_00: You did it.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it that,
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_00: now being on the other side,
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: you have a novella,
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Selkie Moon,
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the name.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Sea and Stars.
• 54:17
  But now being on this other side,
• 54:21
  what did writing give you that you didn't expect?
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a hard question to answer.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I have been a writer my entire life,
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: though I have only published for a very short space of time.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I've only been publishing for just over five years.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_01: But I've always just approached the world
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_01: through the lens of a writer, I feel.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've always had stories circulating in my head.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's the sharing of the stories that is very new.
• 54:55
  And I suppose that in publishing my own work and even in
• 55:00
  publishing my work at the
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_01: magazine and in the different journals that I've submitted to,
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: there is this sense that my stories do have a place to go beyond myself.
• 55:14
  and I think that it's given me a connection to the world at
• 55:20
  large that I didn't
• 55:22
  necessarily know was there before because everything just kind
• 55:27
  of took place in my
• 55:28
  own mind and in my own little imagination and now no matter how
• 55:33
  small those
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: connections might be
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: They're definitely there.
• 55:38
  And I think that they change the way I move through the world
• 55:42
  in ways that I
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: probably can't even articulate.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe by the third book.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_01: We'll loop back around to that one.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what part of Scotland are you going to be writing about?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or Ireland?
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, you have to tell your husband, we're doing research.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're going over there.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tax write-off, honey.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's a tax write-off.
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 56:08
  And from writing this book,
• 56:10
  what do you feel you're carrying out to your teaching?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what's kind of returning to you as a teacher?
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think that in terms of my teaching,
• 56:25
  when I teach about stories and I tell my students that I've
• 56:29
  written stories of my
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_01: own,
• 56:31
  I think they see that in some way as a complete circle right
• 56:36
  that I'm not just
• 56:38
  teaching stories in class because that's my day job and that's
• 56:41
  what I get paid to
• 56:42
  do I'm really there because I love stories I love storytelling
• 56:47
  I love thinking
• 56:48
  about storytelling I love sharing stories with other people so
• 56:52
  I think that it
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: gives me a sense of completion
• 56:57
  in my teaching that I'm not only reading stories and talking
• 57:02
  about stories,
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: but I'm writing stories of my own.
• 57:05
  I tend to think of writing as a very long conversation that
• 57:10
  takes place over time,
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 57:12
  SPEAKER_01: among different people,
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: among different cultures.
• 57:15
  And I feel like writing the books has given me a chance to add
• 57:19
  my voice to that
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_01: conversation in a way.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think
• 57:25
  SPEAKER_01: It just gives me a sense of completion.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm imagining here as a student to know that their teacher,
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: they're not just talking the talk,
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: they are walking that talk,
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if they are talking about these are some of the challenges,
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: this is the landscape,
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: they know the landscape.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 57:52
  And I guess just going back to you because something you
• 57:55
  mentioned earlier,
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: and it's also in the notes in your book that,
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 58:00
  SPEAKER_00: as we know,
• 58:00
  romance is not taken seriously and you're coming from a
• 58:05
  literature background.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: What do you notice about how people speak to romance?
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: And now you've written a historical romance with Gothic vibes.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do you stand in that conversation?
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I tend to love the literature that has been marginalized.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: That just tends to be my place in the world.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_01: I teach children's literature.
• 58:34
  SPEAKER_01: I teach fairy tale and folklore.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love romance.
• 58:38
  So I've always been,
• 58:40
  I think,
• 58:40
  an advocate for those stories that people dismiss as being
• 58:46
  and I enjoy finding deep meaning in those stories and then
• 58:51
  sharing that meaning
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: with other people.
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: Romance is, I would say, a marginalized genre in academia.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: There are some academics who embrace it,
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: but it doesn't seem to be as lauded a genre as other things are.
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that has a lot to do with
• 59:11
  the patriarchy that we live in quite frankly because I think
• 59:14
  that romance is
• 59:15
  largely a genre that is written for women and by women not
• 59:19
  exclusively but that
• 59:20
  tends to be statistically where it comes from and I think that
• 59:23
  a lot of the
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_01: prejudice against it stems from patriarchal prejudice against women
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_01: Vanessa Couto
• 59:47
  The Indoctrination of Desire and I studied women and sexuality
• 59:52
  and marriage in 18th
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_01: and 19th century British domestic fiction,
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_01: which is really just an academic way of saying romance.
