Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat…

Janet Skeslien Charles: Create that community around you. And it doesn’t have to be someone who’s physically there. You can find critique partners and meet over Zoom. I think it’s so important to find that, that community and to help each other and to be good artist friends. 

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, Janet Skeslien Charles is the New York Times, USA Today, and number one international bestselling author of the Paris Library, Moonlight in Odessa and Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade. Janet’s most recent book, the Parisian Chapter, is available as an audio book only. I’ve read the Paris Library and listened to the Parisian chapter and can tell you these are both well-written novels of the heart that transported me to a world I know little about – inside the American library in Paris as it existed during World War II, as well as in more modern times.

I had no idea libraries could be such a hotbed of romance and colorful intrigue. Janet’s essays and short stories have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Sydney Morning Herald, and the anthology, Montana Noir. Her work has been translated into 40 languages. For more, please visit jskesliencharles.com. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m deeply honored to welcome the brilliant writer, Janet Skeslien Charles to StoryBeat today. Janet, welcome to the show. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Well, thank you for that beautiful introduction. I appreciate it so much, Steve. Thank you for your invitation. 

Steve Cuden: Well, my great pleasure and it’s a delight to have you here. So let’s go back in time just a little bit.

At how old were you, do you think, when you started to first get interested in books and storytelling and stories? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I did a presentation last year in uh, Montana, and my first grade teacher told me that my mother. Had told her on the first day of school that I wanted to write books and that Wow.

Anything she could do to facilitate, um, that interest would be appreciated. So. Wow. 

Steve Cuden: So you, you knew as a little girl that you were gonna write? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. I didn’t remember that. I was really surprised when my first grade teacher told me that, but um, but yes, I always kept a journal. I’ve always been a big reader.

Steve Cuden: Wow. You’ve always kept a journal, even from what age? Four or five or six years old. You were keeping a journal. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: In, um, around age 10, I always wrote stories, but probably the journal started around age 10. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. That’s really, that’s young to be writing a journal. Most people are. It’s a little older than that.

That’s really great. Um, have you always also then been a reader? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, I’ve always been a reader. You know, when you grow up in rural Montana. Um, and your parents don’t really believe in watching too much tv, uh, in pre, you know, pre smartphones, pret tablets, then Yes. To kind of develop your ed, you know, develop any kind of interest.

Absolutely. Reading and the library was my window to the world. 

Steve Cuden: So you spent a lot of time in the library as a young person? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, because my, you know, my grandmother never learned to drive. So my mom once a week would take her to the grocery store and to the library. And so to me, those. Two things were equally nourishing.

Books and food. 

Steve Cuden: Well, we’re certainly gonna talk a little bit more about the library, uh, as we talk in further in the show. Um, I was wondering who early on were your writing heroes? Who did you turn to as a young girl? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Uh, Judy Bloom for sure, and she’s still my hero. And I have Are you there? God, it’s me, Margaret, on my bookshelf.

Uh, it’s. She just took on so many topics that are dear to so many people’s hearts and, and topics that, you know, were really hard to take on at that time. And she was really the only person to talk about puberty in a way that was accessible to kids. So I will always love her for that. Um. She was just a, she still is a big inspiration, 

Steve Cuden: right?

And, and now she’s become slightly controversial. There are libraries that won’t carry her books, schools that won’t carry her books. It’s crazy, 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think, I think because of book bans, you know, she was one of the first authors who wrote about kids having sex and nothing horrible happened and it was just kind of a rite of passage.

And a lot of people, um, have problems with that. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. And were you writing all through high school? Did you, was that something you were doing all through? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, I was. I always kept a journal. I didn’t really talk about it that much. I, I wasn’t on my school newspaper. It was kind of more of a private thing.

Steve Cuden: I see. So when did you then think to yourself, well, I’d like to write a book. I’d like to become a novelist or short story writer. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I, I think my literary heroes were Simone De Bourgeois and Christopher Isherwood. So I kind of, mm-hmm. Pictured myself in some tiny little hotel room, uh, hold up writing books.

But I never really considered the, maybe the financial aspect of it or the. The practical aspect of actually getting published. I was writing in my room and I was thinking about my heroes, but from point A to point ZI had no idea. I just had no idea. And back then it was the writer, was it the Writer’s Digest where you would look up agents or look up editors?

So that’s when I was, you know, sending out queries and things like that was still in that kind of the dark ages. 

Steve Cuden: Early in my career, I read a lot of the Writer’s Digest. Oh, that’s for sure. I found it very encouraging. Oh 

Janet Skeslien Charles: yes, very helpful. 

Steve Cuden: So, so at what point did you then start to write your first book?

Did you take, did you go to school to learn how to write? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: University of Montana. Mm-hmm. And I majored in English with a minor in linguistics, which helped me because I wanted to teach English as a foreign language, which I did in Ukraine and then later in France. Um, and then I took a few writing workshops, but it was, it was not my major.

It was something that I really enjoyed, but it was just one or two classes in college. 

Steve Cuden: So you weren’t writing novels in college then? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I was writing short stories and I don’t know if I had the bandwidth back then to write a whole novel from age of 18 to 22. I was, you know, I was writing short stories or just maybe vignettes, but, but not that big 120,000 word, uh, novel just then.

Sure, 

Steve Cuden: sure did. Did you, did you write short stories and try to sell them at that point or get them published in some way? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: No, no, no. I didn’t. I had, I looked at, I think it was called Writer’s Marketplace. Sure. Where you would, you know, and so I would just dutifully highlight things and tell myself someday, but every year it came out.

Every year I would read it and underline, and it was, I didn’t really. I didn’t really send anything out. I just, um, maybe was too shy or nervous about sending things out into the world 

Steve Cuden: as many writers are, because it’s a self-conscious thing. You’ve gotta put your work out and have it be criticized by others and, and have people say yes or no and all those things that are kind of terrifying.

