Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Woman They Could Not Silence with Kate Moore

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

In this episode, Sharon interviews author Kate Moore about her latest book, The Woman They Could Not Silence. Kate and Sharon uncover the shocking details of the life of Elizabeth Packard who was admitted to an insane asylum by her husband for simply disagreeing with him. Elizabeth not only witnessed many horrors in the asylum, but she also realized many other women were admitted by their husbands without any evidence of insanity. The craziest part? In 19th-century Illinois, this was completely legal! Elizabeth knew something had to be done, and with courage and resilience, she refused to be silent. Join Kate and Sharon as they unpack the remarkable work of Elizabeth Packard and how she used her voice to fight for Women’s Rights. 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

Hey friends, welcome to this episode and we are chatting today with mega New York Times bestselling author Kate Moore, who has written Radium Girls and also The Woman They Could Not Silence. I chose The Woman They Could Not Silence as my fall book club book and it is unputdownable. It is a narrative nonfiction book. It is slightly infuriating. Okay, more than slightly infuriating. It is a narrative nonfiction book.

It is slightly infuriating. Okay, more than slightly infuriating. It is about a woman whose husband has her committed to a mental facility for no reason other than she disagrees with him. She goes on to create massive societal change. So I'm chatting with Kate about her book. I'm chatting with Kate about women's roles in the United States at the time, which is right after the Civil War. And I have to warn you, this topic may not be super appropriate for young children. It's not

graphic, but there are some themes that you may not want to discuss with your little ones, especially related to adult woman things. So just be aware, but I think you are going to find this conversation and her book so interesting. Let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Yay. Kate, thank you so much. So glad to chat with you today. Likewise, Sharon. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. I have absolutely devoured your books, and I know so many people have as well. If you guys are not familiar with Kate's work, she is like runaway bestselling author of Radium Girls and The Woman They Could Not Silence, both of which are true stories that

read like compelling fiction book that you have got to find out what happens. Narrative nonfiction, Kate, that is a hard genre to nail. As an avid consumer of narrative nonfiction, well done to you. Well, thank you. And the other point I would make, you know, given your background as someone who is all about the facts, you know, that's the thing that's sort of crucial with narrative nonfiction, because you want to have those page turning elements. But everything in my books is true. It's all based on historical research and on the facts. Yes. You're not just inventing an entirely new storyline like they do in movies where you're like, that is not a love interest.

Yeah, completely. Yeah, I stick to the facts. But as you say, hopefully craft these page turning narratives using the records that people themselves left behind. Hopefully I'm able to introduce you to these real characters from history so that you get to know them intimately. I love it. Let's talk specifically about The Woman They Could Not Silence. Can you give us just a super brief synopsis of what this book is about? Sure. Well, it starts on the cusp of the American Civil War in June 1860. And it starts with a woman called Elizabeth Packard, who is the woman they could not silence. She starts the story by lying in bed in her marital home. She's a housewife, a mother of six. And the story starts with a simple question. What would happen if your husband could commit you to an insane asylum just because you disagreed with him? And that's what happens to Elizabeth. And the book charts her journey, her journey to fight for freedom, her journey as she realizes she is not the only woman this has happened to and it charts her journey to find her unsilenceable voice and showcases what she chooses to do with it which

is to change the world making it a better place not only for herself but also for many millions of other people as well and it is just like unputdownable. First of all, it's, it's a little infuriating. Okay, it's a lot infuriating. It is. Yeah, it is. I think it is a book to make you angry, actually. And both because of what Elizabeth goes through and because of how much her story still resonates today, I think. that as recently as, you know, 150 years ago, people's husbands could just commit them to an insane asylum? How and why? Well, I think there's a couple of answers to the question that there's sort of two prongs of it are firstly the legal situation at the time. And this is, you know, Elizabeth's great white hope. She thinks, well, you know, okay, my husband's being totally unreasonable in committing me to a mental hospital just because I'm standing up to him. You know, she's discovering who she is as a person and she's asserting herself.

