Episode 356 || Interview with Christine Pride & Jo Piazza
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie is interviewing Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, the authors of We Are Not Like Them.
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We Are Not Like Them
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A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
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Episode Transcript:
Annie [00:00:00] Hi, it's Annie. This is our final 'special' episode before I return next week for our regularly scheduled program, an episode with Hunter where we give our reading resolutions for 2022. On today's episode though, you're going to hear my interview with Jo Piazza and Christine Pride, authors of We Are Not Like Them. The book is about a lifelong friendship between Riley and Jen, a black woman and a white woman navigating a close knit but fraught relationship during an unthinkable but all too timely and relevant crisis. I read this book last fall and really loved it. It's a total page turner and excellent discussion material for book clubs, and I had the opportunity to interview Jo and Christine and chat with them about what it was like to write this book together.
[00:00:49] I've always been curious about authors who come together and write one work of fiction and how that works. Normally, this episode, this conversation would be a bonus episode reserved only for our Patreon supporters, but we wanted to put this in the main feed so you could get an idea of the kind of content you have access to when you become a Patreon supporter of From the Front Porch. For $5 a month, you get great bonus episodes like this one. And you can follow along as Hunter and I conquer Count of Monte Cristo. And you can participate in live video Q and A's in our monthly lunch break sessions. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch to have access to bonus material like this.
[00:01:36] [squeaky porch swing] Welcome to you From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business and life in the South. [music plays out] Part of our friendship of any relationship really is the tacit agreement to allow a generous latitude for flaws and grievances. A trade off that goes both ways, glass houses and whatnot. And besides, if you start holding your friends accountable for all their flaws, if you let the annoyances add up on a mental spreadsheet, the whole thing could come tumbling down. Christine Pride and Jo Piazza, We are Not Like Them.
[00:02:25] I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia. And this week, we're breaking traditional format to bring you a bonus episode featuring authors Christine Pride and Jo Piazza. Christine and Jo co-wrote the bestselling novel We Are Not Like Them, a compulsively readable story about the lifelong friendship between a black woman and a white woman, and the tragedy that nearly tears them apart. Today, we'll be chatting about Christine and Jo's writing process, their own friendship, and the reception to their novel now a few months in the world. Hi, Christine. Hi, Joe.
Christine [00:02:59] Hello. Annie. We're so happy to be here.
Jo [00:03:02] Hi, thanks for having us.
Annie [00:03:04] Yes. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. I have a lot of questions because I read this book a few months ago in ARC format. And, Jo, when you reached out, I was so excited because I was like, oh, I've read this book. I love to talk about this book. Let's do it. So thank you for joining me today.
Jo [00:03:21] Oh, that makes me so happy. Yeah. I mean, we're just so excited to get to talk more about it.
Annie [00:03:26] So I want to get one question I had immediately as a reader out of the way. And you both addressed it in your author's note, I think, at the beginning of the book. When I read a book by a duo of authors, I'm always curious what that writing process looks like and how it differs from writing a work solo. It's almost miraculous to me when a co-written work isn't disjointed or clunky, it just truly does feel like a bit of magic. So I think I assumed at first that each of you -- because this story is told in alternating voices and kind of back and forth with these characters, I assumed, oh, they probably each took a character and wrote those chapters. But you made clear from the author's note that that was not the case. And Christine, I wanted you to maybe address this a little bit, particularly because you were -- maybe still are, you can address this as well, as an editor rather than a writer. And so I wanted to know how you came from editing into the writing process and then what this looked like since the two of you did not like each grab a character and kind of flesh out their voices individually.
Christine [00:04:31] Yeah. You know, it's interesting because, you know, being an editor for 20 years, you just learn a lot, of course, about structuring a novel and some of the pitfalls. And you developed an intuitive sense sometimes of how a book should come together and, you know, the same with writing a lot of books as Jo did. But it made both of us very conscious of the fact that we did not want this book to feel disjointed, and we knew that that was a potential fault line. And had we made that decision that I as a black woman -- we sometimes clarify that in podcast because you can't see us, through the awkward racial identification. But I think, for me, as a black woman to take Riley, our black character's voice, and for Jo as a white woman to take Jen's voice would probably have resulted in a story that felt both disjointed and felt like two different people wrote the book. And we did not want this book to feel like it was written by two different people.
