Best-selling author Bret Lott on Teaching Writing with Humor and Goodwill

On this episode of Speaking Of...College of Charleston speaks with acclaimed author Bret Lott about his 34 years of teaching writing, his writing process and upcoming non-fiction book and the international writing program he established in Bahrain. Lott shares moments from his life, including the infamous story of becoming an overnight, international best-selling author when his book Jewel was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection.

Featured on this Episode
Bret Lott is the author of fourteen books, most recently the essay collection Letters and Life: On Being a Writer, On Being a Christian (Crossway, 2013) and the novel Dead Low Tide (Random House, 2012). He received his MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1984, studying under Jay Neugeboren and James Baldwin.

From 1986 to 2004 he was writer-in-residence and professor of English at The College of Charleston, leaving to take the position of editor and director of the journal The Southern Review at Louisiana State University. Three years later, in the fall of 2007, he returned to The College of Charleston and the job he most loves: teaching.

He has spoken on Flannery O'Connor at the White House, and served as Fulbright Senior American Scholar to Bar-llan University in Tel Aviv, Israel. From 2006 to 2013 he served as a member of the National Council on the Arts. From 2010 to 2022 he was director of the Spoleto Summer Study Abroad program in English at the College.

Resources on this Episode
 Michael Connelly, Bosch Series
Barbara W. Tuchman: The Guns of August, The Proud Tower

Transcript

[00:00:00] I'm trying to think of the best way to make it okay that I call you Brett. I know your students do, but you could say Mr. Lotton, then you say no. Call me Brett. I always call you Prof. People call you professor and you get, he gets He doesn't like that. Yeah. I'd rather they call me lot. I think that's fun.

[00:00:17] I love last name. I call all my students by last name. [00:00:20] Oh, it so much easier. It's so much easier. So much for though, not for him. Oh no. It's a lot easier to remember. How do you pronounce than Christy? Chris, Christina. Yeah. And Chrissy. Yeah. Yeah. But they're hard to pronounce names. I know that from.

[00:00:34] That's true. Yeah, true. It's really hard to spell. All right. [00:00:40] So welcome Brett Lott to the, what are we calling our podcast? This is speaking of, I almost said it. We have two different ones. Yeah. Yeah. What's the other one in Inside College of Charleston? Yeah. That's more like for faculty and staff.

[00:00:53] Yeah. This is speaking of ellipses. Yeah. College of Charleston. Of Charleston. Charleston. Yeah. Okay. Welcome [00:01:00] Brett Lott to speaking of College of Charleston. Glad to be here. Can I call you Brett? Yes. May I call you Brett? Yes. May. What else? Professor lot. Mr. Lot. Not at all. So Brett, you've been teaching creative writing at the college for 34 years.

[00:01:16] Yeah. Has your teaching seems like a long [00:01:20] time or does It does not seem like a long time. It really does. Have you noticed changes over the generations? We were talking a little bit about this before we started, but in terms of influence of social media, whether or not students are reading more or less shorter attention spans.

[00:01:36] Attention to writing, punctuation, grammar skills. How have you [00:01:40] seen all of those things evolve? There's many things that have changed. Actually, now that you're naming all those things. When I first got here in 1986 you would go and you would buy a book. There wasn't even really necessarily books on tape.

[00:01:54] You could buy those things, but they were like exotics. So yeah, you would assign a book, we'd read a book. [00:02:00] You sign a story, they have to type that thing up on paper and then they have to xerox it. Things have changed hugely just in terms of tech, technology, social media of course is a new thing to me.

[00:02:12] Although my students, it's like that's the air that they breathe. But I still have, I still am, the strite, [00:02:20] I wrote my first three books, longhand, which is like unheard of. But it has changed in that I would say that there's so many other, some, so many new venues that they can read on.

[00:02:30] I don't think they read as deeply as they did back in the day when you had to buy the book and sit with the book and turn the page. But they, I think they, they read a [00:02:40] lot, but they don't read as deeply. And one of the things that has to do with this is that with the students, I think write better by and large it has to do with our student population, which has changed since 1986.

[00:02:53] But it also has to do with the fact that they're reading a lot more, and I'm gonna say this, and I believe it. [00:03:00] There's a whole world of fan fiction that's out there, and people have the ability to write something and post it and get feedback. And whether it's good or not. There's no more gatekeepers in terms of publication which is, I don't think that's a particularly good thing but it doesn't, it means that students that I have [00:03:20] now are a lot less afraid to write correct than they were back in the day because there was a lot more manual manipulation of machines to deal with it. Whereas right now, you can sit a computing who write 10,000 words, in an afternoon and post it that evening. So I think that they're less afraid to write. I think they, they write better, but along with [00:03:40] that is the fact of there's some punctuation, grammar things that, that computer autofill, auto correct.

[00:03:45] These sorts of things do a lot of stuff that students don't examine. Because they grew up with this thing and they think, oh, it's autocorrect, it must be correct. Which doesn't mean that they're necessarily correct. So I would say they read [00:04:00] more. I don't think they read as deeply. They're less fearful of writing and I think those are all to the best.

[00:04:07] Although there was, there's, what I do miss is just simply the kind of rumination about, what is the next word I'm gonna type on my computer, or that I'm gonna, type on my typewriter. Cause when I got here, there was, [00:04:20] they didn't have computers. Eighties. It's interest. I wanna follow up on what you said about.

[00:04:26] Less fearful, cuz I, one thing I noticed with students today is they're so incredibly confident in many ways. And whereas maybe when you started teaching the examples out there were more traditional books, [00:04:40] like hardcover books. So if one, if a young student is to aspire to that, that maybe is a little bit intimidating.

[00:04:45] Wow. Could I do that? Whereas to your point now about self-publishing, anybody can be published, you can publish yourself, does that, and so in, in some ways, maybe that lowers the bar and it seems more accessible. And so I guess my question is, does the [00:05:00] current generation maybe not appreciate how difficult it really is?

[00:05:04] Because there, you can type out a tweet and you're writing and you're being published and you have people who fa you know, who give you a thumbs up or alike Yes. Yeah. I think that Another thing. Okay. This is a different thing altogether, but the workshop's kind of the same thing.

[00:05:18] People will bring their [00:05:20] work, we critique it, we sit in ENC circle and talk about their work. People are much more people are a lot less judgmental now. And back in the day, in those early days when I was teaching, I've been teaching creative writings since the eighties. People would get.

[00:05:38] Upset, people would take it to [00:05:40] task. And we are, we're now, and I'm being politically incorrect here, but we're in a, in an era of no, judge, no, don't judge me. And writing I tell my students this all the time. People are gonna judge this. You can't write it and say, Hey, don't judge me.

[00:05:54] If you commit things to to print, you are gonna be judged. And people are [00:06:00] cutthroat. I tell 'em, that readers are very intelligent people. They can be very intelligent people. And they're very they can be very critical. They can be very sharp, but one-on-one sitting in a workshop.

[00:06:13] People don't want to necessarily critique each other because then I'm a hater, right? And I try to teach 'em, I tell them, I say, [00:06:20] my class is a safe space for you to get your butt kicked by each other about your writing. This is what's, what happens in workshop stays in workshop. But we're taking this seriously.

[00:06:30] We, my overriding ethos is that we're all in, everybody here is all in. Nobody's writing it at 67%. You're trying [00:06:40] to do a hundred percent for everything that you do, and it will be judged out there. But there are any number of venues, a million venues where they're not gonna be judged.

[00:06:49] And that's easy. I tell 'em this all the time too. You can write something today, you can post it tonight, and you'll get people to like it. But that doesn't mean that it's really good. Yeah. So [00:07:00] have you had the pullback over the time that you've been teaching? So probably when you went through workshop as a, as an MFA student, I'm sure it was maybe brutal.

[00:07:08] It was brutal. It was very brutal. I've been a workshop where people were yelling at each other and they had to be taken out of the room, was talked to by the professor, and that doesn't happen anymore. [00:07:20] No. But, for better and for worse. But in terms of pulling back I'm I feel like I'm known for being a really frank person.

