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Episode 397: Leah Sottile Riffs on Kurt Vonnegut's Rules on Writing
1.3k Plays1 year ago
Leah Sottile is the author of When the Moon Turns to Blood, which is now out in paperback. She added a new chapter that concludes the Lori Vallow saga.
Leah also talks about:
- Kurt Vonnegut's rules on writing
- Writing about overlooked people
- And putting a bow on her first book
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Social: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and Threads
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
Recommended
Transcript
Microphone Dilemma: Need or Want?
00:00:01
Speaker
Do I need a new microphone? Do I want a new microphone? I don't need a new microphone.
Athletic Brewing: Non-Alcoholic Beer Promotion
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey CNFers, here's a shout out to Athletic Brewing, my favorite non-alcoholic beer out there. If you're doing dry January, this is a nice way to alleviate some of those beer pangs. Go to athleticbrewing.com, use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout and get a nice little discount. I don't get any money, merely celebrating a great product.
00:00:26
Speaker
And it's a nice weekend up on a Saturday morning without a crushing headache. Skip it, man. Skip it. Yeah. You know, it's funny as you were saying that, I was like, oh my God, in 10 years I could still be doing this. I hope it doesn't kill me. You ever after yawn and it just won't
Introducing Leah Satilly: Podcasts and Books
00:00:55
Speaker
Yawn, Hacey and Ephrazz, it's the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to badass people about the art and craft of telling true stories. Leah Satilly, ah, she's back on the show. You know her from the podcast Bundyville and Burn Wild. She's the author of When the Moon Turns to Blood. It is now out in paperback. I know you got a few gift cards burning a hole in your wallet.
00:01:19
Speaker
She wrote a bonus chapter for the paperback release worth the price of admission where she witnessed the murder case against Lori Valo, the doomsday queen. I think that was her nickname. Leah's bonus chapter is pretty riveting, dark, gruesome, and a bit funny at times.
Kurt Vonnegut's Writing Tips
00:01:40
Speaker
A significant part of our conversation riffs on this great list of writing trips from Kurt Vonnegut. I have the link in the show notes to where I found this list is Maria Popova's marginalion page.
00:01:57
Speaker
And I'll put it there. It's well worth the read. And I use that list to prompt Leah. You know, given Leah is such a big Vonnegut fan as I am, maybe my favorite writer. I thought it'd be fun to have her riff on those points as well.
The Subscription Slump: A Call to Action
00:02:14
Speaker
It'd be wicked cool if you subscribed to the podcast and maybe even considered becoming a patron over at patreon.com slash cnfpod. Go there, shop around, see what you like, see what you don't like. Also, I've been bleeding newsletter subscribers for some reason, so if you're not already subscribed to my monthly rage against the algorithm newsletter, head to brendadomare.com to sign up and also to find show notes to this episode.
00:02:41
Speaker
That last count? A thousand others? No, it's not a thousand, but it's getting there. Nearly 400. Dang. Speaking of newsletters, Leah has a great one. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. She's been doing it for a long time. Helps assuage freelance income. She has some free components, but she encourages you to subscribe with dollars and cents.
00:03:10
Speaker
She writes a lot about far-right extremism, as some of you know, in the American West. She's one of my favorite people to speak to, and I just love her voice.
Writing Journey: Book Drafts and Emotional Processes
00:03:20
Speaker
So let's get to it. Here's Leah.
00:03:41
Speaker
I think maybe a good a good place to jump off might be that that the place where you do turn in a book draft and your
00:03:50
Speaker
I don't know. You've got your feeling. You're like, OK, I've taken this as far as I can take it. I feel maybe good about it, maybe not. But then you're sitting in that space waiting for those edits. Like, what is that space like for you as you're like, all right, what what am I going to be getting in a in a few weeks or or whenever you file your manuscript? Yeah, yeah. OK, so I mean, I think for when the moon turns to blood, when I turn in my edits, I was like,
00:04:18
Speaker
very eager to get them back. When I turned in my manuscript, I was very eager to get the edits back from my editor. And so he turned them around really quickly. I had them back like within a month and I was just like, all right, let's do it. Let's rewrite this thing right away. I just had a lot of energy for it. And I think it was because it was my first book and I had always wanted to write a book.
00:04:42
Speaker
Um, you know with this sort of second book that i'm was just telling you about about, you know The manuscript is in right now. I turned it in in early september It's november 16th. I don't have my edits back and i'm fine with it Yeah, because I think it was really hard like writing a second book was much much more difficult than writing the first one so So, you know, I think I think that's it because I feel like when I turned in
00:05:08
Speaker
the first book, I was like, this thing is good. Like, I feel like ready. Whereas with the second one, I'm like, it's going to need work. A lot of work to get it to the point that I feel ready to publish it. And I just think that, yeah, I'm just older and wiser, I guess, and know that I'm more tired.
00:05:27
Speaker
Exactly. I'm just like I wake up. I'm just like tired and sad all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying. You know, tired is fine. I'm good with that. I know I'll like it get better. But I think it's just, you know, when you are working as a writer, like you're you're always working on something or at least this is my experience. I'm writing a book. If I'm not writing a book, I'm working on a piece of journalism or I'm teaching a class. And so
00:05:52
Speaker
There's just not the pace doesn't ever really slow down for me. And I think that I'm getting better as the longer I do it at realizing like, if I can rest, whatever I work on will be better. It's just about capturing those moments of free time and relaxation to kind of like restore yourself.
