The Stories We Tell About the Future Reveal Who We Are Today

In a world overwhelmed by noise, fear, and uncertainty, speculative fiction offers something new. It's a mirror, a warning, and sometimes a way through.Today's guest believes that imagining the future may be the most important creative act of our time. So stay tuned. We're going to talk about that and so much more. I'm your host, Michael Herst. Welcome to one more thing before you go.My guest today is a writer, a cultural thinker, and a fierce advocate for the power of imagination. Amy Bernstein believes speculative fiction isn't just entertainment. It's a lens on the world as it may become.And I can appreciate that her work explores the future as a mirror, a warning, and a source of catharsis for the horrors unfolding in real time, which there are many in this day and age. And in a moment when culture feels fractured and creativity feels threatened, Amy's asking the questions that matter.Why do we make art in dark times? What does fiction reveal about who we are becoming? And how do we keep creating when the world tries to silence radical voices?Amy, welcome to the table.

Thank you, Michael. What a great list of questions to explore.

You know, I. I love everything that you do. I think you bring a nice perspective to the world, a needed perspective to the world, especially in this day and age.So I appreciate you being here and. And what you have to share. I'm looking forward to sharing your wisdom. I'd kind of like to explore three ideas throughout this conversation.Why speculative fiction matters. How imagined futures help us process present fears. I think that's really important and kind of what it means to make art when the world feels heavy.Because art. I believe in creative art as a healing methodology, and I think we can express some of that and help people understand it.

Absolutely. I completely agree. I'm happy to dive in.

This storytelling starts at the beginning, right? So take us back. How does speculative fiction become your language, your language and your way of understanding the work?Had you always wanted to do that, where did you grow up?

I would say that I came to speculative fiction as a writer relatively later in my writing career. But I think that this notion of describing a world very much like ours, but asking troubling what if questions, which is.Which gives rise to speculative fiction is so intriguing and has become so important and valuable.And I think that growing out of my own background as a journalist, where you have to ask questions constantly and just the way my own imagination works, I mean, what if X were to happen? What if our world were to shift just ever so slightly in this particular direction? What might happen then?And I find that an incredibly fruitful way of thinking about both the real world and the world of our imaginations and, you know, where the future might actually take us. And I think we've seen. We have seen how, you know, things that we thought were mere questions have become reality.

Absolutely. I mean, as I told you before, I'm a retired police sergeant.We spend a lifetime, a career, sometimes it feels like a long lifetime in that career, but we spent a career with the what if question. You know, you're. We are constantly thinking, what if, what if, what if? Every call we go to, you have to run these through your head.What if this, what if that if I do this, this happens. If they do this, what happens? So I appreciate that perspective of what if?I think we all kind of have to think that way a little bit, don't you think?

Yes, I do.And I think there's a lot of value in it, too, because especially in fiction, when you start asking these what if questions, you give people a lens onto other worlds that they can safely explore without feeling judged or anxious in our own real world. So it is. And you use the word catharsis in your introduction, and you're right.Speculative fiction and just asking what if questions is a great way to have a cathartic experience where you sort of feel it, emotional relief or emotional closure without necessarily having taken a lot of, sort of deep psychological risks. And I think the best fiction helps us to do that.

I agree with that. What. What In. In kind of centering on speculative fiction help us understand. I mean, I think we kind of touched upon it. But there is a.Is there a deeper understanding that we can get from what exactly speculative fiction is?

Yes. Well, in literary communities, no two people define this the same way.And in fact, there's kind of a fine line between speculative fiction, dystopian fiction, and some of that can be tinged with science fiction. And so it partly depends on the kind of world building that happens in that. In that particular book.I tend to think of speculative fiction as very close to the real world, but with something significant has shifted that's given rise to other things happening.I mean, for example, I know we'll get into it, but Tent City is an example where the economy is in free fall, the American dream is collapsing, and people wind up pitching tents on a large backyard just to have a place to live. And so it feels like the real world, but something is different and something has shifted. So speculative sort of is that notion of asking questions.I think dystopian fiction gets into even darker kinds of world building, where it might be an alternative kind of world that's not that much like our own. When you think of 1984, for example, as a dystopian novel, it's not really our world.It sort of pushes all the boundaries way past what we would recognize and goes into something that's sort of very dark and dangerous. So this is. These are matters of degree, really.

