00:07:44.060That was where the big recession kind of pivoted me to a whole different career.
00:07:49.440And it was only because that recession impacted so many people's jobs and businesses and banks.
00:07:57.280You know, it was a big mortgage crisis.
00:07:59.160And so I knew that my business was going to be down.
00:08:02.520I'd been running a marketing and advertising agency at that time. And I would deal with
00:08:07.840multiple contracts at a time. I would deal with all these freelancers who were working for me
00:08:12.980and different budgets and so on. I loved being busy, but all of a sudden I was not going to be
00:08:18.320busy for a couple of years while the recession abated. So I thought, well, what am I going to
00:08:23.660do with myself? Well, at the same time, I had started to take my mother to India because my
00:08:31.340younger brother had bought a flat in Jaipur, which is where we used to live at one time.
00:08:37.180And I had not been back to Jaipur for like 45 years. And yeah, and all of a sudden, my mother
00:08:44.420goes, Oh, honey, your brother is making this available to all of us. And I would really like
00:08:49.240to go back to India, but I need a chaperone. She was in her 70s. She really wanted for somebody0.69
00:08:53.880to accompany her. And I really didn't want to go. But I thought, well, okay, you know, it is my
00:09:00.880mother, yes, I will go. Wait, hold on though. Why would you not want to go? Because I had sworn
00:09:08.740off India when I was 9, 10 years old. I didn't want to be Indian at a time in 1967 when we arrived1.00
00:09:17.740in Iowa as immigrants because my father was going to be taking a doctorate at the Iowa State0.99
00:09:24.400University, we were suddenly thrust into an environment, a school environment that was so
00:09:31.660different from anything we'd ever experienced. We were always in school with people who looked like1.00
00:09:37.380us. And all of a sudden, we were in school with people who look nothing like us and whom we look0.80
00:09:42.460nothing like. So they would always look at us as if we were animals in a zoo. They would stare at
00:09:47.580us like at the grocery store and so on. And I started to get all these weird questions, you
00:09:53.780you know, like, oh, you're Indian, so what tribe are you? And of course, I as a kid had no idea
00:09:59.480what that meant. And then I would get these questions like, why do you smell funny? And it
00:10:04.160was because we ate curry, and they weren't used to curry. Not in 1960s, Iowa, nobody was eating curry.
00:10:10.860And then they would ask questions like, oh, you said you're from India, so maybe that is somewhere
00:10:16.340close to Texas, or Oklahoma, or, you know, they didn't even understand. Oh, Indiana. Maybe you
00:10:21.520Or maybe Indiana. Yeah, they didn't really understand the geography. And we would say,
00:10:26.740no, no, no, we're from the other side of the world. And then they would say, oh, you're from
00:10:30.560that place that is so poor, that has all this dirt roads. And did you guys have your own cow?
00:10:37.580Why did you let those cows run in the streets? We've seen Jungle Book. We understand you must
00:10:43.360go to school on an elephant. Is that what you're doing? And these questions were so mind boggling
00:10:50.680to us because we were just like them. We went to school and we sat at desks and we learned from a
00:10:57.000teacher. And it was normal for us to be in a school environment. And I think they all thought
00:11:02.140it was a very strange thing that we were experiencing for the first time. So I came home
00:11:07.220and I said, Mom, I don't want to be Indian because obviously being Indian is not a cool thing.
00:11:12.700And as a kid, all you want to do is be cool. You want to be accepted. You want to belong.
00:11:18.240Mm hmm. Yeah. You want to fit in with everyone else around you. And so therefore assimilation for 45 years. And then suddenly, do you want to go back to India? Gosh, why would I want to? Why? Why would I go back?
00:11:33.120explanation. Yeah. So then I started to go back with my mom. And at the same time, I started to,
00:11:42.340because I had all this extra time, take some classes. The first set of classes I took was at
00:11:47.320the San Francisco Grotto. Because by then we were living in San Francisco, and it was really close
00:11:53.200for me to get there and so on. I took some classes there with Janice Cook Newman, and with Holly
00:11:59.520pain. And then eventually, I thought, you know, why don't I just enroll in a two-year creative
00:12:06.680writing program? Because my husband has always said, he thinks I should do that. He thinks I
00:12:11.700should write novels. He thinks I should write short stories. I could make all of that happen.
