Ann Dee Ellis

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Starly Pratt: Hello, and welcome to The Author’s Inscape, a podcast hosted by BYU’s Inscape, a literary journal. My name is Starly Pratt, and I am a graduate student here at BYU in the MFA program, specializing in fiction writing.

“Inscape” is a term coined by Gerard Manley Hopkins and refers to the unique inner essence or distinctive characteristics that define a particular object, scene, or individual. In artistic contexts, inscape can describe the distinctive beauty or essence of a natural scene, especially as perceived through artistic expression. Our hope with this podcast is to explore the inscape behind authors, poets, artists, and other creatives. In our episodes, you can expect to listen to conversations with these creatives, dramatic readings, and much, much more. For this first episode, we will be talking with Ann Dee Ellis.

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SP: Ann Dee Ellis is the author of six books for young readers. She is a professor of creative writing and literature at Brigham Young University. Join us today to talk with Ann Dee about her writing process and the inspiration behind her newest novel, This Cookie Will Change Your Life, a Junior Library Guild pick. The book was published in May of this year and follows a group of unlikely friends who meet in the library and embark on an adventure to start a cookie business. 

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SP: Okay, Ann Dee, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for coming on! 

Ann Dee Ellis: Thanks for having me!

SP: We are super excited today to talk about your writing process and your new book, This Cookie Will Change Your Life. I wanted to start off today by talking about your writing process. Do you have a favorite part of your writing process? What’s the most difficult part of the writing process for you, and does that change from project to project?

ADE: This is a great question. I have the most fun at the beginning of a novel. I am a person who loves to just write and see where it goes. I don’t outline, I don’t necessarily have a theme in mind, I just start with the first chapter. I’ll just start writing, and I’ll see what character pops up; and I’ll see what that character wants, what that character cares about, and the setting, the sense of place, and then I see if I want to keep following him or her. So I have a million first chapters. In fact, Carol Lynch Williams and I used to have a blog—it was called “Throwing Up Words,” you can probably find it—but we would talk about craft on that blog, and at one point, I said, “If anyone wants a first chapter, I’ll send it to you.” And so I had a few people email me and say, “Yeah, I want a first chapter.” So I’d just send them a first chapter because I’m a collector of first chapters. That’s my favorite part, is discovering what the story is going to be based off whoever appears on the page, and then seeing if they have enough—kind of—“umph” for me to keep going and following them through.

So I love the beginning part of the process. I love writing. I love playing. I love discovering. I love not knowing where it’s going to go, but also seeing the world unfold. And I’m the worst at ending [laughter], so I can start things all day long, but I have a hard time getting to the end, which I think is a problem that a lot of writers have. We talk about romance, and when it first starts, it’s amazing, and then when you get into the middle of the romance, the shades fall down, and things get harder. And I think with a book, it’s really exciting at first, but then when you get to the middle, we talk about middles being really hard, and then making it all the way to the end, that is even more difficult. And so for me, it is making it to the finish line.

And then the revision part—I just met with my writing group, and I’m working on a project that I have been working on for a long time, and I was hoping that they were going to tell me, “Yes, go send it out,” but they had so much feedback to give me. And I was—you know—I know I’m used to that, but actually this one, I just wanted them to say, “You’re done!” But they did not say that. And they gave me the best feedback, but it was real feedback. It was like big feedback. So I actually got emotional. I was like, I’m going to cry—

SP: Oh no!

ADE: —and I know that’s funny because I run workshops. I teach here at BYU, and we’re giving feedback all the time. And also, I’m getting feedback all the time. It does get easier, but it also is just a lot of work, and it’s a lot of emotional work to write a novel, and so to know how much work you need to do—and you kind of know in your gut anyway—but you want someone to say, “No, it’s fine.” But when they say, “Actually, there’s so much potential here, and you need to do a ton of things, a lot of work,” that can be a really difficult part. But once you do that, and it grows, and the book gets better and better and better, then you can see how valuable that feedback was. And when I get to the point where I’m working with an editor, the same thing, she’ll send me an editorial letter. It’s painful, but the book just continues to grow and get better and better. And so then by the end, you can feel like, yes, I’ve really put my heart into this and I’ve worked—I mean, not as hard as I could because you could always keep working on a novel, because you’re never really done—but you can feel like, yes, I went through it and I’m ready for this book to go out into the world.

