August 11, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, I chat with Barbara Boyle about her memoir, Pinch Me.
After decades crafting commercials and campaigns for global giants like Procter & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson, Barbara was drawn to a completely different path. Her story begins with a magical honeymoon visit to the Piedmont region of Italy, where, gazing over terracotta rooftops with morning coffee in hand, she felt an undeniable pull: "I need to live here." That feeling—equal parts recognition and revelation—set in motion a complete life transformation.
With warmth and candor, Barbara shares the unexpected parallels between her advertising background and memoir writing, where economy of language proved invaluable. She brings us along as she and her husband purchase and renovate their dream home, describing with reverence how the centuries-old stones seem to whisper stories of previous generations. "This house has an anima, a soul," their builder told them—a sentiment that perfectly captures the profound connection Barbara feels to her adopted homeland.
But this isn't simply a rose-colored relocation story. Just as Barbara was settling into her idyllic Italian life, a breast cancer diagnosis forced the couple to temporarily return to California for treatment. Her clear-eyed perspective on facing mortality while pursuing dreams adds remarkable depth to her narrative: "It is odd when all of your worst fears become real. It is not so bad." This resilience—facing challenges with grace while never losing sight of what matters—makes her story universally resonant.
Ready to be transported to the rolling hills of Piedmont? Listen now and discover how home isn't necessarily where we begin but where our soul recognizes itself—sometimes in the most unexpected places. If you enjoy Barbara's story, please share it with others who might be dreaming of their own bold life changes.
Dancing on my Own Two Feet, Jenn Todling
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week, I present interviewswith authors, independent
bookshop owners and booksellersfrom around the globe and
publishing professionals.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
(00:33):
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
You're listening to episode 302.
Barbara Boyle served fordecades as an award-winning
global creative director andexecutive vice president at
Suchy and Suchy Gray and LowAdvertising, creating
(00:55):
commercials, ads and stories forProcter Gamble, johnson Johnson
and Anheuser-Busch, amongdozens of other worldwide
marketeers.
A lifelong food and wineaficionado, she is a graduate of
a professional cooking courseat the Institute of Culinary
Education in New York.
Her fiction has also beenpublished in Flash Fiction, sky
(01:18):
Island Journal, star 82, andAerial Chart.
Barbara has lived in Paris,frankfurt and New New York and
now resides in Piedmont, italy,as well as San Francisco,
california.
Hi, barbara, and welcome to theshow.
It is a pleasure having youhere, all the way from Italy.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you, mandy, it is really lovely to be here,
Really nice.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I thoroughly enjoyed your book Pinch Me.
It's like every woman's dream.
I think about moving and livingin Italy, which is such a
beautiful country.
But before we get into the book, let's begin with learning
about you and your work as acreative director at Saatchi,
saatchi, gray, lowe and otheradvertising agencies, and how
(02:02):
this work laid the foundationfor writing a memoir.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's a great question.
I sort of see it the other wayaround, which is I've always
been a writer, since school.
I loved to write it.
I thought it was fun, and notuntil I graduated from college
did I really think about whatI'd have to do for a living.
And I heard you could actuallyget paid being a writer.
I't believe it, like they payyou to do that.
(02:26):
And so I got a job at a smallpublishing company in the
advertising department um, butjust couldn't wait to write even
little ads for the you knoweducational books we were
working on.
And then I put together alittle portfolio, went up to San
Francisco, worked for Chiat Day, which was, you know, becoming
Chiat Day at that time, andafter 10 years in San Francisco,
(02:50):
I said I've got to try this NewYork thing.
And moved all the way to NewYork but ended up in Times
Square not Madison Avenue,because that's my luck.
But it was a great time and agood little agency, lots of fun,
and it was not so littleactually, but it was a big,
crazy agency, but always as awriter, and then became a
creative director, and then evenas a global creative director.
(03:13):
At my heart I thought of myselfas a writer.
First, I'm really bad at art,other than I can appreciate it
and I know good stuff when I seeit, but I can't do it.
So I would judge or work withteams of writers and art
directors that's how it works,but I was always the writer in
that team.
So when I retired finally,after just being really spent
(03:35):
and given it all in advertising,I still felt the need to keep
writing, of course.
So I started a blog in 2015while we were here, about just
little snippets of our life.
And that's when people wereblogging still and all my
friends are like this is sogreat, your life is like this,
it's really unique, because youdon't have to be a very good
(03:56):
writer to talk about whathappens in Italy and make it
interesting, because it's socharming and it's so beautiful
and the food is so delicious.
So I got a nice littlefollowing from that and I
decided you know, maybe thiswill be my chance to write a
book.
I started like threescreenplays over the years and
never could finish one.
Just life takes over.
But I had nothing else to dobut write and live.
(04:18):
So that's what I started in2015 and that eventually became
Pinch Me.
So it became the book of whatam I?
Alice in Wonderland.
This is crazy, but that's thewhole idea.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So Alice in Wonderland, indeed, for our
listeners, when you are acreative director, when you're
writing commercials for video orfor magazine placement, you
must be succinct in your words,because you have seconds to say
what you want to say.
So every single word, everybreath is important and every
(04:56):
word must be necessary.
So there is a gosh, a definiteskill to this, and I think it's
probably a good thing to havelearned that skill and
transitioned then over to memoirwriting, because you still want
to be careful of the amount ofwords that you put into each
sentence.
So, as a creative director, youunderstand the use of words and
(05:21):
when not to use words.
What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, they say I would have written a shorter
letter if I had more time.
A famous author or presidentsaid that, and it's true that
brevity is hard at times to justmake it pithy.
I was doing flash fiction as Iwas sort of warming up for the
book, and that's really a wildkind of writing.
(05:45):
I love it.
You try and keep it 250 wordsor less and you just keep paring
back and paring back and youstart at the most dramatic part
and you leave out everything youdon't need.
And I love that this book isnot a long book because of that.
It is sort of if not, yet it'spretty condensed into, you know,
five years that I cover becauseI guess I'm just used to
(06:09):
thinking in 30 second segments.
You know the other thing thatyou're right to point out the
difference in writing foradvertising is you are told what
you're writing about and youare told who you're talking to
and you are given the salientpoint that needs to be
communicated.
Talking to, and you are giventhe salient point that needs to
be communicated.
So it's kind of fun for me togo yeah, maybe I'll talk about
(06:31):
cheese or talk about wine and itwas really fun to have that
freedom to write about thingsthat meant to me.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
While I was researching, I went back and
read a lot of your flash fictionand it was really fun.
I'd love to see some of theoriginal drafts of flash fiction
pieces, because it's just likeyou said everything drops away
all the superfluous words.
You're left with this concisepiece of writing.
Barbara, could you tell usabout when you lived in Paris
(07:00):
and what inspired you to takecooking courses?
And was it your decision to addthe recipes in your memoir?
Pinch Me, I just love them.
I think it's a real added bonusto the book.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Thank you.
There's only 14 of them and oneof them is my mother's pecan
pie, but mostly they're.
They spring from the storiesthemselves and they're mostly
Italian, because it's hard totalk about Italy, and this
region in particular, withoutfood being a big part of the
topic of the day.
That year in Paris wasinteresting.
I believe it was 92.
(07:33):
I was there for work.
I was given the job of tryingto smooth out the agency
creative product on Mars Product, not the planet, and I was sent
from New York, from gray NewYork, to gray Paris, to see if I
could get them working togetherwith the client more smoothly,
because the French were beingvery French and Mars is a very
(07:55):
straightforward kind of company.
So that was an interesting year.
And of course, you know you'rein Paris and the food is
fabulous there too and I'vealways loved cooking and food.
It's been a real.
I don't like the word foodie,but it's been a passion.
You know you're in Paris andthe food is fabulous there too
and I've always loved cookingand food.
It's been a real.
I don't like the word foodie,but it's been a passion you know
to enjoy.
I enjoy cooking, I enjoy doingthings for people and presenting
them and learning how to dothem.
(08:16):
And that year there I was justso impressed with the various
restaurants and the cuisine.
I thought, you know, I'd reallylike to do something deeper and
you'd always heard about LeCordon Bleu was like the
ultimate thing.
So I just signed up for a oneweek course the regional cooking
but it was full time.
