Zibby Books author alert! Megan Tady returns to the podcast to discuss BLUEBIRD DAY, a delightfully heartwarming tale of an estranged mother-daughter Olympic skiing duo who finally face the bumps in their relationship when an avalanche in a Swiss village forces them together. Megan describes the real-life avalanche that inspired the story and then shares the pressures and joys of writing about competitive female athletes, complex family dynamics, and the themes of identity and ambition. She also reveals her personal connection to competitive sports and touches on mental health, toxic relationships, and the sacrifices of pursuing elite athletic careers.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Meg. You're back on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm so excited about your new book, Bluebird Day.

Congratulations. Yay. 

Megan: Thank you, Zibby. It's so great to be here again. 

Zibby: I am loving watching your career sort of progress, and I know we're publishing your book, but like, it's amazing, as a sort of caring outsider to as like a reader. It's just so fun to see you develop and your characters come to life and all of that.

So I am taking a lot of joy in this. 

Megan: Oh, well, it's, it's all, you know, I credit you. So thank you so much for giving me another opportunity. It's been amazing. 

Zibby: Oh, well, if it, if it wasn't me, it would have been someone else. So I'm just glad to be along for the ride. Why don't you tell listeners a little bit about Bluebird Day and first, like where this idea came from?

Megan: Sure. So Bluebird Day is about Claudine and Wiley Potts, who are estranged mother and daughters, and they used to be ski racers. They've been estranged for many years. Claudine was an Olympian and Wiley was bred to be an Olympian, but she did not want to do the sport. She quit to go to art school. It caused a rift and they haven't been speaking.

And now they're stuck in this Swiss village with an avalanche socks in their town. And the only place to stay is a youth hostel with bunk beds. Claudine has a secret she wants to keep buried. Wiley wants to know more about her mom and her past, and it's all coming to light. And this story, in 2018, there was an actual avalanche that socked in the town of Zermatt, Switzerland, and I remember seeing it, you know, 13, 000 tourists were stranded, and I just sort of filed that away because I was like, God, that is such a fascinating thing to have happened to all these people.

What was it like to be on vacation there? How did people's trips change? What if there was no place to stay? And if you were in charge there, how are you notifying everyone that they were stuck for all this time? So I sort of filed that away. And when it came time to write this book again, I, I really was like, okay, this Switzerland piece is going to be the, the piece that forces this mom and daughter together in this sort of closed room scenario and, and pushes them back together.

And, you know, a lot of hijinks ensue. And they also begin to get to know each other again, which felt really lovely. 

Zibby: Oh, I love that. It is sort of a nightmare thinking that the place you go for vacation could ultimately be like the worst thing that's ever happened. I think about that too whenever I read stories like that, like tsunami and like that horrible in Thailand.

And like, you know, I'm always like, well, Maybe we shouldn't go there. Well, maybe we should cancel that trip, but let's just stay home. Stay, not that home is ever, ever safer, but like it doesn't, why add unnecessary risk? 

Megan: Well, it's so funny. I ended up interviewing some people who were stuck there and they had a blast.

They, you know, they couldn't ski anymore, but everybody was safe and the town turned it into this massive party and people were getting to know other people from all over the world. They were all in it together. It wasn't what they like would have chosen, but in the end they had an amazing experience and amazing memory.

So I didn't want to put them into like a tsunami danger, but you know, like there were a lot of silver linings, I think, for the people that were there.

Zibby: It's like a snow day for everybody. 

Megan: Yes. But many days in a row. 

Zibby: Many snow days. Right. 

Megan: Yes. 

Zibby: But like where you have to take time off of your regular life and you might as well enjoy like the..

Megan: Exactly.

Zibby: The youthful elements of all the snow and like the hot chocolate and all the, all that. 

Megan: Right. 

Zibby: As long as there's, you know, food. 

Megan: Yeah. 

Zibby: So I love that as a device for framing the story. But your story, of course, is about the relationships and how our relationships with family and friends friends and everyone can really evolve over time, sometimes in ways that, you know, go together in parallel and some diverge and all of that.

