It's All Write to Take Your Time

In the season finale, we chat with bestselling novelist, Dawnie Walton, about how her journalism background inspired the unusual structure of her first novel, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev. She digs into how she developed the many voices in the novel by finding the characters' syntax, deciding how they would curse, and listening to hours of The Dick Cavett Show. She talks about the challenges of writing her second book and the benefits of working with a wonderful editor. And she shares the one workshop note that changed everything! 

Stay tuned for Season 2 in spring 2026!

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Dawnie Walton is a writer, editor, and author of the award-winning novel The Final Revival of Opal and Nev, named one of the best books of 2021 by The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, and former U.S. President Barack Obama, among others. Her work explores identity, place, and the influence of pop culture. Formerly an editor at Essence and Entertainment Weekly, she has received fellowships from MacDowell and Tin House, and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (where she has since taught a fiction seminar). In partnership with acclaimed writer Deesha Philyaw and Longreads founder Mark Armstrong, she is the co-founder of Ursa Story Company, a podcasting and storytelling venture, and co-hosts and produces its shows. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Oxford American, Bon Appetit, NPR, and Lithub. Born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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Buy The Final Revival of Opal and Nev on Bookshop.org or at your local bookshop.

Pre-Order Meryl's debut novel What You Should Worry About at Bookshop.org or  Barnes & Nobles (coming out summer 2026)!

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Follow us on Instagram @itsallwritepod. And send us a note at itsallwritepod@gmail.com.

Transcript

Dawnie: 0:00

If you like writing, if you like wrestling with questions, if you don't mind that things take time. If you allow yourself to sit with something, if the questions at the heart of your work are ones that are fascinating to you, it's fun.

Ariana: 0:26

Hello. I'm Ariana McLean.

Meryl: 0:28

And I'm Meryl Branch McTiernan

Ariana: 0:30

and this is our season finale of It's All Right.

Meryl: 0:34

A podcast about the writing life and those who live it.

Ariana: 0:37

Today in the studio we have Dawnie Walton. Hi. Welcome.

Dawnie: 0:43

I am so excited to be here.

Ariana: 0:44

Yay. We're excited to have you. Dawnie Walton is a Brooklyn based author of the multi award-winning novel, the Final Revival of Opal and Nev. Among other accolades. Her debut novel was long listed for the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction, and was named one of the best books of 2021 by the Washington Post NPR and former US President Barack Obama. Woo hoo. Woo. She is the co-founder and editorial director of Ursa Story Company and Audio production venture celebrating underrepresented voices and co-hosts. It's podcast, Ursa Short Fiction with Deisha Philia, one of my favorite podcasts. Yay. Also Dawnie was formerly an editor at Essence and Entertainment Weekly. She is currently an assistant professor of creative writing at Stony Brook University. And her second novel is forthcoming from Pamela Doman books. Welcome to the podcast. How is it being on, you're not on the editorial or pro producer side. You are a guest. I know.

Dawnie: 1:51

I don't know if I'm sweating'cause I'm wearing this sweater or because I'm a little bit nervous.

Ariana: 1:56

Oh no, don't be nervous.

Dawnie: 1:57

We're cash. We're

Ariana: 1:58

cat.

Dawnie: 1:58

Okay. Okay. Okay.

Ariana: 2:01

Yeah, so where should we begin? We have so much to talk about. Do we, are you comfortable talking about your forthcoming novel? Sure. What are you working on?

Dawnie: 2:10

It's funny you should ask right now because I just got my edits back.

Ariana: 2:13

Ooh.

Dawnie: 2:14

Which is like a very exciting moment for this novel. It's something I actually started writing when I was in grad school, when I was taking a break from Opal and Nev, and it started out as a short story, as a scene in a restaurant, a disastrous dinner between four characters. And the characters wouldn't really let me go. So I started thinking more about the women in the pair and creating a history for them. So it's a friendship novel. It is another two timeline thing, which I can't seem to commit to a single timeline. This one takes place part of it in the nineties when there are college students together at an HBCU in South Carolina. And then the other part takes place in New York City. They are best friends all these years later, but their friendship begins to crack under some pressures that are related to one's husband. Yeah. So that's the story. But then it also takes place, there's some stuff on Martha's Vineyard. It's the kind of thing that is going all over the place, but,

Meryl: 3:14

and are you in both of their pov,

Dawnie: 3:16

Both of their POVs so alternating between those two characters. And I'm really excited about it. Really excited to dig back in now that winter break is here from school and I'm just I can't believe I did a second one.