SP: Yeah, I can imagine if you’re super attached to the characters, which is what you say you start the book with, it would be hard to have to make changes to someone I imagine is already pretty solidified in your brain—like you feel like you know them. So I’m curious: With This Cookie Will Change Your Life, because there are so many different characters, which one did you start with? What was the inception of this?

ADE: So almost every one of my books, the first chapter is the exact first chapter I wrote in my first draft. So with This Cookie Will Change Your Life, there are five main characters. It’s the first book I have written in third-person limited. They just graduated from sixth grade—they’re going to be moving to middle school. And I started with Tilly, who is a girl, and she is the one who appeared on the page first, and she’s struggling. She has a hard home life, and she’s decided that she is going to run away. So on that journey, she decides she needs to go to 7-Eleven so she can get a Slurpee to think about her runaway plans, and she meets up with another character. So as I took Tilly along, more characters appeared. And so I thought, “Oh, who is this guy that she just met?” I thought about him, and they go to the library, and then the bus drives by, and there’s another character on the bus seeing them out the window. And I think, “Okay, what is this world these characters are in?” And as the story unfolded, more and more characters showed up. So this was a different process. I’ve written books that have not been published like this. I’m really interested in seeing characters’ lives through different lenses, and so having five characters allow me to go into their inner life, but also have the other characters observe them and think things about them—and you can see how much we misjudge each other, how much we don’t actually know each other. And so this book developed in that way. But I started with Tilly, and I ended with Herschel. Those are the first and the fifth characters that showed up when I was writing this book.

SP: Okay, interesting, because I’m sure many writers experience a similar thing where characters they had not even imagined being a part of the book all of a sudden appear, and then you can’t imagine the book without them. What made you make the jump from just having them be a part of it to exploring their perspectives? It is third-person limited, but you really do get into the characters’ heads. And five may seem like a lot for a middle grade novel. So what made you make that move? What couldn’t you let go from having their closer perspectives?

ADE: I think with Tilly, I was really curious about her, but when she ran into the second character named Mateo, I was really curious about his perception of her, and I just decided, I want to know that, too. I’m curious about him in that relationship, not just from the outside, but I wanted to actually know him and have them have a relationship that could be explored. And then the third character is Eloise, who sees them out the window. And I just felt this pull, and it made me think a lot about my own kids. My youngest is ten, my oldest is eighteen, so the elementary school years were more fraught than I thought they would be. My ten-year-old is a girl, and she has all these things happening to her. Her life is huge. Her problems are huge, and a lot of times I think we dismiss kids, and we don’t think about the social situations they are thrown into, and the struggles they’re thrown into, and the things they’re going through at home. So when all these characters appeared, I just thought, it’s interesting to think about kids who see each other every day but don’t know each other. And maybe they think they know each other because they’re going on field trips together, they’re in the classroom, they’re seeing their scores sometimes on their paper, and they’re at recess, but they don’t actually know each other. And so it’s actually when those three characters showed up on the page, I thought it would be interesting to have them actually meet up and discover. The book takes place over four days. It’s not that much time, but I just wanted to see what would happen if they were pushed together, and they had something that they had to do together, and how that would unfold.

SP: Yeah, I love that. How do you think the book would have been different if you had only told it from Tilly’s perspective, or maybe one of the other characters?

ADE: Yeah, my other books are like that. Like, You May Already Be a Winner is strictly from Olivia’s point of view, and I love it. I really love that book—it’s a really special book to me. It’s set in Provo: Olivia goes to the Rec Center, she’s on the Provo River Trail. But I really explore her character and her relationship in her community. Community is a really big part of all the books that I write. So I think it would be a really, maybe more—it would be a more in-depth exploration of Tilly’s life, and I imagine I would get more into her family dynamics, I would get more into her struggle with friendship, so it would be more in-depth with her one character. And that is a certain kind of book. And I love that kind of book, and that’s the kind of book I usually write. But I think with this, I decided—maybe not even consciously—but when she hit up against another character, I was really curious about his reaction to her. Often I just have those characters on the sideline, and you can learn more about the main character by dialogue and things like that. But I think when she hit up against him, and he reacted the way he did, I thought, “Why is he treating her this way?” And so I just thought it would be interesting to jump heads. And I don’t normally do that, but I thought, “I’m going to jump heads. ‘’m going to see what happens.” It did make it more difficult because then there have to be five arcs. With the middle grade novel, you want to see how they all progress. So the book is probably the longest one I’ve written that’s published, because I’m exploring five kids rather than one.

