The Remedy is The Disease ft. Leticia Urieta

0:24 Hey, girlfriend, it's me Adrian or Aiden. Either way, I am still your host and you are still listening to Sousto the Podcast, a paranormal folklore from Latin American cultures. Welcome back, Thank you so much for being here, and if this is your first time, welcome also, thank you for being here. It is it's gonna be May. It's halfway through May. I don't know what it is with me in these nineties hits right now. I'm in my childhood era. It's all coming but it's all coming back. Do you mean I'm going to get a season desist if I don't stop, and I need to season desist any way. We are halfway through and time is flying by. This is wild. I'm just gonna go ahead and give some really quick updates. Listen, there is still time. Although like I said, we are halfway through the month, there is still time to join in on this month's book club.

1:13 This month, we are reading A Sunny Place for Shady People by Marianna Henriquez. This is a collection of short stories, twelve short stories, to be exact, So pick up your copy. It's not that you know, it's not that that hefty of a read. Get your copy join us. As always, the book club is open to any and everybody. Just get your copy read along and towards the end of the month, I will post more details about the discussion. So make sure that you are following at Hoostal Podcasts on every social media platform so you can stay up to date with any other updates, not only about the show but of course our book club. Really that's the only time sensitive thing. As always, please make sure that you are supporting the show by leaving positive and rating reviews wherever you are listening, or leaving comments on Spotify, comments like this one from Jovita Megan Therasas on the Yawatipostly episode, and Javita said, how does she sing it?

2:04 I'm trying to remember she says, I don't need nobody telling me just what I wanna, what I what, what, what I'm gonna do about my destiny like I said in my nineties era. Anyway, that is from Britney Spears's over protected and it is a guest at what I was talking about. I was referencing in the last episode, the Yuati Bostly episode, which is a very good guests admittedly, but it's not quite it, So I'm going to keep this going. I almost thought about just like telling you all what it is, but I'm going to keep it going. If you all listen to that episode, let me know what your guesses are. And unless you are a Patreon subscriber with access to the video versions of the episodes, because you I dropped something in the video that you will have seen, so who knows, let me know what your guesses are or we're going to keep this going.

2:54 I don't know. Maybe I'll send someone a sticker. Whoever can guess it right. Speaking of video versions of the episodes, you can support tosto and get access to bonus content like early and ad free episodes by signing up at sustoplus dot com. Anyway, let's go ahead and get into this week's episode, where I got to sit and chat with the author Litisia Urieta and just a little bit about Lithsia. I actually do have a copy of one of her previous writings, Las Kriaturas, which is a short collection of stories poetry and it's really great and just a bit about Lithisia. From her site, she says, I am a writer of horror, speculative fiction, comics, poetry, and more. That Thesia is also a freelance writer and works as a teaching artist, leading community writing workshops across genres. I'm very excited for this interview. I'm also very excited to let y'all know that we are collaborating on a giveaway of a signed copy of her latest book, which is coming out tomorrow May fifteenth. I say tomorrow because this episode is airing on the fourteenth, So if you would like to hear more about the book giveaway, make sure that you are sticking around to the end of the interview to hear all the detail us about that. With that being said, we're going to go ahead and get into that chat. Lidisia Urrieta, thank you so much for being here today. I'm so excited. I actually have my copy right here of last Oh Wow, rereading in preparation

4:30 for today. Just to kind of give some background about how this happened. We are going to be talking more about your upcoming work. But you reached out and you wanted to give a suggestion for the Sustal Book Club, and I said, you know what, let's do one better. The star is aligned and your new book actually releases tomorrow May fifteenth from when this episode is posted tomorrow May fifteenth. So I said, you know what, we got it. We got to get you on susto. This is the timing is just perfect. So thank you so much for being here today. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Yes, the stars aligned. I'm a big believer in that, so we just we're making it happen. And I'm so grateful to be here. I love this podcast, and I've gotten to see you do some really cool talks at like some of the spirit gatherings and stuff in Austin. So this was yeah, this is perfect.

