Episode 24: Y’all Means All
June 27th, 2019
Hosted by Brian Birnbaum
Guest: Steve McCondichie
Produced by Katie Rainey
Welcome to the twenty-fourth episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. Today we've got the one and only Steve McCondichie of Southern Fried Karma Press on the podcast. Steve is a writer & entrepreneur & subversive southerner & a rebel since kindergarten from the outskirts of Hotlanta. As a publisher, Steve's mission is to tell a million stories of "Y'all Means All" and SFK Press is this sister press of our dreams. Join in to hear us talk about this and to hear Steve read from his latest novel: The Parlor Girl’s Guide out from SFK Press.
>> Brian: Welcome to the 24th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast brought to you by Animal Riot Press, a literary press for books that matter. I'm your host, Brian Birnbaum. We're here today with Steve McCondichie.
>> Steve: Nailed it. Beautiful.
>> Brian: Nailed it. Co-founder of Southern Fried Karma Press, along with his wife and two kids. Adult children, I assume?
>> Steve: Yes. Adultish? Very adult.
>> Brian: Adultish. How old are they?
>> Steve: Alison is 25 and Davis is 22.
>> Brian: Okay. Yeah, they're both adults. I guess in 2019, they're adultish.
>> Steve: That's true.
>> Brian: Um, okay. Yeah. So that's Steve. Welcome, Steve.
>> Steve: Thank you.
>> Brian: We love Steve. We're partnering with Steve in a lot of ways and we'll get into that, um and and we have our lovely producers, Katie Rainey, plural. Cofounder of our little enterprise here at Animal Riot Press LLC HQ. This episode's brand of fuckery is brought to you by my continuing detox. I've currently got half my stack of supplements waiting on the kitchen floor with the other half waiting in some grange on 146th Street after USPS failed to deliver them into my domicile and I spent 45 minutes on hold with the USPS. Thank you, Uncle Sam. Federal government. Fuck you guys. I love you. God bless America. Um, yeah, Steve is saluting. I will salute to the troops. I love it. That's not sarcastic. Um, yeah. So we're talking about tyrosine. We're talking gabba. We're talking multi vitamins, minerals, amino acids were talking healthy, wholesome motherfucking 2019. Let's start.
>> Katie: If you're gonna talk about all the ridiculous amounts of supplements that are in our house, I think you need to talk about your adverse reaction to vitamin C.
>> Brian: A little fucking prologue to our episode that we shan't come back to. Uh, yeah, So I took vitamin C and nice in to start off my little detox. And I'm not sure what happened, whether I had, like, a liver toxicity issue or like serotonin syndrome or some shit like these prevailing theories And like everyone I talk to you was like, Oh, you probably had a niacin flush. I was like, Really? I had diarrhea for fucking four days and sweating and fever. So like, No, that's on a nice and flush assholes. So you have something fucked up happen and I'm going to get blood work done, but who cares? It's all in the past.
>> Katie: So with all of the experiments that Brian has been doing with, like, weird nootropics from China, it was the vitamin C that did it.
>> Brian: Not the vitamin C. The niacin.
>> Katie: It's funnier to say vitamin C. Just let me have this. Vitamin C took him down.
>> Brian: Can we send the graduation song now? (Katie humming) I don't remember either.
>> Brian: All right, so yeah, this is it.
>> Katie: So this is our podcast, Steve. This is how we do it.
>> Steve: Yeah, I love nootropics.
>> Brian: Which ones? I'm curious.
>> Steve: So I was using qualia or something like that.
>> Brian: I've never heard of that.
>> Steve: It's got, like, bark tree liver in it. And, uh...
>> Brian: Trees have liver?
>> Steve: It was Anyway, if you take vitamins, I would recommend taking nootropics for your brain. If you don't take vitamins, I wouldn't recommend it.
>> Brian: Interesting. Okay.
>> Katie: Why?
>> Steve: Well, there's the science coming down on whether they work or not. It tends more to have a stronger placebo effect than actual results. So if you believe... if you take vitamins and you're like down with it, go for it.
>> Brian: See, that's the thing.
>> Steve: If you if you if you're like you, take it and you're not sure whether it's gonna work or not? Save your 47.99 per month for books or something. Buy some fucking books.
>> Brian: I agree. They're more worth it. But Steve, here's the thing. If you're taking the real nootropics, that's the case. But if you're taken drugs that are masquerading as nootropics than they fucking work. Which is more of my bag. We have to pause...
>> Katie: Just pull the way.
>> Brian: Okay, yes. So let's start. Let's talk about your trajectory to starting SFK. And, like, you know, your book and everything. Yeah, let's do that.
>> Steve: Yeah.
>> Katie: My fellow Southerner.
>> Brian: The second American capital for Jews.
>> Steve: Atlanta is?
>> Brian: Yeah, I think so. New York is definitely the capital of the world, but like, Atlanta's got a shit ton of Jews. Yeah, so shout out to my tribe down there.
>> Steve: We published American Judas just last October, and it's a dystopian speculative fiction about America becoming a fundamental Christian theocracy. It's an interesting story itself, but, um, Mickey Dubrow, the author grew up Jewish in Chattanooga. Which is Tennessee. Which is not the second largest, definitely capital of anywhere. And it's a whole different...
>> Brian: That's the last bastion of the Confederacy (laughs)
>> Steve: Yeah, lookout mountain. But we had a whole lot of conversations over the process of making his book. What it was like to grow up in the South where, you know, but we go and I'd go into the gym, you know, for the school assembly, right? Do they still have those? Anyway. The guy would sneak in a, you know, faith in action or some sort of Christian message. And he's like that not allowed.
>> Katie: I mean, I went to Catholic school, so that shit wasn't sneaking in any way. It was blatant.
>> Steve: Yeah. And I went to Episcopalian School, but there's a little gap when I couldn't do either one. So I went to public school.
>> Brian: I think I think, uh, the city boy Jew is missing the taboo here. What's the problem here?
>> Katie: In a public school, they were talking about preaching.
>> Steve: Yeah, straight up evangelizing.
>> Brian: Got it. I didn't know if it was just like a subliminal Christian message.
>> Steve: No, nothing subliminal about it. It's a little bit out of whack in the head, right? You know his grandfather was actually like one of the first Jews in Chattanooga, there's a whole get came over from Russia or Ukraine. But the neat thing about that, you know, hearing that story's Mickey shared at the bookstore one time.
>> Brian: Uh oh
>> Steve: No, it was great.
>> Brian: Oh, I didn't know if that was in Chattanooga.
>> Steve: That was in the middle of Florida... Story, Song, Neighborhood, Book and Bistro. Hey Mark and Donna. (laughter) But it was so getting back to the trajectory of Southern Fried Karma And so we described herself as a mission with a business right on that mission, to put succinctly, is to tell 1,000,000 tales of y'all means all so stories like Mickey need to find an audience. And so that's where that's where we started. And it really came from Summer of 2015, I was up here, and I was trying to land an agent because everybody has to have a New York City agent.
>> Brian: Yeah.
