Laura Van Wormer on The Class of ’74, Reinventing Storytelling & Surviving the Plot Twist That Changed Everything

[00:00:00] Welcome to Plot Twist Radio, the show where creativity, storytelling, and the unpredictable path of the creative life all collide. I'm your host Erin Egnatz. Laura, welcome to Plot Twist Radio. Well, hi Erin, thanks for having me. I'm so excited. Your listeners don't know, or viewers don't know, that I've just been talking my head off to you, because I was so excited to meet you, because I'm fascinated with your life.

[00:00:28] You know, I don't know any creative people who have three kids, you know, and work for a living and teach classics. I mean, your whole life makes no sense, Erin, so I'm fascinated by it. So maybe I'll write a book about you. Oh, I would love it. I would love it. Thank you so much. I can't tell you, like, how wonderful it is to hear that. Just like, you made my month, my year. I know. Well, your viewers have to know there's a reason why they watch you and listen to you, you know, because you do have the best smile on TV.

[00:00:58] But I think your viewers sense there's a lot more going on behind that pretty face than anybody knows. And it's, you know, there's just a lot going on and it's wonderful. It's refreshing. It's refreshing. Thank you. You are awesome. Thank you. No, I'm not kidding. You're my favorite. Don't tell anybody else. Well, I'm very old. That's why. That's why. I know a lot. That's why. Well, before we get going, can you introduce yourself to the audience and tell us?

[00:01:27] I would be happy to. My name is Laura Van Warmer and I was raised in Darien, Connecticut, which is a suburb of New York City. And I wanted to explain to Aaron's from the South and my parents were from the South. So Darien, the thing that everybody never understood, they just say all these rich people live there. Right. All these incredible executives.

[00:01:52] But the way it all started, the class of 74 is set in the environment about how it happened. And that is everybody's father was a World War II vet. OK. There are from all. And the GI Bill offered six million men higher education. And so all of a sudden, anybody could go to college.

[00:02:16] And what happened is the best and the brightest, you know, out of the army and also the Korean War, there was that they were the next wave. They were a little younger than my parents. But that first wave, first of all, they took orders well in the army and corporations loved that. Like IBM had a dress code. There was a certain suit that they wanted you to wear and a tie and jacket and tie, black Oxford leather shoe.

[00:02:42] You know, there was a whole uniform. Anyway, these men, the best and the brightest, my father was one of them, were all hired to come and work at the Fortune 500, which were all in New York then. There were some in Chicago, but really, New York was the place to be. So my dad was from North Carolina. My mother was one of 10 kids from a small town in Texas. Everybody was from the South of the Midwest. And our parents were all self-made people who got these big jobs in New York.

[00:03:11] And they were terrified about moving so far away from home. So they picked Darien to live in because everybody looked like they did. And everybody was Christian and everybody was white. And, well, the point is, that would all change. And everyone wasn't Christian, which is always a plot line in the class of 74. But it was this weird culture that we grew up in. And after I went to college, I ended up going to New York and I worked at Doubleday.

[00:03:38] And I worked there basically because Jackie Onassis was an editor there. And I thought it'd be cool to work anywhere that Jackie Onassis worked. But I was a big book person. And I was the secretary to the editor-in-chief because he liked the cut of my jib. He liked my manners. And I ended up staying at Doubleday for a while. I became an editor. And I ended up... Well, the truth of the matter is, when I was 24, they gave me an expense account, you know, to take agents out and stuff.

[00:04:06] And I was going to be the youngest husband in publishing because I drank too much. And when I stopped drinking at 27, I started writing at night because I didn't know what people did at night who didn't drink. Because that's all I ever did. I ended up learning how to write a novel. And I did some odd jobs in L.A. for the nighttime soaps, Dallas and Knott's Landing and Dynasty. And I supported myself doing that.

[00:04:34] And it took me three years, but then I learned how to write a novel. And I wrote a novel that was very sort of Victorian in field. Field. Field, excuse me. Because the great serial writers, you know, like Dickens and Tolstoy and all those guys, the creators of Dallas and Dynasty were old literature majors. They were all Tolstoy scholars and stuff, you know.

[00:04:59] And so they loved that kind of story, that cliffhanger endings to the chapters. Keep you turning those pages, right? And I liked that. And so my first novel, Riverside Drive, was a real page turner. And it was about five families on Riverside Drive in New York who shared the same cleaning lady. And when something happened to her, the neighbors all met each other for the first time. And the neighborhood was never the same again.

