Allie Condie

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Ally Condie: …And I remember Beth saying, if you have the choice between sitting down and writing or going and doing a cool thing, go do the cool thing. And I think about that all the time. I mean, of course you have to sit down and write, it doesn’t get done otherwise, but a life that’s interesting to you will make you a more creative person in general…

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Starly Pratt: Ally Braithwaite Condie is the author of the #1 New York Times and internationally bestselling Matched trilogy, the instant USA Today bestseller and Reese’s Book Club Pick novel The Unwedding, the Edgar Award finalist novel Summerlost, and many other nationally published works across multiple genres: picture books, middle grade fiction, young adult fiction, adult fiction, and short stories.

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She holds a bachelor’s in English teaching and an MFA in writing for children and young adults. Her work has been published in 30+ languages and optioned for film. She lives in Utah Valley, where she loves hiking with her four wonderful children. Join us today to discuss her most recent novel, The Unwedding, and get a sneak peek at her upcoming novel, The Girls Trip.

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Pratt: Hey, Ally! We’re so excited to have you. Thank you for joining us. 

Condie: Thank you for having me. I’m delighted to be here. 

Pratt: Of course. It was an absolute delight to read your most recent book, The Unwedding—

Condie: Thank you. 

Pratt: —And I have so many questions about it. I think, you know, when you hear the title Unwedding, it’s very fitting with what happens in the book.

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Pratt: It’s exactly what you’d expect. The main character is newly divorced from her husband, and then she is vacationing in a resort where a wedding is taking place. And so you’d think Ellery, who’s the main character, is at a prime time in her life for new experiences. And I think that’s what she thinks this resort is going to be, a little bit. So what made you want that new experience to be a murder mystery? 

Condie: Honestly, that’s not what I was expecting to write. I love—I write primarily—at the time of writing this book, it had been largely young adult and middle grade fiction, and some picture books for very young readers. But then I had the idea for this story, and it actually came about because of a personal experience I had. I love reading murder mysteries, but I never thought I would write one. So I was married for 20 years, and then that marriage ended. And I decided, “I am going to be fine. This is fine.” I didn’t feel that way. I knew I wasn’t fine, but—

Pratt: You were manifesting. 

Condie: —I was manifesting fine. Yeah. And I thought, I’m going to go—So we had had a trip planned to go somewhere for our 20th wedding anniversary, and I found out—and we were divorced, it was fine, nothing untoward—but he took someone else to that place. I thought someone new that he was dating. And that was really hard. It had only been a few months, and I thought, “Well, I’m going to go on a cool trip too.” And I went on this trip—and if you read, this is not my story—but I did get an idea for the opening scene from this experience. I was at a resort, eating by myself, feeling down, and I didn’t have my kids with me, which was the really tricky part. The really tricky part of divorce is you don’t just lose the spouse. Now, if you have a good co-parent, which I’m lucky I do, you don’t have your children all the time because that good parent also gets to have time with them. 

Pratt: Right. 

Condie: And so I was just hating everything. I wasn’t traveling with my significant other. I wasn’t traveling with my kids—that felt weird. I thought I’d be fine because I’ve done book tours a million times by myself, but it just stunk. So I went in the bathroom and called a friend. I said, “I think I’m coming home; this is too hard.” And just like in the book, she said, “Get back out there. You have to. You can do this.” So I went back out there and—and it wasn’t at the resort I use in the book, it was a different place—and I just thought, “Alright, fine, I’ll do it.” And as I was eating dinner alone at this place where everybody else was paired off or with a family or something, my writer brain kicked in and I thought, “Well, they don’t look very happy, that couple” or “Oh, that’s for sure a second wife” or “Oh, they’re so cute, they’re so in love.” You know? “Oh, that’s the couple that’s been together forever, that’s so sweet.” And then my brain was doing all these writer things, like telling stories, making up stories about other people, and I was getting interested. And then I thought, “If there were a murder, I’m the only person who could solve it, because everyone else is paying attention to the person they’re with, and I’m the only one paying attention to everyone else.” And so at that moment, the trip got really fun. I started thinking, “What if I did dare to write a murder mystery? What if I did kind of have this premise, and I set it at a different resort?” I had one that just popped to mind. It’s in Big Sur, California, because I had visited the area prior, and I knew that there have been mudslides where they’ve had to helicopter people out of the resorts.