5:21 Well, thank you so much. So we're going to go ahead and get right into it because I do have quite a few questions for you. So you write across a wide range, you know, there's horror, speculative fiction, poetry, and even comics. What is I guess, the sort of through line for you, What keeps pulling you back into the kind of like dark and the strange territory, so to speak. That's a really good question. I think I've always been drawn to dark folklore, you know, fairy tales, especially like being of Mexican and Mexican American descent, and like kind of texts in Irish, you know, German. Like there's there's a mixture of cultures in my background and storytelling, and my my parents were big believers in you know, providing me a lot of like opportunities for reading. And so I think that kind of helped me to understand like what storytelling could be. And you know, when even when I was younger, I was kind of a scaredy cat, but I really I felt myself drawn to darker fiction, to horror movies. My my grandma, my paternal grandmother, who was Mexican, and I used to watch Are You Afraid of the Dark on Nickelodeon on Saturdays when I would stay with her, and I don't know what it was, but it was like a weird ritual that we had,

6:52 and so I think that was a was an early opportunity for me to understand that like that there are really interesting things you can do with darker you know, work with horror, with with speculative fiction. But then you know, later I was in an MFA program and there's so much focus on kind of literary fiction and you know, like writing realistic stories, and I think I was like I felt really constricted in that and didn't always feel like that aligned with my values. And so, you know, there's a lot of beautiful literary fiction. You know, all the time people are writing some really, really beautiful contemporary stories.

7:37 But I found myself like reading Carmen Muddy and my Chaveel and like digging into some of this, and of course, like later being exposed to have Tavia Butler and you know, digging into some of those types of stories helped me to understand, Oh, I want to be writing about disability. I want to be in like chronic illness. I want to be writing about what it's like to be a woman in this world, especially like you know, I started writing in Las Creatures in twenty sixteen, so like you know, first Trump presidency campaign, and so navigating some of those aspects of my identity or my lived experiences and what I was witnessing in the world, the effect of you know, displacement, migration, violence, all of these things I think really drive me to write what I'm writing. And then the new book it is very much like what does ableism do to us?

8:43 What does body autonomy look like? And so those are some of the things that I think, Forror and speculative fiction have given me an avenue to explore in my work. Yeah, I feel like, and this conversation happens so much, not only on this show, but in many spaces, is where horror is being discussed. And I've said this before. A previous guest on SUSTO said that horror is a great analogy, or it's a great vehicle for analogy, and that has always stuck with me since I heard them say that. And I think it's true, you know, especially for marginalized people, so people living with chronic illnesses, women, queer people, people of color. It just that like othering and the monstrous, I think we maybe connect to that more than people who are not facing oppression in that way.

9:33 And also you mentioned, you know, your upbringing as well. Whenever people ask me that question, you know what got you into this? Where did this start? For me? It was it's just so like how could I not be into this stuff, you know, being from the Texas Mexico border. I'm also with the Hano hearing these stories growing up. But also like even down to like religion. You know, I was raised Catholic, and I always say, you know, the Catholic Church is very spooky, you know, it's like inherently be supernatural. Yeah, and so I want to talk more about your upbringing. You mentioned you're at Tihana. You're currently based in Austin, but you did say before we started recording that you're r ving, which I definitely need to hear more about that. But how does your specific cultural and your geographic identity shape the kind of stories that you tell?

10:24 That's a great question too, because I think like that changes a lot. You know, I'm going to be forty this year, so like my relationship to my identity has definitely changed a lot of as I've become more politically aware and like read more and culturally aware. I used to you know, I think when I was a baby Latina, I was like Latino feminism, you know, so many things like that, and I still, of course believe in that, but that doesn't always provide the same space for like queer and trans you know, folks in our communities, and so sometimes I think that that's an area my mentality has changed, But there's neither here other but I think they Hana to me feels closest to my experience because both sides of my family have been in Texas for you know, it's periods of time for several generations and and so like, and ties to agriculture and farming and you know certain regions, like several of my family members have lived all over Texas and so like having traveled all over Texas, that feels most connected to my experience.

11:35 And then like my my maternal grandfather was he really struggled to read when he was younger, and he you know, came from a farming family and then he got his you know, college education and masters and uh, you know, became a Texas FFA officer. So like, education was very like important to my family and something that they pushed me to be a part of. But he was also a really amazing storyteller, and so he really kind of shaped like how I understood like oral storytelling and you know, not always the most truthful, often very embellished, that every story was told a different way. But I know that there's a piece of him that lives in my type of storytelling, even though you know, I don't know if he would have liked to read everything I write. But and then my grandmother, who I mentioned before, Inez was an unpublished poet and she used to read my poems and share poems that she typed up on her typewriter that she didn't really share with anybody until much later in life, Very very tender poems about my uncle who died he was a pilot and died in Vietnam. And so, you know, just a lot of different pieces of that.

