Co-authors Audrey Bellezza (a two-time Emmy-nominated TV producer) and Emily Harding (also a TV producer!) return to the podcast to discuss their charming, hilariously witty, modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice, ELIZABETH OF EAST HAMPTON. Audrey and Emily delve into their Hamptons research trips, their collaborative writing and editing process, and their adaptation of Mrs. Bennett’s character into a modern entrepreneurial mom involved in mid-level marketing schemes! They also touch on their future projects (hint: they may involve more modern retellings).

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back, Audrey and Emily, on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Elizabeth of East Hampton.

Congratulations. 

Emily: Thank you so much. 

Audrey: Thank you. 

Emily: We're lovely to be back. 

Zibby: I feel like this came out so soon. I mean, I feel like we just talked about Emma of 83rd Street. Didn't it? Didn't that just happen? Like when, when did that come out? 

Audrey: It feels like that. 

Emily: It does. Actually it is. I mean, we're recording this on the first birthday, Emma's first birthday.

Oh, so it's been a full year. I know it was lovely. Actually, when we picked the, uh, you know, we're like, Oh my gosh, it's what, what, what a wonderful way to celebrate because your interview last year was such a highlight of that whole experience for us. So getting to do this now. Yeah. is, is incredible. Yeah.

And it is, it was quick. And I think Audrey and I, you know, ignorance is bliss sometimes when you don't realize the, the feet in front of you, but it, it all worked out and we couldn't be happier with it. So we're excited. 

Zibby: Oh, amazing. Okay. Tell listeners what Elizabeth of East Hampton is about, please. 

Audrey: Okay, Elizabeth of East Hampton is a modern retelling of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

Um, it takes place, uh, during a summer in the Hamptons in New York, and it's about family and dating and a local bakery and the town watering hole and lavish parties and everything the Hamptons is about and, uh, love at first sight and earned love and what happens when two guys from Manhattan come into this, uh, local community and, uh, kind of shake things up a bit.

And, uh, it's about the, the Bennett family, which, uh, people who know Pride and Prejudice will be familiar with. But there's a lot of twists and turns, and you don't need to have read Pride and Prejudice, but you'll recognize a lot of things if you have. 

Zibby: Amazing. Well, my real name is Elizabeth and I lived in East Hampton for many, many years.

Like my family, we, from when I was like three years old or something until very recently. So I feel like this is actually my book, just so you know. I'm very excited to share it with, like, with my family. How did we do? What did you think? How did we do? Is it accurate? I mean, I'm not saying I'm like this character having read it, you know, but it's fine, you know.

Anyway, it's just great. And I loved all the places, but you changed all the names and made them sort of fictitious. So I feel like the bakery is a version of Dreesen's. Was that what you were going for? 

Emily: One of the inspirations. Yes. Yeah. 

Zibby: Or Mary's Marvelous or something like that. 

Emily: Yeah, we had, we did a lovely trip out to, uh, the Hamptons.

Gosh, it was like two years ago. And that was not Audrey. And we had a similar, a friend of, of Audrey's showed us around. We met so many people from East Hampton Springs who really took us in and showed us, and You know, as you're there, you're realizing you can never cover everything to really be authentic and to do it justice, because there's so much history there.

So many locals, so many layers to the, you know, their home. So we really had to make these amalgamations of, you know, Of different, you know, hot spots in that to kind of, so if you know East Hampton, you're like, Oh, just like that, like that reminds me of so and so and so and so and, you know, Stephen Talkhouse or whatever it may be.

Zibby: I was about to say that. 

Emily: It's not that because also it's its own character. So that was a good point. Balance to make, but I'm excited that you were able to pick those out. So that was nice. 

Zibby: Well, yeah inspired by yes Absolutely, and even I mean this is something that so many people talk about locals summers everybody is these monstrosities that are built and totally disrupt the landscape these ugly you know, I feel mean saying ugly houses, but these just very attention getting there's one that just got built on our street and we're all like Oh, are you kidding?

