Behind the Words welcomes authors Alli Frank and Asha Youmans. We’ll be talking about their latest release THE BETTER HALF!
Let’s start with where you’re from, where you live? Is writing your full-time job?
Alli: I am from Washington state, lived in San Francisco forever, but now I live in Ketchum, Idaho. Writing is my full-time job with a side gig of supporting student essay writing for college and graduate school applications.
Asha: I was born in Massachusetts but Seattle, WA, has been my home since birth. I lived in the Bay Area for many years, though I never crossed paths with Alli there. Writing is my full-time job, but caring for family takes up much of my time and occupies most of my heart.
How long have you been writing?
Alli: I spent a decade plus writing education industry articles when I worked as an assistant head of school. As a novelist, since 2017.
Asha: When I was a kid, I loved writing short stories and I kept that up into my college years, but always for my own pleasure. I began writing as a professional with Alli in 2018.
How did the two of you collaborate on this novel, and has your writing process changed at all over the time you’ve been writing together?
Alli & Asha: Over the course of three books, our writing process has changed, morphed, transformed, and gone back to original methods that worked in the beginning. Our first book, Tiny Imperfections, the phrase ‘ignorance is bliss’ reigned supreme and we just hoped that what we were doing together would one day turn into a novel. Never Meant to Meet You, our second book, was written during the long stretch of Covid so we were in a bubble together and we did a lot of writing side-by-side to fill our days. While working on The Better Half, our partnership was challenged by the move of Alli and her family to another state. But we have figured out how to navigate that hurdle as well between Facetime, an insane number of calls and getting together for intense writing and editing sessions by traveling back and forth about every six weeks.
What inspired you to write The Better Half, and how did you create your character, Nina?
Alli & Asha: Nina is a first generation, American born child of Jamaican immigrants. She is a focused, driven, woman with a step-by-step life plan that, she is confident, will ensure the sacrifices her parents made in coming to America were worth it. As writers, the two of us are at an age where we have learned the hard lesson of detachment, to hold onto things a little more loosely. We have embraced the fact that even with the most scrupulous planning, some results are beyond our determination. In this book, we wanted to explore a controlling, calculated protagonist living in the exact moment of her life when this lesson comes to light.
Could you share one detail from your current release with readers that they might not find in the book?
Alli & Asha: We wrote The Better Half just before the dismantling of Roe v. Wade. We wanted our readers to consider the complications of an older mother who could absolutely take care of a baby, provide a beautiful life, but who had been there, done that and is ready and desires to move on to other opportunities in her life. We never imaged the scope of this story arc would launch in such charged time for women and the fight, yet again, for autonomy over our bodies.
What are you most excited about with this book?
Alli & Asha: We are so proud to share that The Better Half will be brought to readers by Mindy’s Book Studio, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, to include books developed in conjunction with and curated by author, director, actor, producer, Mindy Kaling. With an eye toward celebrating emerging and diverse voices, the imprint has welcomed us along with a growing roster of talented women writers. Mindy herself had this to say about our book: “Charming, laugh-out-loud funny, and honest, The Better Half celebrates the absurdity and joy in life, and does so with an enviable grace and good heart.”
If you could be one of your characters for a day which character would it be?
Alli: I would love to be Marisol for a day. I would get all the treatments I could possibly pull off in a day from The Clean Slate for free! Female upkeep is expensive!
Asha: I would be Nina for a day and spend it with students. I still get a huge kick out of working with kids. They energize me and remind me of the possibilities of life.
If you could spend the day with your character, what would you do? What would that day look like?
Alli: Per above, we would not leave the Clean Slate. Might be boring for Marisol, but there is a full bar, all we would have to do is order in food. And I would leave looking absolutely fresh and fabulous.
Asha: I hope Nina would allow me to take a class out on a field trip, possibly to the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle or to hike in the Washington state peninsula old growth forests. I loved teaching beyond the classroom, and I miss the opportunity to impress upon young scholars the importance of community and being a respectful citizen.
Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write?
Alli & Asha: There are not any particular authors that have influenced how we write, but it is our colleagues, and the parents and students in schools where we have worked that have influenced us. When you work in schools you become an expert in human nature and dialogue. We are often complimented on our characters’ dialogue being authentic and relatable. Our ability to do that comes from years and years of listening to people of all ages.
Do you have a secret talent readers would be surprised by?
Alli: I am an insane negotiator. And I now mentor younger women in the art. From a young age I committed to knowing my worth and fighting for it.
Asha: Part of what makes me a great storyteller is my love of voice and performance. I am a great mimic, I sing, and from my time in a kids’ traveling circus group, I developed a talent for making whacky facial expressions that enhance any story I tell.
Your favorite go to drink or food when the world goes crazy!
Alli: You will find me huddled in a corner hoarding Trader Joe’s corn dippers and cowboy caviar salsa with a vat of freshly made guacamole and elote. A freezing cold Diet Coke over crushed ice will be tucked into my side.
Asha: Seattle is my hometown so coffee it is! Make it an espresso martini alongside fresh chips and guacamole and I might move in.
What is your writing kryptonite?
Alli: A new series I have been waiting to start. I can easily set aside writing and talk myself into believing that my watching an entire series in a day or two is actually me “studying” and “learning” more about the storytelling/creative writing process. Ridiculous, but I can rationalizing a screen binge like none other.
Asha: My 13-year-old Yorkie, Tempo is writing kryptonite for me. He hates it when I am in video interviews or online with book clubs and he regularly chooses those times to bark to demand going out for a walk. If I am writing, I elect a time after a long walk with him so he can nap next to me. Tempo is an attention hound.
What is the one question you never get ask at interviews, but wish you did?
Why the heck do you put yourself through the agony of writing only to then be subjected to the brutality of reviews and reviewers?
Alli & Asha: While we like (as girls and now women) very different types of storytelling, we have always been captured by plots, arcs, character development other words. Some people simply read stories; we dissect them, agonize over them, feel them deeply. Creating story is like a lover you can’t release. Sometimes good for you, often bad for you. The lows are low, but when you have the highs, there is nothing like it.
What are you working on now?
Our fourth book that we are currently working on does not focus on schools and educators. We are stepping into a whole new landscape to explore generational themes and examine theories about what it means to be a success in America. We are excited to escort our faithful readers and to welcome new ones into an arena we found compelling but which we had to research to accurately honor. So far, we have found that there is another level of thrill to challenging ourselves in building characters that live in a world not intimately known to us. The teachers and students in us both are delighted to continue to learn and to take our writing to new heights.
Wow, thank you ladies, what a great interview!
Reader’s, here’s a peek at THE BETTER HALF:
After a difficult five years, at age forty-three, Nina Morgan Clarke’s time has finally arrived. With an ex-husband relocated across the country, her father bouncing back after the loss of his beloved wife, and her daughter, Xandra, thriving at boarding school, Nina is stepping into her dream job as a trifecta: a first-generation, Black female head of the storied Royal-Hawkins School. To mark the moment, Nina and her best friend, Marisol, take a long-overdue girls’ trip to celebrate the second half of Nina’s life―which is shaping up to be the best part of her life.
As Nina’s school year gets underway, all seems to be progressing as planned. Before long, wunder-hire Jared Jones, two hundred pounds of Harvard-educated ego, relentlessly pushes Nina to her ethical limits. Soon after, dutiful Xandra accuses one of her teachers of misconduct. And most alarming, the repercussions of her trip with Marisol force Nina into a life-altering choice. Time is of the essence, and Nina must decide if she will embrace a future she never could have predicted.
