Hello!
Am I the only one who feels this crazy about what’s happening to me right now?
Today we meet Mia Arias Tsang and we’re talking about the book that saved her life: Women by Chloé Caldwell. And Chloé joins us for the conversation!
Mia is a writer, freelance editor, and former biologist based in Queens, NYC. She has conducted extensive research in evolutionary virology and epigenetics, and has studied with writers such as Chloé Caldwell, Sarah Stillman, Michael Cunningham, and Susan Choi.
Chloé is the author of the national bestseller, Women (Harper Perennial, 2024). Chloé’s next book, Trying, is forthcoming from Graywolf, on August 5th, 2025. She is also the author of the books I’ll Tell You In Person (2016), The Red Zone (2022), and Legs Get Led Astray (2012).
In Women, a young writer moves from the country to the city and falls in love with another woman for the very first time. With startling clarity and breathtaking tenderness, Chloé Caldwell writes the story of a love in reverse: of nights spent drunkenly hurling a phone against a brick wall; of early mornings hungover in bed, curled up together; of emails and poems exchanged at breakneck speed.
Connect with Mia and Chloé
Mia’s website: miatsang.com
instagram: @mia.arias.tsang
Chloé website: chloesimonne.com
instagram: @chloeeeecaldwell
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Credits
Host/Founder: J.P. Der Boghossian
Executive Producer: Jim Pounds
Associate Producers: Archie Arnold, K Jason Bryan and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shay, and Sean Smith
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Transcript
This transcript is auto-generated by our recording platform Riverside.fm. This transcript may not include episode narration and contains the original interview between J.P. Der Boghossian and today’s guests. Any time-stamps do not correspond to the released audio file and tend not to be fully generated throughout the entire interview. It is approximately 85% accurate and will include spelling and grammatical errors. For any quotation purposes, we strongly recommend referencing the audio.
[theme music]
J.P. Der Boghossian (00:07.798)
Okay, Mia, why don’t we start with you and could you introduce yourself?
Mia (00:15.81)
Sure. My name is Mia Arias Tsang. I am a writer and sometimes editor based in Jackson Heights in Queens. And yeah, I also do a little bit of program management at a nonprofit in New York, but mainly I’m focused on writing right now, have a novel in progress, and some essays and poems around the internet.
J.P. Der Boghossian (00:46.504)
Tell me about your novel, if you’d like to share…
Mia (00:48.554)
Okay, sure. Yeah, my novel is about two young women who meet while interning at an art gallery in the West Village and fall into crazy toxic love while trying to carve out space for themselves in an unfeeling, uncaring art world that does not want to make space for them. And so the way they go about that is by making art about each other without the consent of the other.
and it gets a little messy.
J.P. Der Boghossian (01:21.13)
And in terms of your nonprofit management background, was it in art or a different field?
Mia (01:26.462)
It’s a literary organization. It’s called House to Speak Easy and we work to increase access to books, book culture, authors for communities around the city. So I manage some of our educational in school programs. There’s a reading series where we bring two authors in conversation for high schoolers and
I also manage our Bookmobile Initiative, which is a giant purple box truck with shelves on the outside that drives around to all five boroughs of New York City and gives out books for free to the public.
J.P. Der Boghossian (02:00.878)
Wait, how does that work? Like you just pull up to a corner and just hand out books?
Mia (02:05.41)
Pretty much. We partner with a lot of community organizations, but yeah, so we’ll come out to events. We go to a lot of open streets that various organizations have. We, yeah, we kind of go all over. We partner with the New York City Housing Authority. So we’ll go to family day events at housing developments, et cetera. And all of our books are donated new from publishers. They’re usually overstock or books that they just need to offload.
Chloe (02:12.323)
You
Mia (02:33.72)
We also get generous donations from writers who believe in our cause and just want to send us some books. So we’re really lucky. But yeah, I do the scheduling for
J.P. Der Boghossian (02:43.406)
That’s amazing. I’ve never heard of anything like that. But just because, I mean, we don’t have anything like that in the Twin Cities, but maybe we do need to have something like that. I love that. Okay, thank you, Mia. And Chloe, would you like to introduce yourself?
Chloe (02:57.178)
Sure, and I’m just so glad that everyone is seeing how amazing Mia is. I can see it on your face, JP. Like now you see why she started as a fan and became pretty much my best friend. So she’s like so amazing. Yeah, so I’m Chloe Caldwell. I am a writer of soon to be five books, currently four books.
I am an untrained, like anti -MFA college dropout of a writer. So my books, I have had a very unconventional writing career, if you can call it a career and writing path. All of my books were on small, micro and indie publishers until 2024 when my book Women, which we’re going to talk about today, was reissued from Harper Perennial. So
That’s me. I live in upstate New York in Hudson. It’s two hours north of New York City. And I also run writing retreats and writing classes and just launched something called Scrappy Literary. And it’s really embodying the ethos of being scrappy, using your resources. And it’s a way for me to help writers do what I did and carve out space for themselves in the literary world in a more unconventional.
if they don’t have access to the MFA world or if that’s just not the path for them. So that’s really my passion. I feel really lucky to be able to teach writing. I even feel uncomfortable calling it teaching writing, but I guess to mentor people and guide people in their own writing
J.P. Der Boghossian (04:45.294)
So when I was looking at your author bio, you had no MFA, no college, sold all books without an agent. And I know there’s the perennial debate of MFA, should I do it, should I not do it? so, you mind unpacking that a little more for me? Because you could have gone and done an MFA, but it sounds like you’re like, nah, not for
Chloe (05:08.241)
I couldn’t have gone and done an MFA because I didn’t go to regular college. So I would have had to go, right? I think that’s how it works. Like I would have had to go get other credits first. I don’t think you, really? Really?
Mia (05:21.996)
You don’t know, you don’t need to. There are some people who straight up just, yeah, my boss’s wife from the nonprofit I work for got an MFA, did not go to undergrad or anything. She just applied and yeah, there are ways around it if you really want to, yeah.
Chloe (05:33.755)
Really? I didn’t know that. yeah. I had no idea Mia. I thought if you didn’t go to college, you can’t go do like a master’s in fine arts. I don’t
J.P. Der Boghossian (05:37.516)
I didn’t
Mia (05:48.46)
I might be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure she said she was like, didn’t go to traditional undergrad and I just like, they were, I sent in, I got in on the merit of my work. So I mean, maybe I’m spreading misinformation on the internet. don’t know. I feel like that’s what I
Chloe (05:55.93)
interesting.
Yeah, I’m, yeah. You might be, I would be very surprised if you could like drop out of community college and then get an MFA. Now I kind of want to do that. Like now I’m like, wait, that’s actually, that’s funny. Like that’s actually funny. If I like failed high school and then got my MFA, I’m kind of into that. But so I was under the impression, I guess I couldn’t, and I just didn’t thrive in school settings to your question. It was just not the way that I learned I did.
horribly in high school and smoked a lot of weed, but I read a lot and I wrote in my journal a lot. you know, those were, that’s what I loved doing was reading and writing in my journal and Smokey Pot. And then I, so I didn’t, for me, I shouldn’t lead with that I’m anti MFA because I’m not, because I feel like you can only be anti MFA if you went to one of the programs and you disliked
I don’t have experience so I can’t speak to it. So when people ask me should I or shouldn’t I, I actually direct them toward people who have gotten it and have mixed feelings. Whereas for me, I’m so far from that world that I don’t even really know how it’s set up. So it wasn’t really a decision for me. It was just natural that I would not go. I was so excited to be out of high
J.P. Der Boghossian (06:59.008)
interesting.
