Pen Pals

Stop Tap Dancing in Your Query Letter: Ali Gordon's Path to Publication

• Krisserin Canary and Kelton Wright • Season 2 • Episode 11

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Krisserin and Kelton sit down with Ali Gordon, author of "We Have Reached the End of Our Show," to discuss her unconventional path to publication without an agent. Ali shares how she wrote her debut novel during the pandemic as a "cozy treehouse" where she could escape—a meditation on grief and the end of the world inspired by her experience losing both parents to cancer within two years.

The conversation digs into the brutal reality of querying: from agents who loved her novella but wouldn't represent it without expansion, to the personal sting of form rejections when you've poured your trauma onto the page. Ali explains why she stopped "tap dancing" in her query letters and started reaching out directly to independent publishers—landing at Wildling Press, where the entire team read her manuscript within weeks and called to say "we all cried, we love it."

Ali gets honest about the trade-offs of publishing with a small press (no advance, years of unpaid work) versus the reward of working with people genuinely in love with your material. She reflects on how querying hurt her feelings in ways even acting school rejection never did, why writing "in love" with your project matters more than outlining obligations, and how four hours of forced airplane boredom gave her the idea for her next (hopefully funny) novel.

Plus: Kelton's toddler still isn't sleeping so she's giving herself permission to rest despite memoir proposal deadlines, Krisserin shares the embarrassing story of fumbling repeated follow-ups from an interested agent twelve years ago, and both hosts grapple with social media metrics while pushing toward their January deadlines in a season when they should be pulling back.

Learn more about Ali Gordon:
Website: https://www.whatdoesaligordondo.com/
Book: "We Have Reached the End of Our Show"
Instagram: @msalicenutting

Write to us:
officialpenpalspod@gmail.com

Follow us:
Instagram: @penpalspod
TikTok: @penpalspod
YouTube: @PenPalsPod

Follow Krisserin and Kelton:
TikTok: @krisserin, @keltonwrites
Kelton's Substack: Shangrilogs
Krisserin's Substack: krisserin.substack.com
The Rewilding

Music by Golden Hour Oasis Studios

Krisserin:

Hi Kelton.

Kelton:

Hi, Krisserin.

Krisserin:

How are you

Kelton:

Tired. I feel like that's what I say every time you ask me now. How are you? I'm tired. the toddler still isn't sleeping and neither am I. so we are still in the pit of despair

Krisserin:

I've been recording my early morning writing now for, I guess this is like my second week doing it, and every video I start with I'm Tired. you and I were just pinky in the brain over here.

Kelton:

Mm, mm-hmm. Very hopeful. Always working.

Krisserin:

Always trying to take over the world. I'm Krisserin Canary. And I'm Kelton Wright. Follow our quest to publish our first novels from first drafts, to query letters through inevitable rejections and hopefully eventual success from California to Colorado. This is pen pals. Oh, one day. One day we'll do it. Well, tell me about your week. Remind me of, I, I'm trying to open up our document. Remind me of our goals.

Kelton:

I will. Last week my goal was to do three more chapters outlined in the proposal and to make a return to TikTok. Guess which one I did? It's a trick question. The answer is neither. I, I had, I just was like really tired and I dabbled in the proposal like for a little bit. I had a long talk with my friend that I had review it for me and, and, I just, I didn't have it in me this week and I just am, I'm gonna let it go. I'm like, I still have a month and a half to like hit the deadline for this and I'm just, I'm trying to enjoy this week a little. My mother-in-law is here now, taking care of the child. And so yesterday I went out to lunch by myself with a book, and my phone was dead and it was so luxurious. I had the worst. The worst version of a banh mi ever, like, you know, like a mountain town bond me, made by white people. And I was like, whatever. It's tasty pork you tried. but I read that book and I enjoyed myself. So I, I am giving myself a little rest and relaxation, even though that wasn't the goal. But your goal last week was to get closer to the end of the book, publish your first Substack, and continue to post tiktoks.

Krisserin:

Yeah, I did all those things.

Kelton:

You're so good.

Krisserin:

things. I'm gonna burn out. I am just this morning, this week has been rough. Like I did all of those things, but I will say it wasn't without, struggle. did publish my first Substack on Saturday and thank you so much for linking to it. That was very kind of you. I did get a good amount of, readers and I was thinking about you when, because you know, you open up the Substack app and it's like, look at your stats of your most recent blog.

Kelton:

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin:

I went from having five subscribers on Substack think 37 now. So, you know, just kind of

Kelton:

I mean, y'all, this is, this is your call to action, Krisserin. And what is the URL of your substack?

Krisserin:

It's krisserin.substack.com. I need a title for it, by the way, because I didn't come up. Everyone has these fun names for their blog and I just don't

Kelton:

You know, who doesn't, you know who doesn't and is proof that you don't have to Olivia Muenter,

Krisserin:

okay.

Kelton:

Olivia's substack

Krisserin:

Okay.

Kelton:

oliviamuenter.substack.com. She does it. And I, I do think that there are some perks to that if you're not, like, if there's no thesis to it. And I, until there is a natural thesis to the Substack, I would not. Try to just jam one in, like, I think it could just be Krisserin Canary is the name of the Substack.

Krisserin:

I

Kelton:

You know, like,

Krisserin:

on there. I'm like,

Kelton:

no girl, you're, no, your, your name is so lyrical. You're building your author brand, Krisserin Canary. Let it flow. Let it be out there. Let that bird fly. Listen, I will tell you that like Shangri Logs as a name really corners me into what I can write. So there are advantages to not having some like perfect title.

Krisserin:

Oh, um, I'm so curious. You mentioned on Instagram that you're going to be leaving your handle behind.

Kelton:

I think that is true. I think that is true. I've been giving this a lot of thought since we talked about it a long time ago, where if listeners are just joining, I went. Mega viral in 2021. I got 125 million views on something. I had a little success, and then I got shadow banned by the algorithm for suspicious growth, and I have not been able to recover from that. So I have 48,000 followers now. And I get like 35 likes on stuff. It looks really bad. It looks like I like bought followers. It's, it's not attractive to have that many if you don't have the engagement to back it up. Course. Talked to me about this. I knew this intrinsically. I don't wanna do the work of starting a new account, but I think just given all of the new projects I am working on and the direction my public life is going. I just think it makes more sense to have a small community that's really engaged than it is to have a number that does nothing. And so I think, yeah, December 15th, I'm launching a new Instagram.

Krisserin:

Exciting.

Kelton:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Krisserin:

exclusive

Kelton:

Podcast exclusive. It's coming. And you will, you guys, you have to follow me when I open it. It's so humbling. I've never been so embarrassed to do something in my life. Start a new Instagram when I'm 40 in 20 26. Like, ugh. It's so shameful.

Krisserin:

over here with my 35, I've got like 187, TikTok followers and I'm posting these videos and they're getting like a hundred views and five likes. I don't care. I'm just gonna keep doing.

Kelton:

We just, that's the thing is like we just kind of keep tumbling ourselves over and over again. I was telling, one of my Substack friends the other day that I sent out, a free preview of the paid edition of the newsletter, and immediately like 20 people unsubscribed. So I just, I like, I, I committed to myself earlier this week. I was like, you know what? We're done with the data on Substack. I changed the, auto-populate URL, to instead of go to dashboard, it just goes to create new post. And so I just, I'm not gonna see that. I don't wanna see it. I don't, I it's un until I see it, I don't care. It's the seeing it that triggers all these insecurities and, and curiosities about like, am I doing the right thing? Am I writing the right thing? And it's like, girl, do you like writing it? Are you having fun? Like, are you living your life the way you want to? Like God? The metrics out there just, just really like thorns. It feels like I'm walking through a thorn bush trying to create all this art.

