Dwell in Possibility with Eliese Goldbach
Eliese Goldbach was a part-time seasonal house painter. She had no health care. She felt lost. Then she applied for a job as a steelworker and spent three years stirring molten iron, driving a forklift, and galvanizing metal. She did something completely outside of her comfort zone. And it changed her. It forged her as a human and a writer. It helped her be brave. In this episode, Annmarie and Elise discuss mental health, bravery, and the many paths to hope, possibility, and lasting change.
Episode sponsors:
Literary Cleveland -- where writers can explore other voices and discover their own. Register for classes and find your writing community at LitCleveland.org
The Bookshop in Lakewood, Ohio -- A family-owned and operated bookstore committed to providing new and used titles in house and online. Come visit a Mom and Pop bookshop on Cleveland’s westside.
MindFair Books in Oberlin, OH – mention WILD PRECIOUS LIFE at the checkout for 10% off.
You can find Eliese Goldbach’s first book at an independent bookstore near you.
Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit
The Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Grealy, is another book Eliese recommends.
Here’s the trailer for the 2015 film, The Finest Hours.
Follow Eliese:
Facebook: @eliese-colette-goldbach
Where to Listen
Find us in your favorite podcast app.
Receive Email Updates from Wild Precious Life
Enter your email address to receive the latest show updates in your inbox!
Annmarie Kelly:
Wild Precious Life is brought to you in part by Literary Cleveland, where writers can explore other voices and discover their own. Register for classes and find your writing community at litcleveland.org. And we are brought to you in part by The Bookshop in Lakewood, Ohio, a family owned and operated bookstore committed to providing new and used titles in-house and online. Come visit a mom-and-pop bookshop on Cleveland's west side. I'm Annmarie Kelly, welcome to Wild Precious Life, a podcast about dreaming big and making real connections. In each episode I talk to prize winning writers, musicians, and entrepreneurs who teach all of us how to make the most of the time we have. I've been thinking lately about the way our experiences change us, you go to school and think of yourself as educated, you travel across the country and now you are an explorer, someone who's not afraid to venture into the unknown.
Annmarie Kelly:
Experiences can broaden our sense of who we are and what we are capable of, however, along those same lines especially as we get older, a lot of us narrow our experiences, I am a person who goes to the library, I am not a person who goes dancing. It's good to know ourselves and what we like but I think too many of us shrink what is possible. We decide, I don't hike or kayak or attend the opera or watch monster truck rallies or kiss my husband in the rain and so we get stuck in our thinking, in our living and in our belief about ourselves and what is possible but it doesn't have to be like that. My guest today also found herself stuck, Eliese Goldbach was a part-time seasonal house painter, she had no healthcare, she felt lost. Then she applied for a job as a steelworker and spent three years stirring molten metal, driving a forklift and galvanizing steel. She did something completely outside of her comfort zone and it changed her, it forged her as a writer and it made her brave.
Annmarie Kelly:
When we take risks, jump into cold water or pursue experiences that seem outside of ourselves, we can be changed too, sometimes in ways that are difficult but often in ways that surprise and delight us. I hope you will find inspiration and maybe even a challenge to yourself in today's conversation. Let's get started. My guest today is Eliese Goldbach the author of the 2020 book, Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit. Eliese received a degree in non-fiction from the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program and her writing has appeared in Alaska Quarterly, Western Humanities Review, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Best American Essays. Eliese received the Ploughshares Emerging Writers Award and a Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant which is given to a young Ohio writer of promise. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio. Eliese Goldbach, welcome to Wild Precious Life.
Eliese Goldbach:
Thank you for having me.
Annmarie Kelly:
I read your book which is entitled Rust and I want to talk about being a steelworker, how to make steel, for any of our listeners at home who maybe don't know how to do that, and I want to fan-girl a little bit and just talk about how you're basically my new favorite bad-ass. Then I think we also should talk about the healthcare trifecta but like mental health and physical health and spiritual health. But before we get into all that, I'm going to ask you my new and favorite question lately which is just to make it meandering or make it bullet points but what is your heart story?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah. So I was born and raised here in Cleveland, Ohio, lifelong Clevelander. I just had kind of a very strange upbringing with really loving parents in a very Christian conservative household. Kind of had an array of kind of experiences that eventually brought me to work in a steel mill in Cleveland and that kind of prompted writing this book about my experiences and kind of the things in the past that led me to find myself in the world of steelmaking and big industry.
