January 10, 2026 • 49 mins
If your kids love Percy Jackson or Harry Potter, this one’s for you.
NYT bestselling author Tracy Wolff stops by Greek Mythology Retold to talk about Aftermyth, Greek mythology, the role of fate, and what she hopes young readers discover through ancient stories told in new ways.
AFTERMYTH
Explore more Greek myth and epic retellings:
The Homeric Chronicles, an adult fantasy series inspired by Greek mythology and the Trojan War.
Homeric Chronicles Series
WikiHow Expert Contributor
NYT bestselling author Tracy Wolff stops by Greek Mythology Retold to talk about Aftermyth, Greek mythology, the role of fate, and what she hopes young readers discover through ancient stories told in new ways.
AFTERMYTH
Explore more Greek myth and epic retellings:
The Homeric Chronicles, an adult fantasy series inspired by Greek mythology and the Trojan War.
Homeric Chronicles Series
WikiHow Expert Contributor
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome back, murrad Ons to another episode of Greek Mythology
Retold podcast. I am always on the lookout for books
that explore Greek mythology in fresh ways, whether that's retellings
or reimaginings, or stories that lean into mythic themes for
a new generation of readers. So I was genuinely excited
(00:43):
when Simon and Schuster reached out and asked if I
would like to have Tracy Wolf on the show. Of
course I said yes. Tracy and I ended up talking
for over an hour and it was so much fun.
Her upcoming release, After Myth, is a middle grade novel
rooted in Greek mythology, and if you have young readers
in your life, especially kids who love Harry Potter or
(01:05):
Percy Jackson, this is absolutely one to put on your radar.
We talked about what Tracy loves about Greek mythology, how
myth shapes her storytelling her new book, After Myth, and
what she hopes that young readers will take away from
encountering these ancient stories in a new form. So, without
further ado, let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Tracy.
(01:30):
I'm really excited to have you. I'm a little nervous,
but super the nervousness is excited because I love Greek
mythology and I love that you're bringing Greek mythology to
a younger generation. So with that, if you could maybe
tell us a little bit about your book after myth.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Absolutely, first of all, I want to say thank you
so much for having me. I really appreciate it, and
there is nothing to be nervous about, even if it's
nervous excitement. But I know exactly because that happens to
me a lot. Yes, the aftermath, I am very excited about.
It's my first middle grade I've been writing books for
my first publish book came out in two thousand and seven,
so I've been doing this a while. But I've always
wanted to write middle grade, partly because I was an
(02:15):
English teacher and an English professor in a past life.
And one of the things that I noticed right is
that early online in reading, you know, when kids are
learning to read, they love reading. They think it's like
reading story times, like the best time ever. But by
the time I got them in high school in college,
they would tell me constantly how much they hated reading
and how miserable it was. For them, and it always
(02:37):
bothered me, and I was always like, what what changes? Right?
How do we how do we stop that? So it's
really exciting that I have a publisher like Simon and
Schuster for The Aftermath, who are as excited as I
am about getting middle grade reader is excited about, you know,
fantastical stories and everything else. So I'm really excited about that.
But so The Aftermath is my first middle grade and
it is my shot at I call it a her history, right,
(03:01):
which is not obviously not a word I've coined. It's
been around forever. But one of the things that always
bothered me. I love Greek mythology. I remember, like my
first memory of it is cuddling on the couch with
my dad when I was very young, and he was
watching the very very old Clash of the Titans, right,
and there was Andromeda and Padusa and Pegasus and the Kraken,
and I just remember being fascinated by that story at
(03:24):
the time and then asking my dad, like more about
Greek mythology, and it was something that he really liked,
so he told me it's not about it. And but
one of the things I've always noticed is that so
much of Greek mythology kind of like history is written
by the winners, right, So much of what we have
for Greek mythology was written by men, and one of
(03:44):
the things I've noticed is that they tend to vilify
women a lot, whether you talk about Medusa, whether you
talk about Pandora, even Andromeda in some ways echo you know,
all of the iraq mee like so many on and
on and on, and that bothered me. And so this
is kind of my shot at trying to write some
(04:08):
of those wrongs, right. Like the Pandora's Box story particularly
has always been one of those stories that kind of
stuck in my crop. I actually wrote a very different
YA many years ago where Pandora opens an attachment instead
of a box and a hearken stark technological armageddon. But
(04:28):
I kind of wanted to start the after this series
with it, because you know, she was created by two
male gods, Zeus and Hephaestus, and then given all of
these gifts and this unending curiosity and literally giving given
the jar filled with all of the bad things, all
of the evils of the world, and that she was
created to punish Prometheus and partly his brother Epimetheus right,
(04:49):
who were two Titans because Prometheus gave fire to humans
and she was going to be their punishment. And Prometheus
was like, no, thank you, you know, first of all,
and we're already trading women like channel right like. But
he's like, no, you can keep her. Epimetheus is like,
oh no, no, no, no, she's oh there's my there's my puppies.
(05:09):
Epimetheus is like, oh no, no, no, she is beautiful.
I want to you know, I want to keep her
and uh and so he marries her and then she
opens the jar and she's gone down in history as
the bad person. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's
not cool. So I kind of do things a little
differently in this book. And my main character, Penelope Weaver.
I'm sorry this is a really long answer. My main character,
(05:33):
Penelope Weaver, is a thirteen year old girl who is
starting her first of six years at the Mystical Magical
Napsamanders Academy, and she goes in thinking they're Each of
the students is sorted into one of five halls that
is kind of the tenants of the Greek gods and
(05:53):
also kind of is patroned by one of the five
Greek gods that they are named after, and she's convinced
she's an a girl. Everybody in her family has always
been in Athena. That's just who she is. She gets there,
everything goes wrong and she gets sorted into a different house,
one that is pretty much the opposite of Athena, and
she's like, oh my gosh, this is really really bad.
(06:14):
How do I fix this problem? But then things kind
of get worse, and in the middle of all this,
she kind of starts to realize that, hey, maybe maybe
all these myths she's heard are not quite right, maybe
there's something wrong with them, and it kind of starts
unfold that way. I don't want to give too much away.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That's a crazy action, Yeah right, it's just it's unfolding.
So I like that the characters they become like a family,
like the kids, you know when they're at the school,
and I really it's reminiscent of Hogwarts in a way.
But you've got a great spin on, you know that
(06:55):
that ensemble of kids that are that are friends. And
I think that's really going to hit with middle grade kids.
I have grandkids and they are right at that sixth
grade mark, right in the middle of my group. So
I've got six so.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh my, that's amazing. I don't look like you should
have six grandkids. Oh, I mean you like very young.
So wow, I am super impressed. And yeah about that later,
but yeah, I'm I'm an only child and so there.
You know, I think when you talk to different readers
or different writers, there are themes, right that run through
all writers' works, and found family is one of those
(07:33):
themes that always has run through mine. I was born,
my parents were older when I was born, and we
moved around a lot, and so I was kind of
always lonely, always searching, and it wasn't until I know,
went to college and you know, went away from from
home for the first time that I really kind of
started gathering my own found family. And I think that's
why it's it's so predominant. But wow, Hogwarts, that is
(07:55):
a massive compliment. Thank you so much. I had so
much fun with it, Acamanders.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I feel like it's just gonna hit with that demographic
because they're they're hungry for those kinds of connections, and
you really make that in the book. So I'm very
I was really happy to see that just coming forward.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
You know, character is my is my favorite thing in
the world to do. I love world building. The character
is just when when you know, every author has something
that comes easier to them than other stuff, and characters
are one of those things. And character dynamics are one
of those things that I love and that come very
easy to me when I write, and that I think
are are so important. You know, like every author has
(08:37):
a has a doorway into story and and character is
is very much fine. So thank you very much. I
love I love creating your group of characters. I love
creating really wacky side characters like Calliope and Frankie and
you know, I just love doing doing fun stuff like that.
They kind of like it, which is the world while
we're dealing with you know, Penelope and Fifi in our
(08:59):
June and and Kirie in and Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And so let's talk about Penelope. Penelope Penelope in the
Greek myths. I love that you're that you named her
Penelope Weaver. That's you know, from somebody who comes from
the Greek myth. I'm just it's like it rings all
the bells for me. Every time I see a name,
I'm like, oh Paris, like oh Hector, like oh my God,
she's put them all in here. I love that. You know.
(09:26):
In the Greek in the Odyssey, you know, we have
a Penelope that's very sad off, right, and so she's
the in the Odyssey, she's Penelope in her bed of
sorrows and she's you know, Weaving. We connect her more
than other characters in Greek myth with Weaving. So anyway,
(09:49):
what what about what about that character? How did you
how did you choose or decide on Penelope we who
as your main character? You know, and what were the
connections that you made? And because I know as a
writer you you were very intentional about that, So I'm
(10:10):
just wondering about your process of connecting Well.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I mean, I think it's something some of it will
play out over the next over the next five books, right,
because it's it's we're planning it to be a six
book series at this point. Oh wow, Yeah, I'm super
Excito is won you know, each year I think the
first year are going to be the first year, but
then we're gonna move on from there. But yeah, you know,
(10:37):
Penelope is Odysseus's wife, right, and she is honored in
Greek mythology as being incredibly patient and as being this weaver,
and who would like you know, waited for Odysseus through
all of his journeys on the Odyssey, and who when
men came to court her, she would be weaving and
it would be this thing that like, you know, put
(10:58):
them off, and she's like, oh, when I finished this,
and then she would never finish it, and all of
these things. And when I was thinking about this, and
I was thinking about what penelopees, and I don't know
if this is a spoiler, I don't think it is
right that Penelope, it turns out, is this very rare
thing called a myth weaver, right, And we're going to
we just begin to see the beginnings of that in
(11:19):
book one, but as we continue on through the series,
we're going to find out way more about what that means. Right.
