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and listen to Remotely Curious wherever you get

1:00

your podcasts. Welcome to In Her Shoes.

1:03

I'm Lindsay Peeples, and I'm editor-in-chief of The Cut. On

1:05

this show, I get to

1:07

talk to people that we love and admire, or some that

1:09

we just find interesting. We'll explore how they found

1:11

their path and what maybe have gotten in their

1:13

way, and how they brought others along now that they've

1:16

arrived. Welcome to In Her

1:18

Shoes. I'm Lindsay Peeples, and I'm editor-in-chief

1:20

of The Cut. On this show, I get to talk

1:22

to people that we love and admire, or

1:25

some that we just find interesting. We'll

1:27

explore how they found their path and what

1:29

maybe have gotten in their way, and how they

1:31

brought others along now that they've arrived.

1:40

In 2016, Maggie Smith experienced

1:42

what it was like to go viral. Her poem,

1:44

Good Bones, was shared all over the internet.

1:47

Celebrities shared it. Mothers

1:49

who could relate shared it. Even Meryl

1:52

Streep read it at an award show.

1:54

After that moment, her life changed. In

1:57

her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, she

1:59

did. details for us exactly how her life changed

2:02

in the most painful but incredibly

2:04

necessary ways. We got a chance to

2:06

talk about it and all the nuances in between.

2:09

So I always ask my guests since our

2:11

podcast is called In Her Shoes, either what shoes

2:14

are you wearing right now or what are your favorite

2:16

shoes to wear? I am barefoot

2:19

right now because I'm in my house and

2:23

I can be. My favorite

2:26

shoes to wear, it like kind of depends

2:28

on the season. I have like a pair of

2:31

sandals that I wear a lot in the summertime

2:33

and during the year I'm either

2:35

wearing like Chelsea

2:37

boots if it's cool out

2:39

like flat little flat ankle boots or

2:41

I'm kind of obsessed

2:44

with my pointy, rothy

2:46

flats that I can machine wash. Oh

2:49

I know what those shoes are. Yeah, yeah. I have them

2:51

in too many colors and I just throw them

2:53

in the washing machine and I love them. Wow.

2:56

And what would you say it's like to be

2:59

in your shoes in life at this very moment?

3:01

Well, you know, it's here.

3:05

The kids are just freshly out

3:07

of school. So I'm on

3:09

summer mode right

3:12

now, which means like cooking

3:14

three meals a day for two people and

3:16

trying to keep everyone busy. Yeah. Yeah.

3:20

We do a sort of like a free

3:22

range, no childcare summer here,

3:24

but of course I'm still

3:27

writing and working. And so there's a lot

3:29

of negotiation about like,

3:31

okay, I have a podcast to record.

3:34

So if you're in the backyard, you need to stay

3:37

in the backyard for the next hour. And if you're

3:39

in your room, you need to stay in your

3:41

room for the next hour. So wherever you are,

3:44

that's where you are until I call all

3:46

clear. That sounds like very serious negotiation,

3:49

but it works. It works somehow. When

3:54

did you know that writing, particularly

3:56

writing poetry,

3:58

writing about your life, which

3:59

it requires just such a vulnerability

4:02

was going to be something that you really wanted to do

4:04

and commit to. Probably

4:07

college, to be honest.

4:09

I mean, I was writing as a teenager,

4:12

but I had no idea if I'd

4:14

really, you know, quote unquote, do anything

4:17

with it. And when I got to college, I was

4:19

writing so much. And I

4:21

think that's when I started to sound like myself.

4:24

You know, I think we all start out as kind of like cover

4:26

artists of whoever it is

4:29

that we're reading. Just like

4:31

if you start playing an instrument, you start out playing

4:33

other people's songs first. And so

4:35

I think in my early 20s is when I started

4:37

sounding like myself and seeing

4:40

that poetry was going to be part of my life

4:43

forever. Even if it

4:45

wasn't how I made a

4:47

living, it would be part of my life. Right.

4:50

That makes sense. In 2016, your

4:52

poem, Good Bones, obviously went viral.

4:56

Take me back to that time in your

4:58

life and what was it like seeing your

5:00

work

5:01

all over the internet? Wild. I mean,

5:03

I still live in the same house

5:06

I lived in when that happened in the same small

5:08

town. At

5:11

the time, I had a toddler

5:14

and I think my daughter was six. Like I had two

5:16

little kids.

5:17

And I was the the caregiving

5:20

parent. So I was I was parenting

5:22

probably much more than I was writing poetry.

