The Oprah Podcast - The Correspondent: The Story Behind the Unexpected Bestseller Everyone is Reading

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

BUY THE BOOK!The Correspondent by Virginia Evanshttps://amzn.to/4xasavHOprah sits down with Virginia Evans, author of the story readers can’t stop talking about: The Correspondent. Selling over two million copies and translated into over 35 languages it’s the book that has captured readers. Although it's her first published novel, it's the eighth book Virginia's written and one she never intended anyone else to read. When The Correspondent debuted it sold fewer than 8,000 copies. However, readers who discovered it fell in love and began recommending the novel to others, turning this book into a word-of-mouth phenomenon and a New York Times bestseller. Virginia shares the remarkable story behind the book she never expected to publish. Listeners will discover why Sybil Van Antwerp—a complex, prolific letter writer in her seventies—has resonated so deeply with readers of all ages. Oprah also speaks with readers around the country who have questions for Virginia.00:00:00 - Welcome Virginia Evans, author of ‘The Correspondent’ 00:04:00 - Her 20 year journey to getting published00:07:10 - Questioning if she would ever publish 00:08:46 - How she wrote the book 00:12:00 - How the main character came to Virginia 00:14:55 - Oprah's favorite passage 00:16:16 - What letter writing allows us to say 00:19:50 - What we learn from other letters00:25:30 - Does a letter need a reply? 00:30:00 - Loneliness 00:34:20 - Writing what you’re afraid of00:39:40 - What she wants listeners to do Follow Oprah Winfrey on Social:https://www.instagram.com/oprahpodcast/https://www.facebook.com/oprahwinfrey/Listen to the full podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/0tEVrfNp92a7lbjDe6GMLIhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oprah-podcast/id1782960381

Have you read The Correspondent? Everybody's talking about this book. The correspondent was one of my favorite books last year. My goodness, I love this book. I love Sybil and so profoundly good. This book pulled itself to the top of the bestseller's list through word of mouth. That does not happen. This is your first published novel, but it's the eighth one you've written and you wrote this book inside a closet thinking nobody would ever read it.

How did you handle each rejection? Oh, gosh. At some point do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good. I don't think I ever thought that. Most people have said to me, this book made me cry, and it felt so good. Hi there, and welcome to the Oprah podcast. I'm so glad to be here with you. When you love books as much as I do, you get recommendations, lots of recommendations.

And there's one book in particular. People kept asking me about, have you read the correspondent? you got to read the correspondent. You're going to love the correspondent. I had no choice but to read the correspondent. And let me tell you, I'm so glad I did. Because the book tells the life story of Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her 70s, like I am, living in Maryland.

Readers get to know Sybil and all her wonderful complexity entangled past solely through letters and emails that she writes and receives. Sybil writes to family, to friends, to complete strangers. She even writes to famous authors who are really famous authors, even her own neighbors, each note revealing a different strand of the fabric of her life. It's what the literary world calls an epistolary novel composed of letters. And I must say, other than the color purple, which was Seeley's letters to God, I'm not usually drawn to the epistolary form.

But this book, the correspondent, felt different. It felt bigger than one woman's letter writing. And it is obviously bigger because just through word of mouth, this book has put itself on the New York Times bestseller list. That is the goal for every author. And it's my pleasure to welcome you here. Thank you. It's my pleasure.

The author of this profound book that everybody's talking about this book. Thank you. Thank you. It is my pleasure and honor. to be here to talk to you about it. I'm so excited that you read it. And then you liked it. Of course. I had to read it because everybody was saying read it. Writer Virginia Evans had tried for years before finally getting her first book published, The Correspondent. When it was released in April 2025, it sold less than 8,000 copies. Then something remarkable happened. The thousands

of people who read it fell in love with it. Then they started recommending it to other people. And soon, word of mouth spread like wildfire. The correspondent has now sold well over 2 billion copies. A story about a woman in her 70s who in today's digital world still writes handwritten letters became an unexpected number one New York Times bestseller. Welcome Virginia Evans to my front porch. Thank you. Thank you.