[00:05:27] You know, it was five plot lines that merged into one. And I wrote that way for a long time. And I had incredible beginner's luck because Daniel Steele handed in her novel late for, this is 1988 we're talking about. It's a long time ago. But she handed in her novel late so the Literary Guild of America made me the featured main selection. My first book, right? So overnight, I was like a legend in my own mind, right?

[00:05:56] Now, the New York Times, though, when they reviewed Riverside Drive, which is still in print, by the way, that's the novel I would read anyway of mine, said, ultimately, Riverside Drive has all the literary nutrition of a Diet Coke. But I didn't care because everybody loved Diet Coke. And I said, well, that's exactly right. That's why people read me is to get out of their heads. Go somewhere. Have fun. Go a million miles away. And that's the kind of novelist I was.

[00:06:23] I was not some big literary genius. I had no pretensions that way. I just wrote. And I published 13 novels. And I did some other stuff, too, in New York. But basically, at one point, one of the people I had gotten to know at Doubleday, and then later we shared the same literary agent, was Betty White, who was a great writer. She wrote some wonderful nonfiction. And it's all in print, so you should go read it. It's very funny. I'll cheer you up.

[00:06:53] And I was doing a favor for our mutual literary agent. I was going to help her with a book she was writing. And so I was on my way to the airport, and a drunk driver was going the wrong way on the highway tunnel. And he hit me head on. And this is my ventilator voice, because I was on a ventilator for a month. And I wasn't supposed to live. And it was all—I mean, I was so banged up. I was the original Humpty Dumpty. I mean, Yale New Haven Hospital put me back together again.

[00:07:23] I was in a million pieces. And cognitively, I was kind of all over the place for a long time. And I really had trouble writing a novel again. I couldn't do it. I just didn't have that end of the novel when you can see the whole story and make sure that it falls together right. I had lost that capacity. So I worked on nonfiction for, God, nine years I did.

[00:07:49] I worked on a biography of an 18th century countess. Anyway, we'll come back. I'm coming back for that book, because you'll love that. You'd love her. Anyway, I got really depressed after all this. My voice, I didn't—nobody could even—even knew who I was on the phone, you know? And I had done readings in bookstores across the country, you know? And I had a great voice. You know, I had majored in TV and radio in Syracuse, you know?

[00:08:19] And I just—I loved the medium. But I loved books. I loved it all. You know, you like communications. You love it all. And anyway, when I was in the ICU and everybody thought I was going to die, the high school class of 74 from Darien High School did a prayer chain for me. They were so great. And at the time, they were so proud that I had become a novelist, because in high school, I used to get bombed at keg parties. And I'd stop the parties.

[00:08:47] And I'd say, wait, wait, wait, everybody, stop talking. I got to read you something I wrote, you know, a short story. I used to read them everything I was writing. So they were kind of disappointed when I became an editor at the reunions. They said, what happened to your writing? You used to write great stuff. And so they were so excited about that. And they were very excited that I lived. But when I had our 50th high school reunion in 2024, I didn't want to go.

[00:09:14] First of all, my whole lower part of my face got completely messed up from the accident. So I'm very self-conscious about how I look. And I don't function the way that I did. So I was very self-conscious about that. And I walk funny, right? So I was self-conscious about that, you know, no vanity here, right? But I went, Aaron. And it was wonderful to see people. And they were so glad I was there. And they all and I thought about how much I loved these guys.

[00:09:43] I mean, a lot of time had passed. And you get over stuff from high school after a while. The boys were the same, but I still hated them. So I didn't care about them. I didn't talk to them. But I was one of the most popular kids in school. And I felt that love. And nobody could hear a word I could say, you know, said at the dinner. So I was very frustrated. So when I got home, I was complaining to my other half. I said, I wanted to get up and read a story, you know, like high school.

[00:10:12] But nobody could hear me. And my other half, who ended up being a woman, that shocked my class too. But Chris said, why don't you try writing a shorter story and read it to them as a podcast? Then they can hear you. That's why I have the microphone. And I thought I could do that. And I said, I'll write a story about them. I'll write a story about our class. And I'm going to open it on the first day of high school on September 8th, 1971.

