I haven't checked the weather, but I know it is a perfect day to chat about adult Jewish literature. I'm Sheryl Stahl. Thanks for joining me here at Nice Jewish Books. Today I am excited to be speaking with Shauna Edwards and Alison Richman, about their book, the Thread Collectors. Welcome, Shauna and Alison.
Thank you for having us.
We're thrilled to be here. Sheryl.
Happy to have you. So Would one of you set up the story for us?
Absolutely. Well, this is Shauna, and I'm happy to go first, in the Thread Collectors with has been what elephant and I have started to call our legacy project, you're going to meet two couples, one black couples, Stella and William. And then one Jewish couple, Jacob and Lily and Stell and William are enslaved and they're living down in New Orleans. And Lily and Jacob they are when we first meet them living in New York. William flees and he joins the Union army. He's a brilliant musician. And when he joins the Union army, he then meets Jacob, who's also a gifted musician. And Jacob has been prompted by his abolitionists, wife, Lily, to really go and stand for his values and join the Union army. And it's through the friendship of these men on the battlefields that you then learn what is happening to their beloved back in their home places. You have Stella and she is covertly taking thread and she's making maps for enslaved men to flee to join the Union Army and fight. And then you have Lily, and she's a fiery abolitionists, and she has her own quilting circle, and she's collecting bandages for the Union army. And in each way, both of these women, while they are very differently situated, they're both doing what they can with what they have to aid the union cause. And so what takes place between these two men, I'm not going to give away the plot, Alyson has told me not to do that. That is basically how all four of these people, even though they seem very different at first come together.
Great. What struck me over and over again, in the book was the feeling that the stories of these two couples paralleled each other. But then all of a sudden, it's like they sharply diverged. So you have two committed couples in love. But Lily and Jacob were able to get married, and Stella and William were not because they were slaves. They both joined the Union Army and ended up in the same area. But their jobs and their camps were completely different. So things were horrible for the white camp, and disastrously horrible for the Black Camp. So can you talk about more about these not quite parallel lives?.
That's an wonderful observation, Sheryl, that you said for the thread collectors. I mean, one of the things that we wanted to be able to do was create a story in which we told within, you know, incredible historical accuracy and emotional authenticity of two men, and also their Beloved's and how they were experiencing a, you know, the historical backdrop of the Civil War, which is, you know, the largest death toll in our country's history, over 600,000 men perished during the Civil War. But as different as Jacob and Williams situation is, as Union soldiers, you know, the black soldiers were treated completely horrifically, you know, they they fled enslavement with great risk to themselves patrollers were on their back, you know, if they were caught, the punishment could often be death. And when they arrived to enlist, to fight for freedom, instead of being given muskets to fight, they were given pickaxes and hoes and forced to dig ditches, do manual labor, and also bury their fallen white soldiers. But one of the things that we wanted to do was show that when you had two musicians who meet on the battlefield, the language of music is this connective tissue between the two men. And it's something that enables them to, you know, experience and unexpected friendship in which music binds them together, and they learn from each other. And there's empathy between these two men that, you know, originally you might think that William and Jacob have nothing in common, they come from completely different backgrounds, different religions, different experiences as you highlighted, but in the end, they discover that they have what we all have in common this need to love to protect our family. And then men in the case of this art, artistry between them this shared music, you know, shared language of music, it's something that you know, connects them and with Stella and Lily, again, to women completely different backgrounds. Lily's up in New York with a you know, embarrassment of riches at her fingertips with, you know, an abundance of cloth and thread to make quilts that she's sending down to the Union army. Whereas in parallel Stella is using every scrap of cloth that she can, she can scavenge every piece of thread and creating maps to help enslaved men run for freedom. And yet as the book you know, hurdles towards its, you know, ending you start to see, you know, the connective tissue between those two women as well.
I love that music was a way for them to connect and that Jacob shared, like a song that he wrote and music that some sheet music that Lily was sending him and that William shared some of the folk traditions and different tempos. And I don't remember exactly where his background was from, is he from the Caribbean?
No, actually, William is from a very interesting region of the United States called the Gullah islands. So the Gullah Geechee Islands are a chain of islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. But because of their isolation, when people were enslaved there, they managed to retain a lot of their heritage directly from Africa. So Alyson and I, we were fortunate enough, we actually took a research trip to St. Helena Island, and we had a mother daughter tour guide. And they really talked to us about the retention of the culture, how the music and a lot of the drumming that you hear in Africa, they even brought over architectural techniques that have died out because no one really knew how to do them, like grinding up oyster shells and seeing the tabby. And so when we were conceiving of the character of William, we thought it would be really interesting to make him from a place in the United States, but from a place that had retained more of a direct connection to his African tradition. So you're absolutely right, Sheryl, that he is he's sharing with Jacob, those tempos and those, you know, melodies that he's learned as a young child, and then of course, refined when he was in New Orleans, which is a completely multicultural city as well. So there would have been a lot of different influences there.
