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An Artpop Talk with Erin Fuller
348 Plays2 years ago
In this Artpop Talk, we are joined by author and writer Erin Fuller (aka E.C. Fuller). We ask Erin about her relationship with art, BookTok, the pros of social media, and her young-adult fiction trilogy. Our visual learners will love this writer's hot take on “judging books by their covers” and learning about her working relationship with book illustrators.
Keep up with Erin by following @Longhandhabits on TikTok.
For all of Artpop Talk's resources, click HERE.
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Transcript
Introduction of Erin Fuller
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello, hello, and welcome to Art Pop Talk. I'm Gianna. And I'm Bianca. Today we have a fabulous conversation with an author extraordinaire, Erin Fuller.
00:00:14
Speaker
Erin talked with us all about the magic of not only writing books, but actually making books start to finish, how the publishing process works, and what it means to dive into written works of art. We learned a little bit about Erin's relationship with art, and we are so excited for you to meet this fantastic author.
Banter and Editing Decisions
00:00:37
Speaker
And with that, let's our pop talk. What up, what up, what up.
00:00:44
Speaker
Yo, yo, yo. No, again. Winston. Winston. Well, who knows if that will, you know, make the editing cut or not. It will. Because we're not really doing this. Okay. She has spoken. Well, I... I was going to tell you what I'm not editing out. Moving right along.
Emmys and TV Show Discussions
00:01:08
Speaker
I see your note from me here in our chitty chatty section of our document.
00:01:13
Speaker
And to answer your question, no, I did not watch the Emmys. Yeah, you know, I wasn't going to watch the Emmys live. I was going to kind of watch them in the background today, like on Hulu or something. But then I ended up watching the whole thing. And, you know, it was just a very kind of lovely viewing experience. It was just it was like a normal
00:01:43
Speaker
award show, nothing wild happened. There are some very nice and lovely moments of people on stage. But otherwise, it was like a calm little Emmy Award. Good, good. That's a nice change of pace. Because yeah, it really was. I yeah, we did have the VMAs. So I was thinking about how
00:02:04
Speaker
the last award show we had was quite pop culturally, you know, momentous. It's weird this time around. I don't know. I completely forgot the Emmys were on until like an hour before and I decided to watch the red carpet.
00:02:20
Speaker
I don't know what it was about this year. So like, holy shit, like I have been watching a bunch of Emmy shows in preparation for the Emmy Awards themselves, but did not actually know when the Emmys were this year, which is not usually like me, because I was I was preparing so hard for it to like been watching Severance or I finished Severance. Fucking fantastic show. It's so good. Don't know anything about
00:02:47
Speaker
Oh my god. It did not win any awards last night. It did not win any awards. But it was. And that's why, that's literally the only reason why I watched the show because it was nominated for a bunch of Emmy's. That's interesting. I did love some of the highlights that I found. Oh yeah.
00:03:14
Speaker
Why didn't anyone tell me that Ned Schneebly directed The White Lotus? Gianna, you read my fucking mind.
The White Lotus and Surprises
00:03:28
Speaker
And also, I am so mad because I keep seeing, like, why didn't anyone tell me, like, Ned Schneebly, you know? This is Ned Schneebly. This is Ned Schneebly. But why isn't anyone using the sound from School of Rock when
00:03:44
Speaker
He's like, why didn't anyone tell me? This is a missed opportunity. Gianna, I find that so often you and I are on this exact same wavelength. And I'm pretty sure I've talked about this before, but I will read like a tweet. And my mind immediately goes to like a quote from a movie. And I just
00:04:09
Speaker
That is sheer perfection of the way I felt watching Mike White like walk on stage was like, Ned. That's literally the only thing I know his face from. I know. And yeah, White Lotus took quite a few words away. He grabbed Ned. Yeah, which, what a world one that show was. Also, I did not know that they were going to do a second season of it. With Aubrey Plaza. Yeah.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I know. Maybe we'll be Ned Schneebly on stage again next year. The only time we talked about White Lotus on our pop talk was when we were talking about it over Chitty Chatty because I was watching out while I was moving apartments, right? And then I talked about how like, I don't really like this show. And then the more that we talked about it, I was like, maybe I do, am I being hypnotized? And the more we talked about it actually was very interesting.
00:05:07
Speaker
like there and lie the point of the show. Oh my god, that's terrible people and there is no point. And then I was like, Oh, maybe I'm into that.
Media Consumption Reflections
00:05:16
Speaker
Right. But it's like, yeah, it makes you think like, do I want to watch terrible white people beat terrible white people for fun? Like, it's got a weird concept. Well, I've been watching it for not fun my entire life. So I suppose we might as well get some enjoyment out of it.
00:05:33
Speaker
that's hilarious. Gianna, I am also going to see Harry Styles on Thursday night and last night watching Jason Stinkis take home some awards for Ted Lasso. There was like a part of me that was like
00:05:48
Speaker
Is Harry going to know that I'm team Jason? I got nervous about the concert. Honestly, I didn't feel as though Harry might be team Jason now. Oh shit. Yo. I will say, I think just part of the reason why I didn't feel like consuming the Emmy's is just because I was a little bit fixated on the Venice Film Festival of it all. And just that.
00:06:17
Speaker
a whole market of drama is just like genius and just like exhausted me to my core. Like I thought I was going to have to take the day off just to recover from the consumption of those two. Like I was about to enter into pay common reason for PTO misflow. I was going to say Gianna, what we should do next time
00:06:47
Speaker
for our next our pop doc because don't worry darling comes out when I'm going to be with you in Oklahoma. So I feel as though we should go see don't worry darling with Dr.
