BETTY CORRELLO: From Stand-Up Comedian to Writing Romance in Summertime Punchline

Meet my new bestie, Betty "Beef" Corrello and her debut novel, "Summertime Punchline". Yes, we get into that nickname and so much more. We're talking comedy, Italian history, and Eric Northman from 'True Blood". Yes, we are all over the place, but what would you expect from a comedian?

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Transcript

00;00;00;15 - 00;00;01;24
Speaker 1
I'm just remembering that.

00;00;01;24 - 00;00;03;12
Speaker 2
Scene, though. Yeah, it's really good.

00;00;03;15 - 00;00;04;01
Speaker 1
Give me a couple.

00;00;04;06 - 00;00;07;01
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. You take your time. I'm here to talk to you about.

00;00;13;09 - 00;00;34;27
Speaker 1
Hi. And welcome to the Literary Hype podcast. I'm Stephanie, your literary hype woman, and today's author conversation is with Eve debut. This author and I have a mutual friend, and that is how we got connected in the first place. And it turned out to be a really good time. That author is Betty Carillo. She wrote Summertime Punch Line, which is about a comedian whose life kind of falls apart.

00;00;34;27 - 00;01;01;08
Speaker 1
Right. She's getting a big break on the comedy scene and so she kind of has to go home to write her jokes and runs into a hot. X. X. Well, X is probably too strong x enemy. X bullies. X crush who's still a crush. There's a lot of things she could use to describe Del and Edie's relationship. We're going to dove into all of that.

00;01;01;08 - 00;01;11;22
Speaker 1
So without any further ado, here's my conversation with Betty Carollo. So welcome to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have you on to talk about your debut book, Summertime Punch Line.

00;01;11;24 - 00;01;13;21
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me, Stephanie.

00;01;13;23 - 00;01;18;14
Speaker 1
Before we get into the book, we've got to talk about some some other random things.

00;01;18;15 - 00;01;19;22
Speaker 2
Yeah, I love that.

00;01;19;28 - 00;01;37;04
Speaker 1
Because we have a mutual friend, so she tells me things. Oh, and she's sitting over there laughing So first off, for your event last night, she was wearing a shirt that said Beef Squad, and she didn't remember why your nickname was Beef So why is your nickname Beef?

00;01;37;15 - 00;02;00;18
Speaker 2
Oh, my nickname is Beef because in this essay, I will. So it's a little bit of a long story, but basically there is this dish, this Midwestern dish, or I don't know, I don't know where it came from called Beef Lombardi. And I remember when I first heard the name, it like struck me as being like the craziest thing ever, because Lombardi is a last name and beef.

00;02;00;18 - 00;02;01;10
Speaker 1
It's a trophy.

00;02;01;18 - 00;02;16;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's a trophy because of the last name. It is a Vince. And then it struck me. I was like, and beef. Garlic could absolutely be a first name. And so I told a friend about it, and she was and they were going to name their dog Beef Lombardi and Beef Lombardi has just been kind of in my life.

00;02;17;26 - 00;02;25;28
Speaker 2
And so then I told my writing group about it, and it was a funny story. We were hot. And the next thing I know, my nickname is Beef, and it really fits.

00;02;26;06 - 00;02;27;15
Speaker 1
Did they put these on shirts?

00;02;27;16 - 00;02;29;26
Speaker 2
Yeah, they did. With the number 69 underneath.

00;02;29;27 - 00;02;34;06
Speaker 1
Absolutely. What was it like for you to see people show up with your face on a shirt?

00;02;34;11 - 00;02;52;29
Speaker 2
I'm really happy. It was a good picture. If it had been an ugly picture or like, I don't know, I probably would have now. I would've loved it no matter what I got. Just, I have like, I think my my Venus sign. Aries is in Venus, which is a fire. Do you like astrology? You know.

00;02;53;00 - 00;02;53;10
Speaker 1
I know.

00;02;53;10 - 00;02;54;02
Speaker 2
Very little.

00;02;54;25 - 00;02;56;11
Speaker 1
I know I'm a Leo, but that's it.