[00:07:29] You, Mr. Machaca? I've been a student of mine, yes. Full disclosure, what students say but. For me the classroom [00:07:40] experience. I come at as with humor and goodwill and encouragement, because this is, we're all taking each other very seriously and if I'm not honest with you, I, I'm not doing a service, but if I don't have a sense of humor about this, I'm gonna, I'm you, I will be administering nasty medicine [00:08:00] nastily, I, there's right.

[00:08:01] My job is to help you, but to be serious about it. Yeah. Now, one of the things that, that I will write about are gonna, are that I will write in my comments will be very serious. And I try to do with good goodwill and sense of humor, but students react well to that. I think one of the things that I have changed is I [00:08:20] let students speak more.

[00:08:21] There's an old rule, old school rule where you give your short story, you can't talk while we talk about your work. That's changed. I'll let students talk because they, there is a, something about that allows them more allows them to feel more ownership, but also more more community about the thing.

[00:08:39] So [00:08:40] there's some give and take, but I always also tell my students, you cannot defend the thing that you did. You're welcome to ask questions, talk about it, but you can't say you didn't get the clue on page seven. You're an idiot. You can't say that kind of thing. I think you nailed it.

[00:08:53] It is the, I think it is the way you deliver the feedback with the sense of humor. It does seem [00:09:00] to, it's just easier to accept it. But also, I noticed too, and I'm sure this is true of all your classes, but there's a trust that develops between the students. And I'm sure with the MFA as a cohort, you get to know these students really well.

[00:09:11] But I just having parachuted in into one of your classes where all of the students knew each other pretty well, that was the first thing I picked up on, was how [00:09:20] much trust there was. And because of that, how much easier it was to be honest and give people, good feedback without feeling like you're gonna hurt somebody.

[00:09:26] Yeah. In the graduate program that's each cadre each year, comes in and they become bonded in an undergraduate class, it's a different thing because many of them are just drive by students. I think I'll take this elective, [00:09:40] which is how I got. To be right. I just took a creative writing elective.

[00:09:43] I had four majors in college, five majors. But I stepped into a creative writing class and here I am. But in an undergraduate class, you have to develop that trust. And so in our undergraduate courses, we'll do, exercises and things together and I've taken to making [00:10:00] people read their stuff out loud and their exercises, which to me helps build community.

[00:10:06] Just the sense that I wrote this, I'm owning this and I'm sharing it with you. And that to me builds a sense of community, but that's what you're trying to do to be, get a trustworthy group. Picking back up on the workshop format it's [00:10:20] something that's been debated forever and I'm sure, on back when you were going through workshop yourself and now leading them.

[00:10:26] D is it, is that model still working? We talked about how you approach teaching differently, but is the basic workshop model still the best way to teach people? It depends on who you ask. There's that, believe it or not letting people, sorry, [00:10:40] but that doesn't, sorry. Yeah. So sorry about that. They're over here probably on, yeah, we're going this way. That's the good call, man. Good pickup. That was, I got that fast for him. Really? In his ears. It's like I can, yeah. I can hear stuff even it's very heightened with, did you hear when I touched that? [00:11:00] I touched that a little. I don't think I heard that.

[00:11:01] I, you can hear my papers rusting. Oh yeah, that's fine. Because whenever if you're not actively speaking, I'll have your mic. Gotcha. You have mine off. You don't see turning pages. Okay. All right. All right. That's clear. So did I ask that workshop question? Yeah. Clearly about the is it still the best way?

[00:11:19] Is [00:11:20] it cause you said yeah. Is it controversial? Yeah. Believe it or not, that whole thing about letting somebody talk during workshop, that's a big deal. It's a big deal. Because forever it was like, the rule is you were just a fly on the wall. You listen to people talking about your thing.

[00:11:35] Like it was something they're reading in a magazine and they're critiquing it, and you just shut up and be quiet [00:11:40] and take your notes. But to do that, letting people speak in during that time is a big step. But there are other big steps that are going on that, that I'm just not interested in.

[00:11:52] I know there are people who say, oh, that's an absolutely outdated, outmoded way of doing workshops. There's workshops now that have, everything is [00:12:00] written in class. You we're gonna write now, and we're gonna read it now and we're gonna critique it. There are workshops that are no criticism. What is working.

[00:12:11] There's just all sorts of different ways that are happening right now, but I think there's still built around the model of pe a number of people gather in a room and they talk about what they've [00:12:20] read with the idea of helping it become what it seems to be. There's a very, it is a strange thing but a bad workshop is where somebody says here's what I do.

[00:12:31] That is not, that's a bad workshop. A good workshop is what is this person trying to do? And given the way that they're doing [00:12:40] what they're doing, how can we help that, do what it wants to do in the way it wants to do it more effectively? And so there's this whole sense of getting around to the backside of looking at through for the author's eyes rather than just being a reader and saying, oh, I think you should kill the uncle.

[00:12:56] It's that's, that really doesn't necessarily help. Although it could help. [00:13:00] It could help. I had an editor once time, I turned in my, a novel and she said actually that was my second book. Yeah. So she, she said, okay, here's the first thing I want you to do. Kill off the mother. And I had written this whole novel and it was like, done everything I could to make this just really good.

[00:13:16] And then, but what happened was I went back and read and go, you know what? [00:13:20] I could kill the mom. She doesn't have to be there. So that worked. It worked. It worked. You said something about, remember I lost my train of thought? Something about. We talking about. Oh, I know what it was to cut that part, Jessica, before you yeah, no, please.

[00:13:34] I just remember yeah. Which book was that? That would've been a stranger's house. Okay. [00:13:40] Let me think. Let me think. You said second. Yeah, second one. A stranger's house. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I know what I was gonna ask. So when you've violated that cardinal rule of having the workshop e speak.

[00:13:53] When did you do that? When did you implement that? And why do you remember? Peer pressure? I've I've been doing this [00:14:00] forever and then there was, in the last few years there's been a kind of, Rumble and changes and people, saying this is what the workshop should be.

[00:14:10] And I thought you know what? I need to change with the times. And I found that it doesn't really hurt. It doesn't hurt so long as they understand. They, [00:14:20] for me, you don't defend the things that you did. A reader doesn't get a defense for their misread. My job is to show, I, the way I look at it is one of the main things I'm trying to do is teach a writer how people can misread.

[00:14:36] What they wrote. And you don't have a [00:14:40] defense for a misread. It's just clarity is what you need. Clarity. Makes perfect sense. All right. So that's the teaching, first part of the teaching piece. And then we'll go into, I'm trying to think of the best way to, to weave into the Bahrain. Yeah.

[00:14:56] How long has it, just real quick before I ask it, how long has that been going on? [00:15:00] This has been this was the sixth year. Sixth that sixth year we've been doing it. Yeah. This April was the sixth year. Okay. And this is just with the MFA group, right? Yeah, these are four. Do you want me to explain it for the I'll, and I'll give you a setup and you can just Yeah.

[00:15:13] Go to the evolution of it. So in recent years, Brett, a big part of your teaching and over, [00:15:20] and. You were the MFA director for a while, right? Yeah, I was the first couple years of the program. Okay. So a big part of your teaching has been this new program with Bahrain. Can you talk about how that program came to be and how long you've been doing it and what it involves?

[00:15:33] It was a every spring semester for the last six years, except for the two years of Covid, we still did [00:15:40] the program. We, I enlist two master fine Arts students in our MFA program to tutor the. Through Zoom six undergraduates from the University of Bahrain at, during the spring semester, and they teach 'em about poetry fiction, non-fiction.

[00:15:58] And then, and they [00:16:00] do through you'll have one hour a week meeting in which the MFA student teaches them about whatever that lesson is for that week. And then the students write their work and then they submit it to the teacher, and teacher edits it up and, helps them out. And then in the spring and April, generally and April we go, actually the three of us [00:16:20] go to Bahrain, to the University of Bahrain and meet the students.

