Ep. 231 At the End of Every Day There's a Book with Lisa Lucas

Written By Lauren Tyree

Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

Lisa Lucas, Senior Vice President at Pantheon and Schocken, is our first ever book publisher to join the podcast. We discuss the path that led Lisa to her current role and how she sees book purchasing as integral to the push for diversity in publishing. We also talk about what inclusivity does and should mean in the world of books.

The Stacks Book Club selection for September is The Trees by Percival Everett. We will discuss the book on September 28th with Lisa Lucas.

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08
Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I’m your host Traci Thomas and today on The Stacks we are joined by Lisa Lucas. She is the Senior Vice President and publisher at Pantheon and shocking books, a Penguin Random House division. She’s also the former executive director of the National Book Foundation, which is the organization that brings you the National Book Awards. We talked today about Lisa’s new role and publishing what the future of publishing could look like. And of course, about some of Lisa’s favorite books. Quick reminder, everything we talked about on each episode of the stocks can be found in the link in the show notes. And Lisa will be back to discuss September’s book club pick the trees by Percival Everett, so make sure you tune in for that episode on September 28. If you love this podcast and want more of it, please head over to patreon.com/the stacks and join the stacks pack. That’s a way you can support this independent podcast while also earning perks like our virtual book club, our monthly bonus episodes, access to our incredible discord community, and so much more head to patreon.com/the stacks to join. And now it’s time for my conversation with Lisa.

All right, everybody, I am so excited. Today I am joined by I think for the very first time ever on the show a publisher. I’ve never had a publisher, and editor and SVP, I’ve never had anybody like you. So Lisa Lucas, welcome to the Stacks.

Lisa Lucas 1:37
Thanks for having me. Happy to be your first.

Traci Thomas 1:41
I’m so excited. I have like five years of questions for us. Even though I know you haven’t been a publisher for five years, but you’re gonna carry the mantle for a little bit for your people. Because I’ve asked a few editors to come on. And they’re like, I’m scared. I guess they don’t like to be in front of the microphone.

Lisa Lucas 2:00
It’s hard. It’s a really behind the scenes job and a lot of ways, but I’m unusual in the sense that it just came from a really Front of House job that also had a lot of granular, you know, sort of administrative tasks that people never really knew about. But I’m sort of a weird hybrid. And so trying to figure out how to navigate, you know, what’s like, external and how much can you talk about other people’s books. And, you know, just figuring out my way is like, there’s not a lot of great like models for it.

Traci Thomas 2:26
So yeah, so really quickly before we kind of dive in for people who don’t know you or for people who know you, but maybe don’t know you as well. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, like where you’re from? Maybe a few past little jobs or things you’ve done give us a little bit of a sense of who Lisa Lucas is.

Lisa Lucas 2:41
Ooh, that’s tough. How do you like summarize yourself like, cherry pick what I want to say? So I am a publisher, as you know, but I think I’ve just been until I started this job. It was really like I would people what do you do and nonprofit administrator, right? Like it’s like, which is so many different things. It doesn’t really say much to be like, I’m a nonprofit administrator. But you know, I think it’s like similar to be a producer. It’s similar to be publisher, it’s similar to like, coordinate lots of things in service of audiences and artists, right. And that’s kind of whatever it was. Always would have done. I started out though, in theater, so I had a funny little series of jobs. So I am from New Jersey. Okay, I was born in New York grew up in New Jersey, kind of from two different towns. So from Teaneck, Montclair, which both these like really interesting 1990s Like experiments in diversity, right?

Traci Thomas 3:29
Like, I know Montclair, one of my best friends from college went to Montclair, just from Montclair, right?

Lisa Lucas 3:33
So but you know, people who have just moved to Montclair, or you know, I’ve lived there for the past 10 years or so, it’s really different than it was in like the 80s and 90s. Right, so it’s interesting, because it’s kind of a totally different town while retaining some of those anyway, Montclair, New Jersey, anyone’s here? But, but it isn’t instructional and that like, I just grew up in this, like, multicultural, kind of like, there was just a lot of was really progressive education. We were reading, you know, like, I think all the conversations about how we shifted canon, you know, we really had a new canon, you know, it’s like, I remember being in high school and it’s like, you obviously read, you know, contemporary black letters and you read the ancient Greeks and you read, you know, Mockingbird but you also you know, it’s like it was important to read Maya Angelou is it was To Kill a Mockingbird is it was invisible man, you know, is it was Gabriel Garcia Marquez, right. So it was just this really interesting series of kind of both history and the humanities lessons that came from there, but that really informed my worldview. So I left college and went to school in Chicago, and ended up working in a theatre company. I was really interested in theater, I thought I wanted to be like a drama tutor, but I was working basically at the telephony manager or the person, but it was like, you know, my first job was 21, but I got really obsessed with their youth program. And, you know, got to mentor young person and, you know, we see all of these amazing performances that are largely, you know, sort of Have we attended theater, and you go to these student showings, and it would be like the performance would be soul of kids from all over Chicago and Chicago land and you were like, it’d be so into it, they would just be watching our town or watching whatever play we were showing for young people. And just the engagement was incredible. And so between seeing those programs happening and doing a little bit of work with young people, coming from educators, myself, grandparents, and I just sort of got really obsessed with access. So ended up working in film, long story, how it got there. But I ended up working on youth programs in film and a nonprofit. And so teach kids to make their own films would do some screenings and people are exposed, we would teach teachers to teach their own students how to make films, we would make films with kids, and we would do professional development for young people. But it was all really about like, the general premise was like making the place that I worked, which was like a big part of New York City Tribeca, I worked at Tribeca Film Institute and making Festival and the Institute feel like we were there in New York City founded right after 911 trying to bring energy and you know, and stability back downtown. And I think it grew into this large outsize place and it was really like, well, this feels like it belongs to some people back then early days. Right? And how do you make it feel like it’s for everybody? How do you make this festival? You know, we’d be showing a movie about like, kids in the Bronx, on a chess team. And the audience would be like, Why aren’t there any kids from the Bronx, and here are like parents from the Bronx, right? Great movie really was, if not as useful if not more useful, as useful for for those communities to see. So it was a kind of roundabout way to like, bust it open and just sort of like really say this is for you, whether it’s making whether it’s professional, whether it’s, you know, just coming to a movie with through premieres for eighth graders need to get to walk the red carpet and just was, was just sort of like, this is what it’s like, this is, you know, this is for you, you were part of it. So I did that for years and years. And then when I left, I kind of knew I wanted to be in books, I had always loved books, I think there were a few moments in my life where I’ve danced around just being like, I really want to work in the Excel of books. It’s my true love. I was always like, at my old jobs, everybody was like I remember you would like be at the coffee shop across the street before reading a book or I’d you know, Steppenwolf Theater that I worked at, in Chicago, there were two buildings, and you had to kind of walk across the street, but it was a really not busy street. So it always be waiting at this long light reading a book because I was at a run back and forth. And I just take my book with me. So everybody thought that was like super nerdy. But I didn’t have any time. You know, the worker was like, it was the time that I had to read. So I ended up leaving film and sort of feeling like, maybe this is the time but it was really difficult to get a job. And so I ended up volunteering. I was doing other things. I was still doing film education and like working but like I said, volunteering at the same time for the Brooklyn Book Festival and for Guernica magazine, I became the publisher of Guernica magazine eventually, which is an online magazine of art and politics. Amazing. They’re really just so good. And, and I just was like, treated it kind of like grad school, I was obsessed. I wanted to meet agents and I wanted to meet editors, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t really looking for job per se, as much as I was looking to, like really understand, in the same way that I understood the sort of like youth development, nonprofit community to understand landscape. So it’s metal, the nonprofit, and I met lots of, you know, the publishers and, you know, just really made it my business to kind of meet people. And eventually, I ended up getting the job at the National Book foundation as the executive director, which is if somebody who doesn’t know me knows me, that’s probably why. Because that was like a really like, public facing job. And I did that for I think, five awards, the cyber wars and the five awards. And then I ended up a pantheon and Shakun. And here each here we are in here. Here we are. Yeah, that’s kind of like if you quickly as I could get it down.