Chloe (07:24.877)
And I did take some writing classes at Gotham Writers Workshop. So I took some writing classes here and there, and I lived in Brooklyn, and I was just writing like crazy. But that also led to me publishing on small presses because I didn’t know anything about the route of querying and getting an agent and all of that world. Yeah.
J.P. Der Boghossian (07:45.014)
I just I find it refreshing that your story because like my I got a master’s of public affairs like I was so in like nonprofit world and higher education but not even faculty side like on the on the student services side and the equity and inclusion side. So coming to let it you know I’ve had to do like courses through the loft literary center you know what I mean. And like a mentor like the AWP mentorship program and the Lambda you know fellowship because I’m
I feel like I’m cobbling together experiences to try to get myself into a writing mode without, I’m like, can’t, I had six figures of student loan debt. Like I’m not doing that again. And like MFAs, you can’t get a fully funded one unless you like, like I’m going to be full time and you know what I mean? Like you don’t get one for low residency and I’m just not in a place in my life, but this is not about me. So not about me and I can.
Chloe (08:22.984)
Wow.
Chloe (08:36.542)
Well, I agree with you and I really respect that path. I I feel like that’s what I did and I cobbled together a couple teaching gigs and hosting my own retreats in my apartment and hosting workshops and publishing all over the place. And that helped me build a writing life. And I want other people to know that it’s possible, which is why I’ve been talking about it a lot lately, because I don’t know, I just keep thinking like, writing can be free if you want it to be.
You could learn to write for free if you read constantly and you write constantly. But I think our culture has really forgot that and everyone is throwing a lot of money into learning how to write, which is sort of interesting and I don’t think it was always that way.
J.P. Der Boghossian (09:24.334)
There’s actually a lot of theory about how teaching is actually a better learning experience for the teacher than actually sitting in a class and learning. There’s a lot of interesting literature about that. But how did women come to be republished through a major press? What was that process?
Chloe (09:34.631)
Interesting.
Chloe (09:43.221)
Yeah, Women was originally published in 2014 through Short Flight Long Drive, which is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. around 2018, I believe, it went out of print. That’s pretty common for such a small press. It wasn’t like, your book doesn’t sell. We’re taking it out of print. It was just, okay, we’re not printing any more of these. We did this book. We’re moving on to our other books. So it was out of print for a few years and
I began working with an agent in 2023 and she had been a fan of women. And when we began working together, she was like, what are some goals for when we work together? Like, she’s like, I really want you to write a novel, you know? She kept saying how much she loved women. And I said, well, I would love to get women back in print because it’s starting to kind of just bother me that people can’t go to a store and get it. And I would get the occasional email and DM asking for the
I wouldn’t say these were like out of control. I wasn’t getting a ton, but I was getting them, which meant something. So I told my agent that and she was really fired up about getting it back in print as well. And since I am who I am, we were just going to take it to another independent press, which seemed like where it belongs and.
But then my agent was like, you know, let’s just test the waters. Like, wouldn’t it be fun if we submitted this to the bigger publishers? And I was like, yeah, let’s do it as an experiment. And she, we took it out on submission. I put together everything that had happened with the book in the last, you know, by then it was nine years. So was like, wow, okay, we’re a decade out. This is pretty wild. So I started like just making this Google doc, putting in the celebrities who had posted the book, putting in all of, you know, the crazy tweets about the book, which
from Mia, but I didn’t know that at the time. I’m like, well, I’m like, well, there’s this one person out here who is like talking about this book and won’t stop talking about it and is selling it and and like being a bookseller basically on Twitter. So I put those together and I also started to put together all the press because what was really interesting about the book is that it continued to be on pretty big
Chloe (12:02.006)
like list and listicles, even though it was out of print. So it would be in Vogue, it would be in Cosmopolitan, you know, it would be in Time Out New York, it would be in Forbes, like all of these lists and it wasn’t in print. So I put all of that together and that’s when I realized, okay, this book has been getting regular press for 10 years, even while it’s out of print. So we had sort of a good case for the book. For a small press book, had sold pretty well, I guess,
My agent took it out to maybe five of the major publishers and we got offers from two or three. And then I had meetings with them and I loved the team at Harper Perennial, specifically Ezra Kupor, who became the editor. And yeah, it was really like a dream come true. It was very simple and straightforward, which is not how books usually get sold, especially mine. So it was a great experience.
J.P. Der Boghossian (12:59.182)
love that. I love that. Thank you. So I have one final question for each of you before we dive into the question or the conversation. Mia, books provide answers to questions, right, that we’re looking for. And this is a book that you had a life -saving impact for you. So what do you feel like women was providing answers for that? And I don’t want to get into the whole conversation. I’m more curious about what do you think the question was that you were asking?
that women was providing answers for.
Mia (13:35.016)
I the very first question, I think every time I reread it, I am looking for a different answer to a different question, which is part of what I love so much about the book. in terms of the very, very first thing, I was…
This is telling on myself. I think the question was, am I the only one who feels this crazy about what is happening to me right now? I was going through my very first breakup and also my first queer anything. It was both the same thing. And I was 18. I was freaking out and no one in my life could really stand me anymore. It had been about six months since the breakup and I couldn’t get over it. And I was looking
anything to speak to me and tell me how to get out of that. And this was the book that did
J.P. Der Boghossian (14:33.102)
Thank you. And Chloe, I don’t know how your process goes. Did you start writing women with a question that you wanted to answer through the novel?
Chloe (14:43.658)
No, no, no. I don’t, it’s funny, because I have my students do that with their work if they’re stuck, but I just compulsively write. Yeah. So it’s interesting to hear Mia’s response.
J.P. Der Boghossian (14:44.726)
Okay. That’s all I needed to know.
J.P. Der Boghossian (15:06.072)
No, I love that. I love that. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, Mia, what is the queer book that saved your life?
Mia (15:14.956)
The queer book that saved my life is Women by Chloe Caldwell and it is small, it is intense, is I think deceptive in its size, appearance, general vibe, but it is like a knife between the ribs, I would say, in terms of writing, in terms of emotional impact.
stop me at any time and redirect me but i could go on about this book forever forever and
J.P. Der Boghossian (15:54.666)
And Chloe, for our listeners, could you give a description of what your novel is about, they can expect when they turn to page
Chloe (16:03.353)
Sure. Women is a novella. It tells the story of two women who are 19 years apart. And it’s told from the perspective of the younger person is narrating the book. She moves to an unnamed city. She feels secure in her identity as…
straight person in her 20s and then she meets this person named Finn who is 19 years older and openly gay and in a decade -long monogamous relationship and the two of them become friends and they unexpectedly fall in a very doomed
And they sort of pursue it, even though they both know that it won’t end well, like even in the beginning of the book, maybe like page 20. So the rest of the book, you could even say like the rest of the book, they’re breaking up and, but it’s nothing’s clean because they were never really together. So from there, it’s like all of the aftermath of falling in love, as Finn says in the book, like falling in love with the wrong person.
