Kissing the Sky by Lisa Patton

In this episode of The Jane Healey Happy Hour, host and bestselling author Jane Healey speaks with novelist Lisa Patton about her new book Kissing the Sky, a story set against the backdrop of the 1969 Woodstock music festival. Patton shares how watching the festival’s 50th anniversary coverage sparked the idea for the novel and how extensive research—including conversations with Woodstock organizers and access to newly discovered archival tapes—helped her recreate the historic event.

Transcript

Jane 0:05

Welcome to the newly branded Jane Healy. Happy Hour, formerly historical Happy Hour, the podcast that explores new and exciting novels of all genres. I'm your host, bestselling author Jane Healy, and in today's episode, we welcome Lisa Patton to discuss her new novel Kissing the Sky, which has been described as the must read novel We all need right now, a bold, beautiful testament to the power of community. And the transformative nature of love. Welcome, Lisa.

Lisa 0:33

Hello Jane and thank you so much for having me.

Jane 0:36

Yeah, thank you for coming on. Yeah. I'm gonna just do a little bio about you and then I have probably more questions than we have time for, but we'll do our best

Lisa 0:44

okay.

Jane 0:45

Alright. Lisa Patton, the bestselling author of five novels, is a Memphis, Tennessee native. She has over 25 years of experience working in theater, radio, tv, and music, including a decade with Doobie brother Michael McDonald, who along with his wife Amy, helps Lisa co-write and produce. If not for you, an original song for kissing the Sky. Amazing. I have questions. A graduate of the University of Alabama, Lisa is the pro mother of two sons, eight bonus children and 12 grandchildren. She and her husband live in the rolling hills of Nashville with their four-legged furry son named Ziggy. Again, welcome.

Lisa 1:21

Thank you. Thank you. Um,

Jane 1:23

I love this book and I love that, there's, I don't. I don't feel like I've read a lot of books that take place in 1969. So this is the, summer of 69 centers around the Wood Stick Stock Music Festival. Talk about how you came up with the premise of this novel.

Lisa 1:39

Great question. I was watching the 50th anniversary coverage in 2019. I'll never forget it. I was sitting in my bedroom and it came on, and as you just said, I was in music and all that for 25 years. So I love it. And I was, I've always been fascinated by Woodstock, even though I was too young to attend. I remember seeing the movie in New York City with my college roommate in 77, and of course I call myself a once. Sheltered southern girl. My eyes popped out of my head at the movie, people walking around naked and I'm thinking, whoa, so I'd always been fascinated with it. And I went to Google to see if there had been a Woodstock novel already, because I wasn't familiar with it if there had been, and I couldn't find one. So I thought, oh, I better get busy. So I did and the title came first. And that comes from, since Jimi Hendrix was the headliner of Woodstock, it comes from the song Purple Haze. Excuse me, while I kiss the Sky.

Jane 2:44

Yeah.

Lisa 2:45

And that's where I got the title. So that's how I was inspired to write it.

Jane 2:49

Oh, title was one of my questions was, so that was always the title.

Lisa 2:52

First thing I thought of.

Jane 2:54

Amazing. Oh

Lisa 2:54

wow. Yeah. And at first it was gonna be Kiss the Sky, and then I looked it up and there are probably 10 books called Kiss the Sky.

Jane 3:01

Ah.

Lisa 3:02

So Kissing the Sky was actually my first and Idea, and then somebody else said, kiss the Sky. So anyway, we settled on Kissing the Sky, and when I found out that Jimi Hendrix was the headliner. It was even better. Perfect.

Jane 3:17

Yeah. Totally nice. Yes. So your publicist sent me notes about your research and I, I'm sure like you're a research lover too, and I just, it sounded like such a fun, fascinating process. Talk about some of the people you talked to and if you discovered anything surprising.

