In this episode, host Elizabeth Howard DiMartino, Boston, sits down with bestselling author and award-winning journalist Johanna “Jo” Piazza, Pennsylvania. From her early days in celebrity and political journalism to writing wildly popular novels and hosting hit podcasts, Jo shares her incredible career journey, the inspiration behind her upcoming book and what “modern” sisterhood means to her.
What does it take to write a novel a year, run a media company, produce chart-topping podcasts and raise a family? You’ll find out as Jo talks about her fascinating career, from celebrity and political reporting in New York to publishing bingeworthy novels enjoyed worldwide! We get a sneak peek into her next novel, “The Parisian Heist” (inspired by a recent real-life heist), hear real talk about setting boundaries and how much modern women truly carry and explore what sisterhood looks like in her busy life today. Whether you’re an avid reader, an aspiring writer or looking for tips on creating boundaries, Jo’s humor, truth and storytelling will leave you feeling inspired.
[From Sisterhood to Storytelling with Bestselling Author Jo Piazza]
This transcript was created using automated technologies and may contain errors.
Well, welcome back to another episode of Let's Talk Tri Delta podcast. I'm Elizabeth DiMartino. I am Tri Delta's Chief Engagement Officer. I joined Tri Delta at our Alpha chapter at Boston University, and it is my pleasure to serve as today's podcast host. Today's episode is one that I have been looking forward to for many weeks now. I am an avid reader and I love a good storyteller. And I got to know our guest a few months ago and was so excited by the kinds of stories she tells about women and their lives, which she does with humor and truth in a way that is both fun and captivating. I am joined today by Jo Piazza from our Psi Chapter at the University of Pennsylvania. Joe is a best-selling author, a podcast creator, and an award-winning journalist. Her career has taken her from celebrity journalism in New York to political reporting and now writing wildly popular, binge-worthy novels read all over the world. She's an editor, a columnist, and a travel writer, and her work has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Marie Claire, to name a few. Her books have been published in multiple languages, her podcasts have reached tens of millions of listeners, and her next novel is about to launch, and I can't wait for you to learn all about it. So, Jo, we are so excited to have you here this morning. I'm so excited to be here. This is great. And that introduction was so long. I was like, oh my gosh, I should totally shorten my bio at this point. It's all good. And you should be proud of all of the accomplishments. And I would love for us to start this morning a little bit at the beginning because you are a Tri Delta. And I would love to hear from you a little bit about what has Tri Delta meant to you, especially thinking back to your days in your collegiate experience, which you reference in some of your books. I do. I do. And it's so funny because I do it completely. It's unplanned. And then all of a sudden, there's like a tried out or a Sigma Chi reference in there. And then all of my sorority sisters and my friends are messaging me. They're like, oh, my gosh. And then I'm like, I totally forgot that I did that. It's like I just it would just happen. Being a tried out meant so much to me. I was there at Penn at the same time as I was an editor at our student newspaper and also minoring in English. So I was like just getting my feet wet as a writer. And I just created such strong bonds. I'm still good friends with a lot of the women from my class and actually classes above and below me as well. And I get to see them a lot when I travel for my book events. There's always Tri Delta representation there, which is wonderful, even abroad. Like I met up with one of the women in the class below me in London a few months ago, which was magical. And now I'm talking to her about possibly opening a bookstore together, which is something that may actually end up doing, which is wild, but my, my first book clubbing experience was with the girls in my sorority house, uh, sophomore year. I think I, I think we actually read Bridget Jones diary, uh, because the movie had recently come out. And so we were book clubbing that book and, you know, is the first time that I'd sat in a community with women and talked about a book and talked about how it related to our lives. And it just, it, It really stuck with me. And writing books for book clubs is definitely one of my aims. I want to write books that start conversations, but that are also really fun and juicy and delicious. And I think a lot of that stemmed from these early experiences that I had on our kind of crappy couch in our sorority house. I love that. Great beginnings. And you've described sisterhood as something that's deeper than just a regular friendship. Can you talk a little bit about that and maybe how that plays out in your life today? I love that you're still connected with your Tri Delta sisters. Yeah, I mean, it truly, it truly, truly is. And I think that sisterhood is something because you're put together you don't necessarily choose one another but also you've been chosen as a group together there's something magic in that in in the kinds of friendship that evolve when you're put in this group with other women when you're in such close proximity with other women when you're when you're doing the kinds of service that we did as as sisters and I think something stronger than than a friendship evolves and especially in college where so many friendships are based off other things right they're based off like oh do we have the same talk class at 8 30 in the morning or do I really like playing beer pong with you and I think sisterhood just hits a little differently and honestly it's also one Deep female friendship is one of the recurring themes in every single one of my books. I mean, you do not see a knight in shining armor come in and fix everything in any of these