EVENT TRANSCRIPT
Laurie Frankel/Mickey Rowe
Anderson's Bookshop
Monday, June 21, 2021
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: Good evening everyone. I'm Ginny and this is Anderson's Bookshop. We're so glad to have Laurie and everyone with us. You can turn on live transcript at the bottom of your screen. We are pleased to have all of you with us. If you're watching, thank you for taking the time to join us. We would prefer to be in person but feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We want everyone to feel safe and comfortable coming into the store in the future. We had a terrible storm last night and hopefully no lives were lost. The Red Cross is managing the cleanup; stay safe. It's the second thunderstorm we've had all summer.
Anderson's is an independent bookstore and have been here for 6 generations. Thank you to our support and moderators. We normally have 400 events a year and hopefully will get back to that. We had Stacey Abrams last weeks and Kate Moore if you enjoyed Radium Girls. Susan Phillips will be here next month. Check out our website. I'll let Bryan catch up.
Today we are happy to celebrate the release of One Two Three, Laurie's latest book. She had written 4 books and lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter, and dog and makes good soup.
Mickey Rowe is the first autistic actor to play in an autistic role and will be talking to Laurie tonight.
Laurie Frankel: I'm so glad to see you even though it's not face to face.
Mickey Rowe: I was honored to read One Two Three a little early and it's one of my favorite books I've read in a long time.
Laurie Frankel: I'm so thrilled and honored and trying not to be too much of a geek.
Mickey Rowe: I love how many little Shakespeare quotes were in One Two Three.
Laurie Frankel: I'm so glad; I love it when people get them. I'm thrilled they work for you.
Mickey Rowe: I've thought about how to talk about One Two Three without giving anything away. There are so many twists and turns and I discovered them and was shocked by them. It's about triplets, Mab, Monday, and Mirabelle. It deals with responsibility and privilege and the agency we all have to change our world and environment. Is there anything else without giving it away?
Laurie Frankel: I hope it's a good read but it's difficult to discuss without giving it away. I love putting agency at the top of the pile.
Mickey Rowe: The town of Bourne is almost the central character. It's a small town that for reasons we learn about in the book accepts all of its residents. Many residents have disabilities so the town is universally designed. How did you create this utopia of this universally designed world?
Laurie Frankel: Tonight I wondered who would talk about universal design. People in this town have been abused and it is not a one-time incident; it's a systemic problem. It's important to acknowledge that. It's also important to think about how these people could disagree about a fundamental thing but could come together. In some ways it's an amazing place to live; it's utopic. They have managed to support everyone. It's a universal design principle. Those are different ideas in practice and metaphorically. I wanted to show how these people came together to support one another despite their differences.
Mickey Rowe: It shows how accessibility and universal design supports everyone. I think about when I'm pushing my kids in a stroller, I use a curb cut. Mirabelle had to use it all the time. Captions make my life easier as well. When we make things accessible for other people, we help everyone.
Laurie Frankel: The idea of universal design helps everyone and harms no one. Curb cuts help everyone. It's accessibility. This is a better way of being inclusive.
Mickey Rowe: When you frame disability so well, whereas in other times that aren't Bourne, it may be framed as something wrong with this individual. In your town that you created, there is nothing wrong with anyone. We need to make all things equally accessible to all people.
Laurie Frankel: These aren't personal defects but are strengths. These 3 girls come together because of those differences and they are what allow them to take over the world; it's empowering.
Mickey Rowe: Absolutely. They all use their specific skill sets and strengths; they're all acquired. All three sisters needed to be exactly who they are to change the world. You talked about how sometimes disability isn't the hindrance we think it is. For Mirabelle, it can be a strength. What's in my mind now is how Mirabelle has this incredible amazing soliloquy. She uses a wheelchair. She has a soliloquy about consent and can give and take it. She is more suited for a fully loving relationship than here sisters who are more physically able.
Laurie Frankel: It was important to me that she gets to do as much as her sisters. She's particularly smart. She uses a wheelchair and has the use of only one arm. She's a teenage girl and is thinking about sex. People would assume that she was never going to have sex or love or deep relationships. She calls bull-shit on that. Is it going to be hard to find someone who listens to my needs and pays attention. It's finding that other person. This is her approach to live. She is naïve and right about that.