And this is why she's sent away to the hospital. But she discovers that the law is on her husband's side. In fact, the law in Illinois at that time said that husbands could send their wives to asylums simply by request. And specifically, and this is in quotes, without the evidence of insanity required in other cases. It is insane in itself, but the bedrock to that legal position is a law known as coverture, which was actually drafted in the 1100s and it came originally from England. So it seems we Brits have a lot to answer for and Coverture basically said in law the husband and the wife are one and that one is the husband and it meant that married women have no civic identities of their

own they have no right to property to their own earnings to the custody of their own. They have no right to property, to their own earnings, to the custody of their children, even to their liberty. And this is why husbands could send them away. The other sort of answer to your question is the medical situation at the time. Because again, as insane as it seems to us today, actually the received medical wisdom of the age was not only that assertive or ambitious women were crazy, but actually any woman at all, simply from possessing a female body, ran the risk of going mad. Doctors thought that simply their menstrual cycles, for example, meant that they were liable to derangement. They called it uterine derangement. And so this is a situation Elizabeth faces. So not only is there no recourse to freedom through the law because her husband had the right to send

her away, but also the doctors thought she should be there. They genuinely thought she was mad because of the assertive way she stood up to her husband and the assertive way she insisted on her right to her own opinion. And, you know, you look back, trace the words like hysteria and hysterectomy. Completely, yeah. Same root word. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's there in etymology and it's there in history, you know, and this is, I think that was actually some of the most shocking things I uncovered in my research was about, you know, what doctors thought at the time and the kind of treatments that they conducted on women as well. That for me was the most shocking parts of my

research, I think. I did a podcast interview not long ago about the state of Illinois and how long it took for their laws to change. The episode is called The Iron Cage of the Law. And it very much represents exactly what Elizabeth Packard went through, is a woman who is widowed. And she is unable, as a single woman in Illinois, to inherit their marital property. And all of the property went back to the state. And if she wanted any of it back, she had to purchase it. She did not have the legal rights to be like, this is our house

and I will get it now. Yeah. The thing that shocked me as well, you know, beyond the medical stuff is just as you said, the way that women have no identity and no rights. And, you know, my research sort of drifted into the 20th century as often happens you know you fall down a rabbit hole of research and sort of end up following where things lead and I was really shocked that it wasn't until 1974 in America that women could get credit cards independently before then a man had to co-sign any credit application and the banks would discount a woman's earnings by as much as 50%. So even if you could get credit, you could be earning a hundred thousand dollars a year and

they would only give you credit for 50. Oh my goodness. Okay. I got to know more about your research. How did you stumble upon this story? How did you find her? How did you go about researching a project like this from overseas? And it was happening a long, long time ago. Well, it was a bit of a topsy-turvy discovery, this particular book, because I decided what I wanted to write about first and then went looking for a story that would enable me to explore those issues. So the genesis of this book and my inspiration came from the Me Too movement in the fall of 2017. And what really struck me about that incredible empowering movement was not that women were speaking up, because I think we always have,

it was that finally, we were being listened to and believed. And that was what the difference was. And it got me thinking, well, you know, how have women been silenced and discredited in the past so that when we have spoken up against rape or sexual harassment, or even on the political stage, you know, how have we been put back in our box, as it were? And I realized, you know, a lot of the time when women use our voices, we're called crazy. And to be honest, I'm sure that may have happened to you given, you know, you're a public figure, because it still happens today, you know, and this is what I mean about the issues still resonating. And so that's what I wanted to

write about. I wanted to write about how women's mental health has been wielded as a weapon against us, you know, used to silence and discredit us. And as I say, I wanted to find one woman's story in history that would allow me to delve into that because at my heart, I'm a storyteller. So my books are nonfiction, I write history, but I hope I take readers on a journey. And I wanted to find a story that would have twists and turns and would have a compelling heroine at the story's heart. And so I fell down one of those, you know, rabbit warrens again of internet research. And on the 15th of January 2018, I landed in my research into a University of Wisconsin essay

that was about women and lunacy in the 19th century. And four pages into this university essay, I first read the name Elizabeth Packard. And I started researching her specifically, and very quickly realised she was the one, you know, the woman I wanted to write about next, because she herself is extraordinary, perhaps the most fearless and resilient woman I've ever encountered, you know, and also someone who was a brilliant writer in her own right. But her story as well just has so much drama to it. You know, there are courtroom scenes as she embarks on a landmark legal trial. There are these shocking, you know, historical scientific facts. And for me as well, one of the things I found compelling about her story was almost this