[00:05:36] And we both wanted to have a hand in really developing both characters and making them fully dimensional on the page and giving them their own voices on the page that were distinctive both from each other, but also from Jo and I. These are fictional characters. And so we were really conscious about that from the very beginning that we would really collaborate on all parts of the book and as an extensive way as possible. At the same time, though, one of the reasons that we chose to team up to write this story was to bring our individual experiences and perspectives to the table. So that was a part of it too, right? It was a double edged sword of really wanting to collaborate on everything and these voices, but also be able to draw from particular experiences and observations. And so at the end of the day, it was balanced both.
Annie [00:06:40] So, Jo, what did this look like compared to your writing that you had done previously when you had written and published solo works, works that you had kind of written on your own? I'm just curious even logistically. And we now, I think, are accustomed -- we the general public, are accustomed to Zoom calls and long distance collaboration and things like that because the pandemic has forced us to do these things. But from a practical standpoint, what did the work look like and how did that collaboration practically work, I guess?
Jo [00:07:11] Oh, my God, how much time do we have? So I'll start with the first question. Co-writing a book is completely different from how I normally write a book solo. When I write a book solo, I mean, first off, it's a very lonely process. But it's also, I guess, a very lonely process when it's something that I'm just doing on my own, on my own timeline, completely in my head. And so I really am just the kind of writer that sits down and just bangs it out. Like, I kind of fly by the seat of my pants. I have a general outline in my head, but I don't do any formal outlining.
[00:07:46] And I have a word count, so I write a certain number of words a day, but then I don't go back and edit. I don't make anything perfect until I'm like 50 pages in, because then I would get out of my flow. There's the thing. So but when you're working with another person, you really have to have a robust outline and you have to be very clear about where you're going, where the story's going. And communication is so key to make sure that each person is able to do the work they need to do on the page. And so Christine and I had a very, very, detailed outline for We Are Not Like Them. And we also work in Google Docs which is really the only way to collaborate.
[00:08:31] Everyone in publishing hates Google Docs. They want to work in Word for the rest of their lives. God bless them. So I had to drag Christine kicking and screaming into this century, and I finally did. That was our first fight. So we just kind of each one of us will start a chapter and then the other one will go in and start to layer on top of it, and then the other one goes in. So we each really had our hands in every sentence of this document, which I think is pretty, pretty, amazing. But it was a process. It's not easy.
[00:09:08] You have to figure out, like I said, how to communicate exactly what you need. It's like a marriage in a lot of ways because it's like, okay, I really love this sentence and this crazy metaphor about an ice skating rink. I want to keep this. And otherwise how will your co-author know, they might just delete it? They wouldn't know not to delete it. So, yeah, it was a two year process of figuring out how to work together, and now we're really good at it. So now we're like, oh, we can write a ton of books together. But it wasn't easy in the beginning.
Annie [00:09:46] I love the idea of -- we use Google Docs at The Bookshelf constantly like as a staff, and I just love it's really actually so beautiful. It's almost like listening to an artist or a chef, like, thinking about piling on ingredients and working together. It's really a lovely picture and amazing. I think the final work then is so amazing to comprehend because what a lot of work and collaboration and, I don't know, kind of seeing the underbelly always makes me appreciate the art and the effort that goes into writing a book. I wanted to ask, I think, Christine, you might have alluded to it, but Jo, you did as well. The two of you had worked together previously, Christine as an editor, Jo as a writer.
[00:10:33] What was the impetus to co-write instead of continuing your professional relationship or your friendship as is? And how risky did it feel to embark on a different kind of project? Because I joke, there are some friends, for example, who you would never travel with, right? Because it would just end in disaster. I'm not speaking necessarily from personal experience. I'm just saying not everyone travels well together. Not everyone works well together. And so what was the impetus for changing your relationship, changing your working relationship and even perhaps risking the relationship and friendship you'd already developed to try tackling this work
Christine [00:11:13] That is such a good question, and I think looking back, pure hubris in a lot of ways. You know what I mean? As we talked about, when Jo and I met I was her editor for her wonderful novel, Charlotte Walsh Likes To Win. And we just worked really well together. And that's a close relationship that editors and authors often develop, right? You're talking all the time, you're working together towards a creative pursuit. there's a lot of vulnerability involved and so it can be very bonding. And we also started to develop a personal friendship at the same time. And we worked on Charlotte Walsh Likes To Win together.