5:25

And so when that happened, there

5:28

were people even in my own neighborhood who didn't

5:30

know I was a writer. Right. Because

5:32

what they saw of me was me taking my

5:35

kids to the park or me pushing a stroller

5:37

or, you know, me coming into

5:39

the house with groceries. They didn't necessarily

5:41

know what I did for a living because it wasn't

5:43

that public. And so

5:46

after the poem went viral,

5:48

I suddenly became more

5:50

known just even in my neighborhood

5:54

for being a poet. And it gave me an opportunity

5:56

to kind of lean in

5:58

to my writing life in a way that I.

5:59

I hadn't really had the chance to

6:02

do before that moment. But

6:04

it was completely... It was like lightning striking.

6:07

It was the completely unexpected thing for

6:10

a mom of two young kids living in central

6:13

Ohio.

6:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, why do you think

6:16

it resonated with so many people now

6:19

that you've had space for it? Yeah,

6:21

I mean, it... That poem

6:23

was published

6:25

online the week of the Pulse

6:28

nightclub shooting in Orlando

6:31

and the same week that MP

6:34

Joe Cox was killed in

6:36

England. And so it went viral

6:40

here and there at the same time because

6:42

of two

6:43

different disastrous things that

6:45

had happened. And so

6:47

I think there's something about the poem,

6:50

and I think it's the end,

6:52

primarily, that gives people a sense

6:55

of hope, but not

6:59

like Pollyanna optimism.

7:01

Like, the world is great and everything's fine,

7:03

and we can do it. I think the poem has

7:05

a real dark edge

7:07

to it, and it acknowledges

7:10

what a dark and problematic place the

7:13

world can be. I mean, it calls the

7:15

world at least half terrible.

7:19

But the end, that turn at the end

7:22

to, you know, you

7:24

could make this place beautiful, I

7:26

think is that spot where people are like, okay, we're

7:28

not completely helpless. Like,

7:31

these bad things are

7:34

happening, but we still

7:36

have the power to,

7:38

with our individual

7:40

actions and collective actions, to make the

7:42

world

7:43

a better place. And

7:45

the responsibility to do that. So

7:48

I think, I mean, that's what I hear from people,

7:50

is it gives them a sense of

7:53

sort of momentum, like to want

7:55

to do something to

7:57

make the world better. But

8:00

personally, I mean, you obviously talked

8:02

about how other people viewed you

8:05

and had a realization of

8:08

who you were, even if they lived in your neighborhood. What

8:10

would you say after Good Bones

8:13

really changed for you personally the most after

8:15

that? Because obviously your life shifted

8:17

and in between that time of before you

8:19

could make this place beautiful and after Good Bones, what

8:21

changed in your life? I mean,

8:23

a lot, I think.

8:27

Yeah, big question. Professionally,

8:29

so there were shifts professionally

8:31

and personally. So professionally, I suddenly

8:36

was traveling more. I mean, I suddenly

8:38

was in more demand to come teach a workshop,

8:41

do a keynote address

8:44

or a reading, go to a literary festival.

8:46

So that

8:47

for me was really exciting because I had

8:49

been, I mean, I still live in my hometown. So

8:52

it was an exciting thing to get to sort of go

8:54

out and be a writer, not be

8:57

someone who's sort of mostly writing

9:00

under the radar. And

9:03

then personally and related

9:05

to that, and

9:07

I wrote

9:08

about this in the section of the

9:10

memoir that was featured in the cut

9:13

is

9:14

it created some growing pains

9:16

in my marriage because as I said, I

9:19

had been and still am, frankly,

9:21

the caregiving parent,

9:23

the person who's around and packing lunches

9:26

and making sure the laundry is done

9:28

and all the conferences

9:31

and the doctor's appointment and all that stuff.

9:33

And so

9:34

when I had the opportunity to travel

9:37

more

9:38

and sort of like step into

9:40

this

9:41

sort of new role in

9:44

a more public way, it was not easy.

9:48

It was not easy on my marriage.

9:50

Obviously you can make this place beautiful, incredible

9:53

book. Thank you. If you haven't read it, they totally should. I

9:56

truly love it. What was it

9:58

like?

