Transcript for Writing Your Resilience Podcast Episode Seventy-One

Bringing Light to History: Amy Fish and the Journey of One in Six Million

Six years ago, Amy Fish and I sat at a table in a hotel ballroom during the HippoCamp Writing Conference. As we caught up, she shared an idea that had been haunting her. As soon as I heard about it, I told her to go write that book. Over the years, she shared updates when we saw each other or caught up online. In this episode, we get to celebrate both the journey and the final version of her latest nonfiction book, One in Six Million. Join us as Amy shares how she maintained her motivation through a six-year writing process, how she kept track of her extensive research, and how she found the right tone and voice for this book. Let’s dive in.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:00]
Well, hello, Amy. Welcome to the Writing Your Resilience podcast. It is so beautiful to see you today, and I'm so excited about our conversation.

Amy Fish [0:07]
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Lisa.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [0:10]
Well, I remember when this book, that I am holding up right now, One in Six Million, was just an idea in your brain. I remember we sat at the Hippocamp Literary Conference; we were sitting at a table, it was breakfast time, and you said, "Yeah, I have this idea for this book." And now I'm holding onto it! So, we are going to dive deep into the experience of writing it. But before we get started, what would you like us to know about you, your books, and specifically this one?

Amy Fish [0:39]
The most important thing to know about this book, I think, is that from that conversation, which was so important to me, I remember it too. It was a breakfast in a big hotel ballroom. I remember it so clearly. You said to me, "Go and write this book." You said, "Pretend every month is NaNoWriMo, where you write the whole book in one month." And you said, "Just push." And it took me six years, yeah. And I think that's the most important thing I want other writers to know. And I know you were just talking to Jane Friedman about this recently, that there's no such thing as an overnight success. And I really share that message.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [1:15]
And I think that's so important, and I love it when writers come on and talk about how long it takes. Because we are bombarded, absolutely bombarded right now—especially on Instagram—with "three steps to overnight success." In fact, I get pitched by people who say, "I have the specific formula that can give you a New York Times bestseller over a weekend." And we both know that that is not how it works.

Amy Fish [1:45]
That is laugh-out-loud funny to me. I had roadblocks writing this book. I had difficulties, challenges. I went back and did a whole MFA just to learn how to write this. So that's really the most important thing I want people to know.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [2:02]
Well, this is a narrative nonfiction book, so you are really a narrative nonfiction writer. I mean, that's how I've experienced you—more than as a memoirist. You like to write about other people's stories. Your first book, I Wanted Fries with That, is hilarious, and that's really a book about speaking up for yourself. It's funny, witty, and has this, I don't know, punchy voice. This is different. So, what did you learn in writing and publishing your first book that helped you really think about not just how to put this together, but how to create a voice that will carry the story forward and feel appropriate to the tone?

Amy Fish [2:40]
I've relied on my editor to help me with the tone for One in Six Million because before this, I was really a one-trick pony. I knew how to do things in my voice. I write a Substack every Monday; it's my voice. I used to have a blog during the blogging years, so I had eight years of blogging in my voice, and then there was The Fries Book. Before Fries, I did The Art of Complaining Effectively, a little book. Those are all super voicey. What I needed to learn was how to tone that down so I could tell a story like this without losing myself, right? That was really the project, and my editor helped. She helped take out some of the jokes that were just too much—too cute, you know?

Lisa Cooper Ellison [3:18]
You do have extremely cute jokes, I have to say. That's one of the things I really appreciate about your voice, how you're able to just infuse so much humor into the work. And I could see you holding back appropriately in this book. So, for people who maybe aren't familiar with you or aren't familiar with the story, can you give us just a quick, two-cent synopsis of what this book is about, and what spoke to you, and why you wanted to write it?