'Don't Worry Darling' Plans and Observations
00:06:57
Speaker
Elizabeth Green, have a viewing party and come back with a full report because that will be perfect timing for our next episode. Come back with the hot takes. Do you do you think he's been on Chris fine?
00:07:15
Speaker
I think Chris Pine is like the hero that we didn't know like we had like this whole time. I just think like I just loved the energy and I also kind of loved I think what I liked about it too is like obviously like the world is obsessed with like Harry Styles. We like love what he does. We love the good energy that he puts into the world but also like
00:07:41
Speaker
He's, you know, we put him up on also like a problematic pedestal, like we do all of our icons. And so I just loved like the level of exhaustion and just idiocy coming from Chris Prine's face when he was talking about the movie and trying to give his hot takes on the movie. Now, I'm not saying that I don't sound like that on our pop talk, like 80% of the time. It's like a piece of art and it really makes you want to see a piece of art.
00:08:11
Speaker
It was giving me, like, Anchorman vibes, like, I love lamp. She lamp. She tape. She tape. Well, I don't know what to make of this chitty chatty, but as always, Bianca, I find us quite entertaining and quite hilarious.
00:08:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we would have crushed it at the Venice Film Festival red carpet. I mean, we would have been hit. Actually, I think I would have ditched you just to hang out with Brendan Freesher.
00:08:49
Speaker
I cannot wait to see the whale. Oh, my God. You know what else is like there are so so many other things like that moment of Brendan Fraser in that like emotional state was overshadowed by all of the don't worry darling shit. And it's just you're so right. Justice for Brendan Fraser cannot wait to see the whale.
Connection with Erin Fuller
00:09:14
Speaker
I'm so excited. Speaking of so excited.
00:09:18
Speaker
we are also very excited to have our special guest who we just disgraced with our intro. I had to talk to you about this because we we have not talked about Spicky yet like personally and as we said last time our pop talk is just a dumping around for all the shit Gianna and I need to talk about. Okay also though I did see like a funny thing the other day that made me think of you when
00:09:43
Speaker
you haven't seen like your bestie in such a long time and you both have like so many things you want to talk about. And then it's like the sound like, let me tell you something, let me tell you something, but like they're just competing.
00:09:54
Speaker
because neither of them wants to wait to share all the excitement and pop culture tea. You know what I mean? Yeah, truly. Well, we have a guest here who brought the tea to our art pop talk today. And we are so excited for you all to hear our conversation with Erin Fuller. Erin, a.k.a. EC Fuller, I love that she has a pen name also. That's just so fucking cool. Yeah, we establish later on in the interview
00:10:24
Speaker
Erin's coolness factor, which is through the roof. Well, Fuller grew up in a small town in Oklahoma, not too far from her current home in Tulsa, along with awards and mentions in multiple local writing contests. Erin's work has also been featured in the Tulsa Review, Metamorphosis, and Hexagon. So without further ado, here is our conversation with Erin Fuller.
00:11:21
Speaker
All right, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Erin, thank you so much for
Erin's Art Experience
00:11:28
Speaker
being here. Can you please do us the honor of telling our listeners a little bit about yourself, your work as a writer? And I want to know what your relationship with art is, both visual and literary. Okay, cool beans.
00:11:44
Speaker
Well, one of the first jobs that I got when I graduated from college was I worked at the Philberg Museum here in Tulsa. And I wasn't really like I liked going to museums and I kind of like browsing, but I hadn't really like I hadn't really gone to museums like as a regular thing that I enjoyed doing until I was in undergraduate until I was like in my final year of undergraduate. And I had this intro to art class because it was like one of the last
00:12:14
Speaker
classes that I needed to graduate and I just kept putting it off and off and off. But I had a really good TA and she asked this question, you know, how do things mean? And when she said that, like everything kind of clicked in an art museum and I just started going and going and going just to browse and like think about how the art is like making me feel things, even though it doesn't like make sense when you look at it or something.
00:12:38
Speaker
But yeah, then the Philbrook, and then I just started making it a regular practice to go see art installations in Tulsa, hanging out at Aha and getting a membership at the Philbrook and just going to the different art things in Tulsa. That's awesome. So in terms of now, what are you doing as a writer? Would you mind telling the listeners a little bit more about your practice and
00:13:06
Speaker
speak to kind of why we wanted to have you on the podcast today, just as a woman of many talents. Aw, thanks. So I am a... I call myself a writer, but what I write has changed so much. So I self-published my first novel last year around this time, but I also published a lot of speculative short stories traditionally online through, you know, short fiction markets and other sorts of things like that.
00:13:36
Speaker
So to me, I have always wanted to write something that is fun, vivid, powerfully emotional, and something that you just keep thinking about long after you've finished reading it. And it changes the way you think about the world and how it changes for you over time. And my writing practice, I think, is me... I see myself as testing that hypothesis, that reading and writing can be a transformative act.
00:14:05
Speaker
I treat stupid questions very seriously. So, or I do. So, um, for example, like one of the stories that kind of got traction online as I started out with TikTok is that, um, I, there was a viral green text from 4chan called like the shopping cart theory. And I thought that was fascinating and I couldn't stop thinking about it. So I wrote a short story about it and it got published in this very tiny like
00:14:33
Speaker
science fiction magazine and then it just kind of like after like two or three people told me it was great and then this like everything died down and then I got on TikTok and then I made this post about how I made a switch story about that and that's when I started getting traction. So I feel like because of that I am kind of getting to where I need to be or I'm getting the kind of feedback that I've always sought which is that I'm on the right path to creating the kinds of things I like.
