From Code to Crosswords: Aimee Lucido on Puzzles, Trivia, and Creative Curiosity

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
In this episode, I chat with AmyLucido, a professional trivia
writer and crossword maker for publications like Bloomberg, The
New Yorker, and The New York Times.
This episode was a really big deal for me because it was kind
of the very first official guestI've had on the show leading up
until this point. I've been interviewing family
and friends who are all very talented and I love them very

(00:21):
much. You know who you are.
But Amy was a referral I got from my favorite author, Evelyn
Sky, who I had the pleasure of meeting at a book signing event
recently. Amy was super interesting to
talk to, not only because she writes trivia and crossword
puzzles professionally, but alsobecause of her interesting
journey from tech in Silicon Valley to full time puzzle

(00:42):
making. So we not only share a love of
puzzles and trivia, but we also both got our start in the tech
world. I test her knowledge in the
longest crossword puzzle words, Jeopardy rules, and the history
of Trivial Pursuit. We chat about her strategy when
it comes to writing puzzles and how she personally likes to
solve puzzles like the ones in the coveted Learned League.

(01:05):
She's known as the quiz master of Bloomberg for good reason,
and you'll definitely learn a thing or two about trivia and
trivia writing. Enjoy the episode.
Welcome to Trivia Tangents. The entertainment podcast will
return everyday passions into surprising trivia deep dives.
I'm your host, Lena, and each episode I quiz a guest on

(01:25):
something they know way too muchabout.
We all know that on trivia night, the bigger the team, the
better you'll play. That's why I bring the team
together here on Trivia Tangents.
So get ready for some fun facts you'll definitely want for your
next trivia night. Welcome, Amy to the podcast.

(01:46):
Thank you so much for being here.
Hi, I'm extremely excited to be here.
I love trivia and I love talkingabout all things trivia and
crosswords and books and I'm excited to do that with you.
Yes, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today.
I think my listeners can can sense my excitement and and I
just want to share like you are my first, like official guest.

(02:10):
That is not someone I know through like family or friends.
So this is a really big deal forme because I feel like this is
kind of taking my podcast to, you know, one step further, one
step to be like more legit than it, you know, already is.
So thank you so much for being here.
I'm really excited to chat with you all things trivia.

(02:31):
I'm honored. I think this is going to be so
much fun. I love a trivia podcast.
Let's do it. All right, cool.
And just to let the listeners know, like how this happened,
How the heck did I get in touch with such a talented trivia and
crossword writer? I am so grateful that Evelyn
Skye put us in touch. I had the absolute honor of

(02:52):
meeting her during one of her book signings.
I love how the world works like that.
One minute I'm meeting my favorite author and getting all
her books side, and then the next I have the opportunity to
interview a real life trivia writer as a guest on my podcast.
So thank you, Evelyn, for referring Amy Lucido to me.
I'm so excited to talk with you today, Amy, and what a perfect

(03:16):
guest you are for this podcast. I think we're going to have a
lot of fun. I'm excited to talk more about
your journey from software engineering in Silicon Valley to
puzzle making for major publications.
We'll dig into how you get your inspiration for crossword
puzzles and trivia. And of course, it wouldn't be a
trivia tangents episode without some fun trivia questions

(03:38):
sprinkled throughout. Can't wait.
Yeah, I think it's amazing. The universe works in mysterious
ways. I'm really excited to talk to
you because, you know, your story really intrigued me since,
you know, your transition from tech to a more creative field.

(03:58):
And for me, this is really, you know, resonates because I
currently live in Silicon Valley.
And I know we previously talked about this, but you know, like
everyone else here, I work in the tech industry and I'm
currently having a lot of fun branching out into the more
creative world. So I would love to know and if
you could share with the listeners, can you share more

(04:19):
about your journey starting as asoftware engineer and how a
hobby or side gig with puzzle making turned into the real
deal? At Bloomberg.
So yeah, my journey to where I am now has been like a series of
happy accidents, I feel like is the best way to put it.
When I was in like middle schooland high school, I, I took some

(04:42):
computer science classes and I really liked them.
I loved video game Zelda. That was like the gold standard
for me. It was like part story, part
puzzle, part computer science. It was kind of perfect in all
these ways that are still very important to me.
And so I grew up kind of thinking I wanted to make video
games and I, when I went to college, I went to Brown and

(05:06):
they have a very good computer science program.
And so I majored, I very quicklydecided I was going to major in
computer science. And that was just a very natural
path. You know, I was good at it.
I liked it. I had this pipe dream of maybe
being a video game someday. At the same time, I was taking a
lot of literary arts classes just because I liked it.

(05:27):
Brown doesn't have undergrad requirements.
And so I had all these free courses and I was like, what am
I going to take? I'm going to read books.
I'm going to write stories, right?
And I'm going to program computers.
It's going to be my entire life at school.
It's going to be awesome. And it was.
And so I graduate. Well, so I was at Brown, I was
interning at these big tech companies and the summer that I

(05:48):
was at Google, for some reason they like, they like killed my
team before I got there or something.
So I didn't have much work to do.
And so I was literally spending my days like playing pool and
eating 5 meals a day. And in between that very busy
schedule that I had every day, Idecided to read a book.
And so I teamed up with a friendof mine and that friend's mom,

(06:09):
who is also a young adult authorand, and also his friends with
Evelyn actually amazing. And we, we decided that we were
going to all write 500 words a day of a book.
And I'd never written a book before, but I was like, I can do
500 words a day. That sounds easy.
And I had all this time in my hands.
And so I was writing way more than 500 words a day.

(06:29):
And I had no idea, like, what I wanted to write.
But I just kind of started typing, and a story came out of
it. And I thought this book was
like, the most brilliant, geniusthing in the entire world.
The world didn't agree. So I tried to like revise this
book and sell this book and nobody wanted it because it's
not very good. But it taught me that I can

(06:51):
write a book and that I like writing books.
And it taught me also that I could do that while also
pursuing a tech career. So I was pursuing my tech
career. I Internet Google, I Internet
Facebook. I graduated with the double
majors in computer science and literary arts and I had this
book that I was going to try to sell and I was also going to be

(07:14):
a software engineer. And so I went off and I worked
at Facebook and I at this point I wrote a second book because
the first one wasn't very good and I was never feeling like
super fulfilled by just working as a software engineer.
I don't think it was ultimately a very good fit for me career
wise. I got, I don't like just sitting
and coding all day. I don't even like sitting and

(07:36):
writing all day. I like, I like doing a lot of
different things, it turns out. And I was starting to feel like,
you know, I didn't want to be intech, but I wasn't sure what I
wanted to do. And so I decided to pursue like
I, it's like, you know, if I, ifI were to leave tech today, what
would I go and do? And the answer was I would try
to find a job in the publishing business in some way.

