August 29, 2025 • 43 mins
Lisa sat down with Jodi Picoult at Big Night Live to interview her for the release of the paperback version of her newest novel, By Any Other Name. Not only did Jodi give insight to her writing but she also teased the release of her next book! Jodi Picoult has published 28 novels and short stories. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide and have been translated into 34 languages. In 2003, she was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, Welcome to Lisa's book Club, a podcast where I
interview best selling authors from the New England area, pulling
back the curtain on what it's really like being a
best selling author. They're guilty pleasures, latest projects, and so
much more. Everyone's here. Everyone knows Jody. Jody has over
has thirty novels, eight of which were number one New
York Times bestsellers, literally the second they came out. I'm incredible, Manchester,
(00:30):
New Hampshire resident, so local govern New Hampshire. She was
ranked in the top ten of Princeton's twenty five most
influential living alumni. Michelle Obama is on that list, Jeff Bezos,
David d. Kelly, and Jody Pico. It just keeps going
(00:52):
and going going. And now you're the newest member of
Lisa's book Club, so you have to put that in
your bio. Absolutely, and I want to We talk a
lot about friends of ours at our authors and we
wanted to thank Lisa Genova.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, love Lisa O.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yes, Lisa was the one who said, Hey, Lisa's Book
Club is really amazing and they want you and you
should go on that.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, it was it was We read mad Honey as
a book club. Remember that was one of our first books.
And so I'm so delighted you're here, and obviously everyone
here is delighted too.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Can I just say one thing, which is I never
get to do events in Boston and this is.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My city, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I think we have to have her back every year, right,
every single year. So you called into the radio show
about a month ago. We were talking about doing me
Avent and you shared with us that when you were,
you know, raising your three children as a young mom
living in Needham, used to listen to Kiss when we Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Absolutely, I mean we can't get it where I live
in New Hampshire, but iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah you can get it.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But I did.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
And my husband shared with me before I left today
that he had a Kiss one o eight poster on
his wall when he was growing up.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I love that. Yeah, we love your husband. So, as
a busy mom trying to fit in writing early on
in your career, where did you come up with your ideas?
Do you lay in bed at night and just you know,
think about them? How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
So my ideas for me have always come from questions
I can't answer, you know, things that I wind up
reading in the news about, or reading in a book about,
or just just wondering what would I do if I
was in that situation.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And for the most part, honestly, I tend.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
To write about people I'm not, which is really good
because if you've read my books, my characters have terrible lives, right.
So you know what's nice is that I do get
to like take this little departure when I'm writing a
book about whatever issue it is that's really, you.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Know, obsessing me.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And this is the only book I have ever written
that is really close to me, things that have happened
to me, right, And that's why this book was just
it was so different for me to write because of that.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So I want to can you reveal the process of
how you did by any other name? Because I find
it to be very unique. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So, I actually I was an English major at college
and I fell in love with the Shakespearean plays and
what I love about them I loved the women. I
loved characters like Beatrice and Portia and Rosalind and Kate
because they were so three dimensional and nobody was writing
three dimensional women at the time. And you should all
know if you're not Shakespearean fans, do not worry.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I will walk you through this. It's okay.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
But I was, like, you know, blown away by it.
And we had a professor who, like, for literally five
minutes in a class, said, you know, there's a theory
that Shakespeare maybe didn't write all his plays, and all
of us good little English majors were like, aha, silly,
Like we didn't even think about it, did not think
about it for decades. And then I was reading an
article in the Atlantic by a woman named Elizabeth Winkler,
(04:06):
and in this article, she was looking at the authorship question,
and she happened to mention that Shakespeare had two daughters
and he taught neither of.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Them to read or write. And I went, WHOA, Yeah,
no way, there's no way.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
The man who created those characters would not have taught
his daughters.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
To read and write.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
She gave a candidate that I'd never heard of before
as a potential author, and this woman's name was Amelia Bassano.
And I wound up doing this deep dive into research
about this woman, and what I learned was that for
literally hundreds of years, scholars have tried to make sense
of gaps and mistakes and things in Shakespeare's life that
don't make sense, and without even trying, Amelia's life seamlessly
(04:48):
fits all of those.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And so I.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Started to come up with this story about how women
have been written out of history by the men who
were writing it, and it focuses on two different women.
The first is Amelia Bassano, who is elizabethan playwright who
can't be one because you can't be a woman writing
plays in Elizabeth in England, So she pays a man
for the use of his name, and that man happens
to be William Shakespeare. And the other woman is her descendant,
(05:12):
who is fictional, a woman named Molina Green, who is
a playwright trying to get a play about her ancestor
Emilia onto Broadway. But Broadway is a very male dominated world,
and so the question is whether she too, will write
herself out of history just to see her words on
the stage.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Right, So, the idea that William Shakespeare is basically not
the author of any of these plays, you make an
amazing case for it. They know me to convince them exactly,
But I know that a lot of people don't believe you, right.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh yeah, I mean I was getting pushedback for this
book before it even came out, from people, usually male academics,
who said, I have not read your.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Book, but you're wrong, right, yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Let me tell you what we know about Shakespeare, Like,
let me tell you we know a lot about this
guy because he.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Was super famous. Right.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So, we know that Shakespeare was a businessman, a producer,
and an actor. We know that he evaded taxes twice.
We know that he had multiple restraining orders taken out
against him by his business colleagues. We know that when
there was a famine, he bought all the grain in Stratford,
he hiked up the price and he made his neighbors
pay it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Does this sound like any other businessman that you.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Know, Not at all.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
We also know that he never left the country, but
he managed to write about places like Italy and Egypt
and Denmark with levels of detail not in guide books
at the time, things like where the closets are in
the Queen of Denmark's bedchamber. We know that he never
graduated from university, which is really not a big deal.
(06:53):
But there's a question about whether he went to grammar.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
School at all.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And when he died he did not own a single book.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Now, let's think about this.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
If he didn't go to university, where did he learn
all these things?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
There weren't lending libraries at the time. He couldn't just
go and look something up. But he did not own
a book.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
When he died.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Nobody else who was a playwright at the time said
anything about like, oh, we're going to lose such a
great literary light. And when he died, he was not
buried or commemorated in Westminster Abbey, although a lot of
people you've never heard of.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Made that cut.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Here's the one thing we don't know about Shakespeare that
any play attributed.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
To him was actually written by him.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
The only handwriting we have on a play of Shakespeare's
is from a place somebody else wrote, and it's a
note in the margin.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
That's it. Okay, So now right, So what is the allure?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Why does that continue? Why do people still believe that
he wrote a cottage industry?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Like if you go to Stratford, it's like Shakespeare Disneyland,
right right, It's an industry.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It is.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's an industry. And there are lots and lots of
reasons why that. I don't even want to go into.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
If you really want to know you should read Elizabeth
Winkler's book on the subject, because it has to do
with things like World War One and Germany loving Shakespeare
and the English saying no, he's ours, and the fact
that women wanted to study university and nobody knew what
to give them to study, so they gave them the
Shakespearean plays. Like there's all kinds of stuff that led
to that almost deification of Shakespeare.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But he is larger than life.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I then started to look at Amelia Bassano, right,
So Emilia.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I'll give you a little historical sketch for her too.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Amelia came from an Italian family that were amazing musicians.
They played the recorder, not like your second grader does,
but really really well. When Henry the eighth came and
heard them in the small town of Bassano del Grapa, Italy,
he was like, they have to come home with me.
They're going to be the recorder consort to the king.
So they all pack up and they go to England.
They happened to be Jewish, where they can no longer
(08:48):
be Jewish in England, so.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
They have to hide their faith.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
When Amelia seven, her dad dies and she winds up
becoming the ward of the Countess of Kent.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Countess of Kent total.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
MVP in Amelia's life, because she winds up giving Amelia
a full legal and classical education, which is super rare
for a woman, particularly one that's not a noble.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Woman's daughter, and Amelia is just a commoner.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
When Amelia is twelve, the Countess gets remarried and she's
going to move to Netherlands with her husband, and her
husband does not want Amelia there, so Amelia becomes like
this piece of lost baggage that's gets shuttled around for
a summer, and she winds up living with the Countess's brother,
a guy named Peregrin Bardi, who just happened to be
the ambassador to Denmark for Queen Elizabeth, and that summer
(09:30):
he just happened to go to Denmark and meet.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
The King and Queen.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He also met this guy named Tycho Brahe, who is
a very famous astronomer and whose super nova is what
everyone's looking at in the first scene of Hamlet, and
he had dinner with Tycho Brahe's two cousins who just
happened to be named Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, Okay, just reminding
you Shakespeare never left the country.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So now Amelia turns thirteen, she is given as the
mistress to the Lord Cha Lord Chamberlaine of England. She's thirteen,
he's fifty six. Yes, he is also in charge of
all theater, all entertainment in England. So every play that's
written crosses his desk to be censored, vetted through him.
