Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Alretha Thomas: The beauty of acting is that you have to be there in that moment. And when you’re in that moment, it’s an amazing thing because we’re not in the moment in real life, but when you are on that set, on that stage, and that director says “Action,” you’re listening, you’re receiving, you’re reacting. You’re there. 

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden, a podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment.

Here now is your host Steve Cuden. 

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Alretha Thomas, has found career success in the second half of her life as an award-winning novelist, playwright and actress, a resilient survivor of childhood trauma.

Alretha is a former model who as an actress has appeared in numerous films, TV series, and commercials. She also appeared on two iconic soap operas Days of Our Lives. And General Hospital. Currently, she’s a series regular playing Anastasia Devereux on Tyler Perry’s Assisted Living, which is in its fifth season on BET.

As a playwright, Alretha has won accolades and awards for her plays, Civil Rights, A Shrine, A Junior Mommy, and Clyde Sacrificing Simone and Grandpa’s Truth. She also wrote One Woman, Two Lives that starred Kalita Smith of the Bernie Mac Show and was directed by four time NAACP Image Award Best Director recipient, Denise Downer. Alretha, who holds a degree in journalism from USC, has written 15 novels, over a half million of which have been sold and downloaded, receiving glowing reviews from readers book clubs and critics. Her first novel, Daughter Denied, was launched in 2008, a four book series. Cass and Nick spawned from her novel. Married in the Nick of Nine was acquired by Soulmate Publishing, and she was awarded the Jesse Redmond Faucet Literary Award for her indie novel for Ladies Only.

Her latest book, the Daughter Between Them, was recognized by Kirkis Reviews as one of the top thriller indie books of 2024. I’ve read the Daughter Between Them and was completely drawn in by the wonderfully complex unfolding mystery thriller as told through Alretha’s masterful storytelling and her deeply compelling characters.

She’s had several videos go viral, including three that have received more than 2 million views. For more about Alretha, please check out alrethathomas.com. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m truly honored to welcome the brilliant writer, actress and producer, Alretha Thomas to StoryBeat today.

Alretha, thanks so much for joining me. 

Alretha Thomas: Wow. I’m, you can see I’m, I’m grinning from ear to ear. I’m like, wow. That’s a lot like, woo, that’s me. Thank you so much. That was so thorough. It’s a great pleasure. Appreciate it. It’s a great 

Steve Cuden: pleasure to, I give 

Alretha Thomas: God the glory. That’s so great. It’s so great to be here.

Thank you for having me. 

Steve Cuden: So let’s go back in time just a little bit, whi, which came first for you? Acting or writing? 

Alretha Thomas: Oh my gosh. The acting came first. Well then the writing came first. And I say that because the first thing I ever wrote was when I was in the fifth grade and our teacher assigned a short story.

She gave us a short story assignment and I wrote mine and it was, I could say my first romance. ’cause it was about this little girl working in the grocery store and she had a crush on one of the um, bag boys. So the teacher, after we had written it, she came in and she said, all you guys did a good job.

But there was one story that really stood out. And it was mine and she read it to the class. Oh. And I was floored. I couldn’t believe it. That was like huge. And the class, they were riveted. I’m like, oh my God. So I think there was like a little seed of for the writer person right in there at that time.

And then I went on and be, you know, went into journalism. And then later on, then I went into acting and then went back into writing. Right. So I go on like. It’s a meandering role, you know, of getting there. 

Steve Cuden: Well, the act, the acting is involving lots of words. So that’s not, uh, uniquely different in that way, but the writing of it certainly is.

Um, when did, were you interested in words as a little girl? Was that something that fascinated you? Reading things 

Alretha Thomas: I love to read when I was a little girl because I love to escape. ’cause I had a challenging childhood, so. And we had a bookmobile and we were in the projects and the bookmobile would come through and I would be running hard for that bookbook, you know, like the ice cream truck, how the kids running for the ice cream drink.

I would be running for the bookmobile. Right, right. Because that was like my treat, because then I would get my book and I’d be able to, you know, get into a Nancy Drew, you know, all that kind of stuff, and. Just fantasize it. I, I was, I was his character. So yeah. I love words and reading as a, as a little girl.

So 

Steve Cuden: as a reader who, you were obviously reading, um, stories of some kind, you probably weren’t reading physics books at that age. You were reading stories and, and so were you also very imaginative at that time? Is that where the part of the acting came from, is that you could imagine yourself as another character?

Alretha Thomas: I believe so. And I even remember in elementary school, you know how you have the school plays. I would always somehow end up in a lead role. Hmm. And I remember one time I even played Scrooge, and one time I was out and the teacher, she told me, she said, it wasn’t the same when you weren’t here. There was something like, I had a natural energy, I believe.

And even in, in junior high school. School. There was a show in San Francisco, that’s where I grew up, born in Oakland, raised in San Francisco. There was a show called Zoom. It was like a children’s variety show. Sure, sure. And they were looking for kids in junior high school age to be in it. So they. They pulled me CBS in San Francisco.

My mom was sickly and she couldn’t take me, but my big sister took me to CBS, but I was so broken because of the abuse. I was introverted, you know, I couldn’t really express myself. Go figure her, you. That’s hard to believe, I’m sure at this point, but I really, I was very. Tat turned very reticent. I couldn’t, you know, I was withdrawn, so I wasn’t the right type of child for the show, but they, they auditioned me for it.

So, because outside of being put on the spot, I did have like this kind of outgoing personality. 

Steve Cuden: How important do you think that the acting that you’ve done has informed the writing that you’ve done and vice versa? How important has the writing that you’ve done informed the acting? 

Alretha Thomas: I think the acting has.

Help with the writing, because when I’m writing the characters, I’m the, I’m the characters. I become the character. So it, I write first person present. Mm-hmm. So when I’m writing, I am the character. You know, I’m m Leslie, who’s one of the characters in the book you mentioned the darty between them. So when I write out as an acting, when I get a character, I do a bio on a character in acting like Anastasia DeVere, the writer.

When Tyler Perry created that character, he had certain, there were certain attributes that he gave her. I take those, but then I add on, I add on characters, and that’s the same thing when I do in acting, in in writing, when I get ready to write my book and I’m writing a character, I do a bio. Where was she born?

Who does she date? What is she like? I do the same thing when I create, so there, there go hand in hand. I’m doing both things for both characters because just like the book, when you read it as a reader, you wanna believe it, you have to buy into it. Just like when you’re watching a character on television, you have to buy into it.