You know, it's like, it just changes the whole thing. And you know, they're usually see through, right? So you're like, why am I looking at this person in their room? You don't, I mean, it's so bizarre to have a see through life. And especially in such a you know, a, a community with, you know, just this lovely history that's supposed to be sort of understated and classic and anyway, no judgment though if you live in one of these houses, mazel tov, you know, whatever, but, you know, it just doesn't like go, like it would be better if they were in their own community, right?

And it all looks like that, but. Anyway, I got off on a tangent. I'm sorry. What do you, what do you think of the houses? 

Audrey: Yeah, I feel like we, we, we found that. I mean, there's this sort of beauty to so many areas of the Hamptons and some of these homes have been there for so long. And, you know, then there's the modern homes.

And so I feel like we, you know, we, we saw that. And, um, I think that there's all sides to it. You know, there's the locals who've been there forever who are like, ah, it's so annoying, these people coming in. But then again, it helps fuel business and, you know, keeps the economy going. And, you know, and then there's the people from New York and all over who come for the summer and, um, have their homes, some of them have, own homes out there.

So they consider themselves locals. So it's just a different classes, there's different homes, there's different people. So it's such an interesting place to write a book about. Because there's just so many different characters and people and things you can focus on. 

Zibby: Well, not, not only do you have the character of the Hamptons, but you have so many that's really an ensemble cast because the family is so big.

Um, I feel like that is hard to pull off how In the writing, did you do that? Like, did you have little cards about each character and the relationships between them? And, you know, what did the younger sister do? Like, at the farmer's market, there was something she liked. 

Emily: Oh, married. 

Audrey: Yeah, environmentalist.

Zibby: Yeah, exactly. I mean, just like all the things and what the older sister would think of then, this and that, you know, like, Just how did that all work? 

Emily: That, again, ignorance is bliss. I think we were like, oh, it's, you know, we know the story well enough that we'll be able to do this. But I think, everyone else knows the story as well.

So you have to do every character deserves its own spot. You can't do any gloss over anybody and especially the sisters. You want to get each one of them agency and have them be inspired by the original character, but also original in a way. And also, you know, what would they do now? They're not. You know, they're not exactly going to be carbon copies because we're living a different time.

So we had in the first draft, I think each sister had a completely different personality than what is in there now. And as we were writing, we're like, Oh, wait a minute. No, she wouldn't, she wouldn't do that. She would be, this would be who she is now. And so it really, they all kind of organically grew out of what a real family structure would look like, which meant that I think maybe our second or third draft was, huge.

I mean, we were, it was so over word count. We were like, well, how are we going to do this? Because you want to make sure each of them has that moment. But so we whittled it down and there were some characters that we were okay. I think there were some characters we had to sacrifice a bit. And I think the Wickham character was a little bit like, you know, he was fine, but I'm like, you know what?

He doesn't deserve that scene. Like that scene deserves to go to Lydia. So that's like, that's, you know, so we're, you know, We had to make some choices, but especially the sisters and the locals, you didn't want to make, it was, we were very careful not to make caricatures of anyone or the, or the Manhattanites coming in.

It was more of like each two groups are fundamentally misunderstanding each other in a lot of ways. Pride and prejudice. So we had to make sure that we were giving both their due. 

Zibby: And tell me about these leggings. That the mom makes 

Audrey: Emily, you do that. 

Emily: Well, I lived in New York for a very long time and I moved down to Texas a few years ago.

And the, the one cultural point that I encountered first down here was a lot of the moms do these mid level marketing schemes. And they're like, Hey, and I'm like, Oh, she's so nice. She's like, Hey, would you be interested in so and so like buying? And I'm like, well, they're all very entrepreneurial. It's amazing.

And then you realize like, oh, these are these, you know, a lot of them, some of them are legitimate. Some of them are just not, but it's a lot of women who just are stay at home moms who are looking for some extra income, but a lot of it becomes almost a character of itself. So I think we were like, you know, if Miss, if Miss Bennett, her main motivation in the original book, yes, she wants to get her kids married.

But really it was about money. Yeah. So I think this has been, it's like when we really boiled it down to what her main motivation was in the original book, it wasn't getting her kids married. It was financial stability. She just wanted everyone taken care of. So if that was the case, and nowadays it wouldn't be to get her daughters married.

