Libro.fm Podcast – Episode 23: “Interview with Kacen Callender”

In this episode, we were lucky enough to interview award-winning author Kacen Callender about their new book, Stars in Your Eyes. We also discussed the importance of finding community and connection in their work, their experience in publishing, book banning, and more!

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About our guest

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Audiobooks By Kacen Callender

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Audiobooks we discussed

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Full transcription

Karen Farmer:

Hi, and welcome to the Libro.fm Podcast where we talk to authors, narrators and booksellers and more. I’m Karen.

Craig Silva:

And I’m Craig. On today’s episode, we got to sit down with award-winning author Kacen Callender whose new book, Stars in Your Eyes, just came out on October 10th, so at the time of recording it should be on the shelves of your local bookstore. So when you are done listening to Karen and I, run to your store and purchase this book immediately.

Karen Farmer:

Yes, could not agree more. I think I’ve probably said this way too many times in episodes leading up to this, but I am a huge Kacen Callender fan.

Craig Silva:

You? You’re a huge Kacen Callender fan? This is the first time I’ve heard this.

Karen Farmer:

Yep, I know. It comes as a shock. Kacen just writes very broadly, so many genres, they write for so many age ranges in their book. Felix Ever After is one of my all-time favorites. So it was really special to get to meet them and I’m just so excited to share this episode with all of our listeners.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, this was my first Kacen Callender book and it did not disappoint. I knew that you were a huge fan. So when I am done recording this intro, outro, I have more Kacen to read. Speaking of Kacen Callender, I will play a clip of their new book before we roll the interview, so stay tuned for that.

Karen Farmer:

Yes, and be sure to stick around afterwards. We have some very, very, very exciting announcements about our upcoming episodes of this podcast. Spoiler alert, we got to meet some people live and can’t wait to share that content with you. So stick around and if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, be sure to do so so that you’ll be notified about future episodes.

Stars in Your Eyes by Kacen Callender Audiobook:

I’m led down halls with fresh white paint and tiled floors that smell like bleach. I’m wheezing and sweating, trying to take a deep breath and cool down before I enter the room, desert heat still sticking to my skin. I’m very late. I know I’ll get some points knocked off on first impressions for that alone and I don’t think anyone will take and I’m sorry I’m not used to LA traffic as an excuse anymore. I might’ve worked for my first role, but I’ve been in and out of the city going on a year now. Samantha, the assistant who leads me down the hall seems as nervous as me and that’s saying something. “Are you sure you don’t want a water, coffee?” she asks for the third time. “I’m okay,” I say, still breathless. I catch you looking at me, gaze flitting away quickly, and I realized, “Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be famous.” I’m still not used to it. Love Me Dearly was released about six months ago and after the promo tour ended, I wasn’t prepared for this kind of everyday attention.

Karen Farmer:

All right, welcome to the podcast, Kacen. We’re so excited to have you here today. I just have to say I am a huge fan, so I’ve been very excited to talk to you. Felix Ever After is one of my favorite books of all time, so was really excited when your new book came out on October 10th which we’ll talk about today. So congratulations on the new release.

Kacen Callender:

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, we were excited we both got early copies. When it came in the mail, we were on a Zoom call and we were like, “Oh my god, look.” It was like a Christmas morning. Can you please introduce yourself for our listeners and maybe share a little bit about who you are and what you are up to in the bookish world?

Kacen Callender:

My name is Kacen Callender. I use they/them pronouns. I am an author. I’ve been writing for close to 10 years now which feels strange to look back on and reflect on, but originally from St. Thomas of the U.S. Virgin Islands. I used to work in publishing and now I’m a full-time writer in Philadelphia, and yeah, honestly I don’t know what to…

Craig Silva:

No, that’s perfect. What’s your go-to bookstore in Philadelphia?

Kacen Callender:

So it used to be Shakespeare & Company but did not survive the pandemic unfortunately, so I do need to find a new bookstore.

Craig Silva:

So like I said, we have tons of questions so I’ll pass it back to you, Karen, to get us rolling.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Okay, so my first question, Kacen, in your writing we encounter lots of characters that are dealing with some pretty tough things, with grief, identity trauma, and one of the themes that made me fall in love with your work is this idea of finding community and kind of moving through fear of connecting with other people as we learn more about ourselves as well. And so I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about why that’s so important to your work and how that has evolved as you’ve added to your collection of titles.

