June 17, 2020 • 33 mins
Veronica Chambers is an award-winning writer and entrepreneurial journalist who has built an inspiring creative career. To date, her talent has touched everything from magazines to television to newspapers to bestselling books for young adult readers, and more. And she’s done all this while keeping her marriage and motherhood at the center of her decision-making. In this episode, she joins us for a candid conversation about the hard work behind living her dream. @vvchambers
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
I do think it's about the road, and I think
that as many things as I have that are prizes
at the end, I've had a lot of fun along
the way, and I really am invested in that. Thanks
(00:31):
for joining us on the road to somewhere. When we
talk about exploration, adventure, major life change and transformation, it's
about not necessarily knowing where we're going, but having faith
that the journey will be worthwhile. I'm we saw us,
and I'm Jill Herziege, and we are going to be
joined today by someone whose life has always been a
(00:51):
huge inspiration to me. We work together, but that's not
the most meaningful connection. The most meaningful connection is just
having been um had a seat at the front row
watching this person just strut her life down the runway.
It's been so exciting for me. Do you have women
in your life who you just feel like I'm just
(01:11):
watching them live their lives? I love it. That's cute
and sweet, but you know what I mean? You know
what I mean? There's there and I'm not talking about
in the Instagram way. I'm not talking about wow, look
at her in some fabulous locale every week. I'm talking about, um, wow,
(01:32):
look at that choice. Well, our our guest today, Veronica Chambers,
is truly impressive. I'm just looking at I've never i
feel like I'm the odd girl in this room because
you guys clearly have a past and I I'm just
looking at her resume and it is mind blowing. Um. Writer,
our archival storyteller, Senior editor of the Special Project team
(01:53):
with the New York Times, co author of four New
York Times bestsellers and written more than a dozen books
for children. Been in publishing every form of creative endeavor
that I can think of it. Thank you for being
with us today. I'm so excited to be here. So UM,
back when we work together, I used to ask you
to talk about your background and your sort of origin
(02:15):
story with our interns. Um. We worked together Glamor Magazine
yearns ago. Um, but we knew each other before and
we've known each other after that. So can you talk
a little bit about your about your background? Just because
I had you had you tell interns because again, it
just it wowed me every time. Yeah. I mean, I
am trying to think of the very very short version. Um.
(02:38):
I was born in Panama. My parents are for you know,
I'm first generation my parents were immigrants. I grew up
in Brooklyn super poor. Um, just really poor, like no
o R like po poor and um. And you know,
I went to college early. And really that was like
a big life choice because when I was sixteen, dropped
(03:00):
out of high school, not because I was so smart,
but because like my home life was really rough, and
so I was like, I may not make it to
senior year. And so I went to college early. And
when my brother was sixteen, he dropped out of school
and started dealing drugs and so um, so I think,
you know, it was like a very survival thing. And UM,
(03:20):
when I got my first internship in magazines, they didn't pay,
and I literally my family all gave me like train
fare as my Christmas present so I could do it.
And I remember getting there at seventeen and realizing that
another intern had a private car driver to the office
every day and she never picked up her Um, I
(03:42):
guess that I had my first internship with Sassy was
stilled unpaid. And then I was at seventeen and it
was add twenty five dollars a week before taxes, and
she never picked up her check, and I just remember thinking,
paycheck her paycheck. It was so meaningless and every you
used to have to go and pick up your paycheck
in those days, and um, the woman, I wish I
could give it to you because look look at she
(04:04):
she doesn't even want it. And it was just like
it was just so hard to Like, I think people
don't understand often that certain fields have a point of entry,
like you have to be able to like go without
pay or make a dollar a week before taxes in
order to have the experience to be in the room.
Like it's really hard to get into certain rooms. And
(04:27):
I think it's still true. Oh my gosh, I think
it's still very much true. So what inspired you? What
what was the driving force to go into a field
where there was that barrier financially? Why wouldn't I would
have thought that you'd want to just make some money? Yeah,
you know, Um, I think about this a lot because
(04:49):
I was trying to negotiate a contract the other day
and I literally was trying to give some of my
money to somebody else who I didn't think was being
fairly compensated. And the person I was negotiating with was like,
we can talk about her money, but I'm not taking
from your money, and I think, you know, so that's
just it just the way of saying that. I think,
despite not having had a lot um money for itself,
(05:12):
has not been a pure driver for me. I think
I grew up in a family of readers and I
loved to read. And I think that when I learned
about magazines and it seemed like an opportunity to write,
it was kind of like an extension of that. I just,
you know, I still remember getting those like first bylines
and how excited I was, you know, I feel like
(05:33):
that's the thing that drives me. Is is it exciting?
Is it creative? Um? Can I make something? Okay? So
that was then, and what has happened in between is
a great career in magazines, a departure from that that
sort of trajectory, and a movement into writing all of
these best sellers and doing all of these incredible creative projects.
(05:57):
And this summer you have two books, having out four kids.
Tell us about the the one about Shirley Chisholm. And
because what's interesting to me about it is how long
it has taken um. Because creativity, you make it sound
as that it just sort of bubbles forth. And you
bought from one project to the next. But some of
them take have taken in your life. Stick tu itiveness phenomenal.
(06:20):
Stick to itiveness. Yeah, I think that. Um, yeah, you
have to have patience. I first decided to write a
picture book about Shirley Chislm ten years ago. It was
a really different moment in the culture. Um. You know,
you didn't have the women of the hundreds and sixteenth Congress.
You didn't have I remember sitting with an editor and
(06:42):
she said to me, do you know how many people
have served in Congress? Do you really think all of
them to serve a bluck? But I had grown up
in Brooklyn, and I knew Shirley Chisholm was extraordinary. I
knew that she was the first woman to run, to
seek the major to seek the presidential nomination from a
major party. You know. Funny because my other children's book
is about suffrage, and we've been going back and forth
(07:04):
about Victoria Woodhull, who, of course this is the first
female I've run for president. But she was so crazy. Um,
you know, like Shirley Chisum was legit, and she got
electoral votes and she convinced people at a time, you know,
when civil rights was so knew that the paint was
still wet on the walls, you know, and she went
for it and she had so much confidence and I
(07:25):
really wanted to do it. And it started ten years
ago and it's sold, and then it kind of got
unsold when somebody left UM, and then I couldn't. I
just couldn't sell it. And I kept I would do
this thing. I do this thing all the time because
I have so many ideas where I go to Amazon
and I type in shortly Chism picture book and I'm like,
it's somebody somebody else is going to do it. And
(07:47):
every year it didn't happen, and I just kept, you know,
I'd bring it up by bringing up in meetings, I'd
try to do stuff. And then like about three years ago, UM,
an editor that I love, Nancy Mercado, got a new
job and I sent her an email. I said, you know,
look at all this stuff about Shirley Chisum. She's getting
a monument. There's a state park in Brooklyn. I think
(08:09):
Viola Davis is playing her in a movie. Um Uzuo Adibu,
I think it's playing in a TV movie. And Um,
I said, she's everywhere. I have this book that I
wrote ten years ago, um, would you like to have it?
