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When People Leave: A Conversation on Grief, Family Secrets, and Finding Your Voice with Leslie A. Rasmussen
52 Plays9 days ago
Leslie A. Rasmussen was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from UCLA. She went on to write television comedies for Gerald McRaney, Burt Reynolds, Roseanne Barr, Norm McDonald, Drew Carey, as well as The Wild Thornberrys and Sweet Valley High. After leaving the business to raise her boys, Leslie obtained a master's degree in nutrition and ran her own business for ten years. More recently, Leslie has been published on Huffington Post over twenty times and speaks on panels discussing female empowerment. She’s a member of the Writers Guild of America, as well as Women in Film and the UCLA Alumni Association. After Happily Ever After is Leslie’s debut novel and has won over fifteen awards, and her second novel, The Stories We Cannot Tell, has won eleven awards. Leslie has been interviewed about it on NPR and XM radio. Leslie’s latest novel, When People Leave, was released in May 2025. When Leslie isn’t writing, she enjoys reading, exercising, and spending time with friends. Leslie lives in Southern California with her husband and two sons.Links:
https://www.lesliearasmussen.com
IG: https://www.instagram.com/leslierauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lesliearasmussenauthor
Show Themes:
- Grief in Life's Transitions: A heartfelt discussion about how grief isn't limited to death but is a natural part of major life changes, like children leaving for college or moving into new chapters of life.
- Art, Grief, and Humor: Leslie explores how writing can be a powerful tool to process grief and how humor is a vital and natural part of healing, often reflecting a loved one's personality.
- The Power of Perspective: Discover how art takes on a new life when shared, highlighted by a reader who saw one of Leslie's books not just as a story, but as a "love story of a woman falling in love with her life".
- Finding Meaning and Community: Leslie shares her belief that storytelling helps people feel less alone, starts important conversations, and reminds us that everyone is navigating their own struggles.
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or for a free discovery call griefgratittudepodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Unexpected Reader Interpretations
00:00:01
Speaker
And they'll interpret something a character does as something you might think as an author, okay, I intended that this. But they'll see something really subtle in there. And they'll say, oh, this was really interesting why this character did this. And you're like, wow, I didn't even see that.
00:00:16
Speaker
And then it hits you. um You know, like somebody said to me about my first book, and I didn't think about it. they said, this is a love story. And I said, but it's not.
00:00:26
Speaker
And they said, no, it is. It's a woman falling in love with her life.
Introduction to Kendra's Podcast
00:00:35
Speaker
Welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. I'm your host, Kendra Rinaldi. This is a space to explore the full spectrum of grief, from the kind that comes with death to the kind that shows up in life's many transitions. Through stories and conversations, we remind each other that we're not alone.
00:00:57
Speaker
Your journey matters, and here we're figuring it out together. Let's dive right in to today's episode.
Meet Leslie Rasmussen
00:01:13
Speaker
Hello and welcome to today's conversation. Today I am chatting with Leslie Rasmussen. She is a former TV comedy writer. She has written for many people. I'm not going to name drop here, but you can if you want.
00:01:28
Speaker
ah She then later changed gears and earned her master's in nutrition and ran her own business, for a decade. And now she is a novelist.
00:01:39
Speaker
ah She is an award-winning novelist. And now she has her latest book is called When People Leave, which is one of the ones we'll be talking about today. It's the one that I read and that has to do with grief. So welcome, Leslie.
00:01:56
Speaker
Thank you so much for having me, Kendra. I'm happy to be here. I am glad that you are here and chatting with me
Transitioning from Sitcoms to Novels
00:02:04
Speaker
about this. And I'm curious as to when you've gone on these book, when you, when you launch a book, you go on all these different interviews and things.
00:02:13
Speaker
What has been something that people have asked you consistently in every single interview? Is there something that like, it's a go-to question that people usually ask you? Just curious. They usually ask me about my sitcom background.
00:02:26
Speaker
That's usually probably the first thing most people ask me about. Because a lot of people are curious and want to know how it works and all that kind of things. And also like how I ended up going from that books to writing books. Yes. Which, which that's part of the but conversation, how I want to lead the conversation is this aspect of all these different hats and changing and transition and constantly kind of reinventing ourselves. And as mothers, we are, we sometimes take a break from even our careers to dedicate to motherhood. And then it's like, who am I now? Like, who am I now? Really? Like, maybe I was this 10 years ago. with Maybe I was this 20 years ago. Who am I now?
00:03:09
Speaker
So has part of your journey been that of kind of rediscovering in each stage of your life and take us into that journey and then we'll see where we go next.
Career Path Exploration
00:03:18
Speaker
Exactly. That's exactly what you just said. um I got out of college and I started writing sitcoms after being an assistant for different shows.
