Lidija Hilje - SLANTING TOWARDS THE SEA

[00:00] Cindy: Welcome to Thoughts from a Page, a member of the Evergreen Podcasts Network. I'm Cindy Burnett, and I am so glad you're here. I personally select and read every book featured on the show so I can bring you thoughtful spoiler-free author interviews.

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[01:05] I am so grateful.

[01:06] Today, Lidija Hilje joins me to chat about her wonderful debut, Slanting Towards the Sea. My family and I visited Croatia last summer and I fell in love with the beautiful country.

[01:16] As soon as I saw that this book was set there, I knew I had to read it and it does not disappoint.

[01:22] First, it's hard to believe that it's a debut.

[01:25] Second, Lidija writes in English, which is her second language, and the prose is just so stunning you would not believe it was her debut or that it is written in her second language.

[01:36] This is one you will not want to miss.

[01:39] Lidija is a book coach and author of literary fiction. Before becoming a novelist, she was a practicing attorney at law, spending her days trying cases before Croatian courts.

[01:49] She lives in Zadar, Croatia with her husband and two children. When she's not writing or coaching writers, she can be found sipping coffee with her husband on one of her hometown's piazzas, or scrapbooking and buying too many books with her girls.

[02:01] I hope you enjoy our conversation.

[02:05] Welcome Lidija. How are you today?

[02:07] Lidija: I'm feeling great. Thank you so much for having me.

[02:10] Cindy: I'm so glad you're here. I loved Slanting Towards the Sea and I can't wait to chat about it.

[02:15] Lidija: Oh, thank you so much.

[02:16] Cindy: Well, before we dive into my questions, would you give me a quick synopsis of Slanting Towards the Sea for those that haven't read it yet?

[02:22] Lidija: Well, Slanting Towards the Sea is a story about a woman in her late 30s who has divorced the love of her life 10 years earlier for reasons only known to her and her mother in law.

[02:35] And at this point in life she is living with her father who is very ill and she's taking care of him and she is reconnecting with her ex husband and his new wife who is accepting her into their fold,

[02:51] so to speak.

[02:52] And when a new man enters Ivona's life, the delicate balance between all the four people really gets disrupted. So that's kind of the quick overview of the plot.

[03:05] Cindy: Well, and I don't want to have any spoilers, but I will just say I loved the way everything slowly unfurled and you learned why she and her husband had divorced 

[03:15] And more about all of the varying relationships. You just did that beautifully.

[03:20] Lidija: Oh, thank you. Yeah, I think I should mention that it's a dual timeline story.

[03:25] So we do have both timelines where you know, the present storyline is from the moment when the book opens toward the end of that summer. And the past storyline really brings us up to date to why this curious constellation of relationship is really the way it is.

[03:43] So it is a dual timeline book.

[03:46] Cindy: Which I always thoroughly enjoy.

[03:48] Lidija: Well, I'm glad to hear it.

[03:50] Cindy: How did you come up with the ideas for this one? I know a little bit of it is based on what's happened with your own father, but can you tell me where all of the ideas came from?

[03:59] Lidija: So I think I was.

[04:00] The thing I was interested in most was having this person who really longs for her ex husband. In my personal life, I've been happily married for over two decades,

[04:14] so I don't get a lot of that longing anymore.

[04:18] So I think a part of me really wanted to explore how that feels. And there was always a fear I had that I would lose my husband one way or the other.

[04:28] And that's one of the biggest fears I had. And so this book allowed me to really go into those emotions like how would that look?

[04:38] How would I feel?

[04:40] What would that do to me?

[04:42] How would I survive? Would I survive?

[04:45] So I guess that was the impetus for the main storyline, which is the love story between Ivona and Vlacho.

[04:54] The other part that I feel that inspired me to write Ivona's story was that she struggles with a lot of things that I personally struggled with, even though in a different way.

[05:07] But the idea of having this country that kind of trips your feet, if that makes sense,

[05:14] that keeps kind of getting in your way in the way of your ambitions, in the way of your success, in the way of your desires.