And the, the mother daughter sort of competitiveness is something that I don't feel like we read about as much. And I feel like Wiley, uh, went another way, in part, like, how do I compete with my mom? Like, here, you know, let me just like reject this. And tell me a little bit about that dynamic and how you structured that relationship and what about it like drew you to it?

Megan: I think right now there's such a spotlight on female athletes. You know, they've all been doing this amazing stuff for years, but right now there's a lot of spotlight on women. Women who are doing amazing things in tennis and soccer and all these sports, Caitlin Clark basketball. So I wanted to lean into female athletics and competitiveness and sort of mine what you do with that competitive streak when you're in your forties and fifties and you're no longer, you know, the elite athlete.

Where do you sink that energy? And I feel like I'm a competitive person. I grew up playing sports and, you know, put me in front of a board game and I was like, you know, bring it. And I still sort of feel that way. So I wanted to give Claudine this sense of competitiveness, but she doesn't know where to sink it.

And then for Wiley, she's got,.. 

Zibby: Wait, before you go to Wiley, what sports, what sports did you play? 

Megan: Oh, I played soccer mostly. And I was like, wanted to play, you know, as far as I could take it. And I ended up getting injured and wasn't able to play anymore. So I could kind of tap into a little bit of that grief that happens when you grow up playing something for years.

I mean, I was so dedicated. And so what do you do with that? How do you change it? And there's a little bit of that grief, both in Wiley and in Claudine. 

Zibby: Yep. 

Megan: And for Wiley, she's just got even more talent than her mom, and yet she doesn't feel that sense of drive and that sense of competitiveness. She kind of shrinks from it.

And I wanted to look at for her, What do you do when you're really good at something, but you don't necessarily want to do it? And, you know, like I have a girlfriend who's an amazing artist. And for years I was like, you've got to, you need an agent and you need to be in galleries and you need to, you know, like all this acclaim.

And she was sort of like, I just like creating art. I don't need to do it for any other reason. And I was sort of horrified by that. And yet I was also intrigued. You know, what, what do you do with something when you're really great at it, but you don't need this outside affirmation? And Wiley not only doesn't need it, but she then doesn't really want to do it.

It starts to really scare her and causes anxiety in her. So she has to buck up against the vision that her mom has of her life and go the other way, which takes a lot of bravery for her. So I was then able to kind of pull those two threads and, and have them butt heads over the visions that they have for their own lives and for each other's lives.

And that was a lot of fun material to play with. 

Zibby: Wow. I love that. I know. That you don't need positive affirmation is, is something I really need to digest. 

Megan: Me too, still. 

Zibby: I'm like, so, like, everything I do, I'm like, you know, tree falling in the woods. I'm like, nobody, if nobody saw this and I can't tell, like, somebody, even my husband or something, like, did it happen, does it matter?

Megan: It's really true. I feel the same way. And I, I. I feel like I've been doing a lot of searching around my own, you know, I, I, through this book, I've, I've read a lot about mental health and being an athlete, being an elite athlete, and then reflecting a lot on my own mental health of being an author. And they actually are quite similar, you know, what controlling what you can only control and, and, and, and, When the Olympics were happening, I was reading a lot about, uh, of athletes coming out and saying, you know, I'm protecting my mental health and here's how.

And sort of being like, okay, like I can take some tips from these, from these people who are able to sort of block out the noise and do what they love best. And then, you know, sort of like come out of this trance like moment. And I'm still, I'm still learning. 

Zibby: Wait, what is some of the advice? I need the advice.

Give it to me. 

Megan: I know. I do too. I mean, it's, yeah, I think it's like control what you can control and, you know, like think about your, I don't want to say temper your expectations, but aren't you always stunned watching the Olympics knowing that someone who's like doing a running a relay, there's at least three runners there that know they're not probably gonna win.

