Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to forty five Forward with host, journalist and speaker
Ron row Out. Ron's mission is to make your second
half of life even better than your first. Most of
us are just approaching our half life when we reach
the mid forties, with many productive years ahead. Ron is
here to help prepare us for this kind of longevity
(00:29):
by providing vital strategies to shift the traditional waiting for
retirement model to a continuous, evolving journey of compelling life chapters.
So now please welcome the host of forty five Forward,
Ron row Out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hello, everyone, Welcome to forty five Forward on Bold Rave TV.
I'm your host, Ron Roell. Now, sometimes the things we
love early in life stay with us for years, but
these passions don't always emerge fully formed until much later,
and often in unexpected ways. Such is the case with
Lisa Cooper and Braman McDougall, who discovered as middle schoolers
(01:24):
that they shared a real love for books. Many decades later,
the two still close friends, were contemplating their next chapter
in life, and they wondered, Hm, why not start our
own publishing company? And they did just that. So in
today's episode, Lisa and Vermont will describe how they founded
Quite Literally Books, a small heritage press dedicated to reprinting
(01:46):
forgotten books by American women authors, which launched this month
with its first three titles. Vermond and Lisa will share
their passion for print never Mind today is Digital Landscape
and describe how they started their company and decided to
focus on new editions of timeless books that still ought
to be in print. So now let's meet our guests,
(02:07):
Lisa Cooper and Raman McDougal. Lisa and Mon, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Thank you so much for having us. And can I
just say that that was the most accurate introduction ever?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well good. I'm a journalist by training, so I try
to get it right. So listen, guys, you know you've
got a you know, a fabulous new company, and you're
trying to sell tell interesting untold stories. We're retelling stories.
But you know what, we'll talk a lot about that
during the show. But you guys have a pretty great
(02:42):
story yourself. So let's go back to that a little bit.
You know, I mentioned a little bit of the introduction,
but let's talk about Okay, you met in seventh grade, right,
so let's go back to that ordin story. But then
describe a little bit about your different paths and then
your reconnection.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Sure, so, first daves seventh grade, I'm uh, I'm a
new student at a school that, like most people have
been going their whole lives, which at that pointment from
first through seventh grade, I new, I'm I'm out of
my element. And I meet this person who shares my
(03:20):
taste in music. We love Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder
and Aretha Franklin and the Beatles. And she reads a
lot and she's super smart and she takes me under
her wing. And that that was like, that was a
big thing in a school that had only I think
we had thirty people in six thirty six people in
(03:43):
our grade, including who turned out to be Braman's future husband.
He was also new that year. We started dating till college.
But yeah, they didn't date in seventh grade, but yes, no,
it was. It was but love at first sight, and
like we we thought, we thought, Wow, here's someone who
(04:06):
reads as much as I do. I think Bramond is hilarious.
She's like one of the most entertaining people in my
life and always has been. And yeah, so I think
that I think that humor music and books were definitely
very foundational just but not just the music and the books.
(04:27):
We like to sing. I like to sing, believe you
said that on live radio.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I love it. I love it just.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
To listen to the music or read the books. We
like to see how loud, how loud. Bramon in her
high school years, had this old jeep that she drove around.
You know, it's like kind that probably would be illegal
now because I don't know that we were seatbelts and
it did. It was top and it didn't have doors,
(05:00):
but it had this great little radio, including a little
cassette player, and we went we would we put music
again and seeing at the top of our lungs running
around Austin, Texas ARCA nineteen eighty six, our version of
cruising was driving around singing. I know we were so
came fully nerdy. It's almost hard to admit that here,
(05:23):
but it's true.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
And so for another admission, I will say that it
was just a couple of months ago that you and
I were walking down East seventy ninth singing the theme
song from Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Out loud because we just couldn't he it because we
were we're going to do it. We were really, you know,
every saying Michael bloombergs, yeah, we're still the same we
were back then.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, it still rings true because my wife had a
best friend like that too, from I guess eighth grade.
That's seventh, but eighth grade. And they shared the same
sort of sentiments and they would actually for entertainment, they
would go to the I guess the airport in Philadelphia
and they would you know, get together and they would
(06:06):
pretend to be talking French to each other.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
That's excellent, yea.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And there's fun about.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Having friends friends for a long time, and and still
being around people that knew you when you were young
is kind of fun because they get to be fewer
and fewer of those in your life.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So she can get me when I was sillier and younger.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Then you go ahead.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm sorry, I say part of the part of your
introduction that really struck a chord with me. It was
talking about like the things that you loved back then,
you know, and and that is so true, I think,
And maybe I'm skipping ahead here, sorry.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
But.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
When we were talking about like this next next chapter
in our lives, that is why we reached for books
because it's the thing that we've always loved, you know,
and maybe kind of got away from a little bit.
Never never thought that that would be like something we
could do, yeah, you know, side of just reading exactly.
(07:17):
So I loved when you said that in your intro
because that that is so true for us, you know,
like back to like your origin story, like what are
the things that you loved when you were twelve, right.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And those are the things that really are your soul.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And that it also sometimes includes people, you know, that's true,
the people who are your soul and kind of remind
you of like the most I don't know, like the
Germane parts of yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, but then you guys you took so it became
not quite bi coastal. But I mean so I guess Lisa,
you were to San Francisco, right, and then Vermon you
were still in Austin or did.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
You forth from Austin to New York times? So, but yeah,
we we never e signed. For like a couple of
years when our kids were really little, I lived in
San Francisco and that was really fun.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
That was fun.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But yeah, otherwise it's been long distance and sometimes.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
We didn't talk to each other for like months months.
You know. It's interesting because like whenever anything big happened
in our lives, like we did always reconnect, like.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And it wasn't a it wasn't hard to reconnect. I mean,
it wasn't like reconnecting. It was just like it would
have flowed on. We just were so you know, busy
with other parts of our lives, you know, for that
that chunk when you're in your you know, mid twenties
to mid forties, when you're.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Really focused on the little kids and like your spouse
and like volunteering for this that or the other thing,
and like you become very like an all those cookies.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Yeah, and so we we sort of and maybe this
is I don't know if this is giving ahead, but
we kind of during the pandemic, we sort of we
started talking more. I think we were reading more, and
(09:22):
we were thinking more about you know, I don't know, thinking.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
More about books and reading. Well, then just turn fifty
and then we turned fifty during the pandemic. Yeah, and
so good, he's a milestone, right, Like that's the moment
you take stock anyway, but then like add in the
pandemic and all the sourdough starter and like being like
hunkered down with your loved ones who are making you crazy,
(09:48):
and like it was a moment you know, for we
really like had to think about what else are we
going to do? Really because you're not guaranteed the next chapter,
So like if we were fortunate enough to have one,
what would that look like? What would be what's important
to us?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You know?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right? Right? And so then you had kind of an
aha moment though, right, I mean, you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Were I mean, I don't know really we talked.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
We you know, we always talked about books, and I
think we always had a little dream of having a bookstore,
which I think a lot of book lovers do.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
But that didn't seem that didn't just happened because I
was in San Francisco when you were in Austin and
New York, and but but we didn't, like, you know,
when we talked about like, oh, what could this next
thing be? Two things stood out. One is we wanted
to be around our love of reading, and we're like,
should we get library science degrees? You know, we talked
(10:49):
about that kind of thing, and we also wanted to
do it together.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
One thing that we realized during that time period is
like how much we missed each other. There were years
in there where we really weren't in touch so much.
And although I do tell this story because it's very true,
Raman is a terrible texture. She does not unless she
feels like it. Anytime I would text her from a
(11:18):
bookstore and say, Burr, I'm standing here in a bookstore,
what are you reading? What should I get? She would
always text me back. She would little everything to tell
me what I should be reading. Whereas if I texted
her and said, how you're doing here, kids, she'd be like,
you know a thing. I wouldn't hear from her for days.
(11:39):
So yeah, so so books were clearly very important to
both of us and foundational to our friendship, and continues
to be so today obviously. But when we're you know,
doing this sort of like like evaluation moment of like
how I want to spend this next chapter? Books made
(12:03):
sense right, Not she's publishing good but that's what we published.
She made no sense at all. I know it's so
crazy that we landed on that, but really, I mean again,
an aha moment, like we're sitting there and to be honest,
I was looking at I had a stack of books
from Persephone Books, which is this lovely UK, small, small publisher,
(12:28):
and I was looking at them and I was like, gosh,
I wish we could do something like this. I wish
we could like publish this stuff that we want to publish.
And Burr was like, well, why can't we? And I
was like, what do you mean, why can't we? Isn't
that crazy? And She's like, no, like why can't we?
And I just love that she sort of opened the
(12:48):
door to like dreaming big and that really like that's
when we started talking about it, and that was that
was probably the end of twenty twenty when we started
having that csation. Yeah, and then I think at the
end of twenty twenty one when we started, like when
the library sort of reopened that we were like in
there researching reading. We read for like a year and
(13:11):
a half before we started on. You were in New
York more, which.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
And this was just sort of serendipitous because one of
your girls was in college here and so.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
You were out here, yes, and that kind of made it, yes,
I don't know, more real, more feasible. It was because
we were in the same place and we do find
that as you know, as lovely and wonderful as zoom
can be. Like all these differ. We have to connect
with one another today, Like the in person piece is
(13:45):
really critical for the two off.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
We get so much more done we do. I mean,
we also giggle a lot more and are goofy lot.