Mickey Rowe: I love how you said how smart she is. I was late to speak. As an autistic person, people think we don't speak because we aren't smart enough. We use the words dumb and stupid interchangeably. Dumb is cannot speak; deaf is cannot hear. People have difficulty that some people use a machine and cannot speak but are still smart. Their mother is a therapist and Mirabel sometimes sits in the therapy appointments. She listens and observes so she can productively contribute.
Laurie Frankel: Her mother says she should be a therapist because she's good at it but she doesn't want to. She's 16. It's amazing what all she can do and she says of course I can do it. Her Voice is something we all get more used to. I was concerned about the translation to the audio book. To her sisters, it sounds normal. We're used to talking to electronic voices.
Mickey Rowe: I'm partly blind so listened to the audio book. Because the book is narrated by all 3 sisters, the audio book made it beautiful and enjoyable.
Laurie Frankel: They did a beautiful job. It's important that there are 3 narrators and we need a machine to give us the feeling of Mirabel's voice. They hired remarkable people and a machine and did a beautiful job.
Mickey Rowe: I have kids and think about the world they will live in in the future. I think about all the ways in which people will need to advocate for our environment and our future so we can keep going to Anderson's Bookstore and it's not uncomfortable. I love the journey that the characters take too. They need to advocate for their community. Mirabel, Mab, and Monday's mom carries that torch to make future for their children. The torch is passed to the three young women, many of whom are disabled. People have been advocating through paperwork and the system. You try to do things on the up and up according to laws. Three teenagers get to find their own way of making things right; it was such an exciting part of the book. It was motivation to keep me from feeling helpless. You have to be creative and find other ways to do things.
Laurie Frankel: That was my fondest hope for this book. It's going to be your kids and mine who have to deal with what is a tremendous problem. They have endured an extraordinary environmental catastrophe for 20 years. People in town are giving her a hard time. She didn't know whether to continue fighting or just saying I guess we got screwed. Both of those are killing her. Her girls need to take over and it on their terms; her terms don't work. Teenagers can figure out the way to do it better than she could. Their way is not their mother's way. The legal way is a limited system and part of the problem. That has not worked. I'm the mother's age.
Mickey Rowe: This is an environmental disaster. However we tackle our environment, we need all voices and everyone contributing. We can't just listen to a certain percentage of voices; we are cutting ourselves off from a possible solution. They are the voices who come up with a solution and find the way. What would the world look like if we had had women and people of color making decisions? We would have so many more ideas and our world would be more welcoming.
Laurie Frankel: Absolutely. Mirabel says that teenage girls get ignored and written off. It's just gossip and girls talking ↓ the silly things; you have to pay attention. We're going to take over and you'll miss it. It's the most important thing; girls and women do things differently. They super hero differently; they listen to each other. It doesn't look like strength but it is. I find it to be terrifying and devastating when I look around the world. If we listen to each other, the world is different.
Mickey Rowe: The people changing the world are giving us hope.
Laurie Frankel: These girls navigate the shit that comes downstream. One thing I was torn about is that I wanted it to be empowering and wanted to acknowledge the things that happen so far above us and are sent down and we have to dig ourselves out from under. Whose fault is it and isn't it? It's important to balance it. There are people who are used to navigating the world. They have to say I do know what I'm talking about; the world need those skills now.
Mickey Rowe: 85% of college graduates on the autism spectrum are unemployed. It's heartbreaking. I think people with disabilities are some of the best problem solvers in the world. We've had to navigate the world our entire lives.
Laurie Frankel: I find that inspiring. These people are being ignored when they could be solving these problems.
Mickey Rowe: Yes, we can; we can do this. People are so much more capable than you think. There's a line in the book about lambs and wolves. One sister is angry and almost as angry as she is toward the people who caused the destruction. They don't realize what a wolf she is. She is trying to tear them down but they don't care because they don't know she's a wolf.