12:59 And that really shaped my writing too, because she wrote in English and Spanish, and so that like helped me feel comfortable writing bilingually. And then you know, my parents, like I said, encourage literacy so much in the home and so like provided me with lots of different types of stories, and so a lot of like a lot of my early writing and even still today is influenced by like family stories, by like the tall tales sometimes of our families, some of the weird, creepy things that have happened in our family, especially in South Texas. And then my father is also a musician, So yeah, I feel like there's a lot of like storytelling and lyricism and things that have influenced who I am as a creator but also as a person.

13:48 Yeah, there's a level to storytelling. I think anybody who does almost any type of storytelling look like it just it's inevitable for it to feel or be personal. And you know, in reading Las Cariaturas and I'm short in more of your work and your upcoming work, these stories will continue to be personal, right, There's just almost no way to avoid it, and you know you are going to be writing more. Like you mentioned about like chronic pain and like ableism, you know what some might identify as like medical trauma. Is it difficult to write from that space? And how do you sort of reconcile with that pain? Can? I can imagine it's it's cathartic in a sense. I know that I was trying to relate it to myself as well, like I've done work previously with like HIV awareness and advocacy, but mainly around HIV destigmatization.

14:47 I've been living with HIV for eleven years now, and you know, facing that work or doing that work and facing it it was very very hard at first, and it's gotten easier over time. But it's there's a there's a part of it that's cathartic. So I can imagine that this is made similar in that way. I'm trying to relate to the work, and so I'm curious if that's how it feels for you, because that's the sets that I get. Definitely cathartic. And you know, so I wrote the poetry book chap book that came out prior it came out last year November of last year, called Offerings to a Tumble Temple, and that one, I think was like me exploring some of that vulnerability from a tenderness place and a place of wanting to hold space for other folks who have experienced those kinds of things and working through.

15:41 And you know, I also talk about the women in my family who experienced trauma and pain and many of whom are no longer you know, in this physical realm on earth with us. And so that was like one aspect of it. And then this next book, you know, I think, is exploring some of the darker aspects of that. And so there is a catharsis in, you know, not necessarily like I mean, I love a revenge, tell sure, but some of it is opening up the possibility to talk about, you know, medical trauma and like what responsibility you know, doctors and folks have to care for you know, their patients. How we have a responsibility to care for one another as community members, and I think there were definitely stories that made me in like poems that I wrote in both of these collections that made me cry, some that were you know, I questioned whether I should you know, even share them or should they just stay at the bottom of my drawer in my journal, especially because there are there's poems and stories in both of the collections that talk about pregnancy loss, which is kind of what a stigmatized, you know subject. But the more I started sharing with other disabled friends and you know, loved ones, they said, well, you know this hurts sometimes

17:11 to read, but also like, you should share this with other people because other people are probably hurting like this too. And yeah, so I think that there is a level of care that I'm hoping to put into this work so that when I do share with other people, they are receiving it in a way that might be helpful to them. Yeah, it's it's it's almost like the the urge is to want to I mean again back to that word, like to destigmatize those things or to normalize having those conversations and being kind of like unabashedly open about those things, right, because like you mentioned, there's this shame that is put on something like that, and in many cases, you know, if not all of them, it's like, well, this is something that was you know, not a choice, it was something that typically happens to a person. And so for that kind of feeling to be like washed over them is It's what I'm trying to find the word. It's like the word embarrassing is coming to mind. It's like, it is embarrassing that we do that to each other, and like how can we be so cruel to each other?

18:24 And so, yeah, I love when horror takes us down that road because it's it's like, no, we should confront these scenes because then it's you know, kind of like a play on the genre. Is like it is scary sometimes to have those conversations, and so you know the irony is that hiding it behind a monster or an entity somehow makes it more approachable. I don't know, that's kind of just silly to me. Well, and like if I can, if I can add to that, you know, some of what in this collection I think I'm exploring is like it's scary to have a body, right, It's scary to live in a body in the world, whether you are able bodied or not.

