LadyGang - LG QUICKIE: Emily Giffin

Episode Date: June 11, 2020

Author Emily Giffin is here to rock Becca’s world but also talk about her long writing career, how she approaches character, what it’s like to be taken on vacation with everyone, and crossing over into Hollywood. Thank you to our sponsors! Hidrate Spark – Go to hidratespark.com/ladygang for $10 off your first order. Caldrea – Get free shipping on orders of $50 or more when you shop online at caldrea.com.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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but only with the code RESET at factormeals.ca. Factor, Canada's number one meal delivery service. It's time for a quickie. Podcast One presents The Lady Gang, the Hollywood girl posse with Lady Gang Quickie. Here's Kelty Knight, Becca Tobin, and Jack Vanek. Let's make this quick. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to The Lady Gang Quickie. I am Becca here with Jack and Kelty and a very special guest.

I've been stalking her for many, many years. Kelty, take it away with your intro. Well, I'm so excited for this because Becca, as you all know, listeners gets not excited about anyone. The last time we saw her excited was five years into the podcast when Leanne Ford was on. And that was like around Christmas. That was when you were like, okay, after five years, I'm actually excited about someone. And then you're an interesting, you're an interesting girl, Becca. And then today, like, she was like, you know who we really need this person. And I was like, okay, great. Let's do it. But like, you know, it's the pussycat doll. She's like, nah,

RuPaul, nah. She's an eclectic taste. All right. Our guest today is one of our favorite authors with 10 bestsellers under her belt. She gets to be introduced everywhere she goes as number one New York Times bestselling author, which is really awesome. Her newest book, number 11, is The Lies That Bind. And that book had the same book birthday as our Act Like a Lady. So we invited her here to have some of her major magical author juju rub off onto the lady gang lives in atl what like his hometown with her hubby and her two kids she is no three kids three kids sorry it has i said three kids here but then i didn't say it out loud that's very neat welcome to the lady gang emily giffen thank you guys so much for having me it's really

it's really nice to see i want to say congratulations to you first on your release or also. It's fabulous. I just got it. I love it. I love it. It's so pretty too. It's such a pretty gift book. And I also want to say that I stalk Becca right back. So for years, but it's nice to be with you. Let's talk about your life because I don't think there is a woman who has been on vacation that hasn't taken you along with her or in the bathtub. Like you spend so much time with us? And what does it sort of mean to, you know, be this person that writes these stories? Yes, of course, you've had the Hollywood treatment too, but like women and men across the world come to you for your storytelling. Pretty cool. Well, that's a very nice characterization. I wish

that everyone took me on vacation. I love seeing my book in fun places on social media and so forth. But, you know, I try to write real stories about real women and, you know, we're complicated and we have messy lives. I think most of us are, you know, there's evil in the world, of course, but I think the vast majority of people in the world are good people. We have good hearts and we are well-intentioned and want to do the right thing. but inevitably we make mistakes and missteps and we screw things up and we hurt people we love and we, you know, we're disloyal and we betray them and we just do really dumb things. And so I try to write about characters that sort of are like that, are like real, real women. They're good people at heart, but they make unsympathetic choices. And then the fun for me is getting

readers to root for them in spite of what it is they're doing. Because I think that's kind of what life was about in terms of finding empathy for one another and rooting for one another and hoping for the best for one another, even when you're like, did you really just do that? So I think that's the appeal. And so you were an attorney before you changed your life and became number one New York Times bestselling author. Now there's so many people out there right now with COVID and everything going on in the world that have lost their jobs that are thinking like, maybe this is the universe's way of telling me I need to follow my passion or reset. What advice do you have for women that are in corporate or have like a typical career and they

want to go off and follow that? I think that in these moments, they're so big, but they cause us to sort of pause and retreat within ourselves and really take stock of who we are and who we want to be and do our lives are are we living the life that we're meant to be living and so I think there's a lot of right now I mean I have three friends who are getting a divorce and it sort of all started since February March no you know and they're going through these you know I'm older than you all so that's kind of happening more now with friends anyway but I think that that was a huge part of it like just the time to stop and reflect jobs I think there's a lot of people who are, of course, losing their jobs. So that's really hard. But some people, they haven't lost

their job, but they're thinking, I don't want to be doing this, or I wish I could work from home all the time, or I don't like the city I'm in. So I think it's the only silver lining of that, of what we're sort of going through collectively, I think, is that it gives us the chance to to, um, to, to have some deep thoughts about who we are and what we want. Now, are you writing right now? Um, you know, I, I am the, you know, the, since the book just came out, it's just such a bizarre time. We were talking earlier about, you know, no one's in the mood to do book publicity. Um, you know, we're just, that's not the frame of mind we're in. So it's very atypical book release for me. Um, you know, obviously wasn't going on the road to begin