You know, it's interesting you bring up 1984. Do you think that this kind of fiction is in a mirror? Like, how do we imagine our futures?Do you think that it helps us to understand the world that we're becoming?Because for those out here that remember 1984 and what it was presenting to us, some of us for a time kind of think we're living it now to a certain perspective.

Exactly.I think the most powerful fiction in this vein is weirdly predictive because the writer thought deeply about what was going on in the real world and sort of pushed logical conclusions along.In other words, you know, 1984, as most of us know, was written in 1948, which was, you know, the height of the aftermath of World War II and fascism and all this terrible things that had been happening.And if you just continue to push the boundaries of those worlds as if they were going to not be stopped or get even worse or, you know, win instead of lose, and then you wind up in these really scary places. And so, yeah, I think it absolutely can be predictive.I think Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, you know, it was an incredibly powerful book, which didn't seem predictive at all at the time. And now it's horrifyingly predictive in many ways. And, you know, I mean, that's just the power of imagination, right? It's incredible.

Oh, that's incredible. Well, I didn't read the book, but we as a family, watch the series. In the series itself, you can.It is shockingly accurate, actually, to a certain perspective because you start thinking about what's taking place today with rights being taken away, and that's a whole. Whole nother long conversation we could have. But in this context, it so was sort of predictive.You know, I mean, you can look at science fiction to a certain perspective in the same methodology. Star Trek, we're living Star Trek. We're talking to computers. Computers talk back to us. We're walking around with an iPad.We're walking around with a communication device that's. And a computer in the hand, in our hand. And at the time, that Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek. This was all fantasy.It was all, wow, look what they're doing, look what's happening, kind of a situation. But a dystopian future scares me more.

Well, I'm so glad you brought up Star Trek.First of all, I'm kind of a lifelong fan and what's so interesting about what Roddenberry was doing is it was the rare example of futurism through a positive lens. Obviously what he was all about was, why can't we all just get along?Obviously, on Earth, that would have been black, white, brown, but out in Star Trek land, it would be interspecies communication and obviously interspecies relationships and understanding difference and respecting difference. So he went at it from a very positive perspective and optimistic perspective. And I mean, I think what certainly has.I think that's become extraordinarily rare. I think the majority of what's written now in speculative and dystopian veins is terrifying and it's meant to be.And it sort of shows us, well, listen, if we don't stop doing what we're doing now, you know, yes, we will destroy the planet. Yes, you know, we will, we will. We will all perish. And I mean all these things. So it has gotten very dark, but we're dying, unfortunately.

Unfortunately, yes. Yeah. I mean, we have two daughters.So, you know, we've tried to raise our daughters to be, you know, very strong, intelligent, powerful young ladies, and they have grown into that. And watching what's taking place in today's world is scary and scarily reminiscent of what.What we just talked about with Heme's Tale, you know, to a certain degree. Certain degree, catharsis. When we mentioned it earlier, you talk about cathartic distance.Why does stepping into, like, an imagined world help us process the real world horrors like we just talked about? Is it an escape for us from that perspective?

I think it's an escape in the sense that you are able to create sort of psychic distance from reality.So if we look at the real world and whether that's geopolitics or the degradation of the environment and climate change and things that are happening, we rapidly can feel sort of overwhelmed. We don't know what to do. We might feel hopeless and we don't have a distance from the problem and any of its solutions.But when, as, say, a reader or even a theater grower or participating in any form of art, when we're consuming some of these conversations that have been transformed into art, we do have some distance and we're Unable to see some of these problems and some of these moral and ethical challenges and dilemmas with a bit more distance and perhaps compassion.And we can, we can sideline our own personal fears and even prejudices and see things a little bit as if they were through sort of through a lens, not just so up close to us. And I think that's incredibly helpful for talking about the human condition in, in so many different aspects.

Had you, had you always been a novelist? Had you, had you always been a writer? You know, when you come out, did you go to college? University?

Yes, I've always been. I've always been a writer.I was an English major in college way, way, way, way back when, back in the era of the typewriter, and loved, loved literature.And so yes, I have always been a writer, but I came up as, as a journalist and I worked in government in communications roles for many years and nonprofits. So I was always dealing with the written word. But I didn't really start writing novels until, you know, over the last 10 to 20 years.And even that's misleading because I wrote my first novel in around 2008 and then I didn't write another book for 10 years or so or another novel for 10 years. So. And then I really got into it.

