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Book Club Favorites: LIVE from Bookmarks!

What Should I Read Next episode 351: Bookish conversation and laughter with TJ Klune, Andrew Sean Greer, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams.

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Readers, last month I traveled to Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors—and today we’re bringing the festival to YOU!

When festival chair Beth Buss (whose name you might recognize from Episode 257: Let’s build your holiday booklist) asked me to moderate the Book Club Favorites panel with authors TJ Klune, Andrew Sean Greer, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams, I couldn’t say yes fast enough.

This special episode invites you to put yourself right there at the festival inside the beautiful church that hosted this LIVE panel conversation. You’ll get a taste of what happens when authors come together to talk books and tell stories from their writing lives.

As a panel moderator, I never know quite where a conversation is going to go. This conversation is no exception. Each author shared things I hoped they’d discuss and also shared things I had NO IDEA they might talk about! Their stories made the audience, laugh, and cry, and laugh so hard they cried. (This would probably be a good time to tell you some of the stories you’ll hear in today’s episode are more adult in nature than our usual WSIRN fare, so please keep that in mind when choosing when and where to listen.)

We’re so grateful for those who made the festival—and this special episode—happen. Huge thanks to the Bookmarks NC Festival of Books & Authors for hosting this event and capturing the audio, the authors and publishers who supported us sharing this live replay, and the incredible festival staff and devoted volunteers. This conversation is full of bookish delight and hilarity, and I can’t wait for you to listen in and enjoy this taste of Bookmarks.

Listen to What Should I Read Next? on Apple PodcastsSpotify, or your preferred podcast app—or scroll down to press play and listen right in your web browser. Thanks to Brooke Blake for sharing the image at the top of the page today.


TJ Klune, Andrew Sean Greer, Anne Bogel, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams

Explore the Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors website.

ANNE: Hey readers, it's Anne, and I want to give you a quick heads up on today's episode. This Live episode is spicier than our usual fare, including a couple of stories that might be described as adult and may not be appropriate for younger listeners. I hope you love it. And also, you may not want to listen to this one with little ears around.

[CHEERFUL INTRO MUSIC]

ANNE: Hey, readers, I'm Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next? Episode 351.

Welcome to the show that's dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader: What Should I Read Next?

Before we jump in, this Thursday is What Should I Read Next? Trivia. Our Patreon community is gathering for a delightfully nerdy night of answering questions about books, authors, our team, and some of our funniest and most memorable moments across 350 episodes and more.

If you're already a patron, thank you. I can't wait to see you there. If you're not yet a patron, I welcome you to join us. It's going to be so much fun. Trivia Night is Thursday, October 20th at 7 p.m. Eastern. Learn more and sign up at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

Readers, last month I traveled to Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors. And today we're bringing the festival to you. I'm thrilled to invite you to come on into the room and grab a seat for an incredible conversation.

While you can’t actually be in the beautiful church that serves as Bookmarks largest onsite venue live with us, I hope this episode gives you a taste of what happens when authors come together to talk about their books and tell stories from their writing lives like they do at literary festivals like these.

This was my third time at Bookmarks and this year was a little different for me. I was there for my new kids reading journal, My Reading Adventures. I'd never had a kids' book before, so in addition to all the onsite fun, I got to go out into the community to visit elementary schools and talk to young readers.

You'll hear in our wrap-up today where you go to see all these sneak peeks into what happened to Bookmarks while I was there.

But today my favorite part of the festival was the panel that you're about to hear. The theme is Book Club Favorites. And when festival chair, Beth Buss, who's also a What Should I Read Next? alum, as she joined me to recommend books for your wish lists in Episode 257. Find it. It's called Let's build your holiday book list. Anyway, Beth asked me to moderate and I could not say yes fast enough because listen to this lineup: TJ Klune, Andrew Sean Greer, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams.

My goal as moderator was to give everyone room to share a taste of what their books are like, to tell stories they perhaps hadn't told before, and to share recommendations for excellent book club rates. Let me tell you, these four delivered all that and more.

Readers laughed, readers cried, readers laughed so hard, they cried. This panel was the talk of the festival. And even immediately after we wrapped it, I heard people in the room telling me that they couldn't wait to listen again. I'm so happy you can listen now.

[00:03:17]

Thanks so much to the BookmarksNC Festival of Books & Authors and everyone who made this possible, the authors and publishers who supported us sharing this library play, the festival staff and devoted volunteers—seriously, their volunteers are amazing—all of them who made the book magic happen. We are so grateful for everyone whose time, energy, and devotion enrich our literary landscape and all of our lives by bringing us these incredible literary events.

One quick note for the audio. This is a five-person panel. The first voice you'll hear is the volunteer who opens the session and he points out, like with his finger, who is who as he introduces everyone. Even though you can't see that while you're listening, I want to assure you that every author mentions their own book pretty quickly so you will know who is who.

TJ is here for Under the Whispering Door, Andy's book is Less is Lost, Brendan authored The Violin Conspiracy, and Tia's is Seven Days in June.

Now, let's get to it.

STEVE: Welcome to the 17th Annual Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors. My name is Steve McCullough, and I am a Bookmarks volunteer. Thank you for attending the Book Club Favorites panel.

On behalf of Bookmarks, I'd like to thank this year's festival presenting sponsors: the North Carolina Arts Council and the NC Arts Council Spark the Arts Grants, the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, the Mebane Foundation and Salemtowne retirement community.