So there's obviously that connection, But there's also the.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Fact that.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I don't know, like I said about how I feel
about so many of the women in Greek mythology. They
are either vilified for being strong or honored for being
patient and waiting for their husband for you know, thirty
years or you know, much longer than that. Even and
I wanted it to kind of start right at the
very beginning by recasting that and by changing it. So
(11:52):
here's this girl who weaves, this girl named Penelope, but
from the very beginning, things start going wrong for her
because the gods are She does something at the very
beginning of the book, and I cannot say what it
is because you don't find out till the end and
how it works, but she's something that vergetting to the
book that alarms all of the gods and sends her
on this whole very different path than kind of what
(12:14):
she had thought was going to happen, and what maybe
even they had thought was going to happen. And that's
our first clue that this girl is way more than
what we thought she was or what she thought she was.
And I think that I really wanted to kind of
take that on this woman who was so honored in
Greek mythology, Like, no, she is active, and she is powerful,
(12:35):
and she is powerful enough to make people afraid, not
in a bad way, but in a oh my gosh,
this girl could change everything kind of a way, you know,
And I think that, Yeah, I just want to. I
felt like it was.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Time, Yeah, And you know that, I like, I like
what you how you're presenting Penelope, because oftentimes Penelope is
juxtaposed with claudem Nush but you know, and Clademnestra is
seen as like strong, but she's sort of vilified. And Penelope,
(13:07):
as you said, is more passive and waiting. But when
you look at those two characters, they're both doing the
same thing. They're both maintaining a kingdom for a decade.
You know, Penelope has to do it longer, but they're
both they're both maintaining and so they're powerful. We don't
(13:29):
really like, look at the foundation of that she does.
She's bringing much more to the table than what was
that and what people were expecting.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So I mean, look at Medea, look at Chakasta, look
at Antigany, right, so many of these women and take
any particularly trying to make this very moral choice and
do the right thing against all odds, and yet she
is she is vilified for it, she's punished for it,
you know it and Hikasta, I mean, the whole Oedipice
(14:05):
thing all the way around, right, But if you look
at her, she's actually the strongest, most like, forth right,
most forward thinking character in the entire book. Megaa. You
want to talk about I mean, there's so many you
can talk about these women who are punished for being
strong or punished for being good at something, whether you know,
you talk about Rathne and her weaving, or Medusa for
(14:26):
being too beautiful and too powerful as one of the
gorgonk you know. I mean, it's it's difficult, right, and
it's right. I just you know, I think that I
think that there's so much wonderful, so much wonder and
so many amazing things in Greek mythology that we can
get from it from any mythology really, you know, the
(14:47):
power and the magic and the the adventures. And but
I think that bringing into a new age, into this world,
for this generation of girls, I think it's very important
to help them stand in their own power and understand
the joy that comes with it as opposed to just
the difficulties and their rightful place, you know, and their
(15:10):
rightful power.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And how from adult perspectives, you know, we talk about
Zeus interacting with all these female characters, and you know,
from an adult perspective, we we understand that what he's doing
is assault. How did you how did you think about that?
(15:35):
Because when you're dealing with middle grade, you know, I
teach in high school, so even and I can talk
about it at a high school level. But even then, I,
you know, I want to be careful not to go
too far because it's you know, it's a sensitive topic.
But as adults we can think about it in a
certain way. So how did you there was a gosh,
(15:59):
there's a part in your book when you're talking about
how many muses there were, and so you said they
had been busy, they had been busy for several thousand
years and had more kids. So how did you think
about and where did you make those kind of decisions,
you know, to.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
These are These are decisions that I think that I'm
going to have to continue to make, particularly with with
some of the myths that I'm that I'm going to
start tackling and the other books, like the first book
is Pandora Is and I you know, well, I don't
want to I don't want to spoil the end and
how that all works.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
But it's hard to talk about, I know, like I
have to.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Feel like I'm a little giddy about the end and
how it all came together exactly. Like you know, sometimes
when you're a writer, it doesn't come by to quite
come together as well as you hope it does. I
really feel like an after myth, like everything just kind
of like just worked exactly like the way, like you know,
the way I imagine it to be. So I'm very
excited about it. But it is this is actually something
(16:59):
that I'm pondering a lot, something that my editor and
I have had several conversations on as well as we
start delving into some of these other myths and the
use that some of these women suffered. Absolutely, how do
you deal with this in middle grade? I don't know
that I had the answer yet. Maybe we can talk
about this next year after I've written book two. I
(17:19):
mean writing it right now. And this is something I'm
I don't want to give away with what the book
is about, but this is definitely something that I'm wrestling with.
But I think that if we continue that, what I
want to do is I want to flip the script
script enough right that we look at what it is
for this woman to be powerful and what it is
why was she punished, you know, for one things outside
(17:42):
your control and two for being powerful and maybe gloss over.
Obviously gloss over. I'm not going to be discussing like
how many rapes and how many things went on in
Greek mythology, you know again something it's so interesting when
you look at it, having been written by men, how
these things were like you know perfectly okay for Poseidon,
(18:03):
for Zoous. Yeah, I'm like, hmm, not not really okay,
you know not. I feel like we're not getting the
right lesson out of this, focusing instead on on the
power of these women and these characters, and focusing on
on how to to flip that script. I think is
the best way that I can do it while acknowledging
(18:25):
that bad things have happened to them, that they were
treated unfairly, that they were treated badly. I think, is
you know, the best way that I can do it
so that we're not you know, getting bogged down.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
There's not something, yes, that eight to twelve year olds
need to be thinking about her, you know, yeah, we don't.
I mean also, like the whole the whole point, right
is to to move beyond that, Like this is not
where we are anymore, Like why do we even need
to give it? Not? Why do we need to give
a bandwidth? Obviously it's it's as you get older, it's
it's it's something that we obviously deal with. And I'm
(19:02):
a literature professor. You know how many books have I
you know, dissected with my students and talked about about this,
But like I want, I'm hoping to help create a better,
a kinder narrative for these girls for what they can
expect for their own lives and their future and what
they can you expect, right, what what they can demand
(19:24):
is the word you know, we don't, we don't need
to play this way anymore, This is not okay.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think that that's really important because that kind of
goes on One of the questions I was wanting to
ask you was how how myths? How can myths move
into this next generation? Like what do what do you
and writing this series? What do you want young people
to take away from you know, the Greek myths? How
(19:52):
can how do you envision your story of incorporating the
myth to lead this next generation?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So many, I mean people in general, but certainly as
people are coming of ages, as kids are you know,
becoming young adults and going through middle school and into
high school and kind of finding out who they are
and trying to like struggling between trying to fit in,
trying to be who their parents expect them to be,
(20:23):
who their teachers expect them to be, who their friends
expect them to be, all while trying to figure out
who they are. I think one of the best and
coolest messages of Greek mythology is that right at that
time where you feel the most mixed up, in the
most weak, and where bad things are happening, you know,
or confusing things are happening, usually that comes right before
(20:47):
you get your power, you know. And whether you want
to look at superheroes and how that works for them,
whether you want to look at mythology stories, whatever else, right,
Romanticy that that period where your everything feels icky is
the precursor to, like write the caterpillar to the butterfly,
(21:08):
the precursor to all of this power that should come
into when you come into yourself and stand in the
truth that is yours. And I think that even as
we as we look at these myss we look at
we're going to be looking at the truth of who
these people are, the men and the women, because the
male characters have miss as well that they're going to
be dealing with like we have Paris, right and we're
(21:28):
going to be looking at Theseus, which is an Icarus,
and like Theseus is another one. You know, this whole
the poor minotaur right, born that way, vilified for being
born that way and being different, locked up his whole life,
and then he's the bad guy, you know, like, no,
that's not right, that's not how we should treat people.
(21:50):
And yeah, I think that's kind of the most that
I want to get out of. I want them to
get out of this. And the other thing I really
am hoping girls will will find is they I hope
they see themselves. Well, if it's not in Penelope, maybe
it's in Fife. If it's not in Fife, maybe it's
in a girl I'm introducing in the second book who
I love very much, who I'm not gonna give much
away yet. Oh, or maybe it's in doctor themis right.
(22:12):
But this is something I tackled in the Crave series
as well. Is I think that our society tells us
that there's only one way for a woman to be strong,
and then very often, like we've talked about, now, they've
beat a dead horse, but we vilify her for them
doing what has to be done. You know, I've been
very lucky. And I have spent most of my life
working in female dominated professions and one of the things
(22:34):
that I've seen, right is that there all kinds of
ways for women to be strong. You know, there's no
one right way. There are women who will are the
fighters and the warriors who are out there. There are
women who are the nurturers and the cheerleaders. You know.
My main character in Crave Grace, her big power was
(22:54):
she got up one more time than she got knocked down.
That was it. No matter what happened, she got back up,
you know. And for Penelope, Penelope is this character who
sees more than a lot of people see, you know
what I mean. She looks beyond the surface, She asks questions,
(23:15):
she delves more deeply into things. And there's a lot
of strength and a lot of power in that, you know,
in this ability to see more than anybody wants you
to see. And I hope that girls will see themselves
and how fabulous they are, and boys as well, in
whether it's Paris who's a little lost right now. But
Sullivan and Kirian our two of my fan our June
(23:38):
are all really I just name them all. I love
them all. Our really favorite characters of mine, and as
we grow, when they grow through the series, I'm really
really excited to be dealing with them as well and
get to look at their growth, ark and all that.
So I hope that they see that there's all kinds
of ways to be powerful and you just have to
you have to find your way, and you have to
be true to you, and everything else will fall into place.
(23:59):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
That's a lovely That's a lovely message you as the storyteller.
You've that's a lovely message that you're weaving through your book,
Like you're the weaver.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I'm the weaver.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You're the weaver.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm the story weaver. She's the beaver.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, what how did you come up? Like? Was there
a moment that you were doing something or when did
the muse hit you for this story? Was there a
moment or a time or what made you think? Where
did the story come from?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Well, it was kind of a it was kind of
the very the very rudimentary parts of it were kind
of like a back and forth between my editor and I.
