Season 3, Episode 7: Legends, Libraries and Lattes

Sara and Daniel interview author Travis Baldree, author of Legends and Lattes, the bestselling cozy fantasy novel about an orc who trades in her weapons to open a coffee shop in a quiet village. In this episode – which focuses on ReadICT category 3, a book about friendship – Travis shares his thoughts on how our friendships are a form of self-reflection, why found families are important, and what exactly a hobgoblin is.

Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcription. Some errors may occur. If you find a transcription error, please contact us with any corrections and we will make those corrections as quickly as possible.

[MUSIC]

SARA, VOICEOVER: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Read. Return. Repeat. We're going to talk today about category number three, a book about friendship. And we're so excited about our guest today. It's Travis Baldree, author of the book Legends and Lattes.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And I was thinking and I figured, what a better way to start an episode about friendship and coffee than a couple of oatmeal Chai lattes? Here you go.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Thank you, friend. But first, we should probably introduce ourselves for our listeners.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All right, yeah, we need to do that. Well, how about we do this? Introduce yourself using the name written on your coffee cup. I want to see if the baristas got it right this time.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Okay, okay. Let me see. I am Cyril Nixon.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Cyril. That's a very becoming name. And Nixon, presidential.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Is it?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah.

SARA, VOICEOVER: All right, how about you?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: All right, here we go. Hey, everyone. I'm Dale Pizza party?

SARA, VOICEOVER: That's not even close.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: I don't even know how they got it wrong this bad. This was an online order.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Oh my gosh.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Anyway, I'm Daniel Pewewardy.

SARA, VOICEOVER: And I'm Sara Dixon. And as I said, we're going to interview author Travis Baldree today.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Travis is also an audiobook narrator and a video game developer and worked on PC games such as Torchlight and Fate & Rebel Galaxy.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Travis self-published his first novel, Legends and Lattes, last year after completing it during National Novel Writing Month, but the book has developed such a following that it was rereleased by Tor late last year. And now we're expecting the next installment later this year.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Travis lives in Washington state with his wife, two kids, and his dog, where he is currently joining us from. Let's say hi to Travis.

SARA: Yay. All right. Welcome to Read. Return. Repeat.

DANIEL: It's so awesome to have you on the show.

SARA: Thank you, Travis.

TRAVIS: Hi.

DANIEL: For those that haven't heard or read Legends and Lattes, can you tell us a little about the novel?

TRAVIS: Legends and Lattes is the story of an orc mercenary in her 40s, who retires from a life of adventure to open a coffee shop in a city that has never heard of coffee before, and finds a whole group of people that she didn't know she needed. And yeah, it's something that I found very relatable since it followed a very similar path to one that I followed.

SARA: Are you also an orc in your 40s that gives up adventure?

TRAVIS: Well, I was a game developer in my 40s, who did a job for a really long time that, well, you know, felt a little bloody from time to time. And at some point, I retired and started narrating audiobooks. And having never acted before in my life, and found this whole community of people who narrate and book people in general. And it was like having Stockholm syndrome for the previous two decades or whatever. So I don't know, it felt very, felt very relatable to me.

SARA: I think -- I mean, it's obviously speaking to a lot of people right now. We told some people that we were interviewing you for this book. We had to, we choose the books that we're going to feature on the podcast as a group. And a couple of our group, including Daniel, hadn't read it yet. And I think everybody was just like, oh, this is... it is relatable! It's about an orc in a coffee shop in a town that's never heard of coffee. And yet that's relatable.

DANIEL: Yeah.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it's --

DANIEL: Oh, go ahead.

TRAVIS: Yeah, go ahead. It's like I spent a year watching like The Great British Bake Off and Fixer Upper in the deep, dark heart of COVID. And, I mean, all of us are like, relating to all the things those things pretty hard. It's like, The Great British Bake Off is people that you like, and nobody's really mean unless you count Hollywood. But it's still dramatic and we can engage with it and care about what happens to these people. And the same thing with Fixer Upper, there's just something innately satisfying about watching something get built and made and go from something marginally terrible to something pretty cool. And both of those are just things that we as people are, like, interested in. And then the whole idea of your life being kind of the same sort of thing, this sort of mundanely relatable thing that can also dramatically change from one thing to another, and that's still okay to happen even later in life is I think something everybody wants to some extent.

SARA: You know, I was trying to explain it to people and it was like, you know, the big things that happened in the book. Well, they added ice to the latte. They invented cinnamon rolls. And it's just cozy.

TRAVIS: Yeah, it doesn't sound like anything.

SARA: Huh?

TRAVIS: It doesn't... it doesn't sound like anything though. It sounds... you'd say what it is and it sounds ridiculous. In fact, it was a joke. I was, the initial concept was a joke. I narrate lots of like action adventure stuff like really high intensity, save the world from high stakes stuff. And it's always some 20 to 30 year old dude who has like the personality of a bagel. And it's, that's what I narrate all the time. And I was joking around and said, I really want to just read a Hallmark movie set in the Forgotten Realms. I just want something nice, but still has like all the fantasy stuff that I like.

SARA: So okay, let's talk about that. So this is being billed as a cozy fantasy. I think it's even maybe the tagline of the book, if I'm not mistaken. It's a cozy story with low stakes or something like that. Is that how you call it?

TRAVIS: I didn't actually explicitly call it cozy fantasy. I think I said it was a novel of high fantasy and low stakes. But cozy fantasy got stapled to it pretty darn quick.

SARA: Well, I had never heard of this genre before and I'm a librarian. So I feel like I'm, I know a lot about various genres and micro genres. So how would you define this genre? And what do you think the biggest differences are from the main fantasy genre?

TRAVIS: I think cozy fantasy uses fantasy and fantastical elements to remind us that everyday things have worth, just in the same way that like sci-fi uses, like the trappings of sci-fi to talk about, like, big societal ideas, or, you know, like big human concerns, you know, societal problems. I think that fantasy used to talk about, like, everyday things that are still important, and honestly are maybe more important, because everybody experiences them. Like not many of us are going to slay a dragon. But, you know, maybe we're going to start a small business, or, you know, maybe we're gonna have a dramatic career change, or maybe something weird is gonna go on with our relationships. And using fantasy to remind us that those things have worth and are still meaningful is, I think, one of the core pieces of cozy fantasy. And the other is one that's, I think also has in common with the romance genre with a capital R is that it has a happy ending, that it leaves you feeling better than when you started reading it. Ideally.

