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Speaker 1: You have to understand that the majority of the time

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Speaker 1: that Black Americans is spent in this country, it's been

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Speaker 1: spent on the side of being an other and it

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Speaker 1: still is today, and it's important for someone to understand

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Speaker 1: what the other feels like so that they can have

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Speaker 1: compassion for someone else. You can get into the complexities

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Speaker 1: of the stories and the complexity of the individual characters

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Speaker 1: and everything they're going through. Ultimately, it's like, listen, this

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Speaker 1: is what it feels like. And if you look at

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Speaker 1: that book and you go it makes me uncomfortable. Understand

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Speaker 1: that that discomfort is what other people are feeling when

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Speaker 1: you aren't recognizing them in their context of what's really

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Speaker 1: going on in the country.

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Speaker 2: Hey va, fam, I am honestly what an amazing idea.

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Speaker 2: I had to create a podcast where I can just

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Speaker 2: get incredible people to talk to me and people whose

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Speaker 2: work I have gotten to enjoy. And this is the

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Speaker 2: first time I feel like I don't think I've had

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Speaker 2: an author of a fiction novel. We do lots of

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Speaker 2: author interviews at Brown Ambition BA fan, you know, we

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Speaker 2: do because we love our career in our finance books.

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Speaker 2: But I am such a fiction fan. I mean, my

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Speaker 2: guilty secret as a personal finance and negotiation expert is

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Speaker 2: that the majority of what I read has nothing to

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Speaker 2: do with business and finance. It is escapism, It is

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Speaker 2: science fiction, it is fantasy, little romance. I love books.

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Speaker 2: They are so especially at a time like this, crucial,

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Speaker 2: as like an escape route from reality. Sometimes and then

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Speaker 2: there are books like sky Full of Elephants by today's

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Speaker 2: guest ce Bo Campbell, not Williams. Even though I will

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Speaker 2: never live down the mistake I made when I don't

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Speaker 2: know why I want you to be Williams so bad,

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Speaker 2: we'll just leave that alone. I have the author of

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Speaker 2: the novel sky Full of Elephants with us today, be

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Speaker 2: a fan, and I couldn't be more grateful. This is

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Speaker 2: just such a treat and such a joy for me

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Speaker 2: to be here. And he's in New York at Simon

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Speaker 2: and Schuster. On the seventh we talked about the seventeenth

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Speaker 2: floor on the celebrity floor. Now as someone who has

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Speaker 2: always loved books, and like also we'll talk about your

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Speaker 2: career path. You know you you work full time, you

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Speaker 2: have your own business. I'm just geeked for you, like

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Speaker 2: I am excited for you as a person who has

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Speaker 2: written this book who has which has become such a

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Speaker 2: massive success, and everybody black is talking about this book.

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Speaker 2: Everybody black. It's like sky full of elephants cinners. That's

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Speaker 2: my thread speed.

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Speaker 1: That's it, that's the that's what I want, that's what

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Speaker 1: I want. I want. It was for black people, so

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Speaker 1: it was it was important to me, indeed, And when

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Speaker 1: we did the initial marketing, I was like, I know,

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Speaker 1: you want to like try to get it in your times.

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Speaker 1: You want to try to get it in you know,

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Speaker 1: Alley Town's a possim Clobelet's find the black bookstrogrammers. Let's

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Speaker 1: go talk to them first. Let's give them arcs, Let's

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Speaker 1: give them space. And I put it out. I was like,

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Speaker 1: anyone that's trying to do a book club, there's four

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Speaker 1: people in that book club. There's twenty people in that

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Speaker 1: book club. I'm coming. Or you got to do is

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Speaker 1: say the word and I'll be there. And I did.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was, I don't even know. I did

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Speaker 1: like a hundred book clubs. I've done so many, and

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Speaker 1: it's like I want to have a conversation with black people.

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Speaker 1: And that the impetus came from like coming to my

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Speaker 1: aroun I first wrote the book my mom. I went

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Speaker 1: home to visit a mom and she invited all of

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Speaker 1: her church friends to the house and she was like,

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Speaker 1: they all need to talk to you about this book.

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Speaker 1: And I was like okay, and I said how they

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Speaker 1: had read it? My mom had an arc, so I

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Speaker 1: gave her a couple of early arts and she was

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Speaker 1: passing the minds all beat up, and they just they

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Speaker 1: were like, we want to talk to you. And it

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Speaker 1: was the range of conversation, the things that they really

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Speaker 1: didn't have space to communicate, didn't have space to get into,

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Speaker 1: they did and it was really remarkable, and I realized,

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Speaker 1: that's what that's what it's all about. The book is

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Speaker 1: a flat tape that we can gather around.

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Speaker 2: That's metaphor number two that I will steal.

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Speaker 1: And the anchor, fine, you can have it, you can

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Speaker 1: have it.

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Speaker 2: What a book? All right? I got to tell you something,

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Speaker 2: so bea fam I'm by the way, spoilers are ahead.

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Speaker 2: I'm not Terry Gross. I don't know how to do

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Speaker 2: a book interview and not reveal spoilers about the plot.

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Speaker 2: And the great thing about Sky Full of Elephants is

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Speaker 2: that the plot feels like a spoiler, And that's when

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Speaker 2: you know it's going to be good, because they're telling

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Speaker 2: you upfront. All the white people in the in America,

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Speaker 2: in North America, I think that's what we established in

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Speaker 2: the book, have found the nearest body of water and

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Speaker 2: unlive themselves, just walked on in. And we come to

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Speaker 2: this New America about a year after this so called event,

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Speaker 2: and we meet a couple of characters. We first meet Charlie,

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Speaker 2: who I love and do you are you someone? Cibo?

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Speaker 2: Like do you have? Do you picture someone in your

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Speaker 2: mind when you're writing your characters like we readers do?

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Speaker 2: Can I tell you the guy I was picturing the

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Speaker 2: whole time was the boxing coach from the Wire? Did

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Speaker 2: you watch the Wire? Whoever that boxing was?

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Speaker 1: That's good. That's pretty accurate. That's pretty accurate.

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Speaker 2: Who all the moms in the neighborhood would come up

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Speaker 2: and be like, Oh, we got a pie for you, coach.

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Speaker 1: I don't even know his name. That's pretty accurate. Though

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Speaker 1: I don't know his name either, but I honestly I

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Speaker 1: had whenever I write, I will have like I'll make

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Speaker 1: my sort of outline, and outline is literally just a

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Speaker 1: sentence free chapter and then I will start to accumulate

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Speaker 1: photos of people places, and I have a whole board,

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Speaker 1: like a Pinterest board, like a visual Pints board of

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Speaker 1: just like celebrities that I think, people that I think

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Speaker 1: will fit the characters sort of way, not necessarily always

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Speaker 1: how they look, but their way of being. And then

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Speaker 1: I have a whole bunch of like places that I

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Speaker 1: can describe them, you know, And so you're not far off,

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Speaker 1: you know, for who did you picture? Tell me? I

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Speaker 1: actually actually actually had my dad. I know it sounds

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Speaker 1: that's lame, but my dad was trying because my dad

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Speaker 1: was just like Charlie. He was very He was really

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Speaker 1: really gifted. He could he could make anything. He could

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Speaker 1: make anything. So watch him sketch houses that he wanted

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Speaker 1: to build when I was a kid, and he was

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Speaker 1: sketching in blueprint and he could do most of it.

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Speaker 1: He could, you know, he could do he could make

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Speaker 1: his own concrete before the foundation, he could do the

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Speaker 1: carpentry work, he could do the plumbing. He was really gifted.

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Speaker 1: But he was just not fulfilled, and like his potential

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Speaker 1: sort of crashed down onto itself and he became angry

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Speaker 1: all the time. And you know, he went from having

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Speaker 1: the potential of being extraordinary father to being a really

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Speaker 1: terrible one. And I wanted to imagine a world in

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Speaker 1: which he was fulfilled, like he got to achieve all

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Speaker 1: the things that he wanted. What would that look like?

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Speaker 1: And so Charlie was the arc of that, that transition

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Speaker 1: into feeling unworthy to feeling worthy.

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Speaker 2: Wow, I'm just blown away. I mean I'm not blown away,

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Speaker 2: but when you hear something like that, you know, we're

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Speaker 2: both parents now and you look at these little humans

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Speaker 2: and it's like our only jobs as parents really feels

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Speaker 2: like giving you the tools to cope with this world.

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Speaker 2: And it's a miracle when parents are damaged and aren't

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Speaker 2: able to heal that their kids go on to, you know,

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Speaker 2: become such a great dad. Like I can already tell

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Speaker 2: that you're a great dad and an artist, and like,

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Speaker 2: in spite of all that, it's just really beautiful. And

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Speaker 2: the way that you incorporated that story into your art

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Speaker 2: is just like, that's what it's about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what That's how we process these process those

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Speaker 1: the feelings that we don't have language for. We try

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Speaker 1: to articulate them in such a way that other people

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Speaker 1: can share in it too. In whatever form that they

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Speaker 1: they sort of experience it. And so yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: I've always thought that our kids are like and and

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Speaker 1: Charlie it was the same way he looked at Sydney's

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Speaker 1: sort of like she was the she could redeem it.

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Speaker 1: Any our children came in, Oh my god, my dms

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Speaker 1: are all Sydney. Everybody's Sydney. They they're so it's either

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Speaker 1: love or hate, and that there's no in between, knowing between.

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Speaker 1: Hard to write that character Sydney, but yeah, the idea

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Speaker 1: is that she reflects he reflects back to Charlie his

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Speaker 1: own sort of value system. I think I think as

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Speaker 1: a dad of girls, and in particular the girls will

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Speaker 1: look I look at them and I see, you know,

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Speaker 1: how they're developing. I see the space that they feel

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Speaker 1: like they occupy. I see, you know, whether or not

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Speaker 1: they're aspirations no matter what they are, or at least

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Speaker 1: have the space to be fulfilled if that's not happening.

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Speaker 1: It's reflection on me. It's reflection on the type of

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Speaker 1: father that I am, the type of person that I am.

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Speaker 1: It's reflection on what I've given them. And so when

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Speaker 1: you think of it from a cultural standpoint, my wife

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Speaker 1: is biracial, and so our kids are multiracial in that way,

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Speaker 1: and I go, we live in a predominantly white area

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Speaker 1: in the UK, and I go, I gotta take them

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Speaker 1: to Florida so they can see my mom. I gotta

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Speaker 1: take them Florida so they can have this chicken. They

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Speaker 1: take them in Florida, taken experience this culture because it

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Speaker 1: needs to be balanced. And I want to be the

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Speaker 1: person that gives them that, Like, that's my gift, and

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Speaker 1: so I wanted Charlie to experience that too.

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Speaker 2: Love that stopped giving me so many distracting things to

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Speaker 2: talk about, because now I'm going to be like, that's

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Speaker 2: why we had the insane. I like, my family's from Georgia,

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Speaker 2: and my dad's from Georgia. Oh, I'm going to get

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Speaker 2: into my history. It's going to blow your mind. But

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Speaker 2: so my dad's from Georgia. I'm obviously biracial. Maybe not obviously,

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Speaker 2: but I am, and my kids are half Hispanic. My

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Speaker 2: husband's Dominicans, so they're multiracial. And the world I think

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Speaker 2: we'll see them racially as Hispanic or Dominican or whatever,

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Speaker 2: because that's how they present. And I'm just like, oh no,

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Speaker 2: they're gonna know they have a black mama from the

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Speaker 2: South and back. And it's like I want them to

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Speaker 2: see so many different like iterations, like so many different

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Speaker 2: examples of what blackness can look like, and to love it,

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Speaker 2: like they love my dad, they love my aunt, their

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Speaker 2: great aunt Brenda, who's like my grandma, Like they love

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Speaker 2: their cousins on that side, like I want them to

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Speaker 2: see and be around, you know, and to feel like

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Speaker 2: I love that, you know, so that they can grow

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Speaker 2: up without a doubt, like being consciously aware of the

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Speaker 2: beauty of blackness and the pride of it, and to

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Speaker 2: know that they are. And I mean it's a brag,

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Speaker 2: but my son colors himself with a brown cranky talk

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Speaker 2: about the appear at night. They do their like their

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Speaker 2: giant portraits of themselves. I was like Leo, his name

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Speaker 2: is Rio, like baby, not even in the brightest summer

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Speaker 2: would you ever achieve that shape. But I love that

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Speaker 2: he wants to be chalk.