I've worked, I worked. I've worked with Kara for I
met her many years ago and we worked on a
book together and it was such an incredible experience that
and now and she was a Wye editor at the time,
and now she's middle grade, and I'm like, I really,
(24:57):
you know, we both really wanted to work on a
project together and we're kind of talking about it in
Greek mythology was something she was really excited about, and
as we started like thinking about it, like it just
I always say, characters come to me first, Like I said,
all all story all writers kind of have a doorway
in the thing that speaks to them. And one of
the stories I always tell is that I have a
best friend who's a brainstorming partner of mine. She always
(25:19):
comes to story through plot. I always come to story
through the character. And so when we're like first starting
out on a book, this is how we're coming. And
it took us years, by the way, because we're like
so self aware, it took us years to figure this out.
Like we would sit down to like brainstorm the raving.
I'm like, Okay, I want to write this story about
this girl who she's like, but what is she doing?
And I'll be and I'd be like, but who is she?
But what is she doing? But who is she? And
(25:42):
we would do this back and forth until we finally
figure it out. We're just coming at this very very differently,
you know. So for me, I start like an idea.
I'm like, Okay, I want to do a Greek god's
boarding school. I want there to be halls that are
kind of dedicated to the Greek gods. And I'm like,
I don't really know what the plot is, i don't
really know what the conflict is. I'm just kind of
thinking around it. And then so think, well, who goes there?
(26:04):
Who's going to be my main character? And from there,
somewhere in there, I get a lot of different ideas.
I have books full of ideas that I have not
had done to write. I always know that idea is
to stick if somewhere in this process a voice starts
talking to me in the back of my head, you know.
And Penelope showed up and I was like, oh, oh,
I know who you are. Oh you're very interesting. And
(26:25):
she was not who I expected. Because one of the
things I laugh about is Penelope is very much my
best friend. She was my college roommate, and she and
I are very opposite in a lot of ways. Like
I think most people are always shocked that we our
friendship has lasted thirty years, you know. But we met
each other and we were very like, you know what,
(26:47):
A very kind of like, huh, I don't understand you.
Her more of I don't understand you than me. But
I'm very Fifi, who is Penelope's roommate in the book.
And so I think I thought Penelope was going to
show up as Fife, and she showed up insteads as
my dear friend Jen, and and it was it was
(27:10):
really fun. Actually once I didn't even recognize that at first,
I'm just like, oh, who is this person? And once
she started talking, I'm like, oh, you're interesting. And I
started writing her and then I wrote her first scene
with Fife, and then I wrote the room scenes when
I get back to the hall, and I'm like, I'm
somewhere in there. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is
so fun. I am actually writing the dynamic of me
(27:33):
meeting my best friend, but from her point of view.
And that made writing the rest of the book so
much fun, and it was so validating when I in fact,
the book is dedicated to her. You'll see if you
look at the front that is dedicated to Jen. When
I gave it to her to read for the first time.
I was like, oh my gosh, what if I totally
am wrong? What if I totally mess this up. She's
(27:54):
like she called me about like halfway there. She's like,
oh my gosh, She's like, I am so Penelope, Like
I didn't tell it right. She's like, I'm Penelope right.
Like She's like, I'm like, girl, I got you like
this really, like, oh my gosh, this is terrible, Like,
oh my god, how did you walk into that amphitheater
after all? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I did it.
I got it. So it was it was really really validating.
(28:15):
You know. I think writers tend to put themselves in
their characters, and I do that, but every once in
a while, somebody I love creeps in. Right, My partner says,
my hero in the Crave series stole all of her
best lines, so so I don't know, maybe maybe maybe
he did.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah. They say that about writers. Sorry, I'm sorry, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, they say that about us. We're terrible. We're terrible
eavesdroppers too. In public. We're just sitting around like watching people.
Like I said, character is one of those things I love,
so I'm always watching, like how people drink their coffee,
you know, how they do this, how they're like walking
down the street, Like, how would I describe that story
through her? And then once I figured out who this
(28:56):
Penelope girl is, I'm like, how can I because I'm
a terrible person, how can I torture her as much
as absolutely possible? Right? Like PHOEFI would roll with the punches.
Penelope is like, oh my god, my shoes are muddy,
and it's the end of the world, let alone everything
else that comes after that. Right, that's just the tiny,
tiny tip of the iceberg. So uh yeah, that's kind
of how the story evolved for me.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I love it. Oh, I wanted to ask you about
so in Greek mythology, we have the idea of fate
or destiny, and no matter who the character is, they
can never outdo it. The more they try to run
from it, they just run right into it. Right, what
just what is your take is? You know, as a
(29:39):
literature professor and all the things that you've read, the
books that you've written, how do you see myth and destiny?
Do you think that that's relevant in our modern life?
Are we predestined to do the things that we're just
pined to do. Realizing it.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
You've hit on what's going to a massive theme in
the in the series, and only a few little tiny
seeds relate in book one, but I'm going to really
start dealing with it in book two, moving all the
way through book six, this whole idea of can we
outrun our destiny? Or are we always going to be
who we were meant to be?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
You know?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
And that is that is a huge question we gods right,
like the fates, you know, the three with I like
the one who spends it, the one who you know,
cuts it, all of these things. I feel like there
are some things obviously about ourselves we can't change. But
I also feel like you can do. And I think
the messages that I want I want kids to take
away from this, right or middle grade readers is or
(30:39):
any of my readers, whatever age is, you can be
whoever you want to be, and you are more than
you think you are. I think most of us tend
to think ourselves small, Oh I can't do that, like
or oh that's that's not for me, or you know whatever,
or even if it's like a goal, like I'll just
work towards that goal. But like the idea of like
(31:02):
this massive, massive goal or like being powerful or like
having magic or whatever. It is like that, you know,
that's that's not for me. Right, whether you look at
you know, whoever you look at, whether you look at
Catnus or Harry Potter or you know, any of any
of these characters you go through. Part of it is
they are more than their destiny is. And I think
that I think that's a really important message for readers.
(31:24):
And yeah, it's definitely something I'll be dealing with.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's a huge contemplation.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So it is well, it is right you talk about
like you look at Orpheus going down to get his wife,
you know, back from the underworld, and you look at Perseus,
you look at Theseus, you look at Icroes, you flew
too close to the sun? Right, It is such an
interesting thing how Greek mythology in some ways focus is
(31:53):
so patriarchical, you know what I mean, Like so like
you have to stay and classic it's very classic, right,
you have to stay in your place. If you've lied
too close to the sun, you're going to crash and burn.
And I think that that has always been used for
people so that people in power can stand power, and
people who don't have power are not are content to
(32:15):
be that way.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Right, Your conditioned to accept your condition, to accept the
level at which you the ceiling at which whatever you
your that's it like to be satisfied in your little
base of the culture or the society.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Exactly right. One of my favorite things, right is that
when they asked with Pater Ginsburg how many how many
women should sit on the Supreme Court, and she said nine,
and then everybody was so horrified. Nobody ever close to
the nine men should sit on the Supreme Court. It
never for two hundred years, nobody ever even thought about that.
That was just how it was, right. And I think
(32:54):
that we are we're just as a gender, as a
you know, as a socioeconomic level, as you know, all
of these different things, we are conditioned to be a
certain way. So that I mean, I think this is
something we were seeing play out right now, you know,
where the people who have power and the people who
have money want more money and want more power. I mean,
(33:16):
this is an age old Hale, It's not brand new, right.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I was just having a similar conversation. I have a
friend that we've been friends. I'm gonna tell it's gonna
be like, how old am, But let me see seven,
we've been friends for over fifty years. We're little peanuts
together in like second first, second grade. And so we
were talking about how my grandmother when she was born
(33:42):
and my Minnah I'm Italian, so Minonah helped raise me.
But when she was born, women didn't even have the
right to vote. I'm standing here. My grandmother did not
have the right to vote when she was born, and
so when she was ten or eleven twenty, women got
the right to vote in our country. So historically it's
(34:04):
not even that long, you know. And my mother tells
the story that in the seventies she had to have
my grandfather co sign for her to get a I
don't remember if his J. C. Penne or Sear's store
credit card because she couldn't do that as a woman.
So that's my mother. So historically, it's not a lot
(34:27):
of time that women have been given the equal rights.
And I think we are at a point now in
twenty twenty six, twenty twenty six that you can you
can rent or buy property, you can vote, you can
go to school wherever you want. As you bring these
(34:49):
myths in these stories for this young generation. These young
ladies are going to experience a world very much different
from their great great grandmothers, or we hoped some mothers.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We hope, right, yeah, right, as we're dealing with so
many women's issues in America today. But I know exactly
what's your meaning. I'd never thought of it that way,
but yeah, I was. My grandma and mothers were born
ten years apart. Yet they were both born before they
had the right, before women had the right to vote.
And I always talk about my mom because my mother,
my grand my mother's mother, went to college at a
(35:25):
time when women didn't do that. My mother, you know,
went to college and after college, she she actually didn't
get married until she was she was just about thirty witch.
And that did you know, my my grandfather had given up.
He thought, well, this is it. She's the old maid.
We're just gonna have you, now, I mean, that's the
term they use, like, oh, I know this old maid.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, you're an old maid.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah right, I'm that's particulous. But what she was was
a woman who wasn't going to settle. And when she
graduated from college, she took off in all the world.
She was a teacher, and she applied to teach for
the government, and she went to teach in Okinawa. She
went to teach in Bermuda. She traveled all of Europe
on her own at a time when yeah, you couldn't.
She couldn't have a bank account without her father's name
(36:06):
on it, and she couldn't have a credit card without
you know, her father's name on it and all of
these things. But she was like, I'm not doing this.