We get a lot more done. If we're sitting we
have our desks next to each other in office each other,
we get a lot more done than if we're on
the phone or zoom.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Or And also, I mean it's so funny because like
we're perfectly capable of working on our own, but we
prefer to work together. And like it's like, shall we
go to the library today? And like, rather than just
one of us going, which would be much more efficient,
we're like, no, we plan like library days because it's
(14:24):
just so much more fun to do it in tandem,
you know, with someone who's like on the same page
with you. Sorry, that's a bad time.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, I think that that's we're going to come up
to a break shortly. But I think that that's a
little bit of what we learned in the pandemic, right,
is that the strength of connection, you know, and yes
and zoom is okay, but that's what people really missed
and I think it and we'll talk a little bit
more about that and your books, because I think that's
(14:53):
that's a thing that I think, you know, we think
about it early in life, but as we get along
in life, it's like, well, we're okay, but no we're not.
We need to remain connected. So we're gonna talk a
lot more about that, but we do need to take
a quick break, guys. So folks, we're going to take
a short two minute break, but we'll be talking much more.
Luis Cooper and Vernon McDougall and meekem back. So don't
(15:16):
go anywhere.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
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(16:02):
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Speaker 5 (16:21):
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Speaker 2 (17:21):
Welcome back, folks, once again. I'm your host, Ron Roell
on forty five Forward. We're talking today with Alisa Cooper
and Verman McDougall, the founders of a just launched publishing
company called quite Literally Books. Before the day break, we
were talking about their friendship and their relationship every day
and that has been there for a long time and
(17:43):
continues to be very close. So I wanted to we're
talking now about your starting the company. And even though
you know you're going back to your passion and people
say follow your passion, the distance between your passion and
publishing starting publishing company, it's still a pretty odacious move,
given especially because I'm sure it goes like nobody's reading
(18:06):
books these days. You know, they're all on the internet,
they're all doing blah blah blah blah blah. You know,
and yes, there's a certain amount of truth that that
people are spending. But you know, in a sense it
clarifies your niche. And I think that you know, yes,
you have audio books and if you eat books and
so forth, but you also made a point that you
(18:29):
wanted the physical books. Talk about that a.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Little bit literally, Yeah, quite reason why.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
As to the audacity of starting a publishing company, several people,
through the couple of years that we've been starting this
have have said, we're so brave. And that's one of
those things that I mean, man, I not something you
really want to hear.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I am so Yeah, it's like rave or stupid.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Like you.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Courageous, let's use that word.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, but we we really do well. I mean, we
love to read, but we also have physical books. We
like libraries and bookstores, and we like to hold books
in our hands, and so we worked really hard to
make our books really special.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Well kind of in line with like we were saying
earlier about like there's nothing better than like an in
person conversation. There's something better than sort of the analog
experience reading, like holding a physical book, the weight of it,
the feel of the paper, the smell on the paper.
We both love the smell of like a library or book.
(19:41):
Just yesterday literally held a book up to my face
and just like smell this, like it's like it's a
okay of flowers, you know. But I mean that's there
is a whole, like a holistic experience to reading a
book that is very different from a digital experience. And
I think that there time and a place for digital
(20:02):
you know, platforms that offer books like and I don't
want to I don't want to take away from anyone
who wants to read, like you should be reading and
like whether in a kindle or a or a computer
or your phone, Like I don't care, do it. You
don't have to listen to us, but the two of
us like there is something poetic and something very like
(20:24):
visceral that comes from reading a physical book, and we
delight in that experience. And we know that there are
people out there who feel similarly and people out there
who maybe don't know that yet. And so when we
put these books together, that was that was front and
center and how we looked at it, Like we have
(20:45):
them printed in Germany because we found this amazing printer
that can sort this paper that's called Monken paper. It's
beautiful or it feels so good. It smells it smells
really good, and and even like down to like the
typeface and every aspect of the book, including how it opens,
(21:08):
and the fact that the spines don't break when you
open them has been thought out because we want it
to be like an amazing, so lifeful experience.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Someone who first saw them said, oh, even the spines
are pretty.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
You're like, even the spine even like of course, like
the spines have to be to do that. That's what
you see when you're looking at a bookshelf.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
So you turned reading into a real central experience in
many ways, Yes, really is a central experience.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
And we're just trying to like highlight that a little
bit because I think that maybe a lost a little
bit people sort of forget that's.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And in terms of connection, you know, nobody ever asks
anybody what they're reading on there.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
You know, nobody ever says on the train, if someone's
like this on the train, you're not yea saying like, hey, buddy,
what do.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
You read you're holding If you're holding a book, somebody
may say what are you reading?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Or I always look, I'm always like what are they reading? What?
You know, do they look like somebody you know that
maybe would talk to me. Yeah. No, So many conversations
in like random places, either like on the subway or
in an airport or airport or in you know, coffee shops.
If someone's reading a book, there is an invitation to ask.
(22:27):
Although not everyone read. Some people will be like, leave
me alone, I'm reading. But for the most part, I
think that people who read paper books I love to
engage with other readers of yahooks.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, yeah, they wouldn't. They wouldn't have them if they didn't,
you know, if it wasn't a public act in some way,
and that I think most people are like, well are
you reading? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
You know, I love that you just it's a act.
I love that. That's so true.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, and I you know, it's interesting too. So I
come out of a journalist back on the daily newspaper,
and of course, you know, when you would ride the train,
you look at old pictures and everyone's with their newspaper
right and now of course they're looking at their phone.
But I think that and I look, I've adapted. I
subscribe to newspapers and I also have the digital version
(23:16):
because it's an interesting experience that's in some ways it expands,
you know, the experience because you can read an article
and often they'll say like, oh, you read the comments
in the article, and it kind of is enlightening. But
there's still that physical experience and people talk about I'd
just like to hold that newspaper. You know that. So
and it's part of you, you know, a habit too,
(23:38):
so you can you know, it's it's sort of like
you can curl up with a good book. You don't.
You don't curl up with a good phone.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I mean a good point, right, it's true. Well, you're
talking to two people who still get the paper edition
at the Times, and I do remember always like folding
the special way you folded it. Yeah, right, so that
you can read it well, you know, spreading out and
writ and then getting to work and having to wash
(24:04):
the Times off your hands, you know like that.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
That's but are for you, right right? My butler did
not do.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
That for me, right, yeah. Yeah. So let's move forward
a little bit now to your some of your decision
making process. So you've decided to start to publishing company.
You're reading a lot of books. How did you decide
to focus on your particular approach, you know, of basically
bringing back books that you love that were you know,
somewhat forgotten in some way, you know, and focused on
(24:38):
women authors to talk about that, you know, decision making.
Neither one.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I think we both. We both love old books.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
We grew up reading that our mothers had read when
they were children, our grandmothers. I mean, I think I
read Every Reason my al caught book. And we also
love history, and so those things kind of dovetail nicely
because not all the books old, but they're also sort
(25:06):
of you know, they're kind of artifacts. They're pictures of
time and place that are really interesting to us. And
often when we're reading something, you know, there's something that
was so interesting and then we have to go research
it and you know, find what was really happening then
or what, you know, what was what was going on.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
So I think we just we loved old books. We
love the sort of the treasure hunting, the aspect of it.
Both of us love printing thrift shops and use bookstores
and finding things that you know, are like you're like, wait,
what this this looks like it was a best seller
circa nineteen fifty seven, you know, and wondering why those
(25:50):
people are no longer in circulation. So this is something
that we both just naturally gravitated towards. And then when
we started really thinking about it, were like, Hey, isn't
it interesting that there are all these like amazing writers
in the American canon that we love. Are there so
few women? And they're always the same women that come
(26:13):
up again and again? Were there no other women? Or
what's happened here? And so again? In those years where
we were talking about this project and then starting to
deep dive into it, it turns out there were tons
of women actually, I mean always fewer than men. Always
clearly much easier to get published if you were a man,
(26:36):
But lots of contemporaries who were well thought of, were
very successful in the day and have fallen off the radar.
And we started looking into that with a lot of
curiosity and a lot of like why is this the case?
And in some cases when you read these old books,
(26:58):
you find out that they have fallen off the radar
because they weren't pulled up, you know, And sometimes we
wonder how they ever held them. Other times we read
them and we're like, wow, this is this is a
good book. Always the first, like the first measure, like
do we think it is a quote unquote good book?
And in that sense, it's not scientific. It's totally about taste.
(27:24):
But I have always trusted Braman's taste. She has excellent
taste in many things, but especially books. And I say
that because it's not the same as my taste. If
you had a Venn diagram of our our you know
the books that we love. There is huge overlap, but
there's there's a lot that's yeah, And that's one of
(27:48):
the fun things is like we push each other to
read things that people wouldn't normally gravitate towards. But I
know that if Brahman loves a book, I may not
love it, but it will be apelling read and it
will vault in a very good conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So problem, what do you think is how would you
define some of your different perspectives on books.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Then I don't know, Lisa, the books that you recommend
to me I find like interesting. I don't know, they're
they're usually maybe they're a little off the beaten path,
I don't know. But we also read so widely, Like
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
It's hard to figure out a beaten path a non
beaten path, and it's funny.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
We talk about, you know, women writers and where are they.
