Episode 63
Writing What You Most Want to Write with Author Sara Read
Before she started writing fiction, Sara got a degree in Women’s Studies from U.C. Santa Cruz. She tried the nine-to-five life for about a nanosecond before moving to rural Virginia to become a flute-maker’s apprentice and traditional fiddle player. Some years and two babies later, she returned to school for a Masters in Nursing. A cancer survivor herself, she now has the privilege of caring for cancer patients as a nurse.
Sara writes stories about women with purpose and passion who contend with the foes within (self-doubt, mental illness, family struggle) and without (patriarchy) to become their most whole selves. She has yet to meet a moral dilemma that doesn't fascinate her.
JOHANNA PORTER IS NOT SORRY, released in March 2023, was Sara's debut novel. Her latest novel, PRINCIPLES OF (E)MOTION came out January 2024. She is hard at work on her third novel, which is hard at work trying to kill her. Sara's short stories have been published in The Missouri Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, and Zone 3 Press, and she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is represented by Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary Agency.
Sara is co-host of #MomsWritersClub, a BlueSky community and YouTube channel. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, two teens, a terrier, and three snarky cats.
A little about today's host-
Kristi Leonard is a modern Renaissance woman deeply rooted in the book world. When she's not immersed in crafting novels, she's orchestrating writing retreats through her business, Writers in the Wild, or lending her voice to non-fiction audiobooks. She leads the Women’s Fiction Writers Association as the president of the board, and interviews her writer pals as one of the hosts of the Author Express Podcast. She will start querying her first book in 2024.
Beyond the realm of words, Kristi embraces the Florida sunshine by hiking with her writer-hiker group and leisurely walks on the beach. She and her husband juggle a couple side businesses and take turns sharing the couch with their goofy Golden-doodle, Maddie. Kristi enjoys travel adventures with her twin sister and living vicariously through her grown children. You can learn more about her and connect at: https://linktr.ee/kristileonard.
Be sure to follow or subscribe to Author Express wherever you listen to podcasts and to follow us on Instagram @AuthorExpressPodcast
Learn more about our hosts, the guests we've had, and their books -
Transcript
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Kristi Leonard [: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, Kristi Leonard, owner and host of Writers in the Wild Retreats, nonfiction voice over artist, and president of WFWA. I'm excited to share with you a little about today's guest.
Kristi Leonard [:Sarah is an author, a nurse, a runner, and an unfiltered tattooed Gen X mom. She writes books about women living full lives and doing amazing things in spite of people that say they should stay small. Sarah was raised on adventure, stern judgment, and a borderline inappropriate degree of freedom in Washington DC.
Kristi Leonard [:She's a serial monogamist when it comes to careers. First, an Irish fiddle player, then a nurse, now an author. Sarah loves indie bookstores, messages from readers, and helping people along the path to publication the way others helped her.
Kristi Leonard [:Welcome, Sarah Read. It's so great to have you. I actually met you online and volunteered to be on your book launch team, which was so fun. You did that so well. Did you know that I was on your book launch team?
Sara Read [:Oh, for goodness’ sake. Yes. I'm like the worst with names and, like, now it's all coming together. Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. And you're also the retreat organizer, and then you're also like Women's Fiction Writers Association. It's like I've got you in all these different parts.
Kristi Leonard [:Yes, I know. It's so good to have you. It's actually nice to actually meet you in person because I've seen you around on the interwebs and everything. So, we always start with the same question. Tell me the most interesting thing about where you are from.
Sara Read [:Well, so I'm originally from Washington DC and there are so many interesting things about Washington, DC. Especially when I was growing up there, it was not like as nice and safe and shiny as it is now. It was a little sketchy. But the amazing thing about it is that so much stuff is free.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that's true.
Sara Read [:All the Smithsonian museums are free. The zoo is free. There are free concerts. There's so much free culture. And, you know, as a little, like, grubby teenage public high school student, I could, like, go wander around the National Gallery of Art, and I did.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that's awesome.
Sara Read [:I mean, it was just amazing. And I just I love going back there and going to like these places that I've just been going for decades now, you know?
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, yeah. That's so great. Where are you now?
Sara Read [:I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia now.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay. Not too, too far.
Sara Read [:Which is also really awesome. No.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah.
Sara Read [:No. I mean, it took me well into my twenties before I realized that it usually costs money to go to a museum.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that is so funny.
Sara Read [:You know, I was like in San Francisco. I was like, wait. This is like $20. It's a museum.
Kristi Leonard [:That is so funny. Well, let's get to know you a little bit. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live and why? And I'm going to pause that and say, I read that your family comes from Finland. Is that on your list?
Sara Read [:So, that is such an easy question. I would move to Finland in a heartbeat. My brother and sister and I actually own a house in Finland on the southern coast on an island on the water that is just my happy place.
