Lola Reid Allin on writing her memoir and hybrid publishing with She Writes Press
Lola Reid Allin
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Show notes
In this Literary Aviatrix Writers’ Room interview with Lola Reid Allin, she talks about her writing journey including courses at Gotham Writers in NYC, overcoming the fear of sharing personal details, hybrid-publishing with She Writes Press, book launch promotion, and her lessons learned on the value of critique.
Watch my interview with Brooke Warner from She Writes Press to learn all the details about this hybrid publishing option.
Transcript:
Liz Booker (00:08)
Hello and welcome. I’m Liz Booker. Welcome to the Aviatrix Writers Room where we are continuing our conversation with author Lola Reid Allin about her new memoir, Highway to the Sky, an Aviator’s Journey. Welcome, Lola.
Lola Reid Allin (00:25)
Thank you very much, I’m thrilled to be here.
Liz Booker (00:27)
Okay, so you are publishing, it’s about to launch this beautiful memoir. It’s well written, it’s well edited, and I wanna know how you were able to produce this beautiful book. And I know a little bit about that background, but I want our listeners who might aspire to write their own memoirs to learn from you. First of all, can you tell us about your writing journey?
Lola Reid Allin (00:53)
It was long.
In retrospect, I mean, it’s really pretty funny. I thought, this is a memoir, it’s about me. How hard can that be, right? Easy, it’s about me. I know me better than anyone else. That might be true, but it isn’t about me. Memoir is not about me. It’s not about the person writing it. It’s about what I learned, like what I experienced, what I learned, how it affected me, and how the reader can read the book, enjoy it, and also benefit or learn from the mistakes I made or my journey through life itself.
And so I wanted it to be inspiring, even though there were some downturns, but that’s life. I wanted it to inspire people to believe in themselves. It’s in essence a portrait of a woman, but a portrait of women and the difficulties that women face at home and in the workplace as women, especially in non -traditional roles and environments such as aviation, which is still only five to six percent of female pilots in commercial aviation.
Liz Booker (02:07)
Right, so that’s what it’s about and why you wrote it, but how did you hone your writing skills to actually write it?
Lola Reid Allin (02:14)
Right. Well, it was hard and it was long and it’s harder than learning to fly. That’s what I will say. I took online courses.
Liz Booker (02:21)
I second that.
Lola Reid Allin (02:30)
The first few I took were at the Gotham Writers, New York City. You can go to New York City and you can take courses on site and I think that would be absolutely wonderful. But that wasn’t for me. So I took a couple of memoir courses and the first few courses I took, the fellow students, first of all having students who are also on that learning journey critique you or read your work and critique you and offer insight is really important.
And while you do get individual opinions, if you get the same opinion from two or more people, you can be sure that they’re on the right track and you’re not. And at first it was like, wait a minute, this is not a learn to fly book. This is how hard it was to learn to fly or what I experienced when I was learning to fly.
This isn’t how to fly the airplane. This is how it feels and what I experienced and how I can impart that to the reader. And so I enjoyed Gotham Writers tremendously. I took a few other online courses. JaneFreedman.com has some great courses. I still follow her and get her weekly e -blast with fabulous courses for everything, every kind of writing, but of course memoir is what I’m interested in particularly.
And mystery writing, which I did take also at Gotham Writers New York City. But being a Canadian, I thought, well, it would be nice to take courses locally. I can also have the tax advantage, that worked out very, and it worked out very well. So I enrolled at the University of Toronto Continuing Studies in the writing program, specifically memoir writing.
And that was instrumental as well. I did some courses online. I did some courses live, shall we say, in class. Absolutely instrumental. You need to take courses, or at least I did, and I highly recommend it. You need that feedback. You need that reinforcement. You need the guidance of what to include and what not to include, what’s going to be important, how to edit.
I took a couple editing courses, because that’s really helpful. And is it Elmore Leonard that says, cut out all the crap that the readers are just going to skim through anyway? I tried to do that to the best of my ability. But writing was far harder than learning to fly. But well worth it.
Now, the second book is coming much more quickly. I already have like 38 ,000 words written, partly because I had a journal and I can’t, I’m not just transcribing the journal and plopping it into the book, but I’ll read a few pages and they’ll think, okay, how is that going to go into a book that someone can actually read and enjoy?
And I’ve had several writers groups. There podcast in Canada led by Bianca Moret and it’s called the writing no one tells you about. Shit no one tells you about writing. She, once or twice a year, she will have people write in, you pay $25 US and then she’ll match you with a group of writers, which is great.
And then Liz, as you know, we had the Aviatrix Writers Group. So I’ve had two different writers groups with that. Currently, I’m with an Australian woman who is a published author and an American woman who is a who they’re both pilots. The one in American is a glider pilot and they’ve both written several books. The Australian is not always specific to aviation.
Liz Booker (06:16)
Prue Mason. Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (06:27)
Right now, yeah, yeah, Prue Mason. So Prue is writing now about Chubby Miller, amazing miss, her version of the amazing Mrs. Miller. And Pat Valdada, who is the glider pilot in America, in Maryland, is writing about Rosie the Riveter. She’s personifying Rosie the Riveter. So yes. Yes. Yes.