And I was surprised, William took Teddy a young, very young soldier under his wing and befriended him, and he was the drummer. So it surprised me when they were singing the song, "Sometimes I feel like a motherless child", which is just such a wrenching song, which I knew was part of the civil rights movement, but I hadn't realized it actually dated back to the Civil War.
It did. And so we did so much research when we were conceiving of this book. And when we were writing this legacy project, and Allison, I will give all credit for this aspect of a research to Allison. But we ensure that all of the songs that are in the book, actually existed at that time and are true to the period of time, with the exception of the song that Jacob writes Girl on Fire, which, as you know, plays such an interesting and important point in our plot. But yes, Sometimes I feel like a motherless child", using it there was very poignant when we included Teddy. And I think I started dreaming of Teddy very early on in the writing process, I thought he could be a very effective way to talk about the loss of innocence for black children, you know, not really getting to have a childhood, not only then when most young enslaved children were put to work in fields early as five or six. And obviously William escapes that fate because he's so gifted musically, but also now and you know, we were writing in 2020 and 2021. And thinking about the types of challenges that young black children have to face and circumstances they have to face and making the reader think about that.
Yeah, absolutely. Thought of similar things when I was reading the book. So I'm curious, why did you make the character of Jacob Jewish?
Well, in my family tree, my family emigrated from on my mother's side from Germany in the 1850s. And growing up, I always heard from my grandmother, that I had two great great great uncle's who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War. My great, great, great uncle Abraham went down to Mr. tarsha, Mississippi in the early 1860s, and enlisted when the civil war broke out with the 29th regiment of Mississippi, while his younger brother Jacob playing who is our namesake of our row in our book, enlisted as a musician, and they fought on opposite sides. And according to my grandmother, this philosophical and moral divide, permanently divided the family forever and those brothers never repaired their friendship even after the war. So I always thought, you know, as a historical novelist, that it would be such an interesting relationship to mine of Two Brothers, both immigrants to this country, with you know, as Jewish people, we do have a history of enslavement back, you know, during the times of the pharaoh of of slavery, and what happens when they do choose this, you know, different path during the Civil War. So it's always was a colonel in the back of my mind. But it wasn't until 2020 that Saunna and I sat down to write the novel. And I said, I really want, you know, the main character to be Jewish and also musician, like my ancestor. So that's why we also have the parallel between the, you know, the two black soldiers being both musicians. And I think what was also important to shone on is that, to look at the civil war through two underrepresented lenses, you know, one black, one Jewish, that was going to be something very fresh, you know, to bring to the historic novel, you know, landscape. And we wanted to do something that was going to illuminate, you know, different perspectives of the Civil War for our readers.
Well, growing up in the South, you know, I'm a native Louisiana and the civil war has always felt very present. But it's really tempting to look at it in a very black and white way, actually, north and south. And there were so many things I learned through our research that I had not known, you know, I had not known about General Grant's expulsion of Jewish soldiers in from the Union Army. I hadn't even known a word that I'm ashamed to say that I sure I've used it, the term shoddy had been a slur that was invented at that time, because people had a sense that Jewish merchants were that they were cheating the federal government and the Union army. So I think you can fall into a trap really easily, particularly around the Civil War, and making it too simplistic, where there's so much gray. And I think we found that the beauty and the education for us, and then subsequently our readers within the gray. So I know that we would have most likely had Jacob be Jewish anyway, because Allison has this amazing family heritage that we had to explore. But I think it lends an extra dimensionality to the book that we wouldn't have had otherwise.
I was curious if part of the reason they connected was not only because of the music, but because Jacob had kind of an outsider's status within the white camp, also
Absolutely. I mean, that's definitely something we wanted to show outsider ship. And what it was like to feel alienated from, you know, a group of people who were supposed to be fighting for freedom for all, but very often, they did not treat even their own comrades, you know, with that same sense of equality. And so, I think that their friendship definitely was cemented on with the love of music, just like in the second chapter where he hears he's a musician and gives, you know, whispers to him, tell them you're a musician, when, after William has his medical exam, but this idea of outsider ship was very much in the forefront of our mind to, to explore how two people felt alienated two from the main group from the majority.
