What is the value of narrative story in our society?

[00:00:00] Speaker 3: Hey, it's Anne, and this is the Metta interview, intimate Conversations with brilliant humans, contributors to Le Trente named for the Buddhist practice of loving kindness. This show brings unconditional friendliness to how we meet each other, rather than traditional interviews showcasing expertise. Each episode gathers around a question that feels alive for my guest right now to explore not just what they know, but who they are, their stories, their questions, the perspectives that shape their work.

[00:00:43] Speaker 3: Think of it as eavesdropping on an exchange between friends, repeat with hand gestures, thoughtful poses, and all of those. Notions and imperfections that make us human. I deeply believe that all of us carry one or several questions throughout our lives. Questions that all work. Our relationships, our choices are really an attempt to answer.

[00:01:10] Speaker 3: By building each conversation around one of those alive questions as I call them, I hope to make this the little black dress of podcasts timeless rather than trendy. And yes, you may or may not know about me that I spent years working in fashion, including over a decade and a half at. So when I reach for that particular metaphor.

[00:01:34] Speaker 3: There's lived experience behind it, and we could say that what I've learned in those years is that the most enduring things in fashion and in life are the ones conceived with genuine care, and that's what I'm trying to bring to this format. Care for you, the listener. Care for the person sitting across from me who has agreed to touch on their lives and questions that matter, to show up with a certain vulnerability and to go somewhere real.

[00:02:07] Speaker 3: I hope that you feel that in every single episode.

[00:02:14] Speaker 4: I am really excited to be bringing April Davila to The Metta Interview. April is an author and a writing coach based in California, and she helps aspiring writers write more and suffer less. And isn't that great? April and I first spoke a few years ago when she was a guest on my other podcast, Out of the Clouds, but our story goes back a little further than that.

[00:02:40] Speaker 4: We met actually in January 2021 at the closing ceremony for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. Sorry, it doesn't roll off the tongue. We like to call it MMTCP for short. So that's a, a training we both took, a two-year training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach to become mindfulness meditation teachers.

[00:03:04] Speaker 4: The ceremony was online over Zoom, and we couldn't have been further apart. Okay, maybe we could have. Mm, it could have easily also felt anticlimactic, and we could have also not met at all, but we did, and we followed up, and this was five years ago. And even though April lives far away and we don't know each other that well, her work and, and her influence has really stayed with me.

[00:03:31] Speaker 4: I loved her first novel, 142 Ostriches, and I followed along as she grew her coaching writing practice using mindfulness as a way to harness creativity and to support the writing process. April's new book, Sit Write Here, grows out of exactly that. In it, she offers mindfulness practices for writers, not a system or a method to master, but something gentler and something more honest, a way of showing up for your writing, of quieting the noise of distraction and doubt so that you are no longer ruled by it.

[00:04:09] Speaker 4: It rests on a premise I love for its simplicity. Write more, suffer less. And it takes the suffering part seriously, which is the part that most writing advice ignores. Now, at the heart of today's conversation is April's question: What is the value of narrative story in our society? A big question, I know.

[00:04:35] Speaker 4: I hope you enjoy it. Happy listening

[00:04:38] Hey, it's Anne. I am really excited to be bringing April Davila to the Metta Interview. April is an author and a writing coach based in California, and she helps aspiring writers write more and suffer less. And isn't that great? April and I first spoke a few years ago when she was a guest on my other podcast, Out of the Clouds.

[00:05:03] But our story goes back a little further than that. We met actually in January 2021 at the closing ceremony for the Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program. Sorry, it doesn't roll off the tongue. We like to call it MMTCP for short. So that's a, a training we both took, a two-year training with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach to become mindfulness meditation teachers.

[00:05:30] The ceremony was online over Zoom, and we couldn't have been further apart. Okay, maybe we could have. Mm, it could have easily also felt anticlimactic, and we could have also not met at all, but we did, and we followed up, and this was five years ago. And even though April lives far away and we don't know each other that well, her work and, and her influence has really stayed with me.

[00:05:57] I loved her first novel, 142 Ostriches, and I followed along as she grew her coaching writing practice, using mindfulness as a way to harness creativity and to support the writing process

[00:06:10] April's new book, Sit Write Here, grows out of exactly that. In it, she offers mindfulness practices for writers, not a system or a method to master, but something gentler and something more honest. A way of showing up for your writing, of quieting the noise of distraction and doubt so that you are no longer ruled by it.

[00:06:35] It rests on a premise I love for its simplicity: write more, suffer less. And it takes the suffering part seriously, which is the part that most writing advice ignores. Now, at the heart of today's conversation is April's question: What is the value of narrative story in our society? A big question, I know.

[00:07:00] I hope you enjoy it.

[00:07:02] Anne V Mühlethaler: April, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the Metta Interview.

[00:07:07] April Davila: Thank you for having me. I'm really excited about our conversation here.

[00:07:10] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yes, me too. So first things first, how am I finding you this morning?

[00:07:16] April Davila: Oh, well, I'm in Los Angeles, so it's much earlier in the day. Yes. So this is the first thing that I am doing today, other than waking a very reluctant teenager to study for finals before class.

[00:07:27] April Davila: So I feel like I've kind of already had a morning, but this is... Ah, now I get to, like, take a breath and, like, you know, focus in on the things for, for... that I do.

[00:07:38] Anne V Mühlethaler: Oh, that's lovely. Not the part about waking the sulky teenager, but fair enough for that.

[00:07:44] April Davila: Yes.

[00:07:44] Anne V Mühlethaler: So before we dive into the meat of our conversation, I like to ask this simple question, which is: What is bringing you joy or excitement at the moment?

[00:07:56] April Davila: Oh, it's related to writing., al- I mean, almost always when it comes to me. But, it's some combination of the story I'm currently working on, the stories that I'm helping my, the writers that I work with, helping them with their stories. And it's always really exciting when anyone in our community has some, even a minor success with their writing, and we've had some bigger successes lately.

[00:08:24] April Davila: We have a couple folks who've landed book deals and... or just even finished a draft. Like, these are, they're big wins, and so that's the- Mm ... that's the kind of stuff that, like, it's kinda why I do what I do. And it's a, it's energizing and exciting to see. I, I'm, I'm very much a believer in the rising tide lifts all boats kind of thing.

[00:08:44] April Davila: So even though I haven't finished my most recent draft, just to, like- ... be with a friend who has, I'm like, "Yes, yes, I know this part is coming."

[00:08:52] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. Oh, that sounds lovely. Congratulations for the good news. This is really great. Yeah.

[00:08:57] April Davila: Yeah.

[00:08:58] Anne V Mühlethaler: And so how would you describe your inner weather today?

[00:09:02] April Davila: Oh, it's a little tumultuous right now inside.

[00:09:06] April Davila: I was noticing we had, you know, before we started recording, had a moment to just quietly and check in with the body, and it's always such an interesting experience because it's always different, right? We, we always... We have this illusion that we are this consistent being walking through the world. But when you take a moment and pause it and you're like, "Oh, actually, okay, this is what's happening right now."

[00:09:27] April Davila: Mm. So for me, my business is growing right now, and I am trying to bring in somebody to help me with onboarding new clients. And because I care so much about my community, I, I take this process very seriously, and I'm finding that I, like, it's just a mix of wanting what's best, kind of wanting it to be done, you know?

[00:09:50] April Davila: And this and then being like- ... "Okay, but don't rush through it because it's important." And oh, so that's, that's what is happening in my body and mind right now of, of trying to be patient.

[00:10:02] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:10:03] April Davila: Taking a step that I haven't taken before in my business, which is both exciting and a little scary, and trying to do it with some wisdom and compassion.

[00:10:13] Anne V Mühlethaler: Hmm. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And you're right. It's, it's funny, that thing when we close our eyes and we, we ask the question about what's going on, and then suddenly we, yeah, we're surprised about how much it can be ever-changing.