For the ten years she's living with him, she absolutely
(10:15):
would have met every playwright, actor, theater owner, producer in
the country.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
She lives with him for ten years, and then she
gets pregnant. You cannot be a pregnant.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Mistress, so she gets sent tolay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I sent away.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
She winds up becoming, you know, being married off to
her terrible husband, Alfonso Lanier, who's her cousin, who blows
through all the money that's settled on her to keep
her comfortable. She winds up with a husband she hates,
a baby, and no way to keep her family afloat,
And then we don't hear about her literally until sixteen eleven,
when suddenly she is the first published female poet ever in.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
All of England. Like what right? Like we all should
know her name just for that right exactly. But you know,
you don't show up.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
When you're forty as a woman in Elizabethan, England and
go publish a book.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Clearly she writing before that. I just think she was
using someone else's name.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So tell us about Southampton.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So Amelia had a really tough life, and I fell
in love with her, and I really wanted to do
something nice for her. So I happened to be doing
research and I came across this historical document. When Amelia
was in her fifties, her terrible husband dies and she
winds up suing her brothers in law for this patent
(11:26):
money that should have gone to her as the widow,
but instead they stole it. She represents herself in court
because she has that legal education, and when she's there,
the trial's going on, and at the very end of it,
out of nowhere, the Earl of Southampton shows up. The
Earl of Southampton is a very very famous, very rich,
(11:46):
very titled guy who is a big theater supporter, shows
up at this commoner's trial and says, hey, this isn't
my courtroom, but if it was, I'd rule in her favor.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And then he leaves, and I'm like, whoa, what just happened?
Because that doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You're not going to get a peer of the realm,
especially the Earl of Southampton go to some lowly person's
trial and intervene.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So I thought, did they know each other?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And I realized they would have because for the ten
years Amelia was at court, Court was super incestuous. Everyone
just moved from palace to palace together. They absolutely would
have met. And he was three and a half years
younger than her. He was widely considered a hotty at
the time.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And I was like, you know what, Amelia, let's get
you a little something.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, So I did it.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I was going to write her, you.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Know, this fictional illicit relationship, and of course it's never
going to work out because we know in real life
they didn't wind up together, nor would they ever have
in society. So I finished the book and then I
happened to be in England for a theater project and
I go to the Victoria and Albert Museum because that's
where Amelia's miniature is.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's painted by a man named Nicholas Hilliard. This is our.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Audio visual moments. If you can put up the first slide.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, I can't wait to see these. Yeah, I'm going
to show you what these are in the archives. This
is the arch at Albert Museum. Yeah, you didn't know
about this until after you finished the box, right.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Not this one? Next one? Okay, so there's a million Okay,
so the.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Sure and this was common back then.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
These are tiny, tiny, They're like the size of a broke.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Did they commission these?
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Ok so anyone who had the money could commission it.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And Nicholas Hilliard, the author of the artist, was very
famous for doing these. He did Queen Elizabeth stuff, He
did tons of stuff. So I'm super excited because the
archivists like, take this out for me to look at.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Next slide. Here, I am super excited.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah right, I mean I'm holding something she would have
held four hundred years ago, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
My mind is blown.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, you've been living with her, writing about her for over.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Earlier for a year, right, So next slide, So Amelia
is in a box with other Hilliard miniatures.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
My eye keeps getting drawn to the guy on the right,
and I'm like, all right, who is this guy? So
the archivists tell me that it's painted roughly the same
year as Amelia's, around fifteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I'm sorry, fifteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
That it clearly was the decision of the sitter in
the guy in the portrait to have a black background
and to have his hand over his heart, which is
like very like, you know, like he's super emotional, and
that it is painted on the back of the six
of hearts, which in Elizabethan cardamancy, which is kind of
(14:21):
like tarot now means the soulmate card.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
This is the person I.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Was meant to be with that fate has kept me from.
And they tell me they call him the unknown man
because they don't know who he is.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And I go, I think I know who he is.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Next slide, so here he is up close so you
can really see, you know, he's handcovering his heart. He's
got his long wavy red locks like mine. And I
tell them that I think it might be the Earl
of Southampton, and I pull up a photo on my phone.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Next slide.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
This is a picture of Southampton from fifteen ninety four.
It was painted four years after that miniature. It was
painted by Nicholas Hilliard, the same painter you can see
the same lace collar, the same hair, the same even
the same hairline.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
On the back of the blue eyes on the back of.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
It was it was on the the three of hearts,
which in cardimancy means someone has entered our relationship, who's going.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
To break us apart.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
And in my book that year, I write a scene
where Amelia's beaten so badly by her husband she literally
has to crawl Southampton. Okay, So the archivists are like, what,
we need to do more research, and I'm like, I
have to do more research. So I go home next slide,
and I find this picture on the left. This is
actually you're right, sorry, this is also an accredited portrait
(15:40):
of the Earl of Southampton painted by a man named
John Decritz, the same exact year as that miniature, and
you can really see the similarities, right. So I send
this to the archivist and they send me back like
this thirty page document with the provenance of all of
where they got their miniatures and stuff, and at the
very bottom of it they say, we actually believe, based
(16:01):
on all this that this is the Earl of Southampton.
Next slide. So that means for over two hundred years
since these have been in the existence.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Of Yes, I did that. I did that, but like
how cool? I mean, like, I fully believe they had
a relationship now, but also they've been cozied up next
to each other in a box for two incredible. I
feel so good about that.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I'm done.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I retired now, right, yeah, all right. Another part of
the book you mentioned it in the beginning was the
sort of current Molina character. Yeah, who is that based on?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So I told you there's a lot of me in
this book for many, many reasons. But one of the
things that I do in my copious amounts of free
time is I write librettos for musicals. And if you
don't know what that is, it's everything but the songs.
We write, the dialogue, we decide, they structure.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Of the show. We replaced the songs. I have a
co writer.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And the very first adaptation that I did was of
a book I wrote called Between the Lines. I wrote
it with my daughter and we were, oh, so we
have a fan out there, thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I love that book.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
And so you know, for like eight years we worked
on this musical. Everything that Molina is told about her
play in this novel, I was told to my face
about my musical because it was about a girl's coming
of age. I was told it's too small, it's too emotional.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Nobody wants to.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
See a girl's coming of age on stage. Mind you,
there were two boys coming of age stories playing next
door to each other on Broadway that year. And when
you find out that eighty percent of ticket buyers are women,
you wonder, well, where's that coming from?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And the answer is.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
That in Broadway, the gatekeepers are about five older white
men who run the theaters, and they're the ones who
decide what goes in, and they tend to pick shows
that reflect their experiences when there happened to be audiences
full of black people and brown people, and queer people,
and people with disabilities and women who want and deserve
to see their stories on stage.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And Molina's friend is the person Andre, who is black,
and he is yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And Andre was a really important character for me to
write in this book because Andrea is also a playwright
who hasn't had his do And one of the things
that we've seen recently post George Floyd's murder is some
of these white theater owners started to get scared, and
so what they did was make a slot in their
Season one slot where they would have a play written
by a black man or a woman. But that is
(18:32):
not equity, not at all. No, that is token ism.
And what we really need to see is a bigger table.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
We need more seats.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
At the table. We do. But also four hundred years,
everything's the same, from Alia to Molina.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It wasn't until after I finished the book that I
realized I'd actually made.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
The same choice as Helena and Amelia.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So when I was writing Between the Lines, we had
a producer, very well known producer, and it was a woman,
and she didn't want my name on the libretto because
she said, you're already the novelist and people are going
to think.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
It's a vanity project.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And I was like, okay, if that's what gets it,
you know, to cross the finish line, let's do it.
So when the play debuted off Broadway in twenty twenty two,
I was listed in the playbill as the novelist. I
was not listed as one of the librettists. And I
would do that again just to see it make it
that far. However, after the play closed, my co librettist
(19:28):
went to his lawyer and was like, this is ridiculous.
She wrote this with me for eight years, and now
now that it's licensed and that theater groups and schools
are performing between the lines all over the place, I
am listed as one of the writers. And it turns
out it's really nice to get credit for what you
what it does good Forrio.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah. So, I guess one of the questions that we
talk about, or you answer in the book, is is
art more important than recognition?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
And I don't think you can separate them honestly, you know,
I think we like to separate the art from the artist.
But hey, that's one of the reasons people are having
so much trouble with Harry Potter right now, right Like,
that was a brilliant ip, but unfortunately the writer of
that ip has chosen to die on a hill that
a lot of people rightfully, so, I believe think is
a really stupid hill to die on, and that's very
(20:17):
harmful to a lot of people. So it's very hard
for me to understand how you dissect the two because
I think too much of the author is in the work.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Can we talk about your book, Mad Honey for a second, sure, OK,
I know a lot of us read Mad Honey it's
one of my favorites.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Can you tell us or tell all of us how
this project came about, because it's a really good story
and it's a great about Jennifer and how she reached
out to you.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
So that was back in the days when I was
still on Twitter, before it became a hell.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Hole, and so it was.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
It was before COVID, That's all I know. And one
day I went on Twitter, and you know how like
you have friends on social media who are not really friends,
like you've never met them, but you follow them. So
Jenny Boylan was an author who I'd followed for years.