Substack Success: A Steadier Income
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah, in what way has, let's say, your sub-stack audience, has that alleviated some of the flywheel pressure of the hamster wheel pressure of freelancing? A little bit, yes. Yes, it definitely has, actually. I mean, there was a moment, you know, I'm thinking within the last, probably when I started freelancing 10 years ago, where I was just like, pitching.
00:06:39
Speaker
constantly. I was pitching all the time. Pitching once a week and maybe to an editor. It was just really, and if I got a story, I was working on it, but then I was pitching someone else. It was just this kind of constant churn. And at a certain point, I realized this is not sustainable. It's just not sustainable to create this much work or to have this many ideas.
00:07:03
Speaker
The Substack has been great because it allows me to slow down a little. I still write at least one a month, though. There's a lot of idea generation there. I write a lot of things that I don't publish. It's still another project.
00:07:23
Speaker
But it really has allowed me to kind of take my foot off the gas a little bit and know, okay, I'm going to get some income this month from my newsletter. And that income means that I'm not turning in a story that I had to go out and report and has to go through several rounds of edits with an editor and
00:07:42
Speaker
then I'm waiting for it to get published. And then after it gets published, it could be 30 days, 60 days, 90 days before I get a check. All that process is sort of streamlined. So yeah, it is, it is better.
Social Media Reflections: Quality Over Prestige
00:07:56
Speaker
I was fortunate enough to just speak at a at a friend's class earlier in the week. It's just a very small cohort of creative nonfiction writers and kind of like not so mainly some like older people meaning like middle-aged and older who are still kind of look kind of like novice writers and and one of them kind of asked me you know if I had to
00:08:19
Speaker
kind of start all over with you know how would I go about the whole platform rigmarole social media you know I have my answer for that for sure which is a which I wish I would have done differently for sure but that's experience but I wonder for you like going if you were to go back 10 10 years what would you say you maybe wasted time on that was would have been better spent leveraging in a different direction that would have maybe
00:08:47
Speaker
I've gotten you to where you wanted to go maybe a little quicker.
00:08:50
Speaker
Twitter, I mean, Twitter was a big waste. I mean, I think, you know, I say that jokingly, but I also, you know, I am I'm able to appreciate that, like, you know, I am a squeaky wheel about certain particular subjects on Twitter. And there are people who want to hear that. And maybe they have purchased a book or subscribe to my newsletter. And so, but, you know, I think that it just sort of took up a lot of brain space
00:09:18
Speaker
for a lot of years for me that it ultimately is like, you know, what do I have to show for for that? You know, I think one thing that I was really concerned about when I started freelancing was what publications I was writing for. Like I would make a list and say, this year I want to try and write for XY and Z magazine.
00:09:36
Speaker
mostly East Coast, if not all East Coast publications, ones that I felt like had a certain level of prestige and that kind of thing. And I really think that I understand why I did that, but most of those publications are closed or gone or they barely pay freelancers.
00:09:53
Speaker
I think I would have probably told myself to just concentrate on doing good work and it didn't really matter who it was for. It's just about getting it out there and making sure I get paid. I think I also thought I had to work my way up in order to get paid what
00:10:09
Speaker
would be a livable wage. And I think I just didn't value my own work for a long time. And it took me meeting enough other freelancers saying, like, why are you writing for that low of money? And I was like, oh, I thought I had to. So, you know, I think that, you know, there's probably a lot of different things in that that I didn't value my work in the way that I thought I could. But yeah, I definitely would have told myself, like, you can write for more money.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I can speak to this particular thing because I was kind of obsessed with it myself, was this idea of having to build a
Organic Growth vs. Social Media Presence
00:10:51
Speaker
platform. You're kind of hoodwinked into thinking you need this platform on social media.
00:10:57
Speaker
Things will kind of take care of itself and I think a lot of novice writers and like I said I can speak to this because this is how I was doing it like you kind of get it backwards you try to maybe build this platform on Twitter. But you don't have a body of work so you don't really have anything to say whereas you should just be putting out work just churn and churn like just publish publish publish.
00:11:20
Speaker
as high profile as you can. If you can't get there, just go lower. And then linking back to your website, linking to whatever social media handle you want. Like don't even worry about that. And the fact is you're getting better at writing. You want to write in the first place. And your platform will grow just organically because you're publishing work. And I wish I had done that. Totally. Just pitch, pitch, pitch, work, work, work. And then whatever social media following would have just taken care of itself.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, because I think it's so smart because tweeting like crazy didn't make me a better writer or reporter. It was just doing work. So in a way, all that stuff is really a big distraction. Did I get work from tweets?
00:12:07
Speaker
I think I did a little, you know, did I get story ideas from people who I engage with on Twitter? I can't think of any that would stick out. So, you know, yeah, I think you're right. I think the platform thing just kind of comes later. And you're right, like just doing the more work you do, the more you write.
