>> Amy Draves: Good afternoon. Thanks so much for coming. My name is Amy Draves and I'm
here to welcome Maria Semple to the Microsoft Research Visiting Speaker Series. Maria is a
screenwriter and wrote for shows like Arrested Development, Mad about You and Ellen. She's
here today to discuss her book Where'd You Go Bernadette, a novel that touches on both
Seattle and Microsoft. Maria lives in Seattle where she teaches writing and is also the author of
This One Is Mine. Please join me in giving her a very warm welcome. [applause].
>> Maria Semple: Ah. Thank you. God now, I feel like tearing up. It's really weird to be here
[laughter]. It's really cool I can't believe it, that this, strange chapter of my life that was filled
with self-pity and toxicity turned into a book and now I'm standing here at Microsoft. So thank
you very much for being here. I really appreciate it. I'm really excited to be here. I was
realizing as I was going through the book today because I have my standard reading that I do
and there's not a lot of Microsoft stuff in that, so I thought that I would go through that and just
read, do a reading that was mainly the Microsoft stuff. And in that, what I realized is I'm going
to be reading a lot from the character of the admin, Sue Lynn who really was my favorite
character of all. I think she's by far the funniest and I always know who has the best comedy
mind, in my mind the people who say that they like Sue Lynn the most, because I think that
she's definitely the funniest and has the best kind of crazy attitude. And she's the admin, so I'm
going to give you a little bit -- should I read first and then talk about how I came upon the
Microsoft stuff? Okay. Let me just read first and then I'll just tell you how Microsoft found its
way into the book. I'm going to name names. None of them are here so this is even better.
[laughter]. So, okay. So Where’d You Go Bernadette. It's about this woman, Bernadette Fox
who lives in Seattle and doesn't like it and blames all of her personal problems on Seattle. Her
husband works at Microsoft and she, Bernadette’s a shut in and just a misanthropic person who
does nothing for herself and instead has since virtual assistant in India doing all of her errands
for her. And her husband who's a big Microsoft guy’s kind of checked out and so Bernadette
has her own little weird private world and then there's the world of Microsoft. And another big
world is the world of the mothers at school who Bernadette refers to as the gnats because she
just thinks that they're beneath her and she doesn't participate in the school stuff. So when I
was working on the book and I was realizing the husband has a world and Bernadette has a
world and I needed a kind of go-between between these worlds, and so I thought what if I
make one of the gnats who's one of the mothers at school who doesn't like Bernadette and
Bernadette doesn't like her, I should make her an admin at Microsoft because then this way I
can use her to kind of pass information that I need narratively between the two worlds. And so
I'm going to read you e-mails from Sue Lynn and this is, I'll tell you the way that I conceived Sue
Lynn. It was something that I always wanted to write about, that when I was in LA, guys, this
has to have been 25 years ago that I was just starting out and I went to this concert and it was
this, in an old club for They Might Be Giants, you know, that group. So I was there and there
was this guy there who was, we were all in our 20s and he was talking about them a lot and
seemed to have something to do with them. And he was working at this agency that has now
become kind of William Morris Endeavor. At the time and it was called Triad and during the
course of the concert we were talking and then I said to him, so what do you do it Triad,
because it was kind of unclear what he did, I said what do you do it Triad. And he looked kind
of frozen like he couldn't really answer and he said, "It's hard for me to describe what I do it
Triad because I am Triad." And it turns out he was just an assistant there, but he had just was
so identified with the place that I always wanted to write that character I Am Triad and so Sue
Lynn if she had a motto it would be I Am Microsoft. And so, and so that was my way into this
admin character and I always thought that there was such a funny attitude and I knew that I
could have a lot of fun with it. So here we go. This is one of the, the book is an epistolary
novel, so it's written in letters and this is, I'm going to read you letters or e-mails because we
live in modern times between Sue Lynn and her friend Audrey who's the worst gnat of all and
she's reporting on goings-on with Bernadette's husband LG. Branch. "Audrey, I told you I'm
starting to take the shuttle bus into work, right? Well guess who I rode in with this morning.
