Legendary Writers on Life | Spotlight Convo

Feeling creatively stifled or torn between passion and practicality? Dive into this powerful conversation with legendary writers Sue Monk Kidd, James McBride, Kate DiCamillo, and Ann Patchett as they share their journeys honoring their deepest callings. Discover how they overcame societal conventions and inner doubts to give voice to essential truths through their transformative stories. Get inspired to embrace your own yearnings and unlock the empathy-sparking power of radical self-expression. If you've ever longed to live a life of truth and beauty, don't miss these catalyzing insights. Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/overcoming-stress-overwhelm-and-neurodivergence You can find Sue Monk Kidd at: Website https://suemonkkidd.com/ | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/suemonkkidd/ | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with Romie https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/NjY4ZWVjNWU1MGFkY2QyZTcxYjQ5NmRi You can find James McBride at: Website https://www.jamesmcbride.com/ | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jamesmcbrideauthor/ | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with Aviva https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5nb29kbGlmZXByb2plY3QuY29tLz9wPTkxMDg You can find Kate DiCamillo at: Website http://www.katedicamillostoriesconnectus.com | Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CandlewickPressBooks/ | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with Sasha https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/NjU0NTM1YzJlNWM4OGYwMDEzN2EwMzMw You can find Ann Patchett at: Website http://www.annpatchett.com/ | Instagram https://www.instagram.com/parnassusbooks | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with Sasha https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/NjU0NTM1YzJlNWM4OGYwMDEzN2EwMzMw Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel https://jonathanfields.substack.com/aboutVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sponsors/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm very interested in enlightening someone's mind if I can possibly manage it. But what I want most of all is to touch their heart. I want to jolt their heart because I really think that's the way in to other human lives. The shortest distance between anything is a story that jolts the heart.

• 0:23Jonathan Fields?

  So have you ever felt so just utterly torn between the creative yearnings, the desire to be just fully expressed and the insistent voice pushing you to just be practical? For me, that tension has been one of the greatest struggles in crafting a life of meaning and full expression. But the four legendary writers joining us today have walked that razor's edge their entire journeys, shedding conventions, giving voice to essential truths, and revealing the transformative power of stories to spark radical empathy and human connection, while also living their own beautiful, full, and true lives. You'll hear from the celebrated novelist, Sue Monkid, who takes us through her profound journey from the limiting traditions of her upbringing

• 1:08Jonathan Fields?

  to the contemplative awakenings that allowed her to birth tales reflecting the full complexity of the human experience and just do gorgeous, incredible, resonant work. Then you'll hear from James McBride, the award-winning author and musician, who shares how music gave him the discipline to navigate any path while fiercely protecting his creative spark, ultimately allowing him to create stories that help others truly see one another. And next up, you'll learn from the inevitable Kate DiCamillo, two-time Newberry winner, who opens up about longing as the essence driving her fiction and how writing eased the ache of feeling unseen as a chronically ill kid. And finally, bestselling novelist Anne Patchett,

• 1:50Jonathan Fields?

  whose clarity has been a compass since declaring her dream at five years old, illustrates the power of integrating our sacred callings through her pioneering writing process.

• 2:00Jonathan Fields?

  So as we explore their past and perspectives on life, I'm reminded of times that I have let my own creative calling, my yearnings, take a backseat out of fear or maybe prioritizing feeling overly safe or comfortable over self-expression. These extraordinary humans reveal what's possible when we wholeheartedly embrace and express our essential selves. So I invite you to bring an open mind and an open heart as we glean wisdom that just might provide the nudge you need to begin uncovering your own hidden paths to a life of truth and beauty. So excited to share this spotlight conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

• 2:47Speaker 02

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• 3:20Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by Steel. So I am not in the studio today. I'm actually out on the trail in the Rockies at about 6,000 feet above sea level in Boulder. The leaves are exploding with color and it's just stunning out. And yes, I'm wearing my favorite Steel hat. And just last night I was wearing one of my favorite Steel jackets, which if you know me is not unusual. I wear the hat almost every day and my Steel jackets pretty much live on me all fall and winter. There's even a Steel shop back in town practically in my backyard. Here is why I love them. Steel is designed and tested in Jackson Hole at the base of the Tetons by locals who ski and bike and hike and climb and fish there pretty much every day. They have been at it since 2011, so they know warmth and they also know style.

• 4:05Jonathan Fields?

  Everything I have from them, it works great. It holds up in every condition and also looks Awesome. And their hometown down is 800 Phil down, but it feels more like just your favorite hoodie than a puffy. And ski season is almost here, so gear up now the way that the locals do. Go to stio.com/goodlife for 20% off your order. That's S T I O dot com slash good life. stio.com/goodlife, stio designed and tested in Jackson Hole. Good Life Project is supported by Ernesto rugs. So a small confession, our front porch has been the most neglected corner of our homes since we moved in. It's the first thing anyone steps onto and it's been kind of greeting people with a sad, too small mat. Ernesto sent me their samples and now they're making us a rug.

• 4:50Jonathan Fields?

  And the cool thing is for $10, you get five oversized 12 by 12 samples. So you see the colors at real scale in your own space before you even get it. So we lived with all five colors for a few days and cool morning light and golden afternoon light. And we're sure to be ross on the sky, but Caldwell just kind of kept quietly whining. The thing you're certain about isn't always the thing that fits. And because Ernesto rugs are custom sized, cut to the ins. The one we ordered is made to our exact six and a half feet by nine feet space, not close enough. Visit ernesto.com and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 toward any rug of your choice. That's E R N E S T A dot com.

• 5:33Jonathan Fields?

  So up first, our guest is Sue Monk Kid, the celebrated author behind novels like The Secret Life of Bees and The Book of Longings. Growing up in the 1950s in the South, she experienced firsthand how society can impose strictures on women to be proper or silent or self negating. By the time I left for college, she shares, my real self was already beginning to disappear inside those little cages. In our powerful conversation, Sue takes us through her profound journey of shedding those constraints layer by layer. From her early awakenings, exploring the contemplative life to her feminist rebirthing. Sue's story is one of reclaiming voice, embodying wholeness and allowing the essence of one's truth to flourish.

• 6:16Jonathan Fields?

  Her path wasn't easy, but as you'll hear, it became the first. Ground pursues incredibly impactful novels and deep empathy they spark in readers worldwide. Here's Sue. When you were growing up also, Beyond Faith was just sort of like a cultural assumption about the role of women. And I was reading a line that you wrote where you wrote, "By the time I left for college, my real self was already beginning to disappear inside strictures of properness, pleasing silence, and self-negation. Little cages everywhere."

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Yes. Well, I did grow up in the 50s and 60s in the South in a very structured kind of religious experience. So you can imagine there was a lot of women being submissive and being on the peripheries and not being at the center of meaning-making in the religion or having any kind of role. So it's kind of like you're a goldfish in a bowl, swimming in water you don't see for a long time. And it's true, but when I went to college, I had left behind so much because I didn't have the courage, I guess,

• 7:29Speaker 00

  to really break out of these structures that had raised me and that I had internalized so deeply. So it took, as I said earlier, the jackhammer. But I think that, well, I moved through epochs, I say. I kind of shed that skin slowly. And I can look back now at this point in my life and try to integrate all of these things together. But there was a movement, an evolution to all of this. And it really started with not the feminist kind of dissident experience I had, but more of turning to the interior life.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  That's where it began for me because I had no sense whatsoever of the inner life, the reality of that, until I read Thomas Merton. And then Carl Jung. And I was overwhelmed with this idea. And my feeling was like, hey, why didn't anybody tell me about this? How could this be? And nobody told me. So I had a phase where I was really exploring in depth this world, this contemplative inner life. And then came this sort of feminist awakening. And it just kept evolving over the decades, you know?

• 8:46Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, the contemplative phase, did that touch down for you in college? Or was it later on when you really started to step back into writing?

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Well, for me, I guess I'm a slow learner because I was 30 years old. As I said, I was really all in until around 30. And then I picked up The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton.

• 9:10Jonathan Fields?

  Which has changed so many people.

