December 11, 2024 • 22 mins
In which we reflect on what it was like to find our collective voice. (Spoilers: it was really hard! But also really awesome!)
As always, be sure to visit keepingit101.com for full show notes, homework, transcripts, & more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:17):
This is keeping it 101, a killjoys,
Introduction to religionpodcast, which is part of the
amplify podcast network, we aregrateful to live teach and
record on the current ancestraland unceded lands of the Abenaki
and Wabanaki peoples, as well asthe lands of one federally
recognized native nation, theEastern Band of Cherokee
Indians, and seven NorthCarolina state recognized tribal
(00:38):
entities. Increasingly, though,native folks are pushing us to
forgo land acknowledgementsaltogether and focus on action
items. So let's start with landback. And as always, you can
find material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
website.
Megan Goodwin (00:52):
What's up? Nerds?
Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin, ascholar of American religions,
race, gender and politics.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:59):
Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein
Furst, an historian of religion,Islam, race and racialization
and South Asia.
Megan Goodwin (01:07):
Hi, hello.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:11):
Well, hi, hello to you too.
Megan Goodwin (01:15):
What shall we fill this awkward opening time
with jokes? Knock, knock, goodlord, knock, knock.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:23):
Who's there?
Megan Goodwin (01:25):
Interrupting ginger.
Ilyse Morgenstein (01:26):
Interrupting ginger Who?
Megan Goodwin (01:29):
it's me. Hi, hello. Welcome to our scholarly,
very serious podcast.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:37):
Please don't try to out dad joke me.
I'm a mom.
Megan Goodwin (01:43):
I'm out of my element. I'm out I'm out of my
element. I rescind my previousattempt
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:47):
It was pretty good. Um, Igive it a
solid 9.1
Megan Goodwin (01:52):
I will take that.
I will take that very generousfrom the New Jersey Judge. Have
we an episode to manage?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:58):
Yeah, yeah, we do. And this is our
last in a series of shorterepisodes answering broad
listener questions aboutReligion is Not Done with You,
our new book that's availableeverywhere you buy books now and
how that book got made. Today,we're doing the one that I sort
of love to talk about the most,actually, which is, how did we
(02:21):
figure out how to writetogether?
Megan Goodwin (02:25):
Yeah, okay, so lots of trial and error and a
couple of really hardconversations and yeah. And then
it was book! Episode over!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:34):
dude,
Megan Goodwin (02:36):
fine. I will be more detailed. But honestly,
trial and error and a lot ofhard conversations and
painstaking line reads.
A lot of you actually asked howwe wrote together. I think this
is probably the question I getthe most when I talk about
having written this book, islike, Oh, what was that like? I
(02:58):
was like, it was really hard,and also a delight, and I loved
it. And it was so hard, it wasso much harder than I thought it
was gonna be. So, like, some ofthat is a broad like, how do you
co author a book? And some of itwas way more specific. Like, how
do you balance, like, friendshipwith professional life? Or,
like, when did you even maketime to do this? Or who wrote
(03:21):
what part, or, yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:23):
yeah, or my favorite, which was from
my chair. And friend and SeasonFour Buddhism guest expert,
Thomas Borchert, he said, Howdid we navigate our tone off the
air?
Megan Goodwin (03:37):
I deeply appreciate that Thomas Anselm
Borchert thinks that we moderateour tones ever and that we're
not just like this all of thetime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, well,let's, let's do the easy parts
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:50):
Well, anyway, we, we do find this to
be a really interesting questionthat folks ask us a lot. I think
sometimes, like searching forGoss. We see you Goss monsters
who are like, give us the dirty,dirty on the inner workings of
your relationship. And like, allright, you could ship us all you
want, but like, there is nothingthat dirty. We just had some
(04:11):
hard conversation, but we couldsay more than that. So Goodwin
from your from your perspective,how do we do this?
first, right? Like, thetechnical stuff, we used Google
Docs because we can edit at thesame time. So that worked out
pretty well.
Soafter we figured out that Google
Docs was the way to go, eventhough I have to admit, I don't
(04:32):
love a Google Doc, I do not lovea Google Doc. I have learned all
the commands in Microsoft Wordbecause I write and use several
languages, but fine, Google Docswas actually the right technical
tool for us, I think after wedecided the theme of each
chapter, not not the order,necessarily, but the themes, we
sort of decided who would be themain author of each chapter
(04:55):
based on our expertise.
Megan Goodwin (04:58):
Yeah, well, and I think that might have been the
hardest part of the writingprocess, was figuring out, like,
how the book was gonna getorganized, because the
introduction, I think, cametogether really super easy. We
were clear on like, how wewanted to frame this
(05:18):
conversation, because it wasbasically how we pitched the
book to Beacon, and then we hada pretty good sense, I think, of
what we what the header, theheaders should be. And then even
after we had the headers, westill kind of had to dig
through. How do we do this?