Pratt: Wow.

Condie: It really does happen that you can get trapped there. 

Pratt: Okay, I didn’t realize it was so grounded. 

Condie: Yeah, it is. I wasn’t there when any of that happened, but I had visited it after one of the slides had finally been cleared up, all of the stuff. And so I thought, well, it won’t stretch disbelief too much to think that this could happen, because it has happened. Not the murder part, that I’m aware of, but the being trapped, the sort of locked-room mystery.

Pratt: Yeah. 

Condie: And so that was really fun. 

Pratt: That is so fun. I didn’t realize it was that grounded in personal experience. 

Condie: Yeah.

Pratt: That’s kind of cool. 

Condie: Yeah. I mean, I was not expecting that to happen, but it did. And it was a ton of fun to write because I did get the idea, and some of the emotions are true, but I have not solved a murder mystery. I have not been in that situation. None of the people are actually real. But it gave me a great springboard to have something super fun to write. 

Pratt: Yeah, well, it sounds like you do have the confidence that maybe you could solve a murder mystery. 

Condie: Well, no, I have none. Maybe if I can orchestrate all the elements like I do in the murder mysteries I write. Maybe. 

Pratt: Okay. That’s hilarious. That’s interesting. You mentioned that you haven’t written a ton of murder mysteries before, or even really adult novels before. What was that like to switch up for your writing process? Did it change a ton, or did it open doors that you didn’t realize you enjoyed walking through?

Condie: That’s such a great question. I love the way you phrased that. It opened doors for sure. My agent, I’ve been with her since 2009. She’s great. She’s super direct. She always tells me exactly what’s up. And so I knew she would be honest, if I sent her early chapters, if she thought this was a good idea or not, because she has said, “This has no legs, you don’t have the voice.” She’s so blunt. And so I sent her the first few chapters, just thinking, “Whatever she says is fine. It’s been fun to try this out.” And she really loved it. 

Pratt: Oh, good.

Condie: So that was a huge confidence boost because I do trust her so absolutely. And so yeah, it’s opened other doors. My next book is another murder mystery. Reese Witherspoon chose The Unwedding for her book club, which was—

Pratt: Yeah, a big deal.

Condie: —a huge shot in the arm for me to make that transition from young adult to adult novels and have some kind of automatic respect in that area. That, and Kirkus gave it a starred review. So it had these things that I was—you never think, “Oh, I’ll write this book to become a Reese Witherspoon pick.” You have no idea, right? You just hope it is okay. You hope your editor or your agent likes it. So I felt really lucky that I trusted my agent so much and that she has always steered me right. And then some other great things happened to happen as well, which I feel really blessed about. 

Pratt: I love that. I love that you’re able to trust an agent wholeheartedly like that, and that your agent trusts you to take their feedback. That’s pretty awesome. 

Condie: Yeah, it’s a good relationship, and it’s an important relationship to have be that good. 

Pratt: Yeah, no, I agree. So did you find it more difficult to write in any way, or did you feel like an older voice felt more natural than you thought it would be? 

Condie: Yeah. For me, and I’ve done such a wide variety of age ranges, the character has always come to me first, the character in their situation. And so it felt pretty natural to write from an adult perspective because I am an adult, and that character is an adult. So it wasn’t as hard. I actually didn’t think about it much. 

Pratt: Oh, that’s good. 