Liz Booker (06:38)
That’s so great. I didn’t know that. She’s also a poet and has a beautiful collection of poetry out there. We read her glider book in the book club. That’s wonderful.
Lola Reid Allin (06:48)
And it’s great. So they, of course, did the first six or seven chapters of this book, Highway to the Sky, but then it went to publication. So I said, well, we can either I can either opt out and you guys just continued just continue without me. That’s OK if that’s your decision, because my next book is going to be about. I have an excerpt. I was thinking of doing it as a short story, but a true short story anyway.
Liz Booker (06:57)
Mm
Lola Reid Allin (07:16)
So they loved it. They said, wow, this is amazing. Yes, lots of editing, lots of suggestions. Absolutely, that’s always going to happen. Learn to listen to that. Just shug it off your shoulders. Learn how to critique effectively and professionally so that you’re not saying, this book is shit, but rather, this book is great, but you need to work on this, this, and this.
And the constructive criticism is absolutely invaluable. And they’re both excited to work with me as I am them learning about Rosie the Riveter and Chubby Miller, who was one of the women who participated in the 1929 air race dubbed the Powderpuff Derby.
Liz Booker (07:59)
Before you go on, just want to stay on this point for anybody who doesn’t know. So first of all, if you’re on Facebook and you are a writer in aviation, even if you’re not writing aviation right now, but if you have or intend to, we have a Facebook group called the Aviatrix Writers. That’s where we–actually, think Lola, you, I think you prompted this at the beginning. You were like, Hey,
Lola Reid Allin (08:23)
I did.
Liz Booker (08:23)
we need to have a critique groups in this group. And so a couple of years ago, it’s I think it’s almost been three years ago now, we did our first solicitation. I led a group of basically un -indoctrinated writers, people who had never been in a critique group before for a year. And I feel like we did as much as I could offer them in a year. And I told them to go off and be free and find new critique groups because that’s also helpful to get fresh voices in your head.
But, and we’re probably do, it sounds like you have a great tight little group of writers with experience and who are published. So that’s a wonderful place for you, but we’re probably due to see if anybody else wants to do it. Anyway, if there’s a writer out there who has never had an opportunity or who is looking for maybe somebody in our community to have a critique group with, let me know because I can serve as a matchmaking service.
Lola Reid Allin (09:06)
I’d love to.
Liz Booker (09:21)
and kind of solicit for that, or you can just post it in the Aviatrix writers room. But I do, yeah, the critique thing, so I had a Master of Fine Arts in writing for children and young adults where we had a very structured critique group style and a pedagogy that I learned from and that I enjoy, others have others, but I think it’s really important as a writer to find a really good group that fits you.
Everybody’s got to start somewhere. I started somewhere. I had never received critique or given critique when I started. And so your writing evolution is going to evolve. And so too, think, your, the level of expertise that you’re working with, whether it’s in a free group, kind of like what we put together, or if you’re paying for for critique somewhere, which is also a valuable thing to do. So thank you for highlighting that in your journey. Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (10:17)
Hmm.
Yeah, and it has been. I when Pat and Prue and I send our critiques, were, think now getting pretty good at it. So we do the critique. We, you know, I usually adopt most of their suggestions. And of course there’s some, typos, but maybe some grammatical errors where we splice sentences. When we do get together once a month on Zoom, we say, thanks so much for your edits. It’s really great. What’s happening in your life? And then we, you know, so we’ve become good friends, which is really wonderful.
Liz Booker (10:50)
That’s great. those are the kinds of relationships that I was hoping to foster in this community. it just makes me so joyous to hear that that’s happened for you. Well, thank you. It was your idea. So thank you for initiating that.
Lola Reid Allin (11:02)
It was wonderful, thank you very much.
But, you’ve got so much on your plate, I wouldn’t have been, I would have been disappointed, but I would have understood when you’ve said, my god, I can’t do that, that’s way too much.
Liz Booker (11:18)
No, that’s easy. That’s easy. Matchmaking is my jam. I know how to do that. I know how to network people. So that worked out well. But before you even, so I’m assuming, but I need to know more. You’re also kind of a journalist. Like you talked about writing in the first portion of our conversation, you talked about having written several things, sort of research things and also magazine articles and those kinds of things. So where does that fit into your writing journey, the journalism?
Lola Reid Allin (11:21)
So whenever I travel, I like to do a journal. I mean, and I don’t do a journal, you I got up, I had breakfast, that’s so boring. But you know, this is how I got there and what happened and by getting there, the journey is the experience, right? Exactly, exactly. And it’s also great as it pertains to doing presentations, right? That I can go back and look at stuff and think, yeah, this is what happened.
Liz Booker (12:02)
A travel log.
