Shawna Rodrigues' Top Three Books & Her Personal Revelations -114

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Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:00:01

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us fifteen minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know your new favorite author in a new light. I'm Shawna Rodriguez, one of your hosts, a fellow author, host of The Grit Show and Authenticity Amplified Podcast, and the founder of Authentic Connections Podcast Network, which makes this podcast possible. Let me tell you a little about today's guest. We are doing something totally different today on Author Express. By the time we get to the end of the episode, I think you'll fully understand why. But in an attempt to kind of keep things similar to how we normally do that, I will try to follow some of the flow that we normally use.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:00:59

You all got to hear a little about the most interesting thing about where I am from in episode seven, when I got to be a guest and meet with Kathleen and she interviewed me. I talked about the pairs from the Rogue Valley where I grew up. So today, I will also mention another interesting thing about where I grew up, and that is it. It was a valley, and there were so many lakes everywhere around where I grew up. And every summer, we actually went camping at the same lake that would actually draw in people from as far away as California, which we were about an hour from well, less than an hour from the border, but people will come all the way from the Bay Area, which is much further south to come up and go to this lake that was only forty five minutes from my hometown that we would go to every summer. So it was a very beautiful place to grow up with lots of trees, lots of lakes, and it was just gorgeous. So the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon is where I had the advantage of growing up. I was so lucky for that.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:02:04

If you wanna hear more about the pears, you can go to episode seven when I was a guest and hear a little bit more about that. Today, I'm going to share with you three of my favorite books. I was actually surprised that two of them came out within a few years of each other. Whereas I thought one of them was from at least twenty years ago and one of them was from what I thought was a few years ago. So time gets a little compressed the older we get, doesn't it? The first book I wanna chat with you about is actually Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. It's a classic and that's actually why I read it. It was part of my inter lit class or something like that, whatever it was called my freshman year of college. And it was the first book I finished since probably reading the Bay Visitors Club when I was in junior high and that was what made it so special.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:02:57

When I was in high school, I did not have time to read the books that I was assigned. I very much flipped through them, gathered what information I could, got the reports done and got the grades in. Reading was not something I had room for. And I also had undiagnosed ADHD that wasn't diagnosed until I was an adult. So that was probably a small part of the formula as well. But when I was in college, my freshman year, it was actually a slower time for me because the first semester, I had a job that I had to go off campus for. And the second semester, I actually worked on campus and had limited hours that I worked because of that. And between going to school and homework and working that job, I was less busy than most periods of my life.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:03:49

When I was in high school, I worked substantial hours as well as going to school and having a very active social life in a car and plenty to do. And when I went to college out of state later, I was in speech and debate. I worked two jobs at one point in time to pay for school and didn't really have a lot of space. But at that point in time, I didn't have a car, so I didn't have options for employment. And I had a work study that second semester that kept me on campus, and it wasn't very many hours that you've had with work study. So I actually had time for things like reading the books I was assigned, and I read Jane Eyre. And part of it was probably just the luxury of fully reading a book and having part of my homework assignments to lounge under a tree and read. It was decadent, and I really love that book.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:04:38

And it's interesting. And I wonder if you can identify with this, that I've never reread it. And I think part of me wonders if I reread it, if I wouldn't see it differently or judge it more harshly. There's a couple books that I've gone back to, and there's something about who you are as a reader at the time that you experience a book and how it connects with that stage in your life or where you're at that just gives it a deeper connection, a different meaning to you. And part of me doesn't wanna change that. I know that my husband has reread multiple books, goes back to the same ones. He also listens to books now and will listen to the same books and gets so much pleasure out of that familiarity and having those books that he goes back to. And part of me just wants to let them live in that space and time with that meaning.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:05:29

So I'm curious about Jane Eyre because I keep, I have a copy of it, beautiful copy with a leather bound, beautiful copy. And I keep thinking about going back to it and wondering if it isn't going to do something to revisit it in a different space and time, and maybe it won't be as pregnant. Maybe it will lose a little something. We recently rewatched a movie that I thought was a really great movie, and I was so disappointed. So I don't know if I wanna do that. It's one of my favorite books. I'd be curious, like, what was a pivotal book for you when you were younger and if it would change things for you to read it again later. So the other two books that I wanna connect with you on, and I'm very much into character driven books, and that's what I feel like I get a lot out of them.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:06:14

So I'll take one of the books that we would normally ask one of our our authors about and give you one of the books. So the next book I was going to bring up is The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. And that's actually the book that I would have thought was written twenty years ago. And I was very surprised that when I was getting ready to do this, that it only came out in 2014, which is it is a decade ago, but I would have thought that it was closer to twenty years ago that that book came out instead of just being a decade ago. And so the question that I'm going to ask about that book is that, do you think the book would be exactly the same if it had been written ten years earlier than it was written. And, obviously, I thought it was written ten years earlier than it was. So I think that it would have been exactly the same. If I had read it ten years later, if I read it now, I'm curious how I would see it differently.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:07:12

One of the beautiful things about the invention of wings is character development, obviously, is an important thing for me, but it gives you this perspective of an 11 year old girl who is given a slave on her eleventh birthday. It was it's, like, eighteen o three for context. And I'm curious because of when this book came out, if it had been written ten years later, read later, if it would be seen differently or accepted differently of the importance of that perspective taking that this book offers the opportunity to have. When it came out, when I read it, I'd been through programs where my graduate program, where I was used to taking other perspectives and reading other views. And it was intriguing to just inhabit 1803, to be an 11 year old who didn't have any control over the situations I was being put in and what was happening and questioning things and how that might impact my life journey and path and for me and the distance it would create with my family if I started to think and wonder and question things. And it was a great journey to take. And it would've been even more poignant to read that after what we've all been through in the last five to seven years of needing to take better stock of the history in our country and the things that not everyone has been able to stop and see of the barriers that have been ingrained and systemically placed here. Right? So I'm curious if it would have felt different or more important had I read it more recently than when I did read it.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:08:58