Condie: Other than, I hope I’m doing—you know, you always notice, you always go back and pay attention. Does this sound like her? Especially after the first draft, when you know the person. Or for me, after the first draft is when I really know the character. And so I’ll catch small things like, “Oh, now that I know her so well, she wouldn’t say it this way, or she wouldn’t do this. That’s more a me thing or that’s more an I-don’t-know-who thing.” 

Pratt: Yeah, yeah. Someone else. 

Condie: Yeah. You bring it into alignment more.

Pratt: Maybe a different character for a different story. 

Condie: Yes. Yes. Maybe that.

Pratt: I love that. Kind of jumping back to what you said about the resort, I loved the resort in this story, and it’s loosely based off of a real resort?

Condie: Yeah, I kind of made a conglomeration of three resorts in the Big Sur area. 

Pratt: Okay. 

Condie: One that I’ve stayed at and two that were too expensive for me to stay at. But there’s a workaround. You can book lunch there—

Pratt: Okay. 

Condie: —And then you wander around and look at all the fancy spots. And so yeah, so I kind of mushed three together to create this conglomeration, this resort that could do all the things I wanted it to do. But it was very heavily drawn from three resorts. 

Pratt: Okay, that’s super cool because I was really impressed with the imagery of the landscape and how it played a role in the murder mystery. I thought it was so creative, and I particularly loved the prestige of the resort. As far as the art went, I was just so fascinated with the art throughout the story. And I wondered where the inspiration for that came from. Are the pieces based off of real pieces, or did you just have fun creating them in your head? I’m so curious about that.

Condie: I love that question. Thank you so much for asking that, because the art was one of the most fun parts of the book. So in the book, if listeners haven’t read it—which I don’t assume they have— there’s art placed all throughout the resort, and you get a brochure when you check in and it’s a little bit of a scavenger hunt, in the sense that you can seek these pieces out, they don’t tell you where they are. Some of them are sculptures out in the more wild parts of the resort, some of them are paintings hanging in different rooms, and they move some of them. So that was a fun element to play with. My mom is an art professor and an artist at a university, and has been for a long time. And I am not a good visual artist, but I have been exposed to a lot of it. And one of the really interesting things that I think I’ve accidentally explored in a lot of my writing is the intersection of art and nature, and that felt like a really natural connection to make here, where we’re kind of at the edge of the world. Big Sur is really jagged and beautiful and great, and man’s response—and woman’s response—to that for decades has been to be inspired by that. And so I thought, “But, also, our art doesn’t last. Nature will take down everything we do, including that.” And so I wanted to think about that in the connection with death and this mudslide, and what do we do that actually lasts? And she’s grappling with those things personally, right? If her marriage has failed, is her life a failure? If whatever happened—nature came to claim that marriage, too, in some way, in the sense that she had no control over it—what does that mean for her? Does her creation still matter?

Pratt: Yeah. I mean, now that you’re mentioning that, I totally see that throughout the novel because the art is very intertwined with nature. I mean, some of the pieces are either nature changed, or it is involved in nature, or hidden in nature. And I think Ellery particularly, as a character, seems to be fascinated by nature and the natural order, and I think that that makes sense as far as what she’s going through, and also like what she has gone through prior to getting to the resort, and then also what is happening in the resort itself, which is just such a fun murder mystery. Everyone should definitely go and read that book. It’s so fun.

Condie: You’re so kind.

Pratt: And it’s also very lighthearted, which I appreciated for lots of reasons. But one of the aspects of the book that I think revealed Ellery’s character to me the most was flashback, which makes sense, because prior to getting to the resort, she has a lot going on in her life. And she misses her kids, and she misses parts of the life that she had prior to getting there. But flashback, as far as I know, in fiction writing, can be very difficult to navigate. How much do you reveal? When do you reveal it? There’s lots of things to consider. So how do you approach flashbacks? 