Well, you know, sometimes, you know, when you find your purpose, sometimes it takes a little time to kind of fit into the groove. Yes, I appreciate writers from never several perspectives. I grew up, My father was a journalist, so I grew up in a newsroom at a.From a very, very early age with 30 or more typewriters all clacking away at the same time. Because I. We'll, we'll just say it's a long time ago, as we know, but it. So yeah, I appreciate that.And that noise, whenever I hear it kind of brings me back a positive memory because I'm sitting there watching my father, you know, create to those keys and you know, it was a brilliant. So I appreciate your contribution to, to the arena all the way around. When you, you wrote your first novel. Can you tell us a little bit about that?What was your inspiration? To finally sit down and kind of grasp that idea and delve into it.

Yeah, I always knew that I wanted to write a novel and I had false starts in my 20s. I just didn't have the confidence or the tools. And when my daughter was a teenager, I wrote my first novel, which was a YA young adult novel.And I probably wrote a YA novel because I was raising a young adult. And I basically wrote it to prove to myself That I could do it.And I wrote a lot of it commuting on the train to work to my full time job in Washington dc. A great deal of that novel was composed on the train or on the weekends. And I really didn't do much with it.I mean, I, I got it essentially self published and I basically it was an exercise to say, yep, you did it, this is great, someday you'll do it again.And that's kind of where that lay for a long time because work was very consuming for me and it took me a long time to sort of get back into the creative writing side. But I always wanted to and I did.

I think that brought you to here. How many novels have you written?

I've written six novels, plus one nonfiction book which is Wrangling the Doubt Monster, which is the book for self doubting creatives.

Self doubting creatives. I can associate that. I can. Ten Cities that you're. This is your latest novel, correct? Correct.

Ten City is the latest novel to be published. They will have one other book coming out next year. But yes, Tent City is the one that was published in March of this year.

And that kind of holds up a mirror to some of society's deepest fractures right now. And what were you trying to illuminate when you kind of started this? And did it evolve? Did any. This is a threefold question, if that's okay.And did any of that, as you were writing, did any of that process change with what's going on in today's environment?

Well, let me provide some perspective. I first wrote Tent city in about 2019, but I first came up with the idea in about 2014. So it goes way back.And I suspect I don't know what the original impetus was. I suspect I read an article about big tent refugee camps in other parts of the world and posed and posed a what if question.What if that were to happen here, but in more of an American suburban environment where we wouldn't expect a tent city to arise? And so I sort of carried that idea forward.And what's so interesting is that this book that I wrote some six, seven years ago now is actually unfortunately more relevant now than it was even when I wrote it. To be brief, Tent City is about the decline of the American dream and its impact on one family in particular.And what do we owe to our friends and neighbors and families when the rules that we play by and the world as we knew it really begins to crumble under our feet and all the supports that we counted on economically, institutionally, just Begin to. Just begin to go away. So it's a very.It's very realistic, but as I say, shifted into a somewhat accelerated or more dire version of some things that are happening today.

Yeah, I found it very profound that the relation to that is very obvious throughout society today. You know, as in my old profession, you know, we saw people. People at their worst, people at their best, at their worst. And, you know, we.We dealt a lot with homeless. We dealt a lot with people under circumstances that made them homeless and families, not just an individual.What you see in the movies where you see the. And when I say this, no reflection, my. Both my parents were alcoholics. But, you know, people think that homeless are.Are people that are lazy or they're drunk or they're on drugs or they're. But there are circumstances that put people in this position where they. They cannot survive in today's society.And those rules have been tightened up so much that, you know, making it illegal to. To be homeless in.In certain areas I find very appalling, actually, from a perspective of understanding it and seeing it over my career in law enforcement and dealing with people who were living in tents and living in caves and living down by the river and down by the creek. So, yeah, it, It. It's kind of profound from that perspective.

Absolutely. And, and I, you know, my job as a.As a novelist in creating this world was just to try to understand as profoundly as I could the real experiences that led people to the decisions that they made and, and to understand things that were out of their control, where we're just in a position to respond and in fact, not to make. I mean, we're making decisions, but we're often responding. We're making decisions in response to circumstances out of our control.And so I really sought to just understand each and every one of these characters.I did not set out to judge them, but to understand where they were coming from and where that leads to and sort of following the breadcrumbs of reality, really.