Bernadette's husband LG. Branch. I know why I have to save money by taking the Microsoft
connector, but Elgin Branch? I wasn't certain it was him at first. That's how little we all see of
him at school, so you're going to love this. There was only one seat available and it was next to
Elgin Branch, an inside one between him and the window. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. He was furiously
typing on his laptop. Without looking up he moved his knees to the side. I know he's a Level 80
corporate VP and I'm just an admin, but most gentlemen would stand up to let a woman
through. I squeezed past him and sat down. ‘Looks like we're going to finally be getting some
sunshine,’ I said. ‘That would be great.’ ‘I'm really looking forward to World Celebration Day,’ I
said. He looked a little frightened like he had no idea who I was. ‘I'm Lincoln’s mom from Galer
Street school.’ ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘I'd love to chat, but I've got to get this e-mail out.’ He
grabbed some headphones from around his neck, put them over his ears and returned to his
laptop. And get this, his headphones weren't even plugged in.” [laughter]. “They were those
sound canceling ones. The whole ride to Redmond he never spoke to me again. Here at
Microsoft, Steve B. just called a Townhall for the Monday after Thanksgiving. The rumor mill is
going crazy. My PM asked me to book a meeting for the hours just prior and I'm hard pressed
to find one. That can only mean one thing, another round of layoffs, happy holidays. Our team
leader heard some scuttlebutt that our project was getting canceled, so he found the biggest email thread he could, wrote Microsoft is a dinosaur whose stock is going to zero and then hit
reply all, never a good thing.” [laughter]. “Now I'm worried they're going to punish the whole
org and that I won't land well, or I might not land at all. What if that meeting room I booked
was for my own firing? Oh, Audrey, please keep me, Alexandra and Lincoln in your prayers. I
don't know what I'd do if I got managed out. The benefits here are goldplated. If I still have a
job after the holidays, I'll be happy to cover some of the food costs for the perspective parent
brunch, Sue Lynn.”And now this is 20 pages later in the book. Again Sue Lynn to Audrey. "You
have been very dear not to ask me how the Microsoft Townhall went. I'm sure you're dying to
know if I was a casualty of the epic downsizing that has been all over the papers. This was a top
to bottom riff, a 10 percent haircut. In the old days a reorg meant a hiring spree; now it means
layoffs. As I may have told you, my project was about to be canceled and my PM got a little
unhinged and flamed half of Microsoft. I manically checked meeting room reservations and the
jobs website trying to glean something about my future. Our top people landed at Windows
Phone and Bing. When I tried to get answers from my PM about me all I received in response
was eerie silence. Then yesterday afternoon I got pinged by an HR rep who wanted to see me
in the meeting room down the hall the next day. I had seen that appointment. I had no idea it
was for me. I drove to work this morning. I drove myself to work this morning because I didn't
want the added indignity of having to load a bunch of boxes onto the connector. I showed up
in the meeting room where the HR woman calmly informed me that our entire team, except for
those who already left for Bing and Windows Phone, were being riffed. ‘However,’ she said,
‘you ranked so well we'd like to assign you to a special project located in Studio C.’ Audrey, I
just about fell over. Studio C is in the Studio West campus and they're work is the most high
profile at Microsoft.” See, you guys are all going to bust me because the rest of the world
thinks that all this is accurate. Now I'm just it's like going into the [laughter] lions’ den. "Good
news; I'm getting promoted. Bad news, the new product I'm working on is in high gear and I'll
be expected to work weekends. It's a hush-hush project. I don't even know its name yet. Bad
news, I may not be able to make the perspective parent brunch. Good news, I'll definitely be
able to pay for the food. Talk soon and go Huskies." And so she ends up being LG. Elgin’s
admin. That's the secret team, that's the new team that she's been put on, so you can do these
things when you write novels, just coincidences, right? But anyway, so now she becomes LG. ’s
admin and I'm going to -- just remember that piece of information because now I'm going to
switch over to Bernadette who is the wife and I'm going to read part of her story. It's not really
a story; it's just her crazy rantings about Seattle and this is a letter that she's written to an
architect friend of hers back in Los Angeles where she went, where she left 20 years ago. So
now she's in Seattle and she's explaining to her old architect friend what she's been doing for
the last 20 years. "Paul, greetings from sunny Seattle where women are gals, people are folks.
You can't sit Indian style, but you can sit crisscross applesauce. [laughter] when the sun comes
out, it's never called sun but always sunshine. Boyfriends and girlfriends are partners. Nobody
swears but someone occasionally might drop the f-bomb. You're allowed to cough but only
into your elbow and any request reasonable or unreasonable is met with no worries [laughter].