00:12:25
Speaker
The better you get, I think it's just like anything, you know, if you're a runner, the more miles you get, like you just become better at managing your time and your efficiency and how you do it. Yeah. I think, I think that that can't be stated enough. And I think maybe that's what we're all learning. That's what we all have Elon Musk to thank for, you know, it's just that it's like, Oh, maybe this didn't matter at all.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. The last few years I've come to think, I'm like, oh wow, it is meaningless. And you're at the behest of the whims of those social media power brokers. Whereas you've got your newsletter asset, which is permission driven. I have my reservations about Substack on the whole. I feel like they're a social media company that is in the disguise of a newsletter company.
00:13:18
Speaker
And and so I worry about them long term going slouching towards where all social media ends up going in the end I hope it doesn't go that way, but that's just my my gut tells me that But it's a it's one of those things where yeah It's just you build that permission asset through doing doing good work over and over again And that's why we got into this in the first place is to do the work not to like tweet a bunch of things
00:13:45
Speaker
Totally. And I think that it's just good for people to admit, yeah, I got maybe hung up on mentions a little bit more. And I think it's a human thing. These platforms are built to keep our attention and keep us on those platforms. And it worked. But it's sort of sad it worked for the entire publishing industry.
00:14:06
Speaker
I know, I know. But I think a good place to start for people who might be frustrated by a lack of that platform is just like, okay, well, focus on writing things that maybe that interest you and you care about. And that segues into this Kurt Vonnegut list.
00:14:23
Speaker
of, you know, he has a list of eight things and we'll kind of riff on about seven of them because they, you know, the first step is like just finding something you care about. And so like just for you when you're finding subjects or trying to track down ideas like, you know, where are you finding ideas and how do you find the subjects that you care about? So you can really lean in with all your rigor.
Unearthing Unseen Stories: Writing Focus
00:14:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, for me, if I look at the entire, you know, 20-ish years that I've been writing, I think that the thing that I come back to again and again is I'm really, I care about writing about people who are overlooked, you know, in some way, by society, by the media, you know, maybe something happened to them that got no attention or
00:15:15
Speaker
received attention but it was kind of the wrong kind of attention or misguided or something like that and even places you know places that are thought of as flyover country or not important or not where anything interesting is happening you know that is really kind of the stuff that i don't it just it just gets me every time and i think that
00:15:35
Speaker
I feel excited about going to those places. Like, you know, in my book, I talk a lot about Rexburg, Idaho, I talk about Springville, Utah. And these are just, you know, small places that not a lot of people would, you know, go to unless they were passing through. And I like to go and kind of find what makes those places unique and special. So, so that, yeah, I think for me, that's the, that's the thing generally that I could say I've cared about and cared about the longest.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, and true Vonnegutian wit. His next thing is, do not ramble though. And he's like, I won't ramble on about that.
00:16:12
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think that that that is also like on subjects too. Like there are subjects that I'm very interested in, but I also know when I'm beating a dead horse, like I have, I think that like, and that gets into the rambling territory. Like if I were still several years after releasing the Bundyville podcast, if I was still writing about the Bundy's, I feel like I'd be rambling at this point. So I'm kind of just not doing that anymore. And next is keep it simple.
00:16:42
Speaker
I heard a great anecdote years ago from a writer named Ben Montgomery, who you maybe have had on the show. Jumping in for a moment. Well, let's see. I have not had Ben on the show for a formal interview. He was a part of the Remembering Matt Tullis episode because he was the founder of the Gangray podcast and the Gangray long-form journalism aggregator from the early 2000s or whatever.
00:17:10
Speaker
I have his latest book, which came out a couple of years ago, and I've always wanted to have him on the show as a formal interview. And it'll happen. It'll happen. He's written several books. His first book was called Grandma Gatewood's Walk, and he was a writer at the Tampa Bay Times for a long time. And Ben, I saw him speak and he talked about how you can take a moment and you can expand it into like, you know, a thousand words.
00:17:39
Speaker
And then you can also take, you know, a hundred years and, and reduce it down to one sentence. So I'm always kind of thinking about that in how I explain things. Like, how can I simplify this?
The Art of Editing: Clarity and Focus
00:17:52
Speaker
Where can I take a simple moment and, and write it like crazy and, and maybe take something complicated and reduce it down to really small. So I feel like I'm doing that a lot, especially as I'm editing.
00:18:03
Speaker
And editing gets to the point of having the guts to cut. And that can be bad stuff that just needs to go anyway, but it can also be the ruthless matter of cutting things that are actually good. You're like, God damn it. I like this, but it's gotta go. It's gotta go. I mean, cutting, I have to say, is my favorite thing. I think sometimes I realize the solution that I lean on again and again is like,
00:18:33
Speaker
Okay. Cut that first thousand words. That's where the story should start. And I'm, I'm a lot more willing to kind of kill my darlings than I used to be. But, um, but I always feel like that's the answer. Like you really spend a lot of time kind of throat clearing before you get to the point.
00:18:50
Speaker
Yeah, and some conversations that I've had with my editor for the Prefontaine book, sometimes he was always expressing his concern with me is that I wasn't leaving myself enough time to write. And so he's just like, if you write, you might write 5,000 words to get to this point, but it's like those 5,000 words you wrote aren't wasted.
00:19:15
Speaker
And it's just like, but you need to give yourself that time and that runway to get to where you needed to go. And that can be hard, that throat clearing to get rid of, but there's no wasted word even if you cut it.