And it just saw started to move really fast. Yeah.
So and so where do you get that that grit
(08:30):
that helps you stick with your belief in a project?
And how do you know like when it's time to
let something go versus when you should never never let
it go. That's interesting. I, um, it's funny because I've
taught writing along the way I taught at Stanford recently
taught us Smith, which I loved, um so knowning Lisa
(08:53):
smile like I loved teaching them um and I and
sometimes like coach writers. I I've worked as a coach
for Senator Corey Booker, and I've I've coached some really
talented people. And there's a woman you had a project
that she wanted to do, a novel, historical novel, and
she has been trying to publish it for ten years.
(09:15):
I have tried, in as many ways as possible to
tell her this was just one idea that she had
and she just has to like let it go, because
ultimately I put Shirley to the side and I made
other things and then I came back to it. And
I think that's the thing is, you know, I think
every writer of like you know, married and um tenacity,
(09:39):
has something in a drawer that UM, the time wasn't
right for. But I think the differences do you keep
making things or do you insist that your one good
idea is is the thing and the world has to
catch up. I think that's the big difference. When we
come back, I want to talk to you about where
you get those good ideas. Okay, so we've been chatting
(10:12):
about creativity, especially in the realm of the written word,
and I just want to talk about where how much
of being in magazines do you think informed your your
particular version of creativity, Because, as you said, some people
have one idea that they said on forever, but in magazines,
it's a different idea every month, right, or sometimes ten
(10:32):
ideas every month. So I just want to talk about
your particular type of creativity. Sure, I think that um magazines,
And I'm so sad that there aren't as many magazines
around as there were and that they aren't as many stories.
I just loved it. I feel like magazines were for
me like a gym, you know, and I could like
(10:52):
I could work my arms, or I could get on
a treadmill or I could. You know, I could do
a cover story. I could do a quiz, I could
do you know that could cookbook, I could. It was
a space that could hold a lot of different things.
You could do it most entirely with words and texts. Yeah,
you could do a ten thou word political story, or
you could do something that was a photo essay. I
(11:15):
remember editing short films with you on Glamor's Woman of
the Year. I mean, I just feel like there was
just it was a space that allowed you to try
a lot of things. Um. I think that's one of
the reasons I love being at the New York Times Now.
I just came from there and I'm like, I look
at this building. Platform is firing on everyone liked to see,
you know. I could like literally just walk from my
(11:37):
desk to the kitchen and I can pass Michael Babar
or I could see people from the Weekly Because see
people from the Washington Bureau. I could see someone from
Crossroad Puzzle Puzzles, someone from Cooking the cooking app versus
the cooking in the paper. I mean, I just I
like spaces where you can do a lot of different things.
And it's interesting that you bring up cooking, because you
(11:59):
also are the author of James Beard Award winning cookbooks,
and that's a whole other avenue of creativity for I
have to tell you that the last James Beard Award
I want, I was like I went first. I was like,
this is truly nice to be nominated, because we were
nominated for Best American Cookbook, which you know, often like
(12:20):
African American things are like we'll talk about what tell
tell people what the book was. Oh, it was called
Between Harlem and Heaven, and it was then exploration of
Afro Asian American cooking. And it basically looked at how
the diaspora of Africa and the diaspora of Asia intersecting
cuisine and all these interesting ways in Jamaica and Senegal,
in England and all the stuff. It was an idea book,
(12:42):
which I love, you know, and um, and we were
nominated for Best American Cookbook. And I got the nomination
and I was like, okay, um, so nice to be nominated.
I'll put on a nice dress, I'll go to the
James Briand Award. This is not really happening. Maybe I'll
meet some famous chefs, you know, David Chanying or something
and and then um, I'll go home. And the night
(13:06):
of the awards, they said the first award is going
to Best American Cookbook. And I remember sitting there and
going hell spells, like it's going to be a long night.
I'm gonna have to be smiling and polite like all
my He was like, let it come at the end,
let me have fun. I'll just see like bum er,
I'll go home. But I was like, and then they
said it was us, and I was just so shocked.
(13:27):
But it was really something that like had a tiny
budget that came from our heart that I worked on
for a long time because of said tiny budget and um,
and I felt like people really saw it and that
was great. That brings it sort of brings me back
to your question originally about the impulse to work in
a field that promised you no money. You also pursue
(13:48):
creative projects that promised you no money, and and that
has been I mean, I will say that a huge
driving force in my life. And I did not come
from a poor family. I went through economic stress as
a kid, but that economic stress took hold in me
I think in a different way, and money has been
(14:10):
a huge driver for me. And I have trimmed and
shaped my dreams and pursuits so that they could fill
the coffers in the most effective way that I thought
I could do. Um. I have followed the money the
creativity as well, and I feel incredibly lucky to have
been able to do. But at the same time, you know,
(14:34):
I took jobs that were very painful because this was
more money, and I you know, I had kids, and
I just wanted wanted more money and more safety. And
that really that word is what what was about. It
wasn't about the money, was about safety. So how how
does one free oneself from the fear based pursuit and
(14:55):
go for the pursuit of what you love and want
to do and believe? Yeah, I think. I mean in
some ways, my poor child, for who's thirteen, She's like,
where is the money? She's like, You've done all this stuff,
where's the money? Um? But you know, at the same time,
I think the amazing thing is we always well two things.
(15:15):
I think I was really lucky that when I married
my husband, we both felt very strongly that we wanted
a small life. We wanted a life that we didn't
have to work hard to support, and we always said,
we wanted the smallest place we can live. Um that
we just didn't want to overhead to be crippling. You know.
I didn't send my kid to private school because I
(15:35):
didn't want to have to say, oh, you got ex
grade and it caught and I was spending this much
on in school. I just you know, like so, I mean,
I found a great charter school and she's in a
bilingual school. I made choices that were important to me,
but I just didn't want there to be a price.
I don't want to associate a price tage with schooling.
