Bookwild - Witches vs. the Oligarchs: Kirsten Miller’s Women of Wild Hill

Episode Date: November 8, 2025

This week, Steph and I got chat with Kirsten Miller about her newest novel The Women of Wild Hill. She shares the evolution of her writing process, and the inspirations behind her sharp, witchy, and deeply human stories.She dives into her love of flawed “unlikable” women, and her view of witchcraft as a metaphor for women’s power and connection to nature. She unpacks how setting, character, and “vibe” shape her work; how hope underpins even her darkest stories; and how The Women of Wild Hill extends the feminist universe begun in The Change, spanning generations of women using their power against patriarchy.We also discuss the cultural resurgence of witch narratives, the importance of honoring women’s sacrifices throughout history, audiobook narration with January LaVoy, and the enduring magic of storytelling as both art and act of resistance.Women of Wild Hill Synopsis Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

This week, Steph and I got to talk to one of our all-time favorites, Kirsten Miller. And we talked to her specifically about her new book, The Women of Wild Hill, but there was a little fan-girling in general, and so we asked her all the questions we've had for her as well. This book is what a lot of women need right now. There are places on earth where nature's powers gather. Girls raised there are bequeathed strange gifts. A few have powers so dark that they fear to use them.

such a place is wild hill on the tip of long island for centuries the ghost of a witch murdered by colonists claimed the beautiful and fertile wild hill until a young scottish woman with strange gifts arrived sadie duncan was allowed to stay five generations of sadie's descendants called wild hill home each generation more powerful than the last then in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy the last of the duncan's once to be the most powerful of their kind, abandoned their ancestral home. One of them, Bridget, moved to California and turned her dark gift into fame and fortune. Her sister, Phoebe, settled on a ranch in Texas where women visit in secret for her tonics and cures. Phoebe's daughter, Sybil, has become a famous chef.

Seemingly powerless, Sybil has never been told of the Duncan bloodline. Now Bridget, Phoebe, and Sybil have been brought to wildhills. to discover their family legacy. The old one, furious at the path mankind has taken, has chosen three powerful witches to turn the tide. The Duncans will fulfill their destinies, but only if they can set aside their grievances and come together as a family.

If you are a woman who is not a fan of the state of the world right now, this is a book that you need. It will restore your hope. It will remind you of the power of women. the way that she tells the story intergenerationally is also kind of an ode to the times and places where women were helping that maybe haven't been highlighted. And the ending is just fantastic. That being said, let's hear from Kirsten. I am super excited. I am here with Kirsten

Miller and Steph. And you all have heard us talk about multiple of her books very often. So this is an exciting moment for the podcast. So thank you for joining us, Kiersen. Oh, thank you for inviting me. Yeah. So before we completely dive into the women of Wild Hill, I always want to know what authors like journey to writing was. So did you always know you wanted to? How did that all happen for you? No, well, you know, I'd always written, but I never ever anticipated doing it for money. I'm not sure I want to now, to be honest with you. It's, it's, you know, because it's something I love doing and I, you know, I would love to be able to just do it for myself instead of having to take other things into consideration. But fine. But I was, you know, I, I never interested.

tended to do it professionally. I was in advertising for a long time. And I just had an idea one day. And I thought it was going to be like a street art campaign. I wanted to have like the silhouette of this little girl sort of pop up whenever any weird thing happened in New York and have her take credit for it. So it's like, you know, a giant sinkhole in the middle of Fifth Avenue. And like the little girl would end up on a wall nearby and be like, yeah, my bad. Like I did this. I'm sorry. That's cool. But I couldn't, you know, I'd been working with an artist and he left town and my husband at the time was like, why don't you just turn this into a book? And I thought, huh. So I sat down and started writing it and it became my first series, which was actually for kids, which was called Kiki Stripe. Wow.

That's crazy. That's so cool that it was like a marketing idea almost. I wasn't selling anything. Oh, yeah, you're right. for marketing has a posse like you know the shepherd fairly stuff the early stuff i i always really love that i wanted to be something similar yeah um so how did your writing process develop from there so do you like plan it out or do you follow the vibes well i i with my first book you know i think i made the mistake that people make which is like you know i can do this i'm a genius like

I don't need to plot this out. You realize about 200 pages in that you were completely lost and you're not nearly as smart as you thought you were. And you're scared to God you're never, ever going to do that again. So I definitely plot everything out. But it's like I think of, I do really long, elaborate outlines and I will often stick them to the wall. But I'd like to think about it.