She'd work also, you know, all year, and then she'd
travel all summer, and she saw the world at a
time by herself. Like I mean, it's not like, oh,
she went with her you know, she just took off
and went. And she was like such an incredible role
(36:28):
model and so such a massive force in my life.
When I was doing her eulogy a couple of years ago,
when I was writing it, I quoted saundrasis Naros's house
on Mango Street about her being a wild horse of
a woman and how you know she wasn't easy, but
women who big barriers really are And I think that, yeah,
that's the kind of energy, right, Why do we need
(36:49):
to ask permission? You know, did my dad tick when
he took off did he ask permission? No, Nobody thought
it was strange that he did that. He did it.
Why is it so strange that that she this generation
of girls, like, we're born expecting to be doctors, expecting
to be president, expecting to be whatever it does they
(37:09):
wanted to be, expecting to be, you know, a stay
at home mom, if that's what they wanted to be,
but having choices that so many generations didn't have. And
you're right when you look at it, we're only a
little over one hundred years out.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yes, and things take a long time culturally, you know,
because it's like steering the Titanic, and it just you know,
when I'm talking to my high school students, I say,
I'm standing here in front of you and my grandmother.
I said, how many of you guys have grandmothers. You
know they got grammars. I said, well, I'm standing in
front of you my grandmother, who was the same distance
(37:45):
from me. You know that you guys are to your grandmother.
You know, didn't have all these rights. It was different.
And when we talk about civil rights, like, I was
born into this happening. So I'm literally here in front
of you. It's not that long ago. And so when
we look at how when our society seems so topsy
(38:10):
turvy and a little bit turbulent, it is because it
wasn't that long ago. We're still working it out through
the cultural consciousness.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
I'm hoping that the cultural lag is a thing, right, Yeah,
it's the thing I mean when they talk about it
in science where how long it takes a society to
catch up to science? But it's a thing all the
way across the board, how long it takes you to
catch up to do things and living in the society
that we're living in right now, you know where technology
(38:41):
is moving so incredibly quickly and trying to you know,
I have a child in college, right and one of
the things we're talking about, this small group of kids
who are, like from a couple of years ago, I think,
are really disadvantaged going into the workplace because college is
cultural lag. There hasn't caught up with how do you
deal with AI in the workplace? How do you prepare
(39:01):
students to enter a workplace where AI is taking so
many of the entry level jobs. Right, So, this whole
big technological cultural lag as we as a society try
to figure out how to how to maneuver how to
like how to graduate these kids and how to to
give them, you know, a job that they can do
(39:24):
and that they can learn it, and that they can
fulfill and be fulfilled by at a time when when
so many of those jobs that they would normally go
into aren't going to exist in a couple of years
or are already dying now.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And I often I tell my students too that whatever
they're being prepared for. So I don't expect you to
be history. I'm a history teacher and English. I do both,
but it's like I don't expect you to do.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I would say history in English.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I can't unweave those together. When I'm teaching English, the
history is you have to.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Be able to ground it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I was an American land. I mean I did a
bunch of I talked shakes for a lot too, because
I talked seniors, freshman and seniors, and then juniors finally,
and then in college I kind of did it all. Yeah,
it's impossible to unweave any kind of literature, art, music
when you look at it. You have to look at
the history that formed it, right, Like if you're going
(40:23):
to look at the Harlem Renaissance, you need to understand
what was happening in a Harlem and in America in
the nineteen twenties. If you're going to look at One
of the things I studied and did my thesis on
was that over the turn of the century into the
twentieth century, most major American writers had a character that
committed suicide, which is very unusual. What is it that
(40:44):
that was? It was the massive cultural lag and cultural
shift from a rural society to an urban society, and
all of the technology and everything, and all of these
people who could not find like we said, right, these
people who are searching to find their place, you know,
all these young kids and like that comes right before
they come into their power. But all these people who
(41:04):
who are feeling powerless and are feeling left behind and
are feeling whatever. It was a massive cultural moment, you know. Yeah, history,
I love that, I know. Right.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Is there anything else that you would like to have
readers think about or have my audience of Greek mythology
consider or think about.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Well, we've talked about it, and I love this. We've
talked about so many of the themes and the serious
stuff behind it, But I also want to say, like,
I think it's a really good time. It's a lot
of fun. Like the campus moves like a Rub's cube, which,
oh my gosh. One of the things I had to
do to keep everything straight is I had to buy,
you know, a ribscume, and I had the label where
it was and I had to move it, like, okay,
if I want to move this over here, what does
that look like? Right? So, the campus moves like the
(41:45):
rivers cue. There are wild muses, there are upside down
on waterfalls, there are so many snakes. There are all
kinds of like really fun. I'm super excited to delve more.
You get to see the underworld a very little bit
in this book, but I'm excited it and I think
it's going to be the three you really delve more
into the underworld and because I'm really excited by by
(42:06):
how it runs and what what that looks like. And
it's just I think it's a really good time. I
had a really good time writing, and I hope people
have a really good time reading.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
It is a very fun book. You just said something
right now that I don't even know why I didn't
connect it with the waterfall that's like the upside down.
She's like, I got to jump, but I'm going to
go up. And I'm like, oh my god, you may.
I hate to talk about Red Rising, you're but but
I love Red Rising. You're like at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I haven't read it. My partner's reading it right now.
I I she told me I have to read it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
You. I think you will like it because it's like
the grown up version of Pierce Brown brings in a
lot of Greek mythology and Roman history and so but
I'm I just made this connection between you're you're giving
a mythological because it's not a retelling it you're being
(43:00):
ancient myth a modern platform in a current world.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And so thank you. And that's a really lovely way
to say. I think.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
And Pierce Brown is like it's science fiction, but he's
also touches so heavily on Greek mythology, and so I
just whatever you had just said right now made me
think about your giving that same I guess that thread.
For me, I'm thinking about this is why the myths
(43:32):
are so powerful. They can be woven through so many
different kinds of stories and maintain their relevance.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
And for those of them, I mean they are right,
and whether this is the thing right, the creation myss
and Greek mythology, right, if you look at the creation
myths of Roman mythology, if my my children are half Egyptian,
and if you look at like we spent a lot
of time on like Egyptian myths in my house and
learning you know, Egyptian history and all the things that
they go with that. Yeah, like there are there are
(44:06):
so many things that are different and so many things
that are the same. It's because the experience of being
human is the same. You know, there are things obviously,
we all experience different things, we all have different lives.
Things are you know, based culturally, they are you know,
based on all these different different reasons, all these different ways.
But the experience of being a human, of loving, of
(44:27):
being afraid, of wanting something more, of you know, of yearning,
of of feeling powerless, of wanting to be powerful, of
wanting to help other people, you know, all these these
are these are universal human things, and mythology taps into
all of it.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Right that that's and that is the big question, what
does it mean to be human? And as a writer,
you are definitely exploring that in this book.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Being human through looking at the gods, the Greek gods. Right,
it's a very interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah. I have just enjoyed listening to you and talking
with you, and I hope that we get to do
this another another time. And You've got five more books
coming out, so I'm ready for it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Well, I definitely hope we get to do this. I
really enjoyed speaking another history English teacher.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
What greade do you teach?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Are seniors? So right now, seniors, seniors, Right now, I'm
teaching a it's called history in film. So we start
with the ancient world and we show films and then
I teach them I take a humanity's aspect, so I
teach them about a time period of literature, architecture, art, right,
(45:45):
and then and then we look and I teach them
mesel send so how to evaluate films. And then we
look at a film and we talk about like this,
the quality of the film and how the director is
interpreting historical events and what are some things that you
know like So we look at it like that, and
it gives them this lens to see history in a
different way. And because it's seniors, I get to do
(46:11):
films like Brave Heart, and I'm looking at that's kind
of one that that's the first big one that they
have that they that most of them haven't seen, and
they're just like, what, you know, I'm sure there's a
lot of historical.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Oh you know. I love that. I love how you
do that, because that's one of the things I always
did too, is I would always like when I teach
American l I divided it into like the like seven periods, right,
and we look at them and we explore the history
of it. We explore the nonfiction writings of it, we
explore the fiction writings of it, and like we kind
of do the whole thing. And I do that as
well when I'm teaching like Early America or early europeanlet.
(46:48):
But yeah, like one of the things I love to
do when I'm teaching like a Heart of Darkness by
Joseph Conrad, is we always watch this is a in
a college setting, we always watch a procts now, right,
and then we have to watch the documentary about Belgium
in the Congo, right, what is it the rubber red Rubber.
I can't think the name of it now, but yeah,
like we kind of look at all of that or Macbeth,
(47:10):
like you look at like Patrick George, you know, Dystopian,
and then you like, it's so fun to kind of
do that and look at how different time periods like
look at the same material and how it all kinds
of comes about. It's really really interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yea, I love it. And when I do freshmen, uh,
the biggest second semester is always my favorite because that's
the odyssey part and I get really bogged down in
the Odyssey because I have a hard time getting out
of it because I take those guys, I take them
(47:43):
way deep.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
It's so fun.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
It's so fun.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, but that's that's pretty much. Uh, you know, my
grade level. So it's either freshmen or seniors.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
And I did freshman and seniors for a long time,
and then finally because American it's my first love, and
they finally gave me the junior honors my last couple
of years when I was teaching high school. Before we've
been to college. But yeah, I love that. That's amazing.
I love yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I really had a look of time.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
I'm glad to have you, and I look forward to
the next time.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Then aesome thank you, and I hope you have a
wonderful twenty twenty six with your sixth grandkids. That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Well I intend to, but thank you and you too,
you as well.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Take care, hie, bye bye bye.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
That was my conversation with Tracy Wolf, and I hope
you enjoyed it as much as I did. Her upcoming
middle grade novel After Myth releases on February third, twenty
twenty six, and will be available everywhere that books are sold.
