Ana Huang: Welcome back to she Pivots. This is Ana Huang.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where women share
Emily Tisch Sussman: bold career moves and personal turning points that changed everything.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman. Picture this. It's the
Emily Tisch Sussman: late twenty teens, and somewhere inside a geopolitical consulting firm,
Emily Tisch Sussman: there's a woman in press relations doing very stable work
Emily Tisch Sussman: that you can speak openly to your parents about over
Emily Tisch Sussman: dinner and every morning before that job even starts, she's
Emily Tisch Sussman: up writing romance novels under a name nobody in her
Emily Tisch Sussman: real life knows. That woman is today's guest, Ana Huang.
Emily Tisch Sussman: She's a number one New York Times bestselling author. Her
Emily Tisch Sussman: romance books have sold more than twenty five million copies
Emily Tisch Sussman: and been translated into thirty four languages. Her Twisted series
Emily Tisch Sussman: pulled in over two billion views on book Talk and
Emily Tisch Sussman: now it's headed to Netflix. And she got here through
Emily Tisch Sussman: a childhood writing assignment that was meant to help her
Emily Tisch Sussman: improve her English. And at two am moment in a
Emily Tisch Sussman: tiny New York apartment where she asks herself, is this
Emily Tisch Sussman: what I want? We're going all the way back to
Emily Tisch Sussman: little Ana, growing up a first generation American child to
Emily Tisch Sussman: Chinese immigrants, and we go all the way up to
Emily Tisch Sussman: finding her passion for writing, building a dedicated following in
Emily Tisch Sussman: the romance genre, and her new book King of Gluttney
Emily Tisch Sussman: that was just released this April. This is Ana Huang
Emily Tisch Sussman: and this is how she pivots. What is your name
Emily Tisch Sussman: and what do you do?
Ana Huang: My name is Ana Huang and I am a contemporary romance author.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Incredible, We're going to go all the way back to
Emily Tisch Sussman: little Ana. Tell us about growing up. Tell us about
Emily Tisch Sussman: your family.
Ana Huang: I was born in New York, but I grew up
Ana Huang: In Miami. Chinese immigrant family. And I think I really
Ana Huang: started loving reading and writing when I was small. When
Ana Huang: I was in kindergarten, I had to take English as
Ana Huang: second language classes, which I didn't know because I was
Ana Huang: the only Chinese kid in my class and so I
Ana Huang: was the only one in my ESL class. And I
Ana Huang: was just like, Oh, this guy just like comes every
Ana Huang: week and I get to chat with him in English
Ana Huang: about everything. And I had no idea it was to
Ana Huang: like help me improve my language skills. And my mom
Ana Huang: at the same time she was like, hey, like, why
Ana Huang: don't you write me a different story every day in English?
Ana Huang: And in my mind, I was like, Oh, my mom
Ana Huang: loves my stories. I'm gonna write her story every day.
Ana Huang: And that was sort of how I actually got into
Ana Huang: the whole loving books thing. And she really nourished that.
Ana Huang: She took me to the library every weekend. It was
Ana Huang: so funny because I remember I was eight years old
Ana Huang: and I told her. I was like, oh, Mom, like,
Ana Huang: I think I really want to be an author. And
Ana Huang: she looked at me and she was like, hmmm, I
Ana Huang: don't know. She's like, I love that as a hobby,
Ana Huang: but as a job, I think you need something more
Ana Huang: like financially stable. So for the longest time, I just
Ana Huang: did it for fun. Yeah, it was like my creative outlet.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Just to back up for a second, how did your
Emily Tisch Sussman: family end up in a community where you were the
Emily Tisch Sussman: only Chinese family or just student?
Ana Huang: Yeah, so Miami has a very large Latin community, not
Ana Huang: as many Asians in the school district that I happened
Ana Huang: to be in. I just happened to be one of
Ana Huang: the very few Asian students there, which was fine, you know,
Ana Huang: I learned to adapt, but it also meant that my
Ana Huang: family had to be very conscious about keeping me in
Ana Huang: touch with my culture. At home, they only spoke to
Ana Huang: me in Chinese and they didn't speak to me in English.
Ana Huang: And even now sometimes when I meet their friends, they're like, wow,
Ana Huang: they're like, your daughter speaks Chinese so well, like like
Ana Huang: my like my children also grow up in America and
Ana Huang: they like barely understand it. But that was something that
Ana Huang: was really important to them.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So that was a really conscious choice. Like what were
Emily Tisch Sussman: some of the other ways that your family kept you
Emily Tisch Sussman: grounded in the Chinese heritage.
Ana Huang: I mean, they really kept to their traditions. I do
Ana Huang: think especially as over time went on, they did become
Ana Huang: like a little bit more westernized, you know, they adopted
Ana Huang: a bit more, they kind of melded Asian and Western traditions.
Ana Huang: But for us, it was always you know, like the
Ana Huang: foods that we ate, the traditions that we had every
Ana Huang: Sunday we would go to dim sum at home. We
Ana Huang: practiced a lot of things I think are very important
Ana Huang: in Chinese culture, just like the way that we treat
Ana Huang: our elder sort of like all of the TV shows
Ana Huang: that we watched were all of these dramas that were
Ana Huang: from Hong Kong, you know that they installed specifically so
Ana Huang: that they can watch Hong Kong dramas in the US,
Ana Huang: and so I grew up in that sort of environment,
Ana Huang: and it was really interesting to me because I feel
Ana Huang: like when I talked to a lot of other people
Ana Huang: that also come from different cultural backgrounds, it's almost like
Ana Huang: a switch. Like when I am at school with my friends,
Ana Huang: I feel very American, and I am American because I
Ana Huang: grew up here, But then when I went home, I
Ana Huang: kind of feel like almost a different person, just because
Ana Huang: the way that I interact with them is so different
Ana Huang: than how I would interact with my non Asian friends.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You brought up the idea to your mom that you
Emily Tisch Sussman: might think that you might want to be an author
Emily Tisch Sussman: when you were eight. What were some other things that
Emily Tisch Sussman: you thought you might want to be when you grew.