Our authors today are Andrew Sean Greer, TJ Klune, Brendan Slocumb, and Tia Williams. Our moderator is the Modern Mrs. Darcy, Anne Bogel.

All five of our panelists will be signing books immediately following the session at the book signing tent. Books are available for purchase at the bookstore tent and inside Bookmarks' bookstore.

At the end of the session, there will be time for Q&A. Thank you. And please join me in welcoming Anne, Andrew, TJ, Brendan, and Tia. [AUDIENCE CHEERING]

ANNE: A packed house. I love it. Welcome, readers. This is the Book Club Favorites panel. So excited to be here and to be doing this with you four.

We are leaning in today to the idea of book club favorites. So I'd love you to think in your mind what is the kind of novel that I can't wait to talk to my friends about, that I really want to stay too late and have another glass of wine or whatever you drink at book club and talk a little more about the book.

What makes you think, like, "Oh, my gosh, I have to talk to a reader about this book"? Those are the things we're going to talk about today.

I don't want to jinx anything but we are recording this panel and it will air as an episode of What Should I Read Next?. Say a little prayer, send your good vibes into the universe. [AUDIENCE CLAPPING You can hear this again.

And when you talk to readers in the signing line later, because everybody is signing, who say, "Oh, I'm devastated I missed that because my flight from Tampa was late," that's a story I've heard half a dozen times today, you can tell them, "Don't worry. You can hear Tia and TJ and Brendan and Andrew on What Should I Read Next?." But again, finished audio isn't done until it's done. Fingers crossed.

Also, Modern Mrs. Darcy is a brand name. I would never pretend to be Lizzie Bennet incarnate. That's just snotty. But like we can love her. And I think that'd be fun to talk about in Book Club. Okay, let's do this.

So we're going to jump in real quick. 60 seconds each, just tell me about a memorable book club experience, whether it's something that you experienced as a peer or something that you participated in as an author or heard a story about later, because you hear good stories when you write books that people talk about in Book Club.

[00:07:07]

TJ: I got this one. I'll start it off. This wasn't about a book club experience but what happened after the book club that I attended virtually. So some of you might know I wrote a book called The House in the Cerulean Sea. [AUDIENCE CHEERS] Thank you.

This book came out in March of 2020. Remember, remember this innocent time that we used to live in where I was with my big, shiny new publisher and I was saying, "Guess what, everybody? I have a book coming out about kindness and the Antichrist. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] Y'all are gonna read it. Y'all are gonna love it so much."

And then in the background I hear, "Has anybody ever heard of COVID-19? What is it saying? Everybody is getting sick." And then The House in the Cerulean Sea came out the week the pandemic exploded in the United States, and I was trying to get everybody to buy this book, but everybody's freaking out about toilet paper, for reasons I still don't understand.

So here's what happened next. I got invited to a book club. And it was wonderful. It was a group of older women. And I say that with love and respect. They were in their 70s and their 80s.

After the book club—it was fine. It was like a 20-minute conversation—after the book club, I got an email from an 87-year-old woman. She wanted to let me know that she didn't want to say this during the book club because she didn't want to offend me, but that my inclusion of the Antichrist child in this book was an affront to her religion, and that she did not appreciate me putting that in the book because as a religious woman she's worried about what would happen with younger readers would do that. And then she signed off the email by saying, "But I did not mind the homosexuals." [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

So when we think about this, for all I know, for all I know, this woman had no idea there were homosexuals in this book, and she picked it up. And she might have been the most homophobic person in the world, but she was so mad about the Antichrist that she gave the gays a pass. And I count that as a win. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS, CHEERS]

[00:09:11]

ANDREW: I can't top that, I'm sorry. I didn't put Antichrist. Mine was just even more simpler time. 2003 I had my third book come out. And I was the kind of author who would do anything to visit a book club. Like, there wasn't even Facebook. There was... Somehow they found-

WOMAN: MySpace.

TJ: MySpace, yes.

ANDREW: MySpace. They wrote me on MySpace and we're like, "We have a little book club, and we'd love you to come visit." I lived in San Francisco so it was someplace an hour drive. And I was like, "Absolutely, I'll be there." And I show up, and of course, they were a wonderful book club, and they were very honest. And they were like, "You know, none of us really liked the book very much." [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

And I just had to sort of handle that for an hour, and then drive home. And I carry it with me still. I wish I put the Antichrist there.

TJ: I don't know if I would have been able to sit there the whole time for the hour. If that was like one of the... You get there and this group of people say, "Yeah, we didn't like it very much," I'd say, "Well, screw you guys." I also have to keep reminding myself that we're in a church. [AUDIENCE LAUGHs] So like, if there's adult language, My bad, sorry, Jesus.

BRENDAN: All right. So TJ and Andy, thank you guys for letting us appear with you all today. We really appreciate that. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

One of my most memorable experiences with a book club for The Violent Conspiracy is a nice group of older ladies. They're very nice. You know how you have the Zoom chat? They're going through the book, we're going through the characters. "How did you do this? How did you do this?" I'm talking and smiling. I get a message, "You're really cute. Are you single?"

ANDREW: Oh, someone got Zoom thirsty.

BRENDAN: And I'm like, "Is that for me?" So I kind of ignored it. And then I look at the name and I'm scrolling through the boxes to see which one this is. I'm like, "Okay, yeah. All right. She could get it. That's my mom's... Okay. All right. All right. Okay."

