E99 Amy Ephron | Joe Wagner

What if a novel set in 1939 suddenly felt surprisingly relevant today?
Best-selling author Amy Ephron joins us to talk Hollywood, storytelling, family legacies, and why the best stories have a way of finding us exactly when we need them. This conversation is as thoughtful as it is unforgettable.

🎙️ Go With Your Palate: Amy Ephron | Stories, Secrets & the Art of Reinvention

This week, we’re joined by Amy Ephron—best-selling author, novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and former Columbia Pictures executive whose remarkable career has taken her from publishing her first poem at just five years old to working alongside legendary filmmakers like Oliver Stone, and now to the release of her captivating new novel, Unseasonably Cold.

Amy takes us inside a lifetime of storytelling—from growing up in one of America's most celebrated writing families to forging a creative voice entirely her own. We explore the inspiration behind Unseasonably Cold, a novel seven years in the making that unexpectedly feels strikingly relevant to the world we're living in today. It even sparked a fun conversation about whether Amy might have a little more foresight than she's letting on. Along the way, she shares incredible insights into writing, Hollywood, human nature, and why the best stories often reveal truths we didn't even know we were searching for.

Of course, this is Go With Your Palate, so we happily wander off the page. We bond over Joe's Quilt wines (and Amy's own unforgettable quilt—you'll definitely want to hear the story behind that one), compare growing up in iconic family legacies—hers in storytelling, Joe's in winemaking—and swap thoughts on weather, creativity, and the surprising places inspiration likes to hide.

It's thoughtful, funny, and full of the kind of conversation that reminds you why stories matter. Whether they're told through books, films, a bottle of wine, or around a dinner table, the best ones have a way of bringing us together.

Grab a glass, settle in, and let Amy tell you a story. 🍷📖✨

📍 Follow Amy: @amyephron
📚 Discover her latest novel: Unseasonably Cold

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:13

You know, is our our friend and colleague in New York, but she was in the Hamptons as well as Amy herself for Fourth of July. Okay. And there was a huge I wasn't there but just heard a catastrophic storm. I mean, Amy, if if you want to tell about it, I didn't we didn't hear about this at all. Yeah. Because we're over here on the left side.

From a Hurricane-strength thunderstorm to GWYP (let's talk novels!)...

SPEAKER_04 0:30

All the trees snapped. Suddenly on the 4th of July at 9 30, all our cell phones went off. And here's what it said. Take shelter immediately. My nephew and his friend were in the barn watching TV. And I suddenly hear them streak the door slamming from the barn back into the house. And it was declared an emergency. And all these insane, all these trees just slipp.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Was it just like a like a wind, like out of nowhere, a quick windstorm, or what?

SPEAKER_04 1:06

No, it was a completely crazy rainstorm and with a hurricane warning.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

In a in like a a moment's notice. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:16

God, that sounds like somebody just after the fireworks? Yes. Well, in some cases during the fireworks. And then we were halfway to the airport the next day. And or the day after no, it was it was actually on Monday, and all the flights were canceled.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Oh, lovely. What do you I mean, do you think that there may be I'm just it was right after the fireworks? Like, did somebody put some cloud seeding chemicals in the fireworks? No. No, no. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

See, I told you. I told you he's kind of into that whole thing. We were just kind of talking before we even started.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Yeah, nothing is as it seems. History is written by people that want to tell the history. We don't actually know history.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So you think there's already technology that exists that's controlling weather? Absolutely. Absolutely. See?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah. Two out of the one, you lose. No, wait, it's not. I'm with you guys. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

I was just asking the question. Yeah. And and I think that war affects the weather. I I'm a little I I've seen this before. I think when we go to war, they don't understand that it's one atmosphere. So you drop all these missiles, and then eventually the air gets disrupted. And here we are. It's very funny. As I got closer to publishing my new novel and seasonably cold, suddenly the title made way more sense than I intended it to make. Because it's actually about an emotional state.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Okay. Yeah. But then it became a physical element. I apologize. All my fault. That's great. Well, that's that sounds like beautiful writing. Take it not as an accident, a good accident, but you know, that was strategy on your part.

