Bookwild - Going Bookwild in Manhattan with Jamie Hergott

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

After three days of bookish tourism, my sister-in-law Jamie and I recapped our trip while we waited to board at LaGuardia.  We dove into Liz and Greg's Trust Issues Book Launch, the bookstore crawl we completed, and how we slowly became subway girlies.  Some parts may be choppy since we had to pause for airport announcements! Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Okay, so this is a book wild podcast coming to you from LaGuardia Airport special. And earlier, earlier this month, everyone got to meet Tyler, one of my family members, actually, who's my husband. In case you guys didn't catch up with that, but yes, this, as you guys may know, because you probably have been following my stories all week. is Jamie, my sister-in-law. Hello. So Jamie has been going book wild with me all over New York. Is there anything else you want the people to know about you? Yeah.

No, I mean, I'm a big reader. I might not read all the same types as Kate, but she's very good at recommending books, both in her genre and outside of her genre. Yeah. And I really love the bookish community that she is building. with a podcast. It's just so cool to see. And I got to, like, be in it this week.

I haven't been able to do that yet. It's one thing to listen to your podcast. Yeah. And then it's another to see how everyone just, like, relates to each other. Yeah. So happy for each other and, like, supports each other. It's just really neat. I got to see it firsthand.

That is something that was really cool. So I'm going to take it all the way back to my second episode of Between the Lines before it was officially just all book wild. um Ashley Winstead told me she was like um she was like thriller authors are just the nicest people I've ever met and I remember her like saying it and being like oh that's cool I feel like you were even getting to experience that too like they're all just so supportive of each other I don't know you expect like thriller writers especially once you write dark things like when you meet them they're going to be like yes dark I don't know I know most of them are bubbly and nice and warm and yeah yeah so we are in LaGuardia as we mentioned so there will be some announcement interruptions so we came to New York for Elizabeth McCullough Keenan and Greg Warren's book launch and I always takes a long to say her name because I just know her as Liz but they are publishing under their own separate names now

Um, and their book trust issues came out January 28th, two days ago. I just finished it this morning. Okay, you did. Wasn't that ending cool? Yes. I loved the ending. I didn't like the last half, especially like, I kept turning, turning, turning, turning. I was trying not to skin, like I can get speed reading sometimes.

And I didn't want to miss details, but I wanted to know what happened. No, the ending is so cool, guys. You guys will love it. So they had a book launch at Barnes & Noble. it was the same Barnes & Noble that they had their first book launch at, which I thought was super cool. And the reason I knew that, well, a couple reasons. But when we got there, I saw that my friend Drew was there. So he's a man reader on Instagram, which like I love that.

He changed his handle this year. His username, and I love it. I love it so much. I think it's one of the best ones. Kate told me what it was. I said that was so clever. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't even know everyone who was going to be there. I knew that there would be some people that I would know. We walked in and I was like, that's true. So we talked to him for a little bit. And then the event itself was very cool. I am a big Clamont Smey-Shallone fan as well. And she was in conversation with Liz and Greg. And she just has some really good questions. And you had a nice observation about who Climaud's looks like. Yeah, she looks exactly like Taylor Swift.

Yeah. Like all the Taylor vibes. Well, first was the hair in the bank. Yeah. And it was the color of her hair. Then the lipstick. Mm-hmm. The red lip.

And a lot of things old. She's never going to go out of style is what we're saying. Yeah. So she was super fun. I loved getting to hear her talk with them. And she was on the Imposter Hour podcast. So if anyone listening to this was as big of a fan of The Quiet Tenet as I was, which I accidentally called The Silent Tinent on an Instagram story one time.

Thankfully, Dare helped me out there. If you want to hear her talk a little bit about the Quiet Tenant, but also about Imposter Syndrome. As a French woman writing in English, you can check out Lizzie Greg's Imposter Hour. with her. So that was super cool. Before that, though, we had a cool experience at a little sandwich shop. I forgot. We didn't talk about that. So anyway, we landed. We got to the hotel. We were hungry. And so we needed to find somewhere. And we found this cute little place called Sandwell.

