Jennifer Fawcett: Keep This For Me

Megan Hamilton (00:11.000)
I'm Megan Hamilton and this is the Embracing Enchantment podcast. Today's guest is my best friend and you've already been introduced to her in the previous episode with Patrick Hallahan of My Morning Jacket. I've known her for 32 years.

Jennifer Fawcett (06:43.253)
Yay!

Jennifer Fawcett (06:51.742)
my god, has it been that long? How is that possible since we're only in our 30s?

Megan Hamilton (06:57.508)
It's the miracle of the fact that time doesn't exist in the way we think of it. She is a playwright, an actor, a doula. We don't talk about that very, when I was like, I'm going through all your stuff that I know and I'm like, you were a doula.

Jennifer Fawcett (07:01.998)
you

Jennifer Fawcett (07:06.99)
I mean, not really anymore. Yeah. That was a brief thing. I was briefly a doula.

Megan Hamilton (07:15.932)
Could you still be a doula if you wanted to? Is there like a-

Jennifer Fawcett (07:18.438)
I would need to do a lot of revising of information, I mean, part of me always wants to go back to Dula in. It's amazing work.

Megan Hamilton (07:28.198)
Wow. All right. I have been at the presence of one birth. I was, I guess, kind of a doula. One is good for me, even though it was wonderful.

Jennifer Fawcett (07:33.774)
Mmm.

Megan Hamilton (07:41.702)
That's where you and I differ.

and a published author of two books, Beneath the Stairs and the recently released Keep This for Me, please welcome my best friend, like I said, Jennifer Fawcett. Hi Jennifer Fawcett, published author.

Jennifer Fawcett (07:58.905)
Hello, Megan Hamilton. Yes. there's my book. There's one book.

Megan Hamilton (08:03.474)
There's one book. there's not only just one book. There's two books.

Jennifer Fawcett (08:09.186)
Yeah, there's the other one. Look at that.

Megan Hamilton (08:11.783)
and that's not including the place. So, how's it going over there in? Yeah. Or you are.

Jennifer Fawcett (08:15.404)
You

down here. I mean, fine, personally fine.

Megan Hamilton (08:23.59)
Yeah, yeah, aside from all the stress.

Jennifer Fawcett (08:26.99)
aside from, you know, the state of the country, which we'll not let's not get into that. Oh, Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Megan Hamilton (08:32.334)
That's for another question coming up though. Hopefully you're okay to talk politics today. Okay, we met in theater school and since then our career paths have meandered around but I'd say we're still, yeah they have, I know. We're still using a lot of that experience in our work today.

Jennifer Fawcett (08:42.892)
We did.

Jennifer Fawcett (08:46.488)
they have.

Jennifer Fawcett (08:53.239)
Absolutely.

Megan Hamilton (08:55.472)
While I'm shuffling cards, can you talk a little bit about how you went from theater school to writing thrillers?

Jennifer Fawcett (09:05.262)
Yes, well, you're part of that story. So I went from you are I went from theater school to writing plays, which were hopefully thrilling to watch, but we're not thrillers. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (09:10.508)
Am I?

Megan Hamilton (09:18.994)
They were, and in fact, I stage managed one of your plays.

Jennifer Fawcett (09:25.282)
Yes, you did. You did. So I went from theater. I went from being an actor to being a playwright and discovered that I like that a lot more than being an actor. And then I was living down in the US post grad school had just gotten married, was in waiting for my green card and was in immigration limbo, was broker than broke.

So couldn't really leave the house because I couldn't afford to do anything. Wasn't able to work. Didn't have a child. And was talking to you and you said, you should do NaNoWriMo. You were the one who introduced me to NaNoWriMo, which is for those who don't know, this month. It's November. It's National Novel Writing Month. But it's actually international because it happens all over the world. And the whole idea with NaNoWriMo is to try and write

50,000 words in the month of November, which works out to like 1,637 or something like that. I don't know the math exactly, but it kind of breaks down that way. Yeah. A day, a day. Obviously you don't have to write them every day. You could write just on the weekends, but most people, I think, try and hit the word count every day. I'd never heard of it, but I had absolutely zero excuse not to try. Because I had time and I had a computer.

Megan Hamilton (10:31.196)
Like a day, right?

Jennifer Fawcett (10:51.286)
And I'd always wanted to try writing a book. And so I decided to try NaNoWriMo on your suggestion. And that really was the beginning of Beneath the Stairs. Because I wrote 50,000, actually I wrote 60,000 words. And what came out of it was the beginning of that book. Yeah, that book right there. Yeah, I mean, it took many, many, years from when I did NaNoWriMo to when I actually...

Megan Hamilton (11:10.662)
This book right here, this one right here.

Jennifer Fawcett (11:18.04)
finished the book and got an agent and went out on submission and then got a publisher and then had it published. Like that was a long, that was a long trek. But the start of it was actually you.

Megan Hamilton (11:27.506)
Well that's all.

Megan Hamilton (11:31.834)
me. I mean, you're not the only person who said that to me before. I'm just kidding. I love that. And I have that email. I looked it up. Yeah, because we were talking about this a few years ago and I was like, I honestly didn't actually remember. So I can look it up.

Jennifer Fawcett (11:32.696)
Yes.

Jennifer Fawcett (11:42.798)
Do you really?

Jennifer Fawcett (11:54.031)
It's like this deeply meaningful thing to me and you're like, did I say that?

Megan Hamilton (11:59.279)
I just, you know how it is. It's like, like that's how it, that's how it goes. Always. It's like, you know, you say to your parents, like, remember this magical day when, and they're like, what? No. Or they tell you like, that didn't happen that way. This is actually how it happened. And you're like, no, I mean, I remember that time. I remember being very worried about you. I remember you were, you know, like,

Jennifer Fawcett (12:08.236)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (12:16.77)
That didn't happen. Yeah, you're remembering it all incorrectly.

Megan Hamilton (12:30.194)
kind of stuck with without a whole lot of possibilities. And I don't even I think I tried nano RIMO like maybe once or twice and like day two I was like, no, I can't do this. But you did. then, okay, let's pull a tarot card because then I want to get into it. But one thing I really want to talk about after we pull the card is

Jennifer Fawcett (12:31.842)
very.

Megan Hamilton (12:57.914)
that period of time and a realistic expectation of how long things take to happen, right?

Jennifer Fawcett (13:04.908)
my goodness. I don't mean, I don't want to depress anybody. mean, my book, my book journey is a very long one. Most people don't take quite as long as I took, but it wasn't a direct path.

Megan Hamilton (13:09.624)
I think it's really important.

Megan Hamilton (13:14.982)
Well, we'll talk about it because everyone's path is unique and also,

Jennifer Fawcett (13:20.404)
Everyone's path is different.

