Podcast appearances and mentions of Anne Fadiman

Dive into the episode for three actionable steps to being culturally competent. Being culturally competent is pivotal to being effective in working with families, colleagues, and children with communication impairments. Enough talk already. Ready to take action? Join the SIS Membership and let's roll up our sleeves together at https://kellyvess.com/sis Check out the article by Jennifer Lansford in Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-and-culture/202201/can-parents-be-both-individualist-and-collectivist You can access 'The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down' by Anne Fadiman on Audible or any major bookstore.

I am joined in this podcast by Anne Fadiman to discuss her classical book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, her account of the cross-cultural conflicts between a Hmong family and the American medical system. The book won a National Book Critics Circle Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and a Salon Book Award.Published in 1997, the book has attained classic status within medicine. Its contents and lessons remain relevant for contemporary medical practice, and this is why I listed it amongst the important book's this podcast explores.Anne explored the tragedy that evolved when Hmong refugees in the United States interacted with their health centre. At the centre of the saga is their young daughter with refractory epilepsy. Anne explores the transcultural failures that marred the interactions between the two sides, and almost fatally compromised the girl's life.Anne Fadiman is Professor in the Practice of Creative Writing, and Francis Writer-in-Residence at Yale University. The former editor of The American Scholar and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fadiman is also the author of two essay collections, Ex Libris and At Large and At Small, and a memoir, The Wine Lover's Daughter.

Taste, it turns out, is not a matter of opinion. Scientists have discovered that your perception of taste is informed by your genetics. When we eat or drink something, we may be having an entirely different experience to the person we're sharing a meal with, or the chef who has prepared it, or the critic who has recommended it. In this programme Ruth Alexander explores her likes and dislikes and how they might be informed by biology. Ruth meets Laura Kent of the Yorkshire Wine School in the UK who helps her learn about her sensitivity to acidic and bitter flavours. Ruth speaks to Anne Fadiman, writer and Professor of creative writing at Yale University in the US, who dislikes wine, despite her wine critic father loving it. Danielle Reed, Chief Science Officer at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, US, explains the science. Tim Hanni, Master of Wine, and author of ‘Why You Like The Wine You Like' argues that the wine industry is not paying enough attention to individual tastes. Where does this new science leave wine competitions? David Kermode, judge at the IWSC, International Wine and Spirits Competition, makes the case for the experts.If you'd like to contact the programme, please contact thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk.Presented by Ruth Alexander. Produced by Beatrice Pickup.(Image: three people tasting wine. Credit: Getty Images/BBC)

Ob am Strand, im Garten oder auf dem Balkon: Die Ferien können mit guter Sachbuchlektüre noch schöner werden. Dafür haben Maja Beckers und Alexander Cammann diesmal vier unterhaltsame und anregende Tipps parat. Der Bestsellerautor Manfred Lütz hat in seinem neuen Buch einen ganz besonderen Ort im Visier: Rom. In Der Sinn des Lebens erzählt er von der Ewigen Stadt und ihren legendären Kunstwerken, den Bauwerken, Bildern und Skulpturen, von der Antike bis heute. Lütz erklärt in Anekdoten und Analysen die nie nachlassende Faszinationskraft der Stadt mit ihrer besonderen Schönheit. Immer wieder hat sie die größten Künstler zu Meisterwerken angestachelt, von Michelangelo, Raffael bis Caravaggio – und sie zieht die Menschen aus aller Welt bis heute magisch an. Besessen von Kunst war auch einer der erstaunlichsten Täter der Kriminalgeschichte: Stéphane Breitwieser stahl in den 1990er-Jahren mit seiner Lebensgefährtin Kunstwerke aus 200 Museen im Wert von einer Milliarde Euro und hortete sie bei sich zu Hause. Michael Finkel hat den spannenden Fall dieses Mannes rekonstruiert. "Der erste Satz" stammt diesmal aus einem zur Reisezeit passenden Buch: Marion Löhndorf erzählt vom Leben im Hotel, über die legendären Häuser von Kalifornien bis Europa sowie ihre berühmten Gäste – und die besondere Aura, die ein Hotel von der Airbnb-Wohnung immer noch unterscheidet. Als Klassikerin empfehlen unsere Hosts diesmal Anne Fadiman und ihr 1998 erschienenes Buch Ex Libris. Aus dem Leben einer Bibliomanin. Höchst unterhaltsam schildert die amerikanische Autorin, was es im Alltag bedeutet, eine leidenschaftliche Buchliebhaberin zu sein – viele süchtige Leserinnen und Leser dürften sich bei ihr wiedererkennen. In diesem Sinne, einen schönen Urlaub! Sie erreichen das Team von Was liest du gerade?  unter buecher@zeit.de. [ANZEIGE] Mehr über die Angebote unserer Werbepartnerinnen und -partner finden Sie HIER. [ANZEIGE] Falls Sie uns nicht nur hören, sondern auch lesen möchten, testen Sie jetzt 4 Wochen kostenlos DIE ZEIT. Hier geht's zum Angebot.

It's a joy today to welcome back Kirsty Shires to Bedside Reading. Kirsty and I first connected last year over Michael Rosen's Many Different Kinds of Love and she emailed me a few weeks ago to tell me about a book that she thought I ought to read which actually I had read before many years ago!  I've absolutely loved coming back to it.  Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down  is the story of a Hmong refugee family and their daughter Lia set in California in the early nineties and some of the culture clash and culture shock that exists between their understanding of their daughter's condition, epilepsy, which in their language means "the spirit catches you and you fall down" and her American doctors. It is a phenomenal read. It was wonderful to talk to Kirsty today about some of the themes from it and what we've both learned and what we've changed in our practice as a result of having read it.One of the really big practice changing aspects for us both was discovering Arthur Klienman's eight questions which Kirsty decribes as "like ICE on steroids" and which make a HUGE difference in practice when used appropriately: https://thinkculturalhealth.hhs.gov/assets/pdfs/resource-library/arthur-kleinmans-eight-questions.pdfKirsty also recommended A Smell of Burning  by Colin Granthttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/aug/19/a-smell-of-burning-the-story-of-epilepsy-colin-grant-review

En este episodio Tamara y Male Rey hablan sobre la película La Sudestada, los diarios de Rosario Bléfari, el disco de 199 canciones de Mac Demarco y The Wine Lover's Daughter de Anne Fadiman.

Dan talks with Anne Fadiman about her family's African clawed frog Bunky; her thoughts on mail, moving, and coffee; and why writing one book is like eating only one potato chip.

On this week's episode of Currently Reading, Meredith and Kaytee are discussing: Bookish Moments: reading mojo and a package of bookish delights Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we've been reading lately Deep Dive: how do we decide which books to own or keep? The Fountain: we visit our perfect fountain to make wishes about our reading lives As per usual, time-stamped show notes are below with references to every book and resource we mentioned in this episode. If you'd like to listen first and not spoil the surprise, don't scroll down!  We are now including transcripts of the episode (this link only works on the main site). The goal here is to increase accessibility for our fans! *Please note that all book titles linked below are Bookshop affiliate links. Your cost is the same, but a small portion of your purchase will come back to us to help offset the costs of the show. If you'd prefer to shop on Amazon, you can still do so here through our main storefront. Anything you buy there (even your laundry detergent, if you recently got obsessed with switching up your laundry game) kicks a small amount back to us. Thanks for your support!*   . . . . 1:21 - Bookish Moment of the Week 3:15 - Parnassus Books 3:34 - Currently Reading Patreon (supporters get access to the IPL each month) 4:16 - Fabled Bookshop 5:32 - The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff (Publishes Sept 2023) 7:09 - Current Reads 7:23 - To Catch a Raven by Beverly Jenkins (Kaytee) 7:32 - Rebel by Beverly Jenkins  11:30 - A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J. Maas (Meredith) 16:46 - A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 18:11 - Beach Read by Emily Henry 18:54 - The Storyteller's Death by Ann Davila Cardinal (Kaytee) 19:06 - Schuler Books 21:10 - The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera 21:46 - The Agathas by Kathleen Glasgow (Meredith) 23:28 - Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson 25:08 - Diving In Podcast 25:37 - The Taking of Jake Livingston by Ryan Douglass (Kaytee) 25:43 - Changing Hands Bookstore 30:27 - The Future is Yours by Dan Frey (Meredith) 34:05 - How Books Make It To Our Forever Shelves 38:19 - The Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher 38:20 - Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 38:22 - A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 38:25 - Search by Michelle Huneven 39:53 - Scythe by Neal Shusterman 41:41 - The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield 42:46 - Still Life by Louise Penny  43:13 - Babel by RF Kuang 46:15 - Meet Us At The Fountain 46:42 - I wish everyone would read Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman in a Specific Way (Kaytee) 46:42 - Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman 47:01 - Fanny Hill by John Cleland 49:04 - Pango Books 49:14 -  I wish I liked putting together Ikea furniture (Meredith) 49:24 - Ikea full size Billy Bookcase Connect With Us: Meredith is @meredith.reads on Instagram Kaytee is @notesonbookmarks on Instagram Mary is @maryreadsandsips on Instagram Roxanna is @roxannatheplanner on Instagram currentlyreadingpodcast.com @currentlyreadingpodcast on Instagram currentlyreadingpodcast@gmail.com Support us at patreon.com/currentlyreadingpodcast and www.zazzle.com/store/currentlyreading