Amy Fish [3:50]
Sure. So, the book is One in Six Million, and it’s the story of a woman who was found by the side of the road as a baby. A childless couple walking by scooped her up. It was 1942 Poland—Gestapo on the left, Gestapo on the right. They picked up this baby, decided to raise her, and she grew up in Ukraine, in Siberia, always wondering, like, “Who am I?” And this mystery was so well-buried that it took 73 years to crack the case. It only got solved when it fell into the hands of a genealogist from Montreal, which is where I live. He was able to trace her family tree for her, find out her real birthday, her real name, what happened to her parents, and find 100 relatives alive and well, living.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [4:35]
One hundred living relatives! Oh, my God!

Amy Fish [4:46]
Yeah, yeah. And Stanley Diamond, he was the geneticist and the researcher, and I love that name. I mean, I know, you can’t make this stuff up. Stanley Diamond was a ceiling salesman, which I also find hilarious. Like, yeah, who knew you could sell ceilings, right? Everyone else thought, like, you build a house and there's a ceiling, but he just got involved in these highly decorative ceilings. And here’s this Jewish guy from Cote St. Luc, a very Jewish suburb of Montreal, and he ends up with ceilings in Qatar, Oman, Mercedes dealerships, and the Sultan of Brunei's palaces. He's traveling the world. When he sold his business, he thought, "Now what?" And he got pulled into genealogy and family tree research. He worked and worked at helping people reunite. It's crazy.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [5:21]
And the work he did was incredible. You detail so well, not just the efforts that he put forth, but the grueling nature of the work. I mean, when you were talking about how just even the way birth announcements worked, it's a paragraph, a whole story that he would have to tease apart to figure out who was actually born, who died recently—all these different things. I can only imagine what that was like for you as the researcher of the researcher, trying to figure out how to gather the facts and then how to turn those facts into a compelling story that has some sort of narrative tension, where you're not just telling me things, but you're taking me through an experience.

Amy Fish [6:09]
The idea I had in my head is that I wanted a quest, so that helped me choose the arc. Because there are a bunch of different ways we could have gone, right? It’s a story of identity and families lost and found. But I really wanted to follow the quest—how did we get from, "There’s a baby on the side of the road," to "Here are her relatives"? Because sometimes you read about that in the paper or you see, like you said, on Instagram—family reunifications, they found a father after 40 years. I’d always ask myself, "But how? How did they find them?" I really wanted the book to take us through that. This is how they do it. This is where they look. These are the kind of roadblocks they hit. This is how they get past those roadblocks. That was really my vision for the narrative thread or the narrative arc.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [6:56]
And you did that really well. I think it was an excellent choice because I was like, “Come on, when are they going to find the answer?” You actually—there are these twists and turns. We think, “Oh my gosh, they found it!” No, they haven’t found it. “Oh wait, what about this?” Nope, that’s not it. And I think you did that really well. What I enjoyed, personally, was the fact that you took me through the experience. You made it a story. And you know, I’ve read a decent amount about the Holocaust, and I’ve read some really powerful stories about it, but they always stop around the point when the war ends. We learn about the atrocities that happened in the concentration camps, which were often called death camps, because that’s what they were. We learn about these different things, but then the challenge of living in the diaspora afterwards—finding your family—that’s a story I haven’t read as much about. I’ve read more about this one part, and you do such a great job of helping us understand the sheer magnitude of people who had no idea if their relatives were alive, if they were dead, what had happened—just the mystery of that—and how they had to live with that mystery, often silently.

Amy Fish [8:17]
It’s part of what pulled me to the book because I grew up Jewish. I’ve always had a Jewish education, gone to day school, even went to Brandeis, which is a Jewish university. And even with all of that, I had no idea that people are still reuniting and still searching for each other. I was shocked, Lisa. I was shocked to uncover that this was going on kind of right under my nose. And what I learned is there’s a project active now in North America called the DNA Project, where they’re giving DNA tests free of charge to any remaining Holocaust survivors. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [8:57]
And that’s—I’m trying to do the math in my head, almost 80 years, yeah. Almost 80 years later, people are still looking for relatives. And one of the things that you shared, and I’m not going to go into all of the details because I want people to read your book, is that there were times when people would assume someone was gone—that they had passed away in the Holocaust—only to learn, after they’d created this whole other life, that their loved ones were still alive.

