Life Will Be the Death of Me with Chelsea Handler - Twice with Mitch Albom

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Mitch Albom is here to discuss why there will never be a Wednesdays with Morrie, his unexpected path to writing the best-selling memoir of all time, and how the regrets of his past led him to the blessings in his present. Then: A new writer isn’t sure where to start with her memoir.  And an established author worries the secrets of her past will cause her family to lash out.  * Books Discussed this Episode: Twice - Mitch Albom The Little Liar - Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom Circe - Madeline Miller Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant - Anne Tyler The History of Love - Nicole Krauss The Right Stuff - Tom Wolfe * Need some advice from Chelsea? Email us at [e-mail] * Executive Producer Catherine Law Edited & Engineered by Brad Dickert * * * The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the Podcast author, or individuals participating in the Podcast, and do not represent the opinions of iHeartMedia or its employees.  This Podcast should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, mental health counseling or therapy, or as imparting any health care recommendations at all.  Individuals are advised to seek independent medical, counseling advice and/or therapy from a competent health care professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issues, health inquiry or matter, including matters discussed on this Podcast. Guests and listeners should not rely on matters discussed in the Podcast and shall not act or shall refrain from acting based on information contained in the Podcast without first seeking independent medical advice.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Bell. Connection is everything. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The cast of Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Idina Menzel. I auditioned for Frozen. What? For Kristoff. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it.

Oh, you probably won. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars, and more. And I guess I can share that, uh... No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just announced all my tour dates. They just went on sale.

It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be starting debuting my new material in February of next year. So, I'm coming to Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, Portland, Maine, Providence, Rhode Island, Springfield, Massachusetts, Chicago, of course, Indianapolis, Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Albuquerque, Mesa, Arizona, Kansas City, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Nashville, Tennessee, Charlotte, North Carolina, Durham, North Carolina, Saratoga, California, Monterey, California, Modesto, California,

and Port Chester, New York, Boston, Massachusetts, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington. I will be touring from February through June. Those are the cities that I'm in. Pre-sale started last week, so tickets are flying. I haven't added second shows yet, but we probably will be to some of these. So go get your tickets now. If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the high and mighty tour.

Hi, Catherine. Hello, Chelsea. Can you hear the waves crashing? I sure can. And you're like, hair is very beachy right now. Well, it's looked like shit for the past two weeks. I've been walking around in a bucket hat. Yeah, seriously?

Like one of those hats that basically like hides your head from the sun. but then I realized like I look so much better with sun. I might as well just get some sun and then laser it off when I get back. But I don't really have a lot of downtime when I got back. I mean, I've been sleeping so much in Mallorca. I drove 45 minutes. I was like, okay, I've got to take Doug to a real beach because the beach in front of my house is great, but there's no dogs allowed on it until October 31st. Until October 31st. Oh, it's like while people are swimming, there's no dogs. I get it. Yeah. And I'm like, what? That's the day I leave.

but so i go in the mornings and i go at night but i was like oh let me take him to a really nice dog beach so i drove 45 minutes to palma to some shithole beach where there were dogs running and i see this big german shepherd i'm like oh that looks scary and doug is like you know he's playful he wants to play with everyone he goes up and he bothers them like until they play with him he's a puppy and this dog was like she said to me in spanish is that a mature like an older dog or younger dog i'm like younger she's like no no no and then the dog just launched launched onto doug and like grabbed him. Luckily, Doug is so furry

that he didn't break his skin because he was holding onto him and I was like ripping him. It was such a dramatic scene. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. It's okay. He was fine. He forgot about it two seconds later.

We went to a different part of the beach and he was like submerged in sand and water. So he has a short memory. But so then we get home and he's covered in sand because he went in this really low sandy beach and I don't want the sand in the house, right? So they got him a little kiddie pool to put him in.

he hates that he hates being hosed so I bring him upstairs to the pool pool and there's like we have a little mini pool as you know upstairs America I bring him out to the pool pool I put on his life preserver and I just pick him up and throw him in the pool and it was ridiculous his reaction I mean he is such a pussy so and then when after I traumatize him he comes running to me for comfort so I feel like like a man who abuses his wife I feel terrible but I can't take the sand. I'm like, Doug, you have to agree to one form of rinse off. Right, right. It's the hose, the kiddie pool, or the big people pool. I know he's got so much hair. It gets like in all the nooks and crannies. So if you didn't wash him off afterward, it'd be coming out for days and days

and days. No, I mean, there's so much sand in my bed. I've given up caring about that. I just, I'm like, take another Xanax. Just like a nice exfoliant, I suppose. Anyway, so that's nice. It's to be really nice being alone and not having people here and just being with me and my dog. Yeah, usually you have a big crowd. I've made hard-boiled eggs about 13 times. I know how to do that now. You're coming around. I've made egg whites about four times.

I've made, what else? Oh, I make yogurt. Well, I don't make yogurt, but I mix the yogurt. She didn't say she was going to bring those eggs in the airplane, Catherine. Don't get ahead of yourself. No, I did not say that. I get rid of it. Thank you, Brad, for chiming in.

Exactly. Good timing, Brad. Good timing. However, we have a great episode this week. One of my favorite authors, he wrote The Little Liar. He wrote Tuesdays with Maury and he wrote my new favorite book twice. Mitch Albom is here. So say hello to him.

Hi, Mitch. Yeah, hello. Hi, so nice to meet you. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. My pleasure. Nice to meet you too. Nice to meet you.

I'm a huge Mitch Albom fan. Huge. Is that right? Oh, yes. The Little Liar is, I've given that book to so many people. it is one of my favorite books it takes such a dark subject matter and i don't know if this was your intention but the way that i read it was it was almost like a fable like you were talking about something that really happened but managed to make it more digestible and it was beautiful

and everything i mean this book is so beautiful too this book his new book is called twice it comes out on october 7th and this is a very interesting subject matter mitch album has written I think eight number one New York Times bestsellers. I'm right behind you, Mitch, by the way. I have six number one New York Times bestsellers, but mine are more memoirs and yours. I'm sure you'll pass me very quickly. I don't know. 42 million copies. I don't think I'm anywhere close to that. I mean, I have a very specific personality type and appeal and yours is much vaster. So we're going to get into this book, but you tend to write some like Tuesdays with Maury, which was one of the most, or maybe the most successful book of all time.

wasn't necessarily, I mean, it was memoir-ish, whereas Twice and The Little Liar, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, right? That book I actually haven't read yet. I'm going to read that on my flight to New York this week. That's one of your books that I need to read. How do you decide what you're going to do? I mean, I know the story with Tuesdays with Maury, right?

You were kind of doing that for Maury. Yeah, Tuesdays with Maury was an accident. I was just going to visit an old professor of mine who was dying from Lou Gehrig's disease. And one visit turned into another and another. And we ended up doing kind of a last class together and what's important in life once you know you're going to die. But there was never supposed to be a book. It was just the series of visits.

And then at one point during these visits, he told me that his biggest fear was that when he died, his family was going to go broke and they were going to have to sell the house. And, you know, because they didn't have the money to pay for his bills. So I got the idea to, you know, try to put a book together and see if I could raise enough money for him to pay his bills. And everywhere I went, everybody turned me down. Everybody. They said it was a stupid idea, that I was a sports writer, that I was, it would be depressing, that I didn't know how to write a book like that.