It was from nine in the morningtill 10 at night.
I'd go at eight at night.
I'd come home exhausted andwe'd made cocoa van and puff
(08:39):
pastry and, you know, baked andcooked and it was really
interesting.
And after that week I realizedhow much I didn't know and what
I needed to learn and I gotreally motivated to maybe take a
real course.
So I went back to New York andsigned up for Peter Kumpf's
cooking school.
Then it's become the New YorkCulinary Institute or something.
(09:00):
It's changed its name, but itwas seven, eight months of three
nights a week and this was myfull-time job.
I'd leave work at five and thengo work until 11, three nights
a week.
But it was great fun and Ilearned so much and at the end
we put on a dinner for 70 peopleat the James Beard house.
That was really the highlightof that time in my advertising
(09:21):
career, although it had nothingto do with advertising but but
in advertising.
Every time I could I would workon a food account, you know,
like Mars Snickers or Crisco Oilor Red Lobster.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Let's talk about the behind the scenes, just for a
moment, of the making ofcommercial video.
As a stylist and costumedesigner, I've seen what it
takes to get the wardrobecorrect and what is wanted by
the director and the team of theadvertising agency for each
(09:54):
individual actor in thecommercials.
For example, you might be askedfor a red T-shirt.
However, you know that you haveto bring at least a dozen tones
of red t-shirts for thefittings, which are done prior
to the shoot date, because youcannot wait to the last minute.
(10:16):
You must have everyone agreeupon the shade of red t-shirt.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
In a dozen sizes.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yes, in different sizes.
I can't tell you the amount oftimes that I would actually just
get white t-shirts and dye themin dye lots to different shades
.
But in truth every commercialwe see takes months to develop
from the original concept to thewriting at the agency and then
moving on to the productioncompany where all of the
(10:43):
different teams involved come inand everyone has their say.
In reading your book, Iappreciated how you wrote about
how the body physically andemotionally changes at times.
When we, for example, step offa plane and put our feet on the
land of a different country or adifferent state, something
(11:04):
shifts in our body.
So can you share the story ofhow you discovered Rodino and
Montforte and how your body feltwhen you first visited the area
?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
That's interesting.
The very first time I was verynervous because I didn't.
I realized in the hour betweenSouthern France or the
several-hour drive between, Iguess, burgundy over to northern
Italy that I hadn't really donemy research.
I wasn't really sure where wewere going.
I thought maybe it was the LakeDistrict, which it isn't.
(11:35):
Turns out it's the hill townsof northern Italy that you
hadn't heard about.
And as we're getting closer andcloser, it was like the weather
we had last week here, which wasgray and foggy and kind of
drizzly and snowy in themountains, and I'm like, oh boy,
this is our honeymoon, is thisgoing to be just a terrible week
?
I was getting very nervous andit was windy and kind of dreary.
(11:56):
But as soon as I got out of thecar at the top of the hill in
this beautiful little Alberigoand this lovely woman greeting
us, I'm like, okay, we're goingto be good.
I felt very, very peaceful.
And that night we had thisamazing dinner that I still
can't believe how it allhappened.
The woman from the hotel closedup the hotel, drove us down to
(12:19):
the restaurant I mean, who doesthat?
And at the end of the night theowner of the restaurant put us
in our car and drove us back upto the restaurant I mean, who
does that?
And at the end of the night theowner of the restaurant put us
in our car and drove us back upto the hotel.
It's like you were at yourmother's cousin's house or
something.
It was amazing and the food wasso good.
And the next morning the sun wasbright and the sky was blue and
there was snow everywhere and Ireally did feel like Alice in
(12:41):
Wonderland, falling through thelooking glass, just saying where
am I?
Am I dreaming?
Is this real?
Is this not real?
There's so many moments thatwhole week that were just
beautiful, just beautiful, andthat body felt, um, like it
belonged.
There was a literal I think Italked about it in the book
pretty early on having breakfastin the little breakfast room,
(13:03):
having my little coffee andlooking out over this beautiful
valley, these little terracottahomes in the distance, and I
just had this incredible pull tobe there in those homes
drinking coffee and having amorning like this every morning,
which is what I have now.
It really is that and, lest Iforget and get caught up in life
and doctor's appointments andhectic stuff, it is still a
(13:27):
pinch me moment every morningwhen I wake up and go.
This is my home.
This is amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
You know the way I explain that feeling is that
moment when you've been on theway a long time and you come
home and you open your frontdoor and you go ah, I'm home,
and it's that same experience.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I think when people are traveling, often you'll say
you know I could live here, andthat just kept dawning on me.
The very first time I landed inRome was about 10 years earlier
, and when the plane landed Ifelt like I was home.
I felt like I was in California, but it was Italy.
I really loved that first tasteof Rome years ago.
The night we actually came uphere, though, I was nervous that
(14:09):
it wasn't going to be nice, andas the days dawned, not only I
could live here within a coupleof days, I need to live here.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, I felt that a few times, one of them
specifically being here in Ojaiand the other one being in
Florence.
Barbara, you've spoken a littlebit about your diary notes that
you made and you were bloggingonce you arrived in Italy, going
through the motions ofdesigning the house or
redesigning the house, but wasthere a specific moment or a
(14:41):
time that you remember where youthought I need to write this as
a memoir?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You know it was 2015, .
As we were making thetransition from wouldn't this be
a fun project to boy.
This is really going to be agreat house to.
I don't really ever want toleave this house.
I want this to be my house.
That was a kind of that wholeprocess and I'm writing the
little notes and beginning tomeet friends and beginning to
feel a part of the community andthinking this community was so
(15:11):
comforting and welcoming andsupportive and all that thinking
this is a place I could thrive,I mean really the rest of my
days.
And as that all kind of hungtogether, I started thinking
this, this actually could be abook with, with some various
steps of what it started to beand what it's getting to be.
(15:32):
So it was in 2015 or so and itcontinued to be kind of dribs
and drabs here, dribs and drabsthere.
You know, sometimes I take aweek and write a lot, depending
if my life opened up that Icould do that, because you know
life takes over.
You have to also betweenwriting and life.
It's you got to work thatbalance.
But there was a couple weekswhere my husband was back at
(15:54):
UCLA taking care of his brotherwho was being sick.
He's okay now and I checkedinto a little B&B here in town
and just wrote all day and thatwas actually pretty cool to
really focus.
And then it was definitely abook and I could see the
beginning and the end, althoughI wasn't always sure how it was
going to end.
But then as the years weredeveloping and we were settling
(16:17):
in and I was sort of I was doingan homage to a year in Provence
where I had written the year ofJanuary actually March to March
and right after that time I wasdiagnosed with cancer, with
breast cancer, and that was ahuge shock.
Just because this is how weirdI am, I thought well, at least
now I have an ending to the book, which is kind of funny, but
(16:42):
kind of like okay, well, eitherway, however it ends, this is a
story worth telling.
That you have your dream life,it's all perfect, and then, whoa
not so fast the rug gets pulledout from underneath you, and
that's how it ended for Barbara.
Luckily it didn't.
I was really fortunate, but wehad to pull up roots and move
back to California for a year.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And how was that for you?
How did you feel about movingback?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It was strange in that you really think you're
scared but you have a job to do.
Okay, you need to get a doctor,you need to get a place to stay
.
You need to go to chem Okay,you need to get a doctor, you
need to get a place to stay, youneed to go to chemo.
You need to do certain and youjust start taking it like you
took it like a job.
I had been retired for a coupleyears and I felt like this is
my job again.
So I kept the clear on the walland crossed off every day.
(17:27):
And you do it a step at a time.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
There's a part in your book that I'd like to read.
It's a paragraph, and I thinkit explains everything you went
through beautifully.
Quote it is odd when all ofyour worst fears become real.
It is not so bad.
Nothing hurt, nothing feltdifferent, but I knew that
suddenly everything wasdifferent.
So I settled in and tried tountangle the rush of my thoughts
.
End quote.
I love those words.
(17:57):
They were so touching for me.
I feel that when we're in thispredicament, it's almost calming
to be given these steps youhave to follow, and that is your
job.
Basically, as you said, youmust follow every step precisely
, and it brings a sense of calm.
It's strange, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well, it's like, okay , this is your worst fear.
