This episode wraps up my series featuring the 2024 Canadian Book Club Award winners. I sit down with two children’s book authors, a YA author, and an anthology author for a wide-ranging conversation about cats, creativity, and the power of books to make us feel less alone. I also share the origin story of the Red Fern Book Review name and discover how early reading experiences sparked a lifelong love of storytelling in each of us.
Books discussed:
awfully hilarious: period pieces by Heather Hendrie
The Quiet Limit by Trista Lundquist
My S's Are Messes by Sherry McMillan
Secrets of the Under-Under World: Water by P.S. Whatever
About The Canadian Book Club Awards:
- Canada's largest reader's choice awards
- Open to all authors, regardless of publishing type (self published, hybrid, traditional)
- Readers just want good books!
- Submissions for the 2025 awards are open
- Sign up to be a verified reader and help select 2025 finalists books
Follow Heather:
Website: https://awfullyhilarious.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awfullyhilarious
Follow Trista:
Website: https://www.tristalundquist.ca/#/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/by.tristalundquist/
Follow Sherry:
Website: https://sherrymcmillan.ca/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sherry_mcmillan_writes/
Follow P.S. Whatever:
Website: https://www.underunderworld.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/underunderworldbooks/?hl=en
Follow Red Fern Book Review:
Website and to leave a voicemail: https://www.redfernbookreview.com
Instagram: @redfernbookreview
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redfernbookreview/
Newsletter: https://www.redfernbookreview.com/newsletter
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Um, and then, of course, I have to have a cat,
(00:01):
because every kid's book needs acat, in my opinion. So that's,
oh, yeah, like a
Amy Tyler (00:06):
cozy mystery. You need it, you know? Do you know
you have to have a cat? Do youknow that actually there to be
considered a cozy mystery?
Apparently, you have to have acat
Unknown (00:13):
in it. But I fully support that.
That's so funny, because mysequel, I actually introduced a
cat who becomes a very belovedmain character, almost because
things were feeling so dark. Iwas like, We need a cat in this
so I totally understand whereyou're coming. I
have no cat. Oh, no, there isone in my SSMS. There is,
there's, it's hiding in there.
(00:35):
They always sneak in there. Yes,yeah.
Cat in our call it's necessary.
Oh, true. That's so funny. Mineis downstairs, so yeah, you
Amy Tyler (01:18):
Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I
am your host, Amy Tyler, andtoday I'm doing third in a
series of podcasts. I've beensponsored by the Canadian book
club awards, and I've been overthe summer, interviewing groups
(01:39):
of authors that are recent awardrecipients for the Canadian book
club awards, and today I'm goingto be talking with four writers.
Three have written for children,and one has written an
anthology, and we're going tohave a really it's a really good
(01:59):
discussion. I think you'll enjoyit. So first, I want to start by
giving you an overview on theCanadian book club awards. They
are Canada's largest ReadersChoice Awards, and the awards
are open to all authors,regardless of publishing type.
You can be self published ortraditionally published, or kind
of a combination of the two. Andthe thought behind it is just
(02:23):
readers want good books, andalso to look at books that might
have more popular impact.
Submissions for the 2025 awardsare open still, and I'm going to
provide a link in the show notesif you want to submit your book.
And then the interesting thingabout these books or these
awards is that you don't have tobe Canadian to be considered for
(02:47):
award, but what makes themCanadian is that it's a Reader's
Choice Award, and all thereaders are Canadian. And so if
you want to sign up and be averified reader, you can do
that. And I'm also going to sendyou a link for that in the show
notes. So today I want to talkto you about the four writers
that I'm going to talk with. Sothe first writer that's included
(03:11):
in this discussion is HeatherHendry, and she's she won for
anthology or short story withher book titled awfully
hilarious period pieces, and shewrote she actually has already
won a Canadian Book Club Award.
(03:31):
I believe it was her last year,and it was also an awfully
hilarious series, but this onejust focuses specifically a
menstruation, and she includesserious discussion, funny
discussion, everywhere inbetween. She has people old, and
(03:55):
she's got a little writing froman 11 year old talking about
hoping to get her period. So itreally opens up discussion.
Takes kind of shame away, andshe'll tell you more about that
when I talk with her. Thenthere's Sherry McMillan, who's
written a children's book calledMy S's are messes. This is a
(04:18):
self published book, and what'sreally fun about it is she
partnered with a dear friend ofhers, a dear friend of hers did
illustrations, and you'll findout that she's writing about
learning to speak, learning toread, and she has her she's had
her own challenges with thatover the years, and so she'll
share it. And that's kind of thegenesis of, I think why she
(04:41):
wrote this book, and in theearly readers category, we have
PS, whatever. So she's got aclever pen name. Her first name
is Pam, so you'll hear me colorthat in our discussion. But
she's written a book for preteens called Secrets of the.
Underworld water, and it's amodern Alice in Wonderland
(05:06):
story. It's the tale of a girlwho must face wolves, battle
giants and stop an evil plant toplot to steal the world's water.
And then in the young adultcategory, we have Trista
Lundquist with the quiet limit,and she's written a young adult
(05:26):
dystopian novel, although Ithink she'll explain how she
might dispute thatcategorization, but it's about a
society where everybody knowsthe year of their death. And the
main character of this book layis a teenage girl who knows that
(05:47):
she's to die when she's 18, andthat's very young in a society
where people are living to wellover 100 and so she feels
sidelined. And so when her 18thbirthday rolls around, she's
still alive, and she knows thatshe's living on borrowed time.
And that's kind of where westart and and we go from there.
(06:10):
So four different authors, fourdifferent kind of categories,
and let's move over and talkwith the authors now. Hi
Heather, Sherry, Pam, aka PS,which is your pen name, and
Trista. Welcome to the podcast Iwanted to start. In fact, I sent
(06:31):
you guys all some questionsyesterday, but then I woke up
first thing in the morning, aswriters and readers tend to do,
and I had something I just knewI had to include. And one of the
things I wanted to talk about,I've grouped all the people, all
the award winners, together,tried to put some categories
together. And all of you haveeither written for children, or,
(06:55):
in Heather's case, it youinclude children. You can
explain more about that when Italk with you, but I just wanted
to share, first off, how muchchildren's books mean to me
personally. And then I wanted toask you a little bit about your
history with children's books.
And when I started this podcastseveral years ago, I wanted the
name to reflect somethingmeaningful. I just didn't want
(07:19):
it to say I didn't want it to begeneric, and I ended up naming
it after my favorite children'sbook, which is where it's
called, Where the Red FernGrows. And it's interesting.
Have I read better books since?
Yes, but I don't think I've everhad a book impact me the way
(07:39):
that book did, and thebackground is, I'm American, and
it's a very American book. It'sactually, I believe can be
taught in the school system, andI have older sisters, and it was
on a shelf, and I grabbed it,and I was an early reader, but
this was the first time a bookjust grabbed me, and I remember
(08:00):
sitting like in a little nook inmy house. I couldn't put it
down. That's the first time thathad happened. It was probably
eight or nine, and then I didn'tit was about a boy in the Ozarks
and his two hunting dogs, and Iwasn't drawn to the material,
but I couldn't put it down. Andthen I started crying, and I
couldn't stop. And so I think itjust kind of set me on this path
(08:24):
to reading and writing and justthe importance of capturing
those early readers. So with mylittle spiel there, I wanted to
just first of all, has anyoneread that book and did you have
a What did you think about it?
Did you, am I over like, didyou, were you impacted by that
book too? Or is that just so
Unknown (08:42):
funny? Sherry and I are both cheering, cheering as soon
as you said that it that was oneof my most impactful, moving
books. And for me, it was thesubject matter. I was really
connected to animals at thatstage of my life, and the
connection to the coon dogsreally, really spoke to me, but
there was so much more in there.
So Sherry, I'm curious about youtoo. That's funny,
(09:03):
right? So, yeah, it's funnybecause if you know the book,
you do have an emotionalresponse and Amy when I first
learned about you and I learnedwhat your podcast was called, I
like, had that, you know, heartstop of it took me right back to
that book. And what, you know, Iwon't do the spoiler alert, but
Where the Red Fern froze is,it's a very touching part of the
story, and I think you can spoilit, it's okay. It's been around
(09:24):
for a while, right? Yeah. So itdefinitely shows the impact of a
book. And like you say, it mightnot be the thing that you would
hold up as the best literaturein the world, but it doesn't
have to be, to be touching thehuman experience and the the way
that we grow and the way that welearn together, and the way that
(09:45):
those experiences are in someways universal, the more unique
they are. So this very specificstory then touches us all in
this very universal experienceof losing effect,
I think it's also just as yousay that Sherry, for me, what.
One of my first I've beenfortunate enough that that was
one of my first experiences andconversations with death, and
(10:06):
the way that it was held in thatbook, I think was just really,
you know, that's a really tabootopic. This is where what I do
in my work, but very taboo. So Ijust felt like it was held in a
really gentle, sacred way thatreally, really impacted me
right,and respecting children and
acknowledging all of theirfeelings and giving a space for
grief really important, yes?
Amy Tyler (10:30):
Well, okay, I'm glad I'm not alone. That that's
that's good to know. And so withthat, my very first question, I
want to go around and ask eachof you, what children's book do
you remember it can be, youknow, an early reader, a young
adult book really spoke to youas a child, and why? And I'm
(10:50):
gonna start with Pam. Okay,cool.
Unknown (10:53):
Thanks for me. It was Emily of New Moon by Ellen
Montgomery, written in 1923 over100 years ago, but still very
relevant, I think, and about astory about loss and grief and
also fitting into a newenvironment. And those are
themes that you very much pulledover into, echoed in my own
books. And then, of course,Emily also wants to be a writer,
(11:16):
and that definitely stuck withme at a young age. So yes, those
are around the time I wanted tohave a pen name, which I finally
got, yay. So yes,what about you? Trista mine, I'm
going to stick with young adult,because that's the genre I wrote
in as well. Is the giver by LoisLowry, which huge inspiration
for my book as well. So it kindof works nicely. And just to
(11:38):
echo your conversation you werehaving about those first books.
I think what makes children'sand, you know, young adult books
so important is it's where webecome readers. It's those first
few books where we reallyconnect with and that's what
start us, starts us on thatjourney. So I think that's why
they become so powerful and suchlike memorable pieces of us.
Amy Tyler (12:00):
And what about you?
Heather,
Unknown (12:03):
Chris, I really love that. This just makes me want to
go pick up all these booksagain. But I actually chose
something that I read as a youngchild in illustrated children's
story called The Big Orangesplot. And we've continued to
try and get copies of this formy nephew and nieces. It's
harder and harder to find, butthe reason being, it was a story
of a seagull flew over thisperfectly neat Street and
(12:24):
dropped a can of orange paint ontop of one of the perfectly neat
homes, and overnight, Mr. Plumbean began to transition his
home to make it reflect who hewas. And he got a lot of
pushback, but over time,everyone else along the street
made their homes outwardlyappear as they were inwardly,
and they reflect their dreams.