[00:10:28] April Davila: Yeah. Always. This idea- Mm ... of stasis is like, yeah, it's stasis within a range, sure.

[00:10:34] April Davila: Yeah. But that range has a lot of oscillation in it, and from moment to moment can change, so yeah.

[00:10:40] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:10:41] April Davila: How are you this morning? Or your afternoon, evening even.

[00:10:44] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yes. Yes. It's, we're, we're late into the, into the day here in Geneva. It's incredibly bright, and I think that when I sit at my desk in the afternoon in the summer, you could have this impression that I'd want to be somewhere else, that it's gonna be heavy.

[00:11:04] Anne V Mühlethaler: But there's a funny thing about the way that the sun hits, um, the building that's to the left of mine, which is a golden pale yellow.

[00:11:14] April Davila: Mm.

[00:11:14] Anne V Mühlethaler: And at that time of the day, the facade of the building reflects right back into my office. And so it's a strange but really sort of poetic second source of light,

[00:11:24] April Davila: Mm

[00:11:24] Anne V Mühlethaler: almost as if it's got like that kind of brightness that you'd expect at a- an earlier part of the day. So I think there, there's something interesting that happens as, as this light gets reflected back into this spot where I'm writing.

[00:11:37] April Davila: That sounds lovely though.

[00:11:39] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yes.

[00:11:40] April Davila: Picture you in this, like, rose-colored, like, glow outside your window.

[00:11:44] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah, it's really nice So this is the right point, I think, for me to ask you to, if that's okay, introduce yourself for our listeners- Yeah ... in case they don't know you already.

[00:11:57] April Davila: Yeah, if you don't know me, my name is April Davila. I am a novelist and a writing coach.

[00:12:02] April Davila: I help aspiring authors write more and suffer less. So traditionally, I, I am a fiction writer. I love fiction. And at some point, what was it? It was about a decade ago now, I started meditating regularly, and that was when I really started having some success with my writing and success on like a personal level, right?

[00:12:22] April Davila: I like... When I figured out my novel my short stories started getting published instead of rejected. I ... got the novel published. It did win an award, which was very flattering. and my coaching business started to build up, helping other writers but it all kind of turned on this when I was, started meditating regularly.

[00:12:40] April Davila: And so in trying to help my writers in the same way, I looked back at what, what was it about regular meditation that shifted my relationship to writing? And as I dug deeper into it, I was like, "Actually, there's some, there's some really concrete ways here." Mm. At first I thought just it was correlation maybe more than causation.

[00:13:00] April Davila: But as I dug into it, the causation was very real and so I started articulating that, writing blog posts about it. A year ago, last January actually, I sold the proposal for a book on it, and the book is coming out this year. And it's called Sit Right Here: 6 Mindfulness Practices to Help You Write More and Suffer Less.

[00:13:20] April Davila: And that, that kind of... Everything I do comes down to that idea of like write more, suffer less. We, you know, we... How do we allow ourselves, how do we get out of our own way to- Mm ... let that creativity just flow without overanalyzing or being self-critical or, all the things that like trip people up. 'Cause that's what I've found, is that most people who want to write, it's not lack of skill or lack of craft or laft- lack of ideas that is keeping them from writing.

[00:13:45] April Davila: Mm. It's almost always an inner critic or a fear of what people will think or imposter syndrome. I mean, the, the list is long of things that- ... actually keep people from writing. Or if, even if they are writing, they're suffering a lot through the process. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:01] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. I'm so excited about your book, by the way.

[00:14:05] April Davila: Thank you. I am too.

[00:14:06] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. So I like to use this this interview format to shine a light on the multiple facets, of my guests. I always think of... I always. I have been thinking of people, uh, of like a human being as a beautiful multifaceted gem. Mm. And, you know, depending on what we talk about or We're going to s- to show people, uh, an array of these of these facets.

[00:14:38] Anne V Mühlethaler: And so for that reason, I, I want to ask you this question, which is would you share with us a memory, if you can find one, a childhood memory that still makes you smile to this day?

[00:14:51] April Davila: Oh. Well, I will just start by owning the fact that I have a very selective memory. And I I'm actually fascinated by the idea of memory and how we remember what we remember, because it, it is so biased.

[00:15:05] April Davila: And my husband often teases me of that I remember things how I want to remember them. And I, I'm like, "Yeah. Well ..." If it, if it's gonna live in my head, I want it to be ... Um, so but a memory that makes me smile, they're almost in the last two decades are all related to my kids. Just like moments with- How

[00:15:27] Anne V Mühlethaler: about from your childhood?

[00:15:29] April Davila: From my childhood?

[00:15:30] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yes.

[00:15:31] April Davila: Um, oh, good one

[00:15:35] April Davila: I, I, I have lots of, of memories that I, like, the ones that stand out, of course, are the ones where I got in trouble for something. But the, the, a happy memory? I, okay, I remember, we had a hammock in my backyard, like on the back patio, and my mom would often hang out there on like Sunday morning. And I remember on her birthday one year, she was out there.

[00:15:56] April Davila: She was pr- she was probably hungover. Like, looking back as an adult, I realize that she was probably out there kinda sleeping off the party she'd had with her friends. But my sister and I had saved up our pennies, and we went to the bakery and we bought the biggest cake we could buy, which was about six inches, right?

[00:16:11] April Davila: It was like a tiny little cake. And then we put, we wanted to put all the candles on, 'cause she always did that for us. You know, we turned eight, she would put eight candles. And I think it was like her 40-somethingth birthday, so we put 40-something candles on this tiny little cake, and it just... I remember it looking like a porcupine, just covered in candles. And we got them all lit, and we like walked out really carefully. And I just remember the, the smile on her face when she saw that little cake that we had put so much love into. And and then it took her a few tries to blow out all the candles, 'cause like we had to like turn the cake- Yeah.

[00:16:51] April Davila: so she could get to all the candles. Oh. Oh, that's so cute. That's, that's definitely one that makes me smile. Yeah.

[00:16:57] Anne V Mühlethaler: Oh, that's adorable. Lucky her.

[00:17:00] April Davila: Yeah. A good mama. She's... She was a single mom, and she worked really... She was an artist, like a, a, a painter at the time. She's now a sculptor, and then now back to painting.

[00:17:10] April Davila: But, you know, she never, she never gave up on that dream of being a painter as, even as being a single mom. Like, she did illustration work. She did whatever she needed to do to get the bills paid, but she always did it, and she never gave up on her painting. I, and- Mm-hmm ... and that really, as I've become an adult, inspired me that like, yeah, sometimes it's hard, but it's worth it to just go after your dream.

[00:17:33] April Davila: Keep working on it. Yeah.

[00:17:35] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. That's, uh, it's interesting. It really slides toward the next question I was going to ask you. What early experience in your life planted the seed for the work that you do now?

[00:17:49] April Davila: Yeah, I mean, I, I come from a long line of storytellers. You

[00:17:54] Anne V Mühlethaler: do? I did not know that.

[00:17:56] April Davila: Well, not necessarily, like, published authors, though my dad- Mm

[00:17:59] April Davila: is now. We, we actually published our first, first books around the same time. He's a memoirist, so he was writing about his time as a helicopter pilot. But I, I mean more of just in the sense of, like, my family likes to tell stories. . And my dad is very meticulous in his storytelling. It's always very factual.

[00:18:16] April Davila: He's a very good record keeper. I was raised by my mother, so I lean in her direction of, like, you build the story... It more, it's more about truth than fact. That's how I'll put it.

[00:18:27] Anne V Mühlethaler: Okay, yes.

[00:18:28] April Davila: I see that. Like, so if my mom tells a story, you know, like, the, the takeaway, the kernel of it is true. The facts?