00:03:26
Speaker
And i loved it. I loved every bit of it. But then i started having kids and the hours were just too difficult to do. So I stopped, like you said, and and for a while I raised my kids. And then when my second son went to school, I thought, well, now what do I do?
00:03:46
Speaker
So was like, that's my first career. So I thought, well, what do I like? I couldn't get back into TV and I didn't want to do the hours. So I was really into nutrition and health. So I got a master's, like you said, and I ran my own business and saw clients.
00:04:00
Speaker
But during that time, i missed the writing. Writing has always been my passion. So I started writing essays for Huffington Post about my family, about my husband, about me, all kinds of stuff, some about nutrition.
00:04:13
Speaker
And I had all of those posted on Huffington Post. And little by little, started to think, really don't want to do this nutrition anymore. and want to go back to writing. And books sort of just came to me. I mean, it wasn't an easy process.
00:04:28
Speaker
I did a lot of classes and i had a coach and it took a while. But I started to realize I was creating this character who was, and this is my first book called After Happily Ever After, but she was 45 years old in the middle of her life.
00:04:42
Speaker
And her only daughter was going off to college and she had issues with her husband and she had, um she was in the sandwich generation. So she had older parents and it was about her sort of like trying to figure out who am I in the second chapter of my life.
00:04:57
Speaker
So it was also based, it wasn't, I'm not the character, but it was based on my life and a lot of my friends' lives. Because a lot of people, you know, when they become moms, they give up their career and that's not always easy to go back to.
00:05:11
Speaker
Well, that's the other one that you had suggested that I would read would be the after happily ever after, because that's exactly where I'm at at this particular moment in my life is one kid already just graduated from high high school. My other one's about to be a senior. So I'll have two kids going to
Women, Motherhood, and Career Challenges
00:05:28
Speaker
college. And i but I mean, I've been doing the podcast for the past five years, but again, it's something I can do from home and this, but it's this self kind of discovery of, okay, now what? And so I will definitely have to read that one.
00:05:41
Speaker
next as well, because I know a lot of us can relate to that. Men don't often take these breaks and hiatuses in their in their life and as parents. I'm saying often, and I'm using and the word often because a lot of times it is the male that ends up being the one that to stay at home at stay at home if that's what the couple decides to do.
00:06:01
Speaker
So it is a very ah common common feeling that we have as women at this particular stage. So that is, what what's the name of that character?
00:06:12
Speaker
What's her name? Maggie. Her name is Maggie Dole. Maggie. So...
Blending Humor with Serious Themes
00:06:18
Speaker
You then went from sitcom to this. was Is that one also, is the theme of that one also more of a serious theme or does it also have comedy? Because When People Leave does not have any comedy. Well, it has comedy and me lightness with the sisters. Yes, yes, yes. all have humor in them. Interactions, right. They have some kind of interactions, yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker
That story, After Happily Ever After, probably has the most humor in it. um And she makes all these decisions that, she shouldn't be making and her life's blowing up. And that's from first person. So you kind of hear what she's going through.
00:06:53
Speaker
um But yes, when people leave has humor in it between the sisters, but it's a little bit more serious.
Humor's Role in Grief Stories
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah. And humor is so important because humor does make a part, even when we're grieving for things like there are aspects in which the sisters are in a situation like, okay, I'll just say something like the, what was it? It was at the phone.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah. I would forget if there was one moment in which the phone rang or something. And it's like, and what did she say? It was something like, um oh my gosh, now I'm trying to think which part it was. And it was something like something about mom, did mom call? or But mom, you know, the characters are.
00:07:29
Speaker
So it's kind of this thing of like, and then they're like laughing. And what did she say? It was like, they're, they're adding that huge. Sister relationship where they give each other a lot of crap.
00:07:39
Speaker
And that's like, I have two sisters also. And I wanted to write a book about sisters, but I didn't want my sisters to be in the book at all because I didn't want to deal with that. So all of the sisters, including the one that would be me, is so different from all of us.
00:07:53
Speaker
But the part that's the same is some of those conversations are from my sisters and I. Some of those like, like ah the scene when they're having lunch and one of them says, i don't like avocado. No, I like avocado. I don't like beets. You like beets. Yes, you do.
00:08:06
Speaker
Those conversations I've had with my sisters. So there is stuff in there from my childhood and my relationship with them now. um But I just i just like, and that's my background. So I love writing dialogue and I like snarky dialogue. i So yeah.
Emotional Attachment to Characters
00:08:25
Speaker
And now how attached do you get to the book and the storyline that it actually is sad when you finish it? It's always sad when I finish it, just because the first book, especially because I was really attached to Maggie, just because i had gone through that and I had really lived it.
