July 29, 2025 • 41 mins
Best-Selling author Jennifer Belle shares the method she's used to write five novels, that time she worked with Madonna, how to write sex scenes, and the path that led to publishing her latest novel, Swanna in Love with Akashic Books.
Jennifer Belle is the best-selling author of five novels, Going Down (which was named best debut novel by Entertainment Weekly and optioned for the screen twenty-seven times), High Maintenance, Little Stalker, and The Seven Year Bitch; and Animal Stackers, a picture book for children (illustrated by David McPhail). Her stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Independent (London), Harper’s Bazaar, Ms., BlackBook, the New York Observer, Post Road, and many anthologies. Her most recent work is Swanna in Love. You can follow her on Instagram @jenniferbellewriter.
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Books & Writers referenced in this episode
True Grit by Charles Potis
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore
All Fours by Miranda July
The Fuck Up by Arthur Nersesian
Movies & TV shows mentioned:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer (00:00):
When I started writing, I just, I could just
(00:03):
work, I could just expressmyself, which I wanted to do so
badly.
That's really the requirement isto want to express yourself and
then how you do that will comeand what you say will come.
So it's all right to just getstarted and write.
Meryl (00:29):
Hi, I am Meryl Branch Mc Tiernan,
Ariana (00:30):
and I am Ariana and you're listening to, it's All
Write, A podcast about thewriting life and those who live
it.
It
Meryl (00:39):
Today we are lucky to have Jennifer Belle, who has
been a writing teacher and greatfriend of mine since 2007.
Jennifer Bell is the bestsellingauthor of five novels going Down
named Best Debut, novel byEntertainment Weekly, High
Maintenance, Little Stalker, theSeven Year Bitch, and her most
recent Swanna in Love.
(00:59):
Love, and her stories and essayshave appeared in the New York
Times Magazine, the Wall StreetJournal, the Independent
Harper's Bazaar Ms., Black book,the New York Observer Post Road,
and many anthologies.
We're very happy to have youhere today, Jenny.
Jennifer (01:13):
Thanks Meryl.
Thanks, Ariana.
Yeah, welcome.
Thank you so much.
Ariana (01:17):
What a career
Jennifer (01:19):
I've been really lucky.
Ariana (01:21):
So Swanna in Love, your fifth novel came out last year,
right?
Yes.
2024.
Do you feel like writing Swan inLove, was that process any
different from the first bookand then all the books in
between?
I don't, I hate to say call themall the books in between, but.
I They're your babies too.
Oh, the middle children.
The middle children.
How has mothering these booksmaybe changed or evolved?
Jennifer (01:43):
I'm more confident, when I set out to write my first
book I had never writtenanything before and I didn't
know I could do it, so I settledinto a character who was not
unlike myself, and I let thatcharacter go on these tiny
little adventures that I thoughtof as scenes because I came from
(02:06):
an acting background, so that'sall I knew.
And over four years I wrote thebook and now I can write with a
little bit more confidence'causeI've done it once, you've done
it once, you can do it again.
So that's really all that'schanged that also my level of
terror has risen.
Ariana (02:25):
Terror, for what?
Jennifer (02:26):
It's a really tough business, obviously.
The first time you don't have anagent yet, you don't have a
publisher yet, and you're freeto just explore, do whatever you
want.
And I would say the pressuregoes up a little bit as you move
on.
I always say this very obnoxiousthing to people who are starting
that it's the best time of theirlives before they have an agent.
(02:50):
And it's like
Meryl (02:51):
they all wanna kill you.
Jennifer (02:52):
Yes.
It's one of the worst things Isay, but it really changes when
people take an interest.
Ariana (02:57):
That is it a catch 22 of sorts?
Sorts, yeah.
Meryl (03:01):
I was rereading Going Down recently and I noticed how
much dialogue is there.
And I feel like there's a littlebit, there's dialogue in all
your books, but it seems heavierthere.
Is that something you'reconscious of now?
Jennifer (03:13):
That's interesting that you say that because I
wrote in layers with my firstbook.
Now I write in more of anintegrated way where everything
comes together at once.
But when I started I, I reallyjust wrote dialogue and then I
eked out a little bit of stagedirections.
And then I managed to have somedescriptions, and then finally I
(03:39):
forced out some emotion andinner thought.
Because as I said, I had justread plays and screenplays for
so long as an actor that's whatI was used to.
And now I write in a morebalanced way, but I think I'm
still pretty dialogue heavy.
Meryl (03:56):
Would you say that you hear the dialogue first?
Is that like the first thingthat comes to you?
Jennifer (04:00):
I think what comes to me first is the emotion.
Now, I really wanna get to anemotional truth and I sort of
wait till I'm there before Istart writing almost.
But I do hear my way in a lot ofthe times, too.
Meryl (04:15):
Same for me.
I feel like a lot of writerssay, oh, it starts, it always
starts with an image.
And I'm like, no, it neverstarts with an image for you.
No.
A voice or a, it's a, yeah.
It's like I'm hearing aconversation or imagining a
conversation.
Jennifer (04:29):
Yeah.
It does not start with an imagefor me either.
When I sit down to write and Ihave no idea what I'm gonna
write that day, I tend to setmyself somewhere like I was
sitting on the subway and or Isat in the park.
And even if I change it later.
I like to put myself in asituation, put my character in a
(04:50):
situation before starting that
Ariana (04:52):
feels very like actor driven.
That reminds me of yeah, maybe II spoke about it before doing
improv.
Yeah.
And doing improv actuallyprompted me to get back into
writing.
Jennifer (05:02):
Oh, that's great.
Ariana (05:02):
Which was really interesting.
But yeah, that sounds like that.
It's okay, have a place, have asetting, have an action, have an
object, have a dialogue.
Meryl (05:11):
It's all right if you improv your way in.
Ariana (05:14):
Ooh, that's a good one.
Meryl (05:20):
So most of your books were written contemporarily to
the time, other than Swana inLove, how was it going back in
time and setting it in adifferent time period?
Jennifer (05:31):
My first book, my main character's 19.
And I was 26, 27 when it gotpublished.
And then, yeah, they went up inage from there for sure.
And then
Meryl (05:43):
down and then
Jennifer (05:43):
Swana is 14.
a lot of thought was put into.
How old she should be and whenit should take place.
And the parents are criminallynegligent, so it had to take
place before now because theywould be in jail.
They'd just be in trouble.
So it had to take place in theseventies or eighties.
(06:06):
And then I made her 14.
I really.
Deliberated about making herolder, making her younger.
She has a younger brother and Ididn't want her to be too much
older than the younger brother.
And it's important that sheloses her virginity in this
book, and I thought that a girllike this would not be much
(06:28):
older than 14 when she lost hervirginity.
So when I finally landed on 14as her perfect age.
Then I corresponded it with whenI was about 14, so that's how I
came up with the time.
Ariana (06:42):
Ah, so you just went back.
Did you keep journals when youwere younger?
Jennifer (06:45):
I did.
I obsessively kept journals andthen my mother read them when I
was 13 and I threw them down theincinerator in my building and I
still dream about them.
If I could do anything again, itwould be not do that.
I wish so much I had those backand I beg my kids to keep a
(07:08):
journal and of course theydon't.
And when I talk to anybody whosays that they wanna write a
book and they're a kid I begthem to keep a journal.
It's such a shame that I don'thave them.
Meryl (07:20):
So writing in your journal is actually currently
part of your practice as well?
Jennifer (07:24):
Yes.
Yeah.
I don't go out without it.
And I choose really specialbooks from a guy in Italy.
A lot of writers can't writeunless they've read first for an
hour or two, or, people havedifferent things that they have
to do before they write, andit's my way in.
I just write anything in mydiary to get started in a
(07:45):
writing session and it gets thebad stuff out of my head, and
then I'm ready to sit down andwork on my computer.
So I write down dreams, I writedown ideas for scenes all the
time.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, I can't imagine not havingmy journal with me as a writer,
I really recommend that toanybody who wants to write like
(08:07):
it's not All right, it's not Allright.
Not to have a journal.
Yeah.
Let's do a, it's not All right.
Podcast.
Meryl (08:15):
Yeah,
Ariana (08:16):
that'll be the
Meryl (08:16):
companion.
That's
Jennifer (08:17):
more my speed.
Meryl (08:18):
I got in trouble the other day because I told
Jennifer that I had written onmy phone, I'd written in the
notes app, and she said, why?
Because you didn't have yourjournal
Ariana (08:28):
and is that correct?
Meryl (08:29):
No, I just I'm so slow and my hand hurts, so I was
like, I, my thoughts were comingtoo fast.
I had to type them.
Ariana (08:36):
So Meryl is in Jennifer's workshop and you've
been in Jennifer's workshop fora bit.
Meryl (08:42):
Mostly, since 2007.
Yeah, at the, I started in theNew School.
And then I was like dying to getinto her private workshop.
And then I finally did, shefinally let me in and then I
wouldn't leave.
I'm glad I did.
Jennifer (08:55):
I'd love to hear the story.
I don't remember.
I know she doesn't rememberanything.
I'm always scared to let newpeople in, so it always takes
about a year.
Meryl (09:02):
What happened was I wanted it so desperately that I
met your mother at a party andsaid, can I be in?
I was like, I'll just be in herworkshop if Jenny won't let me
in.
Oh,
Jennifer (09:12):
boy, that, that spurred me to action.
Meryl (09:14):
And then Your mother called and she's, or I called
her and she said Jenny reallywants you.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Yes.
So that's a method I use witheverything.