Could you feel or sense what was happening in the zeitgeist that one person was telling another person was because this book sort of pulled its. to the top of the bestsellers list through word of mouth. That does not happen. That's what everybody keeps telling me. I do think I started to understand that that's what was happening, but I didn't, I'm not sure when that was. I'm not sure how that happened.

I think you're right. It's just one person said to two other people to read it, and those two people told two more people. Before you know it, and it was this story. And so before we get into this absolutely, you know, captivating, compelling book, Let's talk about you. This is your first published novel.

That's right. Okay, but it's the eighth one you've written. Tell us about your 20-year journey to become an overnight success. I know it is funny. People said, you just came out of nowhere. I sort of think, no. I wasn't nowhere. I've been writing for 20 years.

For a long time. Yes, I started writing my first novel when I was 19. I was living in Italy in Siena, and I wrote, I started writing a novel there. And then I wrote novels, kind of, you know, finish one. It takes a few years. And for the first few years, I don't think I knew what you do. I didn't come from a family of authors. I didn't know any authors.

And so I would finish a book. Had you taken a writing class? No. I mean, I took some writing classes in undergrad, but I wasn't, I didn't know what you do at the end. You know, you sort of have this book. And I thought, okay, well, we'll do it again. So I was writing these. books and then I started to teach myself. I bought a writer's almanac. You know, there was that big

book. It was like the phone book. And I read about writing a query letter. And so then I tried writing a query letter and it wasn't very good and I didn't get any interest from agents. But then I think the next book, I had a better query letter and I, you know, I kind of kept going. And by the sixth book, I did get an agent and that I thought that was sort of the end. I sort of thought, Okay, now I'll be... Now this will actually happen. We worked together for a year, and then it didn't work out, and we parted ways. That was extremely crushing to have that happen.

I was a mother by then, and I thought that was it. I thought that's what you did. How did you handle each rejection? Oh, gosh. You know, it's interesting. I don't think I ever felt offended or, um, indignant. You know, I don't think I thought, well, how dare you? I just thought, okay, I have to do better. I have to do a better job. This isn't enough. This doesn't cut it. And that was a motivator. I mean, it is a good question to ask because all those years were, it was very demoralizing. I mean, it was extremely demoralizing. And I hit. I know. I mean, if I got turned down by one, that's why I never really became a full working actress. Because I remember, I remember. going to a speech coach once and I said I wanted to be an actress. This is when I was in

news in Baltimore and she said, my dear, you don't want to be an actress. You want to be a star because if you wanted to be an actress, you would be waiting tables right now in New York, but you don't want to give up your job in the news to do that. And I was like, no, you're right. I don't want to do that. And I said, I'm not going to be able to handle the rejection. You know, I have one of my girls from my school in South Africa who's a who's an actress now and is, it's constant. It is. It is. It's something I don't know you just have to sort of take it. You have to just keep taking it.

I mean, 100,000 of rejects. I don't know how many times I was rejected. I've queried every agent in New York City. It was agonizing. I mean, it was agonizing. So at some point do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good? I don't think I ever thought that. Okay.

At some point do you think, well, maybe I'm not good enough? Yes. At some point, do you think, well, maybe this is never going to happen? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is never going to happen. This is never going to happen. And I ended up kind of thinking I would like to teach. I wanted to teach in prisons. I wanted to teach writing in prisons. And so I thought I should go get a master's degree. That's what I should do. This was after the sixth book. And so... The sixth book that's been rejected. Yes. Okay. Yep. And so then we moved to Ireland. My husband and my two children and I moved to Dublin. And I went to Trinity College for my master's. Yes. And I wrote my seventh novel as my coursework there. I studied with Claire Keegan. I studied with Claire, yes. I mean, it was wonderful.

And that book, the book I wrote as my coursework there, with that I got another agent. And we thought this will, she said this book will sell. This is a great book. It didn't sell. We had it out. Where all those books are now in your closet somewhere. Oh, they're on. Well, I've lost two hard drives.

I never backed anything up. so I have one copy of every book, which is on a shelf in my house, you know. But now is your agent, because you have an agent, obviously. Your agent is like, let's bring those books out. Yeah, we have a conversation about that pretty regularly. But so I, that book, the seventh book was out for sale. It wasn't selling.

