E99 Amy Ephron pt 2 | 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_00 0:13

I have a question for

Amy asks Joe about White Wine direction...

SPEAKER_00 0:15

you. If I like white wine, which of your wines should I want?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Do you like the bigger, like more oaky style of white wines, or do you like the lighter, more like uh more like format?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Sauvignon blanc.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Oh, like you like Sancerre, that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 0:33

And Sauvignon Blanc, yeah, both.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

So yeah, I would I would go with the uh the actually you're gonna like this. The quilt fumet Blanc, which is a predominantly Sauvignon Blanc, little bit of Semmillon. Um, that would be my number one go-to. The other one I'd go to is uh our thread count, which is by quilt, but it's our our kind of like everyday priced Sauvignon Blanc uh from California. So those two, uh, and there it's funny you you say kind of in that that French style of Sauv Blanc. That's kind of what we wanted to go towards because um there can be like a real grassy or overly floral nature that is kind of off-putting in many Sauvignon Blancs, and what the French do so well in many of their regions is like minerality and like you know, kind of like uh honeydew melon, um, some trop a little bit of tropical tones, but not too much. And so that's what we really tried to kind of move towards with the grape growing and the winemaking. So yeah, if you can get well, hell, we'll just send you some. You're in California. We can send them to you.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, all right. So I'm making what am I putting in there?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Light bright whites. Wasn't that your nickname when you were skinny? Okay, let's not You were a light, bright white? No, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

They called me coconut because I'm half Mexican, but no one knew it.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

No one knew I was a light, bright white on the outside. I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

That was which made no sense. I never really got that. I was like, isn't that a reverse coconut? Anyways, I didn't get to choose the names people. What did your parents do? What did your parents do? Um my parents, well, my dad was in the wine business um starting out, and but then and my mom was in banking, and then my mom eventually brought him um over into banking. So they were still in the wine business as bankers. Right. But yeah, that was oh, Chad just rolled some wine in here for you. So here we go.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

The showcase the beautiful Napa Valley quilt fume blanc. So you're you're gonna get some

Napa Valley Quilt Fumé Blanc (light, bright, white)

SPEAKER_01 2:30

of this stuff. Thank you. You're gonna you're gonna like it. It's nice and cool. Yeah, definitely. If it was afternoon, I might actually open that up and really make you jealous. Not afternoon, though. Not yet.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Don't you think, don't you think that my book cover looks like my painting?

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Yeah, a little more. Hold it up a little more.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

Hold it up, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Yeah. And I was gonna I was gonna ask if if someone was gonna experience unseasonably cold for the first time, would you have the the wine they should be drinking, the meal they should be having, uh, the music they should be listening to, the room, like to set the environment?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Um every single detail in it, unless I made a mistake, which no one's caught yet. Um when they go to the Metropolitan Museum, every single painting on the wall was the painting

Literature: Handling a period piece with care...

SPEAKER_00 3:23

that was there that week. Wow. Yeah. Um, when they go to a restaurant, I only chose restaurants like Gallagher's that were there then and are there now. I don't know if I was forward thinking, hoping it would be a film or a television series, or I wanted a kind of recognition. When they go to the Metropolitan Club, every single thing they order was on the menu in 1939. And then when we quote from the New York Times, we replicated the font and the headline. When we quote from the Herald Tribune, we replicated the font and the my editor was uh a journalist, and so every single thing we did, like this is these are the kind of graystone, white stones in New York.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

It's not just you, it's also your editor that is is keying in on the details of that time frame, along with your personal preferences of making sure that if you're if you're going to be talking about a restaurant, I I totally get that. Make sure it's something that's been there and has historical relevance and is still still around.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

You know, I was a contributing editor at Vogue for many years, and so there's a all the clothes are very finely delineated. Wow. Every and then it ends the day before London was bombed.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

So there's a lot of weird detail. Um that's all I can say.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Is is this is this your favorite work you've done?

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Okay. Uh because it also has relevance to now, or is it is it just I mean it sounds maybe you maybe you do this with every one of your works where you you know created to be as true to form. Is that is that something you've done in the past?

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Well, I think that for me what

What makes a character?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

makes a character isn't just their voice, it's the choices that they make, what they have for breakfast. I know a lot more about my characters than I write. I'm very minimalist, but I know all kinds of things about them. And everything they order, I think, defines their character. You and I probably eat different things for breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Well, what do you like for breakfast?