Oh, my cats here. Sorry, that'sokay. In essence, it really
(12:46):
speaks to that idea of being whoyou are and being able to
express who you are, even in theface of, you know, if conformity
or a particular other way ofbeing is suggested what it takes
to become who you are, and thenthe joy inherent in that. So
it's a really, it's beautiful.
The illustrations are gorgeousand colorful, and I try to read
(13:07):
it several times a year.
Amy Tyler (13:08):
There's Heather's cat. What's your cat's name?
Unknown (13:12):
That's Chanda, distinguished from his brother,
Timmy. Oh, and Sherry. You'reholding up where the wild things
areas well. Oh, yes, right, if I if
I may, yes. So my absolutefavorite is where the wild
things are. My mother is afantastic reader, and she would
do all the different voices. Butthinking about this, I realized
there's, like, a reallyimportant part of this book that
we don't talk about enough, Ithink, is that, like the match
(13:35):
is in trouble, and so there'sthis universal experience of
being sent to your room, whichmaybe isn't so universal
anymore, but this idea that youknow you're in trouble, but it's
okay. And Max had such amassively wild imagination, and
so do i to the point that thething that I got in trouble for
all the time as a child waslying, because I truly did not
(13:56):
know the difference between theimaginary world and the real
world. And there was a point inmy life where that was very
confusing for me. And I canremember being about grade one
or two and figuring out what thegrown ups meant when they said I
was lying, because to me, it wasjust as real. And being an
author now I'm like, Oh, that'ssuch a gift, but I didn't see it
as such as a child, I was introuble like Max, and I was very
(14:17):
glad for my imaginary friends
Amy Tyler (14:22):
and I loved in the Night Kitchen. That was another,
that was another, really goodone. You know, that makes me
actually want to jump, then to aquestion for those of you who
have illustrations in your book,because I feel that Where the
Wild Things Are, theillustrations are easily, maybe
why it's endured so much. And soI wanted to talk with Pam about
(14:50):
so you actually illustrated yourown book. And could you talk
about that and sort of the rolethat illustrations play? And
kind of your your goals for yourillustrations and how they work
with your text?
Unknown (15:05):
Yeah, absolutely, because it wasn't an obvious
decision, because I'm not aprofessional illustrator, but
that was kind of the point forme, because you described my
illustrations as beingenergetic, which I think they
are, but I would also use theword imperfect, and there is a
very serious subtext of an antiperfection messaging throughout
my books, and I wanted itreflected in my illustrations as
(15:27):
well. My characters are far fromperfect. They're often really
vulnerable. They're afraid. Theydon't know if they're going to
be successful, but it's only bytrying that they find out what
they're able to accomplish. AndI think in this world, the
social media world, wherethere's so much pressure to show
your shiniest self and to bejust like everybody else, I
think the importance of beingvulnerable is greater than ever.
(15:50):
So what I did is I deliberatelycreated pretty simple
illustrations and kind ofchildlike but then I also worked
with a very talented graphicdesigner who designed my book
and also wrapped some magicaround it. So I think the
combination of my very imperfectillustrations and his
(16:11):
professionalism, I think, is apretty unique kind of final
product. So that's why I did it.
Amy Tyler (16:18):
And Sherry, can you explain with your illustrations,
what that works is people not inthe business may not understand,
and I know it's unique everytime, but sometimes, and I don't
know what the case was in yourcase, but sometimes you don't
even know who the illustratoris, and you get paired with
them, what, what was thatcollaboration like for you? And
(16:39):
explain the role thatillustrations played in your
book,
Unknown (16:43):
right? So when I first knew I was going to be
published, I was pretty naive,and I reached out to my
childhood friends, who's anaward winning artist, and asked
her if maybe she'd want to workwith me. And it's a longer story
than that, but oh my goodness,what a collaboration it's been,
and we're both so grateful. Andthe reason I say it was naive.
It's I did not know that justbecause he could put oil to
Canvas, then it didn'tnecessarily translate to being
(17:06):
an illustrator, and she's justan amazing illustrator, and it's
been such a wonderful thing towork together when we wrote, or
when I wrote my essays aremesses, and we started
storyboarding it. It was reallyinteresting, because the story
is told in first person, but itreally reflects any any type of
speech challenge. So you're sixwords in before, you know, it's
(17:27):
not just about essence or justabout listening. And so we have
all these different characters.
My illustrator, Carla at first,started with a beautiful
illustration of me as a childthat I just love, you know, my
red curly hair and freckles andeverything. She assumed I was
going to be the main character,and then we had to pull away and
say, How are we going to dothis? I wanted every single
illustration to be a wordpicture of what it's like to
(17:50):
have a speech difference. So wehave tug of war, we have hide
and seek. We have jumpinghurdles. It's amazing how she
brought them to life, and how wesolve the problem of who is our
character was, of course, theletters are the characters in
the book. The children are doingeverything right, and the sounds
are misbehaving and making a bigmess, and they learn how to work
(18:11):
together. So the lettersrepresent the sounds. And I work
with speech language pathologistto work on like sound
combinations and things, andthey're really vibrant and
energetic and mischievous, andthey pop on the page, and then
the people, mostly children, areall in silhouettes, so that
regardless of your age or genderor race, you're going to be able
(18:33):
to see yourself in thatillustration.
Amy Tyler (18:38):
That's really cool.
That's amazing that you got towork with a friend, because then
that just plus, that's just fun.
It's just a okay. So I wanted toask a question for all of you.
You've all written for differentage groups, essentially, and I
want to know what each of youhad to take into consideration
(18:59):
in order for it to beunderstood, palatable, not too
much for the for the age thatyou were going for. So Heather,
I want to start with you. Yoursis kind of you can explain, are
you? You're not just forchildren. Are you, but you're
for explain, who? Who's supposedto be reading your
Unknown (19:17):
book? No, this is really good timing, because I
was just on holidays with withfamily, and my 11 year old niece
picked up my book and said, CanI read this? And I said,
Actually, no, there's one storyin there I could read to you.
But the awfully hilarious seriesis really specifically designed
to tackle taboos and the firsttwo, the first being about
online dating disasters, and thesecond one being about
(19:38):
menstruation, menopause. Firstperiods is actually specifically
designed for folks in their 30sand beyond, or even 20s and
beyond, really, although we'vegot a couple of very young
writers and awfully hilariousperiod pieces. The first story
is, I love that. I love it.
Thanks. Yeah. The first is a,it's a poem by a young woman
named Yale, and it's called. Iwant my period, god damn it, and
(20:00):
she's 11 on the verge of gettingher period. But what we're
really trying to and then it'sfollowed by a 13 year old and
the story of her first period.
But what we're really trying toaddress is the stigma around
menstruation, and so I reallyspecifically didn't want my
nieces reading stories wherethere is inherent stigma already
there. So it's much more forthose of us who have lived that
(20:21):
and then are trying to reallyfind a new way in a reframe
around really what has been atraumatic experience for many
people because it's beensidelined by society. So it's
interesting though, because it'sI'm just so happy you're asking
this question and that I'm herein this company, because as soon
as my niece Lily picked up thatbook, I thought I really want to
(20:42):
pull together an awfullyhilarious collection for young
adults and for children that'sgeared at to support them where
they are. So for example, ourwhole mission with the project
is to help people feel lessalone in their difficult or
embarrassing or stigmatizedmoments, so as to shift the
narrative, but also to supportthe individual. This also comes
from my my day job, where I workas a clinical counselor. But one
(21:03):
of the I was really thinking,how fun would it be to have one
where we've got youth speakingabout their experiences
Bedwetting, and you get to talkabout experiences that, at the
time feel may be scary or hard,but that we can all say, Hey,
I'm doing that too, and I didthat too, and together, it
doesn't need to be so hard, andwe could, maybe this could even
be a bit funny in the end. So mystories till now have not been
(21:25):
written for children, but that'san area I've really looked
forward to exploring, maybe withsome of you here.
Amy Tyler (21:30):
Okay? And Tristan, what about you? Talk about YA
novels and the other thing, whenyou do, I know, I don't know how
new this is, but a lot of adultslike reading YA as well. Yeah, I
do. So talk about that as well,because you're not just, I
assume you're writing, you'rehoping they're going to want it
(21:51):
to read it too. But what aresome of the ingredients that you
that differentiate your genrefrom, say, an adult novel? Well,
adult novel that has a wrongconnotation. But like, you know
what I mean?
Unknown (22:03):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of people
define ya wrong. I think a lotof people think of YA and they
inherently think of somethingfor lack of better terms, dumbed
down, easier to read, easier todigest. And I don't think ya is
that at all. I think it's thethemes. And so I think when I
started writing the quiet limitit I never set out to say, I'm
going to write a young adultbook. It's just the themes that
(22:26):
we're starting to grow with thenovel that made it young adult,
those poignant, the trying tofind ourselves, trying to find
where we fit in. And I think thething is, is as adults, we start
to realize we're always tryingto find ourselves and always
trying to find when we fit in,which is why I think a lot of
adults still like those youngadult novels, is because we it
(22:46):
brings us back kind of to thistime where we were trying to
figure it all out and thinkingwe were and we're not. So I
think something I kept in mindwhen I was writing is I, I wrote
it as an adult novel, but withthose themes, of course, it's
appropriate for you know,teenagers to read, but I never
thought to make the languagefeel cheaper or make it feel
(23:11):
less important. And that's why Ieven, like my mother in law,
read it for her book club with abunch of 70 year old ladies, and
they all loved it, and I got tochat with them. So it's nice to
see that, you know, oldergenerations are still looking
back to young adults and seeingthe importance and the value in
it.
Amy Tyler (23:31):
That's interesting.
Well, I think my kids have leftthe house, and I have a lot of
changes in my life, so I think Ineed to be picking up someone
reading, because I'm currentlyreinventing myself. Okay, Pam,
what about you talk about, talkabout some things you took into
consideration? Sure, well,
Unknown (23:50):
I write for tweens, which is, I think, a very
interesting age group, becausethey're not little kids anymore,
and they're not teenagers, sothey don't yet have as much of
the attitude that can be part ofthe teenager. And when you're
writing for this group, you alsodon't get into some of the
edgier topics, like you don'tget into sex and drugs and
things as much you're they'rejust on the cusp of some of
those things. So what I think ismost important in in writing for
(24:14):
this group is not to talk downto them, though, and and
definitely not to be preachy aswell, because this this group of
kids, particularly now they knowa lot, and they can engage with
very sophisticated ideas. So Ithink it's very important to
talk to them as you would talkto anybody else, and I also
don't dumb down my language.
