The Correspondent: The Story Behind the Unexpected Bestseller Everyone is Reading

BUY THE BOOK! The Correspondent by Virginia Evans https://amzn.to/4xasavH Oprah sits down with Virginia Evans, author of the story readers can’t stop talking about: The Correspondent. Selling over two million copies and translated into over 35 languages it’s the book that has captured readers. Although it's her first published novel, it's the eighth book Virginia's written and one she never intended anyone else to read. When The Correspondent debuted it sold fewer than 8,000 copies. However, readers who discovered it fell in love and began recommending the novel to others, turning this book into a word-of-mouth phenomenon and a New York Times bestseller. Virginia shares the remarkable story behind the book she never expected to publish. Listeners will discover why Sybil Van Antwerp—a complex, prolific letter writer in her seventies—has resonated so deeply with readers of all ages. Oprah also speaks with readers around the country who have questions for Virginia. 00:00:00 - Welcome Virginia Evans, author of ‘The Correspondent’ 00:04:00 - Her 20 year journey to getting published 00:07:10 - Questioning if she would ever publish 00:08:46 - How she wrote the book 00:12:00 - How the main character came to Virginia 00:14:55 - Oprah's favorite passage 00:16:16 - What letter writing allows us to say 00:19:50 - What we learn from other letters 00:25:30 - Does a letter need a reply? 00:30:00 - Loneliness 00:34:20 - Writing what you’re afraid of 00:39:40 - What she wants listeners to do Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social: https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/ https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/ Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLI https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Oprah Winfrey?

  Have you read The Correspondent? Everybody's talking about this book.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  The Correspondent was one of my favorite books last year.

• 0:09Oprah Winfrey?

  My goodness, I love this book. I love Sybil and so profoundly good. This book pulled itself to the top of the bestsellers list through word of mouth. That does not happen. This is your first published novel. But it's the eighth one you've written and you wrote this book inside a closet, thinking nobody would ever read it. How did you handle each rejection?

• 0:30Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh.

• 0:31Oprah Winfrey?

  At some point, do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good?

• 0:34Speaker 01

  I don't think I ever thought that. Most people have said to me, this book made me cry and it felt so good.

• 0:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi there and welcome to the Oprah Podcast. I'm so glad to be here with you. When you love books as much as I do, you get recommendations, lots of recommendations. And there's one book in particular, people kept asking me about, have you read The Correspondent? You gotta read The Correspondent. You're gonna love The Correspondent. I had no choice but to read The Correspondent. And let me tell you, I'm so glad I did. Because the book tells the life story of Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her 70s, like I am, living in Maryland. Readers get to know Sybil and all her wonderful complexity and tangled past solely through letters and emails that she writes and receives.

• 1:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Sybil writes to family, to friends, to complete strangers. She even writes to famous authors, who are really famous authors, even her own neighbors, each note revealing a different strand of the fabric of her life. It's what the literary world calls an epistolary novel, composed of letters. And I must say, other than The Color Purple, which was Seeley's Letters to God, I'm not usually drawn to the epistolary form. But this, this book, The Correspondent, felt different. It felt bigger than one woman's letter writing. And it is obviously bigger because just through word of mouth, this book has put itself on the New York Times Bestseller List.

• 2:13Oprah Winfrey?

  That is the goal for every author. And it's my pleasure to welcome you here.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's my pleasure.

• 2:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Author of this profound book that everybody's talking about, this book.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you. It is my pleasure and honor to be here to talk to you about it. I'm so excited that you read it and that you liked it.

• 2:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Of course. I had to read it because everybody was saying, read it. Writer Virginia Evans had tried for years before finally getting her first book published, The Correspondent. When it was released in April 2025, it sold less than 8,000 copies. Then something remarkable happened. The thousands of people who read it fell in love with it. Then they started recommending it to other people. And soon, word of mouth spread like wildfire. The Correspondent has now sold well over 2 billion copies. A story about a woman in her 70s, who in today's digital world still writes handwritten letters, became an unexpected number one New York Times Bestseller. Welcome, Virginia Evans, to my front porch.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 3:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Could you feel or sense what was happening in the zeitgeist? That one person was telling, another person was telling? Because this book sort of pulled itself to the top of the bestsellers list through word of mouth. That does not happen.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  That's what everybody keeps telling me. I do think I started to understand that that's what was happening. But I didn't, I'm not sure when that was. I'm not sure how that happened. I, I think you're right. It's just one person said to two other people to read it and those two people told two more people and.

• 3:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Before you know it, and it was this story. And so before we get into this absolutely captivating, compelling book, let's talk about you. This is your first published novel.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 3:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay, but it's the eighth one you've written. Tell us about your 20-year journey to become an overnight success.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I know. It is funny. People said, you just came out of nowhere. I sort of think, no.

• 4:11Oprah Winfrey?