And then I wrote the correspondent. Wow. And that was the, and you wrote this correspondent book inside a closet, I understand, during the pandemic, thinking nobody. would ever read it. So you would reach the point, Virginia, where you're like what Tony Morrison was at one point where she felt like, I'm going to write the book for myself, maybe a few friends will read it, but I'm going to write because I now feel the need to write. I have to write. Is that where you were? Oh, yeah. That's exactly. I'm glad to hear that. That's exactly where I was.

And I didn't think I wasn't going to show this book to anyone. I wasn't going to show it to my agent. She knew I was working on something, but I told her I'm cleansing my palate, and then I'll write something else for you to sell. And this was what I was working on. And she kind of kept saying, you know, show it to me, show it to me. And I said, no, no, no. And she said, show it to me. And finally I did. And she said, we can sell this book.

And I still didn't think it would sell. Okay. So because if I were you, I wouldn't think it would sell either, having been turned down so many times. And so I understand you have a, how old are your children? Now they're 10 and 12. Okay. So all these years, you've had a writing schedule, even with children, where you write from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.? Yes, that's correct. Yes. And so for writing the correspondent, during the pandemic, you have like a little space that you've carved out in that closet? Yes. We were living in this small rental, and it was this sort of like 90s concept open built, you know, no doors. Everything's, it's one room. The kitchen is the living room, is the study, which is sweet.

guess in concept, but it's not great for working. And so there was this, it was this small space, but the bathroom was the size of a ballroom. I mean, I can't explain it. It was humongous. And so off the bathroom was this tiny closet. And I was just fed up. And so I, when my husband was in work one day, I went and I took out all of his clothes and I shoved my small writing desk into the closet. And I sent him a photo and I said, this is what I did today. And he said, where am I close? I said they're in May's room, our daughter. Yeah. So that is. I wrote, and during COVID and writing this book, it went really well. It felt good. I felt good writing it. I wanted to get up. I wanted to get to the desk. I wanted to write

the story. So I think I was setting my alarm for 4.30 and kind of really in the seat by 5. And how did Sybil come to you? You've said that she came to you fully formed. Yes. Yes, she did. I wanted to write a book in letters, and that was kind of the starting point. I wanted to play with that, you know, the idea of that way of telling a story. And why? Well, I had read 84-charing Cross Road. I had reread recently The Color Purple. And I was just, I just enjoy that format.

I enjoy the frequent page breaks. I just, I like that. I just liked the way it felt. But with 84-charing Cross Road, it felt like a small story. and I really wanted to tell a bigger story. And so I thought, I wonder how big of a story you can tell in letters. I wonder how far that can go. And so the next step was who, who would it be, whose story would it be?

And then Sibyl sort of came to me. And she was herself. I knew her voice. I knew her, just her nature. Had you known her from, did she represent a composite of other people? Or how? How? Did she come fully formed?

She, there are traces of people I have known in her. There's a strong, there's a strong through line of my mother-in-law who has a very similar way of communicating. And I've just been surrounded by very interesting, wise women. And I think they're kind of all in Sybil. But when I... But she's not modeled after anybody in particular in your family. Well, no, not anybody in particular. I had met a woman.

We were trying to buy this woman's house. And I wrote her a letter, this woman a letter. The house was not for sale. I wanted to buy the house. And so I wrote to the owner of this house, would you consider selling it? And she said, yes. And so we went to her house to kind of walk through it. And she opened the door, and she was this very put together sort of small, older woman.

And she took us through her house. And she was sort of visually who I saw as I was writing the story. But I don't know her very well. She wasn't, Sybil wasn't modeled after her, but that was... Did she sell you the house? She doesn't. It would be a better story if she had. Okay. So describe Sybil for us?

I would say Sybil is a woman afflicted with long grief and disappointment. And she is trying to be okay. And she's smart and she is direct. Yeah. And she... she airs, but she says she's sorry, and she sees everybody as equal, I think. Would you say, I mean, so how long did it take you to write it?

