The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Where You Once Belonged: A Novel by Lorna Graham

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

Where You Once Belonged: A Novel by Lorna Graham Amazon.com A writer at Dateline NBC tries her hand at a different kind of mystery, perfect for fans of Chandler Baker’s Whisper Network, where a cynical TV news producer sells out her principles to rise to her network’s top job, and comes face-to-face with what appears to be her idealistic teenage self. Everleigh Page is on the cusp of greatness. Executive producer of an award-winning primetime news magazine, she’s just been offered a role never attained by a woman at her network: president of the news division. It will be her job to shape coverage of world events and mold the journalists of tomorrow. Too bad in order to get here she’s sold out most of the principles she held as an idealistic young reporter. Too bad she’s just, at the direction of her boss, fired two of her best staffers and killed an important investigative story that could save lives. As a woman, she knows, you have to play ball to get to the top. Even if it means bending your moral code or breaking up with your boyfriend. Sean may be the love of her life, but his large, complicated family has started taking up too much of her time. Her younger self wouldn’t recognize her. Or will she? When a college reunion takes a mystical twist, Everleigh finds herself defending her choices to the toughest critic in the world and confronting a crucial question: can she possibly right all the wrongs she was willing to tolerate just an hour ago?About the author Lorna Graham was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from Barnard College. She has written for Good Morning America and Dateline NBC. She also wrote a short film, "A Timeless Call," honoring America's military veterans, that was directed by Steven Spielberg. She lives in Greenwich Village. The Ghost of Greenwich Village is her first novel.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Cause you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster

with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from the ChrisVossShow.com. Hello, everyone. Hey, zoom in there and listen to that mix of the fish. Welcome to 16 years and 24 hours episodes of the Chrisaw Show, where we just keep bringing you the most brilliant minds on earth, the great stories, the storytellers, people who share their journeys, their life things, and of course, we have some of the best stories as well.

Today we have an amazing young lady on the show. We're going to be talking to her about her new book that comes to shelves May 13th, 2023. It is entitled, Where You Once Belong, a Novel. It's written by Lorna Graham. And we're gonna get into with her, find out what's inside her hot new novel. She was born in the San Francisco Bay area and graduated from Bernard College.

She is written for Good Morning America, Dateline NBC. She also wrote a short film, A Time is Call, honoring Americans, military veterans, that was directed by Steven Spielberg. And she lives in Greenwich, Greenwich Village. Is it Greenwich or Greenwich? Greenwich, Greenwich. Don't say the W. It's been one of those days. She had a book called The Ghosts of Greenwich Village, which was her first novel. Welcome to the show, Lorna.

How are you? Lorna Graham Thank you so much, Chris, for having me. I'm great. Chris Thanks for coming. We're wonderful to have you as well. Give us your dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Lorna Graham dot com is my author site and I'm at A Very Village Gal on X.

But I'm, I'm a bad girl because I know it's supposed to be on Instagram and Tik TOK and book talk, and I'm afraid I have not joined those platforms yet, but I'm getting a lot of polite pressure from friends and PR people that I do that. What do you have like a life or something? Do you do that? Yeah. What do you have like a life or something? I am a late and cranky adapter to new things, put it that way.

I still use cash. Oh, do you really? I still use cash. I mean, all the time I use my card, but yeah, I'm a little slow on that kind of stuff. I guess I'm just, I'm very happy with the way things are. So when something new comes along, it takes me a while to decide if it's worth it. Aren't you wonderful?

A woman who's not on social media, you know, it seems like everybody in there and it has to be half naked and all that stuff. I'm half naked on there. No, I'm just kidding. At the bottom half. If you search for that on Instagram, there's something wrong with you people.