Annmarie Kelly:
When I was reading a little bit about your childhood, I felt like I was reading it with a little bit of a mirror. I was also raised here in Cleveland, Ohio, I was also raised in a Catholic household and a lot of what you were taught at home resonated with me, I recognized it as a truth of my childhood. As a girl I was taught to be good and kind and full of grace, though I'm going to be honest, I don't think I ever knew what full of grace meant, I learned the prayer, I knew what it was not supposed to be. Full of grace meant you weren't supposed to be outrageous or necessarily ambitious and you probably weren't supposed to get a job in a steel plant, so I don't know, was that your experience too?
Eliese Goldbach:
Definitely was nothing I ever expected for myself kind of growing up. Yeah. And I was taught to kind of be demure and good and always get good grades, always do well in school and things like that. And I had this kind of goal of wanting to become a nun because nuns are like rock stars to kind of young Catholic children, I wanted to be a saint or a martyr because I think I loved the magical world of the Catholic Church and all these miracles and things like that and the ritual. And that was just such an important and huge part of my upbringing that I really kind of latched on to that during my formative years.
Annmarie Kelly:
Yeah. I love the idea of thinking about religion as a child and belief as a child as being full of magic and miracles. I do think that when you talk to young children about God there is a lot of magic there. Why did you want to be a nun?
Eliese Goldbach:
I think because I always wanted to be special and so of course most people get married and have families, not everyone becomes a nun so I think that that was definitely part of it. I felt a strong spiritual connection to whatever is out there and I wanted to help people and do kind of those classic nun things but I also wanted to be on the cover of Time Magazine like Mother Teresa kind of, so a weird mixture of fame and helping people
Annmarie Kelly:
I actually think you've written a pretty amazing book and I found it helpful, I mean, there's still time, you could change your mind and be a nun. But I think behind that the idea of being special and important and loving and being loved, I felt a lot of that in this book. And so you were raised in a Catholic household, did you go to Catholic schools? How were your experiences there?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah, definitely I went through a Catholic K through 12 school. And those experiences were pretty good especially my high school experience I had an all girls Catholic's high school that I made a lot of great friendships and things like that. And then I eventually went to study at a very Catholic university as well so kind of a very Catholic educational path.
Annmarie Kelly:
You talk about in the book though that you didn't stay there for your full-time, you ended up transferring. Did you transfer out for some of the reasons we're talking about with faith shifts and becomes different or did you have other reasons there?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah, I think that was the majority of it that you kind of start to see maybe the flaws in the religion, in the way kind of people interpret things. I started to realize that too, that some of the people around me were maybe not as Christlike as they wanted to portray themselves and things like that and so I think I got disillusioned. Yeah, kind of a lot of different factors kind of going into that decision. And I went to a more liberal college where I got my degree that kind of, yeah, it was really important to me and helped kind of form me as well and show me kind of a different side of things.
Annmarie Kelly:
Do you miss the faith or how has it changed in your adult life? Are you still Catholic?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah, I would still consider myself Catholic and I still go to church here and there and kind of pray and practice some sort of spirituality just because I think that that's a need that I have as a person. But I'm much less dogmatic in my thinking, I don't believe in the same way that I did as a child, I think that there are many paths towards the same end goal. I think that for some reason Catholicism speaks to me most but I think that being Buddhist or Muslim or anything else can also kind of lead us to the same truths and that same kind of enlightenment or whatnot.
Annmarie Kelly:
Yeah. I know we're not supposed to judge a book by a cover but I think it's important. I know this is podcast and people can't see it but I'm going to describe what's on the cover. Actually, well, do you mind? Will you describe what's on the cover? Eliese, what are we looking at on the cover of your book?
Eliese Goldbach:
So yeah. So that is a depiction of a steel mill with kind of the smoke stacks coming up, the steam, just this expansive world where steel is made and kind of a big sky above it.