00;02;56;11 - 00;03;14;15
Speaker 2
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I could see it. It's it. Yeah, I think. Yeah. My love sign is a fire sign. And so there's a lot of passion, and, you know, I'm fiery, and. And I also love attention, so I feel loved when I get attention, which I think is obvious.

00;03;14;19 - 00;03;17;12
Speaker 1
Well, I heard from a comedian.

00;03;17;20 - 00;03;20;12
Speaker 2
Just begging everywhere I go. Hand out. Yes.

00;03;20;12 - 00;03;30;27
Speaker 1
So you are a standup comedian as well. Yeah. As you reference you say you're a stand up comedian so you don't get bullied. Yeah. I want to know how that works, how saying you're a standup comedian means you don't get bullied.

00;03;31;02 - 00;03;56;16
Speaker 2
Exactly. Yeah. In the world of comedy, like, there is definitely like tiers to what type? Like from lamest to goalies. Improv nerds really frequently get crapped on not only in like the comedy world, but then in like regular life, too, because it's bled into the mainstream from like throw rock and start over, like making fun of people who pay for a broad city had an episode about improv classes.

00;03;56;24 - 00;04;19;11
Speaker 2
It's sort of this, like, trope that like, someone goes takes improv classes and, and then like becomes the worst person ever. But maybe that's true. People in my life could tell you that, but I loved improv classes and I love I loved doing long four form improv but, you know, I think in order to become like a comedic writer, you have to sort of branch out into standup eventually.

00;04;19;19 - 00;04;45;04
Speaker 2
I think stand up comics have like a very recognizable place in society. So they are like they're not quite rock stars. I'm sure a lot of comedians think of themselves as rock stars, but there's definitely like an edge to it. There's a little bit of coolness. So I think if I had been like, hi, I'm an I'm a comedic improviser, and people would have been like, that's you're a nerd.

00;04;45;05 - 00;04;50;27
Speaker 2
You're a nerd, for sure. But now I just I hide behind standup a little bit. I've done standup. I did standup.

00;04;51;08 - 00;04;52;18
Speaker 1
There's nothing wrong with being a nerd, though.

00;04;53;02 - 00;05;04;28
Speaker 2
Nothing wrong with being a nerd. Hey, everyone at home. Nothing wrong with being a nerd. There's a lot wrong with being a nerd. No, I'm kidding. There's nothing wrong with being a nerd. Yeah. Be authentic. Be yourself. I have to be a role model.

00;05;05;00 - 00;05;08;00
Speaker 1
Exactly. Yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Be yourself.

00;05;08;00 - 00;05;16;29
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to lean into my my improv background. I mean, that's what writing is. Writing fiction is just you're. Yeah. Sending yourself at the keyboard every day.

00;05;17;17 - 00;05;18;23
Speaker 1
That's a really cool way to think of it.

00;05;18;25 - 00;05;19;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;05;19;29 - 00;05;28;28
Speaker 1
Your main character Summertime Punch Line is also a comedian. What kind of experiences did you draw from in your real life to help create this character?

00;05;28;29 - 00;06;02;24
Speaker 2
That's a great question. I would definitely say when I when I wrote Summertime Punch Line, I was it was at the kind of like end of the pandemic ish era, like full pandemic And I think I was feeling like there was a possibility that the comedy world would pick back up again. And I, I was being confronted with a lot of stuff I had kind of left on the backburner when COVID hit all of a sudden and all live events shut down very abruptly and a lot of theaters closed and there was a lot going on and like politically and socially.

00;06;02;24 - 00;06;19;20
Speaker 2
And we were just, you know, people were in survival mode. And then slowly things were coming back to life. And I realized I had all these feelings about comedy. Like, I didn't want to go back to it. I didn't I didn't want to go back to grinding in a in an open mike scene. And I didn't want to go back to hosting things.

00;06;19;20 - 00;06;43;10
Speaker 2
I didn't and I've had all these this anger, actually, that I had left just sitting inside myself about comedy and gatekeepers and what it's like being a woman through Dell. I was able to be someone who is, like, funnier than me and like more successful than me. She gets into basically a fictional equivalent of Just For Laughs, which is a comedy festival in Montreal every year that is known to really launch people's careers.