Lisa 3:33

Oh gosh. It was just quite a rabbit hole to dive into. The most interesting thing, I'll start with this. First of all, and I'm gonna quote the first line of the book, and that is they say, if you remember Woodstock, you weren't really there. So that proved to be so true and quite an obstacle when researching and writing the book because. It was true. I even spoke with the creator of Woodstock, Michael Lang, before he passed away. I believe he passed away in 22 or 20, about 22, and we had a great conversation. He was so generous, but he was quick to say, I think this is, when, what happened, when and when Writing a novel, you kinda need to know. What happened when be, to make it accurate. And he had even written a memoir called On the Road to Woodstock and readily admits he wasn't absolutely sure. What happened when, and then I talked to his assistant Joyce Mitchell, who was in her nineties at the time. She is two since passed away. She didn't remember anything either. She was helpful but still couldn't remember. Running order when the rain came in and sidebar at Woodstock, the announcements made from the stage were the only means of communication and the only way you would find somebody if you lost them, because there were no cell phones, there was no nothing. There were 500,000 people in a pasture and you would have to go give a note to the stage to. If you lost your friend to say, I can't find my ride, my friend, my keys, anything. So the announcements, the order of the announcements was important, like when they decided to make it a free concert. So I really needed exact timing. I was scheduled to talk to David Crosby, and I actually had, was able to, I knew a friend who Michael McDonald, who was going, had set me up an interview with him. COVID hit and then unfortunately he died of COVID. So not that he would've known the exact order of anything. But anyway, that was, that's part of the research. I could go on, but I will say this one thing only until I met a man named Andy Zachs, who discovered the original Woodstock tapes. They had been in storage in New York for 30 something years, and then they were transferred to Hollywood. To a Warner Music facility. He found them, ran with it. Rhino backed him, and now he put out a compilation album of every single song running order announcement. Only then could I know exactly what happened when.

Jane 6:30

Amazing. Oh, that's fascinating.

Lisa 6:33

Thank you. It was so fun. I'm like you. I love the research.

Jane 6:37

Yeah, I love it.

Lisa 6:38

You have to make yourself get back to the writing Jane?

Jane 6:41

Oh, always. I know it's bad. So Woodstock. So this is to your point about research too. Woodstock itself, the con the festival is almost like its own character. Yes. And I love when settings are like character. So

Lisa 6:56

it is,

Jane 6:56

How did you create such a vivid setting with sensory, like overload of music and weather and mud and smells and like all this stuff?

Lisa 7:08

Thank you. A, but b, it was a writer's dream because you know how they always say heap conflict on your protagonist, or the more conflict the better. We know conflict keeps people turning the page. There was so much built in conflict from torrential downpours that created terrible mud to the music, all the best bands of the sixties, with the exception of the Beatles Led Zeppelin. Joni Mitchell. I think there were a few more, but most everybody else was there. And so the music, it was easier. It was easy to create that because there were six light towers and sound towers, so the music could be heard everywhere. And the like I said, there was so much mud, so much rain. Let's see. Just, it was sensory overload just to be there. So all I had to do, yes, was just to count so

Jane 8:08

much, so many drugs.

Lisa 8:10

Oh, hello? The drugs? Oh yes, the drugs. The drugs. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yeah, the drugs

Jane 8:17

amazing. So of course this being a story about a music festival, music plays a huge role. And I was interested too, reading your notes about, you had, you used lyrics in the novel and you had to secure permissions. I know about that'cause I've tried and failed in, in some of my books. And so talk about that process. So I wanna talk about that process. And then in addition to. That, like you also wrote a song for this book and that's just crazy. So talk to me about the music elements of this.

Lisa 8:49

Okay I wanna say that one of the reasons I got to write that song, and I'll come back to it, is this book took me a long time because unlike you, I'd never written historical fiction before. So that was quite a learning curve for me, all the time. It would take. But anyway, so answer to your first question which was okay, now I'm getting off track. I know you wanna know how I wrote the song, but oh lyric permission. Yeah. Lyrics.

Jane 9:14

Yeah.

Lisa 9:14

That is quite a story. So yes, Nancy, our editor was adamant that you have got to get permission. You've got to get permission. Boy, I got busy and I started writing people because I, my original draft had so many more lyrics quoted. For instance. Suzy Q, it worked perfectly in there in the story, and I thought that was a credence Clearwater revival song. It turns out, no, they covered it. And there is a holding company called Hal Leonard Company that if you write to them, they will go secure the permissions for you. I had tried to go directly to Warner Brothers and the artists. I wrote John Fogerty, I wrote lots of artists. And I went to Joni Mitchell's website and wrote to her, never heard anything. It turns out most of these people use this company called Hal Leonard and they secure and quote the fee for you.