Yeah, it is, you know, it is something, I think that is an opportunity to get a better understanding, even from the fiction perspective, get a better understanding when you see a correlation of what's taking place today and, and.And see that people are people and, and sometimes bad things happen to people, and sometimes they get put into a position where you make choices that. Did you make choices for the best interest in yourself and your family.And they may not always be the best ones, but they were the best ones at the time.

Right. And, you know, again, to get back this Notion about reading through a lens and reading for sort of a cathartic release.I think when you're reading about fictional characters that you don't know them, they're going through difficult circumstances. And you can bring a lot of empathy to bear because these aren't people who are in your own life.But you can begin to see what they're going through and maybe understand it in way.And give and, you know, offer grace to characters, which may sound odd, but offer grace to fictional characters that you might not offer to people in your own life or that you read about in the newspaper in the real world.

I agree. Making art in dark times why is it necessary, maybe kind of even urgent, to make art when the world feels heavy like it is a can?It's hard not to emphasize the heaviness that is. Is apparent in society today because of everything that's going on. And, you know, and. And it's not just necessarily.This isn't a political perspective. This is a life, humanity perspective. And so. So from that, how's it making art when the world feels heavy? How do you manage that?

So I think that making art in any medium, we could be talking about painting or murals or textiles or composing music. Making art in any medium is a way of really reflecting on, discussing and developing conversations around the human condition.And the human condition is something that we all share because we're all human beings. And we really have so much more in common as human beings than the things that set us apart.And art consistently shows us what we have in common and how we experience the world in very similar ways. Psychologically and emotionally and even physically and in terms of our relationships.And I think that in dark times, when we're living in a world where we emphasize the divisions and we emphasize the disagreements, and we're experiencing so much mistrust of one another.And in cohorts and in groups and whole societies, in one country to another, at every level, when you dial into a work of art and you can be standing in a gallery looking at an extraordinary painting, or you could be watching a play unfolding on a stage, or you could be in the middle of reading a book. When we immerse ourselves in art, we are forging connections, we with human beings.And in dark times, in times of division, it is more important than ever that we do this together, individually, collectively. Art has always helped to save humanity from itself in a way. And we need that now more than ever.

Do you think. Can you help us understand? Is there a difference between creative art and radical art?

Well, I don't think I want to get too much into labels because to me, art is art. High art, low art, any, any. Any form. And I'm not really sure what you mean by radical.Obviously there are forms that we conceive to be more experimental than others, and that just means we're unfamiliar with the methods or the way it's presented. But I don't think that those labels necessarily help us to understand what's going on in a piece of art.I think we have to just bring our unmediated selves to that piece of art, to that work of art, and just let our responses flow from that perspective.

And that comes from. I think I read something. I have a note about you mentioning that sometimes culture suppresses radical art.And radical voice was from, from that perspective. I, I mean, I don't know if you did any background on me. I've also.I've got a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on digital media, performance and art.So I. I have an appreciation of art for many perspectives and including dance and drama and the painting and art history and all forms of art that have come through, whether it be in print, in, In. In like on canvas or on paper or wherever it comes from. You know, our art is subjective, but art is also objective.And I think we need, as individuals, need to be able to embrace both sides of that and have an open mind when we look at art, because it gives us, you know, we can always see some beauty in it. There's beauty to be found in everything that somebody puts up or somebody builds or somebody create or somebody, you know, kind of a thing.

Absolutely. And I think in the context that you just expressed it, radical art, I think if we're going to broadly define that is any art that.That sharply challenges the status quo. So it challenges what a majority, and even that's in quotes of people might think that they believe or to be true or to be right. So an arts.Art's job, one of the jobs of any art, is to challenge the status quo. That's what we should expect from art, to show us the world in new and fresh ways and different perspectives.And the power of human imagination to do that is. Knows no bounds. And that's what's so amazing and joyful about this. And every art form in every era is radical when it challenges the status quo. So.And that's all the time. I think artists do that all the time. And so it's mainstream in its own way, while being challenging.

I agree that's well said. I think writing people don't think.At least some people, I guess, don't think that even the art of writing fiction, the art of writing a novel, the art of the written word, that within itself, I think, is a profound opportunity, opportunity for us to understand art, because it still comes from a soul, it comes from the brain, it comes from my heart, comes from your heart.When you put things down on paper and you create these worlds that you create, the people, the characters, the story that is developed within you, that you're expressing to somebody else. I mean, you're doing this for others to be able to grasp a hold of and maybe take some truth out of it, take some comfort out of it.From that perspective, the. The process of your novels, can you help us understand, like, you know, the passion that you have, taking it from inside? The artist perspective.Let's take it from that perspective. The artist perspective of putting everything that you want to put on paper and watching it unfold on paper.That's got to feel like amazingly brilliant.