Krisserin:

Yeah, I, I think it's when you are focusing on the things that you really like to do that are authentic to you,

Kelton:

I also, I wanna, I wanna push back on that a little bit because I have felt very in my element, with my writing lately, and it has not resonated. And so that just means I'm, I, for me, what I want that, what I want it to mean is that I'm going through an audience shift, and that does mean that before new people find me, the people who already knew me are gonna leave. And so I just, I, I know I have to be really cautious around the language of like, if you're living your truth, like people will love it.'cause like that's not true. That's not true.

Krisserin:

what do you mean that it hasn't been resonating? What is What, what data supports that? What's the evidence that shows that it's not been resonating? Or is that just a feeling that you're

Kelton:

Oh no, it's just been like constant unsubscribes,

Krisserin:

okay.

Kelton:

Like lower engagement in the comments. People unsubscribing the data, the data's there. But I also recognize that. You know, culturally we're in kind of like a reset. We got hammered with newsletters for the last like five years. And you gotta unsubscribe from some before your inboxes get outta control. Right now people are getting more emails than ever and that will only increase as we get closer to, the, Christian capitalist monolith of gift buying and of which I am a participant. And however Pagan I may be, but I recognize that things gotta change and it's like, not everyone can afford substack and neither can I. So, you know, I, I think this season is just about what feels good? What do I wanna write? Stay away from the data. And that I'm just gonna try and live quite religiously by that, so that I don't get, I gotta let go of the 10,000 subscribers. I think that's a big thing. It's like, just let go of that dream. It'll happen if it happens. Work on the proposal, keep your nose down, stay out of it,

Krisserin:

I know you said you were working with someone, who is looking to advise on memoirs,

Kelton:

mm-hmm.

Krisserin:

And you're kind of the first person that she's working with, so you had that conversation. Can you share how it went?

Kelton:

Yeah, it went great. I mean, I should say above all else, she is my friend. So this is, it's not like I found someone on the internet that I didn't have a relationship with to. Like review something really sensitive to me. She is a long time reader. We have supported each other. Substack, she's a successful author, though I don't know if she really sees herself that way yet. She's someone that I can send a voice note to and just like. You know, I can be like, oh sorry, the cat just shot in the litter box. Let me cover it. You know, like I can be authentic in myself, in in the living experience that I'm having with her. And that it feels very the same when she sends me voice notes. So her feedback is very encouraging and very, like, I wanna read your book, like, I think your book will do well because it's a book I want to read. Her feedback is all kind of like, this is what works for agents. So that is kind of the, the direction I've been going off of is, you know, what does the package look like? The last call we had was more encouragement than anything else.'cause I was just like, I'm barely doing anything. And she was like, you'll get there. I'm not planning to have like a real call with her until probably sometime mid-December.

Krisserin:

Okay,

Kelton:

when's your next catch up with your agent?

Krisserin:

It should be in early December. So this Saturday, which episode comes out, it will have already published, but this Saturday I'm going to be publishing a blog about how I found my agent. And I know that everyone who's been listening to this podcast kind of knows that story. But in preparation as I was writing the blog, I was going back into my inbox and I've had this email. For so long now, I think, you know, since I graduate, since I had to leave and change my edu email into a big girl email, I've had my Gmail account. And so I was going back and trying to look at the first time that I queried and all of the subsequent times, and I'm so embarrassed and mad at myself knowing what I know now about how difficult it is to get an agent. fumbled the ball so bad when I was younger and it's embarrassing, and I'm ashamed to share, if you're interested, check out my blog'cause I'm sharing screenshots and everything. But I had one agent email me like four times over the period of almost two years saying, is your book done? Is your book done? I wanna read it. Is it done?

Kelton:

No, no. Have you googled that agent today?

Krisserin:

Well, so when I was working on the Gustafson novel, after I'd finished and failed querying, parasocial, I emailed her'cause she was the one who was like, I love this idea. I'm so into it. I wanna read it when it's done. the initial email that I got from her, she had written to me and said, I'm intrigued by your concept. I'd like to read it when it was done. And I said Yes. And this was in, I wanna say May of 2013. And so I was gonna be working on the book during my fellowship and it just wasn't done. And I saw, I had actually emailed my teacher and another teacher and I said, what should I do? And they were both like, it's not done, don't send it to her. Like tell her to wait and if she's a good agent, she'll wait. And I was like,

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

So I said, I'm probably gonna be ready to share it with you by the end of the year. She emailed me at the end of the year and was like, Hey, it's the end of the year. Is your book done? And I was like, it's not done. And then she emailed me a year later in the summer, and said, Hey, we were emailing a year ago. I'm still really interested in your book. And the

Kelton:

I would, I would be shocked to find out this woman is not an earth sign. That is the most organized follow up I have ever heard.

Krisserin:

She was, I mean, and her first emails were so encouraging, and remember this was 12 years ago.

Kelton:

Mm-hmm.

Krisserin:

and so she's a lot farther along in her career now, and I don't know how early she was in her career when we were emailing, but I was months postpartum, four months postpartum with Sabine. And I was just going back to work and I had had a very stressful leaving work. you know, I was very early on, very ambitious with my career, and I had gone on maternity leave feeling really down because they were hiring someone above me and I was gonna come back into a work environment where my prospects were just completely gone. And so. I was going back into work and I was like, I'm just gonna leave my baby at home and figure out how to pump in the one conference room we have in this tiny office and try and commit myself and do as good a job as I did before. And I hadn't written because I just had no energy. And I get this email from the agent and I was like, oh no, but this life that I like, it just is, my life was completely different. And so I'm

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

be kind to myself and I think she emailed one more time at the end of the year and I was like. So I emailed her in 2023 and I was like, Hey, I'm ready. And she's like, I'm busy.

Kelton:

Oh my God.

Krisserin:

She was like, I have a full plate of clients and I can't take on it anymore. Right now I'm closed for submission, but best of luck to you. And it was

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

was nice

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

her, but I'm just like, in what universe does someone get that many chances and fuck it up? But.

Kelton:

This one. This one. All right.

Krisserin:

ended up working out for the best, but

Kelton:

This is why you gotta subscribe to Krisserin's Substack. but today we're talking to someone that does have a book without an agent, right?

Krisserin:

True. Yeah. And she's not the first person that we've spoken to on this podcast who has successfully published a book without an agent. So there is hope for all of us out

Kelton:

us about her.

Krisserin:

We are lucky enough today to talk to Ali Gordon, who is a pen pals listener, and friend of the pod. She and I had coffee, I wanna say it was like a couple weeks ago and had such a great time, and I was just like, you have to come on the podcast and talk to us at her about your book. Her debut novel we have reached the end of our show, was released in September of 2025. She's a writer, a performer and educator living here in Los Angeles, but is a native of New York, and she's spent many years in New York working as a musical theater actor, which we love both Kelton and I. And she performed comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade. She writes musical. She has a partner that she writes musicals with, one called Power Trip and another called Gross Prophets and has performed in top comedy all over the world. This is her line. She says she promises she's quite funny despite the subject matter of this, her debut novel, which centers around grief at the end of the world.

Kelton:

Excited.

Krisserin:

Yeah. Yes. So, without further ado, here is our conversation with Ali Gordon. Yay.

Ali:

Yay. Woo.

Krisserin:

All right, everybody. We have Ali Gordon. Ali, welcome to the pod.

Ali:

Thank you so much.

Krisserin:

How have you been since the last time we saw each other?

Ali:

pretty good. I have been out of town again twice more since then, which has been, both very fun and very exhausting. So I think I'm ready to be, in one place through the year.

Krisserin:

Yeah, because you were on your book tour

Ali:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

Yeah.

