April 17, 2024 • 23 mins
Kristin Vuković’s work has appeared in The New York Times, BBC Travel, BBC Good Food Magazine, AFAR, Travel + Leisure, Coastal Living, Hemispheres, Virtuoso, The Magazine, and Public Books, among many others.In 2016, she was named a “40 Under 40” honoree by The National Federation of Croatian Americans Cultural Foundation. In 2017, she was the recipient of a Zlatna Penkala (Golden Pen) award for her writing about Croatia. In 2019, her BBC Travel piece “Dalmatia’s Fjaka State of Mind” won first place
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Hello everyone, and welcome to theWriter's Class. Whoo. I almost said
the Writer's Class Lady's Tale podcast,which would have been every podcast I had
together. Yeah, oh, y'all, it's been two months. So if
you know, when I have fourpodcasts and I haven't done any of them
for two months, I assume Ijust start writing whole new names where they're
(00:23):
all in there. Therefore, I'llalways get it right. And just in
case you're wondering, this is anew background for me, I'm not sure
if I like it. It maystay, it may not stay. Who
cares, No one cares about thesethings. I'm wontona. Oh I remember
to introduce myself. Oo, likereally, I'm semi professional. Now okay,
(00:46):
I'm done. And I ruined thatright there with those shoulder gestures and
you're like, oh, and shecan't dance and did it whoo? It's
bad. Yeah, I'm gonna takeit back. I was like, I
was trying to pull out an LNSkind of thing, you know, dance,
dance, dance. But in theif you don't remember Ellen, then
I'm sorry. Oh okay. Iwrote books with other people. They're like
(01:07):
so many other co authors. ButI was a writer on them, on
all of them, and some ofthem are. And I thought the force
was bad, and I thought beinggrown up was easy if only our me
a memory in verse, widdows,web, widdles, debt, and foreign
coffee. And if you're counting along, that is six. That is six
books, y'all. And you canget those six books wherever audiobooks are found.
Now, if you've been following us, you know we have more than
(01:29):
six fill in the blank. Wehave how many books? I'm joking.
No one did devoted fan out therelike that, like how many books?
It's creepy and weird. But buythem all. Even if you say,
like how many books? By thema all, I still want you to
do that. We have seventeen morebooks and you can find those seventeen more
books on www. Dot And Ithought, ladies dot com, guess why
(01:52):
you're not here to hear about me? Which suns because I have so much
to tell you. I tell youabout this one time that you were going
to hear about our ask, wonderfulguys, would you like to introduce yourself?
Sure? Thank you so much,first of all for having me on,
and especially after a two month hiatus. That's like, well, well,
we'll both get right back into itbecause this is my first podcast,
(02:14):
so I'm excited. I'm Kristin Vukovichand I wrote The Cheesemaker's Daughter, which
is a novel that's coming out Augustsix. Yeah, congratulations you So it
sounds very literary, you know,it's funny. It is literary, but
I kind of feel like it's upmarket. It's accessible, and you know,
(02:35):
it's it's it's meant to be nota slow read. It's meant to be
like you can you can go throughit, you know, without it being
too laborious. I think. Sookay, first of all, first of
all, like the vocabulary, we'veused the word laborious. Yeah, within
like the first few minutes, rightright, I would like, so she
writes for a living for real,frist I do not, however, you
(03:00):
use the word laborious in my novel. I'm pretty sure. So that's just
for the podcast. But there's somany yes, because overkill of the thing
I do laborious task and man,first of all, I wanted to say,
I find it amazing past the wordusage, that you went from literary
(03:24):
to upmarket because not a lot ofpeople go I know, what upmarket is.
So before we even get into anything, okay, into us what literary
and up market is. Okay,So in my definition literary it like literary
is very very character driven. Youknow, it's it's much more, it's
(03:47):
usually slower, it's less plot based. And these are large generalizations, sweeping
ones that I'm making upmarket and mydefinition, I would say is like it
straddles the line between commercial and literary. So you know, it does have
more of a plot. It's likemeant to be ideally more of a page
turner. That's how I would defineon market. How would you define on
(04:10):
market? I'm curious is it thesame or different? Exactly the same?
I believe they call it commercial literary. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
they're all similar labels for like thesame thing that we're all trying to describe.
So yeah, I don't understand whythey can't be like, write a
book, write a book. Youknow. People like to be like it's
in this category and it's like Xmeets Y and here's the two comp titles,
(04:32):
and they like to sort of theylike that, and I get that
for ease of marketing, but Ialso think like sometimes that's very limiting,
but I do think upmarket is probablya good description for the cheesemaker's daughter.
I just remember that I sent youquestions that I'm supposed to be acting and
I'm asking an upmarket was not oneof them. That's okay. I totally
(04:54):
love that question. Yeah, youdid your homework, Like you really did
your homework. You're like, no, I know what I'm doing. Oh
thanks, Well I feel like thatone was winging it, but thank you.
