Red Fern Book Review by Amy Tyler

Canadian Book Club Award Winners Part 4: Heather Hendrie, Trista Lundquist, Sherry McMillan and P.S. Whatever

• Amy Tyler • Season 5 • Episode 10

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This episode wraps up my series featuring the 2024 Canadian Book Club Award winners. I sit down with two children’s book authors, a YA author, and an anthology author for a wide-ranging conversation about cats, creativity, and the power of books to make us feel less alone. I also share the origin story of the Red Fern Book Review name and discover how early reading experiences sparked a lifelong love of storytelling in each of us.

Books discussed:

awfully hilarious: period pieces by Heather Hendrie

The Quiet Limit by Trista Lundquist

My S's Are Messes by Sherry McMillan

Secrets of the Under-Under World: Water by P.S. Whatever

About The Canadian Book Club Awards:

Follow Heather:

Website: https://awfullyhilarious.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awfullyhilarious

Follow Trista:

Website: https://www.tristalundquist.ca/#/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/by.tristalundquist/

Follow Sherry:

Website: https://sherrymcmillan.ca/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sherry_mcmillan_writes/

Follow P.S. Whatever:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/underunderworldbooks/?hl=en

Follow Red Fern Book Review:

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Newsletter: https://www.redfernbookreview.com/newsletter

Unknown:

Um, and then, of course, I have to have a cat, because every kid's book needs a cat, in my opinion. So that's, oh, yeah, like a

Amy Tyler:

cozy mystery. You need it, you know? Do you know you have to have a cat? Do you know that actually there to be considered a cozy mystery? Apparently, you have to have a cat

Unknown:

in it. But I fully support that. That's so funny, because my sequel, I actually introduced a cat who becomes a very beloved main character, almost because things were feeling so dark. I was like, We need a cat in this so I totally understand where you're coming. I have no cat. Oh, no, there is one in my SSMS. There is, there's, it's hiding in there. They always sneak in there. Yes, yeah. Cat in our call it's necessary. Oh, true. That's so funny. Mine is downstairs, so yeah, you

Amy Tyler:

Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Tyler, and today I'm doing third in a series of podcasts. I've been sponsored by the Canadian book club awards, and I've been over the summer, interviewing groups of authors that are recent award recipients for the Canadian book club awards, and today I'm going to be talking with four writers. Three have written for children, and one has written an anthology, and we're going to have a really it's a really good discussion. I think you'll enjoy it. So first, I want to start by giving you an overview on the Canadian book club awards. They are Canada's largest Readers Choice Awards, and the awards are open to all authors, regardless of publishing type. You can be self published or traditionally published, or kind of a combination of the two. And the thought behind it is just readers want good books, and also to look at books that might have more popular impact. Submissions for the 2025 awards are open still, and I'm going to provide a link in the show notes if you want to submit your book. And then the interesting thing about these books or these awards is that you don't have to be Canadian to be considered for award, but what makes them Canadian is that it's a Reader's Choice Award, and all the readers are Canadian. And so if you want to sign up and be a verified reader, you can do that. And I'm also going to send you a link for that in the show notes. So today I want to talk to you about the four writers that I'm going to talk with. So the first writer that's included in this discussion is Heather Hendry, and she's she won for anthology or short story with her book titled awfully hilarious period pieces, and she wrote she actually has already won a Canadian Book Club Award. I believe it was her last year, and it was also an awfully hilarious series, but this one just focuses specifically a menstruation, and she includes serious discussion, funny discussion, everywhere in between. She has people old, and she's got a little writing from an 11 year old talking about hoping to get her period. So it really opens up discussion. Takes kind of shame away, and she'll tell you more about that when I talk with her. Then there's Sherry McMillan, who's written a children's book called My S's are messes. This is a self published book, and what's really fun about it is she partnered with a dear friend of hers, a dear friend of hers did illustrations, and you'll find out that she's writing about learning to speak, learning to read, and she has her she's had her own challenges with that over the years, and so she'll share it. And that's kind of the genesis of, I think why she wrote this book, and in the early readers category, we have PS, whatever. So she's got a clever pen name. Her first name is Pam, so you'll hear me color that in our discussion. But she's written a book for pre teens called Secrets of the. Underworld water, and it's a modern Alice in Wonderland story. It's the tale of a girl who must face wolves, battle giants and stop an evil plant to plot to steal the world's water. And then in the young adult category, we have Trista Lundquist with the quiet limit, and she's written a young adult dystopian novel, although I think she'll explain how she might dispute that categorization, but it's about a society where everybody knows the year of their death. And the main character of this book lay is a teenage girl who knows that she's to die when she's 18, and that's very young in a society where people are living to well over 100 and so she feels sidelined. And so when her 18th birthday rolls around, she's still alive, and she knows that she's living on borrowed time. And that's kind of where we start and and we go from there. So four different authors, four different kind of categories, and let's move over and talk with the authors now. Hi Heather, Sherry, Pam, aka PS, which is your pen name, and Trista. Welcome to the podcast I wanted to start. In fact, I sent you guys all some questions yesterday, but then I woke up first thing in the morning, as writers and readers tend to do, and I had something I just knew I had to include. And one of the things I wanted to talk about, I've grouped all the people, all the award winners, together, tried to put some categories together. And all of you have either written for children, or, in Heather's case, it you include children. You can explain more about that when I talk with you, but I just wanted to share, first off, how much children's books mean to me personally. And then I wanted to ask you a little bit about your history with children's books. And when I started this podcast several years ago, I wanted the name to reflect something meaningful. I just didn't want it to say I didn't want it to be generic, and I ended up naming it after my favorite children's book, which is where it's called, Where the Red Fern Grows. And it's interesting. Have I read better books since? Yes, but I don't think I've ever had a book impact me the way that book did, and the background is, I'm American, and it's a very American book. It's actually, I believe can be taught in the school system, and I have older sisters, and it was on a shelf, and I grabbed it, and I was an early reader, but this was the first time a book just grabbed me, and I remember sitting like in a little nook in my house. I couldn't put it down. That's the first time that had happened. It was probably eight or nine, and then I didn't it was about a boy in the Ozarks and his two hunting dogs, and I wasn't drawn to the material, but I couldn't put it down. And then I started crying, and I couldn't stop. And so I think it just kind of set me on this path to reading and writing and just the importance of capturing those early readers. So with my little spiel there, I wanted to just first of all, has anyone read that book and did you have a What did you think about it? Did you, am I over like, did you, were you impacted by that book too? Or is that just so