Megan Hamilton (13:25.456)
Also, I think it can be helpful anyways, we'll get into this, but I think it can be helpful to have realistic expectations and to cast your net of expectations quite far and wide so you don't give up after month six of a hundred rejections going, well, I guess nobody likes me. I guess this career path is not what I'm gonna be doing, right?

Jennifer Fawcett (13:45.622)
Yeah.

Yes, I definitely have things to say about that.

Megan Hamilton (13:51.047)
Yes. Okay. So let's just see what kind of tarot card wants to come up. This is this is just a time to take a minute and think about themes. This is universal. If you're listening to this, this is for you.

Megan Hamilton (14:12.172)
of swords. I don't know why this card keeps coming up for me actually, but this is a card.

Jennifer Fawcett (14:17.187)
there's the fourth. I was like, I don't see three swords, but I see the fourth.

Megan Hamilton (14:20.464)
Yeah, the fourth is incipia. So swords are in the realm of air. We associate them with things related to the brain. So cognition, communication, strategy. We also associate swords with fear and the fact that there can be double edges to things, right? So for example, if you think of a sword, it can protect you, but it can also hurt other people.

Jennifer Fawcett (14:47.438)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (14:50.3)
When we look at the four of swords, it's kind of about waiting and you might be trying to figure out the best path forward. So that may be the strategy part that's coming up. But this person, you if you want to head to YouTube to see I'm using the Rider Waite Smith deck, you can see what the card looks like. But this person is not stressed. They're not sort of lying there stressing out. They're actually contemplating and they're wondering what their next move is going to be.

Jennifer Fawcett (15:20.163)
Hmm.

Megan Hamilton (15:20.87)
And the thing about this card that we want to remember is we want to take our time. I'm a person who happens to believe that there are no wrong choices, that when we are faced with choices, we will make a choice and there will be consequences because of it. But generally, generally, there are no wrong choices. There are just choices we make in our lives that take us from one place to another and continue forward.

And so if you are trying to figure out what to do.

Megan Hamilton (16:01.774)
certainly take your time and let yourself ruminate over each of the different things that are available to you. But the sword underneath is reminding you of all that we don't know, right? This person can't see that sword there. That sword is behind them. We can make decisions based on every possible thing that we do know, but what we know is

Jennifer Fawcett (16:13.411)
Hmm.

Megan Hamilton (16:25.714)
a crumb of salt in an ocean of salt, right? Everything, I said this to somebody in a tarot reading, I think it was yesterday. Somebody could be making a decision in Japan right now that's gonna affect you four years from now and you have no idea. So, you know, we just kinda have to like make a call, plug our nose, close our eyes and jump in and go forward. And that's what I think.

Jennifer Fawcett (16:41.166)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (16:54.64)
the messages right now. However, we can't stay in inaction for too long because as the as we can see from this person there in sepia, we know that color exists because there is this stained glass window. And so perhaps this person is starting to fade and it's time to start thinking about what the action is going to be right. We cannot stay stagnant in any situation because that's when things start to really erode.

So take that as your missive for this moment in time. And speaking of time, I think the time frame for you was 10 years.

Jennifer Fawcett (17:39.308)
Mm.

Yeah, even, I mean, if you really want to go from like the very start to the moment the book came out, even more than 10 years. Yeah, because it was 2009 when I started and 2022 when the book came out. That's very long time.

Megan Hamilton (18:05.06)
a long time. And I mean, there's so many different pathways you can take as an author these days, but you really wanted to go the route of having an agent and having a publisher.

Jennifer Fawcett (18:16.192)
Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I went the traditional route.

Megan Hamilton (18:19.162)
And why is that important to you? Or was that important to you?

Jennifer Fawcett (18:24.096)
It was important to me because I felt like I didn't know how to do anything. I didn't know anything about publishing and I find marketing myself terrifying. so though I've since learned that you actually, even when you are with a big publisher, you still have tons of the work is still on you. And I think it was also me needing someone else.

It's funny because I didn't do this and I didn't end up doing this in theater, but me needing someone else to validate the work and say, no, no, no, it is, it's good enough, right? Like so in theater, I self-produced a play first. And that was the biggest thing that was frightening to me was the first time I was going to go on stage and perform part of that play, I realized no one had given me permission. Like no one had.

Megan Hamilton (19:20.53)
Hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (19:23.008)
No one had published the play, right, which is a form of vetting. You know, someone else hadn't, you know, published it and then done an audition and then cast me, right? All these, all of these are stages where like there's, there's like somebody saying yes, each step of the way to like, yes to that play and yes to that actor and you know, all of it. None of that had happened. I had just written it myself and cast myself. And so,

That was really, really frightening because I didn't have all of those sort of outside voices saying, yes, yes, this is, this is good. This is fine. This is worthy of people's attention. and so it was very frightening and it was very empowering when people said, when the audience liked it. so yeah, I mean, no, I'm talking about goat show. My very first play was goat show. So, which was an autobiographical.

Megan Hamilton (20:12.412)
Yeah. Are we talking about Janey Jones right now? Gocho. my gosh, of course. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jennifer Fawcett (20:23.456)
one person show about growing up on a gold farm. And that was the other part, is that it was a story about me. I did it and it was a sort of a life-changing thing to do because I said yes to myself and that kind of changed everything and set me on the trajectory of becoming a writer. But yeah, then when it came to publishing, I did want to try and find an agent because I didn't know anything about

trying to get into the world of publishing. And I think if I hadn't found an agent, then I might have found a way to move forward. And I was very close to not finding a publisher and was starting to really consider moving into self-publishing, but did end up finding a publisher. But there's no guarantee that that will last, because this is a very unstable kind of industry. think fortunes can change for better or for worse.

Megan Hamilton (21:18.716)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (21:22.542)
very quickly and you just have to kind of keep moving forward.

Megan Hamilton (21:27.59)
But I love what's helpful, I think, is the idea that...

I think I mentioned this to you and maybe I didn't, that I've been doing this thing this year called 100 rejections, where I'm trying to get 100 rejections, right?

Jennifer Fawcett (21:41.624)
Mmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (21:45.976)
think you might have told me that, yeah.

Megan Hamilton (21:48.495)
And so the premise of it is that you're trying at least 100 times to get somebody to pick up on something that you're pitching. And so in this case, I'm letting all of the different things that I pitch be part of this 100 rejections. Because people don't know, people who don't necessarily put themselves out there for whatever reason, like maybe that's not part of their job or

Jennifer Fawcett (21:57.4)
This

Jennifer Fawcett (22:15.555)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (22:17.778)
they don't want to because they feel nervous about it. People don't realize how much rejection, like even, you know, the big guns face at any given point. And I think it can be really helpful and, you know, empowering to know that.

