Podcast Transcription: Isabel Banta

Jun 26

Jun 26 Podcast Transcription: Isabel Banta

This episode, owner of Books Are Magic, Emma Straub, interviewed Isabel Banta, Books Are Magic bookseller and author of the debut novel, Honey, a story about Amber Young, a singer with big dreams who rises to pop-stardom during the late 90’s into the early 2000’s.

Honey follows Amber’s close friendship with fellow pop-star, Gwen Morris, a budding but complicated relationship with boyband star Wes Kingston, and her journey through a complex and, at times, unforgiving industry.

The two discuss author debuts, celebrity memoirs, and Kidz Bop covers of pop hits.

Emma

Bel, I am so excited to talk to you. This is like my dream. This is like my evil mastermind dream, that I just have a bookstore filled with geniuses who are kind, hardworking, fantastic booksellers. And then they also write novels that I love and then they publish them and we get to have parties at the store and we get to have them on a podcast. Like this is just, you are making my dreams come true. So thank you.

Bel
My god, Emma, you're making my dreams come true! Both our dreams are coming together at once. One dream.

Emma
It's all happening. So yeah, I should just say this is extra fun for me because, as I'm sure Jules or Aatia will say in the intro, you are a Books Are Magic bookseller. And so this is really a special treat because we don't often have the time to really talk like this and so I could not be more excited to ask you questions about Honey.

So here, my first question is just how do you feel? So you are on the cusp– when we are talking, Honey is not yet out. I don't know if T-minus how many days or weeks? I don't know. What are we?

Bel
22 days.

Emma
Okay, okay, 22 days.

Bel
Three weeks, three weeks!

Emma
So how do you feel T-minus three weeks?

Bel
Oh my god. I feel like up and down, up and down throughout the day, you know, just, and I think I feel nervous, excited, terrified, everything at once, everything all at once, all the time.

Emma
Everything, everything, everywhere all at once! Yeah, that sounds right. What I always say to friends who are on the cusp of publishing their first books is that hopefully, of course, you will publish a million books or however many books you would like to publish and write, but that there is something so special about the first one. There's a certain kind of excitement, you know. And not just for you, but for all of the people around you. For your family and your friends, like, your childhood dentist will probably come to a book event. You know what I mean? It's things like that. People really show up. You know, I think it's like anything is like people get used to the fact like, “Oh, Bel’s a novelist,” and they'll order your book and they'll tell you what, but like, they really show up for the debut, which is so great.

Okay, so let's start at the beginning of Honey, which is what made you write this historical novel?

Bel
That is actually what's so interesting is people calling it historical versus contemporary. It's actually nuts, like sometimes people are like, “this is a historical fiction novel,” sometimes people are like, “this is a contemporary fiction novel,” and I'm like “I don't know. I don't know!”

Emma
Okay, so for all of the listeners, what years are we talking about in this, in Honey?

Bel
So we're going from ‘97 really to 2004. So whether you think that's historical fiction or contemporary, I think it remains to be seen. So funny.

Emma
Right, I mean to me of course it feels utterly contemporary. It feels like yesterday.

Bel
Right. It's really interesting because I feel like that really is kind of, again, the cusp of like– because I did do a ton of research for the book, but I feel like it's contemporary, but I don't know, I don't know. Things are different.

Emma
Well, so, okay, so how old were you? You know, you're not supposed to ask people their age, but how old were you in that span of time?

Bel
Well, I was born in 1997 when the book starts.

Emma
OH MY GOD!

Bel
Yeah, I know! That’s when I was born. So funny, I know!

Emma
Bel, I'm not okay. I'm not okay. Okay, that's a terrible answer. Wow! Okay, because, so my last novel took place in 1996, which was when I was 16. But okay, so you were born [in 1997]. So to me, that actually means it is a historical novel because when you were thinking about these characters in this time period, you really were thinking about them not through the prism of your own memories.