00:08:47
Speaker
um But every book, usually once I finish a book, I'm sort of taking a break and then I'm trying to think about the next book. So sometimes I get confused as to which characters I'm writing for or which characters I'm thinking about.
00:09:00
Speaker
But yeah, I always miss the characters. I miss just the way they interact. And there's this, there's a beauty about this. There are several shows that and I and know people can relate to this, that when they've ended, people grieve the ending of these TV shows. And the same when you're like done with reading a book, you not only grieve while you're reading and listening, but you really truly invest in these characters and you want to know, okay, now what are they doing? Like, I want to know what happens next. And I'm sure that that's why so many sequels are sometimes done when books are written, because people are do have this longing of wanting to know what comes next.
Grief in Fiction vs. Memoir
00:09:39
Speaker
So with this book, it it has the topic of grief in it. And as I was reading it, I could relate to lot. Can we say what car who dies in the book or not? Yeah, it's the mother, Carla. Is it Okay. Okay.
00:09:54
Speaker
So it's four main characters. Each chapter will be either about Carla, Morgan, Abby, or Charlie. And they it's in the the perspective of each of them, which I love too, because when even when one person dies, let's say in this case, a parent, how each person grieves when someone dies is so unique and how everybody expresses or deals with it based on their own personality or their own challenges is different. And you show that very well with each of the characters and their own struggles.
00:10:30
Speaker
And there's other grief within that too. There's one character that there's grief even in her stage of motherhood, what we were just saying now of kind of like, well, what else do I have aside from this role as mom? want something else. And that's something that Yeah, grieve. You grieve your life. You grieve what you had. You grieve when your kids grow up, you grieve their childhoods.
00:10:52
Speaker
There's so much grief in just life, even though you know we talk about loss a lot, but that is grief. And whatever stages you are in your life, you're looking back and going, oh, do I grieve my 20s? Do I grieve my 30s?
00:11:06
Speaker
So there's a lot of grief in all my books. I realized the other day, i was realizing, wow, they all have some sort of grief in every book. Yes. And that's the thing. It's like, it's only really more now that I'm hearing more of this conversation. I've, I've always seen it that way that really grief comes from life transitions, even joyful ones. When my first, when my first podcast was me saying, even with becoming a mom, I agree, I aggrieved in that stage of my life. Cause then it was kind of like, well, where is the other part of my
00:11:39
Speaker
Who am I now? Like can even where is Kendra? um so So I see that shift of people really realizing that grief is just part of our everyday and a lot of these different transitions. Now with the with the characters going through this and as someone's either reading, in this case it's there's not audiobook, but reading the reading the novel, what do you feel is the power of someone reading a novel like,
00:12:09
Speaker
that is about a topic and it's when it's not like autobiographical and it's ah but and it's a topic that they can relate to? Sometimes I think it's actually easier because like with a memoir, if somebody is talking about their life, that's that one person and you can imagine that one person.
00:12:26
Speaker
When you have a whole bunch of people going through something and it's fictionalized, you can relate to whichever one you relate to the most, but you can see every aspect of everybody's life and In this book, they go through the anger. They go through the grief.
00:12:42
Speaker
They go through laughing because my father passed away. It's coming up on nine years. And I think about him every single day. I was super close with him. And he when when he passed away, i went my mother lives up north and I'm in Los Angeles. So all my sisters and I went there on the day he passed away.
00:13:01
Speaker
And we spent time laughing about the crazy things. My father had this really sort of dry sense of humor and he would whisper things at like family dinners that only like certain people would hear and start laughing.
00:13:14
Speaker
And it was so special to be laughing. i mean, we would literally be crying and then two seconds later we'd be laughing, which is what I also wanted to put in the book because you can honor somebody by the funny memories that you remember.
Personal Grief Experiences
00:13:30
Speaker
And honestly, honor someone by being yourself even in within that grief. If you are a person that usually is and snarky or, you know, have make throws these kind of comments, like why would you not be that way while you're grieving? Like if that's who you are you're going to grieve with the personality that you are.
00:13:52
Speaker
And even more, if the person that died did have those type of qualities, like you're saying, why not honor them with that type of spunk? Um, we have some, my mom will, it will be nine years from my mom this year. wow. Yeah.
00:14:06
Speaker
So, so, okay. So we're, we are, you sharing now that part of then your life and within then your grief. So here we know now there's a part of you that's real, that's kind of plugged in the loss and how you were able to intertwine it there.
00:14:23
Speaker
So with that, you saw the distinct ways in which each of you sisters grieved the death of your dad. could you were Was that something that you could relate to as well?
00:14:35
Speaker
Yes. and that's And that came out of me just because we all, you know, when somebody dies, my dad, and this book, it's a suicide, but my dad did not die of suicide. He was 85 years old and had medical issues.
