Speaker 1: You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I'm Hillary Clinton and this is You and Me Both,
Speaker 1: where I get to talk to people I admire about
Speaker 1: topics that are important to us. And today we're talking
Speaker 1: about books. You know, books have been a part of
Speaker 1: my life for as long as I can remember. I
Speaker 1: adore reading. It's truly one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 1: I do it every chance I get. All kinds of
Speaker 1: books have kept me company, of educated and inspired me.
Speaker 1: And I thought, as we're moving in toward the holidays,
Speaker 1: we should all be thinking about how we're going to
Speaker 1: slow down and read books that will transport us out
Speaker 1: of where we are from our quarantine situations. So today
Speaker 1: I'll be talking to Marley Dias. Marley, when she was
Speaker 1: just ten years old, started one thousand Black Girl Books.
Speaker 1: That was her campaign to collect and donate children's books
Speaker 1: that featured black girls because she just wasn't seeing books
Speaker 1: like that in her classes or in her school library.
Speaker 1: I will also be talking to Stacy Abrams. Now you've
Speaker 1: heard from Stacy before on this podcast, but this time
Speaker 1: we're talking about something very different than politics. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the romance novels she writes under her
Speaker 1: pen name Selena Montgomery. But first I'm talking with award
Speaker 1: winning crime novelist Louise Penny. Louise has written sixteen books
Speaker 1: in her Inspector Gamash series. They're set in the fictional
Speaker 1: town of Three Pines, which is a place that she
Speaker 1: invented across the border from Vermont in eastern Quebec, and
Speaker 1: she has populated it with some of the most interesting
Speaker 1: characters in action. I love her books. I've read every
Speaker 1: single one of them. And if you haven't read any
Speaker 1: of Louise Penny's books, or you haven't heard Louise, Wow,
Speaker 1: you have a real treat coming. I want to start
Speaker 1: by saying that I knew of Louise's work before I
Speaker 1: knew Louise, and the reason I knew about her and
Speaker 1: started reading her with the very first book in her
Speaker 1: series years ago, is because my dear dear friend Betsy Evelyn,
Speaker 1: was a big fan. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: Betsy and I did throughout all the decades of our
Speaker 1: friendship was to exchange ideas about books to read and
Speaker 1: books that could just literally lift you out of the
Speaker 1: day to day. So Louise is one of those writers
Speaker 1: who we both mutually fell in love with and then,
Speaker 1: as fate would have it, Betsy got to meet Louise
Speaker 1: in summer of sixteen, and then I got to meet Louise,
Speaker 1: and then we got to be great friends. So I
Speaker 1: just can't tell you how pleased I am to be
Speaker 1: talking with you today, Louise, And are you Hillary? This
Speaker 1: is fantastic home know, well, today we want to talk
Speaker 1: about and explore the idea of escaping through what we read.
Speaker 1: And I think that's particularly important right now given what's
Speaker 1: happening around the world. And so let me start by
Speaker 1: asking you, Louise, when did you fall in love with mysteries? Well,
Speaker 1: I didn't start reading mysteries until I was probably in
Speaker 1: my early teens because I never read Nancy Drew. I
Speaker 1: don't know how I missed Nancy Drew, but you fell
Speaker 1: told you that's how you started. Absolutely yes, and and
Speaker 1: the Hardy Boys, but they were, you know, a distant
Speaker 1: second to Nancy Drew. Right, exactly how I could have
Speaker 1: missed Nancy Drew. I was reading and Green Gables and
Speaker 1: all of the Oh yes, But I remember clearly the
Speaker 1: first time because I was a voracious reader as a child,
Speaker 1: but never crime novels. And I remember coming up the stairs.
Speaker 1: We had a cottage north of Montreal in the Laurentians,
Speaker 1: and we were there for the summer, and I came
Speaker 1: upstairs and my mother came out of the bedroom and
Speaker 1: it was mid afternoon or so, and she was holding
Speaker 1: a book and she said, you know, I just finished
Speaker 1: this book, and I think you'd like it. And she
Speaker 1: handed it to me and it was still warm from
Speaker 1: her hands, and it was an Agatha Christie and it
Speaker 1: was the first time that my mother and I shared
Speaker 1: a book. It's become magic since then, and I've had
Speaker 1: such a soft spot for Christie since then as well,
Speaker 1: and and for crime novels. One of the questions I'd
Speaker 1: love to find out from you is how did you
Speaker 1: come to Nancy Drew. I think Nancy Drew was recommended
Speaker 1: by the librarian in my public library. And I used
Speaker 1: to go with my mother when I was too young
Speaker 1: to go by myself, to our local, very small public library,
Speaker 1: and the librarian said, oh, I think you'd like this.
Speaker 1: It's about a girl who has adventures and solves mysteries.
Speaker 1: So that's how I started reading Nancy Drew. And it
Speaker 1: was a kind of absurd story that the sixteen year
Speaker 1: old girl her father was a widower and she literally
Speaker 1: could go anywhere and drive her own roadster. Uh out
Speaker 1: to solve mysteries, but it just took me. And then
Speaker 1: I discovered Agatha Christie like you did, and fell in
Speaker 1: love with how economic her stories were and how clever
Speaker 1: they were. But I want to get back to you
Speaker 1: because you're the one who's actually producing these extraordinary stories
Speaker 1: that give me a lot of delight and escapism. So
Speaker 1: tell us how you got started writing mysteries. I wasn't
Speaker 1: actually going to write a mystery. I was a journalist
Speaker 1: at the CBC and I was tired, and I'd covered
Speaker 1: one too many Quebec sovereignty referendum. Quebec has quite stressful politics,
Speaker 1: and I had frankly burned out. It is a little
Speaker 1: embarrassing to say to you, Hillary Clinton, that I burned
Speaker 1: out on Canadian politics. But I I Michael, my husband.