They're the last ones, and yet they're still out there giving it their all. They've been training for this race, this one race, almost their entire lives. The odds are against them, and they're still going for it. And I think, as an author, I've definitely realized Holy cow. Every Tuesday, there are dozens of books that are flooding out to readers.

We're all sort of jockeying against each other. We like each other, but we're also like, want to break out. And it's rare for someone to break out and yet you're still trying your best. So how do you stay sane as you're doing that? I don't know if I even have all the answers, but I am on the quest to learn it and to, to like, break out, be better at it, you know? 

Zibby: It is hard if you, I mean, that is such an interesting image, thinking about the books coming out almost like, you know, as if each book is on a set of skis, like heading down the mountain. And how do you break out? It's true. It's almost impossible. But that, that desire, You have to hang on to that, or you might not even get on the mountain to begin with, right?

There has to be something in you that wants to go on the, on the journey, even if you get injured or something happens. Or I remember watching the playoffs of the World Series. My husband watches sports like nonstop. And, It was like the bottom of the ninth or something and the Mets were still like trying really hard.

And like even the announcer was like, Oh, these Mets, you know, it's not looking good. They were down like whatever a lot. And they were still like trying and getting, you know, it's like, why give up? Like, because you can't give up because you have to try your best regardless of the outcome. Like sometimes you have a tougher competitor and sometimes you, but all you can do is try your best.

And that's, and never. Like, stop until the last second, so. 

Megan: And for Claudine, you know, she has the hard driving father who's really pushing her, but she also has this innate drive in her to be the best at anything she does. You know, she was sort of born that way. She's wired that way. And for Wiley, she doesn't.

And ski racing, I was drawn to that sport in particular because it is one of the most dangerous sports you could do. It is just wild. You are going 90 miles an hour down, you know, you're like a rocket going down a slippery, icy mountain face. So if you don't love it, and you're not driven by it, It's very impossible to, to want to do it.

And so Wiley just cannot will herself to do the thing that Claudine did and wanted her to do. You know? 

Zibby: Yep. Yeah. You also have this other thread about toxic relationships and what do you do if you find yourself in a relationship. a relationship where the person you're with is not always necessarily rooting for you for your own sake and wanting you to like self actualize, but talk a little bit about that relationship and, and navigating it.

Megan: Yeah. Do you mean Wiley with her boyfriend Dan? 

Zibby: Yes. 

Megan: Yeah. So, so Wiley starts off with a boyfriend, Dan, who she feels is really her safe space and they've been, they've been training to do this bizarre fitness competition in Berlin And he sort of sees her as his ticket, you know, she's just, again, got this, she's just an incredibly, you know, physically gifted specimen of a person.

Uh, so they've been training for many years for this competition. They barely eat any sugar, you know, like life is very, very strict for them. And I think underneath that she's yearning to break out and she's broken away from her mom and yet here she is replaying the same scenario in her romantic relationship, which like she's not the first person to have ever done that, you know, and to be kind of unaware that she is now recreating these old patterns because, you know, we often seek out the thing that's We're most familiar with, even if it's not right for us.

So she's in this, this sort of toxic situation. She's not totally realizing that that's what it is. But as she gets some space from him, he gets injured, no spoiler. And then that's why she's in Switzerland with her mom. And she gets space from him and she begins to see this other way of being in the world that's more gentle and more relaxed and is more her.

And she's eating pastries and she's just like, Whoa, I want everything with a crumb structure. What have I been denying myself? And, you know, I wanted her to really have this transformation where yes, she had, she had tried to voice who she really was to her mom, but then it was too scary to fully do that.

So she got with Dan and now as the, as the novel progresses, she's finally self actualizing. 

Zibby: Yeah. Amazing. It can be, it can be hard to get out of relationships like that, you know, and I, I love that you put that into fiction and sometimes it takes stepping away to see some of the things that are right in front of you, right?

Megan: Exactly. Exactly. 

Zibby: And you also have the competitiveness of friendship and you know, I guess fellow athletes as well, but you know, that's another part of why Claudine is drawn to Switzerland to begin with. It's trying to find an old friend. Well, I don't want to give plot points away, but finding an old friend and there is another plot device that you use, which I really enjoyed about having someone wanting to, you know, unearth all the secrets, right?

