“From Scratch” author Tembi Locke gives us an emotional new chapter in “Someday, Now” | Audible.ca
“From Scratch” author Tembi Locke gives us an emotional new chapter in “Someday, Now”
The actor and producer takes us back to Sicily in this immersive audio memoir, capturing one final summer adventure before her daughter leaves for college.
Note: Text has been lightly edited for clarity and does not match audio exactly.
Margaret Hargrove: Hi, listeners, I'm Audible editor Margaret Hargrove, and I'm thrilled to be here today with bestselling author, screenwriter, producer, and podcaster, Tembi Locke, who tells such beautiful and heartfelt stories about love, loss, and resilience. Her 2019 memoir, , became a New York Times bestseller and a hit Netflix series starring Zoe Saldaña. Tembi is back with , an immersive audio journey recorded in Sicily, capturing a reflective summer as she prepares to send her daughter off to college. Tembi, welcome to Audible.
TL: Margaret, thank you for having me here. I'm excited for our conversation.
MH: Me, too. Before we jump into Someday, Now, I think we need to start at the beginning.
TL: Okay.
MH: From Scratch is a deeply personal book for me because I'm also a widow. Your memoir detailing the great love you shared with your husband, Saro, and the profound loss, grief, and healing you experienced after his death was a critical lifeline for me in those early years after my own loss. I can't thank you enough, and I'm so honored to be sitting here today with the woman who, I boldly say, has changed my life.
TL: Okay, well, I'm going to have to take a moment. First of all, I'm so sorry for your loss.
MH: Thank you. And you, too. It's not a club, right, that we ever thought that we would be members of.
TL: You know, you are reminding me of the women who I met in the first year and two years after Saro passed, who were also part of this club, but who were a few years down the line, or a decade down the line after their, their loss. And I kept looking at them with wonder, like, "How did they do it? How do they do it? What did they do? How does one build a path forward and build a new life?" And effectively, that is a part of the question that I brought into From Scratch that I was seeking to answer.
And when I wrote that book, I really wrote it first for myself. As a first time author, I thought, "Well, if five people hear this book or read this book, I am good." I wrote this for myself. I never could have imagined that one day I would be talking to you, and that the book that I wrote in my own searching would be a point of light, or a guide, or in some way instructive to you, and that it changed your life. And I think that that's a part of the power of storytelling. Those women that I referred to earlier, they told their stories of loss, and it helped me to see a light for myself. And then, you're telling me that in the sharing of my story, it provided the same for you. So that is powerful, and thank you.
MH: Well, more than five people did read and listen to From Scratch. Millions of people across the world enjoyed your story. But then for your memoir to be adapted into a television show, I think, takes it to a whole other level. When was the moment for you that you had an inkling of how big From Scratch was going to be?
"That's a part of the power of storytelling. Those women that I referred to earlier, they told their stories of loss, and it helped me to see a light for myself. And then, you're telling me that in the sharing of my story, it provided the same for you. So that is powerful, and thank you."
TL: Oh, my goodness. The moment that always leaps to my mind is, it was the week that the show was going to drop on Netflix, and I was in New York City, and I was standing in the middle of Times Square, okay? Actually, in front of the Marriott Marquis, where I worked as a waitress when I lived in New York, [laughs] okay? So I'm at the ground level of this building that I worked in. And I look up, and it's on a billboard in Times Square. And that, like, I cannot tell you the feeling that came over me. It was surreal; it was emotional. I wanted to cry; I wanted to laugh. I was in disbelief. And so that was like the first moment where I thought, "Oh." It literally hit me: "Oh wait, everybody might see this." [Laughs] Like, I don't think I had slowed down to think like, "Oh, this is really visible in a really big and global way.”
But it was after it premiered, and DMs started coming in my Instagram, that I really understood the actual heart impact and the soul impact that the show was having on people. And that was truly—it was humbling. I felt so much gratitude. And I just thought, "Wow, you know, we, not only did we endeavor to take the story from my book and put it on screen, but we did it in a way that is actually really touching millions of people." And it was profound. It still is kind of like surreal. I mean, like, how this is not a common occurrence in one's life. So, it's kind of surreal, and I just, I don't question it anymore. I just say, "Thank you." Thank you.