And then I get another one. "Oh, my gosh, your smile..." Uh, I can't even say it. I can't. "I just want to tell you that your smile, blah, blah, blah..." you can fill in the blank. And that's what it was. Book club... yeah.

[00:11:25]

ANDREW: I can't wait for reader's questions after this. [ALL LAUGHS]

ANNE: I just gotta say, when I asked this question, that was not what I was expecting. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

TIA: God, honestly, like, how do I top these three? So my books are a little steamy. So I wrote a book called Seven Days in June. Before that, I wrote a book called The Perfect Find. [AUDIENCE CLAPS] Thank you. And there's always a couple of spicy scenes in there.

So I was in a book club when The Perfect Find came out in 2016. A simpler time, right? They had asked me to read a piece. I had prepared the piece that I was going to read, and the woman moderating the book club was like, "No, no, we don't want to hear that one. [READERS LAUGHS] We don't want to hear that scene."

And then she goes into this long thing about how she was reading about, you know, this love story between Jenna and Eric. And she's like, "I love my husband, but not like that. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] And so I brought it in bed with us and I read him this specific scene, and we had sex like you would not believe."

TJ: Oh my God.

TIA: And I was like, "Cute, that's great." Then another woman in the club in the table was like, "I think my husband needs to hear you read that because I love my husband too but it doesn't pop off like it does in your book." So she called her husband and I read this scene.

TJ: Oh, no!

TIA: And I was like, "We should get paid for this? Like, how do I monetize the reading of sex scenes to husbands that don't know how to put it down?" That's all I got. [CHUCKLES] [AUDIENCE CHEERING]

ANNE: Okay, two things. I'm not sure I can go on. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] You read it?

TIA: I did, yeah. Well, because also you know how shameless authors are. Like we're trying to promote our stuff. This is what you want to hear? I'm gonna give it to you.

[00:13:31]

TJ: Okay. But I gotta ask. Did you read it like monotone or did you just give it your all?

TIA: Oh, I gave it my all.

TJ: I'm sorry.

ANNE: We will not have a show of hands for how many of the audience members wish this could change direction right now but... but... Okay, so TJ, you already broached the COVID-19 dam.

Something that all your books have in common is that you are writing about incredibly difficult subjects relevant to every reader. Like the hardest things in life is what you're writing about. And they're wrapped in these juicy, unputdownable packages. I'd love to hear you talk about how you approach writing difficult things while remaining true to yourself and telling the story you want to tell.

TJ: So, in addition to The House in the Cerulean Sea last year, I released a book called Under the Whispering Door. [AUDIENCE CHEERS] Thank you. Very nice. Under the Whispering Door, as those who have read it, is a book about grief and what it does to people and how it can change us.

As I talked about in the panel previous to this one, I lost my partner unexpectedly in 2013. It was a strange and scary and horrifying time that just made me collapse into this pit of toxicity that I did not know how to get out of.

And it started me thinking about how grief works. Because grief is something universal. If you live long enough to know what love is, you'll know loss at some point in your life. But at the same time, no two people grieve the same way. It's unique to every individual. We never grieve the same as the person that's next to us. And so I wanted to explore that dichotomy and what that would look like.

So with Under the Whispering Door, I set out to write a story trying to figure out my own grief, and what that could mean for me, and what grief can do to people.

And what I learned in this book, this book about a terrible person, a man named Wallace who dies, and then he instead of being taken to the afterlife, or whatever, he's taken to a waystation, which is in the form of a tea shop where he's given a choice that he can try to become a better person and make the most of what the life he has now. This book did not heal me. It did not fix me. It did not make me better.

But what I learned from it is that grief doesn't go away. There is no such thing really as closure. Instead of our grief shrinking, we grow around it. We become bigger than our grief. And the thing that happens from that point on though, as a reminder, is even when that grief calcifies and solidifies and hardens, it can still crack every now and then, maybe a month down the road, 10 years down the road, and you still feel it as sharply as you did that first time.

So with this book, with this idea of grief and love and loss, I wanted to get those answers. I didn't. But I felt at peace for the first time in a very long time. And that is what I think is so wonderful about words is that words have power to change lives. They can lift people up, they can bring people low, they can start wars, religions, and cults. And every now and then a person like me can write a little book in the depths of his grief and find his way out on the other side and have hope again.

And that's the one thing that I think that we all need to remember is that we have to have hope, especially in the times that we live in now. [AUDIENCE CLAPS]

BRENDAN: There's some people crying in the front row too.

TJ: Sorry Jesus.

[00:17:02]

ANDREW: Let's see. I wrote a book years ago that was called Less. That was a comedy making fun of me, basically. [ANNE LAUGHS] And then for my next book I was gonna write something totally different but then I decided was gonna write a follow-up to that book, because I had such a good time.

And so I had to do what I did in Less. I had to sit down and think, "What is the most humiliating thing that has ever happened to me? And how can I make it funny?" And I was like, "Well, I thought I put them all in the last book." [TJ LAUGH] And then I was like, "Oh, no, there's one I didn't put in. I didn't put in my first kiss."