[00:11:54] But then we worked on this other project where I was publishing a tie-in to the television show Younger. Which I'm sure you have a lot of podcast listeners, book people who love the show Younger since it started publishing. And I hired Jo to be the writer for that book. But it had to be done so quickly that all of the editor-author boundaries just completely broke down. That was my first intro to a Google Doc, actually. And so the two of us were in this Google Doc working together because it had to be done in, I mean, like four weeks. It was an insane turnaround time. Yes, that's the whole novel in about four weeks. Nuts when you look back.
Annie [00:12:39] Was that Marriage Vacation?
Christine [00:12:43] Yes.
Annie [00:12:43] I read that book.This is fascinating to me. I feel like I'm nerding out listening to this. That's fascinating.
Christine [00:12:50] You [Inaudible] read Marriage Vacation. It was a fun project, but obviously very different from We are not Like Them. I mean, it was a very commercial, lighthearted rom, you know, kind of book. And so this is in January 2018 when we finished that project and we were both sort of trying to figure out what was next. And I was very happy being an editor. I was still working full time at Simon and Schuster. And Jo had built a long career writing books on her own, and we could have continued on each of those parallel paths. But I had this idea kicking around for a while that, sort of, grew out of all the harrowing headlines about police violence where I was personally thinking about my interracial friendships and sort of how they would be affected if my friend and I were more intimately involved in such a tragedy.
[00:13:45] And it seemed like a ripe area for exploration in fiction. And then it seemed like a good, unique opportunity for Jo and I to partner again on this. Again, with the idea of bringing our separate experiences and perspectives to the table to tell a story that would be different, better or richer even then if either of us tackle the story on our own -- you know, the same story. And so I went to Jo, we joke it was like a little bit of a proposal, with this idea to see if she'd be game to do it. And we really did just kind of jump in to it and we didn't tell anybody, right? It was just, okay, let's do this on the side and see what happens here. And we put together a partial about 100 pages before we showed it to an agent. And then here we are all these years later, which is still surreal to think about.
Annie [00:14:50] So one of the things that has come up in some of my other conversations with authors in the last, you know, 20 or so months, is what it's been like for authors to release their books into the world during a pandemic. Like, none of us could have predicted what that process would look like, what book tours would look like, what people would be interested in reading and buying. And the other thing obviously we didn't know would be happening is just all of the, kind of, cultural turmoil around the pandemic, health care, racial injustice, all of these things kind of culminating and really coming to a head. And I have been astonished. I don't know if surprised is fully the right word because I do think authors and artists act as prophets a little bit right. They kind of guide us through the cultural moment.
[00:15:39] And so, I think your book certainly is doing that. At the same time, you couldn't have predicted in 2018 or early 2019 or whenever you were in this Google Doc together, there was no way you could have known where we'd be when your book released in fall of 2021. And which I just find so fascinating these books that are releasing and that are so incredibly timely. Were you writing through the pandemic? I know that Christine kind of shed some light on the early parts of the novel, but Jo, maybe you can talk about were you writing through 2020? Were you writing through a pandemic, through the kind of political upheaval? What was happening in your lives as writers? And did that find its way into the book?
Jo [00:16:23] Well, the easy answer is, no. We were not really fully writing through the pandemic. But I love what you said about authors being prophets because I believe that it and I also believe that books have this kind of magical way of coming out into the world when they're supposed to come out. So just to give you a timeline, Christine approached me with this idea at the very beginning of 2018, January 2018. And we started working on the idea and writing up that 100 page partial between then and about August 2018. We sold it in the fall of 2018.
Annie [00:17:05] Wow.