sort of twist of gothic horror, as I take you inside the insane asylums of the 19th century as someone you know who loves for example the bell jar by Sylvia Plath you know the yellow wallpaper this is a sort of literary genre that I myself liked as a storyteller so this is how the book came to be so yeah so that was it once I found her, I was hooked. Tell me more about what it was like for Elizabeth in what we would now call a behavioral health facility or a mental health facility. But at the time they were called something much less flattering. What was it like for her to just be committed by her husband and be like, you are here now. And she has no say in her ability to leave. Set the stage for people. What was it like? So yeah, so it was a hot summer's night

when she's committed the 18th of June, 1860. And Elizabeth climbs the stone steps of the asylum with her husband, actually hand in hand. There's this weird thing where she takes his hand as she climbs the steps. And I'm not quite sure if it was sort of habit of seeking the security or because she was genuinely scared. And she is scared. She doesn't know what's going to happen. And she wakes the next morning in the insane asylum and is shocked because actually the ward that she is first committed to is an incredibly pleasant place to be. The tables are laid with tablecloths and there's glass and china that the breakfast is served upon. She hates the fact that her liberty is lost. She hates the fact that when she walks in the palatial grounds of the insane

asylum, she's watched and attendance shadows her at every step. But Elizabeth is a little perplexed. You know, she meets women who are just like her middle class middle-aged married well-educated and she quickly realizes she's not the only sane woman this has happened to and she realizes very quickly that the treatment the women are supposed to endure is that they are supposed to submit to their doctor's masculine will. She can easily get home, actually, as long as she chooses to return to her husband as an obedient wife. She calls it a subduing treatment or a breaking in. So this is the world that she first encounters. But Elizabeth is the woman they could not silence. And so as her journey unfolds, we start to see the kind of wards that any reader would imagine, you know, the 19th century asylum being filled with wards where there is horror, there is abuse, there is deprivation, degradation.

And Elizabeth, again, just endures all of this, this attempt to crush her. And this is what she is enduring at the time. So it's one of these things that she has to sort of endure, you know, this awful experience. And to her credit, comes through it stronger. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies,

where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can

revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. So she is a very unique activist, right? You know, like we think about activists today, being people that post on social media and they go to events and they make public appearances and they write letters. But she was not able to be that kind of an activist from a ward. And yet she does become the woman they could not silence. So what was her particular brand of activism like?

So the crucial thing with Elizabeth is that she learns to become a writer. You know, when she first goes to the asylum, as I say, she's a housewife and mother and six, and she doesn't write. She doesn't use that part of her brain and that part of her talent because she is an incredibly talented writer. But in the asylum, she is so shocked by what she's witnessing, you know, partly these same women sent away, then the abuse that she is witness to as well. And she determines to record it. She's not permitted to keep a journal. She's not permitted even to write home. She's not allowed letters, you know, paper. She's not allowed stationery. And yet she squirrels and sort of steals scraps of fabric. She tears out, you know, the margins of newspapers to record her thoughts and this is how her activism begins it begins with a secret journal which still survives and

I was able to draw on it to write the women they could not silence and from that recording of facts and opinions on paper she herself takes shape on the page and that voice that she finds in the asylum and finds through her journal she then uses as ultimately she manages to gain her freedom and her activism again takes the form of the written word Elizabeth crowd funds her own memoirs so she publishes these extraordinary books that tell you exactly what it's like to be a sane woman in an insane asylum in the 19th century, books that chart her journey. No publisher will touch them. And so Elizabeth has no capital because as we said, you know, women at that time completely disenfranchised, you know, from property, from earnings and so on. But Elizabeth determines that she will have her

voice heard through her books. And she goes from door to door, literally selling herself, really, and gets people to donate 50 cents. And she uses that capital to print her books, which become bestsellers. And she uses her books for her political campaigns, her campaigns to try to improve the rights of women and the mentally ill, so that no one suffers as she and her sisters have done. So that was her activism. She would lobby politicians, but ultimately she used her own story to change the world. And what I think was very clever about her is she could have, if she wanted to, get a divorce from her husband, ultimately, once she manages to find her freedom. She chooses not to, because while she's still at risk from another commitment,

she's almost holding a gun to her own head and saying, if you don't change the laws to protect other women, then he might pull the trigger and it will be your fault. And I think that's a very clever and very sort of self-sacrificing way of campaigning, but that's what she does and it gets results. It's almost like a calculated chess move. Completely. And there's several bits in her story and in the book where she does that as well.