I'm like, I'm glad I wasthat, like check correct. Oh
goodness. I'm a poet, solike my generalizations of anything of the genre
(05:15):
is like, yeah, I poetry, Yeah, genres in poetry, but
it's poetry. But it's poetry.But it's poetry. So you're like,
it's something, it's something, andit can be it's something. I mean,
I feel like generally people don't askpoets to kind of like I don't
want to like say, pigeonhole theirwork, but I feel like they don't
really ask them to be like soyou know, they'll be more like what
(05:39):
are the themes you deal with?Right? Like for poets. Yeah,
and I'm going to answer this questionbecause I'm not Yeah, yeah, so
I'm definitely gonna answer this question.So No, Normally people just like what
do you do When I'm like,I write poetry and they go oh,
and I said no, I actuallydo make a living of it, and
they go what yeah, and they'revery confused. Maybe yes, that that's
(06:00):
like that's possible, yeah exactly.Or do they just stop and go like,
oh, you're a put Oh that'sinteresting, and then like does it
stop sometimes and people are like anda lot of times people go, oh,
your pot now if you're if you'retalking to publishing, that's all you
have to say, Like you willbe in a conversation with the You're like
yeah, yeah, and I havea great conversation. You recognize you're tired,
(06:21):
and like I'm a poet. Ohshoot yeah. They immediately find someone
else in the room like they're likeI need to find someone who can actually
make me money. I'm like yeah, yeah, oh man, yeah.
And on the occasion I go Imake money at that, they're like yeah
enough to live and they go wait, hold on, no, no,
(06:43):
no, you stay over there?Wait how did you do that? Yeah?
Then then the conversation it's interesting,right, But then then I'm board,
that's time for me to go,yeah, if I'm talking to academic
people, and then it's like,what type of poetry right where your inspiration?
Do you have a historical like touchstonepoint that you know, have you
(07:05):
ever written an iambic pentameter? Likethose are the academics. Yeah, yeah,
I'm like, that's what I knowpeople for. They tell me that
those are those people, like no, oh, no, you want to
talk to that personal thing. Yeah. Yeah, But also the other people
that can be like it's great whenyou have a friend, like if you're
(07:27):
tagged teamy with somebody and that it'slike their work is like this, You're
like, yeah, that was abetter way to describe it than what I
just did. So let's describe yourwork mouth Okay, well I'll try.
No, So, what made youwant to want to write this story?
Yes? So this story? Imean, I think the short answer is
that it was definitely inspired by myobsession with Croatia, which is driven by
(07:53):
my father's sort of research into ourfamily history. And his parents came from
Croatia and and never went back totheir homeland. So I was the one
that like went back learned the languageat Columbia University from the beginning. I
heard it spoken, you know,in my grandparents' home, but it wasn't
(08:13):
something that they didn't want to teachmy father the language because they were afraid
at the time of speaking with anaccent. So it was all always this
thing just out of reach. AndI think as a writer, you know,
that just was It was a drivingforce for me. So so that's
like the personal element. I don'tactually have any ties to Pog Island,
which is where it's based. That'sthe second part of the story, which
(08:35):
is that I early on I didI did nonfiction background nonfiction and travel writing,
and I did this assignment on theisland to cover a cheese festival for
the now defunct Croatian Chronicle newspaper,which was a bilingual publication, and I
just landed up on this island notreally knowing anything about it, and I
(09:00):
mean people ended up dancing on thetables by the end of the night.
It was like this crazy and Iwas like, this is such a cool
island. And then there was thisguy who was like, yeah, but
you've heard this as Croatia's only dividedisland. And at that point I'd probably
only been there like a dozen times. Or something, and I was like,
it's divided, Like, how doyou mean any's and it's like,
oh, centuries ago to bishops dividedit. And it's like my brain started
(09:24):
working and I was like, ooh, Like it's also just an awesome setting.
Like if you can look at pictureson like instagramm or you know,
Google or whatever, it's it's justthis bald naked moonscape island that is just
cinematic. I mean, it's it'sgorgeous. It's like all limestone and surrounded
by the Aduatic Sea, and it'sjust it's really really different. It looks
(09:48):
like the moon almost like a moonscape, and so that just captivated me.
So I think it was then divinginto kind of like the people who lived
there, like getting some of theirstories, and then creating a character that
had this divided identity because my characteris a refugee from Yugoslavia and has spent
(10:09):
half her life in America in astory at Queens, and half her life
on this island in Croatia. Andyou know, it was a lot of
the feelings of displacement and the themesof identity belonging in home that that I
really wanted to explore in in mywriting, and and that was the way
(10:30):
in amazing. So that, ofcourse my next question has got to be
what do you have as three piecesof advice for anyone going out there who's
like, I'm writing a debut upmarket, Yes, a debut, Well specifically
for that, I mean, Ithink like generally creating a writing community and
you know, being able to connectwith other writers is is hugely important.