00;06;43;21 - 00;07;06;23
Speaker 2
And she's on the precipice of something like big and huge. But I feel like anyone who like is about her, you know, we feel it in all moments of our life when something big is about to happen, you you kind of get there's always like a pull back into yourself and a moment of reflection. And because it's a romance novel like that, that pull back, that inner reflection has to like be writ large, like it has to come out.

00;07;06;23 - 00;07;23;12
Speaker 2
And so through Dell, I was really able to I was able to channel a lot of my thoughts about San up through her, but also doing it through someone who is like more more successful and not me. You know, it's, it's and I mean, I was able to work through a lot of stuff through her.

00;07;23;12 - 00;07;28;18
Speaker 1
Is it harder to write jokes for stage or write jokes in the form of a novel?

00;07;29;11 - 00;07;51;01
Speaker 2
It's harder to write for a stage, for sure. It's harder to write for a stage because every time you get up there an audience, there's like a and I talk about this a little bit in the book, there's like a chemistry that happens in a room when you're with people. And that's why I love improv so much because it really teaches you to be in tune with an audience and to listen to what's hitting and to play off of laughs.

00;07;51;01 - 00;08;12;01
Speaker 2
So you're waiting for the first big laugh, and then you kind of bookmarked that in your mind is like something that hit, and then you come back to it so you learn all of that in improv. But then standup is it's prewritten, and then you do your material over and over, and that can just be so rough. Like you could get out there and there's an audience, like there's so many tiny, tiny factors that go into things.

00;08;12;01 - 00;08;32;04
Speaker 2
Like something I talk about frequently is getting up on stage as a woman on like a date night. So it's all couples in the audience and maybe you have couples that are not doing great and it's the man is laughing at you or like if, you know, whatever the dynamic is, like you're now part of their like weird relationship in a way.

00;08;32;15 - 00;08;51;27
Speaker 2
And yeah, you could tell a joke and maybe it's funny, but you see someone do like a and you're like, I want to jump through the wall. Like, that was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Or like maybe you hear people whispering in the back, like, there's so many micro things. And that tension in the room is like, you really feed off of it.

00;08;51;27 - 00;08;57;10
Speaker 2
So if there's one thing that throws you off, it doesn't matter how good the material is, you can really spiral.

00;08;57;14 - 00;09;03;24
Speaker 1
Well, it's kind of rewind a smidge and just talk a little bit about what the plot of Summertime Punchline is.

00;09;03;24 - 00;09;25;00
Speaker 2
Absolutely. So our main character, Del she's a 28 year old struggling standup comedian living in New York, sort of doing the New York scene, as so many people do. She's originally from a shore town in South Jersey, sort of like from the Philadelphia adjacent part of Jersey. So. So Della's in New York. She's she's doing the comedy grind.

00;09;25;07 - 00;09;44;27
Speaker 2
She works as a waitress in a comedy club, which comedy clubs are a very specific environment, which I didn't really get into, but they're very traditional in that there's like a hierarchy and there's people who go to comedy clubs to really work on famous people, to work on new material. And there's a stage and there's tables, and the vibes are very specific.

00;09;44;27 - 00;10;09;17
Speaker 2
So I wanted her to be really comedically rigorous and also like food service environment, it comes back and she you know, we open on her waking up from her last shifts at the comedy club where she just left because she needs to focus on her material and she needs to focus on practicing because she's heading off to this big comedy festival in Canada in like a month and a half.

00;10;10;02 - 00;10;34;22
Speaker 2
And she has a busy day ahead of her and she decides to drop into her boyfriend's apartment and she finds her horrible roommate cheating on her with her horrible situation shit boyfriend. And she's like, well, I can't go back to my apartment. And this is this is messed up. And she just realizes, like, she just needs to go back home to take a beat.

00;10;34;22 - 00;10;58;25
Speaker 2
She's going to borrow her friend's car. She's going to drive back to Evergreen and she's going to take a moment. And it's on that ride down. She realizes I didn't just lose my place this isn't temporary. I just quit my job. My my roommate who hates me, she was cheating with my boyfriend. And also all of my jokes are about guys I dated and my most recent boyfriend, and I'm always shitting on myself.