• 9:11Speaker 00

  You know, it really has. And he was remarkably influential in my life and continues to be, actually. But his gift to me through that book was the awareness, as I said, of the interior life. And I read that book just astonished. It wasn't so much even his journey into this monastic world that he describes in the book. It was this world within. And so, yeah, I began to explore that. And that opened my creative life, actually.

• 9:47Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, because up until then, I mean, you end up going to TCU or university. But then you also, instead of writing, you say yes to nursing for the better part of a decade before this awakening that you start to describe. I'm curious, I want to dive into sort of like this, what happened around the time of 30 years old. But I'm really curious about the journey in nursing and saying yes to that. And then what led you to say, okay, so after, you know, like eight, 10 years in this space and being deeply observant and building?

• 10:21Jonathan Fields?

  A life and a living around it. It's time to be done with this.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  I would say that it probably turned for me somewhere in my adolescence, because up until I was maybe fifteen or sixteen, I was going to be a writer. I'm not sure it was innate in me, but from a very early age, I loved story. I loved my father's storytelling. I loved writing. I, I was going to be a writer. And then I was sitting, I was sitting in home economics class one day, and the teacher wrote a list on the blackboard of professions for women. The topic of the day, now, this is like nineteen sixty-three, maybe, or four. The topic of the lesson for that day was something about women working outside the home.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Oh, horrors, you know? So I remember sitting there with bated breath, waiting for her to write, "writer" on the board, but she, she never did. There was teacher, librarian, stewardess, it wasn't even a flight attendant, nurse, and so on. This made a deep impression on a very impressionable girl, myself. And I worried about it. I remember going around worrying about this. Well, what am I doing? Is this going to work? And I went to see the guidance counselor, and I asked her about it. And she said, "Oh, I think you could write as a hobby,

• 11:52Speaker 00

  but it would really be smart to take up a profession that you could fall back on in case something happened to your husband." This is where we were, in my world, anyway, in that small world. And so I, I said, "Okay, I, I guess that's what I do." And so I tossed over this dream, this idea, with great pain, actually, and decided, what should I be, a teacher or a nurse? I picked nurse. I'm not sure I was a terribly great nurse, but I didn't kill anybody. I mean, I, it worked out. But somewhere around thirty, actually, it was after reading Merton and discovering this.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Powerfully present in her life that my creative life woke up again. I wanted to carry on a conversation with my soul. And I wanted to express it. This desire kind of welled up and I got really homesick for myself. I think, you know, homesick for that part of me I had left behind and orphaned. And, and so I, I remember walking in the kitchen when I, on my 30th birthday and making this announcement to my husband, who was sitting there with our two toddlers, trying to, as I recall, get them to eat their cereal. They were singing something like Snap, Crackle, Pop or something.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  And I interrupted and told them, I'm going to become a writer. And that was it. I mean, I, of course, the next day I'm thinking, what did, what did? I don't know anything about writing. What did I just do? But it's, it somehow took from me and I began to write and work. And within a year had left nursing behind and moved into writing full time.

• 13:42Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. I'm curious about the moment that you make this declaration because as you reflect on this, this is, you know, you remember the day, you remember the scene, you remember the moment. So it was clearly powerful. Like this was a flag in the ground for you. Have you talked to your husband or your kids about that moment also? And sort of explored, was this anywhere near as meaningful for you? Or was this just kind of like, you know, another, another moment in the kitchen, sort of like in everyday life? I'm curious how different people experience a single moment where for one it's profound, but for others it may be very different.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Yes, that's interesting. For me, it was a big enunciation that had been coming and coming and saying it out loud. I was really making that enunciation to myself.

• 14:31Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  This is your path and you're returning to yourself. And it was a homecoming for me. And I'm sure that's why it was so powerful because it was like returning or coming home again, the prodigal girl. My husband, I remember, he taught, he turned and looked at me and said, well, that's, that's great. You know, good for you, something like that. And he was always supportive and yet I don't think he caught in the least the profundity of that moment for me. I mean, later he did and later we discussed it. My daughter, Anne, who has also become a writer, who was the two-year-old sitting at the table that day.

• 15:15Speaker 00

  Of course, they don't remember any of that. But we've talked about it many times since and how, what became of that one tiny moment where I really never looked back, even though I was afraid and had a lot of fear about what I was doing and had to gather my courage over and over again to go out there and put my voice in the world. I was home and I was going to do it some one way or the other.

• 15:41Jonathan Fields?

  When you say yes to that and you start to write. So it's interesting. I'm curious, when you think about your time in nursing and then you're starting to write, even though over the course of that next year, you really you sort of closed the door professionally on what you had been doing. I have to imagine that the time that you spent steeped in empathy, steeped in sort of like trained observation was in some way deeply informative to the way that you stepped into writing. And I'm curious whether from the inside out, that was your experience also.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Yes, I think it made a big impact on me, that time I spent in nursing many years. What I learned was that people suffer. There's pain. There's so much need in the world for us to open our hearts to one another. And there's, there was, it was almost overwhelming in a way, what I encountered in the lives of those people I took care of on pediatric units, medical surgical units, even in nursing school and a psychiatric ward. And I think I never forgot that. I'm sure it had to have made an impact on me somehow.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Because what I came to later, I didn't realize quite how much I believed this until it finally formed in my mind, that really, the point for me and the power of literature and of writing is empathy. You know, the highest value in my kind of world, I guess, ideally, is compassion. I think there's no higher value for me to aspire to in the world. Not belief, compassion. And if we can somehow tap into this empathy, I think empathy is the portal into that.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  So I was looking around for a reason I wrote. Someone asked me that in an interview, "Why do you write?" And I was maybe forty years old and I sat back and I thought, "Yeah, why do I do this, really? Is it just simply because I have a gift? Or I have a desire, or I have a longing, or it's my true home, or whatever?" Somehow that became not enough for me. I wanted my work to serve something larger than that. Even though I think that is actually enough, frankly, for us to, you know,

• 18:17Speaker 00

  experience our own gift and give it to the world, that's a great thing. But I wanted it to mean something. And there's a little story. I was in Chicago at a bookstore. And a gentleman, a really well-dressed, rather affluent-looking man, said to me, "I read The Secret Life of Bees."

• 18:42Speaker 00

  He said, "My wife made me." I really didn't want to read it, but "my wife made me." And I said, "Well, was it very painful for you?" And he said, "No, actually, I made a connection to this world that I did not expect and I did not see coming." He said, "I'm from this..." He was a CEO of some important corporation in New England. And he came from, as he described it, "a very wealthy family." And he said, "I had nothing in common with this little girl from South Carolina and these African-American women." He said, "But when I read your book for the first time, I felt like I sort of understood their world and I became them and they became me."

• 19:26Speaker 00

  And I went, "That's why I write." It really hit me. That's it. Because it creates empathy and that is a reason to do it.

• 19:38Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so powerful. It's like a gateway to seeing ourselves in others and others in ourselves. Which brings me back to something that you shared last year, actually, on your Instagram account. And I'm gonna read your words, because it's a little long and I didn't give you a heads up so that you could pull this up and read it yourself. But you wrote, "For the woman I overheard say she wants to write a memoir but can't help feeling it's self-indulgent, may I go on record here. Writing memoir is gloriously self-indulgent and I'm perfectly okay with that. Women have been told so many times to be selfless that it can actually feel uncomfortable when we attempt to search for one. When I write memoir, I'm undoubtedly in search of wholeness. Maybe I'm trying to resolve something, heal a wound,

• 20:21Jonathan Fields?

  redeem some part of myself that has been orphaned or lost, or give a voice to what has been silenced. Maybe I'm trying to step into my truth. Maybe I'm trying to reveal myself to myself. But here's something I didn't expect. Writing memoir can also be gloriously other-indulgent. The process not only takes me into myself, it frees me from myself."

• 20:42Speaker 00

  I found that to be true. That the further I go into my own story, my own deep...