And it's interesting to me that I thought that had been written so much longer ago. So it feels like it would have been the same book written even longer ago. And it has so much more importance even still today to have that book and that perspective around the stories and other people's views and the challenges they had with trying to think for themselves and take their perspectives of the other people they were around outside of their family and the immediate things in front of them that were also in front of them. So that's a very intriguing book, and that's actually one that I do almost wanna reread to see if it hits a little differently and lands a little differently even this close to the first time that I apparently read it in the last decade since it's not as old as I thought it was, and to see if it fits any differently. I am curious about that one. The last book that I want to talk to you guys about is Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and that came out in 2017. I definitely read it much more recently. I probably read that in 2020, '20 '20 '2, somewhere in that range.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:10:03

And so I didn't read it till well after it had come out, which is why it feels so much more recent and the other one seems so much further back. It, again, is a book with excellent character development and such an intriguing story. And I think that for me, what set the most for that book. And usually, our third question is about the writing process, And I would love to actually hear from Taylor Jenkins Reid about her process in writing this book to see how much of it was built upon what she was trying to shine light on for the Hollywood and the entertainment industry at that point in time. And it almost feels like just from the title, you can tell that the seven husbands was almost a necessity of trying to find your way in the world, but there's like this deeper piece of it that clearly comes through in the story. And it's a beautiful story. And it has a dual timeline of you hearing the main character, Evelyn, telling reporter slash writer she wants her to write kind of her memoir about looking back at her life and explaining her life and her decisions. So you get to know her in the present, but you get to hear her share the stories of her life and the choices she made and the paths that she took.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:11:24

And I think most any woman can relate to some of the decisions and choices and ways she felt she was pushed into places and the things that she did and people she loved, the people that she hurt, the people that she didn't wanna hurt, and how she came to terms and and figured all the things out to find her path in life. And it's a really beautiful story. And I think that it's an important story as we also navigate in our world currently where we have less understanding of others. And I think that that's one of the beautiful things about books and the reason why I love books because they give us such an opportunity to take glimpses into other lives, other perspectives, other characters, other ways of thinking, and coming to conclusions that can kind of deepen our own world views in ways and help us see how things look that way. And I think that's one reason why I love writers and the author community as well because of that beauty of being able to embrace experiences and see different perspectives and use imagination and connect and create community and all those beautiful things about the commute of all of that. So that's a book that I feel like there was a lot that I gained from. And it's so exciting that we have so many different deep characters and rich characters in all of literature that we can get to know and gain. And all of these authors get this opportunity to share from whether it's their own lives or if it's just people they've known or perspectives that they've had or things they've taken from.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:13:02

And I know that Ella Shawn, who does Black Writers Therapy, she presented a workshop once for the Women's Fiction Writers Association, where she talked about the need to get the perspective from the voices that you're representing in your writing to be able to represent different voices. And I know we've had great opportunities on this podcast to have individuals with children with special needs that they talk about, how those voices are represented in their writing, and people from different parts of the country. And we've had people from different parts of the world that come on at times, and different perspectives are just so valuable. And I think that's one of the beautiful things that I get from writing. So I'm very grateful for that. And you think that was why I was doing this unique episode, but that isn't. That was something I didn't expect. I was just choosing three books that I felt were powerful, impactful for me.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:13:53

And I hadn't seen that through line until I started sharing with all of you about them. And the interesting thing about the Taylor Jenkins read book being last is that part of that story is actually one of the characters. The more minor piece of that story is that one of the characters actually has breast cancer. And one of the reasons why I'm doing this strange solo episode is to share with all of you that there's going to be a shift in formatting for at least the next six months. We'll see how things go. But part of the reason for that is that I have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and I'm going to be prioritizing my health and my treatment and that piece for the next six months. And so I'm taking a big step back from a lot of the work and the things in my world. And one of them is co hosting this podcast, which does make me sad because I love my conversations with the amazing authors and be able to connect to this community that listens to this podcast.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:14:56

I love getting you connected to these voices and learning more about them and about their books and sharing this is something I truly enjoy. I love those conversations and the community that comes from all of this. So I'm going to miss doing that. However, you are going to be in amazing hands, obviously, with Christie and Kathleen, who are gonna keep carrying this mantle forward. It does also have a change in the release schedule because we didn't want to overburden them, and we all connected and talked about it. So what's going to happen is that the episodes are going to go to every other week. And so that we'll have one from Kathleen every month and one from Christy every month for at least the next six months. And then we'll kind of reevaluate where things are at once I've kind of gotten to the other side of all of my treatment and taken stock of where things are at with me and with them and see how things are proceeding, how all of you are flowing with us and everything else as well to kind of decide where things go from there.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:16:01

So we weren't sure about communicating that, about just doing a blurb in front of one of the episodes. And then I said, you know what? I would love to just make a little episode talking about a few of my favorite books and having a chance to let you all know that I'll be sitting back for a while. And I appreciate everyone who listens to this podcast, who supports our authors and supports what we're doing this. And thank you so much for being part of this. And you are in great hands with Kathleen and Christie, and thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us. I hope you take a second to give us stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform. It really makes a difference in folks being able to find us.

Shawna Rodrigues [: 00:16:45

We'll be here again next Wednesday. Follow us on Instagram at author express podcast to see who's coming up next. And don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.