>> Katie: New York City. I like the way you say that.
>> Steve: I am trying not to overdo that one, but I didn't make it. Anyway, and I've started seeing the different possibilities to publishing the just the way the publishing the path to publishing, and finding that broader audience has really changed. At the same time that happened, Dylan Roof goes into the church in North Charleston, South Carolina, murders nine innocent people on a Wednesday night prayer service. And those two ideas, the business of publishing and the mission galvanized and at that moment, I said, I just still feel it in my body... Dylan Roof's face is everywhere on CNN or whatever. And I said, Fuck that he's not gonna become the face of the South. I'm not going to allow it to happen. And that kind of moment kind of crystallized our vision, and we started Southern Fried Karma LLC shortly after that and like it was December 2015 and we did a one book our first year.
>> Brian: Hey, we got the same trajectory. (laughter)
>> Steve: Yeah. We did so that next year would have been after 2016... That book came out 2017. In 2018 we did eight books. 2019 we are doing 10 and we're setting the schedule now for 2020. And how do you know what form of publishing really looks like now as a, you know, small press, independent press. Personally, I prefer the term fiercely independent press or publisher.
>> Brian: That's what we call scaling to our aspiring MBAs.
>> Steve: Yeah, I've spent a lot of time in the past year, figured out what you can scale in the publishing business and how you do... There's a model between what we'll call the small press, who does a very select number of really curated, beautifully artistic literary work. Right? And that is either poetry, short stories, collections or nonfiction or fiction versus what is this independent publisher Who's you know, who's like I'm like a Gray Wolf or a Melville house. Algonquin.
>> Brian: Coffee House
>> Steve: Yeah. Source Books is one model. She started in a garage in 1987. She grew it to where she was doing 400 books a year.
>> Brian: I can't believe these people did stuff before the Internet.
>> Steve: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah And so Sourcebooks just sold out 45% of their business to Penguin Random House.
>> Brian: Wow. So, 45 or some of their business? What does that mean? They're still running it?
>> Steve: There's still running. Yeah, but she's that fiercely independent. You know, she wasn't going to sell out completely.
>> Brian: Yeah, wow. We're on an episode of Shark Tank right now. (laughter)
>> Katie: Well soon people are gonna get to hear about the joint Animal Riot and Southern Fried Karma Business School. (laughter)
>> Steve: Literary author entrepreneurship business school.
>> Brian: I'll fucking do it. I went to Maryland. Uh, I got into their business program and I smoked too much weed to learn anything, so I dropped out and switched to psychology.
>> Steve: I'm fucking shocked (laughter)
>> Brian: I know you are, um, but yeah, but no, but yeah, that's an amazing origin story, like, you know, especially cause I mean, I don't know if it's your press or the sheer anonymity of shootings due to the sheer volume of them, but, you know, every little bit helps, you know, I'm sure it's the former, but no, no. In all seriousness, though. I mean, like, that's it does happen in a moment. There has to be a moment where it's like it feels like there was nothing there. And then all of a sudden, you've made this decision and it's like your whole life has changed in your mind. In a matter of moments.
>> Steve: Yeah, you made a commitment.
>> Brian: So what was your next step? You said that the shooting happened.
>> Steve: I needed a guinea pig. And I'm always the company guinea pig.
>> Brian: We really did just rip your model without knowing it.
>> Steve: Yeah, because it's just it's just really kind of somewhat common sense, like, yeah, that should do it this way.
>> Brian: Because you don't want to fuck other people over.
>> Steve: Yeah, um, so I took my I just completed my, um, Masters from Queen's University in Charlotte. So I took my master's thesis, renamed it...
>> Brian: MFA?
>> Steve: MFA in creative writing. And took my master's thesis, had it edited one more time.
>> Brian: What did you hire a professional editor?
>> Steve: Yeah, I found it interesting enough... I was reading Taylor Brown's book called Fallen Land. And then he threw a shout out to an editor and in Wilmington, North Carolina. So I tracked the dude down. He gave me one final edit because when you spend two years shopping a book, it's pretty... It was close to being ready. One more little round of editing started, like, plug it and end the learning the hard core production process and how to get a book out. Um, and so began that. And then... yeah and then we got a great friend George Weinstein got his rights back from his publisher, um, and we will not name his publisher. Their deeds will speak for themselves.
>> Brian: I was about to call it a turncoat. A Benedict.
>> Steve: Well, uh, royalties owed should be royalties paid. But like I said, we will all be judged by our deeds.
>> Brian: Yep. No taxation without representation.
>> Steve: So George had written... George is president of the Atlanta Writers Club. He runs the Atlanta Writers Conference twice a year. He helped a lot of writers find, um, agents, forget fund a broader audience. Um, he really wrote four beautiful books, brought him to us. We republished those books for, uh Then we ran a novel contest. Found three other books from that novel contest. Also found in Matthew Duffus's book. Um, and just began the process of putting the staff together and, you know, coming up with the editorial process of taking somebody's manuscript and getting ready for publication.
>> Brian: Figured it out. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that makes a lot of this possible, for better or worse, is money. And, you know, we got our cofounder, Jon Kay. We're fortunate enough that he's totally behind us. He was the one who came up with this idea. He's the reason we're here. Um, and Katie is the reason we're still here. (laughter)
>> Steve: I can believe that.
>> Brian: But anyway, uh, yes. So, I mean, obviously you've had a career before this one.
>> Steve: Yeah.
>> Brian: So what happened and what allowed you to accumulate the necessary funds?
>> Steve: So I spent 25 years in the heavy equipment business selling bulldozers. I mean, I did bulldozers every way there was to do bulldozers. I sold pieces of them. Parts of them. I sold them new. I worked for the manufacturer.
>> Brian: So you're telling me that you also leaned on some construction sites for spare parts and really just mobbed yourself up? (laughter) You're talking spare parts.
>> Steve: I was in the used tractor... used tractor parts business man, It's like a used junk yard. Yeah, I did that. I was you know, it took me 24 25 26 countries doing that. I work for the second largest manufacturer of heavy equipment in the world. I sold a lot of PC 200 hydraulic excavators.
>> Brian: I'll act like I know what the fuck you just said.
>> Steve: People around me call them scoops. But anyway, so I had to tell my father that I was good at it. It was a partner in a heavy equipment business. Tractor equipment based out of Birmingham some great friends. They're still there. Exited that business in 2012. Father type A worked since he was nine years old selling newspapers on the corner.
>> Brian: This is Warren Buffet type?
>> Steve: Yeah. He's this self made guy.
>> Brian: Warren Buffett started, I think with newspapers. I think a lot of people did back when people read the newspaper.
>> Steve: And that's one of one investment Warren Buffett will not make any more.
>> Brian: He's a smart guy. And I'm sitting here with the newspaper behind me.
>> Steve: But I left them in 2012. Um, and my father, the Type A, had dementia, and so I had to go. As much as I was reluctant to go back for family business, I went back to help him.
>> Brian: And what was what did he do?