Annmarie Kelly:
So for people who live here in Cleveland like we do, this is a very familiar site. When you're driving into our downtown on the one side of the highway you'll see the city skyline and on the other side of the highway you will see puffs of smoke, you'll see fire, you'll see smoke stacks and you see this enormous, enormous mill. And when I was reading your book, I felt very small and also surprised by how big this thing that I grew up seeing was.
Annmarie Kelly:
So I think I mentioned this when you and I talked earlier but you wrote that the steel mill spanned 950 acres and I had trouble wrapping my head around acreage. I'm like, how big is that? What are big things? Like a football field turns out to be an acre and a half or an acre and a third so you're talking about 1200 football fields worth of steel mill, just absolutely enormous. And that a job at a steel mill isn't one job, it's many jobs. So take us through what made you think to yourself, oh, I shall apply for a job at a steel mill, what made you think you could do that?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah. So it was completely just practical. I had gone to college, gotten degrees, did everything I was supposed to do to get the good paying job, right? I graduated in the Great Recession, nothing was really open, couldn't find a job, kept getting that thing where they say, oh, you're overeducated or overqualified or whatever. And so I was painting houses to kind of make ends meet but there was no health insurance, it was very seasonal work, and I happened to have a friend who worked at the steel mill and he was like, you should really apply, it's a great job, and I was like, no way, I'm not a steelworker. But the more he talked about kind of the benefits of the union and the benefits of the job, I was just like, well, why not just throw my hat in the ring. So and the rest is kind of, yeah, history.
Annmarie Kelly:
I'm blown away. In case we have just one or two listeners who don't know how to make steel, I'm just assuming there might be one or two, can you tell me a couple of things like the sensory image of the steel mill, what did it feel like and sound and smell like in there and then what is it people do?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah. I mean, because it's so huge there's so many different levels of it. There are places where they're actually making iron from iron ores or making molten iron to flow in these kind of rivers of molten lava on the ground. There are places where they take that iron and actually turn it into the steel. And people are doing all different kinds of jobs, there are crane men who are pouring the vats of molten metal into the furnaces. At one point I drove a tow motor around, a forklift, and just replenished all of these materials that are used in the process. When you get kind of past that steel-making phase there are rolling mills which kind of perfect the steel and elongate it and turn it into these long thin sheets. So there are just jobs kind of controlling that machinery that does those jobs, lots of cranes everywhere. And then there are the finishing departments where they galvanize the steel and kind of ship it off to customers, I worked briefly there as well, kind of packaging the steel and things like that. So there's a wide array of things that you can do.
Annmarie Kelly:
Did you have a favorite job, something that you liked or a least favorite job, something that was not your favorite?
Eliese Goldbach:
I would say my favorite job was working in a place called the temper mill which was one of these places where they kind of elongate the steel and perfect it. And it was just a good group of people, we would do crossword puzzles and joke around and it was just a fun atmosphere. My least favorite job is I did run a crane at one point and that was very terrifying because you can hurt people if you're not careful so it was just a lot of stress.
Annmarie Kelly:
Oh my gosh. Did you ever just stop and look around and think to yourself, what am I doing here?
Eliese Goldbach:
Oh, absolutely. Especially in the first few weeks I was not prepared for what steel-making was, I think. And then there would be times especially when I was working the night shifts and you would go walk outside the steel mill that kind of appeared really quiet, you could see the flames off in a distance from the blast furnace. And it was just a really peaceful place and kind of this cool place where people don't normally get to walk, so that was also really cool.
Annmarie Kelly:
How long were you at the steel mill?
Eliese Goldbach:
I was there for three years.
Annmarie Kelly:
When you look back on this time, what is your overarching feeling?
Eliese Goldbach:
A little bit of nostalgia right now. There are times when I still wish that I could go back and just drive a forklift around all day and so overwhelmingly positive and I just miss the comradery with people sometimes and yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
Is that how you felt while you were doing it?
Eliese Goldbach:
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It was always like a love, hate relationship with the mill because when you are a steel worker you're usually working crazy long hours, I mean, people work 90 hours a week. And so you're there all the time and sometimes it's easy to get sick of it and want to be doing something different. So there were times when I would just be like, oh, I can't wait to get out of here, and then there were times when I was just kind of in love with the place and exploring it.