Traci Thomas 8:56
That was good. That was good. I have a background in theater. I studied theater in college, and I thought I would be a performer. Here we are.

Lisa Lucas 9:03
Yeah, I long long story short, you’re still you’re still in front of the front of the mic. I am. I am not. I knew somehow I was like, I just don’t want to be in front of my.

Traci Thomas 9:13
Yeah, I was not a good actress at all. And so I sort of like, like, I went to NYU. And so everyone, there’s like, not everyone, but a lot of people are like, really talented, like incredibly talented actors. And I knew wasn’t me, like I just knew like, I’d be in a scene with someone and be like, you’re great. And what’s my line again?

Lisa Lucas 9:34
In calculus, except it didn’t like, yeah,

Traci Thomas 9:37
I was so bad at math anyways. Okay, so now we’re fast forward. We’re here. You’re in publishing. Your new. You got the job in 2020. You started I think, in 2021, the early 2021. I read the article about you in the New York mag New York Times Magazine, very fancy, very great photo like Daydream dreamy, so dreamy, but I want to talk so one of the things that comes up in that article that I think is the thing that I am the most curious about is this idea of readership. And you kind of touched on it earlier in the beginning talking about theater and making it more accessible, and who’s the audience? And how can we bring people in and all of that? And so I’m wondering, like, how are you thinking about taking on this new role? Like, where do you see yourself? And I guess, like, the future of publishing, if they were to follow your vision?

Lisa Lucas 10:26
No, I’m not the future of publishing is what I would say. I really, no, no, no, no, I’m 42. Yeah, there’s other people that are the future, you know, and it’s not. Right, um, the shore bridge, if anything? Okay, right, good. And, you know, I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I have a deep and profound respect for an enormous amount of the traditions of publishing, and for the craft of publishing. But I also am a really firm believer that, you know, we evolve, right, and we pivot, you know, not pivot to video, obviously, but like, it’s like, I think we have to be limber when we’re dealing with, you know, sort of the cultural conversations that are happening. So, you know, gosh, I mean, the question a readership is the only question. You know, the only question about books is, who’s going to read them, when you spend so much time producing them? I mean, I think that we also have a real profound cultural misunderstanding of how a book is made. Now, I think that I always want to be really careful, because I never want to diminish the role of the artist ever. Right? That’s the most important thing, creativity, and the labor that goes into it, you know, and the value of that is so profound, right? But yeah, I think in service of promoting the creative person, the writer, the filmmaker, the, you know, it’s like, I think that we lose a lot about the actual craft, of making, and, you know, the commerce of any particular firm, you know, it’s like, I think we don’t know a lot about, you know, the costume designer, and how important that is, or the director, or what a producer even does, you see executive producer 1000 times, and you have no idea what that even means. For books, I think you have, it’s interesting, in particular, because it’s like, the book feels like a conversation directly between one person’s brain and what is created, and the reader, right, this is the conversation that you’re having the direct relationship, and it feels like I will person made this book, and all we did was slap a cover on it. Right? We slapped a cover on it, we put a barcode on it, and we sold it right. But, you know, the business of books is so elegant, in many ways, right? Because if it’s as collaborative as film in a lot of ways, you know, even because the collaboration for you know, film isn’t just the writing of the script, or the directing of it, it’s the you know, what What type will use, you know, who’s going to type set it who’s going to copy edit it lovingly, who’s going to have a conversation with that authors to that they can have that back and forth, that nurturing creative person that’s going to sit down and sort of say, Okay, I’m your reader, I’m your first best, closest reader. Right, you know, and I’m here to get you ready for I’m a stand in for so many readers. Right? And so I think, first have to think about all of that, you know, it’s like, and the reason why I’m making long way around is because I think that sometimes when we say how much should it cost to buy a book? How much should a book write straight? Well, you know, some people want them to be free, some people want them to be 199. Some people want them to be think they should be $30. But it’s easy to demonstrate value around a film. We know what the budget was for making the movie, not how much people got paid. The budget for making the movie, this is how much it right is production. And we don’t think about books like that. And I think that that sometimes reduces the value of a book or the workings of a book for audiences, because we don’t understand what goes into making one. And I think that in order to develop a readership, of course, you need good books. Of course, you need books that are, you know, that are in communion with the world that we actually live in, which is, you know, where you get sort of, we want to see Own Voices stories we want to see, you know, we want to see everything right, you want, right, early, broad, or eclectic, delicious, all over the body of literature. But even if you have that, which we’re starting to see, right, what that looks like, you also need a larger audience that’s actually going to see great value in all of that. And I think that you have to do two parts. I think we know that we need to diversify. I think we know we need to be bolder, more thoughtful, more open, more inviting, more accessible, both for readers and for writers and for professionals inside of books, but I don’t think we always remember that we need to tell our story in a way that says this is something you know, very rigorous and beautiful and takes lots of people and every book, every book was so special, and I think we forget how much work goes into each one. I mean even a movie you see a movie and even if you didn’t like I get you still think it’s impressive.