[05:20] That's something I experienced in my own life. That's a frustration I had to work through in my own life. And so when I started writing Slanting Towards the Sea,

[05:30] it appeared to be relevant as well for her story. And so I could go deeper and see just how that would look to have a person whose life is wholly affected by the country that she lives in.

[05:44] So I guess that's the other part of the story that was really interesting for me to explore.

[05:49] Cindy: And do you want to talk about your father at all?

[05:51] Lidija: Well, yeah. I mean,

[05:54] my father suffered a massive stroke nine years ago. And it's been the most painful thing that my family has experienced so far. I mean, thank God nothing worse happened, you know, because he was close to dying, but his speech is impaired, so he can't really connect the words to their meanings,

[06:16] which leaves him in a very lonely place where he can't talk, he can't read,

[06:22] he can't interact basically, in any meaningful way.

[06:26] And my mom is basically his sole caregiver.

[06:31] She's taking care of him. She's doing all that needs to be done in terms of his meds and, you know, just whatever he needs. And I often think about what would happen if something happened to my mom.

[06:43] So that would leave me as his primary caregiver and my sister, but my sister lives further away, so it would basically fall on me.

[06:51] So I guess out of that fear, I was just trying to explore how that would look as well.

[06:57] You know, my dad is great,

[07:01] but he has this kind of like, black and white thinking, pretty similar to how Ivona's father is in the novel. Which is not to say that now it's going to sound that Ivona's story is pretty similar to my life story, which is not, which it is definitely not.

[07:17] But there are some similarities to my father and the father in the book.

[07:23] So, yeah, it was fun exploring the interaction between the two of them.

[07:28] And in a way, I think it was fun to have to be able to imagine my father speaking again.

[07:36] I think that was something that was soothing for me in terms of. Because we can't really maintain a meaningful conversation anymore. So that was something that I really

[07:49] loved that I could, you know, at least in fiction, I could make my character talk to her. And through that,

[07:56] imagine, like, what he would say and how he would respond to any certain things. So I guess that's the answer

[08:05] Cindy: Makes sense to bring him back essentially in a way. I mean, he's there, but to bring him back where he's able to actually interact with you in a meaningful way.

[08:13] Lidija: Yes, absolutely. You said it so much better than I did.

[08:16] Cindy: No, not at all.

[08:17] But my father had Alzheimer's, so it was a different experience.

[08:20] But toward the end, the last year or so, there were times when it was really difficult as well, to communicate with him because you never knew whether he was really understanding.

[08:29] He would want stuff. He couldn't always communicate.

[08:31] Lidija: It.

[08:31] Cindy: It's. It's heartbreaking.

[08:32] Lidija: It's very heartbreaking. I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

[08:36] Cindy: And same with you, sadly, I think it's. You know, we get to a certain age and that happens, but it doesn't make it any less heartbreaking.

[08:42] Lidija: Yes, absolutely. And it's a little.

[08:45] For me, it was a little bit of a shock just how.

[08:49] I mean, people go through that every day.

[08:52] And, you know, when. When this happened to him, I was 30, 31, I think. And so I.

[08:59] It came all too soon for me to have a father who is in this condition, basically, and in need of so much,

[09:09] you know, assistance.

[09:11] So I was unprepared, I would say, for just how much,

[09:15] you know, that was. For how hard it was and for how hard it is for caretakers to be in this position of caretaking, which I'm repeating again. My mother is doing the job of caretaking, but it's still hard to see.

[09:32] Cindy: most definitely. And 31 is young. I was definitely a lot older than that when it was happening to me. And I'm sure it was a young age for him as well to be dealing with all of that.

[09:42] It's so sad.

[09:43] Lidija: Yeah. He was only 64, so it was just on the eve of his retirement.

[09:48] It was just heartbreaking in so many different ways. And it actually happened, like, three weeks before my sister was supposed to get married, and she was pregnant. And so it was the longest time.