00;10;59;02 - 00;11;28;22
Speaker 2
And she just has this big moment of reflection where she's like, I have to start over like mine. I need new material and that's how we meet down. And the situation only gets more precarious when she realizes that this this guy, she was friends with and maybe enemies with and in love with an on again off again with ten years ago in high school now runs the only bar in town that doesn't open mic night and things get cuckoo crazy bananas from there.

00;11;29;21 - 00;11;32;09
Speaker 1
Oh yeah they do crazy bananas.

00;11;32;09 - 00;11;35;11
Speaker 2
Yeah and it's all over sell things get emotional from there.

00;11;36;01 - 00;11;45;07
Speaker 1
This is also Cheryl so with Eddie. Yes this gives you a second chance timeline. What about that trope made you want to include that in the story?

00;11;45;09 - 00;12;12;11
Speaker 2
Oh, my gosh. Well, their relationship came to me like very fully formed. Like I had this idea about like one of the first scenes I wrote that I really wanted that hooked me in. I was like, I have to write the story. Is the am I allowed to spoil things? I'll keep it light. Yeah. It's one of the later flashbacks that originally was in a different kind of order it's the last flashback, if you remember it, where they confront each other.

00;12;12;27 - 00;12;31;27
Speaker 2
And originally that was not the last time they saw each other. And it was like a little bit more of a lighter or a lighter moment. And I could just envision it so perfectly, that sort of sequence, the sequence with her dad leading up to it and it felt so like this is what made Dell who she is.

00;12;31;27 - 00;12;59;12
Speaker 2
Like this is the moment that is crystallized. Like if you I think everyone has this, if you cut them open, you cut open their brain, you would find the moment where they became hurt and I mean enneagram for Enneagram. And so I really value sat emotions. I just like things that are a little bit heartbreaking. And I think I see myself as sort of like a fundamentally very kind of soft, sad person.

00;12;59;12 - 00;13;20;29
Speaker 2
And I think a lot of comedians are. And so that felt just like such a kernel of truth. And I knew like, OK, this is if I have you can't just have one flashback. You can't you have to like and then I found that I came up with this like fun structure of like I'm going to have them have a scene together and then around it the chapters before and after are going to be like revisions.

00;13;20;29 - 00;13;36;11
Speaker 2
They're going to fix whatever happened. And they're maybe not cognizant of the present moment, but you as the reader get to be like, oh, this is get to see the theme so it was a mix of like, I had this one idea for a scene. And then also like as a structural thing, it kind of clicked into place.

00;13;36;15 - 00;13;39;03
Speaker 1
How did you keep it all straight with the two timelines?

00;13;39;08 - 00;13;57;00
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think the key thing is, and maybe this is something that people would have like a gripe with, it is like I wanted the flashbacks to feel as murky as memories this is a this is one thing that happened. It is a moment in time. It is there is so much other stuff going on. Like there are parts of it we don't know.

00;13;57;00 - 00;14;17;27
Speaker 2
As a teenager, there are other interactions that are alluded to of them doing funny things to each other. Dale sticking forks in his line. But the moments that like and I think this is true about memory, it's like you could have had the best time ever at a thing, but all your if like something really crazy or weird or emotional happens like that really sticks with you.

00;14;18;08 - 00;14;35;22
Speaker 2
So I wanted to pull like one thing from like each year of high school and I kind of worked around like the main like whatever the big moments of high school, first day a big dance when everyone starts becoming like sexually active. And I kind of built it out from from there.

00;14;35;29 - 00;14;47;01
Speaker 1
So there's a line about the high school experience of like in the cafeteria scene and how you either have friends or you starve. And that made me think of mean girls. Mhm. So if you were in Mean Girls, which table would you be?

00;14;47;06 - 00;14;57;25
Speaker 2
I probably would have been at like the like artsy like am I allowed to say naughty words?

00;14;58;02 - 00;14;58;16
Speaker 1
I mean.