Unknown:

funny? Sherry and I are both cheering, cheering as soon as you said that it that was one of my most impactful, moving books. And for me, it was the subject matter. I was really connected to animals at that stage of my life, and the connection to the coon dogs really, really spoke to me, but there was so much more in there. So Sherry, I'm curious about you too. That's funny, right? So, yeah, it's funny because if you know the book, you do have an emotional response and Amy when I first learned about you and I learned what your podcast was called, I like, had that, you know, heart stop of it took me right back to that book. And what, you know, I won't do the spoiler alert, but Where the Red Fern froze is, it's a very touching part of the story, and I think you can spoil it, it's okay. It's been around for a while, right? Yeah. So it definitely shows the impact of a book. And like you say, it might not be the thing that you would hold up as the best literature in the world, but it doesn't have to be, to be touching the human experience and the the way that we grow and the way that we learn together, and the way that those experiences are in some ways universal, the more unique they are. So this very specific story then touches us all in this very universal experience of losing effect, I think it's also just as you say that Sherry, for me, what. One of my first I've been fortunate enough that that was one of my first experiences and conversations with death, and the way that it was held in that book, I think was just really, you know, that's a really taboo topic. This is where what I do in my work, but very taboo. So I just felt like it was held in a really gentle, sacred way that really, really impacted me right, and respecting children and acknowledging all of their feelings and giving a space for grief really important, yes?

Amy Tyler:

Well, okay, I'm glad I'm not alone. That that's that's good to know. And so with that, my very first question, I want to go around and ask each of you, what children's book do you remember it can be, you know, an early reader, a young adult book really spoke to you as a child, and why? And I'm gonna start with Pam. Okay, cool.

Unknown:

Thanks for me. It was Emily of New Moon by Ellen Montgomery, written in 1923 over 100 years ago, but still very relevant, I think, and about a story about loss and grief and also fitting into a new environment. And those are themes that you very much pulled over into, echoed in my own books. And then, of course, Emily also wants to be a writer, and that definitely stuck with me at a young age. So yes, those are around the time I wanted to have a pen name, which I finally got, yay. So yes, what about you? Trista mine, I'm going to stick with young adult, because that's the genre I wrote in as well. Is the giver by Lois Lowry, which huge inspiration for my book as well. So it kind of works nicely. And just to echo your conversation you were having about those first books. I think what makes children's and, you know, young adult books so important is it's where we become readers. It's those first few books where we really connect with and that's what start us, starts us on that journey. So I think that's why they become so powerful and such like memorable pieces of us.

Amy Tyler:

And what about you? Heather,

Unknown:

Chris, I really love that. This just makes me want to go pick up all these books again. But I actually chose something that I read as a young child in illustrated children's story called The Big Orange splot. And we've continued to try and get copies of this for my nephew and nieces. It's harder and harder to find, but the reason being, it was a story of a seagull flew over this perfectly neat Street and dropped a can of orange paint on top of one of the perfectly neat homes, and overnight, Mr. Plum bean began to transition his home to make it reflect who he was. And he got a lot of pushback, but over time, everyone else along the street made their homes outwardly appear as they were inwardly, and they reflect their dreams. Oh, my cats here. Sorry, that's okay. In essence, it really speaks to that idea of being who you are and being able to express who you are, even in the face of, you know, if conformity or a particular other way of being is suggested what it takes to become who you are, and then the joy inherent in that. So it's a really, it's beautiful. The illustrations are gorgeous and colorful, and I try to read it several times a year.

