by Alli Frank
—ALLI AND ASHA
TINY
IMPERFECTIONS
Alli Frank AND Asha Youmans
A Conversation with Alli Frank and Asha Youmans
Discussion Questions
A CONVERSATION WITH ALLI FRANK AND ASHA YOUMANS
How did you two meet? Why did you decide to write a book together?
As the PreK teacher and assistant head of school, we got to know each other working on the admissions team for a private school in Seattle, Washington. We spent many admissions sessions evaluating incoming PreK and kindergarten students for their “school readiness.” Swapping hilarious stories of our time with kids and their parents in and out of the classroom, we discovered we had similar senses of humor. Our conversations would often start with, “When I write a book someday . . . this gem is definitely going in there!”
We left our school a year apart to pursue other professional interests but kept in touch. In December 2017 on a typical dark, wet Seattle day, we meet for coffee to explore an idea for a novel based on what we knew—education. Both of us have been casual writers throughout our lives, but we wanted to integrate our two perspectives to create well-rounded characters set in the unpredictable, crazy world called school. From the get-go, we were equally on board and fully committed to the dream of writing this book. For both of us it felt like a now-or-never moment, so we chose now!
What inspired this novel?
Between the two of us we have over forty years of experience working in schools, and our love of children runs deep. Though both of us had left working in schools full time, it was difficult to get the children and their families who embraced us out of our systems. There is a lot of warmth and love in a school community, and writing about that world was a way for us to stay connected. To be able to continue to think about the growth and development of children, real or imagined, and write about it was the MOST. FUN. EVER.
With our combined professional experiences, we had a common message we wanted to bring to a broad audience of parents. We wanted to share with parents that as beautiful as their deep love, nurturing, and concern is for their babies, they also need to lighten up and enjoy the fun and hilarity of raising a child! Our experience with parents has been that too many treat parenting like a skill to master, with their child being the perfect result of their hard work and drive. If a child is not a prodigy, gifted academically, or a star athlete, the pressure can force parents to view themselves and their child as a failure. The exceptional attributes of a tiny percentage of the population has become the expectation of a typical American child. We want to see parents take a step back and enjoy their children for exactly who they are presently and embrace a wider possibility of who they are meant to become. Watching a child grow and blossom from the sidelines and not always leading from the front, clearing an uneven path, is the best place to observe the beauty of childhood.
Tell us a bit about how you work together. What is your writing process like? Has it changed over time?
Personal connection is the most important aspect to our writing process. At the beginning of every work session, we spend time shooting the breeze. We share stories about our children and spouses, or where we found a deal on facial masks, commiserating over the health issues of loved ones, or discussing our holiday plans. This time spent connecting not only deepens our relationship as friends and collaborators but also sparks the laughter and good feelings that inspires the content of our writing. Like any great pair, we complement each other’s strengths and shore up each other’s weaknesses. Through it all we laugh hilariously at big and small things, hoping the coffee shop we’re working in doesn’t kick us out for being disruptive.
When it’s time to put our ideas on paper we sometimes sit side by side working on sections together, or across one of our dining room tables reading aloud to each other to work on our sentence structure and authentic dialogue. Often, we trade chapters back and forth like a game of leapfrog or assign threads of concepts from the book like the characters’ relationships or the timeline of the story’s school year calendar. As time went on and the book neared completion, we’d trade larger sections of the book and critique what we wrote. There were a lot of e-mails, texts, and phone calls as ideas came to us or when we needed advice on just the right word to convey an idea. Above all we checked in during all the ups and downs and in-betweens of our individual family lives to make sure we were both happy with our writing, our working relationship, and, most important, still laughing.
You have both worked as teachers in public and private schools. How much of the novel is based on your own experiences? Are there any stories that didn’t make it into the novel that you wish had?
Over two decades working in public and private schools some version of most of these stories that involves a child and a parent happened to a colleague or happened to one of us. Tiny Imperfections is a compilation of the great joy, unpredictability, and challenge of working in schools and being responsible for the success of other people’s children. The beauty of every character’s story in this book is a fundamental life truth: It doesn’t matter who you are—race, religion, sexual orientation—when raising a child, parents share a common goal: for their offspring to find success and happiness. And that quest can drive a parent crazy (and possibly certifiable when mixed with way too much disposable cash)! This is a beautiful fact of life that bonds all parents.
