Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Jen Michalski
225 Plays6 days ago
Jen Michalski currently lives in Carlsbad, California. She graduated from St. Mary’s College of Maryland with a BA in English and received her MS in Professional Writing from Towson University. She was voted one of the best authors in Maryland by CBS News, one of "50 Women to Watch" by The Baltimore Sun, and "Best Writer" by Baltimore Magazine (Best of Baltimore issue, 2013).
Her new novel ALL THIS CAN BE TRUE was released by Turner/Keylight in June 2025. Her debut novel THE TIDE KING was published by Black Lawrence Press (2013; winner of the Big Moose Prize and "Best Fiction," Baltimore City Paper, 2013), and also her second novel, THE SUMMER SHE WAS UNDER WATER (Black Lawrence Press, December 2017). Her last novel, YOU'LL BE FINE, was a 2021 Buzzfeed "Best Small Press Book," a 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Finalist, and was selected as one of the "Best Books We Read This Year" by the Independent Press Review. She is the author of three collections of fiction, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS (Dzanc Books, 2007) and FROM HERE (Aqueous Books, 2014), and THE COMPANY OF STRANGERS (Braddock Avenue Books, 2023), as well as a collection of novellas, COULD YOU BE WITH HER NOW (Dzanc Books, 2013). She also edited the anthology CITY SAGES: BALTIMORE (CityLit Press 2010), which Baltimore Magazine called "Best of Baltimore" in 2010.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Valente. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Welcoming Author Jen Machowski
00:00:17
Speaker
Hey, this is Ken Vellante with The Summph and Rather Than Nothing Podcast. We have Jen Machowski here in a recent book published, All This Can Be True.
00:00:29
Speaker
Wanted to welcome you, Jen, and thank you for this
Impressions of 'All This Can Be True'
00:00:32
Speaker
book. Thanks for having me and thanks for reading. Yeah, my, uh, I actually didn't read it first. I ordered it and my partner, Jenny, ran right through it.
00:00:42
Speaker
And, uh, and then I read it. So it's already well used. Um, I just wanted to tell you, ah
00:00:52
Speaker
I really love this book. um The main components that I really love the beginning and the end. I love to bring you right into the story right at the beginning.
00:01:12
Speaker
desire, duty, obligation. And um I just ran, ran through it. It was a fantastic, I was surprised at many junctures during it.
Jen's Writing Process Explained
00:01:25
Speaker
Like I maybe felt I was in a pattern and expected something. So had surprises. Thank you for the book. um Tell us about,
00:01:35
Speaker
ah you're writing in this recent ah publication of your book. All this can be true. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for your kind words. Great to hear them. Um,
00:01:46
Speaker
you know and I never know. i mean i always have sort of an idea, like an image, like a starting point for a book, something that like an itch that I have to scratch. um But they don't always end up in the same place. I you know i think and i think for all writers, i'm I'm more of a pantser, not a plotter, so I don't have like a whole idea of what's going to happen.
00:02:05
Speaker
I just know i have this image and I want to like dig into it and see what happens. Like like I said, like scratch that itch. and For me, i just have this image pop into my head um of a woman waking up because her her phone is ringing and um she picks it up and it's the hospital telling her that her husband has woken from this coma.
00:02:25
Speaker
And in my mind, the camera sort of pans back and you see there's another woman in bed next to her. I was thinking, oh, well, this is a complication. And yeah and how did this how did this happen? How did this ah this moment occur?
Influences on Jen's Writing Style
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:39
Speaker
And I just sort of worked backward from there. um But when I really started to write, it was right when COVID happened, we were shut in. I had this great, ah you know, this idea, oh, I'm going to have to, you know, oh in the book now, Derek has a stroke.
00:02:55
Speaker
When I first started to write, I was like, oh, he should have mysterious illness, much like the one that's, you know, sort of like going through our country right now. And it just... I had this idea of, oh, maybe it'll be a thriller. and And, you know, I mean, it just, it just wasn't my, my style. It came, it became more of a Jen Mikowski book, the more that I started to write it. And like, what I mean by that is that I'm like, I'm more interested in like the complications of people than I am of like,
00:03:22
Speaker
situations. Like, I think it's a great movie to watch and ah a tsunami that like crushes a city, but I'd be more interested in like the internal tsunami that crushes people's lives in the aftermath. Like I've always been more of a psychologically oriented person, I guess, because when I was young, I didn't really, oh wasn't really born with the the tools. where It was in a family that way. There was a lot of sort of alcoholism and covering things up and just, you know, the conflict was just not like, we we always tried to avoid it. so we weren't really speaking truths. So I didn't really have a lot of examples of how to ask for things and have boundaries.
