Bookwild - First Ladies, Church Secrets & Respectability Politics: Deesha Philyaw's The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

This week, Cassie Goodwin and I chat with Deesha Philyaw about her fiction debut The True Confessions of Lady Freeman!Listen to hear about:How The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman evolved over nearly 20 years, and why Deesha had to become a different, more experienced writer before she could finally tell Sharice’s story. Why Deesha transformed Sharice from a character modeled on herself into a woman who genuinely loves being a First Lady—and therefore has something meaningful to lose. How embracing satire, humor, and an actual First Lady beauty pageant unlocked the novel and allowed Deesha to interrogate church culture without making the story overly earnest. A nuanced conversation about Black church culture, respectability politics, patriarchy, white supremacy, and the tension between what people profess to believe and how they actually behave. Why Deesha wanted her characters to be contradictory rather than simply good or bad, and how she explores shame, desire, marriage, family, faith, power, and the complicated reasons people stay connected to institutions that may also harm them. Books Deesha Recommends:Good, God by Kiese LaymonFriends and Family by Natalie BaszileThese Girls Out Here by Dawnie WaltonWhen It Gets Cold in the South by Exodus Oktavia BrownlowDesperate Bodies by Lydia Mathis   All the Bookwild Links:Check Out the Bookwild SubstackSubscribe to Bookwild on YouTubeGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramCheck Out Author Social Media Packages Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mbaErin Ashley @bellametaphor

In this episode, my friend Cassie and I talk with Disha Filia about her fiction debut, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, which is incredible. I had this on my list of books that I thought I would love the most in 2026, and it delivered. A very short description. The wife of a popular and powerful megachurch pastor upends her charmed rags to Rolex life when her secret past comes roaring into the spotlight in this funny and juicy and sexy, and delicious peek behind the pulpit. If Honk for Jesus and Real Housewives of Atlanta

merge together in a church-related reality TV show, this is what it would look like. So if you love either of those, or if you just love a messy story that unearths some of the things going on in mega-churches, you are going to love this. Now let's hear from Disha herself. Cassie Goodwin and I are here with Disha,

y'all and i think we just have all the questions i am so ready i'm so many to be here yes thank you for coming on um the first thing i always ask is like what your journey to writing was like and i know you've written articles you obviously wrote nonfiction this is your first um novel and i think i saw that um this character you've kind of been working on for like 20 years maybe so i'm just intrigued by by what writing has been for you. Yeah, it started as something I did to carve out brain space and time for myself when I was a stay-at-home mom when my oldest daughter was around two or three years old. And so I was, you know, just writing a little bit here and there for 20 minutes a day. And that's all the time she would a lot. My child would a lot. And then, you know, it grew to having a night out where I could

right and then going to retreats and conferences and things like that and it just sort of grew. And then in 2005, I separated from my then husband and we divorced the following year. And I thought, okay, I need to make a living. And I think I want to try to do that by writing. Yeah. You know, she said naively. Right. knowing that that's the you know the the the goal that so many writers have which is i just want to

write but the reality of you know and the economics of it is that very few writers make a living at just writing um and so i started freelancing writing editing fact checking you name it you know i did it um for decades um and then there was a three year period right the year that ended the year church ladies came out from 2016 to 2019 I got a nine to five um so I had gone from I guess what 2005 until 2016 freelancing and making it work that way barely um and I you know I needed the stability the financial stability which for me the financial stability gave me the creative space because um projects like the novel, the fiction that I had been working on over all of those years,

that was always, oh, that's the thing I get to when everything else is done. And so it got the least of my energy and creativity. So I thought that working a nine to five would handle the financial stability and free me up a little bit more. And to some extent it did. But it also came with its own set of issues. Like, I am not meant to work in corporate settings. I feel you. I am not meant to work for people who want to micromanage or sabotage me.

Like, that's what I was up against. But I lasted three years. And then one day, I just walked out, like in the middle of the day. Oh, I love that. Can I cuss on here? Yes, yes. Like, fuck this. Fuck her.

Fuck this job. Done. Out. I did not have a plan. Unfortunately, I did not have a plan when I walked out, but it was just that bad. Yeah. But I have, I always say that I have been rich for a long time in friendships. And I have friends that supported me through that.

Two friends in particular, one paid my rent for a while. The other got me a contract job with the foundation she worked for that I could do virtually and make pretty much the same money that I was working before. So that sort of closed that little gap. And then a year later, church ladies came out. And so I freelance for maybe another year after that. And now I'm at a point where I can quote unquote just right. But you know, that means teaching engagements.

It means teaching, not so much teaching sometimes, speaking engagements. And grants, you know, applying for fellowships, you know, all of those things, it's always been about a patchwork quilt of income. Yeah. So you asked me about the writing process and I spent most of it talking about money because that's the, you know, that's real. But what was happening behind the scenes with the writing, I don't have an MFA. I don't have any writing related degrees.

So I was learning, reading every craft book I could find, going to workshops, going to places like the Hurston Wright Foundation Summer Writers Week. That was my first big workshop with Matt Johnson, which just truly changed the trajectory of my life. But as I was needing to make money, it was more feasible to do it through nonfiction, personal essay writing, columns, reviews, those sorts of things. And so I started doing that in various places. But at the same time, as I had mentioned, I had gotten divorced. And my ex and I are friendly. And, you know, people were watching us saying, like,

you guys are like the poster children for divorce, you know. And you should write a book. And my ex said, yeah, yeah, you know, you're a writer. You should write a book. He's a banker. And I was like, you know, I think it would be more compelling if we did it together. And so we, you know, we launched a whole, because, you know, you have to build a platform and all of that kind of stuff.

this would have been in the early 2000s. So we had a blog. We had a blog talk radio show for a while. Wow. And we landed an agent through our, with our, we wrote a book proposal, got an agent. And that agent for the co-parenting book is very savvy and very strategic. And from the beginning, she's like, okay, so what else are you working on? Like this is fine.

This co-parenting thing is, that's cute. What else you got? And so she knew that I had been working on this novel for a while. And she's an editorial agent, so she had a lot of great insights. And I have to credit her for all of the years that the novel that we're talking about today was on the back burner, but she kept that back burner warm. She would not let me forget about it. We would meet. We both lived in Pittsburgh at the time.

We would meet up periodically and, you know, talk about. the book and talk about where I was struggling and she always gave me really great advice. And so the best piece of advice, one of the best pieces she gave me was that, you know, when I was stuck on the novel and on hiatus from it, because I wouldn't write the work on the novel for like a year or so at a time sometimes. And she said, you know, I've noticed these church lady stories you're writing because I was writing stories to submit to anthologies, or to competitions and things. So I started writing short fiction

that, you know, while I was doing all these other things. And so she said, you know, she called them church ladies stories first. I did not notice that through line, really. And I had written maybe two, maybe three stories. And she said, so, you know, while you're on hiatus from this novel,

you know, maybe you could be intentional about building a collection of stories around this theme. of black women, sex, and the black church. And she's a Virgo, I'm a Virgo. So she knew that I need very specific instructions. And she said, you know, and if you get three of those stories published, we'll take it out to market as a partial manuscript.