Kacen Callender:

Thank you. Yeah, I think that’s a very personal story for me. I struggled a lot with finding connection and community throughout my life, not necessarily only because of my identity though that has had a lot to do with it I think, as a marginalized person, Black, queer, and trans person. Growing up St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands was not the most accepting place, so that was a large block to finding connection, and it kind of chased me throughout my life of why is it so difficult to find connection. I think with Stars in Your Eyes in particular, you’ll find me reflecting on the healing of CPTSD and realizing that my own experience with trauma had a lot to do with that struggle of finding connection and community. I think that for a lot of my books, like you mentioned Felix Ever After, writing about that struggle and having the characters find healing and connection in their own stories was very healing for me also. So I think that’s why I tend to gravitate towards that pain.

Karen Farmer:

Thank you so much for sharing that.

Craig Silva:

I’ve seen you described in many interviews, we read a bunch of interviews prepping for this, and I kept seeing the word most versatile as like you’re on the list of the most versatile writers, and it makes tons of sense. You write for middle grade, YA, adult, and I was curious, do you have a favorite genre to write in, or second question, is your creative process different depending on what audience you’re writing for?

Kacen Callender:

The first question’s too controversial. I will not choose. You know, I think it depends. Honestly, it really just depends on I think where I am in my own healing, and I think that lends itself to the second answer too. I almost feel like every audience was a different stage of me learning to connect with myself in different ways. So middle grade was different in healing than the YA was, than adult was. That does show the reflection and different processes also.

So for middle grade, the characters learning almost the healing of generational traumas in a way and the different traumas that were passed down to them. YA has been the healing of community and bullying, for example. I think for the adult, what turned out to be different for Stars in Your Eyes, it was taking all of that in and actually learning how to have the resources to heal yourself, instead of as a child you look to your parents or you look to other adults around you to help with that healing. So I think that also illustrated I guess the different processes I had with each book, whether I was thinking about it consciously or not.

Karen Farmer:

So speaking of journeys and how that arc has evolved, I’m always really curious to know about people’s writer early journeys, and you mentioned at the beginning that you worked in publishing for a long time and now you’re full-time writing. Could you tell us a little bit more about how you became Kacen of today that is full-time writing? What did that path look like?

Kacen Callender:

Well, it definitely started as a child really loving reading and writing, and I know a lot of people tend to have their split opinions on fan fiction, but I recently returned to my love of fan fiction and just feeling like there’s so much real joy, how much joy it must take for somebody to love something so much that they want to go and create their own worlds and stories with what another writer created has always stuck with me, and I think I’ve always wanted to write stories that created that kind of joy for other readers. So that stuck with me from the time I was like 10. I felt like I always knew that I was going to end up writing as an adult, but I didn’t know it was going to be my only job. I didn’t think I realized yet that that was even an option.

Worked at a bookstore for a bit after I graduated from college, went into publishing, and it was in publishing that I saw that there was a gap in various characters for specifically middle grade. I realized that there really just were not a lot of fair people of color in middle grade yet, and I really wanted to help fill that gap, and after a while realized that I felt like I was adding more and I just felt happier writing full-time. So I’m actually right now in the space of, okay, I’ve been writing full-time for a few years. It’s been the dream. Maybe it’s time to try something new. Maybe it’s time to try to find not a publishing job, but try to figure out what else I could be doing instead of just spending my days writing every day.

Craig Silva:

I think your fans would not like to hear that. Speaking of your fanfic, what is your fanfic of choice?

Kacen Callender:

That’s a sad question for me because it used to be the book and series and author that is incredibly traumatizing at this point.

Karen Farmer:

Ah.

Craig Silva:

I can make the assumption here, yeah.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah. I think these days though, I don’t know, I’ve been bouncing around from different books, TV shows, and anime.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. I loved that aspect of Stars in Your Eyes as well. There are these really cool excerpts that pop up throughout the book where someone is writing fanfic about the two main characters. Those were some of my favorite sections. I got so excited every time they popped up.

Kacen Callender:

Thank you for saying that. Honestly, forgot that they were in there, so of course, of course they’re in the books.

Karen Farmer:

I loved those parts. One other question on your writing journey. So do you feel like your time in publishing has impacted how you write or what your process looks like? Because I think I saw that you were doing editing as well, and I’m just, do you have to turn that part of your brain off when you’re writing your own stuff?

