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[0:38] Laura Camien: Welcome to The Spark File, your middle school talent show for creative inspiration.

[0:42] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell. If you're joining us for the first time, you are so welcome. You may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file? Where do I get one? What do I file in it? These are good questions, y'all. We've got answers. A spark file is the place where you consistently collect all of your inspirations and fascinations. And if you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, you know that sometimes the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry. We're here to refill it. We're on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration that spark our creativity and pique our curiosity. Things that inspire us to rise up off of our asses and make things like this podcast. Or a comedy show that helps us to understand current events while somehow making us want to laugh instead of cry.

Or a children's book that celebrates love is love, is love, is love, is love, is love, is love between two Bennies. Or another children's book about how it feels when someone new comes knocking at your door. Or a play featuring nine character actresses who don't have to sing or dance. Sign us up. Yes, on today's Maker Send, we're gonna talk with someone who truly sparks us. And that special someone is Jill Twiss. Jill, welcome to The Spark File.

[2:06] Jill Twiss: Oh my god, thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

[2:11] Jill Twiss: God damn, that's a long intro.

[2:13] Susan Blackwell: It's a long, long intro. I can just see our guests, their eyes just crossing up and like when does it stop?

[2:19] Laura Camien: Well, then there's a realization of like, oh wait, I recognize these things.

[2:23] Susan Blackwell: Wait a minute. About that very thing you just mentioned.

[2:31] Laura Camien: Yeah. Jill, you know that there is a tiny tiny price of admission to get into the spark file. And that price is that you have to share with us a creative risk that you have taken recently. You got something?

[2:44] Jill Twiss: I do. Actually, I think the creative risk is actually telling you about it. Um saying it out loud when they're actually gonna do it. Uh my friend Taylor Ferreira and I have. Hi Taylor.

[2:56] Jill Twiss: Hi Taylor. She's the best. Have invented, invented. We think we've invented something we call the During Quool. Um, which is you know what a sequel is, which goes after, you know what a prequel is, it goes before. We are writing musicals that go on during other musicals.

[3:15] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[3:17] Jill Twiss: So we have currently written seven songs that go on during the musical Annie. Um and we are now deciding that we're, I know it's super weird. We're gonna make a podcast. A during cool. Um, like in Annie, you know that like FDR is singing tomorrow and like helping Annie find her parents. But like we wrote a song for Eleanor Roosevelt, who was like, hey, you know, Hitler was just chosen as Chancellor. You might want to focus a little more on that, and maybe less on like one orphan and her dead or not dead parents. So anyway, very weird idea. That's what we're doing. We just started doing it. Suddenly we realized we've written a whole bunch of songs.

[4:01] Laura Camien: My God. And did somewhere in there you said you're and so it will be in the form of a podcast. We can hear the during quills.

[4:05] Jill Twiss: Yes, we are uh we just kind of we like wrote all of it before we really figured out what form it was. We were just writing songs.

[4:13] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, that's great. Um, but that seems to be the form that it will be.

[4:17] Jill Twiss: Holy crap. I just want to double click and expand on that for just a second. Did you hear Jill Twiss just say that you were just writing because you were sparked by it, you and Taylor, it was coming to you writing it, and even when you weren't sure what that final form would take, you just kept on writing.

[4:34] Jill Twiss: And it may be a podcast, it may be could be could be a live show. It could be live too at some point.

[4:38] Jill Twiss: But it will be people that are not me singing these songs.

[4:43] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god. But it could be people that are you, because you could, if you chose to, because you have the skills to pay the bills, but you're saying that hard pass.

[4:52] Jill Twiss: I'm saying that it is so nice to admit it to myself that I'm a writer and stop going into musical theater auditions.

[5:01] Laura Camien: Okay. We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna get into it.

[5:04] Susan Blackwell: I believe that you have been fully admitted into the Spark file. You're in for people who don't know you. How do you identify creatively?

[5:14] Jill Twiss: Um, I guess as a comedy writer, um, that although it took me, I would say three years into making my entire living as a comedy writer before I would say that.

[5:26] Susan Blackwell: Wow.

[5:27] Jill Twiss: Oh, but now you're like, I'm owning it.

[5:30] Jill Twiss: I'm loud, I'm proud.

[5:32] Jill Twiss: I am.

[5:33] Laura Camien: I was gonna ask is was there a moment that you recall being like, I guess this is what I'm what I'm doing. I'm just gonna scan this. Or you're still in those in that zone of like it still feels a little bit like a lie only because I don't know why actually. It just it does only because I I hold it up to like such a high like reverence, like the people that I think of as like amazing comedy writers.

[6:01] Jill Twiss: Um, but factually, I don't think anyone could say that I am not doing that is what I think you've got I have. I think you've got the needs for that.

[6:10] Laura Camien: And the writing words are are the receipts.

[6:13] Jill Twiss: Yeah, I think you're okay. And just the charts that come in hours of writing and the pages and pages of the city. We've got evidence. We've got evidence we can we can point to.

[6:22] Laura Camien: What would you say that uh you are most well known for creatively?

[6:26] Jill Twiss: Um I guess well, I'm a writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Um, but I guess personally the thing people know most about that that I did more individually, uh, was a children's book called A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.

[6:43] Susan Blackwell: You don't say.

[6:44] Jill Twiss: Yeah. And that's a project that sort of grew out of your work on Last Week Tonight.

[6:48] Jill Twiss: Yes. Yeah, it was released by the show. I pitched it to the show.

[6:52] Jill Twiss: Um, weirdly, I had a strange. If you don't know, uh Marlon Bundo is an actual bunny that is um owned by Mike Pence. Um, and he and I don't agree on a lot of things, but one thing we agree on is like that's a really good bunny, and it's a really good bunny name. And I became really like weirdly obsessed with that bunny, and then I found out that the Pences were gonna write a book, and I got really territorial. I went like in my head, it was like, no, that's my story to write objectively, because it is their bunny, they had far more right to it. Um, but I pitched it to the show and John said, okay, write it. Um, and I did.

[7:34] Susan Blackwell: That alone is that unusual? Like, has the show ever put out a book or children's book in particular?

[7:42] Jill Twiss: No, but I feel like every year we do things we've never done. This year we did a musical, like a big fat musical number in Times Square, which was so fun and cool. So I I think they were very open to trying a new thing.

[7:58] Laura Camien: Let's just talk about that musical number for just a moment. I um I am a big fan of the show. And that I don't know, these times, I'm just saying what everybody knows, these times are very fraught. That number, but there's something about your show that does that magic trick where you do find a way to teach us about current events and make us laugh instead of cry.

[8:24] Susan Blackwell: That fucking musical number, eat shit Bob.

[8:29] Jill Twiss: That was the title of the musical number.

[8:31] Laura Camien: If you have to Google it, um, go on YouTube and you know if you look for each it bob. But it's really important to watch the story that leads into it.

[8:38] Jill Twiss: Yes, get your learn on, it's fascinating. And then that musical number, a lot of things when I watch them, they don't actually make me L-O-L. Like I just I take them in, smile. I might get a little lift at the corners of my mouth. Like, that was a good one. I could not believe what I was seeing, and I could not stop laughing. And then I dragged my husband into the room, was like, now you sit down and you take it. It's so goddamn funny. For the people listening, can you give a little description of it?

[9:11] Jill Twiss: Um, besides how funny it was. Tell us sure. Um and keep in mind, this was not my piece.

[9:19] Jill Twiss: So this is not like I'm sorry to make this not about you, Jill Twiss.

[9:23] Jill Twiss: No, it very much does. I just don't want to take credit for other people's work. I I did some work on the song, but that's all. But um, we a couple years ago wrote a piece on Cole, and uh one of the Cole magnates, uh Bob Murray, did not like what we said. Um, and he told us he was gonna sue us if we said it.

[9:44] Jill Twiss: Um, so we said it more, I think. And he did sue us. Um and it took years and and you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars. All of this is discussed in the piece.

[9:57] Jill Twiss: But again, yeah, I didn't know and HBO had to get lawyers and it cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But of course we won because uh we didn't say any lies about this man.