MH: Well, we thank you, and thank you many, many times. But I'm so grateful that you've given us another chapter in your incredible life story. In Someday, Now, you take us back to Sicily for one last summer adventure with your college-bound daughter, Zoela, and your new husband, Robert. How did the idea for Someday, Now come to you? Was it spontaneous, born out of this specific trip, or had you been thinking of writing a follow up to From Scratch?
TL: It's actually a combination of both things. And I love this question. I wish I could, say, pinpoint an exact moment in time where it's like, "That's the idea." However, I had been for years thinking I do want to write another book. So, I was very clear on that. And I wasn't quite sure: Did I want to return to memoir? Did I want to explore fiction? And I kind of hung out in the question. Meanwhile, I was busy working on the adaptation of the series. And it was only after the series came out and I'd had enough time to kind of fully process the arc of the book to the series, and I thought, "Well, I do want to write another story."
And the timing of that was around the same time that my daughter was getting ready to graduate high school. And boy, oh boy, was I full of all the feelings, and all of the questions, and was I pulled to go back to Sicily, for reasons I didn't fully understand in the moment. And so it was really that... I kind of remember the week running up to her graduation that I was like, "I think this is the thing I need to write about." And I think that this forthcoming trip that I want to do to Sicily is perhaps a way to return to a familiar locale, return to memoir, but in a very different way, but that is tethered to the first story. And, oh my goodness, what if it's an audiobook, an audio-forward story? And what would that be?
So, I really leaned into the big questions of it. And, you know, the idea of partnering with Simon & Schuster again, and making it an original, and writing it for audio really kind of gave me permission to return to events of my own life and to write the next book and the next chapter, if you will.
MH: Is there a reason why you felt audio-first when it came to this story versus just writing another traditionally published book?
"And what if, in a very intimate way, in a way that only audio can do, I brought those listeners with me on this one final, if you will, trip to Sicily?"
TL: Yes. I think, one, I love listening to audiobooks, so I have to start there, and the way that there's an intimacy that is very, very specific to audio. The other part is that I think I was in a moment emotionally—both as a storyteller and as a mother, and as a woman—where I was really in a season of deep listening in my own life, and to my own heart, and to what was going on.
And I think that the idea of it being an audiobook was born also out of the fact that many readers and listeners of the audiobook of From Scratch were like, "I want this experience to continue." And, you know, the part of me that's a storyteller, I know that life continues, life is continuing to unfold. And what if, in a very intimate way, in a way that only audio can do, I brought those listeners with me on this one final, if you will, trip to Sicily? What I mean by final is that it's the final summer of her childhood, my daughter's childhood, as I knew it. It's the kind of closure to an arc of a season that we had begun, she and I, with these travels to Sicily each summer. My mother-in-law had passed away, and it felt like the way in to a story.
I think it gave me creative permission to play and to really listen to the sounds of the place, to listen to the words I was choosing, to bring Italian in in a different way, and to bring Sicily. I had written about Sicily, I had filmed Sicily, but what if we just listened to Sicily and let a place speak to us through the sounds of that natural environment? That felt like a cool, cool thing to explore.
MH: Well, it's very cool in the finished product because you've interwoven the audio with ambient sounds of Sicily and conversations that you recorded while you were there. It really makes the listener feel as though we are right there with you. So, you had pre-planned to add your own audio clips to the audiobook, or was that something that came later?
TL: No, I always knew. I began this project very specifically kind of like an explorer. And kind of like an explorer of, not only this one summer and this one trip, but even of, of Sicily itself. I'd photographed Sicily. I dabble in painting; I'd painted things about Sicily. But I'd never, like, listened to it. So, I brought a recorder, a handheld recorder, with me on that trip, and I thought, "Well, let's just see what happens." And the times during the trip when I was alone, away from my family, and I was on a nature walk, or by the sea, or, you know, in a seaside town, and I just had the recorder with me, it slowed down time, and it made me engage with a familiar place in a very new way. And that excited me.