00;14;58;29 - 00;15;24;09
Speaker 2
Yeah, like the artsy druggy table, but like the part of like artsy druggy that's like also a little bit overachieving. It's like this kid really wants to get into reality or like a really good art school. Like, they're like they have their thing and they're like trying hard in their own way. I moved around. I definitely floated in high school but I think if I had been in a high school as big as mean girls, I would not have been floating around.

00;15;24;10 - 00;15;36;01
Speaker 2
There didn't seem like the environment where people were floating. I think I would have been like, Yeah, I would have been at the mean gay, artsy, burnt out, druggy, overachieving art, kid table, whatever. Would you have been at?

00;15;37;29 - 00;15;40;22
Speaker 1
Probably the jocks or the art seeking wow.

00;15;40;22 - 00;15;42;00
Speaker 2
Jocks. Were you a.

00;15;42;00 - 00;15;47;08
Speaker 1
Sporty? I was. I did volleyball, basketball track and cross-country in high school. And then I was a Division one rower.

00;15;47;09 - 00;15;52;24
Speaker 2
Oh, my God. OK, yeah. You would have been at the low. What is it? Aggressive jocks. They're like angry, she.

00;15;52;24 - 00;15;57;27
Speaker 1
Says, because I was also like I was on the speech team and I took test competitively and I did art, so.

00;15;57;28 - 00;16;01;08
Speaker 2
Oh, you were like an overachieving freak. Yeah. You were in at the end.

00;16;01;08 - 00;16;03;17
Speaker 1
You agree? I'm three with a very strong four way. Yeah.

00;16;03;29 - 00;16;06;28
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'm a for wing three. I think. I think.

00;16;06;28 - 00;16;13;11
Speaker 1
Yes. Somewhere in there, I'm like, I'm right in the middle. Yeah. It's like it could go either way, depending on which I guess leans more towards.

00;16;14;00 - 00;16;17;22
Speaker 2
Yeah, well, you're Firesign, too, so that it all but all plays together.

00;16;17;22 - 00;16;19;20
Speaker 1
Firesign and Redhead. Yeah.

00;16;19;27 - 00;16;20;18
Speaker 2
I love that.

00;16;20;18 - 00;16;30;21
Speaker 1
All the says. Yeah. There are a lot of song references throughout this book, and I got to ask why semi kind of life as the tattoo.

00;16;32;04 - 00;17;02;04
Speaker 2
I OK, this is like a nod to my teenage self. So I was in love with a man when I was in high school, and he wasn't a man. He was a fellow child. But his favorite band was third I blind. And I was like, OK. And so I fell and I love Third Eye Blind and I loved the music and and unfortunately, like, I hate this idea that, like, sometimes teen girls are introduced to things through like, shitty guys.

00;17;02;04 - 00;17;21;17
Speaker 2
But it happens and I like love thought I blind in high school and they were such like I remember I would listen to I would take the subway home and I remember listening to semi charmed life and like walking home and being like I wish I was literally anywhere on earth like I am so ready to leave Philadelphia, which is so crazy because it's a big city.

00;17;21;17 - 00;17;42;01
Speaker 2
But like no matter where you're from, you always want to leave. Yeah. So when I thought about Adele, like, she's, she's like, crazier than me. She's more courageous, but I was like, we both love her. Like, her music taste is my music taste. I was like, we both love 30. I blind. She's the type of person who would be like same term like that is so me dog I'm getting that on her my butt cheek.

00;17;42;03 - 00;17;44;15
Speaker 2
And it's just like a funny thing to have on yourself.

00;17;44;27 - 00;17;47;04
Speaker 1
As someone who is also introduced to tool by yeah.

00;17;47;12 - 00;17;49;10
Speaker 2
You get it. You get it. I got it. Yeah.

00;17;49;21 - 00;17;57;08
Speaker 1
How did you decide what songs you wanted to reference and what points did the song come first or did the scene come first?

00;17;57;15 - 00;17;58;29
Speaker 2
Are you talking about a specific song?

00;17;59;03 - 00;18;00;10
Speaker 1
No, there's just so many.

00;18;00;10 - 00;18;01;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah.

