Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S7 Ep20: Bookshelfie: Jodi Picoult

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Jodi Picoult is the number 1 New York Times bestselling author of 28 novels and short stories, and has also written several issues of Wonder Woman.  Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide and have been translated into 34 languages.  Her book My Sister’s Keeper was made into a motion picture starring Cameron Diaz. Jodi is the recipient of many awards, including the 2003 New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is a patron of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which is awarded to female fiction writers in the States.  Her new book By Any Other Name tells the story of two women, centuries apart, who are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard. Jodi’s book choices are: ** Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell ** Out of Africa by Karen Blixen ** Beloved by Toni Morrison ** The World That We Knew by Alice Hoffman ** The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season seven of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of season seven? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

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Oh, audio. Okay. No, I do not take the book into the water. Because it's an amazing image that you just painted. Yeah, no, no. I just love the idea of you doing your legs. Yeah, here I am with one arm doing the crawl. the other one turning the page.

With thanks to Bayleys, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope, and I am your host for Season 7 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2024 reading list. Today I am joined by American author Jodi Pico.

Jodi is the number one New York Times bestselling author of 28 novels and short stories and has also written several issues of Wonder Woman. Approximately 40 million copies of her books are in print worldwide and have been translated into 34 languages. Her book, My Sister's Keeper, made into a motion picture starring Cameron Diaz. Jody is the recipient of many awards, including the 2003 New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, a Lifetime Achievement Award for Mainstream Fiction from the Romance Writers of America, and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award.

She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is a patron of the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which is awarded to female fiction writers in the States. Her new book, by any other name, is out in October, and tells the story of two women centuries apart who are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard. I can't wait to hear more about it and about her favourite books by women. So Jody, welcome. It is so nice to have you here in London. And it's also quite serendipitous because we're in the same building that features in your new book.

We're in Somerset House. Yes. First of all, thank you for having me. It's great to be here. I am so excited to be in Somerset House. Like you said, the main character in By Any Other Name is Amelia Bassano, who is a real historical figure. And she lived here for 10 years. When she was 13 years old, she became the mistress to the Lord Chamberlain.

And this was his home. And he was 56. She was 13. And, you know, she stayed here for 10 years as the lady of the house, basically, until she got pregnant and was evicted and married off to a wasstrel of a cousin who blew through all her money. So how'd you been here before? Yeah. So I was here last summer working on a different project. And every morning I would wake up and I would walk to one of the locations that I wrote about.

And I did that because I really wanted to see what it was like to literally walk in Amelia's shoes. And the very first location I came to was Somers at house. And I just remember walking into that courtyard and thinking, oh my gosh, can you imagine being 13 years old and dropped off like a suitcase? you know, in a courtyard as someone else's problem and suddenly having to manage an entire household that large. And to do it, you know, not in a legal setting as a wife because she never would have been his wife because she's not a normal woman. But that overwhelming sense of not feeling fit for the job and not feeling like you fit into this world. And I think those were things that chased Amelia her whole life. To get into that mindset, I love this idea that

You were walking to these locations, walking in the shoes of your characters. When it comes to books and reading, do you immerse yourself in those worlds? Is reading part of your research? Reading is definitely part of my research. I hardly ever read nonfiction until I'm researching a book. Okay. And then I read a lot of nonfiction. But if I'm writing a book about Elizabeth in England, I'm not going to read a book about Elizabeth in England.

And I think I do it because, you know, you're always scared. What if something subconsciously that I read makes it into my word? but also I prefer to really keep my work reading and my life reading separate. It's nice to escape, you know, when I'm working in somebody else's story and someone else's world. So when you're not working and you want an escape, where do you go? What books do you immerse yourself in there? I read, I read like literally everything. I will read literary fiction. I'll read commercial fiction. I'll read fantasy. I will read romance. I'll read whatever I need at the time. And you do need different things at different times, right? Like there are sometimes when I'm writing something really dark and heavy when I need something light and funny.

And there are other times when I swim, for example, I have to listen to fantasy because it has such a driving plot that I don't notice how many laps I'm doing, which is great. So hang on, you're reading while you're swimming. Yeah. Audio. Okay. No, I do not take the book into the water. Because it's an amazing image that you just painted. Yeah. No, no, no.

It's so second nature to me. I didn't even think of that. I just love the idea of you doing your length. Yeah, here I am with one arm doing the crawl, the other one turning the page. It's beautiful, Jody. Yeah, it's great. Well, let's talk about the books that are that escape, all that grounding depending on what you need. Your first book, Shelby book, is Gone with the Wind.