So, then I had all of these audio files just on this recorder, and I'd been journaling while I was on the trip, but when I got back to Los Angeles, I began to, in earnest, write the story. And I wrote the story first, and then I went to all of those audio files and I allowed those audio files to then inform the editing of the writing that I'd done. And then I did a process of selecting which audio clips felt like they were additive or punctuated the narrative, or transported the listener in a way that the words could do to a point. But then, oh my gosh, here's the actual sound of the place! So I kind of loved the, um... I don't know, it felt like a school project for me in some way, you know? This kind of carrying the recorder with me and taking my notes as a writer, and being very inquisitive, and being a listener.
MH: I love that idea of the audio informing the story. I think that's so special.
TL: It had to. It kind of had to. And I don't think I knew that initially, but I kind of, I just kept the recorder with me, and I would turn it off and turn it on. And then certain times I was like, "Oh, what are those birds that I'm listening to?" Record some more, right? "What... Oh, the sound of the sea sounds different here than it does over here." And so I began to notice these sort of, not only micro-climates and micro-environments within a familiar environment, but that those sounds really helped me upon re-listening back into the memory of our trip, and to go deeper into the memory of our trip. And from that deeper place, I could return to the story and write from a deeper place.
MH: So, you narrated From Scratch, and you also give voice to Someday, Now. How did the recording process differ this time around? I mean, I imagine there were fewer tears, perhaps. Was there anything you learned from your experience narrating From Scratch that you brought to this new recording?
"I brought the pictures back into the studio again, because I like that, that's like a fun thing for me. It makes it feel very intimate, very close."
TL: I love this question so much. I could talk about it all day long. Because, when I recorded From Scratch, I really had no idea what to expect. The one thing that I knew was that: Oh, I would be reading my book for the first time out loud, right? I knew that. And so I got into the booth. I'd never done that process before. I mean, my background is as an actor. I'm trained in that space. I had done what is called ADR in Hollywood, where you go in and you go into a sound booth, and you loop or re-record your lines. But I had certainly never endeavored to take an entire text from beginning to end.
And what came up for me in recording From Scratch was, as you suggested, a lot of tears. I had to stop and start. We had to take breaks, because I had to say, "Oh my gosh," because I was kind of reliving everything in order to tell the story. And I knew I wanted to do it that way. And what I did in that recording was, in order to drop in and make it both personal and honoring of everybody who was in it, I brought pictures into the sound booth of my family. And so when I would get to a part of the narrative that was particularly joyful or sad, I could look to their faces, and it was like I was telling our story. And that made it very intimate for me. So I didn't have to think about the millions of people who would listen. I could just focus on the story.
So, I remembered that experience from From Scratch. So, when it came time to record Someday, Now, I thought, "Okay, I know there's going to be some hard parts, but there's also going to be some light parts." I brought the pictures back into the studio again, because I like that, that's like a fun thing for me. It makes it feel very intimate, very close. And what was different about this was I sort of knew that I was telling the story to a close friend, that whoever this listener was, it was just me and them and this moment. And I knew enough about the art form of audiobooks and of the listening experience to really anchor into that and just, with intentionality, tell the story to the listener. And that was like, I could only have known that from having recorded the first book. And it was really so cool.
And I got to work with the exact same team again. My producers, Randy, and my sound mixer are phenomenal. So, it was just fantastic working with them again. And we kind of fell into it and we said, "Hey, let's tell this story." And I really trust them a great deal. So it was fantastic.
MH: It does. I mean, when I was listening with my headphones, it is just you and me [laughs].
TL: Yes, it’s just us.
MH: Right? It does have a really nice intimate feel. So, Sicily is a major character in Someday, Now. We viscerally feel what it was like for you to be in Sicily for the first time since your mother-in-law, Nonna, had passed away three years prior. This journey feels like one of bridging the gap between old and new, past and present. And you mentioned that with Sicily, you've had one of your longest relationships in your adult life. It's a place that's seen you through many stages of your life, from falling in love to marriage, illness, death, grief, and ultimately reconciliation and healing. So comparing this trip in Someday, Now to your first time there more than a decade ago, how would you say your relationship with Sicily has changed and evolved over the years?
