Lydia Millet (A Children's Bible) On Facing Down The Creative Process And The Climate Apocalypse
Episode Description
Lydia Millet has written more than a dozen novels and story collections which have both won and been nominated for numerous awards - including her story collection Love In Infant Monkeys which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
Her latest novel, A Children’s Bible, was a finalist for the national book award and shows children grappling with climate disaster - and their parents - in the wake of n apocalyptic storm. When not writing novels Millet works for the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, a nonprofit that works to protect endangered species.
We talked to Lydia about climate change, the creative process, and trying to ween her son off anime.
Hosted by Phillip Russell and Ben Thorp
Episode Notes
You can follow Lydia Millet here.
Visit Lydia Millet’s website here.
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Phil 0:19
What's good everybody? Welcome to origin story, the podcast that interviews creators about where they came from to understand how they got here. My name is Philip Russell, and I'm with my co host, Ben Thorpe. Ben, we have such a fun conversation today I was editing through it. And I was just like, damn, this one is really, really good. We interviewed an author by the name of Lydia millet. She's written dozens of novels and story collections. And one of hers has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, as well as the National Book Award. We interviewed her about her newest novel, A Children's Bible. And, man, I just really had a lot of fun talking with her.
Ben 1:04
Yeah, this is, I think, such a fun book, you know, it's a book that has to do with a family kind of waiting out a storm. It's also kind of about the Apocalypse, and about kind of the the children's relationship with their parents around the climate apocalypse and these feelings of kind of blame and responsibility, and you know, how we got to where we are. And so I think it was a smart book and an interesting book and a book that both of us were like, Okay, this is this is good. And then, as I think often happens with these conversations, we started talking to Lydia and like, I am now a full like, I'm ready to start the fan club full blown like Lydia millet, Stan, as we sit here today.
Phil 1:50
Yeah, it's funny, like I wasn't familiar with her work prior. Despite like all the the accolades, she's she's gotten over the years. And, you know, for one, and Lydia agrees in the interview, I love short books I love like a good short novel. And Children's Bible is definitely that. And it was really, I know, she's very down to earth, I felt like I was talking to somebody that I've known for years. And I think I really appreciate that, especially when you're dealing with somebody who like, literally has been nominated for, like, the biggest awards in the country, you know, in terms of literature. Also, you know, this, this book just comes, I think, at a time where so many of us, as well as, as we've talked to some people on this podcast are thinking about climate change, you know, many people's indifference towards climate change, and how we can, you know, combat it. And the novel does a really good job of nuancing. Especially how younger generations, Gen Z or whatever, you know, we called the people after Gen Z, how they're feeling kind of growing up in a world where it was ending from from their birth, essentially.
Ben 3:04
Yeah, I think, you know, if people listened to the Tali episode from a couple of weeks back, it'll be very familiar. I think in a similar way, Lydia is very interested in kind of the the liberal failures to conceive of and reckon with climate change. So there's a lot of that there. And then, you know, just to reiterate, yeah, I mean, I think I went in feeling a little bit sweaty, right, like, you looked at the list of accolades for a person like this, and you're like, oh, boy, like, don't want to mess this up. But just super, you know, puts you at ease from like, the first the first moment, super fun to talk to. Yeah, Lydia, huge fan.
Phil 3:45
Right. Yeah, it's funny, I think all interviewers probably know, or will experience a moment where, you know, you know, we're really used to kind of being the ones that that ask the questions, right. And I think, at least for me, there's a great moment and conversation where, you know, I'm talking about something from my own life and kind of my own misgivings as a way to set up a question for Lydia. And she kind of you know, she answers a splendidly but then throws it back at me and it's like an OSHA like, I guess I need to think about, you know, my own feelings and that I'm kind of extrapolating in order to ask you something, and that was, that was a it was just a really interesting conversation in
Ben 4:26
that way. Yeah. 100%.
Phil 4:30
So yeah, without further ado, how about we just let them listen. We're really excited for you all to listen to this conversation about a Children's Bible by Lydia millet.
Ben 4:58
Lydia millet has written More than a dozen novels and story collections, which have both won and been nominated for numerous awards, including her story collection love in infant monkeys, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her latest novel, A Children's Bible, was a finalist for the National Book Award and shows children grappling with climate disaster and their parents in the wake of an apocalyptic storm. We're not reading novels, millat works for the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, a nonprofit that works to protect endangered species. Lydia, thank you so much for joining us today.
Lydia Millet 5:33
I'm delighted.
Ben 5:35
So, you know, we often ask this kind of first question of our guests about kind of what the response has been like to the book or to the album or to the game that the person has released. But I'm kind of wondering, have you you felt watching, you know, just in this year span, since you released a Children's Bible, what has felt like, at least to me a real acceleration of some of these kind of climate related disasters that we're watching happen kind of across the world?
Lydia Millet 6:05
Yeah, I have felt I have felt that everything seems illustrative. Everything seems illustrative of Armageddon or something like it over the past year, it's constantly accelerating, it seems just to be piling on and, and also cultural products around these crises. You know, the crisis of extinction and climate also seem to be proliferating, which actually fills me with joy. To a great extent. It's just, I'm seeing far more, far more books and far more conversations and visual art and everything, everything cultural around, around these pressing, life support matters.
Ben 6:59
Yeah, okay. So that kind of gets me there's a, there's a question that I have queued up here. That's maybe later, but I'm gonna ask it now, which is, you know, I think you've talked about how the literary world hasn't grappled with climate change to the same degree as, say, the scientific community. And it's something that I think Indian writer Amitav Ghosh has written about, as well. He argues that kind of Western literature is largely focused on the individual, what makes which makes it bad at grappling with these collective problems, like climate change, I read an interview with you for lit hub, where you talked about something similar cultural narcissism, can you maybe talk about that? And you're describing this shift where we're starting to see more artifacts around climate change? Or around these disasters? You know, what do you think is shifting? And yeah, maybe talk about that.