Yes. By Margaret Mitchell, set against the dramatic backdrop of the American Civil War. Margaret Mitchell's magnificent historical epic is an unforgettable tale of love and loss of a nation mortally divided and a people forever changed. Above all, it is the story of beautiful, ruthless Scarlett O'Hara and the dashing soldier of Fortune Ret Butler. Now, you read this book when you were 13. Yeah.

What kind of a reader were you then? I was a very voracious reader. I started reading when I was three. My mom used to go to the library twice a week and I would. go with her and we'd both come home with a big stack of books. And by the time I was 13, I was reading things like that. And the reason that book means so much to me is because I very viscerally remember reading it and falling into this world that Margaret Mitchell had created out of words. And I remember thinking, I could do that. Maybe I could create a whole world out of words.

And it was like really the first time in my life that I gave myself permission to think I could be a writer. You know, I didn't act on it for a while. But still that that sense that this was a potential career path for me and something I was interested in. It was it's such a concrete moment for me. I remember where I was. I remember, you know, what the weather was like. I remember all of that very, very well. And the other thing about Gone with the Wind that I find so fascinating is that rereading it as I grew, my eyes. impressions of that book changed a lot because, you know, there are lots of problematic things in government. And reading it, you know, through a lens of white privilege, but being aware of that later on in life and recognizing that there are whole sides of that story and voices that weren't used or told to me was really eye-opening and shocking. And that's kind of what I really love about books. Books don't change, right? Books are static once they're published. But you change every time you come back to a book. And I think that if you go and reread a book throughout your lifetime, it's a really good marker of how you have grown as a person and how you have changed because your reaction

to the same material is going to be different. It shows you how far you've come. Exactly. That's exactly it. And it sort of makes you realize, you know, what you were blind to earlier on, where your focus is now, what you've learned about yourself, how you evolve as a person. And of course you've evolved so drastically as a person in so far as this book catalyzed you wanting to become a writer and you are a writer. There's been a whole journey that you said you remember where you were. What was it exactly that made you think I could do this too? I think it was probably the first book that I read where I was aware of the fact that I knew nothing about the Civil War. I hadn't really studied it at the time. And I remember feeling like I was.

walking in a battlefield, you know, and it was, it was, I remember the scene. It's the one where basically all the soldiers are laid out and, and Scarlett's walking around between them, just looking at the devastation and the carnage and she's supposed to be helping out, like, as a pseudo-nurse. And I just, I just remember thinking it was so real to me. And for something that's two-dimensional, to become three-dimensional in your mind, that is such a slight of hand. And that's what writers do every day. We must talk about those flaws that, you know, you look back and you realize are there as you've grown, as your understanding of the world has evolved. Gone with the wind.

It's set in the American Civil War. It's a nation divided. And we can look around ourselves in America, here in the UK. And it feels like we're divided once again. There are so many things that we thought we'd achieved. And sometimes it feels like we've gone backwards, particularly it always springs to mind as, you know, women's autonomy. and women's reproductive rights. Freedom of speech is being curtailed.

Your new novel, by any in the name, is fascinating because it's about being a woman in a man's world. Yes. And you have really been outspoken about book banning in the States. When we look at all of these issues, we look at the world we live in and we look at our roles within that, why is it important for you as a writer to stand up against these things, even at the risk of professional or personal costs?

I think that if you are lucky enough to have a platform, if you are lucky enough to have people who are actually waiting for you to say something so that they can listen, you need to think very hard about what it is that you're going to say. And there are a lot of writers who just, you know, knows to the grindstone. This is my job. I'm writing books. I don't need to be on social media. I don't need to offer opinions about anything. I actually see it as quite a privilege to be able to use your voice in a way that can lift other people. For a very long time, I have been an advocate of the awareness of gender discrimination in publishing. And I've been very outspoken about it.

And when I entered the theater world and started writing there, I was shocked at how misogynistic that world was, too. And it just, you know, like you said, these things, they don't keep cropping up. They just never changed. They've always been like that. I think that with book banning, obviously my books are among many that have been targeted. The vast majority of books in the United States that are being banned, and we are talking about well over 5,000 titles that have been banned since 2020. Are titles that are of BIPAC authors or LGBTQ authors and women. Those are the groups that are disproportionately affected. I started speaking out because at the time when they started banning my books, it was.