Anne Fadiman unpacks her latest essay, “Frog,” a 6,000-word piece about Bunky, her family's African clawed frog. Although he was easy to care for, this “unpettable pet” raised a number of philosophical and ethical questions about pet ownership. For nearly two decades, Bunky lived inside a too-small aquarium on Fadiman's kitchen counter, ribbitting for a mate that could never come. Fadiman probes her continued guilt over whether this animal had lived a decent life—after all, you can't spay or neuter a pet frog. Suffused with this unease, Fadiman's essay departs from the typically saccharine or sentimental approach to writing about pets and death, respectively. As she explains in this episode, “Death is hard to face, so it's interesting to face. It's a literary challenge. And not all deaths are the same.” Bunky's departure lends lessons on writing, caretaking, connections, confinement—in a word, relationships. Read Fadiman's essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2023/03/frog-what-happens-to-the-pets-that-happen-to-you/ Subscribe to Harper's for only $16.97: harpers.org/save This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Maddie Crum, with production assistance by Ian Mantgani.

Brought to you from the stage of the 2023 Exchange Conference at the Fontainebleau, we are kicking off a season exploring successful mentoring relationships. What does it look like to be authentic? How being open and intentional can introduce you to new ways of being successful.  Jennica Ross is the Head of US ETF Sales and Portfolio Trading at Susquehanna International Group (SIG), one of the largest proprietary trading firms in the world and one of the world's most active ETF market makers. Jennica oversees a team focused on ETF and portfolio trading execution serving a wide range of clients – including platforms, asset managers, wealth managers, institutions. Jennica joined SIG in 2022 after serving as Head of Strategic Relationships at WallachBeth Capital for the last ten years. Jennica currently serves as  Co-President for Women in ETFs US.     Naomi DePina is a Vice President of ETF Sales at GTS Execution Services. She specializes in distribution and marketing across TAMPs, RIAs, and Robo Advisors. Before joining GTS, Naomi spent five years at State Street Global Advisors. She is Co-Secretary for Women in ETFs, Advisory Council Member for Fusion IQ, and Board Chair for Good Call NYC. Kristine Delano digs into the five core values of mentoring with Jennica and Naomi. Listen on your favorite podcast platform. We Talk Careers Podcast. Follow on Instagram kristine.delano.writer  Visit www.womeninetfs.com to find additional support in the ETF industry.  Go to www.kristinedelano.com for your Thrive Guide: a compilation of the most requested and insightful advice from our guests on Leadership and Advancement. Book recommendations: The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki The Book with No Pictures, B. J. Novak All Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe The Spirit Catches You and You Don't Fall Down, Anne Fadiman

Booze as muse or a sure road to ruin? In this month's episode, William Palmer – author of In Love with Hell: Drink in the Lives and Work of Eleven Writers – and Henry Jeffreys – author of Empire of Booze and The Cocktail Dictionary – join the Slightly Foxed team to mull over why alcohol is such an enduring feature in literature.  From the omnipresence of cocktails in John Cheever's short stories and ritual aperitifs in Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels to Mr Picksniff falling into Mrs Todger's fireplace in Martin Chuzzlewit and P. G. Wodehouse's hangover remedies for booze-soaked Bertie Wooster, drinks are social signifiers in fiction. Charles Dickens was fond of sherry cobblers and Jean Rhys knocked back Pernod in Paris, while Malcolm Lowry was a dipsomaniac and Flann O'Brien dreamed up alcoholic ink for the Irish Times, rendering readers drunk from fumes. We ask why gin denotes despair and port is always jovial, and question whether hitting the bottle helps or hinders the creative process in writers. Following a convivial sherry, we're whisked away on a wet-your-whistle-stop tour of drinking dens with our friends at London Literary Tours, barrelling from bars propped up by Oscar Wilde to the follies of Dylan Thomas at Soho's French House via Ian Fleming's Vesper cocktail at Dukes. And we finish with a final round of reading recommendations, visiting a whisky distillery in Pakistan in Lawrence Osbourne's The Wet and the Dry, enjoying Happy Hour with Marlowe Granados and stopping for a nightcap at Kingsley Amis's ghostly local The Green Man. (Episode duration: 41 minutes; 16 seconds) Books Mentioned We may be able to get hold of second-hand copies of the out-of-print titles listed below. Please get in touch with Jess in the Slightly Foxed office for more information. Anne Fadiman, The Wine Lover's Daughter, Slightly Foxed Edition No. 57 (1:39) William Palmer, In Love with Hell: Drink in the Lives and Work of Eleven Writers (2:24) Henry Jeffreys, Empire of Booze (2:33) Henry Jeffreys, The Cocktail Dictionary Dylan Thomas, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog (3:41) Kingsley Amis, Everyday Drinking (4:45) Flann O'Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds and The Third Policeman (6:40) Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (11:16) Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight (11:49) Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr Ripley (12:17) Patricia Highsmith, Diaries and Notebooks Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (14:54) Edward St Aubyn, The Patrick Melrose Novels (17:03) Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain (19:01) Charles Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit (20:42) John Cheever, Collected Stories (23:26) Jeremy Lewis, Kindred Spirits (26:05) Ladybird Books: What to Look For in . . . Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (33:05) Kingsley Amis, The Green Man (35:13) Lawrence Osbourne, The Wet and the Dry (36:45) Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour (38:27) Related Slightly Foxed Articles The Smoking Bishop, William Palmer on drinking and drunkenness in Dickens, Issue 16 (8:52) On the Randy Again, William Palmer on Dylan Thomas, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog, Issue 30 (3:41) Cheers!, Henry Jeffreys on Bernard DeVoto, The Hour & Kingsley Amis, Everyday Drinking, Issue 68 (4:45) A Quare One, Patrick Welland on the novels of Flann O'Brien, Issue 41 (6:40) Voyage in the Dark, Patricia Cleveland-Peck on the novels of Jean Rhys, Issue 4 (10:22) With a Notebook and a Ukelele, Gordon Bowker on the stories of Malcolm Lowry, Issue 37 (19:46) A Visit from God, William Palmer on Kingsley Amis, The Green Man, Issue 20 (35:09) Other Links London Literary Tours (28.00) Opening music: Preludio from Violin Partita No.3 in E Major by Bach The Slightly Foxed Podcast is hosted by Philippa Lamb and produced by Podcastable

Anne Fadiman, Francis Writer in Residence, talks growing up the child of authors, and shares the writing advice that has galvanized her students for 17 years.  Her books include The Wine Lover's Daughter and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down.  The Common Room is a production of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee in the Yale Department of English. Cover art by Sarah Harford; audio production by Robert Scaramuccia '19. 