• 20:50Speaker 00

  The freer I am because I'm not consumed with it. The unconscious world, as you particularly taught us, will be there to remind you over and over again what you don't deal with. And so we have to kind of be conscious of things. And one way to do that is to write about them. And it frees us from that. And we can kind of resolve it somehow, find peace and wholeness through it and move on. So it's actually very other oriented, I think. And when I finished writing The Book of Longings, I took the manuscript, I had printed it all out. And I took the manuscript downstairs from my study

• 21:34Speaker 00

  and handed it to my husband, who hadn't read a word of it. That's our way we do it. I write it, he doesn't. He knew what I was writing. He knew that I was writing a story about the wife of Jesus. His comment on that was, oh, what could possibly go wrong there? But I handed it to him. And I watched him kind of out of the corner of my eye over the next day or so, as he read the manuscript. And when he finished, he looked up and he said, his first words out of his mouth were, "There's an awful lot of Anna in you. There's an awful lot of you and Anna." And I knew what he was talking about. But my response to him was, "There's an awful lot of Anna in an awful lot of women. And an awful lot of women in Anna.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  And it's not just me." And I think that longing to have a voice in the world and to know our largeness is so palpable for us. In Anna's prayer that she writes in this incantation bowl, she closes by saying, "When I am dust, sing these words over my bones." She was a voice. I think that's my prayer too.

• 22:48Jonathan Fields?

  And that feels like a great place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase, "To live a good life," what comes up?

• 23:00Speaker 00

  To pay attention.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  To love. To be here now.

• 23:08Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm, thank you.

• 23:11Jonathan Fields?

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Talkiiatry. So you know that moment when you finally say, okay, I need some help? That takes courage and then you start calling psychiatrists and hear, we're not taking new patients or our next opening is months away. Talkiiatry exists to change that. Unlike therapy only platforms, Talkiiatry is psychiatry. It's a 100% online practice where a medical provider can diagnose conditions like anxiety, ADHD, depression and more, and prescribe medication when it's appropriate. All 800 plus clinicians are in-network with major insurers. Take a short assessment, get matched and have your first visit in days, not months.

• 23:54Jonathan Fields?

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• 24:38Jonathan Fields?

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• 25:18Speaker 02

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 25:52Jonathan Fields?

  I love Sue's take. And our next guest is James McBride, the legendary author, musician, and screenwriter whose boundary-defying work insists we pay attention to the deepest callings of our souls. In my experience, few artists embody the power of following your canonical creative path, quite like James. As a young man, he chose music, actually, over a more conventional career, a decision that ultimately led him to become a transformative storyteller, able to, in his words, "make people care about each other." In this conversation, James shares how music gave him the discipline to navigate any path in life, while fiercely protecting the creative spark from the cynicism that can just so easily extinguish it.

• 26:35Jonathan Fields?

  His journey shows us that when we honor our intrinsic gifts and yearnings, we gain not just fulfillment, but profound impact. As you'll hear, James' novels, like "The Good Lord Bird," do just that, inviting us into deeper understanding and connection.

• 26:51Speaker 03

  I think that music is, for me personally, I mean, if you'd asked me when I was 25, I'd have said, "Yeah, I want to just play jazz the rest of my life." But now, I realize that what music did for me is what I hope it does for my sons and for my little program I run in my church, and that is, it prepares you for a life of labor and learning and enjoyment. I mean, there's nothing more enjoyable than driving down the street and listening to, you know, Sonny Rollins, or The Doors, or Beethoven, or anything that's beautiful. I mean, you know, I was listening to Mahalia Jackson yesterday. I mean, there's nothing more...

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Pleasurable than enjoying the first, the highest art form of all, which I think music is. And so I, I think to study it just gives you a great appreciation for, for life and for teamwork and for discipline and for the things that are important that help you do whatever you'd like to, whatever you like to do. I think, you know, most of your, most of your great scientists and engineers and architects and, and attorneys, I mean, a lot of them have great, great experience with music. And I think that's, so I, I see music as, you know, look, I could, I could have supposed, I could have gone on to just the life of being a musician, but that wasn't enough really, because music

• 28:14Speaker 03

  shouldn't be your life, really. Life should be your life.

• 28:17Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned, um, the kid you're working with now, I guess, uh, at the church. Um, cause that was pretty much your, I mean, the early days for you was really, I guess it was really just a big part of your family, you know, sort of like, uh, church music books. Sounds like your introduction in the music side also was, you know, the church needed people to play.

• 28:38Speaker 03

  That's true. Yeah. Well, you know, we, we grew up in the church, in the Baptist church. So we heard that kind of music growing up, uh, and we listened to it at home. We didn't have, you know, I grew up in a time when you listened to records and you, you know, and you only had a certain number of records. So you listened to whatever was on the radio and whatever records you had at home. And, uh, I think it gave you a wider palette in terms of what you draw on later, or what I drew on later when I became a musician. Um, because, uh, you, you had to listen to what everybody else listened to also, as opposed to just listening to the kind of music that you thought you liked. So, but yeah, I grew up in a, you know, in the church and we always listened to music that swung hard, you know?

• 29:22Speaker 03

  That sort of heavy hard swing in nineteen fifty's, nineteen sixty's gospel. That is really, really one part of the so-called African-American musical experience. But it's, it's one of the most popular and one of the most affecting and sweetest. So it always made music special to me. I, I just can't imagine a life without music. I, I just can't imagine being a writer without having music as part of my vocabulary, you know?

• 29:52Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I almost wonder, um, I mean, when you, do you go back and forth when you're working on something? Between playing, composing and writing?

• 30:02Speaker 03

  All the time, yeah, all the time.

• 30:05Jonathan Fields?

  Do you feel like that, like you can feel the sensibility sort of of the two interplaying with each other?

• 30:10Speaker 03

  Um, I don't know. I mean, I just do it to keep from going crazy, you know? I mean, you know, you, you, you, you only have so much gas in the tank when you're running these characters on the page or they're running you around on the page. And you have to get up and you have to move around, but you don't want to go, you know, to a coffee shop and start gossiping with somebody about nothing. So you sit down at the piano and you say, I'm just working on this. And I mean, writing and music share this. They are about the process of failing continuously. And so you just learn to accept that failure and you absorb it. And then it pushes you to something that's new and hopefully special or different.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  So the act of just getting your tail kicked every day by these two art forms that you know you're not really as good as people believe you to be at. It helps you live. It keeps you humble. It keeps you, keeps you healthy, you know?

• 31:09Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting also, because sort of when I look at, um, The two together also, and it sounds like from what I know, your approach to both, you know, it's, it's not about structure. It's not about sort of like building the outline and filling it in. It's, it's about, it's jazz. Like either way, it's jazz.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  Absolutely. I mean, but you know, you have to be careful when you say that.

• 31:35Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  Because I saw Bruce Springsteen one time in my life back in the eighties. He was at the Meadowlands and I didn't even want to go, you know, because I was like, I don't like rock and roll. Ah, you know, and then the concert was four hours and it felt like it was a half hour long. I mean, it was so good. It was so good. I mean, you know, Clarence Clements, this was when he was, you know, I don't know if your listeners even know who Bruce Springsteen is.

• 32:03Jonathan Fields?

  No, they do. They do. I saw him play three years ago at, you know, what used to be the Meadowlands also for four hours. And my mind was blown.

• 32:11Speaker 03

  Oh, he's just a bad cat, man. I mean, it's ridiculous, man. So, I mean, but my point is that

• 32:18Speaker 03

  if, if it's right, you just feel it. And Bruce Springsteen's got plenty jazz in his music. I mean, you know, in a, he doesn't, you know, his jazz isn't supposedly like the most sophisticated, you know, but there's plenty jazz there. I mean, what is jazz, you know, you know, as, as Louis Armstrong said, you know, if you have to ask, I really don't know, you know, music that brings, that moves to the heart, that makes you feel good inside, that gives you hope and it makes you want to hug your neighbor. That's jazz. And Bruce, in that regard, Bruce Springsteen is loaded, man. Because he's, you know, he spent his entire career trying to make people see the best part of themselves and of others. And that's really, that's what jazz should do.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  That's what any good music should do. And that, that includes all forms of classical music. So.

• 33:10Speaker 03

  You know, for me, jazz and blues and gospel have been part of my, you know, DNA, my musical DNA. But that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate, you know, klezmer music or, you know, 18th century music or, you know, the composers like Virgil Thomas or whoever. I mean, everyone has a different song. And if you're smart and if you have a liberal arts education, which I'm fortunate enough to have, you learn that if you, if you want to enjoy life, you learn to appreciate all of it, you know?