• 1:00:00
  And I was looking at Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and Emma
• 1:00:04
  and all of those
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_01: novels and looking at the romantic elements of them.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a valid thing to do.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it yields so much.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it should be marginalized, even though it is.
• 1:00:19
  So I think I've just always stood in defense of finding meaning
• 1:00:24
  in the smallest of
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: things,
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_01: which is...
• 1:00:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of the message, I suppose, in my book, Seeing Stars as well, right?
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: That message that Arabella's grandmother gives her early on in the book.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_01: And she has to kind of learn that throughout the text of the book.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: But that multum impervo,
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: that there is much in a little,
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: that the smallest things in this world can carry deep meaning.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, very much.
• 1:00:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm a firm believer in the power of the small.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_00: And how it can go in and be a catalyst.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: And it's subversive in that way, right?
• 1:01:04
  It can do things that maybe more noticed genres of fiction
• 1:01:10
  cannot do because it's
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: flying under the radar.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just a really comfortable place for me to live my life.
• 1:01:17
  SPEAKER_01: I've always sort of flown under the radar.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: I've always sort of been, you know, I'm the youngest child.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the smallest.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the least.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the last.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I just live my life from that point of view.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I've always cherished things that reflect that in some way.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're being touched.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're touched by the power of the liminal.
• 1:01:39
  I think once one is sort of aware of the liminal and its
• 1:01:43
  geography,
• 1:01:45
  one knows it's always there.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: You see it in every place.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: And
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just thinking here,
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: like for the reader,
• 1:01:58
  is there is there anything you hope that they walk away with
• 1:02:02
  from the story or?
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 1:02:05
  I hope they walk away knowing that there's magic in the world
• 1:02:10
  and that sometimes
• 1:02:10
  there's magic in in love or in loving someone and finding
• 1:02:15
  someone to love and being
• 1:02:17
  loving towards someone that those are magical things that can
• 1:02:21
  can change your life
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: and can change the world.
• 1:02:25
  So I suppose that lesson of multum in parvo is something I hope
• 1:02:29
  lasts in the
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: reader's mind as well.
• 1:02:33
  SPEAKER_01: I hope my readers know how grateful I am to them for reading the book.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because I do think meaning is created in that liminal space.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've written the story,
• 1:02:45
  but they're really breathing life into the words that I've put
• 1:02:49
  on the page.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: And without them,
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: That version of the story would never exist.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel so grateful to anyone who picks up a copy of Sea and Stars.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many books in this world and so many things to read.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we all have to be read lists, which are so long.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, will we ever finish them?
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:03:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's impossible, right?
• 1:03:15
  So to anyone who for whatever reason picks up seeing stars and
• 1:03:20
  envisions James and
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: Arabella in the way that only they can,
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm incredibly grateful and I hope that they know that.
• 1:03:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's it's definitely an alchemical process, right?
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: You create it.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: It comes through you.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_00: It carries things that are yours.
• 1:03:38
  And then us as readers,
• 1:03:39
  we bring our own stuff and then it gives the characters
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: More life,
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_00: and and of course,
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: as a reader,
• 1:03:50
  each one of us is going to have James and Arabella be something
• 1:03:53
  slightly different
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: than perhaps you even imagined.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: And but but that's the magic of it.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's how these
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot about the idea of the mundus imaginalis,
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: the moon,
• 1:04:08
  SPEAKER_00: this world that is liminal where I feel these characters live there.
• 1:04:15
  And when we interact with the stories,
• 1:04:16
  they're coming alive in our world through us.
• 1:04:21
  Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's magic right there.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: in terms of writing,
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: now that you've done this and I know this is,
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: comes out in July.
• 1:04:34
  So there's still a lot more for you to talk about the book,
• 1:04:37
  talk to more people about the book.
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: But is there a story that's already pulling you next or something,
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: an edge of yourself moving towards something,
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: a little knock on your door?