[09:59] My mom and I we were trying to,

[10:02] you know, tell her that it was just a minor stroke, 

[10:06] trying to not,

[10:08] have something happen to her and her child.

[10:11] But it was heartbreaking in so many ways. So it was a difficult time for our family.

[10:15] Cindy: Yes, I'm sure quite difficult.

[10:17] And I want to talk more about Croatia, but before we do that,

[10:20] I want to talk about you writing in English, which is your second language. Your prose is stunning, and I couldn't write a quarter as well as you did, and English is my first language.

[10:32] So let's talk a little bit about deciding to write in English and that process and just how you made that decision.

[10:39] Lidija: Well, thank you so much.

[10:41] That means the world to me.

[10:42] Well, I really wanted to publish the book outside Croatia. Croatia is such a small country to begin with, with such a small readership. So basically,

[10:53] I was an attorney here, and I just wanted to do something else.

[10:59] That's the short version. Like, there are multiple layers to that story. But I don't want to get, like, too bogged down into that.

[11:08] I wanted to do something with books. I wanted to work with writers,

[11:12] write the books myself. So I kind of started reading and writing in English because I knew I had to write in English myself to be able to be published outside Croatia.

[11:23] So that was basically in 2019.

[11:26] Before that, I had written one book in Croatian.

[11:29] Like I said, I wanted to publish it outside Croatia, but I had actually paid someone, a translator, to translate it, and they returned Google Translate pages like they used Google Translate.

[11:43] Cindy: You're like, I could have done that.

[11:45] Lidija: It was so bad, and I was so disappointed. And then I just sat down and said, you know, okay, that's it. I can't really do it.

[11:54] My English is not that bad. Good. And then I, you know, bucked up, as they say,

[11:59] and started reading and writing in English, and my English improved over time.

[12:05] I should say that I never basically visited the United States, and I spent a whole seven days in the UK. I'm not one of those people who actually spent 

[12:17] Like a prolonged time in any of those countries. So it was more difficult in that sense to really wield the language, if that makes sense.

[12:27] It was a process. It took a long time, but now I'm feeling more confident in using it. Except when I'm talking, I hate my accent. 

[12:38] It always sounds so better in my head, and when I speak, it doesn't come out the way I would like to. So that's always a pain.

[12:45] Cindy: Well, I think your English is phenomenal. And I mean, you even know expressions like bucked up. I mean, that's like. That takes ages to learn those kinds of things.

[12:53] Cindy: So I think your English is phenomenal. But I just. As I was reading your book, I thought, I cannot believe this is her second language and she's writing in it. Because you just have such a way with words.

[13:02] Lidija: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah.

[13:04] I think what's interesting is that people think I translate like that. I think of a phrase or a thing in Croatian and then I translate it into English.

[13:13] And basically that's not how it works. You really have to think in English to be able to write in English. At least that's true for me. So 

[13:21] When I said sit down to write, I actually have to completely change the language I'm operating in and think in English and write in English. And only if there's a word that I might know from Croatian and not know in English, then I would look up the dictionaries and try to find an appropriate translation.

[13:43] But otherwise I'm basically thinking in English when I'm writing. So it's not a work of translation at all. I'm actually writing this in English, if that makes sense.

[13:55] Cindy: That's incredibly impressive. And on a side note, when I was getting ready for this interview, I saw that Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai had blurbed the book, and I adore her. I love The Mountains Sing and Dust Child, and I actually hosted her in Houston for my literary salon before I moved to Virginia.

[14:10] And she's just wonderful. And she does the same thing. I mean, it's her second language, and she wrote The Mountains Sing and Dust Child in English. And I always just find that

[14:17] Truly amazing.

[14:19] Lidija: She is such an inspiration. I love her so much. I mean, her books have been transformative for me.

[14:26] And I think it's more impressive for her because I think Vietnamese language really has a completely different syntax,

[14:34] whereas Slavic languages are much more similar to English.