Absolutely. So I have to make it real. I have to make it real for both sides. So they really compliment. So 

Steve Cuden: you really do your due diligence as an actress, as well as a writer. That’s what you do, is you’re researching and deciding what those traits are that you’re going to work on. 

Alretha Thomas: I do, and some people do method acting.

You know, there are different schools that thought different types of acting. Every actor has their own process. For me, I like to keep the character separate from my life. If I have to cry in a scene, I don’t wanna use something that happened to me in my own life. I want it to be pure. I wanna create that character’s role, pain and drama.

You 

Steve Cuden: wanna be in the moment. 

Alretha Thomas: Yeah, I can relate to the characters. I’ve experienced pain and loss. Like one time I had an audition for a woman whose son had been killed and she had all his pictures on her phone. And someone stole the phone. So she literally had no more pictures of her son, so she had to do a press conference.

She was begging the, the perpetrator to bring her phone back. So when I went for the audition, I, I had to make that boy real. I didn’t, I don’t have children, but I had to make him real. So I went on Google. I found a young man. I printed his picture out. I put it in a frame. I used my imagination to think about.

When I conceived him when he was born, elementary school, high school, I literally set up and imagined all this stuff and made it so real that when I looked at that picture, I really believed that was my son. Then I went through the process of him being killed in the funeral and all of that. Hmm. When I got to the audition, I lost it.

When I did the audition and I read it, I lost it as a mother and the, the casting director and the writer, they were blown away. They were like, oh my God, that was so powerful. They were trying to figure out how did I, but I made it. I, I convinced myself that I was the mother and that was my son and I. Over that few days time, I just immersed myself and that’s what I do.

The same thing with my character. When I get scripts and there’s something in there, I’ll make it true to me and I’ll use my imagination because that’s all life is. Really think about what did you do last night? What did you have for breakfast this morning? Where does it pop up in your head? You’re not going through the specific different things of it.

You have an image of what happened, and so that’s what I do to create, I create those images as though they happen, 

Steve Cuden: and the same thing as you’re writing in your books. 

Alretha Thomas: Same thing in the book when I’m writing a book and, but I’m getting to experience it in the book real time because I’m writing like when my character, Barbara is doing this dirty deed and I don’t wanna give it away.

I don’t want spoilers, right? Sure. But she’s doing it. So I’m in her and I’m seeing her in my mind doing it, and I’m doing it, going through the suitcase and pulling up and I’m feeling it. I’m going through it. There have been times where I’ve been at my computer where. I just start crying. Mm. If it’s a sad scene because I’m literally in that.

I’m that character and I’m experiencing it in the moment, real time. That’s my process. 

Steve Cuden: Do you know the, that uh, Eugene O’Neill, the great playwright, Eugene O’Neill, when he was writing long day’s journey into, into night, he apparently would go up to a third floor, a room in his house. And when he would come down at the end of the day, he was completely rung out.

He had been crying all day from writing. Oh 

Alretha Thomas: my God. ’cause he’s feeling it. He’s writing and he’s filling it and, and you know, you can feel. Like I can watch, read a book, or watch something on television. An actor could be crying their eyes out and I’m just stoic. I feel nothing. And I believe because that’s technical crying.

Mm-hmm. They’re not really feeling it, that actor, because when another human being feels it, you’re gonna feel it. I remember a. Losing Isaiah, a movie with Jessica Lange and Halle Berry. Mm-hmm. They had this scene where they’re walking down and they’re both wanting that boy and they’re both quiet and I lost it.

I was, I was drenched. I was, because I could feel through the screen. Both those actresses were really experiencing the loss of that boy in real time. And I, it made me feel it. 

Steve Cuden: That’s what it’s all about, is that you’re, it wasn’t 

Alretha Thomas: technical crying. They really felt it. They went through it, 

Steve Cuden: you know, as, as writer of fiction as well as an a performer, um, your job, our jobs as writers is to create a visceral experience for the reader or the viewer, and that’s pure gut punch.

And if you can get them to be Yeah, punch. Then you win. That’s what it’s all about, is that visceral experience. Do you think of yourself now you’ve got many multi different functions that you have in the world of the arts. I’m just wondering, do you think of yourself now more as a playwright, a novelist, an actress, or, or are you some combo of all of them?

Alretha Thomas: I, that’s a great question. I think it’s a combo of all of them, because I just finished filming a season of assisted living. I was there the whole month of June and 15 episodes. So I was fully actress, you know, I was living in a hotel. I was going to set, I was being pampered. That’s full actress. That’s just a month ago.

Now I come back to this play where I’m producer, director, writer, casting director. So now I’m a playwright, a producer, director, you know, so I’m doing them all in, you know, not simultaneously, but. Alternating. So I’m all of it. 

Steve Cuden: And I think that that’s right and you’re able to use what you do as an actress.

Again, I going back a question or two ago, you use what you have as an actress and what I assume, and I’ll ask you this question about Tyler Perry. What have you learned from him? Because obviously he’s a legend at what he does. What have you learned from him that informs you not just as an actress, but as a writer and director?

Well, 

Alretha Thomas: the one thing, I’ve met him on several occasions, but I’ve never gotten to work with him. Ah, because when I came onto the show in season two, he had turned it over to other writers and directors. So I’ve never gotten to work with him, but I’m familiar with his work. Obviously I see his work, but one thing I do know, what I have learned from him is to be true to yourself.

No matter who the critics are, no matter what they say, Tyler is true to his self, true to his, his base. True to his story, his mom, he said a long time ago, inspired him, the women in his life where he saw them struggle and he had compassion and empathy for these women around him as he grew up that struggle.

And if you look at a lot of his body of work, it’s about black women in the struggle and trying to make it because that’s where his heart and soul is. I learned that go with your heart and soul. And I tend, I find to, I tend to focus on family story. You know, if you read a lot of books, it’s this family, it’s this mother daughter, family, family togethers, you know, the play that I’ve written right now.

Um, a girl’s guilt trip. It’s two women relationships. That’s it. Relationships, whether it be. Best friends, mother, daughter, the kanick romantic relationship. Mine is a focus of relationships and trying to navigate the pitfalls in the minefields of relationships where people have disagreements, they have misunderstandings, they have falling outs, they have grudges.

They stop talking to each other. That whole arena is my niche. 