Amy Fish [9:27]
Someone told me a story the other day about how their mother used to go to the bus station every day, hoping that her brother was still alive, and one day it worked.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [9:43]
Oh my gosh, that just gives me so much hope for all the people who are still looking for their relatives. Because, you know, so many people, that’s their impetus for writing. I want to know who I am. I want to know where I come from. It’s this huge mystery. It just creates this gap in your life, and at least for one person, you’ve helped fill in the gap—with the help of Stanley Diamond, right? You filled it in for all of us. So, as you were working on this project, how in the world did you keep track of all this research?

Amy Fish [10:21]
You know, I printed it out and put it in binders. That’s really the only way I was able to do it. I’m very tactile and very analog, and I don’t like to write by hand, but I have to see the research, and I need it all in front of me as I’m writing. I can’t flip back between all my windows. And then I would wake up in the middle of the night and think, “What if I delete something by mistake?” So, I had things stored, but I also printed them out. I have big binders on my desk. I haven’t parted with them yet. I can’t let go, but I know the time is coming soon.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [10:52]
I love that you’re analog, and I think so many of us actually are. Our brains aren’t meant to look at all these windows on a computer and so having something tangible that you can hold on to and refer to, I think, is so helpful. And as you think about that process, what did having all of this on paper do for you that seeing things on the computer can’t?

Amy Fish [11:18]
It made it easier for me to go back and double-check, which was a big, big part of this project. There was the research, and then there was the fact-checking, and it was just a major commitment. This made it a lot easier for me to go back. It also made it easier for me to select, like, a big part was selecting. I met with Stanley over 100 times. I have hundreds of hours of interviews with him, and so how am I going to decide which stories to tell and how am I going to identify discrepancies where he’s telling me this today and he’s telling me that tomorrow? There were a huge amount of those. A lot of those. Having it on paper really helped me.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [12:08]
And so much in transcription has even changed since when you started this project, yeah. Now, I mean, Otter AI just—yeah, upload a video, there it is. Well, you know, this is primarily someone else’s story. How did you maintain your motivation over the course of six years as you were working on this?

Amy Fish [12:31]
I think this is a story of resilience and persistence and bringing light into the world. There is so much kindness in One in Six Million from the strangers who picked up this baby and raised her. Yeah, to the genealogists who all over the world, in Norway, in Utah, in Montreal, in Israel, who devote their whole lives to helping people find long-lost relatives—Holocaust, but not only Holocaust, just people who are looking for family members. Out of the goodness of their heart, they just do this for hours every week. And I thought this story needs to be told, because I just find that in times of darkness, we tend to give up very quickly. We tend to say there's nothing we could do. Now, it's all about, I posted something, I put a meme, I clicked a like, and I just want people to see how one kindness, one good deed, even a small one, even a little one, could change things for someone else and one another, another, another, another, and before you know it, you've really made a difference, and Stanley and his volunteers really made a difference. I found it very motivating and inspiring, and I just hope that for my readers, they find some kind of light too.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [13:41]
I certainly found a lot of light in this book. And as I was thinking about all the different researchers who just, I mean, they didn't just donate their time, sometimes they donated money to make sure that people had access to DNA kits. I mean, there were so many things that people did, people who are traveling to places to make sure that people had access to these kits. Because this wasn't—it’s not like now where, you know, 23andMe, you just order the kit and then, you know, that's not the story you're telling. I mean, a lot of this takes place long before that happens. And so, can you give us a little sense of that time period, so that as listeners are thinking about the story, they think about the extra work that is required?