Bel
No, I mean, and what I remember most is [what] the music of this time. I had the Kidz Bop version of these songs, you know? And so like that's what I had in the car was [what] my mom had– because I don't, I think my mom was like, “oh my gosh, like this is too grown up. We'll have the Kidz Bop version of the Backstreet Boys.” But so yeah, so I definitely had these pop stars. I had NSync, I had Backstreet Boys, I had Britney, but I definitely was like the tail end. You know, I wasn't a teenager during this time. I was more of a kid for sure.

Emma
But you were at that tail end listening to the Kidz Bop in the car. What was your draw toward them? Did you love this kind of music? Or was it a kind of music that you sort of came to later on as a teenager maybe or as a young person?

Bel
I mean, I feel like I maybe came back to it later on, but I remember loving it. Like I remember I had, I maybe was like six or seven, but I had the Britney CD that was like just the one that said Britney and it had like Overprotected and all that. I remember jumping up on my bed to that one. And then I actually had one from many more that I loved. And then I think Hilary Duff kind of came into being then and I loved Hilary Duff. So yeah, I did interact with all this music and so there is nostalgia for me. I think for me maybe more the historical fiction part was being like, “okay, what is it? What was it like to be a teenager at this time?” Because I obviously was not a teenager during that time, so I had to do a lot of research on that front. But definitely the music looking back was so nostalgic for me and I don't really feel like music has ever been that good. Really, you know what I mean? Like it's just the best. The music is just so good from that time.

Emma
Yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more. You know, as you know, I'm writing a novel that is not about that particular time period, but it is about a boy band. And I keep having conversations with my husband and friends and also with myself about that, which is like, here is music that many people in my area belittle. And yet I take it really seriously and I do think of it as a profound link between me and these, these artists, you know.

Bel
I love that you said that so much, because I also take it very seriously. I take this incredibly seriously. And to cite my source, I was reading a Vogue review of the The Idea of You (film) that had a little snippet of The Idea of You book, which I have not read, but I'm going to read. And it was just talking about how there's a boy band in that book and movie. And I think the snippet that I read was talking about how people belittle things that girls like.

Emma
Yeah, yes.

Bel
Constantly. And I think a part of this book was me actually trying to take this seriously as preteens and teenagers, I think, kind of fuel the entire world really.

Emma
Yeah, I mean look at Taylor Swift. Look at Taylor Swift on tour right now, literally propping up global economies. You know, that is real power. And it's not only young girls, but that's where it all starts. I couldn't agree more.

Okay, so let's talk about Amber, who is your heroine. So you've got Amber, you've got Gwen, you've got Wes, you've got these very sexy, beautiful, talented young people at the center of your book. Where did you find them? Because like in my imagination, this might be totally false, but in my imagination, you have sort of like a spotlight. You start with sort of the big idea of, like, you're in a helicopter looking for something on the beach in the nighttime, you know what I mean? And as an experience we all have all the time.

Bel
I love this. I love this because this is how I totally write. I almost genuinely start with an idea or like a kind of an aesthetic. And then I'm like, “okay, I actually need to find the plot here and the people.”

Emma
Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah. So, right, okay, so you're moving down the, you know, you're searching the land with the spotlight, and what is it that you find that really takes hold, that becomes this book?

Bel
For the characters, and I love writing characters. I don't know about you, Emma, but I love just kind of thinking about the psychology of people and how they react to different things that happen to them, perhaps in different ways that really interests me. For Amber and Gwen, and there's another pop star who's kind of on the periphery, Savannah, who's more mentioned. And I'm sure readers will be like, you know, like Amber has a bit of this pop star and this, but really I started with the stereotypes, like truly. Like I was like, “okay, we need one who's kind of given the virgin, you know, deal,” and that's Savannah. And then we have one who's kind of like, “is she going to go bad? Like she's a good girl, but like she might go bad.” And I feel like that's more Gwen. And then we have the one who is just branded as the slut. She's the sexy one and that was Amber. And that's really where it started because I felt like, “how do you build these characters over kind of these very bland media stereotypes that they were given?” And I was like, “who are they actually beyond that?” That was really the beginning of all of them.