Laurie Frankel: The whole town is a manifestation of this idea. It isn't a coincidence that they live downstream from this plant. That's why they built it they; they are poor and voiceless and wouldn't object.
Mickey Rowe: They were told to accept their circumstances.
Laurie Frankel: We expect some people to be happy and some to not be happy. The assumption is that she won't be happy.
Mickey Rowe: We would be unhappy in her position. It's the way of the world.
Laurie Frankel: You drew the short straw. That is enraging for her and me too.
Mickey Rowe: What is your favorite part of the book?
Laurie Frankel: I love the ending. I find it along the way; it reveals itself. I love the way the girls come together and contribute to what happens at the end. The book came out last week so I don't want to ruin the ending.
Mickey Rowe: At the very ending, we get to see peeks of the aspects for the future of Bourne and the beautiful gifts that you give us at the end of the book.
Laurie Frankel: Maybe there's only one option, but maybe there are more. I live to offer two.
Mickey Rowe: I see three things in the chat. I think they're instructions; I can't see them. They aren't questions.
Laurie Frankel: If anyone has questions, we can answer them. As I edited, their voices come through and they speak for themselves. As they became different characters, it was easy to see they are very different and speak differently. I could hear how each of them might talk. Mab is taking the SATs and has a big vocabulary. It was interesting to negotiate how they use language.
Mickey Rowe: How did you do your research for the book? We are all educated on the environmental disaster. In terms of the voices, you got disability so right. I'm a disability activist. I'm on social media and see these young disabled women changing the world. You got all of that so accurate. Were there real-life people you were looking to in that process?
Laurie Frankel: Thank you for saying that. I wanted to get that right from conception; I did tons of research and talked to people and read a lot. That helped. It was a funny book to research. I wanted them to negotiate their disabilities. I didn't want them to be diagnosed. I had to do research and change it up to make sure it wasn't too much or too little. What does diagnosis mean if you don't need a label to get medical care or insurance? Their lives are different because they are pretend.
Mickey Rowe: What's so humane is that you talk about them in terms not of what's wrong with them but in terms of this is so and so and they benefit from the use of ramps or XYZ accommodations which is a humanizing way of talking about it. It's about the culture and environment more than the individual. We have interpreters so deaf people can understand us. Everyone is on a more equal playing field and the disability falls away.
Laurie Frankel: It is literally less disabling. It's different when it's not such a small town or fiction or you have to deal with policy and raise money and taxing. I worried that the book would come off as preachy; it comes off as character. The writing is awkward but I'm making this big point. People don't lead with their symptoms; they lead with their characters.
Mickey Rowe: It made it more of an adventure or thriller. You present us with environmental obstacles. Each character has their own tools and abilities; they are all heroes.
Laurie Frankel: We also call that plot.
Mickey Rowe: I see a message from Kelly. Was this idea for the book born in your brain before you finished your last book?
Laurie Frankel: I don't know the answer to it; I don't know at what point this idea was in my brain. The short answer is yes; I was working on this book before I finished the last one. Books are in production for a year. Editing is not a fast process. Otherwise it would take me 10 years between books. I am grateful for all the people who read my last book, This is How it Always Is. I knew my mother would read it but don't take for granted that anyone else will. I want the readers to love this book too.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: How much do you write with the art for yourself and how much is for the audience?
Laurie Frankel: This lives in my brain for years at a time.
Mickey Rowe: What's so interesting is that theatre is already written. My job is not to come up with a story; my job is to bring as much of my humanity as I can to my character and to bring the character to life. You can't make it too much about yourself as an actor. Sometimes you want to have as much specificity as you can to everything going on in your head. The things in the middle are what I can bring to the character. You want to leave a little empty room for the audience; it's not about you in the end. You have to draw a line there to allow space for it to be the audience's character to project and finish the story.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: I can't wait to go back to live theater. Do you have a date to be on stage?
Mickey Rowe: I have something coming up in January but nothing soon enough.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: We can't wait to hear. Some stage is coming in September.