Amy Tyler:

There's Heather's cat. What's your cat's name?

Unknown:

That's Chanda, distinguished from his brother, Timmy. Oh, and Sherry. You're holding up where the wild things are as well. Oh, yes, right, if I if I may, yes. So my absolute favorite is where the wild things are. My mother is a fantastic reader, and she would do all the different voices. But thinking about this, I realized there's, like, a really important part of this book that we don't talk about enough, I think, is that, like the match is in trouble, and so there's this universal experience of being sent to your room, which maybe isn't so universal anymore, but this idea that you know you're in trouble, but it's okay. And Max had such a massively wild imagination, and so do i to the point that the thing that I got in trouble for all the time as a child was lying, because I truly did not know the difference between the imaginary world and the real world. And there was a point in my life where that was very confusing for me. And I can remember being about grade one or two and figuring out what the grown ups meant when they said I was lying, because to me, it was just as real. And being an author now I'm like, Oh, that's such a gift, but I didn't see it as such as a child, I was in trouble like Max, and I was very glad for my imaginary friends

Amy Tyler:

and I loved in the Night Kitchen. That was another, that was another, really good one. You know, that makes me actually want to jump, then to a question for those of you who have illustrations in your book, because I feel that Where the Wild Things Are, the illustrations are easily, maybe why it's endured so much. And so I wanted to talk with Pam about so you actually illustrated your own book. And could you talk about that and sort of the role that illustrations play? And kind of your your goals for your illustrations and how they work with your text?

Unknown:

Yeah, absolutely, because it wasn't an obvious decision, because I'm not a professional illustrator, but that was kind of the point for me, because you described my illustrations as being energetic, which I think they are, but I would also use the word imperfect, and there is a very serious subtext of an anti perfection messaging throughout my books, and I wanted it reflected in my illustrations as well. My characters are far from perfect. They're often really vulnerable. They're afraid. They don't know if they're going to be successful, but it's only by trying that they find out what they're able to accomplish. And I think in this world, the social media world, where there's so much pressure to show your shiniest self and to be just like everybody else, I think the importance of being vulnerable is greater than ever. So what I did is I deliberately created pretty simple illustrations and kind of childlike but then I also worked with a very talented graphic designer who designed my book and also wrapped some magic around it. So I think the combination of my very imperfect illustrations and his professionalism, I think, is a pretty unique kind of final product. So that's why I did it.

Amy Tyler:

And Sherry, can you explain with your illustrations, what that works is people not in the business may not understand, and I know it's unique every time, but sometimes, and I don't know what the case was in your case, but sometimes you don't even know who the illustrator is, and you get paired with them, what, what was that collaboration like for you? And explain the role that illustrations played in your book,

Unknown:

right? So when I first knew I was going to be published, I was pretty naive, and I reached out to my childhood friends, who's an award winning artist, and asked her if maybe she'd want to work with me. And it's a longer story than that, but oh my goodness, what a collaboration it's been, and we're both so grateful. And the reason I say it was naive. It's I did not know that just because he could put oil to Canvas, then it didn't necessarily translate to being an illustrator, and she's just an amazing illustrator, and it's been such a wonderful thing to work together when we wrote, or when I wrote my essays are messes, and we started storyboarding it. It was really interesting, because the story is told in first person, but it really reflects any any type of speech challenge. So you're six words in before, you know, it's not just about essence or just about listening. And so we have all these different characters. My illustrator, Carla at first, started with a beautiful illustration of me as a child that I just love, you know, my red curly hair and freckles and everything. She assumed I was going to be the main character, and then we had to pull away and say, How are we going to do this? I wanted every single illustration to be a word picture of what it's like to have a speech difference. So we have tug of war, we have hide and seek. We have jumping hurdles. It's amazing how she brought them to life, and how we solve the problem of who is our character was, of course, the letters are the characters in the book. The children are doing everything right, and the sounds are misbehaving and making a big mess, and they learn how to work together. So the letters represent the sounds. And I work with speech language pathologist to work on like sound combinations and things, and they're really vibrant and energetic and mischievous, and they pop on the page, and then the people, mostly children, are all in silhouettes, so that regardless of your age or gender or race, you're going to be able to see yourself in that illustration.

