Episode 124: Joani Elliott, STAR Award Winner & author of The Audacity of Sara Grayson
Joani Eliott's novel, The Audacity of Sara Grayson was last year’s winner of Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR award in the debut category, in addition to winning the Whitney awards in debut novel of the year and general fiction categories.
Joani shares the inspiration behind a novel writers and creatives have been raving about, and which reviewers call “witty, funny and delightful”.
In The Audacity of Sara Grayson, the main character is a thirty-two-year-old greeting card writer about to land the toughest writing assignment of her life. Three weeks after the death of her mother—a world-famous suspense novelist—Sara learns that her mother’s dying wish is for her to write the final book in her bestselling series.
Joani shares her inspiration for putting the topic of creativity and facing vulnerability and your fears, placed at the heart of her novel.
Books Mentioned:
The Audacity of Sara Grayson by Joani Elliott (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
The Maid by Nita Prose (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May (Bookshop.org / Amazon.com )
Author Ann Garvin’s podcast episode and author website
Maddie Dawson’s podcast episode and author website
Liane Moriarty author and JoJo Moyes author
Ria Talken - the memoirist who Lainey refers to as writing about location and mental health, including her article Can a Place be the Best Medicine?
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon and bookshop.org affiliate programs, which means Lainey or Ashley get a tiny commission if you buy something after clicking through from link on this website.
Other Resources
Women’s Fiction Writer’s Association
Connect with the author:
Joani’s website including Book Club Resources
Transcript:
** Transcript created using AI (so please forgive the typos!) **
Lainey Cameron
This is a treat for me because this book was the winner of the WFWA fiction writers Association Star Award for best debut novel and it was announced just last year in 2022. So I'm excited that we get to catch up with you, Joani.
Joani Elliott
Thank you Lainey. I'm delighted to be on your podcast.
Lainey Cameron
So where are you joining us from today?
Joani Elliott
I am here in Provo, Utah, just south of Salt Lake City got a nice view of the mountains and this is where I'm from originally well from just outside of Salt Lake.
Lainey Cameron
I'm excited to talk about this book, especially because several authors that I admire and that I've selected for the podcast in the past have been briefing about your novel so not only did it win the Star Awards, but I know Maddie Dawson has been raving about it. And Ann Garvin who writes the funniest fabulous books.
And here's what Ann had to say. She said, You know what it's like when you discover a new writer who's witty and wise voice makes your heart sing. That's Joani Elliot, for me. I stayed up too late turning pages loved it. Well, one thing with someone like Ann Garvin, who writes fabulous, funny books, thinks your book is fabulous. And you're the biggest new voice out there.
Joani Elliott
I was so thrilled to get that from her. I love Ann Garvin, and so many others were just so kind and generous and supportive, like Maddie Dawson, too.
Lainey Cameron
They totally are. So let's talk about this fabulous book, The Audacity of Sara Grayson, why don't you tell folks who haven't had a chance to read it yet? A little bit about what what's the demotes?
Joani Elliott
Well, the book centers around two questions. And it's about what happens when the world's greatest literary icon dies before she finishes the final book in her best selling series. And what happens when she leaves that book in the hands of her unstable neurotic daughter who swears she is not a real writer. And that person is Sara Grayson. And there's the like the nice photograph of her right there. So this is pretty much and patterned after me, I think. And anyway, three weeks after the death of her mother, this iconic best selling author, she finds out that it's her mother's dying wish that she finished the last book in her mother's series. And Sarah is horrified.
Joani Elliott
She thinks this is the worst thing her mother could possibly do to her because there was life is not going well. years ago, she'd had a dream of becoming a novelist. But that was a long ago, she she doesn't think she can even right now. I mean, she tries to write greeting cards and things like that there for her mother, her mother has always believed in her. And this is really her last chance. Sarah's horrified. She at first says no, I'm not going to do there's no way I can do this. Then after a few crazy things that happen, Sarah agrees to take it on. But stepping into her mother's shoes means stumbling into some family secrets that she was never meant to know about. And so this journey becomes a journey of self discovery, her family, and what does she have inside of herself creatively? What can she do? And so this story takes you on that journey with Sarah Grayson. And it's a deep dive into the writing world and the creative world. And I hope my readers will want to take that with her.