TL: Oh my gosh, this is a beautiful question to unpack. Thank you. Thank you for this question. You know, if I think about my very, very, very first trip to Sicily, which I write about in From Scratch, you know, I was a newlywed, in that way, to Saro. And that trip was really born out of our desire to, for me, on a very practical level, just meet my in-laws. I literally had never met them. If you've listened to the book, you know they didn't come to the wedding. And so this was a trip where I was like, "Can we put this family together in any way? Is there any path forward for what this might look like?" And without going into, you know, the specifics of that, it set us on a path. And that was a years, years, years-long path.
I remember that first trip. I kind of had a lot of wonder about the place. I'd never been. I didn't understand the dialect. You know, Saro was kind of leading me from place to place. And I remember thinking, "This place is really kind of magical. I don't really understand it, but it's really beautiful." And he brought me in in a very intimate way, as only someone who was born of a place can do. So fast-forward decades, two, really, decades later, and I'm there again, newly married, except to someone else, after his passing. And I'm with our daughter, who wasn't even born the first time I went. And all of the people, with the exception of my sister-in-law, who were a part of my first trip are no longer there. They've passed away, but I'm still here coming to this place. And now I'm trying to form new memories and a new family, or cement or anchor into this new family in a different way.
So I felt that Sicily really was more than just a backdrop for this big life experience. It was actually an integral part of me being able to slow down, first of all. Because it's a place that time moves in a very nonlinear, strange... It's sort of, time is elastic in Sicily, is the best way I can describe it. So, on this trip for Someday, Now—the summer before my daughter goes off to college—I'm really coming to Sicily saying, "You have seen me through some of the best and worst of my life. Be with me now and show me whatever I need to know to move through this season of my life." And I was there kind of humbly and with an open heart, asking for guidance. And that was, I guess, in some ways, similar to when I first went, when I was asking for another kind of guidance.
But Sicily has, for me, it has been this place where, at critical moments, at transitional moments, at large life inflection points, I can land on that soil and allow life to show something new to me. And I was asking it again, and it did. And I write about that in the book.
MH: Have you been back to Sicily since this summer in Someday, Now?
TL: I have. I was just there last spring. I have a trip coming up in a couple of months. So I, you know... [laughs] What is that line, I forget, from the movie? You know, "I can't quit you." Like, I can't seem to quit Sicily. [laughs] So, I'll be there and, I have, obviously, friends there. I have extended family, and I really enjoy it and I love it.
MH: I really love the idea of a “collegemoon.” And I'm going to tell you now, I'm going to steal your idea [laughs]. My daughter is in seventh grade, and she already told me she wants to go to Hawaii before she goes to college.
TL: Mm-hmm.
MH: I have six more years to go!
TL: Yeah. Well, I think, beautiful. I mean, I wish I could take full credit for the collegemoon. It was something that in my sort of trying to understand, how can I make this summer between high school and college impactful? How can I also just have time together and not just be about, "What bags do we pack? Okay, what sheets do I need to order?" Like, I wanted just time to honor this very specific moment in her life and in our life as a family. And so, kind of going on the keyboard, googling around, someone had written some blog somewhere, and it was called “A Collegemoon.” I thought, "What is that?"
And for those listeners who might not understand what it is, the concept is sort of like, between high school and college, you take a trip, much like you would a honeymoon after you've gotten married, and you kind of celebrate the wins. "You finished high school. We did the thing. It's great." You know? Whether you're going off to college or not, it's sort of saying, "You are passing a milestone in your life and in the life of the family, and let's honor that."
So, my daughter and I took our collegemoon, and I would say, for parents who want to do something like this, you don't have to go far. You can go close by, but let them also be a part of the planning, you know? I love that your daughter's already said, "It's Hawaii." And, you know, do things that are just lovely and fun for both of you. And don't over plan it. Let it kind of unfurl. I think it can really be formative and beautiful. And you'll look back on it, and you'll be so happy you did it.
MH: So now that it's been two years—and I know sending your only daughter off to college can be a moment of anxiety, a little trepidation—you're on the other side of what you call re-nesting, not empty nesting. How has that transition been for you, for Zoela, and for Robert? Are you still living in the same house or did you have to move as Jonathan so dramatically suggested? "Just leave your house and go to a new house."
