January 30, 2025 • 38 mins
Bestselling authors William and Lara Bernhardt discuss the latest news from the book world, offer writing tips, and interview Amy M Le, the award-winning author of the Snow trilogy and founder of Quill Hawk Publishing.
0:00 Opening Thoughts
What are you reading right now? The hosts share their current obsessions.
3:00 News
1) Harper Collins Makes Deal with Microsoft for AI Scanning of Nonficiton Titles
2) Revelations About Cormac McCarthy's Past Relationship Trouble Readers
15:25 Craft Corner
Jon Meyers and Emily Brooks (Writer Better Together) discuss planning talks for writing conferences
17:58 Interview with Amy M Le
During this chat, Amy discusses:
1) the Vietnamese background that led to the Snow trilogy;
2) the challenges of historical fiction;
3) why she founded Quill Hawk;
4) best tips for publishing, and
5) why she founded a female-owned, Asian-American company.
35:10 Parting Words
Join us for the WriterCon Alaskan Cruise! You’ll get over 20 hours of writing instruction, scheduled when the boat is at sea, not when you’d rather get off and go see glaciers. Talks, small groups, critiques, one-on-one conversations with agents and others, and much more. It’s May 31-June 7 leaving from Seattle. For more info, please visit our website: www.writercon.com
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
0:00 Opening Thoughts
What are you reading right now? The hosts share their current obsessions.
3:00 News
1) Harper Collins Makes Deal with Microsoft for AI Scanning of Nonficiton Titles
2) Revelations About Cormac McCarthy's Past Relationship Trouble Readers
15:25 Craft Corner
Jon Meyers and Emily Brooks (Writer Better Together) discuss planning talks for writing conferences
17:58 Interview with Amy M Le
During this chat, Amy discusses:
1) the Vietnamese background that led to the Snow trilogy;
2) the challenges of historical fiction;
3) why she founded Quill Hawk;
4) best tips for publishing, and
5) why she founded a female-owned, Asian-American company.
35:10 Parting Words
Join us for the WriterCon Alaskan Cruise! You’ll get over 20 hours of writing instruction, scheduled when the boat is at sea, not when you’d rather get off and go see glaciers. Talks, small groups, critiques, one-on-one conversations with agents and others, and much more. It’s May 31-June 7 leaving from Seattle. For more info, please visit our website: www.writercon.com
Until next time, keep writing, and remember: You cannot fail, if you refuse to quit.
William Bernhardt
www.williambernhardt.com
www.writercon.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This week on the writer Con podcast, I.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Would say start yesterday. Everybody always says, you know, I'll
start win or I will start promoting when I have
my book published, you know, and them. Yeah, as soon
as you have that idea and you're going to commit
to writing it, that's when you start.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to writer Con, the gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
winning author of the want Ln Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you, Jesse ul Rich. Hey, they're writers. Thanks for
joining us today. We're going to take you back to
grade school because today Jesse brought some.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Show and tell. It's a huge book.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I assume it's a James Patterson novel.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Am I right?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
How dare you look at this baby?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Look at the sweet What is it like?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Four thousand pages?
Speaker 4 (01:02):
It is thirteen hundred pages.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
That's longer than War in Peace?
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Ten days?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It is ten days breaking up the chapters?
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Are the days?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Do you portion it out? So you say, okay, I've
read one hundred and thirty pages. I can quit now.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
No, I just I did not get last sleep between
December sixth and when I finished.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
So, uh you now he's younger than I am, because
that's not how it worked for me. I would fall
asleep on the second page and it wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Matter what I'm planning to do.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I fight through it.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Very impressive. Well, Laura, what are you reading these days?
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Something? Anything?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yes, yes, d it was something on that iPad last night.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
Yeah, several books. I'm actually finishing up a Discovery of Witches,
and I have ice Breaker waiting to go, and I'm
also reading Crying an Aged Mark.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Sounds good books. I'm reading American Comics, A History by
Oh gosh, I didn't know we were going to do this.
I can't think of his name, Jeremy Dauber. I so
apologize if I've forgotten your name. But your book is terrific.
It's sort of a global history of the comic book,
(02:20):
which I know now everybody's You had this classy science
fiction novel, Lara had classy stuff, and I've got the history.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Of comic books. But whatever, they're all good books, right, yes.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Our interview today is with Amy M.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Lee.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
She is the award winning author of The Snow trilogy
and several other books as well, and a longtime friend
of writer Common. She's also the founder of quill Hawk,
a female owned Asian American company that helps writers indye
publish their books. We're going to talk to her about
all that and much more, but first the news news
(03:18):
story number one. I think this is going to delight you, Laura.
I'm kidding. I remember on the last episode when we
were making predictions, you said you were worried about AI,
and with good reason, because somewhere at the end of
last year, after we did our last podcast, one of
the Big five publishers, HarperCollins, signed a formal agreement with
(03:40):
Microsoft to allow them to use the publisher's nonfiction works.
This is Harper Collins. Can you imagine the number of
nonfiction books they have in print?
Speaker 4 (03:52):
It would be huge.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Anyway, it's no longer a question of whether publishers are
going to allow AI to scrape the books. They are
and this three year agreement says they're going to pay
HarperCollins five thousand per book, and HarperCollins says they will
share that evenly, which would suggest that an author is
(04:15):
going to get twenty five hundred bucks for allowing their
books to be screat But listen to this part. First thing,
nobody even knows what exactly it is Microsoft is doing
with this. They've got some kind of new model, but
they haven't told anyone what it is. They say it
won't be to generate new AI books, I promise.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Well what then?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Anyway, So they can't do it without the author's permission,
they say, and the AI model will be limited. To
listen to this, their product will be quote no more
than two hundred consecutive words, or five percent of a
book's text in it's output. That's and or so does
(05:05):
that mean one or the other? Well, yeah, exactly five
percent of that would be thirteen hundred you say a
quick math, that's like sixties five pages. Holy smokes, I mean,
that's enormous. According to Poles, less than half forty seven
(05:27):
percent of US adults trust companies to responsibly prevent their
AI models from creating work that's derivative of other work.
In other words, the people who are working with this
aren't sure they can control AI. And now you know,
HarperCollins is just going to be the first. The others
(05:48):
will follow suit. And now they're having permission to generate
pages and pages that is, word for word taken from
somebody else's books. You know what humans are going to
do with regard to these future publications is hard to understand. Laura,
(06:12):
would you take this deal? It's twenty five hundred bucks.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
The money is good, All many is good.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Many it is good.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I know, So I couldn't. I couldn't fault somebody for
taking that deal. Let's say I wrote nonfiction and I
was asked about this, boy. I mean, it's less it's
less dubious, I suppose, than just data scraping and taking it.
It seems like a baby step in the right direction
that they're at least asking for permission to use it.