She'd be out there hustling to make a living for that financial stability and what better way than to be the queen of mid level marketing schemes. So, um, that was where, and then we just started thinking of, I think we were just started looking at different. Different ones more like what's the most ridiculous one we can think of bedazzled leggings.

Yes. There we go. Okay, so 

Zibby: Any prototype in the works, do you have these 

Audrey: Coming. 

Zibby: Coming. 

Audrey: Coming. 

Zibby: Yes. Maybe. 

Emily: Maybe yeah, maybe we should wear those. Yeah, we should wear those out to the hamptons this summer. 

Audrey: We'll sell that on our site. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Zibby: You'll definitely fly under the radar wearing bedazzled leggings You know?

Uh, you should talk, you should do an event or something with Amanda R. Ward because her book, Lovers and Liars, one of the characters Is caught up in one of these marketing schemes, except she gets in such debt because it's actually, like, they keep making her, not to talk about somebody else's, but she has to invest as one of the salespeople in the scheme, and she ends up being in so much debt she has to, you know, it's, it's like, Oh, that's great.

Anyway, I think that, I think that that would be a good pairing. You should all, you know. 

Emily: Oh my gosh, that's great. All right, hold on. 

Zibby: I can connect you on email or something after. 

Emily: Oh yeah. Please. 

Zibby: I feel like that would be a good conversation. So fun. So, which one of you surfs if, if either of you do? Because that felt pretty realistic.

No. None of us. 

Audrey: Yeah, we're not. I'm a big snowboarder, but not surfing. But I did grow up going to the Hamptons and now going down the Jersey Shore. 

Zibby: Okay. 

Audrey: So I feel like we know the surfing, we watch from afar, surfing community and I'm always impressed by the surfers and I feel like both of our kids are like we want to surf but yeah I don't feel like we don't know.

Emily: We don't know how to surf. My kids have had a couple of surf lessons out in California and I knew their, their surf instructor is a friend of a family friend so the poor guy got some random emails from me. I'm like, he doesn't remember me from two years ago but just to be clear. 

Audrey: Yeah. 

Emily: I'm like, can you answer the question?

Nice guy. So it was lovely. He, he was kind of our, my, like just to double check things, but no, we didn't. Unfortunately.

Zibby: I feel like every, every Venmo sent by an author should be like, and I might be following up. 

Emily: Yes. 

Zibby: That is so true. Like an auto signature, you know, like. You are now on my list of sources for material for my next novel.

Audrey: Yep. We did that. We were researching this. We do have a bunch of people that we just kept calling for things. Really true. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. I'm always so interested in how two different people can write the same book. So how do you, how did you two do this one? 

Audrey: Well, now we have a bit of a system because we, we learned something.

By happy mistakes with Emma and, you know, not all mistakes, all good stuff. But I feel like with Elizabeth, we were like, okay, we need, we know our location. We know what book we want to do. Let's go visit. So we went and we visited and we, you know, did all our research. And then we kind of do a lot of brainstorming on Zoom and Then we have like Google Docs and we have a TV background.

So we're used to working together in television. So we know how to kind of craft stories and, and kind of set up episodes in our mind or chapters. And, um, so we kind of go back and forth and assign them and then share them with each other and change things and make master documents. Like we live on Google Docs, that's it.

You know, and then I just have my headsets on all day. I'm just like, Hey, Emily, Emily, just like. Talking to each other all day. Like that's my top text person that's more than my husband. So yeah, that's, we're just like in it all day. 

Zibby: And you don't alternate chapters or anything? 

Emily: We do. We do. I mean, yeah. You do?

Okay. I think that's a setting. We, we, it's funny 'cause we were just going back and looking at Emma, I think at one point, and I was like, oh, that's right. We had. Assign chapters, but I think as you do the revision you realize we learned early. It's like just get that first draft out Right. So the first draft is alternating chapters and then it's a mishmash this book especially it was mishmash and we're moving things and At one point we were calling it a beautiful mind.