00:19:28
Speaker
Yeah, it's sometimes, honestly, when I cut stuff, I save it and then I use it. It becomes like a sub-stack or it becomes the beginning of like an essay or something like that. So I'm all about like repurposing things. I have a friend. She's a novelist. Her name is Sharma Shields. She's in Spokane. She's brilliant writer.
00:19:46
Speaker
And she used to write entire novels and be like, I don't like it. And she just delete it and she'd empty trash. Like she was like hardcore about it. And so she kind of taught me like, you just got to be willing to like kill, kill off a whole bunch of words and know that there's something else ahead for you.
00:20:06
Speaker
Nice. And this is one of my favorite points of sound like yourself.
Finding Your Writing Voice
00:20:11
Speaker
And this kind of gets to style and voice. And what I love about your writing and the work you've done is that we will quite literally hear your voice a lot with your audio storytelling for Bundyville or Burn Wild.
00:20:24
Speaker
And I can even hear that pulse when I read your prose. So with voice and style, how did you arrive at that, something that felt uniquely you?
00:20:38
Speaker
Hmm, I think it was there was a lot of experimentation that happened, you know, I there were I look back at some things I wrote when I was you know Starting out and there some of it's really good some of it's really spirited I would say and like very excited and eager and I like that and some of it's totally embarrassing and I hope no one ever sees it but
00:21:00
Speaker
You know, I think that, um, for me, you know, I think if anything, I write sounds like how I talk, it's probably because I read it out loud to myself and edited it to make it sound like a conversation. I've always been excited about writers that can, you know, write well, but also feel relatable and not be talking over people and
00:21:24
Speaker
You know, I don't really have that ability. I don't think I have the vocabulary even to talk over people. So I feel like I just try to be as relatable as I can and just, you know, be an approachable voice instead of maybe like a, you know, ivory tower or high minded voice. Yeah.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, and voice is, it's ever developing, too. I'm sure 10 years ago you sounded different, 10 years before that you sounded different, 10 years from now you're going to sound a little bit different. It's kind of an odd question. Where do you see your voice going, if you can see that far into the future?
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's funny as you were saying that, I was like, oh my God, in 10 years I could still be doing this. I hope it doesn't kill me.
00:22:12
Speaker
that I find myself becoming, and maybe this is building a little bit on realizing how unnecessary Twitter is, that social media moment that we were all stuck in for quite a while in journalism was really hysterical, I think, and really like, this is what comes next. Here we go, the world's ending, and that didn't happen.
00:22:36
Speaker
And I definitely think I indulged in that a little. So I think if anything, I would hope that my voice becomes even more measured and maybe more of a voice of calm and information than it has been.
Impact of Endings: Challenging Conclusions
00:22:53
Speaker
I think that's as best as I can predict. Yeah. Yeah. And next is say what you mean to say, which I think is another way of getting at clarity.
00:23:06
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes I feel like if I'm writing around some, like it's sort of what you and I were talking about. Like you got to write all these words to realize sometimes what the point you're, you're trying to get to is. So I think that saying what you mean to say sometimes comes in drafting, like.
00:23:21
Speaker
You've got to write it again and again and again to know. I think it's also helpful for me to talk about my work while it's in process with people I trust because they can kind of help me by gauging their reaction of what I'm talking about or saying like,
00:23:38
Speaker
I'm doing all this reporting, and I don't really know what it's for. And hearing how they react to it, that sometimes helps me understand why I'm devoted to a project. Because sometimes in my work, I'm really, really deep into something. And I'm like, why am I doing this? What is this for? Why is this interesting to me? It is. I know that it's interesting. I just can't say why. And then sometimes I feel like there's
00:24:05
Speaker
For sure in podcasts it works, but definitely also in books is like sometimes it's just nice to like get to the end of a paragraph of information and there's just a sum up line that's like here's what all this means colon you know and just say it so yeah and the last point we'll hit on is of course pity the readers and how at what point does the audience come into your picture and
00:24:32
Speaker
I think that's a good question. I mean, I think that it makes me think about endings and how endings are something I feel like I'm always arguing with other writers and editors about, like, what's the ending? You know, I think there's this compulsion sometimes with writing that you're supposed to end on a high note.
00:24:50
Speaker
you know, let's uplift at the end. Let's not leave everybody, you know, just like gasping for air. And I don't always agree with that. Like, I do like a movie where there's a gut punch at the end and you feel kind of devastated by what's happening. So I think that, you know, pitying the readers doesn't necessarily mean to me that you need to make them feel better about everything that they just read. It just means like maybe there's a call to action in some way or maybe
00:25:20
Speaker
you really deliver in your final scene in such a way that um Is satisfying and it maybe feels like a good difficult, you know criterion collection movie at the end You know I think I think that's what I think of I think it's because I don't want to be talked down to as a reader myself so um, so yeah, but I also am really
00:25:43
Speaker
I hope that my work doesn't ever feel like it exhausts someone. Like I want them to know if you get through this information, I will ultimately give you something satisfying afterwards.