Annmarie Kelly:
I heard confidence described as you did something difficult and you didn't die or you did something scary and you didn't die, you did this hard thing and you're okay. That sometimes the confidence to do one thing, like drive a crane or stand next to molten iron, it does translate into the confidence to do something else like write a book. You wouldn't necessarily think those two things are related but they are. Something else that I thought was really courageous in your book wasn't just talking about this career pivot but it was also writing really candidly about mental illness. First off, thank you for writing about that. For most of us growing up in Catholic homes our parents loved us and cared for us but I wouldn't say they let us through, let's talk about our mental health challenges right now, let's all sit down and really be vulnerable together, it was not a language our parents would have had. So I'm wondering, where did you learn to be so honest about mental health issues?
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah. Actually I don't know. I think some of it actually has been in the writing of it, I think I use writing not just kind of as a creative expression but also to process my own thinking about mental illness or the state of my mind at a certain kind of moment. And every time that I write something down and I'm not completely honest about it, about something, especially the mental illness, I'll read it and I'll be like, oh, you're lying, you have to kind of get down to that core truth. So I think that a lot of just doing the writing has made me honest like that. And also I just think it's important because there's so much stigma around mental illness and I guess maybe I sometimes don't care what other people think or whatever, yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
Probably a good prerequisite for being a writer. In the book for those who haven't read it yet, you talk about being diagnosed with something called mixed state bipolar disorder. And at one point you do check yourself into a hospital, you say, I need help, and then you go and you get it. I guess first I'd like to know is how are you doing now?
Eliese Goldbach:
Pretty well, yeah. Now, things have been really stable for the past several years I would say, I found a good psychiatric team and things like that so that's been helpful. I think that the pandemic was hard on all of us, I definitely noticed my own anxiety kind of ratcheting up during the past year but nothing kind of out of control or super out of the ordinary, just I think we're all tired right now.
Annmarie Kelly:
Yeah. I wouldn't give the last year and a half five stars for anybody's mental health. What has it been like since the book came out to have to talk again and again about mental health struggles? Has it been empowering and part of your healing journey or has it been dragging you into a time that you don't want to go back to?
Eliese Goldbach:
No, I would say overall it's more healing than anything especially talking to people who see themselves reflected in what I've written or see a family member reflected and maybe have a better understanding of what that person is going through. And yeah, I think that the more we talk about it the more we kind of understand it, like you were saying, I think stories are important in that way. So yeah, I would say definitely positive and then talking about it.
Annmarie Kelly:
I think that one of my favorite features of books has always been the feeling that I can get when a character whispers in my ear and says, you're not alone. Even as a child as a reader when I'm reading Little Women and I'm seeing Joe up in her attic scribbling away, I'm realizing that I am not alone. There are other people who want the same things I want, struggle with the same things I struggle with. And again and again I thought that the solidarity in this book, I didn't go to a book about being a steelworker thinking I would find myself there, but again and again I did and I was so grateful for that. On another episode of this podcast I got a chance to talk to another writer Bunmi Laditan, who had this to say about mental illness.
Annmarie Kelly:
She said, "Struggling with mental illness doesn't mean you're weak or broken, you walk through life carrying weights most can't even imagine, you're a beast, you're a champion even on your worst days and I'm proud of you for showing up." And I felt like that in this book, that I was proud of you for showing up and I was proud of you for writing what you wrote and I was proud of you for writing a family that's so familiar to me and showing me that, look, we go to the doctor when we struggle with a physical ailment and we go to the doctor when we struggle with a mental ailment and those are so much more than we were raised to believe, so thank you, thank you for what you wrote. And truthfully, I mean, I saw real parallels, you were brave enough to talk about mental illness and you were also brave enough to talk about college campuses and how they are not always a safe place for women.
Annmarie Kelly:
I mean, I know that that the estimates of one in five women who are sexually assaulted between the ages of 18 and 24 that whenever you're in a room full of women that other people in that room have also been on the receiving end of violent sexual contact, and that you were brave enough in your book to write about that. When I read about your story in college I was broken inside for you, one, because you were putting it on paper and, two, because I know the number of women in my life who that exact same thing or a version of it happened to. So for the one in five listeners right now who are listening who've been through that can you tell us some part of what happened and how you made it through that time?