books. It is always women supporting other women and women and helping other women. And I think a lot of that stemmed from my experience in Tri Delta. Absolutely. And speaking of your writing, I got to know you through some of your books before you and I had even met. And I love that you write about strong women who defy the odds. Last Christmas, I read over the break, I read Everyone is Lying to You and the Sicilian Inheritance. And you and I had a conversation I shared with you that my husband's family is from Palermo. And I found that a very fascinating read, not only because it was very fun and a wonderful protagonist who's very strong, but it also felt very close to me, just in terms of my own family experience. And now I need to plan a whole trip to Sicily for your entire family. I know I would love that. So I will not say no to that. But the strength of your women as leads is evident in the books that you write. And so much of the women that you write about are navigating career, they're navigating family, they're navigating relationships. And that feels like it could be any of us. And it's probably all of us. Where do these women come from as you write about them? Are they your own life? Are they women that you've met? Are they just women that you think about in your mind? And, oh, I'd love to write a story about that. I mean, all of the above, right? Like, they are women. that I've known in my past you know my relatives my friends women that I've looked up to women that I've just encountered maybe you know for for one day at a conference I mean I'm just constantly taking notes um and that's another through line of my books I'm so glad that you picked up on it it's strong ambitious women and I write in a lot of genres and a lot of different formats too I write thrillers I write historical fiction but I'm like oh but they'd all be in the same section of the bookstore it's just like ambitious badass women obviously every bookstore should have a section like that and I just think it's so important to write the characters that we want to see more of in the world. Uh, and that's my goal with writing these kinds of characters and also with writing the stories of women supporting other women. Cause for me, and I love my husband, he's amazing. We have three kids together, but you know, my friends have been the backbone of my life. And I like to convey that in my novels. That definitely comes through. I also love that you're a storyteller that also comes through in the way that you, you share these stories. And I, believe that you have said that you collect stories and you revisit them later. How does that process work and how do you go about collecting stories? I mean, I, I just, I have this little notebook in my back pocket or it's sometimes it's in my, my bag that I carry around with me all the time and I'm constantly. Jotting down notes. And then I will put, I will sometimes transcribe them into a Google document. Sometimes I cut out articles and then I put them in this little file folder that says future ideas. And the book that I, so the book that's coming out this summer is The Parisian Heist, but I've already finished the second draft of the novel that'll come out the following summer. And that's actually a thriller that's a murder for hire plot at a fancy Wyoming dude ranch. And it's because I went to a fancy Wyoming dude ranch more than a decade ago. And they told me this story about how a really rich guy asked one of the wranglers to murder his wife and they went to the FBI. And I put that in my pocket for 10 years. And then all of a sudden, I just brought it back out for next summer's book. I love that. I think that's amazing. You're a student of life. You're observing probably all the time, I would guess. Constantly. I think it's exhausting though for my husband because I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm like, did you hear the story about the Swedish queen, Christina? We now have to go to this one really obscure church in Philadelphia that has a plaque to her. And he's like, okay, fine. Well, what does a normal day look like? You're balancing being a mom, a wife. probably traveling yeah it's I mean it's a lot I writing is my full-time job right so I do often get asked the question at book events um well how can you be a mom and a writer and a lot there are women authors who don't like to answer it because they say oh a man would never get asked that question but I think we have to talk about it if we're going to see more young women do both of those things. And I think I'm proof that you can do both of those things. You know, it's just about prioritizing. I have three kids. We have always had, well, since the second one came along, we've had very good full-time childcare. I work from 8:30 to 3:30 every day, and then sometimes 4:30, but I'm more flexible because the kids are home from school. I do my novel writing first thing in the morning. Cause like I need morning brain to do anything. I need coffee and like first thing brain. So if it gets to be the afternoon, like I'm just, I'm fried. I can't do it. And then in the afternoon, I'll do some more research or I also make podcasts and I still do a little bit of consulting work. So I'll do all of that in the afternoon. And then I start momming around 3:30 and I'll dabble in and out, but I've gotten really good at setting boundaries too. And I'm lucky. that I can set those boundaries because I work for myself now, right? But I set these boundaries. I turn the phone off for the most part after five every day. I've been using the Brick, which is amazing, which turns off certain apps on your phone and you just can't reopen them unless you go find this little device that's like, you know, probably upstairs. And it turns off all the social media so I can be more present. with my family and friends and, you know, be a halfway decent wife, which is always further down on the list than being a good mom or, you know, being a good writer. My poor husband, he's so sweet. He's wonderful. And yeah. So, I mean, it really, it is just a constant juggling act. I