You know, when you're putting together a piece of IKEA furniture, they always tell you not to tighten the screws until the very end so that it's flexible and you can move things around if you need to so yeah but i don't tighten the screws until the end and it will often change you know many many times before before the book is done i love that analogy no one has ever used that analogy that's so good for like visualizing it yeah i feel like that applies to so much. That's what I was realizing. There's people in cheapness.

Yeah. And so then with your characters, is it, do you normally kind of know your characters going into it, or do you kind of get to know them, or is it kind of a hybrid while you're writing? There will always be a character or two characters, sometimes that I know, and they're the ones who have kind of sparked my curiosity and they're like I know I want to follow you know know what this strange person is going to end up doing but along the way you'll meet other characters and fall in love with them or decide to hate them or whatever it is and they end up

they end up becoming more prominent so it's yeah it's really you know it's great at times it almost feels like I'm following a character into their world and meeting the people lives and, you know, and they become, you know, either friends or four movies. And I treat them recording, right? Yeah, I feel that. One of the things I think that we love about your characters, especially with, like, the change and Lulidine's a library and Women of Wild Hill, I hate, I almost hate using the word unlikable or the term unlikable women anymore because i'm like should we even call them

unlikable but they that you know general reception that's probably what some people would say about some of those characters is there something that draws you to women like that well i mean i think i'm just drawn to humans you know that's a good point are often very unlikable but i Especially with Lulidine, you know, where I was, you know, I was focused on some very unlikable people. People I didn't want to hang around. Lou Ladeen is not somebody I would care to spend time with. She is human, you know, and I think that that's one of the reasons that people don't mind reading about her is that she, you know, she's not kind of a cardboard target, you know, just shoot out. Yeah. She's, she's, you know, she's definitely very problematic, but she has, you know, she has, there are sides of her that we can recognize in ourselves, right? Yeah. You know, she's a shitty human being, but she's not, you know, she loves her kids. Yeah. And so, you know, that I think that's the trick is, is making sure that you, that you have at least some compassion for your, for your, for your.

villains um as human beings yeah they're very there are very few truly evil people in the world and there are some right i think you know i'm interested right now but um yeah you know they're they're they're far less common than just you know the rest of us who are flawed and you know difficult yeah special ways totally totally um do you have any do you have any do you me follow-up stuff? I feel like I just keep like firing questions. My brain is swirling because I was just today, I was my main question for you for at some point today was do you have a story in mind and then you insert like emotions about the world or is it more like I am feeling a certain way how do I incorporate this into a story? Like is it a chicken or the egg?

or is it like just one ball of energy? I mean, it's an interesting question because everybody kind of starts first. I mean, I do kind of have a vibe in mind, and I think that's really important. Like, for example, you know, I've been working on this project, and I just recently, and I had been working on it and working on it, and it just wasn't feeling right. And I was like, what if I took this really dark horror, you know, and suddenly it all made sense? you know that that sort of change of vibe made everything kind of work um so the vibe is really important it will often start there for me you know the books usually start with um with a character and also

a place place is really really really important for me to me you know the the the city or the town or the what the location is is always kind of a another character and um so you take these you know the characters that you know and you put them in the setting that you know and the setting is often you know then decided by the vibe that you're going for and yeah yeah and then and then the kind of the magic happens from that makes sense I'm excited about this horror one coming out though I got so obsessed with horror in the last year I finally decided just to just to go for it completely yeah and like horror can be what you want want it to be. I think there's so many avenues or you can create an avenue. Absolutely. I love it.

And in fact, I was over the, I've had a, I've had like every cold this, this one. It's been crazy. So I was flying around earlier in the week because I had a bad cold. I was like, let's just watch. I'm going to go through. I found like I and B's list of the best horror movies. And I was just going through it. And I was just, I was amazed by how different they all were you know what i mean yeah and just the and it was so it was wonderful it's it's this it's a genre obviously but it's just incredibly vast um you know so it's it's been a lot of fun playing in that that world yeah it's really flexible yeah um so with the women of wild hill what was your initial inspiration for that one well it kind of all started with the change because

I, you know, I created this world in which women were discovering powers and putting them to use in kind of unexpected ways and fighting and, and, you know, using those powers to fight the patriarchy. Yes. And, you know, I loved that world so much and I put a lot of time and thought into it. And I, I, you know, figured, you know, as I said before, like, it's, you know, if Marvel can create their own universe of superheroes, I can have a universe filled with middle-aged wishes. So, yes. I was like, I want more of that. And so I thought, what if I just take a completely new set of characters and, you know,

and put them in this universe that I had created for the change? Because I think that there are so many other stories that I want to tell. in that world and I don't even think I'm going to be done with this one I would love to I have a third in mind but um it you know so it started there and I you know like once again I started with a place right this magical estate where a woman in the in colonial times has been hanged as a witch and she has never left and it's her her influence on this property on the family that lives there has made them very, very powerful. And so the question becomes, once again, like, how are you going to use that power?