(07:56):
So I interned for an agent and at the end of that for like, it
was like a, you know, I did it for free for a couple of months
and I was just like reading slush that like manuscripts that
come in with an attempt in an attempt to get published.
And I was giving feedback on those.
At the end of that internship, she was like, you know, you
could come and work for me, but I feel like what you really want

(08:16):
to do is write. And I was like, you're right, I
really do want to write. And so she suggested that I get
a low residency MFA. They have those specifically for
children's book writing, which is what I wanted to do.
And so I, at the same time as writing or as working as a
software engineer, I decided to also go back to school and get

(08:37):
my masters in writing for children and young adults.
So for years I was doing this kind of parallel thing.
And the other thing that I haven't even mentioned was at
the same time I was also making crossword puzzles.
And I started that also at Brownand that and I, and I almost
forget about it because it was just such an accident.
Like it was just a fun thing that I did.
I started it when I was, I thinkI was a sophomore at Brown and I

(09:01):
learned to make puzzles. So I, I was in this puzzle club
at school and it was just because I like puzzles.
A lot of my friends like puzzles.
We just like went to this puzzleclub.
And coincidentally, well, while I was at Brown, there were a lot
of other puzzle associated people who were doing crosswords
in different ways. Like there were two people who

(09:22):
had intern for Will Shortz. There was a competitive solver.
We'd had a handful of people that had very coincidentally all
had crosswords published in the New York Times.
And so there were many ways thatwe were connected to the New
York Times. So we decided to do a week of
puzzles all made by Brown students.
I decided that I was going to learn how to make puzzles for

(09:42):
this. And so I, instead of studying
for my philosophy final, my friend Jonah Kagan taught me how
to make CrossFit puzzles. And shout out, shout out to
Jonah, who I don't think he's even making crosswords anymore,
but he does make board games. He taught me how to make
crossword puzzles. And lo and behold, that first
crossword puzzle was the Monday puzzle for Ground Puzzle Club.

(10:03):
And as a young woman in crosswords, there were, there
still are not a ton of us, but there were even fewer.
And so people would, you know, they saw my byline and they were
like, I would love to mentor you.
And so I started working with a mentor, Andrea Carla Michaels,
who was also kind of a she's a phenom in the crossword
industry. And every year I was, I was

(10:25):
making more puzzles than the year before, but it was always
just this like random hobby, this like party trick I pull up
and like, Oh yeah, I make crosswords at the New York Times
and like, that's a conversation starter.
And so I would like literally just forget that I, that I did
this, even though I was, I made them for the Onion.
I made them for their, the Crosswords with Friends app.
Like I was making 10/20/30 a year at the same time as being a

(10:51):
software engineer and then pursuing this writing career.
So I graduated from my MFA program.
I was still making a bunch of crosswords.
I was making more and more and it was becoming increasingly
difficult to make all of them while also having a full time
job and pursuing this writing thing and trying to have a life,
which I didn't really have a life.
And I was starting to get I, I graduated the program.

(11:13):
I had a manuscript that an agentwas interested in and we ended
up selling that manuscript, which was my first book Emmy in
the key of code. So I have a book coming out.
I'm getting paid for that. I have all these crossword gigs
and getting paid for that. And then I also have a tech job
and I'm like, this is a tech jobthat I didn't like.
So I was like, this is insane. I need to drop something.
So I ended up, I got married, got that health insurance, left

(11:34):
my tech job, and I focused for six years on writing and on
crosswords. So that's the two.
So I lost one of my three parallel tracks.
And then the pandemic, it and everything kind of turned on its
head for so many people. And there were a lot of ways

(11:54):
that it really affected the writing industry in particular.
But one of the ways, one of the Silver Linings for me personally
was that I became really obsessed with Jeopardy and
really obsessed with a online trivia league called Learned
League. And let me just put this out
there. I was awful.
I was so bad. I was maybe getting like 20 to

(12:14):
25% of the questions right in myonline trivia league and I was
in the absolute like bottom. They call them rundles.
I was like the bottom rundle notdoing very well.
And I was like, you know what, this is so silly.
Like I, I am smart, I am capablethis like I'm not, I'm not being
asked to like cure cancer in these questions.
They're literally just asking melike who the author is of this

(12:36):
book or like what the capital isof this state or whatever.
Things that I absolutely should know as like a citizen in
America and like an author. It's like I should know.
Who wrote Brown University alumni?
Like there's there's no reason Ishouldn't like just know kind of
the world that I live in. And so I started to study.

(12:56):
I started to make flash cards ofjust facts that I missed on
Jeopardy and things that I missed on my learned league
thing. And my family made so much fun
of me. They're like, we are.
Why are you spending two hours aday studying like Oscar winners?
It just, it made no sense. But I was obsessed and like it
was, it was all I could do and Iwas sort of writing my own

(13:18):
questions. And then I and I and I, I had
long been affiliated with an independent true, an independent
puzzle publisher called ABCX. And I asked if I can make a like
a bi weekly or weekly trivia puzzle with a theme.
And they were super into that. So I started editing these
trivia puzzles and then last year, 2024, I, someone reached

(13:40):
out to me from Bloomberg asking if I wanted to make a couple of
like news quiz samples. Like, like if I were to make
like my dream news quiz, what would that look like?
It's why I started making these examples.
And I, you know, we work together.
We came up with something that was really cool and I was
starting to feel like kind of feeling an itch of like, maybe I

(14:03):
wanted to get back into like a like a corporate job.
Maybe I wanted to like, like work with people again, be in an
office because publishing has its, has its issues and like,
and being a freelancer in general, just it has its pros
and cons. And so as of February of this
year, I have been making a weekly news quiz for Bloomberg.

(14:27):
And so it's this like super curvy, weird, lots of it.
Just, it just has been a lot of following my instinct, following
my interests. Like if I'm obsessed with
something, there's a reason for that.
And I followed that obsession, even if it makes no sense to
anybody else. Yeah, yeah, I love that story.

(14:48):
Thank you so much for sharing that.
It really shows, you know, you you go through a lot of
insurance and outs and turns andtwists to really find what
you're passionate about. What like you know, you as a
general statement and it's so important to really follow your
gut and your instinct. And I feel that's so hard right

(15:09):
now. That's a whole other tangent,
but you mentioned a few things that I want to touch on #1 your
family during COVID was making fun of you.
Come on. Like during COVID everyone
picked up these weird hobbies like.
Sourdough. Yeah, I was about to say baking
bread. Literally the sourdough hype,

(15:30):
the like, I don't even remember.I made I made like a million
paper cranes. Yes, which reminds me of
Evelyn's new book, also kind of about origami.
But yeah, there were so people had so many different hobbies.
So it's like, hey, yours was notthat weird in, you know, I.

(15:53):
Think I think the weird part about it is that I is that it
lasted for so long. Like I was spending an hour plus
a day on flash cards like up until I got this job basically
like in tough February. So like it really went five
years where I was like studying flash cards.
But I don't think people, I don't think people realize like
the people who are really good at trivia, the people who like

(16:14):
win a lot of games in Jeopardy, the people who win the big
people don't even realize there are big trivia tournaments every
year. But there are those people don't
just like they don't just remember this stuff from like
their high school science class.They're they're, they're
studying it. They make a practice of it,
right? So I think that that's something

(16:34):
that I I didn't realize before Istarted doing it.
It's a skill. It's a skill you have to
practice. And Speaking of good trivia or
strong trivia people you and I have that, you know, we both
kind of started trivia for the same reason.
We were bad at it. You are like.
Why am I not getting these right?
I'm a smart person. I graduated from brow.