[10:10] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[10:10] Jill Twiss: Um, and we celebrated um the end of that by talking a bit about the lawsuit and then writing a song to him. Um, the premise of which is just all of the horrible things that uh we're gonna say he did because we're mad at him.

[10:27] Jill Twiss: And it's all covered in the street. He obviously did none of those things. But it's all covered by protected speech, correct?

[10:32] Laura Camien: Yes.

[10:32] Jill Twiss: Oh, yeah, it was. And and by the way, uh if Bob Murray, if you listen to this, please don't sue me.

[10:37] Laura Camien: No, no, no. It's jokes.

[10:38] Jill Twiss: It's just jokes.

[10:40] Jill Twiss: Of course. Jokes on the biggest. That's one of the reasons it's so funny.

[10:43] Jill Twiss: It's there, it's so increasingly ludicrous.

[10:46] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[10:46] Jill Twiss: It's jokes stacked on jokes, and then just somebody comes in with a another pile of jokes with jokes falling off the top of the stack. Like it is, it is a it's so good.

[10:58] Laura Camien: It's I feel like it's just like a beautiful example.

[11:00] Jill Twiss: Please the work that you all do.

[11:02] Jill Twiss: I will pass it on. We were so lucky. Every single department did their very best work, and it was so much cooler than I think I really have. Every single department like delivers on that piece across the board. It's quite amazing.

[11:16] Laura Camien: I'm still marveling at what you said that you are you, you know, that you're working in a place where you do new things every year, you said, but you're like allowed to and encouraged to just pitch the most off the wall thing.

[11:33] Jill Twiss: Like we've never done this before, but here here's an idea.

[11:36] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[11:36] Jill Twiss: And mostly they say no. I mean, like mostly just like everything else in this industry.

[11:43] Jill Twiss: Like you pitch a hundred things for the one they do, but like I got to write a book because I pitched a bunch of other things that they didn't do.

[11:50] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[11:51] Jill Twiss: Um yeah, no, I think that's a a lovely thing about it. And it's just fun to be able to dream big.

[11:58] Jill Twiss: And I at first I didn't dream very big because I didn't understand HBO money at all.

[12:06] Laura Camien: Just the the amount of support you have here, yeah.

[12:08] Jill Twiss: Yeah, it just didn't occur to me like that there's there's TV money and I'm no longer like in the theater trying to like, you know, put on overalls and be like, I'm a squirrel or whatever. Like you could actually money, there's a full snack bar in that kitchen over there.

[12:22] Laura Camien: It's great.

[12:23] Jill Twiss: It's great. Can you tell us a little bit about your origin story?

[12:28] Laura Camien: Like, we want to know how did you become funny?

[12:31] Jill Twiss: And when were you aware that you were funny?

[12:33] Jill Twiss: Um, I grew up all over. Um, my dad worked for the Forest Service. Um, he, when I was born, he was a smoke jumper.

[12:44] Jill Twiss: He jumped out of airplanes into fires.

[12:46] Laura Camien: Wow.

[12:48] Jill Twiss: I am not kidding. Um that's a badass job. And so he would get promoted and I would move.

[12:51] Jill Twiss: He would get promoted to jumping into bigger fires.

[12:58] Jill Twiss: Yeah, it was just jumping from higher up into bigger fires. It's weird.

[13:01] Jill Twiss: I don't think it was.

[13:02] Jill Twiss: That sounds terrible.

[13:03] Jill Twiss: Wow. Sounds just terrible. And it meant that you moved. Um yeah, it meant that I moved all the time. So in the like 12 years that would be kindergarten through high school, I went to 11 schools. Um, so that's including like the skip from like junior high to high school or whatever, too. Um I lived mostly in places where there were not people, there were forests. So, like I went to kindergarten in a one room school in uh Idaho. It was kindergarten through eighth grade in one room. Oh my god in Idaho at the time. I don't know if this is still true. You didn't have to go to high school because there were places that I just couldn't afford a high school. Um, but we moved and I did go to high school, I'll have you know. Um but if I had a theory as to why I'm funny, um, I think it's just because I was always on the outside.

[13:50] Jill Twiss: Yeah. And I think that's like a speci I wasn't made fun of. I don't have the thing where like people were especially mean to me. I got along well with people, I had friends. Um, but I was never not on the outside. And I was always like every place going in, going, like, oh, we have like a new vocabulary here. We have a new set of accents. Like, I live in Minnesota now, we talk different, and I could like fit in, but I think I was always seeing what was weird about things in a way that you probably wouldn't see. And I think that's one way that people find comedy is by being on the outside of things. It's a little easier to see why things are weird.

[14:26] Jill Twiss: Yeah. Your perception skills, like immediately, like I need to assess the situation. Who's who? What's what? Right. You know, what are the rules here? Yeah. But this is what I can also, yeah. Why is this weird? Like, I still go into like a football stadium and I'll be like, why would they do the wave? And everyone else is like, that's just what we do. It's so fun. But I'm still like, that's so strange. Why are they all doing this together? It's just, I think years of never quite being on the inside because I moved all the time.

[14:55] Jill Twiss: Yeah. How fascinating. And then how um how did that shape itself into working like as a writer and then getting here to last week tonight? Um, I went to I was a clarinet major in college. Uh practical. Your mouth. Uh a clarinet major. I don't know. Well, I was a music major, but the focus was on clarinet. You were a clarinet major. I was a clarinet major. BFA and clarinet. Um Julia. No, I wasn't. I went to William and Mary. I like still a very good school. Um, I spent my summers interning in Congress, and then I thought I was gonna go to law school.

[15:35] Jill Twiss: Um, and literally the day before I had to decide if I was going to law school or not, I saw this poster that said touring children's theater. And I went like, maybe I'll do that instead. Cause I didn't know you could audition it and not get cast. Um You just thought everyone who shows up today, we're all doing this, everybody gets apart. You're the squirrel. You're the newest for a couple years.

[15:56] Jill Twiss: Wait, I feel like I blinked for one second about about a minute ago. We thought we heard you say we're like clear major clarinet. Um what c what Congress? Sorry, what just happened? I think that I I look back now and I think I just thought college was where you went to do like the thing that you were into at the time. And never like uh and my parents never told me like get a practical major or do so I had no version of that to do. So I was like, well, what classes do I want to take the most of?

[16:28] Jill Twiss: And I almost had uh an economics major too. And then I like took one class and I hated it, and I thought, like, well, I don't need this one then. I guess it just never occurred to me to be practical in that way. I just thought like you go to college and you take classes in the things that you want. And then I also was very into politics. I just happened to not like the classes that much. Um, so in the summers, I wanted I thought that I wanted to work in Congress after college, but then I slowly realized like that's not how you become the congressman.

[17:01] Jill Twiss: Like you don't graduate up from being like the person who writes letters to constituents, and then you get to like be the senator when he dies. That's not true. So I was like, well, then I'm not that interested. Were your parents political? Um, no. Where did this interest come from? I don't know. When I was like five, I said I wanted to be the president, and I think I just like said it and then made it like true in my head for a while. Um, I I don't even know. I now obviously not a bad idea. The background has helped me in this particular job.

[17:35] Jill Twiss: It's like something I'm super interested in, but I have no idea why or how I got there. Were you keyed in? Uh, you know, you said that when you were five, but then uh throughout your growth, were you keyed into what was happening in politics and sort of, but not really. I look back at what I did, and it was less like I was having, I was never like in the young Democrats or the young Republicans or anything like that. It's more that I would like write a letter to the governor with a plan.

[18:01] Jill Twiss: Um we found like letters I caught back. It's just I think I was I a lot of what has gone very well in my life has been just being completely delusional in a lot of ways and just going like, I don't know, I have an idea for the governor. Why don't I write him a letter? Why don't I like there's a poster for children's theater? I guess I'll go tour for a year. What was your idea for the governor, by the by? Oh, it was such a bad one. I'm ashamed.

[18:24] Jill Twiss: I thought they I like saw a news report that they had prison overcrowding problems. And I was like, I have an idea. Like you could just set them in like the beds into eight-hour schedules, so you could have three different people that had the bed every eight hours, and then this is horrible. This is torture. It's not a good idea. But I was just like math-wise, then like you would shut you down. That's right. Yeah, no, it's a terrible idea. But how old were you?