When did you then think to yourself, at what point in your life, I am good enough as a writer, that maybe somebody should be publishing me, I should be out there in the world? When did that happen for you? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I started here in Paris. I was on the board of a small literary journal called Pharaohs, and I was reading other people’s poetry and prose, and I finally worked up the courage to submit something that I had written myself.

So I had a few poems that were published in Pharaohs magazine, uh, that was a magazine spearheaded by Alice Notley, who was our instructor. 

Steve Cuden: And that gave you courage. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. Yes. That was, that was really helpful to just be on that, on that literary journal and just see all of the different possibilities. So many people sent in so many gorgeous, beautiful, different poems.

It was really a pleasure to re and and short stories. It was really. A real treat to, to read everything that came in. 

Steve Cuden: Did, did you, I have to imagine you did read some stuff that was not up to snuff, that you thought, well, I can write better than this. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I. I always found beauty in everything. 

Steve Cuden: Huh, interesting.

Janet Skeslien Charles: And I felt, you know, I did have some colleagues who were like, oh, insomnia, I’ve read this already. Um, and I kind of felt sorry for them that they were already jaded or felt like they’d seen it all and didn’t really look for the beauty in things. 

Steve Cuden: Do you still take that, uh, perspective, that you see the beauty in everything that you read?

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I’m a creative. I, for many years I taught creative writing and so I think it’s important to show people where they’re going. Right? I mean, you can tell people where they’re going wrong. Mm-hmm. But I think it’s equally important to say where they’re going. Right. So that’s kind of what I’m always looking for, to let them know where they’re heading in the right direction and to keep going in that direction.

Steve Cuden: Sure. I think that that’s absolutely true. Uh, you already said that you taught English in Ukraine and you also taught English in. France, um, do you speak Ukrainian and, and French? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I do speak French and, um, at the time I was in Odessa, Ukraine and that part of Ukraine was Russian. So I spoke Russian, but I think it’s, it’s, my language skills in Russian are probably pretty rusty now.

Steve Cuden: Well, a minor non-existent, so you’re way ahead of me. Um, so you, you’re, you’re in, we’re speaking to, you’re in Paris right now, correct? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: And so you speak fluent French. Do you find that having multiple languages as part of your underpinning that that’s helpful as a writer? As a writer of English? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think it’s very helpful because you it, you see the metaphors in other languages and you see how other people view the world.

There’s a newspaper here in France that all it does is translate newspaper articles from around the world. So a while back I read a Spanish newspaper and it was translated literally, and the workers were saying, our bosses squeeze us, like squeeze us like lemons. And I thought that was such interesting imagery and imagery we would never use in Montana.

Don’t. We, you know, we don’t grow lemons. We might eat, eat ’em, you know, or put, put some in lemonade. But that’s really the extent of it. So you just, you see what elements are important to different people and different expressions that we might not have in English. And I think here in French, it’s instead of white as a ghost, it’s white as an aspirin.

Steve Cuden: Oh wow. That’s interesting. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Where I was in Odessa was whitest sour cream. So, um, 

Steve Cuden: you can use that in your own work, can’t you? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, yes. It’s just a little live, just a little lively way of saying something. 

Steve Cuden: What, what’s interesting is you’re saying that by list, by being multicultural multilingual, you have the ability to absorb for your own purposes.

Other cultures that can be more interesting on paper than our typical cliched responses or statements. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, I mean, squeezed like lemons. That might be a cliche in Spain, but it was certainly fresh language to me. 

Steve Cuden: And so you’ve been translated into many, many languages. Are you fluent at all in more than French and then a little bit of Russian?

Janet Skeslien Charles: I wouldn’t be able to read the translations of my own books except for In French. 

Steve Cuden: In French. And do you do that? In fact, read your own translation and make comments if they’ve, if the translation’s not working out well. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I think it’s a question of choices. For example, in French, uh, they have the formal VU and the informal two.

Mm-hmm. And so, uh, I, I, it’s only you for me, so the translator has to choose when the characters go from that formal. To the informal or when they get closer. And I can tell you my husband’s grandmothers watched soap operas. Yes. So on soap operas, that choice was when the character slept with each other.

They went from the formal vu to the informal too. So you could tell who slept with whom, by the, by the, by the choice of formal or informal. But I think that’s an interesting choice that I didn’t have to worry about as an author. 

Steve Cuden: But you were able to read. That’s what I’m interested in. Yes. You were able to read your translation?

Oh, 

Janet Skeslien Charles: absolutely. Yes, yes. No, I’m just blown away by the translations and the thing, you know, they have to consider things more than, than I have to consider things, which is interesting. 

Steve Cuden: Well, in my career I’ve actually had to take Transliterations and make them sound proper. Or sound natural because the trans a true transliteration.

Is very stilted sometimes. And so it is what, what you’re saying is your translations come out in a way that you approve of. It has an elegant feeling to it. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think yes, I think it’s, I think it’s very interesting, but it’s true, like sometimes when you, when you translate, I, when I was teaching, um, at an engineering school, one of my jobs was helping students apply to pro master’s programs in the us So they had like a statement of purpose.

Mm-hmm. And they would, they would just translate directly from English in, uh, from French into English, and they would talk about their mission. And to me a mission is either Mormons or Superman. We don’t really, you know, professionally we don’t talk about missions. Um, we talk about challenges or jobs, but so it’s true sometimes those, uh, translations can be, can be interesting.

Steve Cuden: Oh yes. Well, in my particular case it was there were transliterations that were just totally stilted. You could barely understand what they were trying to say and then you had to turn that into English so that it was understandable. Um, I think you are, and we’re gonna get into your book here in books here in a moment, I should say.

Uh, I think you’re really great at setting tone in your stories. And I’m wondering, can you define from your perspective what story tone is and how you go about achieving it? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I’m so glad that you said that because I’m teaching a class at the Geneva Writers Conference in November. Nice. And I chose to, um, ha my two hour topic would be tone.