SP: Well, I think the payoff is very exciting because it does highlight the community that you were talking about earlier, as each of them are juggling the issues they’re dealing with personally, but then how to relate to each other. It really gives a sense of community. And I also love that you set it in Provo, where you are from—which I was also curious about. Is that something that you set out to do on purpose, or is that something that just kind of happens because that’s what you know?

ADE: My earlier books aren’t necessarily Provo. So when I talk about You May Already Be a Winner, it’s specifically Provo. I don’t know that I actually name it Provo, and I definitely don’t name it Provo in This Cookie Will Change Your Life for a few reasons. I actually did a children’s book club—which is my favorite kind of book club—I went and spoke at a children’s book club, and they had so many opinions about the book. So they’re like, “Oh my goodness,” you know, “We loved it, but this, this really bugged us.” They’re just—they are uninhibited. They will tell you whatever. And they said,”We could picture a lot of parts of the books, but some things are not accurate. You’re not getting everything right about Provo.” And I talked about how I use Provo as a jumping-off place. It’s not one-to-one Provo. But I think it’s kind of cool to read about your own town, your own city, in a novel. We read a lot about New York City. We read a lot about LA. To have a book set in my hometown, with the things that I love, and have kids around here read it and be like, “[Gasp] I’ve been to Bombay House!” or “Oh my goodness, I’ve been to Smith’s and Dragon’s Keep!” and these places, I think it has a sense of, “Wow, this community is important.” And also, it’s a place where stories happen, and my story matters, and stories about local kids who are just doing their thing matter. And so I’ve found a lot of joy in doing that. And I think it’s fun when I do school visits or talk to kids and talk about how their stories, wherever they are, are important—even if they’re small stories, even if they’re set in Provo, Utah, or set in Vernal, or wherever they want to make it. Wherever they feel like their story takes place, they’re important. So I loved writing it this way. I try to be careful to not have people in Provo be the same. These are characters. It’s a fictional story, right? You know?

SP: No, I love that. It kind of reminds me of what Carol Lynch Williams, who we’ve already mentioned, talked about in the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference this past year. She gave a little talk about the “book of your heart,” is what she calls it. And, for her, it’s basically the book that you find the most fulfilling to write. It’s the one that has a piece of your soul in it, and is often the most difficult book to write because it means so much to you. And for her, it was her book The Chosen One, which is just phenomenal. And many authors, I’m sure, have what they consider to be the book of their heart. So I’m curious, is This Cookie Will Change Your Life the book of your heart? Or is a different book you’ve written the book of your heart, or have you yet to write this book?

ADE: It’s funny because Carol texted me. She said, “What’s your book of the heart?” She asked me that a few weeks ago, and I’ve been thinking about it because, I don’t know, I put a lot of heart into this particular novel—This Cookie Will Change Your Life—and I started it during the pandemic. There was a lot of hard things happening: My husband lost his job, my mom had passed away. I mean, there was just a lot of things going on in my life, and so it was a space where I was feeling pretty vulnerable, and the book was a place to escape. And it was a really important story for me, because I do think it’s a story of friendship. It’s a story of found family. It’s a story of kids supporting each other and loving each other. On the other hand, I’m working on a graphic novel that is about my mom. My mom had Alzheimer’s, and that was a really huge part of my life growing up, because many of her relatives had Alzheimer’s, and so she would talk about it all the time, like it’s inevitable, and then it did come. And so it was hard, and it was when I was having kids and writing books, and also my mom was dealing with this illness. So right now I’m working on a graphic novel that is about her childhood, and also about a grandma who has Alzheimer’s, and it is very hard to write. I’ve never written a graphic novel, and I’ve been trying to write this for years. So in one way, just the form is difficult, the subject matter is difficult, but also I’m finding there’s a little bit of distance in it because it’s a different kind of writing—there’s going to be illustrations. So I don’t know if I can say this is the book of my heart. It definitely is—the subject matter is so important to me, and I’m working hard on it. And I also don’t want to work on it, because there’s a lot of barriers. Maybe it will end up being the book of my heart. But I find that every novel I’m writing could be the book of my heart, because they are all hard and they all have pieces of me in them.