Having said that, I work with atop notch New York editor,
(24:36):
actually, who's been fabulous,wonderful collaboration, and she
pulls me back sometimes, this isokay, hold on, kids, voice,
you're getting a little bit toocomplicated here. So that's
really helpful, but, but ingeneral, it is about, you know,
about, you know, beingrespectful and and there, it's
a, it's an age where people arevery kids are very idea driven,
and they get very excited. Andthat's what's exciting about.
(24:58):
Writing for them. It's alsoreally important to keep the
story going, however, andsomebody mentioned as well, you
know that, you know, there'sdifferences, there's boys and
girls, there's, you know,bookworms, as I was this kid,
there's kids that reallystruggle with reading,
particularly after covid, right?
So you've got to kind of keepthe story going and keep the
story moving. So it's a bit of abalancing act. I also, in some
(25:22):
cases, I know that parents ofyounger kids have read my books
to them, so there is an adultaudience as well, as well as
some of my friends who are justlooking for escape and want to
go back to childhood, which Ithink is a really nice place to
be. So yeah, that's my story.
Amy Tyler (25:37):
That's interesting.
It's true like I would pickbooks that I personally wanted
to read when I was reading to mykids, so that makes unless they
I remember one of my boys wasinto that. He was an early
reader, but I couldn't get himout of that. What is it? Captain
Underpants. It kind of drove mecrazy. But yeah, he loved it, so
I read it. Okay. What about you?
(25:59):
Sherry?
Unknown (26:01):
Right. Right. So first of all, writing for children is
hard and there's so much toconsider. So some of the
mechanics I consider is, youknow, is it at their reading
level? I write poetry, so I'mvery disciplined about keeping
the cadence and the rhythmconsistent. Like everyone said,
(26:23):
basically, we don't want tominimize or water down. So I
will always add in some wordsthat are like a stretch to the
vocabulary. And actually, I loveit when grown ups read my book
and say, Oh, I'm gonna have tolook that one up, right? And so
I like that actually, forempathy building too, but you
have to be careful that it's nottoo abstract, so and it's got to
(26:45):
fit within a small amount ofwords I always publish with
large, high contrast, dyslexicfriendly font, and that's good
for everybody, so universaldesign, but that means that I'm
being inclusive for persons thathave dyslexia or low vision,
which is sometimes thegrandparents, right? So there's
lots of considerations, butmostly what I'm considering is
(27:07):
that I wanted to write the bookthat I wanted to read as a
child, so I really tapped intomy inner child, and that meant
sometimes, like actually havingto kind of stand for a point of
view that wasn't the obviousone, and I would have to work
with, say, my editor or my whenI was consulting the speech
(27:29):
language pathologist and otherexperts, and really just come
back to that as my North Star.
So the most important thing wasthat the children knew that they
were not alone, that weacknowledge that they're working
hard, that there's lots ofdifferent ways to communicate,
and then reflecting my livedexperience in that, which is not
just for my childhood. It's likeI'm in that 5% that has speech
(27:50):
challenges for my entire life.
So I can very easily tap intothat and go, actually, this is
what I want to say, and it'sreally important that children
hear this at the age they're at.
They're not too young. So even,for example, my essays are
message, I knew that was theright title. And sometimes
(28:11):
people would say, like, ooh,like, are you, you know, is that
critical? I'm like, No, it's notme. It's my essence. And I know
they're a mess. Like, this isactually not a problem. The
thing that is a problem ispeople being impatient or being
interrupted. So let's talk aboutthat instead.
Amy Tyler (28:27):
Okay, so I want to jump around a little bit and go
a little deeper into content.
And this question is for PAM andTrista, and I wanted to talk
about fear, which is present inboth of your books, and it
drives the narrative, and itkeeps you know readers on the
edge of your seat. But there's abalance, maybe for a younger
reader, and now Tristan is maybegonna tell me there isn't, but
(28:48):
after we had the earlierdiscussion. So let's try. So
let's I'll start with you. Howdo you find that balance, and
what do you keep in mind whenyou're addressing danger and
your readers,
Unknown (29:02):
I think, for me, so there is a lot of fear, and it
does drive my novel, but there'salso a lot of hope, and I think
that's the balance, right? Andso at the beginning, our main
character doesn't really have alot of hope. She's kind of at
the end and thinks this is it,and she's resigned herself to
what's going to happen to her,and then she starts to see these
(29:22):
little glimmers of hope, andthey grow as the story goes. And
so as the fear grows, the hopegrows. And in addition to that,
she has a very strong supportsystem. She's a great family,
she has great friends, and soshe's not alone. I think a story
can become really dark reallyquickly if you don't give your
character some sort of support.
And while, you know, a lot of uslike a really dark story, there
(29:42):
needs to be that hope, thereneeds to be that glimmer, you
know, to want make you want tokeep reading. So I think for me,
that was that big thing, wasbalancing the fear with
Amy Tyler (29:53):
that's a good that's a good answer. Okay, Pam, what
about you? Yeah,
Unknown (29:57):
well, I had because mine are for young. Your
audience. I did have readersread them in the age group in
advance before I published, toget to gage that reaction,
because I wanted to have a senseof that. But much like just it's
it's a question of going alittle bit fearful and then
pulling back, and then and then,as you go through the novel, you
know the fear amps up, but sodoes their so does their
(30:20):
resilience, because they'veconquered the obstacles before,
and they have a little bit morecourage, a little bit more
capacity. And then I think oneof the most important things for
me is the ending, making surethat there's a lot of really a
big warm blanket in the end,that it's a whole lot of really
positive messaging. And it endson a very high note, as an adult
(30:42):
reader, I like ambiguousendings, but I don't
particularly like them for kids,because I think they want to
know that things do end up well,that things do get get tied up.
Well, I I actually my book isthe first one in a series, so I
also leave the door open forother adventures and other kinds
of fear, and that does tend tokind of escalate throughout the
series as well, but so do mycharacters. They grow and they
(31:06):
they grow more confident,stronger and more capable. I
also have to say that I don'thave anything gory in my books,
like there's nothing reallyawful that's going to give them
nightmares at three in themorning, because I'm not a big
fan of gore, so that's myanswer.
Amy Tyler (31:19):
Yeah. Okay. Okay, now I want to ask a question about
motivation, and this is forHeather and Sherry. And you both
touched on this a bit, but Iknow that both of you were
motivated to write your booksbased on some personal
experiences, and so whether itwas health or, in Sherry's case,
language, so I was wondering,Heather, if you could kind of
(31:42):
elaborate a little bit on someof the health issues that led
you to create your book. Yeah,
Unknown (31:47):
absolutely. And it's really interesting, actually.
PS, I'm going to follow up onwhat you're just saying that
there is no Gore in your books,and I really love that. And just
also listening to ourconversation today, as a
therapist, I'm so aware thatbooks aren't therapy, but how
incredibly therapeutic they canbe, like Tris as you're speaking
about making sure that thecharacter has company and
there's a warm blanket thatwe're really resourcing the
(32:07):
reader as they're you know,we're not handing them something
that they're incapable ofmanaging. And that's where the
title of our series actuallycame from. It's funny. I'll go
back to your real name, Pam, butthat you said there's nothing
awful in there. But our bookswere deliberately called awfully
hilarious, because a lot of theevents that have happened to
people were quite awful at thetime, and then with time and
(32:28):
support and the resources ofcommunity and humor and
connection, they can start tobecome funny over time. But I
mean, really, where the wholeseries started with the first
book, awfully hilarious storieswe never tell happened because I
went on a terrible date. It wasit was laughable what happened,
but I came off this date justsobbing. I called up one of my
best friends, and she said, Youwouldn't believe the date I just
(32:50):
got home from. We could write abook. No sooner were the words
out that we started, we weregoing to just staple these pages
together and put them in littlefree libraries everywhere, sign
it from the tynder Elas andsupport all the people having,
oh god, I love that. But then,because that, it worked so well,
and it ended up becoming a bestseller, and people really picked
(33:11):
up on it. I realized it was away a book like this was a way
to share an important story, andthat's when we landed on one
around menstruation, becauseit's been such a deeply
stigmatized subject, and I'mactually in the midst, right
now, writing a memoir about thehealth condition that drove me
to focus on menstruation, thatbeing something called
premenstrual dysphoric disorder,which is a really dangerous and
(33:32):
often missed health condition.
And interestingly, of thestories submitted to awfully
hilarious period pieces, whichwas the second book, half of the
contributors have premenstrualdysphoric disorder, or what's
called PMDD. So it I realizedthat writing and reading can
also a space of healing, butalso advocacy. And using humor
like you would say, with thefriend to your character, Tris,
(33:55):
or with ups with the blanket, weare using humor to titrate the
challenging experience tosupport it such that the reader
doesn't have to do the extrawork the writers, we as writers,
have done that work to hold thereader in their experience, if
that makes sense. So yes, itgrew from a lot of health
conditions. Our next one hasnothing to do with that. It's
called awfully hilarious pillowtalk, and it's focused on sex,
(34:17):
intimacy, pleasure, desire. Sodefinitely not for kids, not a
children's book.
Amy Tyler (34:26):
Sherry, what about you?
Unknown (34:28):
Well, the first published work I have is called
what the seal saw, and I knewthat that was the right title
for the book. And yet I laughedright away. And I thought, What
have I done? My S's or Ness I'vebeen avoiding s my entire life.
McMillan is neither my birthname nor my married name, but it
has no S's in it, right? And Ikind of tuck that in my back
(34:51):
pocket of Well, that's aninteresting thought. But then
when I was off and running andinto sales and marketing of the
book, and I'd be at a bench andup. Markets and things, what
would happen is I would end upsaying things to people like,
bear with me. I'm really tired.
I'm starting to stutter, or I'msorry, can you repeat yourself?
It's really noisy environment.
I'm having trouble hearing you.
And along the way, I realizedthat my life, before I became a
(35:14):
full time author, was I worked36 years in tech. As a child, I
was really bullied for my speechchallenges, and then I as I
wasn't even 20 before I had myfirst salary job in it. So I'm
in a man's world. I'm veryshort. I've got to chubby
cheeks. I was also always likeagainst stereotype. I didn't
want to add in any speechchallenges to it, and so, like,
(35:36):
I spent so long telling myselfand everyone around me, I'm
fine. I don't need anyaccommodations. Covid happened.
We came home, I suddenlyrealized how hard it was for me
to understand people when wewere wearing masks and how easy
it was when we were on Zoom. Istruggled
Amy Tyler (35:55):
with that too. Right hearing issue, I don't
Unknown (36:01):
know what you might be lip
reading a bit, right? And thereare actually about 40% of us
will have some sort of speechchallenge, and I don't know the
hearing stats, but you know,most of us are outgrown in
childhood, but some of us don't.
But there's also, you know,stroke recovery and there's
neuro diversity hasimplications. There's speech
sound processing disorders. Yes,a lot of us over covid
(36:21):
discovered that we had suddenlyhad accommodations we didn't
have before.