>> Steve: He was in a real estate business. So, um, usually and he had been and he'd been in the heavy equipment business for a long time, But you can't have dementia and run heavy equipment.
>> Brian: And also real estate, I feel like it is the retirement job of the successful.
>> Steve: Yeah. So the heavy equipment just in real state ran in kind of parallel. We would put branches, like, in certain other states and cities, And he would buy real estate. And he had a knack for it. So I went and helped him, um, and got him his own real estate investments. So I'm, uh That's what I call myself a real estate novelist, not to rip off Billy Joe. It's kind of ok.
>> Brian: Yeah, he's a musician.
>> Steve: Yeah. And it's just being my father's son, who we're just dealmakers. My grandmother, who was from a small town in Alabama, actually went to school in Columbia here in New York, which was in the early twenties. It was not a normal thing.
>> Brian: Maybe she knew Gangie.
>> Katie: Could be.
>> Steve: Yeah, I, you know, I really need to go check on my grandmother's legacy. Anyway she walked marching suffrage parades. And she had started her own newspaper, right?
>> Brian: Yeah, that's right. Around the time. Suffrage was what, 1920's?
>> Steve: Yes. Yes. So she ran her own. My grandfather was not the best in the world of holding jobs. So my grandmother supported the family and taught them the entrepreneur spirit and taught me the same thing.
>> Brian: Huh. That's funny, because my grandfather, what you know, I don't know if you're grandfather was, like, lazy or something. I don't know what the hell.
>> Steve: He tended to drink.
>> Brian: Okay? And my grandfather was nothing like that. He worked, and he didn't drink or anything, but he was an asshole. So my dad came from that, and he's a workaholic, too. So, um, anyway, yes. Oh, you want to talk about your book a little bit?
>> Katie: Well, I think one thing we should shout out is how we met. First of all, because we came, You came to us or...
>> Steve: We came together.
>> Katie: We came together.
>> Brian: As we were discussing before we had the thought and then it became a reality.
>> Katie: Through our book designer, our mutual book designer, Olivia Croom, who's probably one of the best literary citizens out there and does incredible work. I mean the cover... have you seen the cover for Brian's book? It's amazing.
>> Steve: Only from being seated across the darkly lit bar.
>> Brian: Let's get an audible reaction.
>> Steve: This is gonna be great. This is pure excitement.
>> Brian: I want the true reaction here. Ready? I'm literally doing an elevator pitch.
>> Steve: He is. Oh shit (laughs). Wow.
>> Brian: I love it. That's usually the reaction I get from people. The artwork was done by Shawn Ferreyra.
>> Steve: That's beautiful, yeah. That really is.
>> Brian: I came up with that idea, like on the spot, like I pulled it out of my ass and then Shawn just started drawing it, and I'm like, That's fucking it. Like that Dude, the dude could be what they call it. Those like the sketch artist for police.
>> Steve: I think they call them sketch artists.
>> Katie: What's really cool is that the brakes and the chapters in between, she took the joint.
>> Brian: There's little spliffs throughout.
>> Steve: Did she really?
>> Brian: She did the whole interior.
>> Steve: Yeah, we found her... I forgot how. But she's been one of the biggest blessings that we've had that we've been fortunate to find.
>> Brian: She's great to work with.
>> Steve: She's great.
>> Brian: So everyone who's looking for... design.
>> Steve: It's one of those things that you mentioned as a literary citizen in order to make it as an independent whatever some of that's got to come from... you're not getting this stuff is added value. Um and, uh, Olivia is added value not just in the quality of her designs. And I met, you know, people who do your book designs? They are fantastic, But it's the care that she puts in them. Yeah, and the give and take back and forth and are willing to kind of bend with the process.
>> Katie: Well, that's what she said when we met with her about, you know, many, many months ago when we were first starting and met with her about book designing, and we were talking about our goals and what we want to do with the press, she was like, You know who you need to talk to you? Steve McCondiche from SFK. And we were like, what's SDK? And that's when I started stalking you a little bit and reached.
>> Steve: I didn't feel stalked.
>> Katie: And, uh, yeah, and the second that we popped on the phone and I heard your accent come through, I was like oh.
>> Brian: Katie was very excited. I thought Katie was gonna leave me. (laughter) No, I mean, also, just, you know, to step back from all this. It's like it's so valuable to partner people.
>> Katie: I mean, not so. And I think even if you're just a writer, not even publishers.
>> Brian: Yeah, we've talked. We talked a lot about that side about community, but also, I think people, especially in the arts community, are afraid to talk about the business side, which you're not Steve, which I'm really glad about. It's like, you know, whatever your feelings on capitalism are...
>> Steve: Right, I'm a fan.
>> Brian: It has problems.
>> Steve: Oh yeah. I see it everyday.
>> Brian: But this is the reality we live in, and we accumulate this money so we can make things that are worthwhile to people, you know, that's the whole point of this. And that's so like this whole idea that, you know, I don't know. I do think there's this this there's this idea that or this or this dissonance that people that artists especially having their head between, you know, generating capital, right, And like all that entails and who's suffering because of that, Maybe, you know, I mean, but if you go down that line, we're all centers in America where the were part of the American Empire. It is what it is, you know? But like, I really like your approach and, uh and I think, you know, you jive with me and Jon's, like, whole business minded aspect of this because if we don't have money and we can make a lucrative business out of that, we can't give the resource is to our writers. I mean, take me, Take it from me like every penny that I'm making from my book is gonna go right back into this business, you know? Um but yes.
>> Steve: You can't have a mission without the business.
>> Brian: Exactly. Um so, yeah, I don't know where we've got a lot of ideas, but, uh, just from your end on SFK's end, like, you know what, What has been most successful for you and like, what have you discovered? I'm kind of putting you on the spot.
>> Steve: It is a good question because, you know, there's the idea of hey, we're a small press and we make, you know, these literary books and we don't care if only you and your cat read them type of model.
>> Brian: Which is fine. If that's what you want to do.
>> Steve: And then there's the fiercely independent model, and for me, I'm at a point now where I'm having to... That's maybe one equation I can straight up solve. But there's polarities that we could manage because there is the mission and there is the business. There is a need to put out something of a literary standard. But then there's also the independent publisher who wants to find an audience and for me that was in the process now, we're really kind of narrowing down our processes and our market. And how we operate is a business and have that and have that mission. Because one of the things I've learned is that if we're gonna tell 1,000,000 taels of y'all that means all that means you've got to hear from both sides and that not to hate... but there's as Southern Fried Karma, one of the things that we're trying to...
>> Katie: Rosetta agrees.... We had a little Rosetta break.
>> Steve: Is that Rosetta Stoned? Oh, wow, That was too bad. Was that a dad joke?
>> Brian: Oh, it definitely was.
>> Katie: So a short, brief interlude here. Brian was working on a novel a few years ago that has been abandoned since, I don't know...
>> Brian: There have been several abandoned.
>> Katie: I thought it was super funny, but anyway we were. So he was essentially it was essentially himself, but like an exacerbated version of himself...