SP: I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me, because when you put so much love and heart into the characters you’re creating or the world that you’re making, it makes sense that it feels like it’s become a part of you, to say the least. I’m curious, though, because it’s based off of Provo, but not exclusively Provo: Did you revisit any of the places in the book to walk through your characters’ lives or to re-experience those things?

ADE: That’s a great question. So we love Bombay House—we don’t go there often because it’s quite pricey—but my youngest, that’s one of her favorite restaurants, and we love to go there when we can. I grew up going to the library—my mom was a children’s librarian. I take my kids to the library a few times a month. When we go on trips, we find the local library in any city that we visit. So I have been in the library quite a bit. The one place that I didn’t revisit that I should is the house with the face in the eaves. There’s a house that’s quite prominent and actually the cover of the book. They are on the roof of this house, and in the eaves, there’s like a plaster face—and growing up, that house was so mysterious to me. I love to go by. I love mysterious things. I love strange things. I love to be surprised. And so, people are like, “Where is that house?” I’m like, “Well, it’s down in South Provo.” I mean, it’s near the library, and I should have driven by it and gone by. But I just have it so ingrained in my mind—I can see it right now—that I didn’t feel the need to go down there, but it would be fun to do that. It would be fun to make a map of my different—especially those two—books. And actually, The War With Grandma is set at Kiwanis Park and is a lot about the Strawberry Days, which is set in Pleasant Grove—which, again, my mom grew up in Pleasant Grove. I grew up here. It has a balloon festival they have here in Provo on the Fourth of July. So you can see that my community and the things that have been important to me as a child growing up, and still as an adult, are infused in my writing.

SP: I love that. And, circling back to some of the more difficult subject matter, which is part of the reason why this is a book that has a piece of your heart in it. How do you navigate highlighting some of those? It’s not, like, dark or gritty necessarily, but it is more difficult to talk about and certainly, potentially, for kids who maybe lack the vocabulary to express it. How do you navigate that for writing for younger readers?

ADE: You know, these are the kind of stories I want to tell. I want to tell human stories. I want to give kids respect and show that they are resilient, but they also are kids, and they have to go through things that I think are extremely difficult. And we tend to think that kids don’t catch on, or maybe it doesn’t affect them, but they are going through really hard things. There’s grief, there’s abuse, there’s all kinds of things that kids are enduring, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to avoid those kinds of stories. I think that those kinds of stories are important for a lot of different reasons. I think they’re important for kids who have experienced that, so they can see themselves, and they can maybe find solace. I think it’s important for kids who haven’t, so they can have more empathy for those who have. I also think that they’re real. I always say—like the underlying question that I’m always asking in my books—my main characters are asking is: “If you really knew me, would you still love me?” Because I think there’s a lot that we bury, and we don’t want to let our true selves out. Because what if we’re not lovable? And everyone’s lovable. And so, letting them show their undersides, their underbelly, and look at the things that they are really struggling with, I think, is a more honest story than avoiding that. I mean, I guess I shouldn’t say that, there’s—every story can be wonderful. There’s different kinds of storytelling, and there’s a lot of different kinds of honest storytelling. I think I’m just drawn to these kinds of stories, and growing up, these are the kinds of stories that I loved. I loved Jacob Have I Loved, I’ve loved, like all the books that I read were usually contemporary, realistic. I didn’t read as much fantasy. I love John Bellairs, I read Lloyd Alexander. But the majority of the books I read were contemporary realistic. So because I think I’m interested in people, and I’m interested in relationships, I’m interested in how we take care of each other, and how we hurt each other, and how we forgive each other. So that’s the kind of storytelling I want to do.

SP: Yeah, I appreciate that. And because I think some people think that when it comes to middle grade fiction, there’s topics that are off limits, or things that they can’t talk about because kids aren’t interested in them. But kids often have very deep thoughts, and it’s really cool to give them a vehicle to explore those things that maybe they feel like they’re not allowed to talk about. And I felt like you did that really well in This Cookie Will Change Your Life. One particular strategy that you use that I noticed throughout the book was to ask questions, which I feel like you’re trying to get the reader to, if not put themselves in the character’s shoes, to at least ask themselves the same questions. I found this all over the book. I mean, just a few examples are when Jada is talking about her dad’s absence on page 115, you write, “Jada’s dad was probably riding his motorcycle and listening to The Zoo or Journey, his favorite because the head singer, Arnel Pineda, was from the Philippines like him. He was probably riding around, listening to music and leaving, people. Why did he leave?” There’s a number of things that you could have ended that kind of topic with, or that paragraph with, and you chose to use a question. So I’m curious, before we get into some more examples, what is it about questions that make for such good ways to navigate the difficult topics for young readers? 