I think I wrote it in less than a year. Wow. And do you think she was always somehow living inside you, waiting to be birthed this way? That's a great question. Yeah, there's something about her and the story, the whole story of the correspondent, which really is a culmination of so many things in my life.

The story feels really personal to me. You know, not experiences I've necessarily had, but experiences I've been close to or things I've heard. Or even if the life experiences aren't the same that the feelings are feelings I can relate to of grief and disappointment and fear and frustration and loss and looking back and kind of rethinking what I, what do I wish I would have done or what do I wish I would have said?

And so there is something about her that, yeah, it evokes probably something very deep in me. I think her essence is distilled for us in one of my favorite passages from the book where she says, imagine all that you've said to another, all the commentary you've exchanged with friends over drinks, over the phone with colleagues and distant relatives, all the prattles sent quickly, mindlessly over email messages, typed into your cellular phone, and really the sum of this interpersonal communication is the substance of your life. Relationships being, as we know by now in our old ages, the meat of our lives, but all of that is gone, vanished, and one day, Mr. Watts, you yourself will be gone.

And then she says, imagine the letters one has sent out into the world. The letters received back in turn are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle or a better metaphor, if dated, the links of a long chain. And even if those links are never put back together, which they will certainly never be, even if they remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile-blown seeds of a dying dandelion, I'm going right, right, Sybil. Isn't there something wonderful in that to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way that this very letter may one day mean something even if it's a very small thing to someone? Yeah.

You were writing that day. That was a good writing day. I thought about that passage a lot because what remains of your life, really, after you're gone, what does letter writing allows us to say that conversation often does not? There's something about, to me, when I sit down to write a letter, and I'm a letter writer, that it's a thought. You would have to be to write this book. Well, it's a thoughtfulness.

It's a thought of, you know, I want to say something to you, but I want to say it in a way that will sink in and be permanent. Yeah. Because when you... We'll be remembered. Yes. Yes. Yes.

And when you receive a letter, first of all, the experience of receiving a letter that is written to you, you know, going to the mailbox and opening a mailbox and seeing bills primarily and circulars, and then a letter. I just don't think there's anything like that left in the world. I don't think there's anything that is the same feeling that that is. It feels like being loved. It feels like being remembered. And then it's permanent.

It's an artifact. Yes. And I love that. And I think for me... Have you kept letters over the years? Yes, I have. And I have, you know, I just have some amazing letters. I have letters framed in my house.

Yes. It's an artifact. And it's a piece of someone. it's like you received a piece of the interior of someone and you get to keep it. I just think there's nothing like that. Yeah, I mean, I have boxes and boxes of letters from wonderful, wonderful, you know, people over the years and even just a thank you letter well written I will keep. Yes. Yeah, me too.

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because life happens in ways we can't always predict. And with the right support, we keep driving forward. and that, dear listener, is everything. We have some of our readers who are excited to talk to you. We found Tyler on TikTok. Here's what he had to say about the correspondent. Sybil is lovely. I loved Sybil from every letter that I read from the beginning of the book to the end of the book,

I was just falling in love with Sybil more and more. And she is this 70-year-old woman who is sassy, who is complex, who is intricate, who is brilliant, who is deeply, deeply flawed. She is so strong-willed. She is so dynamic. She is so interesting. She is so smart that she doesn't let people walk all over her. She doesn't let certain things play out how many other people would allow them to play out.

She is going to speak her mind and she is going to get her points across. My goodness, I love this book. I love Sybil and so profoundly good. And Tyler joins us from his bookstore, a great notion in Auburn, Massachusetts. Hey, Tyler. You say this is not the type of book you would normally pick up. How so? No, well, first one, thank you for having me on.

And so, no, I don't normally gravitate to epistolary novels, similar to what you said earlier, because I feel like that format can be so limiting in terms of, you know, the depth of character and what we're able to feel for the character and how well we're able to empathize with the character and things of that nature. And so I found that this shook what my belief was right off the back, right? The first few pages, I was already invested. And I just loved Sybil. I found her so easy to empathize with.

with and I loved, you know, everything that she revealed about herself. And so not only the letters that she wrote, but the letters that she received in turn kind of gave us that indirect characterization. So not just like here's Sybil displaying all of her thoughts, but what other people thought about her and kind of getting some of that anecdotal evidence as well through other people. So the fact that you were able to get that much from Sybil is, I think, just a master stroke of writing on your part, Ms. Evans. Thank you.