Emma
Yeah, that makes sense because it's also so much, like, I think what you get out of the book is not only the story of these individual people, but, but sort of the story of them being put into these slots and how obviously that doesn't tell you the whole story, right? It doesn't tell you it – in fact doesn't tell you anything, you know, it tells you It's marketing. That's not reality.

Okay, so you've got these archetypes that you're then complicating and filling in and sort of fleshing out. How did you decide sort of how much of the story you wanted to tell? Because I feel like in some ways, and forgive me, this sounds ridiculous, but it ends up with an insult to myself, so I hope you'll allow it, is that in some ways, it reminded me a little bit of Laura Lamont, of my first novel.

Bel
Which is so good! Everyone read it.

Emma
Nobody's read it and you don't have to, it's fine. It’s where I followed this one woman's life, but I just couldn't stop. So I just followed her literally until she was an old lady, but I feel like you did something smarter, which is you stopped.

So how did you decide what sort of slice you wanted to include in the novel?

Bel
Ooh I love this question. I had a lot of trouble stopping, by the way, which is why there is (spoiler alert) a bit of a “what happened?” There’s a bit of that, if you like that sort of stuff, because I like that sort of stuff as a reader.

Emma
I love that! I love it.

Bel
You have to know. The first thing is I was really interested in, as you say, this “slice” of the music industry, which I really do feel like 2004 is kind of the end of it where you have the height of physical CD sales. You have music production that's really in this specific era. And then I do think it kind of starts changing once you have MP3s and iPods. Like, that's kind of where we end is like almost technology. So I almost feel like it was dictated by technology because I wanted to be in this era. And then I was like, “okay, the music industry changes. I wanted to tell this story,” but I also think just because I really wanted to frame it as a coming of age story where we have Amber who doesn't know who she is at all at the beginning of the book. Like, she is floundering as a person, she has no idea who she is while everyone's telling her who she is and that's very confusing.

I hope that it ends on a note of like– endings are hard, right? Because it’s like, obviously when you're a celebrity, it's not like [the book] ends and then her life is gonna be perfect and happy all the time. She is going to continue to have trials. But I kind of felt like “let's get her into a place where she knows who she is more and feels more capable of, you know, going against whatever those trials may be.” I think that's kind of the arc of the book and her character, or I hope that comes across where she doesn't know she is. She does find a sense of community and kind of a faith in herself by the end, and it's not going to be a perfect life for her but she's better equipped to handle that at the end. That was kind of my goal with her if that makes sense. Does that make sense?

Emma
Yeah, yes! I mean, I am all for plot being an internal struggle and some resolution, but not complete resolution because who wants that? That's not interesting. You know what I mean?

Bel
Right, it's not like she's never gonna cry again, you know what I mean? Like she's gonna be sad, I'm sure. But you can't– again, I feel like I left her at a place where I was like, she has changed. And that's what I wanted, you know?

Emma
Yeah, yeah!

Jules
Hey! It’s Jules. So, Honey takes place in the late 90’s and early 2000’s which, as we all know, is the most defining period of time for pop culture. I thought it would be interesting if some booksellers talked about some celebrity pop culture moments from that time that they still can’t get over.

Alexa
Hi, my name is Alexa, and my beloved 2000’s moment was when JLo wore The Green Versace Dress to the Grammy’s.

Arianna
Hey, I’m Arianna and the pop culture moment I can’t get over is when Martha Stewart went to federal prison for insider trading and the camp was renamed Camp Cupcake after her nice little stay. And then she was on Sports Illustrated Magazine. On the cover. Queen.

Jules
Okay, it’s Jules again. If I were to name my own personal favorite pop culture moment it would have to be Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff’s, like, eight year long beef.