Condie: I mean, they have to be super relevant to go in at all. And so if she’s missing this family, but you’ve never seen the family because it starts post-divorce, then I have to flashback to show you why she cares, why she misses these people, who they are that she misses. And so I would always try to—I mean, it definitely requires some finesse. You revise, you cut down, you make sure you have the leanest, but most evocative, emotional, version of the flashback. And you make sure you don’t have more than one flashback doing the same job. So it is something that I let myself have a lot of freedom with in the initial draft, but I hone quite a bit. I pay a lot of attention to it in revision. 

Pratt: Do you feel like flashback is something that gets cut the most as far as revision goes then? 

Condie: That’s such a great question, again. No, but I think it does get very fine-tuned. It does become quite distilled, because you don’t want to spend too much time there unless it’s really, really important and really, really easy to picture. 

Pratt: Yeah, that makes sense to me. I’m curious then, in general, do you find yourself kind of freewriting to figure out a setting or a character, and then scrapping most of that when it comes to the actual novel itself?

Condie: I don’t do a lot of freewriting. I do a lot of draft zeroing, where I have to write a full draft of the novel before I know the story, and it’s so inefficient. I don’t necessarily love that that’s my process, but it is. And I do keep a running outline when I’m writing draft zero of all the scenes I’ve written and where they go. It’s an organized draft zero, but I learn a lot in that initial draft. 

Pratt: And how much of that—maybe the scenes or certain plot points—carry through to draft number one?

Condie: Most of them. 

Pratt: Okay.

Condie: Depending on the book. There’s one book where all of the points carried, but they were all written differently for the second version. 

Pratt: Interesting. 

Condie: Does that make sense? 

Pratt: Yeah. 

Condie: The thematic elements, the setting, the characters remain the same. I was trying to tell the same story, but my editor said—I was joking— she sent me the editorial letter, and I said, “I think it might be easier if I just rewrote the whole thing,” and…dead silence. Then I realized, oh, shoot, I’m going to have to rewrite the whole thing.

Pratt: So she agreed. 

Condie: Yeah, yeah. So that has happened to me before. But usually, most of it stays in; it just looks different or is more fine-tuned than I thought it would be. 

Pratt: Interesting. Is it difficult, though, to let go—for example, your editor says, “Yeah, you should rewrite the whole thing.” Is it hard to let go of what you previously had? Do you use them as notes, or do you just put it away and just rewrite?

Condie: I feel like we’re so lucky because we live in the digital era. We’re not lucky in some ways, but for writing, in this way, it’s good. I don’t have to be precious about the old version. I just save it, intact in its own draft, and I roll up my sleeves. And I do really trust all my editors. I have one editor for my young adult stuff and my middle grade, one for picture books, and one for adult novels. And that’s just because they publish and specialize in different things. I love all of them, and I do trust every single editor. And so I will try anything they say. And sometimes I’ll push back. Sometimes I’ll say, “Actually, that didn’t work,” but I don’t have to worry about it because it’s all saved over there. So I might as well try the new thing. So I’m pretty willing to cut, at least in those initial stages of revision. If something has to make its way back in, it will. 

Pratt: I love that because it’s true in a lot of ways. I think stories try and tell themselves, and I think things sneak into drafts that you maybe didn’t expect.

Condie: Yeah.

Pratt: And if something needs to be there, it will make itself known. 

Condie: Yeah, it’ll keep coming back. Yeah. 

Pratt: Kind of like a haunting, almost. It’s like this character is overtaking me. I love that. Another part of this book, besides the beautiful landscapes and the wonderful murder mystery, is the friendships in the book. I noticed that Ellery creates so many new friends in the novel, some that she’s maybe not so sure about, but others that she feels quite rock solid about. And she also has previous friends, like her friend that she calls, that she really relies on. So even though it’s a murder mystery, the book feels like a love letter to friendship in a lot of ways. I mean, one of the lines in your book says, “Like love, friendship could sometimes be a falling, immediate and absolute, and it could last and last.” Beautiful line, by the way. 

Condie: Thank you. 