Then I probably would have given up on it, except that, you know, I was trying to do something for somebody else, which is kind of one of the points of the book. And so I kept pushing. I found one publisher who was willing to do it three weeks before Maury died and gave us just enough money to pay his bills. And I gave Maury all the money and said, here, you don't have to worry about when you die. And that was kind of, for me, that was sort of the end of the, you know, journey. You know, I had finally kind of grown up a little bit at age 37 and had done something nice for somebody else instead of just my own career. And I was going to go back to

sports writing. And I just wrote this very small little book that wasn't supposed to sell. They printed 20,000 total copies, I think, for the world. Then, you know, the world had different ideas. And people took to that book, and it grew into something that I never could have imagined. And it kind of pinballed my career, particularly in writing, in a whole different direction. And so then from that point, you know, it was, well, what am I going to do next? And, you know, it led to a lot of other things. So talk to me a little bit about the impact of that book and about how you received all of that. You know, it wasn't expected. And I'd never written a book like that. You know, I was in sports. And so I sent it to a friend of mine, Amy Tan, who's the writer of the Joy Luck Club, who I'd known before that. And I said, listen, you write books like this. I don't, you know, is this any good? And she read it and she wrote me back. She said, all right, I'm going to tell you two things. One, it's a good book. And I think a lot of people are going to read it. And number two, you're about to become everybody's rabbi. and I did not know what she meant, but I do now. And, uh, you, so you say, how did I receive,

you know, I mean, I, I went from being the guy that people would stop in airports cause I was on ESPN, you know, and they would say, you know, Hey, sports guy, you know, who's going to win the Superbowl. And you could just say, you know, Patriots and get in the escalator and go up. And then all of a sudden I became the guy that people would say, Hey, you know, my mother died of cancer. And the last thing we did was read Tuesdays with Maury together and can I talk to you about her and can I show you a picture and you know you can't just go patriots and go up the escalator you have to stop and you have to talk and and that's been my life ever since and I'm not complaining about it quite the contrary it's it's sensitized me in a

way to people that I never would have had otherwise and it's made me realize what's really going on in people's minds even if they're strangers passing you by in an airport and uh my concerns became kind of different you know and my interests became different and so when it came time to write another book I wasn't interested really in sports books anymore and uh and I took to novel writing mostly because I was too scared to write anything after Tuesdays with Maury and non-fiction because I thought everybody would just keep saying well where's Maury how come Maury's not in it and so I said well I'll just go the whole other direction and just start writing fiction and they told me I was an idiot for doing that. But I said, well, that's what you told me for Tuesdays

with Maury. So, you know, you weren't right then. Maybe, maybe you won't be right again. And that was the five people you meet in heaven. And that kind of launched my fiction writing career. Wow. Who knows what other skills you have up your sleeve that you don't even know about? I mean, you're a sports, you've been a successful sports writer, a successful nonfiction writer, and now a successful fiction writer. I mean, we don't even know what else you could be capable of. Well, who knows? Probably very little. Maybe a professional ballerina. Or I think it's a ballerino, actually, if it's a male ballerina. Okay, so five people you meet in heaven. How did you conceptualize that? Like,

obviously, you're taking a big risk because I, in the writing world, I understand like you, like anything, I think, professionally, once you get put in one corner, people want to keep you there. And they want you to keep producing what was the most successful. So how did you conceptualize the five people you meet in heaven? Well, it's funny you ask that. And one of the reasons I was interested in talking to you is because I feel that you probably have endured the same thing. You've probably been told, well, you're a stand-up comic, so you can't host a show. You host a show, so you can't host a podcast. You can't, you can't, you can't. And I was certainly told that, you know, after Tuesdays with Maury, which nobody wanted, then all anybody wanted was Wednesdays with Maury, you know, and every time I went into a publisher, they would say, yeah, but, you know, give us another Maury book. I said, I don't have any more Maury books. I said everything I had to say, but I do have this idea for this novel. And the idea of the novel was I wanted to write about people who feel that they don't matter. And so I came up with this idea based on an old uncle of mine who had told me a story about a near-death experience where he had died and he had seen all his relatives waiting for him at the edge of his bed before he kind of came back into his body and lived again. And I always had this idea that that's what happens when you die.

And so I came up with this idea that there would be this old guy, kind of like my uncle, World War II vet, who died trying to save a little girl from an accident at a pier where he worked, an amusement park. And a cart falls, and he goes to push her out of the way, and he feels these two little hands in her hands, and then he dies. And he doesn't know if he saves her or not. And he goes to heaven, and he finds out that the first stage of heaven is you meet five people from your life. each of whom was in your life for some reason, maybe you knew them, maybe you didn't know them, maybe it was a relative, maybe it was someone you spent two minutes with, but in some way they changed your life and you changed their life forever. And with each person he meets, he finds out that he was very significant, you know, and that this is something that he did that they didn't

think mattered, change this and change that. And he keeps asking them, well, what happened at the end of my life i felt these two little hands in my hands you know did i push the girl out of the way did i save her did i save her nobody can tell him until the end and the last person that he meets is a little girl who he was responsible for killing and during the war and he didn't he never knew about it and he says you know after she tells him whenever he breaks down and she tells him he says to her but did i save the little girl just tell me that was my life worth something Did I push her out of the way? And she says, no, you pulled her.

And he says, well, no, I felt her hands. And she says, no, those were my hands, and I was bringing you to heaven. And the reason that I tell you that story is because when I went around to different publishers to tell them the story of five people you meet in heaven, I went to this one place called Hyperion. And it was the only place that was willing to listen to me about writing a novel. Everyone else just wanted Wednesdays with Maury. and they said well we'll hear you your story what is it and i told him the story and i got to that point where he says the little girl says to him those were my hands and i was bringing you to heaven and a woman in the room burst into tears and she and she said oh i'm sorry i'm sorry so

you know and i said no it's okay it's okay so they said to me we want this book we don't want wednesdays with maury we want this book this is this is going to be a really good book so i left that meeting and I went and got in the elevator with my literary agent and I said okay two things number one let's sign with this company because they were willing to do a novel and they want to do it and number two whoever that woman was I want her to be my editor and that woman became my editor for the next four books that I wrote and she always joked around that that was the luckiest cry that she ever, ever had. I love that story. Yeah. So I mean, Wednesdays with Maury's is such a, it's so emblematic. First of all, Maury's dead. So I don't know what Wednesdays

with Maury would look like. It does. It's so emblematic of our like, you know, creative worlds, like the people, the decision makers in creative lands. And another thing that in you telling us that story reminds me of is my favorite quote of all time, which is it doesn't matter how many people say, no, you just need one person. All you need is one person. And everyone gets so fixated on the rejection in any sort of creative endeavor and on a larger scale in any endeavor, you know, people get so hung up on the rejection and it doesn't matter how many people don't get you. It just matters that somebody does and somebody gives you the green light to go ahead with your creative ideas. So this is another example of that being so true. And yeah, I love

that. I mean, I almost burst into tears. Now I'm like, do I have to read the book? But I will read the book because I just love your writing so much. Let's talk about The Little Liar. I'm so curious as to how you create these kinds of ideas for the books because your books are so disparate. Like each one is so different than the next. And how does one come up with that? Like the concept of lying and how a lie can spread and change the course of history? Well, I think the reason that my books are different one from the other is because I tend not to approach writing, certainly not novels, the way that most people do. Most of my writer friends, they come up sort of with a plot. They've got an idea that this is going to happen or a couple of characters are going to do

this. I never do that. I always try to come up with a theme that I want to write about. And then once I say, okay, I'm really interested in that theme, then I try to create a story around that theme. And that's probably why every story sort of comes out different. So the five people you meet in heaven, the theme was that people who don't think they matter should find out that everybody matters. And then I created a whole heaven and everything around that because it served the theme. The Little Liar, I actually, I went to a Holocaust museum in Israel on a book tour about 10 years ago and went into this Yad Vashem. It's the really big Holocaust museum that they have there. And on the walls are all these videos of people that were collected, a lot by

