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Hey everybody, it's Meredith.
So years ago I was on the island of Nantucket, a place I have not been many times, despite living pretty close.
Nantucket is a very insular place with a lot of beautiful old homes and Adirondack chairs and wealth that I could never imagine.
And I always felt a little bit scared of Nantucket because...
It just seemed to be this incredibly small community of fancy people or people who worked there for the fancy people.
And I just I don't know.
It just seemed like a party I might not be invited to.
But anyway, I went to Nantucket as part of a film festival, as part of my job.
And I had gotten into a fight with a friend.
He was really going through a bad time in his life and said some mean things.
And I started to cry.
I was a little bit in tears.
I was on a bench looking into the sea, the ocean.
Maybe I was just going to get on a sailboat and cry it all away.
And as I was crying and looking into the water in this gorgeous place, all of a sudden I thought oh my God, I'm doing it.
I'm a character in an Ellen Hildebrand novel.
And for those who don't know, Ellen Hildebrand novels, many of them take place on Nantucket.
Not all of the characters are crying and out of a fight, but there's a lot of drama on a small island.
Where you can be trapped in the best and the worst.
I bring all of this up because today's episode is a bonus interview with me and Ellen Hildebrand.
I wanted to share this interview because we spoke as part of something called Globe Summit, where people were talking about revolutionary ideas, because it's the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.
And while talking about Nantucket and Adirondack chairs may not seem revolutionary, what Ellen was really talking to me about is the revolutionary way we can tell stories and also, for her, how to revolutionize your career and your personal sense of self.
Ellen's claim to fame is writing books about one island.
And pretty recently she said, I'm not going to do that anymore.
And in some ways, as she'll explain, it's the end of a marriage.
Like sometimes we have a marriage with a place or a career or a path.
And she kind of turned it on its head and said what if I didn't write books about Nantucket anymore, even though that's what everybody wants from me?
So I wanted to share this as a bonus interview with you, because I think the way Ellen talks about an island is kind of how we talk about past relationships and current relationships.
I think you're going to love this.
And worth noting.
We did this event at the House of Blues in Boston, where I once saw Ellen, two members of NSYNC perform their first solo albums.
So just put that in context as you imagine it.
We were on a stage at a music venue, and it was a lot of fun.
Now for a conversation about love, writing, and stories with me and Ellen Hildebrand.
I always wanted to play House of Blues.
Now here I am.
I always wanted to be an opening act at the House of Blues, so I feel like this works really well.
Thank you all for coming.
Thank you for being part of a great event that just brings together a lot of people in the city that I often hear about but don't get to actually see.
And thank you to Ellen, who's going to talk to us about writing and books and setting.
So there are some you know, usually you do book events where there are a zillion fans who love these books.
And there might be people in the room who very much do but for some people in this room they might be just opening up their eyes to a world that they can live in.
So when you're at a dinner party and people don't automatically know who you are because I assume many people do how do you introduce yourself about your line of work?
I mean, I tend to say, if it's like a bunch of dudes, I tend to say you know, I write novels and they say oh, anything I would have read.
Now, I have a 7% male readership.
So I normally say, probably not.
I write beach novels set on Nantucket.
And then I say, they're wildly popular.
You should read one.
I do like that.
As someone who loves reading stories about women and loves reading stories in general and also loves love, is there a theme here?
I think about all of your books together, especially your book Set in Nantucket as a love letter to Nantucket.
And I think of it as almost like a portrait of a long marriage to an island.
And when I was messaging Ellen about what we'd talk about today, I kept thinking this is like Fran Lebowitz with New York.
This is like Ben Affleck with Boston.
This is like Matt Damon with Boston.
And I think about you and Nantucket.
And can you talk a little bit about your relationship to this island as a narrative inspiration and how your perception of it has changed over the years?
Yeah.
I mean, I love the idea of Nantucket and I being married because that means one of my marriages would have succeeded.
And it has.
And I do think when I'm buried I will feel like when my life is over I will say the great love affair of my life was with Nantucket.
I love it so much.
I got to Nantucket in the summer of 1993.