• 33:43Jonathan Fields?

  I completely agree. I think my reference to jazz was more just, and this is, I played guitar for most of my life. I don't play jazz, but, um, but like you said, it's, to me, it's, it's, the reference is more about knowing the notes, developing a certain amount of craft, but then holding everything lightly and being responsive to the moment and like making it about the interactions and the play and the freedom.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, if you do that, it helps you in the rest of your life. If you can do that and you can get it from jazz, it helps you in everything you do. When I was working at the Washington Post, I used to work with an editor named Jeff Frank, and he later became friends and he ended up at The New Yorker. And, and now he writes books. And one day I was at his house and Jeff pulled out his guitar and he turned out to be like a really good guitar player. I mean, like when I say good, I mean a musician level good, not just like good because your friends, you know, you can play I Want to Hold Your Hand by The Beatles. I mean, he could really play. And it made sense because that's just who he was. He was a person who knew how to listen.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  But he also knew when to not listen and when to speak, you know? And it showed on the page in his work. So. Music teaches you to listen. And if you're a writer, that's your job. You know, that's your job to listen to people and to, you know, to reflect back to them or to others what you've heard in a way that makes it palatable and makes us care about each other.

• 35:19Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. The, um, you go to Oberlin, you end up in Columbia J. School and then out. And I guess spent the better part of a decade, really, on the journalism side of things. I mean, Boston Globe, um, was Washington Post the, the last place you were?

• 35:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was my last stop. Yeah.

• 35:36Jonathan Fields?

  Right. I mean, I've heard you say something a couple of times in the past about your time there also, which is that journalists become cynics, which I'm kind of curious about.

• 35:44Speaker 03

  Well, if you want to stay creative, you have to avoid the cynicism that journalism creates. Because, you know, journalism falls, you know, it's, it's magnetized toward politics. They kind of go together some, in some way. They're like three fingers of one hand and three fingers of the other hand. And you shake hands, okay, well, this, that's six fingers. With the other four fingers, you better guard them carefully. Because if the cynicism and the blood and the guts from the first three fingers, first six fingers feed over to the rest of the fingers, then your whole hand is bleeding and wounded and you'll never be able to build a house. That's a horrible metaphor, but my point is that cynicism is destructive in terms of creativity.

• 36:28Speaker 03

  And, uh, and creativity is what makes, one of the things that makes America a very unique and very, very great place. Um, so creativity doesn't happen when you're picking up a video game about car thefts or some other bullshit. It just doesn't happen. Excuse my language. It just doesn't happen. If you want to stay creative, you should read books and walk the earth. Otherwise, you're never gonna. Journalists, by comparison, do get out and do things. But the, the level of cynicism that you allow into your life as a journalist will, at some point, simply will just pour water on your spark, your, your creative spark.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  So you have to be careful and that cynicism doesn't happen that rather skepticism can roll in. That's fine. Skepticism is fog, but cynicism is thunder and lightning rain. You just, you gotta move. You can maneuver your way through fog and discover great things. But when it's raining hard and the thunder, you're just looking for shelter. And there goes your story. Goodbye.

• 37:38Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. The, um, I guess the journalism bug had kind of left you, but the writing bug definitely didn't. Cause I guess it was that same window, right? When you're sort of, you're playing around full time, you're touring. When the bug sneaks back into you to return to your mom's story and go a lot deeper into it.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Well, I always liked to write. I always just felt journalism was not creative enough for me.

• 38:04Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  That's really the problem. It was just not, uh, it's just not that creative, you know? So as an artist, I simply do what I can do best. And I can't imagine not writing or living without words and without music. It would be very difficult for me.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  And I've been doing it so long now that I don't know how else to live. I mean, I walk around with a pad in my pocket everywhere and a pencil everywhere, everywhere I go. And no matter what I'm doing, even if I'm cutting the grass or working with plants, or it doesn't matter. Wherever I have, always have, I have hundreds of notebooks laying around my house. Really, I just can't, and I never go back to look at them. You know, I just have these ideas. I write them down and I just forget it, you know? But it's just, you have to be a little bit obsessive and compulsive when you're a writer.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Uh, you're always trying to be free, you know? When I met E L. Doc, I felt like I was talking to, and I talked to him for all of three minutes. But I was, I felt like I was talking to a man who was working at his freedom.

• 39:22Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because you're, I know we talked for a heartbeat about the fact that you're teaching music to kids now also. Are you still teaching writing over at NYU?

• 39:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:33Jonathan Fields?

  Because I'm curious, because I'm fascinated by like if somebody comes into a room with you, what they're looking for, what they think they're looking for, what they think they need to actually step into this place of being a writer versus what you really feel matters.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Well, the young writers that I meet at NYU are really wonderful people. First of all, I don't teach like, you know, honors classes and, you know, super duper writers who are trying to be, you know, write for super duper publications or magazines or anything like, I basically, you know, whoever signs up, you know, the first people who sign up before the course hits its limit are the ones in the class. And then I just make them write, make them write about themselves and I teach, I mostly focus on structure, you know? I mean, because you can't really, unless you can get time and place centered in your story, nobody, you're just blogging, you know? No matter how good you are as a writer in terms of, like, no matter how fast you can run the 100 yard dash, a book is a marathon.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  So you can run 100 yards and beat everybody else, but after 100 yards, I'm just gonna, I'll be running backwards and I'll go leave you behind because you don't know how to do it. Structure. So I talk about structure quite a bit and I make them write. I send them out, I make them write. I don't talk that much. We read a little Nietzsche. We read a little bit of Gary Smith, who's a wonderful writer who used to work for Sports Illustrated, but he didn't really write about sports, but about life. And then we write, that's it, you know? And I hear their thoughts about things, but then we mostly write about what they know. So I send them everywhere, I send them all over the city.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  I send them to go get ice cream and cake. I send them to the Bronx. I send them to go see what the plaque that said where Ebbets Field was. Go find a joke. Go get a haircut. Tell us what you see in the barber shop. I make them do that. When they're finished writing, red ink, because all of the pages are bloody. But they're game, young people, you know, they really are. I get a lot of inspiration from my students at NYU. I just love the kids, man. They give me so much. They give me so much more than I could ever give them. When I think of young people in this country, you know, when I think of these kids who I meet at NYU, I'm encouraged and I'm inspired.

• 41:57Speaker 03

  All of this stuff that's been happening lately is just encouraging and inspiring for me to witness. I'm delighted that so many young people have taken it upon themselves to speak on behalf of people who cannot speak and to try to write things at a time when so many of them are having such personal difficulty and such deep personal challenges.

• 42:20Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly powerful to see what's going on and to see so many people rise up and step out and actually say things and acknowledge things. And especially when people who feel drawn to deeply observe and then turn that into language that somehow, like what you said, goes out into the world and in some way affects other people. You know, it's sort of a powerful place to be, but also a place where I kind of, I wonder if, what the sense of responsibility that some people would feel in being the people who try and observe and then turn that into language that goes out into the world and in some way affects other people.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  I don't think that people who do that sort of thing think that deeply about it. I mean, they probably should. I don't think they do. So, you know, there's that. I mean, the fact is that,

• 43:15Speaker 03

  I don't know, people who have an enormous amount of influence in terms of our sway in the world don't really think about how far their words are reaching. The clever ones, some of the evil ones do. They figured it out, you know? But, look, the problem is that if you want to change society, your words, your deeds have got to reach deep into the bowels or into the guts of whatever organization is involved. So that the producer of, you know, Podcast 59 and the producer of CNN, you know, who works the night shift, and the producer of Fox News or whoever.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Is getting the message so they don't just follow the crowd and just do the same story that the other guy did. I mean, that's really the problem. I mean, it's very unusual for me to get asked these kinds of questions that you're asking because a lot of the people who do, who create the news or who follow the news, I just don't go, don't do their homework. I've done many, many, not much, dozens, hundreds of interviews. Oftentimes, the people are just not prepared and they just don't do the homework, you know? When I was at Columbia, one of the things that they really enforced on us was they made us get ready for interviews. If you weren't ready for interviews and you brought your story back and it wasn't good, they just sent you out and made you do it again. Of course, you didn't like it, but you did it.

