- [Holly] A New York Times best-selling author and a public relations specialist who formed a deep friendship: Meet Mary Alice Monroe and Angela May, Their book "The Islander" is a beautiful coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of remote Dewees Island.

I'm Holly Jackson, join us as we bring you powerful stories from both new and established Southern authors, as we sit By the River.

♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ♪ "By The River" is brought to you in part by The ETV Endowment of South Carolina, Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, Strengthening Community.

Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB, the Pat Conroy Literary Center.

- Hi there, it's another beautiful day here at our waterfront studio in Beaufort.

I'm Holly Jackson.

Thanks so much for joining us by the river.

You know, this is our show that is kind of a love letter to Southern writing, that's what we like to call it around here.

We're bringing you powerful stories from both new and established South Carolina and Southern authors.

And we are here today with authors of "The Islanders," Mary Alice Monroe, and Angela May.

And this is really exciting because Mary Alice Monroe is our first comeback to By The River.

She was there in the beginning when we were just figuring it all out -Yes and we had a good time then and we will do it again today.

- We did, we did, but we kind of know a little bit more of what we're doing around here, so we like to say that at least.

All right, so first of all, just tell me, you know, who, who you are as a team, how you all came to know each other and author of this book.

- Oh, well it's, we've been together for 10 years and it's how we got together.

I'll let you tell that story.

We, it was just serendipity.

I said the best day of my life when Angela came to be with me.

She started out as an assistant, moved away into PR and media, and now we're coauthors on a book and it's been a wonderful journey.

- It really has.

And it's wonderful how we came to work together.

I knew of Mary Alice through my previous job, working in a local television station as a reporter.

And I knew that she was coming into our studio periodically to do interviews on a different program.

And everybody knows Mary Alice Monroe books in Charleston.

And so I had read some of her work and when I had left the newsroom and was transitioning into different opportunities, a friend said, "Hey, I saw Mary Alice at a party.

- And that's what happened, yeah.

- And she had mentioned, you know, she was looking for an assistant.

We just reached out through email, got together over a cup of coffee at your house and we have been together ever since.

- I just remember thinking, Lord girl, you're overqualified.

[Laughter] - I was like, uh, why not?

- But she was a point in her life where you wanted to have children and it just worked out.

So when I did not know when I, it was a long-held dream of mine to write middle-grade.

I have novels, of course, I have picture books, but I wanted to write for that group of kids, eight years of age, and around there, where they believe the world is their oyster and they can make a difference.

So I always say, when you get into young adult, you're into the interior landscape.

The young kids, they want to save the outside landscape.

- [Holly] Right.

- And so that's the group I wanted to write for.

And I was presented with the option to write a middle grade series.

And I said to Angela, what do you think about us working together?

Because we've worked so well with writing projects for my career for a long time, and I did not know it was a long-held dream of Angela's, right?

- Yes, I mean, she truly, when she asked me that day, "Would you like to write a children's chapter book together?"

She spoke aloud.

What was that?

Quiet, lifelong dream.

And the only other person had ever said it to out loud was to my husband, that I wanted to write children's books.

I had no idea when I said it many years ago, that it would be for middle grade fiction.

And I couldn't be happier.

I love that we did this together.

- And it worked out so great.

We compliment each other, which is why I knew that this would be such a great project.

- Tell me how the experience happens.

- How, how does, how do two people - Come together to write a book?

- [Mary Alice] Well, it was a learning curve.

- [Angela] Yes.

I've never written with anyone else before and neither have you, but we both, I mean, I knew what I wanted to write for a story, because I had talked to the publisher, the editor about it, but it transformed and morphed into something very different by the time we brainstormed.

And so we just came together and we both knew what the heart of the story was, which was, we wanted to reset the book on Dewees island.

- Hmm.

Which is a barrier island, just north of Isle of Palms, where Mary Alice lives.

And it's a nature sanctuary.

There are residents who live out there, but their footprint is small.

And nature comes first out there.

And we love... - That's our island.

And when I was a young mother, like you, I had my family's farm in Vermont.

And it was a huge place where we brought the kids and we basically opened the doors and said to go wild.

There was no TV, there were no videos.

There were nothing except what you could create yourself.

And I always remembered, I was telling you the story in the car on the way up when the cousins from Chicago or the cities came in, when they were 10, 11, 12, the first three days was all I'm so bored.

All those nothing to do here.

And meanwhile, my kids are going like wild Indians out in the mountains.

After three days of complaining and not being plugged in, there was no phone, no phone.