Mickey Rowe: I can't wait to see what that looks like. We have been so isolated for a year and a half; it's been difficult. We've all dealt with so much as a global community. We are ready to come together over stories and discuss what we've been through.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: Mickey, you're checking all the boxes. The second part of Kelly's question: Did the book start about sisters or disabilities or environmentalism?
Laurie Frankel: They came as one. I thought about the articles that say "long-term health consequences." What did that mean? What is it like for an entire town? Then I wanted to look at a wide swath of people affected by this and fit them into a novel. Triplets was my max. All the pieces came together.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: This conversation reminds me that as a retail worker, I hope people haven't forgotten how to interact face to face. When we are back, not everyone handles things the same way. It will be a very interesting lesson that I hope is expressed in various art forms going forward.
Laurie Frankel: I hope we learned to lead with empathy. The power of community and being together are important. We have to be empathetic and think of one another. I hope we come out of it leading with love.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: That's an excellent goal. I'm admiring your bookshelves.
Mickey Rowe: One character in your book does magic. These are all magic books because magic is my specialty. I have an encyclopedia that is out of print but it's all magic tricks and how to do them.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: And the top hat also.
Laurie Frankel: Aren't there 2? I'm wildly impressed.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: What are both of you reading now?
Laurie Frankel: I recommend this book to everyone. I'll find the link. I also loved Charlotte's book. I love Migrations. This new one comes out in August. I also loved this book which is different from Curious Incident. I want every book to be different. There are huge Shakespearean references. I loved this book.
Mickey Rowe: I just finished listening to One Two Three a week ago and have a long bus ride to work. I've tried to do other audio books but none are as good. I've been switching books every 2 hours. I've been working on my book which comes out in March. I just got the cover art emailed to me. I'm waiting to see if I can post it.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: By next year, we should be able to be in person. We are through with our chat questions. Thank you everyone for your help tonight. Thank you Mickey and Laurie for being with us. The books are signed and will be available soon if you want to order another one. Thank you all for your time and for joining us; it's been really great.
Laurie Frankel: Thank you.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: Stay safe out there.
Laurie Frankel/Mickey Rowe
Anderson's Bookshop
Monday, June 21, 2021
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: Good evening everyone. I'm Ginny and this is Anderson's Bookshop. We're so glad to have Laurie and everyone with us. You can turn on live transcript at the bottom of your screen. We are pleased to have all of you with us. If you're watching, thank you for taking the time to join us. We would prefer to be in person but feel that there is light at the end of the tunnel. We want everyone to feel safe and comfortable coming into the store in the future. We had a terrible storm last night and hopefully no lives were lost. The Red Cross is managing the cleanup; stay safe. It's the second thunderstorm we've had all summer.
Anderson's is an independent bookstore and have been here for 6 generations. Thank you to our support and moderators. We normally have 400 events a year and hopefully will get back to that. We had Stacey Abrams last weeks and Kate Moore if you enjoyed Radium Girls. Susan Phillips will be here next month. Check out our website. I'll let Bryan catch up.
Today we are happy to celebrate the release of One Two Three, Laurie's latest book. She had written 4 books and lives in Seattle with her husband, daughter, and dog and makes good soup.
Mickey Rowe is the first autistic actor to play in an autistic role and will be talking to Laurie tonight.
Laurie Frankel: I'm so glad to see you even though it's not face to face.
Mickey Rowe: I was honored to read One Two Three a little early and it's one of my favorite books I've read in a long time.
Laurie Frankel: I'm so thrilled and honored and trying not to be too much of a geek.
Mickey Rowe: I love how many little Shakespeare quotes were in One Two Three.
Laurie Frankel: I'm so glad; I love it when people get them. I'm thrilled they work for you.
Mickey Rowe: I've thought about how to talk about One Two Three without giving anything away. There are so many twists and turns and I discovered them and was shocked by them. It's about triplets, Mab, Monday, and Mirabelle. It deals with responsibility and privilege and the agency we all have to change our world and environment. Is there anything else without giving it away?
Laurie Frankel: I hope it's a good read but it's difficult to discuss without giving it away. I love putting agency at the top of the pile.