All right, my arms are attached, my legs are attached.
I'm sitting in the seat of theairplane next to my husband.
He put his hand in mine.
I cried a little bit and thenwent okay, what do we do?
And it isn't these things youthink it's going to be, you know
, but it's.
It's still nothing pleasant.
(18:41):
It's a year that's verydifficult and for a lot of
people, a lot longer, a lot ofpeople a lot less.
But this was, it was a veryhard year and you know I've had
to be careful for the last sevenyears, but I've been deemed
cured.
So it's hard for me not to feelreally lucky and feel like it's
a bullet past your head.
You know it's a warning shotand mortal, that's okay, but you
(19:05):
just want to.
You want to handle it withgrace and strength and do the
best you can to get through it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
When you received the diagnosis, you were living in
the house in Italy.
Right, you were settled there.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We were.
It had been like into oursecond year where we decided
we're really going to pull upeverything, rent our house I
mean, sell our house and ourlittle condo in San Francisco,
move here full time why not?
We just loved it and my husbandhad had a small hernia or
something, so we would add some.
You know, dealings with themedical community and it can be
wonderful.
But when I got the diagnosisand it took so long for them to
figure it out and they kind ofmisdiagnosed it, and also when
(19:43):
I'm really stressed my Italianjust goes out, my brain just
isn't there.
So I thought I'm going to bepretty tired this year.
I don't want to be dealing withsaying all these subtle things
in Italian.
We need to get home and get toour doctors.
So we just sort of made a plan,you know, took some thinking.
Do you go to New York?
Do you go back to San Francisco, where you know?
(20:04):
Do you go to Sloan County?
Do you go to someplace in Texas, who knows?
We made the plan Again.
It's like planning a vacation,but in reverse.
You know you're planning how toget out of here and live for a
year or two like a job.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And thank heavens, financially you were able to do
this, because I think that's soscary.
You know you get through theemotional upheaval of your
diagnosis.
Then comes the ongoing monthsand, as you said, a year of
treatment, but you have constantconcerns about the financial
realities of the costs and it'sscary.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
No, the practicalities of it, and
financially we took a big hit.
We had sold our house, so wehad to go back and rent for a
year.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
In San Francisco, which has high rental prices.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, right, to our old apartment or to the same
complex of our old apartment,but and we didn't have the time
to figure out well, we can cleanup the house and rent this out
for a year while we're gone.
We just packed up and left, butpeople do that all the time.
People recover.
That's what your savings is for.
We don't have it in money, butwe had money put aside for
(21:10):
something like this.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Barbara, just then you mentioned the word going
back home.
When you think about home now,where is it?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Interesting.
I say home because it's wherewe were born and lived lives.
So that is home.
America will always be home,especially San Francisco and
California New York used to be.
It isn't really I wouldn't sayhome for it, but certainly the
Bay Area, san Francisco.
But this is our home right nowtoo.
So I feel sort of dual, thatI'm a little bit of both.
(21:40):
They're both home definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, I find this subject fascinating because I've
lived away from Australia nowway longer than I lived there
before I left, and yet I alwaysthink of Australia as my home
because that's where I was born.
But the older I get, I thinkI'm finding home within, deep
within my soul.
What and where home is issomething that I have difficulty
(22:05):
explaining.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
And I think it does change throughout your life.
Home will always be where Igrew up, more so than any place
else in America, where I grew upmore so than any place else in
America.
The point about home with SanFrancisco is now that I'm healed
.
We were full-time back in Italyand not needing to have a place
, but we thought in the lastyear wouldn't it be good to have
one, just a stepping stone, incase we do ever need to get back
(22:30):
and not make it a big kind of arat race trying to get a place
to live?
So we have an apartment back inSan Francisco again as of last
June and it's great, but itdoesn't feel like home, whereas
this is our home.
It's a great place to be in.
San Francisco is home, iscomfortable, but the actual
apartment is so different fromthis, which was built by our own
(22:51):
hands and our imagination andall that.
So this is this house, is ourhome that way, but San Francisco
will always be where I started.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
That's kind of a good segue into my next question.
The start of chapter fivebegins, quote the drive up the
curving road to Monforte was atonce familiar yet new.
End quote as we spoke ofearlier, there are times in our
lives when we experience thisrecognition, whether they be
land, people, animals orbuildings, and we kind of wonder
(23:22):
what that means.
Tell us about the emotions andfamiliar feelings this region of
Italy raised in you, and whatmade you take notice.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
What's interesting is , the things that give me the
most satisfaction are thingsthat hearken back to when I was
eight and seven the way we'regrowing vegetables and bringing
them in the house and they'recovered with dirt and you got to
wash them off.
Or the way we still take sheetsand put them up on a line with
(23:52):
clothespins and let the wind gothrough them.
And I remember my mother doingthat on her tiptoes in their
backyard in California, hangingup the sheets, doing things more
by hand, working in the yard,you know, mopping my own floor,
kind of letting my fingernailsgo.
I might go six months without amanicure.
(24:13):
That is not New York, that isnot advertising, but it reminds
me of when I was a little girlin many ways and the simplicity
of how and when I grew up.
You know which was with Easter.
Holidays were very simple andinnocent and, you know, kind of
goofy, and I have those samefeelings here.
There's a lot of it Christmastoo, a lot of those feelings
(24:34):
come back where I feel veryclose to my parents who are gone
and that the parents and thechildhood that I had when we
were a family.
So it's a very comfortingfeeling.
That's familiar.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Everything you've just said reflects back to that
word home, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You dug deep in me to get that one, Mandy.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Well, thank you for going there.
You spoke about the memoriesthat tug at our soul and
likewise, one of my memories isabout hanging clothes on the
line.
It's very warm here in Ojai, sowhen we can, we use the
clothesline outside to hang outour clothes to dry.
And every time I see theclothesline or the pegs, I have
(25:17):
this memory of my mother, in herdress, going out with the
basket and hanging clothes onthe line.
Perfectly, I feel the windrustling through the clothes.
It's so ingrained in my soul.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
No, and the little wooden clothespins and the smell
of the tide and the Clorox.
I mean, I've worked on tide.
We talked a lot about thatsmell.
It reminds me of my mother.
The smell of the clean sheetsand the sunshine and the fresh
air in them.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, they definitely take us back to our childhood
moments.
Can you share the moment whenyou and your husband Kim decided
to take the step and purchase aplace in Italy and make it your
home, in particular, the reasonyou went and saw this last home
?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You know, we had dated 11 years before we got
married.
So we take our time doingthings and the whole time we
dated, my husband, who was inreal estate development on his
own, would say, well, we couldmaybe live here.
And so we would always look atdifferent places, always with an
eye to we could live here, wecould live there.
But I was taking it prettyseriously here in Italy because
(26:18):
I really had that pull, that I,but I want to live like in this
town here.
So when we came back a secondtime, we're really looking at
the homes.
They were all beautiful andthey were all interesting and
you could, you know, make theold fixer-upper dream come true
with them, because they're theseold, stone, crumbling, falling
down structures.
But somehow and we were goingto get on a plane like a day
(26:42):
later we come to this house, wecome down the driveway and pull
around and the whole setting wasunbelievable.
It was late afternoon and youcould hear the birds and the sun
was coming in.
It was so quiet and I lookedaround and I kind of nudged my
husband on the arm.
I said this is it and he goesbarbara, how do you know?
(27:03):
This is it?
We haven't even gotten out ofthe car yet.
I said I, I just know it.
It's like well, let's go take alook around.
What are you talking about,right?
So he gets out and startstramping around the house and I
go and sit down on the littlecorner over there and I just sat
there for the longest timegoing.
I could stay here the rest ofmy life.
This is absolutely it.
And by the time he came back,after kind of roaming around the
(27:25):
old barn and house, he saidokay, this is it too.
We just, you know, within anhour or two, we just felt it,
and our neighbors who wereselling the house are kind of
our age, roughly our age hadthey didn't know a word of
English, but they were so sweetand, um, she had gone into her
garden and pulled up this littleuh, not stamen but pistils, I
(27:48):
guess of saffron, and put him inmy hand and she goes saffrono
and I went saffron and Irealized Milan is not far.
Of course they have saffron,rice and risotto milanese is
that beautiful golden color?