(06:46):
But I still don't love it. I just still don't
love it. AI to me equals right now plagiarism over
and over again. It's just taking somebody else's words and
creating something new and not letting anyone know where it
came from. I kind of feel right now about AI
(07:06):
at this point in my life, I think the way
Jesse feels about James Patterson. I just just could.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Do without that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, Jesse, what do you? I mean? Clearly, Lara's right,
some people are going to do it. Are they going
to regret it later?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I just wish people who are working on AI would
focus on the ad AI parts that will make our
lives easier and not the creative parts that make things
that we don't need, Like help me manage my schedule,
help remind me of the things they need to do,
like stop trying to create art.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But don't you think that's in part where it's going,
Because yeah, we can write something ourselves, but not everyone can,
and that's how this is how they're going to generate
a short story or a song or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think it's a crutch because at some point an
author can't pretend to write things if they're using AI
to do it. Eventually they're gonna get caught, or they're
eventually someone's good to know, or eventually they're gonna be
asked for something that AI can't produce for them. So again, like,
help me make my minutes for the board I'm on
for this nonprofit and help me go through my emails.
(08:18):
Stop trying to write a novel?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah yeah, good, Hey, Internet.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
Stop it stop it just stop it?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Is that going to be your next after James Patterson?
Is you can't take down the whole internet.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, listen, you can when James, Like when James Patterson
starts using AI to write write his novel so he
doesn't have to pay ghost writers, Like, then you will
have a fiel day on this podcast.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Yeah, we'll both furious. Yeah, you'll have the wrath of
both of us going.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, are you ready for that?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
James? Are you ready for Are you ready for that?
All right?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
News story number two. And let me warn you in
advance that this involves some unpleasant discussion of inappropriate relationships Withers,
So trigger warning. If that's going to bother you, skip
ahead to craft corner.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Unfortunately, this scandal involves Carmack McCarthy, the very successful, prominent
literary writer who passed not very long ago, but just
a few I think it was the last issue Vanity
Fair published a bombshell article informing everyone that Carmack McCarthy,
(09:28):
this is the author of All the Pretty Horses and
when a Pulletzer for the Road and whatnot. Anyway, one
of our most celebrated novelists had a relationship with a
girl and am using that word advisedly. A girl he
met when he was forty two, and she was sixteen.
She was a foster child, an abused child, and a
(09:48):
runaway who reportedly felt so unsafe at home she often
carried a gun and used the pool area and the
motel to shower. And it just sounds horrible. She says,
she didn't know that McCarthy was married when the relationship began,
or that he had a son almost exactly her age.
(10:12):
She did a few years later in the sexual relationship,
but they continued to stay in touch. They exchanged letters,
talked on the phone, visited each other. It doesn't seem
to have been any acrimony. And apparently most of his
friends and a lot of scholars and critics who wrote
(10:34):
about him were already aware of this, but keeping it
to themselves. What I found interesting is that, I mean,
nobody's approving obviously, but then again, nobody's calling to ban
his books or anything.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
But most of the.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Chatter has been about Vanity Fair's assertion that this woman,
miss Britt, was the key inspiration for some of his
most memorable female characters. And if you're like me and
you've read him, you start thinking female character, female character,
there are many, and they're mostly like you know, victims
(11:11):
or people bad things happen too, and that opens a
whole new kettle of fish. But anyway, you know, they're
recurring themes, his obsession with horses, guns, vulnerable young women
who suffer advice suffer violence rather and heartbreak, and at
(11:32):
least occurding this article that's all attributable back to this
young woman Wanda in Harrogate and Sutry Karla Jean and
No Country for Old Men Alejandra and All the Pretty Horses, which,
by the way, is a terrific book, even though I
may never endorse a Cormack McCarthy a book again, but
(11:55):
it is what can you do? And also in the article,
she said that this romantic relationship was consensual. Of course,
many people are going to say that's not even possible
when somebody's sixteen. Oh here's a detail I left out
(12:15):
just to give you this. She also said McCarthy doctored
her birth certificate so he could get her into Mexico. Okay, Laura,
will you be reading any Carmack McCarthy books anytime soon?
Or is it fair for us to judge me? I mean, yeah,
it's disturbing, but what writer did live up perfectly? Or
(12:40):
what anybody I haven't let it perfectly. I haven't done this.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
But be careful, Bill, be careful laws.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
This is what I'm trying to say. Uh so what
do you, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
You think you could still read one of his books?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
Well, you just gave a pretty darned amazing endorsem meant
for one of them.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
People love that trilogy.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
I probably could. Is this absolutely disgusted me? Yes, I
don't understand. I don't understand this type of behavior from
either a male or a female. I don't feel very
much to me like they're preying upon a child. But yeah,
(13:27):
of course I can also remember when I was sixteen,
I thought I was full grown and knew everything, but
but I didn't. I don't know, especially when you have
a child that age, I would be seeing my child
in that child like I can't. I just can't imagine.
But it's none of us is perfect Throwstones.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I mean, I can tell you I'm forty three now
and I could not date a seventeen now. That would
be gross.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
But this was a sixty year old. It's gross, gross,
and it does feel very predatory to me.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, I don't know how it came about, except that
I know she was a foster child.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
So yeah, more ick, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Is it possible to enjoy somebody's literature when you're in
the back of your mind you're thinking, oh, well, world goal,
anchi semitic and you know, Kip playing racist.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Listen, if I didn't, if I didn't read people who
you know, I discovered later anti semites that have very
few books to read. So you know, you just you
find a way to separate the art from the arts.
It helps that he's dead now, yeah, because like you
don't want them to profit off these horrible behaviors.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
How did they ever keep this secret when he's so
prominent and so many people apparently knew about it.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
If it happened early enough, if it happened early enough
in the age of the internet, like it just stayed there.
And you know, had it happened had he been doing
it now, we would people would have found out, and
it would and someone would have posted it that just
like what would happened with Neil Gaman, Like it would
have come out and in a way that you know,
(15:15):
uh not not through like a normal channel.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
So yeah, yeah, I think you're right all right.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Today in Craft Corner we have back with us again.
John Myers and Emily Brooks, the authors of Right Better Together,
and they've got a podcast themselves this week. They're tackling
something different, something geared toward writers preparing for conferences and
speaking and writers' groups and all that. I think it's
(15:46):
a change of pace, but I think it's a very
interesting one. Take it away, John and Emily.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Craft Corner.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
Welcome everybody to Writer con Craft Corner. John Myers from
Write Better Together. Hey, look, everybody, as family Brooks.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
We're talking about the three elements authors should include when
building a masterclasses, and we're specifically going to be talking
about how to include your attendees. So the very first
thing is you want to establish their personal learning objectives
from the beginning. Every classroom is different. You have to
adjust sometimes based on your class's experience levels or what
(16:25):
they really came in for. It's good to ask those
questions of who are you, why are you here? If
you have a larger class, maybe you can do a survey.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
If you put your agenda aside and spend the first
thirty minutes of those attendees sharing why they're there with you,
it will totally change the remaining two and a half
hours because they will have clarified what they were trying
to get out of the thing, and they will have
bonded as a community, and your job is done.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
The second thing that we do is include interactive exercises
that introduce or utilize your main learning objectives. So you
could give them any kind of exercise really that is
going to help you get that conversation going.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
It also gets rid of some preconceived notions. You can
establish upfront what they thought it was going to be
than what it really is.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Period.
