I’ll Take Everything You Have with James Klise

Annmarie Kelly:

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When was the first time you saw yourself in a book? I had a bright pink abridged copy of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. And I remember reading that story over and over again. I learned that the writing life was possible, and there wasn't anything weird about scribbling in a journal or inventing stories.

I also daydreamed about how when Teddy Lawrence, the boy next door, asked me to marry him, I'd say, “Yes.” That book was one of many that made me feel seen and understood. That's one of my favorite things a book can do. It can help you know you're not alone.

However, I've come to realize that plenty of young readers did not grow up seeing themselves in books. For a long time, the publishing industry didn't work hard enough, not nearly hard enough to put books in the hands of everyone, black kids and Muslim kids, and indigenous kids and trans kids.

And I could continue listing here, but my point is that not everyone grew up able to read about themselves in a book. I'm grateful this is beginning to change, and we're seeing more and more books with diverse protagonists. It's becoming easier to find stories in which all kids see themselves reflected.

But it's not enough to stop there. Just as books have helped me understand myself, I have also, come to understand others that same way.

A few years ago, I took a hard look at my shelves. I'd never noticed how the overwhelming majority of writers I read were also, white women. It's nice to understand ourselves, but it's also part of our job on this planet to seek to understand others.

Since then, I've started reading books from across perspectives, both in this country and around the world. This is an ongoing pursuit, and I know I'm better for it.

There's a saying that's often been attributed to Gandhi, which he may or may not have even said. “We must be the change we want to see in this world.” I think we can also read that change too.

Today's guest reminded me of that. James Klise acclaimed novels for teens include the Edgar Award-winning, The Art of Secrets and the ALA Stonewall Honor Award-winning, Love Drugged.

His newest book, I'll Take Everything You Have, as a queer, coming of age crime novel set in 1930s Chicago. His shorter work has appeared in New Orleans Review, StoryQuarterly, Southern Humanities Review, the Chicago Tribune and elsewhere. He lives in Chicago, and for the past two decades has overseen a very busy high school library.

Jim Klise, welcome to Wild Precious Life.

James Klise:

It is great to be here, Annmarie. Thank you.

Annmarie Kelly:

Ah, it is so good to see your face. I know our listeners can't, but I have a little video on and it's just great to see you. You and I actually met in the before times.

James Klise:

That's right.

Annmarie Kelly:

I took a brilliant writing class from you in Chicago. We were like a few paces into learning together, like I want to say weeks, and then the entire world shut down. But compared to a lot of the groups I was part of during the pandemic, like that sort of disappeared or like went away, our little group, that class, stayed connected and became what felt to me like kind of a lifeline. We pandemic-ed together.

James Klise:

That's right.

Annmarie Kelly:

We bought outdoor heaters and like baked bread and I mean, we lost people and we put voice to like existential dread. And I don't know, I just generally feel like you held my hand during a time — I barely knew you at that time, but I came to know you.

And during that year long class, I heard about this book you were writing. And it is such a treat to see this book baby, that you were drafting and revising and gnashing your teeth about sometimes. And then here it is magically. It's just so triumphant to see it. I'm just so ecstatic to talk to you about this book today.

James Klise:

It's great to hear you say that and it's a reminder of one of the wonderful things about having writer friends is that you bear witness to the long process of creating a book and having it go through the editorial process and waiting and waiting for it to actually make its appearance in the world.

So, thank you for being on that journey with me. It's really fun to have it finally coming out.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, I have the good fortune to know you and we've hung out on Zoom and in person, but not every listener got a chance to pandemic with you and not everyone is going to necessarily yet be familiar with your great good work. So, would you mind just telling us a little bit of your story?

James Klise:

I became interested in writing when I was in high school and college and really fell in love with writing short stories and took creative writing workshops and got a master's degree in creative writing and really spent my 20s writing short stories and trying to publish them and accumulated a shopping bag.

I had a Marshall Field’s shopping bag filled with rejection slips. Completely filled it and about halfway through a second bag before I got my first short story published. I think at the time, I felt very singled out by God. Like, “You need to suffer through this long journey of waiting to be published.”

But the older I get and the more writers I become friends with, I realize it's the common, it's the story that everybody goes through, which is you try and you try and you try until suddenly you get some luck. And it's not just luck. It's building your skills and understanding the market better and understanding the way stories work and all of those things.