Jane 10:17

Interesting.

Lisa 10:18

And it's not cheap, and I, I. Didn't think I wanted to do it. Now, I was fortunate to get Lyric permission from three people who did give it to me gratis. It was so kind of them to do that. But. There were some others who they weren't gonna do that. But can I tell you one funny story?

Jane 10:39

Of course.

Lisa 10:40

So I, because the song, the title's taken from the Jimi Hendrix song, purple Haze, I wanted to use, excuse me, why or excuse me, while I kiss this guy, in the lyrics, right? In, in the. The text of the story. So I contacted the Jimi Hendrix estate, that estate you can contact directly. We were in constant contact. One has to send not only where you're gonna use it in the story, but like 10 pages before and 10 pages after. I thought I was gonna get to use it, but then I got told in the M that the Jimi Hendrix estate does not grant lyric permission for any work that has anything remotely to do with sex or drugs. Wow.

Jane 11:29

Wow.

Lisa 11:29

And I said, Jim

Jane 11:31

Hendrix.

Lisa 11:32

I said, huh, I find that so interesting. So I write back, I can't, I go in all his flawed glory, Jimi Hendrix, the headliner of Woodstock, it's documented that he brought 12 groupies to the stage. In fact, when someone from the audience screams, Jimmy, are you high? It's documented on tape. He says Back, yeah, baby, I am high. Thank you, baby. Thank you. And I thought, okay, so I wasn't Grant, I was willing to pay for it, but I wasn't granted permission. But sweet Joni Mitchell did grant me permission.

Jane 12:07

Wow.

Lisa 12:08

Amazing to, because I wanted the. A verse from her song, Woodstock as the epigraph. You get the whole, you can print all the lyrics. So I ended up printing the lyrics in the back of the book, the whole song, because you can, and I didn't mean to do this, but there were a lot of similarities in the story. And that song so anyway, that's a little bit about,

Jane 12:31

yeah. Yeah. Fascinating. Fascinating.'cause yeah, I've, a couple times with editors, they've just been like you can't even, don't even bother. Yeah. I tried to put like a Sinatra song in there. So they're like, no, that comes out.

Lisa 12:41

It's true. And they won't pay for it. I had to pay for it, yeah. And it's not easy. But for this book, I was determined to just to have a couple in there. That I, so that makes sense. So I did

12:52

it.

Jane 12:52

Makes sense. Yeah. Now the other music aspect I wanna discuss is the original song that you wrote with, okay?

Lisa 13:00

Yes.

Jane 13:00

Alright. Excuse. Tell us everything. Yeah.

Lisa 13:02

Okay. So I was Michael McDonald's personal assistant for 10 years. And he lived in Nashville with his family and as his personal assistant. I did everything from getting autopsies on his goats when they died to reporting rattlesnakes on the property. Two, helping him produce videos and and songs. And Oh, I was, I did the gamut of so many things.'cause I'd had a pretty long music background when I came to him. He was my last music position. But anyway. With the, our family and his family formed a close friendship. They moved to la I'm sorry. They moved back to California. Santa Barbara and I went and started writing. When that happened? Anyway, the whole time I kept hearing his wife's voice, Amy in my head'cause she has a beautiful voice. So I approached him and I said, Hey, will you write a song with me and Amy? Will you sing it? And it was over dinner one night when they were back in Nashville and they were like sure. I persisted and then I flew out there and it was so fun because we wrote the song in under two hours. It just was meant to be'cause it just came out. And then Michael was kind enough to produce it. He, there's a studio there in Santa Barbara and, because he's Michael McDonald, he has a lot of connections and. His Doobie Brothers pals did the rest of the instrumentation. He plays organs and keys and Amy sings it and it's fun'cause it's Dr It will be, that recording is in the audio book.

Jane 14:38

Awesome.

Lisa 14:38

So it's dropped in the audio book. And if you. Belong to any streaming service from Amazon Music to Spotify, to Pandora, to iTunes. It's on there. And you could go, oh, and my hope is that people will go and listen to the song while they're reading.'cause the song lyrics are at the end of the book and that they would. Hear it. Hear the real song. Okay.

