Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Connecticut: The Vital Something of Katharine Hepburn with Emily Ley

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

In today’s episode, Sharon and Simplified founder, Emily Ley, recount the life and quirks of Hollywood’s infamous Katharine Hepburn. Katharine, a self-described tomboy from the start, carried her ...strong-willed and independent nature with her to her acting, often imbuing her roles with  a “vital something” that attracted audiences. But she wasn’t without her critics–those who felt she was rude and lacked the more feminine traits of a starlet. Nevertheless, Hepburn was nominated for twelve Academy Awards during her prolific cinema career and has become one of Hollywood’s most beloved leading ladies. Sharon shares tidbits about her life you may not have heard before! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Red One... We're coming at you. ...is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped? You're gonna help us find him. You can't trust this guy. He's on the list. Is that Naughty Lister? Naughty Lister?
Starting point is 00:00:12 Dwayne Johnson. We got Snowman! Chris Evans. I might just go back to the car. Let's save Christmas. I'm not gonna say that. Say it. Alright.
Starting point is 00:00:23 Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 15th. A&W is now serving Pret Organic Coffee. And you can get a $1 small coffee, a $2 small latte, or like me, a $1 small coffee and a $2 small latte. Available now until November 24th in Ontario only. Woo-hoo! Hello, friends, welcome. As usual, so fun having you along. Today I'm chatting with my friend
Starting point is 00:00:52 Emily Lay, who you might know as an author. She owns an incredible planner company called Simplified. And we're going to be chatting about a very, very interesting character from Connecticut. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am here today with my friend, Emily Lay. It is so fun to have you. Hi, thank you for having me. This is seriously, I've been looking forward to this for weeks. Oh, I just love your company. I love everything you do. Tell people, if people are not already following you or not already familiar with Simplified, tell people what you do. Yes. Well, I am the founder of a brand called Simplified and we make planners and organizational
Starting point is 00:01:39 tools and pretty office things for very busy women. I'm also a mom to a lot of kids. I have an 11 year old and two seven year olds and I'm an author. So I write books too. And a podcast. I don't know. There's a lot of things. You have a lot. Yes. You are like me. You have a lot of irons in the fire, like many entrepreneurs. Yes. Yes. You have like dogs and children, podcasts, books, whales. Yeah. Just all the things. Yes. There's just a, you know, like once you find something that's fun to do, then all of these other opportunities present themselves. You're like, that would be fun. I would like to write a children's book. I do actually have a really great children's book coming out very soon.
Starting point is 00:02:20 We'll talk about that in a minute. Most of your other books are geared for older audiences, geared for adults, et cetera. So I want to hear about your experiences with writing a children's book. But if you guys have not seen any of the simplified products, eye candy, they're so beautiful, but they're also extremely functional. They are beautiful, but also work so incredibly well they have the sort of user in in mind it's not just just take up space on a desk absolutely I always say the day I just own a planner company is a day I don't want to do it anymore because it's so much more we get really intentional about like making them not overwhelming I have a fun story to share with you today about somebody that I bet that you have
Starting point is 00:03:05 heard of, but I hopefully I'm going to give you a bunch of little mind blown brain tangle moments about this very famous person from Connecticut. And she is one of the best known actresses of all time. In fact, she held the record for the most number of Oscar nominations until Meryl Streep came along. Oh, well, Meryl. And so, but I bet you have heard of Katharine Hepburn. Yes, I have heard of Katharine Hepburn. Yes. So Katharine Hepburn came from a large family in Connecticut, and her mother was the head of a women's suffrage organization. So she was really raised in this familial environment that she credited to her success
Starting point is 00:03:56 and to her outspokenness and to her ability to be an independent thinker. She felt like both of her parents really encouraged her to debate any opinions that were unpopular or to work for causes that maybe other people wouldn't have agreed with, but that they felt were important. And her dad was actually very encouraging in the sense that he wanted all of his children to be very physically active. Her dad was a physician and he did not want to have kids that just sat around the house. And so even his daughters, he was just like, you got, you guys need to get out there and do stuff. And so that part in part contributed to her reputation as a tomboy. She always had a reputation as a tomboy, always physically active. She loved to golf. Golfing was like one of her lifelong passions. And she always insisted on carrying her own golf clubs,
Starting point is 00:04:51 which is, that is not, I mean, Tiger Woods doesn't carry his own golf clubs. She made it to the finals of the Connecticut young women's golf championship. She was actually a pretty good golfer even early in life. And one of the things that everyone noted about her was that she refused to wear dresses refused. She was well-known for wearing only pants throughout her entire life, unless she was on stage or on screen where the character called for it. She was like, absolutely no dresses. And someone asked her once like, well, what if a man says that he prefers dresses? And she was like, then I would say, go ahead and wear one. You know, like she, she just had no time. Go ahead and wear one. She had no time for any of
Starting point is 00:05:43 that. She got her hair cut short. She wanted to have a nickname and the nickname she asked for was Jimmy. And everybody was like, Jimmy? She's like, well, nobody messes with a Jimmy. That is so funny. I did not know that about her. Jimmy, because nobody messes with a Jimmy. Certainly not in the era that she grew up in. I mean, she was born in 1907. One of the things that she absolutely loved though, was going to the movies. And she made a point of going to the movies every Saturday night as often as she could.
