The Bobby Bones Show - Best Selling Author Stephanie Clifford discusses her new book “The Farewell Tour”

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Author Stephanie Clifford has gained recognition for her insightful and thought-provoking writing and her new book “The Farewell Tour” is no exception.Described by The New York Times as “Breathtaking and Shimmering “ Stephanie’s new novel is about women, music, and the West.Stephanie’s first book was a best seller called “Everybody Rise” and she is also a journalist writing for The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York TimesConnect With Stephanie CliffordWebsite: http://www.stephanieclifford.net/tftTwitter: https://twitter.com/stephcliffInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/cliffordwrites/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanie-clifford-0b038b96/ About the Show *****Thank you so much for listening to the TAKIN’ A WALK PODCAST SHOW hosted by Buzz Knight!  Listen to more honest conversations with a compelling mix of guests ranging from musicians, authors, and insiders with their own stories. Get inspired, get motivated, and gain insights from honest conversations every week that can help you with your own journey. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and be part of this blessed family.Website: https://takinawalk.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/thebuzzknightLinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/buzzknightLinkfire: https://lnk.to/takinawalk Please consider subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with your friends and family!Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, I sit down with Tiffany the budgetista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money. What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here? We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts. Too many of us were never, ever,

If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more. Listen to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant from the Black Effect Network on the I'd Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It's Financial Literacy Month. The podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.

Corsha accusing Kelly of sleeping with a merry man. They holding Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew. Pinky has financial issues. On the podcast, Reality with the King, I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real House Wise franchise. The drama, the alliances, and the T, everybody's talking about. To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The podcast Playground. I'm Buzz Knight, the host of Taking a Walk music history on foot.

You can find us at Apple Podcast or Spotify or the podcast playground or wherever you get your podcast. You can also go to Takenawalk.com for all episodes and all transcripts. Today, our guest is Stephanie Clifford, an award-winning investigative journalist and best-selling author. Her first book, Everybody Rise, was a New York Times bestseller. Her new novel is called The Farewell Tour, the story of fictional country music singer Lillian Waters. Let's take a walk with Stephanie Clifford next. Well, Stephanie Clifford, it's so nice to be taking a walk with you in person. I know. What a post-COVID treat, right?

This is terrific. It's a beautiful day. So set the scene where we are, though. We're in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, which is, I think, the crown jewel of Brooklyn. Olmsted Design, like Central Park. We're passing, if you hear the shots of children, you think to be some sort of girls' school at play on our right. And this is near my house. I get to come here. I try to come here every day for a little piece. and certainly to walk my two big dogs, play with the kids, all that. So I love it. And we're in spring migration.

So if we see any cool birds, we'll be stopping to talk about them. That's perfect. Yeah, it's great. Well, I have to thank you, first of all, because one of the great joys is when someone listens to an episode of taking a walk and then reaches out like you did to offer up an opportunity to talk about your book, The Farewell Tour. So thank you. I'm so grateful, too.

And I love the idea of an actual walk while you talk to people. I think it just brings in a different kind of more relaxed element and mindfulness, as you know. So I think the whole thing is cool. And a lot of people listen and they go, well, wait a minute. It sounds like you're actually like huffing and puffing a little bit. And I said, well, it's because we're walking. I know. Now we're echoing because we're going through a tunnel.

Echo, echo. How many times did you do that when you were young? So many times. Right? Oh, my God. And they're actually, for music-wise, just gets great acoustic. So they're often great violin or cello players just sitting there in the tunnel, which is a neat, neat thing too.

So before we talk about your book, let's talk about your journey, how you became an investigative reporter. And where did all this start? Sure, I was always super nosy. Like Harriet the Spy was my hero as a kid, and I was always making notes in journals about, like, various plots that I thought were happening within my house or within the neighborhood. Nothing ever was.

It wasn't very interesting. But when I found out that you could be a reporter and that that was a real job, I was like, well, that I think is what I want to do. And so I did the high school paper, I did the college paper, and I started at a magazine right out of college as a fact checker. Eventually I got to the New York Times where I covered business and then I covered courts. And at the Times I wrote my first book, Everybody Rise, and then I had to sort of make the choice of do I stay at the Times

and not have time to write a second book or do I leave, try to combine journalism and novel writing in some fashion, which is what I decided to do. So I now write about courts and crime for L, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, several places, and then combine that with novel writing. So where did music become part of your life? It's always been. So I've played piano since I was, I think, four.