And I think that in your introduction you mentioned that my third book is coming out now. But I was in my 40s before I first started publishing novels. It's a long road for just about every writer I know. And I think that's very typical.

I do think there's something about my journey that's less common. I think it might even be unique, which is that, so, I grew up in Peoria, Illinois. I'm the youngest in a big family. I have five older sisters, and they're all wonderful writers and they're great email writers. We have this email chain that continues every day and they're great storytellers.

But several of us have pursued writing and publishing as a career. My oldest sister, Elizabeth, is a poet and is published widely and has a children's book in verse that's out. Two of my middle sisters have written and illustrated dozens of award-winning middle grade books. And then there's me.

And for a middle-class family from Peoria, Illinois to all be pursuing writing, I think is unusual. And I feel very lucky to have writing role models in my own family.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. What do you think it was? I mean, I grew up in Medina, Ohio, 44256, and I knew zero writers, except there was a cartoonist who wrote Calvin and Hobbes who would sometimes come through. And I should remember his name. And it's like on the tip … what's that guy's name? I don't know. I'll put it in the show notes.

But that was the equivalent of the only person I knew in the world who wrote and he wrote cartoons. So, did you know writers or did you even know that was a job you could have? How did you guys pick that?

James Klise:

So, I have an answer for that. And I think actually if you were sitting here talking to my sisters, we'd all have different answers for why it happened for us. But I'm going to tell the story that I think is the truest answer to it. And I think also, the most interesting story. And also, I like it because it gives me a chance to talk about my parents.

But in the 1960s, my parents started a company. And Annmarie, I don't want to assume your age, but do you remember film strips? Do you remember?

Annmarie Kelly:

Shut up, I remember film strips. Do you remember the one about the lady with the vinegar bottle? Not only do I remember film strips, I remember that ours was crooked and we had to use a book in the library to get it just right. So, yes, I remember filmed strips.

James Klise:

So, my parents in mid 1960s, started an educational film strip company. We were Catholic, I was raised Catholic. And they were one of those Catholic couples that were very inspired by Vatican II in the early ‘60s and sort of the church's recommitment to social justice and civil rights.

My mom had a teaching background and my dad had a broadcasting background and they must have thought like, “This is a way that we can sort of engage in sort of this renewed energy and renewed purpose of Catholic life.”

And so, they first for probably the mid ‘60s to the 1970, they were producing film strips about sacraments and about parts of the mass and about what it means to be a Catholic living in modern times. And they sold really, really well.

My mom was home raising six kids, so my dad was the one doing a lot of the work. And he would do the research and he would write them and he would record the record album that would go with the film strips.

And his other great passion was literature. And so, he started doing film strips about American authors and so, as a family we would go because he would do the photography for these film strips. And we went to Emily Dickinson's house and Mark Twain's house and Ralph Waldo Emerson's house. And we went to Walden Pond and went to Thoreau's house and we went to Hawthorne's house.

And then he did a British Lit series. So, we went and spent a summer in England and we went to Jane Austen's house and Dicken's house and Shakespeare's house, and we went to William Wordsworth's house in Colt Ridge. I mean, we went to the Parsonage where the Brontes lived.

And he had a list for every author house he would visit of things that he would want to photograph. He would always want to photograph the outside of their house. And if it was a writer's museum, they would usually have like the author's desk and he would photograph the desk and maybe try to get a view out the window to try to capture what they were thinking about.

And we would go on these trips with him and we would be standing around, probably bored out of our minds, but we were staring at like the author's beds and their sort of their chamber pots. I felt like I got to know so many people. I mean, it was years later right, that I'd be sitting in a high school class and the teacher would hand me the Scarlet Letter and I'd think to myself, “I've been to his house before.”

Or when we'd read Emily Dickinson, I'd think, “I think my sister got bit by a dog in front of Emily Dickinson's house.” I can't speak for my sisters, but I'm sure the message to all of us was that these were people. They were people who slept in little beds and they weren't special people, they were just people who chose to explore what it means to be alive through words and poems and stories.

And that to me, I think was really, really helpful. It's why author visits are really helpful in schools. Because to have Kwame Alexander walk into the church gymnasium and talk about his process and talk about how he became a writer.

I sometimes think, I mean, Annmarie, what if you and I could take our students to Jackie Woodson's house or Meg Medina's house-

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh my gosh.