Ariana: 3:32

You Did you always think it was in you or were you like, after Opal and Nev I'm done?

Dawnie: 3:37

No. I always wanted to do another one. But the question is can I, because Opal and Nev was a book that just gripped me really hard and I was really obsessed with it for the time that I was working on it. And so the idea of starting over again again and trying to build up that same kind of obsession felt very intimidating. And then of course it's always like the sophomore novel anxiety that you have about living up to whatever promise people might have seen in the first one and the fact that this book is really different. Right. It's gonna be interesting to see how it all plays out. Yeah.

Meryl: 4:15

One of the things about Opal and Nev that was so interesting is the form. I've never read a book in that form.

Ariana: 4:20

The book is written mostly as an oral history, so we have almost as if you are reading the transcripts of a either a podcast or a documentary. So We just really have these voices that are driving the story. Me and Meryl were trying to figure out how to describe this

Dawnie: 4:37

It's a chorus of voices. A chorus of voices. That's the word poly vocal.

Ariana: 4:42

And then you have these intervals of these editor notes where the journalist is telling her story through her point of view. But those are, I would say, written more traditionally, right? Like, Yes,

Meryl: 4:55

I'm just curious about how you came to it and Yeah. Yeah.

Dawnie: 4:58

I have to thank my past as a journalist. As an editor primarily. When I worked in Entertainment Weekly, we often did these sort of short form oral histories. That was like, it's the 25th anniversary of Say Anything, a movie that we all, you know, love. Let's go back and talk to John Cusack and Ioni Sky and Cameron Crow and the Craft services guy. Like all these random people who were working on the film. And what I always loved about the form was that because it featured celebrities, of course, like they have very colorful voices, but they're also used to. Telling their stories in very particular ways that they can, it's practiced. It's repeated again and again. And so what's really interesting is when you get the side characters, like the random people who are part of the history. And it's also interesting to see how different memories clash, how people remember things differently. And it's very engaging to the reader because the reader is trying to piece together what's actually true, like the actual history between the lines. And so I always loved the form for that. And at the time I started writing Opal and Nev, I had taken a couple creative writing workshops here and there in the City, but I had never really formally studied creative writing. And the idea of coming up with a single narrative voice, like developing, that felt very intimidating to me. And so I just was like, I'm just gonna let these characters talk. Right. And so the first little bit of history that you get in the published novel from Opal is like the first thing I wrote. I just, I was just gonna have her talk about her childhood in Detroit and the little things that were seeds for her to become this cult figure that she becomes, and then I had this image always of also working in entertainment journalism and understanding how things are pitched, right? And so I always think about my work in that way, in a, like imagine Grace Jones and David Bowie made music together in the 1970s, right? And so that was like my first image. And I just started exploding that image and interrogating that image and thinking about what it would mean for a Black woman in this time to be so ahead of her time. And what would have to happen in order for them to be become famous. Like, all of these questions that I was wrestling with. And then suddenly the characters started diverting from that original image. And that's when I was like, oh, this is exciting, this is fun. These people are coming alive in my head.

Ariana: 7:41

Wow. So just a pretty much an a tribute to your vivid imagination Oh, because Yeah.'cause the character's really just pop off the page. And I guess for our listeners how would we describe this book in a couple sentences?

Meryl: 7:57

It's an oral history of a Black woman and a white man who were in a band, I guess a

Dawnie: 8:03

rock band together. Yeah. They um, are duo. They're like an odd couple, like physically. They're very different looking, but they're both weirdos in their own way. They're both misfits in very different ways. They have very different backgrounds, but they connect artistically. And yeah, it's about this very brief moment of fame, or you might even say infamy that they have in 1971, New York City. They only make two albums together and then Nev becomes a huge iconic star and then Opal sort of fades into the background. And so the two timelines in that novel is of course the 1970s and then around the, around 2016 going into the election, the presidential election, where they are, they're having a resurgence a moment. And they are considering reuniting for a big concert and perhaps tour. So there's a journalist character who is, interviewing everybody and has a personal stake in this history. Yeah. And she's a character as well and it's, she has a personal tie and a painful tie to the way in which Opal and Nev become infamous. And so the book is in be getting into all that. Yeah. That is way more than two

Ariana: 9:29

No,

Dawnie: 9:29

I know. It's very complicated though, isn't it?

