Show Notes
Jennie Nash hosts a #amwriting podcast BookLab with guest Kathleen Barber, author of Truth Be Told and newly released Sisterhood Above All (co-written with Amayah Shaienne), and discusses Barber’s range across thrillers and romance, her character-first approach, and how RushTok inspired an authentic sorority-rush thriller featuring Madison, Shay, and Ava as tensions escalate and someone dies. They define RushTok as viral TikTok coverage of University of Alabama sorority recruitment and note its broad international fascination. In the BookLab, they evaluate three first-page submissions by asking “Would we turn the page?” They praise Heather’s Trust Me for strong voice, vivid Austin setting, and an intriguing problem hook, with minor notes about genre context. They decline Odeon Omega due to unearned logistics and too much dialogue despite an intriguing title/advert. They find Empty Spaces compellingly written but confusing from too many names and unclear stakes, suggesting more interiority and clarity. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Connect with Kathleen Visit Kathleen’s website to find her books and more: https://www.kathleenbarber.com Transcript Jennie: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Jennie Nash, and you’re listening to the #amwriting podcast, the place where we help writers of all kinds play big in your writing life, love the process, and stick with it long enough to finish what matters most. This is a book lab session where we answer the most important question about your first pages. Would we pick up the book? Would we turn the page? Today, I have a really special guest with me. I have Kathleen Barber here, who is so many things. She’s the author of Truth Be Told, which was adapted as a series on Apple TV, Follow Me, Both Things Are True, and just brand new, like it came out four days ago, Sisterhood Above All, with, I’m gonna try her name, Amaya Chen? How do you- Barbara: Yeah. Uh, um, yeah. That’s, that’s very close. I think it’s Amaya Chen. Jennie: Okay. Yeah. Uh, so we’re gonna hear about that in a minute. Um, I haven’t, I haven’t cracked it open yet, but I’m so [00:01:00] excited for it. Um, Kathleen’s also an Author Accelerator certified book coach and a former attorney, and she lives in Washington, DC with her family. So welcome, Kathleen. Barbara: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here. Jennie: So I watched your unboxing the other day. It was so fun, and I didn’t realize that we had scheduled this right on top of, like the actual- Oh ... launch of your book. Barbara: No, that, that’s okay. It’s, it’s great. Um, it gives me something to think about that’s not just, like, spiraling. Like, is anybody gonna read my book? Is anybody gonna like it? Um, so it gives me something else to focus on. Jennie: Well, it’s so interesting you say that because I think of you as this really seasoned pro and, you know, it’s been really interesting for me to watch your career because you’ve written some really different kinds of books. You did a ... Well, your first book was obviously a big thriller and a huge success, and at one point, you pivoted to romance, and now you’re doing ... Well, I, I saw that book list [00:02:00] called Sisterhood Above All, a soapy thriller Yes. Yes ... which is such a great description, and you did it with a collaborator. So you just seem interested in story to me. Barbara: I, I am. Yeah. I’m always very ... I always start a story with the characters. Um, and so then their story kind of spirals out from there. Um, yeah, so I, my last book that came out before this one was, was a rom-com. Um, and I was really nervous when I started writing it. I was like, “How am I going to write this when I’ve been writing suspense and thrillers before?” And it turns out that, like, at the heart of it, stories are stories, and people are people, and, you know, in a romance, happy things happen. In a thriller
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I want to take you inside my favorite yoga studio in Santa Barbara. It’s called Yoga Soup, and it’s a giant, grounding mix of movement, actual nutrient-dense soup in a crockpot, fresh fruit from local trees, and community. My husband Rob and I practice there a few times a week, and one of our favorite instructors—who is also a middle school English teacher—starts every class by reading a poem. She weaves its themes throughout our practice and reads it again at the end. Now, I’ll be honest with you: these classes are often equal parts healing and deeply unsettling for me. Why? Because I’m in there without a notebook or phone, frantically trying to memorize brilliant lines so I don’t lose them! A few weeks ago, she read a poem by Mary Oliver called “Today” from her 2012 collection A Thousand Mornings. One line hit me like a bolt of lightning: “Today I’m flying low, and I’m not saying a word. / I’m letting all the voodoos of ambition sleep.” I spent the rest of the class scrambling to hold onto that concept because the “voodoos of ambition” are my constant companions. They’re the noisy, bossy, pushy engine behind everything I make, write, and build. They drive the desire to “play big.” And if you’re listening to this podcast, I bet your voodoos are pretty loud, too. But as I wrestled with Mary Oliver’s words, a new thought took root: What would happen if we actually let those voodoos take a day off? In this Write Big session, I’m reflecting on: * The double-edged sword of high ambition and why we need energy to drive big work. * Why scrambling to capture every thought is just another “voodoo” in disguise. * How giving your ambition a rest—letting it sink into child’s pose—is actually what allows it to wake up re-energized and full of life. Writing big requires big energy, but it also requires rest. This week, I’m offering you a permission slip to fly low, be quiet as a feather, and let your ambition sleep for a little while. Until next time, stop playing small and write like it matters! #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
You’ll get a regular Write Big episode tomorrow!
Have you ever looked at a project you’ve poured years of your life into and realized… it’s fine? Not catastrophic. Not terrible. Just fine. No one wants to read a book that’s fine — and I am certain you don’t want to write one. The first step in making sure you do better than fine is to catch yourself when you know you’ve hit a wall — which is way easier said than done. We get so used to plowing ahead, getting the words down, prioritizing FINISHING that we often forget to stop and make sure we are writing what we really want to be writing. Think of that pause like checking in with your gut or your heart: do you love this? Because if you don’t love it, your readers aren’t going to love it, either. In this Write Big episode, KJ and I sit down for an honest, behind-the-scenes look at what happens when you hit a wall—and decide to set off a stick of dynamite instead of trying to climb over it. Both of us recently threw out huge portions of our current projects (my Write Big book, and KJ’s novel) to start fresh from page zero. I share the story of my 12-hour wrestling match with ChatGPT over the books subtitle (yeah — 12 hours on the subtitle), the “tough love” reality check I got from #amwriting recurring guest therapist Dr. Diana Hill, and how answering one simple question—are you actually centering your reader?—changed everything about my book’s tone, structure, and voice. Meanwhile, KJ opens up about why she threw out her protagonist, embraced a dual-timeline structure, and ignored the well-meaning advice of friends who told her NOT to keep starting over. We talk about: * How to recognize when a book is polite or timid instead of alive. * The difference between an echo chamber (which AI can sometimes be) and a true truth-teller. * A method for salvaging the gold from an abandoned draft without getting bogged down by old words. * Why starting over isn’t “falling behind”—it’s standing up for your conviction. If you’re feeling stuck, lost, or secretely suspecting your current draft needs a radical pivot, we encourage you stop playing it safe and build something alive. Let’s get back to work and finish work we LOVE. #AmWriting is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
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