Award‑Winning Author Lexy Shaw Delorme on Writing, Travel & Identity

Award‑winning author Lexy Shaw Delorme has lived a life as genre‑defying as her fiction — rock musician, scientist, attorney, and global traveler. In this conversation, she shares the real stories behind The Limerent Series, the themes that shape her work, and how living across three continents transformed her voice as a writer. If you love creativity, reinvention, and emotionally charged storytelling, this episode is for you.

In this conversation, Lexy (writing as L.S. Delorme) takes us inside The Limerent Series, her internationally recognized collection of emotionally charged novels. We explore the themes that shape her work — appearance vs. reality in the age of social media, the line between necessary and unnecessary violence, and the way fiction often mirrors the world we’re navigating today.

Lexy also shares how living across three continents and traveling the globe has shaped her voice as a writer. From Paris to Hong Kong to London, her expat experiences have given her a rare lens on identity, culture, and the stories we carry with us.

With a background spanning law, music, and science writing — and with awards from Publishers Weekly (BookLife), the International Book Awards, the Firebird Awards, and more — Lexy brings intellectual depth, lyrical prose, and fearless honesty to every page.

This is a conversation about creativity, reinvention, and the courage to tell the stories that won’t leave you alone.

Takeaways:

• Lexy Shaw Delorme emphasizes that stories are not defined by singular moments but rather by a life lived in intricate chapters.
• Her diverse experiences as a rock musician, attorney, and global traveler have profoundly shaped her storytelling approach and narrative voice.
• Delorme's work explores themes of reinvention and the complexities of personal identity, reflecting her journey across three continents.
• The Limerent Series embodies a rich tapestry of characters whose interconnected lives challenge societal norms and perceptions of age and identity.
• Through her writing, Delorme seeks to provoke thought and empathy, encouraging readers to consider their own beliefs and the experiences of others.
• Delorme's philosophy on writing highlights the importance of authenticity, aiming to create characters that resonate with the complexities of real human experiences.

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Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Some stories don't begin witha single moment. They begin with
a life lived in chapters. Alife that moves through countries,
careers, identities,collecting pieces along the way.
Today's guest has lived morelives than most novels contain. A
rock musician, a sciencegraduate, an attorney, a world traveler,

(00:22):
and now an award winningauthor. This is a story about reinvention,
about truth, about what weshow and what we hide. I'm your host,
Michael Hirst. Welcome to Onemore Thing before youe Go. Today

(00:46):
I'm honored to welcome LexiShaw delorme, the award winning author
behind the Limeret series.Lexi, welcome to the show.
Hello. Hello. You made mesound so cool. Thank you.
Well, you are cool. I mean,you are cool. You live the life.
I mean, we're gonna get intothat, but like, holy smokes, you,

(01:06):
you have an amazing journeygetting to where you're at today.
But I do, I'm used to peoplejust saying weird, but you know.
Yeah, I like this. That's great.
We kind of have that incommon, too. I like to start at the
beginning. Like all goodstories start. Right, right. Where'd
you grow up?
So I grew up kind of all overthe place. So my, my father was a

(01:29):
pastor in the Navy, and sothat created some very interesting
dynamics for me. I was likethe, the pastor's kid, which means
I'm supposed to be terrible,but actually wasn't. So I was born
in San Diego and then we movedto Texas and then we moved to Boston,
and then we moved to Rhodeisland, then Hawaii, then New Orleans,
and then we ended up in NorthCarolina, which is where my father

(01:53):
had his crisis of faith. Andbecause I was about 11 or 12 when
he had that, I got introducedwith him to a whole bunch of world
religions and a whole bunch ofdifferent spiritual practices and
stuff to study. And so thatgives an 11 and 12 year old a really
interesting kind of backgroundin philosophy. And spent time, graduated

(02:14):
from high school in NorthCarolina and then lived there. Went
to University of NorthCarolina for undergraduate and lots
of other. My, my job stuff.But that was kind of the pathway.
And then since then, I'velived across countries and continents.
I mean, like, wow, all ofthat, Wow. I mean, being a Navy kid,

(02:34):
that, and obviously a lot ofthat had to do with being a military
family and having to movewherever the military sent you.
Yep.
I understand that perspective.It's brilliant that you've lived
on three continents, acrossfour countries, nine states, 21 cities.
How did all that movementshape your sense of home and your
sense of story? Because you'reSuch a brilliant author.

(02:57):
Thank you. Thank you. So itreally shapes who you are, both in
positive and negative ways.And now I'm a mother and we are.
My husband does internationalbusiness and so we're doing the same
thing that I did. Right. And Iactually feel more comfortable with
that than I would have been ifsomeone said, you're gonna live in
the Same City for 20 years.Because the weird thing that happens

(03:20):
is you find yourself when youmove from place to place to place,
you create these patterns ofhow long relationships last and how
long life lasts. And so afteryou're moving every two years, you're
like, anything I do only has atwo year lasting point, you know,
so I can run away from it if Iwant to. So, like, they're not as
much consequences. There's alot of positives and there's a lot

(03:43):
of ways you have to be strongand resilient and all those things.
And my kids are doing thatright now as well. But it also creates
a kind of a different way thatyou view time. And I'm fascinated
by the concept of time thatcomes out in a lot of my work too.
So that shaped me as this kindof always an outsider. And in writing,

(04:05):
that means I tend to be veryfast. Fascinated by the outsider's
perspective. I have a sense ofit because that was kind of my growing
up face.
I think that would be helpful,especially within creating characters
and the dynamics of that. Inparticular, the characters, the stories,
the genres, everything. Ithink that would have a thing. Was

(04:27):
there a moment in particular,a single moment when you realized
that you were a storyteller?Because I think it's unique when
we. My father. I grew up witha. My father was a journalist.
Oh, nice.
He. He also was like everyother journalist was writing his
own novel and, you know, hedid a bunch of short stories and
things like that. So I. I grewup in a newsroom. I grew up with

(04:48):
back in the day when everybodyhad typewriter. So you'd walk in
to give that telegraph and,you know, there's like all you hear
is, you know, a hundredtypewriters. Just.
That's so right.
Everybody doing their ownthing. So. So I appreciate from that
perspective how stories arecreated. So that was a long way to