Kacen Callender:

Absolutely. I think it was very helpful at times to be able to know what an editor… I worked under Alvina Ling who was my favorite all-time editor working in publishing. So that was such an exciting time for me, but to be able to hear her specific thoughts on different stories and manuscript was super helpful to be like, “Oh, Alvina would probably say this about this particular part that I wrote.” So I was able to learn a lot, but it was definitely difficult as an editor.

By the time I had left, I was an associate editor sitting in on what we would call publishing committee meetings. It’s been a few years, so I’m sorry if I’m saying that incorrectly, but that was basically the time when the publisher, heads of sales, marketing, and everyone, all the editors were sitting around a table and discussing whether they wanted to buy a book, what were the pros and cons of it. So whenever I come up with an idea, I feel like I have a miniature publishing committee meeting in my head saying, “Oh, but they would not appreciate this setting. Oh, this is not what’s hot right now in the YA world.” And it’s really difficult to turn that part off and just let myself write whatever it is I really want to write.

Karen Farmer:

Gotcha.

Craig Silva:

That’s so interesting.

Karen Farmer:

Yeah.

Craig Silva:

I want to move into book bannings briefly here. We’ve been talking a ton about book banning on the podcast and also just the whole country’s talking about book bannings obviously because it’s such a hot topic sadly in school districts and just cities and towns across the country, and anyone that follows your work will know that you’ve been… A lot of your books have been challenged in different states across the country. I guess the question is I’m just curious what that’s been like for you and what your involvement in that has been as someone that’s their titles have been facing that so much.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah. Honestly, I’ve been in a space of putting my airplane mask on first before being able to look outside to see what I can do to help with the situation. I feel like it has been important to work on my own healing and individual growth first before putting energy into something like censorship and the book bans because I don’t think I would actually be very helpful in the state that I’m in right now.

Craig Silva:

Sure, sure.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah, as a writer, it’s something that I’m trying not to let flood my head too much because then that would be another level of almost self-censorship of like, “Okay, this is something that’s being fought against. I’m trying to get books into young queer people’s hands. Is there a way to do that that would be a loophole around all the censorship that’s happening now?” I think it’s probably better as a writer to try to put all of that aside as I’m writing so that I can write the book that is authentic to what the reader would want and what I want as a writer and what the characters are experiencing.

Craig Silva:

That makes total sense.

Kacen Callender:

As a writer and an individual person, I’m like, “I’m not really sure I can handle the topic at the moment.”

Craig Silva:

Yeah, totally. You already have that committee in your head and then there’s the censorship thing and you’re just trying to write, like, “Ugh.”

Kacen Callender:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

I guess this is going to sound like a very basic question, but how are you so prolific? I looked at your full list of everything you’ve published and I think it’s like 10 books since 2018. How do you do it?

Kacen Callender:

I don’t know. I really don’t, and that’s why I’m about to take a break.

Karen Farmer:

Good for you. Good for you.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah, I think it was honestly, I feel like there was some survival mode connected to that where it’s like I just have to write as quickly as possible, as much as possible, similarly to, I’m forgetting the term, when people, like burnout. I feel like I was putting myself into a space of burnout because I thought that I had to, whatever, tell myself I had to get to a place in my writing career by a certain point, and now I’m finally realizing, “Oh, that wasn’t true and it’s time to take a nap.”

Karen Farmer:

Yes, naps are very important. I saw also Infinity Alchemist I believe is coming out this winter in 2024 from Tor. Is there anything that you’re able to share with our listeners about the new book?

Kacen Callender:

Not at the moment, still working on… I’m working on the sequel at the moment, so I think my brain’s a little frazzled. It’s like trying to jump between the two books. For the first book, yes, I can share maybe the summary.

Karen Farmer:

That’d be great.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah. Basically Infinity Alchemist is about a world where alchemy is considered the science of magic and the main character, Ash, has been wanting desperately to study alchemy, but in order to do so, you have to be accepted at a notable college called Lancaster College of Alchemic Sciences. He’s not accepted, and instead he is seen illegally practicing alchemy by an apprentice professor at the college where he instead ends up working, and he is pulled into a scheme by that professor to find what is called the Book of Source which grants its reader incredible power, and of course, it becomes a large competition between him and other alchemists to find the book. There we go. That was my first time saying the summary.