Steven Spielberg, I think, when he was making Schindler's List. And they just run constantly, you know, they're always running. It's just people recollecting different moments about the Holocaust. And one of them I stood in front of, and this woman, it was an older woman, and she was saying, everybody always asks me, why did we get on those trains when they knew that they were going to concentration camps and we were going to be murdered. Why didn't we fight back? And she said, they don't understand that we were lied to, that they would use Jewish people to lie to us and to tell us that we were going to new jobs or new homes. And that's how they got us onto the trains. And these Jewish people, they only lied to us because they were being threatened themselves

that their families would be killed if they didn't do what they said. And I always thought, wow, there's got to be some kind of story there because what a terrible i mean war is awful and holocaust is awful but then to make your own people lie to their own people and leave them to their deaths how would you live with telling that lie but it seems so dark to me chelsea you know like it's like god i'm getting depressed just even thinking about that who's going to want to read that and then i about a couple years ago i said what if i told that story because i wanted to write something about the truth because i think it's pretty obvious that in the last couple years truth has become a relative term you know and it really does affect the world you know no

matter what your particular view of it is i mean if you can't trust the things that you're hearing or people that you're hearing them from it changes everything and i think you said it right there what your view of it is you know there shouldn't be different views of the truth the truth is the truth but now there are multiple there's multi multiverses right so i thought what if i make it that it's a kid instead of an adult who would know better what if it's a kid who's never told a lie before in his life and he gets tricked into telling his own people that it's okay to get on these trains and how would he live with that and that's when i knew i had a book and i started exploring it and that's what happens to little nico in this in this story that he's never told

a lie before he's greek he lives in this greek village and and he's known for just being a kid who can't tell a lie and and and the first lie that he tells is when a nazi tricks him into telling the people on the trains that everything's going to be okay and get on the trains and and he does this for three weeks until the last day he sees his own family being put in one of these train cars. And he runs to want to join them. And the Nazi doesn't let him go. And he says, but I want to go with them. I want to go to the new jobs and the new homes. And the Nazi says, there are no new homes, you stupid Jew. And in that moment, he realizes that he's told a lie and his family is sent away and he's left behind. And from that point forward,

he can never tell the truth again. He becomes this pathological liar, which seems to me, chelsea i don't know that that seemed to me like that would be kind of the natural thing that would happen your mind would so explode that truth would just become almost poison because of look at what happened with it and he becomes this pathological liar and it follows him and his family and this girl who loves him for the next 30 40 years on their different paths it was a really hard book to write uh because you know every day you're you're immersed in i mean you have to write as a nazi you know uh you know it's i don't ever want to imagine that i could know what's in the head of a nazi but i had to and so uh it was exhausting and um when i finished it i

was proud of it and i was glad that i wrote i always wanted to write one book for holocaust literature you know to contribute to that i think it's important that that's not forgotten but i didn't want to write you know the such and such of auschwitz you know a lot of books have been done this similarly. And so I wanted to come up with an original idea. And I think I did. And I'm very pleased and honored that you think that that's a good book. It means a lot to me. And you fictionalize like Nazis, you fictionalize Hitler in the book, instead of calling him by his name. Why do you do that just under the umbrella of fiction? No, I didn't want his name in any of my books. Okay. So I just referred to him as as the wolf,

which is how he referred to himself right actually everything in the little liar is historically accurate everything except the characters who who i invented and put in i i researched the hell out of that book i went to thessalonica and met with a bunch of people and saw even the house that he lives in is a real address in that city because i just wanted it to ring it's you know trying to make up something during the Holocaust will never be as poignant or as moving as basing stuff off of real things that happened. Because in that period of time, the real things that happened were just so moving and so horrifying and so inspirational in some ways. Even the moment where his grandfather, all the family is in the concentration camp in Auschwitz, and the

grandfather every night makes them all gather together and pray and say thank you for whatever they had during the day and you can imagine what can people say how can you say thank you for anything when you're in a concentration camp and and he makes them go around everyone in the family and one of them will say you know i'm thankful that i got an extra spoonful of soup and one says you know the guard who always beats me was off today so i didn't get beaten and one says the tooth my rotted tooth fell out of my mouth and one says i saw a bird you know and just that that notion of having hope, uh, even under the most dire of circumstances, you can't make that stuff up. You know, I, I read about moments like that in listening to survivors talk or tapes of survivors

talk and just, and just kind of created my own thing that was parallel to theirs, but, but trying to create it from whole cloth is foolish that the stuff that happened is so inspirational. You might as well use it as your inspiration. And what is your process like? What does it mean when you're going to sit down and write a book? And what does that mean to your family? Like, are you gone? Yeah, it means bye-bye. Yeah, my wife and all my family kind of know

when I'm in a book mode, I kind of just walk around with a glassy expression for the better part of eight or nine months. And my wife has to repeat things to me many times. But my process isn't as dramatic is I think people like to imagine it. I just get up in the morning and come down here where I am, it's my office, and just sit down very, very first thing. I don't read anything. I don't listen to anything. I don't turn on, I don't turn on a computer or television. I want a fresh, fresh

head, you know, and I find that I only really have that when I first wake up. And I just write for the next two and a half, three hours maybe, and then that's it. And I could sit there for another eight hours but nothing is nothing's going to come and so uh i've learned that you know you kind of you go until your tank is empty and then you come back and do it again i do always try to end on a positive like if i'm in the middle of a good paragraph or something i stop myself because i find like when you wake up in the next morning you you look forward to coming down and and working on it if if you left it someplace good but if you left it in the middle of a really bad paragraph you're gonna just stay in bed oh that's great i love that that's great yeah so have you

ever read the book or it's not really well it is a book daily rituals have you ever seen that book where it talks about writers processes it's all these different famous painters sculptors artists writers creators creatives and what they do and it talks about the first few hours of each day and then it talks about what how you need some physical you need a physical break you need some sort of exercise food. And then people like Hemingway would, you know, get shit faced at two 30 in the afternoon, come back and start writing again after their walk and to the bar and back. But so many people, I mean, it's very well researched that you're the first few hours of your day or your most creative and where you have the freshest ideas. But I love the idea of