We have a callback joke on the show over these years about how I have an only fans. And there's people that actually go look and it's a joke people. And who wants to see that anyway, at least with me. No, there's, there's nobody like you'd have to claw your eyes out and, and reach your brain after that. Anyway, I don't know what we're talking about, but those 30,,000 overview, what's inside your new book, Where You Once Belonged? Dr. Jennifer Linn-Klein The big picture is, it's about a journalist, her name's Everly Page. She is the executive producer of a very successful, decorated primetime

news magazine show, kind of like Dateline, where I work. So I know that environment very well. And she's a very good journalist. She cares passionately about journalism, but she also wants to get in her career. And to do that, she makes some not so great choices. And then she goes to her 20th college reunion and encounters what appears to be her college-aged, idealistic baby journalist self.

Hmm. And that, as you can imagine, rocks her world. And as they say in television, this changes everything. Ah, they're going to do that Dateline thing? Is there murder? That's a great question. People sort of think because I'm from Dateline, this is going to be a murder mystery. I'll say it's a mystery, but it's not a dead body mystery.

Turn it. Turn it. Yeah. Nice. But you can tune into Dateline on Friday nights and you will get that. Anyway, I love that dude. Anyway, this has been in the works for a while. What made you want to write this novel and is it connected to your previous book? Great question. It's similar to my first book in is it connected to your previous book? Great question. It's, it's similar to my first book in that it's about a woman in New York

city in journalism, my first heroine of the ghost of Greenwich village, Eve Weldon. She worked at a show like good morning America. And it was very much based on my time at good morning America, where the writers did pre-interviews the day before with the guests, and then we created Q&A sheets for them to do the live interviews the next morning. The writers did pre-interviews the day before with the guests, and then we created Q&A sheets for them to do the live interviews the next morning. That was a fantastic experience professionally for me. I interviewed a lot of authors, people like Pat Conroy and Amy Tan and Stephen King, and

they all inspired me to give this a try. So I have to shout out to them and to Good Morning America. This book is based more on Primetime Magazine, as I said, on my, on my experience at Dateline NBC, but the thing that inspired it was not something that happened in the news world. There was a movie in the late nineties, I think called living out loud. I don't know if you ever saw it is with Holly Hunter and Danny DeVito and Queen Latifah.

Light up sounds funny. Like these people together. Hunter has just been dumped by her husband for a younger model. She's feeling very unloved and unsexy and Queen Latifah takes her to this sort of underground club. It's all women and she gives her some kind of pill. They don't tell you what it is. It might be ecstasy and Holly Hunter's character kind of pill. They don't tell you what it is, might be ecstasy. And Holly Hunter's character kind of goes through the looking glass and all the lights in the club change

and all the women start dancing in formation, like a chorus line or something. And you can see that she's starting to feel herself like, oh yeah, you know, I feel good about myself. And someone taps her on the shoulder, she turns around and it's her teenage self. And they have this moment of just looking at each other. I just, I get chills when I think about it. And she remembers the bold young woman she was as a teenager. And that kind of seals the deal for her to change things around in her life. And I thought, you know, a lot of times when we think about or

do a thought exercise, what if I met my younger self? I think a lot of times when we think about or do a thought exercise, what if I met my younger self? I think a lot of times when we do that, we think, what would I say to them? Because they're young and insecure, and maybe I just put my arms around them and tell them everything's going to be all right. But what I loved about that scene in the movie and what I wanted to do with my book is flip that on its head and see what the older person learns from the younger person.

Who did you used to be? Who what the idealism, the finding yourself that you do in your teens and early 20s. If you saw that person again, what might you learn from them? It's not always the older teaching the younger, I think we can learn a lot from young people that we know in our lives but also this idea of what would the young me think of me now and And is that something I want to pay attention to it's really about getting back in touch with your essential self. Yeah I don't know if I what would I do if I met my previous self would be quit making all this mistakes stupid Go the fuck up. I think you have a novel in you about that. Yeah, yeah.