Ana Huang: Okay, I will tell you this much. I was very
Ana Huang: influenced by the media that I consumed, and so when
Ana Huang: I watched the Double Wars product, I was like, I'm
Ana Huang: going to be a magazine editor, Miranda Priestley, that's going
Ana Huang: to be me. And then it was this like science
Ana Huang: fiction show called mun X. It was sort of like
Ana Huang: a live action X Men almost that I was obsessed
Ana Huang: with when I was in middle school, and I looked
Ana Huang: at it and I was like, I'm going to be
Ana Huang: a geneticist. That was completely not realistic because I'm not
Ana Huang: that great a science, and so I switched back and forth.
Ana Huang: But I have always been really drawn to things in
Ana Huang: the arts and culture, you know, Like I loved interior design.
Ana Huang: I loved fashion, Like the backlog of Vogue and Allure
Ana Huang: magazines that I had starting from when I was like twelve.
Ana Huang: My mom was like, Ana, you got to throw some
Ana Huang: of these away, like you're not reading this old Vogue
Ana Huang: from like two thousand, and I'm like, how do you
Ana Huang: know that? I remember one day. Yeah, I was like,
Ana Huang: maybe one day I need to go back and reference
Ana Huang: this article from like May two thousand. You don't know.
Ana Huang: I ended up in college. Actually I settled on international
Ana Huang: relations instead.
Emily Tisch Sussman: The very clear line from Miranda Priestley to geneticist.
Ana Huang: To a natural pipeline, you know. But no, I decided
Ana Huang: to do international relations because I really loved travel. I
Ana Huang: was probably the only girl in my middle school class
Ana Huang: that insisted my mom subscribe me to Conde Nast Traveler and
Ana Huang: Travel and Leisure. That was pretty precocious, and I loved it.
Ana Huang: I loved reading the story, seeing the world, Like I
Ana Huang: hadn't traveled much at the time, but it was something
Ana Huang: that always just really fascinated me. And so when I
Ana Huang: went to college and was really thinking, like, Okay, what
Ana Huang: is something I can do that has a very solid
Ana Huang: foundation in the sense that my family would be like, Okay,
Ana Huang: this is something that is like more financially stable. Plus
Ana Huang: it's something that I personally would be interested in. And
Ana Huang: I think international relations. Yes, it's travel, but I also
Ana Huang: loved the idea of like connecting with people of different
Ana Huang: cultures and having that through line, and so that was
Ana Huang: what I did for a long time.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Yeah, how much did your parents approval matter to you?
Emily Tisch Sussman: Like did you have to like keep going back and
Emily Tisch Sussman: checking when you took jobs? Like how much did that
Emily Tisch Sussman: still play in? It?
Ana Huang: Did matter for sure? I mean I think every kid
Ana Huang: wants their parents to be proud of them, but especially
Ana Huang: I think in my culture it was a pretty important thing.
Ana Huang: And I think I felt maybe a stillin pressure because
Ana Huang: I was the first person in my family to go
Ana Huang: to college and I felt like, you know, they moved
Ana Huang: to the US, and they sacrificed so much for me
Ana Huang: to have this education and all of the experiences that
Ana Huang: I had, and you know, to send me off to college.
Ana Huang: I don't want to go into a field where if
Ana Huang: they feel like they've wasted like all this time and
Ana Huang: money to send me to something that they're not proud of.
Ana Huang: But for me, I didn't necessarily have to check with
Ana Huang: them on jobs. It was more like, okay, Like in
Ana Huang: my mind, I was already self censoring myself. I already
Ana Huang: knew and then once I decided on something, I just
Ana Huang: had to sell it to them in a way that
Ana Huang: I knew they would be more open to the storyteller.
Emily Tisch Sussman: From the beginning exactly.
Ana Huang: I was like, well, I was like, mom, international relations,
Ana Huang: the federal government job is very stable. And then she's like, okay, okay,
Ana Huang: She's like so one day secretary of State, and I
Ana Huang: was like, sure.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Yeah, we'll keep it in the range of possibilities, not
Emily Tisch Sussman: zero percent. So what were like the actual jobs that
Emily Tisch Sussman: you did in.
Ana Huang: Yeah, well, okay, so it was a lot. So I
Ana Huang: actually I didn't go straight into international relations because after college,
Ana Huang: I wanted to go to grad school first, and so
Ana Huang: I wanted a little bit of a gap year in
Ana Huang: between undergrad and grad school. So I actually spent a
Ana Huang: year teaching second grade in DC, and it was more
Ana Huang: of like a national service thing, like I did a
Ana Huang: lot of education based work, like for volunteer work in college.
Ana Huang: So that was just for a year, and then after
Ana Huang: that I worked for the Singapore Embassy in DC for
Ana Huang: a little bit, sort of in their cultural departments. It
Ana Huang: was a lot of admin stuff I did, like a
Ana Huang: lot of the passports, a lot of the consort of stuff.
Ana Huang: I also helped the Social secretary put on a lot
Ana Huang: of the diplomatic events and all of that, which was
Ana Huang: really fun for me. And then after I was there
Ana Huang: for a little bit, I went to grad school at
Ana Huang: Georgetown where I got my master's in international politics. And
Ana Huang: then after I graduated from there, I moved to New
Ana Huang: York and I actually ended up working in the press
Ana Huang: communications department of a geopolitical consulting company. What I really
Ana Huang: wanted to do. I wanted to be in the Foreign service,
Ana Huang: but I decided to switch to the private sector after
Ana Huang: the twenty sixteen election.
Emily Tisch Sussman: And then you know, Ana's dreamed to become an author
Emily Tisch Sussman: got filed away under someday and she went looking for
Emily Tisch Sussman: something her family can be proud of. She ended up
Emily Tisch Sussman: in international relations, a master's from Georgetown, a consulting firm
Emily Tisch Sussman: in New York. The whole time, though she's still writing,
Emily Tisch Sussman: she just kept it a secret. You were writing the
Emily Tisch Sussman: whole time under a side name and sharing your work
Emily Tisch Sussman: on Whatpad. Yeah, under a username, not telling your family.
Ana Huang: No, that was oh my god. This was before AO three. Really.
Ana Huang: That was like in the two thousand Swatpad was like
Ana Huang: the place to be and that was teenage me and
Ana Huang: it was such a formative experience for me actually, because
Ana Huang: for the longest time I always told myself, I was like,
Ana Huang: I never want to write for money, Like I know,
Ana Huang: I told my parents I watched me an author. But
Ana Huang: then I was like, I don't know, Like I kind
Ana Huang: of love the act of just writing for myself. It
Ana Huang: was therapy for me. It was a creative outlet, and
Ana Huang: I was afraid that if it became my job that
Ana Huang: I wouldn't love it anymore, and so it became my thing.