James Klise:

Or I mean, Laurie Halse Anderson's house. We would generate so many more writers if they could get to know the people behind the books they read and love so much.

So, I mean, that says so much about my parents and what their priorities were, but I'm sure that gave all of us permission to try. If these other people did it and made lives around books and making books that we certainly had permission to do that.

Annmarie Kelly:

That is gorgeous. That's the best story about film strips I have ever heard in my entire life. I had forgotten that there was a record that you put on. Because the thing didn't have sound, it was just pictures. And so, you put the record on and it timed with the record and it flipped … oh my gosh.

James Klise:

My parents were the first people to put the record with the film strip. That was their big innovation.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh yeah. And I'm fairly certain I saw at least that Emily Dickinson one. That's ringing some bells for me.

But how amazing is it that you guys didn't even know that you were envisioning the lives of writers as possibilities when you were sitting there petting dogs outside of Emily Dickinson house or running around looking at chamber pots. That even when you don't know that it's seeping in that that imagining.

Oh, again, in the before times I went and heard Pat Cummings, the great children's book author and illustrator speak, and she had that quote that I've heard since then. But she talked about, “Every child should be able to find themselves in the pages of a book.”

So, I understand that you found yourself without realizing it in the lives of writers. As we've established, we’re about the same age. I guess, did you find yourself in the pages of books growing up?

James Klise:

I mean, I probably didn't really find myself in books until I was much older. But I will tell you what I loved about reading when I was a kid, I had choices. The kids I grew up with did not have many choices in our lives.

We wore school uniforms, we played with the other children in our parish or on our block. Not even once in my childhood did anybody ask, “What do you want for dinner?” Like that was just not something that kids our generation were asked. You ate what was served.

And I mean, I guess this is a thing about being part of a big family, is it, you just kind of learned to go with the flow. That's the only way the system works. But my reading life definitely gave me choices and I loved that aspect.

We went to the library every week and my mom would just kind of let us loose to pick out books. And I mean, I loved reading books by Scott Corbett and Bertrand Brinley, who did the Mad Scientists’ Club, which was he did a whole series of books about these kids doing scientific experiments. I love the Enid Blyton books which was a series of British mysteries about … there were a several series she did. The Famous Five and The Secret Seven.

Later, like in sixth, seventh grade, I became attached to Paul Zindel. I don't know if it's Zindel or Zindel, but he did The Pigman. God, I was obsessed with The Pigman and Confessions of a Teenage Baboon. He did a bunch.

And then I had an absolute … I mean, I was notorious, my family, I was obsessed with Shirley Jackson and her books. And then in high school I probably, like you got into really moody stuff like Sylvia Plath and-

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh yeah, The Bell Jar.

James Klise:

Judith Guest’s Ordinary People was a book I kept very close to me for a few … I had seen the movie and then there was something about the sort of the … I don't know what that family was going through that really spoke to me.

My father had passed away when I was pretty young and we didn't really talk about it too much as we did in the ‘70s. And that book, I felt I was getting closer to what I was feeling and I really, really appreciated it. How about you, what were yours?

Annmarie Kelly:

Judith Guest’s Ordinary People. I too came to that book as a teenager. I had also, seen the movie, first off Mary Tyler Moore as a kind of villain that like knocked me back on my heels. And that book, gosh, making things that were family secrets like bringing them out into the open. That is something that I've been obsessed with I mean, truly my whole life.

My grandfather died of suicide when I was in fifth or sixth grade and no one ever talked to us about it. And my mom was just sad and covered it up and like all we learned later that was he probably went to hell. But it was this family secret for the longest time and that kind of trauma intergenerationally, like I saw what it did in my family.

And something about that book … I actually reread that book after my own father passed away during the Pandemic. There is something about that book that was just so hauntingly beautiful. Anytime a book like spoke to your truth … like I wasn't a child in 1930s London, but I took ballet classes and so, Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes spoke to me.

I wasn't a kid growing out up on New Jersey like, I don't know, like asking God if I should be Jewish or Christian, but I did stuff my bra and play Spin the Bottle. And so, Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, spoke to me.

So, even when I didn't think a book would appeal to me, I could always like latch onto a character and walk with them for a time. And that's always been one of my favorite things about reading, is when you can be surprised and discover a part of yourself you didn't even really know that anybody else knew about because you'd never said it out loud and there it is in the book.