Lydia Millet 7:51
It's such a, it's such a vast subject. And yeah, you know, I had been sort of bloviating about those things for years, when he wrote that book that made such waves and I was so happy, it made such waves, but I honestly had, it had been a pet peeve of mine for a long time, that our sort of solipsistic self based narratives have such primacy in cultural conversations, you know, and, and, in particular, you know, fiction is all in the form lends itself of course, to introspection and interiority, and it makes sense that it would be self centered, but the way the constraints have sort of been organized in, in at least contemporary us fiction, and to some degree fiction everywhere, but those, those sort of narrow, you know, Dunbar like constraints of, of, you know, suggesting that the mind can only encapsulate or deal well with assimilate small groups, you know, small social groups, rather than, than larger groups, I think are kind of perfectly reflected in the way we operate fictional universes for the most part, and this applies to movies as well as as well as books, but you know, locating everything that happens in the realm of the personnel and the domestic and, and the transactional, and this in the relationship, small sort of micro social relationships between between individuals being the locus of all satisfaction and all distress and all tragedy, you know, the whole way that we, that we organize fiction around the self, even going back to sort of religious narratives, right, like, like Jesus, the one hero's story essentially, has set us up to to suffer this immense failure of storytelling when it comes to matters of the collective like climate change and mass extinction.
Phil 9:59
You That's really fascinating. I think one thing I really appreciated and didn't really expect, and I started the novel was, you know, the plurality of the perspective and how it starts off from this kind of first person plural. We have the children. And I think that, you know, in my opinion, the book does still grapple with maybe our personal responses to these these issues, but it does it through this kind of communal, communal way at the forefront. I'm curious. What was kind of the genesis for the project for you? And maybe, why was it important to have this, you know, first person collective POV?
Lydia Millet 10:43
Well, actually, when I first started it, it was a larger group, and it was more like a hoard. The children were more more like, and I mean, the parents remain a hoard. Right? Yeah. Or heard, heard or heard both, I guess, in the book. So there's sort of this undistinguished group. And the children are more distinguished. They're more delineated as individuals, but still not completely delineated, right. But I had to set them apart from each other. More as I went along, as I went along, sort of, you know, rewriting the book because, because first of all, it's boring, it's unfortunately boring just to hear about the activities of collectives, right. And this, and this goes to also the way we tell stories and have to tell stories, and our, you know, I mean, I love individuals, I love interiority, I love the sort of self exposure of the of the hidden heart or whatever, you know, I love, in some ways, certain aspects of the confessional, but also feel that they, they fail in describing our macro social problems, but when you essentially, when you, when you try to write a story, from the point of view of a collective, you very quickly, unless you're brilliant, in a way that I'm not sure I've ever quite seen in real life, you end up you end up kind of with no story, if, if the story is all of a group, oddly, you know, I mean, you have to distinguish individuals. And, and so I actually reduced the size of the, of the cast of characters there were, there were even more characters to begin with, and you just sort of got lost, you got lost in them, you know, like, you were just like, who's talking now? Just on a logistical level, right, on a structural sentence level? Who's talking now? Why are there so many people, it becomes tedious and exhausting, you know, in this kind of novel context to have too many, and it's still sort of borderline too many as it is now. And I had to, I felt I had to have all those characters. But you know, for me, I don't know, I'm maybe starting to digress now. And you can cut me off anytime. But for me, the it was still I wanted to retain the parents as an indistinct hoard, because I thought they were funnier that way. So you know, and humor comes, as we all know, from objectification, for the most part, right, and, and so these parents are objectified my generation, sort of hideously objectified as these well, which I believe we sort of are, but this proxy for, for complacent and hedonistic demographics of, of my generation.
Ben 13:51
I was going to ask a little bit about the kids. I mean, they seem to me, you know, they are delightfully like crass and kind of gross in a way that I don't remember being but you know, I've, I've been out of the kid game for a minute now. So, you know, I'm wondering if, like how you approached writing them? And yeah, I don't know what it is this is your experience that kids are this way, or how did you think about writing them?
Lydia Millet 14:18
You know, I think even I see a huge difference. Like, my daughter is 17 and my son is 13. And I see a huge difference even between their social groups and their addiction and their idioms and even the kinds of social media they're attracted to. For example, my daughter plays no, she does not interact with YouTube and gaming culture at all. My son interacts with almost no other culture outside I mean, within within the online world, you know, Minecraft and some other games, typically non violent. And YouTube sort of didactic YouTubes but also gaming YouTubes where the you know, there They're like, You know what I'm talking where they are gaming, that's the the movie is of the game or gaming and narrating the gaming or whatever stuff like that, you know, and my daughter would not watch those if you held a gun to her head. But also like the way they articulate things in their peer groups is totally different. So I can't really, you know, these kids that I made up are just made up kids, I don't pretend to have particular insight into kids as a class or really, anyone as a class, you know what I mean? Any category, any particular category, but I, I do, I'm always drawn to crassness and just sort of brutal ways of speech and rude ways of speech and, and blind spots. And I've talked about that before, but I just I love characters having immense blind spots. Maybe because it haunts me about myself and about other people that I'm that I'm fond of, and also that I'm distinctly not fond of our blind spots, right about ourselves, that probably will never entirely go away until the day we die. You know, the parts of ourselves, we can never perceive with any acuity that other people always already know about us. I mean, it's just, it's terrible. But I like writing those characters. Maybe it gives me the illusion that I can imagine my own blind spots and conquer them in that way. I don't know. I don't know. But so the kids are obviously these in the book are obviously these flawed characters, as we all are, but then the adults. Are you sort of irredeemably flawed. You know, an exaggeration of who we all are. But I also think someone so I was responding to a question the other day from a reporter in Spain, and I think his questions were translated by Google or something like that. But one of the things he said about this book was, it was like, it's so extreme, your, your portrait of these parents, right? Are we too judgmental? Morally between generations? It was like, Well, you know, I mean, it's not really extreme. And we're not to judgment. I mean, we're judgmental. But I mean, I mean, how could you characterize the inaction and? And sort of, I don't know, abominable failure. current generations to deal with these things? How can you characterize them as anything less than extreme, it's just it's not a moderate failure. It's not a small mistake, it's not a bump in the road. Like, so the idea that these sure the parents are, you know, doing ecstasy and are drunkards and all of this, but I mean, really, that's a very minor failure, compared to, to the ones that have really taken place in the world around around the subject of the problem of the future.
Phil 18:31
Yeah, that's interesting, I found, I really loved the kind of nuance that you brought to this topic around climate, the climate crisis, especially in relation to the two generations at play with the parents and the kids. Like, I think an easy an easy kind of critique would be to kind of look at, you know, far right ideology and how that plays into some of the issues we have with climate change. But I think the book is really apt at instead interrogating, you know, maybe centrism or certain types of liberalism, and kind of having the maybe the right things to say, or the right positions to have, oftentimes, the parents do. But oftentimes, when push comes to shove, there's a lot of indifference towards actual activism that's needed to, you know, to enact the change that we need. One thing I was curious about, is, yeah, I could see how the parents in the novel would be fairly polarizing, in terms of, you know, everybody's always trying to look for likeability, or like, some kind of redeemable quality to characters and fiction. I'm curious, just, you're already getting at it. But if you could just talk more about this kind of parental herd as you're kind of referring to, like, how you were kind of conceptualizing that, especially as a parent yourself, writing from the perspective of the kids.