Ariana: 9:31

that's a great summary.

Meryl: 9:33

Many narrat, how many people would you say are,

Dawnie: 9:36

Oh my God, I don't know. Nobody's ever asked me that, but I should count.

Meryl: 9:40

There's gotta be at least 20, right?

Dawnie: 9:43

Oh yeah. Easily. Easily because there's, there's some characters who just pop in for a brief moment. You know, know,

Meryl: 9:50

I thought it was really cool that you did have some real people like Gloria Steinem in there. How was that? To write for real people.

Dawnie: 9:56

So it was really fun for me because at the time I was drafting it, I was like, oh, I make the rules here. I can do anything I want in this book. When I became nervous about that was when it was going through my publisher and I was like, wait, can I actually do this? And they were like, yeah, it's fine. And I was like great. do it. Because I think mostly, I was thinking about, there's one exception, which I'll talk about, but in that section of the book, I was mostly thinking about women who would've been inspired by Opal or in conversation in some way with Opal. And so women who are very outspoken, very political, a bit controversial, like all of those things. And so I was writing about them in a positive way. There was one that I was nervous with, you know, um, Quentin Tarantino has a moment to say something and that was interesting. But

Meryl: 10:43

I feel like he likes being in

Dawnie: 10:45

controversial. Yeah. I think so too.

Meryl: 10:47

One thing I was thinking is like, for most of it, you don't actually have to like, get anywhere and get any characters anywhere or set anything. Physically I still felt be maybe because of the voices or what they were saying, like I knew where they were, but was that like nice to just get to the meat and

Dawnie: 11:06

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And now that now that I'm writing, of course you have the journalist character in the book who's adding the context and setting things up in a way through those editor's notes and little italicized sections. But she can be very direct, right? Yeah. And in a more traditionally written novel I mean, what is it the famous Virginia, I think it's Virginia Wolf quote, where she's asked, oh, how was your writing today? And she says, it was great. I got the characters from the parlor to the kitchen, right? had to do I never had to do that. Very difficult, like figuring out blocking and action and all of those things. So it was great to just, as you say, get to the meat. Now that I'm writing a more traditional narration that is definitely something like the writing process I found was like a lot harder than it was with Opal and Nev because The challenge there was just getting the voices right and differentiating them enough. My goal was for the reader to be able to, once they're really stuck into it, to turn to a page and plop their finger down and know who was talking just based on the syntax and the vocabulary and things like that. And that was like a really fun challenge to give myself. And I love voices. Yeah. And I love larger than life characters and all of those things. So that was really fun and felt a lot less like work, and that's not to say that I haven't, like I've loved the process of writing this new book, but it was just a lot more challenging. It really forced me to be a better writer in some ways. And to show my growth.

Meryl: 12:38

Right. You're not a one trick pony. You're

Dawnie: 12:40

totally.

Meryl: 12:41

so did you like listen to recordings or of anyone or anything to inspire you for the voices, or did they all just come from your head?

Dawnie: 12:47

No I actually watched a lot of YouTube clips from talk shows in the seventies. Oh.

Ariana: 12:54

fun talk

Dawnie: 12:55

shows. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I, there is a moment in the book that takes place on the Dick Cavett show and I watched a lot of Cavett clips.

Meryl: 13:05

That was so fun. I remember that part. Yeah, that was

Dawnie: 13:06

great. Yeah. And then I watched a lot of of videos from Birmingham, where Nev is from to understand like the distinct voices from there. Opal was interesting because I just felt like that was in me a bit. She grows up in Detroit, but her roots are in Alabama. I'm also Southern, so I was just thinking about my aunt and my mom and, all of those voices. So those came very naturally. But the others was taken from a range of sources. I watched documentaries about the seventies. The documentary actually, Summer of Soul came out after Opal and Nev, but at the time I watched it was like, this would've been great Yeah. To watch as a source of research. But yeah, it was a lot of listening and understanding how much edgier showbiz was at time. It was, yeah.

Ariana: 14:05

Yeah.

Dawnie: 14:05

Yeah

Ariana: 14:06

We've become a lot more polished.