• 44:40Speaker 03

  You know, nowadays, I, you know, I'm interviewed by dozens, dozens of journalists who oftentimes just don't even do the homework. I understand. Look, you know, I'm trying to read the book. It's okay, I understand. But you can tell that a lot of them aren't doing the homework out in the real world, you know? And that, you know, with this, with the 15 minute bit where someone takes a bit, a piece of shit, excuse my language, and just blows it up into nothingness that's passed around the world. There's 200 million kids in the world go to bed hungry every night. There's millions that go to bed hungry every night in this country. And we're arguing about some Twitter feed or something? I don't want to hear that. You know? Look, if you're gonna be a reporter, do the job.

• 45:22Speaker 03

  If you're gonna wear, you know, wear the mantle of First Amendment and the 14th Amendment that so, that so many people died for, when you suit up, you better suit up all the way. Pull your socks on and put your sword on and go out there, you know, do the job. Don't do a halfway job. Doesn't help. The answer begins right at home with all of us. You know, what do we do? Who we pay attention to? What do we read? What do we support? Have we voted? Those kinds of questions.

• 45:52Speaker 03

  A lot of us are, you know, are moving in that direction. I'm very, I'm delighted about that. And that's really, doesn't have anything to do with what my generation has done. That's really coming from young people, you know? Because these kids, these young people, they don't have to do this. And they're doing it. And look, there's a lot of raggedness to it. But it doesn't matter, man, that the ship, that someone has got the wheel of the thing, and they are spinning the wheel and the ship is turning. There's nothing, you can't stop this kind of thing. It's kind of like the Vietnam War, you know, that little tiny island that just, you really just couldn't be taken over. I mean, you can't stop it when people, the spirit of people is greater than anything.

• 46:34Speaker 03

  It's greater than evil and it, and it doesn't need a lot of fuel to run. Evil and hatred is like a diesel engine that just gulps fuel. You have to just constantly pour it, you know? You gotta keep that fire going. But when something is propelled by love and decency and honor and justice, true justice, it doesn't, you know, it could, the, the car can run on popcorn and it'll run for a long, long time. So we're witnessing something special, even though this is an extremely difficult time.

• 47:05Jonathan Fields?

  There. This feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of the, name of the podcast is A Good Life Project. So if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, curious what comes out for you?

• 47:21Speaker 03

  Oh, that's easy. Just love somebody. Put it in your work, you know? Let everybody, it's, it's real quick. It's real simple. Everything that we do is connected. Everything that you and I do connects to what someone else does. And that's how the world works. So if you just love your neighbor, you're making the world a better place in a real way.

• 47:50Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. Thank you.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:53Jonathan Fields?

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 47:59Jonathan Fields?

  Girllife Project is sponsored by Vinted. So here's a question that I have been sitting with. How many things in your closet were bought for, let's say, a version of you who never quite showed up? Maybe it's the tailored jacket for the dinners you were gonna go to, or someday pieces with the tag still on them. They're lovely clothes. They're just not yours anymore. That's where Vinted comes in. So Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where everyday people sell the clothes that they're not wearing to people who actually will. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. You take a few photos, write a short description, and you're done. Once something sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. There are also no seller fees on Vinted, so whatever your piece sells for, you keep.

• 48:41Jonathan Fields?

  What I love about that is how it turns letting go into something that actually feels good. You get more room, a little extra money, and maybe a closet that reflects who you are right now. So see what's hiding in your closet. You might be surprised how much you can earn with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees, so you keep everything you earn. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall, that cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear.

• 49:25Jonathan Fields?

  When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2% daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts, and more. Get a head start on your end of year purchases. Apply for your Apple Card in the Wallet app on your iPhone today and start using it right away with Apple Pay. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card is issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at applecard.com.

• 49:52Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by Bombas. So my wife Stephanie has been one of the great gift givers in our family. And her secret is that the best gifts often aren't the flashy ones. So the ones that people reach for on any given day without even thinking about it. That's why so much of my list ends up at Bombas. Fuzzy Sunday slippers for the friend who lives in sweatpants from November to March. Merino wool and cashmere blend socks for anyone who runs cold. That would be me, by the way. Ski and running socks for the ones who refuse to slow down. Also me, by the way. And water resistant suede booties. So cushy. My executive producer Lindsay actually more or less lives in hers. And here's what else makes it a good life kind of gift. For every item you purchase, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing

• 50:37Jonathan Fields?

  housing insecurity. One purchased, one donated. Over 200 million donations and counting. So every gift you give is really two. So head over to bombas.com/goodlife and use the code GOODLIFE for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash good life. Code GOODLIFE at checkout. I always love learning from James. So our next guest is Kate DiCamillo, two time Newberry Medal winning author, whose unforgettable characters and stories illuminate the path to connection even amidst life's hardships, which she doesn't shy away from writing about or speaking about. In that drawing from her own journey of overcoming childhood illness and her father's absence,

• 51:17Jonathan Fields?

  she weaves tales that just insist that we confront the darkness, but always, always give us hope that we can endure and flourish. As you'll hear, Kate's novels from Because of Windexy to The Tale of Despereaux, they create portals into a young person's world, one filled with both heartbreaking loss and transcendent joy. And her work really reminds us that by feeling into the universal longing every child knows, we begin to see ourselves and each other more fully. It's an intimacy that allows Kate's fiction to become this luminous field guide for how we truly live as she captures the beauty and vulnerability of the human experience. Here's Kate.

• 52:00Jonathan Fields?

  I've heard you say in the past some variation of tell the truth, but always, always give them hope when you're writing for kids especially. Always tell the truth, but always give them hope, which makes me curious. So always tell the truth, like things aren't always going to go your way. There are hard things you have to deal with. Be honest, kids can handle that. Give them hope. It's interesting because you're not saying then. Give them hope that everything's gonna work out okay.

• 52:23Speaker 04

  No, give them hope that they will be able to find connection, joy,

• 52:34Speaker 04

  sorrow, that it's okay, those things, you know, it's, you know, this is if you've poked around and me and my storytelling is there's also a pushback to the, some of my stories being dark. And to me, it always, and I'll, I'll answer that question up on a stage too. Why are they so sad? Why are they so dark? Why do you let these bad things happen? And to me, I always think, well, good grief, do you think that your child is not living in this world? And, and you know, because almost always the darkness and the sadness comes, those questions are from the adults, not from the kids.

• 53:14Speaker 04

  The kids know and, and adults can't bear to think about kids suffering, but they're right here with us. The, and, and then the world is beautiful and it's terrifying. And kids need and deserve stories that tell them that truth. It's beautiful. It's terrifying. You will find a way to walk through all this beauty and terror.

• 53:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, the hope is less it's going to be okay, but it's, you're going to be okay.

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a, that's a beautiful, beautiful point. Yes. You're, you're gonna be okay.

• 53:54Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I know you, um, you wrote a piece in Time, what was it, 2018? My children's books should be a little bit sad, which really, you know, touches on this. You tell a story in that about, I guess, a kid who came up to you after you spoke and shared your own story of your childhood and, and how things were, would be okay.

• 54:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's funny because I, you know, uh, back in the old days when we, when we all traveled and I would go into.

• 54:23Jonathan Fields?

  Before times.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  And then again, in the before times, um, I would go into schools and, um, and talk to kids and, um, you know, do a presentation. They always want you to have a PowerPoint, so. Okay, here's my PowerPoint. And it goes back to this thing about, why am I standing up here talking to you? Okay, well, I'm gonna have to tell you the truth. This is part of how I became a writer. And part of it is that my father left the family when I was young. I mean, I think that's part of why I write. I also think part of why I write is because I was sick all the time as a kid. And I spent so much time alone and in my head and in stories. And I think that's part of why I write. So I tell all this to the kids.