Starting point is 00:06:18 And she would, in order to raise money to fund her movie going habit, she would do little plays in the neighborhood with her friends. And then she would get all of the neighbors to come see the performances. And of course, if your child is in the performance, then you're going to go, right? So she gave parts to all of her friends and then she would charge people 50 cents to come see it. One of the things though, that really Catherine says shaped her, shaped the entire rest of her life is in 1921, when she was 13, she had traveled out of town to visit some family friends over Easter break, like her mother's friends in New York. And the
Starting point is 00:06:58 next morning she got up and discovered that her older brother had died by suicide and she found his body. He was 15. He was hanging from the rafters. Their family tried to say that it was not suicide, that it was a magic trick gone awry because he had been into magic. And they said that apparently he had done tricks like that in the past where he sort of Houdini-esque gotten himself out of situations and that this had gone awry. And that was the parent's perspective, but that was not Catherine's perspective. She believed that he had killed himself and that fact that it had happened during the night and that she was the person who got up in the morning and discovered his body had a very, very profound impact on her. She had difficulty attending school. She became very
Starting point is 00:07:59 depressed, very withdrawn. And in fact, her parents had to take her out of high school and have her privately tutored because she just take her out of high school and have her privately tutored because she just could not handle attending high school anymore. Oh, I had no idea. I never heard that story. So she eventually decided after finishing high school via tutoring that she would try to attend college, but she was not, she wasn't really into it. Her heart was not into it. She got accepted to Bryn Mawr and went to Bryn Mawr kind of reluctantly. Her parents were like, this will be good for you. And initially she was not very successful at Bryn Mawr. She got suspended. She was caught in her room smoking. She had trouble making friends. She struggled with her grades. So on paper, by all external
Starting point is 00:08:42 appearances, this is not somebody who was going to finish college and enjoy the experience. But she found something that changed everything for her, and that was the theater. She finally decided to try out for a theater production and got cast and had a large amount of positive feedback and people thought she was great. And so she was like, maybe, maybe this is something like I feel alive again, finding something she felt passionate about, helped her feel alive again. So she ultimately finished college. She graduated in 1928 and then immediately began to try to pursue an acting career. I mean, like when I say immediately, I mean, immediately, immediately, like the day
Starting point is 00:09:39 after graduation, she went to Baltimore to meet with a producer who ran a theater she got cast in a very small role in a theater production and was widely panned she was very criticized people told her that her voice was shrill that was like what one of the review all of the reviews kept saying that her voice was shrill one One of the things that Catherine Hepburn of course was well known for was her speaking voice. She had a very unique mid Atlantic accents. Are you familiar with like the mid Atlantic accent? Yes. Where it's like, are you British? Are you, what are you, what is happening? It doesn't sound Southern. It doesn't have a New York accent. It doesn't sound, it has a little hint of British, but the idea was that you can see people of that time period and TV and radio have a very distinct manner of speaking. And so
Starting point is 00:10:38 after people told her that she was shrill, she went to New York city and got a voice teacher and learned how to speak with a different sort of a different speaking voice that again, became one of her sort of calling cards was her speaking voice. Yes. So she then spent a number of years doing on and off Broadway shows in New York city. And a lot of her critics were not kind. In fact, one of them said in a review, she looks a fright. Her manner is objectionable and she has no talent. Oh, well, wow. Well, okay. Okay. But nevertheless, I mean, she persevered. She did not let that person tell her what she was going to be.