[00:16:23] We have a big reading and event and we publish their work in a journal. It's all sponsored by the US Embassy. In Manama, Bahrain, and I gotta be very careful to say Bahrain, because we all say Bahrain. Bahrain. And you get over there, it's Bahrain, there's an H in the middle of that word. Got it. But [00:16:40] that sprang out of the fact that I was asked by the embassy to, they have an international, cultural programs and I was asked by the embassy there to come to Bahrain and talk to different universities, give readings.

[00:16:56] And that was back in, I think 2016. [00:17:00] And while I was there I met professor David ler, who ran the American Study Center at University of Bahrain. And we said, Hey, let's do something together. And so it took a couple years, but we put together this program and ever since we've been going over there, except for those two years of Covid.

[00:17:17] But we did the program remotely. We just did [00:17:20] not go visit them, which was sad. But we just got back in April of this year, we had a terrific trip. It's built, the program that the embassy has is it's all funded through a grant, grants through the embassy is intercultural.

[00:17:34] It's to share their culture with us, share our culture with them, and to do so [00:17:40] through the arts and humanities. And so they have special grant that's designed for that thing, and it's been very beneficial. They have students over there who want to write just like we do. People want to write, there's a poet, I mean writer a name, William Carlos Williams, I imagine lots people, or he said he couldn't imagine how you could live [00:18:00] your life and not write about it.

[00:18:01] Yeah, because it's so fleeting. Everything happens, you wanna write things down. So we find out over there in Bahrain that there's people that want to write too. And so we've given 'em that opportunity and they've been very excited about it. They've been writing all kinds of things and every year we publish a journal of their work.

[00:18:19] [00:18:20] And but what's wonderful about it is that they learn about writing and they learn about our culture, I think, through our students. But our students also learn a great deal about their culture. And that give and take is basically what that grant the embassy wants to happen is a give and take between the cultures.

[00:18:38] What do they write about? What [00:18:40] do the students over there write about? They write about amazingly enough, they write about a lot of the same things that undergraduates here write about. They write about love, they write about family. They will write science fiction. Which we get a lot of. They'll write coming of age.

[00:18:57] They'll write poetry about their deep [00:19:00] feelings and their deep observations. And so it's not a it's the cultural aspects of it, the practical elements of it are different, but at core is basically the same thing that we're all are trying to write about in order to understand.

[00:19:16] What do you think the MFA students get out [00:19:20] of it? The first thing they get out of is they get an opportunity to teach. One of the drawbacks of our small MFA program is that we don't have, TAs don't have teaching assistantships. So this is an opportunity for them to teach. I think spiritually soci, socially sociologically, they get a sense of the wider world.

[00:19:39] That [00:19:40] there are people out there, beyond my realm, and that they are as passionate about learning to write as I am. And that relationship, that sense of community is really born out every time we get there. When we get there, we, first thing we do is we have an evening. It takes 24 hours to get there.

[00:19:57] It's like forever. And we only stay [00:20:00] five days, four days, five days. And we get on a plane and it's another 24 hours to get back. So I gotta have dedicated students But first thing we'll do is have a group dinner with the students off campus. It's always at this traditional bini restaurant.

[00:20:15] And they get to know each other firsthand. They've known each other for the whole [00:20:20] semester, but they have not met their mentors and they just immediately, gang up on him and sit and talk and have dinner and That sense of community is really the at the forefront of the whole thing.

[00:20:30] So they've made a community that is an international community.

[00:20:38] Thanks. I would love to get [00:20:40] a quote or something from one of those students who has done that with you. I think that would be really one of your students. I think that would be really, oh yeah. Yeah. Lauren. Lauren. Or at least Lauren would be either one. Yeah. So including the show notes or even if we can cut her voice.

[00:20:52] Do what is the the compilation published somewhere? Is it online or is that just more for the, it's called Under the ba Rainy Sky. I love, [00:21:00] is it online? It's cuz the first we could link to, it's what I was gonna say. I think I have a copy. I can give it to you. We, but I think you can buy it.

[00:21:06] Yeah. I'm pretty sure you can buy it. Yeah. Okay. We can get a quote from Lauren or, yeah. Elise. Elise, Las Elise. Oh yeah. Elise. Yeah. I do remember Elise. Yeah, I Lauren's great. You tell us. I'd like Elise. Okay. She's female. Yeah. [00:21:20] Yeah. The, all the students. Great. This is point as it relates to the culture.

[00:21:24] Yeah. Very seldom Do we get any guys that do this. What's her last name? Yeah. Lusk. L U S k. I can, she's second year. She's, or she's first year. She graduat She did, she did graduate. Yeah, she graduated May. Yeah. Okay. Lauren's cool too. We can give one. Lauren is awesome. Lauren's, yeah. Oh. Very well spoken.

[00:21:38] That's great. But maybe [00:21:40] from both of mine. I don't know. Be, but they would be. Okay. They're both really cool people. Okay, so that was, I'm not gonna say it. Ba. Bahrain Bahr. B a h. Gotta put the h b rain. Yeah. You okay? Do we cover the highlights there? Must say. I don't wanna skimp on it, but it's really important part, and that's what kind of prompted this whole thing.

[00:21:59] [00:22:00] Links in our show notes to the program itself. And I assume students have to apply to Yeah. Be the ones kinda in-house. Yeah. Yeah. Informal. Yeah. Oh, I imagine that's, I need to know who I'm on record here, but I need to know who these people are. Yeah. Free You travel 24 hours. You gotta really kinda vouch uch for them.[00:22:20] 

[00:22:20] And then That sounds brutal. That is brutal. All right, quick. Oh, how we doing on heat is a little, getting a little stuffy in here. Do you guys I'm happy. I'm fine. Fine. It's okay. Yeah. I'm, we keep rolling. I'm gonna take a quick drink. Brett, you got something to drink? You need anything? No, I'm okay. I can get water.

[00:22:35] I'm fine. You good? You can't hear me going, I hate that. All right. [00:22:40] I'm gonna try to read this. If I can't, if I don't do justice to it, I'm gonna have Brett read it. This is the the quote about that we started on in there. Writing a book is about finding out rather than lecturing. So I'm gonna try to read it and then set you up. Brett, in a blog post from 2013, you wrote the following 10 years ago. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm [00:23:00] gonna chop this up a little bit, but writing is an act of discovery, not an act of announcing what one already knows. That's what I enjoy best about writing, being able to go on an adventure during which I'll cover new terrain, come to know new people and find out what I don't know.

[00:23:15] Finally, about what I know about me writing a book is about [00:23:20] finding out rather than lecturing. Unpack that for us. What do you think of when I read that back to you from 10 years ago? The I feel exact same way today. I feel like un unpacking that. Okay. First, there's some adjectives in there.

[00:23:36] I think there's some nouns, some periods. Okay. [00:23:40] Unpacking the thing about being about writing is you better enjoy writing if you wanna write a book. And for me, writing the most fun about writing is figuring out what this thing is. If I knew what it was, if I knew its answers, then basically I'd be doing, one of those [00:24:00] paint by numbers of a sad hobo clam, that, that would be my job.

[00:24:03] I would just be filling in these blanks too, because I already know what this is about. But I tell my students all the time, and I tell myself this all the time, I. The best thing about writing is I get to be the first person to read this book, but if I know exactly what's gonna happen in this book, why would I read [00:24:20] it?

[00:24:21] And then by that same token, why would I write it? I want to find out what happens in the story. And that's the biggest adventure of writing, is what is this thing about? And it doesn't mean that you start by saying, it's about, Calcutta and then there's a, a bicycle too.

[00:24:38] That's not what I mean by not [00:24:40] knowing what it's about. You have a situation, you have characters, and as you ride them, and this is about nonfiction and fiction both, but you have the situation and you wanna find out what's at the core of that situation. The nice thing about the difference between fiction and nonfiction is fiction is you are making this thing up as you go along based on your life, who you've met, where you've been Things you'd be concerned about.