Hmm. And I don’t know what to say about it, and I don’t know how to say it, but I feel like it is super important and it’s underrated as a topic of conversation for writers. And so it’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about. For the beginning of the, the book, the Parisian chapter, I had two possible beginnings.

I had a beautiful, dreamy beginning, um, where the, the, the main character talks about living in the afterlife, which is the upstairs of the American library in Paris, right. Where kind of the books have been forgotten. Some older books that have. Have been forgotten, so you don’t see too many readers in that area anymore of that part of the library.

Or to start with a bitter, angry, stressed out librarian. And it turns out I know quite a few stressed out librarians, so it was easy to capture that tone for me, just kind of remembering back to my, my library days. But I think I chose the tone. The bitter, angry, stressed out tone because later on in the book, I wanted there to be a, a difference, a shift in tone from negative to positive.

And if I’d started in a positive way, that shift would’ve gone to negative. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: And so I think when I’m considering tone, I’m also considering shifts. And so how I wanna start is not how I want to finish, but it was a real pleasure to work on each one of those voices that, um, is, is in the book, and to figure out how they sounded and what their values were and what their, I, I think a lot of it comes.

Down to being a carpenter and kind of developing your sentence word by word and, and varying word length, varying different cadences and how, how people speak. 

Steve Cuden: Well, you also are putting your own voice into your work. I mean, that’s what takes a long time for most writers to develop is their own personal voice.

And so a tone comes through that as well. Your attitude toward things is then expressed even if you don’t know it. Subconsciously you, the tone of where you’re coming from comes out too, and then you on top of it, then you construct tone into your story. Correct. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I, it’s hard for me to say I think I’m definitely in all of my novels, but I am, I’m not there where you would expect me to be.

For example, in my novel, the Paris Library, it’s about, um, part of the book is about kind of a, a frustrated older. Retired librarian who’s a war bride. Mm-hmm. And a young, energetic Montanan girl mm-hmm. Named Lily. When everyone thinks, oh, you must be Lily. You are a young person and you’re from Montana. But actually I’m the bitter, angry, resentful, uh, war bride who’s had and, and why?

Because I’ve gone through those same situations where. You arrive in a new place and kind of if you speak with an accent or you don’t choose the right word, people think you’re an idiot, or you might not necessarily get along with your in-laws from day one. Maybe they’re not super happy with a, with an American or a French person coming up.

So, so I’m definitely in the books, but I’m not there where people expect me to be. Um, and then tone. My first book is actually a funny book. It’s about email order brides and Odessa Ukraine is the former humor capital of the former Soviet Union. So at that time, um, in that book, everyone could take things.

In a humorous way, and I think humor is how they dealt with life’s big tragedies. So that book is really drastically different in tone to my other works because where it was based is, is really important and. So I had to take into consideration the tone of the inhabitants. The other work is a little different.

I think we can see with each person in the Parisian chapter, there might be elements of me, but I’m really thinking about about the. The wounded vet, I’m thinking, uh, about the director who’s in over his head. Uh, and I am, I’m really thinking about characterization, but, but using tone to build that characterization.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. What do you, this is a question I ask lots of creators, but also mainly authors. Uh, what do you think makes a good story? Good? Why do you take, go down the road? You go down, why do you make the choices you do? What makes it good for you? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Know, I don’t know if I can say that anything in terms of being a writer, but I can say in terms of being a reader, if it keeps me turning the pages, I see so many, I, I see a lot of beautiful writing where I, I just don’t have an interest in, in turning the pages.

And so I think it’s so important as a writer too. To have readers keep turning the pages and wanna know what happens next. Definitely. Where you have a stake in the characters, where you have a stake in what happens to them, where you feel strongly about them, whether you like them or not. Um, so to me, I guess I’d have to answer that question.

It’s a great question, but I’d have to answer it as a reader and not a writer. 

Steve Cuden: That’s fine. Uh, that, that, you’ve already said it. Uh, one of the things that, um, I taught for 10 years, I taught screenwriting for 10 years, and one of the lessons you teach is the number one cardinal sin in screenwriting is don’t be boring, which is the equivalent of turn keeping, that page turning, and you can get away with a multitude of sins as long as you’re entertaining.

That’s what you’re talking about, right. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Absolutely. But yeah. And, but you know, making, making the characters people that you care about Yes. And, and not knowing what to expect next. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That’s called, 

Steve Cuden: called keeping them on the edge of their seats, keeping them in suspense. Yes. And so they want to know what’s gonna happen next.

That’s the way to go. All right. So let’s talk about the Parisian chapter and the Paris Library. Tell the listeners, as you know, succinctly as you can, what is the Parisian chapter about? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: The Preach chapter is about finding. It’s about a, a young person trying to find a place where they belong and, um, trying to deal with their deal with their first job and in the main character’s life.

Her name is Lily and she loses her best friend. She doesn’t have a boyfriend. Her boss hates her. Um, she’s not doing a great job at work. She has zero money and so it’s. It’s about a a period in life when things fall apart and how we deal with everything falling apart at once. And I think that can happen at any age.

And I think that there are a lot of ways to deal with that kind of stress. And so we see Lily kind of trying to, to rebuild that friendship. She doesn’t quite know what she’s done wrong or she doesn’t have the self-awareness to understand that she’s done something wrong. So she has to do a lot of reflection, um, which she’s maybe has never done before.

’cause things have always worked out for her. She’s always had help. Um, and this is the first time she’s truly on her own. 

Steve Cuden: She’s getting buffeted by reality that she’s never had to face before. Yes. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, exactly. 

Steve Cuden: And so Lily, and then she has this friend Ode, who she met in Montana. Now they’re both in the Paris Library.

Yes. Do you think of the Parisian chapter as a sequel, a prequel, or somehow how, how do you think of those two books? From one next to the other. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: When I, when I was writing the, the Paris Library, to me it was never the end. And I personally love books that are open-ended when I read a book and I finish and I can continue the characters going on with their lives.