And I just thought, boy, thesewould be nice neighbors,
wouldn't it be fun to have themnext door, pretty next door, not
(28:09):
far away?
And they have been.
They were a big part of what weloved about the home there.
They have all that charm andwelcoming and sweetness that the
Italians have, but kind of onsteroids, I mean they're just
the nicest neighbors.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
And then you ended up renting a little place from
them, right within their home.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, we moved in.
We moved in for about a yearand a half while we were
finishing up the barn.
This really was a 300-year-oldstone barn and we could just run
back and forth from their houseover to the work site and we
could sort of practice ourEnglish, Italian, however we
talked.
I'm not quite sure how wecommunicated, but we did and it
was great.
(28:47):
And they rented it for aridiculously cheap price.
I think it was $100, 100 eurosa week for us to stay there,
which made it workable for us tobe able to come here.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Speaking of the stones, I'm looking at the wall
behind you and there seems to bea mix of stones and brick.
I'm guessing it pertains to thedifferent eras of the house,
when it was remodeled.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
You know, over 300 years, different things happen
at different times.
This particular wall is bricksand stones, terracotta tiles,
all that kind of built into it,but this was a wall that had
been standing.
This is all the barn, this isall where the animals lived.
Our living room is where theanimals lived and then up our
guest bedrooms are where theowner lived, the woman who was
(29:34):
born here and died here 98 yearslater.
He lived up there and that'sagain 300-year-old walls that go
up way high and you know theytell stories, those stones.
You can just imagine with themen what they were doing, what
was going on in their life.
Was there a war going on?
Were there terrible dictatorsgoing on?
You know a lot of respect.
(29:54):
They've endured a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I believe when we go to these old buildings to visit,
if you sit quietly you can hearthe whispers of some of the
history throughout the land thatthe building is built upon and
also in the woodwork or thestonework, and I think there's
some kind of inherited sufferingthere.
(30:16):
Maybe some of these buildingshave souls.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
That's funny.
Our builder said this house hasan anima, a soul.
He really felt that.
You know, you were just akeeper of the house for a while.
I mean, I'm kind of aware thatwe're here and it's not going
anywhere anytime soon.
So we sort of hope that whenwe're not here our kids will
still keep it in the family andcome here and maybe feel close
to us, and then maybe their kids, who knows?
I have such respect for thepeople who have spent 300 years
(30:43):
eating raising wheat for flourthat they would then make pasta,
raising goats to make goatcheese.
I mean, I mean their littlevegetable gardens.
They'd survive on this land,you know, amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
The culture there is so different than the culture
here, where in America if ahouse is from the 30s or the 40s
it tends to be torn down andrebuilt into some mega house.
We forget about the souls ofthe building and I think when,
maybe perhaps one day, that'ssomething you'll write about the
soul of the house.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I want to focus on the woman who lived here.
She was born here, died here 98years later and never married,
never left, took care of herbrother the last years of her
life.
And I her name was Emma and Ireally want to get to know her.
And I'll just make up all kindsof stuff, I'm sure, but I want
to know what was going on in theworld around her.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And how it affected her.
I think that's a fabulous idea.
Now you are published with sheWrites Press, which is a hybrid
publisher.
What drew you to this form ofpublishing and to she Writes
Press?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, I knew it would be a struggle to get an agent.
So I think I sent out oneletter as an agent and it just
faded away and I had an editor Iwas working with that I had
found through a friend in NewYork and she said you know,
there are hybrid publishers.
She goes, she writes as one ofthe most highly respected and
(32:08):
continues to be getting stronger.
They're distributed by Simonand Schuster.
They charge you a little bit ofmoney but it's not incredible.
You look at what the bigpublishers charge or what they
spend on.
A book can be $100,000.
And you have to be veryproactive.
You have to bring your friendsand you know your Facebook
(32:28):
friends and all that to theparty.
But I feel like it was a verygood value.
You know you get to be involvedin the cover and in what the
book looks like.
You have to edit it yourself.
You are the final approval.
You don't just hand a roughmanuscript over to somebody who
changes it and switches aroundthe title and does all that.
(32:50):
You have a lot of control and Ilike that.
You know I was a always part ofa creative team where you
definitely got to vote.
You know I would sort of.
I mean, honestly, if I got acall from a publisher who said
we'll take it, we'll market it,it would be interesting, it
would be fun, but I don't thinkthat's going to happen.
You know, you'd have to beyoung younger.
Usually you have to be alreadypretty famous, which I'm not
younger.
Usually you have to be alreadypretty famous, which I'm not.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I have a lot of respect for what Brooke Warner
is doing with she Writes Press.
I met her years ago at an IBPAfunction, maybe in Austin, when
she was involved with thatcompany and I've had a few
authors who publish with sheWrites Press on the show and
I've been impressed.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
The authors that I've met.
We have a cohort I like becauseit's only women, so you're
already.
50% of the people aren't goingto be competing with you.
You're only going to have women,you know, and they were very
selective.
They don't just take anybody,which is nice, and they were
very excited about my firstmanuscript.
And the authors that I've metare really fabulous people,
(33:54):
really smart, they have a storyto tell and some of them are
story to tell and they're all.
Some of them are quite amazingwriters and they're all solid,
good writers.
You know, some are very, verygood and the books are beautiful
.
If you look at them one afteranother, you can go yes, add a
good quality to it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So, and it's fabulous that she now has distribution
through Simon Schuster.
Okay, let's talk about books.
What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Simon Schuster.
Okay, let's talk about books.
What are you currently reading?
I'm currently reading theBreaks, which is another one of
my authors, and it's really fun.
It's about a life in KansasCity.
She lives in Los Altos now,which is where I grew up, but
she grew up in Kansas City andshe makes it.
It's in present day, but it'sreally real, very charming, very
interesting.
She's a good writer and I'vejust gotten the manuscript for
(34:36):
Jen Toddling's book, which iscalled Dancing on my Own Two
Feet, and I haven't read thatyet.
But I just wanted to look ather manuscript because it's nice
to review it.
I want to read it before I getthe book.
It's hard to get books here inItaly, so I've read A Bear I
read last year.
I enjoyed that.
I like reading memoirs.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Is there an independent bookshop in the area
where you live?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
No, well, not here in Italy.
What I do have are some reallylovely townspeople that the
mayor in Monforte just suggestedwe could maybe do a sort of a
cooperative event with thispainter that has sort of become
the Monforte painter and theytake over the old Old Town
church and do his kind ofdemonstrate his art show and
(35:19):
they invite people in and giveyou a champagne and he sells his
work or not, depending and soit's kind of like a three, four
or five day event where you gospend a few hours there and meet
people and show them your book.
So maybe I'll try and sell itthat way.
But people here are reallyexcited about it because they go
.
I'm in the book.
Oh my gosh, that's so exciting.
So I kind of can't keep itaround.
(35:39):
I had like 20, 30 books when wearrived three weeks ago and I'm
down to one.
So people either buy them orcan I take them, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That's wonderful.
Well, italy does have somegreat indie bookshops.
I've had a few of them on theshow.
But I did notice too that someof the publishing companies in
Italy open their own bookshops,which is interesting because we
don't have that concept here.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, I'll have to investigate that.
There's a stop by Three in Alba, which is sort of our big city.
It has 20,000 people, so that'sthe big city, and the three
bookstores just kind of lovedhim and want to take them.
But I don't have enough.
One is suspicious that he can'tdo it because it's not
published in Italy.
So I'm looking into how would Ido that.
(36:23):
I've been talking to a coupleof publishers.
I think we're probably notgoing to translate it to Italian
because it's written very.
It is so colloquial that itwould be kind of tricky.
Plus, it is so colloquial thatit would be kind of tricky.
Plus, they're not so amazedthat it's a 300-year-old Italian
farmhouse because they knowwhat, that it's really good
pasta.
They just for them.
It's natural.
It's normal we're amazed at it,you know.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Barbara, it's been great chatting with you.
I'm green with envy for whereyou live, although I do love
where I live too, in Ojai butthere's something about the
history and the culture of Italythat is somehow snuck into my
heart.
Thank you for writing yourmemoir Pinch Me.
It was lovely to hear about thestory of your relocation from
(37:05):
San Francisco to Italy.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Thank you, mandy, it's been a pleasure.