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 1:04:51
  there are always stories like I can't remember my life without
• 1:04:55
  there being stories
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_01: sort of twirling around me just outside my field of vision.
• 1:05:01
  So there are always stories that are calling to me in the
• 1:05:04
  immediate future.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_01: I
• 1:05:06
  I'm hoping this summer to work in earnest on what I hope will
• 1:05:08
  be my next novel.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_01: It will again be
• 1:05:21
  will be a romance because I love romance and it will be
• 1:05:24
  informed by fairy tale and
• 1:05:25
  folklore as well though this time a fairy tale that is less
• 1:05:30
  popularly circulated
• 1:05:31
  than Beauty and the Beast the stories of kind and unkind girls
• 1:05:35
  so stories like
• 1:05:36
  Diamonds and Toads or Strawberries in the Snow that's sort of
• 1:05:40
  informing that tale
• 1:05:41
  and so I'm hoping to work on that that's definitely the one
• 1:05:45
  that has the loudest
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: knock at the door right now
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're excited for that already.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_00: So now we're going to our actor studio meets Stephen Colbert.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he's wrapping up his show.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: Five questions, rapid fire.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what I'm nervous about.
• 1:06:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just answer from your gut, you know, wherever you want to go.
• 1:06:19
  SPEAKER_00: So are you ready?
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:06:22
  SPEAKER_00: So number one, a book you've read so many times the spine has given up.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: What is it?
• 1:06:30
  SPEAKER_01: Pride and Prejudice.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_00: My girl.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so second question there of the BBC adaptations.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a BBC adaptation, then there was the movie.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are you a Colin Firth fan or McFadden fan?
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I like them both.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not particularly...
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_01: drawn toward either one,
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: because like like you said,
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: Mr.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: Darcy kind of exists in my mind,
• 1:07:01
  SPEAKER_01: separate from those.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I read it so many times before I ever saw it.
• 1:07:05
  So I accept both as appropriate variants and neither one quite
• 1:07:11
  matches the Mr.
• 1:07:11
  Darcy in my head.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: But that's OK. Yeah, I saw Colin Firth first.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: So for a long time, it was him.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: I like how the stiffness of Darcy that he did.
• 1:07:23
  but I like McFadden's in a way sort of expressing the
• 1:07:28
  interiority of Darcy that we
• 1:07:30
  don't get to see in the first BBC production or that I didn't
• 1:07:35
  feel like in the book
• 1:07:36
  we get to see so I do appreciate that but diplomatic answer go
• 1:07:42
  you I know it's a
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_00: divisive question
• 1:07:50
  and number two which fairy tale character did you secretly
• 1:07:54
  think you were growing
• 1:07:56
  up and were you right oh that's an interesting question I don't
• 1:08:02
  think I ever
• 1:08:03
  thought of myself as a fairy tale character when I was a little
• 1:08:08
  girl before I knew
• 1:08:09
  about Beauty and the Beast as a fairy tale I would say my
• 1:08:13
  favorite fairy tale was
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: probably
• 1:08:15
  SPEAKER_01: Snow White.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because I had a book of Snow White and it was illustrated.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it had a picture of her mother sitting in the window of a castle.
• 1:08:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it had the beautiful paned window with the diamond paned glass.
• 1:08:30
  SPEAKER_01: and she was sitting there and sewing and wishing for a child.
• 1:08:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember loving that picture.
• 1:08:36
  And then there was another picture in the book where Snow White
• 1:08:39
  was running through
• 1:08:40
  the forest and the branches and the roots of the trees were
• 1:08:44
  reaching out to trip
• 1:08:45
  her and there were eyes in the forest and it was all very
• 1:08:48
  frightening and scary.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I loved that picture as well.
• 1:08:52
  um so I don't know that I ever thought of myself as a fairy
• 1:08:57
  tale character as Snow
• 1:08:58
  White but I certainly liked that story in my youth until I
• 1:09:03
  found Beauty and the
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_01: Beast and then I was all in on that one I got to play um
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_00: The Evil Queen in Snow White when I was six.
• 1:09:14
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 1:09:14
  And I was very disappointed because I thought I should have
• 1:09:17
  been Snow White.
• 1:09:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't paying attention.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_00: So they didn't pick me.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I will say, though, the evil.