And having this fictitious sub stack come out in the middle and wanting to, she wants to protect her secrets, Claudine, and she knows who might be. Spells. 

Megan: Right. Right. Yeah. Claudine has this old friend, Zosal, who was on the ski racing circuit with her for years and was her best friend for many years and they've had a falling out.

And Zosal was a different type of competitor than Claudine, which really rocked her. You know, she was someone who had a, a better, just better mental health around the sport and competition and could give her all and yet not really just sort of self blog herself if she didn't perform well and Claudine is really sort of jealous of that and sees herself as being flawed I think Claudine is also in a framework a very black and white framework when you're an athlete you're either a winner or a loser.

Even if you lose by a tenth of a second, you've lost the race. So she's also still sort of operating in that framework is sort of I'm either a good mom or a bad mom. I'm a good mom or I'm a good friend or a bad friend. And she's taken that that black and whiteness and put it on the rest of her life. And not allowed herself a lot of grace and not allowed herself to be human and, you know, to be human is to fail, you know, I'm a mom now.

I'm like constantly messing up. I'm constantly trying to repair and that's very scary for Claudine because the only thing she knows is when you mess up, you lose. And when you lose, you actually get less love. When she, you know, got less love from her father. So it's a very scary prospect. So I wanted to expand that for her and let her start to, you know, burst out of that framework and give herself more grace and the way she operates in her life.

And then when she does that, she's able then to give grace to the people around her. 

Zibby: So knowing what you know about professional sports and competition and mental health and all the examples we have in the media these days, like Simone Biles and people, you know, dropping out and the tennis, now I'm blanking on the tennis player's name who stepped aside for 

Megan: Naomi Osaka.

Zibby: Yes. Thank you. Naomi Osaka. As a mom, like if your children displayed talent in a sport, would you want them to become professional athletes or not? 

Megan: That's a great question. You know, it's so funny. My little guy has six and he's already a really good soccer player and we're psyched to see how, how talented he is, but we're also excited to see his passion and his drive around it.

Are we taking him out every weekend and like drilling him with soccer balls? You know, sort of like the, the Williams sisters. No, I, I, and there's something wrong with that, but that's just not what we're doing. Do we want them to be a professional athlete? I mean, Maybe not, you know, I interviewed, I interviewed several former Olympic ski racers and they don't regret their careers, but there was a lot of sacrifice.

And one skier I spoke with who won a silver medal in the moguls, he said his first, he knew he had had the sort of run of his life. And the first thought he had as he crossed the finish line was, Oh, no, now what, you know, what is he going to do with the rest of his life? Where is he going to put his focus?

And it caused a lot of depression. Like it really, even though he's like victorious, he's now, he, he took a while to unwind. So maybe not Zibby. I don't know. I don't think I have the full answer. I mean, if my son is like, actually, I'm going to be at the next Ronaldo. We're also like, huh. Okay. That's why it's that beach house, you know?

Zibby: Yeah, I, I wonder that too. We have good friends and one of their, their son is, is a really gifted skier and they're, you know, wrestling with that too. Do we have an obligation in a way to see his immense talent through, even though that requires a lot of family sacrifice too? I mean, kids sports is a family decision, right?

You have to invest so much time and time away from other things, and sometimes other kids to foster that talent. And to what end? I don't know. These are all the questions. 

Megan: Yeah. I interviewed a freestyle skier who her family sacrificed a lot. You know, they moved to Colorado from Massachusetts. They sort of, you know, just changed their whole life.

It was a lot of money. And she, the pressure that she then felt to sort of pay them back in a way and to actualize this vision. It just got to be too much. And it was hard for her to reckon with, gosh, I don't think I actually want to do this and to begin to say it out loud. And she's still, you know, she ended up quitting the sport and I think she's still unwinding from that and letting herself off the hook and saying, like, that just wasn't for me.