How are you going to put it to use? And in the wound of Wild Hill, over five generations of the single family, they are able to do something quite spectacular by the end. And so, you know, it's like it's witches versus the oligarchs. Yes. If the change took on violence against women, this has taken on all those bad guys who are basically, you know, trying to take over the world. Yeah, and putting money first over people.

Yeah. Yeah. It was such a cathartic read, honestly. I texted Kate. I was 6% in. I was traveling. I was in San Diego. And I was like, when I think it's Kaylee, when she meets Phoebe, just the.

like golden sight of a woman i was like oh my god i just like started crying and a 6% because i was like that's just like what we need right now and it was just such a i was like i'm 6% in and i'm already having like an emotional response to this book because it's like what we need right now it like felt so good so thank you well that was it was what i needed so that was why i read it but I also think it's, I mean, I don't think this will be a spoiler, but because I intend this to be true for every book that I write, which is my books are very hopeful. Yeah, there are a lot of, there's a lot of murder in all of my books. There's a lot of, there's a lot of bad stuff, but they're all very hopeful and optimistic sort of at the end. Yes.

you know and yeah i want that because i think we need that and especially now i think we need to be able to see a light at the end of the tunnel yeah and um yeah that's kind of what i'm working that's what i'm trying to do you're i think you're accomplishing it yeah yeah i had yeah go uh no go ahead i was just thinking i almost had this like youthful hopeful feeling you know what i mean like when you're a kid and you're like read a book and you're like man i wish this was real like it had like such a cool feeling that i haven't experienced in so long it was just like yeah it was very special thank you yeah that's like i love i love when i was a kid i used to read i don't know a kid like you know whatever teenager they used to read a lot of um magical realism like so

it's probably yende and gama rica and marquez and you know i just for me that was my fantasy like i you know i'm a i love the fairies and the elves and everything as much as anyone else but like to me that's that is not the the the sort of you know when i go when i look for escape i want to go to a world that i can believe is mine right where it's just sort of where it makes you think that you might turn a corner one day and run into something magical. And so, so that's, I've always loved that, you know, books that keep one foot in reality and the other is sort of sliding into the strange and wonderful. Yeah.

And so that's, that's what I've tried. Even with Lulid, I mean, you could even say that's true, Lulity, you know, like, this isn't realistic. I'm like, really, a book where everybody in a town finds the book that they need in little library isn't realistic you don't say yeah it's magical yeah it's absolutely magical it really is um one of the things that i was texting stuff about when i was reading it there's i don't have the direct quote i should have folded it but there's a point where you kind of talk about how like women like it's three of them that like the three of them together

is what's going to really make things even more magical, essentially. And there's kind of a quote about how, like, with men, there's this, like, idealized version of, like, one man can lead us all, or one man can fix everything. And, like, women know that it takes more than one of us. Can you kind of talk about how you incorporated that into the story? I mean, I think it's true. I mean, there's a lot about, you know, there's a lot about sort of, you know, there's another part that I'd like, which I think, I don't know if it's, it's directly for that, but, you know, it talks about the sacrifices that men and women make and that when men make sacrifices, you know, when they go to war, you know, fight and battle or whatever, you know, there are songs sung about it. And there are statues erected to celebrate them.

And, you know, there are books, you know, that, that sort of are, are, are the tail, tell their tales. But with women, you know, these, these sacrifices are so, we do it so often and so regularly that they go unappreciated. You know, that, you know, the fact that every time a woman gives birth, like even now, like, it's, it's a, it is a, it is a, life-risking event. And a hundred years ago, it was, you know, it was much more perilous. And, you know, we do this all the time. You know, we go straight to the threshold of death.