This week is a Bizarro Fest featuring associate editor Marissa Martinelli; June Thomas, senior managing producer of Slate podcasts; and Benjamin Frisch, senior producer, Decoder Ring. First, the panel discusses the bizarre experience of watching Annette. Next, they talk about the BBC miniseries, The Pursuit of Love. Finally, they talk about the board game Wingspan with Slate editor and writer Dan Kois. In Slate Plus, the panel answers a listener question about which board game they would choose to play on a first date. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Cleo Levin. Outro music is "Death Dance" by Luftmensch. Endorsements June: The writing of all the Mitfords. Especially Hons and Rebels and Poison Penmanship by Jessica Mitford. (As well as the biography Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford by Leslie Brody). And The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. Ben: Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and The London Symphony Orchestra. And the game Disco Elysium. Marissa: “How Science Saved Me From Pretending to Love Wine” by Anne Fadiman in The New Yorker. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week is a Bizarro Fest featuring associate editor Marissa Martinelli; June Thomas, senior managing producer of Slate podcasts; and Benjamin Frisch, senior producer, Decoder Ring. First, the panel discusses the bizarre experience of watching Annette. Next, they talk about the BBC miniseries, The Pursuit of Love. Finally, they talk about the board game Wingspan with Slate editor and writer Dan Kois. In Slate Plus, the panel answers a listener question about which board game they would choose to play on a first date. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Cleo Levin. Outro music is "Death Dance" by Luftmensch. Endorsements June: The writing of all the Mitfords. Especially Hons and Rebels and Poison Penmanship by Jessica Mitford. (As well as the biography Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford by Leslie Brody). And The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. Ben: Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and The London Symphony Orchestra. And the game Disco Elysium. Marissa: “How Science Saved Me From Pretending to Love Wine” by Anne Fadiman in The New Yorker. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week is a Bizarro Fest featuring associate editor Marissa Martinelli; June Thomas, senior managing producer of Slate podcasts; and Benjamin Frisch, senior producer, Decoder Ring. First, the panel discusses the bizarre experience of watching Annette. Next, they talk about the BBC miniseries, The Pursuit of Love. Finally, they talk about the board game Wingspan with Slate editor and writer Dan Kois. In Slate Plus, the panel answers a listener question about which board game they would choose to play on a first date. Email us at culturefest@slate.com. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Cleo Levin. Outro music is "Death Dance" by Luftmensch. Endorsements June: The writing of all the Mitfords. Especially Hons and Rebels and Poison Penmanship by Jessica Mitford. (As well as the biography Irrepressible: The Life and Times of Jessica Mitford by Leslie Brody). And The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford. Ben: Promises by Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, and The London Symphony Orchestra. And the game Disco Elysium. Marissa: “How Science Saved Me From Pretending to Love Wine” by Anne Fadiman in The New Yorker. Slate Plus members get ad-free podcasts, a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest, full access to Slate's journalism on Slate.com, and more. Sign up now at slate.com/cultureplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Kaitlyn as she talks with Dr. Sarah Mannle, an emergency medicine nurse practitioner in Asheville, North Carolina as she tells about her journey into medicine, creating a course in medical humanities for nurses as a way to bridge patient and medical staff connection, and her experience working in the ER during the Covid pandemic.   Sarah Mannle's Instagram: @cinnaman77  Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/smannle77 Dr. Sarah Mannles Book Recommendations:  When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande  The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman's  Women Imprint is a nonprofit organization that explores the lives and achievements of women creatives throughout history. In this interview series, writer Jana Marlene Mader and art historian Kaitlyn Allen speak to creative women working today. Women Imprint's core mission lies in fostering greater representation of women creatives in the public space. Become a member: https://www.patreon.com/womenimprint  Website: www.womenimprint.com Instagram: @WomenImprint

In this Roundtable episode, Doug and Meredith are joined by fellow therapist Ashley McGirt and therapist in training Sahaj Kohli for a conversation about cultural issues in mental health and the world around us. Ashley is a racial trauma specialist, speaker, and author. Sahaj is the founder of Brown Girl Therapy, a mental health community for children of immigrants. The conversation explores stigma, discomforts, comforts, and experiences of issues around culture in their lives and work in mental health.     Mentioned in this episode: Meredith Levy Doug Friedman Ashley McGirt - on Instagram @therapywithash Sahaj Kohli - on Instagram @browngirltherapy Dr. Joy Degruy The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman

“It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.” -Anne Fadiman, author A disturbingly simple revelation about how to write a book that a reader cannot put down. Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

Cada lector tiene una relación distinta con sus libros. Hay quienes doblan las páginas, los que escriben en los márgenes, quienes prefieren mantenerlos intactos. Anne Fadiman reflexiona, desde su experiencia, sobre las múltiples posibilidades de conducirse frente a la lectura.

Debbie has a conversation about writing with friend and college classmate Anne Fadiman. Anne is an illustrious - and revered - essayist and author, perhaps best known for her first book, the prize-winning The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, an account of the unbridgeable cultural conflicts between a family of Hmong refugees and their American doctors. She’s spent her whole career as a reporter and editor and for the past 15 years as an award-winning teacher of nonfiction writing at Yale University. She’s a writer’s writer and Debbie couldn’t be more excited to have her on the show.They talk about writing in the context of the pandemic we are living through. Should we all be writing about our daily lives right now as witnesses to history? Her answer is "Yes, keep a journal," just as Anne Frank did during World War II when she hid from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam.They talk about the intimacy of Anne's work as a writing teacher at Yale, how she and her students nonetheless jumped into Zoom classes, and how proud she is of her students, a number of whom have gone on to become well-known writers. They discuss the therapeutic benefits of writing, what it really means to take risks and to become a better writer, and the importance of reading.She also reminisces about being confined to bed, at home, for eight months during a difficult pregnancy and how that was more difficult than sheltering in place during the pandemic. That's when she started writing essays. Mentioned in the episode:Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy. Anne assigns her students "C’est le Premier Pas Qui Coûte," about how, as a girl in a new school, McCarthy reinvented her identity by pretending to lose her faith - and then found that the pretense had become real.The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan DidionThe Great Believers by Rebecca MakkaiJohn McPhee, a pioneer of creative nonfiction and a professor of journalism at Princeton UniversityTwo of Anne Fadiman's books:The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two CulturesThe Wine Lover's Daughter (a memoir about her relationship with her father, the renowned literary critic Clifton Fadiman)Pandemic-related reporting by two of her students:"New York Is Wounded. I Miss It More Than Ever," by Vivian Yee"Trump’s 'Chinese Virus' and What’s at Stake in the Coronavirus’s Name," by Eren Orbey Photo of Anne Fadiman by Gabriel Amadeus Cooney Support this podcast:Leave a review on iTunes: it means so much!Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or Spotify Credits:Host: Debbie WeilProducer: Julie-Roxane KrikorianPodcast websiteMusic by Manuel Senfft Connect with us:Email: thegapyearpodcast@gmail.comTwitter: @debbieweilInsta: @debbieweilDebbie and Sam's blog: Gap Year After Sixty  