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I'm kind of plain. Like half a bagel, maybe some oatmeal, a little bit of fruit, just yogurt. I'm I'm very plain on breakfast. Unless I'm not I'm you know, I'm a little changeable over here.

SPEAKER_02 6:16

Um I mean that sounds good to me. I I think I'm probably worse, I guess. If you're saying plain because I'm more like protein drink, I'm something I can't, yeah. I'm not see it's me, Joe. What would you yeah?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

My my my like go-to guilty whatever is bagel and locks with all the fictions and like cream cheese, capers, dill, tomatoes, pickled, it's gotta be pickled onions.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Uh I make really, really good lux yeah, uh, onions and and eggs. And when I see you, I will make them for you.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Oh that sounds great. So, yeah, that's something I don't see enough actually is locks.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

I'm happy to be a guest chef at your winery.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Come on down because I like them locks too, okay. I want to be included.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

I'm I'm down. You know what's what's funny is uh is so I've always loved it, and my wife is Jewish, and she can't stand eating uh she doesn't like locks.

unknown 7:17

What?

SPEAKER_01 7:18

I know I'm like, what like you're like the outcast, you know, like but uh no, now I'm trying to lose weight, so I I have like trail mix every morning for breakfast, unless it's like maybe a special occasion.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

You know what I've been doing recently too? I did start kind of getting a little crazy and getting an English muffin, putting some peanut butter on it and some bananas.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Where's the English muffin from? Model bakery. That is they're the best ever, I think. But uh that is that is good. Yeah. That sounds like a good one.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Well, you know what also does good English muffins? It's like more uh is Trader Joe's.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

I haven't tried them yet.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Um I gotta say, like Trader Joe's they get some good sleepers out there.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yeah, so being being down at Santa Monica, obviously Trader Joe's, they're big in in California. Where do you shop? What's your favorite store? Like you got Molly Stone's?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Well, everything's gotten really expensive, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Up here too. I think it's everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

I would say Bristol Farms.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Ooh, Bristol Farms is a good one. That's a good one. Yeah, Bristol Farms.

SPEAKER_00 8:23

And also, we really like Gelson's, but it's kind of far away.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, Gelson's is phenomenal as well. You guys got some really good options. We have yeah, we have like three.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

We also, I don't know. I had a friend stay with me, and her daughter is 16, and all she wanted to do was go to Erwan and have a smoothie. Oh, there's some very famous oh my.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Did you go? Have you been in there? Yeah, I have a couple of times. I I haven't been in, but yeah, it's uh I think that that's that's a great example of how social media has just catapulted something. It's like you got some celebrities in there, they're buying their $25 smoothie, they're posting about it, and then all of a sudden every 16-year-old girl is like, Oh my god, I gotta go to Air One.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

I know. Yeah, it's the Taylor Swift of Beverages.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Yeah.

Shout out to Taylor Swift, The Swifties, and the Duchess...

SPEAKER_01 9:17

That's that should be a quote. They actually they should just hang that on their on their window, be like, come in and get the Taylor Swift of Beverages.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

I'm sure they have a Taylor Swift smoothie. Like, I'm surprised if they don't, you know what I mean? But like I remember my first introduction, and this was like when I was like, that was like 10 years old.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

My nephew, my nephew Max is her guitar player.

SPEAKER_02 9:39

Your nephew is like small world. I'm just like, whoa, I know, but it's like just kind of throws it out casually. Oh, by the way, my nephew is Taylor Swift's guitar player.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yeah, it's only only the biggest superstar in the world right now.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Would you would you consider yourself a Swifty?

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Absolutely. Okay, yeah. Everyone at the concert is so happy. It's completely, it's really, it's really fun.