Ana Huang: But then I discovered what Pad. I was what like
Ana Huang: sixteen maybe. When I found it, I was like, all
Ana Huang: of these stories are so interesting. I can just write
Ana Huang: whatever I want. And I decided to upload one story
Ana Huang: just to get feedback, and it actually ended up doing
Ana Huang: really well. Like I had some stories go viral on there,
Ana Huang: but for me, it was still for fun, you know,
Ana Huang: like I never thought like, oh, I'm gonna make this
Ana Huang: into her career until much later, much later. But I
Ana Huang: think it was very formative for me because it really
Ana Huang: taught me how to write in a way that I
Ana Huang: think will keep people coming back from more because it's
Ana Huang: kind of more of a serial up, like you upload
Ana Huang: one chapter at a time so they can't be really
Ana Huang: boring or else people get bored, and then they'll also comment,
Ana Huang: and you know, you have that interaction with your readers,
Ana Huang: and I think that really informed the way that I
Ana Huang: interact with my viewers.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Now, okay, so when did you start telling people in
Emily Tisch Sussman: your lives that you were writing.
Ana Huang: You mean as a professional writer or no.
Emily Tisch Sussman: No, even like Wattpad or I was like, when did
Emily Tisch Sussman: you start telling people in your lives but you kept writing?
Ana Huang: Yeah? So in my personal life, I never told them
Ana Huang: about Wattpad that was my little secret like you and my
Ana Huang: parents did it. Now, I just did it for fun,
Ana Huang: like I had online friends, but people in my real
Ana Huang: life did not know. I think maybe I first started
Ana Huang: telling people in grad school because I did end publishing
Ana Huang: and now it's been unpublished, but what are the stories
Ana Huang: I put on whatpat I published it for a very
Ana Huang: short time because I was like, oh, well, I'm in
Ana Huang: grad school, I can't work full time. I need some
Ana Huang: extra income, and so that's what I did. I just
Ana Huang: I was like, well, I write your roote the story,
Ana Huang: so I might as well just publish it. And it
Ana Huang: actually did help me. It did pretty well for something
Ana Huang: that I had no clue what I was doing at
Ana Huang: the time. So I told a couple of people. I
Ana Huang: never told them what the title of the book was
Ana Huang: or what I wrote it under. And like I said,
Ana Huang: it's since been unpublished because I wrote that when I
Ana Huang: was a teenager, and looking back, I'm like, this is
Ana Huang: not like the best work that I could have done.
Emily Tisch Sussman: What does it mean to be published, like when you
Emily Tisch Sussman: say you published it?
Ana Huang: So for that it was just self published that book.
Ana Huang: It was you know, you can go on Amazon, you
Ana Huang: can go on KDP, and you can just like self
Ana Huang: publish a book and then people can find it. So
Ana Huang: that was a very low key event, and then I
Ana Huang: unpublished it years later when I was like, oh, this
Ana Huang: could be better. I didn't actually tell people that I
Ana Huang: was seriously considering writing until after the pandemic. I think
Ana Huang: for the longest time. There was actually a long stretch
Ana Huang: where I couldn't read or write for fun in my twenties,
Ana Huang: just because I had grad school. Like, I was so
Ana Huang: busy with work. I had all of this reading that
Ana Huang: I needed to do for school, and so I dropped
Ana Huang: out of it for a long time. But then when
Ana Huang: the pandemic came, I was a home I had nothing
Ana Huang: else to do, so I was like, Okay, time for
Ana Huang: me to get back into my hobby. And that was
Ana Huang: when I really rediscovered my love for books and for writing.
Ana Huang: I published in twenty twenty my debut adult romance, and
Ana Huang: then my breakout novel came in twenty twenty one, and
Ana Huang: it's kind of been off to the races, I guess.
Emily Tisch Sussman: The opportunity to really get into writing again and let
Emily Tisch Sussman: her taste and style develop. She finally shared her identity
Emily Tisch Sussman: with her family and friends, shattering her double life as
Emily Tisch Sussman: she doubled down on her passion. In a minute, we'll
Emily Tisch Sussman: ask Ana what it was like to go all in
Emily Tisch Sussman: on writing, why she chose the romance genre, telling her
Emily Tisch Sussman: parents she was quitting her job, and why her mom
Emily Tisch Sussman: is explicitly not allowed to read Ana's books be right back.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Once you started writing again, did you go back to
Emily Tisch Sussman: like the same genres you had been writing? Did you
Emily Tisch Sussman: try different genres? Like how did you decide what you
Emily Tisch Sussman: were going to write and public?
Ana Huang: So I have always been a romance lover, even from
Ana Huang: when I was young, maybe a little too young, But
Ana Huang: I think the only difference is that when I was younger,
Ana Huang: I was writing a lot of fly A obviously, because
Ana Huang: I was in the Ya mange, like I was writing
Ana Huang: about people on high school. I was writing about teenagers.
Ana Huang: They were not spicy at all. They were just sort
Ana Huang: of like cute, little high school stories. And by the
Ana Huang: time I got back to writing in the Pandemic, I
Ana Huang: was obviously much older. I was reading kind of more adult,
Ana Huang: mature books, and so that was where you saw the line.
Ana Huang: It's like everything I had written before that was very
Ana Huang: YA and then starting in twenty twenty, it started to
Ana Huang: get gradually more mature in adult and like spicier in
Ana Huang: a way. And that's really the only difference. Like I've
Ana Huang: never really tried writing outside of the romance genre. I
Ana Huang: might in the future, but that's still my first love.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Do you remember when you took up the pen or
Emily Tisch Sussman: the keyboard. Yeah, and you thought, okay, am I rusty?
Ana Huang: Oh yeah, for sure. And honestly sometimes it still happens,
Ana Huang: like every time I start a new book, I'm like,
Ana Huang: have I forgotten how to write a book? Like I
Ana Huang: know I've done this before in my lives. That's so hard.