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Speaker 1: I love it. That's beautiful. That gives me a lot

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Speaker 1: of joy. That gives me a lot of joy.

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Speaker 2: And he did girls on his hair.

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Speaker 1: That's magical. It's magical. Honestly, the idea of the culture

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Speaker 1: is really funny because like it's when you almost have

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Speaker 1: to claim it. It claims you, but you almost have

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Speaker 1: to claim it. But when you leave America, the specifically

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Speaker 1: the black American experience is the American experience. For so

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Speaker 1: many people outside of the country they think of like

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Speaker 1: when they think of America, so many of the traits

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Speaker 1: they're thinking are part of the black culture. It's not

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Speaker 1: necessarily the white culture, right or not shocking at all.

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Speaker 1: It's fascinating they you know, they're they're wearing the j's,

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Speaker 1: they're they're talking to talk you know of maybe like

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Speaker 1: occasionally acting like a Texan or a Californian. Everything else

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Speaker 1: is just black, Like they think of it as black,

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Speaker 1: and it's and it's a counterweight to the concept of

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Speaker 1: like like trump Ism. You get to like they almost

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Speaker 1: treat it like it's odd and over there. They're like,

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Speaker 1: that's why are you guys doing that? And I'm like,

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Speaker 1: I know why i a'll be doing that. And to them,

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Speaker 1: it's like that the export is blackness, not trump Ism,

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Speaker 1: and not these other elements.

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Speaker 2: So the art, the music, the films, the TV, the

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Speaker 2: pop culture that is us and so deeply it's very insidious.

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Speaker 2: The other side. Okay, well I stopped distracting me, all right,

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Speaker 2: We're gonna get to Charlie. So to establish Charlie, we

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Speaker 2: meet and you know and thank you for telling that.

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Speaker 2: Example of how that you know your father is woven

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Speaker 2: into Charlie's character. We meet him twenty years after he's

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Speaker 2: been imprisoned and he is released after the event they

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Speaker 2: break out because all the white people are unalive, they're dead.

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Speaker 2: And he is a professor at Howard when we meet him,

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Speaker 2: he's teaching what is he teaching? Solar solar Yeah, it's.

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Speaker 1: Like electrical systems, and he's teaching a portion of that

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Speaker 1: class is solar panels.

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Speaker 2: Oh gotcha. I selfishly, I really wanted to like see

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Speaker 2: what one of his classes would sound like and what

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Speaker 2: the kids are asking him about and if they're kids whatever.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, maybe the sequel And he gets a call

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Speaker 2: from someone he never knew existed, his daughter, Sydney, who

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Speaker 2: lives in far Flung, Wisconsin, and basically tells him she's in.

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Speaker 2: Sydney's mother is white, and she tells him you're my dad,

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Speaker 2: and I need you to come. I need you to

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Speaker 2: come get me because I've been here for a year. Surviving,

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Speaker 2: and I'm trying to get to, of all places, Alabama.

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Speaker 2: She wants to go to Alabama for some reason. Sydney

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Speaker 2: feels like Alabama is where the world hasn't changed, and

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Speaker 2: she's going to find her people, her people, her people,

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Speaker 2: her people, the ones that could be left in Alabama.

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Speaker 2: And Charlie gets in his little Prius or whatever whatever

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Speaker 2: it is.

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Speaker 1: It's definitely a prius, says, no doubt. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of preous So well, Prius.

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Speaker 2: I know just a picture that it's very like interesting.

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Speaker 2: The blackmail hero not driving like a muscle car or something.

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Speaker 2: She gets into the electric car. He finds his way

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Speaker 2: to Wisconsin, so I'll pause there. He's about to meet

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Speaker 2: his daughter. She's nineteen. Will we meet Sydney nineteen? And

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Speaker 2: I'll tell you that I actually started to read The

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Speaker 2: Sky Full of Elephants, or listen. I listened to it.

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Speaker 2: I did a combo listening and reading on my on

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Speaker 2: my on my phone, like an e book thing. And

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Speaker 2: I was visiting my sister in Wisconsin and my mother

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Speaker 2: in Wisconsin where my mother's from. What my mother is white?

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Speaker 2: My mother is white, She's born and raised in Wisconsin. Oh,

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Speaker 2: my gosh, my sister and I have different fathers, so

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Speaker 2: my older sister and my older brother are fully white.

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Speaker 2: We were raised as siblings, so you know whatever. And

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Speaker 2: then my younger brother and I are both biracial. And

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Speaker 2: when we meet Sydney, she's not only in Wisconsin, she's

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Speaker 2: also the biracial, the only biracial child in her family.

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Speaker 2: So she's had to watch her brothers, her mother, her

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Speaker 2: stepfather walk into the lake behind their house and kill themselves,

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Speaker 2: and she's tried to save them, you know, at that

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Speaker 2: scene where she's trying to save them and she can't

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Speaker 2: and she can't make herself drown because her will to live,

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Speaker 2: Like whatever. I got chills just telling you that. And

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Speaker 2: I started to read it, and I was in the

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Speaker 2: kitchen with my mom and my sister, and I was like, so,

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Speaker 2: I'm reading this book. No, no, I don't know why

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Speaker 2: sometimes I choose violence. It is really uncomfortable to tell

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Speaker 2: your white mom that you're reading a book about how

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Speaker 2: all the white people are dead. She was like, now, listen,

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Speaker 2: we've she and I we have gotten through two Trump terms,

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Speaker 2: you know, like two Trump elections, and in the first one,

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Speaker 2: she did not vote on the right side of progression

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Speaker 2: and she's come around, like she's made so many strides,

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Speaker 2: but that was a tough one for her to swallow.

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Speaker 2: She wasn't pleased about the premise. And then I realized,

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Speaker 2: I can't explain this to her. It's not for her.

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Speaker 2: You know, Hey, ba fam, we got to take a

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Speaker 2: quick break, pay some bills, and we'll be right back.

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Speaker 2: All right, ba fam, We're back. But the way that, like,

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Speaker 2: there is so much overlap with my story in Sydney's story,

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Speaker 2: and like I would have been Sidney Devin, I could

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Speaker 2: I could actually kind of put I could put myself

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Speaker 2: and how she might have put myself in her shoes?

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Speaker 2: Like what if it had been in my teenage years

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Speaker 2: when we all did live together and only my brother

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Speaker 2: and I would be left because my mom and dad

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Speaker 2: split up, So then I would have had to go

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Speaker 2: find well, he wasn't there, he was in Atlanta anyone

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Speaker 2: that party.

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Speaker 1: But wow, I don't think I've ever met anyone that

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Speaker 1: has that close to parallel.

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Speaker 2: That's incredible, right, So I was like, why, Wisconsin, why

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Speaker 2: you know what? How did Sydney the character get formed?

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Speaker 1: Well, she was initially based off of my wife and

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Speaker 1: my older daughter to some degree, right, so my wife,

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Speaker 1: like when I first wrote the first chapter with just

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Speaker 1: Charlie early on, I gave it to my wife and

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Speaker 1: she responded to it like she was like, this isn't

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Speaker 1: my experience. She goes my experience growing up bi racial

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Speaker 1: in West London, I didn't have black culture around me.

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Speaker 1: I didn't indeed, I didn't even know how to interact

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Speaker 1: with it. There were times when I would see a

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Speaker 1: bunch of black women together, I didn't feel like I

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Speaker 1: could just roll up on them like that. I didn't

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Speaker 1: feel my blackness. And she traveled back and forth to

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Speaker 1: New York quite a lot as a kid, and she

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Speaker 1: goes the only time I felt when I was in

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Speaker 1: New York with my grandmother, who was from Trinidad. But

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Speaker 1: then she'd go back to London and she would be disconnected,

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Speaker 1: and so I started to think, well, I want to

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Speaker 1: incorporate her experience. At the same time, my daughter was

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Speaker 1: having trouble with her hair and she was just like, Dad,

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Speaker 1: I just want you to like either shave it or

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Speaker 1: just do dreadlocks, because I don't even want to have to.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to have to comb these curls out

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Speaker 1: every day, I don't want to deal with it. And

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Speaker 1: I realized how much her hair as signed itself to

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Speaker 1: her identity and she didn't understand it. I hadn't done

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Speaker 1: the work to help her understand how important it was.

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Speaker 1: Now she loves her hair, and so I started there.

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Speaker 1: And then Wisconsin was for two reasons. One that there

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Speaker 1: are cities in Wisconsin. I'm sure you know that are

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Speaker 1: like the whitest cities literally in America. Like one I

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Speaker 1: was looking at her. I want to say it was

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Speaker 1: maybe Kenosha. It was ninety eight point one per white,

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Speaker 1: which is like, that's crazy, Like that's a lot. That's

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Speaker 1: like a lot of not it's a lot of homogeny

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Speaker 1: happening right like it's it's real strong and so. And

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Speaker 1: it just so happened that many years before I wrote

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Speaker 1: this book, I was profiled in the store one time.

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Speaker 1: And it wasn't bad, but it was one of those

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Speaker 1: things that you know, you're just annoyed that somebody comes

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Speaker 1: up to you asking a bunch of stupid questions, wanted

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Speaker 1: you to show them your bag to make sure you

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Speaker 1: didn't steal anything, like come on, So I walk out

359
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:32,000
Speaker 1: of this store. This was this was in Florida. But

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Speaker 1: I was with I was with a bunch of friends

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Speaker 1: who were from Wisconsin. They're from White white Fish Bay

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Speaker 1: and from Milwaukee. And I walk out and I tell

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Speaker 1: them I was like, this thing just happened. And I

364
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Speaker 1: was kind of like, you know what happens, you know

365
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Speaker 1: to black people. And one of the people, this girl

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Speaker 1: shoes there, she goes, she goes, could you just be

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Speaker 1: making that up? I was like, why the world would

368
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Speaker 1: I make that up? And she goes, well, black people

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Speaker 1: say that type of stuff all the time and more

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Speaker 1: if you're just maybe picking up on it because you

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Speaker 1: just feel connected to other black people. And I'm looking

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Speaker 1: at her like that doesn't need one does it even

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Speaker 1: makes sense? But two, It's like I'm trying to tell

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Speaker 1: you the sky is full of elephants, and I can

375
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Speaker 1: see the elephants and you can't. And one day those

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Speaker 1: elephantsre gonna crash down. And you said it just like

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Speaker 1: that to her, And that became eventually the title of

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Speaker 1: the book. And because she was from Wisconsin, and because

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin was such a strong concentration of whiteness and sort

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Speaker 1: of culturally in my experience at least, I was like

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Speaker 1: this feels right, and then you know, Kenosha with that

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Speaker 1: guy Kyle Rittenhouse happened and I was like, yeah, let's

383
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Speaker 1: go there, let's do it there, and so it worked

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Speaker 1: out that way. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Way, let me tell you what I thought about hit

386
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Speaker 2: me and you know your name? I couldn't tell. I'm like, oh,

387
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Speaker 2: is this a guy written who's written this? Or a woman?

388
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Speaker 2: So I found out I don't like to necessarily go

389
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Speaker 2: into a book understanding everything about the author because it's

390
00:20:56,160 --> 00:20:59,040
Speaker 2: not always super relevant. But I did.

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Speaker 1: I had.

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Speaker 2: The more I got into the book, we meet Sydney

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Speaker 2: and she has internalized so much. Well, I mean, I'll

394
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Speaker 2: tell you what my perception is, and you can kind

395
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Speaker 2: of tell me. But when I feel like when we

396
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Speaker 2: meet her, she's so she's so traumatized and devastated by

397
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Speaker 2: the death of her family that she looks to the

398
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Speaker 2: only people that she feels like she can blame. Who

399
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Speaker 2: is who's left? And who's left? Yes, appear to be

400
00:21:24,240 --> 00:21:26,840
Speaker 2: you know, well, actually I don't think I'm even clear

401
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Speaker 2: on who's all left. Is it just black people who

402
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 2: are left? Or are there others?