I'd read her books, I loved her writing. And one
day I open up Twitter and she writes this post saying,
I had this dream last night that I was co
(21:14):
authoring a book with Jody Pico.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So it's a true story.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
This is true. And so I messaged her and I
said what was it about? Yea, and she was like
h and she starts telling.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Me that it had two voices and one was a
trance girl who was murdered and one was the mother
of the son who was accused of doing it. And
I said, that sounds really cool. Let's do it and
she was like what and you know, and I was like, yeah,
because this is a topic I really wanted to write about.
But I love the fact that Jenny could bring an
(21:47):
authenticity and experience to half of that story that I
would never be able to. And so we kept on
trying to figure out why are we going to do
this because we both had projects at deadlines, and then
we had a pandemic and Jenny calls me up and
she's like, hey, my schedule just cleared, and.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I was like, amazingly, so did mine.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And so we wound up writing that book back and
forth through FaceTime.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So each of you wrote a chapter, right, you went
back and forth, and your process seemed to be very
different than her.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Okay, So if there are any writers in the audience,
there are two type of writers. There are plotters and
there are panthers. I am a plotter. Jenny is a pancer.
And it is really hard to co author a book
with someone who writes differently from you.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
And Jenny I called her up one damn, Like, Jenny,
we're writing a murder mystery.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
You can't get to the end and go I don't
know who did it?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
So I finally convinced her that she would have to
actually plot this out, and once she kind of came
around to that, she was like, oh, oh, I see, yeah,
I definitely was driving the bus on that one.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
But yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So do you know the ending of most of your books?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
The ending of all of my books?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Really?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, because I think it's my I mean, as you know,
many of my books have a twist in them, right,
And I've read books by authors that have a sucker
punch twist, which is like the kind where you're like.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Where did this come from? This is totally out of
left field?
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And I hate that because anyone can write that, you know,
that's like, that's like dios ex machina. I think art
is when I leave you all these clues and then
you get to go back and go, oh my god,
I can't believe I missed that the first summer out.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I love that. Yeah, Matt, honey, who did you come
up with the beekeeping? That was said, Yeah, how was it?
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So, Olivia was my character mostly, and she was the
mom in the story, and Lily was the trans girl,
and that was Jenny's character, although we both decided that
we were going to swap and write one chapter from
each other's point of view because we really wanted to
be able to inhabit the other character. And it's kind
of fun to get people to guess which one we wrote.
(23:58):
And I just knew that that I wanted to include
beekeeping because I loved the idea of a world run
by girls, right yeah, and you know there was so
I knew nothing about beekeeping, but the more I learned
about it, the more I was able to feed that
metaphor through the story. I will say this was again
in the middle of COVID, I have asthma. In fact,
(24:18):
that's why I'm coughing my head off, just so you
all know. I had COVID like a week and a
half ago. I am the one person you will not
get COVID from tonight because I am full of antibodies.
But I'm notdding because I am asthma. And so basically
the only thing I did, because I was so scared
of catching it with asthma back then before vaccines, was
do my beekeeping research.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And I did it from six feet away in a
field with a beekeeper.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Every week I would go out and tend these hives
with him, and like, I'm suited up in a be
suit with this mask underneath the netting.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It was insane, just insane.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I just I loved that part of the bok. I mean,
the whole book was amazing, but it was I just
thought that that was such a beautiful thread. Do you
so you do a lot of research? I do?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Do you enjoy it?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I love it?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah? Because some writers don't like it.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
At all, you can tell.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
But I love the ones that actually are transparent about
it and will say like, it's not really my thing,
but it's definitely your thing, so it's good. Do you
believe in writer's block?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'll tell you why I started writing, As you said,
you know, when I had three little kids. Literally, my
first book was published a few months after my first
son was born, and then I was either having a
book or a baby for a few years. I work
that out though I don't have thirty children, and basically
(25:41):
I got to a point where, like I was right,
I was the primary caretaker. My husband was working, and
so I would write when they were napping. I would
bring my laptop to nursery school, pickup and I would type.
I would write when Barney remember Barney was on TV. Yeah,
and they weren't like hitting each other over the.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Head of the sippy cup. That was writing time.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Any fifteen minutes I could, I would write. And I
learned how to write in spurts like that.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And what I.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Realized was that writer's block is really just an excess
of time. Think back to when you guys were.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
In school and you had a paper due and you
had writer's block.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Did it not miraculously clear up the night before the
paper was due?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Right? Good?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
So I mean that is not to say that there
are not days that I get to my computer and
I would much rather go shoe shopping online. Right, But
I know that you could always edit a bad page,
but you cannot edit a blank page.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And that's kind of been my mantra.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So just put something down in the page down, yeah,
and then fix it. So how, I mean, what is
your process? Do you write every single day?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So I tend to treat it like a full time job.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
And the most amazing thing happened with writing and children,
which was organized school. Because my children were gone eight
hours a day. It was the best and that was
when I started writing in earnest, you know. And now
that they're all gone and like living productive lives and
not in my house, I.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Basically do the same thing.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I write five days a week, and I write from
about eight thirty in the morning until about four when
I magically just turned into a wife again.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, it's a lot of writing. Yeah, are you working
on anything right now?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you want to give us a little hints? Sure,
she said when she called. When she called into the show,
I said I would, she said she would. Yeah, so
this is like breaking news.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, well, actually I'll give you more breaking news. So
this book will come out. I believe.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It's scheduled for October of twenty twenty six. And it
came about from an old well it's now an Instagram
site called postsecret.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Does anyone know that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Okay, so post secret used to be a Tumblr blog,
then it was a website. Now it's an Instagram handle. Basically,
it is this po box where you send an anonymous
postcard with your deepest, darkest secrets right and there, published randomly,
and yeah, you should go follow them as wild but
they can range from anything, like some of the secrets
(28:08):
are like every Friday, I come home and I get
naked and I stay that way until Monday when I
go to work. And some others are like, my husband
doesn't know our second child isn't his?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Oh right? So like they run the gamut okay, so ones.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Once there was a postcard that said, everyone who knew
me before nine to eleven thinks that I'm dead.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That's what I wrote about WHOA.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Twenty twenty six is the twenty fifth anniversary of nine
to eleven. I wanted to write a book that included
that it's also very much about women's health and how
it's discredited in this country, and basically, yeah, it's I
just finished the first draft last week.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Amazing. Yeah, So will you come back? We come back
into our book club and that comes out that will
you come back and do Lisa's book Club? And that
comes out, promise you'll.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Get absolutely you heard of your friends?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So by any other name? Is that in development for
any type of movie or TV project? Right?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
So, we've pitched it to a bunch of different places.
It has not been picked up yet. What we're finding
is that people are scared of the cost of making
something historical, which is weird. I actually just told my
film agents to go to England because it seems like
that's all they do over there, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Don't they have the costumes and sets somewhere or whatever.
But I do have other books.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
That are are moving ahead in development, Small Great Things,
which has having its tenth anniversary actually next year, that
is being cast right now.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
They would tell me with uh.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
No, I can't tell you anything there yet.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And we also are in casting discussion for the Book
of Two Ways as a series with the showrunner is
the guy who did Outlander.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Oh great, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And we also have a great name that we're hoping
will be attached, but I can't share that with you
yet either.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And how involved will you be with the projects? Do
you think?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Extremely? As in I've written part of the scripts.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, which is really good because my sister's keeper just sucked.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
So no, I know, I know you. Yeah, you didn't
like it at all.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
That's why I asked him, like you're this time around,
I know you know that that happened. I love to
ask authors if they could pick a soundtrack or a
few songs for your book, what would they be so
by any other name. Could you share.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Some artists I am.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
First of all, I will give a shout out to
my close personal friend Taylor Swift right, and she released
The Tortured Poet Society. I was like, did you get
a bootleg copy of my book?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Because honestly I could create an entire playlist out of it.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah I could.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, it was one hundred percent that book. And I
will always associate the two.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well, I was. I knew you were going to say
Taylor Swift. I could feel it. And I want to
mention when we were talking about the Victorian and Albert
Museum after I finished the book and your writer's notes,
you talked about the museum and I had this I said,
I was there two years ago in the summer with
my son Max, and they had the Taylor Swift eras
(31:37):
tour exhibit there and that's why I went. And then
I thought, oh my god, Amelia Bosana was also there,
and and Taylor. It just I don't know, it just
it was like one of those carments where I was like, this,
this was supposed to happen, right, this was supposed to happen.