00:04:03
Speaker
And I just wound up observing people to see what they did in their lives. Like I go to my cousin's house and I'd like sort of see like, well, how did, how did they interact with their parents or what do they do? What's normal? I guess I spent a lot of my childhood wondering what's normal.
00:04:17
Speaker
And it's weird because I was starting to write before like those complications in my family were apparent. So I don't think I am a writer because of those complications, but I often wonder what kind of writer I would be if I didn't have those
Exploring Art and Human Complexities
00:04:30
Speaker
complications. I think that yeah obviously part of we are as people, but also who we are as writers and maybe how we choose to write and what we examine is often a product of what how we we're brought up and societal influences and things like that. so for me,
00:04:45
Speaker
a lot of my writing is, you know, I want to understand more of something, something emotional in me in another person or a situation. And I just, you know, it's like my emotional test kitchen. I have to put it in that in a book and like put somebody in a situation and try to figure out how do people like survive and how, how do they move on? So I'm i'm really interested in the messiness of people.
00:05:07
Speaker
And that's a lot of what this book is about without like judgment. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, I get a lot of, yeah i try not to read a lot of reviews, but a lot of just reviews from people I don't know who read the book are sort of like, yeah, I find it hard to like some of her characters. And for me, it's not about like liking or disliking. I feel like we all are sort of at a baseline of like we do some pretty irredeemable things, but also some pretty amazing things yeah that make us lovable. So I'm always interested in um exploring that emotional like frequency from high to low and in everything.
00:05:40
Speaker
character in in a book so I don't really assign anyone a hero or a villain they just sort of are all muddling through because I think that's generally our own experience you know we don't set out to hurt people we may do it from our own wounds or our own you know unmet needs or whatever but you know I think it's just some I mean that sort of grace period of my life where i'm I'm less interested in blame and more interested in well how how can we like coexist and forgive and find a place that we can sort of have love and respect for each other. Yeah. I, there's so much what you had to say there. And I was brought in, I was just thinking the dynamic and thinking bit within the novel as well, where,
00:06:25
Speaker
You were seeking, ah like when you saw other folks, you would observe you're seeking. It's like almost like, what's normal? What should I expect? Or how do other people do this?
00:06:36
Speaker
And you know, they're not you, but you also, within reading and and observing such as this building of empathy or seeing many different ways that people deal with tough shit.
00:06:53
Speaker
And and um I found, you know, your characters in the book. That was part of my love. I didn't need anything from them, you know, speaking to those reviews or they're my friends or I love them.
00:07:07
Speaker
I love them because they were muddling through shit and they were trying to figure out how they could be happy going forward or.
00:07:19
Speaker
how they were going to live fundamentally um in their lives. So that's the story. That's, that's, that's the story. for Yeah. Thanks for, thanks for being, yeah. Like you're, you're very perceptive and thanks for like kind of seeing that. Cause that's, I think that, yeah, that's where I was. I just try not to just try to let the the characters do their own thing and muddle through because i think that's really all of us. We don't know what goes on behind closed doors and,
00:07:44
Speaker
unfortunately you know in the social media environment we have these really carefully curated lives and we just go on facebook or instagram and everyone's having a big effing wonderful time you know all the time and you know it's not true but you know you often it creates a sort of a cycle of self-doubt if you have you know a friction in your own relationship or with your own children or partner then you're just like well It's my fault because my friends seem to be you know always they're doing it right. and Yeah. But i I think everybody, I don't think anybody really knew.
00:08:14
Speaker
and think i knew what i I knew it became an adult when it finally hit me that no one really knows what the hell they're doing. That's a stark realization. I still feel like you know that 14-year-old Jen is in 50-year-old Jen.
00:08:27
Speaker
And I know that like probably for my 14-year-old mom and 14-year-old dad were raising 4-year-old Jen in some emotional ways. yeah and I think we all just never really become that.