Speaker 1: I came home one day and he said, look, I
Speaker 1: know you've always wanted to write. If if you want
Speaker 1: to quit work in order to write your book, I
Speaker 1: will support you. So I quit work and then suffered
Speaker 1: five years of writer's block. I got to the stage, Hillary,
Speaker 1: where Michael, You're going to work every day? By bye, honey,
Speaker 1: good Luck had come home and he stopped asking how
Speaker 1: the book was going. It was right up there with
Speaker 1: when I turned thirty five and my mother stopped asking
Speaker 1: if I'd met any nice man lately. And then I
Speaker 1: moved Michael and I moved out of Montreal down south,
Speaker 1: quite close to the Vermont border, and I fell in
Speaker 1: with a group of women, all of whom were creative,
Speaker 1: and they taught me something that should have been self evident,
Speaker 1: but I realized is that I was just riddled with
Speaker 1: fear and insecurity and something that has been um a
Speaker 1: challenge for me most of my life, and that is
Speaker 1: the need for the approval of others, or the really
Speaker 1: more the fear of disapproval. So what would happen if
Speaker 1: I tried and failed and they taught me? And I
Speaker 1: saw it in what they did and their courage to
Speaker 1: create and put it out there, was that the trying
Speaker 1: and the failing and the judgment of others wouldn't kill me.
Speaker 1: What was killing me, quietly was the not trying. So
Speaker 1: I decided I would write a crime novel, and I
Speaker 1: would write it just for myself, just write it for
Speaker 1: the joy of it. This happened actually shortly after nine eleven.
Speaker 1: I realized that no place is safe, that anything can
Speaker 1: happen at any time, and there's no no safety, physical safety.
Speaker 1: So I started writing. I wrote for two or three years,
Speaker 1: and then I finally I'd finished the book. And do
Speaker 1: you want me to go on? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm just doing a monologue here, Ghilary. I hate to,
Speaker 1: but your eyes are still open. My eyes are open,
Speaker 1: My ears are, you know, very open, despite having headphones on.
Speaker 1: I think this is such a it's it's not only
Speaker 1: a great story about what you did overcoming fear of failure,
Speaker 1: overcoming the perfectionist gene that unfortunately afflicts a lot of women,
Speaker 1: being willing to do something for yourself that, as you say,
Speaker 1: gave joy to you. And then you finished. You know,
Speaker 1: I love the characters that you have created, and I've
Speaker 1: often heard you say that you created characters that you
Speaker 1: would want to spend time with. Take us inside your process,
Speaker 1: because it's really the characters that I think drive your
Speaker 1: plot and drive the success of your series, because people
Speaker 1: want to know what's happening to them. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: conscious partly because I didn't think the books would be published,
Speaker 1: so I had to enjoy the process that might be
Speaker 1: the only reward I would get. But that whole sense
Speaker 1: of the village was done deliberately because of again nine eleven,
Speaker 1: and that understanding and profound appreciation that anything can happen
Speaker 1: at any time, and that our as I said before,
Speaker 1: our physical bodies are never going to be safe. There's
Speaker 1: no way. Eventually we'll all die and we don't know how,
Speaker 1: we don't know when there's there's no guarantee of physical safety.
Speaker 1: There is, however, a way to guarantee emotional and spiritual safety.
Speaker 1: And the way to do that and the only way
Speaker 1: I can figure out to do that is through a
Speaker 1: sense of belonging of community. And that's what I wanted
Speaker 1: Three Pines to be, was that safe place for our souls,
Speaker 1: for our emotions. Where there are flawed people, there are
Speaker 1: kind people. There are people who are occasionally cruel, but
Speaker 1: there is beyond all else acceptance, where people are genuinely friends,
Speaker 1: where goodness exists. The books are about terror, but at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they're an l get to
Speaker 1: goodness and that goodness exists and will triumph I believe
Speaker 1: that I've seen it in my life, and it's something
Speaker 1: I cling to in these days, that goodness will triumph.
Speaker 1: We're taking a quick break. Stay with us. But of course,
Speaker 1: just as in life, there is no such thing as
Speaker 1: absolute safety, and so the community keeps being interrupted by murder.
Speaker 1: For a very small little place, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: north of the Vermont border and east turn back, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of dead bodies that are there. And
Speaker 1: how the different characters, of course react to that and
Speaker 1: what they know or what they shouldn't know but don't
Speaker 1: realize they do, And and it truly is a joy
Speaker 1: to read because you're discovering as you go this underlying
Speaker 1: tension between good and evil, between cruelty and kindness. And
Speaker 1: I want to sort of circle back to why people
Speaker 1: read for escape, especially mysteries. Why is it that the mystery,
Speaker 1: the crime story has just sustained itself. I guess from
Speaker 1: probably the Greeks to the Romans? Right, do you know, Hillary?
Speaker 1: I wish I knew. I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: like puzzles, and mysteries are often puzzles, and so you
Speaker 1: can escape into who did it? And where the clues
Speaker 1: and so you can leave your own troubles behind. I
Speaker 1: think with crime novels mysteries, often you know it's going
Speaker 1: to be solved, that there will be an end and
Speaker 1: an answer, and in this life so rarely are there
Speaker 1: actually clear answers to all of our troubles. I think
Speaker 1: for my books there's also, as you put your finger on,
Speaker 1: there's also the sense of community and belonging that I
Speaker 1: think also adds a layer of comfort that the books,
Speaker 1: while clearly and happily novels, are actually about other things.