Kristi Leonard [:That sounds amazing.
Sara Read [:And, oh yeah. I mean we've talked seriously about moving there. It's a wonderful country. The culture, I just feel really at home there. And I also have about 40 cousins there.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, wow. Okay.
Sara Read [:So, it's kind of second home for me.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. That's awesome. So, what is the best piece of advice anyone has ever given to you? It can be about writing. It doesn't have to be about writing.
Sara Read [:I have 2.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay.
Sara Read [:1 is about marriage.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, excellent. Get ready people.
Sara Read [:And it is, don't keep score.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay.
Sara Read [:And I have had to remind myself that over the years and I've been married for 24 years now.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay.
Sara Read [:And yeah. Don't keep score as much as you want to.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay. And what's the second one?
Sara Read [:Well, for writing, this is from my favorite craft book on writing which is the Modern Library Writer’s Workshop by Stephen Koch. I mean, it's full of good advice, but one of my favorites is always make everything a little clearer than you think it needs to be.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that is good advice. Okay. I need to write these down. When I get all this great advice from other people.
Sara Read [:No. Oh, that'd be fun if you, like, made a list and have it somewhere, like, if you have a podcast website or something.
Kristi Leonard [:Definitely. Yeah. You know it. Well, let's get to the fun stuff. So, as I said at the top, I was one of the readers for your street team, which if you guys want to know how to do a street team right, Sarah Read is your person because she did such a phenomenal job. She gave us pictures that we could use. Like, I was reading it on a Kindle, so I didn't have a physical book. So, those graphics that you created were really, really great. You know, you can maybe do something on your social media to tell people what they should be doing because you should teach a class. It was amazing.
Sara Read [:Well, I won't take credit for that because I basically took what my friend Jessica Payne did. She's a thriller author and I copied it.
Kristi Leonard [:Perfect. Excellent.
Sara Read [:I just did what she did. But yeah. It does make it a lot easier for people.
Kristi Leonard [:Yes, it does. So, when I wrote my review of your book, I mentioned that I felt smarter just reading it. It's such a clever premise. I loved it. So, how would you summarize your book in 1 sentence?
Sara Read [:So, Principles of (E)motion is about a genius mathematician who contends with the damage from her prodigy childhood and the prejudices of her field to solve a historic proof. And it's also a story about the very important difference between conditional and unconditional love.
Kristi Leonard [:That's the perfect summary of this book.
Sara Read [:Thank you. It's taken me a while.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. When I say I felt smarter reading it, but you did a really good job of not putting her so far, I mean, you could tell your character was well above everybody else, but as a reader, I didn't feel like I couldn't connect with her, which I thought was really, really great. I thought you did such a great job doing that.
Sara Read [:Thank you.
Kristi Leonard [:So, do you think that your book would be exactly the same if you'd written it 10 years ago? How long did it take you by the way?
Sara Read [:Oh my gosh. I sort of did write this book 10 years ago, only it was, I have a very weird convoluted leapfrogging creative process. And this is sort of the pair of characters, her and Isaac, the love interest, they have sort of been living in my head for about 10 years.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that's amazing.
Sara Read [:So, I sort of started trying to learn to write with these characters. They had different names, different jobs, they lived in a different place, it was a different story. But the vibe and the relationship were the same. And, of course, it was like anything, you know, when you start out writing and you just kind of throw all this feeling and words and sentences and metaphors and stuff together and you hope that it hangs together and then it doesn't.
Sara Read [:You're like, that's a really beautiful sentence, but these 30,000 words just does not hang together. But they just kept coming back and coming back and coming back.
Kristi Leonard [:That is so awesome.
Sara Read [:Eventually, their story got told.
Kristi Leonard [:Awesome.
Sara Read [:Feel good about that.
Kristi Leonard [:So, what brings you the most joy when writing? Is it joyful? Is it a process that's joyful?
Sara Read [:Yes.
Kristi Leonard [:Yes. Okay. That's great. You can tell in your book because you definitely wrote it in a way that made me think you enjoyed writing it.
Sara Read [:I like to feel something while I'm writing. So, it's not always joy, but it's always, it brings me very, very much into the present. Like,
Kristi Leonard [:That's cool.
Sara Read [:I may be completely off in my head, but I am not doing anything else but existing as the writer of this story that whatever it is I'm working on. And that's really great. Like I can just lose hours and hours doing that.
Kristi Leonard [:That is great.
Sara Read [:When it's not happening though, when I'm struggling with a story that's not working or a character who is not revealing herself to me or I'm writing stuff and I just know it's not working, then that is kind of torturous and painful.
Kristi Leonard [:Not joyous. So, what do you do to bring yourself back to the joy?