TL: [Laughs] I, first of all, when people listen to that section, I think you'll love Jonathan. Jonathan is a character in Someday, Now. But no, we live in the same house. We did not just, you know, fold in the cards and move away. I want to first begin by saying: I call it “re-nesting” because the term empty nest really just—I bristled at it. I didn't understand it. I couldn't relate to it. It felt a little pejorative. It felt maybe gendered in a certain way. Like, my life is not empty. The home is not empty. In fact, we have very full lives, and the nest is evolving more than just emptying out for forever. So I kind of wanted to, like, reframe this season, really for myself first. And I think that, you know, I think Someday, Now is a kind of a conversation starter around this season of: What happens to a family? What can happen for parents, for mothers?
So, that first month was... I think I was a deer in headlights after we dropped Zoela off at college. Everything felt very, very unfamiliar. And I think for those of us, as you shared at the beginning, Margaret, who have known loss and have known grief, you know that feeling. And it wasn't the same by any stretch of the imagination, but it had a kind of an aching and a longing to it. And so I just let myself feel that. I didn't try to ignore it, or brush it under the rug, or move past it, really. I just said, "Let me just sit through this, and let's see. Let it evolve."
And, you know, as she settled in and I kind of settled in, we figured out a cadence for when we would check in, when we would chat. We went for a visit to see her for parents’ weekend. And so that first year was a lot of firsts, it was a lot of all of us figuring it out. And she came home at the end of that first summer, we thought, "Okay, we did that." Like, "You did your first year away from home." And of course, the minute your child comes home for that first summer, you're renegotiating the whole family relationship again.
MH: Yeah.
TL: Because they've been, you know, if you will, “off the farm,” and they are like, "I have seen the world. I know all the things." And I was like, "Well, you haven't seen all the world; you don't know all the things." But I always like to say, children feel grown after that first time away. And in truth, they are the most grown they have ever been. And if we think about it that way, you know, that's all they know. And so they are as grown as they are, and yet we are still in relation as parent and child. And that renegotiation of like, what does the home life look like when you come home?
So, we kind of went through that, and I think a lot of families go through that the first summer. And whether or not your child even leaves home or not, you're in that renegotiation with them as they are individuating, and making their choices, and setting their own schedules. You are there in a new way. And I think after two years of this—because she's now finished her sophomore year and she started her junior year—I can say that there's a lot of beauty, and richness, and possibility, and in this season. And you have to look for it [laughs]. You can cultivate it.
I think for myself, one of the things that I really did was try to tend to mind, body, spirit. And you know, for my mind, I was like, "Well, what are the things I enjoy doing? You know, reading more books or, you know, I like puzzling. What are the things that, like, engage me intellectually?" I tried to tend to my body. I was like, "Oh, I can get massages now." I can, actually, tend to my physical self in a way that perhaps, as mothers, if I'm speaking very frankly, we kind of put on hold, or we relegate to the margins for years. And this is an invitation to kind of begin to reengage with that and care for yourself. And then I think at the level of the spirit, I think I was like, "Well, I need my community of friends.” I want to ask myself, “What am I curious about in the world?" I do a lot of journaling.
So, when I say that it's a season of possibility, it's a season of possibility at every level. The main thing is that, as parents, we ask ourselves... We have dedicated our lives and organized ourselves around our children because that is what was needed and desired, and what we wanted. And now we have this beautiful opportunity to nest into ourselves. And that is kinda cool.
MH: That is really cool. Oh, I have six years to go, Tembi. I can't wait.
TL: No, it's going to fly by-ish. I wish I could say... You know, I remember being, oh the middle school years, where, like, "What is actually happening?" And then, you know, you get through the high school, and I think that that first year, I actually, I'm glad you said that because I think that first year I kind of was doing, like, a little bit of a review. Like you're moving, when your child is in school, you're moving so quickly, and so much just has to get done. And they are changing developmentally each year, so rapidly, that you almost don't have time to really process it in real time.
You don't. You’re in it. So, it was really that first year when I was like, I remembered certain things about the middle school years and like, I was like, "Oh, I can see this ,and I can see that." And it was like a nice way to say, "We did this." Like, through all the carpools, and all the volleyball games, and all the potlucks, and all the summer camps, like, "Oh, it all added up to something really lovely."
MH: So, as you're reflecting, what does the title of the audiobook, Someday, Now, mean to you?