Speaker 7 (17:15):
It also makes it more memorable by allowing them to
actually practice what you're talking about and they can take
that home with them. The last one is to structure
time or a strategy for answering questions.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
So you want to resolve their questions, but you don't
have time for a twenty minute soliloquy, and that's not
what the other attendees paid for. If you have small
moments of time carved out after each segment, and you
tell them that upfront, then they'll know, oh, here's my
opportunity to ask questions. If it's a longer or more
complicated question, you can take that out to the hallway
(17:50):
after the session.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
Or here's my email you can send me questions.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Thank you, William, Laura and Jesse for having us on.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Thank you John and Emily. All right, Jesse, let's talk
to Amy em Lee. Amy em Lee, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. You know
you've made it when you've been invited to Writer podcast?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Is that it? I kind of have that in a quote.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
We'll put that on the website.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
You got it, all right?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Traditional first question, Amy, if you could offer writers one
piece of advice.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
What would it be.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I would say, start yesterday. Everybody always says, you know,
I'll start when or I will start promoting when I
have my book published. You know, Yeah, as soon as
you have that idea and you're going to commit to
writing it, that's when you start.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Tell me how did you get started writing? Because I
know you've done other things in your life. Where did
the writing come from?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Twenty seventeen, my mom passed away and that's what started
my journey to healing. You know, I worked in the
corporate space for over twenty years, and when mom passed,
I just quit, took two years off, and God told
me to write my mom's story, and that's how I
started to unearth my heritage, understand my boat refugee experience
(19:23):
as you know, a survivor of the Vietnam War, and
how we came to the United States. And that just
started my journey. And before you know, I had a
trilogy with Snow Trilogy and then now it's like nine
books later. It's just yeah, it's crazy, how sure we
get back.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
To that though I knew you were from Vietnam boat refugee,
tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So the boat people are the refugees who left Vietnam
via boat, you know, after the war ended in April
nineteen seventy five, which the fiftieth anniversary is coming up
this year in April.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So hundreds of thousands of people fled the country seeking freedom,
and many of them went by boat. In the middle
of the night. They were out in the South China Sea.
They were hit by pirates, starvation, you know, just sold
many things, and a lot of us made it to
a refugee camp and then ultimately got sponsored. Some of
(20:20):
them got deflected back, some of them never made it
and just perished at sea. So but yeah, we were many.
We were one of the lucky boat people who survived.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Can you remember that journey?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Is that?
Speaker 5 (20:36):
How old were you when that happened?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, so I was five, and you know, the main
reason for us leaving. There were several reasons, but one
of us is because I was born with a congenital
heart defect and if I didn't get medical care, I
would have died before the age of five. So we
literally had enough money to scrape it together when I
was five to escape the country. We were hit by it,
like I said, a lot of storms and irate from
(21:00):
that kind of thing. But I came to the United
States right when I turned six. I had open heart
surgery at Seattle Children's and here I am fifty fifty
years old. I'm still kicking.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Terrifying to me, it is terrifying.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I remember parts of our journey. I remember the boat burning,
you know, the beautiful sunsets and sunrises and just a lot,
and you know it's all in my book.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
So which, like you said, this is what you captured
in your snow trilogy. Can you tell us some more
about those books?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Absolutely so. Actually, because it's the fiftieth anniversary of the
Fall of Saigon this year, which we call it Black April,
I released all three books in one volume and it's
called the Snow Trilogy Anniversary Edition. But the first book
really talks about my mom's journey, how she was betrayed
by my dad, what life was like in Vietnam under
(22:01):
communist rule, you know, having to survive that, and then
the refugee camp and all that stuff. But the second book,
Snow in Seattle, is about how we got resettled in America,
what life was like for not only us, but for
the war veterans to return to the US, finding you know,
their space and healing. And then the Snow's Kitchen, which
is the third book. It's the novella and a cookbook,
(22:24):
and it's you know, throughout the three books that we
talk about food quite a bit, and so the cookbook
kind of ties it all in with some of my
favorite recipes, my mom's recipes. But the third book is
really about my life as a teenager, trying to figure
out my role between the Vietnamese culture and the American culture.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So, yeah, wow, I think you mentioned before nine books.
Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
One Snow books and then what okay.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So I have so Vietnam Snow in Seattle, Snow's Kitchen.
I have the Snow Trilogy at a collect edition, but
also with Listener Trilogy. It's an anniversary edition. But I
at the Copper Phoenix, which I ghost wrote, but the
author passed away, so I took full control of that book,
so my name's on there. I have Bustop Buddies, which
(23:16):
I wrote under my pen name with a collaboration with
my son about bullying. It's the middle grade, middle grade
fix excuse me fiction. And then I have Immigrants of
Immigrant Voices in the Pandemic, which is a collapse in
anthology basically that was picked up by Solid Press in
the UK. And I have Asian Women Crailblazers who Boss Up,
(23:38):
also an anthology of sixteen women who Asian women who
are unapologetic about what they do in life. So those
are the nine books, and then four coloring books that
really don't count, but you know it was fun to do, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well everything, okay, it counts. And you also started a
company quill Hall tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So quill Hawks started two and a half years ago,
in August of twenty twenty two, and the name quill
Hawk comes from obviously quill for the writing instrument. But
the hawk comes from the Seattle Seahawks. I'm originally in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I thought hawk in the Oklahoma Sky, but no, no.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And I'm a Seahawks fan of one of the twelves.
And if you're a super fan, you get a hawk
name that goes into this list of this book basically,
and quill hawk is my name. So that's where that
name came from. But I started at two and a
half years ago because somebody reached out to me on
social media and said, Amy, I've been seeing you hustling
(24:44):
your book and doing all these things, but you're doing
it wrong and yeah, and then I and he said,
I want to show you what you can do to
elevate your brand. I really think you need to show
authors or you know, educate authors on the process and
teach them. And I was very hesitant because I was like,
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just kind of
(25:06):
doing and she's like, oh, you know more than you
think you know. And that's how that started. And he
built me a website and we spent months on getting
the seos, the keywords and you know, all that fun stuff.
And that's how that launched.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Go ahead, Laura, I just think that's fascinating. And then
is cool Hawk publishing the books or are you helping
indie authors to publish their books themselves.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So cool Hat Publishing is a hybrid publishing company. We
do help authors indie publish their books. And as you know,
hybrid is kind of a new thing right now. I
mean it's been around, but it's kind of new, and
it really is debtailing the best traditional publishing and self publishing,
you know. And with Quilhawks where we're a little bit
(25:54):
different in that we instead of sharing the profits and
the royalties with the we actually give the authors full
on other royalties and full control of their work, so
they have they have full control. And how we make
our money is really because of an author subsidized model.
(26:14):
We share the costs in publishing and they will, you
know less, they provide me five copies of their books,
so it's more of a consignment situation. You know, I'll
put their books on my bookshelf if they want me
to do that. I'll take their books to like a conference,
and if I sell it, they get sixty percent. But
the shared cost comes from you know, charging them less.