  I wasn't nowhere. I've been writing for 20 years.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  For a long time. Yes. I, I started writing my first novel when I was 19. I was living in Italy, in Siena, and I wrote, I started writing a novel there. And then I wrote novels, kind of, you know, finish one. It takes a few years. And for the first few years, I don't think I knew what you do. I didn't come from a family of authors. I didn't know any authors. And so I would finish a book.

• 4:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Had you taken a writing class?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  No. I mean, I took some writing classes in undergrad, but I wasn't, I didn't know what you do at the end. You know, you sort of have this book and I thought, okay, well, we'll do it again. So I was writing these books and then I started to teach myself. I bought a writer's almanac. You know, there was that big book. It was like the phone book. And, and I read about writing a query letter. And so then I tried writing a query letter and it wasn't very good. And I didn't get any interest from agents. But then I think the next book, I had a better query letter and I, you know, I kind of kept going. And by the sixth book, I did get an agent and that, I thought that was sort of the end. I sort of thought, okay, now I'll be.

• 5:23Oprah Winfrey?

  An agent and now I'm gonna, now this is it.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  This will actually happen. We worked together for a year and then it didn't work out. And we parted ways. That was extremely crushing to have that happen. I was a mother by then and I thought that was it. I thought that's what you did.

• 5:40Oprah Winfrey?

  How did you handle each rejection?

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Oh, gosh. You know, it's interesting. I don't think I ever felt offended or indignant. You know, I don't think I thought, well, how dare you? I just thought, okay, I have to do better. I have to do a better, I have to do a better job. This isn't enough. This doesn't cut it. And that was a motivator. I mean, it is a good question to ask because all those years were, it was very demoralizing. I mean, it was extremely demoralizing and I hit.

• 6:13Oprah Winfrey?

  I know. I mean, if I got turned down by one, that's why I never really became a full working actress. Because I remember going to a speech coach once and I said, I wanted to be an actress. This is when I was in news in Baltimore. And she said, my dear, you don't want to be an actress. You want to be a star. Because if you wanted to be an actress, you would be waiting tables right now in New York. But you don't want to give up your job in the news to do that. And I was like, no, you're right. I don't want to do that. And I said, I'm not going to be able to handle the rejection. You know, I have one of my girls from my school in South Africa, who's, who's an actress now and is, it's constant.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  It is. It is. It's something, I don't, I don't know. You just have to sort of take it. You have to just keep taking it. I mean, hundred thousands of re, I don't know how many times I was rejected. I've queried every agent in New York City. It was, it was agonizing. I mean, it was, it was agonizing.

• 7:08Oprah Winfrey?

  So at some point, do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good?

• 7:13Speaker 01

  I don't think I ever thought that.

• 7:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. At some point, do you think, well, maybe I'm not good enough?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:19Oprah Winfrey?

  At some point, do you think, well, maybe this is never going to happen?

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 7:23Oprah Winfrey?

  This is never going to happen?

• 7:24Speaker 01

  This is never going to happen. And I ended up kind of thinking I would like to teach. I wanted to teach in prisons. I wanted to teach writing in prisons. And so I thought I should go get a master's degree. That's what I should do. This was after the sixth book. And so.

• 7:38Oprah Winfrey?

  The sixth book that's been rejected?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 7:40Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yep. And so then we moved to Ireland, my husband and my two children. And I moved to Dublin and I went to Trinity College for my master's.

• 7:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  And I wrote my seventh novel as my coursework there. I studied with Claire Keegan. I studied with.

• 7:57Oprah Winfrey?

  With Claire? Yes.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  I mean, it was wonderful. And that book, the book I wrote as my coursework there, with that, I got another agent and we thought this will, she, she said, this book will sell. This is a great book. It didn't sell. We had it out.

• 8:15Oprah Winfrey?

  Where all those books are now, in your closet somewhere?

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Oh, they're on, well, I've lost two hard drives. I never backed anything up. So I have one copy of every book.

• 8:24Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, my goodness.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Which is on a shelf in my house, you know.

• 8:27Oprah Winfrey?

  But now, are, is your agent, because you have an agent, obviously, your agent is like, let's bring those books out?

• 8:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a, we have a conversation about that pretty regularly. But so I, that book, the seventh book was out for sale. It wasn't selling. And then I wrote The Correspondent. And that was the.

• 8:44Oprah Winfrey?

  And you wrote this correspondent book inside a closet, I understand, during the pandemic, thinking nobody would ever read it. So you had reached the point, Virginia, where you're like what Toni Morrison was at one point, where she felt like, I'm going to write the book for myself. Maybe a few friends will read it. But I'm going to write because I now feel the need to write. I have to write. Is that where you were?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. That's exactly, I'm glad to hear that. That's exactly where I was. And I didn't think, I wasn't going to show this book to anyone. I wasn't going to show it to my agent. She knew I was working on something, but I told her, I'm cleansing my palate and then I'll write something else for you to sell. And this was what I was working on. And, and she kind of kept saying, you know, show it to me. Show it to me. And I said, no, no, no. And she said, show it to me. And finally I did. And she said, we can sell this book. And I still didn't think it would sell.