Maybe I'll just tell it to you. It's a little unseemly, but I'll make it gracious, which was I was in college, I was 18 years old, and I come out as gay but I was ostensibly gay. I was not practicing. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

And there was like a big gay dance going on at the college and I'd made some like gay friends at the men's group. Super secretive in those days. And so we're like, "Why don't we have a couple drinks beforehand?" So we met at my singing group's room on campus, and we had like Kahlúa and orange juice, you know, something, that kind of thing. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

And like one guy showed up, and the other guy didn't show up and we're like, "All right, let's drink what we got." And then we put on George Michael. It was 1988. And had Kahlúa and orange juice. It can't be true. Might have been Drambuie. Yeah. Yeah, that was homophobic of us.

And, you know, we'd started dancing and then we kissed which was very exciting. And then one thing led to another. I ended up kneeling on the ground before him, let's say, and then he vomited all over me.

TIA: Oh, Lord.

[00:18:56]

ANDREW: See, it is funny, right? [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] So I put it in the book. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS]

ANNE: Alternate title this afternoon is you laugh or you cry.

BRENDAN: How did that not make it into the first book?

ANDREW: I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it.

BRENDAN: I actually forgot what the question was. What are we talking about?

ANNE: The question was top that. [ALL LAUGHS] Tell us about turning writing excruciating things into a story that you can't stop, I wanna say, listening to—Can you tell I listen to The Violin Conspiracy as I'm talking to, Brendan—like the hardest things into a story that you can't stop reading.

[00:19:37]

BRENDAN: So many different things going on in The Violin Conspiracy. And a lot of them came from... I'm just curious. How many of you read it? Not enough hands. [ANNE LAUGHS] Nope. I was not gonna give any spoilers but you know what? You hadn't read it. So boom, here it comes. All of it. [ALL LAUGHS] No, I won't do that because there's time to pick up the book.

It encompasses a whole lot of things. There's an emotional aspect to it. The hardest chapter for me to write was the letter in chapter 33, where young grandma Nora is... she's being dictated. There's a story that her grandpa, PopPop, is telling her about respect and how it was when he was growing up. And you know, it had to do with slavery and the brutality and you know, this is what happened. And it was really, really, really tough.

And I had a bunch of fights with my editors because they thought it was too much. They thought it was too graphic and too brutal. And I toned it down a little bit. But just writing that it was... I really wanted to make sure that it was as accurate as possible.

When I was in school in junior high, [inaudible 00:20:40] had slaves, Black people picked cotton, Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. That was it. And you know, I did a lot of research on like, "Whoa, there's a lot that went on."

And it was really uncomfortable for people to read. And they have actually told me, "I had to stop reading it because it was so tough, but I powered through it. And I'm glad that I did. I'm glad that you put that in because now I have a different perspective. I had no idea that this is what life was like. I had no idea that this is what people who look like you had to endure, you know, for hundreds of years."

And just writing those types of things, just making the determination "I'm going to put this in, and I'm going to fight to keep this in because I think it's an important aspect of our history that sometimes we lose." [AUDIENCE CHEERING]

TIA: How many people have read Seven Days in June?

ANNE: Let me say we're gonna roll back and the next question is going to be "give us the elevator pitch for your story".

TIA: Oh, that's good. Okay. So Seven Days in June is about a Black author, single mother of a 12-year-old who writes erotica, who has a Creole mother and intense migraines that she's had since she was nine years old. I have all of those things as well.

So I have this chronic invisible disability. It can really suck. And some years are better than others, some years are emergency rooms and IVs and all kinds of nonsense—a going on disability. So the year that I started writing Seven Days in June in June, I was in that hole. Like a really bad sort of migraine spell. I hadn't been on a date in five years. I hadn't had any sort of, as my grandmother would say, horizontal refreshments [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] in quite some time.

So what I kind of set out to do when I wrote Seven Days in June is invent this like fictional doppelganger who like gets some, and like has a happy ending, gets up off the couch because I felt like I was living my life on the couch. Like, I would order food for me and my daughter from the couch. I would help her with her homework on the couch. I would detangle her hair on the couch. Like everything on the couch.

Also on the couch, I would sometimes attempt to give myself my own horizontal refreshments, which is difficult when you're in pain and also difficult when you're not feeling it and trying to force yourself to feel... this is mortifying. [ANNE LAUGHS]

And there was one time where I felt like this, Okay, oh, so this is rock bottom. You thought you were rock bottom before. This moment is it." I had a special toy, I was chewing gum, I turned the toy on it vibrated intensely and I choked on my gum and I almost died. And I was like, "This is dark. What's the epitaph...? like, what are they? You know?"

So I was like, "Let's make this funny somehow." And so on the very first page of Seven Days in June it opens with "on the day of our Lord..." whatever date it was, "Eva Mercy almost died while attempting to masturbate and chewing gum."

And I have so many people come to me and say like, "I was done after the opening sentence. I had to keep going." And it's like I took something that was so mortified, and just "girl, get it together," and made it, you know, a kick-ass opener. So I think that's what you have to do as an author. [AUDIENCE CHEERS]

ANNE: Let's start with you to, Tia. Tell us about Seven Days in June."

TIA: Okay, quick elevator pitch. It is about two famous authors who seemingly meet for the first time at this Brooklyn book panel situation kind of like us. There's immediate chemistry, sparks are flying but unbeknownst to everyone in the room, they know each other because 15 years before when they were seniors in high school they ran away from home together and spent seven wildly romantic days together.

And then went their separate ways and never spoke again, never spoke to each other again. But we find out that they've been communicating to each other over the years through their books. And so now they're back in each other's lives, and it's a whole thing.

ANNE: It's a whole thing.