00:15:01
Speaker
So as far as the visual goes, I guess I always start with a very strong image. And art is a really good way of finding strong images. It's usually static. You see it right there in front of you in a museum. It's usually made out of a material and it's got texture and it's got a physical place in the world and people interact with it.
00:15:24
Speaker
Um, and it's just like, and it doesn't do anything, but it sits there and like people, and if it's good art or great art, people will be drawn to it naturally. Um, and those are really good starting places where like ideas and prompts that I, um, think about when I write. I love that. Um, I think another reason too, why I kind of wanted to start off with this question about your relationship with art is because the magic of behind the scenes art pop talk, when we bring on a special guest
00:15:53
Speaker
We like to ask them a series of questions and really ask our guests what they're interested in talking about. And one of the things that you brought up that you want to talk about was an artist by the name of Julie Alpert.
00:16:04
Speaker
And I've had the privilege of actually working on one of her exhibitions as a tour guide and as a programmer when I worked at a local arts institution in Tulsa. She is a really fantastic artist and is actually killing it. She recently has an exhibition up at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, which is 10 times the size of the work of art that
00:16:25
Speaker
I worked with a smaller installation, I should say. Julie is also very interesting because she has a partnered relationship within her practice and she is married to another artist by the name of Andy Arkley.
00:16:41
Speaker
and who's another artist that I did programming on. So when you brought up this artist, I was just really excited to talk about them because I've been fascinated by this idea of partnership within the arts community and that kind of working relationship. And I know that Bianca and I have some questions for you later on about your kind of working relationship with your illustrators for your young adult fiction books.
00:17:08
Speaker
I am just really curious about what draws you to Albert's work because she really pulls off of personal experience, symbolism, and there's a real visual and symbolic language that is inherently present within her work. So I'm just curious if those are some things that you're interested in and if you can speak to her work a little bit more. Let's get an Aaron analysis on Albert's work.
00:17:33
Speaker
Maybe. I mean, I found her completely by accident. I went to the first Friday for September and I was like, you know what? I'll go to check out what's at Aha. And she just happened to be there. And I saw like their exhibition was called Sticker Book and I normally don't like to like go in and like spend money just
00:17:52
Speaker
But I was like, sure, I can pay $10 to go see it because I like stationery. Like I had I had no I had no frame of reference for her work. I had never heard of her before. But I was like, yeah, stickers. I love those. And I actually got one of the sticker book things that she actually she didn't put this out the museum where I'll have put it out. They made it like based on her work.
00:18:13
Speaker
or have never wanted or had the urge to buy something from a collection that's just presented there, but I asked the curators about that after the exhibition because I was just like, I don't know, I just, something about it. I don't, I guess part of it was the Allura stationary, right? It's mostly like miscellany around the theme. I kind of think of it as being a bowerbird and you're decorating your nest
00:18:40
Speaker
with things you haven't made to showcase who you would like to present yourself as to other people. And stickers are just kind of that thing, right? With Julie Alpert's work, one of the things that I really noticed was how many eyes are in her work, especially in the center of the installations, right?
00:19:00
Speaker
Um, one of the ones that really struck me was like this huge thing. It's probably bigger than my apartment wall. And it's just like this board covered in like frilled paper. And it's got like these designs and repeating patterns with like bows and hearts. And at the center, it's got eyes that look like the ones in the sticker book. And it just like the color and like the layered frills and everything, it just kind of feels like it's vibrating or radiating out of the board.
00:19:30
Speaker
So it's like this very intensely girly, frilly, colorful thing, almost monstrous. So I really like, I didn't even think about the symbolism to that, I just thought it was cool.
00:19:41
Speaker
And when I was a beginning writer, I used to, I was more in love with the symbols and like what it all meant than actually giving my like audience a good time. So I feel like she's kind of like attained this kind of thing that I would like to reach was just like, you know, the clear use of symbols, but also in a way that's really accessible and fun and really cool looking. Like we all want to be cool looking. I can't help it.
00:20:07
Speaker
Okay, well you are definitely very cool. That's why you were asked to come on our pop talk. So we can definitely give credit to Erin's coolness factor. I do really love how you kind of described the monstrosity of Alpert's work because it is so extremely girly and it is very, things are blown up. She does a lot of paintings on board. There's a lot of bows, there's eyes. So there's like figurative imagery and there's other kind of tangible symbolic imagery.
00:20:35
Speaker
So kind of describing that as monstrous, I haven't heard that word in relation to her work, but I think that's just completely astute. I think just in terms of your work as a writer, I'm curious
00:20:50
Speaker
that you were drawn to the kind of programmatic element of this exhibition and I'm curious in terms of writing or didactics like these are things that Bianca and I are interested in for the museum goer experience.
Museum Visits and Writing Focus
00:21:04
Speaker
Do you find that as a writer now you are kind of drawn to paying attention to that information or are you just inclined to that as just a museum goer?
00:21:14
Speaker
No, that's usually like the first thing I read because, not just because I like to read, but because it helps me, it helps orientate me to like whoever is being displayed or whatever. I don't usually like, I don't usually plan museum trips. It's usually like, oh, I'm in the area. I might as well drop in on a museum. It's usually like spontaneous. I don't like, I don't mark on my calendar when there's an exhibit unless it's something like really big like the, like the Frito-Cala exhibit.