was a lot of BIPAC and LGBTQ authors whose books have been pulled off the shelves in school libraries in America. And they were screaming into a void. And it is, again, a measure of how divided and inefficient society is right now that it took a straight white woman to open her mouth and have people listen. Yes. But how great that we got people to listen. And how great that I can say, hey, guess what? I am a tiny, tiny minority here in the the people, the kinds of authors, the kinds of stories that are being taken away from kids to read, wake up, open your eyes. So I do consider myself very lucky to be able to do that. It is absolutely a full-time job that I never asked for. Right now, America is in a very scary and difficult place,

but it's also worth remembering that 60% of the book bans in America are being caused by 11 humans in the United States. That is it. 11 people are the ones who are creating these tremendous lists and binders of titles that have to be taken out of schools. The reason to speak out is because this is not our first rodeo. We have seen what happens when you don't speak out about book bans. And I don't think we want to go down that path again. You know, that is the beginning of a very slippery slope. The fact that in America, we've now moved from school book bans to public library book bans. I read yesterday about a state where in one library, because of the laws that have passed in that state, no one under the age of 18 can now enter that public library without an

adult. And of course, when you take those kinds of stories off a shelf, you're not protecting any kids. What you're doing is robbing them of the tools that they can use to make sense of an increasingly difficult world. And I think it's important we look around the world at every corner of society, which moves us on to your second bookshelfy book, which is out of Africa by Karen Blixen. In 1914, Karen Blixen arrives in Kenya with her husband to run a coffee farm. Instantly drawn to the land, she spent her happiest years there until the plantation failed. Karen Blixen was forced to return to Denmark in 1931, and it was there that she wrote this

classic account of her experiences. Poignant farewell to her beloved farm. Out of Africa describes her strong friendships with the people in her area, her affection for the landscape and animals and great love for the adventurer Dennis Finch Hatton. So we're fast forwarding a little bit from Gone with the Wind. You read this in college at Princeton. Tell me why you've picked this book in particular because I know you've read a lot of Karen Blixen. Yeah. So at Princeton we had to write like a junior thesis basically. And I chose to write about her because I was fascinated by this woman. She wrote under the name Isak

Dindeson and she wrote these Gothic fairy tales. The best comp I can give. It's like Joyce Carol Oates writing, you know, really lush and thick and meaty and full of description. And when you read her gothic fairy tales and then you read her autobiographies, which are out of Africa and then shadows on the grass, it's like two completely different people wrote them. This is like my nerd pick because as an English major, what fascinated me the most is that when she wrote about her own life, she stripped away all. of that stuff, all that artifice, and many of her sentences are subject, verb, object, the simplest language in out of Africa. But what amazed me was that the more something touched her heart, the more important it was to her personally, the fewer words she used. And it's almost as if words could not hold the emotions that she had for these things and these people. And in

particular, Dennis Finchatton is a great example of that. He was the great love affair of her life. And later, after I wrote this paper, I believe there were books written with their letters going back and forth, and they sort of expose their whole love story. But if you read out of Africa, you only get the faintest hint that they had any kind of sexual relationship. And it's really because I think she didn't have the words to describe it. And that's ellipsis. And that's ellipsis. That's, you know, the technique of ellipsis. And as a writer, that is the most fascinating thing to me, that sometimes words do fail you, that sometimes you cannot describe the emotions that you have inside of you.

And that was my whole junior paper was about. I love it. It's ironic, isn't it, when there are so many feelings. Like, that's when you want a book about them, but words cannot contain them. Right. This is a podcast about books, but it's a podcast about feelings as well, our emotions. It's funny because many, many years later, about 10 years ago I started writing for theater. and I write musical theater.

I write the librettos. And, you know, people always talk about like, oh, it's really weird that characters break into song in the middle of a musical. Well, usually when they do it, that's the moment. Because you need a song. Only a song will do. Right, but music can transport you in a whole different plane than just plain words can. And so, again, it's really fun for me.

It's almost a continuation of that question of when you can't say the dialogue, what comes next? One of my books, I wish you were here, there is a massive twist in the middle of the book. and there is a moment where this character does not have word. She is physically incapable of words. And it's literally, I think it's five chapters with just like one word on it, like help. You know, it's just because there's nothing. There's nothing coming out of her at that moment. And that was so fun to create chapters where there's no words, right?

And how do you plan writing like that, a novel like that? Are you, you know, a very detailed planner? Do you know your ending when you have a twist like you just, describe, do you know that that's going to happen? Or do you just go where it takes you? I'm pretty well known for my twists. And I do plan. I'm a planner.

