Poured Over: Sarah Addison Allen on Other Birds

“I think they grew out of the setting of this weird island, this odd place, this place of southern stories and ghosts and food and how they are misfits, but they find their tribe, they find where they belong with other people who think they don’t belong either. And I think that is a universal truth for us all.” Sarah Addison Allen’s charming new novel, Other Birds, is our September B&N Book Club pick and she joins us on the show to talk about ghosts, unconditional love, mothers and mothering, place as a character, the problem with notebooks, her writing process, and more with guest host Allyson Gavaletz. And we end the episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.

Featured Books (episode)

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

Bittersweet by Susan Cain

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson

Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

Featured Books (TBR Topoff)

Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

This episode of Poured Over was produced and hosted by Allyson Gavaletz and mixed by Harry Liang. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.

Full transcript for this episode:

B&N: Hello everyone, I’m Allyson Gavaletz, let’s have bookseller at Barnes and Noble. Today I’m talking with the wonderful Sarah Addison Allen, the author of Other Birds, which is the Barnes and Noble September Book Club pick. Sarah, I’m so happy to be talking to you today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Sarah Addison Allen: Thank you. I am thrilled to be here.

B&N: I have to tell you, I was new to you as an author before I read this book, and then I went back and read a few more, and I love them. And I’m just so thrilled that you’re here talking to us today. Thank you.

SAA: Thank you.

B&N: So it had been a while since you had written a book. And here you are. What was it seven years later?

SAA: It’s seven years since I’ve had a book out. Yeah, it’s been a while.

B&N: Does it feel exciting?

SAA: It feels like a newbie all over again. It’s like oh, the nerves and I’ve forgotten a lot of the process of what it takes to put a book out into the world. So it’s almost like relearning it.

B&N: Has a lot of it changed since COVID. And everything going virtual, or is it kind of similar?

SAA: It’s very different. This kind of thing didn’t exist. I mean, when, because it was, you know, the pandemic happened, and a lot of this stuff went virtual. So it’s been that in itself has been a learning process, not just for me, but for everyone.

B&N: So I have so many questions for you. I don’t think we’re gonna get through all of them. But I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful. Because I loved this book. So it’s, it’s such a satisfying book, and it takes you on so many journeys right up to the end, I loved it. It’s a book featuring people who are basically a bunch of misfits. And every single person has a deeper story, just like all of us, what made you want to write about these characters?

SAA: I had an idea that the main character would be a young woman, and she would be basically on her own for the first time. And I liked the idea of almost a Melrose Place, you know, encapsulated capsulated condo setting, where you have a bunch of different people forced to interact. And that was, that’s vers what brought it to mind for me in terms of misfits, but I think they grew out of the setting of this weird island, this odd place, this place of southern stories and ghosts and food and how they are misfits, but they find their tribe, they find where they belong with other people who think they don’t belong, either. And I think that is a universal truth for us all.

B&N: Yeah, it’s true. There’s always a character, the main person who we’re talking about, and she, I love her because she just finds goodness in everyone. Even those who don’t seem like they have it in them. She just has such hope for everybody. But did anyone inspire this character for you?

SAA: I think it comes from, well, my niece is a teenager. So, she has just started her freshman year in college. And so she is roughly the same age as Zoe. So I did take some inspiration from her. But I also I can, I can recall so clearly what it’s like to be that age, to be a teenager to be out in the world and to think that you are so grown up. And yet you have no idea how much more you have to learn. And so I think her innocence comes from remembering what it’s like to be 19.

B&N: It was so cute to look back and be like, Man, I think I used to have hope like that. It was she’s such a refreshing character in that way.

SAA: We all want to retain a little of that. And as we get older, we realize how much we don’t. But I think I don’t like looking back at yearbooks. Do you ever look back and go wow, you know what I thought I knew and what I didn’t know and there’s this big thing we always ask you to ask ourselves, if we could we go back we go back and knowing what we know now, would we go back and change things? And I’m not sure I would.