• 1:09:24
  SPEAKER_01: Evil characters are much more fun to play.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: My middle son did acting when he was in high school and middle school,
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_01: and he would always get cast as the evil characters.
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he loved it.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_01: They're just, you need a good character actor to play someone evil.
• 1:09:39
  So it was probably a compliment that you were cast as the evil
• 1:09:42
  queen instead of Snow White.
• 1:09:44
  I got,
• 1:09:44
  yeah,
• 1:09:45
  I remember I did fall on stage at some point,
• 1:09:48
  but,
• 1:09:49
  you know,
• 1:09:49
  six.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:51
  but I did get standing ovation I don't know it's because they
• 1:09:53
  were you know sort of
• 1:09:55
  feeling sorry for the fact that I fell but I still have photos
• 1:09:58
  of it and I did look
• 1:09:59
  pretty you know sort of mean I did a good job I want to see
• 1:10:04
  those photos it was
• 1:10:06
  hilarious but yeah um so I would say that Snow White is the
• 1:10:11
  reason I never became
• 1:10:12
  SPEAKER_00: an actress I was like this is over for me I'm not doing this um
• 1:10:17
  now number three the most romantic sentence ever written in any
• 1:10:22
  book by anyone what
• 1:10:24
  comes to mind first oh my goodness as you wish from the
• 1:10:31
  princess bride because
• 1:10:34
  that's what he says as you wish right as you wish yeah that's
• 1:10:38
  what comes to mind
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: and it's probably because it's easy to remember
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I if I had time to look through all my books,
• 1:10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I might be able to find something more convincing.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I do love the romance in The Princess Bride as well.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it's fresh in my mind.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_01: So so that that's my rapid fire.
• 1:10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I mean, nothing better than as you wish, honey, as you wish.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Delivered with honesty.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's great.
• 1:11:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_00: OK, in your writing life.
• 1:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you had a fairy godmother,
• 1:11:12
  what's the one wish that she already granted you that you
• 1:11:16
  didn't even know you were
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_00: asking for?
• 1:11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, so I do have a fairy godmother, and it is Kate.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_01: I've mentioned her at least three times,
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 1:11:24
  SPEAKER_01: in this interview already,
• 1:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: and I talk about her in every interview I do.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_01: She was the founder of the Fairytale magazine.
• 1:11:32
  She's since retired,
• 1:11:33
  and it's now edited by Kristen Baum DiBiase,
• 1:11:36
  who is wonderful as well.
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_01: But Kate was the founder and editor of the magazine,
• 1:11:41
  and I met her when I took a class through the Carter Haw School
• 1:11:45
  of Folklore and the
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_01: It was just this little online class about fairy tales.
• 1:11:49
  and I took it because I was at kind of a low point in my life
• 1:11:52
  and I just wanted
• 1:11:53
  something to lift me up and I wanted to meet people who enjoyed
• 1:11:57
  fairy tales and
• 1:11:58
  literature and things like that and I took the class and we
• 1:12:01
  used to respond to
• 1:12:02
  little quests and post these little writings that we did and
• 1:12:06
  Kate was a part of the
• 1:12:07
  class and she liked the things that I posted and she contacted
• 1:12:11
  me and she said will
• 1:12:13
  you please submit something to the fairy tale magazine and I
• 1:12:16
  thought to myself well
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you'd like me to, I will.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And shortly after that, I won a contest there.
• 1:12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then she asked me to come work for the magazine.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think at every step of the way,
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: I would ask her,
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: are you sure you want me to do this?
• 1:12:33
  I had long since rationalized the fact that although I am a
• 1:12:38
  writer on the inside,
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was probably never going to write or publish anything.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And she was really the person who kept prompting me to
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_01: to publish and to submit and to continue.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't something I asked her to do in any way.
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I think she is my fairy godmother.
• 1:12:58
  And she did sort of give me the key that unlocked my writer's
• 1:13:03
  voice in some way.
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very grateful, very grateful to her.