Lola Reid Allin (12:13)
I started doing it actually when I was in Mexico and I started doing these presentations. So I would do presentations about the Maya, the living Maya, the Maya archaeological sites, and also the undersea world. Now, I don’t take underwater photographs. A friend of mine offered his photos and I did that in conjunction with my job as the scuba dive shop manager. But the other photos were all mine.
And I was then approached by a woman who was the editor at Mundo Maya and she said, we’ve got all this experience, can you write for us? It was like, great. And then she said, so I did. And I wrote about my Mopan Maya friends in Belize. And then she said, well, we’ve Mexican Tourist Board or Tourism Board is now asking for a lengthy article, I don’t know, like 40 ,000 words or something or other in English for visiting dignitaries and because English would be the lingua franca, can you write about, again, the Maya of Mesoamerica and it wasn’t published, I mean it was published, but not published for commercial purposes, it was published for visiting dignitaries. So that was great. And then I continued to write other stories for Mundo Maya.
I wrote for a Canadian magazine called Verge Travel with Purpose and which they talked about just about general travel, but also about volunteer travel and what you could do as a traveler. So I wrote several articles like that. The joys, the perils and joys of getting lost, for example, was one of them. Just go ahead, don’t be afraid to get lost. And it kind of segues with my journey in life. Don’t be afraid, take that first step.
Make sure it’s a calculated risk. I mean, don’t be foolish. Don’t jump off a mountain without a parachute or a paraglider. But take that first step. Take that first lesson. Take that first course. Take that first flight. Try it. If you don’t try, you’ve already failed or failed to achieve your objective on that day, however you want to phrase that. But you need to get out there and you need to do it.
I’ve written, let me see where else, I’ve had, well, the one I mentioned, Do You Like to Sleep Alone about my overnight, that was published in the Globe and Mail, Skies Magazine. It was originally gonna be published by an American magazine that folded, which was unfortunate, but they gave me a kill fee, so it was sort of odd getting paid for not publishing. But it was still nice. And that in itself, by the way, was absolutely fantastic because
Liz Booker (14:50)
Interesting.
Lola Reid Allin (14:57)
The editor worked with me. She said, okay, well, I really like what you’ve written, but we need to tweak it a little bit. And she was the one that first suggested, and it’s also while I was at the U of T, University of Toronto, but she suggested that I do a survey, an online survey with women who were currently employed. because she actually couldn’t believe, she didn’t call me a liar, but she said, this can’t be true. This can’t be happening today.
Liz Booker (15:23)
Yeah, right.
Lola Reid Allin (15:25)
I said, okay, I’m with you. I totally understand why you’re thinking this, but it is true. And yeah, great idea to reach out. So I did. unfortunately then the magazine folded. It was called The Riveter, as in Rosie the Riveter. So else have I done?
Liz Booker (15:43)
Can I ask a question about sort of how you, so you mentioned that the first sort of your first published article was solicited by, you know, whoever. But so subsequent articles, when you’re trying to get them published, how are you doing that? Like, how are you approaching editors or how do you submit those?
Lola Reid Allin (16:02)
It’s like doing a pitch every time, right? There’s a course at Gotham Writers. What is it? Hit Send, Get Published. Follow all their guidelines, and you might get published. They may not even respond to you. Or they might respond and say, we really like this. If it’s topical, you need to, let’s say if you’re writing something about Christmas, submit it in June. You know, make sure you’re very early with the publication. But it depends from publication to publication. And it’s a little bit, I enter photo contests as well, and it’s a little bit of a crapshoot.
I’ve won lots of jurors’ choices and honorable mentions, other times, and Best in Shows, and other times, that same photograph that wins Best of Show is rejected by an equally good show, or set of jurors. So it’s all very individual.
What’s the big success story with J .K. Rowling? She submitted her book, the first Harry Potter to a publisher who really hated it, but he thought, know, I’m gonna bring it home, I’m gonna try and wade through this on the weekend, because he hated it. But he came into the room, he left it on the coffee table or something, and he found his little child, his eight -year -old, like 90 % through the book, thinking it was the best thing ever. So it also depends on how you market your thing. Presumably she was marketing to a slightly older audience, I’m not sure, I don’t know that for a fact but look where she is now. And it’s just a fluke.
She, you know, there’s, the stories of authors who’ve papered their walls with, you know, in years gone by with handwritten or typed papers saying, rejected, rejected, you know, don’t, don’t email me again or sorry, don’t, don’t apply again. Your work is awful sort of thing. You know, you paper your wall with rejection slips or what is the cookbook? The Julia Child cookbook.
Knopf said, sure, we’ll publish that, but you’ll have to rewrite it.
So be prepared for, I love this, now change it.
Liz Booker (18:30)
Well, I want to get to the story of this book in a minute about how you got it published, because I have questions about that. But before that, you mentioned earlier how hard it is to write. And you think, it’s a memoir, I know myself. So there’s the craft itself. But I wanted to ask, you, you share a lot of personal details in here. And I wanted to, I was wondering, you know, that’s that holds a lot of people back. They don’t want to share their private lives. Did you struggle in any way with what and how much you wanted to share? Was that hard for you to crack that open and expose it?