(05:10):
get around that question.
So interesting for me. So I'dalways written, right. So I wrote
music. I wrote bad stories. Imentioned that to you before. Horrible
high school stories. Yeah. Andeven when I did music, I was better
at lyrics than anything else.When we started moving abroad after
I'd done Law and science andstuff. And we. My husband got this
job, and they said, okay,you're going to have to move every

(05:32):
two years. I was like, I'm nottaking the bar everywhere I go. I'm
not about to play that game.Because by the time I get the. Get,
take it. And I'm licensed towork, we're moving, so I have to
find something else to do withmyself. So I did travel writing,
and I wrote about travel withkids, and I did that while we lived
in Paris the first time andwhile we were in Hong Kong, and then

(05:54):
when we moved to London. Ihave vivid memory. I was thinking,
you know, I've had all thesecharacters in my head for a long
time. Like, I've hadcharacters that have lived in my
head for, like, 25 years. AndI was like, you know, maybe I'll
do something with them. And Iwas talking to my husband over dinner
at an Argus steakhouse, Iremember. And I said, you know, I

(06:15):
think I'm gonna write a novel.And my husband went, oh, you're not
going to do that. You won'ttake the time to do that. And I went,
excuse me. And eight bookslater, take that. Exactly.
That's a.
And he told me, I did that tomotivate you. And I'm like, yeah,
you say that now.

(06:36):
Well, that's the correct answer.
Exactly.
37 years going on, 38 yearsmarried. I understand the correct
answer.
Yeah, we're 20 this year, so congratulations.
Well, you know, that, that.That basically your life is kind
of a book. You've had morechapters than most novels. Musician,
scientist, attorney, expat,author. Which version of yourself

(06:58):
surprised you the most bybecoming the most useful in your
writing? Do you think of allof that because you thought, I'm
going to write a novel? Didyou call on all of that to create
your first novel?
I did. Interesting thing.That's a really good question. And
interestingly, I think thething that I called on most were
my questions about life.Because they say you write to answer

(07:22):
the questions that you have.Right. And all my life, I've been
really fascinated by theconcept of consciousness, right.
And the relationship between,say, consciousness and time. And
my first three books, youdon't get as much into this. My first
three books have halfsupernatural, and they have some
romance, and they. One haslegal thriller, one has. In addition

(07:44):
to that, one has historical inaddition to that, and one has YA
coming of age in addition tothat. But all. All of those are the
beginning of this. And you canread them in any order all of those
are in the beginning ofsomething that is then an eight book
series that is answering myquestions about consciousness. Because
that's what I wanted to do. Iwanted to say what do I think this

(08:07):
means? What do I think is therelationship between consciousness
and time and reality? And sothere's a lot of that in it. And
it's not all about that. It'snot, it doesn't feel heavy in the
beginning. But this is just,just to say there's a character that
is personification of time in,you know, later chapters.

(08:31):
So does your. Do you. If I canask this, forgive me how obviously
you have the, the number ofbooks that you have. The short period
of time that I was able toprepare, I wasn't able to go across
all of them. Do you have inyour series are your characters thematic
throughout all of the seriesor just through each novel in particular?

(08:52):
Or do they, do they havecrossover? How does that work?
They absolutely do. So one ofthe things that I really wanted in
writing was to love, have theaudience love these characters that
I've had in my head for a longtime. So the first book has a point
of view of a character namedSarah who is a paralegal with a kind
of failed life. And she meetsSarah, someone who stopped aging

(09:16):
in 1905. And it's, it'sactually a legal thriller as well.
And the second book has got.The point of view is of a 17 year
old girl who is. Has reallyhad a traumatic past. The minute
she sort of became a teenager,people became attracted to her uncontrollably

(09:38):
like people. She was in dangerof being attacked most of the time.
And then the third book, themajor character is a poor white woman
in the rural south in the USin World War II. But all of these
characters start comingtogether in the later books. So all
of the point of viewcharacters exist through the whole
series and they come in andout of each other's books. So Kyo,

(10:01):
which is in the first book, isalso in Fanning Fireflies, the third
book. And Kara and Dante, whoyou see in Bright Midnights, also
show up in Fanning Fireflies.So they all kind of move in and out
of each other's stories. I, Ispent five years creating the world
before I put anything to paperin terms of writing. Yeah. And then,

(10:24):
and then when I did, just forfull transparency, right. I wasn't
super brilliant. I wrote ahundred. A million word book. The
first effort.
A hundred million or a million.
A million. A million word book.
A million million word book.Holy smokes.
Yeah. And then I went,nobody's reading this. So that's
why I thought, I can do thisin one book. No, no, you can't.

(10:45):
It'd be hard to mail to a publisher.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, here's the one.Wait a minute, we got about 20 more
boxes out. We'll bring them in.
Exactly.
Wow. That's amazing though. Ithink that. Forgive me, I'm sorry.
I think that in doing that, itallowed you the opportunity to kind

(11:07):
of, kind of feel things outand kind of kind of fine tune stuff.
Right.
Well, it was the first timeI'd done a long form writing. I've
written my whole life in legaland in science and in, you know,
music. But it was the firsttime I tried to do a long form novel.
And I hadn't created my ownkind of pattern for it, my own work
thing. And I realized, comingfrom the attorney background, like

(11:31):
you said, what happens inyour, your background, your particular
background, you have certainhabits you have that you can use
to help you. And one of themfor me is like outlining. I'm an
outliner, you know, I havetrain stations, I call them train
stations that I write, andthen from each station to each station,
but I will end up at thosestations. And so I wrote all the
books before I startedpublishing any of them.

(11:56):
Instead of doing itsequentially, you went ahead and
wrote each one of them beforewe published, but you fine tuned
them, I'm assuming, prior tothe next one going out and the next
one going out. That'sbrilliant. Actually. That's an amazing
way to approach that.
So that came from anexperience that I had in music, which,
you know, it's like lifeteaches you the hard lessons. So

(12:20):
we were, we were in a band andI said, we had a video on MTV in
the middle of the night onenight, and they chose a song. The
company chose a song to put onthe out there that I didn't like.
I wrote it, but I didn'treally like it. The bridge is awful.
Right. And so now I'm stuckwith this thing because I didn't
have control. And I realizedafter that that I needed to have

(12:44):
that control, which is one ofthe reasons why I chose to. We have
our own imprint calledLimerick Publishing. Right. And I
chose to do this because wehave the assets and the way to do
it, and I still am able tohave that control. If I have all
the books written, then it'snot like I'm going to have to get
to a point where I Have to go,oh, that one in book two, I'm going

(13:05):
to have to change that. Orthat doesn't make sense. Or I have
to change the story. So itgave me the ability to have. The
ability to have 4,000spreadsheets with things tracked.
Wow. That's a lot oforganization. Yeah, that's a lot.
But. But fun. Really, Actuallyreally fun.