[00:24:59] Nonfiction [00:25:00] is al is the opposite, but some of the same things in that nonfiction. Is this already happened? What was I thinking about? Who was I kidding? Who was, what was I thinking while I was doing those things? So that's why I, to me I think that if I already know all the answers, then I wouldn't write it.

[00:25:17] And if I don't know the [00:25:20] answers, not even that they raise an answer. But if I don't know what this story is all about, I'm all the. More interested and intrigued by where it's going and what's gonna happen. That's not to say you don't have ideas and picture ideas are bad pictures.

[00:25:36] I always think of things in terms of visual. [00:25:40] So every novel starts with a visual and not with an answer. It starts with a, something happening. And then my curiosity and yours should be the same way. My curiosity and yours are peaked by, what is this about? What's going on, what's gonna happen next? That's, and that's lived that [00:26:00] to this day. This book that I've just finished is called cherries on the Golan Olives in Jerusalem. It's nonfiction. It's based on it's not based on my wife and I lived, we lived in Jerusalem for a semester a few years ago, several years ago now, where I was a visiting Ryder at Bar Law University.

[00:26:19] We have [00:26:20] since traveled, I think seven or eight times there with the State Department over the university. So they've been extended travels and we've eaten a lot with a lot of people. It's a book about community. It's a book about food. There will be recipes in this book. There are recipes. But it's about the people we met the communities that we were part [00:26:40] of.

[00:26:40] The food that we ate all in, in Israel and the West Bank and in Jordan. And but when I started on it, all I had was these two images that were this particular thing about eating cherries on the Golan Heights. Looking out at Syria, we were right on the border. And then [00:27:00] another was one night when we were living there seeing Beins harvesting olives in public space.

[00:27:08] Like they were, I don't wanna say too much about it because you, I want you to buy this book. But those were the only two things that I had in my mind. I had this whole, all these other things, but the two focus points were these two different events. [00:27:20] And that was gonna be, what I was gonna write about those things and I wrote about the olives pretty early.

[00:27:25] The cherries was about the last thing that I wrote, but in between were all sorts of different experiences, different meals that we had and different food. But I was like, I don't even know what this book is about other than we lived there. We met these people. This is the food [00:27:40] we ate, this is the community that we resided in.

[00:27:43] And I got to the end and I feel like I know what the book is about. It's about all those things. Period. It's about food and community and the holy land. And it seems like that's enough to me. So that process of [00:28:00] discovering does it surprise you sometimes, whether nonfiction or fiction.

[00:28:04] But, you go in with these images and then you just see where it goes. I'm sure it must surprise you that, oh wow, I didn't know it was gonna go in this direction. I didn't know this character was gonna do this thing. Totally. Every time. Over all the books you've read. Yeah. And there's always a point writing a book where I it's [00:28:20] working.

[00:28:20] I know it's working. When something happens that I had no plans about happening, and all of a sudden that happens and I have to write it down. It's a very weird thing. I sound like I'm Shirley McClain. Channeling, if you, that's an old reference that was, there was a person named Shirley McClain who used to write, she was really into that handling.

[00:28:37] Yeah. And that's what I, that's one thing I learned about teaching. [00:28:40] I learned the references, my references. They didn't hold water anymore. There were things that I would say 1986, and I'd say now people were looking at each other is this guy all right? But that, that sense of channeling, what was I talking about?

[00:28:52] Just the surprise, tangent. Oh, surprise. Surprise. Yeah, surprise. Doesn't surprise you. Still difference. Every book that I write has a moment that works, that has a moment [00:29:00] where a character or a situation or something happens that. I didn't plan on, or a recognition like a nonfiction, that happened where I realized, oh, that's what I was thinking.

[00:29:11] Yeah. To me then when it gets outta hand like that, I'm like, yeah, all this is a real book because the thing has its own life now, and I'm not [00:29:20] pushing this rock up a hill. It's actually got its own life now. Yeah. Can we ask a question about, because I love that you say that because so many writers say that they know what their life sentence is gonna be. They know what they plot the whole thing. They're liars. I would just be curious Yeah. And maybe listeners would be too Yeah. To then ask [00:29:40] about your process. Yeah. And editing me. You think, like Amy, I wrote down process right here. We think Exactly. Because I asked you this question in class once too.

[00:29:47] I can, it was one of the first few days, but you were talking about. Outlining. And I think I asked you if you outline, so anyway, but process. Yeah. Yeah. So what is your process, Brett? Do you outline? [00:30:00] Do you know the end of the story before you get there? What's the, walk us through that. I don't, I try not to.

[00:30:06] I'll tell a story. Here's the story. I haven't told you this story before. Okay. I was a young writer, I was in grad school and I realized, what I recognized was, I don't wanna know the ending. And I was standing, this is totally true. I was standing in our kitchen as an apartment, this, a [00:30:20] little apartment in Northampton, Massachusetts.

[00:30:22] And I was, had put toast, put bread in for the toaster. And I remember sitting there thinking about a short story I was running, I think. I thought, I don't wanna know. I don't wanna know. And I looked down at the toaster and I just stared at the bread while it toasted. So I wouldn't think about the end of the thing and to, [00:30:40] because if I hatched the thing, then there's not much fun left, I don't outline I don't outline any books, but that's not to say that there aren't things that I'm thinking about and the things I will keep a tablet, next to or now on my computer. I have on this particular this cherries book it's called Cherries [00:31:00] Notes. And that'll be just things that'll come to me, but they're not mans in humanity to man, it's It's a scene.

[00:31:07] It'll be, anything, it'll be Joe takes a sip from co of coffee. I have a line from this novel that I'm looking on right now. That's, it just says cat walks across driveway in the [00:31:20] rain and that's a line. And I look at that and I go, wow, that's gonna be really good when I write that. But I don't know what it means.

[00:31:26] It means I saw that, in my mind, and this, it's just a very strange thing. But you also I keep a list of these scenes things, but I will not ever use all of them. But they're seriously not seen in [00:31:40] which Joe realizes how little he realizes, there's never a, an abstract thing.

[00:31:45] It's always a concrete. Thing that is, that I will see, but that's but it's not in a particular order. It's not it's not, Roman numeral one, lowercase a but now, and the thing, as a teacher, I have [00:32:00] to always tell, when I talk about that, I always say everybody has a different way of writing.

[00:32:05] There are writers who do have Roman Numer one and they're very successful. The thing about learning how to write is that the only way that you know how to write that you will learn to write is your way, period. You're not gonna write the way I write, I'm [00:32:20] not gonna write the way you write, but as a teacher, my job is to here's some tools to think about.

[00:32:25] Here's some ways of approaching things. And if you remember 3%, you apply 3% of the things that I told you on the way toward the a hundred percent. That is the way that you write, then you know, good, I gave you 3%, but I don't like to to [00:32:40] know too much about what's going on. Flannery O'Connor said she, generally speaking, she knew about four or five sentences ahead what was gonna happen.

[00:32:48] And I have I have. Feel like I have a little more than that than five sentences, but I don't have a whole lot. And I have a book called The Hunt Club and it's a murder mystery. And [00:33:00] I purposely didn't wanna know who did it because it's from the point of view of guy who doesn't know who did it.

[00:33:05] And I really literally realized who was about 12 pages before, before it showed. He showed up. I was like, oh, that's him. That's him. That's the guy who did it. And this is like [00:33:20] 80% of the way into the book, that you actually find out who did it. Cuz after that, after you figure out in a murder ster who did it, there's only the monologuing Absolutely.

[00:33:28] That the bad guy does. And then, dispatch him. Then there's an anyway, it happens in every book. It just happens in every book where the ones that work that they, I've written in one book that doesn't work, and that's [00:33:40] in my papers actually at the College of Charleston. And so it's a book that will never get published.

[00:33:47] But it was like, I knew what was gonna happen and that's what happened. It was like, I just didn't have any life to it, but I spent a year thinking, yeah, this one's working. This one's working. So if you know too much, I [00:34:00] think that it takes the fun out of it. And I want to ask you about the papers that you donated, but on, on the topic of process, do you still have the same process that when you first became a writer, you started with in terms of, a certain share, certain type writer?