00:25:56
Speaker
Nice. Yeah, the ending of Bundyville, too, I felt like had that kind of a... It was very ominous. And the score that was coming in, too, that was just kind of hitting this crescendo, and your writing was just like right with it. Well, the music was matching the crescendo of your writing, I should say. And just thinking about it, I quite literally get chills thinking just about the mood you evoked through that. Yeah, I mean,
00:26:24
Speaker
And all that was really real I mean the beauty of that was that Robbie Carver who wrote the music for Bundyville like he would listen to the narration and kind of write along with it and write based on what he thought it needed and I obviously trusted him to do that but you know there were moments where we were doing the narration for that
00:26:44
Speaker
show and I was crammed in a recording studio with two producers sort of lording over my shoulder. And I, you know, would feel myself get really fired up as I was reading it because they want and they allowed me to do that. I think in a lot of radio spaces, maybe that wouldn't be accepted. But to me, it was like about showing someone like, hey, I can tell you all this stuff as an unbiased journalist. But at the end of the day, like I'm a person in the society and this is upsetting. And so I'm going to share that with you and
00:27:13
Speaker
Clearly, it resonated to be like, this is really sad and we all have to think about how to reckon with this.
Beyond True Crime: Broader Themes
00:27:22
Speaker
Nice, and as we kind of turn our attention to, you know, when the moon turns to blood in your, you know, your bonus chapter here too, I wanted to get a sense, given that you're a bit removed from the initial publication of it, you know, what was your sense of how it was received or perhaps mischaracterized? Because I get the sense that maybe a lot of people thought it was a true crimey thing, but
00:27:46
Speaker
It really gets into this religious extremism and I think maybe could be mischaracterized as true crime, even though there's true crimey elements to it.
00:27:56
Speaker
Right. Like I want it to not be seen as true crime, but at the end of the day, I understand why it is true crime. Like there is, there is a lot of crime in it. There are bodies like that's difficult for me to say, but it's not all true crime. Like, um, I think that, you know, the perception of the book, I mean, I, I think I only know what I've, what people have, have shared with me. You know, I think that there are some people who,
00:28:21
Speaker
Who say, you know, I never would have cared about this case and you made me care about it. And to me, that's like, that's great. That's exactly what I wanted to do. There are other people who knew every single little detail of the case and found the book maybe to be unsatisfying. They thought they were going to add
00:28:39
Speaker
more to what they already knew. So I think at the end of the day, when I pitched that book, when I wrote the proposal in early 2020, I wanted to cover the trial and that trial got delayed and delayed and delayed because of COVID, because of all kinds of different issues that I bring up in the book.
00:29:01
Speaker
So when it came out, I was happy with where it ended. But I thought, man, if this thing ever goes to trial, I know I'm going to have to go. I have to be there. I never had sat in the same room as these people. So ultimately, I brought that up to my editor on the book. And he was like, yeah, let's write a new chapter. It'll come out in the paperback. And I thought,
00:29:25
Speaker
I mean, that is a really cool opportunity that most authors I would say probably don't get. But to me with that extra chapter, it like is finally the, like I'm delivering on what I essentially wanted to do when I pitched it.
00:29:41
Speaker
So take us to just what you're feeling as you know, as Laurie goes to trial and you are going to be able to zip over to Idaho and sit in very close proximity to this person and witness this trial.
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think that I really wanted to continue the voice that is in this book of like, you know, it's not just observing the trial itself, it's observing the people observing the trial and the kind of entirety of the situation. So I wanted to go and see, you know, what kind of circus there is at this point in time when Laurie's trial happened last winter.
00:30:26
Speaker
It was one of the most high profile criminal cases I would probably say happening in the country. The other one was the first criminal trial of Donald Trump, which was starting on the same day. So I was really kind of taken by, you know, that this world
00:30:44
Speaker
of religious extremism was sort of, you know, was certainly not started by that president. But it was definitely, you know, those those flames were fanned by him. So I thought that that was a really interesting moment that Lori Velo and Donald Trump would start their trials on the same day and in really different situations. So I wanted to be there. I wanted to see, you know, the people who showed up, of which I just couldn't believe there were people from all around the country who had come to Boise to observe the trial.
00:31:12
Speaker
They weren't relatives. They didn't have anything to do with the case. They just cared a lot about it. So I started talking to those people and wanting to know why they were
Experiencing Lori Vallow's Trial
00:31:22
Speaker
there. And then ultimately, I went to Boise twice for the trial because I couldn't stay permanently for eight weeks. But on the second time I went, I wanted to sit in the courtroom. I wanted to sit in the same room as Lori. And I sat right by her.
00:31:41
Speaker
You know, I think I just it's it's so even as a journalist I've written about so many kind of notorious characters over the years and there's always something surprising about when you are finally in the room with them or talk to them and you know, obviously I couldn't talk to her but I was just so surprised with that she was just this tiny woman and And and she was just so much smaller than than anybody who could have ever described to me and I think that her her size sort of
00:32:11
Speaker
was a little even surprising for me, given the true nature of her crimes and the size and scale of which this one person could commit. You know, I think, you know, even right in the chapter, there were moments where I just kind of look at her and just sort of wait for something to like, you know, some sort of
00:32:33
Speaker
sign that this person is like dark in the inside and you know in some way and you know obviously that never came and that's part of what I write about in the book that like Lori Velo looks like the most normal person in the world and that's part of why I think she was able to deceive people in a way that was just so over the top.
Balancing Dark and Humorous Tones
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah, there are moments in the final chapter, too, that I found, like, actually kind of funny. Like, with the lawyer who was just like, you know, I've been assigned to 27 murder cases over the course of my career. I was assigned to this case. And you wrote, it was hard to tell if he was trying to drum up sympathy for himself or explain why his client even had an attorney at all.