00:21:44
Speaker
Um, I went with my mom and I marked the dates because I wanted to make sure we would be able to go without like, I don't know, missing it. Um, but that's very rare, um, for me to actually like, you know, plan it. But I do, and it's funny, you should bring up those little like, can't remember what they're called, placards, placards, didactics, labels, didactics. Yeah. One of the, one of the other first jobs that I had when I came back to Tulsa, um, after college was I was like a
00:22:14
Speaker
I was a freelance assistant to this artist who, or this photographer who was always submitting her work to places downtown to be judged for things. And one of my jobs for her was actually writing them. She was a horrible person and I quit in like a month, but. Okay. That is really cool. We have not had a writer on the podcast to talk about that working relationship and to do that kind of work for an artist, but that is,
00:22:44
Speaker
very common. I think so often like Bianca and I talk about so much okay like when you see like a stupid Jeff Kuhn sculpture just know that like lots of people worked on this but we don't really emphasize the fact that also that comes with other programmatic elements that comes with writing and all types of other things like it is a it is a workshop and a roundabout experience. So how long did you do that for? You said like a month
00:23:13
Speaker
like a month. She was a really, she was horrible and I don't want to get into the details because she lives and works in Tulsa still um and she might listen to this podcast but I knew I had to end the like end my my employment with her when I had I didn't have a nightmare because I wasn't afraid but it made me intensely angry
00:23:35
Speaker
And I was like, I woke up pissed in like, at like 4 a.m. And I went to my desk and just started writing all these reasons why I hated her. And I was like, and at the end of it, I had like all the proof I needed that I just needed to get away from her. And then later I found out that other people like, other people had the same experience with her about her treating them poorly, especially in like the different artist spaces that I like, you know, frequent.
00:24:04
Speaker
And I was like, do you know how bad you have to be to piss off an entire community of artists? Apparently not, because there have been quite a few artists in our community lately who have turned out to be just horrible, terrible people. And I'm sure that there is local tea like that in all sorts of places. But as we also like to say,
00:24:30
Speaker
There are terrible people in all facets of industries and we are absolutely no exception. So we won't make you call anyone out on the pod, but we do love the tea. Yeah, she was pretty bad. I keep thinking about making her a villain in a short story, but I just don't have like the right story for her yet. Do I really want to immortalize her like that? I don't know. She was pretty bad.
00:24:56
Speaker
That's such a profound question. I really want to get my feelings out, but at the same time, will this live forever? That's hilarious.
00:25:09
Speaker
Erin, I want to ask you this next question, but you said something that really fascinated me about your writing process that you use to kind of get caught up in the symbolism rather than giving people a good time.
00:25:27
Speaker
And that's something that I really have not heard from a writer. I think it's so refreshing because I think the same thing goes for facets of visual culture as well. Art doesn't always have to be profound and full of symbols. It still can, and that's wonderful, but people can always appreciate it.
00:25:48
Speaker
For purely just the joy and experience and the ride like I'm experiencing this thing in front of me and this feels really good and I'm enjoying it and I don't have to look that deeper and that's something that I Really struggled with whenever I was in high school was
00:26:05
Speaker
taking all these English class classes and not really understanding why I had to feel the deep like poetic set that's that's actually why I'm not super fond of poetry in general is like, I don't like having to hunt in my literature.
00:26:24
Speaker
for all these deep feelings. And it's weird because I experience that differently when I do encounter works of visual art. But I just found it so refreshing. I really just loved what you said there. I was wondering if you could kind of elaborate on that sentiment a little bit more. Of course. And I have been thinking about it a lot recently because I realized something.
00:26:51
Speaker
One of the things that I use TikTok for is I review books on writing and storytelling. And it was kind of like, at first I was just going to do books on writing, but I also had a lot of books on storytelling. And I was like, you know what? I'll just start rereading everything and I'll start picking up more books and it'll help me become a better writer and also help people. And that's how I started to get a lot more traction too. But one of the things that it made me realize as I was reading
00:27:18
Speaker
these books and like condensing their information and presenting it to people was that I was a good writer, but I was not a good storyteller.
00:27:26
Speaker
And as I started like going back and thinking about it, when I started to become a writer, I didn't really know what I was doing. I was just having a lot of fun. And I read some of the old stuff that I used to write, like the really early stuff. And like, I don't hate it. It's not cringy. It's like, you can tell that the girl who wrote that stuff is really smart and funny and uses a lot of big words, a lot of adjectives and adverbs, like four or five in a row.
00:27:55
Speaker
that you would have to look up in a dictionary, but it wasn't terrible. The writing was terrible, but the story was interesting because she found it fun to write and you could just tell. But then I would read stuff that I wrote in college and it was terrible.
00:28:10
Speaker
You could tell that the person who wrote those stories was trying to be a writer. She knew more about writing, but the fun was gone and she was trying to be something that she didn't enjoy because she thought she was trying to write something that that story had to be. She was enjoying the smugness of knowing what a story had to be and was contentious of the reader because if they didn't get it, that was their fault for not knowing things. But that's a really bad way.
00:28:36
Speaker
That's a really easy way actually to piss off your audience and to make sure nobody ever reads your work is to make them hate you because they feel like they can't get you. So there's a couple of things that have kind of shaken me out of it, which is one, being a better storyteller and being on TikTok because writing is a medium, but storytelling is a pattern and you can story tell through many different types of medium.