I was living in New York City.
I was teaching English.
I had taught the year before in the New York City public schools.
And then I got a job teaching in Westchester County.
I had the summer off.
I'm like, I am going to Nantucket.
Now, what you have to remember about 1993 is the way I got a place to live in Nantucket is.
I called the Inquirer Mirror, which is Nantucket's newspaper, and I asked them to send me the classified page in the mail.
Six days later it arrived.
And then I called from my landline I mean, this is before the internet and I found a room in a house and I can remember when the ferry pulled into the harbor I will paraphrase John Denver and said it was like coming home to a place I'd never been before.
I fell madly in love with Nantucket.
And I have lived there for 32 years.
I gave birth to my children at the hospital.
They went to the public schools.
I, you know, got married, got divorced, had cancer, like did all of these things, and they all happened on Nantucket.
And there are times, I mean, Nantucket is a place that has a split personality, right?
In the summer I could go out seven nights a week.
Just so much going on, more going on than I can possibly participate in.
But my life is frantic.
And then in the winter, it closes down and it's very quiet and introspective.
The thing I love the best about Nantucket is the community.
The people that live there are people who don't mind living 30 miles out to sea.
One of the bad parts of my marriage with Nantucket is, of course, getting on and off the island in the winter.
I mean everybody that lives there will tell you like you've been stuck on the island.
You've been stuck off the island.
If it's windy, the boats won't go.
If it's foggy, the planes won't go.
So it's challenging from that perspective.
But I absolutely love it, and it has been such an amazing muse for me.
The theme of this year's Globe Summit is about revolutionary changes, revolutionary growth.
I remember being in the House of Blues before it was the House of Blues.
I remember being on the street when it was looking entirely differently and I want to be part of all of these changes and revolutions that Boston experiences and that we experience personally.
When I think about you, I think about someone who fairly recently had a revolutionary change in your career in terms of what you were writing about.
And I wonder if you could talk about what it's like to come off the island for inspiration and to take a look at a whole new setting and way of thinking.
I mean, I think, the revolutionary thing, if you look at my career as a whole, the revolutionary thing that I did was in 2024.
Last year I opted to retire from the Nantucket Beach book.
So I had been doing a Nantucket Beach book every summer since 2000 and people came to expect it and my publisher was more than willing to give me a four book deal, a six book deal, whatever I wanted.
And I said no because I was adamant that I didn't want the books to lose the quality.
I knew that I was coming to the end.
Nantucket is four miles wide and 13 miles long.
I had written every possible story that I could see writing.
I didn't want to repeat myself.
And although there was an enormous amount of money on the table for me to stay and keep doing it, I said to myself the legacy of my career comes first.
I want to make sure that these books are all as good as people want them to be.
And so I am going to stop a very successful business plan in the name of my own legacy.
And ironically or happily, I guess my daughter was going to boarding school and her time at boarding school was so crazy and dramatic that together she and I decided I said do you want to write a novel about what's happening at your boarding school?
And she was like, yeah, don't tempt me with a good time, yeah.
So we wrote a book, we wrote a novel together called The Academy, which came out in September.
So although my Ellen Hildebrand fans were upset that they didn't have a summer book, they only had to wait 60 days until my novel, The Academy, came out.
And it is interesting because it first of all, I want to ask you about writing a book with the person who you also, I'm sure, have had arguments with and have not always seen eye to eye but family.
Imagine writing a book with family.
So tell me about that.
So when we started, Shelby was either 16 or 17 and I thought I would be in charge because I was the person that had written at that point, you know, 29 novels.
Turns out I was not really in charge.
And one of the revolutionary things that's happening in this book is, of course, it is a Gen Z voice.
She, Shelby, just turned 20.
She is an absolute member of her generation in that she speaks a different language, she thinks a different way.
So...
One of the funniest things about writing this novel with her was when I would give her my pages to edit and she would give me her notes.
And it was like, cringe, cringe, cringe, cringe.
Take this whole paragraph out.
Mom, I can barely read.
This is so embarrassing.
Just because I was apparently so off base when I was writing about my teenage characters.