Amy Tyler (36:27):
That's amazing. It's, well, it sounds like you healed
writing your book, which Ithink, I think that's we're all
we all right, because we kind ofhave to maybe, okay, this
question is for the authors whowrote about sci fi, and I want
to talk about world building andhow you went about creating your
(36:51):
dystopian world. And actually,interestingly, I personally am
not personally interested inscience fiction, per se, and
I've had a lot of people on fora variety of reasons that are
and I've learned a lot. There'sall different types, and there's
speculative fiction and all thatkind of stuff. And I just wanted
to start with you, Trista, canyou talk about your dystopian
(37:14):
world and how you created it andmade it believable, and why sci
fi even
Unknown (37:24):
Okay, so, adding to your point about sci fi, I did
not know my book was sci fiuntil I actually went into
publishing it. And they said,Yeah, it's the little sci fi.
And because in my head, sci ficomputers and, you know, crazy
technologies. And so I alwayswhen I sell it to people, I say
soft sci fi, because I don'twant to scare off the people who
(37:44):
normally wouldn't pick up a scifi book. Because to me, it it
doesn't feel as much. It feelsmore speculative. But as far as
world building, oh, my goodness,wait,
Amy Tyler (37:53):
let's back up. I thought speculative fiction is
sci fi. Okay? Explain toeverybody so spec, okay, I have
this right. Speculative fictionis where it seems like the world
that we're currently in, butweird things happen and you just
they're normal, like you cantime travel or do things, and
there's kind of a foot in each Ithink so
Unknown (38:16):
the best way to, you know, differentiate, I think sci
fi is just when people hear it,they think it's, you know, Star
Trek, or they think it's allcomputers and things that are
going to be above them, andthey're not going to understand.
Okay, when you define, like mybook, as sci fi, it just never
really felt sci fi to me. Itfelt dystopian. And yeah, so
(38:37):
that's kind of my little spielon that. But as far as world
building, I know I mentioned thegiver earlier, and my absolute
favorite part about the giverwas the world it was in. And
when I read it for the firsttime as a child, that's what
opened up reading to me, becauseas I read it, it wasn't just a
story of the world that I livedin. It was a completely
different world that I had neverheard of, and was like com
(39:00):
developed from the ground up,and I got so lost in that world,
I struggled to put that bookdown. And so when I began
writing, that was something thatwas always really dear to me,
was trying to create a worldthat somebody could get lost in
and somebody would not want toput the book down, because
there's so many things that are,you know, just a little
different, not different enoughthat it feels it couldn't exist,
(39:23):
but just enough that it feels,you know, that it could, which I
think makes it a little scary.
And for my community, I tried tomake it feel very utopian from
the get go. So you know, safety,security, routine, all those
things that we think we reallywant, but when you start digging
beneath that, that surface, yourealize those things don't come
(39:43):
for free, that there's controlthere, that there's more
sinister things underneathwhich, for me, writing the quiet
limit, was something I wanted toreally portray. I wanted readers
to pick up the book and thinkthis was this perfect world
where everything was safe. Safeand secure, and people were
happy, and there was, you know,no worry of anything bad
(40:05):
happening to them. And then, asour main character starts to
uncover, you know, what's reallyhappening in this world? Do you
realize it is anything but allthose things you think it is?
And so that twist was a bigthing I wanted to make sure came
off.
Amy Tyler (40:22):
Okay. Pam, what about you? And I feel like your book
had kind of Greek underworldvibes. Am I wrong on that? Or,
like,
Unknown (40:30):
no, yes, yes, and no, that's not the strongest piece
of it. I don't think, and Idon't think of my book as being
either dystopian or sciencefiction. And the world that I
create, unlike most sciencefiction world, it's not
dystopian, it's not harsh. Infact, it's kind of the perfect
world, but it lives under, underthe world, right? So just to
back up a bit, how I createdthis world was it's about the
(40:54):
battle for water. So there's anenvironmental theme that runs
through it, but I hope not inthe preachy way at all. So it
made sense to talk about thestreams underwater and the
water, you know, underneath theground. So thinking about going
through the underworld, and Ithink that's where you get the
kind of mythology feeling. Butthat's just the passage through
to get to the under underworld,which is this pristine world
(41:16):
that as if man hasn't pollutedit at all. So I worked with the
contrast between that and theworld above, which is a little
bit more nasty, more obviouslynasty, where you see the factory
smoke, you're aware of some ofthe climate change issues, and
the contrast, as I was saying,between these two. But I think
what makes my worlds come aliveis that the characters end up
(41:38):
traveling between the worlds,especially as my my series
develops, but it's thecharacters themselves that I
think are important. One is thegreat hildin ski, who is the
last survivor of a lostcivilization. So she knows what
brought her civilization down,and she's working hard with
scientists to try to stop thatfrom happening to this world.
(42:00):
There's another character who Iwanted to stand out as being,
you know, very accepting of hisdifferences. He has blue skin.
He talks to fish by just by thevibrations that he makes with
his fingers. I thought of youwhen you're talking Sherry, but
I know nothing about speechissues that as you do, but, but
that's how he communicates. Andhe's very accepting of his own
(42:21):
differences. So he's a verystrong character and and he
helps my heroine, Sam, acceptherself. And then, of course, I
have to have a cat, becauseevery kid's book needs a cat, in
my opinion. So that's, oh
Amy Tyler (42:34):
yeah, like a cozy mystery. You need it, you know?
Do you know you have to have acat? Do you know that actually
there to be considered a cozymystery? Apparently, you have to
have
Unknown (42:42):
a cat in it. But I fully support that.
That's so funny, because mysequel, I actually introduced a
cat who becomes a very belovedmain character, almost because
things were feeling so dark. Iwas like, We need a cat in this
so I totally understand whereyou're coming.
I have no cat. Oh no, there isone in my SSMS. There is
there's, it's hiding. Theystarted in there. They always
(43:04):
sneak in there. Yes, yeah,cat in our call. It's necessary.
Amy Tyler (43:11):
Oh, true. That's so funny.
Unknown (43:13):
Mine is downstairs, so, yeah,
Amy Tyler (43:16):
okay, so for a final question, it's interesting, as
we're sitting here talking, andI have to admit, Sherry sent a
note and and brought this upkind of a through way with
everybody, is that you're notalone. And I wanted to know, did
you guys set out to addressthat? And also, is that? Also,
(43:40):
do you think that's to put tosay, is that because you're
women as well and nurturing, orwhat? What's that about? And do
you Sherry mentioned that everyall the authors had addressed
that in some way, and to all theauthors, do you agree with that?
And if so, how, um, Sherry, Iwant to start with you,
Unknown (44:03):
sure. So I set out to write the book that I wished I'd
had as a child. And I'm a selfpublished author, and I think
that one of the wonderful thingsabout that is, like, I could
stand in a place where I couldsay, Well, the reason I'm doing
this right that, like, like, ifI'm going to do this, I'm going
to do it this particular way,because I am holding 100% of the
(44:25):
creative process here as Ipartner with my illustrator. But
for me, it was so important totap into that set of experiences
that I had as a child, and whatI most would have wanted to say
to myself as a child is you'renot alone, and the the wonderful
experience of reading a book tosomeone is, in and of itself, a
(44:50):
bonding experience. But thenwhen you read and it opens up a
whole new world, and you findout all the different ways, like
in this particular case, thatpeople. To communicate, and all
the different ways that youmight have a communication
challenge, but it's okay,because we can all be patient,
we can all learn from eachother. There's many different
ways to communicate, and we canalways speak heart to heart. So
(45:13):
that message of you're not alonewas really intended to kind of
take the pressure off. There wasso much about having a speech
difference that felt like itwasn't fair. I had to do extra
work. Everybody felt like theycould correct me, interrupt me,
all day long. Every day was anexercise in trying to be heard
(45:35):
and to be understood. And sojust taking some of the heat off
and saying, Hey, we're allworking on this together. We're
going to communicate together.
We're going to speak heart toheart, and the rest will fall
away, and you're not alone. It'sokay. That was really healing
and really at the heart of thebook,
Amy Tyler (45:52):
Heather. How? What do you think about that? And how
does that resonate with yourwriting?
Unknown (45:57):
Oh, I just love this question, and I think I can
speak to this more clearly frommy role as a clinical counselor
is that what we're doing iswe're showing up with people and
providing that support and theempathy and the resources and a
company that may not have beenthere with them in their
immediate first experience. Andthis is something I think is so
important, and I really see thisin the room right now is the
(46:18):
respect and care with whichwe're addressing the reader as
writers. It's not only are wetrying to prepare something
engaging and exciting and ageappropriate and that can be
expansive, but also that reallykeeps a person company and holds
them and allows for somecontainment through the
experience. We're not going inand opening up something
hopefully, that we don't havethe capacity to walk them
(46:41):
through, if that makes sense. SoI really hear that as a through
line with all of our work here.
And I think that's one of thegreat gifts and something that I
really hold with a lot ofreverence as a writer, something
I think about a lot as I'm asI'm writing.
Amy Tyler (46:55):
What about you? Pam,
Unknown (46:57):
I think everybody, at some point in their life, or
often, as the case may be,feels, you know, alone or
different or misunderstood orvulnerable. And I think that's
part of the human spirit, thehuman existence. And I think you
know, accepting that and andunderstanding that there are
(47:17):
supports is is extremelyimportant. And I think part of
it in my books are, you know,it's the lessons you learn. It's
the lessons. I've got threesacred lessons in mind, which
is, trust your body, trustyourself and trust others, but
know whom to trust, right? So itis about that embracing the
support around you,
Amy Tyler (47:37):
okay? Trust and no pressure. You're the last
person. You're the last personeveryone's gonna hear from. So I
want you to tie this up for us.
Let's go.
Unknown (47:47):
Amazing. What you brought that up, Sherry, because
it's true. I mean, for me, in mybook, in the quiet limit, my
main character lay she lives ina community where everyone knows
when they're gonna die, andeveryone in the community is
living well into their hundreds,and she's only going to live to
the 18. And so her entire life,she feels different. She feels
alone, she feels like she's notimportant. And one of the
(48:10):
strongest messages throughoutthe book, despite all the
dystopian, the fear thateverything going on, is that
message deep down, that she isimportant and she isn't alone,
and it's her path to findingthat out. So, yeah, great, great
theme to bring up for all of us.
Well,
Amy Tyler (48:27):
with that, I'm going to conclude this edition of The
Red Fern book review. And thankyou guys so much for coming on
the podcast. And I really lovedhow we all shared, and Sherry
came up with some of myquestions, which was great, and
so I wish you all success, andcongratulations on your your
(48:50):
award. And yeah, thank you.
Okay,
Unknown (48:54):
so much. You guys did a much better job of summarizing
than I did good on you. Thankyou all so good to be here.
Thanks, Amy.
Amy Tyler (49:01):
So that concludes the final podcast in this series for
the Canadian book club awards.
And that was really fun. I was alittle bit like a kitchen party.