SARA: I do think that a lot of those things definitely appeal to a lot of people, especially after the last like three years of kind of our collective trauma. Like you said earlier, I mean, everybody wanted to watch The Great British baking show. I'm not personally a Fixer Upper fan, but I have watched every single episode of GBBO.

TRAVIS: Stuff exists. You know, I think it's been out there. It just didn't have this name attached to it. I mean, you look at like every Studio Ghibli movie, like ever made.

SARA: Oh, yeah.

TRAVIS: And you look at like, slice of life, slice of life manga and like Japan, and you think of like, Howl's Moving Castle, stuff like that. Even Terry Pratchett I think you could also argue, is basically... has been, you know, did this for a long time. You look at a book like Going Postal or something like that, or, you know, Mort or whatever, it's... using fantasy in this way.

DANIEL: I noticed like some people did like, on TikTok were like, it's kind of like the first 50 pages of The Hobbit or whatever, like --

TRAVIS: Where it's all the eating and being uncomfortable.

DANIEL: Yeah. So there's like, it's... there's some definite Dungeons and Dragons vibes in the book. Do you play D&D or other role playing games? And if so, are any of the characters in the book based on real game characters?

TRAVIS: So the last real D&D played, a game I played like tabletop was in high school, because I never found a group after that. I did a one-shot a few months ago for a local get-with group. But that doesn't mean I haven't basically played D&D or been involved in that kind of gaming, because I made games for 20 years, and I made role playing games. And there's a lot of D&D adjacent stuff in all of that. And I played lots of digital D&D because I didn't have people to play with. So I played the Baldur's Gates and the Neverwinter Nights and what have you. So a lot of that is definitely infused in there. And a lot of it's kind of intentional, because it's a cozy book. It's not trying to take you to some place that you've really never been. It's kind of trying to bring the fantasy to you. So it's by design, largely kind of like, easy to dip into. As far as the characters, they weren't game characters, but they are a lot of archetypal people that I have met at my local coffee shops over the years.

DANIEL: I got that vibe definitely.

SARA: We were trying to figure out what a hob was. Is it a hobgoblin?

TRAVIS: It's a hobgoblin. Yes, basically.

DANIEL: I liked how the world building worked with these characters, because it's not like we had to get a bunch of exposition explaining how the city was laid out. It's just like hearing the characters talk about their jobs. You just kind of understand the world through that. And just like, their interactions, and I thought it was like a way cool... like, it was cool to explore the world to the people that lived in it, talking about how they live in this world, rather than like huge telling me the history of the city or whatever.

TRAVIS: I really like character-out world building in like all fantasy, where what you gather about the world is from the perspective of the people and what they feel about it because I absorb it a lot easier and it feels a lot more natural to what's going on. I confess that when I am reading, like some doorstop fantasy novel and it gets to the eight page treatise on like the local politics, I'm just out. I just skim right through it.

SARA: And I will also just mention that as... so I read some fantasy maybe. And I don't play D&D, but I still -- and I have no idea what a hobgoblin actually is. But I still also found it very easy to, like, understand what was going on in the world and like you just kind of oh, it's got whiskers. Okay, cool. There's a giant cat. I get it.

TRAVIS: Yeah, just a big cat. You know, he's basically, this guy is basically your, your cranky uncle that can actually fix everything around your house and like comes in as like, oh, this light switch doesn't work. And he just replaces it and kind of mutters something about how you should take better care of it. That's the... that's who he really is.

SARA: Yeah, I mean, then so like those came across. And so I think we all know somebody who's like that. And so you're just like, okay, well, does it really matter? Like he's short and furry I think that was actually what it was.

TRAVIS: The ratkin was his symbol.

SARA: Yeah. I don't know what a ratkin is. I have no idea.

TRAVIS: It's a rat man.

SARA: Rat person?

TRAVIS: He's a rat man. He looks like a bipedal rat. But you know he's cute. You know he's adorable.

DANIEL: I was actually looking for like fan art to like, because I liked the book so much. I was like... I was like, because I knew that there was like a fandom developing. I was like, I bet there's pictures of these people have out and stuff.

TRAVIS: Oh, there are.

DANIEL: Yeah, I couldn't find any --

TRAVIS: I have a folder.

DANIEL: Yeah. I couldn't find any Calamity though. That was a thing. There's a couple of Thimble but yeah.

TRAVIS: I have, I have like two. I have like two of Cal. But I got a lot of Thimble including several tattoos.

DANIEL: Oh, that's cool.

SARA: Okay.

TRAVIS: And a LEGO figurine.

SARA: Oh, you did?

DANIEL: Oh, that's awesome.

TRAVIS: Somebody sent me a whole miniature LEGO set that they custom built with custom pieces with fold out glossy instructions that is assembled right over there. It's amazing.

SARA: I was like sitting here with my mouth open. That's so cool.

DANIEL: Did it include, was it the miniatures or did they include the whole Legends and Lattes coffee shop too?

TRAVIS: This one is like a, it's like a special like mini version of the shop. But he did build the whole shop -- Jordan Kahn, I think -- and shut it off. He does a lot of, he does a lot of like Sanderson builds with LEGO and stuff. But like he custom prints, 3D prints like faces and pieces that he needs to make them, you know, all the way there. So he even has like the menu. It's bonkers.

DANIEL: Oh, wow. That's insane.

TRAVIS: I cherish it.

SARA: Yeah, that's really cool. Okay, so let's get down to brass tacks. Why coffee? And specifically, why coffee in a place where coffee doesn't exist, or that no one's ever heard of it, I guess.

TRAVIS: I mean, I was definitely missing my local coffee shop. Because I love coffee, I drink a lot of it. And pre-COVID I had a local coffee shop before we moved that we went to all the time that sadly closed during COVID. And so about that time, like going to a local coffee shop and seeing other people not wearing masks was like the height of escapist fantasy for me. Because, you know, and there's a lot of like sense memories associated with coffee shops. There's like the baking smells and the smell of -- even people who don't necessarily like coffee often like the smell of brewing coffee, there's like a vibe, right? And the kinds of people that are there. And you know, you've got the musician in the corner from the local community college who was maybe not that great, but it adds something and there's always some animal that is like the community animal that nobody even knows what its name is. Maybe it's got five names. It's constantly wandering through the shop. It's just all of these things that make a... you know, an overall set of like, sense memories that I really missed. So it just it made sense. It wasn't originally on what the book was going to be, but it was what I landed on because I think it was what I missed the most at the time.

