Bestselling author Rochelle B. Weinstein returns to the podcast to discuss her intricate, suspenseful, and completely redemptive new book, WE ARE MADE OF STARS. Rochelle shares the grueling but rewarding process of writing this book (she calls it her "bad boyfriend book"), as it features six points of view and interwoven character arcs. She dives into the novel’s premise—eight strangers spend a transformative week at an idyllic North Carolina inn—and explores the themes of connection, reinvention, and self-discovery. Rochelle also reflects on her participation in ON BEING JEWISH NOW, the challenges of being a Jewish author in today’s climate, and how her writing process has evolved over time.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome back, Rochelle. Thanks so much for coming. Now it's called Totally Booked with Zibby, so thanks for coming on this new iteration of the show to talk about We Are Made of Stars.

Congratulations. 

Rochelle: Thank you, and thank you for having me again. 

Zibby: I know, you have to stop writing so many books, like, I can't keep clearing all these spots for you. Are you, it's one every year, right? Is that what you're on? That schedule? 

Rochelle: Um, I don't know. I'm not on that. That's my own stuff that I, my self imposed,.. 

Zibby: Self imposed idea.

Rochelle: But I, I'm going to slow down. 

Zibby: Okay. I mean, you don't have to. I'm just, I was joking. 

Rochelle: It just happened this way that they were coming out so fast, but I just turned in my ninth book. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. 

Rochelle: My agent. 

Zibby: Wow. Congratulations. 

Rochelle: Thank you. 

Zibby: You call this your bad boyfriend book. Why? 

Rochelle: This book was impossible. I did this to myself, which most women do.

I set out to have, there are 10 characters in the book and I went in six different point of views and it was literally an. absolute nightmare to keep track of all the different characters while making sure I was following the arc of the story. I literally had six poster boards stapled together on my dining room floor with every character with an index card detailing, you know, what the objective of the scene was.

It was just, it was one of those hair pulling experiences. And It wrecked me and I didn't think I was ever going to finish it. I thought I was going to give up and walk away. Bad boyfriend. 

Zibby: Why didn't you? 

Rochelle: Oh, I just love this story. And now I guess I love it so much more because of all the hard work that went into it, it actually came together.

So that's been gratifying. Yeah, I guess. All that hard work makes you appreciate what you've, what you've put out there. 

Zibby: So talk about the whole setting and the premise of the book and then why you picked the characters you did and what we're supposed to learn as a reader from the story. Like, what do you want us to take from it?

Rochelle: Well, first of all, we are made of stars, all of us, and I think we're all connected in some big and beautiful way. And I'll start by giving the elevator pitch. Uh, this is seven days. It's eight strangers and lives forever, uh, in the summer and lives forever changed. So I always like to say it's think white Lotus meets Virgin river.

And I chose the stories about an in, it's a real life landing in, in, in North Carolina that I've been to several times. I've actually never stayed there, but they have, the owners are. A husband and wife, he's a gourmet chef and visitors of the area can go make a reservation for an evening at this magnificent communal table in this, you know, gourmet kitchen.

And sometimes you can go with your 10 best friends or you can go with complete strangers. So we've done it multiple times with family, with friends. Sometimes we're with strangers and I've always been completely amazed by the dynamic at the table. They don't allow any hard alcohol, everything is included.

They serve fine wine, red and white all night long. So imagine you have strangers, you have friends, you have wine flowing. And what happens at the table when people, you know, find out that they have a connection from someone in high school. And when I interviewed the in owners, they told me so many incredible stories about like an 80 year old couple that found out that they were high school and high school boyfriend and girlfriend years back and then ended up being together years later.

So I just saw such potential for an incredible story with with connection and what happens when we sort of let ourselves go and in a comfortable, beautiful, peaceful setting. So I set the story there and I changed it to a dynamic where you have to check in for a week, and these eight guests are together the entire week, and they're hiking beautiful North Carolina, but they always end their days at the table.