• 9:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So because if I were you, I wouldn't think it would sell either, having been turned down so many times. And so I understand you have a, how old are your children?

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Now they're 10 and 12.

• 9:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So all these years, you've had a writing schedule, even with children, where you write from 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yes, that's correct. Yeah.

• 9:56Oprah Winfrey?

  And so for writing The Correspondent during the pandemic.

• 10:02Oprah Winfrey?

  You have like a little space that you've carved out in the closet?

• 10:05Speaker 01

  Yes, we were living in this small rental and it was this sort of like 90s concept, open built, you know, no doors, everything's, it's one room. The kitchen is the living room is the study, which is sweet, I guess, in concept, but it's not great for working. And so there was this, it was this small space, but the bathroom was the size of a ballroom. I mean, I can't explain it. It was humongous. And so off the bathroom was this tiny closet. And I was, I was just fed up. And so I, when my husband was in work one day, I went in and I took out all of his clothes and I shoved my small writing desk into the closet and I sent him a photo. And I said, this is what I did today. And he said, where are my clothes?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  And I said, they're in my, they're in May's room, our daughter.

• 10:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  So that is, I wrote, and during COVID and writing this book, it went really well. It felt good. I felt good writing it. I wanted to get up. I wanted to get to the desk. I wanted to write the story. So I think I was setting my alarm for 4:30 and kind of really in the seat by five and.

• 11:11Oprah Winfrey?

  And how did Sybil come to you? You said that she came to you fully formed.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, she did. I, I wanted to write a book in letters and that was kind of the starting point. I wanted to play with that, you know, the idea of that way of telling a story and.

• 11:25Oprah Winfrey?

  Why?

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Well, I had read 84 Charing Cross Road.

• 11:29Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  I had reread recently, The Color Purple. And I was just, I just enjoy that format. I, I enjoy the frequent page breaks. I just, I like that. I just liked the way it felt, but with 84 Charing Cross Road, it felt like a small story and I really wanted to tell a bigger story. And so I thought, I wonder how big of a story you can tell in letters. I wonder how far that can go. And so the next step was who? Who would it be? Whose story would it be? And then Sybil sort of came to me and she was herself. I knew her voice. I knew her, just her nature.

• 12:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Had you known her from, did she represent a composite of other people? Or how, how did she come fully formed?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  She, there, there are traces of people I have known in her. There's a strong, there's a strong through line of my mother-in-law, who has a very similar way of communicating. And I've just been surrounded by very interesting, wise women. And I, I think they're kind of all in Sybil, but when I.

• 12:33Oprah Winfrey?

  But she's not modeled after anybody in particular in your family?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Well, no, not anybody in particular. I had met a woman, we were trying to buy this woman's house and I wrote her a letter, this woman a letter. The house was not for sale. I wanted to buy the house and, and so I wrote to the owner of this house.

• 12:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Would you consider selling it? And she said, yes. And so we went to her house to kind of walk through it. And she opened the door and she was this very put together, sort of small, older woman. And she took us through her house and she was sort of visually who I saw as I was writing the story, but I don't know her very well. She wasn't, Sybil wasn't modeled after her, but that was.

• 13:14Oprah Winfrey?

  Did she sell you the house?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  She didn't.

• 13:15Oprah Winfrey?

  She didn't.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  It would be a better story if she had.

• 13:18Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So describe Sybil for us.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  I would say Sybil is a woman afflicted with long grief and disappointment. And she is trying to be okay.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  And she's smart and she is direct.

• 13:37Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  And she, she airs, but she says she's sorry. And she sees everybody as equal, I think.

• 13:49Oprah Winfrey?

  Would you say, I mean, so how long did it take you to write it?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  I think I wrote it in less than a year.

• 13:53Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow. And do you think she was always somehow living inside you, waiting to be birthed this way?

• 14:02Speaker 01

  That's a great question. Yeah, there's something about her and the story, the whole story of the correspondent, which really is a culmination of so many things in my life. The story feels really personal to me. You know, not experiences I've necessarily had, but experiences I've been close to or things I've heard, or even if the life experiences aren't the same, that the feelings are feelings I can relate to of grief and disappointment and fear and frustration and loss and looking back and kind of rethinking what would I, what do I wish I would have done? Or what do I wish I would have said?

• 14:43Speaker 01

  And so there is something about her that, yeah, it evokes probably something very deep in me.

• 14:49Oprah Winfrey?