403
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Speaker 1: It's there are others, there's you know, Latinos are left

404
00:21:35,160 --> 00:21:38,000
Speaker 1: and Asians are left, and Native Indigenous people are left.

405
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Speaker 1: But I had this image in my head or to

406
00:21:41,040 --> 00:21:44,280
Speaker 1: sound bite in my head, and it was a James Baldwin.

407
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Speaker 1: He has said something along the lines of he goes,

408
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Speaker 1: I know white people don't know a lot of things,

409
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Speaker 1: but I do know this, you don't want to be

410
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Speaker 1: black here. And it was that. I was like, it

411
00:21:54,359 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 1: was the concept of like sort of anti blackness that

412
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Speaker 1: created the event, and it was less about you know,

413
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Speaker 1: if a person is this type of black or this

414
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Speaker 1: type of black, but rather the desire to not be

415
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Speaker 1: black was what sort of inspired it. And that was

416
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Speaker 1: how I was picturing it in my mind. Is like,

417
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Speaker 1: because people ask me all the time that like is

418
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Speaker 1: this is this white? Or is this white? And I'm like,

419
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Speaker 1: I'm not really thinking about what it's white. I'm thinking

420
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Speaker 1: about what doesn't want to be black? What is avoidant

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Speaker 1: of black? And that's what was important to me.

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Speaker 2: Well, when we meet Sydney, she definitely doesn't want to

423
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Speaker 2: be black.

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Speaker 1: I know she does not.

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Speaker 2: She is so much internalized well even like delusion, because

426
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Speaker 2: I don't even think she really fully accepts her blackness.

427
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:36,239
Speaker 2: You know, she's kind of grown up in this all

428
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,119
Speaker 2: white area, and I too. I mean, I mean I

429
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:42,120
Speaker 2: grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, so I wasn't

430
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Speaker 2: as isolated from you know, diversity in a good way.

431
00:22:46,040 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 2: But then I would still go to schools where I

432
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:49,359
Speaker 2: was the only chocolate chip in the pancake. And then

433
00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 2: it's like, do you feel othered? And my dad was

434
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 2: in my life, so I couldn't, but I still, you know,

435
00:22:56,200 --> 00:22:58,480
Speaker 2: I did have that tug of war that she feels

436
00:22:59,160 --> 00:23:02,560
Speaker 2: when she finally does does get to have community and

437
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,920
Speaker 2: meet other you know, black people, that feeling of like

438
00:23:07,040 --> 00:23:07,879
Speaker 2: does she belong here?

439
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 1: And all of that.

440
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:11,200
Speaker 2: I definitely grapple with that is just like your wife,

441
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,200
Speaker 2: you know, did feeling like, well, if there's a that's

442
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 2: who I want to be around, but do they want me?

443
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:19,840
Speaker 2: Am I gonna like pass the test to get you know?

444
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,159
Speaker 2: And but yeah, it was really difficult to read the

445
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,160
Speaker 2: character of Sydney because she has internalized so much racism

446
00:23:27,560 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 2: and bigotry and prejudice. And I was like, all right,

447
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 2: Sydney girl, I'm gonna trust we are gonna go on

448
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 2: a ride.

449
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:38,399
Speaker 1: You're gonna figure this out. That's it.

450
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:45,360
Speaker 2: That's it. So people, I'm not surprised people. It's been

451
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 2: so polarizing. Like you said the response to her, I

452
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:56,159
Speaker 2: also feel like it was a brave character choice for

453
00:23:56,240 --> 00:24:02,120
Speaker 2: her because those feeling are very real, Like they're very

454
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:06,280
Speaker 2: believable if we give into the idea that like, humanity

455
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 2: is capable of incredible racism and prejudice and self hatred,

456
00:24:10,560 --> 00:24:15,199
Speaker 2: self loathing. Those are human feelings and emotions that exist,

457
00:24:16,320 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 2: and at a time like this, I think it's I

458
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 2: think it's important to acknowledge that they exist so that

459
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,680
Speaker 2: we can try to change them or you know, or

460
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 2: be aware of them. We can't be in this like

461
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 2: state of you know, a state of like I don't

462
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,160
Speaker 2: know a little bit of delusion or ignorance about what's

463
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 2: really happening, because then we end up being like, wait,

464
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:42,280
Speaker 2: what how is tack here again?

465
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 1: I definitely think it's an ignorance. It's in part because

466
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,399
Speaker 1: we're constantly sort of distracted and put in the teams,

467
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 1: and then you go, the only community I have is

468
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: this team that I'm on, and you haven't really vetted

469
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,080
Speaker 1: in because it's probably distracted all the time about something else.

470
00:24:56,560 --> 00:25:00,080
Speaker 1: And Sydney, for her part, you're exactly right in that

471
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,520
Speaker 1: you know, she was internalized and she had developed, you know,

472
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:10,879
Speaker 1: these similar feelings about about black blackness and black culture.

473
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 1: But simultaneously, the loss of her mother, the loss of

474
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 1: her her family, made her want to hold on to it.

475
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:22,199
Speaker 1: And so at once she's gripping in order to claim

476
00:25:22,320 --> 00:25:26,640
Speaker 1: something and unwilling to release that claim to claim something else,

477
00:25:27,240 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 1: claim claim more. And there's this tension. And so there's

478
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:35,159
Speaker 1: actually two parts in the book, and I realized they

479
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: sort of I wrote them to be ripped quite subtly,

480
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: but there were projections of both Charlie and Sidney Psyche.

481
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: So you had when Charlie leaves DC and he's driving

482
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: across to go meet Sidney. The first person Charlie encounters

483
00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: is is uh the woman? The woman? And again I

484
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: like that she was she was, I really like it.

485
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:03,440
Speaker 1: I know she was great. The earth was burned black

486
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: all around. And he arrives to her and she immediately

487
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: like sort of reorients him to himself. She gives him

488
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: some food, nourishes him, she gives him wisdom, and she

489
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 1: sort of goes, you know, who are you going to be?

490
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: And sends him on his way to become it. In

491
00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: my mind, that was a projection of his psyche. He

492
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: literally had to drive into the blackness in order to

493
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:27,199
Speaker 1: reach a person that felt ancestral, who could go, let

494
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 1: me point you in the right direction. Right, And she says,

495
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,199
Speaker 1: she's like, you're going to Wisconsin to figure out your life, right,

496
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 1: to find something. When Sydney leaves Wisconsin, or leaves Oscosch,

497
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 1: the first place she comes as Kenosha, and that town

498
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 1: is spray painted in white and a chaos of whiteness.

499
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 1: And she meets Little, and Little is wearing the KKK uniform.

500
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 1: His blackness is shrouded in white. And he grabs Sydney

501
00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 1: and he says, you're one of us, and he doesn't

502
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:58,080
Speaker 1: want to let her go. That's her psyche, that's her

503
00:26:58,119 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: whiteness going. You can't leave this place, you can't leave

504
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,639
Speaker 1: this way of being, and it is chaotic, and the

505
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,479
Speaker 1: whole town is the only town is busted again. All

506
00:27:07,520 --> 00:27:10,639
Speaker 1: the other towns are actually intact, but that one's busted up.

507
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: And when she falls into Charlie's arms, that's when her

508
00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 1: journey towards claiming blackness begins. But up until then, she's

509
00:27:20,800 --> 00:27:23,760
Speaker 1: sort of starting to go the route of Little, where

510
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: it's breaking something's breaking in her mind, and so both

511
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:28,960
Speaker 1: of those things are true.

512
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 2: What's the total I'm trying to think like that the

513
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 2: novel takes place over how many days? It doesn't feel

514
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:35,680
Speaker 2: like that long.

515
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 1: No, it's not that long. It's I'm gonna say maybe

516
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: like seven eight days something like that.

517
00:27:40,880 --> 00:27:43,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a week. So for me, when I

518
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 2: realized that, like towards the end of the novel, I

519
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 2: don't want to give anything away. Also, Doug, go buy

520
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 2: the novel. I'm trying to give Sydney grace because she

521
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 2: has such a long way to go. Like it's not

522
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:00,720
Speaker 2: like I'm glad that she got her hair moist and

523
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 2: she got loved on by some beautiful black queens like,

524
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 2: but Homegirls still doesn't know how to do her hair

525
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 2: by herself. If she ever has children, like she's gonna

526
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 2: have to deal with it all again. Like she needs

527
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 2: a lot of therapy. And you know, I tried to

528
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 2: have compassion for her. Yeah, it was definitely painful to

529
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:23,399
Speaker 2: you to see her be in so much pain and

530
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 2: to like miss out on all the love she could

531
00:28:25,320 --> 00:28:28,320
Speaker 2: have for herself. But I try to like what gave

532
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 2: me peace was like it's only been a week. She

533
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 2: has a long life ahead.

534
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:37,359
Speaker 1: Of her working away. I think that was that was

535
00:28:37,440 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: something that kind of got lost as well. There are two.

536
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: The one there is like a constant motif of the lavender,

537
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 1: and the lavender was a nod to have.

538
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 2: Great my mom's favorite scent. I didn't even mention that, Oh, that's.

539
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: So funny, weird. And Elizabeth Laura Jane.

540
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 2: I have not talked about your book with her since

541
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,800
Speaker 2: I read it because she really didn't like. I was like,

542
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 2: I was like, Mom, it's not like I want you

543
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 2: to die. She's like, but you're reading this book. I'm like, yeah,

544
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 2: but I didn't think it. This guy did.

545
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: Let me talk to your mom to get jump in

546
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: a book?

547
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 2: What would you say? I mean, you don't have to

548
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 2: answer to her, like or anybody really about it's your book.

549
00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:25,720
Speaker 1: But it's not about answering. The whole point is to

550
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,520
Speaker 1: expand us a little bit, to make us, you know,

551
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: to expand our minds towards imagining a different reality. Because

552
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: the truth is is, while your mom might go, you know,

553
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: I don't this this is suggestive of like killing all

554
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:43,000
Speaker 1: the white people. You have to understand that the majority

555
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:46,719
Speaker 1: of the time that Black Americans is spent in this country.

556
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 1: It's been spent on the side of being an other,

557
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:54,280
Speaker 1: and it still is today. And it's important for someone

558
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: to understand what the other and feels like so that

559
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,160
Speaker 1: they can have compassion for someone else. You can get

560
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: into the complexities of the stories and the complexity of

561
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: the individual characters and everything they're going through. Ultimately, it's like, listen,

562
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 1: this is what it feels like. And if you look

563
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: at that book and you go it makes me uncomfortable,

564
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: understand that that discomfort is what other people are feeling

565
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: when you aren't recognizing them in the context of what's

566
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: really going on in the country, what their needs are.

567
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: And so if you feel that that's an important feeling,

568
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: it's an important feeling to process, an important pathway towards empathy.

569
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: I think then you get into the characters. You know,

570
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 1: when you get into the characters, you understand that the

571
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 1: idea that some of these characters in the story could

572
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: endure what would be a massive, massive, massive change in

573
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:46,840
Speaker 1: the country. To have that many people, I mean, that's

574
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the country disappearing. Like to see that

575
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:56,200
Speaker 1: and to go, that's really really bad. And somehow I

576
00:30:56,320 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: feel free. Like if someone said that to you, saying

577
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: that because they're mean. They're not saying that because they

578
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: dislike you. They're saying that because that is the degree

579
00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: to which they feel oppressed. And I want people to

580
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:09,760
Speaker 1: understand that, like, that's not if someone says to you

581
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: they will feel freer. That's that's an orient yourself to that,

582
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: to like where they at, because that means that they're

583
00:31:15,800 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: in a place that they feel really really restricted and

584
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:21,680
Speaker 1: half for a long time, so much so that they

585
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 1: are breath of this, like they've been indoors for the

586
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: last two hundred years and all of a sudden they're like,

587
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,640
Speaker 1: this is what air feels like. It's amazing. And I

588
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:34,160
Speaker 1: think there's there's certainly a need for understanding and compassion,

589
00:31:35,200 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: but I think when I think about it, the word

590
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: is always empathy. It's like, just exchange the emotion and

591
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: you'll see, and when you see, hopefully it impacts your emotions.