SPEAKER_04 3:10

The other thing that happened is, you know, it's about an heiress who disappears in 1939. And the closer we got to publication, the more our political atmosphere altered to the point where we were exactly under the same kind of circumstance that people were under in 1939. As people were worried about the war. And underneath it, we're all a little frightened.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

And so we're all waiting for the next chapter. Nobody knows what it is. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah. And that was like uh it was uh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it was like seven years in the making with unseasonably cold. That was the original title.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

So it was very odd, but it was also like a mirror for the fact that Jane had disappeared and no one knew what happened to her, and people were feeling guilt and fear and all kinds of things. So everything became a metaphor. It was very strange.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Have you had that happen to you before in your other writings where you felt like you were writing something and then it came to fruition? Like you were almost fortunate.

SPEAKER_04 4:54

I I no, and I never imagined we'd be here. I

City Living, Situationships, and a love for Quilt & Quilting...

SPEAKER_04 5:00

never imagined that we would be witnessing what we're witnessing. Okay, what are you drinking?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Me, I'm drinking water, sparkling water out of a cup. And he's going fancy. He's got his Saratoga, which you may be familiar with. How far, how far away are you from Saratoga?

SPEAKER_04 5:18

I'm in Santa Monica. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Why are you laughing? No, because you're you're uh because you were in Santa Monica now, so you came all the way from the Hamptons. East Hamptons. Yeah, East Hamptons. Okay. Yeah. And I didn't tell you this, but I I I lived in LA for over 10 years. So I'm very familiar with the area. I lived in Santa Monica. I lived in Westwood. I lived in West Hollywood, the valley. I was like everywhere. You know. Yeah, I had to get a little taste and find what was my my favorite place to be.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Well, I think he didn't really have a choice. He was just couch surfing. So it was like wherever he didn't have to pay rent is where he lived. I've I've known him his whole life.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

I had apartments, dude. I dude, I I was not couch surfing the whole time, all right?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

If you squat there for long enough, you you do have an apartment. You're right.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, this guy. Well, didn't you sleep on my couches?

SPEAKER_00 6:15

No, I don't no, no. It's no, that was a bed, actually.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Oh, okay. See, I was I was proper. I gave you an actual bed, and now look what you do. Oh, God. I told you you could tell we, you know, we grew up together, unfortunately. Arranged friendships, you know.

unknown 6:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Yes, a welcome to go with your palate. Arranged friendships. Did you already tell her about this? I love that. You coined it. The arranged friendship, yeah.

unknown 6:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

You know, my my daughter claimed something. Um, I was in New York two weeks ago. I did the strand, it was really amazing, I have to say.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, that is cool.

SPEAKER_04 6:50

It was very cool. And we have a friend who's gay who has a new something, which my daughter coined a situation ship.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah. Yeah. Like they're they're just they're just banging, but they're not like ready to commit.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

I don't know. She called it a situation ship. It wasn't it hadn't progressed to the point where, yeah. I thought it was a great expression.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

It is a great expression.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Now this is Substack, right? Uh what platforms?

SPEAKER_00 7:20

Yeah, yeah. What platforms.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Oh, uh, we're we're on all podcasting platforms: Apple, Spotify, YouTube. And then we also have like, you know, obviously we like to share all our social clips and stuff like that, highlights on on Instagram and TikTok.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Joe's quite the TikTok influencer. That's that's mainly what he is. Winemaker is like second.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

He's more so I got into winemaking just so I could become an influencer. That was that was that was that was his plan all along. It only took me 25 years of winemaking to finally become an influencer and see my full potential.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

I love the fact that you have a wine called quilt.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

I you know what? Let's jump into that right now. What I I would love to hear, are you into quilting?