Oh yeah.
Ariana (09:24):
It's almost like a sitcom when you're like, I'm
getting in one way or another,
Meryl (09:28):
Jenny really wants you.
Ariana (09:30):
It's yes.
yeah.
What has it brought to you andto your life?
Meryl (09:34):
I seeing somebody who had done this, I was 25 at the time.
And, I loved her books.
I'd read three of them by thetime I met you.
And they both, they all came tome in weird ways.
Like my friend Amy Harsuvonnegatgave me Going Down she's like,
you'll like this.
And then I met this guy nearWashington Square Park who was
(09:55):
selling books on the street.
And he gave me High Maintenanceor sold me High Maintenance.
He's like, oh, the author'salways coming by here.
And then I was walking by theNew School and I saw her name in
the catalog.
I'm like, oh my God, this ismeant to be.
Yeah,
Jennifer (10:08):
I never knew any of this.
Meryl (10:10):
Yeah, it feels very ordained or like destined.
Very, yeah.
And so I've since written twobooks and starting a third under
her auspices.
Jennifer (10:20):
Yeah.
And they're great.
Ariana (10:26):
What would you say is the, what sets your workshop
apart or what's your method forrunning this workshop?
Jennifer (10:33):
We work very hard.
We're very critical and we havea lot of fun.
We laugh a lot and we bring in alot of pages I think what sets
it apart is the lack of rules Ina lot of workshops, there are
rules, like you can't sayanything bad about the work or
(10:53):
the person can't defend himselfor his pages.
We don't have any rules likethat.
We don't have time.
We really tear things to shredsand we try to make things
better.
If you're reading pages, you cansay anything you want about
those pages.
You can defend them up and downbecause I really feel like.
We get to what we wanna saysometimes when we're making
(11:16):
those defensive remarks and wesay what we're trying to do in
the pages.
So I think those rules that alot of workshops have don't help
at all.
We're not a support groupalthough we can be very
supportive, but we're all thereto be published.
We're all pretty commerciallyminded and we really care about
(11:37):
good writing.
During COVID, I, when we movedto Zoom, I started to invite
famous agents to come and talkto us.
And since then we've gotten somebook deals and that sets us
apart also.
'cause we really try to getpeople published.
Ariana (11:52):
That's amazing.
Jennifer (11:53):
Yeah.
It's been really great.
Ariana (11:55):
And I feel like, when you say these things, it seems
so, simple.
You're like, we're there to,we're there because we like
writing, we're there to,actually make the work better.
But it's funny how you get inother spaces.
'Cause yeah, the group makes theworkshop work,
Jennifer (12:11):
so Yes, it does.
And also in my workshop we readevery single week.
So in other workshops that I'vebeen in, it's your turn once a
month or it's your turn once asemester or twice a semester.
You're bringing in work everysingle week.
So the deadline is a big part ofit.
Just that your writing helps.
Meryl (12:31):
That's why I'm always like Wednesday and Thursday.
No.
Yeah,
Jennifer (12:34):
exactly.
It puts you in a prettyprofessional schedule, so that
sets it apart too, and also thatwe never stop.
It's just ongoing and it's alifestyle choice.
Ariana (12:44):
That feels, it feels very.
I don't know.
It feels very renaissance,
Jennifer (12:48):
I think it's very 1920s and Paris kind of
Ariana (12:53):
thing.
That's what I was thinking.
that la Boham, like I wasthinking like the Harlem
Renaissance and Yeah, and allthe writers just, it really
Jennifer (13:01):
felt like that during COVID too, because.
We were working,
Meryl (13:05):
it was a lifeline during COVID.
It was like, yeah,
Jennifer (13:07):
We were working and we just didn't stop.
And a lot of us finished wholebooks during that time.
Meryl (13:14):
Yeah.
So you've finished a, includingme.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you wanna talk about theprocess of how COVID changed
your writing or,
Jennifer (13:20):
I was forced to go to my country house with my family
and.
I hated it so much, My kids wereon Zoom school and I had never
even been in the house for 14days and we went for 14 weeks.
And I wrote, I just wrote allthe time to get away from
Meryl (13:36):
those people.
Jennifer (13:37):
Yeah.
I hadn't published in a longtime and I hadn't really wanted
to publish.
I thought I was done or I wasjust, I was writing, but I
wasn't.
I wasn't driven to finishanything.
I was working on something thatjust maybe I just wasn't
motivated to finish.
And then during COVID, somebodygave me this book True Grit,
(13:57):
which I had never read, and Ijust fell in love with this
book.
It just inspired me so much thatthis writer, Charles Portis,
could have this 14-year-oldcharacter, a girl.
Set out to avenge the murder ofher father.
And I don't know, I just thoughtif he can do it, I can do it.
And I did it during COVID.
Meryl (14:20):
I remember one of the things you were struggling with
this book was to have'cause itmain character is 14, but to
have her be older and look backand you ended Oh.
Whether or not to do
Jennifer (14:29):
that.
Yeah, I tried.
Some alternate first and lastchapters where she's an adult.
Like that book Who Will Run TheFrog Hospital by Lori Moore,
which is a great book.
It was another book, a modelbook for this book.
She starts out as an adult in acafe with her husband, and then
you flash back for the wholeduration of the book to
(14:52):
something that happens to herone summer and then.
It ends with her back in thatcafe with her husband, and I
decided against it ultimatelybecause it just, it didn't
really feel pure to the book,when I first attempted the
other, the alternative idea ofstarting with her as an adult
and ending with her as an adult.
(15:14):
Those were sort of isolatedchapters.
But what Lori Moore did sobrilliantly in her book Who Will
Run The Frog Hospital, is therewere just these little moments
all through the book where we'reaware that she's looking back,
but very seamlessly.
And I didn't want that at all.
I really wanted to lose myselfin the 14-year-old voice.
So that was the choice I made.
Meryl (15:36):
And then this book is also takes place within eight
days.
How was that to how that was ashorter period than any of your
other books, right?
Jennifer (15:44):
Oh, by far.
Yeah.
My, my first couple of bookstake place in a year.
Each'cause I couldn't figureout, I just technically couldn't
figure out how to do anythingother than that.
And then one book took placeover four or five years, and
that felt like a revelation.
And I had always wanted to writea book that took place in a
short amount of time.
(16:05):
'cause I always admired that somuch like Catcher in the Rye or
True Grit takes place in a veryshort period of time.
But then it flash forwards atthe end to a sort of epilogue.
I didn't think I could do it,but I just did it.
You have to track breakfast,lunch and dinner and uh, you
just have to have real a lot ofcontrol over your time you have
to stay in the narration.
(16:26):
You, you can't obviously jumpahead, but you can have a ton of
flashbacks.
Of course.
Ariana (16:31):
I'm.
Impressed when writers play withtime.
'cause you can both condense andextend time in, in books and
especially in a novel that'sonly eight days.
I feel like I forgot that washappening.
Jennifer (16:42):
Yeah.
There's a girl in the workshopright now who's writing a book
that she announced would takeplace over about a year.
And she's on like page 60 of onescene.
And I'm like, I don't think yourbook's gonna take place in a
year.
because it is 60 pages and we'reon night one and they haven't
gotten to the movies yet.
(17:03):
So she realized, oh yeah, it'sgonna take place in a week.
Ariana (17:09):
Are you a kind of person who thinks.
Can the work dictate the formand time Oh, of
Jennifer (17:16):
course it has to.
You have to tell the story,
Ariana (17:18):
right?
Jennifer (17:19):
And Absolutely.
Yeah.
You have to see what all we dois talk about what serves the
book, so of course the timeperiod has to serve the book and
the duration.
Absolutely.
Meryl (17:32):
So Ariana has just started writing her first novel.
That's great.
Any any suggestions on how shemight go about that?
Jennifer (17:40):
Yes, I have suggestions.
I think you should sink into acharacter who's not unlike
yourself if you don't have onein mind already.
And then instead of knowing yourwhole plot or outlining, which
if I had to outline, I would'venever written one single word.
Just let your character havelittle tiny adventures that I
(18:04):
think of as scenes.
And don't write in order.
Don't write, don't start at thebeginning.
Start in the middle and justsink in and see what happens.
Ariana (18:18):
Thank you.
Yeah.
I was trying to give myself apage deadline of what did we
say, 50 pages by the first dayof summer.
And I find myself just writinglittle snippets and I'm like,
they don't really go together.
And I've been like, no.
Yeah, if you have 60 pages,beating myself up about pages
that are
Meryl (18:34):
totally random or feel all over the place.
That's great.
That's still amazing.
Jennifer (18:38):
Well, It's that sinking thing in thing I keep
talking about.
When you write short stories,not only do you have to come up
with new plots, but you have tocome up with whole new main
characters and names.
Takes me 25 years to name acharacter and you keep changing
things up so much that becomespart of the challenge.
So with a novel, you're justliving with these people for a
(19:02):
very long time.
Ariana (19:03):
I think that was one of my thoughts was a couple of my
stories that I really was lovingand I was working on.
I started to think, actuallythis is the same person.
In some of them like the same.
Of course it's, yeah.
And I was like, maybe this isone bigger story and I'm having
trouble because it's too small.
Jennifer (19:21):
Yeah.
And people worry that they don'tknow what they wanna write about
or.
They don't have a big plot.
Or if I had to have a plot or abig point, I never would've
written anything.
I just had this tremendousdesire to express myself.
I had been an actress and I wasreally frustrated being in other
people's plays.