(26:35):
For example, for editing. You know, editors can charge two
to precents let's say per words, and we're more in
the one to two cents space, So we really try
to make it affordable and accessible for our authors.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Okay, what kind of editing do you provide to those authors?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I do line editing, but I have three other authors
who do editing. One is really good about content editing,
the other one loves copy editing. I have a poetry editor,
which is a unique space. And so but you know,
between us, we kind of rotate the work depending on
what the needs are, and we give you know, samples,
(27:16):
and sometimes the author will say I like the way
Amy works or you know Malia works, and wiggle with that.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Nice and and.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Of course you are talking about marketing a minute ago
and somebody telling you you were doing it wrong. Does
quill Hack provide that too?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So I helped with promos and marketing is not necessarily
my strong point, but I do have Media Vines Corporation,
Media Vine Corporation and that Digital Rush. Those are my
two marketing partners, and so I punch it over to
them to manage, and it really depends on what the
author wants for marketing. Also, you know what their budget is.
(27:56):
And sometimes I'll even refer them to like black Chattaux,
depending on, you know, what I think is best for
the author in terms of their goals.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Black Chateau meaning desire. Daffy who's been on the podcast
a time or two and also contributed a craft corner
like I was trying to get you to do this morning.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
It's all right, We're good for now.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, but I'm happy to do another one, or do one.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Please, please do?
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Are you still doing your own writing, Amy? I'm curious
if you intend to do some more writing or if
you've just switched to helping other authors now? Was that?
Have you kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Working on two projects right now? One is my memoir
and the memoir is called From Broken to Brave Memoir
of a Heart Warrior, and it's about all the times
that my heart was either broken or not functioning in life.
Right The only thing that's stopping me from finishing that
one is really talking to my roommate from college. We
(29:03):
just reconnected after you know, decades, and she has a
big piece of my life puzzle that I don't remember
I was. I blacked out on that one, and so
she's she's got that piece and I need to go
fly to Seattle and talk to her. But the other
piece I'm working on is my dad's story, and it
is you know, he lived a really crazy, horrific life.
(29:28):
I would say, way worse than what my mom went through.
And he's eighty eight. He just flew back to Vietnam
and plans I'm living there. So I've got some audio
of you know, his story, but my goal, hopefully is
to go back to Vietnam and continue that journey with
him before he passes.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Wow, that's fabulous, that's yeah, this is the time to
capture that for sure.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Would you consider yourself a panther or a planner? I
would think that you need to plan when you're writing
something that all encompassing, But how does it work best
for you?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
So I tried to be a plotter when I first
wrote Snow in Vietnam, and that just went out the door.
Like my husband when I, yeah, I committed to writing,
he built this whole office like Florida, ceiling of whiteboard
and then after five minutes, I was like, I can't
do this. In my corporate life, I was very much
(30:29):
a planner, you know, But yeah, creative writing I just
let the character speak to me and tell me if
they want to, you know, die, if they want to
eat cereals, breakfasts, I mean they leave the charge.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
White boards. Was that so you could draw your like,
do your outline right on the wall?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Oh yeah, Like all the whole room is a whiteboard,
and I tried to map it all out.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And few years before that was Faulkner's home and he
did this same thing, but he just wrote on the wall.
There was nothing fancy there. You could still see the outline.
Do a fable right there on the wall.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Anyway, I'm sorry, go.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Ahead, no problem. I was just gonna say. Philip Margalin
in a talk he was giving it specifically said if
the outline stops you from writing, to throw it out.
So you absolutely did the right thing. So in that light,
what does a typical writing day look like for you?
When you're writing? What does your process look like?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So I usually wake up. I'm an early bird and
I'll wake up at you.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
Know, jealous, I have to be up at like six ish.
I get that. But yeah, I'm I'm by nature and
night owl.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, so I get up, I get a little bit
of work done, I take my son to school, come back,
do my pilates, have my coffee, and then I pound away.
Usually check the mail email first, although I do get
easily distracted with social media, so I'm trying to get better.
That's my twenty twenty five goal. But and then I'll
(32:07):
sit there, you know, I'm usually working until about one
or two o'clock, and then I'll break my fast and
have a little snack, and then by four o'clock I'm
in the kitchen with me something up and get my
friend from school, and then we have dinner and yeah, decompressed,
and then all over again.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
That's great, and get a full day and that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, Yeah, I got a hustle. Yeah, I feel like
I started late, you know, with this whole thing and.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
You and every other rid. Yes, I constantly feel like
I'm not getting enough done and not getting done quickly enough.
I get it.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, I got a way though. Writer Con was amazing
because I moved here in Oklahoma in twenty eighteen and
twenty twenty. With my first conference at twenty twenty one,
I was invited to the speaker. I was scared because
that was my first real big speaking engagement and I
spoke about author branding. So if you two, I feel
(33:10):
a little bit more comfortable, you know, day by day,
conference by conference, but more speaking.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Oh good, well, you were terrific. I was.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I remember the first time I spoke at a conference
it was not terrific. But we're not going to go
into that. Lara asked some nice questions.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Well, and these conferences that you're attending now speaking at,
I mean, what are some of the crafts tips or
maybe skill tips, something you've learned along the way you
know that you maybe you wish you knew earlier, or
that you feel good about sharing with others.
Speaker 8 (33:44):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I talked to Bill about, you know, the whost show
don't tell kind of thing, and one of the biggest
tips I got was in everyday life, just have a
note pad and look at a door, look at a window,
look at a car, whatever, and just jot down some
of the things that you notice. What does it feel like,
what's the texture, what does it smell like? And it
(34:06):
reminds you of you know, those kind of things. And
then when you start writing and a door pops up
and there's an opportunity to describe the door, You've got
your little note already. So I think that's the hardest
part for writers, is not telling right.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Well, yeah, it's it's your natural, extinct instinct.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Let's get there, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:30):
All right, Amy, one last question, what are you working
on now or what can we expect to see from
you next?
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I definitely want to continue promoting Snow Vietnam, you know,
my trilogy basically for the anniversary edition, and continue growing
Quill Hawk. We've got in two and a half years,
fifty four authors under the umbrella, so that is fifty
I hear that right, No, I said that wrong. It's
two and a half years, fifty four authors.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Okay, it's still a good number.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yes, so they keep me busy. But I would like
to do some more traveling and speaking engagements. That's my
cold for twenty twenty five anyway, and then continue to
write my memoir. So Rina, if you're out there, I
want to talk to you about my college years.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Amy, thanks so much for being on the podcast. We
really appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (35:26):
Take care, toxic, bye bye.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Just a few parting words. I got to mention writer
con Cruise again. Maybe I should give it a resk,
but I just feel like it's January and the cruises
in May.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We're cold now, you could be cold in May.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Right, and we're going to Alaska, so you can be yeah, yeah,
Do you like this feeling that you're feeling right now?
Speaker 4 (36:02):
You can have more of it.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
It may plan now to be freezing cold once again,
that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
It's really the first week of June. It could be
getting very warm here. You could welcome yeah, cooler weather
of an Alaska cruise.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
A brisk wind might be just the thing and some
winter wonderland.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
But it'll be cold.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
It will be warmer than seven degrees so right, which
is what it is.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Right now, and even better over twenty hours of riding
instruction large.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Warm riding instruction.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yes, yes warm, Yes, well you bring the blankets and no,
I'm sure it'll be fine on the boat. Large groups,
small group, could treat groups people you can talk to
one on one. Plus we have a really good time.
So if that sounds like something that might help you
get to the next step in your writing, like go
(37:02):
take a look at the website which is writer con
dot com slash cruise if you want to see the cruise.