[14:40] So I think for her,

[14:41] like,

[14:43] there's a lot that goes into how they speak, and 

[14:47] I guess the sing-songy part of their language really plays a difference. Like she said that actually,

[14:55] the way you accentuate it, that's the word. You know, any certain word can reflect on. It's like it can change the meaning of the word, which is not the truth for Croatians.

[15:06] So I think it's even more impressive for her. She's truly an inspiration.

[15:10] Cindy: I agree. And also, just the issues that she writes about. I know she's expressed concern to me about her government, the Vietnamese government, and making sure she doesn't afoul of them.

[15:20] So, yes, I agree with all of that.

[15:22] Lidija: Yeah.

[15:23] I mean, as someone who's gone through a war,

[15:25] when I read The Mountains Sing,

[15:28] that was,

[15:29] like I said, completely transformative experience for me because she talks so beautifully about,

[15:37] you know, the need for peace without getting bogged down into any of the sides, which I think is just incredible. If you'd gone through a conflict like, that's just mind blowing to me.

[15:50] So I'm really.

[15:51] She's an inspiration on so many levels for me.

[15:54] Cindy: I totally get that.

[15:58] And now we can talk about Croatia, which I'm so excited to talk about because I actually visited last summer. We went to Split and to Dubrovnik, and I just fell in love with it.

[16:06] I thought it was the most beautiful place I've ever been. I loved the people. I just loved everything about it. It was just phenomenal. So as soon as I saw your book was set there, that's why I originally grabbed it.

[16:18] And then I kept seeing all this wonderful stuff about it afterwards, and I'm like, okay, I need to read it. But just such a beautiful country and there's so much to talk about with it.

[16:26] And one thing you touched on, which we found while we were there, was that the war wasn't very long ago, and almost every single person we met referenced it. And that was interesting to all of us because we haven't had an experience like that.

[16:39] And I can imagine it's something that really, truly does stay with you.

[16:43] Lidija: Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, I was 8 when the war started, and I was around 11 when it ended, at least in the part of Croatia where I am.

[16:54] So I mean, my. My childhood was marked by, you know,

[16:58] being so sent elsewhere and living apart from my parents.

[17:03] So it did affect my growing up a lot. And the politics are still, you know, as much as we as a nation try to overcome and look toward the future.

[17:14] But the politics, you know, how that works, like, the politicians keep pulling back up the past in its many shapes and forms in order to gain voters, I guess.

[17:28] So it keeps being a conversation still.

[17:33] I mean, this is such an unstable part of the world, if you will. I mean, the Balkan peninsula was always called the barrel of gunpowder.

[17:43] Historically, you could always lit a match and it would blow,

[17:48] so to speak. So it's always 

[17:51] A very sensitive topic in these parts. But at the same time, I didn't want to write the book about the war.

[17:58] And I keep getting asked,

[18:01] you know, like, when I was working on my first novel, which is now slow, safely shelved, that it's never going to see the light of day.

[18:09] And this novel, I kept being asked, like, why don't you write a book about the war? That's so interesting. And I get that for people from outside Croatia, it's very interesting.

[18:21] But you do fall into that trap, I think, of any given place having just that one story to tell.

[18:29] And so that expectation being from Croatian writers, to only write about the war or the communism or something like that.

[18:36] So I just wanted to.

[18:38] In this book, I did reference it because it was something that, you know, my characters have also gone through, but I didn't want to make it front and center. I didn't want to make it,

[18:50] the thing that evokes the most emotions or pushes the plot forward.

[18:56] It's just a fact, the way it actually is here in Croatia. It's just the fact that we live with,

[19:03] if that makes sense.

[19:04] Cindy: It does. And I agree with everything you said, and I was actually glad it wasn't a book about the war, but I thought it was important that you had referenced it, because, as I said, every single person we talked to mentioned it.

[19:15] So it was clearly something you live with, not something that has to define you.

[19:20] Lidija: Yes, absolutely. That's exactly it. And my wish was always to write a story about contemporary relationships,

[19:28] more so than referencing the war or the past.