don't think you can have all of the things all at once. Like something is always going to be dropped, but. I hear from a lot of creative young women and they're like, I won't be able to create my art when I have kids. And I have to tell you, I'm more creative after having kids. And I think that I'm also better at getting stuff done because I just don't screw around, right? I just have to get something done and I have a limited amount of time to do it in and also multitasking. And we travel a lot. I think our balance is really good. I say this a lot to young women. I have a great partner. And I think this line comes from the British writer and journalist, Caitlin Moran, but your husband is your glass ceiling. And so I have someone who makes all of these things possible and who is like a real, genuine, equal partner with me. And I think that it is much harder to be able to juggle all of these things if you're with someone who isn't like that. That's that's definitely sounds very, very like there's truth there. When you meet with young women who are telling you, hey, I don't know that I can do this, but they have that maybe that book in their heart that they're thinking about. How do you and what is your advice to here's how I got started? Here's I know you had a career spanning journalism, writing articles, and then you transitioned into really getting. those novels out that were probably, I would assume, simmering underneath the service for a while. But what's your advice to making that transition into full-time writing? You know, It's very different than it was when I started out in journalism about 25 years ago, right? I mean, media has completely changed. But in terms of writing books, and I give this advice all the time, I'm like, you just sit down and you write the book. Like, you don't put it off. You don't wait for that best time, that best moment, because it's never going to come, you know, for when you have the easier job, right? Or when you can take a two-week vacation from work. I wrote my first books like hiding in my office at my full-time jobs or in my cubicle. Like, I think my bosses, I joke with my boss actually from one of them. I was the news director of a magazine and he was the editor-in-chief. And he's like, I know you were just like shutting your door so you could write your books. And I'm like, yeah, well, the books are still around. The magazine's not, friend. Give yourself a word count and sit down and write 500 words a day or a thousand words a day. You can write them on your phone while you're on the subway. You can talk to your phone while you're driving on your commute and then transcribe them. But make yourself get those words on a page and get that book out and finished. Because then you know that you can do it. And now there's so many ways. to get published. I mean, there's the traditional path to finding an agent and then a publisher, but self-publishing is also so good at this point and so viable with the variety of social media platforms out there. I just want to encourage every young woman who wants to write a book, just sit down, put your butt in a seat and write the book, but you have to do it every day because it is a muscle. And as you think about the transition from the writing for a magazine and for different types of media, What are you seeing in terms of where we're headed? You know, I think there was a moment of like, is reading dead? I don't think so. We are seeing a lot of interest in book clubs and it feels like it's renewed again. What are you seeing as you're out talking to people about your books? Oh, I don't think reading's dead at all. I mean, I think that we are seeing a resurgence in people wanting to read and wanting to read in community because I think people are desperate to be offline. Right now. So my book events are selling out like never before they're oversubscribed. And I think it's because people want to be with other people in real life right now. It's so funny. I set the Parisian heist, the new one. There's two timelines. There's a past timeline and a present day timeline. And the present day is 96, which is actually 20, 30 years ago. No, 20 years ago. I can't do math. I can't do math. 30. Oh my God. I'm not going to age myself here. It's 30 years ago. You're right. It's 30. Cause I'm almost 46 years ago. Right. So I'm like, Oh, I guess it's not the present day. I guess it's a dual historical fiction book is what it is. But I said it in 96 because I thought it was so much more fun to write a mystery and a heist pre social media and pre cell phones. Yeah. The ability to be able to Google everything. And when you had to do a little bit of research or go talk to people in person and. It was weirdly one of the most joyous parts to write in a very joyous book that had all this art and it was set in freaking Paris, right? And yet... just loved reveling in the idea of being screen free. And I think that's where we're moving to. I think more and more people are reading books. Media, on the other hand, just general traditional media. I have no idea what is going to happen to that. I mean, I have watched media over the past 30 years evolve. I mean, at first it was evolving every year and then it was every six months and now it's like every minute, right? So I will not even try to predict where that is going. I do know that I think it's really important to be ready to pivot. If you want a career in media, you have to be ready to adapt to the next thing when it comes along. You can't say, oh no, that's not for me because. you ultimately won't have a choice. And I remember being at newspapers right before everything moved online. I was only in newspapers for about a year before everything moved online. And then blogging started for the newspapers. And I was like, oh no, this is a blip. This is not for me. And thank God I got on board or I would have been. terribly left behind. And then I was being hired to move entire publications online and create digital native first things. But that taught me a lesson to always be looking forward and be adaptable in the media