Libro.fm Podcast – Episode 08: “Interview with Olivie Blake”

On today’s episode we talk to New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake about her latest novel, The Atlas Paradox, the highly anticipated follow up to the TikTok sensation, The Atlas Six.

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About our guest

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The audiobooks we discussed

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Full transcription

Karen Farmer:

Hi, I’m Karen.  

Craig Silva:

And I’m Craig.  

Karen Farmer:

Welcome to the Libro FM podcast where Craig and I talked to authors, narrators, book sellers, and more.  

Craig Silva:

On today’s episode, Karen and I got to sit down with Olivie Blake, the author of the Atlas six and the upcoming sequel of the Atlas Paradox. We talked about how she became a writer or process, how her book went viral and she was going into labor and everything that’s coming up with all her new books and things that are being re-released and it’s a super exciting time for her. So we were really happy that we got time to sit down with her.  

Karen Farmer:

I am also really excited because I finally got to ask my most burning question; Craig, I got to find out what it’s like to have a pen name. So this was a really big day for me.  

Craig Silva:

Karen is very interested in taxes. How do you do your taxes if you have a pen name?  

Karen Farmer:

It’s gotta be complicated.  

Craig Silva:

Yes, we learned so much about tax law. Not really. Why don’t we get into the interview so people can hear all about that?

Craig Silva:

Welcome to the Libro FM podcast Olivie. We’ve been really looking forward to chatting with you this week. Before we start peppering you with questions, we’d love for you to introduce yourself to the listeners.  

Olivie Blake:

Oh sure. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I am Olivie Blake. I am the writer of some books, one of which is the Atlas six and its sequel, the Atlas Paradox. I am the mother of a small goblin, so if I don’t finish my sentences, that’s because I have brain cells that haven’t grown back yet. Yeah! Great to be here!  

Karen Farmer:

Awesome! We’ve been looking forward to this all week truly; Craig and I have both read your book. I think Craig has read it twice.  We are big fans.  

Craig Silva:

I had read it like a year ago or whenever the tour version came out, I had grabbed it. So like a year or should go and

Olivie Blake:

Six months.

Craig Silva:

Six months ago. Oh my God.  

Olivie Blake:

I know. Time is crazy.  

Karen Farmer:

That’s wild.  

Craig Silva:

Well, I read that book six months ago, so when we knew this episode was coming up, I was like, you know what, I’m gonna just reread it so that it’s fresh in my mind. So we’re fresh off a reread here, so  

Olivie Blake:

Love it.  

Craig Silva:

Enjoyed it the second time, just as much.  

Olivie Blake:

Okay, good. That’s great news. I didn’t want, I wasn’t gonna ask, but just in case you’re like, you know what, it didn’t hold up six months later   

Craig Silva:

That would make this episode awkward.  

Karen Farmer:

No way. No way.  

Craig Silva:

No, it was great.  

Karen Farmer:

Well, before we get into the book and also Atlas Paradox, the sequel or the second in the series, one of the things we wanted to talk to you about was just your journey as a writer. That’s something that’s really interesting to both of us and our teammates and all of our listeners. And one of the things that I read on your website that actually didn’t know until recently is that you started out pursuing a law degree. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about the decision that you made to become a full-time writer? What did that look like and how did you decide to do that? That’s a really big change.  

Olivie Blake:

There were a lot of steps actually in between those two things happening. I feel like being in law school, it just was not the place for me. I definitely was, I had a mood disorder and I was very emotionally invested in my work. I was working for the public defender’s office and it was very like, you know, emotional labor was very difficult and I was very frustrated. I am not the kind of mind that does well in law school. I really feel like prior to that I studied urban planning. I’m a master’s in urban planning, so my brain is very like across the aisle thinking creative problem solving, like we are going to save the world with social services. And then you enter law school where it’s just like, no, you can only follow these rules and you can only think this way.  

Olivie Blake:

And if like, if the rule doesn’t exist to help you make this good thing happen, then you can’t make this happen. So it’s super frustrating. I was struggling really hard with my mental health. I ended up leaving law school and then I just kind of tried to do a bunch of other jobs. I did commercial real estate for a while. I did some freelance graphic design. I designed maps for a while and then I started writing essentially by accident. My pills didn’t get refilled for reasons. When I start promoting the book alone with you in there which is more about mental health and relationships this story will all make more sense but essentially I did not have pills, was awake in the middle of the night and didn’t know what to do with myself. So I just started writing fan fiction.  

Olivie Blake:

It was like, oh, there’s this. I could just get online and write a story right now and people will read it, write this instant. So for like a week, I didn’t sleep at all. I was just writing fan fiction. And then I actually started to feel better. This is a very controversial thing to say, but I was really at a point in my life where I wasn’t working a nine to five job. It wasn’t that important for me to, I had needed medication to be in office and to coexist with other humans, but I wasn’t doing that at the time. So I started just writing a lot and I was just writing fan fiction and then I started breaking fan fiction roles where I was playing characters and people were like “You can’t do that”. We would prefer it if you didn’t make that character. That’s a raging psychopath.  

Olivie Blake:

So then I started writing my own stories and I had enough of an audience by then that I knew there’s like a hundred people in my pocket, you know, that would definitely read anything that I wrote. So I would write these stories so that many people would buy them. I wasn’t trying to make a living, I was writing manuscripts to query for traditional publishing. All of this took a long time and was essentially very irresponsible. But I was lucky enough to have my husband so on my own I would’ve starved. Basically it is what I’m saying. But he kinda gave me like let’s see where this goes. Let’s try to see if we can make this happen. And it was kind of right at the end when I was like “I’ve been doing this for a long time and maybe I need to get a real job, maybe I’m running out of time to just kind of try to make this work. And that’s when I wrote the Atlas Six. And yeah, so I wrote the Atlas Six and published it in January of 2020. And then just after that I wrote My Mechanical Romance, which is my young adult novel under Alexene Farol Follmuth. And then I got my agent and a book deal for that book. So within the span of a few months, I was like okay, maybe this is a real thing I could do, and then a year later the outlets blew up and it was like, oh wow, so luckily I was on the right path.

Karen Farmer:

Oh my gosh, this is incredible.

Craig Silva:

That’s also, you set us up for the perfect segue, so appreciate that. Our next question

Olivie Blake:

I am sorry, I felt like I feel like I talked forever, but yeah,  

Craig Silva:

No, no. I mean this  

Karen Farmer:

This is awesome.  