Jane 15:00

I'm gonna head over there after this'cause I Oh,

Lisa 15:01

please do. Please. I can send you the link. James,

Jane 15:03

ill send Oh, thank you. I didn't realize it was already out. That's awesome.

Lisa 15:06

Yes.

15:06

Amazing.

Lisa 15:06

It came out February 1st because the book is in the First Reads program.

Jane 15:11

Yes.

Lisa 15:11

And we wanted people to be able to hear it, but they're not gonna really push it until March 1st.

Jane 15:16

Yeah.

15:16

You

Lisa 15:17

know?

Jane 15:17

So

Lisa 15:17

cool. Like she's releasing it as a single.

Jane 15:20

Amazing. Amazing.

Lisa 15:21

Yeah, that was fun.

Jane 15:22

Super fun. Yeah. So different. Yeah.

Lisa 15:25

Yeah.

Jane 15:26

I have questions about the characters, but I wanted to just ask is what's diff, what's the difference between writing long form fiction and writing lyrics? Because I feel like they, there's such different, so very different in terms of. Your brain and the type of writing,

Lisa 15:42

right? Because we had, you have to write a whole story in five minutes or less, yeah.'cause it's a ballad and there's traditionally in song structure, two verses. Two to three choruses and a bridge. And fortunately Michael, who's also songwriting is his gift. And he knows that. And I can't tell you how many music songwriting sessions, excuse me, I scheduled for him while I worked for him.

Jane 16:11

Wow.

Lisa 16:11

It was full circle moment to get to do that with him, but it's like condensing the whole story down into a few minutes and you're right, it's a different part of your brain, but you, I. I wish I could tell you.'cause it was, he helped too. It was the two of us doing the lyric. He did all the music. I can't take credit for any of that, just the lyrics.'cause he was helpful there too. But it's I don't really know how to answer that because he was guiding it,

Jane 16:43

yeah.

Lisa 16:43

But it is a different part of your brain. You're exactly right. Yeah. You have all the freedom in the world to expound on anything you want. Now you gotta condense it down to this tiny little five minutes or less in time.

Jane 16:55

Yeah. Or less.

Lisa 16:56

Or less. Yes. This one's five minutes. We probably made a little longer than we should have but we're not looking for, radio doesn't, don't, I think radio you have to be four minutes or under, and we weren't really looking for that, but

Jane 17:09

That's right, that's

Lisa 17:09

right. That's a great question Anyway.

Jane 17:11

Very cool. Very cool. Yes. So the main character, Susanna. Comes from a highly conservative southern family and Woodstock is her first real rebellion against her family and her father. Thanks to her friend Livy.

Lisa 17:25

Yes.

Jane 17:25

How did you come up with these characters and this storyline?

Lisa 17:28

That's a good question too. Okay. So I'm a huge Beatle. And that was the first concert I ever went to. My mother took me and my little sister and me when I was eight and she was six. It was August of 66. I'll never forget it as long as I live, because I was standing on my chair so I could see over the teenager's heads and you couldn't hear a word they said because all you heard was scream. Scream screams. It was the Mid-South Coliseum. And I remember being out there and I remember seeing Ku Klux Klan and thinking. Weird. That's, didn't really understand what that was at eight, but I started thinking, what would it have been like to have been a teenager in 1966 in love with Paul McCartney as most young girls were. John George, Ringo, so in love to the point where they're known to have wet their pants at concerts and all that stuff. I thought, what would that have been like when John came out and said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus? What would that have been like to have come from a home where they said, Nope, you can never hear, you could never listen to him again. Never. And I thought, what would that have been like?

Jane 18:44

Yeah.

Lisa 18:44

And I let my mind go with that because in Memphis, Tennessee, there were beetle burnings and record burnings. In fact, it wasn't just Memphis, it was all over the country. But more so in the South, I think. And I just said that would've been horrible. So I imagine that situation and to make it worse, what if her father was an Army Colonel? And back then I interviewed a couple of people with fathers for army colonels. And the two that I interviewed, they were very strict and weren't super hands-on or nice, or just really strict men, just, and I thought, what would that have been like? And then what would've been like if her brother was Vietnam age and that father, that military colonel insisted his son enlist to make him a man because that book. What if that brother like Susanna, they're very creative kids and is not really the soldier type, what would that have been like? So I just started thinking about it and as Jane just let my mind go and wonder just came up with that scenario for a protagonist and I thought, she's gotta be very naive because she's been raised in a very strict home. With all kinds of restrictions. And back in 69, of course, every, you weren't an adult till you were 21 and your parents pretty much had autonomy over you. You, at least in the south you had to do what they said still. Until you left home.