Starting point is 00:11:26 She decided for herself. Taylor Swift said it best that haters are going to hate. That's right. And she shook it off, Emily. She shook it off. And that's why we love her. She eventually did get married to somebody whose name she did not like. His name was Ludlow Ogden Smith.
Starting point is 00:11:44 And she felt like being Catherine Smith or Kate Smith was too plain. She was like, I can't be an actress named Kate Smith. So she had him, she had her husband change his name and became S Ogden Ludlow so that she could be Catherine Ludlow. Catherine Ludlow. That sounded more sounded more fancy. That's right. But they divorced and she did not keep that name, obviously, but they continue to stay friends throughout most of their life. They were friends until he died in the 1970s. She even expressed regret that she had treated him poorly, but she never married again. So she decided to move to California where Hollywood was exploding, right? Like this is the 1930s and that's right. And she knew that if she wanted to get into, you know, wanted to be a
Starting point is 00:12:42 more famous actress, she needed to go to Hollywood. And so she went out there and she did a screen test for RKO Studios. And she clicked with the director. She knew that she nailed it. And the director later said of her that this was an odd creature. And she was unlike anybody I'd ever heard. And so there was something about her that made her unique. And that this is true of many people that are famous. They're famous because they're either so incredibly beautiful or talented that they're just like level 10 human,
Starting point is 00:13:21 right? Or there's something about them that is so incredibly unique that there's nobody else like them. And that was sort of the camp that she fell into. She was very unique looking. She was tall for a woman. She had this unique manner of speaking. She had very unique views of the world, her refusal to wear dresses, et cetera. So after she had the screen test and she clicked with the director and she knew that she nailed it when they finally offered her the part, she said, okay, but she then demanded what most people would consider an exorbitant sum of for her services as an actress. She asked for $1,500 a week, which was the equivalent today of $29,000 a week. Wow. Which is an insane amount of money in 2022, who very few people are getting paid $29,000 a week. No kidding. Right. Right. So the director loved her so much that he went back to the studio and was like,
Starting point is 00:14:30 I got to have this woman. I got to have her. And they finally agreed to pay her $1,500 a week price. He asked for what she wanted. That's right. Yeah. That's amazing. It really was such a unique thing though. I mean, she's like a completely unknown actress in Hollywood. She was essentially what they would refer to as a nobody. She was 25, but her first sort of screen partner was a legendary actor, John Barrymore. And so because he was so well-known that helped her, it helped get her in front of other people. The director that she was working with was also very well-known and that helped open
Starting point is 00:15:11 many doors for her. And the first film that she shot was a huge success. And she got all kinds of fantastic reviews. This was a review of her very first film in a magazine. fantastic reviews. This was a review of her very first film in a magazine. It said, stand out here is the smash impression made by Catherine Hepburn in her first picture assignment. She has a vital something that sets her apart from the picture galaxy. I like that. I was like a vital something. Just like that sort of je ne sais quoi, like you can't put your finger on it.
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Starting point is 00:16:46 This episode is brought to you by Dyson OnTrack. Dyson OnTrack headphones offer best-in-class noise cancellation and an enhanced sound range, making them perfect for enjoying music and podcasts. Get up to 55 hours of listening with active noise cancelling enabled, soft microfiber cushions engineered for comfort, and a range of colours and finishes. Dyson OnTrack. Headphones remastered. Buy from DysonCanada.ca. With ANC on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage. Accessories sold separately. She went on to have a number of very successful films, and then her career had those very predictable dips. Most actors don't have nothing but smash hits, right? Like they have some that do well and some that don't do well.