It started out because Hilary Duff was dating Aaron Carter and he broke up with her because he said he was bored. And then he started dating Lindsay Lohan, and then the girls started beefing. They were crashing each other's red carpet events, they were banning each other from their respective carpet events. And then Lindsay Lohan came out with Freaky Friday and Chad Michael Murray was in it. And then Hilary Duff came out with A Cinderella Story and Chad Michael Murray was in it.

So then apparently Lindsay Lohan called Chad Michael Murray talking smack about Hilary Duff. And then Lindsay Lohan went on SNL (Saturday Night Live) and they made fun of Hilary Duff. And then Hilary Duff went in an interview and said “it doesn’t feel good to be made fun of on SNL.” They kind of just went back and forth, and then eventually things were settled. But, honestly, it was really delicious there for a while.

Alright, let’s get back to the episode.

Emma
Okay, so I want to back up a little bit and ask you about some sausage-getting-made questions. So not only do you work at Books are Magic as a bookseller, you also work in publishing and have worked in publishing for many years, right? How many years have you worked in publishing?

Bel
Oh gosh, I think I guess five [years] now. Five, yeah.

Emma
Five years. So do you feel like there are ways in which your background in publishing and bookselling have helped prepare you for this experience and, importantly, are there ways in which you feel like it's not like a detriment, but that you sort of know too much a little bit? Sometimes I feel like I know too much because of my bookselling life. But how do you feel like your day jobs, which are very much, you know, up to your elbows in books, have sort of helped you prepare for this experience?

Bel
Really good question. I feel like the analogy I keep on thinking in my head is like, if I'm a wedding planner for other books all the time, and helping other books, because I love doing that, but this is my wedding. My wedding is June 25th. Because wedding planners have to get married too, right? And that's kind of how I'm thinking of it, almost. And, you know this, Emma, like, talking about other books and recommending books is literally my favorite thing to do. I'm a reader before I'm a writer, so I love doing that. Like I have like five things and I'm like, “wow, I'm loving right now,” that's not my own book. So I think I find a lot of joy in doing that and so I think that's one part of the equation.

I think I know a lot, which in some ways is helpful and some ways is not helpful, right? I think it's helpful in the sense that I'm realistic and I'm grateful. So if anything happens for this book, I'm just so grateful because I know how many books are being put out all the time and I just feel lucky if anyone reads, you know, I feel like I just am, I have a lot of gratitude. And then I, but I think, I think I am close to it in that books are literally kind of all I do. I'm reading all the time.

I think it's been hard actually to almost step back and it's nice to talk about Honey, because sometimes I actually do feel like I'm constantly talking about other books and then sometimes my friends are like, “Bel, you have a book coming out. That's an accomplishment. That is an accomplishment.” But I think I'm so close to the industry that sometimes I can't see that, I guess.

Emma
Yeah, well I think, it also can be really hard to celebrate. You know, it can be hard to celebrate your own achievements when you're a certain kind of person who likes to cheer on other people. I am very much that kind of person also, you know, where I'm like, “no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't have to make it about me! And blah, blah, blah, blah!”

Bel
Yeah, no, it's not about me. What about you? You know, yeah.

Emma
But you should listen to your friends. You should listen to your friends because it is a gigantic deal. It's a gigantic deal! And you should try to enjoy it as much as possible. Like, I am terrible at it. And that's no fun! You have to try to actually, like, pause and take in the moment and mark it in some way.

Bel
That is what everyone is telling me, and I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that and I will. And so I genuinely have my planner like, “this is pub day. You are gonna appreciate it.” Yeah, for sure.

So to answer your question, I think it is. I'm so close to the world of books that it's hard to zoom out sometimes. And I'm trying very hard every day to do that a little bit. You know? And I'm a very busy person, but I kind of thrive on being busy. Like seriously, if I have nothing to do all day, I won't write, I won't do it. Like I woke up this morning, I wrote before work. Like that's just how I, if I'm busy, I'm actually happier. So I don't know, do with that what you will.