BRENDAN: Okay. The Violin Conspiracy is the story of Ray, who discovers that his old family fiddle is actually a priceless, Stradivarius violin. This discovery catapults him into superstardom in the world of classical music.

And right before the Tchaikovsky Competition, which is the Olympics of classical music, his violin is stolen. Was it his family who thinks that he should sell the violin so they can split 10 million bucks? Was it the Marks family whose great-grandfather owned Ray's great grandfather and says that the violin really belongs to them? Was it Mike the doorman? Was that his teacher who might be jealous because he's a better player than she is? Will he get it back? Will he compete? Will he win?

There's a bunch of underlying stories about never giving up and blatant racism and how do you overcome things and doing what you love and all of that good stuff. And then you get to find out if he wins the competition or if he even gets his violin back. [AUDIENCE CHEERS]

ANNE: Great elevator pitch.

BRENDAN: So for all you hadn't picked it up yet, now you have a reason. Okay.

ANDREW: Wow, well, I'm not used to giving the elevator pitch because my book just came out two days ago. So I'll give it a try.

ANNE: This is a safe place to practice.

ANDREW: Right. Yeah. It's a follow-up to the book Less, which is about a sort of mediocre, gay male, white writer on a trip around the world to try to get away from the wedding of his boyfriend. This one is about a gay, white male, mediocre writer [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] trying to make enough money to cover some expenses by taking a trip across America.

And I took a trip across America. I rented an RV for six weeks and went through the southwest and the Deep South. Deep South, not North Carolina. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] I've been here before. Because after the 2016 election, I was like, "I think I don't understand part of the country or they don't understand me and I'm gonna go and sit in diners and chat with everybody."

So I took a lot of notes. They weren't very funny notes until I was like, "Well, but I'm funny. I'm the one who doesn't belong in that Alabama bar."

So it's that. It's the story of what happens after the happy ending between humans, boyfriend and how you deal with sort of an unbalanced relationship, one who's narcissistic and one who's telling the story. It's from the point of view of Freddy and his boyfriend.

It's sort of ridiculing Arthur Less in a loving way and also sort of asking, "How is this country going to hold together as well as how is our relationship going to hold together?" [AUDIENCE CLAPS]

[00:27:35]

TJ: So I kind of already talked about Under the Whispering Door, so I'm going to tell you how I made a previous panelist very, very upset with me. I was on a panel a couple of hours ago with an English professor named Lucinda Roy, and I basically said that Charles Dickens sucks and that's why I wrote Under the Whispering Door.

Under the Whispering Door is my take on a Christmas carol with Wallace Price playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. And the why, the reason that I said that, you know, I made her look at me in horror when I said, "Charles Dickens, blah, blah, blah," is the reason that in A Christmas Carol you have Scrooge who's a jerk from the very beginning.

And then he's visited by the three spirits, you know, the past, present, future. It's like a flip switches and all of a sudden you become a good person. Everything is wonderful. After he sees the heirs of his ways, he becomes a better person, but you never see him put in the work to becoming a better person. Mr. Dickens, what were you doing?

So what I wanted to do is I wanted to take the same kind of story and show what would happen to a person organically putting in the work to becoming a better person, and what shows when they succeed, but also what happens when they fail. Because I don't know what a good person is. I know that I try to be a better person every day but I don't know if I'll ever be a good person.

With these kinds of books that I write, I'm trying to explore that while I'm still doing the queerness of it, while I'm still doing the comedy, while I'm still doing the fantasy, I'm asking these questions to myself, not necessarily of the reader, but to myself. What do I think it means to be a good person? Or what does it mean to be a bad person? Or what does it mean to want things done a certain way that others don't agree with?

And I like exploring the human condition because we're messes, y'all. [CHUCKLES] Like we are messy, messy people. And I love that our eccentricities and our little quirks and everything they just... they amass together to become who you are. They shape us as who we are as people. And I just love humans. I do, you know.

With Under the Whispering Door, I was asked a lot about why I kept it agnostic. I never showed what an afterlife is. I never showed what God or whoever is supposed to be... because I wanted people from every faith to be able to take something away from it.

I remember I got an email from a rabbi, who's been a rabbi for 50 years. When he read Under the Whispering Door, he said he wanted to email me because he thought that I was a lost person and that I was missing my faith. And I responded to him in kind and I said, "No, I'm good with it. I'm a lazy agnostic. That's how I identify." And he was totally chill. He's like, "Okay, that's totally cool." "Thank you for reading this book."

And then I get an email from an author of religious books, who I made the mistake of replying, "Yeah, I'm a lazy agnostic." To this day, I get at least two or three emails from her a day with Bible passages and explanations of how Jesus, that dude right there, is totally going to be my savior.

And I get these messages every day and I don't block her because I want to see how long she goes without me replying to her. [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] I responded to her one time four weeks ago, and she sends me at least two emails a day talking about Jesus and Christ and all this. And I'm just like, "Oh, cool. You just keep on doing what you're doing. It's totally fine. It's totally fine. You go crazy. It's cool."

ANNE: Thank you for anticipating the question we all had. So let's mix it up a little bit. I would love to hear something really gushy that people said to you about your book.

[00:31:04]

TJ: Can I be gushy about him real quick?

ANNE: Yeah. We would love that.

ANDREW: No.

TJ: When I heard that I was going to be on the panel with you, I freaked out because I'm like, "Okay, he won a Pulitzer for Less, man. [AUDIENCE CLAPS] Not only that. Not only that, though. It was a queer novel that won.