Steve Cuden: You are obviously on a show for almost five years. That’s all about family. 

Alretha Thomas: Yes it is. Yes it is. And relationship. There are two men there that want my, my character Anastasia. She’s got two people vying for her affection, Vinny and, and Judge Junie.

Steve Cuden: And, and that’s what makes great storytelling, I think. Great. Is. The fact that it is about relationships and family. Most audiences are not interested in places, events, or things. They’re interested in relationships between characters, 

Alretha Thomas: people. So true. 

Steve Cuden: And especially conflict between people. That’s what it’s all about.

So true. And your book is filled with conflict, which is, you know, oh my gosh. Yeah. That’s what makes it so compelling. And com you, it’s like popcorn. Popcorn at a movie. You gotta eat it. More and more and more because it’s, I’m so, so glad you, 

Alretha Thomas: I appreciate you reading it. That means a lot to me that you read it.

Steve Cuden: That’s, that’s what I do. I, I believe in, in doing my due diligence on this particular show, I read the books. Um, did you have a sense from the day that you started acting and writing way back when that you would be doing it throughout your life? I know that you took a break for a while, but did you think you would be doing it forever?

Alretha Thomas: You know, it is crazy because I went to USC for journalism. I wanted to be a journalist and, and I went to USC in theater. Oh my gosh. Look at that. So we’re both drugs and you know, it’s so funny. I know, right. Yay. Victory. So, so the thing is crazy, you know, in high school I was on the speech team and there was a drama team and a lot of my friends were in drama.

And I thought about it, but I was like, oh, that’s just too precarious and I don’t wanna be waiting on tables. You don’t, so naive thinking that broadcast journalism was gonna be any different, you know? Uh, so, you know, I got, I graduated and we were in a deep recession, and. Anybody that had a job was not leaving.

And in the journalism world, you work your way through the small markets. You start out in the boonies and move your way up through la, New York and all of that. But no one was leaving their job. I even was in conversation with the general manager at a news station in the last. That’s how badly I wanted to work.

So I had to get work. So I started working in office jobs, and then I got caught up in the office job stuff, and then I had the emotional fallout from my childhood and I was going crazy. And I had, and, but prior to that, what happened was I ended up going to, I was married before my current relationship, and we went to see a taping of the Jeffersons.

Someone, a producer saw me and said, oh, you make a great model. Right? So then I started dabbling in modeling. This is after I had closed the door on the news reporting. I didn’t think that was gonna happen ’cause I’m working, you know, on regular day jobs and doing the modeling. And then something hit me and I was like.

I think I went to a go see that’s where you go with your little book to the ING agency and she said, you’re too short. You probably need to go into acting or something like that for commercials. They just felt I was too short to be a runway model on five seven, my five six and a half, five, seven, you have to be five, eight and above.

So I started studying and that’s when I got into acting and I studied for seven years with this. Great teacher named Joel Asher, and I got some under fives and some soaps, and I did some bee movies, and then I started going kind of batty. You know, I started meeting the wrong people, being in the wrong places and got caught up and I had to just take a step.

So I, I left acting, I left it for 23 years. Now in the back of my head, I had a feeling I might go back. Mm-hmm. But I wasn’t sure. But I worked in corporate America and in that 23 year period though, I started writing books. ’cause I had always said, Steve, that I wanted to write a book about a girl who had a dysfunctional childhood kind of loosely based on my life.

Sure. That becomes Victoria in the end. So when I married my husband, I was telling him I wanted to write this book and that was my very first. Book, daughter denied. And so I had been in the acting, left the acting, started the book writing, and then in my, I was in my church and I started writing plays in my church.

And the next thing you know, I started writing more books, writing more plays. And I did that the whole time. I was away from acting. And in 2016 I said, okay, I think I have enough money saved. I talked to my husband, I said, if I can make it work, would you mind if I went back to acting full time? So I’d be acting and writing full time?

And he said, go for it. So, uh, I got me an agent and for four years I got a commercial, little soaps here and there, and then COVID hit. So I was like, oh my gosh, I’m just getting going. And now the world is shut down. Of course, little did I know. That I would get an audition for a show called Tyler Pere Assisted Living During the Pandemic.

When I got the audition, I looked at it ’cause it said possibly recurring and I, the first person I thought of was Felicia Rashad, because the character was old, much older than me, and I was like, okay. Um, I’m not gonna get this, but I’m gonna do it. And I had auditioned for this casting director before, so I put a hundred percent in it, but I’ve divorced myself from it.

And then one day I was just around the house and I got a call. My agent, she goes, oh, they’re making us an offer. And I’m like, what? Who, what? ’cause she said, oh, Tyler Perry, they wanna give you the role of anesthesia. Deborah roll. They’re flying you out this weekend. Wow. I started screaming. I was like, oh my God, this is God.

This is God, this God. And so we had a COVID test. Every time we showed around. We had to take COVID tests. Tyler charted a jet just for the cast. We flew when we got to a studio. We were all quarantined. At the base, at the studio, and we tested two, three times a week. Nobody ever got sick. He had it down to a science.

He had the blueprint for how to do this thing. Mm-hmm. And we got in there and we shot that second season and the rest is history. And then they, the fourth season, they made me a series regular. But that was the evolution of how it all came about. 

Steve Cuden: That 23 year break was actually fueling your desire to make a go at it.

Eventually, 

Alretha Thomas: in the back of my mind, I knew I was gonna come back. 

Steve Cuden: Sure. 

Alretha Thomas: I said, I’m gonna come back. And then, and it was better because I was, I wasn’t struggling financially. I didn’t have to work a job and try to do auditions. I had some level of stability, so I was able to really pursue it. And then I didn’t have to be tied to a nine to five.

I could do it full time. So, 

Steve Cuden: so I wanna go back a half a step. You, you got this degree in journalism from. SC and you mm-hmm. Attempted to make a go of it, but it didn’t really work for you. But are you able to use your journalistic studies in your writing? Are you thinking of yourself as a reporter, as a novelist?

Are you reporting from your mind, from your imagination? 

Alretha Thomas: Well, it’s funny you said that. It’s a great question because just recently somebody, and people always tell me, you’re an investigator, you know how to dig and find stuff. Because that journalistic investigator, curious mind, it is still there. And I do use it and I do use it to research in writing my books.