There's always just stimulating conversation and connection and getting to know each other. So we have these strangers and friends, because we have two couples that are best friends from college. We have Leo and Penny Shea. Okay, so we have eight characters and two couples are best friends from college, and there's been a little bit of a rift in the relationship, and one of the couples is going to be disclosing something big at the table that, that week.

Then we have Leo and Penny Shea. Who he's an he's an actor a famous actor and he's just gone through an crazy scandal publicly and he and his wife penny got married at the inn 25 years ago and they promised that they would come back for their for their enter for their special anniversary. Well here we are and they're on the cusp of a divorce and the in owners are like, please come back please come back. So we don't know if penny and leo are even going to show up at the very beginning and what's going to happen the course of their marriage. Then we have Rosalie and Cassidy Banks, a mother daughter, and Cassidy is the overbearing mom, and she is incredibly hard on her daughter, and she's 15, and it's, and Rosalie, every year they switch off what's, where they're going to spend their summer vacation, Rosalie picked the end this year, she has a big secret to share with her mom, and interestingly, all these characters and all these backstories get woven together, hence my, my storyboard, which was miles long, but weaving these stories together and the connections was incredibly challenging, but so much fun in the end.

Zibby: I'm so glad. I mean, the end result is wonderful and it doesn't feel like you struggled, you know, like you can't tell from the writing that it doesn't work or, you know, and all the different viewpoints are clear and interesting and page flipping, inducing. So that's great. I mean, what an effort. 

Rochelle: I'll never do it again.

I'll never do. I'll never have a six point of views again. Like it's interesting that the book that I turned in was actually, I was going for one point of view and of course it ends up being two points of view, but I'll never do six again. 

Zibby: But it's good to have a creative challenge, right? 

Rochelle: I agree. I agree.

I agree. Never say never. Right? 

Zibby: Never say never. So which of the dynamics, I mean, I'm sure all of them relate to in some way, but Which one do you most relate to, if at all, in your own personal life? 

Rochelle: Gosh, you know, you probably know this, you're a writer. You know, there's little pieces of you in your, in your work, and there's, if there's, there's pieces of who you are and pieces of who you want to be, so there's different attributes and different characters.

Characteristics of all of these people that I relate to or I aspire to the storyline that that I had the most fun with was Rosalie and Cassidy because Cassidy is just such a train wreck and I, I love writing. It's, this is so strange. I have sons. I love writing teenage girls and which is something I'm actually thinking about foraying into the future.

I just love capturing their voices and they're, they're just trying to find themselves. And I think I'm stuck in my adolescent 15 year old Rochelle Weinstein, Rochelle Berger body. So it's so easy to me, for me to tap into that. And I just love exploring it. But that relationship was. And I've seen from some of the early reviews, readers are just really enjoying the dynamic between Rosalie and Cassidy.

Zibby: Maybe the two of them become their own book. 

Rochelle: Maybe. Maybe. 

Zibby: I had a similar discussion with Cynthia Weiner, who wrote A Gorgeous Excitement earlier today, about how I feel like I am still 18, like, inside me, like, the memories I have of high school are so much clearer than in my 20s, like, I feel those feelings still, I can conjure them up in two seconds.

I don't know why that is. 

Rochelle: I think they're very, they're very real feelings. I think they're just a part of who we are and who we become. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Rochelle: And it also I think it has to be a pivotal moment in our lives. Like I always wonder like what happened to me and you at 15 and 18 specifically that shaped us and those memories because I do believe it has to be something significant whether we're even aware of it or not.

Zibby: Yeah. 

Rochelle: We can go into some therapy together. 

Zibby: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That was funny. My daughter recently told me that one of her good friends has a new boyfriend and right away I was just like, Oh my gosh. I was like, I had the hardest time when my friend, when my best friend like had a really serious boyfriend.