SPEAKER_03 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

It's really fun. And all my grandchildren really love her. And they call me Duchess, by the way. I sold it. No one thought I was gonna sell it, but I sold it. Sometimes when they're attitudinal, they call me the Duchess. The Duchess. The Duchess, yes. We're going to the Duchess's house.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

That's a good name. I I have not been to a Taylor Swift concert, but I'm kind of glad that my children were not big into it because they seem like really expensive for the tickets. But uh I think, I mean, yeah, the music is good. I I just I think she could have done better than Travis Kelsey. I don't know. Just wow, they just got married, bro.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I'm not getting into that. I know. Like, don't I we're gonna have to edit that out because I don't think what Joe does understand is that the Swifties are lovely. They're all lovely. We love them because they're also very tough. Uh I was gonna say they're awesome. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

They're pretending his brother, his brother Jacob is a comist for the New York Times.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Okay, so yeah, more writing in the family. Wow, more creative. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, the the creativeness, it's like I I do want to go back to this because I think that this is one of the kind of like underlying curiosities I have is there seems to be a lot of creativity in your bloodlines. Like, do you have do you have any like really boring jobs in your bloodlines? Like, is anybody an accountant?

unknown 11:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

So I mean, that's like I'm trying to get to like the whole like yeah, is this foster? Do you think it's genetic?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Is it is it No, I I also I have to say something. When I was an executive, you didn't have to be an assistant for three years. I d I didn't go to college, I went straight to work. Good. And my my very first job. Well, I worked at a magazine called Scanlins, which was where Hunter Thompson published his first pieces. And I also I can't remember the order, but I worked at the parks department in New York under Lindsay. Um in the PR department. So I've had a lot I've had a lot of weird jobs.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

But you feel like you've learned something from each one of those roles from the people you were working with.

SPEAKER_00 12:35

Yeah, I never I never totally understood corporate America. I have a daughter who understands corporate America, she's a digital marketing specialist, and she's won the Ogilvie the last three years. The Ogilve is the research award under the Clio, it's an advertising award. And she won it one year for Toyota, one year for Starbucks, and I forget the third one. So she has major clients, and I can say that because the award is public. I'm not allowed to say who her other clients are, but so she's managed to take the corporate world and the creative world and meld them.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I mean, that that sounds like a dream come true. If you know you you want to you want to make it big and you know, be able to shop at the nice grocery stores, but also foster your creativity.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Uh

AI & Literature

SPEAKER_00 13:30

but I also think that artificial intelligence is starting to affect that business. They're starting to rely on AI instead of a focused group of real people.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yeah. I think that, man, I really do think it's short-lived. I know it seems to come up all the time now for us. And I I just I think people are looking for authenticity and reading through to authenticity. I just don't know what the next generation is. Like the pe the kids that are five right now, are they gonna be like, oh yeah, AI is chill. I'm cool with it. Like it can tell me exactly what to do.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

I don't know. I mean, it it makes mistakes. I mean, yeah, unseasonably cold got a review where I got compared to Agatha Christie. I'm not gonna get a swelled head, I promise. But an AI chat GBT just told my publicity people not to apply for an Edgar, which is the Mystery Writers of America award, because my book wasn't a mystery. And I'm like, what do you mean? I just I just got compared to right, but uh I was also compared to Edith Wharton, so I guess it got confused. I mean, I don't I don't know. And I called my I called Lori and I said I'm a little confused here because why who did this? And it was Chat GBT. So I think that it can be influenced by what you tell it. If you told it that I had written a historical fiction or literary fiction, which it is, and it's a love story as well. And it's also like a murder thriller, maybe or not. Maybe she disappeared. And the one thing I have to tell you is I had no idea what happened to Jane when I started writing this book.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Oh, so you didn't know you didn't know the the you didn't know the climax.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

I didn't know that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

You just knew it would come to you, along with society progressing.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

I have no idea. I wrote one sentence and it changed everything. What was that sentence? I can't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Oh, you are you say you we have to read it?

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Uh everyone, every everyone has to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

We have to find every word.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

I was gonna say we have to we have to find it.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

We do. Chat GPT saying it wasn't a mystery.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah, fuck you, Chad GPT.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

There's lots of mysteries.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

And well, I mean, it's gonna come and shit's gonna shut down my computer now.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

But it but it's a hybrid. Yeah. Because it's it's all of these things kind of strangely woven together. So it's difficult to categorize.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

And and that's why I think is I I I guess that's another thing too. Think of like people are relying so much on chat GPT, but it already sounds like to me this is an example of chat GPT trying to put something in a box that's just not correct. You know, it's like you're you're speaking about a hybrid. There's so many different levels to it. And I've heard you talk about, you know, um, this element of, you know, everyone has a secret. And everyone has a secret. And I thought that was, you know, beautifully said if you if you would like to get into that, and also the collective grief. I thought those were two important elements that I thought, if you don't mind speaking to that.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I think that there's something when you lose a friend who's