[00:10:40] You know, when all this stuff was going on in the country, the women's movement, Black Pride was going on. And we lived in this weird town, Darien, which I call Brighton in the podcast. But it has that same social dynamics. Everybody's father dresses the same way and gets on the train in the morning and goes into New York to some big job. And all their mothers, who aren't from Connecticut either, stay home and raise the kids trying

[00:11:09] to look prettier and make their kids behave. But this is before cell phones and social media. So no one ever knows where anybody is. So you can imagine the plot lines I get to do in this. You know, and I start out with a character who is very similar to myself. And I read it every week. I read an episode with a cliffhanger ending.

[00:11:32] And Aaron, I use everything I ever learned in radio in college, at Doubleday as a writer, as a novelist, but most of all as a ham who used to perform for my high school class. Because I read the story and I do all the voices. And it was just my class that was listening. But then I started getting these emails from the weirdest places.

[00:11:58] And like Indiana, I don't know anybody in Indiana except for you. You know, and all of a sudden I'm getting these, you know how you get reports back about who's listening to your podcast, what parts of the country. And I couldn't believe it. I'm like, who's in Singapore? And who's in Germany and Ireland? Who are all these people? And then I knew Connecticut was huge off the charts because word got around that it was a series set in Fairfield County. But Chicago area was got very big too.

[00:12:27] And of course, you realize that culture, that Grosse Pointe, Michigan, that the well-to-do suburbs of Chicago and LA, Pasadena, people who grew up with fathers who commuted into the city, that culture, they were all tuning in because it was a very strange time. We were not baby boomers. We were something different. And we were the first generation of the women's movement. And we, honest to God, believed that every American is created equal.

[00:12:56] And we were upset in high school that we didn't have a lot of minorities in our high school. And by the way, gay people didn't exist in 1970. Well, they just didn't. And I certainly wasn't gay. It never occurred to me. I mean, this is something that happened years later, right? After, you know, I was too socially conscious, like my parents were. Anyway, so that's what the radio, the TV, sorry, podcast series is.

[00:13:22] Every week, we go and see Cynthia and her friends, the jocks, the bullies, the boyfriends, all the insecurities, all the drinking, all our parents smoked. They all drove drunk. It's just the way it was. And it makes for interesting drama, I think. And I just love it. I just love it. And I told Erin before, I'm talking to your viewers now, I told Erin she is the perfect

[00:13:49] person to do something like this, to serialize a story as a podcast. And then the first season, you know, you'll have like 30 episodes, put it together and publish it as a novel. You're a busy woman. I think you'd be great. But you've got all the voices. You've got all the writing. You've got all that wonderful creative energy. And I think that's what podcasting is about, don't you? Absolutely. I really do.

[00:14:16] And I have to say that yours is probably the most unique podcast idea. I know. I invented it. I said I invented it, right? You did, for sure. And I love it. It's working with the creators of Dallas and Dynasty. They taught me so much, the Shapiros, Esther Shapiro. She did, by the way, when she worked at ABC Television, she serialized a book called Roots. Ever hear of it? The show, right? Yeah, the book. Roots, right. The greatest civil rights programming in the history of television.

[00:14:45] That was Esther, who went on to create Dynasty. But she loved serialized storytelling, which Roots was, right? And she taught me so much. And Esther, wherever you are, thank you, dear. Because Riverside Drive, she saw it too. She said, you picked up a few things from me and my husband because he was a Tolstoy scholar or something. I don't know. But I think it is a new form. I think it's a new writing form for people.

[00:15:14] People are getting actors together to act out like radio plays. This is different. This is really the vision of the writer going from the pen fresh to the podcast. And then they get feedback from all their readers. I mean, the listeners to the podcast. It's like, I had this obnoxious cheerleader named Betsy. And everybody's in love with Betsy now. And Betsy's so screwed up. You know, she's got eating disorders. We don't know that they're eating disorders.

[00:15:44] Listeners know that it's an eating disorder because we recognize it today. But there was no such thing as eating disorders in 1971. They were never diagnosed. We had a girl in our class who died in the hospital. And it was 25 years later we found out what happened to her. I know. We didn't know. So also what's happened is that all my classmates have come back into my life. And they joined. I started this Patreon group, right? And they paid me like $5 a month to be part of the detention club.