I'd probably be more like, you want to trade places? This end part sucks, but I can't feel my legs. Ditch those aches and pains, yeah. Yeah, yeah, my back hurts. How's your back doing? No, it's funny. I often, when I, when I, there was a point in my life where I want it, I, I would thought if I ever

went back and talked to myself, I would tell myself, Hey, it's going to be okay, man. It's all going to work out. You know, the, all the stupid shit you're doing right now, it's going to work out. You know, I built a lot of businesses and you know, you went through those dark ages and you were young and, and stuff, but you know,. But it's funny to think about that. I met a gal pal that I used to have in high school that I knew as a friend. She used to cut my hair and we were good friends. I think I had kind of a crush on her back in the day, she said. But she remembers how I was back there then. And that was, you know, high school. So 40 years ago, 35 years ago, something like that. I'm so old, you know, the Alzheimer's kicking in. And, and so I

took her to lunch to meet up with her. And I was so curious of, I'm like, tell me who that kid was. And when I, when I'd written my book, I'd written a lot of stuff and I'd gone through my old writings back at that time. I was just shocked at how smart that kid was back then and how maybe I'm dumber. He wrote some smart shit. I love that. And so I got to sit down with her and I think I was starting to annoy her.

I didn't know her. She's wonderful. But I started to kind of bug her because I kept asking, can you tell me what I was like back then? Yeah. Yeah, it was kind of an interesting point of my journey to go on. Absolutely. I think that, you know what, that's a great suggestion, getting together with old friends.

And of course, you're going to reminisce about old times, which is wonderful, but ask like more direct questions, like you said. How did you see me back then? What were my strengths? What were my weaknesses? What was I about? I think that's a great idea. Pete Slauson Yeah.

She says you were as dumb as you were now. So, with this novel, it sounds like you're kind of working through your resume, just kind of hitting all the places you worked. What's next? Did you work anyplace else that we can anticipate the next book to come from? Lauren Ruffin I've been in TV news pretty much since college and I've done a bunch of documentaries, as you know, I've worked with people like Steven Spielberg. Sometimes I think, you know, there's something to that.

Pete Slauson He's next on the docket then. Lauren Ruffin I mean, he's incredibly inspirational to work with someone like that and everything you learn. So that would be kind of interesting. I'm also very, I haven't done this, but I always think if I hadn't become a TV news person, I would have liked to go into diplomacy. I think diplomacy is fascinating. It keeps the world on its axis, but it's something we don't really understand.

How does that world work? So that would be different for me. That would be writing what I don't know. But I think that's a thought exercise in itself. I mean, you interview a lot of authors and I know a lot of them are nonfiction, so they tend to be experts on what they're writing about as they should be. But I'm kind of curious to see what I might learn by challenging myself with an environment that I don't know firsthand. Yeah. I've already know firsthand. Pete Yeah. Well. Cheryl I've already done some interviews about it.

Pete Really? So, you're thinking about getting into diplomacy? Cheryl Yeah. Pete We need all the help we can get right now in 2025. So, how do you feel, you know, you wrote for news and this for all these years. Were you interested? Did you find during this time that you were writing for novels, maybe making short stories or had ideas for them or when did you reach the point where you're like? I think I want to write something else. I It was a long slow process. I love what I love about TV news is the collaboration. I like being around people I like being in a newsroom

I like sitting with an editor in an edit bay and creating something beautiful together with my script and her editing. I love all that. But collaboration means you don't always get your way. You have to kill your darlings. You have to, you know, kill your editor. I haven't tried that yet, but there's still time. The day's young, but don Don't do that, folks. We're not endorsing that.

The lawyer's making us do that. No, I work on a show about murder, but we don't. Murder. Go there. Murder. Yeah, Keith, Keith Morrison. So what was I telling you? Sorry, I threw you off with the whole segue, didn't I?

We were talking about... Oh, how did I decide to write novels? Yeah. So the other thing about television, which is tricky Is that you're always against the clock. So at Dateline I write the open to the show There's a colleague of mine. There's two of us writers. We write the opens to the show, which hopefully Intrigue you and get you you know say I gotta watch the show We have about a minute 25 seconds to do that and sometimes the show itself is two hours

So I'm trying to distill a two hour show into a minute 25. And this is just a constant thing of cutting, cutting, cutting. And honestly, it's a great process. You usually do come out with a very strong piece with that rigorous editing. But I thought, what if I could just write and write as long as I needed to tell my story? So I started thinking about books, but like a lot of authors, I thought, who am I to write a book? Who am I to write a novel? And but then something made me, the feeling got strong enough that I joined a workshop at the New School here in New York City. It was called Beginning the Novel. And we just, they were like, I don't know, 10 of us.