SPEAKER_04 8:00

Um when the pandemic started, I started a quilt by hand, my crazy quilt. Um, I think I didn't get I didn't get very far. It's right over there. I'm not gonna show it to you. Oh, come on.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Come on, let's go. You've got we gotta we gotta see this. We gotta see it. It's a forever reminder for you of the pandemic and how much time you had on your hands. Yes. I kind of miss it. Well, you're you're gonna I hope you have an excuse for the inspiration on this thing because there's always a story with a quilt.

SPEAKER_04 8:33

Here's the thing. Um, I'm a really bad sewer.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

That makes two of us. Yeah, three of us. Three of us. I actually took a sewing class when I was like 22. How to go.

SPEAKER_04 8:49

You did?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah, and uh, and I still sucked. I was just like, my mom always sewed, she was always like really good at it. She learned as a young girl and um and always fixed our clothes growing up and stuff. And so like I was gonna have my first kids, and I was like, I should probably learn how to do this stuff, you know. And and uh I went over to Santa Rosa and took a sewing class and uh actually bought a sewing machine and like I was like, this is not I think it's my my fingers are too fat. I think that's the problem.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Like yeah, those sausages.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

I just have a problem like threading the needle alone, like that's probably the most frustrating part.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

It had a theme, okay? Okay, yeah, I want to hear the theme. Its theme was pajamas, and then I had a friend who was making face masks out of English fabric.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Well, that looks pretty good to me. Oh, wow. So those are I'm I'm guessing those are face masks and pajamas.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

And pajamas.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Face masks and pajamas. That's actually like so COVID. That's yeah. That is just us. Face mask and pajamas.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

That's dude, that's a whole, that's a whole like it was my ver it was my version of the AIDS quilt.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, the the the the weirdness and kind of hardship and whatever else of COVID kind of summed up in a quilt. I like that paisley one. Is the Paisley? Is that the pajamas?

SPEAKER_04 10:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:21

And this is the pajamas. No, this is the the paisley one is the face mask.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:28

I had a I had a French friend who was making us masks for us and the kids.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Okay. Well, I can I can tell that through the pajamas and the face masks, you have style. Because I love the colors, I love the patterns, like you were having fun. You know what I mean? There was you could tell people were go out there with their face masks. Like sometimes it was just like this straight up, whatever gray, you know, kind of sad face mask. What was it? The N the N ninety five? The N ninety fives. Or there was like people going out with style like that. Little color, being like, hey, you know what?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

It's hard times right now, but we're trying to Or there was the crazy moments of like people wearing like scuba gear and stuff like that. That was that was wild.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah. Okay, let's get I want to get a proper introduction in. Yes, okay. All right.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

Well Amy, welcome to Go With Your Palette, uh, where we talk about wine entrepreneurship and whatever the FLs we

Welcome Best-selling Author Amy Ephron!

SPEAKER_00 11:24

want to. Uh I know we've already talked. I'm Joe Wagner, co-host Chris Fat Mario Rubio. Uh we are very excited to have you as a guest today. So uh you're Amy Efron. You are a storyteller, an author, book writer.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I like I mean, best-selling author, screenwriter, journalist. Screenwriter. I mean yes. I mean, the list goes on. I mean, you have I can't wait wait to dive into your origin story and just like find out how you got to where you are and what you see for the future and and all the good stuff. What do any of us see for the future?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

I don't know. I'm kind of scared because if you start writing more books and you're manifesting stuff, and that I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

I know. Right now, like I'm kind of like asking you like, what's gonna happen, Amy? Kablitz? We're gonna start to get some intel.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

We're just gonna check in every six months with you, okay?

SPEAKER_02 12:13

Yeah. I think that would be a good idea.

