Trading Trials for Tales: Elisabeth Dini’s Path from International Law to Uplifting Fiction -120

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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 fifteen 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. Elizabeth Dini is a former trial lawyer at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Her debut novel, Bearer of Bad News, out on April 29, was described by New York Times best selling author, Kristen Harnell, as one of the most delightful debuts she'd ever read.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:50

A laugh out loud, Bridget Jones esque tale about a woman searching for a missing necklace in an Italian mountain town while her own life implodes spectacularly. Originally hailing from Nevada, Elizabeth currently lives in The Netherlands. Welcome, Elizabeth, to Author Express.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:01:06

Thanks so much for having me, Kathleen. It's a pleasure to be here.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:09

Now everything about that bio is just super interesting to me. So you're a trial lawyer, and you worked at The Hague at the international court. That's just fascinating. I don't even know what to ask about that. Tell me something about it.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:01:23

Oh, wow. Well, I'm glad to hear you find it interesting. It was a very interesting experience. So I spent a number of years as a trial lawyer, both at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and then at the ICC. And there are so many things to say that would probably be interesting. I think for me, just this idea that we've come to a place as a human community to say that there are certain things that are wrong and that we can decide that genocide and other crimes against humanity and war crimes, rape as a war crime, all these different things that it should never happen. And the ICC is really an effort as that global community to come together and find a way to fairly evaluate and arbitrate those types of criminal offenses. But, of course, it's interesting to note that The United States is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:02:14

So The US actually isn't part of the ICC. Many other, of course, world restrictions are.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:21

Yeah. There's all kinds of directions you could take that question. So when you were working there, were you prosecuting or defending or sometimes both? What was your role?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:02:31

Yes. I was part of the OTP, which is the office of the prosecutor. And it's much different than domestic prosecutions because you're working on really large cases. And so Mhmm. At the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, I had hundreds of cases. At the ICC, I was only ever working out on one case at a time. Mhmm. And you're dealing with hundreds of witnesses, a lot of different testimonies that you're putting together.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:02:54

And as the lawyer, you're usually not meeting witnesses in person. I did go at one point to interview witnesses in the Central African Republic, but for the most part, I was just reading statements that were prepared by investigators that went and interviewed witnesses. Mhmm. So that's a very different type of bio lawyer job than when I was at Manhattan. You're meeting everybody yourself, so you have a different perspective on things. And, of course, you're working on cases where you may not speak the language as your first language or at all, where you really have to work hard to understand the cultural context and the conflicts that you're looking into or investigating. So there's a lot of nuance that needs to be brought to the way that you're looking at things. And of course, it's an entirely different legal system.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:03:41

So you're using different laws that you're also trying to apply. So it was extremely interesting to be part of that process and to be working with lawyers from all over the world. And that's something that I really enjoyed, was having that perspective of being part of this global team. But the actual application of of lot of fact and the trial part of it was much less trial than in The US where I might be in court quite often and, of course, in the ICC, not as much.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:05

Okay. Well, that sort of takes care of our first question, which is always about where you're from and what's interesting. And I think that was pretty interesting. So let's move on to talk about your book, shall we?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:04:16

Sure.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:17

Tell us about your book in one sentence.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:04:20

Sure. And I'm gonna try to do it in really good delivery for you, Kathleen.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:24

Oh, please. Always.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:04:26

When her fiance leaves without warning, struggling Las Vegas Hairdresser, Lucy Ray, takes a mysterious job as a bearer of bad news in the Italian Dolomites, only to uncover an explosive web of betrayal, stolen jewels, and a World War two era secret that changes her life forever.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:44

I mean, if you don't wanna read this book after hearing that description, I don't know what's the matter with you. Where do you even begin on that? Where does a book like this come from? You you'll get tired of getting asked that question, but I can't not ask it.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:04:57