Dawnie: 14:08

Oh my gosh. And Cavett would bring together really disparate people, so you'd have John Lennon chain smoking on stage and James Baldwin and some other random person. It was just like very provocative. Always.

Meryl: 14:24

This might be controversial, but I just, I wanna bring it up. So I feel like there is a sense from, especially I'm seeing like from younger writers now that it's offensive to have accents on the page or anything that's not polished, standard English or whatever.'cause, and I hate that because I like to write different accents and different voices and I actually feel like you are not giving those people a voice if you don't have immigrant accents or just different dialects. Have you run into this at all? And what would you say if you did?

Dawnie: 14:55

I I think it's all about what I tried to focus on more than anything was not, like not trying to transcribe the actual like misspelling the words in order to get at the way that the word sounds more, it's more about syntax. It's more about how people put words together. If that makes any kind of sense. And that's how I tried to get at the accents. I think basically if you do anything after a while, if you do the thing where you're like cutting off the GS and like doing an Right, right, right, that gets annoying and tiresome so I think what you wanna do is really just get at the color in the voice, the texture of the voice Vocabulary choice. Was a really big step in me understanding and differentiating the characters understanding. One exercise I did I didn't type this on the page or anything, but I thought about it, which is how would each of these characters curse, What. What would

Meryl: 15:57

offensive from their

Dawnie: 15:58

as well. Yeah. What would Virgil never say? And he'd actually doesn't curse at all. To what things does Opal say? What does the label head Howie Kelly how does he string together profanities? Was very helpful. So you think about more things like that, how the sentences are put together and the vocabulary choice.

Ariana: 16:20

If we switch to your writing now either with the book you're writing or anything sorry, editing. You're at the editing stage revising and any of your other work, do you find yourself still focused on voice? Is that still a driving factor in

Dawnie: 16:35

Oh, absolutely. This new novel is written in an alternating close third to each of the women. So it was it's tricky because you have to develop a single narrative voice, but you also, you still have dialogue. You still have the women talking you have those moments where you're so deep into their interiority that you're transcribing their thoughts directly on the page. And so those are things that you still have to think about the different characters' voices, even if you choose a POV that's more distanced than basically what Opal and Nev was, which was a first person, all the way through. So it just it's like more complicated

Meryl: 17:19

right? It's what do they notice? What are they thinking about?

Dawnie: 17:22

Totally. So it's about not only understanding their voice, but their perspectives. I love a good challenge, right? Even though there are moments where I'm like, why am I doing this to myself? And it's, I think first person is a voice that in the past has come like very naturally for me. And it's easier for me to get at that perspective. But with the third, I think it really made me work a lot harder for this book in a way that now that the book has a shape, now that I see the full story together, I feel really proud of it in a way, in a different kind of way than I felt proud of Opal and Nev, Right. Opal and Nev I was proud because it was like, okay, debut my first book. Like I did it Woo. Like when you finish something and you're like, wow, I actually did that. That's a particular kind of pride. And then I was also proud of Opal and Nev in the sense that it felt deeply personal to me. It was centered on some obsessions of mine. And I felt like I put it all on the page. This book felt in a way, more like fiction because it there are some things that I share in common with these women who are the, characters in this book, but I'm really different from them in other ways. They were harder to access. And so it was fun trying to understand the choices they make and really get into why they do the things they do. And it's like, it was really hard, but it was also fun. If you like writing, if you like wrestling with questions, if you don't mind that things take time. If you allow yourself to sit with something, if the questions at the heart of your work are ones that are fascinating to you, it's fun.

Meryl: 19:28

Yeah. So I recently started a second book, or really a third'cause I have the first one that's unpublished, but and it's the first that thing that I'm writing in a really long time that isn't from a point of view that is mine. Yeah. I'm writing from like a mother married in the suburbs and I'm a little bit afraid, like I only have seven pages, but they went over pretty well in workshop of having a character think things that I don't think, oh, I know. and Do things that I wouldn't do.

Dawnie: 19:55

Oh my God. I know. Yeah.

Meryl: 19:56

I know. Yeah. So that's, yeah. Okay. That's just something to get over or just to

Ariana: 20:00

enjoy it.

Dawnie: 20:02

Enjoy it. And especially when those things that they do are like horrible.

Meryl: 20:06

Right. You're like, you want them to do horrible things, but you don't want them to think that you would do those.