Amy Fish [14:26]
I think it was the time period, because this is in the 2015 to 2018, so it's the time period, but it's also where they were located. It's hard to find DNA tests in Israel, and so they had to get a kit into Israel, and they phoned an owner of a company, and he's like, I'm on my way to Israel right now, and I have a kit in my bag. Like, so much of the book just unfolds that way. And then they were trying to get—who's going to test Maria, the baby? Who's going to test her DNA? She's in Siberia. They found a lab. They did two versions. Okay, now we’ve got to get it to New York. And they found someone who said, I'm leaving for New York. I'll bring it in my suitcase. Like, there were just so many coincidences. And like you said, these little kindnesses and favors that people did. And I think so many of us, when we hit an obstacle, we're like, we just hit the obstacle. We're like, okay, well, I guess this isn't meant to be. Or I guess not. These guys, they kept going no matter what.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [15:20]
Yeah, because I remember there was one point where it was like a year and a half, I believe, between one piece of evidence being found and then the next piece of evidence being found. This didn’t happen quickly. I mean, people had to be incredibly diligent and patient, yeah. How did this teach you about patience in your own writing process? 

Amy Fish [15:41]
That's an excellent question. I am patient in my writing process, because I think different stories are going to unfold on totally different timelines. Like, while this was happening in the six years, I had an essay that I had been playing with, also for years, and I had been submitting the essay and submitting it to contests, and it really wasn't getting anywhere. And I don't like to have things pile up. I like things to be in the world, you know. So, then I started looking into chapbooks, and I thought, I wonder if I chopped this essay into poems, if it will sell. And so, I did, and it did. And that, yeah, it’s great, but it's called Honeymoon Sneakers. That happened kind of like a little commercial break while this long project was happening. And so, what it taught me is that things are going to unfold on the timeline that they're meant to unfold on, yeah, right, and that you're going to have some quick wins, but you're going to have some very slow burns, and even what I'm calling a quick win. This was an essay that had been written maybe eight years before, and that was not getting anywhere as an essay. And every so often, I'd see a call for submissions, and I'd throw it in, and it wouldn't get anywhere, and I'd say, but it's really good. And then I would try something else, and that came out in 2024. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [16:54]
I love that, yeah. And what I love about that story is not just your level of persistence, but your level of flexibility, because you realized, okay, yes, I love this as an essay. Yes, it's good. And what else could it be? Because your goal was to get it out in the world, and your willingness to chop it up and do something different is actually what allowed it, allowed it to come to fruition.

Amy Fish [17:18]
Exactly, exactly. So that's what I learned about patience, that different projects are going to require different amounts of patience, and you just have to look at it and accept it, accept the project for who it is, you know,

Lisa Cooper Ellison [17:29]
Yeah and be willing to evolve alongside it. Well, how have you evolved?

Amy Fish [17:34]
I have evolved to become more accepting of my writing style. I think it's always been super important to me to be considered a literary writer. I wanted that so badly. Everyone else seemed more literary than me, and it was my big aspiration. But then I have this book, and like you said, it's narrative nonfiction. I still have my few little memoir stories inside of it, and I think those are nice light breaks, and I've just come to learn that that's the writer I am, and that sometimes I like to tell very small stories, and it's okay if they're woven in a larger narrative. So, to answer the question, how have I changed? I think I've become more accepting of my writing style and less of the kind of writer who's looking around at what everyone else is doing, more internally focused about what am I doing and what are my goals as a writer.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [18:18]
Oh, I love that for you, because you have such a good voice, and your stories are so wonderful. I've been a fan of your voice for a long time, so I'm so glad that you are owning it and just saying, you know, I am who I am as a writer, and sometimes that is going to have more of a literary bent, and maybe sometimes it won’t, and there's nothing wrong with that. And I would say for a lot of people who are listening, and their great desire is to be both a best-seller and literary, those things do not generally go together. 