Pratt: And it made me wonder, was that friendship something you meant to explore in the novel, or did it just kind of happen because of Ellery’s situation? 

Condie: It just kind of happened, but it happened fast. I knew I was writing a murder mystery. I knew this was the setup that I was going to try. But pretty early on in the initial draft, I realized, “Oh, the friends are part of the story.” She does make new friends and they see her as this person—she sort of feels as if her life has shifted so dramatically that she’s not of value anymore in some ways, and they like her right off the bat. And I think that can feel really good, particularly after a breakup or something, where you meet people, and you think, “Oh, they don’t know I’m sad or whatever, they think I’m this fun, cool person. I’m going to be this fun, cool person.” And so she has that gift given to her by Ravi and Nina, who I really love—

Pratt: They are so fun.

Condie: —as characters in the story. And then, she also has some longstanding friendships that matter a lot to her that come into play as well. But I feel like that’s happened to me a few times in my life, where I’ve met someone and just clicked with them as a friend, and it does feel a little like falling in love in the sense that you think, “Ah, this is my person in friendship. Maybe they’re not my person for all my life, my romantic relationship, but this person is going to be around. I get this human, and they get me.” And I think that’s one of the most fun parts of life.

Pratt: Yeah, I love that, because friendship is so powerful and it’s beautiful, and I think it can be sometimes hard to explore in fiction—maybe because friendship can feel like falling in love if you’re not wanting it to be love. Maybe there’s some boundaries there that are kind of confusing, but I thought Ellery’s friendships were kind of adorable. Like Ravi and Nina, you know, they just, like, adopted her. And it was really sweet to see that come into play because she really relies on them for the rest of the novel in lots of ways. 

Condie: Yeah. 

Pratt: In lots of sweet ways, I think. I also wanted to ask you about Ellery and how she feels about her children. In your acknowledgments, the first people you mention are your children and how much they mean to you. And I think in a lot of ways, Ellery feels the same way about her kids. You know, the kids are never really in the novel, but they do play a pretty big role in the novel. Do you mind speaking to that at all? 

Condie: Yeah. So I was writing this novel initially, the first draft, during the opening days of the pandemic.

Pratt: Oh wow.

Condie: Yeah. I got divorced in September 2019, and just a few months later, we all know what happened in March 2020. The world sort of shut down. The COVID-19 pandemic happened. Everything was really, really hard. And I thought—I had that feeling—I had kind of started the idea, I liked it, and then I felt this driving urgency that she feels to get back to her kids. My kids were not that far away. They were in the same town. But there were times when they were at their dad’s and I was not with them because that was the custody arrangement, even if it was just for a couple of days. And I hated it, because it was so different. It was new to me from the divorce. It was new to me with the pandemic. And I just understood, then, her driving urge. She’s not with her kids because they’re with their dad when this happens, but she cannot stand being away from them in this sort of circumstance. So I really felt that very strongly, because I think that’s a maternal instinct, whether you’re in danger—and in the pandemic, remember, in the early days, we didn’t really know. I just felt like this mama bear, who had been separated from her cubs during a time of danger. And it made me crazy. And so I thought, “I’m definitely going to put that feeling of she’s away from them.” And even though they’re not technically in danger, she is. And I think when we’re in danger too, we want to be with the people we love. That is a very instinctual drive.

Pratt: It makes us feel safe. 

Condie: Yeah, yeah. When the chips are down, when the world is ending, you want to be with your people. 

Pratt: I did kind of think it was funny that Ellery doesn’t necessarily want to solve the murder mystery for the people so much, but so she can get to her kids. 

Condie: If this is what I have to do to get to my kids, I’ll do it.

Pratt: She’s like, I’ll do it. And I find that so cute and noble, and she ends up being pretty much the only one who can kind of put things together, because she is so observant. So I just love that. So earlier, you mentioned you’re writing your next novel, and I saw that it was recently announced, which is super exciting. It’s called The Girls Trip. And correct me if I’m wrong, but it comes out on April 7th?