B&N: And it’s so interesting because it’s also like yeah, would you go back but also, Am I all where I thought I would be you know if any of this expected is any of this a surprise? What is what is expected? Where am I totally somewhere different? It’s such a cool thing to reflect back.

SAA: There was something on Twitter a while back where there was hashtag tweet your 16 year old self what would you tell yourself at 16? I wouldn’t listen to myself at 16.

B&N: At one point in the book Charlotte and Zoey are eating potato chips sandwiches because it reminds me of her mom. foods can bring up so many memories and food is such a theme throughout many of your books. Do you have go to foods that bring you back to a certain time do you enjoy cooking or baking?

SAA: Potato chip sandwiches remind me of my dad and I will say yes I will still eat them from time to time they have to be Lay’s potato chips and they have to be white bread. Two things I almost never have in my house. I am not a cook. I’m not a baker. I mean, I can follow recipes, but I don’t find a lot of pleasure in. In the preparation of food, I love consuming food. And I love the magical nature of food and how it can make you feel. But mostly I love how when food is given to you as a gift, or you know, if something is prepared for you how it extends, it’s like an extension of, of love. And always makes me think of my mom and how she was a big cook. And when she would cook. It was it was food is love that that and for her food was love. And so I grew up with a mom who fed me and who showed me love through food. And I think that’s how that’s why it ends up in so many of my books.

B&N: Yeah. So there’s a couple, there’s a tribute to each of your parents in this book.

SAA: Absolutely. Yeah.

B&N: That’s so nice. Speaking of your mother in various acknowledgments in your book, you talk about you having breast cancer, you and your mother and sister passing away within days of each other is writing something that’s cathartic for you it do feel compelled to write during hard times?

SAA: When I had breast cancer. The past decade was, you know, one of a lot of changes. For me, I started it 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And that took some time off from writing when I was going through treatment. And I didn’t write when I was going through treatment. It was I mean, it was hard emotionally, it was also hard physically. But I couldn’t wait to get back to writing because it was getting back to something normal anyway, for when I had breast cancer, I wanted to get back into writing. When my mom got so sick, she had a massive brain hemorrhage, and it left her profoundly brain damaged. And I watched her die for four years. And it was horrific. It was just such it was a horrible time. And I fell into a very deep depression during this time. And I couldn’t write my just I had no words. And my sister died 10 days before my mom died. And you know, the thing about grief is I’ve learned that, you know, it’s sort of like a boulder you carry on your back or your shoulder. And after a while it gets smaller and smaller. And until it’s the size of a pebble and you put it in your pocket, and you carry it around for the rest of your life. You still feel it, you still know it’s there. But it’s no longer that weight. And it took me it took time for me to come out of that it took time. For the grief to lessen. At some point I thought I want to get back into writing and I need to do because I’d started this book, I’d started Other Birds before before my mom had her stroke. And I came back into it with an entirely different viewpoint because you know, no spoilers, but the ghosts in the book are maternal figures, they are mainly the mothers. And I hadn’t known that before my mom’s strokes, but and I set the book aside and when I came back after she died, the book had an entirely different meaning for me and I think I it had so much more dimension to it. And it it came from a much more heartfelt and and place of experience than if I had written the book before all this happened.

B&N: I think anybody who experiences something heavy comes back to the world. Just with a deeper sense of understanding of everything. And then almost more with more love almost to give

SAA: I wonder what books are gonna look like or, you know, after COVID after the after the you know, this big devastating thing that we has, you know, a planet went through what is literature gonna look like? What are books coming out right now? Do they reflect that?

B&N: I have been curious about that. Yeah, I think a lot of self help books.

SAA: I am not surprised.

B&N: Charlotte and Zoey, are similar in the fact that they don’t really have anyone in their lives that they care about. No family or extremely close friends. But they come at it so differently. Charlotte’s very guarded and suspicious of everyone and Zoey just want someone to love and rent everyone with open arms, as we talked about, do you relate to either of those characters? Or is there one that you kind of have both?