We have only touched the tip of the iceberg of our collective school stories. We believe Aunt Viv and Josie have more to share about the parents, faculty, staff, and students at Fairchild Country Day School. Stay tuned. . . .
Tiny Imperfections is full of wonderfully laugh-out-loud moments. Did you always know you wanted this story to be funny? Was it different to write humor than to use it in the classroom? Did anything about writing humor surprise you?
YES! We always wanted this book to be funny. Funny and honest. Kids are a natural source of material for entertainment. Their humor is unencumbered by social mores, political correctness, or fear of offense. Kids simply observe the world and call it like they experience it. This desire to explore, connect, and enjoy similarities and differences is a childhood language that is sadly, often lost in translation on the journey into adulthood.
Writing this book was our opportunity to say the things we could never say in school, but trust us, we were thinking. In our professional and personal lives, we both like to approach human interactions assuming best intentions. That if someone is trying to do right (even if they mess up) we are open to them. Humor is one of the few avenues of communication where people continue to be open and inviting even if the content is off color. Our hope is that with Tiny Imperfections our readers can relax a little bit and laugh about the best and worst in ourselves.
Even when reading the book for the twentieth time, we still cracked ourselves up! We anticipated and looked forward to some of the funnier lines of our favorite parts of the book (which differ between the two of us). We want everyone who reads this book to have a few really deep, full, laugh-out-loud moments. And then to take it one step further, if some of our readers are in a book club, have members share their favorite parts of the book and everyone can have a second big, heartwarming laugh. Collective laughter is so good for the soul!
How did you come up with Josie’s character? How did you develop her voice on the page? Did anything surprise you while writing her?
We were solid on who Josie was as a character from the start, so not much surprised us while writing about her. Many of Josie’s traits are a compilation of who we are as women. Like Josie, we both love beautiful clothing, we have witty tongues, and we love our children fiercely while running a tight ship and holding them to high expectations. The foundation of those traits stems, in large part, from the fact that we both come from tight-knit, loving families, like the Bordelons. What did surprise us was how difficult it was to get into Josie’s head when it came to roma
nce and the dating life she pushed aside for many years. The two of us are married women, and reaching back into the emotions of our single hearts was tough to recall. Lucky enough to have found our true loves, we knew the qualities Josie was seeking in a partner: integrity, sharp humor, self-assuredness, and of course, handsome . . . we can’t forget handsome. In the end, the love story line was one of our most collaborative, as we leaned on each other to pull at the faded memories of our past dating lives—the lust and the heartbreak.
Why was it important to you both to write this novel together? How does race play a role in Tiny Imperfections? What do you hope readers will understand about your partnership?
We could not have written this book alone. We needed each other’s views and personal and professional experiences in parenting, education, and friendship to make this story authentic. At the outset, we wanted to express our voices, and within that framework exists race, gender, class, religion, and so many factors that often seem to separate people in the United States. We wanted to use these aspects as an important part of the backdrop but not necessarily what drives the story of the Bordelon family. Parent-child love is the essence of this story and one that transcends so many other factors that are often used to divide us. We want people to know that as individuals, we operate from a place of goodwill and humor that allows us to speak honestly about parenting and how it differs along racial and cultural lines without it being difficult or personal; it can be real and honest. The entire process led to a level of trusted intimacy between us that brought with it a lot of laughter and love between the pages of this book.
At its heart, Tiny Imperfections is a mother-daughter story. Why did you want to write about this relationship? Are any of the characters based on your own mothers and daughters? Do you see yourselves in Josie?
When we set out to write this book, we did not know it would become a mother-daughter story. As we collaborated, told stories, and got more words onto the page, the mother-daughter story grew. Like many mothers and daughters, our relationships with our own mothers was not one we could appreciate until we were older and could stand back to look at it from the distance of adulthood. As writers, this central theme didn’t present itself until we stood back from the book as readers to see how much “mother-daughter love” shaped the story. It kind of snuck up on us. Because Josie and Aunt Viv are both single moms, we gave them the strength to be mom and dad, and we both had phenomenal role models on that front. Josie and Aunt Viv are a compilation of the best traits of parenting; the best gifts we each received from our parents.
