Laughing About Depression with Author Amy Watson -96

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:02

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Bassey. I'm an award winning musical composer, feature writer, essayist, and of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little about today's guest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:37

Amy Watson is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. She's a mother of 2 boys, and she wrote closer to okay by going to her local coffee shop and writing in the hour between kids leaving for school and when she had to go to work. So there's proof that anyone can find time to write a novel if you make writing a habit. The novel is based on her and her husband's experiences with depression and anxiety. More than one reader has called it the most realistic portrayal of depression that they've read. It's messy, sad, funny, and complicated just like real life, but it's also hopeful. And that makes it a pleasure to read. Amy, welcome to Author Express.

Amy Watson [: 00:01:12

Thanks for having me.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:14

Yeah. It's great to have you. I loved your book. As you know, I I think I read it as an advanced copy and was so excited about it that I did, like, a feature on my blog and everything.

Amy Watson [: 00:01:23

It was just great. You did, and you wrote one of the blurbs that's on the book, actually.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:27

Yeah. And I love the food connection. It was just all everything was so fun about it.

Amy Watson [: 00:01:31

Well, the whole reason I set out to write the book was it was actually a challenge by my therapist at the time to have a project, to do something for me to help my depression. And I went home and told my husband, I'm gonna write a novel. And he said, you're crazy. And I was like, well, I'm still gonna do it anyway. 6 years later, I had a book.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:53

That's amazing. So tell me what's the most interesting thing about where you are from.

Amy Watson [: 00:01:58

I'm born and raised and still in Little Rock, Arkansas. So probably the most interesting thing about Little Rock is that we are we are where cheese dip was invented.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:10

That is interesting.

Amy Watson [: 00:02:11

We're the home of the world cheese dip championship. And, literally, if you are a restaurant in Little Rock, you must have cheese dip on your menu.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:21

That's hilarious. All manner of them, spicy, yellow cheese, white cheese, everything?

Amy Watson [: 00:02:27

Indeed. Yeah. And the one that was invented was yellow cheese, and so there's still some, infighting back and forth between people about which one's the premium cheese.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:38

That's hilarious. Well, let's keep the food theme going because you are a baker as well. Are you not?

Amy Watson [: 00:02:44

I am.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:45

So tell us a little bit about that.

Amy Watson [: 00:02:48

It's just kind of a home passion that started with my mom when I was a kid. She baked wedding cakes for people out of our house when I was little. I said, well, mom, I want you to teach me how to do this. And she said, well, can you read? And I said, yeah. And she said, well, go pick up a cookbook and figure it out.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:06

Baking is not that easy.

Amy Watson [: 00:03:08

It's not. But that's exactly what I did. I went and picked up cookbooks and went to my local library and found out really quickly that cooking is not my jam, but baking is because I love the precision of it. I love having a formula for things. So that turned into eventually a food blog, which my co workers and my husband are still very sad that I don't write anymore because they were my taste testers. The blog was called Southern Sweets and Eat and it's actually still up on the Internet for people to look at, but it is mostly comprised of desserts and baking things with a little bit of cooking thrown in for good measure.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:48

That's very fun. So what I'd like to do is talk a little bit more about closer to okay. So can you, first of all, summarize the book in just one sentence?

Amy Watson [: 00:03:58

Closer to Okay is a book about a young woman who tries to commit suicide. And on the other side of that, tries to rebuild has to rebuild her life so that it doesn't look like it did before the suicide attempt.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:11

Yeah. That's really beautiful. And she's in a in a home where they're dealing with that, and she's doing a lot of cooking during that time. You've got some really colorful characters in the book. Can you tell us just like a little bit about that?

Amy Watson [: 00:04:23

Yeah. So I had the idea for the character way before I had the idea for the setting. I had the main character Kyle and the coffee shop and the people there, all of that in my head. And I said, but I can't figure out where she sits in this world. And then one day I said, it would be amazing to put her in one of these facilities because that was part of what was strangely entertaining about my husband's inpatient experiences was the people he was hospitalized with. They it was a cast of characters, and I said that's exactly what she needs around her. It's that cast of people who would never be together in a normal situation, but are all thrown in and forced to live together.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:06

Yeah. And that's what's so great about that book is how all of these characters bounce off each other and characters that you don't think you're gonna like and you do. I really loved it. It was just beautiful.

Amy Watson [: 00:05:16

Whenever anybody asked me, you know, who's your favorite character in the book? This goes back to what you just said. I mean, obviously, I have a little a simpatico for Kyle because in a lot of ways, she's me. But my favorite character to write was Eddie.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:32

Yeah. That's fun.

Amy Watson [: 00:05:33

Who so readers who haven't read people who haven't read the book, Eddie is a sociopath and he has no filter.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:43

Yeah.

Amy Watson [: 00:05:46

I actually would think of Eddie as, like, me if I didn't have a conscience and I didn't have a. And every morning after I would write.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:57

Dangerous combination.

Amy Watson [: 00:05:58

Yeah. Every morning after I would write scenes with him, I would go into work, the children's store that I work at, and say, you've gotta give me 30 minutes to reprogram. Otherwise, I'm gonna be talking like Eddie, which is not a good thing in a children's store.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:15

That is funny. That is very funny. Keep me away from the customers for 30 minutes.