Right? So, like we were supposedto be collaborating on the
(05:41):
introduction, or, sorry, we weresupposed to be collaborating on
chapter one, and instead ofcollaborating. So, like, my
personal writing style isGodzilla esque, in which I Trump
through everything and justleave carnage in my wake. And,
yeah. So instead ofcollaborating on chapter one, we
(06:04):
both wrote different versions ofchapter one in the same chapter,
and then had to put it down andthen have some of the
aforementioned harderconversations about like, how
this was gonna work. But once wehad that conversation, once, I
think we gave ourselvespermission to let one of us kind
of lead on the chapters whereour expertise was most
(06:27):
pertinent, things came togethera lot more smoothly.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:30):
Yeah, I don't know that I would call
that the hardest part. I'mexcited for my hardest part, but
that's fascinating to listen to
Megan Goodwin (06:38):
We had so many, so many feelings about that
part. Okay,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:41):
then we edited together. So once we
had these beasts of chaptersthat needed real editing, we
were just on a call like this,like we're on a video call and
we're in the Google Doc andwe're literally doing line
edits. And sometimes we wouldread to each other, especially
the stuff that we ourselves didnot write so that we could hear
it aloud, which I read to myselfall the time. I constantly am
(07:03):
talking to myself when I'mwriting, because I talk better
than I write, and so I like tohear how it sounds like Is this
my actual voice, or is this likeme cosplaying an old man or
something? But we did thattogether.
Megan Goodwin (07:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I, I do not read my stuff
out loud, which I'm sure you cantell, given that you read
everything that I write, andsometimes I have 15 ideas in one
sentence. And if you try to saythat, I'm not saying it's not a
good practice or that I wouldn'tbenefit from it, I'm just saying
I don't do it.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (07:35):
I'm not saying I'm just saying I
learned a long time ago thatespecially when I'm moving
between languages, my Englishgets kind of funky, but also I
can't I can't always hear what Iwanted to say in my own voice.
And actually, the thing I'velearned from you is that my
(07:56):
speaking voice and my teachingvoice is often so much clearer
than the voice I think I shouldbe writing in as an academic.
And so a way that I've tried tobridge that gap between like,
fuddy duddy, take me seriously.
I have real information that youneed to know that's technical.
And hey, hey kids, what's uplike that? Like teacher voice,
say it out loud, and to reallyfeel like, oh, that does not
(08:18):
sound like me. I don't talk likethis.
Megan Goodwin (08:23):
This is how you talk.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:24):
I talk to quote the great New Jersey
adopterieno, best friend ofmine, Michelle Visage.
Megan Goodwin (08:31):
this is how you talk. Yeah. So we, we did,
editing together, trackingchanges. But also, I like, I
think the most productive pieceswere the parts where we were
sitting down together and doingthat line by line, and then we
did rewrites together so wewould read it out loud and
something wouldn't work, so wetalked over the sticky bits or
(08:55):
the word choice or flow incomments or calls, or the last
part We wrote in the same roomin a tiny little Airbnb in
Edinburgh, which was delightful.
It was delightful.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (09:11):
Okay, so that's the technical stuff
I'm going to talk about voice,because I found that to be the
hardest thing we had to figureout. So I know that we I know we
definitely had a hardconversation about structure and
process, but I found that thehardest part was to move from
podcast voice, becausehistorically, I have written
(09:33):
most of our episodes, andsometimes that's just an
outline, but a lot of times,dear nerds, I literally write
imp. It gets color coded purple,and I write what I say, and then
I write mpg, and it's colorcoded red, and I write what
Megan says. And we are closeenough friends that I actually
know which lines are more Meganthan are Ilyse. And Megan goes
(09:56):
through and has final say, andshe often like, it's not like
she's reading. It's not like amean director who's like, you
didn't write what I said. You'rejust the voice actor like that's
not happening. But like, for themost part, I have gotten the
hang over the last four years ofwriting, as you might say, this
point, but to write together asone voice, where it isn't in
(10:19):
Ilyse's literal voice. She issaying this point about British
India. And in Megan's literalvoice, she is saying this thing
about America. It's liketogether the Goodwin and
Morgenstein Fuerst voice,
Megan Goodwin (10:31):
the good mo fu?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:32):
yeah.
I was like, I can't think of anickname for this. The GMF voice
should be combined and yetdistinctive. I found that to be
the hardest, because there arethings that I wanted to say
really methodically and reallyslowly. And when I write the
podcast, I let myself talk likethat, in a way that you don't
like talking. You don't likewriting that way. You don't like
talking.
Megan Goodwin (10:54):
I don't talk like that. I don't talk like that,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:56):
so I found like that was the part
that was so tricky. We had spentall this time learning to write
as individuals. Then we spentall this time as podcasters,
learning how to podcasttogether, where we both have our
fingerprints on every word thatgets said, but we keep them
(11:19):
distinct on purpose, and then inwriting, when you're just
getting whatever font is, thefont of the book, and it sounds
and like the reader is readingin their own voice in their
head, or the voice actor is say,it's one voice actor who's
talking for the audio book. So Ifound that really hard so that
it wasn't, it wasn't too much ofyou or too much of me, but was
(11:43):
perfectly both of us together.
