Gretchen Anthony: Believe in Your Voice

Gretchen Anthony is the author of which was a Midwestern Connections Pick and a best books pick by Amazon, BookBub, PopSugar, and the New York Post. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, Medium, and The Write Life, among others. She lives in Minneapolis with her family. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Gretchen Anthony

Photo by M. Brian Hartz

In this interview, Gretchen discusses how her personal year of yes inspired her new novel, Tired Ladies Take a Stand, her hope for readers, and more!

Name: Gretchen Anthony
Literary agent: Holly Root, Root Literary
Book title: Tired Ladies Take a Stand
Publisher: Park Row
Release date: May 14, 2024
Genre/category: Contemporary fiction
Previous titles: Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners, The Kids Are Gonna Ask, The Book Haters’ Book Club
Elevator pitch: During one unforgettable year in their 20s, best friends Emma, Fern, Carolina, and Andi make a pact to embrace whatever life throws at them, inspiring Fern to write a memoir detailing their escapades and the magical power of saying Yes. But fast forward 20 years, and they have reached their bandwidth of responsibilities, and must finally commit themselves to learning to say no.

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What prompted you to write this book?

Much of the book was inspired by the real-life “year of yes” my friends and I undertook in our 20s. It was the late-90s, and we were living in San Francisco, starting our careers, dating and breaking up, and simply trying to make our way through the world as young women. One night, probably over cocktails, we decided we’d had enough of waiting for good things to come our way and made a pact to say yes to adventure, regardless of the form. At bars, we bought the cute guys drinks. We took new risks at work. We traveled. We danced. We lived one of the most memorable years of our lives.

But, as the book pitch says, fast forward 20-some years, and we were all exhausted and overworked. Our phone calls and texts became pep talks. “Get some rest!” we remind each other, and “remember that you don’t have to do it all.” It appeared to me that every woman I knew seemed to be juggling too many balls for their own sanity while every influencer I heard was preaching the “power of no.”

It struck me that our story was one that millions of women could relate to, so I set out to craft a narrative reflective of women’s lives—our dreams, our pressures, and the friends that we rely on just to get through the week.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I’ve long wanted to write a book based on those magical San Francisco years, but I didn’t pitch the concept to my agent until after finishing my last novel, The Book Haters’ Book Club. Readers loved the friendship between the two sisters in that book and I loved the idea of writing about another group of friends. Start to finish, Tired Ladies Take a Stand took about 18 months.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

The world of book promotion changed a lot between my last book and this one. Most notable was that my publisher (like many others) stopped printing Advanced Reader Copies and now relies almost exclusively on digital distribution. I understand the business rationale, but I feel like I’m trying to play catch-up. It’s always been crucial for an author to do everything we can to get the book in front of the right audience, but gaining their attention is a different challenge without a tangible product to wave under their nose.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Crafting fictional characters from real people proved more challenging than expected. As I said, the book was loosely based on my friends and me, so for a few months, it was difficult to separate the person in my head from the character I was trying to create. Each fictional “tired lady” needed to follow an arc that wasn’t necessarily relevant to the woman on whom she was based. It all felt very muddled for a while.

There were some weird coincidences, too. In the novel, the character Carolina is an avid runner who (for reasons I won’t divulge—no spoilers!) ends up immobilized after an injury. A few months ago, the woman on whom she was based had a freak but serious accident that led to surgery on the same part of the body that Carolina injured! We laughed about it, but I told her the next time I put her in a book, I’d have her win the lottery.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

I hope they’ll see themselves and their friends in it—the way girlfriends can go from laughter to tears to solving the world’s problems in barely more than a breath—and long before the wine is finished!

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

Believe in your voice. There’s a reason it’s yours.

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