not looking at anything when you sit down, that's fresh advice. I'll tell you the other, the other really good piece of advice I got with regard to writing came when I was really, really young. And I was just starting out. I was in New York. And I had been a musician. And I was kind of transitioning out of being a musician. And I got a job writing for a TV shopper magazine that they would give out in the supermarkets. But they would have a feature story on the cover, which is really embarrassing. And I look back on it because I would call people saying, hi, I'm Mitch Albom. I'm writing for TV Shopper and I'd like to interview you. I can't believe, and they wanted famous people would agree to be interviewed to be on the TV Shopper magazine. And one of them was

this photographer whose name escapes me, but it was kind of like Scavullo, you know, he's really well-known back then. And I went and interviewed him and he said, I somehow asked him, you know, how did you get started? What's your process or something like that? He said, well, when I was really young, there was a photographer like me, you know, well-known and everything. And, and I really respected him. So I took a bunch of pictures and I sent my best stuff and I sent it off to him and asked if he could give me any advice. He said, I waited, I waited. And about three months later, I got an envelope back with my pictures and a note. And the note said, it's obvious to me that you've mastered the basics of good photography. Now surround yourself with

the best music, the best art, the best books, best film, and everything else will take care of itself. And that was it. That was the total advice that he had. And he said, I found that to be, at first I thought it was kind of flippant, but then I found it to be true because there's an osmosis that takes place if you do surround yourself with other things. A lot of writers think, well, all I should do is just read, read, read, read, read. You know, a lot of musicians think that all I should do is just, you know, play, play, play, play, play. But there's an osmosis that takes place with other forms of art that I think sink into you and affect you. You know, my having been a musician, I find is a great asset in writing because I write with a rhythm, you know, and I can tell what the paragraph isn't working because I can kind of like I write like like this.

And if I stop and I find I'm not my head's not shaking anymore, must be this isn't working, you know, and then I'll change something and then I'll go back. Oh, I got it back again, you know. So there's a lot of cross influence from the different arts. And I thought that was a good piece of advice, too. Yeah, that's great advice. Okay, so we're going to take a break with Mitch Albom, and we'll be right back. And we're back with Mitch Albom. Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies?

Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all? And will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers? Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney+, from $94 a month. price guaranteed for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details and to check availability bell connection is everything when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the

survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted stalked controlled and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives,

and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook on the Big Money Players Network. Our show is extremely accessible to first-time listeners. Each week, we talk to someone in show business, a.k.a. the biz, and try to help them with their careers and see what they have to offer us.

Everyone has a good time, and no one gets mad at their publicist for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, not that great. Actually, can you help me shape this? How about we flip it on its head? How about we flip the script? What if the surprise woman, who actually you think is the straight man, is actually the one who's acting weird? Adam Scott, this entire time, you've been expecting Adam Sandler to come to visit the show. I would never let go of that.

I have never set expectations for something like that. It seems like if the universe allows for something like that to happen, I'm open to it. I'm always going to accept, you know, Danny McBride. Fine. Yeah. It's all this fragile masculinity exuding. i could smell it walking down the hallway to be honest with you i was like is that weed nope it's fragile masculinity yeah ben stiller no because a lot of times in out of context people

don't get it or even know what a circle is you know what i mean like you're like oh what's this everyone's so dumb and fake right fake and and also not interested or just like oh i've got my life i don't care about your life and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are without us oh and by the way will ferrell told us personally he loves the show and he wants to be a guest on every episode but he's just so busy listen to hollywood handbook on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts okay so let's talk about this newest book twice which is another great concept which is this young boy finds out very early on in his life as his mother is about to pass away that he has the ability to redo things but he doesn't have the

ability to redo them twice. He can only redo them once. I mean, he could do it twice, but he can't go back and fix it. So at a certain point, like there was a point in the book where I was confused because he goes so far back. So he's redoing things that he's already redone. Right. How do you square that? Because at one point he goes all the way back many, many years and he's already redone so many things along the way. Well, that's one of the problems. One of the problems when you create a magical world is then you have to live by your rules you know exactly and you and you keep saying well what are the rules here again and then at some point you realize it's like you know what i created the rules i'm just gonna just gonna write it and everyone will have to go

along with it but yeah the premise of the story is that he has the power to do anything in his life again but only one time and he has to live with the consequence of the second time so for example he misses a shot to end the game a basketball game and he goes back to take that same shot again and that time he gets hit in the jaw and breaks his jaw he can't go back to the first one and say i'll just take missing the shot he has to live with the broken jaw going forward and the presumption is that everything else that happens going forward sort of happens the same way that it happened before that he can't really undo any of those things but the idea of it was to address again like the theme, like I've told you, you know, I just try to find a theme. This theme was

about the grass is always greener concept, you know, and as you get older, you run into a lot of people and you become a person who starts saying, you know, boy, if I could have done this again, my whole life would have been different. Or if I only hadn't done that, that it would be different. And I wanted to really explore that and see if it really isn't necessarily better or worse. And then as I was going along, I said, well, the thing that seems to be the one that people talk about the most or fantasize about the most is love. You know, what if I had married somebody else? What if I had married that, that guy who asked me and I turned him down? Or what if I had, what if I had gone on that date with that girl that I was too scared to, or, you know,

what if, what if, what if there's all those things, but we always think we can do better or, you know, our, our, our true love is someplace else. And I wanted to sort of explore that idea. So that's, that's what motivated me to write twice. And was that personal at all? Well, not, not in the way. I mean, I'm only, I've been married once and, and not related to your marriage. Let's not get you into trouble here, but just in your life or like, I mean, obviously that's something that comes up. Like if you could, you know, I always get that question and every interviews or anything you regret. And it's like, well, I mean, if I sat down and thought about everything I fucking regretted, we'd be here for hours. I'd rather not think about it. I didn't do

it. So I'm here now. And while reading this book, you know, which is such a fucking awesome book. And, you know, these books are so they're like nugget size. Yeah. You know, they're they're a nice like I mean, they are perfect Saturday afternoon read. Just perfect everything. I just love them. And this is like 300 pages. But you you whip through these books so quickly are listeners are big readers. So I just want everyone to know how passionate I am. But when I do think about the possibility, like I always had this fantasy, if I could just be a straight A student from like kindergarten through high school and actually apply myself and, and really just been like, you know, and then I would have been the prom queen and all of these things. I always used

to think that when I was in my twenties, like if I could have just made my parents been like this model child. And now when I think about the idea of that, it's like, I don't want to go through all of that garbage again. You know, I don't want to go through that life again. Cause then you have to put up with all of the ugliness. Also, you have to re-experience all of the times where you were sick or someone died or all of those types of things. And it's like, I don't want to, what is your viewpoint after having written something like this? What do you think about that? Like if you had the opportunity. Yeah. I think I had that viewpoint before I even wrote it. And that is people have asked me the same question, Chelsea, you know, is there anything that you would redo?