And they both, think, like really touch each other’s lives in a way though that is, it really shatters like everything that they thought about themselves to be true. And I think shifted really both of their identities. Yeah, it’s hard for me to describe this book. Like, I don’t feel, do you know what I mean, Mia? Like I feel like I don’t do it that well. And then I try not to use the word toxic, which Mia says I hate when people
toxic or I never use that word to describe it even though I think that word does work for it so I guess it’s like a toxic -esque affair but yeah it’s it’s really a book it’s really a book about grief and identity at the end of the
J.P. Der Boghossian (18:17.358)
Thank you. Mia, so there’s a lot of queer books that are out there, but finding them is still, I think, interesting, particularly for guests on the show. It can be totally random how folks find them. how did… You were saying that you were looking for something that could speak to your experience. So did you go looking for the book? Did it just randomly pop up in a bookstore? What was that process?
Mia (18:42.456)
Yeah, so it’s, love telling this story. I was 18. It was my second semester of college, very beginning. So January, I went to school in the Northeast. It was gloomy and classic seasonal depression mix. And I had just gone through my very first breakup and I was completely shattered over it.
was I’ve always turned to books and reading as a form of escapism from my real life, have always, always done that. And I had a huge stack of books that I had bought with some birthday gift cards to just kind of plow through. And one of them was Chloe’s third book, I’ll Tell You In Person, which is an essay collection. And in that book, there is an essay, I do not remember the title exactly, but it’s dealing
bisexuality essentially and the feeling of not being queer enough to accept all of these labels and et cetera, et and being defined as queer when you yourself are not really sure how you identify. And at the time I was going through a very similar re, I guess, reflection.
on how I identified, I was identifying as bisexual, quote unquote, but I was starting to feel less and less that. And felt trapped in this in -between space. So I read that essay, I fell in love with it. I love the book, but that one really spoke to me because it was dealing with something very specific. And so I stayed up all night to read it. I had an exam the same day and just kind of did not sleep to finish this book. And the minute I was done, sat down, wrote
very intense email to Chloe that’s very long and essentially just like, thank you for writing this. It really touched me and I just want to let you know. And I, in the back of the book, it’s listed all of Chloe’s other works, including women. I Googled women and I was like, I have to find it. I have to find it somewhere. I, and it was 2018 at this point, so it was out of print already.
Mia (21:04.56)
I checked in my school’s library and they had a copy, which kind of blew my mind because our library is very, very big and very, shall I say, archaic. And so I kind of didn’t think that it really surprised me that they would have a copy of Women there, but it was there and it was the only one of Chloe’s books that they had too. And I thought that was interesting. So I went
J.P. Der Boghossian (21:26.35)
Wow.
Mia (21:33.44)
my chemistry exam and then I went straight to the library and found women. I was running on so little sleep and I found it. It was in this dusty, dark, abandoned corner because no one ever goes to the fiction section of our school’s library. No one has time to read fiction, you know? So was just like this dusty and dark corner and I took the book and yeah, I read it in a single day. And that was that.
Chloe (21:46.8)
Yeah.
J.P. Der Boghossian (22:09.582)
Am I freezing
Mia (22:11.104)
Am I here? Is my connection working? I think it might be me.
Chloe (22:12.599)
I think we lost… yet… you’re here, but I think we lost the end. Mm -hmm.
Mia (22:20.273)
sorry. I don’t know what’s going on, but, yeah, I just, took it home. I read it in one day. That was it. that was
J.P. Der Boghossian (22:31.406)
Okay, love so much of this to unpack here. I want to start with the idea of breakup because here’s where I’m going to come with that. think that because we all start off on our own, right, as queer people, we’re potentially the only one in our families, either nuclear family or extended family, maybe the only one in our friends circle growing up, and then we finally get this relationship. And so do you feel
those first breakups for queer people are extra heightened because you think you finally get to this point. You’re like, finally kind of get to have this relationship. And then when it breaks up, you break up, it’s like devastating. And I’m saying this from personal experience.
Chloe (23:16.943)
Yes, absolutely. And I’m actually just realizing this as I’m hearing you speak is that I think this book and the breakup in the book, the reason it comes off so intense is, you know, this is definitely auto fiction. So very much based in reality. And I think the narrator with
not only was it the first queer relationship, it was the first queer person she knew and the first queer person who saw her as possibly queer, which is so different than, let’s say, you’re 14 and you have like, you know, a gay uncle or a bisexual aunt or like a gay cousin. So I’m thinking, because I do wonder sometimes like, what is it about this book that it does
resonate and I think that that might be part of it. So it’s not only like losing the romantic love, it’s like losing this entire sense of self that only one person in the world experienced with the narrator. And the narrator’s not old but like not young because she’s like 27, 27, 28. So it’s not like she’s 16 figuring this out. So to your to your question, I think that that’s part of it for the book at least.
J.P. Der Boghossian (24:42.934)
Mia, how about for
Mia (24:45.91)
Yeah, I definitely think that part of why I developed a strong bond with the book to begin with was because I read it after my first queer breakup. I went off after reading it and was evangelizing it to all my friends to the point where I would
I would tell them about it and they would say, where can I read it? And I would have to take their hand and physically march them into the stacks and take the book out from the shelf and give it to them. And I was like, here’s the only copy in the entire state of Connecticut and maybe the entire East coast, who knows? So you’re gonna have to just do it this way. And I noticed that my friends who had either never had a queer relationship or who…
Chloe (25:11.805)
Aww.
Mia (25:33.494)
I guess we’re just not in that head space at the time. Really enjoyed it in terms of our writing level, but didn’t have the same reaction. Whereas my friends who were going through stuff at the time, were going through their own queer breakups, were going through their own affairs or devastating just situationships, essentially, they were as obsessed as I was. And so I do think there is something to that. And for me, I mean, I had never dated anyone
in middle or high school at all. I knew queer people. I had a gay cousin. Shout out to Lucia, thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I, so I knew about queerness. A lot of my friends in middle and high school were gay, but I had never had anything romantic going for me ever. And then the minute I was completely alone for the first time in my life, no parents, no nothing at college.