19:07 Anything can happen. You know, anyone can be disabled at any time, Anyone can get sick at anytime. You know, we're living through this, you know, this pandemic and and all of these things happening to us. And then like the MAHA you know you genesist like movement of uh what feels like the government trying to kill us all off, you know. So it's like and then you add you know, racism and misogyny and all these other aspects to like how folks move through the world. And there's a lot of ways that the outside world, that our society that we live in is enacting violence on our bodies, and so like, how can horror then be a vehicle to confront and really truthful and sometimes it may be very jarring and uncomfortable ways, like how do kind of jar ourselves out of this like rope thinking that this is normal?

20:04 This is okay, I guess Okay. On that note, we're going to take a very quick break. Okay, we're back. I want to continue on that idea of kind of like processing real trauma, you know, and I always say this almost every episode. My frequent flyers, people who listen to all the episodes bring out your Bengal cards. My favorite word trauma is coming out, but because it applies, you know, in stories like from Las Careerturdash. The story that really really stuck out to me was La Mueran, and it was very rooted in this kind of tradition of like we mentioned, folklore and storytelling and using the supernatural to process very real trauma. So I'm curious was that connection intentional from the start. Was it something that developed or like revealed itself as you wrote it, And maybe not just about that story specifically, but when that happens, do you kind of go into it with the idea of like, I want to write about this experience or I don't know, I'm just I'm very curious about that sort of process.

21:29 Yeah. I mean that whole book was definitely coming from a place of you know, some righteous anger, some you know hurt. Definitely from experiences I had both in academia and kind of outside of it, and reactions to that. And so I think I was reading Women Who Run with Wolves at the time, and I was reading a lot of different like kind of folklore and speculative stories like that about you know, the monstrous woman, right kind of this this trope, and I have always felt kinship with monsters, and I think many of us do. It's why we love cryptids, you know, It's why we it's why we tell these stories, right, we come back to them.

22:18 And scorpions have always kind of freaked me out. But I've also you know, loved I have something. I have a lot of scorpio in my chart. I've also loved, you know, like the power and the kind of mysterious, you know, nature of scorpions, and so I wanted to like use them as an image, and I was thinking about reading something about the way that scorpions are preserved in Mexical, right, and so like that kind of started as an image, and then you know, made its way into a story about the way that trauma affects someone who is a survivor of sexual assault, right, And so that's kind of how that began. But there are several pieces in that book that are you know, also about like the effects of trauma on the body and and like this monstrous transformation that happens and las vietures. You know that when I was conceiving of the title, I was thinking about how that word in Spanish, you know, means creature, but it also can refer to children, it can refer to something like kind of other worldly, like there's a there's liminality in that title, I guess, or in that word, and so yeah, that's where a lot of those pieces were settling for me when I wrote them.

23:42 So In the Remedy is the Disease, which is your upcoming book releasing tomorrow May fifteenth, it is described as a collection there it is of experimental, speculative and horror stories about living with chronic pain and illness, medical trauma, grief, and the way vulnerable bodies are treated in a capitalist, individualistic society. There's something very I think Shusto coded about that. As I mentioned, you know, we do talk about trauma a lot on this show, and the body as a site of terror or like even loss. Could you share more about this this new book.

24:23 Absolutely, thank you for to have for that introduction. I think this book is both exploring that that terror, right, the things that happen to us that are outside of our control, both illness, pain, the things that we think are going to kill us, but don't we have to survive, but also you know, the violence of the medical you know, industrial complex, which you know, many of us would not be here without it, including myself. But at the same time, I've also experienced a little carm in that system, and so I think that's the tension I'm working with. And then you know, there are other stories in the book that are meant to also show like what kinship looks like, what love looks like between folks who are experiencing, you know, these losses or these traumatic you know, struggles with their bodily autonomy, right, And so I think that's one of the things I was hoping to explore in the book, is the tension or the push and pull between the terror, the fear, the violence, and the love and recognition that people can often find in those situations.