Lola Reid Allin (19:09)
Incredibly, incredibly hard. I had two developmental edits from two equally fabulous editors, and that was the comment for both of them, that I needed much more personal information because it was very dry. Even though it was exciting, it was dry. we all know that sex sells.
Liz Booker (19:12)
Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (19:32)
I didn’t want to get too much into the nitty -gritty of that, but I really did need to have more personal information. And the most common comment, not just from them, was that it was sort of two books. There was the aviation, sorry, there was the personal side, then I could leave my husband and then it’s the aviation section. And it was sort of like after I left my husband, I became celibate. Hmm, obviously that didn’t happen and that isn’t true.
Liz Booker (19:54)
Hahaha!
Lola Reid Allin (19:58)
and yeah, I still grapple with a couple things I included. It was like, did you really need to write that Lola?
Liz Booker (20:05)
yeah. Now I will give you like the feedback having had an opportunity to read this before it comes out that you did that very gracefully and it made you human to me. So I’m glad that you chose to include those things. you hadn’t, I also would have been like, OK, well, I can’t really relate to her in that way. So now it was it was helpful for you to include those.
Lola Reid Allin (20:26)
I think, thank you, and I think ultimately I know, even the first one, and I did in the first developmental editor who said that, I understood what she was saying, but it was very, very difficult. I mean, it’s one thing to say, tell your best friend, you know, that this happened, but it’s different to put it in print where lots of people are hopefully millions.
Liz Booker (20:51)
Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (20:52)
We’ll be reading it. It is difficult. And yeah, I mean, I wake up and I think, what was I thinking? But what I was thinking is I needed to share myself to make myself real and human and honest. And that’s what I tried to do.
Liz Booker (21:07)
Right.
Lola Reid Allin (21:10)
And thank you, I’m glad I’ve had very positive feedback. But yeah, it was incredibly difficult. And also, do they really want to read about that? I mean, wow. Okay, whatever. And then I thought about other books. One thing that was very helpful is in addition to reading books, I listened constantly to audiobooks, and of course, specifically, particularly, guess, memoir.
But I also listen to mystery. That’s very important. It’s one of my favorite genres and always has been. But that’s also very helpful to hear it.
Liz Booker (21:47)
This was a question that I had for you, so we’ll just ask it now. Are there any memoirs that you read and considered mentor texts for how you crafted your book? Do you have any favorites?
Lola Reid Allin (22:03)
yeah. Let’s see.
Well, the one you mentioned, the Erica Armstrong. I guess I’ve hidden most of them here, but they’re behind. Yeah, the chicken that…
Liz Booker (22:13)
Yeah, a chick in the cockpit, right? And what about that made you or did you find as a mentor text?
Lola Reid Allin (22:22)
Postcards from the Sky was super helpful by Erin Seideman. Fighting for Space. I mean, it wasn’t the same in any way. That was Amy Shira, Teitel. But I found that incredibly… Yes, And of course I read Amelia Earhart’s. Let me see, what else? An Officer, Not a Gentleman. Yeah, I like that one, absolutely. And…
Liz Booker (22:26)
Aha, Mandy Hickson.
Yes, she did a great job.
Lola Reid Allin (22:51)
Absolutely. Where is it? Three-Eight Charlie, is hiding over here. Yeah, I love Three-Eight Charlie. That was just a fabulous, fabulous book. Yes, that’s right. The first woman to fly around the world, Jerry Mock, 1954.
Liz Booker (22:55
Yeah, the Jerry Mock story, yeah.
Solo. Yep.
Lola Reid Allin (23:17)
Solo, yes, to fly around the world solo. But those I think were my favorite. I’ve read all of these and you wrote, you just, the interview you just did was for the fun of it, right? That was by Amelia Earhart, was for the fun of it. That was awesome too. I read that a long time ago and then I reread it. A lot of these aren’t on audio book, which is disappointing.
Liz Booker (23:32)
Yeah, yeah.
Well.
Lola Reid Allin (23:43)
And of course, West with the Night. I’m sorry, I love Beryl Markham. I love the book. What I don’t do that Beryl Markham did is have a little nip of scotch, you know, just to keep me awake as I’m flying across the Atlantic. It knocks me out. More power to her. I’d be a babbling idiot.
Liz Booker (23:54)
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I think none of us are allowed to do that anymore. So anyway, well, that’s good to know, like reading memoir and and the advice about listening to it as well. I also find that I catch different things when I listen than when I read. so in terms of craft, you know, about how how words are put together and and how they come out, you know, and how the brain processes them. So that’s really great advice.
Lola Reid Allin (24:06)
Hahaha!
Yes.
Liz Booker (24:31)
So at what point, so I know the answer to this, but how did you choose to publish and at what point did you know that you were ready, that you were done enough?