And then it spun off and became a private workshop, but you would turn in a chapter, everyone have a week to read it, and then we would get together and discuss. And I loved those discussions. I love, I think, you know, as you probably know, being a writer, you're alone a lot writing a novel, weeks, months, years, you're alone. Then when you're selling your novel, if you're lucky enough to be published, it's very public. It's like this, which is a completely different experience. What I loved about the workshop, it was, as Goldilocks would say, just right. It wasn't being alone in the room. It was being with other people, but it wasn't quite being public facing and promoting yourself. It was just learning from each other. So the first chapter I turned in, I don't think I

slept the whole week leading up to that class class waiting to see what people would think. And the teacher was lovely and she always started our sessions with what are the strengths of this piece? And so I just, I was like, please, I hope it's something nice that somebody says because she had teed it up for a compliment. And I got a parade parade of compliments and I thought, wait a minute, could I, could I really do this? And then of course the critique part got underway and I was like, Oh my God, I have a lot to learn here. But just that boost of confidence where people were like, no, this is good. I would, I would read a book by you.

That was, but it was a long process. It was a, it was a years long process to go from even thinking of it to thinking. Yeah, I should try it. I mean, writing, telling stories, I don't know all the technical terms, framing it, developing characters. Yes. You know, it's like a muscle. You have to, it's like comedy or anything else. You constantly have to work at it and do it. And so you kind of already have that sort of with your experience.

You just had to learn to, you know, I think, you know, I'd love to write novels, but, you know, we have a lot of novels like yourself on the show and you guys have this weird thing sometimes where they come to you or different ways you're inspired and, and the only inspiration I get is from like seven of my other personalities and the one that says kill, kill, kill all the time. The judge says I can't use anymore. I get my sixth ankle bracelet off next week. Or is it five?

Nice. We try and change the number on the callback joke on that. So that people wonder. But you know, it's kind of a muscle. Like for me, it was joining a one hour a day writing accountability group. Great. And you're were helped that whole thing. Yeah. There there there's times when you're writing alone and you, you, I swear to God,

I, there was some, there was a couple of times I called them my friends and I go, I'm not sure what I'm writing, but I've been writing for a day and I'm pretty sure if I, if I go to sleep, wake up tomorrow, it'll say I'll work in no play makes Jack a dull boy. I think I've gone full fucking shining here tomorrow, it'll say, I'll work in no play makes Jack a dole boy. I think I've gone full fucking shining here. Yeah. Red rum, red rum. Yeah. I'm just, yeah. I was, I was losing it and they're like, maybe you should take a break there. But yeah, you're writing alone and, and you're kind of, you kind of have this vision and you're gonna, you kind of have this hope that you're going to fly it out there and the world's

going to be like, this is really cool. We'll buy this. But you never know, you know, the world would just be like, ah, it's such a long shot. It really is. And a lot of luck, you know, will your book just land, you know, cause you might write it for five years and then there's a couple, you know, you got to find an agent, which can take a long time that your agent has to find a publishing house. I w my first book was traditionally published, it was Random House.