So when, you know, ignorance is bliss. Yeah. I had no idea that she was proposing something to me that was in violation of, you know, two really big pieces of conventional wisdom and traditional publishing, which is you do not debut with a short story collection, and you do not go out on submission with a partial

manuscript. But she believed that we could do it, and I didn't know any better. So I was like, okay. Yeah. Good for her. That's what we did. So, because I didn't, I was overwhelmed and didn't have the skill set yet to really wrangle

this novel. But, I could write a story and I could submit stories and I could get stories published. So I thought, okay, I'm very clear on that. I know what that looks like. I'll do that. And so by the time I had three stories published, I had written six. And that's the partial manuscript that we took out for the secret lives of church ladies. Everybody rejected it except West Virginia University Press. Yeah. That's how we got there. And the rest of them are like, what were we thinking now? They were interested. As soon as the first appellate for church ladies was, it was long listed for the National Book Award.

When the long list hit, that's when my agent started hearing from editors who were like, okay, what's she doing next? What else does she have? The same, you know, not all, but some of the same editors that have rejected church ladies. And then ultimately it became a finalist. So as it continued to gain accolades, more and more people expressed interest, and at first I thought, oh, I'm just getting back into this novel. Like, I'm not going to be finished anytime soon. And I feel like, you know, am I going to miss my moment?

And my agent's like, no, books get written when they get written. And she's like, they'll wait. I was like, okay. She's like the coolest, like, I don't know if you said she's agent or publicist. agent she sounds like the chillest agent out there right now she is Danielle chiyadi of upstart crow literary agency and um and she's tenacious and she has so much integrity and she's you know very savvy um and i think people see her appearance wise and don't realize you know that she's a tiger She's scrappy. And a Virgo. Like I said, we're both Virgo.

So I feel like, you know, if any duo could get some stuff done, it would be too Virgo's. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh, that is so cool. And she helped me get unstuck narratively with true confessions in terms of the evolution of this character. In Revelation, maybe.

Right. in the revelation of who she is. Because initially, Charisse was me, like poorly disguised me. And that forced me to kind of write her into a corner because she was only doing the things that I would do. And she was engaging in her circumstances the way I would.

Like, I would be so miserable married to a pastor. I would, you know, go through the motions, but have a secret. anonymous, sexy, snarky blog complaining about the whole thing. Yes. Which was fine and it was kind of fun to write in the beginning, but there was nowhere to go

with that. And so the way Danielle encouraged me to think about it was that there was nothing at stake for Cherise when I had written her that way, that being a first lady was her job. And if a character has a job and something threatens it. Like in her case, there's this scandal where, you know, she could lose everything. That's always been part of the story. But when she hated being a first lady, who cares if, you know, she, you know, loses her standing in the church or loses her marriage because she hates it anyway.

And so I thought, so what you're saying is she has to love being a first lady? I would hate that. I would hate everything about it. But she's not me. So that was the first big change is. freeing Cherise up to be someone who was all in. She was all in her marriage, all in in, in this role with the church. Even if she had some doubts about her own personal faith, she loved the trappings of that

lifestyle and everything that it afforded her. So that was the first problem to solve. And so now I have this really dynamic character who has something at stake. She has something to lose. but she you know the way I had written her originally was she got everything she wanted she married this pastor she got this respectable lifestyle she felt redeemed from having come from this very humble background of being the child of a teenage single mom and and then she got that life and now what you know and so if your character I learned this lesson if your character has

gotten everything they want when the story is just starting, you got to give them something else to want and something else to lose. And so around the same time, I was thinking about how initially when I was writing her, it was so earnest and so on the nose and so navel-gazing and she was kind of self-pitying. And I wanted to get away from all of that. And in 2020, when we were all in the house and writers started offering a lot of virtual workshops, I took one with Rion Amilkar-Scott and on satire writing. And I thought, what if I, like, made this novel satirical? And that earnestness would go all out the window and so would all this sort of like self-fitting bullshit.

So, you know, to satirize the black church and specifically the role of the first lady in all of the pageantry and the performance that comes with that, what if there was an actual beauty pageant for middle age pastors wise and then that just opened up the rest of the story then it just felt like the playground you know from there yeah it feels like you were playing on a playground well yeah why you wrote this version of it i have a friend who's also an author who names hally sutton and she's talked a few times on here about how you can tell when an author's having fun and that tends to make the book really fun too yes yes Yeah. Do you have any, Cassie, any questions? I was actually like hearing you speak about like how you approached writing the secret lives,

the church ladies, and then how you're writing and your approach to Cherise was different and how it evolved. I feel like you can almost see that reflection in how the stories are told. because in secret lives, you know, it's people, there's a lot of stories of people fighting their way or on the journey of learning about themselves. And I think when we read the true confessions, you see that in one character. You see that evolution of like, oh, this is who I am. This is who I have to be? And then over time, she's like, wait a second, is this who I am? Who can I be? Who can I become? And it reads like that's something you can only like I feel like as a writer maybe and this is my question for you do you think you could only have written this version of her after um writing her nonfiction book and then writing secret lives and going through that journey to be able to flesh her out in this way absolutely absolutely I did not have the the craft skill set you know the sort of the mechanics of it all um i was going through that evolution myself

of well who can i be you know that was sort of my early um you know life's question coming growing up in the church being with women inside and outside of the church and watching them and wondering well who can i be and how am i supposed to you know navigate all of these rules and restrictions and that just don't make sense and that are so punitive and specifically targeted at women. I didn't have the language for it, but I know what I was seeing and I knew what I was feeling. And so I was watching other women to see, you know, what would be possible. And then like Cherie's, I, you know, follow a particular path that felt like this is the right thing to do. And at the end of it, I still was dissatisfied. So, you know, what is that about? And what are some things that I'm still contending

with that are keeping sort of full freedom and full, you know, realization of who I am and who I want to be? What's keeping that at bay for me? So I had to go through that journey at the same time and then realizing, Cherise is on, you know, a similar kind of journey. And I think a lot of us go on journeys like that. But absolutely, you know, writing church ladies gave me more confidence. And the whole experience, the whole, those, you know, years leading up to church ladies, it showed me that there was no magic bullet in publishing, you know, that it is work, it is revision, that there, that, that, that, actually the revision is the fun part,

you know, and it is the part that I'm most important. enthusiastic about. And so that it took the time that it took for me to get to the point where I figured out who Cherise is, figured out how I wanted to tell her story, and then had the chops to actually pull it off. And did. Thank you. And, you know, and doing it without and keeping separate. Let me see, how do I want to say this? The success of church ladies, ironically, is the thing that gave me the confidence and the freedom to feel like I can do this other thing. But at the same time, I was also reminded that there are two parts to all of this. There's the writing part. There's the craft. There's the work. And then there's all the external stuff.