10:00

writing that, did you know going into it, writing

10:02

that that was what, you know, that was what you wanted

10:04

to do and just kind

10:05

of, I think, walk people through the process of

10:08

what it was like for you and if it was actually therapeutic

10:11

or if you just were writing to get

10:13

it out of you. Yeah, I kind of think

10:15

about this book as the book I had

10:17

to write

10:18

so that I could write other books. Um,

10:22

it was sort of like, uh, I didn't

10:24

know how to live all of that experience

10:27

and have it occupy

10:29

so much of my head space and then

10:31

try to write books about other stuff. Um,

10:35

it just, it wasn't gonna work for me. And so

10:37

I, I knew it would be a memoir and

10:39

not poems. I didn't know how to, to

10:41

kind of tell these stories and verse.

10:44

So I knew I was going to need a sort of vignette

10:46

format for this book. And

10:49

it really was, it was almost like a,

10:51

like an armoire sitting in front of a doorway. And

10:53

I needed to be able to sort of write this book in

10:56

order to move this big, heavy thing out

10:58

of the way so I could keep,

11:01

um, keep doing other things.

11:03

I wouldn't say it was therapeutic. Um,

11:06

you know, naively, I really did think when

11:09

I started writing this book that I would

11:11

somehow think deeply

11:13

enough into my divorce

11:16

and my adult life in general that I would

11:19

figure it all out and have all the answers and

11:21

kind of solve it. And,

11:23

and then I would be like, well, that was that. And now

11:26

I understand it all and I can just set it down and

11:28

move on. So I expected

11:30

it to be therapeutic in that way because

11:33

I thought

11:33

I would be like the, the detective of

11:36

my own life. And,

11:38

um, you know, spoiler alert, I, I, there are so

11:40

many mysteries that I just cannot

11:43

solve because I'm only one person and,

11:46

you know, families are made up of multiple people.

11:49

Um, so it was not therapeutic. And

11:52

in that way, but it was

11:55

really contextualizing for me.

11:58

And that was therapeutic. Like, oh,

12:01

this is how this part of my life relates

12:04

to this other part of my life. This is

12:06

how this one occurrence actually

12:08

reminds me of how I behaved in this other

12:10

occurrence. And I see a pattern

12:13

there, you know? Poets are always

12:15

looking for patterns. And I definitely

12:17

found some in my life that I, you

12:19

know, didn't necessarily go looking

12:20

for. Would you say

12:23

that was the most challenging

12:25

part about writing this and

12:27

realizing the patterns in your own life? Oh, no,

12:29

the most challenging part of writing it was

12:32

publishing it. Right?

12:35

I mean, it's a memoir. So I think that

12:37

the most challenging part for me was like

12:39

not even the writing of the book, it was

12:41

the handing the book to other people. Mm.

12:44

Because it was so personal. It's so personal. Yeah.

12:46

In poetry, you always have

12:48

a little bit of distance. Like, maybe it's

12:51

not that far, but the

12:53

me in my poems, perhaps because

12:56

of the form of the poem, it always

12:58

feels a little bit

12:59

like I can kind of step away. It's

13:02

a little bit, you know, tell it slant,

13:05

as Dickinson said. And so

13:07

there's no slant, really, in memoir.

13:11

It's just me. I mean, it was terrifying,

13:13

to be honest. It was a terrifying experience

13:16

to kind of kick this book out of the nest and

13:18

see how it

13:19

might fly and where it might

13:21

land and what people might say about it. Yeah.

13:24

I mean, how did you also, as a writer, and

13:26

just process-wise, make that shift

13:27

from writing poetry to

13:30

completely putting yourself out there and being

13:32

vulnerable and writing a memoir?

13:33

Yeah, I really don't feel

13:35

like I had a choice with this book. Like,

13:38

I would really have loved,

13:40

frankly, for this book to have presented

13:43

itself to me as poems.

13:45

I wish. Every time I get an idea, I'm

13:47

like, please be a poem. Because

13:49

poems are like the water I can

13:51

touch in.

13:53

You know, like, I feel like I'm in my

13:55

depth. I feel like I can keep my head

13:57

safely above water. My feet are on the bottom of the...

13:59

the pool, I can move pretty

14:02

well in poetry. That's what I'm trained

14:04

in. That's what I've been doing for 30 some years. And

14:07

so when an idea comes to me and I realize

14:10

either early on or not so early on

14:12

that it can't be poems, I'm

14:15

always like, oh no. Here

14:18

we go. And so like an essay

14:20

to me feels like slightly

14:23

deep water that I can kind of

14:25

tread and keep my face out

14:28

of. But this memoir felt

14:29

like open sea swimming. Like

14:32

I just, like I was airdropped

14:34

into the middle of the Atlantic ocean and

14:37

had to figure out how to do it.