Bravo there. Thank you. That kind of connects into my question where all of these cast of characters that exist around Sybil, were they conceived by you for a specific purpose in order to help us to learn something else about Sybil? Because obviously as the novel progresses, we see how vulnerable she allows herself to become. And I think that's super powerful. I love how smart readers are. I just love how smart readers are.

Yes, I mean, you nailed it. And that was the sort of the dance and the exercise of figuring out how to tell a dynamic story of a whole life. Because it sort of felt like, well, I can show, you know, if she only writes to her best friend, Rosalie, we can only see this one way, kind of this one line of her life. Right. And the things Rosalie knows and can speak to. It's almost like I don't think anyone can see. themselves fully. I don't think you can sort of understand everything. You need people around you to hold up a mirror and to understand yourself and to have relationships. It's relationships that's sort of

what make us human. And so as I was writing the book, it was that. It was sort of, okay, you know, now I want to be able to show, I want to have part of the story of her life be her childhood. How can I bring her childhood into this? She's in her 70s. She's not just talking about being a child. Yeah. And so then it was this idea of okay, she has a relationship with this boy Harry Landy. Yeah. And Harry who loves her and he doesn't realize it yet but he does love her and he sort of says what were you like

as a child and then she can sort of say well I was sort of this way and I was sort of this way. Oh, that's by design. Yes. That was all part of it. design. And, you know, that bringing in the man that she worked with was a way to talk about her career. When did you know this? Or did this come to you as you were figuring it out? I think it sort of came to me as I was going. I mean, I wrote it linearly, so I would sort of write a letter and have the response. And then I would think, you know, what's next? What needs to be built onto this? And we need to understand this. How? Who could show this? Who could be the mirror?

for that. And then at some point I had to stop. You know, I had to say that's enough. That's enough people in this story. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Tyler, thank you so. How did you come to read the book? You were saying this isn't normally the epistolary format is not something you're normally drawn to. So why were you drawn to it? Were people telling you about it? Yeah. So it was kind of the talk of the town, so to speak, as far as like people coming to the bookstore and talking about it. I mean, that's the best part of owning a bookstore is people just talk about books all the time. And so, yeah, and another piece was that, you know, I'm a 36-year-old white Latino man, and here's a 70-year-old woman who, you know, we shouldn't have much in common. Yeah. That connection there, but there was.

And I think that kind of relatability and that universality of who Sybil was and how she is. And kind of her, a lot of people said she was incorrigible or unlikable or whatever. And I disagree. I thought she was just, she is who she is. is and she has such a complex history and she's so intelligent that you know she kind of looks at people sometimes with the inane things that they do and she's bothered by it and I'm like I can empathize with that that's how I feel about people sometimes and so this you know this kind of curmudgeonly woman I felt myself relating to that's the beauty of books that's the beauty of books and I'll also say

you know what what makes her so I think important in in the story is that When you're in your 70s, let me just tell you, as a 36-year-old man, when you're in your 70s, you know what you know. You know what you know. Period. Full stop. Okay. All right. Thank you, Tyler.

Thanks, Tyler. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Our next reader, Polly, also owns a bookstore, Buxton Books in Charleston, South Carolina. Polly, tell us how you came to know, Virginia. Hi, Virginia. Hi, Holly. Hi. It's so wonderful to be with you. I'm a little overwhelmed. We had the luck of having Virginia

join us here at Buxton Books in Charleston, and we were so lucky because Virginia came here to the bookstore, and we gathered about 25 people, and it was early on, and all of the booksellers loved the correspondent. I loved it, and the 25 people in the room loved it. Well, and Polly, half the people at the Buxton Books event were my family. Like my dad. And isn't that lovely? I mean, just to play a small role in this book getting out there, we always say books connect us. And I just believe it's true.