Ana Huang: I think it actually is a muscle, Like I think
Ana Huang: writing is a muscle, and you can train yourself to
Ana Huang: be better and faster at it. But I remember, like
Ana Huang: in twenty twenty, I was writing and I was sort
Ana Huang: of like, oh my god, like I don't actually know
Ana Huang: where I'm going, but this is fun. And I will
Ana Huang: say that was way back then before I learned like
Ana Huang: all of these courses you can take and podcasts you
Ana Huang: can take, and all of these things that you can
Ana Huang: learn about writing, craft and marketing. So there's something to
Ana Huang: be said about not knowing what you don't know. So
Ana Huang: for me, it was just like, Okay, I'm going to
Ana Huang: sit here and I'm just going to tell the story
Ana Huang: how I feel it needs to be told. And it
Ana Huang: was actually a lot easier back then because there were
Ana Huang: fewer eyes on me, Like there are practically no eyes
Ana Huang: on me, So I had a lot of freedom to
Ana Huang: do what I wanted. Now it's a little different.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You say that you know you were kind of like
Emily Tisch Sussman: pulling from the age of experience that you were, like
Emily Tisch Sussman: from yade to adult. How much were you pulling from
Emily Tisch Sussman: your own experiences then and how much do you now?
Ana Huang: I think definitely my earlier books were much more heavily
Ana Huang: based on my experiences, Like not totally, but my debut
Ana Huang: series it's about a group of friends that meet during
Ana Huang: study of broad in Shanghai, and I studied broad in Shanghai,
Ana Huang: so obviously there's a lot of correlation there, and obviously
Ana Huang: it's been dramatized for fiction, but a lot of it
Ana Huang: was experiences that I had when I was traveling, and
Ana Huang: even now, in a lot of my books, there are
Ana Huang: little bits and pieces of things that I experience in
Ana Huang: real life, or glimpses of people that I know in
Ana Huang: real life that have been changed in some way, but
Ana Huang: they still inform my writing. And I know there's this
Ana Huang: saying that they're like, write what you know, and I
Ana Huang: do write what I know, But at the same time,
Ana Huang: I'm like, you have to expand past that a little bit,
Ana Huang: because if you only write what you know, then that's
Ana Huang: pretty limiting sometimes, I feel.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So, at what point did you say, I'm going to
Emily Tisch Sussman: do it under my own name, which first of all
Emily Tisch Sussman: was different for you. And when am I going to
Emily Tisch Sussman: start identifying myself as an author?
Ana Huang: I think that and a wrong name. I kind of
Ana Huang: just went for it, you know, like I was like, Okay, well,
Ana Huang: obviously I can't publish a quote unquote serious book under
Ana Huang: I don't know, like some screen name that I put
Ana Huang: when I was like a teenager, right, so I had
Ana Huang: to pick something, and that was what I stuck with.
Ana Huang: And then as an author, it actually took me a
Ana Huang: while because it felt really weird to say like, I'm
Ana Huang: an author. Especially when I started. I was doing both
Ana Huang: my day job and writing at the same time, right,
Ana Huang: so it was not my identity. I would be like, oh,
Ana Huang: it's just something I do for fun, and that's how
Ana Huang: I described it for the longest time. And obviously now
Ana Huang: like I do tell people like I'm an author because
Ana Huang: this is what this is what actually what I do.
Ana Huang: But it took a couple of years for my mind
Ana Huang: to really make that shift and being like, oh, like
Ana Huang: I am actually like an author, like this is not
Ana Huang: just a hobby or something that I'm like doing on
Ana Huang: the side or whatever, like this is a real thing.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So where were you in that when your book blew up? Like,
Emily Tisch Sussman: were you still working at your international policy job? Oh?
Ana Huang: Yeah, I was. I was still in my day jobs.
Ana Huang: I would wake up early every morning and maybe have
Ana Huang: like an hour or two in the morning where I
Ana Huang: would write, and then I'd come home and I would write.
Ana Huang: And no one at my job knew really until I quit,
Ana Huang: and they asked, you know, like well, where are you going,
Ana Huang: like what are you doing now? And I was like oh,
Ana Huang: because none of them really read in this genre or
Ana Huang: really understand. I was sort of like, oh, you know,
Ana Huang: like I'm going to be a writer or like, you know,
Ana Huang: I write fiction. I didn't tell them what my name was.
Ana Huang: Some of them were little like, oh, they seemed a
Ana Huang: little concerned. I remember one of them, They're like, are
Ana Huang: you going to be able to pay your rent? And
Ana Huang: I'm like, think, I'll be fine.
Emily Tisch Sussman: , So I'm nervous to hear about your conversation with
Emily Tisch Sussman: your mom. How did you tell your mom?
Ana Huang: Okay? See, I was smart about that because I waited
Ana Huang: a very long time until I achieved like a certain
Ana Huang: level of success and then I went to her and
Ana Huang: I was like, so much. I'm actually quitting my job
Ana Huang: and I'm becoming an author. She was like, are you sure,
Ana Huang: But I was like, I actually make more writing than
Ana Huang: I do at my day job, and I know I
Ana Huang: can make even more than that if I have the
Ana Huang: time to devote fully to this career, you know, And
Ana Huang: it was it was a conversation, you know. I think
Ana Huang: in the beginning she was still you know how mothers are, like,
Ana Huang: no matter how old you are or how much you've done,
Ana Huang: like they'll always be your mom, And so she was
Ana Huang: a little concerned. But I think over time she saw
Ana Huang: the success that I've seen and how much I enjoyed
Ana Huang: the job, and I think I'm I got to the
Ana Huang: point where I was old enough that she was like, Okay,
Ana Huang: I think you actually know what you're doing, Like this
Ana Huang: isn't some young flight of fancy, Like you have a
Ana Huang: good head on your shoulders and I trust you. And
Ana Huang: now she's like thrilled. She's like, yeah, my daughter was
Ana Huang: like didn't author, Yeah.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Do your parents read your books?
Ana Huang: Oh? No, not allowed? Not allowed. Actually at my Twisted Love,
Ana Huang: like the dedication, it was like dedicated to my mom.
Ana Huang: And I was like, mom, please like close this book
Ana Huang: right now, like you're not allowed to read it.
Emily Tisch Sussman: This is as far as you are allowed exactly.
Ana Huang: Oh my god, that would be so uncomfortable. I'm comfortable.
Ana Huang: My books are pretty spicy. Yeah so, but no, but
Ana Huang: she does buy all of them, but she she doesn't
Ana Huang: read them, at least she told me she hasn't read them.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So
Emily Tisch Sussman: exactly, she told you exactly, she's like passing around dollar friends.