00:08:39
Speaker
We strive to be that parental figure or person i looked up to. But we and but once we realize that they were struggling and looking up to someone that they could never reach, you know, then I think we can get be at peace and have a little more forgiveness for not reaching that.
00:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, little more forgiveness, absolutely. And, well, it's, you know, the toil of ah life. And I think you you're your book, you know, gets into that. And and it for me, reading has always been
00:09:11
Speaker
helpful, helpful, you know, no matter no matter
Jen's Writing Journey
00:09:15
Speaker
what. But, um yeah, great book. I want to ask you about ah art. So you're saying, like, I thought i picked up on something said, and you were like,
00:09:26
Speaker
you know, what type of rhe or would writer would Jen Mikowski be, you know, differently, different background stuff. and we all create art, ah you know, from our vantage point.
00:09:39
Speaker
I just wanted to ask you, given i have i have a proclivity towards the psychological and the why, right, obviously, the show and stuff. And I see that ah within, you know, how you're thinking about your subject matter.
00:09:53
Speaker
but So I'm really interested in, in hearing your thoughts about what is art, you know, like, like, why do you try to create and ah ah a novel? Like what, what's art?
00:10:08
Speaker
don't know. For me, it's, it's just um really a response to to, life. You know, it's a dialogue with life. I'm reluctant to say it's about beauty or truth because obviously a lot of art isn't about beauty or even finding truth. It may be reflecting reality. And I think it's just a response to life. I think, if i think everyone creates art in some way. And if not, you're just not alive or you're just not recognizing it. And it doesn't mean like, you know, like gluing popsicles together. It could just mean, you know, keeping a diary or, or singing in the shower or there's some sort of response to being alive and, and facing,
00:10:49
Speaker
and And your response to adversity and your response to to joy or, you know, I think it's it's something that is prevalent in all of us. And maybe it gets dolled up a little bit more because people, you know, have shows and stuff at galleries. but But I think, you know, like writing, you know, and and obviously there are writers who have...
00:11:09
Speaker
books, you know, Oprah recommended books and, you know, and, but there are writers that just sort of do their own thing and and may never publish or may only publish a little bit. And but we're all are capable and have access to creating art.
00:11:24
Speaker
So, you know, for me, it's it's just not about being an expert or not trying to like sell my version. I'm just saying, this is my version. Like for me, when I write, it's not,
00:11:36
Speaker
yeah I don't try try to talk about something I don't know about or, because there's a lot of discussion about in in arts, artist communities and writing communities about appropriation. Can you like, you know, represent cultures or people that that you, who you're not. But, you know, one thing about having an imagination is you, you just sort of have to writing and and making art and making music is really just putting yourself in other people's shoes and trying to find like connection and humanity.
00:12:04
Speaker
So i think as long as it's not done in a way that you're trying to profit, you're really just trying to understand and you're not being, you know, um exclusive or dismissive or, you know, you're not creating, you're not, and you're you're eating you're like a token representation. i think that we're all just trying, you know, our best. it's It's a really, really delicate area.
00:12:27
Speaker
um But I think we're all just trying to reach out and like understand each other. And I think art for me is sort of, this is how i I see it, you know, and and I, you know, like all kinds of art and anything, you know, really connect, obviously, because of my, of the psychological part of my work, I really connect to,
00:12:45
Speaker
um like the the photography of Nan Golden and her sort of like yeah domestic situations and things like that. And and I've always enjoyed Cindy Sherman. But, you know, I always, but I still like, you know, like very sort of abstract things like ah Robert Motherwell. And, you know i still like respond to a vibe and a feeling, know, I still like traditional art. I think, you know, it's, it's a very, i know my definition is very broad, but at the basic, I think we're all just sort of, it's our like,
00:13:15
Speaker
our human response to, to living is like, is art to me, like how we respond to life.
Emotional Support Through Art and Media
00:13:23
Speaker
Yes. I think you said within there too, like, this is how I see it. Right. Like there's, I always pick up on that. There's a, within the definition is, is like, look at me, look at it, look at it. So, you know, like I've done something, this is complete.
00:13:42
Speaker
It's presented for you. And, uh, When did you know you were a writer? When did you know?