• 1:13:08
  yeah that's a beautiful recognition because I think that's the
• 1:13:11
  beauty of well
• 1:13:14
  there's a there's an element of the elder the mentor seeing in
• 1:13:18
  you something that
• 1:13:18
  you might not even been seeing yet and being able to invite
• 1:13:23
  invited out of you
• 1:13:24
  right and like the true meaning of the word educate to bring it
• 1:13:28
  out of you yes yeah
• 1:13:30
  and I'm a thousand percent certain without her prompting I
• 1:13:34
  never would have
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_01: submitted anything
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: my work anywhere.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: She really is the fairy godmother who descended and gave me the dress.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 1:13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now we hold a big book.
• 1:13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, last one.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_00: You did it.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So now you get to finish this sentence.
• 1:13:59
  SPEAKER_00: A real love story always has dot, dot, dot, dot, dot in it.
• 1:14:05
  The first word that popped into my mind was romance,
• 1:14:08
  but it feels like that's a cop out.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe I guess as a second choice,
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_01: because I do think you need romance,
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I guess I would say choice,
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_01: because I think that without choice,
• 1:14:21
  and that goes back to what we said at the beginning with Beauty
• 1:14:24
  and the Beast and
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: that ability to choose someone,
• 1:14:27
  SPEAKER_01: but also to be chosen.
• 1:14:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's the essence of what true love is,
• 1:14:34
  is to be chosen and to choose someone and to continue making
• 1:14:38
  that choice over time.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's a series of choices.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_01: A series of choices.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_01: That moves you toward love.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I would say choice.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love that.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:51
  And within your answer,
• 1:14:52
  I can also see that there's an element of being seen.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_00: You get to be seen.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole thing with Beauty and the Beast.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You see beneath the appearance.
• 1:15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15:04
  SPEAKER_01: It really is.
• 1:15:05
  SPEAKER_01: And with Beauty and the Beast in the movie,
• 1:15:07
  when I went to see the movie with my boyfriend and when the
• 1:15:11
  Beast gave Belle the
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_01: library,
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_01: which I felt was such a moment of seeing her,
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't ask for the library, but here was the Beast.
• 1:15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Vanessa Couto
• 1:15:37
  And that's the library that I'm sitting in because I did marry
• 1:15:40
  him and he promised
• 1:15:42
  SPEAKER_01: me he would build me a library and it took us a really long time,
• 1:15:46
  but he walled in the shelves and gave me a place for my books
• 1:15:50
  and we call it,
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_01: the Bell Library.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that love and choice,
• 1:15:58
  SPEAKER_01: it is about being seen for who you truly are,
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_01: not who people want you to be.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's something about a good love story that segues with those ideas.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 1:16:11
  and that's the thing I see as healing and medicinal and romance
• 1:16:15
  especially,
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: not that other books can't have this,
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: but this ability to be seen underneath the
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, my husband has given me all the IKEA bookshelves.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know what?
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Those count.
• 1:16:29
  SPEAKER_01: He did a good job.
• 1:16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he put them up.
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm loving it.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_01: That counts.
• 1:16:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's a library.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_01: He gave you a library too.
• 1:16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:16:40
  Well,
• 1:16:41
  it's not a rapid fire question,
• 1:16:43
  but since we've been talking about romance...
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: What for you,
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_00: when you hear the Romancing the Threshold,
• 1:16:49
  SPEAKER_00: which I named the podcast,
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_00: what for you does that mean?
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love the name of the podcast,
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Romancing the Threshold,
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_01: first of all,
• 1:16:57
  SPEAKER_01: let me just say,
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_01: because I love liminality and I love thresholds.
• 1:17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I talk about them all the time in my class and I love romance.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it makes sense that I love the name of the podcast.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, it means...
• 1:17:10
  SPEAKER_01: romancing life itself.
• 1:17:13
  Because we move through a series of thresholds in life,
• 1:17:17
  a series of liminal spaces in life.
• 1:17:19
  But I think that all of life is really quite liminal,
• 1:17:23
  like we're moving through it in some way.
• 1:17:25
  So romancing the threshold in that larger sense is romancing
• 1:17:30
  life itself and
• 1:17:31
  bringing a sense of magic and a spirit of playfulness and a
• 1:17:35
  spirit of beauty to
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: to the everyday,
• 1:17:40
  finding the magic in the mundane and the mundane and the magic
• 1:17:43
  and everyday
• 1:17:44
  SPEAKER_01: enchantment.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's what romancing the threshold means to me.