And so the external stuff gave me the confidence. But I learned also to keep that at bay. Like I wasn't saying, okay, now how do I get another, you know, award-winning book? Like, how do I do that? It was like, no, how do I tell the best story that I know how to tell? How do I tell a story that means something to me? And what church ladies taught me is if it means something to me is probably going to mean something to someone else. And so I've got to be satisfied with this. I've got to, you know, make myself cry.

I got to make myself laugh before, you know, anybody else gets it. And so the ironic lesson was from church ladies was that that's not the gold standard, you know, or that's not the goal, rather, of, you know, trying to get the external sort of validation and approval. But really that the work and the most important part is the process of how I get there. What do I learn along the way? You know, the playfulness. all of that is available to me. And aren't I lucky that I get to do this?

And so having that sort of perspective freed me up because, you know, pre-church ladies, it was all about I need to get published. I need to finish a book because those are the things that I thought, this is what will validate me. And then I was like, oh, no, that's a dangerous game to rely on these external things because what if somebody doesn't publish the book? Now what? Am I, you know, and I didn't want to come away from this experience feeling like, you know, if these five things don't happen, it's all for not, you know? And so I came away from finishing, or I came away

from church ladies feeling like for me, the success starts the minute I finish. Yeah. I finish this book because look how much it takes to finish. Like it's very difficult to finish and raise your kids and stay afloat financially and do all of these things. And so that to me is the victory. And then for true confessions, finishing this book after 20 years after all of these starts, after not knowing what I was doing after, you know, not even liking the character. Like, wow, I did that. And then, you know, anything after that is gravy.

Yeah. Yeah. That's such a great. It's good advice for life in general. role, not just people who are writing. Because like kind of what you're saying with a lot of things, you spend a lot more time in the creation process than the like, even the like promoting process necessarily. One of the things I think is really interesting about it too is, well, this happened.

But both like black women are sometimes treated as a monolith and sometimes church can feel like something where it's like oh everyone must feel the exact same way in either of these groups and while you're saying while you were pointing out like this is definitely satire and it's not super earnest but it does show that there's like a range of beliefs and like even people don't always act in align with their beliefs in church as well and I think it would have been really easy to like just write about church itself as being like completely evil or complete villain and I feel like you actually didn't do that. You really showed how complicated a lot of people, not even just characters, motivations, change how different situations are handled. So is that something that kind of came about as you were,

as it was developing or was that kind of in the front of your mind? No. You know, when I started this book you know, 20 years ago, I believe that so many of the characters as I was drafting them were flat. And that's part of the reason that I stalled because when the characters are two-dimensional, there's very little that can happen. And everything is expected, you know? And so if Sheila, who's the head deaconess, is just, you know, the Wicked Witch from the West and, you know, Hell on Wheels and a thorn in Sharra's side the entire time, you can play that for laughs, but it's more interesting to discover that Sheila has some layers to her as well. And you can do that without quote unquote redeeming her and especially when it comes to women

characters. She doesn't have to become likable. And you can show that, you know, and it's allowing characters to hold contradictions as well. Yeah. And so Sheila's an example of I just sort of imagined her as the bad guy, the villain in the story. And from the beginning, but she gets her arc as well. And she's the same as from the beginning, at the end as she is in the beginning. We learn more about her that there's more to her.

But her public facing persona remains the same and she's not likable and that's okay, you know. Yeah. But we had some fun learning her secrets. Similar to another villain in the book, Reverend Jetta Lancaster. And so there are, I mean, he never changes his spots either. But and even though he doesn't show her. any grace, Cherise sees things

in him that he doesn't even see in himself that makes her feel a little tender towards him. It's still fuck Jeddah. Like, don't mistake that. And she can understand some things and relate to him because of the things that they have in common around loss and grief and so forth.

And the same with her husband, sort of in the other direction. I think initially when I started writing David, he was just, I don't know, the color that comes in mind is beige. There was just, you know, there was just, there was no there there. And he was just sort of the mouthpiece of the church and the legacy and all of those things. And he was just driven and he wanted to build the church. But it felt very robotic at a certain point.

again, I could see these things as I became a better writer, a smarter writer. I could see things more clearly and saw them either as problems to solve, you know, just taking that approach or opportunities or whatever, but not like, you know, that this is going to be like a problem or, you know, this is going to like throw me off my square or anything like that. it's like, okay, how best can David serve this book? And, you know, I wanted Char to have this, like, great marriage. But he had to disappoint her, you know, in order to get some movement going. And I had to spend some time thinking about, you know, for someone who puts that much emphasis on legacy and the church,

you were doing it at the expense of being a great father and a great husband while also being a good father and a good husband in some ways. Like both things can be true. So it was making sure that none of the characters were all angels or all demons. That, you know, all of them have some shit with them, you know. That actually makes me think about something that I noticed and something that I personally struggle with. So I'm curious how you achieve this.

You have these characters who are complex, who have these, you know, these front-facing personalities and then this whole backstory that makes them a full person. So you're holding multiple truths about them. Cherise is holding multiple truths about her love and also her shame. Like throughout the book,

we see this so many times. But you also showed the dissonance in what people claim to believe and how they act and the impact that they actually have and what they actually care about. So was it hard? Was it a challenge for you to show that through the characters? What's the difference between I'm holding multiple truths and this is a dissonance that I'm refusing to acknowledge? Yes, yes. I think, you know, that varies character by character.

I think with Sheila, for example, she's holding multiple truths. Yeah. I think for characters like Jetta and his wife, Daphne, they want conflicting things, you know. So they want all of the accolades and the trappings of being, you know, this first couple of a megachurch. Jedda has harmed people. He has betrayed his wife repeatedly. And so, but he doesn't think that that disqualifies him for being in the pulpit. Right.

You know, he excuses it. And so I think that's a case of couples dissonance, you know, that despite this happening, his cheating over and over and over again, they just figure, you know what, we're going to monetize it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that. You have a quote about, it's not about them, but about they completed their transformation from couple to brand.

And I, I died. I died. So good. Yeah. And so, you know, and so I think that that's the case that, you know, it's like we talk about, you know, there's the documentary surviving R. Kelly, you know, and how we survive the worst things that and people that have. happen to us.

But I think for a lot of the characters, they're also surviving themselves. And so the dissonance is, how do I, for Daphne again, for example, how do I survive the fact that, you know, this man keeps cheating on me. It's public. It's embarrassing. But here's what I was taught that a good wife does. Right. And also, here's, I don't want to give up this lifestyle.

You know, I'm not. going to let him take that from me. And, you know, oh, and this is impacting my children. Well, they're just children. They should stay in their place. And I'm going to ship this one off to military school. And this one, she's quiet, so she must be fine. Right.

You know, and so those are the kind of, you know, and so you can see that that's how she's, she's coping. Daphne does not have layers. No, not really. Daphne is like you are going to, I'm going to get something out of this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Definitely. And honestly, that, like, Daphne monetizing that and accepting infidelity as her legacy was just mind-blowing to me. I mean, in Honolulu, no spoilers, but when they were going through the gift basket and everyone had all these different things that was part of. of their, you know, being a first lady and their legacy and their brand and hers was just, I got cheated on. Okay. Okay, definitely. Yes.