I fell in love with country music in particular, which the farewell tour is set in that world when I was in high school. I spent a summer, I had a summer job in Arkansas working trail maintenance. And we were way up in the Wachita Mountains, we only got one station and it was country. And that sort of forced immersion into it made me realize that everything I'd heard about country because I hadn't really listened to it before that was wrong. And in fact, it was this incredibly rich, beautiful genre that I hadn't really given much credit or time to. And so I came back from Seattle. I came back to Seattle. This was the height of the grunge era. And I was like buying Tammy Winnett CDs. And nobody knew ever. It is like,

no, we're going to like an underground Nirvana show. And I was like, I'm listening to George Jones. So I learned guitar after that because I wanted to learn some of the country like the Chris Christofferson songs, the George and Tammy songs. And that was sort of where my love of Fair with Country started. And were you writing music back then? No, I wrote music for the first time for this book, actually. I hadn't written music before this, but I've always made up, like I've, you know, just tinkering around on the piano or on the guitar, made up songs.

But for this book, because it's about a country, the honky-tong-tong star, I started to write about her writing process, and then I was like, in order to do this properly, I need to actually sit down and write these songs and think about what she would be thinking about in terms of the bridge and the chorus and all those parts of the songs along with, of course, the lyrics. What's what I'm going to do here? So you wanted to walk the walk? Yeah.

I like it. Right? I like it. Were you scared, though, of that writing process? Weirdly, no. Like, I get so intimidated about writing articles. if I let my, you know, reptile brain take over. I certainly get nervous about novels.

But this was just, like there was zero pressure and zero commercial pressure. I was like, if this doesn't work out, then I've tried writing a song, and that's fine. If it does work out, then I've got a little more information about what Lily and my main character goes through. So it was actually so freeing because it just felt like fun.

It felt like I could tinker and take all the time I want, wanted and add in little licks from other songs that I was listening to and try to represent what she would have been writing in the 50s and 60s and 70s. So did you visualize Lillian first before you started the whole process of writing the book? I knew, I knew sort of the touch points I wanted her to hit. So I knew that I wanted her to be born in Washington State where I'm from. I knew that I wanted her to leave home at age 10. That was actually a real thing that my own grandmother did,

and we never knew why. My grandmother, like a lot of women, a lot of people from that era, just didn't talk about anything traumatic or upsetting. And so she would just say, I left. I started work. That's it. And so I knew I wanted Lillian to do the same thing in order to not really solve the mystery of why my grandmother left,

I don't know why she did, but to look at what that's like to have to be on your own from age 10 on. So in the book, Lillian moves into town to become a hired girl, which is sort of an underpaid servant, and start supporting herself from age 10 and never returns to her family. But I wasn't sure about her career, actually. I was thinking, I knew I wanted her to have a career, that would put her into the world, that would have her grappling with what it means to be a woman

and what was then, primarily a man's working world. I am getting out of breath. You're a fast walker. You needed to do cardio training before this. We could do a saunter. You're a city walker. Yeah, I love walking. And so I played around with like maybe she could be a nurse.

Maybe she could work at Boeing, which was obviously based out there then. And those weren't really working. And then I came across, I always read the obituaries in the New York Times. Sure. Because they're just like full of fascinating detail. And there was an obit of a country music producer out of Washington State. And like, as I said, I'd been a country music fan. I'm from Washington, but I didn't think there was any link between the two.

And in looking into this, I found there was this wonderful moment in the 1950s when Buck Owens, the founder, a founder of the California Country Sound, was up in, Washington when Loretta Lynn was out there, when Don Rich, who became Buck's electric guitarist, this incredible guitarist was out there. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's it. If I can get Lillian to Tacoma Washington in the 1950s, then suddenly she's grappling with being an artist, she's grappling with her songs and her music and her stage presence and who she is and who she presents as. And it becomes this really rich, interesting story. And like a, a third side note that I didn't think about at the time, but has been such a boon is that it let me

really dive into country music history and learn so much more about it. And you also delve into the fact that Bakersfield, California, was this other hot spot for country, right? Yes, yeah, Bakersfield is where Buck Owens is from. It's where Merle Haggard got his start. And a lot of other Jean Shepard sang out there, a lot of great country singers of the era. were kind of in that Bakersfield scene. And Lillian, she meets Buck, becomes friendly with him.