25:46 Oh, that's making my heart like burst. I'm so excited to read this because it's like I'm having these memories flooding back. As I mentioned that that work that I was doing many years ago that I've since stepped away from just for like my own like spiritual like mental well being, I needed to kind of like take the four k in the road from that work. But when I was doing it like this, that tension that you're describing it is such a unique feeling that I think for anybody out there who is listening, who gets it, who understands what that feels like, it is a very very specific feeling. And again I'm just like I'm feeling it. I'm getting chills right now because I remember doing that work when I encountered, you know, other people who had just tested positive for HIV and I was I've always been very very vocal about my status. But because of that, I've made those connections and there is that tension, know where we are facing something where we were were scared of some of us and myself included. You know, when I found out I was very sick, I had delayed testing and so I should have gotten tested earlier. But you know that's neither here nor there. It was a very scary way that I found out there are other people that have experienced that, and then making that connection and that relief of my God, someone who gets it, someone who understands, you know, someone who is navigating this system with me. Yeah. That Yeah, that the way that

27:16 you describe it, that there is that tension, that push and pull of like this is frightening, this is hard, but you know, in just like interpersonal connections. There is that that relief and that that kinship. Like you said, it's you just you put it so perfectly that that happens when you're experiencing something like that, it can be beautiful in some ways, it can be. And I think too, like you know, something I was trying to get at in this in both of these two books, The Poetry Coach and this one is like, you know, what's often scariest about living with illness or what have you is you know, you go through this grieving process, often with yourself, and sometimes that takes a lifetime, right, and sometimes that ebbs and wanes with new diagnoses or you you know, a medication stops working, or you have to find a new doctor or all these different things, right, a new loss. And I have a lot of it's I call it like the whack a mole of of chronic illness. But yeah, yeah, I think we, I think many of us know what that feels like, right, You you try to find an equilibrium and many times it's it's like you're at war with your body, right, your body becomes you become an adversary to your body, which is not good either. And so something else I was trying to explore in this book too, is like what care looks like when you know, the real horror is ableism, right,

28:49 or like living in a society that would rather you disappear, be invisible die, you know, Like I have a lot of other you know, friends and community members. I know who's uh, you know, most of my disabilities are invisible, right and so like, but they live in the world using mobility devices and other you know, other you know, things that they need to use and are much more visibly disabled, and so like how they're treated, where they can go. You know, those are the types of things I was thinking about when when I was writing this book as well, and then using horror tropes, horror storytelling techniques were wolves, you know, being one of them, to explore that a little bit more.

29:39 Wow, was was there anything maybe a specific story or piece or even anything like in the writing process for this book that surprised you or maybe it took you to a place that you didn't expect to go? Absolutely, I mean this is by far, you know. I I think with Lasprietures, I was dipping my toe into horror a little bit. It's I kind of for a lot of folks like I call it coror light, you know what I mean. It's like it's weird and you know, creepy, but it's not like super super scary, you know what I mean, at least not maybe for like Season four Lovers, whereas this one, I was trying to push myself intentionally and grow as a writer in this genre, which is still kind of new to me. And so there's like one story called blood draw and I had just watched the nineteen seventy Oh I'm blanking on the date, but the nineteen seventies or eighties The Blob, the remake. I really liked that version for some reason. And then I had also watched Invasion of the Body Snatchers like around the same time, and I was thinking about what happens, you know, every time you go get your blood drawn.

30:58 What happens to all that blood once it's been tested? Is it just thrown away? How is it disposed of? And I was thinking about, like the the often invasiveness of giving blood even though it's necessary, And so I was like, well, what if A lot some many of my stories start with what ifs. What if instead of the Blob, it was like all the blood from a phlebotomy lab and it like merged into this weird high mind being and started consuming people. What would that sound like? You know, what would that even look like on the page? It's a pretty wild layout. Might bless my editors for an Undertaker Books for going with me on that. But yeah, so that's just one example of like and I was not expecting where that was going to go. It's very outside of my comfort zone. But I actually am really happy with it.

31:54 Well that sounds so so cool, like in the weirdest way. I'm you know, like you said, for us a seasoned horror lovers, I'm very excited to read that. And we're gonna take a one more quick break, okay, and we're back, Ladicia, Is there's something that maybe you would like people to know before they read the new book? The remedy is the disease? Is there maybe something a lens that they should go into it with or should it be just kind of like, you know, take a dive off the deep end?