Starting point is 00:17:33 And as she was sort of, her film career was a little bit on the downswing in the second half of the 1930s. She began to have this reputation or develop this reputation where people refer to her as Catherine of arrogance, not Catherine of Aragon, but Catherine of arrogance, because she refused to sign autographs. She refused to give interviews. She refused to wear dresses. She had very boyish behavior and she began to sort of be a, come a little bit unpopular because she did not cultivate that like, oh, of course, everybody loves me. She was acting in an unstarlet-like manner, not fulfilling that stereotype that people really wanted from women of that era.
Starting point is 00:18:21 So she decided finally to leave Hollywood and go to Broadway and got a starring role in the Philadelphia story. And she, at that point was dating a man named Howard Hughes and Howard Hughes was this huge, huge producer. He knew that the plot of the Philadelphia story was the perfect vehicle for her comeback. And he bought the film rights for the Philadelphia story for her before it ever even premiered on Broadway. He knew like, this is it, this is your chance. And so then because he owned the film rights, he could cast her in it as a film producer and she could have a lot of control over who starred opposite her. So this was, he designed this as a vehicle for her comeback and she was, you know, able to have her choice of like, who do you want to be
Starting point is 00:19:19 in the show? Jimmy Stewart, Cary Grant, you know, like you name your leading man. And so by 1940, when the Philadelphia story premiered, the headlines said, come on back, Katie, all is forgiven. Like they were American public loved her again. And they loved that movie. It was one of the biggest hits of the early 1940s. And that really did catapult her into a string of big and very popular movies. One of her next kind of sort of comeback movies was called Woman of the Year. And it was a comedy. And Catherine helped write the script. And MGM was like, heck yeah, I want to make this movie. And she was like, heck yeah, I want to make this movie. And she was like, great. You will pay me
Starting point is 00:20:07 $250,000. And she said, I will give half to the other people who helped write the script, but I will keep half for myself. And so she, they accepted, they were like, okay. And so they, she got to keep half the money she also got to choose her co-star she also got to choose the director and the co-star that she picked was a man named spencer tracy and on the very first day on set she was like i'm afraid I'm too tall for you. And he said, don't worry, Ms. Hepburn, I'll soon cut you down to my size. She was five, eight, by the way, which was tall for a woman of that age. How tall she was. Yes. Yeah. Five, eight. Yeah. Which if you're wearing heels, you know, you're five, 10 that's that's tall. And Spencer Tracy was 5'10". So on screen,
Starting point is 00:21:06 they looked very, very similar in height. There was not that large height differential that you see among some actors, but their first film together was a success. And over the next 25 years, Spencer Tracy and Catherine Hepburn made nine movies together and they lived together, moved in together, were very devoted to one another. Another actor, Gene Kelly said about them, they just sit on a bench and hold hands and talk. No one had ever seen anything like it. And we just let them sort of do their thing. The challenge though, was that Spencer Tracy was married and he, yeah, but he had been separated from his wife for like a decade, but he was devoutly Catholic. And so did not believe
Starting point is 00:22:07 in divorce. And so he never divorced his wife ever, even though they were not together. And Catherine and Spencer never married because he was never divorced. Oh, got it. In the 1950s and sixties, she really managed to do something that a lot of women in Hollywood still cannot do, which is to stay relevant. Even as they got older, even as they were no longer this sort of romantic leading character, she managed to find and create roles for herself that allowed her to stay in the public eye. One of her most popular roles was in the movie, the African queen. Have you seen that movie? It's about a ship. Yes. Yes. And she even said like, I was playing myself in these movies, you know, like she, she took to playing these spinster type characters.
