June 19, 2025 • 28 mins
Robert Cocuzzo is a longtime friend of Lisa’s Book Club and the Billy & Lisa show. He is the husband of Billy’s TV show partner, Jenny Johnson. Robert Cocuzzo is an editor, journalist, and author of the critically acclaimed Tracking the Wild Coomba: The Life of Legendary Skier Doug Coombs.
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Episode Transcript
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, welcome into Lisa's book Club.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
And I want to share with you an interview I
did with Rob Cacuso, who was one of my first
book Club Special Author guests from New England.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's Jenny Johnson's husband.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Jenny Johnson is on Dining Playbook with Billy Costa, and
we love them.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Equally as a couple.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
They're just amazing and Rob is like a lifelong traveler,
so I thought we were talking about traveling in the
Saturday Bonus Chapter edition and what books you would bring
when you're traveling. What's your comfort book when you're traveling
for this summer. So I thought this was a great
podcast to post because one of Rob's books is about
(00:55):
a bike trip to Italy that he took with his dad,
So enjoy.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I just want to commend you all for being part
of this. This is such a great thing, especially after COVID,
to have a community like this and to connect on
this level it's at least a plus to you for
you know, taking the torch to do it because it's.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Important, it is.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
And plus we all get to meet you know, we're
meeting new people and it's just a really it's a
really fun community. I think that we're building here, so
and I'm so happy that everyone's feels comfortable sharing their
stories and sharing their thoughts because that's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, And I think that's a real testament to what
community does. If we've we've really drifted away from that
and you know the modern era, you know, being with
one another and now we're in the age of zoom,
so even the workplace is different. So having moments like
this is so critical. And the fact that you can
do it over book, I think gives everyone kind of commonality,
uh to connect it or so keep it up. That's
(01:56):
my point.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And we're all here for each other, which is the
most important thing. And I think if this is a
nice extension of the morning show because I feel like
we do that every single morning. We include everyone with
the talkback mic and the right Now callers, and we
just want to connect with everyone who's listening and hear
your stories because you're another character on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Basically, you really are, so it's really important.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So Rob Cakuzo, I'm sure most of you met him
out when we were socializing. Uh. Rob has been a
good friend for years. I know Rob through Billy Costa.
Rob's wife, Jenny Johnson, works with Billy on Dining Playbook,
So that's always been a really nice thing to get
(02:43):
to know you guys, and your family and the beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Girls that you have.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So Rob is a not He he's written two books
which are actually for sale out in the lounge, and
he's graciously donated all of the money tonight to raising
a reader. So I encourage you to pick them up
if you have, you know, a really an avid skier
(03:08):
outdoorsman in your life. His skiing book is amazing and
uh a cycling and he also has a journey through
Italy and cycling and all of that kind of stuff.
So they're they're great reads and I highly recommend giving
them very much.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, they're great.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
He also is the editor of end Magazine, which is
Nantucket magazine.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
You've been doing that for what this.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Would be my thirteenth year, so it's been a been
a while.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, crazy, it's amazing. I'm so we're going to talk.
We're going to touch on that.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And he's also a ghostwriter, like I mentioned, So you've
got a lot of things going on and podcast are right.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I do podcasts. I try not to do the podcast
too long because I don't want to compete with my
wife and her domain. I'm better behind the screen, so
she's better from the camera.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, I love it, and I think I'm going to
tune into your podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So let's talk a little bit about like how you
decided that you wanted to become a writer.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, so it's a great question. I grew up knowing
that I love stories. I grew up around probably like
all of you folks, had someone in your family who
was just this consummate storyteller. So my grandparents, my uncles
were these unbelievable storytellers, and so the formative years of
my life were spent sitting around hearing them tell me
(04:27):
about the old country or about the neighborhood, about these
places that were so vivid in them telling them to me.
And I just love that. I'm still intoxicated by hearing
someone tell their story, which is part of the reason
I got into ghostwriting. But The thing about being a
writer from here being author I always looked at is
becoming like a major league baseball player or becoming a
professional athlete just seems so far beyond what I be
(04:50):
capable of. It seemed like you do have to be
born with some type of genius to actually be a writer,
be an author. So I had a secuitest route to
get there. Shows all these different professions after college, and
I still drawn back to writing. And so finally I
was lamenting to a friend telling I was telling him
I really think I could do this. I really think
(05:11):
that if I put my mind to it, I could
make it. Take a shot at it. And he told
me this piece of advice, which to this day remains
one of the most transformed pieces of advice. And it
wasn't even that eloquent. He said, Rob, if you're not
doing it, you're not doing it, like if you're not
sitting down and just cramming the keys, then it's never
going to happen. And for whatever reason, that day, when
(05:32):
I heard it just made sense. It's like, you're right,
I'm talking about this, I'm thinking about this. Let's give
it a shot. And so from that day on, I'd
got my butt in the seat. Every day. I just
did everything I could to write, pitch stories to magazines,
and then I finally had one small little break and
I just pulled that thread as long as I could.
So that's where I'm in this seat today.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So when you were little, you weren't just furiously writing
stories in school and I was I'm a creative writer.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I did do those things, but still in my
mind it was like who becomes a writer? You know?
I just thought it was a professional, make.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
A living out of it, make a living at it,
and just.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean I thought that it was something that was
beyond me. I didn't particularly think myself as overly smart.
I mean I was, I did well in school, but
it wasn't like I was gifted. But I realized it's
like any other job, and if you want it bad
enough and you work hard enough, you'll be able to
break through it. And so yeah, to this day, I
feel like I'm playing with house money. It's just like crazy,
(06:27):
I'm able to do it, like exactly what you love.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So you have two little kids, So how do you
where do you go? Do you have like a little
cabin you go to? Do you right in the middle
of the night, because I know some writers do.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, that's a great question. I you know, when I
first had my daughter, I was like, this is going
to be impossible because I would wake up typically i'd
wake up at five in the morning and write. That
was my most productive time. And I thought, I'm never
going to be able to give this up, like this
is when I'm gonna get my stuff done. And then
that was totally out the window once we had kids.
I think, like any parent, you learn to adapt, you know,
(06:58):
and you learn how to just get in the zone
I've become. I mean I wrote my last book literally
bouncing with the baby like one hand on the keyboard,
like with your phones on, because she was freaking out,
Like it's incredible. You just learn how to adapt. And uh.