And so it makes you like a little sympathetic, you know, to monitor. Because you're sad, anyone could just accept it. Yeah. Yeah. A little. Just a little bit. So the thing that makes you want to shake her is also the thing that makes you sorry, feel sorry for her.

Yes. Yeah. It's like kind of like what you were talking about. You can learn to understand a person without making excuses for them or without wanting them in your life. You can understand. And you could also be like, hey, I experience similar things and I don't take it out on other people. Which is what Petra says to her. She's like, I'm an orphan too, but you don't see me being an asshole because I'm an orphan.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. That's one of the things I'm almost on a tangent. but like when people say like uh like with estranged parents which is my case with both parents people will be like but you only have one mom and i'm like and she only had one daughter and she had time with me okay like i don't want to tell you absolutely have you read um the anthology no contact right or so estrangement yeah oh i need to read that jenny bartoy um is the editor okay and uh I have a flash essay in there, but yeah, it's called No Contact Writers on Estrangement.

Okay. I am all about that. Well, this kind of ties in. I'm a pastor's kid and grew up in like very small churches, not mega churches. But there was so, it was so fascinating because in, at least in the white churches I was in growing up, we don't talk about it as like first ladies. Like, that's not the way it's handled, but it was so fascinating when I started therapy in my 20s. My therapist was like, I kind of helped pastor's children similarly to how I approach politicians. So like first lady and all of that.

So like that wasn't what it was called, but I remember when I started therapy, she started talking about that. And I think it plays so much into the respectability politics that you kind of cover in this megachshund. church and probably small churches as well is it's like because churches themselves are supposed to kind of be a spokesperson or a spokes body for God, then we can't talk about anything bad that's happening in them because then what if people think there's something bad about church or whatever? And God. And God. And it was also as I was reading, I had a conversation with Kristen L. Berry who wrote, we don't talk about Carol. And it's about, I can't remember how many, but multiple black girls who went missing in the South in the 1960s and then we're in the present day.

And it's like her grandma or her great grandma was Carol that they just don't talk about her at all. And in her book, it's like they didn't want to reach out to the police about it. And like you weren't supposed to talk about anything outside of your family and like keep it in the family. And I brought up to her. I was like, I was like, I very much grew up in that like, do not embarrass. your family like you are a whatever a light in public for like our family and stuff and then but then her book also kind of points out like as a black family it felt even more dangerous to maybe share bad things that are happening because there's another layer of fear whether it's about the cops or

perception in general and so I feel like you tackle both sides of that where like there's the like we have to be respectable because we're in church and maybe we have to be more respectable because we don't want people to believe certain things, blanket statements about black people as well. So how did you like, somehow you managed to talk about all of that and still make me laugh the whole time. Yeah, I just, you know, I think it's because we don't, as black people have the luxury of having sort of these,

is this the word dichotomous experiences? that it's all happening at once. You know, it's all happening at once. And I think ultimately, you know, what I feel like Gen X, I'm Gen X. And so the turning point for like maybe half of our generation was we have learned that the silence, our silence won't protect us. We have learned, as a lot of people like to point out, Dr. King was assassinated wearing a suit. people were hosed and had dogs sick on them and they were in their Sunday best. So it doesn't matter how we dress ourselves up, you know, literally or figuratively that white supremacy is going to do what it's going to do.

And so for us as black people, you know, to feel like we have to be to shrink or to put on a good face, it's not going to protect us. And so we should just be ourselves because now the respectability only serves for us. We're now policing each other. Right. You know, and so we've become the cops. And that never, ever, ever serves us. And so for me, it wasn't parsed at all. It was just all inherent in one experience because whether you're in or out of the

church. You know, these things are happening in tandem. Even as people leave the church and, you know, are starting to deconstruct their understanding of Christianity and what that means for their lives, it is a process because so many of us are exposed to these teachings so early that it just becomes just ingrained in us. And so, and so, when we think about being out in the world as black people, even if we've left the church, there's still that voice. If it's something sexual, you still got to get your mother and the pastor out of your bed. Maybe blonde Jesus.

Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Actually, actually, in connection to this, and having grown up in a prominent preacher's family, both of us yeah I did not know this but facts I didn't either I knew we both loved this book I didn't know both of us did yes yes I grew up my family like my entire father's side of my family were very prominent in our church and as a black family you were you know a large reach um but something that I was wondering because I feel like it did come up in this book, but it was very subtle, is the foundation of church aligning with white supremacy in the sense of, well, the people who lead should have a certain pedigree. Like, you can't have any marks on your history. You can't have a single mother.

That's a mark against you. You're not worthy of being First Lady. if it's, you know, the Lancasters and them all being light-skinned and passing the paper bag test, all of that is kind of foundational. I mean, even it's mentioned, like Petra brings it up when she talks about an inherently corrupt institution. How do you think, or in your writing, like, how did you explore that? like how did you reckon with there are good things in this institution but it also is founded on these premises of white supremacy and patriarchy absolutely i think it's just leaving space for um that that duality and and it shows up in the story in that char continues to have a

with the church mothers. So it's not, so when she cuts ties, she's, she doesn't go to the church. She doesn't go to any church. Probably doesn't call herself a Christian. She, you know, well, she always had that shaky relationship to Christianity anyway. But these church mothers, I think, are emblematic of this is the good, this is the best of the church. They are the best of the church when they're not condemning girls for being fast or, you know, whatever. Right.

But, you know, so she's paying honor to them because, you know, Mother Johnson specifically continues to have a relationship with Shard despite the scandal. So I suspect Mother Johnson was not one of the church mothers going around talking about, you know, God came to her in a dream and told her that so and so was a slut, you know. So she wasn't one of those. So that was sort of my acknowledgement that that too, she too is the church. It also is part of the fabric of that is when, you know, Sharr doesn't try and convince Gabrielle not to have a relationship with her father. She's hands off. She's like, he needs to treat you this way.

is he doing that? When he does that, then I'll think he's a good man. But Gabrielle still wants to have a relationship with her father. And I think that that's sort of how a lot of us sort of navigate. Do we still want to have a relationship with the church? It needs to be in ways that are safe for us. It needs to be in ways that honor who we are. And it goes back to what you said from the very beginning,

which is that the church is not a monolith. So there are lots of churches that profess Jesus Christ. that don't have people in the pulpit who hurt other people, you know, who are, you know, serial cheaters and and child rapists, you know. So, so there's so many ways to still be a part of the church without being a party to this white supremacy, you know, churches that allow women to pastor, you know, imagine that. Right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're, Yeah, it's so tricky because I think some people get so nervous about talking poorly about church.