Craig Silva:

No, it was great. We were both enthralled, so yeah, no, it’s super interesting. So like I was saying, that’s actually the perfect segue, like looking at my little script here and our next question is literally about what you were just talking about. So I know some authors who are just self-published, you know, they don’t have an agent, they don’t have a publisher and they’re just writing, writing, writing. And it can be like super grueling and disheartening in a little way, right? You’re putting out content into the world, but you know, like you said, maybe you have like 50 people that read it or whatever and it’s not enough to pay the bills and all that. And obviously, you know, you struck fire with Atlas and you know, it got picked up and re-released and obviously you have an agent and a, like, there’s so many things happening for you now, but I guess I’d love for you to speak to your, you know, what that experience was like and how it shapes what you do now.  

Olivie Blake:

Oh yeah. So I definitely always wanna say that I think that as publishing is changing and the route that people take to publishing takes different forms that I don’t like, I want just wanna make sure that people understand that I always wanted to be traditionally published because I don’t wanna be in charge of my own operations. But lots of people do. I think that there are a lot of incredible self-published authors who are totally fine to basically outsource all the stuff that normally a publisher take care of. So like the marketing and the publicity and the interior design and the cover design and the editing, all the stuff that you could easily do for yourself if you wanted to have your own business. And like that is astounding to me. People who can and want to do that and, and you can like make money doing that, that is a plausible career path.  

Olivie Blake:

But I hate marketing my books. I hate promoting myself. I did enjoy doing the cover design, but I never was like, my covers are, were never right. You know, like they, they didn’t speak to the correct demographic. They were just whatever I was into, this was a very self-indulgent thing. My self-published books because I wasn’t, they were already ideas where I would have an idea and think “this is not suited to the market”. My best example of that is Masters of Debt, which was my first self-published book, it was 2000. I think I wrote it in 2017, which is when agents were like, don’t send me vampires. Like if you send me a vampire, I will delete it Unre. So it’s like, ok, the market doesn’t want this. We’re still oversaturated in, you know, paranormal stuff, so I’m gonna release it myself and it’s just gonna be for me and what I think is funny.  

Olivie Blake:

And then, you know the market obviously changed and now it’s being rereleased by tour next year and it’s just funny how these things happen. But definitely, so when I wrote the Atlas Six and I was coming from a place of maybe there isn’t room in the traditional publishing market for my voice, I was getting a lot of feedback that a lot of authors of color get this feedback that’s like, I can’t relate to these characters. I can’t see myself in this, you know, things that are just, you know, I don’t think there’s any point tiptoeing around the fact that publishing is very white and it is very hard to the kind of what gets the attention of an agent. It’s such a cerebral, no one can really explain what it is. It doesn’t, it’s not a hundred percent what the market cares about. It’s also like what that particular agent wants. It’s just such a lightning strike of the right person at the right time. And I was getting the feeling like maybe that lightning isn’t gonna happen for me in a responsible time period, I was getting older. I wanna have a baby, I need to have an income, don’t really understand if this is the right thing, like how blind can I be while I go through this process? You know, like it’s a dream. But at some point I have to be reasonable. And so this is kind of my last ditch effort of like, okay, I’m gonna try and write a trilogy, which is the longest thing that I would’ve self published at that time. I’m gonna write a trilogy and it’s gonna be everything that I already know. Publishing doesn’t want. It’s just gonna be like a hundred percent morally gray, completely sexually fluid.  

Olivie Blake:

Like it’s just gonna be 100% about the relationships. And I was just like, in my mind it was coming together as this six person love story psychological thriller that was also like a really strange family drama at the same time. And just really wanted to lean into that feeling of, Cause one of the things I took away from law school and grad school is that I love academia. I love, and I specifically love the ego inflation of academia when you’re sitting in the classroom and you are like, I am solving all the world’s problems right now. Because the kind of questions I would get on an exam were like, how do you fix gentrification? I’d be like, I got it. I can do it. And all, you know, everything that is able to do in the real world is theoretically possible in academia. And so I wanted to kind of have that, like that high of being around people who are so smart and feeling like you’re actually having an impact on the world when maybe you’re just cloistered in the library of a secret society. So…  

Craig Silva:

I cannot relate to being in college and feeling like I am solving the world’s problems. I went to art school, I took basket weaving. I was not weaving a basket, being like, I am just saving the world right now. You know?  

Olivie Blake:

Well I hope that maybe, you are like an existential crisis that was slightly softer. No, that’s not true though because, with art it’s like a whole other crisis. It’s more like how do I create something of meaning?

Karen Farmer:

And what is its value?

Craig Silva:

And how does it pay the bills? So I guess there are some similarities, you know, I like that you were on the kind of do or die like, you know what, I need to be reasonable. Like, I’ve been doing this for a while and you’re like, you know what trilogy, you know, go big or go home.

Karen farmer:

That’s awesome.  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah, well it was, yeah, it was definitely in conjunction with the idea that I had already had my idea for my young adult and it did feel like, okay, the market needs this, it’s girls in stem, like it’s a young adult romcom. We’re having a romance like Renaissance right now, which, and I ended up being right about that, that book sold very quickly. So it was kinda like, here’s the thing that I’m gonna do that it’s obviously also very important to me, very special to me, but also I’m gonna let my brain play with something that I’m not even gonna pretend is for mass consumption.  

Craig Silva:

I said one follow up that I wanted to ask quickly. So you obviously wrote a bunch of books before the Atlas six. If you were gonna recommend, you know, someone that’s read the Atlas six and Hope maybe by the time this came out has read the Atlas Paradox and they wanna now go back to your previous works. Is there a book that you would recommend they start with?  

Olivie Blake:

So the timing on this is weird because a lot of my self-published books are being republished. Yeah, it is, it’s great for me, but…  

Craig Silva:

Yeah, congratulations!

Olivie Blake:

But if someone wants to read, they might have to wait. So if what you like about the Atas Six is the sort of philosophical rumination and the more quiet interiority then alone with you and the ether is definitely the book you wanna read. And if what you like about the Atlas Six is more of the drama and the ensemble nature of it and the way the characters play off each other, then you probably want one for my enemy or master of Death, One for My Enemy is more of a drama. It’s a thought flavor of Romeo and Juliet and like Russian mythology and then Masters of Death is more of a comedy. It’s like the closest thing I would like in it too is like good omens

Craig Silva:

Okay.

Karen Farmer:

Sure.

Olivie Blake:

Or maybe TJ Klune kind of like an underlying TJ Klune if he was a little bit more dysfunctional.  

Karen Farmer:

All laugh

Craig Silva:

Right! Good Omans Tj Klune, I think I’m gonna just read this book immediately after this call.  

Karen Farmer:

All laugh

Olivie Blake:

Well, I happen to have just seen the finalized new cover and the new TJ’s and they’re fantastic. So the final part for that book is gonna be really amazing.  

Karen Farmer:

Oh, congratulations.  