I felt that people were chimingin, in many cases, doing a
better job than I could,bringing people together,
finding commonality. And one ofmy best, the best questions, the
(49:22):
last one about, are we notalone? That was Sherry's idea.
She came up with that kind ofmid podcast. So thanks to
Sherry, and thanks again to theauthors, Heather, Sherry, Pam or
PS and Trista, and just toreview their books again, the
books are awfully hilarious.
(49:46):
Period pieces by Heather Hendry,my S's are messes by Sherry
McMillan, Secrets of the underunder World Water by PS,
whatever and the qua. Quietlemon. By Trista Lundquist, so
thanks so much for listening,And I'll talk to you soon. You
Unknown (50:20):
Oh, you you.
Um, and then, of course, I have to have a cat,
(00:01):
because every kid's book needs acat, in my opinion. So that's,
oh, yeah, like a
Amy Tyler (00:06):
cozy mystery. You need it, you know? Do you know
you have to have a cat? Do youknow that actually there to be
considered a cozy mystery?
Apparently, you have to have acat
Unknown (00:13):
in it. But I fully support that.
That's so funny, because mysequel, I actually introduced a
cat who becomes a very belovedmain character, almost because
things were feeling so dark. Iwas like, We need a cat in this
so I totally understand whereyou're coming. I
have no cat. Oh, no, there isone in my SSMS. There is,
there's, it's hiding in there.
(00:35):
They always sneak in there. Yes,yeah.
Cat in our call it's necessary.
Oh, true. That's so funny. Mineis downstairs, so yeah, you
Amy Tyler (01:18):
Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I
am your host, Amy Tyler, andtoday I'm doing third in a
series of podcasts. I've beensponsored by the Canadian book
club awards, and I've been overthe summer, interviewing groups
(01:39):
of authors that are recent awardrecipients for the Canadian book
club awards, and today I'm goingto be talking with four writers.
Three have written for children,and one has written an
anthology, and we're going tohave a really it's a really good
(01:59):
discussion. I think you'll enjoyit. So first, I want to start by
giving you an overview on theCanadian book club awards. They
are Canada's largest ReadersChoice Awards, and the awards
are open to all authors,regardless of publishing type.
You can be self published ortraditionally published, or kind
of a combination of the two. Andthe thought behind it is just
(02:23):
readers want good books, andalso to look at books that might
have more popular impact.
Submissions for the 2025 awardsare open still, and I'm going to
provide a link in the show notesif you want to submit your book.
And then the interesting thingabout these books or these
awards is that you don't have tobe Canadian to be considered for
(02:47):
award, but what makes themCanadian is that it's a Reader's
Choice Award, and all thereaders are Canadian. And so if
you want to sign up and be averified reader, you can do
that. And I'm also going to sendyou a link for that in the show
notes. So today I want to talkto you about the four writers
that I'm going to talk with. Sothe first writer that's included
(03:11):
in this discussion is HeatherHendry, and she's she won for
anthology or short story withher book titled awfully
hilarious period pieces, and shewrote she actually has already
won a Canadian Book Club Award.
(03:31):
I believe it was her last year,and it was also an awfully
hilarious series, but this onejust focuses specifically a
menstruation, and she includesserious discussion, funny
discussion, everywhere inbetween. She has people old, and
(03:55):
she's got a little writing froman 11 year old talking about
hoping to get her period. So itreally opens up discussion.
Takes kind of shame away, andshe'll tell you more about that
when I talk with her. Thenthere's Sherry McMillan, who's
written a children's book calledMy S's are messes. This is a
(04:18):
self published book, and what'sreally fun about it is she
partnered with a dear friend ofhers, a dear friend of hers did
illustrations, and you'll findout that she's writing about
learning to speak, learning toread, and she has her she's had
her own challenges with thatover the years, and so she'll
share it. And that's kind of thegenesis of, I think why she
(04:41):
wrote this book, and in theearly readers category, we have
PS, whatever. So she's got aclever pen name. Her first name
is Pam, so you'll hear me colorthat in our discussion. But
she's written a book for preteens called Secrets of the.
Underworld water, and it's amodern Alice in Wonderland
(05:06):
story. It's the tale of a girlwho must face wolves, battle
giants and stop an evil plant toplot to steal the world's water.
And then in the young adultcategory, we have Trista
Lundquist with the quiet limit,and she's written a young adult
(05:26):
dystopian novel, although Ithink she'll explain how she
might dispute thatcategorization, but it's about a
society where everybody knowsthe year of their death. And the
main character of this book layis a teenage girl who knows that
(05:47):
she's to die when she's 18, andthat's very young in a society
where people are living to wellover 100 and so she feels
sidelined. And so when her 18thbirthday rolls around, she's
still alive, and she knows thatshe's living on borrowed time.
And that's kind of where westart and and we go from there.
(06:10):
So four different authors, fourdifferent kind of categories,
and let's move over and talkwith the authors now. Hi
Heather, Sherry, Pam, aka PS,which is your pen name, and
Trista. Welcome to the podcast Iwanted to start. In fact, I sent
(06:31):
you guys all some questionsyesterday, but then I woke up
first thing in the morning, aswriters and readers tend to do,
and I had something I just knewI had to include. And one of the
things I wanted to talk about,I've grouped all the people, all
the award winners, together,tried to put some categories
together. And all of you haveeither written for children, or,
(06:55):
in Heather's case, it youinclude children. You can
explain more about that when Italk with you, but I just wanted
to share, first off, how muchchildren's books mean to me
personally. And then I wanted toask you a little bit about your
history with children's books.
And when I started this podcastseveral years ago, I wanted the
name to reflect somethingmeaningful. I just didn't want
(07:19):
it to say I didn't want it to begeneric, and I ended up naming
it after my favorite children'sbook, which is where it's
called, Where the Red FernGrows. And it's interesting.
Have I read better books since?
Yes, but I don't think I've everhad a book impact me the way
(07:39):
that book did, and thebackground is, I'm American, and
it's a very American book. It'sactually, I believe can be
taught in the school system, andI have older sisters, and it was
on a shelf, and I grabbed it,and I was an early reader, but
this was the first time a bookjust grabbed me, and I remember
(08:00):
sitting like in a little nook inmy house. I couldn't put it
down. That's the first time thathad happened. It was probably
eight or nine, and then I didn'tit was about a boy in the Ozarks
and his two hunting dogs, and Iwasn't drawn to the material,
but I couldn't put it down. Andthen I started crying, and I
couldn't stop. And so I think itjust kind of set me on this path
(08:24):
to reading and writing and justthe importance of capturing
those early readers. So with mylittle spiel there, I wanted to
just first of all, has anyoneread that book and did you have
a What did you think about it?
Did you, am I over like, didyou, were you impacted by that
book too? Or is that just so
Unknown (08:42):
funny? Sherry and I are both cheering, cheering as soon
as you said that it that was oneof my most impactful, moving
books. And for me, it was thesubject matter. I was really
connected to animals at thatstage of my life, and the
connection to the coon dogsreally, really spoke to me, but
there was so much more in there.
So Sherry, I'm curious about youtoo. That's funny,
(09:03):
right? So, yeah, it's funnybecause if you know the book,
you do have an emotionalresponse and Amy when I first
learned about you and I learnedwhat your podcast was called, I
like, had that, you know, heartstop of it took me right back to
that book. And what, you know, Iwon't do the spoiler alert, but
Where the Red Fern froze is,it's a very touching part of the
story, and I think you can spoilit, it's okay. It's been around
(09:24):
for a while, right? Yeah. So itdefinitely shows the impact of a
book. And like you say, it mightnot be the thing that you would
hold up as the best literaturein the world, but it doesn't
have to be, to be touching thehuman experience and the the way
that we grow and the way that welearn together, and the way that
(09:45):
those experiences are in someways universal, the more unique
they are. So this very specificstory then touches us all in
this very universal experienceof losing effect,
I think it's also just as yousay that Sherry, for me, what.
One of my first I've beenfortunate enough that that was
one of my first experiences andconversations with death, and
(10:06):
the way that it was held in thatbook, I think was just really,
you know, that's a really tabootopic. This is where what I do
in my work, but very taboo. So Ijust felt like it was held in a
really gentle, sacred way thatreally, really impacted me
right,and respecting children and
acknowledging all of theirfeelings and giving a space for
grief really important, yes?
Amy Tyler (10:30):
Well, okay, I'm glad I'm not alone. That that's
that's good to know. And so withthat, my very first question, I
want to go around and ask eachof you, what children's book do
you remember it can be, youknow, an early reader, a young
adult book really spoke to youas a child, and why? And I'm
(10:50):
gonna start with Pam. Okay,cool.
Unknown (10:53):
Thanks for me. It was Emily of New Moon by Ellen
Montgomery, written in 1923 over100 years ago, but still very
relevant, I think, and about astory about loss and grief and
also fitting into a newenvironment. And those are
themes that you very much pulledover into, echoed in my own
books. And then, of course,Emily also wants to be a writer,
(11:16):
and that definitely stuck withme at a young age. So yes, those
are around the time I wanted tohave a pen name, which I finally
got, yay. So yes,what about you? Trista mine, I'm
going to stick with young adult,because that's the genre I wrote
in as well. Is the giver by LoisLowry, which huge inspiration
for my book as well. So it kindof works nicely. And just to
(11:38):
echo your conversation you werehaving about those first books.
I think what makes children'sand, you know, young adult books
so important is it's where webecome readers. It's those first
few books where we reallyconnect with and that's what
start us, starts us on thatjourney. So I think that's why
they become so powerful and suchlike memorable pieces of us.
Amy Tyler (12:00):
And what about you?
Heather,
Unknown (12:03):
Chris, I really love that. This just makes me want to
go pick up all these booksagain. But I actually chose
something that I read as a youngchild in illustrated children's
story called The Big Orangesplot. And we've continued to
try and get copies of this formy nephew and nieces. It's
harder and harder to find, butthe reason being, it was a story
of a seagull flew over thisperfectly neat Street and
(12:24):
dropped a can of orange paint ontop of one of the perfectly neat
homes, and overnight, Mr. Plumbean began to transition his
home to make it reflect who hewas. And he got a lot of
pushback, but over time,everyone else along the street
made their homes outwardlyappear as they were inwardly,
and they reflect their dreams.
Oh, my cats here. Sorry, that'sokay. In essence, it really
(12:46):
speaks to that idea of being whoyou are and being able to
express who you are, even in theface of, you know, if conformity
or a particular other way ofbeing is suggested what it takes
to become who you are, and thenthe joy inherent in that. So
it's a really, it's beautiful.
The illustrations are gorgeousand colorful, and I try to read
(13:07):
it several times a year.
Amy Tyler (13:08):
There's Heather's cat. What's your cat's name?