[00:16:14] It draws a certain part of our classmates, right? Oh, yeah. And on Wednesday nights, I have a Zoom meeting. It could be 43 people. It could be three. You never know. And because everybody's in a different place where they're listening in the podcast, we decided, okay, we're not going to talk about why I wrote this in the episode this week. Originally, that's what the purpose was, was to ask me questions. Where did stuff come from? But then everybody wanted to share about going to high school.

[00:16:43] And it didn't matter if they graduated in 2014 or 17, you know, 1774, right? Now I'm getting to the historian part. But everybody wanted to talk about their high school experiences. So I just write. I take notes. Because there's certain universal things that happen. And so a lot of young people are like, oh, so that's why grandpa's the way he is. You know, a social liberal, but a fiscal conservative.

[00:17:13] Where did that come from? Well, that's our generation that we call the liberation generation. We're different from the regular boomers. We had a real set of core values that got forged, which makes this world very upsetting to us. Oh, yeah. It's a mess right now, isn't it? It's a disaster. And I think that's why so many people, like you were saying, because you have people from all over, not just Connecticut, that are resonating with it because it's the nostalgia of it. It was the camaraderie of it.

[00:17:43] And I think that's what it is. And I think that's what we're missing in today's world. And everybody's just so hungry for it. I am assuming that my listener is feeling lonely. I'm assuming my listener is listening in earbuds at night in bed and their spouse, whom they love very much, is next to them but doesn't have to hear anything. But there's so much going on in his or her life. They just want out for a while.

[00:18:08] And this is because when I was lying in a bed listening to podcasts, this is the podcast I was looking for. I wanted somebody to tell me a story. And I wanted to get to know the narrator a little bit, you know. And I just want people to forget their problems for a while, just like the nutrition of a Diet Coke to quench your literary thirst. Right? Yeah. So that's how I write it. And I write it to amuse myself, too. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

[00:18:38] And that gets the most fan mail. If I start laughing while I'm recording it, everybody writes in. I love when the narrator laughs. But I have to have drama in it, so I can't be laughing all the time. Sure. But it is interesting. So I'm like, you know, Anthony Trollope talked about being bugged at his men's club when he was writing the Barchester Tower series in the, you know, 1880s.

[00:19:04] 1880s because people would talk to him about characters like, well, I like Mrs. Prudy. You know, Mrs. Prudy represented all the rules of the Anglican church. And he got so sick of people talking to him about Mrs. Prudy and how right she was about things. He went home and killed her at lunch one time. He said, I'm going home. At his club, he said this. I'm killing Mrs. Prudy today. I want her out of my life because he was sick of people talking to him about her.

[00:19:34] Well, that's very much what writing a story as a podcast is like. I write something and then I hear, what did you do to Clay? Where is he? And I'm like, okay. We're like, I hate that bully. What are you going to do? You better punish him. So I'm right now I'm at a high school game and I'm about to rest like all the bullies. Take him off to jail for dealing steroids because that was a big deal then. And everybody was on steroids. All our athletes were. I mean, we didn't know it at the time.

[00:20:04] We didn't know what was wrong with them. But roid rage, you know, in the very beginning, a football player goes nuts and nearly kills another kid. And that happened in high school in the 70s because these guys were so pumped up with steroids and nobody knew what it was. So listeners go, oh, that's roid rage. We recognize that. It's a different world that America.

[00:20:30] And, you know, when you tune in and you hear an episode that President Nixon has just invented the Environmental Protection Agency, it makes you stop and think about the Republicans in office today. Really? President Richard Nixon thought only the national government was big enough to make national corporations listen. No pollution. No pollution. No pollution. Stop dumping chemicals. Stop putting it in the air.

[00:20:59] Americans have a right to clean water. What a concept. So I was, I got so bogged down in the first week of high school just by what was going on. You know, John Lennon, the Beatles had broken up. John Lennon had just moved to New York. So everybody wanted to go and look at him. Of course. Yeah. Right. We had the Attica prison outbreak happened that first week of school where the inmates overthrew it.

[00:21:25] And so I used that to introduce ham radio in an episode, the ham radio club. And kids today go, what the hell is a ham radio? And it was the only way you could communicate internationally in an emergency when there were no wired phones. And so in the class of 74, they get this guy in a ham radio up in Attica, New York, who's trying to call in the stories to his newspaper in the city. And our character, Cynthia, gets dragged into the episode.