Jennifer Fawcett (22:23.074)
Yes.

Jennifer Fawcett (22:27.373)
Yes.

Megan Hamilton (22:39.108)
you're gonna face a lot of quote unquote rejection, but you can also change your mind about how you're gonna see it. And so for this example of a hundred rejections, when I saw that somewhere, I was like, done. I love that idea. I don't love, it doesn't make it, it's not like every time you get that rejection letter, you're like, yes, I get to cross this off on my hundred rejections list. But it does mean that you're,

Jennifer Fawcett (22:42.19)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (22:46.254)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (22:59.957)
Hahaha!

Megan Hamilton (23:06.13)
you're like, okay, I'm keeping on trying, I'm keeping on trying, I'm keeping on going. I'm not just letting this be the end of this dream that I have. going back to Beneath the Stairs, which I should say,

You know this, but I have not read. have. It's just terrible best friend material. So I read the first version of the book and.

Jennifer Fawcett (23:32.864)
No, no, no, because it scared you.

Jennifer Fawcett (23:39.928)
I don't even know if that was the first, it was a version of the book. There have been many. Yes. Yes, which it was for many years. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (23:42.257)
It was a version of the book. It was back when it was called the Octagon House. And I immediately fell in love with the characters because you are so your your characters are beautiful in all of the different ways, you know, all of the different mediums. You write beautiful, thoughtful.

really evocative characters that you're welcome that you know I really relate to and I'm not you know not just me a lot of people and so right off the bat I was just really intrigued by the characters and I wanted to to learn more about them they were in that period grade 7 grade 8 grade 9 where you're riding around on bikes all summer and you're

Jennifer Fawcett (24:12.782)
Thank you.

I'm

Jennifer Fawcett (24:35.829)
Mmm.

Yes.

Megan Hamilton (24:39.088)
excited about boys and like you have a lot of firsts. Totally. And then you put them in the basement with a horrible situation that.

Jennifer Fawcett (24:41.206)
And it's a time of huge transition and uncertainty and yeah, I'm sorry.

Megan Hamilton (24:56.402)
I had to say, I think I can't do this because also back then things have actually changed a lot, you know, for me in the last few years, especially, but I was not able to handle that kind of stressfulness and that in writing the anticipatory like creepiness. Also, it was a shock having known you as long as I have and you not

Jennifer Fawcett (25:13.186)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (25:18.307)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (25:26.83)
you

Megan Hamilton (25:28.986)
necessarily showing signs of that side of yourself. Yeah, like, like, yes. So I had to put it down and it is it is now back in my TBR and do you love that I know what that means? No, thank you. I had the gals from Medium Lady Reads, Jillian O'Keefe, who I know you know, and Aaron Van Even on the show. And so I was learning all the lingo.

Jennifer Fawcett (25:34.03)
Dark creepy basement sort of thing.

Jennifer Fawcett (25:46.721)
I'm impressed.

Jennifer Fawcett (25:54.236)
Uh-uh.

Megan Hamilton (25:58.365)
Plus I also decided, I don't even know if I've told you this, but I put my phone away at nighttime starting in like February, because I was like, I need to read books, yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (26:04.943)
yeah, I you told me. So smart.

Megan Hamilton (26:08.882)
I have read, I don't know, I mean, some people are like, oh, I'm already reached like 250 books this year. And I'm like, oh, I'm at 25 or 20 and I'm so proud of myself. I don't read that many. don't even know how people do. How would you read that?

Jennifer Fawcett (26:29.036)
I don't know how people do either and I don't know if they're reading closely. they might. I have, was just talking to one of my aunts who's a big reader and loves complicated, difficult texts, but she quite openly says, she's like, I'm a very fast reader. She's like, I skim, I skim the text where I don't skim the text. I, I read much more. I'm slower.

Megan Hamilton (26:45.805)
Okay, right.

Megan Hamilton (26:53.424)
Me too.

Jennifer Fawcett (26:54.22)
But I think it's, know, whatever you get out of it. I also listen to tons of audiobooks, which I count as reading.

Megan Hamilton (26:59.922)
Of course you do, because they're reading.

Jennifer Fawcett (27:01.806)
Yeah, I mean, I'm ingesting stories, right? I'm ingesting the story. I'm not, my eyes are not moving across a page, but I am fully immersed in the story and I'm hearing the writing and the care, all of the same stuff that you have. I think the same mental processes are happening, except for maybe that I'm hearing somebody else's voice. But anyway, yeah, no, I mean, but it's kind of like, however you read and...

Megan Hamilton (27:04.7)
Yes.

Megan Hamilton (27:17.372)
Mm-hmm.

Hmmmm

Megan Hamilton (27:27.218)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (27:28.416)
at whatever speed you read and whatever you choose to read. Like also the whole idea of like, you know, genres, like there's all sorts of like biases that people have about certain types of books, but I'm like, whatever, just read what you love. There's so much out there. Read what you love. Very smart. Is that Romantic? yeah. It's really big right now.

Megan Hamilton (27:44.721)
I know, I'm really into fairy smut right now. I'm reading Akatar. Yeah, yeah, it's like made up creatures having sex with each other. It's the best. Have you read any of those books? The Court of Thorn and Roses? okay, yeah. I like them. Perhaps that's another genre you could explore.

Jennifer Fawcett (27:59.952)
No. those. Yeah, no I haven't.

Jennifer Fawcett (28:10.19)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (28:10.29)
Please just don't put our beloved people into horrible, terrible basements. And I think I should also say...

Jennifer Fawcett (28:14.872)
There'll be fairy basements though, there'll be magical basements.

Megan Hamilton (28:18.384)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's what I mean. Magical Basements is fine. Terrible. Sure. Whatever. Just not not not where we're so worried about the but and I'm teasing Jen, by the way, that actually got taken out, didn't it? Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (28:20.812)
magical smut horror basements?

Jennifer Fawcett (28:29.098)
Yeah, I know.

Jennifer Fawcett (28:38.596)
yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was the bloody handprint on the wall that got that that was one step too far for Megan Hamilton.

Megan Hamilton (28:46.566)
I didn't even think I got that far. I got to the part where she's like touch. She read the basement was totally dark and she reached out and touched something and it was sticky on the wall and I was like, what the fuck? I can't do this. I'm like, is it? And actually that reminds me, cause you gave me that house book. Remember that?

That book called House? Is it called House? Anyways, I'm getting in the weeds here. House of what? No, but it was like, it was an interesting book because it had different sized letters and different fonts, but it was like the house went on forever.

Jennifer Fawcett (29:10.508)
House of Blue Leaves? Yeah, now I don't know. House of Blue Leaves?