00;18;01;03 - 00;18;03;16
Speaker 1
Even The Page Paradise and put up something else.

00;18;03;16 - 00;18;23;05
Speaker 2
Oh yeah. That is something I say a lot. I literally said it to Hannah yesterday when we were driving somewhere, we were driving past the zoo. I said they paid paradise and they put up a parking lot. So I just talk about how zoos make me sad. And so I think like there are some things that come just from, like, clacking around in my brain, but specifically, like using sex and candy.

00;18;23;05 - 00;18;43;10
Speaker 2
I had this idea of them what happens when that song plays? And I was like, I needed a song that would fit in well. It had to make sense with, like, their music taste like Eddie really like sort of. He likes rock, he likes prog rock, he likes indie rock. He likes he's just in the rock world. He likes pop rock.

00;18;43;23 - 00;19;00;04
Speaker 2
So he would have that music station on in the car. And then like, time wise, it had to be like the type of thing that would hit local radio. And then I was watching True Blood with Friends and I love True Blood, but it was my first time watching True Blood. And have you ever watched it?

00;19;00;04 - 00;19;01;18
Speaker 1
Oh, so many times, yeah.

00;19;01;28 - 00;19;27;09
Speaker 2
And the first time. Yeah. Eric Northman sitting in a throne and legs splayed open and a woman is dancing. OK, gang banger. You imagine YouTube censors me for saying gang banger. That would be really funny. Anti vampire sentiment is on the rise now. There's a there's a woman dancing on a pole and that's the song playing. And it's such a sexy moment and it's such a sexy song.

00;19;27;09 - 00;19;36;00
Speaker 2
I was like that and I was like and it came back to me. I was like, oh, my God. That's like, that's perfect. It just makes sense for all the things that are needed for that that moment.

00;19;36;06 - 00;19;38;09
Speaker 1
I'm just remembering that scene now.

00;19;38;10 - 00;19;39;15
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's really good.

00;19;39;18 - 00;19;40;10
Speaker 1
Give me a couple minutes.

00;19;40;10 - 00;19;43;13
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. You take your time. I'm here to talk to you about. No.

00;19;44;03 - 00;19;47;16
Speaker 1
I mean, Trueblood was such an iconic show of its time.

00;19;47;20 - 00;20;00;00
Speaker 2
And you watch it and like the it gets a lot of things right. Like, still, it just has endured and maybe even, like, gotten better. And the parts of it that are campy and goofy have gotten camp here and goofier. It's such a good show.

00;20;00;08 - 00;20;02;13
Speaker 1
Let's take camp a little different way.

00;20;02;24 - 00;20;03;08
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;20;03;12 - 00;20;06;16
Speaker 1
To the the twist on the only one bad situation.

00;20;06;16 - 00;20;08;01
Speaker 2
Oh, my God. Yeah.

00;20;08;02 - 00;20;18;26
Speaker 1
I haven't seen a bunk bed yet as the only one bed. Yeah. And we still share the one bed yeah. Yeah. Talk about crafting that secret, that crazy. Oh.

00;20;19;21 - 00;20;45;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's a series of things that I find funny. Kind of just, like, shove together. So I don't know if you've ever been to the Jersey Shore, but it is a very popular thing that there are these motels with, like, the doors that face outward and they're themed, especially in places like Wildwood, and they have really cool themes, like, and they're like kind of gaudy and they're kind of campy and they're kind of weird, but the they're themed nevertheless.

00;20;46;06 - 00;21;16;27
Speaker 2
And there's one in Ocean City that my husband's family always, you know, frequented for many years, which was called the Impala Inn. And it had like a sort of like Santa Fe vibe, like Santa Fe via Pier one imports. And that was like a big inspiration for the Bethlehem in which is either themed around like someone who's only read the Bible's idea of the Middle East or it's based on the Bible link, and that's a TBD.

00;21;18;05 - 00;21;39;01
Speaker 2
And those rooms, those like Strange, kind of like one off rooms are a thing that kind of happened at Jersey Shore Motels. So I'm like, What's the cookies? Crazy situation. And I also think it's fun to like sort of I love only one bed, but it is so like the hand of God coming down and being like, here you go.