[00:18:34] April Davila: Mm. I don't know. She's definitely told me stories where I'm like, "I don't know." And then I'll ask my dad about it, and he'll be like, "No, that's not how it happened." And, and I know he's more of a meticulous record keeper, so I lean to- Mm-hmm ... to trust him on the facts. But m- in her, my mom's stories, it doesn't mean they're not true, right?

[00:18:50] April Davila: She- Right ... she may not remember the details, she may embellish, but but the truth of it is always there. And that's really, that distinction for me as a fiction writer is so important because we're basically... I heard someone say once that fiction writers use lies to tell the truth.

[00:19:09] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:10] April Davila: And I, I like that idea.

[00:19:12] April Davila: I mean, they're not lies. They're, they're fabrications. They're inventions. Yeah. But the idea is always to share some sort of deeper truth to that. Mm. And, um, but both sides of the family know how to tell a good yarn. Like, that's just the environment- Mm ... I grew up in.

[00:19:29] Anne V Mühlethaler: Hmm. And so is there one moment that you feel particularly solidified for you the idea that this, that writing was gonna be your medium, that the path for you?

[00:19:42] April Davila: I actually do have that moment, which is it came t- to me kinda later in life 'cause I, I, watching my mom be an artist in high school, I decided I was gonna do something practical. I went and got a degree in biology. I was like, "I'm gonna be a scientist, have a regular job." Turned out I didn't really like it very much.

[00:19:59] April Davila: I didn't it wasn't honoring the thing that I knew I wanted to do, which was writing. I was always writing short stories on the side. My favorite part of being a scientist was writing up the lab reports. Like, that should've been a clue. Nobody likes writing lab reports. So-

[00:20:14] Anne V Mühlethaler: Beautiful

[00:20:15] April Davila: years went by and I was at a friend's bachelorette party, and she had a palm reader. And I was a little... I, like, I'm always a little s- superstitious about, like, fortune-telling in general 'cause I feel like when people tell you something that, and you imbue it with power because they're a fortune teller, like, it, it can actually influence how you view yourself.

[00:20:33] April Davila: And so I'm always a little skeptical, but I was like, "All right. Don't tell me anything bad," and I, like, handed her my hand. And she just looked at it, and she's like, "Oh, you're a writer." Like, I, she, that was what she said. She said, "Oh, you're a writer." And at that point I was still working as a researcher and hating it, and I was like, "I am a wr- oh, my, what?"

[00:20:52] April Davila: And it seems so silly that it took this total stranger to look at my hand and say, "Oh, you're a wr-" I remember exactly how she said it. "Oh, you're a writer." I was like, "Oh my gosh, you're right." And that was kind of the moment where I started to legit think about, I do- Mm-hmm ... I am a wr- I- that's, this is what I wanna do.

[00:21:09] April Davila: Mm-hmm. And it took a long time to really... I ended up going back to school, getting my degree in writing. It's a, it was a long process still from there. But that moment, it was, it was an interesting moment.

[00:21:19] Anne V Mühlethaler: That's beautiful. Tell me a bit about how you followed through.

[00:21:22] April Davila: So in 2000... What would've been 2007, no 2008, I went back to get a, at USC. So my husband when I was pregnant with my daughter, my husband was at graduate school at Stanford Business School, and so we were living on campus. After he graduated, we moved with our new baby girl down to Los Angeles, 'cause he's in the film business.

[00:21:43] April Davila: And and then I, and what I had found when I was pregnant and kind of unemployable, I was between jobs, and no one really wants to hire the visibly pregnant person because- ... a- and I know there are laws, but really, like, they don't wanna hire you and then train you and then have you leave on maternity leave.

[00:21:58] April Davila: So I was having a lot of trouble finding work, and what I found was, like, left to my own devices all day by myself, I was just writing short stories and loving it. So when we moved down to Los Angeles, I said, "I wanna go back to school." And you don't have to go, you don't need a master's in writing to write.

[00:22:14] April Davila: But I felt like having been trained as a scientist in a certain kind of writing, that I- Mm-hmm ... wanted the time to really not only set aside the time to focus on writing, but have some legit training in being a writer. Yeah. So I did go back to school. I got my master's in, creative writing, and got a job right out of the gate after that as a content writer for a marketing company that worked with local government.

[00:22:39] April Davila: So I was writing a lot of, like, blog posts for city managers, and water management updates, and tree care guides, and that sort of thing. All the while getting up at 5:00 in the morning to work on the novel before work. Got pregnant again, had another baby. Like, it just- Mm-hmm ... that was a very busy time.

[00:22:57] April Davila: And but then once I finished that novel and again, the talking about that time when everything sort of shifted for me of, of finding my feet as a writer, getting better at it- Mm-hmm ... being able to do the things like get deeply focused, really look at characters, really understand emotion, think about structure and plot, like all the things that actually come into play.

[00:23:19] April Davila: And that was when I started coaching other writers and, and that's how I find myself here.

[00:23:24] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. That's lovely. It's interesting when I hear you talk about that- I feel like it's...

[00:23:30] Anne V Mühlethaler: You were looking for learning, but also probably an unlearning of what you'd learned about how to write in your scientific,

[00:23:38] April Davila: Yeah ... e-

[00:23:39] Anne V Mühlethaler: e- education.

[00:23:40] April Davila: Yeah, 'cause science writing is so much about objectivity, right? Mm-hmm, yeah. And even in the way you phrase things you phrase things in a very passive voice of, it was found that- this and this happened, not I found. 'Cause you can't put the I in. You're trying to be objective. Mm-hmm. So, kind of unlearning some of those things. And also when I decided I wanted to be a writer, really realizing how many holes I had in my education around basic stuff

[00:24:07] April Davila: .. I bought myself all these books on grammar and was like, "All right. If I'm gonna be a writer these are the tools of my trade. I need to learn them better." Mm-hmm. So learning how do you use a semicolon? How do you... When is it an en dash or an en dash? What

[00:24:18] Anne V Mühlethaler: Oh, the em dash and en dash story.

[00:24:20] Anne V Mühlethaler: I did not even know about the dashes as a- Oh, yeah ... French person. No. Who cares? As a French speaker, we don't use en dashes at all. Unless you're a publisher, maybe. And then again- Maybe ... I'm not sure. But now,

[00:24:31] April Davila: and now they're falling out of fashion 'cause AI is so heavily into the em dash

[00:24:35] Anne V Mühlethaler: that- I know, but they're so pretty.

[00:24:37] Anne V Mühlethaler: They're not. 'Cause they're like... Anyways.

[00:24:40] April Davila: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:41] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. Yeah. I admire that a lot. I understand what you mean. I think that I... What I hear also in your story is the decision to, to, to build the craft, as in the granular details that can elevate prose in ways that the reader does- doesn't understand, but feels, I guess.

[00:25:06] April Davila: Yeah. And won't even notice. Like, ideally

[00:25:08] Anne V Mühlethaler: they won't even notice. Yeah, won't

[00:25:09] April Davila: notice. Yeah.

[00:25:10] Anne V Mühlethaler: Exactly.

[00:25:11] April Davila: Yeah. I really feel like that's kind of the biggest compliment you can give to a writer, is that their writing feels effortless.

[00:25:17] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:25:17] April Davila: And when writing feels... When you read something that feels like, oh, that just, they just threw that out there.

[00:25:23] April Davila: You c- I guarantee you they edited it, like, 20, 30 times. Mm-hmm. And, and the result of all that hard work is that it feels effortless on the page. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:32] Anne V Mühlethaler: I just read, I don't know if you've read this before, Body Work by Melissa Febos.

[00:25:36] April Davila: No.

[00:25:37] Anne V Mühlethaler: It's a craft book. She's a memoirist, and it's absolutely beautiful.