00:12:15.940So I thought, all right, well, why don't I just do that full time? And so when I enrolled in that
00:12:21.020program, then I really got serious. Then we had all of this stuff to read, and we had writing
00:12:26.740prompts all the time. And we have short stories to write and essays. What program was that?
00:12:31.820That was the California College of Arts in San Francisco. And they had this creative writing
00:12:37.380program they'd started about eight years prior. So I just lucked out. And I had instructors whom
00:12:44.540I'd actually heard of and who had published books that I had enjoyed reading. And I had always read
00:12:51.100regardless of any of this desire to ever be a writer or not be a writer, I had always read
00:12:57.020and really enjoyed losing myself in reading. So I thought, oh, you know, I have this one instructor,
00:13:03.700Anita Amirazvani, and I love this book that she had written, The Blood of Flowers. And I thought,
00:13:09.360you know, I am going to get a chance to assign myself a mentor every semester. Why don't I ask
00:13:16.960her to be my mentor. So I did. I asked her and we got like, you know, one credit or two credits for
00:13:22.360that. And so she worked with me the whole two years that I was in the program. Every semester,
00:13:26.960she worked on what I was beginning to write, which was the henna artist. I didn't write,
00:13:33.040you know, short stories. I didn't write poems. I was just really wedded to this idea of writing
00:13:39.040a novel. Now, the reason I'm writing about the henna artist is because when I'm going to India
00:13:45.380at the same time in between all of my semesters and my spring break and my winter breaks and
00:13:51.000everything, I'm going with my mother to India. And she wants to be left there for periods of
00:13:56.000time. And then I go and pick her up. When I'm doing this, my mother is taking me to all these
00:14:02.320fabulous places in India. She's taking me to look at thousands of saris, each one of them different
00:14:08.920from the other. She is showing me the difference between silk and fine muslin. She is taking me to
00:14:15.560the jewelry bazaar and showing me the difference between jewelry that is set out for tourists to
00:14:20.880buy and jewelry that they take you into the back room to show you. Oh, got to go to that back room.
00:14:27.320Oh my God, it's so glittery. It's amazing. You know, that's where all the really fancy wedding
00:14:33.120sets are sold. She took me to the fruit and vegetable markets to show me all the places where
00:14:39.700she doesn't get to buy these particular fruits and vegetables that she loves in the United States.
00:14:45.740They don't exist. So I really started to get an idea of, first of all, how much my mother loved
00:14:52.100India, which I had never known, how much she missed it. And then also the ways in which she
00:14:58.720was showing me the beauty of India that she doesn't get to show me when we're in the United
00:15:02.840States. And I think that she really missed the fact that none of the three of us, my older brother,
00:15:09.580my younger brother, or I had gravitated towards India as a place that we wanted to know more
00:15:15.960about. So this was her opportunity to teach me and learn. I did. And as I started picking up on
00:15:24.080the beautiful arts and crafts and all the vibrancy and the colors and the flowers and the scents of
00:15:29.920India, I started having this great feeling of, I got to write about this. This is something I
00:15:37.640have been missing out for 40 years, and I really need to write about it. Now, my mother is also
00:15:44.560telling me things about her life as a growing girl. So she tells me about when she was five
00:15:51.140and 10, 15, and then 18. And by the time she's 18, she is sent to a finishing school. She wants
00:15:58.180to go to college, but her father is determined to marry her off because at 18, she is a spinster
00:16:05.000in his eyes. And the year is 1955. And so my mother is arranged in marriage to my father.
00:16:14.280She is sent home from the finishing school. She meets him within a month, they are married. Within
00:16:20.320In a month, they are walking seven times around that fire to seal seven lifetimes together.
00:16:28.180I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, that's a trial.