Unknown (13:12):
That's Chanda, distinguished from his brother,
Timmy. Oh, and Sherry. You'reholding up where the wild things
areas well. Oh, yes, right, if I if
I may, yes. So my absolutefavorite is where the wild
things are. My mother is afantastic reader, and she would
do all the different voices. Butthinking about this, I realized
there's, like, a reallyimportant part of this book that
we don't talk about enough, Ithink, is that, like the match
(13:35):
is in trouble, and so there'sthis universal experience of
being sent to your room, whichmaybe isn't so universal
anymore, but this idea that youknow you're in trouble, but it's
okay. And Max had such amassively wild imagination, and
so do i to the point that thething that I got in trouble for
all the time as a child waslying, because I truly did not
(13:56):
know the difference between theimaginary world and the real
world. And there was a point inmy life where that was very
confusing for me. And I canremember being about grade one
or two and figuring out what thegrown ups meant when they said I
was lying, because to me, it wasjust as real. And being an
author now I'm like, Oh, that'ssuch a gift, but I didn't see it
as such as a child, I was introuble like Max, and I was very
(14:17):
glad for my imaginary friends
Amy Tyler (14:22):
and I loved in the Night Kitchen. That was another,
that was another, really goodone. You know, that makes me
actually want to jump, then to aquestion for those of you who
have illustrations in your book,because I feel that Where the
Wild Things Are, theillustrations are easily, maybe
why it's endured so much. And soI wanted to talk with Pam about
(14:50):
so you actually illustrated yourown book. And could you talk
about that and sort of the rolethat illustrations play? And
kind of your your goals for yourillustrations and how they work
with your text?
Unknown (15:05):
Yeah, absolutely, because it wasn't an obvious
decision, because I'm not aprofessional illustrator, but
that was kind of the point forme, because you described my
illustrations as beingenergetic, which I think they
are, but I would also use theword imperfect, and there is a
very serious subtext of an antiperfection messaging throughout
my books, and I wanted itreflected in my illustrations as
(15:27):
well. My characters are far fromperfect. They're often really
vulnerable. They're afraid. Theydon't know if they're going to
be successful, but it's only bytrying that they find out what
they're able to accomplish. AndI think in this world, the
social media world, wherethere's so much pressure to show
your shiniest self and to bejust like everybody else, I
think the importance of beingvulnerable is greater than ever.
(15:50):
So what I did is I deliberatelycreated pretty simple
illustrations and kind ofchildlike but then I also worked
with a very talented graphicdesigner who designed my book
and also wrapped some magicaround it. So I think the
combination of my very imperfectillustrations and his
(16:11):
professionalism, I think, is apretty unique kind of final
product. So that's why I did it.
Amy Tyler (16:18):
And Sherry, can you explain with your illustrations,
what that works is people not inthe business may not understand,
and I know it's unique everytime, but sometimes, and I don't
know what the case was in yourcase, but sometimes you don't
even know who the illustratoris, and you get paired with
them, what, what was thatcollaboration like for you? And
(16:39):
explain the role thatillustrations played in your
book,
Unknown (16:43):
right? So when I first knew I was going to be
published, I was pretty naive,and I reached out to my
childhood friends, who's anaward winning artist, and asked
her if maybe she'd want to workwith me. And it's a longer story
than that, but oh my goodness,what a collaboration it's been,
and we're both so grateful. Andthe reason I say it was naive.
It's I did not know that justbecause he could put oil to
Canvas, then it didn'tnecessarily translate to being
(17:06):
an illustrator, and she's justan amazing illustrator, and it's
been such a wonderful thing towork together when we wrote, or
when I wrote my essays aremesses, and we started
storyboarding it. It was reallyinteresting, because the story
is told in first person, but itreally reflects any any type of
speech challenge. So you're sixwords in before, you know, it's
(17:27):
not just about essence or justabout listening. And so we have
all these different characters.
My illustrator, Carla at first,started with a beautiful
illustration of me as a childthat I just love, you know, my
red curly hair and freckles andeverything. She assumed I was
going to be the main character,and then we had to pull away and
say, How are we going to dothis? I wanted every single
illustration to be a wordpicture of what it's like to
(17:50):
have a speech difference. So wehave tug of war, we have hide
and seek. We have jumpinghurdles. It's amazing how she
brought them to life, and how wesolve the problem of who is our
character was, of course, theletters are the characters in
the book. The children are doingeverything right, and the sounds
are misbehaving and making a bigmess, and they learn how to work
(18:11):
together. So the lettersrepresent the sounds. And I work
with speech language pathologistto work on like sound
combinations and things, andthey're really vibrant and
energetic and mischievous, andthey pop on the page, and then
the people, mostly children, areall in silhouettes, so that
regardless of your age or genderor race, you're going to be able
(18:33):
to see yourself in thatillustration.
Amy Tyler (18:38):
That's really cool.
That's amazing that you got towork with a friend, because then
that just plus, that's just fun.
It's just a okay. So I wanted toask a question for all of you.
You've all written for differentage groups, essentially, and I
want to know what each of youhad to take into consideration
(18:59):
in order for it to beunderstood, palatable, not too
much for the for the age thatyou were going for. So Heather,
I want to start with you. Yoursis kind of you can explain, are
you? You're not just forchildren. Are you, but you're
for explain, who? Who's supposedto be reading your
Unknown (19:17):
book? No, this is really good timing, because I
was just on holidays with withfamily, and my 11 year old niece
picked up my book and said, CanI read this? And I said,
Actually, no, there's one storyin there I could read to you.
But the awfully hilarious seriesis really specifically designed
to tackle taboos and the firsttwo, the first being about
online dating disasters, and thesecond one being about
(19:38):
menstruation, menopause. Firstperiods is actually specifically
designed for folks in their 30sand beyond, or even 20s and
beyond, really, although we'vegot a couple of very young
writers and awfully hilariousperiod pieces. The first story
is, I love that. I love it.
Thanks. Yeah. The first is a,it's a poem by a young woman
named Yale, and it's called. Iwant my period, god damn it, and
(20:00):
she's 11 on the verge of gettingher period. But what we're
really trying to and then it'sfollowed by a 13 year old and
the story of her first period.
But what we're really trying toaddress is the stigma around
menstruation, and so I reallyspecifically didn't want my
nieces reading stories wherethere is inherent stigma already
there. So it's much more forthose of us who have lived that
(20:21):
and then are trying to reallyfind a new way in a reframe
around really what has been atraumatic experience for many
people because it's beensidelined by society. So it's
interesting though, because it'sI'm just so happy you're asking
this question and that I'm herein this company, because as soon
as my niece Lily picked up thatbook, I thought I really want to
(20:42):
pull together an awfullyhilarious collection for young
adults and for children that'sgeared at to support them where
they are. So for example, ourwhole mission with the project
is to help people feel lessalone in their difficult or
embarrassing or stigmatizedmoments, so as to shift the
narrative, but also to supportthe individual. This also comes
from my my day job, where I workas a clinical counselor. But one
(21:03):
of the I was really thinking,how fun would it be to have one
where we've got youth speakingabout their experiences
Bedwetting, and you get to talkabout experiences that, at the
time feel may be scary or hard,but that we can all say, Hey,
I'm doing that too, and I didthat too, and together, it
doesn't need to be so hard, andwe could, maybe this could even
be a bit funny in the end. So mystories till now have not been
(21:25):
written for children, but that'san area I've really looked
forward to exploring, maybe withsome of you here.
Amy Tyler (21:30):
Okay? And Tristan, what about you? Talk about YA
novels and the other thing, whenyou do, I know, I don't know how
new this is, but a lot of adultslike reading YA as well. Yeah, I
do. So talk about that as well,because you're not just, I
assume you're writing, you'rehoping they're going to want it
(21:51):
to read it too. But what aresome of the ingredients that you
that differentiate your genrefrom, say, an adult novel? Well,
adult novel that has a wrongconnotation. But like, you know
what I mean?
Unknown (22:03):
Yeah, I think it's a lot of people
define ya wrong. I think a lotof people think of YA and they
inherently think of somethingfor lack of better terms, dumbed
down, easier to read, easier todigest. And I don't think ya is
that at all. I think it's thethemes. And so I think when I
started writing the quiet limitit I never set out to say, I'm
going to write a young adultbook. It's just the themes that
(22:26):
we're starting to grow with thenovel that made it young adult,
those poignant, the trying tofind ourselves, trying to find
where we fit in. And I think thething is, is as adults, we start
to realize we're always tryingto find ourselves and always
trying to find when we fit in,which is why I think a lot of
adults still like those youngadult novels, is because we it
(22:46):
brings us back kind of to thistime where we were trying to
figure it all out and thinkingwe were and we're not. So I
think something I kept in mindwhen I was writing is I, I wrote
it as an adult novel, but withthose themes, of course, it's
appropriate for you know,teenagers to read, but I never
thought to make the languagefeel cheaper or make it feel
(23:11):
less important. And that's why Ieven, like my mother in law,
read it for her book club with abunch of 70 year old ladies, and
they all loved it, and I got tochat with them. So it's nice to
see that, you know, oldergenerations are still looking
back to young adults and seeingthe importance and the value in
it.
Amy Tyler (23:31):
That's interesting.
Well, I think my kids have leftthe house, and I have a lot of
changes in my life, so I think Ineed to be picking up someone
reading, because I'm currentlyreinventing myself. Okay, Pam,
what about you talk about, talkabout some things you took into
consideration? Sure, well,
Unknown (23:50):
I write for tweens, which is, I think, a very
interesting age group, becausethey're not little kids anymore,
and they're not teenagers, sothey don't yet have as much of
the attitude that can be part ofthe teenager. And when you're
writing for this group, you alsodon't get into some of the
edgier topics, like you don'tget into sex and drugs and
things as much you're they'rejust on the cusp of some of
those things. So what I think ismost important in in writing for
(24:14):
this group is not to talk downto them, though, and and
definitely not to be preachy aswell, because this this group of
kids, particularly now they knowa lot, and they can engage with
very sophisticated ideas. So Ithink it's very important to
talk to them as you would talkto anybody else, and I also
don't dumb down my language.
Having said that, I work with atop notch New York editor,
(24:36):
actually, who's been fabulous,wonderful collaboration, and she
pulls me back sometimes, this isokay, hold on, kids, voice,
you're getting a little bit toocomplicated here. So that's
really helpful, but, but ingeneral, it is about, you know,
about, you know, beingrespectful and and there, it's
a, it's an age where people arevery kids are very idea driven,
and they get very excited. Andthat's what's exciting about.
(24:58):
Writing for them. It's alsoreally important to keep the
story going, however, andsomebody mentioned as well, you
know that, you know, there'sdifferences, there's boys and
girls, there's, you know,bookworms, as I was this kid,
there's kids that reallystruggle with reading,
particularly after covid, right?
So you've got to kind of keepthe story going and keep the
story moving. So it's a bit of abalancing act. I also, in some
(25:22):
cases, I know that parents ofyounger kids have read my books
to them, so there is an adultaudience as well, as well as
some of my friends who are justlooking for escape and want to
go back to childhood, which Ithink is a really nice place to
be. So yeah, that's my story.