So I'm so glad that you said Taylor Swift. But
(31:58):
I want to mention women the songwriters because Sabrina Carpenter,
her new album is coming out tomorrow, and we love Sabrida,
and she just did an interview and she said, you know,
all you pearl clutchers out there, beware. So it still
is very much the same in the entertainment industry where
(32:19):
women write these songs about you know, having fun and
stuff we like to do, and they get, you know,
she gets, you know, criticized for it. But then the
men do it and no one says anything.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yep, Well your.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
So tell me why when a woman writes about dragons
and people having sex it is porn, but when a
man does it is high.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Fantasy, right? Explain? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Mean the bottom line is that the reason I wrote
this book.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I told you this is me, right. I go on tour.
I do these massive tours. So every morning I'm on
a plane and usually sit down.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I'm usually next to a guy in a business suit
and he goes, oh, what do you do?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And I go, I'm a writer. And he goes, children's books.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh my god, what they does? They do? Not say
that to you? Really?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I go no, And then he goes romance.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
And I'm just like, how on earth can we in
twenty twenty five still be pigeonholing women this way? It
isn't history if it's still happening.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, it's true, very true. Let's talk about cover art
of your books.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Talk about it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, so behind the scenes, because your dress literally matches
the cover or the book.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, he does.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I don't know if that was planning you up at
Maze totally planned.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
When I went on tor I had like all these
dresses that match them.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
I'm very impressed. How involved are you with the cover?
And then the second question is the blurbs that we
see on books. I want you to explain that process.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Okay, so the cover, first of all, Usually what happens
is there's an amazing team at my publisher, Valentine, and
they've worked with me for many years. They brainstorm, they
come up with ideas, and then they send me a
few for review and I'll be like, oh, that's really cool,
maybe we could do this or maybe I think only
once in my life, in all my career, if I
ever said oh.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
God, no, but with this one. When they brought this
to me, I gasped and I said this is such
a beautiful cover.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
It's so lush.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I think I had one change because I think she
had a weird hair thing and I wanted her to
look more female and it was just it was a
weird like hair remnant.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
But they fixed that.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
But the weirdest part about the cover art was that
my books are published in like thirty five different countries
and England is a really big market for me, and
the British publishers without ever seeing this art created a
cover that looked almost identical to it.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
It was so crazy to me. Yeah, yeah, so I
thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
That is, blurbs are more there a zoteric because at
this point in my career, I don't have to get blurbs.
The ones that came in my publisher got. I don't
know who they bribe what they bribe Kristin Hannah with
to get a blurb, but whatever, I get asked roughly
ten times a day to blurb books.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I bet you that is how.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Many come through.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And I am one of the only authors I know
that does still do it. Because I think it's really
important to give people a leg up if you are
able to in this business.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And so.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I mean, I say no to a lot because I
just don't have the time. But when I can, I
will try to help someone out by giving them a blurb.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Well you did a blurb for Lisa Genovac.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Well, I mean that's easy because I love Lisa's writing,
so yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, she's terrific.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
What books are you currently reading right now?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
So, speaking of blurbing, I'm reading a book that is
called Thank You for Being a Friend by Wade Rouse.
It's like a queer retelling of the Golden Girls. But
I just to it, so I can't speak to it yet.
And the book I finished before this was The Night
in the Moth by Rachel Gillig, which was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, so you read all the time.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, I read like I read before I go to
bed every night. That's what I do.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Do you have a favorite book of your of your own?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
It's this book?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
This is horrible because when I was on tour, I
kept saying I should just retire.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
This is my swan song. I've done. I'm not going
to get any better than this, and my publicist was.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Like, you know, I yeah what, And I mean, I
will keep writing, but I also reserve the right to
always have a new favorite if I love it. But
this book meant so much to me personally, because there
really is so much of me in Molina and in
Amelia that it's always going to be really special to me.
I really really feel like one of the reasons I'm
(36:50):
a writer is so that I would be able to
get Amelia Bassano's name known, you know, And so.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I'm really proud of the fact that I've done that.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
You absolutely have and I didn't know. I mean, the
backstory about William Shakespeare. I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
So the coolest thing is when I have teachers come
up to me and they're like, you know, oh, I'm
teaching Shakespeare this year, but this year I'm also teaching
Amelia Pisano, And I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
All right, this is good. You're changing the world. I
think we have time for a few questions from the audience.
I know that Jody wanted to take a few, and
we do have a microphone that we're going to pass
around when he's gonna do the mic. All right, question
number one. I'll speak really loud so we can all
(37:39):
hear you.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
That is never my problem.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Okay, good, Okay, We're starting with you.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I wanted to know.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
About House Rules and what inspired you, and to tell
you that as a disabilities advocate, that I recommend that
book all the time to both parents and family members
of children on the spectrum because that book puts it
(38:10):
in such a great perspective and understanding.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
And I want to thank you for it.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
But what brought you to that book?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, thank you, that's really kind.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
One of the things that I really do love about
House Rules is hearing from educators and principles saying that
they've used that in training and things like that. The
reason I wrote that book is because I have a
cousin who is profoundly autistic, and when he was little
and used to have.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Meltdowns, my aunt used to have.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
To do things like sit on him, you know, like
in the middle of a store because he was stronger
than she was at a certain point to get him
to calm down.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And she did have the police called on her, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
And I just wanted I wanted to write a book
about how in the American legal system, maybe prior to
twenty twenty, anyway you could get a fair trial, you know,
And I feel that it works best if you communicate
a certain way.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
But if you don't communicate a certain.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Way, it all goes to hell in a handbasket really fast.
And I wanted to write that story.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
My question was, did you ever think of using a
pen name at the start of your career?
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Oh, I have a great story for you. Okay, So
the answer is no.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
But when I was, I don't know. I certainly wasn't
a bestselling author. I was like seven books into it
or something. And when that that was like kind of
when Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County got published,
and Nicholas Sparks, who is really my nemesis, And so
(39:58):
these guys, these men, we're publishing what I thought were
romance novels, and they were getting hardcovers and huge print runs,
and female friends of mine who'd been toiling in the
trenches of romance forever were still being called genre fiction writers.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
And being ignored. And I was like, this is terrible.
I am going to blow this industry wide open.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
So I decided I was going to write a romance
under a pen name, and I did.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
I wrote this book and I used.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The pen name Sam Kaye Jacobs, which was an amalgam
of all my children's names, and I was going to
get published, and I was going to go on Oprah
and tell everyone the real deal that was my play.
So my agent pitched the book and she could not
get it published because, and she was told this multiple times,
it was too well written for the male romance genre.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Wow. Wow, So that has never been published. So I tried, guys,
as I tried.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
That's a great question and a great answer. Do we
have time for one more more over here? Okay?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Hi, my name's Brianna h Marianna.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
I'm not a question so much as a thank you
for your online presence and your strong opinions about what's
going on, because as a person with disabilities, it's a
really fucking scary time right now. So I love hearing
what you have to say. I share everything, So thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
That's really kind of due. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's a weird time, right yeah, it's a really weird
time right now in this country, and I feel like,
you know, one of the one of the projects that
I'm working on that's not one of my own novels,
is an adaptation, a musical adaptation of the book Thief
by Marcus Usak right. If any of you are going
to be in England on October nineteenth, we will be
(41:56):
doing a one night concert in the West End.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
But it's great, Yeah, come on over. It's a terrific musical.
It's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
But it is of course about the rise of fascism
and about how to combat that with acts of kindness
and by choosing love. And I really the more I
dive into that story, the more I'm reminded that everyone
who thinks about the Holocaust now in the you know,
in the twenty first century, thinks.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
I never would have let that happen.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
And I think now we are at a place where
we're being tested to see if we would. And I'm
very fortunate to have a platform. I'm amazed that anybody
ever wants to listen to me. All of you guys
surely had something better to do tonight, you know, But
as long as people are willing to listen, I'm going
to try to speak the truth.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Great discussion with Jodi Pico. I could have talked to
her all night. Coming up next September eighth, we have
Chris Whitaker, who wrote All the Colors of the Dark.
He's flying in from London to do Lisa's Book Club
at Joss and Maine. It sold out, but you never know.
If you DM me, maybe I'll put you on my
private guest list. That's Lisa Donna been wan away on
Instagram again. Chris Whitaker September eighth, and have a great weekend.