James Klise:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Annmarie Kelly:

Ah, well, I know you're a teacher librarian now, there in Chicago. I mean, how do you help your own students find themselves in books?

James Klise:

Well, that's the job, isn't it? And I mean, it's never been easier. I work at this remarkable high school. We have an incredibly diverse student body. And when I started 20 years ago, it was more challenging for me to find books that represented their experience or that might mirror their experience. It's much easier now.

And so, part of the way that I do that is through collection development. And part of the way I do it is through collaborating with teachers. When the teacher comes to me and says, “Oh, we've got some extra time in this unit and I want to squeeze in a couple short stories. Can you help me find some short stories about identity or about transformation,” or whatever the theme of that unit is.

And I'll go and I'll try to find short stories that might represent some of the student voices in that class. So, it is the job to do.

But the thing that amazes me about sort of working in education now, is that I run a student book club and we it's actually a really, it's a popular club. Students have to apply to get in and we have a waiting list and the kids keep the books that they read, which is exciting. And we try to have one of the authors visit every year. It's a pretty special thing.

And because of the demographics of my school, I'm always really careful when I'm coming up with a lineup of books that we're going to be reading that year. I make sure that we include books that will represent all the different experiences.

And given all of these efforts that will take place both in my library and in classrooms around the building and just in schools all over the place, we'll read a book and let's say the main character is gay or is trans or is Muslim or whoever's story is being represented.

At the book club meeting, we'll be talking about the book and I might say, “So, for anybody in this group, is it the first time you've ever read a book that has a main character who is fill in the blank?” And so many hands will go up like and they'll say, “This is the first time I've ever read a book where the main character is fill in the blank.”

And that blows my mind that despite all of our best efforts and hard work and real conscientious choices that we make as educators to provide the whole range of experience in sort of class readings and in the libraries. And it happens again and again that we have students who are like, “Actually, I've never read a book that had a main character like this before.”

And it's a reminder to me every time that, “Okay, yeah, this work is really important and this work continues and you can never get lazy about it because as soon as you do, you're going to have students who graduate from high school and will never have maybe had the opportunity not just to read a book, but to be in a group of people who are all talking about it, which is really meaningful.”

Annmarie Kelly:

I love that you do that. And we are friends on one of the social medias, so I have seen pictures of your kids and the book club. And had no idea that they get to keep the books and there's a application process. That's amazing. That makes it seem just, I don't know, like you're doing something right there.

James Klise:

It's unusual to have a high school book club. And I'll meet other educators who say, “I really want to do that. But our high school doesn't have a book club and it's really hard to get — it's unusual right to do that.”

And my main advice is fill out a donor's choose grant or find the funding elsewhere. Because if you give a young person a book to keep and say like, “Listen, Annmarie, I'm going to give you this book and it's going to live on your shelf.” They will read it.

Nothing gives students a more motive to read than to give them the book and say, “This is going to live on your bookshelf at home and be part of your own library of books.” For me, that has been a great motivator to get kids to read books that might not be in their normal wheelhouse of what they would choose for themselves.

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Annmarie Kelly:

So, for folks who haven't read it yet, we meet Joe, he's this young guy, he's working in the city and he's meeting other boys. So, he meets Eddie, the liquor delivery man who is just yummy. And he meets Raymond at the French class where Joe has a job to take notes on the French class to see who's coming and going, because there's a guy who wants to rob him. And like he's exploring first kisses and the city.

I love how you talk about Chicago because when I have fallen in love with cities, it's like when you find where you're going to get your coffee in the morning or when you find those paths or when you like …

I remember living in Charleston, South Carolina, and I had seen the seasons go through. I was like, “Oh, that plant always does that on that corner.” Or, “This is the local shortcut.” Or just when you feel like a regular.

And so, Joe's in this wonderful time where he's falling in love with himself, he's falling in love with these boys, he's falling in love with Chicago. I mean, I felt breathless and young and flirty in this time with these characters. It's beautiful.

James Klise:

That's great. I'm happy that it conveys that sense of excitement and just joy of being young. I mean, I was working on this during the pandemic when I was stuck at home and I was drawn to a narrative of somebody feeling free and going out and knocking on doors and taking risks and feeling joy.