592
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 1: And there's no reason to be angry, no no reason

593
00:31:46,680 --> 00:31:48,640
Speaker 1: to be mad, there's no reason to feel I mean,

594
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 1: I say this to people all the time, like the

595
00:31:52,360 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: whole of Middle Earth was created in a book and

596
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: they're ain't a single black person like they're elves. Man,

597
00:31:57,880 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: there's like hobbits where they're no black people.

598
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 2: You know, there's so much logic. People don't listen. I mean,

599
00:32:03,720 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 2: there's so much logic. We don't have time for logic.

600
00:32:09,040 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: I mean, like it's not this datage. So but yeah,

601
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: I like that conversation and I and frankly, I think Sidney,

602
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, I think she represents the grace that

603
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: black people have had towards what is an astounding amount

604
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: of racism over a long period of time. It's always

605
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: been with grace. It's always been with like you you

606
00:32:32,800 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 1: slap me, and yet I'm still standing here, willing to

607
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: be at the table with you. I'm still here, you know.

608
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,640
Speaker 1: And I feel like that is Sidney sort of represents

609
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: the other side of that, and it does. It's like

610
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: Lavender is like a reminder of grace, and then at

611
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: the end of the book without giving away the full inning,

612
00:32:51,960 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: and she has to go off man and go figure

613
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: that out. And a lot of people say that to me,

614
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: They're like, I want more. I want to see what

615
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: happens after that, and it's like, I know, you do.

616
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: That's why I wrote it that way, because at the point.

617
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: That's the point, like think, like take it with you

618
00:33:05,840 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 1: and imagine, like imagine what that that the healing feels like,

619
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: you know, and so yeah, Sidney's I would love it.

620
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: I would love that conversation with your mouths. Yeah.

621
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 2: I just wanted Sydney to know that that what was

622
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,600
Speaker 2: a guy's name, the cutie that she was crushing on.

623
00:33:22,840 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: Sugar fella fella.

624
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 2: Oh what a beautiful name. Fella fella. Uh yeah, tell

625
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 2: me little things. I wondered, is it too much on

626
00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 2: the nose too, like the parallel between the Great Passage,

627
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 2: you know, like slaves being brought across the sea and

628
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 2: dying in the water and then that's how the white

629
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 2: people die. Was that too much of a parallel for

630
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 2: me to draw? What was the water?

631
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: The water? No, no, no, The water was meant to

632
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: be an erasure. So it was partially tactical because I

633
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: wanted I didn't want a whole bunch of dead bodies

634
00:33:58,560 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: lying around, so I couldn't like have you know, Stephen

635
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: Kenby wanted it to feel right. It just wont me

636
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: to look, so I needed the erasio. I definitely wanted

637
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,720
Speaker 1: the idea of the tide coming back to be prevalent,

638
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 1: and then I wanted to be visible that no matter

639
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,880
Speaker 1: where you went, you couldn't escape this sensation. If you

640
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: saw a river, if you saw a lake, if you

641
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: saw a bath, the water suggested a rebirth and a

642
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:23,880
Speaker 1: change in a sort of evolution. And you know it.

643
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 1: When Charlie had his bath, when Sydney had her bath,

644
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: they were changed. You know, there's a lot of these

645
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:32,799
Speaker 1: sort of interactions with water, but the Middle Passage specifically

646
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: one of the early questions I got. And I don't

647
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: think they think I had an answer. They were like, well,

648
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: bodies float. This was my first book talk I did

649
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,080
Speaker 1: in New York. I think this guy thought he had

650
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: in the corner. He was like, well, bodies float. So

651
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: if the body's walking into the water, water were they're

652
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: foating all over? And I just went, have you heard

653
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:54,840
Speaker 1: of the Middle Passage? He's like yeah. And I was like,

654
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:57,680
Speaker 1: our ancestors held them down, and so they got us.

655
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: That's all. That's all you need to know. In that water,

656
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:03,319
Speaker 1: they got us, and so they gave the world back

657
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: to us. So there was a connection. It wasn't as

658
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: as clear as like, it wasn't as metaphoric for me

659
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 1: as quite literal in that they were there, the spirits

660
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 1: of them, you know, held them down and wouldn't let

661
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: those bodies float. They sort of allowed the world to

662
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,239
Speaker 1: come back to us. There's a scene where Sydney's where

663
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 1: her parents walked to the water and she says she

664
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: tried to pull them up as she physically couldn't. It

665
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: was like trying to pull the whole earth up with him.

666
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:28,839
Speaker 1: And that is the idea is they were being held.

667
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:33,359
Speaker 2: Hey, ba fam, We're going to take a quick break,

668
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:37,319
Speaker 2: pay some bills, and we'll be right back. Welcome back,

669
00:35:37,360 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 2: be a fam. Let's get back to the show. Well,

670
00:35:39,880 --> 00:35:42,480
Speaker 2: I haven't had a chance to read it again. Like

671
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 2: I said, I have two small children. I read a

672
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 2: book through one time. So that's a win. That shows

673
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 2: you how much I wanted to.

674
00:35:49,360 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: Read the book.

675
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:54,000
Speaker 2: Huge if she wanted and I really wanted to read

676
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:59,280
Speaker 2: this book, you like, I haven't even read the plot twist.

677
00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:00,759
Speaker 2: I know there's going to be we're going to find

678
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 2: out who did this and what did this? But I

679
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 2: want to read it again because I'm still trying to

680
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 2: My brain is still trying to unravel the last like

681
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 2: twenty five percent of the book because the emotion, you know,

682
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,200
Speaker 2: and yeah, it's the emotions were carrying me through the

683
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 2: first part of the book and the feeling and the whoa,

684
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 2: I'm just like on this ride, and then the technical

685
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 2: stuff comes in and I'm like, I can't.

686
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:25,080
Speaker 1: I can't process this exactly. It's a lot, but it's

687
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: it's it's complex, and I wanted it to be really

688
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 1: complex because a lot of there's a there's like an

689
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:34,719
Speaker 1: excavation of history and if I'm tangenting, just tell me,

690
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of excavation of history about America

691
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: and then Haiti and I wanted to give a nod

692
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 1: to the relationship is something larger than that, something big.

693
00:36:45,040 --> 00:36:47,239
Speaker 1: And the Shango bone is a note in that that

694
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: that bone is real, Like I didn't make that up.

695
00:36:49,920 --> 00:36:52,320
Speaker 1: That bone is literally twenty five thousand years old and

696
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: it has we talk about the bone.

697
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 2: You decided to say, I don't want to be super

698
00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:58,320
Speaker 2: spoiling spoilery.

699
00:36:57,960 --> 00:36:59,800
Speaker 1: But got it. Got it. The bone it's called the

700
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:03,440
Speaker 1: jungle bone, and it was found on the Nile, not

701
00:37:03,600 --> 00:37:07,479
Speaker 1: far from the Congo and they when they discovered this bone,

702
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:09,320
Speaker 1: it's not big bones like the size of a pencil.

703
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 1: There are striations on the bones. Marking on the bones

704
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,880
Speaker 1: that did note it a very complex mathematical system. I

705
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: think it's the equivalent of computational binary, like really complex

706
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:24,320
Speaker 1: like mathematics on a bone the size of a pencil.

707
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: And when they first found it, they did the carbon

708
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: dating on it, and they thought it was five thousand

709
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 1: years old. Now, for context, the Greeks are three thousand,

710
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 1: so it's still older than the Greeks. And what we're

711
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: talking about is like Pythagoras and all that is two

712
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: thousand years older than they thought. It was two thousand

713
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 1: years older than Pathagonas America is only two hundred, two

714
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:51,360
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy years old, So two thousand years before Pythagoras.

715
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: They found his bone, and then they a couple of

716
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 1: years later they redid the carbon dating on it. Because

717
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: of the technology for carbon dating evolved, they found it

718
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: was twenty five thousand years That's it's hard for me

719
00:38:03,520 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: to comprehend. It's not hard now, but like when I

720
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 1: first heard about this, I'm like, wait a minute. The

721
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: people that you've been telling me all of my life

722
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:16,040
Speaker 1: are like living in huts and trees. Were able to

723
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:21,160
Speaker 1: put the equivalent of computational mathematics on a bone twenty

724
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: five thousand years ago. That happened, and it had and

725
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: then I started to look at more stuff discover such

726
00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: amazing stuff like the Dogon and Mali and all these

727
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: different places they were doing extraordinary things, and so I

728
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 1: wanted the book to sort of have a turn towards

729
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: that and go, hey, what we're talking about here is

730
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: we're talking about America. We're talking about this the healing

731
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:51,120
Speaker 1: of all of the trauma of enslavement and Jim Crow

732
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: and all of it. But there's a whole lot more

733
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: stuff that you still don't know yet that are signals

734
00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 1: in the air that you can have access to, and

735
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:02,080
Speaker 1: it's really found is really complex, and so the whole

736
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,719
Speaker 1: nod to Nikola Tesla was was to that because he's

737
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: doing a lot of the experiments that he did was

738
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,120
Speaker 1: based off of experiments that were already done in Egypt

739
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: and different parts of Kimmit, and so I was like,

740
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 1: I want to give a nod to that. And so

741
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: it went a bit complex, but I like it.

742
00:39:19,840 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 2: But our history is complex and it's it's it's deep,

743
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 2: you know. I think being black in America you do

744
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 2: kind of grow up with the understanding and like our

745
00:39:28,600 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 2: history was stolen from us and we don't know where

746
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:34,400
Speaker 2: we come from and all of that. But but we

747
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,120
Speaker 2: we have to do more work. But it's there. So

748
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:39,240
Speaker 2: if you were picking, if you were like putting together

749
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:42,400
Speaker 2: a great like like you know, read Sky Full of

750
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:44,680
Speaker 2: Elephants and then go to this museum or read this

751
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 2: book or you know what kind of if someone's really

752
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:50,560
Speaker 2: curious to learn more about these topics, what we're in,

753
00:39:50,680 --> 00:39:53,759
Speaker 2: sources of inspiration for you or places you can point

754
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 2: be a fan too.

755
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I love the book anything about France Fanan.

756
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 1: His work is a lot about decolonization and colonization and decolonization.

757
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,719
Speaker 1: Uh Chinwa Chepe who wrote Things Fall Apart, and he

758
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:11,800
Speaker 1: wrote it, I want to say he wanted in the sixties,

759
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: but it was like telling the actual stories of people

760
00:40:16,719 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 1: that were living in nations when a colonization was happening.

761
00:40:22,719 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: Things Fall Apart is great or God is Great, and

762
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:29,480
Speaker 1: anything about Friends for on. But I really love Wretched

763
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 1: of the Earth. It's like, man, it's intense, really intense.

764
00:40:34,480 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 1: And then I would say Maladoma Patrisse some who wrote

765
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:47,560
Speaker 1: of Water and Spirit and I love this book so much.

766
00:40:48,520 --> 00:40:51,760
Speaker 1: It's about this kid who's growing up in Burkina Fosso,

767
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 1: which Burkina Fosso right now is like leading the sort

768
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: of African ascendency right now. They're doing amazing stuff. He

769
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:01,920
Speaker 1: was he was Braisen Bikino fossil in a tribe that

770
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:06,800
Speaker 1: had a specific religion called Tagara, and he was kidnapped.

771
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: Although the children were kidnapped and taken to a monastery

772
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 1: to become you know, preachers and nuns, and then they

773
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:19,760
Speaker 1: were sent back to sort of bring the people to Christ,

774
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 1: and so he was. And this was happening over generations

775
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,800
Speaker 1: and many jurations. So he was kidnapped when he was

776
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,359
Speaker 1: like eight, taken to this place and he was never

777
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: able to do his When they turned thirteen, they do

778
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: their ceremony to become an adult. He was never able

779
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: to do it. He ran away when he was nineteen.