(13:26):
Well, I can imagine. I mean,like you said earlier, I like how
you said building a world. Youbuilt this world prior to kind of
releasing it to the world,which is, again, a brilliant way
of approaching. I've talked toa lot of other authors that do a
series and they wrote a bookand then they kind of went, I think
I should write a second one.Should I connect it to the first
one? You know, you know, thosekind of things. But I think that

(13:48):
you want to. That's unique.That's very. Your first. Your first
novel was Limerent, correct?
The first novel is Kaio,actually, I have it.
This one, it almost looks likeCiao a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kyo. So did that exploreappearance versus reality?

(14:08):
It does. So in that book, thewoman who is the main POV character.
Actually, the book starts outwith a boy in a Hole in 1905 in Brazil
in the latex harvesting area,who's been thrown into hole to die.
He's like, in his teens. Hedoesn't know exactly how old he is
because it was in a tribe inBrazil in 1905. And he gets infected

(14:33):
with a virus that actuallymutates. And you don't learn this
in exactly the moment, but itmakes it that he can't age. And so
the next chapter is a womanliving in Brooklyn in current time.
And she has a horrible life.An abusive boyfriend. She's a paralegal.

(14:53):
She'd been married to anotherlawyer. He died and left her not
in a great situation. Andshe's treated badly in her law firm.
And it's about a parallelthing of her meeting this kid who
is not a kid and who she kindof recognizes is not a kid really
fast and something that'sgoing on in her law firm where there

(15:16):
is a case with an abusesituation going on. And I will say
that the legal stuff on this Idrew from actual experience that
I had in law, and it's thereason that I left family law.
I was going to ask you that.Whether or not when you look at your

(15:37):
character, do you see piecesof yourself in them or. Or cases
that you've dealt with?Because I have that. You know, when
you're involved in this fromany perspective, and especially from,
like, the legal perspective,whether you're a lawyer, an attorney,
or whether or not you're a copor a firefighter, an emt, a doctor.

(15:57):
All of those little tidbits oflife, whether they're at their worst
or, like, the best people attheir worst or whatever, they always
stick with you.
Exactly, Exactly. Exactly.That was another. I'm glad you said
that. That's another reasonwhy I write, because I had this moment.
I remember I was working inSouth Africa, and so I worked and

(16:18):
did international law, and Iwas in London, but I went to South
Africa a lot. And I was goingdown the highway with these people
and that I worked with, andthere was this flock of green butterflies
that came and descended acrossthe highway, managed to miss all
the cars, no splat, Right. Andwent across the highway. And I looked
at that and I thought that wasso magical and so weird. But that

(16:40):
memory, when I die, dies withme, unless I put it somewhere.
That's cool.
And so I thought that theseexperiences that I've had, these
things that I've been giventhis incredible honor to see. Right.
I should put somewhere so theycontinue to live. Right.
Well. And I mean, obviouslysome of these things are. Are positive.

(17:02):
I mean, from what I've.
Some are not.
You say some are not, butthat's life. Yeah, life. We have
good things, we have badthings, and sometimes they overlap.
Sometimes, you know, one ismore worse than the other.
And I think what I aim to dowith my books is to, like, I don't
tend to see things really asgood and bad. I tend to see them

(17:26):
as a spectrum. Right. Orpeople as having a spectrum. So you
have narrow spectrum peopleand broad spectrum people. And I
write broad spectrumcharacters. So a broad spectrum character
on one side can be like anangel, but they have the capacity
on the other side to be anabsolute monster. And it's the fact

(17:49):
that they have that swing iswhat makes them sort of what they
are. And, you know, you seethat in real life. You see, like,
if you read about MotherTeresa, she just did all this wonderful
thing. She was considered asaint. And yet you hear about some
of the other things sheactually did in life. And it's like,
okay, you see the other swing,right? There's a lot of people who

(18:10):
don't have that kind of levelof swing. And so it's a question
of, is that a good or badthing to have such breadth of swing?
But. But for characters that Ihave in my books, the ones that have
to step out into being more.More means more of both,.
Which I think is a unique wayof approaching things, especially

(18:31):
from a writer's perspective.You have an insight to many things
that other people don'tnormally, on an average, daily basis,
have insight to. In regard tothat, you see the larger spectrum
of everything. Cops. We see.We see. We see people. We see people
at their. At their best. Wesee the best people at their worst,

(18:52):
you know, and everything inbetween kind of a situation. And.
And, you know, you see. Youkind of go. You have to stop and
think, well, I don't thinkthey would. Like Mother Teresa. That's
an interesting way that youbrought that up, is that you would
look at somebody and you wouldsee some of the accomplishments,
and you kind of go, they wouldnever do that. But then the reality
is that part just stays hiddenuntil it comes out, which is, you

(19:17):
know, kind of interesting.
And we're actually seeing alot of that kind of stuff now, so.
Yes, we are.
Yeah. And. Yeah, that stuff,that hidden stuff eventually comes
out. And I have people who'vehad trouble reading my books because,
as people will tell me, Idon't pull punches and I don't. I'm.

(19:40):
That's honesty in writing. AndI think that honesty in writing is
a good thing. I think thathonesty in writing is a good thing.
I believe that it gives youmore of an authentic approach to
the story, number one. Itgives more credence as you read it
and pulls together, and we canall go. I recognize that. And I think
that's something that weshould embrace. Yeah, I think it's

(20:01):
your second novel, and forgiveme if I didn't get it right. But.
But the second level dealswith necessary and unnecessary violence.
How do you approach thatemotionally, as a writer putting
that?
Yeah, so that's actually theone that's written. It's the third
one. It's called FanningFireflies. And it's actually written
from the perspective of a poorwhite woman living in North Carolina

(20:22):
in 1944, and she is working atthe draft office, and she meets and
falls in love with an AfricanAmerican soldier. There's no real
romance because it can'thappen. Right. But there's a connection.
And that was a time where wesaw a lot of necessary and unnecessary
violence. Right. There wasWorld War II, which was out there.