He moves down to Baker's Field to continue his career, and she goes down and tries to make it on the honky talk circuit there. And that was really exciting to learn. I knew Buck Owens' songs, I knew Merrill Haggards, but I don't think I'd a super clear picture of that California country sound, the sort of electric and rhythm and backslap. and I learned about other musicians like Rose Maddox, who I hadn't known her work before,

and now I listen to her constantly. She's incredible, and she was a real pioneer on the California country scene. So who are some of the women that inspire you with their grit and their resilience? Because obviously this is a story of tremendous grit. Yeah. Part of that was an homage to the woman

of my grandmother's generation. And I think not just of my grandmother from Washington, but my grandmother here, who was born in New York, like how much they had to do just to keep going and how little they could talk about it. Like when I read some of the memoirs of country music singers and stars, when they often would go through something really traumatic, the woman would early in their life and just treat it in a paragraph or something in the book and then not talk about it again. And I was curious about that whole mode of being for a woman from that generation and how little they could talk about some of what they went through. And I really admire a lot of the woman not just out of Nashville, but in the sort of Americana country scene today who sing so beautifully about what's going on in their lives in very real terms. I think of Amanda Shire's who you interviewed. I think of Allison Russell and how it gives them so much strength. So it sort of name what they're going through and talk about it and sing about it.

And I wonder what it was like for all this women who couldn't do that or who were taught not to do that. Yeah, it is an interesting time right now with the fact that there's so much genre that's being sort of busted in terms of categorization. Yeah. And I know that's a central part of the book as well. Can you talk about that? Yes. Lillian is from a honky-tonged background. And by the time she finally gets to Nashville after going through Washington and Bakersfield, she's 40 years old. And I did that on purpose because I think we all sort of know or can guess the story of the ingenue coming to Nashville and being told,

you've got to wear this, you've got to dress this way, you've got to sing this. Lillian at 40 really knows the trade-off she's making and she's willing to do it. And I thought that was a much more interesting story. She is an electric guitar player. She has a Fender Telecaster that she adores. And at her first recording session in Nashville, she has a producer Coy Ray, who's really good for her in a lot of ways. But Coy Ray says, like, put that thing away. I can't sell a 40-something divorcee, and I certainly can't sell a 40-something divorcee.

and I certainly can't sell a 40-something divorcee playing electric guitar. It's like 1963 in Nashville. And Lillian puts it away. And she, this moment where she's putting it back in its case and all the other musicians can't even look because they know what it means to have to put away your instrument. Yeah. And but she at that point has worked so hard with so little success

that she's willing to do it and she's willing to make the trade-offs. And she knows by the time she's on, the book obviously is called The Farewell Tour, by the time she's on her farewell tour in 1980, she knows that this is going to be her last chance, probably to perform. She's been diagnosed with career-ending vocal problems.

But also, if she ever wants to sing sort of the truth about her life, this is going to be her chance to do that. And so she has to decide, am I willing to do that, am I brave enough to do that? You mentioned Amanda and the character in the farewell tour, the fiddle player. I can't help thinking a little bit about Amanda and her spunk, but talk about the character. Yeah, Kiori, who's the fiddle player on the farewell on the last tour. So that was a character that was so much fun to write because she started literally as a side person in Lillian's band.

I didn't think of Kiori having much of a role. besides playing fiddle on this last tour. And then she just kept developing more and more and having more to say. So she shows up, Lillian, who's, you know, been brought up, Lillian's born in 24, so she's been brought up a certain way. Kiori shows up sort of brawless, you know, loose hair hanging down, and Lillian immediately disapproves. But as she hears Kiori play, she realizes she's,

not only very good, but incredibly hardworking, which impresses Lillian. And the two of them start to talk to each other and eventually to become friends. And Lillian develops what at first I think is a grudging respect and then is an actual pure respect for Kiori and her work. And Kiori is also a songwriter. And Kiori pushes Lillian in other ways, where she's from a different generation. and she's from a generation that asks questions about the past that faces difficult things. And Lillian comes to find out that Kauri's mother had been interned in the Japanese-American internment camps in the West. And Kiori wants to stop by one of the camps where her mother was interned and take a look at it.