When I write a book, I very much will have an outline. Sometimes the outlines are incredibly long. The outline for this book, for by any other name, was probably about 10 single space pages, which is pretty short. But I had to break out two different storylines because you're following Amelia Basano, the historical figure. And then you're following her descent. Melina Green, who creates a play about her ancestor that she can't get produced in a male-dominated

theater world. And so I would write out all the scenes I needed to see for each chapter. That's how I would go about writing each chapter. And then I actually wrote the two timelines independent of each other. So I did the historical one, then I did the modern one. And then I tried to figure out how to blend them together. Sometimes my structures are so complicated, whether it's because a narrative is going backward in time or because I have two separate narrative voices, I really feel the need to organize it in my head and work off that outline.

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I'm Professor Susanna Lipscomb. Join me on a journey through time with a step into the past podcast. Brought to you by Family History website and sponsor of the Women's Prize for Nonfiction, Find My Past, each episode sees us walk in the footsteps of our forebears, exploring stories from historic places and bridging the gap between the past and the present. If you love delving into true stories from years gone by, this is the podcast for you. Listen now to step into the past

wherever you get your podcasts. Let's talk about your third book, shelphy book now, Jody, which is Beloved by Tony Morrison. Yeah. I'm so glad you've included it. It's the winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize and a finalist, as it should be. Amen, rightly so.

And a finalist for the 1987 National Book Award, Beloved is widely considered American novelist Tony Morrison's crowning achievement, dedicated to the 60 million and more Africans and their descendants who died as a result of the slave trade, the novel remains both a mesmerizing family story and a landmark depiction of the legacy of slavery, both in individuals and America's national psyche. You have described this book as magical, as brutal, as brave. And I know that you were in the room, is this right?

Yeah. When Tony read the work in progress. Yeah. So I had the great privilege of going to Princeton as an undergrad. And the reason I went there was because, you know, it was years ago. And back, back then in America, there weren't that many undergraduate creative writing programs. And, you know, let's go back to Gone with When I decided I was going to be a writer. So I wanted to study with living, breathing writers. And I did at Princeton. I had so many great professors that really molded me into the kind of writer that I am today. Well, Tony Morrison was hired to teach there the year. after I graduated. So she came in when I was a senior and she was writing this little book called Beloved. And so she did this reading. Oh my gosh. She did this reading for the students. And we're all sitting there. And I have never experienced anything like that again where, I mean, her voice, first of all, if you've ever heard her, if you had the privilege of talking to her face to face or if you've heard her do an interview, it's so magical and lilton. I mean, she,

she could read me the phone book, you know, and I'd be delighted. But she was weaving magic that day. And as she was reading from her work in progress, you could literally hear just a pin drop in the room. It was so still. And it was almost as if everyone knew that this was going to be something extraordinary. Can you remember then reading the book for the first time, having heard that work in progress? Yes. What were your feelings?

That's where I'm never going to write anything as good as this. I mean, it's such an iconic book, and it's such an important part of American history that hadn't really, I don't think it had been covered with the emotional brutality, you know, that it deserved until I saw in Red Beloved, to be honest. And it's not a bad thing to read a book and feel uncomfortable. Absolutely. And it's also, again, to me, the best art is the art that inspires you, right? The art that makes you then go, oh, I got to go home and I got to start writing. I want to tell the story. I need to change the world.

Right, exactly. And, you know, the beauty about beloved is it is about a singular experience for, you know, a group of Americans who never wished to be Americans, right, as they started out. And yet it's really about the love of a mother for her children. That is universal. So there's not anyone who comes to that book who can't find something to relate to in it. And that's what makes it, I think, such a seminal piece. That subject, that theme, what a mother is willing to do to spare her child.

It's something that you have explored in your books as well. Like you say, it's completely universal. Why is it something that you keep coming back to? Because I have kids, right? I mean, you know. The first time I was published, my son was born six months later. So my book was being written while I was pregnant. And then I either had like a book or a baby every year.

then I stopped having babies and just had books. And honestly, like, for me, when people say, oh, what are you most proud of? It's not one of my books. It's my three kids who are remarkable humans who are in their own ways changing the world. You know, and so that is definitely, for me, the most important thing that I will do in this lifetime is giving them the resources and I think the structure to become who they became. And because of that, it is something that I kept coming back to in my books because motherhood is hard and you know you're never you never feel like you're doing it right and the fact that you worry about it probably means you're doing everything right but that is something that I've continued to mine you know look a lot of books are just

therapy for writers that's probably what it was well my mom always says look I've never done this before I've not done this I'm learning and with every single one of you because crucially you're all different she's got four kids but it's been a different experience every time yeah there's There's no shortage of content. No, my daughter, I have two grandchildren now. My daughter had a baby five months ago. And she wrote me a mother's day card this year. And she was like, whoa, I really, I'm just getting now how much you've done.