SAA: I am a little more guarded. As, as Charlotte is.

B&N: Yeah, I just love both those characters and I just loved how much they really got along and really kind of helped each other bloom a little bit. And you know, I think they Charlotte had such an effect on Zoey just being a bit older and being very cool and kind of a little bit of a role model. But I think that we had an effect on Charlotte in the sense of like, oh, I can be more open. Maybe I can become friends with people and not have to run everywhere and it was a very lovely um The arc of their friendship to watch in this book.

SAA: Oh, thank you. And I think that goes back to actually you being forced together in this, you know, sort of small condo setting that they would have never gravitated to each other other if they hadn’t been neighbors.

B&N: The condo is such a character in the book in its own right. And I found myself really just being so charmed by it and wishing I could live in a place like it and picturing what it looked like in my mind and picturing the patio that Charlotte talked about and how the apartments maybe were and where Lucy was watching. And, and then if I kind of would have been maybe a little bit mad if they had to put up a gate and all that kind of stuff. But was this based on a place or just something that I mean, I know he said Melrose Place but other than that, I mean, is there a place in in the Carolinas that is like this? Or is it just a dream?

SAA: It’s just a dream, I think when I saw it in my head, I saw it as that horseshoe shape. And so I remember looking up online seeing if anyone anywhere had converted stables into a places to live. And I did find some place in England in which it was just a single sort of, almost like an Airbnb. And it had that sort of cobblestone look to it. And so I think that’s how the exterior formed in my head.

B&N: It was just so sweet. And I love it was a little off the beaten path. It was just like one of the most ideal places I could ever think to live. And it was very interesting. You know, after I know, we shouldn’t say spoilers, but after someone leaves the area, if you will, the condos. There’s a heaviness that goes away. And everybody feels you know, that’s kind of when people start coming out. And everybody just feels so much more able to be themselves and make friends. And I thought that was such an interesting thing to have a person who’s so heavy over everybody.

SAA: And I think that if anyone’s ever lived in a condo or apartment like setting they know that there is that one person the one person is always looking out the curtains, or always yelling at kids for screaming or thinking that, I think everyone knows that person.

B&N: Yeah, that we do. I live in an apartment and yes, I do. And if you don’t know them, then you are that person.

SAA: Oops.

B&N: But it’s I mean, it’s just she was such a great character. I mean, all of them are great characters, but just such a such quirky characters and I love them all.

SAA: Thank you.

B&N: And in fact, at one point Frasier says, I don’t just to Zoey, I don’t know about you. But I’d much rather be an other bird than just the same old thing. This is so wonderfully sums up the characters in your book. And it’s something I related to very much I consider myself an other bird. I think my friends and I are other birds. Do you have other birds? Are you in other bird? Do you want to be another bird?

SAA: I’m definitely an other bird. I’ve been another bird all my life. And it’s, you know, going back to that sense of belonging when we find our flock, you know, it’s such a great feeling. But it doesn’t mean that we’ve found people who are exactly like us, we find people with whom we can be ourselves. It’s finding the person who loves you, just as you are. In fact, I think that’s a quote from the book too. If the people around you don’t love you, just as you are, find new people. They’re out there.

B&N: Yes, that was one of the things I wrote down to I that’s one of the best pieces of advice. And I said I wanted to frame it and shout it out to everybody. I kind of want to get it tattooed on me. Because I think that there are so many people, especially when you’re Zoe’s age and quite young that you do feel like you’re generally in the same town and you know, maybe like minded people, and you can’t really see where things are different. Or people could think differently than anyone that you’re around. And it’s it is such a wonderful piece of advice of just like, go find new people. It may not be exactly where you are in this moment or in this place. But there’s people out there for everybody. And isn’t that such a wonderful thing to hear?

SAA: It is and I wish someone well, I you know, I say I wish someone had told me that when I was younger, but I wouldn’t have listened. I wouldn’t have believed it. You know, I think it’s just comes from experience.