But my most productive time, if I could make it
how I'd want, it'd be to be in the morning,
(07:20):
nice and quiet down in my office, no distractions. But
I've got to the point now where I kind of
need the distraction because it's just you're.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Too much in your head well the project. I mean,
how long does it take you to complete a project
from thinking about what you want to write about?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Like walk us through that.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So my first book took me five years to write,
and I realized that that was like not going to
be a productive way to do it. Not really, you know,
it was. It was totally and I have to say
that little Astra six to what I was. I was
traveling a lot for the book. I it took me
all over the world, so it was an amazing adventure,
but it just was not a business model in any way.
(07:58):
So the next book, I I realized, like, Okay, I
get to expedite this process. So I went for five years,
so now I can write them in nine months. And
now I can probably write a book in six months.
If I had undivided attention, I could probably do it
in four. But what I figured out was, and it's
really just kind of a numbers game. A typical book
is about seventy five thousand words, so that averages out
to around two hundred and fifty pages. So if you can
(08:20):
break that down five hundred words a day, which everyone
can accomplish, you bang that out each day, you'll get
to your goal pretty quickly. It's a matter of getting
those five hundred words on the page, because if you
get nothing on the page, you have nothing to edit.
One of the great writers, Tracy Kidder, who I'm reading
one of his books right now. One of his pieces
of advice is well, now I'm gonna forget it. But
(08:43):
it's basically that all pros and I'm paraphrasing, all pros
will improve with editing. So if you can get on
the page, you can make it better. And so once
I started that mentality of like, all right, I'm going
to just bang it out as ugly as it may be,
as incomplete as it might sound, and then I'm going
to go back and revise it and make it better
so I can get it done in about like I said,
four months.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Now better better, Yeah, better, yeah better.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It's a muscle. I mean, it's like everything. I mean,
you you do it long enough. I'm sure everyone in
their profession here has like figured out all the little
tricks and you know how to how to be more efficient,
and writing is no different. It's just a matter of
getting your reps in.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
We need to get one of your books made into
a movie.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
There is one, so one of the books has been optioned.
It's the Skiing Book.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
But this is all that's so great.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I don't get too excited.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We both.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
We might both be dead when it comes out. I
you know, I was giving a piece of advice Nathaniel
Philburke And if anyone read In the Heart of the Sea,
great book about Wailing on Nantucket anyway, good friend of mine,
super gifted, gifted writer and bestseller, and his greatest piece
of advice to me was, as it relates to movies, like,
don't even think about it, you know, just not not
(09:54):
don't pursue it, but when it starts to get picked up,
don't even look at it. Pretend it's not yours anymore,
because it takes forever. And so I took that piece
of advice, and when my book got optioned, I just
kind of put it aside and say, oh, that's great
and flattered. But you know, you guys carry the torch now,
so it's not in production right now.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Put it that way, all right, but it might be.
That's so cool. So let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
About your work with Nantucket Magazine, because you did something
that not many people could do. You actually got Bill
Belichick to talk to you, like I like, when I
saw that issue come out, I said to Billy Coss,
(10:43):
I said, Who's how did Rob do this, like, what's
the relationship?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So can you walk us through how that happened?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Sure? Yeah, so that was kind of like writing the
first book that was a four year project. I don't
give up. Yeah, you can't give up. I mean we
always have in the magazine world. You kind of have
your hit list of people that you want to get
on the cover. And he was like a one, the
big dog. We all want to get him on the cover,
but it was, you know, it was the holy grail.
I mean, how do you even this person doesn't give
time to people at a press conference, how are you
(11:12):
going to get him on the cover of a magazine,
especially my magazine, which is kind of this glossy lifestyle,
not like a grid Iron magazine by any stretch of
the imagination.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Exactly, and with his girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, exactly. So it's a great story. So over time
I tried every angle to get to him, and then
I realized, you know, what would it what why would
it be important to him? What would I be able
to do for him that would make him actually want
to do this? And I thought about it and I
was like, he's got a foundation. I'm sure that the
foundation could you know, benefit from some promotion, and then
(11:48):
I realized that Linda was I think she's the executive
director of the foundation, and so thought, oh, perfect, I'll
go to Linda. And so I went through Linden and
then once I had Linda convinced, which was actually which
was actually not as hard as Bill's great. She is amazing.
I mean, they're both amazing. But then once I got
Linda on board, she helped do the rest of it,
and it was amazing. Because so I'll give you a
(12:10):
little behind the scenes of this whole experience. I, like,
I said, been working on this for a year.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
When did you get Linda on board? Like halfway through?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
No? No, no, this was the So once I got
her on board, it was like express train. Okay, but
I've been working on this for years, and I'm waiting
for the photo shoot to happen, and we're all set
up and I'm thinking, I said to my photographer, said,
once he gets here, like just rattle off shots. We
can like make it work. Just let's get them in
the camera, you know, like, let's get the shots on
the camera. So we waited, we waited, and they were late,
(12:41):
and it was just I'm not no reason it wasn't
them being rude or anything like that. It was just
the scheduling blah blah blah. So I'm incredibly anxious. Were
with us. We're in the beating sun on Nantucket. We've
got the whole set set up. I got a photographer,
Carrie Brett actually photographed it, Bill Brett's daughter, and we're
we're just kind of waiting, waiting, waiting, and they show up.
They pull up and like, perfect, Okay, this is gonna happen.
(13:03):
We get them all set up. Bill's sitting on like
this trunk and Linda is next to him, and I'm
just waiting to hear the click of the camera, thinking like,
once I have won in the camera, I can make
it all work, like.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
People will believe me that I actually have I'll.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Write the thing without talking to him. I have enough
stuff out there. I can make this work. And Linda
looks over at him right before the cameras about the sass. Bill,
where's his pocket square? And Bill looks down his jacket.
Now this guy, like, you know, they probably just threw
the jacket on him right before. And I don't know.
I must have left the back of the house. And
she says, well, let's go back and get the pocket square.
And I'm like, I will photoshop any pocket square you
(13:38):
want into that pocket, like, let's it. But they went,
they went, and I thought for sure this was done.
So I was like, he's not going to come back, yea,
But he came back and he gave us the whole afternoon.
I mean, he was the most gracious subject. He was
incredibly accommodating. We went through wardrobe changes. We're like on
the side of the road, He's taking a shirt off
and putting on a different shirt. He was so accommodating.