For me, that was a great motivator to every day return to this manuscript and work on it. It was a gift.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah. There's a great scene where Joe and Eddie go up to the top floor of a building. It's a hotel they're not staying in, but they go to the end of the hallway and share this like a bag of candy. They're eating taffy and they're watching the World's Fair. I mean, the time period that you've set this in is actually frod with other stories.

So, like there's this gorgeous, they're having this kind of fumbling date in the darkness, looking at the World's Fair spread out. Because you get the … was it Centuries of Progress? All those architectural skyscrapers that they built. That was kind of an illusion, they weren't skyscrapers that exist in Chicago today.

So, I was thinking about he's with a boy in the darkness looking out over what is possible. But they're also, in the dark and they're also, looking at something that isn't real and they're also not there. I thought it was so interesting that they weren't there. They didn't go to the World's Fair, they only saw it from afar.

So, there is this like beautiful fumbling, and I think anybody who's gone through this coming of age, is you're not there yet. You're on your way someplace, but you're not there yet. You haven't, like in The Velveteen Rabbit sense of the world, you haven't become yet.

And so, we're there with Joe as he's becoming, as he's unfurling, as he's making mistakes, kissing someone you shouldn't or … oh, it's just a great time that you've said it in as well.

James Klise:

Thanks, I appreciate that. I mean, I'm fascinated by that particular time in Chicago history. It takes place in 1934, very specifically for a reason. I mean, for queer people — I mean, I think a lot of the young people I know, they think that gay life, gay visibility started with the Stonewall riots and then moved through the ‘70s and then with HIV and AIDS, there was this new visibility for queer people. Which is true, it was absolutely true.

But they forget that there have been other times through history where queer people formed communities and found ways to be visible.

And so, in New York, and in Berlin, and in Chicago, and in many other cities in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s, there was that sense of promise that you could go to a new city and if you were someone young and closeted, but curious like Joe, you could see that there was a community for you out there. That there would be a future for you if you could get there.

Joe is in Chicago very temporarily to earn money for his family farm. The expectation is that he will return home. He's the only son of a widowed farmer. And so, his expectation is that, “I got to earn some money and then I'm going to go back home.”

But this trip, this visit to Chicago teaches him that there is a community. He will form this sort of what he calls a syndicate. He will form this network of people that will support him through life if he can get to Chicago and build a life there.

But at the end of 1934, Chicago's mayor, a guy named Edward Joseph Kelly, who was mayor of Chicago for a long time, over 10 years, maybe 15 years, he had run on this platform of sort of cleaning up the vice and corruption.

And so, at the end of 1934, he closed down every queer space that he could find. And this was part of a national effort to do it. And so, there are references throughout the book of the fact that the mayor has sort of promised that he's going to do this.

And so, there's a bit of a ticking clock is as the moment that Joe arrives, one of the first things that he learns is that, “This may be temporary. Like we may not have this much longer.”

The book definitely goes to some dark places in a way that I think is thrilling, not necessarily depressing, but that makes it a page turner. And I think it leaves the reader with a very hopeful feeling of what is possible for young people in Joe's situation.

But yeah, I'm glad that I tried to foreground that the fun of sort of everything that could be had in a big city especially a city like Chicago back then.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, no, both of those worlds are alive for me. Both Joe's internal world about like, “Oh, there are others like me.” And this external world where he's seeing them and experiencing them. And also, this internal world where like, “Am I going to disappoint my family if I don't bring this money back?” And I see the external world of, “And is it all going to go away?”

Because I mean, as you said, this is not a cotton candy book. There are dark storylines and there are dark undercurrents alongside of this delight and hope. Like when Joe and Raymond talk about the future. I mean, sometimes they see the promise of the syndicate, sometimes they see the promise of, “There are others like us. We'll just find each other and we will go and live.”

And I mean, I know stories of Boystown in Chicago. I know that there are places, I know that's out there, but it's not there yet in 1934. And so, sometimes they stand together and they see the promise of this.

And other times, Joe's surprised when Raymond says, “I'm probably going to join the priesthood or I'm going to get married.” And first off, those seem not just mutually exclusive, but those are two different paths and neither of them is finding a community that's just like us. But Raymond says quote, “I intend to be married. It's what's expected and it will keep us safe from those rumors we’ll need to avoid.”