SARA: I really like that.

DANIEL: I like -- yeah, I like the coffee shop vibes just because like after COVID and things started opening up, my coffee shop that I would go to, to write and do other stuff -- like, because of that show on Netflix, people were playing more chess. So there was a lot more table games. And then the back patio started having like regular musicians. And I was like, it started feeling like a fantasy tavern to me. So like it was really cool like to... like I related heavily with Legends and Lattes as a coffee shop because it was like my coffee shop.

TRAVIS: Yeah, I mean, even if you're just going to sit in there and type and like, get a Danish, there's... coffee shops are great.

SARA: Definitely very sensory, like...

TRAVIS: Yeah.

SARA: It's a vibe, it's a vibe.

TRAVIS: It is a vibe. And you know, not everybody likes coffee. So baking was like the other half. Everybody likes baking. So something is there, something is there that is like a thing that you've missed, basically.

DANIEL: So Viv is the main character and she, before she goes on this adventure into coffee brewing, she was a part of like an adventuring crew. Like she had a crew that they were bounty hunters and they would go on campaigns and things. They see her differently than her new friends see her. What does that tell us about the dynamics of friendship? Do you think we define who we are by how they, those closest to us see us? What happens when that image conflicts --

TRAVIS: I definitely do. I think that we, I think just to a certain extent, we adapt to the image that people have of us based on the context that we interact with them. Like if I work with people and I'm a certain kind of person at work and I do a certain kind of work and people treat me a certain kind of way, I kind of like shape around that a little bit. Some people are more strong willed than others. But also, it's just like, that's the reflection you get back of what people think about you. And what they value about you is probably different, like in any different circumstance. So for her to go from a group of people that value her for one thing to a group of people who don't care about that thing at all and value her for totally different reasons that she maybe hasn't been valuing because she hasn't seen that reflected, it's like a big, it's a big difference. And that was my experience switching careers, is that people just valued me for different things. Things that I've thought I had to do to be valued weren't important.

SARA: Although running a coffee shop, after like, what I think Viv was probably doing out there in the wilderness, big change.

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah.

SARA: Quite opposite, really.

TRAVIS: Quite opposite, quite opposite. To a certain extent in the second book, which is a prequel, you get an idea of why that might have made sense. And what seeds got planted to make that make sense, which is partially what the previous book is about.

SARA: We get little tidbits, I think.

TRAVIS: You get little bits of it, you get little bits of it. But I think you get a better picture of why she might have eventually chosen to do that. She probably didn't think about it for a long time. But like so many things, you know, little things happen early in life. And then we see later on, they turn into something else. And we're like, where did that come from? And you look back and you're like, "Oh, is that one meeting with somebody I had 10 years ago that made me think about this."

SARA: Yeah.

DANIEL: Yeah, I noticed that like, I was I'm like currently going, the short story that came attached with the audiobook. Pages -- I can't think of the name of the title but...

TRAVIS: Yeah, Pages to Fill. Yep.

DANIEL: Pages to Fill. And I liked it because it's like, oh, that's where she found out about coffee. And like the city.

TRAVIS: Yep.

SARA: So I didn't read it on -- I didn't I didn't listen to it. I read it on Kindle or Libby, I should say. Library customers and patrons, I use Libby. But the... I, every time they put a story at the end, I always think it's like a precursor for the next book.

TRAVIS: Next book.

SARA: So is it a separate story?

TRAVIS: It is a separate, its own thing that does not exist in the next book. It is basically like a prologue prologue. It's like about six months before the start of the book. It's when she's still out doing stuff, but she's kind of done. And it's more or less like the last job and like a turning point for her where she decides, you know what? This is... this is where I where she makes the decision. And then the prequel is set like 20 years before where she's young and super into it still.

SARA: Okay.

DANIEL: Okay.

SARA: So now I'm gonna have to wait three more months to check it out again.

DANIEL: It's a prequel --

TRAVIS: It's free on my website, actually. So there's a link to it on my website, if you... if anybody out there feels like reading it and haven't done so.

SARA: If you're like me, and you were like, "Oh, I'll wait till the next book comes out."

DANIEL: Is the prequel also going to be cozy?

TRAVIS: I mean, it is cozy. I think there's maybe slightly higher stakes. It's a different book. And it's about different things. But it's still, you know, there's a certain amount of bitter sweetness to it because you know that the end of that book is not where she ends up. And that a lot of the people that you meet are not people that she's going to interact with later on. But that's also sort of the point of the book. Kind of the point of the book is that things that happen that are temporary and relationships that we have that are brief aren't valueless, just because they aren't where we end up. And so it kind of leans into the fact that it's a prequel. And that's almost what it's about is the value of a prequel.

SARA: Very meta.

TRAVIS: A little bit meta, and it's also about books, obviously, because it's in the title. It's about books. It's where she learns to like reading and it's about how we connect to people through stories, because we're just, it's that moment of recognition of somebody else having a shared experience with you, where you're like, "Oh, I'm not the only person that has felt this." And how powerful that is in our lives.

SARA: And what is the title of the next one?

TRAVIS: It's Bookshops and Bonedust. It has way more skeletons than the first book does.

SARA: Oh, I'm so sorry.

TRAVIS: There's way more skeletons than the first book.

SARA: Okay, good to know. We'll be prepared for that. Now, at the beginning of this story, the current book that's out there, Legends and Lattes, there's this exchange between Viv and Tandri [tan-dree], Tandri [tawn-dree], Tandri [tan-dree]?

TRAVIS: Tandri [tan-dree].

SARA: Tandri, okay. Because it didn't listen to it. But it's a little bit uncomfortable, because like Viv's an orc, Tandry's a succubus. And so they play on the different stereotypes and misconceptions about what that means. And so can you talk a little bit more about how you use stereotypes in this novel?

TRAVIS: Most of the book is about subversion. It's that something doesn't have to be what it started out as or what you expect it to be. You know, the stable becomes a coffee shop, the orc mercenary becomes a barista and small business owner. You know, the rat man is baking things. The succubus is actually kind of sort of a, a smart and canny artist. The, you know, the bricklayer is actually a musician. And that nothing has to be what you think it is. And so that's just another, it's just another iteration of that, it's another expression of that is that Viv is making an assumption that she is what, you know, is stamped on the tin but that's not, that's not really the extent of what a person is.