Amy Fish [18:52]
Yeah, I wasn't so worried about the sales as much as I was worried about, like I said to you before we started recording, like, I needed this book out of my head and into my hands. This book was renting space from me for so many years, and it didn’t have too many different versions. It was just very difficult for me to write. I had to learn how to write a story that didn't happen to me, and it was just very hard to learn how to do that in the example of Fries, even though it's narrative and it's kind of prescriptive and self-help. Each chapter has a story. That's a true story, yeah? That's something that was either told to me or a complaint that I argued or fought for, a justice that I wanted. This isn’t like that at all. This is a story of a mystery, and I had to learn how to take all the data and make it make sense to a reader, a very different kind of project, yeah.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [19:39]
And unlike a novel, say, where, if it gets tricky, you can just make something up. If you don't like the details, you're like, oh, well, I'll just do this, that, and the other. Yeah, you can't do that. You have to have fidelity to the details and to the veracity of the information, and you also have to have really strong storytelling chops, which is what you have. And I think that's one of the reasons why this book is so successful. I mean, you nailed it. 

Amy Fish [20:05]
Thank you. Thank you. I also learned, and this is something I would like to share with writers listening. I learned that you can take research from many different sources and put them all in the same sentence. So, for example, when I was asking Stanley about what kind of car he drove when he toured Poland. He didn't know, but what I learned is that I was able to interview a friend of his who was in Poland with him, and he had notes, and he was able to look up different days on what they had done on different days and who drove them. And then, you know, as I met with the next person and the next person, my questions were more targeted. So, I didn't really understand that I could do that. I thought that I had to take each person's kind of testimony and let it stand alone. And somebody asked me, Have I ever been to Siberia? No, so how did I learn to describe it so well? YouTube videos. Yeah, you know, I didn't go to Omsk. I went to Omsk online. Here, I was calling it a town, and then I came to see it's actually a very big industrial city. So, there were things like that that the pure research was very rewarding.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [21:06]
And what I noticed is that, you know, this feels very clear and very true, and the research in the background is very evident, and yet this doesn't have an academic feel. And I think it's because you made those decisions of just saying, like, I can take all the research and put it together in one sentence that has a narrative bend, so that I'm telling a story, and the details come from all these different places. What surprised you about this story? I mean, I know one thing that surprised you at one point, because you told me about it, but we're not going to tell everyone else, because they have to read the book to find out. But what surprised you?

Amy Fish [21:46]
I was very surprised to learn that Stanley had a son that he was never able to find. I was shocked, because here I am interviewing this guy who when I met him, he was 86 and I'm meeting him in a library, if you could picture it, and he had kind of a zippered windbreaker and white hair and a cane. I was not expecting him to tell me that when he was in his 20s, he slept with an older woman who later wrote him a letter saying, you have a son. Stanley has three daughters. He was never able to locate this son. Even with all the research that he did and all the message boards and everywhere that he posted his DNA. No one ever contacted him and said, Hi, I'm your son. I'm your long, lost son. And I wondered if that was part of his motivation, if that's what drew him into family tree research. And he said no. And I asked, can I write about this in the book? And he said, yes. And he gave me the correspondence from this woman and from her lawyer, and the proof of that, like he handed me all of that. And I was surprised, surprised that it happened, surprised that he was so open, surprised that he was never able to find the grown man, I guess, at this point. But I try not to judge books by their covers, but sometimes it happens to all of us. And that was really surprising for me.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [22:56]
I was surprised by that detail as well, because you include a photo of him, and you know, I don't know. I think I had just a preconceived notion of what a genealogist looks like or does, and then you had this, and yeah, it created the sense of tremendous longing for me in the book, as I was curious as to whether or not that mystery would be solved. But unfortunately, it wasn't. Well, I want to talk for a second about your cover, because I love your cover so much, and this, this blue is just very specific. What input did you have into this cover, and what significance is there for you in this?