00:14:48
Speaker
and But there's still a weird sense of, you know, in this case, in the book's case, of course, they have anger because they don't know why their mother did it and they want to find out. But there's still this weird up and down of like, why did you leave me?
00:15:03
Speaker
And that's sort of a weird, it's not anger at the person, but it's anger at life. And it's anger at like, God, you know, i can't believe that you left me. And even though they're he was older, i was still sad and angry that, you know, he wasn't still in my life and I couldn't keep calling him and I spoke to him on the phone the night before he died.
00:15:24
Speaker
and I knew he was dying. He pneumonia and he was in a hospital. I knew he was going to die. But at least he he had all his mental capacity so I could talk to him. And basically, I couldn't say the words goodbye.
00:15:35
Speaker
i just couldn't. But you know at least I got to talk to him. And that was really, it was hard. But it's grief for me is such an up and down thing, even after nine years.
00:15:47
Speaker
you know i think about him all the time. Every once in a while, he He was the writer in the family. And so, and I didn't think I was going to be a writer. I never thought that. And he always wrote for all his jobs he wrote.
00:15:59
Speaker
And so I finished this book after he passed away. And I know he would have been so proud of me and would have loved to read it. and um And by first book, I mean, I'm sorry, I finished my first book.
00:16:13
Speaker
And I went back and Maggie has this great relationship with her father. And at the time I wrote the book, it was not... My relationship with my dad, but I did go back and it's the only relationship I ever wrote or the only character I ever wrote that was really kind of based on my dad.
00:16:29
Speaker
And even though this father in the book has different issues, I still wrote like the dialogue. A lot of that stuff is about me and my dad.
00:16:39
Speaker
I love that you are sharing that you basically, one of the ways you mourned was doing something that already came naturally to you, which was writing and how you incorporated then your grief within that book. What else did you do in your grief process like that helped your grieving and your mourning?
00:16:56
Speaker
Were there any other ways that you incorporated? You say your health and nutrition. So wondering if you, you know, how, how that impacted your life.
Writing as a Tribute
00:17:05
Speaker
Well, I did talk to him, you know, just like in my head, I would talk to him.
00:17:09
Speaker
I also, where I write, um where my computer is, I keep a little tiny urn with his ashes on it. Cause it just, but every time I look it, it's right next to where I type. And it just makes me feel better just to kind of feel like I know he's there somewhere.
00:17:25
Speaker
And he used to come to every, but both my parents, to every sitcom um script I ever wrote, everything that was produced, they would come and sit in the audience. So there's a part of me that feels like when I'm writing, he's sitting next to me and he's just right there.
00:17:41
Speaker
So it's just the talking that, and did you always have that type of a connection with that before his passing? Was this the most close, like relation wise of someone dying for you?
00:17:54
Speaker
Was your dad? Yes. I did lose my grandmother um before my father and I was close to her, but my father just, I always felt like he was the person that I went to and I had so much in common with and he always wanted to know about my writing and things like that. So yeah, he was the closest I was to.
00:18:13
Speaker
How do you feel that your beliefs about what happens after we die impact the way that you may grieve?
00:18:22
Speaker
I think I don't know enough about like ah um the spirituality of the whole thing. What do you believe? Whatever you feel. It's not even like of a reality. Your own reality for your own.
00:18:34
Speaker
He's influencing me. Like there's somebody he's there somewhere and his spirit or his energy is just influencing me. I mean, Honestly, I think I write snarkier now than I would have me before.
00:18:49
Speaker
There's just, it's just feels like he's in me at times. What's your dad's name? Howard. And I dedicated my first book to him. You might have to add his name to the co-writing. Exactly.
00:19:03
Speaker
and so yeah you Like co-writing with, like yeah, that was not my type of joke. That's dad's. Okay. This part is written by dad. Yeah, exactly.
00:19:14
Speaker
Sometimes I think that's true. Sometimes I write things and the next day I come and read them. I'm like, who wrote that? i remember writing that. Some fairy came in and rewrote it. Yeah, but a lot of times I feel like with creativity, it's like that. it's It's as if it's coming from a different place. So why not even think that if we do believe in this other kind of realm, why not feel that they are influencing a lot of times all these aspects of creation that we do?
00:19:42
Speaker
So i i I love that. And the fact that you have that constant reminder of his ashes there on your desk as you as you write and how that influences you. So, okay. Now back to the book. Okay. So when people leave, it touches on not only the topic of grief in different ways and the storylines of, sorry, of death, ah the the storyline of the main character, Carla, but also within her own life of things she went through.
00:20:10
Speaker
But there's also the aspect of the grief of finding out you do not even know who you are or, you know, discovering things and grieving that maybe you didn't know a person as well as you thought you did. So there's a lot of, it's like a mystery. It's a mystery. There's a little bit of a mystery. Yeah, there is. They do so have to solve why she would do it.