Condie: April 7th, 2026. 

Pratt: Can you tell us anything about it? 

Condie: Yeah. I’m so delighted about this book. They did an excerpt of it on people.com, People Magazine. And so it’s a little bit out there in the world, at least the opening concept. But it is kind of the same. I guess my genre is murder mysteries and beautiful places.

Pratt: Oh no! How horrible! 

Condie: Oh no, how terrible! I have to research them. So it’s kind of based—I always change the name of the actual spot, both to kind of tag responsibly, because I’m pretty cognizant of—It’s great that the national parks are getting so much attention, but also it can be complicated where people decide to write on the sandstone walls or knock over beautiful sandstone formations that have been there forever. So I try to be a little careful about that, but it’s set in a fictionalized Zion National Park.

Pratt: Okay. 

Condie: And so it’s about these women. They decide they’re friends. They’re in a book club, and they decide, “We need to escape from our lives for a few days.” So because this is the modern era, they decide to go somewhere that is still a little bit inaccessible. So they do this hike that’s based on a hike called “the Subway” and one called “the Narrows.” I sort of took some liberties with those that are in multiday hikes, or they can be multiday hikes—not usually the Subway, but the Narrows can be—down in that area. And so when something happens, and something goes wrong, they are off the grid. They are dependent on each other. They can’t be saved in the sense of—yeah. So it was so fun to write because I love the female characters. I love the idea of a girls’ trip. Yeah. It was so fun. 

Pratt: That does sound super fun. Have you done a ton of hiking down in Zion’s? 

Condie: Yeah.

Pratt: I figured. It’s a beautiful place. 

Condie: It is so beautiful. And my dad used to be the federal magistrate for the national parks down there. 

Pratt: Oh, wow. 

Condie: So we had a lot of options of just going to see him at work and him taking us to these cool places. And my mom, too, she was always great about that. So I really loved the landscape down there. 

Pratt: That is so cool. So you grew up going on hikes and in nature. That is so cool. How do you think that that has formed who you are as a person? 

Condie: I think it’s one of the most essential elements to who I am as a person. My mom, like I said earlier, is an artist. She does some figure art, but she is primarily a landscape artist. So we would go and hike in these places, and then we’d come home, and she’d be painting them and creating them at home and showing them in galleries. And so I feel so—not to say that I didn’t totally whine on hikes when I was a teenager, for sure I did that—but they gave me this foundation of interacting with the natural world and respecting it that I feel like it is one of the biggest gifts they could have given me as parents. 

Pratt: That’s wonderful. Do you think the combination of being in nature so often and also your mother being a visual artist made it easier to be descriptive as far as setting goes in your stories?

Condie: Yeah. I have no visual art talent, and she’s not a writer. I mean, she’s a good writer, but that’s not her medium. I feel like it was shown to me from a very young age in an incredibly authentic way that we love beauty, we seek it out, and it makes us want to make beautiful things. Not that I’m saying my work is beautiful. I mean… 

Pratt: I think it is. 

Condie: I’m doing the best I can, but that response to beauty felt very…I just saw that over and over and over again. And I think that was a really cool thing to observe growing up as well. 

Pratt: Well, absolutely. And I love that. My mom was a big hiker too, so I loved, growing up, going on hikes. And I do think women have a beautiful, innate ability to see what is beautiful. Recent examples: I was on a hike with my husband and we were just—it’s kind of bland this time of year—but there were some purple flowers. It was like, heather, just on the side of it. And I just turned, and I was like, “Oh, honey, like, look how cute those flowers are.” And he was like, “You know, I never would have even seen that.” 

Condie: Noticed that, yeah.

Pratt: “I would have never noticed it if you hadn’t pointed it out.” So I think people who have that ability, like, hold on to that ability and make sure you let other people know what’s beautiful around you, because we could all use a little bit more beauty, I think, in our lives.