  I think her essence is distilled for us in one of my favorite passages from the book where she says, imagine all that you've said to another, all the commentary you've exchanged with friends over drinks, over the phone with colleagues and distant relatives, all the prattles sent quickly, mindlessly over email messages typed into your cellular phone. And really the sum of this interpersonal communication is the substance of your life. Relationships being, as we know by now in our old ages, the meat of our lives, but all of that is gone, vanished. And one day, Mr. Watts, you yourself will be gone. And then she says, imagine the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters

• 15:29Oprah Winfrey?

  received back in turn are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle, or a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain. And even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time, dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion. I'm going, right, right, Sybil. Isn't there something wonderful in that to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way? That this very letter may one day mean something, even if it's a very small thing to someone. Yeah. You were right in that day.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  That was a good writing day.

• 16:11Oprah Winfrey?

  I thought about that passage a lot because what remains of your life really after you're gone, what does letter writing allows us to say? That conversation often does not.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  There's something about to me, when I sit down to write a letter and I'm, I'm a letter writer, that it's a thought.

• 16:33Oprah Winfrey?

  You would have to be to write this book.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Well, it's a thoughtfulness. It's a, it's a thought of, you know, I want to say something to you, but I want to say it in a way that will sink in and, and be permanent.

• 16:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 16:47Speaker 01

  Because when you.

• 16:48Oprah Winfrey?

  Will be remembered.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes. And when you receive a letter, first of all, the experience of, of receiving a letter that is written to you, you know, going to the mailbox and opening a mailbox and seeing bills primarily and circulars and then a letter. I just don't think there's anything like that left in the world. I don't think there's anything that is the same feeling that that is. It feels like being loved. It feels like being remembered and then it's permanent. It's, it's an artifact.

• 17:19Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  And I love that. And I think for me.

• 17:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Have you kept letters over the years?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yes, I have. And I have, you know, I just have some amazing letters. I have letters framed in my house.

• 17:30Oprah Winfrey?

  I do too.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  It's an artifact and it's a piece of someone. It's like you received a piece of the interior of someone and you get to keep it. I just think there's nothing like that.

• 17:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. I, I mean, I have boxes and boxes of letters from wonderful, wonderful, you know, people over the years and even just a, a thank you letter, well-written, I will keep.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:54Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 17:54Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 17:57Oprah Winfrey?

  Everything I do begins with intention. You become exactly what you believe is possible. Especially the Oprah Podcast. You're doing good, Aiden. I believe when people share their personal journeys with authenticity.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Never thought of it like that.

• 18:14Oprah Winfrey?

  I love that. You've never thought of it that way before. And with intention, something beautiful happens. We recognize pieces of our own lives in theirs. We realize. That actually helps, right? We are not alone.

• 18:28Oprah Winfrey?

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• 19:44Oprah Winfrey?

  We have some of our readers who are excited to talk to you. We found Tyler on TikTok. Here's what he had to say about The Correspondent.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Sybil is lovely. I loved Sybil. From every letter that I read, from the beginning of the book to the end of the book, I was just falling in love with Sybil more and more. And she is this 70-year-old woman who is sassy, who is complex, who is intricate, who is brilliant, who is deeply, deeply flawed. She is so strong-willed. She is so dynamic. She is so interesting. She is so smart that she doesn't let people walk all over her. She doesn't let certain things play out how many other people would allow them to play out. She is, she's going to speak her mind and she's going to get her points across. My goodness, I love this book. I love Sybil and so profoundly good.

• 20:30Oprah Winfrey?

  And Tyler joins us from his bookstore, A Great Notion, in Auburn, Massachusetts. Hey, Tyler. You say this is not the type of book you would normally pick up. How so?

• 20:41Speaker 03

  No. Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. And so, no, I don't normally gravitate to epistolary novels, similar to what you said earlier, because I feel like that format can be so, so limiting in terms of, you know, the depth of character and what we're able to feel for the character and how well we're able to empathize with the character and things of that nature. And so, I found that this shook what my belief was right off the bat. Right? The first few pages, I was already invested and I just loved Sybil. I found her so easy to empathize with and I loved, you know, everything that she revealed about herself. And so, not only the letters that she wrote, but the letters that she received in turn kind of gave us that indirect characterization. So, not just like, here's Sybil displaying all of her thoughts, but what other people

• 21:25Speaker 03

  thought about her and kind of getting some of that anecdotal evidence as well through other people. So, the fact that you were able to get that much from Sybil is, I think, just a master stroke of, of writing on your part, Ms. Evans.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  So, brava there.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  That kind of connects into my question where all of these, these cast of characters that exist around Sybil, were they conceived by you for a specific purpose in order to help us to learn something else about Sybil? Because obviously, as the, the novel progresses, we see how vulnerable she allows herself to become. And I think that's super powerful.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  I love how smart readers are. I just love how smart readers are. Yes. I mean, you nailed it. That's, and that was the, sort of the dance and the exercise of figuring out how to tell a dynamic story of a whole life. Because it sort of felt like, well, I can show, you know, she only writes to her best friend, Rosalie. We can only see this, this one-way, kind of, this one line of her life.