Lola Reid Allin (24:43)
I had one developmental edit and I thought it, and she did a fabulous job. And I thought I was ready. I, know, it’s very hard to get, for a female to get published and it’s hard, memoir is hard to publish. They aren’t as popular. And I found she writes press.
and Erin Sideman had been published by She Writes Press. And I reached out to her and I asked what her experience was and she was very, very helpful and very positive. And then I was accepted. I had an interview with Brooke, like an hour long Zoom interview, which was fabulous. Brooke.
Liz Booker (25:21)
Brooke Warner, who I have interviewed for the writer’s room as well, because she is the brainchild behind this, or it is her brainchild that she writes press. She left traditional publishing to start this hybrid publishing company, which is, yeah. So you met with her?
Lola Reid Allin (25:42)
I did. And she said, you know, we like your book, we like the concept, we still think it needs a little bit of work. So the answer to your question is I obviously didn’t know it was ready, because it wasn’t. So I had another developmental edit and it was, she was fabulous. So the second one was Jodie Fedor.
And that was someone that Brooke works with often. And the first one was Sarah Chauncey, who is American, but living in British Columbia. And I found her just…
the Writers’ Union of Canada, I believe, and she also an interview. That’s a great way to do it. I you need the right kind of fit. You know, is this person that is me, the author, the budding author, can I, editor or the developmental editor or the publisher, can I work with this person? And that makes a big difference too. So I would look for that, you know, if you get that far with a publisher who might be interested having an interview was good for both of us.
And now as I’m going through in publicity, I’ve had several interviews. The response has been overwhelming, but a couple of them going forward discovery interviews to decide what we’re going to talk about specifically, which is kind of cool. Yeah, I like that. You know, they don’t know me. They don’t really know who I am at all. I mean, yes, they can read about it online. They can see at this point now they can see some of my interviews.
Liz Booker (27:06)
Right.
Lola Reid Allin (27:09)
So they know that I’m probably not going to clam up and say something stupid, let’s hope, but it does make a difference. Getting a good play, it’s a good fit. Brooke was also instrumental in that she’s the, it’s her brainchild, and obviously she can’t look after all the authors, so she has assistance, and I got one of the more experienced assistants, which is great.
Liz Booker (27:12)
Yeah.
Well, so tell me, I want to dig a little bit more into that experience. So what was what did the timeline look like from the moment that you submitted to she writes to and now we’re in September with your book launch?
Lola Reid Allin (27:49)
Just the way things worked out, Brooke had a lot going on in her life, not the least of which was transitioning to Simon and Schuster. So it was about a year and a half, actually, by the time we talked and then…
Yeah, about a year and a half into publication date and, you know, going through the second developmental edit and she asked if fall 2024 was fine. And I said yes, because I liked working. I liked I was pretty sure I was going to like working with her and her her format.
Liz Booker (28:24)
Okay, and so you went through that whole process and now we’re to publication. So what things are you doing? Like you’ve talked about some of the interviews that you’re doing, you talked about publicity. I know, so just to back it up just a little bit, everybody can go listen to my interview with Brooke for more detailed information on what that hybrid relationship looks like, especially with her house.
And just for reference, that portion, the She Writes Press, they really do cater a lot to women’s memoir because they want people to have a conduit to share their stories and, you know, the traditional publishing world is much harder to break through, especially for women’s memoir if you don’t have, if you’re not famous and you don’t have a platform. So they’re really great for that. And I so far, especially based on the positive experience that you have, continue to recommend them as a
Lola Reid Allin (29:11)
Right, right.
Liz Booker (29:20)
potential resource. So you pay a fee, again, the details are in that other interview, but you pay a fee pretty much upfront, and then there’s a relationship to get this book to publication. They also provide the services that a traditional publisher would in regards to submitting your book for awards, all the of standard stuff that a traditional publisher would do, and the distribution.
And then I think you can tell me how you chose to do publicity. do believe that they have some book promotion packages in -house where they recommend them. How are you going about book promotion and how are you getting these gigs, all these interviews aside from mine because you knew this was going to happen.
Lola Reid Allin (30:02)
So, thank you. She Writes Press an author handbook and they’ve got everything you need to know about, or most things you need to know about publishing. And they had a list of recommended publicists, for example. So I went through all of them. It’s like some of them don’t do memoir because She Writes Press doesn’t just do memoir.
They might do fiction or they might do, you know, how -to books, that sort of thing. Or self -help books, I guess is a better way. So I think there were about 10 that they recommended. I narrowed it down to five. I contacted a couple other authors. Patty Bear, who did over here. Can you see that one from plane to plane? And she recommended one particular publicist, Sharon Bialy of booksavvy .com.
Or Book Savvy PR and Karen Gershvits also recommended Sharon, and also Alana Best. So Alana Best’s book was Around the World in Black and White with her family. She’s white, he’s black, and they have now a couple of children. And Patty’s is about her very non -traditional change from a plain person, you know…
Liz Booker (31:26)
The Mennonites, yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (31:27)
to becoming a military pilot and then an air carrier pilot. And they all recommended Sharon. So the same thing then. We have an interview. There were a couple others that way it was close, but I got more recommendations from Sharon and more people willing to say, absolutely, she was great, go with her. Anyway, so typically it’s a mix of interviews. Once you pay your fee again,
It’s a mix of interviews and then you, the author, write articles for various magazines. But early on, after I hired Sharon and Camille of Book Savvy, I arranged an interview myself with CBC, which is Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. And they said, sure, as long as you can take us for a flight. I was like, okay, that works.