Well, it's a much more technical process than people who aren't writing in a long form might believe or might think. It's a very technical process.The act of building scenes, developing characters, creating what we call the story arc, the journey of transformation that a protagonist goes on, the transformation that a reader goes on from page one to the end.These are all the outcomes of very technical, technical choices that a writer has to make to basically build the words into sentences, into paragraphs, into scenes, into chapters, into a story that flows where the characters on the page somehow elicit the reader's sympathy, empathy. They may hate them, they may love them, but they elicit a reaction.And so it's an endless series of choices that we then make and revise and change, change over and over again, until we more or less think we've got it right. Whether it's ever actually right. I think many writers would concede we just stop the work. It doesn't mean the work has really ended.So it is a difficult. You have to be passionate about your project for sure, because you have to see it through a long gestational period. But it is very technical work.

I know that in looking through your website and delving into some of those arenas that you have in there. You also write plays.

I did. I have not written a play since about. Since, I think, right before the pandemic, because I have been leaning into the novel.But I have written a number of plays, and I was a professional speechwriter at one point. Which playwriting and speechwriting. You're writing for the ear. At least that's part of what you're doing. And I was also a public radio journalist.You're also writing a new story for the earth. It's, It's a marvelous, It's a marvelous art form.To, to write for the stage is just incredibly, incredibly challenging and challenging and exhilarating.

Yeah, it is.I think I say I, I wrote screenplays, and I found even the difference between writing a screenplay for, for film or for television is different than writing a play.A play by itself, though the, the structures and the, the technical aspects of, of even the differences within each one of those three arenas is kind of interesting. I know that you're. I think there's a link on there where people can read your plays, correct?

Yes, most of my plays are on the, the New Play exchange, but I think you have to have a membership to get into, to get it, to see those. So, listen, if anyone really wants to read my plays, they can always find me, reach out to me, and I.

Can help them out, go from there. Well, I think, you know, as a writer, like I said earlier, I grew up. I grew up watching my father. I mean, he got me into at a very young age.Myself, I did not get farther into writing. I didn't have the patience. And from that perspective, I didn't have patience.I wanted it, like, now kind of like dump everything that I'm thinking and just magically appear, you know, here on this paper situation. But I appreciate Writer Smith.He gave me an appreciation and a love of story and a love of the printed word and what comes out of it, both from a journalistic perspective as well as a novelist perspective. So I, you know, I'm grateful for my father for that because he taught me. He taught me that art form within himself.I know that there's tension between telling the truth and keeping the kind of public comfortable. And I think that you.You recognize that being a speechwriter, because obviously you need to understand I was a public information officer for the police department for a little while.So, you know, there's a fine line of what you can really say, what you can do, make the public happy, make your department or the organization that you're working for happy. How does that kind of play out within novel writing? If I can ask, how do you navigate that?

Well, I actually think that when you look at something like speechwriting and when you look at something like novel writing, they have a really common thread, which is. It really is about the art of persuasion.You're trying to persuade the consumer of that material to see the world the way you do or to be convinced of your point of view in some way, or be convinced of an argument. And certainly when I was writing speeches for executives, you know, it was all about giving them the power to persuade. I mean, that's.You're giving them the words to persuade people to accept something or be aware of something, or you're issuing a call to action that they want to respond to. And a novel in many ways is doing something really kind of similar. It's just taking a different form. But you're trying to win that reader over.

I think that, well, you take a personally. Every time I read a novel, I get lost in the fantasy of it. You get lost in that world, you know, you start relating to the characters.You start, you know, you want them to win, you want these guys to lose. You know, you have your good guys, your bad guys. Everything is in a novel, but in reading it, you have to visualize that in your heart, your mind.And I think once you get into it, you know, it gives you. It gives you that world that you can escape to, that world that you can embrace. Be honest.Because I rheumatoid, I've gone to audiobooks because it's difficult for me to hand to hold a book now. But I have a huge library of books that I can't handle. We'll just put it that way. But so now I do audiobooks.Do you think listening to an audiobook books compared to reading it take something away from somebody that's listening?