And you thought our shelves full of self help books were just to manage our own issues! Nope, there’s another use for them. Our guest this week, Kathleen Smith, is a therapist and writer and the author of Everything Isn't Terrible, a helpful and humorous guide to shedding our anxious habits and building a more solid sense of self in our increasingly anxiety-inducing world. It’s very useful, and we’re valiantly attempting to tame our own anxieties—but that’s not (much of) what we talk about. Instead, we’re focused on what’s really important—and within our control: Creating believable, dysfunctional characters and then helping them to grow and change.We talk about romance dynamics: the pursuer and the pursued, the over-functioner and the slacker—and how important it is that a couple be at a similar level of maturity (or, more likely, immaturity) to be believable. From there, it’s headlong into siblings, birth order and circumstance, family coping mechanisms and some of the ways to develop deeper conflict within our work. It’s such a great conversation. Episode links and a transcript follow. Thanks for being with us! If you love the podcast, tell a friend. Right now. Just drop everything and go sit someone down and make them listen. And if you love the podcast, you can support it! There are perks. #SupporterMini episodes. #WriterTopFives. LINKS FROM THE PODCASTGenograms: Assessment and Intervention Family Constellation, Walter Toman#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Kathleen: Bringing Down the Duke, Evie DunmoreKJ: Ex Libris, Anne FadimanThe Uncommon Reader: A Novella, Alan BennettSarina: 19 Love Songs, David LevithanOur guest for this episode is Kathleen Smith, author of Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down. For more: Website - KathleenSmith.net Twitter - @fangirltherapy Instagram - @kathleensmithwritesFree Anxiety Newsletter - https://theanxiousoverachiever.substack.com/This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator—training book coaches and matching coaches and writers. Find out more: https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwriting.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ (00:01):Hey listeners, KJ here, if you're in with us every week, you're what I like to call people of the book. And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only are we writers, we're people with a gift for encouraging other writers. Maybe that comes out in small ways for you, but for some of you it's a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, provides book coaching to authors like me, but also needs and trains book coaches. And if that's got your ears perked up, head to authoraccelerator.com and click on become a book coach. Is it recording? Now. It's recording.Jess (00:44):Now it's recording.KJ (00:44):Yay!Jess (00:44):Go ahead.KJ (00:46):This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone, trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.Jess (00:50):Alright, let's start over.KJ (00:51):Awkward pause. I'm going to rustle some papers. Okay. Now one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast about writing all the things - short things, long things, fictional things, non-fictional things, something in between kinds of things, which I don't know that we really recommend, it depends on where you're writing for. But in any case, as regular listeners know and any new listeners are about to find out, this is the podcast about figuring out how to sit down and get your work done.Sarina (01:30):I'm Sarina Bowen. I only write long things and fictional things. I'm the author of 30-odd romance novels and my newest one is called Heartland. You can find all about it at sarinabowen.com.KJ (01:46):I feel like the things that we write are feeling particularly long this week. I don't know about you, but I feel like I only write really long things that somehow don't have enough words. Yeah, but they sure feel long to me. I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the author of my first novel, my debut novel, is The Chicken Sisters coming out in June of 2020 and I'm also the former lead editor and columnist for the New York Times of the Motherlode and the author of How To Be a Happier Parent, which is out in hardback now and will be out in paperback this summer.KJ (02:20):And I am delighted to say that we have a guest today. This is going to be a really fun, if somewhat fictionally focused episode. Today we are joined by Kathleen Smith, a therapist and writer and the author of Everything Isn't Terrible: A Helpful and (I can vouch for this) Humorous Guide to Shedding Our Anxious Habits and Building a More Solid Sense of Self in Our Increasingly Anxiety Inducing World, which is brilliant. And we love it. And we are working away at our own anxieties. But we've actually asked Kathleen here today to talk about the anxieties we have more control over - the anxieties of our fictional characters. In other words, we're going to talk about creating believable, dysfunctional characters and families and then helping them to grow, and change, and get better. Welcome.Kathleen (03:12):I'm so excited to talk about this topic with you guys. Thanks for having me.KJ (03:16):Thanks for suggesting it and coming. We think this is fantastic. It's so funny because as I read, Everything Isn't Terrible and I have been, I sort of flick between, Oh wait, I need this. Oh wait, my character needs this. Oh wait, I do this with my mother. Oh wait, does my character? I think I need to read it twice, once in each guise. So how did you think of the idea of using a therapeutic formula, a therapeutic lens to view fictional characters?Kathleen (03:54):First of all, I'm a huge fan girl and I love reading books and watching TV shows with complex families. Right? You know, everyone these days is obsessed with succession, right? Or the crown or these sort of glamorous, dysfunctional families. But as a therapist, I'm a firm believer that everyone's family is just as interesting. You know, if you'd sorta take a dive in and look at the rich sort of emotional history of a family. So I love seeing it in real life and I love seeing it in fiction, too, especially when it's done really well.Sarina (04:30):Which fictional families in print have you enjoyed recently? I was so curious about this.Kathleen (04:36):Yeah. Well one thing I'm reading right now is I'm rereading Emma because you know, the new movie is coming out. So it's interesting to see some of the family dynamics in that. And you know, sibling position. And I think Jane Austen in particular does such a wonderful job bringing out those differences and the dynamics of people. So that's one thing I'm enjoying right now.KJ (05:00):You used another Jane Austen example with us, which was just sort of to get right deep into it, you were talking about how spouses tend to be at the same level of emotional maturity, even though they might express it differently. And you gave the example of the Bennetts in Pride and Prejudice. And that just made me laugh because I've read Pride and Prejudice many times, but also multiple recreations of it, recently. That happens to be a trope that I love and yes, absolutely. I'd never thought of it that way, but they're both equally awful. It's just that one of them is awful in a more appealing kind of way.Kathleen (05:41):Absolutely. You know, and I think we like to think that we're more mature than our spouses, but at least the theory I was trained in, that is not the case. We tend to be attracted to people who are at the same level of emotional maturity. So I think that's important to think about when you're creating characters, and a marriage, or in a relationship. What that kind of reciprocity is and how that sort of fits together. Like just you said though, one person might be seen as the problematic one, right? But that's often not the case.KJ (06:12):We are going to think of this firmly from a fictional perspective and yeah, let's dig into that. So we've got maybe we've got two romantic leads and we're seeing one of them as the problem, you know, one of them is not returning phone calls or is not living up to expectations, but it's important that they both have sort of equal level of flaws is what I'm hearing you saying.Kathleen (06:40):Yeah. I mean you could have, and this is such a classic relationship thing, you could have one person who's the distant one, right. And then one person who is sort of the anxious pursuer and we interpret one as necessarily having the problem, but they're both caught up in this sort of anxious dance of trying to relate to one another. Or trying to get away from the anxiety. Or another classic example is like one person is an over functioner, right? And they take on all the responsibility and do everything and the other person is seen sort of as a slacker, right? Or the lazy one, but they're just responding to the other person's behavior. So, it's definitely a two person dance.Sarina (07:20):This also makes me think of a trope that I see in romance all the time that I'm not a huge great fan of, which is the crazy ex. Sometimes you get sort of cheap conflict in a romantic plot arc because somebody has a crazy ex, but it's really hard to write a good crazy ex without painting your hero or heroine as kind of an idiot for staying with that person in the first place.KJ (07:48):Oh, good point. Yeah.Kathleen (07:51):It doesn't make any sense to have them be sort of at different levels of functioning. They probably wouldn't have been together in the first place if that were the case.Sarina (07:59):Yeah. I mean, you can always make a case for somebody experiencing a lot of growth since they originally got together with that person. But yeah, it's hard. One time I was writing a book three with my collaborators and we already knew from books one and two who the hero and heroine of book three were. And this romance had a lot of potential already. But we realized as we were sitting down to plot it, that both characters came from really wonderful, stable families and we sort of looked at each other and went, 'Oh, we're in so much trouble.'KJ (08:39):Yeah. Let's talk about how that family background matters. I mean, why can't we create a book around two people from wonderful, stable homes who've been supported, and loved, and had only good experiences all of their lives? Besides because they don't exist.Kathleen (08:56):Well, you know, in my book I use that well-known Mary Carr quote that a dysfunctional family is any family with two people in it. Right? Or it's something like that. So I don't know if such a thing exists, first of all. You know, there's always some amount of anxiety and dysfunction in any family, but you know, it's much more interesting and it's much more rich to sort of go back a generation or two and ask yourself what are the processes that work here, you know, is this a family that avoids each other in distances and that's how they deal with everything. Is this a family that cuts people off the second they disagree with them or do something scandalous? Or is this a family who's all in each other's business and is constantly doing things for people that they can do for themselves? You know, it's interesting to think about what some of those patterns might be and then all of a sudden you have kind of set the stage for your character to kind of emerge from that. And that can influence then how they are in their romantic relationships, or in their work, or with their own family. So just by doing that sort of homework ahead of time, you have such a great jumping off point for creating conflict and plot.Sarina (10:08):Sometimes it feels like it's really hard to do that ahead of time and you have to kind of wade in first.Kathleen (10:14):Yeah, I mean I think that's why it's useful to know your own family really well, first of all. It can be an inspiration or other people's to kind of get you curious about that. But you know, just taking the time to kind of draw that out and draw a little diagram or just some, some facts can be really useful.KJ (10:34):Well, you suggested four different sort of family patterns, let's talk about those and how we might be able to use them in fiction.Kathleen (10:42):The first one is distance. That's sort of the most obvious things that we do as humans when we're nervous, or upset, or stressed, right? Like we just get out of there as quickly as possible. But there's also emotional distance, right? So as a family, only talking about the weather, or sports, or very superficial things as a way of managing sort of the underlying anxiety. And then the second one is conflict, which is a little weird because at first glance you don't think, well, conflict doesn't manage anxiety, right? Like doesn't that cause anxiety? But if I'm convinced that someone is wrong all the time, then that calms me down a little bit. It's actually adaptive. So a lot of families use conflict and sort of focus on one person as the problem. To calm them down. And I think that's so useful in fiction because it sort of helps you see that just the person who is identified as having the problem isn't the only player here. Right? Everyone is contributing to that in their own way. And you want me to keep going?KJ (11:49):No, I'm thinking about that. The conflict one. I think it kind of goes back to what we're talking about in a romantic relationship where from a fictional point of view, you can draw a picture that looks like one person is the problem. And what is going to evolve is that the people who are making that person the problem are also the problem.Kathleen (12:16):Exactly. Everyone is contributing. Right? And I think that's a good point is you can't look at a person sort of and tell how mature they actually are. Because you know, everyone is sort of propping up other people and so one person in a family might be doing really well and they might have a stable job and seem like a healthy person, but it's because they're directing all their attention onto fixing a kid. Right? Or a sibling or a parent. It all sort of gets diverted to this one per person who gets identified as the problem. So that's what's so great about humans is we're just such tricky, complex creatures you can't necessarily take at face value, how mature a person is and how they're going to act in crisis people who are actually much less mature than we think we are.KJ (13:10):And how does that dynamic play out on the other side, the person who is sort of constantly being fixed?Kathleen (13:16):Yeah, I mean it's sort of - we're getting into Jess territory with her writing about parents focusing on kids. But you know, the idea is that if you tell a person that there's something wrong with them or there's something to be anxious about, they start to believe it. So it's useful for them to fall into that role and to play that role to kind of keep things stable. But that doesn't mean that they won't have problems, you know, they might develop more of the symptoms or more of the problems because everyone in that family is anxiously focused on them.KJ (13:50):So what I'm hearing is that it's worth, like everyone in the story is invested in keeping the status quo, even if the status quo is crappy.Kathleen (14:00):Yes. And that's such a great plot turning point as well, because if that person gets sober, or starts doing better, or acts differently, it throws everybody off. You think that they want the person to get better, but then they start doing things differently, and it changes the whole system. It changes all of the dynamics. And so that's such an interesting thing to play around with when, okay, what if the person who is seen as the problem child or the problem spouse starts doing better? That is a great sort of turning point for shaking things up because people don't like it. They will push back, you know? And it's just really fascinating to see or to read about.KJ (14:45):Okay. So that was two dysfunctional family tropes. What else you got?Kathleen (14:50):Yeah, well, the other one is very classic. It's overfunctioning and underfunctioning. And so this plays out a lot in marriages especially, but can also with parents and kids, or with siblings. You know, who is the person who is becoming over responsible in times of stress, right? They are doing things for others that they could do for themselves. You know, and who was the underfunctioner, they're letting the other person take on that responsibility and that sort of ends up - you know, the underfunctioner is often a person who might develop substance abuse problems or other issues because they're sort of in that one down position. And so, you know, based on your sibling position, right? Like, so if your mother was an overfunctioner and her mother was an overfunctioner, you know, you're really gonna get it, right? If you're the first born, that's probably going to be your role. Or if you had a parent who was always overfunctioning for you, you might be a little bit less capable. And so that's kind of an interesting thing to play around with. And if you're looking at a family, you're creating and saying, okay, who are the overfunctioners here and how did they get in the way of everyone else growing up a little bit?KJ (16:07):Does it work like horoscopes where overfunctioners are more likely to be drawn in relationships to slackers or are they drawn to other overfunctioners or could it just be anything?Speaker 4 (16:22):Oh no. Yeah, it's reciprocal. Right? So it's the two people participating in the dynamic.KJ (16:29):So you might have an overfunctioner within their family and they're drawn to someone who's an underfunctioner within their family?Kathleen (16:36):Well if you're talking to a romantic relationship?KJ (16:39):Yeah, I was talking about a romantic relationship.Kathleen (16:40):Definitely, that works a lot. Two overfunctioners are probably gonna butt heads a lot. So you could still write that in a romance. Absolutely. But it would be an added challenge because both people are trying to care for each other, and help each other, and that causes issues.Sarina (16:56):That sounds fun to me actually. Like the butting heads is often a really terrific romantic conflict.Kathleen (17:05):Absolutely. And if we're going to talk about siblings later too, that's another thing. If you have two oldest children, they're probably gonna be that way. So it's an interesting dynamic. But yeah. So if we want to move on, the fourth one is triangles. And everyone knows about triangles, right? It's human nature when two people are tense to pull in a third person or to focus on a third person to calm things down. So it's not just a love triangle. It's sort of the ways that we use other people to calm down our relationship with another person. And those are fun if you're drawing a family diagram to sit down and ask yourself, what are the triangles in this family? Is it two siblings against parent? Is it a parent who's using a sibling to talk to another sibling? You know, is it two parents and a child? The example I love to give - it's from television, but you know, everybody's pretty