Dawnie: 20:12

exactly. and that's something I thought about a lot with this novel is I'm scared that people are gonna think that I'm this character, right. And I'm not, right. But. I think it's a very relatable fear that a lot of writers have. I think it can be inhibiting in the writing process, and so I think it's all about just getting all that horribleness and things that need to happen because the bad behavior is the plot. Right? Right. That's plot. Is that was something I have to give credit to one of my professors at Iowa for that, Ethan Canaan, who really blew my mind with that saying, because you can't really teach plot too much. Like you can touch on it, you can do like freight tags, pyramid and blah, blah, blah, blah. But at its simplest plot is bad behavior.

Meryl: 21:03

Right? You

Dawnie: 21:04

need it and you have to follow the bad behavior. Right. And so the key is to not be inhibited in the drafting and then maybe when you go back and revise, it's about tempering things a little bit. Or if you understand the character better, by the end of the novel, by the end of the draft it becomes more gray I find that happens a lot in my own process. Things start black and white for me and then they get a lot stickier.

Meryl: 21:35

How is it working with your editor? How much are they involved and helpful

Ariana: 21:40

is it the same

Dawnie: 21:41

editor? I have a different editor. Okay. For this novel. And she's wonderful. Her name is Seema Mahanian. And we actually began working together when this novel was a partial. And so I had maybe about a third of it written. And she loves this project. She understands this project. And what was so great about working on the partial with the editor is that they really help you. Like she wrote me this great it was maybe like, how long was that letter? It was maybe like 13 pages of what she thought of the current pages and how she saw the novel developing. And in that letter, I saw, not only were we aligned, but she had really great thoughts about how to get to where we both wanted the novel to go. And so I use that letter as a guide as I was writing it helped me finish the novel. And now that I have notes back, I'm so excited about, digging back in. And it's so interesting. I think when you know you have a good editor, and this is true also of finding your reader in a workshop, right. I think in your gut as a writer, you know the problem areas. When you have a draft, you're like, I don't know if this little part of it is gonna go over. I don't know if this flies, but let's see. Right. And then, Yeah. Yeah. see. And invariably these are parts where Seema was like, maybe we can trim this back a little bit. You know what I mean? So I feel like we are very aligned and I feel I feel very excited to be working with her. Yeah. Yeah.

Meryl: 23:24

That's a really nice thing about a second book that you have. You're not in the wilderness

Dawnie: 23:28

alone. Yep. Absolutely. Although in some ways you are though it it depends on. What your background is like. We all went to MFA programs. Right. And so I don't know if you were workshopping your novel Meryl,

Meryl: 23:46

I'm workshopping all the time. Like my whole

Dawnie: 23:47

life is workshoped. Yeah, Yeah. But Opal and Nev was actually pretty heavily big swaths of it were workshopped. Yeah. And so in that sense, I was, I didn't feel like I was working alone. And then I had, it was my thesis, so I had a thesis advisor and all of those things. And so like, when it was done, like it was pretty well together. This one I haven't been in the habit of workshopping or even like trading work'cause this book, I felt a little more nervous about it. Excited, but like more nervous and a little less confident in it. And so I was like, a lot of times just in my own head and figuring it out until it got to the point where I felt confident in it.

Meryl: 24:26

So it was almost

Dawnie: 24:27

more alone actually. It was like a little bit more alone. Yeah. Yeah. I will say a lot fewer people have read this novel than had eyes on Opal and Nev in

Ariana: 24:37

was a little, it's like, it seems like a little bit more precious.

Dawnie: 24:40

Yeah. Yeah.

Meryl: 24:41

Yeah. Yeah.

Ariana: 24:43

Interesting.

Meryl: 24:44

I like, I'm gonna, I'm a workshop addict, but then I feel like I do get an I still haven't learned to ignore certain voices and certain, so I'm like, I keep going back, but then I'm like, you're just gonna say things that Aren don't

Dawnie: 24:57

Yeah. And it can be be like really hard to workshop a novel in progress just because

Meryl: 25:03

you haven't figured it

Dawnie: 25:03

out yet. You know. Yeah, it totally. When I was doing that with Opal and Nev was like getting that feedback, putting it in a drawer until it was time to actually look at it. Except for there was one note I got in workshop that changed everything, Oh. It was just a question that somebody asked. And this was my very first workshop at Iowa and I gave them like the first 25 pages and it was just a straight transcript and somebody said this is really fun and really cool and everything. But I just was wondering who are they talking to? Who's everybody talking to? Yeah.