And the photos I think, you know, if you look
(14:00):
at the images, you can see them online. They went viral.
You know, it's a real intimate look at their life.
And you know, I think it's a testament to their partnership.
They have such a solid partnership and they bring so
much to one another and great balance, and so we
try to capture on the story and uh, you know,
once we had the photos, it was a matter of
sitting down with them, and even that was such a
(14:20):
very relaxed experience.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
So what was the what did the pocket square look like?
Do you remember it was?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
So here's one of jacket like this one, and I
believe it was kind of a pastel type pocket square. Yeah,
I mean it looked good. Well, he didn't care for it.
He didn't care what it was. I mean, here I
showed up in the sweatshirt. That's I were happy with
if you had cut off sweatshirts.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But yeah, and once he had that end, he was
He was great to work with. And like I said,
I don't think for him not doing the story was
his choice. I think he's just so driven and single
minded on winning football games, so like the noise outside
doesn't get into his atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Did you get feedback from them? Did they like the.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Oh yeah, no, yeah, my god. That was of course,
like every time your magazine comes out for the first week,
you're just you know, you're waiting for the phone call,
you're waiting for the email, you're waiting for someone to
be pissed off at you. And this one the stakes
was so high and thankfully they loved it. They called
us up piece to drop off three boxes at our house.
(15:20):
It was like perfect. So they have it framed and
I shouldn't probably say this, but they do have a
frame somewhere in their house and We've since become great
friends with them and they're lovely, lovely people.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
They were at your wedding, Yeah they were, Yeah, I
met them at your wedding.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's very cool. So awesome, good job at that.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So is there somebody that you haven't been able to
interview for end magazine that you're trying to get, Like,
what's your big get?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I mean, I've always wanted to get Obama, but that's
probably not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Have you reached out?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
He doesn't have much of a connection to Nantucket, so
it would be for my own my own. He's kind
of my the person I'd love to sit down and
talk with. I mean, that's a great book.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Well, Michelle going to go through you like much like, yeah,
we're live streaming here on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Michelle, exactly, come on, good what the bucket square.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Is so cute? A great day.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yeah, but you never know, It's funny with the magazine,
we're constantly thinking about who's next, and you know, we
we have a well of people. I mean, like, you know,
it's just the same thing with your show. You're thinking
about who's gonna the folks, who they're going to respond to,
and so every year, the publisher. I sit down and
we start kind of thinking of the names, and uh,
we've we've gone through. I mean like Drew Barrymore was
one that we really want to get for a long time.
(16:34):
Drew when she was married to Ari Culpman's son, whereas
on the island for a while, and so we kind
of had her. I actually had them lined up, and
then you know I was going to go through. She's
a wine. Like the whole time, you're trying to figure
out what angle, what, why would they ever want to
do this? And you try to create some value and
what you can kind of present to them. So we'll see,
(16:54):
I'm down the drawing board now figuring out who's going
to happen this year. We get some ideas in mind,
but I can't share them.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
No, I can't wait to see who you talk to.
So we also mentioned that Rob does some ghost writing
and has started another sort of offshoot of your writing business. Right,
And one of the questions I wanted to ask you
was when you sit down with a client and they say, hey,
I want you to help me tell my story to
(17:22):
either my business associates, or this is for my family,
or this is just a legacy project I want to
leave for my friends and family. And and then you
get to the point where they're not really giving you much.
How do you sort of balance having them give you
not the dirt, but good, good stuff, you know what
(17:43):
I mean, so that you know that it makes the book.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Good project, like a full project.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah. So that's a great question, and I think the
the answer you're going to get is not going to
be satisfying because I think that what I've found is
that every person, when you get deep into their story,
there is something that another reader will attach to, and
it's a matter of your job to then communicate that
to the reader. What is it that piece that we
(18:11):
can all connect to? There's humanity in books. That's why
people read, because you're able to connect to someone in
a very deep and intimate way without them sitting next
to you. So my job is to try to put
that kind of that spark in the pages. And so
I guess to answer your question, I try to have
the most intimate and deep conversations with them where their
(18:33):
guard is down, where they aren't thinking about trying to
make this a readable book. They're just trying to tell
me about their life. And so Oftentimes when I start
that conversation, it always begins, and I mean at the
very beginning of a long, year long process, it begins
with the question what's your earliest memory? Like, what is
the first thing you remember, like the first formative memory.
I don't mean the thing that you know you just
(18:53):
kind of like remember the crib or I'm talking about
the thing that you feel like sets you off on
this trajectory. And from there we kind of pinball around,
you know. We think about the relationships, We think about challenges,
overcoming difficulties, you know, the people that sent them on
the different paths their lives. And I think that, you know,
every reader can get into someone else's life because there's
(19:15):
something to learn there. I mean, we're all, you know,
we're all carrying her along this wisdom, you know, and
so the main job that I have is to try
to get that wisdom out and make them feel like
it's in that true, authentic voice.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
How much does like a book costs, like to have
if I wanted to have a book written about me, like,
what's you know?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Throw it out there if anyone's watching, and this as
a gift. I know, if you're a CEO of a
company and you want to.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, this is right. I mean, they're out there, So
I'll give you a range. I want to tell you
what we charge, but there is a range you can
you can get them from for as little as there's
a great service called story worth that you could do
it for five thousand dollars. I know writers that do
it for five hundred thousand LUs. So it's a it's
a big range. But I think the great thing to
(20:04):
know is that there is a service out there that
everyone can access, and we really need to, you know,
take the time now to get that story down because
there is going to be someone that's going to want
to know about your life when you're gone, Like there
is going to be some person behind that's gonna, you know,
have those questions that they can no longer ask you.
(20:25):
And that was a big reason why I got into
this business, because I wrote so one of my books
is out there is a memoir. It's a cycling adventure
my dad and I went on, so we traveled through
Italy searching for our family's roots. I wrote it while
my grandfather was on his deathbed, so he was he
was back and he was living on the cape at
the time, and he had never gone back to his
(20:45):
ancestral homeland, and I thought that was such an injustice
that now he's in his later years, he's never going
to go back and see this place. So my dad
and I went in his honor. We figured, we're going
to go there, We'll see as much as we can
about it, we'll come back and tell him about it.