00:20:38
Speaker
Why she would do it. right They think she's just doing great. I mean, as far as they're concerned, she's happy. Yeah, that they had never seen any signs so ah but for her to ah you know take her life. But then within that, then they're discovering things then about their own lives as they discover their own mom's life. So with that, how did you thread?
00:21:00
Speaker
Because you're you're writing in the different forms of characters and to kind of keep track of like, oh my gosh, okay, who was already shared who's already shared this part of the story? How do you do that?
00:21:11
Speaker
Like,
00:21:15
Speaker
It's like multiple personalities because you're writing in four different voices. How do you do that? For me, um it's interesting. As soon as I pick a name for a character, the character exists.
00:21:27
Speaker
I don't know how to explain it, but then I can see who they are. And I had an outline, of course. But something about each name told me who each character was. And even Carla, because you go through and as you know, you see the background of, and you find out you know why she did what she did and how that affected the sisters' lives and how the sisters realized once they figure it out, how they made decisions.
00:21:54
Speaker
Like they were little kids and they their lives were determined somewhat by the secret that their mother kept. And they didn't realize that. But I just sort of like ah started with the name and then I just created whoever this was. And I i do backstory. Like I start to think like, okay, this character is a therapist. So what can be things that would be against being a therapist and be different for that?
00:22:19
Speaker
And then one of the characters is a sober alcoholic. So how would that, this secret, how would that affect her? And so, and then the other character kind of followed in her mother's footsteps by getting married to the first person that she ever dated and having four kids very young.
00:22:37
Speaker
And so she follows her mother. So each person sort of, once I knew the secret and figured out all of that, I kind of went back and said, okay, how would this secret, if even if they didn't, if they knew it, but if they didn't know it, how could that affect their lives? Yeah.
00:22:58
Speaker
Hi, I just had to come on and just kind of interrupt right now this episode that you're hearing. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you guys are listening to this conversation. And every single time i hear a guest, there's something new that I learn and something else that ends up showing up within me that I realize I still have to work on.
00:23:18
Speaker
And if by chance, as you're listening to this conversation, you're feeling the same, that there's parts of you that are being stirred up and you are navigating a life transition right now that feels just heavy and stressful and just layered with grief.
00:23:32
Speaker
I want you to know that you do not have to do it alone. I invite you to connect with me for a free 15 minute discovery call and we'll explore what's coming up for you and see if working together feels like the right fit. Just check the show notes below for my email and reach out for details. I'd really love to support you in integrating these transitions with more ease and clarity.
00:24:00
Speaker
Can't wait to hear back from you. Okay, let's keep on listening to the episode.
00:24:09
Speaker
What you just said right now, that is like once I found out the secret, as you're saying that, it's as if the secret unfolded to you as
Developing Plot and Characters
00:24:17
Speaker
you were writing? Is that the is that what happened? As I was doing the outline.
00:24:21
Speaker
Because I had like a couple of different secrets and I thought, well, which one would work? And then I started to... do sort of go, okay, this secret, how would this affect it? This secret, how would this affect it? And so it took me a little bit of time to kind of go, okay, that's the secret.
00:24:36
Speaker
And then you go back and then psychologically you figure out how would that have affected me? And then you put it into those characters. That's incredible. Yeah, because I've never written a novel, so I wouldn't know even like how it is that you do this. So it's the outline and then you kind of pick of the scenarios. Do you have to then also do investigative work of like finding out ways or do you really more go more by the set by the feeling of like, let's say if it doesn't relate to you, let's say something of the personality, would do you just go more by, OK, I think this is how they would do or do you have to do research on how people that are
00:25:14
Speaker
therapists would? Well, I do a little bit of research in the sense that like, I have a friend who's a sober alcoholic. So she, and and before I even wrote this book, she and I talk all the time. So I kind of knew how certain things worked.
00:25:26
Speaker
And then I asked her, okay, here's what I'm doing. So that's perfect. um I did research for, um my mom was a therapist. I have been in therapy. I kind of know a lot of, but I know a lot of therapists.
00:25:38
Speaker
So that worked out. um Abby's story, just getting married young. I got married at 26. I didn't, it's not the same because I dated a lot of people, but it's, I could kind of get into that character. I'm a mom.
00:25:49
Speaker
So I kind of got that one. So that stuff sort of just came to me, but the suicide, we long before you even wrote this book, we knew ah bunch of comedy writers that
Incorporating Real Tragedies
00:26:02
Speaker
all in the same year took their own lives.
00:26:04
Speaker
And i knew that that some of them were depressed, but when they took their life, everybody thought they were great. Like everybody knew that they had depression, but when it actually happened, they were like working on their own show and they were running it. And they seemed like they were laughing in the room the night before they killed themselves.