Meryl: 25:37

Right.

Dawnie: 25:38

And I was like, oh. And it just opened up. And did you

Meryl: 25:43

even know that it was gonna be Jimmy's daughter or that that was a per No.

Dawnie: 25:46

Wow. No. That's crazy. I did have, I had drafted enough, there was one little paragraph of a voice of someone who was Jimmy's daughter who had been put through college by Opal.

Ariana: 25:58

Okay

Dawnie: 25:59

wow. And so, there was something about that one little voice in that one little section, she doesn't appear anywhere else in the book, in that draft. And I was like, it could be her. What if it was her?

Meryl: 26:12

And there's so much stakes in that.

Dawnie: 26:14

It raises the stakes. It creates a new, like a present date timeline, it just did so much for the book. and that's the best workshop note I've ever gotten. That's amazing. Yeah.

Ariana: 26:30

So now you're at Stony Brook. Congratulations.

Dawnie: 26:32

Thanks.

Ariana: 26:33

Exciting. Yes. Yeah. How was the semester?

Dawnie: 26:37

It was good. I taught a class, a workshop dedicated to point of view. Nice. Which I think is one of the most important, if not the most important factors in writing. It's the thing that gives your writing authority.

Meryl: 26:56

Do you think that the young students were able to tap into that?

Dawnie: 26:59

I hope so. One of the things that's very gratifying for me is we did two rounds of workshop this semester, and to see the improvement by the second round was very heartening. Somebody was taking the class as a requirement for, some track they were on and was like, yeah, I didn't really think I was into writing, but I really wanna work on this piece.'Cause we talked about revision toward the end and he really wants to like, continue writing. And so it was cool to give him like, book recommendations and he's very much into horror stuff, so it was like, read this, read that. And then I taught an intro to creative writing and they were just like, they're so young. Oh my god. I had a lot of freshmen in that class and I had them do portfolios at the end their poetry and their, the short story they wrote plus their revision of it and the essay they wrote in the revision of it. And they were so proud and I was so proud of them.'cause they, at the end they had 50 pages of writing that they'd done over the course of the semester and it was like, they were like, I can't believe we did this. That's great. Yeah.

Ariana: 28:08

I really find that fall semester freshmen you see such growth because they are really just school students Yeah. when they show up, they're expecting to be taught like high school And I feel like students are realizing that they can follow their interests for the first time Yeah. A lot of, especially if they have, a lot of these students have come from some sort of family or community where they're really driven to get A's and they're not really focused on Right. They're

Meryl: 28:34

what do you want versus what

Ariana: 28:35

what do you

Meryl: 28:36

getting? It's like, We don't care actually, we want you to write something

Ariana: 28:39

Yeah. And then for writing, you can really get them to talk about themselves and they've never had that opportunity or, use their imagination.

Dawnie: 28:46

Yeah. and in a way that's not like their college essays. Yes. You know? Um, So hopefully they had fun. I had fun with them.

Meryl: 29:00

So when you went into journalism, did you always know that you also wanted to be a creative writer? Was it like a way to Oh, yeah. Okay.

Dawnie: 29:07

On, to be honest with you, I went into journalism because I wanted to be a creative writer and was too afraid.

Meryl: 29:13

That's like why everyone goes into journalism,

Dawnie: 29:16

I know. But it was like, like I'm an older person I graduated college in 97 and at the time it was like, magazines glossies, right. We call them, and oh, like it was so it was fun. glamorous, and cool, of course I didn't, you don't just start at magazines, like I was at newspapers and doing that for some years before I came to New York and got into magazines. But you don't get into journalism now for the money, I will say, or for the glamor or anything like that. But back then it was different.