00:33:18
Speaker
Just like I just that for some reason does the image of that just like he was trying to drum up sympathy for himself I felt that yeah, and it was really I just found that hilarious I mean I appreciate that I'm so glad to hear that because like you're probably one of the first people I've talked to you about this chapter and like You know I really feel like if something sounds like me You know back to the Vonnegut advice It should be both
00:33:46
Speaker
dark and funny because I think that that's kind of how I see the world is I'm always trying to hold this stuff in my head that you know so much of the work that I do as a journalist is in really dark spaces and yet then I look at my life and there's all kinds of wonderful things happening and there's good stuff all around me so how do you hold space in your head for
00:34:08
Speaker
bad and good at the same time. And I think like any trial that I have reported on, which there are many, there are just these kind of moments of humanness and levity that I think are sometimes worth pointing out. But then there's also stuff like that that's just a little bit pathetic. Like, what? You're supposed to be up there defending your client. You're sort of talking like, don't get mad at me for being a lawyer. I have to point that out.
00:34:34
Speaker
Yeah. He's just like, ah, if I had my way, I wouldn't be here. Everybody. Yeah. And then even later in that chapter two, when there was a break, you know, you and a fellow journalist go and get coffee and you it's like the meaning of life blend. And you're like, it felt like a joke from the universe. What is the meaning of any of this?
00:34:54
Speaker
because we knew what was coming right after that. We were about to see some horrific, I mean, truly to this day, the most horrific thing I've ever seen in my entire career as a journalist. And we knew that was coming and it just felt like, all right, we're eating lunch because we have this time. No one's hungry. And I go over and fill this coffee and I'm just like, yeah, I don't know what the meaning of life is. Like, I don't even know why I'm here at this point. This is so sad and crushing. And so, yeah.
00:35:22
Speaker
Yeah, I tried. I tried to notice those things. I mean, maybe it just helps me process things a little better. Yeah. And given the nature of the images that you saw and you you evoke the the Joan Didion documentary of the of the the little girl who is, you know, given LSD, you know, whenever this was back in the 60s and like Didion was asked about that and she like
00:35:49
Speaker
She's like, it was gold, and she's almost like seething. I remember watching that, I'm like, oh my god. She is like intense about it. She has no qualms about that being off-putting, illegal, and weird, and abusive. She was like, it's gold, and you're like, this, you flew close to gold here and didn't care for it.
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that Joan Didion is the reason that I decided to become a narrative journalist, you know, but I was like 20 years old when I wanted to do that, you know, two decades on from that. I could see now, like, you know, it's like anybody that inspires you at a certain point, you're like, wow, OK, I might not have the same take on things that that you do. And, you know, I still think Joan Didion is great in many ways and very flawed and in many ways. And
00:36:43
Speaker
I think in that moment, I thought of her saying that this is gold. This is the kind of thing you work your entire career for. And I'm like, man, when you see gold, it is just sad and sobering. And you as a person have to either detach yourself completely and just be the journalist, just writing things down.
Purpose of True Crime Writing
00:37:02
Speaker
But for me, I think there's a certain point where the notebook doesn't matter anymore. I'm just like, this is terrible. And I feel like
00:37:11
Speaker
Maybe that's where my voice comes in differently than other reporters, as I'm willing to say, like, this has made me deeply sad.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. If this was what gold was, I didn't want it to luster anymore. And I could, yeah, I could just feel the weight of it and just like the, you know, the, it's almost like the career you've chosen. I'm like this, you know, and this is, oh my God, this is where I'm left at the end during this trial. And you're like, oh, damn. You know, you kind of feel the weight of it. Yeah, totally. I mean, I got home from that week and
00:37:46
Speaker
I just was a mess. I couldn't do it. There's not a lot of things that can reduce me to sort of a blubbering pile, but that's kind of what I was. I kept saying to my family and to my husband,
00:38:01
Speaker
I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. Like, what is this for? You know, and they had to kind of keep reminding me, like, the reason you wanted to write this is because you wanted to make sure that those kids and, you know, and Tammy Daybell, that they were remembered and not just Lori and Chad. I think sometimes with these serial killer stories, you
00:38:20
Speaker
You really think about it, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer. People don't really remember the people they killed, but they remember everything about the killers. And so I wanted to write something that really memorialized those people and showed how terribly sad this was. So in a way, going there and seeing those things, I achieved my goal.
00:38:43
Speaker
Yeah, I had some I had some dark nights of the soul, you might say, after that being like, I don't know that I could do that again.
Emotional Impact: Handling Intense Trials
00:38:53
Speaker
When you kind of come back from the trial and synthesize everything you've seen, it's did it in the end, did it feel satisfying for you to put this for lack of a better term, put this bow on this story?