And I would I loved auditioning'cause it was my two minute
(19:43):
little show that I was incontrol of.
And then I would get in a playand I would just think, oh no.
And, and then when I startedwriting, I just, I could just
work, I could just expressmyself, which I wanted to do so
badly.
So that's really the requirementis to want to express yourself
(20:05):
and then how you do that willcome and what you say will come.
Meryl (20:15):
When I was in Jenny's new school workshop for the first
semester, she gave out promptsand I still remember some of
them like.
How much is in your bankaccount, how you like to be
kissed other stuff.
And so I would just write thescene based on three words.
And at the end of the semester,I had 86 pages that were all
over the place.
And then I was like, all right,I have to figure out how these
(20:37):
all go together.
And it took me like 20 years.
Jennifer (20:40):
I can give prompts again.
Meryl (20:41):
Yeah, i'd love that.
Ariana (20:44):
How do you come up with your prompt?
Jennifer (20:47):
Right.
I don't know.
There's no particular way justwhat I think would feed a scene,
like for the one she justmentioned, I think was called
what you see at the ATM, becausethat's Important.
It's a great way to feel emotionor to raise the stakes in a
scene is to worry, have moneyrunning out.
(21:08):
Yeah, is a great thing for somecharacters to have to grapple
with.
Meryl (21:13):
And it sets you at a place so you're not just I have
this much money.
You're like with the character.
Right?
And
Jennifer (21:18):
then the idea of the prompts, like one of the prompts
is your mother's closet and theidea is to just riff on it.
So maybe you think about a timeyour father gave your mother
something and your, and thenthey had a big fight and then
you end up writing about yourparents' divorce.
It's not literally your mother'scloset, it's whatever that
(21:38):
prompt gives to you.
Ariana (21:40):
Do you find yourself writing to these prompts when
you give them out
Jennifer (21:43):
Everything that I tell anybody I do myself.
Of course I'm, we're justwriting for our lives here,
we're.
We're all struggling to just getthrough this very crazy, stupid
hard, wonderful experience ofwriting.
Ariana (22:05):
Have you ever taken advice from another writer or
teacher that you felt reallyaffected you in some way?
Jennifer (22:13):
I think the answer is no, actually.
I feel like I learned everythingI know from watching.
I love Lucy and Carol Brunetteand Saturday Night Live and
sitcoms like Meryl and I havesitcoms in common and reading,
just.
Meryl's a big reader too.
(22:33):
She and I just read a bookcalled All Fours by Miranda July
and we both really liked it alot.
And so we had a lot ofconversations about it.
And I think we learned from thatbook we learned to try to push
ourselves to be raw.
And I think that book really.
Will inspire some good writingfrom us, but I didn't take any
(22:57):
advice from Miranda July.
Meryl (22:59):
You took it from the work?
Ariana (23:00):
From the work, yeah.
Jennifer (23:01):
I'm not against taking advice, but I just don't, I
don't think I have actually.
I think I'm pretty independentin this process.
But I have a lot of writerfriends and there's nothing I
like more than hanging out andtalking about writing but I
don't think we really give eachother advice.
I think we, we do commiserateand we do, we, I find we
(23:21):
actually have quite similarprocesses.
Ariana (23:24):
you're synthesizing everything, the writing that you
read, the shows you watch.
Jennifer (23:30):
That's, I use my real life all the time.
That's where the prompts comefrom.
Like I probably wrote thatprompt about the ATM after,
particularly horrifying momentat the atm.
I don't remember, but I'm surethat I experienced that and
thought this is.
F this is what I need to do inmy writing.
Yeah.
Is have my character freak outover money.
Ariana (23:50):
Sometimes I used to 'cause some people leave their
receipts and I used to, I alwayslike to look at the receipts to
see how much money people haveOf course.
Make up stories about them.
See,
Jennifer (23:59):
That's such a great character quirk.
Meryl (24:06):
So your books have a lot of great sex scenes.
How do you
Jennifer (24:09):
they do?
Meryl (24:10):
very yeah, rich.
Jennifer (24:12):
My first book is about a hooker and I think it's been
called the only book aboutprostitution with no sex in it,
Meryl (24:20):
which is crazy'cause I wouldn't remember that.
There's no sex in it'cause itfeels sexual.
Jennifer (24:24):
There's sex, but she's adding up money in her mind the
whole time.
Right.
My new book has, I think it hassome real sex scenes.
What is your question about sexscenes, Meryl?
Meryl (24:35):
I don't know.
I like them.
Ariana (24:36):
How do you approach writing sex in novels that are
not, and also writing sex in away that.
I don't wanna call it literary,but when you read sex in a quote
unquote literary fiction versusa romance novel, there is some
differences, I would say, it.
Meryl (24:54):
how do you write literary sex?
Jennifer (24:55):
I've never read a romance book, so I don't know.
All right.
I write it the way it wouldhappen.
Meryl (25:04):
It's like anything else, like going to the atm?
I don't know.
I get I know I'm like I don'tknow.
I'm not a square, but I do getlike weird sometimes when I'm
reading sex scenes or even ifI'm trying to write them where
you're like.
Do I put that detail in or I'mlike, oh, is this corny?
Is this I don't know.
Jennifer (25:20):
We've had some hilarious sex scene moments at
the workshop over the years.
We
Meryl (25:26):
all like Mo, most of us like to write about sex.
Oh my God.
Especially
Jennifer (25:30):
during COVID.
Everybody was writing sex leftand right.
Really?
It was crazy.
Nobody was having it, buteverybody was writing it.
Meryl (25:39):
I was having a lot of sex with my shower head.
Jennifer (25:41):
Yeah.
Meryl likes to write aboutmasturbation.
I do not like to write aboutthat.
Meryl (25:46):
But you did one and I think, which one was it?
With the Grim Reaper.
I
Jennifer (25:51):
don't remember,
Meryl (25:52):
but I will say
Jennifer (25:54):
that my friend who's a writer, Arthur Nersesian who
Meryl's friends with too, hewrote the book The Fuck Up, and
he's written 14 novels and hesays that a book has to hit all
the chakras.
Ooh, it has he, he says if abook doesn't give him at least
one hard on, it's not a goodbook.
So I think of that
Meryl (26:14):
hundred percent agree.
Jennifer (26:15):
I think of that for Arthur.
I try to give Arthur at leastone erection per novel.
In a first person book you haveto be very intimate with the
reader and you have to decidewhen is it's too much
information.
Because you don't wanna be anaval gazer or whatever that
(26:36):
phrase is.
You don't wanna discuss everysingle inch of your body, but
you want the reader to feel likea part of you.
So you have to, that's just,that's where a workshop can be
very helpful.
We, we can say.
Meryl, it's too much.
But we never have, we never,we've never said that yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
We're
Meryl (26:54):
still working on it.
But I remember when I was, younever will young.
My my parents would read me likeHeidi or whatever books they
were reading me, and I would askthem, when do they go to the
bathroom?
Right.
There you go.
So then they would add that in.
My father would add in and thenHeidi went to the bathroom.
Jennifer (27:12):
Okay.
That's really weird.
Ariana (27:14):
That's cute.
Jennifer (27:15):
But with Swanna in Love.
This writer I know named MarilynRothstein, who wrote a great
book called Crazy to Leave Youand husband's another Sharp
Objects, and her new book iscalled Who Loves You Best.
She read my book and she said tome your character is obsessed
with pee.
(27:35):
There's just too much pee.
There's, and I thought that wasthe stupidest thing I ever heard
in my life, and I.
Read the book again, and she's14 and she's worried about where
she's gonna go to the bathroom,and she's worried about her
little brother wetting himself.
But there was a lot about pee.
So I took some out.
(27:57):
but it's a road trip.
And all you do on a road trip isworry about the next time you're
gonna pee.
Truly.
But she was very disturbed.
I did take out several peereferences, so if you want more
pee in my book, you can blameMarilyn Rothstein for that one
Ariana (28:13):
more pee in the book.
Meryl (28:19):
One thing we wanted to touch on, is it the exciting
news that your book Swanna inLove is going to become a movie?
Jennifer (28:26):
Yes.
Meryl (28:27):
That's so great!
Jennifer (28:27):
Yes.
We're saying it here first.
Meryl (28:30):
Yay.
Jennifer (28:30):
A great screenwriter named Liz Tigelaar, who wrote,
she adapted Little FiresEverywhere and tiny, Beautiful
Objects or whatever that, that,I guess those are well done.
She's really good.
Yeah, and she apparently, sheclaims, I hard to believe
Hollywood people ever, but sheclaims that she has a tradition
(28:55):
of going to Cabo with a bunch ofgirlfriends and reading one of
my books every few years.
And she went to book soup in LAand she said I wish there was a
new Jennifer Bell book.
And the guy said, there is.
So she took my book with herfriends to Cabo and apparently
they read it out loud and thenshe optioned it and she put it
(29:19):
together with a great producerlikely story productions and it
looks like it could happen, butit also could not happen.
We don't know.
Ariana (29:29):
knock wood.
Yeah.
So where are you in the processwhen these things happen?
I'm very curious.
Jennifer (29:35):
In the past I've always been the writer and now
I'm not the writer
Meryl (29:40):
at three of your books have been optioned or before all
of them.
Jennifer (29:43):
All of them have been optioned.
The first book was optioned.
27 times.
First by Madonna and then by acompany called Muse Films, and I
was the writer for all thedifferent options.
Meryl (29:56):
Did you have to change it based on every person you were
working with or you just keptthe same script?
Jennifer (30:02):
Yeah, the first option was with Madonna and she was
gonna be the director.