(10:52):
I think nobody writes in a vacuumand getting feedback on your work is really
important. For me, I wasI was really lucky Catapult no longer does
this, or I'd be like,go take a Catapult course, But they
did this thing. It was ayear long program that was a novel generator
and we wrote. We gathered likeonce a week. It was crazy because
it started in person in New YorkCity. I live in New York City
(11:16):
on you know, in person,and then it was the pandemic so it
moved on to Zoom, so itwas kind of like we all there were
three novels, three published novels thatcame out of that, and there were
like ten people in the class,so it was it was pretty amazing and
I think just having that accountability,being able to look at you know,
a novel is different than a shortstory, is different than an essay,
(11:37):
Like something smaller than is different thana poem. You know, where you
can kind of get feedback on somethingthat's a shorter length, but if you're
doing something that kind of you know, builds on itself, I think finding
a really committed group of people isreally important. I also would definitely say
like rewriting is super important. Revisingand rewriting and not being a free to
(12:00):
tear something apart if it's not working. I I definitely struggled with the beginning
like fifty pages and rewrote that onceI figured out what the story was and
had to go back and like addin the elements to really set up that
story more vividly from the beginning withlike you know, the setting and just
(12:20):
the stakes and everything. The firstchapter obviously in the first fifty pages has
that has to accomplish a lot.So I would say definitely, you know,
not being afraid to experiment and findthings you know you might even change,
(12:41):
Like for an example would be Ihad the father's close third point of
view as one of the it's nowjust in the protagonists close third, but
I did have like alternating scenes andthat wasn't working and I couldn't figure it
out, and eventually I just madeit her story and it just started to
(13:01):
float. But I wouldn't have knownthat, And a lot of the pieces
of his perspective inform the current story. But he doesn't have a close third
perspective anymore. He doesn't have hisown chapters, So so I think being
able to do that, And thenthird, I think, you know,
if you can afford it, Imean, a developmental editor is invaluable.
I think you know, it's itis a huge investment, but it is
(13:24):
something that I did before going outon submission, and I really think,
especially now you've got one shot,like it's it's great to just send in
the most polished version of the manuscriptthat you can. That you can do
and sometimes you can get it toa certain point on your own. But
you know, even really like bestselling authors that I know, they still
(13:46):
do that because it's just that onelevel, you know, and they and
they have obviously agents already, buteven before they're submitting, they're doing that.
So I think it's really and ifit's not developmental editor somebody who you
trust, who really gets your work, who can really go over it and
give you honest feedback. So Ihave to ask about your publishing journey.
(14:09):
Now, Yeah, you mentioned aboutthat the ten novel that came out that
that we're done. There three novelsthat got published a literary agent and publishers.
Yeah, so it's you know,it's a long journey. At least
it was for me. I mean, I think everybody I speak to it's
just like, you know, there'sa lot of writers. I was just
(14:31):
speaking to a writer friend who islike, yeah, it's the novel in
the drawer thing, and like,you don't know if your first novel is
going to be the novel that isthe published novel. You're ultimately your debut
or whatever. I like the seedof this story, like I said,
with the cheese festival, that wassort of planted back in twenty eleven.
So just think back to twenty eleven. That's a long time ago just for
(14:56):
the idea of the setting, andit really took I originally conceptualized it as
narrative nonfiction and then quickly realized thatwould not work. I would have to
spend time living there, and itjust wasn't conducive to my life with like
being married and you know, havingother things, all other obligations, so
including work. So I felt likeit was something that kind of took the
(15:20):
form of fiction by necessity in thesense that you can make things up in
fiction. I mean, you know, you can make whole storylines up.
And it was just for that,for that drama, I needed to create
it to be fiction. And youknow, I definitely feel like there are
real things in it. The placeis a real place, but I make
(15:43):
so much more of the division inthe like the division is literally not a
big thing in actuality. But ittook me a while to figure that out.
And then I had written fiction inundergrad, but my MFA is nonfiction.