Jane 20:11

Yeah. So

Lisa 20:11

what was that? What would that have been like? That's

Jane 20:14

so interesting. And so I was thinking about this too. This is a dual timeline. Of Liv, of Susanna in 2019 looking back and also during that, amazing summer. Did you always plan to write it that way as a dual timeline?

Lisa 20:30

No.

Jane 20:31

Oh, okay.

Lisa 20:32

I did not. I was thinking I wrote it first without that at all. And then I was talking to a friend because it's technically a frame story, like the Titanic. You know when the Titanic opens, its Rose as a grandmother with her granddaughter, and that's the first scene, the last scene, and then you go back to it a few times, a couple of times within the movie. I have a friend who had written a frame story and she suggested it'cause I thought. It needs something more. And she suggested the frame story and I thought, oh my gosh, yeah, that could work. So I really, while it's not the majority of the chapters, it's just six chapters that they go back and there's a lot of flashback chapters in the book too. But I thought that would be really fun to see where she ended up 50 years later, because at the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. I read or researched that many Woodstock originals, they call'em, the people that went to Woodstock brought, bring their husbands, their grandchildren, their children. They want them to share the weekend with them. The anniversary weekend and the 50th anniversary weekend was really big. In fact, the Doobie Brothers played that weekend.

Jane 21:54

Nice.

Lisa 21:54

And so did Ringo Star and so did John Fogarty, who has a. Small part in the book that I couldn't resist. And anyway that's why I did it.'cause I thought it would be fun to show her arc as an older lady. Because it was really just taking the book took place over three weeks. And how do you show somebody's arc? In three weeks. That's kinda hard. You can a little, but for did it stick? And so I thought with the older lady. You could know more about how she ends up that way. Yeah. So that's how I came to do it.

Jane 22:33

Yeah. So interesting. Yeah I loved how you structured that.

Lisa 22:35

Thank you. Thank you.

Jane 22:36

Yeah. I really, it really worked well and I, yeah, and I think, yeah, and I think it is tricky, right? With Oh, any sort of dual narrative. It's tricky. So

Lisa 22:44

it's all, and I've never done that before, and I can only just go like this to those of you who do, oh my gosh, I can't. This was my first shot, so

Jane 22:54

I agree. Maybe I wanna talk about the cover. This will be on YouTube, but for those who are listening the cover is like this. Gorgeous, like multicolored illustration. And two, a couple on the top of a Volkswagen bus and the whole crowd in front of them. And I get a lot of covers and my daughter's really artistic and so this one was sitting on the counter upstairs and she's oh, that's a great cover. I'm like, yeah, we always critique covers. I'm like, isn't it? I'm like, it's different. It has the vibe. Did you have a lot of say in the cover?

Lisa 23:26

No and I tell you, it's the best cover I've ever gotten. I screamed when I opened the file, Nancy, as we share an editor and she kept telling me, no, I hadn't gotten it yet. I haven't gotten it yet. The right one hasn't come across my desk. So she never gave up till she got the right cover and fell up. Did it in WA in Washington State and he was or is amazing and they sent me two and that to me was the clear cover. The colors are so beautiful and yeah, Nancy gets all the kudos for that. Yeah, because she didn't give up till she got the right cover. It is. Thank you. It's so colorful and pretty. Yeah. I don't know how they could have made it any better.'cause So fun. It shows two people in love at a concert.

Jane 24:17

Yep. Yep. Yeah, it hits all the notes. I love it. Yeah,

Lisa 24:20

I think so too. Thank you for saying that.

Jane 24:23

Oh, you're welcome. So I have a few writing questions. Okay. But I ask everyone. Okay. What's your process? Are you a plotter or a pants?

Lisa 24:30

In between.