Mickey Rowe: The town of Bourne is almost the central character. It's a small town that for reasons we learn about in the book accepts all of its residents. Many residents have disabilities so the town is universally designed. How did you create this utopia of this universally designed world?
Laurie Frankel: Tonight I wondered who would talk about universal design. People in this town have been abused and it is not a one-time incident; it's a systemic problem. It's important to acknowledge that. It's also important to think about how these people could disagree about a fundamental thing but could come together. In some ways it's an amazing place to live; it's utopic. They have managed to support everyone. It's a universal design principle. Those are different ideas in practice and metaphorically. I wanted to show how these people came together to support one another despite their differences.
Mickey Rowe: It shows how accessibility and universal design supports everyone. I think about when I'm pushing my kids in a stroller, I use a curb cut. Mirabelle had to use it all the time. Captions make my life easier as well. When we make things accessible for other people, we help everyone.
Laurie Frankel: The idea of universal design helps everyone and harms no one. Curb cuts help everyone. It's accessibility. This is a better way of being inclusive.
Mickey Rowe: When you frame disability so well, whereas in other times that aren't Bourne, it may be framed as something wrong with this individual. In your town that you created, there is nothing wrong with anyone. We need to make all things equally accessible to all people.
Laurie Frankel: These aren't personal defects but are strengths. These 3 girls come together because of those differences and they are what allow them to take over the world; it's empowering.
Mickey Rowe: Absolutely. They all use their specific skill sets and strengths; they're all acquired. All three sisters needed to be exactly who they are to change the world. You talked about how sometimes disability isn't the hindrance we think it is. For Mirabelle, it can be a strength. What's in my mind now is how Mirabelle has this incredible amazing soliloquy. She uses a wheelchair. She has a soliloquy about consent and can give and take it. She is more suited for a fully loving relationship than here sisters who are more physically able.
Laurie Frankel: It was important to me that she gets to do as much as her sisters. She's particularly smart. She uses a wheelchair and has the use of only one arm. She's a teenage girl and is thinking about sex. People would assume that she was never going to have sex or love or deep relationships. She calls bull-shit on that. Is it going to be hard to find someone who listens to my needs and pays attention. It's finding that other person. This is her approach to live. She is naïve and right about that.
Mickey Rowe: I love how you said how smart she is. I was late to speak. As an autistic person, people think we don't speak because we aren't smart enough. We use the words dumb and stupid interchangeably. Dumb is cannot speak; deaf is cannot hear. People have difficulty that some people use a machine and cannot speak but are still smart. Their mother is a therapist and Mirabel sometimes sits in the therapy appointments. She listens and observes so she can productively contribute.
Laurie Frankel: Her mother says she should be a therapist because she's good at it but she doesn't want to. She's 16. It's amazing what all she can do and she says of course I can do it. Her Voice is something we all get more used to. I was concerned about the translation to the audio book. To her sisters, it sounds normal. We're used to talking to electronic voices.
Mickey Rowe: I'm partly blind so listened to the audio book. Because the book is narrated by all 3 sisters, the audio book made it beautiful and enjoyable.
Laurie Frankel: They did a beautiful job. It's important that there are 3 narrators and we need a machine to give us the feeling of Mirabel's voice. They hired remarkable people and a machine and did a beautiful job.
Mickey Rowe: I have kids and think about the world they will live in in the future. I think about all the ways in which people will need to advocate for our environment and our future so we can keep going to Anderson's Bookstore and it's not uncomfortable. I love the journey that the characters take too. They need to advocate for their community. Mirabel, Mab, and Monday's mom carries that torch to make future for their children. The torch is passed to the three young women, many of whom are disabled. People have been advocating through paperwork and the system. You try to do things on the up and up according to laws. Three teenagers get to find their own way of making things right; it was such an exciting part of the book. It was motivation to keep me from feeling helpless. You have to be creative and find other ways to do things.