• 55:09Speaker 04

  I tell them that my father left. I tell them that I was sick all the time. And whether there's a kid that comes up to me afterwards and wants to talk about that, or sometimes something electric will happen among the kids, where they will make the connection as I'm talking. All these bad things happened. And yet, those bad things gave you the gift of this writing. And it's like, exactly. And the room, it doesn't always happen. But when they make that connection collectively, then it's just like, oh. And then they can see that. It's funny, because it takes me all the way back to a totally different thing,

• 55:53Speaker 04

  which is outlining your story, right? Because I'm just thinking how we want to present things to kids as linear, this and that. And because that's the way we want the world to work. And that's the way you give, you rest some meaning out of the chaos, right? But I was in this big auditorium in Connecticut. And I was talking about how I don't write with an outline. And I just, I just can't. And a little boy raised his hand and said, what if you were in a class with a teacher who said that you can't write a story unless you outline it? You have to turn the outline in first.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  And I said, is your teacher in the auditorium now?

• 56:44Speaker 04

  And he said, yeah, that's her right there. It's like, okay, so then I turned to her and I said, if I was the child sitting in your classroom and you wanted me to write a story, but I could not write it for you unless I outlined it first, I wouldn't be able to do it. And there's all kinds of different ways to write and everybody does it differently. And it is kind of that thing of we have to give you rules, but we have to let you open to possibility. And we have to be encouraging you to constantly, you know, look if you like, but you're gonna have to leap, right? And so that's what a story gives you.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  That's what experience where you're not gonna be able to make yourself safe because you're sick or because a parent is missing and you don't understand why. But these things, these, what seems pathless actually can become a path. Because it's like we all, we, we as adults long for the rules to hold, right? It's just like, um, when, when, when somebody, and you know this too, when somebody raises their hand and says, how do I write a book? How do I do it? We all want somebody to tell us, this is the way. And we just want, I want to be told that. But I know for a fact that I'm gonna have to wander through the, you know,

• 58:11Speaker 04

  that down the long, dark hallway um, for a long time. And the only thing I can do is keep on walking down the hallway. I don't, you know, each book is different. Every writing experience is different. And um, we don't know what the rules are.

• 58:26Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I, I feel like we get caught up in easy over good. You know?

• 58:31Speaker 04

  My goodness.

• 58:33Jonathan Fields?

  That is so true.

• 58:35Speaker 04

  Ultimately, it is just, and I'll say this sometimes, um, after I'm finished talking, it's just like there's only one wrong way to do this. And that is if you want to do it. And you're not doing it. And that message comes, you know, courtesy of almost 10 years that I spent as a callow youth from, you know, 20 to almost 30, saying, I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer. And not writing. Like, that's a terrible way to spend your life, wanting to do something and not doing it. That's wrong. Everything else, once you sit down,

• 59:17Speaker 04

  it's, it's all you trying to figure it out for yourself. You, you read as much as you can. Somebody can show you how to strip something away, make it cleaner. But most, the journey itself is you. And a teacher is to go along on that journey with you. I always think, like with an editor, and this is what, you know, Anne will read my, Anne Patchett is a fantastic reader and also will always tell you the truth, right? And so you're, and when you're writing, you feel like you're down there in the trenches. And somebody who's a good reader or a good teacher or a good editor can come and they're flying above. And they can see, they can see the pattern in the thing that you're doing.

• 1:00:01Speaker 04

  And, and you might not be able to see it yet. And so that's enormously helpful, but mostly it's just you down there digging and, and hoping that what emerges is a pattern.

• 1:00:14Jonathan Fields?

  Let's talk about those 10 years a bit, though.

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, a lot.

• 1:00:18Jonathan Fields?

  I'm curious. So, I mean, you're, we jumped through like right into the deep end, which is, which is always fun.

• 1:00:26Jonathan Fields?

  Born in Philly, raised in a small town in central Florida, right? A little bit west of Orlando, I guess.

• 1:00:32Speaker 04

  Correct. Yeah.

• 1:00:34Jonathan Fields?

  End up studying English, I guess, and then coming out. And then you have this sort of quote fallow period. I think I've heard you call it the lost years.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  The dark ages.

• 1:00:43Jonathan Fields?

  Where you're working all, all sorts of different jobs, you know, like Disney and Greenhouse and all these, these different things. And, and while you describe it as 10 years of not writing, I question that. Because I, I guess I question the distinction between, when I think about writing. I think a lot of us would consider writing what happens when your fingers finally hit the keyboard. And at least for me, most of the writing happens before my fingers hit the keyboard.

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:01:13Jonathan Fields?

  It's the accumulation of thought, reflection, contemplation, and then years of not quote writing that are actually like to me, this because I could you couldn't you couldn't actually what comes out of those fingers when it hits the keyboard couldn't come out. But for the fact that you spent 10 years doing all these different things. So is it really 10 years not writing?

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  It's a beautiful point. And, and, you know, in all the interviews that I've done, no one has ever come at it from that direction. The closest that we've gotten is somebody saying, usually they come from this side. Aren't you sorry that you wasted all that time? And my answer, which is gonna lead into your not writing, how you phrased it is no, I don't regret it at all. I don't regret it. I mean, I look back and I'm chagrined.

• 1:02:12Speaker 04

  I can see my youthful self and my black turbo neck posturing, right? But I was all those jobs that I was doing, which were things that brought me very, they taught me about the world, about other people. That was one thing. So we can put that in the not writing, but writing category. But the other thing, and it has shaped me going forward. And also, I'm very different than like Anne Patchett in this respect. And we've talked about this, where like you, she will write and write and write in her head and not write. But

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  for me, that long period of wanting to do something and not, not doing it, kind of like hardwired this thing into my brain of show up.

• 1:03:09Speaker 04

  Every day and then you can shut up that part of you that is beating yourself up for not doing this. And so I just got into, that's how I got into the saddle was I'm gonna just, I'm gonna sit down and do these two pages every day and then I can shut up about this, then I'm doing it, right? And so that kind of like wore a groove in my brain of, okay, this is how to get this done is to show up every day. Some days are terrible, some days are wonderful. I find that showing up makes me realize what it is that I want to write

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  about. And also, I just, it's so much easier to do it than it is not to do it. And I have that in the PowerPoint to the kids. And I don't know that the kids are old enough to get that, how hard it is to pretend to do something and how much easier it is to just go ahead and do it. It's much easier to do the work than it is not to do the work. And I say that to them and I get a uniformly blank look until I get to older kids, you know, seventeen, eighteen. Younger kids, they don't get that it's easier to do the

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  work than it is not to do the work. And that's what's so nice about being able to go out and talk to kids and talk to people and like, look, here I am, a messy human being. Do not for one minute think that the book is something perfect and the person who wrote it is somebody, I'm just a messy human being trying to tell a story. And I've had kids come up to me afterwards and say, but if you could do this, because you were sick all the time and you're, you know, you're basically, you're just, and you're so, I'm short, that helps, right? You're so short and you can do this. It's like, yep, if you want to do this, you can do it too. And I've said to adults sometimes that I've been

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  in so many writing groups and I would sit there and people to the left and the right of me is very clear.

• 1:05:22Speaker 04

  They were much more talented than I was. And I just remember having the conscious thought, I cannot make myself talented, but I can make myself show up and do the work. And I can make myself relentless about putting the work out into the world. That is what's available to me. And that is what I hung my hat on. And it's something that, whatever it is that you want, if you're willing to put your heart and soul into it, it opens doors for you. It's not always success. I feel like, yeah, boy, I've been super lucky to have success. It's what every story has given to me as I've written it.

• 1:06:02Speaker 04

  And then how it, it, it gives me that connection when it goes out with the readers in the world. That thing, I was never prepared for that. And that has been the hugest gift of all, to connect with people that way.

• 1:06:14Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, there's this energy that I get through so much of your writing through a long window of time. I'm going to say it, Ron, but are you familiar with the Portuguese word, saudade?

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  No, spell it for me.

• 1:06:26Jonathan Fields?

  I, I think it's S A U D A D E, something like that. It's, it's apparently really hard to translate to English, but really roughly translated, it's this, um, it's a sense of longing, but it's a sense of, instead of, it's, it's the, the pain of longing, but it's the, it's the beautiful pain of longing. You know, it's, it's this sense of, you know, like, it's something you almost yearn for. It's something that you can feel about something that you know you're going to lose, but haven't yet lost. Like, um, you know, maybe as a child goes out into the world and you feel in the senior year. Um, I feel that sense in, in your writing.