Yeah. So I actually wrote this book during the pandemic and

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:59

Pure escapism.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:05:01

Right. I wanted something funny. I mean, it was such a depressing time for many, if not most of us. And I wanted some sort of escape, and so it started that way, just imagining this woman really having her life implode. And of course, I'm from Nevada, so she's living in Las Vegas at the time. I'm actually from Northern Nevada. She went to the University of Nevada, Reno, so there are some connections to Nevada. And her fiance leaves her.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:05:27

She's in this situation. And I kind of I had a thought a while ago about how cool it would be to have a job as a bearer of bad news. And when I first had the idea about turning it into a book, thought of it in a more serious way, like, actually, maybe having a league of people that are bearer of bad news and it's sort of a noble profession. Maybe it had been, you know, existing for generations.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:49

I have to break in, though. Like, is this actually a thing? I'd never heard of that before.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:05:53

As far as I know, no. But you could see it being one. Right? Because there are so many people who I'm sure would love to outsource delivering bad news, sort of like DoorDash or what have you, but you just dial up DoorDash for bad news.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:04

That's awesome.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:06:05

Right. Right. So it has not existed as far as I know, but who knows? Who knows, Kathie? This could inspire a whole new professional trajectory.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:15

Okay. I'm sorry. Please continue.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:06:17

Yeah. Anyway, so it just sort of went from there, and it ended up not being, like, a serious sort of coven of bad news people. It was just Lucy getting recruited to this really bizarre job. And I had a lot of fun writing it. So with humor, it's always hard because you might laugh hysterically at something or your best friend may love it, but you're kind of like, will other people like this or will they find it really stupid? Like, you don't really know. But I wanted to have kind of a mix of a book that was fun to read, but also where readers would get something more than just that from it. So there's sort of a separate storyline that runs through the book that explores the friendship of two women living in World War II era Berlin right before the fall of Berlin. Mhmm.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:07:00

It is oriented around how these two best friends situate themselves in that situation. And so that created a sort of darker storyline that balances out some of the humor. And I did a ton of research, so I have a whole author's note about the real women that I researched who were part of resistance efforts in Berlin and in larger Germany and how just vastly different the women were. So they weren't from the same political party or religion or life chapter. You had elderly women, you had young students all doing a lot of unsung things, and many of them I'd never heard of. So that part was really fascinating for me, and I, to the extent that I could, kept that historical record accurate so that people reading the novel would have information that's true about the timelines and the troop movements and what was happening in the world at that moment. And then in the author's note, I go through the real women and their the role that they played and how they played into the research for the novel.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:00

That's really interesting. So is there a scene or a moment in the book that feels particularly personal to you?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:08:07

Oh, interesting. Gosh. And I hadn't know what questions you were gonna ask, so I hadn't really thought that. It feels personal to me. Oh, I think Lucy is going on a journey where she's trying to figure out who she is and what type of life fits. And I think many of us have been in a situation where you might be in a relationship or a friendship or a job or a place where you're living, whatever it is, that just isn't quite right, but you're not sure how to fix it or what to change. And that resonates with me a lot. I mean, I left The US and moved to The Netherlands in my thirties and took this job at the ICC and ended up meeting a Dutch guy and getting married.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:08:42

I'm still living here. So I think that transition point and being in a moment where you have to take a big risk to see whether you can end up in a new and better situation and how you tackle that. I think that's a very human experience to have and one that I certainly have had.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:59

Yeah. That's really neat. So is there a word or a phrase that you can think of that sort of distills the essence of your book down to just that one little bit?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:09:11

Gosh. There is a lot going on in this book, Kathleen. So that's a challenge. Let's see. One more question. Hearing.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:19

Even though it's taking a completely fabricated job line of, line of work, it's real. It's chaotic.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:09:25