I'll come see you next time I'min Santa Barbara.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I'll head over to Ojai podcast.
To find out more about thebookshop podcast, go to
(37:33):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe bookshop podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
(37:55):
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, Mandy
Jackson-Beverly, Theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly, and
my executive assistant andgraphic designer is Adrian
Otterhahn.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Hi, my name is Mandy Jackson-Beverly and I'm a
bibliophile.
Welcome to the Bookshop Podcast.
Each week, I present interviewswith authors, independent
bookshop owners and booksellersfrom around the globe and
publishing professionals.
To help the show reach morepeople, please share episodes
with friends and family and onsocial media, and remember to
(00:33):
subscribe and leave a reviewwherever you listen to this
podcast.
You're listening to episode 302.
Barbara Boyle served fordecades as an award-winning
global creative director andexecutive vice president at
Suchy and Suchy Gray and LowAdvertising, creating
(00:55):
commercials, ads and stories forProcter Gamble, johnson Johnson
and Anheuser-Busch, amongdozens of other worldwide
marketeers.
A lifelong food and wineaficionado, she is a graduate of
a professional cooking courseat the Institute of Culinary
Education in New York.
Her fiction has also beenpublished in Flash Fiction, sky
(01:18):
Island Journal, star 82, andAerial Chart.
Barbara has lived in Paris,frankfurt and New New York and
now resides in Piedmont, italy,as well as San Francisco,
california.
Hi, barbara, and welcome to theshow.
It is a pleasure having youhere, all the way from Italy.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you, mandy, it is really lovely to be here,
Really nice.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I thoroughly enjoyed your book Pinch Me.
It's like every woman's dream.
I think about moving and livingin Italy, which is such a
beautiful country.
But before we get into the book, let's begin with learning
about you and your work as acreative director at Saatchi,
saatchi, gray, lowe and otheradvertising agencies, and how
(02:02):
this work laid the foundationfor writing a memoir.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
That's a great question.
I sort of see it the other wayaround, which is I've always
been a writer, since school.
I loved to write it.
I thought it was fun, and notuntil I graduated from college
did I really think about whatI'd have to do for a living.
And I heard you could actuallyget paid being a writer.
I't believe it, like they payyou to do that.
(02:26):
And so I got a job at a smallpublishing company in the
advertising department um, butjust couldn't wait to write even
little ads for the you knoweducational books we were
working on.
And then I put together alittle portfolio, went up to San
Francisco, worked for Chiat Day, which was, you know, becoming
Chiat Day at that time, andafter 10 years in San Francisco,
(02:50):
I said I've got to try this NewYork thing.
And moved all the way to NewYork but ended up in Times
Square not Madison Avenue,because that's my luck.
But it was a great time and agood little agency, lots of fun,
and it was not so littleactually, but it was a big,
crazy agency, but always as awriter, and then became a
creative director, and then evenas a global creative director.
(03:13):
At my heart I thought of myselfas a writer.
First, I'm really bad at art,other than I can appreciate it
and I know good stuff when I seeit, but I can't do it.
So I would judge or work withteams of writers and art
directors that's how it works,but I was always the writer in
that team.
So when I retired finally,after just being really spent
(03:35):
and given it all in advertising,I still felt the need to keep
writing, of course.
So I started a blog in 2015while we were here, about just
little snippets of our life.
And that's when people wereblogging still and all my
friends are like this is sogreat, your life is like this,
it's really unique, because youdon't have to be a very good
(03:56):
writer to talk about whathappens in Italy and make it
interesting, because it's socharming and it's so beautiful
and the food is so delicious.
So I got a nice littlefollowing from that and I
decided you know, maybe thiswill be my chance to write a
book.
I started like threescreenplays over the years and
never could finish one.
Just life takes over.
But I had nothing else to dobut write and live.
(04:18):
So that's what I started in2015 and that eventually became
Pinch Me.
So it became the book of whatam I?
Alice in Wonderland.
This is crazy, but that's thewhole idea.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So Alice in Wonderland, indeed, for our
listeners, when you are acreative director, when you're
writing commercials for video orfor magazine placement, you
must be succinct in your words,because you have seconds to say
what you want to say.
So every single word, everybreath is important and every
(04:56):
word must be necessary.
So there is a gosh, a definiteskill to this, and I think it's
probably a good thing to havelearned that skill and
transitioned then over to memoirwriting, because you still want
to be careful of the amount ofwords that you put into each
sentence.
So, as a creative director, youunderstand the use of words and
(05:21):
when not to use words.
What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, they say I would have written a shorter
letter if I had more time.
A famous author or presidentsaid that, and it's true that
brevity is hard at times to justmake it pithy.
I was doing flash fiction as Iwas sort of warming up for the
book, and that's really a wildkind of writing.
(05:45):
I love it.
You try and keep it 250 wordsor less and you just keep paring
back and paring back and youstart at the most dramatic part
and you leave out everything youdon't need.
And I love that this book isnot a long book because of that.
It is sort of if not, yet it'spretty condensed into, you know,
five years that I cover becauseI guess I'm just used to
(06:09):
thinking in 30 second segments.
You know the other thing thatyou're right to point out the
difference in writing foradvertising is you are told what
you're writing about and youare told who you're talking to
and you are given the salientpoint that needs to be
communicated.
Talking to, and you are giventhe salient point that needs to
be communicated.
So it's kind of fun for me togo yeah, maybe I'll talk about
(06:31):
cheese or talk about wine and itwas really fun to have that
freedom to write about thingsthat meant to me.
I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
While I was researching, I went back and
read a lot of your flash fictionand it was really fun.
I'd love to see some of theoriginal drafts of flash fiction
pieces, because it's just likeyou said everything drops away
all the superfluous words.
You're left with this concisepiece of writing.
Barbara, could you tell usabout when you lived in Paris
(07:00):
and what inspired you to takecooking courses?
And was it your decision to addthe recipes in your memoir?
Pinch Me, I just love them.
I think it's a real added bonusto the book.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Thank you.
There's only 14 of them and oneof them is my mother's pecan
pie, but mostly they're.
They spring from the storiesthemselves and they're mostly
Italian, because it's hard totalk about Italy, and this
region in particular, withoutfood being a big part of the
topic of the day.
That year in Paris wasinteresting.
I believe it was 92.
(07:33):
I was there for work.
I was given the job of tryingto smooth out the agency
creative product on Mars Product, not the planet, and I was sent
from New York, from gray NewYork, to gray Paris, to see if I
could get them working togetherwith the client more smoothly,
because the French were beingvery French and Mars is a very
(07:55):
straightforward kind of company.
So that was an interesting year.
And of course, you know you'rein Paris and the food is
fabulous there too and I'vealways loved cooking and food.
It's been a real.
I don't like the word foodie,but it's been a passion.
You know you're in Paris andthe food is fabulous there too
and I've always loved cookingand food.
It's been a real.
I don't like the word foodie,but it's been a passion you know
to enjoy.
I enjoy cooking, I enjoy doingthings for people and presenting
them and learning how to dothem.
(08:16):
And that year there I was justso impressed with the various
restaurants and the cuisine.
I thought, you know, I'd reallylike to do something deeper and
you'd always heard about LeCordon Bleu was like the
ultimate thing.
So I just signed up for a oneweek course the regional cooking
but it was full time.
It was from nine in the morningtill 10 at night.
I'd go at eight at night.
I'd come home exhausted andwe'd made cocoa van and puff
(08:39):
pastry and, you know, baked andcooked and it was really
interesting.
And after that week I realizedhow much I didn't know and what
I needed to learn and I gotreally motivated to maybe take a
real course.
So I went back to New York andsigned up for Peter Kumpf's
cooking school.
Then it's become the New YorkCulinary Institute or something.
(09:00):
It's changed its name, but itwas seven, eight months of three
nights a week and this was myfull-time job.
I'd leave work at five and thengo work until 11, three nights
a week.
But it was great fun and Ilearned so much and at the end
we put on a dinner for 70 peopleat the James Beard house.
That was really the highlightof that time in my advertising
(09:21):
career, although it had nothingto do with advertising but but
in advertising.
Every time I could I would workon a food account, you know,
like Mars Snickers or Crisco Oilor Red Lobster.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Let's talk about the behind the scenes, just for a
moment, of the making ofcommercial video.