00:29:03
Speaker
You can do it through art like Julie did for a sticker book. Like if you actually deconstruct the art that she does, you can tell, you can kind of feel that she's telling a story about what kind of person she presents herself to be. You can story tell through data. One of the first viral TikToks that I did was about a book called Storytelling with Data, which made sense. There was another book by The Moth that just came out and they're actually doing it a bit in like,
00:29:32
Speaker
two weeks, and they just use nothing but their voice. You can take note cards and you can read your notes sometimes, but when you get up on stage, you just have to tell it to people straight. There's no writing involved. Once I realized that they're separate things, then I realized I had been identifying way too much as a writer
00:29:51
Speaker
And not too much, not as much as a storyteller. And once I started like actually focusing more on the story and not so much on the writing, I liked my own work a lot better and people started to really respond to it. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like the symbolism in English class is kind of like a holdover of like a particular genre in writing.
00:30:13
Speaker
I hated it. I mean, there's just so much that transfers over to any type of, I think, kind of liberal arts academia. And for a high schooler who was just struggling with reading these poems that I wasn't connecting with on a personal level, and then trying to find this deeper message, which is the same thing. Some people can find the experience of
00:30:39
Speaker
going to an art museum really taxing because they're forced to connect with something that one, they don't understand and two, that doesn't mean anything to them. The deeper symbols aren't going to relate with every person. You can tell those facts to people, but it's not always going to resonate in the same way. I really appreciate how you have
00:31:02
Speaker
kind of analyze that and laid that out for us. So you started talking about TikTok a little bit so I want to ask you a TikTok question that we had. Jen and I are always fascinated by people who can simultaneously create things and artworks and literary masterpieces while also promoting a business at the same time because
00:31:27
Speaker
It is so much work to not only do the production, but then promote it and manage all of it at the same time. So Booktalk has become this integral part of the TikTok platform. And I think it's really reinvigorated book and literary culture into this digital age. Whenever you go to any bookstore now in person, they always have this section now that's just Booktalk. And I find myself
00:31:54
Speaker
gravitating towards that section like oh this is something that like my peers are into it's something that lots of like it's it's entering a physical part of this online conversation i think when you go into a store and like see this book talk section so can you share with us how you are using the platform i know you touched on that a little bit but what does tiktok do for you and your kind of creations
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah, so I use TikTok for like four things. The first thing and the thing that I'm trying to do the most are those reviews about books, reviews on books about writing and storytelling.
TikTok and Storytelling Tips
00:32:33
Speaker
And then I have just the books that I review just like
00:32:37
Speaker
I read this book. I thought it was cool. Here's how, here's why you should read it too. Um, and meanwhile, I will also get better at like pitching this book to you and making it look good and sound good and learn a little bit more about how book marketing works. And then the other two things I do is I promote my own work and I give tips on how other people can do what I do, like, um, time tracking, editing,
00:33:05
Speaker
getting your book or getting your book self-published and what it's like working with authors and editors and illustrators and marketing and getting your short fiction ready to go on a magazine and like what is it like to publish in a short fiction magazine? What can you do with a short story afterwards?
00:33:25
Speaker
For me, like I said earlier, TikTok has been really good for me because it has given me another outlet to be creative and to practice being a storyteller without the burden of caring about the medium too much. I care about TikTok, I care about having fun and doing a good job and getting people to follow me, but I also don't care too much because that's not the thing that I... I don't care as much. There's not that emotional attachment to TikTok.
00:33:52
Speaker
way that I have for writing, so in one way it's kind of a relief to do it there and to create there because I don't have as much pressure on myself to be good. It's been really helpful in understanding like this side of book talk and how people buy books. Like you said, I'm glad you brought up the table at the bookstore for book talk.
00:34:13
Speaker
because I'm of course on book talk and I'm always analyzing how other creators like market their books or how book reviewers like show off like books they got, like their book hauls, their shelves, their like fairy lights over their bed or whatever. And what I've really learned about book marketing is one, publishers and authors are really bad at it. And two, book reviewers seem to take books as like this lifestyle thing.
00:34:42
Speaker
rather than like an academic or literate thing.
Book Marketing Insights
00:34:45
Speaker
People who use books as like or who talk about books like seriously like as an academic thing about their ideas and stuff they're like they by and far have much fewer followers than people who post like their giant book hauls or like their bookshelves with like hardback covers of every new YA fantasy romance thing that has come out. Limited edition of course um but
00:35:12
Speaker
That's the name of things. People are attracted to visual stuff and, you know, people say don't judge a book by its cover. What else do we have to go by? Like, think about how you discover a book, right?
00:35:29
Speaker
you have to read like a snippet online or you have to maybe like, maybe you hear something about the author and you trust that whatever they have to say, they're a funny person, they're intelligent. Of course they'll go buy their book because they'll say more funny and intelligent things in this book and I'll probably enjoy it. How else do you do it? By word of mouth or by looking at the book cover and being like, that's the thing for me, you know? I think publishers and authors are really bad at marketing their own books.
00:35:58
Speaker
because they're just kind of like presenting the books as like, hey, you need to read this because it's about da da da. It's not visually interesting. It doesn't speak, books speak to people. I think, no, let me go back because I just learned this and I'm fascinated by it. One of the things I learned about marketing isn't just that, you know, when you sell a product, you have to address people's pleasure points and you have to trust people and you have to adjust people's pain points.