Chloe (26:08.71)
Ha ha ha ha ha
Mia (26:31.736)
totally left to my own devices. In the first two weeks of school, I fell head over heels with someone who like, just consumed my entire first semester of college. And to be dealing with all of those brand new emotions, to be dealing with the intense pressure of being at school.
and having to figure out how to navigate college. And it was so much harder than high school and so much more intense. All of that at once. And then to have it all blow up in my face two days before finals started was catastrophic. And I felt so completely alone. And I was literally physically alone. Like I was just by myself in Connecticut in the winter and heartbroken somehow had to pass my first semester of college.
finals and I could barely think, I could barely eat, I was sick to my stomach all the time and yeah, I didn’t know how to make my way out of it at all. so I think coming to a book that explicitly was talking about feeling that flutter for the first time of being with a woman and feeling all of those
emotions and getting completely wrecked by them, but not ending in the wreckage, which I think is really special about women, is that it shows the narrator finding a way forward and the ways that she copes with her grief, or doesn’t cope, but that all of her strategies, everything she does eventually leads her to some kind of peace.
and a way to move forward with the rest of her life. And that was something I really needed to see while I was going through this. I really felt like it was the end of the world. I clung to that relationship for so, so long, much longer than I really should have given how short it was and also how young I was when it was going on. you can’t hear that when like your mom tells you that or even when your friend tells you that you
Mia (28:52.854)
because they aren’t experiencing it and they aren’t getting their heart pulverized to the exact same way and maybe they’re not even gay. And so how could they possibly know what it’s like to feel that way? And so while reading the book, reading women felt like someone was talking to me and telling me, I get what you’re going through, I’m going through it too, but you have to snap yourself out of it. And there were ways to snap yourself out of it.
And yeah, I don’t know, I just really resonated with that. There is also a line, and I don’t think I’m remembering it exactly correctly, but the narrator says, I am aware of how I am annoying everyone around me. Like, I’m talking so much about Finn. I know that I, I think it’s, she says, I’m so garrulous, but I’m unable to stop, or something like that. And yeah,
Chloe (29:45.812)
Yeah, something like that.
Mia (29:49.974)
I just thought, wow, this is someone who gets it and therefore this is someone I should listen to.
J.P. Der Boghossian (29:57.108)
I, what’s, what’s, no, I’m just remembering a, like, so I was in my third year, I was at a theater academy and I was in my third year and it was super, I’m going to say homophobic because all of us actors did not want to come out and nobody did. So this was a theater academy that there were no queer people because nobody wanted to get pegged as being
Chloe (30:23.486)
Wow.
J.P. Der Boghossian (30:27.086)
because then you wouldn’t get cast in straight roles, right? And so none of us, none of us came out. But as I was ending my third year, I kind of, was starting to test the waters and people were, was letting folks know. And my social circle told me about this really adorable first year student who apparently had a major crush on me. And our meet cute was he, this is in LA, worked at a Buffalo exchange. And so I went to see
Mia (30:30.591)
my god. Yeah. Jeez.
Chloe (30:54.592)
J.P. Der Boghossian (30:56.462)
And we were sort of doing that like, hey, hey, hey, you know what I mean? Because I had a, you know, I was like, kind of had a crush on you from the beginning when I first met you. And he was showing, I was like, I’m in, I’m also I’m here because I need new shoes. And so he was showing me the shoe section and he showed me a pair that he had just sold to Buffalo Exchange. And I’m like, please fit me, please fit me, please fit me. And they did. And I bought them immediately. So I had a pair of his shoes.
Chloe (31:20.489)
Hahaha
J.P. Der Boghossian (31:25.73)
We went out on a few dates. He ghosted me. I was wrecked, wrecked. Okay, I’m going to admit this and I can’t believe this is going to be on a podcast, but I would literally go to the parking garage across his apartment complex and just sit on the top with my legs dangling over. So I’m literally on top of the like Spider -Man or something, legs dangling over the edge, just wistfully like crying. my God. It was bad y ‘all.
Chloe (31:29.033)
No.
Chloe (31:35.51)
Yeah.
Chloe (31:54.989)
my god. Yeah, you’re us.
J.P. Der Boghossian (31:55.412)
And this was just after a few dates. This was just after a few dates. And I will also admit, I still have those shoes. And I love those shoes. And they’re starting to go and I’m like trying to only wear them at special occasions because I’m like, I don’t want anything to happen to these shoes, which still I’m carrying it around with me clearly. where I’m going with that, because I did not have this book.
Mia (31:55.651)
you’re me.
You’re us. Yeah.
Chloe (32:04.687)
I love this. Wait.
Chloe (32:18.492)
So beautiful.
Mia (32:19.768)
That’s really beautiful.
J.P. Der Boghossian (32:21.172)
Mia, what was the the narrator, the main character in the novel is talking about finding that way forward. So what were those ways? there there things that you were specifically taking from the novel that you were then able to apply in your life?
Mia (32:36.406)
Absolutely. I think one of the main things is the narrator does a lot of escapism through reading, specifically through reading very traumatic graphic memoirs about family tragedies or cancer, all kinds of things, and doesn’t explicitly say it, but I took that to mean it’s a good way to remind yourself that other people’s lives can be worse than yours.
Chloe (32:54.252)
Ha
Mia (33:06.2)
And so I did a lot of that and I also did a lot of there’s a lot of Joan Didion in that time in my life. was some I but I also yeah, I took that Having women was the first sapphic novel I guess that I’ve read in my life and
because I was pretty young. I grew up in a very small rural town, so I wasn’t being exposed to that kind of literature. I mean, I had the internet, but I wasn’t really… I was so closeted that I wasn’t really gonna go and Google lesbian books and have my parents drive me to the library where I would pick it up and then they would ask me what I checked out. Like, I just wasn’t comfortable doing that at that point. So by the time I was finally on my own and I read women and it blasted my brain open, I thought, okay, there have to be so many other books. This can’t be the first one. Let me go find all of
Chloe (33:52.233)
Mm -hmm
Mia (34:01.334)
And that’s basically what I did. I devoured… Melissa Fibos, Abandon Me, is a perfect example of a book that really got me through it. And I didn’t go looking for it until after Women. I don’t think this was out at the time, but Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House was also very foundational and helped me process a lot of this. Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson is in Women. It’s referenced.
Chloe (34:01.975)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Mia (34:30.796)
So I also went through women. There’s a lot of pop culture references, literary references that I just kind of made a little women media list and plowed through everything. There’s a scene from, I started watching the L word because of women, because there’s a scene that the narrator plays over and over again where Jenny Schechter is processing that she has just cheated on her boyfriend with a woman. the narrator watches the scene a billion times over. And
Chloe (34:40.183)
Yeah.
Mia (34:58.464)
went so insane looking for that scene, because it wasn’t on YouTube or anything. so I, and I was too afraid to watch it, to watch it on my mom’s shared Netflix account. So I had to find like a legal site to stream it on, maybe strike that. But I went looking for the outward. I was looking through a lot of things. And it was all because women had kind of opened my mind. So I would say reading and media consumption were the number one ways I got through it. And then I also,
went out and sought the help of a therapist because the narrator goes and does that and I did not come from a culture that was very pro -therapy. was, you know, I love my family a lot but they were very much like therapy is not what we do and we don’t need it and you know it’s just gonna be someone agreeing with you all the time and whatnot and I kind of knew that wasn’t the case
J.P. Der Boghossian (35:49.474)
Mm -hmm.