DANIEL: I even liked it -- and like with a spoiler warning, but like, I even liked with the bad guys in the book are actually pretty reasonable. And you're like --

TRAVIS: Well, they're understandable anyway. Lack is one of my favorite characters. I really like Lack, you know, is that he's actually kind of a... you know, I like Lack. And for those... I don't know if this is a spoiler. The Madrigal -- this book's been out for a while. So I don't know how much is spoiler territory?

SARA: I don't know. We'll let you decide. You're the author.

TRAVIS: I mean, the bad guy is basically, you know, as far as there is a bad guy, you know, that isn't... that isn't Fenus is... I mean, I don't think she's great. But she's basically a gentrifier. She's, you know, she's trying to take a destitute area and revitalize it. And maybe using unsavory means to do it. But she's not shaking people down to build her crime empire. She's shaking them down because the buildings are dilapidated.

SARA: Is that another stereotype dispersion?

TRAVIS: Yeah, she's not good. But she's also not... she's just not what you expect. She's also kind of like the... she's kind of like homeowners insurance that actually pays for things because when there's like an actual disaster, she actually shows up with materials and clothes.

DANIEL: Yeah, that was... yeah, I liked that... that's what I liked about it and was like, "Okay, there's not a person we have to hate in this." Like everyone you understand, like... I liked that. I liked them being reasonable. I get so tired of like, sad... I get so tired of this like formulaic sad stories. It's like, okay, this character is too likable, something bad's gonna happen to him.

TRAVIS: Something bad's totally gonna happen. That's that Great British baking show element, like you can have drama without it having to be --

DANIEL: Consequences.

TRAVIS: -- turned up to 11 or for every everybody doesn't have to act like a teenager in order to manufacture drama.

SARA: Sometimes you can just be really excited that the next big thing is the, you know, chocolate croissant.

TRAVIS: Yep.

DANIEL: So there's all kinds of social misfits and we've kind of talked about that. And we get to know them. And we kind of see their unique talents that helped make the shop a success. They truly represent a found family. What does the concept of a found family mean to you? And how can it be especially meaningful for those that feel rejected by society?

TRAVIS: I mean, it's, it's so hard to find your people. And that's been my experience in my 40s. And when you do, when you actually find somebody who is a real friend, and is really going to stick up for you or fill in for you or make up a lag in your life, it's like hard to overestimate how great that is and how powerful that is. Because the older you get, the more rare -- you realize how rare it is, right? It's not like when you're a kid, and you make friends with like, oh, I just made eight friends today, I went to school. It's like you get in your 20s and your 30s and your 40s and making a friend is really hard. So any time somebody comes into your life that's, that means something like that to you, it's... I don't know, I just can't overstate how amazing that is when it happens. And so reminding ourselves not to take any of those for granted and to seize them when they come by feels worth the time.

SARA: I feel like it was more especially meaningful in this particular book because they were like, they were all like, you know, even the the grumpy uncle at the docks, no one wanted to talk to him. He was kind of a loner. Viv was an orc, so she was like, visually and like a presence that people avoided. The stereotypical succubus. And then the rat man, you know, like, didn't talk. So they were all... I mean, I just feel like it was --

TRAVIS: Yeah, they were all people looking for their people. They're all people looking for their people. And, you know, the magical foozle of the book, the Scalvert's Stone is like, the only point of it is to bring together people who should have been together. It doesn't change what anybody thinks about anybody. All it does is like, draw people together. Because I mean, if you were gonna have like a magic artifact to make your life better, that would be it.

DANIEL: Yeah, no, I --

TRAVIS: Like, I'm just getting goosebumps and feeling all warm and fuzzy just remembering the parts of the story. I do want to say real quick, since we're talking about characterizations and characters. Viv's back pain, totally like --

SARA: Oh, yeah.

DANIEL: Totally relate to that.

TRAVIS: Very relatable, that was very relatable to me. There was a lot of getting up in the morning and just making that noise when you get out of bed. I was like, oh, geez.

DANIEL: You do a really good job of writing about back pain. I could, I knew exactly like that, what that feeling, what those feelings were.

TRAVIS: Yeah, yeah. I'm 46, I know what back pain is.

DANIEL: So who's your -- you said lack is one of your favorite characters, but like, or is he... who is your favorite character?

TRAVIS: I really like him. He's not my favorite character. I mean, I have a tough time with this because I've, like most things, I think that they're best in aggregate. Like that's the whole point is that like they're best together. But I would probably say Tandri because I like her pragmatism and her artistry and that she is willing to... to stand up for things when she needs to. Probably. But I would change my answer tomorrow.

SARA: I also wonder if you would say Viv as the creator because like she's the one who built, you built your story around.

TRAVIS: Well, Viv is in a lot of ways me so it feels really weird to like her best.

SARA: Oh, so she can't be your favorite. Got it.

TRAVIS: She can't be. She can't be.

SARA: But everybody else really... so like all of your fans, your librarian fans from Wichita Public Library, they voted on Thimble.

TRAVIS: Thimble is universally everybody else's favorite character. And I love Thimble for all like 12 words he says.

SARA: But his actions speak so much, like more.

DANIEL: I was more of a Cal guy. I'm not gonna lie. Cal --

TRAVIS: I like Cal. I like those --

SARA: I think I liked the cat.

DANIEL: I want a Cal spinoff. I would listen to like an eight hour audiobook of Cal just doing things.

TRAVIS: Just saying hmm.

SARA: That's awesome. Well, hey, listen, we're gonna take a short break. This has been really fun so far. And when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about the actual writing of this book and some of that. But sit tight and we'll be right back. We're gonna go and our library commercials this episode feature things that you might want to do with your own found family, such as book discussion sets. Hey.

DANIEL: Start a book club.

SARA: Start a book club.

DANIEL: We'll be right back.

VOICEOVER: Did you know that the Wichita Public Library offers book sets for checkout? You and your book club can borrow up to 10 copies of a single title. You can even schedule the whole year in advance. And there are more than 100 titles to choose from: newer titles, older titles, fiction, nonfiction. Find the full list online at wichitalibrary.org and call us at (316) 261-8500 to schedule yours today.

SARA: And we're back.