00:13:53
Speaker
Well, I, you know, I started writing when was pretty young. When I learned how to write, I just remember, you know, maybe I was in kindergarten or the first grade and my mom, like, took a piece of eight by eleven white be a paper and she folded it into quarters and she made that little book.
00:14:08
Speaker
And I remember writing a story, like, it was about my birthday. And I just knew at that point that that's how I, wanted to express myself. and to And at that point, my mom would just, you know, she worked at like a doctor's office. So she had all this, um, all these like Xerox things and old bills and things probably stuff she probably should have shredded, but she brought home and like, I would just write on the back of them. Cause it was just like free, free writing paper for me. And I just remember writing all these stories and, um, and it was just I just knew that was how I saw the world. Now, if you're asking how I knew i was going to be, wanted to be a writer, writer,
00:14:45
Speaker
um You know, I went when I was in college, I was an English major. I always thought I wanted to be like a magazine writer and just review ah records and ah well, tapes and and art and things like that. I really wanted to be like a critic at Rolling Stone or something or yeah like my local ah lifestyle magazine. I wanted to review museum art. And um I did that a little bit after college. you know, I volunteered for some papers in the area.
00:15:12
Speaker
interviewed art and things. And when I went to graduate and I had always written on the side, but then I went to graduate school, um, in a writing program, it wasn't an MFA. It was a professional writing.
00:15:23
Speaker
Cause I was still trying to do that sort of magazine features track. And, uh, this was like 1999, 98, 98, 99. ninety eight ninety ninety nine And then I learned that there are these programs called MFAs and like people got their degrees to like write just write and teach writing. And it was just like so new. And now they're like everywhere. But at that time it was like, wow, really you can do that. And I remember taking like a, a class and in, in college, my professional writing program where we just workshop each other's short stories and poems and things like that. And it' was like, wow, people like send their work out and they get paid for it. And at the time, you know, and,
00:16:00
Speaker
I was like, I think i I want to do this. maybe maybe there's some Maybe some people would want to read my books. And you know I always knew it was a very small market because I just write about whatever interests me. And and and it's always very like sort of on ground.
00:16:17
Speaker
It's not mainstream at all. And that's just how i always been. And I've always said to people, you know, i'd rather be the sort of like person who's the equivalent of like the Cocteau twins and has like pro like like small but devoted following than be like Mariah Carey, who has just like millions of faceless fans who...
00:16:37
Speaker
disconnect because oh it sounds you know i love this song you know yeah here in the grocery store i want people to be like i you know i you know i deeply connected with with you know well not that the cocktail twins even have lyrics but oh let's you know think of a different band you know like i deeply connected with this song and it it just spoke to me and it was my entire childhood and listened to it like 400 days straight i want to like like those are the that's the sort of like and experience i want to have as a musician because i was the one writing letters to to Lloyd Cole and, and, and, you know, Kristen Hirsch at the Throwing Muses and like sending them along to their record companies. And they were probably like opening like, what the hell is this? You know, this like five page, but I would love to get a five page handwritten letter from a 15 year old fan. That would be like, just, that would just make my year, you know?
00:17:23
Speaker
I did, you know, like even with that about the fan fan and get into stuff. I mean, it's I drop in, you know, and you could hear it through the show. on But and all the baseball players when I was growing up and right into them because it was God, it was so big and fun to me, to me.
00:17:46
Speaker
Like, regardless of all the stuff. And I still i still have a lot of that because i think just in general, I find life so difficult. Like, I've always...
Book's Narrative and Audience Reaction
00:17:57
Speaker
Not that this sounds too weird, but it's a slog, right?
00:18:00
Speaker
And... the only thing, the main things that have like pulled me through, you know, it's like the song that gives me goosebumps, the book that after I put down and I'm like, but oh my God, can what was that?
00:18:15
Speaker
You know, those type of, those type of feelings. And if One million other people are having that feeling. would be you know a Amen. Wonderful. If it's a small group. Did you read this book?
00:18:29
Speaker
It's all wonderful too. So um keep writing. i'd like The ah
00:18:39
Speaker
the honesty in this book. And I know you had to make some choices about it. like that whole will give the reader a little bit this or that dynamic. It was ah observant. And like I said, right from the beginning, folks, like once you read the beginning of this, you're in it in such a way that you need to know.