Ana Huang: Oh god, no, oh my god.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I love this. Ana did something almost no other author
Emily Tisch Sussman: was doing at the time. She went all in on
Emily Tisch Sussman: a brand new app called TikTok Okay. So you started
Emily Tisch Sussman: to self publish in twenty nineteen, and then you went
Emily Tisch Sussman: all in on TikTok before most people understood book talk
Emily Tisch Sussman: at all. How did you find it? How did it
Emily Tisch Sussman: align for you? Like you really blew up with the genre?
Ana Huang: Yes, I did. So that was sort of where my
Ana Huang: background in marketing and communications really came in. I have
Ana Huang: a lot of sn so while I was doing my
Ana Huang: day job, and this was before lockdown, A was also
Ana Huang: really interested in travel blogging and Instagram and photography. So
Ana Huang: I did that just for fun and as part of that,
Ana Huang: I had to really stay on top of social media,
Ana Huang: like back then, like Instagram was the biggest thing, right
Ana Huang: it was Instagram and Pinterest and blogs, and so I
Ana Huang: was already really enmeshed in that sort of creator world.
Ana Huang: And I remember starting in like twenty nineteen, but really
Ana Huang: like twenty twenty, I started to see more people talking
Ana Huang: about TikTok. I mean, it's nowhere near what it is today,
Ana Huang: but I was part of all of these author groups
Ana Huang: and want authors. She's like, I'm seeing so much traction
Ana Huang: on TikTok. And this was before people even knew what
Ana Huang: it was, but they were like, TikTok, really, what is
Ana Huang: that a new platform? I don't want to learn a
Ana Huang: new platform. And for me, I had a little resistance
Ana Huang: to it too, because I didn't want to be on video.
Ana Huang: At the time, I was still anonymous and that people
Ana Huang: have never seen my face, and I was like, I
Ana Huang: don't want to show my face, Like I don't want
Ana Huang: to be on video. I'm very comfortable with the Instagram
Ana Huang: model of like creative photography, and like I knew that
Ana Huang: world and I liked it, but I was like, you
Ana Huang: know what, like let me create a TikTok account just
Ana Huang: to see right, And so for the longest time I
Ana Huang: created account and I was just sort of watching it.
Ana Huang: I wasn't really doing anything. But then I started to
Ana Huang: slowly like dip my toe into the community. And this
Ana Huang: was way back in the day. I mean twenty twenty.
Ana Huang: I could count the number of Romance Book accounts on
Ana Huang: like one hand. Back then, it was all like ya, fantasy,
Ana Huang: like that was the big thing. But it was a
Ana Huang: really great community. I started to get more and more
Ana Huang: comfortable being on camera. I learned the way that people
Ana Huang: spoke on their sort of what the community rules are,
Ana Huang: and I developed a really good community. And when I
Ana Huang: decided to write Twisted Love, which is my breakout book,
Ana Huang: I remember I first realized that TikTok could really drive
Ana Huang: that marketing and sales is when I put the pre
Ana Huang: order for Twisted Love up and then I made a
Ana Huang: TikTok about it, like a ten second TikTok, and then
Ana Huang: overnight I got like one hundred preorders, which for me
Ana Huang: at the time was like a lot. Like that was
Ana Huang: a lot of pre orders for me, and I was like,
Ana Huang: oh my god. All I did was make a video
Ana Huang: that took me like five minutes to make, and that
Ana Huang: was when I really just to like go all in.
Emily Tisch Sussman: And what did that mean, Like what did marketing through
Emily Tisch Sussman: TikTok look like?
Ana Huang: So I think the thing about marketing through TikTok for
Ana Huang: me is I never wanted to be like, oh, chere's
Ana Huang: my book, you should buy it. You know, like that's
Ana Huang: not what works on the platform. It has to be
Ana Huang: something a little bit more organic. So for me, it
Ana Huang: was a lot of things. It was like behind the scenes,
Ana Huang: like back in the day, I would ask people I
Ana Huang: was trying to choose, like the cover models for my book,
Ana Huang: and then I would make videos. I'd be like, oh, like,
Ana Huang: which cover model do you think would be best for
Ana Huang: the book? I talk about my writing process, I talk
Ana Huang: about things that are not necessarily about my books but
Ana Huang: are relevant to the community. It would be memes, so
Ana Huang: like basically everything book is related. And yes, like I
Ana Huang: did sell for some of them, but not always. It
Ana Huang: was more about just being a part of the community
Ana Huang: and being in conversation with people. So like by the
Ana Huang: time that the book did come out, I had a
Ana Huang: group of people that were there to support me in
Ana Huang: the way that I supported them. And also I did
Ana Huang: send out like a lot of early copies to book
Ana Huang: talkers at the time, which I think was really helpful.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You've described self publishing as running a small business, yes,
Emily Tisch Sussman: that you had a leg of on because of your
Emily Tisch Sussman: marketing experience. So how much did the former career end
Emily Tisch Sussman: up fueling the pivot into being an author? Quite a bit?
Ana Huang: Actually, I think I am a little different from a
Ana Huang: lot of authors and that I really enjoy marketing because
Ana Huang: of my background. But I think, you know, when people
Ana Huang: say I want to be an author, they think, okay,
Ana Huang: like all you have to do is write, And that's
Ana Huang: not true, right, Like, especially when you're a self published author,
Ana Huang: you have to do everything. You have to do the
Ana Huang: back end, the admin, you have to do, the marketing,
Ana Huang: you have to do the publishing, all of that. And
Ana Huang: I think a lot of people don't know that. But
Ana Huang: because of my background, like I have a lot of
Ana Huang: experience in a lot of those fields and I actually
Ana Huang: do enjoy it, And so for me, it was a
Ana Huang: very natural pivot. I was like, I can take all
Ana Huang: of these things that I learned on my old job
Ana Huang: and sort of my old hobbies and just apply them
Ana Huang: to this new field. I had a lot of fun,
Ana Huang: to be.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Honest, Suddenly Ana wasn't writing for a few hundred people,
Emily Tisch Sussman: she was writing for millions. And when big publishers came knocking,
Emily Tisch Sussman: she did something most first time authors would never dare
Emily Tisch Sussman: to do. She said, no, well hear why she turned
Emily Tisch Sussman: them down. Just after the break you did self published?