I mean, his matter of factness both about when he talks about going to like closeting himself in religion and hiding within a marriage, his matter of factness was really heartbreaking because I knew it to be true and I knew there was a lot of space between 1934 where I'm meeting these boys and our world today when options are much different. That they're not going to live long enough to see what I and what you see.

So, there was some heartbreak in when Raymond didn't think that a syndicate or a group of guys together was possible, certainly.

James Klise:

Yeah. I think that Raymond's point of view, it was important for me to establish that for many young men at that time … young readers today, bring a completely different set of expectations. Especially queer readers would bring a completely different set of expectations for what's possible in their life.

And I worked really hard to make sure that they understood that for teens in 1934, first of all, this is not going to be a coming out narrative because that just never happened back then. There are a lot of wonderful books that are out there for teens right now, that sort of explore that really major headline for a lot of queer kids. Like what is it like to come out? When is the right time to come out?

Well, for kids in 1934, the expectation would be that, well, you just never will. Like you'll either get married or you'll move far, far away from your family and just live a separate life. You're never going to have that awkward conversation about, “Hey, mom and dad, my life in some significant way is going to be a different than yours.”

And the other thing is that this is — and this is I think one of the hardest things about writing this book was I had to make sure that I didn't present it that Joe thought, “I'm going to fall in love and form a long-term relationship with one of these people,” because that would not have been in Joe's expectation for his life.

And I wanted the different characters to talk about what their expectations might be. I mean, you can go to the library and find really great accounts of queer couples through history who find each other, and made lives together and shared homes together.

But almost exclusively, they were people of enormous privilege. They were people who were if they were living in England, they inherited a title and had sort of independence. They were people who had lots of money or they were people who became sort of well-known artists who were able to sort of make their own rules.

But for most people, and especially for working class people like Joe, like farmers, or like Eddie who's, as you said, his dad is a liquor distributor, they just would have not have seen what was possible. The expectation again, would be that they would get married.

So, it is heartbreaking. It's a bit easier for us to tolerate now, to read about because we see what has happened. And we have seen how things have opened up. But we don't take it for granted.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, you do a really good job of putting this in history, but also, having the answers be both historical and resonant in a way that gives me hope and understanding. So, when Raymond and Joe are fooling around, Joe asks like this question that I remember, “Do you think God will punish us?”

And again, I remember as a cis-hetero kid, like doing things I wasn't supposed to do and wondering like, “Am I going against God?”

And there's lots of things I could say about Raymond. He's a wonderfully complex character, but I really, really, really love the answer he gives Joe. Because historically it could have been easy for someone to tell Joe, “Yeah, yeah.” Because that might be an historical belief.

But Raymond's answer is so glorious. He says, “Punish us for this? Honestly, I think God will reward us after putting us through something difficult as this. I never asked for my lavender heart, did you? That was God's choice. Same as my eyes are the color of my hair.”

I love that answer. I love that it gives us a chance to take a peek at history. But also, I imagine this book, finding it its way into the hands of kids who are asking that question still today, who are wondering about that still today. “Am I a normal kid? Am I going to be in trouble for feeling this way?”

And here's this book that in their minds is from 1934, because that's what kids do. They're like, “Oh, it takes place in 1934. It must have been written a long ...”

And this book is telling them yes, it's saying yes to the beautiful wonderfulness of them in whatever color or stripe or sexuality it finds them, that you do have them encounter these difficult historical situations, but you also, give them an answer that makes sense to us here now and gives hope to kids who, yeah, these are working class. Joe's a working-class kid. There's not a whole lot of reason for him to feel hope, but I see it there.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, we always close with some fan favorites. Just quick questions to get another view of the fellow behind the books. You ready for the wine down here?

James Klise:

That sounds great.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. These are just multiple choice. You just pick one. Coffee or tea?

James Klise:

Coffee.

Annmarie Kelly:

Mountains or beach?

James Klise:

Oh, I'm going to say neither. Can I say city streets instead?

Annmarie Kelly:

Absolutely.

James Klise:

And don't tell anybody. I'm not a huge fan of nature. I don't like nature, but I love exploring cities and so, I would choose a city street.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love it. I won't tell anyone. Your secret’s safe with me.

James Klise:

Okay, great. Thanks.

Annmarie Kelly:

This is a safe space. Dogs or cats?

James Klise:

I'm allergic to cats, but I love cats, so I'm going to say cats.

Annmarie Kelly:

Nice. Chicago or Paris?