Eliese Goldbach:
Sometimes I still don't know how I made it through that time. I was a freshmen at a very conservative campus and was assaulted by two men one of whom was supposedly studying to be a priest. And so obviously in this kind of conservative environment those men's word was taken over my word and ultimately they weren't really punished or reprimanded and I was kind of a pariah on campus for kind of bringing attention to the matter. And I mean, luckily I had the support of my family which I think was really helpful during that time, they were able to kind of get me into some mental health services and talk with therapists that kind of helped me process what had happened and helped me realize that it wasn't my fault and that type of thing.
Eliese Goldbach:
It's probably one of the hardest things that I wrote about, that event, but I do find that writing about it has given me a sense of kind of power and just kind of being able to take control over it in some way. And I later, years later, found out that the same thing had happened to many and many other women on the same campus and that there was actually priests on campus who were covering this up, one of whom told me that I needed to pray to the Virgin Mary to be a better person. So I think that at that time I wanted to know those other stories, I wanted to know that I wasn't alone and so if my story can kind of help those other women know that it isn't just you, that it's not good that that happened but maybe something good could come of it. Yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
I was grateful that you were brave enough to tell that story and I again and again came to this idea of the voicelessness, that you spoke and we're not heard, you said, this pain, this harm, this danger happened to me. And I think if any of us, when someone comes to us and said, I am hurting, our job is to say, oh my God, I'm so sorry, how can I help? And when you went to people on that campus, that's not what you experienced. You said, I am hurting and people said, well, it's probably your fault. You said I've been hurt and people said, I don't think that's what happened. And so the voicelessness that you describe made me ache inside, again, for women I know for whom this is a very, very real narrative. But then I also saw it between the covers of this book, this book that I heard on the radio, this book that I saw on television, that even in mid of pandemic this story of yours is traveling the world.
Annmarie Kelly:
And so I was struck by the profound strength and power of you as a writer that you can't be silenced, that the story will out, the truth will out, and you did that. I was just really proud of you and thankful that you did that hard thing and I just was thinking about metaphors of steel and grit, that you take something that you don't think could be stronger and it becomes stronger, you take something that's dangerous and it becomes powerful. That in the same way that steel was made, I felt like you were forged between the covers of this book, that you became powerful in my eyes, that women who tell the truth became powerful in my eyes and I didn't expect to find all of that here. Thank you, I'm fan girling but thank you.
Eliese Goldbach:
No, thank you. Yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
Being raised specifically in Cleveland, I am born and raised here, you're born and raised here, we're proud of this area but sometimes it can be hard to convince people of the triumph of this place. You write in the book, like a lot of kids who grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, I mostly wanted to leave. In high school I often talked with my friends about our plans of future escape, we would travel far and wide to give ourselves culture, we would attend colleges in legitimate cities like San Francisco or Boston. The real world happened in other cities and other towns and we wanted to build our lives somewhere, anywhere, but here. I totally understand that and I'm wondering, do you still feel that way?
Eliese Goldbach:
For the longest time I did and I would be jealous of friends from high school who did kind of move on and move to other areas of the country and felt like I was somehow missing out on something that I couldn't really describe or put my finger on. But I think at this point I've really come to just appreciate Cleveland and just kind of fall in love with it all over again. And so I don't think that I will ever leave the kind of Greater Cleveland area, I love the kind of dogged spirit in that, just yeah, I don't know what it is exactly.
Annmarie Kelly:
I married a military guy and I always describe it, because we've lived all over the country, and I always describe Cleveland in comparison to what it was like to live in other places about like going to a hardware store and trying to buy in this instance a rake, because I don't usually move tools. So a rake, I've had to buy a rake in many places, so when I lived in New England and I went to the hardware store and I said, "Excuse me, do you guys have any rakes?" The response was like, "Well, did you look? Did you look? Did you go and look for the rakes because if they're there they're there and if they're not they're not." And that was what it was like in New England. And then I lived in California and then if you went to buy a rake, they're like, "Why would you need a rake? It's beautiful here, we don't need a rake." And I lived in Seattle and they're like, it's raining, you can't rake, I've lived all over the place.