And I think for some reason, they think the person who wrote Tuesdays with Maury is going to answer, oh, absolutely not. Everything that I've done has been, you know, you know, it's been for a purpose. And my answer is absolutely. I'll give you like 20 things right now that I would do differently if I had a chance to do them differently. But if you said to me, you have to unlearn everything that you learned from the mistake that you made? Then I would say no, because all of the mistakes and all the regrets and all the things that I did that I would do differently if I was at that moment again, have taught me the things that I have learned now, you know, and have shaped me into the person I am now. I'll give you a perfect example. Talk about a twice in a lifetime

opportunity. So when my wife and I got married, we got married kind of late age wise. And we didn't have kids i was 37 she was 39 okay and we didn't have kids and i kind of delayed it you know i mean i delayed getting married i delayed having kids i was really into my career at that time and then and then tuesdays with maury happened and that was all going on and and she really wanted to have kids and and and by the time we sort of you know we're focused it just didn't happen and as the years passed I started to feel like man I you know really really missed something there by not having children but then 16 years ago I ended up going to Haiti after the earthquake and got involved with an orphanage down there and one thing led to another and it's a long

story that I don't want to bore you with but I ended up inheriting an orphanage that I was working at. And I have been running that orphanage ever since and go there every month for the last 16 years. And I have well over 100 children who have come through and we have 22 of them up here who are either in college or in medical school now or some of them got medical care. And we have a little three-year-old daughter now that we adopted from Haiti. And none of that would have happened, I don't think, if I had had kids the first time around, because I would have been involved with that. I wouldn't have gone to Haiti in the first place and probably just wouldn't have had time to do it. So I got this incredible opportunity, but it's only because I learned from

my mistake earlier how much I appreciated children. And in fact, today, as we're speaking, We took our little girl to school for the first time. It was her first day of school. And I got to live that. And it's like, wow, my age, I get to take a little girl to school. Wow, amazing. I get to hug her. And she grabbed me.

She said, I don't want to go. And all that. And of course, I'm taking pictures of all of this because you appreciate, you know this now, like I'm going to need this later. And so to have that opportunity is a miracle. But I don't think it would have happened if I hadn't made the first mistake. So that's just one silly example of my personal life. But I think everybody probably has something in their life that they can look at that way. Yeah, that's so beautiful.

I mean, what a gift. What a gift you've been given with that orphanage and what a gift you've been able to give. Like the gift is always, you know, sometimes we think we're doing something and really the gift is ours to take and enjoy. I mean, that is such a beautiful story. Thank you for sharing that. I want to ask you personally, with all your iterations in your life, like now we're finding out you were a musician also, or I'm finding out anyway. And deep down, I do believe one day you will become a ballerino. On a personal level, your evolution and your creative evolution,

how has that impacted your life? Because you obviously know that you have the capabilities opportunities to do all these different sorts of things. And I would imagine that that adds a lot of personal, I don't want to say confidence, because it's more than that. It's more, it's like there's such value in everything that you're doing. How does that impact you? Well, I have had a lot of iterations to my life. When I was younger, I was all about ambition and was all about achievement and accomplishment. I rose very quickly. First, I was a musician and I failed.

So my first experience was failure. And then I moved into writing and journalism and got into sports writing and I had the opposite. I had like a really fast ascension and I became a lead columnist at the Detroit newspaper when I was 25 and was traveling around the world and covering sports stories and writing sports books and everything.

I was on ESPN multiple times. I worked like 120 hours a week and went pedal to the metal, whatever it is, until I was about 37. And that's when I encountered Maury and sort of everything kind of screeched to a halt. And he kind of really opened my eyes. You know, he was really somebody that I that I loved when I was younger and had totally forgotten about. And, you know, not forgotten in my brain, but just had paid no attention to because I was so busy, busy, busy. Now, here he was dying. And every Tuesday, it was like hitting the brakes on my life and, you know, no phones, no anything. And we would just sit there and I felt like I was a student again.

I felt like I was back in college and I was sort of reminded, like, wow, you really have changed. You know, you're not the same person that you used to be when you were listening to him and not necessarily for the better. And I ended up writing that book. And as I told you a little earlier, it kind of took me over, not the other way around. And and whether like it or not, I became a person that people started coming to and asking, you know, they would sometimes people would say, Maury, what do you and I go, whoa, I'm not I'm not Maury. I'm the stupid one. You know, I'm the one on the other side of the couch. But but people do that all the time still, you know, and when you start hearing grieving stories and you're going to hospice and you're on the board of hospice and you're going to funeral parlors and you're asked to speak at, you know, people's memorials and and you start to change. and you become sensitized. And so then I started to realize that I had an obligation maybe to bring that kind of thing to my work. And that writing about games and who's making a tackle or whatever

is all well and good, but you might be able to do something else. And I remember Maury said to me one time, what do you do for your community? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, what do you do for charities for people who are in need? I said, I write checks. And he said, well, anybody can write a check but you've been given a voice and you need to do something with that voice more than just aggrandize yourself i remember that because you know only a professor uses a word like aggrandize you know and um i've never forgotten that you know that really stays with me and so i had that part of my life where i started to say well okay you've been given this platform and you've been given this success what are you going to do with it you just go go buy a bigger

car? Or are you going to try to help people? And, you know, when I got involved, particularly with Haiti, I'm very involved here in Detroit, also where I live, with the city here. And I started and operated a number of charities here. But I think when I got involved in Haiti with the orphans, that became this whole other chapter of my life, where suddenly my life was about kids and their illnesses. And I mean, believe me, Chelsea, I could spend 10 straight hours telling you about scabies and childhood malnutrition and brain disease and cerebral palsy and all kinds of issues that our kids have that nobody pays any attention. There's no food for them.

There's no water, no electricity. And I'm trying to figure out how I can get diesel fuel for less than $20 a gallon when someone's calling me and saying, we're making a movie out of your book. And it's like this completely different sort of worlds that I have to sort of navigate between and now I'm talking to you you know so so I've learned that life can be a lot of different things and you can be a lot of different things yourself and like I said to you I was anxious to speak to you because I admire the fact that you've done a lot of things yourself and you haven't let people tell you no you're this I remember I got a chance to meet Maya Angelou once and she and I

were just talking in a hallway and I said can I ask you a question it's gonna seem really weird she said yeah I said okay you you write poetry you write fiction you've been an actress you've done all this stuff does anyone has anyone ever told you just stay with one thing and she said yes and it's the cruelest thing you can ever say to somebody and I said well why do you say that she said because it's telling a bird that it shouldn't fly and uh I thought that that was really beautiful and she said don't ever let anybody tell a bird that it can't fly and so I've tried to sort of live my life that way and not worry about the category that I'm in. But if I feel like I have something to contribute or something to offer in some way, or I can help

somebody or I can write something and whether it be a book or a movie or whatever, that's going to, you know, have some positive effect, I should do it whether I'm supposed to do it or not. And are you injecting yourself into these books that you write? Like, is there a part of you that's in this book twice that is part of the main character oh yeah alfie this character is named alfie he's the he's the boy and uh many of the the mishaps that he has when he's younger uh with girls uh are straight out of my playbook um i uh there's a there's a scene where he goes up to talk to a girl who has a bit of a crush on and he he talks with his hands and he knocks a glass of milk into her lap and she just looks up and says oh god you know like that with that and

and his response is look at that and that's exactly what happened to me and exactly what i said and then i just skunked off and never talked to that girl again so yeah i think you have to have a little bit you know of yourself in order to know your characters well and have them ring true there has to be a bit a bit of you in there but the biggest thing is that it's i really i wrote it for my wife and the love story is between alfie and this girl gianna who he meets when they're very young in africa and then never sees her again until he happens to run into her you know when they're college age and he just kind of tumbles into love with her and feels it like he's so lucky to have her and finally she loves him back and they have this wonderful love affair