Speaker 1: What do you think, like, why do you read crime novels? Well,
Speaker 1: I will tell you I read a certain kind of
Speaker 1: crime novel because a lot of what's called crime or
Speaker 1: thriller novels to me are so formulaic and filled with
Speaker 1: bloody violence and without much depth of character development, and
Speaker 1: so I don't particularly respond to those. I find them
Speaker 1: like just an anvil hitting me in the head as
Speaker 1: one more horrible dismemberment of some young woman happens. So
Speaker 1: I'm interested in character development along with the mystery, and
Speaker 1: we need a setting that is different. You know. One
Speaker 1: of the things I love about your books and why
Speaker 1: I find that escape in them, is yes, you may
Speaker 1: be in the same place in Eastern Quebec, in Three Pine,
Speaker 1: in Montreal, you know, in Quebec City. Those are the
Speaker 1: places that you have populated. But you feel as though
Speaker 1: you're learning something, You're expanding your understanding of a place,
Speaker 1: like for example, I personally did not know that people
Speaker 1: loyal to the British crown helped to settle eastern Quebec
Speaker 1: until I started reading your books. So little things like that,
Speaker 1: which are you know, worth noting to, you know, larger
Speaker 1: questions about corruption inside police forces, something that you know
Speaker 1: we're clearly dealing with right now in our own country.
Speaker 1: So I read for plot and character and place and
Speaker 1: learning something. And yes, I also like the outcomes of
Speaker 1: mysteries because in the vast majority of the ones that
Speaker 1: I like, the bad guy gets has come up. And
Speaker 1: you know, so I read and I learn, and I escape,
Speaker 1: and I can go deeper and I can feel a
Speaker 1: connection to your characters. That's what keeps me, you know,
Speaker 1: coming back time and again. And I guess I want
Speaker 1: to ask in reverse, do you think you started writing
Speaker 1: and continue writing as a form of escape. I've never
Speaker 1: been asked that before. I didn't realize I did until
Speaker 1: Michael got sick, as you know, with dementia, particularly near
Speaker 1: the end, and I thought I wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: write through it, but it turned out to be the opposite.
Speaker 1: So I would look after Michael and get into bed,
Speaker 1: and then I'd come out and I would be able
Speaker 1: to escape into this world I had created oddly enough
Speaker 1: so that other people could be comforted. Never occurred to
Speaker 1: me that I would be the main beneficiary, not only
Speaker 1: because I could control it, and I think there was
Speaker 1: part of that, but it was so comfortable being with
Speaker 1: these friends, and I could write and write and write,
Speaker 1: and I could feel all my fear, all the terror
Speaker 1: slipping a way. So yeah, yeah, you're right, I do
Speaker 1: and through this the pandemic. For the first little while,
Speaker 1: I was so distracted and kind of distraught, I found
Speaker 1: it difficult to focus. But after that I found it
Speaker 1: such a comfort to be able to right and write
Speaker 1: what it is I write. I don't write about a
Speaker 1: world that's worse than the one I actually live in.
Speaker 1: You know that is so meaningful to me to hear
Speaker 1: you say that. I think what you have given as
Speaker 1: a gift to your millions and millions of readers is
Speaker 1: that ability to breathe, to just exhale, to find that
Speaker 1: moment of release and some separation of the day to
Speaker 1: day pressures and stresses and craziness that we are living through.
Speaker 1: So for a million reasons, I am grateful for you
Speaker 1: and the characters you have created. And I just can't
Speaker 1: wait to see where these characters of yours take us
Speaker 1: next time, because there's always going to be a huge
Speaker 1: need for escape. Well what you just said, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can feel my eyes burning. Thank you. Louise's latest book,
Speaker 1: All the Devils Are Here, is on shelves now and
Speaker 1: it's terrific. In it, she takes Inspector Gamash and his
Speaker 1: family out of Quebec for the first time and transports
Speaker 1: them to Paris. You will feel like you're right in Paris,
Speaker 1: as yes, crimes are committed and Gamash has to once
Speaker 1: again come to the forefront. Look for it now at
Speaker 1: your local bookstore. Our next guest needs no introduction. I
Speaker 1: know you've heard of Stacy Abrahams, and I hope you've
Speaker 1: heard her speaking on this podcast about her work protecting
Speaker 1: the vote in Georgia and across our country. But you
Speaker 1: might not know that Stacy also writes romantic suspense novels
Speaker 1: under the pen name Selena Montgomery. Selena has written eight books,
Speaker 1: including two parts of a trilogy that got put on
Speaker 1: hold after Stacy was elected to the Georgia House of
Speaker 1: Representatives in two thousand and seven. I'm delighted to be
Speaker 1: talking to Stacy Abrahams again. I am going to start
Speaker 1: by asking Stacy, this extraordinary person whom I have come
Speaker 1: to not only admire but have great affection for, how
Speaker 1: in the world did you ever start writing romance novels
Speaker 1: set the stage for us? Where were you, what were
Speaker 1: you doing? And why? So? I have always loved romance novels.
Speaker 1: My mom and my great aunt Jeanette actually collected them.
Speaker 1: My mom was librarian who kept every book she ever had,
Speaker 1: and my great aunt Janette loved them, and so my
Speaker 1: sisters and I really grew up loving romance novels. We
Speaker 1: graduated from Barbara Cartland to Harlequin and finally into the
Speaker 1: Silhouette universe, which was spicier. We also watched soap operas religiously,
Speaker 1: so we watched ABC, so you know Bryant's Hope all
Speaker 1: my children, but General Hospital was where it was at.
Speaker 1: I was an angst written teenager who was not allowed
Speaker 1: to date till I was sixteen. So I wrote my
Speaker 1: first romance novel, which I think was all of like
Speaker 1: fifteen pages, when I was in junior high school. But
Speaker 1: it was in law school actually at our mutual alma mater,
Speaker 1: when I decided to write a novel. It actually wanted
Speaker 1: to write a spye novel. My plan was to write
Speaker 1: this espionage novel based on my ex boyfriends dissertation. He
Speaker 1: was a chemical physicist and he did his dissertation on
Speaker 1: this thing called micro zeolite technology. It was an interesting dissertation,
Speaker 1: but the concepts were amazing, and so I'm calling him,
Speaker 1: having been one of five people to read his dissertation, saying,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you could do these things with it.