Calculated chess moves was totally Elizabeth Packard's very clever way of operating. What effect did this have on her children? She had six children. She did everything at home. It wasn't like it was her husband who was at home caring for the children and washing and cleaning and cooking. What effect did this have on her family? Well, it had an awful effect because, you know, really shockingly, her youngest child was just 18 months when she was sent away. You know, just heartbreaking to think of everything both she and he missed in having his mother there. You know, she'd only just weaned him from the breast at the time she's sent away. She's only stopped breastfeeding a couple of months before. And it

does have an awful effect on the family, in particular on her one and only daughter, Libby. Because as you said, you know, Elizabeth was the woman who did everything in the house and in the 19th century that really means everything and when Elizabeth is sent away Theophilus her husband just assumes Libby who at that time was 10 years old will step up to the plate will look after the baby will do the cooking and the cleaning and so on of course both this pressure and the stress of losing her mother does actually ultimately have an awful effect on Libby's own mental health. And she ultimately ends up in an asylum. So, you know, this is really heartbreaking for the whole family. So yeah, so an awful effect

on her children, as you would imagine. Why do you think she is ultimately successful in her activism where women before her had not been? Well, I think she herself was an incredibly special person. When you read what other people are saying about her, whether that's even her enemies, you know, they talk about her most rare command of language. They talk about her irresistible magnetism. So I think Elizabeth herself had a very special talent for making people listen to her, for persuading people. You know, people talked about how she would end up the centre of a group wherever she went. You know, she would be that woman holding court, you know, being charismatic. wherever she went, you know, she would be that woman holding court, you know, being charismatic.

And so she had that ability, I think, you know, as we see in some of the political stars, even in our current age, to transform, to captivate, to convince. And I think that actually was the crucial difference with Elizabeth. I would say that and the fact that she had gone through this horrendous experience herself, because she could talk from the heart and from personal experience and I think anyone who can cite that personal experience it immediately has power and it immediately means it's very hard for your detractors to say well this isn't how it is because she has lived it and she says no this is how it is these are the oppressive you know consequences of these unjust laws, this is how it is. These are the oppressive consequences of these unjust laws. And this is why you need to change them. She was able to use a horrific

situation and by being willing to be vulnerable about it, by being willing to be transparent about it, was able to make things different for other people. And who knows how many people she helped from writing the books, just from a woman having read the books and becoming more educated on the topic. It's impossible to adequately measure the impact telling her story had on the country and by extension, the world. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I couldn't agree more because as you said, there's that sort of hearts and minds victory as well, isn't it? You know,

as well as the legal victories and the paper victories, the paper trails of laws she changed and campaigns she succeeded in. There are those quiet unseen victories where actually sort of person by person and, you know, mind by mind you're changing the world as well just to give one example of that when you asked about her family earlier you know one of her sons actually didn't take her side at first he was on his father's side but he ultimately changes his mind and he describes his mother as an inspiration and he himself becomes a lawyer who fights for what he believes in. And you can see Elizabeth in all of his achievements as well. I would love to know more about the history that you have learned from all of your research,

the history of mental health treatment, especially as it relates to women in the United States. Can you trace a little bit of that for us? Yes. Well, as I say, the situation was in the 19th century, simply possession of a female body meant that you were liable to go mad. That's what doctors believed. And so the treatments focused on that too. And when I read the case notes of these women, they were women such as a 20-year-old girl whose only so-called symptom of madness was that she liked to engage in serious reading. Another woman was a 30-year-old wife who had dared to express dislike for the society of her husband. And so that was going on at the time. And even beyond, you know, that basic sort of boxing in of women