Megan Goodwin (11:45):
Yeah, yeah. I guess for me, that isn't
necessarily separate from thestructure, because I felt like
we developed a collective voiceonce we gave ourselves
permission to kind of firstdraft where somebody was taking
the lead, because the spot thatwe got into in Chapter One was
we were both trying to talk atthe same time in radically
(12:06):
different tones and aboutdifferent stuff. So once we
said, Okay, we're going to splitit up where we're doing an
imperialism chapter and we'regoing to do a race chapter.
We're going to look at sexualityand law, and then we're going to
look at airports. And we couldsay, okay, Ilyse will take the
lead on imperialism duh, andalso this airports chapter, and
Megan takes the lead on the racein the US, and the sexuality and
(12:30):
law stuff in the US. And then wecan add in, but we don't have to
necessarily both do the driving.
In each chapter, somebody getsto drive in the content
chapters, and then we can goback and kind of edit it for me.
Let me basically like, just getoff your nuts about this isn't
(12:51):
this isn't, I don't write likethis. And so having not being
responsible for, like, thecontent parts of an imperialism
chapter, because obviously, youknow that material better, I
could just kind of go throughand go like, Okay, if it needs
to say this, and I'm going totrust Ilyse that it needs to say
(13:11):
this, then how do we smooth itout so that it feels a little
more chatty, right? And what arethe one or two things that I
like maybe have to add here in away that I would like, maybe
have to add in a podcast episodethat isn't in my area of
expertise. And so that was kindof the that was kind of the
magic moment for me, where Ithis is a thing that I'm working
(13:35):
on with my therapist, but I gaveup some control, and I backed
off a little bit, and I trustedyou, and I trusted our our
professional and personalrelationships, and the the
drafts that came out of thatfelt like there was more, I
guess, space for me to playaround a little bit and not be
(14:00):
so freaked out about what eachchapter needed to include. So
like, I was responsible largelyfor the the what is it? Three
and four, and then you filledin. You were responsible for one
in the conclusion, and then Ifilled in. And then, yeah, going
over it, line by line, it kindof just evolved into this
collective voice that isn'treally either of us. It is,
(14:23):
which is, I don't know it'shonestly my favorite part of the
book.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (14:29):
Yeah, I, I It's curious to hear you
phrase it that way, because Ireally felt like I couldn't
figure out the tone until wewere well into until we were
well into it. So the structurepiece of it wasn't my magic
moment. The structure piece forit was helpful to facilitate you
(14:53):
backing the fuck off on some ofthese. Honestly, yeah, like
especially, honestly, it wasespecially chapter one. One, not
the Yeah, chapter two wasimperialism, but chapter one on
the baseball chapter where itwas like, you were just doing
that thing of, like, I know fourthings that happened in three
years, and I need them to beeverywhere. There's 10 pages of
early aughts Boston Red Sox. AndI was like, none of this is
(15:15):
relevant, right? And like, theorder that you're doing this in
is too fast, like, that chapterfelt so fraught, like really
honestly, if you remember, wewrote that chapter and then
touch it again for nine monthsbecause we could not figure out
how to write it together. Andthat for me, when that chapter
could actually feel good, I waslike, Okay, we figured this out.
(15:37):
Figured out that we actuallycan't have a joke in every line
that like this is not thepodcast. We cannot put jokes on
jokes on jokes. You get onedrink per joke, which is a very
famous Conan O'Brien when he ranthe Simpsons. Like, you get one
joke in a joke, right? And Ilove that. It's a line that I
keep in my pocket of like, youcan't put a hat on a hat. Like,
one joke, one joke. Each joke isone joke,
Megan Goodwin (15:59):
whereas my brain is all Bartholomew cabins all
the way down.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (16:02):
And like, I'm not mad at that when
we banned her, but I think whenwe were writing, it felt
cluttered. It felt like, like anover graffitied wall where the
effect is really interesting,but I don't know what I'm
looking at, whereas, like, Ifeel like, when we pared it
down, it's like, okay, there'slike, a main there's a mural
here, and there's lots ofdifferent art styles, maybe, but
(16:23):
there is, like, one theme, andwe know exactly what's going on.
Megan Goodwin (16:26):
Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (16:29):
I think part of the writing
process. So all right, we got ittogether. I think we're both
saying the same thing, but indifferent processes, different
parts of the process. But Ithink, I think one of the other
things that we really had tofigure out was audience. How do
you feel about that?