Get Sandwell on Instagram if you want to go follow them. You had like the best turkey meatball sub ever is that I mean I got a toasted turkey meatball sub and it was literally heaven like I was cold for walking around I'm hungry yeah yeah and it was just a perfect amount of toasted bread and cheese hot meatball like it just was perfect everything you want yeah yeah and And the owner was really cute and because we were so fun, he offered us some of his oatmeal and Nutella cookies. Well, and before he offered it, what did he ask?

What did he ask? He asked to be allergies. It was so sweet. He came up and said, excuse me, do you have any allergies? You're right. And I turned and I was like, how funny what it was me too? I'm like, cat and Miss. and mosquito rights.

Yeah, he asked if he had allergies, and then he gave us oatmeal and italicryphus. They were fantastic. I will be looking up a recipe for something similar to that. That is 100% of the shop. They're so good. So, yeah, that was before. And then Asher, what was it?

I suddenly needed caffeine. I was like, oh, because there was an after party. and I was like I'm definitely a need caffeine so then we wandered around with Google Maps full tourist mode and eventually we found a fresh bites little market corner shop um cool things you guys to know about Jamie because I know a lot of us in the British community have a commercial support water bottles Jamie loves water as an emotional support item just as much I don't go anywhere without my water bottle. So we got really excited and we found this market that had like gallons of water. But we also knew we couldn't buy them and then take them to the after party. So we were like

noted we'll come back and get it. I got a coffee so that I could wake up a little bit. And then we headed to the gin mill, which was where their after party was. It was very, very cool. It was, like, went. Yeah, it was a speak. We went like underground, underneath the restaurant into a speakeasy for the event. That was very viety.

Yeah. And then Drew, we got there very early because of course we did. And then Drew got there. So we got to talk to Drew some more, which was super fun. Yeah. Like the bookish community, welcome with Hope and Arms. I know.

They don't really know anything about me. I know. They really, they're, they're, the ones that I had found are great, bookish people. And then as people started sharing up, it was all, Kate, Kate. We were so excited to meet the podcaster. She was kind of like a little mini-farbering. Yes, because I forgot to say, oh, there's another dog, so I'm just shocked by all the dogs in those airport, guys. We just saw the cutest French bull dogs that reminded me of my pit bulls.

And I was like, um, anyway, uh, To your point, we saw Corinne Jade on our way out of Barnes & Noble. I did not expect to see her there. She's the author of The Astrology House. I interviewed her. She is the pop fiction women podcast that you guys keep hearing me talk about, where she was like listened to a whole gone girl interview that did not end up referencing Gillian Flynn.

I talked about the men related to the project. And so she was like, I want to change that. So that's pop fiction women where they talk about stories that women write, whether it's movies, TV shows, books. So yeah, she has a podcast too as well. And she's the author of The Astrology House, which is when I do think Jamie would like, that's on my list for Jamie eventually. So I was crazy running into her. We were just like walking down the stairs. And I was like, correct?

And she was like, I've never seen you in person. But back to what you were saying at the after party, then Tessa Weger showed up. And she even said something along the lines of like, have I met you in person? So it's kind of funny, too, that like some of us, we've all known each other so long that it might not have been her. I think it was her. But someone was, someone asked me, have we met in person yet? And I was like, no, we haven't.

We talk so much to somebody on my new field. You know them. And you have such a signature book, too. I do. It's just easy to spot you. And you're like, I feel like I've talked to you many times. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was really cool. It was really cool. Getting to see everybody there. And then it got, yeah, it got busy. And so we ended up walking home. It was fun. It was fun to mingle. We picked up, we picked up our gallons of water on the way home.

We made sure we did that. That made me feel a lot better. And so then that night, I just was our first night in the hotel. You edited. And I edited until I read. Yeah, you were reading. And I...