Emily Tisch Sussman: Can you talk about what that decision was like? And
Emily Tisch Sussman: also what does it literally mean to have self published
Emily Tisch Sussman: a book?
Ana Huang: So basically the main types is self publishing and then
Ana Huang: the traditional publishing that most people know is like you
Ana Huang: sign with the publisher like Simon and Schuster, Penguin, Random House,
Ana Huang: or HarperCollins, and they will handle the entire process right
Ana Huang: like they'll pay you in advance and then they'll take
Ana Huang: care of everything like the production, the bookstore, distribution, all
Ana Huang: of that. Self publishing is literally like you do it
Ana Huang: all on your own. A lot of people how they
Ana Huang: do it. Like I said, Amazon is the biggest marketplace
Ana Huang: for I think indie authors. Obviously there are other platforms,
Ana Huang: but that's really where a lot of the readers are.
Ana Huang: And so when you're done with your book, you can
Ana Huang: literally upload it to Amazon and they'll be live. And
Ana Huang: obviously it's up to you to drive people to the
Ana Huang: page to tell me the book. But self publishing it's
Ana Huang: like you get all of the creative control, you get
Ana Huang: all of the royalties, you know. For me, I actually
Ana Huang: never thought about doing traditional publishing because I really wanted
Ana Huang: creative control. I was like, I don't want people telling
Ana Huang: me what I can and cannot write, Like I want
Ana Huang: to do things the way that I want to do them.
Ana Huang: I looked up all the guides online on how to
Ana Huang: do it. I listened to all the podcasts. I'm a
Ana Huang: big learner, like I love learning things.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I'm sure they came knocking.
Ana Huang: They did, and it's funny because I will say they
Ana Huang: came in. I mean, now it is very common for
Ana Huang: publishers to pick up a previously self published author. It's
Ana Huang: almost become like a model in a way. But back
Ana Huang: then in twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two, almost unheard of,
Ana Huang: Like it was pretty Verbonan. It was sort of like, oh,
Ana Huang: like if yourself published a book, you know, like you can't.
Emily Tisch Sussman: What you're like, real?
Ana Huang: Oh yeah, exactly. But I remember I got an agent,
Ana Huang: and my agent came to me and it was actually
Ana Huang: two separate offers. I had one offer for the UK
Ana Huang: and Commonwealth, and then I had one for North America,
Ana Huang: like US and Canada in the UK one. I was like, okay,
Ana Huang: I would love more international distribution, and that was a
Ana Huang: pretty easy yes. North America, I was like, ugh, I
Ana Huang: don't know. I actually said no when they first offered
Ana Huang: because I was like, I may honestly like I make
Ana Huang: so much now printing my own books. I was like,
Ana Huang: they can never give me an advance that will match
Ana Huang: what I'm making now, And how do I know that
Ana Huang: they're going to buy this book and they're not going
Ana Huang: to do anything with it, so it's just going to
Ana Huang: sit on shelves, right, which was a real concern that
Ana Huang: I had. So I said no. And then they came
Ana Huang: back maybe two months later and they said, okay, if
Ana Huang: you signed with us, Barnes and Noble really wants to
Ana Huang: stop more of your books. But they can't now because
Ana Huang: I'm not traditionally published, so it would be so much
Ana Huang: more expensive for them to buy books for me. They're like,
Ana Huang: if you sign with us, we can guarantee that Barnes
Ana Huang: and Noble will buy X amount of books of your
Ana Huang: books and stop them in the store, right, And that's
Ana Huang: really the one thing that's self publishers don't have as
Ana Huang: much as traditional publishers. Is that bookstore distribution. It's really
Ana Huang: hard to get white bookstore distribution as an indie, and
Ana Huang: so I discussed it with my agent and finally I
Ana Huang: was like, Okay, let's try this, and I ended up
Ana Huang: working really well.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You now have more than twenty five million copies sold, yeah,
Emily Tisch Sussman: Crazy Twisted is headed to Netflix, yes, and you have
Emily Tisch Sussman: a reader base that has a lot of passionate opinions.
Ana Huang: Yeah.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So how has the scale of this change your relationship
Emily Tisch Sussman: to the writing?
Ana Huang: Oh Man, Yeah, it's it's been kind of wild, and honestly,
Ana Huang: it's something that I had to learn how to deal
Ana Huang: with over the years. People always ask me, They're like,
Ana Huang: what's the hardest book that you ever had to write?
Ana Huang: And I was like, the book after my breakout, Twisted
Ana Huang: Love was easy for me because, like I said, at
Ana Huang: the time, no one was like paying attention. So I
Ana Huang: was like, it doesn't really matter, like I can write
Ana Huang: whatever I want. And then it blew up and trying
Ana Huang: to write that second book was so difficult for me
Ana Huang: because now I had all of these voices, you know,
Ana Huang: like people making theories, and then I was like, what
Ana Huang: if they don't like this second book, what if it's
Ana Huang: like a one hit wonder, Like what if it flops?
Ana Huang: I don't know. So I had like so much pressure
Ana Huang: to write that second book. I like couldn't write it
Ana Huang: for like a month. Obviously it's gotten better over time,
Ana Huang: but I also had to learn how to really tune
Ana Huang: out the noise. Like I'm not as online as much
Ana Huang: as I used to be, just because there's like so
Ana Huang: many opinions and I can, like the minute I go online,
Ana Huang: I can be like, I'm just going to scroll for
Ana Huang: ten minutes, and I end up being there on like
Ana Huang: three hours, and it's not great for my writing, I
Ana Huang: can tell you that much. So I had to really
Ana Huang: put in systems to make sure that I'm insulated from
Ana Huang: the noise. And obviously I do want to know how
Ana Huang: my readers are responding to books and kind of what
Ana Huang: they want. But I think at the end of the day,
Ana Huang: as an author, it's my responsibility to kind of write
Ana Huang: the story that I want to write in the way
Ana Huang: that I see it because everyone will have opinions, right, Like,
Ana Huang: you can't please everyone, It's literally impossible. So I just
Ana Huang: have to stay true to myself at my vision.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Yeah, that could apply in many contexts, by the way,
Emily Tisch Sussman: but everyone has an opinion.
Ana Huang: Exactly everyone, and sometimes I have multiple O pity and
Ana Huang: I'm like, that's great.