Mia (35:57.694)
Now that I was on my own and I was at school and they had mental health services, they weren’t great, but they existed. I went and I got a therapist because I thought to myself, okay, you know, this person went and did it and it helped her. And, you know, there is, there was no shame around her decision. Her family doesn’t in the book, doesn’t shame her for it. And so I was like, let me just go try this, see if it works. And it helped, it helped a lot. And I got to work through a lot of my intimacy problems through
So that was really helpful.
J.P. Der Boghossian (36:29.72)
Were you finding, as someone who, so much of our stories are kind of not overlapping, but where I’m going with that is that there were films and books that the characters had gone to therapy and I literally took questions from those materials to ask my therapist. Did you find yourself doing the same thing?
Chloe (36:46.307)
Ha ha
Mia (36:50.013)
Not to that degree, but I think just
Chloe (36:56.26)
I’m Just like reading the book.
Mia (37:01.976)
I never even told my therapist about women, which I’m sure if I had, they probably would have had me committed. no, I think I just, it was just enough to be empowered to go there. And sometimes if I would feel scared or nervous or anxious, I would think to myself, okay, pretend it’s Dr. K, pretend you’re in the room with the tree out the window that changes through the seasons, like pretend you’re in the turquoise room.
where she’s talking to you, pretend that this is like a woman with kind eyes, you know, because all of these descriptions and it was because it was scary for me to go and do that on my own and not be telling my parents about something for the first time ever and doing something I knew that they would be upset with me for doing, but that I knew was right for me. And they’ve come around, they’re great, you know, a lot of it is cultural and I totally understand. But back then, you know, I was very concerned about it and
Chloe (37:42.883)
Mmm.
Mia (38:00.554)
often fought with myself, felt like a bad person for going and doing this. And so I think that was the first time I had seen therapy written about in that way and in such an honest and often funny and not prescriptive way. I feel like it could be really easy to write about your sessions with your therapist and it’s boring or feels kind of, you know, too medical speak. don’t know if that, or, you know, it doesn’t feel
accessible. But I think the ways Dr. is included in women and the specific lines that she shares, she doesn’t overwhelm the book as like a major character, but I think the insights that she has were also necessary wake -up calls because she will say, guys are really bad with boundaries and you need to fix that. You guys are very XYZ. And that helped me put a lot of things in perspective.
Chloe (38:40.579)
Yeah.
Mia (38:58.803)
Not even so much that specific relationship, but going forward, this book helped me through a lot of other relationships that did feel a lot more like this one. And so I found Dr. K to be even more resonant as a character, like the older I got and the more messy my relationships got.
J.P. Der Boghossian (39:16.814)
Chloe, did you say this was autofiction?
Chloe (39:19.214)
Yeah, yes.
J.P. Der Boghossian (39:21.326)
So we had Carmen Maria Machado on the podcast and what I thought was really interesting is she said she wouldn’t write the book over again in the Dreamhouse, but it was something she literally had to get out of her to be able to go on and do other work that she wanted to do. If this was autofiction, did you have a similar experience with women?
Chloe (39:33.249)
Mm -hmm
Mm -hmm
Chloe (39:43.387)
I mean, if I could go back in time, I would do exactly what I did. I mean, I would write it. I mean, look at me as responding. Like, there’s nothing I would change.
not anything, like not a word, not going with a tiny small press, like that was one of my good decisions as well. I love the life that all my books have had in various ways, but this book in particular, I mean as everything has happened in the past year has
truly changed my life. Like in the sense of it being the long game, this book became really a mirror for me and this book like held so much wisdom that I
did not. So like I put the book out and then I wasn’t comfortable coming out myself really because the book was so exposing and I ended that relationship was feeling probably even more confused than I had been in the first place. I sort of
I put out the book and then I recoiled a little bit and you know when Mia started talking about how she found my work she found a book I wrote after Women and the essay you’re referring to Mia is called, it’s kind of funny because it’s called The Laziest Coming Out Story You’ve Ever Heard.
Mia (41:16.61)
That’s the title. Yup. Yeah.
Chloe (41:19.259)
that’s a quote from my friend, like my friend is quoted in the book of saying she was internally identifying as queer, but not changing anything in her life. And that related to, like I related to that at the time. So I was struggling with this. If I look at all of my books that I published after women, which is two.
you can see that I was still, I was really struggling with my queerness. And it wasn’t until I got divorced last summer that women, right after I got divorced, we sold women to come back in print, which I find really interesting. So women, women was out of print as I was in a heterosexual marriage and unhappy. And so the whole experience
J.P. Der Boghossian (42:03.0)
Yeah.
Chloe (42:14.152)
women being reissued 10 years later with me ending my marriage, comfortable in my sexuality, coming out as gay, feeling confident, has been truly one of the most surreal magical things I think I will ever experience.
J.P. Der Boghossian (42:33.506)
Writing a book is hard. When you got into writing women, did you find the process to be energizing or were there things about it that you liked? Like what kept you going in terms of writing it? Like what was the process of writing women
Chloe (42:47.089)
Hmm. Yeah. When I began writing women, I
was still living on the West Coast where that relationship had happened and I started just really, you know, when you’re grieving and heartbroken, I think we come to writing. You know how like you’ll stop journaling when you’re happy and then you have a breakup or a crisis and you’re like journaling all the time. So it’s kind of like that. I was so devastated. So I started recording it as I did and
I moved back east, back to the East Coast to New York and I continued with the project. But right before I had moved back to the East Coast, I went on a trip with my other small press writer friends. One who…
is Elizabeth Ellen who runs short flight long drive books and I had about 20 pages and it was called Roller Coaster and Elizabeth was so encouraging to me and giving me these incredible notes wanting to know more talking to me about the real relationship asking questions telling me to keep going and that was really helpful she really responded to it and
I was living at home, I was living with my dad and working at his music store, so I had a lot of time to write. So I just, I just continued really with Elizabeth’s notes and kept going, kept going. And I do remember sitting there like in my dad’s loft listening, I listened to The National all the time when I was writing that book. And I would just be listening to The National and it was winter and I was depressed. And I remember
Chloe (44:30.859)
Like sometimes I think even crying like it was I was depressed and I Enjoy writing when I’m depressed like it’s like the only thing you know I’m lucky I guess that when I’m depressed I’m still usually usually not always able to write So I really enjoyed the process. It was also a pretty fast process. I think when you’re in that stage of grief, I don’t know it just like it all came out pretty quickly and
Elizabeth Ellen said to me, maybe this is a novella. So that lit a fire too, and this sort of, I have this cool genre that I’ve never worked in before. So I started going to the library, getting a bunch of novellas, reading all of these love stories that were always between two people, and they were all about like 20 ,000 words. So then I had the goal of having the book be 20 ,000 words. And since Elizabeth was still helping me, I sort of convinced her to be the person to publish it.
even though she said, go to bigger publishers. I was like, I really want you to publish it. seem like you’ve been so helpful with it. So I really remember enjoying the process. And it’s definitely the book I wrote the fastest out of all of my books. But I think it was that urgency, that desperation, that kind of grief that it came out really quickly. Yeah.