Olivie Blake:

Thank you 

Karen Farmer:

I have a question. I have been dying to ask someone this question for maybe my entire life. So I’m so excited to have the opportunity to talk to you about this. I love that you use a pen name and so, but first and foremost, maybe more importantly for our listeners, could you tell us a little bit about why you decided to do that and how you chose your Penn name? I’m also really interested in whether or not that gets logistically complicated or like managing your day to day. I know that’s kind of a boring question, but I’m like, does that not confuse actually life.  

Olivie Blake:

Actually a lot of people are curious about the pen name. So Olivie Blake came out of a name generator. It means basically nothing to me except that. So I told you it was the middle of the night and I decided I wanted to write fan fiction. I wanted to write erotica because I was like, this is my opportunity to write something that my mom will never read. And I wanna kinda flex and see if I can do something different. I guess I forgot to mention that when I dropped out of law school, the first thing I did was write a book, but I then just put it aside cause it was very self-serving. It was like, I’m in my twenties and in a crisis, I think you can feel that. But anyway, so I’d written things before and I started writing fan fiction. I wanted to write sex, didn’t want my mom to see it. Used a name generator. Came up with Olivie Blake and just started posting. And for the record, yeah, you can still find all my fan fiction as Olivie Blake. I’m not ashamed, although I hope my mom, I still hope she doesn’t read it.

Craig Silva:

Hopefully your mom doesn’t listen to this podcast, you know?  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah! No one tell my mom about this podcast.  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah. Logistically it does become a little difficult. I think it is general though, the contracts and financials of being a writer are also very strange. Like I have an S corp now and so the S corp is Olivie Blake basically. But so people have to email me at the l scene, which people often forget to do, which I think is funny. And then I get lots of people being like, how do you want, what do you want me to call you? And it’s like, it really doesn’t matter.

Karen Farmer:

Do you ever have people who recognize you on the street that say Olivie or Alexien and you’re like, wait, oh that’s me.

OlivieBlake:

No, I actually, I think that, I mean to be honest; most of the day I am Olivie. Almost no one calls me Alexien. I mean, my husband doesn’t call me that, he calls me Lex. So it’s, yeah, like if anything, I would feel very strange if someone yelled Alexien  

Craig Silva:

I thought you were gonna say, he calls me Olivie you know like, that’s interesting.  

Olivie Blake:

But I do like a lot of people do like little, my illustrator that I collaborate with calls me Olivie because of course she does. Cause I’ve been Olivie forever. Yeah. And I, I have, I’ve been Olivie for years. But no one has ever recognized me. I always kind of am like, well now maybe they would because I’m in a bookstore, like I’m in the place where you would maybe run into me. But no, no one ever expects to see me. I guess also, I don’t know why they’d know what I looked like, but yeah, I did when I was in the San Francisco airport, I was offering the airport bookstore to sign stock and then I was gonna show them my picture to prove that it was me. Because obviously my driver’s license wouldn’t show that. And then there was no picture and I was like, oh I guess you just have to take my word for it.

Karen Farmer:

Like I promise it’s me

Craig Silva:

Did they let you do it?  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah, they did and they were really excited about it. Its cause the UK version has my picture. So I went to show them like this is me. And then the US version was like,

Karen Farmer:

Well like I can tell you what happens on page 183,  

Craig Silva:

I’m just gonna start doing this myself. Just go into bookstores like, hey can I sign these books? Like I’m the author, like take my word for it…

 Olivie Blake:

This point I can tell you confidently that people won’t stop you. No one has ever asked me, no one has ever asked me for proof. So…  

Craig Silva:

Like why does this Steven King’s book say Craig inside of it?  

Olivie Blake:

Oh wait, okay. No I am wrong because there was one time, so the book went viral in around May of 2021, which is when my son was born. And so I was freaking out because someone had posted a picture of the book at Barnes and Noble, which is crazy like Barnes and Noble. And it happened to be the Barnes and Noble at the Grove, which was very close to me because I live in LA. So one week postpartum, I took my one week old infant to Barnes and Noble to go see that it was really there. Which is so crazy. And it was the decision of this one buyer, Renee, my best friend in the whole world now. And so I’m standing there like with the baby, like strapped to me holding the book just weeping.  

Craig Silva:

I was just gonna say you must have been crying. And people are probably like, What? That lady really is upset about that book.  

Olivie Blake:

She’s so moved by this book. And then someone came over to me and I was just waiting for them to be like, Ma’am, you can’t cry on the merchandise.  

Craig Silva:

No, I swear, look at my picture.  

Olivie Blake:

But it was the buyer who had ordered my book and I was like, oh I’m so sorry it’s just that this is my book. And I never thought I’d see it in stories. And he’s like, Yeah, I know who you are. Do you wanna sign it? I’m like, Ahhhhhh.  

Craig Silva:

Oh my God, this is the best story ever.

Karen Farmer:

Beautiful! Yes. I have chills. That is so beautiful

Olivie Blake:

Go to the Barnes and Noble at the Grove, say hi to my best friend Renee.

Karen Farmer:

Absolutely!

Craig Silva:

Just while weeping. So again, you’re just setting us up with these segues perfectly. Our next story is absolutely about your book going viral while you went into labor. I read this in, I forget some like the New York some article, you know, while doing research for this. It’s a  

Olivie Blake:

Very, it’s a common story. Yeah,  

Craig Silva:

Yeah! So I don’t really have a question here other than please tell us this story cuz I just need to hear it. Okay.  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah. Okay. Well I’d love to tell my birth story anyway. I think every woman is just waiting to be asked. What was labor like?

Craig Silva:

You can skip the details.  

Olivie Blake:

I will just say that it was just so much more like athletic work than I thought it was going to be. I feel like all of pop culture makes it very clear that it’s painful but it is laborious also. It’s like you have to do this extreme cardio on no food and no water and no sleep. And it’s crazy. And I had my gym playlist, like blasting in the background and I had to push for four hours and anyway, shortly before I started pushing for four hours my husband was bored. You know, because this is much less interesting for men.  

Craig Silva:

It’s less aerobic.  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah, right. They were like, you should probably warn your husband that like, he’s not going to have a lot going on. Like you are gonna be busy.

Karen Farmer:

Very busy; yes!

Olivie Blake:

Living your life through a mass amount of pain. But so he was on my, because it was self publishing at the time. He was on my KP for some reason I never kept track of my sales that he did. And he was like, there’s a huge jump, like a huge jump. He’s like, did you know that? And I was like, I’m in labor.

Olivie Blake:

I have no idea. And then I think shortly after someone sent me a message on Tumblr. Yeah, I think it was like the next day. So after I’d had the baby in the hospital, I was on my phone because he was asleep on me. And I got a message on Tumblr that was like, just so you know, there’s this that’s on viral. And I was like, Oh, that must be what that uptick in sales was. I didn’t really know how big it was. So I told my agents like, okay, I mean this is kind of a big deal. The book in Barnes and Noble, like someone has chosen to stock it and there’s this tiktok, I don’t know anything about it. I am not on tiktok. And she is like, well, like you know that’s how self publishing works. I was really eager to get it traditionally published because people were starting to ask about translations and audio and hardcover and I was just like, I have an infant, I can’t.  