DANIEL: We're here with Travis Baldree. So we'll just jump right back into this interview. So you came from a video game background, having worked on Fate and Torchlight. I was developing games influence -- how has developing games influenced your writing style?

TRAVIS: I don't know if it influenced my actual writing style. Audiobooks definitely did. But it did influence the way that I work. Because I'm used to working on creative deadlines where you have this much time to do a thing. And if you don't, you run out of money and everybody goes home. Which is a sort of high intensity, creative, creative way of working. So I'm used to just sitting down and working on something until it's finished. And I tend to write that way. And also it changes the mechanics of the way that I write. Like, a lot of people like to draft a big messy draft and then go back and fix all the problems later. A lot of authors do this. I can't do this, because that's not the way you build software. If you build software, you basically... I used to call it you just have to keep the build working all day -- every day the build works. Because the more problems you allow to compound over time, the bigger of a disaster it is to dig yourself out of at the end, which is really, really daunting and it makes you very sad.

So for me, the idea of writing a book where I just had all of these things I had to address later that got deeper and deeper and deeper, I've got a... I've got an inbuilt aversion to that. So when I write, I write a chapter, I quickly do a revision on it. And then I move on to the next one. And if I ever find a problem or discover I have to change something to make something make sense, I have to do it immediately. Because if I don't, I feel like I'm building on shifting sands and then it's all gonna go to heck on me. So that definitely carried over from engineering. Also, I version things really, really religiously. So you hear about, you know, authors that have got their one manuscript and then they lost it, it's not gonna happen.

SARA: Well, so now I want to know how audiobooks changed your writing style.

TRAVIS: Audiobooks changed a lot. So audiobooks, you are reading thousands and thousands of hours of other authors' works out loud without skipping anything. And without... and trying to do justice to what they're attempting to do. If you don't like something in a book, you just skim past it, or you just gloss over it. And if you love something, you're like, "Oh, that's great." But you don't pay attention to things that you don't like, and you don't necessarily like mark it really strongly. If you're reading it out loud, you mark those things really strongly. Because when the narrative starts to flag, at least for you personally, or you feel like something's not working, or you can see them trying to achieve something and it doesn't happen, you as a narrator can get out and push. And so it becomes really clear to you when you're doing that.

Also, it just really clarifies what you like and don't like, again, because you can't skim. And I don't know if you've ever heard the saying that one of the best ways to read your work, or to edit your work is to read it out loud. Because if a dialogue doesn't ring true or something else is clunky or sentences are too contorted, it becomes really, really obvious. Well, you get that by reading other people's books aloud. But another thing that happens is that it rewires something in your brain as you do that over time, which is that you can hear your own voice, which you become very intimately familiar with, saying what you are writing before you have written it. So you kind of... you shortcut that feedback loop of hearing what you are writing, which makes it a lot easier to pre-edit what you're doing. I found it incredibly useful. And it was really because I tried many times to write novels before I was a narrator. The difference between before and after was really stark to me because it really did rewire things for me.

DANIEL: That's like really interesting. It's kinda like, like going from acting to like screenwriting kind of like -- always I've heard that too with like, actors like, you should like, act before you like write something because like I was talking to this actor this one time, it's like the script was like too many words or whatever. And it's kind of like the balance between that. Which is like you'd never think about books being like that. I can't imagine like having to do an audio book for a book that's just like super wordy and stuff and you can't skim that. I never thought of it like that.

TRAVIS: Yeah. There's another weird thing which is hard to articulate is that while you're reading a book out loud, especially since you're reading it consecutively over days, you have kind of a sense of where things are, you have like an accumulated sense of how the story feels. And it's sort of like having a bar of soap in your hands. You can feel when it starts to get away from the author. Like, all of a sudden, there's too many things going on, and I can't keep track of them, or I've lost track of this character, or it's making leaps of logic that I can't follow. And you can feel like the soap getting out of your hands. You start to develop this weird feeling about the text. I don't know how else to describe it. It's very strange. But you also get that same sense as you're writing or like, "Oh, crud, this soap is starting to get away from me. Why?" And and then you try to do something about it.

DANIEL: I have a question about the characterizations, because I listened to the audiobook. Did you come up with those as you were writing, like, how like Gallina sounds and how --

TRAVIS: Oh, yeah, I knew exactly what they sounded like. I heard the whole book in my head while I was writing it. So when it came time to narrate it, it was like the easiest narration I've ever done. I knew what everything was and what everybody sounded like and it was just like dancing. It's really cool.

SARA: So now I kind of want to go back and listen to the book.

DANIEL: You should totally. It's a great audiobook.

SARA: Well, there you have it, folks. Okay, so Legends and Lattes, which I found was really interesting is that it started out as a NaNoWriMo project. And so for anyone who's not familiar, that's National Novel Writing Month, the month of November is spent where people will try to just churn out 50,000 words. We participate every year. And in fact, we've got a lot coming up this November, so check us out. But had you participated in NaNo before this? Like, tell us about that process for you.

TRAVIS: So I have like, I think six failed NaNos behind me maybe over, spread over like 15 years. I always wanted to do it. And I got close a few times. And some of them were too short and like for terrible novellas. But usually, I got stuck into a boggy middle and tapped out. And I was probably always more ambitious than I needed to be. So this is my first NaNo win. And it was written entirely in the month of November in '21. And it was 62,000 words long, and I was done two days early. And I just wrote a chapter every day until it was done.

And there were two big changes for me. One, I had a writing buddy. My, one of my narrator friends, Aven Shore-Kind, convinced me to do NaNo again, and wrote a book just to make sure I wrote one. Which is like the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me. And I outlined for the first time, because I was dead set on being a pantser. And that I could just get in and write and the words would flow from my fingers, you know, it'd be really transcendent and cool. And I am not at all and still a little sad about it. So I outlined for the first time. And I guess there's one other thing I did that was like, contributed to actually being able to get done was that I chose something really simple for the first time. It wasn't like it's got to be the world's greatest novel. And it needs to be a fantasy epic with four POVs. And it's, you know, eventually, I'm sure it'll be 150,000 words. No, I just picked an orc retires and opens a coffee shop as my plot, which is very, very simple. Which meant I was able to hold the whole story in my head. Like I knew the story. And every other time I've tried to write something, I didn't. Like, I had like the vague shape of it. But there was a lot of unknowns in that I was sure I would figure out. This one, I didn't really have to do that. So the story really is almost 100% the outline. It changed very little.