And Lillian's immediate response being from another generation was like, why would you do that? That might be upsetting. And Keori says that's what we have to do. We have to face the past and we have to talk about it. And I think Lillian, in seeing Kiori face this really difficult, part of her own past gets the courage then to ultimately go back to Washington and grapple with Lillian's past. That's quite a storyline, my God.

And the way the relationship unfolds is really fascinating because it's pretty edgy at times. It's pretty edgy. Keori stands up for herself in a way that a lot of people don't with Lillian because she's really in such a strong personality that kind of if you don't push back, she'll bowl you over. And I think Lillian also, you know, she's built up all of these walls around her. She's had to in order to survive.

And as she connects with Kiori, as she connects with Charlie, who's her band leader, her longtime friend, her kind of musical equal, she lets down a little bit of that and realizes she doesn't have to be this tough, impenetrable person all the time. Talk about how being an investigative reporter helped you in this process, because you really go deep in terms of the music and, you know, the Bowievel Blues and Ma Rainy. But talk about how that really helped you writing this being so detailed and fact-checking. Yeah, I mean, one part is the fact-checking. That was my first job out of college, and that's a job where literally you're going through a magazine piece written by somebody else, underlining every fact and confirming it with a third-party source. So you learn research and you learn what's accurate and you learn what trustworthy sources are. And with something like this, people rightly take music so seriously and take country music so seriously as they should.

I was like, I do not want to get a single thing wrong. Like, I don't want to get a date wrong. I don't want to get a record label wrong. I don't want to get a technology wrong. So I spent a ton of time in libraries. There's an excellent performing arts library here in New York. And they, the librarians there were so fantastic, where they brought out, like, acetate. So I could see how big an acetate was.

So I could imagine, would Lillian be bringing an acetate, which were demo records? back in the day in her purse or would she have to have like a special bag for it or would she just be carrying it they I also wanted to kind of subtly but clearly show some of the influences on country music so you mentioned Bo Weevil Blues that's a song Lil hears when she's a kid at a Walla Walla Farm where she lives Walla Walla Washington which is quite rural and I think There's been a split into sort of country music and other kinds of music since the Bristol sessions. And I wanted to kind of underline all the things that bring music and people together,

so that Lillian, listening to this record, recorded by Ma Rainey, would completely understand what a bull-weavele was, why it was problematic, why you'd have the blues about it, because they've got bull-wables in their flower, too. So I wanted to bring in some of the other influences on country like blues, like rock, like jazz, and as Lilian is teaching herself about country music, which is largely when she's in Tacoma during World War II, she's working at a radio station, and she spends a ton of time in the library there, is listening to different records. But she's also listening to Charlie Christian, and she's listening to George Van Nuptz, and she's listening to all of these. things that are not classically country, but certainly influenced the sound. And I couldn't help but think that it's crazy during the time that Lillian was growing up, that there were bank failures, and the irony struck me thinking about now.

Yes. Yeah, that she grows up on a Depression-era farm that has a mortgage, and her dad is sort of torn between logging, which is. his real love and he inherited this farm that he's supposed to run but has little interest in running. And so Lillian, like at one point she sees the actual mortgage paper and she realizes there's no way they can make it. Like she doesn't know that much about her family's finances but she knows they're not going to make the mortgage. And the banks are failing. People in town are selling all of their possessions for nothing. So the whole era of the book,

was so fascinating because you go from the Depression to World War II to JFK's assassination, which plays a role in the book. And it's just this super rich, these super rich decades of history. Did you do some research at the country music Hall of Fame? I did a little bit of the, it was during COVID most of it, so I couldn't go. But they have great online resources. Bakersfield, the Cal State Library there, has incredible resources about the Bakersfield Sound with a bunch of oral interviews of different producers, musicians. So those were both fabulous resources.

And then I was able to go to Walla Walla and Tacoma in person and do research on those towns and get a sense of what they were like in Will's era. Another fabulous Nashville museum that's often unheralded, and I think it sort of speaks to the richness, the way you pursue the genres in the book, is the African American Music Hall of Fame. I don't know if you've ever checked out. It's pretty remarkable, and I think people sort of forget about where the roots played a role. Yes, yes. When you first went to Nashville, when was that? The first time I went was for a wedding, so it was...