I use it to research in writing my characters. I use it to research the play that I’m doing right now. You know, I’m working on the program, so my co-star. I said, I know she’s busy. I said, I’m gonna go on and put her bio together for the program. So I went on and you know, of course the internet. Hey, we didn’t have that back in the day, Steve, when we were coming up.

No, we didn’t. We didn’t have all 

Steve Cuden: that. No, we didn’t. We 

Alretha Thomas: didn’t have where you had all this information at our fingertips. There was no ai, there was no GP chat. We didn’t have any of that. We literally had to go to the library. You had to get on the phone when I wrote my first book, not to go too far off the beaten path, but when I wrote my first book, I literally had to go call the train station and find out what was the route from here to here.

I had to go to the library. I had to go to the phone and the yellow pages and ask people to now is the smartest boy. All I have to do is just click, click, click, click, click. So I just google her name and I saw she did this. She did that. She did. I pulled it together. My writing skills helped me. So I was able to put her little by, she was floored when she saw that.

She said, how did you get all that? How did you know all that about me? I said, oh, my secret. You know? But yeah, 

Steve Cuden: because yeah, we didn’t have that back in the day. You didn’t have any of that information. You did have to go to the library and then you’d have to spend a lot of time digging and digging to find anything.

Mm-hmm. So tell us about the three videos that have gone viral. I’m curious about those. What are, what are they? 

Alretha Thomas: TikTok is really funny because. The thing that you don’t put anything into that goes viral. The thing that you spend an hour trying to organize and tape and video and edit goes nowhere. So one of them is like a DoorDash type thing where Yeah, it’s like, um, you go in and you really, you pretending like you DoorDash so that you could get somebody else’s food.

So it’s like I run in there and then the video has me running back to the car and I’m like, and you can hear the person saying, Hey, come back here, get back. And I closed the door to get in there. People love that. I don’t know why that, and, and it’s so funny, it’s like 2 million, almost 3 million people.

For some reason, I’m still scratching my head. Why did they go with that? Why did they, and then there’s one that I did when I was coming back from Sacramento. You see the rabbit at the airport, right? Why do people think I was Kamala Harris? I came out, I have the video, and so there’s, TikTok has this thing where you can cut and paste stuff.

So I have a, a thing where I download it where you have all these paparazzi taking pictures. So, and I had somebody video me coming out of the airport. So when I’m walking out, it literally is like all these paparazzi are taking my picture and this the wig I had on and how I was carrying myself. I did kind of look like Kamala.

So everybody was thinking I was Kamala. It blew up. They were thinking I was her. It blew up. Because they thought I was, yeah. And then the other one I did was a McDonald’s one. I got this idea to do, and there’s a creator of mine. I said, happy Meal, I’m gonna act like I want my money back, because the meal didn’t make me happy.

So I literally went in a McDonald’s and I said, can I speak to the manager? And they said, well, I said, I need my money back. I’m dissatisfied. I said, this Happy Meal did not make me happy. I’m still upset about my boyfriend. My life is still not good. I thought it was gonna change me. I’m still depressed.

I’m still, and I just went on it. It was, and it blew up. People just thought it was hilarious. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s very funny concept. You want your money back ’cause the Happy Meal didn’t make happy. I think that’s, yeah. To make me happy. Yeah. Extremely funny. So I, I wanna spend a little time certainly talking about the daughter between them, which is the book I read.

Obviously, explain to the listeners what the book is actually about. Can you pitch it 

Alretha Thomas: to us? Okay. So the daughter between them is about two women, two mothers who are so different. So opposite. Leslie’s a reporter, she’s trying to be the first black news editor on her job, and she has two teenage daughters.

She lives in a fictional town called Nancy Hills. All my books take place at Dancing Hills. That’s my fictional town. And Barbara Morris, she’s in New York and she’s 10 years earlier. And they, she and her husband wake up and their daughter’s missing. And so both women are in peril. They’re both afraid for their daughters.

Barbara May not be as innocent as she seems to be. There is a connection between these two women, and as you read the book, the connection is revealed and it’s jaw dropping 

Steve Cuden: that it is. 

Alretha Thomas: So the mystery is, where is Nancy, Barbara Morris’s daughter? Where is she? Where she was home in bed that night. She’s gone.

Where is she? And that’s what they’re trying to find out. And then the question on Leslie’s side. Who’s trying to hurt my daughters because her daughters, someone runs into their car and then someone throws a rock into the window. So she has, and she says it’s in the opening of the book, a Pass, and she has enemies and, and she’s changed her identity.

So her fear is, have my enemies my fault? Have they found me? And is that is what’s happening with me? So you’re trying to, so the reader, you’re trying to figure out where is Nancy, who’s hurting, and then as you go on, it’s revealed how these women are connected. 

Steve Cuden: How, how did you come up with the idea of these two separate mothers and then you separated it throughout the 2010s for a 10 year period there.

Yeah. How did you come up with that concept? 

Alretha Thomas: I actually came up with it in an earlier book, and I call it the then and now, where we’re in the present day, and then you’re in the past and you have two people, and then there’s a mysterious connection between the two characters and then it comes together.

So I actually started with that book and it went so well. I decided to come up with it again, but I liked the idea. It just came to me. I said, okay, I want something to be happening. The present that is a result of something happened in the past. Mm-hmm. And then I want the audience to be able to try to figure it out.

And then it’s revealed, it just hit me. I just, I just came up with it. It just came to me. And then the daughter, the mother daughter situation, I think sometimes, because, you know, I lost my mom when I was 14, so I didn’t have her very long. And vicariously. I kind of lived through these mother-daughter stories and that’s why I wanted to do the mother-daughter.

I wanted to show the love of a mother for their child. And you clearly see that in both cases here, you know, and especially in the end, you see the the sacrifice that one of the mothers takes for her daughter. 

Steve Cuden: So you have a very complex structure in this book because you’re bouncing back and forth it. I had to lay 

Alretha Thomas: it out.

I had to really detail in it. I had to. Had very good outline. I outlined everything. And one thing that’s working for me now that I didn’t use to do early on when I would write my books, I would write so many pages, print it out, and then read it. Then I’d write so many pages, print out and read it. And so what that was doing, it was restricting me because I would think, because if I had an idea, I said, well, if I go put that in there, then it’s gonna change your pagination, it’s gonna do so one day I said, what if you don’t?