We love male writers. We read you know, we read
male writers all the time. So it's you know, we
sort of take all comers and we rarely disagree. We
read a book. We both read a book a couple
of summers ago that I really liked and Lisa really
(28:54):
didn't like.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
And that was that almost never happened now. It's kind
of a first and it was a weird book for
me to like. It was something that I was like, yeah,
it was. It was funny name.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But it's But I think I applaud your your basic
approach though, because I do think, you know, it's it's
sort of invisible today because you know, the men and
women are. You know, now you're lots of women authors today,
But it wasn't always so you know, and there was
a prejudicial view, and we know that there were people
(29:31):
like George Elliott, right or well women you know where
there Even recently, my wife and I were watching I
think it was a series based upon the works of P. D. James.
You know, my wife was like, who's that. I'm like,
that's a woman. But there wasn't you know that that
well you had to sort of disguise it, you know,
(29:52):
so there are lots of initials, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, it's true. And the people that reviewed them were
all than men.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
We spend a lot of time in the Times machine,
and and we sort of have a theory or pet theory,
I don't know, but neither of us is an academic,
neither of us as a publisher by trade.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
But well we are now, I know we are now,
We're not academics.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
We're still not that that that women tended to write
more about the home and about domestic things and about relationships. Yeah,
and and interior lives, you know, thoughts and feelings and
things like that, and.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Which for whatever reason is not considered to be literature,
whereas the interior lives of men apparently are. And we
love it, like we we read those books. We love
those books. But yeah, like why why why are men
not reading books written about women by women more? Even today?
(30:58):
You know, like oftentimes it's sort of relegated into the
world of still chick lit or romance romance. Men aren't
really reading a.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Lot of there's a I mean, there's a romance boom, right, now,
but I think it's been driven good.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, there are there are gender things I think that
you know, and you can stereotype them, but I do
think that men think there's more gravit tests to nonfiction,
you know, so they so though I was in actually
a men's book group recently and you know, picking books.
Getting these men off of history and historical biographies into
(31:37):
a novel was was was an effort. They didn't want
to do that. So but I want to we just
take another quick break, Okay, but I want to jump
on that and explore a little bit more when we
get back. So we're talking with Lisa Cooper and Braman
McDougall of quite literally books. We're having a great conversation,
but we need to take a quick quick break. We'll
(31:58):
be right back. Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 6 (32:02):
Doctor RC will share extraordinary resources and services that promote
educational success as well as making a difference in the
lives of all social workers as well as the lives
of children, adolescents and teens of today. She will have
open discussions addressing many of the issues that we face
about our youth and how being employed in the uniquely
skilled profession of social work for over eighteen years, has
(32:25):
taught invaluable lessons through her personal experiences. She will also
provide real life facts, examples, and personal stories that will
confirm that why serving as a child advocate is extremely
beneficial when addressing the needs of the whole child. Listen
Live to Dare to Soar Saturdays ten am Eastern on
the BBM Global Network and tune in radio as Doctor
(32:48):
RC will provide thought provoking information that will empower, encourage,
and strengthen students, families and communities across our nation. You
can also visit her at soarwith Katie dot Com. Author,
radio show host and coach John M. Hawkins reveals strategies
(33:09):
to help gain perspective, build confidence, find clarity, achieve goals.
John M. Hawkins' new book Coached to Greatness Unlock Your
Full Potential with Limitless Growth, published by I Universe, Hawkins
reveals strategies to help readers accomplish more. He believes the
book can coach them to greatness. Hawkins says that the
(33:31):
best athletes get to the top of their sport with
the help of coaches, mentors, and others. He shares guidance
that helps readers reflect on what motivates them. We discover
and assess their core values, philosophies and competencies, find settings
that allow them to be the most productive, and track
their progress towards accomplishing goals. Listen to John Hawkins My
(33:54):
Strategy Saturdays one pm Eastern on the BBM Global Network
and tune in radio.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Welcome back, folks again. We're talking with Lisa Cooper and
Berman McDougall of Quite Literally Books. Quite Literally a new
publisher company that focuses on women's books that have been
lost and they are recovering. And before the break, we
were talking a little bit about the differences between men's
and women's reading habits and some of them are you know, stereotypical,
(34:25):
but some of them I think are real. I think
that men do, you know, tend nonfiction. But you know,
one of the things that I found interesting, and of
course i'm part of my theme is forty five forwards,
looking ahead to later parts of life. And one of
the things that I read I read recently in a magazine, Okay,
(34:47):
was an interesting notion about reading novels. And one of
the things there was an article actually about how to
boost your memories you get older, which is a lot
of people worry about and one of the things they
said was do more reading, but specifically read novels. But
why is that? Yeah, because basically, when you read a novel,
(35:08):
you're reading a plot, you're reading a boat characters. You're
forced into a flow of remembering things that connect and
go and sequence and proceed, you know, So it stimulates
your brain in a way that's that's more, you know,
effective than reading nonfiction that you could kind of skim
and scan and jump around in. So I thought that
(35:30):
was interesting. I never thought about that, and I do find,
you know that that recently when I've read some novels,
it does well, it does kind of like, Okay, you
got to get into this hit, You've got to stay
with it, and yet there's got to be some consistency
you to find time for it. So it is a
different experience, and it's it's a valuable one that I
(35:50):
do think we've lost a little bit in our kind
of like frantic digital age.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah, I think there have been studies done, or
maybe I'm just making this up, but I don't think
I am, because I read this somewhere that reading fiction
is a really great way to develop empathy. And I
think that's true because you know, when you step into
the shoes of a character, like you really do live
(36:17):
a different life. And I would actually argue that when
I read nonfiction, that probably challenges my memory and in
a lot of ways because I'm like, wait, battle, what
was that date? Who was that? General? Like, like, I'm
always like trying to remember these things. It's getting harder
and harder. But but you know, a fictional world where
(36:41):
you travel through it from the viewpoint of someone who
is not like you really does and you know what
they're thinking, right, it calls upon you to sort of,
you know, or allows you I shouldn't say call upon you.
It allows you to sort of, you know, very much
exist as a different person during the during the time
(37:05):
you spend in that novel world. And I don't know
that anything else does that quite as effectively or for
as long. You know, a movie can probably do that,
but movies are you know, an hour and a half
two hours. But if you exist in the in the
the mindset of a completely different person for six days,
(37:26):
it takes you to finish a novel like you do
come out of it usually a little changed or changed
or you know, like it does do something to your mindset.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Right, yeah, yeah, So let's put give some examples. Now
you've come up with your first three titles, so let's
just talk briefly about the three titles and a little
bit about them, and then you know why you pick them.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So to start with you, So our first are quite literally.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Book number one is The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher,
and it was written in nineteen twenty four. So this
is a book that is one hundred years old, and
one of the things that drove through us to it
is that it seems still very current and that the
issues that it talks about are things that we're talking
(38:18):
about today. It's about a family, traditional family. The mom
stays at home and takes care of the kids in
the house, and the husband goes out to work. And Eva,
the mother, is an obsessive sort of homemaker. She's not
particularly sympathetic in the beginning of the book because she's
so driven making herself miserable. Her children are ill, her
(38:43):
husband is miserable, and he's miserable also because he has
a job that he hates and he's not very good
at and he's not really cut out to go to
the office every day, and due to an accident, they
the husband can't work anymore. He stays home and the
and the wife is forced to go out to work
(39:03):
because they have to eat.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
And so she gets a job at a department store
and finds that she is really great at work and
at being a salesperson.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
And the dad finds out that he is really great
at nurturing children and taking care of taking care of
their home in a completely different way than his wife did.
And so it's just it's a fascinating thing that they
were talking about one hundred years ago. We're still trying
(39:38):
to find balance, and we're still trying to It's still
not quite okay for a man to say, I'm just
gonna I'm going to stay home and I'm going to
do all of you know, the homesteff and the kids stuff,
and you go out to work and don't feel guilty
about it. Go and and have your day, and when
(40:01):
you come home, I'll have suffer ready for you.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And you know, it's quite okay for women to relyeash
all that it's not yeah, who's staying at home?
Speaker 4 (40:11):
So and the author Dorothy Canfield Fisher had a similar
arrangement in her own marriage at least for a while,
so it's kind of she knew a little bit what
she was writing about.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
And she credited for bringing the Montessori method to the
United States. And you see some of that that experiential
learning happening in the scenes where you know, when the
dad has like taken over the household duties and caring
of the kids. And when we've talked about this a lot,
how you know it is it's one of those things
(40:47):
where you like watch him do his thing and it's like,
oh my gosh, he's so amazing. He's so good at this.
But one of the reasons he's allowed to be good
at it and be creative in his approach to child
rearing is because there was no there was no like
prescribed way for us stay at home dad to do
things because there weren't any stay at home dad and
it was so beyond the payoff that.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
He was doing in the first place, right, so anything
he did was like yay, Like everyone was like a body.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
You know. And I think that some of that still
lingers today. You know, we do as a society have
very different expectations of how mothers show up in families
and how fathers are expected to show up and when
fathers do things differently, we do tend to applaud that
(41:38):
in a way that we don't when women do things differently.
And one of the really interesting parts of this book,
you know, one hundred years ago, is that Eva, who
goes off into the workplace does so guilt free, which
is not a luxury that you know, many women have.