Laurie Frankel: That was my fondest hope for this book. It's going to be your kids and mine who have to deal with what is a tremendous problem. They have endured an extraordinary environmental catastrophe for 20 years. People in town are giving her a hard time. She didn't know whether to continue fighting or just saying I guess we got screwed. Both of those are killing her. Her girls need to take over and it on their terms; her terms don't work. Teenagers can figure out the way to do it better than she could. Their way is not their mother's way. The legal way is a limited system and part of the problem. That has not worked. I'm the mother's age.
Mickey Rowe: This is an environmental disaster. However we tackle our environment, we need all voices and everyone contributing. We can't just listen to a certain percentage of voices; we are cutting ourselves off from a possible solution. They are the voices who come up with a solution and find the way. What would the world look like if we had had women and people of color making decisions? We would have so many more ideas and our world would be more welcoming.
Laurie Frankel: Absolutely. Mirabel says that teenage girls get ignored and written off. It's just gossip and girls talking ↓ the silly things; you have to pay attention. We're going to take over and you'll miss it. It's the most important thing; girls and women do things differently. They super hero differently; they listen to each other. It doesn't look like strength but it is. I find it to be terrifying and devastating when I look around the world. If we listen to each other, the world is different.
Mickey Rowe: The people changing the world are giving us hope.
Laurie Frankel: These girls navigate the shit that comes downstream. One thing I was torn about is that I wanted it to be empowering and wanted to acknowledge the things that happen so far above us and are sent down and we have to dig ourselves out from under. Whose fault is it and isn't it? It's important to balance it. There are people who are used to navigating the world. They have to say I do know what I'm talking about; the world need those skills now.
Mickey Rowe: 85% of college graduates on the autism spectrum are unemployed. It's heartbreaking. I think people with disabilities are some of the best problem solvers in the world. We've had to navigate the world our entire lives.
Laurie Frankel: I find that inspiring. These people are being ignored when they could be solving these problems.
Mickey Rowe: Yes, we can; we can do this. People are so much more capable than you think. There's a line in the book about lambs and wolves. One sister is angry and almost as angry as she is toward the people who caused the destruction. They don't realize what a wolf she is. She is trying to tear them down but they don't care because they don't know she's a wolf.
Laurie Frankel: The whole town is a manifestation of this idea. It isn't a coincidence that they live downstream from this plant. That's why they built it they; they are poor and voiceless and wouldn't object.
Mickey Rowe: They were told to accept their circumstances.
Laurie Frankel: We expect some people to be happy and some to not be happy. The assumption is that she won't be happy.
Mickey Rowe: We would be unhappy in her position. It's the way of the world.
Laurie Frankel: You drew the short straw. That is enraging for her and me too.
Mickey Rowe: What is your favorite part of the book?
Laurie Frankel: I love the ending. I find it along the way; it reveals itself. I love the way the girls come together and contribute to what happens at the end. The book came out last week so I don't want to ruin the ending.
Mickey Rowe: At the very ending, we get to see peeks of the aspects for the future of Bourne and the beautiful gifts that you give us at the end of the book.
Laurie Frankel: Maybe there's only one option, but maybe there are more. I live to offer two.
Mickey Rowe: I see three things in the chat. I think they're instructions; I can't see them. They aren't questions.
Laurie Frankel: If anyone has questions, we can answer them. As I edited, their voices come through and they speak for themselves. As they became different characters, it was easy to see they are very different and speak differently. I could hear how each of them might talk. Mab is taking the SATs and has a big vocabulary. It was interesting to negotiate how they use language.
Mickey Rowe: How did you do your research for the book? We are all educated on the environmental disaster. In terms of the voices, you got disability so right. I'm a disability activist. I'm on social media and see these young disabled women changing the world. You got all of that so accurate. Were there real-life people you were looking to in that process?
Laurie Frankel: Thank you for saying that. I wanted to get that right from conception; I did tons of research and talked to people and read a lot. That helped. It was a funny book to research. I wanted them to negotiate their disabilities. I didn't want them to be diagnosed. I had to do research and change it up to make sure it wasn't too much or too little. What does diagnosis mean if you don't need a label to get medical care or insurance? Their lives are different because they are pretend.