[00:34:16] Yes. Certain time of day? Yeah. What's that look like? It's changed over the years, but there's [00:34:20] still dedication to that chair and dedication to that desk and dedication to the the stuff that litters my desk. You're I, when I'm riding, I, my desk is like Luke Skywalker climbing into, that, that rocket thing X-ray?

[00:34:36] Yeah. He's gotta climb in there. And then, not that I'm [00:34:40] trying to kill things, but there's like a seat. You're a pilot, there's like a seat and you gotta have your stuff with you. And I have photographs. I have I have stuff from when my kids are 40 and 37 now I have two boys. I have stuff from when they were at Little Learner's Lodge at Mount Pleasant, made a little snake coil, pencil holder and another [00:35:00] ashtray, that are on my desk.

[00:35:01] So I have all my little totems that help me just get my mind into my place. And I want distractions. That's why I still get up early. I don't get, I used to get up at. Like five o'clock and four 30 to five o'clock. And cuz we had kids [00:35:20] now they're grown up. They're gone. I get up at six 30 now, so I let myself sleep in, but I still have that stuff on my desk.

[00:35:27] So that's still morning too. So riding in the morning. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And do you do it without fail even if there's nothing is coming just the routine of it is helpful? No. I'm just [00:35:40] finished this pro project and I'm was working on a novel before that and I'm still working on a novel, but I finished that book and now I'm like, okay, I'm taking a break.

[00:35:51] And it's been a long time since the book. Prior to that, the last book that I published was in 2013. It's now 2023, so that's 10 years. In that [00:36:00] time a lot of things went down. We started the MFA program, which was like a. It's a wonderful thing, but it took up a lot of time for a lot of years. And then COVID was, I'm not using any excuse, but it was just a weird I thought, oh, this is gonna be great.

[00:36:14] I'll get all kinds of stuff done. And it was like not really. So it took a while and [00:36:20] then I had been working on this novel and then was asked to write this book. What the really cool thing about this book is that the publisher said, Hey, what would you like to write about? And I thought, yeah, there's that stuff that those cherries on the go on and olive night with the olives.

[00:36:35] Okay, I can write a book about this. Nice. And so that's what. Then took [00:36:40] place. But right now every, I'm like, next week I'm gonna pick up that novel and keep going with the novel, which is very different than anything I've read before. Yeah. Is and what's it, can you tell us what it's about? So this novel is doesn't have a title. I have a problem [00:37:00] with titles except for cherries on the Go. The title came first but it doesn't have a title, but it's a science fiction. I've never written science fiction before. And it's, I loved when I was young, read all, everything, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Ov the Champions, read all that stuff.

[00:37:19] And then I love [00:37:20] history and I I'm writing, I don't wanna say a whole lot about it because then you lose your thinking about it. But it's different. But it's different. It's different you, but I know it's the same thing, and which is I write about family, I write about relationships.

[00:37:35] And so I know that's what it's about. But it also is, it's not riding around in [00:37:40] a, through space. It's not anything like that. Sorry about that sound effect. That didn't come off very well. But but there's stuff to be discovered yet. Yeah. There's, yeah. You don't want to get in front of that process.

[00:37:50] Yeah. And I love history. I love history. I'm in the middle right now and not the middle. I'm like seven eighths of the way through this Bill tome from, it's called The [00:38:00] Guns of August. It's 1962, won of the Pulitzer Prize. It's about how World War I happened, and it's 530 pages long and it's got the smallest print in the world.

[00:38:13] But I love history and so it's about. History and time and the [00:38:20] character in the center of it. But it's, I've never written anything like this before. I really believe in writing a book that you know, this from being student, you should write, there's a great quote from American poet John Berryman, who said, you should always be writing the poem.

[00:38:35] You lack the technique and the courage, the skill to write. [00:38:40] Because if you're, if you're not writing that, then you're just repeating yourself and that's whole uninteresting. That's a, that's a paraphrase of that quote. Yeah. But the point is, you should be trying to do something you don't know how to do.

[00:38:49] Challenging yourself. Yeah. So science fiction, I haven't done that. Can't wait. That's something to look forward to. Brett lot science fiction. I hope I don't let you down. You gave us [00:39:00] just enough to pique our interest. So you donated your manuscripts and papers to special collections in Addlestone Library.

[00:39:08] Yeah. And I know among those items, cuz you talked about this in class, among the items that you donated is a box of rejection letters. All of this is famous. This box, the letters. [00:39:20] When did you start keeping those and why Started from the very beginning. I, I can't tell you. I had a little box.

[00:39:26] I was 21. I was an undergrad and I started sending stories out to places and I get these rejections and I thought, I'm just gonna keep these as, anyway the po [00:39:40] it's it's just odd, but almost like encouragement. It's a really weird kind of thing. Makes sense. But I get these rejections and then I would, I kept every one of them and I've only thrown one away, which was a mistake.

[00:39:55] But I, there's 600 and I think 27 of them that you counted. Have you count 6 [00:40:00] 27. But yeah, it's a box that I have always kept and I look at 'em and I used to look at 'em. They're not in my house anymore. It's a very strange thing cuz I always used to like, look at this box. But they're now down with the, can you go visit them if you want?

[00:40:11] See you see 'em? Yeah. Can you visit them? I'm sure you can't do papers. Yeah, but they gotta see some Id, put me in shifty character. But there were [00:40:20] totems, there were little things, I've used that word already, but it's okay of trying to see if the single float and they were always really quite encouraging to me to have these things.

[00:40:33] I, I think maybe the thing that, that, that is, was most helpful was like, I'm trying to do this. I'm serious about this [00:40:40] thing. I knew a lot of writers through, through my life who will write something, get rejected and quit. And to me that was like, I'm, I don't, I'm in this thing. I'm all in, and this life is full of rejection.

[00:40:53] Being a writer is all about rejection, which is something I worry about when we talked about earlier about social media and being able to post things. I [00:41:00] think somebody saying no is a really good thing. To both, to encourage you to do better and to have 10 tenacity at the whole thing. If one person says no, then you've put all of your everything on the opinion of one person.

[00:41:17] And that person could have had, bad anchovy on [00:41:20] a piece of pizza that day. I'm serious. It could have broken up with their special person, and this story makes me mad. You just have to develop a thick skin. And that was for me, developing a thick skin.

[00:41:29] Which I'm sure happens over time. I'm sure those first few rejection letters were. Yeah, certainly painful. Yeah. And then I quit after about a year of doing that. [00:41:40] Because what, one thing that I realized, I got off to grad school. This was an undergrad. I was sending them out my senior year.

[00:41:45] I got there and I realized I don't know anything. I'm crappy writer. And I really, it was true the end of my first semester in grad school the story, the end we were in, all these people was at grad school. We moved all the way from Los Angeles to Massachusetts, and I'm sitting in a [00:42:00] workshop in the last meeting, the professor says, Hey, class.

[00:42:03] Great semester. See all in spring. Brett, come with me. And then I was sitting there, I was like, okay. And I followed him down to his office and he sat down and had me sit down and he said Brett, you, I see no reason why you shouldn't be in our program, but I see no reason why [00:42:20] you should.

[00:42:21] And that was a galvanizing moment. But I wanted to quit. I drove home and told my wife, who's the hero of my life, Melanie that we're gonna go home. We're going back to Los Angeles. I've been working for a newspaper. And I, they kept the job for me for if it didn't work out, up at this thing. So I said, let's go home.

[00:42:37] And Melanie said, no, he's an idiot. Let's stay [00:42:40] the rest of the year. That was just first semester. So that thick skin is something that you have to develop and you don't bel you can't believe in the rejection. If I believe that guy, if I also didn't have this. I'm not gonna call my wife infrastructure, but if I didn't have the support person who's saying, you don't listen to everything that people tell you I [00:43:00] would've quit.