Hey, Welcome to Lisa's book Club, a podcast where I
interview best selling authors from the New England area, pulling
back the curtain on what it's really like being a
best selling author. They're guilty pleasures, latest projects, and so
much more. Everyone's here. Everyone knows Jody. Jody has over
has thirty novels, eight of which were number one New
York Times bestsellers, literally the second they came out. I'm incredible, Manchester,
(00:30):
New Hampshire resident, so local govern New Hampshire. She was
ranked in the top ten of Princeton's twenty five most
influential living alumni. Michelle Obama is on that list, Jeff Bezos,
David d. Kelly, and Jody Pico. It just keeps going
(00:52):
and going going. And now you're the newest member of
Lisa's book Club, so you have to put that in
your bio. Absolutely, and I want to We talk a
lot about friends of ours at our authors and we
wanted to thank Lisa Genova.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Yes, love Lisa O.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yes, Lisa was the one who said, Hey, Lisa's Book
Club is really amazing and they want you and you
should go on that.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, it was it was We read mad Honey as
a book club. Remember that was one of our first books.
And so I'm so delighted you're here, and obviously everyone
here is delighted too.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Can I just say one thing, which is I never
get to do events in Boston and this is.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
My city, So thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I think we have to have her back every year, right,
every single year. So you called into the radio show
about a month ago. We were talking about doing me
Avent and you shared with us that when you were,
you know, raising your three children as a young mom
living in Needham, used to listen to Kiss when we Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Absolutely, I mean we can't get it where I live
in New Hampshire, but iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah you can get it.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
But I did.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
And my husband shared with me before I left today
that he had a Kiss one o eight poster on
his wall when he was growing up.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I love that. Yeah, we love your husband. So, as
a busy mom trying to fit in writing early on
in your career, where did you come up with your ideas?
Do you lay in bed at night and just you know,
think about them? How does that happen?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
So my ideas for me have always come from questions
I can't answer, you know, things that I wind up
reading in the news about, or reading in a book about,
or just just wondering what would I do if I
was in that situation.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And for the most part, honestly, I tend.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
To write about people I'm not, which is really good
because if you've read my books, my characters have terrible lives, right.
So you know what's nice is that I do get
to like take this little departure when I'm writing a
book about whatever issue it is that's really, you.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Know, obsessing me.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
And this is the only book I have ever written
that is really close to me, things that have happened
to me, right, And that's why this book was just
it was so different for me to write because of that.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
So I want to can you reveal the process of
how you did by any other name? Because I find
it to be very unique. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So, I actually I was an English major at college
and I fell in love with the Shakespearean plays and
what I love about them I loved the women. I
loved characters like Beatrice and Portia and Rosalind and Kate
because they were so three dimensional and nobody was writing
three dimensional women at the time. And you should all
know if you're not Shakespearean fans, do not worry.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
I will walk you through this. It's okay.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
But I was, like, you know, blown away by it.
And we had a professor who, like, for literally five
minutes in a class, said, you know, there's a theory
that Shakespeare maybe didn't write all his plays, and all
of us good little English majors were like, aha, silly,
Like we didn't even think about it, did not think
about it for decades. And then I was reading an
article in the Atlantic by a woman named Elizabeth Winkler,
(04:06):
and in this article, she was looking at the authorship question,
and she happened to mention that Shakespeare had two daughters
and he taught neither of.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Them to read or write. And I went, WHOA, Yeah,
no way, there's no way.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
The man who created those characters would not have taught
his daughters.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
To read and write.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
She gave a candidate that I'd never heard of before
as a potential author, and this woman's name was Amelia Bassano.
And I wound up doing this deep dive into research
about this woman, and what I learned was that for
literally hundreds of years, scholars have tried to make sense
of gaps and mistakes and things in Shakespeare's life that
don't make sense, and without even trying, Amelia's life seamlessly
(04:48):
fits all of those.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
And so I.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Started to come up with this story about how women
have been written out of history by the men who
were writing it, and it focuses on two different women.
The first is Amelia Bassano, who is elizabethan playwright who
can't be one because you can't be a woman writing
plays in Elizabeth in England, So she pays a man
for the use of his name, and that man happens
to be William Shakespeare. And the other woman is her descendant,
(05:12):
who is fictional, a woman named Molina Green, who is
a playwright trying to get a play about her ancestor
Emilia onto Broadway. But Broadway is a very male dominated world,
and so the question is whether she too, will write
herself out of history just to see her words on
the stage.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Right, So, the idea that William Shakespeare is basically not
the author of any of these plays, you make an
amazing case for it. They know me to convince them exactly,
But I know that a lot of people don't believe you, right.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh yeah, I mean I was getting pushedback for this
book before it even came out, from people, usually male academics,
who said, I have not read your.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Book, but you're wrong, right, yeah, So.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Let me tell you what we know about Shakespeare, Like,
let me tell you we know a lot about this
guy because he.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Was super famous. Right.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
So, we know that Shakespeare was a businessman, a producer,
and an actor. We know that he evaded taxes twice.
We know that he had multiple restraining orders taken out
against him by his business colleagues. We know that when
there was a famine, he bought all the grain in Stratford,
he hiked up the price and he made his neighbors
pay it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Does this sound like any other businessman that you.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Know, Not at all.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
We also know that he never left the country, but
he managed to write about places like Italy and Egypt
and Denmark with levels of detail not in guide books
at the time, things like where the closets are in
the Queen of Denmark's bedchamber. We know that he never
graduated from university, which is really not a big deal.
(06:53):
But there's a question about whether he went to grammar.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
School at all.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
And when he died he did not own a single book.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Now, let's think about this.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
If he didn't go to university, where did he learn
all these things?
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
There weren't lending libraries at the time. He couldn't just
go and look something up. But he did not own
a book.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
When he died.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Nobody else who was a playwright at the time said
anything about like, oh, we're going to lose such a
great literary light. And when he died, he was not
buried or commemorated in Westminster Abbey, although a lot of
people you've never heard of.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Made that cut.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Here's the one thing we don't know about Shakespeare that
any play attributed.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
To him was actually written by him.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
The only handwriting we have on a play of Shakespeare's
is from a place somebody else wrote, and it's a
note in the margin.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
That's it. Okay, So now right, So what is the allure?
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Why does that continue? Why do people still believe that
he wrote a cottage industry?
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Like if you go to Stratford, it's like Shakespeare Disneyland,
right right, It's an industry.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It is.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's an industry. And there are lots and lots of
reasons why that. I don't even want to go into.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
If you really want to know you should read Elizabeth
Winkler's book on the subject, because it has to do
with things like World War One and Germany loving Shakespeare
and the English saying no, he's ours, and the fact
that women wanted to study university and nobody knew what
to give them to study, so they gave them the
Shakespearean plays. Like there's all kinds of stuff that led
to that almost deification of Shakespeare.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
But he is larger than life.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I then started to look at Amelia Bassano, right,
So Emilia.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
I'll give you a little historical sketch for her too.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Amelia came from an Italian family that were amazing musicians.
They played the recorder, not like your second grader does,
but really really well. When Henry the eighth came and
heard them in the small town of Bassano del Grapa, Italy,
he was like, they have to come home with me.
They're going to be the recorder consort to the king.
So they all pack up and they go to England.
They happened to be Jewish, where they can no longer
(08:48):
be Jewish in England, so.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
They have to hide their faith.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
When Amelia seven, her dad dies and she winds up
becoming the ward of the Countess of Kent.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Countess of Kent total.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
MVP in Amelia's life, because she winds up giving Amelia
a full legal and classical education, which is super rare
for a woman, particularly one that's not a noble.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Woman's daughter, and Amelia is just a commoner.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
When Amelia is twelve, the Countess gets remarried and she's
going to move to Netherlands with her husband, and her
husband does not want Amelia there, so Amelia becomes like
this piece of lost baggage that's gets shuttled around for
a summer, and she winds up living with the Countess's brother,
a guy named Peregrin Bardi, who just happened to be
the ambassador to Denmark for Queen Elizabeth, and that summer
(09:30):
he just happened to go to Denmark and meet.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
The King and Queen.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
He also met this guy named Tycho Brahe, who is
a very famous astronomer and whose super nova is what
everyone's looking at in the first scene of Hamlet, and
he had dinner with Tycho Brahe's two cousins who just
happened to be named Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, Okay, just reminding
you Shakespeare never left the country.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
So now Amelia turns thirteen, she is given as the
mistress to the Lord Cha Lord Chamberlaine of England. She's thirteen,
he's fifty six. Yes, he is also in charge of
all theater, all entertainment in England. So every play that's
written crosses his desk to be censored, vetted through him.