One thing that really surprised me was that among the white troops that it seemed like the majority, were not abolitionists, that they didn't have the there wasn't much, if any sympathy for the plight of the black slaves.
I think that's absolutely right. And it's something that is not at the forefront of the history that we're taught. Even though Allison and I started writing this book in 2020. We first started speaking about it in 2017, after she had watched a documentary called death in the Civil War. And at the time, she didn't know it, but I have been someone who's always been fascinated by Civil War history, particularly growing up in a place where, you know, there are monuments, etc, to the Civil War. And it escapes us often because it's so nice to feel like oh, it was a battle between good versus evil. But the Civil War started as a political battle to keep the economic engine of the cells coupled with the economic engine of the North. And it really wasn't until the North was kind of like, frankly, on its back heels that it was decided that slavery and anti slavery was going to be the thing the cause that the Union Army rallied around. One of the incidence that is in our book is about the burning of the colored children's asylum in New York in 1863. During the draft riots, were hundreds of white adult males surrounded this orphanage where there were over 200 black children, they were there. A lot of them they were there because their fathers were all fighting for the Union Army and they burnt the asylum to the ground. All of the children miraculously escaped along with the Bible. That is in the New York Historical Society. But the draft riots was sparked by regular working class, white people, iron that they would have to go and potentially be slaughtered for people who they weren't quite ready to give full citizenship to. So I think it's something that with the removal of time, we've once again, we've made it really simple. But as we displayed in the book, there was plenty of anti semitism, there was plenty of racism going on in the Union Army, you know, this was at heart a political battle at first, rather than a moral battle.
Since I'm looking at your book cover, I want to ask you if you had input onto it, because I'm a little confused about it. Well, maybe I should describe it. Not everyone can see it. So there are two women not quite back to back to each other. So a woman of color and a beautiful, multi layered gold dress with lace and trim. And a white woman in a very simple, plain, solid colored dress.
It's It's the great observation and actually, when we first saw the cover, we questioned I remember Shauna saying why is the woman who is you know, held in basically sexual bondage by you know, a white master in such a, you know, a dress with lace and all these decorations while Lily's character who's an abolitionist in New York is in such a simple dress. We were told by the costume historians who staged the the cover that up north, people with money they material in which their dress was created was usually of the best quality but they didn't seek to have any sort of adornment. We're down south of a woman was kept in the, you know, in sexual bondage like our character of Stella, she would have a dress that had adornment, but the quality would not be at the same level as the northern woman. Shaunna Do you want to talk a little bit about how we chose the skin color for the different communities for Stella in particular?
We did so I think once we knew that we were going in the direction of having actual live models, we sent historical photos I had a real vision of what I wanted Stella to look like. You may see that on the cover and hopefully you guys can access it who were listening. She has a headscarf on that headscarf is called a teen young and it was traditional. And it was actually put into fashion because black women started to by law having to cover their hair. And so of course not being able to show their hair they decided to make the most elaborate beautiful scarves, and so they they have these elaborate T neon so we knew we wanted Stella to wear a team young, but then we had to talk about the type of model for me I'm a darker skinned black woman. And while Stella is biracial, she is a both black and white parentage. It was important for me that all women of color, look at it and not feel excluded. I did not want her to be so fair it forward to feel like some kind of exoticism as opposed to this is going to be a story about a black woman who's living in desperate circumstances. And of course, her biracial parentage is really important to her circumstances and the difference between her and her mother Janie and her half sister Amanee. But I wanted more women of color to be able to see themselves so we we were pretty vociferous, I would say in the type of model that we wanted for the cover and I couldn't be more pleased. I think the cover is beautiful. The one last thing I'll say about the cover and lift Allison was going to say it, you'll see that the Lily is wearing a beautiful blue dress. And originally her dress was more of a green and while the green looks lovely against the yellow dress of Stella, blue plays such an important role in our book. You know, the blue of the Union Army threads, there is blue Stella is constantly using it for embroidery, there was blue and a quilt that Lily sends to Jacob, we really advocated for relief dress to be blue. And so I think we were all happy with how it turned out.