>> Brian: Exacerbated. It definitely implies I have a lot of issues. Exaggerated, exaggerated, maybe.
>> Katie: But not enough to make a novel out of. Clearly (laughter)
>> Brian: Oh, trust me.
>> Katie: So he was this unnamed narrator telling this story and we were all in it like I was named Becky Gentle and like all these different things. But Becky Gentle had a dog named Rosetta's Stoned.
>> Steve: Okay, it's a joke that's been told. I've left out.
>> Brian: But it's there, it's there.
>> Katie: Yeah, that's the end of that story.
>> Brian: But anyway, um so yes, synthesizing those two sides is definitely difficult especially... I think it really culminates in this submission process. I mean, okay, that's that's kind of like egocentric of me to say, because I'm the one who reads all of our submissions. But seriously, like when I read a book, some there is sometimes in the back of my head, I'm like, Man, this probably could reach a wider audience than is the circumference of my liking for this book. You know what I mean? Like how much I like this book isn't totally equaling. How big my eyes are getting in terms of what this audience can reach. Does that ever happen to you?
>> Steve: Uh, constantly. It's like a book. Shit the world will like it versus... Is that what you?
>> Brian: Yeah, basically, I like I like, I like this book. But I think the market will love this book. You know what I mean?
>> Steve: Yeah.
>> Brian: And so, like, reconciling that can be difficult. I haven't had to pull the trigger on any of that yet. Like, I'm still kind of reading all these things. And like, the only thing we have on the books are books that, you know, we are the few books of people that we know are like, you know, recent acquisitions and stuff. People we have met, you know?
>> Steve: One of the common themes that I've heard editors and publishers voice over the years is, you know, they always get the question... How do you decide which books to publish, right? And maybe I'm just looking for the voices that confirm what I want to hear. But the overwhelming majority of that one of us comes to mind. Is Emily Bell. Who... you know, she gotta have that. They gotta love the project because they're gonna be with it for a long time. Um, you know, you're gonna take it from one stage to the next.
>> Brian: Read it a lot of times.
>> Steve: A lot of times, you're gonna be with the author a lot. It has to be that at the same time, there's got to be for my stamp when there's got to be, Where is the author? And how did they measure success? Where do they want? What their metrics were of success. So you talk to them first. That's one of the first questions I learned to ask authors over the years. Interesting is how you tell me how you measure success and if you know, I get a lot of different answers... one dear friend of mine who wrote a novel I really wanted. I'd read it, worked up, and wanted back. And she's a nationally recognized book credit, right? And she'd written a novel and for her success, was you know, substantial in New York Times Book Review And I had to say I'm probably not sure that I'm gonna be capable of pulling it off for you. It's kind of a stretch for what I believe is our capability with our time.
>> Brian: It's very far from a guarantee. Yeah.
>> Steve: Yea, so she went somewhere else, right? And then I had another author who said he's from the low country of South Carolina. He'd written a story about the Gullah Geechee people by Rutledge Hammes. And Rutledge wanted to have a book launch at Blue Bicycle Books in downtown Charleston on King Street and that was his measure of a launch party. And he had a kick ass launch party and sold 151 copies of his book. Still to this day in SFK record for one single event. Uh um, so you know, that's for me in talking with the authors, how do you measure success? So we're, uh it's a balance between the author in, you know, the work and what they want, What, how they see success and what they're willing to do. And is there any connection between how they see success and how we succeed? If it's, you know, I want to get two copies to give myself to my cat, I'm not sure that allows us to accomplish what we need.
>> Brian: May as well self publish.
>> Steve: Yeah, Well, yeah, yeah.
>> Brian: Yeah, yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that.
>> Steve: There's a lot to say about that space. And, um, you know, I tell people all the time, The average reader that buys your book in a bookstore buys it at their favorite online retailer, does not care how it got done. They don't spend much time looking for the logo on the spine. As publishers, you gotta look here, you'll come back here and we flip to the page, Right? Tells us the metadata. That's what I do. But people that read books, avid readers who were after him. But people read 14 15 16 plus books a year. They just care about the story. Does it take him to the place that they want to get too right?
>> Brian: Yeah, that's that's essentially how I viewed books until we started publishing them.
>> Steve: What changed?
>> Brian: Because I had to know. That's it. I mean, I had to look through that data. And I had to see I literally wrote that. You see that copyright page? Like I literally wrote that.
>> Steve: Yeah. The first time you do one of those, you're like ah.
>> Katie: You also see what people are doing that you really like. And you're like, Okay, like I like it at Two Dollar Radio. I like the way they print their books. They're friendly and everything. Unfortunately, it's not like a financially stable thing for us, right now. In the future, it's a goal for ours so like now we're searching in the books. Like to see what other people do, Coffeehouse. They put out great looking books.
>> Steve: Yeah, you know, that's true, because in that you pointed out the aspirations of where we want to be. But at the same time, you also mentioned the reality is of, you know, your source of funds varies. And with that source, the requirements to perform also vary and what and what your criteria for your own success is a publisher Varies.
>> Brian: No, I mean, I mean to bring up a controversial example. I mean, like, I read a book a couple of years ago, about like what it means to be a great leader or, you know, it's kind of like a book on statecraft, you know? And they talked about tons of people. Abraham Lincoln was one of them. And, like, you know, people have these images of Lincoln as, like, you know, the bellwether of emancipation and everything He was. He's the one who made it happen. But the things he had to do, people don't understand, he had to make deals with people that were shit heads, you know?
>> Steve: Yeah politicians.
>> Brian: So people that were against you, even with the party. And so the thing is like, we're not printing books right now that are totally eco friendly. But the thing is, like, you have to make you have to make concessions in order to get to the greater good, you know? And it's like we'll get there one day. But if we can't, if we can't, if we can't make money, will never print eco friendly books, you know? And that's just a metaphor for everything.
>> Steve: Yeah, but you gotta also remember that a lot of the ways people are reading books these days are on ebooks.
>> Brian: Which is why we're doing those too.
>> Katie: And listening to them.
>> Brian: Which is the ultimate eco friendly system to be honest, unless you talk about digital unless you talk in the cobalt in the African minds. But let's not go there. Yeah, that's the shit that's the shit I'm talking about where we're talking about living in America we're all sinners.
>> Steve: Yeah, from the stench of the... to the stench of the grave.
>> Brian: Is that verse right there?
>> Steve: That's Robert Penn Warren, All The King's Men. I remember that in college and I'm like I'm gonna run with that.
>> Katie: I got a question since we're talking about the stability of presses and whatnot in and doing different financial endeavors. So you have SFK press and you have SFK multimedia.
>> Steve: Yes. So we have Southern Fried Karma is like the mother ship. If you all had some p funk then we'll play that right now.
>> Katie: We could play some.
>> Brian: Some Maggot Brain? I love it
>> Steve: And so we're the mothership. And from that we have SFK press. We have our zine literacy in the new Southern Fugitives, which publishes short fiction, short essays, visual arts that print digital.
>> Katie: Is it digital?
>> Steve: Eco friendly digital. It comes out twice a month.