As a stylist and costumedesigner, I've seen what it
takes to get the wardrobecorrect and what is wanted by
the director and the team of theadvertising agency for each
(09:54):
individual actor in thecommercials.
For example, you might be askedfor a red T-shirt.
However, you know that you haveto bring at least a dozen tones
of red t-shirts for thefittings, which are done prior
to the shoot date, because youcannot wait to the last minute.
(10:16):
You must have everyone agreeupon the shade of red t-shirt.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
In a dozen sizes.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Yes, in different sizes.
I can't tell you the amount oftimes that I would actually just
get white t-shirts and dye themin dye lots to different shades
.
But in truth every commercialwe see takes months to develop
from the original concept to thewriting at the agency and then
moving on to the productioncompany where all of the
(10:43):
different teams involved come inand everyone has their say.
In reading your book, Iappreciated how you wrote about
how the body physically andemotionally changes at times.
When we, for example, step offa plane and put our feet on the
land of a different country or adifferent state, something
(11:04):
shifts in our body.
So can you share the story ofhow you discovered Rodino and
Montforte and how your body feltwhen you first visited the area
?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
That's interesting.
The very first time I was verynervous because I didn't.
I realized in the hour betweenSouthern France or the
several-hour drive between, Iguess, burgundy over to northern
Italy that I hadn't really donemy research.
I wasn't really sure where wewere going.
I thought maybe it was the LakeDistrict, which it isn't.
(11:35):
Turns out it's the hill townsof northern Italy that you
hadn't heard about.
And as we're getting closer andcloser, it was like the weather
we had last week here, which wasgray and foggy and kind of
drizzly and snowy in themountains, and I'm like, oh boy,
this is our honeymoon, is thisgoing to be just a terrible week
?
I was getting very nervous andit was windy and kind of dreary.
(11:56):
But as soon as I got out of thecar at the top of the hill in
this beautiful little Alberigoand this lovely woman greeting
us, I'm like, okay, we're goingto be good.
I felt very, very peaceful.
And that night we had thisamazing dinner that I still
can't believe how it allhappened.
The woman from the hotel closedup the hotel, drove us down to
(12:19):
the restaurant I mean, who doesthat?
And at the end of the night theowner of the restaurant put us
in our car and drove us back upto the restaurant I mean, who
does that?
And at the end of the night theowner of the restaurant put us
in our car and drove us back upto the hotel.
It's like you were at yourmother's cousin's house or
something.
It was amazing and the food wasso good.
And the next morning the sun wasbright and the sky was blue and
there was snow everywhere and Ireally did feel like Alice in
(12:41):
Wonderland, falling through thelooking glass, just saying where
am I?
Am I dreaming?
Is this real?
Is this not real?
There's so many moments thatwhole week that were just
beautiful, just beautiful, andthat body felt, um, like it
belonged.
There was a literal I think Italked about it in the book
pretty early on having breakfastin the little breakfast room,
(13:03):
having my little coffee andlooking out over this beautiful
valley, these little terracottahomes in the distance, and I
just had this incredible pull tobe there in those homes
drinking coffee and having amorning like this every morning,
which is what I have now.
It really is that and, lest Iforget and get caught up in life
and doctor's appointments andhectic stuff, it is still a
(13:27):
pinch me moment every morningwhen I wake up and go.
This is my home.
This is amazing.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
You know the way I explain that feeling is that
moment when you've been on theway a long time and you come
home and you open your frontdoor and you go ah, I'm home,
and it's that same experience.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I think when people are traveling, often you'll say
you know I could live here, andthat just kept dawning on me.
The very first time I landed inRome was about 10 years earlier
, and when the plane landed Ifelt like I was home.
I felt like I was in California, but it was Italy.
I really loved that first tasteof Rome years ago.
The night we actually came uphere, though, I was nervous that
(14:09):
it wasn't going to be nice, andas the days dawned, not only I
could live here within a coupleof days, I need to live here.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, I felt that a few times, one of them
specifically being here in Ojaiand the other one being in
Florence.
Barbara, you've spoken a littlebit about your diary notes that
you made and you were bloggingonce you arrived in Italy, going
through the motions ofdesigning the house or
redesigning the house, but wasthere a specific moment or a
(14:41):
time that you remember where youthought I need to write this as
a memoir?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
You know it was 2015, .
As we were making thetransition from wouldn't this be
a fun project to boy.
This is really going to be agreat house to.
I don't really ever want toleave this house.
I want this to be my house.
That was a kind of that wholeprocess and I'm writing the
little notes and beginning tomeet friends and beginning to
feel a part of the community andthinking this community was so
(15:11):
comforting and welcoming andsupportive and all that thinking
this is a place I could thrive,I mean really the rest of my
days.
And as that all kind of hungtogether, I started thinking
this, this actually could be abook with, with some various
steps of what it started to beand what it's getting to be.
(15:32):
So it was in 2015 or so and itcontinued to be kind of dribs
and drabs here, dribs and drabsthere.
You know, sometimes I take aweek and write a lot, depending
if my life opened up that Icould do that, because you know
life takes over.
You have to also betweenwriting and life.
It's you got to work thatbalance.
But there was a couple weekswhere my husband was back at
(15:54):
UCLA taking care of his brotherwho was being sick.
He's okay now and I checkedinto a little B&B here in town
and just wrote all day and thatwas actually pretty cool to
really focus.
And then it was definitely abook and I could see the
beginning and the end, althoughI wasn't always sure how it was
going to end.
But then as the years weredeveloping and we were settling
(16:17):
in and I was sort of I was doingan homage to a year in Provence
where I had written the year ofJanuary actually March to March
and right after that time I wasdiagnosed with cancer, with
breast cancer, and that was ahuge shock.
Just because this is how weirdI am, I thought well, at least
now I have an ending to the book, which is kind of funny, but
(16:42):
kind of like okay, well, eitherway, however it ends, this is a
story worth telling.
That you have your dream life,it's all perfect, and then, whoa
not so fast the rug gets pulledout from underneath you, and
that's how it ended for Barbara.
Luckily it didn't.
I was really fortunate, but wehad to pull up roots and move
back to California for a year.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
And how was that for you?
How did you feel about movingback?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It was strange in that you really think you're
scared but you have a job to do.
Okay, you need to get a doctor,you need to get a place to stay
.
You need to go to chem Okay,you need to get a doctor, you
need to get a place to stay, youneed to go to chemo.
You need to do certain and youjust start taking it like you
took it like a job.
I had been retired for a coupleyears and I felt like this is
my job again.
So I kept the clear on the walland crossed off every day.
(17:27):
And you do it a step at a time.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
There's a part in your book that I'd like to read.
It's a paragraph, and I thinkit explains everything you went
through beautifully.
Quote it is odd when all ofyour worst fears become real.
It is not so bad.
Nothing hurt, nothing feltdifferent, but I knew that
suddenly everything wasdifferent.
So I settled in and tried tountangle the rush of my thoughts
.
End quote.
I love those words.
(17:57):
They were so touching for me.
I feel that when we're in thispredicament, it's almost calming
to be given these steps youhave to follow, and that is your
job.
Basically, as you said, youmust follow every step precisely
, and it brings a sense of calm.
It's strange, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Well, it's like, okay , this is your worst fear.
All right, my arms are attached, my legs are attached.
I'm sitting in the seat of theairplane next to my husband.
He put his hand in mine.
I cried a little bit and thenwent okay, what do we do?
And it isn't these things youthink it's going to be, you know
, but it's.
It's still nothing pleasant.
(18:41):
It's a year that's verydifficult and for a lot of
people, a lot longer, a lot ofpeople a lot less.
But this was, it was a veryhard year and you know I've had
to be careful for the last sevenyears, but I've been deemed
cured.
So it's hard for me not to feelreally lucky and feel like it's
a bullet past your head.
You know it's a warning shotand mortal, that's okay, but you
(19:05):
just want to.
You want to handle it withgrace and strength and do the
best you can to get through it.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
When you received the diagnosis, you were living in
the house in Italy.
Right, you were settled there.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
We were.
It had been like into oursecond year where we decided
we're really going to pull upeverything, rent our house I
mean, sell our house and ourlittle condo in San Francisco,
move here full time why not?