Ali:

Yes, I, it's been great. It's been, I mostly did where I knew I had some semblance of, like, audience already. I have not been to any markets where I don't know anybody, so I've yet to sort of had the experience of being like, gee, I really hope anybody I know shows up, which I'm sure is also extremely true for many authors, including myself. But I did a, a book launch on the day of publication. LA We then did New York. I did Chicago, and then I was just in Ann Arbor, which is where I went to school. And I was, I sort of also turned that into a teaching trip because I did, I taught improv to the current musical theater majors at University of Michigan, which is really, really, really, really fun.

Krisserin:

That's incredible. Well tell the audience who are listening a little bit about your book.'cause obviously, you know, Kelton and I, have copies and I went to your book Launch party in

Ali:

Which was amazing. That was such an honor. Like What a blast. Thank you again for coming.

Krisserin:

Well, thanks for emailing us and inviting me. You know, I think that Skylight is such a cool place to be and you did such an incredible job of putting on that event and it was very special, and I wanna

Ali:

Thank you.

Krisserin:

as well. But talk to our audience a little bit about what we have reached the end of our show is about

Ali:

it is a novel about the last 25 days, before the end of the world The question that I had, that I had before, even the pandemic that was what if you already knew you were dying when you found out the world was ending? And that was like my in for the novel, which is that the protagonist has already been trying to deal unsuccessfully with a cancer diagnosis and has since foregone treatment, of being like, you know, if this is gonna happen, I'm gonna at least have some control over the last, let's say, year of my life. So how does that character feel in comparison to all of his loved ones or even just the general population of humanity, finding out that time is limited and that we actually all have the same expiration date, so to speak. How does that change your relationships? How does that change how people deal with you? How does that change how you deal with the world? And so it's a, it's a road trip in the last 25 days of the world. That's essentially like my, my elevator pitch for it. So I had already had sort of different rocks tumbling for this idea and I'd had them for a couple years, but the minute that life completely shut down in 2020. I sort of realized I had no excuse but to get to it, because I was feeling a lot of the emotions in the book pretty strongly, organically, which was like. What if time was limited? Also, so much of this book is about of the protagonists two of them are performers and the third is not. And the place where I had basically put my entire career and was teaching and performing shut down overnight with no plans of reopening, I sort of thought, gee, I wonder if I'll ever get on stage and perform with people ever again in my life. So all these things I was feeling very naturally wrapped its way into this bigger question that I already knew I wanted to ask, which was like, what do you do with those last days? How do you feel? What do you regret? What do you miss? So, yeah, you know, like some of the characters are like, I regret that I'll never make something great. Like I regret that, like I have this potential and I'm proud of my own talents and I'll like never have the chance to. Do the thing I was meant to do. Whereas other people, people couldn't care less about that, you know what I mean? They're like, I just wanna be with my family. Like, whatcha talking about like making something great? And so it was very personal to me and, I've written a lot of projects, but not very long form things like a novel. And I realized very quickly that I didn't want to tell anybody about it I was feeling so protective of it and I was feeling very excited by it. And when I would write it, I would write it. I'm gonna say emotionally that sounds like I was like crying while I wrote it. I was never, I'm sure if you saw a picture of me, I looked completely stone faced, but like what was going in, going on inside was like, you know, there was, there was like a churning inside me. So like I used to really look forward to sitting down to write for like long stretches of time because they felt. Like indulgence in a way. And it was like life was difficult and I was in New York City at the time and so, you know, especially at the very early days of the pandemic, I was very fortunate that I was living in an apartment complex and two of my best friends were in the same apartment complex so we could like split up who would go out and search for toilet paper that day. So like going out into the world felt like a. You know, you had to like brave the outside world with a sword and then you'd come back and I'd be like, I don't want to poison this little world that I'm writing with. Anything that it's like sort of like the going on the, all the uncertainties and things that are going on in my life right now. Like I want to be able to like look back. I wanna be able to go to this world excitedly. Even though it was a very sad story, it was to me, sort of like a cozy treehouse where I was like, that's where my little characters live. And, and it's

Kelton:

So romantic.

Ali:

I really like, uh, I, we, we talked about this a little bit when we went to go grab a coffee, but like I wrote this book very much in love with the book, which is such a lovely experience. Like know that writing a book is difficult, and this certainly was difficult, but. My emotions around it were largely pretty positive because I did kind of feel romantic. I was like, this

Kelton:

Yeah.

Ali:

This is the only place that is mine, and I know everything about it. And anything I say can be true and can take a long walk. You know, while I'm looking for toilet paper and taking, knowing and like traversing the entirety of Harlem to look for toilet paper, like I can put in headphones and just think about these characters or truths about their lives, or meditate on a sentence I was writing earlier that I don't quite like and try and crack why I like, like what, what I don't like about it. And so I was very in love with the whole process and the characters and everything when I was writing it. And what I'm interested in is, is there a way for me to recapture that feeling again? Without the unbelievable strangeness of the pandemic and I, and my an, I think my answer is no. You know what I mean? Like, I, I don't know if I'll ever be able, unless I get fortunate enough to like, go to like a writer's retreat where I don't need to work for a certain amount of time. I can just be like, yay, I'm in a, somebody's paying me to be in a cabin and walk around. my day-to-day life. Yeah. My day-to-day life does not look like that a daily, you know, on a daily basis. Like, I, I would not say like. often look at the calendar and go like, oh my God, pondering time. I'm interested to know what that process will be like without those circumstances.

Krisserin:

What's

Kelton:

gonna start putting that on my calendar. Just one hour for ponder.

Ali:

Pondering, yeah, pondering and wandering.

Krisserin:

you kind of do that Kelton, you go walk in the woods and talk to yourself. So.

Kelton:

I do, I actually do have a, I have calendar holds for just silent hour-ish, which does a lot of pondering does happen, but it's mainly just a directive to be like, you're not allowed to look at your phone. You can't play a record. Like just sit there.

Ali:

That's great. I, I, I think I'm gonna try and steal that.

Krisserin:

it's not a novella, it's a, I guess it would be a, a short novel, right? Is how you

Ali:

It is officially now sort of a short novel. I was querying it as a novela for a while, and that came from the fact that, I had a friend who worked a Tor publishing who let me know that they were actively seeking novellas that were like genre forward because they had had so much success with a couple different ones. Like Psalm of the Wild Built was one of them. And then there was like all the murder bot diaries. They were also realizing that they were selling really well as audio books because they were like a, one weekend road trip, as opposed to like listening to like a Court thorn in Roses, which will take you 14 to 25 hours. This was like, oh yeah, it'll be done in six. So it'll be like, we'll listen to half of it on the way and we'll half listen to half of it on the way back. Um. And, uh, to make a very long story short, spoiler alert, they were not interested. But then I had this that I was very polished and I was very proud of it because I had gotten it ready for submission. I didn't really know what I didn't know because, it's very difficult to be a first time author and especially if you didn't go to like an MFA program or have teachers who have a lot of information for you and just like really strong guiding influences who know a lot about the whims of the business, which I certainly did not, so I started querying this novella and I, I made inroads with quite a few agents, but they ultimately were like, we are not particularly interested in representing your debut as a novella. we like it. We, we really don't have anything negative to say about, the story or the characters. Our actionable feedback is you're only a debut author once, and I'm not entirely sure what our market is like for a novella. And also we're really busy and have a lot of commitments to other authors. We can't work with you right now currently to expand this into a novel. I think it should be, but you can come back and tell me when you've got it. But at present, we cannot work with you one-on-one to tell you where the parts are of this novel that should breathe more and should be more like a novel than a novella.