[18:53] Jill Twiss: Um like seven. I think that's amazing that a seven-year-old would see something about prison overcrowding and get enough of a shit to write a letter to their governor. If you even put that much thought into it, be thrilled that you were engaged. You told me what the problem is, and I have a solution. I have thought no further than that. Uh I'm happy to share it with you.

[19:13] Jill Twiss: Yeah. Here, I'm I'm sure you as the governor have never thought of this, and you might be interested in my input. Uh huh. But now, can you take us back to you see the poster for the children's theater? You think, oh, great, we're all everyone gets to go. But you actually did get to the city. But I did a go audition and I went on tour. Um I hated it. Oh, it was horrible. Uh like touring children's theater. God bless those people.

[19:35] Jill Twiss: Were you like driving in a van with a van and setting them up and doing a show of breaking them down? Yep. Do you remember what the show was? Oh, boy, do I ever um I got to cheer with Ready Aim Recycle? Um, and yes, I did get to rap. Thank you very much for asking. Ready, aim, recycle, and rap. I was a girl that I was an eight-year-old girl who would not clean her room. Um, which very on the nose.

[20:03] Jill Twiss: Um, very for me. I uh god. Yeah, it was uh delightful. Do you remember any of that rap? Oh, I knew we were gonna do this everybody calm down. Let's get clean room tone. I can't remember. I remember the song was like ready, aim recycle. It's what we have to do. Get ready, cuz the only world we have belongs to me and you. And then I don't I I think the rap might have just been repeat, like ready aim recycle something.

[20:30] Jill Twiss: Oh, it's just it's just sort of a different orchestration of the same lyrics. It is just punching them up a bit. I wonder if that show is still touring. All right, so you were like, This is not for me. I wonder if that show that show had legs I mean I still do it. Yeah, I'm not saying it couldn't make it to Broadway. Um not not saying it. Because that they might have been on the cutting edge.

[20:51] Jill Twiss: How long ago was Ready Aim Recycle? It was oh, I don't know, in the like early 2000s. But it's interesting because it wasn't just Charlotte's Web, it actually did have some sort of like social issue component baked into it as well. Oh, yeah. Um that was the draw for you, probably. No, uh no, I didn't know. I just auditioned and they they toured like 20 shows now.

[21:14] Jill Twiss: Just to be clear, I know that you were getting your BFA and clarinet, but had you also had performance experience. I would audition uh like for shows in high school and college and were in some, but I was never it's it's odd because I was not particularly successful at non-professional theater. So I thought I would go right into professional theater and then before.

[21:34] Jill Twiss: You're going to the show, baby. I just think I just always figured like if you're gonna try, just go all out, give it your best shot, work as hard as you can, and then if it doesn't work out, like you'll be okay. But it did work out, and you continued performing, correct? I am still in ready aim recycle.

[21:53] Jill Twiss: Um it did well, it yeah, it did work out in that I uh I went, well, if I'm gonna be an actor, um, I should move to New York and try it at the biggest level, and then I'll find out if that's what I'm good at or not. So I moved to New York and I, you know, I worked, yeah. Um, but it was never. I was always like I was a standardized test shooter through most of the time that I was an actor, and then I would go do like summer stock and regional theater.

[22:21] Jill Twiss: Um and when you when you like not when you start off your career with ready aim recycle, it's really hard to go meet that. Where do you go from there? It's so true. But you did go into writing, as it turns out, and a little show not ready and recycle, but a little show called Last Week Tonight. Was last week tonight your first professional writing job?

[22:40] Jill Twiss: Yes. Oh my god, gotta suck my butt. It was it was not by like a week because there is a thing where you can, which it I did stand-up comedy for about six years, um, until I realized So you were writing for yourself. So I was writing for myself, yeah. Um, but I realized that I was scared all the time, and I was not happier when people clapped, and that was my way of going, maybe you're not cut out for this.

[23:02] Jill Twiss: Slow it down and say it one more time for the people that didn't catch it. You were doing stand-up comedy, but you realize six years, yeah. Scared all the time, you weren't happier when the people clapped, and you were like, huh, I'm gonna take a look at that. Yeah, what is the part of this that I like? And every time they would the audience would like want to get involved, I'd be a little mad at them and be like, Don't you know I've prepared all this for you?

[23:26] Jill Twiss: Um, there so then I started trying to get writing jobs, but it it was years after that, and it's uh a helpful and crazy story how I did get hired at last week tonight because um I was asking everyone, I mean we're talking probably another six or seven years that I couldn't even find out how you apply to a late night show. No one would tell me anything. I couldn't get an agent to read anything I did.

[23:56] Jill Twiss: Um were you acting at the time? I was acting, I was tutoring uh got it like SATs and ACTs and L sets and whatever. Um and just I I think I was just doing all the things and seeing what was the thing that panned out, yeah. Um and you were how age-ish 20s in your 20s? I was this was like late 20s to early 30s.

[24:17] Jill Twiss: Okay. Um I tutored a kid whose mother was a vice president for worldwide pants, which was David Letterman's um organization, and he did really well in the SAT. So I asked her, I was like, Would you ever like pass on a packet for me? And she said, I will. You don't want to work there, which now we all know makes a lot of sense. Right. She goes, but I will do that.

[24:44] Jill Twiss: And so I asked everyone I knew for a late night writer who could just read it over and make sure that I didn't sound like someone who had never written anything. Um there was a woman named Lori Kilmartin who is a Conan writer who read it for me. She uh emailed me back, said this is really good. Send me something else. And I did.

[25:01] Jill Twiss: And she never spoke to me again for like five years. I'm not making this up. And I went like, I guess the second one wasn't good. But five years later, I got an email from a woman uh named Nell Scovell, who is a uh she created Sabrina the Teenage Witch, she wrote for Letterman, she uh wrote for The Simpsons, she uh she said, Have you ever wanted to write for TV?

[25:24] Jill Twiss: I've been looking at your Twitter. I went and I were was asking women that I knew were good if they knew anyone that should be writing for TV. And this woman named Lori Kilmark gave me your name. Wow and said she was five years earlier. Yeah, she just didn't have any way to help me until she did, and as soon as she had a way to help me, she did.

[25:43] Jill Twiss: Um and Nell was like, I can't get you a job, but I can get your stuff read. Um boy. So she told me about last week tonight, like she told me they were taking packets. I wrote a packet. I now know that they read them all blind, meaning that they didn't have any names, they didn't have resumes, they didn't know.

[26:02] Jill Twiss: Yeah. Um, I did a second packet for them. Um, and it wasn't until the morning of my interview that they asked for a resume, and that was when they found out that I had never done any of this before.

[26:12] Jill Twiss: But by then they were attached.

[26:14] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[26:15] Jill Twiss: So they had to hire.

[26:16] Laura Camien: That is a fantastic story.

[26:18] Susan Blackwell: For our creators who are listening who are not writers and they don't write comedy. Could you just explain what a packet is?

[26:23] Jill Twiss: Sure. Um, yes, late night is different than pretty much every other area of television.

[26:30] Jill Twiss: Um, like narrative TV, you might write something entirely different. But for late night TV, you usually have to write a packet of the kinds of things they do on the show, usually specific to the show you're applying to.

[26:43] Jill Twiss: So for our show, you might do something that is a, you know, a slightly longer form story with jokes in it about something whereas like for Jimmy Fallon, you might write a page of monologue jokes, and then you might write a bunch of ideas for desk pieces.

[27:02] Jill Twiss: Essentially, you're giving them a sample of what you would write for the show and how you can write for the voice of that specific host.

[27:10] Jill Twiss: Um, so it's not, it's a little mean in that you can't just use your same work for everything.

[27:17] Jill Twiss: You can't prepare it at the end.

[27:20] Jill Twiss: Um, and even ours for our second packet, it was specifically timed as well.

[27:24] Jill Twiss: Like we had 48 hours to do it, because they also needed to know if, you know, you might be a great writer, but if it's gonna take you two and a half weeks to do the level of quality they need.

[27:33] Laura Camien: Do they tell you like an email is coming, you're gonna get it at 10 a.m. on Monday morning, and everybody is sort of like and go?