If you have young readers who are curious about mythology,
or if you're looking for a way to introduce Greek
(48:52):
myth through story, this is a great place to start.
As always, thank you so much for listening, supporting the podcasts,
and for keeping these ancient stories alive. Until next time,
drink your wine and be merry. Mrmadon's
Welcome back, murrad Ons to another episode of Greek Mythology
Retold podcast. I am always on the lookout for books
that explore Greek mythology in fresh ways, whether that's retellings
or reimaginings, or stories that lean into mythic themes for
a new generation of readers. So I was genuinely excited
(00:43):
when Simon and Schuster reached out and asked if I
would like to have Tracy Wolf on the show. Of
course I said yes. Tracy and I ended up talking
for over an hour and it was so much fun.
Her upcoming release, After Myth, is a middle grade novel
rooted in Greek mythology, and if you have young readers
in your life, especially kids who love Harry Potter or
(01:05):
Percy Jackson, this is absolutely one to put on your radar.
We talked about what Tracy loves about Greek mythology, how
myth shapes her storytelling her new book, After Myth, and
what she hopes that young readers will take away from
encountering these ancient stories in a new form. So, without
further ado, let's dive in. Welcome to the show, Tracy.
(01:30):
I'm really excited to have you. I'm a little nervous,
but super the nervousness is excited because I love Greek
mythology and I love that you're bringing Greek mythology to
a younger generation. So with that, if you could maybe
tell us a little bit about your book after myth.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Absolutely, first of all, I want to say thank you
so much for having me. I really appreciate it, and
there is nothing to be nervous about, even if it's
nervous excitement. But I know exactly because that happens to
me a lot. Yes, the aftermath, I am very excited about.
It's my first middle grade I've been writing books for
my first publish book came out in two thousand and seven,
so I've been doing this a while. But I've always
wanted to write middle grade, partly because I was an
(02:15):
English teacher and an English professor in a past life.
And one of the things that I noticed right is
that early online in reading, you know, when kids are
learning to read, they love reading. They think it's like
reading story times, like the best time ever. But by
the time I got them in high school in college,
they would tell me constantly how much they hated reading
and how miserable it was. For them, and it always
(02:37):
bothered me, and I was always like, what what changes? Right?
How do we how do we stop that? So it's
really exciting that I have a publisher like Simon and
Schuster for The Aftermath, who are as excited as I
am about getting middle grade reader is excited about, you know,
fantastical stories and everything else. So I'm really excited about that.
But so The Aftermath is my first middle grade and
it is my shot at I call it a her history, right,
(03:01):
which is not obviously not a word I've coined. It's
been around forever. But one of the things that always
bothered me. I love Greek mythology. I remember, like my
first memory of it is cuddling on the couch with
my dad when I was very young, and he was
watching the very very old Clash of the Titans, right,
and there was Andromeda and Padusa and Pegasus and the Kraken,
and I just remember being fascinated by that story at
(03:24):
the time and then asking my dad, like more about
Greek mythology, and it was something that he really liked,
so he told me it's not about it. And but
one of the things I've always noticed is that so
much of Greek mythology kind of like history is written
by the winners, right, So much of what we have
for Greek mythology was written by men, and one of
(03:44):
the things I've noticed is that they tend to vilify
women a lot, whether you talk about Medusa, whether you
talk about Pandora, even Andromeda in some ways echo you know,
all of the iraq mee like so many on and
on and on, and that bothered me. And so this
is kind of my shot at trying to write some
(04:08):
of those wrongs, right. Like the Pandora's Box story particularly
has always been one of those stories that kind of
stuck in my crop. I actually wrote a very different
YA many years ago where Pandora opens an attachment instead
of a box and a hearken stark technological armageddon. But
(04:28):
I kind of wanted to start the after this series
with it, because you know, she was created by two
male gods, Zeus and Hephaestus, and then given all of
these gifts and this unending curiosity and literally giving given
the jar filled with all of the bad things, all
of the evils of the world, and that she was
created to punish Prometheus and partly his brother Epimetheus right,
(04:49):
who were two Titans because Prometheus gave fire to humans
and she was going to be their punishment. And Prometheus
was like, no, thank you, you know, first of all,
and we're already trading women like channel right like. But
he's like, no, you can keep her. Epimetheus is like,
oh no, no, no, no, she's oh there's my there's my puppies.
(05:09):
Epimetheus is like, oh no, no, no, she is beautiful.
I want to you know, I want to keep her
and uh and so he marries her and then she
opens the jar and she's gone down in history as
the bad person. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's
not cool. So I kind of do things a little
differently in this book. And my main character, Penelope Weaver.
I'm sorry this is a really long answer. My main character,
(05:33):
Penelope Weaver, is a thirteen year old girl who is
starting her first of six years at the Mystical Magical
Napsamanders Academy, and she goes in thinking they're Each of
the students is sorted into one of five halls that
is kind of the tenants of the Greek gods and
(05:53):
also kind of is patroned by one of the five
Greek gods that they are named after, and she's convinced
she's an a girl. Everybody in her family has always
been in Athena. That's just who she is. She gets there,
everything goes wrong and she gets sorted into a different house,
one that is pretty much the opposite of Athena, and
she's like, oh my gosh, this is really really bad.
(06:14):
How do I fix this problem? But then things kind
of get worse, and in the middle of all this,
she kind of starts to realize that, hey, maybe maybe
all these myths she's heard are not quite right, maybe
there's something wrong with them, and it kind of starts
unfold that way. I don't want to give too much away.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
That's a crazy action, Yeah right, it's just it's unfolding.
So I like that the characters they become like a family,
like the kids, you know when they're at the school,
and I really it's reminiscent of Hogwarts in a way.
But you've got a great spin on, you know that
(06:55):
that ensemble of kids that are that are friends. And
I think that's really going to hit with middle grade kids.
I have grandkids and they are right at that sixth
grade mark, right in the middle of my group. So
I've got six so.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Oh my, that's amazing. I don't look like you should
have six grandkids. Oh, I mean you like very young.
So wow, I am super impressed. And yeah about that later,
but yeah, I'm I'm an only child and so there.
You know, I think when you talk to different readers
or different writers, there are themes, right that run through
all writers' works, and found family is one of those
(07:33):
themes that always has run through mine. I was born,
my parents were older when I was born, and we
moved around a lot, and so I was kind of
always lonely, always searching, and it wasn't until I know,
went to college and you know, went away from from
home for the first time that I really kind of
started gathering my own found family. And I think that's
why it's it's so predominant. But wow, Hogwarts, that is
(07:55):
a massive compliment. Thank you so much. I had so
much fun with it, Acamanders.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
I feel like it's just gonna hit with that demographic
because they're they're hungry for those kinds of connections, and
you really make that in the book. So I'm very
I was really happy to see that just coming forward.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
You know, character is my is my favorite thing in
the world to do. I love world building. The character
is just when when you know, every author has something
that comes easier to them than other stuff, and characters
are one of those things. And character dynamics are one
of those things that I love and that come very
easy to me when I write, and that I think
are are so important. You know, like every author has
(08:37):
a has a doorway into story and and character is
is very much fine. So thank you very much. I
love I love creating your group of characters. I love
creating really wacky side characters like Calliope and Frankie and
you know, I just love doing doing fun stuff like that.
They kind of like it, which is the world while
we're dealing with you know, Penelope and Fifi in our
(08:59):
June and and Kirie in and Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
And so let's talk about Penelope. Penelope Penelope in the
Greek myths. I love that you're that you named her
Penelope Weaver. That's you know, from somebody who comes from
the Greek myth. I'm just it's like it rings all
the bells for me. Every time I see a name,
I'm like, oh Paris, like oh Hector, like oh my God,
she's put them all in here. I love that. You know.
(09:26):
In the Greek in the Odyssey, you know, we have
a Penelope that's very sad off, right, and so she's
the in the Odyssey, she's Penelope in her bed of
sorrows and she's you know, Weaving. We connect her more
than other characters in Greek myth with Weaving. So anyway,
(09:49):
what what about what about that character? How did you
how did you choose or decide on Penelope we who
as your main character? You know, and what were the
connections that you made? And because I know as a
writer you you were very intentional about that, So I'm
(10:10):
just wondering about your process of connecting Well.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I mean, I think it's something some of it will
play out over the next over the next five books, right,
because it's it's we're planning it to be a six
book series at this point. Oh wow, Yeah, I'm super
Excito is won you know, each year I think the
first year are going to be the first year, but
then we're gonna move on from there. But yeah, you know,
(10:37):
Penelope is Odysseus's wife, right, and she is honored in
Greek mythology as being incredibly patient and as being this weaver,
and who would like you know, waited for Odysseus through
all of his journeys on the Odyssey, and who when
men came to court her, she would be weaving and
it would be this thing that like, you know, put
(10:58):
them off, and she's like, oh, when I finished this,
and then she would never finish it, and all of
these things. And when I was thinking about this, and
I was thinking about what penelopees, and I don't know
if this is a spoiler, I don't think it is
right that Penelope, it turns out, is this very rare
thing called a myth weaver, right, And we're going to
we just begin to see the beginnings of that in
(11:19):
book one, but as we continue on through the series,
we're going to find out way more about what that means. Right.
So there's obviously that connection, But there's also the.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Fact that.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
I don't know, like I said about how I feel
about so many of the women in Greek mythology. They
are either vilified for being strong or honored for being
patient and waiting for their husband for you know, thirty
years or you know, much longer than that. Even and
I wanted it to kind of start right at the
very beginning by recasting that and by changing it. So
(11:52):
here's this girl who weaves, this girl named Penelope, but
from the very beginning, things start going wrong for her
because the gods are She does something at the very
beginning of the book, and I cannot say what it
is because you don't find out till the end and
how it works, but she's something that vergetting to the
book that alarms all of the gods and sends her
on this whole very different path than kind of what
(12:14):
she had thought was going to happen, and what maybe
even they had thought was going to happen. And that's
our first clue that this girl is way more than
what we thought she was or what she thought she was.