[00:43:00] And I'm not saying that I'm just saying I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. Does everybody need a champion like that? Whether it's a spouse, a partner, a teacher mentor? I think she, I think they should. Everybody needs a champion, but you know what? They have to be seriously honest with you. I probably told you this story too, when I was dating my wife, like the second [00:43:20] date, and I was taking my first creative writing class and I'd written a story and I thought, I'm gonna impress her. And I gave her a short story of mine to read. And she came over to, we rented a house with three other guys.

[00:43:32] This was in Huntington Beach, California. And she lived the next development over and she came over and she had my short story and she [00:43:40] dropped it on the kitchen table and she just went and scoffed. Okay. And then shook her head, meaning, this thing is not worth, it's tough. And I remember thinking that I think I love her.

[00:43:54] Because we'd just been dating a little while and she was willing to tell me, [00:44:00] no, this thing doesn't work. And if she had said, oh, this is just the greatest thing I ever read, it would be suspect. Yeah. I might have liked it, but it would've been suspect. Yeah. So she's an incredible reader.

[00:44:11] She's incredibly intelligent. And she is the first reader of everything I write. That's amazing. And to this day, so it is great to have somebody, I won't call it [00:44:20] champion. Sometimes who somebody's champion. Champion sounds too rah raw. Yeah. It can be totally wrong about you. Or knows that Yeah, that story really did suck.

[00:44:29] But it should be somebody that supports you with honesty. With honesty. Honesty. Honesty. Honesty. Honesty, honesty. And you can have that, you can, one of the things about workshops, I think is discovering who, [00:44:40] who is gonna be honest with me? And doesn't necessarily care about doesn't put, oh, I'm your friend first, but is your friend, I dunno how to explain that. But a good friend tells you the truth. That's just the truth. And then discerning, honesty is the key, but is it coming from a constructive place, a good place versus honesty that maybe [00:45:00] is really competitive? Type one? One of the great things about my wife is she's not a writer.

[00:45:03] Never wanted to be, never has been. She reads her brains out. She reads everything. She's far better read than I am. Sorry. How are we doing? What time? I really want you to write a love story. I love the way that you talk about your wife. I know. I have never after years. Yeah. 40, 43. I have never written [00:45:20] about my wife and there's a thing, yeah. I could learn a lot. Yeah. 43 years. 43. Yeah. It's actually to write there. Wednesday. Really number 43 going to Halls. So Wednesday is what? The 30th Big night out at Halls. The 28th? Yeah, the 28th. June 8th, 1980. Yeah. Do us all a favor and write. [00:45:40] Yeah. That's gimme me a lot to think about there.

[00:45:42] I'll see if she likes it. Yeah, she has because she may admit, yeah. How can she be the first reader of that one? There's too, she's too close to that one. That's true. She's gonna have to find another reader. All right. So I meant to ask you this out there before we talked about it. You don't talk about the Oprah thing a lot.

[00:45:59] Do you [00:46:00] not like to talk about, is it okay if I ask something? Yeah, sure. Okay. I didn't know. It's just that the I, it's not that I don't like to talk, I don't like to talk about myself, believe it or not, in this hour, however long this podcast is, it's about you. I'm not a, an, it's ridiculous for me to say that it's 25 years that.

[00:46:16] Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just you brought it up in your, on your [00:46:20] Facebook page, so we're, that's how we're gonna open it up, have to, so you recently said congratulations, to the author of the 100th selection of Oprah's Book Club on your Facebook page. Yeah. And you said, I'm as honored today to have had Juul selected as I was way back in 1999.

[00:46:38] Yeah. And then in parent, you said JUUL was [00:46:40] number 23. Yeah. On Oprahs book Club. So that was 25 years ago. But in fact, you had written Juul, what, eight years in 91? 90, which now has been 32 years ago. Yeah. So how does one find out? So you, when you were chosen as number 23, how do, does Oprah call you on the phone?

[00:46:58] Like how does that work? [00:47:00] Yeah. I was teaching, I teach in a program, a graduate program at Vermont College. It's a low residency MFA program, so I also teach there. And she, her assistant, one of her assistants tracked me down and my, through my publicist at that time was at Random House.

[00:47:17] They were looking he was looking for [00:47:20] me and my publicist at that time, the guy who was my publicist he knew I did not want it. I don't, not I have an unlisted number for very good reasons, because, anyway this guy called him like three or four times on this particular day, and he gave him some bonafides, but not about Oprah.

[00:47:35] I was like, I'm the some sort of writing group in [00:47:40] Chicago, and we want to give him an award. So he finally broke and then he gave. Melanie, he gave me my home number, but he called Melanie first and said, okay, I gave the guy the number and then she, he, the person called Melanie and he, Melanie gave him the number up at Vermont College up in [00:48:00] Montpelier where I was at that particular moment and it's a very long story.

[00:48:04] I don't know if we have time, but this, that particular day briefly, I've written a whole long, like 30 page essay about this particular day. Okay. I was working with a student at Vermont and it is an's a low residency thing where you spend two weeks in January and July [00:48:20] together on campus.

[00:48:21] And then I worked with you through the semester on packets and I just finished up a semester. I was gonna work in the second semester with this guy who was writing a novel and he was like 51 and he had, he was a very good writer. He was in Best American Stories in 1971 or something like this.[00:48:40] 

[00:48:40] And he came back to writing, wanted to write. So had dinner with him? No, I was gonna have dinner with him. This particular night, the day before students, he didn't come down for breakfast. Okay. From the dorm, you come from all over the country. These low residency thing. He lived in Michigan.

[00:48:57] Come from all over the country. Meet for these time, [00:49:00] this time. So he didn't show up for breakfast. He didn't show up for lunch. And then one of his, one of his people on the dorm had security. Knock on his door cuz he wasn't answering. And they opened up the door and the guy had died.

[00:49:13] He, oh, he died. He had a brain aneurysm. Oh my gosh. He later found out and he [00:49:20] was reading one of my novels, he's just drop dead. And book was in, his book was in his hands. And that had never happened before. And all hell broke loose on the campus. Nobody ever died in this low residency thing.

[00:49:32] So the director of the program and the administrator who answered the phones, had to have this meeting that afternoon. [00:49:40] And I said, I'll answer the phones for the administrator. The phone rang and the person asked for Louise and that was the Sounded official. And I said, Louise, you wanna take this phone call?

[00:49:51] And she said, sure, I'll take it. So she. I was holding the phone in her hand and she looked at me and she goes, you're just talking to him. And she hands the phone over to me and I said, yeah. He says, this [00:50:00] is Brett Lotton. I said, yeah. He says can you hold? My boss wants to talk to you. And the phone went on hold and the other part of the story, so this is a very long story.

[00:50:09] Wow. I had just completed the novel that is not published. The one that, just the one you saw, the one that did not work. Yeah, I had just finished it. I had that morning, a three hour conversation with my [00:50:20] agent over what a train wreck this book is. Oh, okay. What are we gonna tell Random House? What are we gonna tell these people?

[00:50:26] This book sucks. So I had this three hour conversation. About a book that I'd written was that sucked. This guy was working on a novel, which was very interesting, and he was a good writer. And he died, and then this phone call [00:50:40] happens and the guy says, this is my boss. My boss wants to talk to you.

[00:50:43] And then he put it on hold and the music was I'm every woman, the whole music. And and I was listening and then the phone goes click and this boy says, Brett, this is Oprah. We're gonna have so much fun. And all of this stuff had happened on this [00:51:00] one day. And it was just unbelievable, that what had happened.

[00:51:04] And from that day forward I, after that day, I don't know if people know what the Oprah Book Club meant. It's not as big as it was in now, but it was like the biggest thing that happened. And she, that was, I don't know when the height of her [00:51:20] popularity was, but late nineties was around then. That was, yeah.

[00:51:22] Yeah. That was it. It became an international bestseller within a day that they announced it, it became that. But I wrote down that guy's name on an index card that night, and I put it in my pocket and I kept it in my pocket every day for the whole time that I was the next Oprah Book [00:51:40] club thing.