B&N: Yeah, absolutely. I think it also comes from the right person telling you absolutely. You know, I think the person that told Zoey was so formative in her life, that it was someone that she would have listened to. I agree. Like, if my mom had said it to me, I’ve been like, you know, or a couple of my friends have been like, yeah, yeah, but I think it’s, it’s, it doesn’t ring true until it’s someone that you ring true with.

SAA: Right. Or if you read it in a book, you have that passage that you underline or that you know, that you will earmark, you know, and you keep that book forever, and you go back to that and books can be trusted sources.

B&N: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, you are leading me right to all my questions. When Zoey worked at the bookstore, she had been fascinated to see what passages customers marked when they brought them back in. And she had actually said it was a crime to forget passages like this. So beautiful, they made you breathless. And I loved that, because there’s so many books that I read, you know, where I don’t underline them, but I fold the pages and I think about writing them down, or perhaps getting them framed or, you know, kind of focusing on them for a while. And then I kind of forget that I, you know, dog eared the page. Do you have a way? How do you figure out which passages are important? And how to remember them?

SAA: Oh, wow, well, for me, it’s harder on an ebook than it isn’t in a physical book, I still buy a lot of either paper books. I have a notebook somewhere. And if at one point I did, I write down passages that and fairly recently, too, as of last year, or the year before last, I had to notebook and write down passages. But I also write down words I didn’t know and write out the definition of them. But the problem was, the problem with having a notebook somewhere is it gets put in a drawer. And you know, I think, I don’t know, we can’t remember everything, we can’t retain everything. And maybe it just comes at a time in our lives where it’s meant to come up, you know, a perfect quote or, or you know, something that resonates with you. And maybe you’re not supposed to retain it. And maybe it’s supposed to just be there at that moment. And then you move on, and then something else magical happens.

B&N: I guess that’s true. And then you also might remember the book, maybe not the passage, it could be that kind of love that book. And then it will bring you to it or pass it along to other people so that they might find their own passage that they like.

SAA: It’s almost like the saying that goes, you will not always remember what people say. But you will remember how they made you feel. I think books are the same way.

B&N: Yeah, absolutely. And I do love, always fascination with the two books and the author, Roscoe Vander in this book. And I just love kind of the little scavenger hunt, you know, that she goes through in Elizabeth’s apartment and just looking for this and how those, the love of that book or the curiosity of that book led to so many different things to I just every single thing, the person and all of the things in the book were such wonderful characters, and that scavenger hunt was just so cool. And was that book based on anything.

SAA: Other Birds has a book within it called Sweet Mallow. And so it was a book within a book and I tried to make it sort of a meta fictional, Sweet Mallow. Some elements of Sweet Mallow actually are mirrored in other birds itself. So the book was in the book, but sweet mellow was a To Kill a Mockingbird kind of book. It was about the old South and wait race relations. And it was that one big book by this writer that everyone knew and then he didn’t write anything else that anyone knew of. So the book was in a book the Sweet Mallow, it was based on To Kill a Mockingbird. Which is one of my favorite books.

B&N: Oh, me too. I haven’t read it in so long. I need to go back and reread it. It is such a great book. Another question I have for you is speaking of Lisbeth, when they were looking for her stories, when they were cleaning out her apartment, Charlotte and Zoe, they realized they may never find them. And Charlotte says to Zoey that maybe some stories aren’t meant to be told. And Zoey is very uneasy with that and says what happens to them? Where do they go? If you never share your stories with at least one other person? Does that mean they weren’t real? That they never really existed? How do you feel about that as a writer because you write fiction. So you’re not writing your stories. But you wrote this very profound statement about one story is being shared? And do they exist if they’re not shared? So what is that like as a fiction writer to maybe include stories of your own? Or are they fully fully made up?