What do you hope readers will take away from Tiny Imperfections?
What we want people to take away from this book is to seek connection using an open smile as a way to reach out to people who are different from you. Sometimes we tip-toe around one another straining with curiosity to learn about our differences but not knowing how to approach others for the lessons we want or need. We encourage folks to become “cultural teachers” by thinking the best of one another from the outset, being curious, and responding to curiosity with kindness. And we need to graciously forgive one another when mistakes are made surrounding culture and difference. In short, we want people to become and stay connected.
Without giving anything away, did you always know how the novel would end?
We 100 percent knew how the novel was going to end, but it was how we were going to get to our ending that was the unknown. It was beyond fun figuring out how the heck we were going to get to where we wanted to go and if we could agree on the path! The stories we swapped, the laughing so hard we’re crying, and the agonizing over every word, every sentence, every piece of dialogue was truly enjoyable because we did it together. Having finished Tiny Imperfections, it’s difficult to imagine ever writing a book on our own. Seems so lonely for a couple of social, curious women like ourselves!
What’s next for each of you?
We believe that the end of Tiny Imperfections is just the beginning of the Bordelon family story. Our fingers are crossed that readers will want to hear more from Josie, Etta, and Aunt Viv (if you do, please send us a message in the contact section of our website, alliandasha.com) because we have so much more of their story to share with readers!
Additionally, we are working on another book idea wholly unrelated to the Bordelon family but still humorous commercial fiction—that seems to be our sweet spot. As well, we cannot stay away from kids, we both love them too much. We continue to be a part of the independent school landscape in Washington, from cofounding the International Friends School in Bellevue, to speaking in classrooms about Seattle civil rights history, to catering for graduations and board of trustee retreats. And it goes without saying, we continue trying our best, with humor and grace, to be decent mothers, wives, daughters, and friends.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. At the beginning of Tiny Imperfections, Josie doesn’t believe she needs to date. Why? Do you think she’s lonely? Do you think Josie is happy with her life?
2. Why doesn’t Josie want Etta to go to Julliard? Why does Aunt Viv encourage Etta to go? Do you agree with one woman more than the other? What do you think Josie is afraid of?
3. Josie jokes about the fact that she’s not forty—yet. Why are women afraid to turn forty? What does forty represent for Josie?
4. How is race explored in the novel? Were you surprised to learn that the novel was written by a black-and-white author duo?
5. Josie got her start at Fairchild Country Day School when she attended as a student, where she remembers being part of the “dog and pony show” to attract donors (this page). How does Josie feel about the private school world? How has it shaped her life?
6. Why do you think our society is so focused on going to the “right” school? Do you agree with the parents desperate to get their children into Fairchild?
7. Discuss how Tiny Imperfections portrays motherhood. What does Josie think of the overbearing parents that apply to Fairchild? How does Josie’s job as admissions director influence her own parenting? Do you think it’s possible to stay realistic when you’re surrounded by extreme wealth and privilege? Why or why not?
8. On this page, Josie thinks: “The more Bay Area parents feign ‘it’s all good, everything will work out,’ my stats show what a higher pain in the ass quotient they are.” Do you think parents and parenting differ across the country?
9. Lola is the best friend that keeps Josie sane—Josie thinks “Every woman needs a girlfriend who speaks the truth” (this page). How does Lola help Josie throughout Tiny Imperfections? Do you have a best friend who keeps you in line?
10. At the end of the novel, Golden Boy tells Josie a secret that changes everything. Were you surprised by what he tells her? Have you ever misinterpreted someone’s motives in your own life? Or have you pretended to be something you’re not in order to achieve a goal? Do you agree with his decisions?
11. Were you surprised by how the novel ended? Why or why not?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Alli Frank and Asha Youmans have eached worked in education for more than twenty years. They live in Seattle, Washington, with their families, and Tiny Imperfections is their debut novel.
What’s next on
your reading list?
Discover your next
great read!
Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.
Sign up now.