(20:46):
You know, everyone wasfighting to try and help people,
to try and save people. Andyet at the same time, at home in
the US There was a lot ofviolence being directed at very vulnerable
people. So it Was, you know,how do you balance that? And where
is violence acceptable? Whereis it something that has to happen
versus where is it somebodyabusing their power?

(21:09):
I agree with that. I mean,we're seeing that come back, unfortunately,
yes. From the perspective anddealing as my previous profession,
understanding violence, it'salways a difficult topic, no matter
what how you approach it, butwe always have a responsibility in

(21:31):
portraying it. And I thinkthat from what I've been able to
read about yours, you haveportrayed it with responsibility,
which I think is a good thing.
I try. I try. I mean, I thinkthat my theory is that if. To what
you said earlier, if wepretend something isn't there, it
becomes more dangerous. If youas a person look inside yourself

(21:52):
and you see your shadow sideand you recognize it and you bring
it over for coffee, you'reless likely to do something awful
because you have your. You'reworking within it. I know I'm not
an ideal person. I am deeplyflawed as a human, but I own that.
And I try my best to behelpful to other people. And I, you
know, all those things. I'mfar from perfect. And I think that

(22:15):
it's important when you'recreating characters not to show,
not to have them as. Asperfect, not to have the world that
they're in as too idealized. Imean, I know people want to read
fantasy and there's a placefor. For, you know, roses and all
that, but for me, I felt it. Ireally want to make commentary on

(22:37):
what is important to me, whichis going back to what is consciousness?
What is our place in theuniverse? What are we here for? What
part of us lives on or moveson? Why? You know, all those kind
of questions, and all that ispart of it.
So many questions, so little time.
Exactly.
That's a lot of questions.Yeah, I think. But we all go through

(22:57):
that. We're human beings. Imean, we all want to be able to do
the right thing. And I thinkfor the most part, we feel that we
should all be able to do theright thing. And I think presenting
it in such a way, especiallyfrom a written perspective and doing
it in a character perspective,uh, that's a brilliant way of approaching
that without getting, youknow, some. Give people opportunity

(23:21):
to kind of think about it andgo, yeah, well, I can't. I recognize
that. Or, yeah, I think that,yeah, maybe I need to think about
myself or think about UncleJoe or kind of a thing.
Well, see, that's. That'sthing like. Like characters give
people a safe place to observe.
Yeah.
Without Being judged withouthaving someone else come into it.

(23:41):
It's just them. And Iremembered, like for the fanning
fireplace, I. For a while Iworked in a cigarette factory in
the summers in North Carolina.It's the way we made money. And a
cigarette factory is in this.This is once again how I use my,
my experiences. But I rememberthere was a guy who was there and
he was a Harley biker guy.Sweetest. He could be as a person,

(24:05):
incredibly racist and. But inthis way where he had two really
good friends who were AfricanAmerican. And I was asking him, he
would say something horribleabout African American people. And
I was like, why are you sayingthat? And he was like, because it's
true. And I was like, well,why do you think it's true? And he
was like, well, because itjust is, you know, like, it just
is true. And at some point Isaid, what do you think of James

(24:29):
and Ed? And he was like, well,they're great. And I said, uh huh.
I said, so they're AfricanAmerican? He was like, yeah, but
they're not like the otherones. And I said, how do you know?
How many do you know? And hewas like, well, I don't have to.
I said, no, no. If we had anentire factory filled with people
like James and Ed, would youlike that? And he was like, well,
yeah. And I said, I'm justsaying, think, right? And later on

(24:53):
he came back and was talkingto me, he goes, I've been thinking
about that. I don't know whatI think, but I've been thinking about
it. And I thought, you'rethinking step one, right?
Take the first step. Thank youvery much.
Yeah,.
I think approaching life thatway is a good, positive thing. And

(25:14):
that's an amazing way topresent it to that individual. I've
dealt with a lot of bikers inmy life and some are. It won't change.
I actually had one that,believe it or not, my wife and I
went to a restaurant. I was acop in Colorado, went to a restaurant
here in Arizona. And. And wewere sitting there and we were sitting

(25:36):
at the bar eating, and theserver come up. She was a friend
of ours, the server, and shesays, he knows you. And I look down
and here's this old gruffbiker, long beard, hair, everything.
And I'm kind of going, okay,considering my previous profession.

(25:58):
Yeah, I said, okay. And Isaid, you know, I walked up and I
had motioned to him and shesaid, but he's deaf. And I think,
I don't remember ever dealingwith a deaf biker before. So My wife
and I moved over next to himand started talking. And he goes,
you're a cop? And I, ofcourse, got a little. Not defensive,

(26:24):
but. And I said. I said, yeah,I was a cop. And he said, you're
Sergeant Hurst? And I said,yes. And I said, how do you know
me? And he brought it up. AndI had helped him. I had helped him
when he got his bike. He. Bikewent off the road and, you know,

(26:44):
I helped him and treated himlike a person kind of a thing. He
gave me a big hug and he says,glad to see you. He. He wrote it
and he says, you know, glad tosee you. And I said, how'd you go
deaf? And he told me the wholestory and what happened. And he was
working on a motorcycle, thegas tank blew up, and blah, blah,
blah, blah. But it'sinteresting because I bring that
up as in, you know, hislifestyle back then, when I knew

(27:09):
him was all about thebrotherhood and riding with the gang
that he was with at that time.That was everything that was his
focus. Whatever they believedin, he believed in. He separated
himself from that. When herealized that and he moved down here,

(27:31):
he says, you know, my life haschanged this much. And it just took
a moment get away from that tokind of reflect back on. And it was.
Plus, it was really weird thathe remembered me from that long.
I think. I think, like. Ithink, like, what you did there and
like, in. Just in the act ofgoing and then sitting with him.
Right. That's opening a doorfor people to say, I'm listening.