So I feel like I was lucky that I had
a partner who felt the same way. Um. But I
(15:57):
also as my child was own and look at our family,
I think I've just had so many experiences that you
couldn't buy. So it's not a small life. It's a
huge in terms of stuff. Yeah. I remember when, um,
we I took my daughter to Spain for a month
and um yeah, and um so that we could you know,
(16:19):
she could really be a merchant Spanish, and because my
family speaks Spanish, I really wanted her to do it.
And at that point she was eight, and I think,
you know, she thought Spanish was something I made her do,
like some kids have to take piano. She's like always
and I'm like, we're going to Spain and you're going
to speak and um. And we came back from Spain.
My husband had to leave right away for a trip.
(16:40):
And I got a call from Donna Brazil and Mignon More,
these group of women in d C from politics, and
they said, are you coming down tomorrow to see Hillary
accept the nomination? And I said, um, I said no,
it's pouring rain. I just got back from Spain last night.
My husband's not here. I don't have tickets. I don't
I've never been to a convention. I don't have anything.
And you know, they the scooping woman. They call themselves
(17:01):
the colored Girls, and they're like political impressiros and they
always say, um, don't major in the miners. And they
got on the phone with me and they said, your
child needs to come see Hillary. Don't major in the miners.
Just get their text somebody. When you get there, someone
will find you. Because that's like me. I'm like, I
don't want to go barging in and not get a
seed and get on the train to d C. And
(17:23):
and the train was expensive. It was election. I mean
it was convention the weekend. It was like seven dollars
or something and writing exactly. And I got down there
and then my friend said go to this v I
P room and I'm like, here we go again. And
I got my child who's nine and um and we
(17:46):
get there and they go, no children in this room,
and I said Minon Moore and Donna Brazil sent me
and they said okay. And we are seated in a
box next to resend Jesse Jackson, and my daughter, who's nine,
like literally says there and she's just like, okay. The
military father he said this, and Reverend William Barber said
this and this pression and she made notes and it
(18:08):
was like it was incredible. And then when the balloons
fell out of the sky after, you know, then she
just looked at me and she was just like, well,
what she said is a woman is going to become friends.
But you know, like the fact is we were so
close and it was an amazing night, and she talks
(18:29):
about it all the time, and I think we get
a lot of things like that. So I just try
to tell her all the time that like it's the
work that both me and her dad do and the
way we do the work, the way we try to
be with our colleagues and the people we work with.
Like I don't like when I work with people. I'm like,
let's not make this miserable, Like, let's make it fun,
(18:51):
let's be respectful, let's you know. Like, I think it's
the way we work with people as much as the
work we do that we get some of the opportunities
that we got. So when you're teaching young women at Smith,
but young people, UM at at any university you're teaching,
how do you communicate that? What is the big takeaway
(19:13):
for people who want to be in the creative space
but I have fear that they may not um be
able to survive financially. How do you communicate that to them? Um?
I think that, I say, I say a couple of things.
I think that. UM that for me, you know, I
(19:33):
wrote my first book, Mama's Girl, while I was working
full time in a magazine, and I always tell the
story I, UM, I wasn't a morning person at the time,
so I literally, UM would come home from work at seven,
give myself like an hour to eat a TV dinner
because that's the way life was. Then I gave myself
two hours to watch TV, and so that's seven to eight,
(19:54):
eight to ten really till like eleven. And then I
would set the oven timer because O and time, I
think that maximum and the oventimer is six hours or
seven hours. And I would sleep in the kitchen on
the floor so that I would have to get up
and write because my bed was way too comfy. And
I would get up and write for two hours before
I went to work. And I did that for three
months until I had a draft, you know, five days
(20:17):
a week for three months. I mean so, because the
thing is, I think people think sacrifices forever you can.
I mean, people go on diets for much longer. And
then I do that, you know what I mean. If
you're gonna like deny yourself like food, you could like
deny yourself a little sleep and maybe make something try.
So there's a there's some sacrifice in there too, yeah,
(20:38):
but not forever, you know. It's not like I do that,
like even now, Like sometimes when I have a deadline,
I'll get up. I'll set my learned for five. Sometimes
I get up at four. I hate being up at four.
I love being up at five, but four fields like
a hell, you know. But but then I'm just like,
let's just get up and do this, and I make
myself a cup of tea because I know it's not
every day and it's not forever. It's like, just get
(21:01):
at it, you know. Well, when we come back, I
want to talk about some of the things you're doing now,
which is why you're getting up in five in the morning.
So we've been chatting with the ronic Chambers about some
of the artistic endeavors that she's engaged in. And you
(21:26):
have a new I don't know how long new is,
but that you work at the New York Times in
the archives. Jill's been telling me about it. Um, can
you share some of that the reason you're gonna have
at four in the morning. Yes. Um. So this is
an interesting thing about creativity is Um, there's six million
fold photos and paper folders in the sub sub basement
(21:47):
of the New York Times. The the files are so
heavy they can't actually be in the new building because
the new building wasn't built to support it. So it's
actually like two buildings down. It would drop the bottom.
And so um, about two years ago, a really brilliant
editor there. Monica Drake was like, we should do something
(22:08):
with this, and she called me and she said, did
you have any interest in photography? And I had studied
photography in school. It's the one thing I was really
bad at. I really wanted to like be a writer
photographer and I don't know what I thought that was.
I don't know. And but then I collected photography and
of course in magazines you work with photography and photo
(22:28):
editors all the time. So he said yeah, and so
they basically said, we'll have a year and you can
build a team. And I've had two photo editors, reporter,
an editor, researcher and what would you do with it?
And so literally they're not organized by date, they're not
organized by photographer. They're organized because they started from the
(22:52):
late eighteen hundred. So whatever the photo editor thought made
sense at that time. And so I remember one on
my first day, I was like, everyone was like, what
are you gonna do? And like something and so um
they and someone said to me, they said, you know,
it's like pickup sticks, just throw them in the air
and see what comes down. And so I just started, um.
(23:13):
So that they are organized. There are folders for states
and places, they're folders for famous people, they're folders for
events like war. But I thought that the interesting thing,
kind of my driving thing, was that you don't have
to serve history the way it was served to you,
Like that's the nice thing about going backwards. And so
(23:34):
what I wanted to do was create things where, um,
where photos from different errors and periods could live together.
So one of the things I noticed right away was
that New York Times photographed dance and dancers for over
a hundred years, um, and everything from ballerinas to people
dancing at blog parties. So we did last summer. I
(23:56):
think it was like a sixty page special section on dance,
and it had everything. It was the oldest photo I
think was ninety years old and um, and they went
to over span a few hundred years. And your process
down there in that deep sub basement, do you just
let yourself wander and wait for the line ups is
(24:18):
to fire and a sense of like, whoa, we got
a lot of dance here. All of this dance shares something.