Have I mentioned how much I hate it here? You probably wonder what I've been doing for the
last 20 years. I've been resolving the conflict between public and private space in the singlefamily residence. I'm joking. I've been ordering shit off the internet [laughter]. By now you've
figured out that we moved to Seattle when LG. was hired by Microsoft. My intention was
never to grow old in this dreary upper left corner of the lower 48. I just wanted to leave LA in a
snit, lick my considerably wounded ego and when I determined that everyone felt sufficiently
sorry for me, unfurl my cape and swoop in to launch my second act and show those bastards
who the true bitch goddess of architecture really is. But then LG. ended up loving it here. Who
knew that our Elgin had a bike riding, Subaru driving, Keen wearing alter ego just waiting to
bust out [laughter] and bust out it did at Microsoft, which is this marvelous utopia for people
with genius IQs. Wait, did I say Microsoft is marvelous and utopian? I meant to say it's sinister
and evil. [laughter]. There are meeting rooms everywhere, more meeting rooms and offices
which are all teeny tiny. The first time I beheld LG. ’s office I gasped. It was hardly larger than
his desk. He's now when of the biggest guys there and still his office is miniscule. You can
barely fit a couch long enough to nap on, so I asked, what kind of office is that? Another oddity,
there are no assistants. LG heads a team of 250 and they all share one assistant or admins as
they're called, accent on the ad. In LA, someone half as important as LG would have two
assistants, and assistants for their assistants, until every bright son or daughter west of the 405
was on the payroll [laughter] but not at Microsoft; they do everything themselves through
specially coded portals [laughter]. Okay, okay, calm down; I'll tell you more about the meeting
rooms." That's one of my favorite lines; nobody ever thinks that's funny. [laughter]. "There
are maps on every wall, which is perfectly normal, right, for businesses to have a map on the
wall showing their territories or distribution routes. Well on Microsoft walls are maps of the
world and in case you're still unclear about their dominion, under these maps are the words
‘the world.’ The day I realized their goal was world domination, [laughter] I was out at
Redmond having lunch with LG. ‘What's Microsoft's mission, anyway?’ I asked wolfing down a
piece of Costco birthday cake. It was Costco Day on campus and they were signing people up
for discounted memberships using free sheet cake as enticement. No wonder I get confused
and sometimes mistake the place for marvelous utopia. [laughter]. ‘For a long time,’ LG
answered not eating cake because the man has discipline, ‘our mission was to have a desktop
computer in every house in the world, but we essentially accomplished that years ago.’ ‘So
what's your mission now?’ I asked. ‘It's,’ he looked at me warily and said ‘well’ looking around,
‘that's not something we talk about.’ [laughter]. See, a conversation with anyone at Microsoft
invariably ends in paranoia and suspicion. They're even terrified of their own wives because as
they like to say, it's a company built on information and that can just walk out the door. Here's
the second way a conversation with a Microsoft employee ends. Let's say I'm at the playground
with my daughter. I'm bleary-eyed and pushing her on the swings and one swing over there's
an outdoorsy father, because fathers in Seattle only come in one style, and that's outdoorsy.
[laughter]. He has seen a diaper bag I'm carrying, which isn't a diaper bag at all, but one of the
endless ship gifts with a Microsoft logo LG brings home.” [laughter]. And so now she does
dialogue just between them. I hope I can do it properly here. “Outdoorsy dad, ‘hey, you work
at Microsoft?’ Me, ‘no, my husband does. He's in robotics.’ Outdoorsy dad, ‘I'm at Microsoft
too.’ Me feigning interest, because really I could give a shit but wow, this guy’s chatty.’
[laughter]. ‘Oh, really? What do you do?’ Outdoorsy dad, ‘I work for messenger.’ Me, ‘What's
that?’ Outdoorsy dad, ‘You know Windows Live?’ Me, ‘Um.’ Outdoorsy dad, ‘You know the
MSN homepage?’ Me, ‘Uhh.’ [laughter]. Outdoorsy dad losing patience, ‘When you turn on
your computer what comes up?’ Me, ‘The New York Times.’ [laughter]. Outdoorsy dad, ‘Well
there's a Windows homepage that usually comes up.’ Me, ‘You mean the thing that's
preloaded when you buy a PC? I'm sorry. I have a MAC.’ [laughter]. Outdoorsy dad getting
defensive because everyone there is lusting for an iPhone but there's a rumor that if Ballmer
sees you with one you'll get shitcanned. [laughter] Even though this hasn't been proven. It
hasn't been disproven either. ‘No. I'm talking about Windows Live.’ This is outdoorsy dad
again. ‘It’s the most visited homepage in the world.’ Me, ‘I believe you.’ Outdoorsy dad,
‘What’s your search engine?’ Me, ‘Google.’ [laughter]. Outdoorsy dad, ‘Bing’s better.’ Me,
‘No one said it wasn't.’[laughter]. Outdoorsy dad, ‘If you ever went once to Hotmail, Windows
Live, Bing or MSN, you'd see a tab at the top of the page that says messenger. That's my team.’