(27:55):
Right. I'm willing to listen.
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
And that's. I think what we.We have difficulty with. Right. Is
just listening and. Andsometimes, you know, admittedly so.
Right. Like, someone was. Iused. They used to always at work,
put these things and said, doyou treat others with respect? From

(28:16):
HR would give you the, youknow, the little survey. And I always
write. It depends. I neverwrote yes or no. Right. You know,
like. Like if. If. If, James.If, you know, Manson were in front
of me, would I treat him withrespect if he's behind bars? No.
If he wasn't behind bars, Iwould have been like, okay, I'm getting
away from you. But, you know,like, it depends, but for the most

(28:37):
part, yes, for the most part,I want to know somebody's story.
I want to know what. What.What they think, why they think the
way they think. Because I'mnot perfect, and I don't have all
the answers, and you don'tknow where you're going. To get those
little nuggets of things thatare amazing. Right. It could come
from anywhere. And. And youdon't know when you're giving someone

(28:59):
one of those little nuggets.So it could be.
Yeah, even. I'm sorry, we havejust a little delay. It's interesting
because even in thatperspective, the thing that he remembered,
I'd arrested him before. Whathe remembered was when I helped him.
And he remembered it 20, morethan 20 years later when he saw me

(29:22):
sitting at the bar with mywife eating something. And that was
in itself, it was like, wow,that's humanity. That just shows
what you bring about in yourbooks, that we're all connected.
Yeah. And that's like. I liketaking people, taking characters
where judge them from theoutside. The first book is actually

(29:45):
the first book I got judgmentabout the book, the Kaya book, because
this is actually. This is afun story that explains another reason
why we decided we were goingto make our own imprint of publishing.
So this book. So in Kayo,Sarah, the main character, the. The
POV character is in her late40s and she's a paralegal. She's

(30:09):
very beaten down. She's verybeaten down. And the first time she
sees Kayo is on a basketballcourt. And he does everything he
can to get her attention. Andshe. She is absolutely taken. Like,
she's shocked. Not because ofhis youth, not because of what he

(30:31):
looks like. We're just going.But because he sees her, he actually
pays attention to her. And noone in her life does. She is kind
of abusive. Find out prettysoon. I mean, I tell people in the
back of the book so they don'tfreak out. But you find out over
time because she learns overtime time and interacting with them,
she ends up like, helping. Heasks her to help him study. She finds

(30:54):
out that he does not act likesomebody who is supposedly in his
late teens. He acts like heknows things you could never know.
And at the same time, what'shappening in her law firms. You have
all these people who are, youknow, upstanding citizens, you know,
running the. The town thatthey're currently in and yet doing

(31:15):
really, really horriblethings. They're abusing power, they're
abusing what they have. And sothese characters, you have to look
at them. I really take peoplefrom Sarah through her thought process
of how she's interacting withthis. And on top of all this, she
has voices in her head. Andit's her finding out the voices in

(31:39):
her head are not a mistake,which is where the supernatural stuff
Starts coming in and seeingthat what happens in her law firm,
it kind of has a supernaturalaspect too. And she starts, she realizes
at some point Caio's actualstory, which is that he's been bouncing
around the world since 1905,right? Trying to live when he looks

(32:00):
like he's 17 in a world wherehe can't justify his age. So it's
this whole what you see versuswhat really is. And her world is
very narrow. So the first timewe took this, Karina Press said,
oh, we'd love to publish it,but you're going to have to change
his age. And I was like, from135? And they were like, no, no,

(32:22):
you're going to have to changehis, like he's going to need to look
older. And I was like, youknow, have him go into the hole at
19. I said, I don't even knowhow old he is because they don't
measure time. And thischaracter is in the entire series
and him being the way he is isvery important. And so we went, ah,
code, no, we will part ways.And then had almost exactly the same

(32:42):
thing happen at anotherpublisher where the chairman of the
publishing agent literallysent me this long impassioned email
about this is like a beautifulrelationship and have his age look
different, looking so young,it's like eating a three course meal
in a toilet. And I went, what?

(33:04):
That's not a very nice way toput that.
Okay. And so I was like, allright, fine. So we tried one more
time and this was the realone. So we talked to a guy who was
in a very big publishing houseand he was in New Jersey. And he
goes, you know, the appearanceof age difference doesn't make a
difference to me because youknow, Twilight, you know, he's like

(33:25):
hundreds of years old, she'sactually 17. You know, it, it, that
doesn't bother you? He goes,but what bothers me is. Oh, I don't
know how I would phrase it.It's, it's like it's unbecoming for
a woman in her 40s to stillhave sexual feelings.
No kidding.
He said this? I said, you justsaid that out loud. You just said
the quiet part out loud. Andhe was like, well, I think a lot

(33:47):
of people in the heartlandwould agree with me. And I was like,
how? I said, how old are you?And he was like 48. And I said, uh
huh. Do you have a partner? Hewas like, yeah, not even seeing where
I'm going with this. Justlike. And I, I, I kind of got away
from that. And I was like, youknow, I'm a lawyer. My husband's
a marketer. We have thebackground. We can hire marketing

(34:10):
people and PR people, and. Andyou actually make more money. More
money doing it yourself. And.Yeah, so we just created our own
publishing house. But that wasbecause I want to tell real stories
the way I want to tell them.
Well, I think also. I think,well, you're doing something right
because your books have wonawards from International Book Awards,

(34:30):
Publishers Weekly, Editor'sChoice. I mean, I think that, you
know, the antiquatedperception of life in some people's
current state of being issometimes skewed to how they believe
within themselves and don'tunderstand that there are, what,

(34:55):
600 million people out therethat may feel somewhat differently.
Yeah, well, I kind of tooksome of that, what she went through
and how people. How she feltpeople reacted. Because my husband
is 10 years younger than me,and you would have thought I robbed
a cradle.
You know, it. Yeah, I getthat. I get my wife's. The certain

(35:20):
times, like the. We're 10years apart, and the rest of the
time, we're like nine and ahalf years apart because of our birthdays.
Yep.
We first got together, she wasdoing modeling. Just a side note,
we were. She was doing somemodeling gigs and got on kktv, which
is a local store station therein Colorado Springs, and I went with

(35:43):
her, and I was sitting therewaiting, and she. It was something
to do with makeup and hair andeverything. So she went in with no
makeup, no hair, no hair done,you know, kind of a thing. Not. Not
no hair. She had hair. She'slike, cameraman looked at me, and
he's getting everything ready,and they're getting ready to do the.
The makeup and everythingelse. He looks at me and he goes,

(36:04):
well, how's the. How does the.How does. How. How's the father feel
about his daughter going to beon tv? And I went, excuse me.
Yeah. Yeah.
And I'm. I. I was bigger thanI am now. Right. I stood up, he sees
my badges hooked on my belt,you know, this kind of a thing, and
he goes, oh. I said, that's mywife, not my daughter. Thank you.