ADE: Something I love about kids is, they’re often going to approach things with curiosity rather than judgment. So there are hard things happening—your dad leaves, you don’t know why, and there’s not a right answer, but you’re going to wonder about it. And I think once we get older, we decide this is what it is. “This is what it is, this is how it happened, and why he did it.” But I think a lot of kids, they are pretty emotionally intelligent in the way that they can, like, wonder and ask questions, and also not make it definitive and not make decisions about it yet. So a lot of the times when they ask questions, it does allow the reader to ask questions too, and maybe foster more curiosity throughout the hard times, and maybe ask people that are adults or people who can help them about the problems they’re having. So, yeah, I think a lot of times I have my characters process the things they’re going through through curiosity.

SP: I think that’s a really good strategy, because it certainly works. When Herschel is talking about his depression, he says: “He’d felt that way before, sad and heavy and dark. It would come in waves. And this wave felt like a big one, a huge one you could surf on. Could you feel sad for no reason?” I mean, what a question, that there. Is there an answer to that question? I’m not 100% sure, and I don’t think kids are sure, but the fact that they feel—I mean, if Herschel is asking this question, maybe they can too. And I think that it’s a healthy way to navigate the emotions that they are experiencing.

Another example, Tilly, when she’s discussing her abuse: “Then he shouted at Sebastian and Sebastian shouted at him and shoved him into the wall. Then her dad went after Sebastian. Tilly put her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. Why was it always like this? Why was it always, always like this?” And that’s not to say that questions are the only way to navigate this. You certainly have examples where they do just say things outright, like what they’re thinking. I mean, when Eloise kind of has this thing where she says she “feels like a zero,” she says that over and over again. She’s not asking per se, she’s just saying how she feels. And same with Mateo talking about his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s. He does ask quite a few questions along the way, but he is just saying what he’s observing and talking about how he feels, which I think is just phenomenal because it’s true. Even adults sometimes need characters to explore how they feel. And so I can see why writing some of these characters would feel like emotional work, because you are, in a way, navigating those feelings for, not just your characters, but also potentially for your readers. It’s like a big scaffolding experiment.

ADE: Oh, I love that. That’s a cool way to put it. I think I ached for these kids, and I ache for kids in my life, and I ache for my younger self. Like I think, yeah, reading about processing hard things and reading about, again curiosity, but also naming how you feel and just being present in it and sitting in it and saying, “This is how I feel, and that’s okay.” I’m sad my mom had Alzheimer’s. I’m sad Mateo’s grandma had Alzheimer’s. I mean, obviously, you can see I process things through my writing sometimes, but sometimes we feel like a zero, and that’s a reality. And sometimes we don’t know why we feel sad, and I think asking questions about it, but also just saying like, yes, this is how I feel, and it’s okay to feel this way. Like, all emotions are allowed, and kids don’t have to shut down those emotions. And they can know that they’re safe when they feel these ways and that it’s normal, and that there’s a way to connect with others and find help with their peers or with the adults in their lives, hopefully.

SP: Yeah, I love that. It kind of reminds me of the whole argument behind, like, “what’s the purpose behind literature?” (You know, capital L.) Is it to teach morals? Is it to explore even the darker sides of us? Or is it really an aesthetic experience? Where do you find yourself in that argument? Do you have a strong opinion or anything? 

ADE: I just like to tell stories. I really do. I love kids. I love writing about people. I love being being surprised when I write it. I love being surprised when I read stories. I love how weird we all are in this world and how we have so much buried underneath. There’s a moment in The Professor’s House by Willa Cather, where the main character is sitting by his wife, and he looks over, and he thinks about their marriage. And he thinks, Oh my gosh, we have worlds inside us. He kind of has this realization that they know each other, but they don’t really know each other. And it’s kind of a sad thing, but also it’s the way it is. And we have to really work to be understood. And those are the kinds of stories that I love to explore and think about. So, I mean, I love beauty. I love writing. I love thinking about a sentence and how to revise it and make it more beautiful. I love thinking about the craft of writing and all of those things. I love stories that have helped me through hard times in my life. As a writer, though, number one is just telling a good story. And so, for me, that comes from characters that are going through it. 