If you just go to writer Con and you read
about everything, the cruise and the retreat and the annual conference.
But I'm sure I'll be whacking on about those soon anyway,
so I'll leave it for and now. But if you're
(37:25):
worried about missing out, you know Fomo and all that,
join the writer Con Facebook group and like do it now.
Just go to Facebook, search for writer Con, get the group,
not the event page, and join. It costs nothing, and
I think you have to be approved, and I will
I promise next time I get there, you'll be on there.
(37:46):
And then you cannot only read what everybody else is posting,
but kind of keep on what's going on in the
book world and the writer con world in between podcasts.
All right, until next time, keep writing and remember you cannot.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Fail if you refuse to quit. See you next time,
This week on the writer Con podcast, I.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Would say start yesterday. Everybody always says, you know, I'll
start win or I will start promoting when I have
my book published, you know, and them. Yeah, as soon
as you have that idea and you're going to commit
to writing it, that's when you start.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Welcome to writer Con, the gathering place for writers to
share their knowledge about writing and the writing world. Your
hosts are William Bernhardt, best selling novelist and author of
the Red Sneaker books on writing, and Laura Bernhardt, Award
winning author of the want Ln Files book series.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Thank you, Jesse ul Rich. Hey, they're writers. Thanks for
joining us today. We're going to take you back to
grade school because today Jesse brought some.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
Show and tell. It's a huge book.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
I assume it's a James Patterson novel.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Am I right?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
How dare you look at this baby?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
Look at the sweet What is it like?
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Four thousand pages?
Speaker 4 (01:02):
It is thirteen hundred pages.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
That's longer than War in Peace?
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Ten days?
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It is ten days breaking up the chapters?
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Are the days?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Do you portion it out? So you say, okay, I've
read one hundred and thirty pages. I can quit now.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
No, I just I did not get last sleep between
December sixth and when I finished.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
So, uh you now he's younger than I am, because
that's not how it worked for me. I would fall
asleep on the second page and it wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Matter what I'm planning to do.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I fight through it.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Very impressive. Well, Laura, what are you reading these days?
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Something? Anything?
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yes, yes, d it was something on that iPad last night.
Speaker 5 (01:45):
Yeah, several books. I'm actually finishing up a Discovery of Witches,
and I have ice Breaker waiting to go, and I'm
also reading Crying an Aged Mark.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Sounds good books. I'm reading American Comics, A History by
Oh gosh, I didn't know we were going to do this.
I can't think of his name, Jeremy Dauber. I so
apologize if I've forgotten your name. But your book is terrific.
It's sort of a global history of the comic book,
(02:20):
which I know now everybody's You had this classy science
fiction novel, Lara had classy stuff, and I've got the history.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Of comic books. But whatever, they're all good books, right, yes.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Our interview today is with Amy M.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
Lee.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
She is the award winning author of The Snow trilogy
and several other books as well, and a longtime friend
of writer Common. She's also the founder of quill Hawk,
a female owned Asian American company that helps writers indye
publish their books. We're going to talk to her about
all that and much more, but first the news news
(03:18):
story number one. I think this is going to delight you, Laura.
I'm kidding. I remember on the last episode when we
were making predictions, you said you were worried about AI,
and with good reason, because somewhere at the end of
last year, after we did our last podcast, one of
the Big five publishers, HarperCollins, signed a formal agreement with
(03:40):
Microsoft to allow them to use the publisher's nonfiction works.
This is Harper Collins. Can you imagine the number of
nonfiction books they have in print?
Speaker 4 (03:52):
It would be huge.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
Anyway, it's no longer a question of whether publishers are
going to allow AI to scrape the books. They are
and this three year agreement says they're going to pay
HarperCollins five thousand per book, and HarperCollins says they will
share that evenly, which would suggest that an author is
(04:15):
going to get twenty five hundred bucks for allowing their
books to be screat But listen to this part. First thing,
nobody even knows what exactly it is Microsoft is doing
with this. They've got some kind of new model, but
they haven't told anyone what it is. They say it
won't be to generate new AI books, I promise.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Well what then?
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Anyway, So they can't do it without the author's permission,
they say, and the AI model will be limited. To
listen to this, their product will be quote no more
than two hundred consecutive words, or five percent of a
book's text in it's output. That's and or so does
(05:05):
that mean one or the other? Well, yeah, exactly five
percent of that would be thirteen hundred you say a
quick math, that's like sixties five pages. Holy smokes, I mean,
that's enormous. According to Poles, less than half forty seven
(05:27):
percent of US adults trust companies to responsibly prevent their
AI models from creating work that's derivative of other work.
In other words, the people who are working with this
aren't sure they can control AI. And now you know,
HarperCollins is just going to be the first. The others
(05:48):
will follow suit. And now they're having permission to generate
pages and pages that is, word for word taken from
somebody else's books. You know what humans are going to
do with regard to these future publications is hard to understand. Laura,
(06:12):
would you take this deal? It's twenty five hundred bucks.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
The money is good, All many is good.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Many it is good.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
I know, So I couldn't. I couldn't fault somebody for
taking that deal. Let's say I wrote nonfiction and I
was asked about this, boy. I mean, it's less it's
less dubious, I suppose, than just data scraping and taking it.
It seems like a baby step in the right direction
that they're at least asking for permission to use it.
(06:46):
But I still don't love it. I just still don't
love it. AI to me equals right now plagiarism over
and over again. It's just taking somebody else's words and
creating something new and not letting anyone know where it
came from. I kind of feel right now about AI
(07:06):
at this point in my life, I think the way
Jesse feels about James Patterson. I just just could.
Speaker 4 (07:13):
Do without that.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Yeah, Jesse, what do you? I mean? Clearly, Lara's right,
some people are going to do it. Are they going
to regret it later?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
I just wish people who are working on AI would
focus on the ad AI parts that will make our
lives easier and not the creative parts that make things
that we don't need, Like help me manage my schedule,
help remind me of the things they need to do,
like stop trying to create art.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
But don't you think that's in part where it's going,
Because yeah, we can write something ourselves, but not everyone can,
and that's how this is how they're going to generate
a short story or a song or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
I think it's a crutch because at some point an
author can't pretend to write things if they're using AI
to do it. Eventually they're gonna get caught, or they're
eventually someone's good to know, or eventually they're gonna be
asked for something that AI can't produce for them. So again, like,
help me make my minutes for the board I'm on
for this nonprofit and help me go through my emails.
(08:18):
Stop trying to write a novel?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Yeah yeah, good, Hey, Internet.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
Stop it stop it just stop it?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Is that going to be your next after James Patterson?
Is you can't take down the whole internet.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
Yeah, listen, you can when James, Like when James Patterson
starts using AI to write write his novel so he
doesn't have to pay ghost writers, Like, then you will
have a fiel day on this podcast.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
Yeah, we'll both furious. Yeah, you'll have the wrath of
both of us going.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Yeah, are you ready for that?
Speaker 4 (08:45):
James? Are you ready for Are you ready for that?
All right?