(36:26):
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
But it's. It's just this kindof like this weird. Weird assumptions
people make. And I think alsohow you perceive people is influenced
by what your philosophical andyour kind of spiritual, holistic

(36:47):
beliefs are. Yeah, I agree.And so I've never been a person that
focused on what someone's agewas. Weirdly. Weirdly personal story.
When I was young, I actuallydid some modeling as well. And I
got anorexic, badly anorexic.So I was down to, at some point,
I think, £89.

(37:08):
Wow.
And I'm five. I'm five seven.And my dad, who was a counselor,
tried to help me, but he waslike, weigh yourself every day. Which
is absolutely the worst thingto do for someone who has anorexia.
And at some point I said, youknow my problem? I was lying in my
dorm room looking up at thischart that I had made that said 100
pounds, you're fat. 99 poundsbetter, but still not good. And just

(37:32):
like this whole thing. And Irealized I am associating myself
with this number that has nomeaning with what I'm connecting
it to. Right. It doesn't sayhow healthy I am. It doesn't say
how attractive I am. Itdoesn't say anything. It's just this
number. So I stoppedassociating myself with numbers.
I stopped looking at sizes ofthings. When I went to get clothes,

(37:54):
I didn't want to know people'sages. I just stopped putting that
for people. And it reallyhelped. And I think you're always
kind of a recovering anorexicwhen you have that because you have
a level of body dysmorphia.But that helped me in ways that like,
counselors and stuff couldnot. Because it was just readjusting
the filter, right?
Well, and I think life initself needs to readjust their filters

(38:17):
because obviously life is whatit is, and their perceptions, the
truth people have, whether itbe from whatever background that
they grew up with, you know,we are a human being species that's
supposed to evolve. And thatevolvement includes on having a better
understanding of how we evolveas human beings. So.

(38:39):
Yep, yep.
Yeah, we could. We could talkfor. We could talk for a while on
that.
We're about going down thegenetics thing, which we could talk
about for a really long time.
Exactly, exactly. So, as awriter, from a writer's perspective,
how do you hope readers feelafter they finish one of your books?
I hope they have questions. Ihope that they think. I have a lot

(39:03):
of people who read the end ofmy books and go, wait, now what happens?
Which is what I want them todo. I want them to say, in writing
a book, one of the mostdifficult things is to say, where
are you going to start thejourney? And where are you going
to end the journey for thisone book, Right. It's where are you
Going to stop telling thestory because their lives go on.
Right. And so I took likelittle segments of these characters

(39:27):
lives and all of them, all ofthem are dealing with some very difficult
stuff. And what I want peopleto come away with is a connection
to the characters, a sense ofempathy for the characters, particularly
when things happen to themthat maybe haven't happened to a
lot of people. I want them tothink, what would I do if I were
in that circumstance? I wantthem to think, what would that mean

(39:50):
in my world? And is thisright? I want people to think I'm
happy if someone, I'm happierto get a one star review than a three
star review. If somebody flipsout about something, at least I made
them feel something. I madethem think. I'm not one of those
people who writes to be that Idon't want, I'm not writing to make,

(40:10):
you know, to be shocking. I'm,I'm writing to write something that
I feel is real. I'm very bigon wanting to be authentic. I write
short sentences purposelybecause I don't want my writing style
to get in someone's way ofunderstanding the story,.
Which is a good thing, Ithink, approaching it from that perspective.
Again, growing up with awriter and growing up with somebody

(40:33):
in a newsroom, you know, Iunderstand the logistics of being
able to keep somebody in butwithout overwhelming them at the
same time and giving themsomething to walk away with.
And so I tend, I tend to puthumor in my books. Actually I should
do this. Hold on. This bookFanning Fireflies. So it won Book

(40:55):
Life. Book Life's for themonth of April last year. I think
it was, it was the best firstline in a novel award for the month.
And the first line of thisnovel is the headless chicken charging
towards Veronica Crane wasclinging to life against all odds.
Wow. Like that, that, that oneSnoopy would have loved.

(41:21):
Right? It's just I, I, I tendto write, I'll use fairly large words,
but then put it in a morecolloquial kind of vibe. And I want
pieces of real life like my,the main character in that book,

(41:41):
Fanny Fireflies. I roughlybased around my mother. And she was
definitely on the autismspectrum before it was a known thing.
Really logical, really like,you know, all the, all the aspects
of autism that I think arevery, you know, admirable and honorable.
She didn't understand thelying stuff. She, you know, she was

(42:02):
like, you know, and she, theyhad to, she had to kill her own chickens,
you know, and she grew up inrural North Carolina. And they had.
She was. They were very poor.And so that I wanted to kind of bring
that and show people that. Andalso that book is a little bit of
me sent telling how I'm comingmore and more to believe. There aren't

(42:24):
multiple social classes. Thereare two. One social class makes money
by working, the other socialclass makes money by their own money.
That's a unique approach tothat. I like that. Yeah, I can't
wait to tell my wife that.
And I think that those whomake money using their money what

(42:48):
everybody else to fight to beat odds with each other because it
benefits. Right. You know,they don't care if the. The teachers
are pissed off at the cops orthe. You know, they're. That's good.
They're not questioning thefact that the wealth is so disparate
at this point. So I. That'skind of what I've come to in my own
head of what I think is kindof happening.