It was undeniably queer, ferociously queer and it was about a queer man, and that won the Pulitzer. But you know, that's awesome. That's wonderful. I'm sure that changed your whole world. But I just wanted to tell you that the book itself was beautiful.

And whether it be a Pulitzer or whether it be just a random reader saying to you that you did something beautiful, you did something beautiful with Less. I just think that was an extraordinary book. And I'm so happy that it got the recognition that it deserved. [AUDIENCE CHEERING] I've wanted to say that ever since I knew he was gonna be on the panel.

ANDREW: I have a response to that. I don't go on Amazon like ever to look at like how things are going. But I did. [ANNE LAUGHS] And I was like, "Let's see how things are going." And I was like... You know, "LGBT is separate from literary fiction for some reason on Amazon, because that is it.

TJ: They have their own queer categories on Amazon. So whenever you see somebody like get mainstream hit romance, and they're getting promoted all over the place, queer romance has its own special lists-

ANDREW: Own special list.

TJ: ...that we're not allowed to be...

ANDREW: They don't want people stumbling across that.

TJ: Yeah. You don't want to get accidentally gay. It's how it happens.

ANDREW: Well, I went on there, I was like, "Let's see what the LGBTQ... let's see what the best sellers are." I was on there... TJ Klune, motherfreakin TJ Klune. And when I saw he was going to be on this panel, I was like, "I have something to say to him." [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] Which is thank you. I'm very excited about your success. I'm so excited there's this new book. [AUDIENCE CHEERING]

BRENDAN: I'm just happy to be here. [ALL LAUGHS, AUDIENCE CHEERS]

ANNE: I overheard some "your book changed my life. I'm going to cry talking to you. I can't wait to read it again" conversation last night. And also you left out the part you shared yesterday about how someone told you invented a new genre of the musical thriller. Do you want more of those in your life? Mm-hmm. Mh-mm. [AUDIENCE CLAP]

[00:33:25]

BRENDAN: Okay, you know, it's kind of disingenuous for y'all to sit up here and clap and you haven't even picked up my book yet. Really? [ALL LAUGHS] No except for this lady right here. We're cool. We're cool. No, no, I'm just kidding.

I've heard people say, "Reading your book has really changed me because there's stuff that I had no idea about. You know, I just did not know that that's what it was like, for people who look like you. I had no idea."

And just seeing someone's perspective change or be open to change, that's amazing. And because, you know, we are how we are. People and everyone has their own opinions about things and just to be open to, you know, experiencing something different. That's major. That's huge. And I'm really happy that it has touched some people that way. And it'll touch you too once you go and pick it up. [AUDIENCE CHEER]

ANNE: Now, we all know Tia is a strong, smart, capable woman, able to tell a great story. But I'm going to preemptively say that in our book club recently... I see somebody in the balcony who came to our book club meeting and said, "Oh, since reading Seven Days in June, I've learned what I love, it is romance novels with emotional depth. And I need more of that in my life because it was perfection." It was Valencia. It was Valencia. It was. It was.

So that's who said to me about your book. We want to hear what a reader told you. Not about the sex scenes this time.

TJ: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

ANNE: Because that was amazing. You can't top that. You gotta pivot.

TIA: Well, you know, there's an art to it. There's an art to a sex scene. Well, I hear that a lot. And it's like sometimes you wonder if it's a - what is it called? Double-sided compliment. Double handed?

TJ: Backhanded?

TIA: Backhanded. Backhanded compliment. So many readers are like, "And I don't even read romance, but girl..." And I'm like, "You don't have to start off, you know, pooh-poohing the genre." But, you know, everyone is always really surprised at how deep I go.

Because for me writing love stories, I mean, my kind of my pet peeve is when with movies and TV shows and books like you're just told that these two people are in love without like building a case for it and making you like yearn and ache and the slow burn and when will they and oh my god pitch to something and finally they touch each other and the world explodes. And that's how you really get invested in it.

And for me, building that case is going deep with who they are, their childhoods, what they want, what they don't have, what they're missing, you know. I just have to say as like celebrities talking trash... So on Thursday, I got to talk with Taylor Jenkins Reid for the opening ceremony and I told her like reading her books it's clear that she grew up in a People Magazine house. You know, like your mom had a subscription. She was like, "Yes, ma'am."

[00:36:11]

When Seven Days in June was chosen by Reese Witherspoon to be her June book club pick for June 2021... [AUDIENCE CHEERS] So every month, she has a new book, obviously and she releases a video of just herself talking about the book, which is... I can't even... We were born in the same year and so I would watch all of her movies and be like, "Okay, so that's... all right... It's 1995, that's what I should be wearing. Okay, a deep side part."

Like at every stage of Reese Witherspoon's life, I've been like in there. And just to hear her in a video like hitting all of these points that I was trying to make and I wasn't even sure that I got across... The book was out for two days when she released that video so I didn't have any feedback yet from anyone. So I blacked out. Like I don't even remember the... So that was very exciting.

ANNE: I love it. [AUDIENCE CHEERING]

BRENDAN: We didn't get a gush about TJ from TJ. He gave it to me.

TJ: Okay, well, a few months ago, I got a message from a soldier in the Ukraine. He is currently fighting in the war with Russia. Initially, in this first email, he sent in talking about how hard it is for them in their country right now, how hard it is to be separated from their families, and everything like that.