SAA: I’ve always said that fiction is always sort of smoky mirror of the author. They’re, they’re not. They don’t always have to do with the author’s life. But I think they have to do with the Office experience. But I think in that particular quote, I was thinking of not only fiction, but family stories of, of, if you don’t tell the next generation the stories of your family or, or what that picture meant, or you know, who who this great aunt was. It’s lost, who else knows, and having to clean out my mom’s house, particularly without my sister because you know, I only had one sibling was my sister and there was something we were supposed to do together and it was something my mom’s belongings there were some things that only Sidney my sister and I would know and now there’s a We meet and it’s become this, I need to tell my niece, my sister’s daughter, the one who just started college. I need to tell her these stories. And so I think that particular quote is not only about fiction, it’s about family stories.

B&N: Yeah, it’s so interesting. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, too. Because I don’t have children. I have a niece. And like, where? Yeah, where do those family stories go? Where do the heirlooms go if you don’t have that next generation, it’s a very interesting thing. So, it’s lovely to be able to write family into books and have someone to share that stuff with. I love the idea of people we’ve lost staying with us after they pass. Do you feel your mom and sister around you? Do you believe in that? I know you write about it. But do you personally believe in that? Do you feel them around you?

SAA: I sincerely wish that I did. I I know that they’re here, because I think of them all the time. And I talk to them. But I don’t even dream about them. I wish I did. But I think that element of the book is definitely wish fulfillment for me. Something I wish was true.

B&N: Yeah. Interesting. It’s funny, I had a friend passed away. And a few years ago, and I have a friend that dreams about her. And I’ve always like, she never comes to visit me in my dreams. You’re so lucky. Why did she come visit you? I absolutely understand the wishing for. Does your niece feel her? Like? Does anybody in your family? Do you believe in that?

SAA: Surprisingly, my dad was a writer. And my niece also likes her right. But aside from just talking about them to each other, all three of us, we haven’t had any sort of we smell them or they were here or there was a draft that went by or you know, maybe was there a glitter in the side of the room? No, we’ve never had that. I think, ha, I absolutely believe there’s a lot of there’s a lot of things we can’t explain in real life. But for me, I they are they are somewhere else. I know that they are not gone. I just can’t see them. I can’t feel them wrong right now.

B&N: Right. But you’re right, you have the memories, you have their things you have the stories that we get to share about them.

SAA: And the more stories I tell the more she will live on for generations, my mom.

B&N: Absolutely. And that’s true, too. You know, it doesn’t always have to be written down. It can just be shared. And there might be a funny story that you will remember and tell somebody else. And they’ll be like, Oh, this reminds me of this funny story. Someone told me and they can get passed around that way too. And that’s a lovely way to keep people’s memories as well. Going back to Charlotte, another thing that she says in the book is, we all want to think we’re worth the trouble. And I thought that was so interesting, because she’s such a guarded character. And you know, she is very sensitive, and she does have a tumultuous upbringing. And we don’t get to see so much about her and she doesn’t let her friends do so much about her. But I thought that was such a kind of opening to her personality and her where it shows to me kind of what she actually wants, but is afraid to say and I’m a very guarded person too. So and that that very much rang true with me, but can you just speak to that part?

SAA: I think she comes from a place where she had to protect herself. I mean, I think there are there are people that children who are not given what they need growing up and they so they come to not expect it from anyone even as an adult. It is a human condition to wants to share to be with to to be understood. And although she thinks that what she’s doing is actually protecting herself it’s actually making her more unhappy. And so I think that she just needed the right person to come into her life, to see to tell her to show her you know what, the world isn’t all bad and it’s not full of bad people.

B&N: Because the characters are all so different each other and they’re all so strong or do you have a favorite one? Is that like picking a favorite child?

SAA: Well it is sometimes but I know for sure in Other Birds one of the ghosts Camille is probably my favorite character. She reminds me of my mom, especially in her way of thinking that food is love that you it’s it’s extending to another person, affection and Just the way she sticks around, because the person Mack needs her. She is completely willing to, you know, sort of settle in, in between, because that’s what he needs. And I think that it’s such a mother. It’s such a unconditional love kind of thing to do. I think she is my favorite character. And she says some of my favorite lines in the book too.