Jennifer Fawcett (29:28.576)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I might be confusing it with a play. But it's I totally know the book you mean I'm looking for. I'll have it up there. House of Leaves. House of Leaves. Sorry. There's a play called House of Blue Leaves. House of Leaves. Yeah, where the it's all footnote. Yeah, it's a very fun book. Complicated, fun, playing with structure sort of thing. Mm hmm. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry.

Megan Hamilton (29:38.054)
House of Leaves. Okay, yes.

Megan Hamilton (29:45.584)
Yeah, right, but also really scary.

Yeah, so I couldn't finish that one either. No, it's okay. I think you were preparing me for Beneath the Stairs, but I am now actually ready to read it properly. I just need to get through.

Jennifer Fawcett (30:02.614)
And keep this for me, my newest book is not that scary.

Megan Hamilton (30:06.424)
No, it's not. And and and and that's a great segue to the reason we're here today. I did finish this book and it is. I mean, I don't want to go. I am your best friend after all, but it's a masterpiece and so. OK, I will. Brilliant characters, absolutely like.

Jennifer Fawcett (30:12.482)
Jennifer Fawcett (30:27.88)
You can just keep going. Just keep going.

Megan Hamilton (30:34.946)
Everybody is complex.

Jennifer Fawcett (30:38.274)
Did you recognize any of it?

Megan Hamilton (30:43.366)
What do you mean when you say that? Like, I know, I was like, no.

Jennifer Fawcett (30:43.532)
because well, you're not in it because it was inspired by a play that I wrote and you, you were, we were living together and you helped produce a reading of it at the very least. You did. Yeah. You were involved in some way. Yeah. Yes.

Megan Hamilton (30:52.585)
yeah, yeah,

Megan Hamilton (31:01.148)
Did I? that, did I, really? Okay. Did I do the catering? Okay. All right. So are you, are you, can you get arrested for this or am I allowed to talk about this?

Jennifer Fawcett (31:16.654)
I'm not gonna get arrested.

Megan Hamilton (31:18.554)
Okay, listen, your country is doing some wild things. Okay.

Jennifer Fawcett (31:23.658)
I know, my country's bonkers right now. I'm so sorry. Canada is also my country, though.

Megan Hamilton (31:28.818)
Canada is Jennifer Fossett's country and we claim her. One of my questions is actually, when are you moving back to Canada? Cause what are you doing? But I know very well, but so at that final closing night or the after party, Jennifer asked me to cater because she had catering budget and I think I was pretty broke. So I did.

Jennifer Fawcett (31:31.148)
Yeah, yeah, I, I.

Jennifer Fawcett (31:36.878)
It's a little more complicated than that, but yeah.

Megan Hamilton (31:58.811)
And one of the things that she asked me to do is to make some pot cookies.

Jennifer Fawcett (32:03.034)
think those were your idea, but okay.

Megan Hamilton (32:04.848)
No, no, no, no, they were your idea. It was for somebody in your cast and who will rename, remain nameless. But we made, I made chocolate chip cookies with weed in them and laced, I know, but everybody knew. It's not like we were tricking anybody, which we would never do ever, never, like literally the worst thing, but.

Jennifer Fawcett (32:13.088)
Remain nameless.

Jennifer Fawcett (32:19.029)
At Yes.

Jennifer Fawcett (32:23.819)
No!

Never. Not cool.

Jennifer Fawcett (32:31.99)
Yeah, no, that's terrible.

Megan Hamilton (32:34.098)
There was two cookies left over. You were like, here, you get to keep two. And I kept them in the freezer. And I kept them in the freezer. And then you moved to America and I got another roommate and I just didn't touch them. I forgot they were in the freezer. I don't remember. And then she and I moved to another place. So those cookies were like probably two and a half or three years old. And one afternoon on a Sunday, I was like,

Jennifer Fawcett (32:38.954)
I said that? okay.

Jennifer Fawcett (33:01.13)
my God. And so freezer burnt.

Megan Hamilton (33:03.94)
I'm not doing anything. I wonder if these cookies still work. So I ate like a half of one and it was the best high I have ever had.

Megan Hamilton (33:18.864)
We had friends come over and I was like, you guys, I really enjoy napping when there's people around. I'm just gonna have a little nap on the couch while you're all talking. And they were like, okay.

I had a little nap. So just in case you also have this stuff in your freezer. It still works. Be careful. Anyways, back to keep this for me. Yeah, that is it's all coming back now to actually the driver. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But one of the things I loved about it was. There's.

Jennifer Fawcett (33:50.808)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (34:00.113)
for almost all of the characters. And it's hard because I really don't want to get into giving it away. No spoilers, promise. They're incredibly complex. There's bits about them that we absolutely love for the most part. And then there's like nobody goes without some kind of shadow element to them. Tell me a little bit about that.

Jennifer Fawcett (34:05.822)
Yeah, no spoilers. No spoilers.

Jennifer Fawcett (34:12.941)
good.

Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (34:23.032)
Mmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (34:30.734)
I just think that's how people are, right? That's how we are. I mean, a character who is all good or all bad would be incredibly boring and really hard to write, I think. I mean, I'm really fascinated by having people, you know, why do good people do bad things sort of thing. It's interesting, right? Or why do we make the choices that we make? That's always the question is why do we make these choices?

And it was kind like what you were talking about before, right? Like there's so much that you don't know. You have to make a choice. And you make a choice with the information that you have in front of you at the time. And there's a lot of other things that also factor into your choice, like your emotions and deep-seated fears and biases and all that sort of thing. it's really, I mean, sometimes I know what a character has to do or where I have to get them, but then also figuring out like, how are they going to get there? What's going to...

I kind of backward engineer it a little bit. It's like, know where this person has to go. How am I going to get them there? And I've always wanted, I think the biggest compliment that I could get would be somebody saying, like, I totally understand why the character did that. I don't agree with what they did, but I understand why they did it.

that always is very meaningful to me. in this book, which was originally a play, there's like some, you know, there's a serial killer and he has a much more of a voice in the play. didn't, he doesn't really get much of a voice in the book, but his son is in the book. And so it was really fascinating. He was the most fun character to write was the son of the serial killer who's really like struggling with this potential darkness that's inside him.

Megan Hamilton (36:24.089)
Uh-huh.

Jennifer Fawcett (36:24.386)
But think darkness is inside all of us. Just like I think bravery is inside all of us and kindness is inside all of us. you know, when you write, you get to push your characters to a much greater extreme than you would hopefully ever go to. And those things will come out, can come out, right? Like, I'll push my character into that dark basement where I would never go.

Megan Hamilton (36:28.412)
You're right.