This book is being published by She Writes Press, which is an independent press. Two different experiences for me as an author. But it all takes time. So you have no idea, is my book going to land in the zeitgeisty moment? I mean, I happen to think writing about journalism and truth is very timely right now. At least I'm hoping other people agree. But you cannot plan any of that. And I've known writers who say, I've heard that paranormal young adult is hot right now. So that's what I'm going to do. And I think, man, I don't know about that

because it's going to take so long that you have to have a real passion for the story you're telling. long that you have to have a real passion for the story you're telling. And you kind of alluded to it. Your characters start to become so real that they start driving the bus. So you think, look, I outlined all this and in chapter 18, my main character does X. And then when you get there, your character's telling you, I would never do that. Don't you know me by now? I wouldn't handle it that way. And you have to listen to your character. I one way I likened it was I know you're typing on a computer generally when you're writing a book, but some people write longhand. If you're writing longhand, there's the

part of you that's pushing the pen across the page. Here's the story I want to tell. But I feel like there's also someone on the other side pulling the pen across the page. Your character, your subconscious, whatever you want to call it, they're two forces at work. This sounds like a Ouija board. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

And a couple of times I would get annoyed with my characters. No, I need you to do this, but I could feel in my heart it's not what they would have done. And the last thing you want to do is create a character that people don't believe in. You know, who's just doing things for the story. That's been a very interesting part of it too. People often say that about me, I'm a character they don't believe in. He's too good to be true to me in real life. He's funny on the show, but they're always be awful in person. And they usually find that because I smell bad and don't bathe often. I'm just easy to be funny.

Maybe they think you're just so amazing that you must be AI at this point. Pretty much. That would be funny. That'd be funny. I came across an AI customer service call the other day and it actually fooled me. But I was having uncall, what they call uncanny valley during it, because I was like, is this AI? And it kept interrupting me while I was telling him what the problem was and saying the same thing. And about the second time I was like, what's going on? But it was really good, it fooled me. Did you write it in pen like you mentioned

or did you type it? No, I typed it. It's just that whole pen thing is an analogy. But so you, so for typing, I would say there's part of you is pressing the keys and somebody's underneath pulling the keys and having, you know, there's some balance there. We see the Luigi boards back in the day, you know, if it ever says something like Satan or kill or anything like that, just run. Heather Kieskamp That's that sixth character of yours, right? Pete Slauson Yeah. We once set up in an unfinished basement

of my friend's parents' house, we put up Kiss solo albums on the walls, and it was just frames. Heather Kieskamp Oh, yeah. Pete Slauson And then we a little red lights through them. And then we brought it in. My friend had an electronic switch because dad was electrician. Yeah. So we brought, we, you know, turning lights, brought the thing, the Ouija board and some unsuspecting people. And, and then during the Ouija board, he, he reached back and hit the lights

and turn them on and, you know, everyone shit their pants. Oh, yeah. I know about that. I know about that. That's a good one. It's funny too, because when I was a kid, I went to sleepovers and we did the whole levitation thing. We did the Ouija board thing. As an adult, I was never really interested in supernatural and ghost stories. And yet both my books, my first book was about a young woman who lives with the ghost of a beat generation writer, like a Jack Kerouac type of person. Very cranky, never finished his greatest works, wants her to take dictation of them. And she's

dude, I got to go to Good Morning America and write this stuff. And he's yelling at her like, you know, you're supposed to be an artist, you live in the village. And she's, no one can afford to live in Greenwich Village writing avant garde short stories. You know, I have to go to work. So there was a ghost was like the second major character in that book. In this book, there isn't a ghost but in order for my character to encounter her college age self, obviously there has to be a little magic from somewhere. And so what I went with this time, I set my fictional college in upstate New York, which was a big part, which was the center of the Iroquois Confederacy.

They're like six Indian nations that made up the Iroquois Confederacy. And I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to have some Native American influence in this book? And so I did a lot of research into just some of their traditions. And I made a lot of stuff up. I am not saying that this is authentically Native American, but the book also delves into a little corner of American history I think most people don't know about, which is, you know who the suffragists were, right? They were the ones fighting for women to get the right to vote. And in the 1840s, they had a huge convention in Seneca Falls, New York. But what a lot of people don't know is those white women were inspired by Native American

women who lived in a much more egalitarian society than the white women did. The Native American women were the ones, they were like this council of mothers, matriarchs, and they were the ones who chose the male chieftain. And if they thought, yes, and if they thought he was doing a bad job or getting too big for his britches, they could fire him. And in many tribes, it was the women who decided if they went to war or not, stuff like that. So the white women were like, hmm, my husband says that women are less than men because that's how God made it.