She actually said, I learn now that being a parent is the hardest thing imaginable, but it's also the most gratifying thing. So I just wanted to say, whoa, and you're welcome. Whoa and you're welcome. From motherhood to gay rights and sing you home to racism in small great things, you cover a huge spectrum of difficult subjects. And Tony Morrison, she approaches, like you said, magical, brutal, brave subjects. It's difficult.

Is there a topic that you haven't covered yet that you feel tentative about? No. There are stories that are not mine to tell. That's an important distinction for writers to think about. I do not believe that there are any writing police. I don't think anyone is ever going to tell you you can't write this. And writers who complain about that and this kind of woke culture where we're not allowed to write what we want, it's BS. You're allowed to write anything you want. I just think that you have a sense of responsibility to figure out why you feel you need to write about this. Small Great Things is a really great example of that. It is a book about racism in America. You can't write about racism in America without including both a black and a white perspective, right? And I wrote that book knowing that I will never be a black woman, but also knowing that there are a lot of very nice, respectable white women in my sphere of acquaintance who do not consider themselves to be racist because they don't understand that the privileges you have when your skin is the same color as mine affords you opportunities in this world that other people do. do not have. And I wrote this book for them, because that's kind of the job of the ally. You talk to the people who are like you. To do it, however, I needed to create a character who was a black woman. Again, not my wheelhouse, not my lived perspective. And so the only way I could write that was

by doing extensive interviews with 10 women who had very, very different experiences as black women in America and braiding their stories together to create Ruth's voice in the book. That's the only way I could have and the only way I really should have written that book, right? And then they all vetted it and any changes they said, you got to make a change here? I absolutely would have. So that again comes down to, is it important enough for me as a white person to address racism and how we need to look at what white privilege is in America? Absolutely. Is there a way to do it sensitively and to understand that I also have to write from a perspective I don't have? And how do I combat that? That's kind of what I mean about like, you know, writing with intent. Yeah. Well, you You also can't write a book about racism without writing about racists. And so to get into that mindset, you know, there's also research that has to be done there. When you're writing characters you fundamentally disagree with, how do you get into that mindset? Well, so in small gray things, there are three narrators. That's the black woman Ruth.

And then there is Kennedy, who is the nice white lawyer who is a public defender who would never call herself a racist. And then there's Turk, who is a white nationalist who is absolutely a racist. And every time I wrote one of the people. his chapters, I literally had to go downstairs and shower. I felt so gross. It was very hard to get into his head. But that was the point of the book because anyone who picks up that book is like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I can tell which of these is the racist when, of course, Kennedy's entire journey through the book is to understand things that she didn't know about herself that she needs to, you know, and the privileges that she has in the world as a white woman.

I always say the best books change the way you look at the world and they change the way you look at yourself. Absolutely. Your fourth book, shelfy book, is The World That We New by Alice Hoffman. Yeah. In Berlin, at the time when the world changed, Hanni Cohn knows she must send her 12-year-old daughter away to save her from the Nazi regime. She finds her way to a renowned rabbi,

but it's his daughter, Eti, who offers hope of salvation, when she creates a mystical Jewish creature, a rare and unusual golem, who is sworn to protect Leah. Once Ava is brought to life, she, Leah and Eti become eternally entwined. Their paths fated across their fortunes linked. Now, you've said that this is the first book you read as a fan instead of a student. Alice's books were the first books I read as a fan. I had the hardest time picking this book.

I knew that I wanted to choose an Alice Hoffman book for that reason. You know, when I was a student, I was reading what I had to. And when I graduated, I was like, well, now I can read what I want to. And one of the first authors that I found who completely captivated me was Alice Hoffman. And I actually read first a book of hers called Turtle Moon, which is more of like a murder mystery kind of thing. But has Alice's trademark stamp, which is magical realism. Oh, man, that woman could write. You know, like I'd read it.

And I would just think she makes writing look easy and it's never easy. and I became obsessed, read everything that she'd ever written. And there are so many people who love practical magic, which is probably her best known book, people who have read The Dovekeepers, which is a historical novel about Masada, which is, again, an amazing feat. But there's something about this book that just really struck me. It's, again, historical, so it's very similar to what I was trying to do when I was writing by any other name. it's about a mother and a child and the lengths that we go to to protect our children. Again,