SARA: That's wild.

DANIEL: That's yeah, I get the whole thing with like, big idea stories. I always call those like action figures stories in my head. Like, I have an idea that I could turn into like a book or something. But it's like, really, it's just like five minutes of talking about a conflict or whatever. So like, yeah, that's...

TRAVIS: It's not the full story. It's like a cool thing, but it's not the story. And that's what I always had was like I have, I really like this cool character. I really like this world. I really like this one moment, but I didn't have everything. One thing I told myself, which is kind of a games thing is that like, you know, Tetris is one of the most popular games of all time. And it's dead simple. And anybody can understand it. And it's not complicated to make either. So something doesn't have to be crazy complicated to have value. It can just be good on its own terms.

DANIEL: So I do... I have a question about the Scalvert's Stone. Throughout the book, Viv puts all her trust into it. And in order to bring her good fortune, rather than trusting your own talents of those of her new or the talents of her new friends. Why is it so hard to trust ourselves or others when it comes to building the life we dream of? Why do we put our faith in the intangible things and engage in magical thinking?

TRAVIS: I think we're really all very aware of our own failures because we experience every one of them and we don't experience other people's failures. So it's really easy to believe that other people don't fail as often as we do. It's like going on Facebook, people are just posting like the best meal they ever had and the perfect date. And all of the best moments from their trip. You don't see, you know, the luggage that didn't get delivered, and the food poisoning they had, and all the other stuff that went wrong. You just see like these Facebook moments, and I think most people's lives are like that. We're only seeing other people's Facebook moments, but we see all of our failures. So to us, it seems like we fail all the time compared to everybody else. But so it's really easy not to trust yourself, because you've got all this compiled evidence that you must be screwing up for more than everyone else you know, but it's just not true.

SARA: That's wild. You just compare the Scalvert's Stone to like our social media. Like, what's the... what's... there's an actual word for that? Isn't there that where you're comparing yourself to other people?

TRAVIS: I think there is, but I can't, I can't find it in my brain.

SARA: I'm sorry, I didn't pick up on that when I was reading this book. And you'd said that and now I'm just like, oh, that's what it is. Everything in your book has meaning.

DANIEL: Yeah, that's --

SARA: Or maybe it doesn't. Like maybe that's not what you thought, but it...

TRAVIS: I found a lot of things in retrospect that I didn't expect when I wrote it. Like, the whole thing, like Viv is very parallel to me, but I didn't know it at all until halfway through the book.

SARA: Have you found anything that like fans have pointed out to you about it that you were like, "Oh, I didn't realize I was doing that," or...?

TRAVIS: Probably and I am just totally spacing it at the moment.

SARA: Okay. That's all right. That's right. Let me see here. So we're, we're waiting for Bookshops and Bonedust. Is that right? Is that what's called?

TRAVIS: Yep.

SARA: Bookshops and Bonedust. And that's going to be in the Legends and Lattes universe with Viv.

TRAVIS: Yes.

SARA: Are you going to kind of continue to grow out this universe? Are we can we expect more stories from other characters' point of view? Do we ever find out where ratkins come from?

TRAVIS: Well, there's another one in Bookshops and Bonedust. She's very different from from, from Thimble. She's, she owns the bookshop and she's incredibly foul mouthed. And she is not shy. And so there's not like, that's not like a trait of their race or anything. That's just Thimble.

SARA: Okay.

TRAVIS: So there will definitely be another one at least. I've got, I signed for three more books with Tor. One of them at least will be a Legends and Lattes world book. All of them are intended to be standalone. I kind of liked the Terry Pratchett way of writing where you write a story that's good on its own terms. But if you start to pile them all up, you get all of these neat little connections and the world kind of comes into view. I really liked that and being able to read things out of order. So there were actually three discarded stories before I got to Bookshops and Bonedust.

I was going to write a totally different book. In fact, when I signed with Tor and they acquired Legends and Lattes, I told them the book I was going to do, and I was positive about what it was. And I set out to write it and wrote about 10 chapters and hated it. And then I panicked and restarted three more times until I found something that worked. But the book that I was gonna write was basically fantasy Murder, She Wrote, and you were gonna learn more about the magical college. And it was about this 500-year-old elf who used to run the college of Thelenic forensics. So she did like basically investigation magic, and she got passed over for the deanship from some, by some young like unqualified guy, and she quit in a... in a rage and went and became a romance novelist. And then he gets murdered and they ask her to come back. And she just wants to figure it out so she can shake the hand of whoever did it. And we're gonna learn about magic and, you know, some of the other characters from the other books would pop in and I was, I just thought it was is the best idea ever.

SARA: I would, I would read it, 100 percent.

TRAVIS: And I would read it too if I could write it. But it turns out I'm not Agatha Christie and I'm not any good at writing mysteries because all of the mechanics of getting people where they need to be to get the clue to find out the thing? For me, it ended up crowding out all the parts I cared about, which was all the character stuff. So, at the time, I had to park it. I do want to get back to it, but I have a feeling it's going to be more Scooby-Doo and less Poirot because it's just going to be weirdos in a van pulling off a rubber mask or something. Because I can, I can achieve that level of mystery. So anyway, I don't know if that's the book I'll write. There were a lot of things that I liked in the books that didn't survive. And I would like to get back to those things. But exactly what form that will take, I don't know precisely yet.

SARA: All right, thank you.

TRAVIS: I over-answered everything.

SARA: No, you're doing great. We love it. And all of our listeners are gonna love it as well. I think -- did I mentioned at the beginning that people were really excited that we were talking to you today?

DANIEL: Yeah, like, we've gotten a lot of feedback, people being like, oh my gosh, I love that book. So yeah.

SARA: Or like I'm waiting for it and I'm number 57 on the list.

DANIEL: So the fandom for Legends and Lattes has started to grow at an astounding rate thanks to social media apps such as TikTok. I was amazed to see there are people already cosplaying as characters. And we kind of talked about some of the stuff you got like the LEGO set. What are some of the like, other cool things that you've seen from fans so far?

TRAVIS: Oh, so much art. Miniatures, people build like a miniature version of the coffee shop, like, all these little details like water barrels, and an espresso machine and everything else. Tattoos. Sculptures, somebody made the wooden sign. You know... somebody emailed me that they were doing a lyrics writing course for musical theater and they were writing out songs, they were basically doing the book and the song and writing out lyrics to music for it and sent me like the lyrics. I mean --

SARA: So Legends and Lattes: the musical?