Starting point is 00:23:06 She was in a bunch of Shakespearean works. She acted all the way up until her eighties. She never, she did not stop acting until she was a very, very well-seasoned woman. She, I mean, I won't even go on into like every single show she was in every single movie she was in. I mean, like that would take me hours, but she was nominated for a total of 12 Academy Awards for best actress and three of them. She won over the age of 60. That's amazing. I love that so much. over the age of 60. That's amazing. I love that so much. Yes. She won four. She was nominated for 12, one, four, three of them. She won over the age of 60. That's incredible. I just love that. So many people feel like, well, I I'm 34 and it's over for me now. You know what I mean? And she's like, watch me get started. That's right. Watch me win all the Oscars. Right. How
Starting point is 00:24:05 about that? Yes. By the way, she lived until 2003. She was 96 years old when she died. And one of the things she requested was that there not be a big memorial service. She did not want to have all the people gawking at her and gathering around. And so her family fulfilled that request. But one thing that did happen instead of a memorial service was all of the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a minute during her memorial service to pay tribute to her, which I thought was like, that's a, that's a fitting tribute. A great is gone. I love that. All right. So I have a couple more fun facts for you. Again, being a very headstrong woman who may wanted to make her own money, forge her own path. One of the things that she decided to do was when she was in a show on Broadway called The Lake,
Starting point is 00:25:08 she did not feel like she was well-suited to this role. She was getting a lot of criticism for it, and she just could not fathom finishing the run. Because of course, when you are on Broadway, you commit to a certain number of shows, you commit to a certain length of run. And so she decided rather than take this big hit in this show, she would just buy out the show's run instead of being a failure at it. She was like, I will just give you the $1,400, which was her life savings at that point, instead of failing at this, which I feel I will do. So the production just closed down because she bought out the rest of the run. Which that was, that's gutsy. That is gutsy.
Starting point is 00:25:57 That's gutsy, but also like she knew who she was. She knew what she was good at and she knew she'd potentially misstepped. That's right. That's also shows a certain amount of faith in her ability to rebound from that because that was her life savings. Right. Yes. She also auditioned for the role of Scarlett O'Hara. We've gone with the wind. Really? Yes. No idea of that. And she obviously didn't get the part. That part went to Vivian Lee and the producer ultimately did not cast her and said, I just can't see Rhett Butler chasing you for 12 years. Like you're not, you're not sexy enough. That was like, I'm not wearing a dress. That's right. I am not wearing that giant green velvet gown. No, I'm sure she would have, but, but I can understand
Starting point is 00:26:46 what she had this certain level of androgyny about her that Vivian Lee did not have. Of course, Vivian Lee was like 100% feminine with her violet eyes and her long eyelashes. She was also, I mean, her devotion to wearing pants was so significant that it became sort of an issue on some production sets where they would try to hide pants from her. They would try to hide her pants. And on one film production, she was in costume wearing a dress because that's what women on screen did. And then she came back and was going to put on her own clothes, which were pants. And they had taken her pants from her and wanted her to leave the studio wearing a dress. And she refused and was like, I will wear my underwear until you return my pants. Watch me walk out of here. That's right. And so she refused
Starting point is 00:27:38 to put on a dress. She walked around that set in her underwear, demanding that everybody return her pants to her. I'm the exact opposite right now. Like don't make me wear hard pants right now. Oh, no, no. Why, why does this have a button? What is that even for? Right. What is this for? This is the one sort of like funny thing that I wanted to leave this with. She was very famous for being averse to giving interviews. And as she got older, she maybe, you know, opened up to being interviewed a little bit more. And she allowed Barbara Walters to interview her a couple of times. And Barbara said of her, she said she loved to terrify people. And if ever the expression, her bark was worse than her bite applied to anyone, it applied to Hepburn. And I love this. This made me,
Starting point is 00:28:34 this made me chuckle. She said in an interview in 1981 with Barbara Walters, and they were talking about how women can balance sort of like a family private life and having a career. Catherine Hepburn never had children, by the way, she talked about how she didn't ever want children and that she, she identified herself as a supremely selfish individual and that motherhood required too much self-sacrifice and that she was not interested in that. And Catherine said to Barbara Walters in this interview, I have not lived as a woman. I've lived as a man. I've just done what I wanted to.
Starting point is 00:29:09 And I made enough money to support myself. And I'm not afraid of being alone. And Barbara Walters said, is that why you wear pants? Catherine said, no, I just wear pants because they're comfortable. And Barbara Walters said, do you ever wear a skirt by the way? And Catherine said, I have one. And Barbara said, you have one. And Catherine said, I'll wear it to your funeral.