Amy Fish [23:33]
I had no input into the cover other than that the original one had a different font that I thought was more academic, a little too academic. I have mixed feelings about the cover. On the side that I like, I think it conveys a huge amount of information. You have a family tree, you have a picture of the baby, you have a DNA spiral or helix in the background. So, I think that's great. 

What I was concerned about is, I think the book looks very serious on the outside, and I was worried that people would buy it and be disappointed, because it's a little bit quirky in the sense that, like you said, it takes place after the Holocaust is over, right? And technically, Maria is not one of the 6 million, and it's not a bleak book. So that was my fear, but my fear was not well founded. I was wrong. My favorite part of the design is that they put a little photograph of the baby here on the spine. I find that really nice attention to detail and very inviting. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [24:29]
I love that as well. And I think for me, what made this feel like I'm going to be reading a story is One in Six Million. Yes, it feels very heavy, but we have down below, and if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see it. It's the gold type down here, which reads The Baby by the Roadside and the Man Who Retraced a Holocaust Survivor's Lost Identity. It makes me feel like, oh, I'm going to be taken through a story. I'm going to learn something. And I think that's one of the things that worked. But I love that you told us that you had no input whatsoever.

Amy Fish [25:07]
Well, no, in a nice way. I mean, I'm really lucky. My press is great. I want to say about my press, Goose Lane Editions, they're a Canadian press. It's not small. I think it's small to mid. It's an independent press in Canada, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which is like Maine by personality, if you're trying to imagine, so not particularly a Jewish community or a Jewish presence there, and they were still so interested in my story. Yeah, and I think many people in the Jewish community are feeling isolated, are feeling targeted, and that really hasn't been my experience. I've had the complete opposite. I've had an editor saying, put more, put more Jewish culture, put more content. We want to learn more. And I had a real interest in the story. And as I'm being invited to speak, people are asking me questions about that aspect of it and telling me that they really enjoy learning about the culture. So that's been a nice surprise, and I really appreciate the support of the press in that way. The person who is one of the editors, one of the senior editors, does the cover design. So, when I say I had no input, it was just a positive experience. They sent me the proof. So, I said, they look great. I just didn't love the font, and they changed the font.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [26:15]
Well, the reason I wanted to point that out is just because many writers get really invested in the fact that they're going to be able to title their books, or that they're going to have a lot of input into what the cover design looks like. And that doesn't always happen. And what I like about your story is that there was a part of you that was worried like, oh my gosh, what if people see this book and they see it in a certain way, which I think points to the fact that there are reasons why authors don't always have as much influence, perhaps. 

Amy Fish [26:50]
Exactly, better to trust them. They knew what they were doing.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [26:53]
Exactly, and we don't realize that. And so, I think this is an excellent example of how our fears can get ahead of us in terms of like, oh my gosh, the cover has to look one way. It has to be like this, and yet we learn these other things. And so, yeah, I love the cover too. I thought it was great. As soon as it came in the mail, I was like, yes, this is wonderful. I'm so excited for Amy, what a beautiful book. And then, of course, everything between, you know, that cover is also beautiful. Well, I have just a couple of other questions for you. 

So, I am becoming an Akashic Records reader. This is just giving access to higher consciousness. And I ask, what other questions should I ask my guests? And two questions came up for you, and we're just going to see where they go. I did not give you this in advance, and so I'm just always curious as to where this takes us. The first thing they were asking is to ask about the roses. I have no idea what that means, but they were wanting to know about the roses. 

Amy Fish [27:55]
That is not coming up for me, roses? Are there roses in the book? I don't think so.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [28:00]
I don't know either. They just asked about that. And the other question that they asked is, what are you trusting in now? Right? This is a book of trust. We just talked about you trusting your cover, and what is it that you are trusting right now?