Megan Goodwin (16:44):
Yeah, it was. I mean, we talked about this a
little bit on the like, how didyou come to write a book
episode? But understanding thatbook audiences might overlap
with podcast audiences, butthey're not exactly the same
folks, and that there are folksthat are more likely to pick up
a book than they are to pick upa podcast. And also, there are a
lot more teachers, for example,who are likely to assign a book
(17:05):
than they are to assign apodcast, keeping all of that in
mind while still trying to soundlike us and still trying to
write an accessible and engagingway that is not as frantic or
mad cap as the podcast can getwas, yeah, it was a lot to kind
of navigate. But again, andinterestingly, I'm realizing
(17:27):
this as I'm talking thisthrough, once we had the
structure locked, I had a muchbetter sense of how, how I
wanted to talk to folks who aregoing to be interested in this
material, but not necessarilytune into a podcast.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (17:41):
Yeah, and I think for me, it because I
code switch more than you do.
Like, I have different personasthat show up in different places
Megan Goodwin (17:49):
you read a social cue. So you have different ways
of speaking in differentsituations, whereas I'm just you
Ilyse Morgenstein F (17:55):
unabashedly you at all times, and it is are
delightful. Whereas, like, Ihave made a whole career and
life out of this is this versionof me, and this is the way that
version speaks. It's the way myaccent comes in and out, which
most of the time, except when Iam altered or tired or fuming
angry, is a very controlled it'svery controlled. And so I think
(18:18):
for me, figuring out how towrite this book with, with or
without you actually would havebeen really hard, because this
is between my, like, stodgiestIslamic Studies Journal of the
Asiatic, like, Royal Asiaticsociety voice, because, like,
not for nothing, like, that's mytraining, right? Like, it's a
(18:38):
lot of old men who speak 15languages who are grilling you
at every opportunity, and so youlearn how to speak in those
spaces really differently. Andso I'm not sure I would have
figured out what this tone couldhave been, or what this style
could have been without theexperience of totally loose
writing for the podcast, butalso without you being there,
(19:01):
like I always talk like this.
This is who I am. This is how Italk. And so I think that gave
me some freedom to both imaginean audience that would go to the
public library to pick up thisbook, or go to a Barnes and
Noble to pick up this book,which is different than making
sure a book exists so that mycolleagues can read it, and then
I can, like, get through thenext tenure hoop. Yeah? Like, I
need to really work on that inorder to get right with where
(19:25):
you were. Like, I knew what waswrong, but I couldn't quite
figure out what felt right.
Well, would you do it again?
Would you write a book with meagain?
Megan Goodwin (19:37):
I would write a book with you again.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (19:39):
Not, not for a while, though,
Megan Goodwin (19:41):
I, like, I in in the great vein of books is what
we do. I have left thetraditional Academy, and yet I'm
still unwilling to let go of mynext book project, and I've got
one planned after that. So,like, I would like to do some
research writing for a while,but I would absolutely write a
book with you again. And Iwould, I would. Like to think
that maybe it would go smootherthis time, but who can say?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (20:05):
all things considered? I actually
think it went real smooth, but Ithink it was a fascinating part
of our friendship to have to saylike, I love you as a scholar, I
read every word you write. Youread every word I write, and
have for honestly, more than adecade at this point. So it's
not like, I don't know yourtone. It was just so interesting
(20:25):
to have that tone be my tone. Itwas like, oh, oh. When I don't
talk in writing, I'm like, allfor it. But when it has my name
on it, and I'm like, Ooh, Idon't these pants don't fit,
this is wrong. Like, this isitchy. I'm wearing an itchy
sock. You know?
Megan Goodwin (20:39):
well, and it has that. For me, it was also a
thing of, like, I don't know,this is how I would say this. I
don't see the problem. Slash,I'm not just saying it for me,
I'm saying it for us, which is,that's a thing that I'm always
going to work on, always,because I just don't think in
teams. but also, like, in a realway, you have to think about how
(21:01):
this book gets received withinthe academy in a way that I have
the luxury of, like, not givinga shit about honestly. Like, I
said, what I said? What are yougonna do? Not hire me some more.
Suck it. So, which I think is,in some ways really freeing and
in some ways maybecounterproductive. So I'm glad
that we reached a balance.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:21):
Me too. well on that note, Megan,
what do we have left to say?
Megan Goodwin (21:27):
We have left to say that you can find us across
social media, still on Twitter,reluctantly and Insta and Tiktok
and Facebook. And if none ofthat crumbles your cookie, we
have a newsletter you can joinvia our website, which is
keeping it one, oh one.com, dropus a rating review in your
podcaster of choice,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:42):
and if you are one of the people that
are hoping to get us to come toyour local bookstore to do a
book reading, or to your campusto give a talk, that would be
amazing. Please, please, please,do reach out to us, or better
yet, to Caitlin Meyer, ourincredible marketing and
publicity Maven, over at Beacon.
All of that contact informationis over on our website, so get
to it with that peace out nerdsand
Megan Goodwin (22:05):
do your homework.
It's on the syllabus. You
Belle (22:30):
it's my favorite part, because you see we shake please
wish Prince Charming, but shewon't discover that it's him
till chapter three.