Yes. And then of course, there's the red thread that is held between the two women's arm this again, this connective thread that bridges them together with their stories and what they're doing with their needle and thread to help the union cause so I know it's an unexpected cover, especially since we do have four characters and two of them are male and they focused on the women. But in general, I think publishers believe that historical fiction is you know, it's a big women's market so they were going for that and I think they did a really successful job and I particularly also love the small details the lace that's in sort of a semi gloss against the matte texture of the cover, and then the high relief of the silver foil lettering that they've done. It really is quite beautiful. Okay,
I got an advanced readers copy. So on my copy, the women's faces are cut off, kind of mouth level, so we can't see their heads. But I will look online to see what the final cover looks like. So actually, I wanted to ask you about the title because I mean, I absolutely love it. I'm a quilter. And, you know, do some other sewing projects, so I could really relate to just the feel of the cloth and picking out the thread. And so I could see it in the literal sense of both of them working with the cloth and thread, but also, the more metaphorical sense of that, that we're all a tapestry, you know, woven together, and that this is how these families are woven together through their story.
Yes, and I think, you know, we were, you know, it's funny, we didn't push to have men on the cover, but we definitely wanted a title that was inclusive also of the men. And so the thread of the Union uniform, I think for us also was a sense of, you know, be able to collect that put them on their body and be proud of it, you know, when you have Teddy and, and Jacob even and William wearing their union blues, it meant something to them, they felt very patriotic about that. And we didn't want a title that was going to be wives or sisters. I mean, at even one point, I think it was suggested, you know, the seamstresses secret and we, you know, politely said, you know, Stella is not a seamstress, she's an enslaved woman who's harvesting every bit of thread that she can to be able to make maps to help, you know, men join up in on the into the Union army. So we really love that title, because we do feel it's inclusive. It's metaphorical, as you mentioned, and I think it's intriguing as well, we hope it piques people's interest, and they pick up the novel.
I hope so, too. One thing that I found, and I'm always embarrassed when I confront my own ignorance is, you know, I've read a bit about the Civil War and enslavement and all the horrors but it seems like every time I read a narrative, I find more horrors. You know, that says his mother had been set free by her master, but her two children were not. And the masters like gift to her was that she would have some say in how one of the daughters was going to be sold off. And it just it's just so unimaginable to me.
It's shocking, but it was relatively common for either masters or people in the Masters, extended family or even friends. You know, even if you were an I don't even want to use this term, but a favorite slave, right? Not having agency over your own body meant exactly that. And when we think about children that are born in enslavement, it's literally wealth from thin air. Right? So this it was common people wouldn't acknowledge parentage, but maybe you would not free the slave, but you would set that slave up in more favorable circumstances. So I don't think what we're describing here is disgusting as it is. It wasn't outside of the norm. And in fact, in Louisiana, they had laws at that time where if you freed a slave, they had to leave the state, you know, they would have to go away from their family, etc. Because they didn't want someone walking around free and kind of giving people ideas. So what Stella's mother Janie does is actually like against the law. And so for me, he's already given a concession. Right? Her master has said you can stay here you can stay near your daughter's you don't have to be separated. But the idea that he would like willingly give it wealth, even though this person is his daughter, unfortunately, it's just really common. There's so many layers and levels of degradation and these traumatic events that have happened to many people. There's always some fresh horror to explore, unfortunately.
And Shaunna, I just wanted to make sure you also mentioned about how you wanted to explore how different shades of color within a black family afforded different opportunities. I know that was something that was really important, you know, for this book.
It is it is important in it. But before I jump there, I do want to say that even though that is a horrible circumstance that you pointed out, Sheryl, for us, it was really important that these be closed door scenes. I just want to let prospective readers know that we were very careful to stay away from scenes of things that are like voyeuristically, you know, exploitative of that situation. So we made sure that there were closed door scenes in case anyone is wondering. But if Alison pointed out, you know, Stella, our main black heroine, she is not living by herself. She has a half sister Amanee, who is a full black parentage. And the difference between those sisters lies because Stella is of lighter shade. And Amanee is of darker shade, really, for me was important to tell because I wanted to talk about colorism, which still exists today, and how people that look more in line with what is perceived as like white beauty. They have different opportunities, right? They have different ways in which they can move through the world. And in New Orleans at a certain point in time. They even had different legal rights afforded to them if they were half black, for instance, even if they were enslaved, as opposed to full black. So there was a lot of different the phrases used before Sheryl was beautiful, not quite parallel lives going on, where they're constantly while we're looking for the connections, there are these constant differences and distinctions.
So I assume that you get asked this a lot, but how does your collaboration work?