(16:55):
Like I hello, I'm an author and I kind of started this podcast
because I was like, hey, why am I so bad at trivia?
Like, I feel like if I just had a way to, you know, learn it as
I'm doing other things because I'm such an auditory learner,
you know, this sort of thing, this sort of podcast needs to
exist. So yeah, I feel like that really

(17:17):
resonated with me as well. Absolutely.
Isn't that funny, Like like highachieving people don't like to
be bad at stuff, you know? Yeah, yeah, totally.
Another part that you mentioned,I think it was when we chatted
earlier, you, you mentioned thatyou really enjoyed the problem
solving part of software engineering, but it was, you
know, lacking the creative decisions.

(17:39):
So I was curious today, how do you incorporate your software
engineer background into your current puzzle making and
writing career today? Yes, so, so I feel like I will
never escape software engineering.
Like it is always a part of me, even though I'm not doing it on
a daily basis. And it comes up in like all
kinds of weird ways. Like, I mean, probably the most

(18:02):
obvious way that it's shown up is my first book is called Emmy
in the Key of Code. And it's a book about a girl who
comes from a family of musicianswho finds computer science and
starts to thinking code. And the story is told in verse.
But as Emmy learns different coding concepts, the verse

(18:23):
starts to incorporate the language of Java, which is the
language that I learned to code in and the language that my
character learns to code in it. So like it comes up in some ways
very just blatantly like that where I write a book that just
combines the two things, writingand code.
But it comes up in a lot of other ways too that maybe people
and some some it's just I write little programs for crossword

(18:46):
things all the time. Like if I need to find all the
words that start with the letterT and then you replace the T
with AB and you get another wordlike taste and based.
Totally in handy so much. Yes it does.
And so I whenever I make crosswords, especially themed
crosswords, I do some coding there and nothing complicated

(19:09):
but just a little bit. And then now that I'm back
working in like at a company, you know, the thing that we do
is like our the news quiz that Iwrite, it's, it's an app.
It's, you know, it's a, it's a game that you play on the
Bloomberg website every week. And there's like there's code
that was written to make it run.Amazing.
And I'm not an engineer, but I work with a lot of engineers.

(19:33):
And so it is very helpful that I'm able to speak their language
to some extent. Like if I'm finding a bug, I can
say, oh, I, you know, I think, Ithink you're pulling from the,
the wrong database or whatever. Or like I like you get just just
yesterday we did a, a group quality or QA, Do you know

(19:53):
quality assessment? I don't.
Remember, I don't know what thatis.
For yeah, we were doing like QA testing for a new thing that's
coming out next week and and it just it was something that I've
done a million times before. Like I know how to I know how to
do QA testing. I know what edge cases to test
and so that. Came very easily and it was easy
to report the bugs and, you know, just things like that were

(20:14):
like, I will, I'm not the one who's doing the engineering, but
I remember, I remember what thatlooks like.
And if as we're discussing game ideas and as we're developing, I
know what's going to be a harderengineering problem and what's
going to be an easy just, you know, basic coding kind of
problem. Yeah, that's awesome.

(20:37):
And that helps us decide what toprioritize when we're even just
making the games. Totally.
Yeah, definitely seems like it comes in handy to have two
completely different skill sets.You're kind of like 2 employees
and one and you can kind of helpthe engineers be more efficient
and kind of give them a head start it seems like.
I, I hope that is that is it is helpful to them and it is not

(20:58):
just me being like, Oh yes, I used to do this well.
When you were in a software engineer, you mentioned feeling
stuck, quote UN quote stuck. Was that kind of the feeling
that pushed you towards change And you know, in your whole
journey, like what was the most challenging part?
And then lastly, what kind of advice would you give to

(21:21):
aspiring writers or puzzle makers today?
Yeah, yeah. So when I was working in tech, I
did feel very stuck. And I, and I think about this a
lot because I think sometimes when we feel stuck, we we are
stuck within boundaries of our own making.
Like an example of this was, youknow, up until recently, we

(21:41):
lived in the Bay Area and whenever we were trying to solve
problems within our family, we sort of there were some
assumptions that we made, like we had to stay in the Bay Area,
Like we had to live in the housethat we had bought a couple
years earlier. You know, we had it.
We assumed that I was going to keep doing the exact same job
that I've been doing, that my husband was going to do the
exact the exact same job he'd been doing.

(22:04):
There was all these assumptions that we made that we that sort
of boxed us into a corner. But when we really dug down into
it, we weren't really boxed intoa corner because all the things
boxing us in were things that wemade-up for ourselves.
They were our. Own.
There are choices. Exactly.

(22:24):
And I think sometimes you forgethow much agency you have as an
adult. Like you can choose to make
different choices. And so we very suddenly in our
lives, just a year and a half ago or so, we sold our house, We
packed everything up, put it in a storage pod, moved across the
country. I got a new job, my husband got

(22:47):
a different job. You had our entire life with a
kid. Yeah, we had a six month old kid
at the time. You know, our entire life kind
of upended and things are so much better.
And like, we still have, you know, things we're figuring out.
But just in general, I don't, I would not say I feel stuck at
all at the moment. I don't feel stuck by anything

(23:08):
like everything I'm doing, even if I'm overwhelmed at times when
I think about what I would want to give up to be less
overwhelmed, I genuinely can't think of a thing.
And so I think often times it is.
So if I were to give advice to myself from a decade ago or to
someone else who is feeling stuck, I think it would be to

(23:30):
think about, like to put out, put on a list.
Make a list of all the things that are keeping you stuck.
And with each one, be super honest with yourself if that is
something that is actually a requirement or if it is just
something that you are so used to thinking as a given that it

(23:51):
feels like a requirement. But maybe.
It's not totally totally. That's really good advice.
I feel like maybe I'll do that for myself after this recording.
Awesome, thank you for sharing. So now that we know more about
how you got into puzzle making, it's time to test your crossword
knowledge with the very first trivia.

(24:12):
Question. Oh my goodness.
OK. OK, trivia question one.
Which language holds the record for having produced the longest
single word ever used in a crossword puzzle?
Oh my goodness. Yes, a English, B Hawaiian, C
Welsh or D Spanish. See, I was, I was hoping you

(24:36):
might say German as one of the options, because that seems like
the kind of language that would be very long.
Yes, I almost put that as one ofthe answers, but I decided not.
To OK, I I feel like OK Welsh has a lot of like sounds that

(25:00):
don't that like don't sound likeEnglish sounds like the letters
don't look like they should sound.
But I don't think of Walsh as having particularly long words.
Spanish. I think I feel the same way
about Spanish. I I grew up taking Spanish and I
don't think of them as having particularly long words.

(25:23):
I feel like the answer is maybe Hawaiian.
I'm gonna go with Hawaiian. That's a great guess.
Unfortunately that was not right.
Oh no. But you were thinking on the
right track. The answer was Welsh.
OK, and I'm going to so you can kind of this is a more visual

(25:43):
thing here, so I'm going to put it in the chat and then I'll
talk through it for the list. OK, so the answer was Welsh and
I'm going to do my best to pronounce this.
It is 58 letter word. Here I go Land fair Piggly
Wiggly groggery chin wind job wheely on a tennis goggog.