SPEAKER_00 12:18

Oh, well, welcome. Uh yeah, so very excited to to talk about this. Glad you've uh you you like the brand quilt and and know of it and uh we share that common thread, no pun intended, um of creating quilts. And that what's really cool about the you know, the quilt brand was you know, yeah, it was about weaving together these different areas of Napa Valley and and creating this uh this cabinet.

SPEAKER_04 12:41

I know it's really it's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

But I know the story, but it's cool. But I didn't realize how big the quilting community is, like and it's a great community, and they all get together and they share their quilts, and what a great gift. I mean, it's it's like a piece of art that you can wrap yourself in. It's very cool.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Right. Michael Chabon's wife, I let Waldman, is um making quilts. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

Is she doing them like on a large scale or is she just very it's not it's not that small, they're completely gorgeous, and she has a new book out.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

That might be about quilting, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

All right.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

I'll make note of that. That could be like, you know, a little collab that collaboration. See, there's the influencer right there. That's it. He's always thinking about collabing.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

No, wait.

SPEAKER_04 13:34

Hello, influencer.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Well, I'm seeing a collab right now, Amy. I didn't want to jump to it.

SPEAKER_04 13:41

I I don't you guys have a lot of followers. I'm not on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

We're we're gonna we're gonna get together, we're gonna have a glass of Cabernet, we're gonna wrap ourselves in quilts, and we're gonna manifest the future.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

That's lovely. Kind of wanted to get into Amy's origin story here. I think it's like a it's just a family of successful, renowned writers, and then here you are, you have a family of winemakers, and like just kind of like what her upbringing was like if you guys have correlation there.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Yeah, and I think I'll I'll preface it by by saying, and also asking you a question about

Renown Writer Family vs Renown Winemaker Family

SPEAKER_00 14:15

it. Uh, when you come up kind of in in a way in a shadow of um of a parent that's doing you know a trade or a craft, uh, and you eventually get involved in it, kind of like just thinking about it from that perspective as well, what kind of pressure did that feel like? And how did you differentiate yourself? Uh, because that's something I always find really interesting. And I my kids, like my own kids right now, they're kind of struggling with that whole thing, kind of like, uh, I want to make it on my own. I want to go out and do something and be successful in a whole different field. And and and I try to tell them, I'm like, you know, in the European culture, like, there's a lot of pride in in tr in passing down that that knowledge, that familial institutional knowledge that and it, you know, and and almost like training from an early age to become even better and then take it from one level to the next.

SPEAKER_04 15:09

And so my mother was very I've always written. I had my first poem published when I was five in the LA Times. I won some contest. I think I wrote about a snowman in Los Angeles that melted. Really stupid. No, it's true. Um, and she was very, very supportive of my work. She typed up all my poems in triplicate, um, you know, with carbon paper.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Um and we also, I feel that we were very blessed. I'm sorry, my voice is not great from I I did a speaking engagement at a it was really a performance at a museum last night.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

So you you sound you sound just fine. Yes, I was gonna say the same. Yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_04 16:02

So she was she was very supportive of your work, and and I mean at what what point but I think that the other thing that we were blessed by, all of us, is we had an enormous library, and so we were exposed to the secret garden, we were exposed to the phantom toll booth. I remember when a wrinkle in time came out, and the first day it came out, it was in the hallway on the chair

Growing up as the youngest Sister in the Ephron Family...

SPEAKER_04 16:30

when I walked home from school.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

So, in in cases like that, was there a clamoring for that that book, like between your family members? Did ever like there was a new book out? Did you guys all want to be the first to read it?

SPEAKER_04 16:43

Nora, I'm like the baby. I was like not expected, let me put it that way. Okay, Nora's 12 years older than I am.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:52

My closest sister is five years older than I am. So I had a kind of childhood that was somewhat distinct from theirs. They were kind of close, and then I was like the little kid.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

Okay. How many siblings did you have? Three. Okay. There are four daughters. All right. And and and so uh when when like were is everybody into did everybody start off at an early age in the literary arts?