Jo [00:17:06] And then we're writing off through 2019, turned it in spring of 2020 literally right after we went into lockdown. So we were doing all this. So when we were first starting, Zoom wasn't a thing that you did. I remember a bunch of companies that I worked for kept trying to introduce Zoom, and everyone's like, no, this is dumb. So sometimes we would Google Hangout, but mostly we just talked on the phone and worked in the Google Doc. And so we were pretty much finished by the time the pandemic hit. We turned the book in, and then also right after that came the murder of George Floyd.
Annie [00:17:45] Yeah.
Jo [00:17:49] We have been so passionate about this subject. We knew it was such an important subject. But then all of a sudden the world started thinking about it in a different way. And so that summer we spent time reflecting on what was happening in America and the rest of the world. And we had the manuscript back, we read it, made sure it still worked, changed a couple of small things, but really not a lot at all. The book was so fully formed because frankly -- and I'll let Christine speak a little more to this.
[00:18:25] We were drawing from so many instances of police violence against black bodies, particularly black men that happened before George Floyd. You know, there's just such a history of it. And so then we pretty quickly went into the final marketing phase of the book. But we do really feel that it came out when it was time for it to come out, when it was time for it to start sparking these kinds of discussions, particularly about a little over a year after George Floyd's murder so that people were ready to have those discussions.
Annie [00:19:07] So when I read, We Are Not Like Them and always when I am reading -- I'm a bookseller, and so when I'm reading I'm constantly thinking, who can I sell this to? And and also I think it's my like little liberal arts humanities brain. I'm constantly thinking what books would these be in conversation with? So when I'm reading, I'm constantly kind of coming up with comp titles, and I'm sure in publishing, Christine, you probably maybe have done that too or something like that.
[00:19:35] But while I was reading, I kept thinking, oh, I feel like I could sell this to fans of Small, Great Things by Jodi Picoult or Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, books that are plot driven, their fast paced, but they also hold and handle a lot of nuance and character development. Books that make great book club fodder which is something as a bookseller that I'm constantly looking for and interested in. So I'm curious what books you both would place kind of on the same shelf or in the same reading stack as We Are Not Like Them?
Christine [00:20:09] I think the comps that you just mentioned are great and we actually do reference those a lot. And I think another one is An American Marriage by Terry Jones, which is such a favorite of mine and crowd favorite. But the same idea where you're looking at the issue of race or how race impacts your lives or people's lives through the lens of an intimate relationship, right? So in this case, it's a marriage, but sort of you have your marriage, but then you have all the other external factors in this case mass incarceration in the criminal justice system that become a factor in relationships. And so that, to me, feels like a cousin to our book. But we also point to nonfiction too Sometimes. I mean, we made a very conscious decision to write a novel. Because we felt like this was a way to foster empathy and a way into what can be a fraught subject that is beyond and behind the shocking headlines you see and more personalized than some of those headlines.
[00:21:21] And for readers potentially who are not reading nonfiction or not reading Atlantic articles about police violence and mass incarceration, et cetera. But Heather McGhee's book, The Sum of Us came out this year, which is a book I just loved so much. And so sometimes I think of our book in concert with that, where readers will say things like -- white readers, I should clarify, will say things like, "I didn't know that. I didn't understand that. I didn't realize that." Which is great. But even for greater understanding beyond that of how to be an ally or how to understand racial history or racial dynamics in America, that is the perfect nonfiction book to read because it really cogently connects so many dots in so many different arenas, but in such a warm, accessible, conversational style. So that would be a book that I would really recommend to your customers.
Annie [00:22:29] I love that. And I'm glad that you brought up. There is something -- and as as a booksellers I see it all the time where a reader might not be willing or interested in reading a dense nonfiction work. But I can hand sell them a fiction book that then they can turn around and share with their book club. But on the other end, I also love when a fiction work leads to further research, right? And leads to a reader wanting to dig more deeply into a subject. And so I can certainly see how that would apply here. So I love hearing other comps and other recommendations. I've mentioned book clubs a couple of times because I remember when I was reading this, I thought, oh gosh, this would just make a great conversation. And, again, as a bookstore owner, I think sometimes fiction is the best way to start having these conversations.