Speaking from the eye here, you know, as someone who
(42:01):
was a full time mother and also worked, like anytime
you had to make choices that took you away from
the family really did make you second guess yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and conversely I experienced when when
my wife and I had our twin boys, you know,
was pretty clear I needed to take some parent parental leave,
you know, and and I was fine with it, but
I can sense there was people were not. They tried
(42:32):
to be fine with it, but they weren't quite like, oh,
so you're going to leave, you know, you're going to
get off the career trajectory, and like, well, ye, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
It's interesting how in a lot of ways this book
is relevant, you know, to the times, but it's also
sort of like revelatory in the sense that it sort
of suggests something that we haven't even been able to
achieve hundred years later.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, so let's okay, get onto the other. I want
to make sure we'd be the pink house.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
So Plumbun we'll do plus let's number two. So Plumbun
is a story about a young black woman growing up
in Philadelphia. She is very talented, she's beautiful, and she's
light skinned, light skinned black woman, and so she is
often mistaken for being white. And when her parents pass away,
(43:30):
she makes a calculated decision to move away from her
community and her sister, who is dark skinned, to go
live in New York and see what opportunities are open
to her if she if she can go through life
passing well and really just going through life the way
(43:51):
people perceive her, right, right, She's not doing anything. That's
what I mean by passing like she's just showing up.
She's not going to correct anyone and it's just going
to be what it is, and what it is is
people think she's white. So she does that, and she
makes a lot of decisions that pull her further and
(44:11):
further away from all the people who love her and
you know, are her support group. And so she has
to sort of start to figure out, like is it
really worth it? You know, the opportunities are different, but
at the end of the day, even if you are
a white woman, you are still a woman, and that
means life is really limiting. This is nineteen twenty nine
(44:34):
that this is taking place, and you're doing all of this,
letting someone else decide who you are, and you're doing
it without the support and help and love of the
people who know you best. And it's a very complicated,
nuanced coming of age novel that has themes that we're
definitely still grappling with today. We talk about how it's
(44:58):
very it's a great caring with a book like Britt
Bennett's The Vanishing Half, because the themes are so similar
and we think that it's I mean, we read it
and we were wowed by it. It's one of those
ones that for whatever reason, has sort of flown under
the radar, and we don't really understand why. Nevill Larson's
(45:19):
Passing was published the same year and has way more
you know, readership, people know it, a movie's been made
about it. But Jesse Redmond Fawcett, the author herself, is
a very compelling figure. She is considered to be the
what they say, the midwife of the parliament Renaissance, which
(45:42):
is a little bit of a it's a little bit pejorative,
you know. I mean it's it's the midwife is not
the way in that scenario. She was so seminal in
launching careers such as Langston Hughes career. She worked as
the literary editor for the Crisis Magazine, which was the
(46:04):
magazine of the na A CP. She worked alongside the L. E. B.
Dubois and she herself authored four novels and they are
very good novels. She's sort of been lost time in
a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah. Wow. So we're gonna, unfortunately have to sneak in
one last break and we aren't much left at the end,
but we will sneak in some comment about the Pink
House and do a quick wrap with so folks, we
have one more segment with Lisa Cooper and Ramon McDougall.
(46:41):
So don't go anywhere. You'll want to hear this and
hear our wrap up. So we'll be right back.
Speaker 6 (46:48):
Doctor RC will share extraordinary resources and services that promote
educational success as well as making a difference in the
lives of all social workers as well as the lives
of children, adolescens and teens of today. She will have
open discussions addressing many of the issues that we face
about our youth and how being employed in the uniquely
skilled profession of social work for over eighteen years has
(47:12):
taught invaluable lessons through her personal experiences. She will also
provide real life facts, examples, and personal stories that will
confirm that why serving as a child advocate is extremely
beneficial when addressing the needs of the whole child. Listen
Live to Dare to Soar Saturdays ten am Eastern on
the BBM Global Network and tune in radio as Doctor
(47:34):
RC will provide thought provoking information that will empower, encourage
and strengthen students, families and communities across our nation. You
can also visit her at soarwith Katie dot Com. Author,
radio show host and coach John M. Hawkins reveals strategies
(47:55):
to help gain perspective, build confidence, find clarity, achieve goals.
John M. Hawkins' new book, Coached to Greatness Unlock Your
Full Potential with Limitless Growth, published by I Universe, Hawkins
reveals strategies to help readers accomplish more. He believes the
book can coach them to greatness. Hawkins says that the
(48:18):
best athletes get to the top of their sport with
the help of coaches, mentors, and others. He shares guidance
that helps readers reflect on what motivates them. We discover
and assess their core values, philosophies and competencies, find settings
that allow them to be the most productive, and track
their progress towards accomplishing goals. Listen to John Hawkins My
(48:41):
Strategy Saturdays one pm Eastern on the BBM Global Network
and tune in radio.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
Welcome back, folks to our last segment with Lisa Cooper
and Braman McDougall of quite literally books. Before the break,
we were talking about two of their titles, and The
Homemaker and plum Bun, and I want them to sneak
in a few minutes too before we come to close
about The Pink House or a third initial title.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
So The Pink House is by Neilia Gardner White who
Neilia Gardner White was a fairly prolific writer in the
mid nineteen hundreds mid twentieth century, but she is completely
out of print and unknown and actually difficult to find
information about her. The Pink House is sort of a gothic,
(49:30):
timeless sort of novel about a family and a house
and the undercurrents there and the secrets. It's a little
Jane eyre It's a little Rebecca. It's a little things
like that. An orphan comes to this home, lives with
his family, and she's a watcher and the.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
Big secrets, family dysfunction, romance, happy end day, and the
story is told from her perspective. And it's just it's
a good club on a couch, have a cup of tea.
Read this book. You find out what happens. You don't
need to think too much.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Just enjoy it. Great.
Speaker 4 (50:06):
So these are have good indings, so bear with them,
a good.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Ending, terrific Okay, so uh and so this these are
your first three, but now you have three more coming
in the fall. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (50:20):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
And I know you picked one of them, right.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
We've picked all three?
Speaker 4 (50:26):
Now?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yes? Really you talked about one that we can tell
you about one very quickly called Land by Charlotte Perkinskillman.
You may know that that author from her more famous work,
which is The Yellow Wallpaper, which we all read in
high school, which we all had to read. But this
is a like a feminist utopia into which men insert
(50:49):
themselves and afterwards. It's really good. It's very good. It's funny,
and it's short, which a lot of our books are not.
But it's it's a very very compelling, and it's out
in the world, but not hugely. It's not well known.
It's not well known, so we wanted to shine a
light on it because it's a great position starter.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
And where can people find these books? Talk about your website?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Go ahead, yes, please come to our website. It's quite
literally books dot com and you can order books from there,
and you can also write to us. We love to
have conversations with our readers. You can also find us
on Instagram which is at quite literally books and we
would like to encourage people also if you want to
just go to your local bookseller. We do have a
(51:36):
distributor Asterism, so your local bookseller can just order our
books for you and get them delivered in store.
Speaker 4 (51:43):
But if you order us directly from the website, either
Lisa or I or both of us in my basement
will wrap that book up in a really pretty package.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
They're really huge, like we're really they look super cute
and they have stickers on them and loving hands and
we may actually we slip in a little present for you. So, yes,
we encourage you to order through our website. You'd have
to have like that, you know, personal contact with our readers.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
And if they want to have a conversation with you
or just reach out to you, how would they? Did
they just contact you through the website?
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Yes, so reach us. It's called write us at quite
literally books dot com, or you can d m us
through through Instagram.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Okay, all right, good, So.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Except you know, handwritten letters. I love those. We love
a good handwritten note. So if anyone wants to just
actually mail us a note, we would love it.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
And I saw you've got some merch on there as well.
I looked at him and I'm like, you know what,
I think there's there was a line in there I
thought something like a good book from yesterday is a
great place to start a conversation today. And I thought myself, yes,
you guys, should we.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Believe that it's really true, isn't it? But the tagline, yeah,
it's you, which is good. It's a good one. Yes, Yes,
we would love to talk with you.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Great, okay, terrific Okay.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
So.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Let me just as as I wrap up here, let
me just mention that next week we'll be talking with
Sudan Caperso the same time Wednesday, seven pm Eastern time.
She is an inspiring a legacy duela and a specialist
(53:32):
who talks about how you can just basically help individuals
and families preserve their history, their love and their life
stories for future generations. So that's going to be a
great conversation. I want to thank my terrific engineer Alex
who always guides me through the show. I want to
thank you, guys, Vermond and Lisa for a terrific conversation.
(53:56):
Look forward to catching up with you in the future,
you know, when you come out with your next titles
and see where you are in your journey next. And
so if people want to reach me, Ron Roll, you
can reach me at Ron dot Roel dot com or
you can go to my and you can listen to
my archive of podcast I've got about two hundred and
(54:18):
thirty of them now on Rowelresources dot com. Just go
to forty five forward. So any any last quick thought, guys.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
You want to keep reading reading.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Reading, absolutely yep. So keep reading and keep buying from
quite literally books. Yeah, and so with that.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
And if you haven't see published, let us know if
there's something that you read when you were a kid
that you love and it's out of print and you
can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
We love ideas, right right, yes, yeah, and hopefully someday
maybe you'll go back to even more analog life with
a brick and mortarst.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
You're talking about it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
You're okay to night to be continued, okay, folks, Well
until then, folks, keep moving forward. Forty five Forward.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
This has been forty five Forward with host Ron Rowell.