• 1:17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's don't thank you.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 1:17:50
  it's really what I wanted to kind of bring forth because we
• 1:17:54
  live in a new cycle
• 1:17:55
  SPEAKER_00: that is constantly telling us to brace for impact.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I that's exhausting.
• 1:18:01
  You know,
• 1:18:01
  it's not the reason it doesn't make life worth living if that's
• 1:18:05
  what it is.
• 1:18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And like yourself,
• 1:18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I do like the liminal and the threshold and a little bit of romance,
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_00: a dash of magic.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I love your your argument that romance is is medicine of a form.
• 1:18:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's a really beautiful way to look at it.
• 1:18:26
  SPEAKER_00: What for you strikes about that?
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like now,
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:18:29
  SPEAKER_00: being both a writer of romance,
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_00: working with it,
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_00: having your literature background,
• 1:18:34
  SPEAKER_00: where would you see the medicine?
• 1:18:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just suppose calling it medicine gives it some weight and some meaning,
• 1:18:42
  SPEAKER_01: which it seems to be absent of in the general perception.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not that I think it's absent of meaning,
• 1:18:48
  SPEAKER_01: but generally we don't think of romance as something that is medicinal.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_01: When we call something medicinal, we're elevating it.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_01: And when we talk about romance, we're diminishing it.
• 1:18:58
  And the way you bring those two things together,
• 1:19:00
  I think,
• 1:19:01
  is really beautiful.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I did grow up with with a mother who was a nurse and she her dreams.
• 1:19:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:19:22
  that I wanted to live my life around stories because she really
• 1:19:26
  didn't think that
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_01: that necessarily had the same level of value.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I like the idea.
• 1:19:32
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose it comforts a little bit of the child in me to think that,
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_01: maybe there's some medicine in the stories that we tell.
• 1:19:40
  So I think that it's a beautiful way to bring together the
• 1:19:45
  things that we uphold
• 1:19:46
  and the things that we diminish and have them meet in the
• 1:19:49
  middle or at the
• 1:19:50
  SPEAKER_01: threshold
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_01: and make some form of magic.
• 1:19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's true.
• 1:19:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think stories are extremely medicinal, you know.
• 1:19:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what therapy is about in many ways.
• 1:20:02
  You're telling that story and perhaps through telling your
• 1:20:05
  stories to someone who's
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_00: deeply listening and picking up on elements,
• 1:20:10
  you can find the healing in the story and find you become a
• 1:20:14
  more main character of
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_00: your life.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, I think it's very medicinal.
• 1:20:19
  And unfortunately,
• 1:20:20
  I think in our world,
• 1:20:21
  we're being sold very poor stories.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:20:27
  SPEAKER_00: devoid of nutritional value.
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Kelly, this has been wonderful.
• 1:20:33
  SPEAKER_00: I know we probably could talk for several hours, which would be great.
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we might have to do another episode.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just putting it out there.
• 1:20:43
  But is there anything that you feel like you'd like to say for
• 1:20:48
  the listener,
• 1:20:49
  for the future reader of your books or anything that is of mind
• 1:20:54
  that you want to
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_00: share?
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, not really.
• 1:20:58
  SPEAKER_01: I just I want to thank you for having me on your podcast.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was so humbling to be asked to be a guest on your podcast.
• 1:21:07
  SPEAKER_01: I am new to the romance genre.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Seeing stars is my first romance.
• 1:21:12
  So to have someone who has studied romance and who has read so
• 1:21:15
  many romances,
• 1:21:17
  SPEAKER_01: give me the space to talk about my little book is incredibly humbling.
• 1:21:23
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just it
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: is incredibly meaningful to me.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: So again, you might have to be another fairy godmother in my life.
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_01: I am a lucky girl.
• 1:21:31
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of them.
• 1:21:32
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate it, you know, more than I can say.
• 1:21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
• 1:21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I
• 1:21:40
  I came through romance kind of somewhat late,
• 1:21:44
  you know,
• 1:21:44
  but then realizing it was always there.