with on my usual book tour um because the pandemic and now like it just all the all the in the revolution that we're in I really feel like it feels like a so stronger than even a social movement more like a revolution so um I'm pretty much just consumed by that I think as we all are um that it's it's hard to even you know think about work much at all um and I am fortunate that I hit this in a little bit of a lull. Like if I had this book that was due, I mean, I would have to just meet the deadline. Right. And that would be really hard, but I'm sort of in this lull of like the book released. No one, I don't feel like doing book publicity. So I just like sit around and read and think a lot. And I alternate between, you know, reading about what's

going on and, you know, reading sort of academic pieces and about the news and watching the news, but also i found that fiction is a wonderful escape and just fun books i mean that's i really think that that's act like a lady is it provides that sort of escape that we need and i think we should allow ourselves that we shouldn't feel bad that we can't be dialed in every single minute but um i'm not writing now i i have the idea for the next book um just sort of the first seed of it so I'm more in that stage where I'm like cleaning out of closets and going for like really long, slow walks that burn no calories and just thinking about the characters. So that's kind of where I am now. Now, when you write, are you like, you know, I've got family, I'm going to need to go to Bali

and work on my next novel. Or do you do it like in your office while you're like signing homework forms and stuff. You know, when the kids were younger, my, I have three teenagers now, my daughter, Harriet, that helped me log onto this whole thing. I'm so bad with technology, but he just turned 13 and my boys are 16. And when they were younger and it's more like the physical hardship part of motherhood, like the, like the bending over and picking up Legos and dust busting and cleaning up macaroni. It was amazing how many book research trips I needed to go on. I was always like, I gotta go on this one. Yeah. And it would be for, you know, this one character's from St. Louis. So I really think I should just like go to like, and just anywhere

and anywhere. It wasn't even like Bali, but the key was I made it seem like it was still work. I think my husband would have been like, you're not setting a book and you know, X, Y, and Z. But, um, so yeah, I, I, I have gone away now that they're older and I like, like being with them more. They're such good company. Um, I, you know, tend to like to work from home more. And of course now we are all working from home. Right. But, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's a mix. I can work in the complete, I don't know how you are creatively, but I can work in the complete den of like the loudest coffee shop with 10 conversations around me or like an airport, you know, not even like the airport lounge, but like the, the, you know, the gate where it's like announces or I need

complete quiet it's sort of like the in-between that is always hard for me to to think for some reason like that you know one convert you know your kids talking in the next room like I could never write with that so um I do have a office I have sort of two offices this one's in my house and and I do more like email and stuff here and then I have one out in the backyard it's like in a very small loft like pool house where I can do my heavy duty creating because everyone knows not to come over there stop wasting your nights on a mattress that doesn't get you experience the most comfortable mattress in the world the sleep number smart bed at the touch of a button you can personalize your comfort choose firmer or softer adjust cooler to warmer and right now save up to

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and um have you posted about that before I probably have yeah I feel like you've talked about it a few times too yeah maybe that's it as well and I really have to say that when I started reading your, your books was when I started to enjoy reading again, because I was not into school. I hated assigned reading. I couldn't focus on anything I wasn't interested in. So I finished all the school. And then there were a couple of years that I just didn't read because I thought I hated reading. And then my sister introduced me to one of your books. It was probably, what was your first couple? Something borrowed, probably something blue or maybe um, love the one you're with. Oh yeah. Love the green one. Yes. That's the one that a lot of

people sort of, I always call them by their color. So I'm like, yeah, so true. But that was the thing where I realized it could be something I actually enjoyed doing reading again. So yeah. Well, that to me is the, you know, the ultimate compliment when I hear someone say, you know, you made back a letter, but I love to read your stories. I mean, that means so much because it's so important i really want people to just connect with connect with those stories and those characters um it also gives me hope for my for my daughter um who's dyslexic and does not like to read and says she doesn't like i'm like you will when you find the right the books that you you know you connect with and then i think everyone loves to read the right book oh that's

so right well what are yours um but i'd say you know this is such a heavy book but the one that I've read in college and then again at various points in my life, and I just reread it this year, really before all this happened, but it was for a book club. So I reread it. It was Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, which is about a man surviving the horrors of a concentration camp, which sounds, I mean, it's brutal to get through, but it's ultimately so uplifting. And it's one of those books that I really, every time I read it, well, I've read it three or four times, but every time, you know, you're reading it from a different place in your life, it's just sort of taking something different from it. But it's, um, it's, it's very, it's very