So so you know, it tookme a while to like figure out
how to write this novel. Andyou know, it took a lot of
(16:06):
false starts. It took me,you know a lot of kind of like
like I said, getting feedback fromother writer friends and and ultimately like a
lot of rejection with agents to youknow, to get an agent. Like
it's it's not like you send outand like send to ten agents and you
get in fact one vesseling author waslike, send to at least sixty in
(16:26):
your first round. I was likesix zero, like not sixteen, and
she's like, yes, six zero, and I'm like wow, okay,
And like with anything like doing yourresearch, So I think along the line
doing your research of like who wouldbe a great agent and why, like
you know, being really specific aboutlooking up titles and looking up acknowledgments in
(16:49):
terms of getting an agent, likeyou know, work that's either similar to
yours in somewhere or work that they'vebeen involved with that you admire that you
can then cite, and then youknow, then having the trust that you
basically get it to the point whereit's it's ready to go on sub with
editors and and it's just sort ofa like a leap of faith. And
(17:11):
I know a lot of people beingon sub is awful, but it's it's
like a harrowing type but I feellike it's you know, it's one of
those things where you kind of havecreated the story that you feel that you
want to put out into the worldand and you just sort of take a
leap of faith. So you hopethat you connect with an editor. And
(17:33):
I was very lucky to connect withsomebody who really got my story and saw
what I was trying to do andand gave it a home. So thank
you. Wow. I have tosay it's one of the most detailed technical
scriptures I heard that was also informativeand entertaining. Oh good, oh,
(17:53):
thank you that. I hope it'shelpful. I mean I think there's a
lot of mystery around the process.So like I'm all about, like let's
be transparent. So yeah, solike I feel like we should explain what
does it mean to be on submissionwith an agent? And yes, so
that's you technical question. No,this is great, I'm very happy to
answer that. So basically, whenyou sign with an agent, you are
(18:18):
you have a contract, and thenbasically every agent is different in terms of
like how you know, how muchthey want to work with the manuscript and
massage it. And like I've heardeverything from friends with like detailed line edits
from their agent or like ripping itapart to literally like a couple of notes
that are verbal, and then it'slike ready to go out into the world
(18:38):
and with their you know, withtheir letter. So basically like when it
gets to that point, they willeither and again I've heard like the gamut
in terms of how this works.But they will basically get together a list
of editors that they think are appropriatefor your novel or you're whenever you're publishing,
(19:02):
and sometimes they'll discuss it with you. Other times they're just like trust
me. Like I said, I'veheard a vast array of experience. And
then they'll basically say like, okay, now we're submitting, and then you
wait, you wait, and youwait, and you wait and you wait.
It's like it's a waiting game essentially, so you're like, okay,
(19:22):
I'm just waiting, and it's atthis point very good to like start something
new or occupy yourself or try notto go crazy because you are going to
be waiting for potentially months. Soand then the rejections will start to roll
in and some of them are verynice and like others of them are like
just not my cup of tea,and you're just sort of like I will
(19:45):
try not to hide in a holeand be sad, and then you know,
if you're very lucky, one willcome in where it's like we would
like to make an offer, andand that's how that works basically. Yeah,
like I believe people go, howdo you keep doing things when when
you keep hearing the word no,And I'm like, yeah, I've been
(20:06):
I've been a published author since Iwas ten, So no is just like
my life. Yeah, no,you know what, I feel like you
should put that on a coffee mugor a T shirt. No, it's
just my life that is like,and it is I mean, rejection is
part of the game, and it'spart of the process. And I feel
like, you know, some ofthe rejections I got, Actually, I
believe in threes. So like,if you know I get three things from
(20:30):
from people, I'm like, oh, that's something to flag and pay attention
to, and maybe I should goback and revisit and think about how that
might work as feedback that I couldincorporate. Because you know, ultimately,
I think as much as as we'reartists and we want to put things into
the world that are, you know, obviously authentic to our vision, the
(20:51):
reality is is when you are tryingto sell a book, it is selling
a book. It's making it acommodity to some extent, right, So
there is then the idea of writingfor an audience. And you know,
I believe in like being very openin terms of like I want to do
what makes it better? You know, not if it's completely misaligned with my
(21:12):
vision for it. But I thinkthere's really I go back to the value
and feedback, and I think,you know, it's really important to be
open to that. So where canpeople find out more about your book and
about you? Yes, so Ihave a website. It's Kristin Upovich dot
com. I know that last partis a little tough, but it's VUKO
(21:33):
v I C dot com. It'sk R I S T I N.
And it's available for pre order onAmazon and Barnes Noble and probably a lot
of indies at this point. Andyeah, it should be on Rigalo Press's
website, which is my publisher,which is the new imprint by Gretchen Young.
And yeah, I think most mymy website is like fairly ancient.
(22:00):
It needs updating, but it hassome of my travel writing and has the
general cursory things about the book.Thank you so much for being here with
us today. It has been anabsolute pleasure to have you too. Thank
you. I'm gonna I feel likethis is an upmarket interview. You're like
tag upmarket. You want the definitionand the whole discussion. That's it awesome,
(22:26):
definitely, it has literary notes,but it's commercially viable, right,
that's exactly commercially viable. Yes,exactly. So I'm gonna go ahead and
clothe and roll it up for usover for me over here. I keep
forgetting this normally like a jade oneither side of me. When it's like
a like a jade. Sometimes shesits here, sometimes she says there.
So I'm always like I'm past them, and it's like, no, it's
just you. It's just you.It's just you. After two months,
(22:48):
so I'm excited to be back.Yeah. So you can find out everything
that your ladies are doing at wwwdot and I thought ladies dot com.