(26:07):
So that's a word apparently in Welsh, it's 58 letters.
It was used. This is.
So basically this is the language that holds a record for
having produced the longest single word ever used in a
crossword puzzle. And this word, I'm not going to
say it again, basically means a location in in Wales.

(26:29):
So it's specifically Saint Mary's Church in the hollow of
the White Hazel near a rapid Whirlpool, and the Church of St.
to Cilio of the Red Cave. So essentially this is a
location in Wales. This is a name from the 19th
century. It was basically a publicity

(26:49):
stunt created to attract tourists to the village by
giving it the longest place namethe longest name of a place in
Great Britain at the time, although according to a quick
Google search, its exact origin and its intended meaning remains
slightly debated by locals and historians.
But that's what's on the Internet, so there you go.

(27:12):
That is really interesting and this wasn't a crossword.
Puzzle. Yes, I think it yes, it was.
It was. And I have the link.
That link shows the Guinness World Record of longest word in
a crossword. And that that Welsh town, Yeah.
And. I'll go.
Today I learned. There you go.

(27:35):
But your guess was really good. Your guess was Hawaiian.
I I was in Hawaii last week. I really try to pronounce
Hawaiian words correctly, especially since I have family
that lives there and their longest word is 23 letters.
It is a name of a fish, and hereI go trying to pronounce it Lao
Willy Willy Nuku nuku oi oi. So it's a basically a long nose

(28:01):
butterfly fish. It's yellow color usually.
And yeah, basically it's a long sounded fish shaped like a Willy
Willy leaf, which is basically describing the fish's elongated
snow and its body shape and resembles the yellowing leaf of
the endemic Willy Willy treat. So Hawaiian was a really good
guess. I was thinking that maybe you

(28:21):
learn this fact while you were in Hawaii.
No, no, I I did do this researchbefore Before.
The trip. But I will never forget Huma
Huma nuka nuka APA waha, which is another type of fish.
I know that fish from the the song from High School Musical
sequel. Yes, yes.

(28:41):
Cool. Well, yeah, so I have two more
trivia questions for you coming up in in the in the show.
So you can you have some redemption there.
I'll redeem myself. I will get them.
Yes. So yeah, actually I've done some
of your puzzles before in preparation for this episode and

(29:02):
they they were hard for me, but the Tuesday one was hard for me.
So that says a lot about my puzzle ability because basically
for listeners, I learned that the difficulty gets higher and
higher as you go throughout the week.
Well, if it was, if it was The New Yorker Tuesday, it actually
was harder because that goes in reverse order.
Oh my God. Stop.
OK, wait, let me double check which I think it was The New

(29:26):
Yorker. It was hard.
OK, good. Thank you.
So I'm still working on that one.
But anyways, what kept what keptme going in that puzzle was
really the fact that I had an idea of what the clues were
referencing. Like, even if I didn't know

(29:46):
exactly what it the answer was, I had a sort of general idea.
So there were topics like Starbucks, Taylor Swift, and
overall things that were just culturally relevant to this day
and age. And I thought that was amazing
because too often I've straight away strayed away from crossword
puzzles because of like archaic references.

(30:09):
But yours are super fun. And I it felt catered towards
people like me, even though I just picked a random Tuesday one
from like, July. So yeah, I was wondering, Amy,
can you share how do you get your inspiration for crossword
puzzles and trivia topics today?Yeah, so I, I tried to stay very
hip with the kids. Very hello fellow youth.

(30:32):
And like, And so I, I, I do try to like just keep up with like,
what are trends? What are common sling terms?
I don't say them in common parlay.
It's because I'm a millennial and therefore an old and sounds
silly, but but I do I because I agree with you.
I feel like I have so much more fun solving puzzles when they

(30:57):
sound like what people sound like today.
And so I'm constantly keeping myeye out for names of foods that
I've never heard of maybe or never seen in a puzzle before.
I anthropologically watch TikTokbecause I like to know what
what's trending. I, I listen to a lot of like pop

(31:20):
culture podcasts. So I know even if I don't have
time to watch every movie and TVshow and listen to every album,
I at least know what's out there.
Just today I added, I don't knowif it's pronounced XO sauce or
if, or if there's or if the XO is pronounced as like show or
something. But there is like a type of
it's, I think it's like a like a, it's a sauce from, I want to

(31:42):
say it's from Hong Kong that I've been seeing around.
So I just added that to my dictionary today.
That's amazing. I I feel like my mom is Chinese
so I might be able to guess. I think the XO is like AJ Sound
Joe Joe. Yeah, there there's a very Yeah,
you know, I'm just. Gonna look but I could totally
be wrong. No, I'm sure you're probably

(32:05):
Yeah, it is. OK, It is Hong Kong.
It's a spicy seafood sauce from Hong Kong with an umami flavour.
Nice, I love. Umami but but it but it's all
it's both capitals, so it's X it's a big X big O, so I wonder
if it's if it's just pronounced XO sauce.
Maybe. Oh no, it is.
It is EXO. It's from extra old.
Very good. OK.
Exo sauce. Cool, Today I learned again.

(32:26):
I love Today I learned. What are some of the pop culture
podcasts that you like to listento?
Side tangent. I was so I keep up religiously
with pop culture happy hour fromNPR.
OK and every it's like 4 days a week or so.
And and they every day, most days they take a movie or ATV

(32:50):
show that just came out and theytalk about it.
They talk about it generally in a spoiler freeway.
And so if you haven't seen it yet, you can still watch it
without having anything ruin foryou but it.
But they're so they're film critics like they're critics but
and they're but they're very honest about the review of
things. And sometimes that looks like

(33:12):
this was terrible, but I loved it.
You know, or they'll or they'll like like like they're very
real. Like they talk about shows the
way that I talk about shows. And so I feel like I get a
really good sense of if I'm going to like something based on
their review of it. So I've definitely discovered
some shows and movies and some music that I otherwise would
never have found because of listening to the podcast.

(33:34):
But also, even if I never want to see it, but I just want to
know that it exists. Also a good way to do that.
Right, right. Yeah, So that I, I listen to
that regularly and that I think keeps me fresh and sort of
what's happening. Totally.
But I also, I solve a lot of puzzles too, and I find that
very inspiring. Sometimes I get ideas for stuff

(33:56):
just because we sometimes all think of puzzles doing one
thing. I'll be like, oh, that's such a
clever idea. And then it I'm actually totally
wrong and it's something different.
But now I have a clever idea. So I love that actually.
That brings me to one of my follow up questions was you
know, now that your full time job consists of puzzle making,
where do you get your own puzzleentertainment for your own

(34:18):
personal fun? And are there any other trivia
or crossword writers that you enjoy that you could recommend?
Oh my gosh, so many. So I, like I said earlier,
learned league is, Yep, my, I have such a love hate
relationship with it, more love than hate, but it's just really
hard. Like it's, it just you, you do
it and you, and even if you do great, you still miss a ton of

(34:40):
questions and so you just feel stupid all the time.
I love it. So IA season just ended and I
did very well this season. So I'm, I'm happy with myself.
But I, if you're, if anyone out there is looking to find a
really good source of really good trivia, learned league is
excellent. And then also Jeopardy.