[00:25:42] Anne V Mühlethaler: I actually have highlighted so many words, so many sentences. I reopened it after finishing it saying, "I need to go back and just relook at my highlights," and it feels exactly like that. I think sometimes craft and nonfiction can feel dry or difficult, or I can only handle a few pages at a time, and then I'll just move to something else.

[00:26:01] Anne V Mühlethaler: And when it feels just like that fluid sense, it's, it's because of the care. Mm.

[00:26:06] April Davila: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:26:08] Anne V Mühlethaler: Now- It takes a lot of work If you could describe your professional journey, your writer's journey as a journey, it could be a trip, a climb, a dance, a swim I don't know, a flight. What kind of, what kind of journey would it be?

[00:26:27] April Davila: Probably a long hike. Yeah. Like a multi-day kind of backpacking hike. You know, where there'd be parts where you're walking along and the pack feels really heavy and it's hot, and you're like, "This is... This sucks." "Why did I do this to myself?" and then you'll have days where you're walking along and you're like, "This is amazing."

[00:26:49] April Davila: The view, no one... Like, the, the privilege and the honor to get to see these vistas that most people don't see 'cause they don't step off the shorter path. Yeah. Commit to a longer journey that would... Because it includes all these discomforts and, and so and then there will be highs and lows, right?

[00:27:08] April Davila: If you ... I'm thinking about, like, the last back- backpacking trip I took was a while ago. It was in Yosemite, and you get to the top. We did started up on the east side and hiked up through and ended up going up Half Dome on our second to last day. And to have that moment up at the top and being like, "Wow, this is just so amazing," that might be like a, like when the book actually gets published, right?

[00:27:31] April Davila: "Ah," like, "This is it. I've done it." And then- Yeah ... you come down and, and you, then you start the next one and go- Mm ... on another hike. And there will be these really difficult days, and there will be these- Yeah ... gorgeous gratitude-filled days. And and I also, when I, the first, my first backpacking trip was a YMCA trip when I was a teenager and it was rough.

[00:27:55] April Davila: It was a rough trip in terms of, like, how hard it was just from the trip that we chose. But it also, we had a bear steal our f- like most of our food on the second night. And we decided as a group to push through and, like, on the little bit of food we had, and I was so hungry. We were, I mean, it was like a group of teenagers, right?

[00:28:12] April Davila: And we had half of the food we had planned to have. So by the- Damn ... third or fourth night, like, it was, we were hungry, like really hungry. And I remember sitting down on a rock on this upward climb, and the, the YMCA lady just being like, "Get up. Move your ass up the hill." Like and she was always a really caring, loving person and when she was like, "You have to move," like, "You can't stay here."

[00:28:37] April Davila: Right. And, and I think of like the, sometimes you have those moments in writing too of like, "Get up."

[00:28:42] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. "

[00:28:42] April Davila: Move your ass up this hill. There is no way out but through. Let's get it done." Like, with love, but like- Mm ... you've gotta do it. There's no other choice. Because that's the thing about writing is once a story has its hooks in you, you're kind of screwed.

[00:28:55] April Davila: There is no way out. There is- The only way out is through. Yeah. And sometimes you're like, "I don't want to. This is hard." And that would be an excellent parallel in terms of, like, the trip metaphor of that particular trip of her being like, "Get up. The only way out-"

[00:29:12] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm "... is through." Hmm. I can, maybe you'll write a story about it.

[00:29:16] April Davila: I, it will definitely end up in a story. I've, I've sworn to never write a memoir because my memory is so faulty of, like, it just would be- Ah ... a bunch of lies anyways. So I'll just stick to fiction.

[00:29:28] Anne V Mühlethaler: That's really funny. Ah. I was gonna ask you this, but I feel maybe you've touched on it already, so we can leave the question if it's not quite right.

[00:29:39] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm. What would be a personal struggle or a challenge that you think has most profoundly shaped your professional path?

[00:29:50] April Davila: Oh, that is such a good question. A struggle that has profoundly shape, shaped my professional craft. I think

[00:30:05] April Davila: Trying to think if there's one particular instance, but I, I think in getting m- more skilled as a writer, and I've said this- Mm ... in other places before, but I, I genuinely believe that writing actually gets harder as you get better at it. Mm. And when I was, like, when I didn't really care, like, I didn't know any better, I'd slap together a few thousand words, call it a story.

[00:30:26] April Davila: "Yay, it's done." And then wonder why no one wanted to publish it, right? But as I've gotten better at writing, I've come to understand that how very difficult it can be. Like when caring about diction, caring about theme, caring about the character development, like making sure that the reader is, is experiencing the thing I want them to experience when they read those words on the page, and it, and it is a challenge, and I think the thing that has helped me, rise to that challenge has been really honest, hard feedback.

[00:30:57] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm.

[00:30:57] April Davila: And, but not in one instance, but in lots of instances of like, "Okay, this is sloppy. I don't really understand what you're trying to say here." W- like, it, and that feedback has come from different sources. And this is gonna sound weird, but my husband is probably the best and it's not that he's ever mean about it, but over the years of getting feedback, 'cause he's always my first reader 'cause I trust him, and there've been times when he's like, "I just don't understand what this is trying to say," or, "Is there a better way to say this?"

[00:31:25] April Davila: Or, "Who is this character? Why would they make this choice?" And now I've gotten to the point where, like, I've, I ask those questions of myself before- Mm ... I ever call a draft done. And so now when I hand him stuff- Those aren't the questions. Now- Yeah ... when I hand him a dr- like, I just handed him the most recent draft of my third novel, and he was like, "This is the best first draft you've ever written."

[00:31:47] April Davila: And I think it's because at this point I've been doing it for 20 years almost, and I've learned to ask those questions of myself before asking- Yeah ... them of anyone else, or before, before sharing the work with other people. And that way, now that when they ask questions, they're things I genuinely hadn't considered.

[00:32:04] April Davila: Yeah. And they always help make the story better. But getting feedback is really hard, especially when you're a newer writer, and you take it really personally. And I know the first few times my husband gave me feedback, there were tears. I was not happy. But I n- I trust him, and I love him, and I know he, like, he was, he wasn't gonna lie to me and tell me something was good when it wasn't, and that was for me.

[00:32:27] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:32:27] April Davila: Not because he was, like, trying to be mean or something. But I, I should also caveat, like, it, it, it's worth every penny to hire a professional. Not every relationship is meant to be a creative collaboration. And I've definitely known couples that have split up over the kind of, like, arguments and resentments that build up w- on giving each other, trying to give each other feedback.

[00:32:49] April Davila: So the, it's, it's- My husband and I've worked really hard to make that part of our relationship work. It, it doesn't always. Yeah.

[00:32:56] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, and you're right. I think there's something beautiful about feedback, but also I don't know how you've done this over the years when seeking feedback in general, but also being clear about what kind of feedback we're looking for.

[00:33:12] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. Because I think that sometimes people offer feedback on areas that don't necessarily f- answer the questions that we need answered in order to move things forward and,

[00:33:22] April Davila: Yes. That's

[00:33:23] Anne V Mühlethaler: a good p- Whether it's in life or in writing, I find that being clear about what kind of feedback we seek-

[00:33:29] April Davila: Yeah ...

[00:33:30] Anne V Mühlethaler: and then also giving ourselves the permission to take what we need out of it.

[00:33:34] April Davila: Yes, 'cause not all feedback is right either.

[00:33:37] Anne V Mühlethaler: Exactly.

[00:33:37] April Davila: Except- They might genuinely not- ... except for you ... understand what you're going for or... Yeah, and when I hand my husband a draft, I, I'll be like, "Okay, pencils down for this one. Just read it. I just wanna know what, like, how does it feel? Is it working?" And then there's, like, at some point, I don't know if it'll be the next draft or the one after that, but I'll be like, "All right.