Emily Tisch Sussman: But you know exactly, but you have to trust yourself exactly.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I know what direction I'm heading exactly. You've talked about
Emily Tisch Sussman: why you love. Romance is a genre, yes, the guaranteed
Emily Tisch Sussman: happy endings, and there's a big cultural movement behind romance
Emily Tisch Sussman: right now. Do you think we're in the next wave,
Emily Tisch Sussman: Like is it a blip or is it like here
Emily Tisch Sussman: to stay?
Ana Huang: I mean, romance has always been a very strong and
Ana Huang: a very high stelling genre. I do think over the
Ana Huang: past few years because of multiple things, right, it could
Ana Huang: be TikTok, it could be the pandemic when everyone just
Ana Huang: wanted sort of like escape and something happier. That has
Ana Huang: really come together to make it boom in a way
Ana Huang: that maybe it hasn't since the early twenty tons when
Ana Huang: fifty Shades of Great came out. I do think that
Ana Huang: it has staying power. I mean, it's lasted for decades
Ana Huang: and for me, there is always room in the market
Ana Huang: for stories about joy that center around woman and their pleasure,
Ana Huang: and it's just something that I really love about the
Ana Huang: genre that I think a lot of other people do too.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You've also been vocal about representation of Asian American characters.
Ana Huang: Yeah. So when I was growing up, I didn't see
Ana Huang: a lot of people in media that looked like me.
Ana Huang: We had like Lucy lu we had you know, I
Ana Huang: loved the Babysitters Club. I loved Claudia from Babysaters Club,
Ana Huang: And at the time, I didn't actually think about it,
Ana Huang: like I didn't question like why she was my favorite.
Ana Huang: I was just like, oh, like, I don't know, She's
Ana Huang: just my favorite. Like I relate, and obviously, like as
Ana Huang: a grown up, I can see hindsight why I would
Ana Huang: relate so much more to them. But I think when
Ana Huang: I started writing, I really wanted to write the stories
Ana Huang: I always wanted to see when I was growing up,
Ana Huang: And it was also important to me that they are
Ana Huang: integrated in a way that felt natural in the sense
Ana Huang: that for example, like me being Chinese American, I don't
Ana Huang: think that's the most interesting thing about me, as I
Ana Huang: hope like for these characters, like, yes, like their culture
Ana Huang: informs the way that they see certain things, in how
Ana Huang: they approached certain relationships, but the story is not about that,
Ana Huang: right like they can have love stories just like anyone else,
Ana Huang: like any one of any culture, and I want to
Ana Huang: make sure that that was really present in the stories
Ana Huang: that I write, that it was still about the romance,
Ana Huang: about the love story, but the cultural elements and influences
Ana Huang: are also relevant.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You're releasing a new book today, Yes, congratulations, Thank you
Emily Tisch Sussman: tell us about it.
Ana Huang: Thank you. So. King of Glutney is the sixth book
Ana Huang: in my Kings of Sin series, and the Kings of
Ana Huang: Sin series is contemporary romances based on the Seven Deadly Sins.
Ana Huang: This one is my first ever childhood rivals to lovers romance.
Ana Huang: So Maya and Sebastian, their families are best friends, but
Ana Huang: they themselves have been competing over basically everything since they
Ana Huang: were kids, like Gray's jobs, accomplishments, and then in this book,
Ana Huang: they are forced to work together on this like huge
Ana Huang: project which they're not very happy about. A lot of
Ana Huang: feelings arise, both old and new. There's a tiny little
Ana Huang: bit suspense subplot as well to keep things interesting. Yes,
Ana Huang: I really love them. I think for people that love
Ana Huang: a yearning hero, this one is for them. And I
Ana Huang: was a little nervous going into it because Gluttey is
Ana Huang: a hard stin to make appealing.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I'm super sexy. I hope I succeeded. How has the
Emily Tisch Sussman: release of the book today been different for you than
Emily Tisch Sussman: last books?
Ana Huang: I mean, release days are always sort of a whirlwind
Ana Huang: for me, and I think it's just been really incredible
Ana Huang: to see the response to this book. Readers feel like
Ana Huang: they really connected to this one and sort of to
Ana Huang: their romance, and so it's just been really joyful all around.
Emily Tisch Sussman: What do you technically do on release days?
Ana Huang: I should be better about celebrating things. I'm not. But
Ana Huang: usually I love a good spa day, so I actually
Ana Huang: have a spa day after this, and usually I just
Ana Huang: treat myself to like a nice meal, like you know,
Ana Huang: a nice massage, and I try to take it easy.
Ana Huang: I try to stay off my phone. Obviously, I have
Ana Huang: to like respond to text and stuff, but I try
Ana Huang: to be out in the city so that I'm not
Ana Huang: just sitting at my desk like refreshing everything. Yeah.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Are they sound like do they like that? No?
Ana Huang: Exactly, I'm like, Okay, how's it going? Are there any
Ana Huang: tech issues? I just have to be doing stuff so
Ana Huang: I'm not over thinking everything that.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Totally makes sense. Is there something that at the time
Emily Tisch Sussman: could be something we've talked about, could be something different
Emily Tisch Sussman: that at the time you saw as a real low
Emily Tisch Sussman: point for you, and now, in hindsight, you see it
Emily Tisch Sussman: as having really launched you to the success you are today.
Ana Huang: I would say when I first moved to New York,
Ana Huang: those first couple of years, not that I was necessarily unhappy,
Ana Huang: but I was in my late twenties and I was
Ana Huang: doing the job and it was fine, but I was
Ana Huang: sort of like, I don't know, like it felt like
Ana Huang: the success that I had always wanted or like that
Ana Huang: sort of like big success, right that like my mom
Ana Huang: would always talk about whatever, Like it just felt so
Ana Huang: far away from me at that point, and like New
Ana Huang: York is so expensive, and I was living in this
Ana Huang: tiny apartment with two roommates and whatever, and I was like,
Ana Huang: oh my god. I was like, is this like all
Ana Huang: there is to life? Think, you know what I mean.
Ana Huang: So I would like sometimes spiral out a little bit
Ana Huang: where I'm like, where am I in the right job?
Ana Huang: Like what is it about this that I'm actually excited about? Right?
Ana Huang: So I had a lot of those like existential crises,
Ana Huang: which I think really led me to where I am today.