James Klise:

Well, Paris. I mean, no, wait. Why did I say Paris? Chicago. Chicago by far. I was going to say, my mind is racing with that question because my husband and I are going to Paris in about a month for spring break. But no, Chicago is the city of my heart. I love Chicago.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. Well, I won't tell Paris you said that.

James Klise:

You can tell Paris, they know why.

Annmarie Kelly:

The Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye?

James Klise:

The Great Gatsby.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, I thought as much. Oh, this has three choices. These are 1930s expressions. Which one is your favorite? The word golly, the word swell, or the word Jake?

James Klise:

Oh, those are all great, aren't they? I have to say golly. I think I walk around my life in a perpetual state of golly, so golly.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love it. I'm wishing you lots of golly, that's very Jake. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

James Klise:

Oh, early bird. I couldn't work in a high school if I wasn't an early bird.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, you have to.

James Klise:

I am hardwired to get up bright and early.

Annmarie Kelly:

That is helpful. The kids aren't always.

James Klise:

No.

Annmarie Kelly:

High school should probably start around noon.

James Klise:

100% agree.

Annmarie Kelly:

Are you a risk taker or the person who always knows where the band-aids are?

James Klise:

I always know where the band aids are, but in writing, I don't think you can be a writer without being a risk taker. It is such a risk every time you set out on writing a novel.

And really, one of the greatest pieces of writing advice I ever got came from Sheila Kohler, who's a wonderful novelist. And she was a teacher of mine at Bennington and we had worked together for a whole semester. And at the end, she was just so encouraging and supportive and I said, “Like do you have any advice for me?”

And she has a wonderful South African accent and I can't imitate it, but she said, “I think that you could take more risks in your fiction.” And I think that's such good advice. And really, I think about it all the time about taking risks in writing.

Annmarie Kelly:

It's so important. Because my tendency is always to like fix it before the scene is over. And I've definitely had similar feedback where a professor was like, “Oh, they're so nice to each other. They're such role models. Have one of them punch somebody. Why she rip that shirt off of his …” She's like, “This is great. We should all aspire to it, but it's boring. Set something on fire.”

So, well, I saw lots of risks in this book. And again, folks should read it because there's some lots of page turning. Hey, you fill in the blanks here then. So, if you weren't working as a teacher librarian, what would you be?

James Klise:

So, I'm going to say this is an answer I've given before. I would love, love, love to be an art conservator. I would love to sit in a room with an old painting and my tools and listening to podcasts or NPR and spend the whole day cleaning artwork. Wouldn't that be so rewarding?

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh my gosh, I've never thought of that job. See, I think I'm going to say a film strip creator because I just want to go take pictures of Emily Dickinson's chamber pot now, but I guess they're similar, they're similar veins. What's something else quirky that folks don't always know about you? A like, or a love, or a pet peeve, or?

James Klise:

Oh, my pet peeve, and this comes up a lot in my line of work. I don't like high fives. Students are always wanting to high five me and I just keep my arms folded and say, “I don't do that. I don't.” I'm not a big fan of the high five. I have high-fived and I feel like a faker when I do it. It's just not my authentic form of expression.

Annmarie Kelly:

Alright. I don't think I've ever high-fived you.

James Klise:

No way. We have not.

Annmarie Kelly:

I wouldn't say I go around high-fiving, but I've never thought to like be against it. Do you just not like the smack? It hurts your hand?

James Klise:

It makes me uncomfortable.

Annmarie Kelly:

Or like it’s not-

James Klise:

No, no. I feel like it's something that like jocks do. Like, “Oh yeah, cool. We did it.” It's like not my … I'm a different species. I don't high five.

Annmarie Kelly:

Duly noted. I love this. What's one of your favorite books?

James Klise:

Well, that question.

Annmarie Kelly:

I know, it's mean. We could go back and do only this for the whole show. You could say some of your favorite books.

James Klise:

I'll give you some authors that whenever they have a book come out, I run to them. So, Peter Cameron, Sarah Waters, Lori Moore has a new book coming out in May that I can't wait to read. Rebecca Mackay's got a new book coming out this month that I can't wait to read. I mean, so many.

Annmarie Kelly:

It's so many books. Do you ever reread books or are you always thinking about how there's no time? “I've got so many books, new books.”