Starting point is 00:29:38 Oh my goodness. That made me laugh. She was sharp. She was sharp. Yes. I'll wear it to your funeral. I'll wear it to your funeral. That is crazy. She really was just such a one of a kind and her, you know, her, her talent has never, there's, has never been anybody like her since then. Truly. Right. Yes. Really, truly a legend in many ways. She really was. She was the second of six children. Her mother took
Starting point is 00:30:12 her to votes for women rallies all the time because remember she was born before women could actually vote. Right. So the idea that women needed to work for equality was very, very prevalent in her home. Yeah. And her father encouraged that as well, which I thought was fantastic. One other funny little story is that she was allegedly very jealous of Ginger Rogers, who was another famous Hollywood starlet and dancer. And she met Ginger Rogers on a set and Ginger Rogers had a new fur coat on and was kind of like showing off her new mink coat, which were very popular at the time. And Catherine Hepburn came up and threw a glass of water on it. No. And Ginger Rogers was like, excuse me? Like she had no idea. Like what happening what is that and Catherine Hepburn said well
Starting point is 00:31:06 I heard that if it's real mink it won't shrink oh so she was like she was out there like well maybe it's not even real but of course it was they couldn't like faux fur then no you couldn't there's a realistic faux fur now but in the 1930s, no, no, she just Ginger Rogers was like, I have no idea why she did that to me. So Spencer Tracy, right. That she was with for so long. I wonder if they were together so long because they could spar with each other. Like he made that comment to her and she clearly had a sharp way with words. I wonder if that created sort of a best friendship, you know, a thing. Yes. Where they really probably viewed each other as each other's intellectual equal. Yes. Do you have
Starting point is 00:31:53 time for one more funny story? Oh, of course. So Catherine Hepburn was very famous for her brownies. Like that was, she was passionate about brownies. She believed that brownies should be like fudgy and not cake. Like I don't think she had a reputation for being a very domestic woman, but there were a few things that she was willing to toe the line on pants and brownies were two of them. So in 2015, the New York times published Catherine Hepburn's signature brownie recipe. Oh, and then this woman named Sydney Newberry then revealed in the comments section of the brownie recipe that Catherine Hepburn's brownie recipe had inadvertently ruined her marriage. Burns brownie recipe had inadvertently ruined her marriage. She had apparently found these in a magazine a long time ago and in the 1980s made the brownies and brought them to Germany to an
Starting point is 00:32:53 Air Force base where her husband was stationed. And while she was there, she shared some of the brownies with his friend and his friend's wife. And his friend's wife, Sydney Newberry claims was a gorgeous Italian woman who was very proud of her cooking and was a real food snob. Oh, so she gave the recipe to this friend's wife and they continued to correspond with each other over the years. And this woman claimed that her brownies never turned out the way they did when Sidney made them. And she began to accuse her of intentionally omitting some portion of the recipe so that the Italian friend's wife would not be able to make them as well as she did. So one year she and her husband were visiting. And while they were visiting this woman who claimed that the brownies were never turned out the way that Sydney said they would began having an affair with Sydney's husband who eventually left Sydney for her. And
Starting point is 00:34:08 she, Sydney later said on an, in an NPR interview, if you want to steal somebody's husband, you should screw up a brownie recipe. I was like, that is the most random. That man never had good brownies again. That's right. It was the most random thing. Catherine Hepburn's brownies ruined my marriage. Ruined my marriage. So beware. No. I mean, if you think about it in the eighties, it would have been hard to Google Catherine Hepburn's brownie recipe. Right. But as soon as I get off this thing with you, I'm Googling it. That's right. That's right. But in the eighties, if, if Sydney had, yeah, we get to have to be better than Duncan Hines, but if Sydney had like, let's say she found that in a magazine, right. And she clipped it. And this is like her signature
Starting point is 00:34:59 brownie recipe. It would be impossible for that other woman to then Google and be like, that's not her recipe. Right. You know what I mean? Like it would have required a tremendous amount of effort, especially living overseas. Yeah. So there you go. Catherine Hepburn's brownies broke up. Beware. Beware. That's right. Proceed at your own risk. Maybe I won't make them. make them. Okay. I love this story so much. I love Catherine Hepburn. I think she is just, she's fascinating. She's a fascinating character, but I really want to hear more about the new children's book that you have written. Tell me all of the things, first of all, what is it called? Yes. Well, my new children's book is called you're Always Enough. And I was just thrilled to have the chance to write for kids because I've written for grown up women and younger readers like tween girls for so long. And I have three kids, 11, seven and seven. And I just feel like our kids over the last few years have been through so much. And not only just from the pandemic, but just life in general really is really crushing and hard for a lot of kids. And the whole idea