[27:43] Jill Twiss: Essentially, I mean, I don't know what they do now, and I don't want to like speak on behalf of the show in that way, but uh, because for me I was doing it when there was no show.

[27:52] Jill Twiss: That's the other question.

[27:53] Jill Twiss: So everything was kind of a giant guess.

[27:55] Laura Camien: Oh yes.

[27:55] Jill Twiss: You're just sort of guessing because there's no way you've ever seen it.

[27:59] Laura Camien: Right.

[27:59] Jill Twiss: The process is a bit different now because of course they can give things that are very specific to the show.

[28:04] Jill Twiss: At the time, it was a little bit like write something you think would be great for John.

[28:09] Jill Twiss: Yeah, because they didn't necessarily entirely know.

[28:12] Jill Twiss: So I was, I now look back and go, oh, like I can understand why I got hired because I did some really specific things that would have been very weird for any other host.

[28:21] Jill Twiss: But like I read a whole packet on South Sudan, and it's like, who does that?

[28:25] Jill Twiss: What a terrible idea.

[28:27] Jill Twiss: But it just so happened that it's like, well, actually, that's probably a pretty good fit.

[28:30] Jill Twiss: I wanted to underscore that story about what is her name?

[28:35] Jill Twiss: Laura Lori Kilori.

[28:36] Jill Twiss: Lori Kilmartin, who is still a writer at Conan.

[28:39] Laura Camien: Don't everyone send her emails asking her for favors, please.

[28:41] Jill Twiss: Yeah, I feel terrible.

[28:43] Jill Twiss: I just wanted to underscore that because, um, whether it be in the creative world or elsewhere, I think sometimes people assume the worst.

[28:51] Jill Twiss: If you haven't been on the other side of the desk with like a thousand emails a day, um, or twenty packets a minute to read, you don't realize that I believe truly 90% of the time when you don't hear back from people, it is because of time and all the other shit they're doing.

[29:12] Jill Twiss: It is not the story you're making up in your head that it's like, oh, my work sucked, I'll never hear from them again.

[29:18] Jill Twiss: And I just love this story because she was, in fact, remembering you for five years.

[29:24] Jill Twiss: She held your name in her mind.

[29:27] Jill Twiss: She followed you on Twitter.

[29:29] Jill Twiss: You know what I mean?

[29:30] Jill Twiss: And I just want to say that to people because so many times people are like, well, I sent my resume like three days ago and I haven't heard anything.

[29:37] Laura Camien: I guess, I guess, yeah.

[29:38] Jill Twiss: I guess we're just never known.

[29:40] Jill Twiss: And I, I mean, I've believed so firmly in the just make everything you want to make and like see what pans out.

[29:47] Jill Twiss: There are people who know exactly what they want to do, but I was never that person.

[29:51] Laura Camien: I love that too.

[29:51] Laura Camien: I'm glad that you sort of pulled that out because I do think there are times at different chapters and different seasons of our lives where you're sort of like in that liminal space and you're like, what?

[30:03] Laura Camien: And it could be when you're preparing to leave school.

[30:06] Laura Camien: It could be when you've completed sort of an arc in a career and you're like, I've kind of done everything I want to do with that, or at a job.

[30:15] Laura Camien: And then to sort of get back into playing around with all the things that are, I understand that we all have to pay our mortgages and we all have to like keep our financial commitments, but I do think there is something to it, it can be really fucking scary, but to doing that to just like experimenting with all the things that you gravitate towards things, just make all the things you want to make and see what's sticky.

[30:37] Jill Twiss: In retrospect, of course, I go, like, oh, how did you not know you were a writer?

[30:42] Jill Twiss: How did you think you were an actor?

[30:43] Jill Twiss: But like I was acting for years.

[30:46] Jill Twiss: Could that have been the thing that panned out?

[30:48] Jill Twiss: Well, I could not have been a dancer, but there is a chance that I could have.

[30:51] Laura Camien: God, you're a dancer.

[30:53] Jill Twiss: Dancer dances, Jill.

[30:55] Laura Camien: I have heard that somewhere.

[30:57] Susan Blackwell: Um, we are huge fans of the show Last Week Tonight.

[31:02] Susan Blackwell: And it's, it is thrilling.

[31:03] Susan Blackwell: I mean, I know for you it's just like another Sunday afternoon, but for us, it is a thrill to be here.

[31:09] Susan Blackwell: You're here in the office of everybody.

[31:11] Susan Blackwell: You're upholding this really long-standing tradition of somehow managing to make these very intense topics funny enough to take in and to digest.

[31:21] Laura Camien: We're curious, what is your personal process for sitting down and writing about intense topics like you do for the show?

[31:29] Jill Twiss: Um, my person, I, I have spent much of the last six years trying to like find tricks.

[31:37] Jill Twiss: Um, tips and tricks and hacks.

[31:40] Jill Twiss: It's so, because everything, I mean, I remember when I started, I would just be like, this is impossible.

[31:45] Jill Twiss: I can't keep writing jokes.

[31:46] Jill Twiss: I never drank coffee in my life till I got this job.

[31:48] Jill Twiss: And then I was like, maybe coffee will give me two more jokes.

[31:52] Jill Twiss: Like I will literally try whatever I have coffee.

[31:56] Jill Twiss: I have, and so the big answer is like every single time I'm like, this isn't gonna work out.

[32:03] Jill Twiss: This is the one where I get fired, where I am not able to come up with an age.

[32:07] Jill Twiss: Absolutely.

[32:07] Jill Twiss: I, I now at least, oh, almost every day.

[32:10] Jill Twiss: Oh, it's like six because I have maybe, I would say I have 90 minutes of good writing in me a day.

[32:16] Jill Twiss: And then everything else is like a trick and a lie to get one more thing out of me.

[32:22] Jill Twiss: I feel like Memento though, you need to get a tattoo in reverse that reflects in the mirror so that when you look right across your forehead, that's like just like trust.

[32:29] Jill Twiss: Like you, you know, just to remember.

[32:30] Jill Twiss: The jokes are on the way.

[32:31] Jill Twiss: The jokes are on the way.

[32:33] Jill Twiss: I have now gotten to the point where I know that I get to that point.

[32:36] Jill Twiss: So I can at least go like every other time worked out, it's gonna be fine.

[32:39] Jill Twiss: And I'm, I'm okay.

[32:40] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[32:41] Jill Twiss: But it's still a very real thing where it's like maybe we all have a finite number of jokes in our head, and I've written all of mine, it turns out.

[32:51] Jill Twiss: Um, but, uh, if you happen to be the kind of person who wants to write jokes, a lot of times when I'm stuck, I will just tell, I will set a, uh, timer for like seven minutes and I'll just be like write down all the things you know about this thing.

[33:06] Jill Twiss: And usually somewhere in the middle of this list of things that I know about it, something will come that's like a little weird or a little funny or that leads me to something or gets me somewhere.

[33:17] Jill Twiss: Um, that's my biggest trick.

[33:20] Jill Twiss: And change locations.

[33:21] Jill Twiss: Like every time you feel like you can't do anything else, I will, I switch couches in my apartment.

[33:26] Jill Twiss: Yeah, and then I will go up to, I will go to coffee shops.

[33:26] Jill Twiss: I will go to my office.

[33:31] Jill Twiss: I will go just anywhere to be like I think it's in my head, I think that I'm like tricking my body into going, it's a new day.

[33:39] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[33:40] Jill Twiss: Look, you're in a different place.

[33:41] Jill Twiss: This can't possibly be the same day.

[33:45] Laura Camien: But you also said that you know like full well that 98% of the stuff that you write isn't gonna make it to air.

[33:55] Laura Camien: Like how do you psych yourself up to keep writing stuff knowing that only some of it is gonna see the light of day?

[34:02] Jill Twiss: Right.

[34:03] Jill Twiss: That is, and that is not specific to our show.

[34:05] Jill Twiss: That is writing for TV.

[34:07] Jill Twiss: That's for sure.

[34:09] Jill Twiss: Um, we, you know, we were trying to figure out we probably write 40 or 50 jokes for every joke that goes on the show.

[34:16] Jill Twiss: Um, and it, some of it is you just get better at throwing out your own stuff.