But then I look at these women and they're equal to men. I wonder if my husband's wrong about that. And that really galvanized them to go and fight for the right to vote and everything else. So that was kind of a twofer. I got a little Native American magic in there, but also some real history. And I think, as I said, I think most people don't know about it. Pete That would be interesting if there was a way that we could all just go back and hang out with the younger selves and shoot shit and be like, Hey man, how's it going? Eh? But that might really flip the crap out of anybody that's on the other side.

I don't know when I was 14, if I would've walked in the room, this old man that I am looking all haggard. I don't know if that would be incentive to move forward. I'm going to end up like that. Oh, hell no. That's kind of what happens. My, in my book, the main character's younger self is not very happy with the choices her later self makes. But the wonderful thing is the elder version, when she walks out of there, thinks differently about the world and the choices she's making. So it's a very, that's the climax, that's the pivotal moment. Pete I mean, maybe it's a novel, but it's kind of interesting reflection maybe on an exercise of,

you know, what would I tell my younger self? What would I mean by younger self? You know, and who would come maybe away with the most impressions from it? Kristin Yeah. Pete You know? Kristin Right, two-way street. Pete Yeah. But I don't know. I think it terrify my younger self. It just be like, you know, but he, he would look at me and be like, okay, I'm not going to drink all that Mountain Dew that made you fat and

all those fatty foods. And I'm going to go to the gym instead of what you, but wouldn't, wouldn't he be thrilled with the top 1% podcast and getting to talk to all these, as you say, thought leaders, visionaries, I mean, isn't what a career. I think he would be thrilled with that part. No, cause they didn't have podcasts back then, but you know, kids are, I think. Like what's a podcast. Why is this old man in my room? Mom pedo. Why is this guy in here?

Yeah. Now I think, you know, kids are like, their minds are more open. Come on, pedo. Why is this guy in here? Yeah. Now, I think kids are like, their minds are more open. I think they'd be like, cool, amazing that you can do something like, I don't know if you're literally in your home, but that you can do this kind of thing from your home is a great advancement. And I just think it's just drawing so many people together and helping us do dives into lives that we would never know about. I just think it's just drawing so many people together and helping us do dives into lives that we would never know about.

I just think it's fantastic. Pete Here's an idea for your third book. You could go the other way. You could have the younger person goes and finds the older person. Wait, isn't it kind of the same? I don't know. Maybe there's a… Jennifer Well, yeah, but in my book, you go back, like the chapters sort of alternate, so you're with

the young woman when she's in college, so you know who she is in college, and then you see what she's becoming as an adult, and then the two storylines literally cross. That was the other question I had lined up for you. How does that dual storyline work? And was it hard to put together, you know, and hard to map it out? I mean, it's difficult to write from beginning to end, but, you know, how was that in trying to lay that out and tell the story from that aspect? KB It was tricky. I thought because I was going to attempt this back and forth, that I should outline

heavily. And then I did that two or three times and then I learned I'm not an outliner. I think they call it you're an outliner or you're a pantser. Have you heard that term? A pantser? Yeah, you right by the seat of your pants. You are a pantser author. So I tried to be an outline girl, but I turned out to be a pantser girl. And I just could feel like, okay, so I'm starting with my character in her 40s. But then when I go back in time, the next chapter should be something that kind of echoes what's going on in the present day life in the past. And how was she dealing with it

then? And then and just, you know, you just want to be very surgical, I think, in this kind of storytelling, you don't want or really any novel, you don't want anything extraneous, right? It's everything has to earn its place for the readers time. So that was tricky to decide. In every flashback, when we go back to her younger self, it has to do more than one thing at once, right? Like, you want to see a bit of her relationship with her fellow students. She goes to work at the school paper. She's