And of course we didn't have internet back in the day, they, I watched the transformation of the imagination coming to light and they would start to play, go outdoors and explore.

And that stuck with me.

And if you ask those kids today and they're all in their twenties and thirties, what's the best memory of your childhood, it was that summer in Vermont.

And if you asked my kids the same and I wanted to recreate that, because Dewees is a real place.

- [Angela] Mm-hmm - And you, now the mother of young children.

- [Angela] Mm-hmm - So she was able to bring the current thoughts of kids and what's going on in the contemporary world.

- And that's what means so much to us in our stages of life.

Like you, as a grandmother, me as a mother, we both wanted to drive home that message to the children who are most important in our lives.

And then obviously to the readers who will read this is that there is magic to discover outside of the technological devices that you hold in your hands.

We want them to get caught up in that magic of exploration, wherever they live.

- And that is, I think the, at the heart of it, there's a lot of adventures, of course, my turtles, my background in turtles.

- [Holly] Right, what is the mission here in this book?

- Well, the mission is very clear to unplug your children.

My husband's a child psychiatrist, and he always said, the best thing you could do for your children is two things: Unplug them, especially at dinner time and sit around the dinner time and have a conversation at dinner time at the table and engage your children.

And so the mission for this book was to help people to realize that if your kids are unplugged and complain about boredom and that's okay, it's a good thing to get them to know that what's wild for them is really just their backyard.

Knowing the names of the plants and the trees and the critters, whether it's a cardinal or a roseate spoonbill, - [Holly] Mm-hmm it doesn't have to be exotic.

It's in your own backyard.

And I think if kids can name things, then it's no longer wild for them.

They're familiar.

- That's true.

In this book, the setup for the Islanders, it's about an 11 year old boy named Jake who has to go and spend the summer with his grandmother on Dewees island.

And in the beginning, I mean, it's going to be the worst summer ever.

- [Mary Alice] Yes.

[Laughter] Of course.

- [Holly} Even says that I'm bored at one point, Right?

- [Mary Alice] Worst summer.

- [Angela] Yes.

And it's because in his mind's eye, he's going out to this barrier island where there are no roads, no restaurants, - [Mary Alice] No cars.

- [Angela] And no fun.

[Laughter] [Mary Alice] And no wifi.

- Yes.

Well, because his grandmother doesn't want those kinds of things in her home.

- [Holly] She doesn't believe in that.

- [Mary Alice] Doesn't believe in it.

- [Angela] And after a little bit of time there, when he does go out and get lost in the, in the wild of the island and starts to befriend a couple other children out there, that's when the magic of exploration happens.

And that's when they start learning the names of things and their imaginations expand.

And that is when all of their adventures begin is being out in the wild.

It's never the adventures inside, but it's outside.

- And I love Honey, Honey's the grandmother.

And this is, she's a major character in this book.

And maybe because I'm a grandmother too.

- [Holly] Mm-hmm.

- but she is, it's a very deep subject, really where the grandmother is suffering some depression from her husband's death.

But also now her son, Jake's father, was injured in Afghanistan, which is explains why mother went to DC to be in the hospital with them.

And they're all worried about them on Dewees.

So it's a beautiful relationship between the grandmother and the grandson where he helps her come out of her depression.

And she rediscovers, she was the library lady on the island.

She was the naturalist and by reimagining a life with her grandson to remember and remembering the life she lived with her son with journals and teaching, she comes back to life.

I think that relationship is a really strong core of the book.

- [Angela] Mm-hmm.

- [Holly] Now, are your grandchildren old enough where they were some of the first to be able to take a look at this book?

- [Mary Alice] Oh my gosh.

I'm so glad you asked that.

Yes, my grandson, Zach, um, Jack, [Laughter] I have a son Zach, my grandson Jack.

- [Holly] Okay.

- [Mary Alice] and they both read it.

- [Holly] Okay.

- [Mary Alice] but Jack was, um, eight, perfect age when he first read the book and he said... and I had to pay him to read it, just saying.

[Laughter] - [Holly] That's great.

- [Angela] Don't tell my kids that.

- [Holly] That's great.

- [Angela] They'll Say, "Mama!"

- [Mary Alice] Just saying, and he read most of it, and he goes, "You know, the beginning's kind of slow."

- [Holly] Mm-hmm - [Mary Alice] Kind of boring, - [Holly] Boring.

Jack's bored.

- [Mary Alice] And so I went, Ooh, but that I took seriously.

So, revamped the beginning... - [Holly] Oh!

- [Mary Alice] and totally rewrote it now.