Karen Farmer:

I love it. I’m like smiling so big.

Craig Silva:

Me too.

Karen Farmer:

I’m so excited.

Craig Silva:

I’m the literal take-my-money GIF right now.

Kacen Callender:

Thank you, guys.

Craig Silva:

That sounds amazing. Just to pivot to audiobooks before we get into some sillier questions, because it’s our job here at Libro to talk to you about audiobooks obviously. I was looking back at your catalog and it seems like most of your books have been narrated by a single narrator, but Stars in Your Eyes had a full cast. There was like nine names, so I won’t read them all now. Go look it up, go buy this book. I was just curious why the decision to do that where that’s not been the typical and I guess just what was that experience like working with so many people?

Kacen Callender:

So as the author, I do tend to take more of a backseat for the casting decisions. Usually someone comes to me and says, “Hey, we’re thinking about hiring this person,” and I listen to the different cast tapes, recordings, tapes. It’s not the ’90s anymore.

Craig Silva:

They send them to you on cassettes in the mail. Let me get my Walkman.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah. And then usually I give my opinion on the few people that are put forward. This time the producer had the idea to have this large cast for all these different voices and I was like, “That’s exciting.” I myself personally was like… I can’t take credit for it but it did sound like a really exciting idea, and I have loved seeing a lot of the excitement from distant listeners, I guess from this. I think it just came out really well.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, it sounds amazing.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. Okay, Kacen, the next segment we have in store for you, we call this the Lightning Round and we have I think five or six questions, Craig, that we are just going to rapid-fire at you. These are not necessarily book related. Yeah, you don’t have to think too hard about them. It’s just supposed to be-

Kacen Callender:

Don’t tell me that. I’m a Virgo, I’m an overthinker. I’ll try not to.

Craig Silva:

All right, so first one, who was your favorite author when you were middle-grade aged?

Kacen Callender:

K.A. Applegate I think is her name, the author of Animorphs.

Karen Farmer:

Oh yes. I love Animorphs.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah.

Karen Farmer:

What sound do you find the most comforting?

Kacen Callender:

The white noise machine. No, the sound of rain actually is very comforting, both at the same time on my white noise machine app on my phone.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

I’m obsessed with white noise. I can’t fall asleep without it. Do you eat breakfast, and if so, what is your go-to breakfast item?

Kacen Callender:

I have Special K and honey literally every single day.

Karen Farmer:

Nice.

Kacen Callender:

I’m actually a little concerned for my health sometimes. I’m like, “Is it possible to eat too much honey?”

Karen Farmer:

What is your favorite piece of clothing you’ve ever worn?

Kacen Callender:

There is a very comfortable, huge, oversized black sweater that has pockets that I love a lot.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

What was your dream job as a kid? Although you sort of already answered this I think earlier.

Kacen Callender:

Yeah, if I had known writing full-time was an option, I would’ve said that. At the time though, I actually really wanted to be a veterinarian.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome.

Craig Silva:

Classic kid answer. I love that.

Karen Farmer:

All right, the last one for you. If you could repeat any day of your life, which one would you choose and why?

Kacen Callender:

The first one that comes to mind is the day that I won the National Book award.

Karen Farmer:

Can we actually, this isn’t a lightning-round question, can we talk about that? What was that like?

Kacen Callender:

I really did not think it’s going to happen at all. I was just really happy to be there, so when it did happen, very much so I feel like I walked into an alternate reality where this was not supposed to happen but it did and now, I don’t know. Sometimes it still doesn’t even feel like it actually happened and I have to remind myself, yes, yes, it’s real.

Craig Silva:

Did you get a physical award? Is there on a shelf behind you somewhere?

Kacen Callender:

I did. I did. It’s not on a shelf because my apartment is too small for decorations, but my next place is going to have a nice shelf with all the awards.

Craig Silva:

It’s in a sock drawer somewhere is what I’m hearing.

Kacen Callender:

You said the quiet part out loud.

Karen Farmer:

Well, our last big question for you, Kacen. Our listeners and our teammates always want to know what you are reading right now, what you’ve been enjoying, any recommendations that you have.

Kacen Callender:

I have been reading the sequel to Black Sun, which… Have y’all read that or listened to it?

Karen Farmer:

Yep.