[00:21:55] And so we do that. We go on the thing and write it down. And then we call the newspaper and call in the story. And so there's a certain group. It's all men, actually, who join the Patreon group because after an episode, I'll put in all the nonfiction stuff behind the episode. And they go in and look around because they're fascinated. And I put all the links to all the news outlets and the videos, the music of the time, the fashion of the time, all that stuff.

[00:22:24] There are people who kind of find that to be the most interesting part of all this. So I do that, too. I do everything. It's a one shop stop. I love it. And that makes it more immersive, too, because you feel like you're in that era if you have all of that. And I have to say, it's one of the best eras for music. The cultural meeting of everything. Jim Morrison of The Doors had died when we opened the story. And Jimi Hendrix had died a couple of months before. And Jonas Joplin a couple of months before that.

[00:22:54] And so a very big thing that week of school was the 27 Club. These three musicians were all 27 years old and they died of drug overdose. And don't think my class didn't hear that. We're funny. We all grew up to be alcoholics, but we were all terrified of heroin because of that. But Aretha Franklin was on the charts. You know, Genesis. You know, Rod Stewart had a new song. Who's Rod Stewart? We're saying.

[00:23:24] Who's Maggie Mae? This guy doesn't even... His voice is weird, we would say. And Donny Osmond is, go away, little girl. You know, everybody's throwing their transistor radio across homeroom, right? It's just fascinating. And the kids, I mean, the kids in my... They remind me of stuff. And now what's happened is we're doing a new podcast that's going to be born.

[00:23:51] And I'm going to make them come on this show with me because I got a Harvard PhD. I got a nuclear scientist and a Hollywood publicist. These are my friends that are going to be with me to dissect our liberation generation. That's what it's going to be called. Liberation generation. Social archaeology in action. In motion, actually. That we're going to talk to people and just explore about that era and what happened and

[00:24:18] compare it to now and say, what the hell is going on? Yeah, I know. Right? And one of us is politically, you know, conservative. I sat next to this boy for three years in high school because his name was Mark Valenti and mine was Laura Van Warmer. And the Hollywood publicist sat next to me. Her name was Claire Varney. Are you getting it? Valenti Van Warmer Varney. That's how we knew each other because we saw each other every morning for three years in high school. So those three.

[00:24:48] And then Bill, because I knew him from the smoking area at high school. He was cool. And his fringe jacket. He was one of the first emails I got. Is that my fringe jacket the guy with bad skin is wearing? And I'm like, yes. As a matter of fact, it is. So these guys were all like my first fans. So, you know, and what's happening is that everybody's coming out of the woodwork. And it may be the class of 74 has begun a social movement of a whole lot of very cool 70 year olds. Yes.

[00:25:17] That's what it sounds like. Yeah. Our parents were country club Republicans. And so are we kind of. You know, we all did fairly well. We all have good manners. I mean, my parents got that right. I would no more live in Darien than the man on the moon. I mean, those people are so awful now. No, I'm sorry, Darien. A lot of you are terrific. But a lot of you made money on things like highly addictive drugs. And I don't go for that.

[00:25:45] You know, in the class of 74, one of the plot lines that's starting are the golden parachutes. When the corporation started inventing, buying the president of a corporation, buying him to sell out their company and sell out all those jobs across the country. And they ended up millionaires. And the unions got screwed. And all. And then all the middle management got fired because they started buying up all these companies and merging them.

[00:26:13] So there was this huge crisis that started out of that culture. And that's who lives in Fairfield County now. So I always have a problem with them. Yeah. So I'm sorry, Erin. I just going on and on and on. I'm enjoying listening. I am. I'm enjoying listening. Well, I think you identify your parents from the South. Yes. Yes, they do. And they went to school in the 70s. So, you know, it's just it's one of those things. And I like I said, I love thinking about the 70s. The whole my favorite movie of all time. This was a little bit after you would have graduated.

[00:26:43] But it's dazed and confused. It takes place in 77, 78 or something like that. I love it. I love it. Who remembers college? None of us do. You know, I it it really I we've all went to these weird schools. I mean, some went to ended up. But the guy I talked about is going to be on the liberation generation. Bill Bennett. Bill Bennett was not going to college when I last saw him. He had a record contract with CBS Records. This was the guy with the cool fringe jacket.