And I think some people have to go almost all the way, you know, when you're at the level of Olympia of an Olympian, there's, So much that actually separates you from an incredible athlete and like the top top elite athletes, even on the World Cup circuit, the people who are crossing the finish line consistently and the people who are just on the circuit.

There's so much that, that is different between those people. And part of that is, is mental and the mindset to be able to withstand the pressure. 

Zibby: Wow. Well, this is fascinating. I don't think I've ever interviewed anybody who has. Then interviewed more people, particularly in contemporary fiction, like you hear this a lot in historical fiction or maybe not first person interviews, but research like deep dive research.

And of course the nonfiction books, but to write about an industry, how, like how many interviews do you think you did? How many people did you speak to? 

Megan: Well, I definitely also spoke to folks from Zermatt, Switzerland, you know, that I, I talked with the head of tourism there and I just, I have a journalism background.

So I love interviewing people and I just was like, what was that like to go around? And he was like, I went around with a bullhorn and had to be like, you're stuck here for five days. And I interviewed the people who were taking helicopters and evacuating folks from Zermatt and realizing that, wow, they could only do 500 people a day.

You know, there was really fascinating things I learned. And I also chatted with a sports psychologist to help me unpack what Wiley was going through. You know, what you're going through when you've been bred for gold and you don't want to do it. And you've got all this pressure and he helped me sort of see.

See and, and begin to shape her character. So, you know, I mean, all told maybe a dozen people, but I just loved it. And I, I, I used to ski I'm not, I'm not a great skier anymore. So I wanted to make sure I had that world, right. And that I represented it in the right way. And I was also lucky enough to interview a skier who was on the world cup circuit as one of the moms.

It's very rare to bring your kid as a ski racer on the circuit, and she's one of the only people who has done it. So what was that like to cart your kid around and rent a special van? So that, that also added a lot of color to the book. Oh my gosh. 

Zibby: So this, it raises so many questions. I feel like this book is going to be such a great entry point into discussing so many different current issues that people are, are in the zeitgeist already, which is fabulous.

What do you want people to take away when they put the book down? 

Megan: I think I want people to see a flawed mom and daughter who are trying to learn how to forgive each other and themselves, and that forgiveness isn't always linear, you know, it happens in fits and starts and It's not just always like, okay, I forgive you.

We're done. Like it's often an evolution and it takes a while. And that estrangement, I know there's a lot, there's like a trend now of like no contact with parents sort of thing. I don't think estrangement is always the worst thing to happen. You know, it, it often can mean you're, you're sort of stopping, you're hitting a pause button and you're going to your respective, you know, corners so that you don't do more damage.

And you're hopefully Reflecting and working on yourself to come back together and, you know, approach your relationship in a new way. And I write about this a little in the book that I think the best thing I can hope for with my daughter is that we begin to later in life, see each other as people, not just a mom, which I think is a one dimensional role or just a daughter, but like, who are we as humans.

Because then we allow ourselves to make mistakes and then we give ourselves the grace to apologize and repair. So I hope there's, that there's some inspiration there. And I also hope people, the book's also a love letter to winter and to the changing of winter as we face climate change. So I hope people are like, okay, like I, I want to do more in my small way to protect and care for.

Wow, I'm saying this, it's like 75 degrees today. 

Zibby: I know. So it could not be more relevant. Well, Meg, congratulations. The book was great. You seamlessly integrated all of that information into a very cohesive narrative. Like you wouldn't know, like I had to find this from there and like that's like, you know, you did a fabulous job and it was immersive and fun to read, but also makes you think about your own relationships.

And how much pressure are you putting on your kids? How much did you get? And maybe it's not about sports. Maybe it's about something totally different, but I feel like a lot of people can relate to sort of parental expectations and, and how do we pay that forward in a way as well. So just so many, so many fun issues to discuss.

Great book club book. 

Megan: Thank you, Zibby. 

Zibby: Thanks, Meg. Congratulations. 

Megan: Thank you. Talk to you soon. 

Zibby: Okay.