I don't know how you are. Like, do you feel like if you have a full day to write, do you get it done? Cause I don't.

Emma
I do, I do, but that's only because my writing time is so, so precious to me now in a way that it wasn't always, like it didn't always have to be, you know? But now I'm like, this is my time, like right now, like my children's last day of school is next Tuesday. And I will obviously still be able to write when they are out over the summer, but it just – it will require a brain shift that will take me out of what I'm working on. And so now I'm like, “okay, I have this many hours on this day. Like I am going to fill them with pages.”

Bel
Wow. Do you do word count or are you more pitch? How do you –

Emma
I do page count. When I was young, Bel, my God, when I was young, I would write 25 pages a week. And, I mean, you can write so many bad books if you're writing 25 pages a week. I wrote four novels in my 20s, you know? Were any of them published? No. But that's okay because I got in a lot of practice. But nowadays, I am writing 10 pages a week, which still feels like a lot, but still feels... Why am I talking? Why am I talking? Oh my God.

Bel
No! I asked you! I'm curious, Emma. I wanna know!

But that's cool, that's cool, the page count thing. I'm way more of a word count [person].

Emma
Well, that's much more precise. The thing is, the thing is with word count is that you can't cheat. With a page count all bets are off. You just need to get–

Bel
Just change the font size!

Emma
Right! I mean you just need to get, you know, one line on that 10th page, or whatever, and then you're good.

Bel
And you're golden! You're good to go. I love that.

Emma
Okay, wait. I wanna talk about music and I wanna talk about books. What do you wanna do first? Books or music, dealer's choice.

Bel
Ooh, let's do books.

Emma
Okay, one book that I want to talk to you about is, wait, and now I'm going to forget what it's called, Britney's memoir. What was it called? Pieces of Me? Is that what it was called?

Bel
The Woman in Me.

Emma
The Woman in Me, sorry. Apologies to Britney. The Woman in Me. Okay, so when that book came out, I remember that we had a conversation where you were like, “am I psychic? Am I psychic?” you said. Because there was something that happens in that book that also happens in your book. We don't need to get into spoilers. I don't want to give anything away.

Obviously you didn't have that [book] because it wasn't out yet, but what books did you turn to, if any, for primary sources? What were your historical documents that you consulted?

Bel

Yes, yes, yes. I had a lot. I love researching. I don't know if you know this, but I love researching. I don't know why I do that to myself, but I just love researching. Yes, I did not have access, my book was done before Britney's book came out. So yes, anything in my book, I didn't have access to Brittany's book.

I did read Jessica Simpson's memoir, which was really, really interesting. And I learned so much about her and that just goes to show how much I learned about her growing up. I read Lance Bass's memoir, highly recommend. I definitely told you about that one because I loved Lance Bass's memoir. It's called Out of Sync. Had a great time.

I read a lot of more granular books about the music industry actually. One of the ones that kind of completely blew my mind was called The Song Machine by John Seabrook, who is a reporter at The New Yorker. And that is really about the producers who were working in the industry at the time and making these hits because obviously the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync and Britney wrote some of their own music, but especially at the beginning it was actually all kind of outsourced to Sweden and one studio in Sweden in particular. So that was really, really important in terms of understanding the industry.

I don't know if I've talked to you about this, Emma, but it's just like learning that and just looking at the songs, like how a lot of them don't really lyrically make a ton of sense is because English wasn't the first language for a lot of these songwriters. So it's like, if you listen to the Backstreet Boys, what's their big song?

Emma
“I Want It That Way”

Bel
“I Want It That Way, it doesn't make any sense. And in this book, I learned that it was because they liked specific syllable counts because that song is addictive and so yummy and amazing. And John Seabrook talks about how they were going to change the lyrics so they made sense and then the Backstreet Boys were like, no, it actually sounds way better when it doesn't make sense. We'll keep it like that. And I think stuff like that is so interesting. It's like crafting these earworms that are so addictive. So that was really, really helpful.