B&N: She is such a great character and she’s someone who I just could picture and just imagined exactly like the neighborhood woman that she was just taking all of her babies in and you know, just always had an open door and every neighborhood has one of apartment buildings have one of those two, they have the other one, but they have one of those two. And, you know, we all know that person and they are just so lovely. And I kept wanting to like I wish I could get a hug from Camille, she seems like she’d gives such great hugs and just the way that Mac really loved her in the way she took Mac in and she’s lovely. One of the things that was the that you brought up was the the ghost Camille and the people who are with them, it was so interesting to me, because they weren’t, it’s not like they weren’t ready to go necessarily was that the people wouldn’t let them go yet. And some of them wanted to go. And some of them wanted to stay forever. But that was such an interesting concept. Can you speak to that?

SAA: One of the ghosts, you know, does not want to leave and the others don’t necessarily want to leave, but they stay for the people who love them who still need them. I like the idea of that our personalities are still our personalities, even after we pass away, that we’re still learning stuff after we pass away that I don’t know that there is any truth to that. But I’d like to exploring the idea that even after death, there’s one character in particular, who learned so much about not only herself but the people around her so that when this person does pass on, she has learned something she didn’t learn in life. And I thought that was a fascinating concept.

B&N: Absolutely. And I also loved how they were almost looking out for each other too, you know, like she says, I have to go I you know, I thought that was so clever,

SAA: That they can see each other the ghosts can see each other and of course, you know, Camille as the ghost still wants to Mother people and tell them what to do and tell them this is the thing you should do. And this is my experience, let me help you that she’s still that. And she’s I like the idea that they could see each other and then that the rest of it, of course the characters couldn’t. But there was the ghost stories are the only parts in the book that are told in first person, they speak directly to the reader.

B&N: Yeah, it was so interesting. And I didn’t think about this till just now. But the people that elite they leave behind who are in the condo are learning from each other and they kind of save each other almost, and they come together as a group and then the ghosts do that too. In the same way where they kind of save each other in that sense and they look out for each other and like okay, we got to go now and that’s very interesting concept.

SAA: That’s true. That’s true because two of them to do leave together. Yeah,

B&N: Your books are very light hearted. They have some had depth and heaviness to them of course, but they’re very light hearted. Do you like to read thrillers or do you like to continue romance?

SAA: I read all sorts and all kinds. I do like a good mystery and I do I just read or just started really haven’t finished Susan Kane’s bittersweet, which I really liked it. It sort of touches on this idea of sadness as a superpower. I kind of like that. I think I am. I never read anything I didn’t know magical realism was was a genre I didn’t know existed until I was in college. And we studied it. And I remember so clearly, the first book of magical realism I read was THE PASSION by Jeanette Winterson. It opened my world I didn’t know anything like that existed. And I remember reading Fred Chappell. He’s a fellow North Carolina writer, and he wrote, I am one of you forever. And one of my college courses, we read this book, and that was my first exposure to southern that’s to magical wisdom in a southern setting. And so that was that was another eye opener, and I don’t think it was until I read and this was sometime after college. I read Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic and she took magical realism and she put it in a romantic setting. And I’ve read romances since I was a teen you know, I’ve always loved them. And so I think those that Trinity those three books had the most profound effect on who I became as a writer later on. Live.

B&N: That’s so fascinating. So would you have even had like, did you just not know that magical realism was a genre? Or did you not even think to write in that way, and this is what opened up your mind to that.

SAA: It’s true. I had never thought to write in that way. And then I didn’t, you know, I had never read anything like it. And I didn’t start writing it until you know, much later. In my 30s, when garden spells was my first book, my first mainstream novel was published, I’d written a romance before then I decided to say, you know, what I’m going to write, like, who I am as a reader and who I am as a reader is not just I don’t just read one thing, I read a bunch of things. And I think that is, and I found my voice that way I found that’s why my novels always had these little you know, romance and southern fiction and foodie lit and magical realism. They have different veins in them. But sometimes it makes it a little hard to categorize. But it’s just a that is who I am as a reader.