00:36:27
Speaker
or you can do like a little bit of both, you can do one or the other, but you can also position something to speak to who that person wants to be. And if they buy this thing, then they will become closer to that person.
00:36:45
Speaker
we know in general and exactly what you're speaking to with how book marketing works in general, how people talk about things on book talk. No one wants to go to book talk and get a lecture. And I think the most organic and fun conversations have when people are natural and they're, you know, of course, our influencers and there are people who get paid to, you know, market that kind of thing online. But
00:37:11
Speaker
those organic conversations and those stimulating conversations are the one that people resonate with the most, not a lecture like you should buy this product. It's like, hey, how about we talk about something completely different? I popped a Zoolander meme into this report I'm working on because the only thing I could think about writing this was Zoolander, and I hope that people relate to that as well. It absolutely,
00:37:39
Speaker
the translation, it just runs across the board. Exactly.
00:37:44
Speaker
One of the, and that's, it's funny you brought that up because like, do you follow like the sad beige lady who does like that? She, okay. So the sad, I don't remember her actions. I love this description. I don't remember her actual handle, but like her thing is she starts every video with like this German accent mimicking Werner Herzog.
00:38:11
Speaker
and says, welcome to Lerner Hartzog's new line of children's clothing, sad beige clothes for sad beige children. And it's like, she's responding to something that's really amazing. I know. She's amazing. She's so funny. And I've learned a lot from her. But like, what she does is she like, she has noticed that a lot of children's clothing nowadays, and especially in like the upper class, like Pottery Barn,
00:38:40
Speaker
You know, I don't have kids. Does Pottery Barn make children? I don't know. J. Crew, babies. Pottery Barn, like the aesthetic is like neutrals and natural wood and like plain stone colored things. And just like there's not a lot of color in these children's clothes and toys and books. And it's just like she making fun of that. Because like color is actually important to children developing.
00:39:10
Speaker
And there's something called, oh gosh, this was another thing I learned on TikTok. Chromophobia is actually this thing that you find, especially in the upper class, because color is seen as an ethnic thing and a socioeconomic thing that they don't want to be associated with. Damn. Oh, that's fascinating. I do. Holy shit. Think about how
00:39:36
Speaker
baby toys I feel like are made to be very like aesthetic like they're made of like
00:39:43
Speaker
raw, like, wood. And because we want to make the things in our house as aesthetically pleasing as we can, we want to try to have that control over it to a certain point to where, like, the kid's going to reach three-year-olds and then you're going to get a bunch of plastic toys that are colorful and make all the noise because they have to develop those sensory things. But you'll notice the transition in, like, the toy aisle at Target, like, you know, baby, you know, one to five-month-old.
00:40:12
Speaker
It's all very like, ooh, look at this little wooden giraffe that we whittled, like a vibe. And then you get to the plastic saxophone with all of the buttons when they're like three years old. It's very strange.
00:40:26
Speaker
All I can think about is just Kim Kardashian's beige ass home. Yes, all of her kids. Like all I'm thinking about now is like, congratulations, children. I really hope they're doing okay. I don't know. Let's check check back in with them when they are of age. I don't know. No, it was like one of the one of the videos she did was of like the Noguchi Museum and the playground that they made.
00:40:52
Speaker
for kids. And it just does not look fun at all. It's like just natural shapes. It looks like a like a modern art installation that's low to the ground for kids to crawl on. And it just doesn't look like it just doesn't look like fun. It's like this thing. It's like this thing for parents to feel good about rather than for something for kids to play with on. You know, what's so funny about that as well kind of
00:41:17
Speaker
transitioning our conversation back to a space like a museum or a gallery. I used to work in a couple creative art making spaces that resided within a gallery space at separate institutions. And the stigma of those spaces was that they were kids spaces, right? And at galleries that I worked at,
00:41:43
Speaker
even some in Tulsa, I remember adults coming in and being like, hey, clearly this is a kid's museum. I want to refund. And having to have conversations about like, okay, just because the art is interactive and just because the creative zone caters to all ages and just colorful does not mean that this is a children's institution.
00:42:10
Speaker
And so that is also kind of interesting how we have those perspectives on the flip side as well. Like, I don't know. Yeah. And even going back to Julie Alpert's sticker book, I didn't feel like that, like it's talking about her girlhood, but it was not like, I would not call it like a children's installation. There were signs all over saying, do not touch. Even though like I got a sticker book, um, for $6 at the end of the tour, like,
00:42:39
Speaker
And I guess kids would probably find it really interesting, but they can't touch it. It's not interactive. So I feel like even with the monstrous eyes that are in the parts of her in some of the installations, I felt like it was trying to be like, it's hard to say whether it was like her installations are depicting her as an adult trying to go back
00:43:04
Speaker
to something more innocent and cute, but being unable to, or somebody who's trying to grow up and being edgy about it. There's like, which way is it going? Yeah, I agree. And I think that's kind of the, almost a little bit of like the beautiful balance of her work, but I would argue that
00:43:25
Speaker
her work is very mature because she's looking back on her girlhood from her adultness, right, from her adult perspective. So there is something inherently mature about looking back on your past experiences because that's only something that can happen, you know, with time and with age and maturity.