[00:27:12] Well, guess what? The record contract got canceled. Somehow, Bill Bennett ended up getting his Ph.D. from Harvard and becoming a Tulane professor in medieval literature. My gosh. Flat twist. Exactly. So he's coming on. Right. And his wife, who it's just these stories are unbelievable because of the way we grew up in our high school. We were always ready to be interested in something. We were really well educated.

[00:27:41] And if it interested us, we and we had good manners. So everybody would hire us. And we all learned how to type in high school. So, you know, we went out there and it was anybody's guess. You know, one class might end up in the TARP funds who was working for Obama. And Tim was really responsible even then. Those guys did great. Our queen of homecoming queen went off to India. First thing she did when she got out. Yeah.

[00:28:10] She did not have a conventional life. She rejected all of it. Her classic religion, the whole being perfect. And then other people, it was amazing what happened to them. So those are the stories we're going to follow in Liberation Generation, how all that happened. And we start off just by interviewing each other, you know, and Bill and Mark look at me and just say, I can't believe you live with a, you're married to a woman.

[00:28:37] This is like you, you dated the best looking guys in high school. I said, yeah, I know. Don't know what that was about. Right. I said, it never even occurred to me to be with a woman until I was like 25. I know what people today, they're going, because we were set such good manners. I don't know what to tell you. You know, it was more important to be accepted and mainstream in a mainstream way. And people tell me that I wrote Riverside Drive around the sex scene that I was always

[00:29:06] looking for and never found in mainstream literature. And they were right. Really? Mm-hmm. Wow. Now you got to read it. Now I, yes, I have to read it. I, I'm, I actually wrote down on here that I- Riverside Drive. That's the one. And there's plenty of used copies around because it was around, and it got published like in 50 countries around the world. It was, it really was just a huge hit. And originally there was no sex in it.

[00:29:32] There was an implied two affairs, man and a woman, young one, and then a married woman and a woman. And that was the one I wrote that scene because I had never seen it in mainstream. And I, but then the publisher wanted me to put sex in. And so I did. And, and then that became something else. And I became trapped writing explicit sex scenes for the rest of my life, which is another reason why I liked the class of 74. I've been liberated from that. Right. But I do love sex.

[00:30:01] Just, you know, I'm older and I'm all beat up from the accident. So not what I once was, Erin. Who is? Who is? I mean, but I, I have to say, I, you said this was in like 88, right? Right around that time when you wrote that one? Yes. I was in, I was, I, yes. It published in 88, but I started it in 1985. Okay. It took me that long to learn how to write a novel. I hadn't written anything since college, but because I'd been drunk, not drunk the whole time, but it was a very social.

[00:30:31] You were having a good time. My God. Yes. And I was engaged, you know, I mean, all thing was just, you know, I was going to be in the junior league. Yeah. So, yeah, that was a plot twist too. That was a big shockeroo to my class. I bet. I bet it was, but you know, that's so cool. Yeah. It was shockeroo to me too, because I think what my idea of what, you know, I, it never occurred to me that your sexuality might be determined with who you fall in love with.

[00:31:00] And I had fallen in love with women all the time. And I love men and I love sex with men. I can't believe I'm saying this on this, but, but it's true. I mean, you know, of course I'll get married and have kids. Right. But then there was this nagging thing that I was never falling in love with a man for real. So that was weird. Anyway, I've been with this woman that I am married to. I've been with her for 31 years and it was the last gasp because I was in the closet as a novelist.

[00:31:28] And she basically was synonymous with me starting my head, starting to lead that life, that mainstream life. And anyway, thank you, Christine. That's so amazing. I know. And she was gay. She went to Catholic school. Go figure that. Yeah. But she's very pretty. She's a love. She was, she's a lawyer. She was a lawyer. She defended doctors. Really? Yeah. But, you know, things would go wrong like in an operating room and people need to be compensated. You know, that's true.

[00:31:58] But a lot of lawyers just sue everybody in the operating room to get out what they, you know, make their insurance companies, the malpractice, just pay something to get out of a lawsuit. And Chris's specialty was extracting doctors who shouldn't have been included in malpractice suits. That was her strong point. So when I'm lying in ICU, right? And this, one of my 13 doctors is up there, surgeons.