SPEAKER_04 17:25

Well, my sister Nora is a very famous writer and director.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:30

And she wrote with my sister Delia, and Delia still writes. She just had a best-selling book and about her cancer, and then a Broadway show based on it. And Hallie is not writing at the moment, but she was a mystery writer, and I've always written. Well, I take that back. I was a studio executive when I was a little kid.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

But the you know, the it's amazing that everybody took a similar path in the arts. And so how did how did that all come about?

SPEAKER_04 18:05

We didn't actually. Hallie was very um conservative. She was she's really not like the three of us who are a little more um adventurous. So she had jobs until like she became a mystery writer very late, and she also has a lot of degrees, and she also teaches writing, and she's an amazing teacher. So um, we all took somewhat different paths.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

But you all came back to it at some point in your life.

SPEAKER_04 18:43

Yes. Yeah, and my daughter, Anna, has just finished her first novel. Oh, great. So and my son, my son is a manager at a company called Atlas, which produced Oppenheimer.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Oh, wow. Oh, yeah, of course. I know Atlas, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

A little tiny studio kind of thing.

unknown 19:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Well, I actually want to talk about your film experience and how you got into that because, like you said, I like uh you were mentioning how young you were. I mean, I think you were 25

Columbia film executive at the age of 25, Working with Oliver Stone, and even making sure Elmo was the right shad of red....

SPEAKER_01 19:15

years old and a film exec at Columbia. So I I would love to kind of hear you got that. You I mean you worked on an Academy Award-winning film, you know, um, Born on the Fourth of July.

SPEAKER_04 19:27

Well, it's funny, you know, Oliver wrote that script before he directed. We'd read Platoon and it hadn't been made yet. And we hired Oliver to write Born on the Fourth of July. I bought it for a man named Marty Bregman who produced Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon. Oh, yeah, yeah. And was Al and was Al's manager, and we bought it for Al. And then it took 30 years or something for it to actually get made with Tom Cruise.

SPEAKER_03 20:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

And Oliver got it, Oliver got it back from Marty. And then at the same time, my then husband was producing the doors, and Oliver was gonna direct the doors. So suddenly all and Oliver, I've known Oliver like forever. Like almost like you guys. Um so that was kind of a full circle. But I started really well, I wrote for the National Lampoon, and I was like the only the only girl at the National Lampoon besides. Um, no, it's true. Um and then I was working at Sesame Street and the Electric Company and writing for the electric company and doing books and records and toys and games. So I have a crazy retail background and factory background. We used to have to go out to this to the factory in New Jersey when we still made toys in America and make sure that the primary colors were correct. And you'd get the night shift and your piece in in the factory was what that was one of my jobs. Um, I had a fancy title, I was really young, and I was sitting there watching, you know, making sure that the grouch was the right color.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

That's crazy. Did you have did were you carrying like a pan tone book with you?

SPEAKER_04 21:26

Yeah. I don't remember. I just remember watching them come down the production line.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

That must have been fun. I yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

I mean, that's a I mean, that was a big part of my life. I I mean we we grew up on Sesame Street. Yeah. And Big Bird and Rover and all the great Elmo. Who can forget Elmo?