for a while until something happens and he misreads a situation and he's tempted to just undo it out of anger and whatever and and of course he finds out that the one caveat to his power is love that he can do anything twice except love he can't get somebody to love him twice so which i think you know that's kind of how it should be you know like if somebody truly loves you and you say all right, you wait over here. Keep loving me. I'm going to go out here and see if I can find something better. But just in case I want to come back, pick up where we left off. That seems so unfair. And so I made the rules like you asked me before about the rules. Well, I can make the rules. I wrote the book. So I said, it doesn't work with love. And if you walk away from a true

love, that person can never love you again. They'll be in the world that you revisit. They can be your friend but they can never love you again and of course he makes this fateful decision and and then he has to live with the consequences and and so it was my way of sort of saying to my wife you know both apologizing for any things that i've done that have been less than great yeah i went for great you went for satisfactory but okay you know it's somewhere somewhere in the middle. Right. It's also begs the question, which is so beautiful is if you don't get somebody to love you twice, what will you do to be able to just continue to love them? That's right. And that's where our hero manages to salvage himself. I'm trying not to tell the whole story. Yeah. So

am I, but you know, probably failing loudly, but I just, it's so beautiful. Your writing is so beautiful. It really is. The definition of escapism are your books. Like I, and the reason I love reading so much is something that really takes me away. And every time you're writing just does that. So I'm really, really grateful to you. I want to ask you before we have to let you go about what you're, what you read and what some of your favorite books are. Well, I read everything and, uh, I I've, I've learned, you know, that story about the photographer that anything can be a source of inspiration for you. And so I don't ever say, well, I just read fiction because I'm writing fiction or I just read nonfiction because I'll read, you know, novels, I'll read,

I'll read biographies, I'll read instruction manuals. I mean, anything that I think is going to inspire me, I do tend to read a little differently, like, okay, so this is Ann Tyler's dinner at the homesick restaurant, which is just sitting on my desk here. So I don't know if you can see. So you see the pages are all dog-eared, okay? And under each of those dog-eared pages will be a phrase that I will circle that I think is really great writing. And then what happens is I'll just pull these, that's why it's here, I'll just pull these books out and whenever I'm going to start writing, before I do, I take it and I just flip the pages and I just read these great sentences that these authors have written. And Ann Tyler wrote a lot of really good sentences

in this book and they just inspire me. It's like, it's a little bit like, oh, I'm going to sit down and compose music. Let me listen to something that's really inspiring first. And then I'll sit down and I'll compose mine, you know? So I destroy my books, but I'm good with that. Like I've had people come up with Tuesdays with Maurice that honestly, I don't know how the binding is even holding together. You know, it's, it's, they're dog-eared, they're, they're marked up there. They've got coloring all over them. Some of them have little tabs on the pages. Five people you meet in heavens like that a lot. A little liar is like, and these are people who like underline the books and they come up and they apologize. They say, I'm sorry that I destroyed the book.

I said, no, why would you apologize? Like you, you ate the whole meal, you know, like you really, you devoured it. Look at, look at what you did to the book. You know, someone who comes up on the book is pristine for all I know, they, they read the jacket, you know? So, so I love that. And I don't consider, you know, books like holy that you can't touch them. I think they're meant to be absorbed that way. So that's basically how I read. I just read for inspirational writing. And do you have any favorite books? Many. Have you ever read Circe by Madeline Miller?

No. You're the second person that's recommended that to me in about a week. There's some similarities between your writing and her writing. She packs a punch with sentences also. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful book. But what are some of your favorites? Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is one of my favorite books ever. History of Love by Nicole Krauss. These are books that I've read like a hundred times, you know, just because I so admire the writing. I was a huge Tom Wolfe fan. I think the first chapter of The Right Stuff is one of the most creative ways of writing. When I was first getting into writing, coming out of music, one of the daunting things about writing to a musician is it feels very limiting you know when

you're used to you got a whole keyboard i'm a piano player and when you have a whole keyboard to work with and all the sounds it feels like the whole world is at your fingertips that you could create and then when you're working in the world of letters and words and sentences not so much you know especially when you're not as good at it when you begin you know you're getting started, it feels kind of, ah, I'm just living within the, you know, the words to the left and the words on the right. And they're kind of creating a box. And then you read that chapter where there's like italic, you know, when he writes it out, the sounds. And I remember reading that and I said, wow, you can do that with words. You know, you can create sounds and you can create

what people are thinking. And you can come in with a voice out of left field that's just commenting on what you just read and then you can jump back out again. And it really inspired me to say there is no limit to, you know, what you could do with words. And I ended up kind of using that in my journalism in my early days as a sports writer. I would say, you know, I wrote a column and I would always not be limited by the traditional form of writing. So one time I had to write a story about the Kentucky Derby, and I didn't know anything about horse racing. I was going to the Kentucky Derby, and so I kind of wrote a column about me interviewing a horse, and a make-believe horse, and the horse would talk to me about, you know, and

I was asking different questions about what it's like to be a racehorse, and I remember these were the days when people used to write you letters, you know, at the newspaper, and I went down, picked up my mail and I, it was a letter from a reader and I opened it up and it was that column. And I opened it, I pulled it out. He literally cut it out of the paper and he wrote a horse talks to a jackass. I said, that's pretty good. You know, and I put that up on my bulletin board and said, you know, this is what happens when you take a chance, but, but it still was worth it, you know, to, to, to explore the. Yeah. Yeah. I like the idea of not having a framework and I like the idea of not having parameters because that's all that we're taught in this

world is that there are limits and there are parameters and that's why you're told to do the same thing you did. Well, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, which is not exciting for a creative brain. Okay. Well, the book is called twice. It is a love story. It's a beautiful love story and it's a great book. Another great book from Mitch Alba. Mitch, we appreciate your time today we'll take callers separately you and me yeah and thank you so much for your time for your talk i loved it you're very inspiring thank you well i'm i'm really flattered that you like my work i hope you enjoy five people you meet in heaven and i didn't ruin it for you well yeah i do know the ending but i will still read it and i think there's some books you only know a piece

of the end okay okay okay great great great i'm gonna read it on my flight to new york on friday and then i'm coming to detroit i'm doing shows in detroit next year i'm gonna invite you guys you and your wife to come to see me. Oh, we would love that. Yeah, I'd love to. That would be wonderful. I'd very much like to meet you in person. Thank you so much for having me on your program.

Okay, wonderful. Have a great day, Mitch. Thanks so much. Thank you, you too. Bye-bye. Bye. He's awesome. Awesome.

Like I'm a true mensch. I know. I mean, first of all, a true guy. Like what a model male human being. The opposite of toxic masculinity. I know. Oh, my God. I almost started crying twice.

Yeah. it's like really powerful it's just come through in his writing too yeah i'm so glad we got to his kids in haiti and i didn't know he had they adopted i know it's just gorgeous the just story is beautiful it's like he's a vessel truly i mean it is like just like hearing about his life is that the right word vessel but like a conduit conduit yeah you do you do hear that when he's like i was focused on myself and i made this change i did this thing to help someone else And then all of these blessings came to him, but then he continued to pass it along. I mean, just really wonderful.