>> Katie: Oh damn. That's a lot.
>> Steve: Yeah. And we pay... Well, here's the weird. we aren't making money and just shows how stupid I am in it. We don't charge you to read your stuff. And if we print it will pay you, Your publisher will pay you. Which is not common these days.
>> Katie: Um, how much does the zine cost?
>> Steve: How much does it cost to run?
>> Katie: No to read.
>> Steve: It's free. It's a whole inverse model. You can subscribe to the new southern fugitives dot com for full for that.
>> Brian: That's what I assumed because they usually even people that you know, even the kind that like the New Age editorials or whatever. You get an imprint, you know, it costs money. Or you could just sign up for free. And you got the ads on the side so that I don't know if you guys are doing any of that.
>> Steve: We will start next week. It's a model we got from brother Mark.
>> Katie: So, what are you selling advertisement?
>> Steve: No. We're trying to say that the new Southern Fugitives, which is named after the fugitive poets out of Nashville. Robert Penn Warren being the most famous, uh, called "bullshit on the lost cause" or Agrarian anti industrialization. We have similar voices to that. Um, it's a very diverse work, but where I'm doing it to kind of like I'm doing it to build a community.
>> Brian: I was about to say, That's the parallel to our reading series satellites that we're trying to build. It's kind of it's kind of like we both have our community pet projects. I mean, not pet projects.
>> Katie: They're the foundation of why we're here.
>> Steve: Yeah, right. Yeah, it's got to be. And the neat thing about community is, it raises everybody's performance as individuals when there's a community.
>> Brian: Makes people care.
>> Steve: Yeah, and it's also a... The literary community is one of the best places to have the conversations this country needs to have to we're not going to solve the problems, whether it's traffic or, you know, poverty, we're never going to solve them.
>> Brian: I love how you included traffic with poverty. I'm not even fucking kidding right now because when I drive on 495...
>> Katie: I thought you meant trafficking.
>> Steve: Human trafficking?
>> Katie: Yeah
>> Steve: Yeah, well any trafficking.
>> Brian: But you were talking about auto traffic right?
>> Steve: Yeah in the first world anyway, people lose their shit driving in traffic on the way to church, right? That's what's one reason I quit going. I lost Jesus by the time I got there (laughter)
>> Brian: If Moses parted the sea he better fucking come down here and part the Beltway around DC. Because that shit is over for me. I will not drive between 3 p.m. And 7 p.m. You will not find me on this road.
>> Katie: This blasphemy just lost us our religious listeners. (laughter)
>> Brian: I got nothing against religion. I'm just saying.
>> Steve: Getting four kids ready to go to the 10 o'clock Sunday school, my shit was gone. It's just a struggle.
>> Brian: But poverty is a problem too. (laughter)
>> Steve: But anyway, those are other examples of unsolvable problems. One of the conversations that I am the most curious about being a Southerner is the old South versus the new South. We're not gonna and come up with the answer to solve that, But we can talk about each other's hopes, each other's fears, and we can try and build towards our mutual hopes and man and kind of be warned for a mindful of what kind of fears we need to avoid that. One of the things that helped if mission needed a kick in the ass, a year ago, the neo Nazis held a rally a half a mile from my office and half in between It basically in between my office in my house they rented for 35 bucks, Little Greenville Street Park, which is best known for where you get your prom pictures.
>> Brian: We need to make these permits more cost prohibitive.
>> Steve: It's a first amendment right. You can't. And it was after Charlottesville, the community freaked out in two ways. You know, what's gonna be the public safety response? They nailed that one. I mean, we had we had drones. We had copters in the air. They got the riot gear. They were literally fenced in. And then they were late to their own gathering.
>> Katie: Maybe traffic is a blessing. (laughter) I was just listening to NPR yesterday. They were doing, you know, cause Tony Horwitz died. Do you know Tony? Confederates in the attic? And he was, uh, really involved with this kind of old South New South where, like, he felt that for him, in places in the South, the Civil War was never over. The war just has taken a new face. A new dimension.
>> Steve: It's the same dimension
>> Katie: Well it's not being fought on the battlefield. It's being fought and, well, like the digital battlefield where...
>> Steve: Yes, it's not an all out war, but it's not... Here's the Here's the thing that this the Southerners don't get. Only one side is still fighting and the other side just looks at us like I it is muggy, buggy, and bigoted in the South. Maybe I'll go to the Dominican Republican for my vacation.
>> Brian: Yeah, and also they just Yeah, they just think if you can push everyone that's bad or, like, you know, fucked up or whatever Bigoted, whatever you call it to the far reaches of our society, marginalizing... That's gonna work. It's not. What I've been researching for my new book on drugs, addiction, et cetera and like one of the prevailing theories that rings very true is that we have this idea that if you punish addicts, they're going to stop taking drugs. But no, if you make their situation's more unfortunate, they're just going to fight harder to do the things that they were doing in the first place, you know?
>> Steve: Yeah. They just threw up some barriers.
>> Brian: Yeah, Exactly. Exactly. And so, Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think I think we in a lot of ways of just cloistered them into, like, their own little circles. It's like these little terrorist cells and they're not going to communicate with us. Why would they?
>> Steve: Both sides got hate, right? And then there's a in the south switches that mass in the middle who's watching the, You know, the Price Is Right. You know what night or whatever. And as long as the next guy that comes on down doesn't have a swastika on their neck, they're gonna be okay with their lives. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. But within that metal is also the literary community where we can have these conversations and there's other communities out there. There are places to do it, but I'm plugged in the literary community, so I think that's where we need to have it.
>> Katie: But that's what we did. An episode of the podcast Animals on the Road. I think it's like Episodes four and five where we were in Little Rock and talking to people down there about starting artist communities. And we're working on an artist salon in Little Rock right now. Starting one. But the overwhelming feeling was one. I mean, people were like, Why do you want me on a podcast? I'm not smart enough to be on a podcast. We're like, What? What do you mean? We're like having a great conversation, and the feeling was not just the podcast.
>> Brian: It's like you understand quickly that what they're saying is, and they don't might not even realize it. But I'm not smart enough to do any of this stuff.
>> Katie: There's an overwhelming feeling where these people are vastly intelligent, like friends that I've grown up with. They're super vastly intelligent people and they feel they're not qualified to have those conversations. They're not qualified to be in this community. We're like, No, you're 100% qualified and that's what we're trying to do is to empower people to feel qualified to have those conversations. Because that's the only way this shit is gonna change.
>> Steve: Yeah, but so then let me ask you a question. If that is the conversation do you... one part of me wants, you know, when I read things like the Liberal Redneck Manifesto. Right?
>> Brian: Uh, what is that?
>> Steve: It's a book you can buy in the South. And it's about progressive...
>> Brian: So self explanatory.
>> Steve: Yeah, sure. Yeah. You know, in Appalachia reckoning in certain books, they're coming out that are that seemed to be to that space return, But where there were really kind of having some conversations. And there seems to be a movement to build, not an old South or new South. Just a better South. Um, but there's always a part of me that just worries, and I'm the glass ain't half full. The glasses probably got a crack in it.