Traci Thomas 15:02
Right? Right. And I think like, as someone I started the show as a reader, I’m not a writer, I don’t know, I didn’t know anything about writing or publishing, I just knew what books made me feel. And you know, as I mentioned, I was a performer I worked in the theater I you know, film and television, but even when those things, there is a list at the end, or a program that you’ve got, and it says, So and so did this, so and so did that with a book, there is no, unless it’s in the acknowledgments. And I do read acknowledgments, my favorite part of the basically every book, I love, but I don’t think a lot of people do know, you know, I started reading them more.

Lisa Lucas 15:39
Yeah, there’s no like, editor anism, for us to sort of articulate all of the different various rightfit highly skilled jobs that go into the making of one little book.

Traci Thomas 15:50
Right. And well, that sort of brings me to my question about you, which is, what, what is your job? Now? What does a publisher who is a publisher, like? How are you different than a marketing person? How are you the same? Like, as I know that a publisher wears many hats, some edit books, some don’t? So like, what is the job? Yeah,

Lisa Lucas 16:10
I mean, I think this is sort of like, what’s the job of being an executive director? Well, you’re in charge of the nonprofit, right? But what does that mean? And the reality is, means so much, it means a different thing at every different place. Ultimately, I think, you know, Where do I sit? Right, like, so I’m kind of the, the person who drives the narrative of what we’re doing. Right. So it’s like, so I’m in conversation with all of editorial, and all of marketing, and all publicity and sales and design and managing Ed and finance and legal, and production. And you’re working with all of these groups of people to really maintain this sort of, for me the rigor, the consistency, the viability of a list of 40 to 50 books, right. And, and whatever it takes, just like at the National Book Awards, what was my job? Well, or the National Book Foundation, what was my job that was like, Well, my job was to make sure that we didn’t run out of money to raise money to, you know, oversee the consistency of our programming to directionally lead the institution where we are. Now my job is like, right, like Pantheon doesn’t stand alone. Right. So the way that the company that I work for and lots of publishing is structured is that I’m an imprint, well, two imprints Pantheon and Shakun. And then Pantheon, and Shakun belong to a division, and that division is called double day Publishing Group. And then that division belongs to a larger company, which is Penguin Random House. Right. So that’s how it so now, I’m the little boss of my little fiefdom. Right, like, so I’m in charge. And then there’s, then there’s a president of crop Doubleday Publishing Group, and she’s in charge of, of all of us, and the consistency and the profitability, and the this, that and the other everything that we do as a group. So you know, it’s kind of like, I think of it as like, maybe, you know, publishers that like the publishers grow over time, more like granular, the best I would kind of, you know, because I don’t deal with HR and like, we work in a bigger company, it feels a lot more like being a program director, you know, where it’s like, I’m the director of education. And that means that everything that is educational, I do I, you know, and I also support my leaders in making sure that I’m feeding into what we’re doing consistently.

Traci Thomas 18:25
And how hands on Are you like, is every book cover that comes through? Do you get to say yes, or no, every book that’s acquired? You get to say, yes, no, what do you say? Yes? Or no, like, weigh in, weigh in?

Lisa Lucas 18:38
Right? It’s not? I feel like, you know, publishing is passionate. Authors are passionate editors are passionate. Yeah. You know, I don’t think you could just say yes, and no, cleanly back off. But you do sort of sign off, right? So I think it’s like a big dance, right? You’re always dancing towards like, it’s like, you know, if I want to buy a book, and it costs over my clearance, then I have to go talk to my boss and say, I’m gonna do the dance. I’m trying to get you to what I want. Yeah. And so, so I can’t technically do it without her sign up. I don’t know that she’s going to be the kind of person who’s just gonna say like, no, and I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna say no. And like, I don’t think like if you keep going up, like nobody really says like, no, even if you’re saying no, you’re discussing, you know, the way that we work the way that a publisher works at publisher meaning like a publisher company that the publisher Yeah, you know, is largely, you know, a lot of this happens at editorial boards. We don’t have a specific editorial board the way other people do, but a lot of these conversations happen, like, you know, whether or not you’re thinking about flap copy or jacket design or whether you’re going to acquire a book or not, it’s a lot more collaborative than you think it’s going to be it’s not one person saying I like this. Let’s do it. You have to figure out so many other things before you can move along. So that is what I do. I would say that I am like in charge of the like, health and consistency. I was Pantheon, and shocking.

Traci Thomas 20:02
I love it. I love that. Diversity in books.

Lisa Lucas 20:07
Yeah, I feel like it’s important.

Traci Thomas 20:09
It’s the only thing I feel like I think and care about these days. I feel like I talked about it a lot. I think about it a lot. And I have no doubt that you do as well. One of the things that I found really interesting in that New York Times article is it talked about how very early on it talks about the first book that you acquired, which is sweet, soft, Cleany rhythm, which is coming out in September, and it talked about how you, you picked it up, you started reading it, you felt moved by it, you were it did something to you emotionally. And I just am so curious about how important that emotional connection is for the early earliest of readers and people who are getting these manuscripts, and how that can be an issue if we’re expecting like a very white industry, to hope that they will feel an emotional connection to a book. And that that’s like the first way in Do you know what I mean? And I’m wondering, like, how that can be changed and adjusted, I guess, outside of hiring more? Or is that really the is that the answer? hiring and training people of different ethnic groups of different races of different genders abilities? All of these things? Like how do we make it so that that the gatekeeping on like, what lands with the people in publishing is open for those other other readers we want to bring into the world of books?