And I think that I really wanted to kind of
take that on this woman who was so honored in
Greek mythology, Like, no, she is active, and she is powerful,
(12:35):
and she is powerful enough to make people afraid, not
in a bad way, but in a oh my gosh,
this girl could change everything kind of a way, you know,
And I think that, Yeah, I just want to. I
felt like it was.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Time, Yeah, And you know that, I like, I like
what you how you're presenting Penelope, because oftentimes Penelope is
juxtaposed with claudem Nush but you know, and Clademnestra is
seen as like strong, but she's sort of vilified. And Penelope,
(13:07):
as you said, is more passive and waiting. But when
you look at those two characters, they're both doing the
same thing. They're both maintaining a kingdom for a decade.
You know, Penelope has to do it longer, but they're
both they're both maintaining and so they're powerful. We don't
(13:29):
really like, look at the foundation of that she does.
She's bringing much more to the table than what was
that and what people were expecting.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
So I mean, look at Medea, look at Chakasta, look
at Antigany, right, so many of these women and take
any particularly trying to make this very moral choice and
do the right thing against all odds, and yet she
is she is vilified for it, she's punished for it,
you know it and Hikasta, I mean, the whole Oedipice
(14:05):
thing all the way around, right, But if you look
at her, she's actually the strongest, most like, forth right,
most forward thinking character in the entire book. Megaa. You
want to talk about I mean, there's so many you
can talk about these women who are punished for being
strong or punished for being good at something, whether you know,
you talk about Rathne and her weaving, or Medusa for
(14:26):
being too beautiful and too powerful as one of the
gorgonk you know. I mean, it's it's difficult, right, and
it's right. I just you know, I think that I
think that there's so much wonderful, so much wonder and
so many amazing things in Greek mythology that we can
get from it from any mythology really, you know, the
(14:47):
power and the magic and the the adventures. And but
I think that bringing into a new age, into this world,
for this generation of girls, I think it's very important
to help them stand in their own power and understand
the joy that comes with it as opposed to just
the difficulties and their rightful place, you know, and their
(15:10):
rightful power.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
And how from adult perspectives, you know, we talk about
Zeus interacting with all these female characters, and you know,
from an adult perspective, we we understand that what he's doing
is assault. How did you how did you think about that?
(15:35):
Because when you're dealing with middle grade, you know, I
teach in high school, so even and I can talk
about it at a high school level. But even then, I,
you know, I want to be careful not to go
too far because it's you know, it's a sensitive topic.
But as adults we can think about it in a
certain way. So how did you there was a gosh,
(15:59):
there's a part in your book when you're talking about
how many muses there were, and so you said they
had been busy, they had been busy for several thousand
years and had more kids. So how did you think
about and where did you make those kind of decisions,
you know, to.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
These are These are decisions that I think that I'm
going to have to continue to make, particularly with with
some of the myths that I'm that I'm going to
start tackling and the other books, like the first book
is Pandora Is and I you know, well, I don't
want to I don't want to spoil the end and
how that all works.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
But it's hard to talk about, I know, like I
have to.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Feel like I'm a little giddy about the end and
how it all came together exactly. Like you know, sometimes
when you're a writer, it doesn't come by to quite
come together as well as you hope it does. I
really feel like an after myth, like everything just kind
of like just worked exactly like the way, like you know,
the way I imagine it to be. So I'm very
excited about it. But it is this is actually something
(16:59):
that I'm pondering a lot, something that my editor and
I have had several conversations on as well as we
start delving into some of these other myths and the
use that some of these women suffered. Absolutely, how do
you deal with this in middle grade? I don't know
that I had the answer yet. Maybe we can talk
about this next year after I've written book two. I
(17:19):
mean writing it right now. And this is something I'm
I don't want to give away with what the book
is about, but this is definitely something that I'm wrestling with.
But I think that if we continue that, what I
want to do is I want to flip the script
script enough right that we look at what it is
for this woman to be powerful and what it is
why was she punished, you know, for one things outside
(17:42):
your control and two for being powerful and maybe gloss over.
Obviously gloss over. I'm not going to be discussing like
how many rapes and how many things went on in
Greek mythology, you know again something it's so interesting when
you look at it, having been written by men, how
these things were like you know perfectly okay for Poseidon,
(18:03):
for Zoous. Yeah, I'm like, hmm, not not really okay,
you know not. I feel like we're not getting the
right lesson out of this, focusing instead on on the
power of these women and these characters, and focusing on
on how to to flip that script. I think is
the best way that I can do it while acknowledging
(18:25):
that bad things have happened to them, that they were
treated unfairly, that they were treated badly. I think, is
you know, the best way that I can do it
so that we're not you know, getting bogged down.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
There's not something, yes, that eight to twelve year olds
need to be thinking about her, you know, yeah, we don't.
I mean also, like the whole the whole point, right
is to to move beyond that, Like this is not
where we are anymore, Like why do we even need
to give it? Not? Why do we need to give
a bandwidth? Obviously it's it's as you get older, it's
it's it's something that we obviously deal with. And I'm
(19:02):
a literature professor. You know how many books have I
you know, dissected with my students and talked about about this,
But like I want, I'm hoping to help create a better,
a kinder narrative for these girls for what they can
expect for their own lives and their future and what
they can you expect, right, what what they can demand
(19:24):
is the word you know, we don't, we don't need
to play this way anymore, This is not okay.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
I think that that's really important because that kind of
goes on One of the questions I was wanting to
ask you was how how myths? How can myths move
into this next generation? Like what do what do you
and writing this series? What do you want young people
to take away from you know, the Greek myths? How
(19:52):
can how do you envision your story of incorporating the
myth to lead this next generation?
Speaker 2 (20:02):
So many, I mean people in general, but certainly as
people are coming of ages, as kids are you know,
becoming young adults and going through middle school and into
high school and kind of finding out who they are
and trying to like struggling between trying to fit in,
trying to be who their parents expect them to be,
(20:23):
who their teachers expect them to be, who their friends
expect them to be, all while trying to figure out
who they are. I think one of the best and
coolest messages of Greek mythology is that right at that
time where you feel the most mixed up, in the
most weak, and where bad things are happening, you know,
or confusing things are happening, usually that comes right before
(20:47):
you get your power, you know. And whether you want
to look at superheroes and how that works for them,
whether you want to look at mythology stories, whatever else, right,
Romanticy that that period where your everything feels icky is
the precursor to, like write the caterpillar to the butterfly,
(21:08):
the precursor to all of this power that should come
into when you come into yourself and stand in the
truth that is yours. And I think that even as
we as we look at these myss we look at
we're going to be looking at the truth of who
these people are, the men and the women, because the
male characters have miss as well that they're going to
be dealing with like we have Paris, right and we're
(21:28):
going to be looking at Theseus, which is an Icarus,
and like Theseus is another one. You know, this whole
the poor minotaur right, born that way, vilified for being
born that way and being different, locked up his whole life,
and then he's the bad guy, you know, like, no,
that's not right, that's not how we should treat people.
(21:50):
And yeah, I think that's kind of the most that
I want to get out of. I want them to
get out of this. And the other thing I really
am hoping girls will will find is they I hope
they see themselves. Well, if it's not in Penelope, maybe
it's in Fife. If it's not in Fife, maybe it's
in a girl I'm introducing in the second book who
I love very much, who I'm not gonna give much
away yet. Oh, or maybe it's in doctor themis right.
(22:12):
But this is something I tackled in the Crave series
as well. Is I think that our society tells us
that there's only one way for a woman to be strong,
and then very often, like we've talked about, now, they've
beat a dead horse, but we vilify her for them
doing what has to be done. You know, I've been
very lucky. And I have spent most of my life
working in female dominated professions and one of the things
(22:34):
that I've seen, right is that there all kinds of
ways for women to be strong. You know, there's no
one right way. There are women who will are the
fighters and the warriors who are out there. There are
women who are the nurturers and the cheerleaders. You know.
My main character in Crave Grace, her big power was
(22:54):
she got up one more time than she got knocked down.
That was it. No matter what happened, she got back up,
you know. And for Penelope, Penelope is this character who
sees more than a lot of people see, you know
what I mean. She looks beyond the surface, She asks questions,
(23:15):
she delves more deeply into things. And there's a lot
of strength and a lot of power in that, you know,
in this ability to see more than anybody wants you
to see. And I hope that girls will see themselves
and how fabulous they are, and boys as well, in
whether it's Paris who's a little lost right now. But
Sullivan and Kirian our two of my fan our June
(23:38):
are all really I just name them all. I love
them all. Our really favorite characters of mine, and as
we grow, when they grow through the series, I'm really
really excited to be dealing with them as well and
get to look at their growth, ark and all that.
So I hope that they see that there's all kinds
of ways to be powerful and you just have to
you have to find your way, and you have to
be true to you, and everything else will fall into place.
(23:59):
I like that.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
That's a lovely That's a lovely message you as the storyteller.
You've that's a lovely message that you're weaving through your book,
Like you're the weaver.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I'm the weaver.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You're the weaver.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm the story weaver. She's the beaver.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, what how did you come up? Like? Was there
a moment that you were doing something or when did
the muse hit you for this story? Was there a
moment or a time or what made you think? Where
did the story come from?
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Well, it was kind of a it was kind of
the very the very rudimentary parts of it were kind
of like a back and forth between my editor and I.