Wow.
So it, it was under herdirection, I had to have
meetings with her and discussevery little thing with her.
And it had to be, to herapproval.
And then there were all kinds ofdifferent directors and
different actors, with HighMaintenance, first it was
(30:23):
optioned by HBO and then it wasoptioned by Fox 2000.
So those were two totallydifferent scripts and those were
series.
So that was different.
That was a totally differentexperience and great.
I loved it so much.
So with this, I'm nothing.
I'm just, i'm an executiveproducer, which means nothing.
(30:43):
But I'm excited anyway.
Ariana (30:45):
we have to ask, how was Madonna?
Oh, I was like, I was gonnainterrupt you before, but I was
like, how was working withMadonna?
Jennifer (30:52):
It was very fun and exciting and she is very
respectful as a collaborator.
She always acted like I was anexpert and I knew what I was
doing.
She was extremely demanding.
And I think that's because she'svery demanding of herself.
I would have a meeting with herand I would think to myself in
(31:14):
my mind, okay, now I'm gonna goout to lunch and I'm gonna lie
in bed for the rest of the dayand I'd be walking out the door
and I'd literally be fantasizingabout lunch.
And she would say, so can I havethese pages by four o'clock
because I'm flying.
At four and I wanna read them onthe plane.
I would just be dumbfounded Iwas breathless being in her
(31:36):
presence, and then I'm supposedto actually go home to my
tenement apartment and write ahuge amount of work by four
o'clock.
It was.
But I, she wasn't being a bitch.
She was just that's what shewould've done.
Ariana (31:51):
Right.
Which,
Jennifer (31:52):
so it was a constant it was just a constant grind
because she just wanted so muchand got so much.
Ariana (32:02):
That's a testament to like her legacy.
That makes sense.
Jennifer (32:05):
She had great ideas.
She didn't take the time toexplain her ideas.
Like she would say, thisbeginning doesn't work.
And I'd say, why?
And I'd give her 10 reasons whyit worked so well and why she
was wrong.
And she's no, it just doesn'twork.
And I never knew if it wasbecause she was Madonna and she
didn't feel she had to explainherself, or if she just.
Or she didn't know how toexplain herself if she wasn't
(32:26):
analytical in that way.
But I would sit up in bed acouple of days later and realize
10 reasons why she was exactlyright.
And that happened over and overagain that she was right and I
would have to figure it out onmy own.
She didn't explain it to me, butshe was great to work for.
She was a little bit.
(32:47):
Unrealistic about no, she wasactually, she was, I would say
the opposite.
She was overly realistic aboutmoney.
Like she would, I would write ascene that took place in Grand
Central Station and she'd say,no, we can't shoot there.
It would be too expensive.
And I think
Meryl (33:04):
she had her producer's hat on.
Jennifer (33:05):
She had the producer's hat on constantly.
And I would think You'reMadonna, make it happen make it
happen.
We'll have Grand CentralStation, we'll do it at three in
the, but she was very focused onhaving a financially viable
project.
She did not want her first filmto be a money suck.
And I did not think that way.
(33:26):
So that was strange.
But she's a business woman.
Meryl (33:31):
That is a big thing when you're writing, like when we
were writing our screenplay wehad intended it for Katie's Mom
to be small, but then at somepoint it started getting big and
then we had to cut it back tosmall again.
And that was really hard becausewe'd envisioned these bigger
scenes, but then we had to.
Jennifer (33:49):
Yeah, Madonna ran a tight ship, we can say the whole
time, but she was just, she wascreative.
She was, I describe her ashaving tentacles on the all over
her body, like she was just afeeling creature.
She, not particularlyanalytical, but so smart.
(34:10):
Sensuous and feeling, so Ireally loved the experience.
Meryl (34:21):
So this is your first novel published by Akashic.
Jennifer (34:24):
Yeah.
I was with Riverhead PenguinPutnam for my last four books.
And then I didn't write for along time.
And then I had some issues withthis book because I, we didn't
tell people what this book isabout, but it's about a
14-year-old girl who has a lovesex relationship with a
(34:46):
38-year-old married dad in 1982.
And a lot of publishers werevery scared of it, I think.
It went around on submissionright at the height of the Me
Too, most heightened moment Ithink.
And people were scared of it andI was prepared for that.
(35:07):
And I was prepared to haveconversations with publishers
where they might wanna make herolder or make the guy younger.
Or change it in some way becauseshe's not a victim at all.
She doesn't feel like a victim.
And the books that have come outthat are on this topic, the girl
very much feels like a victim.
Anyway, I got a lot of nos andJohnny Temple at Akashic wanted
(35:33):
it and I just had so muchrespect for him.
He published Arthur Nersesianand the guy I told you about.
So many other great books.
It's just a great independentpress.
So I went for it.
It's been easily the bestpublishing experience I've ever
had.
It's been the most enjoyable,the most respectful, the most
(35:54):
fun.
And I've gotten great reviewsand all the attention I wanted.
So I just think it's a greatplace to publish a book.
Ariana (36:07):
How do you manage the disappointments that come with
being a writer and, you'reoptioning these movie deals.
You have this book that hasquote unquote taboo topic that
these publishers didn't want.
You had so many nos before yougot your Yes.
How do you manage that?
Jennifer (36:25):
Probably not that well.
It's a miserable feeling and Isee it in my workshop members
trying to get agents.
It's so hard to get an agentthese days and probably people
listening to this podcast mightbe trying to get an agent and
there's just a firewall up.
You just can't, you can't breakthrough.
And it's very unfortunate.
(36:47):
How did I handle it?
Of course I've been extremelylucky and I haven't had to face
what some other people havefaced.
But it's not fun, it's, you haveto enjoy the good times.
And I, when I did get my bookdeal for this book, Swanna in
Love, I just became determinedto enjoy every single second of
(37:08):
it.
Like this podcast, like I'm justenjoying it.
And that's.
How you get through the hardtimes is trying to enjoy the
good times.
Yeah.
Ariana (37:18):
Is that what we're trying to do in the 2025?
This crazy year?
Yeah.
Jennifer (37:22):
This is a crazy year, it's so hard to get published.
All the more reason to writewhatever you wanna write, and
write it the way you wanna writeit go for it.
Ariana (37:32):
and that's really hard to do.
You have to get reallyvulnerable.
Sure.
Jennifer (37:37):
It's, yeah.
It's a, that's what art is.
Art is, that's what art is.
It's pretty vulnerable.
Ariana (37:42):
I feel like sometimes I'm in a war with myself where,
I feel what I want to say andthen I write it and I'm like,
that's not I'm still not sayingit all I don't know, for me I'm
just, yeah, it
Jennifer (37:54):
takes a really long time before you're a good judge
of what you're writing.
It doesn't take a long time tobe a good writer.
You could be a good writer rightaway, but it takes a long time
to have a sense if, is this goodor is this bad?
And that's why a workshop isgreat because you shouldn't
really be judging it that way.
You should just be writing itand then giving it to reader you
(38:15):
trust or a workshop you trust.
Not trying to decide yourself ifit's good or if it's bad.
Now I have a sense when I writesomething that's not good, but
for many years I wouldn't haveeven attempted to try to know if
something was good or bad.
Meryl (38:33):
It's interesting'cause I feel that some of my friends do
write in a vacuum and they'relike, oh, I'm not gonna show it
to you until I've, reallychiseled and I could never do
that.
I'm like, I on the oppositeextreme, as soon as I write it,
I'm like, tell me, is it good?
Is it good?
Maybe too much.
Ariana (38:49):
I think that's a really good I question.
'cause I do feel like there'ssome folks who feel like they
need to be super precious oftheir work and they feel like
that gives them the motivation.
And then I was just listening, Ithink it's called the Harvard
something, the Harvard Method,and it's mention what you're
doing all the time because thetheory is that you're always one
connection away from meeting theperson you need to meet or doing
(39:13):
the thing that you need to do.
So if you just keep mentioningwhat you're working on, all the
connections will start to comeinto place.
Jennifer (39:20):
You asked me just a moment ago, how do you have a
thick enough skin Yeah.
For this business and being in aworkshop certainly helps because
you're getting practice gettingnotes every single week, and
you're getting bad reviews everysingle week.
It could be.
You you have that support ofyour friends and you know,
ultimately that your book isgood because people have signed
(39:43):
off on it, so I knew my book wasgood, and that gives you a lot
of strength.
Yeah.
What Is it all right or not allright to do?
It's all right to not know whatyou wanna write.
It's all right to have no ideawhat your plot is or what your
big point is.
(40:04):
You just wanna have to have atremendous desire to express
yourself.
And just go for it.
So it's all right to just getstarted and write.
Oh, I love that.
Ariana (40:17):
Thank you so much for joining.
Are you working on anything?
Yeah.
Now
Jennifer (40:21):
I'm writing a new novel Ooh.
And Meryl's in my workshop withme.
I bring it in, I bring in pages.
It's a lot of fun.
And yeah, we will see whathappens.
That's exciting.
And you're gonna bang it out inParis?
I'm heading to Paris to livethere for two whole months by
myself.
Ariana (40:39):
Oh, that's exciting.
And I hope
Jennifer (40:40):
to do a lot of writing there.
Ariana (40:42):
Yeah.
Enjoy that for the summer.
Yes.
Oh, amazing.
Jennifer (40:45):
Yeah.
Ariana (40:46):
All right.
Bon Voyage.
Thanks for coming
Jennifer (40:48):
Merci, thank you.