Amy Tyler (25:37):
That's interesting.
It's true like I would pickbooks that I personally wanted
to read when I was reading to mykids, so that makes unless they
I remember one of my boys wasinto that. He was an early
reader, but I couldn't get himout of that. What is it? Captain
Underpants. It kind of drove mecrazy. But yeah, he loved it, so
I read it. Okay. What about you?
(25:59):
Sherry?
Unknown (26:01):
Right. Right. So first of all, writing for children is
hard and there's so much toconsider. So some of the
mechanics I consider is, youknow, is it at their reading
level? I write poetry, so I'mvery disciplined about keeping
the cadence and the rhythmconsistent. Like everyone said,
(26:23):
basically, we don't want tominimize or water down. So I
will always add in some wordsthat are like a stretch to the
vocabulary. And actually, I loveit when grown ups read my book
and say, Oh, I'm gonna have tolook that one up, right? And so
I like that actually, forempathy building too, but you
have to be careful that it's nottoo abstract, so and it's got to
(26:45):
fit within a small amount ofwords I always publish with
large, high contrast, dyslexicfriendly font, and that's good
for everybody, so universaldesign, but that means that I'm
being inclusive for persons thathave dyslexia or low vision,
which is sometimes thegrandparents, right? So there's
lots of considerations, butmostly what I'm considering is
(27:07):
that I wanted to write the bookthat I wanted to read as a
child, so I really tapped intomy inner child, and that meant
sometimes, like actually havingto kind of stand for a point of
view that wasn't the obviousone, and I would have to work
with, say, my editor or my whenI was consulting the speech
(27:29):
language pathologist and otherexperts, and really just come
back to that as my North Star.
So the most important thing wasthat the children knew that they
were not alone, that weacknowledge that they're working
hard, that there's lots ofdifferent ways to communicate,
and then reflecting my livedexperience in that, which is not
just for my childhood. It's likeI'm in that 5% that has speech
(27:50):
challenges for my entire life.
So I can very easily tap intothat and go, actually, this is
what I want to say, and it'sreally important that children
hear this at the age they're at.
They're not too young. So even,for example, my essays are
message, I knew that was theright title. And sometimes
(28:11):
people would say, like, ooh,like, are you, you know, is that
critical? I'm like, No, it's notme. It's my essence. And I know
they're a mess. Like, this isactually not a problem. The
thing that is a problem ispeople being impatient or being
interrupted. So let's talk aboutthat instead.
Amy Tyler (28:27):
Okay, so I want to jump around a little bit and go
a little deeper into content.
And this question is for PAM andTrista, and I wanted to talk
about fear, which is present inboth of your books, and it
drives the narrative, and itkeeps you know readers on the
edge of your seat. But there's abalance, maybe for a younger
reader, and now Tristan is maybegonna tell me there isn't, but
(28:48):
after we had the earlierdiscussion. So let's try. So
let's I'll start with you. Howdo you find that balance, and
what do you keep in mind whenyou're addressing danger and
your readers,
Unknown (29:02):
I think, for me, so there is a lot of fear, and it
does drive my novel, but there'salso a lot of hope, and I think
that's the balance, right? Andso at the beginning, our main
character doesn't really have alot of hope. She's kind of at
the end and thinks this is it,and she's resigned herself to
what's going to happen to her,and then she starts to see these
(29:22):
little glimmers of hope, andthey grow as the story goes. And
so as the fear grows, the hopegrows. And in addition to that,
she has a very strong supportsystem. She's a great family,
she has great friends, and soshe's not alone. I think a story
can become really dark reallyquickly if you don't give your
character some sort of support.
And while, you know, a lot of uslike a really dark story, there
(29:42):
needs to be that hope, thereneeds to be that glimmer, you
know, to want make you want tokeep reading. So I think for me,
that was that big thing, wasbalancing the fear with
Amy Tyler (29:53):
that's a good that's a good answer. Okay, Pam, what
about you? Yeah,
Unknown (29:57):
well, I had because mine are for young. Your
audience. I did have readersread them in the age group in
advance before I published, toget to gage that reaction,
because I wanted to have a senseof that. But much like just it's
it's a question of going alittle bit fearful and then
pulling back, and then and then,as you go through the novel, you
know the fear amps up, but sodoes their so does their
(30:20):
resilience, because they'veconquered the obstacles before,
and they have a little bit morecourage, a little bit more
capacity. And then I think oneof the most important things for
me is the ending, making surethat there's a lot of really a
big warm blanket in the end,that it's a whole lot of really
positive messaging. And it endson a very high note, as an adult
(30:42):
reader, I like ambiguousendings, but I don't
particularly like them for kids,because I think they want to
know that things do end up well,that things do get get tied up.
Well, I I actually my book isthe first one in a series, so I
also leave the door open forother adventures and other kinds
of fear, and that does tend tokind of escalate throughout the
series as well, but so do mycharacters. They grow and they
(31:06):
they grow more confident,stronger and more capable. I
also have to say that I don'thave anything gory in my books,
like there's nothing reallyawful that's going to give them
nightmares at three in themorning, because I'm not a big
fan of gore, so that's myanswer.
Amy Tyler (31:19):
Yeah. Okay. Okay, now I want to ask a question about
motivation, and this is forHeather and Sherry. And you both
touched on this a bit, but Iknow that both of you were
motivated to write your booksbased on some personal
experiences, and so whether itwas health or, in Sherry's case,
language, so I was wondering,Heather, if you could kind of
(31:42):
elaborate a little bit on someof the health issues that led
you to create your book. Yeah,
Unknown (31:47):
absolutely. And it's really interesting, actually.
PS, I'm going to follow up onwhat you're just saying that
there is no Gore in your books,and I really love that. And just
also listening to ourconversation today, as a
therapist, I'm so aware thatbooks aren't therapy, but how
incredibly therapeutic they canbe, like Tris as you're speaking
about making sure that thecharacter has company and
there's a warm blanket thatwe're really resourcing the
(32:07):
reader as they're you know,we're not handing them something
that they're incapable ofmanaging. And that's where the
title of our series actuallycame from. It's funny. I'll go
back to your real name, Pam, butthat you said there's nothing
awful in there. But our bookswere deliberately called awfully
hilarious, because a lot of theevents that have happened to
people were quite awful at thetime, and then with time and
(32:28):
support and the resources ofcommunity and humor and
connection, they can start tobecome funny over time. But I
mean, really, where the wholeseries started with the first
book, awfully hilarious storieswe never tell happened because I
went on a terrible date. It wasit was laughable what happened,
but I came off this date justsobbing. I called up one of my
best friends, and she said, Youwouldn't believe the date I just
(32:50):
got home from. We could write abook. No sooner were the words
out that we started, we weregoing to just staple these pages
together and put them in littlefree libraries everywhere, sign
it from the tynder Elas andsupport all the people having,
oh god, I love that. But then,because that, it worked so well,
and it ended up becoming a bestseller, and people really picked
(33:11):
up on it. I realized it was away a book like this was a way
to share an important story, andthat's when we landed on one
around menstruation, becauseit's been such a deeply
stigmatized subject, and I'mactually in the midst, right
now, writing a memoir about thehealth condition that drove me
to focus on menstruation, thatbeing something called
premenstrual dysphoric disorder,which is a really dangerous and
(33:32):
often missed health condition.
And interestingly, of thestories submitted to awfully
hilarious period pieces, whichwas the second book, half of the
contributors have premenstrualdysphoric disorder, or what's
called PMDD. So it I realizedthat writing and reading can
also a space of healing, butalso advocacy. And using humor
like you would say, with thefriend to your character, Tris,
(33:55):
or with ups with the blanket, weare using humor to titrate the
challenging experience tosupport it such that the reader
doesn't have to do the extrawork the writers, we as writers,
have done that work to hold thereader in their experience, if
that makes sense. So yes, itgrew from a lot of health
conditions. Our next one hasnothing to do with that. It's
called awfully hilarious pillowtalk, and it's focused on sex,
(34:17):
intimacy, pleasure, desire. Sodefinitely not for kids, not a
children's book.
Amy Tyler (34:26):
Sherry, what about you?
Unknown (34:28):
Well, the first published work I have is called
what the seal saw, and I knewthat that was the right title
for the book. And yet I laughedright away. And I thought, What
have I done? My S's or Ness I'vebeen avoiding s my entire life.
McMillan is neither my birthname nor my married name, but it
has no S's in it, right? And Ikind of tuck that in my back
(34:51):
pocket of Well, that's aninteresting thought. But then
when I was off and running andinto sales and marketing of the
book, and I'd be at a bench andup. Markets and things, what
would happen is I would end upsaying things to people like,
bear with me. I'm really tired.
I'm starting to stutter, or I'msorry, can you repeat yourself?
It's really noisy environment.
I'm having trouble hearing you.
And along the way, I realizedthat my life, before I became a
(35:14):
full time author, was I worked36 years in tech. As a child, I
was really bullied for my speechchallenges, and then I as I
wasn't even 20 before I had myfirst salary job in it. So I'm
in a man's world. I'm veryshort. I've got to chubby
cheeks. I was also always likeagainst stereotype. I didn't
want to add in any speechchallenges to it, and so, like,
(35:36):
I spent so long telling myselfand everyone around me, I'm
fine. I don't need anyaccommodations. Covid happened.
We came home, I suddenlyrealized how hard it was for me
to understand people when wewere wearing masks and how easy
it was when we were on Zoom. Istruggled
Amy Tyler (35:55):
with that too. Right hearing issue, I don't
Unknown (36:01):
know what you might be lip
reading a bit, right? And thereare actually about 40% of us
will have some sort of speechchallenge, and I don't know the
hearing stats, but you know,most of us are outgrown in
childhood, but some of us don't.
But there's also, you know,stroke recovery and there's
neuro diversity hasimplications. There's speech
sound processing disorders. Yes,a lot of us over covid
(36:21):
discovered that we had suddenlyhad accommodations we didn't
have before.
Amy Tyler (36:27):
That's amazing. It's, well, it sounds like you healed
writing your book, which Ithink, I think that's we're all
we all right, because we kind ofhave to maybe, okay, this
question is for the authors whowrote about sci fi, and I want
to talk about world building andhow you went about creating your
(36:51):
dystopian world. And actually,interestingly, I personally am
not personally interested inscience fiction, per se, and
I've had a lot of people on fora variety of reasons that are
and I've learned a lot. There'sall different types, and there's
speculative fiction and all thatkind of stuff. And I just wanted
to start with you, Trista, canyou talk about your dystopian
(37:14):
world and how you created it andmade it believable, and why sci
fi even
Unknown (37:24):
Okay, so, adding to your point about sci fi, I did
not know my book was sci fiuntil I actually went into
publishing it. And they said,Yeah, it's the little sci fi.