very similar and familiar theme for me. But that idea of a golem, of a monster, of creating a monster that's going to protect you and how monsters can be human and how men can be beasts to me is such a delicate needle to thread. And I don't know that anyone could do it better than Alice. I will tell you that one of the highest crowning glories of my writing career was that I got to meet her. I was a pretty young writer and I was asked to do an event that I knew she was going to be at. And I was like, yes, yes, I will crawl there on my hands and knees. Yes, I will go 7,000 miles for you. And so we wound up at the event together and it took all my courage. And I was like, hi, I'm your biggest fan. You know, totally fan-gurled out. And she was exactly what you want your idols to be. She was

funny and kind and gracious. And by the time I left there, we had exchanged phone numbers. We are now friends, I'm happy to say. And, you know, so I text her and email her all the time and she's amazing. But she is one of those writers that I've always looked up to because, again, she just makes something that is a very difficult job look incredibly easy. It's magic. It is magic. Yeah, she is a magician. She is. And she has a very different writing process than I do. She looks in very different ways at material differently than I do. There was a point where she told me she was going to write about Amelia Bassano. And I was like, but she's mine.

And I was really kind of upset. I'm like, but she knew I'd been working on the book. And she eventually was like, no, I decided not to because, you know, what you're going to do is completely different than what I'm going to do. And I know you're going to like do the deepest of dives. But she was interested in Amelia because like many women of the time, Amelia was branded as a the witch because she was selling herbal remedies, she was well aware of natural plants and what they could do for you. And, you know, that was enough back then to be suspect as a woman. Let's talk about Amelia just quickly because in by any other name, which is exquisitely researched,

you were inspired by a chance discovery about the real life figure of Amelia Basano, who lived in the 1880s. So tell us about that encounter and where you went in history from that point. So I was an English major. I loved Shakespeare. like so many English majors do, loved the language of the plays, loved the women that were created in the plays. You know, you've got Catherine and Beatrice and Rosalind and all of these incredible proto-feminist characters. And I spent, I don't know, maybe five minutes, ten minutes in a semester where a professor was like, you know, there's a question about Shakespeare's authorship, and the whole class was like, isn't that silly? And moved on.

And I didn't think about it for years. And then a couple of years ago, I was reading an article in the Atlantic by a woman named Elizabeth Winkler where she was questioning the authorship of Shakespearean plays. And in particular, whether any of them might have been crafted by women. And she was the first to mention the name Amelia Bassano that I had seen. But she also said something that just sort of hit me. It was like a slap in the face. Shakespeare had two surviving daughters. He never taught those daughters to read or write.

They signed with a mark. And I was like, nope, nope, nope, nope. The guy who created those incredible female characters would have taught his daughters to read and write. I just didn't buy it. So I decided I was going down the rabbit hole and I was going to learn about Amelia Basano. And what I learned about her was that all of the gaps in Shakespeare's life that academics have struggled to fill and have created very convoluted theories to explain a way. Amelia's life seamlessly fits them. Now, let's talk about Amelia.

So Amelia is born to an Italian family, and her family is Jewish. They had to hide their faith in England. They were the court recorder consort to King Henry VIII. That's how they came over there. He heard them playing their recorders over in Italy, and he brought all these bassanos over to play for court. When Queen Elizabeth took over, then she too kept the basanos playing in court. When she was seven years old, she was given to this countess, the Countess of Kent, as a ward.

And the Countess gave her a very intense, classical and legal education because she kind of was a feminist herself. When the countess got remarried, Amelia wound up living with her brother, Baron Peregrine Barty, who happened to be the ambassador to Denmark at the time. She lived with him for a year. When she was 13, she became the mistress to Lord Huntson, the Lord Chamberlain, who lived. here at Somerset House. Like I said, he was 56, she was 13, and not her choice, but she lived with him for 10 years. And he, because he was Lord Chamberlain, was involved in, he was theater in England. Every play that was written had to cross his desk for censorship. He decided what would be performed for the queen, where, you know, if it was going to be allowed to be in playhouses,

he went to all rehearsals. He went to opening nights. He basically would have known everyone in the theater world, as would Amelia when she was living with him. When she got to age 23, she became pregnant. And she was thrown out because you could not have a mistress and a baby in your house. And she was married off to this cousin of hers who went through all of her money. She constantly found herself needing money in some way. And we don't know a lot about Amelia in the years after that until 1611 when she became the first published English female poet. That is a huge achievement in her own right.