Is that how it works? Or not? Really? Um, it's
it's too hard. I mean, it's six million photos, so
it's too hard to do that. What happened at the
same time was they started scanning because they weren't digitized,
(24:40):
and so um, there's a team of scanners and they
have a slack channel and they'll throw things in there.
And so I started to see dance somewhat from them
and um, and then sometimes we would go back in
Talian's machine. But then also it was the team brainstorming.
So it's kind of like thinking. Usually it's often one
or two photographs that will sparked the idea. So like
(25:01):
I saw a couple of great dance photos and I thought,
I bet there's more, and I bet they're crazy diverse
and interesting, and you know, it's everything like teenagers at
a teen club in the nineteen forties watching a Flamenco dancer,
to break dancers, to the first um ballet um sort
of recitals after World War Two at like Connecticut College.
(25:25):
These beautiful photos of ballerinas dancing across the field and
so it was really great central park dancing, old people,
young people, babies, um, and so it was, but it
was just a couple of photos. And similarly, I just
um did a section on African independence and I saw
one photo, two photos really about two years ago there
(25:48):
was a photo of a baby holding a Nigerian flag
and I thought that was interesting, and a mother carrying
a baby on the back and the baby had a flag.
And then I saw a photo of a beauty pageant
winner that said miss Independence, and I, uh, when did
Nigeria get independent? And it was nineteen sixty And it
turned out that um seventeen countries declared independence in nineteen
(26:08):
sixty and it was like the tipping point for colonialism.
I had no idea. I don't I don't know African history,
you know, and and so it just and everyone said, well,
you've got two photos from Nigeria. Is they're more? And
I'm always like, if my you know, like spider sense,
my spidy sense says that these photos are pretty incredible,
(26:30):
I'm pretty sure we can find more. And then it
turned out that when these countries declared independence, everyone needed
new I D cards, So that's why you have all
these photo studios popping up. And so it turned out
there were lots of photos. But I didn't know any
of that. I just knew that I saw two photos
that I found in Trigue. You're also commissioning essays based
on these photos, so it's yeah, and the project is
(26:55):
about what does not just let's put these photos together
and see what see what binds them. But let's put
these photos together, show them to people and see what
it sparks in them, what it tells us about us? Now, Yeah,
Zadie Smith wrote something for us, Mr Copeland Walter Mosley. UM,
(27:15):
I'm trying to think so many people, what you what
if you learned about yourself from this? From all of
this looking and seeing, well, you know, I feel like
it's funny. It's like someone you were meant to meet.
Certain jobs give you that feeling like you were meant
to have them. And um, my parents were so poor
(27:37):
that actually, like a lot of the people in these photos,
their parents would not have had photos taken of them.
So of my grandparents, I probably have ten photographs of them.
Of my great grandparents, I have one photograph of each
of them. So like, literally, for me, six million photos
(27:58):
is like the opposite. It's like I got handed this bounty.
And I think what I see people responding to. I
think our section has done incredibly well. Um, I mean
the page views and the response is just off the
hawk and one people say that the photos make them
feel connected I think at a time when we feel disconnected. UM.
(28:18):
You know, you see a photo of a couple having
lunch in Central Park in ninety eight and UM, and
you think about, you know, the first time that you
had lunch with someone you loved or whatever, and it
was crazy as people have been finding themselves in photos.
So that photo that I was talking about, the couple
in Central Park having lunch, someone wrote and they told
us that was their parents and they're still married. And
(28:41):
so you know what I mean, like, it's like this
connection and I think the universality that um that really
I think photos like the ones we're finding, the ones
that we ran, um show us just how common the
human experiences. You know, you did a really beautiful post
on Instagram when the old decade ended and we hit
(29:06):
and we started a new one looking back. I think
a lot of people were doing that, UM. And you
talked about all the things that have happened to you
over the past ten years, and you quoted an Elizabeth
Bishop poem, which I love. UM. The quote was lose
further Faster. So what is that? Why did you quote that?
(29:27):
What does it mean to you? And what I mean
talk about loss looking back? Looking at things that are lost,
but getting uh a strength from it. Yeah, my god,
till you know me so love, Like I can't even
fake it, you like, let' be deep and smart. She
(29:47):
knows better. Um so that poem one art and um,
you know, she says, the art of losing isn't hard
to master. Um practice losing further, losing faster. I've lost
two houses I loved, you know, different things. All these
things that she's the losing of a set of house
keys and the dizzy it puts us in, um, but
(30:08):
they all the way to the loss of someone we love. Yeah,
I think that, um, you know, to go back to
the idea of like trying and what I tell students
and stuff. It's like it's like that old um, the
Debbie Allen thing from fame, you know, like fame costs
and here's where you start paying. I think the thing
(30:29):
is is that if you're gonna really like engage with
life full on, and you're gonna say, I'm gonna put
myself out there and I'm going to try things, and
I'm gonna, you know, just go for it in every
way in my marriage and my motherhood and my friendships
and my family and my career. Um, you're gonna get
punched back, like it's gonna like, you know, some things
(30:51):
are gonna hit you. And I think for me, the
loss has been great. I've had projects canceled, I've had
jobs I've lost, I've had things I've gone for, I've
been fired from projects, I've I've had people, you know,
I've you know, I've just had this real sense of
(31:11):
loss and also personal loss, you know, like I've lost
friends and I've um and I've had to let some
things go, you know, Like I feel like there's always
this idea that like I wanted this so badly and
I and it didn't work out or it's not happening
for me, and I have to let it go. And
(31:32):
I think that for me, there's what I telled my
students and my friends when they ask, is like, like
you're defined by how not how quickly you can bounce back,
but by how artfully you can bounce back. You know.
I think that, UM. I think that to be able
(31:53):
to really look something squarely, squarely and say this is
how painful it may have cost me money, I'm ambition, ego, reputation, UM,
anything and UM, and then to keep going is really tough.
But I think the fact is that's happened to everyone
(32:14):
who we might admire or want to follow in their footsteps.
Such amazing advice. Thank you so so much. Let's all
try to live more artfully in spite of the cost.
So everyone followed Veronica's work at Veronica Chambers dot com.
You can connect with her on Instagram at end on
Twitter at vv Chambers. The Road to Somewhere is recorded
(32:40):
in New York City. Make sure you share, subscribe, rate,
and review us, and let us hear from you. Where
are you on your journey? Connect with us on Instagram
and Twitter at pod to Somewhere. Email us at Road
to Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com. Special thanks to our producer,
Alicia Haywood. Thanks for joining us in the Road to Somewhere.