Amy Tyler:

That's really cool. That's amazing that you got to work with a friend, because then that just plus, that's just fun. It's just a okay. So I wanted to ask a question for all of you. You've all written for different age groups, essentially, and I want to know what each of you had to take into consideration in order for it to be understood, palatable, not too much for the for the age that you were going for. So Heather, I want to start with you. Yours is kind of you can explain, are you? You're not just for children. Are you, but you're for explain, who? Who's supposed to be reading your

Unknown:

book? No, this is really good timing, because I was just on holidays with with family, and my 11 year old niece picked up my book and said, Can I read this? And I said, Actually, no, there's one story in there I could read to you. But the awfully hilarious series is really specifically designed to tackle taboos and the first two, the first being about online dating disasters, and the second one being about menstruation, menopause. First periods is actually specifically designed for folks in their 30s and beyond, or even 20s and beyond, really, although we've got a couple of very young writers and awfully hilarious period pieces. The first story is, I love that. I love it. Thanks. Yeah. The first is a, it's a poem by a young woman named Yale, and it's called. I want my period, god damn it, and she's 11 on the verge of getting her period. But what we're really trying to and then it's followed by a 13 year old and the story of her first period. But what we're really trying to address is the stigma around menstruation, and so I really specifically didn't want my nieces reading stories where there is inherent stigma already there. So it's much more for those of us who have lived that and then are trying to really find a new way in a reframe around really what has been a traumatic experience for many people because it's been sidelined by society. So it's interesting though, because it's I'm just so happy you're asking this question and that I'm here in this company, because as soon as my niece Lily picked up that book, I thought I really want to pull together an awfully hilarious collection for young adults and for children that's geared at to support them where they are. So for example, our whole mission with the project is to help people feel less alone in their difficult or embarrassing or stigmatized moments, so as to shift the narrative, but also to support the individual. This also comes from my my day job, where I work as a clinical counselor. But one of the I was really thinking, how fun would it be to have one where we've got youth speaking about their experiences Bedwetting, and you get to talk about experiences that, at the time feel may be scary or hard, but that we can all say, Hey, I'm doing that too, and I did that too, and together, it doesn't need to be so hard, and we could, maybe this could even be a bit funny in the end. So my stories till now have not been written for children, but that's an area I've really looked forward to exploring, maybe with some of you here.

Amy Tyler:

Okay? And Tristan, what about you? Talk about YA novels and the other thing, when you do, I know, I don't know how new this is, but a lot of adults like reading YA as well. Yeah, I do. So talk about that as well, because you're not just, I assume you're writing, you're hoping they're going to want it to read it too. But what are some of the ingredients that you that differentiate your genre from, say, an adult novel? Well, adult novel that has a wrong connotation. But like, you know what I mean?

Unknown:

Yeah, I think it's a lot of people define ya wrong. I think a lot of people think of YA and they inherently think of something for lack of better terms, dumbed down, easier to read, easier to digest. And I don't think ya is that at all. I think it's the themes. And so I think when I started writing the quiet limit it I never set out to say, I'm going to write a young adult book. It's just the themes that we're starting to grow with the novel that made it young adult, those poignant, the trying to find ourselves, trying to find where we fit in. And I think the thing is, is as adults, we start to realize we're always trying to find ourselves and always trying to find when we fit in, which is why I think a lot of adults still like those young adult novels, is because we it brings us back kind of to this time where we were trying to figure it all out and thinking we were and we're not. So I think something I kept in mind when I was writing is I, I wrote it as an adult novel, but with those themes, of course, it's appropriate for you know, teenagers to read, but I never thought to make the language feel cheaper or make it feel less important. And that's why I even, like my mother in law, read it for her book club with a bunch of 70 year old ladies, and they all loved it, and I got to chat with them. So it's nice to see that, you know, older generations are still looking back to young adults and seeing the importance and the value in it.

Amy Tyler:

That's interesting. Well, I think my kids have left the house, and I have a lot of changes in my life, so I think I need to be picking up someone reading, because I'm currently reinventing myself. Okay, Pam, what about you talk about, talk about some things you took into consideration? Sure, well,

Unknown:

I write for tweens, which is, I think, a very interesting age group, because they're not little kids anymore, and they're not teenagers, so they don't yet have as much of the attitude that can be part of the teenager. And when you're writing for this group, you also don't get into some of the edgier topics, like you don't get into sex and drugs and things as much you're they're just on the cusp of some of those things. So what I think is most important in in writing for this group is not to talk down to them, though, and and definitely not to be preachy as well, because this this group of kids, particularly now they know a lot, and they can engage with very sophisticated ideas. So I think it's very important to talk to them as you would talk to anybody else, and I also don't dumb down my language. Having said that, I work with a top notch New York editor, actually, who's been fabulous, wonderful collaboration, and she pulls me back sometimes, this is okay, hold on, kids, voice, you're getting a little bit too complicated here. So that's really helpful, but, but in general, it is about, you know, about, you know, being respectful and and there, it's a, it's an age where people are very kids are very idea driven, and they get very excited. And that's what's exciting about. Writing for them. It's also really important to keep the story going, however, and somebody mentioned as well, you know that, you know, there's differences, there's boys and girls, there's, you know, bookworms, as I was this kid, there's kids that really struggle with reading, particularly after covid, right? So you've got to kind of keep the story going and keep the story moving. So it's a bit of a balancing act. I also, in some cases, I know that parents of younger kids have read my books to them, so there is an adult audience as well, as well as some of my friends who are just looking for escape and want to go back to childhood, which I think is a really nice place to be. So yeah, that's my story.