[00:51:40] It was still like 10 days before that I announce it. But it was very humbling is the most humbling. Because you can't talk about it. I'm very humble. But it was very humbling just to have, I wrote a book that's never gonna be published. This guy was in the middle of a very good book and died.

[00:51:57] He was reading a book of mine, and then Oprah calls [00:52:00] up and I am a Christian, I'm a believer, and I don't think that, yeah, I don't see how the world can be weighed as coincidental in any way. And so I see that, and I don't say that guy died from, to, for he died on God's terms, not on mine, but that arrangement of things [00:52:20] then becomes, God says to me, he doesn't say this to me, but he was saying to me. The book is nothing. You have to understand that life is what matters. But I'm gonna bless you in ways you've not even imagined, but you're still just a hum the human being and your mind.

[00:52:39] So [00:52:40] that's how I read it, how I see it. So it was, it was one of the worst days, but the greatest days. What's the, can you say the name of the gentleman who passed away? And you don't have, oh geez, man, you put me on. No. Jim Ferry. Jim Ferry. Jim Ferry. Jim Ferry, yeah. No, that juxtaposition is amazing.

[00:52:57] It's not just about that call you got, it's everything that [00:53:00] happened that day and the context in which you got that news. Did you know, you said it, it helped skyrocket it to international best seller. Did you know immediately I. What, what it would mean. Oh yeah. This was in the thick of the book club. And I knew actually two or two writers, Wally Lamb and Chris Boian were [00:53:20] friends who had been picked already. And so I knew what it was and everybody knew what it meant. And you had to, she faxed that evening, a three page nodi, nondisclosure you have to, you can't tell anybody.

[00:53:34] If you told anybody. And there was a famous story, I can't tell you who, but there was somebody who did blab, [00:53:40] and they said, no, we're not gonna do your book. So he had to sign this thing. He said, I'm not gonna tell anybody. And I remember during those 10 days, I, one night I went to Harris Tee to get some milk.

[00:53:50] And I remember driving home thinking, what if I die in a car wreck on the way home from the Harris Teeter to get milk? I will never know what [00:54:00] it was like. But you've already had, it's already, it's still would hap have happened. I would've assume. Oh, don't think of the copies we've sold then.

[00:54:07] Yeah. Then through the roof. That's funny. Wow. That's great. Now that's, so it was a great, incredible experience and it's just my, my, my agent [00:54:20] called up afterwards. I actually talked to my agent beforehand. They were trying to get ahold of me and my agent called up and no, I called my agent right after that.

[00:54:26] First I called Melanie to tell her what happened. And she went through the roof. And then she told the kids, the boys were like, whatever, 13, 12 or something, 10 or something like that. And she goes, boy, your dad's been Joseph's book, Oprah book. I said, [00:54:40] don't tell him. So she had to get that from him.

[00:54:44] But my agent called up and she goes, do you know what this means? Do you know what this means? It's an instant classic, which is a crazy term, instant classic. But it's been around, still around and People ask me, how do you feel about having this thing?

[00:54:57] And I always say, what are my [00:55:00] options? To not have an international bestseller. Oh, okay. I feel good about that. No. One, one last question on this cause I, I've read somewhere where you said, film adaptations of books are always, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.

[00:55:14] So of course there was a film. Was made from your book, jewel, you've said it was [00:55:20] okay. Yeah. It did justice to your book? I think so. I think so. Yeah. Without the thing is, here's the thing. If you I'm in a win-win situation. If the book is always better than the movie, okay. And if the movie's really good I wrote the book, so that's the situation.

[00:55:35] But I thought for the, what I realized was that film is not a [00:55:40] book. And it's everybody says that, but when you actually see something that you wrote turn into that it's like you just make peace for the fact that it's not, The book. There was one scene where he probably, I don't know if me tell this, but there was a scene where the father Leston throws a cigarette lighter off into the woods.

[00:55:57] Very big moment in the [00:56:00] story. And it took me like 50 pages to get the lead up to this moment. And then I watched a movie and there's he just takes it and goes, it's wow. But it's, it still worked in the movie cuz they had done things to signal how important this cigarette lighter was.

[00:56:14] But I remember working for a long time to establish how important this, and it's cigarette lighter. Two [00:56:20] seconds. Yeah. Like that. You were talking earlier about how you don't outline necessarily, but you have these images around which they build the story. So it did, when you were talking about that, it made me think of a screenplay.

[00:56:33] Is that something you've thought about doing as a writer? I've thought about it. Yeah. Yeah. I, yes, I would love to write screenplay. I gotta [00:56:40] find the time to do it, but also the skill. It's a totally different skill. Yeah. Totally different skill. There's, Robert Stone is a writer who yeah.

[00:56:47] One of his books was adapted in screenplay and he says, it's so much easier to write a screenplay. You write. This particular thing was you're writing this big battle scene with air, with aircraft, flying overhead. And he said, but [00:57:00] in a script it says aircraft overhead, but then you write a novel, you gotta establish that whole thing.

[00:57:04] So it looks easier, but, On the other hand, there's so many, there's so many particular formula things that have to happen Yeah. That we don't even see. That it scares me, the idea of doing it, but I would love to write screenplay. It seems it seems like [00:57:20] you're, because the way you think in images, the, what was the line you said you have that, the notes, the cherries notes. And you said a cat Yeah. Walks across the driveway in the rain or something. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Out of That's a lot. That's the, what do you call it? The instructions. Yeah. In the screenplay. Yeah. Yep. I would love to, I'd love to. The Hunt Club. I think The Hunt Club.

[00:57:39] The Hunt Club [00:57:40] was optioned for 10 years. Nothing yet. And I think that there were two scripts written for it. Huh. And it was very interesting that they never, it's so fickle, that whole industry. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Totally. But that, I would love to do that. And now in the age of TV series, I would, I think it'd be very cool to have a series Yeah.

[00:57:58] Up on the Hunt Club, which would [00:58:00] make a nice eight. Episode, but I have no clue how to do that. I got no clue. I bet you could figure it out. Yeah. Like all these other things you have. Let's see. One more thing to do. Yeah. We talked about what you're writing now because you talked about your forthcoming book.

[00:58:15] What are you reading now? I notes the Guns of August is what I'm wearing talking about right [00:58:20] now. Also on my. Table on my nightstand right now is the last Bosch novel. I'm a Michael Connolly fan. During C O I D we decided, hey, let's watch this series Bosch, see what that's about, and I'm watching it.

[00:58:34] And we just got totally hooked. That's good. And we've watched Bosch all the seasons [00:58:40] three times Nice. Over all during Covid, but, and I was watching it as a TV show and, but it has a real certain tone and feel to it. And I thought I wonder, and I knew about these books. They were, mega bestsellers.

[00:58:51] So I thought I think I'll read one to see what in the book is making me so excited about watching this television show. Yeah. [00:59:00] So I read the first one. I'm like, wow, this guy knows how to write as a hoity-toity academic, and I'm not an academic, but you. You look at certain books and you think, oh, that's just a pulp thing.

[00:59:12] But then there's reasons why people buy as many books as they do. And he's a really good writer. He's a really good, so I just, I have the 20th [00:59:20] volume of Bosch. This is his last Bosch book, Michael Connolly's last BCH book that's sitting right there. That just came yesterday. I have a book that, that I just got from, I met a local writer's name is Jesse Granger.

[00:59:33] He'll probably appreciate the shout out here. But he told me about This book that was, it's [00:59:40] 19 52, 53 that one, it's about a writer up in Taylor's south Carolina about the Ku Klux Klan came into that area and tried to take it over. And the, this particular newspaper editor, it was, they were very, much about we're taking over your city.

[00:59:58] And they came to him and said, give us [01:00:00] space to, to give us a column in the paper. And he said, okay, I'll give you a column, but you gotta let me write a column too. Huh. And so he wrote these columns and systematically tore the KKK up and got them out of Wow. Of this area. And he wins a Pulitzer Prize [01:00:20] for for columns, for editorial writing.