(43:08):
I agree with you. I thinkthat's again, that's brilliant because
it's an. I think. Think thatthe perspective that nobody really
embraces. I mean it. And it'snot a me versus them type thing.
It is. It's almost HungerGames type. I mean, that's the mentality
in Hunger Games. Yeah, it doesthat kind of. And yeah, and I think

(43:31):
we're kind of getting in moreand more unfortunately walking down
that path. But at least fromyour perspective as a writer, what
you are creating and puttinginto these books, as you said earlier,
the benefit is that you'regiving them something to think about.
And giving them something tothink about should allow them to

(43:52):
get an expanded vision ofsomething more that they can either
look at, consider, or work.
And the thing is, I don'tpretend I have the answers. I just
want people to have thequestions. Right.
Yeah, I think we all shouldquestion. I mean, you've lived in

(44:12):
Paris, Hong Kong, London,traveled across almost every continent.
How's that. The worldview thatyou have right there, I think was
unique. But how has travelingall the rest of the world, how's
that shaped your writing? Isthe same perception across Hong Kong
and in Paris and London andthese dream places that everybody

(44:34):
wants to go to visit.
So I love that questionbecause I had a moment with that
when I was working in a bankand I was living in London and I
was doing internationalstartup for different startups for
that bank. I was going toShanghai. It was the first time I'd
gone to China. I was going bymyself and I went three Days after

(44:57):
we accidentally bombed theirembassy, Germany. And I'm like, I'm
gonna die, right? So I getthere, and I get there in. In Shanghai,
and I go to the airport.You've got all these people in the
communist outfits, right? AndI'm like, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna
die. I'm gonna die, right? So.But I get out and I get on the street,
and the first thing thathappens to me is this little girl

(45:19):
comes up to me, and an olderwoman is behind, and she looks at
me and she goes, excuse me. Idon't want to bother you, but my
grandmother wants me to speakto you in English for a while. While.
Will you speak to me inEnglish? And I sat down and I talked
to her for about 15 minutes.And I realized at the end, all we
want is for our families to behappy, for the people we love to

(45:41):
do well, you know? And that'swhere we're all the same. Like, that's
what we want. You have thoseweird, freaky people who are really
into power, but those are thepeople who shouldn't have it.
Exactly.
But most of us, most peoplearound the world, and you learn that
as being a parent, that's theway that I think parenting is like

(46:02):
a universal language. You cantalk about your kids with anyone
else who has kids, right? Andthey get it. So it's this thing that
bonds you, and it doesn'tmatter if you're talking to someone
in South Africa or if you'retalking in someone in France or,
you know, everyone's got thisconnection with having children.

(46:23):
So that. That, I think issomething that was really important
to me to realize. And there'sa lot of differences in culture,
and I learned a lot indifferent cultures about that, that,
you know, you never. I thinkyou never really see your own country
until you leave it. So I knowa lot about the pros and cons of
the US and. And I know a lotabout the pros and cons of other

(46:47):
countries, because I can go init and view it now as an outsider.
Like, for example, one of themost kind of charming things of the
American character is thisidea, and I hope we don't lose it,
this idea that we can doanything. If we really kind of put
our minds to it, we can dothis. It's this kind of really charming

(47:09):
optimism and hopefulness thathas really launched so much research
and so much. And my fear isthat the people who achieve or who
have achieved are pushing thatdown for the others coming up.
Unfortunately, I have to agreewith you in that regard. I think

(47:29):
that we have always. I grew upthat way myself. You know, I look
at parents that were the otherproblems. I come from other parents.
My father died at a very youngage of cancer. But before he died,
he did kind of make sure thatI understood that people are people
and human beings are. We allwant the same thing. We want a happy

(47:54):
life. We want to eat, we wanta roof over our head, we want to
wear shoes on our feet. Andthat we all want to be good parents.
We all want to be good son, agood daughter, a good husband, a
good wife. It, I think, isinherent within us. Those individuals,
like you said earlier, thathave agreed for power skew it in

(48:16):
such a way that it creates andcomplicates life for the rest of
us.
And also they hold it up as.This is okay, right? This is the
normal. Or normalize. Theynormalize it. Exactly.
And no, it. It. I. I thinkthat it. Those of us that have. I

(48:42):
grew up. I grew up very poor.My. Because my father dying at an
early age. I grew up with asingle mother in the 60s and 70s
who. Which I. I know, youknow, this. That, you know, she wasn't
even able to have a checkingaccount of her own or buy property
or buy a car or rent anapartment, you know, until like 1974
on her own. Because. Becauseof that. And it's difficult when

(49:02):
you have three kids to try to,you know, go out. And your limitations
on that glass ceiling weresecretary or a server or, you know,
there were. There were limitedoptions on what you could do with
life. So coming on, coming upfrom. With that environment and watching
my mother struggle, watch.Watching us struggle as kids because

(49:25):
of that and how it kind ofrolled downhill. It allowed. That's
why I became a police officer,actually, because I felt that there
was others out there that Icould protect and serve in regard
to the same things that I wasexperiencing when I grew up. But
yes, I think that we as humanbeings need to have more compassion,

(49:48):
humanity and understanding forwhat people are wanting or needing
within our lives. And that weare all the same. We all breathe,
we all bleed, we all cry, weall fear. It doesn't matter what
color you are, what age youare, what religion you are. It doesn't

(50:09):
matter because you all do thesame thing and that we should be
there for each other.
It's really strange because Ikind of think there is like a collective
unconsciousness idea, right?Because I think we plug into things
like the fact that I wrotethese books Before a lot of this

(50:31):
stuff started happening again,and that just happened. And this,
like, kind of weird thingslike that happened to me a lot. Like
when I was writing FanningFireflies, the character that I wrote,
his name is Laszlo Fox. That'sthe African American soldier. And
I wrote the story. I'm notgoing to give too much spoilers,

(50:51):
but he ends up being deployedto France, goes to a bunch of cities.
What I do when I write is Iput. I write it, and then I go back
and check the detailsmeticulously at the end. Because
once again, recovering lawyer,you know, if there's a menu item
that says that she had asandwich, I need to know actually
what that sandwich cost in1944. So I'm that person. But I started

(51:13):
looking at the character ofLaszlo was. He's somebody who had
wanted to be part of theBuffalo Soldiers unit because that
tracks back to theRevolutionary War. It was the black
soldiers who fought againstthe Indian. And he, you know, he
had the sense of pride aboutthat. And he. His parents were. His
mother was native, his fatherwas black, and so he has these beliefs.

(51:37):
So I did all this. And then atthe end when I'm checking this stuff
and I had the way all thestuff that happened to him, I won't
say, but turns out there wasactually a soldier whose last name
was Fox who was with theBuffalo Soldiers, who. That unit
and who had almost those samethings happen.