14:40

But the every piece of writing, I

14:42

think if we're listening carefully tells us

14:44

the container that

14:46

it wants to live in. And this

14:49

is the container that it wanted to live in. And so

14:51

I had to trust it and put my ego

14:53

and my fear aside, that

14:56

dangerous duo and just

14:58

kind of follow where it was taking me.

15:07

Support for this episode comes from Remotely

15:10

Curious, a podcast from Dropbox

15:12

all about our new world of work, whether

15:15

hybrid, remote, or as Dropbox

15:17

calls it, virtual first.

15:19

Each episode features a conversation

15:21

asking tough questions like how to navigate

15:23

the unwritten rules of dress, build creative

15:26

partnerships, navigate hard times,

15:28

and make the most of every fresh start in

15:30

your remote work life. Hear from some

15:32

of today's top experts like podcaster

15:34

and musician, Ruchikesh Herwe, behavioral

15:37

scientist, Katie Milkman, and more.

15:39

Follow and listen to Remotely Curious wherever

15:42

you get your podcasts.

15:47

I mean, and specifically

15:49

talking about your divorce,

15:57

how you made so many efforts,

15:59

how you wanted to make it work.

15:59

Why was it so important for

16:02

you to explore that in

16:04

such an honest way?

16:05

Well, I don't know why I would write a book

16:07

about my life and not

16:10

try to tell the whole truth, at least

16:13

as I know it. Right. You

16:15

know, because it's

16:16

not an infomercial for me. It's

16:20

a book about my life. And

16:22

so one of the things, I mean, goodness,

16:25

writing a memoir is like such a crash course in

16:28

vulnerability and courage. And

16:30

also, I think, like,

16:32

one of the things it takes is letting go of the

16:35

need to be the good guy and

16:38

like sort of be the hero of your story

16:40

because then you might be writing an

16:43

infomercial for you where

16:44

you're trying to convince other people of

16:46

how wonderful you are and

16:48

how none of these bad things should have happened to

16:50

you and how actually here

16:53

you are standing, planting your flag on the top

16:55

of the mountain at the end. And I never really

16:57

wanted to write that kind of book

16:59

in part because it kind of grosses me out to think

17:01

about it. But also, it's just not true. Like,

17:04

that's not how life works.

17:06

Yeah. Yeah.

17:07

It's interesting to me, though, because I mean,

17:10

we obviously get so many galleys of books. And

17:12

the way that

17:15

people, you know, choose to narrate

17:17

their life is so vastly

17:19

different. And there are so

17:20

many different memoirs that, you know, we've read

17:22

or had on the site. And

17:25

I do think that yours is very

17:27

particularly rooted in like

17:30

a very honest tone of

17:32

like where you're at and where you were in a different

17:34

way. And so I do I find

17:37

that very interesting because I do think it just takes a lot

17:39

of courage to do that, that a lot of people

17:41

don't

17:42

want to really go there. Well, thank

17:45

you. I mean, that's really why I

17:47

found myself breaking the fourth wall. I

17:49

think really early on in the writing of this book,

17:51

because I wanted to be able to feel like I was having

17:53

an intimate conversation with a

17:55

human reader because it felt so

17:58

vulnerable to just be telling.

17:59

these stories to a faceless

18:02

audience? Like, you never

18:04

know who your readership is really. And

18:07

so the only way I could let myself really tell

18:09

these stories is to sort of

18:11

phrase it like I was talking to another human

18:13

being. Like, listen, I'm gonna

18:16

talk to you about this. I'm gonna give you some of it. Not

18:18

gonna give you other parts. I realize that

18:20

might be frustrating. I'm not

18:23

trying to be coy,

18:24

but some of my life is just for me and

18:27

some of these things I'm willing to share.

18:30

In the excerpt that we

18:32

published, there's

18:34

a line that says, even after my poem went viral,

18:36

I was still hidden, cleverly disguised as one of the least

18:38

visible creatures on Earth, a middle-aged mother.

18:41

Tell me more about that. I mean,

18:44

facetiously, I kind of like

18:47

love that at this point in my life

18:49

because I like to move in the world without

18:52

causing many ripples. So

18:54

it's like, in some ways, it's like being like

18:57

a 46-year-old Midwestern mom

18:59

is not a bad thing because

19:02

I don't attract a lot of attention. And

19:04

I can kind of, as an introvert, too, I can kind

19:07

of move in the world without

19:09

too many ripples around me. But

19:11

it can also be really frustrating to feel

19:13

unseen and

19:16

to feel like your work in

19:18

the world or multiple kinds of work

19:21

are unseen, particularly if they're unseen

19:24

by people close to you.