J.P. Der Boghossian (45:53.024)
So, okay, if I remember correctly here from my notes, Mia, you had sent an email to Chloe after reading the essay, and then you were raving about women on social media. So how did the friendship come about between the
Mia (46:08.94)
I’d love to talk about it. Yeah, okay. I yeah, I was being It’s being a little freak online about this book. I was I am no longer I am clean now, but I was addicted to Twitter comm for a really long time and I think it’s just because I am a writer and so it appealed to me way more than any other social media because I just got to kind of spew my thoughts out and I
Chloe (46:10.77)
Yeah, go ahead.
Chloe (46:16.68)
haha
Mia (46:39.39)
Initially, so a lot of people I went to school with were very active on Twitter. I ran a publication in undergrad, so I had to get more active on social media to promote our articles and things like that. And. But I wouldn’t say that I was necessarily. I didn’t feel like I had a platform. I was just sort of talking to my friends and.
tweeting about the books I was reading and the only book that mattered to me for most of college was women. And so I was seeing what women all the time. And then in fall 2019, I met someone and we had a relationship that was very, similar to almost identical to the one in women. So where is my very first one? The breakup that led me to women.
Chloe (47:11.988)
Hahaha
Mia (47:36.664)
aside from it being my first queer heartbreak, it did not resemble the actual relationship at all. But in this two, three years later, this person I met was, it wasn’t an age gap relationship, but otherwise it was almost identical. The dynamic was really similar, the emotional instability on my end and unavailability on her end were very similar. And even physically, the way that they were described was just so similar. And when that relationship,
fell apart, I found myself really, really, really leaning on women in a much bigger way. And the way I was writing about it and writing through that relationship started to kind of increase my social media visibility a little bit. And unbeknownst to me, my tweets were being found by Chloe’s friends at this point, and they were sending them to her.
The only reason I felt so comfortable referring to her by full government name was because I had looked for her beforehand and knew she didn’t have an account anymore. And so I thought, okay, I’m safe. I can do whatever I want about her. doesn’t matter. She’ll never see it. And I had no idea that all of my freak behavior was being fed directly to her. So this went on for a couple of years. The pandemic happened a few months after this.
Chloe (48:51.145)
funny.
Mia (49:02.904)
break up and I went fully insane. was trapped at home. I was tweeting about women and about this breakup nonstop. And then eventually about a month, I think, after I graduated college, so 2021 summer, Chloe announced she was doing a reading at KGB bar in Manhattan. And I went, I was shaking, quaking my boots.
I have my copy of Women in My Bag with me because I wanted to ask her to sign it and I was too scared to ask so I did not ask and I had tweeted right beforehand, I’m quaking, I’m in the pit for Chloe Caldwell or
Mia (49:48.824)
And I was like, do any girls at the Chloe Colvo reading want to kiss tonight? Things like that. And no one responded to it, naturally. But I, so I was there. And then after the reading, I went up to her and just like babbled a little bit. And we’re both from the Hudson Valley. I grew up in a town about 30 minutes south of where Chloe lives. And I would go to Hudson all the time with my parents growing up. So
kind of open with that and was just like, I’m with the Henson Valley and I love you and I’m sorry, I’m free and you were very nice and gracious and asked me what my name was, whatever, we had this talk and afterward I just kind of stumbled outside and sat down on a bench for a really long time staring at nothing and Chloe, I actually never told you this but this man came up to me and tried to hit on me while I was processing our conversation and he…
He was like, that’s an interesting book. You’ve got women. What’s that about?
I was like, not the one, not the one today. But after that, I felt newly emboldened because I thought, okay, she doesn’t hate me. Things are going well. We’re going to keep on trucking. And that summer, for some reason, you had a lot of events in New York. And so I went to every single one. I just kept showing up to things because I was like, I live in New York now. Let me just keep going to her stuff and maybe she’ll remember me. And you did.
Chloe (50:57.204)
Yeah, right, yeah.
Chloe (51:06.027)
Yeah
Chloe (51:21.151)
Yeah, and I did.
Mia (51:24.46)
The final piece of the puzzle was, so I’ve been following Chloe on social media for years at this point, and she announced that she was doing a writing workshop in Paris and that applications were open for it. I had always wanted to go to Paris. I’ve never been to Europe. I’d never been to Paris. It was always my mom and I had this dream that we were gonna go when I graduated high school together. That didn’t end up happening because of financial reasons. And
It was supposed to be my graduation trip and then COVID happened, like from college and then COVID happened. So we couldn’t do that either. So in 2022, this is year after I graduated, it was announced that there was going to be this workshop. I had just started working at a big grow corporate job. So I actually had money to afford it. So I just applied. I didn’t think I’d get in. And I did get in to this workshop in Paris and I ran around my house screaming for a while.
I also had not really ever considered myself a nonfiction writer. I mostly did fiction in the past. All of college I was writing short stories, but Chloe was only teaching nonfiction. So I pushed myself and I wrote two essays and sent them in and just kind of washed my hands a bit. And I was like, there’s no way. And I got in and I went to a reading like a week or two later that Chloe was doing.
And at the end, I remember so nonchalantly when I went up to say hi, she said, didn’t I see your name in the Paris workshop submissions? And I was like, you let me in, of course you saw my name. She was just being so cheeky. And then she was like, well, I can’t wait to split a bottle of wine and talk to you about our queer breakups in Paris. And then I went to Paris and it was the greatest experience of my whole life.
Chloe (52:59.264)
Mia (53:14.71)
I got to bring my family with me, which was amazing. So my parents came too and my mom and I got to have our parish trip we’d always wanted. And they met Chloe and it was a whole just very emotional, beautiful week. And that workshop was also just phenomenal. Everyone in the class was incredible. We developed really strong bonds. But that was really where Chloe and I kind of kicked off our friendship. And yeah, I think that’s it for my side, but you can add your side, because I think, yeah.
Chloe (53:37.751)
let me just add, well let me just add, it’s so beautiful. No, I don’t wanna add my whole side, because that was perfect, but the Paris thing, the Paris thing is really interesting, because you’re forgetting two really funny details. So one is that she started up the Twitter again, and by that point, I was kind of watching, because I’m like, this person is really funny, because what Mia’s not saying is that these tweets would be, they weren’t just like,
you know, I love this book, everyone should read it. Like these tweets were in all caps, like really crazy, using really funny language, really bold, really unhinged, just not what you would expect. Like they really do get your attention. so in Paris, she tweeted, lesbian flies to Paris to get over her breakup and immediately begins rereading.
Mia (54:20.898)
I have a poster spirit, what can I say?
Chloe (54:35.567)
Women by Chloe Caldwell, I am my own worst enemy. And I was like, that’s funny. That’s a good tweet. It’s a very funny tweet. And then our rooms were actually across the hall from each other in this Paris hotel. So we just kept seeing each other. And I really admire how Mia does this. now have her, she did actually a half joking, half serious.
PowerPoint presentation at one of my retreats called Women Who Stock about like stalking your favorite writer until they befriend you because because it works. It works. For legal reasons it was a joke but I mean how amazing like to love someone’s book and then be across the hall from them in Paris in your hotel room and then yeah and then her parents came
Mia (55:15.672)
For legal reasons it was a joke.