What I didn't anticipate was that this trip would out
to be this opportunity for my dad and I to
have a very intimate conversation. And I realize over the
course of those five hundred miles when we're cycling together,
(21:07):
so there's so much left on said. You can spend
your life sitting next to someone like this all the time,
and the deepest, most intimate questions totally elude us unless
we take the opportunity to ask them. And everyone wants
to be asked them. That's the thing, like, we all
want to know about one another, but for some reason,
we choose to talk about the weather because we feel
like it's going to get somewhere. It's uncomfortable, and so
(21:28):
we have to take the opportunity to ask those questions.
Because I guarantee if you do it's going to yield
something truly meaningful. And that's like what conversation is the
same thing with the value of books, right, you know,
it's the it's really the essence of all of us
that we value, and I think that we don't take
enough time to honor it and really nurture it.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It's intimate, and people sometimes are scared of that, but
you're right. It does bring out what everyone doesn't make you.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Feel better, like being heard. That's why therapy is such
a great service, you know, like to have a therapist
and listens to. You can do the same thing with
a friend, you know, or a family member. And so
I wrote that book in part because I was hoping
when someone read it, they might be you know, prompted
to then pick up the phone, call someone and ask
(22:14):
a question. And that's you know, you never know what's
going to lead.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So if you were going to write a book about
your own family, what would be the opening line?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
You talking about my immediate Like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Your family, beautiful family.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Once upon a time. You know, that's a tough question.
I think I don't know if sure, I'll be coming
off the top of my head. What I will say
is that the first line is always the most important
because that and I'd be curious to know what Matthew
Perry's first line is. But that sets the tone, and
for me, it comes from a place that's like subconscious.
(22:50):
You're asking about where you get your ideas. You know,
most of my time, I'm trying to find that one
sentence that just springs to the surface and captures intrigue,
captures the momentum and the foreshadowing of all the things
to come in the book. So, yeah, it was the
(23:12):
best of times, is the worst of times.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Now, you're right, Just get it done on paper, just
like you said.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
But it's funny you say that because in the Matthew
in the Matthew Perry Memoir, he had the last word
and the last season, in the last show, he said,
they said something like where we gonna you know, what
about coffee? And he goes where or something like that,
and he asked the He asked Marta Kaufman if he
could have the last word of the show and they
gave it to him.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
That's so cool, It is very cool. Yeah, I was
thinking about you. You were asking the question about him
repeating himself, and I didn't read the book. But my
theory on that would be, you know, a lot of
times I think your interpretation is the best one in
which that it's a it's a method of trying to
bring you into his mind and showing the kind of
(23:59):
meme that happens when you're detached from reality through addiction
and uh. And that's what you're doing in all books.
You're trying to create these little unspoken breadcrumbs that a
reader can like get queued in and and uh and
and communicate something to them without actually saying it. You know,
it's like show it, don't tell it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's another Does anyone have any questions for Rob? Anyone questions?
Don't be scared. Come on up, do you want to Yeah?
Can you go up to the microphone?
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Sorry, because we're this is all being recorded, so we
want to get your question heard.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
It's very quick, I promise. Just how many issues a
year do you guys publish?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
We're six of years, So we start in April, we
end in November.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
So do you have a huge subscriber base that's off island.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We do.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It's actually it's not huge. Our primary distribution is on Nantucket. Yeah,
because it's a kind of a big, glossy magazine and
just the economics of shipping it turned out to be
not as profitable as you might think, and so we
like to keep it kind of inclosed. But it's all
available online.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I love it. It's great magazine. I just couldn't remember
how many issues a year?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah? Six? Yeah, thanks very much. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Anyone else, Alex, do you.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Have a question?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Okay? Anyone else?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
What are you guys gonna read next?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
So?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Actually I have one more question for you. What are
you reading right now?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Okay? So I'm reading two books right now. I'm reading
Tracy Kidder. I mentioned him. Tracy Kidder's got a new
book called Rough Sleepers. Have you all heard of Tracy Kidder?
So he wrote an amazing book called Mountains Beyond Mountains
about Paul Farmer, who started healthcare in any case, I'm
forgetting partners in health, excusing partners Health in Haiti. He
(25:54):
just wrote a book on Jim Jim O'Connell, who started
healthcare for the homeless program in Boston. So the he's
a doctor that treats homeless folks through street medicine. And
why that book for me is really resident is because
I've done a lot of stories on on doctor Jim,
and I want to write a book on him. And
(26:16):
I found out that Tracy was writing a books. All right,
well let's let the Pulzer Prize writer good. But I
felt validated because I was like, well, if he thinks
it's a good story and I think it's a good story,
then we must be on the same wavelength. So that
book's fantastic. I highly recommend picking it up. And then
I'm also reading just as kind of a guilty pleasure
as Quentin Tarantino wrote Once upon a Time in Hollywood.
(26:36):
So you've all heard of the movie, yeah, and the
book is actually rivoting it's I don't read fiction very often,
but I wanted to. I use a lot of fictional
kind of tools when I write my nonfiction, and so
reading that it's been great.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I love that you read other writers and you sort
of take, you know, things from oh yeah you have to.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah if you know not. That's the other thing about
writing is you can't write if you're not reading. I mean,
you have to read. And I think the reading part
for me is actually the hardest because I read all
day for work, so I'm editing people in my eyes
just so I do. I usually read one book and
I do one on tape and then I just kind
of flip through. I usually have like three books going
on at once.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, well this is great. Well thanks Ron, Thank you
guys very much.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Oh and also, as we said, I'm going to be
in the back Sunning Books. All the profits go to
Raising a Reader and it's a very important organization to
get involved with. I've been fortunate to be involved with
them for the last four years, five years. Yeah, and actually,
as someone that has kids who love books, I've really
(27:48):
learned and seen firsthand about No, that's tremendous value to
be I mean, my kids are so spoiled if you
think about it, where they've got the choice of twenty
five books a night what they want to read, you know,
and this other families that don't have that option. So
the fact that Raising Reader can do.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That all right, and teaching families how to oh my god,
so introduced.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
By Yeah so support them big time.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
We have so many amazing book club events coming up.
Our first will be with doctor Perricone, He's a celebrity dermatologist.