Like that was so hard for me and I know I should be happy for her and I was happy for her, but like. You know, and she was like, really, you know, because like, you're not supposed to say that sort of like, oh, right. You can't admit that to your friend, but I don't know. I feel like all those feelings right there.

Rochelle: You bring up, you bring up a very important feeling or, or. It's dynamic because I think as authors, we also feel that about when you see your friend hit New York Times or you see your friend get a movie deal, you are so completely happy for the people around you and you want them to achieve every goal.

But at the same time, and we talk about this a lot. Is there's, there's room inside of us for both emotions and you can want that for somebody else and want that for yourself at the same time. And I think it's so incredibly healthy to admit that, you know, to say, I don't want that for myself is, is not being honest with yourself.

So I think it's very freeing actually to admit to that. 

Zibby: Yeah. We are all complex characters. And Rochelle, you also contributed this year to On Being Jewish Now. Thank you so much for that. 

Rochelle: Thank you for having me there. 

Zibby: Of course. And you've been such a huge advocate and done so many events for the book and all of that.

Do you want to talk about your participation or did you have any qualms about participating or how did you feel? How do you feel being a part of? You know, a group of people trying to make it share stories, make a difference. 

Rochelle: So it was, it was very gratifying to be a part of the group. And it is like, it's like a sister and brotherhood because there's a couple men in the group.

And, you know, to have that, that support system in place helped through some of the worst times. And as you know, we had one bad experience at, um, yes. One of the events which got so uncomfortable and you question, like, is this what I signed up for? But, you know, it's we, we can't be, we can't be silenced and no better time than now is the, is the idea that you feel that your voice isn't strong enough, but every voice contributes to the greater good. Like every voice is important. So it's been an incredible experience. Um, I definitely got spooked after, um, we had some police called in, but you know, unfortunately this is our world and here in Miami, I hadn't seen so much of like what you guys have experienced in York and other cities.

So it was really eyeopening. And and made the work even more important what we're doing 

Zibby: Well, the goal is never to put anybody at risk. And I know that the Miami Book Fair was, it was cause for concern, but I'm glad everything was fine in the end. 

Rochelle: They were great. They were great. The minute there was any inkling of an issue, they, they moved right in and they were fantastic.

I'm just a big baby. I'm just a huge baby. 

Zibby: You're not a baby and you're doing important work and it's, it's really amazing. Do you have any. Do you have any qualms then about sort of going on the road for another book of yours as a Jewish author or is that now sort of in the background because it's not specifically a Jewish themed book?

Rochelle: You know what's so interesting and I'm wondering if it was, I don't remember when I started writing this new book and there are no Jewish characters in this book. I mean there's one couple that has a very Jewish name, but we don't, there's no religious, there's no religion, there's no themes of religion.

And I'm wondering. If that was a conscious choice of mine, because what it's been like for Jewish authors, and then, you know, on the other hand, this is the time I should be writing more about, you know, Jewish characters, but I just kind of felt beaten up the ninth book that I just turned in is only Jewish characters.

So I feel like I went right back in. I needed to wade through the shrapnel for a little while and just sort of collect myself. But listen, it's you and I are on these lists and we've been harassed and it's, it's, it's really frustrating to see your face in an Instagram post that says, don't buy her books.

You know, she's a Zionist. And basically all I did was have an Israeli flag in my feed after October 7th. And I was like, banned. It's disheartening. It really is, but we still have to keep writing. Jewish authors have to keep shining a light and we need to get, still get out there with our Jewish books. 

Zibby: Yes, very true.

And you know, it's okay. You don't have to always have, I mean, there's, there's no prescription of how you have to behave or what your characters have to behave like. I agree. There's no right or wrong, and we're all just being creative and trying to put out stories in the world and it's okay. Like there's no, I don't know, right?

Rochelle: Like, I, I write what speaks to me and I didn't always write Jewish characters and I, you know, I definitely see the world through the Jewish lens. You know, the way I live my life and the way I raise my children and, but I just write what speaks to me. You know, I can't always, you know, put it in the little, the Jewish box and make it work.