00;21;39;01 - 00;21;57;09
Speaker 2
Like, it's such like a treat. I was like, it can't be that easy. And my friend was like, What have you do to trundle? And I was like, No, that's too crazy, because it's also two beds. I was like, bunk bed. And then I'll have Eddie be like, Bingo. At least it's not a trundle and yeah, it just it was a fun space to set up and to have them play around in.

00;21;57;09 - 00;22;03;10
Speaker 2
And yeah, things kind of came naturally as like little jokes as I, as I set up the environment.

00;22;03;11 - 00;22;05;19
Speaker 1
And you made a little announcement recently.

00;22;06;03 - 00;22;07;09
Speaker 2
I did.

00;22;07;14 - 00;22;09;04
Speaker 1
The. Do you have a second book coming?

00;22;09;09 - 00;22;09;28
Speaker 2
I do.

00;22;09;28 - 00;22;11;23
Speaker 1
I do. Tell us about second book.

00;22;11;23 - 00;22;27;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely. So my second book I just announced will be coming out spring 25. It's called Tentatively right now. The title is 32 Days in May Books do you get retitled and that's fine. I really like this title. I hope it sticks manifesting and it.

00;22;27;03 - 00;22;29;14
Speaker 1
So you had a little hint on Instagram before that.

00;22;30;05 - 00;22;32;16
Speaker 2
Yeah, I did. I see. I did.

00;22;32;28 - 00;22;33;16
Speaker 1
I See You.

00;22;33;21 - 00;22;43;29
Speaker 2
I did. On June 1st I posted it and I had a caption that said Happy me 32nd. Yeah, you see it? I'm trying to be Taylor Swift. No, I'm just kidding.

00;22;45;07 - 00;22;46;00
Speaker 1
I mean, who isn't?

00;22;46;02 - 00;23;18;10
Speaker 2
Who isn't? She is. Yeah, seriously, she's, she's nailed it. Well, yeah, the story is we're back in Evergreen, this time with a native Philadelphian who is staying at her parents sure. House after a really rough winter where she was diagnosed with lupus after an extreme flare up that led to her losing her job and an ensuing depression that followed when she is sort of set up with a burnt out former TV actor who is also coming off a sort of rough time at the moment.

00;23;18;10 - 00;23;58;10
Speaker 2
Her favorite movie or movie she can't stop watching is is one called Sweet November, which is the inspiration for 32 days in May, is a movie from like the 2000. I think it's literally from 2000 but it's also a remake of an old movie from the sixties where a woman who is a lot sicker than than Nadia and a man who was like kind of like advertising a whole decide to date just for the month of November and it's starring Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron or Theron I don't know how to pronounce it and it's a kind of bad movie but I saw it and I cried and Keanu Reeves is perfect in it.

00;23;58;25 - 00;24;19;17
Speaker 2
Even though maybe the source material is it the best. He had me crying and I was like, this movie deserves to be they deserve a happy ending and it deserves to be a little bit better. I'm not going to say mine. This would be a little bit better. And so that's the inspiration. They agree to date for the month of May and then things happen.

00;24;20;01 - 00;24;20;22
Speaker 1
Shenanigans.

00;24;20;22 - 00;24;27;13
Speaker 2
Shenanigans happen. If you've seen Sweet November, you kind of, you know, sort of what goes on. But of course, I had to put a little twist on it.

00;24;27;27 - 00;24;28;28
Speaker 1
As one does. As one.

00;24;28;28 - 00;24;33;10
Speaker 2
Does. It's inspired by it is not a retelling per se.

00;24;33;24 - 00;24;44;01
Speaker 1
In your bio, it says that you were probably fretting about niche historical events. Most have forgotten what niche historical events events are you fretting about?

00;24;44;05 - 00;25;09;21
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much for asking so I am. Well, we're going to get the history lesson now. We're getting into it. Yeah, I am Italian and American. My father's from Italy. I spent a lot of time there growing up. I went to university there, so I'm very connected to that part of myself. And something I'm constantly thinking about is the unification of Italy, which is something that no one, no one cares about.