>> Brian: You bullshitter. You just sat here. Steve just sat here before we got on the podcast and said we asked him if he was a glass half full guy. He said I'm a glass half full guy who knows the water trucks coming and who knows the guy driving the truck.
>> Katie: You're a flip flopper
>> Steve: But aren't we all? If you're a writer. There's a passion for the writing. There's gotta be a discipline. And that discipline is part of the business thing we talked about, so it's the same way with the mission. There's gotta be that gonna be that That man, that I'm going to do this. We're gonna make this? Well, if you could, some day is a struggle for real.
>> Brian: Yeah. I mean, I mean what you just said. It is so true. If you can't change your mind, then I mean, that's the definition of problematic. Like I mean, even going down like mental health. Depression is defined by mental rigidity, you know, like an inability to stop thinking the way you're thinking. But just to jump off that I'm gonna ask something that I wanted to ask on this podcast to someone at some point.
>> Katie: Steve seems like the right guy?
>> Brian: We can tell Steve's not a trump voter.
>> Steve: No, I did not vote for the current president.
>> Brian: You know, I have family members who are, um, and I have conversations with them. Whatever. I want to know how, like we have this conversation you're talking about the literary space. To me, it's not really as much of a conversation as I'd like. Because I don't think we're having a conversation with the other side, especially here in New York. A lot of it is if you are on that side, I don't even want to hear from you. And it's like I want to see what I mean. Like, what happens if you found a book from someone and you found out that they were a Trump supporter? I mean, it's hard for me to reconcile in my head someone with literary merit who could vote for Trump. Like I do find that hard to believe and I'm not. I'm not. I'm not saying that doesn't necessarily slander Trump voters. Like I'm saying, like the way you have to think in order to vote for that man is kind of necessarily non literary oriented. You kind of have to be a very kind of...
>> Steve: I think you'd be genre focus maybe.
>> Brian: Yeah, no, exactly. It's a lot of bottom line thinking. It's like, You know what I mean. It's like A to B. You know, it's not. The depth is not necessary. It's not. It doesn't help us, which is total bullshit if we don't talk about the depth in our lives then what the fuck are we doing here? We're not really addressing problems.
>> Katie: You don't think somebody could be vastly intelligent and just have a certain amount of dissonance between like I mean, or an inability to compartmentalize?
>> Steve: Lack of empathy, yeah.
>> Brian: You don't have to be inherently liberal to be intelligent.
>> Steve: No, no, that's clear.
>> Brian: Or liberal, whatever you call it, non Trump, you know, you know, anti Trump, whatever. You don't have to be intelligent to be like I'm trying to think of and you just have to be, you have to be self minded to a certain extent. And I know this. I've talked to Trump voters. You've got to think about yourself, whether it's yourself as an individual or whether it's yourself as American as an American state, you know what I mean?
>> Steve: But it's the same way with my half full half empty... I understand why they make that choice. I disagree with being fundamentally. I totally agree on so many levels, right? Yeah, not just from a personality policy. What it's doing to the fabric of this country. Vehemently disagree with it.
>> Brian: Yeah.
>> Steve: The question is, could they be literary citizens?
>> Katie: I think Brian's question is, would you publish them?
>> Steve: Here's what I'm gonna tell you, and this is a change in my mind here recently if we're gonna be, y'all means all... it's gonna be y'all means all exactly. Then I'm gonna have to. It's not one over here, And it's not somewhat rigid. I have a guy that I have become friends with and he is a retired Baptist preacher, and he writes fiction. He's written a series of Southern fiction. Um, and he and I have some were doing a literary festival together more than Georgia in the fall, because, Mike, his name is Mike Brown. Um, Mike will have the conversations, and Mike will listen. And Mike knows that both sides need to be heard. So the ingredients that's got to be There is a degree of open minded.
>> Katie: Well, we're not talking about if somebody brings in a bigoted work because that's obviously non inclusive of the y'all means all.
>> Brian: Yeah, that I should have made that clear There are plenty of trump voters out there that are not bigoted.
>> Katie: What I'm asking is what work would put the question up where you would have to challenge your own thinking and say Y'all means all?
>> Steve: If they do not if they do not embrace the y'all means all and they're so rigid that they only see this is the way it is said in a book that was written 2500 years ago that my grandmother and father get your grandmother, parents gave to me and told me to memorize and read and do everything was in it. If it doesn't fit that book, I'm not doing it. I got no patience for that.
>> Brian: But is there a fear that it's gonna come back to you at some point?
>> Steve: How do you mean that?
>> Brian: Even if this person is a sparkling woman or man, anything in between... Um, so you know what I'm saying? Like because if you're serious, this is a big issue for people. You could get thrown under the bus.
>> Steve: I'm gonna give you the flip side of that struggle. So I was fortunate to get a, uh, piece done at the Atlanta Journal Constitution and, uh, great interview with Susan... the writer, and she did a nice little interview, right? 45 minutes, whatever she was doing to get ready for the piece. And she comes, Comes back to me with a follow up question. She said I went on your website SFK press dot com and to sum up her words was Wow, everyone, you're awful white. I said, You know what? I know that.
>> Katie: What do you mean, your author's?
>> Steve: Yes. I just came from the book Expo and it's kind of white down here, too.
>> Brian: Oh, yeah. So the literary world is very white. That's the thing. And, you know, this is why bring this up. Because it does seem like there's a lot of hypocrisy within our own world in the sense that I don't see representation from another political attitude. Not that that's necessary to like literature, you know? But, um, but at the same time, like, yeah, it's like at one time we want to bring everyone together. But let's like... even the panels at AWP, it's like still like you know, I'm Jewish, but I'm the least pro Israel Jew you'll ever find. And I have discussions with my family all the time because I think being pro something means you're anti something else. So what's the fucking point? The whole problem is choosing sides. Yeah, I mean, I go to panels and, like I went to a great panel on Palestine. Excellent readings, intelligent people, Um, and a lot of things said, but it's amazing. I can't take anything away from them because like their anger is so real and everything, it's all was genuine to me. But, you know, it's like, where do we draw the line and say, like, How do we stop this? I mean bringing Palestine up. So it's probably the worst way to enter this conference. That's why even more difficult than you know, liberal versus conservative or whatever you wanna call it. But, you know, at some point the violence has to stop right now and a conversation has to start.
>> Katie: I want to look back to what you were saying. She said, You're very white, are you? What was your response like?
>> Steve: Yes, and then, Yeah, you nailed me. You know, we had signed after our novel contest. You know what their authors and we had to be very like, purposeful in the books, were selected and continued, like for SFK press. And you know, that's one reason why we go out to AWP. That's one of the beautiful things about the new Southern Fugitive. It has a diversity within it that we don't have a press yet. Um, so I feel like we're getting that voice out there, but we have to reach out to, you know, to historically black MFA programs around the South.