Speaker 3 (08:50):
News story number two. And let me warn you in
advance that this involves some unpleasant discussion of inappropriate relationships Withers,
So trigger warning. If that's going to bother you, skip
ahead to craft corner.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
Unfortunately, this scandal involves Carmack McCarthy, the very successful, prominent
literary writer who passed not very long ago, but just
a few I think it was the last issue Vanity
Fair published a bombshell article informing everyone that Carmack McCarthy,
(09:28):
this is the author of All the Pretty Horses and
when a Pulletzer for the Road and whatnot. Anyway, one
of our most celebrated novelists had a relationship with a
girl and am using that word advisedly. A girl he
met when he was forty two, and she was sixteen.
She was a foster child, an abused child, and a
(09:48):
runaway who reportedly felt so unsafe at home she often
carried a gun and used the pool area and the
motel to shower. And it just sounds horrible. She says,
she didn't know that McCarthy was married when the relationship began,
or that he had a son almost exactly her age.
(10:12):
She did a few years later in the sexual relationship,
but they continued to stay in touch. They exchanged letters,
talked on the phone, visited each other. It doesn't seem
to have been any acrimony. And apparently most of his
friends and a lot of scholars and critics who wrote
(10:34):
about him were already aware of this, but keeping it
to themselves. What I found interesting is that, I mean,
nobody's approving obviously, but then again, nobody's calling to ban
his books or anything.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
But most of the.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Chatter has been about Vanity Fair's assertion that this woman,
miss Britt, was the key inspiration for some of his
most memorable female characters. And if you're like me and
you've read him, you start thinking female character, female character,
there are many, and they're mostly like you know, victims
(11:11):
or people bad things happen too, and that opens a
whole new kettle of fish. But anyway, you know, they're
recurring themes, his obsession with horses, guns, vulnerable young women
who suffer advice suffer violence rather and heartbreak, and at
(11:32):
least occurding this article that's all attributable back to this
young woman Wanda in Harrogate and Sutry Karla Jean and
No Country for Old Men Alejandra and All the Pretty Horses, which,
by the way, is a terrific book, even though I
may never endorse a Cormack McCarthy a book again, but
(11:55):
it is what can you do? And also in the article,
she said that this romantic relationship was consensual. Of course,
many people are going to say that's not even possible
when somebody's sixteen. Oh here's a detail I left out
(12:15):
just to give you this. She also said McCarthy doctored
her birth certificate so he could get her into Mexico. Okay, Laura,
will you be reading any Carmack McCarthy books anytime soon?
Or is it fair for us to judge me? I mean, yeah,
it's disturbing, but what writer did live up perfectly? Or
(12:40):
what anybody I haven't let it perfectly. I haven't done this.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
But be careful, Bill, be careful laws.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
This is what I'm trying to say. Uh so what
do you, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
You think you could still read one of his books?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
Well, you just gave a pretty darned amazing endorsem meant
for one of them.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
People love that trilogy.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
I probably could. Is this absolutely disgusted me? Yes, I
don't understand. I don't understand this type of behavior from
either a male or a female. I don't feel very
much to me like they're preying upon a child. But yeah,
(13:27):
of course I can also remember when I was sixteen,
I thought I was full grown and knew everything, but
but I didn't. I don't know, especially when you have
a child that age, I would be seeing my child
in that child like I can't. I just can't imagine.
But it's none of us is perfect Throwstones.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I mean, I can tell you I'm forty three now
and I could not date a seventeen now. That would
be gross.
Speaker 5 (13:59):
But this was a sixty year old. It's gross, gross,
and it does feel very predatory to me.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
Yeah, I don't know how it came about, except that
I know she was a foster child.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
So yeah, more ick, yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Is it possible to enjoy somebody's literature when you're in
the back of your mind you're thinking, oh, well, world goal,
anchi semitic and you know, Kip playing racist.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Listen, if I didn't, if I didn't read people who
you know, I discovered later anti semites that have very
few books to read. So you know, you just you
find a way to separate the art from the arts.
It helps that he's dead now, yeah, because like you
don't want them to profit off these horrible behaviors.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
How did they ever keep this secret when he's so
prominent and so many people apparently knew about it.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
If it happened early enough, if it happened early enough
in the age of the internet, like it just stayed there.
And you know, had it happened had he been doing
it now, we would people would have found out, and
it would and someone would have posted it that just
like what would happened with Neil Gaman, Like it would
have come out and in a way that you know,
(15:15):
uh not not through like a normal channel.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
So yeah, yeah, I think you're right all right.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
Today in Craft Corner we have back with us again.
John Myers and Emily Brooks, the authors of Right Better Together,
and they've got a podcast themselves this week. They're tackling
something different, something geared toward writers preparing for conferences and
speaking and writers' groups and all that. I think it's
(15:46):
a change of pace, but I think it's a very
interesting one. Take it away, John and Emily.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Craft Corner.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
Welcome everybody to Writer con Craft Corner. John Myers from
Write Better Together. Hey, look, everybody, as family Brooks.
Speaker 7 (16:03):
We're talking about the three elements authors should include when
building a masterclasses, and we're specifically going to be talking
about how to include your attendees. So the very first
thing is you want to establish their personal learning objectives
from the beginning. Every classroom is different. You have to
adjust sometimes based on your class's experience levels or what
(16:25):
they really came in for. It's good to ask those
questions of who are you, why are you here? If
you have a larger class, maybe you can do a survey.
Speaker 6 (16:33):
If you put your agenda aside and spend the first
thirty minutes of those attendees sharing why they're there with you,
it will totally change the remaining two and a half
hours because they will have clarified what they were trying
to get out of the thing, and they will have
bonded as a community, and your job is done.
Speaker 7 (16:54):
The second thing that we do is include interactive exercises
that introduce or utilize your main learning objectives. So you
could give them any kind of exercise really that is
going to help you get that conversation going.
Speaker 6 (17:07):
It also gets rid of some preconceived notions. You can
establish upfront what they thought it was going to be
than what it really is.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
Period.
Speaker 7 (17:15):
It also makes it more memorable by allowing them to
actually practice what you're talking about and they can take
that home with them. The last one is to structure
time or a strategy for answering questions.
Speaker 6 (17:29):
So you want to resolve their questions, but you don't
have time for a twenty minute soliloquy, and that's not
what the other attendees paid for. If you have small
moments of time carved out after each segment, and you
tell them that upfront, then they'll know, oh, here's my
opportunity to ask questions. If it's a longer or more
complicated question, you can take that out to the hallway
(17:50):
after the session.
Speaker 7 (17:51):
Or here's my email you can send me questions.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
Thank you, William, Laura and Jesse for having us on.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Thank you John and Emily. All right, Jesse, let's talk
to Amy em Lee. Amy em Lee, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. You know
you've made it when you've been invited to Writer podcast?
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Is that it? I kind of have that in a quote.
Speaker 4 (18:21):
We'll put that on the website.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
You got it, all right?