Sometimes it doesn't work. 

Zibby: And that's fine. You know, 

Rochelle: I know. I'm okay with it. Yeah. I'm really okay with it. 

Zibby: Okay. Good. Who do you miss the most of these characters? 

Rochelle: Oh, I definitely miss Rosalie. She may just have a cameo in book nine. 

Zibby: Oh, look at that. And can you speak to your writing process a little bit?

Are you, you're at your desk, I assume, right now. Is this where you get your writing done? 

Rochelle: Yeah, I do. 

Zibby: Don't you write on the couch? I felt like you do.

Rochelle: I write everywhere. I see I'm not a coffee drinker. I've never had coffee in my life, which most people know this about me. So I'm not a cafe writer. I definitely write on, um, I'll write in the couch.

I'll write at my desk. I'll write outside overlooking the water. I can write anywhere and background noise doesn't bother me, but I'm pretty good about a schedule. I don't have four kids. I mean, my boys are blown and grown and flown and I really, I just. I try to get in a minimum of 500 words a day, and I usually work with a, um, with somebody, usually.

Sometimes I work with Camille DeMaio, and we do, um, what is it called? It's letter C, confidentiality partners. No, I can't think of it. Now I'm showing my age, but anyway, we, what's nice is when I see that she's got her words in for the week, it pushes me like it's a little bit of a game that pushes me. So I really try, even if it's garbage, I sling on the page.

I just like to get it out, get the structure. I just heard that great quote the other day, which has been flying around our business forever that, you know, the first draft is, you know. the sandbox and then you build sandcastles. So I just try to get everything out on the page. I try to hit my goals and I try to take weekends off.

But Monday through Friday I'm writing all day. 

Zibby: Wow, that's a lot. I can't focus for that long. 

Rochelle: You have a lot more going on. 

Zibby: No, no, I just, I wish I could, I don't know, I'm impressed. I can't stay in the fictional space for that long. My brain doesn't I don't know. I can only do that. 

Rochelle: My characters speak to me in the shower.

They speak to me when I'm out, like, walking. Like, I, I think in dialogue. I think in what's going to happen next. And I imagine that's what creatives do, whether it's music, whether it's the arts. I think that that's how our brains are wired. 

Zibby: I love that. Okay, any advice for aspiring authors? I know I've asked you this a lot, but maybe something new?

Rochelle: Uh, you know, put your, put, put your butt in the chair. If you write one page a day, you'll have a 365 page book. By the end of the year, I always thick skin, you know, the industry is changing now. And when I now, when I now coach some future authors, one of the most important things is you really got to educate yourself on the business.

You know, there's not just one, one linear path to. Help to get your book out there. There's small presses, there's hybrid, there's, you know, there's the Amazons, there's the, you know, traditional. And I just feel like you really need to educate yourself on our business and what it involves. And it's a lot more than writing, as you know.

I mean, it isn't, you are a marketing person. You are a PR person. You have to be social media savvy. I mean. Just since you and I have come out into this world, I mean, look what TikTok has disrupted the way, you know, we've been doing things. So you just have to keep staying on top of the trends and what's happening, but also you can't, you know, get caught up in, I have to be, I have to have my butt on every chair.

I think you need to find that one space that you're particularly good at and focus on that space because it's just, it's, it's almost impossible to keep up with all of it. 

Zibby: Yeah. Very true. Good advice. Oh my gosh. A little overwhelming sometimes. But anyway. Rochelle, congratulations. We are made of stars.

Rochelle: Thank you. 

Zibby: Well done. I'm glad you stuck with it. And it's amazing. So there you go. 

Rochelle: Yeah. Thank you. 

Zibby: I'll see you soon. 

Rochelle: All right. I'll see you soon. 

Zibby: Okay. Bye. 

Rochelle: Bye.