(51:59):
Wow.
Not the first name. Right. I'dnever seen this, but it's like you
feel like there's somebodyover your shoulder whispering in
your ear, this is what I. Thisis what's going on. We. I wrote this
book, Kyle. And like, I thinklike a year after I wrote it, my

(52:21):
kids comes bouncing into my.My room and goes, hey, mom, there's
a kid named Kayo in my musicclass. And I was like, really? He
was like, yeah. And sureenough, he was Brazilian. And long
story with this person, but wegot involved in his life in a really
positive way. And so he. He.He's not basically a member of the

(52:42):
family. So this stuff kind ofart and life kind of does this. Right?
You know, it's. They influenceeach other, and they feed off each
other if you let them. Right.You can turn away from stuff you
can not notice, but if younotice, life gets so much more interesting.

(53:05):
Absolutely. It's just. We gotto open our eyes, open our ears,
and pay attention. I mean,that. It's kind of that simple, really.
It's a simple, simple, simpleanswer that's Pretty cool the way
that all that kind of felltogether like that. Especially both
of those incidences within thesame realm of the books that you're

(53:25):
creating. Not just that theytook place, but within that same
kind of arena, which I thinkis pretty cool.
Exactly. And one of the thingsI find fascinating, and I'm exploring
in this books as well, is thisnotion of biocentrism. Right. That
consciousness does not createus. We create consciousness, we create
reality. It doesn't create us.And I'm fascinated by that concept.

(53:48):
Concept from both. We couldtalk for hours about. I could talk
to you about, like, the wholedouble slit experiment and how, you
know, philosophical that is.And. But there's so much to the world
behind the things that we see.If we're just going about our everyday
and not looking right.
Deeper. And it's not theMatrix. Yeah.

(54:11):
Yep, yep. Please let it not bethat it's.
Where are you? Ring calls.It's a different kind of matrix,
we'll put it that way. It's adifferent kind of connection. The
universal connection of spiritthroughout the world. I guess our
energy from. Yeah, that'sanother conversation we just have
to grab. Amazing thing thatyou've learned about people from

(54:33):
traveling around the worldbecause you obviously are picking
everything for your writing.You're putting life into your books.
So I didn't miss the. I missedthe first part of the question because
it blurbed what is the most.
See if I can remember it now.What's the most interesting thing

(54:56):
that you've learned frompeople across the world that you
may have brought to your booksor to your writing?
I think just that thing thatwe're all very much the same, but
also probably that people arealways a lot more interesting than
you think they are. I tend tobe somebody who's interested in other

(55:22):
people and interested in otherpeople's stories. And people realize
that when I'm talking to themand so they tend to tell me their
stories. And so if I sit onthe Eurostar with somebody when I'm
going to London from Paris,I'll know that person's life by the
time I get off the Eurostar.And. And it's always interesting.
It's never boring. You know,people don't live boring, ordinary

(55:44):
lives. No one leads a boring,ordinary life. Right. It's. There's
always these kind of amazingmoments, even if it's only moments,
but usually, like, amazingthings about the people. Amazing
connections that you can makein your head to their life versus
other things that you know,versus this creation of how you see

(56:07):
life. I think one of the bestgifts that my mother particularly
gave me was a sense ofcuriosity. I'm endlessly curious,
which is a good thing,particularly if you're writing.
Yeah, we have that in common.I think that we should always be
curious in life and always beasking a question and always seeking

(56:29):
answers. It makes lifeinteresting and you can learn so
much more.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
I could do this for a wholenother hour, Lexi, I really could.
But our time is coming to a close.
Oh, no.
Where can someone find yourbooks and more about you?

(56:51):
So I have a website. It is. Iwrite under the name LS DeLorme,
so it's www.lsdelorum.com. I'malso all over Instagram, so it's
lsdalorum at Instagram, atTwitter, it's Lexishaw DeLorme at
TikTok. So I'm very easy tofind. I'm. I'm usually if you put

(57:12):
Lexi Delorme, I'm the firstone that comes up on Google, so I'm
pretty easy to find. And I'malso very active on, particularly
on Instagram. If you ask me aquestion, I'll.
Answer and I'll make sure allthat's in the show notes and it'll
be on the web page that'sbuilt for our episode in particular.
So they can just click thebutton. It'll take them right to
you, which will make itconvenient for them. Excellent. This,

(57:37):
this has been like afantastic. But this is one more thing
before you go. So before wego, do you have any words of wisdom
for any new writer out thereor someone struggling to become one?
Yes, actually, I do. If youare a writer, particularly if you
are writing yourself, youhaven't been picked up by a publisher
or something. The best thing Ican tell you is that you need to

(57:57):
think of yourself as astartup, because that's what you
are. You're a startupbusiness. And so your first book
is not going to make youmillions. You're not going to see
a profit on anything you dofor five years. This is the rule
of startups. And luckily I'vedone startups and after that five
year period, you start seeingit. So don't put the pressure on

(58:17):
yourself. Yourself when you'refirst doing it, you don't think you're
going anywhere. It takes time.
Brilliant words of wisdom. Ithink we should take heed to that.
Lexi, thank you very much forsharing your journey.
Thank you for having me.
Your wisdom, your experience.Please keep writing, keep inspiring.
Thank you keep us motivated,keep us, you know, I think you allow

(58:40):
us to step into other worldsthrough your words and your imagination.
So thank you.
Thank you so much. That's verygenerous of you.
Absolutely. And I'll make surethey have everything in the show.
Notes. Like I said, somebodycan just click and can get it right
to you. So thank you for beingpart of the show.
Thank you.

(59:01):
When you listen to a life likeLexie's, you're reminded that identity
isn't a straight line. It's amosaic built from every place we've
lived, every chapter we'vesurvived, every version of. Of ourselves
we've dared to become.Reinvention isn't a risk. It's a
rhythm. That's a wrap fortoday's episode. I hope you found
this inspiration, motivationand a few new perspectives to take

(59:22):
with you. If you enjoyed thisconversation, be sure to, like, subscribe
and follow us. Stay connected.You can find us on Apple, Spotify
or your favorite listeningplatform, YouTube, and catch the
full video version. I'mMichael Hurst. Have a great day.
Have a great, great week andthank you for being part of our community.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of One More Thing. Before

(59:43):
you go, check out [e-mail] you
can find us as well assubscribe to the program and rate
us on your favorite podcastlistening platform.