And thanks for having me on yourshow.
Ariana (40:57):
That's a wrap on today's episode of It's All Right With
Jennifer Belle.
You can find us on Instagram atIt's All Write.
W-R-I-T-E Pod, so it's allwrite.
Pod on Instagram and you canalso email us at
itsallwritepod@gmail.com.
We love to hear from you, writea review, subscribe, all those
(41:19):
fun things that you do on theinternet.
Meryl (41:21):
Thanks so much.
When I started writing, I just, I could just
(00:03):
work, I could just expressmyself, which I wanted to do so
badly.
That's really the requirement isto want to express yourself and
then how you do that will comeand what you say will come.
So it's all right to just getstarted and write.
Meryl (00:29):
Hi, I am Meryl Branch Mc Tiernan,
Ariana (00:30):
and I am Ariana and you're listening to, it's All
Write, A podcast about thewriting life and those who live
it.
It
Meryl (00:39):
Today we are lucky to have Jennifer Belle, who has
been a writing teacher and greatfriend of mine since 2007.
Jennifer Bell is the bestsellingauthor of five novels going Down
named Best Debut, novel byEntertainment Weekly, High
Maintenance, Little Stalker, theSeven Year Bitch, and her most
recent Swanna in Love.
(00:59):
Love, and her stories and essayshave appeared in the New York
Times Magazine, the Wall StreetJournal, the Independent
Harper's Bazaar Ms., Black book,the New York Observer Post Road,
and many anthologies.
We're very happy to have youhere today, Jenny.
Jennifer (01:13):
Thanks Meryl.
Thanks, Ariana.
Yeah, welcome.
Thank you so much.
Ariana (01:17):
What a career
Jennifer (01:19):
I've been really lucky.
Ariana (01:21):
So Swanna in Love, your fifth novel came out last year,
right?
Yes.
2024.
Do you feel like writing Swan inLove, was that process any
different from the first bookand then all the books in
between?
I don't, I hate to say call themall the books in between, but.
I They're your babies too.
Oh, the middle children.
The middle children.
How has mothering these booksmaybe changed or evolved?
Jennifer (01:43):
I'm more confident, when I set out to write my first
book I had never writtenanything before and I didn't
know I could do it, so I settledinto a character who was not
unlike myself, and I let thatcharacter go on these tiny
little adventures that I thoughtof as scenes because I came from
(02:06):
an acting background, so that'sall I knew.
And over four years I wrote thebook and now I can write with a
little bit more confidence'causeI've done it once, you've done
it once, you can do it again.
So that's really all that'schanged that also my level of
terror has risen.
Ariana (02:25):
Terror, for what?
Jennifer (02:26):
It's a really tough business, obviously.
The first time you don't have anagent yet, you don't have a
publisher yet, and you're freeto just explore, do whatever you
want.
And I would say the pressuregoes up a little bit as you move
on.
I always say this very obnoxiousthing to people who are starting
that it's the best time of theirlives before they have an agent.
(02:50):
And it's like
Meryl (02:51):
they all wanna kill you.
Jennifer (02:52):
Yes.
It's one of the worst things Isay, but it really changes when
people take an interest.
Ariana (02:57):
That is it a catch 22 of sorts?
Sorts, yeah.
Meryl (03:01):
I was rereading Going Down recently and I noticed how
much dialogue is there.
And I feel like there's a littlebit, there's dialogue in all
your books, but it seems heavierthere.
Is that something you'reconscious of now?
Jennifer (03:13):
That's interesting that you say that because I
wrote in layers with my firstbook.
Now I write in more of anintegrated way where everything
comes together at once.
But when I started I, I reallyjust wrote dialogue and then I
eked out a little bit of stagedirections.
And then I managed to have somedescriptions, and then finally I
(03:39):
forced out some emotion andinner thought.
Because as I said, I had justread plays and screenplays for
so long as an actor that's whatI was used to.
And now I write in a morebalanced way, but I think I'm
still pretty dialogue heavy.
Meryl (03:56):
Would you say that you hear the dialogue first?
Is that like the first thingthat comes to you?
Jennifer (04:00):
I think what comes to me first is the emotion.
Now, I really wanna get to anemotional truth and I sort of
wait till I'm there before Istart writing almost.
But I do hear my way in a lot ofthe times, too.
Meryl (04:15):
Same for me.
I feel like a lot of writerssay, oh, it starts, it always
starts with an image.
And I'm like, no, it neverstarts with an image for you.
No.
A voice or a, it's a, yeah.
It's like I'm hearing aconversation or imagining a
conversation.
Jennifer (04:29):
Yeah.
It does not start with an imagefor me either.
When I sit down to write and Ihave no idea what I'm gonna
write that day, I tend to setmyself somewhere like I was
sitting on the subway and or Isat in the park.
And even if I change it later.
I like to put myself in asituation, put my character in a
(04:50):
situation before starting that
Ariana (04:52):
feels very like actor driven.
That reminds me of yeah, maybe II spoke about it before doing
improv.
Yeah.
And doing improv actuallyprompted me to get back into
writing.
Jennifer (05:02):
Oh, that's great.
Ariana (05:02):
Which was really interesting.
But yeah, that sounds like that.
It's okay, have a place, have asetting, have an action, have an
object, have a dialogue.
Meryl (05:11):
It's all right if you improv your way in.
Ariana (05:14):
Ooh, that's a good one.
Meryl (05:20):
So most of your books were written contemporarily to
the time, other than Swana inLove, how was it going back in
time and setting it in adifferent time period?
Jennifer (05:31):
My first book, my main character's 19.
And I was 26, 27 when it gotpublished.
And then, yeah, they went up inage from there for sure.
And then
Meryl (05:43):
down and then
Jennifer (05:43):
Swana is 14.
a lot of thought was put into.
How old she should be and whenit should take place.
And the parents are criminallynegligent, so it had to take
place before now because theywould be in jail.
They'd just be in trouble.
So it had to take place in theseventies or eighties.
(06:06):
And then I made her 14.
I really.
Deliberated about making herolder, making her younger.
She has a younger brother and Ididn't want her to be too much
older than the younger brother.
And it's important that sheloses her virginity in this
book, and I thought that a girllike this would not be much
(06:28):
older than 14 when she lost hervirginity.
So when I finally landed on 14as her perfect age.
Then I corresponded it with whenI was about 14, so that's how I
came up with the time.
Ariana (06:42):
Ah, so you just went back.
Did you keep journals when youwere younger?
Jennifer (06:45):
I did.
I obsessively kept journals andthen my mother read them when I
was 13 and I threw them down theincinerator in my building and I
still dream about them.
If I could do anything again, itwould be not do that.
I wish so much I had those backand I beg my kids to keep a
(07:08):
journal and of course theydon't.
And when I talk to anybody whosays that they wanna write a
book and they're a kid I begthem to keep a journal.
It's such a shame that I don'thave them.
Meryl (07:20):
So writing in your journal is actually currently
part of your practice as well?
Jennifer (07:24):
Yes.
Yeah.
I don't go out without it.
And I choose really specialbooks from a guy in Italy.
A lot of writers can't writeunless they've read first for an
hour or two, or, people havedifferent things that they have
to do before they write, andit's my way in.
I just write anything in mydiary to get started in a
(07:45):
writing session and it gets thebad stuff out of my head, and
then I'm ready to sit down andwork on my computer.
So I write down dreams, I writedown ideas for scenes all the
time.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, I can't imagine not havingmy journal with me as a writer,
I really recommend that toanybody who wants to write like
(08:07):
it's not All right, it's not Allright.
Not to have a journal.
Yeah.
Let's do a, it's not All right.
Podcast.
Meryl (08:15):
Yeah,
Ariana (08:16):
that'll be the
Meryl (08:16):
companion.
That's
Jennifer (08:17):
more my speed.
Meryl (08:18):
I got in trouble the other day because I told
Jennifer that I had written onmy phone, I'd written in the
notes app, and she said, why?
Because you didn't have yourjournal
Ariana (08:28):
and is that correct?
Meryl (08:29):
No, I just I'm so slow and my hand hurts, so I was
like, I, my thoughts were comingtoo fast.
I had to type them.
Ariana (08:36):
So Meryl is in Jennifer's workshop and you've
been in Jennifer's workshop fora bit.
Meryl (08:42):
Mostly, since 2007.
Yeah, at the, I started in theNew School.
And then I was like dying to getinto her private workshop.
And then I finally did, shefinally let me in and then I
wouldn't leave.
I'm glad I did.
Jennifer (08:55):
I'd love to hear the story.
I don't remember.
I know she doesn't rememberanything.
I'm always scared to let newpeople in, so it always takes
about a year.
Meryl (09:02):
What happened was I wanted it so desperately that I
met your mother at a party andsaid, can I be in?
I was like, I'll just be in herworkshop if Jenny won't let me
in.
Oh,
Jennifer (09:12):
boy, that, that spurred me to action.
Meryl (09:14):
And then Your mother called and she's, or I called
her and she said Jenny reallywants you.
And I was like, oh, okay.
Yes.
So that's a method I use witheverything.
Oh yeah.
Ariana (09:24):
It's almost like a sitcom when you're like, I'm
getting in one way or another,
Meryl (09:28):
Jenny really wants you.
Ariana (09:30):
It's yes.
yeah.
What has it brought to you andto your life?
Meryl (09:34):
I seeing somebody who had done this, I was 25 at the time.
And, I loved her books.
I'd read three of them by thetime I met you.
And they both, they all came tome in weird ways.