Olivie Blake:

And because it was a trilogy, I knew I had two more books then I wanted to get someone to partner with basically. And so I was like, yeah, I would like to get someone to pick this up. And she’s like, eh, we kinda have to see, like I asked her give a number and she was like, we want 50 shade numbers kind of. We wanna see volumes of 10,000. And I was like that’s insane. No book is ever going to sell 10,000 self published copies and I think it was the next month or maybe July, I was like, funny story. Oh my gosh, we’ve done the 50 shades numbers.  

Craig Silva:

That’s amazing.

Karen Farmer:

I love it

Olivie Blake:

Yeah, it was, it was a crazy, crazy time. And she’s like, okay. And then she just ran with it. So this is another thing I had. So I did, you know, as far as self-published authors go, I did have an agent, which is very, very fortunate. So I’m definitely at this point like in the category of hybrid author and having her there was instrumental. 

Craig Silva:

What an insane month. I’m just thinking like I’m having a baby. My book is going viral, We are hitting these numbers we never hit. That must have been like just a whirlwind of emotions for like a straight four week period. You know,  

 Olivie Blake:

I absolutely think that having my son was the best thing that could have happened to me at that moment. Cause I’m really bad with like, good news. I don’t know what to do with praise. I’m one of those people where I just like, when things are going well, I’m just suspicious.  

Craig Silva:

When is the other shoe gonna drop?  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah, exactly. That’s just like, oh God, what’s gonna happen now? And so it’s best that I haven’t had a lot of time to like take the temperature of how I’m feeling. I just kind of have to move forward because I don’t get to sleep. And I’m worried about like, oh gosh, what food is gonna eat this week? So yeah, it’s very, very fortunate for my psyche. This is happening while I don’t really have time to leave those feelings.

Karen Farmer:

You’re like, everything is just momentum now and I’m just going to ride the waves.

Olivie Blake:

I’m running on adrenaline for sure.  

 Craig Silva:

So amazing. So happy for you; Congratulations! etcetera etcetera. Now let’s talk about the book. So since we are libro and we’re big on audio, I’m gonna insert a clip of the book here.  

Narrator:

Every 10 years a new class of potential initiates was chosen to spend one year in training, learning the functions of the archives and what would eventually become a lifelong craft. For one year, each individual selected for the society lived, ate, slept and breathed the archives and their contents. At the end of that year, five of these six potential candidates were inducted. They would rigorously pursue an independent course of study for an additional year at the library before being presented with the opportunity to stay and continue their work as researchers or more likely to accept a new offer of employment. Alexandrians typically went on to be political leaders, patrons, CEOs, and laureates. What awaited in Alexandrian after initiation was wealth, power, prestige, and knowledge beyond their wildest dreams. And thus to be chosen to sit for initiation was the first in a lifetime of endless possibility. This was what Dalton Ellery relayed to the most recent class of candidates. None of whom had been informed why they were there or what they would be competing for.  

 Karen Farmer:

One of the questions that Craig and I had for you is about your structure of the book, essentially. So every chapter is obviously the perspective of a different character. And I think this is, it’s always interesting to me and to Craig too. It was very interesting to me recently as well because in our last episode we talked to Emma Strub, who wrote essentially a time travel novel. And as we were parsing that in our minds and talking to her about it, we’re like, the level of complexity to create this thing is mind blowing. And make sure that everything ties together in the end. And, and even though we are suspending our disbelief, it still has a structure that makes sense. And so can you tell us a little bit about what it was like to divide an overarching plot line into six unique perspectives and still keep that motor, keep that engine of the plot, like moving forward constantly? It just seems so hard to me.  

Olivie Blake:

So I’m not a planner. I don’t plan ahead. I often say that I think most forms of prewriting are just methods of procrastination, which usually makes half my audience feel very uncomfortable. But at this point was my ninth self-published book and I was starting to get the sense that I was running into the saggy middle problem too many times. So I did basically let myself write act one, part one and part two with nothing. So essentially I jumped in, wrote every character’s introduction, and then sat back and thought, okay, how now how is the plot going to move forward? And at that point my outline was just the eight parts. There’s just like, okay, so the, this way I know how many parts there are, I know when things essentially have to happen. But as far as which character goes where, that was very, very mood based for me.  

Olivie Blake:

Because essentially, I always wanna emphasize, I wrote this book to please me. I wrote this book to speak to what I was interested in at the time. And I wanted to really focus on the human element that we’re really gonna focus on these six people and their relationships. They’re all going to be essentially their own unreliable narrators. And there is no objective truth. Like there is no, I am never stepping in to tell you this is the story and this is what’s really happening. I wanted that to be on the reader to determine in the space between points of view. So essentially every time I would write a character’s perspective and that would be the chapter, then it would be like, okay, well if the audience is an invisible person sitting in the chair next to me, who do you think would be the next most interesting person?  

Olivie Blake:

Like who is able to see what this character didn’t see? And how will that shape the plot in a different way? So one of my examples that I use for that is there’s the scene with Callum and Parisa, which is a pretty well known scene. They’re little Walts of psychological trauma. And so I could’ve done that scene from anyone’s perspective. I chose to do it from Callums because it wasn’t about moving parisa’s backstory forward. Like it wasn’t about whether what he was saying was true, it was about how he was generating it and what it was doing to the rest of the group. And so that’s like, so in the moment of writing that and which lens do I wanna take, it was like, what is most important here? Is it knowing the background of this character? Or is it knowing how the rest of the group is going to respond to what just happened? So that to me was moving the plot forward rather than taking a moment for a character introspection, which is, you know, kinda a weird call because we never, there are lots of people who ask me now like, how much of that was real, Like how much of that actually happened to Theresa? And it’s like, well that’s not really the story, is it? Like, not at this point, not at this moment. That’s not the story. So yeah!  

 Karen Farmer:

Thank you so much for that insight. And it totally illuminated my experience reading this because I would be reading from one character’s perspective and there would be just this little hook or a mystery where I’d go, Huh, like, what, what did that mean? Like what is she talking about? And then we’d go to the next character from this other lens and I would go, Oh, I think I’m getting closer to like, what’s really happening here. And so the way that, that all came together to flesh out a version of truth that we never know. If it’s the complete version or someone’s version is so, so well done. I loved it.  