familiar I think with the show Everybody loves Raymond, it's been awhile since it was on, but I think most people are familiar with it - and there's this classic triangle in it between the mother-in-law Marie, the son Raymond, and the wife Deborah. And everyone thinks that the conflict is between Debra and Marie, right? The mother-in-law and the daughter. But you know, Ray is actually (whether he realizes it or not) is actually quite manipulative because he is able to stay out of the conflict by putting it on the two of them. But, you know, his stance is, Oh, this issue is between you guys. But he's actually contributing to it by being a part of the triangle and by saying he has nothing to do with it. And so it's so interesting to kind of play around with and see how these dynamics with three people could be interesting because - the idea is that when two people are getting along, the third person feels like they're left out and they'll try and butt in and cause conflict. But if two people are having a fight, the third person doesn't really want to be involved in it. The safe place is kind of on the outside. So that's just another fun family dynamic or relationship.KJ (19:20):Or you might have a third person who is trying to fix it. Or a third person who's trying to make it worse.Kathleen (19:26):Yeah, absolutely.KJ (19:27):Yeah, I think it's neat. This is an interesting thing to think of from official perspective because I feel like we often sort of have a conflict, or a plot point, or something that's happening and we've only looked at the point of view of maybe the two main players and to always think, well who's the third player here? That's a different approach.Kathleen (19:49):Yeah, absolutely. And who's maybe trying to give them advice or calm things down. And it can be a positive thing. It's not necessarily negative, but there's usually always more than two people involved when there's conflict.KJ (20:03):So it sounds like from there we should start, you know, taking a look at the siblings in our people's relationships, even if we weren't thinking of a sibling as a big player in a plot. It sounds like we better know who the siblings are and how they play out.Kathleen (20:19):Yeah. And that's one of the most interesting questions you can ask is what is the person's position in their family? And how does that inform how they are in all other relationships? You know, sibling position is definitely a part of it. There's actually this other cool book I would recommend to listeners. This guy named Walter Toman in the 60s did this huge study where he interviewed people about their sibling positions and he wrote this book about what other people they would match well with in a romantic relationship, and who they'd be friends with, and who they'd get into fights with, and sort of what their careers would be. You know, it's such a cool resource. The only issue is it was written in the 60s, right? So it's only talking about straight couples and women aren't assumed to have careers. So you kind of have to take that into account when you're reading it, but it's almost like kind of reading a horoscope in a way. It's just so interesting to me because I love reading them to people to see if their spouse or other people in their life match with it based on this description.KJ (21:28):So what is the book?Kathleen (21:29):It's called Family Constellations.KJ (21:32):It sounds very horoscope.Kathleen (21:35):It does, right? But it's interesting, you know, the idea is that oldest and youngest tend to pair well together. You know, oldest and oldest tend to butt heads a little bit. And youngest and youngest kinda just faff about and don't know what to do a lot. So and obviously there's a lots of exceptions and lots of happy marriages despite these things, but it can play a role, you know, and so it's interesting to read these and think about whether they could be useful when you're creating characters. And yeah, it's just an interesting resource I would recommend to people. But it's not just your sibling position, it's what was happening in your family around the time you were born. So, on a serious note, say like a woman had had a stillbirth or multiple miscarriages right before the birth of a child, that child is probably going to get a little bit more of an anxious focus when they're born. Because of all the things, or if there's just been a death in the family, right? There's just more anxiety in the air. And so they might have a little bit of a harder time kind of growing up and being an individual because that is sort of one extra challenge that they have. Or is it a younger sibling and the parents are a lot older and so they're just kind of doing whatever and are more sort of Laissez Faire in their parenting. Or is it six boys and one girl? How was that girl treated differently in the family and how is her role different? And it's not just the sibling position, it's your parents' sibling positions. I mentioned this earlier, like if this is the oldest of an oldest of an oldest, right? They're really gonna like to be in charge and they're probably going to be an overfunctioner. And it's just interesting to kind of play around with it and think about those positions.Sarina (23:32):You know who I feel is really good at writing these relationships is a novelist, Kristin Higgins. She uses siblings a lot, and she does this wonderful thing where she is able to use all of this family position stuff. And then at the end of the books, avert it, so that the sister that you weren't expecting to really be there in the clinch, is the one who makes the difference.Kathleen (24:02):That's really interesting.Sarina (24:03):Yeah. But she does it in a very believable way. So it's not as if she's throwing away those tendencies, but rather, you know, the exception proves the rule kind of manipulation. It's pretty neat.KJ (24:16):Well, that's kind of the point of what we're trying to do here is to see where our characters start out and then pull them to a different place. Right? So we want the character who maybe without sort of saying it in so many words, but who looks at their distancing relationship with their family and goes, okay, I'm going to stop hiding, I'm going to stop not talking. I'm gonna change and grow. And yeah, it's the relationships with the other people around them, but ultimately, it's that protagonists, you know, where they start and where they end that matters for the story.Kathleen (24:58):Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's a good question to ask. If you're thinking about, okay, how do I create a disruption too - is anytime someone is doing the opposite of what they would normally do to calm things down, that's when you get the shakeup, that's when you get the initial pushback, right? Like it might help things in the long run, but temporarily it's going to increase the anxiety and maybe increase the conflict a little bit. So that's a wonderful question to ask is what does my character normally do in stressful situations or when they are anxious and can I create a situation where they do the opposite and what is everyone's response to that? How does everyone sort of turn on that moment? And I think that's an interesting way to kind of play around with creating a little bit of conflict in a family.Sarina (25:48):Yeah, you went into this in your book, Everything Isn't Terrible, I can't remember which example, but when somebody finally started having more productive responses to the two less functional people in their family it freaked everybody out and made everything harder immediately, even though it was the right course of action and eventually got there. But you're right, that's a nice plot drama.KJ (26:19):So something else you also mentioned was drawing this out and you use the word genograms and you triangles. And I think we're getting this picture of family trees and geometry. And how might that work? What can we draw?Kathleen (26:36):Well, you know sometimes it's called a family diagram. Sometimes it's called a genogram, but basically it's sort of a family tree that has the facts, but also has the sort of emotional processes. I recommended one book, it's called Genograms by Monica McGoldrick. It's the one that's sort of used when people take a family therapy class in grad school. But you know, you can come up with your own symbols. It doesn't have to be the same technique, but you know, if you're drawing conflict, drawing little lightning bolts, right? Or if there's cutoff, you draw a line and then another line that's perpendicular to show that gap, right? There's lots of different ways that you can do it, but it's sort of mapping the emotional history as well. Looking at the triangles, you know, drawing just a triangle between three people. And sort of looking at how that, but also the facts of the family, can kind of inform you as to how people act. Because I think that's useful to write down, you know, when do people die? What else was happening at the same time? When were people born? When did people get married? You know, did a bunch of people get married after the death of a parent? Like you see that a lot of times in families. Or are there missing relatives or branches of a family tree that are sort of just big question marks? There's something about being able to see that on paper drawn out that really just adds another layer of complexity to thinking about the family. And I think it's such a useful tool to have as a writer. And maybe if people are inspired they can do it with their own family. But you don't know what you don't know until you draw it out. And I think it's useful to see what facts are missing. You know, do you not know about people's careers, or their education level, or illnesses, or substance use issues, or where people lived, when they immigrated. Those are all useful facts to know.KJ (28:45):Right. And you can get a long way in fiction without knowing everything about your person. And you can also get a long way down a rabbit hole by trying to write out everything about the person. But you know, every time I create someone, and this is going to be more true for Sarina because she's done it more, it's amazing how much I need to be able to go back and go, okay, wait a minute. I mean, I can't even name them until I know who their parents are. So right away, you're thrown right into it.Kathleen (29:27):Absolutely. And I think, you know, you don't have to have all of the information for every character, but I think if a character is missing information about themselves, that's important too. That shapes who you are also. So it's not just what they know and what's available to them and what, you know, as the writer, it's what's unknown as well and how that influences people.KJ (29:47):Do you sometimes see authors sort of failing to take this stuff into account? Like are you reading along and you're like, wait a minute... You don't have to name names. I'm just curious.Kathleen (29:58):I think the example that Sarina gave about the crazy ex was such a good one, because I think what I see the most is just this incredible mish-mash and sort of lopsidedness of maturity and functioning, when we don't operate that way as humans. You see this a lot in literature, someone has a really terrible parent and then they're this just this angel, right? Like we paint things as heroes and villains. And it's much more complex than that. And so I think doing some of this thinking keeps you from falling into the trap of good person, bad person, victim, hero, villain, right? Not that there aren't terrible people, but I think it just adds so much more to the story when you're able to see the interaction between people and when you see the family as the unit and not just the individual. It helps you make people much more relatable, even if they're maybe not the greatest person in that story, but they're not just a straight up villain.KJ (31:09):Right. You have to know where all that stuff comes from.Sarina (31:12):I think my downfall is sort of the opposite way. Like I write really cerebral characters who can usually find the right way and then I turn on the news and I'm like, wow.KJ (31:22):Plus it's a problem because you don't want - and I do this all the time too - I'm like, and then they calmly and rationally resolved the problem. Because to some extent I guess you're writing what you would like to see happen, but it doesn't work. We need them to not calmly and rationally resolve the problem.Kathleen (31:51):Well I think the only other thing I would add, and you know I talk a lot about this in the book, is that I think it's important to remember that people do what they do to calm things down to the best of their ability. People aren't just randomly throwing in bombs to shake things up necessarily. And we know we've evolved that way for a reason, and it might seem very strange, or upsetting, or annoying to you, but if you can see it as sort of an adaptive thing that that person does to deal with things the best that they know how, I think it allows you to be a little bit more empathetic towards that character and add a little bit more to that character than to someone who's just dropping in to wreak havoc. They're actually doing what they have been programmed to do as a human to try and get through a challenge.KJ (32:40):It's just important that it be wrong.Sarina (32:43):Yeah. That sounds like a fun way to write a drama llama sibling.Kathleen (32:47):Yeah, absolutely. You know, how has this become a person's way of dealing with the chaos?KJ (32:55):There's gotta be a reason why they are the way that they are. Well that is so helpful. And it is a different way to think about it and also a chance to broaden and deepen what we're creating in our fiction. And I I don't think we should miss those. So this was really good. I like it. This is fun, and smart, and a great way to sort of create the dysfunctional family that you can manipulate as opposed to living in the dysfunctional family that you're kind of stuck with. Well, this is the part where we like to talk about the dysfunctional families that we're reading about, or functional, or whatever. And I forgot to warn you, but I know that you listen all the time, so hopefully you knew that we were going to ask you if you'd been reading anything good lately.Kathleen (33:57):Yeah, I actually have. Since my book has come out, I'm just letting myself read only romance because that is just like a gift to me and it's something I don't do a whole lot. So I've just really been enjoying reading tons of romance. And one that I've really enjoyed recently is Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore. I don't know if you guys have heard of that one. It's part of her series she's writing called A League of Extraordinary Women and it's about women revolved around the suffrage cause in the U.K. And so it's just a really fun, great romance. And I recommend it.Sarina (34:33):You know, I haven't read her yet, but that book is getting a lot of chatter among my friends, so it's definitely on my list.KJ (34:39):I too had heard it. I think I heard it probably on Book Riot, which is a source of many, many book recommendations for me. Do not listen to the Book Riot podcast unless you have a large budget of disposable income to just go and buy all the books because that's what happens to me every single time. How about you Sarina? You read anything good lately?Sarina (35:04):I have a brand new book I'm about to start called 19 Love Songs by David Levithan. And David Levithan is a wonderful YA author who I have read, you know, pretty much everything he's written and this is a special anthology coming out right now, which is Valentine's day-ish because he is so wonderful that he's written some extra stories so I can't wait for 19 Love Songs.KJ (35:35):I'm just looking through what I've been reading lately and I've been reading a lot, like I have big stacks and then of course the minute I get on the spot and I'm trying to figure out what it is that I read and what I enjoyed, I can't, so I'm in the middle of something that I love, but I'm going to wait and talk about it when I finish. And I'm going to tell you all if you have not heard about it, I'm going to give you a pair of fun, fun books that I read. One was Ex-Libras: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman and it's just a bunch of essays about reading. And the delight of that was that I had it on my Kindle and I went to dinner by myself and foolishly grabbed only one book off of the stack of books that I had by the bed. And then the other thing that just reminds me of it is a book, I don't think I've mentioned it before, it's called The Uncommon Reader. And it's a novella by Alan Bennett. And it is the story of what happens when the Queen of England begins to take a passionate interest in reading. And it is hysterical, and beautiful, and wonderful, and very short. So I recommend it. And that's it. I guess that's our show today.Sarina (37:12):KJ, are you going to give a book away?KJ (37:15):I am, yes. Right now. Right now. What I wanted to say to everyone, I'm helpfully holding this up to the microphone so I hope you can all see the adorable copy. We're going to give away a copy of Everything Isn't Terrible by Kathleen Smith and you can read it for your own life and conquer your own insecurities, and not interrupt your own anxiety, and finally calm down, or you can pretend that you only need it for fictional reasons and try to figure out ways to get your characters to conquer their insecurities. We're doing both and we would love to give this away. And what I thought we would do is we will pull a name from our list of subscribers to the show notes. So if you are on our subscribers, if you get the podcast in your email every week, you are already entered. And if you don't then you should go to amwritingpodcast.com and sign up to get the show notes every week. And they are more than shownotes. It's always what we thought of the episode, and all the links, and all the books, and usually some bonus lunacy just because none of us is capable of writing anything straight up anymore. So that's the idea. Sign up. Maybe you'll get to win the book. Alright. I want to thank you, Kathleen. This was great and this was really fun. Where can people find you on all the social media and in all the places?Kathleen (38:40):Yeah, the main place is my website, Kathleensmith.net. I write a weekly newsletter called The Anxious Overachiever about my own efforts on myself and my work with clients that people might be interested in. Or they can catch me on Twitter at fangirltherapy.KJ (38:55):And the book again is Everything Isn't Terrible: Conquer Your Insecurities, Interrupt Your Anxiety, and Finally Calm Down by Dr. Kathleen Smith. Grab it. It is fun. And like I said, we can all just pretend that we're buying it for purely fictional reasons. That's our show this week. Yay. Alright, you want to take us out, Sarina?Sarina (39:18):I will and thank you both. And until next week keep your butt in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