Mickey Rowe: What's so humane is that you talk about them in terms not of what's wrong with them but in terms of this is so and so and they benefit from the use of ramps or XYZ accommodations which is a humanizing way of talking about it. It's about the culture and environment more than the individual. We have interpreters so deaf people can understand us. Everyone is on a more equal playing field and the disability falls away.
Laurie Frankel: It is literally less disabling. It's different when it's not such a small town or fiction or you have to deal with policy and raise money and taxing. I worried that the book would come off as preachy; it comes off as character. The writing is awkward but I'm making this big point. People don't lead with their symptoms; they lead with their characters.
Mickey Rowe: It made it more of an adventure or thriller. You present us with environmental obstacles. Each character has their own tools and abilities; they are all heroes.
Laurie Frankel: We also call that plot.
Mickey Rowe: I see a message from Kelly. Was this idea for the book born in your brain before you finished your last book?
Laurie Frankel: I don't know the answer to it; I don't know at what point this idea was in my brain. The short answer is yes; I was working on this book before I finished the last one. Books are in production for a year. Editing is not a fast process. Otherwise it would take me 10 years between books. I am grateful for all the people who read my last book, This is How it Always Is. I knew my mother would read it but don't take for granted that anyone else will. I want the readers to love this book too.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: How much do you write with the art for yourself and how much is for the audience?
Laurie Frankel: This lives in my brain for years at a time.
Mickey Rowe: What's so interesting is that theatre is already written. My job is not to come up with a story; my job is to bring as much of my humanity as I can to my character and to bring the character to life. You can't make it too much about yourself as an actor. Sometimes you want to have as much specificity as you can to everything going on in your head. The things in the middle are what I can bring to the character. You want to leave a little empty room for the audience; it's not about you in the end. You have to draw a line there to allow space for it to be the audience's character to project and finish the story.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: I can't wait to go back to live theater. Do you have a date to be on stage?
Mickey Rowe: I have something coming up in January but nothing soon enough.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: We can't wait to hear. Some stage is coming in September.
Mickey Rowe: I can't wait to see what that looks like. We have been so isolated for a year and a half; it's been difficult. We've all dealt with so much as a global community. We are ready to come together over stories and discuss what we've been through.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: Mickey, you're checking all the boxes. The second part of Kelly's question: Did the book start about sisters or disabilities or environmentalism?
Laurie Frankel: They came as one. I thought about the articles that say "long-term health consequences." What did that mean? What is it like for an entire town? Then I wanted to look at a wide swath of people affected by this and fit them into a novel. Triplets was my max. All the pieces came together.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: This conversation reminds me that as a retail worker, I hope people haven't forgotten how to interact face to face. When we are back, not everyone handles things the same way. It will be a very interesting lesson that I hope is expressed in various art forms going forward.
Laurie Frankel: I hope we learned to lead with empathy. The power of community and being together are important. We have to be empathetic and think of one another. I hope we come out of it leading with love.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: That's an excellent goal. I'm admiring your bookshelves.
Mickey Rowe: One character in your book does magic. These are all magic books because magic is my specialty. I have an encyclopedia that is out of print but it's all magic tricks and how to do them.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: And the top hat also.
Laurie Frankel: Aren't there 2? I'm wildly impressed.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: What are both of you reading now?
Laurie Frankel: I recommend this book to everyone. I'll find the link. I also loved Charlotte's book. I love Migrations. This new one comes out in August. I also loved this book which is different from Curious Incident. I want every book to be different. There are huge Shakespearean references. I loved this book.
Mickey Rowe: I just finished listening to One Two Three a week ago and have a long bus ride to work. I've tried to do other audio books but none are as good. I've been switching books every 2 hours. I've been working on my book which comes out in March. I just got the cover art emailed to me. I'm waiting to see if I can post it.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: By next year, we should be able to be in person. We are through with our chat questions. Thank you everyone for your help tonight. Thank you Mickey and Laurie for being with us. The books are signed and will be available soon if you want to order another one. Thank you all for your time and for joining us; it's been really great.
Laurie Frankel: Thank you.
Ginny Wherli-Hemmeter: Stay safe out there.