 Olivie Blake:

Yeah. And I had someone, there was someone after who just very kindly wanted to do an interview with me when the book was still, you know, self publishing and like yeah. Things and would say I’d like, Yeah, you’re so right. And I’d like you to see? And she is like, oh, I don’t know now. But that’s like, to me that that active reader experience, that’s part of it for me. Like I want the reader to be involved in deciding what’s really happening and never necessarily trusting what the narrator is telling them. Perhaps because I don’t really trust narrators ever. So it’s nice to kind of do that on purpose, that like what they’re saying to you is not the objective truth.

Karen Farmer

Yes; by design. 

Craig Silva:

I had a question about Libby, you know, the all powerful wormhole creating awesome person that she is. Speaking of the different perspectives when the chapter is written from her perspective, I feel like she’s so confident in like, she feels like she’s the best, like, you know, she’s stronger than everyone Cetera, et cetera. And then when it’s someone else’s chapter and they’re talking about Libby, I feel like the perspective is totally different. She’s childish, she asks a million questions, she plays with her hair, she’s annoying. And it almost feels like two different characters to me, depending on if it’s her internal monologue or someone talking about her. And I would just love to know, is that purposeful or am I just misinterpreting?  

Olivie Blake:

No. Yeah. So first of all with Libby, I always like to say I made Libby very archetypal. She is supposed to feel very familiar to you. Like either she is you or she’s someone you know, because I think I knew that her storyline was going be more complicated and that something unexpected was going happen to her and that the, the journey that she would go on, I wanted to generate a little bit of tension for the reader that’s like, oh, this is the person that I feel very similar to her that feels like someone in my real life and now watching them make these choices is making me think about my own choices or what I would do in this situation. And so she’s that way on purpose. Because I wanted to mess with her a little bit more. And, also she is very much like a lot of this comes from my experience in law school. And I had not thought about this until someone was like, Why are all the people in your book such bad people? And I was like, I don’t think of them as bad people. I think of them, you know?  

Olivie Blake:

And certainly they’re not good people but I wasn’t trying to write good people. And then the more I thought about it I was like, you know what? This is probably because I went to law school and because the kinds of people that I like, it’s just the energy in the room when you’re surrounded by people who were all at the top of their class, it really changes. It kind of creates the same effect that I was doing in the Manor house. It’s just like you’re in this very claustrophobic setting where everyone around you is the best at what they do. And so it’s these very supercharged personalities. And so in some respect I do think that the way that Libby herself is, I mean, it’s through a fun house mirror and some of that I’m sure is survival technique. But also, I definitely remember being in the classroom in law school with someone who loved to hear the sound of own voice. Just like, Oh my God, oh my God. And purposely, she’s the youngest for a reason. Like she’s built this way for a reason. She hasn’t had as much real world experience as the others. And so I think that’s so they’re not necessarily being fair to her, they’re not really being correct in the way they judge her, but she also isn’t able to see herself the way they see her. So yeah, it’s just an ongoing, everybody the way that all the characters see each other is it says a lot more about them than it does about the character in question.

Karen Farmer:

That is great perspective to have. And you brought up the Manner house and obviously people talk a lot about the Atlas six in the context of dark academia. And I am a huge fan of the Secret history and I’ve seen comparison to your book to this. Like, if you love the secret history, you’re gonna love this. Craig, my friend here loves the Magicians so much.

Craig Silva:

So we both love The Magicians so much. 

Karen Farmer:

We both love the Magic  

Olivie Blake:

Book and TV show or just one or the other.

Craig Silva:

Yes. Both  

Karen Farmer:

All of the above  

Craig Silva:

Tangent time. I typically do not like, I mean, just like most readers, like a lot of the movie adaptations are like, Oh, the book is so much better. I really love The Magicians TV show. And I think that they are both great and very, they’re different enough that they’re just their own standalone things to me. And they’re both lovely anyway.  

Olivie Blake:

I definitely think that The Magicians is an example of an excellent book adaptation. And that’s the same, that’s what I told when we were going through for the Atlas Six and it was being auctioned and people were like, how do you envision an adaptation? And I was like, I do think that I am the expert. You know, I’m the expert at this book, but you’re gonna create a completely different art form. And so you, as long as you stay true to the soul of what I’ve written, that’s the only thing that’s important, which is I think what’s happening with the translation from book to TV show and The Magicians. So yeah.  

Craig Silva:

Yeah. Is there any update on the Atlas Six, and if there’s not, I can edit this out. We were gonna ask this and we were like, Oh, if there’s not really an update, we can kill the question.

Olivie Blake:

No TV goes so slowly, which considering how slow publishing moves, I can’t believe I have to say that, but yeah, it moves very slowly.  

Craig Silva:

Yeah. I feel like there’s been the Schwab adaptation in some form of another for like years. You know, I’m just like, is that ever gonna get to see the darker shade of magic on tv? What’s happening?  

Olivie Blake:

Let’s just say; I mean I have an unofficial date, but yeah, I wouldn’t announce it.  

Craig Silva:

Sure, sure. Fair.  

 Karen Farmer:

That’s totally fair. Well, like in that dark academia realm then realm that seemed like pun accidentally, but are there inspirations that you have there, kind of who do you look to that you admire as a writer in the world that you’re working in?

Olivie Blake:

Yes. Thanks for bringing that back because I would’ve completely forgotten what we were talking. So definitely I had the secret history in the back of my head while I was writing this. And I was also thinking specifically when I decided to focus on physics and focus on science, I was thinking about how many great works there are about the sexiness of the arts. Like anything that’s falsian is usually has something to do with art. And I wanted to sexy up physics a little bit. I think I felt like it didn’t have the same treatment, so that was just fun for me to do. And it made sense because it was like mythology and philosophy and physics are all kind of intersecting. It was a great place to start. And I do wanna add that dark academia wasn’t like a thing you could point to yet at the time that I wrote this, like there were, you know, boarding school books and that obviously the Secret history had been out for a long time, was written in the nineties or something. It wasn’t crazy yet.  

Craig Silva:

It is crazy now, it’s like an entire genre. Like you could, you could fill a bookshelf with, you know, ninth House and Catherine House and you know, there’s like a million of these books and I don’t mean that disparagingly, I’ve read all of these love dark, you know what I mean? 

Olivie Blake:

I know. I love that you, I love Kathryn House. I think that it’s just the right amount of weird and it’s fantastic that, So you were about my inspiration, my brain also, I got distracted again by how much I love Kathryn House.  

 Craig Silva:

We’re big on tangents here. Don’t worry.

Karen Farmer:

Absolutely!

Olivie Blake:

Okay, good, good, good. I did the worst interview, no fault of the interviewer. They were very good at trying to drag me back to the subject. But they would kind of do it too early, you know. So then I would cut off at the needs where I would sort of what I was going to eventually get around to. So yeah, I was like, you’re being too good of a moderator. I can’t remember what I’m talking about.