Megan Hamilton (36:50.268)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (36:50.836)
or I push a character up to this line where he's thinking about killing somebody.

Megan Hamilton (36:59.057)
And I think.

Jennifer Fawcett (36:59.478)
and making the choice like, he gonna do that? Is he gonna cross that line or is he not?

Megan Hamilton (37:03.362)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and that's, and...

Megan Hamilton (37:10.258)
That's where this incredible complexity and this, you know, I think this really does speak to probably the fact that it was a play first, but also your experience taking over characters, right? One of the things we learned in theater school is you have to love your character. Everybody else can hate them, but you've got to love them. You've got to understand why they're making the choices that they make. Otherwise it's not believable at all. And sometimes that can be,

Jennifer Fawcett (37:25.166)
Mm.

Megan Hamilton (37:39.858)
you know, tough, right? To shake off afterwards.

Jennifer Fawcett (37:43.971)
Yeah, yeah, but how are they? Yeah, what's their, what is their point of view? What is their characters? What is their point of view? And I think that's one of the most fascinating things with, with writing. And I do think it comes from acting. Absolutely. No one thinks that they're a bad person. I think people might know that they do things that are considered bad, but I still think that they have their own justification for why they do them. You know, they had their own moral code.

their own excuses. I mean, there's a lot there, right? Like sometimes it's not even, it's just making excuses for themselves or blaming somebody else or whatever. But I don't think that most people, most people, can't ever speak in an absolute, but I don't think most people think that they are even people who we would call bad, right? Or evil. I don't know that they walk around going, I'm evil. I'm evil. I'm so evil. Right?

I think they see the world a certain way and they see threats where in places where other people don't see threats and then they behave accordingly or they experience power or a lack of power or a desire for power and yeah how they kind of move through the world impacts how they respond to the world around them mean as it does for everybody.

Megan Hamilton (38:44.636)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (39:09.73)
But if you see the world as a scary place or unstable place, if you see people as inherently untrustworthy, that is going to impact how you behave around people. And that's the thing that I thought was interesting with Jason. Jason is somebody who, from the age of 11, was labeled as a monster, even though he had done nothing. He was a child. But his father had done horrible things. And so he gets tainted with this unwanted inheritance.

Megan Hamilton (39:09.809)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (39:39.491)
much like Fiona, the protagonist, gets labeled with victim. That's her inheritance, also unwanted. then, so Jason is growing up with this stamp of monster on him. He's a young boy, you know, going into becoming a preteen and then a teen. I think we can be very quick to judge boys, teen boys.

Megan Hamilton (39:39.495)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (40:08.478)
And but he's also being treated horribly, right? He's being treated that way. And he's so he's questioning like, is this is my father, my father did these horrible things, my father killed people. And is that in me? Is it like, is it going to have to come out? Is it just like genetic and it's it's inevitable?

Can I control it? There's so many things that he's fighting with. He's trying to figure out his relationship with his father who is completely absent and who he is as a man. And this is the main example of a man that he has, which was a man who used violence. But at the same time, he is being treated as an outcast and as a monster. And so I think that some of his...

his way of moving about moving through the world is in a defensive posture.

Megan Hamilton (41:04.838)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (41:06.73)
so that he knows how to fight and he knows he's ready. He's expecting the worst from people because that's what he's been given. And so I just thought that was really fascinating. And I mean, there's also the true story element of this book. in the real story, the whole reason why I found this story a long, long, time ago when I was going to write the play, when I ended up writing the play was that

There had been a man who was a long haul trucker who was a serial killer and his son had grown up to do the same thing. And it was when the son was arrested that it was in the paper that I saw it and learned about it. that's even at that time people were going, Oh, like father, like son, could this be genetic? And I mean, I don't know if it's genetic or not, but even if it's not genetic, if you live in a house where someone is

Megan Hamilton (41:56.146)
Great.

Cough cough

Jennifer Fawcett (42:05.522)
If you live in a house where there's a tremendous violence happening somewhere in there, it's going to impact you. And you can go in many directions from that, right? Like he could become a complete pacifist in response to his father, or he could become what he is, which is somebody who's questioning how to be a man.

Megan Hamilton (42:32.826)
And I think, you know, what makes it really interesting is that you lead us through the story with lots of left turns and lots of, I don't want to say red herrings, because that's not true, but you you kind of think you figured everything out and then you're like, what?

Jennifer Fawcett (42:49.326)
You

Megan Hamilton (43:01.136)
And it really does go through that. You know, you're you're you're trying to, you know, I love your friend of mine, Matthew Edison once said to me because he was helping me write a play a long time ago and he was like, you got to give people the smallest little hints so that they can figure it out themselves and feel smart without delivering the whole thing to them.

Jennifer Fawcett (43:22.22)
Mm.

Megan Hamilton (43:27.346)
because there's nothing that's gonna get your audience, whether it's in a play or a book, it's nothing that's gonna get them really invested in what you're doing than them kind of being a part of it and being able to figure it out. And I will say, even right until the very end, you're just kind of like, am I right about this? Am I right about this? Is this gonna happen? No way, right? All the way through.

Jennifer Fawcett (43:27.694)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (43:42.615)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (43:55.616)
Hahaha

Megan Hamilton (43:57.051)
And if you honestly like, you know, take take away the fact that that I know you and love you so much. It is truly an enjoyable and thrilling read, right? With beautiful characters. And I think that's what you know, that that's. Authors are different, you know, whatever. But what you're very, very, very good at is really honing in and finding like.

Jennifer Fawcett (44:09.262)
Yay! good.

Megan Hamilton (44:25.772)
sweet little kernels that just draw you into people things that other people might not see right away or that that that just feel intriguing in terms of wanting to to continue in the story. Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. When I started to write music and you started to write plays, we had a lot of conversations in

Jennifer Fawcett (44:41.208)
Thanks.

Megan Hamilton (44:51.986)
coffee shops, you know, in downtown Toronto on patios about how certain painful experiences we'd had were now turning into something positive through writing about them. And so you were writing Janey Jones or maybe you had just started touring it and I was writing songs, which was never on my bingo card. And you know, that was like 20 years ago.

Jennifer Fawcett (45:02.798)
Mmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (45:07.958)
Is this?

Jennifer Fawcett (45:19.904)
Yeah, yeah.

Megan Hamilton (45:21.692)
Does this still, you know, and we think in terms of like spirituality in the magic world, we think of transmutation. So we think of transmuting something into a different form. Do you still see your writing work like that? you still use, yeah, okay, talk about that.

Jennifer Fawcett (45:39.224)
Totally.

Jennifer Fawcett (45:42.863)
yeah, I definitely use personal, personal experiences, personal interests, sort of things that even, even if it's subconscious sometimes, I mean, like, I think I am in all of the characters I write, including the really bad ones. yeah.