Lydia Millet 19:59
Yeah, I mean, I do identify with the terrible parents in the book, you know, I am, I feel we all have these self indulgences and systems and rituals of rewards for ourselves, especially in this, I don't know, in anything that you might describe as a middle class, a class that isn't living hand to mouth, you know, a class that has relatively settled routines. And of course, it's not a class, it's this sort of multiple classes, multiple categories. But still, there is a sort of critical mass of it, that's ultimately making or driving or permitting, or affirming policy decisions that are made, right, by the, by the nation states and the corporations and everything. So those of us who actually have enough agency, hypothetically to intervene, but actually don't intervene, you know, so those are the parents and I did, I did want to, to make them not, you know, not a particularly not themselves an extreme group in terms of politics or anything like that, just a sort of middle of the road to my thinking, maybe progressive or liberal on an American spectrum, but on a world spectrum, just kind of normal ish, you know, because everything's skewed right here, right? Like, everything's skewed to the right, what's actually sort of normal? Here is is not what's normal else, where, although, anyway, all kinds of generalizations being made there. And there's right wingers everywhere, still, we kind of have been doing it most egregiously recently. And I didn't want to, it's, I have in the past, sometimes chosen to sort of shoot fish in a barrel in some of my work, because it is fun also, to shoot fish in a barrel, and I bear the fish, no, ill will. But it is sometimes, you know, it's sometimes really hard to resist, you know, sort of sticking pins into it into a Trump balloon or whatever. But it's not finally, I don't know, it's, besides being depressing. And, and sort of obliterating finally, it's, it's also so kind of simple and dead ended and reductive in itself that you can't really take it anywhere, I think the interesting things are in all the nooks and crannies around normalcy and what passes for, for normal behavior. You know, in a, in the kind of culture that we that we have now, so the parental hoard, or the parental herd is, is sort of a beast that has, you know, I don't know many legs and one head or something in this novel, but also just, you know, kind of consists of people that I've known people that I've been sort of little bits and pieces and fragments from, from how people actually are and they're settled. Middle class lives now in in the United States, and just how difficult it is to actually convince ourselves of an emergency, even in the middle of multiple emergencies at once, as we have been this year. And last year, right, just multiple emergencies. And it just always, ever seems to kind of get worse there was. I mean, I was in Maine over the summer, and there was this odd feeling of sort of being in the before time, because COVID wasn't big there. And you could go out I normally, you know, I live in the desert in Arizona, where there's a lot of anti masking and a lot of anti vaccination sentiment. And there's, you know, just a lot of, you know, there are a lot of Trump trucks with big flags on them and things like that. And, and so I mean, sure that those things existed there, but there wasn't as much sort of anti vaccination and anti masking and stuff, because there didn't have to be sort of because the rates of infection contagion was so low, so like, you could go to restaurants and you could go on boats and to bars and it felt like this little kind of kind of a little bit like the summer in the beginning of this book, where they're just in this Edenic kind of moment before the shit hits. And it felt like a return sort of to that just briefly for you know, for the for the two months that I was there
And then, but then everything's back again, and the wildfires and everything and the Delta and, and the terrible politics and Texas vigilantes and all of that. And it just it seems to be this curve that is, you know, getting steeper instead of flattening, right. Instead of flattening, we're not flattening the curves or just not being flattened sort of across the board. And oh, I don't know, where was that even going with this? What was the question?
Ben 25:35
I think it was this question about the parents and kind of how you thought about kind of making them I think, I think one of the things that stood out to me is, you know, I want to fully be a part of the the group of the kids, right, where I'm like, parents, what have you left us with? What have you done to us? But I also feel, you know, sometimes, like, I am a member of this kind of, like, liberal group where I'm like, how am I doing enough? How complicit Am I in everything that's happening? Have I done enough? And so, you know, when when we get that scene at the end, where the parents are basically asking the kids like, Do you blame us for this? But that line about, you know, the kids speaking back to the parents, did you ever fight? Or did you do just exactly what you wanted always, really stood out to me? And I'm wondering how you about, I guess how you think about that, on that question for your own life?
Lydia Millet 26:35
Yeah, well, I feel that I am both those generations too, even though I of course, am not any longer 13 or 17. But I do feel I've been, I've been engaged with these, sort of the grief and to some degree activism. Although I'm not really a sign as like a sign carrier myself. And I don't lie down in front of, in front of in front of logging machinery or anything, but still an activist of my own kind first, for so long. I've been preoccupied for so long, and felt, and always felt even though I've worked in this field, I don't know what 25 years and everything. I've never felt I was really doing anything. There's you just as long as you're sort of living an everyday life, a life of habits and customer and routine, right? I think. I don't know, I don't know if it's possible ever to feel that you're fighting? I don't. It's hard to know how to fight. Right? Like now we're told that just sort of clicking links, right, that's activism, clicking links, sometimes walking along a street in a crowd. What is you know, what is true activism. I mean, obviously, it has to do with language for most of us. Because it doesn't have to do with, with violence for most of us. But it is really hard to know what to do. And my, my sympathy for the parents is, is immense. But you can have sympathy and even empathy and also hold some one or many, some, some many, to be reprehensible in certain ways. You know, I can I can I can hold myself to be irredeemable, and also and also sympathize with myself, you know, and also, but also, you know, just watching kids like, like my own, but also their friends. Be be angry and be really quite terrified or even be angry to the point that it's hard for them to talk about climate in a different way, climate or extinction in a different way from how it was hard for us to talk about, like when I was 752 now, and I was in my 30s, say, living in New York, my 20s in LA or New York, you just kind of it was not cool to talk about this stuff. Like it just was not cool. You know, you could talk about social justice issues to some degree, but really cultural elites. Were particularly uninterested. And I mean, outside the scientific community, but like everyone else sort of was just very uninterested in climate and extinction. It was. I know, it's hard to know how to articulate it except for that. If you spoke about that. You were just dismissed sort of aesthetically, aesthetically, as well as morally it was an aesthetic unpleasantness to mention these things, you know. And so and I've been, I was very struck by that. And it was actually one of the reasons that I moved out to the middle of the desert from from Manhattan, because at least I wouldn't I wouldn't be surrounded by cultural producers here who were so disinterested in, in the life support system that that we depend on. dismissive about it and sort of so haughty in their elitism? I don't know, it was, it was disturbing to see. And you don't see that anymore. What you Morrissey, I mean, in the young, and or even, you know, in the old, frankly, because now we're you know, we're clearly faced with this evidence of chaos, you know, but, but in the young, it seems to me, it's more, it's more like, it's such a given. It's so such an overwhelming given. It's not a matter of denial. And of course, there are exceptions to this, and the young have their own demographics, etc, etc. But like, in the kids that I encounter,
mostly middle class kids, you know, that my daughter is big public school, or my son's smaller charter school. These are kids who, to whom it does appear that climate is an ascendant and primary issue, but to whom, depending on their age, it's so terrifying that they prefer enough talking about and it's such, it's such a, it's such a given, like, some of them have said to me that it is obviously the most important thing in the world. But also, they'd like to play Minecraft now. Because it's exhausting. It's exhausting. It's exhausting, and just overwhelming in in a different way. Now, because many of these people will have to suffer in ways that my generation has not, unless they're living on the frontlines, you know.