Print out anything. Leave it a open board. Just keep it open and just go in there, change and move stuff around and do. It was a game changer because by doing that, that’s why I was able to do this book so well. Because I would remember something, okay, you did that. You gotta go back and do this to make that work because then that’s not gonna make sense ’cause that’s gonna do that.

So it was like a game of chess. I was able to go in there and move pieces and do things by not printing. I never print. Mm-hmm. I saved a lot. I downloaded saved, but I never print and it just left me where I could fix stuff and change things around. But I had very distinct. Outlines, and then some of the stuff was kind of serendipitous.

I don’t know. Some of the stuff was almost mystical because there was times where things would line up. And I’d be like, I didn’t try to get it to line up like that, but it literally would line up perfectly from the past to the pre, and especially when they came together and I was like, wow. It would scare me.

So my thought, how did that happen? But it would be, it was perfect. 

Steve Cuden: Well, yeah. It, it dovetails perfectly. 

Alretha Thomas: Yeah, it was, it was wonderful. But a lot of, like I said. Plotting outlines and not printing out. Just being able to go in the computer and just make things and change things around. 

Steve Cuden: Did you feel like it freed you up to be a little looser in how you were approaching it?

Alretha Thomas: Oh, totally. Because I didn’t have to care, worry about pages. I could just go in like a painter, just going to do, you know, I wanna go over here and, oh, let me go do this. Let me go put this in. Oh yeah, I need to put that in. And I didn’t have to worry about. The chapter Change it, or I’m gonna have to fix this chapter.

This chapter happened to. Mm-hmm. Just free. It totally freed me. 

Steve Cuden: So the story itself revolves around this life-changing secret that we’ve been hinting around. We’re not gonna, we’re not gonna give it away. How do your characters handle that burden of dealing with such a big secret? ’cause people secrets have a tendency to drag people down.

Alretha Thomas: Well, Leslie, I believe it kept her in fear. She lived in fear and she projected that fear onto her daughter. She became like a helicopter mom. She was so controlling, and they tell her that, you know, one of the daughters has an outburst, Jillian, you know, it’s like you just smother us. You know? It’s too much.

It had her living in fear. They say the greatest thing, your fear is what you’re gonna attract. And very, and she just, just did. She did, did, did. And Barbara, her situation with her carrying, and she knew what she had done, so she was living in fear too. Both women really were living, living in fear of being caught.

You know, so Barbara was on edge all the time and, you know, wondering how this thing was gonna play out and was she gonna be able to get her daughter, was she gonna be able, because her biggest thing was getting the love of her daughter. Her biggest thing is, you know, she was the boogeyman to her daughter.

She never was able to get her daughter’s love because of who she was. Mm-hmm. And, and the things she did to her daughter. Mm-hmm. You know, and one of the things that’s interesting me, a lot of reviewers, people ended up having sympathy for her. She’s a villain, but you one of these villains that you kind of had sympathy for, which I liked and I hoped 

Steve Cuden: that’s what she is.

She’s a villain. Who you feel for, which I think is the Yeah. Ideal way to write a story. You know, Leo Tolstoy, who wrote a couple of good books back in the day, um, he once famously said that the best stories are stories between good and good. And so if you feel, I like that your, if you feel for both the protagonist and the antagonist.

Wow, that’s powerful. ’cause that conflict is huge. Exactly. 

Alretha Thomas: And the other thing that I learned, no one is all good and no one is all bad. 

Steve Cuden: Hmm. No one. Definitely. Definitely true. What, so what do you think the impact is on families secrets? Because that’s what you’re largely exploring in the book. What impact do secrets have on families?

Alretha Thomas: Illness sickness. Because usually the, the secrets revolve around something that is resentment, hurt, uh, molestation abuse, something like that. And you’re carrying that and you’re at, you’re not at ease. So you’re going to have produce disease and it produces a lot of illness. It produces a, a lot of stress.

You can’t be yourself, you can’t fully love, you can’t fully embrace. You know, you can’t fully, you can’t be authentic because you are carrying it. You are as sick as your deepest secret. You know, I try not to have any secrets. I’m gonna share it with somebody because I just don’t wanna carry that. And I think that’s what happens with families.

You don’t get help, you don’t get the healing. We read these stories in the newspaper all the time. Not in the newspaper, but online. You know, we see these things all the time. Where it comes out, where, you know, there was. Incest in a family. There was molestation in a family, there was somebody being battered and they’re hiding and they’re keeping it a secret.

My play has some of that in it. You know, the two characters right now, one of them was hiding abuse and it rav all the relationships. All the relationships between the two couples, you know? 

Steve Cuden: So there’s little bits and pieces of your own life in all these things aren’t there? I believe so, yes. That sort of has to bubble up through you as the, a creator of the story and the character.

Alretha Thomas: It does. I can relate to it. I can, yeah. 

Steve Cuden: Why did you set on the 2010s? What was, was there something specific about that period that was necessary for you to write the story? Not 

Alretha Thomas: really. I, I, okay. Well, one part I did take into consideration, I, anytime I’m writing after COVID, I do take that into consideration.

Because I know the country, the world was shut down, so, and has changed. 

Steve Cuden: We’ve 

Alretha Thomas: changed. Yeah. And if you notice in the Leslie part, as it’s coming to a close, we’re going into COVID. We’re going into the COVID because they talk about the vaccination. So I wanted to write the book prior to the outbreak. So that’s why I started when I did, because I didn’t wanna be caught in the midst of that.

I didn’t want that to have to take up. I didn’t want the focus of the story to be there, so that’s why I wrote it where it was prior to COVID. 

Steve Cuden: As you’re writing, do you think about the audience that’s gonna read it? Do you think about your readers or are you writing it just for you? 

Alretha Thomas: I’m thinking about the readers.

When I’m writing, I’m like, okay, how is that gonna impact them? Like there’s one thing I did with Barbara and I don’t wanna do a spoiler. And I thought about it and I said, I don’t know if the, how are they gonna feel about this? And I thought, ’cause I read, so I know how I feel about things. I said, well, is it Rita?

How would you feel? Yeah, it’s necessary to move the forward. I had to do that act for the story to move forward. So I had to sacrifice this person, but I felt like, as a reader, I gauge myself at the other readers I can live with that, you know, they’re gonna live with that. So I, I do put myself in the reader’s shoes, you know?