And I think people who go to church then have their own reasons for feeling defensive and kind of kind of because of what you're saying. There are versions of it that aren't predatory. And I think it's technically it's kind of like I've been having these conversations like about the internet. Some people are like, I hate the internet. it's evil my algorithm like i'm angry all the time i'm like that means you're pausing and watching this stuff exactly giving you more of it yeah so like the internet is good and bad especially because it is made up of like all of humanity essentially we weren't meant to know all of this yeah all it wants all the time yeah and it's really a mirror of like what you're interested in and so and i think churches

are so similar where it's a place where like extreme power can happen and above like political power is the fact that some people and or some pastors think that a pastor is the direct life to God. Yeah. So there's like that level of power going on to and those kinds of power imbalances. And I think it's still important to write about those, just like we're not saying all politics are terrible. There are some people who are doing great things in politics, and there are some people doing terrible things in politics. So yeah, I feel like it's, it is important to realize there are communities, or in my opinion, I feel like this is, it's not even a totally a tangent, but there's someone I follow who talks about spirituality and people who

maybe leave the church and the things that church fulfills for us from an evolutionary standpoint. And that's like community, the ability to look inward, the ability to experience awe and like that feeling. And then a way to grapple with death is like is the other one. But like once I saw that, I saw that a couple years ago. And I was like, I get chills when I talk about it still. I was like, oh yeah, there are. She was kind of talking about the difference between people who are atheists who just turn really angry versus people who maybe lose their faith, but actually find more connection through that. And I started feeling that with book stuff. So I like to say that like the independent bookstores I've been to and the readers I've met and the

writers I've met that has replaced a lot of what I needed for from church as well. So I think it is important to still like talk about it broadly, but also have fun satire like this. And I think, you know, when you talk about what people do get out of church, that is so important for people to understand because it's too easy to dismiss churchy people as just stupid or cheap or whatever. And it's like, no, most people are just looking for something. And for someone to tell you that, you know, we're going to demystify death for you. And if you just do these things right and say these words and believe, believe this, when you die, it's going to be amazing. And also, while you are dealing with hell on earth,

you know, maybe it feels helpful for some people to believe, okay, this isn't going to be forever that if I can just suffer through this, there's a reward at the end. That doesn't work for me, you know, but for some people, that keeps them grounded. It keeps them from like freaking out and just feeling like this is all for nothing. Right. So unfortunately, white supremacist, you know, theology and people who have, you know, manipulators and who are taking advantage of people use that to tell people it's okay if others have harmed you.

You know, that's how we forgive the pastor rapists and so forth. Because none of this matters. It's all about your victory in death. and, you know, being with God and getting your crown in heaven and all of that. So it gets manipulated, but ultimately people are just trying to figure out the way how to survive this life. Right. And so they'll hold on to things even if it's not in their best interest. And it's not because they're just stupid. They might also be afraid. Yes. Very. Like we're talking about existential crises and like here is the solution. You're like, oh, okay, that'd be great. I don't want

to think about this all the time. Yeah. But that's how, you know, evangelicalism wields that like a weapon. It capitalizes on people's feelings of fear and shame and guilt to keep them in line and to keep them. Go ahead. We're even seeing it with this administration as a way to justify. They're like, we don't care if we're like just a couple weeks ago, J.D.

Vance was saying, like, if I'm headed us toward or heading us toward in times, it's okay because that's what God wanted. And I'm like, okay, it justifies way too many. It doesn't justify it to me, but it does to people. Yeah. That's what so many of us are taught that we just really need to get to the end times because that's when the reward is going to be waiting for us, us and not them, you know, and that whole us versus them thing and that you don't listen to anything they have to say, which is that's why I say Christianity is the perfect kind because you're taught that. that everyone in the world is an enemy. And so, and they're going to tell you things to lead you astray and they're lost and all of that.

So that for someone who's genuinely curious and starts to hear from people outside of the church, actually that's not true. Actually this, actually that. But then they're programmed to disbelieve it and to not trust it and to distrust it. And it's the devil. And that all of these, the binaries is, is the other way that, you know, the con works because you can either be this or that. You cannot, there's no nuance. There's no questions. You can't have any doubts.

All or nothing. And if what they're saying is you have to believe all of this or you're going to go to hell, most people, especially a child, is going to be like, okay, I believe. I don't want to go to hell. I don't want to be spit roasted for eternity, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't have another question but when the part you just said like the one of the biggest

mantras of my childhood was you are in the world and not of it and it's like I think about it now and I'm like oh and like at the same time my dad was so proud of the fact that people were like you're so secular man and like he didn't wear the robes when he would preach so then like as you know 18 and on after I got out of that house, there was even more of these contradictions where I'm like, you were telling me I had to be in the world and not of it. I didn't get to consume anything mainstream. But then when people said you're so secular, you were so proud of your stuff. Like, how does that work? I mean, and that's the thing. They had to, not had to, because there's still people doing snake handling right now. Oh, yeah. Not change. But I call it the the skinny jeans pastor era.

right? Yes. It was like all of the like really schmaltzy contemporary Christian music. Yes. And they all had the same. The white ones had the same haircut and whatnot. And they go see. Yes.

You know? And it was like so they were trying to attract the world. What was it? Seeker friendly churches. Yes. We want to be seeker friendly. So people feel welcome coming. And it's like, yes.

Because that pastor has on skinny jeans. that's where I want to be, but I guess maybe it worked. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But yeah, no, I just, I think everything you both said is so true in that regard. And it's just so interesting to me. Because some of the most foundational people that can lead you to your true self,

are in the church. Like for me, the older black women that I grew up with that were family to me, they showed me like how they lived as independent women, how they didn't put up with things. And they are very firmly in the church. And I am deconstructed and queer and, you know, all these things.

And yet I still feel the love that they had and they showed me. And I still feel like, I can learn from their examples of how they move through the world and how they didn't limit themselves. And I think that's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. You rejected a binary that said you had to either accept everything about them and be of them

or you had to can't have any contact or see any value. Right. You know, and so once we realize that very few things in life are binary, yes. that those middle areas that's where we things get interesting and that's where we figure shit out and find our you know find all the possibilities yeah the that was what i had to do a lot of work with in my 20s i i the whole nature versus nurture is like obviously notoriously difficult to pull apart but i i definitely still struggle with OCD nowadays um and some some

Some people who think OCD is just about being clean. It's more of an anxiety disorder and ruminating and a lot of that. But it's also a desire to be sure and seeking black and white almost is how I would describe my experience with it. Because it makes you feel better, kind of to your point, even like thinking you know what happens in the afterlife will make you feel better in the present. And it's very alluring, even if you're not malicious about it. It's alluring. And that's kind of what I talk about. like in my 20s I had to go through this thing where like anytime I found a part of myself that

reminded me of either of my parents I freak out and I'd be like I haven't healed I haven't grown up what if I'm secretly like an abuser too like would freak out and it still happens every now that but not very frequently but I had to learn that like I can still have things in common with the people who literally birthed me and it doesn't mean that everything that I have in common with them is a bad thing, but it's really hard to get there sometimes. Truly. Yeah. Speaking of bad things, I do have a very, very serious question. What would be your favorite store candy? Because Boston Big Bean's caught a lot of shade. Yes. And I'm just wondering, why did they ever do that anyway? I had to look them up. Those were ones I did not.

not know about. Totally Gen X candy. Oh, see, that was a favorite in my house. Yes. That was a favorite in my house. Yes. I was writing from a place of childhood trauma because I was the kid that liked Boston baked beans.