19:26

I don't really care if the neighbors

19:28

know what I'm doing, although I think

19:30

they do now. I think I've

19:32

been outed. But

19:35

it does matter to me that I'm

19:38

seen by my partner, my

19:41

parents, my friends,

19:43

that kind of invisibility.

19:47

I joke about,

19:49

I like being a little incognito. I

19:51

like that my hair is longer than my author

19:54

photo because I can move even in literary

19:56

spaces. And most people, especially

19:58

if I'm wearing glasses. don't recognize me,

20:01

but that's not the

20:03

same thing as feeling unseen and invisible.

20:05

And that, I think, is painful, whether you're

20:08

an artist or not.

20:10

Yeah. One

20:13

of the tweets after we published the excerpt said,

20:16

please send heartwarming stories of straight

20:18

male partners supporting your creative

20:21

endeavors hungry for a story that isn't, I achieved

20:23

unprecedented professional success, and my

20:25

relationship was never the same. And

20:28

I know you've been on tour talking to a lot of

20:30

people.

20:32

Have readers come to you with their own stories

20:35

of partners who've responded poorly

20:37

to their successes, and what has that been like?

20:40

I'm getting so many DMs, so

20:42

many emails, so

20:47

many people coming up and signing lines and

20:49

sort of conspiratorily whispering

20:51

things leading across the

20:54

table as I sign their books. I mean,

20:56

it's been really wild.

20:58

And on one hand, it's sort of heartening, right?

21:01

It's like heartening

21:03

because I'm not alone. Yeah, you're not the only

21:05

one. And also, it makes me feel

21:07

it's sort of heartening because we

21:09

can have a conversation about it now

21:12

that this book is in the world. The

21:15

disheartening part is like, oh, I'm not the

21:17

only one. This is incredibly widespread.

21:20

It's just like two halves of the same coin,

21:22

like two sides of the same coin.

21:26

Why are we still having these discussions?

21:29

Why do we still have to keep

21:32

writing and publishing

21:34

these can she

21:36

have it all pieces?

21:39

In the year of our Lord 2023. This

21:43

is a never ending cut question. I mean,

21:45

it's so frustrating. And

21:47

it just seems like, how do we move the needle on

21:51

a lot of these issues that I

21:54

think do disproportionately affect

21:56

women? How

21:58

do we move the needle on these?

21:59

things. And ultimately, I'm

22:02

realizing like the needle can't be moved if we're

22:04

only preaching to the choir, which

22:07

means that like,

22:09

these women who are leaning across the

22:11

table talking to me at the

22:13

assigning lines, like their partners need

22:15

to be having these conversations and let

22:17

in into these conversations and reading

22:20

these pieces and reading these

22:22

books and,

22:23

and like taking ownership of their stuff.

22:26

How we also talk about divorce

22:29

in culture right now, I also think it just is

22:31

shifting a ton. We did a like

22:33

a divorce, it's over week on the cut.

22:36

And do you feel like there's a narrative shift happening

22:39

as more women are more comfortable

22:41

sharing their stories? And I think

22:43

somebody just languaged around divorce

22:45

and separation has shifted,

22:46

but it does feel like there's

22:48

a shift in the

22:50

amount of people willing to talk about

22:52

something that I think, in the past

22:54

was seen as somewhat of a failure.

22:56

A hundred percent. And I think I

22:59

might be wrong about this, but I feel like I read a

23:01

statistic recently that said that more

23:04

divorces now are initiated

23:07

by women.

23:09

Which I think, yeah, I've

23:11

read that a couple times. So we're just gonna go ahead

23:13

and agree that that's true. Okay, that was science

23:15

that just happened right there. And

23:19

it makes sense to me that some of the

23:21

shame and stigma

23:24

of it would be lessened

23:27

if women are actually the ones who are stepping up and

23:29

being like, actually, I'm not that happy. Or this

23:32

is not really working for me.

23:35

Or, you know, I can't really grow in this

23:38

relationship. Or it worked for a while and

23:40

no longer works. And

23:42

I think you're right. I think the

23:44

stigma, particularly for

23:48

divorced women,

23:50

because so many men, it just seems like just

23:53

get remarried right away. Right?