Lainey Cameron
And I had a chance to look at some of your book club questions and discussion, in addition to looking at the fabulous reviews for this book. And it seems like people really love this topic of creativity. And what does it take to be vulnerable and put yourself out there to take on that creative life and maybe you don't feel like you're good enough or deserving of it. For me that's such a fascinating theme, like where did the inspiration for putting that at the heart of a novel come from?
Joani Elliott
You know, in 2015, I was teaching writing at the University of Maryland and I loved my job, I will never achieve my dream of writing and publishing a novel. And I had a lot of colleagues who were able to do both and did it really well. But I was not one of them. And so I talked things over with my husband, I said I think I just need to give myself a couple of years and just focus entirely on writing. And so fall semester 2015 Instead of going to class, I came to my computer, I was so full of energy and excitement. But I will tell you it went from challenging to this is hard the two agonizing because everything I started didn't work I also thought I was a white a author at the time because that's the only I have another novel I'd written and so nothing was working and you know, some people progress debate. Well, I procrastinate organize, and I was organizing my kitchen pantry, my closets, my garage, everything. I was walking the aisles of the Container Store with in my yoga pants and no bra and I'm sure they had me on their security cam thinking somebody else. This woman, I was just miserable. I thought What have I done, I've left my job. And this isn't even working for me. And I remember crying in my bathroom thinking well, so I thought well not cares, at least that I've got that going for me. And then I thought what would it be like if people were waiting for me to write this novel, like hundreds of people? And then I thought, what if there were 1000s? Like, how would that feel? And then I thought what would it be like if there were like millions of people waiting for me to write this novel? And that's the moment that I imagined this sad sort of person with the weight of the writing world on her shoulders. And that's the moment sir Grayson was born in my bathroom. And it was a an unmedicated birth. And without assistance there, she came to me and once I had caught a vision of her things began to change. And I knew very quickly that it was her mother. That was the iconic author that she had left the book to Sarah and that it was a gift to her. It was a gift because her mother believed in her.
Lainey Cameron
So what happened once you had this character, and you know you'd invented her in the bathroom she'd been born, she's gonna have to write the equivalent of the next Jodi Piccoult novel except Jodi Piccoult, unfortunately, this scenario is no longer around. So what then, where did you go with it?
Joani Elliott
Right? So after I had Sarah Grayson things started to improve there, I realized that the Container Store is not a good place to write a novel. And I had to really learn to protect my time and to treat it like a regular job and show up same time each morning. And really, I just, you know, I took a deep dive with Sarah Grayson into back into the craft of being a novelist. It had been years since I'd written my first novel, and so I had a lot to learn again, it was actually a really wonderful journey with Sara. Each chapter has an epigraph and a quote from a famous writer, and a collective all of those. In many ways, though, Sara and I are different from each other. I was taking that that deep dive into the writing world with her and I love that process.
Lainey Cameron
And one of my favorite questions to ask it kind of goes straight from what you just said is, what do you advise other writers? I mean, you've got this debut novel that has won several awards, not just the WFWA Star award, but I saw there were some others as well on your website. And that's amazing for a debut like what advice do you give to people who are facing this kind of, gosh, this huge hill, this vulnerability, challenge all these creativity issues, you know, it's easy to look at the winds like your success and say, well, it was easy for you, but I love that you're sharing that it was anything but easy for you. What advice do you give to other writers who are going through those same struggles?
Joani Elliott
Well, number one, I tell writers protect your time. I think it's easy, especially as women to to give our time away our creative time. I think it's easy for people outside of our world or creative world to dismiss it to say, Oh, are you just I'm sure I can call Joanie to do something, because she's just doing that writing thing, you know. And so and sometimes we are willing to give it away, I think we really need to, to honor what the work is that it is just as valuable as any other work that is being done in the world today to protect it give us give ourselves a space to write it in the time the respect that it deserves, and let our families know, to honor that as well. I think that's a really big for us as women, we still do so much unpaid labor in this world. And so I think when we are doing a creative work, it's really easy whether no matter what the creative work might be besides writing, it's it's just really easy for us to not honor it. And when we're not honoring it, the people around us don't honor it either. So we never would have got to honor that.