Meryl: 29:49

And so

Dawnie: 29:50

I think there came a point where this was like 20 12, 20 13 when I quit my job, you start to see the writing on the wall. I think I always did think, oh, I like this well enough. My favorite job ever was at the reimagining, the Digital Reimagining of Life magazine. So it was a digital relaunch online website of photography and writing photo essays tied to anniversaries. And, but there was also a partnership with Getty. And so it was putting history in context and thinking about current events and then that went under. It was devastating And I got another job. But even in that job, when you get high up enough in management, it becomes less about the stories and the writing and more about managing people and headcount and having to lay people off. And it just got really unpleasant and horrible and things that I never imagined that I would be doing. And so it got to a point, my life at the time was, my personal life was also really changing. Everything was seismic at the moment and I was like, I gotta do something different with my life. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, so that's how I ultimately made the pivot and actually ended up getting a residency and it was like i could go for two weeks and take vacation time or I could go for six and quit and not worry about it until I come out Do it for the

Ariana: 31:17

plot, do it for the plot.

Dawnie: 31:20

I did it for the plot. I did the six weeks and then when I was there I learned about MFA programs and the fact that some of them are fully funded,'cause that was mind blowing for me. And so I had that residency in October and by December I was applying for grad schools. And then, yeah, that was journey.

Meryl: 31:41

What would you say is the best thing that you got out of Iowa? Ooh, Ooh. Or

Ariana: 31:48

it's the

Meryl: 31:49

Iowa.

Dawnie: 31:49

Yeah. So here's the thing about that. I am so glad that I went as an older student mm-hmm. that I went. So here's the thing. Okay. So I applied to 11 different programs around the country. I didn't care where I was going as long as I got a chance to go somewhere and have time and space dedicated to this. And when I got into Iowa, I got a email of congratulations from someone that I had met at McDowell of the residency. And she was also an older woman. She was like, oh my God, this is fantastic. This is great. And I wrote her back and I was like, yeah, but I'm like a little bit nervous. Like I hear things, I hear that it's like really this and that. And she wrote back and she goes. Are you serious? Haven't you been working? Haven't you been in the workforce for a while? like how Yeah. How could you, yeah. You know what this is, right? You're not gonna be intimidated. Come on. And I was like, you know what? She's absolutely right. And the fact that I was older, I knew who I was. I went there on a mission. I wasn't partying like I socialized and I made my circle of friends, but I was the oldest student in my class. So I just I wasn't there for the bullshit. And I still made great community. Some of my best friends I made while I was there. It gave me writing community. And but the be the best thing, ah, I have to say just time and support. It is so luxurious and I had to teach my second year, but it was just one class and it was like a dream. It was like, have, after working in media for so long and it being so stressful Right. Like

Meryl: 33:33

I have to read it. Like that's

Dawnie: 33:35

this is a pleasure. And Iowa City is a really quirky, cool town where everyone is obsessed with books. And my favorite thing

Ariana: 33:44

about it

Dawnie: 33:45

about you're like,

Ariana: 33:45

you were like, you literally were like

Dawnie: 33:46

Potter. You went to Iowa. Yes, know, totally. Yeah. And I also. There was like a state-of-the-art gym there,'cause it's like a Big 10 school. And my favorite story to tell about Iowa City was I would go to that gym and there was this older guy there and he was on the weight machine where it's like the pull down bar. And he had a novel open on his lap and was reading while he was doing reps. You know what I mean? And that's what Iowa City is like. It's this tiny little town, but all the literary stars come through. And some of your biggest heroes and the talk backs were epic. It wasn't, What advice would you give? What, it was like in this choice where you chose this point of, it was like very craft based, like meaty, very specific, deep nerdy, craft based talk. And it was just nerd camp. Love it For a couple years. It was wonderful. It was wonderful.

Ariana: 34:48

Was great. Can you talk to us?'cause it seems like you said that you found community at at Iowa, but I've always seen you the way you like whoever you're in conversation with at events on your podcast the ones that you produce and you host. It feels like your community's really rich. Could you speak to what your community means and what they give you? Oh