TRAVIS: Yeah, like crazy stuff. Crazy stuff. I'm still just blown away. I'm just thankful to be in the room.

SARA: And this book came out when, like last year?

TRAVIS: The indie release was February 22 of '22. That was when I threw it up on Amazon. And then I think Tor had picked it up by June and rereleased the paperback in November of '22. And it's what, now it's... I don't even know what month it is anymore. It's August.

DANIEL: I saw like, yeah, I was kind of going down TikTok and I know TikTok is like a lot of controversy. I thought the biggest controversy of a book was the like U.K. release hardcover that other people didn't get and like, there's this whole like --

SARA: I didn't see that.

TRAVIS: Yeah, how do you get the hardcovers? Well, and the U.K. is really big into special editions. They like do book boxes. So you got you know, FairyLoot and Broken Binding and Inkstone and that's just a big deal over there. So there's all these hardbound special editions that are a real pain in the behind the get if you live in the United States, where it's not such a big thing.

DANIEL: Yeah, the hardcover, there's like one of the hardcovers I had like the extended like cover art with like, inside the book and stuff. That was like, that looked cool. I was like, after reading I was like, I'd get that copy.

SARA: So does the fandom have a name yet? Have we discussed that? Like the legendeers?

TRAVIS: I've never heard a name attached. I have never heard a name attached.

DANIEL: LAL [lawl]?

TRAVIS: LAL. [CHUCKLES]

DANIEL: LAL-er. I don't know. Can't think of anything.

TRAVIS: It doesn't lend itself, it relaly doesn't lend itself.

DANIEL: I might get a, I'm gonna get a Cal tattoo. I just decided that right now.

SARA: I don't even know what a hobgoblin looks like. Now I have to look it up.

DANIEL: I think I'm gonna do it, just have a little word bubble that says "mmm," just for positive affirmation. Like any time I'm working, I can just like, "Did I do a good job, Cal?" All right, thank you.

TRAVIS: He, there's, there's a kickstarted version. There's like super spin fancy special edition that Wraithmarked is putting out there, just got kickstarted. And it has a bunch of illustrations by Justin Gerard, who's a really amazing artist. And so there are illustrations of Cal now and also and some other things that I can't talk about.

SARA: Fair enough. So we've talked about everything else that's coming up with this Legends and Lattes and potential for future projects. Is there anything else coming up for you that you want to give a shoutout to let your fans know about?

TRAVIS: Book tour, we're doing a book tour for Bookshops and Bonedust in November from I believe, like the 6th to the 18th that will be around the U.S. and in Canada. I don't know if we'll be doing a U.K. one or not. It's possible, but I'm not sure yet. I'll also be at Dragon Con at the end of the month, and at Rose City Comic Con in Portland in mid- to late September. So if you're in the area and you want to say hi, come say hi.

DANIEL: Awesome.

SARA: Awesome. So then one of those is going to be in Wichita probably or...? I don't know. I don't know --

TRAVIS: I honestly don't remember. I don't remember. I'm like, I don't know, maybe? I don't know. I'll go where the tickets send me.

DANIEL: Showing my nerd here, but I think Dragon Con's Atlanta.

TRAVIS: It is, Dragon Con's in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah, yeah.

DANIEL: Because like, I am a big fan of The Venture Brothers. And it was always the con you wanted to go to before the season. So that's the only reason I know.

TRAVIS: Did like The Venture Brothers.

SARA: Listen, it's okay that I don't, I'm not into that. You know, I found my family elsewhere. Okay. That's what I'm trying to say. Well, Travis, thank you so much for joining us today. It has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and just like find out all this information behind your wonderful book Legends and Lattes.

TRAVIS: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a ball.

DANIEL: Yeah, it's been awesome. Not only am I a fan of your work as an author, but also an audiobook narrator and I'm probably going to... I've been doing this more right, go track down my favorite -- Will Patton is my go-to.

TRAVIS: That's great.

DANIEL: You're right up there.

TRAVIS: I appreciate it. Being in that rarefied air, I'll take it. I'll take it. Will's amazing.

SARA: All right. Well, you take care. Thank you so much. We can't wait for the next one.

DANIEL: Yeah, take care.

TRAVIS: Thank you so much. Thank you everybody.

VOICEOVER: The Wichita Public Library offers free programs for all ages. Our children's department offers storytimes for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. For teens, there's always fun stuff going on from escape rooms to learning how to code. Adults can work on their job skills with our technology training classes, and can even get certified to use the Library's 3D printer. No matter what you're into, there's a library program for you. Find out more by checking out our event calendar at wichitalibrary.org/events. Your Wichita Public Library.

JENNY, VOICEOVER: Here are some reading recommendations for category three, a book about friendship and other ReadICT categories from our community of readers in the ReadICT Facebook group and callers to our book review hotline. If you'd like to leave your own book review to be featured on a future episode of this podcast, call our book review hotline at (316) 261-8507. Leaving a review is easy. After the voice prompt, record your name, location if you are outside Wichita, what ReadICT category your book recommendation is for, title and author of the book, and a brief reason why you recommend it to other readers. If you're looking to connect with other like-minded readers online, be sure to join our Facebook group. After logging into Facebook, search for the group #ReadICT challenge and click join. You can also find more reading recommendations for this and other categories by visiting wichitalibrary.org/readict.

The Cat Who Saved Books by Sôsuke Natsukawa. Translated from Japanese, its fairy tale quality with a good moral to the story will be loved by all who enjoy books.

The Girls From Ames: A Story of Women and a 40 Year Friendship by Jeffrey Zaslow. I really loved this book. These women grew up in central Iowa at about the same time I did. The story of their longtime friendships and sharing one another's lives is a good reminder of what it takes to make connections and the value in that.

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling. Aven is a middle school girl with no arms. She starts the story living in Kansas, which I thought was cool, but has to move to Arizona due to her father losing his job and being offered a new one out of state. Aven has a gift for reaching out to those who are also struggling with fitting in and some important friendships are formed. This book made me smile so many times. There's a bit of an unexpected and sort of unbelievable twist in the story that I found awesome.