[00:33:53] April Davila: Grab that red pen. Like, I wanna know everything. Tell me everything." Hmm. Um, but I do try to be really clear on what kind of feedback I'm looking for when I give- Yeah ... him something to read.

[00:34:04] Anne V Mühlethaler: Awesome. That's very cool. Very inspiring. Thank you.

[00:34:08] April Davila: Yeah.

[00:34:09] Anne V Mühlethaler: Now, this one's gonna be fun. Uh, if your life were a book right now- Yeah

[00:34:13] Anne V Mühlethaler: what do you think the current chapter would be titled?

[00:34:16] April Davila: Oh, God. That's a good question. It's really, it really depends on which version, like, right? 'Cause I think we all have different books. Like, if it was the book of my creative life, we're, like, in the middle somewhere, right? Mm-hmm. I'm in that messy middle where it's not very interesting 'cause things are just kind of chugging along.

[00:34:34] April Davila: And in that way, it's always kinda nice that real life doesn't always mimic art. Um, if it were, like, my marriage, I think we, we would have, um, we're already past the happily ever after. Like, we had all of our tumultuous everything, and we wrapped up with the happily ever after, and now we're, again, we're in the boring part no one would write a story about because we're good.

[00:34:53] April Davila: Like, things are good right now, and good stories aren't built on when things are easy. Yeah. What, and then, uh, yeah, we all have these multitudes. Uh, maybe in, in terms of like my personal relationships, I feel like that might be a m- the more interesting story that's happening right now for me.

[00:35:14] Anne V Mühlethaler: Okay.

[00:35:14] April Davila: Uh, so I, I quit drinking a while ago, and I...

[00:35:18] April Davila: Like, my friends vanished, just poof. Wow. Like, these people I would've said were like my best friends, right? One of them is still a friend, and the rest are... I was like, "Wow, okay. So I guess we were just drinking buddies." and that has been really hard for me to, like, get through and, like, start to try to make new friends.

[00:35:39] April Davila: Mm-hmm. So if we're writing the book about, like, my social life I'm, I'm probably at the end of the second act where everything feels really dark and like, how will she ever get out of this moment- ... of the story? I don't know what I would name that. I'm really bad at naming chapters. I don't name chapters. . they're just numbered. It's just one- Right ... two, three. I guess in the nonfiction book they are named because that's really easy. It's like, here's what... It's like an outline, right? Of like, here's what's in this chapter.

[00:36:04] April Davila: But I never name my novel chapters. I- and even naming the book, I really struggle with titles. Like, so- Mm ... this, in the chapter, in the book about my social life, I guess we'd be at like chapter 13 out of 17. We're at the three-quarters mark.

[00:36:25] Anne V Mühlethaler: It's interesting what you just said about the, the friends relationship.

[00:36:29] Anne V Mühlethaler: I also think that, I'm in a different place in my own friendships, and so I kind of relate. Even though there's no major change, I think my life is changing. My interests have changed.

[00:36:41] April Davila: Yeah.

[00:36:41] Anne V Mühlethaler: And so as a result, the friendships don't necessarily feel as steady a mirror as what they used to be. So, so I f- I feel that. But I have made new friends recently and so, and it's a, yeah, it's a, it's an interesting work in progress. Before we move on to our, uh, to your question, I wanted to ask you perhaps, what's a metaphor that captures how you're moving through the world at this moment?

[00:37:12] April Davila: Oh. What would be a metaphor for how I am moving through the world at this moment? I don't really, I, I, I don't feel a lot of through-ness right now. What I've been feeling lately is more like a groundedness. And this little room, this little office that I spend so much time in it feel, if I, I guess the metaphor would be like a, a, a mountain that's, like, getting bigger and bigger, right?

[00:37:40] April Davila: And as I'm in, bringing more people into this journey and I don't know, planting seeds of ideas in this mountain and, I don't, I don't know. I, we, I, we touched about this- Mm ... w- in our earlier conversation, but when my husband and I decided we were gonna... Like, our version of being good parents was to be super stable.

[00:38:01] April Davila: Make sure our kids had routines and stability and, like, the no- very few surp- un-fun surprises. But it is kind of a from the adult perspective, kind of boring sometimes. And so I've tried to shift that into no- not as much boring as, as, like, strength and the strength that can lead my, like, path to my children.

[00:38:25] April Davila: And then letting the drama be on the page right now.

[00:38:28] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm.

[00:38:28] April Davila: And letting, putting the drama into my stories, reading a lot of, like, YA adventures and fantasies and romances and, letting the drama be on the pages right now, and instead just focusing on being this, like, solid, reliable, a little bit boring.

[00:38:45] April Davila: I mean, I don't even drink anymore, right? It's, my younger years, I was so different. And, and I'm glad that I've been able to do this, and I think it has served all of us well. Um- Mm-hmm ... and I, and so I, I, so in terms of, like, moving through, I, it, it feels more like just, like, not moving through as it is just, like, building this base.

[00:39:06] April Davila: And I don't know- Mm ... what will come on that base after the kids are grown and gone. Like, I don't know if I'll go back to my wild ways or find something different to do, but this is where I'm at right now.

[00:39:17] Anne V Mühlethaler: Thank you so much for sharing. That feels beautiful and- As you describe it, I feel the solidity, the sense of groundedness and the structure that you provide, and I don't...

[00:39:30] Anne V Mühlethaler: It doesn't sound boring.

[00:39:33] April Davila: Thank you.

[00:39:33] Anne V Mühlethaler: It's ju- I, I, I see why you would say it is, but then because it's so intentional-

[00:39:38] April Davila: Yeah ...

[00:39:40] Anne V Mühlethaler: it's... Yeah.

[00:39:42] April Davila: Yeah. It's- I mean, I, I joke about it being boring, but there's a lot of satisfaction, a lot of joy in this life that we've built, and-

[00:39:51] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm ...

[00:39:51] April Davila: and, and I f- I feel like mindfulness helps you appreciate that too- Yeah

[00:39:55] April Davila: of like when you're in a less mindful state, there's always that what's next and grasping and, you know, you can... very outside of your head. And, and one of the things mindfulness teaches us to do is really, look around you. Like, this is beauti- this is a beautiful moment, and my life is very full of beautiful moments these days.

[00:40:13] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. That's so good. Thank you so much. Now lastly, what's something people might be surprised to learn about you?

[00:40:25] April Davila: Uh, I I am an av- I sc- I was a scuba diver, an avid scuba diver for many, many years. I, when I was studying biology, I focused on marine biology. I did a study abroad program where we, we, we had our classes, like, underwater. I, I've seen the sun rise from 50 feet below the surface. Like I've, I've seen things underwater that, like, have just blown my mind.

[00:40:50] April Davila: I was like, "I didn't even know this was, like, a thing. And what is that weird creature?" And oh my, it just is such an amazing world down there, and I haven't done it in a while. I do hope... That's one of the things I do hope I can get back to when life c- is a little quieter. But yeah, I was- Mm ... I was avid, like, every day scuba diver for many, many years.

[00:41:08] Anne V Mühlethaler: Wow, that sounds so cool. The other day, the Instagram algorithm, I've tried to train it a bit, and it knows that I like nature things. Yeah. And the other day there was the cutest, I can't remember if it was CNN or someone else who reported on a baby octopus, the kind of which we had, had ba- barely been ever seen before.

[00:41:27] Anne V Mühlethaler: It's like a little blue head and tiny legs. Oh. And apparently they live very, very far down at the bottom, and it was the first time that they were seen somewhere, and everyone was like, "Aw, baby octopus." Anyways, sorry. I feel that, that... I, when underwater, I find that it's like I'm in Finding Nemo. I just, I'm just, like, all my- Yeah

[00:41:50] Anne V Mühlethaler: actually, as soon as I'm in water, I feel like my entire self comes into contact. That, it, it's like, it's like an on button. Like

[00:41:58] April Davila: being home. Ugh, I love it. Yeah.