Tune in each week as Ron tackles the many aspects
of health, finance, family and friends, housing, work, and personal pursuits,
all as part of an integrated plan and to take
charge of your unretiring life during these uncertain times. Wednesdays,
(55:45):
seven pm Eastern on the Bold Brave TV Network, powered
by
Speaker 3 (55:49):
B two Studios
Welcome to forty five Forward with host, journalist and speaker
Ron row Out. Ron's mission is to make your second
half of life even better than your first. Most of
us are just approaching our half life when we reach
the mid forties, with many productive years ahead. Ron is
here to help prepare us for this kind of longevity
(00:29):
by providing vital strategies to shift the traditional waiting for
retirement model to a continuous, evolving journey of compelling life chapters.
So now please welcome the host of forty five Forward,
Ron row Out.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Hello, everyone, Welcome to forty five Forward on Bold Rave TV.
I'm your host, Ron Roell. Now, sometimes the things we
love early in life stay with us for years, but
these passions don't always emerge fully formed until much later,
and often in unexpected ways. Such is the case with
Lisa Cooper and Braman McDougall, who discovered as middle schoolers
(01:24):
that they shared a real love for books. Many decades later,
the two still close friends, were contemplating their next chapter
in life, and they wondered, Hm, why not start our
own publishing company? And they did just that. So in
today's episode, Lisa and Vermont will describe how they founded
Quite Literally Books, a small heritage press dedicated to reprinting
(01:46):
forgotten books by American women authors, which launched this month
with its first three titles. Vermond and Lisa will share
their passion for print never Mind today is Digital Landscape
and describe how they started their company and decided to
focus on new editions of timeless books that still ought
to be in print. So now let's meet our guests,
(02:07):
Lisa Cooper and Raman McDougal. Lisa and Mon, welcome to
the show.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Thank you so much for having us. And can I
just say that that was the most accurate introduction ever?
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well good. I'm a journalist by training, so I try
to get it right. So listen, guys, you know you've
got a you know, a fabulous new company, and you're
trying to sell tell interesting untold stories. We're retelling stories.
But you know what, we'll talk a lot about that
during the show. But you guys have a pretty great
(02:42):
story yourself. So let's go back to that a little bit.
You know, I mentioned a little bit of the introduction,
but let's talk about Okay, you met in seventh grade, right,
so let's go back to that ordin story. But then
describe a little bit about your different paths and then
your reconnection.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Sure, so, first daves seventh grade, I'm uh, I'm a
new student at a school that, like most people have
been going their whole lives, which at that pointment from
first through seventh grade, I new, I'm I'm out of
my element. And I meet this person who shares my
(03:20):
taste in music. We love Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder
and Aretha Franklin and the Beatles. And she reads a
lot and she's super smart and she takes me under
her wing. And that that was like, that was a
big thing in a school that had only I think
we had thirty people in six thirty six people in
(03:43):
our grade, including who turned out to be Braman's future husband.
He was also new that year. We started dating till college.
But yeah, they didn't date in seventh grade, but yes, no,
it was. It was but love at first sight, and
like we we thought, we thought, Wow, here's someone who
(04:06):
reads as much as I do. I think Bramond is hilarious.
She's like one of the most entertaining people in my
life and always has been. And yeah, so I think
that I think that humor music and books were definitely
very foundational just but not just the music and the books.
(04:27):
We like to sing. I like to sing, believe you
said that on live radio.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I love it. I love it just.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
To listen to the music or read the books. We
like to see how loud, how loud. Bramon in her
high school years, had this old jeep that she drove around.
You know, it's like kind that probably would be illegal
now because I don't know that we were seatbelts and
it did. It was top and it didn't have doors,
(05:00):
but it had this great little radio, including a little
cassette player, and we went we would we put music
again and seeing at the top of our lungs running
around Austin, Texas ARCA nineteen eighty six, our version of
cruising was driving around singing. I know we were so
came fully nerdy. It's almost hard to admit that here,
(05:23):
but it's true.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
And so for another admission, I will say that it
was just a couple of months ago that you and
I were walking down East seventy ninth singing the theme
song from Laverne and Shirley.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Out loud because we just couldn't he it because we
were we're going to do it. We were really, you know,
every saying Michael bloombergs, yeah, we're still the same we
were back then.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, it still rings true because my wife had a
best friend like that too, from I guess eighth grade.
That's seventh, but eighth grade. And they shared the same
sort of sentiments and they would actually for entertainment, they
would go to the I guess the airport in Philadelphia
and they would you know, get together and they would
(06:06):
pretend to be talking French to each other.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
That's excellent, yea.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And there's fun about.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
Having friends friends for a long time, and and still
being around people that knew you when you were young
is kind of fun because they get to be fewer
and fewer of those in your life.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
So she can get me when I was sillier and younger.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
Then you go ahead.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I'm sorry, I say part of the part of your
introduction that really struck a chord with me. It was
talking about like the things that you loved back then,
you know, and and that is so true, I think,
And maybe I'm skipping ahead here, sorry.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
But.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
When we were talking about like this next next chapter
in our lives, that is why we reached for books
because it's the thing that we've always loved, you know,
and maybe kind of got away from a little bit.
Never never thought that that would be like something we
could do, yeah, you know, side of just reading exactly.
(07:17):
So I loved when you said that in your intro
because that that is so true for us, you know,
like back to like your origin story, like what are
the things that you loved when you were twelve, right.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
And those are the things that really are your soul.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And that it also sometimes includes people, you know, that's true,
the people who are your soul and kind of remind
you of like the most I don't know, like the
Germane parts of yourself.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, but then you guys you took so it became
not quite bi coastal. But I mean so I guess Lisa,
you were to San Francisco, right, and then Vermon you
were still in Austin or did.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
You forth from Austin to New York times? So, but yeah,
we we never e signed. For like a couple of
years when our kids were really little, I lived in
San Francisco and that was really fun.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
That was fun.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
But yeah, otherwise it's been long distance and sometimes.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
We didn't talk to each other for like months months.
You know. It's interesting because like whenever anything big happened
in our lives, like we did always reconnect, like.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
And it wasn't a it wasn't hard to reconnect. I mean,
it wasn't like reconnecting. It was just like it would
have flowed on. We just were so you know, busy
with other parts of our lives, you know, for that
that chunk when you're in your you know, mid twenties
to mid forties, when you're.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Really focused on the little kids and like your spouse
and like volunteering for this that or the other thing,
and like you become very like an all those cookies.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Yeah, and so we we sort of and maybe this
is I don't know if this is giving ahead, but
we kind of during the pandemic, we sort of we
started talking more. I think we were reading more, and
(09:22):
we were thinking more about you know, I don't know, thinking.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
More about books and reading. Well, then just turn fifty
and then we turned fifty during the pandemic. Yeah, and
so good, he's a milestone, right, Like that's the moment
you take stock anyway, but then like add in the
pandemic and all the sourdough starter and like being like
hunkered down with your loved ones who are making you crazy,
(09:48):
and like it was a moment you know, for we
really like had to think about what else are we
going to do? Really because you're not guaranteed the next chapter,
So like if we were fortunate enough to have one,
what would that look like? What would be what's important
to us?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
You know?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right? Right? And so then you had kind of an
aha moment though, right, I mean, you guys.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Were I mean, I don't know really we talked.
Speaker 4 (10:17):
We you know, we always talked about books, and I
think we always had a little dream of having a bookstore,
which I think a lot of book lovers do.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
But that didn't seem that didn't just happened because I
was in San Francisco when you were in Austin and
New York, and but but we didn't, like, you know,
when we talked about like, oh, what could this next
thing be? Two things stood out. One is we wanted
to be around our love of reading, and we're like,
should we get library science degrees? You know, we talked
(10:49):
about that kind of thing, and we also wanted to
do it together.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
You know.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
One thing that we realized during that time period is
like how much we missed each other. There were years
in there where we really weren't in touch so much.
And although I do tell this story because it's very true,
Raman is a terrible texture. She does not unless she
feels like it. Anytime I would text her from a
(11:18):
bookstore and say, Burr, I'm standing here in a bookstore,
what are you reading? What should I get? She would
always text me back. She would little everything to tell
me what I should be reading. Whereas if I texted
her and said, how you're doing here, kids, she'd be like,
you know a thing. I wouldn't hear from her for days.
(11:39):
So yeah, so so books were clearly very important to
both of us and foundational to our friendship, and continues
to be so today obviously. But when we're you know,
doing this sort of like like evaluation moment of like
how I want to spend this next chapter? Books made
(12:03):
sense right, Not she's publishing good but that's what we published.
She made no sense at all. I know it's so
crazy that we landed on that, but really, I mean again,
an aha moment, like we're sitting there and to be honest,
I was looking at I had a stack of books
from Persephone Books, which is this lovely UK, small, small publisher,
(12:28):
and I was looking at them and I was like, gosh,
I wish we could do something like this. I wish
we could like publish this stuff that we want to publish.
And Burr was like, well, why can't we? And I
was like, what do you mean, why can't we? Isn't
that crazy? And She's like, no, like why can't we?
And I just love that she sort of opened the
(12:48):
door to like dreaming big and that really like that's
when we started talking about it, and that was that
was probably the end of twenty twenty when we started
having that csation. Yeah, and then I think at the
end of twenty twenty one when we started, like when
the library sort of reopened that we were like in
there researching reading. We read for like a year and
(13:11):
a half before we started on. You were in New
York more, which.