I don’t like final endings where you finish the book and the characters are. In a set place in time, I like to be able to imagine what they do next or where they’ll go next. So I love those open endings as a, as a reader. So that’s what I wanted to create with the Paris Library. And, and that was because I wanted to continue their story.

Mm-hmm. I always imagined that Ode and Lily would continue their story and that, that, um, the characters of. O’Dell and Margaret would meet again. 

Steve Cuden: And how is that, okay. So for the listeners who haven’t read your books, how is the Parisian chapter, how does it relate to the Paris Library? How do they work together?

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think the Parisian chapter could definitely be read on its own, but it could also be read as a companion book to the Paris Library. So the Paris Library is set mainly in World War ii, Paris, and the Parisian chapter is set later on in Paris. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. And both of them in some way, shape or form spend time in Montana as well.

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, absolutely. And then the main, the main, um, setting is, uh, the American Library in Paris, which is a real institution that recently celebrated its centennial. 

Steve Cuden: So I, I can speak for myself. I read the Parisian chapter first because that’s how it was delivered to me. And then I read the Paris Library second, and you don’t need to read one in front of the other.

They’re, they’re both standalone, but they also relate very heavily to one another. And it’s kind of interesting, it’s the, I think the Parisian is filling in a lot of blanks that you leave open-ended, as you say, in the Paris Library. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. Yes, absolutely. 

Steve Cuden: Alright, so this, this book, Parisian chapter is audio only.

You can’t buy it in paper form. So what was that decision making process like? What did you, were you involved in that decision and why is it audio only? How did you get to that point? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, um, for my book, Ms. Morgan’s book Brigade mm-hmm. Which is about a librarian from Pittsburgh. Oh really? Who goes to Yes.

She, um, a librarian from Pittsburgh goes to Paris or goes to France in World War I, and she introduces children’s libraries to France. They didn’t exist before Xi. She took the concept there and, and created the first libraries. So I had, I had three editors for that book. My editor who acquired it, uh, retired.

I had an editor who I worked with on edits, and then she moved on to another publishing house. Um, and then I had a third editor who brought me through the publication process. And so my first editor said, um, no sequels, sequels, don’t sell. My second editor said, Ooh. Audio book material. Yes. Um, we can sell more books this way.

And then the third one was kind enough to help me with the process. And so we have it as an audio book now, and then in the spring of 2026, it will be a trade paperback original. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, so it will come out is a paper 

Janet Skeslien Charles: it, it will come out, but for the first year it will be audio book original. And it was really exciting for me to, um, work on all of the different voices.

I knew it was going to be an audio book, so instead of just having one narrator or two narrators. I was really excited about the process of having several narrators and to have several nationalities, ages men and women. I, I really enjoyed working, um, with Lara Blackman, who was my editor at Simon Audio.

It was just a wonderful process to, um. I guess it, it might be a little bit like screenwriting, when you think about it is a little bit, might the, you know, who might the characters be? Who, who might be reading it? How might this sound? And thinking about, um, even phrases like he wrote in all caps. You don’t have to.

You don’t have to say wrote in all caps, ’cause you can hear it in the, in the person’s voice. So, 

Steve Cuden: absolutely. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Um, so it was just, yes, it was just a real joy. 

Steve Cuden: The, the actors are very good in it. Are, were you involved in the casting? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, they sent me, they, um, the casting team did an amazing job and they sent different auditions of, you know, maybe a minute of, from each actor.

Right. And I couldn’t tell you, oh, this one should definitely play that character. ’cause they all were fabulous. Mm-hmm. I was really happy with the casting, but every single person they sent me, they’d already found such amazing people. And for example, for the library, I thought. The person should have a voice that would be either super world weary or gravitas.

Um, and they found someone who was either world weary and someone who was with gravitas, and I would’ve been, I was happy with either one that they would’ve chosen so. 

Steve Cuden: So they, they would, someone had to have taken your book and turned it into some, uh, script form, I guess, in order for the actors to act it.

’cause it’s not, it’s not one many books that are, audio books are one reader, so they can read the actual, literal book. But this is a case where you had many different actors reading different parts and a narrator. So I assume that they had to take the book and instead of break it down so that the actors could read just what they needed to read.

Yes. I 

Janet Skeslien Charles: think so. I think so. 

Steve Cuden: So you weren’t there when they were actually recording it? No, 

Janet Skeslien Charles: no, no, no. I was, it was the producer. No, and they, and I think, um, I met, I met with one of the actors and they were going, um, after our meeting, they were going to go to the studio and read the first chapter that they had recorded again, because I guess the producer said it takes a few pages to get into character or to find the character.

And so they have the characters go back to the beginning. And, uh, reread just to make sure that they are getting that being consistent throughout once they find that voice. 

Steve Cuden: Well, just like classically in writing, frequently, a writer will write 50 or 60 pages of a book to realize they’re just starting on page 70.

So they throw the first 50 or 60 pages out ’cause they’re getting warmed up and figuring it out. Well, the actors are the same way. That’s why you go through rehearsal process. So you can figure out what those characters are. And I think they did a really excellent job of, of expressing both the type of person that you were writing about as well as their, their accents as well as their, um, their tone and how they came at it.

I think it’s very well done. I’m curious, how did you become so knowledgeable regarding, uh, both Paris in World War II and the American Library? Did you spend a lot of time researching that? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. I spent about a decade, uh, researching World War II and, uh, everything that happened at the library, 

Steve Cuden: just a decade.

That’s a, that’s a lot of time. Were you spending your time researching in the, the American library? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I spent a lot of time in the archives. I was actually working in the American library in Paris when I started this job, and the archives were not as organized as, as they perhaps are now, and so a lot of my information came from the American Library Association Archives in in Champaign Urbana.