Elements of writing: Collective Grief & Peoples Secrets

SPEAKER_00 16:56

a little bit well known and people know that you are friends and they're adored by people who don't know them, you become subject, let me put it that way, to collective grief, where someone will walk up to you and say, Oh my god, I'm so sorry about whoever. And they're speaking about themselves and they don't really have an understanding that you're probably more sorry than they are. Um because you think about them, they're triggers. You'll walk down the street, you'll see a bakery, and suddenly you'll remember that she loved almond croissants. Whatever it is, there are triggers all around you. But when you get approached by someone, partly in deference to your friend and self-protectively, you do have to deal with their grief and hold yours underneath a calm surface, which I also think is what's going on now. It went on in 1939 about the war, and it's going on now about political stuff and fear of war. And so there's a kind of collective unconsciousness that some of us are kind of masking our fear. And I also think when someone has a kind of unexpected death or disappearance that you wonder if you'd done something differently, would they still be here? And so the story is partly told by Liza, Jane's best friend, who had lunch with her the day she disappeared. And Jane had wanted her to go look at a couch with her, and she didn't want to watch Jane shop. So she didn't go, and she's always wondered if she'd gone with her, if everything would have been different. What happened to her? And Jane's parents and her mother's also Liza's godmother, kind of secretly maybe blames Liza, or if Liza had done something. Liza's the last person theoretically who saw Jane. I mean, she's not, but so I think there's a kind of collective grief, and then there's also guilt that if you've done something different. This isn't when someone disappears from an illness. That's a whole another there's collective grief with that, but this is like another thing. Like I don't know if you had anybody who had a car accident when you were in high school.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

Oh, we yeah. There's something about unexpected loss like that. And then parents wonder what party were they at, who was with them. I mean, it's like it's a whole thing. And I wanted to write about that emotion from all sides. The book is a little bit complicated, even though it looks really simple.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yeah, I was gonna say that that is that is much much deeper than I was thinking from the from the other from the other sides, the other perspectives. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

I th I think that's always um it definitely

Processing Grief & Literature

SPEAKER_00 20:10

But I I think unexpected loss is a whole other thing. You know a suicide, um, whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

I I mean that hits home for us. I mean, we we actually lost a a close friend to suicide so um some years back. Yeah, the years or so. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, you're right. And and that that really it's personally and it's like uh very heavy-hearted. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, what's what's nice is that there can be uh the not nice about that, but when you can have a healing process involved, which is reading through these books and being able to process these things, I think that sometimes can be an away therapy, if I may say.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Um, you know, it's I'm not sure this this book gets a little dark.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Yeah, but that's but that's the thing, is like life is dark, right? You know, and sometimes like we have to we have to walk that journey, we have to face those things and uh but it's also a love story.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Well, I think I think a big thing that people don't really appreciate as much as they used to was that you know you you don't know the good without the bad, and vice versa, right? And and so you don't know happiness without grief. You don't and so I think that having those emotions, those swings, and understanding all all of you know the the the opposites of each one is important in life, and that's part of growth, I think, and and part of wisdom. Uh and the more you're on this earth, the more you're going to see those extremes. Um and I think that's why you know when you go to talk to you know your eighty year old grandparents or whatever, they have a much more like they're they have like solace in wherever we're at at any given time. Like you know, the doesn't seem to be this emotional reaction to anything. This will pass. This will we'll get through it. We'll see what happens. And and you know part of that I think is because they've seen these extremes. And so while you talk about, you know, I think grief it's it is it is an important thing to process. I think it's a very healthy thing to process so that you understand what the opposite of that is.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

And you feel even better about it.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

My best my best friend died two years ago. And I think I think about him every day. The book is dedicated to him. Um and his favorite thing in the world was Noor. And because I was so far along with it, he'd read most of it and he read the sentence that changed things. And it's kind of like a Quentin Tarantino moment where he and I both started laughing. And I said can I actually do this? One and he called me up and we both started laughing. So the book is dedicated to John Byers.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Well that's that's nice beautiful thank you for sharing that.