While you're there, you can takea moment. Go down to the middle
of the page. The three charitiesthat we probably support be asked that you
take a moment and give them somesupport. It does not have to be
money. It could be knowledge.It could be you know, boots on
round and hand shoveling dirt or helpingpeople out. Who knows, but we
(23:12):
thank you in advance for helping themout. And remember that wisdom is all
around you if you're open to findingit and accepting it. So peace in
love you guys from Wilmona and theMissing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
Hello everyone, and welcome to theWriter's Class. Whoo. I almost said
the Writer's Class Lady's Tale podcast,which would have been every podcast I had
together. Yeah, oh, y'all, it's been two months. So if
you know, when I have fourpodcasts and I haven't done any of them
for two months, I assume Ijust start writing whole new names where they're
(00:23):
all in there. Therefore, I'llalways get it right. And just in
case you're wondering, this is anew background for me, I'm not sure
if I like it. It maystay, it may not stay. Who
cares, No one cares about thesethings. I'm wontona. Oh I remember
to introduce myself. Oo, likereally, I'm semi professional. Now okay,
(00:46):
I'm done. And I ruined thatright there with those shoulder gestures and
you're like, oh, and shecan't dance and did it whoo? It's
bad. Yeah, I'm gonna takeit back. I was like, I
was trying to pull out an LNSkind of thing, you know, dance,
dance, dance. But in theif you don't remember Ellen, then
I'm sorry. Oh okay. Iwrote books with other people. They're like
(01:07):
so many other co authors. ButI was a writer on them, on
all of them, and some ofthem are. And I thought the force
was bad, and I thought beinggrown up was easy if only our me
a memory in verse, widdows,web, widdles, debt, and foreign
coffee. And if you're counting along, that is six. That is six
books, y'all. And you canget those six books wherever audiobooks are found.
Now, if you've been following us, you know we have more than
(01:29):
six fill in the blank. Wehave how many books? I'm joking.
No one did devoted fan out therelike that, like how many books?
It's creepy and weird. But buythem all. Even if you say,
like how many books? By thema all, I still want you to
do that. We have seventeen morebooks and you can find those seventeen more
books on www. Dot And Ithought, ladies dot com, guess why
(01:52):
you're not here to hear about me? Which suns because I have so much
to tell you. I tell youabout this one time that you were going
to hear about our ask, wonderfulguys, would you like to introduce yourself?
Sure? Thank you so much,first of all for having me on,
and especially after a two month hiatus. That's like, well, well,
we'll both get right back into itbecause this is my first podcast,
(02:14):
so I'm excited. I'm Kristin Vukovichand I wrote The Cheesemaker's Daughter, which
is a novel that's coming out Augustsix. Yeah, congratulations you So it
sounds very literary, you know,it's funny. It is literary, but
I kind of feel like it's upmarket. It's accessible, and you know,
(02:35):
it's it's it's meant to be nota slow read. It's meant to be
like you can you can go throughit, you know, without it being
too laborious. I think. Sookay, first of all, first of
all, like the vocabulary, we'veused the word laborious. Yeah, within
like the first few minutes, rightright, I would like, so she
writes for a living for real,frist I do not, however, you
(03:00):
use the word laborious in my novel. I'm pretty sure. So that's just
for the podcast. But there's somany yes, because overkill of the thing
I do laborious task and man,first of all, I wanted to say,
I find it amazing past the wordusage, that you went from literary
(03:24):
to upmarket because not a lot ofpeople go I know, what upmarket is.
So before we even get into anything, okay, into us what literary
and up market is. Okay,So in my definition literary it like literary
is very very character driven. Youknow, it's it's much more, it's
(03:47):
usually slower, it's less plot based. And these are large generalizations, sweeping
ones that I'm making upmarket and mydefinition, I would say is like it
straddles the line between commercial and literary. So you know, it does have
more of a plot. It's likemeant to be ideally more of a page
turner. That's how I would defineon market. How would you define on
(04:10):
market? I'm curious is it thesame or different? Exactly the same?
I believe they call it commercial literary. Yeah, yeah, I feel like
they're all similar labels for like thesame thing that we're all trying to describe.
So yeah, I don't understand whythey can't be like, write a
book, write a book. Youknow. People like to be like it's
in this category and it's like Xmeets Y and here's the two comp titles,
(04:32):
and they like to sort of theylike that, and I get that
for ease of marketing, but Ialso think like sometimes that's very limiting,
but I do think upmarket is probablya good description for the cheesemaker's daughter.
I just remember that I sent youquestions that I'm supposed to be acting and
I'm asking an upmarket was not oneof them. That's okay. I totally
(04:54):
love that question. Yeah, youdid your homework, Like you really did
your homework. You're like, no, I know what I'm doing. Oh
thanks, Well I feel like thatone was winging it, but thank you.