Now I've got to read The Little Liar. Yeah, that's a great book. Yeah. The Jonas Brothers are running it back. We live the burning up tour and celebrate the biggest Jonas Brothers hits that have defined a generation. One incredible celebration. One unforgettable night. See the Jonas Brothers live at RBC Amphitheater, September 28th.

Get tickets now at Ticketmaster.ca. Jonas Brothers, the burnin' up tour all over again. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week

we're connecting the dots between books the internet and the conversations everyone can't stop having i'm gonna have to look up this story i'm obsessed i'm obsessed from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments nothing is off the table it's Like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman.

I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it.

It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so now we're going to take some callers without Mitch. Katherine? I thought our time was better spent with Mitch

listening to him talk about writing for some reason. And so let's take the callers ourselves. I think that's perfect. Yes. Well, our first question comes from Karen. She says, Hello, Chelsea. Many of your stories resonate with me.

I was adopted at birth and grew up with deep feelings of abandonment. I was also an angry teenager and turned that anger onto my parents. Poor them. My issues followed me through college. In my early 20s, my aunt connected me with a fantastic therapist and I had a breakthrough of sorts. However, I was still searching and ungrounded. I tried marriage to fix my issues and immediately recognized my mistake. I now call that my starter marriage. In my early 30s, I remarried, had my daughter, and found my birth parents. The discovery of these new relationships brought turmoil, but also emotional connection that had previously been just beyond my reach. There have been many twists and turns in my life, many of which have seemed faded, such as connecting with my second husband in 1998 after near misses in which we'd nearly crossed paths many times.

I'm currently trying to write a book to capture my life story, which I think is worth telling. I have initiated the process countless times and can't seem to get started. I know you've written multiple books. So my question to you is, how did you start? Did you develop a framework and then start writing? Did you just free flow? Did you have a ghostwriter? I'd appreciate any guidance you can offer. Karen. Hi, Karen. Hi. Hi. How are you? Thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. You're so welcome. I like your full blonde hair. It looks nice and thick. I've got a great head of hair. From another blonde. I mean, And mine's obviously not real anymore, but it's very hard to have thick blonde hair.

So congrats on that feat. Thank you for your note. We just had Mitch Albomond talking about his writing. So he talked about getting up every morning. He doesn't expose himself. I don't know. Do you have a job? I do.

I'm a graduate nursing professor. Okay. What does that mean? So I'm a nurse practitioner. So I'm clinical faculty for master's prepared nurses that are going for their nurse practitioner. Oh, wow. That sounds nice. It's amazing.

And so what is your schedule like? So I'm mostly online grading and I do site visits. So I have a lot of flexibility. Great. So then what he said as first thing in the morning is when your brain is the freshest. There's lots of data to back this up. So that's really what you want to do is he told me something that I don't do, which is not check any media, not check phone, not check anything. And he just goes and starts writing

before anything can kind of make an impression on him. So, and writes for about two and a half, three hours each morning, and then leaves it there because he said he could sit there for another eight hours and it just would be useless. And I find that to be true in my own experience as well. It's first thing in the morning when my eyes are fresh and when my head is fresh and I'm well rested to get up. And that is, I think the most creative time for most of us. I think not looking at anything, not looking at the news, not looking at any social media, not even looking at your phone is a really a great piece of advice that he gave. So yeah, I would say to do that. And I wouldn't be too strict with your guidelines for yourself because the desires there and the

construct, you just have to envision what you're trying to put out there. Like with my most recent book, I wanted, my goal was to impart the wisdom that I had gleaned and to inject women with a little bit more confidence. Like that was my MO. So everything that came was born out of that idea. And so like, you know, I opened my last book with a chapter about, it was called Little Girl. It's like, who do I want it who I wanted to be when I was a little girl? How did I envision myself becoming? And what kind of woman did I see myself becoming? And then the book takes you through all of the ways in which I attempted and got derailed or wasn't really conscious about it and was derailed and then realized, wait a second, where's that woman, you know, so that that was like my

through line. I don't know that. I think sometimes you have a structure in your head. And sometimes you have a structure on paper. It really depends what kind of brain you have. You're talking about writing your life story, basically. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And I think it's important and valuable to think about what it is you're giving to the readers that are going to be reading this. So I get a little confused about that. So I think I want to tell my story and then I think about, Do I need to make it a larger picture of maybe, you know, my extended family and then intertwine my thread throughout it and I get caught in the weeds or I think too large. It's really hard to figure out how to start and what to tell.

And then I just kind of, you know, I spin around and around. One tool that might be helpful is to get yourself a pack of like three by five note cards. and go through, write on each one sort of like a story or a scene that you want to write about. And, you know, you might hang them up on a wall. You might just have them in a stack. But if you're having a writing day, you know, whether that's, you know, you have a couple hours in the morning or even just, you know, 45 minutes in the morning, go through, pick one that's speaking to you that day and write about that. Like you don't necessarily have to write it chronologically. You can always go back and then, you know, put stuff chronologically and weave it in. So you can just

go to whatever like you're in the mood for or whatever is speaking to you that day. That's a great idea because when I'm thinking of a timeline and starting at childhood, I can't think of any great meat to, you know, grab onto and initiate that story. And I've always been kind of thinking about it in a chronological manner. And so I get stuck on that and then I'm like oh well so that's a great idea yeah and also those index cards that you get you know there's big momentous moments or the the moments that you know you do want to write about right you put those all down the things that stand out the most so like your early childhood you're saying there's there's some you know you don't have a very clear idea of where to begin I think if you put down

your biggest memories and your loudest moments on blue cards that will kind of help you remember where like it will kind of help trigger you where to begin because if you start writing that stuff usually writing begets more writings and and memory seeking begets more memories so I think that like just by the practice of writing down the things that you do recall and the big instances that you do want to convey in your book you're going to start to remember other things oh that's really great that I hadn't even tried that. I hadn't even thought about that. So that's really that's helpful. Yeah. Yeah. And even if you're writing, say, a thousand words a day at the end of three months, you've got ninety thousand words, you know, so it's like take it in small

bites if you need to. Yeah. And I also really just like I'm not a very structured person. I like to just do my own thing. I don't follow rules well. So for me, it's really when I sit down and I start writing, it creates a need to want to write more. And another great piece of advice Mitch Albom just gave was he always leaves his writing on a positive note or a positive paragraph. Like if he's in the middle of a good paragraph, he'll stop if it's been two and a half or three hours, because that way the next morning when he wakes up, there's a level of excitement to return to the page. Yeah. That's really, really helpful too. Yeah. These things I'm so structured and organized that everything you're saying to me really, you know, isn't anything I've

thought about and I think probably will help get the ball rolling actually. Yeah. Yeah. Just don't be so, don't be so regimented about it and allow yourself to be a free thinker with regard to this book. Like do things you haven't done before since you've never written a book before. This is the perfect opportunity to try to loosen your whole structure up. Yeah, sure. OK, good stuff. Thank you so much. Great. Love it. Thanks for calling in. Behind every night spent making the kids lunches, there is a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first bite? Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full or come home at all? And Will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