Kelton:

Was anyone like, it's just sharpest attack as a novella. Was everyone like, no, you gotta fluff it out.

Ali:

No, not, not really. And again, like, I don't know if this would necessarily be true if I had already published a novel and sort of proven my worth or my ability to sell in a market as a novelist, and then was like, Hey, interesting little genre change. Like I got a, I got a sharp little novella for you here. I wonder if that could have been different if it had, if it had been more of like a demonstration of new skills. Do you know what I mean? But a lot of the feedback I got was, it's a very difficult market for this. Every so often it'll come into a fad, like this thing that's going on with Tor where everyone's like, whoa, we just published three or four different novellas that really hit. But for the most part, it's a harder sell and it's a harder publicity sell of being like, this is a debut author, but it's not their debut novel. I don't know. I also was very proud of what it was as a novella because it was really sharp and it was really, I don't know what else to say. I'm gonna say spare. And I don't necessarily mean that as a, I know that can have a negative connotation. I, I don't even mean it that way. Like it was sharp, like it had no fat. And I still think it accomplished a lot of the things that this book accomplishes, but now that I have expanded it by, you know, 20 ish pages, I like it a lot more. It's just a little cozier. I, I don't know how to explain it. There's like extra blanket to wrap around you. It's a little, it's a little cozier.

Kelton:

Yeah, you got a seat on the bus this time. You're not just like hanging on.

Ali:

And the first time definitely was like, there is like a bullet that is speeding to a destination and you were just holding on and this definitely feels like there's a little more time. A a lot of things got expend expanded in past sequences.'cause there's a dual timeline and I got to luxuriate and adding a couple more of those. But I also got to just expand in. Certain, uh, segments where because I was trying to keep word count low, I would not overly explain how somebody was feeling or where they were, what it looked like. And I got to just sort of go like, well, I've got as much time, as much time as I could possibly want. I've gotten no notes about editing down. I've only got notes about editing up. So just got a little slower paced and the conversations got a little longer and the descriptions got a little juicier and so. I, I actually, I do genuinely think it is better for that feedback.

Krisserin:

You wrote this during the pandemic. I would wonder if you could write this book again without the strangeness of the pandemic, because there is a similarity between the collective grief of everyone realizing that the world was going to end and everyone during the pandemic realizing the world was going to change

Ali:

Yes.

Krisserin:

substantively and be completely different than the world that we were in before. And it really, it has.

Ali:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Krisserin:

And I'm still reading your book in little. and pieces because I have, I'm very weird about apocalyptic novels, having young children. They just like freak me out a little

Ali:

Yeah,

Krisserin:

and sad stories. I know you love a sad book.

Ali:

I love sad books. I love sad stories.

Krisserin:

Ugh. They, need them in, in small bits'cause I feel them so intensely and then I'm, it like changes my whole mood for the whole

Ali:

Totally.

Krisserin:

but it is interesting at the start of your book, you have a character who has already faced death or is, is kind of mentally accepted it. And then you have their partner who has to go through the same process of grieving, that, that their partner has gone through. And, I would assume that the novel kind of paces toward that acceptance into the end of the world.

Ali:

Very much so. Um, I always like when my friends have texted me being like, woo, wow, finish the book. I've been like, it's a short book, but it couldn't be a page longer. And I do actually really believe that, where it picks up the pace towards the end and you're like, whoa, boy, this, world's gonna end. Like we gotta, and, and at a certain point you're sort of like, we gotta get there. I'm not sure how much longer I can sit in the feeling of dread of it coming. There's almost like a relief in it being like it's happening. So to that, to that, I totally. Understand what you're saying. And I've had many friends of mine text me sort of apologetically being like, Hey, I finished your book. I know it's November, but I finished it today. And you know, I'd read a little bit of it every morning with breakfast, but it took me a while. And think that's a huge compliment. Like, or at least I, that's at least how I have been feeling, which is like, Hey, thanks for really reading it and thanks for like as opposed to muscling through to finish it faster, actually taking some time to be like, oof. That emotionally affected me. I think I'm actually might be done reading that for today. Like I think that's and as like a sad book lover. I actually prefer that slash like resonate with that as opposed to being like, oh, I like sad things'cause they don't affect me. You know, maybe you found it sad but I didn't find it sad. It's not like, oh we like sad things'cause we wear a badge of honor of being like, ugh, nothing you write could be sad. Sad enough for me. I'm really into the sad stuff. I love that people have had to take a little bit of time to like truly get through the book.

Kelton:

I think it's evocative of grief. You know, it's like you, you can't power your way through grief. You certainly couldn't power your way through acknowledging the world's end.

Ali:

Yeah.

Kelton:

so, you know, it's like you take it day at a time, you process a little bit. Sometimes it feels good, sometimes it feels like you're being, you know, rung out from the inside. So I, I think it's like that's, it's an honor to that book to take it at that pace.

Ali:

Thank you. I do feel that way. There is a character in this book who is genuinely trying to muscle it through to the end. The protagonist, Gabe has known he is dying for a while. His partner Josie, is an amazing caretaker and a very sweet and sensitive man, but is definitely more of the like, well, we'll see, like even in the first couple pages of the book, he's still being like, Hey, your doctor called about this, this experimental treatment that they talked about a couple years ago, and you're off the wait list. And Gabe's like, I am not doing treatment. Do you know what I mean? That to me felt like such an, when I was thinking of ways to open this book, that felt like such an easy demonstration of who they both are, which is neither of them are in a fight about it. This is obviously the kind of thing they talk about every single day. It's not like you betraying me by bringing up that my doctor called and, and had, you know, has space in this experimental treatment. And the other person being like, how dare you do that. It's just like, honey, I, not doing that anymore. And the other person just being like having to kind of come to terms with remembering that, that that's true every day because there's always gonna be that little bit of fight in him that wants it to not be true and yeah, I was very interested in writing a realistic depiction of sort of lovers and family and caretaking, because I had been a caretaker for both of my parents who died of cancer. And they both had very short and, not great sort of, you know what I mean? Like this wasn't like, oh, my mom was on and off treatment for six years and then it got bad and you know, whatever. It was both we find the diagnosis and within a year to year and a half gone. So I also was like intensely familiar with how different people react to that. Different members of our family, different members within my immediate family, different, the ways that my parents reacted to it, just like. Everybody reacts to bad news and deadlines and death and what you wanna be in control of. Do you know what I mean? So my mom, when she first got her diagnosis, was not an, I think it was more of a denial thing. She was not entirely convinced it was gonna be as bad as it was. I, I think it was always gonna be as bad as it was, I think. I think her reaction to it was not. Based in fact. But one of the first things that they say is you're not supposed to dye your hair because like, it's like a chemical, you know what I mean? Like when you, when you get diagnosed with cancer, you're supposed to not dye hair of many things. Right. And the minute that they were like, Hey, we're not pursuing treatment anymore. We recommend hospice. You should just be comfortable with your family for the last, let's say, how many ever, many months it is. One of the first things she did is she went into New York, like she went like back into Manhattan and got her hair dyed professionally. She was like, well, if I'm dying, I'm not gonna do it with gray hair. You know what I mean? It's like, it's amazing the things that people want to maintain control of. Yes. Like. Clearly there was a part of her that was like, I'm not dying this way. Like I have roots showing badly. Like let's, like if I'm gonna have people coming over and saying goodbye, I'm not doing it like this. Whereas I'm sure some people in the world would, would never in a million years have that come to their mind, but like literally we were like packing stuff for her to go someplace and she was like, well, I'm actually making an appointment with my colorist before I go. We were like, okay.

Kelton:

I love that so much.

Ali:

Yeah.

Kelton:

a kindred spirit to me right there.

Ali:

Yeah. Okay. Queen.