More with Ellen and me when we come back.
Thank you.
Thank you.
The hosts, Nick Layton and Leah Bonnema, answer listener questions about real-life situations like what to do when someone never RSVPs, whether it's rude to ask for a doggy bag, or when you should actually speak up about a social misstep.
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Now back to the interview.
I want to talk about the perception of these stories, all the stories you've written.
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of handing the Literary Lights Award to you that is given by the Associates of the Boston Public Library.
And I had a moment with myself, before you received the honor, where I thought well, this feels very good, because so often literature is perceived a certain way, it's defined a certain way.
We are now in a renaissance of you know, a world that's accepting romance novel bookstores, seeing the money behind women, buying stories about women.
They don't have to be romance novels.
But there was a time, like in my childhood, where you had to be like having a hardship, a definite hardship as a woman character to be considered literary important.
Can we just have, like, a status check about how we're doing?
Because I hope there's a point where I don't have to ask this question, where stories about women, where they get to be happy and do cool things, aren't belittled, where they're not talked down about.
I wondered, actually, like, when you hear beach read, do you feel good about that term?
Is my feeling strange about it my own internalized misogyny?
Where do you think we are?
So that's a lot of material there to cover.
Yeah, yeah.
This is the kind of thing I talk to my therapist about.
I have opinions about all of it.
I have opinions about all of it.
So as far as being called a beach read for years and years, I embraced it because it was a marketing tool, right?
And that is how I sold books.
That's why I'm sitting here.
I became popular because the marketing of the beach read.
Is there a way in which and I talked to John I have a podcast called Books, Speech and Beyond and we had John Grisham on?
John Grisham is an excellent example.
I asked him, did he ever feel trapped by his own success?
Because there is a way in which I have been hobbled by my own success, because I write Nantucket Beach books right.
And people don't really want... to hear from me otherwise.
And so I asked John Grisham, and he said, oh, yeah.
He goes, I want to write other kinds of books.
He's written books about football and baseball.
And he goes, but everybody wants a legal thriller.
And so he feels like he has to deliver a legal thriller every other year.
And he definitely feels like a little pigeonholed.
And there are times when I also feel that way.
John Gershom also said during that podcast, he said, and women now own the bestseller list.
And that is correct.
When I started in this business, it was very challenging to get noticed.
I'm friends with a writer named Jennifer Weiner, who some of you may know, and she really championed, especially with the New York Times, women writers getting reviewed and taken seriously.
And it used to be called Chiclet, that Chiclet would be covered by the mainstream media.
And now, Genre is so popular.
I just did last week, an event at Love Struck Books in Cambridge and I was amazed at the enormous number of readers of romance romanticy, and then you know even books like I write, like the beach books.
And so I am extremely heartened by the direction that women's stories are going.
Makes me feel better to hear you say all of that.
I want to talk about TV, because we have to.
A lot of authors are asked at book events, who would play your characters?
Or what would you picture?
And I think a lot of the authors are thinking, I should be so lucky.
That might not happen.
What would it feel like?
You've seen this.
You've seen it happen.
Tell me about your adaptation life and is it all what authors dream of it being?
Well, I mean, Hollywood is a cruel mistress.
I started writing, my first book came out in 2000.
I got The Perfect Couple adapted.
It came out in 2024.
I waited 24 years, basically raised an entire family, did all of these things before anything made it to the screen.
And every single time I did an event, someone would raise their hand and say well, When are we gonna have a movie?
And I didn't have an answer.
I credit Big Little Lies with really bringing women's novels like the IP of women's novels to the screen.
Big Little Lies was such an enormous success, and that paved the way.
Literally the day after it won all the Emmys, my phone started ringing.
People wanted to start optioning my books.
Then once they option your book, that does not mean it's going to get made.
It has to go through 15 million steps to get made, and then sometimes it gets made and it doesn't get made.
Well,
One of the places where I have been extremely lucky was with The Perfect Couple, and it had a bizarre trajectory that I do not have the time to go into now, but it ended up with an incredible director, Susanna Beer, and because Susanna Beer was directing, Nicole Kidman wanted to be in it.