(35:02):
I watched I follow Jeopardy the way some people follow soccer
like it is. It is a sport to me.
I, I love it so much. And then I solve, you know, I, I
solve the, the, the daily I saw I solve the daily New York Times
crossword most days, at least Monday through Thursday, I
usually solve. And then I really love

(35:24):
connections. I connections comes from a game
show, a British game show calledOnly Connect, which it's hard to
find access to it because it is British and they're always like
taking down episodes from YouTube.
But I also love Only Connect. I have done the online quiz
league a few times, which I alsoloved, but it was so hard for me

(35:45):
to schedule it that I kind of had to drop it.
But I, I, I lament that fact every time I get an e-mail
saying a new season is coming up.
They actually do and Only Connect online quiz league,
which I did for one season and like, oh, it's so good.
Nice. So there's a lot if you're, if
you start hunting for it, there are a lot of sources for good

(36:06):
puzzles. Yeah, yeah, I'm very excited to
join Learned League. For those listening, I'm pretty
sure you need like an official referral to join.
You can't just join. And Amy was nice enough to add
me to her referral as so I'm anxiously waiting for that
invitation from them now that the season's over.

(36:27):
It's good. It's going to come and you're
going to and you're going to regret your decision to join
every day. Yeah, probably.
Probably. So when making puzzles, what is
your favorite word to use in puzzles?
And then what is your favorite word overall?
Just like general something you you use everyday?

(36:49):
So I this it's kind of hard to say because when I'm making
puzzles, my favorite words to put in puzzles are usually words
that I've never put in the puzzle before.
So I'm not like always putting in my favorite words to puzzles.
Now, if you want to think exactly like I try to find words
that no one has put in the puzzle before.
So that's my favorite word is one that like no one has used
before. If you're asking about what's a

(37:11):
word that I find myself always using in puzzles, Oreo.
Really. Oreo Eno Eno just is that
because they're like excellent words, but they they're just
really common and they're commonfor a reason because the letters
are just they're easy letters and like they get you out of a
lot of tight corners. Like, my gosh, the number of

(37:31):
times I've put Eno and a puzzle Brian Eno, It's just I know so
much about him. He you know the Windows 95 like,
duh. Sound effects I do, yes.
Brian Eno wrote that. No way.
Yeah, yeah. Oh.
My God that's so cool. That's a trivia question right
there. Exactly.

(37:52):
So I know I know a lot about my old buddy Brian Eno.
I love that. I will definitely link that
below. And then what's your favorite
word overall? Like what do you find yourself
saying every day? Oh gosh, that's hard.
That's so hard too, because sometimes if I say it, if I'm
saying it all the time that it'sthen it's sort of like it's like

(38:14):
a tick word almost like yeah, interesting.
Or like, OK, so my I have AI have a 2 year old.
Yeah. And my favorite word is probably
whatever new word she just started saying.
So like cute. So like she just learned about
the concept of buying something.So she'll like because she'll
say like more juice and we'll belike, we're out of juice.

(38:35):
We need to buy more and she'll be like more juice by.
Oh, it just. Cracks me up.
So now we're now we're adding buy to everything that we say.
So my favorite word might be buythese days.
That's so cute. And then if I chat with you like
in three months or so, it'll probably be something completely
different. She also just discovered that

(38:57):
she really likes soup, and so she'll say she'll ask for soup.
Oh my God. Word.
Soup right now. That's so cute.
I love that so much. I I was told when I was growing
up and learning how to speak my one of the words I said a lot
was dubbage, which is not a realword, but that's what I called

(39:19):
like trash can. The trash mixed with rubbish was
dubbed so I love. That so much so cute kids vet
their own words neologisms your favorite new words neologisms
it's. More fun that way.
Exactly. I agree.
So I know you brought up earlieryou love Learned League and

(39:42):
there's several other things online, you know, trivia,
crossword gaming sites that you love.
But let's talk about physical games.
What is your favorite board gameof all time?
It would have to be code names. I love it is just it.
There's something so simple about it, like it is just.

(40:02):
It is just word association. It is such.
A puzzle, like as the clue giver, I don't know if there are
people who have never played code names before.
You're given this grid of words and there's some like
complicated back story of like you're a spy and you're trying
to say the names of your back story doesn't matter.

(40:22):
It doesn't matter. The important thing is that
you're trying to come up with a single word clue to encapsulate
as many words in this grid as possible that are yours because
they're like some words are assigned to you, some words are
assigned to your opponent. You're trying to like have a
single word clue that gets at asmany of your words as possible
without getting at your, your opponent's words.

(40:45):
And so you as the clue giver, you know, and like no one is, no
one is. There's no puzzle mastermind
behind the scenes, like cut, like crafting a board.
In a way, we're like, oh, there,there exists a perfect answer
here. Like no one's doing that.
But as the clue giver, you feel like there is a perfect solution

(41:06):
where like, if you can just givethe best clue every like they're
going to get all of the answers on the first try.
And it's just like you feel thatway.
And so I end up just giving and like, I feel like I'm so good at
this game, but the the people I play with think I'm absolutely
terrible because I come out withthese with these like word
associations that like, no, like. 7 words.

(41:28):
Yeah, and no one in a million years, whatever ever understand
why in my head this was the perfect word.
Yeah, I. Totally get that, I love it so
much too. The reason I ask this question
is because my favorite game is also code names and I knew you
would say code names because we talked about it previously and I

(41:48):
read an article. But anyways, the another part I
love about code names is that when you're giving the clue, the
way I kind of like to play, it is like trying to think about
how that person or how your teamis going to think.
You have to think about how they're going to think and you
have to think about how they think you're going to think.
So it's like really meta and it's like kind of a test to see

(42:11):
like how well you guys know eachother.
So when I play with my boyfriend, for example, and he
doesn't get it, I'm like, how did you not get that?
Aren't we the same brain? I.
Know, or sometimes you do something you're like, oh, like,
like this is I'm referencing an inside joke.
Like they're definitely going toget it.
Yeah. And then they have no idea what
you're talking about. You're like, oh, are we even

(42:31):
friends? Right, exactly.
And sometimes they're like, no, that was like that reach that
was too far of a reach. That was like way too far, too
many steps removed. But anyways, we obviously both
love code names. I even have special edition
versions of it. And I also saw online that one
of your favorite games is Trivial Pursuit, right of?

(42:53):
Course yes. As a trivia person, of course.
Of course, But I read that your friends don't want to play
Trivial Pursuit with you just because you're too good at
trivia, so I thought it'd be funto ask you a trivia question
about Trivial Pursuit. Oh my goodness.
OK, OK, go for it. All right, here we go.

(43:18):
Trivia question 2. What country was Trivial Pursuit
invented in? A Canada, B Australia, C
Scotland or D England. OK, I feel like it's not
England. Process of elimination.
Yeah, I just, I just, it doesn'tfeel British to me because I

(43:43):
don't know why I feel that way, but I'm trying to think, OK, so
the categories we have like artsand entertainment, sports and
leisure, geography, I don't know, there's just something,
there's something about the categories that doesn't feel
British to me. I don't, I have no reason to say
that. So I don't think it's, I don't
think it's British. I don't think it's Scottish

(44:04):
either. Scottish.
If it's Scottish, I think it would.
I have. It doesn't feel like it comes
from the British Isles. Yeah.
My guts saying Canada. Is that your?
Final. I'm gonna.
I'm gonna go with Canada. You're correct.
Yay. All right.
Yeah. I redeem myself.
Redemption. Yeah.
Redemption. She is the quiz master.