Phil 31:59
Yeah, I think so. Anyway, yeah. Yeah, Ben, and I, you know, we're working on some fictional projects that kind of take on this perspective of like, a Gen Z, or maybe a generation after that, who are grappling with, you know, elders who maybe had indifference toward climate crises that they contributed to. And I think something we've been really grappling with is like, what that must feel like, Ben and I are like, 30. So you know, we're millennials. And I think in some ways, we grew up with still having that blissful ignorance of like, the climate crisis, that when we were kids, and then as we got into our adulthood, it's like, oh, shit, things are horrible. Whereas, you know, Gen Z is like, they've grown up their whole lives knowing that the world is ending, essentially. Yeah, I'm curious for you, and you've been talking about it already. But yeah, kind of putting yourself into this mind of these, this generation who's kind of on the precipice of the end of the world. You know, now that you've written the book, now that it's out in the world, you know, what did you kind of take away from the experience of just kind of living in this story for however long it took to write it?
Lydia Millet 33:18
Hmm. I'm not sure that's a good question. I mean, often I have sort of ulterior motives for writing a book, like, when, like, I don't know, almost a sort of just vicarious like, I, I'm working on this book of short stories. Now that is just like gossiping, it's so like, it's so I don't know, it's probably a trifold or something, but I just am really kind of like sinking my teeth into the sort of bitchiness of it, or whatever. Or, for example, like, I'll write a book that is set somewhere so that I can go back there, you know, in my imagination, and actually, Children's Bible was a bit like that, because it's sort of set. In my mind, it's set at a place called Blue Mountain Lake, which is like in upstate New York, it's not near the ocean. So the real place isn't near the ocean, right. But I have been to two artists type residencies in my life. And one of them was at this place. It's kind of it's for progressive artists of different kinds, like, you have to have some sort of, you know, other mission that you're involved in, outside making, making art or whatever. And so, anyway, it's called the Blue Mountain Center, but it's on this like, beautiful, like, and there's these loons and it's in, it's in a robber baron house, like one of those like, old growth wood, massive like, and so I kind of wanted to be back there and so that's so that's why I set the book where where it was, but I think, you know, I don't know, I guess. I guess the experience of being in any book is different. Like I never feel the same way about, about one of my books, like you know about, about any two of my books, I guess I could say it that way about being in that world. Some worlds you're in a hurry to get out of more than others, you know, or some you want to stay in for longer, I did this trilogy that starts with a book called How the dead dream. And then the second one is called ghost lights. And the last one is called magnificence. And in that case, I actually want to stay in the world with the same characters because that you know that the books all contain the same people. And I just didn't want to leave them. But I also didn't want to write a really long, sort of doorstop of an Infinite Jest kind of book, you know, like I, I like short books. So sometimes you want to stay in the world, I guess? I don't know, I guess. I guess I was sad to leave this one because it ended sadly. But it also, you know, I was really I'm kind of jumping around here, because I'm not sure completely How to Answer the question. But I was really surprised that people liked it and read it as much as they did. I will say that, you know, especially since it was during the pandemic, when we were already really, I mean, running the gamut from extremely ill and in extremists to just grumpy and bored and resentful. And, you know, I was I was kind of surprised that the book, you know, because it's not very, it's not that fluffy. It's not really like beach reading. It's kind of more of the same if you're already in stasis. Here's this book that also was about people in stasis. So I guess what shocked me was that people had no patience for it in that, in that situation. So anyway, thank you both for having patience for it, I guess.
Ben 37:07
No, I was, I was just gonna say, you know, I, I feel like I really have craved this kind of, you know, media, I guess thinking back in the in the context of Amitav. And I just find so few stories that are willing to, I don't know, like grapple with these feelings of despair and grief and doom. You know, and I think you're right, that that's shifting. But yeah, there was a there was a time I think, in the middle of all this where it was just like I was so hungry for this. Yeah, weirdly, despite like everything that was going on outside, but I just couldn't get enough of, you know, things that were speaking to this feeling in me that everything was collapsing.
Lydia Millet 37:47
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I'm reading Ben Aaron Reich's book if you guys read that yet desert notebooks it's called?
Ben 37:54
I don't think so. No, it's it's it's, it's
Lydia Millet 37:57
not fiction. So it's called Desert notebooks, a roadmap for the end of time. Wait, I'll show it to you. One sec. It's just so great. I love it so much.
Phil 38:09
Okay, oh,
Ben 38:10
I have it, but I haven't read it yet. It's sitting on my shelf.