Kelton:

be like, we're going to the spa today.

Ali:

Yes. But like, I, I like whatever semblance of control that was, she was desperate to have it and it was important to her. And I'm sure some people are gonna listen to this and go, I cannot imagine a world where that comes to my mind. Who cares what I'm looking like when I die? I'm dying anyway. But obviously she was like, no way. about to say, like some of my, my, I'm gonna say my, my goodbyes, people are gonna come say goodbye to me. Like, I'm gonna have, I'm, I'm not gonna have two inches of gray roots. Let's go. So, you know, it's like, that is not in the book, but that the spirit of that kind of thing was very interesting to me. And so, like that kind of a question is in the book very much,

Kelton:

Can you imagine trying to get a hairstylist appointment when the world's ending? You'd be like, I want my hair to look amazing. And the stylist is like, bitch, I.

Ali:

Yes.

Krisserin:

not at all.

Ali:

You gotta do it yourself that time. No way.

Krisserin:

I do think that there, and you would know better than me, but I do think that there is something about when is a, there is death and you are facing grief that makes you turn inward and consider how, like what you want from your life and how you feel and you kind of the reader through that. this book, I mean, I read the first chapter and was immediately taken out of the story because I was thinking about myself and my kids. It just immediately made me think selfishly about how I would feel and it

Ali:

Oh yeah.

Krisserin:

the story's so good that you get drawn back into it, but I'm constantly pulling away from it and thinking about myself and facing my own. You know, grief, I think that whenever you write a book that makes someone consider their death. It's quite a feat.

Ali:

Well, thank you. Yeah, I, I had a friend of mine. Yesterday, text me and say something extremely similar.'cause he has, a child where he was like, it just took me a while to read it. Just'cause I kept thinking like, my God, where would we go? do I go to my wife's family or do we go to my family or do we find a way to meet together in the middle? And I was like, yeah, that's some

Krisserin:

Yeah.

Ali:

pretty ser Yes,

Krisserin:

pretend like nothing is wrong and you just make it a magical 25 days? Or do you let them know that?

Ali:

I know. I, yeah, exactly. It's like I, I, I. Yeah, think that is

Kelton:

That's the perk of having a 1-year-old

Ali:

Yeah, you have to tell him

Kelton:

you don't.

Krisserin:

Oh my God, I don't, I can, let's, let's change the subject. Okay. So you mentioned, in the querying process that people kept telling you how you had to change your book in order for them to consider it. And I know when we chatted, talked a little bit about what the querying process was like and how

Kelton:

disingenous

Krisserin:

it felt at times, and I would love for you

Ali:

I, I will say. I think that lot of this misguided advice was largely from myself to be entirely fair. This feeling of oh, I should change this and have this pitch. I think it came from me you know, I didn't have like a mentor, so I was really going online and reading people's blog posts and, and whatever, or like, you know, advice from an agent, which is like, tailor your query to this person. If they don't represent this, don't send it. If they represent this more than this, change your first line of your, what I mean? It was basically like, get their attention, prove that the thing that you are sending is worth their time. They're much more likely to read it and not breeze past it, or just, you know, immediately send it to the trash if, it actually feels like meant for them. And so that was, that is not bad advice. That is good advice. Of course it is. You know what I mean? It's like if you read, if you, if you get somebody's page and they're like, I don't represent this, but I do represent this and I'm really interested in this, or I just read this, and so I'm looking more for books that have that theme. You change your opening line essentially to be like, this book has, which has this theme in common with this book that you liked is attached below or whatever. It's so. I didn't necessarily get the advice like change your query letter, definitely was doing a lot felt like was tap dancing, which was seeing somebody's list and if I thought that that person was asking for something like my book and had good taste, I was thinking a lot about how to get them to want to read my book and what it ended up feeling was very disingenuous. me, I would not say that I ever lied. I wouldn't be like, this is a young adult when I wasn't a young adult I never outright said the book was something that it wasn't. But you know, I'd read some people's manuscript wishlist and they'd be like, really looking for genrey stuff. Want stuff with a strong elevator pitch hook genre, heavy sci-fi is a plus. And so of course when I was writing that query letter, I was like, this is genre baby. You've never read a more genre book than this. Do you like the end of the world? Do you like apocalyptic fiction? Like, let's get in. And then the next person would be like looking for family dramas, looking for real life stuff. And of course, my query letter for that one would be like, don't let the, don't let the genre hook fool you. This is a, this is a family drama. This is an incredibly sincere meditation grief and the last 25 days of the world. It is an intimate portrait. The genre stuff is just the elevator pitch that gets you in. I swear to you, it is literary. And so I felt. That I was never truly being honest about it being both things because no one that I came across was like, oh, if only there was something that had a really strong genre hook, but surprisingly was more was like, was really this when you get into it, if everybody had been saying that, I would've been going, oh my God, guess what? That's what I wrote. But I did feel I was in a space that is maybe a little less common or like maybe is something people don't ask for as much. It certainly exists. Like, I'm not saying like, I pioneered this genre. It's very similar to some of the sci-fi short stories that people would read in school, like the, was it John Collier? All those things that you'd read and truly analyze when you're in high school where your teacher gets you excited by being like, this takes place on the moon. You're like, cool, but really it's like, whoa, that's fully just about like

Krisserin:

Right,

Ali:

the ills of society or whatever. This felt much closer to that, to that to me. But no one's manuscript wishlist was like, if you've read, if you've written the next all summer a day, like please send that my way. Like that never. I never came across it. So I felt like I was spending a lot of time my book in a way that was never truly accurate to what it was. And I hated it. Like I, I'm just, I wanna say that be entirely forthcoming. I like really, really disliked the querying process. I didn't like writing them. I didn't like changing my pitch. I didn't like feeling not a hundred percent to the honest truth of what my novella or novel was. And, and also, again, this is something for me to learn in the future. I did not have a ton of success, but now I can never truly know if it was because I was pitching a novella, which was never gonna really get me a ton of success. Or if it was that. I should have just written a query letter that was 100% truthful to who I was and stopped tap dancing. I don't have the answer to that question'cause I, it, I didn't have to have that question answered, so to speak. So then I, I, I am aware of that and sort of like interested sort of. For whatever the next process is. Hopefully it'll be easier just because like, I think getting any sort of trust or attention as a, as a debut author is like really, really, really, really tough.

Kelton:

Yeah. When you stopped tap dancing, what? Tell us about your path.

Ali:

Oh, well, so I was at the same time as I was speaking with agents, also starting to pursue reaching out to some smaller publishing companies who I thought perhaps would be amenable to talking with me without having representation. and I felt. More vindicated in being ready to send it out to some publishers, because I was getting some feedback from, agents and it wasn't that they wanted to represent me and that they were like, oh my God, the whole office is passionate about it. It was just genuinely that they were like, we don't really feel we have the time and resources to help you recraft this as a novel, if that is what we wanna represent. So either please feel free to keep my email and follow up with me if you've got some new pitches or if you wanna show us a new, a new version of this or something. But they weren't like, I think this is a mess. You know what I mean? Or like, like I, I wasn't getting feedback that was like, this is very far from being able to be shown to other people. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna take a, I'm gonna take a little bit of a risk here and start seeing if other places that maybe are smaller and have more time and manpower on hand might be interested in one as a novela or two if they want it as a novel being like, yeah, I mean, we got an editor. So that's what the editor is for, which is how I ended up at Wildling Press, which is like a, an independent publisher. They were excellent to work with. They had an open submission period where they read five pages of it and I was so used to not hearing things for six months at a time that I was shocked when I sent in my five pages or whatever and heard something within three days, which was like, great, send us the rest. And it was a full request. It wasn't even like send us 25, it was like, send us the rest of this thing. Sent the whole thing again, was like, cool, hear from them in six months. Within a week I had one person back from that office going like, Hey, I loved this. I'm the person who's been mostly like reading the stuff that's been coming in from this like open submission period. In order for us to like truly know if we're interested in representing this and publishing this, I need rest of the office to read it, so just gimme a little bit of time. Again. I was like, cool. See them in six months. I'm gonna say two weeks after that. I had an email okay, we've all read it. We all cried. We love it. We're excited. When do you wanna get on a zoom? And that was such a different energy than what I'd been experiencing, which used to be like that. It was a long wait to hear back and that most people were not particularly psyched about. It's current state just because like they, like they wanted it to be something else. So of course I was like, yeah, let's get on that Zoom. And the energy was so great and they were so lovely and complimentary and they also kind of wanted it to be longer, but they all, their opinion of it was very much like, I mean, we're gonna go through at least three rounds of edits. That'll just be what our first round of edits it's really focuses on, letting this breathe a little more and expanding it a bit. And I was like, oh great. So the, the downside of something like that, so to speak, is that if it's a smaller company, they can't really give you an advance, and is really the main, the main trade off there. It's just that you know that the next three to four years of your life is going to require a lot of work on this project that you love and believe in, and you really won't see a dime for your time. again, because my life had changed so dramatically post pandemic. My workflow was very different and I was working a lot more from home on jobs that I used to be told would never be from home. Do you know what I mean? And so kind of had no excuse to say no. I was sort of blessedly in a place where I was like, I can dedicate some time to this and I don't need to see check right now. I don't have to like quit a job or change states, or I don't have to make a huge life change to accommodate this being a part of my life moving forward. Which was wonderful and was a lot of work and I spent a lot of time editing those manuscripts in weird places. I think I finished my final pass on my third edit, from Edinburgh when I was there working at the Fringe Festival. I'm so much happier that I have this published reflection of what I wanted to write, edited by people who I thought were really smart and really in love with the material. And, I don't think you write books unless you, unless you're like, listen, I've written the Hunger Games. I know I've written the Hunger Games. I think if you, if you haven't and you're like, this is a weird little thing, this is like kind of genre kind of literary, this is for people who are sad. You're like, well, you're not gonna make money from that anyway. Getting a little precious about who you're gonna sell it to, like, might not be the smartest thing to fixate on. It might be a fun fantasy, but like. Not particularly helpful to the end goal of having a final product that you're genuinely really proud of. that is the route that I went and I'm very happy that I went that way.

Krisserin:

I would've absolutely cried on that Zoom, all of those people saying such nice things about my

Ali:

Oh yeah,

Krisserin:

been sobbing.

Ali:

it was,

Krisserin:

What an incredible

Ali:

yes, it was such a, it was like, I don't even remember feeling any emotion, happy, sad, or otherwise, because I was so shocked at that point. That's another sort of funny thing about the querying process is that it's so long and you get really good at sort of mitigating expectations. Maybe that's just me, but like I definitely turned down the volume on everything I felt about the book because I kind of needed to, to protect my feelings the first couple times that I'd send in a partial but not get asked for the full or send a query to an agent who like, basically I felt was asking for exactly what I was writing and then would just get a no without any sort of ask for anything. My feelings were hurt in such a significant way and I'm only bringing that up because I hope people are like yeah, me too, because I didn't know I could feel that way. And also because I thought I was immune. I went to acting school. I, I have had every mean thing said about me to my face that anybody could ever say, do you know what I mean? I genuinely do think I'm a person who is acquainted with and very okay with rejection. Everything I ever did was rejection and everyone kept warning of being like, the querying process feels so personal and it's really tough and it's can be really demoralizing. Stick with it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe for, you know, you know what I mean? I was like, when's the last time somebody said no to you? I get, I get, I get no all the time. And I was like, whoa, I'm actually, my feelings are deeply invested in this and like really hurt. By the time I'd gotten to somebody saying a yes, I think it took me a couple days to be like, oh my God, my book's being published. Like, oh, oh my God. Like the thing that I wanted is happening and I'm, and I'm really proud and excited and these people really like it. And they said these nice things. Like, I think it took me like a while to let happiness creep back in because I had like just put a lid on all of it so that I didn't feel so bad. But like sometimes I'd, I'd read one that was like, something that felt so specific, not even about the details of plot, of being like, I wanna read a song, a thing about a road trip. Or I'd be like, mine's a road trip. Something that would be like having recently gone through loss, I'm very interested in sensitive books about grief, written by people who really know it. Because now that I'm on the other side of it, I realize how many people don't get it right. And I would get excited because I'd be like, that is my fucking mo. what could possibly be more true of my book? You could sell it a hundred different ways, but the damn spine of it is this was written by a person who's encountered this in the most personal up close way. And so to me, of course, it felt extremely real life and the most sensitive portrait I could ever manage of it. And then I'd send in my thing and I'd be like, my parents have recently both passed, they passed within two years of each other. This book is so much, is so very much informed by me having to come to terms with that and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'd get like back like a form response that was like, it is such a subjective process and it doesn't mean that your book is bad. And I was like, I'm gonna jump off a building. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, and again, it's like, like I don't mean to say that, to be like, I'm entitled to a yes. Of course I'm not. But it felt like the most personal rejection ever because I'd come in for a commercial and they'd be like, next. And I'd be like, okay, who gives a shit? Like, like sorry, that I, like, I didn't look the way you wanted me to look or sound the way you wanted me to sound Like who cares? Sorry. But that's how it goes. This felt like me being like, I did that, I did that. This is about that. This is about that. This is my true representation of exactly what you're asking for. And them being like, I don't, no thanks. And I, I was like, oh, I, I'm, my feelings are hurt in a, like a, a totally, truly brand new one.

Krisserin:

I do try and have empathy for the inbox of an

Ali:

oh my God, I can't even imagine.

Krisserin:

but if you have to think that if they got a message like that from a writer who said something to the effect of, I lost both of my parents and I wrote this thing about grief that I think is really gonna resonate with you, you would at least have a little bit of humanity in you to be like, Hey, I can see what you're doing here. It's just not a right fit for me. Not just press the reject form, query tracker button, like you're just anybody else.

Ali:

Yeah. It just you get so excited about what your manuscript has sort of become like a figurehead of for you? That I think it becomes, it, it, it ultimately becomes so personal feeling, uh, in a way that I just like wasn't emotionally totally like ready for slash didn't know would be true. Because again, even with acting, even when you're like, oh, this touches on something that is very real life, this would be such a fun character to play or such a fun journey to portray every night if I did this on stage, I really have access to these emotions. It is ultimately not you. Maybe, maybe I was getting a little too wrapped up in myself and my feelings as opposed to what I was conveying as a storyteller, which is also a very big part of acting, which is like, sometimes you can feel it, but like you look at, watch it back on camera and you're like, oh, nothing's going on. Oopsie. You know what I mean? Like I, I, I didn't realize like what I, what was going on inside was not also reading on the outside, but saying basically outright like, you're looking for a meditation on grief. This is my honest. This is the, this is what I've got for you. Like, I lived it, I'm, I'm, I'm processing it. This is my attempt to make sense of it. And just having people be like, I don't wanna read that. I don't wanna read that. Don't, don't send me 10 pages. I don't wanna read. It. Is making what made me be like I am. So I, yeah. And again, like, I know that that is not what's really happening on the side of the agent. I am being flippant simply because laughing about it is the easiest way for me to like that thing of like when they say like, you forget childbirth, so you'll have another kid. I think, me laughing about it in this way is like me being able to be like, I'm gonna query another book. So I think it is like fully and completely a defense mechanism and I'm aware of that. I hope if people hear this not like, God, this girl is so entitled. Like it truly, I, I am truly laughing about it because I think if I don't laugh about it, I can't query another book.