We're like this goes here. This is like, you know, it's like this crazy like, you know, mixing and matching of where everything goes so that was that ultimate now we look at it and I don't remember who wrote what chapter because it was it's a bit of everything but to start that first draft is. 

Audrey: Yeah and half the time you're like oh remember that thing we wrote for chapter four we should move that to this section and we should do and then yeah let's move this and why is this happening here and I think with the first book we got or at least I got very precious about certain things that you were like, I don't want to change.

I want to change this. And with this book, you're like, I understand the process. Now, this doesn't work here. We need to move this. This isn't important. Like this is so I feel like that we figured it out even more with the second book. 

Zibby: Amazing. So what is your, what is your third book? I'm assuming there's one.

You don't know? 

Emily: Hopefully. We don't know yet. I mean, we do, we have some ideas, but we have to, uh, we're still having to talk about it, but we'd love to stay in the Jane Austen world. I mean, I think that that's your, the more we read them and the more we get into it, we're like, these are so translatable to now.

And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but the fact that, you know, 200 years ago, she was writing about the domestic life of women in a way that was compelling. And we're still really relating to it in ways that hasn't changed much is that's the reason we get so many retellings, I think.

And I think people, the more we can do it and explore it, the more we can discuss why things haven't changed or how things will never change. So we're excited to stay in there as long as we can. 

Zibby: You can do other authors to other old, you know, from that time period, you know, Yes. Not like just if you run out of Jane Austen material.

Emily: I would love to be at the point. I would love to run out of Jane Austen material. That'd be a great position to be in. 

Zibby: What about destinations? Or maybe it depends on the plot. Probably. You'd have to see. 

Audrey: I feel like we do love this New York world. So, but then, you know, branching out a little bit, but we like, I think we're, you know, we both lived in New York for so long and you know, I feel like everything about the city we kind of gravitate towards, so I think we'd like to stay in that coast, in East Coast maybe. I think, yeah, open to things. 

Emily: And I think it's also much easier and in a way that we didn't appreciate with Emma, that New York really reflects that Regency England in a way that you have classes smushed together, and they're forced to interact, because especially now in Texas, I realized it's very segregated.

You have very, like, wealthy communities that do not want to interact with anyone else. People don't leave their small neighborhoods. So you don't have these kind of smashing together of of disparate economic socioeconomic, you know, communities in a way that you do in New York. So I think that that's just a really interesting thing to explore via Jane Austen.

And so I think that that we fell into that by accident, but it was a happy accident. So we're happy to continue to exploit it. 

Zibby: What part of Texas are you in? 

Emily: Dallas. 

Zibby: Oh, I was just there. 

Emily: I literally was actually, so I was about to get in my car to come down and see you. And my daughter's like, are you coming to my orchestra show?

And I was like, are you kidding me? And then I was like, are your final orchestra show? By the way, the kids last day of school is today. It's not tomorrow. I just realized. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Audrey: We're so different up here. 

Emily: I'm so behind. Anyway, but yes, I was like. 

Zibby: We had a concert last night. 

Audrey: You know, we had ours last week.

Emily: I just feel behind the eight ball, but she did wait until an hour and a half before. And I was like, okay, great. Oh yeah, fantastic. 

Audrey: Did not have a crisp white shirt. Yep. 

Emily: Oh, exactly. She's like, I have to wear all black. And I'm like. 

Audrey: White shirt, black. Nope, we don't have that. 

Zibby: Yesterday, we need black shoes. I was like, what?

Audrey: Where? What? What? 

Zibby: It's, it's, it's 830 in the morning. Like, what? I have, I'm busy. 

Audrey: Yep. We're all there. 

Zibby: I was sending desperate texts. Hey, could someone find spare black sneakers? Oh my gosh. 

Emily: Oh. Oh. Oh. Love parenthood. Love it. Love it. 

Zibby: And then my daughter's like, I'm like, Oh, we're going to the dentist after school.

And she's like, could you give me a little more warning? And I'm like, I completely forgot. Like, you think I knew? I didn't know either. You're lucky. I even remembered. 