Did you have a question? Did you have a question or a thought? Well, I did because when I was reading this, I actually have written only one letter to a celebrity in my life. One. And I didn't mail it. Spoiler alert, but it was to Oprah. It was to you. So the fact that I'm talking to you about this full circle, it was in the 90s and I was a young mother in my 20s. So three decades ago, I wrote you this letter just in tears.

It was, I remember sitting at the desk pouring out this letter of gratitude for you, but I never mailed the letter. So my question is, Virginia and Oprah, do we write letters? Do we need to expect a response? And second part of the question is, do we misunderstand maybe a lack of response or a lack of action on another person's part? To be rejection. Yeah. Well, you know what? I'm glad you didn't say, I wrote you a letter and I never heard from you.

Because the truth of the matter is I thought that's what you're going to say. And I wrote you a letter and I never heard anything, Oprah. And, you know, at the time, we were just talking about this the other day. My team and I, in the 90s, we still, it was before cell phones or. anything, we had 10 people doing nothing but opening mail. And we actually got a lot of our show ideas from the letters that came through the mail. But I got about 10 to 17,000. Sometimes it was a big show, 20,000 letters a week. So there's no way I would have been able to answer you. And actually, in the beginning, I had the woman who actually became my producer and started this idea of the

book club because Alice McGee and I were sharing books in our office together. Alice is the one who gave me the idea for starting the book club. But before Alice was a producer, Alice, I hired as an intern to answer my mail. And I was paying her a dollar a letter. And then I got to have so many letters that I said, Alice, I can no longer pay you a dollar a letter to answer them. Because she was like, whoa, we got so much mail. So Alice, Alice ended up becoming a producer. But it was Alice who suggested that we start this whole book club. So I'm sure I would not have been, I'm sure I would not have answered the letter if it came in the stack of $10,000 a week.

Well, and that's a different scale than what I'm dealing with. But I receive hundreds of letters a week. And I just hired someone to help me because I can't. Are you paying a dollar a letter? No, I wish you wouldn't have said that. I hope she didn't hear this. No, I'm not. But I do think, you know, Polly, not sending the letter to Oprah, you still did what you needed to do.

You said what you needed to say. And I think there's something, I know it's funny. Like when you said that and Oprah, you asked her, what were you wanting to say? I know exactly what you were wanting to say. You know, I can sort of feel that feeling. And anytime I read a wonderful book, I write a letter to the author because something is welling up inside of me. and I have to tell them. Yes.

Do you know what you've done? Do you understand how you've changed me or how you've opened my eyes? That's what we used to do. We would just, Alice and I would look in the back of the book. This is when people had phone books. And we would get the name and the number and the number and the city that they lived in.

Yes. And you could call the author and you just want to say to the author, oh my God, your book has elevated me so, has opened me so. And tell me how this happened. That's how it all started. Yes. And I will share with you this part. I wrote, the only fan letter I've ever written was to Kevin Costner after saying dances with wolves and never heard from him.

But it didn't matter because I was so moved by that movie and his ability to stick with it for 10 years and be the producer and director and all of that. So I don't think it matters. I think if the person responds, what I think matters is that you actually felt in your heart to put it in words in such a way that it could be not only, articulated but felt by the other person. That's what I think. I think that's exactly right. And I always think I've written so many letters that I didn't get a response to. You know, I can, so many letters.

And I don't regret. It's not that that's a loss. It sort of feels like a message you're checking in a bottle out to see. And it's this feeling of I did my part. I wrote my heart out. And if it never reaches the next person, I still came, I came to the table. I went the distance that I could go to say something beautiful or something, you know, and I think even if you didn't mail it, you wrote it down.

And that, I mean, somehow it probably did water your heart from far away. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's enough just to write it. That's enough. Polly, thank you so much. Thanks, Polly. Thanks for all the things happening down there at Buxton Books and Charleston. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye, Polly. Thank you. All that you have. You know, there's a quiet loneliness that I think that pulses beneath the pages of this book. Nothing super dramatic, but it's just always feels like it's there with Sybil.