SP: Yeah, yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense to me. Do you feel like there were some formative stories or authors, in your childhood now, that you don’t necessarily model your writing off of, but they did what you now do, and because of that, they inspired how you approach writing and stories?

ADE: Yeah, I grew up on the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary, and they’re funny. They’re really funny. But also, Ramona’s family struggles. There’s a lot of hard things. And there’s a moment in one of the Ramona books where all the cool girls are bringing hard-boiled eggs to lunch, and so Ramona asks her mom to give her a hard-boiled egg. So her mom packs it, and they all crack the egg on their head, and Ramona’s mom did not give her the hard-boiled egg. 

SP: Oh no! 

ADE: Yes, I remember so vividly! She cracks it on her head in the lunchroom, and it’s dripping down her face, and I remember feeling so embarrassed for her. And she goes to get cleaned up, and she hears her teacher in the other room say, “Oh, my little show-off,” about Ramona, and the teacher meant it as an endearing thing to say, but Ramona took it so personally and was so upset by it. And me, as a reader, I felt really connected to Ramona. It made me feel like, “Oh yeah, I have felt these moments of embarrassment.” And I felt like maybe people don’t value me. And as a kid, I thought, “Wow, this is like a real kid that I love, and I would want to be my friend.” So I really love Beverly Cleary for writing those true stories. Judy Blume, too, was a really big influence on my life. She wrote super funny books, Superfudge, a lot of those kinds of books. But also she wrote Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which was really foundational for me. And then, as I grew up, there’s writers that I really loved. One was Louise Plummer. She just recently passed away, and she was a professor here for a little while. But her writing is just so incredible. She writes about teenagers, and it’s real, and it’s honest, and it’s heartbreaking. I tell this story a lot of times to my classes, but there was one book in particular I was reading as a teenager, in the basement, and I was in a room, and the moment in the book that happened, it caused me—I won’t describe it here, you should check out her books—but I felt so emotionally connected to that main character that I just burst out in tears. And my mom happened to come down right there and like, “Hey, it’s time for lunch.” And I was like, “Get out of here!” You know? I was like, having this emotional time. And she’s like, “Oh, are you okay?” I’m like, “Just give me a minute.” I just loved feeling what they felt. And so those were some really important authors; I could think of many, many more. But whenever I felt like I came out of a book feeling known a little bit, and also feeling like I had experienced something with some kids that felt really real, those are the kinds of books I wanted to read. 

SP I love that. And also the books you want to write. 

ADE: Yeah. 

SP: Okay. Kind of wrapping up here, obviously I can tell that you were an incredible reader and that has formatted who you are as a writer. But along that journey you had to figure out how to become a writer, and so what do you think was the best practice or even piece of advice for writing that you’ve ever been given that you still hold to you today? 

ADE: So I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer until very late in the game. Actually, as an elementary school student, I did want to be a writer. I wrote a lot, but I got discouraged in fifth grade and I decided I was not a writer. But I’ve always been an avid reader, and reading, reading, reading, listening to books, reading all through my life, I think has made me a better writer. And I always think about Stephen King’s book on writing. He talks about how you have to read all the time, and that’s one of the most important things for writers, is that we have to read. And right now, in this day and age, it’s hard to read a book. It’s hard because we have so many things competing for our time. We have social media, we have our phones, even just the news. There’s this 24-7—

SP: —Stimulation?

ADE: —stimulation. Yeah. And you could just go years and years without reading a book. So I think reading intentionally and also reading for pleasure—so, both things—I think are one of the most important things that I’ve learned and been told. And then I also like the advice to just finish things. Many authors have said this, but “get to the end” has been really important for me, because I am famously a starter and not a finisher, like I said before, and it is hard for me to power through. But I really believe that if you can power through and get to the end, and have that huge sigh of relief and go celebrate—everyone who writes should celebrate those milestones—then you have so much more ability to go back and make the book what it could be. You have so much more material to work with, and you know your characters better by the end than you did at the beginning. So then you can shape the experience for your readers and shape it for you. So I think, more than anything, read and then write, and write to the end. You know? I also believe in play. I believe that you should play. You should have fun. It should be joyful. Of course, there’s pain. It’s hard, but it should be fun. Like that’s when I realized I want to be a writer. It was because I was having the best time of my life. And like, it’s funny and I’m laughing and I’m making crazy things happen. And then, someone wanted to read that book and I thought, “What? This could be a job,” you know? It’s not a very lucrative job, but I was like, wow, if I can make this work, this is like the coolest, most exciting thing to do to create worlds, to create people, to create communities and to play and then be able to talk to people about my characters like they’re real—but actually the experiences and the emotions are real. So it is a good vehicle to like, have discussions and so that’s the thing that has been important for me. 