Well, I think that 

Steve Cuden: that’s, that’s, uh, helpful, especially in a mystery to know how the, what you’re doing is gonna impact that reader. Because if you throw the reader. Off in some way and cheat. You know, there’s a, there’s a rule in writing. You can deceive an audience, but you can’t cheat them. And if you cheat that part, that won’t work.

But you can, yeah, you can be deceptive as long as you resolve that deception. Uh, as a Exactly. As a, especially in a mystery, which is what you have here. Um, exactly. How long did it take you to write the book? 

Alretha Thomas: It took me eight months to have a decent draft, and then after that I, I have a developmental editor.

I always pass things to her to look at it and see if it makes sense and she’ll come back and say, Ugh. Or you know, that’s not working, or You do you really wanna do that. So I’ll get notes and then I’ll incorporate, and then I’ll have a few beta readers check it out. So I think after a year I felt comfortable querying it because I really want to get representation for it.

Mm-hmm. And I end up getting a huge New York agent interested in it. And I was shocked. She ca I was on set the day she called me and I think it was my sec, second year of being on the show and we were talking and I was amazed that I had this, this agent. And so she wrapped me in. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to get me a deal.

Hmm. And I really believe that she doesn’t agree with me, but I believe because I have 14 books on Amazon, and even though I a half a million have been downloaded and sold enough, haven’t been sold because the publishing industry, it’s a business. 

Steve Cuden: Oh yeah. 

Alretha Thomas: When you go through as Simon and Schu, the random other people, they have the marketing department, they have the finance department.

They have the legal department. They’re looking at this and they’re looking at, they’re crunching numbers. They’re looking at. And all they gotta do is run my books and if they don’t see the number and I got 14, I’m a proven failure. They’re not taking in the fact that I never had a big publishing house behind me or a machine, or been able to get blurbs from Stephen King and stuff like that on my book and to get, get, you know, get put out there, be Paris, you know, a blurb from her.

They’re not looking at that. You know, I’ve been an indie and so you can’t. You, you’re lucky to sell a hundred copies. So I really believe that hurt me. I promise you, if this had been, if the data between them had been my first book, there would’ve been a bidding war. 

Steve Cuden: It’s, it’s a catch 22, isn’t it? You need the publishing house to go big, and when you don’t have the big publishing house and you don’t get as big, then the big publishing house doesn’t want you.

So it’s a catch 22. 

Alretha Thomas: It’s, 

Steve Cuden: yeah, and it is all the numbers here, 

Alretha Thomas: but I don’t think there would’ve been a, there would’ve been a bidding war for that book if it had been my first book. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I happen to think that this book would make a marvelous movie or a little miniseries. 

Alretha Thomas: Oh my gosh. What? Amazing. So 

Steve Cuden: have you given it to Tyler Perry to let him read it?

Alretha Thomas: Uh, no I haven’t. Um, I don’t have a relationship like that. I don’t feel comfortable doing. Of course, I have, I have given him a book before my last one. Nothing was said about it, so I’m still hoping that out of the blue something might happen from this. Somebody might get a clue. I’m hoping somebody. We’ll see it.

I mean, it’s been out there. It’s out there and it is a movie. It would make an amazing 

Steve Cuden: movie. Oh, I think it would make a terrific movie. I think that, uh, yeah. You know, it would, it’s all there. It just needs to be developed as a script. And you are a script writer. You’re a playwright, so you 

Alretha Thomas: No, I don’t, I don’t do screenplays.

No. I’ve been down that road. Oh no. I still try to write screenplays. Why iWriter? 

Steve Cuden: Why? 

Alretha Thomas: I don’t, I can’t do it. I’m not good. It’s, it’s a different animal. I even, it’s a animal. It’s a different animal. How they write, how you gotta see it with pictures, you gotta see it. Shortchange it. You gotta. I, I stay in my lane.

I know my limitations. Well, what, so somebody wanna option this book for film? They could take it, option it, get your screenwriter. I’m not the one I wanna be in it though. I wanna be in the book. And you know who I wanna play. I wanna play Barbara’s mother. Oh 

Steve Cuden: yeah, of course you’d be perfect for that.

Alretha Thomas: Barbara’s mother. The villain. The, the villain. 

Steve Cuden: Now you’re a playwright, so you obviously understand. The language of it coming out of people’s mouths, which is what a playwright mm-hmm. Does. Mm-hmm. And you are an actress, so you know what it’s like to get a script and have it come out of your mouth, the words and other, out of other people’s mouths.

All you really need to understand is the technical elements of screenwriting. Now you, I know, 

Alretha Thomas: but I overwrite, you can’t overwrite in screenplays. 

Steve Cuden: Uh, okay. So let me disabuse you this much. You can overwrite and then be very judicious as an editor. I 

Alretha Thomas: don’t like it. I don’t like screenplay. 

Steve Cuden: I’ll let somebody else do it, but I’ve done it for so long.

So to me it’s, it’s, 

Alretha Thomas: it’s, see, you get do it. You get do the screen. Why don’t you, okay, see you do the screenplay for this book and let’s look for a deal. Together we go 50 50. The 

Steve Cuden: deal just got made. I guess.

Could you tell as you were writing the book that it was going to work? Could you tell it was working? 

Alretha Thomas: I could. Oh, I could. Oh yeah, it was juicy. It was juicy. As juicy as I was going on, I said, this is good. Oh my gosh, this is good. 

Steve Cuden: What do you think a novelist needs to do to secure not just a publishing deal, but that the audience is gonna like it?

What do you think is the key? Is it that conflict between characters? What, what did novelists need to do? 

Alretha Thomas: Strong characters. Strong flawed characters, and a great, and a great story. A great story. It varies genre to genre, you know, I’m thinking suspense, you know, it could be something different. I think it, it crosses genre.

I think great character and great story crosses all. I think that’s true of any drama. I agree. You know, um, for suspense mystery, obviously. You gotta know how this thing, you gotta have a great ending. You have to have great red hairs. You have to know ahead of time how this thing is gonna unfold. You know, you gotta be one step of the reader.

You can’t be predictable. You don’t want the reader to know what’s coming next. You always gotta be thinking, is that what they would think is gonna happen next? 

Steve Cuden: You have to know, you the writer have to know what’s coming next. 

Alretha Thomas: Yeah. And you can’t be, can’t be the obvious, uh, right. It 

Steve Cuden: just can’t be. One of the things that I learned along the way is that the way that a story comes out or ends, or I don’t mean end is in the ending of the story, but how it winds up, it should feel inevitable, even though all along the way, you don’t know where it’s going.