We just loved it and my husbandhad had a small hernia or
something, so we would add some.
You know, dealings with themedical community and it can be
wonderful.
But when I got the diagnosisand it took so long for them to
figure it out and they kind ofmisdiagnosed it, and also when
(19:43):
I'm really stressed my Italianjust goes out, my brain just
isn't there.
So I thought I'm going to bepretty tired this year.
I don't want to be dealing withsaying all these subtle things
in Italian.
We need to get home and get toour doctors.
So we just sort of made a plan,you know, took some thinking.
Do you go to New York?
Do you go back to San Francisco, where you know?
(20:04):
Do you go to Sloan County?
Do you go to someplace in Texas, who knows?
We made the plan Again.
It's like planning a vacation,but in reverse.
You know you're planning how toget out of here and live for a
year or two like a job.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
And thank heavens, financially you were able to do
this, because I think that's soscary.
You know you get through theemotional upheaval of your
diagnosis.
Then comes the ongoing monthsand, as you said, a year of
treatment, but you have constantconcerns about the financial
realities of the costs and it'sscary.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
No, the practicalities of it, and
financially we took a big hit.
We had sold our house, so wehad to go back and rent for a
year.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
In San Francisco, which has high rental prices.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yeah, right, to our old apartment or to the same
complex of our old apartment,but and we didn't have the time
to figure out well, we can cleanup the house and rent this out
for a year while we're gone.
We just packed up and left, butpeople do that all the time.
People recover.
That's what your savings is for.
We don't have it in money, butwe had money put aside for
(21:10):
something like this.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
Barbara, just then you mentioned the word going
back home.
When you think about home now,where is it?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Interesting.
I say home because it's wherewe were born and lived lives.
So that is home.
America will always be home,especially San Francisco and
California New York used to be.
It isn't really I wouldn't sayhome for it, but certainly the
Bay Area, san Francisco.
But this is our home right nowtoo.
So I feel sort of dual, thatI'm a little bit of both.
(21:40):
They're both home definitely.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yeah, I find this subject fascinating because I've
lived away from Australia nowway longer than I lived there
before I left, and yet I alwaysthink of Australia as my home
because that's where I was born.
But the older I get, I thinkI'm finding home within, deep
within my soul.
What and where home is issomething that I have difficulty
(22:05):
explaining.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
And I think it does change throughout your life.
Home will always be where Igrew up, more so than any place
else in America, where I grew upmore so than any place else in
America.
The point about home with SanFrancisco is now that I'm healed
.
We were full-time back in Italyand not needing to have a place
, but we thought in the lastyear wouldn't it be good to have
one, just a stepping stone, incase we do ever need to get back
(22:30):
and not make it a big kind of arat race trying to get a place
to live?
So we have an apartment back inSan Francisco again as of last
June and it's great, but itdoesn't feel like home, whereas
this is our home.
It's a great place to be in.
San Francisco is home, iscomfortable, but the actual
apartment is so different fromthis, which was built by our own
(22:51):
hands and our imagination andall that.
So this is this house, is ourhome that way, but San Francisco
will always be where I started.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
That's kind of a good segue into my next question.
The start of chapter fivebegins, quote the drive up the
curving road to Monforte was atonce familiar yet new.
End quote as we spoke ofearlier, there are times in our
lives when we experience thisrecognition, whether they be
land, people, animals orbuildings, and we kind of wonder
(23:22):
what that means.
Tell us about the emotions andfamiliar feelings this region of
Italy raised in you, and whatmade you take notice.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
What's interesting is , the things that give me the
most satisfaction are thingsthat hearken back to when I was
eight and seven the way we'regrowing vegetables and bringing
them in the house and they'recovered with dirt and you got to
wash them off.
Or the way we still take sheetsand put them up on a line with
(23:52):
clothespins and let the wind gothrough them.
And I remember my mother doingthat on her tiptoes in their
backyard in California, hangingup the sheets, doing things more
by hand, working in the yard,you know, mopping my own floor,
kind of letting my fingernailsgo.
I might go six months without amanicure.
(24:13):
That is not New York, that isnot advertising, but it reminds
me of when I was a little girlin many ways and the simplicity
of how and when I grew up.
You know which was with Easter.
Holidays were very simple andinnocent and, you know, kind of
goofy, and I have those samefeelings here.
There's a lot of it Christmastoo, a lot of those feelings
(24:34):
come back where I feel veryclose to my parents who are gone
and that the parents and thechildhood that I had when we
were a family.
So it's a very comfortingfeeling.
That's familiar.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Everything you've just said reflects back to that
word home, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You dug deep in me to get that one, Mandy.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Well, thank you for going there.
You spoke about the memoriesthat tug at our soul and
likewise, one of my memories isabout hanging clothes on the
line.
It's very warm here in Ojai, sowhen we can, we use the
clothesline outside to hang outour clothes to dry.
And every time I see theclothesline or the pegs, I have
(25:17):
this memory of my mother, in herdress, going out with the
basket and hanging clothes onthe line.
Perfectly, I feel the windrustling through the clothes.
It's so ingrained in my soul.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
No, and the little wooden clothespins and the smell
of the tide and the Clorox.
I mean, I've worked on tide.
We talked a lot about thatsmell.
It reminds me of my mother.
The smell of the clean sheetsand the sunshine and the fresh
air in them.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Yeah, they definitely take us back to our childhood
moments.
Can you share the moment whenyou and your husband Kim decided
to take the step and purchase aplace in Italy and make it your
home, in particular, the reasonyou went and saw this last home
?
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You know, we had dated 11 years before we got
married.
So we take our time doingthings and the whole time we
dated, my husband, who was inreal estate development on his
own, would say, well, we couldmaybe live here.
And so we would always look atdifferent places, always with an
eye to we could live here, wecould live there.
But I was taking it prettyseriously here in Italy because
(26:18):
I really had that pull, that I,but I want to live like in this
town here.
So when we came back a secondtime, we're really looking at
the homes.
They were all beautiful andthey were all interesting and
you could, you know, make theold fixer-upper dream come true
with them, because they're theseold, stone, crumbling, falling
down structures.
But somehow and we were goingto get on a plane like a day
(26:42):
later we come to this house, wecome down the driveway and pull
around and the whole setting wasunbelievable.
It was late afternoon and youcould hear the birds and the sun
was coming in.
It was so quiet and I lookedaround and I kind of nudged my
husband on the arm.
I said this is it and he goesbarbara, how do you know?
(27:03):
This is it?
We haven't even gotten out ofthe car yet.
I said I, I just know it.
It's like well, let's go take alook around.
What are you talking about,right?
So he gets out and startstramping around the house and I
go and sit down on the littlecorner over there and I just sat
there for the longest timegoing.
I could stay here the rest ofmy life.
This is absolutely it.
And by the time he came back,after kind of roaming around the
(27:25):
old barn and house, he saidokay, this is it too.
We just, you know, within anhour or two, we just felt it,
and our neighbors who wereselling the house are kind of
our age, roughly our age hadthey didn't know a word of
English, but they were so sweetand, um, she had gone into her
garden and pulled up this littleuh, not stamen but pistils, I
(27:48):
guess of saffron, and put him inmy hand and she goes saffrono
and I went saffron and Irealized Milan is not far.
Of course they have saffron,rice and risotto milanese is
that beautiful golden color?
And I just thought, boy, thesewould be nice neighbors,
wouldn't it be fun to have themnext door, pretty next door, not
(28:09):
far away?
And they have been.
They were a big part of what weloved about the home there.
They have all that charm andwelcoming and sweetness that the
Italians have, but kind of onsteroids, I mean they're just
the nicest neighbors.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
And then you ended up renting a little place from
them, right within their home.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
Yeah, we moved in.
We moved in for about a yearand a half while we were
finishing up the barn.
This really was a 300-year-oldstone barn and we could just run
back and forth from their houseover to the work site and we
could sort of practice ourEnglish, Italian, however we
talked.
I'm not quite sure how wecommunicated, but we did and it
was great.
(28:47):
And they rented it for aridiculously cheap price.
I think it was $100, 100 eurosa week for us to stay there,
which made it workable for us tobe able to come here.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Speaking of the stones, I'm looking at the wall
behind you and there seems to bea mix of stones and brick.