32:41 Maybe a little bit of both, you know, I do I have friends for whom this they love, They love and support me. They will not read this book, and that's okay. If Body for is not your thing. That is okay. I hope that you read it. I hope that you can with it. I did bring some of the work to a kind of normy critique group, like a few years ago before this was published, and one woman told me that it made her deeply uncomfortable, and I was like, good, thank you. Yeah right, I'm like, okay, mission accomplished. But you know, I do like there's content warning, you know, like I always like to give people a content warning, like this is Bodyhore. There's some pretty grewsome stuff in here. It is going to make you uncomfortable.

33:34 It's dealing with, you know, like I said, chronic pain. It's dealing with the body transforming into you know, scary and unexpected ways. It's dealing with pregnancy loss and all the ways that that like affects people, and it affects partners and couples, deals with suicidal ideation. So like, just you know, tread carefully, take care of yourself. I think that that's important. But also yeah, I hope that people come in with an open mind and just you know, coming to the page, you know, slowly and carefully whatever that looks like to you. But I hope people enjoy it. You know, I think already a few folks that have read it or like, oh, this is my favorite, and I'm like, oh, that's surprising. You know, it's surprising to learn what people's favorite stories are. I'm excited for that.

34:25 Yeah. Yeah, I relate so hard on you know, your loved ones being like I cannot read this. You know, I have family or friends who will say I can't. They're like, I know you, and I know you personally, and people who know in my real life, I'm like such a fool. I'm always acting up like and there, but when I'm telling a story, I try and lock in and like make it really scary. And so I've had people telling me like I could not listen to this episode, or like I had to just mute it and let it play through to give you the stream, and I'm like, listen. That is the biggest compliment to me when someone tells me this episode is too scary, I had to pause it and listen listen to it again during the daytime. You know that. I'm like, ugh, mission accomplished. So good for you to get.

35:09 That episodes are legit absolutely no, some of your episodes are legitimately very scary, but I love I love being scared. So well, thank you. Speaking of you being scared, You've shared an encounter previously in an interview you've done with a shadow figure, and I was curious if you could share that story here, and if you've experienced anything else paranormal, I'd love to hear about it. But I'm very curious about the shadow figure. I'm so excited to talk about this. So, you know, I kind of consider myself, you know, I didn't always used to think I was a believer in the paranormal or supernatural. I do think I am now, even if I haven't had as many experiences as other folks have.

35:59 I just the world is a mysterious and strange place, and who would I be if I didn't like keep an open mind to that. But yeah, when my when I was younger, I think I was eleven or so. My I was in middle school. I think my dad drove a cab and he used to pick me up from school because I my school was very far from my house. I was in a magnet school and so yeah, and on the way home he would listen to a lot of talk radio, and I remember during that time we would listen to Art bell a lot, a lot and so UoS you know, strange encounters. But I remember very specifically there was a there's like a series of episodes where they would talk about the shadow people, and that scared connect first on.

36:47 This absolutely that's get the ship. Out of me. And so I think, like this the descriptions of the of the likes that live in your periphery. That was the very specific description is like there are beings or like entities that are like always You'll never see them full on, but they'll always be in your periphery and all these different things and so you know, call it maamed my very very overactive weird imagination, call it the power of suggestion, what have you. But there was several like weeks, Like I said, I was a scaredy cat and things like anything I watched affected me very differently. I mean it the grim Ones, like all these horror movies you know, will get me nightmares for months, But this particular episode I just remember. After that, I would I would be like brushing my teeth and looking in the bathroom mirror and out of the corner of my eye, I'm like, what is that?

37:48 What is that? You know, there's there's like their darkness. Is there something following me? So you know, I don't. I can't say for sure, you know, but yeah, it really it freaked me out. It was like a memory that I unlocked when I did that other interview. Yeah, yeah, I've and they're so common to the shadow people. But I mean, like you said, it could be imagination, power of suggestion. It could have also been a summoning. You know, we don't see them until we speak about them. Yeah, I don't know, and you know, just like it also, I think scared me because it's one thing to think about a human spirit, but that's not how the shadow people are described. They're described as like something like a totally separate entity and you don't really know what they are.