very idealistic, passionate, young journalist. What kinds of stories is she working on? And what does that say about her? What's her relationship like with her editor? Because that's kind of her first boss. So I was really trying to be strategic about what I was showing in both storylines, sometimes to show how this is the same person, look at these echoes, and sometimes to show, wow, she's changed a lot since what she used to be. So, give that contrast there. Yes. So that when they meet, hopefully you get a bit of a chill down your spine thinking,

what is this going to be like? What are these two going to say to each other, given everything you know from both of their perspectives? I actually got that chill in my hair, stood up in my arms. Under your hat? Well, in my arms. I was just kind of, whoa, that worked. Yeah, I can see how that would just come together nicely. But I imagine it's a lot of work. We've

had a few authors that have done that with their books where every chapter is kind of, you know, Tarantino movie basically. Yeah. Where it's between the front and the back and all those sort of things. And that's a challenge. Oh, it is. And I think authors deal with it differently. I know authors, especially when they're doing something like this, they print out their whole manuscript and they put it on the floor. Like you need a big floor. This is hard to do in New York City. We all have small apartments, but they put it all out on the floor and then physically swap chapters. What if I put this here? It's something that's hard to do on a computer, but visually, this is what I've heard. I haven't done it this way, but they will actually just pick up a, here's chapter six.

I'm moving it to chapter 20, and chapter 20 is gonna be where chapter three was, or whatever it is. It's a lot to keep track of. I know some people do with bulletin boards, and like chapter one, you know, we meet the character here. Chapter five, she gets fired from her job here, and then switch around like the little index cards to do it. For me, it's just a gut thing. I just keep writing and feeling where I am in

the moment and what needs to happen next, which doesn't mean there isn't tons of revising because as everybody knows, writing is revising. I did that once trying to write a book and unfortunately, when I sent the manuscript in they said the first two words that the book begins with is the end. See what I did there. I love that. Yeah. I love the jokes. What's the, what's the, you know, this is the mean trick that people play on you and you just launched the book today. Congratulations, by the way. Thank you so much.

You got it. It's, I mean, it's all this work that's gone into it and it's payday and you know what they do I'm gonna do the meanest thing to you. What's next? What's the next book about? Just cross the finish line of the marathon and you're asking me As I said if I Writing another novel I might take me to the world of diplomacy because I'm really interested in it. I'm kind of interested in the idea of a, like a teenager who falls into it accidentally because I don't know why, but that just interests me.

But another thing I have going on and I don't want to jinx it so I'm knocking on wood right now, is my first novel, The Ghost of Grange Village that I was telling you about has been optioned My first novel, The Ghost of Grange Village, that I was telling you about has been optioned by none other than Stephen Van Zandt of Bruce Springsteen, E Street Band and Sopranos fame. I would love it. Oh my God. I would love it. If he did the music for it, it would be incredible. But his wife read the book years ago and she loved it and gave it to him and they're both

really into it. And so we just signed a deal a few weeks ago. And I know, you know, you can't get all your hopes up because options often don't go anywhere. But if it goes forward, what I'm really excited about, besides seeing my book come to a small screen or a big screen, any screen, iPod screen, I don't care. But what excites me is being

in the collaborative environment again, working with them on how are we going to develop this and world building and all that stuff. Like I said, collaborative work is my favorite kind. So this would give me the chance to be still with my book, but also with people. Maybe you can get Bruce to write a song about it. Can you imagine? I don't know.

I can't. That would be amazing. I can't do Bruce. get Bruce to write a song about it. Can you imagine? That would be amazing. From your microphone to God's ears. Bruce Brinksey hears it, what the hell's going on? What am I getting dragged into? I've never heard of this girl. It's said in Greenwich, I write about the country or something. But he's a Jersey boy, so he's right across the river. That's true. That's true. He should do that then. Yeah. There might be some intercontinental competition between those two cities, isn't there? There's

kind of a... I think there's a friendly rivalry between New York and New Jersey. Yeah. Good to keep it healthy. We'll look forward to future works. Do you anticipate maybe making the Ghost of Greenwich Village or your other new book, maybe carrying on the characters beyond that? Lauren Lester It's always tempting because you fall in love with these characters and you see them go on this journey. I think I've left both of them where they needed to be. They both, you know, how some, some endings are really beginnings.