Condie: I love that, Starly. Yes, I completely agree. If you’re a noticer, that’s a good thing. You can point out the beauty to the people around you. Sometimes being a noticer is hard because you notice all the stuff, and all the hard things too. 

Pratt: So true.

Condie: But I think creative people have that talent or gift or whatever, where their eye catches, their heart catches, they see things, they feel things.

Pratt: And they care.

Condie: Yeah. 

Pratt: Deeply. Yeah, I think that writers are that way frequently. They are noticers, and they care deeply about what they see. And I think that comes across in their writing, usually.

Condie: Yeah. 

Pratt: You have a pretty established career at this point. As you’ve mentioned, you’ve written lots of different things and won lots of different kinds of awards, which is just so incredible. Looking back, how have you seen your identity as a writer develop? 

Condie: Oh, that’s such a great question. I honestly thought, “I’ll be a young adult writer forever.” I love this space. I love these kids that I’m writing for, the age group. I used to teach high school, so it’s a group I’m naturally drawn to. And then I thought, “Well, now I want to write a middle grade novel.” I feel like I’ve been very lucky in that the element of play and the element of exploration have never gone away for me. And so that’s taken me—it’s never been a conscious choice for branding. Does that make sense? 

Pratt: Yeah. 

Condie: I never thought, “Now I should write an adult novel because I haven’t done that yet.” Nobody’s asking for that. Nobody’s offering me a contract for an adult novel or a picture book or anything. I had to go out and learn how to do that. But it felt fun. It felt exciting. So it’s been unexpected, and I’m also very grateful that I have an agent who says, “Great, if you want to do it, you should do it. I’m not going to take the joy out of writing for you. If that’s the project you feel the most excited about, we’ll just table this other one that probably makes more sense, and we’ll let you go explore.”

Pratt: Oh, that’s wonderful. 

Condie: Yeah, she’s been amazing about that.

Pratt: That’s amazing. I think it’s important to have an identity that is grounded in exploration because it’s so fun and exciting, as you said.

Condie: Yeah, I love the way you said that. Yes. 

Pratt: Okay. Well, what do you think, then—do you think you’re gonna stick with adult murder mysteries for a bit, or are you off to exploring again? 

Condie: Honestly, I don’t know. It looks like I will just keep doing all the things that I like to do, which, again, is so great. So Ann Dee Ellis, who’s a faculty member here at BYU, and I sold a three-book chapter book series to Penguin. 

Pratt: Oh, exciting!

Condie: So that’s a younger age. That’s an age neither of us have written for yet. It’s sort of that Magic Treehouse age, between picture book and middle grade. We have three books coming there. And then I’m writing two more murder mysteries, just sort of on the side to see which one I like the most. And then I have four picture books—no, three picture books still to come, and a young adult novel under contract that I’m working on. 

Pratt: Oh my gosh, how do you have any time? 

Condie: I don’t. None of them are done. You know, they’re all just sort of in these nebulous, drafty stages. But it does look like I’ll just keep doing lots of different things. Maybe not as quickly as I wish I could, but I’m delighted to have so many things I’m looking forward to. 

Pratt: Well, I think the variety, I imagine, is refreshing when you sit down at the desk. If one isn’t calling to you, maybe one or two of the other ones are, I imagine. 

Condie: And you know, deadlines always call to me.

Pratt: That’s true. 

Condie: If a publisher is saying, “Hey, we need this,” I will meet my deadline, and I will put that to the front of the stove or put it on the front burner or whatever, but it is nice to have lots of things simmering. 

Pratt: Okay, I love that. Yeah. Whichever one calls most loudly gets the most attention. Wonderful. Okay. Well, I’ve just got a few last questions for you. 

Condie: Sure.

Pratt: I’m curious, you know, because you have had such a wonderful career, what is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given? 

Condie: Oh. 

Pratt: Or created yourself? 