For the ten years she's living with him, she absolutely
(10:15):
would have met every playwright, actor, theater owner, producer in
the country.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
She lives with him for ten years, and then she
gets pregnant. You cannot be a pregnant.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Mistress, so she gets sent tolay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I sent away.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
She winds up becoming, you know, being married off to
her terrible husband, Alfonso Lanier, who's her cousin, who blows
through all the money that's settled on her to keep
her comfortable. She winds up with a husband she hates,
a baby, and no way to keep her family afloat,
And then we don't hear about her literally until sixteen eleven,
when suddenly she is the first published female poet ever in.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
All of England. Like what right? Like we all should
know her name just for that right exactly. But you know,
you don't show up.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
When you're forty as a woman in Elizabethan, England and
go publish a book.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Clearly she writing before that. I just think she was
using someone else's name.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
So tell us about Southampton.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So Amelia had a really tough life, and I fell
in love with her, and I really wanted to do
something nice for her. So I happened to be doing
research and I came across this historical document. When Amelia
was in her fifties, her terrible husband dies and she
winds up suing her brothers in law for this patent
(11:26):
money that should have gone to her as the widow,
but instead they stole it. She represents herself in court
because she has that legal education, and when she's there,
the trial's going on, and at the very end of it,
out of nowhere, the Earl of Southampton shows up. The
Earl of Southampton is a very very famous, very rich,
(11:46):
very titled guy who is a big theater supporter, shows
up at this commoner's trial and says, hey, this isn't
my courtroom, but if it was, I'd rule in her favor.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
And then he leaves, and I'm like, whoa, what just happened?
Because that doesn't happen.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
You're not going to get a peer of the realm,
especially the Earl of Southampton go to some lowly person's
trial and intervene.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So I thought, did they know each other?
Speaker 3 (12:09):
And I realized they would have because for the ten
years Amelia was at court, Court was super incestuous. Everyone
just moved from palace to palace together. They absolutely would
have met. And he was three and a half years
younger than her. He was widely considered a hotty at
the time.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
And I was like, you know what, Amelia, let's get
you a little something.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, So I did it.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
I was going to write her, you.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Know, this fictional illicit relationship, and of course it's never
going to work out because we know in real life
they didn't wind up together, nor would they ever have
in society. So I finished the book and then I
happened to be in England for a theater project and
I go to the Victoria and Albert Museum because that's
where Amelia's miniature is.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
That's painted by a man named Nicholas Hilliard. This is our.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Audio visual moments. If you can put up the first slide.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, I can't wait to see these. Yeah, I'm going
to show you what these are in the archives. This
is the arch at Albert Museum. Yeah, you didn't know
about this until after you finished the box, right.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
Not this one? Next one? Okay, so there's a million Okay,
so the.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Sure and this was common back then.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
These are tiny, tiny, They're like the size of a broke.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Did they commission these?
Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Ok so anyone who had the money could commission it.
Speaker 3 (13:17):
And Nicholas Hilliard, the author of the artist, was very
famous for doing these. He did Queen Elizabeth stuff, He
did tons of stuff. So I'm super excited because the
archivists like, take this out for me to look at.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Next slide. Here, I am super excited.
Speaker 3 (13:31):
Yeah right, I mean I'm holding something she would have
held four hundred years ago, right, I mean.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
My mind is blown.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
Well, you've been living with her, writing about her for over.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Earlier for a year, right, So next slide, So Amelia
is in a box with other Hilliard miniatures.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
It's amazing.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
My eye keeps getting drawn to the guy on the right,
and I'm like, all right, who is this guy? So
the archivists tell me that it's painted roughly the same
year as Amelia's, around fifteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
I'm sorry, fifteen ninety.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
That it clearly was the decision of the sitter in
the guy in the portrait to have a black background
and to have his hand over his heart, which is
like very like, you know, like he's super emotional, and
that it is painted on the back of the six
of hearts, which in Elizabethan cardamancy, which is kind of
(14:21):
like tarot now means the soulmate card.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
This is the person I.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Was meant to be with that fate has kept me from.
And they tell me they call him the unknown man
because they don't know who he is.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And I go, I think I know who he is.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Next slide, so here he is up close so you
can really see, you know, he's handcovering his heart. He's
got his long wavy red locks like mine. And I
tell them that I think it might be the Earl
of Southampton, and I pull up a photo on my phone.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Next slide.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
This is a picture of Southampton from fifteen ninety four.
It was painted four years after that miniature. It was
painted by Nicholas Hilliard, the same painter you can see
the same lace collar, the same hair, the same even
the same hairline.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
On the back of the blue eyes on the back of.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
It was it was on the the three of hearts,
which in cardimancy means someone has entered our relationship, who's going.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
To break us apart.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
And in my book that year, I write a scene
where Amelia's beaten so badly by her husband she literally
has to crawl Southampton. Okay, So the archivists are like, what,
we need to do more research, and I'm like, I
have to do more research. So I go home next slide,
and I find this picture on the left. This is
actually you're right, sorry, this is also an accredited portrait
(15:40):
of the Earl of Southampton painted by a man named
John Decritz, the same exact year as that miniature, and
you can really see the similarities, right. So I send
this to the archivist and they send me back like
this thirty page document with the provenance of all of
where they got their miniatures and stuff, and at the
very bottom of it they say, we actually believe, based
(16:01):
on all this that this is the Earl of Southampton.
Next slide. So that means for over two hundred years
since these have been in the existence.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Of Yes, I did that. I did that, but like
how cool? I mean, like, I fully believe they had
a relationship now, but also they've been cozied up next
to each other in a box for two incredible. I
feel so good about that.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I do too.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I'm done.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I retired now, right, yeah, all right. Another part of
the book you mentioned it in the beginning was the
sort of current Molina character. Yeah, who is that based on?
Speaker 3 (16:39):
So I told you there's a lot of me in
this book for many, many reasons. But one of the
things that I do in my copious amounts of free
time is I write librettos for musicals. And if you
don't know what that is, it's everything but the songs.
We write, the dialogue, we decide, they structure.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Of the show. We replaced the songs. I have a
co writer.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And the very first adaptation that I did was of
a book I wrote called Between the Lines. I wrote
it with my daughter and we were, oh, so we
have a fan out there, thank you.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
I love that book.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
And so you know, for like eight years we worked
on this musical. Everything that Molina is told about her
play in this novel, I was told to my face
about my musical because it was about a girl's coming
of age. I was told it's too small, it's too emotional.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Nobody wants to.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
See a girl's coming of age on stage. Mind you,
there were two boys coming of age stories playing next
door to each other on Broadway that year. And when
you find out that eighty percent of ticket buyers are women,
you wonder, well, where's that coming from?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And the answer is.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
That in Broadway, the gatekeepers are about five older white
men who run the theaters, and they're the ones who
decide what goes in, and they tend to pick shows
that reflect their experiences when there happened to be audiences
full of black people and brown people, and queer people,
and people with disabilities and women who want and deserve
to see their stories on stage.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And Molina's friend is the person Andre, who is black,
and he is yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
And Andre was a really important character for me to
write in this book because Andrea is also a playwright
who hasn't had his do And one of the things
that we've seen recently post George Floyd's murder is some
of these white theater owners started to get scared, and
so what they did was make a slot in their
Season one slot where they would have a play written
by a black man or a woman. But that is
(18:32):
not equity, not at all. No, that is token ism.
And what we really need to see is a bigger table.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
We need more seats.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
At the table. We do. But also four hundred years,
everything's the same, from Alia to Molina.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
It wasn't until after I finished the book that I
realized I'd actually made.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
The same choice as Helena and Amelia.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
So when I was writing Between the Lines, we had
a producer, very well known producer, and it was a woman,
and she didn't want my name on the libretto because
she said, you're already the novelist and people are going
to think.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
It's a vanity project.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
And I was like, okay, if that's what gets it,
you know, to cross the finish line, let's do it.
So when the play debuted off Broadway in twenty twenty two,
I was listed in the playbill as the novelist. I
was not listed as one of the librettists. And I
would do that again just to see it make it
that far. However, after the play closed, my co librettist
(19:28):
went to his lawyer and was like, this is ridiculous.
She wrote this with me for eight years, and now
now that it's licensed and that theater groups and schools
are performing between the lines all over the place, I
am listed as one of the writers. And it turns
out it's really nice to get credit for what you
what it does good Forrio.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah. So, I guess one of the questions that we
talk about, or you answer in the book, is is
art more important than recognition?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
And I don't think you can separate them honestly, you know,
I think we like to separate the art from the artist.
But hey, that's one of the reasons people are having
so much trouble with Harry Potter right now, right Like,
that was a brilliant ip, but unfortunately the writer of
that ip has chosen to die on a hill that
a lot of people rightfully, so, I believe think is
a really stupid hill to die on, and that's very
(20:17):
harmful to a lot of people. So it's very hard
for me to understand how you dissect the two because
I think too much of the author is in the work.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Can we talk about your book, Mad Honey for a second, sure, OK,
I know a lot of us read Mad Honey it's
one of my favorites.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Can you tell us or tell all of us how
this project came about, because it's a really good story
and it's a great about Jennifer and how she reached
out to you.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
So that was back in the days when I was
still on Twitter, before it became a hell.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Hole, and so it was.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
It was before COVID, That's all I know. And one
day I went on Twitter, and you know how like
you have friends on social media who are not really friends,
like you've never met them, but you follow them. So
Jenny Boylan was an author who I'd followed for years.