[19:32] And at the beginning, I always felt like if I wanted to write a story like that, I had to set it in the US or the UK because it felt like the US or the UK had the seamless background, like cultural, logically or societally, you didn't have to go into too many details because it's so well known worldwide.

[19:54] And so I actually set my first book in the US and made my characters American and then struggled bringing that setting to life. But it's actually what I want to write.

[20:04] I want to write about everyday people and their everyday relationships and struggles. And so with setting this book in Croatia, I knew that a part of setting in Croatia would be a loud element,

[20:18] and I had to balance that out.

[20:20] But I also.

[20:23] I felt like I needed to,

[20:25] that this was the kind of writing that I wanted to do. So that's why I didn't, you know, set the book a little more in the past when the war was actually active and raging in these parts.

[20:38] Cindy: Well, and I did appreciate that as well. I just love reading about contemporary people in another country. I feel like we all need to learn about these various places with which we're not as familiar.

[20:48] But also, there's so much division right now. And I think to understand that, as you mentioned, people in Croatia are just like people here in the US and we're all just living our lives is a very useful reminder and kind of helps people come together and realize we're really not different.

[21:03] Lidija: Yeah, I feel like there's. Like I mentioned earlier,

[21:07] There's the idea of every place except for the UK and the US to have one story.

[21:13] So you kind of, as a reader,

[21:15] have learned to expect that story from that place. So if the book is set in Ireland, there's

[21:23] usually a talk of poverty or, you know, the Catholic Church and their misdeeds or whatever.

[21:30] Cindy: The Troubles.

[21:31] Lidija: The Troubles, exactly. If you have a book set in the Far East, it's usually those.

[21:37] The World War II and the struggles or maybe even further in the past.

[21:44] You don't get a lot of contemporary

[21:47] relationship stories that include Beijing or something.

[21:52] So I do appreciate those stories. Like, those are my favorite stories to read. I mean,

[21:58] contemporary books set in Ireland, contemporary books set in Nigeria, contemporary books set in Japan, like, those are. It's not. I mean, I appreciate a historical or culturally heavy novel now and again,

[22:15] but I do love those stories where I can see just how people live in different parts of the world nowadays.

[22:22] Cindy: I'm the exact same way. And that leads me into my next question, which is, when we were there, there was a lot of talk about tourism, and I know that Dubrovnik in particular has really struggled with too many tourists.

[22:32] And so we had a lot of conversations about how the government's tried to address that. I was not familiar with all the bureaucratic issues that Ivona has in your book.

[22:40] And then you mentioned that you've encountered as well. Can you talk a little bit about some of that? Because that was really interesting to me.

[22:47] Lidija: I think that's one of the things that I was fearing when I started writing this book. I felt like if I said it in Croatia, it's like the cultural element will overpower the narrative.

[22:59] It's a quiet narrative.

[23:01] Not much happens in the book in terms of the plot.

[23:05] So I really felt like the cultural and societal part of living in Croatia would overpower it. So it was an act of balancing, for sure.

[23:18] But it is such a big part of our lives here. It's. It's something that really,

[23:23] You can't tune out when you talk about people's lives, because it does affect you on everyday level,

[23:31] more so than, you know. I mean, I can't really speak to how people live elsewhere, obviously, but I feel like not as much attention to those things is seen in other books set, for instance, in the US or the UK.

[23:45] So I'm assuming that it has to be better than here. But it is a thing that constantly weighs on me and my days. And it's a thing I constantly have to battle with.

[23:57] I mean, just today, for instance,

[23:59] I had spent maybe three hours trying to straighten out the issue of getting my finished copies from the customer's office.

[24:09] So it's like,

[24:11] you know, the public. I'm entitled to a certain number of copies from the publisher, and the publisher has sent them, and I hadn't paid for them because I'm entitled to them by the power of the contract.

[24:23] And so my customs office needs a receipt, and I'm trying to explain that there's no receipt.

[24:30] Cindy: You know, you're like, I didn't pay, so I don't have a receipt.