It should feel inevitable, which is what your book does. It feels inevitable at the end. Yeah, and so that’s an important characteristic of what I think of as successful storytelling is that it just, it’s, yeah, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. 

Alretha Thomas: It makes sense 

Steve Cuden: even though it’s not predictable. 

Alretha Thomas: Yes, 

Steve Cuden: but you, the writer have to know.

Alretha Thomas: That’s a great, that’s a great observation you just made there. That makes a lot of sense. 

Steve Cuden: Well, thank you. It’s actually not my observation, it’s the observation of many people who I’ve learned from. So, you know, but, but that’s the way that, if you think that way, it’s very important. Um, so I want to talk for just a few moments about.

Which we’ve talked a little bit about. Do you think that being a series regular has taught you something about acting that you otherwise would not have learned? 

Alretha Thomas: It does. We shoot very fast. We shoot two and two episodes in three and a half weeks. You know, the average Hollywood episodic or series you, you going five to six months mm-hmm.

If not longer, to do a whole season. So what it has taught, taught me as an actor is that I can do anything I put my mind to if I focus and what it has taught me. That there’s a joy to acting and there’s a piece of acting that I didn’t appreciate when I was in acting, um, teen years ago, and that’s being in the moment.

The beauty of acting is that in doing that many shows, you get to see it. If your guests are here, guests are there. You may not appreciate it, but when you’re working in a three week period and you’re in there and you’re going to set and you’re filming two episodes and you’re in that, you have to be there in that moment.

And when you’re in that moment, it’s an amazing thing because we’re not in the moment in real life. Even though I’m talking to you right now, I could be thinking about when I’m having lunch for tomorrow, what’s dinner is in an hour, whatever. You know what I mean? But when you are on that set in that stage and that director says, action, you’re there, you’re listening, you’re receiving, you’re reacting, you’re listening, you’re receiving, you are act.

And then when he said cut and you come out of it, you’re like, oh, you were gone. At least that isn’t for me. And so I always love to see the show because I wanna see what everybody else, like everybody else. I didn’t see it because I’m not on the outside looking at myself. Right, right. I’m in the moment. So I have no idea what that scene was.

So I get to sit back and look and say, oh my God, I was doing that. You know, I’m looking. And like, wow, you know, I’m in it and I’m feeling it and I’m in the moment of that character and it’s an amazing feeling. It’s like meditation almost. 

Steve Cuden: Have you, have you done scenes where you knew you weren’t in the moment?

Alretha Thomas: Oh yeah. 

Steve Cuden: So what do you do? How do you get yourself there? So, 

Alretha Thomas: uh, when I, I get in the moment. I get in the moment. The moment I see I’m not in the moment, I get in the moment. 

Steve Cuden: Do you have a trick to get there or you’re just telling yourself that? 

Alretha Thomas: I just focused, I, I, I remember I’m Anastasia. I take a little breath and I’m there and I, in the moment, 

Steve Cuden: and by the way, in, in my chatting with you, I, my only relationship to seeing you prior to now was, um, watching the show.

And so that character is not you, that’s clearly Oh, not true. 

Alretha Thomas: Not at all. 

Steve Cuden: Not at all. She’s, she’s a little more, um, highfalutin. You are not, you’re more down to earth. And so I’m so down to earth. Yeah. Yeah. And so 

Alretha Thomas: he’s a totally different person. 

Steve Cuden: Totally different person. 

Alretha Thomas: They gave me wonderful, start with her and then I created a whole bio for her.

Mm. I have a whole bio. I have literally have, she had eight husbands. I have pictures of all my eight husbands. I carry that around with me. I have how we met when we, and then when different episodes come up, I add to it because they may tell, like one of my husbands I found out was a race car driver. One of my husband’s mothers, uh, did hypnosis.

So I keep adding to her, her bio. But, and that keeps making her a more fuller and complex character. But the only thing she and I have in common are that we’re actresses. Um, we love family, but I didn’t have. Eight husbands. She has more, a more colorful love life than I do. She’s more flamboyant than I do.

She’s more vain than I am she, but I don’t judge her. That’s who she is. I love her. Right? Of course, I love Anastasia. That’s who she is. But I understand who she is. 

Steve Cuden: Am I correct? That’s not her, her real name, right? She is a different name. 

Alretha Thomas: Willie May Jackson. 

Steve Cuden: Willie May Jackson becomes Anastasia Devereaux.

Yeah, she, 

Alretha Thomas: yeah, she changed it and it’s, I, the biggest compliment I got was from my director, I think my first season. He said, you really understand this character? That was like the, that’s if you hear D from Maur, that’s the greatest compliment. 

Steve Cuden: You can do it. It doesn’t get better than that. If you understand the character, you certainly don’t want to hear the opposite.

You don’t want to hear, you don’t get this. No, no, you don’t. So, so obviously you did something right when you, when you got to there. Yeah. And when you’re on set, can you feel that energy shift into performance? 

Alretha Thomas: I can’t, I’m, I’m there and I just get into her, get into her body, her, her body or well, and then I’m there and I’m, her and I, and it’s a certain way she carries herself and her carriage and her air and whole thing.

And her whole life comes with her on stage. The whole world of Anastasia from Bugs tussle, Georgia, where she was, and going up and all, I kept all, all the husbands, all the lies, the red carpets. Oscars, the whole, all that comes with me when I come on set. Just like everything comes with Aretha when I’m sitting here.

The childhood, the abuse, the success, the cries, the tears, the My beautiful wedding, my beautiful Bahama, everything that happened in my life is sitting right here with me 

Steve Cuden: and all that still comes up through Anastasia. Yeah. 

Alretha Thomas: Yeah. And so all who she here comes up. Mm-hmm. And it is not me. I’m going, and I remember Jan Brown, he said, you nothing like this woman?

Steve Cuden: No, I, and like I say, so I’m getting a, it’s a treat for me to talk to you because you’re clearly not that character. 

Alretha Thomas: And you see what I have, boy, now you stain her clothes. This is what I go around in most days. A legging cut off jeans and an old shirt. 

Steve Cuden: Just, just an ordinary down to earth human. 

Alretha Thomas: And people have met me at von, a lady met me recently at Vaughn.