Amy Watson [: 00:06:19

Exactly. Keep me away from the small children. I'm not well appropriate right now.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:25

When you're writing about mental health, and this is something that you and your husband have both dealt with, is there something about that that was particularly difficult to write?

Amy Watson [: 00:06:33

I wouldn't say difficult per se. It was definitely a learning experience though for me writing it because I had to really dive deep into why I felt the way I felt and where those feelings came from. Then when my husband finally read the book, which because of his depression, he didn't read it until like 3 weeks before it was being released to the world. Wow. So everybody had read it before he had pretty much when he finally read it because he's a night owl literally and stays awake all night. So I woke up the next morning and he was crying and he said, I just finished your book. And, oh my god. I'm so proud of you.

Amy Watson [: 00:07:17

It's beautiful. And I was like, oh, and I went and hugged him back. And he said, and I had no idea. Your depression sounds so different from mine.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:27

That's interesting.

Amy Watson [: 00:07:29

So in the process, he learned that the noise and the talk in my head is very, very different from the noise and the talk in his head even though we have the same disease.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:40

Yeah. I guess that's something that's good for all of us to know as well because so many of us are touched by mental health whether we know it or not in somebody that we love.

Amy Watson [: 00:07:49

Well, absolutely. And one thing that I have in common with Kyle is she didn't realize she had depression until she landed in the hospital. She just thought that that's how everybody's brain works because how do you know what other people are hearing inside their own heads? And that's how it was with me too. I remember when I was 11 years old, my mom telling me if you don't cheer up, we're gonna have to put you somewhere. Oh, man. But I'd never got help. And I forced myself to be happy when I was 11 because, you know, you don't know any better at 11. And it wasn't until I was 30 and my depression got worse after the birth of my first child.

Amy Watson [: 00:08:31

And my husband said, you need to go get help. You have what I have.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:35

Because he'd already been through it.

Amy Watson [: 00:08:36

Yeah. Exactly. But I have no idea that that's what this was.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:42

Yeah. Well, let's shift gears a little bit and talk just a little bit about the writing process. So we're talking about mental health and that you're struggling with depression in your life. Is there a part of writing that brings you joy?

Amy Watson [: 00:08:55

Oh, absolutely. My writing has become my therapy of sport, and it forces me to take time for myself every single day. So where before I started writing, I was spending all of my time taking care of my husband who is disabled because of his mental health working and then taking care of our 2 kids who are both neurodivergent.

Amy Watson [: 00:09:19

So I had a full plate and of course taking care of me was the very first thing that fell by the wayside. Of course. Of course. So I thought about it though, when I said, look, I've got this hour between when I have to drop the kids off at school and when I have to be at work, and I've been using it to read or whatever and been intermittently. And I said, I'm gonna take that hour and that hour is gonna be mine 5 days, 7 days a week, because I'm going to make myself get up on Saturday Sunday and take it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:51

And in case anybody's wondering that the noise in the background is that we are actually talking to her in that very coffee shop where this book was written.

Amy Watson [: 00:09:58

Indeed. Because, actually, my oldest child has a job here now, so he's actually working the register right now.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:08

Oh, how fun is that? That's great.

Amy Watson [: 00:10:10

Yeah. It's great. It's awesome.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:12

Alright. So as we start to wrap up here, tell us the one place that people should go if they wanna learn more about you or your book.

Amy Watson [: 00:10:19

I have a website, amywatsonwrites.com, and it has links to where you go buy the book. And I'm actually working on another book, so you can get details for that when and if that becomes an actual thing. So fingers crossed. Yep. You should have all the information you need there.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:37

Alright. Very good. And so in closing, tell us what book or story is inspiring you the most these days?

Amy Watson [: 00:10:43

The book that constantly inspires me and my all time favorite book is Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood. I read it right after I read The Handmaid's Tale when I was in high school, And it was the first book that I had read that was set in a modern day that had a female main character who was strong and tough, but still talked about her struggles. So, so much of the book is talking about her relationships with other girls and like the psychological warfare that goes on between girls as they're growing up. And I felt all of that book and it still inspired me to this day that no matter how hard you're struggling, you can come out on the other side of it. And it can still be messy because that book is messy just like mine is.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:33

Well, life is messy. So I think that's what I like about your book and I like about your writing is that you're not trying to clean it up. We can really recognize ourselves in it, and I think the best fiction sheds light on your own life. That's, like, what makes it and gives it power. So I think you do that well.

Amy Watson [: 00:11:47

Well, and that makes me so happy because that's exactly what I want as people to be able to recognize their own life and the struggles of those characters and maybe maybe glean some hope or help from it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:59

Yeah. Alright. Well, thank you so much for being with us today. Everyone, Amy Watson, the author of Closer to Okay.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:08

Thanks for joining us today. Reviews help other people to find us, so please take a minute to give us a rating and leave a few words. We'll be here again next Wednesday. In the meantime, follow us on Instagram at authorexpresspodcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget. Keep it express, but keep it interesting.