TL: Mm. Well, the title came to me because I remembered... Similar to our conversation just now, you said, "Oh, it's in six years," like someday in six years it'll happen. And that summer, the someday was right now. It was happening. So it was sort of like the immediacy of that, the urgency of that summer between high school and college. But also, what it means for me is, all the things that I had hoped might happen for myself in the future that I couldn't quite see yet, which, as I write about that at the very beginning of the book, it starts with this question about the future, is the title for me. Someday, Now is really, too, a reminder that really what we have is the moment at hand, and that thing that we're thinking about someday, what about that can I fold into right now?
And I end the book with an Italian phrase, dolce far niente, which is the sweetness of doing nothing. It's sort of a hallmark of Italian culture. But this idea of really being just in the moment and in the present, and I think that's what I was trying to do the summer between high school and college, was to be in the moment. I think now, as a re-nester, and in this season of my life, I am really trying to honor this present moment in a way that I think when we are in the hamster wheel of rearing children, and carpools, and all the things I said before, it is harder to slow down and just be present with what is. And this is the season to do that.
"We have dedicated our lives and organized ourselves around our children because that is what was needed and desired, and what we wanted. And now we have this beautiful opportunity to nest into ourselves. And that is kinda cool."
MH: Switching gears a little bit, I'd like to talk about your sister, Attica Locke, who is also an amazingly talented writer I'm a huge fan of. Black Water Rising is one of my favorite books of all time. And you two co-created and co-produced the From Scratch adaptation for Netflix. How lucky are your parents to have raised two amazing storytellers? Please tell us the secret sauce. Like, what was it? What was it during your upbringing that you feel contributed to your success?
TL: Oh, thank you for that question. Yes, my sister Attica is an amazing writer. And Black Water Rising is also one of my favorite books. We actually, hopefully, fingers crossed, can maybe adapt that one day for screen. I think the thing that Attica and I, you know, we talk about this often, is that we come from a long line of storytellers. I mean, very literally, just being with our grandparents, and cousins, and aunts at the table, everybody had a story.
And it was often kind of like a game of, not quite telephone, but it was a tapestry of stories. Like, somebody would start it, and then somebody would add a piece to it, and then it'd go around the table and they'd be like, "Well, actually, you got that wrong. Let me say this." And I think, you know, when you're reared and you have the blessing of a multi-generational, close-knit family, where people are telling not only their first-person stories—what they saw, what they witnessed, how they felt, what they thought of what somebody else said—but also my grandparents, in particular, were very clear about telling the story of their community. And so I think that really seeped in.
And I remember in very different ways, Attica was always the kid who would, like, go off at Thanksgiving, I mean, even when she was like 12, she would just get a notebook and she'd be like, "I'm going to go write a story." And she would peel off from the Thanksgiving table, and like, go sit in the corner and write her story. I was, like, "What is she doing?" You know? But I, later on, was always the person where I was like, "Well, Grandma," or you know, um, "Mama, tell me that story again. Tell it to me again." And I think I was taking it in in another way. And so I think, collectively, that really seeped into us.
But the other thing I think that my parents did very intentionally was they let us follow the thing we wanted to follow. I really credit them with never being like, "That dream is too big, too unrealistic, too strange, too weird. We can't help you with that. We don't know anybody in that field. Oh my gosh, you won't, you know, make any money." They never were naysayers in that way. They were like, "Well, you're smart. You're going to work hard? I'm sure you'll figure it out." You know, and they kinda were like, "Ball in your court. If that's what you want to do, you know, we're here." And I think it gave us the freedom to stand up, fall down, try something different. And that has led us to a life that is very different than anyone else in our family's. No one else is a professional creative person. No one else is a professional writer. But it's allowed us to take creative risks and to know that we'll figure it out.
MH: You host an inspiring podcast, called Lifted, where you highlight the incredible ways women are changing culture and business. And you've now given us an unexpected but beautiful new chapter in your story. Do you anticipate continuing to chronicle your life in this way? Perhaps there's another audiobook coming one day.
TL: Well, I would... Okay, so here's the thing. You know how I said I can't quit Sicily? [Laughs.]
MH: [Laughs.]