00:26:21
Speaker
And then, so it didn't really occur to me to write this, but then one day i was listening to the news and there was a report on a bunch of kids that went off to college and in their first year, they're telling their parents how great things are, they love college, and then they killed themselves.
00:26:40
Speaker
And their parents had to go and try to talk to all their friends and figure out why would you do that? Like, what happened that you didn't tell us? So that was sort of the tiny kernel of the story, but I didn't want to do somebody in college. So I thought, well, what would happen if a mother did that?
00:26:58
Speaker
And she had this secret that her kids didn't know. And so they have to, the three of them have to leave their lives. They move into her house and they come up with these clues that lead them in different places to try to figure out what happened. And she's a single mother. And so they don't have like their father to go to and say, hey what happened?
00:27:18
Speaker
So that's kind of how that really developed. wow, there's so many layers, so many layers of how something, you know, shows up, like you're saying, you you saw this, and then this can happen, and then this, and so to get to what it but it is, and we don't we don't see that, we just see result, we see the book, so wow, thank you for that, because there is something very um cathartic about being able to read, like we were just saying before, something that's not a memoir, but
00:27:51
Speaker
even within myself, like even because it's grieving the death of a mom, as I'm reading it and relating how... how they could go through. I have two other living ah siblings. And so how the three of us, you know, each of us went through our own grief. And so relating to that, and when someone is reading or watching a show and you really do kind of get transported into that space. So thank you for that.
00:28:20
Speaker
um get ah It is ah very, i actually had some people contact me that I did not know just readers that one of them said,
Solace in Shared Experiences
00:28:30
Speaker
I have two siblings and my mother killed herself. It was a few years before, but they said that the book helps them, which I didn't know because i don't have a trigger warning, but the book tells you what is going to happen. So if somebody doesn't want to read it, they can say, oh gosh, this would affect me.
00:28:45
Speaker
But there were a number of people that did read it that said that it really helped them to see these sisters go through that, which makes me happy because that's why I write. I really write to affect people.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah, which is the the reason I have the podcast myself is just sharing stories so that when people listen, they feel, really oh, I can relate to that. And they don't feel as a law alone when they're going through something.
00:29:08
Speaker
So when you do read and you get transported into the lives of these characters and you see parts of yourself or your story in it, it can also be... soothing. Cause if some, if that could come from the imagination of someone, you know, it's like, Oh wait, that's not, that is also reality. Cause it's happening to me. So you, you, even with that, even with that, you feel connected.
00:29:30
Speaker
So yeah. Every book I write, I write from somewhere. i mean, somewhere that's affected me or somewhere that I have been affected by. Those are the kind of books I like to write.
00:29:42
Speaker
um A lot of my books are they're sort of women's issues at different times of their lives. Like we talked about before about women grieving different parts of their lives. So all my books have something like that in it.
00:29:55
Speaker
So what's the sex? So one is the after, after we yeah happily ever after the second one is the stories we cannot tell. and stra one That one. Yeah. What is that one about? That one is about two women.
00:30:09
Speaker
One's married and Jewish. One is Catholic and single. They don't know each other, but they end up meeting in a support group when they they find out they're pregnant.
00:30:20
Speaker
And right before their second trimester, they're both told that something is very wrong with their babies. And so it's they bond and they go through what happens in their relationships.
00:30:31
Speaker
with One's married, one there's a love story going on. um But it's exactly what these two women feel as they go through making the toughest decision of their life.
00:30:44
Speaker
on whether to keep the pregnancy or end the pregnancy. And there is actually some humor in that one too, because it's not like, it's not a downer, even though the subject matter is, um you know, when they get to that.
00:30:56
Speaker
But you see a lot of stuff going on with the married and her husband who they have a very good marriage, but it affects relationships. And um it's about infertility. It's about miscarriage.
00:31:09
Speaker
It's about a lot of different things in the book. So that's why I said that all my books have grief in them in some way. Yes. So definitely all three. I'm going to make sure that we write all three names. when i I think all three names are in your bio. So in the in the show notes, all three names will be there. And when you go to the links that you have, all of them are there.
00:31:28
Speaker
Because there are so many of the guests I've had that, pregnant you know, had finding out about issues during their pregnancy, delivering a child while they knew that the child was not even going to live there.
00:31:43
Speaker
making those choices, you know, things like that. So someone listening to And that's similar to the book. And yeah I wrote that book before Roe versus Wade was overturned and I'm in California. So, you know, um the publisher made me put in just one line. It's not political. The whole book is about compassion and about whether or not you agree, whether or not you're on the same side of the situation, just understanding that somebody else is going through something awful And these are babies they both want very much.