Speaker 1: And he was like, you can't do any of that,
Speaker 1: Like this is why we broke up. You have no imagination.
Speaker 1: So I got ready to write the book. Talked to
Speaker 1: a few friends who were in law school who've been publishing,
Speaker 1: and they said, you're never going to sell a spy novel.
Speaker 1: It's and they said, look, publishers don't buy spine novels
Speaker 1: by or about women. They said, are you planning for
Speaker 1: your characters? To look like you and like, well yeah,
Speaker 1: and they said, well, then then you're definitely not going
Speaker 1: to sell it because at that point, African American main
Speaker 1: characters in suspense just didn't really exist. And so I
Speaker 1: thought about it and being a problem solver, I decided, like,
Speaker 1: I know, I've read novels about women spies, not anyone black,
Speaker 1: but I've I've seen it before and I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: it was romance. And so I killed the same number
Speaker 1: of people. I wrote the exact same story. I just
Speaker 1: made my spies fall in up. So you decide you're
Speaker 1: going to do this, and when you started thinking about it,
Speaker 1: you knew you wanted your character's, particularly your lead character,
Speaker 1: to be an African American woman. Absolutely, And is that
Speaker 1: because you had not really seen very many characters who
Speaker 1: look like you in these books that you love to
Speaker 1: read growing up. That was a huge part of it,
Speaker 1: particularly in the romance space. I think by when I
Speaker 1: was really working on it, there had been perhaps two
Speaker 1: to five women. So Beverly Jenkins, who's sort of the
Speaker 1: godmother of black romance, Brenda Jackson, had broken through, but
Speaker 1: most black women who were writing in romantic veins were
Speaker 1: either relegated to historical fiction, which is what Beverly just
Speaker 1: does so extraordinarily well. And then you had on the
Speaker 1: other side what was called urban fiction. And what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do was I wanted to write about a
Speaker 1: chemical physicist. I at one point thought I would be
Speaker 1: a physicist. I was, you know, very sad that the
Speaker 1: CIA never recruited me to be a spat And so
Speaker 1: for me, it was as much about writing stories that
Speaker 1: I was never given to read, but it was also
Speaker 1: I wanted to write a story where I could live
Speaker 1: out my alternate universe fantasy. And it was a multi
Speaker 1: racial coalition of spies and my boyfriend is still languishing
Speaker 1: in prison in the in the novel, it was a
Speaker 1: bad came back for lack of imagining. It did, and
Speaker 1: you know, we we we didn't have the nicest breakup
Speaker 1: at the time. We got over it, but it was
Speaker 1: it was it was about situating myself and situating my
Speaker 1: community in this space that we were able to tell,
Speaker 1: you know, a range of stories, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be able to see myself, see my siblings, see our
Speaker 1: our world included in this broader narrative about what it
Speaker 1: meant to be in fiction. I think that first book
Speaker 1: was that Rules of Engagement was at your first one?
Speaker 1: That was it? And so when did you finish that?
Speaker 1: So I finished it during law school. I was on
Speaker 1: an intensive semester, which is this program at Yale where
Speaker 1: you get to go anywhere and study. I in contrast
Speaker 1: to my very exotic selection of books, I went home
Speaker 1: to Mississippi to write about the charity tax credit that
Speaker 1: had been passed under the Clinton administration. And I really
Speaker 1: want to think about how the charity tax credit worked
Speaker 1: for religious organizations. And my parents were both ministers, so
Speaker 1: I was examining that. So I'm writing this very detailed
Speaker 1: treatise on tax policy at the exact same time I
Speaker 1: started writing my novel. And one of the moments that
Speaker 1: I remember so clearly, I had sent off the first
Speaker 1: three chapters. Because if you read all the publishers weekly
Speaker 1: tropes about how to sell a novel, I sent the
Speaker 1: first three chapters off and it said you you'll expect
Speaker 1: a response in twelve to twenty four weeks. I got
Speaker 1: a response back in six I did not have a book,
Speaker 1: and so I'm in the car with my mom and
Speaker 1: I hand her the letter because I'm driving, and she
Speaker 1: reads it to me, and then she says, and there
Speaker 1: are looking forward to receiving the whole novel. And I
Speaker 1: nearly crashed the car on the highway because I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh god, there is no book. So I learned I'm
Speaker 1: a very fast writer. You had to be. I did. So.
Speaker 1: I finished the book in about seven weeks that was published.
Speaker 1: And how did because I know what you've published? What seven?
Speaker 1: Is that? Right? Eight? One thing that strikes me about
Speaker 1: your novels and about the reasons why you do it,
Speaker 1: I mean romance and as you rightly said, thrillers spine
Speaker 1: novels have been historically very white, so you're venturing into
Speaker 1: this genre. Do you have any idea of the tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of your books that you've sold, you know,
Speaker 1: do you have white readers? Have you met people who say, Hey,
Speaker 1: I love your character, or I really related to it,
Speaker 1: or I didn't know what to expect, but I'm glad
Speaker 1: I picked it up. I do. I I have two
Speaker 1: sets of readers that I think we're contrary to what
Speaker 1: was expected, because part of the way romance sells is
Speaker 1: the covers exactly and the minute a black person, a
Speaker 1: person of colors on the cover, You're not only pulled
Speaker 1: out of the romance genre and put on your own
Speaker 1: special shelf. That shelf is usually out of the way.
Speaker 1: You've got to go look for black romance. You have
Speaker 1: to go look for Latino romance or A A p I.
Speaker 1: And so by declaring my character race, I was removed
Speaker 1: from the general space where I could sell my books.