(44:26):
So of course this is a trivia podcast.
I'm interviewing a professional trivia writer, so of course I
had to ask you this. And of course you got it
correct. So just a little background
here. Basically in 1979, Canadians,
Chris Haney, a photo editor fromMontreal's The Gazette, and

(44:46):
Scott Abbott, a sports editor for The Canadian Press, invented
the game together. So Chris and Scott were friends.
They invented the game Trivial Pursuit over a couple of beers
at Chris's apartment. And it's as simple as that.
I wish I had that kind of idea when I was gathering for a
couple of beers with my friends.Honestly, I think the best ideas

(45:10):
come out of, you know, being inebriated A.
Little bit. Yeah, a little bit.
But hey, you know what I find with Trivial Pursuit?
Trivial Pursuit is, you know, everything's on paper, like, and
as we learn with crosswords like, you try to keep things
relevant with your crossword puzzle so you know, there's
still time to invent like a whole new game that could make

(45:32):
things more relevant for people.Absolutely.
I will keep that in mind becauseI need my, I need my Trivial
Pursuit, you know? Yeah, totally.
Yeah. I love that.
So you also mentioned earlier that during the COVID pandemic,
you got really into jeopardy. So we had to talk about that,
and I know you kind of shared more into like you made some

(45:54):
flash cards, your family made fun of you, but I was wondering,
have you ever thought about going on a game show like
Jeopardy? So I've been on a couple game
shows. Oh really?
Yeah, I've been in a few. I was on so.
OK, so they they are some of them are more game shows and

(46:16):
some of them are are like more like reality competition.
Oh my God. Amazing.
So I, my first one was, it must have been like 2016.
My husband and I were just, I were just starting to date.
And I think as a young woman in Crossroads, people reach out to
you for strange opportunities sometimes.

(46:37):
And so I was someone found me for a game show called
Superhuman, which was a every episode was five people who had
some kind of talent. And the talents were often like
very produced. But my talent was it was like I

(47:01):
like speak binary. I was, I was memorizing like the
system of lights and like, you know, some of the lights were
going to be on and some of them are going to be off and I was
going to have to like reproduce them.
And So what I basically did was I converted the binary sequence
into ASCII. And so if you don't know what

(47:21):
ASCII is, ASCII is a system of encoding letters into binary.
So every letter is it's a five. I think it's I want to say it's
like 5 zeros and ones. And so if given any series of
zeros and ones, you can kind of chunk it into a 5 bit

(47:41):
increments, memorize what the letters are and you are then
memorizing way less information and then you re encode it back
into binary as you go. So like you, you do a lot of pre
work to memorize what the alphabet is in binary and then
you on the day of you just have to memorize like a series of
like a couple letters and then like re encode it back into
binary. So I learned how to do this for

(48:03):
the show and but it was a very, it was a very interesting
experience because there's, it'snot like there was no way of
being like, Oh, you did better than than you ever had a
different skill. And so it was, there were like
judges who decided who the finalthree were and then like the
audience applauds and picks their favorite winner.
I don't even think I made the final three.

(48:26):
The person who won my episode was this like genius child who
could do really, really fast mental math and he'd been doing
this for like his entire life. And another person on my
episode, he's a mountain climberwho does memory stuff like the
same way that like I do trivia, he does memories competitions.
And so his skill involved him like like coming down from the

(48:47):
ceiling in a, in a harness and then like doing this spinny
thing in order to like crack safes.
It was really cool. Like I had no, my talent was
nowhere near as cool as the other people.
But that was my first game show.Yeah.
I was also on a game show calledYou Bet Your Life, which was a
Jay Leno show that was a remake of an old Groucho Marx show.

(49:12):
And I won. I feel like I won $2500, like I,
it was a team show. So I won.
I won some amount of money on that show.
And then my third game show I like, I honestly haven't even
watched this episode because I'mso embarrassed about how I did.
I was on a game show called Switch, which was on Game Show
Network. And I did, I did.
I was doing well. And then at the end I kind of

(49:32):
like made some mistakes and there was just no way to come
back from it. But so that that was for my
those are my three-game show. That's so cool.
I can't believe we didn't talk about this initially.
That's so amazing those the mountain climber guy sounds like
he would be amazing at Big Brother.
Probably, actually, yeah. Now that we know your strategy

(49:55):
on, you know, solving puzzles with binary, I'm curious what is
your strategy when it comes to solving trivia or Jeopardy, you
know, type questions because I know those are like very
specific. Yeah, so.
So I would love to be on Jeopardy someday.
That's like my bucket list #1 like I love to be in jeopardy.
The problem is that I tend to bekind of slow when it comes to

(50:17):
answering questions, which is why I tend to prefer formats
like Learn a League where you have an entire day to come up
with the answer. Because sometimes I need an
entire day to come up with an answer or even if it's just 5
minutes, like I wake up and I, and I, I know that I know the
name of that author and I just can't, I just can't remember it.
I tend to, I, I, that happens a lot where I have like something
on the tip of my tongue and I just can't come up with it.

(50:39):
And so I, I would love, I was all the time.
And I'm sure it happens to people on Jeopardy too, but I
feel like I, I would need to spend a really long time
preparing to have things on a really rapid fire recall.
So So what I'm solving Jeopardy style questions that just has to
be like you just you just have to know it.

(51:01):
It's a know it cold. You have to you can't hesitate.
Yes, learned league is very different in that their
questions are meant to be thought about for a long time
sometimes and sometimes it is just a really simple like do you
know the name of this author or not?
But more often than not, some ofthe questions, if you don't know
the answer outright, you can kind of figure it out if you

(51:23):
give yourself time. An example, one of the one of
the the lordly questions from the last day of the season had a
quote from a poem and the title of that poem and it said who
wrote this poem? And I've never heard this poem
before. I have never heard the line that
was quoted. I have never heard the title,

(51:43):
but the title was written in lowercase and the word I was in
the title and that was lowercase.
And I know that EE Cummings wrote in all lowercase letters.
And so I figured this had to be EE Cummings.
And so even if I didn't know that cold, I like trivia that

(52:04):
feels a little bit like a puzzle.
And so when I'm writing trivia, I keep that in mind because I do
write some trivia questions thatare a little bit more like, you
either know this or you don't. But I so much prefer writing
trivia questions that have wherethe trivia is something you need
to have in order to figure out the puzzle.
Yes. But the puzzle is kind of the

(52:26):
game of it. So like I, I recently wrote a
question for something somethingat work and it's for people who
are, who really know pop culture.
And so I can't just ask straightpop culture trivia questions
because it's it's either they'regoing to know it and it's not
going to be fun or they're not going to know it because it's

(52:48):
like too obscure. So I had to come up with another
way in. And so I what I did was so like
an example of one of the questions is the show, the
studio what won big at the Emmysrecently?
As it should have. It's an excellent show.
It had three people nominated for best supporting actor and
actress. And then it had multiple choice

(53:11):
and it said which of the following movies did not feature
one of the three people nominated for Best Supporting
Actor, Actress. So you have to know who the
three people are that were nominated and the answers to
that are Katherine, Katherine Hahn, Ike Barinholtz and
Catherine O'Hara. I get to know what the movies
are and who the cast members arein each movie and line up 1 cast

(53:37):
member with each movie and then the one remaining is the answer.
That's what none of them start in.
So I like that and it it's hard,but if you, if you like really,
if you know your stuff and you really sit down and think about
it, you can figure it out. And that's, I love stuff like
that. Yeah, I really appreciate those
kinds of puzzles where it's likeit takes it a step further.