And then he sent pictures of his entire unit holding copies of The House in the Cerulean Sea because they said that it gave them hope that the world could be a better place and that they had only one of them, the one who wrote to me read English. So he was helping them learn how to read English with this book while they were deployed in a war, trying to fight for their lives.

You know, there are moments that are so profoundly humbling. Because we live in this world, we have our own battles and our own struggles that we're going through. And it seems like every day the news just makes everything worse. Everything is on fire. Everybody hates everyone else.

But there are moments of such profound... this humbling feeling when you know that there are people who are living their lives that are having things so much harder and that they are fighting for what they believe in and for some reason, they have taken a little part of me with them to do this.

And I don't know that there was any greater compliment that an author can receive than hearing that this book gave them hope but it's also helping them to learn English because they one day want to leave this place behind and go to a place where they can be free and feel safe.

You know, we get to be here, we get to do stuff like this. I think we take that for granted sometimes because... I mean, I got an email from a kid for when my young adult series The Extraordinaries came out because it had two boys on the cover. And he lives in a rural place in Ohio. And if his parents found out that he was reading a book with two boys on the cover, they would know. And if I knew of any way I could get him a copy of the book without that on the cover. So I had a galley copy that was just like a pink copy. It was the black letter and I sent him that.

That shows you that even though we're in the 2020s now, there are people everywhere in this country and everywhere else who are literally trying to survive in ways that we can't understand. And I just think that it's so important that we remember that every reader that we have is a person and every reader we have has their own story.

And what I love is that when they take the time to tell us their stories and everything like that, that we can be part of their lives at least for a little bit. And you know, we may never see or talk to these people again but for one moment in time we were together and united in something. And I just think that's wonderful. [AUDIENCE CLAPS]

ANDREW: This second row here cannot take another minute of your talking. They're in tears.

ANNE: We could go for hours like this. And I would want to ask you all about your absolutely soaring endings needs. So Tia and Andrew, and your like Puzzle Box perfection endings, Brendan and TJ. And I really want to hear about the strong sense of place with your books and book world and music and the tea shop that is not tea shop. But we don't have time for that. So real quick, how about tell me a book that has meant a lot to you as a writer or as a reader? Lightning round. Go.

TIA: Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher.

ANDREW: Oh, yeah.

[00:40:20]

ANNE: Oh, never read it. Making notes.

ANDREW: Love it.

BRENDAN: My new favorite, A Little Devil in America by Hanif Abdurraqib.

ANDREW: I spent the last week staying up till three in the morning rereading the His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which I hadn't read in 30 years. And I'm like, "That is really good." [AUDIENCE LAUGHS] It was that same childhood joy.

TJ: The book that I read recently that I adored was The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain. It is a book about a queer postal worker in his 60s who lives in the UK during the 1970s. And he makes the decision that he wants to come out to his community and find the last love of his life.

And it was comped as for fans of Fredrik Backman and TJ Klune's, and I was like, "Oh, that's me. I better check to make sure this works." And it was delightful. Matt Cain The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle, I wish everyone could read it. It is a book about queer joy and queer happiness. But it's such a quiet book that it just... it sings to me and I love it.

[00:41:22]

ANNE: Thank you for those. Thank you all for being such a great audience. Your enthusiasm for [AUDIENCE CHEERING] these four authors is obvious. We love to see it.

[CHEERFUL OUTRO MUSIC]

ANNE: Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed listening in today. The show notes for this episode are at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/351. That's where we'll link to all the stuff we talked about today, and you can get more information on the show.

Get our weekly newsletter in your inbox so you never miss a thing. Sign up at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

Follow us on Instagram @whatshouldireadnext. And I am there @annebogel.

For more peeks at what it's like to attend a literary festival, check out my story highlight. It's called Bookmarks. And I walk readers through my festival experience on Friday, then share a whole bunch of photos from the weekend, including behind-the-scenes from this panel.

This is a great place to see photos of everything we talked about today and get a visual feel for what Bookmarks was all about.

Make sure you're following in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in next week when we have our first and much-anticipated gifts recommendation episode.

Thanks to the people who make this show happen! What Should I Read Next? is produced by Brenna Frederick, with production assistance by Holly Wielkoszewski, and sound design by Kellen Pechacek.

Readers, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening.

And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, "Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading." Happy reading, everyone!

New Books from the Panel Authors:

The Violin Conspiracy

The Violin Conspiracy

Author:
Readers were so wowed by Brendan's description of his debut that the festival bookstore sold out! This fine arts thriller begins with a bang: Ray McMillian may be the most talented young musician in the world. Two weeks before the most important competition of his life, he opens his violin case after getting off a flight and discovers his $10 million dollar Stradivarius is gone—replaced by a white Chuck Taylor and a ransom note. Slocumb then takes us back in time to show us how Ray, a young Black man from North Carolina who doesn't have the family wealth or privilege so many of his classical music peers do, fell in love with both music and his great-great grandfather's fiddle, and came to devote his life to winning the Tschaikovsky Competition—and how he came to own a $10 million Strad! We also experience many painful and heart-pounding instances of the racism Ray experiences as a Black man moving through a space that's predominantly white—and how his Blackness is used against him by those who wish to claim his violin as their own. I loved this and can't wait to read Brendan's next novel, due out this spring. More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Libro.fm
Buy from Bookshop
Seven Days in June