Oh, you were one of those people? It was one of those people. It was maybe 2008 or something. But you talk about the Riemann, too. Did you tour the Riemann when you were there? Yeah, so all of Tootsies, all of those spots were so incredible. And I should mention, I just got to go back to Nashville for an event there. For the book?

For the book. Oh, awesome. And the Country Music Hall of Fame happened to have this Western exhibit. So I walk in and there's Rose Maddox's costume. There's Grand Parsons from the cover or from the Brito Brothers. Berida Brothers, I think, Gilded Palace of Sin, that white nudie suit. So it was just unbelievable to walk in and see it like Grand Parsons' guitar. All of these things were so cool.

Yeah, we had Paul Kingsbury, who's the sort of the curator there, the historian of the Country Music Hall of Fame. So I did see that exhibit, and I think it was really beautifully done. It really, and it's so neat to hear that music overhead, because you don't hear it in public, really. Right? You don't hear, like, Graham Parsons playing at a grocery store. And suddenly you're hearing Grand Parsons, Linda Ronstadt, and Ami Lou Harris. And it's so incredible to walk through and just hear that at once.

Just recently discovered Graham Parsons just went to Harvard. Yeah, that's right. Didn't you drop out? Yeah, oh yeah. Elizabeth Holm-style? I sure did. He sure did. All the interesting ones drop out.

Yeah. So as you think about the state of music and females and country music and you think about Lillian, what would she say about it today? That's a great question. I think she would be frustrated by the top 50, which is still, I think, only 10, 12% woman. but I think she would also look outside the top 50 and look at all of these artists Margot Price, Rianne and Giddens, look at what they're doing and how how kind of proudly and strongly they're telling their stories and the stories of other women and be like, whoa, that's something amazing.

That's fantastic. Like they're fighting the good fight and they're winning, even if it's not mainly. not be getting onto billboard top 50, but it's just beautiful moving music. So you think she would appreciate the Margo prices of the world? Totally, totally. She'd want a tour with her? She would. Oh, no. I would be front row for that one for sure. So what are you working on next? I'm starting my next book. So I'm just doing research for it now. You just can't rest, can you? I can't rest.

I've got a couple magazine articles in the works that I'm sort of starting reporting on. And that's most of it. Can you tell us what you're thinking about, even in the germ? You know, I keep throwing out ideas. If this one sticks, I'll definitely tell you, but I've already thrown out three ideas. It's funny to, I write books over a long period of time. I admire people who can write them in six months or a year, but that's not me. And so I have to really want to spend time with the characters.

And I had been working on this book about like six people out on Long Island. And about a month ago, I was like, I don't like these people. Like, I don't want to spend time with them. I was like, I didn't even want to spend another day with them. Like, I got to. And so I threw that one out and started fresh. You have to love and be interested in your characters and like Lilia and Charlie

are often still with me, like popping up, telling me what they think about this or about that, and I'm so glad to have them still with me that I want to really love the characters as much for the next novel. And the music composition part, we touched on it earlier. So tell me about something. some of the songs and how they came into your head

and you channeled them through Lilian. Yeah, so I think the first song I wrote was Waterlil, which is meant to be her first number one hit. Her producer says, like, you need basically a nickname. Can you, like, tell me about your past? She starts telling him. And he says, why don't we, like, we're gonna cut some years off your life anyway,

not off of her life, but off of her age anyway. And she mentions there's this walla walla, wall, flood when she was a kid. And he's like, okay, Waterloo. Like, we can work with that. That'll work. And so at first, I didn't have any lyrics, any music. It was just this idea that she had a song, Waterlil. But then, like, Lillian was like, no, no, no, I want to write the song. I want to figure this out. So I write it first on piano, which is more fluid on piano, and then translate it to guitar to make sure it makes sense, that the chord transitions and such would make sense in guitar.

There's another one called Woman's Work, which she writes. It's the first song she ever writes. And this is with her band in World War II era Tacoma. They're sitting around playing Gene Autry back in the saddle again. And it's not working.