landscape because it is moving so fast and you have to change with it. You just do not have a choice. I that's that's really interesting, you know, just where it started and where it goes. And as you're talking about being adaptable and flexible, I'm also thinking that feels also true of us as women that we're constantly evolving. We're constantly, you know, thinking about different phases of our life. And I love that you're telling stories that really are uniquely women's stories. Why is that so important to you to tell stories from the lens of women? And I think some of the characters in your stories, to me, do feel very flexible and adaptable. They have, you know, the Parisian heist, you know, she's a restaurateur and then has to make changes. And I think that felt very real for me as I've navigated career and children and family and then back to a different career. And so I love those. And so I wonder why that's something that has resonated with you. Well, I think women generally are more adaptable uh because we've been been forced to be through throughout history and I think it is really important to be telling women's stories and stories from women's point of view because for a long time we just did not have them I with Sicilian inheritance Part of the story is set back in the early 1900s. And we're telling the story of a woman who, when her husband left, she became the town midwife slash doctor. And so many of those stories, there are stories like that, but they've been completely lost to history, either because women were not actively reading and writing or because they didn't have the power to have the stories published and preserved the way that men did. Because we now have the ability to do that, I think it's so important to not only share these stories, but to share the different kinds of stories of different kinds of women as well. I have a bee in my monot, actually, that the majority of books, like the quote unquote chiclet books that I was reading in like the 90s and 2000s. everyone was a plucky journalist okay everyone was like 13 going on 30 or how to lose a guy in 10 days like because a lot of the women writing books were plucky journalists and I I'm desperate to write women who are in roles that we don't usually see women in so Parisian heist, we have struggling female artists. In Sicilian inheritance, we have a woman butcher and restaurateur. And in the last ride, I have a woman head wrangler at this fancy Wyoming dude ranch. And I think that's, it's just more interesting to me to see women in a variety of roles that we don't necessarily expect them to be in. That feels really important too, as women, and maybe even for our younger women to see. women in roles that they wouldn't normally, you know, if I can't see it, can I get there? Right. And I think that's important. And I know from some of your reading about you and some of the work that you've done and prior novels that you're not afraid to have a hard conversation and to have difficult conversations. Talk to us a little bit about how that plays out for you. Yeah, I think I think it's actually my goal now to have difficult conversations. I was joking with my girlfriends. Like I said, I'm 46 and I was joking like, oh, you know, as our estrogen starts to decrease, we just stop caring what other people think. I guess it's hormonal. But I think it's really important to have challenging conversations, especially around women's wants and needs and how we should be. treated in the world uh and to have them loudly uh and in public and with my books i mean i just i always want to write something that is very readable and fun first and foremost i love that my books get called beach reads and that they come out in july because a lot of people buy beach reads and i want people to pick up these books but there's always an underlying current of something that we should be talking about i mean in Sicilian inheritance it's women's ambition and agency and in everyone is lying to you it's the rise of the trad wife movement and how influencing impacts women's lives and you know Parisian heist it's how do we treat women artists um how do women make money in the world and how is that different from how how men are able to generate wealth and so all of these things. I want people to be having all of these conversations in public with each other in book clubs. I love that. And I think that plays out too. You have a podcast, which we haven't talked about yet. And you have conversations there. Talk to us a little bit about if anyone wants to explore your podcast, what would they find there? And what's your goal with the podcast? Oh my God. It's evolved because we pivot, right? Because we adapt, because we're women and we are very good at doing that. So under the Influence started six years ago. as a narrative deep dive into the world of mom influencers into the multi-billion dollar industry of women creating content for other women that was largely ignored by mainstream media because it was by women for women and it started out really digging into the business of influencing and mom influencing And then moved on to the Trad Wife movement. I mean, I think that I was one of the first reporters really reporting on the rise of Trad Wives and conservative influencers. And then because podcasts evolved, our show had to evolve. It was originally reported scripted narrative podcast right and moved into more of a chat show because that's what the market started to demand and now it's a show just exploring all aspects of women's lives we still touch on social media and how it impacts us a lot but really it's asking all of these questions right you know how how can you be an ambitious woman in this world? How can we generate wealth? You know, how do you be a mother? How do you, how do you be a child-free woman in this world? We're, we're asking all of those, these hard questions and it's a lot of fun. I mean, I'm still doing it twice a week, which is fantastic. And it's often edited and produced by my, my husband. So I'm just like, wow, it's just, he's going to like feminist university