powerful. It's basically the messages to find meaning in your pain and suffering. Right. Um, and that's, that's a, that's a hard thing to do, especially when you're suffering and in pain, but there is some real, there is some real truth to it. Yeah. Well, I've never read a book twice in my life. Really? She's been on shows twice in your life because I've seen every Brady Bunch episode like 10 times. You have? Oh my gosh. Okay. Repeat offender. Jack, what's your book? Mine'll be completely different, but the first book that I remember ever falling in love with when I was younger was The Giving Tree. And it's just because it was such a simple concept of Unconditional Love. And I always love just kind of going back to that book, but it's interesting

because I just saw a post on social media explaining the difference between equality and equity, and it's using the giving tree as an example. So it was like a kind of a cool full circle moment of really understanding like a difficult concept simply. Oh, that's so good. I like that one. My favorite book was the first Us Weekly that I was ever featured in. Oh my God. um my the book that I I fell in love with reading I think I was in high school I mean I was always a reader from the time I was like a kid I was like I was in the library club like I went to

the public library like once a week like I was just that kid like every babysitter's club every Nancy Drew like just ate red bread and I still read like a crazy person they think I skim but I actually do read it's just because I when I read the no when I read the Jessica Simpson memoir Becca says that I didn't give them enough information about John Mayer being mean to her. She didn't remember it because she skimmed. No, I didn't skim, but I didn't. That was, I was obsessed with the Johnny Knoxville part.

But anyway. Wasn't that, I thought that book was really well done. She did an amazing job. I did too. I think she's interesting. But anyway, go ahead. So the book is by the author Wally Lamb and it was called She's Come Undone. And it's huge and it's fat and the character Dolores is so lovable.

And I just love that book. I love that one too. I love that one. I love his writing. And you know, the ability, a white man is writing about a woman and a very overweight woman. He's not overweight at all. And it's like, how in the world did you do this? And the writing is so good and colorful. That really is it. That was one of the early Oprah book picks, I think. Wasn't it? Like one of the first. That made a big impression on me too. And you're right to say it was like, maybe I had the mass market paperback at that point, like the third iteration of it, but it was so fat.

Yeah. Like so big, like you intimidatingly, like large. Yeah. And then of course I have to say Chanterelle because it's the book that I think is one of the best books of all time. But I have a question for you, Emily. All right. So like an author, I love John Green. I loved John Green and I read all of the books and then John Green got really famous. Like he started getting the Hollywood treatment, right? Like the books got turned into movies and series and all this stuff. And he was doing interviews and he had a Twitter following and all that stuff. And then I didn't love the last book. And I was wondering, like, do you ever worry about the same thing that musicians go through where, yeah, like where you kind of get

to Hollywood and then you can't be creative anymore. And there's like a balance, right? right i mean i think to answer the first question do i ever worry about that like i worry i worry about it like every single day when i sit down to write but i worry about it in the in the way that i don't want to ever let down my readers i don't want them to ever feel like i just like phoned it in and didn't care and you know every person's not going to love every book that you write like better than the one before it but i want every book that i released to at least have a following of people who are like, no, that's my favorite. No, that's my favorite. So one of the things I love to do at like book signings is which one's your favorite? Like we said,

do the color, like purple, the green one, the yellow one. And I love that it's different for everyone. I am not like, I don't, I'm not totally aware. I know John Green's had a million movies but I'm not so dialed in. Like I'm, you know, I, I kind of don't even know what's going on with half my books to film and adaptations. I mean, the lies that bind is being developed into a limited series and, you know, I, I, but you know, but you just never, you know, I want you guys after Becca, I want you to cast this one for me because we are working on casting.

Really? Yeah. I want you, I want all of you to cast it for me. I mean, so I can pass it along to the producers at black label media. They're awesome. But yeah, I mean, it's doesn't, doesn't really, that doesn't really enter into my daily life that much. And it always seems so, you know, Hollywood's so slow and you just never know what's going to happen and things get canceled and sidetracked. And I just sort of focus on my books and my life here in Atlanta. So, um, you know, I imagine that it's quite difficult after you've had like Kate Hudson star in a movie adaptation of your book to not go into a book thinking, would this make a good movie? Cause a good book

is a good book and they don't always adapt them properly in my opinion sometimes there's sometimes they do a great job but not always and so it's like you'd almost I would be tempted but I'm also a sellout like to go in and be like okay I'm gonna write a movie book you know so it's kind of nice to hear that you're just like I just write the books and Hollywood can do what they're gonna do did she just call herself a sellout she's hilarious no I definitely am it's the nicest thing she could say. If I were you, I would be take all the books. Let me write one a month. Here we go. You just don't know though, what's going to resonate. I think if it doesn't resonate with you and it doesn't feel compelling to you, then, then even if you're writing, like, you know,

the example that I give is if I had just like jumped on the vampire bandwagon back when the Twilight series was hot or, you know, the Shades of Grey, like you can't, you can't just follow that what's working commercially for yourself. You have to tell a story where you're like, you're totally into your characters because you're spending, I mean, this sounds like really bizarre, but it's true. Like you're spending more time in a given two, like I write a book every two years. I spend more time with those characters than any friend or really any family member. It's like eight hours a day with these people. So you want to be, you want to want to be in their heads, if that makes sense. And I don't really want to be in a vampire's head.