That's July seventeenth, and then we roll in to August
with Jody Pico and we will be at Big Night Live.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So a lot going on with Lisa's book club. Hope
to join us
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.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey, welcome into Lisa's book Club.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
And I want to share with you an interview I
did with Rob Cacuso, who was one of my first
book Club Special Author guests from New England.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
He's Jenny Johnson's husband.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Jenny Johnson is on Dining Playbook with Billy Costa, and
we love them.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Equally as a couple.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
They're just amazing and Rob is like a lifelong traveler,
so I thought we were talking about traveling in the
Saturday Bonus Chapter edition and what books you would bring
when you're traveling. What's your comfort book when you're traveling
for this summer. So I thought this was a great
podcast to post because one of Rob's books is about
(00:55):
a bike trip to Italy that he took with his dad,
So enjoy.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
I just want to commend you all for being part
of this. This is such a great thing, especially after COVID,
to have a community like this and to connect on
this level it's at least a plus to you for
you know, taking the torch to do it because it's.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Important, it is.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
And plus we all get to meet you know, we're
meeting new people and it's just a really it's a
really fun community. I think that we're building here, so
and I'm so happy that everyone's feels comfortable sharing their
stories and sharing their thoughts because that's the most important thing.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, And I think that's a real testament to what
community does. If we've we've really drifted away from that
and you know the modern era, you know, being with
one another and now we're in the age of zoom,
so even the workplace is different. So having moments like
this is so critical. And the fact that you can
do it over book, I think gives everyone kind of commonality,
uh to connect it or so keep it up. That's
(01:56):
my point.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
And we're all here for each other, which is the
most important thing. And I think if this is a
nice extension of the morning show because I feel like
we do that every single morning. We include everyone with
the talkback mic and the right Now callers, and we
just want to connect with everyone who's listening and hear
your stories because you're another character on the show.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Basically, you really are, so it's really important.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
So Rob Cakuzo, I'm sure most of you met him
out when we were socializing. Uh. Rob has been a
good friend for years. I know Rob through Billy Costa.
Rob's wife, Jenny Johnson, works with Billy on Dining Playbook,
So that's always been a really nice thing to get
(02:43):
to know you guys, and your family and the beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Girls that you have.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
So Rob is a not He he's written two books
which are actually for sale out in the lounge, and
he's graciously donated all of the money tonight to raising
a reader. So I encourage you to pick them up
if you have, you know, a really an avid skier
(03:08):
outdoorsman in your life. His skiing book is amazing and
uh a cycling and he also has a journey through
Italy and cycling and all of that kind of stuff.
So they're they're great reads and I highly recommend giving
them very much.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, they're great.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
He also is the editor of end Magazine, which is
Nantucket magazine.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
You've been doing that for what this.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Would be my thirteenth year, so it's been a been
a while.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, crazy, it's amazing. I'm so we're going to talk.
We're going to touch on that.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And he's also a ghostwriter, like I mentioned, So you've
got a lot of things going on and podcast are right.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I do podcasts. I try not to do the podcast
too long because I don't want to compete with my
wife and her domain. I'm better behind the screen, so
she's better from the camera.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Well, I love it, and I think I'm going to
tune into your podcast. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
So let's talk a little bit about like how you
decided that you wanted to become a writer.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah, so it's a great question. I grew up knowing
that I love stories. I grew up around probably like
all of you folks, had someone in your family who
was just this consummate storyteller. So my grandparents, my uncles
were these unbelievable storytellers, and so the formative years of
my life were spent sitting around hearing them tell me
(04:27):
about the old country or about the neighborhood, about these
places that were so vivid in them telling them to me.
And I just love that. I'm still intoxicated by hearing
someone tell their story, which is part of the reason
I got into ghostwriting. But The thing about being a
writer from here being author I always looked at is
becoming like a major league baseball player or becoming a
professional athlete just seems so far beyond what I be
(04:50):
capable of. It seemed like you do have to be
born with some type of genius to actually be a writer,
be an author. So I had a secuitest route to
get there. Shows all these different professions after college, and
I still drawn back to writing. And so finally I
was lamenting to a friend telling I was telling him
I really think I could do this. I really think
(05:11):
that if I put my mind to it, I could
make it. Take a shot at it. And he told
me this piece of advice, which to this day remains
one of the most transformed pieces of advice. And it
wasn't even that eloquent. He said, Rob, if you're not
doing it, you're not doing it, like if you're not
sitting down and just cramming the keys, then it's never
going to happen. And for whatever reason, that day, when
(05:32):
I heard it just made sense. It's like, you're right,
I'm talking about this, I'm thinking about this. Let's give
it a shot. And so from that day on, I'd
got my butt in the seat. Every day. I just
did everything I could to write, pitch stories to magazines,
and then I finally had one small little break and
I just pulled that thread as long as I could.
So that's where I'm in this seat today.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
So when you were little, you weren't just furiously writing
stories in school and I was I'm a creative writer.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, I did do those things, but still in my
mind it was like who becomes a writer? You know?
I just thought it was a professional, make.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
A living out of it, make a living at it,
and just.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I mean I thought that it was something that was
beyond me. I didn't particularly think myself as overly smart.
I mean I was, I did well in school, but
it wasn't like I was gifted. But I realized it's
like any other job, and if you want it bad
enough and you work hard enough, you'll be able to
break through it. And so yeah, to this day, I
feel like I'm playing with house money. It's just like crazy,
(06:27):
I'm able to do it, like exactly what you love.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So you have two little kids, So how do you
where do you go? Do you have like a little
cabin you go to? Do you right in the middle
of the night, because I know some writers do.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah, that's a great question. I you know, when I
first had my daughter, I was like, this is going
to be impossible because I would wake up typically i'd
wake up at five in the morning and write. That
was my most productive time. And I thought, I'm never
going to be able to give this up, like this
is when I'm gonna get my stuff done. And then
that was totally out the window once we had kids.
I think, like any parent, you learn to adapt, you know,
(06:58):
and you learn how to just get in the zone
I've become. I mean I wrote my last book literally
bouncing with the baby like one hand on the keyboard,
like with your phones on, because she was freaking out,
Like it's incredible. You just learn how to adapt. And uh.
But my most productive time, if I could make it
how I'd want, it'd be to be in the morning,
(07:20):
nice and quiet down in my office, no distractions. But
I've got to the point now where I kind of
need the distraction because it's just you're.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Too much in your head well the project. I mean,
how long does it take you to complete a project
from thinking about what you want to write about?