Illinois, that’s where the American Library Association archives are. So I just said anything about the American library, please just, you can pay someone, uh, an academic who will go in your place and just do the scans. And so I just asked for e everything. So, you know, like a couple thousand pages later, um, I had.

All of the, the information I had, all the archives. 

Steve Cuden: So, so you were both physically in that library and you did a lot of back research on it? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: And, and are you a, you, you enjoy the research process. Are you a deep researcher? Do you love that? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I love it. I feel sorry for authors who pay someone else to do it.

Um, I just, uh. I, I probably over researched, but it’s so fascinating. You know, I went to the National Library, LA Te de France and uh, they have the, um, New York Herd Tribune newspapers from 1939. They actually have the newspapers and they smell so inky, and you can see the cigarette ads. See, you know, so you have the play that’s coming out and then they’re also warning about using your blackout materials, um, and making sure to paint your windows so no light gets through.

So it’s just this weird juxtaposition of the, you know, what horses are gonna be racing that day and. The American ambassador telling everyone to get outta town. So it’s just a, it was such a interesting thing to see and I, I can’t imagine not having that knowledge. 

Steve Cuden: Well, the, the books are very good at describing the nooks and crannies of, of that library, so it felt like you knew your way around in there.

And now we know, of course, you, you do you, you do, I do your way around very well. Um. What’s the most challenging aspect of being such a deep researcher? What do you find is the thing that you have to keep working at to get through? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think what’s hard is, is deciding when enough is enough. I think it is so easy to to, to research so much that you never write a single word.

So it is actually really dangerous ’cause it’s so interesting to read other people’s words that you can kind of forget about writing your own. Mm-hmm. And let you know months and months go by and you realize, no, I better write in the morning, research in the afternoon. And so you kind of have to be firm with yourself about making sure you’re getting as much writing done as you are research.

Steve Cuden: Have you always been disciplined like that in your work? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Oh, and I’m still not that disciplined, but that was kind of, that was still, that was just kind of an epiphany that it, because the research is so interesting. You know, it’s so interesting, especially in World War II about all of the, you know, all of the very brave people, all of the people who have really hard choices, all of the people who are on the wrong side of history and why, um, it, it’s just so tempting to just.

Read about all of these lives. So it’s, it’s extremely important to be disciplined and make sure you get that writing done. 

Steve Cuden: I, I think the listeners should pay close attention to what we just talked about because, uh, what Janet is telling you is you don’t have to be super disciplined. She’s saying herself, she’s not that super disciplined and still turn out big bestselling novels.

So, you know, just keep at it. It requires doing the work, obviously, over a period of time, but the discipline part of it, some people are super disciplined and other people are not, and you can get there both ways is what I’m getting at. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes, I think it’s important to set, you know, small goals for yourself and not say, I’m going to write a novel, but I’m just going to write for half an hour today, or I’m going to write for an hour today, or I’m going to finish this chapter.

And so to just kind of make those goals for yourself. And they don’t have to be huge, but they definitely have to be there. ’cause otherwise time just goes by. 

Steve Cuden: Oh, goals are super important. I, I like a deadline. Deadlines are helpful for me personally. Um, when I don’t have a deadline, I can thumper around forever.

Right. Is that, that’s you? Yes. You can do the same. I can tell. Um, so all, let’s talk about the process of developing a novel. Where do you typically begin with plot or character? Place, place, place. I start with place, yes. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Interesting. Yes. And I think I also, I always thought I started with place, but now I also think I start with tone.

Steve Cuden: Place and tone. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. And kind of getting into it. ’cause I think Tone, how you start the book. Will be the opposite of how you end the book. Um, and how you start a chapter is in tone is, is the opposite of how you will end the chapter. And so I think you have to be aware of that movement of, of shifts. To create that tension.

But, um, if you asked me a few years ago, I would’ve said definitely place. My books are definitely set in a time and a place. Um, Odessa, well, 

Steve Cuden: they definitely are 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Paris, Northern France, Montana, so these real strong places. But within that body of work, um, I think it’s definitely. It’s definitely tone that really creates the friction that helps the character continue.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. And then where do you go from, okay, you’ve decided you’re gonna write it in a library in Paris, the American Library. What do you then do? Do you then think about which characters go in there? Or do you think about the, the actual story, the plotting of it? Hmm. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I might be weak on plot. I might be weak on plot and I think it’s so, I think screenwriting is so helpful, you know, when you think in terms of three acts, when you think in terms of, of the shifts that have to happen within those three acts and the climax and the Den Mall.

So I think it’s really, that’s something that I’ve been really looking out for, uh uh, my kind of current work in progress, which is kind of a mess. I think it’s so important to think about those things, but, um, for my last books, I, I usually just, I start with a character and put them in a time and a place and, uh, and it’s really working on the tone, working on, on their voice.

Mm-hmm. And I, and, and, and creating the friction in their lives because of course, no one can ever be happy for very long. 

Steve Cuden: So you don’t know when you first start where that character is gonna land, do you? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: No. No, I think I do, but I don’t, 

Steve Cuden: it always, I think, do shifts around as you work 

Janet Skeslien Charles: well. I think the characters come alive.

For example, I, when I started writing the Paris Library, my character Ode was dead at the end. Hmm. And it really surprised me that she lived. And it really surprised me that, um, she was in another book. So, um, but I think, I think, what was Robert Frost that said, no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the, no surprise for the reader.

So I think it’s important to be surprised, I 

Steve Cuden: think surprised. Do you, do you outline or do you like to be, do you like to write and figure it out as you’re writing? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I like to have a little bit of an outline ’cause it gives me something to hold onto and I, I feel like, oh, I’m secure, I know where I’m going.

And then I usually go off course. But having, having thought about it, even if it’s not where I end up, I think it’s helpful. 

Steve Cuden: Well there’s the, there are two kinds of, basically two kinds of writers. The writers who like to get in their car and not know where they’re going and they just drive and figure out what the landscape is all about.