00:19:03
Speaker
You need to know what's going to happen. so Thanks. I mean, I want to give a ah shout out to my my writing groups. I feel like we keep each other honest and you know, earlier versions of this book, you know, the first, actually the first draft was just Lacey's point of view because that's just where I dove in with her because it was her husband.
00:19:21
Speaker
And then um some of my first readers felt like, you know, Quinn was a a vastly more interesting character and she she was, but her arc was sort of behind her, you know, because you yeah I won't say the details of what happened to her, but, you know, she was sort of running away from things that had already happened. yeah So it didn't make sense to make her the mean character to me, but it felt like when the second draft, they just started alternating narratives and it it came to life more to have them both sort of their experiences playing off each other. So both coming from places of grief and loss, but they're different places.
00:19:58
Speaker
yeah So that they, they were able to meet in that one spot for a minute. And I think, you know, that's a lot of life. You know, we have this, I tried to be realistic. You know, we have this narrative about, it's not a romance novel. Sometimes it it gets like,
00:20:12
Speaker
um marketed as such, but it's it would be a cool slightly bleak one, I would think. if and what case if If it went that way, you would have to have an asterisk. But even even in like early drafts, some of the people who were writing were like, I'm im mad at the way you ended this because they were invested in the characters. They were like, I'm mad how you did this. And actually, this ending was a compromise.
00:20:35
Speaker
was like, okay, well, maybe we can make it a little more open I can make it a little more open-ended if you if you need really feel like you want to be more hopeful, but I was thinking in the context of in reality, if this happened in and in real life, you know, what would be the what would be the healthiest, most best thing for everyone? And that's how I, but, you know, I guess you read, you read fiction to escape.
00:20:57
Speaker
So people were just like, I don't want, you know, so actually it made me feel better that they were invested enough to want something better for the characters, you know? ah okay And even now I still get some feedback like, Oh, I didn't, I didn't, you know, I, I,
00:21:11
Speaker
But I think people understand or they can live with it. It's like, it's not like it's out of left field, you know, where, where the ending comes from. Maybe it feels like that at first, but when you think back, it it does, the scenes are kind of laid there.
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah. When, when you're talking about like ah pulling back, like on the camera, you used that early in the conversation, like with that, um,
00:21:38
Speaker
It's the same thing at your end, right? Like there's stuff over here that's still going on. Stuff will going on. You figure out world's wild. Something might happen after this, but pan out.
00:21:51
Speaker
mean, it wasn't like I did the ending of The Sopranos or anything. So people shouldn't like
Art's Role in Social and Political Contexts
00:21:56
Speaker
that stuff. But, you know, I thought that was kind of a nice ending, kind of a cool ending, you know, but...
00:22:04
Speaker
yeah i don't have been a great i think we live in a great time that like filmmakers and writers and people who do so who do who are story runners can like take those sort of risks. And I love that there's a lot of moral ambiguity because we live in a time, but we've we've always lived in a time that has a lot of moral ambiguity, but I'm glad that we're able to like look at it head on and say, you know what are we doing here? What's like...
00:22:28
Speaker
you know we, we, we're, we're just and like and immersed in entrenched in a society that's like geared towards a lot of death and suffering. And how do we like, how, how do we come together and make something better? It's just such just such a hard time. End up talking about art.
00:22:45
Speaker
most It's a weird time. It's a weird time to have a book come out. i almost wish it had come out like a year earlier because, you know, it's hard to like, to like promote it and post stuff on and Instagram or social media when you're just thinking about like all the awful things that are happening and yeah it just feels insignificant to like try and, you know, post about a blog book, you know, it's it's, it's, it's, it's a real feeling for those who are sensitive and trying to create something, right. And you look at the world as, as, as a whole, I've always been my way through that is I've always been connected to,
00:23:27
Speaker
maybe the passions or whatever the art piece and and in and of itself and moving through that as an experience, whichever the way the experience goes. But I've never, it's a dynamic, but in my head, ah but I resist either my own personal devaluing. And I understand what you're saying, you know, as far as more, you know, might've been a better time for it now, but.
00:23:51
Speaker
You can't really, yeah, you can't predict it anyway. I'm not, I'm sure like, Kurt Cobain wasn't like, oh God, why did we get so big during the golf the Gulf War? You know, why couldn't it have before the Gulf War? You know, you just don't know what's going to happen.