And then I read, just because I wanted to know a little bit more about Britney, I read this series…

Emma
The 33 and ⅓? Those little guys?

Bel
Yes, yeah. Yes, I read the one specifically about her Blackout album, which nothing really went into the book, but I just, I felt like I wanted to read as much as I could. So those are the ones off the top of my head, but I honestly, I read so much. I ordered like old magazines. I'm insane with research. I really did a lot.

Emma
No, I'm just laughing. I'm laughing because like, right there, right there, (Editor’s note: Emma is pointing at the bookshelf behind her) those are all my Sassy Magazines from when I was in high school, they're like the...

Bel
Are they gonna go into this new book at all?

Emma
No, no. I mean, there was some Sassy content in This Time Tomorrow, but no, in this book, my new book is totally contemporary. There’s references in the new book to like, even earlier magazines like Bop! and Teen Beat, like those magazines.

Bel
Yes. YM.

Emma
I never liked YM. I always thought YM was, I don't know, very basic, very basic. By the time I was old enough, you know.

Bel
I loved Teen People, I remember, oh my god, I was obsessed with Teen People.

This didn't really go into the book, but again, I just over-researched just so I knew things. The Lou Perlman documentary was really interesting. That didn't really go in.

Emma
Ugh. Heartbreaking. Heartbreaking!

Bel
Heartbreaking, horrible. This time, it was such a toxic environment, I watched that and then there was actually one documentary I haven't talked about that much but really impacted me. It was this documentary of Britney Spears in Mexico for three nights. I think it's called Stages. I really recommend it.

Emma
Huh. Oh my gosh.

Bel
Basically there's no frills, like, it's just filming her touring, and it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. She was maybe 21, she was super young, this was at the height of her career, but it was really just like, “okay, what is the actual day-to-day life?” It's not very glamorous. You’re in a hotel, you're going to the venue, you're doing soundcheck, you're doing your show, you get off at, like, midnight, you go back to the hotel, you fly out, you do a photoshoot. Like that was her life and it was just filming that. So that was really helpful just to kind of get like, you know, watching those kinds of behind the scenes stuff just for the day to day because it clearly was very busy and lonely and isolating, you know.

Emma
Yeah, busy and lonely. I mean, really, it just like, I think that the closer you look at that kind of life, the more it seems clear that it's a kind of sacrifice, you know, that you get to be the picture on the posters on the wall or whatever, or the one on stage, but in return you have no life. You have no life.

Bel
Yeah. And you're surrounded by adults when you're a kid. The whole time. Yeah.

Emma
And it's in –yeah. Awful. Awful.

Okay, let's talk about some music. OK. So would imagine that you made some sort of a playlist. Have you been asked to make a playlist for this book?

Bel
Yes.

Emma
What's on it? What's on it? Top. I want the top hits.

Bel
Okay, let me actually look at my Spotify. Well, because there's one that's, like, 300 songs long and then there's one that's like 10. So I'll go to the one that's 10.

Emma
Alright, yeah, so ten, what are the songs? So, for people who are maybe not familiar, I don't know what rock you would have to be living under to not know these songs. What are the songs that really get you into the headspace?

Bel
Yeah, so I think, I think, “Genie in a Bottle,” Christina Aguilera, “Overprotected” by Britney Spears. There is a song called “I Wanna Be Bad” by Willa Ford, who is kind of obscure.

Emma
Sure, of course! Yeah.

Bel
She dated, I think, Nick Carter. She didn't really have a massive crew, but very interesting. Read a lot about her. The song “I Wanna Be Bad.” it is in the Amanda Bynes movie with Colin Firth, What a Girl Wants, if you recognize that. “Irresistible” by Jessica Simpson, “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia, “Behind These Hazel Eyes,” Kelly Clarkson, “Complicated,” Avril Lavigne. We got P!nk, we got “Candy” by Mandy Moore. We got “No Scrubs” by TLC, “Survivor” by Destiny's Child, and then “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” by Backstreet Boys. A lot of stuff like that. But then I kind of have another playlist that's even more like obscure stuff, I guess. Those are the heavy hitters. Yeah. So just so many.