780
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:39,399
Speaker 1: He goes back to his tribe and he's begging them

781
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: to take him back, and they're like, no, we can't.

782
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: You're encoded with a completely different system because you went

783
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: and he begged him. He got his father to beg him,

784
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:50,879
Speaker 1: and they were like, we're going to put you through

785
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: this ceremony. And it's probably going to kill you, but

786
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: if you get through the ceremony, you'll be reconnected with

787
00:41:57,440 --> 00:42:00,200
Speaker 1: our people and the story. And it's a it's not

788
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:02,920
Speaker 1: it's an audible, it's like it's a true story. It's

789
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: what he experienced going through that, what he had to

790
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: shed and what he had to gain. It's extraordinary, extraordinary.

791
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 2: Oh, I can see how that might have inspired the

792
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 2: bath and yeah, exactly some of those. Okay, I'm trying

793
00:42:19,160 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 2: to like use my time wisely and I have questions

794
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 2: just career wise, Like you wrote this book. You run

795
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: your own creative brand agency. You're not a professional author

796
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 2: as a job. Turns out that's really hard to do

797
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 2: and make.

798
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:35,360
Speaker 1: Money from a struggle.

799
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 2: Talk about, like I know, on very much time, but

800
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 2: tell me a little bit about your career trajectory and

801
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:46,839
Speaker 2: how it led you to, you know, getting the time

802
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 2: to write this book.

803
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:51,320
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, I was. I went to college on a

804
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 1: football scholarship. But while I was there, I sort of

805
00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: became a writer, which is on an interesting story, but

806
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,319
Speaker 1: I sort of became a writer. And I was trying

807
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:02,399
Speaker 1: to decide if I wanted to write and I wanted

808
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: to do film, or if I wanted to try to

809
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,719
Speaker 1: actually go to the NFL, which was my dream. And

810
00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 1: then I realized I was a little too small to

811
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 1: go to the NFL, even though I made go to college,

812
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,840
Speaker 1: and I decided to write. I wrote, right, we got

813
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 1: to step into it, America, We got to step into it.

814
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 1: But I wrote my first book when I was like

815
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: twenty at four to as a part of the course

816
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:27,879
Speaker 1: that I was in, and it got published, but it wasn't.

817
00:43:27,920 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 1: It was terrible novel.

818
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 2: I was what, this was your debut novel? Oh, you

819
00:43:31,640 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 2: have a secret.

820
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:36,480
Speaker 1: It was, but this other book was like it was

821
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 1: like a small press and it just wasn't. And they

822
00:43:40,400 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: fell apart like it was a whole mess.

823
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 2: Well, it's just that you're human and you also can

824
00:43:44,840 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 2: write terrible stuff. So that's fine.

825
00:43:46,440 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: Oh, which.

826
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 2: His first novel was like this out the Ballpark, I.

827
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: Write, I write, this is the thing. This is the

828
00:43:57,880 --> 00:43:59,720
Speaker 1: thing I tried to teach everyone, which is a relative

829
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: to this story, is we have to give ourself room

830
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:04,080
Speaker 1: to fail. We have to give ourself room to make

831
00:44:04,120 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: the mistakes. I teach my team, my design team, you

832
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:12,120
Speaker 1: have to you're literally bringing something that doesn't exist in

833
00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: this world to a three dimensional space. When you're being

834
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,120
Speaker 1: a creative, it doesn't exist. It's up here in this,

835
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: in this sort of ethereal realm. When you're bringing it

836
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: into three dimensions, that's not easy, and it's wrought with

837
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: with mistakes, especially if you go from that ethereal space

838
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: to a program, because the program has to interpret whatever

839
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:32,840
Speaker 1: you're hearing in your head. Don't do that. Get you

840
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,400
Speaker 1: yourself a pencil and a piece of paper and start sketching,

841
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: start writing, and you will iterate faster that way. You'll

842
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,800
Speaker 1: make your mistakes faster that way. I wrote All the

843
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,439
Speaker 1: Sky Full of Melphons by hand first, all of every

844
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: single page, what in every single page, I'm not kidding,

845
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: Every single page I wrote by hand first, and because

846
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:56,640
Speaker 1: because I well, interestingly enough, I wrote it my remarkable.

847
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:01,799
Speaker 1: Let's go, I'll show you actually have it here. I'll

848
00:45:01,840 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: actually show you the whole book. This is my remarkable.

849
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 1: It's like an electronicy. Yeah, it's like an electronic writing pad.

850
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: Situation a little I'm going to show you. I'm gonna

851
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 1: show you the entire novel right now, Skott Full of Elephants,

852
00:45:16,560 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: because it's on here. All of my books in my

853
00:45:19,400 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 1: writing I used to write everything on a on a

854
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: sketch like a like a proper notebook.

855
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 2: But then I don't know if I had all hand

856
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 2: strength to do that.

857
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 1: It's it's it's no joke. Here look this is you

858
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: see the pages here, and I'm gonna show you.

859
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:35,680
Speaker 2: Oh, I see why you wrote it. You have nice handwriting.

860
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 2: I don't have nice hands.

861
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: Look at that every page you can scroll for days?

862
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 2: And does this converted to type after you're done? Thank

863
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 2: the Lord, because I'm like for your editor.

864
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: But I know right, And so I as a when

865
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,560
Speaker 1: I graduated college, I written my first book and I

866
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to go be a writer and

867
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: I but it did. It didn't. It wasn't a good

868
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 1: book and it didn't. I didn't make any money off

869
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: It was like I think I got a thousand dollars

870
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:08,520
Speaker 1: bands or something. And so I moved back home. Didn't

871
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: know what I wanted to do, and I started working

872
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 1: at the front desk of a hotel and I was

873
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 1: doing it just to write books. I was like, Okay,

874
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:17,600
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit at this desk check people in and

875
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: keep messing around. And the job that I had, they

876
00:46:21,640 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: were offering another position for someone in marketing. They were like,

877
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 1: we need a marketing person and they didn't have a website.

878
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:30,759
Speaker 1: They were like, me a marketing person, and I went,

879
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,480
Speaker 1: I could do that. And the boss at the time,

880
00:46:33,560 --> 00:46:36,240
Speaker 1: he goes, I need someone that can build me a website.

881
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:38,920
Speaker 1: Can you build a website? And remind you this is

882
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, and I was like, no, I

883
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:45,759
Speaker 1: you know, I don't even have a computer, but I

884
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: can build your website. And he goes, Okay, I'm gonna leave.

885
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 1: I'm going to Did you.

886
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: Leave with the fact that you don't have a computer

887
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:52,880
Speaker 2: or was that internal dialogue?

888
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: That was internal dialogue. I just said to him, I

889
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:57,360
Speaker 1: got it, don't worry, I got it. I could do.

890
00:46:57,400 --> 00:47:02,720
Speaker 2: This is like very low. We're talking like Zanga vibe.

891
00:47:03,120 --> 00:47:05,520
Speaker 1: This is I still had Zanga back then. So you're

892
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:06,800
Speaker 1: you're exactly spot on.

893
00:47:07,360 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 2: What was your background music.

894
00:47:10,600 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: Back then? I want to say it was tried. I

895
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: think it was tried because they had a Yeah, it

896
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:18,320
Speaker 1: was tribe.

897
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:18,640
Speaker 2: It was.

898
00:47:20,120 --> 00:47:24,080
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I could tell you the song Midnight Marauder.

899
00:47:24,239 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 1: That's what it was. That's what I'm not here. And

900
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 1: I remember I remember how I did it. I sinked

901
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: it m P three into it and I was able

902
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:32,640
Speaker 1: to like upload it somehow.

903
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 2: So that was if you could figure out. Because I

904
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:37,680
Speaker 2: was coding on Zanga, I was full on doo and

905
00:47:38,040 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 2: I was like, I want mine was John Legends, ordinary people,

906
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 2: and I wanted it. I wanted it to scroll with

907
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 2: the page like I had all the.

908
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: All ages space that you play. Man. I wasn't. I

909
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: wasn't like at that time because websites require like real

910
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 1: high functionality, and that website required booking integration, so I.

911
00:47:59,600 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 2: Had to hotel website is not like creating someone's like

912
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:05,680
Speaker 2: portfolio page. That's a big ask.

913
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: Okay, It's pretty pretty complicated coding, and so I designed first.

914
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:12,440
Speaker 1: I have no idea how to design, but I ended

915
00:48:12,480 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: up buying a cheap deal computer. I pirated a copy

916
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: of Photoshop on lime wire back then and basically gave

917
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:20,879
Speaker 1: my computer aids.

918
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 2: To do it. I was about to say that for

919
00:48:24,719 --> 00:48:25,520
Speaker 2: its life.

920
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:31,840
Speaker 1: Works works on my on my laptop. It's crazy. And

921
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:36,240
Speaker 1: so I got photoshopped, like figured out how to code

922
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:40,480
Speaker 1: or design and then like break it into slices and

923
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: then export the slices into dream Weaver. And I was

924
00:48:44,000 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: like tinkering with it, and then I and then it clicked.

925
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 1: It clicked. I was like, wait a minute, the design

926
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:53,320
Speaker 1: and the code they're working together and I and it

927
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 1: wasn't like someone's designed and someone's a coder. I was like, Oh,

928
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:59,320
Speaker 1: I need to be both of these things, because ultimately,

929
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:00,920
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do is tell a story. Hotel

930
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: is a physical space that needs to be sold in

931
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 1: a digital environment, and it needs to be sold at

932
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: what is the equivalent of a luxury purchase right now?

933
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:11,719
Speaker 1: A luxury purchase is anything over seventeen hundred dollars. If

934
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:13,200
Speaker 1: you go and you stay at a hotel that's three

935
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,479
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a night and you stay for a week,

936
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 1: guess what you're hitting that luxury status. And so you're like,

937
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:23,799
Speaker 1: it's a very difficult online purchase to make unless you're

938
00:49:23,880 --> 00:49:25,920
Speaker 1: going through a third party. If you're going through hotels

939
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:27,880
Speaker 1: dot car, you feel a little bit more comfortable. But

940
00:49:27,920 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: if you're doing it direct at the hotel, it's got

941
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: to be a nice experience otherwise you're gonna feel comfortable

942
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: doing it, and the hotel has to sell you on

943
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:39,200
Speaker 1: it to sell you on yourself in that space. And

944
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: so I was like, I'm going to design something that

945
00:49:42,040 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: makes other people feel the energy of the physical space.

946
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,080
Speaker 1: It isn't going to be just about like empty bedroom shots.

947
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: It's going to make you feel something. I want a

948
00:49:51,680 --> 00:49:54,120
Speaker 1: beautiful lifestyle. I want video. I wanted to feel like

949
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 1: a thing. And so I started to start to design,

950
00:49:57,320 --> 00:50:00,760
Speaker 1: trying to evoke a sense of place and then coding

951
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 1: functionality that matched that sense of place. So like over states,

952
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: that made sense. Having the filtration of all of the

953
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:13,240
Speaker 1: rooms make feel smooth and intuiting, and so that hotel

954
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: did not have a website experience. Within a year they

955
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:19,279
Speaker 1: had made over a million dollars in digital on web

956
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 1: web based.

957
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,800
Speaker 2: Bookings over that person from the site you made.

958
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: From the film site that I made, and so they

959
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: were like, you're doing great, and I was like, I

960
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:31,200
Speaker 1: still didn't didn't know what I was doing. I was

961
00:50:31,239 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 1: just tinkering, messing around. And then I realized I that

962
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:35,960
Speaker 1: by the end of it, I have learned to write PHP,

963
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 1: I learned to write a little bit of job script,

964
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: I learned to write HTML. And I learned this pretty quickly.

965
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:42,880
Speaker 1: And so did you get the job.

966
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:44,760
Speaker 2: Though, or they weren't paying you as a front desk person.

967
00:50:45,440 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 1: They gave me the job.

968
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 2: The promotion.

969
00:50:47,680 --> 00:50:49,720
Speaker 1: I got the promotion as soon as I finished the website.