Jenny divulges her top reads of 2019 and shares the top reads of sixteen other readers. All of us focus on books we read in 2019; they may or may not have been published in 2019. That's how regular readers work! If you listen past that section, there will also be some discussion of the Best of the Decade in reads and reading experiences.Thanks to all of you who participate, interact, and listen to the podcast! You have made this a marvelous year and decade.  Best wishes in the new year. The next episode will be all about reading goals, so feel free to share your 2020 reading goals with me and I might mention them.Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 176: Best of 2019 with Jenny and Menagerie.Subscribe to the podcast via this link: FeedburnerOr subscribe via Apple Podcasts by clicking: SubscribeOr listen through TuneIn Or listen on Google Play Listen via StitcherListen through Spotify  Books Mentioned: Life and Fate by Vasily GrossmanCastle of Water by Dane KuckelbridgeLent by Jo WaltonFrankissstein by Jeanette WintersonAgainst Memoir by Michelle TeaBrute: Poems by Emily SkajaThe Library of Small Catastrophes by Alison C. RollinsHalal if You Hear Me edited by Safia Elhillo and Fatimah AsgharCan You Forgive Her? by Anthony TrolloppeThe Old Wives' Tale by Arnold BennettThe Way to the Sea by Caroline CramptonThe Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells Foundation by Isaac AsimovTu by Patricia GraceThe Last Act of Love by Cathy RentzenbrinkAll Among the Barley by Melissa HarrisonEast West Street by Philippe SandsThe Great Believers by Rebekah MakkaiLost Children Archive by Valeria LuiselliThe Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel VasquezBirdie by Tracey LindbergThey Will Drown in Their Mother's Tears by Johannes AnyuruThe Museum of Modern Love by Heather RoseCantoras by Caroline de RobertisThe Deeper the Water, the Uglier the Fish by Katya ApekinaGone with the Wind by Margaret MitchellThe Very Marrow of Our Bones by Christine HigdonThe Traveling Cat Chronicles by Hiro ArikawaMetro 2035 by Dmitry GlukhovskyIn the Distance by Hernan DiazMortality by Christopher HitchensTrain Dreams by Denis JohnsonConversations with Friends by Sally Rooney Normal People by Sally RooneyGirl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga TokarczukNobber by Oisin FaganWomen Talking by Miriam ToewsWhen Chickenheads Come Home To Roost by Joan MorganOur Women on the Ground edited by Zahra HankirThe Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan StradalSefira and Other Betrayals by John LanganStrange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi KawakamiThe Book of Night Women by Marlon JamesInto the Wild by Jon KrakauerFired Up by Andrew JohnstonThe Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne FadimanWhite Fragility by Robin DiAngeloThe Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona EltahawyThis Tilting World by Colette Bellous Other Mentions:Jenny's Full Best of 2019 ListJenny's Best of the Decade List Safia Elhillo and Fatimah Asghar reading at The StrandShedunnit Podcast Related Episodes:Episode 142 - Borders and Bails with Shawn MooneyEpisode 150 - Rife with Storytelling with Sara Episode 154 - Is If If with PaulaEpisode 157 - Joint Readalong of Gone with the Wind with Book Cougars Episode 159 - Reading Doorways with LindyEpisode 160 - Reading Plays with Elizabeth Episode 163 - Fainting Goats with Lauren Episode 166 - On Brand with Karen Episode 167 - Book Pendulum with Reggie Episode 173 - Expecting a Lot from a Book with Sarah Tittle  Episode 174 - Cozy Holiday Reads and TBR Explode 4 Episode 175 - Reading on Impulse with Marion Hill Stalk me online:Jenny at GoodreadsJenny on TwitterJenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