Did you pause sleep editing? Yes. Yes. I was so sure, I was so convinced that I could, with pure will, just keep myself awake and finish it because I wanted to post day one before I even fell asleep. and I woke up at like 3 a.m. like seated and I was like looking around and I was like wait where am I? Then I was like oh so then I like closed the laptop but what's funny is Tyler's had

that happen before and I was like you fell asleep editing like you didn't just like go to sleep and I was like oh it is just easy to do it's just easy to do when you're editing so I slept really very well I slept really well both nights I was surprised actually um yeah I was tired of enough that it made sense. But I woke up and I got back to editing and I was like, we are going to get this out before we head out. So I basically edited until, I don't know, when we left in the morning. But Greg had texted us and he was like, hey, are you guys in town again today? And I was like, we are loosely. And so I sent him like the list of bookstores we thought we were going to go look at. So we were going to meet him. I told him we can meet him at the mysterious

bookshop, kind of whenever, because that is kind of his hometown bookshop. So he said he can meet us there at like 2.30. So we took, we embarked on our first subway ride. She's all intimidating. It was like finding the station, entrance. Getting our two, Metropath thinking we needed to get it. I know. I know. Just tap to pay, but we just didn't know. I thought it said tap to pay on like the machine.

So I thought we needed to like sign up for tap to pay. No, we did it. No, you should literally tap and pay. Like it was insane. Yeah. So at one point we did have, we had Metro cards. But got on the subway and made our way to the mysterious. No.

Paid our way to housing works. Which is where Taylor Swift. the bookstore scenes for all too well 10-minute version. Which one? Which won awards? Yeah. That's kind of cool. It was a cool vibe.

We just kind of looked around. Yeah. I don't think we got anything there. No. It was kind of cool seeing the staircase where it all happens, where it all goes down. But yeah, I was aware of, like, they were kind of, like, used books. I didn't remember if all of them were. I think they kind of were.

But there weren't tons of thrillers there. So it was still fun to look around. But it wasn't anything that I was like, oh, I know that one or whatever. So after that, we went to a really cute place called Bibliotech. Yeah, I think that was. I was within walking distance of housing works too. So that was nice. It had like, it is just like two floors like of books.

essentially, like just a big open area. And then they had coffee and wine. And we didn't end up like eating there, but you could. So I got kind of caught up on some content stuff. And we had coffee because we were, yeah, I would feel when I was like, oh, I got a new caffeine now. So that was nice. I had a caramel latte there.

It was very good. And then we hopped on a subway again and headed to the mysterious workshop. That's when we headed there. We saw the World Trade Center Memorial. I realized we were going to be right there. The architecture there was very beautiful. It was absolutely. Very stunning.

I sent Tyler a picture and he responded and said, it legit looks like you're just in a movie. And that's what you had been saying. You just kept saying, I feel like we're on a movie. It's not a movie set because it just the buildings are so close together. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like that in Indiana.

No, it's not. It's just not. It's just not. It has yards. Even a small yard is big compared to here. Yeah. You know. Totally.

So yeah. It does feel very movie set over there. The sky was really blue when we were there. So all the like reflecting off of the buildings is very pretty on that side. Yeah. So we went into the mysterious book shop, which again, It's kind of like two floors of just books against the walls. And there's a spot to sit, which like always good when you're just traveling around everywhere.

Yeah. So we sat down. We got there a little bit before Greg. He was not late. It was a flexible time. But we got there. And so we sat down. And what was funny is like where we were sitting blocked.

We were blocked from the entrance. Like the entrance couldn't see. us if you were at the entrance. Yeah. So I was recording and you can hear it when he walks in and the owner is like, oh, hey, Greg. And I'm like, Jamie is Greg. And so I was like trying to like, I was trying to surprise him and be like, Greg, he wasn't hearing me.

And I thought it was being kind of loud, but. Yeah, but he just, um, he was looking at books. He was looking at books. He was in his bookman. But you know how we get when we look at books? Yeah. So, um, I gave, I got some soccer shots of him and then. we talked with Greg for a while.