J.P. Der Boghossian (55:19.375)
Yeah
Chloe (55:32.324)
her dad took our photo and it was just this really beautiful, this really beautiful meeting and we’ve been friends ever since. And then we got even closer when I divorced and really came out and then I was going to Mia for advice. So that’s where the whole thing shifted because Mia has been using my book for comfort and advice. But when I began…
queer dating again and I was like asking questions and I was having all this queer yearning and like kind of losing my mind again. It was like women part two. Mia was actually my go -to person because I’m like, well, no one understands me more than this reader. So it’s been pretty amazing.
Do we win? Do we win the podcast? we the, are we the?
Mia (56:17.538)
Do we win the hotchpotch?
J.P. Der Boghossian (56:22.862)
I think you did just win this Query Book, Save My Life.
Mia (56:23.435)
Also, I know this
Mia (56:28.92)
I know this is audio, so I’ll describe it for the listeners, but I wore our special shirt, Chloe, today. It says, gay. So this is, I don’t know if you’re, JP, if you’re familiar with the band Muna, they’re like a queer lesbian pop trio based out of LA, and they have a podcast called Gayotic, mashup of gay and chaotic, and they just…
Chloe (56:35.908)
become gay. Yeah, we, yeah, go ahead.
Chloe (56:55.545)
Yeah
Mia (56:56.374)
have different queer celebrities and musicians on to just talk. And they’re very funny, they’re just chatty and it’s not really about anything. It’s just about queerness and their art. And they made this piece of merch and it was actually Chloe who doesn’t even really listen to the podcast who texted me about it and said, Muna just dropped this merch. I’m buying us matching Become Gay shirts, by the way. And so these are our matching Become Gay shirts. And I think it’s so resonant because
Chloe (57:08.593)
You
Chloe (57:16.943)
Hahaha!
Mia (57:27.53)
Like, no, being gay is not a choice, but the way that you live out your queerness is something you do kind of get to choose or not choose in some ways. Like you can, I think I very much made a decision to step into my queerness despite knowing that it would take some adjustment with my family, despite knowing that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I was gonna be very much alone in it. And I still decided to go forward and make
Chloe (57:35.153)
True.
Mmm.
Mia (57:54.68)
even though it was really scary and women gave me a lot of power to do that. Women actually enabled me to come out as a lesbian as opposed to bisexual and stop forcing myself to make things work with men when it just wasn’t what I wanted or what I needed. And then I feel like Chloe and I, don’t want to speak for you, but we’ve had lot of discussions about, you know, your trajectory and how you really felt like you were becoming gay as opposed to like coming out as gay.
Chloe (58:12.763)
Go
Mia (58:24.608)
Yeah, and so I wore this today, this Become Gay shirt to channel this energy for this conversation, because I feel like it really is just so us. I felt like they made this merch for us.
Chloe (58:28.172)
Yeah, I love that.
Chloe (58:37.093)
It really is. I know. And we did a photo shoot kind of and we captioned it or Mia always says become gay because it is a choice and it makes me laugh and you can make it too. And it makes me laugh. yeah, you said and more people should make it. And that makes me laugh so hard. And I, it is just so surreal that my book helped Mia come out, but it didn’t help
Mia (58:48.744)
It is a choice and you can make it too!
Chloe (59:06.962)
come out. Like I wrote the book so obviously there is power in writing and it did touch people and it affected my life as well. However, I think it like I was saying earlier.
writing such personal stuff, especially at such a young age that I was. I mean, this was my second book and my first book came out when I was 26 and that book is, as Mia says, very graphic and a little wild. And so I started to feel pretty exposed as a person. So I think that had something to do with it. But I just think it’s so beautiful that I helped Mia, you know, recognize some of her queerness and work through so many
and then 10 years later she helped me work through mine and was truly like really one of my closest people in the last year.
and I went through some hard, hard stuff. I mean, we hung out a lot in the past year and we talk almost every day. So that like the power of books for me now is so different. Like when you asked me earlier, JP, would I still write the book? I’m like, if anything, I would just be writing more books because I see what they do for people’s lives. And like this has put all of that into action. And
having the book come back into print while Mia was in my life, like we kind of we joke that it’s like our book. like it was like it feels like i wrote this book for Mia and we just like consider each other literal. like we call each other like blood family now at this point. yeah yeah it’s crazy. so it’s it’s just what books do. like i will always trust
Mia (01:00:50.304)
I feel like you’re my sister. You’re feeling my big sister. Yeah.
Chloe (01:00:59.793)
what I write now, even if it’s something I think no one will relate to because at the time when I wrote Women, I did not have queer community. Like I said, I was living with my dad. That’s like the least queer person you can like. Like I was living with my dad. I had zero gay friends. I had zero community. I didn’t have I was looking at, you know, older books. I didn’t have like
didn’t have books to go to a lot of the ones we reference now are newer so I felt very isolated when I wrote women and it has led me to the most immense connection like not just with Mia but with readers and to myself so
And like Mia was such a huge part of that. And if Mia had kept to herself that she loved this book and wasn’t telling people or tweeting, we would never, we wouldn’t have met in the same way. So it really like, that’s why your podcast is amazing too. Like spreading the word about books. Yeah. Did you, did you get Teary? That was so sweet. Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s, it’s incredible. It’s.
J.P. Der Boghossian (01:02:03.468)
You’re not supposed to come on here and make me cry.
Mia (01:02:06.828)
We were literally holding hands and crying in a lesbian bar like a couple days ago, me and Chloe, just like thinking about all of this and yeah, I don’t know, man.
Chloe (01:02:11.698)
We were, we were, yeah. We should also say at the book release, Mia read an intro. I had Mia host the event in Manhattan. It keeps going, it keeps going. And
Mia (01:02:23.955)
yeah.
J.P. Der Boghossian (01:02:29.09)
YAS
Mia (01:02:33.304)
It literally keeps going. Our parents love each other. Like, it’s just, yeah.
Chloe (01:02:38.618)
our parents are now friends. we want to do a dinner with them all. it’s like but no mia hosted the event, helped me plan the event, helped me promote the event, got all of her friends to pre -order women, helped make it a best seller. it ended up on the USA Today you know best seller list and that is a big part of me. even my editor at Harper Perennial said happy pub day Mia.
Mia (01:02:43.426)
Yeah, we’re trying to find a time to make it work with everyone.
Mia (01:03:03.16)
Yeah, because I made an Instagram post and I was talking about it and I was like, this book helped me so much. And I had also posted that I wrote an essay, one of my first ever bylines as a freelance writer after graduating was an essay I wrote for Otter Straddle, this queer women’s online magazine about women and about the 2019 relationship that had really made the whole book click for me.
it was so surreal to be able to look back on that and think that was kind of when I started to feel like I was a real writer and kind of kicked off my whole journey into what I do now and posted that on the day that Women was republished and Ezra Kupor, the editor, commented, pub day to you, honestly. And I thought to myself, you know what? Yeah, happy pub day to me. I have actually, yeah, so.
Chloe (01:03:48.786)
No.