Kelton:

you are

Ali:

Um,

Kelton:

laughing through the

Ali:

that's my feeling.

Kelton:

So it does make me wanna ask,

Ali:

Yeah.

Kelton:

is next for writing? Like it sounds like you have so many art pursuits. What is the next pursuit?

Ali:

I do have an idea for a next book,

Kelton:

Hmm.

Ali:

Which is great'cause I didn't for a while. And, like I said, I, I'm sure that I won't ever have like sort of the time and luxury sort of cocoon of what I had in 2020, but I do like to write in love. I'm not a person who like picks it, outlines and goes like, let's see if one of these becomes something, to me that feels like a real chore and they never become something because I'm doing it out of obligation as opposed to being like, Ooh, I'm like into this. And so it took a while of like really thinking on it and like letting the engine run. But I do think I have the idea for the next thing. So I just need to start, I need to break ground on that essentially. Went on a Southwest flight where there were no charges for your phone, and knew I needed to save my phone from when I landed. So I sort of stared at the back of the seat in front of me for about four hours and then got off the plane and was like, I know my next novel. Um, so I, I like, needed my like silent time where I was like, well, I'm sort of condemned to look at the, uh, seat back. But in doing so, I was like, okay, yeah, great. I actually have sort of connected those dots and I'm, I'm like now ready to start actually thinking about that as a narrative and not just like, as a series of ideas. And my hope is that it will be a bit funny, because this novel is not, definitely has humor. It is not without humor, but it's certainly not a funny novel. And I do quite genuinely make a career as a comedian. So I would like to be able to use some of those skills as well as the other things I've learned about, like sensitively, drawing characters and like, you know, creating a narrative to like. Do something that's a little funny. You know, I, I feel like books are very rarely, truly laugh out loud. Sometimes they are, but like a book that is funny, that has humor in its prose and in its characters and sort of like as, as a sort of character throughout, like, are such a joy. And so I would like to challenge myself to, to do that.

Kelton:

Read that one as a follow up.

Krisserin:

How will you query differently?

Ali:

I'm very interested into what that querying process will look like. We'll see, I do want to try and be a little more, concrete in my pitch and just sort of being like, the pitch is the pitch. That's what's, that's what it is. This is what I think it is. These are the themes. There were people who were like, this book is not right for me. But it was a pleasure chatting with you and I'm sorry that, we've made it this far into the process, but we're not the right fit. And so you know, I do, instead of having a, a spreadsheet with, with Nothing, which is where I started with Book one, I do now have a spreadsheet of like, was very complimentary, comma read full manuscript comma, wasn't interested in whatever. And so like I do have some inroads of people I can at least follow up with and just be like, I don't even know if you're still interested in these things, but if you are, I do have another thing. Or you, here's my pitch. Like I'm just sending the query letter. No, nothing attached. Like, lemme know if you want to send more. And so even that takes some of the pressure off of just like, there's nothing,

Krisserin:

Yeah.

Ali:

nothing harder than starting and there's nothing de more demoralizing than zero inroads. Yeah, which is why I think the first book is so hard, unless you are one of those people who's so lucky to have graduated with, mentors in the industry or friends, friends who are agents, or people who are willing to do you a favor or you went to an MFA program with a professor who really loved you and got you in contact with somebody from a fellowship. Like it's like these things do happen, but if you don't have access to those things, it is a monumental task even figuring out who you wanna query, not even if they are interested in you, but just like the idea of like, okay, what are some offices that read books? Like that's even that is huge. So yeah, I feel a little less nervous about the second one.

Krisserin:

I didn't even think about indie publishers, and I know that, we talked to Chelsea Hotson, who runs Rose Books and does publish independently, but it is such a great option for people who have really unique, beautiful stories that maybe aren't, mainstream, you know, whatever it is, hunger Games or what's Fourth

Ali:

Totally, and again.

Krisserin:

you know, is selling

Ali:

I don't even mean to say that in like a way where it's like, if you've written the Hunger Games, like Baby, if you've ridden the Hunger Games, what I'm really saying is go get your millions. Yes. Like don't, don't, don't be me and go like, look, I think this is ready for somebody to take it. I don't care if I don't make a dime off of it. Let's go. Like, if you really are in your hurdle for, than like, I just wrote something that's gonna get adapted into 50 languages and be made into three movies, like. You, you have like sell that, sell that. But also like, I was very, very honest with myself about being like, this is a literary novel. And I'd also read stats that were like, most literary novels sell 2000 copies in their lifetime. And I was like, okay, so like even if you sell it for a lot of money, you're like, it's not like you're making money on the backend, you write a literary novel'cause you wanna write a literary novel. Because you have a story that you are passionate about telling and feel it is a novel and not a movie and not a play and not in anything else. And your passion is taking you towards writing it, but like not because you're like I'm about to be a multimillionaire.

Krisserin:

Well, where Ali, where can people find out more about your book

Ali:

You can find me on Instagram at Miss Alice Nutting. That's ms. A-L-I-C-E-N-U-T-T-I-N-G. My book is called, we have Reached the End of Our Show. I feel like I didn't say that. At all, which is really f Okay, great. I don't think that I have said those words the entire time I'm even recording, which is really foolish of me. So, sorry. Um, and yeah, that's available anywhere that you could buy books. I've been pointing a lot of my friends to bookshop.org because it helps support indie bookstores, but also if you have a bookstore in your neighborhood, that doesn't carry it. They love when you ask them to order it. And it's good for me as well because if you have a bookstore you love and you go, gee, I don't, I see you don't have this on the shelf, like, they'll probably order three, so one's for you. And then two, get on the shelf. And then if other people buy those ones, they'll buy three more. Which I know it doesn't sound like a lot of numbers, but again, if many bookstores do that, it is a huge impact on, you know, smaller authors. So that's always my recommendation, but of course it's available all of the places you'd expect to buy a book. So if that works best for you, it's there

Krisserin:

wherever

Ali:

wherever books are sold.

Krisserin:

Oh, Allie, it was such a joy having you on the podcast. Thanks so much

Ali:

Yeah. Thank you. And I'm sorry that we complained so much about querying, but hopefully somebody out there is like in the trenches and feels bolstered by the fact that it's just not easy. I'm sure it's easy for some people, but I, it's, it was not easy for me and I think it's not easy for a lot of people.

Krisserin:

Well, it was easy for Emily and then she hit a snag when she tried to sell it.

Ali:

Yeah, I should have read some what Nobody tells you books for sure. But again, I like, I really was like, it is okay if I am rejected, I am acquainted with rejection, it'll be fine. And so I think there was like a little bit of that that also precluded me from digging into things like that.'cause I was like, oh, I'm sure this book is gonna be about how to emotionally steal yourself for disappointment. And I felt equipped to steel myself for disappointment. And then like, it turns out there's so many ways to be disappointed and there's so many things you don't know and you know what I mean? Like

Kelton:

blind hope?

Ali:

I mean like the idea of writing a, again, if you've written like a world successful book Sure. But like. If you've written a small book, if you've written an intimate family portrait or something, like you are a maniac, because you know, no one reads books, you know, no one reads books because you read books and you go to your workplace and you guys, you have, you guys read this book and they go, I haven't read a book in a year. So you are a maniac to write a book like that is That is,

Kelton:

FA fellow maniacs, while you're working on your books, make sure you go

Ali:

yeah.

Kelton:

Gordon's. We have reached the end of our show. We have reached the end of our show, at least this segment Ali, so it was amazing talking to you.