Amy Tyler:

That's interesting. It's true like I would pick books that I personally wanted to read when I was reading to my kids, so that makes unless they I remember one of my boys was into that. He was an early reader, but I couldn't get him out of that. What is it? Captain Underpants. It kind of drove me crazy. But yeah, he loved it, so I read it. Okay. What about you? Sherry?

Unknown:

Right. Right. So first of all, writing for children is hard and there's so much to consider. So some of the mechanics I consider is, you know, is it at their reading level? I write poetry, so I'm very disciplined about keeping the cadence and the rhythm consistent. Like everyone said, basically, we don't want to minimize or water down. So I will always add in some words that are like a stretch to the vocabulary. And actually, I love it when grown ups read my book and say, Oh, I'm gonna have to look that one up, right? And so I like that actually, for empathy building too, but you have to be careful that it's not too abstract, so and it's got to fit within a small amount of words I always publish with large, high contrast, dyslexic friendly font, and that's good for everybody, so universal design, but that means that I'm being inclusive for persons that have dyslexia or low vision, which is sometimes the grandparents, right? So there's lots of considerations, but mostly what I'm considering is that I wanted to write the book that I wanted to read as a child, so I really tapped into my inner child, and that meant sometimes, like actually having to kind of stand for a point of view that wasn't the obvious one, and I would have to work with, say, my editor or my when I was consulting the speech language pathologist and other experts, and really just come back to that as my North Star. So the most important thing was that the children knew that they were not alone, that we acknowledge that they're working hard, that there's lots of different ways to communicate, and then reflecting my lived experience in that, which is not just for my childhood. It's like I'm in that 5% that has speech challenges for my entire life. So I can very easily tap into that and go, actually, this is what I want to say, and it's really important that children hear this at the age they're at. They're not too young. So even, for example, my essays are message, I knew that was the right title. And sometimes people would say, like, ooh, like, are you, you know, is that critical? I'm like, No, it's not me. It's my essence. And I know they're a mess. Like, this is actually not a problem. The thing that is a problem is people being impatient or being interrupted. So let's talk about that instead.

Amy Tyler:

Okay, so I want to jump around a little bit and go a little deeper into content. And this question is for PAM and Trista, and I wanted to talk about fear, which is present in both of your books, and it drives the narrative, and it keeps you know readers on the edge of your seat. But there's a balance, maybe for a younger reader, and now Tristan is maybe gonna tell me there isn't, but after we had the earlier discussion. So let's try. So let's I'll start with you. How do you find that balance, and what do you keep in mind when you're addressing danger and your readers,

Unknown:

I think, for me, so there is a lot of fear, and it does drive my novel, but there's also a lot of hope, and I think that's the balance, right? And so at the beginning, our main character doesn't really have a lot of hope. She's kind of at the end and thinks this is it, and she's resigned herself to what's going to happen to her, and then she starts to see these little glimmers of hope, and they grow as the story goes. And so as the fear grows, the hope grows. And in addition to that, she has a very strong support system. She's a great family, she has great friends, and so she's not alone. I think a story can become really dark really quickly if you don't give your character some sort of support. And while, you know, a lot of us like a really dark story, there needs to be that hope, there needs to be that glimmer, you know, to want make you want to keep reading. So I think for me, that was that big thing, was balancing the fear with

Amy Tyler:

that's a good that's a good answer. Okay, Pam, what about you? Yeah,

Unknown:

well, I had because mine are for young. Your audience. I did have readers read them in the age group in advance before I published, to get to gage that reaction, because I wanted to have a sense of that. But much like just it's it's a question of going a little bit fearful and then pulling back, and then and then, as you go through the novel, you know the fear amps up, but so does their so does their resilience, because they've conquered the obstacles before, and they have a little bit more courage, a little bit more capacity. And then I think one of the most important things for me is the ending, making sure that there's a lot of really a big warm blanket in the end, that it's a whole lot of really positive messaging. And it ends on a very high note, as an adult reader, I like ambiguous endings, but I don't particularly like them for kids, because I think they want to know that things do end up well, that things do get get tied up. Well, I I actually my book is the first one in a series, so I also leave the door open for other adventures and other kinds of fear, and that does tend to kind of escalate throughout the series as well, but so do my characters. They grow and they they grow more confident, stronger and more capable. I also have to say that I don't have anything gory in my books, like there's nothing really awful that's going to give them nightmares at three in the morning, because I'm not a big fan of gore, so that's my answer.