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Traditional first question, Amy, if you could offer writers one
piece of advice.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
What would it be.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I would say, start yesterday. Everybody always says, you know,
I'll start when or I will start promoting when I
have my book published. You know, Yeah, as soon as
you have that idea and you're going to commit to
writing it, that's when you start.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
Tell me how did you get started writing? Because I
know you've done other things in your life. Where did
the writing come from?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Twenty seventeen, my mom passed away and that's what started
my journey to healing. You know, I worked in the
corporate space for over twenty years, and when mom passed,
I just quit, took two years off, and God told
me to write my mom's story, and that's how I
started to unearth my heritage, understand my boat refugee experience
(19:23):
as you know, a survivor of the Vietnam War, and
how we came to the United States. And that just
started my journey. And before you know, I had a
trilogy with Snow Trilogy and then now it's like nine
books later. It's just yeah, it's crazy, how sure we
get back.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
To that though I knew you were from Vietnam boat refugee,
tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
So the boat people are the refugees who left Vietnam
via boat, you know, after the war ended in April
nineteen seventy five, which the fiftieth anniversary is coming up
this year in April.
Speaker 5 (20:00):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
So hundreds of thousands of people fled the country seeking freedom,
and many of them went by boat. In the middle
of the night. They were out in the South China Sea.
They were hit by pirates, starvation, you know, just sold
many things, and a lot of us made it to
a refugee camp and then ultimately got sponsored. Some of
(20:20):
them got deflected back, some of them never made it
and just perished at sea. So but yeah, we were many.
We were one of the lucky boat people who survived.
Speaker 5 (20:34):
Can you remember that journey?
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Is that?
Speaker 5 (20:36):
How old were you when that happened?
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, so I was five, and you know, the main
reason for us leaving. There were several reasons, but one
of us is because I was born with a congenital
heart defect and if I didn't get medical care, I
would have died before the age of five. So we
literally had enough money to scrape it together when I
was five to escape the country. We were hit by it,
like I said, a lot of storms and irate from
(21:00):
that kind of thing. But I came to the United
States right when I turned six. I had open heart
surgery at Seattle Children's and here I am fifty fifty
years old. I'm still kicking.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
Terrifying to me, it is terrifying.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
I remember parts of our journey. I remember the boat burning,
you know, the beautiful sunsets and sunrises and just a lot,
and you know it's all in my book.
Speaker 5 (21:28):
So which, like you said, this is what you captured
in your snow trilogy. Can you tell us some more
about those books?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Absolutely so. Actually, because it's the fiftieth anniversary of the
Fall of Saigon this year, which we call it Black April,
I released all three books in one volume and it's
called the Snow Trilogy Anniversary Edition. But the first book
really talks about my mom's journey, how she was betrayed
by my dad, what life was like in Vietnam under
(22:01):
communist rule, you know, having to survive that, and then
the refugee camp and all that stuff. But the second book,
Snow in Seattle, is about how we got resettled in America,
what life was like for not only us, but for
the war veterans to return to the US, finding you know,
their space and healing. And then the Snow's Kitchen, which
is the third book. It's the novella and a cookbook,
(22:24):
and it's you know, throughout the three books that we
talk about food quite a bit, and so the cookbook
kind of ties it all in with some of my
favorite recipes, my mom's recipes. But the third book is
really about my life as a teenager, trying to figure
out my role between the Vietnamese culture and the American culture.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
So, yeah, wow, I think you mentioned before nine books.
Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
One Snow books and then what okay.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
So I have so Vietnam Snow in Seattle, Snow's Kitchen.
I have the Snow Trilogy at a collect edition, but
also with Listener Trilogy. It's an anniversary edition. But I
at the Copper Phoenix, which I ghost wrote, but the
author passed away, so I took full control of that book,
so my name's on there. I have Bustop Buddies, which
(23:16):
I wrote under my pen name with a collaboration with
my son about bullying. It's the middle grade, middle grade
fix excuse me fiction. And then I have Immigrants of
Immigrant Voices in the Pandemic, which is a collapse in
anthology basically that was picked up by Solid Press in
the UK. And I have Asian Women Crailblazers who Boss Up,
(23:38):
also an anthology of sixteen women who Asian women who
are unapologetic about what they do in life. So those
are the nine books, and then four coloring books that
really don't count, but you know it was fun to do, fantastic.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Well everything, okay, it counts. And you also started a
company quill Hall tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
So quill Hawks started two and a half years ago,
in August of twenty twenty two, and the name quill
Hawk comes from obviously quill for the writing instrument. But
the hawk comes from the Seattle Seahawks. I'm originally in Seattle.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
I thought hawk in the Oklahoma Sky, but no, no.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And I'm a Seahawks fan of one of the twelves.
And if you're a super fan, you get a hawk
name that goes into this list of this book basically,
and quill hawk is my name. So that's where that
name came from. But I started at two and a
half years ago because somebody reached out to me on
social media and said, Amy, I've been seeing you hustling
(24:44):
your book and doing all these things, but you're doing
it wrong and yeah, and then I and he said,
I want to show you what you can do to
elevate your brand. I really think you need to show
authors or you know, educate authors on the process and
teach them. And I was very hesitant because I was like,
I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just kind of
(25:06):
doing and she's like, oh, you know more than you
think you know. And that's how that started. And he
built me a website and we spent months on getting
the seos, the keywords and you know, all that fun stuff.
And that's how that launched.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Go ahead, Laura, I just think that's fascinating. And then
is cool Hawk publishing the books or are you helping
indie authors to publish their books themselves.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So cool Hat Publishing is a hybrid publishing company. We
do help authors indie publish their books. And as you know,
hybrid is kind of a new thing right now. I
mean it's been around, but it's kind of new, and
it really is debtailing the best traditional publishing and self publishing,
you know. And with Quilhawks where we're a little bit
(25:54):
different in that we instead of sharing the profits and
the royalties with the we actually give the authors full
on other royalties and full control of their work, so
they have they have full control. And how we make
our money is really because of an author subsidized model.
(26:14):
We share the costs in publishing and they will, you
know less, they provide me five copies of their books,
so it's more of a consignment situation. You know, I'll
put their books on my bookshelf if they want me
to do that. I'll take their books to like a conference,
and if I sell it, they get sixty percent. But
the shared cost comes from you know, charging them less.
(26:35):
For example, for editing. You know, editors can charge two
to precents let's say per words, and we're more in
the one to two cents space, So we really try
to make it affordable and accessible for our authors.
Speaker 5 (26:51):
Okay, what kind of editing do you provide to those authors?
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I do line editing, but I have three other authors
who do editing. One is really good about content editing,
the other one loves copy editing. I have a poetry editor,
which is a unique space. And so but you know,
between us, we kind of rotate the work depending on
what the needs are, and we give you know, samples,
(27:16):
and sometimes the author will say I like the way
Amy works or you know Malia works, and wiggle with that.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Nice and and.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Of course you are talking about marketing a minute ago
and somebody telling you you were doing it wrong. Does
quill Hack provide that too?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So I helped with promos and marketing is not necessarily
my strong point, but I do have Media Vines Corporation,
Media Vine Corporation and that Digital Rush. Those are my
two marketing partners, and so I punch it over to
them to manage, and it really depends on what the
author wants for marketing. Also, you know what their budget is.
(27:56):
And sometimes I'll even refer them to like black Chattaux,
depending on, you know, what I think is best for
the author in terms of their goals.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Black Chateau meaning desire. Daffy who's been on the podcast
a time or two and also contributed a craft corner
like I was trying to get you to do this morning.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
It's all right, We're good for now.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, but I'm happy to do another one, or do one.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Please, please do?