- [Holly] So, Jack had an influence?

- Oh yes.

Oh yeah.

They're my first readers.

And when they say something's slow or boring, and your kids too, we listen.

- [Angela] I mean we are writing it for them.

- [Holly] Right!

- [Angela] So it needs to... - [Holly] It needs to click with them, I'm sure.

- [Mary Alice] It's a different audience than my adult audience, where you have a slow start.

They want that action right away.

- [Holly] Mm-hmm.

Very good.

When and how long did it take you all to write the book?

- [Angela] Gosh.

- [Mary Alice] Long time?

- I've been saying four years from the moment that we talked about doing it, - That's true.

- To the finished product.

- But the end is always a rush.

Whenever you have an editor, you know, you know, snapping at your knuckles, you, you hurry, but it was four years and it underwent a lot of changes.

- It did, but, and it was a wonderful experience though, just that passing back and forth.

And for me as a debut author, I got to learn from Mary Alice, the true work that goes into telling a story.

I mean, authors like Mary Alice do a wonderful job.

When you read one of their adult novels, it's just so seamless.

And it's so wonderful.

And it seems easy.

- [Holly] Right, as the reader.

- [Angela] Then when you get into the nitty gritty, you're like, whoa, I don't know if I'm cut out for this.

She taught me how to truly build a story.

And so I've learned so much.

- That had to be the experience of a lifetime for you.

- [Angela] Oh, Absolutely!

And I'm just glad she didn't say, "I changed my mind.

[Laughter] This whole thing isn't working, Honey."

- [Holly] Yeah.

Yeah.

- [Angela] But I did ask if you typed the longer way.

[Laughter] - [Holly] You're sure about it, though.

- [Mary Alice] It was like I said, for both of us, it was a learning curve, but actually we've worked together so many years that it worked out really well.

And so we're looking forward to the next one.

There will be a next one.

- [Holly] All right, she said it here, got it on tape!

- [Mary Alice] Yeah!

- [Holly] Okay.

So you've been really busy during this.

- [Mary Alice] Yes.

- I keep calling it quarantine because in some sense we all sort of are.

You're part of three books this year?

- It's been a whirlwind, you know, for a year that was, like you said, quiet.

Yes, three books.

I have um, "The Islanders," which just comes out June 15th, which is a big deal for us.

- [Holly] Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Of course.

- And then my novel, "The Summer of a Lost and Found," which is always the premier book that I'm concerned about because it's where my audience is waiting for that next book.

- [Holly] Right.

- And then this third one was a surprise for me.

I didn't anticipate it, but it's The Union Beach, which is the anthology written in memory of Dorothea Benton Frank.

- Let's briefly talk about that one who, all's a part of that and kind of what makes that special.

I know it has recipes in it?

- [Mary Alice laughing] It has everything in it.

Um, when Dottie passed, it was a surprise to all of us, - [Holly] Mm-hmm - but she was so young and, um, so sudden, - [Holly] Mm-hmm - and when her editor, Carrie Farron over at Harper, who I know.

I've known Carrie since she was, um, an assistant editor way back in the day.

We go back.

But she wrote to Dottie's friends and said, I would like to pull together an anthology in memory of Dottie.

And we all came on board and the book that Dottie was going to write, it was called Reunion Beach, and so she used that as the title and the theme for the book.

So I wrote a story, a mother, it was called Mother and Child Reunion about, and it was the first short story I've ever written.

-[Holly] Really?

- Really.

They loved what I had to say.

- [Holly] Wow, okay.

- I worked really hard on it because it's the first one I'd ever done, and it's a story of a birth mother meeting her child that she'd released for adoption for the first time.

And she's 40.

- Okay.

- So that's my story.

Patty Henry, um, Patty Callahan.

- [Holly] Yes.

- Uh, she wrote a story called Bridesmaids, and it's a story of women coming together on the beach.

Adriana Trigiani wrote kind of off a curve ball.

She, uh, Postcards from Heaven, which is about Dottie and Pat Conroy writing postcards and talking about their life together.

- [Holly] Oh, neat!

- And Ellen Hildebrand wrote a sequel to the Summer of 69.

In addition to that, to me, the most powerful things are the essays that were written by, um, the family.

Victoria wrote the afterword and Peter Frank, her husband, wrote the foreword and, um, our own Cassandra King Conroy wrote a beautiful story.

We love her and all good friends.

Marjory Wentworth wrote a poem.

Nathalie Dupree put the recipes in.

- Yes.