Like my friend Amy Harsuvonnegatgave me Going Down she's like,
you'll like this.
And then I met this guy nearWashington Square Park who was
(09:55):
selling books on the street.
And he gave me High Maintenanceor sold me High Maintenance.
He's like, oh, the author'salways coming by here.
And then I was walking by theNew School and I saw her name in
the catalog.
I'm like, oh my God, this ismeant to be.
Yeah,
Jennifer (10:08):
I never knew any of this.
Meryl (10:10):
Yeah, it feels very ordained or like destined.
Very, yeah.
And so I've since written twobooks and starting a third under
her auspices.
Jennifer (10:20):
Yeah.
And they're great.
Ariana (10:26):
What would you say is the, what sets your workshop
apart or what's your method forrunning this workshop?
Jennifer (10:33):
We work very hard.
We're very critical and we havea lot of fun.
We laugh a lot and we bring in alot of pages I think what sets
it apart is the lack of rules Ina lot of workshops, there are
rules, like you can't sayanything bad about the work or
(10:53):
the person can't defend himselfor his pages.
We don't have any rules likethat.
We don't have time.
We really tear things to shredsand we try to make things
better.
If you're reading pages, you cansay anything you want about
those pages.
You can defend them up and downbecause I really feel like.
We get to what we wanna saysometimes when we're making
(11:16):
those defensive remarks and wesay what we're trying to do in
the pages.
So I think those rules that alot of workshops have don't help
at all.
We're not a support groupalthough we can be very
supportive, but we're all thereto be published.
We're all pretty commerciallyminded and we really care about
(11:37):
good writing.
During COVID, I, when we movedto Zoom, I started to invite
famous agents to come and talkto us.
And since then we've gotten somebook deals and that sets us
apart also.
'cause we really try to getpeople published.
Ariana (11:52):
That's amazing.
Jennifer (11:53):
Yeah.
It's been really great.
Ariana (11:55):
And I feel like, when you say these things, it seems
so, simple.
You're like, we're there to,we're there because we like
writing, we're there to,actually make the work better.
But it's funny how you get inother spaces.
'Cause yeah, the group makes theworkshop work,
Jennifer (12:11):
so Yes, it does.
And also in my workshop we readevery single week.
So in other workshops that I'vebeen in, it's your turn once a
month or it's your turn once asemester or twice a semester.
You're bringing in work everysingle week.
So the deadline is a big part ofit.
Just that your writing helps.
Meryl (12:31):
That's why I'm always like Wednesday and Thursday.
No.
Yeah,
Jennifer (12:34):
exactly.
It puts you in a prettyprofessional schedule, so that
sets it apart too, and also thatwe never stop.
It's just ongoing and it's alifestyle choice.
Ariana (12:44):
That feels, it feels very.
I don't know.
It feels very renaissance,
Jennifer (12:48):
I think it's very 1920s and Paris kind of
Ariana (12:53):
thing.
That's what I was thinking.
that la Boham, like I wasthinking like the Harlem
Renaissance and Yeah, and allthe writers just, it really
Jennifer (13:01):
felt like that during COVID too, because.
We were working,
Meryl (13:05):
it was a lifeline during COVID.
It was like, yeah,
Jennifer (13:07):
We were working and we just didn't stop.
And a lot of us finished wholebooks during that time.
Meryl (13:14):
Yeah.
So you've finished a, includingme.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Do you wanna talk about theprocess of how COVID changed
your writing or,
Jennifer (13:20):
I was forced to go to my country house with my family
and.
I hated it so much, My kids wereon Zoom school and I had never
even been in the house for 14days and we went for 14 weeks.
And I wrote, I just wrote allthe time to get away from
Meryl (13:36):
those people.
Jennifer (13:37):
Yeah.
I hadn't published in a longtime and I hadn't really wanted
to publish.
I thought I was done or I wasjust, I was writing, but I
wasn't.
I wasn't driven to finishanything.
I was working on something thatjust maybe I just wasn't
motivated to finish.
And then during COVID, somebodygave me this book True Grit,
(13:57):
which I had never read, and Ijust fell in love with this
book.
It just inspired me so much thatthis writer, Charles Portis,
could have this 14-year-oldcharacter, a girl.
Set out to avenge the murder ofher father.
And I don't know, I just thoughtif he can do it, I can do it.
And I did it during COVID.
Meryl (14:20):
I remember one of the things you were struggling with
this book was to have'cause itmain character is 14, but to
have her be older and look backand you ended Oh.
Whether or not to do
Jennifer (14:29):
that.
Yeah, I tried.
Some alternate first and lastchapters where she's an adult.
Like that book Who Will Run TheFrog Hospital by Lori Moore,
which is a great book.
It was another book, a modelbook for this book.
She starts out as an adult in acafe with her husband, and then
you flash back for the wholeduration of the book to
(14:52):
something that happens to herone summer and then.
It ends with her back in thatcafe with her husband, and I
decided against it ultimatelybecause it just, it didn't
really feel pure to the book,when I first attempted the
other, the alternative idea ofstarting with her as an adult
and ending with her as an adult.
(15:14):
Those were sort of isolatedchapters.
But what Lori Moore did sobrilliantly in her book Who Will
Run The Frog Hospital, is therewere just these little moments
all through the book where we'reaware that she's looking back,
but very seamlessly.
And I didn't want that at all.
I really wanted to lose myselfin the 14-year-old voice.
So that was the choice I made.
Meryl (15:36):
And then this book is also takes place within eight
days.
How was that to how that was ashorter period than any of your
other books, right?
Jennifer (15:44):
Oh, by far.
Yeah.
My, my first couple of bookstake place in a year.
Each'cause I couldn't figureout, I just technically couldn't
figure out how to do anythingother than that.
And then one book took placeover four or five years, and
that felt like a revelation.
And I had always wanted to writea book that took place in a
short amount of time.
(16:05):
'cause I always admired that somuch like Catcher in the Rye or
True Grit takes place in a veryshort period of time.
But then it flash forwards atthe end to a sort of epilogue.
I didn't think I could do it,but I just did it.
You have to track breakfast,lunch and dinner and uh, you
just have to have real a lot ofcontrol over your time you have
to stay in the narration.
(16:26):
You, you can't obviously jumpahead, but you can have a ton of
flashbacks.
Of course.
Ariana (16:31):
I'm.
Impressed when writers play withtime.
'cause you can both condense andextend time in, in books and
especially in a novel that'sonly eight days.
I feel like I forgot that washappening.
Jennifer (16:42):
Yeah.
There's a girl in the workshopright now who's writing a book
that she announced would takeplace over about a year.
And she's on like page 60 of onescene.
And I'm like, I don't think yourbook's gonna take place in a
year.
because it is 60 pages and we'reon night one and they haven't
gotten to the movies yet.
(17:03):
So she realized, oh yeah, it'sgonna take place in a week.
Ariana (17:09):
Are you a kind of person who thinks.
Can the work dictate the formand time Oh, of
Jennifer (17:16):
course it has to.
You have to tell the story,
Ariana (17:18):
right?
Jennifer (17:19):
And Absolutely.
Yeah.
You have to see what all we dois talk about what serves the
book, so of course the timeperiod has to serve the book and
the duration.
Absolutely.
Meryl (17:32):
So Ariana has just started writing her first novel.
That's great.
Any any suggestions on how shemight go about that?
Jennifer (17:40):
Yes, I have suggestions.
I think you should sink into acharacter who's not unlike
yourself if you don't have onein mind already.
And then instead of knowing yourwhole plot or outlining, which
if I had to outline, I would'venever written one single word.
Just let your character havelittle tiny adventures that I
(18:04):
think of as scenes.
And don't write in order.
Don't write, don't start at thebeginning.
Start in the middle and justsink in and see what happens.
Ariana (18:18):
Thank you.
Yeah.
I was trying to give myself apage deadline of what did we
say, 50 pages by the first dayof summer.
And I find myself just writinglittle snippets and I'm like,
they don't really go together.
And I've been like, no.
Yeah, if you have 60 pages,beating myself up about pages
that are
Meryl (18:34):
totally random or feel all over the place.
That's great.
That's still amazing.
Jennifer (18:38):
Well, It's that sinking thing in thing I keep
talking about.
When you write short stories,not only do you have to come up
with new plots, but you have tocome up with whole new main
characters and names.
Takes me 25 years to name acharacter and you keep changing
things up so much that becomespart of the challenge.
So with a novel, you're justliving with these people for a
(19:02):
very long time.
Ariana (19:03):
I think that was one of my thoughts was a couple of my
stories that I really was lovingand I was working on.
I started to think, actuallythis is the same person.
In some of them like the same.
Of course it's, yeah.
And I was like, maybe this isone bigger story and I'm having
trouble because it's too small.
Jennifer (19:21):
Yeah.
And people worry that they don'tknow what they wanna write about
or.
They don't have a big plot.
Or if I had to have a plot or abig point, I never would've
written anything.
I just had this tremendousdesire to express myself.
I had been an actress and I wasreally frustrated being in other
people's plays.
And I would I loved auditioning'cause it was my two minute
(19:43):
little show that I was incontrol of.
And then I would get in a playand I would just think, oh no.
And, and then when I startedwriting, I just, I could just
work, I could just expressmyself, which I wanted to do so
badly.
So that's really the requirementis to want to express yourself
(20:05):
and then how you do that willcome and what you say will come.
Meryl (20:15):
When I was in Jenny's new school workshop for the first
semester, she gave out promptsand I still remember some of
them like.