00:24:04
Speaker
It's a good point. It's not like we can predict the future, but... ah i ah Man, yeah. Great chatting with you. um I had ah ah had a ah question and in general about, this is another art question, but in talking about these times that leads to it, I asked what the role of art is and connected to that.
00:24:31
Speaker
whether that's different right now, us talking 2025, the way we feel and America or whatever, is is is the role of art the same and what it's supposed to be doing for us or is it supposed to be more nowadays?
00:24:49
Speaker
Well, you know, I think there's ah a place for a lot of art, political or non-political, because I think yeah we're all in a a battle where we, I was reading a quote today where it's, they said that like anger is fuel, but it's not sustenance, you know? So like if you're, it's good to be angry for what's happening, but you can't be angry all the time.
00:25:13
Speaker
So I think there's a place to to, for political art and art that inspires and and, and angers and motivates us and, and frightens us. And all also just, you know, but there's also art places for art that can center us. And, and,
00:25:28
Speaker
make us feel like we have safety at home because I think we need both of those. you know Even you know during ancient battles, people weren't spearing each other all the time. They had to sleep.
00:25:40
Speaker
you know we had to You had to like replenish your energy. And you know i think there's probably a a place for for all of it. And i would never discourage any type of art, no matter how insignificant or commercial it it seemed. like I think whatever can give people peace and make them happy and whatever.
00:25:58
Speaker
makes them feel something in a constructive way. Obviously, I wouldn't want to, you know, there's, you can consider propaganda art. I mean, in it in its own, like,
00:26:09
Speaker
outside of kind contextualization of history. yeah I mean, you can look at like posters from fascist posters from the thirties and forties and say, wow, this is a really interesting and what they were trying to do. And and there's a certain feral, you know, beauty and boldness about them that really have created an emotional reaction for people. all reflect Yeah.
00:26:28
Speaker
And that, you know, we could view them as one, but the power behind the images. I mean, art is really powerful. So it's, you know, there's a, I think there's a great responsibility in how we, how we use it for sure in these times.
00:26:40
Speaker
But I think there's a place for all kinds of art, whether it's, you know, disruptive or disturbing or whether it's soothing and just, uh, escapist, you know, I think we need all of it right now. And I just, my real fear is, is having a ah government that, that will censor, um, art in any fashion. And, you know, we're sort of creeping up on that. I, I, I read a ah literary journal,
00:27:06
Speaker
online running it for years. And, you know, occasionally we've had to, I've had to like pull down a piece because an author has contacted me and said, i started in a new job. I'm like teaching children and I don't want them. I don't want my parents to see something that I wrote. I'm like, get it. I totally get it. You know, I'll, you know, hide it.
00:27:26
Speaker
But I had an um email from an author last week. Cause like, I need you to pull my poem because I'm, I'm afraid of like retribution from the government. And I was like, we shouldn't be here, you know, we just, yeah and it was like, well, how about I just hide it?
00:27:41
Speaker
And then, you know, it's still in our, it's still in my system. Only I can see it. You know, if you ever would want me to put it back up, I can just hit a button, you know? And they're like, yeah, that's cool. I just feel like they're just, I don't know. i don't know what's going on. I don't feel safe. I've had a voice that was loud, you know, and,
00:27:59
Speaker
about things. And i and like, I get it. mean, you're our, you know, writer's safety is our foremost concern, but I just, that's my real fear is that we are in a society where we're ah not allowed to like express, you know, our, our, our register, like our protest or or disagreement with this, with the government, with official, yeah you know, It all feels different.
00:28:24
Speaker
It all feels different. It all, As far as, yeah, I've always been, just on expression point, yeah, i ah represent counterpoints a lot.
00:28:36
Speaker
So, you know, get into the mix with, you know, with people in controversy and all. But in the same time, some time existing around that or loving artists who are involved with that resistance.
00:28:50
Speaker
Yeah. And seeing that something of the feel has changed, right? There's a gap of this. I can even recognize my head of a gap of like time of being like, well, what does this mean right now?