I'd read her books, I loved her writing. And one
day I open up Twitter and she writes this post saying,
I had this dream last night that I was co
(21:14):
authoring a book with Jody Pico.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
So it's a true story.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
This is true. And so I messaged her and I
said what was it about? Yea, and she was like
h and she starts telling.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
Me that it had two voices and one was a
trance girl who was murdered and one was the mother
of the son who was accused of doing it. And
I said, that sounds really cool. Let's do it and
she was like what and you know, and I was like, yeah,
because this is a topic I really wanted to write about.
But I love the fact that Jenny could bring an
(21:47):
authenticity and experience to half of that story that I
would never be able to. And so we kept on
trying to figure out why are we going to do
this because we both had projects at deadlines, and then
we had a pandemic and Jenny calls me up and
she's like, hey, my schedule just cleared, and.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I was like, amazingly, so did mine.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
And so we wound up writing that book back and
forth through FaceTime.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So each of you wrote a chapter, right, you went
back and forth, and your process seemed to be very
different than her.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Okay, So if there are any writers in the audience,
there are two type of writers. There are plotters and
there are panthers. I am a plotter. Jenny is a pancer.
And it is really hard to co author a book
with someone who writes differently from you.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
And Jenny I called her up one damn, Like, Jenny,
we're writing a murder mystery.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
You can't get to the end and go I don't
know who did it?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
You know?
Speaker 3 (22:42):
So I finally convinced her that she would have to
actually plot this out, and once she kind of came
around to that, she was like, oh, oh, I see, yeah,
I definitely was driving the bus on that one.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
But yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
So do you know the ending of most of your books?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
The ending of all of my books?
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Really?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah, because I think it's my I mean, as you know,
many of my books have a twist in them, right,
And I've read books by authors that have a sucker
punch twist, which is like the kind where you're like.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Where did this come from? This is totally out of
left field?
Speaker 5 (23:13):
Right?
Speaker 3 (23:14):
And I hate that because anyone can write that, you know,
that's like, that's like dios ex machina. I think art
is when I leave you all these clues and then
you get to go back and go, oh my god,
I can't believe I missed that the first summer out.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I love that. Yeah, Matt, honey, who did you come
up with the beekeeping? That was said, Yeah, how was it?
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
So?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
So, Olivia was my character mostly, and she was the
mom in the story, and Lily was the trans girl,
and that was Jenny's character, although we both decided that
we were going to swap and write one chapter from
each other's point of view because we really wanted to
be able to inhabit the other character. And it's kind
of fun to get people to guess which one we wrote.
(23:58):
And I just knew that that I wanted to include
beekeeping because I loved the idea of a world run
by girls, right yeah, and you know there was so
I knew nothing about beekeeping, but the more I learned
about it, the more I was able to feed that
metaphor through the story. I will say this was again
in the middle of COVID, I have asthma. In fact,
(24:18):
that's why I'm coughing my head off, just so you
all know. I had COVID like a week and a
half ago. I am the one person you will not
get COVID from tonight because I am full of antibodies.
But I'm notdding because I am asthma. And so basically
the only thing I did, because I was so scared
of catching it with asthma back then before vaccines, was
do my beekeeping research.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And I did it from six feet away in a
field with a beekeeper.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Every week I would go out and tend these hives
with him, and like, I'm suited up in a be
suit with this mask underneath the netting.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
It was insane, just insane.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I just I loved that part of the bok. I mean,
the whole book was amazing, but it was I just
thought that that was such a beautiful thread. Do you
so you do a lot of research? I do?
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Do you enjoy it?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I love it?
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah? Because some writers don't like it.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
At all, you can tell.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
But I love the ones that actually are transparent about
it and will say like, it's not really my thing,
but it's definitely your thing, so it's good. Do you
believe in writer's block?
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I'll tell you why I started writing, As you said,
you know, when I had three little kids. Literally, my
first book was published a few months after my first
son was born, and then I was either having a
book or a baby for a few years. I work
that out though I don't have thirty children, and basically
(25:41):
I got to a point where, like I was right,
I was the primary caretaker. My husband was working, and
so I would write when they were napping. I would
bring my laptop to nursery school, pickup and I would type.
I would write when Barney remember Barney was on TV. Yeah,
and they weren't like hitting each other over the.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Head of the sippy cup. That was writing time.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
Any fifteen minutes I could, I would write. And I
learned how to write in spurts like that.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
And what I.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Realized was that writer's block is really just an excess
of time. Think back to when you guys were.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
In school and you had a paper due and you
had writer's block.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
Did it not miraculously clear up the night before the
paper was due?
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (26:18):
Right? Good?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
So I mean that is not to say that there
are not days that I get to my computer and
I would much rather go shoe shopping online. Right, But
I know that you could always edit a bad page,
but you cannot edit a blank page.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
And that's kind of been my mantra.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
So just put something down in the page down, yeah,
and then fix it. So how, I mean, what is
your process? Do you write every single day?
Speaker 2 (26:41):
So I tend to treat it like a full time job.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
And the most amazing thing happened with writing and children,
which was organized school. Because my children were gone eight
hours a day. It was the best and that was
when I started writing in earnest, you know. And now
that they're all gone and like living productive lives and
not in my house, I.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Basically do the same thing.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
I write five days a week, and I write from
about eight thirty in the morning until about four when
I magically just turned into a wife again.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Yeah, it's a lot of writing. Yeah, are you working
on anything right now?
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Do you want to give us a little hints? Sure,
she said when she called. When she called into the show,
I said I would, she said she would. Yeah, so
this is like breaking news.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Yeah, well, actually I'll give you more breaking news. So
this book will come out. I believe.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
It's scheduled for October of twenty twenty six. And it
came about from an old well it's now an Instagram
site called postsecret.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Does anyone know that? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Okay, so post secret used to be a Tumblr blog,
then it was a website. Now it's an Instagram handle. Basically,
it is this po box where you send an anonymous
postcard with your deepest, darkest secrets right and there, published randomly,
and yeah, you should go follow them as wild but
they can range from anything, like some of the secrets
(28:08):
are like every Friday, I come home and I get
naked and I stay that way until Monday when I
go to work. And some others are like, my husband
doesn't know our second child isn't his?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Oh right? So like they run the gamut okay, so ones.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
Once there was a postcard that said, everyone who knew
me before nine to eleven thinks that I'm dead.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
That's what I wrote about WHOA.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Twenty twenty six is the twenty fifth anniversary of nine
to eleven. I wanted to write a book that included
that it's also very much about women's health and how
it's discredited in this country, and basically, yeah, it's I
just finished the first draft last week.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Amazing. Yeah, So will you come back? We come back
into our book club and that comes out that will
you come back and do Lisa's book Club? And that
comes out, promise you'll.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
Get absolutely you heard of your friends?
Speaker 1 (29:12):
So by any other name? Is that in development for
any type of movie or TV project? Right?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
So, we've pitched it to a bunch of different places.
It has not been picked up yet. What we're finding
is that people are scared of the cost of making
something historical, which is weird. I actually just told my
film agents to go to England because it seems like
that's all they do over there, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:37):
Don't they have the costumes and sets somewhere or whatever.
But I do have other books.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
That are are moving ahead in development, Small Great Things,
which has having its tenth anniversary actually next year, that
is being cast right now.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
They would tell me with uh.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
No, I can't tell you anything there yet.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
And we also are in casting discussion for the Book
of Two Ways as a series with the showrunner is
the guy who did Outlander.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Oh great, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
And we also have a great name that we're hoping
will be attached, but I can't share that with you
yet either.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
And how involved will you be with the projects? Do
you think?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Extremely? As in I've written part of the scripts.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Oh that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, which is really good because my sister's keeper just sucked.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
So no, I know, I know you. Yeah, you didn't
like it at all.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
I know.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
That's why I asked him, like you're this time around,
I know you know that that happened. I love to
ask authors if they could pick a soundtrack or a
few songs for your book, what would they be so
by any other name. Could you share.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Some artists I am.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
First of all, I will give a shout out to
my close personal friend Taylor Swift right, and she released
The Tortured Poet Society. I was like, did you get
a bootleg copy of my book?
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Because honestly I could create an entire playlist out of it.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah I could.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah, it was one hundred percent that book. And I
will always associate the two.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Well, I was. I knew you were going to say
Taylor Swift. I could feel it. And I want to
mention when we were talking about the Victorian and Albert
Museum after I finished the book and your writer's notes,
you talked about the museum and I had this I said,
I was there two years ago in the summer with
my son Max, and they had the Taylor Swift eras
(31:37):
tour exhibit there and that's why I went. And then
I thought, oh my god, Amelia Bosana was also there,
and and Taylor. It just I don't know, it just
it was like one of those carments where I was like, this,
this was supposed to happen, right, this was supposed to happen.