Speaker 1: What benefited me actually was two sets of readers, so
Speaker 1: white women who would write me and tell me I
Speaker 1: don't usually read black romance. And I'm like, there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as black romance. There's romance, and the characters
Speaker 1: happened to be black. Look, I mean, the romance in
Speaker 1: your books is kind of steamy, that kinds across every
Speaker 1: possible category. Although I acknowledge that for those who were
Speaker 1: thinking they were going to get steamy your My parents
Speaker 1: are ministers and my mom's church used to read my books,
Speaker 1: so you know, in the current universe of steamy, I
Speaker 1: am tea kettle, I am not volcano. So but the
Speaker 1: second group that read my book there was a I
Speaker 1: got this amazing letter, this guy who called himself that
Speaker 1: he was the head of the paper bag gang, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this? And This is this white
Speaker 1: construction worker who was sick and his wife gave him
Speaker 1: a copy of my book and he was like, I
Speaker 1: don't read this stuff. And he was like, she's like,
Speaker 1: just shut up and read the book. And he liked
Speaker 1: it so much he took it with him, but he
Speaker 1: wanted to rip off the cover and his wife was like, no,
Speaker 1: he's hot, you can't take the cover off. And so
Speaker 1: he put it in a brown paper bag and he
Speaker 1: took it to work and he shared it with his
Speaker 1: friends at the construction site and they started reading my books.
Speaker 1: And so I know I have cut across you know,
Speaker 1: demographics with my writing. That's so great. And you know,
Speaker 1: part of what I've read that you know you've said
Speaker 1: is that you you wanted to show that black women
Speaker 1: were just as adventurous, uh and a active as any
Speaker 1: white woman. And the same for the men. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the men you write about are equally compelling
Speaker 1: and sexy and interesting and all the rest. And I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, I do not intend to diminish
Speaker 1: culturally specific writing at all. I think it is important,
Speaker 1: it is relevant, it is necessary, but it should be
Speaker 1: the choice of the author, not the assumption of the
Speaker 1: publisher or of the bookstore and bookseller to say that
Speaker 1: the only people who would read this are people who
Speaker 1: share your phenotype, because I've read everything. I read James Joyce,
Speaker 1: and I read Nora Roberts, and i read Walter Mosley
Speaker 1: and Beverly Jenkins, and there is no expectation in my
Speaker 1: mind that I'm not permitted to read James Joyce because
Speaker 1: I'm not a white Irish guy. Exactly why would there
Speaker 1: be the presumption that you could not read my books
Speaker 1: simply because I described the characters with mocha and chocolates
Speaker 1: in as opposed to pale ivory. Exactly how did you
Speaker 1: come up with your pen name? Is there a story
Speaker 1: behind Montgomery? So? As I said, I started writing in
Speaker 1: law school, and as you know, there are two papers
Speaker 1: you have to write. My second paper was on the
Speaker 1: operational dissonance of the unrelated business income tax exemption. I
Speaker 1: finished that paper during the end of law school. I
Speaker 1: submitted it to the Yale Law and Policy Review and
Speaker 1: they they picked it up. So I was going to
Speaker 1: be published my my first publication and tax policy at
Speaker 1: the exact same time that my romance novel was going
Speaker 1: to come to the marketplace. And this is all at
Speaker 1: the time that Google was having its debut. If Google
Speaker 1: was going to be this real thing, if you looked
Speaker 1: up my name trying to buy my romance novel, you
Speaker 1: would likely pick up my tax policy. And I didn't
Speaker 1: think anyone was interested in reading Romance by Alan Greenspan,
Speaker 1: and so I like, well, I'll come up in the
Speaker 1: new name. I was watching an A and E biography
Speaker 1: of Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha on Bewitched, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I like Montgomery, and I thought about her
Speaker 1: her evil cousin, Serena, and I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: like Serena, but Selena. And so I became Selena Montgomery.
Speaker 1: It was about two thirty in the morning, so the
Speaker 1: story was much more interesting at night than it is
Speaker 1: in the daytime. But that's how I became Selena Montgomery.
Speaker 1: And I assumed Google has figured that out, so people
Speaker 1: now google you. Stacy Abrahams saw her on TV. Love
Speaker 1: what she said, Selena may pop up. So there's a
Speaker 1: little cognitive dissonance going on there. But I was never
Speaker 1: ashamed of it because part of the reason I loved
Speaker 1: writing these stories is that there's a humanity to romance.
Speaker 1: There's a humanity to talking about as you said, you know, flawed, intelligent,
Speaker 1: interesting people. And in the process of writing, I was
Speaker 1: connected even more deeply to the people I wanted to serve,
Speaker 1: to the people I lived with and around, and for
Speaker 1: me was ever a moment of shame. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: fantastic writing, but think about it. I mean, when you
Speaker 1: strip it all away, people's relationships, obviously their love relationships,
Speaker 1: but also their family relationships. You have a great character
Speaker 1: in Reckless Um who's a criminal defense lawyer who had
Speaker 1: been orphaned, her relationship with the woman who took her in.
Speaker 1: I mean, building relationships and then centering the love interest
Speaker 1: in the broader relational situation. I mean, that's how we live,
Speaker 1: that's who we are. But your last Selena Montgomery novel
Speaker 1: came out in two thousand and nine. So for all
Speaker 1: those readers out there, for the paperbag guys, for everybody else,
Speaker 1: have you retired from writing romantic novels or should we
Speaker 1: expect to come back? So here's what happened. The next novel,
Speaker 1: the third in the trilogy, was going to be written
Speaker 1: in but that was the year I got elected as
Speaker 1: Leader of the House Democrats. I started a new financial
Speaker 1: services company, and I kind of ran out a little
Speaker 1: bit of time because they wanted me not just to
Speaker 1: commit to that book until multi year contract or multi
Speaker 1: book contract, and I try to be thoughtful. What I
Speaker 1: did that was thoughtless was that I did not tell
Speaker 1: the story of the final character in the trilogy. So
Speaker 1: I promise I'll get it done. And so Selina will
Speaker 1: make her final bow sometime soon, as soon as I
Speaker 1: find some time to get it done. But Stacy will
Speaker 1: be writing under her multiple personalities for as long as
Speaker 1: I have breath. Sounds like a plan to me, my friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Stacy, and keep going, stay well.