Welcome, ladies, germs and people of all genders! Join Taylor & Curtis as they discuss films based on true stories. Curtis dives into a tale of murder in the outback, and Taylor discusses a strange medical phenomenon. It's gonna get SPOOKY! WARNING: This episode contains spoilers (as usual tbh). Please connect with us on Twitter: @ahhreelfilms or Instagram: @ahhrealfilms, or drop us a line to let us know how we're doing: ahhrealfilms@gmail.com. Rate, review, subscribe, and see ya next time! Books discussed: "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures," by Anne Fadiman. Films discussed: Two surpises--try to guess!; "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" (2019), Pyewacket (2018), Incident In a Ghostland (2018). TV Shows discussed: The Ted Bundy Tapes (2019)

Throughout my twenties I harboured a strong desire to read the Great Books, but it wasn't until I'd finished university and come across Clifton Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan at the now defunct Book Den in Ottawa on MacLaren street, that I started to act seriously on the urge. It, and the 100 books recommended, had and continue to have a profound impact on my life. So, I was thrilled to learn that Anne Fadiman had written a memoir about her father called The Wine Lover's Daughter.   Anne is an essayist and reporter. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, her account of the cross-cultural conflicts between a Hmong family and the American medical system, won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, is a book about books (buying them, writing in their margins, and arguing with her husband on how to shelve them). At Large and At Small is a collection of essays on Coleridge, postal history, and ice cream, among other topics; it was the source of an encrypted quotation in the New York Times Sunday Acrostic. I met with Anne at the Brattleboro Literary Festival to talk, among other things, about opening sentences, erotic relationships with wine, male chauvinism, wine libraries, 900 bottles of wine, childhood poverty, Columbia University, leaving parents behind, Jewishness, Irving Wallace, cut roots, John Erskine, Great Books, The Lifetime Reading Plan and life lessons, prisoners, oaklings, Information Please, Harpo Marx, a patrician mid-Atlantic accent, translating Neitsche, retrieving wives, lovers that don't disappoint, Simon and Schuster, The New Yorker, multi-tasking, self-deprecation, counterfeits, mailing home toilet paper, hatred of television, open-mindedness and The New Lifetime Reading Plan, and the ability to take hedonistic pleasure in books and wine. 

Today we talk with the acclaimed essayist Anne Fadiman (Author of terrific books like "Ex Libris," and "The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." Join us as Anne helps us explore the world of remembering loved ones, through her book "The Wine-Lover's Daughter," a memoir of her relationship with her father, Clifton Fadiman.