Sara Read [:I just keep trying.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay. I know some people say, you have to get away and go do something else that's creative. There's lots of different strategies.
Sara Read [:Yeah. You know, I've spent the last year and a half trying to write something totally different now than what I tried to spend the last year and a half writing.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, no.
Sara Read [:Yes. Because I couldn't make it work. And I think it's going to come back just like Principles of (E)motion did. It sort of leapfrogged this other project and came back. And this one is going to do the same thing, but it just was not working no matter what I did.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. I think that's a skill to be able to walk away.
Sara Read [:I think I was much more stubborn than I probably should've been, but the process is the process. It's like, you know?
Kristi Leonard [:So, do you have something else that you're working on then?
Sara Read [:Yes. So, I have a totally different thing that I'm working on. One thing that Chuck Wendig, who's a very good writer and writer of craft books, said was that he never feels like he knows what he's doing because he's like, I know I can write a book. I don't know if I can write this book.
Kristi Leonard [:Oh, that's great. Yeah. That's a great way to think about it.
Sara Read [:And I was like, yes. That's exactly how I feel. Like, of course, I've done this before. Of course, I know I can do it, but this one, I don’t know.
Kristi Leonard [:Right. Yeah. So, the Principles of (E)motion is actually your 2nd book. Your first book, Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry, just had a distinction in regards to its audiobook.
Sara Read [:Yes.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. So, why don't you tell us briefly about that, and then also tell us where can people find you? Do you have a website, or would you rather people find you online? Like, tell us where people can find you. So, tell us about the news about your audiobook and then tell us about where they can find you.
Sara Read [:So, the audiobook versions of both my books are narrated by Marni Penning, who is a total pro, has done hundreds of audiobooks. And she was nominated on Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry for an audio award, which is like the Oscars of audiobooks.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah.
Sara Read [:And we thought it was going to be just in the, you know, in the fiction category along with, like, thriller or romance and whatever. And I looked on the website, like, the moment they announced, and I was like, where is it? Am I missing something? I don't see it. And it turns out she was nominated for narrator of the year.
Kristi Leonard [:That is so great.
Sara Read [:Like, best fiction narrator of the year. And you know who else is in that category? Ethan Hawke and Meryl Streep.
Kristi Leonard [:Holy crap.
Sara Read [:And Ann Patchett, because Meryl Streep narrated Ann Patchett's book. And Dave Eggers who Ethan Hawke narrated. And then there's me and Marni and I'm just like,
Kristi Leonard [:That's so great. Wow.
Sara Read [:So exciting.
Kristi Leonard [:Super cool. Alright. So, where can people find you?
Sara Read [:So, best place is my website because that just links to everything else I'm doing. It's sararead.net. So, SARA READ, like reading a book.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah. Definitely. Okay. So, we always close with the same question. What book or story inspires you the most?
Sara Read [:So, there are many, but since we're talking about Principles of (E)motion, I have to give it to Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South. Do you know that book?
Kristi Leonard [:Awesome. Yeah.
Sara Read [:Classic 19th century story, and it's just such a brilliant combination. There's this very central love story in it, but there's also this incredibly deep social commentary and real-world issues and these 2 characters who have to like, navigate all this personal growth to come to understand each other that's all inextricably tied with their community and their time and, like, the big issues, and it's just so good. Plus, just a swoony love story.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay. So, swoony love stories are good. We love that. So, you think that that is the book that inspires your writing or just your love of reading?
Sara Read [:That book definitely inspired these 2 characters in Principles of (E)motion. They are like very, very loose fan fiction of North and South.
Kristi Leonard [:Okay.
Sara Read [:And when I first started writing again, I was like, I had just come out of that book. I was like, I must do this. I must, you know? But of course, it's written in a language you can't use anymore and it was so like, present in my head it took quite a while for it to wear off.
Kristi Leonard [:Yeah.
Sara Read [:For me to find my own voice, so.
Kristi Leonard [:Well, alright everybody you have another book you can put on your list. We don't have TBR piles that are 18 feet long.
Sara Read [:Of course not.
Kristi Leonard [:No.
Sara Read [:Right.
Kristi Leonard [:Not at all.
Sara Read [:And it's not like this book isn't very long.
Kristi Leonard [:Warning. It is a long book.
Sara Read [:It is kind of a long book.
Kristi Leonard [:Well, it has been an absolute joy. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so grateful that I got to meet you in person and all the best with your book. I have the feeling a lot of people are going to buy this book because it is really, really good.
Sara Read [:Oh, thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure.
Kristi Leonard [:Thanks for joining us. We hope you take a second to give us stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform, and we'll be here again next Wednesday. Follow us on Instagram at Author Express Podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.