Dawnie: 35:10

my gosh. So there was a community I made in Iowa and then there was the Black community of writers. Things are a little different now in the industry. When Opal and Nev came out, there was a real hunger for for lack of a better word, marginalized voices black voices specifically. So there was like a whole crop of us who had books out at the same time and we all reached out to each other. Like how I met Deesha Philyaw I just attended one of her online events.'cause this is during COVID lockdown. And during her conversation there was talk about her hometown, which is my hometown. And I didn't know that. Right. And after the event was over, I just dmd her on what was formerly Twitter back before Elon took it over and ruined it. And I was like, Hey, you don't know me. And I have this book that hasn't come out yet, but I just wanted to say I, I'm from Jacksonville too. And then we just started talking like old friends chatting, and since that moment she really looked out for me and connected me to people. And I got an early version of the novel to Robert Jones Jr. Who turned out to be my neighbor. He literally lives a block away and, also works with Deesha. Just the connection between all us writers who were out at the same time and facing the same things and questions and then working on second novel projects at the same time. It just expanded from there. And then, you go to conferences and you meet people and these are the people who become your podcast guests. And Deesha has such a wonderful reputation we've been very lucky in getting people to come on who are really big names and it's just, it's. It's been like really wonderful. For the most part, people are very open arms and it's a good thing because there's such a lack of transparency about publishing in the publishing industry that you really have to ask your friends Hey, did this happen to you? Is this weird? What do you think about this? So it's important for support. It's important for continuing the work. They help keep you sane. They help keep you focused on the things that are important. Yeah. So community's hugely important. I'm very grateful.

Ariana: 37:48

So what else is important or inspiring you right now?

Dawnie: 37:51

I'm very excited to be reading purely for pleasure again. Mm-hmm. Snaps. Just before we started recording, we were out in the bookstore portion of our location here and looking at the books, it's oh, I wanna read that. I wanna read that. I'm excited to read that. When you're teaching, it's just like you're reading in a very targeted way and figuring out texts that are appealing to the students or, fit the theme of what you're doing. But I'm just really excited to be checking out what's out there right now. So that's inspiring, that's exciting. As bad as the news gets, I also find inspiration and rage, which a lot of Opal and Nev was fueled by rage and thinking through those things. So that is a constant, no matter what is happening in the world, I'm always trying to synthesize it and read a lot on certain topics. So that too, and just jumping back into edits. I'm excited for revision. Revision, is the writing really, when you see the thing start to really sharpen up. So I'm excited for the sharpening process. It's all right to take your time. All right. I say that as a late bloomer. Sometimes I'm hard on myself and I think, oh, I wish I had pivoted years ago. But honestly, I don't think I would be the writer I was at any earlier moment And it's also all right to take your time in the actual writing process. Opal and Nev seven years. This one is gonna be about that, by the time it hits shelves. You have to know your story, you have to know your characters, you have to love them. All that stuff

Ariana: 39:57

time. And not to hit the nail on the head, but I feel like that's so important to hear in this'cause the world right now we're living in is fast based. Yeah. And my biggest critique about,'cause I also come from the media industry and my biggest critique on movies and TV shows coming out now on the big streaming sites is they were not worked on enough. I was like, the stories here, this needed another few rounds. To just make it shine Yeah. It seems like folks don't care about that. But then you get these stories, these movies, these gems that, somehow slip in like Sinners for example. Yeah. Like you can tell that this was a work done, this was crafted, Mm-hmm. This wasn't rushed. And not just for our listeners, but like for me, I think it's a reminder too.'cause I'm always trying to rush things. Yeah. Yeah. And I gotta just be like, stop.

Dawnie: 40:47

Totally. And it's hard because you feel I'm thinking about the show Severance, right? Right. Exactly.

Ariana: 40:53

Severance,

Dawnie: 40:54

which is one of the smartest, most brilliant, most thrilling shows out there. There was a lot of pressure for them to hurry up and people were like waiting, for a new season. But they took their time and it shows

Ariana: 41:06

and similarly, the, I was gonna also point out like the youth based, this obsession with youth and but there's so much beauty and I don't know, delicious stories in age. Right? Oh my

Dawnie: 41:17

gosh. Absolutely.

Ariana: 41:19

Absolutely. I had someone who said life is long.

Dawnie: 41:21

Yeah. Hopefully.

Ariana: 41:23

Hopefully. Yeah. God

Dawnie: 41:24

Hopefully life

Ariana: 41:25

is long all right. I think that's a wrap on today. Thank you so much for being here, Thanks for having

Dawnie: 41:32

me. This was great.

Ariana: 41:33

Thank you. you. That's a wrap on season one of It's All right, the podcast about the writing life and those who live it. Follow us on Instagram at, it's all right. Pod right spelled W-R-I-T-E. Email us at it's all right, pod@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Meryl: 41:50

Tell us what you like, tell us what you wanna hear more of. We'd love to hear from our listeners.

Ariana: 41:55

Tune in next year, 2026. We'll be having a season two with more. Thanks for listening.