Emma
So many, so many. And, you know, I think that it's just such a pleasure, this book, Bel, is such a pleasure. And people are going to love it! People are going to love it. They're going to lose their minds. They're going to love it so much.

Bel
Can I ask my question for you?

Emma
Yes, ma 'am.

Bel
Which is, I think, a kind of two-pronged question. When you were debuting, so when you were me, 22 days out, what do you wish you could tell that younger Emma? And then also, where did your career go that you just didn't expect? What did you think you would write then that you didn't realize? Do you know what I'm saying?

Emma
Yeah, yeah, I do. So, okay, so my debut… I feel like I did this sneaky thing that a lot of people do, which is I really had a double debut because I had a short story collection. And even though we, who work in bookstores, know that short story collections are in fact real books and totally count, the rest of the world literally doesn't care. They don't think so. Like most people in the world, it doesn't register, a short story collection. So I feel like when Other People We Married came out, my short story collection, I was like just a giddy maniac. I was so excited. It was published by a small press first. And that meant that I was doing most things on my own. I was in charge. I booked my own tour because I worked at a bookstore and so I knew everybody who worked at all the other bookstores and you know, that's how I got the books in those stores and that's how I got a book tour. So I was really just an Energizer Bunny like working so hard being my own publicist. And it was great! It was so fun. It all felt very DIY.

And people were so nice to me. People were so nice to me. And then when Laura Lamont came out, you know, that was published by Riverhead. And it came out in September. It's the only time I've ever had a fall book. And I was like, “I have a fall book. That means it's really important.” I don't know what I was expecting in particular, but I was expecting, like, I don't know, to be like the toast of the town. And then nobody bought that book. I mean, I was everywhere. Like, an experience that many young women writers have that most writers don't have is that a lot of people take your picture. I had my picture in more magazines and newspapers and websites, whatever, for Laura Lamont than I will ever have again. And it's because I will never be that young again. And that's fine. That's totally fine. But that was a fact.

So I had so much publicity and then literally nobody bought that book. And I was very confused because I was like, “wait a minute, what?” But then, I mean, what happened then really is that I wrote The Vacationers, which, I mean, number one, it took the pressure off. So having a debut novel that came out where I got a lot of attention, but the book didn't actually sell well, I think in the long run was very healthy for me. It meant that I didn't have a huge amount of fear going into my second novel. I was just working and working and working. And it just so turned out, it just sort of happened that when I wrote The Vacationers I clicked into something that I hadn't in Laura Lamont, which was really writing in my own voice, which was like writing much closer to myself. And that did so much better.

What I took away from that was like, “right, obviously.” I mean, not that every book needs to be, you know, I'm not saying like, “write what you know,” or anything like that. Certainly not. But I do think that if you write about things that are emotionally resonant to you and sort of are filled with more of your own DNA, whatever that is, if it's just your passions it doesn't have to be your literal autobiographical details, you know. That's what I learned writing The Vacationers. So that's that that is the advice that I would give is like just to really pay attention to yourself more than – more than everyone else, because you can't control any of it. God knows, you can't control any of it and so you just have to try your best and cross your fingers.

Bel
Yeah, seriously. And knowing that not everyone is gonna like what you do and you can't write for that because no matter what hopefully you'll find people who do like it, you know?

Emma
Yeah, exactly, exactly. You have to write for the people who love you. You know what I mean? You have to write for, I mean, you have to write for yourself, number one. You can't worry about the audience too much. Like sometimes I do have these moments, perhaps you have these moments too, being extremely aware of like things in publishing or in the bookstore where you're like, “I should just write a romcom that has dragons and whatever,” you know, where you're like, “this is what is popular right now. This is what people want. Maybe I should just do that.” But like, that can't work. You know what I mean? The people who are writing books with dragon sex need to write the books with dragon sex, you know, and those of us who are writing about pop stars need to write about pop stars. Like we just, we all have to follow our own path.