You know, we look it in the face to keep the human species going. And, you know, and yet there are no songs sung about that. We get a day in May, and that's about it. You know, but that's the difference. just sort of you know it's it's um you know we we do these you know these big beautiful um glorious things too and and yet we don't we don't get the statues and we don't get the songs yeah yeah it's not it's one of the things that the book also talks about is that that is how you know those the sacrifices that women make are what keep the world

going you know literally yeah and how they're important and how you know in this family's kind of theology it's just sort of every light and dark always go hand in hand blessings and curses always you know it's they they all you know come together to make a whole that that should be appreciated so deep it's it's profound it really is yeah i think when you when you talk in the book especially i'd say in the first half you kind of take a step back there's so many generations of women and it goes back to even i guess like pre-religion almost or how it was written and all of that to say you know i just had a book club last night about a different book with witchcraft and we talked about even like with horror how many different

ways you can take witchcraft. Yes. And so how, I mean, you kind of talked about how you want to read and what your version of like fantasy is and magical realism, your favorite. I guess how did you decide what you wanted this type of witchcraft to be and the women of Wild Hill and how it relates to like what we were just talking about, like just women in general, the sacrifices we make. Yeah. So, I mean, I first of all, I love, I talk about. this all the time and I I mean it I love all the witch books out there I absolutely love saying them because I do not think that it is a literary trend I think it's a cultural movement and because mission is kind of where we test things out right we we play around with what's possible

we kind of figure out what we're going to do and I think that all of these witch books are women, sensing how powerful we've become and trying to figure out how we are going to best use that power. So when I walk into a bookstore and I see all these different witch books, I don't see competition. I see a huge powerful movement that really nobody's given a name to yet. You too. You're right about all the witches being different. And for me, I guess with my witches, there are two kind of ways to approach it. First of my witches are, are, they are not,

their, their sort of powers, their everything are originate in nature. They're, they're green witches. They're not, you know, most of them,

they're like, they're not, you know, they don't cast spells. They don't. You know, their, they,

their, their powers kind of come from sort of this, what they call in the women of Wild Hill, the old one. which is basically just the natural world. So there's that way of looking at it. But there's also just going back to the power thing. You know, when I was, when I first started writing about witches,

what I was trying to do was, you know, and somebody had asked me how I defined my witches. And what came to me was, I mean, they are women with power they're not supposed to have, with power that the society and, the power, you know, patriarchy doesn't want them to have. And that's kind of been the way it's always been with witches, right? The women who were burned or hanged in the, you know, 16th century, you know, these were, these were often women who were, you know, midwives or

healers or loudmouths or, um, eccentrics who didn't want to live by the rules or, um, you know, uh, widows who had inherited. property that people didn't think they should have. So they were women with power that they weren't, that, that was seen as a threat. And so that's the kind of those, that's where kind of my witches originate from is this idea of sort of, you know, we're all witches now. You know, we're at this point where we are the most powerful women in the history of the universe.

I mean, it's true. We are. every way. And, you know, we're sort of figuring out how to use that power, but there are still people who don't want us to have it. And in many ways, it's not that different from the 16th century. So, you know, it's the power and it's the, and it's the closeness to nature. I think those are the two things that kind of define my brand of witchness, witchiness, but every single person it's going to have a different perspective on it you know that's why right i will never get bored of reading which books because they're all different there are no two that are the same but they're

all sort of they are all sort of you know people trying to figure out you know we've been kept down for so long you know we're finally able to do things we want what is it exactly that we want to do Yes. I love that. Now I want to go read all the witch books, which I guess I kind of have been. It is the season. Yeah. So with this one, we've kind of mentioned it. You do five generations, which is like, it's really cool because you get to see the connections so far back to the present day characters. Did you know, you wanted to write that many generations like when the idea came to you or how did you develop that part I sort of I started with you know I didn't know how many generations they were going to be when I started so I started with Sadie I liked the idea of her coming over she reminds me a lot of my she's she sort of my grandmother was from Scotland as well and I always he had a sort of very miserable life in a lot of ways and I I I I I I I I I I

thought this was the kind of life I would have wanted her to have. So she, you know, I knew I wanted her to come over at a particular time. I knew that I wanted her to live on this estate and to sort of take it over. And then it really was just sort of counting from there. It was like, okay, I want this set in the near future. And, you know, this is a woman who's come over at the turn of the century, you know. And I want to, I want to, there to be these kind of women in the family. So how do I sort of, you know, sort of kind of make them, where do I put them in time?