Yet no one knows the name, Amelia Bassano. She wrote a book. of religious poems called Salve deus Rex Judorum. And they were really interesting poems because they sort of questioned whether man was as superior as society seemed to make him. One poem, A Defense of Eve said basically, you know, look, if Adam was so much smarter than Eve, then when she held out the apple, why didn't he say, yeah, not hungry, right? And so needless to say, this book did not sell because men were not buying it for their wives. But that happened in 1611 and women in their 40s don't suddenly get published out of nowhere. Writers write,

even when they're younger. Amelia was absolutely writing. She just may not have been doing it under her name. And literally so many gaps in Shakespeare's life and in Shakespeare's knowledge are filled by Amelia seamlessly. And I can give you a little example because why not? So let's look at Othello, right? There is this speech that Iago gives. to Othello about revenge and jealousy, where he mentions in, like, the span of two sentences, a very weird collection of metaphors. A goat, a monkey, and a woman who represents truth.

In the town of Basano del Grapo, Italy, where all the Basanos were from, there's a main square, and in that square is this giant fresco, and the fresco includes in it a goat, a monkey, and a woman who represents truth standing between two windows. Oh, but wait, there are also two apothecaries in Basano del Grospo.

one of the apothecary shops is named the Moore. The other one is run by a man named Othello. Finally, when Othello was put into the first folio, the text differed from the Othello version that was in the first quarto. Now, in between those two moments, Shakespeare died. 161 lines were added to the later version in the folio. We know Shakespeare did not write them. He literally was dead.

He was dead. Right? So somebody else wrote them. So what were those lines? Well, the vast bulk of them are given to Desdemona's servant. And there's a long soliloquy that she gives that is traditionally considered the first feminist soliloquy in literature. Because it talks about how women have the same flaws and fears and passions as men, how terrifying that is. The name of a Desdemonious servant is Amelia.

So, I mean, like, again, all these things, they're just there. They're just there for you to look at. But what a thrilling journey. to go on to plug those gaps to fill them. It really is. You get, I get tingle. Yeah. When you're describing. It's kind of like, it's kind of like turning a microscope in a different direction, right? Which we should do. That's exactly. That's your job. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not going to tell you not to love Shakespeare. I love those plays. I love them. But if the credit's been not, you know, credit should be given where it's due. And if we spent 400 years maybe

attributing credit to someone who doesn't deserve all of it, I do think it's worth it at to ask questions. And I don't need to convince you that Shakespeare didn't write his plays. You can believe whatever you want. But I'm going to present my facts and let you decide. It's always right to ask the questions. It's time to talk about your fifth and final book, Shelby book, which is the invisible life of Adi Larue by B.E. Schwab. When Adi Laru makes a deal with the devil,

she trades her soul for immortality. But the devil takes away her place in the world, cursing her to be forgotten by everyone. Addy flees her tiny hometown in 18th century France, beginning a journey that takes her across the world, learning to live a life where no one remembers her and everything she owns is lost and broken. Her only companion is her dark devil, who visits her each year on the anniversary of their deal. Alone in the world, Adi has no choice but to confront him, to understand him, maybe to beat him. Now you've said that you were just, jealous that you didn't write this book first. So jealous. Why is that? What is it about this book

that makes you jealous? So this book is one of those books that just floored me. It's one of the books that like I gave everybody, you know, for Christmas. Oh yeah. It's one of them. You know, it was so incredibly unique in story. And there's a big part of me that kind of believes all stories have been told and we're just retelling them in different ways. So to come up with something that I felt had really, I'd never seen before was such a feat. But on a metal level, as a writer, to read a book that is about how you leave your mark in the world when you are cursed by the devil not to. And how art is a way to leave your name behind was just, you know, mind-blowing. I love that second level of the text. And I think about it a lot now.

when I think about by any other name, because Amelia was a woman, as is her fictional descendant, Molina in my book, both of whom have to make this literal deal with the devil, right? Or, well, it's a metaphorical deal with the devil. You know, yes, I will see my work and my words on a stage, but my name is going to be excised from history. Would you be willing to take that bargain? And I think the bigger question is, why should women have to? When you talk about your legacy being the art or the stories that you leave behind in the world, the truth is that they take on new lives.

Yes. By everyone who receives them, by all the different ways they are manifested. I mean, we talked very briefly earlier about writing for the stage or writing for screen and how different it is and how those emotions then express differently. Right. When your work is adapted, it takes on a new life. It's received by a completely different audience. we mentioned at the beginning my sister's keeper starring Cameron Dia.

What does it feel like to see those stories on the big screen or on TV or on a stage and they're different from the way they were conceived? It depends. That's the answer. So my sister's keeper was actually one of the most painful experiences of my professional life. And it was because the writer-director, Nick Kassavetes, promised me that he would keep the ending of that book. And then showed me a draft of a script that, had that ending and then proceeded to change the ending. And I found out from a fan who worked at a

casting agency. And when I called Nick, he wouldn't take my call. And when I flew to the set, he threw me off the set. And I went to the producers and I said, you're going to lose a lot of money on this because they were going to be a lot of really angry fans. And they said, we trust Nick. He made the notebook. And I was like, okay, all right. You know, that was not a selling point for me. And sure enough, they lost a lot of money on that film because I think a lot of my readers were like, this is not the story I was looking for. They made a very beautiful film. It's a beautiful film. It's just by changing the ending, the message is completely different. And that's what upset me. As someone who's had multiple adaptations of her work, it's totally fine to make changes for a new medium.