SPEAKER_00 22:59

But you know I grew up in LA so Noir is kind of in my soul my parents wrote a lot of musicals. They wrote Carousel Daddy Long Legs um a movie called Desk Sat with Catherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy where Spencer Tracy comes in with a computer to replace Catherine Hepburn who's a librarian. She wins we we think it's time for a remake but um we'll see um and they wrote a mystery that I love called 23 Paces to Baker Street but they were they were known they weren't like superstars. They had like one Academy Award nomination.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah yeah that's like only one yeah but no that that's impressive I mean that's yeah that is awesome.

SPEAKER_00 23:54

I was also gonna say you've also I think it's so amazing that you've you've also written uh magical adventures

The magical Adventure side (The Castle in the Midst)

SPEAKER_00 24:00

I mean with the castle and the mist I loved writing those books yeah I really loved writing those children's books that was really fun and doing that crazy school tour the crazy school tell us about those crazy school tours I wrote a series of books that are still available called The Castle in the Mist um Carnival Magic and the other side of the wall and I did like a national basically book tour where I go into schools and teach third fourth and fifth graders um about the book and I had like a whole presentation thing and and I didn't know you did Castle in the mist I think I read what yeah what was was was Castle in the Mist required reading do you know I've got some library awards for it nomination. But yeah okay that one I didn't know you did that one okay I call it a modern day mashup of an old fashioned children's novel okay but it's it's kind of it's it it's a real novel like like Phantom tollbooth or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

But it's modern that's why I was wondering if you were inspired by your childhood you know going through that library.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

I think I had grandchildren and then I and then I also have a history in children's things from Sesame Street and then I was one of the producers of a little princess Alfonso Coron's first movie at Warner Brothers.

SPEAKER_03 25:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

So I have a kind of I I'm old what can I say?

SPEAKER_01 25:43

No I was just gonna say it's such an amazing life I know it's a lot so many hard covered man geez yeah we haven't even gotten into some of the questions oh yeah we were that we're gonna do some rapid fire

Rapid Fire Round (Writing Patterns, Poker Machines, Dinner with Fav Author...)

SPEAKER_01 25:55

some of the rapid fire fun stuff with your time in New York give us one word maybe two words to describe New York in your mind crowded that might have been the word I would choose to that's great. I have like a time limit for New York because of that it's like three days yes like I I think mine's two like right in there two or three it just gets so like you get fatigued of the amount of people it's uh anyways well isn't that time limit the same for Vegas though two yeah three days one one and a half one and a half yeah okay there's authenticity in New York my problem with Vegas is I go like by day two I'm like deep into this mindset of like this is all bullshit crappy buildings this is all just a facade it's made for it's a basic like cruise ship on land it's a piece of sh like and I can't get past all of the fakeness of it like there's no history I don't know I have a psychic relationship with poker machines. Poker machines wait okay wait but that's why we go we gamble in the case my husband my husband who's a very well known lawyer Alan Rader um doesn't really like gambling it's like not I can spend hours wasting away in a no now we're talking okay so it's poker machines for you do you do slot machines just so you Amy just so you know Chris has a major gambling problem as well how do you feel about MMA you got a parlay for this weekend can I three handed jacks are better.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Three handed jacks are better I know what I know what she's talking about.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

You could choose your game on those on those poker games there's all different ones that you can choose I know I've seen you play okay yeah I know I know you you get way too I'm I'm way more like and usually for some reason the good poker machine is located to the very rear right of the casino like the corner or like the last one right no oh oh at the when that was we called her Bessie the ATM machine did you pay Bessie oh man oh Bessie paid me yeah bestie was but they found Bessie Bessie's not there anymore now it's one row back and then one row in and I think it's the middle okay at the win no yeah at the win no I'm getting it's down she she knows she knows okay all right okay all right we already know she's a fortune I mean she could we went from a we went from a crowded New York to now like talking about where the best slot machines are I digress what other secrets I don't play slot machines I don't understand them.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Yeah not slot machines we're talking about poker machines all right yeah all right all right next question I'm booking my flight this weekend Amy uh I'm also very good at getting up when I win yes that's this that is the true secret teach me that secret I I tried to teach you that maybe you maybe you need somebody more motivating I can get a royal flush two times in a row yeah yeah yeah you could you could unlikely next question all right uh when you are writing do you go with coffee tea or wine or something different? It depends on what time of day it is actually I do have a another question for you there there's like the you know creative hours I don't drink in the daytime.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Oh okay I absolutely do not maybe if we're in France or Italy maybe half a glass of white wine but we don't drink in the daytime.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