This is keeping it 101, a killjoys,
Introduction to religionpodcast, which is part of the
amplify podcast network, we aregrateful to live teach and
record on the current ancestraland unceded lands of the Abenaki
and Wabanaki peoples, as well asthe lands of one federally
recognized native nation, theEastern Band of Cherokee
Indians, and seven NorthCarolina state recognized tribal
(00:38):
entities. Increasingly, though,native folks are pushing us to
forgo land acknowledgementsaltogether and focus on action
items. So let's start with landback. And as always, you can
find material ways to supportindigenous communities on our
website.
Megan Goodwin (00:52):
What's up? Nerds?
Hi, hello. I'm Megan Goodwin, ascholar of American religions,
race, gender and politics.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (00:59):
Hi, hello. I'm Ilyse Morgenstein
Furst, an historian of religion,Islam, race and racialization
and South Asia.
Megan Goodwin (01:07):
Hi, hello.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:11):
Well, hi, hello to you too.
Megan Goodwin (01:15):
What shall we fill this awkward opening time
with jokes? Knock, knock, goodlord, knock, knock.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:23):
Who's there?
Megan Goodwin (01:25):
Interrupting ginger.
Ilyse Morgenstein (01:26):
Interrupting ginger Who?
Megan Goodwin (01:29):
it's me. Hi, hello. Welcome to our scholarly,
very serious podcast.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:37):
Please don't try to out dad joke me.
I'm a mom.
Megan Goodwin (01:43):
I'm out of my element. I'm out I'm out of my
element. I rescind my previousattempt
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:47):
It was pretty good. Um, Igive it a
solid 9.1
Megan Goodwin (01:52):
I will take that.
I will take that very generousfrom the New Jersey Judge. Have
we an episode to manage?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (01:58):
Yeah, yeah, we do. And this is our
last in a series of shorterepisodes answering broad
listener questions aboutReligion is Not Done with You,
our new book that's availableeverywhere you buy books now and
how that book got made. Today,we're doing the one that I sort
of love to talk about the most,actually, which is, how did we
(02:21):
figure out how to writetogether?
Megan Goodwin (02:25):
Yeah, okay, so lots of trial and error and a
couple of really hardconversations and yeah. And then
it was book! Episode over!
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (02:34):
dude,
Megan Goodwin (02:36):
fine. I will be more detailed. But honestly,
trial and error and a lot ofhard conversations and
painstaking line reads.
A lot of you actually asked howwe wrote together. I think this
is probably the question I getthe most when I talk about
having written this book, islike, Oh, what was that like? I
(02:58):
was like, it was really hard,and also a delight, and I loved
it. And it was so hard, it wasso much harder than I thought it
was gonna be. So, like, some ofthat is a broad like, how do you
co author a book? And some of itwas way more specific. Like, how
do you balance, like, friendshipwith professional life? Or,
like, when did you even maketime to do this? Or who wrote
(03:21):
what part, or, yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:23):
yeah, or my favorite, which was from
my chair. And friend and SeasonFour Buddhism guest expert,
Thomas Borchert, he said, Howdid we navigate our tone off the
air?
Megan Goodwin (03:37):
I deeply appreciate that Thomas Anselm
Borchert thinks that we moderateour tones ever and that we're
not just like this all of thetime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
All right, well,let's, let's do the easy parts
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (03:50):
Well, anyway, we, we do find this to
be a really interesting questionthat folks ask us a lot. I think
sometimes, like searching forGoss. We see you Goss monsters
who are like, give us the dirty,dirty on the inner workings of
your relationship. And like, allright, you could ship us all you
want, but like, there is nothingthat dirty. We just had some
(04:11):
hard conversation, but we couldsay more than that. So Goodwin
from your from your perspective,how do we do this?
first, right? Like, thetechnical stuff, we used Google
Docs because we can edit at thesame time. So that worked out
pretty well.
Soafter we figured out that Google
Docs was the way to go, eventhough I have to admit, I don't
(04:32):
love a Google Doc, I do not lovea Google Doc. I have learned all
the commands in Microsoft Wordbecause I write and use several
languages, but fine, Google Docswas actually the right technical
tool for us, I think after wedecided the theme of each
chapter, not not the order,necessarily, but the themes, we
sort of decided who would be themain author of each chapter
(04:55):
based on our expertise.
Megan Goodwin (04:58):
Yeah, well, and I think that might have been the
hardest part of the writingprocess, was figuring out, like,
how the book was gonna getorganized, because the
introduction, I think, cametogether really super easy. We
were clear on like, how wewanted to frame this
(05:18):
conversation, because it wasbasically how we pitched the
book to Beacon, and then we hada pretty good sense, I think, of
what we what the header, theheaders should be. And then even
after we had the headers, westill kind of had to dig
through. How do we do this?