Annmarie Kelly:
But in Cleveland if you go to buy a rake and you ask them, they will hold your hand, they will take you to the aisle, they will tell you about the rakes and if for some reason they don't have one, they'll be like, listen, I am so sorry, we are out of them but tell me your address and I get off at 5:00 and my cousin and I will come and we will rake your lawn for you. Cleveland is this magnanimous delusional place, we root for sports teams that generally do not win but every year we're like, this is the year. That it is this dogged, gritty, amazing place and like you, I'm not sure I'll ever leave again. That picture that's on the front of your book I'm remembering now, for people who haven't seen it if you've ever driven by Cleveland or Gary, Indiana or other places that have industry, there's this fire that flies above our city and I thought that your metaphorical language about that in the book was just brilliant.
Annmarie Kelly:
Because at the beginning of the book you see that fire and all you can think of is toxicity, right? Like surely humans are not meant to breathe that air. But our relationship with manufacturing and the people who do it, we drive cars, we drive things that are made of steel, we live and work in high-rises that are made of steel, we don't think about that fiery plume as the source of what gives us comfort and strength. And toward the end of your book you're talking about that fire is a kind of a beacon, quote, a testament to what we could create, what we could transform, what we could refine, a vigil for the lives that were built in lost beneath it, I thought that was beautiful. And so it made me think about your ideas of toxicity versus where do you place steel in the heartland? What should we do about steel versus air?
Eliese Goldbach:
That's a hard question. And it's something that, well, always kind of graded on me when I was down there and knowing that I was kind of part of this bigger environmental problem that was going on. And when I was down there though, there's something very awesome about what we've been able to do, that we can take this iron ore out of the ground and make these huge tens of thousands of pounds pieces of steel and press it and smush it and heat it up. And so I feel like we're so creative as a human species, we can figure out the problem of how to have our steel and be environmentally friendly too it's just a matter of getting there, I think.
Eliese Goldbach:
And I think that government will play a huge role in kind of cutting down on emissions and doing things like that and making sure that companies can't kind of get around these kinds of emission standards. Just kind of driving that innovation and putting a fire beneath the butts of the big people who matter because so much of carbon emissions and things like that come from these big industry factories and things like that. So yeah, kind of hopeful for our human innovation but also recognizing kind of the need for the government's role in helping transition into greener ways of doing things. Because it's expensive to convert a steel mill that's been on the banks of Cuyahoga River since the early 19th century, people don't want to invest in making that greener unless they kind of have to.
Annmarie Kelly:
We often pit corporations and the environment at odds with one another. We have this idea that because you own a business you couldn't also want clean air and land and water. It is a false binary though, there are plenty of people who are in industry who want clean air and there are plenty of people who breathe clean air who buy cars made of steel. And that I am hopeful reading your book that we will find more ways to walk in harmony and have a respect for both the manufacturing that provides jobs and roofs overheads and steel for our cars but also the land and the water around it that needs to breathe.
Eliese Goldbach:
I know. And I'm secretly hopeful that as millennials kind of take the CEO positions and things like that, that there'll be instrumental in kind of making those shifts but we'll see
Annmarie Kelly:
That's right. Because my daughter would call herself Gen Z which I guess is the generation after the millennials, but she has a whole list of places we will and will not shop. She's incredibly conscientious about where she buys clothing from and where she buys sunscreen from. She talks with her capital and that if it does not ally with her beliefs about corporate responsibility and the kind of life and world we want for ourselves she takes her business elsewhere and that's very common for her generation. And so you're right, if we don't figure it out, I think the next generations are definitely breathing down our necks to do right by them. So what's next? Do you have to go and work in a mine? What's next for you? I don't know, are you still coasting along in, I'm in this book and who knows what's next or what is happening next?
Eliese Goldbach:
No. So I'm working on and a proposal for the next thing. I kind of dabbled in a bunch of stuff after Rust was done because I didn't know what I wanted to do. I tried some fiction but my fiction has always just been rebuilt nonfiction. And I went down a couple avenues and I found one that I think I'll be able to kind of sustain, I mean, I'm in the proposal parts of that, it's just, it takes a long time to write a book.
Annmarie Kelly:
It does take a long time to write a book. I used to get mad at my kids for reading books so quickly because it took that person years to write it, why would you read it in a day and a half? Come on, honor the process man.