Speaker 4 (13:17):
And this was just sort of serendipitous because one of
your girls was in college here and so.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
You were out here, yes, and that kind of made it, yes,
I don't know, more real, more feasible. It was because
we were in the same place and we do find
that as you know, as lovely and wonderful as zoom
can be. Like all these differ. We have to connect
with one another today, Like the in person piece is
(13:45):
really critical for the two off.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
We get so much more done we do. I mean,
we also giggle a lot more and are goofy lot.
We get a lot more done. If we're sitting we
have our desks next to each other in office each other,
we get a lot more done than if we're on
the phone or zoom.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Or And also, I mean it's so funny because like
we're perfectly capable of working on our own, but we
prefer to work together. And like it's like, shall we
go to the library today? And like, rather than just
one of us going, which would be much more efficient,
we're like, no, we plan like library days because it's
(14:24):
just so much more fun to do it in tandem,
you know, with someone who's like on the same page
with you. Sorry, that's a bad time.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Well, I think that that's we're going to come up
to a break shortly. But I think that that's a
little bit of what we learned in the pandemic, right,
is that the strength of connection, you know, and yes
and zoom is okay, but that's what people really missed
and I think it and we'll talk a little bit
more about that and your books, because I think that's
(14:53):
that's a thing that I think, you know, we think
about it early in life, but as we get along
in life, it's like, well, we're okay, but no we're not.
We need to remain connected. So we're gonna talk a
lot more about that, but we do need to take
a quick break, guys. So folks, we're going to take
a short two minute break, but we'll be talking much more.
Luis Cooper and Vernon McDougall and meekem back. So don't
(15:16):
go anywhere.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
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Roman wrestling at one hundred and fourteen pounds. Mike blind
six birth, was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He was a
six time national placer, including two seconds, two thirds, and
two fourths. He also won the Veterans Folk Style Wrestling
(15:39):
twice at one hundred and fifty two pounds. In all
these tournaments, he was the only blind competitor. Nancy Zorich
a creative spirit whose talents have taken her to the
stage and into galleries and exhibitions in several states. Her father,
a commercial artist who shared his instruments with his daughter
and helped her fire tune. Her natural abilities influenced her
(16:02):
decision to follow in his footsteps. Miss Zurich has enjoyed
a fruitful career doing what she loves. Listen Saturday mornings
at twelve Eastern for the Nancy and Mike Show for
heartwarming stories and interesting talk on the BBM Global Network.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
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Do you wonder if being a caregiver is making you sick?
Are you worried about taking time off work to care
for elderly parents and balance work life and caregiving? Has
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(16:41):
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Radio show for caregivers and aging adults Wednesday evenings, six Pacific,
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these questions and share tips for managing stress, family relationships, health,
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(17:04):
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Speaker 2 (17:21):
Welcome back, folks, once again. I'm your host, Ron Roell
on forty five Forward. We're talking today with Alisa Cooper
and Verman McDougall, the founders of a just launched publishing
company called quite Literally Books. Before the day break, we
were talking about their friendship and their relationship every day
and that has been there for a long time and
(17:43):
continues to be very close. So I wanted to we're
talking now about your starting the company. And even though
you know you're going back to your passion and people
say follow your passion, the distance between your passion and
publishing starting publishing company, it's still a pretty odacious move,
given especially because I'm sure it goes like nobody's reading
(18:06):
books these days. You know, they're all on the internet,
they're all doing blah blah blah blah blah. You know,
and yes, there's a certain amount of truth that that
people are spending. But you know, in a sense it
clarifies your niche. And I think that you know, yes,
you have audio books and if you eat books and
so forth, but you also made a point that you
(18:29):
wanted the physical books. Talk about that a.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Little bit literally, Yeah, quite reason why.
Speaker 4 (18:37):
As to the audacity of starting a publishing company, several people,
through the couple of years that we've been starting this
have have said, we're so brave. And that's one of
those things that I mean, man, I not something you
really want to hear.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
I am so Yeah, it's like rave or stupid.
Speaker 4 (18:58):
Like you.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Courageous, let's use that word.
Speaker 4 (19:02):
Yeah, but we we really do well. I mean, we
love to read, but we also have physical books. We
like libraries and bookstores, and we like to hold books
in our hands, and so we worked really hard to
make our books really special.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Well kind of in line with like we were saying
earlier about like there's nothing better than like an in
person conversation. There's something better than sort of the analog
experience reading, like holding a physical book, the weight of it,
the feel of the paper, the smell on the paper.
We both love the smell of like a library or book.
(19:41):
Just yesterday literally held a book up to my face
and just like smell this, like it's like it's a
okay of flowers, you know. But I mean that's there
is a whole, like a holistic experience to reading a
book that is very different from a digital experience. And
I think that there time and a place for digital
(20:02):
you know, platforms that offer books like and I don't
want to I don't want to take away from anyone
who wants to read, like you should be reading and
like whether in a kindle or a or a computer
or your phone, Like I don't care, do it. You
don't have to listen to us, but the two of
us like there is something poetic and something very like
(20:24):
visceral that comes from reading a physical book, and we
delight in that experience. And we know that there are
people out there who feel similarly and people out there
who maybe don't know that yet. And so when we
put these books together, that was that was front and
center and how we looked at it, Like we have
(20:45):
them printed in Germany because we found this amazing printer
that can sort this paper that's called Monken paper. It's
beautiful or it feels so good. It smells it smells
really good, and and even like down to like the
typeface and every aspect of the book, including how it opens,
(21:08):
and the fact that the spines don't break when you
open them has been thought out because we want it
to be like an amazing, so lifeful experience.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Someone who first saw them said, oh, even the spines
are pretty.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
You're like, even the spine even like of course, like
the spines have to be to do that. That's what
you see when you're looking at a bookshelf.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
So you turned reading into a real central experience in
many ways, Yes, really is a central experience.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
And we're just trying to like highlight that a little
bit because I think that maybe a lost a little
bit people sort of forget that's.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
And in terms of connection, you know, nobody ever asks
anybody what they're reading on there.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
You know, nobody ever says on the train, if someone's
like this on the train, you're not yea saying like, hey, buddy,
what do.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
You read you're holding If you're holding a book, somebody
may say what are you reading?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Or I always look, I'm always like what are they reading? What?
You know, do they look like somebody you know that
maybe would talk to me. Yeah. No, So many conversations
in like random places, either like on the subway or
in an airport or airport or in you know, coffee shops.
If someone's reading a book, there is an invitation to ask.
(22:27):
Although not everyone read. Some people will be like, leave
me alone, I'm reading. But for the most part, I
think that people who read paper books I love to
engage with other readers of yahooks.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, yeah, they wouldn't. They wouldn't have them if they didn't,
you know, if it wasn't a public act in some way,
and that I think most people are like, well are
you reading? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
You know, I love that you just it's a act.
I love that. That's so true.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Yeah, and I you know, it's interesting too. So I
come out of a journalist back on the daily newspaper,
and of course, you know, when you would ride the train,
you look at old pictures and everyone's with their newspaper
right and now of course they're looking at their phone.
But I think that and I look, I've adapted. I
subscribe to newspapers and I also have the digital version
(23:16):
because it's an interesting experience that's in some ways it expands,
you know, the experience because you can read an article
and often they'll say like, oh, you read the comments
in the article, and it kind of is enlightening. But
there's still that physical experience and people talk about I'd
just like to hold that newspaper. You know that. So
and it's part of you, you know, a habit too,
(23:38):
so you can you know, it's it's sort of like
you can curl up with a good book. You don't.
You don't curl up with a good phone.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I mean a good point, right, it's true. Well, you're
talking to two people who still get the paper edition
at the Times, and I do remember always like folding
the special way you folded it. Yeah, right, so that
you can read it well, you know, spreading out and
writ and then getting to work and having to wash
(24:04):
the Times off your hands, you know like that.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
That's but are for you, right right? My butler did
not do.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
That for me, right, yeah. Yeah. So let's move forward
a little bit now to your some of your decision
making process. So you've decided to start to publishing company.
You're reading a lot of books. How did you decide
to focus on your particular approach, you know, of basically
bringing back books that you love that were you know,
somewhat forgotten in some way, you know, and focused on
(24:38):
women authors to talk about that, you know, decision making.
Neither one.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
I think we both. We both love old books.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
We grew up reading that our mothers had read when
they were children, our grandmothers. I mean, I think I
read Every Reason my al caught book. And we also
love history, and so those things kind of dovetail nicely
because not all the books old, but they're also sort
(25:06):
of you know, they're kind of artifacts. They're pictures of
time and place that are really interesting to us. And
often when we're reading something, you know, there's something that
was so interesting and then we have to go research
it and you know, find what was really happening then
or what, you know, what was what was going on.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
So I think we just we loved old books. We
love the sort of the treasure hunting, the aspect of it.