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Are you still doing your own writing, Amy? I'm curious
if you intend to do some more writing or if
you've just switched to helping other authors now? Was that?
Have you kind of.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Working on two projects right now? One is my memoir
and the memoir is called From Broken to Brave Memoir
of a Heart Warrior, and it's about all the times
that my heart was either broken or not functioning in life.
Right The only thing that's stopping me from finishing that
one is really talking to my roommate from college. We
(29:03):
just reconnected after you know, decades, and she has a
big piece of my life puzzle that I don't remember
I was. I blacked out on that one, and so
she's she's got that piece and I need to go
fly to Seattle and talk to her. But the other
piece I'm working on is my dad's story, and it
is you know, he lived a really crazy, horrific life.
(29:28):
I would say, way worse than what my mom went through.
And he's eighty eight. He just flew back to Vietnam
and plans I'm living there. So I've got some audio
of you know, his story, but my goal, hopefully is
to go back to Vietnam and continue that journey with
him before he passes.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Wow, that's fabulous, that's yeah, this is the time to
capture that for sure.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Would you consider yourself a panther or a planner? I
would think that you need to plan when you're writing
something that all encompassing, But how does it work best
for you?
Speaker 2 (30:09):
So I tried to be a plotter when I first
wrote Snow in Vietnam, and that just went out the door.
Like my husband when I, yeah, I committed to writing,
he built this whole office like Florida, ceiling of whiteboard
and then after five minutes, I was like, I can't
do this. In my corporate life, I was very much
(30:29):
a planner, you know, But yeah, creative writing I just
let the character speak to me and tell me if
they want to, you know, die, if they want to
eat cereals, breakfasts, I mean they leave the charge.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
White boards. Was that so you could draw your like,
do your outline right on the wall?
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Oh yeah, Like all the whole room is a whiteboard,
and I tried to map it all out.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
And few years before that was Faulkner's home and he
did this same thing, but he just wrote on the wall.
There was nothing fancy there. You could still see the outline.
Do a fable right there on the wall.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
Anyway, I'm sorry, go.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Ahead, no problem. I was just gonna say. Philip Margalin
in a talk he was giving it specifically said if
the outline stops you from writing, to throw it out.
So you absolutely did the right thing. So in that light,
what does a typical writing day look like for you?
When you're writing? What does your process look like?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So I usually wake up. I'm an early bird and
I'll wake up at you.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
Know, jealous, I have to be up at like six ish.
I get that. But yeah, I'm I'm by nature and
night owl.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, so I get up, I get a little bit
of work done, I take my son to school, come back,
do my pilates, have my coffee, and then I pound away.
Usually check the mail email first, although I do get
easily distracted with social media, so I'm trying to get better.
That's my twenty twenty five goal. But and then I'll
(32:07):
sit there, you know, I'm usually working until about one
or two o'clock, and then I'll break my fast and
have a little snack, and then by four o'clock I'm
in the kitchen with me something up and get my
friend from school, and then we have dinner and yeah, decompressed,
and then all over again.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
That's great, and get a full day and that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, Yeah, I got a hustle. Yeah, I feel like
I started late, you know, with this whole thing and.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
You and every other rid. Yes, I constantly feel like
I'm not getting enough done and not getting done quickly enough.
I get it.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Yeah, I got a way though. Writer Con was amazing
because I moved here in Oklahoma in twenty eighteen and
twenty twenty. With my first conference at twenty twenty one,
I was invited to the speaker. I was scared because
that was my first real big speaking engagement and I
spoke about author branding. So if you two, I feel
(33:10):
a little bit more comfortable, you know, day by day,
conference by conference, but more speaking.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Oh good, well, you were terrific. I was.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
I remember the first time I spoke at a conference
it was not terrific. But we're not going to go
into that. Lara asked some nice questions.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
Well, and these conferences that you're attending now speaking at,
I mean, what are some of the crafts tips or
maybe skill tips, something you've learned along the way you
know that you maybe you wish you knew earlier, or
that you feel good about sharing with others.
Speaker 8 (33:44):
Now.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I talked to Bill about, you know, the whost show
don't tell kind of thing, and one of the biggest
tips I got was in everyday life, just have a
note pad and look at a door, look at a window,
look at a car, whatever, and just jot down some
of the things that you notice. What does it feel like,
what's the texture, what does it smell like? And it
(34:06):
reminds you of you know, those kind of things. And
then when you start writing and a door pops up
and there's an opportunity to describe the door, You've got
your little note already. So I think that's the hardest
part for writers, is not telling right.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
Well, yeah, it's it's your natural, extinct instinct.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Let's get there, you know.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:30):
All right, Amy, one last question, what are you working
on now or what can we expect to see from
you next?
Speaker 2 (34:37):
I definitely want to continue promoting Snow Vietnam, you know,
my trilogy basically for the anniversary edition, and continue growing
Quill Hawk. We've got in two and a half years,
fifty four authors under the umbrella, so that is fifty
I hear that right, No, I said that wrong. It's
two and a half years, fifty four authors.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Okay, it's still a good number.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Yes, so they keep me busy. But I would like
to do some more traveling and speaking engagements. That's my
cold for twenty twenty five anyway, and then continue to
write my memoir. So Rina, if you're out there, I
want to talk to you about my college years.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Amy, thanks so much for being on the podcast. We
really appreciate it.
Speaker 8 (35:26):
Take care, toxic, bye bye.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Just a few parting words. I got to mention writer
con Cruise again. Maybe I should give it a resk,
but I just feel like it's January and the cruises
in May.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
We're cold now, you could be cold in May.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Right, and we're going to Alaska, so you can be yeah, yeah,
Do you like this feeling that you're feeling right now?
Speaker 4 (36:02):
You can have more of it.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
It may plan now to be freezing cold once again,
that's exactly right.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
It's really the first week of June. It could be
getting very warm here. You could welcome yeah, cooler weather
of an Alaska cruise.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
A brisk wind might be just the thing and some
winter wonderland.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
But it'll be cold.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
It will be warmer than seven degrees so right, which
is what it is.
Speaker 3 (36:31):
Right now, and even better over twenty hours of riding
instruction large.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Warm riding instruction.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yes, yes warm, Yes, well you bring the blankets and no,
I'm sure it'll be fine on the boat. Large groups,
small group, could treat groups people you can talk to
one on one. Plus we have a really good time.
So if that sounds like something that might help you
get to the next step in your writing, like go
(37:02):
take a look at the website which is writer con
dot com slash cruise if you want to see the cruise.
If you just go to writer Con and you read
about everything, the cruise and the retreat and the annual conference.
But I'm sure I'll be whacking on about those soon anyway,
so I'll leave it for and now. But if you're
(37:25):
worried about missing out, you know Fomo and all that,
join the writer Con Facebook group and like do it now.
Just go to Facebook, search for writer Con, get the group,
not the event page, and join. It costs nothing, and
I think you have to be approved, and I will
I promise next time I get there, you'll be on there.
(37:46):
And then you cannot only read what everybody else is posting,
but kind of keep on what's going on in the
book world and the writer con world in between podcasts.
All right, until next time, keep writing and remember you cannot.
Speaker 4 (38:03):
Fail if you refuse to quit. See you next time,
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