B&N: I love that. In this book, you also drop several bombshells that keep you guessing until the very end, not even guessing you don’t you, you don’t even think you’re trying to figure anything out. And then something happens. And you’re like, Wow, that’s amazing. How did she do that? Is that fun for you to write? Do you think about that at the beginning? Or as you’re writing? Are you like, oh, let’s go on this journey?

SAA: It surprises me as well. I never know what the magical elements of the book are. When I start writing, I’m, I’m, I’m such a pantser. When I when I ride, I wish I was more of a plotter. But some of the elements surprise me as well. I knew going into the big reveal at the very end. I knew. But there were other were other other parts to it, did I they only figured out later on in the process of writing. And I had to go back and actually put in sort of easter eggs or little clues leading up to it. Because I didn’t figure it out. I didn’t know that was going to be aspected look until I had written three fourths of the books. So it is an inefficient and frustrating way to write. But I can’t write any other way.

B&N: That’s so interesting. So your writing process is not to have an outline, and know exactly, you just kind of go what is your writing process.

SAA: It is a lot of panic, and a lot of frustration, and emotional eating. Um, it starts out with an idea. And it’s normally I know the setting, I have to have that in place. Because it’s got all my books, it’s almost a character in itself. I’ve never written a book in a real place. So I have to come up with it. And almost everything else grows from that, that see that that sense of place, I normally have the names Zoe’s name was completely different. I changed it after the book. But I don’t have the names in place. And then I just see what happens. And it’s a lot of deleting and a lot of, oh my gosh, I’ve spent all that time writing on and it’s not what works. But I plot as I write I can’t plot before I write.

B&N: I think that’s so interesting. And I think it gives lots of us tons of hope. Because there’s so many you know, it’s so because I I panic when I have to write for anything, and I’m not even a writer. So I mean, you know, so many offers, like oh, I outline it and I do this and I know everything going into it. So I have to say it’s very encouraging to hear that that’s your process truly.

SAA: It’s so intimidating. When when sunrise and then No, it’s almost a must when it comes to the mystery writers being interviewed. I think that has to be a part of their process because it is so intricate and it’s so important to the plot that I think mystery writers might be the plotters of the universe that makes them sound like they’re plotting to overthrow the universe but I mean they they plot but I think for the rest of us there are a lot of pantsers out there Yeah. Pantsers unite.

B&N: Would you give yourself a schedule or I mean to have a place or is it really just the overall thing is winging it completely.

SAA: When I first started writing I wrote well into the night I was such a night owl and then you know I got older and then I sort of started treating it as you know a day job this is this is this is when I write in these amount of hours I write I try to set a word count but I set myself up for failure when I do that it is I write what I write and leave for the day and then come back to it and either I delete or add on to it. I think that just the point is the to get your butt in a chair and just do a little at a time is never to let your don’t go fallow don’t go don’t let you know, huge amounts of time pass or it gets really hard to get back into it. I do. I write in my I have an office my home office here.

B&N: I’ve heard many writers say That is the first step to writing. It’s just right. And I think that that’s what’s overwhelming too is I have these ideas and how do I even get them and I could never just sit and I’m not an author. I’m not a writer. But it’s true. You can’t do it until you write.

SAA: That’s right. And, I’ve often said that I’m not a great writer, but I’m a pretty good rewriter, whatever, when I put something right down onto the page, it’s never good. It never just slows out in this beautiful melodic sort of poetic way. I go back to it, and I insert this or I make that atmospheric and I find the perfect word, but it never comes out. Beautiful. You have to make it and beautiful. Yeah, it’s work.

B&N: Yeah. And about how long does it take to write books.