You know, how do I, and who, who begets whom? So it was, it was fun, but I, you know, I ended up being very, very fond of each and every one of them, although they're all quite different. Totally. same same um i had so many highlights in this book like if i'm looking down it's because i'm looking at a lot of yeah um but i think this really fun speaking of the the generations i think you also had a really fun balance and i will say i find this in all of your books of just like the banter between them like there's this beautiful organic witchiness there's also the trying to do good for the world and balance the

balance the score and everything but then there's also just like this fun dialogue so like is that just you writing how you like reading or how do you develop these relationships it's right because there's always there are always two there are always a few characters who end up having the best banter like in lulidine like i loved niche and jeb talking to each other those they were so much fun to write um and in this one it was it was bridget and leum like their banter is just so it just i don't know there was something about his character and hers and the way they kind of played off of each other but it's just uh you know i love writing dialogue is my

favorite thing in fact i have to really keep a handle on it because i will i will end up writing entire chapters that are just dialed with my own devices. But I do know, I just, I guess that's, it's just one of my quirks is I, you know, often have conversely, imaginary conversations with people in my head. And writing books is the way to like, you know, where you can say all of the things that you want to say, you know, and not remember the, you know, the best part halfway down the street, you know? Yes.

If you remember it later, you can come back and sneak it in. that's a good point too i haven't ever thought of that you can go back and make your character yes there is one it's not i don't think it's dialogue but i just wrote a note l-o-l because it's at the moment she arrived she knew her sister was already there she could smell the bitch from the gate my sister oh my god i love it so much and i was just like you know there's certain like sibling dynamics, friendship dynamics where you just can have that and those are the best. And so like, you know, if someone's looking for, well, I don't know if I really, you know, if they're not really sure if they haven't read your books before and they see something like

kind of magical realism, what am I looking for? Like, I just hope people also know there's just like fun relationships and witchcraft and like cool vengeance, justice. Like there's just so much that it offers yeah i mean it's it's hard for it's hard to really it's hard to my the books of you know people are like what what genre is this how would you and it's just sort of i'm not saying that they're so wonderful that they can't be described it's just sort of like they don't really fall into any of the categories um right easily and um you know i think people that's one of the things i hear all the time is is like it wasn't what i was expecting and You know, in a good way.

And I am, you know, and I just think that's because, you know, they're very weird and, you know, don't, don't fit into a genre. Very neat. Yeah, they're their own thing. Yeah. We talk about that every now and then, though, how, like, I, like, we understand the point of genres, and it helps you know, you know, generally if it's something you're interested in. but there are some books where you're like, it's not about the genre, really. Or it's like,

it's so much not one genre that you're like, okay, if you're like super interested in this, like you're gonna still enjoy it. But yeah, it is hard to nail them down sometimes. I think there are some genres where it's, you know, it's that they are so broad, you know, like horror or, you know, witchy stuff or whatever. It's just kind of like, you know,

I don't even know if they're really great. that's a really great descriptor anymore it's yeah it can be applied to so many different things like is american psycho horror or you know how would you psychological thriller yeah yeah that's what i started realizing because um it really is a lot more about this like subgenres is kind of what i've noticed especially because i've read more horror in last year where like psychosocial horror is so fascinating to me but it is like very very very different in most cases than like body horror not that sometimes body horror is used in that same way but it is like and like sci-fi I do enjoy some sci-fi but it's like normally it's more the like black mirror-esque than like space operas but

every now and then I'll read something in space too so you never know but there are just yeah there's so many things I think especially with thrillers with horror um you could yeah there's just so many different versions of it for sure yeah i it's just on a side note i was listening to a podcast yesterday i kind of remember what it was um but um they were talking about how um you know this you know why people look for you know they were talking about haunted houses in particular but it you know applies to you know well to movies and books and whatnot um and uh they were talking about how there are these theories that it's we're we're sort of training ourselves you know it's sort because there's always this sweet spot you don't

want to be bored you know you don't want to be bored or you know but you don't want to be overstimulated either you want to be somewhere right in the middle it's kind of this spot where you're teaching yourself you know you're learning with each you know how would i respond in the situation what would i do and i keep thinking as they were talking i kept thinking about how why women listen to so many true crime you know serial killer like we're we're teaching ourselves and so you know i don't think it's because we're sick in the head i think it's we're trying to we're trying to train ourselves to respond to situations and maybe just maybe that is one of the many reasons that you know we uh you know aren't aren't falling prey as often as we