Kacen Callender:

It’s really incredible. I’m trying to remember what the title is, I think it’s Fevered Star. I just, when the first book came out, blown away by the story, the plot, the characters, the gorgeous writing. To this day I’m like… I feel like not enough people know about this. I feel like this book is the next Fifth Season. I feel like it’s in the same category and I don’t know. Anyway, I’m just gushing at this point. So I’m right at the beginning of the sequel and enjoying it.

Karen Farmer:

Awesome. I haven’t started the sequel yet. One of our coworkers read Black Sun a while back and recommended it and it kind of went around the company. We were all like, “Yes, I have to read this,” and loved it.

Kacen Callender:

I wanted to say as you should, but I shouldn’t tell people what they should and shouldn’t love.

Craig Silva:

Well, thank you so much for joining us. This has been so awesome. I loved getting to hear about your process and everything like that, so thanks for taking the time. I’m sure you have a ton of things going on.

Kacen Callender:

Thank you. That’s very [inaudible 00:22:29].

Craig Silva:

Naps to attend to.

Kacen Callender:

So many naps.

Craig Silva:

Thank you, Kacen.

Kacen Callender:

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Karen Farmer:

Thank you so much for listening to the interview, everyone. We really hope you enjoyed it. I’m very glad Craig edited out the part where we said our final goodbyes to Kacen because I think I said, “I’m your biggest fan,” like three times so thank you.

Craig Silva:

Do you think that I edited that out? I actually just, I replayed it like multiple times in row and have a big echo effect, yeah.

Karen Farmer:

You better not. You better not. Okay. Now that I’m embarrassed, I would love to know what you are reading and enjoying right now.

Craig Silva:

I thought you’d never ask. I just finished two books, one in print and one on audio, one that I liked and one that was acceptable. I’ll start with acceptable one. It is called Hitchcock’s Blondes: The Unforgettable Women Behind the Legendary Director’s Dark Obsession.

Karen Farmer:

Ooh, with a title like that.

Craig Silva:

I know, I was intrigued. By Laurence Leamer. It’s not that I didn’t like it. I did learn new interesting things. I think I might just not be the target audience. I’ve read many books about Hitchcock and his films. This is a very good book if this is your first foray into that territory. It is basically a film-by-film breakdown of all the blonde actresses he worked with and why he was a bad, bad man.

Karen Farmer:

Gotcha. I see.

Craig Silva:

So it’s great if you don’t know a lot about that. It’s a very good like 101 lesson, but I’m a ridiculous person who’s read probably like four or five Hitchcock books. So to me I was like, “I know all these already,” and it spends a lot of time giving the synopsis of each film and I’m like, “I’ve seen these movies already.” So I think it’s my fault. I think the book is probably fine. I think for me, I just wasn’t the audience but I did learn some interesting things.

Karen Farmer:

I see.

Craig Silva:

The other book that I just read, and you’ll get a kick out of this because this book on audio is like 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Karen Farmer:

Oh.

Craig Silva:

Did I 100% sort by length and choose a short book because it is November? Yes, I did.

Karen Farmer:

Busted.

Craig Silva:

Yes, so this is Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones-

Karen Farmer:

Love it.

Craig Silva:

… who you must be familiar with-

Karen Farmer:

I am.

Craig Silva:

… from My Heart is a Chainsaw, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It is like Goosebumps basically. It reads very much like a Goosebumps book. Basically, there’s high school kids and they’ve found a mannequin in the woods and they had the best summer ever when they were young and now they’re getting older and they’re in this weird phase between childhood and adulthood and friends are drifting apart and they want to play a prank with this mannequin, and basically all hell breaks loose after that.

Karen Farmer:

It sounds great.

Craig Silva:

It is murdery and supernaturally maybe, question mark. It’s great. It was a fun little read, a little novella, if you will. It’s great for padding your numbers.

Karen Farmer:

That’s a great recommendation. That sounds right up my alley too, so I will absolutely check that out

Craig Silva:

It’s quite bloody.

Karen Farmer:

Okay.

Craig Silva:

Yeah. What about you? What are you reading and enjoying or finding acceptable right now?

Karen Farmer:

I just finished a book today that I’ve been reading for like the last week. It is a nonfiction book, a collection of essays by Kate Kennedy who is the host of the podcast, Be There in Five, which is very fun, and her book that’s coming out in January is called One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In, and I absolutely loved this book. I had a NetGalley that I was reading on paper and then I’ve also been reading the audiobook.