Lydia Millet 38:15
Yeah, it's really, really amazing. For just like talking about the end times. And I mean, as the name suggests, but really, this sort of, I don't know, I do think there's more nonfiction coming out now that seriously grapples not in a kind of, not in a kind of windy or sort of like stodgy way, but like in this really passionate way, that's also subtle and nuanced, and not icky. No, it's not cringe at all. It's my son would say, but like it is sort of existential, you know. There's just so much coming out. And I see a lot of nonfiction in particular that does this. So Well, Lisa wells, new book of essays is another example. Which is a really, really good, that's essays. And this is, this is just like a long book. But it has a lot to do with time and how we conceive of time and the end of time and stories that various cultures have told, like the Maya about, about about time and monsters, and anyway, it's a great book. So it was quite a digression. But I do see way, way more than I actually like, because I've always had trouble in the past reading, say nature writing. I've always had trouble with some I have really liked but it's not been what I gravitated toward. I'm much more likely to read something. I don't know sit in a city and involving someone just like walking around and thinking that I am to read, you know, a book about about bucolic life or something like that, you know? But now all of a sudden they're there Are these ways of writing I'm seeing where apocalypse is thought about in ways that actually are both ingenious, and I don't know, in which is the argument doesn't need to be made anymore. Like I feel books have sort of been, or people or the cultural conversation have been so long just for so long have been struggling to convince right other parts of the culture that bad times are here again, and really worse times than ever before and stuff and I'm so sick of having to make that argument and listen to it, like, the science has been in for a long time, you know, can we not have that conversation anymore? It's, it's really boring. And it's, it's also sort of just feels pointless, right? It's sort of it creates, it engenders, like despair, and disgust and stuff. So let's talk about what's next. Now that we know where the science points, let's talk about what to do in this new world, and how to stop the worst from happening and things like that, like and I and I'm really yeah, I've been really happy to see such good work it is, a lot of it is coming out of younger writers, I think, I mean, Ben's just, I believe a few years younger than I am, maybe like five years or something. Lisa Wells is maybe like 10 or 15 years younger than I am something like that, but really out of people in their 30s and 40s, I just I feel almost more kinship with, with the stuff that's coming out now than that which was coming out, you know, when I was that age, or even from writers my own age now, maybe yeah, are a little older, you know, I feel just more kinship with this next. I don't know decade or a couple decades of new work.
Ben 41:55
I maybe this connects. But you know, one of the things that stood out that I kind of wanted to get you to talk about was the the way that there are kind of old religious stories in a Children's Bible, but they feel recontextualized that Jack is kind of reading these these kind of old stories, and then trying to give them a new meaning in this new context. And there's the there's the point where he's talking about kind of Genesis, and he reads that line. If you have a nice garden to live in, then you should never leave it as kind of the the takeaway or the lesson. And I think to some degree, you know, you're kind of talking about it, which is like, reframing these old stories in our new context, you know, as we understand the world to have changed, what what is the role of storytelling? Or what are the role of these these old stories that we've been telling ourselves for a long time? And so I'm wondering what you think that is? And what was the purpose of kind of this religious storytelling showing up in a Children's Bible?
Lydia Millet 43:00
So yeah, that's, I mean, that's a hard question to answer, as well, as you've asked it, that is like, as concisely or with as much linear purpose. But essentially, you know, I think there's, first of all, I think, I think we, we probably need, we definitely need new stories, we may need a new religion, you know, we may, or we may need a new way of understanding the old religions. If we're going to get out of this, it does seem like we need a sort of spiritual ideology isn't quite the right word, because it's obviously so loaded. But as a sort of a spiritual, we need spiritual leadership around these things. You can't, you can't accomplish like a paradigm shift on on the scale that is demanded here without you know, without philosophical and existential change, and really without a change of an effect that is not only like culture wide, but you know, global, I mean, there has to be just something extraordinary has to happen, right to save our assets here. And it, it may be it certainly involves storytelling, and it may involve as Kim Stanley Robinson, the science fiction writer suggested in his new novel about climate change. It may involve religion, unfortunately, like the history of like, religions invented overnight is not necessarily a stellar one. Yeah, they tend to, yeah, they tend to meet with ill ends. But I do think that there's so much in the old stories that we've simply turned away from that does and for sure, including the Bible and the Torah and you know, that Really, for sure, you know, all this sort of pantheistic and, and other stuff that came before monotheism. But even within monotheism, there's so much that points us toward the world of other animals in the world of the wild. And we've simply chosen to sort of edit out those stories in order to pursue, you know, the kind of market capitalism that we have felt so wedded to, or have had been driven to over the past couple centuries, I think really, obviously, decoupling ourselves from, from that capitalism will eventually be necessary for any kind of livable world. And, you know, we need new stories and powerful power powerful face of some kind to, to accomplish that i i fear.
Ben 46:09
You know, I think one of the one of the other questions was just, you know, you've you've written 13 books, and I guess, short story collections, what is your relationship to writing? And maybe how has it shifted, you know, over the course of all this writing that you've, you've done,
Lydia Millet 46:32
I have a sort of, I don't know, juvenile relationship, which is just that I love doing this. It's the thing I love to do, right? I just love to do it. And so for me, it's not work. And maybe it should be more like work for me, maybe that would be better for it. But I just, I love doing it. And so when I, when I can do it, I'm, I'm happy. And and that's sort of always been the case. But when I first started out, like when I was in my 20s, writing, it was a bit more of a struggle for me, and I hadn't really learned how to make it. Your pure joy yet? Oh, it looks like my headphones are dying. How very inconvenient. So I don't know, we may switch to my computer, when they finally die. Okay. Anyway. Just be warned. Sorry about that. So, so yeah, so I used to do things like plan books, and I had more time then, because I didn't have children, etc. But I used to plan them. And now I never plan them, because it's too boring to plan them. I'd rather just see what happens. Like, I'm just I just very excited to just like, look at a blank page and then makes make something on it, you know? So yeah, it's just a really sort of gratification, instant gratification thing for me writing, I think
Phil 47:58
that's interesting. Do you think, I guess to backtrack, and give to give you some background on myself. So, you know, I studied creative writing and my undergrad. And then I ended up going through two different master's degrees in creative writing. And one thing that I've been grappling with, and I think some of the, the episodes we've had on the podcast with other creators, that Ben and I have been thinking a lot about is, I won't speak for a band, but at least for me, it's like, I'm trying to get back to a point of just that, whether we call it childlike or just unrestrained kind of joy of writing. And like, I feel like I oftentimes, lately, it's like, a very agonizing experience. And yeah, I'm curious. Yeah, it wasn't just like, the kind of timing thing for you or like, you're, you have less time now. So it's like, you're kind of just jumping into it more, you're able to find that kind of joy more?