used to. Yes. Yeah, there was, that's reminded me, it's related. There was a book called, uh, oh gosh, what was it? Did you hear about something like that? It was a whole book about gossip and like that it's actually useful and that we also, and that society has also called things gossip that are just women needing to trade information. So like if someone is a bad guy, all the women need to know that he's a bad guy. And we're not gossiping if we're sharing information like that, but sometimes it's been used socially to be like, don't talk about that. Like, you're, you're spreading. You're like, no, I'm not spreading lies. It's something he did. So I felt he did it. So I feel like those, I hadn't ever thought of

that thing. Yeah, it is sort of, you know, because there's so much of what we do is, is kind of maligned often. It's like, you know, it's like, you know, you shouldn't gossip or like, why are you watching And it's like, maybe there are really good reasons for this that, you know, you don't know about you. You aren't in danger all the time. Right. Like we are. Yeah. Totally.

I was just listening to a woman in the fitness realm that just came across my feet talking about the time change and how, like, running is just so much more dangerous. and how, like, things that as a person that is not a runner, like things I didn't even think about, like, you don't wear your hair in a long ponytail or a long braid. And I was like, that's so, like, the fact that you have to even consider that is crazy. But, like, it's true. Like, we're kind of doing our community of service about something that sucks by, like, trading this information.

No, it's true. It's, it's, you know, like, a lot of this stuff is, are things that you would never, ever think about unless you were placed in that situation. And, you know, the people who make a lot of the decisions, you know, being male, you know, I don't think they're actively against us. I think they just don't know. Yeah, that's what I've been trying to tell myself is I hope that more people are ignorant than they are, like, directly rude or cruel.

I think it's, I'm convinced that I really believe this is my, This will be the subject of a book someday. I mean, I really believe that, you know, because I, the woman in the bear, I mean, the story the man versus the bear, you know, sort of the man versus the bear, you know, sort of going along, you know, I, I am, and men got very upset about that. And, you know, not all men stuff kept coming up. And, you know, I have, I do feel for them. I do because it is not all men.

I think, you know, I think 80% of guys are either good to neutral. the problem is that we don't know that like the tiny percent of men who to commit almost all of the crimes who are the ones who are you know sort of doing the worst things to women we we don't know who they are you know right it's not like I think all men are bad it's just like I know that there's a small percentage of guys out there who are and I can't tell by looking at them you know who's good and who's not and that's the big problem And I think that's one thing that men could step up and do more of is actually helping us figure out who those guys are, because they know. Yes.

They play with them. They're in the locker room with them. You know, they hear them talk about women and, you know, things like that. They knew they are. Tell it. Do us a solid. Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry about that. Oh, you're going to talk about that in my house a lot. Oh, it's like, you know. You know, we have to call each other out, all of us, regardless. Like, I don't know. Who do you, who do you, your kids? My husband. I'm like, I'll call out women that mess up.

Like, yeah. Others, you know, like, we, we have to call out. Otherwise, nothing changes. Right. That whole sort of like, oh, women are perfect? I'm like, are you kidding me? I know women. Right.

Like, I know women and we are not perfect. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, and I'll say we probably get more mad. Yeah, we get like more mad that when we do those things. Because I'm like, that's what we're trying to fight and say we're not like that. Yeah. Yeah. It is for any of the listeners, it's called the book I was mentioning. It's called You Didn't Hear This from Me by Kelsey McKinney. Mostly True Notes on Gossip. So I was interested in that. Yeah. And she has a podcast called Normal Gossip where people just call in and share their own like regular. daily gossip and it's kind of fun too so well i will tell you that one is fun people who the best gossips um are often the best storytellers too that's a great point you know it goes you're right and i think that that's one of the reasons why i really do think like um gossip helped inform southern literature in a lot of ways like the way the stories are told it's it's um you know there's a there's a kind of like um like a especially with so planarie o'connor

or the or like the female southern famous uh southern writers there's always this like well let me tell you sort of yeah like you here yeah and um it's wonderful that's what i've been hearing more in the conversation around audio books people pointing out like for a very long time culture's tradition was oral storytelling and that was how stuff even got passed down so i feel like that even kind of it fits in with like we didn't always have the ability to even write everything down and so we were like telling each other's stories directly yeah i feel like it fits with that um so you brought that up because i was just going to talk about audio books and like yeah go for it i love that you have january levoy for all of your books