 Karen Farmer:

Let me get there. Let me journey

Olivie Blake:

I am definitely part of what I like about the secret history and the thing I really purposely wanted to do with the Atlas Six was take that time to ruminate on. Like what is the ethical choice here? What is the right decision? What does this mean for  like I just that the way that it goes off on those philosophical digressions, which the secret history could do because it’s literary. But you can’t really do it in fantasy. I think it’s a lot of people, you know, comment or criticize that my pacing is slow, but that is very purposeful because I love the pace of literary, I like the mundane, I enjoy ruminating and I did, like I said, wanted to feel like we are in the classroom and actually having that like learning high. So, I definitely tried to recreate a lot of ideas. This blurs, because there’s a book that I read after, like Kathryn House I read afterwards and I was like, that’s so good. Kathryn House, Plain by the Heroin, I love those.

Craig Silva:

Plain by the Heroin is good. And that’s a slow paced book. That’s pretty, there’s a lot of pages in that book. It’s really, really good.  

Olivie Blake:

It’s a huge book and it does the thing with footnotes that I love. I’m really looking forward to reading that book. I haven’t yet, I’m not cool to receive advanced copy, so I haven’t yet, but I’m excited about the footnotes part and I also always like to talk about the book If I had Your Face by Francis Cha, which is not

Karen Farmer:

I love that book.

Olivie Blake:

I love that book. It’s so underrated. It’s so good. And what I specifically love about it is that she’s kind of telling the story the same way I was. Where like, let’s juxtapose these different perspectives and we can really tell the story in an unconventional but very alive and dynamic way by showing you how this person views the world and then showing you how this person views the world. That’s how you figure out what the world actually is.  

Olivie Blake:

It’s this blank space there. So I think that I actually read that after I wrote this, but I still think about it all the time. But that’s like a very good example of what I was trying to do.

Karen Farmer:

That makes so much sense. I’m really glad you mentioned that book. That’s a book that I’ve given other people that I love so much, please read this. And yes, just the way these like tiny quiet moments of one character’s observation explode into a huge experience. Where someone else was like revelatory to me.

Olivie Blake:

Yeah! It’s so amazing. That book should be on everyone’s shelf. So Yeah!  

Craig Silva:

So of course, you know, as we talk about Atlas six, that brings us to the Atlas paradox. So we want to ask you about your new book, which comes out on October 25th, which will either be right before or right after this podcast as we’ve established. Yeah. We were hoping that you could tell listeners what the Atlas Paradox has in store for them.  

Olivie Blake:

Oh, okay. Also, I realized that I haven’t talked specifically about the audio book yet, which is so, so good.  

Craig Silva:

Do you wanna pause for a second and talk about the Atlas six audiobook? I can use stuff around, Cause you’re right, we probably should have an audiobook question here. Thank you. Thank you. We’re not so good at moderating like that other person.  

Olivie Blake:

No, I feel like, I feel like there was, my brain was like, oh, this would be a good time to talk about the audiobook and then it kind of went away. But I just wanted to say like, I did have a hand in passing the various actors and they’re just so good and, and listening. I’ve been listening to the audio book, which is so egotistical, but I’ve been listening to the Fit in Sheets. Oh my god. Yeah. And it’s just so amazing. I like to specifically say that the voice actor for Tristan chose him. Well. He’s just, he’s just incredibly lively and my baby loved his voice, so I always liked specifically that was an easy choice.

Craig Silva:

Does the Atlas Paradox have the same like six or seven people from the Atlas? Six? Yes. That had to have been logistically hard, right? To like seven people’s schedules like, Hey, are you all available?  

Olivie Blake:

I was so shocked. And I feel so lucky when they told me we were doing an ensemble cast, I was like, Yes, that’s perfect. That’s exactly what I want. And I was just, yeah, I just feel unbelievably lucky and also so glad that I’m not the one producing this audiobook. Like thank God. But yeah, so the Atlas Paradox has everyone coming back minus one because there’s so, so Dalton’s voice is not there in this one, but he’ll be back, he’ll be back.  

Craig Silva:

Love that  

Olivie Blake:

In this one we also now have Gideon’s voice and another character’s voice, which I’m so, so excited. This character’s perspective that I’m not going to reveal because it’s a huge spoiler is that it should hit very powerfully. Sort of similar to the way that a retrospective does for book one, so yeah! And this actor which I am using in the day dam form so as not to spoil is incredibly talented.

Craig Silva:

We were lucky enough to get a pre copy of the audio book. So we’re very, yeah, that was part of our research.  

Olivie Blake:

I didn’t even realize it was that much finished. I mean I guess I don’t understand how things work

Craig Silva:

You don’t have it yet, you know.  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah.  

Karen Farmer:

Kind of related to all of this and before we wrap up, one thing that I am sure you get like peppered with, badged with, I mean so many people love the Atlas Six and there are so much at stake and a sequel and a trilogy. And so as people found out that this sequel is ready to come out, you must get so many questions asking for spoilers. Like, give us anything, give us any little tidbits. So what are some of the, I guess what are some of the top questions people ask you or like spoilers that people are looking for?  

Olivie Blake:

Oh, everyone always wants to know where Libby is, which of course I’m not going to tell them. I’m like come on guys. But I had a lot of fun when I was doing edits on Twitter. I started posting little completely context-free spoilers from the book. Like people would ask for a character and I’d give them a line that that character said that’s unrelated to anything. And so for a long time I wouldn’t tell anyone anything about Libby. I wouldn’t give them any spoilers about Libby and then someone else asks, ahh ok, fine. If we can’t have Libby, then where is Gideon? I was like, ohh, he is at the pool with Libby. Everyone was like, You’re terrible. And I was like, I, no,  

Olivie Blake:

But yeah, so, well what’s funny to me is that with the Atlas Paradox, because I love the mundane so much to give away spoilers that are basically meaningless.

Karen Farmer:

That’s genius

Olivie Blake:

So yeah, it’s like still in the house. So definitely I am just so excited. There’s just one particular point, you know in conjunction with the actor that I was talking about earlier, that I really hope that you go from the perspective right before and then to their perspective and feel that tension. And I’m just like, to me, so much of this book and this reason for all my writing, I guess is that I just want something, you feel something, you think about something. And I think that that particular little crevice in the book is the perfect place to feel and think, it’s for people to have their hands and I hope that it creates some tension for the reader that it’s just like, I used to feel this way about this character and now I feel like I don’t know if I feel this way and my internal guess is that I think that people are gonna come out it 50/50 on whether they still agree with what the character did or if they have a different opinion now reading the subsequent perspective. But I can’t wait to find out. It’s driving me crazy that you guys don’t have the book yet  

Craig Silva:

Soon, so soon.

Olivie Blake:

I know.