TL: Well, now I can't quit audio. I love it so much. I love it so much! And I think, at a time in media and at a time in the world where there's a lot of noise, I think that there is something really powerful and healing about just, person to person, telling a story direct. That impact, that intimacy that I spoke of earlier, I think it's really, really powerful. And I know that my life as a writer, as my grandmother would say, "Good lord willing, and the creek don't rise," [laughs] my life as a writer is just beginning. And so, yes, I think I'm going to definitely return to audio.
And I don't know about another memoir, but I also can't rule out another memoir. My idea is that, as we all live these very, very, very rich lives, and there's no one story of our lives, there's no one story of anyone's life. And inside of everyone's individual lived experience is some universal truth, is, there's some universal truth. And I think when we share our stories together, we're able to glimpse not only our own humanity, not only our connectedness, but we're able to glimpse the universality of what may feel like a very alone or personal or individual experience. And I think that that's important right now, to not feel so alone in the world. And if storytelling and if memoir allows us to close the ranks, if you will, and feel less isolated in the world, then I'm all here for it. I'll find another something else to write about.
And I also would love to tell a family memoir, quite frankly. And I don't mean of my individual nuclear family, I mean of a multi-generational story, a family, in the form of memoir and audio.
MH: Hm. Well, while we wait for that. Just curious: What's next for you?
TL: Well two things: I am working in the television space with Attica, and we are adapting one of her books, the Bluebird series, the Highway 59 series, for screen. And so we're deep in the development and in the script writing for that. And I have Lifted; we're going to be doing another season. You can always listen to Lifted, which is wonderful. And later this year, I'm going to be launching a Substack, and people can follow me there and get very direct and intimate. And I'm really coming up with some cool ways to sort of, like, bring very uplifting content and very intimate content to that space for those who want it. So, I'm excited.
MH: Is acting still in the cards for you, or do you prefer to work more behind the scenes now?
TL: You know, it is in the cards for me. And that's one of the things that was funny, we were in the writer's... So a writer's room is like where you're kind of beating out the ideas for television and going over scene work and dialogue and all of that. And we were in the writer's room, and Attica always, [laughs] she makes fun of me because we get to certain characters, and I literally act out the whole scene. Like, I, you know, with the dialogue and everything. She's like, "Oh my gosh, you're definitely going to be playing this character if this show goes." So, I feel as though, in my writing work as a television writer and producer, I will be creating the roles that give my actor space to do that work that I love so much and is the foundation of all my creativity.
MH: Got it. I loved you on Never Have I Ever. My daughter, she rewatches it every once in a while, and I'm like, "Oh, I know who that is."
TL: I know her face.
MH: I know Fabiola's mom [laughs].
TL: Yeah. Never Have I Ever is such a great show. I feel so honored to have been a part of it, particularly that storyline around Fabiola and a daughter coming out to her mom. You know, it's just a beautiful... That whole show, the ensemble, and the fact that it's a grief story of mother and daughter.
MH: Mm-hmm.
TL: I mean, you and I can definitely relate to that.
MH: Yeah.
TL: And when I signed on to the show, at the time, we only got the scenes we were going to be in when we were auditioning. So I didn't really understand what the entirety of the show was about until I got the entire script. And then I thought, "Oh my goodness, this is going to be powerful." And in the hands of Mindy Kaling, you know it will be funny, it'll be touching." And so, I just feel really honored to be a part of it. So thank you for that.
I loved playing Fabiola's mom. Elise was, like, everything. It's so funny, my daughter, we watched it together and she was cringing. She was like, "Oh my God, are you..." She was like, "Do not do that with me." And it was funny because we were filming some of those scenes at the exact moment she was doing college applications. So, Elise was like my doppelganger, [laughs] where I was like, "I will not be Elise." Like, Elise is so hardcore and controlling as the mom whose child is about to, you know, go off to college. "Don't be Elise, but take the best parts of Elise and bring those home." So, it was really life and art kind of swirling around each other. It was quite funny.
MH: Great. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Tembi, for joining us today. It's been a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for giving us another captivating, transformative, and breathtaking story in Someday, Now.
Listeners, Someday, Now, by Tembi Locke, is available on Audible. Thanks, Tembi.