And then once Nicole Kidman wanted to be in it, everybody else wanted to be in it.
So we have Liev Schreiber and Eve Hewson and Megan Fahey and all of this incredible cast.
Then, because it was such a huge hit, I then got a second show greenlit, which is The Five Star Weekend.
It's coming out from Peacock this spring, and that has Jennifer Garner in it.
And Jennifer Garner and Chloe Sevigny and Regina Hall and Gemma Chan, and this incredible again, such an elevated cast.
And so the one place where I've been very lucky, I guess, is that I didn't get an offer from the Hallmark Channel for my first or second book and go that route.
Like I waited until the opportunities in Hollywood were really perfect.
I'm looking at audience questions.
Do you find writing about Nantucket makes it hard to live up to the idealized version you write of?
Like, do you view it as truly more perfect than fiction?
I think meaning, you know.
That is the greatest question because the answer is Nantucket never disappoints.
Never.
I have never had.
I mean I have women from across the country come visit at all different times of year.
Never once has someone said, it's not as good as it looks in your books, because it is that good.
And that is really sort of.
Maybe the secret sauce to all of my writing is I am writing about a place that is so unique and different from everywhere else and sort of the gold standard bearer.
It is the most beautiful summer resort in the world.
This is a question that would very much come into the love letters column, so it's my favorite.
Love is the most revolutionary act there is or ever could be.
What would you say to a jaded heart looking for love, for romance in this day and age?
Okay, that person is me.
What would I say?
This is what I would say honestly, and this is advice that you'll get elsewhere too.
Focus on yourself.
Right, and if you're true to yourself and you focus on yourself and you fall in love with yourself, then you will find love.
That is what I think.
You have to love yourself first.
This is a great question.
I know we probably, every panel, every conversation in these two days could absolutely involve AI.
Has there been a difference in the publishing world since you started, especially with streaming the internet and AI?
Do you like AI?
I mean I'm in a lawsuit against AI and I am gonna win everybody.
All the authors are gonna win because basically what the AI one particular AI company called Anthropic has used 25 of my novels to teach AI how to write a novel.
And it's another reason why I'm kind of glad I'm retiring, because that part of it is scary where you can just type into chat GBT, write an Ellen Hildebrand novel, and they could probably do a half-decent job.
So it is scary.
The biggest change that I've seen with my novels is the emergence of audio.
So I have an incredible narrator.
She's a Broadway actress.
Her name is Erin Bennett.
She does all of my books.
I've been very sure certain dedicated to using her at every time, because what you find is that a lot of people who are busy are listening to the books on their phone and they become very attached to the narrator.
So I've used her, I use her for all of my books and she's amazing.
That's one of the main.
I mean, we've been up and down with eBooks, up and down with hardcovers paperbacks whatever, but audio is really the emerging market.
We have to wrap up, but I have one final question.
When I originally reached out to you, you mentioned you were on deadline.
Everybody in this room has deadlines, one kind or another.
Do you have one tip for those who are working and writing on deadline to get going to make it happen?
I mean, all I can say is it's pure discipline because nobody wants to sit down and do their work.
You have to be, there are days, you know, it's like exercise.
Nobody wants to exercise.
And the first thing I do every single day is I get up and I exercise.
And that sets me up for success for the rest of the day.
Thank you, Ellen.
Thank you for coming today to Globe Summit.
Thank you all for asking good questions.
And I assume that if you do a Google, if you go to any independent bookstore, you will find a bunch of lovely novels.
And the next one will be released?
September 2026.
Thank you all.
Thank you, Meredith.
Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed the interview.
Please know this is a great time to send a letter to the Love Letters advice column.
Early in the year when it's a little chillier, people can feel weird and lonely.
And when you share a question that's on your mind about relationships friendships romance, anything you actually help others feel less like they're the only one with the same question.
You can send your anonymous question to lovelettersatbostoncom and absolutely pick a fun sign-off name like Situation Shipped in Savannah or Married in Michigan.
Or if you're down the street, Bewildered in Boston.
I'll be reading.
See you soon.