We did. There was a really good conversation. I was so gracious with him to give us some time. I agree. And we got to pick his brain about what it's like to be an author and his process. Yes. I don't know. It was neat.

Yeah. It was encouraging. It was. It was really cool. I just love Liz and Greg. I've always been able to, I've always felt like I could talk to them for like three hours. That's kind of how I ended up feeling with them. Yeah.

So I was exciting that we got to talk with him. And it was cool because I started noticing like I am in my little thriller bubble of books and I hadn't seen all of my favorite books. And it was cool seeing just like all my favorite books in one place. So then we tried to think Greg and I worked on some thriller book wrecks for Jamie that wouldn't annihilate her. Yeah, I'm... She doesn't need... She does not need a gear, bleak, billings, recommendations. I don't know if people make kids or what, but I just can't go dark. Yeah, I have...

It's my thriller. And we just heard that I was saying that. I've heard some women who, like, really loves them. And when they had kids, they're like, can't do it anymore. So... Yeah. So... And some people just don't, even if they don't have kids.

Right. Everyone has a preference, yeah. Yeah. So I got a bunch of books there. and that was very fun. What was the other thing I was thinking about while we were there? I don't know. Greg and I were just walking around talking about books together, though.

I just love talking about thrillers with other thriller lovers. We all bought three of us books. Yeah, we all bought books. So that was really fun. That was super fun. And so I was fading at that point. I was excited. I was able to be enlightened by our conversation.

I was fading and I was like Jamie I got to go back to we just go back to the hotel for a little bit after this so Greg taught us some subway stuff in the sense that it was the first time we went on one of the express ones so we rode back to basically rode and walked back to our hotel with him kind of he he lived close to where our hotel was um so I was just trying to summon strength because time square and that was really the only time we could go at night I was very tired we talked about tonight we need today we need today to be a lot colder yeah and last time was the only time to see it in the dark yes yeah we asked Greg I was finally like I want

And we asked Greg what near us. Yeah. And he said Patsy's Pizzeria. I was told us I was surprised about how good it was. It was amazing. We smashed that pizza. I mean, we shared one and I was like, I'm just going to have two pieces. We both had like our whole half.

And it's like we also discovered we didn't have a fridge or microwave. So we couldn't bring feedback. So there's like this frenzy around food that it was like, okay, inhale stuff you can snow yeah or be super yeah and they like be super hungry later so it was good that

we got a small one not that it doesn't matter what size we got but we split a pizza it was fantastic though it really was very good and the pepperoni's were very spicy and the sauce was so fresh it was the sauce was amazing yeah the sauce was and the fire the wood fire

whatever roasted yes the Rick oven. Yeah. The crispy crust. That's Tyler's favorite. He loves that. There's a guy who rates pizzas and he's very popular.

He's polarizing, so I just want to say his name right now. But he calls it the undercarriage of the pizza. If it can, like, hold itself up or it floats. There's crispy. So it would be scoring high on that scale. It was perfect. It was so good. So that was a good recommendation.

I'm glad to gave us that. Then with our new knowledge, a little new knowledge of the subway, especially with me, Greg, we made our way to Times Square. What was your first reaction? My first reaction was that I was surprised that I didn't peel over simulator. I was like, oh, this is just pretty. It's beautiful. Yeah. It really is.

It really is. I know. It is impressive. It really is. it's so bright and so we were just like walking there's kind of like two streets of it we were just recording everything and I was just yeah I was FaceTiming my entire family yeah we were full tourist mode and it was I was shocked for how much I loved it it was definitely worth it we even finished the second half of a wheel that I need to be a

girl in post even though I'm self-conscious about it. It's a cool real. It looks really nice. We hopped over the candlestick, essentially, of this camera actually that we're staying out right now. So we did a reel where we started off in the Indy Airport and we jump over it. And you have to jump over the camera to finish it, wherever you're wanting to finish it. And I'm so torn.