No, I would not say takes away from, but I do think they're very different experiences.And I'm willing to venture without being able to give you the data that the brain processes the book very differently depending on whether you're taking it in in an auditory way or whether you're reading, reading the words. I have many, many, many friends and writers who, who love audiobooks. I can't listen to them personally. I have nothing against the form.Audiobooks are brilliant.It's great that they came on the scene and for people certainly with vision issues, and I have some vision issues myself, audiobooks are a wonderful thing. I just think I don't take information in as a listener. I just need to read the words on the page. And I guess that's my lifelong habit.And so I do read a great deal on the Kindle because it's much easier on my eyes, but I'm still reading. But audiobooks are marvelous. And I think we do process them differently.But I'm really grateful that that mechanism came along because I think it's made many more people into readers, quote unquote than might otherwise be because they're not picking up the printed word.

I agree with that.I think that it gives an opportunity for people that wouldn't normally be able to have access to or, or you know, be able to go get a book or pick it up or handle it like we, like you and I. You know, same thing with vision issues. I have vision issues as well. And it's easier for me to listen to a book now than it is to actually.Kindles do help though. The Kindle books do help because it's easier, lighter and much more easy to expand when I need it if I can't quite read it.Yeah, I have to admit that creative self doubt that you mentioned earlier about creative self doubt. Every artist faces self doubt. We all do it, no matter what, from whether you are a visual, a digital print, a painter, a sculptor.We all have self doubt. Where does yours come from and how to kind of move through it?

Yeah. So I definitely describe myself as a lifelong self doubter.I allowed doubt about my ability, about my right to belong at a certain table, about my talent, about simply going, going after something I wanted.I doubted myself my whole life and was held back I think many, many times in ways I could not recognize over the years from pursuing something because I just felt that, you know, I won't be good at it or I don't deserve to try or all the things that we tell ourselves to talk ourselves out of something.And I reached a point where as I became, as I leaned more and more into sort of a creative life as a writer, as a writing instructor and other kinds of work related to that.I felt that I wanted to normalize conversations around self doubt, which is why I end up writing the book Wrangling the Doubt Monster, Fighting Fears, Finding Inspiration, which is just that. It is a small illustrated book of joyful inspiration for every self doubting creative person.And I've concluded that while we can manage doubt and we can walk with doubt, you'll never banish it. And we're not designed to do that.

Well, I think doubt also helps us to kind of understand what we can achieve and what we're able to achieve once we achieve it. You know, it is a. Makes it a goal, a stepping stone to success I guess I call it.

Doubt is fuel as well as foe. It's both.

Yeah, a bit of both. Double edged sword in fiction and public discourse. Why?Why is speculative fiction, like uniquely positioned as far public conversation about challenges we face today, especially in today's environment?

Because speculative fiction very much is premised on things that are already happening in the real world or are very likely to happen, or we could easily imagine happening. So it's very easy to extend a conversation that's rooted in public or current events and carry that conversation forward into the world of a novel.And I will tell you, Michael, that a few weeks ago I convened a public panel with several other people who are storytellers in different fields to talk about the power of story to promote civic engagement and help us promote mutual understanding.And it was a very powerful conversation and my novel was in the mix, but it was also alongside journalism and public policy and advocacy and, and theater making and other forms of storytelling. And I think that speculative work lends itself particularly well to these conversations because it's not so far removed from the real world.

Right, I agree with that. I think that, yeah, what an amazing opportunity that is. On that same note, what does speculative fiction teach us about identity and belonging?Because, you know, it, at least we'll stop there. What does it teach us about identity and belonging?

Well, I guess I. My. The way I would answer that comes out of my own exploration of these sort of speculative themes.And I think it raises profound questions about how would I behave in this situation, in these difficult circumstances in the world of this book, how would I behave? And so it's an opportunity for a reader to project themselves into a story that's not real.And yet you can bring your whole self into that world and think about how you might react and how people you know might react.And that just builds bridges between the world of the imagination and the real world and gives us a lot to think about, which I think is the fun about reading is that we come away with things to. To think about and to ponder.

I agree. On that same note, how do you. How do you think imagined world shape real world empathy?I mean, we talked about it throughout this conversation, that it gives us, from what we've started to talk about, gives us the opportunity to understand or be empathetic or compassionate from those perspectives. How do you think that plays into that?