[34:20] Jill Twiss: You just get used to it.

[34:21] Jill Twiss: Um, do you mean pitching or mean discarding when you say throwing out?

[34:21] Jill Twiss: I mean having them not pick my stuff and going like, oh, okay, that one was not one that they picked.

[34:31] Jill Twiss: Um, so some of that, but I also, it did help me to kind of go, hey Jill, you're not writing this for the television show.

[34:41] Jill Twiss: You're writing it so that your boss John can have a fun time reading about this topic.

[34:47] Jill Twiss: So like if he gets some giggles all the way through and then if coincidentally some of those words are also said on TV, great.

[34:53] Jill Twiss: Great.

[34:54] Jill Twiss: But really you're just paid to be like to write like a delightful piece so that your boss can read it and humorously learn about a topic he is interested in.

[35:04] Susan Blackwell: You know, this is an interesting shift of objective, and it reminds me of actors who shift their focus from like getting the job versus I'm going to go into the audition room and I'm going to try to accomplish one goal, such as I am going to, um, see that I can remain present and make a connection with the people in the room.

[35:26] Laura Camien: That's the goal.

[35:27] Susan Blackwell: Or do you know what I mean?

[35:28] Jill Twiss: It's like that one shot.

[35:30] Jill Twiss: That say that again.

[35:31] Jill Twiss: That's such a good comparison.

[35:33] Jill Twiss: And something I could never do as an actor either.

[35:35] Jill Twiss: It was always like a horrifying thing.

[35:37] Jill Twiss: That's what I need my Memento tattoo in reverse.

[35:40] Jill Twiss: So I look in the mirror, and it's just like one simple goal right across my forehead.

[35:45] Laura Camien: Um, is there something that you wrote that was like that didn't see the light of day or to a greater audience?

[35:53] Jill Twiss: Um, it's kind of a two-parter, like one that you felt sad that you know it didn't make it, but two, I'm also curious like, have you ever written something that didn't make it that you're like, I'll use that little gem somewhere else because I love it so much.

[36:08] Jill Twiss: I, I'm gonna, you know, see where it takes me.

[36:11] Jill Twiss: I wrote a book called The Someone New, um, which is about a chipmunk who's scared of new things and then meets a new snail.

[36:17] Jill Twiss: You never feel weirder than when you're describing a plot of a children's book to two adults.

[36:22] Jill Twiss: Um, pretty trippy shit.

[36:24] Jill Twiss: And then there's a second book coming out this June about voting.

[36:30] Jill Twiss: Um, but for some reason, I really wanted that book to be about like fake news and like fact checking.

[36:36] Jill Twiss: And so I wrote that book first.

[36:39] Jill Twiss: Um, you know, the, the it was the story of a butterfly who, uh, I'm trying to think what the, what the fake news was that she got.

[36:47] Jill Twiss: I think it was like that like bees cause thunderstorms or something, um, and everybody was, everything everybody was like, that doesn't sound right.

[36:55] Jill Twiss: And then she went to the web, which was a spider web.

[36:59] Jill Twiss: Okay, anyway the point is, uh, that, uh, at present my publisher does not need this book on fact checking and I was devastated because I love it so much, um, but I know that it will come out somewhere somehow in be it, I don't know what a play I write be it something and I feel really sure that like they made the right decision for what they need and what, you know, um, what might have been the better children's book but also, uh, I feel really sure that like this is gonna be a something something the world needs.

[36:59] Susan Blackwell: While we're on the subject, I would we would love for you to talk to us more about your process for writing your children's books.

[36:59] Jill Twiss: I mean, it started here but now you have taken this gift for writing children's books and just continue to run with it which I think is so wonderful but Marlon Bundo, The Someone New and coming soon everyone gets a say which is about voting.

[38:00] Jill Twiss: Will you talk to us a little bit about your process for writing these books?

[38:04] Jill Twiss: Sure.

[38:04] Jill Twiss: Um, writing Marlon Bundo was, I hate to say this, it was honestly the easiest thing I ever did because I did not in any way believe it was real or gonna happen.

[38:15] Jill Twiss: And so I didn't, there's another good trick.

[38:17] Jill Twiss: Yeah, I didn't have a second of like wondering if it was actually what happened was I met, uh, they were like sure write a book and we had a quick meeting just about whether we wanted it to be a book that was actually for adults, but that looked like a children's book, or whether we wanted a real children's book.

[38:34] Jill Twiss: And we decided, you know what?

[38:35] Jill Twiss: Like, let's give a shot to a real children's book.

[38:37] Jill Twiss: They didn't assign me anything.

[38:39] Jill Twiss: Um, I went back to my office and I just went, like, you know what?

[38:42] Jill Twiss: I should just write them something because then it will be a lot easier for them to be like, oh, now that I see it, not that.

[38:49] Jill Twiss: This, it just a lot of times giving someone something clarifies what they want.

[38:55] Jill Twiss: That's right.

[38:56] Jill Twiss: So I went and I just spent like an hour and a half and I was like, I wrote a book.

[38:59] Jill Twiss: And then I gave it to them.

[39:01] Jill Twiss: Um, and they came back the next day and they're like, great, we're gonna publish that book.

[39:05] Jill Twiss: And I was like, oh no.

[39:07] Jill Twiss: Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second.

[39:09] Jill Twiss: I mean, a lot more happened, but not a lot of editing, oddly enough. Maybe there was 10 words that changed. Number one New York Times bestseller. First draft written in 90 minutes. And nothing has ever been like that since. If you're a children's book author, do not worry. I have agonized over every other thing. As soon as it became real, I am suddenly all I do that is so interesting is think up like good names for characters in books because that's the part that's really fun for you. You are great at naming characters. You're great at naming dogs, you're great at naming pudding. Yeah, that is a great name for anything. Oh my gosh. No, that's my favorite thing. But the rest of it is just uh, I don't know.

And and and I don't have kids, everything's a guest. I can't, as I read like I read like 20 children's books, and I was like, I could not tell you which of these are good and which are not good. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. This is like a whole new world for me. So I love one takeaway is sometimes it's easy, and that's okay.

[40:09] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[40:10] Jill Twiss: You know, I it took me a long time to learn that because I think somewhere as a kid I got sort of globed on to this idea of like, you know, everything worth doing, everything it's hard, you know, and it's that's what makes it worth it. And so things that came easy to me, I sort of discounted as options.

[40:26] Laura Camien: Right.

[40:27] Jill Twiss: I'm like, oh well that I don't know, that doesn't feel very hard. Um and then it was just like college professor after college professor of like you know it doesn't actually have to be hard. It is okay if this comes to you. And sometimes things of quality take time. Sometimes it takes seven years to write Hamilton or what have you true both things can be true. And sometimes it takes 30 minutes to write Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

[40:51] Laura Camien: That's right.

[40:51] Jill Twiss: That's right. And also I think it did in a way take me years to write Marlon Bundo. It just was, you know I have had a Google Doc on my computer certainly for the last seven or eight years called Good Names for Animals. I don't have any pets. I have never had to name an animal I don't know why I had that but as soon as that opportunity came up I was like well great I'm just gonna open that good names for animals Google Doc that I have had my whole follow up question.

[41:21] Laura Camien: What are some other good names for animals, Jill?

[41:23] Jill Twiss: I really desperately want someone to have a tiny kitten named Hiccup.

[41:28] Laura Camien: Oh my God Oh that's so that's fantastic we I also I went to the um like meet the breeds thing where you got to go like meet a whole bunch of dogs and then I renamed them all.

[41:42] Jill Twiss: And I think my favorite one was well that was not her real name I named her this I don't even know who this dog is but I named her Miss Agatha Dipsy Noodle Dipsy Noodle is a really fun thing to say.

[41:55] Laura Camien: She sounds like a good dog.

[41:56] Jill Twiss: She was a pretty good dog we also have pleasure we also do have a list of potential ours is more specific. It's potential dog names. And one of my favorites on that list, I really have enjoyed naming our dogs. As you know, listeners, my dogs are named Kitty Bunny and POTUS.

[42:11] Laura Camien: So good.