[00:32:26] They're looking at Chris sitting there in the ICU. He says, that's attorney. I'll say blank. I don't want to do Chris's whole. Well, it was attorney Robinson. That's, she got us out of that lawsuit. And they're like, God, it is. This is her, her what? Because they didn't know she was gay. And they go, well, this is her spouse, I guess. So she got outed. I got outed, right? My class is like everybody, nobody ever knew Chris existed because I just distanced myself

[00:32:56] from everybody. So in a lot of ways, the accident, the plot twist was my class got to know who I was for the first time. They had no idea. No idea. They knew the public, Laura, but not the real, not the real one. So this has been a, just a incredible bonding experience. Yeah. It sounds like it. It sounds like a very therapeutic way to finally be you. Yes. But guess what? They're all the same way, you know, and they, they're an amazing group.

[00:33:26] And, but we do worry about, you know, appearances and stuff. So it's great to reconnect and find out that they felt that way too, you know, or they had the same bully. Yes. Yeah. You know, and I was laughing the other night because in the Patreon call on Wednesday night, this guy was talking about, he gave somebody a ride, right? This kid from his, you know, he's known for years and they're driving along and the guy rolls down the window because somebody's walking along the road.

[00:33:55] And it was a kid who was a little different in our class, right? And this guy reaches out the window and slugs him as they drive by. No. And the driver was horrified. Yeah. Like, what was that about? And I said, I told you he was a bully. You know, that is wild. And I, that reminds me of something when I was in high school, I remember seeing a poor kid on a bike and then I saw one of our bullies do the exact same thing. Yes. Put him right off. I, I never thought that anybody else ever did that because, you know, you're like a speeding

[00:34:24] car and here's a bike. But wow. Someone else did that too. Yes. So you write your pod drama, baby. Your continuing drama. You're going to push him off too, aren't you? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Maybe he'll hit him with a car. Wow. Yeah. Why not? Maybe he'll give him a ventilator voice. He can't talk. Or maybe, maybe he'll be handicapped. No. So I, I'm not mean in my podcast, but I do torture certain people. You've got to, you know, that's what everybody wants.

[00:34:52] Well, it's so cathartic and it's exactly what you say. This is a safe way to think about high school and the parallels from when you went, because we all have nightmares. I mean, you know, how we looked, you know, or we had a parent who didn't behave or we didn't have money. We had kids who had no money, you know, who were ashamed of that or their parent was an alcoholic or, you know, something. And we all had that shame about something. Well, guess what?

[00:35:22] It's time to get over it. We got to go back and look at what was right with the high school experience. And why did certain people flourish in life? And we, like me, why, why was I drinking so much? And, you know, and I look at some people in my class and go, of course she's a brain surgeon because she never did anything wrong, but she had a hard life anyway, but she didn't do bad stuff.

[00:35:48] But they became doctors and, you know, really important stuff, but they were disciplined and I just wasn't. I wasn't. And I had a lot of fun, but I developed a lot of good habits too about welcoming, accepting people for who they were, except if they were mean to other people. I just would not forgive it. And nobody in my class does. So you can imagine how, you know, they're feeling these days when they see bullies. Yeah. Karma. It's karma. That's what it is. Yeah.

[00:36:18] Oh, that's, I mean, it's such a brilliant way that you do it. Like you said, it's cathartic. Like, you know, when I, when I'm writing and I'm just like, I, my character's usually based off of something I've at least experienced. Right. When you can really put them down, it's really, it feels good. It does. So imagine, and you have an audio book, I would assume. Yeah. An audio version of your, okay, this is different. And you're going to find that, you know, people say, how is this different from an audio book?

[00:36:46] And I said, well, it just is because it has to do with if you like me and you want to hang out with me and listen to me, a lot of people say they love my voice. You know, it's so weird. I mean, cause you know, then they'll go on YouTube and see me doing some other interview or as an author doing an interview and they're like, God, you've, you sounded really different. And, but they like it because they're used to it every week listening and an audio book won't give you that.