[00:23:23] And so I have put this book into the hands of of local readers and book club leaders because I think it's such a great conversation starter and a good book to introduce to a friend group. But I'm wondering, now that the book has been out for a little while, what has the response been from readers and what did it look like [Inaudible] release your book? Were you able to do in-person conversations? Because these are the kind of conversations I like to have in person like, you know, love to host authors. I love to host authors in my store so that people can get this face-to-face experience, but I don't know if you all were doing that. And so I'm curious, what have your conversations with readers looked like? And then, you know, were those conducted virtually? What has the response been since releasing the book?
Jo [00:24:09] You know, I adore a good in-person event, I do. I just think it is such an incredible and intimate way to connect with readers. And you know from owning a bookstore, like sometimes they're so amazing and sometimes two people and a Poodle show up. Things that literally happened to me once in Nasheville, and it's fine. There's nothing you can do to control it. And that was a really sweet Poodle to be honest. We have done a mix of in-person and virtual events, not as many in-person as I would like. We got to launch in New York at McNally Jackson, which was really special because Christine and I have so many friends in the publishing world there, and they all got to come and it was like kind of a homecoming of sorts. It was the first time so many people have seen each other in so many years, and we actually walked down the aisle of chairs. It felt like our wedding. Is amazing.
[00:25:05] And then we went to Nashville to Ann Patchett's amazing bookstore, Parnassus. We've also been doing a virtual event. It feels like almost every night or at least three days a week, sometimes two. And I think that is the benefit of things going virtual that we can reach readers from our house, right? I think, personally, virtual events are more exhausting than in-person, I get so much energy from being with readers and being with crowds that I don't get from staring at a screen. But we're hoping to keep doing them because we're so mission oriented about this book. Our goal is to start discussions, to start what we believe are really important discussions about social justice and race, but also about friendship and what it means to be a woman living in the world right now and a woman grappling with all of these subjects. So we're tired, but we're just going to keep going and hopefully we can do more in-person in-store events for the paperback release.
Annie [00:26:12] As I was reading the book, I did fall in love with this lifelong friendship between Jen and Riley and what that friendship looked like. It was hard to read, but I did love these really awkward kind of brutal moments between these lifelong friends and how uncomfortable they became at certain points. And I think the best books cause us to think and move us to talk about things that we might not normally want to talk about. And I'm wondering, how did writing this book change and affect your own friendship with each other, but also the conversations you're having in your other relationships?
Christine [00:26:52] Yeah, you know, we really wanted to write a book about friendship that was front and center. Like, oh, you know, this book is topical and all. We've discussed beyond and behind the headlines and social justice. Certainly, all that is true as well. But the core of this book being about two lifelong friends was really important to us because you see so many books about romantic love, so much pop culture directed at romantic love, which you know is great. You know, everyone loves love, but we wanted to show a relationship that's just as serious, profound, long term, meaningful and valid.
[00:27:40] But also is, as you mentioned, fraught. And I think that that is such a part of friendship in this case with Riley and Jen our characters, they have this huge issue to grapple with in terms of they really haven't addressed race in their friendship because they became friends when they were so young. It really wasn't something that had come up for them in the course of their friendship until it really does and in a big way and they have to confront it. But, certainly, we all have issues in our friendships and things that we don't talk about and unspoken grievances and tensions and changes in our closeness over the years.
[00:28:19] Or when somebody has a baby and somebody doesn't, and or somebody gets married and somebody doesn't, and somebody moves across the country, and all of those things become stressors and factors in friendships. And I think for Jo and I, a stressor and a factor is deciding, as you mentioned, Annie, at the beginning of this talk, becoming colleagues. You know, like embarking on this kind of collaboration, we had to change, adjust, examine the dynamics in our friendship and working relationship. And so that's just one kind of a meta example of how, you know, a friendship in real life mirrors our friendship on the page.
[00:29:04] Similarly, you know, Jo and I have a lot of conversations about race, which we had not before being relatively new friends and starting our relationship in a professional capacity. And so that really mirrors Riley and Jen's experiences on the page. I mean, there are different reasons that we hadn't talked about race, but the fact of it was still that these conversations needed to happen and they were fraught and uncomfortable, right? And so we had to live through that in the same way that our characters do too.