How much is in your bankaccount, how you like to be
kissed other stuff.
And so I would just write thescene based on three words.
And at the end of the semester,I had 86 pages that were all
over the place.
And then I was like, all right,I have to figure out how these
(20:37):
all go together.
And it took me like 20 years.
Jennifer (20:40):
I can give prompts again.
Meryl (20:41):
Yeah, i'd love that.
Ariana (20:44):
How do you come up with your prompt?
Jennifer (20:47):
Right.
I don't know.
There's no particular way justwhat I think would feed a scene,
like for the one she justmentioned, I think was called
what you see at the ATM, becausethat's Important.
It's a great way to feel emotionor to raise the stakes in a
scene is to worry, have moneyrunning out.
(21:08):
Yeah, is a great thing for somecharacters to have to grapple
with.
Meryl (21:13):
And it sets you at a place so you're not just I have
this much money.
You're like with the character.
Right?
And
Jennifer (21:18):
then the idea of the prompts, like one of the prompts
is your mother's closet and theidea is to just riff on it.
So maybe you think about a timeyour father gave your mother
something and your, and thenthey had a big fight and then
you end up writing about yourparents' divorce.
It's not literally your mother'scloset, it's whatever that
(21:38):
prompt gives to you.
Ariana (21:40):
Do you find yourself writing to these prompts when
you give them out
Jennifer (21:43):
Everything that I tell anybody I do myself.
Of course I'm, we're justwriting for our lives here,
we're.
We're all struggling to just getthrough this very crazy, stupid
hard, wonderful experience ofwriting.
Ariana (22:05):
Have you ever taken advice from another writer or
teacher that you felt reallyaffected you in some way?
Jennifer (22:13):
I think the answer is no, actually.
I feel like I learned everythingI know from watching.
I love Lucy and Carol Brunetteand Saturday Night Live and
sitcoms like Meryl and I havesitcoms in common and reading,
just.
Meryl's a big reader too.
(22:33):
She and I just read a bookcalled All Fours by Miranda July
and we both really liked it alot.
And so we had a lot ofconversations about it.
And I think we learned from thatbook we learned to try to push
ourselves to be raw.
And I think that book really.
Will inspire some good writingfrom us, but I didn't take any
(22:57):
advice from Miranda July.
Meryl (22:59):
You took it from the work?
Ariana (23:00):
From the work, yeah.
Jennifer (23:01):
I'm not against taking advice, but I just don't, I
don't think I have actually.
I think I'm pretty independentin this process.
But I have a lot of writerfriends and there's nothing I
like more than hanging out andtalking about writing but I
don't think we really give eachother advice.
I think we, we do commiserateand we do, we, I find we
(23:21):
actually have quite similarprocesses.
Ariana (23:24):
you're synthesizing everything, the writing that you
read, the shows you watch.
Jennifer (23:30):
That's, I use my real life all the time.
That's where the prompts comefrom.
Like I probably wrote thatprompt about the ATM after,
particularly horrifying momentat the atm.
I don't remember, but I'm surethat I experienced that and
thought this is.
F this is what I need to do inmy writing.
Yeah.
Is have my character freak outover money.
Ariana (23:50):
Sometimes I used to 'cause some people leave their
receipts and I used to, I alwayslike to look at the receipts to
see how much money people haveOf course.
Make up stories about them.
See,
Jennifer (23:59):
That's such a great character quirk.
Meryl (24:06):
So your books have a lot of great sex scenes.
How do you
Jennifer (24:09):
they do?
Meryl (24:10):
very yeah, rich.
Jennifer (24:12):
My first book is about a hooker and I think it's been
called the only book aboutprostitution with no sex in it,
Meryl (24:20):
which is crazy'cause I wouldn't remember that.
There's no sex in it'cause itfeels sexual.
Jennifer (24:24):
There's sex, but she's adding up money in her mind the
whole time.
Right.
My new book has, I think it hassome real sex scenes.
What is your question about sexscenes, Meryl?
Meryl (24:35):
I don't know.
I like them.
Ariana (24:36):
How do you approach writing sex in novels that are
not, and also writing sex in away that.
I don't wanna call it literary,but when you read sex in a quote
unquote literary fiction versusa romance novel, there is some
differences, I would say, it.
Meryl (24:54):
how do you write literary sex?
Jennifer (24:55):
I've never read a romance book, so I don't know.
All right.
I write it the way it wouldhappen.
Meryl (25:04):
It's like anything else, like going to the atm?
I don't know.
I get I know I'm like I don'tknow.
I'm not a square, but I do getlike weird sometimes when I'm
reading sex scenes or even ifI'm trying to write them where
you're like.
Do I put that detail in or I'mlike, oh, is this corny?
Is this I don't know.
Jennifer (25:20):
We've had some hilarious sex scene moments at
the workshop over the years.
We
Meryl (25:26):
all like Mo, most of us like to write about sex.
Oh my God.
Especially
Jennifer (25:30):
during COVID.
Everybody was writing sex leftand right.
Really?
It was crazy.
Nobody was having it, buteverybody was writing it.
Meryl (25:39):
I was having a lot of sex with my shower head.
Jennifer (25:41):
Yeah.
Meryl likes to write aboutmasturbation.
I do not like to write aboutthat.
Meryl (25:46):
But you did one and I think, which one was it?
With the Grim Reaper.
I
Jennifer (25:51):
don't remember,
Meryl (25:52):
but I will say
Jennifer (25:54):
that my friend who's a writer, Arthur Nersesian who
Meryl's friends with too, hewrote the book The Fuck Up, and
he's written 14 novels and hesays that a book has to hit all
the chakras.
Ooh, it has he, he says if abook doesn't give him at least
one hard on, it's not a goodbook.
So I think of that
Meryl (26:14):
hundred percent agree.
Jennifer (26:15):
I think of that for Arthur.
I try to give Arthur at leastone erection per novel.
In a first person book you haveto be very intimate with the
reader and you have to decidewhen is it's too much
information.
Because you don't wanna be anaval gazer or whatever that
(26:36):
phrase is.
You don't wanna discuss everysingle inch of your body, but
you want the reader to feel likea part of you.
So you have to, that's just,that's where a workshop can be
very helpful.
We, we can say.
Meryl, it's too much.
But we never have, we never,we've never said that yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
We're
Meryl (26:54):
still working on it.
But I remember when I was, younever will young.
My my parents would read me likeHeidi or whatever books they
were reading me, and I would askthem, when do they go to the
bathroom?
Right.
There you go.
So then they would add that in.
My father would add in and thenHeidi went to the bathroom.
Jennifer (27:12):
Okay.
That's really weird.
Ariana (27:14):
That's cute.
Jennifer (27:15):
But with Swanna in Love.
This writer I know named MarilynRothstein, who wrote a great
book called Crazy to Leave Youand husband's another Sharp
Objects, and her new book iscalled Who Loves You Best.
She read my book and she said tome your character is obsessed
with pee.
(27:35):
There's just too much pee.
There's, and I thought that wasthe stupidest thing I ever heard
in my life, and I.
Read the book again, and she's14 and she's worried about where
she's gonna go to the bathroom,and she's worried about her
little brother wetting himself.
But there was a lot about pee.
So I took some out.
(27:57):
but it's a road trip.
And all you do on a road trip isworry about the next time you're
gonna pee.
Truly.
But she was very disturbed.
I did take out several peereferences, so if you want more
pee in my book, you can blameMarilyn Rothstein for that one
Ariana (28:13):
more pee in the book.
Meryl (28:19):
One thing we wanted to touch on, is it the exciting
news that your book Swanna inLove is going to become a movie?
Jennifer (28:26):
Yes.
Meryl (28:27):
That's so great!
Jennifer (28:27):
Yes.
We're saying it here first.
Meryl (28:30):
Yay.
Jennifer (28:30):
A great screenwriter named Liz Tigelaar, who wrote,
she adapted Little FiresEverywhere and tiny, Beautiful
Objects or whatever that, that,I guess those are well done.
She's really good.
Yeah, and she apparently, sheclaims, I hard to believe
Hollywood people ever, but sheclaims that she has a tradition
(28:55):
of going to Cabo with a bunch ofgirlfriends and reading one of
my books every few years.
And she went to book soup in LAand she said I wish there was a
new Jennifer Bell book.
And the guy said, there is.
So she took my book with herfriends to Cabo and apparently
they read it out loud and thenshe optioned it and she put it
(29:19):
together with a great producerlikely story productions and it
looks like it could happen, butit also could not happen.
We don't know.
Ariana (29:29):
knock wood.
Yeah.
So where are you in the processwhen these things happen?
I'm very curious.
Jennifer (29:35):
In the past I've always been the writer and now
I'm not the writer
Meryl (29:40):
at three of your books have been optioned or before all
of them.
Jennifer (29:43):
All of them have been optioned.
The first book was optioned.
27 times.
First by Madonna and then by acompany called Muse Films, and I
was the writer for all thedifferent options.
Meryl (29:56):
Did you have to change it based on every person you were
working with or you just keptthe same script?
Jennifer (30:02):
Yeah, the first option was with Madonna and she was
gonna be the director.
Wow.
So it, it was under herdirection, I had to have
meetings with her and discussevery little thing with her.
And it had to be, to herapproval.
And then there were all kinds ofdifferent directors and
different actors, with HighMaintenance, first it was
(30:23):
optioned by HBO and then it wasoptioned by Fox 2000.
So those were two totallydifferent scripts and those were
series.
So that was different.
That was a totally differentexperience and great.
I loved it so much.