Amy Tyler:

Yeah. Okay. Okay, now I want to ask a question about motivation, and this is for Heather and Sherry. And you both touched on this a bit, but I know that both of you were motivated to write your books based on some personal experiences, and so whether it was health or, in Sherry's case, language, so I was wondering, Heather, if you could kind of elaborate a little bit on some of the health issues that led you to create your book. Yeah,

Unknown:

absolutely. And it's really interesting, actually. PS, I'm going to follow up on what you're just saying that there is no Gore in your books, and I really love that. And just also listening to our conversation today, as a therapist, I'm so aware that books aren't therapy, but how incredibly therapeutic they can be, like Tris as you're speaking about making sure that the character has company and there's a warm blanket that we're really resourcing the reader as they're you know, we're not handing them something that they're incapable of managing. And that's where the title of our series actually came from. It's funny. I'll go back to your real name, Pam, but that you said there's nothing awful in there. But our books were deliberately called awfully hilarious, because a lot of the events that have happened to people were quite awful at the time, and then with time and support and the resources of community and humor and connection, they can start to become funny over time. But I mean, really, where the whole series started with the first book, awfully hilarious stories we never tell happened because I went on a terrible date. It was it was laughable what happened, but I came off this date just sobbing. I called up one of my best friends, and she said, You wouldn't believe the date I just got home from. We could write a book. No sooner were the words out that we started, we were going to just staple these pages together and put them in little free libraries everywhere, sign it from the tynder Elas and support all the people having, oh god, I love that. But then, because that, it worked so well, and it ended up becoming a best seller, and people really picked up on it. I realized it was a way a book like this was a way to share an important story, and that's when we landed on one around menstruation, because it's been such a deeply stigmatized subject, and I'm actually in the midst, right now, writing a memoir about the health condition that drove me to focus on menstruation, that being something called premenstrual dysphoric disorder, which is a really dangerous and often missed health condition. And interestingly, of the stories submitted to awfully hilarious period pieces, which was the second book, half of the contributors have premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or what's called PMDD. So it I realized that writing and reading can also a space of healing, but also advocacy. And using humor like you would say, with the friend to your character, Tris, or with ups with the blanket, we are using humor to titrate the challenging experience to support it such that the reader doesn't have to do the extra work the writers, we as writers, have done that work to hold the reader in their experience, if that makes sense. So yes, it grew from a lot of health conditions. Our next one has nothing to do with that. It's called awfully hilarious pillow talk, and it's focused on sex, intimacy, pleasure, desire. So definitely not for kids, not a children's book.

Amy Tyler:

Sherry, what about you?

Unknown:

Well, the first published work I have is called what the seal saw, and I knew that that was the right title for the book. And yet I laughed right away. And I thought, What have I done? My S's or Ness I've been avoiding s my entire life. McMillan is neither my birth name nor my married name, but it has no S's in it, right? And I kind of tuck that in my back pocket of Well, that's an interesting thought. But then when I was off and running and into sales and marketing of the book, and I'd be at a bench and up. Markets and things, what would happen is I would end up saying things to people like, bear with me. I'm really tired. I'm starting to stutter, or I'm sorry, can you repeat yourself? It's really noisy environment. I'm having trouble hearing you. And along the way, I realized that my life, before I became a full time author, was I worked 36 years in tech. As a child, I was really bullied for my speech challenges, and then I as I wasn't even 20 before I had my first salary job in it. So I'm in a man's world. I'm very short. I've got to chubby cheeks. I was also always like against stereotype. I didn't want to add in any speech challenges to it, and so, like, I spent so long telling myself and everyone around me, I'm fine. I don't need any accommodations. Covid happened. We came home, I suddenly realized how hard it was for me to understand people when we were wearing masks and how easy it was when we were on Zoom. I struggled

Amy Tyler:

with that too. Right hearing issue, I don't

Unknown:

know what you might be lip reading a bit, right? And there are actually about 40% of us will have some sort of speech challenge, and I don't know the hearing stats, but you know, most of us are outgrown in childhood, but some of us don't. But there's also, you know, stroke recovery and there's neuro diversity has implications. There's speech sound processing disorders. Yes, a lot of us over covid discovered that we had suddenly had accommodations we didn't have before.