Where did that understanding of everyday loneliness come from for you? I would say, I mean, is that a quality that's part of the shared human experience? You know, no matter what our lives look like, I think there are so many ways that all humans can identify with one another. And to me, that's one of those.

things at different times or, you know, in different eras, that's going to be part of the story, of your story, I think, even if you're surrounded by people or even if you have no reason on paper to be lonely. But, you know, I think being a writer, you sort of walk through the world with one eye in the moment, being present, having the conversation, experiencing the place, whatever. But sort of the other eye is taking notes, you know, and putting it into this big that for lack of a better idea. That's kind of how I think of it. Inside yourself, it's tucking away comments people make or, you know, things you

observe in people. And I have known so many wonderful women aging and there's something that can happen. I've seen in women in their 70s and 80s where life becomes quieter and lonely. And I've seen that with women that I love, women in my family, you know, just because of the course of life. There are eras of life that feel full and busy and, you know, full of people and commitments and whatever it is. But I just think I've observed it. I've felt it. And that was the story.

I knew that was kind of the story I wanted to tell. I knew, you know, when Sybil came to me, I sort of knew that was this quality, this big quality in her life, which was, I mean, I don't think I've articulated it as quiet loneliness, but I think that's precisely what it is. Yes, that's what I felt. And I wanted the journey of the book to be an opening or a salve on that or something that was speaking into that. And you're writing in many different voices.

The Sybil and the Syrian immigrant, the teenage boy, even the famous authors, which character holds the most of you in them? I suppose it must be Sibble. Must be Sibyl. Because that's who we know the most. That's who we get to know the most. She and I certainly share the same exact reading taste.

Did you really read Covenant of Water? I did. Yes. I love that book. I love that book. And there are these little Easter eggs in the book. Because Sibble writes to her friend and says, What are you reading now?

I'm reading Covenant of Water. Yes. In Covenant of Water. And there's these little moments in the book where books she's rereading for the third time. Those are books that I reread, you know, over and over. Did you ever get a letter from Joan Didion? I never did. I never wrote to Joan Diddyan. That was interesting. I have had, I have had a writing relationship with other people, but when I was writing this book, I thought Sybil would have made herself Jones friend. She would have just wrestled her way in, letter after letter,

comment after comment on all of Jones' essays and all these things. And eventually she would have worn her down and they would have been friends. And I think that I just, it just made sense to me. And I, you know, it was a little bit mad to take on the voice of Joan Ginny. And you did. We did. All right. Let's take one last Zoom call. Kate is a fitness instructor from Chicago who says she's read 50 books. How do you read 50 books? You read 50 books last year. Welcome Kate. Hi, Kate. Hi, Oprah. Hi, Virginia. I cannot believe those words just came out of my mouth. What a privilege it is to be here. A huge part of my training methodology is recovery.

Go to bed. Get in bed, unplug. And so in order to do that, what better way to read? Virginia, the correspondent was one of my favorite books last year. And I was recommended to it by a friend and word of mouth. But I had a question for you. It's been said that authors write about what they know or what they're afraid of. My question is, how did that manifest in your process writing the correspondent and how Sybil came to fruition?

I'm telling you, readers are smart. They are so smart. They're so smart. Yes, yes. I think you're smarter than I am. I, after the correspondent was published, I heard an interview, I think it was an old interview that Zadie Smith had given. And she said that in her interview. She said, you either can write out of what you know or you can write out of what you fear and what

I remember her saying is because both of those things, what you know and what you fear, are equally vivid to you. And I had never thought about that, had never given it one minute of thought. And the second she said it, I thought, my two biggest fears are losing one of my children and going blind. And it was so shockingly obvious to me to hear that. And I thought, oh, I guess I wrote exactly what I fear. And so, yes, I mean, yes, the answer is that is exactly what I was writing and wow you know I think um that experience of writing so my son my son was eight when I was writing the correspondent and Sybil you know this from early in the book but Sybil has lost a child and he was eight when he died and so I remember getting into the you know the nuts and bolts

of her story and kind of the timeline and I thought I'm going to have to make her son have died at eight because I won't be able to understand, I won't be able to imagine it unless it's me thinking about my jack. That's how I'll imagine it. Yes. And so it was really tough to write that. And I heard Maggie O'Farrell said when she was writing Hamnet, she just put off writing the scene of the death of the child because she just thought, I can't, I can't go in that room.