because she's amazing and so this actually women of wildhills the first one i read on my kindle i had listened to the other ones because she's incredible and she does such a good job yeah no it's people will often ask me yeah i'll be at book festivals or whatnot's movie like how did you get so lucky as to have january levois like i don't know but you know once i get lucky once you know i'm i'm gonna stick with that because she's she's she's fantastic. And, you know, my books always have so many characters. And the fact that you can pull them apart and make them different and, you know, it's just genius. I have unbelievable respect for what she does. Same. Yeah, she's really talented. I saw her on a panel at Thriller Fest talking about,

like, learning different dialects and, like, different ways to express characters. And I was like, that was just so cool. She puts in the work. Like, she, um, you know there was some back and forth on this book about the scottish you know acts she i mean she really she takes it very very seriously and yeah i went back and forth between audio and the text and she yeah the scottish parts i was like oh my gosh yeah she's um she's she's very very good yeah i love her and she's a very nice person too so that's a nice bonus to know it's always nice yeah to work with assholes so amen so when you work together on the change did that make it then

easier to say we'd like to keep working together or is there an element of like luck or chance in there for both of you like on this book or you know i i i don't i i i wish i could be more about the process but it's so much of it is sort of overseen by my publisher but i do know that when you know when the change audio book came out and I was hearing from everyone who listened to it

that they loved what she had done and I knew that I thought that she was amazing you know when Lou LaDine popped up it just seemed like

I mean there were discussions and I know that they were having discussions about other people who could possibly they wanted to have somebody Southern and I was like

you know you don't need somebody Southern do that accent and um and so i was like why don't i why don't we see if january you know feels like she could do this and she obviously out of the park and so after that it was just kind of like with this book i never even any discussions i was like just seeing anywhere's available and if she is yes she's yeah she can do all of my books as far as i'm concerned yeah lula dean especially like I think she's so great at like kids and teens yes like with a lot of the characters

in that book having so many ages genders whatever I was like in trance so that's like that's so interesting how just that you're saying that sometimes like the author doesn't necessarily have a ton of input it just kind of happens sometimes yeah it's actually like I would say I've had I get, I'm offered far more input on the audio and the voice acting than I am on the covers. And I think, but it's just, it's a world that I know very little about. Right. So I kind of have to defer, or at least at the beginning, I had to defer to, you know, the people at the publisher who know this world and know who's available and know who's good.

So, you know, that was when we went with the change, like I was. It was basically on their recommendation. She's so well-known in the audio book world. And, yeah, so I got lucky. And then I, you know, am determined to stay lucky. Yes. Yeah. I mean, at this point, I feel like they'd be like, who do you want?

Sounds great. Like, I don't know. It's just, I wish I knew more, you know, I mean, And then you get, you know, and now I, that we've been working with January, I don't feel like I need to know any others. Yeah. Trubing sense. Truly. Oh, my gosh.

Well, yeah, I had to bring that up. I mean, it's, it has been so fascinating talking to authors and just like how the whole process works from start to finish and what is so yours. And like, the whole book is yours. but then learning sometimes sometimes what compromises you have to make and when there's not a lot of choice is just fascinating to me it's an unusual industry and it's an industry that has you know has so much history to it that there are still sort of things that are left over from the olden days that are, you know, it's very much time to get rid of, that nobody has bothered to do that yet.

It's so it's antiquated in some weird ways. It is, it is, it can be very exploitative in a lot of ways. You know, these are, a book isn't just a product, you know, the book is something that, you know, a person will have spent most likely years on. You know, it's their, their brain baby, it's their hopes and dreams.

And I think that sometimes the publishing industry can be incredibly flippant when it's this sort of stuff. And, you know, so it's a, it's a weird little world. I, I think I get a little bit more leeway with a lot of things because I, you know, because I've done it for so long and also because I was in advertising. so I know how to write the tagline and I know yes and I know I know I'm actually you know pretty good with design and you know like covers and things like that so you know I'm I feel like I've probably got a little bit more say than a lot of people do which good because it would

be crazy otherwise yeah yeah It sounds very uniquely challenging to be an author. I wish there is. And I'm sure that there is at this point, but I do feel like every new author should have a crash horse in, you know, what to expect, how to,

you know, negotiate for what you want, when to back down and when to not back down. And just sort of what to expect from the process. because you know often you will only get one shot yeah and and if you don't know that's your one shot then you might behave a little bit more differently but yeah it's a good point yeah yeah well my other question about women of Wildhill is you since you have like the five generations you're able to have these um like witchy women

in the midst of multiple historical crises that we've had. I don't think it's in the synopsis, so I've tried not to necessarily directly talk about any of it. But were you kind of thinking that when you started writing it, that you would like want them to kind of be helping people in these other times where mostly men have been really shitty? Or were you kind of like writing it and you're like, oh, this would be a cool place to have them helping?