And there are writers who want to. All the maps they can get ahold of first and they map the trip out in detail and then they can figure that out. It sounds like you’re a little bit in between those two. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think so. I think so. I like to have an idea of where I’m going, but if something surprises me on the way, I might veer off the road.

Steve Cuden: So do you ever get deep into something and you’re characters all of a sudden doing something that you have to go way back to the beginning to to correct. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: In my most recent book, I, I realized the starting point was too late, and so I think I’m going to start a few months earlier. Mm-hmm. So, absolutely. I think I, I think I had that first line and now I realize I’ve gotta go back even, even earlier.

But in the end, I might decide to just cut that. Mm-hmm. So you’ve just gotta, it’s, it’s such a strange process where you don’t really know what you’re doing until you’re done. And I have to say that I. I mean, I need that deadline. Just like you were saying, if I, I need that deadline to hand it in. ’cause I, I would be, I would like, writing for me is like picking at a scab.

I will do it until someone stops me. 

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, there’s a, there’s famously, uh, you, I have a friend of mine that used to say, when it comes to any project, doesn’t matter what the project is, you have to find the time when you have to shoot the engineer because the engineer will keep. Playing around with it forever.

Really? Yes. And so you have to stop the engineer at some point and say, enough’s enough. This is good enough to go out into the world. You clearly get to that at some point in your books ’cause you’ve published them. So you have either someone has told you or you’ve told yourself, okay, this is good enough for the public to read.

Yes. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think so. You know, I just, you know, I have to hand it in at some point. Um mm-hmm. I have to hand it in at some point once the things I’ve wanted to happen or the themes, I think my, the theme of all of my work is pe, fish out of water, and even though my characters are usually foreigners in a foreign land.

I think we are all fish out of water. I mean, I know when I was in high school and in junior high, I was a fish out of water. Um, so you don’t even have to go anywhere to feel like a fish out of water. Um, well’s that’s so my things are always the same where you, you know, whether you’re going through a divorce or moving to a new country or finishing university and you’re these big changes in your life and how you deal with them, or how you accept failure and move on from it.

These are all my themes. So I think maybe once I’ve got my themes, I maybe that helps to let the manuscript go. 

Steve Cuden: Do you have the theme before you start to write the book, or do you find the theme as you’re going? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You find, I think I find the theme as I, as I go. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. So you start, you have a, but it’s 

Janet Skeslien Charles: a coincidence.

It’s a coincidence to me that all the books are the same. They’re the same story. 

Steve Cuden: You have an event or a place that you start with, you typically a place, and then you put characters into that landscape and then you figure out what it is they’re going to do, and then you figure out what’s the theme of this particular work.

Is that right? Yes. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yes. 

Steve Cuden: So then when, once you’ve figured out the theme, once you’ve gotten that far down the road where you know what the book is about, thematically, does that then force you to go back and make changes to the be to the earlier parts so that the theme is throughout. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think so, I think you really have to read through and make sure that, that the theme carries on from the beginning or that it’s identifiable from the beginning.

Mm-hmm. Or that you plant those seeds, um, like you would have to in a screenplay from the beginning. 

Steve Cuden: Are you a big rewriter? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I, yes. I think I rewrite more than I write. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I, I personally find that the art is in the rewriting, the craft is in the first draft, but the Right, the, the rewriting is where the art is.

And, uh, do you find that you rewrite as you’re going, or do you wait till you’ve finished a full draft before you go back to revise? I. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I wish I could just finish a draft, but I am, I just pick all the time. And that’s a real danger too, because then it, that picking stops you from moving forward.

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: And so if I were going to advise someone, I would say, don’t do it like me. Try to. Try to keep moving forward, try to keep moving forward and don’t, I guess in real life I’m a ruminator. I always think of all the mistakes I’ve made in my life and, and, and all the regrets I have. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: And, um, I think about my sister.

My sister had, um, I don’t have kids. My sister has kids. And I think those kids just pull you relentlessly into the future. 

Steve Cuden: Sure. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: And so that’s what I would hope for any writer out there is to be pulled re relentlessly. Through your story to to the end and then go back. 

Steve Cuden: Do, are you familiar with the great, uh, writer Ann Lamott’s book?

Bird by Bird? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I’m not. 

Steve Cuden: So in Bird by Bird, she talks about the life of being a writer. It’s about being a writer. And she has a, a chapter, the title of the chapter is Shitty First Draft. That’s the chapter title. And so her, her point, and, and it’s one of the philosophies I live by as a screenwriter, is it’s better to puke it all out.

Puke, draft, purge, draft. There’s all, they call ’em all kinds of different things. And then go back and fix. Now you are writing the longest form possible, which is a novel, right? And you can write that forever. You can write it hundreds of pages if you want, and you get stuck a little bit where you gotta go back and fix things before you get to the end.

Am I, am I understanding right? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I mean, I don’t think I have to. I think I do. You do? And I don’t think I should. I think, I think you’re right about about going forward and just so I guess I’m telling listeners don’t do as I do, do as I say, and try to get that momentum or let momentum pull you forward and don’t, don’t, don’t look back and regret, look forward in excitement in your manuscript.

So you, that’s what I’m going to try to do for, for this new work that I’m working on. 

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s great. I mean, that’s, so you’re, you’re. What you’re doing is you’re learning for yourself what works best for you. I mean, that’s the way it should be. Um, you’ve obviously read lots and lots of books as well as written your own.

What do you think their most common mistakes are with. Novice novelists when they write their first books, do you have some idea of what they should overcome in telling stories early on that would help them, you know, get down the road? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Um, I can only speak about my own flawed work and in my own flawed work in my draft.

I write, um, and I show, and then I tell, and then I show again. And so when I’m editing, a lot of times I have to remind myself to trust the reader. Either show or tell. You don’t have to show it three different times to, to the reader. You’ve gotta trust the reader. Mm-hmm. So that’s, I guess my, if you’re working on your manuscript, you don’t have to say the same thing 10 times just to.