I can't go in that room. And that was how I felt writing this story. And you don't ever have to zoom in on that moment. I think the story brings you to that moment. kind of one step at a time. There is a moment at the end when you get a clearer picture of what happened with how he passed away. But it was. It was writing out of what I fear.

And so I was just really moved when I heard Zadie Smith say that. And I thought, I think that's exactly true. Well, that's a question. I would not have come up with myself. That is a great question. A great question. I agree. Thank you for us so much for including me.

Thank you so much. and you keep reading 50 books. I know, it's amazing. You're being my record. That's a lot of books. Yeah, it's way more than me too. That's a book a week. That's a book a week.

Including the Covenant of Water, which I also loved. That's a book. Wow. Okay. Okay. My hat's off to you. Yeah, me too. Impressed.

So this is what Sybil writes to our high school student on page 123. I believe one ought to be precious with communication. Remember words, especially those written are immortal. Look out. Look out. In a world of instant messages and, you know, disappearing texts and all of that going on. What do you think we lose when we stop writing things that were meant to last? It worries me.

I do feel a sense of sadness or grief or something when I think about, you know, I was raised. in a moment when we were still writing letters and when I was, you know, that was, I was writing papers, you know, my school papers by hand. Yes. And I think my family got a computer maybe when I was in high school or college. And when I think about if people stopped writing letters

because it's not necessary, it's not necessary to communicate that way, I feel a sense of loss. And I feel it's almost like the written word, physically written word and handwriting and a pen and the tactile thing, you know, for, So, like all of human history, that's part of the story. And then I think, you know, it's not that we don't keep a record with technology and computers and stuff, but it's not the same. Not the same.

It's not the same. And as you were just saying to Polly, you received hundreds of letters a week now. Has the response from readers revealed anything to you about the book that you didn't fully, you know, come to realize when you were writing it? What is this response done? Well, first it's just shocking. I just think every time I, you know, see this pile of mail, I think, are people still reading this book? I just can't believe it's number one.

But, you know, it's interesting. I think I'm telling you every time I read a letter from someone, I learned something about the book that I didn't know. You know, just every person's response and what it evokes for people And, you know, most people have said to me, this book made me cry and it felt so good. And I think, isn't that so fascinating that that's the way the book makes you feel? This is a book that you weren't even going to publish. You were just going to have this just for yourself.

I was not going to let anyone see it. Yeah, yeah. If you could leave our listeners with one invitation, one gentle nudge inspired by this book, what would that be? If you feel at the end of the book a nudge to make a connection with someone that you need to repair a connection, you need to say something to someone that needs to be said in love in asking for forgiveness, I just think that what the book nudges is fix it. Like go towards someone. If you feel pulled towards someone but afraid or. not sure how, not sure how to come draw near to someone that you have known or loved,

I just think if you feel the nudge, if you feel like, oh, I want to reach out. I want to, I want to call. I want to show up. I want to write a letter. I think you're going to write a letter to someone. Just do it. Just do it. Okay.

So I hear now there is a deluxe edition. The correspondent deluxe edition is out now. They read you the cover and added a little more color. It's so nice. It's so lovely. I love it. Yes. And why did you do a deluxe addiction? Not only do you have a bestseller, now you did a deluxe edition of the bestseller. You know, nobody asked me. I'll tell you that. But I'm thrilled. It's so pretty. I think it's pretty much the same, except then they sort of invited me to add something.

So there's a letter from me to the reader that I got to speak in my own voice, you know, from my own heart. Of what you wanted to say to the reader. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope Virginia's book inspires you to reach out. write a letter to somebody in your own life. Thank you, Virginia Evans. Thank you. Thank you to Tyler and Polly and Kate for zooming in with us today

until next time, the correspondent. That was delightful. Oh, you're so lovely. If you haven't yet read the correspondent and you love the written word as much as I do, you should treat yourself to a copy of the deluxe edition or better yet, buy it for somebody you love. The QR code to purchase is right there on your screen.

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