Like at first, when we did the first part of it, I was like, oh, we'll do it when we land or something. And I was like, no, it would make sense for it to be something recognizable for that kind of real. So we did it like right at the, right where the corner happens, essentially. We started hopping over stuff. Nobody cared. Yeah, we did it. I can say that I hopped around.

When I told Tyler that we did it, he was like, I really hope you guys show up on influencers in the wild because there's an account where people just like. Yeah, I've seen that one. I was like, I would love to. That would love to. That he posts more people being like. Wild. You're definitely not happening. It was too cold to be happy.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. But I'd be more than happy to show up on influencers in the wild. That works for me. Yeah, that was, it was really cool. It was very cold. Very, very cold. I do remember even my fingers were like when we then eventually headed back home,

I went back to the subway. I was like, yeah, I'm even a little bit cold right now. But you just kind of, just pile through it, record all of it. So yeah, we made it home. It was 8.30 or 9 o'clock. I was bound and determined that I would edit like I was the night before. And then I, long story short, anyone who knows about editing and trying to transfer stuff from your phone and from a camera onto your laptop

when the Wi-Fi isn't great. When the Wi-Fi is not great, the AirDraft doesn't work that well either. So it's just like I did not have the brain capacity to edit after I got everything moves over. So I got everything moves over. We kind of, I can't remember what we talked about, something about just recapping the day. And then then I fell asleep. I don't know when, but I did eventually. Yeah. I didn't sleep as well.

I woke up at 4.20 for some reason. I really struggled. But it wasn't bad sleep either. It wasn't bad bad bad. I just need my body pillow. I'm excited for my body pillow tonight. So yeah, that was that. And then I woke up.

We couldn't get a late checkout. So we knew we were going to have to leave my noon. I actually had to do a telephal. appointment at 9.30. But like if I didn't say yes, I wouldn't have run out of my meds. So I was like, I guess I'm doing a telehealth appointment from the looser. Yeah, it did not take very long. So leading up to that, I was like, okay, now I have to edit it, right, right, and I got almost done. I just didn't have the voiceover yet. And then I had my telehealth appointment. And then it was like 10 o'clock and it was like two hours left before you have to try.

check out. So then I was just power editing again because there was significantly more that we did that thing. Because it was our only full day there. So came in right under the wire. I rendered it and we had to check out. And I literally finished for rendering or I finished. I made the thumbnail in Canva in the hotel lobby and then had to do all the like subtitles and putting the music underneath it but it got posted it got posted and now you have a lot I have a lot of yeah there's a lot to do day three nice to the strand was what we went to back I had it on my list it's kind of famous for its 18 miles of books which I think has to do with square feet of bookshelf space but it was very cute

Like, it was a commercial bookstore. I know. I don't have the details anymore. So I'll fact check that later. I'll give every an update. But I think it's not anymore. But it's the idea. And anyone who read the Three Lives of Kate K,

there is a reference because the character is an author. The main character is an author. But when she was a kid, she carried around a strand tale. So she has that tote is like a through line throughout the book. So when I was reading that I knew we were coming to New York, I was like, well, I definitely have to go there too. Such a good one, you would love that one. It was one of my, like it's not a thriller.

It's kind of a mystery to it. But it's more like, it's definitely character, it's all very character-driven. And it's just like a very beautiful heartfelt. story. It's really good. And I'm still trying to get Kate Fagan in the podcast. So if anyone is listening, tell her my DM is waiting in her request. But yeah, it was cool. It was so huge. I need to stop ourselves from buying mugs or water bottles and, yeah, and more drugs. I should have taken out of my backpack, but the camera is sitting on my backpack right now. I got, we used to live here, my absolute obsession, everyone who has worked into anything that I have recorded since November has probably heard me talk about it. So I finally got a physical version and I liked getting the physical version at a cool

bookstore. It was kind of fun doing that with one of my faves after year. Oh, yes, from mystery thriller. Yeah, I probably could have kept wandering but he was just standing there. Jamie's good at being like maybe we should ask someone. I was like, oh yeah, we can ask people things. It's just easier. It might be a lazy way. Maybe I don't know if you could look at it either way and like either I don't know right where it was, we never want to talk about it. Yeah, I didn't know that it was going to be, I didn't know that the back area was separately by genre.