Trust your reader to, to get your point. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. They, well, you certainly, uh, aren’t in your reader’s mind as they’re reading your words and you truly don’t know what they’re thinking as they’re reading your words. It’s only, it’s you saying something on paper and hopefully they’re seeing what you’re saying.

Right. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Well, I mean, I can actually tell you what my readers think because when I have, um, when I share my drafts with, um, my critique partners, they point out, you’ve said it. You’ve shown it, you’ve said it again. So I can tell you, um, you know that this is what I do and that this is the, this is the reader’s response.

’cause I don’t know if I would’ve noticed that without them. And I think that’s, if you can have a, if you can have a critique partner, I think it’s, it’s just, it’s such a. It’s such a joy to have someone spend that much time with your work. And I, I’ve, um, I’ve read many, many manuscripts and, and reading flawed manuscripts has helped me become a better writer.

I don’t always see the flaws in my own work, but usually if I see a flaw in someone’s work, like if someone has dialogue that’s not working, if I go back to my own work, the dialogue isn’t working and that, and so I pick up on it somewhere else. Because I’m struggling with it as well. 

Steve Cuden: What, what do you think makes great dialogue work?

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think when it’s, a lot of times sometimes dialogue can be the author getting information across instead of a real exchange. Uh, sometimes there’s no subtext and so you just, I think, I think real dialogue has to, has to really shine. Has to really shine. 

Steve Cuden: So you’re talking about two things that we do teach about in screenwriting.

One is called an info dump. And you know, you just don’t want a character to come in and dump out all the information. You have to sort of space it out and, you know, drip it out in, in drips and drabs. And the other thing is, is, is that, that you’ve gotta have that conflict in there. You’ve gotta develop that conflict.

Or again, people won’t. Continue to read. So that’s all there. I do think that both of the books that I read, the, the Paris Library and the prison chapter would make excellent miniseries. I I, oh, I think they’re a little too much for just a movie. I think that they want to be a series. And so have you tried to get that done?

Do you, is that something in your plans? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I would love to get that done. Um, but no, it hasn’t happened yet. But you’ll hear me scream from the rooftop if it ever does. 

Steve Cuden: I’m sure I will. There’s no doubt. So you’re also a short story writer. Aside from the length of a short story being much shorter than a novel, what are the differences in your creation of a short story?

Is, is it different for you in the way that they come out? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think short story writing is harder than. Writing a novel. Why? I think I, I’ve never been able to master the short story. There’s, I, I, I’ve never been able to publish. Well, I guess I’ve written, I’ve published one short story. Um, I just think it’s very, it’s just so hard to say so much in so little space.

It’s just, you know, it has to be an absolute diamond and it just has to shine. You know, you just have to chip away at it until it, it shines. Mm-hmm. And so I really enjoyed, I, I wrote a short story for, uh, an anthology called Montana Noir, and I really enjoyed writing, um, that short story, but I think it is so challenging.

I just, it’s such a, it’s such a tough art form. 

Steve Cuden: Has the, has writing short stories or attempting to write them, taught you anything about writing long form? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: It taught me I wanna do it rather than write short stories. 

Steve Cuden: Well, you know, poets, you’ll hear poets say that the most difficult form of poetry is haiku, which is what 17 syllables is.

So short. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Yeah. Yeah. So short. Yeah. 

Steve Cuden: It’s so short. How do you, how do you express anything in that, in that tiny little window? And yes, it is easier to write novelistically in terms of. You can just space things out. Uh, in a movie, a feature film, you are very much trapped in a about 120 or less pages. And so you have to figure out how to write that story in that window.

Uh. As a novelist, you can just do whatever it is you want to do lengthwise, and hopefully the editors will say, yeah, this works. And then often the race, yeah, it 

Janet Skeslien Charles: usually doesn’t work for me. Like there’s usually a lot of hammering out and a lot of revision even, even once the manuscript has been accepted.

But it’s, I think, I think screenwriting is so fascinating. I, there’s a book called The Balza and the little Chinese seamstress. Okay. And so the book is, um, it’s a lot in the narrator’s head. And so the film obviously can’t be in the narrator’s head, so they have to show. And so it’s so fascinating. The, um, the screenwriter at and the novelist, I mean, he, the, the novelist wrote the screenplay.

Mm-hmm. So it’s really interesting ’cause it’s, I mean, just as you say, screenwriting, you have, it’s a limited. Amount of pages and very little interiority, so you really have to show everything, and that’s such a challenge. It’s such an art. 

Steve Cuden: You can’t do anything in a screenplay that the audience doesn’t either see or hear.

So you can’t go inside of a character’s thinking unless they express it, uh, or unless they do something that expresses it as opposed to a novel where you can talk about what a character’s thinking. It’s very easy to do. Uh, so I’m, I’m curious, you, you obviously have been working with a publishing house, and I’m wondering what that experience has been like for you.

What is it that you. Have done with a publisher that you was unexpected and worked out great for you? 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I will say that I, for my first book, Moonlight in Odessa, um, it was published and I just expected to write another book set in Odessa. Mm-hmm. Um, but I live in Paris and every so many years. The facades of buildings have to be cleaned.

And so that happened to my building where they, they had to work on the roof because there were so many leaks. They had to clean the facade because it was so city. So I couldn’t work in my own apartment, so I ended up. Actually seeking employment. That’s how desperate I was. And I, uh, ended up working at the American Library in Paris.

Mm-hmm. And, and that’s where the seeds of the work kind of seeped into, into the story that I wanted to tell. Right. So instead of continuing with Odessa, which is a city that I love, I started writing about World War II in Paris, but my editor didn’t. My editor rejected the story. My then agent rejected the story, so I actually had to start over and I queried 75 different agents.