Mia (01:03:56.438)
I have my own copy of Women from before it was reprinted that, I went into this earlier, after I read it from school, the library copy that I had to give back, I went looking for it everywhere for my own copy. Knew it would probably not be that easy to find because at this point it had been out of print for four years. And I walked into The Strand, is heavily written about, Chloe has written about The Strand heavily in her first collection, Legs Get Let Astray.
And I have always kind of had a connection between The Strand and Chloe in my mind because of that. And I went to that bookstore, comb the used section, and they had exactly one copy of women in the fiction section. And I bought it. And as you can see, it has no blurbs. It has nothing on it. It’s just like, it’s covered in crayon and oil stains and it’s mine forever. And
Chloe (01:04:37.917)
Wow, that’s crazy.
Chloe (01:04:44.649)
Yep.
Mia (01:04:52.588)
have carried it around. It’s so small. just I keep it in my bag all the time. Anytime I would travel out of state, I would take it with me. Anytime I would go anywhere, I had it in my bag and I can recite so many lines by heart almost. I back and forth.
Chloe (01:05:05.076)
Yeah, and we do in conversation with other people and with other people. We both say it at the same time. It’s so funny.
Mia (01:05:13.912)
But I finally got this one signed by Chloe in 2022 when I think the Red Zone, your fourth book came out. I went to that launch event and yeah, I brought it up and I was like, hey, I know that you’re launching an actual like big girl book right now, but this is the one I love. And she said, I think, don’t I know you? And the rest is history.
Chloe (01:05:29.43)
yeah by then by then I started seeing her everywhere I think going to writers going to writers events like Mia was saying is truly one of the best
things you can do and it’s good literary karma. And now I tell all of my students about Mia and like go to an event a week, buy the writer’s book and you don’t know what might happen. I also want to point out, I always tell Mia we’re kind of like Eileen Miles and Maggie Nelson who are both writers and very close, but Eileen Miles has been quoted saying,
I don’t mentor Maggie, we’re just around each other a lot. And I love that. And I feel like that with Mia, it’s not like a mentorship or it’s not that she takes my classes, she just, she put herself in spaces that I was in and I started to value her.
as much if not more as much as she valued me. And it’s just been such like, such a fulfilling reader -writer relationship. And I feel lucky because I know most writers don’t get to meet their one biggest fan. Maybe they get a letter, but I got, you know, we actually live near each other. So we’ve gotten to really bond. And I should also say Mia helped really edit the…
the Harper perennial reissue because Mia was like there’s a couple typos that have really bothered me forever. Yeah. So before I handed it in
Mia (01:07:05.016)
that have been bothering me for six years.
Mia (01:07:10.188)
even have to look at the book to find them.
Chloe (01:07:14.271)
Yeah, she knew them by heart. She knew them by heart. And she sent me like, and this was right before the edits were due. I was like, Mia, do you want to just do a quick once over? And she sent me a text list of every single thing. And I handed that into my editor. Yeah, we’re crazy.
J.P. Der Boghossian (01:07:28.334)
This is wild. This is wild.
Mia (01:07:31.188)
When I picked up the reissued copy and I flipped directly to that page where I knew the apostrophe was missing and I was like, did they put it in? And it was there. That has been bothering me for six years. So I’m also not normal, but I just go really lucky that you let me be so involved in the whole women journey.
Chloe (01:07:51.169)
Yeah, it was so fun.
Mia (01:07:54.442)
It was so fun. was such a fun ride. I went to every single launch event in New York. It was like a whole week. I was calling it Women Week and I showed up to every single thing. That was the most I’ve gone out in a single week in like, since college, I think. I was just, I was always there. Yeah, I love this. I love this little book. So powerful. Everyone should go out and now you can buy your copy of Women and I don’t have to tell people you can’t have it actually. Yeah.
Chloe (01:07:58.751)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Chloe (01:08:18.194)
I know.
Yes, it’s so true.
J.P. Der Boghossian (01:08:22.254)
Well, this has been a magical conversation and I want to be mindful, we went 20 minutes over, but we got to the hour mark and I’m like, I hope they don’t notice because I’m letting this go.
Chloe (01:08:28.1)
Hahaha
Yeah, thank
Mia (01:08:33.592)
Sorry.
Mia (01:08:39.244)
also was like, hope he doesn’t notice, I would like it to keep going.
Chloe (01:08:43.264)
I know.
Chloe (01:08:46.906)
This is like our dream. You just made a dream come true. I mean, for us to be able to talk about this as you see, like obviously our friends know and they know we have this like, they think probably, you know, strange relationship, but to be able to go on a podcast that is literally called This Queer Book Saved My Life, I mean, it is the most perfect thing for us and it’s so meaningful. So thank you.
Mia (01:08:48.642)
this. Yeah.
Mia (01:09:06.208)
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much for having
[upbeat music]
J.P. Der Boghossian
I want to thank Mia and Chloe for being on the show today.
Mia’s first book will be coming out this upcoming February. Fragments of Wasted Devotion. It’s an essay collection, and if you’ll indulge me I’m going to read from the book description: From dusty university libraries to Boston-bound BoltBuses, and the icy grief of Somerville to the smoggy shores of Venice Beach, FRAGMENTS OF WASTED DEVOTION spans a country of desire, a galaxy of yearning, and seven years of failing, losing, and finding oneself in love.
For pre-order information, as well as upcoming events and readings, you can visit Mia’s website. It is mia tsang dot com. That’s M I A T S A N G dot com.
You can also follow her on instagram. She is @ mia arias AIR ee us tsang. Links in the show notes and on our website.
Chloe’s next book comes out next August. It’s an experimental memoir called Trying.
It’s a book in three acts. And it takes a fragmented approach to explore the different aspects of the word “trying.” trying to conceive, trying to write, it’s partly a writing craft book and it’s about the fertility world and living through divorce.
Chloe will also continue her work with Scrappy Literary. She teaches a 4-week zoom course Write Your Queer Break-Up. She also teaches Writing with Intuition and Writing The Kaleidoscope Essay. As you can see a lot of options.
To pre-order Trying, to purchase Chloe’s book, and to check out upcoming events and readings head to chloe simonne dot com.
For courses head to scrappy literary dot com. Links in the show notes and on our website.
J.P. Der Boghossian
Well, thanks for listening today.
Our podcasts are executive produced by Jim Pounds. Accounting and creative support for our podcasts is provided by Gordy Erickson. Our associate producers are Archie Arnold, K. Jason Bryan, and David Rephan, Bob Bush, Natalie Cruz, Jonathan Fried, Paul Kaefer, Joe Perazzo, Bill Shea, and Sean Smith.
Our Patreon subscribers are Steven D, Terry D., Steven Flam, Ida Goteberg, Thomas Mckna, and Gary Nygaard. Our soundtrack and sound effects were provided through royalty free licenses.
Our website is this queer book dot com. And if you want to be on the show, fill out the form on the home page.
We are on social media. We’re @thisqueerbook and at @jpderboghossian on Instagram. We also have a Facebook page.
And until our next episode, see you queers and allies at the bookstores!
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