Ana Huang: Because now I'm like, yeah, like, obviously this is not
Ana Huang: always an easy job, but it is something that I
Ana Huang: am really excited and happy about. And I always ask myself,
Ana Huang: I'm like, even if I you know, I don't have
Ana Huang: any of this, you know, the New York Times bestseller
Ana Huang: all of this, I'm like, what I still want to write?
Ana Huang: And the answer is still yes.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Were you able to find any versions of happiness that
Emily Tisch Sussman: in the old job, like in the old version of.
Ana Huang: Your No, I mean it was. It wasn't awful or anything.
Ana Huang: I mean, I loved my team. I think I had.
Ana Huang: I probably had a better social life back then, because
Ana Huang: you know, it was like clock in, clock out, and
Ana Huang: then I could do whatever I wanted. And I definitely
Ana Huang: had a fun time living in my late twenties in
Ana Huang: New York. But I think it was you know when
Ana Huang: you lie awake late at night, at like two am,
Ana Huang: and you're just sort of like thinking, and so those
Ana Huang: are like the things I would be thinking about at
Ana Huang: like two in the morning, and I'm like, is this
Ana Huang: really what I see myself doing for the rest of
Ana Huang: my life?
Emily Tisch Sussman: What is your version of success now?
Ana Huang: I think for me success now is actually freedom, Like
Ana Huang: the time freedom the freedom to do the things that
Ana Huang: I want and not so much tied into sort of
Ana Huang: accolades or finances the way that it was I think
Ana Huang: in the early years.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You know, do you have a version of success for
Emily Tisch Sussman: your books and for your stories?
Ana Huang: Yeah, I mean I think for me, I mean, they've
Ana Huang: honestly gone beyond what I ever I thought they would,
Ana Huang: and you know, I obviously would love to see them
Ana Huang: on the big screen and for them to come to life.
Ana Huang: But for me, I think one of the things that
Ana Huang: has always stuck with me most beyond all of like
Ana Huang: the bestseller lists and all of that, is when I
Ana Huang: meet readers and they say your book has helped me
Ana Huang: through like a really hard time in my life, or
Ana Huang: this is you know, sort of like what kept me
Ana Huang: going and brought me joy. And it's really those moments
Ana Huang: that really stuck with me the most.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You know, do you have dream actors to play your characters?
Ana Huang: So I don't. I'm really bad at fancasting, but I
Ana Huang: actually almost want to have new faces away that like
Ana Huang: this will be their breakout role, you know what I mean.
Ana Huang: I think there's so much untopped great talent out there.
Ana Huang: I'm really excited to see can we consider this an
Ana Huang: open call for new talent. Yes, yes, and if anyone
Ana Huang: has any recommendations or fancast I am also open tearing them.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Love that. Yes, let's get it. Let's get some RECs
Emily Tisch Sussman: going exactly. Let's introduce someone to the world. Yes, yes,
Emily Tisch Sussman: give them new opportunities.
Ana Huang: I love it amazing.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Ye, any platform we can create that can give people
Emily Tisch Sussman: new opportunities, particularly women, All in for truly all in? Well,
Emily Tisch Sussman: do you think you'll pivot again? Is this the thing
Emily Tisch Sussman: you'll be doing for the rest of your life? You know?
Ana Huang: I mean for now? I don't see myself doing anything else.
Ana Huang: Asking me again in ten years, I don't know. But
Ana Huang: I do really love it. I mean, I've loved books,
Ana Huang: and I've loved reading and writing since I was a kid.
Ana Huang: So I think, no matter what happens, It'll always be
Ana Huang: a part of my life in some way or another.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Well, is there anything we haven't covered that we should?
Ana Huang: No? I mean no, this has been so much fun
Ana Huang: chatting with you. You have been so well prepared and comprehensive.
Emily Tisch Sussman: We cover a lot of ground too.
Ana Huang: Yes, No, this is amazing. Thank you so much for
Ana Huang: having me.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Oh, I'm so honored to be here, priest spa like
Emily Tisch Sussman: you fit us in. I think it's a good sign
Emily Tisch Sussman: that you didn't think this was going to be too
Emily Tisch Sussman: stressful so you can unwind later. You're like, yeah, yeah,
Emily Tisch Sussman: this is good vibes.
Ana Huang: Na Me. I've listened to your past episodes and it's
Ana Huang: always always a good vibe.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So thank you for coming in.
Ana Huang: Thank you, thank you so much, such a pleasure.
Emily Tisch Sussman: For years, Ana was scared to make writing her job.
Emily Tisch Sussman: She figured it the second it became work, she'd stop
Emily Tisch Sussman: loving it. So when I asked her if all of
Emily Tisch Sussman: it disappeared tomorrow, the best seller list, the Netflix deal,
Emily Tisch Sussman: all of that, would she still write? She didn't even hesitate.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Of course, it was a yes. The one thing she
Emily Tisch Sussman: was too afraid to risk pursuing turned out to be
Emily Tisch Sussman: the one thing she couldn't give up, and the part
Emily Tisch Sussman: of herself that she hid from people in her life
Emily Tisch Sussman: ended up building a huge online community of millions of
Emily Tisch Sussman: passionate readers. Ana's new book, King of Gluttney is out now.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Her mom will buy the book. Her mom will not
Emily Tisch Sussman: be allowed to read it, but that doesn't mean you can't.
Emily Tisch Sussman: That's all for today. See you next Wednesday. Thanks for listening.
Emily Tisch Sussman: To she pivots. If you like this episode, follow the
Emily Tisch Sussman: show so you never miss a pivot story and share
Emily Tisch Sussman: it with one woman in your life who might need
Emily Tisch Sussman: to hear it. To learn more about our guests and
Emily Tisch Sussman: join our community, follow us on Instagram at she pivots
Emily Tisch Sussman: the podcast our Subscribe to our substack for exclusive content
Emily Tisch Sussman: and behind the scenes conversations. You can also find us
Emily Tisch Sussman: at shepivotspod dot com. This episode was produced and edited
Emily Tisch Sussman: by Paige Davis Jeannotte, with sound editing and mixing by
Emily Tisch Sussman: Nina Pollock. Logistics and planning by Emma Stopek and Kendall Krupkin.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Research by Christine Dickason. She Pivots is proud to be
Emily Tisch Sussman: a part of the iHeart Podcast Network. I endorse She
Emily Tisch Sussman: Pivots