00:28:43.580But in the end, we only got the one offer from Kathy Sagan at Meera Books, which is a division of HarperCollins. And boy, was she the right editor for me because she understood the book completely. She had been to India. She understood where I was trying to go with it.
00:29:01.020and she gave me in the year that I worked with her once I got the contract, in that year,
00:29:08.200she gave me the most compelling changes for the novel that indeed made it a bestseller.
00:29:15.740And so I always be so grateful to Kathy for helping me with that. And then she said,
00:29:22.320okay, now we're sending it off to the printer. And at that point, I am thinking I'm going to
00:29:28.040write Six Days in Bombay because I have just come back from New Delhi and I have learned all about
00:29:33.620this painter, Amrita Sher Gill, and I want the world to know about her because everybody outside
00:29:39.260of India doesn't seem to have any idea who she was and what a phenomenal painter and also
00:29:44.860personality she was. So I'm thinking I'm going to write this, but Malik from The Henna Artist,
00:29:50.960who is a character who has grown so large in my head, came from nowhere. I have no idea who Malik
00:29:56.260his, you know, in real life. But he just said, you have to write my story because you have so
00:30:01.680many pages with scenes that have me in them that Emma had you take out. And so yeah, he was
00:30:09.720intimately familiar with Emma too at this point. So finally, you know, I go, okay, okay, okay. I
00:30:15.840set everything aside. I start writing his story. I borrow from hundreds of pages that I have about
00:30:21.260him already. So it comes very naturally. 20 pages in, my agent says, hey, you know what? Let's send
00:30:27.700this off to the publisher. They do. And then all of a sudden, the publisher sends us a second book
00:30:32.760contract before the first book is even on the shelves anywhere. Which is really strategically
00:30:38.300good timing just from an agent author standpoint because the publisher, they don't quite know what's
00:30:44.540going to happen with book one yet, but they are also under a timetable as soon as you send them
00:30:50.620your second book, they need to be able to respond to you within a certain time period. So
00:30:55.100always better to keep the writer, usually better to keep the writer. And I think what's so
00:31:02.440interesting to me about book two is that it is second in a series, but that was never the
00:31:10.060intention when you were writing book one. And then we can talk book three, which also is book
00:31:16.100three in the series that you never intended. And this was a, it wasn't a three book contract. It
00:31:21.300was three individual contracts, which is a little bit rare, right? I'm actually surprised they didn't
00:31:28.260say with the second book, I'm surprised they didn't say, you know what, let's get two more books
00:31:32.560and we'll determine what that second book is down the line. But actually like, let's go back to that
00:31:38.380strategically because when did you find out about the Reese pick? So that was in, I believe it was
00:31:48.220April of 2020. And my book was published March the 10th, 2020. We could not think of worse timing
00:31:57.780in the book, right? I mean, no coverage. I remember I was so excited to go to your book
00:32:02.580party. I just couldn't wait to do all this fun stuff. And then just full lockdown, nothing.
00:32:09.720So you found out in April. And I remember I had a feeling something was happening because you
00:32:16.460texted me and you were like, okay, Heather, I just want to make sure you're not going to be like,
00:32:21.480yeah, doing anything loud in your garden tomorrow at 2pm or something. And I was like,
00:32:26.900I don't have any plans to, but I will make sure we are not weed whacking or whatever.
00:32:33.140And I thought in my head, there's some announcement.
00:32:37.440There is something happening with her book and she cannot tell me it.
00:44:03.180It's the work habits that you formed. It's the discipline that you have. It's the way that you
00:44:09.860talk to people. It's making sure that your authentic self is present every time you are
00:44:15.640being asked a question and you can give them a straight answer about it. These are all things
00:44:21.360that come in handy. You don't have to have a marketing background. You just have to be
00:44:24.840conscious. Maybe make a list of all of your skill sets. A lot of people don't even understand that
00:44:30.080they may have a hundred different skills that they are privy to that they may think, oh, wow,
00:44:35.580I didn't know I was so accomplished. Yeah, make yourself so accomplished.
00:44:40.420I love it. You are such a good hype person. Everybody needs to take all of that advice.