Seven Days in June

Author:
MMD Book Clubber and WSIRN alum Valencia Taylor describes Tia's work as "romance with serious depth"—and if you listen closely, you may just hear Valencia stand up and cheer when I recount this story during the panel! The early pages of Seven Days in June are set at a literary event (ha!), where bestselling writers Eva and Shane are reunited after nearly twenty years apart, in front of an audience of delighted readers. Nobody knows the two have met before, or that they were high school soulmates before they were wrenched apart due to circumstances neither fully understood. This was so much fun and also insightful about the complexities of romantic and family relationships, as Tia shows her characters working through trauma in order to find both healing and their way to each other. You'll also hear Tia describe the story behind the attention-grabbing prologue. More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Bookshop
Under the Whispering Door

Under the Whispering Door

Author:
This poignant queer love story from TJ Klune follows Wallace, a man who's beginning to suspect that he might be dead. In this episode, you'll hear TJ describe it as "my take on a Christmas carol with Wallace Price playing the role of Ebenezer Scrooge." Intriguing, right? Before he died, Wallace had grown into a pretty terrible man. When he dies he's not taken straight to the afterlife but instead to a peculiar tea shop that serves as a sort of waystation between worlds. In that tea shop Wallace is given a choice, if he decides to take it: now that he's dead, he can finally learn to live and make the most of the "life" he has now. Whimsical, weird, and touching, this is a book about love and loss, about grief and what it does to people, and ultimately, about hope. More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Libro.fm
Buy from Bookshop
Less Is Lost

Less Is Lost

This follow-up to Pulitzer winner (and WSIRN favorite) Less follows protagonist Arthur Less on a cross-country adventure after the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis. In this episode, you'll hear Andy share how he took his own road trip across America, taking lots of notes so he could tell a story that gently makes fun of his mediocre, gay, white writer protagonist even as it asks serious questions about the state of his character and our country. If we had had more time in our panel discussion, I would have liked to hear more from Andy about his pitch perfect, let-me-read-it-one-more-time, can't-do-better-than-that soaring endings. When I finished Less, I wanted to flip back to the beginning of the book and start reading again, it was that good. The ending to Less Is Lost might be even better. More info →
Buy from Amazon Kindle
Buy from Amazon
Buy from Audible.com
Buy from Libro.fm
Buy from Bookshop

Books mentioned in this episode:

The House in the Cerulean Sea  by Tj Klune
The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams 
The Perfect Find by Tia Williams
Less by Andrew Sean Greer
Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer
Under the Whispering Door by Tj Klune
• Taylor Jenkins Reid (try Carrie Soto Is Back)
Postcards from the Edge by Carrie Fisher
A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
• His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman (#1: The Golden Compass)
The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle: An Uplifting and Unforgettable Story of Love and Second Chances by Matt Cain

16 comments

Leave A Comment
  1. Mary Hawkins says:

    The Violin Conspiracy is the best book I have read in ages…so jealous that you met these authors. I really enjoyed Under the Whispering Door, too.

  2. I was lucky enough to attend this live in person and I just sort of accidentally but quite happily giggled/teared up my way all the way through it again. The audio quality is awesome – I was worried it might not translate, but this is *so good.* (I think this calls for three cheers for Brigid!) And GUYS, these 4 (plus one awesome moderator) have such fantastic chemistry together! Such an enjoyable panel!!

    • Amy says:

      Absolutely agree! So much fun to see this live and still so good listening to it a second time. Well done Anne! Bought a book from each of the authors! Currently reading Seven Days in June and loving it!

  3. Lisa says:

    Oh my gosh, what a great episode!! I was in my car in the driveway setting my gps and getting ready to listen to WSIRN because (Yay!) it was Tuesday! When I heard Anne say that this would be a “spicy” episode I literally jumped up and down in my seat and clapped my hands…ooh Anne is doing Spicy! YES! Loved the panel, loved the laugh-out-loud stories, and loved “hearing” our sweet Anne—the moderator—get a little pink in the cheeks listening to some of the spicier moments..this will be a re-listen episode for me!

  4. Adepy says:

    Oh I laughed so hard!!! Thank you for sharing it, occasions of laughing like that are not so frequent. And I think people attending this interview will remember it for a long time. It’s was great not only for the fun parts. A lively session !

  5. Shellie says:

    Hi Anne,

    Thank you for the warning for little ears for this episode, maybe for me too. Oh my gosh;) Thanks again for the warning. Looking forward to many of the books mentioned. The Violin Conspiracy is the first to go on my independent bookstore charge. Sounds awesome!!

    Thanks Anne,

  6. Christine says:

    This episode was absolutely hilarious and filled with wonderful people! What a special opportunity for you, Anne, and what a great job you did with it. It was amazing. I’ve read The Violin Conspiracy and really enjoyed it. Have had the other authors’ books on my radar for a bit and hearing from them about their books really moved them up on my “Want to read” list. Thanks!

  7. Nancy says:

    I loved this episode. I did laugh and cry. I admit to being amazed at what those authors were willing to talk about. Good for you, Anne, for holding it together as moderator!

  8. Tanya says:

    Loved this podcast….so much so that I have already listened to it 3 times. What an entertaining, talented panel! Thanks so much for letting us listen in!

  9. Susan says:

    I absolutely loved this episode! I’ve already read both of TJ Klune’s books and have added the other authors’ books to my TBR list. Thank you Anne!

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