• 22:30Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  And the things Rosalie knows and can speak to. It's almost like, I don't think anyone can see themselves fully. I don't think, I don't think you can sort of understand every, you need people around you to hold up a mirror and to understand yourself and to have relationships. It's relationships that's sort of what make us human. And so, as I was writing the book, it was that. It was sort of, okay, you know, now I want to be able to show, I want to have part of the story of her life be her childhood. How can I bring her childhood into this? She's in her 70s. She's not just talking about being a child.

• 23:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Her childhood, yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 01

  And so, then it was this idea of, okay, she has a relationship with this boy, Harry Landy.

• 23:17Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  And Harry, who loves her, and he doesn't realize it yet, but he does love her, and he sort of says, what were you like as a child? And then she can sort of say, well, I was sort of this way and I was sort of this way.

• 23:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Oh, that's by design.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yes. That, well, that was all part of it.

• 23:35Oprah Winfrey?

  It's all for design.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  And, you know, that, bringing in the man that she worked with was a way to talk about her career.

• 23:42Oprah Winfrey?

  When did you know this? Or did this come to you as you were figuring it out?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  I think it sort of came to me as I was going. I mean, I wrote it linearly, so I would sort of write a letter and have the response. And then I would think, you know, what's next? What needs to be built onto this? And, and we need to understand this. How, who could, who could show this? Who could be the mirror for that? And then at some point, I had to stop. You know, I had to say, that's enough.

• 24:08Oprah Winfrey?

  That's enough. There's enough people in this story.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  There's enough people.

• 24:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah, okay.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Tyler, thank you so much. How did you come to read the book? You were saying this isn't normally, the, the epistolary format is not something you're normally drawn to. So, why were you drawn to it? Were people telling you about it?

• 24:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it was kind of the talk of the town, so to speak, as far as like people coming to the bookstore and talking about it. I mean, that's the best part of owning a bookstore is people just talk about books all the time. And so, yeah, and another piece was that, you know, I'm a 36-year-old white Latino man and here's a 70-year-old woman who, you know, we, we shouldn't have much, much in common.

• 24:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 03

  We shouldn't, you know, that connection there, but there was. And I think that kind of relatability and that universality of, of who Sybil was and how she is and kind of her, a lot of people said she was incorrigible or unlikable or whatever, and I disagree. I thought she was just, she is who she is and she has such a complex history and she's so intelligent that, you know, she kind of looks at people sometimes with the inane things that they do and she's bothered by it. And I'm like, I can empathize with that. That's how I feel about people sometimes. And so, this, you know, this kind of curmudgeonly woman, I felt myself relating to it.

• 25:20Oprah Winfrey?

  That's the beauty of books. That's the beauty of books. And I'll also say, you know, the, what makes her so, I, I think, important in, in, in the story is that when you're in your 70s, let me just tell you, as, as a 36-year-old man, when you're in your 70s, you know what you know. You know what you know. Period. Full stop. Okay? All right. Thank you, Tyler.

• 25:49Speaker 01

  Thanks, Tyler.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  Thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

• 25:51Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you so much. Our next reader, Polly, also owns a bookstore, Buxton Books in Charleston, South Carolina. Polly, tell us how you came to know Virginia.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Hi, Virginia.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Hi, Polly.

• 26:04Oprah Winfrey?

  Hi.

• 26:05Speaker 04

  It's so wonderful to be with you. I'm a little overwhelmed. We had the luck of having Virginia join us here at Buxton Books in Charleston and we were so lucky because Virginia came here to the bookstore and we gathered about 25 people. And it was early on and all of the booksellers loved The Correspondent. I loved it. And the 25 people in the room loved it.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  Well, and Polly, half the people at the Buxton Books event were my family.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Like my dad.

• 26:38Speaker 04

  And isn't that lovely? I mean, just to play a small role in this book getting out there. We always say, books connect us. And I just believe it's true.

• 26:47Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you have a question? Did you have a question or a thought?

• 26:49Speaker 04

  Well, I did because when I was reading this, I was, I actually have written only one letter to a celebrity in my life, one. And I didn't mail it, spoiler alert, but it was to Oprah.

• 27:01Oprah Winfrey?

  Really?

• 27:02Speaker 04

  It was to you. So, the fact that I'm talking to you about, about this full circle, I was, it was in the 90s and I was a young mother in my 20s. So, three decades ago, I wrote you this letter, just in tears. It was, I remember sitting at the desk pouring out this letter of gratitude for you, but I never mailed the letter. So, my question is, Virginia and Oprah, do we write letters? Do we, do we need to expect a response? And second part of the question is, do we misunderstand maybe a lack of response or a lack of action on another person's part?

• 27:39Oprah Winfrey?

  To be, to be, to be rejection. Yeah. Well, you know what? I'm glad you didn't say, I wrote you a letter and I never heard from you. Because the truth of the matter is, I thought that's what you were going to say. And I wrote you a letter and I never heard anything, Oprah.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Never will be back.