I'm like, I'm glad I wasthat, like check correct. Oh
goodness. I'm a poet, solike my generalizations of anything of the genre
(05:15):
is like, yeah, I poetry, Yeah, genres in poetry, but
it's poetry. But it's poetry.But it's poetry. So you're like,
it's something, it's something, andit can be it's something. I mean,
I feel like generally people don't askpoets to kind of like I don't
want to like say, pigeonhole theirwork, but I feel like they don't
really ask them to be like soyou know, they'll be more like what
(05:39):
are the themes you deal with?Right? Like for poets. Yeah,
and I'm going to answer this questionbecause I'm not Yeah, yeah, so
I'm definitely gonna answer this question.So No, Normally people just like what
do you do When I'm like,I write poetry and they go oh,
and I said no, I actuallydo make a living of it, and
they go what yeah, and they'revery confused. Maybe yes, that that's
(06:00):
like that's possible, yeah exactly.Or do they just stop and go like,
oh, you're a put Oh that'sinteresting, and then like does it
stop sometimes and people are like anda lot of times people go, oh,
your pot now if you're if you'retalking to publishing, that's all you
have to say, Like you willbe in a conversation with the You're like
yeah, yeah, and I havea great conversation. You recognize you're tired,
(06:21):
and like I'm a poet. Ohshoot yeah. They immediately find someone
else in the room like they're likeI need to find someone who can actually
make me money. I'm like yeah, yeah, oh man, yeah.
And on the occasion I go Imake money at that, they're like yeah
enough to live and they go wait, hold on, no, no,
(06:43):
no, you stay over there?Wait how did you do that? Yeah?
Then then the conversation it's interesting,right, But then then I'm board,
that's time for me to go,yeah, if I'm talking to academic
people, and then it's like,what type of poetry right where your inspiration?
Do you have a historical like touchstonepoint that you know, have you
(07:05):
ever written an iambic pentameter? Likethose are the academics. Yeah, yeah,
I'm like, that's what I knowpeople for. They tell me that
those are those people, like no, oh, no, you want to
talk to that personal thing. Yeah. Yeah, But also the other people
that can be like it's great whenyou have a friend, like if you're
(07:27):
tagged teamy with somebody and that it'slike their work is like this, You're
like, yeah, that was abetter way to describe it than what I
just did. So let's describe yourwork mouth Okay, well I'll try.
No, So, what made youwant to want to write this story?
Yes? So this story? Imean, I think the short answer is
that it was definitely inspired by myobsession with Croatia, which is driven by
(07:53):
my father's sort of research into ourfamily history. And his parents came from
Croatia and and never went back totheir homeland. So I was the one
that like went back learned the languageat Columbia University from the beginning. I
heard it spoken, you know,in my grandparents' home, but it wasn't
(08:13):
something that they didn't want to teachmy father the language because they were afraid
at the time of speaking with anaccent. So it was all always this
thing just out of reach. AndI think as a writer, you know,
that just was It was a drivingforce for me. So so that's
like the personal element. I don'tactually have any ties to Pog Island,
which is where it's based. That'sthe second part of the story, which
(08:35):
is that I early on I didI did nonfiction background nonfiction and travel writing,
and I did this assignment on theisland to cover a cheese festival for
the now defunct Croatian Chronicle newspaper,which was a bilingual publication, and I
just landed up on this island notreally knowing anything about it, and I
(09:00):
mean people ended up dancing on thetables by the end of the night.
It was like this crazy and Iwas like, this is such a cool
island. And then there was thisguy who was like, yeah, but
you've heard this as Croatia's only dividedisland. And at that point I'd probably
only been there like a dozen times. Or something, and I was like,
it's divided, Like, how doyou mean any's and it's like,
oh, centuries ago to bishops dividedit. And it's like my brain started
(09:24):
working and I was like, ooh, Like it's also just an awesome setting.
Like if you can look at pictureson like instagramm or you know,
Google or whatever, it's it's justthis bald naked moonscape island that is just
cinematic. I mean, it's it'sgorgeous. It's like all limestone and surrounded
by the Aduatic Sea, and it'sjust it's really really different. It looks
(09:48):
like the moon almost like a moonscape, and so that just captivated me.
So I think it was then divinginto kind of like the people who lived
there, like getting some of theirstories, and then creating a character that
had this divided identity because my characteris a refugee from Yugoslavia and has spent
(10:09):
half her life in America in astory at Queens, and half her life
on this island in Croatia. Andyou know, it was a lot of
the feelings of displacement and the themesof identity belonging in home that that I
really wanted to explore in in mywriting, and and that was the way
(10:30):
in amazing. So that, ofcourse my next question has got to be
what do you have as three piecesof advice for anyone going out there who's
like, I'm writing a debut upmarket, Yes, a debut, Well specifically
for that, I mean, Ithink like generally creating a writing community and
you know, being able to connectwith other writers is is hugely important.