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Like walk us through that.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
So my first book took me five years to write,
and I realized that that was like not going to
be a productive way to do it. Not really, you know,
it was. It was totally and I have to say
that little Astra six to what I was. I was
traveling a lot for the book. I it took me
all over the world, so it was an amazing adventure,
but it just was not a business model in any way.
(07:58):
So the next book, I I realized, like, Okay, I
get to expedite this process. So I went for five years,
so now I can write them in nine months. And
now I can probably write a book in six months.
If I had undivided attention, I could probably do it
in four. But what I figured out was, and it's
really just kind of a numbers game. A typical book
is about seventy five thousand words, so that averages out
to around two hundred and fifty pages. So if you can
(08:20):
break that down five hundred words a day, which everyone
can accomplish, you bang that out each day, you'll get
to your goal pretty quickly. It's a matter of getting
those five hundred words on the page, because if you
get nothing on the page, you have nothing to edit.
One of the great writers, Tracy Kidder, who I'm reading
one of his books right now. One of his pieces
of advice is well, now I'm gonna forget it. But
(08:43):
it's basically that all pros and I'm paraphrasing, all pros
will improve with editing. So if you can get on
the page, you can make it better. And so once
I started that mentality of like, all right, I'm going
to just bang it out as ugly as it may be,
as incomplete as it might sound, and then I'm going
to go back and revise it and make it better
so I can get it done in about like I said,
four months.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Now better better, Yeah, better, yeah better.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
It's a muscle. I mean, it's like everything. I mean,
you you do it long enough. I'm sure everyone in
their profession here has like figured out all the little
tricks and you know how to how to be more efficient,
and writing is no different. It's just a matter of
getting your reps in.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
We need to get one of your books made into
a movie.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
There is one, so one of the books has been optioned.
It's the Skiing Book.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
But this is all that's so great.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
I don't get too excited.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
We both.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
We might both be dead when it comes out. I
you know, I was giving a piece of advice Nathaniel
Philburke And if anyone read In the Heart of the Sea,
great book about Wailing on Nantucket anyway, good friend of mine,
super gifted, gifted writer and bestseller, and his greatest piece
of advice to me was, as it relates to movies, like,
don't even think about it, you know, just not not
(09:54):
don't pursue it, but when it starts to get picked up,
don't even look at it. Pretend it's not yours anymore,
because it takes forever. And so I took that piece
of advice, and when my book got optioned, I just
kind of put it aside and say, oh, that's great
and flattered. But you know, you guys carry the torch now,
so it's not in production right now.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Put it that way, all right, but it might be.
That's so cool. So let's talk a little bit.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
About your work with Nantucket Magazine, because you did something
that not many people could do. You actually got Bill
Belichick to talk to you, like I like, when I
saw that issue come out, I said to Billy Coss,
(10:43):
I said, Who's how did Rob do this, like, what's
the relationship?
Speaker 2 (10:47):
So can you walk us through how that happened?
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Sure? Yeah, so that was kind of like writing the
first book that was a four year project. I don't
give up. Yeah, you can't give up. I mean we
always have in the magazine world. You kind of have
your hit list of people that you want to get
on the cover. And he was like a one, the
big dog. We all want to get him on the cover,
but it was, you know, it was the holy grail.
I mean, how do you even this person doesn't give
time to people at a press conference, how are you
(11:12):
going to get him on the cover of a magazine,
especially my magazine, which is kind of this glossy lifestyle,
not like a grid Iron magazine by any stretch of
the imagination.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Exactly, and with his girlfriend.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Yeah, exactly. So it's a great story. So over time
I tried every angle to get to him, and then
I realized, you know, what would it what why would
it be important to him? What would I be able
to do for him that would make him actually want
to do this? And I thought about it and I
was like, he's got a foundation. I'm sure that the
foundation could you know, benefit from some promotion, and then
(11:48):
I realized that Linda was I think she's the executive
director of the foundation, and so thought, oh, perfect, I'll
go to Linda. And so I went through Linden and
then once I had Linda convinced, which was actually which
was actually not as hard as Bill's great. She is amazing.
I mean, they're both amazing. But then once I got
Linda on board, she helped do the rest of it,
and it was amazing. Because so I'll give you a
(12:10):
little behind the scenes of this whole experience. I, like,
I said, been working on this for a year.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
When did you get Linda on board? Like halfway through?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
No? No, no, this was the So once I got
her on board, it was like express train. Okay, but
I've been working on this for years, and I'm waiting
for the photo shoot to happen, and we're all set
up and I'm thinking, I said to my photographer, said,
once he gets here, like just rattle off shots. We
can like make it work. Just let's get them in
the camera, you know, like, let's get the shots on
the camera. So we waited, we waited, and they were late,
(12:41):
and it was just I'm not no reason it wasn't
them being rude or anything like that. It was just
the scheduling blah blah blah. So I'm incredibly anxious. Were
with us. We're in the beating sun on Nantucket. We've
got the whole set set up. I got a photographer,
Carrie Brett actually photographed it, Bill Brett's daughter, and we're
we're just kind of waiting, waiting, waiting, and they show up.
They pull up and like, perfect, Okay, this is gonna happen.
(13:03):
We get them all set up. Bill's sitting on like
this trunk and Linda is next to him, and I'm
just waiting to hear the click of the camera, thinking like,
once I have won in the camera, I can make
it all work, like.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
People will believe me that I actually have I'll.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
Write the thing without talking to him. I have enough
stuff out there. I can make this work. And Linda
looks over at him right before the cameras about the sass. Bill,
where's his pocket square? And Bill looks down his jacket.
Now this guy, like, you know, they probably just threw
the jacket on him right before. And I don't know.
I must have left the back of the house. And
she says, well, let's go back and get the pocket square.
And I'm like, I will photoshop any pocket square you
(13:38):
want into that pocket, like, let's it. But they went,
they went, and I thought for sure this was done.
So I was like, he's not going to come back, yea,
But he came back and he gave us the whole afternoon.
I mean, he was the most gracious subject. He was
incredibly accommodating. We went through wardrobe changes. We're like on
the side of the road, He's taking a shirt off
and putting on a different shirt. He was so accommodating.
And the photos I think, you know, if you look
(14:00):
at the images, you can see them online. They went viral.
You know, it's a real intimate look at their life.