So we you know, a lot of people who have interviewed us since the book came out, I have assumed that I wrote the Jewish characters and Shaunna wrote the black characters. And that's not the case at all. When we came together to collaborate on this book, we decided we were going to create one seamless voice to tell the story, it was going to be a third person narrative. So you weren't going to have anyone, you know, Stella's voice speaking or Williams speaking, it was going to be a story on furling. You know, after every chapter where you're brought into a world in which you were going to be able to see everything, feel everything, smell everything, lifting off the pages, we wanted a very, you know, sensory, rich, rich experience to the to the language that we use. We decided that every Sunday night, we would have a brainstorming session where we would decide what was going to happen plot wise with the book, Shauna does have a full time job. So it was me who took the first pass in our Google doc sketching out those scenes we discussed. Oftentimes, I would leave things even completely blank and say, we know we need some description of local, you know, texture and color of New Orleans here. And Shawna would fill that in. But she would start embroidering, what I had sketched out, we have been describing it as almost like a wire armature, where each putting players of clay until it was fully formed. Both of us are perfectionist, luckily, that we didn't have different writing styles. Like, I know, there's some authors who prefer to write a really messy first draft just to get the plot down. We both prefer to have the best possible chapter and then slowly move forward with that. So the wheel is seen as just being propelled that way. And with the way we work, we were constantly refining and editing and then moving on to the next chapter, and then constantly revising and editing moving on to that next chapter. But you know, occasionally there will be times where we would each put a comment into the Google Doc, like, I think we need to discuss this. I'm not sure if the character reads the way I think it should, or we should have a brave conversation about what the black character was going, you know how I had originally maybe drafted it in my sketch, but it was a pretty seamless 20, you know, hour type of thing where if I was working in the day, she was working in the night, but you know, I was working week she was working on the weekend. But we got the job done. And we're we're actually closer I think than we were even though we've been friends for over a decade.
immeasurably. So absolutely.
So it sounds like you did a lot of research for this, even though it's part of your family histories. Was there anything that really surprised you in your research?
Yeah, so many things. I think, Allison and I, we wrote our manuscript in a Google Doc, but we had another Google doc going on, and both of us were researching at the same time. And our litmus test, Sheryl almost became if both of us didn't know about it, and it was surprising, then we needed to find a way to work it into the book, and that is how the key seminal battle of Port Hudson has worked its way into the book. The burning of the children's asylum that I mentioned earlier, worked its way into the book. And I don't know that we mentioned Port Hudson yet but as I mentioned, I grew up in New Orleans. Port Hudson is about an hour and a half away from New Orleans, and yet I had never learned of it. We've all seen the movie glory which is a fabulous movie, and it detailed. Many of us have seen the movie glory, which is a fabulous movie. It says Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick and a detailed the bravery of the 54th regiment in Massachusetts which is a regimen of colored soldiers and they I'm only saying colored because they did at the time. I do not want anyone to think guIping color too. that contemporary word. But they they led the charge and they were massacred. And so it's always been in my head like, Oh, that was like the seminal battle where black soldiers fought in the Civil War. Well, when I learned about Port Hudson, I learned that it actually happened weeks prior to the battle detailed in the movie glory. And in this battle, hundreds of black men went off to fight one of their first opportunities to do so. But there had been such poor reconnaissance by the union officers that they were massacred. You know, the Confederate Army held the higher ground, and their bodies even more shockingly, so laid there for weeks. And when the bodies were finally collected, it was the black soldiers that had to bury their fallen compatriots. So the fact that I grew up in the same state, I am black, had never heard of this was shocking to me. And going to Port Hudson, I had the opportunity to go there. Once the pandemic had died down a little bit, speaking to the park rangers, standing on the battlefield, was truly an incredibly moving and frankly, life changing experience. When you think about the Civil War, having been fought in our backyard, we are constantly walking over ground where things happen that if we knew about it, I think it would shake us to our foundation. But we don't. And so Allison, and I felt a responsibility when we came across history, and incidents like this, that we work them in the book, obviously, we had to pick and choose, we could not put all of our history and our historical research in. But we think that what we illuminated was what was surprising for us, and we wanted to share it.
Was there any tidbit that you thought was especially interesting or moving, but that just couldn't fit into the narrative?
I don't think so we were pretty much like fiercely in agreement that if something really moved us, and we felt needed to be eliminated, we found a way to put it in. And I think that's also another reason we developed the letter writing that Lily does to Jacob as a as a method for conveying information without it being too didactic, you know, where we could, you know, have her writing and in a very informal style, but what she was observing in New York. And, you know, it was important for us to not just illuminate the racism that was going on in the south, but also in New York. And that's, again, why we highlighted through Lily's letter, the burning of the children's orphanage asylum, you know, the draft riots, things like that, that we felt, maybe our reader doesn't remember that from from their, you know, classroom. But if you're walking in the footsteps of your characters, or hearing the voice of your characters lifting off the page of a letter, it's going to be more powerful for you to remember and to be more empathetic, I think, you know, to understand what was happening during that time.