Jane 24:31

Yeah,

Lisa 24:31

I, I started out as a pants for my fourth book. I plotted this book. I plotted, but then I had to go back to pants. I bet you I revised this book. I am embarrassed to say there's just no telling how many drafts? 20. I even went from first person to third person, then back to first person. I was insane. I was laughing with a friend of mine the other day. I go, at this point I think I'm making 0.05 cents an hour.

Jane 25:03

I know when you do the math on all the hours. I know.

Lisa 25:06

Oh my gosh. And then by the time you spend your time promoting it. Uhhuh. We can agree, can't we? Jane? It's not a big money maker. It's just not. But when you wanna do it, you have to do it, yep. So thanks to my husband. I can do it right. But it's tough. It's really tough. The

Jane 25:24

hustle. The hustle is real. I

Lisa 25:25

always say yes.

Jane 25:26

Yeah.

Lisa 25:26

But I think I'm both a mixture of both.

Jane 25:29

Interesting. Okay. And so you've written contemporary novels. You said this is your first historical what did you, do you have a preference? What did you enjoy about this? What did you not enjoy?

Lisa 25:41

Can I tell you my favorite thing I enjoy, to be quite honest, is I loved that I could write a story without the use of text messaging, cell phones. That I could write a protagonist. That is different from the 20-year-old protagonist today.'cause honestly, I don't know a lot of 20-year-old protagonists today, and it's just, it would take a lot of research to get into the mindset of a 20-year-old protagonist for me now.

Jane 26:12

Oh yeah,

Lisa 26:12

this girl is 20 and I want. 20 year olds today to read it. Of course I do to learn about the counterculture and the time in 1969 because what a rich year that was in our history. And I want them to learn. But that to me was my favorite part, is not having to worry about text messages and cell phone.

Jane 26:34

I say that all the time

Lisa 26:35

to work for what? What'd you say?

Jane 26:36

I say that all the time about historical fiction. It's oh, just not having to deal with any of that is great.

Lisa 26:41

Yes. Aren't you right?

Jane 26:43

It's

Lisa 26:43

so true. I love that. That was my favorite part for

Jane 26:46

sure. Yeah. Nice. What advice do you have for aspiring writers who are listening about writing and or about getting published? Any advice? I

Lisa 26:57

try to make it. My goal. I think those of us who are published, we need to help those who aren't, and if nothing else, be a listening ear to impart any wisdom that we have to help them to keep going. Because it seems since I first got published in 2009, it's so much harder to get published. And I hear of people first novel, second novel, third novel, rejected on the fourth novel, and I think. Wow. And I have to temper this with, it's real easy to get jaded, I think the older you get sometimes. And I don't wanna make anybody feel defeated, so I wouldn't do that. But I would say art is subjective. And I tell my son this all the time I am a commercial. Novelist, right? I like to think I have a sentence or two that's pretty in there, but I am not a literary writer. And you don't have to be, you know you as long as you're a good storyteller. And I heard John Grisham one time say, I am not the best writer in the world, but I'm a damn good storyteller, is what he says. And I thought, wow, that really gave me a lot of, made me feel good. So I think that. If you're a commercial writer and you love a plot and you love telling stories that you should do that and you should not give up and you should believe in your own art because we writers can get in our head and get an imposter syndrome just like that, and. Isn't it the truth? You listen to the background noise. There's an angel here and a devil here, and the devil screams you're a fraud. And the angel says, no, you're not. You're beautiful. You're really good at that. So you have to quiet the noise, believe in yourself and just keep going. And if it ever gets to where you need to stop, I think you'll know that. And I think God will let but really, I think. That's what I would tell people. Just keep going. Keep going. Don't give up. Please don't give up. Excellent. That's what I would say.

Jane 29:09

Excellent advice. Yeah. Per persistence in this business is everything. Yeah. I completely agree. Yep.

Lisa 29:15

I could be, I could keep you on for another 15 minutes talking about persistence.

Jane 29:20

Oh yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah, and I think that's. That's definitely a theme among the authors that I talked to on this. And it's keep your, keep yourself in the game if you take yourself out, that one yes. Is not gonna happen.

Lisa 29:31

Yeah. I took myself out for a year and I won't, for a while and I won't go into why but it was harder to get back in than I. You

Jane 29:38

know? Yeah. Yeah.