SPEAKER_04 21:47

And then and in those days there was a lot of book to film. Born on the Fourth of July, the Godfather. It was all feeding from New York. And so I be became the New York person for a producer named Sidney Beckerman and occasionally Bob Evans. And then Marty was shooting, I guess dog day afternoon or cervical, I don't remember. He was shooting something and he fired the person who was his vice president. And Sydney said, oh, you can share Amy. So now I have a fancy office. I got a screening room. I'm working for both of them. They promise me they're not going to have a fight. I show all three of them something. All three of them want it. Okay. And they all and they all start screaming at me, why did you show it to him? What's wrong with you? You knew I was going to want and I and I walked into Marty's office and I said Marty I can't do this. I really can't do this. I can't have everybody screaming at me. What am I going to do? He said, how much are they paying you? And I told him he said they're billing me for the whole goddamn thing. You only work here now and I'm giving you a raise. So then I worked with his clients like Alan Alta who I love. And that's that's how I started in the film business. And then when the whole Beagleman disaster happened and Columbia went through that exchange and Sherry went to Paramount Frank Price who was sort of a nightmare hired me to be vice president of production at Columbia. So I moved back to LA which was great. And I was living with my best friend Lorraine Newman because we've gone to Beverly together and then we reconnected over SNL so it was fun. We had some fun. Wow yeah I bet we also we also had a lot of stress it was that was it that is a very stressful position because you know any minute you're going to take the fall for someone else it's a it's a pretty pretty cutthroat uh people are it was then yeah it was that it's not well I don't know what's going to happen now. I have no idea I don't know what's going to happen to the film business.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

Well yeah I mean it seems like the studios are still doing okay over all it seems that way at least but it seems like there's a lot more diversity and and you've got so many different ways to you know create and for customers to digest media.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

Oh yeah yeah everything's in Europe or Atlanta and there's very little getting made it looks from the outside as if there's a lot getting made but there aren't that many things getting made yeah well I think there's just this overhaul of content you know now with the when the streaming services came to town and how powerful YouTube has been and people realizing like yeah you're right.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

I mean I there was a time where it was like hey if you're gonna if you're gonna make a movie you're either in New York or you're in Hollywood you know and then it's like and then Chicago starts kind of blessing up a little bit you got Austin Texas Canada's getting in the game. I mean and now you're right it's just there's Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah I mean look at like Taylor Sheridan bought a ranch and is just running all of his own stuff off of it now.

SPEAKER_04 25:22

He is doing it like how many people do you think he has writing for him?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Oh probably probably uh quite a few he's uh he otherwise he'd be probably the most prolific writer out there uh I wouldn't you say I mean he's he's got I don't even know how many shows he has now Joe's a big fan but he no he's he's a big Yellowstoner still me too yeah are you watching Denton Ranch and and the spin-offs and you were uh Denton Ranch well what you talking about the other ones yeah well they did the period before and then like the after like the different times right like the history of like how yeah with the dates like 18 yeah yeah yeah uh yeah no I I mean but he it like the the way that he's created kind of a whole new way about being in the show business and whether he's writing or he's got other writers with him the fact that he's kind of able to create these these storylines around his own assets and running like I was I'm just like wow it's a it is a different world you don't need to be uh tied in with the studios so much it seems if as long as you have a lot of money to start with but me personally I'm a big fan of Kingstown do you do you think he's not tied in with the studio? Oh I'm sure he I'm sure he is but as far as his he's he's you he's utilizing his assets for for the shooting right like his four sixes ranch and yeah yeah well when I say studio I'm talking like physical studio yeah yeah yeah um so you mentioned the stress of kind of like Hollywood and and being in that field is that would that would that would you contribute that being one of the reasons why you transitioned and then just kind of I didn't transition I was writing my I was writing my first novel when I was at Columbia and then when they fired me by mistake because he had a mistress he wanted to put in who was 20 I know I would have gotten a lot of money now. I got an offer to go be a higher version of me at a new studio called TriStar while I was still like in the studio gate and I said no I want to go home and write and I thought it was going to be easy um it's it's was um yeah writing is a very hard choice you have to have unrealistic expectations to be a novelist

"You have to have unrealistic expectations to be a novelist..."