Right? So, like we were supposedto be collaborating on the
(05:41):
introduction, or, sorry, we weresupposed to be collaborating on
chapter one, and instead ofcollaborating. So, like, my
personal writing style isGodzilla esque, in which I Trump
through everything and justleave carnage in my wake. And,
yeah. So instead ofcollaborating on chapter one, we
(06:04):
both wrote different versions ofchapter one in the same chapter,
and then had to put it down andthen have some of the
aforementioned harderconversations about like, how
this was gonna work. But once wehad that conversation, once, I
think we gave ourselvespermission to let one of us kind
of lead on the chapters whereour expertise was most
(06:27):
pertinent, things came togethera lot more smoothly.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:30):
Yeah, I don't know that I would call
that the hardest part. I'mexcited for my hardest part, but
that's fascinating to listen to
Megan Goodwin (06:38):
We had so many, so many feelings about that
part. Okay,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (06:41):
then we edited together. So once we
had these beasts of chaptersthat needed real editing, we
were just on a call like this,like we're on a video call and
we're in the Google Doc andwe're literally doing line
edits. And sometimes we wouldread to each other, especially
the stuff that we ourselves didnot write so that we could hear
it aloud, which I read to myselfall the time. I constantly am
(07:03):
talking to myself when I'mwriting, because I talk better
than I write, and so I like tohear how it sounds like Is this
my actual voice, or is this likeme cosplaying an old man or
something? But we did thattogether.
Megan Goodwin (07:18):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I, I do not read my stuff
out loud, which I'm sure you cantell, given that you read
everything that I write, andsometimes I have 15 ideas in one
sentence. And if you try to saythat, I'm not saying it's not a
good practice or that I wouldn'tbenefit from it, I'm just saying
I don't do it.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (07:35):
I'm not saying I'm just saying I
learned a long time ago thatespecially when I'm moving
between languages, my Englishgets kind of funky, but also I
can't I can't always hear what Iwanted to say in my own voice.
And actually, the thing I'velearned from you is that my
(07:56):
speaking voice and my teachingvoice is often so much clearer
than the voice I think I shouldbe writing in as an academic.
And so a way that I've tried tobridge that gap between like,
fuddy duddy, take me seriously.
I have real information that youneed to know that's technical.
And hey, hey kids, what's uplike that? Like teacher voice,
say it out loud, and to reallyfeel like, oh, that does not
(08:18):
sound like me. I don't talk likethis.
Megan Goodwin (08:23):
This is how you talk.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (08:24):
I talk to quote the great New Jersey
adopterieno, best friend ofmine, Michelle Visage.
Megan Goodwin (08:31):
this is how you talk. Yeah. So we, we did,
editing together, trackingchanges. But also, I like, I
think the most productive pieceswere the parts where we were
sitting down together and doingthat line by line, and then we
did rewrites together so wewould read it out loud and
something wouldn't work, so wetalked over the sticky bits or
(08:55):
the word choice or flow incomments or calls, or the last
part We wrote in the same roomin a tiny little Airbnb in
Edinburgh, which was delightful.
It was delightful.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (09:11):
Okay, so that's the technical stuff
I'm going to talk about voice,because I found that to be the
hardest thing we had to figureout. So I know that we I know we
definitely had a hardconversation about structure and
process, but I found that thehardest part was to move from
podcast voice, becausehistorically, I have written
(09:33):
most of our episodes, andsometimes that's just an
outline, but a lot of times,dear nerds, I literally write
imp. It gets color coded purple,and I write what I say, and then
I write mpg, and it's colorcoded red, and I write what
Megan says. And we are closeenough friends that I actually
know which lines are more Meganthan are Ilyse. And Megan goes
(09:56):
through and has final say, andshe often like, it's not like
she's reading. It's not like amean director who's like, you
didn't write what I said. You'rejust the voice actor like that's
not happening. But like, for themost part, I have gotten the
hang over the last four years ofwriting, as you might say, this
point, but to write together asone voice, where it isn't in
(10:19):
Ilyse's literal voice. She issaying this point about British
India. And in Megan's literalvoice, she is saying this thing
about America. It's liketogether the Goodwin and
Morgenstein Fuerst voice,
Megan Goodwin (10:31):
the good mo fu?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:32):
yeah.
I was like, I can't think of anickname for this. The GMF voice
should be combined and yetdistinctive. I found that to be
the hardest, because there arethings that I wanted to say
really methodically and reallyslowly. And when I write the
podcast, I let myself talk likethat, in a way that you don't
like talking. You don't likewriting that way. You don't like
talking.
Megan Goodwin (10:54):
I don't talk like that. I don't talk like that,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (10:56):
so I found like that was the part
that was so tricky. We had spentall this time learning to write
as individuals. Then we spentall this time as podcasters,
learning how to podcasttogether, where we both have our
fingerprints on every word thatgets said, but we keep them
(11:19):
distinct on purpose, and then inwriting, when you're just
getting whatever font is, thefont of the book, and it sounds
and like the reader is readingin their own voice in their
head, or the voice actor is say,it's one voice actor who's
talking for the audio book. So Ifound that really hard so that
it wasn't, it wasn't too much ofyou or too much of me, but was
(11:43):
perfectly both of us together.