Eliese Goldbach:
Sever it, yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
Well, I wish you well in that. I always do some closing introductory questions and so the camp counselor in me likes to end with some icebreakers. So I'm going to give you some multiple choice questions. Dogs or cats?
Eliese Goldbach:
Dogs.
Annmarie Kelly:
Coffee or tea?
Eliese Goldbach:
Coffee.
Annmarie Kelly:
Mountains or the beach?
Eliese Goldbach:
Mountains.
Annmarie Kelly:
Cake or pie?
Eliese Goldbach:
Cake.
Annmarie Kelly:
Early bird or night owl?
Eliese Goldbach:
Night owl.
Annmarie Kelly:
And are you a risk taker or are you the person who knows where the band-aids are?
Eliese Goldbach:
Definitely the risk taker, yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
Excellent. And now a few short answers. Who's one of your best teachers?
Eliese Goldbach:
I would say two, one from high school, her name was Mrs. Rubin King, she was my high school senior year English teacher and she really kind of made me fall in love with English and kind of want to pursue that. And then in college, Dr. Maryclaire Moroney at John Carroll was very helpful in teaching me kind of how to write and how to think, so.
Annmarie Kelly:
And how about what is a favorite book or movie that you love?
Eliese Goldbach:
Ooh, gosh, I really love the Autobiography of a Face, I don't know why, that one popped into my head. Movie, I don't know my favorite ones but I just watched one that was pretty good it was called The Finest Hours. It's a Disney movie but it was pretty good.
Annmarie Kelly:
We just watched Cruella on Disney.
Eliese Goldbach:
I want to see that one. Yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
I'm not going to lie I was the complainer in the back of the couch, I'm like, I don't want to watch that, but it's fantastic, they do a great job. Emma Stone, Emma Thompson, the two Emmas, Dalmatians.
Eliese Goldbach:
Can't go wrong.
Annmarie Kelly:
Yeah, it's good. Okay. How about a favorite ice cream?
Eliese Goldbach:
I love cherry vanilla. Yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
That reminds me of my grandma for some reason.
Eliese Goldbach:
It's a very grandma flavor.
Annmarie Kelly:
You don't remind me of my grandma but that flavor, yes. And then last, if we were to take a picture of you just really happy doing something you love, what would you be doing?
Eliese Goldbach:
Well, I have a horse so I would probably be horseback riding or spending time with him or yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
What's your horses name?
Eliese Goldbach:
Chance.
Annmarie Kelly:
That is a great horse name.
Eliese Goldbach:
Yeah.
Annmarie Kelly:
I love it. Well, we'll picture you riding Chance, taking chances on Chance, that's great. Oh, Eliese Goldbach I'm so grateful that you're able to spend time with us here today, I'm grateful for your book and to all of our listeners I know that we're grateful for you. You could have spent this doing anything and if we were walking with you on a summer day or if we were folding laundry with you, we're just glad you had us along, however and wherever you spent this time thanks for being here. My guest today has been Eliese Goldbach, you can pick up her debut book Rust: A Memoir of Steel and Grit at any independent bookstore near you. Here in Cleveland that might mean bopping up to Mac's Backs or you could drive out to Oberlin to MindFair Books.
Annmarie Kelly:
We're also a coupon at MindFair Books so if you mention Wild Precious Life at the checkout you get 10% off, we're a coupon. So you can't go wrong with an indie store and you absolutely cannot go wrong with this book. Thank you for being here Eliese and thank you everyone. We're wishing you love and light wherever this day takes you, until next time be good to yourself, be good to one another and we'll see you again on this wild and precious journey. Wild Precious Life is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to executive producers Gerardo Orlando and Michael DeAloia, producer Sarah Willgrube and audio engineer Eric Koltnow. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Recent Episodes
View AllPraisesong for the Kitchen Ghost with Crystal Wilkinson
Wild Precious LifeBroughtupsy with Christina Cooke
Wild Precious LifeThe Familiar with Sarah Kain Gutowski
Wild Precious LifeFaltas with Cecilia Gentili
Wild Precious LifeHear More From Us!
Subscribe Today and get the newest Evergreen content delivered straight to your inbox!