Megan Hamilton (45:54.086)
Right.

Megan Hamilton (46:02.054)
I'll remember that for next time. Megan, could you go in the cellar and get me some carrots?

Jennifer Fawcett (46:07.374)
I am George.

but I think, yeah, I, I don't, I guess I don't really know how else to do it besides to kind of put yourself in their shoes, but by putting them myself in their shoes, it's my feet. I mean their shoes, but as with my body. So I don't know. Like I, I. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's things that kind of just, or, or maybe it says I'm in a character and, and moving through an experience.

Megan Hamilton (46:30.727)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (46:43.958)
memory kind of automatically just kicks in and if I was ever in something similar or you know not identical but emotionally similar not necessarily situationally similar that I know what my response was and so that's sort of my kind of my first go-to or sometimes I write what I'm the most afraid of you know a fear that I have I let it kind of like

Megan Hamilton (46:58.108)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (47:09.927)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (47:13.848)
flesh itself out a little bit more. You know, I write a lot about motherhood now. Motherhood's really big and it's really big in one of my plays that I wrote when my son was born and it's really big. It factors into both books, though in both books the protagonist is struggling with the potential of motherhood and has a very

Megan Hamilton (47:19.484)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (47:43.545)
complicated relationship with an absent mother. My mother is not absent, but motherhood is just a really, really big thing and it's something that's really on my, I think because I'm a mother. So it was a profound experience to become a mother and it's something that is present every single day and it's something that changes constantly as my child's age and as he changes, I change and you know, so that's also a really big, that's a really big

part of the writing because it's a sort of a personal interest. A lot of my personal interests are in, like I'm very interested in mental health and stigma around mental health and so that was in the play that you've mentioned and then that's been in both books.

Megan Hamilton (48:25.314)
been yeah that's years. But would you say then that let's say you decide to explore one of your fears and you like allow the book to kind of be the vehicle through which you're taking a look at this. Do you find then that on the other side of that is that fear changed? Do you have a different relationship to that fear?

Jennifer Fawcett (48:52.078)
That's a really great question. mean, the fear that I have about anything concerning like motherhood and fear, they're so big. I can't say that I'm like over them. I don't know. I mean, I have to think it must be in some way, right? Because I've spent a lot of time sitting with it and letting someone else deal with it. Letting my character sort of live through worst case scenario, right?

so I don't look at the, like the play that I, the last play I wrote, I wrote 10 years ago. My, my son's about to turn 10. I wrote it 10 years ago and it's about it's apples and winter. And it is about a mother who is making an apple pie for her son who was on death row and he is about to be executed. And yeah, that's a comedy.

Megan Hamilton (49:34.418)
Is that apples in winter?

Megan Hamilton (49:46.321)
Yeah, she likes to choose really lobby, easy. Yeah, it's a yuck fast. Nothing but nothing but giggles. I should say, though, that it is the most brilliant. You there's, you know, that the the the hook for that play. Right.

Jennifer Fawcett (49:52.368)
It's a real yuckfest.

Jennifer Fawcett (49:57.711)
Har har.

Jennifer Fawcett (50:12.942)
Yeah. yeah, she bakes an apple pie on stage. But I wrote it. I wrote it at I I proposed the idea for that play. I was really interested in the idea of mothers of monsters. I had this idea of monster monsters is really interesting to me, not monsters with like horns and dark hair and hairy and claws like humans who are seen as monsters and.

Megan Hamilton (50:14.414)
She legitimately is baking an apple pie on the stage during the play. And so you.

Megan Hamilton (50:30.514)
Mmm, yeah.

Megan Hamilton (50:37.5)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (50:39.988)
I was really interested in that idea and so I proposed the idea at the time when I wasn't sure if I was going to even become a mother and it was kind of a theoretical interest but when I got it was a commission and when I got accepted and when I got the commission and then had to write the play I was pregnant.

And so my relationship to motherhood had completely changed because I was in the, I was going into my second trimester. And so I wrote that play through pregnancy and then in the first few months of motherhood. I was in hormonal flux and, and talk about fear. my God. So I just sort of like poured it, it all went on. Like, like this is a, this is a woman who

Megan Hamilton (51:01.97)
Right?

Jennifer Fawcett (51:27.864)
thinks that she has done everything right. And she was a good mother. And so how has she ended up with a child who became violent? And she's really grappling with that. And it was very weird because I would write those words. I would be living in that, like living in that character. And really, it is kind of like acting when you write. You are feeling the feelings of the character. And then I would literally like press save.

Megan Hamilton (51:30.929)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (51:48.018)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (51:55.986)
You

Jennifer Fawcett (51:56.279)
and then go and like hold my newborn. And I, in some ways I felt like I was, maybe what I was doing was terrible because I was sort of putting all of this darkness out into the world. and it was all coming out of my fear. What if I do everything right? And it turns out wrong. but so, and I, so I still have that fear, but I do think that there's something in being able to look at it.

Megan Hamilton (52:18.79)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (52:25.366)
and talk about it and have people come and see the play and then they talk about it and they talk about their own path through parenthood or they talk about parenting. I've had a lot of people who watch that play and then talk about who are, who actually are parents of young offenders or something like that and, how ostracized they feel, blah, blah, blah. That's a whole other thing. But yeah, so it hasn't, it hasn't solved it, but it's definitely sitting with it. I think that's useful.

Megan Hamilton (52:42.833)
Yeah.

Right. that's... Yep.

Megan Hamilton (52:53.22)
And it brings a humanity to everybody, is something that is, we're quite polarized right now and we tend to demonize people because it's easier to categorize folks, especially when they're doing behaviors that we absolutely cannot understand. And...

Jennifer Fawcett (53:03.48)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (53:17.892)
As a result, we kind of get into the habit of that. And so you start to see people as like, like good or bad. And it's, you know, it's part of, it's part of the problem of all of the stuff we're experiencing right now, all the stuff we're seeing. Now, I'm not, mean, like certain people are definitely, you know, really hard.

Jennifer Fawcett (53:43.118)
It's really hard to understand where certain points of view come from. Absolutely, 100 % incredibly hard to, incredibly hard to understand.

Megan Hamilton (53:47.258)
see the humanity.

Megan Hamilton (53:55.771)
And yet quite important. And you're like even this person you're like, yes. If you think about the loving kindness meditation, do you know about that? The loving kindness meditation? It's where you you offer love to yourself. You offer love to loved ones. Then you offered love to like a stranger like maybe somebody you saw that morning who was bagging your groceries and then you offer love to somebody.

Jennifer Fawcett (53:59.979)
Yes.