In the first episode of The Slightly Foxed Podcast, SF founders Gail Pirkis, Hazel Wood and Steph Allen meet author Jim Ring round the kitchen table at No. 53 to remember how it all began, and Veronika Hyks gives voice to Liz Robinson’s article on Anne Fadiman’s well-loved Ex Libris. [www.foxedquarterly.com/pod](https://foxedquarterly.com/podcast-episode-1-kindred-spirits/) Books Mentioned * [Erskine Childers by Jim Ring](https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571276837-erskine-childers.html) is available directly from publishers Faber & Faber * Second-hand copies of Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader are available. Please [get in touch](https://foxedquarterly.com/help/) for details * Jean Rhys, [Wide Sargasso Sea](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/jean-rhys-wide-sargasso-sea/) * Jane Smiley, [A Thousand Acres](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/jane-smiley-thousand-acres/) * James Lees Milne’s memoirs are out of print, but we may be able to get hold of second hand copies. Please [get in touch](https://foxedquarterly.com/help/) for details Related Slightly Foxed Articles & Illustrations * Veronika Hyks reads Liz Robinson’s article Kindred Spirits, which can be read in full [here](https://foxedquarterly.com/kindred-spirits-article-liz-robinson/) * The article on The British Seagull, The Best Outboard Motor for the World was written by Ben Hopkinson and appeared in [Issue 26](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-26/) of Slightly Foxed * The article on Modesty Blaise was written by Amanda Theunissen and appeared in [Issue 11](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-the-real-readers-quarterly-issue-11/) of Slightly Foxed * The article on [Georgette Heyer](https://foxedquarterly.com/georgette-heyer-julia-keay-literary-review/) was written by Julia Keay and appeared in [Issue 16](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-16/) of Slightly Foxed * The articles on Proust were written by Anthony Wells and appeared in Issues [56](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-56-great-present-for-someone-who-likes-books/), [57](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-57-books-literary-magazine/) and [58](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-58-published-1-june-2018/) of Slightly Foxed * The article on M. R. James was written by Tim Mackintosh-Smith and appeared in [Issue 4](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-4/) of Slightly Foxed * Jim Ring’s articles have appeared in Issues [14](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-14/), [18](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-18/), [27](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-27/) and [43](https://foxedquarterly.com/shop/slightly-foxed-issue-43/) of Slightly Foxed. His article on Swallows and Amazons [can be read here](https://foxedquarterly.com/jim-ring-arthur-ransome-swallows-amazons/), and on Erskine Childers [here](https://foxedquarterly.com/jim-ring-erskine-childers-riddle-sands/) Other Links * Granta’s [Share a Pint](https://www.thebookseller.com/news/granta-unveils-bookshops-share-pint-campaign-882316) campaign with the NHS, promoting Rose George’s book [Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Mysterious, Miraculous World of Blood](https://granta.com/nine-pints/) * [The Leaping Hare at Wyken Vinyards](http://wykenvineyards.co.uk/country-store/) * [Anthea Bell obituary](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anthea-bell-obituary-zg3zq6vcz) Music & Sound effects: * Reading music ‘Trio for Piano, Violin and Viola’ by Kevin MacLeod [www.incompetech.com](https://incompetech.com/) with thanks to [freesfx.co.uk](https://freesfx.co.uk/) * Reading sound effects ‘Pendulum Slow Ticking’ by Klankbeeld with thanks to [freesound.org](https://freesound.org/) The Slightly Foxed Podcast is hosted by Philippa Lamb and produced by [Podcastable](https://www.podcastable.co.uk/). []...

The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine. Come behind the scenes with the staff of Slightly Foxed to learn what makes this unusual literary magazine tick, meet some of its varied friends and contributors, and hear their personal recommendations for favourite and often forgotten books that have helped, haunted, informed or entertained them. Coming up in Episode 1, 'Kindred Spirits' (Released 15 November) Gail, Hazel, Steph and SF director Jim Ring meet round the kitchen table at No. 53 to remember how it all began and Veronika Hyks gives voice to Liz Robinson’s article on Anne Fadiman’s well-loved Ex Libris.

Discussing her memoir The Wine Lover's Daughter

This week asparagus and immigration and where the two meet. It's been a long time since the bee population has been in the news so how have our bees been? A conversation with Anne Fadiman the author of "The Wine Lover’s Daughter." On Brattleboro’s biggest event-The Strolling of The Heifers. A promposal from Merriam-Webster, our US Congressman and more.

Wine Road Episode 50- West County Day Trip - Occidental & Graton visited. Holy cow its our 50th Episode!!! And drum roll please….WE WON THE TASTE AWARD for BEST PODCAST! In this episode we have special guest Barb Gustafson from Paul Mathew Vineyards to talk all things Graton and Occidental. The ladies drink Paul Mathew Chardonnay and Pinot while discussing their favorite spots. Marcy introduces us to a new book and Beth finishes up with events in the area. Cheers ladies to a great podcast and the recognition!!!    Wine Road provides the Wine, When and Where of Northern Sonoma County with news on events, wineries, wines, dining options, activities, and places to stay. Wine Road   Show Notes:   0:40 Taste Awards   1:30 Visiting with Barb Gustafson from Paul Mathew Winery   2:00 Graton & Occidental   3:00 Paul Mathew Winery 10:00 Graton Visited 13:10 Wine of the Day - Paul Mathew Green Valley Chardonnay 15:15 Visit Occidental 20:15 Wine of the Day - Paul Mathew TNT Vineyard 2014 Pinot Noir 20:20 Book of the Day - Wine Lover’s Daughter: A Memoir by Anne Fadiman 23:40 Stainless Steel Fermented - Cabernet Franc 26:00 Wine Road on the Road - VinDiego 26:38 Dry Creek Winegrowers - Passport to Dry Creek 26:47 WineRoad.com Event Calendar 27:30 Esprit du Rhône   Graton Links: Underwood Bar & Bistro Willow Wood Market Cafe Graton Gallery Atelier One Open Studio Joe Rodota Regional Trail Hallberg Butterfly Garden  Winery Links: Paul Mathew Winery Bowman Cellars Dutton-Goldfield Winery Merry Edwards Winery Emeritus Vineyards Marimar Estate Red Car Wine   Occidental Links: Howard Station Cafe Inn at Occidental Sonoma County Tours Hazel Restaurant  Laurence Glass Works  Boho Bungalow Handgoods Occidental Hinterland Empire  Occidental Bohemian Farmers Market    Freestone Links: Freestone Artisan Cheese Enduring Comforts  Wild Flower Bread Bakery Osmosis Day Spa Sanctuary   Other Links: Wine Lover’s Daughter Passport to Dry Creek Valley WineRoad.com Events Esprit du Rhône VinDiego    Credits: The Wine Road podcast is recorded, mixed, and mastered at Threshold Studios Sebastopol, CA 

The only 24-hour ice cream store in New York City; chocolate-almond cookies; is raw cookie dough dangerous?

Anne Fadiman discusses topics from The Wine Lover's Daughter: wine, literature, and her father Clifton.

We gave a rare starred review to Peter Wohlleben's new book THE INNER LIFE OF ANIMALS Wohlleben is also the author of the bestselling book, THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES. Wohlleben joins us from Germany to answer our questions about the emotional lives on animals and how we are treating them well or wrongly. And we also catch up with Anne Fadiman, whose new memoir, THE WINE LOVER'S DAUGHTER, is "not unlike imbibing several equally felicitous glasses of wine, their salutary effects leaving one pleasantly sated," according to our reviewer. And our editors speak up with their choices of which bestsellers you ought to read and which you can safely skip.

Hosts Brigitte Jia and Zahra Hasanian join with reporters Jack Pawlakos, Chelsea Pelchat, and newcomer Jelina Liu to celebrate and honor the importance of family. Jack offers stats on how technology has affected family time negatively.Studies indicate that over 75% of families agree they would rather spend time watching television and 80% would rather play with electronics than engage in a real family activity such as a board game. Chelsea takes us on a history lesson to the 16th century to enlighten about the precarious family ties of the Tudors. Brigitte appreciates the opportunities that her parents presented to her since immigrating to America at a young age. Thanks to her parents' efforts and sacrifices she's developed an interest in the humanities as well as a strong mathematics background, New Helping Hands reporter, Jelina Liu reviews the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman,the story an ethnic minority Hmong family fleeing Laos. Family Matters.

Hosts Brigitte Jia and Zahra Hasanian join with reporters Jack Pawlakos, Chelsea Pelchat, and newcomer Jelina Liu to celebrate and honor the importance of family. Jack offers stats on how technology has affected family time negatively.Studies indicate that over 75% of families agree they would rather spend time watching television and 80% would rather play with electronics than engage in a real family activity such as a board game. Chelsea takes us on a history lesson to the 16th century to enlighten about the precarious family ties of the Tudors. Brigitte appreciates the opportunities that her parents presented to her since immigrating to America at a young age. Thanks to her parents' efforts and sacrifices she's developed an interest in the humanities as well as a strong mathematics background, New Helping Hands reporter, Jelina Liu reviews the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman,the story an ethnic minority Hmong family fleeing Laos. Family Matters.