Yeah, well it was more reset. Well it's so popular and I'm going to have to follow up on this one too. I thought this one was so mainstream popular that it was so mainstream popular that it was would show up because there were so many like book displays I was like so sure that it was one that would have showed up I was surprised that it wasn't so maybe I've just been insulated in my thriller horror world but I thought that one was one that crossed over yeah who knows but we found it eventually and now I am an owner at the fiscal copy um what else then we just needed coffee we stopped at involved me. Yeah.

Just literally needed energy, so I got shy. And a chocolate response did they did not warm up, which was an interesting choice. And they gave me a small instead of a lot. It's not

a... It was... They felt very scattered. Whatever. They felt like they weren't really... Yeah. But we just needed something to have the brain powers. Then

take a subway back to our hotel. We tried to find some souvenirs. I didn't love anything. I mean, that one green sweatshirt, but like it was not special and I just was like me. Yeah. So yeah, then we made it back to the hotel, picked up our bags that were in storage. And they had a show that took a straight year. It was cheaper than Uber and less dressedful than a subway. and didn't have to think or anything. Just walked out the door. Yeah.

And now we're here and we're about the flat home to Indiana. So yeah. It was a whirlwind. It was a whirlwind. It's like I feel like I have only been like filming stuff and while learning how to get places. And then when we were back, it was just all editing. And it just, it flew by.

Once we had to the airport, we both felt the adrenaline turned to leak out of our body. You could tell all of a sudden I was like, oh, you could just feel it. You know, I'm talking about severance all the time. It literally felt like the moment where they transitioned. It felt like I felt the, you feeling when we got here. And I was like, you could kind of turn right off a little bit. Yeah. All you had to do is get to your gate.

And we weren't talking about. Yeah. And we weren't navigating. Yeah. And now I'm like, oh, the adrenaline. was, yeah, my left ankle is a lot of sore. I think I just wasn't aware of it. I sprained it a couple months ago.

So yeah, now we're on the come down. I am really tired. But. Well, and Tyler was coming to get you. Yeah, Cody's coming in me, Tyler's brother. We'll be back in indie. Back in Indy. Back to Marco Polo.

Yeah, we Marko a lot. So anyway, it was fun. I had a lot of fun building a book trip. You did a good job building it out. I'll link them. I just looked at like four blogs about bookish things to do in Manhattan. And that gave me plenty of ideas. So I'll link those. I had a couple conversations with some people. You like the idea of bookish retreats. So Laura, thoughts from the island said I was doing bookish tourism and I am with a with that that terminology but if anyone is interested in the idea of bookish

book wild retreats message me if we're interested in I'm just we're gonna I'm going to be going more and more book wild this year so everything's an option do you have any takeaways I would say just the power of building a community in your niche that you're passionate about I think a lot of people don't credit that like what it feels like to connect with people who are passionate about the exact same thing as you and for you it's not even just books it's thriller books like you know specifically you went detailed yeah and so um and just to see how people lit up when they saw you and like when you were talking and you guys are all you know and i got to meet them and they were all so sweet to me and yeah i think that

was neat the coolest part yeah that's what it was cool for me i was having those realizations kind of at the end of 2024 I was like I didn't think I was going to build a community but then I did and it's fun it's so cool it's so wild to me that I live in Whitesown and I came to New York and there are people who recognize me yeah it's still thinking yeah yeah that's cool super we'll see um maybe maybe there's gonna be another one happening maybe who knows it was good to meet some of you this week go follow Jamie. I'll tag her. But you can still follow her if you want to.

If you can, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.