Amy Tyler:

That's amazing. It's, well, it sounds like you healed writing your book, which I think, I think that's we're all we all right, because we kind of have to maybe, okay, this question is for the authors who wrote about sci fi, and I want to talk about world building and how you went about creating your dystopian world. And actually, interestingly, I personally am not personally interested in science fiction, per se, and I've had a lot of people on for a variety of reasons that are and I've learned a lot. There's all different types, and there's speculative fiction and all that kind of stuff. And I just wanted to start with you, Trista, can you talk about your dystopian world and how you created it and made it believable, and why sci fi even

Unknown:

Okay, so, adding to your point about sci fi, I did not know my book was sci fi until I actually went into publishing it. And they said, Yeah, it's the little sci fi. And because in my head, sci fi computers and, you know, crazy technologies. And so I always when I sell it to people, I say soft sci fi, because I don't want to scare off the people who normally wouldn't pick up a sci fi book. Because to me, it it doesn't feel as much. It feels more speculative. But as far as world building, oh, my goodness, wait,

Amy Tyler:

let's back up. I thought speculative fiction is sci fi. Okay? Explain to everybody so spec, okay, I have this right. Speculative fiction is where it seems like the world that we're currently in, but weird things happen and you just they're normal, like you can time travel or do things, and there's kind of a foot in each I think so

Unknown:

the best way to, you know, differentiate, I think sci fi is just when people hear it, they think it's, you know, Star Trek, or they think it's all computers and things that are going to be above them, and they're not going to understand. Okay, when you define, like my book, as sci fi, it just never really felt sci fi to me. It felt dystopian. And yeah, so that's kind of my little spiel on that. But as far as world building, I know I mentioned the giver earlier, and my absolute favorite part about the giver was the world it was in. And when I read it for the first time as a child, that's what opened up reading to me, because as I read it, it wasn't just a story of the world that I lived in. It was a completely different world that I had never heard of, and was like com developed from the ground up, and I got so lost in that world, I struggled to put that book down. And so when I began writing, that was something that was always really dear to me, was trying to create a world that somebody could get lost in and somebody would not want to put the book down, because there's so many things that are, you know, just a little different, not different enough that it feels it couldn't exist, but just enough that it feels, you know, that it could, which I think makes it a little scary. And for my community, I tried to make it feel very utopian from the get go. So you know, safety, security, routine, all those things that we think we really want, but when you start digging beneath that, that surface, you realize those things don't come for free, that there's control there, that there's more sinister things underneath which, for me, writing the quiet limit, was something I wanted to really portray. I wanted readers to pick up the book and think this was this perfect world where everything was safe. Safe and secure, and people were happy, and there was, you know, no worry of anything bad happening to them. And then, as our main character starts to uncover, you know, what's really happening in this world? Do you realize it is anything but all those things you think it is? And so that twist was a big thing I wanted to make sure came off.

Amy Tyler:

Okay. Pam, what about you? And I feel like your book had kind of Greek underworld vibes. Am I wrong on that? Or, like,

Unknown:

no, yes, yes, and no, that's not the strongest piece of it. I don't think, and I don't think of my book as being either dystopian or science fiction. And the world that I create, unlike most science fiction world, it's not dystopian, it's not harsh. In fact, it's kind of the perfect world, but it lives under, under the world, right? So just to back up a bit, how I created this world was it's about the battle for water. So there's an environmental theme that runs through it, but I hope not in the preachy way at all. So it made sense to talk about the streams underwater and the water, you know, underneath the ground. So thinking about going through the underworld, and I think that's where you get the kind of mythology feeling. But that's just the passage through to get to the under underworld, which is this pristine world that as if man hasn't polluted it at all. So I worked with the contrast between that and the world above, which is a little bit more nasty, more obviously nasty, where you see the factory smoke, you're aware of some of the climate change issues, and the contrast, as I was saying, between these two. But I think what makes my worlds come alive is that the characters end up traveling between the worlds, especially as my my series develops, but it's the characters themselves that I think are important. One is the great hildin ski, who is the last survivor of a lost civilization. So she knows what brought her civilization down, and she's working hard with scientists to try to stop that from happening to this world. There's another character who I wanted to stand out as being, you know, very accepting of his differences. He has blue skin. He talks to fish by just by the vibrations that he makes with his fingers. I thought of you when you're talking Sherry, but I know nothing about speech issues that as you do, but, but that's how he communicates. And he's very accepting of his own differences. So he's a very strong character and and he helps my heroine, Sam, accept herself. And then, of course, I have to have a cat, because every kid's book needs a cat, in my opinion. So that's, oh

Amy Tyler:

yeah, like a cozy mystery. You need it, you know? Do you know you have to have a cat? Do you know that actually there to be considered a cozy mystery? Apparently, you have to have

Unknown:

a cat in it. But I fully support that. That's so funny, because my sequel, I actually introduced a cat who becomes a very beloved main character, almost because things were feeling so dark. I was like, We need a cat in this so I totally understand where you're coming. I have no cat. Oh no, there is one in my SSMS. There is there's, it's hiding. They started in there. They always sneak in there. Yes, yeah, cat in our call. It's necessary.

Amy Tyler:

Oh, true. That's so funny.