So I think I left them both at a beginning, but it's a beginning. I personally feel I like to imagine rather than nail, you know, show everyone here's what happened next. But like you said, you know, like I said, I do love the characters. So it's, it's tempting to find something else to do with them for sure. It's, it's kind of interesting. We have a lot of novelists on the show like yourself that they have these different threads of their book continuums, I guess you call it, I don't know. And the characters just kind of come to them and they're like, I'm going to write the book for this character again. And that's going to be in the series. You know, we have the

Tom Clancy people on and on and they just... Oh yeah. That thing's been... Jack Ryan, Jack Ryan. Juggernaut. Yeah. There's so many lines and different things. So it's been wonderful. Give people your final thoughts as we go out to pitch to pick up the book and.coms and all that good stuff. Oh yeah. Come to my website, laurnagram.com. There's a bio. I also blog about life in Greenwich Village, which is a very storied, romantic neighborhood. They shot a lot of Sex and the City around here. And actually, Sarah Jessica Parker lives literally right across the street from me. She's like a hundred feet

that way, right across the street. So you'll get my take on Greenwich Village. You'll learn about my So you'll get my take on Greenwich Village, you'll learn about my books and some of the nice reviews and praise I was lucky enough to get. And I know I'm behind the curve on Instagram and all that, so I will try to get on that. But what I think, I was happy this book was coming out in May, is that I think it is a beach read. You can take it on vacation, but it's also a book club book. So I put it like book club on a beach blanket. Go with some friends, read it together and discuss it.

There's a discussion guide in the back with some thought provoking questions. And that's what I would love to see. I would love to see it just kind of out there in the world this summer and something that people are talking about. I know that's every author's dream, but it's mine also. Yeah. If I ever met my younger self, I want to be like, what was that thing with the Michael J. Fox

where they go back in time? Oh, back to the future. It's like back to the future and he's hiding himself so that he doesn't, I don't know, work the time. Right, FaceTime continuum. Yeah, yeah. Everybody doesn't, I don't know, work the time. Right. FaceTime continuum. Yeah. Yeah.

Everybody knows that, right? Yeah. Can't do that. Plus, I think his mom kind of gets on him, which is kind of weird. Exactly. So, the younger version. Exactly. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question. I'm going to really be thinking about this later. When I visit my mother up in Utah, it's where I grew up as a child. So driving through the city is just like walking through my life 35 or 40 years ago. The Del Taco is still there that we used to go to when I was 16. And I sit there and I go, I should have bought this Del Taco. All my business, it's money, my business had come and gone, especially with the 2008 crisis. And I'm like, I should just bought this Del Taco like 25 years ago, because it's still

profitable and still running clearly. Winning the lottery. Yeah. And here I am, the old man is still there. Thank you very much, Shona, for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. And congratulations on the new book. Thank you, Chris, so much for having me. I am honored to be in your company and all of the authors and visionaries and thinkers

that you've had on. I'm just, I can't even believe I'm in that number. So thank you. Oh, of course you are. I mean, you've spent so many years writing great stuff and we'll look forward to seeing what you have next and coming on the show. Touch. Thank you.

Oh, and folks, wherever Fine Books are sold, It's out today, May 3rd, 2025, unless you're watching this YouTube 10 years from now, like you do. May 13th. Did I say who? You said May 3rd. Oh, May 13th. There's a camera in front of the stupid screens, my bad. But yes, May 13th. I haven't corrected it. It's just come out. Where You Once Belonged, a novel by Lorna Graham. Pick it up wherever Fine Books are sold. Thanks a lot for tuning in. Go to Goodread reset com fortress Chris Foss linkedin.com fortress Chris boss Chris boss one the tick-tock

You know those craziest places on the internet that Lorna's not on but we're trying to get her over there Thanks for tuning in be good. It's just stay safe. We'll see you next time Great show