that simply a female body cast you in as this sort of general mass of potential insanity. It was the fact that they tried to sort of medicalize female behavior as well. So in those two examples I've just cited, you've got a woman who likes to read, and you've got a woman who dares to express dislike of her husband. And this is how women were controlled as well. You know, the research uncovered that women who were boisterous, for example, were often silenced in the asylums by the use of chloroform and ether. The doctors were so adamant that these outspoken women needed to be silenced that they would use drugs to do it and you know the medical writings of the time as well described something called moral insanity and this was the brush that tarred a lot of these assertive women and moral insanity can

be defined as eccentricity of conduct. Now you can imagine in the 19th century, a woman who perhaps didn't just want to be a wife or a mother, someone who did dare to stand up to her husband or express dislike for him, so on and so forth, that would be seen as eccentric conduct and it would be enough to get you committed to an insane asylum. And so how long did this take from the time she was committed until things started to change? Well, so the book focuses on nine years, basically. It opens on the day she's sent to the asylum, 18th of June, 1860. And I conclude it on 4th of July, 1869. So that encapsulates a nice narrative arc for me as a storyteller in Elizabeth's life, you know,

the sending away to the asylum, the crucible of suffering through which she finds herself. Spoiler alert, I leave it with a happy ending. At that point, you know, she is successful. And there is, of course, an epilogue to a book because this is history and it is a real woman's life. So I explain exactly what she went on to do, but ultimately it takes nine years to sort of go on that journey from, you know, starting off and having those depths of despair to finally rise like a Phoenix from the ashes is a sort of nine year period. Um, overall, I love the phrase relentless incrementalism that it takes sometimes concerted efforts to make baby steps over a long period of time when we might long for revolution. We might long for these like sweeping changes of

like, get rid of all that old stuff and get in this new stuff. And in reality, so much of societal change takes an incredibly long time. Nine years had to seem like an eternity to her. Like, how long will this go on? How long must I endure? you know her husband takes the children and as we discussed earlier women have no rights at that time to the custody of their children so even once she is supposedly free she's not free and she can't be with her family so yes I think you're right and you know what you've just described is something Elizabeth has to learn you know when she first starts campaigning she is that let's get rid of everything let's get rid of coverture you know which has existed since the 1100s. You know, women should have equal rights with men. And as we know, we're still fighting that battle to this day. So she has to adapt her campaigning as well to sort of find the winnable battles. You know, she comes out organs blazing, wanting to change the world,

you know, now, this minute. And she has to learn that actually you need to be a bit more pragmatic about it. And Elizabeth was nothing if not a pragmatic and a practical person. And so she finds a way to change the world in her lifetime, which again, is quite an unusual thing, I think. What are some of your favorite character traits of hers? She has to be like an old friend to you because you've been writing about her, reading about her, researching her for years now. What do you enjoy about her? I love the way that, you know, she has this faith in herself, this unshakable faith in herself. And I think actually a lot of us could learn from her in that regard. And I love that she didn't come out fully formed in that way.

There's a quote from one of her early journals about how she is sort of before she's sent to the asylum. She talks about a Bible class she's in and she says, I felt so small somehow, as though nothing I said was worth saying or hearing. And I know I've been in some work meetings where I felt like that. And I think that a woman who begins her journey there and ends up talking to politicians, you know, on the Senate floor and lobbying and so on, you know, finding this unsilent voice. I think that journey and that faith in herself is extraordinary. I also love the way she talks about how direct she is. There's also a quote in her writings where she says something like, sometimes my eyes would speak when my tongue didn't. And you can just imagine her rolling her eyes or you know that sort of thing I again I think there's probably a lot of

us listening to the podcast who you know sometimes our eyes speak when our tongue doesn't like I might be able to bite my tongue but I cannot wipe the expression off my face yeah completely yes what do you hope that people take away from this story I would say two things I hope one they gain a realization of those issues that inspired me in the first place you know and the way that these are not historical issues they are still resonating today so I include a postscript at the end of the book where hopefully I sort of, you know, underline that for readers that this is still something that happens in the modern day, that women are called crazy if we stick our heads above the parapet. So I hope people take that away. And I also hope they are inspired by Elizabeth's journey to, you know, just as I mentioned, she wrote, I will not hide my light under a bushel. I will set it upon a candlestick that it may give