I'm guessing it pertains to thedifferent eras of the house,
when it was remodeled.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
You know, over 300 years, different things happen
at different times.
This particular wall is bricksand stones, terracotta tiles,
all that kind of built into it,but this was a wall that had
been standing.
This is all the barn, this isall where the animals lived.
Our living room is where theanimals lived and then up our
guest bedrooms are where theowner lived, the woman who was
(29:34):
born here and died here 98 yearslater.
He lived up there and that'sagain 300-year-old walls that go
up way high and you know theytell stories, those stones.
You can just imagine with themen what they were doing, what
was going on in their life.
Was there a war going on?
Were there terrible dictatorsgoing on?
You know a lot of respect.
(29:54):
They've endured a lot.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
I believe when we go to these old buildings to visit,
if you sit quietly you can hearthe whispers of some of the
history throughout the land thatthe building is built upon and
also in the woodwork or thestonework, and I think there's
some kind of inherited sufferingthere.
(30:16):
Maybe some of these buildingshave souls.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
That's funny.
Our builder said this house hasan anima, a soul.
He really felt that.
You know, you were just akeeper of the house for a while.
I mean, I'm kind of aware thatwe're here and it's not going
anywhere anytime soon.
So we sort of hope that whenwe're not here our kids will
still keep it in the family andcome here and maybe feel close
to us, and then maybe their kids, who knows?
I have such respect for thepeople who have spent 300 years
(30:43):
eating raising wheat for flourthat they would then make pasta,
raising goats to make goatcheese.
I mean, I mean their littlevegetable gardens.
They'd survive on this land,you know, amazing.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
The culture there is so different than the culture
here, where in America if ahouse is from the 30s or the 40s
it tends to be torn down andrebuilt into some mega house.
We forget about the souls ofthe building and I think when,
maybe perhaps one day, that'ssomething you'll write about the
soul of the house.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
I want to focus on the woman who lived here.
She was born here, died here 98years later and never married,
never left, took care of herbrother the last years of her
life.
And I her name was Emma and Ireally want to get to know her.
And I'll just make up all kindsof stuff, I'm sure, but I want
to know what was going on in theworld around her.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And how it affected her.
I think that's a fabulous idea.
Now you are published with sheWrites Press, which is a hybrid
publisher.
What drew you to this form ofpublishing and to she Writes
Press?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Well, I knew it would be a struggle to get an agent.
So I think I sent out oneletter as an agent and it just
faded away and I had an editor Iwas working with that I had
found through a friend in NewYork and she said you know,
there are hybrid publishers.
She goes, she writes as one ofthe most highly respected and
(32:08):
continues to be getting stronger.
They're distributed by Simonand Schuster.
They charge you a little bit ofmoney but it's not incredible.
You look at what the bigpublishers charge or what they
spend on.
A book can be $100,000.
And you have to be veryproactive.
You have to bring your friendsand you know your Facebook
(32:28):
friends and all that to theparty.
But I feel like it was a verygood value.
You know you get to be involvedin the cover and in what the
book looks like.
You have to edit it yourself.
You are the final approval.
You don't just hand a roughmanuscript over to somebody who
changes it and switches aroundthe title and does all that.
(32:50):
You have a lot of control and Ilike that.
You know I was a always part ofa creative team where you
definitely got to vote.
You know I would sort of.
I mean, honestly, if I got acall from a publisher who said
we'll take it, we'll market it,it would be interesting, it
would be fun, but I don't thinkthat's going to happen.
You know, you'd have to beyoung younger.
Usually you have to be alreadypretty famous, which I'm not
younger.
Usually you have to be alreadypretty famous, which I'm not.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I have a lot of respect for what Brooke Warner
is doing with she Writes Press.
I met her years ago at an IBPAfunction, maybe in Austin, when
she was involved with thatcompany and I've had a few
authors who publish with sheWrites Press on the show and
I've been impressed.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
The authors that I've met.
We have a cohort I like becauseit's only women, so you're
already.
50% of the people aren't goingto be competing with you.
You're only going to have women,you know, and they were very
selective.
They don't just take anybody,which is nice, and they were
very excited about my firstmanuscript.
And the authors that I've metare really fabulous people,
(33:54):
really smart, they have a storyto tell and some of them are
story to tell and they're all.
Some of them are quite amazingwriters and they're all solid,
good writers.
You know, some are very, verygood and the books are beautiful
.
If you look at them one afteranother, you can go yes, add a
good quality to it.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
So, and it's fabulous that she now has distribution
through Simon Schuster.
Okay, let's talk about books.
What are you currently reading?
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Simon Schuster.
Okay, let's talk about books.
What are you currently reading?
I'm currently reading theBreaks, which is another one of
my authors, and it's really fun.
It's about a life in KansasCity.
She lives in Los Altos now,which is where I grew up, but
she grew up in Kansas City andshe makes it.
It's in present day, but it'sreally real, very charming, very
interesting.
She's a good writer and I'vejust gotten the manuscript for
(34:36):
Jen Toddling's book, which iscalled Dancing on my Own Two
Feet, and I haven't read thatyet.
But I just wanted to look ather manuscript because it's nice
to review it.
I want to read it before I getthe book.
It's hard to get books here inItaly, so I've read A Bear I
read last year.
I enjoyed that.
I like reading memoirs.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Is there an independent bookshop in the area
where you live?
Speaker 2 (34:57):
No, well, not here in Italy.
What I do have are some reallylovely townspeople that the
mayor in Monforte just suggestedwe could maybe do a sort of a
cooperative event with thispainter that has sort of become
the Monforte painter and theytake over the old Old Town
church and do his kind ofdemonstrate his art show and
(35:19):
they invite people in and giveyou a champagne and he sells his
work or not, depending and soit's kind of like a three, four
or five day event where you gospend a few hours there and meet
people and show them your book.
So maybe I'll try and sell itthat way.
But people here are reallyexcited about it because they go
.
I'm in the book.
Oh my gosh, that's so exciting.
So I kind of can't keep itaround.
(35:39):
I had like 20, 30 books when wearrived three weeks ago and I'm
down to one.
So people either buy them orcan I take them, you know.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
That's wonderful.
Well, italy does have somegreat indie bookshops.
I've had a few of them on theshow.
But I did notice too that someof the publishing companies in
Italy open their own bookshops,which is interesting because we
don't have that concept here.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, I'll have to investigate that.
There's a stop by Three in Alba, which is sort of our big city.
It has 20,000 people, so that'sthe big city, and the three
bookstores just kind of lovedhim and want to take them.
But I don't have enough.
One is suspicious that he can'tdo it because it's not
published in Italy.
So I'm looking into how would Ido that.
(36:23):
I've been talking to a coupleof publishers.
I think we're probably notgoing to translate it to Italian
because it's written very.
It is so colloquial that itwould be kind of tricky.
Plus, it is so colloquial thatit would be kind of tricky.
Plus, they're not so amazedthat it's a 300-year-old Italian
farmhouse because they knowwhat, that it's really good
pasta.
They just for them.
It's natural.
It's normal we're amazed at it,you know.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Barbara, it's been great chatting with you.
I'm green with envy for whereyou live, although I do love
where I live too, in Ojai butthere's something about the
history and the culture of Italythat is somehow snuck into my
heart.
Thank you for writing yourmemoir Pinch Me.
It was lovely to hear about thestory of your relocation from
(37:05):
San Francisco to Italy.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Thank you, mandy, it's been a pleasure.
I'll come see you next time I'min Santa Barbara.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I'll head over to Ojai podcast.
To find out more about thebookshop podcast, go to
(37:33):
thebookshoppodcastcom and makesure to subscribe and leave a
review wherever you listen tothe show.
You can also follow me at MandyJackson Beverly on Instagram
and Facebook and on YouTube atthe bookshop podcast.
If you have a favorite indiebookshop that you'd like to
suggest we have on the podcast,I'd love to hear from you via
(37:55):
the contact form atthebookshoppodcastcom.
The Bookshop Podcast is writtenand produced by me, Mandy
Jackson-Beverly, Theme musicprovided by Brian Beverly, and
my executive assistant andgraphic designer is Adrian
Otterhahn.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you next time.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.