[42:12] Jill Twiss: And uh I I think our I really POTUS is little, he was like when we got him, he was like five pounds. And I was really fighting for Cujo.

[42:22] Laura Camien: Oh, that was pretty cute, I think.

[42:23] Jill Twiss: Um, I think jet pack is also a great name for a dog.

[42:26] Laura Camien: Oh, that's really good.

[42:28] Jill Twiss: Oh is there another dog in your future?

[42:31] Laura Camien: I don't know.

[42:31] Jill Twiss: Hiccup is hiccup's pretty much.

[42:41] Laura Camien: She calls her Jamie.

[42:43] Jill Twiss: Oh, not be better.

[42:45] Laura Camien: I need little baby jams.

[42:47] Jill Twiss: Yeah, so good. That's a fantastic name. Good job, Julie. You seem to have a particular skill in turning things that like make you mad or have the potential for like honestly to spin the rest of us out into rage for the rest of the day or a week. You have a skill in turning that into something that we can either laugh at or a children's book that we can learn from. Talk to us about that. How'd you do that magic trick?

[43:17] Jill Twiss: Um well, thank you for saying that. Um I I guess I'll just talk about the someone new, since that uh was of a specific process where I had written Marlon Bundo and suddenly I had an opportunity to write a children's book, which was not something I had ever intended to do. In retrospect, like I love reading kids' books. I still like the Ramona Quimby books that I love so much all the time.

[43:43] Laura Camien: Um I have outside of your question, I have this theory that every book I truly love is actually a Ramona Quimby book at a different age.

[43:50] Jill Twiss: Like, where'd you go, Bernadette? It's definitely like a dull Ramona Quimby. Totally right.

[43:57] Laura Camien: Oh my god.

[43:59] Jill Twiss: That is nothing to do with anything you just asked, but that's my new thing about outside of that and outside and outside of that. I would just say I don't know if I've ever said this on the podcast, but my brilliant teacher, Linda Berry, has a theory that things like People Magazine and Us Magazine are paper dollies for grown-ups.

[44:16] Laura Camien: So if the cover is like Brad and Jennifer together again, uh Angelina and Brad, Splitzville, it's all just like a grown-up version of like I love you.

[44:28] Jill Twiss: I love you. Making them kiss, pulling them apart, making them fight is all like paper dollies, but for grown-ups. Sorry to interrupt. You were answering this question.

[44:38] Laura Camien: Yes.

[44:39] Jill Twiss: Um, so the so I had a chance to write a children's book, and it happened to be uh right around the time I think that we all learned that uh that the government was separating children from their parents at the border.

[44:53] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[44:54] Jill Twiss: Um, it was devastating. It made me sick. It was like in my head, I was thinking about it all the time. And uh I guess when I feel helpless, there's a couple things that I go to, but one of them is definitely writing a thing. And I felt like I'm I I feel very frustrated with grown-ups right now.

[45:12] Laura Camien: Um, and I know it's not universally true, but it really feels like no one's changing their mind, no one wants to genuinely learn anything.

[45:21] Jill Twiss: I know that's not true, just feels like that. Right. But like kids, kids will still learn stuff.

[45:26] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[45:27] Jill Twiss: And so it felt like, hey, maybe this, like, maybe this will do something. Maybe this will. And it was, it was sort of that. It was, it was that I want kids to learn to be kind to someone new. That was all it was.

[45:43] Laura Camien: Um, and and that was partially the immigration thing, the you know, the the horrible stuff that was going on. It was also partially because I was the new kid.

[45:51] Jill Twiss: Yeah. I didn't realize that until after I wrote it, but I was like, I think you just wrote this book so that people would have been nice to you when you were a kid when you went to a new school.

[46:01] Laura Camien: But 11 out of 12 years.

[46:03] Jill Twiss: Yeah, they could they if they had the book, um, my life would have been a lot better. Um, but yeah, I think it just came down to that. I had a I had another moment with the someone new um the night.

[46:16] Jill Twiss: I remember like just some nights are real bad. And there was a night when like crowds were chanting send her back about uh a woman in Congress who is of course a US citizen, and it was horrible and I was sick and I just didn't know what to do. And so I went on Twitter and I said I want to give away um five of these books. I was like, I know this is nothing, um, but but I want to do something.

[46:38] Laura Camien: And then someone messaged me and she's like, I want to be anonymous, but can I send you money? I want you to give away time books.

[46:44] Jill Twiss: And I was like, Oh yeah, sure, I'll change it to time books. And then by the time I had typed that, someone else had messaged me. And I was getting messages. It it got to the point where it was like 60 books that people had donated, and I had to go stop it.

[46:58] Laura Camien: I don't know how to mail more than 60 books.

[47:03] Jill Twiss: I I'm sorry, I did not plan for this. I woke up the next day and my publisher called me and they were like, We saw what you did. Um, we're gonna donate all those books.

[47:12] Laura Camien: Um so all the money can go to it, ended up going, I think, to uh to races, like a uh a charity um for um immigrants.

[47:23] Jill Twiss: Um and it was just it was like well, I just did all I could think of. Yeah, and that's what writing the books is, but that's also what like that was that night.

[47:33] Laura Camien: And you know, if if it had just been giving away five books, that also would have been fine.

[47:36] Jill Twiss: Yeah, but I think we're all looking for that right here. When you said that, when you said, and then I started receiving responses from people who said, Can I please, can I, can I, can I? It reminds me of the conversation we were having recently.

[47:49] Laura Camien: Was it with Donna Lieberman at the NYCLU?

[47:51] Jill Twiss: Where many of us are looking for that thing that we can throw our particular gifts into to feel as if we are moving the needle in some way that we're fighting for the powers of good and making a difference in that way.

[48:06] Laura Camien: Um so I am not surprised that other people saw you take a stand on Twitter and were like, can I please can I can I can I direct some energy in that direction as well?

[48:20] Jill Twiss: Yeah, I love that.

[48:20] Jill Twiss: And I just want, I feel like kids give me hope. And so there is something. I don't actually like them very much.

[48:27] Laura Camien: I'm with you.

[48:28] Jill Twiss: But you're hopeful that you might someday like I think if you said to them, you know, you should be nice to someone new, and and I think it's a real thing for kids, it's real scary to go like, I just got this place figured out, you know, I just figured out who I eat lunch with, I just like figured out like who's nice to me and who's not, and now like there's a new thing in here, but they're willing to like give it a shot, or like, hey, just got my life figured out and now I'm about to have like a new little brother.

[48:54] Laura Camien: Yeah, how's that gonna work out?

[48:57] Jill Twiss: Right. And and it's something I think kids are very open to and willing to learn.

[49:02] Laura Camien: And it's like a much bigger life skill than we give it credit for being.

[49:09] Jill Twiss: Yeah.

[49:09] Laura Camien: I wanted to follow up just on one thing that you said.

[49:09] Jill Twiss: Um, somewhere in there, I think you said these words.

[49:12] Laura Camien: Uh I might be wrong, but when you feel something or something makes you angry.

[49:17] Jill Twiss: Okay.

[49:18] Laura Camien: You just you're instinctively you go to write.

[49:22] Jill Twiss: You you just go to the page, right?

[49:25] Laura Camien: Do you know um do you have a thought at like what it's gonna be when you do that or you're just like I'm just gonna write something.

[49:32] Jill Twiss: I'm just gonna respond to this in the way that I know how and that is writing.

[49:37] Laura Camien: I think mostly I don't know what it's gonna be. I think that um I'm a big idea person and not always the best follow through person.

[49:46] Jill Twiss: And so for everything I've told you there's been like 64 billion ideas.

[49:51] Laura Camien: Sure.

[49:52] Jill Twiss: Just make sure of all those ideas during quills really gets its day.

[49:55] Laura Camien: During I mean we are seven songs in so it has to go somewhere.

[49:59] Jill Twiss: If there is not a song from Grace talking about how Mr. Warbucks likes to be called daddy why is there even why is there even music in the world?

[50:12] Laura Camien: That musical is very rich with during quill possibilities.

[50:17] Jill Twiss: I think they all are now that I I well I realize I thought we'd like invented this great concept and then I realized I think wicked is a during quill.

[50:26] Laura Camien: Like I think in reality we did not come up with this at all.