[01:00:22] Wow. Back in 1952. And that's the book that he wrote. And I, again, I love history. And I just want to find out as much as I can him. So that's what's on my bed stand right now. Have we taken a whole long time here? No. We're, I was gonna see if there's anything else we didn't hit on that, [01:00:40] that you feel like we missed or Amy or Jessie, anything that I think we, there's plenty, everything really well, yeah, I think it's when you brought up stuff along the way that made it easier too.

[01:00:50] Yeah, exactly. So it's like you naturally went to the next thing and it's yeah. Pretty seamless. I'm just looking through here to make sure we didn't miss anything big. What are you teaching in the fall? Do you know [01:01:00] yet? In the fall I'm teaching beginning fiction 2 23, and then I'm teaching a creative non-fiction undergraduate creative non-fiction course.

[01:01:06] I heard good things about that, which to me is, don't tell anybody. Yeah. But it's my favorite class really? Because that's what I got my mfa. Did you really? Can I take your class? You can. Unless it's full room. Yeah. Unless it's [01:01:20] full room. That was my challenge is I had to make sure there was room.

[01:01:22] So where's your, we got low residency program at Queens University of Charlotte. Oh yeah. Okay. So who'd you study with? Elizabeth Strout was teaching. Wow. He's a very good writer. Oh my gosh. Yeah. We had some amazing writers there. Yeah. At the time. That's a good program. It is a good program. Fred LeBron, I dunno if you know him.

[01:01:39] Yeah. And [01:01:40] that's where Sena Jeter. Nalin, yes. Yes. She was at Vermont College and then she mysteriously left Vermont College and then started Queens College. I think really a whole, there must be a whole background, connection. Background where they're trying to, like the people who run the programs are trying to get Yes, they are.

[01:01:57] Yeah. Start around moving people around. [01:02:00] Yeah. But yeah, so this is my favorite class, A fiction. I write fiction. That's primarily what I do, but fiction, you can always. Yeah. You can always hide behind the fact, oh, it's fiction. I'm making this up. No matter how personal you're writing, in the nonfiction class, there's nothing to hide behind. And you get this really great [01:02:20] sense of community with the students. Yeah. It's really cool. Cause people learn about each other for better and worse. They I teach the idea that for me, nonfiction is primarily there's a commentary on the proverbs at Tindale commentary and it basically says at the, in the overall [01:02:40] commentary says, the Proverbs are asking the question, is this wisdom or is this folly?

[01:02:45] And to me, the best nonfiction is folly. And that doesn't mean like jokes, but it just means you don't write stories about how I triumphed. You may triumph, but you primarily [01:03:00] thinking, asking yourself, what was I thinking? And when you talk about writing in that regard for the students, they really get close to each other.

[01:03:10] And then what they realize is we have so much in common about what we believe about ourselves and how we've been confronted by ourselves and it just makes a great sense of [01:03:20] community and a great also reading experience for everybody. I love teaching fiction. I've always taught fiction, but that's what I love most about non-fiction, is trying to interrogate myself.

[01:03:30] I say, what was I thinking? I did this thing. Do you feel like the lines are blurring? I dunno, you're still recording. But between fiction and fiction, I'm awake, I'm listening. [01:03:40] Yeah. I just wanna make sure you can cut me out. Yeah. So many I, the questions people are always asking is how much is autos based on your life?

[01:03:49] Yeah. And then, so I feel like so much non-fiction writers now talk about how memory is yeah. Subjective and I, and so what true non-fiction, cuz you're telling your memory, you're [01:04:00] telling your story. So is it true nonfiction or is it the fact is that just writing something down makes it fiction, period.

[01:04:06] Yeah. Because it's not there. Your memory's faulting. Yeah. Yeah. And you are already the filter, and so you make peace with that or you pondered. And I'm not a big ponder. I'm I believe [01:04:20] that you, one of the things I believe about nonfiction is you just have to say, this is my memory, this is what I remember.

[01:04:25] But then you can't spend all your time second guessing all your memory. You just confess that as a human, my memory's faulty. This is what I remember. And and so long as for me, so long as it's not here's what I remember about how I [01:04:40] triumphed against all odds. But here's what happened for better and worse. According to my memory. I feel like a lot of writers will put that in the beginning of the book, and say, this is disclaimer. This is not a work of fiction, but it's, yeah. That's thing. Feel like I'm out. Almost. That's the thing I find the hardest is when I'm writing [01:05:00] about my childhood, for example.

[01:05:01] My mom is still living. She's she's getting up there. She's almost 80, but I worry about writing too, honestly, and her reading it and hurting her. You know what I mean? Because they had really tough time and so many people wait until their Yes. And so I thought about that. I was like, gosh, would this be easier if and when?

[01:05:17] My not if, but when my mom passes away. And [01:05:20] then other writers will share their stuff with their family to make sure that family pays it. Have you had your family family members? Sure. I've, your life make based outta my own life. Every, that's, everybody's, that's where yeah, it comes from.

[01:05:34] Although this science fiction thing, I don't know, but I know that it's gonna come out there, it's gonna be things in my life. And people have known [01:05:40] places done that, places I've gone, so they're gonna recognize experiences. But yeah. Yeah. But I, this is what I believe about writing is that I'm not after blowing up or destroying anybody.

[01:05:53] Yeah. I I, when I write about, when I write out of love, but that also includes, [01:06:00] warr and All so when when Jewel came out, which is based on the life of my grandmother who had six kids and one was Down Syndrome, the last one. I gave it to my grandma when I was done with it to see what she said and she said, oh, Brad, it's a beautiful novel.

[01:06:12] But I was not as hard on your grandfather as you made me out to be in this. Huh. She wrestles him to get to California [01:06:20] where Down Syndrome. Things are happening. True. Yeah. And I said, oh grandma, it's a novel. Yeah. In that same summer, I went out and visited my Uncle James and first thing uncle James, we went out, he's lives on a farm in Kansas, and first thing we sat down and says, Brett, you got that exactly right.

[01:06:36] Wow. About how she dealt with daddy. Wow. [01:06:40] And, so it depends on who's reading things, but I think if you're doing it out of love, this is that's what I believe is that if you're doing it out of love and not gonna show them. Yeah. Yeah. That there's a lot more leeway, but there are families definitely, though I know people who can't write [01:07:00] about their family. Yeah. Nonfiction or fiction. And the fact is, you're damn if you do, damn If you don't, people will read it and say, oh, that's blank. They won't, it can be totally not a friend, a writer, Nicholas Delbanco wrote a story that was in the Atlantic about a character whose wife is an alcoholic, [01:07:20] and he made her a Scandinavian, Scandinavian blonde, and he's married to a woman from Brazil who's darker skin, dark hair and everything, and not anything like this character.

[01:07:31] So he, because he did not want anybody to think, oh, my wife's an alcoholic. The story comes out and everybody goes, oh, Nick, they knew exactly. He's so sorry about your wife. [01:07:40] Yeah. It's like you are damned if you do, damned if you don't. Yeah. I love that. So I don't know if his class is filled up.

[01:07:46] Amy, you can't. But keep I know, I, I got in. I'll just sit outside. You already know what you're doing if you not, Amy's a writer. Yeah. It's ongoing. We never know. We are always learning Uhhuh every time we write something, we're learning. Yeah. I think, oh, absolutely, exactly [01:08:00] right. This book that I just finished and then now the science fiction thing, I gotta go back to and figure things out.

[01:08:05] Science fiction. I can't wait. I can't wait to read that. There's two different ways about science fiction that I'm think I'm figuring out is that there's the one that says, don't say a word about the science fiction, just do it. And then there's the other that says here's actually how it works.

[01:08:19] And [01:08:20] you gotta find the line between the two. And I'm trying to find that line. Yeah. Like just saying science fiction. Yeah. Sets the expectation in some way. That's fascinating. I'm glad you shared that with this. Thank you so much. And that, that genre like no other, I think sets it, instead of saying something like historical fiction or, yeah.

[01:08:37] Romance or, that's true. Yeah. It's, [01:08:40] it has such a, yeah. Yeah. Oh, this has been so much fun.