(10:52):
I think nobody writes in a vacuumand getting feedback on your work is really
important. For me, I wasI was really lucky Catapult no longer does
this, or I'd be like,go take a Catapult course, But they
did this thing. It was ayear long program that was a novel generator
and we wrote. We gathered likeonce a week. It was crazy because
it started in person in New YorkCity. I live in New York City
(11:16):
on you know, in person,and then it was the pandemic so it
moved on to Zoom, so itwas kind of like we all there were
three novels, three published novels thatcame out of that, and there were
like ten people in the class,so it was it was pretty amazing and
I think just having that accountability,being able to look at you know,
a novel is different than a shortstory, is different than an essay,
(11:37):
Like something smaller than is different thana poem. You know, where you
can kind of get feedback on somethingthat's a shorter length, but if you're
doing something that kind of you know, builds on itself, I think finding
a really committed group of people isreally important. I also would definitely say
like rewriting is super important. Revisingand rewriting and not being a free to
(12:00):
tear something apart if it's not working. I I definitely struggled with the beginning
like fifty pages and rewrote that onceI figured out what the story was and
had to go back and like addin the elements to really set up that
story more vividly from the beginning withlike you know, the setting and just
(12:20):
the stakes and everything. The firstchapter obviously in the first fifty pages has
that has to accomplish a lot.So I would say definitely, you know,
not being afraid to experiment and findthings you know you might even change,
(12:41):
Like for an example would be Ihad the father's close third point of
view as one of the it's nowjust in the protagonists close third, but
I did have like alternating scenes andthat wasn't working and I couldn't figure it
out, and eventually I just madeit her story and it just started to
(13:01):
float. But I wouldn't have knownthat, And a lot of the pieces
of his perspective inform the current story. But he doesn't have a close third
perspective anymore. He doesn't have hisown chapters, So so I think being
able to do that, And thenthird, I think, you know,
if you can afford it, Imean, a developmental editor is invaluable.
I think you know, it's itis a huge investment, but it is
(13:24):
something that I did before going outon submission, and I really think,
especially now you've got one shot,like it's it's great to just send in
the most polished version of the manuscriptthat you can. That you can do
and sometimes you can get it toa certain point on your own. But
you know, even really like bestselling authors that I know, they still
(13:46):
do that because it's just that onelevel, you know, and they and
they have obviously agents already, buteven before they're submitting, they're doing that.
So I think it's really and ifit's not developmental editor somebody who you
trust, who really gets your work, who can really go over it and
give you honest feedback. So Ihave to ask about your publishing journey.
(14:09):
Now, Yeah, you mentioned aboutthat the ten novel that came out that
that we're done. There three novelsthat got published a literary agent and publishers.
Yeah, so it's you know,it's a long journey. At least
it was for me. I mean, I think everybody I speak to it's
just like, you know, there'sa lot of writers. I was just
(14:31):
speaking to a writer friend who islike, yeah, it's the novel in
the drawer thing, and like,you don't know if your first novel is
going to be the novel that isthe published novel. You're ultimately your debut
or whatever. I like the seedof this story, like I said,
with the cheese festival, that wassort of planted back in twenty eleven.
So just think back to twenty eleven. That's a long time ago just for
(14:56):
the idea of the setting, andit really took I originally conceptualized it as
narrative nonfiction and then quickly realized thatwould not work. I would have to
spend time living there, and itjust wasn't conducive to my life with like
being married and you know, havingother things, all other obligations, so
including work. So I felt likeit was something that kind of took the
(15:20):
form of fiction by necessity in thesense that you can make things up in
fiction. I mean, you know, you can make whole storylines up.
And it was just for that,for that drama, I needed to create
it to be fiction. And youknow, I definitely feel like there are
real things in it. The placeis a real place, but I make
(15:43):
so much more of the division inthe like the division is literally not a
big thing in actuality. But ittook me a while to figure that out.
And then I had written fiction inundergrad, but my MFA is nonfiction.