[00:37:12] You have no sense of the person reading it and what their life's like, but they will with you because you'll get on and go, well, you know what, everybody be glad I'm here with the new episode because my kid had to go get closed and couldn't make a, you know, so I'm taping this at four in the morning because of that kid. And everybody's out there identifying, say, I know me too. Absolutely. So there's a, there's a connection with your, you know, with your opening and the closing,

[00:37:41] you know, and everybody always laughs at the end because I always end up saying, wow, you know, like I, I didn't know that was going to happen, you know, and I wrote it. Yeah. Right. And that's what I say is, my God, even I wrote that, but I didn't know it was going to happen until it did. You know. That's the best part of writing. I think that's going to happen. I never outline. I don't, I do not outline because I just like to let the story go. I just want to see where it takes me, where the characters take me.

[00:38:08] Well, that has to do with your discipline as a person too, that you want to be liberated. You did that fabulous interview with that judge who wrote his first novel. And you remember when you asked him and he just said, oh, it was such a relief because of having to learn to write like a lawyer and a judge. And I want to tell him, you know, Scott Turow was a pretty good lawyer too. And so was John Grisham. And they learned something about writing fiction. So he's in good company. Absolutely.

[00:38:36] But that liberation from that discipline of your own life. Yes. And the people who read you are looking for that too. And I'm assuming the people who are listening to me are looking for that too. They want to be liberated for a while and laugh a little bit. Yes. We all need, laughter is an excellent medicine and that's what we need. And you know, that kind of, that brings me to my question. Where can your, my audience, I'm talking really well today. Where can my audience find you? Well, I know.

[00:39:05] It's like, I'm looking at your YouTube channel. Like, oh my God, she's got thousands and thousands of followers. And I think because mine's an audio only podcast, but I am at YouTube. You are? Oh yeah. Yeah. And we will, the new show, the Liberation Generation will be on YouTube. But I had to do it because actually Chris was the one who told me, I only listen to YouTube. You have to put your podcast on there. I said, okay. It's everywhere.

[00:39:29] It's at Spotify and, you know, all of them, Pandora, anywhere they get music, Amazon Music, anywhere. The Class of 74 is there. Apple, obviously. But there is a website and it's classof74podcast.com. And all the episodes are there. So you can listen on there if you want.

[00:39:49] If you're of a certain generation and want to listen on your cell phone or on your computer, you know, you don't want to have to think about how to do a podcast. Then you just go there. Beautiful. Or there. And I also have a writer's website, lauradanwarmer.net. So you can see the first 30 years of my career. You've got quite the career. You have had quite the career and it is impressive. And I cannot wait to read.

[00:40:19] I'm so excited. Well, I've got my new best friend. We're all coming back. Wait till I tell the guys. I'm going to make them watch this interview. And they're going to go, you mentioned me. Oh, so I better mention that the other host is Claire Varney. So we've got Valenti, Van Warmer, Varney, and Bill Bennett in a spring jacket. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. The three Bs and a B. Oh, they'll love you. They'll love you. Oh, that's awesome. Thank you. And it has been such a pleasure. And I will make sure that all of your links are in the show notes.

[00:40:47] I know my audience is going to absolutely adore you. Well, I adore you. And I can see why they listen to you because you are fun. And I hope you're going to do another. Maybe when the kids. How old's your youngest kid? He's turning 10 soon. So. 10. Oh, my God. You still have two years to go before I say that novelists can write. But I usually do it when they're at school. You have great focus. Late at night. Like you were saying, the 2 a.m. thing. Yeah.

[00:41:17] Or I'd say sometimes aspiring writers, your only hope is be the first one up in the morning for an hour. Yes. Usually I am. So that works. Yeah. That works nicely. But I also do my escapes. I will go down to Florida because we own some real estate down there. And I'll just go and write. I'll just go and just write. My husband will watch the kids for a couple days. And I'll just kind of. I'll just go for it. So he knows you're a burning overachiever. Yes. Yes. He married you. Yes, exactly. But he's a good guy.

[00:41:47] So he shares the. Yeah. He understands it. Yes. He's not, you know, he's not a big reader or anything. What's just, you know, fine. But he's like, yeah, go do your thing. Go do it. See, that's the exception of women novelists who have kids. They have husbands like that. Yes. Yes. Otherwise, it just doesn't happen. They can't write. No. No, not at all. Because, yeah, with three of them, the two older ones, you know, they're teenagers now. So they just don't want anything. Yeah.

[00:42:14] No, I say when they're 12, when they're 12, you're good. Yes. You're good. So, yeah. But this is awesome. Thank you so much for joining me. You're very welcome. It's such a pleasure. I can't even explain.