Emily: That's why. Yeah. When they're like, when they make requests about when they're reminded of things, and I was like, you're lucky. I'm even, you know, I made the appointment for you.

Zibby: I feel like that. I'm like, you know, it's how do your kids feel about your books? 

Audrey: They love it. I feel like they, they all think, oh, well at least mine think, oh, I can write a book. Like this is, why can't I write a book? So, you know, they're both working on, my son's working on a Hamilton book. Because we saw Hamilton, my little one, you know, for school.

And then my older one is like, trying to write fantasy novels. So they're all, you know. you know, I feel like they think this is a possibility, which is the coolest thing. To see your mom doing something or, you know, I had taking, you know, when we first started writing, we couldn't get jobs because of COVID.

And, you know, there wasn't a lot of TV jobs. And we just kind of fell into this and started writing together and to kind of take a situation that wasn't so great and turn it into something, that's amazing, and, and hopefully being kind of successful in it. You know, I feel like that's a great thing for our kids to see.

So, yeah. 

Emily: It's also really nice and interesting that they, my kids at least don't see it as a novelty. I think as we started when they were so young that it's like, They're like, Oh, okay, you got another book. Like, it's not, it's, it's just what mom does. And I think that that's lovely and also very humbling in a way.

You're like, no, you don't understand. This is really cool. And they're like, okay, mom. But I think that there is, it's, it's interesting that they, that's just who I am and what I do. And I, I think that's what's cool. I, I think that is lovely because, yeah, like Audrey said, it's, it makes everything that they want to do more attainable, uh, in a way that I don't even think they appreciate, but I think me and my husband definitely do.

So. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Even like access to other authors, I'm like, you guys don't understand. Yes. This would have been my dream come true. I mean, it's my dream come true now, but for them, you know, 

Emily: So true. 

Zibby: Are there books that, do you have the same reading taste in books? The two of you. 

Audrey: Yeah. I sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like there's so many little genres.

So I think in general, like my husband would be like, yeah, you guys read the same books. I'm like, Oh no, you know, I like magical realism and Emily likes, you know, so I feel like, but they're all this, you know, there's all like, you know, usually a happy ending and, you know, some kind of love story I think usually, but, and I tend to gravitate a little bit more towards fantasy, but yeah, I feel like.

But we do recommend books to each other and TV shows and, you know, just media in general, like you have to check this out. So I feel like we're kind of always recommending things to each other. 

What'd you say? 

Emily: Absolutely. I think so. And I think there's always, I think because we have a lot of overlap. The Venn diagram is, is, but there is some things on the outskirts that we're, you know, we don't share, but that's, I think, good because I find things via you that you would never that, you know, so I think it's, it's, it's great.

And I think the more actually that we read similarly, Yeah. And also a part, it makes what we're writing more interesting. I think, you know, as we're coming up with other ideas that we want to do in the future, you can see that we're evolving in what we like, but us coming together, it's really cool to see how it kind of evolves, stories evolve together.

And I think most writers, I know I've, you know, I think both of us found writing because we were doing it on our own. And you're just talking to people in your own head. It's a very solitary exercise. And I think doing it with Audrey means we get to just brainstorm together. And really that just means it's like four or five hours on zoom like Just like chatting about nothing and then I'm like, that was work and it was and it's really important.

So it's nice. 

Audrey: You tell an old story and then you're like, wait, maybe we should use that. 

Emily: Yeah. 

Zibby: Like, okay. I can't believe talking to you guys is work. I mean, this is like ridiculous. What a great job. This whole thing is. When is the gig going to be up? You know, right? 

Audrey: Just keep it going. Keep it going. 

Zibby: Oh, it's such a tough day.

I have to have like a lot of conversations with people I really like. Oh, woe is me. I don't know. Really. Yeah. It's rough. It's so true. So what advice would you both have for aspiring authors? 

Emily: Gosh. I think the number one thing we have learned during this process is do not, you know, and I think that we, especially with Emma, is that you just write something and you're like, this is it.