Megan Hamilton (54:25.148)
who's a challenge in your life. It's really hard, but it is, it really does remind you that, you know, as you were saying earlier, when we were talking about keep this for me and the characters, nobody is all one way. We all have darkness. We all have stuff we've done that we wish we hadn't done. We all have the potential

Jennifer Fawcett (54:26.862)
that's hard.

Jennifer Fawcett (54:44.482)
No.

Megan Hamilton (54:54.416)
you know, to be in a situation where something happens and we behave in a way that we otherwise wouldn't or, we're surprised because we've never been pushed to the limits, you know. Okay, so you're also, I'm just going to change gears a little bit. You're also a professor, right? And a couple of years ago, you were designing and teaching a course about

Jennifer Fawcett (55:01.966)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (55:17.474)
Yes.

You

Megan Hamilton (55:24.017)
Witches?

Jennifer Fawcett (55:25.003)
Yes!

Megan Hamilton (55:27.28)
And I realized that we've never really talked about that, which is kind of bananas. What'd you say your witch class? Yeah, I bet you did. Tell me about it.

Jennifer Fawcett (55:31.211)
I love my witch class. Yeah, I love my witch class. Yeah, it was fun. So yeah, so I was I just I created a course I've been really fascinated by witchcraft. More specifically, I've been fascinated by the historical persecution of women as witches and that the roots of that persecution were coming out of a lot of other things like they wasn't about.

Megan Hamilton (56:00.115)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (56:01.586)
it was, you know, fear of the unknown, fear of the female body control over the female body. sometimes it was. Yeah. Sometimes it was to do with land. Sometimes it was to do with work. and, so that's, that's been sort of my interest for a really long time is, and I actually don't know a tremendous amount about the present day.

Megan Hamilton (56:09.872)
Nobody wants a strong woman around.

Jennifer Fawcett (56:31.706)
I mean I know that there's a lot of people who claim to be witches, which I think is very cool. It's something that we looked at a little bit in the class, we really kind of started back in history and then we moved our way into present day and we looked very briefly at witchcraft and politics in present day. We looked a little bit at witch talk and talked a lot about sort of the

I think what the students really gravitated toward was this idea in modern day that I think that there's a real resurgence of paganism overall because it is a very accepting place. The whole idea of come as you are and you will not be judged and...

Megan Hamilton (57:20.614)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (57:23.79)
And so so many young people who feel that they do not fit in their family, in their religious background, in their school, in whatever they find, they find community in that. And there's very, very close tie-ins to environmentalism and the whole climate change movement of trying to like honor and preserve our earth because it is a

practice that is grounded in observing where you are and what's naturally happening. but the class, yeah, the class was really, was really fun. So we would talk about history and we focus, we focused primarily on the, the burning times, which were, it's a roughly a 300 year span in Europe.

Jennifer Fawcett (58:20.098)
when there were persecutions all over the place in various European countries. then we kind of moved into present day and we sort of like jumped around a little bit. was very much an overview course. mean, any of the subjects that we talked about, could have spent the entire class talking about. So we talked about the tie-in. My original interest in the whole subject came out of my interest in midwifery. And so the crossover of...

Megan Hamilton (58:38.47)
Mm-hmm, right.

Megan Hamilton (58:45.522)
Hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (58:48.114)
of midwives and witches was really, really fascinating to me. you know, what was behind all of that, that was really fascinating. yeah, I mean, the whole is such a humongous subject that I'm completely fascinated by. I'm looking over at my bookshelf because like I have a bajillion books about it. Yeah. So, yeah, and it's a class I would love to teach again.

Megan Hamilton (58:50.482)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (59:06.45)
Hmm.

Megan Hamilton (59:11.046)
Yes, same.

Jennifer Fawcett (59:18.038)
I don't have a, mean, really it's a class that lives in sort of gender studies and I'm not a qualified gender studies. I was teaching it as an English class, but, but what was really fun was that this, I snuck it in. Yeah. My, my students, the students, mean, it was always a class that was very popular and I had a lot of, a lot of students who, who wanted to take the class. It was always full and we would have really, really fascinating conversations and they came at it from a lot of different angles.

Megan Hamilton (59:26.992)
Right, sneaking it in, yeah. Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (59:48.111)
so yeah, I mean, we talked a lot about acceptance and we talked about this whole idea of, manifesting and, and sort of putting these things out in the world and what is, what is magic and what is that? And yeah, so many things, but it really also felt like, yes. And it just also felt low,

Megan Hamilton (01:00:04.146)
These are the things we talk about on this podcast.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:00:12.052)
I am so not an expert in any of these things. I'm very much a student in these things and I'm really, really interested in it. any of those could have been, like I said, an entire semester we could have just spent talking about that or talking about that. But it was a wonderful class to teach.

Megan Hamilton (01:00:16.678)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (01:00:26.77)
Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (01:00:31.014)
Yeah, I, you know, I would have been the first person to sign up for that class if I was. Next time. And actually, that reminds me, because you were talking about how I was, you know, like an email I sent to you a long time ago instigated your first book. And then I have failed to mention that the reason I'm into tarot at all is because, I mean, who knows what would have happened. But you gave me my first deck.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:00:35.66)
Well, you would have been brought in as a guest lecturer, not as a student, but... Next time.

Megan Hamilton (01:01:00.69)
For my 23rd birthday, it's over there. I can't reach it right now. It's not this one, but it is this one it's a Rider Waite Smith deck and You gave me my first tarot deck and then you know that got me Starting my relationship with tarot cards So, you know We we inadvertently

been crisscrossing through time sort of planting seeds for each other and like how things have turned out. Look at that.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:01:28.578)
Yes, we have.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:01:32.77)
Yeah, look at that.

And now we're still in our 30s and yet so much time has

Megan Hamilton (01:01:39.087)
Yes, well you are. I am. I'm a little. Yeah, that's right. And speaking of, okay, so I have my own answer to this, but what do you think is the secret to the success of our very long friendship, especially considering we went to school together, we lived together, and at the same time worked at least two jobs together. And then you were doing the play that I was in. So that was three.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:01:42.139)
you're in your 20s?

to do.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:01:59.695)
Mm-hmm.

Megan Hamilton (01:02:08.218)
all at the same time. We traveled for three weeks together under mostly harmless, but sometimes harrowing circumstances. We've had pretty horrible experiences together. We've laughed on hospital gurneys while eating Costco snacks. We haven't lived in the same country, let alone city for nearly 20 years. And we don't actually

Jennifer Fawcett (01:02:09.782)
and we traveled together.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:02:17.538)
You

Jennifer Fawcett (01:02:22.382)
Yes.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:02:33.678)
Yeah, that's crazy.

Megan Hamilton (01:02:38.13)
like that much, right?