[50:31] Jill Twiss: I think you have a point.

[50:33] Laura Camien: Interesting yeah but whatever.

[50:35] Jill Twiss: I I just really loved what you said because you're talking about using your art your particular art form as a way to like a coping mechanism for what's happening in the world and the things that trouble us.

[50:48] Laura Camien: And it begins with like ordering your thoughts.

[50:50] Jill Twiss: When you sit down to write and you're not exactly sure how it's going to come out.

[50:53] Laura Camien: It seems like you're yeah but for someone else, it might be like, I'm just gonna take to the dance studio.

[50:59] Jill Twiss: I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna move, move it out in a way, or I'm just gonna paint and I don't know what that is.

[51:05] Laura Camien: It doesn't, I don't have to know what it is.

[51:07] Jill Twiss: Um I'm gonna write a protest song, or that's right.

[51:10] Laura Camien: Yeah, that's right.

[51:11] Jill Twiss: Oh, I'm inspired by that.

[51:14] Laura Camien: Me too.

[51:15] Jill Twiss: When we interviewed our friend, do you know Matt Vogel?

[51:18] Laura Camien: Matt Vogel's probably come and done stuff on your show.

[51:21] Jill Twiss: Um he plays uh in addition to Kermit the Frog and Big Bird, he plays several other characters, and um he's really at the top of Muppet Mountain.

[51:30] Laura Camien: Yeah, and he's been there for a long time.

[51:32] Jill Twiss: Yeah, like a very, very long time.

[51:34] Laura Camien: But he gave us when we were talking with him, he gave us some great creative advice, and that is always be making something that is just yours.

[51:44] Jill Twiss: What are you making? You contribute to this great work that we love so much, but what are you making that is just yours in addition to the Durangruls?

[51:52] Jill Twiss: I think the thing that is uh is the most mine and is the most me is the play I'm writing.

[51:58] Laura Camien: Yeah, it is uh I can't wait for this one.

[52:03] Jill Twiss: It is about the Seneca Falls Convention, which what it's a comedy about the Seneca Falls Convention, um, naturally, uh, which was the convention in 1848 where women first asked for the right to vote, um, where that was first spoken aloud to everyone's knowledge.

[52:19] Jill Twiss: And it was uh scandalous, it really was, but in so many of the ways, like so many of the fights they were fighting are the fights we're still fighting.

[52:27] Jill Twiss: Amelia Bloomer and our pants, like how much have we fought about Hillary Plant suits? Like that was not there's just so much it's a hundred years later, and here we are, where we were.

[52:39] Jill Twiss: Yeah, I ended up weirdly, um, when you talk about like where ideas come from, somebody came to me and was like, Have you ever wanted to write for the theater? And I said, Yeah, I've always wanted that. And they were like, What do you want to write about? And I literally just said the Seneca Falls Convention, which I knew almost nothing about. Why would I say that? I have no idea. But then I like went home and I read about it, and the first thing I read was there was a woman there, Martha Coffin Wright, who was 41 and pregnant and read a humor piece. And I was like, These are my ladies. I love them. They are like the weirdos of their time. And I think like it as I've written it, it's become important to me, first of all, to deal with a lot of the women's issues in it, but also to sort of realize like how we judge history, and one of the things that I wrote in it that I didn't not to like brag about my own sentence, but it was like I wrote it, and then I was like, Whoa, I think I just wrote a true thing.

Um was uh your wild liberal ideas are just some other generation's baseline for decency. And now I like I think like, oh, maybe that's what I maybe that's what I'm writing about. Well maybe that's what it is. It's like, what's the thing that I am not doing right now that is gonna make me just humiliating to somebody a hundred years from now? Like, I can't even guess what that thing is.

[53:56] Jill Twiss: Yeah, I know. Yeah, these were like super liberal. I think it's something we we talk about this at home. I think it's something about the environment. I'm pretty sure it's something about plastics in the environment, among other things.

[54:09] Jill Twiss: Yeah, that's right. There's uh far too many things right now. So when we first talked about I I don't know if you remember this, but we talked about this some years back, and I feel like if I'm remembering correctly, your first conception of this was that it might be a musical.

[54:24] Jill Twiss: But that has shifted.

[54:26] Jill Twiss: It has not well, I I think I've wanted it to be a musical because I love musicals the most. Sure. Um and I have sort of a bias against plays. Um which I shouldn't. I just do. Um where I'm going to be able to do that. I'd like to hear more about that.

[54:40] Jill Twiss: I think a lot of it is that I want a lot of things to be happening to like keep my attention. Um I don't tend to like movies very much. I love to read books because I am personally involved. Yeah. Um and musicals, it's like, well, if you get bored by the acting, then there will be an orchestra, and then there will be the somebody's getting shot out of a canon. Right.

[55:00] Jill Twiss: Yeah. Um, but musicals also take so long. Yes. Um, we went through and met with like amazing composers.

[55:07] Jill Twiss: Um, but but maybe never like the perfect, perfect one for this. And slowly I realized I'd written so much stand-up comedy in to it that would all probably have to be caught if it was a musical. You can't have a scene and then stand-up comedy about the themes of the scene and then a song about you're obviously.

[55:25] Jill Twiss: Sounds like a variety show.

[55:26] Jill Twiss: And and a person that had read all my stuff and was looking at it was like, that's what I love about what you wrote. Um, and also it's 2020, which is the hundredth anniversary of women getting the right to vote. So it feels like this is the year this play has to be done and get like into a reading or something like that.

[55:47] Jill Twiss: And that just can't happen as a musical.

[55:49] Laura Camien: Right.

[55:50] Laura Camien: Do you have plans? Do you have specific plans about where to people might be able to do that?

[55:56] Jill Twiss: We gotta we gotta get moving on this. We need to get moving on this.

[55:58] Jill Twiss: I know, I know. It's like I'm like, Can we help 60 pages in the house? I gotta write like 20 more pages. Here's two of the nine character women. We'll read it for you.

[56:06] Jill Twiss: Oh my gosh. We are ha like, let us help. We want to see this make it.

[56:10] Jill Twiss: So here's the thing this year. Can I just spitball?

[56:13] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[56:13] Jill Twiss: So uh Celia, I was just talking to Cam about this. Celia Keenan Bolcher and I used to do this thing called Play Club, where we would just get into her living room and bring together some of Broadway's finest, frankly, and we would just read plays that we liked.

[56:26] Jill Twiss: So we did a play. We read like the 5th of July. Just like we would just get it together for the pleasure of reading plays.

[56:33] Jill Twiss: And then we would chat about it and we would have snacks.

[56:36] Laura Camien: Let's get a dead and read your play.

[56:38] Laura Camien: Why don't we read your play? Like that'll give you a deadline.

[56:40] Jill Twiss: Right. I mean, no pressure. You're just like recording saying this, but snacks and reading my play.

[56:45] Jill Twiss: Do you want to do that?

[56:46] Laura Camien: I do want to do that.

[56:47] Jill Twiss: Let's I I mean it completely sincerely. This is not just for the benefit of the listeners who could give a shit.

[56:55] Jill Twiss: Like I mean this completely sincerely. Do you want to do it?

[56:58] Laura Camien: I do want to do it.

[56:58] Jill Twiss: You know what? Uh we'll finish we'll finish up the logistics off mic, but I say like we decide we're doing it. We decide you decide what you want it, how much you want it to be finished or not finished, and we decide a date-ish that might work with all of our schedules.

[57:12] Jill Twiss: And we just read this book. And we find the funniest ladies, the funniest character ladies that we know.

[57:18] Jill Twiss: There is one ingenue in the whole play, and everyone else is 35 and older. Celia can be the anjou because she's great at playing young people, but she's got that good brain.

[57:27] Jill Twiss: And then we'll put together not do you need any men?

[57:30] Jill Twiss: Uh yes, there are three men.

[57:34] Laura Camien: Great.

[57:34] Jill Twiss: Three men and nine women.

[57:36] Laura Camien: Okay.

[57:37] Jill Twiss: Fabulous. This is gonna be great.

[57:38] Laura Camien: I'm so excited.