Yeah. I mean, I think there are a few themes that run through it. I mean, there's definitely this idea of moving on from the past in various ways. There's a lot of friendship and this idea of what do we owe to other people. And also, one theme that I find particularly resonates in the world that we're living in today is this idea of not being overwhelmed by darkness, never underestimating the power that each of us have to be a light for someone. So even if it's in a small way to a neighbor or a larger way, often we do have the ability to have even a bigger impact. But we all are in a situation where instead of being overwhelmed by things that could look dire or challenging or depressing to instead think about what we are able to influence or how we can show up as a bright light in that dark time. And so that would be something that I hope readers would take away from the story.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:10:19

And, of course, it has an uplifting happy ending, so there's also that going for it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:24

So I would say inspiring then. Humorous and inspiring.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:10:28

Those seem such lofty words. I would never date to call my own book, humorous and inspiring, but I would love if those were words that people who read the book have thought about it after they finished.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:39

Very good. Well, let's talk a little bit about the writing process for you. How do you keep track of you said there are a lot of themes running through this book, so you had a lot to keep track of research and history and humor and not humor. How do you keep track of everything and organize your thoughts while you're writing?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:10:58

Gosh. That's a great question. And I have to admit that I am kind of a mess as a writer. Like, I'm definitely a pantser, so I don't know that I keep track of things particularly well. My process is more reading things over again and again and again, and then I have kind of a messy side document where I have all the questions that have to be answered that haven't been answered. And then as I go through my editing process, I plug in the missing information. This book was hard to write. It's written in a way where clues unfold for the reader.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:11:29

And so I really had to keep track of whether or not the clues were presented in an order that would be easy to follow and for readers who enjoy unraveling for themselves, Okay, what's happening here? Enough breadcrumbs for them, but also enough clarity that readers who don't enjoy doing that also didn't feel lost. And so that did take a lot of doing and just isolating those parts and making sure that things were in the right sequence and then just a lot of editing. So I spent a ton of time in the editing process really going through this book again and again and again to make sure that the pieces would fit and that even the most fastidious reader would not. I hope Fingers crossed. And who knows? Maybe I'll send you emails. But I hope that most of the plot holes have been filled. I have one friend, and she's an appellate lawyer, and she is extremely fastidious.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:18

And so I would think that an appellate lawyer would be a really good person to edit your work.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:12:22

Wait. So she read the book and she did find things where I was like, oh my gosh. Like, literally all the other people that have read this book, and no one spotted it. But I was so grateful to her because then I'm like, okay. So I had that reader who looked at it, and hopefully everything that she spotted really got me in a good place with plot holes. But I think that's kind of every writer's worst fear, right, is me Right. You leave one in on accident. Right.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:12:44

You're gonna have to live with that forever.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:46

Alright. Well, amazingly, we're coming to the end of our time already. So tell us where is the best place for people to find you?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:12:53

So the best place to find me is on Instagram at @elisabethdiniauthor. So @elisabethdiniauthor on Instagram.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:06

Great. And then tell us what book or story is inspiring you the most these days?

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:13:12

Gosh. There's so many to choose from. But whenever I need inspiration, I always find myself going back to Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And I'm definitely paraphrasing this quote, but he has this fantastic saying that I find so inspirational that the last human freedom is our ability to choose our attitude despite the circumstances, and that always speaks to me whenever I need some inspiration.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:34

I would imagine that working in The Hague, that would be an important thing to keep because you're facing the worst of humanity and trying to make everything better.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:13:43

Yeah. Although, you know, it's interesting because it's also the best of humanity. You know, you really hear stories of incredible courage and bravery and people who sacrifice their own best interest to help others. And as bad as the actions are that are leading a case to be in front of the ICC, I've never once had a case where I didn't come across a number of people who were doing the right thing at great cost to themselves, and that gives me real hope for humanity and for the future.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:10

Wow. I don't think we can top that, so let's call it there. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Elisabeth Dini [: 00:14:16

Thank you so much, Kathleen. It was a real pleasure to chat to you.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:22

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 author express podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.