Jennifer Fawcett (01:02:40.91)
No, no, a few times a year. But I always feel like I can just sort of pick up where we left off with you.

Megan Hamilton (01:02:43.6)
But here we are.

Megan Hamilton (01:02:48.324)
Absolutely. So what's the secret? What do you think the secret is?

Jennifer Fawcett (01:02:55.458)
I don't know, that's a really great question. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I'm just incredibly grateful.

Megan Hamilton (01:02:55.8)
I'm putting you on the spot right now.

Megan Hamilton (01:03:02.894)
girl, me too.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:03:04.746)
But I don't know, because I mean, think that friendships like romantic relationships can have a lifespan. Because there are some friendships that I had who, and they kind of, I'm not really friends with that person anymore. And it wasn't because of any horrible thing that happened, we just sort of grew together and then grew apart. And in the same way that sometimes it was a romantic relationship that happens, right?

You grow apart, you change in opposite directions. And what we do is very different and I don't know. I think we both remained curious about the other person. And...

I don't know, honestly, I'm just, like I said, I'm very grateful that you're still my friend. Yeah, I want to know your answer. It's probably better and more articulate than mine.

Megan Hamilton (01:03:50.706)
Would you?

Would you like to know my answer? My answer is that you're, it's very articulate. You are incredibly tolerant of me is my answer. Yes. Yes. No, not even close. For those of you who recall the episode with Patrick Hallahan of the band, My Morning Jacket, where we referenced Jennifer Fawcett because

Jennifer Fawcett (01:04:03.372)
No. Well, that would go in both directions.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:04:21.066)
Megan Hamilton (01:04:22.928)
back on that tour that we were doing. And I mean, I feel like you and I could do like, we could probably do an entire season of a podcast just breaking down stories from that one particular trip, because there's a lot, like a lot. However,

Jennifer Fawcett (01:04:24.086)
I was the sidekick.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:04:40.962)
rate.

Megan Hamilton (01:04:48.594)
You we went on that trip because you had got into a master's program to do writing in Iowa City and you wanted to scope it out and see if you could find an apartment. So this is before like we printed out our maps on MapQuest and we had the North America roadmaps. Yep. That doesn't surprise me.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:04:56.918)
Is it? Is it?

Jennifer Fawcett (01:05:05.74)
Yeah. Yeah, and we had an old school Rand McNally Atlas. Yeah. I still swear by those, but yes.

Megan Hamilton (01:05:18.234)
I feel would you say it's is it is it safe to say that I have embraced technology in a different way than you have? OK, we'll leave it at that. But on that road trip, like a lot of. Is there a book about it? You know, a lot of stuff happened that was my fault and you.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:05:26.231)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:05:34.83)
What is this technology that you speak of?

Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (01:05:44.893)
to your credit didn't ditch me as a friend, even though at one point you were incredibly concerned about my safety. You didn't know where I was. People were tripping on your tent. Well, the dejembes were playing in the background of Bonnaroo. You had spiders in your tent. There was a lot of things that were not fun.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:05:55.256)
Sigh

Jennifer Fawcett (01:06:00.664)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:06:05.007)
God. Yeah, a very long period of spiders.

Megan Hamilton (01:06:09.234)
So I would like to thank you for your tolerance of my shenanigans over the last 31, 32 years.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:06:19.278)
Well, they make for great stories. And I mean, you're not the only one with shenanigans. I am the one who ran the border and almost got us shot. uh, my foot was my foot on the gas, not the brake. And, uh, we almost got shot by a... Yeah, that's it started.

Megan Hamilton (01:06:21.383)
They do.

Megan Hamilton (01:06:28.092)
That's a really good point.

Megan Hamilton (01:06:33.308)
So Jen ran the border in that road trip. Just, just, that's how we kicked it off with a bang. In your defense, you didn't see the stop sign. You were worried, but we did get, people did come running out with rifles and kept telling us that we were not privileged enough to live in the United States of America. We did not have the right.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:06:41.484)
We did, like they almost shot out our tires.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:06:49.421)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:06:55.564)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (01:07:00.688)
And that also makes a really good story. That's what I mean. Like we could just, maybe we could write a book about it. Hey, maybe that's your third book. Well, you've already started your third book, haven't you?

Jennifer Fawcett (01:07:03.242)
Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:07:08.686)
I've started it, but it's in the horrendous, messy stage that I hate. It's very chaotic. I don't know what it is. It feels to me the best way that I can describe the feeling is if I feel like I'm locked out of the house. I'm going around and I'm banging on all the windows and the doors. I'm trying every potential entrance. I can see it's in there, but I haven't yet.

fully found my entryway. think at this point I might be getting into the garage. But I'm not fully inside yet and it's incredibly frustrating.

Megan Hamilton (01:07:43.218)
Have you tried the chimney? It is a popular choice this time of year.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:07:49.449)
It is, yes, that's true. yeah, so I'm still kind of it. And so I spend hours and hours kind of wrestling with this thing and not really feeling like I have anything to show for it, which is incredibly frustrating. But I also know I've come to learn my routine and my rhythms and know that you just have to keep going. And it will come because at one point.

Megan Hamilton (01:08:16.146)
Keep going.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:08:19.234)
both of the books that you've held up were also in this stage.

Megan Hamilton (01:08:22.61)
Mm hmm. One of my favorite memories of you when we were living together is that you would fall asleep at your desk. I'm sure of it. I just don't get to see it as much, but you'd have this little like, yeah, you'd have your hands down and then your shoulder. But you would sleep like that for hours.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:08:33.881)
I still do.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:08:42.274)
Desknap. Yeah.

Jennifer Fawcett (01:08:49.934)
Hell no, hours, I mean, I don't sleep like that for hours now, but I definitely still do that. Yeah.

Megan Hamilton (01:02:52.274)
No legit. Okay, well, you probably can't with different responsibilities, but I would sometimes wake you up and make you go back to bed because I was starting to get concerned about your neck. But back then we were 28 and who worried about necks back then? Now. Now I'd be out for two weeks if I did that for 10 minutes. I'd be creaking and cracking all over the house.

Megan Hamilton (01:10:41.458)
All right, you can find all the information and takeaways from today's episode in the show notes or at embracing enchantment.com. Please subscribe and follow wherever you get your podcasts, leave a review or a voice note. You can find out more about Jennifer Fawcett in the show notes and be sure to grab keep this for me for all your book loving friends this holiday season. Make sure you're subscribed because we have some exciting episodes coming up as well as an incredible back catalog.

Until then, here's to building an enchanted life. Thank you, my

Jennifer Fawcett (01:17:18.958)
Thank you.

Megan Hamilton (01:17:21.245)
Alright.