00:43:48
Speaker
Speaking to all of these visuals is super fascinating. I am wondering, Erin, if you can talk with us about your process working with a visual artist whenever you're creating a work of literary
Book Cover Design Collaboration
00:44:03
Speaker
art. What is that process of kind of sharing a type of vision for a cohesive project with another artist from another medium? How do you bring those two art forms to life to kind of create that
00:44:17
Speaker
cohesive final product. Sure. Um, so I've only done it once, but I'm about to do it again with my second book. Um, so it's funny, you should call them a visual artist because that's not really how I think of them, even though that's what they are. Um, I contracted the services of this, um, self publishing cover company called Meeblart. And I found out recently there's, they're based in Ukraine.
00:44:44
Speaker
Um, so of course with the war, it's kind of like up in the air about whether they're going to continue doing that right now. So when I worked with them, what I had to tell myself was, was that, okay, I'm a writer. I know very little about book design. That is a whole field. Um, and there are tropes and conventions with each genre and I know what I like, but I am not like,
00:45:14
Speaker
I don't know the language of this medium well enough to know or to like speak to creating something that's professional, that's quality and that will drag readers in and also signal to them what the genre of my book is. So I worked with them to say like, okay, so I know I want a book that's kind of in the style of like the old
00:45:42
Speaker
I don't know, like, you know those old fantasy trilogies that maybe you've grown up on, like, um, let's see, the Bartimaeus trilogy is one, Monster Blood Tattoo, um, A Series of Unfortunate Events, that's it. So, um, I wanted something in, like, the style of those books, which is kind of, like, it's very illustrative, um, it's very, like, there's guilt, filigree, all around the edges, the font is very, like, stylized, um, maybe, like, if you hold it in the light, there'll be, like, a little gold reflection off the
00:46:13
Speaker
letters and stuff. What I imagined my first book cover being is like the moment that Hattie, my protagonist, falls into the fountain which will take her to the other world. And she did that and she illustrated it beautifully, but it seemed kind of empty so she also added some other elements to kind of like play up the, you know, what are the important objects in the book
00:46:37
Speaker
have an impact on our life. Like there's antlers, there's roses, there's a little bit more of like the soul of the book being depicted on the cover. And I really like those stylistic elements even though we went back and forth a little bit about like the placement and like how I felt about certain things. Like one of the things that I really wanted was to have a number on the spine of the book because I always forget like which book in the series is
00:47:03
Speaker
the one. So I really wanted that. And I got it because I was the one paying for everything. And that's the beauty of self-publishing. If you want it, you get it as long as you have the money. But it was definitely a learning experience and a learning curve. And next time that I do it for my second book, I'll be prepared.
00:47:22
Speaker
But I would also like to eventually branch out a little bit because now I understand more about what goes into a book and I have more opinions about how the books that I will self-publish should look and feel to a reader. Because I've done that, I started to pay more attention to the, what do you call it,
00:47:44
Speaker
design of the books, the typography, the things, and I've started taking notes about what I would like the second book to look like and the third. Self-publishing is interesting, right? Because usually when people get into it, they think like, oh, you know what? I don't know if traditional publishing is right for me. I want to do this. But normally when they start doing it, they've only been like a writer and working in this one medium. It's very rare for everybody to have like all the skills you need to make one book good. So
00:48:15
Speaker
you need to either hire other people or you need to really learn it and get really good at it, or you just need to like, you need to have friends who are willing to do it for free. So like working with people of different skill sets, like make the book look professional was really like humbling because it made me realize, you know, maybe a writer isn't the right person to know when a book is ready to go out.
00:48:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's super interesting. There's also something this conversation seems like it's going back to, which is that encompassing experience of whatever the medium is. And for me, I noticed that when I don't like the paper of the pages of a book, it can really freak me out and it can like hinder my reading experience because the paper texture, if it's that like
00:49:11
Speaker
silky smooth paper. Oh, it I
00:49:16
Speaker
don't like it, but whenever it has like a little bit of texture to it or a little bit of weight to the paper, I find that there's something a little just that brings the experience into a little bit more of that kind of physical space that you're in, even if it's just by yourself that it just gives it that added element that makes you connect with it that much more. So I think it's it's really interesting to hear how all of that comes to life through
00:49:46
Speaker
you know, this process beginning to end, there's so many people involved, but to have all of those different kind of pinpoints that not everyone thinks about when you're just say, oh yeah, I wrote this book. It's like, no, I created a tangible experience for someone. So I think that's, yeah, that's awesome. So Erin, in talking about kind of your review process on Book Talk, talking about book marketing,
00:50:15
Speaker
I think all this comes down to a culminating question, which is kind of the summer being a big season for book reads. And I'm curious if you can share some best reads with our listeners, since we have a critic in our midst. So we just need your hot takes. OK. So another thing I learned about TikTok is I read really weirdly.
00:50:41
Speaker
for TikTok because I feel like all the books that are talked about on TikTok are the things that just come out. I don't, I go to the library, I browse, I pick out things that look good or that I'm interested in or that I hear other people talk about and then I either reserve them at the library or I like, if I really, really want it, I pick it up but I haven't done that in a while. So instead I have all, or I have like my top favorites from my book review
00:51:10
Speaker
of books on writing and storytelling. And only one of them is brand new. How to tell a story by the Moth podcast. This is really helpful. And this was kind of the, this was the book that helped me realize, you know, you can be a storyteller without being a writer.
00:51:26
Speaker
which is obvious in hindsight, but at the time it was not. And they teach you like very simple rules to be a better storyteller. And they tell you how you can practice. And of course the moth will be coming to Tulsa on the 24th. They're doing a book signing at Magic City Books. So if somebody wants to go there and like pick up a book and like go figure out how you can be a better storyteller, that's a good book for you.