Oh. And my friends made fun of me. No. And so I didn't, little did they know that I was going to grow up and write a book in which. I love that show. You were so mean about it. That's crazy. And I knew you were a woman of taste because I said,

now, how are Boston Big Beans catching shade? I was reliving it, you know, as a form of reclamation. Yes, yes. Okay. That's amazing. I don't know if. you know there's a comedian named miss pat and yes she she used to live in indiana where i live

and so we recorded her podcast for a while in person and then now i edit it but she's in atlanta because her show's doing so well but she used to and i am not you're not going to catch me uh imitating but she would talk about now and later's yeah but she has like a very southern very southern accent and so like the words just like merges now later yeah yeah it's And she'd be like saying something. She has a, she's a black co-host and a white co-host. But even, even Dion, who's one of her host, was like, what? Are you talking about right now?

And so when I saw the now and later's, I was like, I need to send this to her. I've never seen it referenced anywhere else. But she was having the same thing. They're like, what are you talking about? And they're like, oh, it's food? She's like, yeah. And that was the other thing. And they taunted me so much about the boss.

Boston baked beans, I never told anyone, I never like noun ladders. Never. It's amazing. These are my confessions. The true confessions of Disha. I didn't like Naladers. And you're right. You're right because why would you?

Yeah. It's just, it's not even good taffy. It's not good. Like I've had salt water taffy. I've had like fresh taffy. this is like taffy with a bunch of preservatives and it just gets stuck in your teeth. Why? But people, that was the candy of choice for everyone except me.

Oh. In my little crew. But after they laughed at me about the Boston baked beans, I was like, I'm not telling me. I'm taking this to my grave. And now to this, to the bookwild pie. Bookwild is her different. Well, we did talk about how you, you, you, you said you really enjoy the revision process. Yes. And I edit like videos, especially like long form down to short form. And when you're saying that, I'm the same because typically once you get to revision, you have something there and now you're just like making it better or improving upon it. It's not staring at like a blank page. And especially with satire, I always want to know you had first of all like the first chapter once we're out or first instance once we're out of the pro.

is a Proverbs 31 woman is the Beyonce of evangelicals. I died. I was like, oh, this book, I already knew this book was going to be great for me, but I was like, oh, it's going to be perfect for me. And then you even have a, for anyone younger and didn't grow up with the WWJD bracelets. You have a WWAP31WD. Like, what would a P31 wife do? I was dying.

You call someone saltier than. lot's wife like there's so much hilarious biblical humor and was that part of the punch up process where was that just like you've lived it you're going to be funny about it was it a mixture because I was cracking up so the three things you mentioned they all were um once once once I once Cherise became someone who loved the church and was competing in this pageant, that, so not an original first draft, but the first draft of that version of Cherise, those things were already, those things were in the first draft. What happened on revision and, you know, editors are un-tongued heroes.

Like, truly you all really are. And I have an incredible editor, Rakea Clark. And so, you know, the first full draft of the novel was completed after I sold the book. So I sold it on a partial of like 60,000 words or so. Like the second time we sold on a partial. Yeah, you were an anomaly. And so, you know, so part of the process was she took that those 60,000 words and gave me notes. And then based on her notes, I finished a complete first draft.

and it was really long. It was longer than what was in my contract. And both Rikia and my agent, Danielle, were like, don't worry about it. We'll cut it down. Now, at the end of the day, it's still longer than what we contracted for, but they were right still that we would cut it down. But when I got Rakea's probably the first two rounds of notes after. after, you know, you get the notes, you revise, you get some more notes. Each time it was, yeah, we need to cut this.

But also, here's some ways I wanted you to go deeper. I want you to spend some time here. So I reached out to Danielle and I was like, okay, this is just math. I'm supposed to cut. But all of the notes are about saying more. That's not going to result in less, in fewer words. Right. And Danielle's like, it'll work out.

Don't worry about it. It'll work out. It'll work out. Trust the process. Trust for Kia. It'll work out. And so I did trust the process and I definitely trust it, Rikia. But again, Virgo Brain, this does not make sense to me.

And so you know it's a good editor when they have you doing things that just don't make sense. Right. And I was like, okay, I'm going to trust this. I'm going to do everything she says. I'm going to go deeper. I'm going to expand. And I'm going to try. not to look at the word count, even though I have that auto thing where it just shows me constantly

in the left side, you know? And so we did that for several rounds, but then by the finalish round, then she started showing me places, I think you can cut this, like huge chunks that previously, I was like, I don't see anywhere that I can cut. And she wasn't telling me where to cut. But it was this sort of not even a trick. I mean, I guess it's just the way it works. When I went deeper in the places that she said go deeper, the things that I thought were so essential were no longer essential and they could be cut. And so I did end up cutting a lot and adding a lot. But it took all of that before I could see. Like I couldn't have cut it a moment sooner. Right. I couldn't have cut it a moment sooner. And so I'm like, editors are

magicians. That is because you know, I just didn't know. I couldn't see it, but she could see it. She's done it a million times, you know. But now I am a true believer. That also frees me up now as I'm writing new things. And that was something, you know, a lesson I took away,

which is I can't write and worry about length and what's going to like just right. Just get the draft down and trust that in revision. you know, you figure those things out. And that's been happening for me since. I've turned in my short story collection, which was the second book in my two-book deal. And I'm also working on another novel now. And right now, I'm just allowed, in both those, I just allowed myself to just write and not worrying about how long things are going to be. And then going back and, you know, seeing things with fresh eyes. And so, like, now I've had these experiences under my belt and I'm trusting the process and now I'm trusting myself more as well you know.

I'll speak of another person that we can hold multiple truths about Stephen King has a quote where he says you have to tell yourself the whole story yeah and then you go back in and remove the parts that aren't the story yeah and now I'm just going to I'm going to start telling people that Disha, Disha write that way, and then I don't have to keep referencing him. Tell yourself the story. Though that, I probably got that from him because his book on writing is one of the craft books that I read and that, you know, meant a lot to me. Right.

Particularly, like I said, is someone who does not have an MFA. And so, you know, there are those things that really stuck with me. And I think also one of the other things I took away from. from his book helped me not get caught up in this idea of, which is really pretty elitism about like what is literature, what is all of that. And he said of himself in his writing, he said, you know, I write salami. It's good salami, right, salami.

And I thought, you know, that's ultimately what it comes down to. He's not trying to write literary fiction, but he, he writes books that people like. Yeah. And again, as you said, we're not even talking about him as a person about his particular politics, but the writing and the books that speaks in the popularity of his work speaks for itself. The good salami.

And so I think that as writers, we owe it to ourselves to understand that there are a lot. of different types of good writing. And you write what you write. And you find your audience and they love yourself. And that means that some other audiences are not going to love it because no one loves everything. You know? And so maybe you're writing salami.

Maybe you're writing filet mignon or what the market or what the publishing establishment considers filet mignon. Maybe you're writing luncheables. There's an audience for the literary luncheable. You know, there really is. And it doesn't have to be hierarchical. It's taste. It's a matter of taste.