Available on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts,
(33:03):
or wherever you get your podcasts. M
I do think it's about the road, and I think
that as many things as I have that are prizes
at the end, I've had a lot of fun along
the way, and I really am invested in that. Thanks
(00:31):
for joining us on the road to somewhere. When we
talk about exploration, adventure, major life change and transformation, it's
about not necessarily knowing where we're going, but having faith
that the journey will be worthwhile. I'm we saw us,
and I'm Jill Herziege, and we are going to be
joined today by someone whose life has always been a
(00:51):
huge inspiration to me. We work together, but that's not
the most meaningful connection. The most meaningful connection is just
having been um had a seat at the front row
watching this person just strut her life down the runway.
It's been so exciting for me. Do you have women
in your life who you just feel like I'm just
(01:11):
watching them live their lives? I love it. That's cute
and sweet, but you know what I mean? You know
what I mean? There's there and I'm not talking about
in the Instagram way. I'm not talking about wow, look
at her in some fabulous locale every week. I'm talking about, um, wow,
(01:32):
look at that choice. Well, our our guest today, Veronica Chambers,
is truly impressive. I'm just looking at I've never i
feel like I'm the odd girl in this room because
you guys clearly have a past and I I'm just
looking at her resume and it is mind blowing. Um. Writer,
our archival storyteller, Senior editor of the Special Project team
(01:53):
with the New York Times, co author of four New
York Times bestsellers and written more than a dozen books
for children. Been in publishing every form of creative endeavor
that I can think of it. Thank you for being
with us today. I'm so excited to be here. So UM,
back when we work together, I used to ask you
to talk about your background and your sort of origin
(02:15):
story with our interns. Um. We worked together Glamor Magazine
yearns ago. Um, but we knew each other before and
we've known each other after that. So can you talk
a little bit about your about your background? Just because
I had you had you tell interns because again, it
just it wowed me every time. Yeah. I mean, I
am trying to think of the very very short version. Um.
(02:38):
I was born in Panama. My parents are for you know,
I'm first generation my parents were immigrants. I grew up
in Brooklyn super poor. Um, just really poor, like no
o R like po poor and um. And you know,
I went to college early. And really that was like
a big life choice because when I was sixteen, dropped
(03:00):
out of high school, not because I was so smart,
but because like my home life was really rough, and
so I was like, I may not make it to
senior year. And so I went to college early. And
when my brother was sixteen, he dropped out of school
and started dealing drugs and so um, so I think,
you know, it was like a very survival thing. And UM,
(03:20):
when I got my first internship in magazines, they didn't pay,
and I literally my family all gave me like train
fare as my Christmas present so I could do it.
And I remember getting there at seventeen and realizing that
another intern had a private car driver to the office
every day and she never picked up her Um, I
(03:42):
guess that I had my first internship with Sassy was
stilled unpaid. And then I was at seventeen and it
was add twenty five dollars a week before taxes, and
she never picked up her check, and I just remember thinking,
paycheck her paycheck. It was so meaningless and every you
used to have to go and pick up your paycheck
in those days, and um, the woman, I wish I
could give it to you because look look at she
(04:04):
she doesn't even want it. And it was just like
it was just so hard to Like, I think people
don't understand often that certain fields have a point of entry,
like you have to be able to like go without
pay or make a dollar a week before taxes in
order to have the experience to be in the room.
Like it's really hard to get into certain rooms. And
(04:27):
I think it's still true. Oh my gosh, I think
it's still very much true. So what inspired you? What
what was the driving force to go into a field
where there was that barrier financially? Why wouldn't I would
have thought that you'd want to just make some money? Yeah,
you know, Um, I think about this a lot because
(04:49):
I was trying to negotiate a contract the other day
and I literally was trying to give some of my
money to somebody else who I didn't think was being
fairly compensated. And the person I was negotiating with was like,
we can talk about her money, but I'm not taking
from your money, and I think, you know, so that's
just it just the way of saying that. I think,
despite not having had a lot um money for itself,
(05:12):
has not been a pure driver for me. I think
I grew up in a family of readers and I
loved to read. And I think that when I learned
about magazines and it seemed like an opportunity to write,
it was kind of like an extension of that. I just,
you know, I still remember getting those like first bylines
and how excited I was, you know, I feel like
(05:33):
that's the thing that drives me. Is is it exciting?
Is it creative? Um? Can I make something? Okay? So
that was then, and what has happened in between is
a great career in magazines, a departure from that that
sort of trajectory, and a movement into writing all of
these best sellers and doing all of these incredible creative projects.
(05:57):
And this summer you have two books, having out four kids.
Tell us about the the one about Shirley Chisholm. And
because what's interesting to me about it is how long
it has taken um. Because creativity, you make it sound
as that it just sort of bubbles forth. And you
bought from one project to the next. But some of
them take have taken in your life. Stick tu itiveness phenomenal.
(06:20):
Stick to itiveness. Yeah, I think that. Um, yeah, you
have to have patience. I first decided to write a
picture book about Shirley Chislm ten years ago. It was
a really different moment in the culture. Um. You know,
you didn't have the women of the hundreds and sixteenth Congress.
You didn't have I remember sitting with an editor and
(06:42):
she said to me, do you know how many people
have served in Congress? Do you really think all of
them to serve a bluck? But I had grown up
in Brooklyn, and I knew Shirley Chisholm was extraordinary. I
knew that she was the first woman to run, to
seek the major to seek the presidential nomination from a
major party. You know. Funny because my other children's book
is about suffrage, and we've been going back and forth
(07:04):
about Victoria Woodhull, who, of course this is the first
female I've run for president. But she was so crazy. Um,
you know, like Shirley Chisum was legit, and she got
electoral votes and she convinced people at a time, you know,
when civil rights was so knew that the paint was
still wet on the walls, you know, and she went
for it and she had so much confidence and I
(07:25):
really wanted to do it. And it started ten years
ago and it's sold, and then it kind of got
unsold when somebody left UM, and then I couldn't. I
just couldn't sell it. And I kept I would do
this thing. I do this thing all the time because
I have so many ideas where I go to Amazon
and I type in shortly Chism picture book and I'm like,
it's somebody somebody else is going to do it. And
(07:47):
every year it didn't happen, and I just kept, you know,
I'd bring it up by bringing up in meetings, I'd
try to do stuff. And then like about three years ago, UM,
an editor that I love, Nancy Mercado, got a new
job and I sent her an email. I said, you know,
look at all this stuff about Shirley Chisum. She's getting
a monument. There's a state park in Brooklyn. I think
(08:09):
Viola Davis is playing her in a movie. Um Uzuo Adibu,
I think it's playing in a TV movie. And Um,
I said, she's everywhere. I have this book that I
wrote ten years ago, um, would you like to have it?