Amy Fish [28:15]
I'm trusting that this book needs to have its time in the world, and I'm trusting in not rushing the process, because I like to be always thinking about, what is my next project? What is my next book? Will I write essays for a while? Where am I going? Am I teaching? Am I—where am I focusing my energy? And what I've had to trust is that I'm really the steward of the story, as you pointed out, and I need to let it come into the world and breathe in its own way. And I'm really leaning into that trust right now. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [28:45]
And I think that's so important in 2025 with all the things going on around us, to trust that, yes, the world can be whatever the world is, and we can trust that our books are going to get out there, and all we have to do is put one foot in front of the other, and things will unfold as they're supposed to. I absolutely agree. Well, you're in the middle of your book launch. How are you taking care of yourself and nourishing your resilience as you do all the things that are needed to promote and market your book?

Amy Fish [29:18]
Three things. First, I have a day job, so I work at a university. I'm the ombudsperson, and I do complaints. So that's very humbling and stabilizing, because no matter how great things are on the road, I come back to my office, and just like everyone who has that kind of work, you know, emails are waiting and calls need to be returned and students need to be seen, and so that kind of keeps me very grounded. I also have a close family and friend network that I rely on to keep in touch with, to keep me calm, to keep me as a sounding board, I would say. And so that's a second thing. And then the third thing is I read a lot of fiction.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [29:57]
I love that. Is there a specific book that you are just going to again and again, or that you love? 

Amy Fish [30:04]
Oh, I don't reread the same book ever, so I'm always looking for something. It doesn't have to be new. It could be just something I haven't read. But I'm sort of looking at my to be read pile and picking up the lighter tones at this moment, maybe genre, mystery, romance, whatever, I could read that's just going to be almost meditative. Take me out of what I'm doing and let me just relax.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [30:25]
It seems like romance and fantasy is having a heyday right now. And you know, that might be why stories that are dystopian are, you know, a little on the back burner for most people, understandably so. I mean, just given the realities of the world that we live in. Well, I love that you're using reading, that you have your support network. And what I often tell people, anytime you're going to publish something, circle the wagons around you. You know, make sure that you have the support. And it doesn't matter what content you’re publishing. Your work is vulnerable, and it's always unpredictable, and we always know we want to think about it going well, and then, of course, there's always some weird, wonky thing that happens. It's kind of like a wedding, right? If something weird doesn't happen, then it's not legit.

Amy Fish [31:10]
It's true. What you're saying is true. And it also, for this book, it gave me a lot of insight into memoirists, because I thought to myself, oh my god, everyone's going to read the book, and they're going to know all my business. And then I realized, like, there's almost none of my business in the book. But I thought, what if I would have written like my—so many of my writing friends do, right, write about themselves and their story, and then it's going to go into the world. And I really thought to myself, remember this feeling so that when someone reaches out to me and says, I'm feeling vulnerable, I want to bottle it so I could remember what that's like. 

Lisa Cooper Ellison [31:45]
Yeah, I think that's so important. Is there any bit of wisdom that has come from that? Or if you were to say anything based on your experience to someone who is feeling vulnerable, what would that be right now?

Amy Fish [31:55]
Remember why you wanted to tell this story. For me, One in Six Million is about bringing light into the world. And so, whenever I have doubts, or I question myself, I come back to my saying, bring light into the world. That's why I wrote it. That's why I believe in the story. That's what keeps me going. It keeps me motivated.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [32:11]
I love that, and that is a perfect note to end on. So, if people want to buy a copy of One in Six Million, they want to learn more about you, maybe they want to attend one of your events. What are the best ways for people to connect with you?

Amy Fish [32:25]
I have a website, amyfishwrites.com, and @amyfishwrites on Instagram. Those are the easiest.

Lisa Cooper Ellison [32:29]
And those will be in the show notes. So, if you didn't catch that, you can always go back, and you will be able to find them. Well, thank you so much, Amy, for being on the show today. It has been an absolute delight to see you. I hope to see you again in person sometime. 

Amy Fish [32:40]
Well, thank you so much. It's been wonderful.