[00:42:00] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:42:00] April Davila: Mm-hmm. Yeah. We, when I was studying abroad, we used to do, we called these drift snorkels, 'cause it was, we were on an island in the Caribbean right next to, like, a big drop-off.

[00:42:08] April Davila: And when the currents were right, they would take us out in, with just the snorkel gear, and drop us in 3,000 feet deep water, and the current would carry us back to where the station was over a course of, like, 40 minutes. But, like, to look down and, like- Oh ... you have no idea. Like, light just disappears down into that water, and your feet are just dangling there, and you're like, "God knows what the..."

[00:42:29] April Davila: Oh my God. And that, like, feeling of like, ah, that just bubbles up in your belly. And then gradually you see, like, as you're drifting towards the coral reef, that it, like- Mm ... you, you start to see it come up to meet you. And then for the, like, the last half of the float, you'd, you'd, you know, and you're in 20, 15 feet of water.

[00:42:45] April Davila: You can dive down and- Yeah ... swim with the fishes and, ugh, just magical. It's magical. Wow.

[00:42:51] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. Makes me want a holiday now. Thank you.

[00:42:54] April Davila: Right? Yeah.

[00:42:59] Anne V Mühlethaler: So now is the time to start to pivot to talk about a question that feels alive for you at the moment. And we had several iterations of the question that we played with in our pre-interview conversation, and we landed with this question: what is the value of narrative story in our society?

[00:43:20] Anne V Mühlethaler: And so first I want to ask you, how does this question come up in your mind? How does it manifest in, in your daily life? Or, I'm question stacking, I apologize, choose whichever entry you prefer, or how do you feel you first came into contact with it?

[00:43:41] April Davila: Well, the, the first question is much more alive. I, I, I feel that question on a regular basis from people who want to write, and then they are looking at social media, they're looking at the world around them, and, and they feel like writing is self-indulgent or pointless or silly, and that they should be doing something more serious for the world, right?

[00:44:06] April Davila: Do something that really helps somebody. And so I've thought a lot about that because it's a good question. You know, what is the point? What is the value of, of narrative? And there are three main answers that I have come to and that I share with people who ask me about the value. And I feel really passionately about this.

[00:44:26] April Davila: So the, so the first one is, is empathy. So if I read a story, even, even... It actually even works better with fiction rather than nonfiction, right? Because fiction is written in a way where we are immersed in the world. So if I read a story that has nothing to do with anything I've ever experienced before, maybe it's someone growing up in a war-torn country or, facing some sort of discrimination, I walk in their shoes emotionally, intellectually, and, and that builds empathy in my mind, in the mind of...

[00:44:56] April Davila: And this is science. Science has shown that, that reading fiction builds empathy for experiences that we have not had and for the people that we may not know. And I feel like, if our world needs anything more right now, it, it is a little bit of compassion and empathy for other people. So that's a very real effect that fiction can have.

[00:45:13] April Davila: The other is, letting people see that they are not alone, so connection. If- Say a kid in the South s- like living in Alabama here in the United States and identifies as LGBTQ in some way and thinks like they're the only one, and then they read a book where this LGBTQ character is finding their path or coming out to their parents or whatever it is, and they realize that they're not alone.

[00:45:41] April Davila: I mean, I get goosebumps when I, when I think about like that kid suddenly realizing they're not alone. What power is that to, to show someone like, "Hey, others have been through this"? And, and memoir can do the same, nonfiction can do the same, but fiction has this power of, of really engulfing you in the story and letting you have this experience.

[00:46:02] April Davila: So not o- empathy, connection, and then the third part is that that story, I guess there's a fourth too now that I'm thinking about it. But the third, the third one I usually go with is that like s- writers aren't bound by budgets or laws or reality. We, we get to just make up whatever we want the world to look like, and so we're free to envision like what might a utopia look like.

[00:46:25] April Davila: Or we might envision what does dystopia look like and, and paint it as a warning signal, right? Of like, this is where we're head- this is where I envision we're heading. Is this what we want? Like having those conversations or imagining a warp core breach or imagining time travel, and then engineers and scientists can be inspired to be like, "Oh, I, I, I think I can make that happen."

[00:46:46] April Davila: There's such a long precedent of real scientific advancement being inspired by fiction, so that's real. And then the fourth one, it's like, it was like came to me just as we were talking about this, of for me per- it was more personal to me. And now, of course, I'm drawing a blank. Oh. Oh, yes. This idea that like the biggest tragedy for me in life is that you only get one of them, and I like, it breaks my heart that I will never climb Everest.

[00:47:16] April Davila: I will never be a Fortune 500 CEO. I will ne- like there are things that like, I mean, maybe I could have if I had decided to like this was what I... I probably still could climb Everest. I don't really feel compelled to, and yet there's still some part of me that's like, "Oh, that's an experience I'll never get to have."

[00:47:33] April Davila: But I can read about it. I can, I can live th- and, and this is, I touched on this a little bit as I was saying like I've chosen to be very reliable and stable, and I let the drama be in the fiction. And in the fiction, you know, things can get all kinds of crazy, and I can live all kinds of lives vicariously, and it just, it leads to a, what feels like a richer, more engaging, more interesting life.

[00:48:01] Anne V Mühlethaler: That's beautiful. Mm. It's funny 'cause you say that, and I feel like sometimes some of the examples that I, I heard you name, I was like, "Yeah, you could still climb Mount Everest. I hear it's-" Yeah, but like- "... being done by lots of people all the time." But anyway. I

[00:48:15] April Davila: would train for it. I would

[00:48:18] Anne V Mühlethaler: have to like- Yeah, yes.

[00:48:18] Anne V Mühlethaler: I know, I know.

[00:48:19] April Davila: Just know me, I'm just not going to.

[00:48:21] Anne V Mühlethaler: No, it's funny because when I hear you and your relationship to story, I find that you seem to have a desire for adventure that you can meet on the page.

[00:48:34] April Davila: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:48:36] Anne V Mühlethaler: And which I- Very interesting ... I, I really appreciate. I, I mean, everybody's got a different, um...

[00:48:43] Anne V Mühlethaler: Well, I'm not gonna say everybody. We all have a different relationship to reading, and in fiction everybody's got, you know, different tastes. But you sound very... You sound like you're a lover of a lot of ki- genres. Oh. But that adventure is, like, something that you like to see pop up in places. I love

[00:49:02] April Davila: a good adventure story, especially historical fiction because I feel like as soon as you throw a cellphone in the mix, things just get easier.

[00:49:11] April Davila: So, and I feel like some of the best modern-day stories are the ones where, like, for whatever reason they don't have their cellphones, right? Either the- they're in a place where they don't work or the power is out or the- As soon as you throw a cellphone in it's like, "How will they solve this problem?" I don't know.

[00:49:26] April Davila: Ask Siri. Like

[00:49:29] Anne V Mühlethaler: but- I so... It's so funny you should say that. I do not know why, but earlier today I was walking towards the kitchen, and I don't know if I'd heard someone's story somewhere, a podcast or something. And I walked in and I thought, "Huh, I really have done a lot of stuff in my life." And I was thinking, I just went for it.

[00:49:51] Anne V Mühlethaler: And I think that it's with the availability of, of social media, of cellphone, with seeing so many things, we become consumers of experiences- Yeah ... as opposed to having the experiences. I still can't believe I moved to London with, you know, I, I was not, technically not allowed to work in the country yet because I didn't have my French passport.

[00:50:12] Anne V Mühlethaler: I barely had any money. My parents were like, "Good luck." Not helping you. Yeah. And it was really hard, and it... I did not seem to care. I just went for it. Yeah. And I kinda have a feeling that we're getting more and more placid.

[00:50:29] April Davila: Mm.