And it just saw started to move really fast. Yeah.
So and so where do you get that that grit
(08:30):
that helps you stick with your belief in a project?
And how do you know like when it's time to
let something go versus when you should never never let
it go. That's interesting. I, um, it's funny because I've
taught writing along the way I taught at Stanford recently
taught us Smith, which I loved, um so knowning Lisa
(08:53):
smile like I loved teaching them um and I and
sometimes like coach writers. I I've worked as a coach
for Senator Corey Booker, and I've I've coached some really
talented people. And there's a woman you had a project
that she wanted to do, a novel, historical novel, and
she has been trying to publish it for ten years.
(09:15):
I have tried, in as many ways as possible to
tell her this was just one idea that she had
and she just has to like let it go, because
ultimately I put Shirley to the side and I made
other things and then I came back to it. And
I think that's the thing is, you know, I think
every writer of like you know, married and um tenacity,
(09:39):
has something in a drawer that UM, the time wasn't
right for. But I think the differences do you keep
making things or do you insist that your one good
idea is is the thing and the world has to
catch up. I think that's the big difference. When we
come back, I want to talk to you about where
you get those good ideas. Okay, so we've been chatting
(10:12):
about creativity, especially in the realm of the written word,
and I just want to talk about where how much
of being in magazines do you think informed your your
particular version of creativity, Because, as you said, some people
have one idea that they said on forever, but in magazines,
it's a different idea every month, right, or sometimes ten
(10:32):
ideas every month. So I just want to talk about
your particular type of creativity. Sure, I think that um magazines,
And I'm so sad that there aren't as many magazines
around as there were and that they aren't as many stories.
I just loved it. I feel like magazines were for
me like a gym, you know, and I could like
(10:52):
I could work my arms, or I could get on
a treadmill or I could. You know, I could do
a cover story. I could do a quiz, I could
do you know that could cookbook, I could. It was
a space that could hold a lot of different things.
You could do it most entirely with words and texts. Yeah,
you could do a ten thou word political story, or
you could do something that was a photo essay. I
(11:15):
remember editing short films with you on Glamor's Woman of
the Year. I mean, I just feel like there was
just it was a space that allowed you to try
a lot of things. Um. I think that's one of
the reasons I love being at the New York Times Now.
I just came from there and I'm like, I look
at this building. Platform is firing on everyone liked to see,
you know. I could like literally just walk from my
(11:37):
desk to the kitchen and I can pass Michael Babar
or I could see people from the Weekly Because see
people from the Washington Bureau. I could see someone from
Crossroad Puzzle Puzzles, someone from Cooking the cooking app versus
the cooking in the paper. I mean, I just I
like spaces where you can do a lot of different things.
And it's interesting that you bring up cooking, because you
(11:59):
also are the author of James Beard Award winning cookbooks,
and that's a whole other avenue of creativity for I
have to tell you that the last James Beard Award
I want, I was like I went first. I was like,
this is truly nice to be nominated, because we were
nominated for Best American Cookbook, which you know, often like
(12:20):
African American things are like we'll talk about what tell
tell people what the book was. Oh, it was called
Between Harlem and Heaven, and it was then exploration of
Afro Asian American cooking. And it basically looked at how
the diaspora of Africa and the diaspora of Asia intersecting
cuisine and all these interesting ways in Jamaica and Senegal,
in England and all the stuff. It was an idea book,
(12:42):
which I love, you know, and um, and we were
nominated for Best American Cookbook. And I got the nomination
and I was like, okay, um, so nice to be nominated.
I'll put on a nice dress, I'll go to the
James Briand Award. This is not really happening. Maybe I'll
meet some famous chefs, you know, David Chanying or something
and and then um, I'll go home. And the night
(13:06):
of the awards, they said the first award is going
to Best American Cookbook. And I remember sitting there and
going hell spells, like it's going to be a long night.
I'm gonna have to be smiling and polite like all
my He was like, let it come at the end,
let me have fun. I'll just see like bum er,
I'll go home. But I was like, and then they
said it was us, and I was just so shocked.
(13:27):
But it was really something that like had a tiny
budget that came from our heart that I worked on
for a long time because of said tiny budget and um,
and I felt like people really saw it and that
was great. That brings it sort of brings me back
to your question originally about the impulse to work in
a field that promised you no money. You also pursue
(13:48):
creative projects that promised you no money, and and that
has been I mean, I will say that a huge
driving force in my life. And I did not come
from a poor family. I went through economic stress as
a kid, but that economic stress took hold in me
I think in a different way, and money has been
(14:10):
a huge driver for me. And I have trimmed and
shaped my dreams and pursuits so that they could fill
the coffers in the most effective way that I thought
I could do. Um. I have followed the money the
creativity as well, and I feel incredibly lucky to have
been able to do. But at the same time, you know,
(14:34):
I took jobs that were very painful because this was
more money, and I you know, I had kids, and
I just wanted wanted more money and more safety. And
that really that word is what what was about. It
wasn't about the money, was about safety. So how how
does one free oneself from the fear based pursuit and
(14:55):
go for the pursuit of what you love and want
to do and believe? Yeah, I think. I mean in
some ways, my poor child, for who's thirteen, She's like,
where is the money? She's like, You've done all this stuff,
where's the money? Um? But you know, at the same time,
I think the amazing thing is we always well two things.
(15:15):
I think I was really lucky that when I married
my husband, we both felt very strongly that we wanted
a small life. We wanted a life that we didn't
have to work hard to support, and we always said,
we wanted the smallest place we can live. Um that
we just didn't want to overhead to be crippling. You know.
I didn't send my kid to private school because I
(15:35):
didn't want to have to say, oh, you got ex
grade and it caught and I was spending this much
on in school. I just you know, like so, I mean,
I found a great charter school and she's in a
bilingual school. I made choices that were important to me,
but I just didn't want there to be a price.
I don't want to associate a price tage with schooling.
So I feel like I was lucky that I had
a partner who felt the same way. Um. But I
(15:57):
also as my child was own and look at our family,
I think I've just had so many experiences that you
couldn't buy. So it's not a small life. It's a
huge in terms of stuff. Yeah. I remember when, um,
we I took my daughter to Spain for a month
and um yeah, and um so that we could you know,
(16:19):
she could really be a merchant Spanish, and because my
family speaks Spanish, I really wanted her to do it.