• 1:07:10Jonathan Fields?

  I, I wonder if you feel that within it too, or if you feel it coming out of you?

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  Um. I'm thinking about how I think you've put your finger right on. There's a, it's, I'm, I'm working on my emotions. Isaac Dennison, who is, was a Danish storyteller. Um, there's a quote that um, I come back to again and again of hers, which was the essence of his nature. She's writing about a poet. The essence of his nature was longing. And that is, uh, that has been underlined by me since I was, it was like 25 years ago. And I come back to it again and again and again. So yes.

• 1:07:58Speaker 04

  I think you're exactly right. At the same time, I think it becomes one of those things on my shoulder that I cannot think about. I cannot be too aware of what it is that is guiding me. And the, the, the essence of who I am is longing.

• 1:08:17Speaker 04

  Homesickness. And the stories

• 1:08:23Speaker 04

  are a way to connect and to ease that homesickness. And to ease that longing. And that's been the beautiful thing is that that has been the great good fortune of my life is to have people connect with me through those stories. It has been truly, truly profound. So yeah, I think you're, I think you're one smart individual. That's what I think. And one very good reader. I feel seen. I feel unmasked. And I feel also because I feel seen, empowered. So thank you.

• 1:09:05Jonathan Fields?

  Feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well.

• 1:09:09Speaker 04

  Thanks for making me cry. Yeah.

• 1:09:14Jonathan Fields?

  As we sit here in this, uh, in this virtual container of a good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  To live a good life is to see and be seen. What is it for you?

• 1:09:33Jonathan Fields?

  It's to love and be loved, first and foremost.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  And I think to be, not to argue with you, but I think to be loved is to be seen.

• 1:09:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I think, I think we have the same definition of a good life.

• 1:09:48Jonathan Fields?

  Uh, I feel so, just so moved, um, listening to all these deep shares from these authors. And that brings us to our final guest, the brilliant Anne Pachet, the renowned novelist, essayist, and now indie bookstore owner, whose unwavering commitment to storytelling has been a north star since her childhood. Few writers radiate the level of certainty and wholehearted pursuit of their creative craft that Anne embodies. From literally declaring her dream to become an author at just five years old, to developing her now famous process of channeling entire novels in her mind before putting pen to paper. Anne's path has been one of integrating her intrinsic gifts more fully into the world.

• 1:10:28Jonathan Fields?

  As you'll hear, her journey really illustrates what can happen when we honor those core callings, no matter how unconventional. Her work from the award-winning Bel Convo to her latest bestseller, which I absolutely love, Tom Blake, sparks depths of feeling and connection that many of us spend lifetimes seeking to uncover. Ultimately, Anne's approach to work and creativity in life is a profound reminder to never stray too far from the yearnings of your soul. Here's Anne. This seems like reading was a huge part of, of you as a kid. Was, was writing also?

• 1:11:02Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, and I've puzzled about this a lot in my life. Why is it that when I met somebody when I was five years old and they said, what are you going to do when you grow up? And I would say, I'm going to be a writer. I mean, it was just baseline. And that is the most interesting thing about me, and perhaps the only interesting thing about me, is that I've always known exactly what I wanted to do. I never wavered from it and I got to do it. And that puts me... In such a tiny, tiny sliver of humanity. I knew it. I always knew it. I did it.

• 1:11:47Speaker 05

  And I didn't want anything else. You know, I never thought, and I'd like to live in Paris for a year. I'd like to travel the world. I'd like to have money, get married, have children. Nothing, nothing. I just wanted to be a writer.

• 1:12:03Jonathan Fields?

  So what, I mean, you can't answer this question, but it is. What is it? What was it inside of you at five years old that just knew? I mean, it couldn't have been a clear understanding of what the life of a writer was because you're five, and yet it was so clear to you.

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  I have a theory. And my, and my theory is I didn't know how to read. And my parents got divorced, probably I was four. My mother and sister and I left Los Angeles and moved to Tennessee the week before I turned six. I had already started first grade at five in Los Angeles. I didn't finish school. We just moved constantly. We stayed with a lot of people. It was, you know, 1969, nobody went to school. I really didn't learn how to read until I was in the third grade. And so I think that somehow in my mind, I conflated the desire to learn how to read,

• 1:13:06Speaker 05

  to learn how physically to write, to not always be passing and sneaking and, you know, squeaking by in one way or another, that I started to say, I want to write, I want to write, I want to write. And I became very clever. So even though I really couldn't read or write, I could tell a story. I could be amusing. I could seem smart. And I had it in my mind that that was the thing that was going to really save me. And it stuck by me, therefore I stuck by it.

• 1:13:40Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, it's interesting that you could tell a story. Were you sort of walking around formulating stories in your head?

• 1:13:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Jonathan Fields?

  So which follows you then till later? Because you're, the creative process that you have described, which is so different from what a lot of other writers describe, is this idea of. Basically, building the entire world and the characters and the story in your head for as long as humanly possible, it has to burst out onto a page. It sounds like that seed was planted really early.

• 1:14:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's interesting. I actually, I've never made that correlation. But that is true because I really couldn't write. I worked in my head and then got to a point where I could get down whatever I could get down. And that became my way of working. And then later, you know, when I was in my twenties and I was a waitress, and I just got into the habit of always having a story in my head, something that I was thinking about all the time, as a way of keeping myself company, as a way of feeling that I, that my life mattered, that it had, that it had depth.

• 1:14:52Speaker 05

  So I was a waitress, but I was also a waitress who was writing a novel in my head while I was rolling silverware.

• 1:15:00Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, the, it's almost like that was, you're getting paid for the process of incubating the story. That eventually, that's the story that eventually becomes The Pink and Saint of Liars, right?

• 1:15:12Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 1:15:13Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, it's such an interesting process. Because it also, you have to have a huge capacity to hold things and people and ideas and worlds and storylines and plots in your head to do that. I wonder if it's sort of the type of thing where it's a trainable skill to be able to do that.

• 1:15:33Speaker 05

  You know, one thing that I think about all the time is, I'm constantly surprised that there's something that I can do that other people can't do. So I think, well, you could hold a book in your head. I mean, in my mind, if we meet, if you and I meet, and we like each other, and, you know, I call you up a week later and say, let's have lunch. And then, you know, later on, we go to the movies, whatever. We begin a friendship, and I, at some point, ask you about your childhood. And I ask you if you have siblings, and I ask you about your parents. And then I forget, did you have a sister? Did you tell me that already, you know? Were you married before? Do you have kids? Do you, what are their names? How old are they?

• 1:16:17Speaker 05

  I'm going to forget, and then I'm going to ask you again, and then I'm going to remember. That's That's how we exist as humans. We don't go home and take notes on the people that we meet, the people that we want to befriend or join our lives with in some way. We forget, we remember, we forget, we remember, we ask again, we look again. And that's exactly what writing a novel is like. I go and I look again. And when people say, why don't you write it down? And I always think, well, as soon as I write something down, I've committed it. And then it feels important. Whereas if I don't write it down, I forget and it falls away.

• 1:17:00Speaker 05

  If it falls away, then I need to go and look again. There's, I'm working on a couple of different things right now because this is such a weird time. And I'm writing children's books right now because I just can't imagine writing about the adult world. It would be like writing a book the week after September 11th. You know, you don't know where the ground is right now. But I have an idea for a novel that I had before the world changed. And I think about it sometimes. And I think I don't want to, I don't want to write a grown up novel about the pandemic. This time will pass. You won't think it will, but it will, just like September 11th

• 1:17:45Speaker 05

  doesn't play a central role in every novel that's been written since. But there are moments that I have insight because the world is informing me now and my mind is changing. And I'm glad that I didn't take any notes on this book because it means that my mind can change and everything is open.

• 1:18:06Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. When you think about sort of focusing your energies, I mean, one of the things that's taken up a lot of space for you since 2011, I guess, was you're out there writing books, public, been going back. And at some point, long time in Nashville, two bookstores left. Those two bookstores, and I guess they weren't really even bookstores. Well, they were bookstores, but they were, but they were, they were mega bookstores. There was Borders and then there was one that was bought 12, 15 years earlier by a larger brand. But eventually those go away. You're the happiest person in the world in solitude and being out there when you have to be and just writing, like you are a writer's writer.