Megan Goodwin (11:45):
Yeah, yeah. I guess for me, that isn't
necessarily separate from thestructure, because I felt like
we developed a collective voiceonce we gave ourselves
permission to kind of firstdraft where somebody was taking
the lead, because the spot thatwe got into in Chapter One was
we were both trying to talk atthe same time in radically
(12:06):
different tones and aboutdifferent stuff. So once we
said, Okay, we're going to splitit up where we're doing an
imperialism chapter and we'regoing to do a race chapter.
We're going to look at sexualityand law, and then we're going to
look at airports. And we couldsay, okay, Ilyse will take the
lead on imperialism duh, andalso this airports chapter, and
Megan takes the lead on the racein the US, and the sexuality and
(12:30):
law stuff in the US. And then wecan add in, but we don't have to
necessarily both do the driving.
In each chapter, somebody getsto drive in the content
chapters, and then we can goback and kind of edit it for me.
Let me basically like, just getoff your nuts about this isn't
(12:51):
this isn't, I don't write likethis. And so having not being
responsible for, like, thecontent parts of an imperialism
chapter, because obviously, youknow that material better, I
could just kind of go throughand go like, Okay, if it needs
to say this, and I'm going totrust Ilyse that it needs to say
(13:11):
this, then how do we smooth itout so that it feels a little
more chatty, right? And what arethe one or two things that I
like maybe have to add here in away that I would like, maybe
have to add in a podcast episodethat isn't in my area of
expertise. And so that was kindof the that was kind of the
magic moment for me, where Ithis is a thing that I'm working
(13:35):
on with my therapist, but I gaveup some control, and I backed
off a little bit, and I trustedyou, and I trusted our our
professional and personalrelationships, and the the
drafts that came out of thatfelt like there was more, I
guess, space for me to playaround a little bit and not be
(14:00):
so freaked out about what eachchapter needed to include. So
like, I was responsible largelyfor the the what is it? Three
and four, and then you filledin. You were responsible for one
in the conclusion, and then Ifilled in. And then, yeah, going
over it, line by line, it kindof just evolved into this
collective voice that isn'treally either of us. It is,
(14:23):
which is, I don't know it'shonestly my favorite part of the
book.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (14:29):
Yeah, I, I It's curious to hear you
phrase it that way, because Ireally felt like I couldn't
figure out the tone until wewere well into until we were
well into it. So the structurepiece of it wasn't my magic
moment. The structure piece forit was helpful to facilitate you
(14:53):
backing the fuck off on some ofthese. Honestly, yeah, like
especially, honestly, it wasespecially chapter one. One, not
the Yeah, chapter two wasimperialism, but chapter one on
the baseball chapter where itwas like, you were just doing
that thing of, like, I know fourthings that happened in three
years, and I need them to beeverywhere. There's 10 pages of
early aughts Boston Red Sox. AndI was like, none of this is
(15:15):
relevant, right? And like, theorder that you're doing this in
is too fast, like, that chapterfelt so fraught, like really
honestly, if you remember, wewrote that chapter and then
touch it again for nine monthsbecause we could not figure out
how to write it together. Andthat for me, when that chapter
could actually feel good, I waslike, Okay, we figured this out.
(15:37):
Figured out that we actuallycan't have a joke in every line
that like this is not thepodcast. We cannot put jokes on
jokes on jokes. You get onedrink per joke, which is a very
famous Conan O'Brien when he ranthe Simpsons. Like, you get one
joke in a joke, right? And Ilove that. It's a line that I
keep in my pocket of like, youcan't put a hat on a hat. Like,
one joke, one joke. Each joke isone joke,
Megan Goodwin (15:59):
whereas my brain is all Bartholomew cabins all
the way down.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (16:02):
And like, I'm not mad at that when
we banned her, but I think whenwe were writing, it felt
cluttered. It felt like, like anover graffitied wall where the
effect is really interesting,but I don't know what I'm
looking at, whereas, like, Ifeel like, when we pared it
down, it's like, okay, there'slike, a main there's a mural
here, and there's lots ofdifferent art styles, maybe, but
(16:23):
there is, like, one theme, andwe know exactly what's going on.
Megan Goodwin (16:26):
Yeah,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (16:29):
I think part of the writing
process. So all right, we got ittogether. I think we're both
saying the same thing, but indifferent processes, different
parts of the process. But Ithink, I think one of the other
things that we really had tofigure out was audience. How do
you feel about that?