[57:40] Laura Camien: All right, you've been making stuff for a long time. Do you have any creative advice that you'd like to pass on to us and to our listening audience?

[57:50] Jill Twiss: Sure. Um, I think for the purpose of if if you want to make this something you do as a job, which is you might not want that, in which case go crazy. I think you need to make things, and then I think you need to put them in a place where people can see them.

[58:08] Jill Twiss: I honestly think that is every piece of advice I've done. This is for every creative, not just somebody who wants to be a comedy writer. This is like for if you're a painter or if you're a dancer. If you put them out there. If you want people to see, I mean, there are people that might be able to do it. If you want it to be a job, that's right. But if you want it to be a job, make things, put it out there.

[58:17] Jill Twiss: Put them out there where people can see it. Put it out, like find a way to I know I know a lot of people that write jokes and then they write jokes and and then no one hires them because how would you know what they do?

[58:36] Jill Twiss: And so whatever the thing is that you do, do you need to make sketches and put them on YouTube? Do you need to do you need to do? I mean, I needed to do stand-up to learn what audiences laugh at and how to write jokes and whatever.

[58:49] Jill Twiss: Um, and that was a way that I made a group of friends that eventually, you know, whatever it is that you need to do, you can't do it unless you put some stuff out there for people.

[59:00] Laura Camien: That's right.

[59:00] Jill Twiss: I love that. It's a simple two-parter. Number one, make things. Number two, just put it out there.

[59:06] Laura Camien: People can see it.

[59:07] Jill Twiss: Oh that's great. Is there anything creative you know that you need to do before you're done?

[59:16] Jill Twiss: No, I think this play is as close to that as anything. I don't have a lot hanging over my head that I that I just don't get.

[59:28] Jill Twiss: I I get to like fight a lot of my fights through the show.

[59:31] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[59:32] Jill Twiss: And I can I can pitch things like that.

[59:34] Jill Twiss: Yeah. I wanna, I I I do want to get more into writing lyrics.

[59:41] Jill Twiss: Um, that is something I want to make sure that I'm doing because I love it very much.

[59:47] Jill Twiss: Um so how whatever that turns into, um, I'm thinking about like turning this someone new into a musical or or something like that.

[59:56] Jill Twiss: Um goes full circle because I'll make them rap, like ready aim recycle.

[1:00:01] Jill Twiss: I absolutely will not. I will write zero rap.

[1:00:03] Jill Twiss: I promise zero rapping.

[1:00:06] Laura Camien: That is my guarantee to you.

[1:00:08] Jill Twiss: I will not be writing rap.

[1:00:10] Laura Camien: Really feels to me like the grass doesn't grow under your feet, right? You're always moving, you're always working, you're always doing more, which is exciting.

[1:00:17] Jill Twiss: I feel like an incredibly lazy person, and I think I am.

[1:00:21] Jill Twiss: I do, I genuinely like I'm I'm not but I uh but I don't spend a lot of time like worrying about doing things, I guess is is the one thing that I that I think saves me some time.

[1:00:34] Laura Camien: Yeah, well, there's a lot of evidence just to say that you are doing things.

[1:00:38] Laura Camien: Can you tell us for you what's it all for?

[1:00:44] Jill Twiss: I I think that I am at heart, like astoundingly optimistic about what it can do. And I think every time I I'm not good at just writing something that's just silly or just uh I I wish I wish I were because I love those kinds of books.

[1:01:03] Jill Twiss: Um, but I think every time it starts out with like what do I want to change about the world? That's I think every single thing that I write, except probably the Annie Darton Cole, which is maybe why it's so weird for me.

[1:01:17] Laura Camien: You need some life balance.

[1:01:18] Jill Twiss: Yeah, but yeah, I think that's usually what it is, is.

[1:01:21] Jill Twiss: It's because I think, like maybe if they read this book, suddenly the world will fix.

[1:01:25] Laura Camien: Yeah, that's great.

[1:01:27] Jill Twiss: I think that's beautiful.

[1:01:28] Laura Camien: Finally, who or what is sparking you these days?

[1:01:32] Jill Twiss: I have been uh reading. I'm trying to think I believe the book is called The World Only Spins Forward, which is about the writing of Angels in America.

[1:01:43] Jill Twiss: Um, which at first I found really intimidating. Weirdly, I was doing it because I'm writing a comedy in my head. I was like, what's the funniest play I know? And for some reason I was like, I think Angels in America truly has like is funnier than most like really funny plays.

[1:02:00] Jill Twiss: Most like strictly comedy plays, I guess, is a way to like I would laugh more at the jokes in Angels in America than maybe noises off or whatever.

[1:02:08] Laura Camien: Yes, right for me.

[1:02:09] Jill Twiss: So I was like, great, I'll look at that. And at first it was very intimidating because Tony Kushner, and you always hear sort of the story that makes it sound like Tony Kushner just like birthed this like perfect thing.

[1:02:22] Jill Twiss: And then you read this book and you're like, they had like 30 readings of this.

[1:02:25] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[1:02:26] Jill Twiss: And they rewrote everything, and they like didn't, you know, and and it makes you go, like, oh, even the things that seem like perfect and like birthed out like beautifully, were like agonizing to get through and went through so many changes.

[1:02:41] Jill Twiss: And that maybe he had perfect confidence that it would be good, but certainly like parts of the book imply that like a lot of people did not know, and they questioned rightfully two three and a half hour long plays.

[1:02:52] Laura Camien: That's right.

[1:02:53] Jill Twiss: That's right.

[1:02:53] Laura Camien: Say the title of the book again.

[1:02:55] Jill Twiss: I believe it is The World Always Spins Forward.

[1:03:01] Laura Camien: Thank you so much.

[1:03:02] Jill Twiss: I didn't mean to talk at the same time.

[1:03:05] Laura Camien: Thank you so much for having me.

[1:03:06] Jill Twiss: What if we did the whole outro in unison?

[1:03:09] Laura Camien: That'd be fantastic.

[1:03:11] Jill Twiss: You're you're a treat.

[1:03:13] Laura Camien: It is all right, a pleasure.

[1:03:15] Jill Twiss: Thank you for doing this.

[1:03:16] Laura Camien: Thank you so much for having me. I'm such a huge fan.

[1:03:18] Jill Twiss: Settle down.

[1:03:20] Laura Camien: Settle down everybody.

[1:03:21] Jill Twiss: That's it.

[1:03:22] Laura Camien: Listen, we hope that this all put another bunch of sparks in your file.

[1:03:26] Jill Twiss: Hey, hey, listen to me.

[1:03:29] Laura Camien: If there's a spark you'd like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark and you fanned it into a creative flame and you'd like to share that, won't you email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, the sparkfile.com.

[1:03:44] Jill Twiss: We will even take your feedback, but you know the price of admission.

[1:03:48] Laura Camien: First, you have to share some creative risk that you've taken recently.

[1:03:52] Jill Twiss: And be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:03:56] Laura Camien: Subscribe, rate, five-star review it.

[1:03:58] Jill Twiss: If you like this podcast, you know what would make a big difference? Share it with people that you love.

[1:04:03] Laura Camien: And if you didn't like it, I don't know. Jill, what do you say to your critics?

[1:04:08] Jill Twiss: Go fuck yourself.

[1:04:10] Laura Camien: That's my girl.

[1:04:11] Jill Twiss: That's my girl.

[1:04:12] Jill Twiss: Fuck yourself.

[1:04:13] Laura Camien: But if something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door.

[1:04:25] Jill Twiss: It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame.

[1:04:29] Laura Camien: You gotta reminisce it.

[1:04:30] Jill Twiss: You gotta piano gliss it.

[1:04:32] Laura Camien: You gotta get sparked by politics.

[1:04:34] Jill Twiss: Then totally Jill Twiss it.

[1:04:36] Laura Camien: You gotta take it and make it.

[1:04:40] Jill Twiss: Bye!

[1:04:43] Jill Twiss: When I bump into something that inspires me, I dump it in the spark files.

[1:04:52] Jill Twiss: Could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[1:04:58] Jill Twiss: I'll pump it in my spark files.

[1:05:02] Jill Twiss: I jump into my spark files.

[1:05:07] Jill Twiss: Let's open up the spark files.