It's these five women who, like, they can't get any feeling out of it. And finally, they realized, like, oh, we never really got to go in the saddle. Like, if we were on a horse, it was for working, for, like, plowing the fields or bringing water to and from the fields. Like, we never just got to go out and ride free. And so Lillian starts thinking about this, and she writes a song, Women's Work from the phrase a woman's work is never done.

But it starts with this little, like, schoolyard chant of these little girls might sing. That's like, wash it, dry, it, cook it, bake it. And her thinking is, like, even in schoolyards, boys are throwing balls and getting messy and getting muddy, and girls are playing these almost domestic games. And so she plays off of that for this woman's work song. Who are some of the writers you admire? Oh, God. Where do we start, right? I know, where do we start?

John Prine, certainly. Oh, there's so many. I love the sort of storytelling quality The asides in the John Prime I was just listening of course to Gordon Lightfoot And so I've been listening nonstop to him But just It's a song that would work without these like two word asides

But then he just throws in something And you're just like looking at the rain for instance It's looking at the wall wishing you'd call And tell me you're okay And then he pauses And then he says, that's all. And that little twist is just so good. So a lot of the singer-songwriters,

Ennio Lo Harris, Dottley Parton, certainly is just a stunner on every facet. There are just so many songs from that era, especially, that just make you stop. And how about novelists that you admire? where do we start there, right? Where do we start there? My first novel was inspired by Edith Wharton,

so I think of the classic, the classic, or at least Gilded Age novelists. She had such an eye for detail and for social status that I really admired. Wallace Stegner, I think, writes so beautifully about the West in a way that I was really inspired by for this book because I tried to encapsulate.

He writes about a different part of the West, He writes about California and Saskatchewan, but the sort of dry, arid west. And I was trying to write about that in a similar way with the Northwest, which is much more bountiful and sort of forgiving as a landscape. But I think his portraits of marriages are just so, they just cut you to your heart. You kind of like I feel like I can't get up for three days after reading a Wall of Stegner. because they're so fabulous. I read a lot of classic Western literature

as I researched this book and thought about what I wanted to touch on. So grapes of wrath, certainly. And one thing that I wanted to shift about that was even in books that I really admire like grapes of wrath. The woman are not centric and they're not really allowed to leave there.

homes. Like they're, they're sort of majowed as you see her in camp or on the truck, but other than that you don't really see her out in the world doing much. And I wanted to take that sort of strong Western woman and put her out in the world and see what happened, which is Lillian, and she argues with everybody. It's basically what happens. Talk about how you're engaging with folks in the reading community, both with sort of book discussion groups, but also sharing playlists. So how are you connecting with fans and how can folks find that? Yeah.

So Stephanieclifford.net is my website. There you can sign up for a Zoom book club discussion, and I've done a few of those. And it's really great. I've done bookstore visits and other sort of more formal author events, which are also great, but at the Zoom events, everybody's read the book or are pretending they have. So you just get really interesting questions about things I'd never thought about,

like, why did you make this choice, or why do you have Charlie do this, or why not have Lillian stay in Washington? Just like plot choices, but people talking about it in a way where the characters are almost as real to them, maybe, as they are to me. And so it's so much fun to talk to readers.

about why you do what you do. And half the time you don't, as a writer, you don't, they're not super conscious choices. So you get these questions that really make you reflect on, like, why did I do that? Was that the right choice? There's a Spotify playlist that takes you through, it's mostly a woman, but also some of the influences

on Lillian in the book. And that's also linked on my website. And then I just love hearing from readers. So my contact information is on the website. People have been emailing me with suggestions on who will listen to. And it's been a, it's so fun having a book in the world and being able to finally talk about it with people. The book is mesmerizing. It's cinematic.

It's really a triumph. And we put some steps on today too. We did. Thanks, Stephanie. Thank you. Appreciate you taking a walk in person. I loved it. Taking a walk with Buzz Night is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

On a recent episode of the podcast Money and Wealth with John Hobriant, I sit down with Tiffany the budgetista Aliche to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money. What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here? We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts. Too many of us were never, ever taught. If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more. Listen to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant from the Black Effect Network on the I'd Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. It's Financial Literacy Month and the podcast Eating While Brok, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.

This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes.

You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body. having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down.

Gorsha accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man. They holding Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew. Pinky has financial issues. On the podcast, Reality with the King, I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real Housewives franchise, the drama, the alliances, and the T, everybody's talking about.

To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.