Starting point is 00:36:13 came from a conversation with my daughter, where I would tuck her in at night, and she would say, Mom, you know, after a tough day or a hard, hard day at school, do you love me? Like, are you mad at me? Am I doing good enough? And I would always say, I love you when you're happy. I love you when you're mad. I love you when you're angry. I love you when you're sad. Nothing changes that always. And you are, she's my spicy spirited little girl. And I always tell her you were, you were made like that on purpose for a purpose. It doesn't make you different or weird or whatever you think. And this book is very there's a very diverse cast of characters and the pictures are all fort building because to me that is like the ultimate
Starting point is 00:36:51 childhood play time it's illustrated by romina galata and it is just it's a message that i hope every kid reads and hears and really takes to heart that no matter what you were made exactly as you are on purpose and for a purpose. I love that. I mean, that's a message that children need. And that's frankly a message adults need. Amen to that. My oldest son helped me write one of the stanzas. The book is a rhyming book. And the stanza he helped me write was about when you walk into a room and you feel like you don't fit in, remember that there's always a place for you at the table. And I love that particular one because we've all felt that way. A hundred percent. Yes. And I feel like in
Starting point is 00:37:38 some ways people feel that way more now than maybe in the past as we see each other face-to-face less than we used to because so much of our lives have moved on online. This is even pre-pandemic. And then it can be hard to feel like you are needed and wanted and necessary and important in a space that you walk into. I have so many friends with children, all different types, and they feel like they look different or they love different or they act different or they learn differently. I mean, children with ADHD and that sort of thing. And it's really my hope that every kid sees themselves in the pictures and in the words and knows that they're absolutely uniquely special and beloved and treasured. I love that. What day
Starting point is 00:38:28 is it coming out again? Yes, it comes out May the 10th and you can get it at all the places that books are sold and we're hopefully going to do a fun book tour, but I am so excited about it because it feels just so necessary right now. I love that. I have already, we're recording this obviously before it was released and I've already pre-ordered my copy. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much. Yes. I'm excited to get it. I actually really love pre-ordering books. First of all, of course, it's wonderful to support your author friends, but then on the day it arrives, you're like surprise. It's here, right? Yes. the day it arrives, you're like surprise. It's here, right? Yes. A surprise book. It's like giving a gift to your future self. Exactly. Yes. Give yourself a gift. Making the coffee the night
Starting point is 00:39:13 before you wake up and you're like, look what I did. That's exactly right. Future self is going to thank me that I pre-ordered it right now while I was thinking about it, I love it. Yes. So as soon as I saw your announcement, I was like pre-ordered. Thank you. Yes. And I'm excited for it to arrive because it comes out on my birthday. Well, precisely. Yes, it does. Right. It will be a surprise. Of course, it is about me clearly, but I will get a surprise book, surprise book in the mail on my birthday. That makes me so happy. Thank you for choosing.
Starting point is 00:39:53 Thank you for choosing that day. Well, thank you for buying yourself a birthday present. Oh, I am so excited for you. I'm so excited to see where this takes you. And I think it'll be really fun to be able to get out there and like maybe do some story times or be able to visit with some kids and what a fun event to be able to take your children to, right? Like there's all of these things that grownups get to do. They get to go to all of these types of events, but I think kids would actually think it was really special to go to a story time and book signing with the author. My oldest has got his, his blazer and his glasses and he's ready to like
Starting point is 00:40:30 go and host these things. So I meet Mr. Brady lay there. Oh, I love that. If he's like, this is my, well, I'm going to need you to run his presidential campaign when he runs, like he literally is going to change the world. So, oh, I love that. I love that. He's already, he already has his designs on that. Absolutely. Yes.
Starting point is 00:40:52 Well, Emily, this has been amazing. Tell everybody where to find you on Instagram and what the name of your book is one more time. Yes. The book is You're Always Enough and More Than I Hoped For. You can find me on all the places at Emily Lay and you can find Simplified at emilylay.com. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you
Starting point is 00:41:17 could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review, or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer producer Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.

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