[00:50:30] Anne V Mühlethaler: And that's perhaps because we just get snippets, you know, in the stream on our phones.

[00:50:35] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. And we never get to experience a fuller arc of... It, which I think meets fiction. What would happen if? Like- Yeah ... what if I followed my dream and went to London?

[00:50:49] April Davila: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:50] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. So how does... How do you think-

[00:50:59] Anne V Mühlethaler: How do you think you discovered the value of, of story in your own life?

[00:51:06] April Davila: I didn't think that deeply about it until I started working with other writers-

[00:51:10] Anne V Mühlethaler: Hmm ...

[00:51:11] April Davila: and, and these questions started coming up. I-

[00:51:14] Anne V Mühlethaler: Huh.

[00:51:14] April Davila: It seems kind of silly. I, I just inherently understood that fiction was valuable. It meant a lot to me.

[00:51:21] April Davila: Right? I just loved it. I just love books. Yeah. I love all kinds of books. But when that question was posed to me, and I wish I could remember who first posed it to me, but the like... And, and feeling deeply of, you know, when we see terrible things happening around the world, is this really how we should be spending our time?

[00:51:43] April Davila: And, and I, I have always had a desire to like, do good things for my fellow humans. I feel that deeply. Mm-hmm. I want to be of use. I want to be supportive and help people where I can. But I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not a politician. I vote. You know, I do my homework and I vote, and I, I consider that my civic duty, and I'm done.

[00:52:04] April Davila: Like, I, I, I really try not to pay too much attention to politics. I elected someone to do that for me.

[00:52:11] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. Like,

[00:52:12] April Davila: it's not my job. But where I can make a difference is, is through telling stories.

[00:52:20] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:52:20] April Davila: And, and I do deeply. As I have thought more about it... So the first time it was posed to me would've been maybe about four years ago.

[00:52:29] April Davila: And, and since then done a lot of thinking, especially as I've moved deeper into working with other writers, of like, "Why am I doing this? What is, what is the point?" And, and when I see people getting to tell the stories that matter to them, first of all, it's just a deep personal satisfaction in, in being able to tell your story.

[00:52:47] April Davila:  But then also when those stories go out, out into the world and, and you see the, the way that they influence other people and, there's just a real power to it. It's a, it's a quiet kind of mountain-like power that i- it's-- once a book is out there, it exists. And people talk about it. It becomes part of the discussion.

[00:53:06] April Davila: Everything that is published becomes part of an ongoing human discussion. Mm-hmm. And that discussion is what shapes our culture, shapes our relationship to each other, our relationship to the future, our understanding of the past.

[00:53:21] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:53:21] April Davila: Books are everything. I'm biased, of course. Yeah. That's my take.

[00:53:27] Anne V Mühlethaler: There's loads of ways I, I want to build onto that.

[00:53:33] Anne V Mühlethaler: You know, when I hear you describe this, there's two... The first two threads, the two directions I wanna go into, which are different, maybe they can meet somewhere. Is I can see also how reading, just like Netflix or gaming, can take peop- it's a way to escape-

[00:53:56] April Davila: Yeah ...

[00:53:56] Anne V Mühlethaler: your life. But I guess And I don't remember the, the, the s- the exact science.

[00:54:04] Anne V Mühlethaler: Maybe you know more about it than, than I am able to verbalize here. There's more of a participation as a reader than you do when you're just watching, TV- Yeah ... through the way that you're reading the words and you're making up images in your mind and, and other neurological functions.

[00:54:22] Anne V Mühlethaler: And I know that for a lot of people, there's escape. It's almost as if... And I think this is what you described beautifully with this example from the, the teenager you mentioned. The opening up of possibilities, of new worlds, of things you couldn't have imagined for yourself. But then there's another part.

[00:54:43] Anne V Mühlethaler: I wonder to what extent also writers are responsible-

[00:54:47] April Davila: Mm ...

[00:54:47] Anne V Mühlethaler: For some of the things that are happening in the world today. And it's the first time I'm saying this out loud, but I remember I have a half-brother who's much older than me, who loves science fiction, and he also loves graphic novels. And when I was growing up as a teenager, he was much older than me, but we would go on holiday together with his family and my younger brother, and we would love watching sci-fi and, Star Wars and all of that.

[00:55:13] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. But I read a lot of comic books, and they all had evil characters that look a lot like some of the people who are running, our world- ... and, and currently residing in Silicon Valley. Yeah. And I... It seems to me that some of them are actually exactly in the age range to have read some of the comic books that I read- Yeah

[00:55:33] Anne V Mühlethaler: when I was a teenager. And so to what level do we have or how do you look at this sense of what is the responsibility of writers for the world that they're portraying to their readers?

[00:55:51] April Davila: Well, I think every story has value

[00:55:56] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm

[00:55:57] April Davila: And even if you write a story that I don't like, that maybe I think is repulsive or that, like, canonizes somebody that I think should be more of a villain maybe

[00:56:10] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm

[00:56:12] April Davila: It's part of the discussion Yeah Right?

[00:56:14] April Davila: People can read it and they can say, "This guy was amazing," and then I can be like, "That guy was a crazy person. Like, really? We want that kind of pers-" Like, it's The book, the story itself is a piece of art.

[00:56:30] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:56:30] April Davila: And then what people bring to it, what people discuss around it, what they layer onto it for their own experience, that is all interpretation.

[00:56:39] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:56:39] April Davila: And I think, I think there are ways that writing can be harmful, um, particularly when it comes to things, um, like when we talk about appropriation, right? If somebody is writing a character that they don't have experience, any lived experience of, and they do it in a disrespectful, sloppy, um, from a place of, of power and they don't have to care.

[00:57:07] April Davila: Mm-hmm. That kind of, that kind of writing I do feel is destructive.

[00:57:12] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:12] April Davila: Or it can be. It reinforces- stereotypes that I'm okay with leaving behind.

[00:57:19] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:57:19] April Davila: Um, and power dynamic. And it really comes down to the power dynamic, right? But if we- Yeah ... writing a stereotypical character is really just reinforcing a power dynamic of like, "I don't have to care about you enough to get it right."

[00:57:33] Anne V Mühlethaler: Oof.

[00:57:35] April Davila: And that's the, that's

[00:57:36] Anne V Mühlethaler: where- That's, that's... I'm strongly reacting to those words just as you say them.

[00:57:40] April Davila: Yeah.

[00:57:41] Anne V Mühlethaler: Oof.

[00:57:42] April Davila: I do think there is, and I'm actually just working on a, an essay about this, but, um, I feel like the regulation at this point has come down to what ins- instead of addressing the power dynamic in the publishing industry, what we are doing as a society is policing the individual writers and telling them- Mm-hmm

[00:58:04] April Davila: what they are and aren't allowed to write about based on their lived experience. Yeah. And I think that is a mistake.

[00:58:10] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:10] April Davila: Um, cha- telling any fiction writer that they're not allowed to write about something, it w- it, it's a very slippery slope, right? Any fiction is made up. It's pulled and borrowed and stolen from other places.

[00:58:25] April Davila: If I'm only allowed to write my experience, I'm only allowed to write memoir, and as a fiction writer, I, I balk against that. Like, I, I want to write people who are not me.

[00:58:35] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm.

[00:58:35] April Davila: And but then it gets like, okay, well, how much not me is allowed? Mm-hmm. Uh, am, am I allowed to write someone who's half white?

[00:58:44] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm-hmm.

[00:58:45] April Davila: Or three quarters white? I mean, I... It's particularly United States, we have a very sorted past in, in telling people what they're allowed to do based on their, the percentage of their heritage. That, that gets very upsetting to me, and I think, I think we're regulating appropriation on the individual author level when what we should be doing is regulating appropriation at the power level where things are published.