Megan Goodwin (16:44):
Yeah, it was. I mean, we talked about this a
little bit on the like, how didyou come to write a book
episode? But understanding thatbook audiences might overlap
with podcast audiences, butthey're not exactly the same
folks, and that there are folksthat are more likely to pick up
a book than they are to pick upa podcast. And also, there are a
lot more teachers, for example,who are likely to assign a book
(17:05):
than they are to assign apodcast, keeping all of that in
mind while still trying to soundlike us and still trying to
write an accessible and engagingway that is not as frantic or
mad cap as the podcast can getwas, yeah, it was a lot to kind
of navigate. But again, andinterestingly, I'm realizing
(17:27):
this as I'm talking thisthrough, once we had the
structure locked, I had a muchbetter sense of how, how I
wanted to talk to folks who aregoing to be interested in this
material, but not necessarilytune into a podcast.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (17:41):
Yeah, and I think for me, it because I
code switch more than you do.
Like, I have different personasthat show up in different places
Megan Goodwin (17:49):
you read a social cue. So you have different ways
of speaking in differentsituations, whereas I'm just you
Ilyse Morgenstein F (17:55):
unabashedly you at all times, and it is are
delightful. Whereas, like, Ihave made a whole career and
life out of this is this versionof me, and this is the way that
version speaks. It's the way myaccent comes in and out, which
most of the time, except when Iam altered or tired or fuming
angry, is a very controlled it'svery controlled. And so I think
(18:18):
for me, figuring out how towrite this book with, with or
without you actually would havebeen really hard, because this
is between my, like, stodgiestIslamic Studies Journal of the
Asiatic, like, Royal Asiaticsociety voice, because, like,
not for nothing, like, that's mytraining, right? Like, it's a
(18:38):
lot of old men who speak 15languages who are grilling you
at every opportunity, and so youlearn how to speak in those
spaces really differently. Andso I'm not sure I would have
figured out what this tone couldhave been, or what this style
could have been without theexperience of totally loose
writing for the podcast, butalso without you being there,
(19:01):
like I always talk like this.
This is who I am. This is how Italk. And so I think that gave
me some freedom to both imaginean audience that would go to the
public library to pick up thisbook, or go to a Barnes and
Noble to pick up this book,which is different than making
sure a book exists so that mycolleagues can read it, and then
I can, like, get through thenext tenure hoop. Yeah? Like, I
need to really work on that inorder to get right with where
(19:25):
you were. Like, I knew what waswrong, but I couldn't quite
figure out what felt right.
Well, would you do it again?
Would you write a book with meagain?
Megan Goodwin (19:37):
I would write a book with you again.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (19:39):
Not, not for a while, though,
Megan Goodwin (19:41):
I, like, I in in the great vein of books is what
we do. I have left thetraditional Academy, and yet I'm
still unwilling to let go of mynext book project, and I've got
one planned after that. So,like, I would like to do some
research writing for a while,but I would absolutely write a
book with you again. And Iwould, I would. Like to think
that maybe it would go smootherthis time, but who can say?
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (20:05):
all things considered? I actually
think it went real smooth, but Ithink it was a fascinating part
of our friendship to have to saylike, I love you as a scholar, I
read every word you write. Youread every word I write, and
have for honestly, more than adecade at this point. So it's
not like, I don't know yourtone. It was just so interesting
(20:25):
to have that tone be my tone. Itwas like, oh, oh. When I don't
talk in writing, I'm like, allfor it. But when it has my name
on it, and I'm like, Ooh, Idon't these pants don't fit,
this is wrong. Like, this isitchy. I'm wearing an itchy
sock. You know?
Megan Goodwin (20:39):
well, and it has that. For me, it was also a
thing of, like, I don't know,this is how I would say this. I
don't see the problem. Slash,I'm not just saying it for me,
I'm saying it for us, which is,that's a thing that I'm always
going to work on, always,because I just don't think in
teams. but also, like, in a realway, you have to think about how
(21:01):
this book gets received withinthe academy in a way that I have
the luxury of, like, not givinga shit about honestly. Like, I
said, what I said? What are yougonna do? Not hire me some more.
Suck it. So, which I think is,in some ways really freeing and
in some ways maybecounterproductive. So I'm glad
that we reached a balance.
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:21):
Me too. well on that note, Megan,
what do we have left to say?
Megan Goodwin (21:27):
We have left to say that you can find us across
social media, still on Twitter,reluctantly and Insta and Tiktok
and Facebook. And if none ofthat crumbles your cookie, we
have a newsletter you can joinvia our website, which is
keeping it one, oh one.com, dropus a rating review in your
podcaster of choice,
Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst (21:42):
and if you are one of the people that
are hoping to get us to come toyour local bookstore to do a
book reading, or to your campusto give a talk, that would be
amazing. Please, please, please,do reach out to us, or better
yet, to Caitlin Meyer, ourincredible marketing and
publicity Maven, over at Beacon.
All of that contact informationis over on our website, so get
to it with that peace out nerdsand
Megan Goodwin (22:05):
do your homework.
It's on the syllabus. You
Belle (22:30):
it's my favorite part, because you see we shake please
wish Prince Charming, but shewon't discover that it's him
till chapter three.
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