00:39:09
Speaker
I think so. Yeah, I think I think if I hadn't been writing the chapter, if I hadn't known that I was going there to gather material for a chapter, I might have been like, what have I done to my mind? You know, but for me, you know, that's kind of how I process the world is that I like package it up into a story or a book or a podcast or a newsletter. And so so yeah, I could I could do that. You know, I think the other thing that was important in my processing of that and feeling like I was really putting a bow on it was
00:39:38
Speaker
I started to see the ways that other reporters that were also in the courtroom, how they were talking about it. And it was in very much the same tone that I was thinking about it. So Nate Eaton from East Idaho News, he's kind of really, he's a character in the book that I wrote. And he's also the man who has just kind of covered this story since the beginning. He did some really powerful broadcasts about the things that we saw in court and how that made him feel as a,
00:40:07
Speaker
as a reporter, as a father, as a member of the LDS church, I think that was really good for me to hear because it made me feel a little less like, Oh, Leah, you're just being sensitive. It's like, no, that really was that bad that what we saw and that's okay. So yeah, but in the end, I was, I was really happy to be able to put it all together in a chapter and finish the project.
00:40:30
Speaker
And when you see things that you can't unsee and hear things you can't unhear, how did you reorient and find your bearings afterward?
Taking Time Off: Emotional Recovery
00:40:41
Speaker
I think in the past there have been times I've worked on projects and I thought, Oh, I'll just like muscle through it and I'm good. And then I realized like, Oh no, that's, that's not true. Like that mindset that I grew up with as a young journalist is like journalists aren't affected. We don't feel anything. Just keep going. Like it's just, it's just not real. And so, so I knew after that, that I just had to kind of take some time. You know, I wrote down a lot of those raw thoughts while they were fresh. And then I put it aside for a while.
00:41:11
Speaker
And, um, you know, worked on other things, worked on other projects that had nothing to do with this, but I also just kind of took a lot of time. Like I actually went on a vacation for a week, which is not a thing I do a lot and just kind of tried to like be present and detach from the material. And then it made it ultimately better when I came back to edit it.
00:41:32
Speaker
Nice, and when you come down for a landing from this, you know, there's always, and you were talking about endings earlier, it's oftentimes, you know, we'll put, especially with narrative pieces, sometimes the tendency is to write things in your own words and everything, but in this case, you give the final word to, I believe, the judge.
00:41:52
Speaker
And it's handing down the judgment on a remorseless Laurie Vallow. And just as you're synthesizing that, how did you know that your guitar was in tune for that particular ending?
00:42:05
Speaker
Well, you know, it's interesting because I actually had the whole thing written before the sentencing and it was like in editing and I was just basically had left a space for how many months she got sentenced and or, you know, if she got the death penalty or actually, I'm sorry, the death penalty was taken off the table if she was going to get a life sentence. And so I was just kind of like, you know, I'll have that to you at the end of today after she's been sentenced.
00:42:29
Speaker
But then the judge said all this stuff that was just so powerful. And finally this voice, you know, who's been there the whole time was able to kind of give a little bit of his own opinion and see, you know, and admit that it was outrageous to him too. And so I was like.
00:42:45
Speaker
You know, stop the presses kind of thing. Like, I have several more hundred words I want to say. And my editors were like, yeah, that's fine. Like, let's do it. Let's do it right. So it felt better to me because it was like.
00:43:00
Speaker
Like I said, initially I wanted to write this book about the trial, have this big trial component. So it felt like, okay, that's it. That's the ending. And his words were so cutting and so powerful that I thought I just had to leave it with him.
Chad Daybell's Trial: A Journalist's Draw
00:43:16
Speaker
There's still the matter of Chad Daybell. Do you feel like you're done or is that something you're still pursuing just because you're so tied to it?
00:43:29
Speaker
I think I know myself well enough. Like I think there was a moment even, you know, far before Lori went to trial where I was like, yeah, I'm done with this. But then the trial got closer and I was like, I gotta go. I gotta go. I'm going. Like I made a decision right beforehand that I was going to go and, um, and write, you know, a chapter and things like that. So with Chad, you know, Chad was initially what brought me to the project was understanding his writing and his fiction and his sort of doomsday belief system.
00:43:59
Speaker
I think that if it goes to trial, I would be hard pressed to not be there, at least for a little part of it, again, to sit in the same room as this person that I've written so much about. And, you know, I've talked a lot to his brother and things like that, and I'd like to, you know, see how the family processes these things. But, you know, as of last week, he
00:44:23
Speaker
kind of threw Lori under the bus and said, you know, she was way more culpable than me. She, you know, uh, used like sexual manipulation to make me do things. And, and so I think you should take the death penalty off the table. So, you know, to me that says maybe this thing might end up going, not going to trial, or it might end up
00:44:44
Speaker
having some kind of a deal that's pulled. So yeah, I mean, that's the long answer. But I think if it does go to trial, I'll probably want to be there at least for a little bit of it.
00:44:55
Speaker
Oh, very nice. Well, well, Leah, this is always great to catch up with you about, you know, writing and freelancing and just your approach to these kind of things. And I'm excited that you that people are going to get this extra bonus for the paperback edition. Yeah. Yeah. And as you know, as I like to end these conversations, I still like to ask a guest for recommendations of some kind, you know, anything you're excited about. So, you know, what do you what do you want to recommend to the listeners?
00:45:23
Speaker
Oh, yes, that's right. You do do that. OK. What am I into right now? OK, so I'm really into renting movies like and I don't mean like digital movies. We have in Portland a movie store called Movie Madness where they have like hundreds of thousands of DVDs and Blu-rays and VHS tapes.