00:32:13
Speaker
So it's just about having compassion for somebody going through something and not judging them because they have to make a decision that you know, people don't want to make. It's not like you go in and go, yeah, ah this is fun. You know, we were moms.
00:32:27
Speaker
We want to have kids. So it's a big, big thing. Yeah, what you just said about don't judge me, but like it is so true. Everybody is going through something all the time. Like even and back to the current book, the fact that even the own daughters didn't know that their mother was going through something.
00:32:51
Speaker
something, you know, and, um and so we cannot judge how people live their lives. We cannot judge how, what people choose to do with us. Cause really, truly, we do not know the whole story. You never know what somebody is going through. And especially with pregnancy, because You know, if you're having trouble getting pregnant or you're going through something and all your friends are getting pregnant and you don't want to talk about it And that's why the the name of the book came to me before actually I wrote the book.
Power of Personal Stories
00:33:22
Speaker
Because it it is the stories we cannot tell. You don't talk about some of the stuff that happens to you and you don't tell other people. So anybody who's in your life when it happens knows.
00:33:33
Speaker
But you meet people along the way and they don't know what happened to you. And all of a sudden, um people start opening up. It's crazy how many people opened up to me. And I did book clubs on that book and the people were all talking about stuff that happened to them and their friends didn't know.
00:33:49
Speaker
They were like, oh, you didn't tell me that. And they're good friends in the book club. So it's, it's, I just wanted to start a conversation. Hmm. Well, thank you. Those are all important themes. And the more people that you know talk about this, these different issues, the more deeper conversations we can have and less alone that we feel.
00:34:08
Speaker
So that even even people like, let's say, the character of Carla in your book, if Carla would have had someone that she could have felt she could relate to even, maybe would have not.
00:34:21
Speaker
made the choice. We don't know. She could tell her secret to somebody. She had nobody to tell her secret to. Right. but So she kept everything to herself. Yeah, we don't know like what how it could affect or not, you know the decisions and lives of someone else.
00:34:36
Speaker
So I always like to ask this before I start closing off ah the podcast, is is there some something you want to share with the audience, a question that you might have thought I would have asked you that you want to make sure that they are left with?
00:34:53
Speaker
I think it's more about the human experience and just Everybody, like you said before, everybody's going through something and just like understand that we're all human and we're all going through something. And it's very easy. The one thing I told myself I would stop doing is comparing myself. I mean, we all have social media and we all see things on social media and it's always the best stuff. You're not going to put up, this is what I'm going through today.
00:35:20
Speaker
So I write my books to do that. I write my books so people know that people go through things. And You know, like the second book is really more women's fiction. I don't think many men would read it. But my first book, a lot of men read it about relationships. And they said it helped them understand their wives and what their wives were going through.
00:35:39
Speaker
And the third book, a lot of men are reading it. um Because that book, you really, anybody could read that book. But I think that as, especially as women, I think we need to talk.
00:35:50
Speaker
I think we need to talk about our grief and like, whatever our grief is, like if it's, you know, your child's going off to college. I cried like a baby when I sent my kids to college. I mean, I, they didn't know i would leave them in college and I would get in the car and just, I would be with my husband and we would just be crying because it's such, even though we're happy for them, it's a grief for us, you know, our grieving, like our kids aren't going to be in our home anymore or,
00:36:16
Speaker
you know They're not little kids. I look at pictures. I grieve them when they're little. So there's so much different types of grief out there. But as a community, I think it's easy to look at other people's lives and say, oh, their life is perfect. They're and you know traveling or they're doing this or that the other. Their kids are doing this.
00:36:37
Speaker
you don't really know all the struggles that they're going through. And sometimes there's major struggles with kids or their kids are anxious and they're, you know, dealing with that. And that's as a parent, we know that's a big grief for us is I were sad when our kids are not happy and it's really hard. And I don't think that ever goes away. I mean, my kids are 26 and 28 and I don't think it will ever go away if they call me and they tell me something happens and I'm sad, you know? so It's just being a community to people, really. That's what I really want to express. And that's what my books, I want my books to express to people.
00:37:13
Speaker
And they do. They do. They open up the feeling of, again, not feeling alone and knowing there's somebody else at least out there that thought that to write that. So if that can be of any consolation to anybody that's holding a book in their hands that feels seen, that is so important. yet Your emotions are valid. What you're going through is valid.
00:37:34
Speaker
and, um, and seek and and start having conversations and you'll realize that others are going through that. And even just saying to someone, Hey, I just read this book and someone saying, Oh, me too.
00:37:46
Speaker
I guess that's the importance of even book clubs, like you said, because even within a book club, then the topics can come up and it's like, I went through that. It's not just about talking about the characters is about how the characters relate to your life and some of the experiences. I'm in a book club and we do that all the time. We'll talk about the book, but we'll also talk about how that book affected us and which character we might go like, oh, that that happened to me or whatever. And you learn things about people and it's just, it's a community thing.