So so you know, it tookme a while to like figure out
how to write this novel. Andyou know, it took a lot of
(16:06):
false starts. It took me,you know a lot of kind of like
like I said, getting feedback fromother writer friends and and ultimately like a
lot of rejection with agents to youknow, to get an agent. Like
it's it's not like you send outand like send to ten agents and you
get in fact one vesseling author waslike, send to at least sixty in
(16:26):
your first round. I was likesix zero, like not sixteen, and
she's like, yes, six zero, and I'm like wow, okay,
And like with anything like doing yourresearch, So I think along the line
doing your research of like who wouldbe a great agent and why, like
you know, being really specific aboutlooking up titles and looking up acknowledgments in
(16:49):
terms of getting an agent, likeyou know, work that's either similar to
yours in somewhere or work that they'vebeen involved with that you admire that you
can then cite, and then youknow, then having the trust that you
basically get it to the point whereit's it's ready to go on sub with
editors and and it's just sort ofa like a leap of faith. And
(17:11):
I know a lot of people beingon sub is awful, but it's it's
like a harrowing type but I feellike it's you know, it's one of
those things where you kind of havecreated the story that you feel that you
want to put out into the worldand and you just sort of take a
leap of faith. So you hopethat you connect with an editor. And
(17:33):
I was very lucky to connect withsomebody who really got my story and saw
what I was trying to do andand gave it a home. So thank
you. Wow. I have tosay it's one of the most detailed technical
scriptures I heard that was also informativeand entertaining. Oh good, oh,
(17:53):
thank you that. I hope it'shelpful. I mean I think there's a
lot of mystery around the process.So like I'm all about, like let's
be transparent. So yeah, solike I feel like we should explain what
does it mean to be on submissionwith an agent? And yes, so
that's you technical question. No,this is great, I'm very happy to
answer that. So basically, whenyou sign with an agent, you are
(18:18):
you have a contract, and thenbasically every agent is different in terms of
like how you know, how muchthey want to work with the manuscript and
massage it. And like I've heardeverything from friends with like detailed line edits
from their agent or like ripping itapart to literally like a couple of notes
that are verbal, and then it'slike ready to go out into the world
(18:38):
and with their you know, withtheir letter. So basically like when it
gets to that point, they willeither and again I've heard like the gamut
in terms of how this works.But they will basically get together a list
of editors that they think are appropriatefor your novel or you're whenever you're publishing,
(19:02):
and sometimes they'll discuss it with you. Other times they're just like trust
me. Like I said, I'veheard a vast array of experience. And
then they'll basically say like, okay, now we're submitting, and then you
wait, you wait, and youwait, and you wait and you wait.
It's like it's a waiting game essentially, so you're like, okay,
(19:22):
I'm just waiting, and it's atthis point very good to like start something
new or occupy yourself or try notto go crazy because you are going to
be waiting for potentially months. Soand then the rejections will start to roll
in and some of them are verynice and like others of them are like
just not my cup of tea,and you're just sort of like I will
(19:45):
try not to hide in a holeand be sad, and then you know,
if you're very lucky, one willcome in where it's like we would
like to make an offer, andand that's how that works basically. Yeah,
like I believe people go, howdo you keep doing things when when
you keep hearing the word no,And I'm like, yeah, I've been
(20:06):
I've been a published author since Iwas ten, So no is just like
my life. Yeah, no,you know what, I feel like you
should put that on a coffee mugor a T shirt. No, it's
just my life that is like,and it is I mean, rejection is
part of the game, and it'spart of the process. And I feel
like, you know, some ofthe rejections I got, Actually, I
believe in threes. So like,if you know I get three things from
(20:30):
from people, I'm like, oh, that's something to flag and pay attention
to, and maybe I should goback and revisit and think about how that
might work as feedback that I couldincorporate. Because you know, ultimately,
I think as much as as we'reartists and we want to put things into
the world that are, you know, obviously authentic to our vision, the
(20:51):
reality is is when you are tryingto sell a book, it is selling
a book. It's making it acommodity to some extent, right, So
there is then the idea of writingfor an audience. And you know,
I believe in like being very openin terms of like I want to do
what makes it better? You know, not if it's completely misaligned with my
(21:12):
vision for it. But I thinkthere's really I go back to the value
and feedback, and I think,you know, it's really important to be
open to that. So where canpeople find out more about your book and
about you? Yes, so Ihave a website. It's Kristin Upovich dot
com. I know that last partis a little tough, but it's VUKO
(21:33):
v I C dot com. It'sk R I S T I N.
And it's available for pre order onAmazon and Barnes Noble and probably a lot
of indies at this point. Andyeah, it should be on Rigalo Press's
website, which is my publisher,which is the new imprint by Gretchen Young.
And yeah, I think most mymy website is like fairly ancient.
(22:00):
It needs updating, but it hassome of my travel writing and has the
general cursory things about the book.Thank you so much for being here with
us today. It has been anabsolute pleasure to have you too. Thank
you. I'm gonna I feel likethis is an upmarket interview. You're like
tag upmarket. You want the definitionand the whole discussion. That's it awesome,
(22:26):
definitely, it has literary notes,but it's commercially viable, right,
that's exactly commercially viable. Yes,exactly. So I'm gonna go ahead and
clothe and roll it up for usover for me over here. I keep
forgetting this normally like a jade oneither side of me. When it's like
a like a jade. Sometimes shesits here, sometimes she says there.
So I'm always like I'm past them, and it's like, no, it's
just you. It's just you.It's just you. After two months,
(22:48):
so I'm excited to be back.Yeah. So you can find out everything
that your ladies are doing at wwwdot and I thought ladies dot com.
While you're there, you can takea moment. Go down to the middle
of the page. The three charitiesthat we probably support be asked that you
take a moment and give them somesupport. It does not have to be
money. It could be knowledge.It could be you know, boots on
round and hand shoveling dirt or helpingpeople out. Who knows, but we
(23:12):
thank you in advance for helping themout. And remember that wisdom is all
around you if you're open to findingit and accepting it. So peace in
love you guys from Wilmona and theMissing Jade. Oh yeah, thanks for listening.
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