Do you have any projects in the works that you would like to mention?
Well, we definitely hope that we can carry our characters into a series where you, you see we don't tie this, this novel up in a neat bow at the end, it ends, you know, the last chapter, it's still during the Civil War, we don't want to give the plot away. But we definitely leave the portal open to continue their journey up and in through reconstruction. Hopefully, we imagine even seeing the progeny of our characters, you know, them still becoming, you know, still generations of friendship, and even the musical talent emerging in children and grandchildren and seeing that, perhaps through the Harlem Renaissance, maybe even in the civil rights era. So we're thinking big with this one. On my solo career, I've just wrapped up a book that is about a Vietnamese refugee of Vietnam veteran, and the Irish immigrant, their lives in twining against the backdrop of Long Island during the late 1970s. And how they experience also unexpected friendship and healing from trauma. And they also have a book coming out with two other authors may called The Friday Night Club, which is about the Swedish artists who are off Clint and her creative circle of four other women who helped her make her abstract paintings in the, you know, in the late 1890s. So there's a lot there's a lot coming out from both Shauna and myself.
That's wonderful. I can't wait to see the next chapter in their story. So is there anything you would like to answer that I haven't thought to ask?
I think you did a wonderful job. Sheryl. We're so happy that you allowed us on your podcast to talk about the thread collectors.
Oh, thank you. It was it was my pleasure. So if someone used your book as a call to action for Tikun Olam, for repairing the world, what would it be or for any other action that you would like to highlight?
Well, I would say that the most important point of moving forward and making the world a better place is actually connection. So take someone who you think you might not agree with, and ask them their story, even if it's something very small, like a childhood memory are something that they learned from someone beforehand. I think it's a wonderful way to open people up. And it's all about, you know, the threads that bind us.
And I'm going to add that writing this book with Shana has been such a wonderful experiencing experience as a collaboration, I feel that we really were able to put two hearts into the book two souls and two different family histories to make it what it's become. And so when I thought about your question to tikkun olam, I thought, well, whatever you're going to embark on to sort of repair the world, whether it's volunteering at a soup kitchen, making, you know, a quilt to donate to a shelter, do it with a friend. So it's doubly more you know, that well, but you know, it's two stitches instead of one stitch. And we all move forward to make the world a better place. It's one of my favorite sentiments in Jewish tradition. And it's even in our book, we mentioned that Lily's father, you know, mentioned that was part of their their family fabric. So thank you for asking us that question. Sheryl.
My pleasure. I actually stole it from one of my other favorite podcasts, the book of life. So if people would like to contact you, what is the best way?
Well, we do have a website called thethreadcollectors.com. And you can always email through the contact sheet with that. I'm also contactable through Instagram at Alison A.L.Y.S.O.N Richmond, Ric H ma N and on Facebook. Alyson Richmond - author.
And I'm on Instagram at Shauna J. Edwards S.H.A.U.N.N.A.J.E.D.W.A.R.D.S. and I'm on Facebook at Shauna J. Edwards.
All right, wonderful. Well,
thank you so much, Shaunna Edwards and Alison Richmond for speaking with me about the Thread collectors.
Well, thank you for having us.
Thank you. It's been a pleasure. If you are interested in any of the books we discussed today, you can find them at your favorite board and brick or online bookstore, or at your local library. Thanks to de Yong ki for use of his fraleigh which definitely makes me happy. This podcast is a project of the Association of Jewish libraries. And you can find more about it at WWW dot Jewish Library's dot org slash nice Jewish books. I would like to thank ajl and my podcast mentor Heidi Rabinowitz. Keep listening for the promo for her latest episode.
This is Shannon Lambie, author of the very best saga story from Uganda. I'll be joining you soon on the Book of Life podcast. I would like to dedicate my podcast to my very good friend Teddy Coyne in Evanston, Illinois, who makes me feel smart and makes me feel like I can do certain things in the world, and for encouraging me and making me believe that I can write this
The book the book of life is the sister podcast of nice Jewish books. I'm your host, Heidi Rabinowitz and I podcast about Jewish kidlet. Join me in October 2022, to hear my conversation with Shoshana Nambi, about the very best soccer Book of Life podcast.com