Bel
And what's so funny is like, you probably know this, like I do really love fantasy and I think there's a fantasy book in me and part of me was like, “do it now, do it now. This is the time.” But it's like, I don't think this is the time because I feel like I'm not, I want it to be really good and I'm not ready to write it. And I also just, but I had that inkling where I was like, “this is the time to do it,” but no, I want it to be really amazing and I'm not ready to write it yet but so I think you know when I write my fantasy book it'll maybe be in another phase of things and which but that's fine because I you know I'm not ready to write it yet but I will one day I have a fantasy book.

Emma
No, it all comes around. It all comes around again.

Okay, so wait, I have kept you for a very long time. So last, last question. What are you reading? What are you, what are you reading that you are excited to put into people's hands after they either pre-order or purchase Honey, whatever the case may be, depending on when they listen to this episode.

Bel
Oh my gosh, okay. You're gonna have to stop me. Can I say four, five or four?

Emma
You may, you may, of course.

Bel
Okay, the first thing is I'm in a romance book club and I just read this cowboy romance called Done and Dusted and it was delicious and so good. And I wrote a shelf talker at Montague, just being like, “you have to.” So anyway, if you like romance, Done and Dusted, you gotta do it. I'm about to start reading Real Americans by Rachel Khong, which I'm so excited about. See, I contain multitudes, really! This is why I'm a bookseller, because I read so widely. I loved Rufi Thorpe's new book.

Emma
Margo’s Got Money Troubles

Bel
Yes. That event is coming up, right?

(Editor’s Note: The event has since passed, you can watch it here!)

Anyway, I'll be there because I love that book. And then I'm also really excited to read Laura Hinken's new book, One Star Romance. I mean, all of the [Indie Next] book of the month June picks look so great. So I'm trying to read all of those. And gosh, what else am I reading? I'm reading Leigh Bardugo's The Familiar and it's so good.

So those are my very varied recommendations right now. What about you Emma, before we go?

Emma
Yay! That's good. Spoken like a true bookseller. You can't just recommend one kind of thing because not everybody likes that kind of thing!

Bel
Yeah. Do you want a cowboy romance? Do you want literary fiction? I've got you.

Emma
I'm still in mourning for my last book that I finished, which was Barbra Streisand's memoir, which I loved so much. I listened to it on audiobook as I fell asleep every night. I just developed this really deep connection with Barbra Streisand. And I'm listening to another book now, but it's just not the same. And I feel sad.

Bel
Ugh, that's so tragic. And that's like 800 pages, or 1,000 pages?

Emma
Oh yeah, yeah. No, it was like 50 hours, I think. Something like that.

Bel
Oh my god. Yeah, that's a journey you went on.

Emma
It was a journey. It was a journey from Brooklyn to Malibu: The Barbra Streisand Story.

Thank you, Bel. I am so excited for Honey to be in the world.

Bel
Thank you, Emma!

Emma
And people, anyone who's listening. You need it. You want it. Support your local booksellers, support your local bookstore, and support your local booksellers by purchasing their debut novels! It's the only right thing to do.

Thank you!

Bel
You're doing a service. Thank you.

You can get your copy of Honey over on our website!

Sources Mentioned:

Honey by Isabel Banta

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

The music production company for children, Kidz Bop

Pop icon Britney Spears’s album Britney and her song “Overprotected”

A review of the film The Idea of You (based on the book of the same title) in Vogue “‘The Idea of You’ Has the Wrong Idea”

Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures by Emma Straub

The iconic Green Versace Dress that Jennifer Lopez wore to the 42nd annual Grammy Awards in 2000

Martha Stewart’s time in prison in 2004 for insider trading