I had a friend chastise me once because I was rereading something and he's like, “Have you been to the Library of Congress? Do you understand? You'll never get through it. You can't. And not just with the ones that are made and you can see. You can't reread the books.” I am a re-reader, but I don't know, are you?

James Klise:

I don't often reread books, but when you get stuck as a writer and when you have setbacks as a writer, and when you have … I don't know. When it's not going well, I find that rereading books that I love, even if it's just passages from them, will sort of get my systems in order again and get me excited about what it is I'm trying to do. So, I'll reread in those situations.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, I'll go visit sentences. “Like how did she say that? Look at it, it's all one sentence. Let me try that.” I too will go back to a book for craft advice. What's a favorite movie or even television show?

James Klise:

Oh, favorite movie. Again, what an impossible question. For a long time, I would say that my favorite movie is City Lights, the Charlie Chaplin film because it's just so hilarious and so silly and so genius. And then there's that last three minutes of it that just are so transcendingly beautiful and moving that if you've never seen city lights, it's worth watching.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm going to link to that. You said Charlie Chaplin movie and I pictured a certain kind of film, but those last three minutes of transcendence, I'm not calling it to mind, so I'm going to give myself a homework assignment.

James Klise:

Oh. Have you never seen it?

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, I thought you said Charlie Chaplin movie. I feel like I know there's walking on this and there's pianos out windows. But the last three minutes of something, I'm going to go right now after this and look. I'll report back.

James Klise:

Do you remember the … and I won't spoil anything here, but the main idea is that Charlie Chaplin is in his tramp mode and he's on the street and he encounters this beautiful young woman who's blind, and she's selling flowers, and he buys a flower from her with a coin that he finds on the street, and they become close.

And she says, “If only I could afford this surgery to fix my eyes, I might have a chance at a happy life.” And he says, “Well, oh, I forgot about …” I mean, she thinks he's a wealthy gentleman. So, he sort of has presented to himself to her as this sort of wealthy man. And he says, “Well, I'll pay for your surgery.”

And so, most of the movie is him going through these outrageous efforts to get the money to entering a boxing match like to win the money to help her. And the way that the movie ends is just brilliant.

And Charlie Chaplin, he wrote it, he directed it, he starred in it, he composed the music. I mean, he just was incredible. Worth watching if you've never seen it.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm so excited. I'll link to that. I bet we can find it out there on YouTube too. Ah, alright, last two. What's your favorite ice cream or dessert?

James Klise:

Oh, favorite ice cream is probably salted caramel, but it changes. It changes by the season. I'm a big ice cream fan, so I like strawberry ice cream in the summertime. And yeah, chocolate sometimes too.

Annmarie Kelly:

Last one. If we were to take a picture of you really happy and doing something you love, what would we see?

James Klise:

Oh, I mentioned before I'm the youngest in a big family, and my sisters are spread out all around the country in California and Connecticut and Lisbon, Portugal, and New York City. And Christmas is sort of sacred for us, we always get together at Christmas time.

And so, probably with my sisters and our extended families and our spouses and the next generation. The holidays are a very happy time for me. So, it'd probably be a picture of me during the holidays.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love that. Well, Jim Klise, thank you.

James Klise:

Probably not a very original answer, but yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

No, I love that picture of warmth. The Holidays are not happy for everyone. So, actually that's wonderful that you guys have that. Jim Klise, thank you so much for making time today.

James Klise:

Thank you so much for the opportunity just to talk about writing and talk about the book. I really appreciate it, Annmarie.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, I know we're catching you amid the fan ferret excitement of promoting this new book, and I know it's exciting, but I know it also, can feel like people are asking you the same questions again and again. So, thank you for coming to them with at least the illusion of fresh ears and eyes.

And in the acknowledgements of I'll take Everything You Have, you wrote a thank you to the welcoming queer spaces of your youth. And I can envision countless young queer and questioning teens thanking you in their future acknowledgements for always creating such a welcoming space within the covers of your book. So, thank you.

James Klise:

Oh, thanks for that, Annmarie. It's so nice.

Annmarie Kelly:

Folks, James Klise's latest book is entitled, I'll Take Everything You Have. Look for it at your local library, your indie bookstore. It is so worth reading.

And to everyone listening, we're wishing you love and light, wherever the day takes you. Be good to yourself, be good to one another. And we'll see you again soon 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, Ian Douglas. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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