[24:34] Lidija: Yes, exactly. So it's an uphill battle. Every day. Every day something comes in and really steals three or four hours of your time. And it's a constant thing. And sometimes it's just.

[24:46] It's not a small thing. It's not, you know, whether I will get my finished copies or not. It can be a thing like whether you get a job in your line of work or not.

[24:57] For instance, my sister has a PhD in landscape architecture,

[25:02] and she has struggled for,

[25:04] you know, the better part of her life to find work in her line of work. So it's really difficult to, you know, have a full life here. There's just so many threads that kind of keep pulling you back, if that makes sense.

[25:20] Cindy: It totally does. And I thought you portrayed that very well through Ivona. And do you think it's because the country is so new, or do you think it is something about the culture, like, what do you think leads to all of the bureaucratic mess?

[25:33] Lidija: Oh, that's a really good question.

[25:36] I did think about it a lot,

[25:38] actually,

[25:39] over the time, and I think it's a combination of two things. First is the historic. That historically we're a communist country, which is,

[25:50] Communism was bureaucratic. It was bureaucratic in nature in so many ways.

[25:57] So I think that kind of, like, mentality of having the forms and walking through the, you know, corridor and, you know, knocking on one door and then the other in any institution that you might.

[26:09] Where you might need something is just a part of,

[26:12] you know, how things are. And the second part is I feel like there are structures in Croatia that really benefit from the mess that they created.

[26:23] And so it's really easy for people to,

[26:29] as we would say, fish in the dark,

[26:32] you know, cast their nets in the dark, if you will. You know, gray economy or whatever. The thing is,

[26:38] it's really easier when things are messy because then, you always need that one person to do something for you. And even though they are supposed to do that for you because they're sitting in an office that should resolve that for you, you need to kind of,

[26:56] you need to be thankful that they took your case, that they helped you and not someone else. Like, it's always just such a battle basically, with bureaucracy.

[27:06] Cindy: It sounds like it. And I think people get power hungry and they don't want to let go of some of that.

[27:11] Lidija: Exactly. And I mean, our country is basically.

[27:14] I mean, I don't want to get too political, but

[27:18] Our country has this thing that we call.

[27:22] Oh, God,

[27:23] the Croatian word is.

[27:26] Which in a rough translation would be breading, if that makes sense,

[27:32] which I know it doesn't, but it's kind of like giving someone a position in a certain institution.

[27:40] You know, it's giving someone a job. And so they earn their breads, which is from, like, that's where the word comes from. They earn their bread by being put in that position.

[27:53] Basically. There are a lot more people. Let's say it like this. There are a lot more people working for the government in any given part of the.

[28:05] You know, whether locally, whether on state level,

[28:10] than necessary.

[28:12] So it's a big problem of just keeping the workforce and keeping people in jobs and then just.

[28:22] It's a whole machinery, if you will.

[28:25] Cindy: Well, that makes sense. And it was very interesting to see how that played out in your book.

[28:30] Lidija: Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. It was not the funnest part to write, but it was. I think it's true to life.

[28:37] Cindy: Well, and exactly what we were talking about before is fascinating to learn about another place. And if that is part of your everyday life, then it's important that you depict that in the book.

[28:47] Lidija: It was absolutely. There was absolutely no way to avoid that as much as I tried.

[28:54] Cindy: Well, I saw that you had gone on the **** no one tells you about writing podcast, which I love, and that you talked about postcard scenes. I haven't listened to the episode, so could you tell me what a postcard scene is?

[29:06] I was so fascinated by that term.

[29:08] Lidija: Oh, that's a term that Donald Maass coined,

[29:11] as far as I know,

[29:13] in terms of making a distinction between commercial fiction and literary fiction,

[29:19] which I think is always this,

[29:21] impossible thing to define, like what is what makes a book literary instead of commercial. And, you know, many people will tell you it's just great writing, it's beautiful use of language, but I think many commercial books really do a good job of that as well.