Lisa Lucas 21:29
Right? I mean, so on one hand, okay. I don’t think anyone in publishing is cynical enough not to make money where there’s money to be made. Sure. But I also think so I don’t think that publishing really is like, we don’t like books by people of color. No, I think what you have is a largely an interesting inability, not even an inability for many years, that was not our focus point. We were not focused for all of the 70s 80s 90s 60s 50s 40s 30s 20s 10. Right? Right, right. We were not focused on making sure that we were learning how to sell work to other communities. And I think that what that means is you have an enormous amount of operational and strategical, and perhaps emotional work to do around figuring out how to rebuild systems that actually serve the whole of literature. Right. And I think that, you know, so I don’t know that it’s, I think people would really like it to be a question of how much you pay an assistant, I think you would like it to be a question of it is how quickly that assistant is promoted, I think people would like for it to be a matter of just hiring certain people, I think people would like for it to be a matter of just firing certain people. And unfortunately, none of those things are true, in terms of you could change any one of those four things, and it wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. Right, right now, it’s like, so that’s my true feeling about it. But I think that you’re dealing with something that it’s a system. And I think that we learned, you know, we learned on the internet all the time, how little we all really understand about the business of publishing. And I think that when you understand how things work, you see that you can’t just change one thing, and then magically have it fix all of the other pieces. You know, and I think we spend so much time focusing on editorial, people don’t even really know who works in the production department or who works in the managing editorial departments, people literally just don’t know who those people what they do. And so I think that what the internet is trying to do is come up with really big, sticky ways to complain about something that is a much more nuanced issue, which can be really irritating as of diversity in publishing. I think people people get really and and one of the things that I have already, I’m an African American woman, and you know how black politics, right? Because I’m black person. But that’s not my job. Like it’s I am I’m not here just for black people I’m here for all right, I’m here for readers. And I want to include my community. And I want to include all the communities that have not been included. But we have to be careful not to make our issue the issue, if we want a holistic, profound change. So if I want to see more Black Books, right, you know, it’s like I can really focus on that. But then maybe I ended up with a huge new crop of black publishing professionals who all went to Yale and all came from communities and don’t really know how to think about how to work well with communities that had been the most underserved, even if it is their own, you know, identity. Right, like, right, so sometimes it’s like so that’s too simple of a fix, hire more, right? Taller, more, um, because it’s like, you know, within the black community, you have plenty of classism and you have You know, also since you know, since the 80s, in the 70s, this sort of push towards, like, well, let’s let the excellent let’s go to this school and get these awards. And so you have actually like a pretty decent sized black middle class, black of black educated class, black creative class, that have come out of all those decades where things are more open. Now, if everybody and I’m from that community, but my dad was a record producer, like I had, you know, many advantages, because I grew up, you know, in the home of a, you know, sort of successful artist, I was really open to doing work in a creative world. Now, I just keep replicating myself, it may look like diversity to somebody who’s just wants a box ticked. But right, if I just pick a bunch of people that went to the same school and come from East Coast and do whatever, and just have a, you know, one perspective, then like, I haven’t really done anything, I haven’t diversified anything, because you know, what, there’s a, there are so many black people in America who don’t have lives that are like mine at all, you know, I mean, we’re all different. We’re not a monolith. Right? So using black boxes to stand in. I think you could swap any community and for this, or you’d have different, but it’s like, but I think you have to think about diversity in a much broader way. You know, because you’re really thinking about, I mean, I don’t I hear people yelling and yelling, and yelling about diversity and publishing, and they mean, racial diversity and publishing. And, you know, honestly, I’d like to see people that look like me also saying, we need rural diversity. And I don’t hear that ever. It’s like all the tweets. And I don’t see anybody saying, first of all, remembering that rural black families, right are enormous. The minute you just start thinking about your, you’re not thinking about how to reflect the rural black experience, you’re thinking about how to reflect your own experience. And that’s a fast way to just create, and which we do have, when you look at black letters, you have a largely deeply educated, very erudite, you know, sort of community of people that have been writing stunning books, but not necessarily that we’re reading toward a southern rural black community.

Traci Thomas 26:54
Right. So how do we do that? Like, how, how can we bring in more people and not and I do mean that much more holistically than just racially? Like, I do mean, how can we bring in rural folks? How can we bring in international folks? How can we bring in younger people higher up in company so that so that the next generation is feeling included and empowered? Like, how can we bring in people who are disabled people who, whatever that looks like, how can publishing do that on every level, because to me, in my mind, when I think about it, but not clearly, as much as you or people who work in publishing, I just think like, the more stories that are out there that are telling different experiences, the more that something is likely to resonate with someone who’s felt excluded. I mean, I, the thing that I do do here is I interview people about books constantly. And what I hear is, Oh, this one book, this is the gateway book for me, or this one author, or this one person, I saw what they were reading, and I was inspired by that. So I’m just wondering, kind of like, whatever the diversity is, whatever is needed to open the door is more from what it is now, which is not a monolith. But it is definitely you know, it’s it’s not as diverse as it could be. Like, where do you think.

Lisa Lucas 28:16
Here’s what I’ll say. For starters, we need to put our money where our mouths are. Now, everybody can be on the internet all day long on Twitter, let’s call it and they’ll be 30,000. I’m familiar needs, your Likes on something about some book. Now I can go into bookscan and tell you right now that all of those people who were so inflamed on the internet, did not buy the book. So I don’t want to hear people feeling like Twitter activism doesn’t work. In this arena. What people works, is buy the book. And that sounds so stupid, right? Like, it’s like, you know, it’s like every week to apply for the job like be interested in publishing, believe in us believe in books, right? That’s, you know, Foundation. The big advice for somebody who’s not gonna go work in books, like actually buy the books that you know, we will spend $20 to go see a movie that we don’t really know a whole heck of an opening weekend before the reviews have come? Right? We will make billions of dollars for one movie in one weekend. And we feel okay about the 20 bucks. We feel okay, maybe about 40 bucks or 60 bucks or 80 bucks we’re taking the family snacks 100 bucks. You know, we feel really good about that. You know, we’re not complaining about we’ve been stopped other than the pandemic but we didn’t stop until you know all hell broke loose. We don’t write clean about Netflix and then oh, now there’s Disney plus and then we get Disney plus and then Oh no. Now there’s Hulu. We got to Hulu and now this Criterion Collection and we got that too. And then we got basically we got cable and people will spend and this is like fairly income barring sort of underneath the poverty level or just barely getting by, right. If you have any discretionary income, you’re likely to spend money on new things, movies, clothes, like cute clothes, not like basic. I need shoes. Like I think these shoes look nice. This Movie is fun or this, you know, bottle of wine is more expensive than I needed. I just know you can get, you can have a glass of wine, and it can be any price, right? So people will splurge and all sorts of things. The numbers tell me that unless there’s an overwhelming amount of hype, and no matter how robust the conversation around diversity in books is that everybody who’s talking about it, are not buying enough books. We get excited when a book sells 30,000 copies, right? That’s like pretty healthy. There are 325 million Americans, there are 9 million New Yorkers. And we’re excited when nationally we sell 30,000 books. And yet this conversation makes it to the front pages of newspapers, people are thinking about it, they’re doing it, there is a disconnect. And that’s back to my original point about the value of diversity, diversity is hugely important to me, this is my core sort of thing. Right? Right. I don’t even think it’s worth talking about it until we can get people from our communities. I’m not even talking about people who like need to be like, you know, like, welcome into a local bookstore, because there’s not one there are people who, you know, didn’t go to a certain kind of university. And so you don’t have a certain kind of exposure level to this type of book or that typically, I’m forget them. Right? Not forget them in an emotional way. But like, right, but in an aside, yeah, I’m just talking about my friends, even when I go into the bookstore with people that I love, who are book people that, I don’t know, if I want to buy this, I don’t know if I want to do this. You know, it’s like, we spend money willy nilly on all these other things that truly just make Bezos rich just make all of these companies rich make huge, billion dollar movie corporations rich, right? And we don’t, we cannot be asked to spend 20 bucks on a book that maybe we’re not going to read. Right, you know, and, or not like, and then we sit through movies that we don’t like all the time. And so for me, you know, how do you achieve diversity, when we cannot get the support that we need, financially from the communities that we’re already in that are that are being engaged at present? I mean, right, how do you justify, and I absolutely justifiable but, and there’s plenty of people who want to read books, but it’s like, we’ve got to do better with with the being willing to buy them. And, you know, and I’m not saying that everybody has unlimited discretionary money by any stretch of the imagination, but even in our libraries, and borrowing more readily, you know, it’s like, that matters as well, creating demand in whatever way that you can. But we need to be a little more, you know, I think that we need to really think about the fact that if we want books, we must buy them, they’re not a thing that just sits on the sidelines waiting for you when you need them. You know, it’s like the the contractions and changes and growth and, you know, shrinking back that have happened over the years has enormous amount to do with consumer demand. And we’re so precious, nobody likes to call book a consumer product, is it’s not really you know, it isn’t it isn’t right, like, on some level, it is something that you know, has a price on it, and a barcode and bicep code, and you’re buying, right, and we’re saying it, but this precious, special thing, right, this art form, the book itself is an art form. And the literature inside of it is an art form. Right? So it’s hard to talk about it, but it’s like, the people stopped buying Nikes there’s no Nike, right? So and especially with a lot of these indies, yeah, which are much smaller, you know, and have a lot less room to fail, you know? And so like, we’ve got to value the books.