Craig Silva:

Just a little humblebrag there.

Karen Farmer:

No. I just am trying to-

Craig Silva:

[inaudible 00:26:17] I mentioned I had a NetGalley of this.

Karen Farmer:

I’m trying to help people avoid your situation where you go to the bookstore and ask for unreleased books.

Craig Silva:

Why, you turned that around right quick on me. That’s fair. That’s fair.

Karen Farmer:

Just making sure people are clear this isn’t quite out just yet, but it’s so good. It is just very well written. She’s so smart, and it’s some of the most relatable content I’ve come across in a long time. There are so many experiences from my growing up as a now elder millennial female that I genuinely didn’t realize were shared experiences that were so ubiquitous amongst people my age.

Craig Silva:

I’m going to put you on the spot and ask for an example. What was one of your favorite essays about in this collection?

Karen Farmer:

Well, this isn’t an individual essay, but there is much talk of American Girl doll culture that’s peppered throughout almost all of these essays. Lots of music references. We’ve got some Spice Girls, we’ve got some K-Ci & JoJo, we’ve got some boy bands. It’s just all of the [inaudible 00:27:20].

Craig Silva:

Was this book written for you?

Karen Farmer:

Felt like it, felt like it, but it’s just so funny and just brilliantly written. It also goes into a lot of really challenging topics as well about what she’s experiencing later in life and how her childhood has impacted her. So I really just can’t recommend it enough. I believe it comes out in January of 2024, so be sure to keep an eye out.

Craig Silva:

That sounds amazing. I’m assuming as also a elder millennial I will find some commonalities in that, so I look forward to reading that. I don’t have a NetGalley, so I’ll have to wait like the rest of gen pop here.

Karen Farmer:

That’s not true. That’s absolutely not true. You boasted about it when you got the new V.E. Schwab book so that cover is blown.

Craig Silva:

Yeah, I got that as a bumper sticker, I got the new V.E. Schwab book on NetGalley.

Karen Farmer:

Wouldn’t be surprised.

Craig Silva:

So you teased that we may share a little bit about exciting things we have coming up at the front of the episode. Would you like to give a little information about what we just did last week?

Karen Farmer:

Yes, I would love to. Thank you for the honor. Our team got to go to Austin, Texas last week for the Texas Book Festival which I don’t know, I had never been to before. I thought it was amazing. What’s your hot take?

Craig Silva:

It was amazing. It was just like they cordoned off like six blocks with just tents and tents and tents of books and book-loving people and author signings and talks, and we had the honor of hosting a green room for the authors in a very fancy building. So we got to meet tons of amazing people, and they were very gracious to lend us a conference room for the few days, and I packed my suitcase with many, many microphones and cables and we did live podcasting with five or six different authors.

Karen Farmer:

I thought you were going to let me give the update.

Craig Silva:

Oh my god. Fine. All right. I brought microphones down. Now you take it away, Karen. What else did we do?

Karen Farmer:

I’m just kidding. You already said it. We got to interview six wonderful authors, and I will say authors amongst other things. None of the people we talk to are only authors. They do many, many amazing things. I can’t even wait to start releasing this content to you all. You may have seen a teaser on our Instagram. One of those people may or may not be Stacey Abrams. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say that, but I did and it was on Instagram, so there you go.

Craig Silva:

She posted it on Instagram to her 2 million followers so I think the cat’s out of the bag. Yes, meeting Stacey Abrams, it was very surreal. It was amazing, not only just because I really respect her as a person, but also the interview was really great, toot, toot of our horns. It was very-

Karen Farmer:

Same experience with all of the other folks we talked to as well. We were both very nervous and very excited, and everyone was so personable and welcoming and smart and funny, and we have some real good podcasting headed your way.

Craig Silva:

Yes, after I edit for a million hours.

Karen Farmer:

You can do it.

Craig Silva:

So please hold tight. The content is coming, but it’s going to be a bit. I have to edit this episode first.

Karen Farmer:

Yes, one step at a time.

Craig Silva:

Yes.

Karen Farmer:

Well, if that sounds interesting to you all, please remember to subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t already. We always appreciate a rating and review, and if you have not started a Libro.fm membership yet, you can use the code LIBROPODCAST and you will get two audiobooks for your first month instead of just one.

Craig Silva:

And as always, thank you for listening.