There's so many books that would be considered literary filet mignon that I either haven't even bothered to try to read or I tried and I couldn't because they were dry as fuck. And it was for me. But there are some literary filet mignon that I love, you know, but I'm not going to love something just because it's filet mignon. Correct. Yeah. Yeah, I hate the genre war so much. I just hate it. And it's because, like, even as readers, we all contain, well, most readers contain multitudes.

Like, sometimes as a reader, you want salami and sometimes you want a flay. And sometimes salami feels like a filet to you. Yes. So, like. Exactly. Yeah. Can we be happy that people are reading in general for the most part? Yeah.

I mean, and I think it comes from, the wars come from, for whatever reason, we want to turn everything into a hierarchy. Something has to be better than something else. Something has to be good or bad, another useless binary, as opposed to I enjoy this. Full stop. I did not enjoy that. Full stop. It doesn't mean anything about the quality of the work. Right. And there are things that we can be specifically critical about in a particular work, but saying that something is just bad, you know, let's use our words, you know. Now, let's be. me also say I will say something is bad, but I recognize that that's sort of laziness on that part. But what makes something bad for me means X, Y, and Z.

Yes. But somebody else might absolutely love that book. Right. Yeah, I take nothing from them. Right. And it might get to them at a time where they really needed that specific story. Yeah. And you also don't know, like you can, books can teach you things without feeling preachy.

That's what I'm trying to say too. Yeah. And it can be any genre. Yeah. Do you have any more Cassie? I feel like we could all talk for probably. I know. Honestly, I could go forever. And no pressure. If you have multiple, ask both of them. I mean, I have so many. I'm good on time. Okay, cool. Okay. One thing that I did notice that was a crossover between your books is the titles. both very descriptive and they're both they follow like the the this of that yes and I'm wondering

how you come up with them because in my mind I immediately think of fallout boy and real housewives of something yes so I'm wondering where you draw your inspirations for your titles I'm going to say this and and I think I'm this may be only the second time possibly the first time I've said it in an interview because I think people probably won't believe it. I've never actually watched a full episode of the Real Housewives of anything. I haven't either. So reality TV is not my thing. It hasn't been my thing really since flavor of love. That I was addicted to. Like that was my shit. But the other ones and I watched I think like the first season of um of um I always say love and basketball, but that's not what it's. Basketball wives. That's what it is. Basketball wives.

Maybe I saw love and hip-hop. Like, I conflate those two, but early on. But then, you know, like I haven't watched lately. But, you know, if you are on social media as I am, you learn the personas and you see the clips that go viral from the reunion shows and so forth. So I know about the franchises. I know even some of the personalities. But I've never actually watched like sat down and watched a full episode. And the titles come from two different places. So for Secret Lives of Church Ladies, my agent Danielle and I disagree about who came up with it.

I say she did. She says I did. We don't remember because we're both Virgo's, but we're also both menopausal. It's gone. It's gone. There's the synergy that came up with it. We'll never know.

But the true confession is the first lady. Freeman. That was an easy one. Initially, the book was called Good Girl Anonymous. Back when it was Shar, her name was Rebecca. Wow. Why? Why? Okay. So different.

But it was when she was unhappily married to the pastor and she had the Secret Sexy Anonymous blog. And the blog was called Good Girl Anonymous. And so I titled the book that. But Danielle and I agree that this book needed a stronger title. And it had changed so much. And so we were probably a month away from, oh, gosh, where were we? I remember I was driving across country.

So I must have been leaving my residency. I had been at the University of Mississippi as a John and Renee Grisham writer in residence. So that would have been June of 2023. I was driving in California because I lived in Oakland for a year. And that was June of 2023. The book went out on submission in July. So we needed a title before she, Danielle sent it out. And I had been talking to Danielle about it as I was driving.

And then I don't know if I texted my group chat with my friend Patrice and my friend Tammy or call them or something. but Patrice called me and she said, I've got, and this is Patrice Grell Urcic, who is Afrobella. So she's a beauty influencer, OG beauty influencer. And so she called me and she was like, what about the true confessions of First Lady Freeman? And you're like, well. Yes. And then don't text and drive, kids.

sent that to Daniel and Daniel called me and was like fuck yes and we had our title that is so cool it's so perfect too it really is and the cover

I mean I know you don't always have tons of well you authors tend to have some input but like this one's all me oh good I will take credit for it the Apple the concept

I saw it from the beginning They did ask. They did ask and I said she's sitting in one of those clergy thrones her leg is thrown over on one side. I did imagine her having a sash on and that the crown would be a skewer on her head. But instead, because the model

because that is actually a painting. Okay. And the painter, Carrie Graber, she does photo shoots and then she paints based on the photo. So the model's face doesn't really look like we envision Shar. So that's why they cut it off so you don't really see the top of her face. But also it speaks to the whole true confessions like secrecy kind of thing.

Right. We see all of that. So but when they took, when they chopped it there, you couldn't see the, the tiara, which always was a skew. I wanted it askew because of Shar. So instead they put it on her knee. the red bottom lubotans always had to be there. Did you die when Drusky did his like mega church with his lubitons?

Yes. Perfect. Oh my God. But Carrie added that stained glass, which I think is just perfect. Yes. It's really, really perfect. But that was my concept. My editor also had a fantastic concept.

hers was having Char recreate the birth of Venus. And so she would have dreadlocks but also the pageant sash and then otherwise nude with the Apple. I was like Beyonce did that right. Yeah. For one of her birth announcements. Yeah. And so those were the two ideas we would put forth internally at the publisher. Yeah.

Mine got the most support. And then we gave it to an art. artist and went from there. So I'm thankful, because you're right. Like we get as writers, usually we get consultation, which in the end doesn't mean much. But as my agent says, she's like, you know, it's consultation, but most publishers don't want an author who's unhappy about their cover. I did not love the church ladies cover at all.

Oh, yeah. And they, and my, and West Virginia University, press said too bad basically. They were not nice about it at all. Damn. Dang. I didn't love that cover. At least you had a very different experience the second time around.

In the UK cover, you mentioned the stained glass. Like it is, or that's the UK cover, right? Yes. It's almost like a stained glass version of Cherise and like I think she's holding a Bible, possibly. Yeah, there's a Bible. She's got her tiara and then the stained glass has all of, there's a her mouth is in there.

There's a her lubiton. Well, I don't think it's a lubaton, but it's a red pump. You know, all of her little trinkets. There's an apple. And they had an artist make a stained glass. Wow. That actually exists in the world. Amazing.

That is so cool. Yeah. That is amazing. If you go on my Instagram, well, it's big in there. It's in there. Or Double Day UK, their Instagram has that. Yeah. you had a cake with it maybe.

Yeah, and in the UK, they did that. So they made a cake. They decided, because we know Cherise's birthday, she's a Virgo to early September, so they're like, it's your birthday. Oh, that's so perfect. So they had a birthday cake, and internally

at a double day, they had a cake giveaway for the employee, so there was like a drawing or whatever or some sort of sweepstakes. So somebody won a cake, won that cake, which I thought was a lot But now I don't know. I might have to import.