So I'm so glad that you said Taylor Swift. But
(31:58):
I want to mention women the songwriters because Sabrina Carpenter,
her new album is coming out tomorrow, and we love Sabrida,
and she just did an interview and she said, you know,
all you pearl clutchers out there, beware. So it still
is very much the same in the entertainment industry where
(32:19):
women write these songs about you know, having fun and
stuff we like to do, and they get, you know,
she gets, you know, criticized for it. But then the
men do it and no one says anything.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Yep, Well your.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (32:34):
So tell me why when a woman writes about dragons
and people having sex it is porn, but when a
man does it is high.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Fantasy, right? Explain? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
Mean the bottom line is that the reason I wrote
this book.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
I told you this is me, right. I go on tour.
I do these massive tours. So every morning I'm on
a plane and usually sit down.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I'm usually next to a guy in a business suit
and he goes, oh, what do you do?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
And I go, I'm a writer. And he goes, children's books.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Oh my god, what they does? They do? Not say
that to you? Really?
Speaker 2 (33:13):
I go no, And then he goes romance.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
And I'm just like, how on earth can we in
twenty twenty five still be pigeonholing women this way? It
isn't history if it's still happening.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, it's true, very true. Let's talk about cover art
of your books.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Talk about it.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Yeah, so behind the scenes, because your dress literally matches
the cover or the book.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Yeah, he does.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
I don't know if that was planning you up at
Maze totally planned.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
When I went on tor I had like all these
dresses that match them.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
I'm very impressed. How involved are you with the cover?
And then the second question is the blurbs that we
see on books. I want you to explain that process.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Okay, so the cover, first of all, Usually what happens
is there's an amazing team at my publisher, Valentine, and
they've worked with me for many years. They brainstorm, they
come up with ideas, and then they send me a
few for review and I'll be like, oh, that's really cool,
maybe we could do this or maybe I think only
once in my life, in all my career, if I
ever said oh.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
God, no, but with this one. When they brought this
to me, I gasped and I said this is such
a beautiful cover.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
It's so lush.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
I think I had one change because I think she
had a weird hair thing and I wanted her to
look more female and it was just it was a
weird like hair remnant.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
But they fixed that.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
But the weirdest part about the cover art was that
my books are published in like thirty five different countries
and England is a really big market for me, and
the British publishers without ever seeing this art created a
cover that looked almost identical to it.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
It was so crazy to me. Yeah, yeah, so I
thought that was really interesting.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
That is, blurbs are more there a zoteric because at
this point in my career, I don't have to get blurbs.
The ones that came in my publisher got. I don't
know who they bribe what they bribe Kristin Hannah with
to get a blurb, but whatever, I get asked roughly
ten times a day to blurb books.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I bet you that is how.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Many come through.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
And I am one of the only authors I know
that does still do it. Because I think it's really
important to give people a leg up if you are
able to in this business.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
And so.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
I mean, I say no to a lot because I
just don't have the time. But when I can, I
will try to help someone out by giving them a blurb.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Well you did a blurb for Lisa Genovac.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Well, I mean that's easy because I love Lisa's writing,
so yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, she's terrific.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
What books are you currently reading right now?
Speaker 3 (35:47):
So, speaking of blurbing, I'm reading a book that is
called Thank You for Being a Friend by Wade Rouse.
It's like a queer retelling of the Golden Girls. But
I just to it, so I can't speak to it yet.
And the book I finished before this was The Night
in the Moth by Rachel Gillig, which was beautiful.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Yeah, so you read all the time.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, I read like I read before I go to
bed every night. That's what I do.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Do you have a favorite book of your of your own?
Speaker 2 (36:18):
It's this book?
Speaker 4 (36:20):
You know.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I can't.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
This is horrible because when I was on tour, I
kept saying I should just retire.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
This is my swan song. I've done. I'm not going
to get any better than this, and my publicist was.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Like, you know, I yeah what, And I mean, I
will keep writing, but I also reserve the right to
always have a new favorite if I love it. But
this book meant so much to me personally, because there
really is so much of me in Molina and in
Amelia that it's always going to be really special to me.
I really really feel like one of the reasons I'm
(36:50):
a writer is so that I would be able to
get Amelia Bassano's name known, you know, And so.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
I'm really proud of the fact that I've done that.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
You absolutely have and I didn't know. I mean, the
backstory about William Shakespeare. I had no idea.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
So the coolest thing is when I have teachers come
up to me and they're like, you know, oh, I'm
teaching Shakespeare this year, but this year I'm also teaching
Amelia Pisano, And I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
All right, this is good. You're changing the world. I
think we have time for a few questions from the audience.
I know that Jody wanted to take a few, and
we do have a microphone that we're going to pass
around when he's gonna do the mic. All right, question
number one. I'll speak really loud so we can all
(37:39):
hear you.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
That is never my problem.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Okay, good, Okay, We're starting with you.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I wanted to know.
Speaker 5 (37:46):
About House Rules and what inspired you, and to tell
you that as a disabilities advocate, that I recommend that
book all the time to both parents and family members
of children on the spectrum because that book puts it
(38:10):
in such a great perspective and understanding.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
And I want to thank you for it.
Speaker 5 (38:15):
But what brought you to that book?
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Well, thank you, that's really kind.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
One of the things that I really do love about
House Rules is hearing from educators and principles saying that
they've used that in training and things like that. The
reason I wrote that book is because I have a
cousin who is profoundly autistic, and when he was little
and used to have.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
Meltdowns, my aunt used to have.
Speaker 3 (38:44):
To do things like sit on him, you know, like
in the middle of a store because he was stronger
than she was at a certain point to get him
to calm down.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And she did have the police called on her, you know.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
And I just wanted I wanted to write a book
about how in the American legal system, maybe prior to
twenty twenty, anyway you could get a fair trial, you know,
And I feel that it works best if you communicate
a certain way.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
But if you don't communicate a certain.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Way, it all goes to hell in a handbasket really fast.
And I wanted to write that story.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
Hi.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
My question was, did you ever think of using a
pen name at the start of your career?
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Oh, I have a great story for you. Okay, So
the answer is no.
Speaker 3 (39:37):
But when I was, I don't know. I certainly wasn't
a bestselling author. I was like seven books into it
or something. And when that that was like kind of
when Robert James Waller The Bridges of Madison County got published,
and Nicholas Sparks, who is really my nemesis, And so
(39:58):
these guys, these men, we're publishing what I thought were
romance novels, and they were getting hardcovers and huge print runs,
and female friends of mine who'd been toiling in the
trenches of romance forever were still being called genre fiction writers.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
And being ignored. And I was like, this is terrible.
I am going to blow this industry wide open.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
So I decided I was going to write a romance
under a pen name, and I did.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
I wrote this book and I used.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
The pen name Sam Kaye Jacobs, which was an amalgam
of all my children's names, and I was going to
get published, and I was going to go on Oprah
and tell everyone the real deal that was my play.
So my agent pitched the book and she could not
get it published because, and she was told this multiple times,
it was too well written for the male romance genre.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Wow. Wow, So that has never been published. So I tried, guys,
as I tried.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
That's a great question and a great answer. Do we
have time for one more more over here? Okay?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Hi, my name's Brianna h Marianna.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Hi.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
I'm not a question so much as a thank you
for your online presence and your strong opinions about what's
going on, because as a person with disabilities, it's a
really fucking scary time right now. So I love hearing
what you have to say. I share everything, So thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
That's really kind of due. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's a weird time, right yeah, it's a really weird
time right now in this country, and I feel like,
you know, one of the one of the projects that
I'm working on that's not one of my own novels,
is an adaptation, a musical adaptation of the book Thief
by Marcus Usak right. If any of you are going
to be in England on October nineteenth, we will be
(41:56):
doing a one night concert in the West End.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
But it's great, Yeah, come on over. It's a terrific musical.
It's absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
But it is of course about the rise of fascism
and about how to combat that with acts of kindness
and by choosing love. And I really the more I
dive into that story, the more I'm reminded that everyone
who thinks about the Holocaust now in the you know,
in the twenty first century, thinks.
Speaker 2 (42:22):
I never would have let that happen.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
And I think now we are at a place where
we're being tested to see if we would. And I'm
very fortunate to have a platform. I'm amazed that anybody
ever wants to listen to me. All of you guys
surely had something better to do tonight, you know, But
as long as people are willing to listen, I'm going
to try to speak the truth.
Speaker 1 (42:46):
Great discussion with Jodi Pico. I could have talked to
her all night. Coming up next September eighth, we have
Chris Whitaker, who wrote All the Colors of the Dark.
He's flying in from London to do Lisa's Book Club
at Joss and Maine. It sold out, but you never know.
If you DM me, maybe I'll put you on my
private guest list. That's Lisa Donna been wan away on
Instagram again. Chris Whitaker September eighth, and have a great weekend.
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