Speaker 1: It has been a delight. Thank you so much to
Speaker 1: Madame Secretary. You can find Stacy's romance novels under her
Speaker 1: pen name Selina Montgomery, and they make great holiday gifts
Speaker 1: and I love this. She reads only joined a group
Speaker 1: of her fellow romance novelists in fundraising for Georgia Democrats.
Speaker 1: The effort is called Romancing the Runoff. My last guest
Speaker 1: today is only fifteen years old, but boy has she
Speaker 1: accomplished a lot in those fifteen years. Right after graduating
Speaker 1: from fifth grade, Marley Das pointed out to her parents
Speaker 1: that none of the characters and the books that she
Speaker 1: read at school looked like her, so she started the
Speaker 1: one Thousand Black Girl Books campaign to fill school libraries
Speaker 1: and curriculums with children's books that feature black girls as
Speaker 1: the lead protagonists. Since then, she's written her own book
Speaker 1: called Marley Days, Gets It Done and so can You.
Speaker 1: And in addition to all of that, she has a
Speaker 1: fantastic show on Netflix called book Marks that's all about
Speaker 1: books and reading. And I also loved seeing her featured
Speaker 1: at the Democratic National Convention this summer, Marley, I could
Speaker 1: not be happier to talk with you again. I loved
Speaker 1: seeing you featured at the Democratic Convention. That was really
Speaker 1: fun to watch. I hope it was fun for you.
Speaker 1: It was. I was definitely nervous and I was apprehensive
Speaker 1: about it, but it was so cool to see that
Speaker 1: like I represented New Jersey, I represented young people, and
Speaker 1: I represented girls, So it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: That is so great. Well, I want to talk with
Speaker 1: you about a lot of different things, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to start with one of my favorite subjects and yours,
Speaker 1: and that is reading. And I love that. Ever since
Speaker 1: you were a little girl, reading has been important to you.
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first character in a book that
Speaker 1: you saw yourself in? So I had a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunities as a little kid to see myself, and I
Speaker 1: think for me, presentation was never an issue in my home,
Speaker 1: but it was an issue in my school. So whenever
Speaker 1: I would go to my local bookstore, my parents, whatever
Speaker 1: age I was, I would get that many books. So
Speaker 1: when I was too they would buy two books. But
Speaker 1: I remember that I kind of started to get hooked
Speaker 1: when my dad would only take me because it was
Speaker 1: at ten, and my mom was like, I'm not paying
Speaker 1: for ten books now, I'm not doing that. So I
Speaker 1: think I always had a love for reading, and my
Speaker 1: parents had really like fostered that within me by you know,
Speaker 1: making it a gift rather than a punishment. Um. But
Speaker 1: then when I got to school, everything was assigned. We
Speaker 1: didn't have a say. I couldn't choose how many or
Speaker 1: when I wanted to read. I just had to do
Speaker 1: it when I was told to. And that can definitely
Speaker 1: stifle and limit some students, especially if their parents can't
Speaker 1: afford or don't have access to books in their home.
Speaker 1: So for me, it was like then when I had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to kind of have those rigid lines and rules,
Speaker 1: they didn't allow for me to see myself. I felt
Speaker 1: like the rules were kind of misrepresenting the student body,
Speaker 1: who I was and what I believed in. Well, and
Speaker 1: then you decided to do something about it. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: my mom and pushed me to which is what I
Speaker 1: really admired and how I first heard about you. What
Speaker 1: started your campaign that led to one thousand you know,
Speaker 1: black girl books, hashtag and program and and and books
Speaker 1: and everything else that you've been doing. Yeah, the campaign
Speaker 1: has evolved so much from the beginning, but it was
Speaker 1: essentially that, you know, I had to go to school.
Speaker 1: Reading became a heavy push, especially towards the endevelopmentary school.
Speaker 1: But the books never had black girls as the main character.
Speaker 1: And if I wanted to change my library, my parents
Speaker 1: could do that easily. But when I complained to my mom,
Speaker 1: she kind of explained to me that this issue can
Speaker 1: affect you, but also think about the kids that don't
Speaker 1: have that access, and she encouraged me to do something
Speaker 1: about it because she doesn't like to hear me complain.
Speaker 1: It's just a simple parent wanting to solve a problem.
Speaker 1: That she was tired of me complaining, so we thought
Speaker 1: about it more. We did research, and we learned that
Speaker 1: both with the publishing houses, curriculums that are made and teachers,
Speaker 1: books are not being pushed that have diverse characters, and
Speaker 1: we need to push all types of stories, not stories
Speaker 1: of black girls. So I wanted to collect one thousand
Speaker 1: books where black girls were the main characters to solve
Speaker 1: the issue in my school, but then also to help
Speaker 1: kids in Jamaica and then all across the world and
Speaker 1: the country to see themselves and to see people that
Speaker 1: are not like them. We'll be right back, we'll explain
Speaker 1: exactly what you have accomplished. So one thousand black girl
Speaker 1: books has now kind of stemmed off into so many
Speaker 1: other things. But first the first goal is to collect
Speaker 1: and donate books where black girls in the main characters.
Speaker 1: Then we extended which we as me and my mom
Speaker 1: because she helps me do everything and I don't know everything.