[00:59:07] April Davila: Yeah. So, if somebody is writing outside of their lived experience, did they get it right? Is it respectful? Are they taking the time to care about the people that they are representing? Mm. I think that... Yeah. And we also, we're just, people of color just aren't published as much, and so we need- Mm-hmm ... to address those issues rather than come at any author who dares to include a character who is not exactly them.

[00:59:35] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[00:59:35] April Davila: It gets very muddy.

[00:59:38] Anne V Mühlethaler: It does get very muddy, and it's interesting you should say that because there are ways in which the... I, I watch this as someone who lives in Europe, where the publishing industry and regulations in general are very, very different. Mm-hmm. It's so strange because the country you live in, in some ways is so tight and- Yeah

[00:59:59] Anne V Mühlethaler: complicated and closed off and regulated, and then in so many other ways it's the, it's the Wild West.

[01:00:07] April Davila: Yeah.

[01:00:07] Anne V Mühlethaler: Right? Anything AI reg- it's like there's no regulation. I was, I was writing an essay this morning that touches, about what is it like to communicate who you are and what you do in an age where, you know, most of the...

[01:00:22] Anne V Mühlethaler: Let's say that you're putting your, your resume out. It's AI that's gonna read your resume. So how, you know... Anyways. Yeah. But it was really interesting because in Europe we're introducing a lot of regulations out of... I've just learned that from August, I think all companies are gonna have to announce how much they're using AI to screen resumes and stuff like that.

[01:00:42] Anne V Mühlethaler: Anyways. So on the one hand side, the country is absolute Far West. Companies can do absolutely whatever they want.

[01:00:49] April Davila: Yeah.

[01:00:51] Anne V Mühlethaler: But the individual writer is, is the one that needs to be looked at. I mean- Yeah ... you know what I mean.

[01:00:57] April Davila: And

[01:00:57] Anne V Mühlethaler: scrutinized. It, it feels so, it feels so constrained in the wrong places.

[01:01:03] April Davila: Right. Yeah. And that's actually why I'm working on this essay, 'cause I feel the need to call it out, and I was talking to a friend of mine who is a woman of color, and she's like, "You know, it's inherently gonna be problematic that you're writing it because you are a white woman." I'm like, "Yeah, it is. I get that."

[01:01:20] April Davila: I dunno. So it's very scary, right? Because I don't wanna be the individual author who, like, gets in trouble because I say something, that is trying to address a power dynamic that, I don't know, people just get a little crazy here, and this... Exactly like you're saying. Like, I could bring a non- But

[01:01:36] Anne V Mühlethaler: you kinda still have to use your own voice to talk about the things that you care about.

[01:01:41] April Davila: Yes. That's-

[01:01:41] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah.

[01:01:43] Anne V Mühlethaler: I think that where I find your, your question feeling alive for me is narrative is important in more than just fiction. But in terms of fiction-

[01:02:01] Anne V Mühlethaler: You'll see where my mind is going. I recently have found that, several, well-known, coaches and experts, so we're talking really big, big names that are internationally known, have built, AI platforms where you can basically pay some money and just have access to their... a version of them.

[01:02:19] Anne V Mühlethaler: Where all of their knowledge and their books have been downloaded, and all of their writings and their blog posts and their record- I mean, basically just this... And they've just created an, an other mind, if you wish. Mm. And there was a part of me as a European that was like, where's the privacy, the GDPR thing in there?

[01:02:40] Anne V Mühlethaler: Because nowhere on some of these platforms does it say how they use the questions that people ask. Do they record it? Are they reusing this? Because if people bring their problems to these AI coaches, where does this information goes to? Like, how is it protected? And turns out that's very gray. So I'm not loving any of the idea of that because it's- Mm

[01:03:03] Anne V Mühlethaler: because it feels like people are going, actually gonna be giving their time and their money, and then all of this privacy data is going somewhere we don't know. Yeah. But beyond that, I was wondering if part of the- Part of what bothers me is that it also extends the, it extends the life of someone beyond who they are.

[01:03:23] Anne V Mühlethaler: One of these, people could, you know, disappear tomorrow. Life is what it is. And this means they could exist beyond their, their physical life. And there was a part of me that was thinking, "It's obnoxious. This is so weird." And then I realized that writers have been doing that for centuries because story outlives the writer, and it can touch people many decades or centuries later.

[01:03:50] Anne V Mühlethaler: Absolutely. And so I was wondering, what do you feel about the relationship between the story and the longevity of, of a writer's voice?

[01:04:03] April Davila: Yeah. I mean, the truth is that most books kind of have a flash in the pan moment-

[01:04:09] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm ...

[01:04:10] April Davila: and then are more, more or less kind of fall away. Some of them have longer tails than others, but ultimately...

[01:04:16] April Davila: Like, and that's why I like to think of, of publishing as a discussion, right? Mm-hmm. That, like, when you publish a book or a story or a poem, that you are part of the discussion of that moment. And-

[01:04:28] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm ...

[01:04:29] April Davila: some discussions are a little longer, like this discussion is a nice long chance to chat. Some discussions are fleeting and the, like at the supermarket, "Hey, how you doing?

[01:04:40] April Davila: Okay, great," and move on. It's very rare that any work of art, particularly written work of art, lasts more than a few years, let alone a few decades. And who... I mean, who can predict how or why any book is still being talked about decades or 100 years after it was published? But the, the magic of a book, this idea that I can, like, put little squiggles on a page and send that page off to someone, and they will look at those little squiggles, and something happens in their brain that's similar to the thing that I envisioned when I put those squiggles on the page- Mm

[01:05:17] April Davila: and that that can traverse time and space, that, that someone could pick up my book in 100 years and read it and, and have the images form in their mind that I thought of back when I wrote it, I mean, it's pretty amazing. And it is a time capsule, and it can be super interesting to go back and read something from- Mm

[01:05:37] April Davila: 100 years ago and be like, "This is a, a snapshot of what the conversation was at that point."

[01:05:43] Anne V Mühlethaler: Yeah. So I'd love to hear from you, w- w- what would be... What would you say about what came up for you in finding this question? What's something you want to share with our listeners before we- We close our conversation

[01:06:01] April Davila: Around the question of, of what is story, I, I guess what I would like to share is that if you suspect you have a story in you, you probably do, and you should seriously think about writing it.

[01:06:15] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm.

[01:06:15] April Davila: But I think all of our stories matter. Not... My story won't matter to everyone, your story won't matter to everyone, but the people who connect with my story, they need to hear it. And the stories that I connect to that someone else wrote, I'm so grateful they wrote them. Mm-hmm. And so not, it's not about like, oh, you need to be the next best-selling author or what.

[01:06:36] April Davila: You know, the, the metrics don't matter so much as the joy that, that can be found in telling your story and connecting with people who needed to hear it for whatever reason- Yeah ... is is a wonderful experience. So if someone is out there and they've been kind of toying with an idea for a novel jump in.

[01:06:56] April Davila: Jump in and write a messy first draft. Just don't let anyone else read it. Just start writing. And then sometimes that's enough. Sometimes it's like, "Oh, I just needed to write a first draft and, and be done and have it out of my head." And sometimes it's like, "Oh, actually, I think I wanna put this out into the world."

[01:07:15] April Davila: In which case then you have to do revisions, and then you have to- ... figure out how does it go into the world. But it is worth the journey, for sure.

[01:07:22] Anne V Mühlethaler: Mm. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. I really appreciate your perspective and your voice, and I always enjoy interacting with you. And I'm really excited about your new book, and I can't wait- Mm

[01:07:35] Anne V Mühlethaler: to hear and read about the, the next story after that. Yeah so much gratitude, April. Have a beautiful day, and I'm looking forward to connecting with you again soon.

[01:07:45] April Davila: Thank you, Anne. It's always lovely to talk with you.

[01:07:48] Anne V Mühlethaler: Take care.

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