Rules for Visiting by Jessica Francis Kane. I enjoyed this book for many reasons: gardening, trees, friendship, love, travel, neighbors, loss. Being in a reflective mood, this book gave me a lot to think about.

IAN, VOICEOVER: Nation by Terry Pratchett. Though this book delivers his perfected blend of humor, adventure, and sly insight, it is distinct from that series. The eruption of Krakatoa is the catalyst for this clash of cultures, with two young protagonists and an alternative historical timeline. Good fit for number three, a book about friendship; number six, a book about time; number nine, a book about death or grief; and even number 11, a book about a secret or closed society. Presumably for middle grade readers, this old lady loved it too. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Two people who are friends and create games together. I'm not a gamer at all, but it was really creative. 30,000 Bottles of Wine and a Pig Called Helga: A Not-so-perfect Tree Change by Todd Alexander. Who wouldn't want an Australian narrator to read this cute book to them? However, not quite ready to switch to the plant-based diet that their cute animals convinced them they needed to switch to in the end. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory: Stories by Raphael Bob-Waksberg. I just finished reading Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory on Audible and wow, it was so good and devastating. A collection of short stories by the creator of Bojack Horseman. This book definitely hits the funny and depressing notes he is well known for. The audiobook also has a full cast, different readers for each story, including Stephanie Beatriz. I highly recommend it.

CALLER 1: Hi, my name is Jessica Shaffer and I am calling to recommend How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler. I'm recommending this book for category 8, an LGBTQIA+ protagonist, although this is a collection of personal essay memoirs so not exactly a protagonist. I'm recommending it because I love learning about each of these sea creatures that I didn't know about and also seeing the interconnectedness of the author's own journey through her identity, both ethnic and racial, as well as her gender and sexual orientation identities. And I just thought it was beautifully written and I think more people should read this book.

CALLER 2: My name is Charity and the category is juvenile fiction. The name of the book is Leonard (My Life as a Cat) by Carlie Sorosiak. This was an amazing book about an alien who comes to earth in the form of a cat when he was originally hoping to be a park ranger. He goes through all of these adventures but the bottom line is he's really trying to get back home, only he's about 900 miles away. So he has to figure out how to get back to his meeting spot so his ride can pick him up. But then he is torn because he kind of wants to stay here on Earth. So it is a fascinating read, highly recommend.

CALLER 3: My name is Sandra Kunsman. I live in Wichita, and I read the book Love, Clancy: Diary of a Good Dog written by W. Bruce Cameron. It would fit the category of told from nonhuman, from an animal perspective. I did read this book for the adult summer reading program. And it was a very interesting book told from the dog's perspective. It makes you really think about whether dogs are thinking about some of the things that were said in this book or not. But it was a very entertaining book and I would recommend it.

CALLER 4: Hi, my name is Elisa Souter. I do live in Wichita. I was going to leave a book review about the book Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. The reason I would recommend the book is it's because it is a heartwarming novel about an unlikely friendship between a woman and an octopus. It explores themes such as family, friends, and loneliness to create a story everyone should read. Is a very, is a very good novel. Thanks, bye.

CALLER 5: My name is Catherine Schultz. The book I am reviewing is The Book Haters' Book Club, a novel by Gretchen Anthony. I liked this book because it was very interesting. It was entertaining and I could not put it down. The protagonist was well received and the bookstore in the book was just amazing to be a part of. Thank you.

CALLER 6: Hi, I'm Jessica and I'm recommending The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Imagine a book set in the far off future where humans are just one of many wildly different alien species roaming the galaxy. Now, imagine that planetary wars are building and our heroes are constructing a wormhole right into the middle of the battleground. But really, they spend the vast majority of the book just chatting, building friendships, and sharing a lot of food. If you're like me, and this sounds amazing, then you should read The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. It's the first in a series of four books.

CALLER 7: Hi, my name is Hannah and I'm from Wichita. And for category nine, I read Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune. This book is so well written, the characters are lovable, it's fast paced, and it talks about grief in a new and unexpected way. So definitely give it a read. It's a great book.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: So that was an awesome episode. I'm really excited to talk with Travis there. So we talked about cozy fantasy. What do you think? I think there should be other cozy things.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Like what, like cozy sci-fi?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah, cozy sci-fi, just yeah.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Would that be though? Like space knitting?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Like aliens running a pizza shop, maybe?

SARA, VOICEOVER: Mmm, I feel like that's a little derivative.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Okay, what about just like, cozy post-apocalyptic horror and it's just like a guy fishing but having to deal with zombies. So he doesn't like hurt zombies.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Does he like fish for zombies?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Well, he has a zombie friend. I feel like that would be cool. I could do --

SARA, VOICEOVER: His zombie friend's like, "Oh, I'm not really interested in like eating your brain."

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: I want a cozy zombie book next, I think is what I'm gonna go and say that. A zombie runs a coffee shop, that would be cool too.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Honestly, I don't think it would. I don't think I would buy coffee from there.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Be concerned about brains in my --

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: But also like, would you buy coffee from an orc?

SARA, VOICEOVER: I mean, probably. Does she wash her hands?

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Anyway, a list of books discussed in today's episode can be found in the accompanying show notes. To request any of the books heard about in today's episode, visit wichitalibrary.org or call us at (316) 261-8500.

SARA, VOICEOVER: And thank you to Travis Baldree for joining us for today's recording. We also want to put a big thank you out to those who shared book recommendations with us for the episode.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: This has been a production of the Wichita Public Library and a big thanks goes to our production crew and podcast team.

SARA, VOICEOVER: To participate in the ReadICT Reading Challenge, please wichitalibrary.org/readict. Stay connected with other ReadICT participants on the ReadICT challenge Facebook page. Find out what's trending near you, post book reviews, look for local and virtual events, and share book humor with like-minded folks. To join the group, search #ReadICT challenge on Facebook and click join.

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: And don't forget to log your books in the reading tracker app, Beanstack. Each month you log a book into the challenge, you're eligible to win fun prizes. If you need any assistance signing up or logging books, give us a call or reach us on chat or stop by your nearest branch.

SARA, VOICEOVER: You can follow this podcast through the Spotify app or stream episodes on whatever platform you listen to podcasts. If you like what you heard today, be sure to subscribe and share with all your friends and interact with us on all the social media. Bye!

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Bye.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Oh, bye friends!

DANIEL, VOICEOVER: Bye friends.

SARA, VOICEOVER: Aww...