Traci Thomas 33:32
But don’t you think that I mean, maybe I’m not every indie, but I feel like a lot of Indies end up having the ability, because they’re smaller, to be more kind of experimental to do different things.

Lisa Lucas 33:45
They’re doing great books. And I think that honestly, corporate publishing in the past five years is published some extraordinary stuff like I don’t I don’t think you can look at the books and say, Oh, wait, you’re not we’re not publishing things that we can relate to. Now, I think if you were to go back 10 or 15 years ago, it was a lot. Yeah. But right now, it’s actually like a real glory time of publication.

Traci Thomas 34:02
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, just since I’ve started the show in 2018, I feel like publishing, like there are books that have changed the way that books are, or what books are coming out has changed just in the last five years from my singular experience. Okay, let me ask you this. This is a totally opposite kind of question. You are on the outside, working in different ways, but not in publishing until recently. What’s the thing about publishing that has surprised you in the best way, like now that you’re inside? What’s the thing where you were like, wow, this is actually incredible. And I love this.

Lisa Lucas 34:36
At the end of every day, there’s a book. Yeah, publisher said that to me when I was starting. So it’s gonna be hard and you’ll have bad days and your good days. But the special thing is at the end of every day, there’s a book. And of course, I knew that right. It’s your job to make books. There’s just like, edible. You know, and I think the collab the level of collaboration, you know, wasn’t as clear to me And it’s really a special journey on one project that you and a group of people go on. And it’s just, it’s just, I knew it would be satisfying in some way, but I didn’t know how just nourishing even when it’s trying to kill you. How nourishing.

Traci Thomas 35:19
Yeah, okay, I love that we’re gonna take a quick break and then we’ll be right back. Okay. Okay, we’re back on the line of at the end of every day, there’s a book, we’re gonna talk about your tastes and books because we haven’t even gotten to that part. But before we do, we do this segment called Ask the stacks where someone’s written in for a book recommendation, and we get to give them one or two or three. So this one comes from Tanya and Tanya says, I have a really hard time finding contemporary literary fiction that I enjoy. As a forever single I have almost no interest in reading about families or couples or people really intent on being an either, I really just want to read about single people or people who act single doing single people stuff, somewhat of an exception would be books about bad moms who neglect or abandon their children to live their lives. Love that. I also don’t mind reading about friends, any thoughts. Good books that Tanya has liked are a pale view of hills by Kazuo Ishiguro. And now is the time to open your heart by Alice Walker. Bad books that are books that don’t fit she wrote bad but I think she means books that don’t fit in with what she wants. I don’t want to get Tanya in trouble. luster by Raven Leilani because even though she’s a single woman, she’s preoccupied with her next hookup, Agatha of little neon, a single woman but spends most of her book unhappy with her little nun clique. So that is Tanya’s question. I can go first, if you want a second to think about it. Tanya, I have to tell you this. I am the worst person for this because, you know, I don’t really read that much literary fiction. And I also just, I don’t know, I read literary fiction, usually based on true stories. So here’s what I have for you. I haven’t read them all. They might not fit. Don’t hate me. The first one though, is motherhood by Sheila Heti. I know that she the book is basically auto fiction and she’s going back and forth about whether she wants to become a mother or not. So it’s like kind of like the pros and cons. I think it’s a really interesting book. It’s not exactly what you want. Then I’m gonna give you a nonfiction because I am who I am, which is no one tells you this by Glynnis McNichol, and that’s a memoir all about like being single and the pros and like, why it’s great, and what you’re able to do and all of that. And then the last one is not exactly what you want, either. But I’m gonna say sugar by Bernice McFadden, it’s about sort of single friendship vibe. So those are mine. This is not my best. This is not my best friend, Tanya, don’t hate me. Lisa, you’re up got a tough one.