Speaker 1: Then she helped me with coming up with the resource
Speaker 1: guide that has a list of a thousand books that
Speaker 1: we have collected, so the titles, the author, the age level,
Speaker 1: so that teachers and educators can find these books and
Speaker 1: they don't have the excuse that there are none out there,
Speaker 1: because you know, through my work, I realized there are
Speaker 1: a ton out there, they're just not in schools. And
Speaker 1: now it's kind of transformed into me writing my own book,
Speaker 1: which was to encourage people my age to believe that
Speaker 1: they like to play basketball, they like to saying if
Speaker 1: they like to draw all these interests and my love
Speaker 1: of reading can be used to help other people, and
Speaker 1: they're not limited to. Social activism is completely separate from
Speaker 1: liking things and having fun things to do in your
Speaker 1: hobbies and activities. That's a really important point Marley, that
Speaker 1: you know sometimes people feel like, well, social activism, you know,
Speaker 1: civic change, political campaigns, everything that goes on somewhere else
Speaker 1: is not really relevant to your life. But in fact,
Speaker 1: whatever you care about, you can find a way of
Speaker 1: expressing that and helping other people to care as well.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of what you have proved with
Speaker 1: your campaign. In fact, I need to congratulate you because
Speaker 1: you're the host of a new show on Netflix. Yes,
Speaker 1: I have a big deal called Bookmarks. Tell us about that.
Speaker 1: Where did the idea come from? And who are some
Speaker 1: of the cool interesting people that you've got to meet
Speaker 1: through this. So it's been a crazy experience because I've
Speaker 1: always had opportunities and sometimes, you know, I get stuff
Speaker 1: on my my emails are like, oh, we want you
Speaker 1: to be an actor and a model, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't do those things. This is not what Riley
Speaker 1: dies tres me yourself. But I like being a host
Speaker 1: and I like bringing other ideas to the table, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I've had to do over the
Speaker 1: past couple of years. So when it came for an
Speaker 1: opportunity to do something with Netflix, I knew it had
Speaker 1: to be surrounded by books. I knew it had to
Speaker 1: be there. Either had to be about social change or books.
Speaker 1: And a book show came onto our desk, and it
Speaker 1: was really important for me to focus on making sure
Speaker 1: that we had black celebrities reading books about black kids
Speaker 1: two families all over the world, and some of the
Speaker 1: books talk specifically about being anti racist and the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement, but other books are about loving who you
Speaker 1: are and appreciating all of your imperfections. So um, they're
Speaker 1: experiences that can relate to everybody, and experiences that can
Speaker 1: inform you know, young kids and are three to eight
Speaker 1: and with really fun pictures and animations and funky outfits
Speaker 1: and music. Another cool thing about it is that we
Speaker 1: also have the episodes available on YouTube, so that teachers
Speaker 1: don't have to use their personal Netflix accounts to show
Speaker 1: it to their students. So I pushed, you know, I
Speaker 1: have an executive producer credit as well, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that it was accessible to all the
Speaker 1: kids out there. That is terrific. Well, you know, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that I wanted to talk with you
Speaker 1: is because we're all socially distancing. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: remote learning going on, and I think not only I,
Speaker 1: but our listeners would really like some book recommendations. So
Speaker 1: what have you been reading these days and what would
Speaker 1: you recommend to not only the adults listening, but younger
Speaker 1: people and even kids. So to all the parents listening.
Speaker 1: The first picture book that I want to recommend, Grace
Speaker 1: for President by Katie de Puccio, is such a good book.
Speaker 1: It's about a young girl who's running for president in
Speaker 1: her class and can hopefully encourage, you know, talk about leadership,
Speaker 1: talk about education. So I love that book for young kids,
Speaker 1: and I know you're a grandma, so it's a great,
Speaker 1: great book. Well, I'm definitely getting that one. That's a
Speaker 1: subject of very near and dear to uh to my heart.
Speaker 1: Give me some other recommendations for you know, older kids, teenagers, adults,
Speaker 1: and particularly in light of everything going on right now
Speaker 1: in the world. There's so many challenges from obviously the pandemic,
Speaker 1: to the you know, the racial reckoning that we've got
Speaker 1: to finally as a country be willing to address and
Speaker 1: deal with, to the economic crisis that has you know,
Speaker 1: ripped away a lot of people's jobs and livelihoods. Do
Speaker 1: you have any recommendations for books that you think are
Speaker 1: particularly of this moment for different age readers. So I
Speaker 1: think a book that for me is of this moment
Speaker 1: because my mom she made me read it a couple
Speaker 1: of months ago, and I think it helped me a
Speaker 1: lot is the Autobiography of Malcolm X. It's not a
Speaker 1: black girl book, but it is a book about a
Speaker 1: black man, and it's as told to by Alex Haley,
Speaker 1: and I think it does two things for me personally.
Speaker 1: It took a really close look at how lonely leadership
Speaker 1: can be, and I think it took into consideration how
Speaker 1: some of us sometimes have to make tough decisions under
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure and are judged heavily for who
Speaker 1: we are and how we deal with that and the
Speaker 1: pains of sometimes and we don't even think about the
Speaker 1: people that you know lead our world in small ways,
Speaker 1: you know, our church group leader, our best friends, the
Speaker 1: people that we look up to, um, how they suffer
Speaker 1: a lot and trying to give back to others. Um.