(53:59):
And it also kind of gives you more of a hint if you kind of
know like what realm the question is about.
And I know you've once said thatwhen making a puzzle, basically,
you know, this is just another way to to restate what you just
said. But there's a quote I can link
it below too. But you've said once that when

(54:19):
making a puzzle, you envision the game that the solver must
play in order to get the answer.And the example you gave about
EE Cummings, I think it's perfect because you knew as the
player. OK, the title is lowercase.
I need to figure out what authors write in all lowercase

(54:40):
and that was the answer, so. Exactly.
You know, I guess you kind of already answered my next
question, which was what are thetypes of games, quote UN quote,
games that solvers can play thatyou would vision when you're
writing a puzzle? And one of you just gave an
example was you know about the actors and actresses, but are
there any other types? Oh, there, there's so many.

(55:00):
I mean, I, I'm always on the hunt for a new game.
Like if I could come up with like, I just, I was so proud of
this. There was in the news a couple
of weeks ago, there was a seriesof three countries that all had
their PMS resign with the span of like a couple of days.
Japan, Japan's PM announced he would resign, France's PM

(55:23):
resigned and Nepal's PM resigned.
And I thought that was interesting.
And So what I decided to do is have a question about each of
them and and to have the the first one, the answer was it was
about Japan's PM announcing he would resign.
But it read like it could have maybe been about France.
And so but the but you so you had to know that it wasn't

(55:45):
France. So the game there was just like,
do you know that this isn't France basically, right.
Yeah. The second one was about France.
It was very explicitly about France, but but the the game was
or so the question was what's the name of the new PM?
And I think people more commonlyknew the name of the old PM.
And so the game there was that. I gave the translation of his

(56:08):
last name into English. So even if you don't know so his
name is Le Corneau. And if you don't know that's his
name, you might know that corn often means horn, like Unicorn
or cornet the, the, the instrument.

(56:29):
And so even if you don't know that Lake Cornu is the new PM of
France, you might know a little bit of France or Romance
languages or etymology to figureout his name.
And then the third question. And, and those first two games
are things that I've like. They're not knew like I, I've
done those before. But I was proud of the third one

(56:51):
because it was about Nepal's PM And so his name was KP Sharma
Olli. And I don't expect people to
know that. But I had included his name as a
wrong answer in each of the two previous questions.
And so I said that in the thing in the, in the clue, in the
clue, I said you may have seen his name twice in the last
couple of minutes. So the game there it was too.

(57:14):
It was. And I was so proud of this
because I've never done that before and I've never seen that
done before. And so it's always fun to me
when I can come up with a new game that at least I've never
played before. Yeah, that's awesome.
So it sounds like, correct me ifI'm wrong, but it sounds like
you come up with the answer first.
I do that's yeah. So oftentimes the way that I
write these questions is I, I read the story and if the story

(57:36):
is big enough news, then I thinkwhat is the answer going to be?
Because if the answer is a person or a country or a company
that we talk about all the time,it's not going to be that
interesting. So if I can come up with like a
new person or a new country or anew company or just a new way
in, it becomes a much more interesting question.

(57:56):
So once I have that answer, I will kind of work my way
backwards and write the questionin a way that'll lead you to the
answer. I love that I feel like I my
trivia questions from here on out will hopefully be a lot
better. Not that mine are bad, but I
feel like I'm learning a lot from this conversation.

(58:18):
And you know, I did research before recordings podcast, so I
kind of tried to keep that strategy in mind when writing
that these questions. But yeah, this is really,
really, really awesome to know and I feel.
Like figure this out as we've been working on it too, like
totally better at it. And we've, I mean, at this point
we've we do it every week. I write like, you know, 1213

(58:40):
questions every week and doing that for seven months now, eight
months, amazing. You get practice.
Yeah, of course. So at what point in your career
were were you coined the Quiz Master and how did that happen?
I gave myself that name. I'm so glad that it comes across

(59:02):
as as me being extremely legitimate, but we just thought
it'd be funny to like I just, wejust we're being amused with
ourselves. Like like I was, I was told that
I could write this newsletter every week where I just kind of
talked about the questions that I write, which is really fun for
me because like I wrote the questions.
I'm happy to talk about them. I just thought it'd be funny to
like give myself a name. The quiz master.

(59:23):
I, I feel like maybe my editor had been like introducing me
around the office as like this is Amy or quiz master.
And I was like, Oh yes, I'm the quiz master.
So I don't think it was like there wasn't, I wasn't like
bestowed a title like a night oranything.
I think it was. It's like a joke.

(59:45):
All right, so we've basically made it through all of my
content, but I want to wrap up with just one final question.
You know, you mentioned earlier that you kept getting pulled
back towards writing as your creative outlet.
Can you explain the draw towardswriting young adult books rather
than you know? Adult books and then also, what

(01:00:05):
was your favorite young adult book growing up?
I'll start with my favorite young adult group book growing
up, because I think that kind offeeds into what keeps bringing
me to writing kids books. So growing up, I, I mean, there
were there were many books that I adored as a kid.
Harry Potter was obviously a huge one.
My daughter is actually named, Inamed her Lyra because of the

(01:00:28):
Golden Compass series, historic materials by Philip Pullman.
Yeah, I got them and that so that it's spelled the same.
I as a child pronounced it lira because now that there's been
audio books and movies and whatnot, I know it is pronounced
Lyra in the context of the book,but it is and will always be
lira to me. Lira is also the Greek

(01:00:48):
pronunciation and my my husband's and his family are
Greek. So that's.
Beautiful. So that book had a huge thank
you. That book had a huge impact on
me growing up and I think and you know, I still read as an
adult when I can, like my life'sreally busy, but I don't think I

(01:01:09):
ever will connect with the book in the same way that I did as a
kid. I think there is something
magical about reading as a childwhen like you're the wall
between reality and fiction hasn't been built yet and you
allow yourself to be immersed instories in a way that just is
impossible when you're an adult because you're just, you're too

(01:01:30):
aware your your hypothalamus hasmerged too much.
Like I'm making this. I don't, I don't know.
But you, there's something that happens when you're a kid and
you're reading a book and you fall into it and you believe
everything so intensely and you be and you, you meet characters

(01:01:51):
and they become your best friends in a very real way.
And books had such a huge impact, impact on me as a kid.
And so I think I'm drawn to stories for kids for that same
reason. I also think to some extent I, I