- It's a conglomeration of love - Mm-hmm - in between the covers.

- Very, very special.

And now, let's talk about "The Summer of Lost and Found," - Ah, yes.

This was the hardest book I've ever written.

- Really?

How come?

- It's, um, I wrote it in real time.

- Okay.

- I had, um, been in North Carolina, in my mountain house, when the shelter in place order came down.

- Mm-hmm.

- and it was interesting.

My niece was there with me and she had been taking care of my dogs while I was exploring during research and, um, just, she was out of a job.

So I said, well, come stay in the mountains with me.

So she did, and I couldn't travel.

Couldn't do research on any other animals.

And I was wondering, my gosh, what am I going to write?

I was stuck home.

- [Holly] Right.

- And over the course of the next several months, both of my other sisters who lived in Chicago and LA, wanted to shelter in place out of the city.

I said, "Come to the mountains."

So we started this little group of women sheltering together, the women of Windover, we called it.

That was the house.

And I decided that I was living in a phenomenon that was never going to happen again.

And while in nature, my practice is to sit back and observe and to write my observations and create a story.

For this book, I was going to observe the relationships, not only that I was going through, but my loved ones, the young mothers were becoming substitute teachers and trying to harness their children who couldn't play with friends.

- Mm-hmm.

- I remember spraying all the boxes and the masks and the whole experience.

And I learned going through it because it was writing real time that my opinions changed of what I wanted to say because I didn't feel the same way about what we were going through in the pandemic in April, from June, - Yeah, right.

- 'til September and by November it was completely different.

So I was pulling my hair out.

By the time, though, that I wrote the final words, I had spent a lot of angst and time considering of what this experience this year, like no other was going to be like.

And it was about relationships about how we found joy in new experiences, like going out to the backyard and discovering the wild.

- Mm-hmm.

- In your own backyard.

There's a bullfrog there and a scene about Jeremiah, the bullfrog, which is one of my favorites and the turtle teams.

Of course the turtle teams are out there, how they were affected.

But also scenes where the there's a love story.

And the boy next door, who she had broken up with is in quarantine.

And he sends paper airplanes to her.

And another man comes back from England and there's a love triangle.

And more than just who is, am I going to choose?

It was her realizing, how is my life changing and what choices am I going to make for me.

- Mm-hmm.

- For the rest of my life.

And I do feel that all of us, as you've gone through this year like no other, 2020, and we're facing the next chapter of what is the new normal that we're going to look back on this time and reflect on the joy, the memories we've created, the increased amount of time with our children, the people working from home now, how that changed.

I mean, who hasn't started either a garden or, or a sourdough starter.

- That's what I was going to say, [Chuckles] Banana bread.

That's it at our house.

[Laughter] - And then there's the wine.

But I do feel like the story was a series of discoveries and exploration of self.

So that the lesson we all learned was to enjoy today.

Like I'm here with you right now, and I'm here with you right now.

And this is the lesson that I've learned that don't live for the future so much.

Enjoy this moment because in truth, we never know what's coming around the corner.

- Right, we've, we've certainly realized that.

And you know, I think we all have a story of, although this was so challenging and heartbreaking in so many ways, we all have something positive that came out of it.

- Yes.

- And I know for me, I have, as I told you, four girls and each girl was, had to be quarantined at different times [Laughter] because of their class had to be quarantined for two weeks.

- Now, there's an experience.

- So, I got two weeks with each child by themselves that I would never get.

You know?

- Oh, See that's a gift.

- [Holly] It is!

- But only in retrospect do you see that.

- You know whenever I got the email that said you're home for two weeks.

And I thought, oh yeah, I started to complain.

And then one of my friends said, "I'm so jealous.

You get two weeks with every child."

And I thought, wow, that's so true.

- I know.

- It would never happen - Well, my children came in and they were all in school.

So they came to my beach house and spent the whole entire summer there.

[Holly] - Wow!

- That just doesn't happen.

- [Angela] You would have not gotten that time with them.

- [Mary Alice] Really doubt that.

- Because she's usually in the summer, gone on book tour.

- [Mary Alice] No book tour.

- [Holly] Mm-hmm.

[Angela] It's about perspective.

- [Mary Alice] It is.

- [Angela] I think through a lot of this and I, I would love to make a comment as a reader of The Summer of Lost and Found, what I felt like when I finished reading it.

It is not about the pandemic, so to speak.

- [Mary Alice] Uh-uh -[Angela] But to me as a reader, the takeaway was a reminder in the best sense possible, of all that we went through together and the best things that we want to cherish.