• 27:53Oprah Winfrey?

  And, you know, at the time, we were just talking about this the other day, my team and I, in the 90s, we still, it was before cell phones or anything, we had 10 people doing nothing but opening mail. And we actually got a lot of our show ideas from the letters that came through the mail. But I got about 10 to 17,000, sometimes it was a big show, 20,000 letters a week. So, there's no way I would have been able to answer you. And actually, in the beginning, I had the woman who actually became my producer and started this idea of the book club, because Alice McGee and I were sharing books in our office together. Alice is the one who gave me the idea for starting the book club.

• 28:37Oprah Winfrey?

  But before Alice was a producer, Alice I hired as an intern to answer my mail.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 28:44Oprah Winfrey?

  And I was paying her a dollar a letter. And then I got to have so many letters that I said, Alice, I can no longer pay you a dollar a letter to answer them. Because she was like, whoa, we got so much mail. So, Alice, Alice ended up becoming a producer. But it was Alice who suggested that we, we start this whole book club. So, I'm, I'm, I would not have been, I'm sure I would not have answered the letter if it came in the stack of 10,000 a week.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Well, and that's a different scale than what I'm dealing with, but I receive hundreds of letters a week and I just hired someone to help me because I can't.

• 29:20Oprah Winfrey?

  Are you paying a dollar a letter?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  No, I don't, I wish you wouldn't have said that. I hope she didn't hear this. No, I'm not. But I do think, you know, Polly, not sending the letter to Oprah, you still did what you needed to do.

• 29:33Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. You said what you needed to say.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Which was say what you needed to say. And I think there's something, I know, it's funny, like, when you said that and Oprah, you asked her, what were you wanting to say? I know exactly what you were wanting to say. You know, I can sort of... Feel that feeling and anytime I read a wonderful book, I write a letter to the author because something is welling up inside of me and I have to tell them.

• 29:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Do you know what you've done? Do you understand how you've changed me?

• 29:59Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. Yes, before I had a book club, that's what we used to do. We would just, Alice and I would look in the back of the book. This is when people had phone books and we would get the number, the name and the number and the city that they lived in.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:12Oprah Winfrey?

  And you could call the author and you just want to say to the author, oh my God, your book has elevated me so, has opened me so.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:20Oprah Winfrey?

  And tell me how this happened. That's how it all started.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:22Oprah Winfrey?

  And I will share with you this, Polly. I wrote, the only fan letter I've ever written was to Kevin Costner after seeing Dances with Wolves. And never heard from him, but it didn't matter because I was so moved by that movie and his ability to stick with it for 10 years and be the producer and director and all of that. So I don't think it matters. I think, I think what, if the person responds, what I think matters is that you actually felt in your heart to put it in words in such a way that it could be not only articulated, but felt by the other person. That's what I think.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  I think that's exactly right. And I always think, I've written so many letters that I didn't get a response to, you know, I can, so many letters and I don't regret, it's not that that's a loss. It sort of feels like a message you're chucking in a bottle out to sea. And it's this feeling of, I did my part. I wrote my heart out and if it never reaches the next person, I still came, I came to the table, I went the distance that I could go to say something beautiful or something, you know, and I think even if you didn't mail it, you wrote it down and that, I mean, somehow it sort, it probably did water your heart from far away.

• 31:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Absolutely. Absolutely.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I think that's enough, just to write it.

• 31:40Oprah Winfrey?

  That's enough. Polly, thank you so much.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Thanks, Polly.

• 31:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Thanks for all the things happening down there at Buxton Books in Charleston. Thank you.

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Thank you. Bye, Polly. Thank you.

• 31:50Oprah Winfrey?

  All that you have. You know, there's a quiet loneliness that I think that pulses beneath the pages of this book. It's nothing super dramatic, but it's just always feels like it's there with Sybil. Where did that understanding of everyday loneliness come from for you?

• 32:07Speaker 01

  I would say, I mean, is that a quality that's part of the shared human experience? You know, no matter what our lives look like, I think there are so many ways that all humans can identify with one another. And to me, that's one of those things at different times or, you know, in different eras, that's going to be part of the story, of your story, I think, even if you're surrounded by people or even if you have no reason on, on paper to be lonely. But, you know, I think being a writer, you sort of walk through the world with one eye in the moment, being present, having the conversation, experiencing the place, whatever.

• 32:50Speaker 01

  But sort of the other eye is taking notes, you know, and putting it into this big vat, for lack of a better idea. That's kind of how I think of it. Inside yourself, it's tucking away comments people make or, you know, things you observe in people. And I have known so many wonderful women aging and there's something that can happen, I've seen in women in their seventies and eighties where life becomes quieter and lonely. And I've seen that with women that I love, women in my family, you know, just because of the course of life. There are eras of life that feel full and busy and, you know, full of people and commitments and whatever it is.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  But I just think I've observed it, I've felt it. And that was the story, I knew that was kind of the story I wanted to tell. I knew, you know, when Sybil came to me, I sort of knew that was her qual, this quality, this big quality in her life, which was, I, I mean, I, I don't think I've articulated it as quiet loneliness, but I think that's precisely what it is.