00:29:03
Speaker
Like, what's this word mean? right now and it's different it's different yeah ah from ah well and even in philosophy's tradition philosophers have always been not always but most of the time been the enemy you know or the state or the critique of the state or but ah here we are and we're chatting we're talking hard big question of the show is why is there something rather than nothing
00:29:36
Speaker
why is there something rather than nothing? yeah Yeah. I was thinking about this as I was, uh, as I was. sorry for this one No, it's okay. You know, I, cause it was even, even on like your, your, your blog that's under construction, you had that, that Latin like placeholder.
00:29:52
Speaker
Yeah. Like the Latin and words that people put in there. And I was like, you you even have something rather than nothing on your blog. And like, why, why is
Jen's Current Project and Inspirations
00:30:01
Speaker
that? Is it better to have something rather than nothing?
00:30:03
Speaker
I mean, but can we we can't really, have something without nothing though. You know, mean, we have to have both. I mean, they, there's, if we have something there's, it's implied that there's also ah state of nothing, but yeah, I mean, i don't know. I, it is always better to have something because you, it's something that you can, it's something you can call your own, and something that you, a sense of self, a sense of through your, your art or your writing. I think it's better to know who who you are, even if you don't know exactly who that that is all the time.
00:30:36
Speaker
Rather than just try and be like someone one else, I think. ah Just one little kernel of something that you can hold on to is better than just being blown along with the wind. There's something about you know and us doing something. home We say words, we put marks on the paper. These are signifiers for...
00:30:58
Speaker
interaction, right? We're chatting. My household is going through this. Your book you know is sharing. yeah Speaking of words and censorship,
00:31:08
Speaker
like like how did you did you like the band name, quinn Quinn's name or for her band? I did. Because I was thinking, like well, at right as the book was got to come out, I so i had like a mini like panic attack in the middle of the night. I'm like, how did that get through so many edits and so many people not saying,
00:31:26
Speaker
just kept on through. This band is a little this band you may consider you consider naming because it may be a little offensive to people who don't he didn't understand the whole riot roll movement. But i was just like it went through so many, like like my group, it went through editors, it went through my agent, it went through editors at houses, it went through editors at Turner and copy editors, and no one ever like said, you sure?
00:31:50
Speaker
You know, so, cause there's even a joke about shirts in the band. And actually a friend of mine who's reading the book, who's a guy who was like, I don't know if I could order one of those shirts or wear it public, but you know, it would be fun if a shirt like that existed.
00:32:06
Speaker
So, um but yeah, he was the only one who brought it up. Like out of every every reader, he's like, you know, yeah. How did like, how did that- How about this band? Right?
00:32:18
Speaker
but'll just say it We'll just say it rhymes with like another band, and a real band, the Slits, you know, yeah ah the days. I thought it was a band. I saw Click Girl. I was like, wasn't that a band? It's in the vernacular. Maybe I'll think I'm just like being historically accurate, but it's it was it was just a me um made up name. but Nah, you rock. This book is sort of my homage to like growing up and and like all those sort of DC hardcore and not hardcore bands, rag girl bands in Seattle and ahm just growing up with them in the mid-90s. That shit's important. slate canty I always like to put little Easter eggs for myself in books because if I wasn't a ah writer, I totally wanted to be in a band.
00:33:01
Speaker
and i and I've tried to teach myself guitar and different instruments over the years. and I'm no musician, but i just I love music and it's like the the second thing I like to do you know beyond beyond reading. I just ah had to have like ah had had to have a band and a book. I had to do it so no It's and great.
00:33:24
Speaker
is and so fresh and great and You know, the feels of it. you know, I love being in books. You know, there's feels of an area. There's feels of music movement. And and yeah it's it's a nice atmosphere.
00:33:42
Speaker
um Jen, what are you ah talking about? um Where to find your work? Where to find your books? What you're writing and thinking about nowadays?
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah. So you can find all this can be true. i mean, you can, I really you know encourage you to to visit your local bookstore. Um, they can, if they don't have it and on the shelf, they can order it. You can get it from the Turner website.
00:34:12
Speaker
There's a really great alternative to Amazon called bookshop that's online that, that, uh, is a really great place to get books. Um, right now I'm actually working on ah a book about a family who, um,
00:34:26
Speaker
there's like a family drama, a family goes to Coachella together for the weekend and all this stuff happens. So I always wondered like, what's a, what's a great place to have like and ah ah a family crisis, like where to put them? And I thought, well, why not live, you know, four day music festival in the desert, you know, maybe that would be a good place. So.