Lydia Millet 49:01
Well, it's I do. Yeah, I can't really do it for more than I advise keeping it to like, a couple of hours a day, if you can. I mean, I can't I don't have more time than that. Anyway, like, I'm lucky to have that. And, you know, I think many of us are in that situation, who, who just who also have, you know, I have a day job and, and I would always want to have a day job, because that structure I think, is really helpful for writers, at least for me. But I don't think I mean, I and I don't know, I don't know. I guess just one of the ways to joy by it is the fact that, that I don't have to be like involved in any kind of committee deliberations or anything like that when I do my own work. Like I wouldn't. I wouldn't enjoy television writing, say as much, you know, I don't think it would be terrible, but it wouldn't be anything to do with what I do. Now. You know, like just I The fact that no one can say when I'm going to do with a thing is very, it's very liberating, right like that you just get to do whatever your head wants to do. It's just, that's a great joy to have that, like privacy, and also that freedom to make something. I mean, it's, it's, it's a huge privilege that we have, you know, those of us who, who I don't know, who have computers, and like all these toys, these magic things, and the magic of like, some amount of time and the magic of not having scarcity, and all these things are, like, so extraordinary, really, I think, in the history of human beings. And if we can't find joy there, you know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know where we can. I mean, you know, but but also, but I do have, like, you know, some of my best friends who are writers have a more much more tormented relationship to the actual, you know, great writers lovely write it was, but like to the actual act of doing it, and find it to be much more painstaking, and even annoying and irritating. So I mean, there's all kinds of ways to relate to it. And I think, and I think that, like, also depends on what kind of writing you're doing. Like, if you're doing well, for me, it's when I'm writing, say, nonfiction, that is has to be more careful, I have to be more careful with it. It's not as purely joyful. It's more like I'm doing a structured dance instead of just like throwing myself all over the room, you know, and, and so maybe it's not the same kind of unadulterated kind of pure joy in that situation, even if it's enjoyable, you know, as an act of making. I don't know, when you say that you're not felt when you say that you're not feeling joy? Is it the actual, is it what part of it is not joyful? I guess?
Phil 51:51
Yeah, that's a that's an interesting question. So we have for some, some more background, I mainly write nonfiction. So like, that's kind of what I've been trained in. I mainly write personal essays, and things like that. And But lately, I've been trying to write more fiction, I kind of needed a break from interrogating my identity as a black man in America for multiple years.
Lydia Millet 52:14
Sure, yeah. And
Phil 52:17
yeah, I think I feel that inner voice, Ben and I talked about, like that inner voice, like we start writing, and it's just like, telling you like, this is bad, or whatever, whatever. It's saying,
Ben 52:27
Yeah, we have this conversation all the time about like, feeling like the critic, or even the, you know, the workshops that we've been through, like, those people are kind of still hanging on your shoulder as you're writing and you like, get a couple sentences, and you're like, This is dogshit. Like, I should delete this right now. Like, what am I even doing? And so like, yeah, I don't know, it was there. Did you ever have that?
Lydia Millet 52:47
I know. Sorry. God, yes. Well, so I have I have, I have, I totally know what you mean. And I, here's my thought on that, if you care to hear it, yes. Got to keep those little devils, or even angels actually, like both of them, they have to, you have to shut them away, until you have a draft or something, you can't be letting them, like intrude between the sentences and stuff, or even the paragraphs, they have to stay away until you get something there, then you welcome them in, you know, because you need them, you do need them eventually, but it's terrible. If they're hovering like that, I mean, it's like going to the bathroom with someone watching. You can't, it's not good, you know, you're not gonna like that. So I think that if there's a way of just like, temporarily banishing them, it could be substance abuse, I find that helps. I mean, when you do, do, like, for example, have a glass of wine, cigarette, pot, whatever it might be, or like a, it could be anything, right? It could be anything, but like something that somewhat I mean, you can see why writers of the past have a certain generations and whatever, like, love to indulge and be seen indulging and had that there was this whole stereotype around, you know, drunkard writers, or whatever, what drug addict writers or whatever the case might be in a given context, right? But it is good, I think partly because those things that release you from inhibition, also release those critics when they need to be released, and then they can come back later. Like when you're sober, or whatever, you know, so just a little advice doesn't have to go on the podcast, substance abuse. But no, I do actually think that it is more difficult with nonfiction, at least in my experience, it is it is more difficult, especially like I'm writing a thing too. That's like a book length nonfiction thing. And I've just had to like just tear it apart and try to rebuild it and stuff because, well, first of all, it's not my area of expertise. But but I really wanted to write it you know, and it's about all these See these lofty and heavy things and it's learning to sit you situate yourself in that I think is incredibly difficult, like I think so felt like so whatever you're doing like that's more if you're doing nonfiction in which you also play a role, I just I think it's quite difficult compared to fiction. And I don't think I just say that because I am a fiction writer, honestly, I think that whole negotiation is very complex and does require, like, partly because it does require these levels of self awareness. And as you're writing, even that are inconvenient. You know, like that, just, it's nice to get rid of yourself, right? And I'd love that about fiction where you can at least get rid of the obvious, like version of yourself, know, and rely on abstractions about yourself or whatever, you know what I mean? Yeah,
Phil 55:52
no, I love that. I love that. Just what you said that it's nice to get rid of yourself, you know, sometimes, and yeah, that's great.
Lydia Millet 56:03
I am not sure that I answered or whatever that originally was. I just feel like I meandered off a path there. So I hope it wasn't no,
Ben 56:11
no, you were right on the path that entire time. That was exactly. That was exactly what we're looking for. Good, good, good. Phil, do you have anything else you want to ask him? I'm looking at our list.
Phil 56:24
Um, you know, I mean, I don't we're trying to parse how to how to ask this question, something I was thinking about, while while reading a Children's Bible was, you know, obviously, the the narrative backdrop is this climate event that happened, you know, the storm. And, in turn kind of these EV and M companies, reactions to set events and like the changing environment that they're living in. Something that I found kind of interesting was not to say that place or land wasn't interrogated or emphasized in the novel, but it seemed like it was very much so a character study, it was very much so like, what is it like for these characters reacting to their habitat changing? And I'm curious, I don't know, like, what? Why was that important for you? I guess.