Condie: Right. Well, I always think about…When I was on my first book tour, I was out there with an author named Beth Revis, so I want to make sure I give her credit for this. But we were on a panel. There were five of us authors, and a high school student asked, “What should I be doing as a writer right now?” And the other four of us gave these answers that were things like, “Sit down every day and spend 30 minutes,” right? I mean, it wasn’t quite that prescriptive, but it was kind of similar. And I remember Beth saying, “If you have the choice between sitting down and writing or going and doing a cool thing, go do the cool thing.” And I think about that all the time. Of course, you have to sit down and write. It doesn’t get done otherwise. But a life that’s interesting to you will make you a more creative person in general. So sometimes I’ll think that. I’ll think, “Should I sit down and write? Or am I going to hike Rock Canyon today? Because I need to have a cool experience, and I’ve been typing too long.” And so that’s kind of a thing that I think about a lot. When she says that, I think, of course, like any advice, that can be taken to the extreme. But I loved that. I thought, “Yeah, do the cool thing.” Give your brain that energy. Maybe you’re not even going to write about it. That’s not the point. But the point is you’re engaged in the world. 

Pratt: I love that. 

Condie: Yeah. 

Pratt: I think what I like about that advice so much is that if you are a person who needs to be told, “Go and write,” go and write.

Condie: Yeah. 

Pratt: If you’re a person who needs to be told, “Hey, actually, take a break from that computer and go live a cool life,” so that when you come back and write, you’re writing from a cool life perspective. 

Condie: Yeah. Like, your brain is happy, and you have seen some interesting things. And they might not all be amazing. I’m just talking about hiking. It’s not all trips to Hawaii—

Pratt: Right.

Condie: —or this or that. It’s just in that moment, what would be—is it a walk around the block that gives you texture in the world, and you feel the rain on your face, and you feel like you lived for those five minutes—you know, what is it? Those little things add up.

Pratt: Oh, I love that. Because it’s true. I think writers, we do pull from our own personal experience. I think it’s just kind of natural. And so if you lack personal experience, go have some personal experience.

Condie: Yeah, or go wander around and see all these other people having personal experiences and realize that there’s a big world out there.

Pratt: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. Okay, last question for you. You know, Inscape, the literary journal, we strive to find and publish art of all mediums that is “bizarre, believing, and beautiful”—that’s kind of our motto. What is something bizarre, believing, and/or beautiful that you have read recently? 

Condie: Oh, wow. I love that question. And I’m going to default to something I read a little while ago because I’m teaching it in class right now, but there’s a novella called Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan that I’m having my 318 class read right now. I read it about a year ago, but I’m revisiting it with them, and it’s all of those things. I think it’s so interesting to see belief shown in a different way. And then I did just watch the new Knives Out movie, which is called—

Pratt: I’ve heard so many good things.

Condie: —Wake Up Dead Man. And I felt like that was bizarre, believing, and beautiful too. I thoroughly enjoyed that movie. 

Pratt: Wonderful. Okay, I’ll have to go see it, because I really like the first one. And I haven’t seen the second one, but I’ve heard such good things about the third one that makes me want to go back and watch all of them.

Condie: Yeah. I love when belief is presented in a way that makes me think about my own belief, too. 

Pratt: Yeah. And that’s refreshing. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. 

Condie: Thank you, Starly. This has been lovely. 

Pratt: It has been such a wonderful experience. For everyone listening, please go read The Unwedding and be looking forward to The Girls Trip coming out in April. 

Condie: Thank you.

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Pratt: Hello, I’m Starly Pratt, and I want to thank you for listening to this episode of The Author’s Inscape, a podcast hosted by Inscape, a literary journal. We’d like to give a special thanks to the English department at Brigham Young University, our host institution, and to Alia Alexander for writing and producing the music in this episode. If you are interested in more episodes or want to learn more about our journal, please head to our website Inscape.byu.edu. Thanks again for listening.

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