Speaker 1
I love what you're saying. I'm Camille Pagan, who's also been a guest on the podcast. She's also the guiding scribe for women's fiction writers this year, she posted just a few months back a photo that was like a snow day. So her whole family was home. And she posted a photo on her Instagram account of the big Do Not Disturb mom is writing. This is her writing time sign on her office store. And so she's a great proponent for this like you have your time for writing you have those hours set aside, and you need to train everyone around you that those are important Do Not Disturb Mom no matter what. Unless the house is on fire, Mom does not get disturbed.
Joani Elliott
Absolutely. Yeah. Well said.
Lainey Cameron
So editing, it sounds like editing was a fun one for you on this book. Did it change a lot from where you started? And is there anything that readers today, I know you've got a lot of book clubs who love reading this book that they might be surprised to know is maybe different from the original versions.
Joani Elliott
But I will tell you this book got really huge. It was like 200 more pages that I had to cut. And so it definitely the revision process was extensive and was too long to begin with. And serious revisions. I had a writing group that just they were amazing. I called them my midwives, because they took my they took my book twice the whole thing and helped me help me revise that extensively. So they were incredible. And I think in terms of revision, the ending was the hardest for me to get, I usually write a 40, 50 page outline of the book, or I'm just going scene by scene. This is the story. I'm just writing it out. And I workshop that with friends and other writers so that I can ask, is this working? You know what isn't working, so I can see the arc of the story as a whole. But once I start getting into the actual writing of it, there's inevitably things that change for me in this book, The ending was just always shifting just a little bit. I mean, I knew I knew the basic things of what happened at the end. But there were just intricate little relationships and things that that I just Oh, it's just hard to get right. So yeah.
Lainey Cameron
And has there been anything in Reader reactions? I know you've been doing book clubs and you've won these awards. Is there anything in that journey that has either surprised or delighted you?
Joani Elliott
Yes, and the number one thing that has delighted me in terms of response, has been the response from writers. Or closet writers. They've reached out to me and they've said, did you intend for this to be a book to help writers write or I've learned so much from your book? One person said it was a man who was in his 70s and he said And he said, I've learned so much about writing. And now I'm going to try and share my writing. And so I love hearing that the book helps people be brave about their writing. And that excites me to no end. And I love hearing that it just inspired people to be creative. And then beyond that, I've heard people say, it's just, in fact, just last night, I was with a book club, I love being with book clubs, somebody said to me, it just helped me remember that I can do hard things. And that, that just thrills me. But the surprise, big surprise to me has been the number of people that said, I think every writer should read this. And so I'm actually going to start pitching it to some creative writing classrooms. Because I think from what the response that I'm getting, I think it would be a great, a great book for creative writers to read just as a springboard for discussion, undergrad, if they started with the book, and used it as a springboard for discussion as they move into the writing because it just covers so many of the issues that we deal with as writers in terms of the self doubt, and the process and the revision, and how do we emotionally connect with our characters, there's all these things that Sarah has to learn. And I will tell you, I wasn't writing them writing this book Thinking and now I'm gonna write a, I'm gonna write a good chapter about self doubt. And that will be a good chapter about revision wasn't anything like that Sarah's just experiencing all of it. Everybody has different experiences with writing, but I'm getting email after email where somebody is saying, I'm writing a coming of age story. And your book just helped me with this section. So I'm excited about that. And that's my next big promotion is I'm going to start pitching it and my publisher has agreed to donate a classroom set to some high schools. And so we'll take it from there.
Lainey Cameron
That's fun. That's really fun imagining like high school students study in your work that that must be like a really, do you think you'll get a maybe a chance to interact with any of those high schools?
Joani Elliott
I sure. I would love to. I began my career in secondary ed. So I would love to be back in some younger classrooms. And right now I'm visiting some undergrad classrooms. There are two universities within 10 minutes of me so yeah, that's, that's exciting.
Lainey Cameron
So what do you like to read? Like when you get a chance to read? Do you read in genre out of genre? What do you like? And is there anything our listeners or watchers here might want to know about that you would recommend?