I've worked, I worked. I've worked with Kara for I
met her many years ago and we worked on a
book together and it was such an incredible experience that
and now and she was a Wye editor at the time,
and now she's middle grade, and I'm like, I really,
(24:57):
you know, we both really wanted to work on a
project together and we're kind of talking about it in
Greek mythology was something she was really excited about, and
as we started like thinking about it, like it just
I always say, characters come to me first, Like I said,
all all story all writers kind of have a doorway
in the thing that speaks to them. And one of
the stories I always tell is that I have a
best friend who's a brainstorming partner of mine. She always
(25:19):
comes to story through plot. I always come to story
through the character. And so when we're like first starting
out on a book, this is how we're coming. And
it took us years, by the way, because we're like
so self aware, it took us years to figure this out.
Like we would sit down to like brainstorm the raving.
I'm like, Okay, I want to write this story about
this girl who she's like, but what is she doing?
And I'll be and I'd be like, but who is she?
But what is she doing? But who is she? And
(25:42):
we would do this back and forth until we finally
figure it out. We're just coming at this very very differently,
you know. So for me, I start like an idea.
I'm like, Okay, I want to do a Greek god's
boarding school. I want there to be halls that are
kind of dedicated to the Greek gods. And I'm like,
I don't really know what the plot is, i don't
really know what the conflict is. I'm just kind of
thinking around it. And then so think, well, who goes there?
(26:04):
Who's going to be my main character? And from there,
somewhere in there, I get a lot of different ideas.
I have books full of ideas that I have not
had done to write. I always know that idea is
to stick if somewhere in this process a voice starts
talking to me in the back of my head, you know.
And Penelope showed up and I was like, oh, oh,
I know who you are. Oh you're very interesting. And
(26:25):
she was not who I expected. Because one of the
things I laugh about is Penelope is very much my
best friend. She was my college roommate, and she and
I are very opposite in a lot of ways. Like
I think most people are always shocked that we our
friendship has lasted thirty years, you know. But we met
each other and we were very like, you know what,
(26:47):
A very kind of like, huh, I don't understand you.
Her more of I don't understand you than me. But
I'm very Fifi, who is Penelope's roommate in the book.
And so I think I thought Penelope was going to
show up as Fife, and she showed up insteads as
my dear friend Jen, and and it was it was
(27:10):
really fun. Actually once I didn't even recognize that at first,
I'm just like, oh, who is this person? And once
she started talking, I'm like, oh, you're interesting. And I
started writing her and then I wrote her first scene
with Fife, and then I wrote the room scenes when
I get back to the hall, and I'm like, I'm
somewhere in there. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is
so fun. I am actually writing the dynamic of me
(27:33):
meeting my best friend, but from her point of view.
And that made writing the rest of the book so
much fun, and it was so validating when I in fact,
the book is dedicated to her. You'll see if you
look at the front that is dedicated to Jen. When
I gave it to her to read for the first time.
I was like, oh my gosh, what if I totally
am wrong? What if I totally mess this up. She's
(27:54):
like she called me about like halfway there. She's like,
oh my gosh, She's like, I am so Penelope, Like
I didn't tell it right. She's like, I'm Penelope right.
Like She's like, I'm like, girl, I got you like
this really, like, oh my gosh, this is terrible, Like,
oh my god, how did you walk into that amphitheater
after all? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I did it.
I got it. So it was it was really really validating.
(28:15):
You know. I think writers tend to put themselves in
their characters, and I do that, but every once in
a while, somebody I love creeps in. Right, My partner says,
my hero in the Crave series stole all of her
best lines, so so I don't know, maybe maybe maybe
he did.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yeah. They say that about writers. Sorry, I'm sorry, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
Yeah, they say that about us. We're terrible. We're terrible
eavesdroppers too. In public. We're just sitting around like watching people.
Like I said, character is one of those things I love,
so I'm always watching, like how people drink their coffee,
you know, how they do this, how they're like walking
down the street, Like, how would I describe that story
through her? And then once I figured out who this
(28:56):
Penelope girl is, I'm like, how can I because I'm
a terrible person, how can I torture her as much
as absolutely possible? Right? Like PHOEFI would roll with the punches.
Penelope is like, oh my god, my shoes are muddy,
and it's the end of the world, let alone everything
else that comes after that. Right, that's just the tiny,
tiny tip of the iceberg. So uh yeah, that's kind
of how the story evolved for me.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
I love it. Oh, I wanted to ask you about
so in Greek mythology, we have the idea of fate
or destiny, and no matter who the character is, they
can never outdo it. The more they try to run
from it, they just run right into it. Right, what
just what is your take is? You know, as a
(29:39):
literature professor and all the things that you've read, the
books that you've written, how do you see myth and destiny?
Do you think that that's relevant in our modern life?
Are we predestined to do the things that we're just
pined to do. Realizing it.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
You've hit on what's going to a massive theme in
the in the series, and only a few little tiny
seeds relate in book one, but I'm going to really
start dealing with it in book two, moving all the
way through book six, this whole idea of can we
outrun our destiny? Or are we always going to be
who we were meant to be?
Speaker 1 (30:18):
You know?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
And that is that is a huge question we gods right,
like the fates, you know, the three with I like
the one who spends it, the one who you know,
cuts it, all of these things. I feel like there
are some things obviously about ourselves we can't change. But
I also feel like you can do. And I think
the messages that I want I want kids to take
away from this, right or middle grade readers is or
(30:39):
any of my readers, whatever age is, you can be
whoever you want to be, and you are more than
you think you are. I think most of us tend
to think ourselves small, Oh I can't do that, like
or oh that's that's not for me, or you know whatever,
or even if it's like a goal, like I'll just
work towards that goal. But like the idea of like
(31:02):
this massive, massive goal or like being powerful or like
having magic or whatever. It is like that, you know,
that's that's not for me. Right, whether you look at
you know, whoever you look at, whether you look at
Catnus or Harry Potter or you know, any of any
of these characters you go through. Part of it is
they are more than their destiny is. And I think
that I think that's a really important message for readers.
(31:24):
And yeah, it's definitely something I'll be dealing with.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's a huge contemplation.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
So it is well, it is right you talk about
like you look at Orpheus going down to get his wife,
you know, back from the underworld, and you look at Perseus,
you look at Theseus, you look at Icroes, you flew
too close to the sun? Right, It is such an
interesting thing how Greek mythology in some ways focus is
(31:53):
so patriarchical, you know what I mean, Like so like
you have to stay and classic it's very classic, right,
you have to stay in your place. If you've lied
too close to the sun, you're going to crash and burn.
And I think that that has always been used for
people so that people in power can stand power, and
people who don't have power are not are content to
(32:15):
be that way.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Right, Your conditioned to accept your condition, to accept the
level at which you the ceiling at which whatever you
your that's it like to be satisfied in your little
base of the culture or the society.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
Exactly right. One of my favorite things, right is that
when they asked with Pater Ginsburg how many how many
women should sit on the Supreme Court, and she said nine,
and then everybody was so horrified. Nobody ever close to
the nine men should sit on the Supreme Court. It
never for two hundred years, nobody ever even thought about that.
That was just how it was, right. And I think
(32:54):
that we are we're just as a gender, as a
you know, as a socioeconomic level, as you know, all
of these different things, we are conditioned to be a
certain way. So that I mean, I think this is
something we were seeing play out right now, you know,
where the people who have power and the people who
have money want more money and want more power. I mean,
(33:16):
this is an age old Hale, It's not brand new, right.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I was just having a similar conversation. I have a
friend that we've been friends. I'm gonna tell it's gonna
be like, how old am, But let me see seven,
we've been friends for over fifty years. We're little peanuts
together in like second first, second grade. And so we
were talking about how my grandmother when she was born
(33:42):
and my Minnah I'm Italian, so Minonah helped raise me.
But when she was born, women didn't even have the
right to vote. I'm standing here. My grandmother did not
have the right to vote when she was born, and
so when she was ten or eleven twenty, women got
the right to vote in our country. So historically it's
(34:04):
not even that long, you know. And my mother tells
the story that in the seventies she had to have
my grandfather co sign for her to get a I
don't remember if his J. C. Penne or Sear's store
credit card because she couldn't do that as a woman.
So that's my mother. So historically, it's not a lot
(34:27):
of time that women have been given the equal rights.
And I think we are at a point now in
twenty twenty six, twenty twenty six that you can you
can rent or buy property, you can vote, you can
go to school wherever you want. As you bring these
(34:49):
myths in these stories for this young generation. These young
ladies are going to experience a world very much different
from their great great grandmothers, or we hoped some mothers.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
We hope, right, yeah, right, as we're dealing with so
many women's issues in America today. But I know exactly
what's your meaning. I'd never thought of it that way,
but yeah, I was. My grandma and mothers were born
ten years apart. Yet they were both born before they
had the right, before women had the right to vote.
And I always talk about my mom because my mother,
my grand my mother's mother, went to college at a
(35:25):
time when women didn't do that. My mother, you know,
went to college and after college, she she actually didn't
get married until she was she was just about thirty witch.
And that did you know, my my grandfather had given up.
He thought, well, this is it. She's the old maid.
We're just gonna have you, now, I mean, that's the
term they use, like, oh, I know this old maid.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, you're an old maid.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah right, I'm that's particulous. But what she was was
a woman who wasn't going to settle. And when she
graduated from college, she took off in all the world.
She was a teacher, and she applied to teach for
the government, and she went to teach in Okinawa. She
went to teach in Bermuda. She traveled all of Europe
on her own at a time when yeah, you couldn't.
She couldn't have a bank account without her father's name
(36:06):
on it, and she couldn't have a credit card without
you know, her father's name on it and all of
these things. But she was like, I'm not doing this.
She'd work also, you know, all year, and then she'd
travel all summer, and she saw the world at a
time by herself. Like I mean, it's not like, oh,
she went with her you know, she just took off
and went. And she was like such an incredible role
(36:28):
model and so such a massive force in my life.
When I was doing her eulogy a couple of years ago,
when I was writing it, I quoted saundrasis Naros's house
on Mango Street about her being a wild horse of
a woman and how you know she wasn't easy, but
women who big barriers really are And I think that, yeah,
that's the kind of energy, right, Why do we need
(36:49):
to ask permission? You know, did my dad tick when
he took off did he ask permission? No, Nobody thought
it was strange that he did that. He did it.