Unknown:

Mine is downstairs, so, yeah,

Amy Tyler:

okay, so for a final question, it's interesting, as we're sitting here talking, and I have to admit, Sherry sent a note and and brought this up kind of a through way with everybody, is that you're not alone. And I wanted to know, did you guys set out to address that? And also, is that? Also, do you think that's to put to say, is that because you're women as well and nurturing, or what? What's that about? And do you Sherry mentioned that every all the authors had addressed that in some way, and to all the authors, do you agree with that? And if so, how, um, Sherry, I want to start with you,

Unknown:

sure. So I set out to write the book that I wished I'd had as a child. And I'm a self published author, and I think that one of the wonderful things about that is, like, I could stand in a place where I could say, Well, the reason I'm doing this right that, like, like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it this particular way, because I am holding 100% of the creative process here as I partner with my illustrator. But for me, it was so important to tap into that set of experiences that I had as a child, and what I most would have wanted to say to myself as a child is you're not alone, and the the wonderful experience of reading a book to someone is, in and of itself, a bonding experience. But then when you read and it opens up a whole new world, and you find out all the different ways, like in this particular case, that people. To communicate, and all the different ways that you might have a communication challenge, but it's okay, because we can all be patient, we can all learn from each other. There's many different ways to communicate, and we can always speak heart to heart. So that message of you're not alone was really intended to kind of take the pressure off. There was so much about having a speech difference that felt like it wasn't fair. I had to do extra work. Everybody felt like they could correct me, interrupt me, all day long. Every day was an exercise in trying to be heard and to be understood. And so just taking some of the heat off and saying, Hey, we're all working on this together. We're going to communicate together. We're going to speak heart to heart, and the rest will fall away, and you're not alone. It's okay. That was really healing and really at the heart of the book,

Amy Tyler:

Heather. How? What do you think about that? And how does that resonate with your writing?

Unknown:

Oh, I just love this question, and I think I can speak to this more clearly from my role as a clinical counselor is that what we're doing is we're showing up with people and providing that support and the empathy and the resources and a company that may not have been there with them in their immediate first experience. And this is something I think is so important, and I really see this in the room right now is the respect and care with which we're addressing the reader as writers. It's not only are we trying to prepare something engaging and exciting and age appropriate and that can be expansive, but also that really keeps a person company and holds them and allows for some containment through the experience. We're not going in and opening up something hopefully, that we don't have the capacity to walk them through, if that makes sense. So I really hear that as a through line with all of our work here. And I think that's one of the great gifts and something that I really hold with a lot of reverence as a writer, something I think about a lot as I'm as I'm writing.

Amy Tyler:

What about you? Pam,

Unknown:

I think everybody, at some point in their life, or often, as the case may be, feels, you know, alone or different or misunderstood or vulnerable. And I think that's part of the human spirit, the human existence. And I think you know, accepting that and and understanding that there are supports is is extremely important. And I think part of it in my books are, you know, it's the lessons you learn. It's the lessons. I've got three sacred lessons in mind, which is, trust your body, trust yourself and trust others, but know whom to trust, right? So it is about that embracing the support around you,

Amy Tyler:

okay? Trust and no pressure. You're the last person. You're the last person everyone's gonna hear from. So I want you to tie this up for us. Let's go.

Unknown:

Amazing. What you brought that up, Sherry, because it's true. I mean, for me, in my book, in the quiet limit, my main character lay she lives in a community where everyone knows when they're gonna die, and everyone in the community is living well into their hundreds, and she's only going to live to the 18. And so her entire life, she feels different. She feels alone, she feels like she's not important. And one of the strongest messages throughout the book, despite all the dystopian, the fear that everything going on, is that message deep down, that she is important and she isn't alone, and it's her path to finding that out. So, yeah, great, great theme to bring up for all of us. Well,

Amy Tyler:

with that, I'm going to conclude this edition of The Red Fern book review. And thank you guys so much for coming on the podcast. And I really loved how we all shared, and Sherry came up with some of my questions, which was great, and so I wish you all success, and congratulations on your your award. And yeah, thank you. Okay,

Unknown:

so much. You guys did a much better job of summarizing than I did good on you. Thank you all so good to be here. Thanks, Amy.

Amy Tyler:

So that concludes the final podcast in this series for the Canadian book club awards. And that was really fun. I was a little bit like a kitchen party. I felt that people were chiming in, in many cases, doing a better job than I could, bringing people together, finding commonality. And one of my best, the best questions, the last one about, are we not alone? That was Sherry's idea. She came up with that kind of mid podcast. So thanks to Sherry, and thanks again to the authors, Heather, Sherry, Pam or PS and Trista, and just to review their books again, the books are awfully hilarious. Period pieces by Heather Hendry, my S's are messes by Sherry McMillan, Secrets of the under under World Water by PS, whatever and the qua. Quiet lemon. By Trista Lundquist, so thanks so much for listening, And I'll talk to you soon. You

Unknown:

Oh, you you.