00:45:42
Speaker
And I have almost exclusively been renting DVDs and I don't know what it is. It's like bringing me back to like when I was a kid and going to the movie store and like looking at all the covers and finding weird stuff. So if there's a movie store where you live, I'd say support them. But also, yeah, getting your hands on physical media is still very satisfying and I encourage it.
00:46:06
Speaker
Yeah, the Eugene Public Library here downtown has an extensive DVD collection of which, or Blu-ray collection as well. That's where I get most of the movies I watch. You've got to do it. It's great. It's so satisfying in a way that's hard to put my finger on. If you live in Bend, you've got the last Blockbuster video, I guess. People who know know.
00:46:33
Speaker
Fantastic. Well, this is great, Leah. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. This was awesome. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
00:46:45
Speaker
Hey thanks CNFers and thanks to Leah for coming back on the show. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you choose to listen to them. And if you care, ratings and reviews help validate the enterprise for the wayward CNFer, just like you were at one time. Lauren.
00:47:03
Speaker
Here's a bit of a coincidence. Leah's recommendation was to find a place to rent physical DVDs or Blu-rays and might riff. Today has lots to do with finding the love of physical media, and I'm not bitching about the usual stuff today. I get the appeal of stripped-down spaces. I'm prone to clutter buildup, so the fewer things I own, the less likely it is I get myself into an untenable mess. A Gordian, not a bullshit.
00:47:33
Speaker
I love giving books away instead of keeping everything. I like giving books another life instead of gathering dust because what's the likelihood I'm gonna read or reread Novelist as Vocation by Murakami. Very unlikely. I like the book. It's still on my shelf, but I'm probably not gonna reread it. I'd rather maybe donate it and if I wanna reread it, I'll probably just go to the library or something.
00:48:04
Speaker
So it'll either be given to a friend or put in the CNF and little library or other little free libraries in my neighborhood. There are about four that I know of in my neighborhood. I don't know, a couple square miles.
00:48:18
Speaker
There have been a few essays written lately, most notably by Richard Brody of The New Yorker about keeping physical media like movies. You know, streaming platforms can deplatform items. They have expiration dates. They can edit things from the original. And there are never any, you know, bonus features and DVD extras. And that's the key. As writers, you know, listening to filmmakers talk about cuts and edits is the best part for me in so many ways.
00:48:45
Speaker
The DVD commentary for deleted scenes on the Pixar movie Ratatouille is awesome. It is priceless. Brad Bird, the director, he talks about how brutal he had to get with certain scenes and exercise in killing our darlings. It's quite good.
00:49:01
Speaker
But also, and here's the kind of the bad side of it, DVDs are a lot of plastic. I got the case, it comes with shrink-wrapped and then the case is all plastic and they can be expensive if you buy a movie you haven't seen and you don't like it, you're either stuck with it or you have to donate it or you're out like 5, 10 to 25 bucks.
00:49:24
Speaker
You know, I really want to see Oppenheimer. I'm 86th in line at my library. It's not at Red Box, and I know Max, or I think it might be on, oh no, you have to rent it through Prime. I'm not a Prime member, but I think you can buy or rent it through that.
00:49:43
Speaker
I mean, it sucks. If you didn't see it in the theater and you don't subscribe to Max, then you're kind of screwed. I didn't get a chance to see it in the theaters, but I do love Christopher Nolan's DVD commentaries about his movies. I like how he thinks about story and structure. He talks a lot about that stuff, and it's always really helpful for me. Same with Wes Anderson.
00:50:04
Speaker
You know, there are two copies of Asteroid City at the library that are not taken out, so after I'm done with this, we're gonna... we're going down to the library, and we're gonna... we're gonna pick up Asteroid City and watch that this weekend. I like rewatching Anderson movies a lot, so I'll likely buy it if I really like it, and I think it's supposed to be pretty good. I'll probably like it, and I'll probably buy it. Gosh, in books, ah, man. They are... they are expensive, and bulky.
00:50:31
Speaker
Well, let's take vinyl or even CDs. Again, kind of getting kind of bulky. But isn't it great that you don't have to rely on an algorithm from a company that rips off its artists? When was the last time you sat in one place and listened to a record beginning to end? I mean, if you do remember, and I remember
00:50:53
Speaker
I've done it recently because I have a few Metallica finals I don't have a whole lot, but I have some Metallica finals, but I've met some of my best memories are 15 years ago or so yeah my friend Nate who was a sports writer at a newspaper we were both that now he stayed up late listening to like tool albums, you know drinking Budweiser and eating ramen and air drumming and
00:51:17
Speaker
I don't know, it's some of the best memories I've had. Beginning to end, just digesting that music. If you have the space, getting back to analog, it's just the best. Getting off our devices as best we can, it's taking back some agency. It's how we find other ways to rage against the algorithm. We're not being fed something, be it Spotify, be it Instagram,
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah, I'm thinking, now that I think about it, I'm thinking that this little thing here, I'm gonna flush it out a little more, and I think it's gonna be the February newsletter riff. So if you're not already subscribed, go subscribe to the newsletter, and if not, well, whatever, you just got yourself an early access.
00:52:06
Speaker
A little look behind the curtain to what might just be February's riff and Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter because it's very ragey. It's very ragey. And I like that. So stay wild. See you in Evers. And if you can't do Interview. See ya.