And of course I was really worried about that because we’ve, don’t know about you down there in Florida, but we’ve had some terrible weather. I mean, it’s been hard just getting the plane because there’s so many people who want to go flying. So you have to rent a plane. You have to hope the weather is good. And because it was CBC, the Oshawa Airport or Durham Flight Center at Oshawa, Ontario Airport bumped a couple of people. So to do the flight. And I was thinking, my gosh, the weather, the weather was perfect.
Liz Booker (32:46)
I know, you’re gonna be persona non grata at the airport. good.
Lola Reid Allin (32:53)
These are people who’ve never been in a light aircraft before. Two women, the videographer and the journalist. They’ve been flying before, but not in a light aircraft. The weather was stunningly beautiful. Just enough clouds to make it picturesque. And the wind was about three knots. It was like, and it was smooth. my gosh, I couldn’t have asked for a better day. So was all meant to be.
Liz Booker (33:11)
Good for you!
Lola Reid Allin (33:23)
Anyway, so I sent this off to Sharon and Camille and they said, okay, we’re gonna push the interviews with you because people can listen to a portion of it. Yeah, so, but that comes from being able to stand up in front of an audience, show my own pictures, talk about women in aviation, talk about the Maya, talk about trekking in Nepal, crossing Baffin Island. And you kind of get a pattern. It also comes from teaching people how to fly. You have to know what to say and when to say it and how to act when they’re about to crash the airplane, for example.
Liz Booker (33:56)
is there anything that people can look forward to that you have in your calendar that we can maybe participate in or watch?
Lola Reid Allin (34:00)
Well, I’ve got two more interviews. So I had CBC Toronto interview, the CBC Kitchener Waterloo CBC interview, which was a radio article, but they’ve also published the transcript so you can read was interviewed with Paws Books from London, England, which was very cool. That’s an audio only, and that is now live as of like 11 hours ago.
And lights camera author and that’s with yeah Jim Juno Richmond Virginia and his I I scrolled through you know seeing who else he’d interviewed and three weeks ago was Kathy Reichs who is TV’s bones it’s like wow that’s that’s pretty impressive I’m up there in good company.
Liz Booker (34:32)
How fun!
That’s awesome.
Lola Reid Allin (34:56)
I’ve got a few more interviews a lot more interviews one with Pilot Wife, one with… They’re not specific to women. Some of them are men interviewing me, women interviewing me, getting ahead in a man’s world, professional women’s groups. On the 17th, what I’m actually doing is meeting with Pat and Prue, because nothing is actually happening that day because I didn’t want to have any…
I didn’t want to arrange anything on that day in case the books didn’t arrive, but you can see they’re here. So that’s all good. I’ve got lots more. So that was good. And then starting on the 19th, I’m going to camera clubs, bookstores, like small independent bookstores, large chapters, Indigo bookstores, libraries in this region, but I’m also going to be in Ottawa, Toronto, Kitchener, Kingston.
Liz Booker (35:48)
And most of these things were all done with the help of this publicist. You scheduled a lot of them.
Lola Reid Allin (35:52)
No. well, hold on. So I did the CBC. Well, actually, the first CBC was me. The second CBC was both of us. They actually reached out to me and to Camille, a book savvy, and we realized two different people. It’s like, cool. But they both worked together. It all worked out. It was great. And, but the next two, yes, were book savvy and the next few are all book savvy.
Liz Booker (36:05)
Okay.
Lola Reid Allin (36:22)
The author readings and in -person events in Canada are mine. And of course we have the Denver Women in Aviation Convention in March. I’m being interviewed by someone who is in Denver. Yeah, very cool. Yeah. So I did mention to her that we would be in town and I mentioned you on Literary Aviatrix and that we at least tentatively have an event at Tattered Cover in Denver.
Liz Booker (36:24)
Okay.
Very good. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, thank you. Awesome.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (36:49)
Yeah, so it’s all coming together and honestly the first, you know, how did it start? So we again had interviews with Sharon, then I had interviews with Sharon and Camille, who again is my personal assistant and she does all the legwork sending out this stuff and they’ll write a pitch and they’ll think, okay, so where are we gonna do this? Like, so for example, five tips to get ahead in a man’s world and can I talk about that? Okay, well here are my points.
I send it back to them, they kind of tweak it. So for example, one of the things was I said be authentic. So, and my point of being authentic was I never wanted to wear a tie. All the guys had a suit which I wore, but it had to be custom made, unlike theirs, which they could just go down and get it off the rack at a particular store and then they sewed the stripes on. Not mine, it had to be tailored.
Liz Booker (37:23)
Yeah.
Right.