00:44:45.640into consideration. Okay, do we get a tiny teaser of what the next book is about?
00:44:53.380Sure. Okay. So as I really like to do this with every novel, I want to give people a little bit
00:45:00.040of history of what was happening in India at any one time. And also, I want to let them know what
00:45:06.140women were doing during that time. So the next book is set in 1920 Jaipur. In 1920, there was a
00:45:15.960moratorium on young girls and women being able to dance classical Indian dances. Is that ridiculous?0.91
00:45:24.140Yeah. So what had happened is that in 1857, when there was a mutiny in India against the British,
00:45:30.400the Indians lost, but the British were very conscious of who had helped make that mutiny
00:45:36.100happen. And it was the courtesans. It was these women who run these sort of like the Japanese
00:45:41.820geisha houses. They were skilled in the arts of dance and music and poetry, all the classical arts.0.99
00:45:49.800But when the British found out that these rich courtesans had helped finance the mutiny,0.99
00:45:56.000they decided to destroy their reputations. And one way they did it is to call them common0.99
00:46:02.720prostitutes, which they were not. And number two, they decided that they would denigrate0.62
00:46:08.480anything that these women did well. And one of those was that they danced this classical dance
00:46:13.300called Kathak. It had been done for centuries and centuries in India. It actually started with women
00:46:18.940dancing in the temples because they were devoting themselves to God. But when the British started0.99
00:46:25.420calling it a risque, unsavory kind of activity, then respectable families stopped having their
00:46:34.160girls and their women dance in public, and especially not even to learn the dance.
00:46:39.980But there's a 16-year-old girl in 1920s Jaipur who has seen men practicing this dance because,
00:46:47.000hey, lo and behold, men are allowed to dance, but women are not.
00:46:51.960And so she sees this and she goes, I want to learn that dance, especially because it's going to make it it's going to make her feel closer to her mother, whom she lost a year ago.
00:47:39.980Tell them what I like, what I don't like. And still they'll choose a title that maybe I did. I
00:47:45.180didn't pick out so then wait that makes me wonder the henna artist was it titled that
00:47:52.020originally no no okay it was titled the enemy of the crocodile when i presented it alka no
00:47:58.680that's what emma said that's what emma said she said no and that's what kathy my editor said no
00:48:05.780no there's no way and uh and i was like oh but it's so intriguing you know it's so like oh people
00:48:11.620will say, what is that all about? Who is the crocodile? And they're like, no, nobody's going
00:48:15.840to say that. They're going to go right by this book. And they said, you know, we'd just like to
00:48:21.440call it the henna artist, if that's all right with you. So I was like, oh, okay. Okay. You guys know
00:48:27.440better than I do. Okay. That's fine. Now I just let them title all of my books and I think they
00:48:32.520do a great job. So I think they've done a brilliant job. Yeah. Nicely done. Way to know what you're
00:48:37.740good at. Yeah, exactly. Sometimes we just have to let go. And I always think I'm going to have a
00:48:44.260lot more say-so in the covers than I actually do, right? Because from the very beginning with
00:48:49.660the henna artists, I thought, oh, I have a marketing background. I can probably give you
00:48:53.680guys some ideas for covers. And they said, yeah, we have a whole art department that's kind of
00:48:58.840primed and ready to do that. So we'll show you some stuff when we get a little further along.
00:49:03.520Yeah. Yeah. That is the top thing that I do not miss doing in corporate publishing is the book jacket. I mean, that's that's a whole discussion on its own, but I do not miss it at all. And fortunately, you have four beautiful book jackets.
00:49:20.780So, yeah, yeah, it's really it's really, really wonderful. And thanks for being on this journey with me.
00:49:27.220I'm so happy for you, Alko, for all of your success. And I appreciate the time you took to chat with me today. And I know that fans of yours and writers are going to be super inspired by this conversation. So I really appreciate you and thank you for being here.
00:49:44.180Oh, you're so welcome. It was my pleasure. And it's always a pleasure to inspire other people who want to write stories that mean a lot to them and hopefully will resonate with a lot of readers around the world.