Lisa 29:39

So it's tough, but it's worth it. And in the end, you have to satisfy yourself and your own creativity and just feel good about yourself despite the noise, because when you've, you can write a sentence, we know that.

Jane 29:54

Totally agree. Are you ready to talk about what you're working on next?

Lisa 29:58

I could if you wanna Okay.

Jane 30:00

Yeah, if you wanna, yeah.

Lisa 30:01

Okay. It's 1990, so as apparently that's historical fiction and it's set in New York City and it's about I always. Make a Southern protagonist because I know them the best. But it's a southern girl in the nineties who was a theater major and she was had to, she was ready to go to Broadway with her college roommate and best friend, and they were gonna go hit the streets when her mother died. I am not giving anything away, and she had to come back home and help her father raise her little brother. So she gave up her dream. Of being a of being a star or, on Broadway to raise her little brother. And then just. It becomes a drama teacher and is okay with it. Until an opportunity comes for her to try out for her favorite play in the whole wide world. And that's Greece. And her roommate calls her and says, you have to come up there. Come up here. And she she gets an so she's gotta make a living and she fi she gets hired. This is the fun part by a sensational. Stage actress and movie film actress and all the capers that happen in that job. It's what's the TV show now that's on? Hacks. Hacks. Oh yeah. A little bit like that, but not really. Just a little bit. It was inspired by some, a caper that happened when I worked for Michael McDonald. We, I'll just leave you with this'cause this is a fun way to leave it. Michael was a groomsman in Liza Minnelli in David guest's wedding, and I got to go to the wedding and it's just been a good basis for me to write. I've always wanted to write about it and I'm finally doing it'cause it was,

Jane 31:55

I dunno if any author can top that story.

Lisa 31:58

It's it's so crazy. Again, if we had more time, I. Could tell you the story and we'll just say Until next time. Until next

Jane 32:07

time,

Lisa 32:07

and then when we can talk about it. But it was insane. So my life is like that. I have always had these crazy jobs. This is no different than all my other crazy jobs, that's

Jane 32:19

right. That's right. I

Lisa 32:21

tell you, I was an innkeeper in Vermont.

Jane 32:23

Oh, I saw I read that on your site. I think it was, yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Last question. How best can readers stay in touch with you?

Lisa 32:33

On Instagram or Facebook, or, I have a website, lisa patton.com. I'm Lisa Patton. Books on Instagram and Lisa Patton author, and that way I think I'd do my best to get back with everybody that writes to me, unless it's crazy. But I would love to connect with my readers and, just appreciate, and I know, Jane, you can join me in this. We, it doesn't go without notice when somebody spends 10 hours of their precious time with your book.

Jane 33:05

Absolutely.

Lisa 33:06

And I'm so grateful to anybody that would spend that kind of time with my book, and I'm just, I mean it for them by my heart. I'm so grateful for anybody that would take a chance on anything I've ever written.

Jane 33:19

Oh, amen to that. Now as a follow on, do you zoom with book clubs? Are you interested in, is that something that you do?

Lisa 33:25

Oh, I do that, yes.

Jane 33:26

Okay. Yeah, this would be a great book club book oh, thank you.

Lisa 33:28

Thank you. I enjoy doing that. I really

Jane 33:31

do. Yeah. Okay, good. Good. Awesome. Lisa, it was delightful talking to you. Thank you for coming on.

Lisa 33:37

You're so cute. I have a new friend. I'm so excited that I have your number. I'm gonna text you the song after this, so you'll have, I think you already have my number, but please put it in your phone and let's get together. I didn't even know about that Lake Union party. In the fall, but I would've, I bet you were there. I would've loved to have met you.

Jane 33:55

I did. It was fun. It was fun. It was short, but fun. Yeah.

Lisa 33:58

Okay.

Jane 33:58

Yeah, but I'll, let me do my little wrap up. Okay. Congratulations on this wonderful new novel, kissing the Sky. Releases March 1st, but is available now on Amazon First Reads and is from Lake Union Publishing. My latest novel from Lake Union is Women of Arlington Hall. Also available now. And don't forget to follow happy hour wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe to my YouTube channel. Thanks again, Lisa.

Lisa 34:24

Thank you, Jane. Till next time.