Lola Reid Allin (37:44)
but I refused to wear a tie. So I had a little scarf or nothing. So I a little scarf that looked nice. It looked a bit dressy. And I still look very dressy and very presentable. So what they said was, Lola never wanted to be a female pilot. She wanted to be a pilot. And I thought, brilliant, so brilliant. And then I can elaborate and say that’s one way I did it. And I mean, why should I wear a tie? I hate them to begin with. I’m not even fond of them on guys.
Liz Booker (38:00)
Yeah.
Sometimes we don’t have a choice if it’s the uniform, I gotta tell ya.
Lola Reid Allin (38:15)
Well, that’s true, but they were quite amenable, know, as long as I had something, you know, kind of, it was appropriate. They said, sure. That’s exactly right.
Liz Booker (38:22)
It was early days too. They didn’t have, they hadn’t figured out the rules yet. So you could kind of make your own.
I see. So you can write these articles and then you have your byline there and the you’re author of this book. That’s great advice too about kind of how to get the word out about your upcoming book launch.
Lola Reid Allin (38:44)
Right. What I also did was a one page, you know, eight and a half by 11. I don’t have a sample of it here, but a picture of the book in the corner, a little, not really a synopsis, but a quote from someone who’s read the book and they liked it and where to get it, where to buy it, who the publisher is. And I sent that out to bookstores across Canada.
Liz Booker (38:57)
Yeah. All stuff that yeah, I was gonna say all stuff that bookstores are gonna want. So like, I, you know, I talk like I’m a published author, and I know all this stuff. Well, I’m not published yet. But I did have the pleasure of working on a book tour for one of our authors in our group. And so I got to kind of dig into the, and that’s the thing that you can do as an author on your own, you can hire somebody to do this if you don’t have the time to do it.
But if you if you do and you like to kind of have control of your own logistics and your own calendar and want to do it yourself, you can go on bookstores websites and they will tell you what they expect and their timeline, know, especially the ones that are, you know, very big independent bookstores in very central locations. You know, they’ve got it all kind of out there for people to understand what their rules of engagement are what they need you to do to submit to get on their calendar. Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (39:59)
Right. One of the things I did too, and not everyone was able to accommodate this, but I have a lengthy presentation that I do for International Women’s Day or anytime, I’ll do it anytime, but anytime during the month of March or anytime. And it’s just a brief history of women in aviation. know, we’ve been, first licensed pilot was March 8th, 1910, Ramon de la Roche.
And I have a shortened abbreviated version of that, say 15 minutes, a little bit of a preamble. So obviously you need a projector, a screen, I have the other equipment, and then I do a short couple readings, and then know Q &A. So that’s kind of a draw too that’s been popular, that seems to be popular at some of the locations. Others did, just not able to do Some libraries will bring the books in, sometimes I will bring the books in, but honestly I have a
Liz Booker (40:33)
Mm -hmm.
Lola Reid Allin (40:55)
Google document and an Excel spreadsheet to keep all my engagements straight. The first time that they sent out a pitch, again, four days later, it came back with this huge long email of all these responses. And honestly, honestly, I got an instant headache. I was so overwhelmed. I was so amazed and absolutely grateful that people were so
Liz Booker (41:00)
I’m sure, yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (41:22)
in women in aviation. I was so thrilled.
Liz Booker (41:25)
That’s wonderful. Well, good for you. I can’t wait to see how this all unfolds. Were there any things that you learned along this journey that you wish you had known when you started or earlier? Like, whoa, any lessons learned that you’d like to pass on to anyone who is pursuing publishing a memoir?
Lola Reid Allin (41:50)
Basically what you said earlier.
You have to be willing to reveal something about yourself. It can’t just be, this is my career as an engineer or my career as a teacher. You really have to make yourself human, which means fallible and with foibles and issues and do it.
Liz Booker (42:14)
Yeah, and you know, I think people struggle with this with the idea of having to make themselves that kind of vulnerable. It’s a memoir. theoretically, it should be a specific period of time in your life. And you get to choose. I mean, you do get to choose what you put in there. And so how like, you know, we never…
We never go into the bedroom with you, you know? We know that you were in the bedroom, but we’re not there with you. Like you are able to, you you can find a way to share these things that hopefully makes you comfortable enough. And it’s very scary at first. And that’s where the critique group thing, like revealing it a little bit at a time in a safe space with people who are supportive of you is really important.
Lola Reid Allin (42:44)
Woo!
Right. Right.
Liz Booker (43:07)
You know, and having, like you said, the guidance of other readers to kind of say, maybe you don’t need this in here. That will help. You know, I think if somebody, I know when I started writing, just even creatively, I was terrified about the criticism that I would get. And so now, of course, I’m a lot more accustomed to it, but you know, it’s something that you work your confidence up to just the way you might if you are not an ace flyer the first time you get in a plane and take off.
Lola Reid Allin (43:34)
Right. I think too with respect to critique or anything even at any stage, maybe initially particularly, but at any stage, if it’s negative, I mean, the first thing you want to do that you shouldn’t, but the first thing you want to do is jot down, you know, send them back a nasty email or whatever it is, right? Or, or whatever, just don’t do it. Just for me, since I’m exuberant.