Lisa Lucas 37:39
Hard, I’m gonna say, you know, one of the books that I read this past year that I loved really profoundly that had just absolutely nothing to do. There was a little family in it, but not in not in this sort of like family way. It’s called the immortal King route by wahine. Bara, which is she used to be or is still maybe I don’t know, a tech reporter at The Wall Street Journal. And it’s this look at this man and his daughter, but not again, not family. Yeah, that I don’t even know how to explain it to you. It’s so difficult. It’s just such a wild ride. But it’s about technology and control. So basically, the world has become governed by the algorithm. And people said, We don’t want to do this. And they became people who live on all of the islands around the world were reclaimed for them. And he’s developed this technology that connects the brain stream to the internet, and all hell is breaking loose. And it also deals with the Delete community, and India Pentacles. And so it’s really thinking about this man who became one of the most wealthy and important people in the entire world who came from this delete family. And so you sort of see his rise. But it’s extraordinary. And it’s really some of the best and it is speculative. But it’s not speculative in that sort of like, I only read sci fi way, it’s very much a literary fiction of work. And so it reads a lot more like a novel, and it does like anything else. So that’s a really, really good one. I would also say that maybe I would try checking out a little bit. How about Ooh, this is a hard one. How about Benny? I mean, lava tubes, which was everybody loved last year. I don’t know if I’m saying his name, right. But it’s called when we cease to understand the world, which is actually about physicists. It’s a nonfiction novel, which is the whole new invention. Yeah, recently or not. And it very dense material thinking about you know, sort of science and its impact on humanity and ethics, but it’s also just like, rampaging li readable. I think it was a book that surprised almost everyone. He is slammed, I believe, and it’s really a phenomenal novel.

Traci Thomas 39:56
Fantastic. Okay, Tanya, those are your suggestions. If you read them You have to let us know what you think. Everyone else you can email ask the stacks at the stacks podcast.com To get your book recommendations next month. Okay, Lisa, I’m so excited. Here we go two books you love one book you hate.

Lisa Lucas 40:13
Two books. I love Jamaica Kincaid the small place. And also I love the house of mirth by Edith Wharton. A book that I hate. Oh, I never like to say books that i i hated reading Heart of Darkness.

Traci Thomas 40:31
Okay, there you go. I think I think someone someone else has said that here. I can remember who it was, but that’s definitely happened here. Okay, what’s the last really great book, you’ve read

Lisa Lucas 40:40
my garden book by Jamaica Kincaid, which is a very wonderful book about gardening with Jamaica’s trademark snappiness. She’s both delighted and enraged by her garden and the story of her home in Vermont and the garden and how it came to be and the relationships around it and family and whatnot. It’s just like beautiful.

Traci Thomas 41:01
Okay, what are you currently reading?

Lisa Lucas 41:03
I’m currently reading The rabbit hutch by Tess Gundy.

Traci Thomas 41:07
Okay, and how are you a singer? What we call here a one book pony or can you read multiple books at a time?

Lisa Lucas 41:13
I have to read multiple books at the same time for work, but I tried to read one work one personal or one fiction one nonfiction.

Traci Thomas 41:20
Okay. And do you read? Do you use an e reader? Do you read off the page? Are you an audiobook person

Lisa Lucas 41:26
preference is on the page. Happy to listen to an audiobook. Mostly listen to celebrity memoirs. And I you read for work? Never for pleasure.

Traci Thomas 41:38
Yeah, yeah. What are some books that are coming out soon? or books that you’ve just been wanting to get to that you’re looking forward to reading?

Lisa Lucas 41:45
Oh, gosh, I mean, I’m so focused on the books that we have coming out. I mean, of course, I think that’s we saw plenty rhythm by Laura worlds. Yes. Yeah. Also very, very excited to have already read it. But I’m really excited for the world to read Jonathan Escoffery. Oh, yeah. I survive you, which I think is going to be stunning. It is stunning. But I think it’s I think people are going to really love it. So that’s one that’s not mine.

Traci Thomas 42:06
Gosh,

Lisa Lucas 42:08
I’m excited for the award season. Honestly. I don’t even know what I’m excited about that. Not I don’t want to like be like, here’s Pantheon fall list. But I’m excited for award season, because I feel like that is always for me, like in time of such like, amazing and robust discovery. And then you’re like, right on the heels of wintertime where you want to curl up and read and it’s so cozy, and it’s just like the good season for it.

Traci Thomas 42:30
Yeah. I didn’t even know about Book Awards until I started this. And now like next or when this airs. It’ll be next week that the National Book Award long lists are coming out. And I’m like that next week. Oh, yeah. Well, next week when this airs

Lisa Lucas 42:44
Oh, rats. I love Have I lost my tie. No,

Traci Thomas 42:48
I think it’s like September 14,

Lisa Lucas 42:50
I was actually noticed by heart. And then I was like, I’m very

Traci Thomas 42:55
sorry, this is the magic of podcast, are you people. But wait, let me ask you really quickly about the awards. When you were working for the National Book foundation. Did you read all of the long lists? How much were you reading?

Lisa Lucas 43:08
I was not able to read 50 books. Okay, by September 14, when we announced got it got it. That was not a human process.

Traci Thomas 43:15
You’re not a magician.

Lisa Lucas 43:17
I mean, we weren’t we would only find out at Labor Day. So we only had two weeks to put the list together. So it’s like we didn’t even know what the books were for two weeks. I would then spend like I mean, I would be working I’d be reading those books all year every year. So I tried to get through as many i There’s no book until that last pandemic year that I hadn’t read a piece of every but it took me always all year to sort of you know, by the time the next books came in, I was done with last year. Totally.

Traci Thomas 43:42
Yeah. Are there other awards that you’re that are super exciting to you.

Lisa Lucas 43:46
I love all of the words. I think that it’s really fantastic. I think that I love the Windham Campbell prizes. I think that they’re always extraordinary recognition of some of the world’s most super talented writers. I mean, it’s always good to see the big prizes. Pulitzer. Booker, the Booker. Yeah, the Booker. So American, when it was more narrow. I feel like I got more from it. Yeah, although I welcome it as like a prize that, you know, it’s like that. Those books are exciting. I love the they’re just all great. I mean, it’s like every little prize is a different thing. The Kirkus prizes are fantastic. I think those are so good judges and they’re really thoughtful and do great work. I like the LA Times Book Prize is quite a lot. I think that’s really wonderful prize the NBC C’s which is stunner always i They’re all great. I get so much from all of them. I look forward I love story prize.

Traci Thomas 44:39
Yes, I love them and what I really what’s fun for me now is like learning the different personalities of the awards because like I know that a Pulitzer nonfiction general nonfiction I know I’m gonna like that book. I don’t care what it’s about like that is my award. Every one I’ve ever read. I’m just like, This is my shit. And then like I know what the booker it’s a little hard. For me, I’m not quite as into literary fiction. So sometimes I’m like, I don’t know what’s happening, you know, but like, it’s fun. And I live in LA. So I love the LA Times when obviously to just, it’s my local paper.