And you know, I think it's a testament to their partnership.
They have such a solid partnership and they bring so
much to one another and great balance, and so we
try to capture on the story and uh, you know,
once we had the photos, it was a matter of
sitting down with them, and even that was such a
(14:20):
very relaxed experience.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
So what was the what did the pocket square look like?
Do you remember it was?
Speaker 3 (14:26):
So here's one of jacket like this one, and I
believe it was kind of a pastel type pocket square. Yeah,
I mean it looked good. Well, he didn't care for it.
He didn't care what it was. I mean, here I
showed up in the sweatshirt. That's I were happy with
if you had cut off sweatshirts.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
But yeah, and once he had that end, he was
He was great to work with. And like I said,
I don't think for him not doing the story was
his choice. I think he's just so driven and single
minded on winning football games, so like the noise outside
doesn't get into his atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Did you get feedback from them? Did they like the.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Oh yeah, no, yeah, my god. That was of course,
like every time your magazine comes out for the first week,
you're just you know, you're waiting for the phone call,
you're waiting for the email, you're waiting for someone to
be pissed off at you. And this one the stakes
was so high and thankfully they loved it. They called
us up piece to drop off three boxes at our house.
(15:20):
It was like perfect. So they have it framed and
I shouldn't probably say this, but they do have a
frame somewhere in their house and We've since become great
friends with them and they're lovely, lovely people.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
They were at your wedding, Yeah they were, Yeah, I
met them at your wedding.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
That's very cool. So awesome, good job at that.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
So is there somebody that you haven't been able to
interview for end magazine that you're trying to get, Like,
what's your big get?
Speaker 3 (15:43):
I mean, I've always wanted to get Obama, but that's
probably not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Have you reached out?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
He doesn't have much of a connection to Nantucket, so
it would be for my own my own. He's kind
of my the person I'd love to sit down and
talk with. I mean, that's a great book.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
Well, Michelle going to go through you like much like, yeah,
we're live streaming here on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Michelle, exactly, come on, good what the bucket square.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Is so cute? A great day.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Yeah, but you never know, It's funny with the magazine,
we're constantly thinking about who's next, and you know, we
we have a well of people. I mean, like, you know,
it's just the same thing with your show. You're thinking
about who's gonna the folks, who they're going to respond to,
and so every year, the publisher. I sit down and
we start kind of thinking of the names, and uh,
we've we've gone through. I mean like Drew Barrymore was
one that we really want to get for a long time.
(16:34):
Drew when she was married to Ari Culpman's son, whereas
on the island for a while, and so we kind
of had her. I actually had them lined up, and
then you know I was going to go through. She's
a wine. Like the whole time, you're trying to figure
out what angle, what, why would they ever want to
do this? And you try to create some value and
what you can kind of present to them. So we'll see,
(16:54):
I'm down the drawing board now figuring out who's going
to happen this year. We get some ideas in mind,
but I can't share them.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
No, I can't wait to see who you talk to.
So we also mentioned that Rob does some ghost writing
and has started another sort of offshoot of your writing business. Right,
And one of the questions I wanted to ask you
was when you sit down with a client and they say, hey,
I want you to help me tell my story to
(17:22):
either my business associates, or this is for my family,
or this is just a legacy project I want to
leave for my friends and family. And and then you
get to the point where they're not really giving you much.
How do you sort of balance having them give you
not the dirt, but good, good stuff, you know what
(17:43):
I mean, so that you know that it makes the book.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Good project, like a full project.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Yeah. So that's a great question, and I think the
the answer you're going to get is not going to
be satisfying because I think that what I've found is
that every person, when you get deep into their story,
there is something that another reader will attach to, and
it's a matter of your job to then communicate that
to the reader. What is it that piece that we
(18:11):
can all connect to? There's humanity in books. That's why
people read, because you're able to connect to someone in
a very deep and intimate way without them sitting next
to you. So my job is to try to put
that kind of that spark in the pages. And so
I guess to answer your question, I try to have
the most intimate and deep conversations with them where their
(18:33):
guard is down, where they aren't thinking about trying to
make this a readable book. They're just trying to tell
me about their life. And so Oftentimes when I start
that conversation, it always begins, and I mean at the
very beginning of a long, year long process, it begins
with the question what's your earliest memory? Like, what is
the first thing you remember, like the first formative memory.
I don't mean the thing that you know you just
(18:53):
kind of like remember the crib or I'm talking about
the thing that you feel like sets you off on
this trajectory. And from there we kind of pinball around,
you know. We think about the relationships, We think about challenges,
overcoming difficulties, you know, the people that sent them on
the different paths their lives. And I think that, you know,
every reader can get into someone else's life because there's
(19:15):
something to learn there. I mean, we're all, you know,
we're all carrying her along this wisdom, you know, and
so the main job that I have is to try
to get that wisdom out and make them feel like
it's in that true, authentic voice.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
How much does like a book costs, like to have
if I wanted to have a book written about me, like,
what's you know?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Throw it out there if anyone's watching, and this as
a gift. I know, if you're a CEO of a
company and you want to.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, this is right. I mean, they're out there, So
I'll give you a range. I want to tell you
what we charge, but there is a range you can
you can get them from for as little as there's
a great service called story worth that you could do
it for five thousand dollars. I know writers that do
it for five hundred thousand LUs. So it's a it's
a big range. But I think the great thing to
(20:04):
know is that there is a service out there that
everyone can access, and we really need to, you know,
take the time now to get that story down because
there is going to be someone that's going to want
to know about your life when you're gone, Like there
is going to be some person behind that's gonna, you know,
have those questions that they can no longer ask you.
(20:25):
And that was a big reason why I got into
this business, because I wrote so one of my books
is out there is a memoir. It's a cycling adventure
my dad and I went on, so we traveled through
Italy searching for our family's roots. I wrote it while
my grandfather was on his deathbed, so he was he
was back and he was living on the cape at
the time, and he had never gone back to his
(20:45):
ancestral homeland, and I thought that was such an injustice
that now he's in his later years, he's never going
to go back and see this place. So my dad
and I went in his honor. We figured, we're going
to go there, We'll see as much as we can
about it, we'll come back and tell him about it.