00:51:53
Speaker
But if you're a storyteller who wants to be a writer and you have a very poor grasp of language, become an artist. Or if you want to be a better writer, you can pick up Steven Pinker's book. When I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago, there was this course called The Little Red Schoolhouse, and it's basically
00:52:17
Speaker
based off of how do readers read the written word? How do our brains understand English when it's written down? And when I picked up this book, I realized that a lot of the principles that were in that course, which was life changing, were in this book. So if somebody wants to be like an actual writer, writer, then this is a good book for them.
00:52:39
Speaker
Um, and of course this one is kind of like my favorite, which is kind of like in between being a storyteller and being a writer. Um, George Saunders, a swim in a pond in the rain, um, is where he dissects the short stories of Russian masters. Um, and I feel like going back to what we talked about earlier, um, I feel like short stories in English class, I feel like Russian writers, especially they get like that symbolism picked apart.
00:53:08
Speaker
because they like to be profound and wise and they have fun with it. But that's not what he talks about in this book. When he talks about it, he talks about how they story tell and what the elements of their work mean and how they make a story, how the elements of a story in these stories work.
00:53:32
Speaker
So, and he does it like, you know, this is how the medium of writing is used to story tell. Every medium has its own strengths and weaknesses. And here are some of the best short stories that he thinks are the best for showing off those strengths. So those are my picks. Ah, good pick. Um, I, um, I happen to have a pick
00:53:56
Speaker
right here, which happens to be the one and only EC Fuller's Perceiver book, which he so graciously gifted me. So I had to make a debut. It's making a gorgeous debut on my coffee table. It's been my coffee table book of the summer. I have just a lot of questions for you and I have the privilege to be able to take you out for a drink
00:54:26
Speaker
after this lovely episode. But this is your book one of your young adult short story, not short story, young adult fiction series. But in terms of any other work coming up before we let you go today, I just want you to be able to share anything exciting that maybe you can share with our pop tarts today on the podcast.
Publication Announcement
00:54:48
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so I actually got a short story published just about a few weeks ago. Um, it's called the heebie-jeebie beam. Um, and it's a short story that anybody can find and read for free at Metaphors' magazine. Um, it's about a boy who discovers a ray gun in his father's workshop. And after playing around with it, he discovers that the ray gun cover, er, when you shoot somebody with the ray gun, it causes intense fear.
00:55:14
Speaker
but also it causes intense relief. And he wants to uncover why his father created it, especially this thing that looks like a toy because his father was a very serious person, and what it has to do with his father's disappearance. So it's like 6,000 words, totally free to read, and it's my recent favorite that I've read.
00:55:36
Speaker
Um, as for stuff that's coming up, um, well, the second book is due to my editor at the end of Thanksgiving. So I'm really trying to get that finished. So I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like 80% of the way through. I'm like in the home stretch. So.
00:55:54
Speaker
And this and considering that I completely threw away like the previous manuscript and started again in August is crazy. So I've never written something this fast. And it's because I've like done all this reviewing of books on writing and storytelling and done a lot of writing sprints that I'm able to knock it out. So knock on wood and we'll see if I can do it.
00:56:18
Speaker
Well, we have total faith in you. Thank you. I'm completely so impressed by that statement. I just started over my novel like cash. This is you know, it's the funny part. This is the third time I've done it too.
00:56:34
Speaker
not for this book, but like for a different book. Oh, just in general, it's just it's just it's like once you but the thing is now once you find like the actual groove that you're meant to be in it goes really fast. Some some stories are like you grind them out because you just don't know how to make them better. But when you when I feel like because I've grown a lot as a writer and storyteller,
00:57:01
Speaker
the parts where I would just take weeks and months to just like, I'd have to set it aside and like think about it a little bit. And I'd have to have like an epiphany to essentially get over that hump. And it would still not be great, but I'd have to work with it because that's the skill level where I was. But because I've grown so much, I can like look at something and see, oh, this isn't working because this thing that I can now specify and correct. So it's just like,
00:57:31
Speaker
If you read a lot and you write a lot and you practice hard, your practice will not betray you. I think that's true for any medium that you work in. Well, Erin, it has been such a joy having you on the podcast today. I really feel as though that we need to have you back if any listeners are interested in your process of self-publishing as well. I think that is a super interesting topic that we could certainly get into for another day.
00:58:00
Speaker
Erin, what is your TikTok and where can we find you on TikTok? Please share. Yes. So I am on TikTok at longhandhabits. It was the name of a really old blog that I started when I first started to really take writing seriously. It no longer exists, but it lives on as my TikTok handle, longhandhabits. I love it.
00:58:26
Speaker
Well, at least your handle is memorialized and not the shitty photographer you worked for. So yes, come full circle. Small blessings. Well, everyone, thank you for tuning in for this episode.
00:58:41
Speaker
If you have any questions about today's episode or want to get in touch with Erin, you can email us at artpoptalk at gmail.com or find her on TikTok. And with that, we will talk to you all in two Tuesdays. Bye everyone. Bye everyone. Art Pop Talk's executive producers are me, Bianca Martucci Fink and me, Gianna Martucci Fink. Music and Sounds are by Josh Turner and Photography is by Adrian Turner.
00:59:09
Speaker
and our graphic designer is Sid Hammond.