970
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:51,239
Speaker 1: They gave me the promotion. It wasn't a lie. It

971
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: was like twenty seven a year or something. And I

972
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:56,160
Speaker 1: was jumping for joy back then because I does the

973
00:50:56,200 --> 00:51:01,759
Speaker 1: first salary. Yeah, it was enough. It was enough. You know,

974
00:51:01,920 --> 00:51:05,680
Speaker 1: I wasn't eating McDonald's every day, so or ramen, and

975
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:09,520
Speaker 1: so I did that. And then as I've done it,

976
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: I was getting a lot of people asking me, you

977
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:12,920
Speaker 1: did do building this website? Can you do something for me?

978
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: And I had a spring break group that was coming

979
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 1: from Canada come down and they were like, Hey, we

980
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:21,320
Speaker 1: want to build a co op site. Can can you

981
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,359
Speaker 1: do that? And I'm like co op in one way

982
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:26,080
Speaker 1: and they go, well, we want anyone is booking spring

983
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: break travel to come to our website and be able

984
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: to book any of the hotels on beach. And I thought, okay,

985
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:36,040
Speaker 1: so like you want the hotels to advertise on the

986
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: site and they're like yeah. And then I had to

987
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: suddenly learn s CEO. I had to learn organic, I

988
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:45,040
Speaker 1: had to learn like conversion optimization, like all of these

989
00:51:45,120 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 1: things that I wasn't thinking about before to think of

990
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:49,800
Speaker 1: it more like an e commerce experience, and so I

991
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: built that and it was but pre dates Google Ads.

992
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: So I had to create a function that allowed the

993
00:51:57,360 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: ads to rotate on a certain amount of click and

994
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 1: then clock the clicks for pay for us. And it

995
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: was ridiculous. And then all of the hotels they didn't

996
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,319
Speaker 1: they didn't have anyone to design the ads, so then

997
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:12,640
Speaker 1: they paid me to design all their ads and then

998
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:14,640
Speaker 1: they paid they were like, can you build our websites?

999
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:16,719
Speaker 1: And then I had to open a business. And that

1000
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: was the first business I opened. That was two thousand

1001
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:21,399
Speaker 1: and six, and I have no idea what I was doing.

1002
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 2: So you've been doing it for almost twenty years now

1003
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 2: full time because now you in your company Creative Design Agencies.

1004
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,560
Speaker 1: I was sorry, Creative Work Circle Circle.

1005
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:35,120
Speaker 2: Sorry, I just made that up out of nowhere at all.

1006
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:38,920
Speaker 1: What your company's going Creative Creative Arts is DC, and

1007
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: they're amazing. They're amazing. But we did that. We were

1008
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:45,800
Speaker 1: like back then I had that was my first company

1009
00:52:46,360 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 1: and it was fine, like we did I It was

1010
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: mostly me and I had one person that was an assistant,

1011
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:55,000
Speaker 1: But I did the best I could and then I

1012
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:56,800
Speaker 1: had a friend come up to me and he was like,

1013
00:52:56,840 --> 00:52:58,440
Speaker 1: you want to be the creative rector of my agency?

1014
00:52:58,880 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 1: And his agency was did humanitarian work all over the world,

1015
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 1: and so he took on that job and he was amazing.

1016
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 1: Just he's still my dear friend, but he's one of

1017
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:12,279
Speaker 1: those people that's like, we're not just doing work, We're

1018
00:53:12,280 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 1: here to change the world. And so we did. I

1019
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:19,680
Speaker 1: travel everywhere with him and doing all sorts of stuff

1020
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:23,320
Speaker 1: from working with Shakespeare, shakespeare Birthplace Trust to you know,

1021
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:27,120
Speaker 1: doing like campaigns with UNICEF, all the stuff. And then

1022
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:31,760
Speaker 1: I while I was doing that, my other friend Adam,

1023
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: he was like, hey, I got this opportunity to do

1024
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 1: these hotel websites. I know that's what you used to do.

1025
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:38,719
Speaker 1: Do you want to do it again? And I was like, well,

1026
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: let's let's look at it. And flew to New York

1027
00:53:41,600 --> 00:53:44,719
Speaker 1: and he had five pitches to do in one day,

1028
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what he was doing. He was

1029
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:48,279
Speaker 1: just like, come with me on these pitches, and I'm

1030
00:53:48,320 --> 00:53:51,839
Speaker 1: like okay, And that day we win all those five pitches.

1031
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: One after together, we went four out of the five

1032
00:53:54,200 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: and the fifth one the person we were pitching came

1033
00:53:56,239 --> 00:53:59,640
Speaker 1: to work for the agency, and those out of those four,

1034
00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 1: two of them were the top two hotel operators in

1035
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,760
Speaker 1: all of New York. And so all of a sudden,

1036
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:07,880
Speaker 1: it went from like zero business to more business than

1037
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 1: we had any business doing, right, Like it was ridiculous

1038
00:54:11,480 --> 00:54:15,960
Speaker 1: amount of business. And I was just me. Right, it

1039
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:18,399
Speaker 1: was like me in my dark bedroom trying to get

1040
00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: these websites coded up. But we did it, and it

1041
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:23,960
Speaker 1: was you know, we ended up branching out and it

1042
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, we need to hire a photographer, we

1043
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: need to hire writers, we need to hire if we're

1044
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:29,960
Speaker 1: going to try to make a sense of place and

1045
00:54:30,040 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 1: a digital experience, it needs it needs to do the work.

1046
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:35,760
Speaker 1: And so i'd be I was sort of the creative

1047
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:39,279
Speaker 1: director for that agency, co founder and creative director of

1048
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: that agency, and then still the creati director for the

1049
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,880
Speaker 1: other agency. And I did that for four or five years,

1050
00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 1: and then I just then I was like, I want

1051
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:50,799
Speaker 1: to go back to writing. That's that's because I'm still

1052
00:54:50,840 --> 00:54:53,240
Speaker 1: telling stories at this point. Is that's all I released.

1053
00:54:54,000 --> 00:54:55,280
Speaker 1: And I was like, I want to go back to writing.

1054
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:58,200
Speaker 1: And so I focused on one agency and then I

1055
00:54:58,239 --> 00:55:04,080
Speaker 1: started tinkering, and I wrote I think three novels that

1056
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:06,759
Speaker 1: I've just shelved because I was like, Nope, that isn't right,

1057
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: Like that's not the test of writing from one from

1058
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:12,800
Speaker 1: the beginning to the end of a narrative. Like a

1059
00:55:12,840 --> 00:55:14,799
Speaker 1: lot of people only they're only gonna try that once.

1060
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:17,120
Speaker 1: And I'm like, nah, try it, like, get the feeling

1061
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:20,279
Speaker 1: of the fullness of it. Don't write like the first

1062
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:22,399
Speaker 1: chapter and go this isn't working right the whole thing.

1063
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 1: And this is why. And this is really important for

1064
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 1: anybody listening who thinks of themselves as a creative in

1065
00:55:28,800 --> 00:55:31,919
Speaker 1: any capacity. It doesn't matter if it's because critical thinking

1066
00:55:32,040 --> 00:55:38,240
Speaker 1: is creative. Writing specifically is one of the few artistic

1067
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 1: endeavors where you don't have a tool if you want

1068
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:43,640
Speaker 1: to If you want to paint, you get a brush,

1069
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 1: you get some you get some colors. If you want

1070
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:47,920
Speaker 1: to be a photographer, you get a camera, you get

1071
00:55:47,960 --> 00:55:52,319
Speaker 1: a videographer, you get a camera. But with writing, particularly storytelling,

1072
00:55:52,880 --> 00:55:56,320
Speaker 1: you can just speak it and require a tool. The

1073
00:55:56,440 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 1: trick is is your first draft has to be the clay.

1074
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: If you're not. If your first draft isn't perfect, it's

1075
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:07,560
Speaker 1: the clay that you're molding to perfection. You create the clay.

1076
00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:10,399
Speaker 1: And I see too many people they think of their

1077
00:56:10,480 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 1: draft as that. They're like, this is the book. It's

1078
00:56:13,080 --> 00:56:16,040
Speaker 1: not the book, that's the clay. If you get your clay,

1079
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 1: you can you can really make something magical and don't

1080
00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:22,040
Speaker 1: be discouraged. Know that that's the beginning, not the end.

1081
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:24,600
Speaker 1: Build your clay first. And so I was keen on

1082
00:56:24,760 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: like figuring out what kind of clay I wanted to

1083
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:28,879
Speaker 1: work with. So I write whole books and be like Nope,

1084
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,759
Speaker 1: that's not right, that's not right. Then I almost gave up.

1085
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:35,800
Speaker 1: It was very close to giving up on writing. And

1086
00:56:36,080 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: my wife, she was the one that was like, you

1087
00:56:39,640 --> 00:56:40,920
Speaker 1: got it. You can do it. You can do this.

1088
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 1: Get back to write and get back to focusing on

1089
00:56:43,080 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: like what are there was stories you want to tell?

1090
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: But I didn't have an agent at that time, and

1091
00:56:47,320 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 1: so I was like, okay, let me marry my two realities.

1092
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,880
Speaker 1: In my agency life, I do a lot of strategy.

1093
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 1: So what's the strategy for getting an agent and getting

1094
00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: a successful book? What does that look like? I thought, Well,

1095
00:57:01,040 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 1: someone needs any agent wants to know that you have

1096
00:57:04,760 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 1: some sort of profile, right, so you need to be indexible.

1097
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:09,840
Speaker 1: Someone needs to type your name in. They need to

1098
00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 1: be able to see you first. Second platform. Secondly, you

1099
00:57:15,200 --> 00:57:17,880
Speaker 1: need to have some form of sort of self distribution,

1100
00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 1: which is to say, if all they see when they

1101
00:57:21,800 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 1: Google is your ur L and all the things that

1102
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:26,160
Speaker 1: you've done your US not enough, You've got to be

1103
00:57:26,160 --> 00:57:28,720
Speaker 1: able to expand it. And then you need to have

1104
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 1: pieces that resonate towards what could be a novel, which

1105
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,080
Speaker 1: is the business proposition, which is any any publishers going,

1106
00:57:36,480 --> 00:57:37,800
Speaker 1: I need a novel, and I need to be able

1107
00:57:37,800 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 1: to serialize that novel into a lot of work so

1108
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 1: over the course of a career. And so I went, okay,

1109
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:46,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to write a book of poems, and I'm

1110
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 1: going to use the poems to be indexible, because now

1111
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:52,240
Speaker 1: if I can, if I can write a book of poems,

1112
00:57:52,240 --> 00:57:54,640
Speaker 1: and even if I just self published them, it'll have

1113
00:57:54,840 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 1: distribution across Google, and people can type my name very easily.

1114
00:57:59,360 --> 00:58:01,360
Speaker 1: They can find me on Amazon, they found you all

1115
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: the places. It just so happened in that book of

1116
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 1: poems end up winning an award and being published and

1117
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: it got full distribution. But that was my initial plan.

1118
00:58:09,840 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 1: And then I thought, I'm going to write a collection

1119
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: of short stories, and I'm gonna take each one of

1120
00:58:13,480 --> 00:58:14,920
Speaker 1: those short stories and I'm going to send them to

1121
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: different magazines and see if they'll publish a short story,

1122
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: because if they do, I'm not indexible on their websites

1123
00:58:19,800 --> 00:58:21,960
Speaker 1: as well. And then I'm going to roll that short

1124
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:24,200
Speaker 1: stories short stories up into a collection and use that

1125
00:58:24,320 --> 00:58:26,240
Speaker 1: to go get an agent. And then once I get

1126
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 1: the agent i'll get, I'll write a novel and that

1127
00:58:28,720 --> 00:58:31,760
Speaker 1: I'll get published. That was my plan, and Mandy, that

1128
00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:35,440
Speaker 1: plan was exactly that way. Everything I just described happened

1129
00:58:35,480 --> 00:58:37,840
Speaker 1: exactly with that. I just described it just like that,

1130
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:39,000
Speaker 1: just that.

1131
00:58:39,120 --> 00:58:40,960
Speaker 2: Kid on his Dell computer figuring it.