[29:39] So it's not just that there's a different quality to writing literary fiction than commercial fiction. And so Donald Maass really is my favorite writing instructor, and he said that in literary fiction, there's use of scenes,

[29:57] normal scenes, like you would have in commercial fiction, but there's also the use of postcards.

[30:03] And the postcards are the types of scenes which don't take the story further.

[30:09] They take the story deeper.

[30:12] And in terms of how I would explain this is,

[30:16] When you have a normal scene, you will have a character. Something happens externally, right? And you will have a character responding to that by realizing something,

[30:27] learning something,

[30:28] deciding on a new path, or the story gets a new trajectory because of something that happened externally to the protagonist. Whereas in a postcard, nothing happens for the protagonist.

[30:40] The protagonist stays exactly the same as they are,

[30:43] but the reader's understanding of the protagonist changes.

[30:48] And so it's just like you have a character going around their day,

[30:54] and it's your understanding of them that deepens and that gives you that feeling of something new happening in the story, if that makes sense.

[31:01] So that's what the postcards are.

[31:04] Cindy: It's such an evocative term. So I was so curious what it meant.

[31:08] Lidija: He coined the term postcards because he felt like it was similar to getting postcards from vacation.

[31:16] Cindy: Right.

[31:17] Lidija: Whereas a normal scene would, you know, just have you see what's happening in someone else's life. Like the postcard, really.

[31:25] You're basically writing to someone you love and saying, I wish you were here with me. I wish you saw this sunset from where I'm standing. Right. And that's what a postcard scene does.

[31:36] It really puts you in the shoes of the protagonist. It allows you to feel the world through their eyes, through their own experience,

[31:44] if that makes sense.

[31:45] Cindy: It totally does. I love that.

[31:47] Well, let's talk about your title and your cover. I understand that the cover in the US is an actual painting by a Croatian artist, which is wonderful. And I want to hear more about the title.

[31:58] Lidija: So actually, I had a different title when I started querying.

[32:02] And when I got my offer of representation. I actually had three people offering. And the single point of feedback that I got from all three agents was that the title wasn't good.

[32:16] And I was not happy with that title, that previous title at all.

[32:21] So I set out to really go through the manuscript and take all the kinds of plays with words and phrases I could take.

[32:29] And I put a lot of spin on those. And then I came up, I kind of whittled the list down to maybe 20ish options and sent it to 

[32:41] Some of my writing friends. And so out of that, Slanting Towards the Sea was the clear winner. So I emailed my agent and she said, I agree. And so that's how the title came to be.

[32:55] And as for the cover I think that's a very special story because usually authors don't have a say about what the cover will be. The art department in a publisher will decide on the, you know, artistic direction that they want to take, and then the most you

[33:17] can have is the approval, right?

[33:20] Which is not to say that you can, you know, tell them what you want on the cover. You can just approve what they offered. Right.

[33:27] So what happened to me is that I saw this Instagram post 

[33:35] with this painting, and I was just like, this is my cover.

[33:38] It really felt, oh, my God, this is Ivona. And someone painted Ivona, and this is my cover. And then I looked the artist up and it said that her name was Hannah Tischler,

[33:49] which sounded very international,

[33:51] and that she lived in Lisbon. And when I looked her further up, it said that she was a Croatian living in Lisbon. And that felt like a clear sign to me that this was just incredible that I would even come across 

[34:04] That painting. And so I shared it with my editor when the time came for the cover to be created. And the art team in Simon and Schuster really fell for it.

[34:14] They said it was perfect. And so there was never even any other option for the cover. And I'm really, really glad that that was the case.

[34:24] Cindy: It's just stunning. I absolutely love it. And both the depiction of the sea and having sea in your title are so relevant to Croatia, because if you look at the map for people that aren't familiar with Croatia, you will see that the country really has a lot of coast and the Adriatic is just beautiful there.

[34:43] Lidija: It's

[34:44] a central part of our lives. It's really hard. It was, for instance, I lived for five years in Zagreb when I was studying law,

[34:53] and Zagreb is in the continental part of Croatia. And so it was really hard for me not to be near the sea. It's really something that calls to you constantly.