Annie [00:29:38] I did appreciate -- you know, I really love a book that doesn't tie things in a bow. And I felt like Riley and Jen's relationship could have become, I don't know, so cookie cutter or it could have become almost like a moral fable or something like that. And instead, I found their friendship and their relationship incredibly real because of those moments of awkwardness or maybe anger or frustration. And I appreciate that those characters were left to be maybe more real than caricature.
Jo [00:30:17] Well, thanks. And we really appreciate that because that was just something we talked about so much. That we didn't want anyone to feel like a stop character. We wanted to avoid tropes and cliches and stereotypes, and we wanted to show the real messiness of life and friendship in the human condition and also the difficulties of broaching race in America. It is one of the most difficult topics in our country, and I think it's such an American thing in particular how much we demonize the concept of talking about race. I remember referring to white people mostly and we wanted to show that. So I'm just so grateful that you picked up on all that.
Christine [00:31:01] Yeah. Adding quickly, it's so interesting is that I was reading -- I mean, we've had an overwhelmingly positive response to the book and it's amazing. But I think, you know, sometimes if there's a quibble about the story, I think it's really interesting that it's often that Jen -- without getting any spoilers away, but this perception that Jen has not learned enough. Or does not become enough of an ally or is not woke enough. There are all these various ways of describing it, which I think is so interesting. To your point, Annie, it's like in real life, let alone in the course of a book, somebody doesn't go from, oh, my gosh I know this to, oh wow, like, I'm the perfect ally and I'm going to say all the right things and do all the right things in the course of 300 pages or the span of a book, if you want.
[00:31:48] So that's really interesting to me that people, which I understand sometims long for a more tidy, conclusive, and dramatic change in perspective. Which wouldn't we all loved but that in real life as a novel, you know, you don't have that kind of radical turnaround. And so that's one thing that Jo and I really stressed to was that this is such a process and that it's not one conversation. It's not one turning point. It's not one epiphany and everything's Kumbaya after that. Riley and Jen will have to go in and have many other conversations. Jo and I have too many other conversations. Readers will have too many other conversations. Like this is a journey that we're all on. [Inaudible] interesting insight into human nature.
Annie [00:32:46] Yes. Well, I thought, I'm so glad you brought that up because I read the book a few months ago, and then I was doing some research for our interview and I read a couple of reviews that I thought, oh, well, that's an interesting critique. You know, I'm always interested in criticism and critique. But one of the criticisms just felt like, but wait, these characters feel very real to me. Like they feel like, yeah, people in real life don't always have a kind of miraculous turnarounds or these epiphanies that you mentioned. So I appreciated that part of the book so very much because I felt like Jen and Riley were people I could easily be friends with or a relationship that I could easily have.
Christine [00:33:31] For better or worse. And with all these walls. Like, you know, I think a fair question that readers will ask is, "Why are these two women friends?" You know, what brought them together? What keeps them together? And what is going to keep them together in the future? And that all invites our judgment, which is fine. Readers should judge characters. Readers should just not judge the author. Some of those characters [Inaudible] if make sense, but we all do that, you know.
Annie [00:34:01] Yeah. So, Jo, I feel like you alluded to the fact that you and Christine kind of got this down to a science? You collaborated, you figured out Google Docs. I'm curious what's next for you both? And will you, you know, continue co-writing together? Or are you embarking on some solo projects? What's next for you both?
Jo [00:34:20] We can finally talk about it, actually. We just sold another book to Simon Schuster, to Atria our same editor, called You Were Always Mine which is totally different. It is not the same characters, but it does still tackle the idea of race in intimate spaces. So in this case, it is a mother daughter relationship and an adoption story where a black woman adopts a white baby. And so we are actively working on that. We have about 60 pages done -- 50, 60. It changes every day. Sometimes it goes down. Sometimes it goes up. But, yeah, we're working on that right now and we're negotiating a potential television show for We Are Not Like Them, which we're planning on writing the screenplay for. So lots and lots going on.
Annie [00:35:14] Wow. Congratulations. That's awesome.
Christine [00:35:17] Thank you. It's exciting. Although, I was writing a little bit this morning and all the writers listening to this will appreciate that, I feel like it's a little bit like you've run a marathon. Not that I've ever done that, so this is a really forced metaphor for me, but it's like you've run a marathon and then you get to the end and someone's like, "Now, go do it again." I'm like, "What, but I'm tired."