It's expected. But you need to have the soul of the story maintained if you're making those changes. And so a really great example of change that change for good. would be in the adaptation that we did of Between the Lines. That was a YAA series that I wrote with my daughter when she was a teenager. And very sweet, you know, young adult, middle grade tale. And we decided we were going to make it a musical. It's a series, right? And so unless you're Harry Potter, you don't get two musicals or two shows back to back.

And I knew we were going to have to manifest in two hours everything that we were trying to do over the span of an entire series, which means the ending would have to be different. And when we were writing that, we thought a lot about what new ending could we give this new medium that would leave you with the same feeling you had when you read the book. And it is a killer twist. Every night in the audience, I would wait for the whole audience to go, because it was the best most satisfying moment. But it's very different from the book. And yet I have no problem with it because you're left with the same feeling. It's an amazing thing to hear you talk about. so many varied experiences as a writer,

leaving all of these pieces of culture and art and stories behind as a legacy and to still have heard you say, but I was jealous I didn't write that one. Yeah, absolutely. About The Invisible Life of Annie LaRue. Has reading that changed the way you write? Did you read it quite recently? I mean, I don't know how many, I read it when it came out,

so I don't know how many years ago that was. I think it was maybe right before COVID, I think. Right. Or right around then. Not a million years ago. No, no, no, no. It's a pretty recent book. You know, I don't know that it's changed the way I write.

I think that when I set down to write a book, I can't promise you it's going to be the best book ever written, but it's going to be the best book I can write at that moment for you. And sadly, I do not really write for my readers. Very grateful they want to go where I take them. But I'm really writing what I need to write at that moment, because that's how I know I'm going to create the best work possible. So I think it's, you know, it is really about putting your best foot forward at all times.

I have thought a lot about legacy and this is such, I can't even believe I'm going to say this on a podcast, but morbidly I think about like, well, I'm going to die. What's the New York Times going to say about me when I die? Will there even be like a news alert? So there's nothing weird about that. I know a lot of people who thought about that. Yeah. And I'm like, gosh, I wonder if someone's written it already. You know, like all those terrible things. But I do kind of wonder, what people will say. And one of the things that is really interesting about being a writer and being in this industry for as long as I have is that sort of the gossip about what people think about you does filter back to you. And one of the things that I've heard a lot is she's really nice, which is great,

but also she really tries to help out other authors. And I think that means almost more to me than the work I've left behind because there were so many writers whose shoulders I feel like I was standing on writers who I admired so much who, you know, with a moment of their time, had a kind word for a book of mine, or I'll never forget Anne Hood, who I love as a writer, my very first book, you know, we had to send out blurbs for endorsement, that kind of thing. And she wrote me a note back with the nicest blurb and said, the reason I read this book was because I was moving apartments and I'd packed up all my books and this was all I had left to read. And I was like, I don't care. That's great. I can't believe she read my book. And she really liked it. And I always think about that when I'm asked for an endorsement. I probably do more of that than most authors do. And it takes a lot of time. I literally will read every single book because I would never advocate for something I haven't read. But I really want to know that maybe the few moments of time that I had could give someone a leg up in the world because, you know, they're going to be tomorrow.

writers. Your legacy is not just the stories and the art that you live behind, but the way that you pave for the next generation. It's paying it forward, right? Yeah. It's paying it forward. We're here to uplift one another's voices. I'm always so heartened and empowered whenever I sit in this chair and I hear and it's not just writers. It's actors, musicians, business women talk about supporting one another. Yeah. About the camaraderie. Yeah. That is that is what we're doing. Right. And so I arrive in my final question to you, which is if you are going to support, if you are going to uplift, if you are going to spotlight one of the books that you've brought today from your list, if you have to pick one as a favorite. Oh, God. Which would it be?

And why? This is like asking which child I love the most. Why are you doing this to me? Sorry, Jody. I would say for its timelessness, it's going to have to be beloved. It would just because I don't think America would be America without that book in its canon. I think that's why I would pick it. Thank you so much, Jody.

It's been such an immense pleasure. This is been a blast. Thank you. It's being good. It's so fun. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.