This is great. And I think that also means that a lot of authors, especially who are just getting into it, get really frustrated because maybe that first attempt wasn't exactly what they wanted it to be or something like that. And I think, I think Neil Gaiman was asked, how much of your first draft makes it into your final novel?

And he's like, like, I think it was like 2%. Like, it's like, there's not, you know, you have to give yourself some grace. And I think that's the one thing I've learned through this process. And I would tell any authors like, give yourself grace. Like it's the first draft isn't supposed to be good. It's not supposed to be great.

And you're writing now is not going to look like you're writing in a year. So just, it's, it's not a destination. It's a journey of being a writer and getting better and evolving. So just, just keep writing. It seems very basic, but I think just that idea of just writing Whether or not you think anyone's going to read it just write and you will get better and read as well I think. 

Audrey: And I feel like what we look what I learned for this book too Is that you know when you have beta readers?

It's they're so helpful to have someone read them over and I feel like we talked about this to Emily like that You know, it's so helpful when people tell you what is wrong but they don't need to give you suggestions on how to fix it. Like they just need to be like, I don't get this part. So I think that's helpful.

So when you, you know, give someone something to read, you're like, I don't want you to change this or I don't want your ideas, but I want you to tell me where this doesn't make sense. Just put a big like question mark or an X or something. Then you can say, oh, this, the story's not making sense. I will fix it how I want.

But I, I want to know that this isn't resonating the right way. So I feel like that we learned. 

Emily: Yeah. Listen, listen, when tells you, listen, when someone tells you what's not working and then stop listening when they tell you how to fix it, I think is like what we had heard. And it's so true. It's like, you know, you will know how to fix it because you know your story better than anyone.

But other people have that objectivity being like, this isn't working. And there were a couple of points in this book where we were like, it's fine. And your mom, Audrey Elizabeth, was like, this actually might not be working. And she was right. And we fixed this part. And I think it, you know, the book is a hundred times better because of it.

So yeah, it's really true. 

Zibby: It is also good life advice. 

Audrey: Yes. Yes. Yes. That is. You know what? That really is. 

Emily: Oh my gosh. That hit hard on a Thursday morning. You're right. Very true. Yes. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. So what are the events? Like where are you? When is this coming out again? What is the pub date? Oh, August. 

Audrey: August. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh.

We're doing this so early. And meanwhile, we're talking about like the end of school and people are going to be like, what? We're going back to school. What are you talking about? 

Emily: So true. 

Zibby: I know, right? 

Audrey: Especially in Texas. 

Zibby: Yeah. Yeah. Good luck going back to school everyone. Sorry for this delay. In August, where are you going to be?

Where can people find you? 

Audrey: The Hamptons. We're going to the Hamptons. We'll be there. We'll be in the Hamptons. We're doing a lot of um, podcasts and we'll be in Manhattan and maybe California and definitely Texas. 

Zibby: Yeah. Awesome. 

Emily: Yeah. Everything's still getting scheduled, but I would definitely check out our Instagram because we're going to be posting a lot about our different events we have coming up.

But yes, there's a signing in Manhattan on the week of publication. And then the fall, that weekend of August 10th and 11th, we will be out in East Hampton and uh, doing some stuff. So we're excited. 

Audrey: Yeah. But if you go to audrey. ann. emily on our Instagram, we have everything on there. 

Zibby: I feel like I follow you both separately.

Oh no. 

Audrey: You do. I think you do follow separately, but I think you also follow. 

Zibby: Do I? Okay, good. I'll, I'll, I'll double check. 

Audrey: I know it's a little confusing. Our main thing is the Audrey and Emily. 

Zibby: Okay. Sorry. I'll get there. If I'm not, I'll check again. Okay. Congratulations, Elizabeth of East Hampton. I appreciate the book for me.

And you know, I'm looking forward to, you know, I don't know. You already did the Upper East Side, so what can I say? Okay. 

Emily: You've got to, you've got to give us the rest of your autobiography so we can figure out what the next location is. 

Zibby: Yeah, maybe Santa Monica? Could you do the books? 

Audrey: I love Santa Monica.

Zibby: Yeah. Okay. Something with an S? I don't know. Okay. All right. Have a great weekend.