A lady, it is so funny when you go out, because I forget, I’m on tv. I don’t walk out in the world like, oh, I’m on tv. I don’t do, I forget, I’m out. And so people will look at you straight and I sat down. They’re like, why are they looking at me? Like, and I forget. And then this woman at the, so she kept doing like.

She finally said, you look like this AEs that plays Anna. I said, I’m Anna. She go, oh, and she just fell out. She started hugging me and going on and gushing and it’s so funny, but it feels good to know. She said, you do so much for my life and you just gimme so much joy and, and that’s what it’s all about.

And that, and that’s a wonderful thing when you could touch somebody’s life. 

Steve Cuden: How does acting speak to you? How does it inform your life? The act of acting? 

Alretha Thomas: Oh my gosh. Um, it’s, I love being someone else. I love. It. It’s very fulfilling. It’s very fulfilling and I love the collaborative nature of the acting world because you can’t do it alone.

We have our camera people sound lighting, the other actors wardrobe, all these people coming together to make this happen. It’s an amazing feeling. And then you, people are relying on you and, and I make sure I’m prepared. I go, I make sure I know my lives. And that’s when it’s fun when you go and you know you’re prepared and they say Action, and you.

Bring it and you don’t, and it’s a great feeling that you did it. You did your part in this will, you are cog in a will and you did your part and it’s a great feeling. It’s an amazing feeling. 

Steve Cuden: I think you have found the best of all worlds because you get to go work with a whole bunch of people you like.

It’s fun, it’s a comedy. It’s all those things. And then you can turn around and go home and work in in your own mind’s eye as a writer. So you get both sides of that world. That’s true. It’s true. I think that that’s a marvelous thing. 

Alretha Thomas: Glory to God. I praise God. Glory, glory, glory. I, I praise. So, yeah. Well, 

Steve Cuden: I have been having just the most marvelous conversation for not quite an hour now with Ritha Thomas, and we’re gonna wind the show down just a little bit.

And I, I’m wondering, you’ve shared with us these amazing stories, but I’m wondering if you have a story or two that you can share with us that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny. 

Alretha Thomas: Now, this is kind of a mixture of both. Okay. So this was my first season on assisted living. Tyler Perry, assisted living.

Now have you We’re deep in quarantine. The virus is raging. Right? So you know, anytime somebody coughs around you, it kind of, everybody looks right, they have a medical onset. Why did I. Eat one of those honey nut bars. The thing that’s real crispy. Why did I eat that, Steve? So I eat this thing right? Not knowing.

It’s a piece in my throat. The top people come down. Now you, the last thing you wanna be is anybody, all your cast and crew to think you have COVID. So the, the whole, the top people come down. ’cause this, we just are wrapping the season and we’re the new people on the show. Top people come down and are congratulating us, saying You’re just with the show and standing there.

And I go into a full-blown coffee fit. I’m not talking like sweet, nice ladylike. It’s horrible. It’s gagging. I’m so embarrassed. I’m trying to, and they’re looking at me like this and everybody’s alarm and the top lady, the executive producer, gimme this towel, water, get talent, water, the manic things. I might have COVID.

I run, I take jet, I jet to the restroom, try to get out of there. So embarrassed. And everybody’s an an alarm and I’m thinking, oh my God, they’re not gonna call me back with season two. I’ve three. I’ve ruined it. Oh my God, I’m so embarrassed. It was horrendous. So then why the next scene we have to film?

’cause I’m still paranoid. Now the next scene we have to film is a wedding scene. The two lead Karens are getting married. And of course I have to be in the audience, so that means I’m not, I don’t have lines. So now I gotta sit there praying that I don’t have a coffee fit in front of everybody in the middle of them saying their vows.

So I’m literally sitting like this. And if you look closely at that episode, I look real tense because I’m scared to death that I’m gonna have another coffee fit. So, but there’s a, there’s a bottle of water, I have a bottle of water right there. And so, Ja uh, David Mann, who’s a big, huge star. Everybody knows him.

They, and this is my first time, this is the biggest show I’ve ever on, right? So the director says, okay, rolling. I literally grabbed for that water right quick and try to take a go and David turns around and says she’s drinking water rolling still. And she’s

could not have been more of an embarrassing moment for, but that is my one story where it was crazy and embarrassing and I was so glad when that episode was, when I was done with that day. 

Steve Cuden: Everybody probably was looking for the hazmat suits when they were around you. 

Alretha Thomas: Oh my God. Medic was asking me was out there.

It was crazy. ’cause we were deep in COVID at that point. So anybody popping, you just figured they got COVID. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. That’s, yeah, that’s So you knew the spotlight was on you at that point. 

Alretha Thomas: Oh my God. And not in a good way. And not in a good way. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Steve Cuden: Last question for you today, Alretha. You’ve given us a huge amount of great thoughts to chew on and, and lots of wonderful advice throughout the show.

And I’m wondering though, the, do you have a single solid piece of advice that you like to give to those who are maybe starting out in either the business of writing or acting, um, or maybe they’re in a little bit trying to get to that next level? 

Alretha Thomas: I would say they say success is where you come into an opportunity and you’re prepared.

I would say be prepared. Work on your craft. You know, a lot of people just, they see it and it’s shiny and it’s bright and you just feel it’s just gonna happen for you. Yeah. There are stories of people getting discovered here and there, but you don’t wanna just be discovered and you don’t make it because you don’t have the skill set and you haven’t done the work.

Do the work. If you wanna write, take a writing workshop. Take a writing class, get into a writing group. If you wanna act, take workshops. There are all kind of workshops. Get with other actors. Get do some student films backstage. They have all kind of jobs. Start, start building your real start. Work on your craft.

Work on yourself. Get prepared. Be ready. That that would be my advice. 

Steve Cuden: I think that that is absolutely spectacular and necessary advice because, uh, you know, uh, luck favors the prepared mind is a famous phrase, but it’s the same with your craft. If you don’t, if you have talent, but no craft. You might get somewhere, but you’re gonna have a big struggle.

But if you prepare yourself, wow, that’s a big difference. Uh, I think that’s terrific advice. Alretha Thomas, this has been a lot of fun for me and I cannot thank you enough for your time, your energy, and your wisdom in talking to us today on StoryBeat. Thank you so much. 

Alretha Thomas: Thank you. It’s been great. And thank you for sharing too, and you have such a great energy and you make it easy for me.

You made it easy for me to be good. Thank you. 

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you are listening to. Your support helps us bring more great story beat episodes to you.

StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tune in and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.