And at that point she was eight, and I think,
you know, she thought Spanish was something I made her do,
like some kids have to take piano. She's like always
and I'm like, we're going to Spain and you're going
to speak and um. And we came back from Spain.
My husband had to leave right away for a trip.
(16:40):
And I got a call from Donna Brazil and Mignon More,
these group of women in d C from politics, and
they said, are you coming down tomorrow to see Hillary
accept the nomination? And I said, um, I said no,
it's pouring rain. I just got back from Spain last night.
My husband's not here. I don't have tickets. I don't
I've never been to a convention. I don't have anything.
And you know, they the scooping woman. They call themselves
(17:01):
the colored Girls, and they're like political impressiros and they
always say, um, don't major in the miners. And they
got on the phone with me and they said, your
child needs to come see Hillary. Don't major in the miners.
Just get their text somebody. When you get there, someone
will find you. Because that's like me. I'm like, I
don't want to go barging in and not get a
seed and get on the train to d C. And
(17:23):
and the train was expensive. It was election. I mean
it was convention the weekend. It was like seven dollars
or something and writing exactly. And I got down there
and then my friend said go to this v I
P room and I'm like, here we go again. And
I got my child who's nine and um and we
(17:46):
get there and they go, no children in this room,
and I said Minon Moore and Donna Brazil sent me
and they said okay. And we are seated in a
box next to resend Jesse Jackson, and my daughter, who's nine,
like literally says there and she's just like, okay. The
military father he said this, and Reverend William Barber said
this and this pression and she made notes and it
(18:08):
was like it was incredible. And then when the balloons
fell out of the sky after, you know, then she
just looked at me and she was just like, well,
what she said is a woman is going to become friends.
But you know, like the fact is we were so
close and it was an amazing night, and she talks
(18:29):
about it all the time, and I think we get
a lot of things like that. So I just try
to tell her all the time that like it's the
work that both me and her dad do and the
way we do the work, the way we try to
be with our colleagues and the people we work with.
Like I don't like when I work with people. I'm like,
let's not make this miserable, Like, let's make it fun,
(18:51):
let's be respectful, let's you know. Like, I think it's
the way we work with people as much as the
work we do that we get some of the opportunities
that we got. So when you're teaching young women at Smith,
but young people, UM at at any university you're teaching,
how do you communicate that? What is the big takeaway
(19:13):
for people who want to be in the creative space
but I have fear that they may not um be
able to survive financially. How do you communicate that to them? Um?
I think that, I say, I say a couple of things.
I think that. UM that for me, you know, I
(19:33):
wrote my first book, Mama's Girl, while I was working
full time in a magazine, and I always tell the
story I, UM, I wasn't a morning person at the time,
so I literally, UM would come home from work at seven,
give myself like an hour to eat a TV dinner
because that's the way life was. Then I gave myself
two hours to watch TV, and so that's seven to eight,
(19:54):
eight to ten really till like eleven. And then I
would set the oven timer because O and time, I
think that maximum and the oventimer is six hours or
seven hours. And I would sleep in the kitchen on
the floor so that I would have to get up
and write because my bed was way too comfy. And
I would get up and write for two hours before
I went to work. And I did that for three
months until I had a draft, you know, five days
(20:17):
a week for three months. I mean so, because the
thing is, I think people think sacrifices forever you can.
I mean, people go on diets for much longer. And
then I do that, you know what I mean. If
you're gonna like deny yourself like food, you could like
deny yourself a little sleep and maybe make something try.
So there's a there's some sacrifice in there too, yeah,
(20:38):
but not forever, you know. It's not like I do that,
like even now, Like sometimes when I have a deadline,
I'll get up. I'll set my learned for five. Sometimes
I get up at four. I hate being up at four.
I love being up at five, but four fields like
a hell, you know. But but then I'm just like,
let's just get up and do this, and I make
myself a cup of tea because I know it's not
every day and it's not forever. It's like, just get
(21:01):
at it, you know. Well, when we come back, I
want to talk about some of the things you're doing now,
which is why you're getting up in five in the morning.
So we've been chatting with the ronic Chambers about some
of the artistic endeavors that she's engaged in. And you
(21:26):
have a new I don't know how long new is,
but that you work at the New York Times in
the archives. Jill's been telling me about it. Um, can
you share some of that the reason you're gonna have
at four in the morning. Yes. Um. So this is
an interesting thing about creativity is Um, there's six million
fold photos and paper folders in the sub sub basement
(21:47):
of the New York Times. The the files are so
heavy they can't actually be in the new building because
the new building wasn't built to support it. So it's
actually like two buildings down. It would drop the bottom.
And so um, about two years ago, a really brilliant
editor there. Monica Drake was like, we should do something
(22:08):
with this, and she called me and she said, did
you have any interest in photography? And I had studied
photography in school. It's the one thing I was really
bad at. I really wanted to like be a writer
photographer and I don't know what I thought that was.
I don't know. And but then I collected photography and
of course in magazines you work with photography and photo
(22:28):
editors all the time. So he said yeah, and so
they basically said, we'll have a year and you can
build a team. And I've had two photo editors, reporter,
an editor, researcher and what would you do with it?
And so literally they're not organized by date, they're not
organized by photographer. They're organized because they started from the
(22:52):
late eighteen hundred. So whatever the photo editor thought made
sense at that time. And so I remember one on
my first day, I was like, everyone was like, what
are you gonna do? And like something and so um
they and someone said to me, they said, you know,
it's like pickup sticks, just throw them in the air
and see what comes down. And so I just started, um.
(23:13):
So that they are organized. There are folders for states
and places, they're folders for famous people, they're folders for
events like war. But I thought that the interesting thing,
kind of my driving thing, was that you don't have
to serve history the way it was served to you,
Like that's the nice thing about going backwards. And so
(23:34):
what I wanted to do was create things where, um,
where photos from different errors and periods could live together.
So one of the things I noticed right away was
that New York Times photographed dance and dancers for over
a hundred years, um, and everything from ballerinas to people
dancing at blog parties. So we did last summer. I
(23:56):
think it was like a sixty page special section on dance,
and it had everything. It was the oldest photo I
think was ninety years old and um, and they went
to over span a few hundred years. And your process
down there in that deep sub basement, do you just
let yourself wander and wait for the line ups is
(24:18):
to fire and a sense of like, whoa, we got
a lot of dance here. All of this dance shares something.