Liz Booker (43:54)
Right. yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (44:02)
I will read it, I’ll put it away, I’ll come back to it, and I’ll think, wait, maybe I kind of misread that. What they’re really saying is X and I thought it was Y. And maybe even if they are saying X, they’re right. I could phrase this better. So for example, when I was instructing, doing ground school particularly, if there was a question,
And while I’ll say there are no stupid questions, I there can be wasteful questions, which I found in first year courses at university, students really keen on wasting the prof’s time. But generally in aviation, there are no stupid questions from someone who’s genuinely interested. But if there’s one question, there’s probably three or four others in a group of 10. So like say 30 or 40 % of people, they’ll have that same.
question. If one does, they’ll also be confused. And it could be because I didn’t explain it properly. Could be it needs more explanation or it needs to be elaborated on. And that’s really important to realize that most people who are taking these courses are not out to get you. They just don’t understand. And it’s important to just step back and then come back at it the next day or something. And it does make a big difference.
Liz Booker (45:26)
So this is where having multiple critique groups over the span of your, sort of writing evolution is really helpful because first of all, you get, mean, you would think as pilots that we would be accustomed to getting critique because that’s all that happens in the plane and the entire time during your training and you’re giving critique to your copilot, but they’re not.
Those are critiques about an action that you’re taking and not about you as a human being, which is how you could feel, I think, if you were writing a memoir or me doing creative work. It’s a different kind of feeling. The way that you receive that, especially initially, is very different than somebody telling you you’re off altitude or you didn’t hit your landing spot. Yeah.
Lola Reid Allin (46:08)
Right, exactly. It’s not a personal insult.
Liz Booker (46:13)
This is personal and you have to, I think, build up a tolerance and an understanding in the critique environment so that you can be ready for the kind of critique that you’re gonna get if you’re working with a professional editor. also, as over time working with different critique partners, you will start to learn
what to let in and maybe what to not let in. And you’ll be able to make informed decisions about that. But that only, I think, can come from experience and from having many, many different viewpoints looking at your work.
Lola Reid Allin (46:48)
Exactly.
Liz Booker (47:00)
Well, Lola, this has been wonderful. I am so ecstatic for you. It has been such a joy to, you know, kind of be your friend and your book club partner and to watch you kind of go through this evolution and to see it come to fruition. I hope we can be having a conversation like this about me in a year if I can finish my stuff. I know I can’t wait to tell everybody my journey. In the meantime, I will continue hearing all of yours and celebrating your book launches. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about related to writing and publishing that we haven’t hit on?
Lola Reid Allin (47:10)
Yay! So Liz, how did your journey? Tell me about your journey. I know!
No, I don’t think so.
Liz Booker (47:30)
Do you think? I’ll ask you a question, you have another book in the works it’s about sort of your travels and your experiences especially in Mexico and in Belize and you’re going to write this book. Will you do you think that you’ll go the same publishing route will you use a hybrid publisher do you think.
Lola Reid Allin (47:48)
I don’t know, I’m very, very happy. I might even, I don’t know. I’m thrilled with Brooke. It may not be what she’s even really interested in. don’t really know. If she’s amenable to the idea, I’m certainly willing to discuss it, absolutely. I know that, what is it, an officer, not a gentleman, was self -published and she did a great job and has been and continues to be successful. Everything is changing month to month, really, with the publishing industry. I suspect I wouldn’t go with Brooke, but it’s not because of Brooke. I love it, it’s a great experience. I’m hoping, actually, to go more like with the university press, because it’s more an ethnographic journey, which would be more appropriate as a textbook for someone studying the Maya and their life ways.
And so what I have as an advantage in this case is most, if not all, of the people who studied the Maya have been male. And so the culture is very gender divided and for a male to interact or to hang out with a bunch of women in the kitchen would be perceived as completely inappropriate. To hang out with a wife while her husband is present, that’s a different story,
Liz Booker (49:19)
Yeah. So you’ll bring this new perspective. Well, I’m so excited for this book and I can’t wait to read it also. I have some my own family ties and interests in the Maya and that region, which we’ll talk about separately. But yeah, yeah. So, so yeah, I’m really excited about it. And I know somebody else who’s gonna be really excited about it.
Lola Reid Allin (49:33)
Okay!
Excellent.
Liz Booker (49:43)
So good luck deciding what to do with that and when, you know, we probably won’t do an interview specifically for that book. But when you do navigate that process, I can’t wait to learn from you.
Lola Reid Allin (49:54)
Well, thank you so much.
Liz Booker (49:56)
Yeah. Thank you, Lola. I appreciate all your insights and you not only sharing obviously your story and putting yourself out in the world the way that you have, but also for you sharing your insights on the writing and publishing journey.
Lola Reid Allin (50:10)
Thank you for asking. It’s been a pleasure. always like chatting with you, Liz.
Liz Booker (50:14)
Thanks, Lola.