Well, I really wanted to, because it's kind of my personal, you know, mission in a lot of ways is to remind us all of the lives that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers led and how lucky and fortunate, you know, we are to live in these times and how not to take our rights for granted because it wasn't that long ago. We didn't have any of them. I feel like a lot of younger people either have never been told this or, you know, have sort of gotten a, you know, kind of the pretty view of it. And you see a lot of, you know, today, a lot of, you know, young men and women sort of feeling nostalgic for eras that were pretty damn horrible. Yes. for women, but also for pretty much everybody. But, you know, women are people who weren't white in the... Minorities, yeah, especially.

Bad. So one of the things that I wanted to do with this book was to sort of put these witchy women into each of these kind of situations, you know, where they are, you know, I mean, it starts off with Sadie, who's basically been married off, you know, to a man that she doesn't love so that her you know her um families ancestral home can be rebuilt um yeah so you know it's just sort of what would i wanted to see what these women these powerful women would do in in each of these eras um and it was a lot of fun so i i knew that that was what i was going to do the like did i specifically think like oh i want somebody you know in world war to

to like right but the timing you know made it clear yeah i think that's yeah i think that is really important because it's it's some of the like i've seen people posting a little bit more about how like we're at the 50 year mark of women being able to have mortgages without a man signing it like that is not very long ago and i do i think a lot of us not maliciously don't know like all of all of the things that have happened and how recent they actually are so i really enjoyed it as a i don't know if that's even a plot structure or an inclusion basically i saw um i saw an instagram post the other day that was talking about um and i didn't know about this this was a fascinating apparently in like the mid 70s back when women could still be turned down for a bank

account. A bunch of women in, I don't know, like some state like Nebraska or something like that, got together. They scrounged up $8,000 and they started their own bank. And they got $1 million of accounts like the first day. Yes. It was, but it was this, you know, it was a really beautiful story about, you know, the power of women when we come together and, you know, actually fight for what we need.

But also, you know, I mean, this was when I was a kid that this was happening. Right. And, you know, so it hasn't been that long. And, you know, there are a lot of people who would like to take us back there. Yes, there are. It is the women's bank. I saw the black and white picture, too. I think we probably saw the same post.

It's the women's bank in 1978. And it was eight women in Denver, Colorado. I'm just going to look it up. So, that's going to close. Yeah. Somewhere in the middle of the country. Right, right. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that that kind of comes to, like, what's in the book is, like, you never know where your power or your opportunity to help will come from. Like, for example, one of the characters was like, I just like cooking. Like, there's nothing that I have to offer. And then it's like, you never know. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what you're going to end up doing that could be so big.

I think it's just, I think cooking is inherently witchy. You know, it's the idea that you can take all of these random ingredients and put them together and make something that can, you know, win someone's heart or, you know, console someone after they've lost a loved one. I mean, food is very, very magical. Yeah. It's so social, too. In a lot of cases, not always. Yeah. yeah well do you have any other questions stuff before before we let her go

maybe just like maybe just what a favorite book of yours recently yes or something i always love knowing um well i am i'm reading the frozen river right now um which i'm Um, Ariel Winter Lawson or something. Yeah, Lauren. It's really great. I enjoyed it.

I'm enjoying it very much. And I'm really looking forward to, and here's my other pile of books, which I have. I'm really looking forward to reading Bob Queen by Anna Norfolk. Oh, yeah. I've been seeing that cover.

And then there's a woman in Laura Bates who writes really, really fantastic nonfiction about women's issues. And she had a book called Men Who Hate Women, which is absolutely must reading. And her new book is called The Age, the New Age of Sexism. And it's about misogyny online. And I'm not going to say it's not going to leave you jumping for joy, but these are things that we all need to know about. Yes, you'll be informed.

Yeah. Well, obviously we loved Women of Wild Hill and many of your other books. And everyone can go get a copy of it now as well. Yeah. No wait. Yes. Go do it now or we will hunt you down. But yeah, I'm so happy we got to talk with you about it. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.