I'm jealous. Yeah. No, when I saw the cover reveal, because I have the, um, the Ler Institute version. That's my net galley cover. Yes. Yeah, I got this at Winter Institute. And I was like, I cannot wait to see. Because I, I immediately started reading it.

And I was done in like two days. And I was like, I cannot wait to see what they do with the cover. And it is just perfection. I love it. Perfection. Yeah. And like the suit with the, what am I trying to think of? The crop. Yeah, the crop. Yeah. Okay, I will say, I imagined her having on a pantsuit, but the crop was perfect. And so the model actually had that suit on with the crop and everything.

So I have to give her credit for that. That's cool. But it was a different color. And so shout out to Yian Kim at Harper Collins. who designed the cover. So there's the artist who made the art, and then there's the designer. So she changed the pantsuit to that green and then paired it with the yellow title.

And my nails are this color right now. I'm getting to go on my tours. You're not on YouTube. She has amazing green nails. Oh, that's right. Okay. Yeah, I forgot people can't see it. It's okay.

It's easy to forget. I love it. Amazing. Yeah. Well, I will say, I know we're a little bitty place in the middle of nowhere, but if you ever do like a paperback tour and you want to come to Indianapolis, listen, my bestie, Tamara Winfrey Harris lives there. The way the tour shaped up, they relied a lot on invitations, right?

So if somebody invited me, then my publicist, you know, had a lot of questions for them about numbers and, you know, how many people and how many books and all of that. But I, but that, so that didn't work out. But I would love to come to. Yeah. Yes. We will do a Honolulu 3.0. Okay. Yes.

Oh my gosh. We were joking about this yesterday. And I was like, I've seen some. like thrillers. I read a lot of thrillers as well. And there's one called Hot Girl Murder Club that was really good this summer. And her one of her book tour is like a stop was in a church. And I was like if we could do a church for this one, it would be so funny. Listen, I am so down. I have, um, the tour goes in his got like I've got stuff scheduled into like June of next year, but I've got some pockets in there. And then also there's the rest of next year. So let's definitely

talk about it. I will come. I will come. Oh, that would be so fun. Listen, I saw you're going to be in Wisconsin in October and I have a friend who lives up there. So I might be there. Okay. I want to be there. I'm hoping I'll be there. If you come, okay, and this is the thing I tell people all the time. I have terrible face recognition. Especially when you're signing books and it's a bunch of people. And so somebody will look vaguely familiar. Right. Like, please just tell me your name and where we know each other It is not because I don't care. It's because Minipov and I've never been good with faces ever. So many people over and over and over again.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like there's one of me though. There's just one of me and a bunch of y'all. So just be like Kate from Bookwild. Yes. I do kind of, you know. Okay.

That sometimes the shirt's help. Yeah. We'll be good. I have bookmarks that I bring sometimes. Yes. Well, I would love that. And so, yeah, I got invited to the Wisconsin Book Festival. I've never been to Wisconsin before. But yeah, I would love, love to come. It would be fun. I'll be very fun. Do you have any other questions, Cassie? I think that's it. Yeah. Or else I'll just be talking all day. So you got to cut me off. I'm the same way. I can just keep talking. I do typically at the end ask authors if they have any books they've loved recently. or if they have books that they just always recommend. You don't have to have read it recently.

So recently, so much of what I'm reading these days are books I've been asked to blurb. So that really curates my list for me. But it also means it's amazing books. I am someone who actually reads the books and I don't blurb a book unless I mean every word that I say. So most recently, my friend Kiesa Lehman's forthcoming book, Good God, which is another memoir from him. The people are not ready. Y'all have never seen a book like this before.

Oh, boy. So that's everything I mentioned is going to be available for pre-order. My Duval homegirl, Donnie Walton, author of the final revival of Opel and Neb, has a new one coming out next year called These Girls Out Here. Okay. That title alone? Yes. Because you have to say it like that.

These girls out here, you know. Yes. So just finished Donnie's amazing novel. And that novel and true confessions are absolutely in conversation with each other. I'm not going to give spoilers as to how. It is absolutely in conversation. Exodus Octavia Brownlow's debut short story collection when it gets cold in the South. Your minds will be blown.

It sounds like it. Very black, very southern. Mississippi writer who is bold, bold, bodacious, all of the things. On the page, off the page. I absolutely adore her.

And it's just brilliant fiction, just incredible, incredible craft. Just building our 2027 TBR stores. There you go. Yes, very much so. Who else? Oh, in this one, I

think is coming out this week. Lydia Mathis, Desperate Bodies. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So I think Lydia's right around the corner. And then the last one I'll shout out because I think it is 2027 is Jared Jackson's debut collection locals. Ooh. Interesting. And I love I love all kinds of writing. Like it's a spectrum, not just one type, but one type of writing that I love is the kind of prose that Jared it writes, which is, we call it spare or lean, but like it packs an emotional punch. Yeah. And you're like, why am I curled up in the fetal position right now? And the story is very place-based.

It's a collection of stories about mostly young people, mostly young men and their families in Hartford, Connecticut, which is not a site, you know, a setting that we've seen a lot of fiction in. And so these stories are just breathtaking. That's awesome. Amazing. Yeah. Killing up my, yeah. It's actually, I had, I had some authors on like five people who had all written short stories for a similar new press.

And we were talking about, like, some people think, oh, a short story, that's easier to write. And actually, to be able to fit something poignant into something short to your point that has you in the fetal position. a lot more work to do that. Not that it makes it better than anything. It's just it's not that it's easier to write short. Yeah, none of this is easy. That's the thing. I would impress upon people.

None of this is easy. No genre is easy. Yeah. We run into it with social media too because people will be like, I just need you to make me a really short 30 second video from this four hour event. And you're like, if you thought short meant it would make the budget cheap, you're wrong. Right. Right.

Yeah. Well, I am so happy to hear that you have more short stories coming out, that you're working another novel. We were talking about it yesterday. I was like, I hope she's going to write more novels, too, because I want to hear what she has to say. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm about 3,000, 4,000 words into a new novel that I've been poking at over the last couple of years that's different. It's not, right now, it's not churchy, you know? So there is a church. There are church. Yeah. Because, you know, I think I'll always have church people in my books, but they are not, the church is not centered. Yeah.

And churchiness is not centered in this one. Well, where is the best place for people to follow you to keep up to date on everything? Instagram or threads. I'm Facebook years old, but I just can't keep up with Facebook. That's okay. I don't either. I don't either. Well, I will put all the links and the books we just talked about in the show notes so everyone can go add them, go follow Disha, go, well, this is coming out the day that the book comes out. So you can't pre-order it, but buy it.

Please, thank you. And yeah, I can't wait to see what you do next. And we'll have to talk to you about it again when you do. Absolutely. I will come back anytime. And again, I'll come to Indianapolis. Yes. Yes, we will be there. Thank you.