Graig Silva:

Speaking of like, you know, you’re, you’re seeing what people are thinking and saying, you know, whether it’s on social media or just people you know, you know, this book got so big on social media and you were also involved in like the online book world with like fanfic and self-publishing. So you’re like in the book verse on the internet. And I’m just curious as like, now that the book is popular and like lots of readers are thinking about it and whatever and posting stuff about it leading up to and during your writing process, are you seeing the things people are saying and like, I hope that this happens in the second book, or I think that this is gonna happen and does that affect your writing process at all, Like seeing stuff as you’re literally writing the book, or is it just like tone it out, do my thing?  

Olivie Blake:

Definitely in between book one and book two, I had to mute a lot of counts. I had to just mute a lot of things and really stay away from social media because book two I already knew was gonna be hard to write because a lot of time and past in between and obviously who I was from book one to book two is so different and book twos are just hard. Sequels are hard. I had never had to do one with this High of Stakes. I don’t know if anyone is supposed to write, ok that’s not you. I actually know who should talk about this online. I’m sure her sequel to legend one is in a similar position but I really do not want to have my, I just had to keep bringing like what am I trying to do with this series? What is this series really about? I was really just, I started from a place of how it is possible to be ethical in a world where it’s impossible to be ethical. And it was really this very, this very existential question.  

Olivie Blake:

And at the time I was trying to decide if it was again ethical to have a baby when like I didn’t know what the world was gonna be like and I couldn’t promise, I couldn’t promise anything, I couldn’t promise they wouldn’t be horrifying student debt or that they’d get shot in school or would have bodily autonomy at all. Like this isn’t the greatest place to bring a human in the world. And I started from this place of ok, let’s just accept that the world as we know it is dying, what matters. And so then it was like, okay, well what matters is what we are to each other and the way that we treat each other and how we make decisions. It’s all based on the people in our lives. Like the world is not going, it will go on without us. We are the ones that are trying to figure out how to cope. Our world ends all the time. And so yeah, so I had to kind of really bring it back to what story am I telling outside of the good and bad noise. So yeah, so then, and then going from book two to book three, I had a much clearer idea of what was going to happen. So I wasn’t as careful. Like I definitely am still, I don’t read theories like I purposely, I’m very good at like my eyes just shut off. I do not see it  

Olivie Blake:

When I come across things. So yeah, I will say that I haven’t seen anyone be right yet.

Karen Farmer:

Oh, interesting.

Olivie Blake:

Yeah, I think that, yeah, there’s some people sort of up against maybe what it might be, but not completely correct, which is very vague obviously.

Craig Silva:

It’s very cryptic. I like it. I like it.  

Olivie Blake:

Yeah. Functionally pointless, but, you know, I definitely love social media communities and how they have made reading a much more social activity. You know, when I was a nerdy child, reading by myself was such an isolating activity. And now to have all these people to share books with, it’s just fantastic. And, and then it was my book, you know, that it was this tiny self-published book by like, you guys can see how small I’m becoming as I’m saying this, but like  

Craig Silva:

For for listeners, you’re literally shrinking like into a little ball as you talk,  

Olivie Blake:

You know, for this to happen with no publisher push, not even me pushing, I was so pregnant, I was not paying attention to social media

Craig Silva:

For hours

Olivie Blake:

In a, in a drastically different way. Yes. And for that to happen and for it to happen to me, it’s just like, oh, it’s just crazy. You know, I’m just not at all the kind of person who would’ve expected to see that kind. I would never have expected to see any institutional support, let’s put it that way. I don’t have a formal writing career, I don’t have connections. So for this to happen, just based on essentially word of mouth at this enormous scale, it’s amazing.  

Karen Farmer:

We’re just cheering you on a million percent. Like both of us have just been spotting like this the whole time like we’re so, so excited for you and just cannot wait to see what happens with the next two books and everything else that you write. Can I ask you one more question? I know we have like four minutes left, but  

Olivie Blake:

That’s fine.  

Karen Farmer:

Our favorite thing that we have to ask our coworkers, I always say this will never forgive us if we don’t ask you what are you currently reading or listening to and enjoying or do you have any books that you would like to recommend to us and our listeners?  

Olivie Blake:

Oh gosh, of course you know, this is one of those things were like as soon as you ask everything that I’ve ever read, freeze my brain,  

Craig Silva:

Same; Anytime someone asks me this, I pull open my lever app and quickly try to scroll to be like, what am I listening to?

Karen Farmer:

What is the book? I forget.  

Olivie Blake:

Because I feel like I’ve read such amazing things recently and there’s so many things that I’m also excited about reading. So, ok, first thing that’s coming to mind, The Someone in Time anthology that’s edited by, I wanna say Jonathan Strahan, but there’s one particular story in it that’s called The Difference Between Love and Time by Kathryn and Valenti. And it is a life changer. I read it and just like I read it in a nap when my son was sleeping on me and then I just wept onto his head. But that like I just absolutely, I’ve been telling everyone actually my cousin is here staying with me and I was like in case you wanna read, I always offer my book to people which is everyone’s like weird, that is not even a social activity. Why are you doing that? I’m like its book marked, it’s right there if the mood strikes. And also I have Fault lines by Emily Itami just out and paperback and that’s one of my favorite reads from last year. So just wanna yell about that one. Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki just recently came out in paperback, an amazing book. That’s another life changer. Don’t read it on an empty stomach though  

Craig Silva:

Like see you writing these down by the way,  

Karen Farmer:

Like a post-it note and then my post-it note ran out so know I have a notebook, I’m like,  

Craig Silva:

You know, we will have a recording of this. Right?  

Karen Farmer:

I know but I need, I need these tonight Craig. I need it now.  

Craig Silva:

I need my life changed immediately. 

Olivie Blake:

I think one of my favorite authors that I’ve discovered this year is Ketriana Ward and she, so the last house on Needless Street is like the easiest entry point for her stuff.  

Craig Silva:

I have read that one

Olivie Blake:

Heard that one really good. Yeah. Sun’s amazing but very weird. It’s definitely weirder but also what you’re reading isn’t really what’s happening. I feel like I need to warn people of that. Because otherwise it feels very triggering. And I have the arc for little leaves so that’s so that’s the next thing I am excited to read., so yeah, getting an American release now and I’m super excited about it.  

Karen Farmer:

So Cool. Awesome.  

Craig Silva:

Well thank you so much for joining us for the last hour. This has actually been one of my favorite episodes, honestly. It’s been just like fun stories and it’s been really just so different than any anyone else we’ve spoken with and you know, really appreciate you making the time, especially in your like month leading up to your release. I’m sure you have a million things going on. So truly thank you for the time so  

Olivie Blake:

Thank you so much. And I do because it’s Libro. I just have to say that one of the things I’m really excited about is my, So I mentioned you Ether Isle’s coming out on November 29 and I am actually in that audio book very briefly.  So I’m so excited. I’m making my audio book debut.  