Lisa Lucas 45:10
What’s your bookstore in LA?

Traci Thomas 45:13
So I love Rob. I love epsilon. That’s my like a one. I live very close to show volleys. So that’s one that I often end up going to, but they don’t have the selection that I want. Sometimes it’s a little extra Caucasian there. So I love skylight. I love reparations club. I love salt eaters, which is new.

Lisa Lucas 45:31
I’ve never been to that one. Because I lived in LA for a while. So skylit was running the stuff, right?

Traci Thomas 45:35
Yeah, it’s owned by or started by ASHA grant. It’s black, queer woman owned. It’s in Inglewood. The salida is and Asha was a guest on the podcast a few years ago. And so I’ve always just stayed up with her but they just opened at the end of last year. Oh, I can’t wait. Yeah, super cute store. Okay. How do you pick? Personally? How do you pick what you’re going to read next? Are you doing reviews? or their friends? Do you have like a select group of people that you’re you take recommendations from? I have seen you try to sometimes source on the internet on Twitter. Yeah.

Lisa Lucas 46:09
Or other people. And sometimes I’ll draw from it. Like, I’m usually trying to get a beat on sort of what just what people are reading, you know, like, I’ll be like, What’s everybody reading? And it’s like, it’s, it’s nice. Forget about professionally interesting. It’s just nice to know what the zeitgeist is. And I think it’s really fun. But um, you know, gosh, I mean, there’s not any rhyme or reason to my personal reading, it’s, it’s something we’ll just sort of flag up. You know, it’s like, I’ve been really into Rick Pearlstein books this past year, which is like He’s like one of the foremost chroniclers of the American rate, and the conservative movement. And he’s, he’s not conservative. He’s so he’s like, sort of looking at the like Rise of the baddies. Right. So that’s been fun. And then I like deep dive like so right now I am actually publishing Helen Garner, in 2023, and 2024. And she’s like one of the Gundams of Australian letters, this extraordinary writer who’s had a full gorgeous career, she won the Windham Campbell prize in 2016, or 2017. And so we’re republishing the type of work. So it’s like a good opportunity, like so sometimes I’ll just be like pickup, I need to be reading every book by Helen Garner. So let me just pick up another Helen Garner book and reread it or read it for the first time. So I love a deep dive I’ve been trying to read like, so it’s like, you know, there’s just stuff that floats up but it’s largely just sort of where my head that? Yeah, you having a breakup, you read our breakup books, if you’re in love, in love books, or whatever the person fall in love with is obsessed with, you know, it’s just like, yeah, just sort of move with the I have like a real like a real sort of reactive way of moving my arms in a way that not useful for a podcast. Force. I was like, I’m really articulating my feelings and no one knows what I’m saying at all because it’s just silent.

Traci Thomas 47:48
Well, I can I can hear it in your voice. Your voice is sort of undulating as well. Do you have any book that you like recently that was recommended to you? That was just a homerun for you?

Lisa Lucas 47:59
Hmm, it’s so dumb. So it’s not dumb at all. She was really smart, but I feel like I was going through some things. And so Helen met Helen Harriet Lerner is actually Ben Lerner’s mom, and she’s a psychologist. And she wrote this like crazy, like very feminist very, like, super progressive, like 1990s self help books called like the dance of anger, and the dance, missy, and the dance of love, or whatever it is. And I read, I think the dance intimacy or the dance of anger, and I was like, This is amazing, like obsessed, like obsessed, obsessed, and I don’t really read self help, but it wasn’t really self help. It was like a lot more like Bell Hooks is all about love. Short was like reading like, you know, like, men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Traci Thomas 48:44
Right? Right. Right, right. I always feels weird to call all about love, self help, but like, it’s sort of is

Lisa Lucas 48:51
Jason and it’s like, but it’s more idea focus. It’s not like prescriptive, it’s not like do your thing. And you’re gonna solve your life. It’s actually just like a psychology book. Right? So they feel all about love. And Harriet Lerner staff are both just psychology books that have a practical application. So it’s what they look really self helpy. So I’m always like, I want to tell people to read this because it’s awesome. Like, especially novelists, like extra, especially writers. I feel like some of these really, it’s not every book, but like some of these books are actually just such there’s another book called uncoupling. The one I authors actually recommended to me, which is He’s a sociologist. And it’s almost like, you know, it’s like a study of all this. It’s a study of why people break up it’s not really about like, how not to break up or a real look at the systems Exactly. Like it’s no, just this, this is like just these are the places where people come apart. And I think for a writer and for a reader. Some of this stuff is like the most interesting thing in the entire world. So that’s kind of boring. It’s not like the hot new novel or the hot new nonfiction. I will say that one of the books that moved me the most this year that I would recommend is actually one of ours but I inherited it so it’s not like Something that I like but Margo Jefferson is constructing a nervous system, which are essays about, you know, just personhood and being black and what makes you you and, you know, all of these sorts of like, it’s just stunning. That brain, I don’t know who is funnier, more honest and smarter than Margo Jefferson. She’s just such a force of nature and that book, man, that was a delight. I missed my train. Stop reading. When I was publishing you didn’t you mean like, act and I was just like, dang, I was like, we

Traci Thomas 50:31
did a good book. Yeah. You know, the book you guys did last year that I just frickin loved was Seek You.

Lisa Lucas 50:37
Oh, my God. Kristin is so fantastic. That book is-

Traci Thomas 50:41
I loved it so much. I was like, emailing her team being like, can she please come on. I was like, months after the book came out. Because I read it late. I just I wasn’t thinking that it was something that I was gonna be obsessed with. And then I was like, she’s got to come on before the year is over. So God

Lisa Lucas 50:53
is she’s stunning, stunning, stunning. Like, that book is beautiful.

Traci Thomas 50:58
It’s so beautiful, like visually and just the heart of the whole thing.

Lisa Lucas 51:01
Just like, you know, loneliness. It’s really easy to read a sort of maudlin book about loneliness, right? It’s sort of easy to be like, you know, the like, and I think she dresses the sort of like, standard stereotypical tropes of loneliness. Well actually, like digging so much deeper. So it’s like, the thing is, she’s a beautiful artist. And, you know, she can tell a great story. But I think the thing that she doesn’t even let you see, but she’s doing is just how deep she’s diving, how rigorous how much there is in the absences. Right. Like, it’s like how much learning she had to do to synthesize it down. And that’s the best when you can be that smart and be that thoughtful, and like can’t see the scenes.