I think that it's so important to write books where there's the capacity for empathy between the reader and the character, or maybe in a way between whatever the author is sort of trying to get across and the reader. Because empathy is the bridge to understanding, isn't it?And so in a book like 10 City Like Mine, there's a character who had spent decades as a cashier in a grocery store and she was not really able to put money by because that wasn't, you know, it's a fairly low, low wage job.And when she loses that job and, and ends up after a time homeless, I think that a reader can feel enormous sympathy and empathy for what she's going through.Even if in the real world, you know, you go into that grocery checkout line and you're not thinking about that person who's, you know, ringing up her groceries at all.When you sit down to read that novel and that character comes to life for you, maybe you go back to the store and you look at the real cashier a bit differently. And that's the kind of empathetic bridge building that I love to see between fiction and the real world.

That's brilliant, actually. That's very brilliant. Brilliant. You get to put a real face on someone that you may not have before because nobody knows.I have had people that I have gone to the grocery store or another store and they're happy, they're doing their job. And then this is while I was still working on the job.And then two nights down the road I find them sleeping in their car situation, which never knew, but, you know, they presented the happy go lucky face and in the store that I was in and you would never know, you know, and it gives you a different perspective on even that. Storytelling in a fractured culture. What do you believe is the future of storytelling?

Oh, storytelling is baked into the human condition. It's baked into the way we communicate.And although the tools to tell stories are constantly evolving, I mean, when you look at what's happened in the online culture, I mean, I fully believe that someday there probably will be, you know, holographic technologies that are profound storytelling mechanisms. So the tools are always going to change. But storytelling is with us for as long as they're going to be human beings.I mean, we were just, it's just, it's just part of who we are biologically and communally, and it's part of how we survive.

I agree with that. What do you hope readers take away? Let me, let me think about this question.What do you hope readers will take with them after experiencing your work?

All of my work in all the different genres I write in has common threads running throughout it about social justice, about powerlessness, about who makes decisions and how those decisions affect other people, and about what we owe to one another really as sort of ethical human beings. And so anyone who reads a book of mine.I hope that some of those things come through and they find themselves thinking about them one way or the other.

I agree with that. I would hope that as well. I always ask this question. I call it the almost question.What's the future you're most afraid we might actually be heading towards?

War, famine, ecological collapse, disunity, greater distrust, and the breakdown of political community and the rule of law.

That's a lot to take in. But I am with you on that walk. I would believe the same thing.I think that we really have to be cognizant of what's happening in and around us right now. I'd probably have a better understanding of the what ifs and kind of prepare a little bit for that.How can people find your books and your works and your poetry? We didn't get a chance to talk about your poetry and all that.

Yeah. The greatest place to start is really just my author website, which is AmyWrites Live.It's a M Y W R I T E S dot Live L I V E. That's pretty much the window onto my soul, more or less. And you can get from there to almost anywhere.

And they can find your book there.

You can find all my books there. And I welcome people to visit my substack. You can find those links there as well.And to my nonfiction book, Coaching Business, and more than you ever want to know about me, you can find it all on the website.

That's brilliant. And I'll make sure there's a link there. Everybody can just click and follow it and it'll take them right to it.And you have another book coming out pretty soon, don't you?

I don't have a pup date yet, so I think it might not be until next calendar year. But yes, I'm excited about that one as well.

Well, you have to come back and share that with us.

I'd be happy to.

Yeah. I always do. One more thing before you go. So one more thing before we go. Words of wisdom.When you look at your work, your imagination, your warnings, your hope. What's that? One more thing you want people to know before they go. Words of wisdom.

We need to continue to create a world where people read and where they read outside their own lived experiences.And so I want to see people, and young people in particular, continue to be connected to books and to the world of ideas and to ideas that challenge their own thinking. I think that's the way civilization is going to move forward, and we really need it.

Brilliant. Words of wisdom, Amy. Thank you for reaching out. Thank you for sharing your journey and your wisdom and your work with us.I appreciate you very much for being part of this community and part of the world.

Thank you Michael. It's really been a pleasure.

That's a wrap for today's episode. If this conversation opened your mind or stirred something in you, share it with someone who needs it.You can find us on Apple, Spotify or your favorite listening platform and hover to YouTube. You can catch the full video version there. In the meantime, have a great day, have a great week and thank you for being a part of our community.Until until next time, I'm Michael Hurst and this is One more Thing before you go. Thanks for listening to this episode of One more Thing before you Go.