Lydia Millet 57:34
It's interesting, I guess. I mean, what I think about it, really, almost none of my books have much like physical description in them of either have people or have even have animals when they are present, or landscapes, just very minimal, because I've always felt like, I just I'm not interested in describing that. It's not that I'm not interested in. Right, those places or objects or subjects, I just, I'm not interested in making them in words, I'd rather that people interpolate that readers just interpolate whatever landscape works for them. In this situation, you know, because also, just like, that was one of the things that always put me off about nature writing when I was younger, I just got so bored. I was always sort of thinking, like reading physical description. Can you guys still hear me? Yeah, let me see. I've got 14% in one year, so just tell me so what was I on about? Yeah, no, I just was always really impatient with physical description of of place and stuff in my in my own work, but also in other people's work, frankly, and just always sort of seemed to me like it was somewhat obsolete given given what we had other forums other media Yeah. You know, it just it no longer seemed necessary, I guess. And so and so we I don't have much in it. And you know, I do I really love dialogue I'd love Which isn't to say like, I love reading screenplays, although I do sometimes. But I love dialogue and fiction. When it's good. It's painful, of course when it's not. But, you know, just conversation is so efficient, right? It's so efficient in shedding light on people without you ever having to say anything directly about who they are. Right? So it's just like the ultimate show, even though I don't really believe that stuff. But showing and telling that they tell you in workshops, I mean, obviously you can tell as much as you can get away with right. It's all about authority. It's all about creating that or basically tricking people into thinking you have authority. So I don't believe you know, don't believe that. That telling us is bad. Yeah, but like dialogue is just a great way to reflect on everyone without, you know, without preaching about it. And so yeah, I guess this is pretty dialogue heavy book, right? And then yeah. And what I'm doing now that's even more dialogue heavy. I feel so maybe I'm just the older I get, you know, people get really talkative, right? When they get old. It's just like, chatty Cathy's or whatever. I don't know, just like he reserved more to dialogue. Maybe? At least I do. I don't know if that answers though. Does it answer?
Phil 1:00:36
No, I think I think that makes sense. It answers kind of what? Yeah, what I was thinking in terms of why the characters kind of voice I think voice is really important in this book. And like, maybe that's why the dialogue is so prescient throughout. I think those are the moments that really stuck out to me certain certain scenes, whereas like, also the humor, there's a lot of parts of that that are that are really funny. So
Lydia Millet 1:00:59
good. Good. I'm glad.
Ben 1:01:03
Boy, is there anything we haven't asked you that you want to say about this?
Lydia Millet 1:01:08
No, no, I mean, I don't? I don't know. I don't know. No, I think you've said good things. I mean, I'm interested in you guys and what you're up to and stuff. Would you send me? Would you send me a couple of links to game ones that you've done with game creators and stuff? Abs? ABS anything about climate? Okay, that'd be really helpful to me. Yes. Okay,
Ben 1:01:29
we're gonna, we're gonna we're gonna get your camera also interesting. We're gonna get your kid playing some boomerang generation. It's on. That's awesome.
Lydia Millet 1:01:37
Is that Japanese? No,
Ben 1:01:38
it's Maori. It's a Maori creator. Yeah, living in Australia made this. It's like a photography game where you go around, but it's like the end of the world. Very good. Oh, that's so cool. Very good. That's
Lydia Millet 1:01:51
really, really cool. He's kind of obsessed with anime, but I sort of want to move him. He's just like, feel like he's saturated with anime, and he needs to like, move beyond also,
Phil 1:02:01
I was I was that kid growing up the the saturation of the anime kid. So totally.
Lydia Millet 1:02:07
Like, I've just heard so many plots. At this point. I'm like, let's just go to let's just go to, like, different thing for a while.
Phil 1:02:14
You know what I mean? Yeah.
Lydia Millet 1:02:16
It's not a diss. I'm just kind of like, let's Yeah, I get a little diversity.
Phil 1:02:22
Do you? Do you just see show you that? This is something where it's like, you're, you're watching like, he
Lydia Millet 1:02:27
tries, man. Yeah, he tries. He tries but I'm like, I'm always doing stuff. Like it's for him. Lots of it. I'll be like doing something like his laundry. And he'll be like, look, look look like, dude, do you want the clean underwear? You know, there's just a lot of it, but he wants to share it. He's like, so excited about it. But I'm just like, yes, yes, it's I've heard several of these stories.
Ben 1:02:49
So good. Anyway, thank you guys. For this. I'm gonna go back to my day job. Now. This is really fun. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day. We super appreciate it.
Lydia Millet 1:03:01
Okay, and email me anytime you guys are great. Cool. Okay, bye.
Phil 1:03:30
And that was our conversation with Lydia millet about her newest novel, A Children's Bible. Such a fun conversation. She's so personable and funny. And really good at I think connecting with, you know, interviewers, and just making it a fun conversation.
Ben 1:03:50
Yeah, and, you know, I think the thing that has stuck with me feel like you and I have both been thinking a lot about and I think this has come up in the last, you know, couple of conversations where we're starting to think about, like, how do we get the things done? How do we what's our relationship to our art? And like, how do we get it done and get it out there? I think we've had this kind of loop this conversation a couple of times. And she again, I think has this answer about like, Listen, you know, you kind of got to silence that critical brain while you're at least getting the first draft out there that can come in later. But at the end of the day, like you still gotta have, you know, stuff on the page to work with, with your critical brain. Right, and you can't let that stop stuff from happening. And I think yeah, we've heard that a couple times. Now. I think that's probably the correct answer. It's a good answer. It's a useful answer. And it was, I think, a good a good reminder again, of just like, hey, get it done.
Phil 1:04:49
Yeah, it's funny, you know, like, in a lot of ways, a lot of the people that we've been talking with, like you said, they are kind of giving a similar advice. Ace, when we kind of broach those topics around, like, how do you finish a topic? Or like how do you silence that creative? Or that that critical kind of voice in your head? But the thing that's really interesting for me is that, you know, people could essentially tell me the same exact thing, but as long as it's from somebody else, I feel like oh, shit, like, I guess I haven't thought about it that way. And yeah, it's interesting that I think in the context of bigger conversations, how those that similar advice or that same advice can hit in different ways. Like, I felt like I left this conversation. Really, maybe it's just a matter of having to be told the same thing a certain amount of times, but like really feeling like, oh, maybe I can, you know, finish this or even start this this thing I've been working on.
Ben 1:05:50
Yeah. 100% with some light substance abuse, I guess.
Phil 1:05:58
Yeah, you know, I'm here for it. Lydia's down to party. I
Ben 1:06:02
haven't tried it. But you know what, Lydia millet has a Pulitzer Prize. Mom, I gotta get to it.
Phil 1:06:08
Also great to hear that her son is obsessed with anime and video games and that she? She's looking for a way out. I
Ben 1:06:18
love that. She asked me that question. She was like, yeah, how do I get my son? How do I wean them off anime? Meanwhile, I'm like, 50 episodes into one piece. I've lost my life to kill a kill. And I'm like, ma'am, I don't have the answer either. If your son figures out how to stop watching anime, I'm I'm ready. I'm ready. Please tell me the answer to this.
Phil 1:06:42
Yeah, we were definitely the wrong people to ask that. That advice to you know, like I was, I still always tell people like the first CD that I ever bought out of my own volition was an imported bootleg Gundam Wing, like, Original Soundtrack for songs that weren't even in the show. And it's like, besides or like, I don't know what you'd call that a seaside. It's like something that's like, gives extra flavor or world building to the thing. So that's where I'm coming from.