Joani Elliott
You know, I adore women's fiction and just contemporary fiction so but I read I read widely still, when I'm in the mode of writing, though I do love to write read. authors like Adam Garvin and Leon Moriarty and Jojo Moyes, those who are just have such a great voice that appeals to me so strongly, I just finished a book though called The Maid by Nita Prose. And I don't know if anybody has heard of this book, but it is told from the perspective of somebody who's on the autism scale, so neurodivergent, and she just has the most fabulous first person narrative. And it's also from her perspective, which just it's so wonderful to a book but the big mystery right at the center of it, and it just grabs ahold of you and doesn't let go. So it's, it's terrific. And I'm reading a book called Wintering again, because I'm in Utah. And we have very cold, snowy winters and and it's wintering by Katherine May. And it just reminds me of the beauty of winter and how we need winter in a much better place. So I'm not crying in a ball right now. Lainey. I'm dressed.
Lainey Cameron
It's hard. It's hard as someone who grew up in Scotland, where we have whole months where you don't really see sun like I love Scotland is beautiful, go visit it, but there are certain months of the year where it is dark, right? Like you don't get a lot of sky visibility. And it's not good for your mental health. It's really does sound hard. I'm related. But now I'm in Mexico. So Are you happier then? It's funny. I have a friend who writes she's actually writing her memoir, which is going to be fabulous when it comes out. And one of the things she's covering in her memoir, memoir is how her mental health improved after she left the states and moved to a place where it was a different environment. And yeah, where we live and not just weather, but climate and the way people interact with each other completely can affect your outlook on the world, the planet, your relationships, everything. It's amazing how much it can affect you.
Joani Elliott
Oh, I totally believe that. And ifwe're gonna write, we're going to be in a good headspace. Right?
Lainey Cameron
Right, exactly. And I'll put the link to that friend's blog. If anyone's interested. She's called Ria Talken. She's writing some phenomenal memoir stuff. It's coming out soon. Well, before we wrap up, and I want to ask where people can connect with you. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you'd like to talk about? Or you want to share with readers or..
Joani Elliott
You know, I have come to believe that there is a yearning to create, and every one of us and it's easy sometimes to think, oh, so and so is the creative one in the family and I'm not or you know, we just kind of decide sometimes that we're not that creative. And I read a quote that I love from Mary Oliver, she said the most regretful people on Earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their uncreative power rested and uprising, and gave to it neither power, nor time, that when we answer those creative calls, we live a more full, beautiful life. And one of the things that Sarah Grayson has to learn is how to answer that call. And it takes being vulnerable. It takes courage, it takes feeling alone sometimes and feeling afraid. But when we are willing to lean into that vulnerability, that's when we can start to feel most alive. And and you'll find in the women's women's fiction writing Association, WFWA, that organization just surround you with people who are vulnerable to and who are trying to do really good work, we may write alone, but we do not have to be alone in this journey. So to anyone listening to this, take courage, be brave, write those words and find connection with others who can share this journey with you because you don't have to do this alone.
Lainey Cameron
I love that. And you know, you've made me remember that just next month, we're going to do a special episode for women's fiction day, the genre that is women's fiction, and I'm going to be doing it talking with several members of Women's Fiction Writers Association about that genre and what it's like to write women's fiction and some of the challenges and why is there even a genre that has a gender as description these days? And so we're actually going to do an episode on the podcast where we specifically talk about all of those things coming up here in June. Well, it has been a joy to talk with you. I love everything you were saying or in creativity. And I feel like I just learned to talk a ton and I want to go put that Mary Oliver quote on my wall notes. I think I need it. Where can people catch up with you? I know your website has fabulous resources. I was looking at some of the fun stuff you have there for book clubs is that where people should start if they want to learn more and catch up with you.
Joani Elliott
I would love for people to visit my website at JoaniElliott.com. And I have really great book club resources, even a book club kit. And I'd love to visit book clubs that are local and pop in via zoom to other book clubs. I'm on Instagram a lot. I'm on all the I'm on all the social media websites, social media sites, but I'm on Instagram the most
Lainey Cameron
Perfect. We'll put the link to your website and the Instagram on the show notes on Best of women's fiction.com. And you can find the video version there if you're listening to the audio and all the links to the books that were recommended. I just want to say thank you so much for joining me.
Joani Elliott
Thank you Laney this has just been wonderful I appreciate this