00;25;10;01 - 00;25;41;19
Speaker 2
Another thing I'm thinking about very frequently is the Italian fascist resistance movement during World War Two. I'm constantly thinking about how Rome was declared an open city to protect it. And then that kind of resulted in Catch 22, which is a very famous book that not a lot of people have actually read to understand there's also a movie called Rome Open City that's one of my favorite neo realistic films, which was a film movement that came out of Italy after World War Two, kind of unpacking what life was like in the country.

00;25;42;15 - 00;26;06;14
Speaker 2
A lot of people don't know this, but Italy was unified and like the 1860s. So it's a relatively new country. It's a younger country than the United States, which is why there's like so many different identities and such a small piece of land. And that unification has had just such a huge ripple effect on so many things. That happened.

00;26;06;14 - 00;26;13;26
Speaker 2
And for such a small country, it's sort of always in the mix because of where it is geographically. And so I'd never stop thinking about that.

00;26;14;00 - 00;26;14;28
Speaker 1
I know nothing.

00;26;14;28 - 00;26;36;10
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating. Like there's I think about Fellini a lot and how he sort of like cultivated this idea of Italy that was exported. And it really was like, you know, it's the spaghetti and tomato sauce and the red and white checkered tablecloth. And these ideas of like Italy is sort of like a decadent place to to eat food and have a lot of sex.

00;26;36;10 - 00;26;43;02
Speaker 2
And, and also but Fellini was also doing other things, but those we don't pick up on that. And I just I'm always thinking about it.

00;26;43;07 - 00;26;45;11
Speaker 1
So Italy is your Roman Empire.

00;26;45;15 - 00;26;53;15
Speaker 2
Oh, my job to make podcast over. I guess it is. I guess it is from.

00;26;53;19 - 00;26;54;09
Speaker 1
Literally you're.

00;26;54;10 - 00;27;04;13
Speaker 2
From it's literally my Roman Empire. I lived in Rome for four years. I loved it. By the end, I wanted to rip my hair out. But it is just to this day, like one of my favorite places on earth.

00;27;04;16 - 00;27;09;00
Speaker 1
In the last question we always asked. Yeah, because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about?

00;27;09;11 - 00;27;28;24
Speaker 2
Oh my gosh, I'm so hyped about. So I have just like a stack of books that has been growing because I haven't been really I haven't had much time to read lately. I'm so excited to read just for the summer. I hope I'm not screwing up the title by Abbie Hoffman is. Yeah, I'm so excited for Summer Romance by Animal Man again.

00;27;29;02 - 00;27;52;27
Speaker 2
I'm so excited for Whenever You're Ready by Rachel Rooney Cats. That's coming out I think in September. So I have some time. I am so, so excited about Not for the Faint of Heart by Lex Croucher. I'm so excited for I don't know. There's so many. I just have I'm so excited to. Oh, I have been listening to the Sugar Queens by Sarah Addison Allen.

00;27;52;28 - 00;28;04;09
Speaker 2
I was mess up her name. I'm so sorry. I'm such a huge fan, and the audiobooks are so wonderful. I can't wait to have a long drive to just, like, listen to all of them. I got I have a lot to read and I can't wait.

00;28;04;29 - 00;28;08;09
Speaker 1
Well, thanks so much for being part of literary hype and talking about Summertime Punch Line.

00;28;08;10 - 00;28;24;13
Speaker 2
Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for asking me such thoughtful question about Summertime Punch Line. It's really so cool. You know, when you write it, being a debut is hard. You want everything all at once, and that's just not how publishing works. So anytime someone has actually read my book, I'm so excited so thank you so much for having me.

00;28;27;05 - 00;28;42;28
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Betty for taking time out of her St.Louis tour. Stop to talk with me about her book, Summertime Punch Line. We had a grand old time hanging out at the bookstore, if you'd like to get a hold of Summertime Punch Line, the links to do so are in the show notes for you, as well as Where to Find Betty on social media.

00;28;42;28 - 00;28;53;03
Speaker 1
If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to first of all, subscribe to this podcast, give us some stories and tell your friends about it. Thanks for listening to the Literary Tide podcast.