Get Bell Pure Fiber Internet with Crave, Netflix, and Disney Plus from $94 a month, price guaranteed for two years on Internet with a two-year term and auto-pay credit. Visit bell.ca for details and to check availability. Bell. Connection is everything. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months. I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,

pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much you're in the right

place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. On the new podcast Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I chose option B. I'm Julie Pinheiro and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us. Not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies

you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip. I hope you listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This caller is Jean. She says, Dear Chelsea, I listen to your podcast religiously and find your advice to be so refreshingly honest and straightforward. I'm writing to you as a fellow author. I've published many books in my life, but now I'm writing a memoir about being in a family of 10. My early childhood trauma was so bad it manifested in medical issues, so I had to cut ties with my family. I'm writing this book to challenge myself

as a writer, process my experiences, and share my stories with others who can relate. I know I'll need to change the names of family members, but anyone who knows me will know who I'm writing about. Even though my stories aren't pleasant, they are all true. How do I deal with the fallout and maintain my conviction and composure should one of them reach out to me, especially if it's anger. Thank you in advance for your help. You're one of the smartest, sweetest, strongest women I know. Jean. Hi, Jean. Hi. Hi. I'm so excited to meet you. Oh, thank you for your kind words. And I'm so sorry that you had such a traumatizing childhood. Thank you. Are you writing it as nonfiction or are you writing it like as fiction? No, I'm writing it as nonfiction memoir. Yeah.

Yeah. I honestly, it's not really your problem what anybody thinks about what you're going to write about. You're entitled to write your story. Everyone is entitled to tell their story and write their story. And while you do have to change the names and you have to change the scenery, yes, you're right. People are going to know what you're talking about. But I don't think it does you any good to really consider that aspect of things, especially at this stage. It's almost like, you know, your your efforts should just be going towards your honoring your story, because by telling your story, you are helping so many people. And you just have to keep that in your in in the back of your mind at all times that this is not just for you. this is for the world. Right. And it's for women. I like to always think like when I'm making a decision, you know, that I'm doing it on behalf of women, not every little decision, but big decisions. I think, who am I doing this for? It's not, can't just be for me, but it's for women. Absolutely. And that's the only reason I would share it, Chelsea. I feel very strongly about

gleaning from my life experiences in my work as a writer. I'm almost 60 years old, like this is how I want to spend the rest of my working days is sharing my stories with people who can relate. But you know, I am concerned about any potential negative interference from siblings. When it does come out. Um, I have had siblings try to sabotage some of my book events and whatnot, and that those books had nothing to do with them. So that kind of just hangs over my head a little bit. And I am just wondering what, what should I do? Like how, how do I respond if, you know, and when that happens? I don't think there is a response for that. Any response is them winning, you know, like them trying to like sabotage you and you reacting to it is them affecting you. And I think

you have to just kind of, it sounds like a pretty toxic situation that you've come from. And I honestly think you just have to be your own best protector and think of that little girl that you were that wasn't protected that you're writing about. And this is your job to protect her in this moment. Oh, thank you so much. That means a lot. And yeah, I mean, I am trying to listen to other memoirists who have gone through something similar and get their advice and what to do and whatnot. And so I'm leaning on people like yourself, too. You've written your own memoirs and your own experiences. And yes, I'm leaning on all of you as inspiration for not just how to write this, but how to deal with any intrusions, any negativity when this book

hopefully is out and will be discussed. Yeah. And also, you can't fight with someone who's not fighting back. So say the worst case scenario, someone walks into one of your book events, you're having a book talk at a bookstore, an independent bookseller, and someone comes in and is like, this is a lie. This is a lie. Your response is nothing. It's just to sit there and wait for security to escort them out there's no argument to be had do you know what I mean like I that's a louder argument than an argument yeah did not get into it and and I think it's it's not helpful to be used putting your energy towards that right now anyway channel that energy and use that for the book yeah under the assumption that there's not going to be any problem and there's

going to be no intrusions and that nobody's going to try to sabotage you I hope not because the way look at it is like me walking into their office where they work and telling them, you know, that's not how to design a building or whatever they do for a living. You know, that's how I feel about it. But how I feel is usually at odds with the people I grew up with, unfortunately. So I just, I hope I can maintain my composure. You can, you can, because by the time the book is published, you're going to get into a preparation phase. You know, you're going to prepare yourself for what happens in the eventuality that something negative like that does happen.

It most likely won't. But if it does, then yeah, you're going to meditate on it and you're going to prepare for that and how you're going to handle it. And you're going to handle it with grace and confidence, knowing that this is your story and nobody owns your story the way that you do. Thank you.

I mean, from the bottom of my heart, I don't want to hurt anybody. You know, it's not my intention. I understand. So I wrestle with that a lot. You know, these are not people I want to hurt. yeah well I mean that's worth saying you know in the book also you know yeah it's a hard line I mean that's worth considering putting in you know like the prologue or the introduction to the book

you know this is my story and this I did not set out to hurt anyone else but telling my story I'm setting out to help people who may have experienced something similar that's perfect thank you that's fabulous yeah great all right well I wish you lots of luck yeah and lots of courage and lots of success. Thank you so much, Chelsea. I just love what you do. Keep doing it. I love you so much. Thank you. Oh, thanks so much. Bye. Bye. Okay. That was your episode of Dear Chelsea for the week, everybody. We have mini-sodes that we are airing now. When do our mini-sodes come out? Every other Friday, Chelsea. Every other Friday, we have a mini-sode. If you need a little jolt, an extra jolt of us, we're here. We're here. And yeah, we'll see you next week or you'll hear us

or what the fuck ever. Goodbye. The word of the week is agrandize. Verb, to increase the power, status, or wealth of something or someone. Used in a sentence, to self-agrandize may be beneficial if you use it to demand a raise at work. Agrandize.

I just announced all my tour dates. They just went on sale this week. It's called the High and Mighty Tour. I will be starting in February of next year. So I will be touring from February through June. I haven't added second shows yet, but we probably will be to some of these. So go get your tickets now.

If you want good seats and you want to come see me perform, I will be on the high and mighty tour. Do you want advice from Chelsea? Write into DearChelseaPodcast at gmail.com. Find full video episodes of Dear Chelsea on YouTube by searching at Dear Chelsea Pod. Dear Chelsea is edited and engineered by Brad Dickert,

executive producer, Catherine Law. And be sure to check out our merch at ChelseaHandler.com. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted stocked controlled and nearly silenced these are stories about what it takes to make it

out alive listen to the survivor files with elizabeth smart on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of Discourse. Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty

of overthought opinions. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Did you hear the new episode of the Hey Jonas podcast? We are at D23, so we'll see who stops by. The cast of

Frozen stopped by. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Idina Menzel. I auditioned for Frozen. What? For Kristoff. They said, okay, what are you going to be singing today? I said, I don't know. That must have been why you didn't get it. Oh, you probably won. Plus, John Stamos, Hayden Christensen from Star Wars, and more.

And I guess I can share that, uh... No way. Listen to the latest episode of Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. what they have to offer us. Everyone has a good time and no one gets mad at their publicist

for letting them do our show. We've had a lot of great guests like Sarah Sherman, Adam Scott, Danny McBride, Ben Stiller, and a lot of other big shots that wouldn't be where they are

without us. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.