• 1:21:48
  And I don't have the literary background,
• 1:21:51
  but I've been wanting like yourself.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_00: I admire things that are dismissed, considered fluff.
• 1:21:59
  And I think there's a lot of power in those things,
• 1:22:01
  the power of the small.
• 1:22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's no small feat.
• 1:22:07
  to sit down with the muses and write and wrestle with your own
• 1:22:13
  resistance and do
• 1:22:14
  the things put it on paper put it out into the world giving
• 1:22:18
  birth to it that's
• 1:22:20
  that's an immense labor of and that's good that you had fairy
• 1:22:24
  you had you had fairy
• 1:22:25
  godmothers because you know they were midwives yes yes midwives
• 1:22:31
  of the imagination
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_00: oh see that's a t-shirt waiting to happen that's
• 1:22:36
  that's at least a sticker a hashtag at least hashtag it you got
• 1:22:41
  you gotta use that
• 1:22:42
  somewhere just please do um um that's wonderful well thank you
• 1:22:47
  Kelly and uh I hope
• 1:22:49
  the readers enjoyed the book as much as I did Adebella and
• 1:22:53
  James are here waiting
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_00: for you and James oh what a swoon um
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_00: But all the best of luck for the publication date of the book.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, truly.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a phrase I've been turning my mind over lately.
• 1:23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Multum in parvo, and I'm sorry to be butchering the Latin.
• 1:23:20
  SPEAKER_00: It means much in little.
• 1:23:23
  SPEAKER_00: The idea that the smallest things,
• 1:23:26
  SPEAKER_00: a handful of herbs,
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_00: a cup of tea made with real attention,
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_00: someone who notices what the rest of us walk right past,
• 1:23:35
  SPEAKER_00: all of these carry far more than we see.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that these things can also turn a life.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_00: That they can change what a person believes is possible for them.
• 1:23:50
  I think this is the whole argument I've been dancing around and
• 1:23:53
  circling with this
• 1:23:54
  SPEAKER_00: podcast and this exploration of how do we romance the threshold.
• 1:24:00
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a culture that confuses loud with important and big with real.
• 1:24:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the small gets dismissed.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is the fairy tale,
• 1:24:11
  SPEAKER_00: the love story,
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_00: the romance,
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_00: the genre written by women and for women in general,
• 1:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: that the serious world has spent more than a century waving off as fluff.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_00: But the small is where the medicine has been hiding the whole time.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_00: It always was.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we just stopped holding the shell to our ear.
• 1:24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And notice what Kelly named as the heart of a real love story.
• 1:24:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is not passion, although passion is needed.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It is not fate, depending on what you believe.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is choice.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: To choose someone and to be chosen.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then to keep choosing again and again over time.
• 1:25:01
  SPEAKER_00: To be seen for who you are and to stay and to choose anyway.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: That may feel like it's a small kind of magic.
• 1:25:11
  It may feel very small,
• 1:25:13
  but actually,
• 1:25:14
  if you think about it,
• 1:25:16
  it's big magic.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want to leave you with.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere on your own shoreline this week,
• 1:25:24
  there is something you keep stepping over because it looks too
• 1:25:29
  small to feel or to
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_00: be the thing or to be important.
• 1:25:35
  Maybe it is the quiet pull towards a book,
• 1:25:38
  towards a place,
• 1:25:40
  towards an idea.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's the daily ritual that nobody would call it important,
• 1:25:47
  SPEAKER_00: but it means something to you.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where the medicine is.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is where it has been hiding for you.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_00: What is the small thing that is holding the door for you?
• 1:26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the week for you to notice.
• 1:26:05
  Kelly's novel Sea and Stars comes out July 7th and if you're
• 1:26:10
  the kind of reader who
• 1:26:12
  has always suspected that the dismissed things are the ones
• 1:26:16
  that carry the deep
• 1:26:17
  things I invite you to go find it pre-order it it is a lovely
• 1:26:23
  book and it will stay
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_00: with you
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So until next time,
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_00: keep walking your shoreline,
• 1:26:30
  SPEAKER_00: keep picking up what you find,
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_00: and don't forget to hold the shell to your ear because the sea speaks.