Karen Farmer:

That is so cool. Well we would love to speak with you again after that comes out we’ll from a different perspective from  

Craig Silva:

Interview as a narrator.  

Karen Farmer:

As a narrator. Exactly.  

Olivie Blake:

Awesome. Thank you.  

Karen Farmer:

Thank you  

Olivie Blake:

So much.  

Craig Silva:

Well thanks for listening to that everyone, before we let you go, we figured we would chat about audio books a little bit. So Karen, I hear that you’re listening to something you’re really excited about. What is it?  

Karen Farmer:

Oh my gosh, thank you for asking. It’s also very timely because we were talking about dark academia in the podcast and the secret history and I saw an article recently where someone was talking about books similar to Secret History. Like, if you liked this, you’ll really like X, Y, Z. And I picked up the Orchard by David Hopin and I’m about halfway through, I’m listening to it on audio and reading the physical version, going back and forth between them.  

Craig Silva:

My favorite combo,  

Karen Farmer:

It’s delightful. I cannot put it down. I stayed up way too late last night listening to it. So I am a little tired today.  

Craig Silva:

Is your paper edition hardcover or paperback?  

Karen Farmer:

Paperback; I read when I’m falling asleep a lot. Very hard.

Craig Silva:

You don’t knock yourself out.  

Karen Farmer:

Exactly! It’s dangerous. Gotta be careful.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. Remember when there was like a million reply debate about hardcover versus paperback on like the Libro internal chat?

Karen Farmer:

I Do, I do.  

Craig Silva:

People have strong feelings about that.  

Karen Farmer:

You know what I have strong feelings about?

Craig Silva:

No. Tell me.

Karen Farmer:

And I debate this with my sister, often she will crack the spines of her books for the situation that we’re just discussing. So it’s easier to hold while you’re lying down and reading in that causes me physical pain to both think about and see.  

Craig Silva:

Yes, but not as much physical pain as a hardcover book hitting you in the face when you crash.

Karen Farmer:

Crashing into your face.  

Craig Silva:

I’ve never been hit with a hardcover book because if I’m reading one in bed, I like lie on my side. But have you ever been lying in bed? And for people who can’t see me right now, which is everyone other than you, Karen, you’ve been holding your phone above your face while you’re lying down and then drop it right on your head.  

Karen Farmer:

Absolutely. It’s very, like how universal that is.  

Craig Silva:

Yeah. It’s how it hurts. But also I’m ashamed  

Karen Farmer:

Because it’s happened so many times.  

Craig Silva:

It is good if you, if you quickly dodge to the left or right and miss you, you feel like you’re in an action movie or something. Like I’m Neo in the Matrix, dodging bullets. Wow. Holy moly. Did I take us off on a tangent? So that audiobook, tell me about it. Dark Academia.  

 Karen Farmer:

Oh, it’s wonderful. So it is about a young man who is an Orthodox Jewish person and he has grown up in Brooklyn, New York. And at the start of the book, his family moves to Florida where he starts a new school, his senior year of high school and is immediately thrust into this fascinating cast of characters who are the kind of mysterious elite cool kids of this institution. They take him under their wing and bring him into their very complicated world of relationships and families and things like that. So I don’t wanna say too much, but,  

Craig Silva:

And is this fantasy, like, is there magic stuff involved or it’s like just a real,  

Karen Farmer:

It’s just real, real life life. Oh yeah. Oh, Craig

Craig Silva:

Sorry. I love a good magic school, you know?  

Karen Farmer:

Well that being said, I’m only halfway through so it could take a turn  

Craig Silva:

That I’m, there’s still time for magic. Let me know how it’s, when you’re finished, I’m curious.  

Karen Farmer:

I absolutely will. What are you reading and or ear reading right now?  

Craig Silva:

Ear reading, I am reading the new Andy Borowitz book, Profiles and Ignorance. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with him. He does the Borowitz report.  

Karen Farmer:

Oh, it’s  

Craig Silva:

Like a political satire, but this is a non-fiction book, but he’s like a comedian, like he wrote or produced or whatever. The Fresh Prince of Bellaire. Like, he’s like, he comes from a comedy background and he writes the Borowitz report, but this is a nonfiction, but it’s very funny just cuz the way he writes. And basically it’s about how I don’t have the book right in front of me right now, but I think on the cover it says something like, How American politicians have Got Dumber and Dumber or something like that. And basically it’s about how I think it’s broken into like three different sections and there’s ridicule, acceptance, and celebration. And it’s basically how when politicians used to say ignorant things, they would be ridiculed. Right? Like, like the Dan Quails and whatever of the world. Yep. And then it was like, we kind of all just accepted that politicians can be, you know, regular people, like people you don’t have a beer with. They don’t all have to be like Ivy League, whatever. And now it’s almost like it’s celebrated, right? Like the, like more every day man or whatever a politician is or swearing, whatever, they don’t know stuff, you know, like he who must not be named and it’s now like celebrated where even smart politicians are like acting a little bit more ignorant, like to come off more every day-ish.  

Karen Farmer

Approachable. Yeah.  

Craig Silva:

So at the end of the day, it’s like a political history book, but it’s very, it’s relatively short and it’s told in kind of a humorous way about halfway through it now. And I’m, I’m really enjoying it and like learning tons of stuff I didn’t know and it’s nice. I like it.  

Karen Farmer:

That sounds fantastic. And is the audio  

Craig Silva:

No magic though? Unfortunately  

Karen Farmer:

Not yet. Is the audio book narrated by the author?  

Craig Silva:

It is. I’m mostly reading this one on paper because I just picked it up for my local bookstore, Brookline Booksmith shoutout. But I do have the audio book as well and it is narrated by him. I listen to a couple chapters like that and he’s really good at it, he’s really good at reading that.  

Karen Farmer:

Well, if you want the book that Craig mentioned or that I mentioned, or any of Blake’s books, you can start a new membership with Libro fm. If you haven’t yet, you can use our promo code Libro podcast and you’ll get an extra credit when you sign up.  

Craig Silva:

And just a little sneak peek of what we’re doing next. Karen and I are hit on the road. We’re heading down to Nashville and we’re bringing all of our microphone equipment, et cetera, and we’re getting the amazing opportunity to go sit down with Anne Patchett at her bookstore, Panasas books down in Nashville.  

Karen Farmer:

It’s so funny. About a week ago, one of my friends messaged me and they said, Have you heard of this bookstore Panasas in Nashville? It looks amazing. We should take a road trip. And so I’m very happy that that’s how we’re spending next week.  

Craig Silva:

Yeah, we’re going what, like a week, not six days from now or something? Really? Very soon. Yeah, soon. And we’re very excited. So keep an ear out for that. And with that, we will let you go. So thanks for listening everyone.  

Karen Farmer:

Thanks for listening.