SPEAKER_00 28:02

we gotta dig into that comment what yeah so unrealistic like you you in the sense that you have a vision of massive success to get you through the writing or am I reading that wrong to support yourself.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

Oh okay when I first started writing you could make money on magazines that business is gone I I don't recommend it you have to really you have to really be but my daughter's choosing the same path so I don't know what to say.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

With your daughter included how many generations is this is your parents your generation and your your daughters no my great great great grandfather or something owned the Russian encyclopedia oh my god I guess we go back in sort of the book world sort of yeah yeah the encyclopedia is definitely uh that was an important book right so when you when you say the Russian encyclopedia let's go back to the origin story because I'd love to hear a little more of the depth of the history with this so it when you say the Russian encyclopedia was that in Russia

Generations of writing success and history...even going back to the Bible?

SPEAKER_00 29:16

yes okay my father's father immigrated in like 1902 or 1906 I forget which one okay early immigration and what was the what was there a reason for that uh to the czar the czar so yeah it was it was the change up in in politics in a way yeah yes yeah yeah and his brother relocated to Israel so we're also very early Israeli so it was it was it was uh religious persecution was the motive to leave more than anything I was born so late in everyone's life that I have no idea.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Okay and we weren't like an Italian family like I think I saw my dad's brother and there were five of them I saw my one of my dad's brothers like three times. Okay my mother had a somewhat closer family but not really it wasn't like like we're really close we're very clannish now all of us. Okay and uh is it is your family's heritage when they left Russia was it Ashkenazi You don't know okay but one moved to Israel and one moved to America escaping religious persecution and the one who moved to Israel owned movie theaters and he settled a part of Israel called Rosh Pina.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

And you so you still have family in Israel I have a lot of family in Israel because I married an Israeli oh my my husband's first husband Sasha Rari is Israeli.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Alright I have a you got a lot of ties not not just direct blood lineage from history but also through marriage. Yeah and then I go back to the Bible uh on you go back to the Bible in Genesis there's a Hittite named Ephron who um owned the graveyard and apparently he was a really bad person but lately they've had new discoveries that he wasn't that bad but he is our direct relative oh wow and they've had new and you said they've had new discoveries that say he wasn't that bad yeah I think even the Bible kind of well like I said early on like history is really all about who writes it right it's yeah what what do they want the history to be and and uh but yeah also I I would imagine that running a graveyard or being an undertaker back then is probably not the most savory looking uh profession by the general public it's like gotta be up there with being you know some sort of like haunted element I think it still is I yeah I think it's still characterized as such but I man I yeah I sat next to sorry there's a little bit of a sidebar.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

No that's

An Undertakers story...

SPEAKER_01 32:32

what we do.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

I was at a wine dinner in uh in uh Tennessee I think it was and I sat next to this this fellow he was a very uh eclectically dressed guy like bright purple velvet jacket really like just bright colors everywhere very well dressed and and so I just happened to sit next to him and I was I was the host of the dinner and um and so we got to talking I asked him what his profession was you know just in between courses when I was up speaking about the wines and he's an undertaker but he's not your traditional undertaker he has a he is a mortuary and he is uh focusing on uh I'll call alternative burial methods or maybe more ancient cultural burial methods that people may want to utilize which I I found fascinating and like completely agree with him with him on this instead of like the you know $20,000 coffin and where it's like put me in a pine box and throw me in the ground and plant a tree on top of me. You know give me back to the earth.

SPEAKER_04 33:30

So but so there's this section at our local graveyard woodlawn where it's ecological and there's no pine box at all.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Okay just burlap bag and you go in maybe not even that don't ask me. Yeah so it but it was it was so fascinating and and so he had so much success with his mortuary and yes he did have the kind of negative sort of uh uh uh people looked at upon him kind of like as an oddity in a very conservative area um but he kind of moved out of the mortuary business and started consulting like globally because he was known so well for bringing up these different methodologies and and it's like well okay that's a whole new like level of respect but man great stories uh and and just really really an amazing conversation which you know typically at wine dinners you kind of have just five minute friend conversations when you get to go into depth with something that like you've never even thought about it's wild. So there's I think I've got props for undertakers.

SPEAKER_04 34:40

And I have a question for you. If I like white wine which of your wines should I want is this really the end unbelievable find out next week