(01:02:12):
write the story and the way the story needs to be written.
So if a story comes to me and it's and it makes sense to be a
middle grade novel, like if the if the character starts speaking
and she speaks in a 12 year old voice, it's a middle grade
novel. At the same time, I have other
book ideas that are not middle grade at all.
They're older young adult or their chapter books or their

(01:02:35):
picture books. And it really, at least so far
in my life, the book has the format of the book has been
dictated by the content of the book.
And I think there's I have a very realistic chance that at
some point in my life I will endup writing an adult book, But
the story would have to be relevant for that.
I have, I had AI had a very fascinating medical situation

(01:03:00):
happened to me postpartum, whichhas which sparked a whole lot of
changes in her life. And I I continuously come back
to the fact that I would love towrite a memoir about that time
in my life. And someday I would probably
that would be an adult book for sure.
So I think it's, I think, I think people, at least I, when I

(01:03:22):
write stories, I am usually writing a book to work through a
complicated set of circumstancesor emotions or feelings or
whatever that I am currently working through.
And often times it is only yearsafter I have had that experience

(01:03:43):
that I'm able to look at it withthe distance required to write
about it. And so, for example, when I was
writing Emmy, The Key of Code, you know, it's a book about a
girl who was trying to decide ifshe is a musician or if she's a
software engineer. And that was happening at a time
when I was having this exact same internal debate.

(01:04:03):
And I had been debating this foryears within myself.
And it was only when I was like,at the very tail end of being
done with tech basically, that Iwas able to look back with the
impartiality to write a book about it.
My second book, Recipe for Disaster, it's about a girl who
isn't sure if she counts as Jewish.

(01:04:26):
She grew up in a family that is sort of ethnically Jewish, but
not and culturally to some extent, but not religious.
And, you know, she doesn't practice.
And that's exactly how I grew up.
But here I am, 30 years old, 30 plus years old, writing about
the feeling I had at 13 of beingJewish but not being bat

(01:04:49):
mitzvahed. And I think it takes a long time
for me to get that perspective. And so, you know, now I'm 30,
having 35, whatever, I'm in my 30s having experiences that I
will only be able to put words to a decade or two from now.
And so I expect that at some point in my life, I will

(01:05:12):
possibly write a book for an older audience.
But it's really the the story has to come to me first.
Yeah, of course, that totally makes sense.
You need that perspective on what's actually happening.
That reminds me of a Taylor Swift lyric.
I always do this. I love Taylor Swift.
So the lyric is time. I'm just going to say it, not

(01:05:34):
saying it time. Doesn't it give some
perspective? So there you go.
That makes so much sense, I loveher.
She's such a way with words. Yes, she does.
So we have to talk about your new book coming up.
This was a perfect segue into your new book.
You've a new book coming out in October.
I think by the time this episodecomes out it will already be

(01:05:54):
out, but could you give a littleinsight into what it is I?
Put it next to me just in case. This book is called Words Apart.
I have been working in this bookfor so long and it is finally
entering the world and I could not be more excited.
So Words Apart is a story about sisters Olive and Maddie and

(01:06:19):
they are not twins but they're in the same grade because Maddie
was held back here and they are polar opposites and also best
friends. Olive is very verbal.
She likes words. She like she collects words.
Her part of the story is told inverse that resembles dictionary

(01:06:43):
definitions with some crossword puzzle stuff built in.
She's also a crossword writer. And so somewhere in here if I
can find it, are are actual crosswords that she that she
makes for the school paper. See if we can find a good one.

(01:07:03):
So is she kind of representing you?
Yeah. You you wonder where I where I
got a lot of stuff from. So yeah.
So at some point she makes crossword.
Puzzles. And then her sister Maddie is
her total opposite. She struggles with words, she
prefers pictures and her side ofthe story is told in comics.

(01:07:23):
And so I have been working on this for the lifetime I feel.
Like I imagine you probably haveto work with an artist to do the
comic part, right? Yes, yeah, I am not an artist.
And so we worked with. Actually it's a sister duo.
It's twins Philippa and Rachel Perket.
Very fitting. And so it was just it's a
process. Writing any book is a process.

(01:07:46):
This book also had a couple likesituational circumstances.
My publisher bought the book andthen got bought by a bigger
publisher. And so there was just, there was
some stuff there also. So it was, I've been working,
I've been thinking about this book since 2017.
I started writing it in 2019 andhere we are in 2025 finally
being published. So seven years later, so

(01:08:08):
excited. But yeah, so it's the story of
these two sisters, best friends,total opposites, and what
happens to their relationship asfamily circumstances and school
circumstances go in ways that they don't foresee.
Yeah, and you know, you were just showing the the book and

(01:08:28):
for people who are listening, itlooks like a pretty thick book.
What you know? What grade would would you
recommend is a good reader? So it's for ages age 12 and it
is thick. It has 400 pages, but so there's
it's actually a very, very fast read, even though it looks and
feels like it, it might take a year to read.
It will not. And when you say verse, does

(01:08:50):
that kind of mean like in? Song format, it's like it's like
poetry, but I would I hesitate to call.
Every every verse passage here poetry.
Some are definitely more poetic than others.
It is it is a free verse format with a lot of white space and
line breaks. Am I thinking like in in each of

(01:09:11):
my books? I have three books now that all
incorporate verse in some way. And with Emmy in the Key of
Code, I feel like the majority of them, like I, I was writing,
I wrote that in verse to make itfeel like music.
And so it does have a much more like lyrical, rhythmic musical
quality to it in some ways. Recipe for Disaster had a lot
more prose in it and the poem version, the poem sections we're

(01:09:33):
we're very like intentionally placed to feel poetic in
specific ways here. It's, it's less that I think of
these as poems and more that I, I, I wanted the, the visual
spacing to kind of mimic like a dictionary or to mimic like how
someone like house, how you might see a crossword because
like crosswords are not written in like paragraph form.

(01:09:54):
They're written in these sort oflike chunky left adjusted words.
And so it it was less, it was less me feeling like like this
is made of poems and more that this was just like a style of my
character's speech. But that's a very like insider
based inside based. Totally.
Yeah. Very cool.
Well, I'm so. Excited to read it, even though

(01:10:15):
I'm an adult, like I want to read it.
And congratulations for, you know, seven years in the making,
this book has finally come to life.
So very excited and congratulations.
Thank you so much. I'm really excited to finally
share it with the world. Yay, all right, Words Apart
comes out. October.
By the time this episode is out,I'm pretty sure it'll be out.

(01:10:37):
But yeah, Amy, that is all I have for you today.
Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you. I was.
This was really, really fun. It was.
An honor to be your first guest,your first non family friend
guest. Yeah, honestly, first official
guest. Super exciting.
Since like, I've been doing thispodcast for over a year now and

(01:10:59):
kind of, you know, took it in myreigns, like as the main host
back in May. So it's super exciting that, you
know, I guess five months later,it's it's kind of taking off.
So, yeah, thank you to those of you who made it to the end of
this episode. Thank you, Amy, for being on the
show today. It was a pleasure to speak with
you. All right, well, thanks for

(01:11:21):
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(01:11:41):
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