00:34:45
Speaker
Oh, I'm salivated already. It sounds right. That's what I'm working on now. but ah That's great. um So find your books, bookshop, ah everybody. um Browser's Bookstore was a couple blocks from me in Albany, Oregon. um Stock a bunch of the books you'll hear on something rather than a podcast.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, like like tell tell them you're going to interview me at the bookstore and and we can do something because yeah I need an excuse to come back up to Oregon and and see you guys in like non icy conditions.
00:35:20
Speaker
So we can plot because I want to talk about Oregon. um Just this is an aside when I'll A couple days ago to the Painted Hills of Oregon out in the eastern part.
00:35:36
Speaker
And oh, my God,
Challenges in Book Promotion and Future Plans
00:35:40
Speaker
I. haven't seen anything like that before, and it was just like a day and half in Looking at these hills and I'm fascinated by when I started painting a few few years ago, I got really into color.
00:35:57
Speaker
Like I was always like color. But by using color, I became fascinated. I just saw like visually I could see more color.
00:36:09
Speaker
And, you know, Painted Hills. And, you know, we always go in Painted Hills. Sure, they're pretty. The colors and how they melded and the greens. We're out in the desert, but the greens are like th fluorescent light green somehow, and there's dark red.
00:36:31
Speaker
It was gorgeous. And um so we'll get you we'll get you to browsers, bookstore, and all aboard. I'm gonna go to Painted Hills and I'm gonna see your your paintings of those hills. Oh my gosh, is so it's incredible. but But um great state, a lot of great art here, as you know, in Oregon.
00:36:52
Speaker
and in California. for not A lot great beer. I'm excited to come back to Great Notion. a month there and Is it Alberta, I think? Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And there's a lot of lot of creatives with ah beverages, arts and crafts. So it's, you know, I don't have to sell Portland. No, you don't.
00:37:11
Speaker
I just need an excuse to get there. All right. We'll get you up there and I'll work I'll work on a couple of bookstores up there. Let's see we can pull it together. yeah um Yeah, definitely.
00:37:24
Speaker
ah ah Really great chat with you. there's um There's a thrill I get. I'm an English major going way back, English and philosophy. My whole training or most of my training is by books and words.
00:37:39
Speaker
And I always find it a thrill. um because of how excited I get about art to chat with you and be like, even know a little nuance of what you were thinking behind your book.
00:37:54
Speaker
And it's um it's a thrill for me. So I just wanted to want to thank you, Jen, for coming on the show. I'm so flattered. It was great to talk to you Great conversation. Loved it. Yeah.
00:38:05
Speaker
um I'm waiting for that Coachella disaster book. Oh, yeah. I'm going to send it to you when it's done. ah Yeah. yeah You have to. you got me You got me hooked.
00:38:18
Speaker
um so And Jenny jeny loved the book as well, too. So I also like, tiny little point, I like when you have books around. i got billions of books around. Every single person walks in, whether they're young or older, friends of the kids.
Conclusion and Audience Engagement
00:38:32
Speaker
use these books they're not like a couple of precious to me but least rappa day like like read um so we're doing it with your book uh jen mcowski very great to chat with you and i look forward to all you writing thanks thanks so much for having me ken great conversation absolutely
00:39:03
Speaker
This is Something Rather Than Nothing.
00:39:13
Speaker
And listeners, to stay connected with us and our guests, visit somethingratherthannothing.com. Join our mailing list for exclusive updates and access to guest-created art.
00:39:24
Speaker
If you enjoyed this episode or any episode, please like, subscribe, and leave a review on your podcast platform. People really read that shit. Your support helps us reach more listeners and spread our community across the planet.
00:39:38
Speaker
This is a global show, and we like to give a shout out to our many listeners across the world, including many listeners in Canada, Spain, Germany, UK, Argentina, Brazil, India, Thailand, and so many more places.
00:39:54
Speaker
Be sure to follow us on Instagram at something rather than nothing podcast for behind the scenes content. And the best way to help the show is to tell your friends about us.
00:40:06
Speaker
If you love it, they'll love it too. Tell your friends who love it. We love you. This is Something Rather Than Nothing podcast.