23:56

And then like, what happens? It's like, there are all

23:58

of these and

23:59

and usually single moms who were just working

24:03

like crazy, making miracles happen,

24:06

who has time to even meet another

24:08

person.

24:11

And so I do, I hope these

24:13

narratives are changing. I do know

24:15

that some people, when they get divorced, are

24:17

grieving deeply. A lot of people

24:19

grieve deeply, even if it's their decision,

24:22

they're still grieving deeply. But

24:24

I don't say I'm sorry anymore

24:28

as a first sort of knee-jerk reaction

24:30

when someone announces their divorce. I'm not

24:33

like, oh, I'm so sorry. Usually what

24:35

I lead with is like, how are you feeling?

24:37

Because the person might be like

24:39

that Nicole Kidman photo post

24:42

Tom Cruise, where she did

24:44

not look like someone who needed our condolences.

24:48

That was a congratulations. Thank you, right? And

24:51

so what someone might say is, I feel

24:53

great. This was a long time coming,

24:55

or I'm sad that this

24:58

was necessary. And so I think

25:00

reading the room is important.

25:03

Totally, totally. What's

25:06

one lesson or thing that you found

25:08

out about yourself after writing this?

25:11

Oh my gosh.

25:13

So many things. But

25:15

I think

25:16

one of the things that I realized more than

25:18

anything is like,

25:20

and I felt a little ashamed about

25:22

it, was how many

25:25

sort of concessions

25:27

I had made in my marriage to

25:30

keep it going. Like how can I keep

25:32

this boat afloat? Just like throwing stuff

25:34

off the side. Like, okay, that's

25:36

too heavy, throw it off the side. Well, this

25:39

part of me is not gonna make this work. Throw

25:41

it off the side. It's funny

25:43

how sometimes we're too close to things to see

25:45

them, even if they're right in front of our

25:47

faces. And because writing

25:49

is so contextualizing,

25:52

I think I, looking back

25:54

on it, thought, oh my gosh. Wow,

25:57

like I really did bargain a lot of stuff

25:59

away. way and I shouldn't

26:02

have done that. I'm

26:04

not going to beat myself up about it. I forgive

26:07

myself, I did my best, but

26:09

I'm not going to do that again. Right.

26:13

What do you want people to take away

26:16

from after reading, you could make this place

26:17

beautiful or what's the thing that you say

26:19

to people when they are like, I want to read

26:22

this or I'm nervous to read it or excited

26:24

to read it. What's the thing that you want them to understand

26:26

about this body of work?

26:27

I hope it resonates with people even if

26:30

they haven't had, and I hope they

26:32

haven't had, the bulk of the experiences

26:35

that I write about in this book. But

26:38

I don't think of it as a divorce book.

26:40

I don't think of it as a parenting

26:43

book. I don't even think of it necessarily

26:46

as a writer's book, but

26:49

it's also all of those things.

26:52

I hope that people come to it with a

26:54

openness to

26:55

take away whatever it

26:57

is that seems useful to

27:00

them in the moment. I have

27:02

a hard time saying, I hope you enjoy it when

27:04

I'm signing a book to someone and I shove it at them. I'm

27:07

like, I hope they like it or enjoy it. I

27:09

think I'm not sure that's really the verb

27:11

because there are

27:14

light parts of the book, and the book has a lot of joy

27:16

and I do think it's funny. But

27:18

there's a lot of pain and a lot of vulnerability

27:20

in the book too. I'm

27:24

not sure it's like

27:26

a light beach read.

27:29

But ultimately, what

27:31

I've heard from people is that they're

27:33

finding it

27:35

hopeful and encouraging. I

27:37

always love to hear that. Yeah. So you

27:41

should tell us what's next. What

27:44

are you most looking forward to writing about?

27:46

What do you excited about? Anything other than this.

27:49

I'm not writing

27:51

about divorce anymore. My

27:55

next book that will be

27:57

out next February is

27:59

an illustrated picture book. So

28:03

yeah, all my thoughts have wings. And

28:05

I think I'm so just

28:07

unequivocally excited to do,

28:12

you know, to talk about this book

28:15

and to like do library story times.

28:17

It seems like a much less complicated

28:20

publishing experience and publishing a memoir about

28:24

your adult life. So I'm really excited

28:26

about that. And then I'm working on essays and poems

28:29

right now is as often

28:32

as they show up

28:33

and ask to be written. I'm happy

28:35

to welcome them right though.

28:39

I love that title.