38:43 And I think that like really scary. I think that the deeper that you delve into the paranormal, those lines start to blur and the communities start to merge between like ghosts and spirits and extraterrestrials and interdimensional beings. You know, those things start to merge at some point when you get to it deep enough. So yeah, it's very yeah, but I'm sorry. We were gonna. Say no it's just like it. Are we living in multiple timelines and they're just like someone You know, there's been films about that that I think are really interesting. You know, is it someone whose timeline is merging with mine? I don't know, but you know, then like later on more recently, my friends and I would you know, I started writing a novel that I'm hoping to finish this year that is based in Austin. It's a paranormal novel about the spiritualist movement in Austin. And so as I started to delve into that a little bit more, I went to like the Texas Spirit Gathering and have been on a bunch of different ghost tours because Austin is my hometown and my friend and I love going to the tours. Some of the like night owl tours and stuff like that at Pioneer Farms, and we went on one where a medium takes you around the property. And I used to go there for field trips as a child, and I remember there was this one part in which we were told, like near the barn, if you've ever

40:15 been out to that property, there's an old cowboy who was in charge of that barn, and he shows up often is very protective of that area. And there was a point in the tour where we were kind of left on our own and there's these rocking chairs on the porch of the barn, and we sat down into them. And this is the only time I've ever seen in my mind's eye someone this cowboy I think spirit grabbing the back of this chair and feeling very intently like get out of my chair. And I turned to my friend at one point and I said, Oh, we gotta go.

40:56 This man's not on us here. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Sometimes you just got to take the signs and say all right, I hear you loud and clear, exactly. Oh gosh. So the remedy is the disease again drops May fifteenth. If you're listening to this episode when it comes out, that'll be tomorrow. However, if you are a Patreon subscriber, you have early an ad free access to the episode, so in two days anyway, May fifteenth, literally the day after this episode airs. Where can people grab a copy of this book of your other work, and where can they follow you online? I would love to help out, you know, and support my publisher, so you can buy it directly from Undertaker Books and the link for that is on my website which is ladsaa dot com. Please follow my work there as well. You can purchase my other books from there.

41:49 In the links you can follow my newsletter for more about my travels and my other work. But it is also stopped at local Austin and Texas bookstores including Bookwomen, Resistancia Bookstore, Puria Marvosa, several others. So and if it's not at your local independent bookstore. You can order it or you can also win it in a giveaway that Lithsia and I are collaborating on. Thank you so Much. Lithsia is donating a signed copy of the Remedy Is the Disease and in order to enter that, what you would have to do, dear listeners, is you follow both susital podcast and Lithisia on Instagram.

42:34 It's at sousal podcast and at Lithisia. Asu you like the book giveaway post and you tag a girlfriend in the comments, there will be a post for the giveaway dedicated to the giveaway and the rules and the details for that will be in that caption as well, so make sure that you check that out on Instagram and Lithsia, thank you so much for your time today. Before you do God's we'll be reading an excerpt from the book that will be available as bonus content for Patreon. If you'd like to subscribe to that, you can visit hoostal plus dot com. So for everybody else, thank you so much for listening. Lidisia, thank you so so much for being here. And for Patreon subscribers, please please stick around.

43:20 Thank you so much and I appreciate it. Welcome back, cool friends, Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode. Again, make sure that you enter that giveaway. Check out the social media post for it. There would be a dedicated post to it separate from the episode post for this you'll see it on social media. That's why you need to follow at hoostal podcast on every platform. The giveaway will be happening exclusively on Instagram, so check it out for all the details on how to enter and when we will be announcing the winner and all of that good stuff. One more time, you still have time to join us for the book club.

44:06 This month, we are reading A Sunny Place for Shady People. Grab your copy, read along and then follow on social media for meeting details. Towards the end of the month. And lastly, there are many ways to support the show. You can do it by leaving positive ratings and reviews and comments wherever you are listening. However, if you'd like to receive bonus content, you can also support by signing up at sustoplus dot com, choosing which tier works for you, what you want to do, and then take it from there. Speaking of Susto plus, thank you so much to the patron saints of this episode. You are Liza Rachel, Alejandra Luther, April d Josette, Mandy, Lauri, Genie, desire c Ashes, Nedessa, rachel A, Asusena, Marlene Chata, Laney, Desiree A Rigado, Vanessa, Marizza Manormal, Iris, Floor, Selena Nightingvelle Clint, Rachel w Armani Bianca.

44:58 Thank you all so so much for or your support. It means the underworld to me. I could write a million billion words about how much it means to me. I will talk to you in the next one and until then not deos who stays Bye.