00:38:15
Speaker
I love that. Thank you. Yeah. And I honestly had never even seen, I've never been like in a full on like book club that way, like of a novel. I've only done like in more like in the self-help kind of books, never in the novel. And so I'm like, I don't even know what it looks like to be in. Now I know because you just shared and I can see how, I mean, I talk to like it's say, hey, my gosh, I read this book. You have to read it. And then I talk to somebody else, but it's not like we're fully like, this is the book we're going to read next.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. But I talk about it all the time. I go to book clubs virtually. I go to book clubs in person. I'm going up. My mother has this book club of, they're all, my mother's 88 and they, she has all these friends and they do a book club and I always go, they read my books and it's fascinating and they're wonderful people. So I always go to that personally. I go to ones in LA personally, but otherwise I do them virtually.
00:39:06
Speaker
And it's so much fun when all these people read your book. Yeah. How is that? How does that feel like to be in a group of people that have read your book? And does everybody, is everybody that there, that is there know that you are the author?
00:39:21
Speaker
Yes, they all know that the way book clubs usually work, if ones I go to are a little different, but usually they get together for like 15, 20 minutes and they talk about the book before I even get there.
00:39:31
Speaker
Because then it gives them a chance. Like what if they don't like it or somebody has it something or whatever? um But it's just, it's so much fun to go to a book club or even do it virtually because everybody is telling you things about your book you didn't even realize.
00:39:46
Speaker
Like there's things that people interpret in a book that the author doesn't always know they even put in, if that makes any sense. It's just the way they interpreted something.
00:39:57
Speaker
But it's also like what you just said, because a lot of times you see it and you're like, wait, when did I write that? Because if it's inspiration, sometimes you don't even know what's gone to the page. Exactly. And they'll interpret something a character does as something you might think as an author, okay, i intended that this, but they'll see something really subtle in there.
00:40:15
Speaker
And they'll say, oh, this was really interesting why this character did this. And you're like, wow, I didn't even see that. And then it hits you. um You know, like somebody said to me, about my first book.
00:40:28
Speaker
And I didn't think about it. they said, this is a love story. And I said, but it's not. And they said, no, it is. It's a woman falling in love with her life. And I thought, wow, that's really, i didn't think of it that way.
00:40:40
Speaker
Cause I, you know, I don't think of it as a love story, even though there's love in it all over the place for her family and her parents and everything. But I didn't think of it that way. And they said, no, she's falling in love with her life.
00:40:52
Speaker
It's like a piece of art, right? When somebody is looking at a piece of art hanging on a wall, even like you don't, we don't know exactly what Van Gogh or Picasso or whoever was it. Yeah.
00:41:03
Speaker
But then as you it's really you as the viewer, what are you gathering from that and your feelings? And that is just as valid as whatever it was that was the intention of it. And you bring in your own life into something. Like you'll see something in a character that...
00:41:19
Speaker
that has to do with you. So you'll relate to that in a way that's not necessarily what the author intended, but if it relates to you in that way, that's fantastic. And I love hearing that. That's my favorite thing to hear is when somebody says, oh, this character did such and such for this reason. I'm like, no, but that's a good point.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah. I could relate to Abby and yours. And so that was my, that was my relating. She was like the one like, yep, that's a lot of it. A lot. I could relate to a lot of things of her emotions ah with, with her.
00:41:49
Speaker
So thank you again for sharing about all three of your books and also bringing these insights about really how much art can really connect us to our own emotions.
00:42:01
Speaker
And now we want to make sure that the listeners know where they can find you and connect with you and buy the books. So if you can share that with us, please. Sure. I have a website.
00:42:11
Speaker
It's lesliearasmussen.com. And um I sell my books on there. If anybody wants a signed copy, I sell them on there. But otherwise, they can get the books anywhere books are sold.
00:42:23
Speaker
um If they want to go to their independent bookstore, they can order it. If they don't have it, Barnes & Noble, you know Amazon, all the rest of them. um i You can follow me on Instagram at Leslie R. Author.
00:42:35
Speaker
And I'm on Facebook at Leslie A. Rasmussen Author. So i' know I'm everywhere. And make sure to all those links below in the show notes. So make sure to take a look at that. Thank you so much, Leslie. Thank you again thank you for the gift of the books. Yes. Thank you again. And we look forward to maybe one time talking then about maybe one of the other books. Sounds good. But yeah, thank you so much.
00:43:00
Speaker
Thank you.
00:43:06
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief.
00:43:19
Speaker
If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone,
00:43:31
Speaker
who may need to hear this, please do so. Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me.
00:43:47
Speaker
And thanks once again for tuning in to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray In Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.