>> Katie: We had Jennifer Baker on the podcast a couple episodes ago. She is an editor, and, uh, she works in the publishing world here, and she runs the podcast, Minorities and Publishing. One of the really good points she brought up is okay. You want to make your author lineup diverse. Who are your gatekeepers that are bringing in these? So you're hiring these new people. Are you looking specifically to bring on POC editors?
>> Steve: We're bringing people that are very much intent on finding those. If you go to our website for the contest, it's a big, biggest letter on there. We're looking for these types of authors.
>> Katie: And it's such a challenge because for so many reasons and one of the 1st, right off the bat, the submissions we get, I'm like, yet these are 99% white people. And so what I get So it's not a matter of... it's a matter of like so if I only get so few POCs or whatever, like, you know, we're looking for women authors looking for anyone you know. We want to be what we want to be, as you know, diverse as possible. But the thing is, hell no, we're not gonna sacrifice quality. And so what we need to do is find a greater volume of those submissions because that's what it's all about. It's like and it is more of a challenge because that's a fact, minorities and publishing is the key word is minority less. There are less of those people, and so we have to dig deeper. And it's a big challenge because you can't give up, you can't sacrifice the quality. And so it's just you have to shoulder that burden. And that's what that podcast was about is really about. How do we shoulder that burden? Because it really is all of our jobs, because, I mean, we all put ourselves in this position, you know?
>> Katie: But I think that's why, for us, at least, why we're not blasting out to the world, that we're taking submissions. Yeah, we're saying it on the podcast, but we have cultivated, you know, our podcast is kind of like our community. We have, a, you know, it's not just like Twitter, where it's out to the whole world that this is a niche group of people who really like us and our message and what we have to talk about. And so it's a community we're building. And so we're really digging deep into those communities to one bring more people in and to find those people like we're going out to readings, hearing people. And, you know...
>> Brian: And that's the thing people should know. It's hard. It is hard work, like and and and that's why I'll say it right now. I mean, me and Katie, me and Katie have had Katie and I have had copious discussions on this because, you know, I'm trying to constantly get us back into, like, All right, we got to get a good book, you know, and Katie's constantly going, Yeah, but, you know, we got it. We got to get a book from someone else you like. You know, when you are someone.
>> Steve: Here's a challenge. When you start stacking them. Okay, I got to get it. It's gotta be The book's gotta be there. And the author's got to have entrepreneurial sales skills. Oh, and we're looking for those diverse voices.
>> Brian: Right. All that shit that happens to you, you know, And the first thing you talked about are about individuals. They're not about skin color. They're not about demographics, not about anything. It's about quality, you know? And so all that has to be there, and then you go, Okay? Then we say, like, where can we find this talent? You know, and it is a huge challenge. I mean, even talking about this, I feel like I sound so aimless and abstract, but it is really hard.
>> Katie: That's really the nature of the fun too, for us.
>> Brian: You know, it is. But in all my end, it's been frustrating because, like, I want to get another book under our belt, you know? And we have Annie like she's working on a book for us. And you know, her book is a series of essays about, you know, coming out, essentially realizing she was gay and then, you know, et cetera, et cetera, And that's great. You know, that is an element of diversity. But then it's like Okay, well, she's a white woman, you know. It's like what's the next you know? We don't want to stop there, you know, it's just it's constant, it's constant. It's a constant effort. That's it. We're never gonna completely figure it out.
>> Steve: But at least you're working on the trajectory.
>> Brian: Yeah, exactly. The process.
>> Katie: Well, we've been recording for about an hour, so I think we should turn the spotlight back to you, Steve. And hear some of your words.
>> Brian: Yeah, let's do it. Let's do a little reading.
>> Steve: I don't have to read on my phone. That's right. I got the book, right here. Dammit boy. Wake up. It's Thursday afternoon somewhere west street.
>> Brian: 147th. Come find us.
>> Steve: Okay, so you were talking about pivoting? As much as I talked about the author, entrepreneur and how important that is, it's a skill I've had to learn by myself. I'm comfortable. If you want to talk about, you know, buying, why the PC 200 LC - 8 is the most valuable excavator on the earth, right? For things like that, but doing it with your own work that's really getting out there.
>> Katie: I see you on social media. You're building it up.
>> Steve: Yeah. Anyway, so the novel er, just released in March, I started writing it... I think it was gonna be one book in three parts, and I did... I got about 50,000 words on the first part of woah. So I'm going for a kind of historical fiction, Patrick Melrose kind of connected with three smaller novels. Um, it's called the Parlor Girls Guide. It's the 1st one and it's ah, describe it as Scarlett O'Hara meets the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Uh, because I'm really interested in Southern womanhood because I mentioned my grandmother. So I know that it's different, right?
>> Brian: Um, the grandmother who went to Columbia?
>> Steve: Yeah who ran her own newspaper for a number of years. Right, so that's where the story is set in 1926 in a little town in Scott Station, Alabama, which is where my grandparents had met. And it's a little town that's no longer there is. That's how small it was. In the end, south of Montgomery in rural farming commune like they got in Arkansas. Uh um, So I started this young girl there, Uh, 16 years old, Um, and I'm gonna take her on a journey. So it starts with her. She finds these two guides, but I'm gonna just read the first few pages.
>> Katie: Book designed by Olivia Croom.
>> Steve: Yeah.
>> Brian: Yeah, that is actually I'm actually kind of jealous of that cover. I love my cover. I wish we could show it to our audience. Look it up.
>> Steve: You could look at it sfkpress.com - This entire thing was laid out by April Ford. She did a great job.
>> Katie: April Ford, who will be reading for Animal Riot soon.
>> Steve: Really? That's fantastic. I tell this to her all the time. You're a badass.
>> Brian: Yeah, Her poem. Her poem. Yeah. I'll just say for our audience out there we did, you guys had your own little party. Yeah, Well, it was actually pretty big, but an open bar. God, I got fucked up. I was the last reader, and I got, I don't even remember what the hell happened, but people were laughing when I read. I Hope I read a funny part, but, um but yeah, yeah, but yeah, she wrote, she read a poem about, a, about...
>> Steve: Hygiene. And she was like, I'm not a poet. And she just killed it. Anyway, so April Ford laid out the interior. She's also served as one of the editors on this book. So tip of the Canadian hat to April, we're gonna start in with Thanksgiving 1926. Scott Station, Alabama.
=========================
>> Steve: So that's our introduction to Molly and her father and their journey turkey hunting which leads to an unfortunate encounter with Jack Henton, which, in part of the story if I can get a minute to kind of talk about things we're trying to flush out.
>> Brian: Yeah, I have one question, but yeah.
>> Steve: This has to do with the whole economic land, equality and South. There was James Eiji, the famous author of Before Lay Dying. Probably not as famous as it looks like he's famous. He worked with a photojournalist. Went through, uh, places like Arkansas and Alabama in the 1920s and thirties. And that book was just published in, like, 2012. About tenant farmers. So I'm really interested in the subject. My grandfather worked on a turpentine plantation, that area, so that whole economic thing was where you know, Henton... There was in each county in the south, you know, there was a core group of white patriarchs that controlled everything. And they did everything they could to squelch any type of dissension. You know, white, black whoever. So that's one of I'm trying to illustrate what it really took to escape that and what you had to what an individual would have to certain to agree to to some point to They said, enough's enough. I'm gonna break away. And Molly gets to that point later on where she breaks away.