So I feel like it's a treasure on your bookshelf.

So that 10 years from now, you can even still refer back to it.

And remember some of the things that scared you a little bit, but the joys that came from it.

So you did a wonderful job.

- [Mary Alice] Thank you.

- I know that was really, it was a hard writing time.

- It was hard, but also, I thought, oh, this won't be so hard because what I'm actually doing, this is the Beach House series.

Now I always have to say this.

If you've read the Beach House, that's great.

This is another book.

If you haven't, my job as an author is to write a standalone novel.

- [Holly] Mm-hmm.

- So it has a beginning, a middle and an end.

So you can read this as a standalone, - [Holly] Right.

I always have a working title and my working title for this was the Next Generation, but Star Trek already took that one, so I couldn't.

[Laughter] but I'm introducing the young generation.

So by the end of this story, you see the two generations, Kara, the heroine, who's now the matriarch and Linea, the next generation passing down the legacy of the beach house, which is really from one woman to another lending a helping hand to someone who needs it.

And that's part of what we all did in this pandemic is to help each other.

- [Holly] Right.

And I think when you leave, when you finish and you leave the characters, you're going to be wondering, what's next?

What is this family that we've been writing and reading for 20 years?

What are they up to next?

And so hopefully there'll be another.

- And I know with your research, like you said, you're always out doing your research, but with this one, would you say that it was that, that group of ladies with you?

- Yes!

- That was your research pool, [Laughter] and you said somebody had lost their job.

And there was a lot of uneasy, - There was a lot of loss too.

I, I think that's the reality of the characters too in the book, there was loss of jobs, young people.

And I was able to witness that in my niece and others, what am I going to do?

How am I going to pay my rent and rediscovery of maybe I don't want to go back to what I was doing.

I'm going back to school to learn a new direction, - [Holly] Mm-hmm.

- a little transformation.

For Flo who was in her eighties, she has gradually been succumbing to Alzheimer's, which is a timely subject for so many of us right now.

- Right.

- And she there's a serious issue with her in the book.

And, and it was, it was emotional for me to write about because in my personal life, my mother in law passed and I couldn't see her.

And I think that was one of the hard things.

A lot of us couldn't see our loved ones, especially when they were sick, so I was able to, and my daughters, I told you, were trying to wrestle with their kids, trying to get them to sit in front of that screen.

- [Chuckles] Ah, yes.

- But most of all, they all got outdoors and it wasn't their turtles of the book, but it wasn't just the turtles.

It was the neighbor who shot paper airplanes down to the little girl, - Love that story.

- You know, sort of a little Boo Radley leaving gifts in the trees.

There was, he built her, the, the bird house so that they could identify birds.

But like I said, the bull frog, the getting outdoors and sitting with the family at night [Buzzer] and just talking.

- Mm-hmm.

- So I think those are the, the takeaways that I want people to say, I treasure this, I remember this.

And I'm going to continue this as we move into the new normal.

- Very good.

Well, I just heard the buzzer that says, "Time's up".

[Laughter] - Oh, dear.

- I have loved talking to both of you.

- Thank you.

- And I'm excited.

You, you you've been busy over this time and it sounds like 2021 is going to be quite a year for both of you.

So this is really fun.

Thanks for coming back.

By the way, - Thank you.

- Talk about, tell me about the difference that you find from season one to season four here on By the River.

- Oh, well the setting it's so gorgeous.

I'm going to be, I'm going to try and recreate this in my own home.

[Holly] - Isn't this fun?

- I know shiplap and windows, and we commented on the typewriter.

- The typewriter.

- Which it may not be here when you... [Laughter] - [Holly] You're right.

Well, I have to tell our viewers the quick story.

This typewriter came from the side of the road in Gaffney, South Carolina.

Can you believe somebody was putting that out for the trash?

Thankfully, thankfully, my mom's college roommate from Winthrop, saw that and knew we were looking, so... - I've got to add too, comes from Gaffney is Andie MacDowell.

That's where she was born and raised when she was little.

And I remember when I was out there, she said, take pictures of Gaffney.

She still has a place in her heart for Gaffney.

- Yeah, well, we on By the River do too.

All right.

Thank you ladies so much.

And thank you all for joining us here for, By the River.

We do love having you around.

I'm Holly Jackson.

We'll see you again By the River.

♪ [upbeat music] ♪ ♪ - [Voice-over] By the River is brought to you in part by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina Community Foundation of the Lowcountry Strengthening Community Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USCB the Pat Conroy Literary Center.