[35:02] Constantly. And in a way, it regulates us. I have no better way of explaining it. It really feels like it regulates you emotionally. I don't know, you feel. Feel calm.

[35:14] I mean, every. Every morning we will, you know, go to the town and sit by the sea and take our coffee, and it just sets your day in a completely calm way, no matter what is happening in your life.

[35:26] So it's just the central point of every Dalmatian person's life, if that makes sense. So,

[35:33] yeah,

[35:34] there was, like, the bureaucracy. There was no way of me writing this book in any other way than making the sea central.

[35:42] Cindy: Absolutely. There was some kind of meme recently that was going around that talked about how Croatia had said, no one else can have the sea because if you look at the map, it's just this.

[35:52] A lot of it along thin territory. It does go wider where Zagreb is, but then all these other countries are landlocked. And it made me laugh because I was like, it's so true, 

[36:00] And blame them. I was like, not at all. That would be exactly what I would want if I were living there.

[36:06] Lidija: Yes, exactly.

[36:08] Cindy: Well, Lidija, before we wrap up, what have you read recently that you really liked?

[36:12] Lidija: Oh, I have read some fantastic books recently.

[36:15] I have read The Anthropologists by Aysegul Savage,

[36:19] which I really loved.

[36:21] It's in the vein of the books that I was talking to you about just now. It's set in an unnamed city,

[36:29] and it's about a young couple who are trying to,

[36:33] they come from different backgrounds, so different countries, and they don't even speak the same mother language.

[36:41] So they're trying to make their life in this new town and trying to make their own culture.

[36:47] And it's a quiet book. There's really no plot. Nothing big happens, but it's a real slice of life, and I really love, love this book. Another book that I read recently and adored,

[36:59] which I hadn't expected maybe to love that much as. As much as I did, was We Were the Universe by Kimberly King Parsons, which is a story about a young mother grieving the loss of her sister.

[37:14] And it really starts almost inconspicuously. It's funny and

[37:21] It has a lot to do 

[37:23] With the character daydreaming about,

[37:27] you know, having sex with other people and masturbating and stuff like that. So it really felt like it might not be the right book for me, but oh my God, when it lures you in, when it ends, it's such a profound read and it stays with you for months and months.

[37:45] So I love that one. And I'm currently this is maybe a shameful,

[37:50] you know,

[37:52] a shameful confession, but I'm currently reading James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room,

[37:59] which is just exquisitely written and I'm hanging on every word and wishing that I could one day write as well as he is. It's so beautiful and a beautiful love story and I'm just enthralled with that book as well.

[38:15] Cindy: And a shameful confession because you just hadn't read it yet.

[38:18] Lidija: Yes, a shameful confession because I hadn't read it yet.

[38:21] Cindy: Makes sense. His prose also is stunning and I love the few of his books that I have read I have loved.

[38:27] Lidija: I am new to that author because, Like I said, I was reading in Croatian before up until five years ago,

[38:35] so I have a lot of back lists to cover. And like I said, I'm ashamed to admit that I'm just starting with his work now. But oh my God, it's so good.

[38:48] It's beautiful.

[38:49] Cindy: It really is. I totally agree, as is yours. And I'm so glad we got to chat, Lidija, because I just love Slanting Towards the Sea and I appreciate your time coming on my show.

[38:59] Lidija: Thank you so much for having me. And thank you so, so much for everything you do to connect to the readers with their perfect books.

[39:06] Cindy: Absolutely.

[39:09] Thank you so much for listening to my podcast. I would love to connect with you on Instagram or Facebook where you can find me at Thoughts From a Page. If you enjoy the show and have a moment to rate it or subscribe to it wherever you listen to your podcasts,

[39:22] I would really appreciate it. It makes a huge difference. And please tell all of your friends about Thoughts From a Page.

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[39:31] The book discussed in this episode can be purchased at my Bookshop storefront and the link is in the Show Notes. I hope you'll tune in next time.