>> Katie: Awesome.
>> Brian: Yeah, I really want to read this
>> Katie: She has the help of a couple of guides.
>> Brian: One of my questions is I'm the The Northerner over here is, like, kind of like, Wow, there's a very musical and fresh quality to the pros. It's very Southernly idiomatic and that stuff. Do you get that reaction from Southerners or is that like, par for the course?
>> Steve: You know, there's a certain amount of everybody who understands that's a Southern writing style.
>> Brian: And, um so it's not as impressive to them or something?
>> Steve: (laughs) No
>> Brian: Because to me, it's like, Wow, this is This is another dialect.
>> Steve: You know, one of the things that I was really concerned with in writing that way is a critique I got my first that actually wrote that submitted this chapter to a workshop, like, five years ago. That was awful “hee haw-ish”.
>> Brian: What is that? But that's not a criticism.
>> Katie: Oh yeah it is. You don't want to be hee haw-ish.
>> Steve: But there is, especially early on when you're trying to get people in the story. Maybe I'd say, lay it on a bit thick. But you know, which I could do with my accent. Um so I think what there is is a magic you're trying to transport people to not just the South, with the rural South in 1926 in this particular place, right where that's the way they still talk.
>> Brian: What I'm hearing now from your guy's reaction is that it's not inherently a problem. It's that maybe it was inorganic. It was like too much. You were really pushing it?
>> Steve: Yeah
>> Brian: Okay.
>> Steve: But one of the editors I worked with towards the end of a copy, and it was I was trying to, you know, it's different generation, younger generation lives in Ohio. Kate LeBron, great editor. She and I exchanged what part worked like this is how they stand. So the dialogue. I'm okay with being like I didn't understand what that guy just said. You know, you're not the first time to read Mark Twain in school, right? Different language. So the dialect in the dialogue is I'm good with it. It's in the exposition that I was really trying to watch. Um because yet, you know, if you're doing a novel, we don't know one of the things you have to avoid it. Everybody sounds the same. So it's getting everybody to have a distinct voice. So, you know, Molly has to have her kind of come from this particular space right now. Skillet, her father, comes from a different base. We meet Zack Henton, and he comes from like I'm basically could say whatever I want. Like I'm you know, like I'm at my own table because the whole county, you're on my land. You're at my table, right?
>> Brian: Yeah. Yeah.
>> Steve: Um, so, yeah, that was... I've got one of things... I just wrote this character that I'm really interested in. So it goes back to I mention, this is the third book I envisioned, and you're kind of hear all over. I just noticed that, but they're up two or three floors in the south of psychics on the side of the road.
>> Brian: We got one on 151st. A tarot card reader.
>> Steve: Yeah, but you got him out there, up in the windows. I see him right there, like two or three flights up. Um, so I wonder, you know, how does somebody but a roadside psychic? So I had this vision of this woman in 1954 who lives on a farm with two men, and is a psychic, right? She sells vegetables and she gives readings. And then I'm so back in that that woman becomes modest. You don't die right. Unless it's Game of Thrones. Um, how did she start on? And so this in the first novel, is how she finds her way out of the South out of Scott Station. And how did she find this? This her own voice, which she connects to this vision that she has in his dream, Um, which she thinks is a spirit right? Which I don't know whether it is or not.
>> Brian: You don't. You don't. Just leave it at that.
>> Steve: That's part of the fun of the book.
>> Brian: This is a Katie Rainey book.
>> Steve: And it's the way that I had to rewrite the ending. It's the last thing I did was rewrite the ending again and, you know, and the process, like the book is finished when you're like, it's gonna go out next week. Um, but I found that space where it can be in between whether she's Yeah, this other ether guide. This, she believes, is her dead grandmother. Uh, is, you know, is speaking to her from beyond the grave, whether it's just ptsd, right in some sort of coping.
>> Katie: I love it. Wild.
>> Brian: I love it. Before we close, I'm gonna throw a little anecdote because you talked about editing down like the dialect or, you know, whatever, um, are my developmental, Uh, editor George Sawaya has been on the podcast. He's an original animal. Oh, are, as we say, he read one section that was heavily idiomatic and kind of like the southern parlance was there and it was down in the bayou. Um, and he was helping me work with it because, like, some of it was like, Oh, no, this is more like Alabama and nurse like so, you know, some shit like that. But then he got to this one dialogue part, and he was like, He's like, man like, What the fuck is this? You make us sound like Southerners sound like idiots.
>> Steve: Hee Haw-ish.
>> Brian: And it wasn't even that he was like whatever I like unintelligent, you know? And then I was like, I was like, George they're deaf, like they're speaking... because they're signing, which is the first language, you know? And he just smacks his forehead. He's like, Oh, and I was like, Yeah, don't worry. I'm gonna strengthen that old detail there for you. It was pretty funny. Um, yeah, because I mean, like, you know, just enlighten people if they haven't heard the third episode of the Animal Riot podcast. But like, you know, deaf folks have all types of dialects. I mean, they're people that were really my mom was raised to speak first. She didn't know sign language until she went to college. And, you know, she fully does. She's more deaf than my dad is, you know, And then, you know, you have my dad who you know, was ASL first and like you can hear it in his grammar and stuff like that. So when I translate that onto the page, he's like going This is what you think Southern people talk like? It was really funny, But anyway, yeah, um, buy the book people.
>> Katie: It sounds awesome.
>> Brian: Buy all the books. A lot of folks don't get your nootropics. Save your 47 bucks, but also just you know I start shouting this from the rooftops.
>> Katie: But if you want great literature to continue, you have to buy books.
>> Steve: It's the social contract, isn't it? If we wanna live in a world where the mind matters, thoughts matter, words matter, on and on. We can imagine realities together.
>> Katie: Stop spending money on...
>> Brian: Civilization is built off of imagination.
>> Steve: Do yoga at the house. Turn on the heat.
>> Katie: Don't get your nails done. Only for special occasions.
>> Brian: All right, we good? Okay.
>> Katie: Thanks Steve, for being on the podcast.
>> Steve: I appreciate y'all having me. This was cool.
>> Brian: We'll do it again because you know what, next time you're in New York, I want to talk about this rewiring the brain and your transition.
>> Katie: We can do it in North Carolina.
>> Steve: Yeah, this was fun.
>> Brian: All right, I'll close it out now. Okay, That's it for today's episode. If you like what you heard, please subscribe in review on whichever platform you're listening, you can get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram @AnimalRiotPress or through our website animalriotprss.com. This has been the 24th episode of the Animal Riot Podcast with me, your host Brian Birnbaum and featuring Steve McCondichie and Katie Rainey. And we're produced by Katie Rainey, without whom we would be merely three of Shakespeare's 1000 monkeys banging on a typewriter