every day. But yeah, it's been, it's been a wild ride. It has, but it's great. I mean, I have to say like, I love everything about my career and my life. And I just, I feel very blessed that I've gotten to build the kind of life that works really well for me. And you mentioned your husband and I, did I see that he bought you a billboard? He did. He did. Yeah. For Mother's Day, because he knew that I would love more than flowers or lingerie or pajamas that I would really like to sell copies of my book. So he bought me a billboard in Times Square that ran every four minutes for a week for my book. Everyone is lying to you. And it was over Margaritaville, which felt really on point because I'm like, you know, people should. get a spicy margarita and then read everyone is lying to you. That feels right to me. And then we took a trip up to New York and we like danced around underneath it and saw a little shop of horrors and went out to a piano bar to sing until one 30 in the morning. That sounds pretty great. Give him an A plus. Yeah. Yeah. We, we like had, we had like. a hot dog at one 30 in the morning. And I'm like, this is all that I want in life. That's perfect. Yeah. I love that. And obviously he is, um, taking the ride with you and very much in support of the work you're doing and you're balancing of all of it. So let's talk a little bit. You mentioned it already, but let's talk about your new book, which I love because it's set in Paris. And I, when I saw the news come out, you're actually the first thing I thought of because there was an actual heist in Paris. a few months ago and things were stolen from the Louvre. And I know you have a book coming out. That's so I wonder, first of all, were you just thinking to yourself, I can't believe this is actually happening. And I have this book coming out. It feels like kismet. I mean. Kind of, but also I have to say that I write books so often that then kind of predict what ends up happening in reality that I'm like, of course this would happen. I'd been writing the book for two years before the Louvre got robbed in the fall and it was finished. And we were actually about to do our cover reveal. Two days later, and then the Louvre got robbed. And I called my publisher and I'm like, you have to release the cover right now. Like now is the time for people to see this book cover. And we did. So we released it early. But I felt very validated after that heist. I'm also like, I'm like, wow. I'm like, I wish I'd masterminded this better. Like, should I have organized a Louvre heist, like closer to publication? That would be really good for book marketing. It actually, it really validated me because what I have learned in all of my research about heists for Parisian heist, and I talked to so many security experts like Anthony Amore from the Gardner Museum in Boston, where they have like the biggest unsolved heist all time of these Rembrandts. He went through my heist with me piece by piece. And what I learned is that it's less Ocean's Eleven and more just like as basic. as the Louvre heist. And so it just made me feel really good. And that was funny because I got a review from one of the like reviewers recently, one of the like publishing houses. And they were like, oh, they're like, well, the heist is nothing like Ocean's Eleven. I want to be like, Anthony Amore told me that my heist was very accurate. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But it's so fun. I mean, because there is like a heist and like, these struggling art students in Paris and there's so much Paris. And I went there twice for research, which was delightful. If you ever need a research assistant, I'm down. Just come everyone. We should, we should do Tri Delta trips with me to like different destinations. Like I think you would have some, I think I'd have some takers. So, uh, yeah, we, um, In the past timeline is actually the untold story of Joe Van Gogh, who was Vincent's sister-in-law who inherited 300 of his paintings when he died. And he was not famous at all. The paintings were worthless. And she had to make them worth something and had to make him famous in a household name in order to carry on her husband, who'd also passed legacy, but also to survive. And we never hear her name and her story is remarkable and just a delight. And so both of those stories are so much fun. I love Parisian heist. It's a blast. I'm looking forward to reading it. Tell us when it's coming out and how we can get a hold of it. So it's coming out on Bastille Day, which I did plan, unlike the Louvre heist, which I did not plan. And so, yeah, I'll be on tour all across the country starting. July 10th, actually. And all of the information about that is on the website, the Parisian heist.com, which my husband did buy after the Louvre heist. I know real smart, real smart. We love enough. We love some SEO. And so, yeah, and I'll be all all over the place with it. And you can buy it wherever books are sold. You can if you're listening to this before the book comes out, order it now. Pre-orders matter so much. But I'll be on tour pretty much through the fall. All over the country. We will be on the lookout for you. We'll be having more conversations with you, I believe, in the future. Yeah. And we'll make sure that our Tri Delta friends know how to order and get a copy of the book. I love that so much. This has been great. I love hearing all of your stories. I feel like you and I could just sit over coffee and talk. We can. We can and we will. Avid fan. Yes. Yeah. And I love that you weave in Tri Delta to your stories as well. Always and forever. Yeah, absolutely. Delta Delta Delta Pi. Yeah, absolutely. Jo, thank you for joining us today. I do want to just again, share that we will make sure that our, our Tri Deltas can access how to order your book. This has been a great conversation. We can't wait to read the Parisian Heist when that comes out. And thank you all for listening today. We would love for you to like, subscribe, and rate our podcast. We love our five-star ratings at Tri Delta. And we thank you for joining us today.