SP: Yeah, I love that. What do you think has been the most helpful to you to get to the end? Is that, like, accountability partners, writing groups or workshops or is it getting an Airbnb in the woods and just sequestering yourself for a few days to finish it?

ADE: Yeah, probably all those things. I will say—so, my first book came out when I had my first baby, and that baby’s 18 years old, right? And so it was really, really hard for me to write while I was having, you know, I have five kids. But I did have a very dedicated writing group. They were older writers and experienced writers, actually. Louise Plummer was in that writing group, which was like, oh, one of my literary heroes as a teenager. And they required 25 pages every time we met. We met once a month. I never would have finished a novel without them at that point in my life because I was busy, and it’s heavy. Kids are amazing, but they take a lot of heart and a lot of physicality, and a lot of things are going on, and you’re tired. And I went stretches without writing for sure. Months and months. But I had friends who were cheering me on and who were giving me feedback and helping me through. I wasn’t super prolific, but I kept going, and my goal has always been to write the next book. It’s not necessarily to be a national bestseller, or this, or that, but I want to keep writing. So I think having a writing group and having friends is really important. I think, too, is sometimes getting away, and taking time for yourself, and that’s not always possible. But like, I’m going to a conference next weekend and I definitely hope that I can do a lot of writing because I’ll be by myself in a hotel room, so that’s really huge. And I also sometimes think about—I have only run two marathons in my life, but I feel— 

SP: That’s a lot. 

ADE: I mean, I guess it is. 

SP: That’s a lot of marathons. 

ADE: Yeah, but I really love the training schedule of a marathon where you do short runs and then a long run and you have days off for cross-training. So I think about that with my writing life—like a short date, like, just write for a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, and then find times to do long runs where you can really get into the story. So, setting a schedule for myself has also been important. 

SP: Oh, I think that’s a really good way of thinking about it, because I’ve run a couple of races myself and the regiment of the training is really easy to grasp—almost more than the fact that you have to run.

ADE: Yeah, I know. You’re like, “Oh, it’s my long day. Oh, it’s 18 miles, right?” Yeah. 

SP: Like, okay, wait, that’s actually hard. So thinking about a writing schedule like that is a really good idea. I think I might try and implement that. Okay, last question. As we are a podcast hosted by Inscape, we strive to find art and literature that is “bizarre, believing, and beautiful.” What is something bizarre, believing, and beautiful that you have read recently? 

ADE: I just finished reading Brooklyn, and that is a beautiful, beautiful book. I think it’s a really human book. The sequel just came out, Long Island. I actually started the sequel not having read Brooklyn. I had started it, but life got busy. So I stopped in the middle of the sequel, went back and read Brooklyn, which actually was a heartbreaking thing to do because— 

SP: Because it’s out of sequence.

ADE: You know, out of sequence. So I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” But anyway, I really was inspired by reading that book because I think it’s, again, a small story about one girl and her family experience and her leaving home and her struggling to know what’s right for herself. And the writing is really straightforward. It’s beautiful, but it’s straightforward. And her journey is important. I mean, I learned a lot about that time period, but also I just felt like, oh, this, this feels like all of us in a way. So I really, really love those books. I also really, really love Foster by Claire Keegan. I have my students read that a lot. It’s such a short novella, and it’s about one little girl, and it’s just, there’s so much under the surface. I think Claire Keegan is a master of writing and a master of really beautiful storytelling, but with such concision. It’s so—perfect words in every sentence so that you don’t have to read and read and read. It’s just there for you. So those are the two novels that I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. 

SP: Oh, I love that. I’ve also read Brooklyn. It’s a really good book. I have yet to pick up the sequel or watch the movie. So— 

ADE: I haven’t watched the movie either and I want to. It’s on the list.

SP: It’s on the list that so many other books and movies are. Well, thanks so much for coming on this podcast and talking with me about This Cookie Will Change Your Life. Everyone should go get themselves a copy. It is a beautiful—I don’t know about bizarre—but definitely believing book. Thank you. 

ADE: Thanks, Starly, I appreciate it. 

SP: Of course. 

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