And because in my head, sci ficomputers and, you know, crazy
technologies. And so I alwayswhen I sell it to people, I say
soft sci fi, because I don'twant to scare off the people who
(37:44):
normally wouldn't pick up a scifi book. Because to me, it it
doesn't feel as much. It feelsmore speculative. But as far as
world building, oh, my goodness,wait,
Amy Tyler (37:53):
let's back up. I thought speculative fiction is
sci fi. Okay? Explain toeverybody so spec, okay, I have
this right. Speculative fictionis where it seems like the world
that we're currently in, butweird things happen and you just
they're normal, like you cantime travel or do things, and
there's kind of a foot in each Ithink so
Unknown (38:16):
the best way to, you know, differentiate, I think sci
fi is just when people hear it,they think it's, you know, Star
Trek, or they think it's allcomputers and things that are
going to be above them, andthey're not going to understand.
Okay, when you define, like mybook, as sci fi, it just never
really felt sci fi to me. Itfelt dystopian. And yeah, so
(38:37):
that's kind of my little spielon that. But as far as world
building, I know I mentioned thegiver earlier, and my absolute
favorite part about the giverwas the world it was in. And
when I read it for the firsttime as a child, that's what
opened up reading to me, becauseas I read it, it wasn't just a
story of the world that I livedin. It was a completely
different world that I had neverheard of, and was like com
(39:00):
developed from the ground up,and I got so lost in that world,
I struggled to put that bookdown. And so when I began
writing, that was something thatwas always really dear to me,
was trying to create a worldthat somebody could get lost in
and somebody would not want toput the book down, because
there's so many things that are,you know, just a little
different, not different enoughthat it feels it couldn't exist,
(39:23):
but just enough that it feels,you know, that it could, which I
think makes it a little scary.
And for my community, I tried tomake it feel very utopian from
the get go. So you know, safety,security, routine, all those
things that we think we reallywant, but when you start digging
beneath that, that surface, yourealize those things don't come
(39:43):
for free, that there's controlthere, that there's more
sinister things underneathwhich, for me, writing the quiet
limit, was something I wanted toreally portray. I wanted readers
to pick up the book and thinkthis was this perfect world
where everything was safe. Safeand secure, and people were
happy, and there was, you know,no worry of anything bad
(40:05):
happening to them. And then, asour main character starts to
uncover, you know, what's reallyhappening in this world? Do you
realize it is anything but allthose things you think it is?
And so that twist was a bigthing I wanted to make sure came
off.
Amy Tyler (40:22):
Okay. Pam, what about you? And I feel like your book
had kind of Greek underworldvibes. Am I wrong on that? Or,
like,
Unknown (40:30):
no, yes, yes, and no, that's not the strongest piece
of it. I don't think, and Idon't think of my book as being
either dystopian or sciencefiction. And the world that I
create, unlike most sciencefiction world, it's not
dystopian, it's not harsh. Infact, it's kind of the perfect
world, but it lives under, underthe world, right? So just to
back up a bit, how I createdthis world was it's about the
(40:54):
battle for water. So there's anenvironmental theme that runs
through it, but I hope not inthe preachy way at all. So it
made sense to talk about thestreams underwater and the
water, you know, underneath theground. So thinking about going
through the underworld, and Ithink that's where you get the
kind of mythology feeling. Butthat's just the passage through
to get to the under underworld,which is this pristine world
(41:16):
that as if man hasn't pollutedit at all. So I worked with the
contrast between that and theworld above, which is a little
bit more nasty, more obviouslynasty, where you see the factory
smoke, you're aware of some ofthe climate change issues, and
the contrast, as I was saying,between these two. But I think
what makes my worlds come aliveis that the characters end up
(41:38):
traveling between the worlds,especially as my my series
develops, but it's thecharacters themselves that I
think are important. One is thegreat hildin ski, who is the
last survivor of a lostcivilization. So she knows what
brought her civilization down,and she's working hard with
scientists to try to stop thatfrom happening to this world.
(42:00):
There's another character who Iwanted to stand out as being,
you know, very accepting of hisdifferences. He has blue skin.
He talks to fish by just by thevibrations that he makes with
his fingers. I thought of youwhen you're talking Sherry, but
I know nothing about speechissues that as you do, but, but
that's how he communicates. Andhe's very accepting of his own
(42:21):
differences. So he's a verystrong character and and he
helps my heroine, Sam, acceptherself. And then, of course, I
have to have a cat, becauseevery kid's book needs a cat, in
my opinion. So that's, oh
Amy Tyler (42:34):
yeah, like a cozy mystery. You need it, you know?
Do you know you have to have acat? Do you know that actually
there to be considered a cozymystery? Apparently, you have to
have
Unknown (42:42):
a cat in it. But I fully support that.
That's so funny, because mysequel, I actually introduced a
cat who becomes a very belovedmain character, almost because
things were feeling so dark. Iwas like, We need a cat in this
so I totally understand whereyou're coming.
I have no cat. Oh no, there isone in my SSMS. There is
there's, it's hiding. Theystarted in there. They always
(43:04):
sneak in there. Yes, yeah,cat in our call. It's necessary.
Amy Tyler (43:11):
Oh, true. That's so funny.
Unknown (43:13):
Mine is downstairs, so, yeah,
Amy Tyler (43:16):
okay, so for a final question, it's interesting, as
we're sitting here talking, andI have to admit, Sherry sent a
note and and brought this upkind of a through way with
everybody, is that you're notalone. And I wanted to know, did
you guys set out to addressthat? And also, is that? Also,
(43:40):
do you think that's to put tosay, is that because you're
women as well and nurturing, orwhat? What's that about? And do
you Sherry mentioned that everyall the authors had addressed
that in some way, and to all theauthors, do you agree with that?
And if so, how, um, Sherry, Iwant to start with you,
Unknown (44:03):
sure. So I set out to write the book that I wished I'd
had as a child. And I'm a selfpublished author, and I think
that one of the wonderful thingsabout that is, like, I could
stand in a place where I couldsay, Well, the reason I'm doing
this right that, like, like, ifI'm going to do this, I'm going
to do it this particular way,because I am holding 100% of the
(44:25):
creative process here as Ipartner with my illustrator. But
for me, it was so important totap into that set of experiences
that I had as a child, and whatI most would have wanted to say
to myself as a child is you'renot alone, and the the wonderful
experience of reading a book tosomeone is, in and of itself, a
(44:50):
bonding experience. But thenwhen you read and it opens up a
whole new world, and you findout all the different ways, like
in this particular case, thatpeople. To communicate, and all
the different ways that youmight have a communication
challenge, but it's okay,because we can all be patient,
we can all learn from eachother. There's many different
ways to communicate, and we canalways speak heart to heart. So
(45:13):
that message of you're not alonewas really intended to kind of
take the pressure off. There wasso much about having a speech
difference that felt like itwasn't fair. I had to do extra
work. Everybody felt like theycould correct me, interrupt me,
all day long. Every day was anexercise in trying to be heard
(45:35):
and to be understood. And sojust taking some of the heat off
and saying, Hey, we're allworking on this together. We're
going to communicate together.
We're going to speak heart toheart, and the rest will fall
away, and you're not alone. It'sokay. That was really healing
and really at the heart of thebook,
Amy Tyler (45:52):
Heather. How? What do you think about that? And how
does that resonate with yourwriting?
Unknown (45:57):
Oh, I just love this question, and I think I can
speak to this more clearly frommy role as a clinical counselor
is that what we're doing iswe're showing up with people and
providing that support and theempathy and the resources and a
company that may not have beenthere with them in their
immediate first experience. Andthis is something I think is so
important, and I really see thisin the room right now is the
(46:18):
respect and care with whichwe're addressing the reader as
writers. It's not only are wetrying to prepare something
engaging and exciting and ageappropriate and that can be
expansive, but also that reallykeeps a person company and holds
them and allows for somecontainment through the
experience. We're not going inand opening up something
hopefully, that we don't havethe capacity to walk them
(46:41):
through, if that makes sense. SoI really hear that as a through
line with all of our work here.
And I think that's one of thegreat gifts and something that I
really hold with a lot ofreverence as a writer, something
I think about a lot as I'm asI'm writing.
Amy Tyler (46:55):
What about you? Pam,
Unknown (46:57):
I think everybody, at some point in their life, or
often, as the case may be,feels, you know, alone or
different or misunderstood orvulnerable. And I think that's
part of the human spirit, thehuman existence. And I think you
know, accepting that and andunderstanding that there are
(47:17):
supports is is extremelyimportant. And I think part of
it in my books are, you know,it's the lessons you learn. It's
the lessons. I've got threesacred lessons in mind, which
is, trust your body, trustyourself and trust others, but
know whom to trust, right? So itis about that embracing the
support around you,
Amy Tyler (47:37):
okay? Trust and no pressure. You're the last
person. You're the last personeveryone's gonna hear from. So I
want you to tie this up for us.
Let's go.
Unknown (47:47):
Amazing. What you brought that up, Sherry, because
it's true. I mean, for me, in mybook, in the quiet limit, my
main character lay she lives ina community where everyone knows
when they're gonna die, andeveryone in the community is
living well into their hundreds,and she's only going to live to
the 18. And so her entire life,she feels different. She feels
alone, she feels like she's notimportant. And one of the
(48:10):
strongest messages throughoutthe book, despite all the
dystopian, the fear thateverything going on, is that
message deep down, that she isimportant and she isn't alone,
and it's her path to findingthat out. So, yeah, great, great
theme to bring up for all of us.
Well,
Amy Tyler (48:27):
with that, I'm going to conclude this edition of The
Red Fern book review. And thankyou guys so much for coming on
the podcast. And I really lovedhow we all shared, and Sherry
came up with some of myquestions, which was great, and
so I wish you all success, andcongratulations on your your
(48:50):
award. And yeah, thank you.
Okay,
Unknown (48:54):
so much. You guys did a much better job of summarizing
than I did good on you. Thankyou all so good to be here.
Thanks, Amy.
Amy Tyler (49:01):
So that concludes the final podcast in this series for
the Canadian book club awards.
And that was really fun. I was alittle bit like a kitchen party.
I felt that people were chimingin, in many cases, doing a
better job than I could,bringing people together,
finding commonality. And one ofmy best, the best questions, the
(49:22):
last one about, are we notalone? That was Sherry's idea.
She came up with that kind ofmid podcast. So thanks to
Sherry, and thanks again to theauthors, Heather, Sherry, Pam or
PS and Trista, and just toreview their books again, the
books are awfully hilarious.
(49:46):
Period pieces by Heather Hendry,my S's are messes by Sherry
McMillan, Secrets of the underunder World Water by PS,
whatever and the qua. Quietlemon. By Trista Lundquist, so
thanks so much for listening,And I'll talk to you soon. You
Unknown (50:20):
Oh, you you.
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