SAA: The process has gotten longer and longer my first book guard spells. I remember writing that book, I think I wrote it straight. It was four months, and then about two months of rewrites. And so that is the quickest book I’ve ever, ever written. And slowly but surely, they’ve gotten it’s taken longer and longer to write them. And I’m not sure why. Unless it is because the first book was written without it being you know, a job or, you know, the promotion wise, or you know, be you. Even social media when I was writing garden spells, it wasn’t as huge as it is now. There are so many things that divide my attention that have to do with work. So that might be part of it.

B&N: Yeah, there was no pressure. You just got to write for pleasure, basically.

SAA: That’s right. That’s exactly right.

B&N: Yeah, I mean, success is wonderful, but also a little intimidating. I can imagine.

SAA: I was miserable when Garden Spells was first published, I had no idea what I was doing. I just I was such a fish out of water.

B&N: So interesting. That kind of goes back to the beginning of our conversation, where what would you what would you tell your 16 year old self? But what would you tell yourself after writing that first book?

SAA: Oh, my gosh, I would tell myself to calm down. This is the best thing that’s happened to work so hard for this and, you are going to you I gained so much weight after you book, the first few books, just eating my way through my emotions. And you know, I’ve often said that after I was diagnosed with cancer, and went through that journey that what I learned was that, you know, a deadline is not the end of the world. I have looked at the end of the world and it is not a deadlines, stop stressing out so much about it, just do your work, get it done and try to enjoy it. I wish I had told myself that. I wouldn’t believe myself. But I wish I had, I wish I had known that.

B&N: You needed someone like to tell you.

SAA: That’s exactly right.

B&N: That’s kind of also what I was saying to when we’re going through that stuff gives you such depth. And I do think that when you approach work or approach, whatever, it’s a different level of stress. I mean, you take things very importantly, and very seriously, but you can also just be like this is not life threatening. This is I will get it done when I get it done. I will do the very best I can. I’m not worried about it.

SAA: That’s exactly right. And it is it is so hard on your body, that amount of stress. I mean, it is just not good for your health to stress that much. And I have I have worked so hard to get to the point where I am telling myself calm down. Because my brain will tell me that it’s horrible that it’s the something is wrong, and it’s not. And it’s this constant argument that I have with myself that the world is not ending. And my brain is going, Yes it is.

B&N: I think that’s something we all struggle with, though. And it’s your very refreshing author to hear from truly where you are with your writing process. And it’s true like don’t with we all have that. Don’t stress, don’t stress, don’t stress, anxiety, anxiety, but it’s true. It’s not the end of the world. We will all be okay to work hard and get it done when you can.

SAA: That’s right. That’s right. Lay off the sugar. Don’t eat 16 candy bars just because you think this scene isn’t working?

B&N: Yes, there’s always time for rewrites. Speaking of rewrites, so what’s next for you after Other Birds? What can we look forward to?

SAA: It’s been a very comforting process knowing that I am you back on a schedule of you know, this book is finished. I’m writing a new one and I don’t even really have a title for it. I’ve been calling it Butter Town because that’s where it’s set. That’s so, I don’t think that’s going to be the title but it’s a sister book. And it’s set in a in North Carolina. During the wettest year on record, and so a lot of rain is happening in this book and actually started writing it last year when we had a very rainy summer into fall. And Tropical Storm Fred came through Western North Carolina where I am and did a lot of damage, including a completely flooded my office. And so I’m part of that aspect of a very rainy atmosphere in which secrets are uncovered during the rain. And that’s where I am right now. I don’t know anything else. I don’t know how it ends. .

B&N: That’s true I guess I was a trick question that I didn’t realize. But yeah, I wouldn’t know how I did. Well, it has been such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SAA: Thank you. It’s been a blast as the other birds comes out. At the end of August. It’s our September Book Club Pick by Sarah Addison Allen. Good luck. Happy pub date. Good luck on your book tour and anything that might be coming your way and, don’t stress so much when you write the next one.

SAA: Thank you so much.

B&N: Thank you, Sarah.