So let me ask you this. Um, we took our podcast and turned it into a television show and we got to experience all of the many feelings that go along with taking this little thing that you love and trying to put it to the mass media. Do you have like a horror story or a time when something like that happened where you were at the book and then they took it to make it into the Hollywood thing and you were like, Oh my guts hurt. Cause this is not right. Like it's hard when it is your character right it it is i was very lucky with something borrowed though um i really i i loved it it's different from the book um and i think if i you know just something as simple as darcy that you know the obnoxious character and that something borrowed is supposed to have

she's a brunette you know and kate hudson's a blonde but that's to me totally trivial it's more the essence of the character and she carried that off it's more that that i want it to be true to the essence of what i've done then then exactly you know all the details work um you know exactly right it doesn't bother me in other words i think i think maybe because the novel will always be the novel and you can you controlled it you told the story you wanted to tell you have every detail the way you wanted it and the adaptation doesn't change the original story at all and it's it's fun to collaborate because writing novels is so like you know you're you do it in isolation. It's so solitary. And then when you work on a movie, you're collaborating with

people and it's a lot of fun. I hate collaborating. You do? Well, I mean... Good thing for you, you do a podcast with other people. Yeah, I know. It's awful. Barely. Barely. Don't worry, Becca. I said your name on the Today Show. Oh, thank you. I led with you. oh thank you that's the first time in our history of the lady gang maybe well i mean the funny thing is is that because we have the three of us and we're in alphabetical order that like most of

the booksellers don't bother listing like jack and becca's name on their site act like a lady by kelty knight yeah some of them say and two others yeah it's so bad it's brutal that's kind of ridiculous yeah because there's not enough space for three names so but come on i mean it's so clearly on one line. It's so clearly, I mean, we do our best to try to make it, but well, I offset it on the show. I'm like my background, some couple of other people. Yeah. That's also fine. You know what? We feel better. You've even the playing field. Do you have to do something for Jack? Do you have advice for people who want to be writers who want to be the next you, um, about the guts it takes and how to, you know, I mean, let's have a start. This is its own

masterclass, but like, yes. What do you know? Do you have a quick piece of advice? Well, one thing I would say is, um, you know, and I've been saying it forever when someone say, I want to be a writer. Well, if you're writing, you're a writer. I mean, there's such a thin line between, you know, being a writer and keeping a journal and writing a story on your lot and being, you know, having commercial success. I mean, it's like, it's just, it's a shot. It's just a lucky break. It's like one thing that can happen when an editor meets with an agent over lunch and is in the mood to buy a certain thing and it happens so um i think that before i was published i always saw it as like this big like heavy like thing that couldn't you could line you

would be so impossible to cross and it does take a lot of luck but if you view it just as okay it's is a story that's that one editor and agent connect with and believe in um then i think it takes the sort of that obstacle in your head of like i'll never publish a novel if if that's in your aspirations. Some people just write because they enjoy writing. So I would say, don't think of it that way. I would say just kind of do it and don't be intimidated and tell the story that you want to tell rather than trying to be too strategic about, will people like this? Will this sell? You just kind of write with the door closed and tell your story. I love that. Congratulations. Congratulations. And if you're done reading your Act Like a Lady,

or even if you've just put it on the shelf to pick up at a different time or you just got the vagina paper and then you're like, that's all I need. You can pick up Emily's newest book, The Lies That Bind, anywhere books are sold. And it's the orange one, if you're going by color of her.

She ran out of pastels. She had to move on to brights. And we're so happy for you. And thanks for taking the time to be on this. And thanks for sharing your book birthday with us and being so supportive of act like a lady. Like you are the, really are the women supporting women. And it's, it's so special to have someone like you, who's so notable in the book world, even know that we're alive. So. Oh, stop. You guys are amazing. And thank you so much for

having me on and congratulations. Thank you, Emily. Bye guys. Bye. Bye. Bye guys. Thanks for listening and make sure to rate and review this podcast, wherever you get your podcast we have new episodes of lady gang every tuesday and thursday follow us on social media at the lady gang uh follow us personally at kelty most importantly at becca and at jack bannock the lady gang network is produced by will sterling steve delamater kirsten woodward and elizabeth beckway thanks for rating and reviewing wherever you get your podcasts and tune in for new episodes every single week