light to others. And I hope that other people's lives are lit by her and are inspired by the way that she is fearless and she is resilient and she pursues what she wants and what she believes in with ruthlessness, really. And I hope people are inspired by that journey. really. And I hope people are inspired by that journey. I love that. She has so many admirable character qualities, even though she is subjected to this very undeserved treatment, very undeserved. Does she ever wrestle with this idea of, should I be here? Does everybody else know something I don't know? Did she ever wrestle with doubting herself in that way? I don't think she ever wrestled in quite that way, but the longer she spent at the asylum and she spent years at the asylum, the harder it was to maintain her grip

on her sanity. And she does talk about how close she came to the precipice of going over the other side into madness. Because as I say, there's no hope for freedom. Everyone is telling her that she's mad. She's a daily witness to oppression and abuse. And that's hard. And it's hard not to have a voice. You know, she's cut off from her family and friends, those people who are supporting her until she believes, well, they must think I'm mad as well. They've abandoned me. It's only me left that is convinced I'm sane. And what can I do with that when I'm shut up in an asylum? So, yeah, I don't think she ever doubted her sanity.

That's almost the one thing she sort of held on to beyond everything else. But it ran close at times. And you can see in some of her writings, she writes her first book in the asylum itself. And you can see at times the way her writing is sort of scattershot because she's been denied access to paper and so on I write in the book that it's like she's a woman starved and she's sort of just sort of cramming food into her mouth you know that's the equivalent of how she's pouring out all these thoughts and ideas

and memories and things she wants to change about the world and things that she remembers happening in her own life and they're all mixing together without any sort of form to them so you can see that it was such a hard thing for her to endure but she does get through it and she does come out stronger and always with that faith in herself how did you choose your story for radium girls well radium girls was such a serendipitous journey from start to finish. So I first discovered the Radium Girls story through directing a play about them. I found that play by Googling great plays for women because I was just looking for a new script to direct. And the moment I read the script, it resonated me you know this is again a true story of

women standing up for themselves fighting for what they believe in it's a story of heartbreak and tragedy yet also strength and sacrifice and dignity and courage I decided you know literally hadn't even read the whole script I read the opening monologue and I turned to my husband and I said this is the play I need to direct next. I directed that play. I conducted research for my production because I knew it was based on a true story. I wanted it to be authentic. And I realized from that research, there was no book that existed that was about the radium girls themselves. There were books on their legal legacy. There were books on the science of the story, There were books on their legal legacy. There were books on the science of the story, but nothing about Grace Fryer and Catherine Donoghue and these other women who have become, you know, through the play so precious to me.

And so ultimately the book came about because I thought they really deserve a book. You know, these really important, special women deserve to be remembered and they deserve to be celebrated. And so ultimately I thought, well, if no one else has written that book, why don't I? And that's how the book came to be. Why not me? Exactly. What are you working on next? What is your next project? That is the big question. I'm currently, to be honest, filtering through ideas, trying to find the next thing that is going to work. like I've had a couple of ideas but I'm just not sure if they're quite right yet so I'm still hunting for my next subject um so yeah so that that's my position at the moment I'm on the lookout um waiting for that antennae to start quivering to say this is the one that I that I need to tell do you feel like your work will always be a sort of the untold stories of strong

women? Yeah, I think it probably will be. I mean, my musical taste, for example, cover a whole load of genres. And I think, you know, my writing can do similar things. So Radiant Girls and The Woman They Could Not Silence are very much in that bend. And my ghostwriting, when I was a ghostwriter, was the same. I helped a lot of women tell their stories who had been silenced through injustice. But I've also written heartwarming, funny books about cats, and, you know, humor books and gift stories. So one of the books I most enjoyed writing was a true crime book that I ghostwrote for a policeman that was about the hunt for a serial killer. So I would say never say never in terms of what I might end up writing. But certainly this is something that I'm

exploring at the moment. Paige, thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Your work is incredible. And what a gift your work is for the rest of us who are inspired, moved, educated by your incredible research. I'm just so grateful for your work and so grateful for your time today. It's an absolute pleasure chatting with you, Sharon. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My pleasure. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.

I am truly grateful for you and I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or 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. I cannot wait to have another mind-blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.