Annie [00:35:43] Yes. Yeah. Well, I'm very excited. That sounds like a fascinating premise, so I'm excited to read it. We're about to wrap up, but I do have some what I call lightning round questions that I try to ask guests of From the Front Porch. So we'll do these relatively quickly and you can share your answers to each question. The first is, what is a classic book you've never read but wish you had?
Jo [00:36:07] I'll go first. I've never read The Secret History, which is not a classic but it is like a book -- I mean, because it's not that old, but it is about the people talk about all the time.
Annie [00:36:19] Yeah. I'd call it a modern classic. Yeah.
Jo [00:36:20] It's a modern classic and people talk about it all the time and I've never read it. But I'm about to start it because I just started listening to the podcast about Donna Tartt at Bennington College.
Annie [00:36:30] Yes.
Jo [00:36:33] It's very good. It's very good. I interviewed the podcast creator Lily Anolik and I feel like I'm a jerk for not reading the book, so I'm going to start.
Christine [00:36:40] Mine is actually similar. It's Middlesex, which I don't think is like a conventional classic, but the same idea where it feels like the book that everybody read that I just did not. It sort of passed me by. And, yeah, that's on the list.
Annie [00:37:01] Yes, the ever growing list, right? That's the whole problem sometimes with going back and reading a classic. There's so many new books out. It's hard to find time.This is obviously for our store podcast called From the Front Porch. I'm wondering what podcasts you guys listen to and love?
Jo [00:37:18] Oh, this is a lot because I live in podcasts. I'm going to toot my own horn. The second season of my podcast Under the Influence is coming out in early January, and we're actually launching a new podcast called The Pod Club, which is a podcast about podcasts. [crosstalk] But I was going to say we have to have you on to talk about book club podcasts because we're going to be every week.
Annie [00:37:46] So fun. Yes. Give me a call.
Christine [00:37:48] I will toot a horn too because I only listened to two podcasts. I'm not a huge podcast listener. So I listened to Committed which was Jo's first podcast, which is amazing about couples and various stories. And then my other one is also on on theme with that, which is Esther Pareles podcast where she counsel couples and you, kind of, eavesdrop on their counseling session, which I live for. So [Inaudible] I religiously listen to.
Annie [00:38:17] And perhaps the most important question for a bookseller to ask, a bookstore owner to ask, What are you reading right now?
Jo [00:38:24] I've been doing a lot of reading right now because I'm doing this thing this year for Christmas. There's a tradition in Iceland which I'm not going to say because I don't know how to pronounce the word. I should really learn how to pronounce the word if I'm going to keep talking about this in interviews where they give books as presents on Christmas Eve. And I'm doing it, but I'm also reading all the books that I gift before I gift them to make sure people will love them. And the one that I just finished last night was State of Terror by Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny, and I loved it. I love a good political thriller. Really love me some Louise Penny.
[00:39:02] But what I really enjoyed about it was it had this great subplot about a lifelong female friendship that was so beautiful and based on Hillary Clinton's own lifelong best friend. And it's just it was such a celebration of friendship that lasts for decades and decades, and it was beautiful. I also just finished Jodi Picoult's new COVID novel Wish You Were Here, which had a little dose of magical realism in it that I didn't expect, but I really enjoyed. And now last night I started the Amar Towles, Lincoln Highway which everyone else has already read, so no spoilers, but so far, it's good. I like it. I've been reading mostly books by women lately, so reading a book by a dude is a different kind of experience.
Christine [00:39:51] I am reading a gally on ARC which is the beauty of being in publishing, you often like to read things early. So I'm reading a galley for a book that's coming out this May from Random House by a friend of mine. It's called Neruda in the park by Clay Nitara. Everybody look for it. But I just started it yesterday. It's a sweeping story about a Dominican family in Washington Heights, and the writing is so lush and beautiful, and I'm so excited for her. So keep your eyes out for that one, everyone.
Annie [00:40:26] Thank you, Christine and Jo. I loved chatting with both of you, and I love their new book. We Are Not Like Them out in hardcover now. You can get your copy at".
[00:40:37] thebookshelfthomasville.com.
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