1132
00:58:41,000 --> 00:58:48,080
Speaker 1: Out, backing away with my my very very slow LimeWire

1133
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:48,880
Speaker 1: affected computer.

1134
00:58:49,200 --> 00:58:49,840
Speaker 2: So but.

1135
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 1: That's it.

1136
00:58:52,600 --> 00:58:54,440
Speaker 2: That's grind. I mean, I want to give respect to

1137
00:58:54,520 --> 00:58:57,880
Speaker 2: the grind. Thank you for sharing all that the grind,

1138
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 2: and like the I mean, and you we're also living

1139
00:59:00,680 --> 00:59:03,120
Speaker 2: a full life, like you're meeting your wife, you're having children,

1140
00:59:03,320 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 2: like you're traveling, and then you're dealing with the doubt.

1141
00:59:08,320 --> 00:59:11,400
Speaker 2: I love your wife for you know, motivating you and

1142
00:59:12,080 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 2: bringing you, giving you that space and that encouragement, because

1143
00:59:16,360 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 2: that's all you need in those I mean, I I

1144
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:23,120
Speaker 2: just submitted my clay to my editor, and I think,

1145
00:59:23,160 --> 00:59:25,200
Speaker 2: what can happen when you're when you're making the clay,

1146
00:59:25,480 --> 00:59:28,240
Speaker 2: is you try to compare your clay to someone's oz

1147
00:59:28,880 --> 00:59:32,720
Speaker 2: that has been the final product. I ain't about to

1148
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,200
Speaker 2: We can't compare the clay to what's on the bookshelves

1149
00:59:36,240 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 2: that you know, because that's been Yeah, there's been multiple, many,

1150
00:59:40,400 --> 00:59:44,320
Speaker 2: many different hands in that final product. But I just

1151
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:48,040
Speaker 2: submitted my clay. Took me three years to make that clay.

1152
00:59:50,080 --> 00:59:54,560
Speaker 1: Listen, get yourself a bottless champagne, because that's that's a celebration.

1153
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:56,080
Speaker 1: That's a real celebration.

1154
00:59:56,360 --> 01:00:00,120
Speaker 2: To night we celebrate. I submitted it on Monday. The

1155
01:00:00,160 --> 01:00:03,120
Speaker 2: book change from when like the Sky full of Elephants?

1156
01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:05,960
Speaker 2: Did it change like the premise of it or was

1157
01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 2: it pretty much like I know I'm writing this book,

1158
01:00:08,400 --> 01:00:10,200
Speaker 2: the event's going to happen, and I know it'll be

1159
01:00:10,320 --> 01:00:12,680
Speaker 2: Charlie and Sidney's story and then you move forward from there.

1160
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:16,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't change very much. Indeed, part of the

1161
01:00:17,720 --> 01:00:20,920
Speaker 1: the this sounds I realize what I'm about to say

1162
01:00:21,000 --> 01:00:26,040
Speaker 1: sounds pretentious, but I was able to sort of choose

1163
01:00:26,600 --> 01:00:29,200
Speaker 1: the publisher. And I know that does not happen very often.

1164
01:00:29,400 --> 01:00:32,440
Speaker 2: If a pretentious is a fact, but you earned it,

1165
01:00:32,640 --> 01:00:35,320
Speaker 2: just as you had a proof of product already.

1166
01:00:36,720 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: I was able to, like, you know, there were a

1167
01:00:40,080 --> 01:00:42,560
Speaker 1: few different publishers that were ruying for the book, and

1168
01:00:42,880 --> 01:00:48,280
Speaker 1: it just so happened that Simon Schuster and Olivia they preempted.

1169
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:50,360
Speaker 1: They were like, nope, we want it, and they came

1170
01:00:50,400 --> 01:00:51,880
Speaker 1: in early. And so I was like, well, let me,

1171
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:54,880
Speaker 1: let me meet with different ones, let me see, because

1172
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:56,240
Speaker 1: I don't want my book to change.

1173
01:00:56,320 --> 01:00:59,000
Speaker 2: I want it to be you wrote it at that point.

1174
01:00:59,080 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a novel. You'd write a chunk of it,

1175
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:02,520
Speaker 2: if not the whole thing.

1176
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 1: I written the whole thing because, like I say, I

1177
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:08,560
Speaker 1: become accustomed to like, I'm trying to get to something

1178
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 1: I don't want. I don't want. I don't want it

1179
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: to mean the work of art if you think of

1180
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 1: it in those terms, you want it to at least

1181
01:01:15,520 --> 01:01:18,919
Speaker 1: feel complete enough that no one else is going to change.

1182
01:01:18,960 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 1: If I was writing a song and I gave it

1183
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:22,120
Speaker 1: to another musician, they'd be like, well do this and

1184
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:24,120
Speaker 1: do that, and I don't want that. I wanted it

1185
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:25,439
Speaker 1: to be. I want to be mine. So I wrote

1186
01:01:25,480 --> 01:01:28,480
Speaker 1: the whole thing, and then I gave it to I

1187
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:30,560
Speaker 1: gave it to my agent that he sensed around and

1188
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: they know Olivia a wonderful one of our editors. She

1189
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:36,480
Speaker 1: preempted it and she was I was like, let's get

1190
01:01:36,520 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 1: on a call. Get on a call. And the first

1191
01:01:38,880 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 1: thing she says, she goes, She's like, I recognize that

1192
01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:45,560
Speaker 1: you know I'm Jewish and white. I die in this book,

1193
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:47,840
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure that everyone that that

1194
01:01:48,000 --> 01:01:50,600
Speaker 1: does not change. We needed to be exactly what you

1195
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:52,640
Speaker 1: want it to be. I was like, that's what I'm

1196
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:54,160
Speaker 1: talking about. Was like, so what type of stuff?

1197
01:01:55,280 --> 01:01:56,840
Speaker 2: I was going to ask if your editor was black?

1198
01:01:57,080 --> 01:02:01,960
Speaker 1: Hard to find she's wonderful, remarkable. She was like, I

1199
01:02:02,120 --> 01:02:04,040
Speaker 1: want to figure out how we can expand the story

1200
01:02:04,040 --> 01:02:05,880
Speaker 1: and make it bigger. I don't want to change it.

1201
01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:07,360
Speaker 1: They want to make it bigger. And so the whole,

1202
01:02:07,640 --> 01:02:12,200
Speaker 1: the whole Vivian Hoseiah piece, like I knew they would

1203
01:02:12,200 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: get to they would be in Alabama because I'd already

1204
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:16,400
Speaker 1: written that, but I didn't write how they got to

1205
01:02:16,560 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 1: Alabama and how that all that that was all, Olivia,

1206
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:23,160
Speaker 1: we wrote a couple of additional scenes that that we

1207
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:26,280
Speaker 1: sort of tinkled through, we reorganized some bits, so she

1208
01:02:26,480 --> 01:02:29,520
Speaker 1: was she was pivotal in getting it into that boss

1209
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:34,240
Speaker 1: as you described, but we'd never changed from its its concept,

1210
01:02:36,120 --> 01:02:38,000
Speaker 1: and she was she I don't think she would have

1211
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:40,680
Speaker 1: even allowed it because she wanted She was like. The

1212
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:42,640
Speaker 1: one thing that it did say, which was which was

1213
01:02:42,720 --> 01:02:45,680
Speaker 1: really fun is they were like, well, your book is

1214
01:02:45,760 --> 01:02:48,760
Speaker 1: going to come out around the election, so maybe maybe

1215
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:51,720
Speaker 1: we'd wait until the year after, and I was like, nope,

1216
01:02:52,000 --> 01:02:53,040
Speaker 1: let's do it the year before.

1217
01:02:53,400 --> 01:02:53,720
Speaker 2: And uh.

1218
01:02:53,880 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 1: And that was when what's his name, Ron DeSantis was

1219
01:02:57,760 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 1: everyone thought he was going to be it and he

1220
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:02,600
Speaker 1: was burning in Florida and all that, and I was like,

1221
01:03:02,720 --> 01:03:05,480
Speaker 1: let's be confrontational, like let's let's let's do it. And

1222
01:03:05,640 --> 01:03:07,680
Speaker 1: even that she was like, all right, let's do it.

1223
01:03:08,640 --> 01:03:10,880
Speaker 2: That's so funny to me because I'm like, this book

1224
01:03:11,000 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 2: is meant to be a lightning rod, Like right, I

1225
01:03:14,320 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 2: mean it's not that, it's not a quiet book. I'm

1226
01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:19,600
Speaker 2: just gonna scoot this. Just excuse me. I'm just gonna

1227
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:24,439
Speaker 2: casual white people.

1228
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:25,480
Speaker 1: There you go.

1229
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:28,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, how many banned books list. Is it on if any?

1230
01:03:29,080 --> 01:03:31,120
Speaker 1: So far, I don't think. I don't think it's on.

1231
01:03:31,280 --> 01:03:33,920
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it on any So it's going to

1232
01:03:33,920 --> 01:03:35,880
Speaker 1: be that I know of, because I'm sure it's going

1233
01:03:35,960 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 1: to be, but not that I know of. I've heard

1234
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:40,680
Speaker 1: a lot of people saying, like, you know that it

1235
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:44,160
Speaker 1: will be banned, lots of that, like people constantly get

1236
01:03:44,200 --> 01:03:46,800
Speaker 1: it now before it's banned, that type of stuff. But

1237
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 1: I kind of think of it. If it ever was banned, I'd.

1238
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:53,720
Speaker 2: Be like, great marketing. I mean it's like, literally they're

1239
01:03:53,800 --> 01:03:57,280
Speaker 2: banning the most innocuous, you know books and this I

1240
01:03:57,320 --> 01:03:59,160
Speaker 2: know they're bugging you, like, hey, where are you come

1241
01:03:59,240 --> 01:03:59,880
Speaker 2: do your paperback?

1242
01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:05,800
Speaker 1: And that was just was also amazing. She's the publicist.

1243
01:04:06,040 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 1: She was like, are you done. I'm like, I'm ALMOSTO.

1244
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:10,520
Speaker 2: I know a little side to the to the handler.

1245
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:11,040
Speaker 1: I know that.

1246
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,320
Speaker 2: I do a lot of these, but I'm also selfish

1247
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:18,360
Speaker 2: and I will not make you leave unless.

1248
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:20,520
Speaker 1: Tell me this is this is this is your time,

1249
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:21,240
Speaker 1: This is your time.

1250
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:24,520
Speaker 2: You owe me because you use my life for this book.

1251
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 2: You stole my life story.

1252
01:04:25,960 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: And made me stole it. Laura Laura Jane, Laura Jane,

1253
01:04:32,920 --> 01:04:34,120
Speaker 1: sorry her too.

1254
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:38,080
Speaker 2: So yeah, my sister's Mallorie Anne. I'm a Manda Lee.

1255
01:04:38,440 --> 01:04:40,200
Speaker 2: You know, my mom moved to the South, so she

1256
01:04:40,280 --> 01:04:42,240
Speaker 2: had a little bit of Southern in her no But

1257
01:04:42,440 --> 01:04:45,040
Speaker 2: I I just want to congratulate you, and I'm so

1258
01:04:45,160 --> 01:04:49,720
Speaker 2: excited for you. I think that this novel, I don't know,

1259
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 2: I don't look at like I don't want to, you know,

1260
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:56,800
Speaker 2: become obsessed about like numbers and all sales and stuff

1261
01:04:56,840 --> 01:04:59,400
Speaker 2: like that. But I know people are talking about it,

1262
01:04:59,480 --> 01:05:01,520
Speaker 2: so I really hope that they are buying this book.

1263
01:05:02,080 --> 01:05:07,160
Speaker 2: I feel like it's good, you know, you know good.

1264
01:05:07,600 --> 01:05:10,400
Speaker 2: Any awards on the horizon is that important for this book?