What I didn't anticipate was that this trip would out
to be this opportunity for my dad and I to
have a very intimate conversation. And I realize over the
course of those five hundred miles when we're cycling together,
(21:07):
so there's so much left on said. You can spend
your life sitting next to someone like this all the time,
and the deepest, most intimate questions totally elude us unless
we take the opportunity to ask them. And everyone wants
to be asked them. That's the thing, like, we all
want to know about one another, but for some reason,
we choose to talk about the weather because we feel
like it's going to get somewhere. It's uncomfortable, and so
(21:28):
we have to take the opportunity to ask those questions.
Because I guarantee if you do it's going to yield
something truly meaningful. And that's like what conversation is the
same thing with the value of books, right, you know,
it's the it's really the essence of all of us
that we value, and I think that we don't take
enough time to honor it and really nurture it.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
It's intimate, and people sometimes are scared of that, but
you're right. It does bring out what everyone doesn't make you.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Feel better, like being heard. That's why therapy is such
a great service, you know, like to have a therapist
and listens to. You can do the same thing with
a friend, you know, or a family member. And so
I wrote that book in part because I was hoping
when someone read it, they might be you know, prompted
to then pick up the phone, call someone and ask
(22:14):
a question. And that's you know, you never know what's
going to lead.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So if you were going to write a book about
your own family, what would be the opening line?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
You talking about my immediate Like, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Your family, beautiful family.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Once upon a time. You know, that's a tough question.
I think I don't know if sure, I'll be coming
off the top of my head. What I will say
is that the first line is always the most important
because that and I'd be curious to know what Matthew
Perry's first line is. But that sets the tone, and
for me, it comes from a place that's like subconscious.
(22:50):
You're asking about where you get your ideas. You know,
most of my time, I'm trying to find that one
sentence that just springs to the surface and captures intrigue,
captures the momentum and the foreshadowing of all the things
to come in the book. So, yeah, it was the
(23:12):
best of times, is the worst of times.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Now, you're right, Just get it done on paper, just
like you said.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
But it's funny you say that because in the Matthew
in the Matthew Perry Memoir, he had the last word
and the last season, in the last show, he said,
they said something like where we gonna you know, what
about coffee? And he goes where or something like that,
and he asked the He asked Marta Kaufman if he
could have the last word of the show and they
gave it to him.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
That's so cool, It is very cool. Yeah, I was
thinking about you. You were asking the question about him
repeating himself, and I didn't read the book. But my
theory on that would be, you know, a lot of
times I think your interpretation is the best one in
which that it's a it's a method of trying to
bring you into his mind and showing the kind of
(23:59):
meme that happens when you're detached from reality through addiction
and uh. And that's what you're doing in all books.
You're trying to create these little unspoken breadcrumbs that a
reader can like get queued in and and uh and
and communicate something to them without actually saying it. You know,
it's like show it, don't tell it.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
It's another Does anyone have any questions for Rob? Anyone questions?
Don't be scared. Come on up, do you want to Yeah?
Can you go up to the microphone?
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Sorry, because we're this is all being recorded, so we
want to get your question heard.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
It's very quick, I promise. Just how many issues a
year do you guys publish?
Speaker 3 (24:42):
We're six of years, So we start in April, we
end in November.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
So do you have a huge subscriber base that's off island.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
We do.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
It's actually it's not huge. Our primary distribution is on Nantucket. Yeah,
because it's a kind of a big, glossy magazine and
just the economics of shipping it turned out to be
not as profitable as you might think, and so we
like to keep it kind of inclosed. But it's all
available online.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
I love it. It's great magazine. I just couldn't remember
how many issues a year?
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah? Six? Yeah, thanks very much. Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Anyone else, Alex, do you.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Have a question?
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Okay? Anyone else?
Speaker 3 (25:26):
What are you guys gonna read next?
Speaker 1 (25:27):
So?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Actually I have one more question for you. What are
you reading right now?
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Okay? So I'm reading two books right now. I'm reading
Tracy Kidder. I mentioned him. Tracy Kidder's got a new
book called Rough Sleepers. Have you all heard of Tracy Kidder?
So he wrote an amazing book called Mountains Beyond Mountains
about Paul Farmer, who started healthcare in any case, I'm
forgetting partners in health, excusing partners Health in Haiti. He
(25:54):
just wrote a book on Jim Jim O'Connell, who started
healthcare for the homeless program in Boston. So the he's
a doctor that treats homeless folks through street medicine. And
why that book for me is really resident is because
I've done a lot of stories on on doctor Jim,
and I want to write a book on him. And
(26:16):
I found out that Tracy was writing a books. All right,
well let's let the Pulzer Prize writer good. But I
felt validated because I was like, well, if he thinks
it's a good story and I think it's a good story,
then we must be on the same wavelength. So that
book's fantastic. I highly recommend picking it up. And then
I'm also reading just as kind of a guilty pleasure
as Quentin Tarantino wrote Once upon a Time in Hollywood.
(26:36):
So you've all heard of the movie, yeah, and the
book is actually rivoting it's I don't read fiction very often,
but I wanted to. I use a lot of fictional
kind of tools when I write my nonfiction, and so
reading that it's been great.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
I love that you read other writers and you sort
of take, you know, things from oh yeah you have to.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah if you know not. That's the other thing about
writing is you can't write if you're not reading. I mean,
you have to read. And I think the reading part
for me is actually the hardest because I read all
day for work, so I'm editing people in my eyes
just so I do. I usually read one book and
I do one on tape and then I just kind
of flip through. I usually have like three books going
on at once.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Yeah, well this is great. Well thanks Ron, Thank you
guys very much.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Oh and also, as we said, I'm going to be
in the back Sunning Books. All the profits go to
Raising a Reader and it's a very important organization to
get involved with. I've been fortunate to be involved with
them for the last four years, five years. Yeah, and actually,
as someone that has kids who love books, I've really
(27:48):
learned and seen firsthand about No, that's tremendous value to
be I mean, my kids are so spoiled if you
think about it, where they've got the choice of twenty
five books a night what they want to read, you know,
and this other families that don't have that option. So
the fact that Raising Reader can do.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
That all right, and teaching families how to oh my god,
so introduced.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
By Yeah so support them big time.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
We have so many amazing book club events coming up.
Our first will be with doctor Perricone, He's a celebrity dermatologist.
That's July seventeenth, and then we roll in to August
with Jody Pico and we will be at Big Night Live.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
So a lot going on with Lisa's book club. Hope
to join us
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