Both of us love printing thrift shops and use bookstores
and finding things that you know, are like you're like, wait,
what this this looks like it was a best seller
circa nineteen fifty seven, you know, and wondering why those
(25:50):
people are no longer in circulation. So this is something
that we both just naturally gravitated towards. And then when
we started really thinking about it, were like, Hey, isn't
it interesting that there are all these like amazing writers
in the American canon that we love. Are there so
few women? And they're always the same women that come
(26:13):
up again and again? Were there no other women? Or
what's happened here? And so again? In those years where
we were talking about this project and then starting to
deep dive into it, it turns out there were tons
of women actually, I mean always fewer than men. Always
clearly much easier to get published if you were a man,
(26:36):
But lots of contemporaries who were well thought of, were
very successful in the day and have fallen off the radar.
And we started looking into that with a lot of
curiosity and a lot of like why is this the case?
And in some cases when you read these old books,
(26:58):
you find out that they have fallen off the radar
because they weren't pulled up, you know, And sometimes we
wonder how they ever held them. Other times we read
them and we're like, wow, this is this is a
good book. Always the first, like the first measure, like
do we think it is a quote unquote good book?
And in that sense, it's not scientific. It's totally about taste.
(27:24):
But I have always trusted Braman's taste. She has excellent
taste in many things, but especially books. And I say
that because it's not the same as my taste. If
you had a Venn diagram of our our you know
the books that we love. There is huge overlap, but
there's there's a lot that's yeah, And that's one of
(27:48):
the fun things is like we push each other to
read things that people wouldn't normally gravitate towards. But I
know that if Brahman loves a book, I may not
love it, but it will be apelling read and it
will vault in a very good conversation.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
So problem, what do you think is how would you
define some of your different perspectives on books.
Speaker 4 (28:11):
Then I don't know, Lisa, the books that you recommend
to me I find like interesting. I don't know, they're
they're usually maybe they're a little off the beaten path,
I don't know. But we also read so widely, Like
I don't really know.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
It's hard to figure out a beaten path a non
beaten path, and it's funny.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
We talk about, you know, women writers and where are they.
We love male writers. We read you know, we read
male writers all the time. So it's you know, we
sort of take all comers and we rarely disagree. We
read a book. We both read a book a couple
of summers ago that I really liked and Lisa really
(28:54):
didn't like.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
And that was that almost never happened now. It's kind
of a first and it was a weird book for
me to like. It was something that I was like, yeah,
it was. It was funny name.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But it's But I think I applaud your your basic
approach though, because I do think, you know, it's it's
sort of invisible today because you know, the men and
women are. You know, now you're lots of women authors today,
But it wasn't always so you know, and there was
a prejudicial view, and we know that there were people
(29:31):
like George Elliott, right or well women you know where
there Even recently, my wife and I were watching I
think it was a series based upon the works of P. D. James.
You know, my wife was like, who's that. I'm like,
that's a woman. But there wasn't you know that that
well you had to sort of disguise it, you know,
(29:52):
so there are lots of initials, you know.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, it's true. And the people that reviewed them were
all than men.
Speaker 4 (30:00):
We spend a lot of time in the Times machine,
and and we sort of have a theory or pet theory,
I don't know, but neither of us is an academic,
neither of us as a publisher by trade.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
But well we are now, I know we are now,
We're not academics.
Speaker 4 (30:17):
We're still not that that that women tended to write
more about the home and about domestic things and about relationships. Yeah,
and and interior lives, you know, thoughts and feelings and
things like that, and.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Which for whatever reason is not considered to be literature,
whereas the interior lives of men apparently are. And we
love it, like we we read those books. We love
those books. But yeah, like why why why are men
not reading books written about women by women more? Even today?
(30:58):
You know, like oftentimes it's sort of relegated into the
world of still chick lit or romance romance. Men aren't
really reading a.
Speaker 4 (31:07):
Lot of there's a I mean, there's a romance boom, right, now,
but I think it's been driven good.
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
Yeah, there are there are gender things I think that
you know, and you can stereotype them, but I do
think that men think there's more gravit tests to nonfiction,
you know, so they so though I was in actually
a men's book group recently and you know, picking books.
Getting these men off of history and historical biographies into
(31:37):
a novel was was was an effort. They didn't want
to do that. So but I want to we just
take another quick break, Okay, but I want to jump
on that and explore a little bit more when we
get back. So we're talking with Lisa Cooper and Braman
McDougall of quite literally books. We're having a great conversation,
but we need to take a quick quick break. We'll
(31:58):
be right back. Don't go anywhere.
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(32:25):
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Speaker 2 (34:04):
Welcome back, folks again. We're talking with Lisa Cooper and
Berman McDougall of Quite Literally Books. Quite Literally a new
publisher company that focuses on women's books that have been
lost and they are recovering. And before the break, we
were talking a little bit about the differences between men's
and women's reading habits and some of them are you know, stereotypical,
(34:25):
but some of them I think are real. I think
that men do, you know, tend nonfiction. But you know,
one of the things that I found interesting, and of
course i'm part of my theme is forty five forwards,
looking ahead to later parts of life. And one of
the things that I read I read recently in a magazine, Okay,
(34:47):
was an interesting notion about reading novels. And one of
the things there was an article actually about how to
boost your memories you get older, which is a lot
of people worry about and one of the things they
said was do more reading, but specifically read novels. But
why is that? Yeah, because basically, when you read a novel,
(35:08):
you're reading a plot, you're reading a boat characters. You're
forced into a flow of remembering things that connect and
go and sequence and proceed, you know, So it stimulates
your brain in a way that's that's more, you know,
effective than reading nonfiction that you could kind of skim
and scan and jump around in. So I thought that
(35:30):
was interesting. I never thought about that, and I do find,
you know that that recently when I've read some novels,
it does well, it does kind of like, Okay, you
got to get into this hit, You've got to stay
with it, and yet there's got to be some consistency
you to find time for it. So it is a
different experience, and it's it's a valuable one that I
(35:50):
do think we've lost a little bit in our kind
of like frantic digital age.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Yeah, yeah, I think there have been studies done, or
maybe I'm just making this up, but I don't think
I am, because I read this somewhere that reading fiction
is a really great way to develop empathy. And I
think that's true because you know, when you step into
the shoes of a character, like you really do live
(36:17):
a different life. And I would actually argue that when
I read nonfiction, that probably challenges my memory and in
a lot of ways because I'm like, wait, battle, what
was that date? Who was that? General? Like, like, I'm
always like trying to remember these things. It's getting harder
and harder. But but you know, a fictional world where
(36:41):
you travel through it from the viewpoint of someone who
is not like you really does and you know what
they're thinking, right, it calls upon you to sort of,
you know, or allows you I shouldn't say call upon you.
It allows you to sort of, you know, very much
exist as a different person during the during the time
(37:05):
you spend in that novel world. And I don't know
that anything else does that quite as effectively or for
as long. You know, a movie can probably do that,
but movies are you know, an hour and a half
two hours. But if you exist in the in the
the mindset of a completely different person for six days,
(37:26):
it takes you to finish a novel like you do
come out of it usually a little changed or changed
or you know, like it does do something to your mindset.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Right, yeah, yeah, So let's put give some examples. Now
you've come up with your first three titles, so let's
just talk briefly about the three titles and a little
bit about them, and then you know why you pick them.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
So to start with you, So our first are quite literally.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Book number one is The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher,
and it was written in nineteen twenty four. So this
is a book that is one hundred years old, and
one of the things that drove through us to it
is that it seems still very current and that the
issues that it talks about are things that we're talking
(38:18):
about today. It's about a family, traditional family. The mom
stays at home and takes care of the kids in
the house, and the husband goes out to work. And Eva,
the mother, is an obsessive sort of homemaker. She's not
particularly sympathetic in the beginning of the book because she's
so driven making herself miserable. Her children are ill, her
(38:43):
husband is miserable, and he's miserable also because he has
a job that he hates and he's not very good
at and he's not really cut out to go to
the office every day, and due to an accident, they
the husband can't work anymore. He stays home and the
and the wife is forced to go out to work
(39:03):
because they have to eat.
Speaker 3 (39:05):
And so she gets a job at a department store
and finds that she is really great at work and
at being a salesperson.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
And the dad finds out that he is really great
at nurturing children and taking care of taking care of
their home in a completely different way than his wife did.
And so it's just it's a fascinating thing that they
were talking about one hundred years ago. We're still trying
(39:38):
to find balance, and we're still trying to It's still
not quite okay for a man to say, I'm just
gonna I'm going to stay home and I'm going to
do all of you know, the homesteff and the kids stuff,
and you go out to work and don't feel guilty
about it. Go and and have your day, and when
(40:01):
you come home, I'll have suffer ready for you.
Speaker 3 (40:03):
And you know, it's quite okay for women to relyeash
all that it's not yeah, who's staying at home?
Speaker 4 (40:11):
So and the author Dorothy Canfield Fisher had a similar
arrangement in her own marriage at least for a while,
so it's kind of she knew a little bit what
she was writing about.
Speaker 3 (40:23):
And she credited for bringing the Montessori method to the
United States. And you see some of that that experiential
learning happening in the scenes where you know, when the
dad has like taken over the household duties and caring
of the kids. And when we've talked about this a lot,
how you know it is it's one of those things
(40:47):
where you like watch him do his thing and it's like,
oh my gosh, he's so amazing. He's so good at this.
But one of the reasons he's allowed to be good
at it and be creative in his approach to child
rearing is because there was no there was no like
prescribed way for us stay at home dad to do
things because there weren't any stay at home dad and
it was so beyond the payoff that.