So I I do have a another kind of follow-up question to that. So do you ever maybe I should preface this by saying that a lot of the most creative people that have written some of the most you know beautiful works whether it's composers writing symphonies or authors uh they would or or even politicians that you know like founders of our our nation here um they would uh only sleep for a handful of hours wake up in the middle of the night and then do their works and then go back to sleep for the rest of the evening um but like almost there was this magic that all of them had expressed at some point and there is a lot of research on this that there was like a like almost like the middle of the night where you know it was like this God given time to bring your best deepest works to life without any interruption.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Is that something that you you uh ever done well when I was a studio executive I would get up at five and write for a couple hours and then go to the studio or I would schedule a late dinner and steal an hour in between but I was a single mother for a number of years how many years have we been married 24 we've been 24 is that right yeah before Alan came along um with sole physical custody and sole financial responsibility so and there were you you can't um plan your life I'm not I'm not someone who can say I write from 10 to four it doesn't work that way. Yeah not when you have three kids one of them skateboards one of them does this one of them does that it's like complicated and so I always say books get written a sentence at a time and you write in your head. A lot of my writing is done in my head and the kids always tell a story about me yelling at them at dinner they'd talk to me I say don't talk to me I'm writing in my head and they think it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

But um that that I mean as a child of yours I would definitely use that against you it sounds like a wild idea but if you that's your your art your profession it makes complete sense.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

It it also sounds like I mean I don't know what do you think you have six kids do you wish you would have used that one I wish I would with your kids yeah but like I need you to be quiet I'm writing right now but they would say how am I supposed to know that well or they'll be like uh I'm texting in my head so yeah I'm DMing in my head quiet be careful we might get to that kind of technology okay so you you kind of go with uh when you're writing it like really whenever you're inspired that's that's when you uh no either when it's really chaotic or when it's really quiet okay when you write a novel that has as many characters as this book does has a lot of characters while you're writing it it never leaves your head they're in your head and you'll see something and it'll trigger something or you'll be trying to work something out and they you don't there's a moment when you finish a book for me because I'll do like sixty drafts of a page or a section now that it's computer and then move on. So when I'm done with a book I don't do a first draft and then I write really weirdly do not follow my writing advice no it's I no I really do because I'll do like sixty drafts of a section and then when I'm done I'm sort of really done with this book because I started it so long ago the original tone of it was more art and as the days progressed and we came so closer to a social divide the satiric edge was not playing for me so I had to do a kind of tonal rewrite of the book because the time had changed if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah that does make sense oh let's see dinner if you had the option of dinner with one author living or deceased which would you which would you choose?

SPEAKER_02 34:06

A more tolls okay and why because I love his work any questions you'd ask him no just have dinner see what comes out of his mouth sometimes if you're very quiet people tell you their secrets I did hear you that you said you said some insight that I thought was very interesting where um you've kind of given these talks and you've asked this question like

Who doesn't have a secret?

SPEAKER_02 34:34

who here doesn't have a secret?

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Right and you had some insight and what happens is I ask whether I'll ask you do you have a secret that you've never told anyone or do you have a secret that you've told someone because you completely trust them and they've never told anyone and the entire audience only one person raises their um and says no I says who doesn't have this do you have a secret you have a secret oh you're asking us yeah yeah I have a secret I actually I also think that I had I've got secrets that I forgot I had secrets about I well I was gonna say I was gonna actually just be bold and answer for both of us and be like we're we're Italians so yeah we got secrets because we're not sleeping with the fishes you know what I mean yeah I can be in a room with 50 people and she's usually sitting in the front row to the left I don't know why and she's the only person who raises her hand and says I don't have a secret she's a common she's a common theme there's only one only one there's always only one yeah I mean maybe maybe they forgot about their secrets yeah keep me posted yeah well Amy it was a real pleasure to have you on go with your palette thank you yeah thank you for taking the time um look forward to meeting you either up here or down there uh so don't be a striker very excited for quilt yes can't wait for that ticket to you let us know what you think I got you Amy I'm gonna send we're gonna send you something a really nice package it it will be for dealing with us today and we really appreciate your time all right because you're amazing best of luck and best of skill take care bye bye thank you