• 1:18:46Jonathan Fields?

  Somehow you decide that that is the moment in time for you to become the owner of an independent bookstore. How does that come together?

• 1:18:55Speaker 05

  You know, it's civic and this sort of brings it back to my father, actually. I did not ever want to own a bookstore, which I think a lot of people do. That's like the fan-

• 1:19:07Jonathan Fields?

  Like a rice drop.

• 1:19:08Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah, for a lot of people. But I was never that person. And in fact, I feel uncomfortable in bookstores because, you know, my mind associates bookstores with being on book tour and with feeling kind of haunted and overwhelmed. But the bookstores went away. There were all sorts of people forming committees about what they were going to do to, you know, get a bookstore. Nothing was happening. And I just thought, oh, damn, damn, it's going to be me, isn't it? I went to Catholic school for 12 years and there's this whole thing of if you can formulate the sentence, whose responsibility is it to fix the public school system or clean up this trash or make the world a better place?

• 1:19:53Speaker 05

  You know, the answer is always it is your responsibility. So whose responsibility is it to open a bookstore and get this problem solved? Ah, alas, it must be mine. And I was introduced to a woman named Karen Hayes and we met the last day of April and we opened the bookstore on November 15th. And the idea was that Karen would run the store and I would pay for it and we would be partners. And I have wound up, as Karen, as Karen often says, you know, you're the loudest silent partner.

• 1:20:31Speaker 05

  That anyone's ever had, but I've become sort of not just the face of Parnassus Books, but of independent bookstores and shopping local. And I became the representative for the book industry charitable foundation. I just, it became my thing. And it's wonderful. It's a little exhausting sometimes, but what I, there's so many things about it. I wouldn't, I wouldn't change anything. I have really, really loved it. I've found enormous joy in it. And the best part is when people come up to me now in the grocery store, they're not coming up to talk to me about one of my books. They're coming to talk to me about

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  what they're reading and about the bookstore and about, you know, some staff member who was fantastically helpful and who gave them exactly the book they wanted, or they heard me recommending a book and they loved it and they're grateful. And I can really interact with people on that level. That brings me joy. Somebody walks up to me in the grocery store and says, I love the Dutch house. I'm like, okay, I thought, wow, thanks. Gotta, I gotta go get an orange now. But if somebody walks up to me and says, oh my gosh, I read your recommendation of Valentine by Elizabeth Whitmore. And the first novel, I wouldn't

• 1:21:58Speaker 05

  have picked it up. Boy, that book changed my life. That was so amazing. Thank you so much. I love that book, you know, and then I can enter into that moment and that relationship. So it gives me a public face that feels natural and not like I'm hiding. It is, it is me without scaffolding or protection. If I'm talking about the bookstore and books and other writers. When I went on book tour this last time, I, my entire talk was about books that I love and, and writers who I had met along the way who helped me figure things out about the Dutch house and books that I want to sell, that I want to get behind.

• 1:22:42Speaker 05

  And I thought, this is, this is a real revelation because if I can go out in public and talk about other people's books, instead of talking about my book, I feel really comfortable.

• 1:22:52Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. I mean, how much, it's interesting too, because you know, To a certain extent, part of that, I also feel is it's your passion, it's your love, it's your deep knowledge of what's out there. And also, part of it is that you're, I have to imagine, like, you have reached a point in your own career where you don't necessarily have to go out there. And every time you step into a bookstore, every time you step onto a stage, like, the line in your mind doesn't have to be, "I need to sell my book."

• 1:23:28Speaker 05

  Yes, but it's also complicated because one of the things that's really changed since I have the bookstore, and my friends who are my peers are always saying to me, "You're making us look bad. Stay home. Stop doing a 35-city book tour. You don't need to do this at this point in your life." And that's true. I don't, except now I know that what keeps a bookstore going is somebody who can sell a motherload of books showing up and doing that for the night. You know, we had a truly disastrous Instagram Live event with John Grisham a couple of

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  days ago. You know, it's like, nobody can get the technology straight, and it was a complete bust, and it was nobody's fault because the internet just kept cutting out. But you know, here's John Grisham, and he's saying, "I want to do something to support independent bookstores. So I'm going to go around to these independent bookstores and do this Instagram Live thing." He didn't have to do that. He understands that that's what's keeping us in business. That's what helps us make our payroll and pay our health insurance and all of that. So at this point in my life where, yeah, technically, to sell a Patchett novel, I don't have to show up and do these big events every night.

• 1:24:53Speaker 05

  But I also now really know that that's what keeps bookstores going.

• 1:24:59Jonathan Fields?

  There's something bigger that's behind what you're doing.

• 1:25:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, and the people, the really big people who come out and do these huge events. Glennon Doyle, yeah, she, her last event that she did before she canceled her tour for Untamed, which is still sitting in the number one spot on the bestseller list. She came to Nashville. It was 1,600 people. It was bundled, so all those books were pre-sold. And she showed up. It was like the last night on earth that anybody did an event. That was so huge for us, huge. I am so grateful to her for doing that. And, and not only that, you know, that's one end of the scale.

• 1:25:45Speaker 05

  But then the other end of the scale is, you know, the person who's got the first book out and maybe 10 people or 15 people show up for the event. But that's, you get heard. And those people connect to the writer and they read the book and they recommend the book to their friends. And that's how you build a career. And that's the other reason the bookstore has to be there.

• 1:26:08Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, it's a powerful, it's not the backup reason at this point. It's sort of the primary driver of doing this. And I think a lot of people, you know, it's funny, when probably around the time that you opened Parnassus, you know, the world was saying, not only is a bookstore a hard thing to run, but bookstores aren't going to, indie bookstores, they're just not going to exist. Give it a year or two and it's not just this, but you know, the beast is going to be gone.

• 1:26:36Speaker 05

  Right. Books are going to be gone. Yeah, we're all going to get an e-reader and that's going to be that. But if you want something to be there when this is over, you have to support it now. And that's a lot of the reason that, again, even now, I'm going out and I'm banging that drum and writing op-eds and, you know, to anyone who will listen. If you love your bookstore, call them up and order a book, order a puzzle, order whatever it is, because you need to keep them alive.

• 1:27:06Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I wonder how that's going to translate out even into just local mom and pop businesses that have really been a part of the community. And whether people in the community will step up and say, you know, maybe I'm even paying more and maybe there's no convenience in getting it faster or better, but this just matters. I don't want this to go away and I will, I will do whatever I need to do.

• 1:27:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Jonathan Fields?

  To make sure that it actually stays, which actually feels like a nice place for us to come full circle as we spent a nice bit of time together already today. And we're sitting in this really interesting, weird time where I think you and you're experiencing it very differently than a lot of people also. In this container of the Good Life Project, which now extends from New York to Nashville. If I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

• 1:27:56Speaker 05

  This, right now, right this, right this moment with you. It actually makes me want to cry. I mean, it's, it's so, it's so true to live a good life is to have your eyes open and see who's in front of you and feel the enormous good fortune of this second. No matter what, we are alive and I'm grateful and grateful to you really for taking this time. It's been such a pleasure.

• 1:28:28Jonathan Fields?

  Thank you. What an incredibly rich tapestry of wisdom that we have woven together today from these legendary writers, from Sue's journey reclaiming her authentic voice to James's insights on protecting the creative spark to Kate's meditations on the sacred longing that births great art and Anne's lifelong embodiment of her core calling. Each tale reveals the profound transformation that awaits when we wholeheartedly embrace the yearnings of our soul. And if you loved this episode, be sure to catch the full conversation with today's guests. You can find a link to each of those episodes in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields.

• 1:29:09Jonathan Fields?

  Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelley Dell for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting, or inspiring, or valuable, and chances are you did, since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor, and share it? Maybe on social, or by text, or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better, so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell

• 1:29:50Jonathan Fields?

  them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered, because when podcasts become conversations, and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

• 1:30:31Jonathan Fields?

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• 1:31:13Jonathan Fields?

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