Speaker 4 (41:08):
He was doing in the first place, right, so anything
he did was like yay, Like everyone was like a body.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
You know. And I think that some of that still
lingers today. You know, we do as a society have
very different expectations of how mothers show up in families
and how fathers are expected to show up and when
fathers do things differently, we do tend to applaud that
(41:38):
in a way that we don't when women do things differently.
And one of the really interesting parts of this book,
you know, one hundred years ago, is that Eva, who
goes off into the workplace does so guilt free, which
is not a luxury that you know, many women have.
Speaking from the eye here, you know, as someone who
(42:01):
was a full time mother and also worked, like anytime
you had to make choices that took you away from
the family really did make you second guess yourself.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and conversely I experienced when when
my wife and I had our twin boys, you know,
was pretty clear I needed to take some parent parental leave,
you know, and and I was fine with it, but
I can sense there was people were not. They tried
(42:32):
to be fine with it, but they weren't quite like, oh,
so you're going to leave, you know, you're going to
get off the career trajectory, and like, well, ye, yes, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
It's interesting how in a lot of ways this book
is relevant, you know, to the times, but it's also
sort of like revelatory in the sense that it sort
of suggests something that we haven't even been able to
achieve hundred years later.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yeah, so let's okay, get onto the other. I want
to make sure we'd be the pink house.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
So Plumbun we'll do plus let's number two. So Plumbun
is a story about a young black woman growing up
in Philadelphia. She is very talented, she's beautiful, and she's
light skinned, light skinned black woman, and so she is
often mistaken for being white. And when her parents pass away,
(43:30):
she makes a calculated decision to move away from her
community and her sister, who is dark skinned, to go
live in New York and see what opportunities are open
to her if she if she can go through life
passing well and really just going through life the way
(43:51):
people perceive her, right, right, She's not doing anything. That's
what I mean by passing like she's just showing up.
She's not going to correct anyone and it's just going
to be what it is, and what it is is
people think she's white. So she does that, and she
makes a lot of decisions that pull her further and
(44:11):
further away from all the people who love her and
you know, are her support group. And so she has
to sort of start to figure out, like is it
really worth it? You know, the opportunities are different, but
at the end of the day, even if you are
a white woman, you are still a woman, and that
means life is really limiting. This is nineteen twenty nine
(44:34):
that this is taking place, and you're doing all of this,
letting someone else decide who you are, and you're doing
it without the support and help and love of the
people who know you best. And it's a very complicated,
nuanced coming of age novel that has themes that we're
definitely still grappling with today. We talk about how it's
(44:58):
very it's a great caring with a book like Britt
Bennett's The Vanishing Half, because the themes are so similar
and we think that it's I mean, we read it
and we were wowed by it. It's one of those
ones that for whatever reason, has sort of flown under
the radar, and we don't really understand why. Nevill Larson's
(45:19):
Passing was published the same year and has way more
you know, readership, people know it, a movie's been made
about it. But Jesse Redmond Fawcett, the author herself, is
a very compelling figure. She is considered to be the
what they say, the midwife of the parliament Renaissance, which
(45:42):
is a little bit of a it's a little bit pejorative,
you know. I mean it's it's the midwife is not
the way in that scenario. She was so seminal in
launching careers such as Langston Hughes career. She worked as
the literary editor for the Crisis Magazine, which was the
(46:04):
magazine of the na A CP. She worked alongside the L. E. B.
Dubois and she herself authored four novels and they are
very good novels. She's sort of been lost time in
a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
Yeah. Wow. So we're gonna, unfortunately have to sneak in
one last break and we aren't much left at the end,
but we will sneak in some comment about the Pink
House and do a quick wrap with so folks, we
have one more segment with Lisa Cooper and Ramon McDougall.
(46:41):
So don't go anywhere. You'll want to hear this and
hear our wrap up. So we'll be right back.
Speaker 6 (46:48):
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Speaker 2 (48:50):
Welcome back, folks to our last segment with Lisa Cooper
and Braman McDougall of quite literally books. Before the break,
we were talking about two of their titles, and The
Homemaker and plum Bun, and I want them to sneak
in a few minutes too before we come to close
about The Pink House or a third initial title.
Speaker 4 (49:10):
So The Pink House is by Neilia Gardner White who
Neilia Gardner White was a fairly prolific writer in the
mid nineteen hundreds mid twentieth century, but she is completely
out of print and unknown and actually difficult to find
information about her. The Pink House is sort of a gothic,
(49:30):
timeless sort of novel about a family and a house
and the undercurrents there and the secrets. It's a little
Jane eyre It's a little Rebecca. It's a little things
like that. An orphan comes to this home, lives with
his family, and she's a watcher and the.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
Big secrets, family dysfunction, romance, happy end day, and the
story is told from her perspective. And it's just it's
a good club on a couch, have a cup of tea.
Read this book. You find out what happens. You don't
need to think too much.
Speaker 2 (50:04):
Just enjoy it. Great.
Speaker 4 (50:06):
So these are have good indings, so bear with them,
a good.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
Ending, terrific Okay, so uh and so this these are
your first three, but now you have three more coming
in the fall. Is that right?
Speaker 3 (50:20):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
And I know you picked one of them, right.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
We've picked all three?
Speaker 4 (50:26):
Now?
Speaker 3 (50:26):
Yes? Really you talked about one that we can tell
you about one very quickly called Land by Charlotte Perkinskillman.
You may know that that author from her more famous work,
which is The Yellow Wallpaper, which we all read in
high school, which we all had to read. But this
is a like a feminist utopia into which men insert
(50:49):
themselves and afterwards. It's really good. It's very good. It's funny,
and it's short, which a lot of our books are not.
But it's it's a very very compelling, and it's out
in the world, but not hugely. It's not well known.
It's not well known, so we wanted to shine a
light on it because it's a great position starter.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
And where can people find these books? Talk about your website?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Go ahead, yes, please come to our website. It's quite
literally books dot com and you can order books from there,
and you can also write to us. We love to
have conversations with our readers. You can also find us
on Instagram which is at quite literally books and we
would like to encourage people also if you want to
just go to your local bookseller. We do have a
(51:36):
distributor Asterism, so your local bookseller can just order our
books for you and get them delivered in store.
Speaker 4 (51:43):
But if you order us directly from the website, either
Lisa or I or both of us in my basement
will wrap that book up in a really pretty package.
Speaker 3 (51:53):
They're really huge, like we're really they look super cute
and they have stickers on them and loving hands and
we may actually we slip in a little present for you. So, yes,
we encourage you to order through our website. You'd have
to have like that, you know, personal contact with our readers.
Speaker 2 (52:09):
And if they want to have a conversation with you
or just reach out to you, how would they? Did
they just contact you through the website?
Speaker 3 (52:15):
Yes, so reach us. It's called write us at quite
literally books dot com, or you can d m us
through through Instagram.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
Okay, all right, good, So.
Speaker 3 (52:26):
Except you know, handwritten letters. I love those. We love
a good handwritten note. So if anyone wants to just
actually mail us a note, we would love it.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
And I saw you've got some merch on there as well.
I looked at him and I'm like, you know what,
I think there's there was a line in there I
thought something like a good book from yesterday is a
great place to start a conversation today. And I thought myself, yes,
you guys, should we.
Speaker 3 (52:54):
Believe that it's really true, isn't it? But the tagline, yeah,
it's you, which is good. It's a good one. Yes, Yes,
we would love to talk with you.
Speaker 2 (53:06):
Great, okay, terrific Okay.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
So.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Let me just as as I wrap up here, let
me just mention that next week we'll be talking with
Sudan Caperso the same time Wednesday, seven pm Eastern time.
She is an inspiring a legacy duela and a specialist
(53:32):
who talks about how you can just basically help individuals
and families preserve their history, their love and their life
stories for future generations. So that's going to be a
great conversation. I want to thank my terrific engineer Alex
who always guides me through the show. I want to
thank you, guys, Vermond and Lisa for a terrific conversation.
(53:56):
Look forward to catching up with you in the future,
you know, when you come out with your next titles
and see where you are in your journey next. And
so if people want to reach me, Ron Roll, you
can reach me at Ron dot Roel dot com or
you can go to my and you can listen to
my archive of podcast I've got about two hundred and
(54:18):
thirty of them now on Rowelresources dot com. Just go
to forty five forward. So any any last quick thought, guys.
Speaker 3 (54:28):
You want to keep reading reading.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Reading, absolutely yep. So keep reading and keep buying from
quite literally books. Yeah, and so with that.
Speaker 3 (54:45):
And if you haven't see published, let us know if
there's something that you read when you were a kid
that you love and it's out of print and you
can't find it anywhere.
Speaker 2 (54:53):
We love ideas, right right, yes, yeah, and hopefully someday
maybe you'll go back to even more analog life with
a brick and mortarst.
Speaker 3 (55:06):
You're talking about it.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
You're okay to night to be continued, okay, folks, Well
until then, folks, keep moving forward. Forty five Forward.
Speaker 1 (55:21):
This has been forty five Forward with host Ron Rowell.
Tune in each week as Ron tackles the many aspects
of health, finance, family and friends, housing, work, and personal pursuits,
all as part of an integrated plan and to take
charge of your unretiring life during these uncertain times. Wednesdays,
(55:45):
seven pm Eastern on the Bold Brave TV Network, powered
by
Speaker 3 (55:49):
B two Studios
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