Traci Thomas 51:39
Yeah, oh, my gosh, oh, I, yes. It’s my favorite. It’s like when someone can really edit for the reader or like shape something for the reader and has like a really clear point of view and idea and understanding.

Lisa Lucas 51:51
And the idea, even like, it’s like if I were to conceive of a book about loneliness on my own, as Lisa Lucas, the writer, it’d be done. Right. But it’s not done at all the way that Kristin deals with it. It’s a glancing. Like, it’s always from a different angle that you didn’t expect, but it’s the one you really needed.

Traci Thomas 52:05
Yeah. Love, love, love, love. Okay, what is your ideal reading setup? Where are you? Are their snacks and beverages? Is it hot or cold? What are you sitting on? Well, listen,

Lisa Lucas 52:18
I don’t have a place. I don’t I wish I did. I think about it all the time, I have not constructed the place that I like to read the most. I think what I like where I like to read is in the spaces where it’s dead. Like if I’m on the subway, or I’m in a waiting room, and I have some headphones on, I like to just like use that time, because it’s just so transperfect transportive whatever, it takes you someplace else. And, and I love like I hate waiting. I’m impatient. And I just think that those are the moments where I really am like, I’m so disinterested in being involved in whatever time consuming thing that I’m doing. And it’s just so easy to slip into the book and be there. Yeah, that’s some of my best reading time is in the spaces in between. I like to read it like my little local bar with an Arnold Palmer because, you know, wine and reading doesn’t always go together well. Threshold. I like to Yeah, I mean, I like to read bed. Sometimes I dream of the perfect reading chair, which I somehow keeps eluding me. Yeah,

Traci Thomas 53:14
I don’t have a good reading chair.

Lisa Lucas 53:16
Here, you know, and I like did the whole thing and it was like, This is how it’s gonna look. And somehow I like back myself and there’s no room for a good reading chair. And then like, honestly, seriously, like all I

Traci Thomas 53:28
really care. Oh my gosh. Okay, here’s our sort of lightning round. What? Okay, what’s the last book you bought?

Lisa Lucas 53:35
Hmm. The last book I bought was yoga by Emanuel courier.

Traci Thomas 53:41
Oh, I’m excited about that. What’s the last book that made you laugh?

Lisa Lucas 53:46
Last book that made me laugh was probably Jamaica concave. My Garden book because she’s funny.

Traci Thomas 53:52
What’s the last book that made you angry?

Lisa Lucas 53:55
Ooh, I’m sure I read it during June 2020.

Traci Thomas 54:00
Okay, what’s the last? I don’t know. What’s the last book where you felt like you learned a lot?

Lisa Lucas 54:05
Hmm, the last book where I felt like I learned a lot was probably reading loved lands by Kim Schneider.

Traci Thomas 54:13
Okay, what’s the last or what’s a book that you feel proud to have read?

Lisa Lucas 54:18
swansway in French in college?

Traci Thomas 54:22
Wow. Okay. You speak French shout out, Lisa.

Lisa Lucas 54:25
I don’t really I used to be able to read it. Now.

Traci Thomas 54:28
That’s a great fancy answer. We love this for us. What’s a book that you feel embarrassed about? Loving? Ooh, a book

Lisa Lucas 54:39
that I feel embarrassed about loving? I don’t I don’t know. I think that reading is never embarrassing. I don’t have one. No shame. That’s fair.

Traci Thomas 54:48
What about a problematic favorite?

Lisa Lucas 54:50
Ross? No doubt. Okay, increasingly getting Okay. Okay. Fair, fair, favorite book from childhood Bunnicula Okay,

Traci Thomas 55:01
and what about a favorite book from where you’re from? Ooh,

Lisa Lucas 55:05
well, there are not any books from where I’m from that I know of, or that mean a lot to me. But I will say that I grew up going to Sag Harbor, which was a, you know, sort of my grandmother teacher and when she was teachers, little pennies and her husband got a little plot of land that they couldn’t even afford to buy any buy a house on, and that they built years and years later, decades later, with another husband, long story. And, and it was in Sag Harbor. So I would say that Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor is my favorite book about a place that feels like it is from where I’m from.

Traci Thomas 55:36
I like that. If you were a high school teacher, what’s a book you would assign?

Lisa Lucas 55:42
Long division by Cassie layman.

Traci Thomas 55:45
So good. Okay. Who would you person who knows every writer ever? Who would you want to write the book of your life?

Lisa Lucas 55:56
Oh, good. God. Absolutely. Not one person. I’m gonna favorite little writer Julian Lucas.

Traci Thomas 56:03
Oh, that. Is that your brother? Yeah. Okay, fine. That’s sort of a cheat. But I’ll Imani Perry said her son, so I’ll allow it. families and families. Okay. Emily, to the front. Yeah, I love this. Okay, here’s my last one for you, which is stolen from the New York Times by the book. If you could require what the President of the United States to read one book, what would it be?

Lisa Lucas 56:24
Like how the book about unions?

Traci Thomas 56:27
Okay. Beautiful. Lisa, a dream. This was so great. Lisa will be back the last Wednesday of the month, September 28. We’re discussing the trees by Percival Everett for the sex book club. I’m really excited about this. And just a reminder, but you’ll hear about it again. Next time. On September 27. Lisa’s first acquisition sweet soft plenty rhythm we’ll be out in the world. We are you nervous about that at all? No, I’m

Lisa Lucas 56:51
not. I’m just excited. I just want people to read it. I just like cannot wait for people to sort of love her. You know, I think they’ll love it. But you know, however they feel I’m just excited. It’s a good world to be in.

Traci Thomas 57:01
Yeah. And how many books since that? Have you acquired

Lisa Lucas 57:05
book? I don’t even want to know because?

Traci Thomas 57:08
A lot a lot. It’s not none. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for being here.

Lisa Lucas 57:16
Thank you for having me. This was a blast.

Traci Thomas 57:17
Yay. And everyone else we will see you in the Stacks. Alright, y’all that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening. And of course thank you Lisa Lucas for joining us today. I’d also like to thank Josie Kals for helping to make this interview possible. Don’t forget Lisa will be back on September 28 to discuss our book club pick the trees by Percival Everett. If you love the show and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you’re subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you’re listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave us a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks, follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram at thestackspod_ on Twitter and check out our website thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas, with production assistance from Lauren Tyree. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Lauren Tyree
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Ep. 230 How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee -- The Stacks Book Club (Ingrid Rojas Contreras)