• 33:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, that's what I felt.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  And I wanted the journey of the book to be an opening or a salve on that, or something that was speaking into that.

• 34:08Oprah Winfrey?

  And you're writing in many different voices, the, the, the Sybil and the Syrian immigrant, the teenage boy, even the famous authors. Which character holds the most of you in them?

• 34:23Speaker 01

  I suppose it must be Sybil.

• 34:26Oprah Winfrey?

  Must be Sybil.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  Because that's who we know the most, that's who we get to know the most. She and I certainly share the same exact reading taste.

• 34:36Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you really read Covenant of Water?

• 34:38Speaker 01

  I did.

• 34:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. I love that book.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  I love that book. And there are these little Easter eggs in the book.

• 34:43Oprah Winfrey?

  Because Sybil writes to her friend and says, what are you reading now? I'm reading Covenant of Water. Yes.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Covenant of Water. And there's these little moments in the book where books she's rereading for the third time, those are books that I reread, you know, over and over.

• 34:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Did you ever get a letter from Joan Didion?

• 34:57Speaker 01

  I never did. I never wrote to Joan Didion.

• 34:59Oprah Winfrey?

  You never wrote to Joan Didion.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  That was, that was interesting. I, I have, I have had a writing relationship with other people, but when I was writing this book, I thought Sybil would have made herself Joan's friend.

• 35:12Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  She would have just wrestled her way in, letter after letter, comment after comment on, on all of Joan's essays and all these things. And eventually she would have worn her down and they would have been friends. And I think that I just, it just made sense to me and, and I, you know, it was a little bit mad to take on the voice of Joan Didion.

• 35:31Oprah Winfrey?

  Joan Didion, you did.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  We did.

• 35:33Oprah Winfrey?

  All right. We had, let's take one last Zoom call. Kate is a, a fitness instructor from Chicago, says she's read 50 books. How do you read 50 books? You read 50 books last year. Welcome, Kate.

• 35:44Speaker 01

  Hi, Kate.

• 35:45Speaker 05

  Hi, Oprah, hi, Virginia. I cannot believe those words just came out of my mouth. What a privilege it is to be here. A huge part of my training methodology is recovery. Go to bed, get in bed, unplug. And so in order to do that, what better way to read? Virginia, The Correspondent was one of my favorite books last year and I was recommended to it by a friend and word of mouth. But I had a question for you. It's been said that authors write about what they know or what they're afraid of. My question is, how did that manifest in your process writing The Correspondent and how Sybil came to fruition?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm telling you, readers are smart.

• 36:32Oprah Winfrey?

  They are so smart. They're so smart. Yes, yes.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  I think you're smarter than I am. I, after The Correspondent was published, I heard an interview, I think it was an old interview that Zadie Smith had given, and she said that in her interview. She said, you either can write out of what you know, or you can write out of what you fear. And what I remember her saying is, because both of those things, what you know and what you fear are equally vivid to you. And I had never thought about that, had never given it one minute of thought. And the second she said it, I thought, my two biggest fears are losing one of my children and going blind. And it was so shockingly obvious to me to hear that. And I thought, oh, I guess I wrote exactly what I fear.

• 37:17Speaker 01

  And so, yes, I mean, yes, the answer is, that is exactly what I was writing. And

• 37:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Wow.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  You know, I think that experience of writing, so my son, my son was eight when I was writing The Correspondent and Sybil, you know this from early in the book, but Sybil has lost a child and he was eight when he died. And so I remember getting into the, you know, the nuts and bolts of her story and kind of the timeline. And I thought, I'm going to have to make her son have died at eight because I won't be able to under, I won't be able to imagine it unless it's me thinking about my Jack. That's how I'll imagine it.

• 37:55Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  And so it was really tough to write that. And I've, I heard Maggie O'Farrell said when she was writing Hamlet, she just put off writing the scene of the death of, of the child because she just thought, I can't, I can't go in that room, I can't go in that room. And that was how I felt writing this story. And you don't ever have to zoom in on that moment. I think the story brings you to that moment, kind of one step at a time. There is a moment at the end when you get a clearer picture of what happened with, with how he passed away. But it was, it was writing out of what I fear. And so I was just really moved when I heard Zadie Smith say that. And I thought, I think that's exactly true.

• 38:38Oprah Winfrey?

  Well, that's a question I would not have come up with myself. That is a great question.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  A great question. I agree. Thank you so much for including me.

• 38:44Oprah Winfrey?