So with this, I'm nothing.
I'm just, i'm an executiveproducer, which means nothing.
(30:43):
But I'm excited anyway.
Ariana (30:45):
we have to ask, how was Madonna?
Oh, I was like, I was gonnainterrupt you before, but I was
like, how was working withMadonna?
Jennifer (30:52):
It was very fun and exciting and she is very
respectful as a collaborator.
She always acted like I was anexpert and I knew what I was
doing.
She was extremely demanding.
And I think that's because she'svery demanding of herself.
I would have a meeting with herand I would think to myself in
(31:14):
my mind, okay, now I'm gonna goout to lunch and I'm gonna lie
in bed for the rest of the dayand I'd be walking out the door
and I'd literally be fantasizingabout lunch.
And she would say, so can I havethese pages by four o'clock
because I'm flying.
At four and I wanna read them onthe plane.
I would just be dumbfounded Iwas breathless being in her
(31:36):
presence, and then I'm supposedto actually go home to my
tenement apartment and write ahuge amount of work by four
o'clock.
It was.
But I, she wasn't being a bitch.
She was just that's what shewould've done.
Ariana (31:51):
Right.
Which,
Jennifer (31:52):
so it was a constant it was just a constant grind
because she just wanted so muchand got so much.
Ariana (32:02):
That's a testament to like her legacy.
That makes sense.
Jennifer (32:05):
She had great ideas.
She didn't take the time toexplain her ideas.
Like she would say, thisbeginning doesn't work.
And I'd say, why?
And I'd give her 10 reasons whyit worked so well and why she
was wrong.
And she's no, it just doesn'twork.
And I never knew if it wasbecause she was Madonna and she
didn't feel she had to explainherself, or if she just.
Or she didn't know how toexplain herself if she wasn't
(32:26):
analytical in that way.
But I would sit up in bed acouple of days later and realize
10 reasons why she was exactlyright.
And that happened over and overagain that she was right and I
would have to figure it out onmy own.
She didn't explain it to me, butshe was great to work for.
She was a little bit.
(32:47):
Unrealistic about no, she wasactually, she was, I would say
the opposite.
She was overly realistic aboutmoney.
Like she would, I would write ascene that took place in Grand
Central Station and she'd say,no, we can't shoot there.
It would be too expensive.
And I think
Meryl (33:04):
she had her producer's hat on.
Jennifer (33:05):
She had the producer's hat on constantly.
And I would think You'reMadonna, make it happen make it
happen.
We'll have Grand CentralStation, we'll do it at three in
the, but she was very focused onhaving a financially viable
project.
She did not want her first filmto be a money suck.
And I did not think that way.
(33:26):
So that was strange.
But she's a business woman.
Meryl (33:31):
That is a big thing when you're writing, like when we
were writing our screenplay wehad intended it for Katie's Mom
to be small, but then at somepoint it started getting big and
then we had to cut it back tosmall again.
And that was really hard becausewe'd envisioned these bigger
scenes, but then we had to.
Jennifer (33:49):
Yeah, Madonna ran a tight ship, we can say the whole
time, but she was just, she wascreative.
She was, I describe her ashaving tentacles on the all over
her body, like she was just afeeling creature.
She, not particularlyanalytical, but so smart.
(34:10):
Sensuous and feeling, so Ireally loved the experience.
Meryl (34:21):
So this is your first novel published by Akashic.
Jennifer (34:24):
Yeah.
I was with Riverhead PenguinPutnam for my last four books.
And then I didn't write for along time.
And then I had some issues withthis book because I, we didn't
tell people what this book isabout, but it's about a
14-year-old girl who has a lovesex relationship with a
(34:46):
38-year-old married dad in 1982.
And a lot of publishers werevery scared of it, I think.
It went around on submissionright at the height of the Me
Too, most heightened moment Ithink.
And people were scared of it andI was prepared for that.
(35:07):
And I was prepared to haveconversations with publishers
where they might wanna make herolder or make the guy younger.
Or change it in some way becauseshe's not a victim at all.
She doesn't feel like a victim.
And the books that have come outthat are on this topic, the girl
very much feels like a victim.
Anyway, I got a lot of nos andJohnny Temple at Akashic wanted
(35:33):
it and I just had so muchrespect for him.
He published Arthur Nersesianand the guy I told you about.
So many other great books.
It's just a great independentpress.
So I went for it.
It's been easily the bestpublishing experience I've ever
had.
It's been the most enjoyable,the most respectful, the most
(35:54):
fun.
And I've gotten great reviewsand all the attention I wanted.
So I just think it's a greatplace to publish a book.
Ariana (36:07):
How do you manage the disappointments that come with
being a writer and, you'reoptioning these movie deals.
You have this book that hasquote unquote taboo topic that
these publishers didn't want.
You had so many nos before yougot your Yes.
How do you manage that?
Jennifer (36:25):
Probably not that well.
It's a miserable feeling and Isee it in my workshop members
trying to get agents.
It's so hard to get an agentthese days and probably people
listening to this podcast mightbe trying to get an agent and
there's just a firewall up.
You just can't, you can't breakthrough.
And it's very unfortunate.
(36:47):
How did I handle it?
Of course I've been extremelylucky and I haven't had to face
what some other people havefaced.
But it's not fun, it's, you haveto enjoy the good times.
And I, when I did get my bookdeal for this book, Swanna in
Love, I just became determinedto enjoy every single second of
(37:08):
it.
Like this podcast, like I'm justenjoying it.
And that's.
How you get through the hardtimes is trying to enjoy the
good times.
Yeah.
Ariana (37:18):
Is that what we're trying to do in the 2025?
This crazy year?
Yeah.
Jennifer (37:22):
This is a crazy year, it's so hard to get published.
All the more reason to writewhatever you wanna write, and
write it the way you wanna writeit go for it.
Ariana (37:32):
and that's really hard to do.
You have to get reallyvulnerable.
Sure.
Jennifer (37:37):
It's, yeah.
It's a, that's what art is.
Art is, that's what art is.
It's pretty vulnerable.
Ariana (37:42):
I feel like sometimes I'm in a war with myself where,
I feel what I want to say andthen I write it and I'm like,
that's not I'm still not sayingit all I don't know, for me I'm
just, yeah, it
Jennifer (37:54):
takes a really long time before you're a good judge
of what you're writing.
It doesn't take a long time tobe a good writer.
You could be a good writer rightaway, but it takes a long time
to have a sense if, is this goodor is this bad?
And that's why a workshop isgreat because you shouldn't
really be judging it that way.
You should just be writing itand then giving it to reader you
(38:15):
trust or a workshop you trust.
Not trying to decide yourself ifit's good or if it's bad.
Now I have a sense when I writesomething that's not good, but
for many years I wouldn't haveeven attempted to try to know if
something was good or bad.
Meryl (38:33):
It's interesting'cause I feel that some of my friends do
write in a vacuum and they'relike, oh, I'm not gonna show it
to you until I've, reallychiseled and I could never do
that.
I'm like, I on the oppositeextreme, as soon as I write it,
I'm like, tell me, is it good?
Is it good?
Maybe too much.
Ariana (38:49):
I think that's a really good I question.
'cause I do feel like there'ssome folks who feel like they
need to be super precious oftheir work and they feel like
that gives them the motivation.
And then I was just listening, Ithink it's called the Harvard
something, the Harvard Method,and it's mention what you're
doing all the time because thetheory is that you're always one
connection away from meeting theperson you need to meet or doing
(39:13):
the thing that you need to do.
So if you just keep mentioningwhat you're working on, all the
connections will start to comeinto place.
Jennifer (39:20):
You asked me just a moment ago, how do you have a
thick enough skin Yeah.
For this business and being in aworkshop certainly helps because
you're getting practice gettingnotes every single week, and
you're getting bad reviews everysingle week.
It could be.
You you have that support ofyour friends and you know,
ultimately that your book isgood because people have signed
(39:43):
off on it, so I knew my book wasgood, and that gives you a lot
of strength.
Yeah.
What Is it all right or not allright to do?
It's all right to not know whatyou wanna write.
It's all right to have no ideawhat your plot is or what your
big point is.
(40:04):
You just wanna have to have atremendous desire to express
yourself.
And just go for it.
So it's all right to just getstarted and write.
Oh, I love that.
Ariana (40:17):
Thank you so much for joining.
Are you working on anything?
Yeah.
Now
Jennifer (40:21):
I'm writing a new novel Ooh.
And Meryl's in my workshop withme.
I bring it in, I bring in pages.
It's a lot of fun.
And yeah, we will see whathappens.
That's exciting.
And you're gonna bang it out inParis?
I'm heading to Paris to livethere for two whole months by
myself.
Ariana (40:39):
Oh, that's exciting.
And I hope
Jennifer (40:40):
to do a lot of writing there.
Ariana (40:42):
Yeah.
Enjoy that for the summer.
Yes.
Oh, amazing.
Jennifer (40:45):
Yeah.
Ariana (40:46):
All right.
Bon Voyage.
Thanks for coming
Jennifer (40:48):
Merci, thank you.
And thanks for having me on yourshow.
Ariana (40:57):
That's a wrap on today's episode of It's All Right With
Jennifer Belle.
You can find us on Instagram atIt's All Write.
W-R-I-T-E Pod, so it's allwrite.
Pod on Instagram and you canalso email us at
itsallwritepod@gmail.com.
We love to hear from you, writea review, subscribe, all those
(41:19):
fun things that you do on theinternet.
Meryl (41:21):
Thanks so much.
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