Wow. In batches of five. Very targeted, very targeted queries, not just, you know, mass email blasts. Very targeted. So, and that took. Several years to find an agent. I think I signed, I started writing the book in 2010. I signed with an agent in 2018. 

Steve Cuden: Wow. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: And the book sold in 2019. So I guess in terms of surprises, it was that it took, and then my book came out in 2021, so I think my surprise was that it, it just.

I had that drought period of 10 years and you just have to keep going. And I think it really helped me that my book was historical fiction, so the character of Ms. Reeder, the, the director of the American Library in Paris during World War ii, I felt like she was counting on me to tell that story. And that’s what carried me through those kind of 10 years of.

Of researching and writing and hoping, 

Steve Cuden: well, that’s called sticktoitiveness. You, uh, clearly have that within you or you would’ve given up. And some people do give up, but some people also stick to it. And I think that that’s really the difference between true success and, and somewhat failure. If you gave up, uh, then obviously nobody would know about it except you, and maybe you’re close.

Friends and family. Um, you’ve, you’ve clearly over time working with an editor in a publishing house. You’ve received notes and you as a teacher have given notes. I’m curious what your philosophy is about note taking and note giving. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: I think when you give notes to someone, it is a huge gift, you know, or when you receive.

Notes from someone. It’s just such a huge gift. 

Steve Cuden: Mm-hmm. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: And you either trust the person or you don’t. And I recently, um, read someone’s essay that they were working on, and they submitted a second draft and they didn’t take into consideration anything that I suggested. And so from now on, I will be that person’s cheerleader, but I will not be a critique partner.

Mm-hmm. Um, so as someone who. Is asked quite a lot to read manuscripts or to help other writers. I realize that you, you just, you have a very limited amount of time. And you really have to decide, make choices about who you’re going to be working with. Um, for me, those notes, those editorial notes are precious and they really elevate the, the, the text.

If I, if I don’t agree with something, usually a conversation will kind of realize, um, something needs to change. That might not be the solution that was offered, but a different solution. But there, there’s a sticking point. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that that’s absolutely the way that it should be, that the notes, you should take the notes as a valuable gift.

You don’t have to literally take every single note and incorporate it, but it’s helpful to have that feedback because that’s, you have to get outside of the forest for the trees, right? And so I think that that’s really very valuable that, that you are not only willing to take notes but are very good at them.

Kindly giving notes as well, that you’re very supportive. I think that’s absolutely terrific. Well, I’ve been having just a fascinating conversation for just shy of an hour now with Janet Skeslien Charles, and we’re gonna wind the show down just a little bit, and I’m, I’m wondering, you’ve told us a lot of very interesting stories.

I’m wondering if you can share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat strange, or just plain funny from all of your experiences. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, it was during COVID and I was, I was stuck at home like we all were. And so I was meeting with, uh, a book group that, um, met in the library in, um, north Myrtle Beach.

And so the young librarian had told the attendees who were all in their eighties, we can no longer meet in the library because of COVID. So you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to do this at home, and you’re going to have to log into Zoom at home. And so she logged in first. I logged in second, and then we kind of waited for the windows to pop up of the 12 ladies, uh, who were going to join us.

One window finally did pop up, and they were all together at one table. And oh, it was, it’s funny now, but we were like, oh my God. And they all, they were all fine. Um, but, you know, and so they kind of, they, I don’t know that they quite understood, um, her directions. I, you know, about staying home and. Each logging in, or maybe they exactly what 

Steve Cuden: they weren’t supposed to do.

They did. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: exactly. They could have gone to the library in the end. Um, but, but it was just, I don’t know. I think that story underlines just my love of, of, of meeting with book groups because you never know what to expect. It’s so, it’s so fun to meet with different groups all over the world. I met with, uh.

I met with a, a group of engineers from Iran, for example, um, when my book was translated there. And so it’s just, it’s always such a joy. You never, when you, you know, click on that screen to see that window pop up, you never know who’s gonna be there. So it’s always a lot of fun. 

Steve Cuden: Well, the it, I’m glad they’re all okay.

Yes, me too. Didn’t, they didn’t give each other the disease? That’s good to 

Janet Skeslien Charles: know. No, no, they were fine. But when that window popped up, I just, you know, the librarian and I exchanged bounces are just, oh my gosh. 

Steve Cuden: All right, so last question for you today, Janet. You have clearly shared with us a huge amount of, of information and advice throughout this whole show, but I’m wondering if you have a single solid piece of advice or a tip that you’d like to give to those who are starting out as a writer, uh, or maybe they’re in a little bit trying to get to that next level.

Janet Skeslien Charles: You know, I, for me, what has been the most helpful is exchanging manuscripts and having that deadline. I mean, we’ve touched on this today, the importance of that, of that deadline and, and, and getting through. But, um, to kind of create that community around you. And it doesn’t have to be someone who’s physically there.

You can find, um, critique partners on, you know, and, and meet over Zoom. But I think that. Um, creating community also helps you get to the next level because if you’re working together as writers, one of you is going to get published, another is going to get published, and then you can be there in to help, you know, hopefully for marketing and publicity when the, when your books come out as well.

So I think it’s so important to find that, that community and to help each other and to be good, good artist friends. 

Steve Cuden: Well, I think that that is extremely wise advice because it’s a very lonely existence. To be a, a writer, you’re frequently in a room alone, working with no feedback at all, and getting that feedback really can change the course of what you’re doing.

And it can give you courage and it can also make you think, oh, wait a minute, I need to redo this a little bit. Um, so I I thank you for saying that. I think it’s very important. Janet Skeslien Charles, this has been a terrific hour on StoryBeat today. I highly urge the listeners of this show to go out and check out Janet’s books, especially the Paris Library and the Parisian chapter, which I’ve had the pleasure to read.

And, um, I thank you very much for your time, your energy, and your wisdom today. 

Janet Skeslien Charles: Well, thank you Steve so much for having me. It’s just been a joy to talk to you about writing, 

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. Story Beat 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.