Is that how it works? Or not? Really? Um, it's
it's too hard. I mean, it's six million photos, so
it's too hard to do that. What happened at the
same time was they started scanning because they weren't digitized,
(24:40):
and so um, there's a team of scanners and they
have a slack channel and they'll throw things in there.
And so I started to see dance somewhat from them
and um, and then sometimes we would go back in
Talian's machine. But then also it was the team brainstorming.
So it's kind of like thinking. Usually it's often one
or two photographs that will sparked the idea. So like
(25:01):
I saw a couple of great dance photos and I thought,
I bet there's more, and I bet they're crazy diverse
and interesting, and you know, it's everything like teenagers at
a teen club in the nineteen forties watching a Flamenco dancer,
to break dancers, to the first um ballet um sort
of recitals after World War Two at like Connecticut College.
(25:25):
These beautiful photos of ballerinas dancing across the field and
so it was really great central park dancing, old people,
young people, babies, um, and so it was, but it
was just a couple of photos. And similarly, I just
um did a section on African independence and I saw
one photo, two photos really about two years ago there
(25:48):
was a photo of a baby holding a Nigerian flag
and I thought that was interesting, and a mother carrying
a baby on the back and the baby had a flag.
And then I saw a photo of a beauty pageant
winner that said miss Independence, and I, uh, when did
Nigeria get independent? And it was nineteen sixty And it
turned out that um seventeen countries declared independence in nineteen
(26:08):
sixty and it was like the tipping point for colonialism.
I had no idea. I don't I don't know African history,
you know, and and so it just and everyone said, well,
you've got two photos from Nigeria. Is they're more? And
I'm always like, if my you know, like spider sense,
my spidy sense says that these photos are pretty incredible,
(26:30):
I'm pretty sure we can find more. And then it
turned out that when these countries declared independence, everyone needed
new I D cards, So that's why you have all
these photo studios popping up. And so it turned out
there were lots of photos. But I didn't know any
of that. I just knew that I saw two photos
that I found in Trigue. You're also commissioning essays based
on these photos, so it's yeah, and the project is
(26:55):
about what does not just let's put these photos together
and see what see what binds them. But let's put
these photos together, show them to people and see what
it sparks in them, what it tells us about us? Now, Yeah,
Zadie Smith wrote something for us, Mr Copeland Walter Mosley. UM,
(27:15):
I'm trying to think so many people, what you what
if you learned about yourself from this? From all of
this looking and seeing, well, you know, I feel like
it's funny. It's like someone you were meant to meet.
Certain jobs give you that feeling like you were meant
to have them. And um, my parents were so poor
(27:37):
that actually, like a lot of the people in these photos,
their parents would not have had photos taken of them.
So of my grandparents, I probably have ten photographs of them.
Of my great grandparents, I have one photograph of each
of them. So like, literally, for me, six million photos
(27:58):
is like the opposite. It's like I got handed this bounty.
And I think what I see people responding to. I
think our section has done incredibly well. Um, I mean
the page views and the response is just off the
hawk and one people say that the photos make them
feel connected I think at a time when we feel disconnected. UM.
(28:18):
You know, you see a photo of a couple having
lunch in Central Park in ninety eight and UM, and
you think about, you know, the first time that you
had lunch with someone you loved or whatever, and it
was crazy as people have been finding themselves in photos.
So that photo that I was talking about, the couple
in Central Park having lunch, someone wrote and they told
us that was their parents and they're still married. And
(28:41):
so you know what I mean, like, it's like this
connection and I think the universality that um that really
I think photos like the ones we're finding, the ones
that we ran, um show us just how common the
human experiences. You know, you did a really beautiful post
on Instagram when the old decade ended and we hit
(29:06):
and we started a new one looking back. I think
a lot of people were doing that, UM. And you
talked about all the things that have happened to you
over the past ten years, and you quoted an Elizabeth
Bishop poem, which I love. UM. The quote was lose
further Faster. So what is that? Why did you quote that?
(29:27):
What does it mean to you? And what I mean
talk about loss looking back? Looking at things that are lost,
but getting uh a strength from it. Yeah, my god,
till you know me so love, Like I can't even
fake it, you like, let' be deep and smart. She
(29:47):
knows better. Um so that poem one art and um,
you know, she says, the art of losing isn't hard
to master. Um practice losing further, losing faster. I've lost
two houses I loved, you know, different things. All these
things that she's the losing of a set of house
keys and the dizzy it puts us in, um, but
(30:08):
they all the way to the loss of someone we love. Yeah,
I think that, um, you know, to go back to
the idea of like trying and what I tell students
and stuff. It's like it's like that old um, the
Debbie Allen thing from fame, you know, like fame costs
and here's where you start paying. I think the thing
(30:29):
is is that if you're gonna really like engage with
life full on, and you're gonna say, I'm gonna put
myself out there and I'm going to try things, and
I'm gonna, you know, just go for it in every
way in my marriage and my motherhood and my friendships
and my family and my career. Um, you're gonna get
punched back, like it's gonna like, you know, some things
(30:51):
are gonna hit you. And I think for me, the
loss has been great. I've had projects canceled, I've had
jobs I've lost, I've had things I've gone for, I've
been fired from projects, I've I've had people, you know,
I've you know, I've just had this real sense of
(31:11):
loss and also personal loss, you know, like I've lost
friends and I've um and I've had to let some
things go, you know, Like I feel like there's always
this idea that like I wanted this so badly and
I and it didn't work out or it's not happening
for me, and I have to let it go. And
(31:32):
I think that for me, there's what I telled my
students and my friends when they ask, is like, like
you're defined by how not how quickly you can bounce back,
but by how artfully you can bounce back. You know.
I think that, UM. I think that to be able
(31:53):
to really look something squarely, squarely and say this is
how painful it may have cost me money, I'm ambition, ego, reputation, UM,
anything and UM, and then to keep going is really tough.
But I think the fact is that's happened to everyone
(32:14):
who we might admire or want to follow in their footsteps.
Such amazing advice. Thank you so so much. Let's all
try to live more artfully in spite of the cost.
So everyone followed Veronica's work at Veronica Chambers dot com.
You can connect with her on Instagram at end on
Twitter at vv Chambers. The Road to Somewhere is recorded
(32:40):
in New York City. Make sure you share, subscribe, rate,
and review us, and let us hear from you. Where
are you on your journey? Connect with us on Instagram
and Twitter at pod to Somewhere. Email us at Road
to Somewhere at iHeartMedia dot com. Special thanks to our producer,
Alicia Haywood. Thanks for joining us in the Road to Somewhere.
Available on the I Heart Radio app, on Apple Podcasts,
(33:03):
or wherever you get your podcasts. M
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