1265
01:05:10,880 --> 01:05:16,640
Speaker 1: I realized It's funny was on they were in La

1266
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:22,200
Speaker 1: at Reparations Club and had this talk and said talked

1267
01:05:22,200 --> 01:05:26,160
Speaker 1: about wanting awards, like wanting to win all the awards,

1268
01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:30,080
Speaker 1: but then realize that she couldn't. They couldn't have the

1269
01:05:30,120 --> 01:05:32,720
Speaker 1: awards at the expense of the audiences that they were

1270
01:05:32,760 --> 01:05:35,720
Speaker 1: trying to speak to. And so I was nominated for

1271
01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:39,360
Speaker 1: It was longest before the Aspine Award. I think the

1272
01:05:39,520 --> 01:05:43,840
Speaker 1: Wrap Games Award as well. But I've kind of I've

1273
01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:46,200
Speaker 1: already say this all the time, like I already won

1274
01:05:46,360 --> 01:05:48,800
Speaker 1: like to even write a book and get it published

1275
01:05:48,920 --> 01:05:51,959
Speaker 1: you want, you want, but then to have people read

1276
01:05:52,000 --> 01:05:53,480
Speaker 1: it and care about it. To be on this call

1277
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:57,480
Speaker 1: makes me feel like I don't want anything. I'm not

1278
01:05:57,600 --> 01:05:59,560
Speaker 1: desirous in that way. I just want to be able

1279
01:05:59,600 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 1: to sit and talking contributes something to literature. You know,

1280
01:06:03,480 --> 01:06:07,600
Speaker 1: Tony Morrison is to me the greatest American writer, if

1281
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:10,320
Speaker 1: not the greatest writer in the history of the world

1282
01:06:10,320 --> 01:06:13,720
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned. And I always imagine that

1283
01:06:13,960 --> 01:06:17,720
Speaker 1: I would write something that she would touch, she would

1284
01:06:17,800 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 1: nudge someone. But have you have you heard of this book?

1285
01:06:19,840 --> 01:06:22,040
Speaker 1: You know? Like in that that's it? Like I don't

1286
01:06:22,080 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 1: really to me, that's the height, and I know that

1287
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:29,240
Speaker 1: won't happen. But perhaps that's as we sort of find

1288
01:06:29,320 --> 01:06:31,600
Speaker 1: the book, and different people find a book in different

1289
01:06:31,640 --> 01:06:34,520
Speaker 1: environments and they share it with someone else. That's all.

1290
01:06:34,800 --> 01:06:38,200
Speaker 1: That's all that. I can't imagine anything greater than you know,

1291
01:06:38,760 --> 01:06:40,560
Speaker 1: so I don't find myself desirous in that way.

1292
01:06:40,920 --> 01:06:42,520
Speaker 2: Well, I have an award for you. It's not really

1293
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:45,640
Speaker 2: an award, but it is a first. So I'm going

1294
01:06:45,720 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 2: to use this time to let you know that Brown

1295
01:06:47,760 --> 01:06:50,600
Speaker 2: Ambitions launching a book club, and sky Full of Elephants

1296
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:51,720
Speaker 2: is going to be the first.

1297
01:06:56,960 --> 01:06:59,200
Speaker 1: Do I get? Can I get like a button or something?

1298
01:06:59,360 --> 01:07:01,400
Speaker 1: I get like a yeah, sure, I just.

1299
01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:03,600
Speaker 2: Made this up, So yeah, we can make a button.

1300
01:07:05,920 --> 01:07:07,200
Speaker 2: Can I use canvas to do that?

1301
01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:12,840
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, listen, that's that's amazing. Can I

1302
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:14,840
Speaker 1: do get to come? Can I be like in it?

1303
01:07:14,920 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 1: Can I come and like? Sure?

1304
01:07:16,520 --> 01:07:18,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love for you to come. I think, well,

1305
01:07:18,840 --> 01:07:22,000
Speaker 2: ba Fam, you're just finding out about it. So Ba Fam,

1306
01:07:22,240 --> 01:07:24,400
Speaker 2: you can go to brown Envision podcast dot com and

1307
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:27,000
Speaker 2: find details about the book club and how you can

1308
01:07:27,080 --> 01:07:29,200
Speaker 2: join it. BA fan has been asking for a book club.

1309
01:07:30,160 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 2: But like I said, when I read books, I don't

1310
01:07:32,160 --> 01:07:34,720
Speaker 2: necessarily want to be reading about the same stuff that

1311
01:07:34,760 --> 01:07:36,280
Speaker 2: we talk about all the time on the show. I

1312
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:38,120
Speaker 2: don't think that life is just money. That's why we

1313
01:07:38,240 --> 01:07:40,760
Speaker 2: do more than just money and finance here. It's about

1314
01:07:41,400 --> 01:07:45,560
Speaker 2: the human experience and you know, our wellness. And I

1315
01:07:45,640 --> 01:07:47,560
Speaker 2: can create the book club that I would like to

1316
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:49,440
Speaker 2: be a part of, which is a mix of everything.

1317
01:07:49,560 --> 01:07:52,480
Speaker 2: And so I think sky Full of Elephants we barely

1318
01:07:52,520 --> 01:07:54,520
Speaker 2: scratch the surface of what we could have dived into.

1319
01:07:55,520 --> 01:07:57,360
Speaker 2: But I would love to bring ba fam into this

1320
01:07:57,560 --> 01:08:00,600
Speaker 2: because it's like when you see a really good film Sinners,

1321
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:03,240
Speaker 2: I'm waiting for other people to read and watch and

1322
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:07,080
Speaker 2: experience it so that I can then have a PhD

1323
01:08:07,320 --> 01:08:10,480
Speaker 2: level breakdown discussion, like I want to get into the weeds.

1324
01:08:11,040 --> 01:08:12,720
Speaker 2: So bea fam. I need you to like be my

1325
01:08:12,800 --> 01:08:15,400
Speaker 2: reading buddies. So we're going to read Sky full of Elephants.

1326
01:08:15,480 --> 01:08:18,679
Speaker 2: We're going to reconvene. We're going to reconvene this summer.

1327
01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:23,080
Speaker 2: And Cibo Campbell, thank you so much for taking the

1328
01:08:23,200 --> 01:08:26,320
Speaker 2: time for writing this book, for staying true to your

1329
01:08:26,479 --> 01:08:30,799
Speaker 2: art for any aspiring writer. There's so many aspiring writers

1330
01:08:30,800 --> 01:08:32,960
Speaker 2: out there work in nine to five. So I want

1331
01:08:32,960 --> 01:08:35,760
Speaker 2: to write a novel. And I hope the takeaway for

1332
01:08:35,880 --> 01:08:39,719
Speaker 2: y'all is, you know Cibo's anecdote about making a plan

1333
01:08:40,600 --> 01:08:44,080
Speaker 2: incrementally understanding that there's small things you can do now

1334
01:08:44,240 --> 01:08:46,639
Speaker 2: to put yourself in a position so that the really

1335
01:08:46,920 --> 01:08:49,759
Speaker 2: amazing opportunities can come to you. That was so smart,

1336
01:08:50,439 --> 01:08:54,360
Speaker 2: so strategic, and so lacking. I feel like among many

1337
01:08:54,439 --> 01:08:58,479
Speaker 2: creators is like those incremental steps to getting it done.

1338
01:08:59,600 --> 01:09:03,080
Speaker 2: So someone else who's like an incremental steps girl, I

1339
01:09:03,240 --> 01:09:06,680
Speaker 2: am Yeah, just huge kudos. It's an honor to have

1340
01:09:06,800 --> 01:09:07,080
Speaker 2: met you.

1341
01:09:07,320 --> 01:09:09,479
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, stay, thank you.

1342
01:09:09,720 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 2: Can we be Lena locked in? Are we like friends?

1343
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:12,080
Speaker 1: Now?

1344
01:09:12,600 --> 01:09:15,120
Speaker 2: I'll be I'll be a mind off. I would come

1345
01:09:15,160 --> 01:09:18,880
Speaker 2: to London. Oh, I'm going to be in London for Beyonces,

1346
01:09:19,080 --> 01:09:22,320
Speaker 2: for Beyonce's concert. Almost see how they get down in London.

1347
01:09:23,080 --> 01:09:25,080
Speaker 1: Saying that to me, Everyone's like, yo, are you I'm

1348
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:26,800
Speaker 1: going to be there for Beyonce. You don't even know

1349
01:09:26,840 --> 01:09:27,759
Speaker 1: how many people said.

1350
01:09:27,560 --> 01:09:27,880
Speaker 2: This to me.

1351
01:09:28,400 --> 01:09:29,680
Speaker 1: I want to be in I'm going to be in

1352
01:09:29,800 --> 01:09:35,080
Speaker 1: the States when Beyonce. I'm going to see my mom.

1353
01:09:35,200 --> 01:09:36,839
Speaker 1: I'm going to be be Aflorida.

1354
01:09:37,000 --> 01:09:39,599
Speaker 2: Oh good boy, Now go see your mom. That's okay,

1355
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:40,880
Speaker 2: London's not that far.

1356
01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:46,240
Speaker 1: No, no, no, And congratulations on getting your book submitted.

1357
01:09:46,479 --> 01:09:50,160
Speaker 1: Congratulations on finishing it. It's it's I know, it's like

1358
01:09:50,760 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 1: it's a weight off of your shoulders that will only

1359
01:09:53,040 --> 01:09:55,280
Speaker 1: come back when when it's time to do all of

1360
01:09:55,360 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 1: the edits and do all of the stuff to get

1361
01:09:57,040 --> 01:09:57,400
Speaker 1: it ready.

1362
01:09:58,120 --> 01:09:59,880
Speaker 2: But I think I might have a summer. I don't know.

1363
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 2: I think I might have a partial summer. I didn't

1364
01:10:03,479 --> 01:10:05,680
Speaker 2: expect having a summer. I guess I got to make

1365
01:10:05,680 --> 01:10:06,280
Speaker 2: plans now.

1366
01:10:07,320 --> 01:10:09,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't expect summers with kids in general, but

1367
01:10:09,960 --> 01:10:12,840
Speaker 1: like with you kids and a book that you're now editing,

1368
01:10:12,960 --> 01:10:13,439
Speaker 1: it's going to be.

1369
01:10:13,520 --> 01:10:16,480
Speaker 2: It's going to be a good bit of fun. So congrats,

1370
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:20,080
Speaker 2: thanks so much. All right, good luck. The paperback is

1371
01:10:20,120 --> 01:10:23,200
Speaker 2: coming out this fall. Go make an incredible, brilliant marketing

1372
01:10:23,280 --> 01:10:26,800
Speaker 2: plan for that. I'm sure you will. Until next time,

1373
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:28,559
Speaker 2: Yay browny Mission book Club.

1374
01:10:29,560 --> 01:10:31,160
Speaker 1: Vik can't wait, I can't wait?

1375
01:10:31,479 --> 01:10:35,680
Speaker 2: Please okay v a fan, thank you so much for

1376
01:10:35,840 --> 01:10:38,200
Speaker 2: listening to this week's show. I want to shout out

1377
01:10:38,280 --> 01:10:43,000
Speaker 2: to our production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless

1378
01:10:43,120 --> 01:10:46,679
Speaker 2: leader for idea to launch productions. I want to shout

1379
01:10:46,720 --> 01:10:51,479
Speaker 2: out my assistant Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping

1380
01:10:51,560 --> 01:10:54,200
Speaker 2: me put the show together. It is not a one

1381
01:10:54,240 --> 01:10:57,400
Speaker 2: person project, as much as I have tried to make

1382
01:10:57,439 --> 01:11:00,519
Speaker 2: it so these past ten years. I need help, y'all,

1383
01:11:01,040 --> 01:11:03,240
Speaker 2: and thank goodness I've been able to put this team

1384
01:11:03,360 --> 01:11:06,160
Speaker 2: around me to support me on this journey and to

1385
01:11:06,280 --> 01:11:08,439
Speaker 2: y'all be a fam I love you so so so

1386
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:12,280
Speaker 2: so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, make sure you signed

1387
01:11:12,320 --> 01:11:14,719
Speaker 2: up to the newsletter to get all the latest updates

1388
01:11:14,760 --> 01:11:19,360
Speaker 2: on upcoming episodes, our ten year anniversary celebrations to come,

1389
01:11:20,040 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 2: and until next time, talk to you soon via bye.