Ali:

you as well. It was such a pleasure. you've been the best. Also, I listened to your podcast a lot when I was editing because I couldn't, I found I couldn't really read books while I was editing because it would make me go, should I just rewrite the book? Like this person, I like their prose. So I did a lot of listening to other people talking about books and writing and editing and querying and, I listen to you a lot, so Thanks for being a companion during that time.

Krisserin:

and thanks for being a listener, thanks Allie.

Kelton:

for someone who really drags you through the ringer of grief in that book. She is a delight.

Krisserin:

It's so well written though. It's

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

Um, it is shorts and it propels you forward. So even though my brain was racing, reading it, of all the, all the considerations we talked about, it is just, it is really well done. And it's not, an easy feat to write a short book. So I can't do

Kelton:

It's not,

Krisserin:

personally,

Kelton:

know.

Krisserin:

Uh, except for I'm having that struggle myself right now. I'm struggling to get my book to a word count that feels, like a real book. I'm kind of stuck in the 70,000 word range and trying to figure

Kelton:

This is the second book in the series, you mean?

Krisserin:

Yeah.

Kelton:

Okay.

Krisserin:

So I think last week I wrote almost 10,000 words, and this week I've written four. So I've been, and I've, deleted a lot, so I took away a lot of. From what I was doing. But yeah, it's this was a hard week for me.

Kelton:

I'm here For the listeners that haven't written any words, welcome to my life. 4,000 words sounds amazing to me. I can't wait to have brain power, to have sleep, to have an immune system. That's something.

Krisserin:

I know,

Kelton:

I will say I did get the initial feedback on the Rewilding Autumn practice, and it is overall really, really positive.

Krisserin:

yeah,

Kelton:

Um.

Krisserin:

about like how the last class went and we just kind of like, it's over. And then we moved on and.

Kelton:

I know. I mean, it was such an emotional project for me and it, it took a lot of like faith and humility and. Just hope, I guess. And I think after it finished I just needed to step away from it for a second and recalibrate. But I am now in the, deep in the throes of working on the winter practice, that is almost ready to go live for people to join it, which is really amazing. That will go live for paid subscribers of Shangri Logs, in December. So they will get early access and early access pricing and then the we'll go live to the broader audience, in January. But for pen pal listeners, you want that early access pricing. You just email official pen pals pod@gmail.com and I will, I will hook you up. We need to talk about our goals.

Krisserin:

Yeah.

Kelton:

are your goals for the week ahead?

Krisserin:

I wanna write the end on my manuscript as messy and unsatisfying as this figuring out the spaghetti draft has been. I wanna finish it. I wanna finish it so that I can read it from the beginning all over again. And I feel like if I do that, it will clarify a lot of the things that I need to fix about the draft and help me figure out a better ending. Do you, I was gonna ask you this, you feel like there has to be a twist at the end, kind of, right? Like there's, there's kind of gotta be a twist at the end of the book. It's

Kelton:

Um, as a, well, I mean, I think surprising and a twist can be different.

Krisserin:

Hmm.

Kelton:

I. As a reader and consumer of art, like movies and things like that, I genuinely don't care about a twist and sometimes I really don't like them. Like I love action adventure romcoms. Not one of them comes with a, like, I never saw that coming. You know? It's like that is not part of what makes me love this kind of stuff. So. Yes, there should be twists and turns in the like action momentum, but for there to be something where you're like, whoa, what? Like I, if you're writing a book three, maybe that does have to be there. But

Krisserin:

I refuse.

Kelton:

I don't, I don't.

Krisserin:

I was writing this and I was like. I could just make a third. I could end the story right here and just make a third book.

Kelton:

No, I listen, if this is the end in the series, I don't, I don't think this book, this is not like high literary, like,

Krisserin:

hey.

Kelton:

well, it's not,

Krisserin:

No, I know.

Kelton:

is like an adventure story about a woman who, like we meet her in her late teens and then in the end of this book, what is she in her mid twenties at most.

Krisserin:

Mm-hmm.

Kelton:

Know, it's like young adult. I'm like, I don't think you need to be like, well, you never saw that coming. She wasn't alive the whole time. You know,

Krisserin:

it's

Kelton:

like, what? What?

Krisserin:

the sixth sense. I don't know. So that's my goal. My goal is to write the end on my manuscript and figure this shit out. I think by the time we chat next,'cause we're taking a break from recording for Thanksgiving, hopefully I've read through a good portion and feeling a lot better about the novel. I'm gonna publish another Substack on Saturday. I'm just gonna keep put publishing tiktoks and it. What about you?

Kelton:

I'm gonna talk to my therapist.

Krisserin:

Oh, shit. What's

Kelton:

I,

Krisserin:

gonna say? Donna's

Kelton:

I just, um,

Krisserin:

I am scared.

Kelton:

I, I, I know I'm in my luteal phase and, um, my, my postpartum wonky period is arriving any day now, and I, I've been feeling pretty down and like recognize that mostly as a hormonal thing, but I have, I have just like. And I, I think it was just like I worked a little too much and so that's why I've been giving myself some grace and some time off. But knowing that you and I are not speaking for two weeks, I would like to make some major headway on the memoir outline. I don't have a lot of client work. I'm giving myself the time off from Shangri Logs. I'm already sick, so like. Look, God willing, I don't get sicker. So I have, I will have time to work on that and I will have a babysitter. So

Krisserin:

Amazing.

Kelton:

I'm gonna try and do that. I'm sorry to listeners. I feel, I feel pretty down, so, I'm looking forward to feeling up again.

Krisserin:

I mean, we're trying to push hard in a season when we're supposed to be pulling back. So it's, it's, it's difficult. You know, we both set our,

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

pretty, um, big deadlines for January and so

Kelton:

Yep.

Krisserin:

it's okay to be realistic about how. You know, burnt out and tired we are. And that's, that's when you just keep, I, I made a comment this morning in the TikTok that I was recording.'cause I look at my thumbnails and I'm like, I look horrible. All of these 5:00 AM tiktoks like, mean, as I should, I just woke up and it's still dark outside. But that's what consistency looks like. I really liked what Emily Halnon said about how. Writing is like running and it's not, you're not waiting for the perfect, perfect, day to go out and train. You just go every day, even if it's raining outside and you're tired. And that's how we get our goals met. Even if it's just a little bit, like I wrote just a couple hundred words one of the mornings.'cause I woke up late and I had 20 minutes, but I just made myself do it. So we'll

Kelton:

Yeah,

Krisserin:

It just might.

Kelton:

we'll get there and in the. Time, wouldn't it be so nice to hear from you at Pen Pal's Pod?

Krisserin:

three listener letters last week. Okay? So. That that makes my entire day and I call

Kelton:

Yeah.

Krisserin:

I read them to her so it makes her day too. So please email us officialpenpalspod@gmail.com. Follow us at Pen Pals Pod on TikTok and Instagram and Substack. Follow kelton's substack Shangri Logs. It's Kelton wright Do substack.com.

Kelton:

No ma'am, it is shangri logs.substack.com. Um, if you go listen, you can Google Kelton Wright and find it. So I, I'm grateful for that. And you should follow krisserin.substack.com. Um, she, you could follow her on TikTok at@krisserin.

Krisserin:

Yeah.

Kelton:

On TikTok at writes

Krisserin:

There

Kelton:

and listen, when I'm ready to tell you my new Instagram, I will, but it's not ready yet. I'm not wasting my capital on the existing one.

Krisserin:

Oh man. Well, to everyone else, I hope you all have a productive weekend, and if not, just showing up is good enough. And in the meantime,

Kelton:

happy writing.

Krisserin:

happy writing.

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Kelton Wright

Co-host
Head Shot

Krisserin Canary

Co-host