Why is it so strange that that she this generation
of girls, like, we're born expecting to be doctors, expecting
to be president, expecting to be whatever it does they
(37:09):
wanted to be, expecting to be, you know, a stay
at home mom, if that's what they wanted to be,
but having choices that so many generations didn't have. And
you're right when you look at it, we're only a
little over one hundred years out.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yes, and things take a long time culturally, you know,
because it's like steering the Titanic, and it just you know,
when I'm talking to my high school students, I say,
I'm standing here in front of you and my grandmother.
I said, how many of you guys have grandmothers. You
know they got grammars. I said, well, I'm standing in
front of you my grandmother, who was the same distance
(37:45):
from me. You know that you guys are to your grandmother.
You know, didn't have all these rights. It was different.
And when we talk about civil rights, like, I was
born into this happening. So I'm literally here in front
of you. It's not that long ago. And so when
we look at how when our society seems so topsy
(38:10):
turvy and a little bit turbulent, it is because it
wasn't that long ago. We're still working it out through
the cultural consciousness.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
I'm hoping that the cultural lag is a thing, right, Yeah,
it's the thing I mean when they talk about it
in science where how long it takes a society to
catch up to science? But it's a thing all the
way across the board, how long it takes you to
catch up to do things and living in the society
that we're living in right now, you know where technology
(38:41):
is moving so incredibly quickly and trying to you know,
I have a child in college, right and one of
the things we're talking about, this small group of kids
who are, like from a couple of years ago, I think,
are really disadvantaged going into the workplace because college is
cultural lag. There hasn't caught up with how do you
deal with AI in the workplace? How do you prepare
(39:01):
students to enter a workplace where AI is taking so
many of the entry level jobs. Right, So, this whole
big technological cultural lag as we as a society try
to figure out how to how to maneuver how to
like how to graduate these kids and how to to
give them, you know, a job that they can do
(39:24):
and that they can learn it, and that they can
fulfill and be fulfilled by at a time when when
so many of those jobs that they would normally go
into aren't going to exist in a couple of years
or are already dying now.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
And I often I tell my students too that whatever
they're being prepared for. So I don't expect you to
be history. I'm a history teacher and English. I do both,
but it's like I don't expect you to do.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I would say history in English.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
I can't.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
I can't unweave those together. When I'm teaching English, the
history is you have to.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Be able to ground it absolutely.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I was an American land. I mean I did a
bunch of I talked shakes for a lot too, because
I talked seniors, freshman and seniors, and then juniors finally,
and then in college I kind of did it all. Yeah,
it's impossible to unweave any kind of literature, art, music
when you look at it. You have to look at
the history that formed it, right, Like if you're going
(40:23):
to look at the Harlem Renaissance, you need to understand
what was happening in a Harlem and in America in
the nineteen twenties. If you're going to look at One
of the things I studied and did my thesis on
was that over the turn of the century into the
twentieth century, most major American writers had a character that
committed suicide, which is very unusual. What is it that
(40:44):
that was? It was the massive cultural lag and cultural
shift from a rural society to an urban society, and
all of the technology and everything, and all of these
people who could not find like we said, right, these
people who are searching to find their place, you know,
all these young kids and like that comes right before
they come into their power. But all these people who
(41:04):
who are feeling powerless and are feeling left behind and
are feeling whatever. It was a massive cultural moment, you know. Yeah, history,
I love that, I know. Right.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Is there anything else that you would like to have
readers think about or have my audience of Greek mythology
consider or think about.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Well, we've talked about it, and I love this. We've
talked about so many of the themes and the serious
stuff behind it, But I also want to say, like,
I think it's a really good time. It's a lot
of fun. Like the campus moves like a Rub's cube, which,
oh my gosh. One of the things I had to
do to keep everything straight is I had to buy,
you know, a ribscume, and I had the label where
it was and I had to move it, like, okay,
if I want to move this over here, what does
that look like? Right? So, the campus moves like the
(41:45):
rivers cue. There are wild muses, there are upside down
on waterfalls, there are so many snakes. There are all
kinds of like really fun. I'm super excited to delve more.
You get to see the underworld a very little bit
in this book, but I'm excited it and I think
it's going to be the three you really delve more
into the underworld and because I'm really excited by by
(42:06):
how it runs and what what that looks like. And
it's just I think it's a really good time. I
had a really good time writing, and I hope people
have a really good time reading.
Speaker 1 (42:14):
It is a very fun book. You just said something
right now that I don't even know why I didn't
connect it with the waterfall that's like the upside down.
She's like, I got to jump, but I'm going to
go up. And I'm like, oh my god, you may.
I hate to talk about Red Rising, you're but but
I love Red Rising. You're like at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I haven't read it. My partner's reading it right now.
I I she told me I have to read it.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
You. I think you will like it because it's like
the grown up version of Pierce Brown brings in a
lot of Greek mythology and Roman history and so but
I'm I just made this connection between you're you're giving
a mythological because it's not a retelling it you're being
(43:00):
ancient myth a modern platform in a current world.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
And so thank you. And that's a really lovely way
to say. I think.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
And Pierce Brown is like it's science fiction, but he's
also touches so heavily on Greek mythology, and so I
just whatever you had just said right now made me
think about your giving that same I guess that thread.
For me, I'm thinking about this is why the myths
(43:32):
are so powerful. They can be woven through so many
different kinds of stories and maintain their relevance.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
And for those of them, I mean they are right,
and whether this is the thing right, the creation myss
and Greek mythology, right, if you look at the creation
myths of Roman mythology, if my my children are half Egyptian,
and if you look at like we spent a lot
of time on like Egyptian myths in my house and
learning you know, Egyptian history and all the things that
they go with that. Yeah, like there are there are
(44:06):
so many things that are different and so many things
that are the same. It's because the experience of being
human is the same. You know, there are things obviously,
we all experience different things, we all have different lives.
Things are you know, based culturally, they are you know,
based on all these different different reasons, all these different ways.
But the experience of being a human, of loving, of
(44:27):
being afraid, of wanting something more, of you know, of yearning,
of of feeling powerless, of wanting to be powerful, of
wanting to help other people, you know, all these these
are these are universal human things, and mythology taps into
all of it.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Right that that's and that is the big question, what
does it mean to be human? And as a writer,
you are definitely exploring that in this book.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Being human through looking at the gods, the Greek gods. Right,
it's a very interesting thing.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Yeah. I have just enjoyed listening to you and talking
with you, and I hope that we get to do
this another another time. And You've got five more books
coming out, so I'm ready for it.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Well, I definitely hope we get to do this. I
really enjoyed speaking another history English teacher.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
What greade do you teach?
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Are seniors? So right now, seniors, seniors, Right now, I'm
teaching a it's called history in film. So we start
with the ancient world and we show films and then
I teach them I take a humanity's aspect, so I
teach them about a time period of literature, architecture, art, right,
(45:45):
and then and then we look and I teach them
mesel send so how to evaluate films. And then we
look at a film and we talk about like this,
the quality of the film and how the director is
interpreting historical events and what are some things that you
know like So we look at it like that, and
it gives them this lens to see history in a
different way. And because it's seniors, I get to do
(46:11):
films like Brave Heart, and I'm looking at that's kind
of one that that's the first big one that they
have that they that most of them haven't seen, and
they're just like, what, you know, I'm sure there's a
lot of historical.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Oh you know. I love that. I love how you
do that, because that's one of the things I always
did too, is I would always like when I teach
American l I divided it into like the like seven periods, right,
and we look at them and we explore the history
of it. We explore the nonfiction writings of it, we
explore the fiction writings of it, and like we kind
of do the whole thing. And I do that as
well when I'm teaching like Early America or early europeanlet.
(46:48):
But yeah, like one of the things I love to
do when I'm teaching like a Heart of Darkness by
Joseph Conrad, is we always watch this is a in
a college setting, we always watch a procts now, right,
and then we have to watch the documentary about Belgium
in the Congo, right, what is it the rubber red Rubber.
I can't think the name of it now, but yeah,
like we kind of look at all of that or Macbeth,
(47:10):
like you look at like Patrick George, you know, Dystopian,
and then you like, it's so fun to kind of
do that and look at how different time periods like
look at the same material and how it all kinds
of comes about. It's really really interesting.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
Yea, I love it. And when I do freshmen, uh,
the biggest second semester is always my favorite because that's
the odyssey part and I get really bogged down in
the Odyssey because I have a hard time getting out
of it because I take those guys, I take them
(47:43):
way deep.
Speaker 2 (47:44):
It's so fun.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
It's so fun.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
Yeah, but that's that's pretty much. Uh, you know, my
grade level. So it's either freshmen or seniors.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
And I did freshman and seniors for a long time,
and then finally because American it's my first love, and
they finally gave me the junior honors my last couple
of years when I was teaching high school. Before we've
been to college. But yeah, I love that. That's amazing.
I love yeah, thank you so much for having me.
I really had a look of time.
Speaker 1 (48:13):
I'm glad to have you, and I look forward to
the next time.
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Then aesome thank you, and I hope you have a
wonderful twenty twenty six with your sixth grandkids. That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Well I intend to, but thank you and you too,
you as well.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Take care, hie, bye bye bye.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
That was my conversation with Tracy Wolf, and I hope
you enjoyed it as much as I did. Her upcoming
middle grade novel After Myth releases on February third, twenty
twenty six, and will be available everywhere that books are sold.
If you have young readers who are curious about mythology,
or if you're looking for a way to introduce Greek
(48:52):
myth through story, this is a great place to start.
As always, thank you so much for listening, supporting the podcasts,
and for keeping these ancient stories alive. Until next time,
drink your wine and be merry. Mrmadon's
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