  Thank you so much. And you keep reading 50 books.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  That's amazing.

• 38:49Oprah Winfrey?

  I'm like, you, you, you're, you're being my record. That's a lot of books.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's way more than me, too.

• 38:54Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a book a week. That's a book a week.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Including The Covenant of Water, which I also loved.

• 39:00Oprah Winfrey?

  That's a book, I, wow. Okay, okay.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 39:04Oprah Winfrey?

  My hat's off to you.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:06Oprah Winfrey?

  Impressed, impressed.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Me too.

• 39:08Oprah Winfrey?

  So this is what Sybil writes to her high school student on page 123. I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember, words, especially those written, are immortal.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Look out.

• 39:22Oprah Winfrey?

  Look out. In a world of instant messages and, you know, disappearing texts and all of that going on, what do you think we lose when we stop writing things that were meant to last?

• 39:35Speaker 01

  It worries me. I do feel a sense of sadness or grief or something when I think about, you know, I was raised in a moment when we were still writing letters and when I was, you know, that was, I was writing papers, you know, my school papers by hand.

• 39:52Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes.

• 39:52Speaker 01

  And I think my family got a computer, maybe when I was in high school or college. And when I think about if people stopped writing letters because it's not necessary, it's not necessary to

• 40:02Oprah Winfrey?

  Right.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Communicate that way, I feel a sense of loss. And I feel it's almost like the written word, physically written word and handwriting and a pen and the, the tactile thing, you know, for so, like all of human history, that's part of the story. And then I think, you know, it's not that we're, we don't keep a record with technology and computers and stuff, but It's not the same.

• 40:28Oprah Winfrey?

  Not the same.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  It's not the same.

• 40:30Oprah Winfrey?

  And as you were just saying to Polly, you receive hundreds of letters a week now. Has the response from readers revealed anything to you about the book that you didn't fully, you know, come to realize when you were writing it? What has this response done?

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Well, first, it's just shocking. I just think every time I, you know, see this pile of mail, I think, are people still reading this book? I just can't believe these are...

• 40:58Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes, they are. It's number one.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  But, you know, it's interesting. I think I'm telling you, every time I read a letter from someone, I learn something about the book that I didn't know. You know, just every person's response and what it evokes for people. And, you know, most people have said to me, this book made me cry and it felt so good. And I think, isn't that so fascinating that that's the way the book makes you feel?

• 41:28Oprah Winfrey?

  This is a book that you weren't even gonna publish. You were just gonna have this just for yourself.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  I was not going to let anyone see it. Yeah, yeah.

• 41:36Oprah Winfrey?

  If you could leave our listeners with one invitation, one gentle nudge, inspired by this book, what would that be?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  If you feel at the end of the book, a nudge to make a connection with someone that you need to repair a connection, you need to say something to someone that needs to be said in love, in asking for forgiveness, I just think that what the book nudges is fix it. Like, go towards someone. If you feel pulled towards someone but afraid or not sure how, not sure how to draw near to someone that you have known or loved, I just think if you feel the nudge, if you feel like, oh, I want to reach out. I want to, I want to call. I want to show up. I want to write a letter.

• 42:30Oprah Winfrey?

  I think you're gonna write a letter to someone.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Just do it.

• 42:32Oprah Winfrey?

  Just do it.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Just do it.

• 42:34Oprah Winfrey?

  Okay. So I hear now there is a deluxe edition. The Correspondent Deluxe Edition is out now. They redid the cover and added a little more color.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  It's so nice. It's so lovely. I love it.

• 42:46Oprah Winfrey?

  Yes. And why did you do a deluxe edition? Not only do you have a bestseller, now you did a deluxe edition of the bestseller.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  You know, nobody asked me, I'll tell you that. But I'm thrilled. It's so pretty. I think it's pretty much the same, except then they sort of invited me to add something. So there's a letter from me to the reader that I got to speak in my own voice, you know, from my own, from my own heart.

• 43:09Oprah Winfrey?

  Of what you wanted to say to the reader.

• 43:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:11Oprah Winfrey?

  Yeah. Well, I hope Virginia's book inspires you to reach out, write a letter to somebody in your own life. Thank you, Virginia Evans.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:18Oprah Winfrey?

  And thank you to Tyler and Polly and Kate for zooming in with us today. Until next time, The Correspondent. That was delightful.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Oh, you're so lovely.

• 43:27Oprah Winfrey?

  If you haven't yet read The Correspondent and you love the written word as much as I do, you should treat yourself to a copy of the deluxe edition. Or better yet, buy it for somebody you love. The QR code to purchase is right there on your screen. Only takes a few seconds to scan the QR code. Buy your own copy. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing. I would really appreciate it if you like and subscribe to the Oprah Podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast. It's just a quick tap of the subscribe button. And that way, you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything.

• 44:12Oprah Winfrey?

  I know subscribe usually means you're paying something, but this time, it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.