Speaker 1: And it also takes a look at how, in many
Speaker 1: eyes Malcolm X was seen as a radical, but you know,
Speaker 1: the public perception versus reality, and who he was as
Speaker 1: a sensitive man who cared for his wife and was
Speaker 1: scared for his children and their protection. So I love
Speaker 1: that book because I think even though I couldn't relate
Speaker 1: to Malcolm X's struggles, I felt like I understood the
Speaker 1: point of where leadership can really take a toll on
Speaker 1: the body and and make time feel like it's longer
Speaker 1: than it is so for teenagers and adults and basically
Speaker 1: all kids, but not little kids. Well, but look, I
Speaker 1: am a big reader of biography because I do find
Speaker 1: a lot of lessons in how other people have faced challenges, setbacks, disappointments,
Speaker 1: all the you know, really difficult moments in life. You know,
Speaker 1: Nelson Mandela is somebody who I was privileged to meet
Speaker 1: and learn a great deal from his long walk to freedom. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know as a book that you know talks about
Speaker 1: how this little kid grew up to have the capacity,
Speaker 1: the strength, the principles to withstand, you know, all those
Speaker 1: years in jail and then to lead what was indeed
Speaker 1: a peaceful revolution. So there's lots of that, and I
Speaker 1: think you're right to say, look, what can we learn
Speaker 1: about the struggles that individuals go through, black, white, every background,
Speaker 1: but particularly as you understood at a very young age,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't be which you can't see, and
Speaker 1: so representation in the arts, in obviously books, but way
Speaker 1: beyond books is so critical. You know. In your book,
Speaker 1: in your introduction, which I really love you basically as
Speaker 1: an author, say what you need to read this book is,
Speaker 1: and then you list any dream worth following, a strong
Speaker 1: belief in something, preferably yourself and your community, a right
Speaker 1: sized ego, no room for divas when it comes to activism, patience, curiosity,
Speaker 1: people who love you, and trusted adults who want to
Speaker 1: help you succeed. I thought that was a pretty good
Speaker 1: summary for not just activism but for life, how did
Speaker 1: you pull all that together? So I have all these
Speaker 1: kind of checklists in my mind about things that I
Speaker 1: need and you know, same thing you read out of
Speaker 1: the door, you're like while it keys phone for me.
Speaker 1: My mom always tries to prepare me with you know, calm, confident,
Speaker 1: you know, you know what you're talking about. She never
Speaker 1: leaves me in a space where I'm unprepared, and I think,
Speaker 1: you know, although I'm not a parent, I feel like
Speaker 1: one thing I could do and I tried to do
Speaker 1: throughout the whole book, is to equip kids with tools.
Speaker 1: I think my favorite one in there is is about
Speaker 1: the ego and the right side to ego, because I
Speaker 1: have to believe in myself, and you really do have
Speaker 1: to you know, know what you're talking about and feel
Speaker 1: like it's not not just an inflation of self. Rather
Speaker 1: you're filling yourself up with what you need to succeed.
Speaker 1: So I never give myself too much credit, and sometimes
Speaker 1: I don't give myself enough credit, but I try my
Speaker 1: best to always know that, especially in faces of someone
Speaker 1: where they you can tell that they're not as confident
Speaker 1: in what I'm saying, They're not necessarily as interested that
Speaker 1: I'm interested and I know what I want to say,
Speaker 1: so it's enough for me to continue forward. Well, I
Speaker 1: can only say amen to that, Marley, and I just
Speaker 1: love the chance to talk to you again. And I
Speaker 1: want to not only encourage all of our listeners to
Speaker 1: tune into Netflix or YouTube to see bookmarks and understand
Speaker 1: you know what you're trying to do, to give a
Speaker 1: platform for books that you know really are not just
Speaker 1: representative or diverse, but good books, good books with great
Speaker 1: stories and great characters that can change lives. And I
Speaker 1: want to commend you for this book. Marley Das gets
Speaker 1: it done, and so can you. If you have young
Speaker 1: people in your life, please find out about the one
Speaker 1: Thousand Black Girls books, and also about Marley's commitment, her
Speaker 1: mission to try to really lift up reading and the
Speaker 1: joy the experience in in life that you can get
Speaker 1: through reading, that you don't have to necessarily go off
Speaker 1: and do yourself, because you can live it through somebody else.
Speaker 1: So I just can't thank you enough for talking to
Speaker 1: me today, Marley. Thank you so much. Well, thanks for
Speaker 1: joining me and listening to my conversations with these three
Speaker 1: amazing writers. I hope that you're reading something that is
Speaker 1: occupying your time and entertaining and informing you. I have
Speaker 1: a whole nightstand filled with books that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get through during the this winter when we're still all
Speaker 1: inside trying to avoid the virus. I know that I've
Speaker 1: really read probably more this past eight months than I
Speaker 1: have in the prior eight years, because I had the time,
Speaker 1: and I hope you two will have the time to read,
Speaker 1: and if you've got little kids around, read to them.
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of reading with my grandchildren, kind
Speaker 1: of pulling every children's book off of my shelf. Because
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a long winter. And this is the
Speaker 1: last episode of our first season of our podcast, You
Speaker 1: and Me Both. We'll be back though. We're kicking off
Speaker 1: season two on February sixteen with more inspiring guests, no
Speaker 1: holds barred conversations, and yes, even a few surprises. Until then,
Speaker 1: I hope that you stay safe and healthy, catch up
Speaker 1: on any of the podcast episodes you missed, and of course,
Speaker 1: you know, lose yourself in a book or two. You
Speaker 1: and Me Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: We're produced by Julie Subran and Kathleen Russo with help
Speaker 1: from Juma Aberdeen, Nikki e Tour, Oscar Flores, Brianna Johnson,
Speaker 1: Nick Merrill, Lauren Peterson, Rob Russo, and Lona Velmorrow. Our
Speaker 1: engineer is Zach mcneiks and the original music is by
Speaker 1: Forest Gray. If you like you and me both, share
Speaker 1: it with your friends. Let them know they can subscribe
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if
Speaker 1: you really want to help us out write a review.
Speaker 1: That's a big help in bringing this podcast to new listeners,
Speaker 1: and we would love to hear from you. Send your questions, comments,
Speaker 1: or book recommendations to you and me both pod at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. I loved getting your emails and was
Speaker 1: a sp actually moved by the stories that so many
Speaker 1: listeners shared after our episode on mental health. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: See you next year.