Ben 1:07:16
It's very funny. It's very, very funny. Yeah. Lydia. Bestival? Actually, I feel like that's a great, that's a great question to punt to the audience, which is like what's what's what's the media that you're engaging with? That maybe helps you if you've ever been on an anime binge? What? What helps wean you off?
Phil 1:07:37
Yeah, what is the cure to anime addiction? Season Two of origin story.
Ben 1:07:45
It's gonna be a seven part or baby.
Phil 1:07:48
But yeah, we just want to thank Lydia again for coming on the show. It was really fun. The novel is awesome. I think that it does a lot of really interesting things while also being short, which again, something I value greatly. And other news, we have more listener emails. We're really happy that they're starting to come in and
Ben 1:08:12
honestly, like, genuinely pumped when we get these in the inbox, we're both like, oh, gotta go check. Gotta go check the email. gotta read through it's, it always feels really good.
Phil 1:08:21
Yeah, it's a huge dopamine boost. So keep them coming. Even if you just want to say like, Hey, we just want to hear from people. This one is from our listener, Emily. And she wrote in saying, Hi, I hope you both are doing well. Loving the pod. I listened to this week's episode and thought I'd share some of my own comfort media. And here are some of her choices. Summer Camp Island helped me through the pandemic. It's calming and positive, and really nicely animated, which is kind of the only thing my brain wanted to experience for a long while. Really up Buffy the Vampire Slayer always brings me back to being a kid in the 90s have to say I haven't seen it I'm I know that the sin
Ben 1:09:11
lacking fill.
Phil 1:09:14
I'll add it to the list. I feel like I'm failing a lot reading through this list. And Adventure Time but because I was watching through it. While I was raising my Doberman I got him at two hours old and hand raised him Oh, he was a really sick puppy. So I spent a lot of nights awake, too worried asleep. He and I just sat on the couch together watching Adventure Time. And now I think I just associate it with the relief that he's thriving today. That is
Ben 1:09:43
honestly an incredible story. Adventure Time. Also is that show I recently recently started like going through is a very it's very much a comfort show. I feel like it hits that exact thing where you're like, Yes, this is good.
Phil 1:09:56
See, I'm slacking I mean this i This. This contribute So the fact that I was this anime addicted kid like Buffy the Vampire Slayer I was watching like Gundam
Ben 1:10:07
you don't? You don't have to say with that tone. Listen, I was watching guns. While you were watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer I studied the blade
Phil 1:10:20
then that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying like,
Ben 1:10:22
I'm here to say Emily has impeccable taste 10 out of 10
Phil 1:10:26
I'm saying that my taste was so like poison. Growing up that I kind of just like by the time Adventure Time came out. And Ben knows this. Like I just basically stopped watching cartoons. And I was like, uh, you know, it's very hard for me to get back in but
Ben 1:10:42
I feel like you you animate pilled me and then just left you just don't 100% You're like, Hey, here's even going in. Have you heard about it? And then you just left.
Phil 1:10:51
That's that's the way it should be, you know,
Ben 1:10:54
passing on the mantle.
Phil 1:10:56
I mean, I think that you and Emily are from the same ilk because her final thing is, as far as games go, Oblivion, Elder Scrolls Oblivion will always make me feel cozy. If I hear a song from it, or even a sound effect for a door opening or a page turning, you know, I'm gonna get shivers.
Ben 1:11:14
And you know, I'm going to put the sound of the page turning right there.
Phil 1:11:21
And finally, she says, also, the rats name is Remy.
Ben 1:11:28
Fucked up that you read that you shouldn't you shouldn't you know what? I hadn't seen it a long time. I assumed that the title of the movie Ratatouille would be the rats name.
Phil 1:11:41
segments. I gotta say even you know, I was telling melody Hirsch about this. And she was like, Yeah, I don't know how Ben thought that the rats name would be named ratatouille. But
Ben 1:11:58
you know, it also has a rat in it, which I was noticing for the first time. I don't know, I'm I'm a simple man.
Phil 1:12:04
They thought it through. They thought it through. And then you noticed in a follow up email, because I had asked Emily if she had, you know, any questions that she would ask the audience. She said, You know, I don't have a great one offhand. But if this is for an episode coming up near Halloween, she wants to know when do you all think that Halloween starts? She thinks that it starts September 1. And her friend who she says is a wrong person thinks it starts in mid October.
Ben 1:12:37
See? I mean, again, not the I'm obviously biased towards Emily's opinions here. But again, she's correct. Like we're both in jackets. It was cold today for the first time in like, a very long time. It was a hot summer here in Indiana. And yeah, feels like it feels like Halloween spooky season. It's here.
Phil 1:12:57
Yeah, I feel like Halloween. Yeah, probably starts you know, if it's not the beginning of September, maybe it's mid September. You know, the crinkly leaves start blowing across the ground, you start seeing the Halloween store go up or you know, it's a front for something else. Like there's just, there's just a lot kind of happening around this time of year. If it gets me thinking about candy and you know, the past I don't
Ben 1:13:27
know, just sadness and
Phil 1:13:29
all better better days. Well, thanks, Emily for for sending those those questions and insights in and yeah, we want to hear from y'all. When do you think Halloween starts? And also our first question, which was how the hell do you get somebody off anime
Ben 1:13:48
please. My mom's asking. My girlfriend's asking. They're all asking like how, how been? Can we get you to stop?
Phil 1:13:55
In the words of Lydia? You know, I've I've seen the storylines. There's nothing wrong. Like let's just mix it up a bit. So yeah, again, this episode was was really fun to record. If you want to follow Lydia, you can follow her on Twitter, at Lydia underscore millet. And yeah, check out some of her books she has many to choose from and we can certainly recommend a Children's Bible.
Ben 1:14:26
You can find us at origin story underscore, you can find me at sad underscore radio underscore lab. You can always find us at origin story dot show. Phil, where can they find you?
Phil 1:14:38
You can find me on Twitter at 3d Cisco. And we wanted to thank Ryan Hopper for providing the awesome intro and outro music that you hear every episode, as well as melody Hirsch, who designed our great cover art and website. And yeah, again if you all have questions Definitely hit us up at the origin story pod@gmail.com. And finally, just as Emily has left a review on iTunes, be the ultimate fan. Give us some feedback on iTunes. It definitely helps us with exposure and getting more eyes on the show. And, as always, thanks for listening
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