Me, ‘Cool, [laughter] what do you do for messenger?’ Outdoorsy dad, ‘My team is working on
an end-user C sharp interface for HTML 5…’ And then they kind of trail off, because at some
point in every conversation there's nobody in the world smart enough to dumb it down. It
turns out the whole time in LA, LG was just a guy in socks searching for a carpeted fluorescent
lit hallway in which to roam at all hours of the night. [laughter]. At Microsoft he found his ideal
habitat. When Microsoft built their newest campus, they made it the home of LG’s team. In
the atrium of his new building there's a sandwich shop with a sign, Boar's Head finest deli
meats served here. The moment I saw that I knew we'd never see him again.” [laughter]. And
so that's just a little piece of Bernadette, so now I'm going to read a couple of more sections
which is we're going back to Sue Lynn now. So now at the time of this, Sue Lynn works for LG
and he starts out being unbelievably rude to her but then they start bonding, let's call it. This is
before they bond in that way, but this is as they're on the road to bonding [laughter]. So this is
Sue Lynn to Audrey. "Audrey, you want to be transported back? Well buckle your seatbelt. I
just had the most devastating conversation with LG Branch and you'll be shocked to learn what
I just did. It's gossip about Bernadette incidentally. I'd put LG in a conference room for an 11
a.m. all hands. I was running around fulfilling laptop requests, expediting furniture exchanges,
authorizing battery orders. I even found a missing ball for the foosball game. All I can say
about life at Mr. Softy is when it rains it pours. When I got to my office, did I mention that I
finally have a window office? No less than six coworkers told me that LG had come by looking
for me in person. He'd written a note on my door for everyone to see asking if we could have
lunch. He signed it EB, but some joker had come by and changed it to E dog, one of his many
nicknames. As I headed out he appeared at my door wearing shoes for once. ‘I thought we
could bicycle,’ he said. It was such a nice day we decided to get some sandwiches at the deli
downstairs and bike to a nice spot off-campus. Because I'm new to Samantha 2,” that's the
name of their team, “I didn't realize we had a dedicated fleet of bicycles. LG is quite an acrobat.
He put one's foot on the pedal and skated along with the other and then swung it over the seat.
I haven't been on a bike in years and I'm afraid it showed. ‘Is something wrong?’ LG said when
I veered off the path and onto the lawn ” I'm sorry. I think that's so funny that someone can't
even ride a bike. See look, I crack myself up if not you [laughter] for some reason, the idea of
her just like getting on a bike and it just like going onto the lawn. [laughter]. I'll just say that
line again, we're not just whorishly making myself laugh. “Is something wrong?’ LG said when I
veered off the path and onto the lawn.’ ‘I think the handlebars are loose,’ I said. It was the
damnedest thing. I couldn't keep the bike pointing straight. As I got back on LG stood on his
bike with both feet on the pedals and jiggled so he didn't fall over. Do you think that's easy?
Try it sometime. I finally got the hang of it and we zoomed along. I'd forgotten the freedom
that comes with riding a bicycle. The wind was fresh against my face. The sun was shining and
the trees were still dripping from the storm. We rode through the commons where people
were taking their lunch outside and enjoying the sunshine and the Seahawks cheerleaders who
were doing a demonstration on the soccer field. I could feel the curious eyes upon me. Who's
that? What's she doing with LG Branch?” And now they talk about Bernadette for a while. And
now she finishes up by saying this; this is the ride home. “The sky was black again except for a
brilliant white cloud patch where rays of sunshine broke through. We rode in a darling
neighborhood of little bungalows cuddled together.” I actually don't think there are any around
here. I just made that part up [laughter]. And I think she says you can see like Washington. No.
Actually I took that egregious piece of misinformation out. Okay. [laughter]. “I love the gray
green putty colors against the leafless cherry trees and Japanese maples. I could feel the
crocus, daffodil and tulip bulbs under ground gaining strength, patiently enduring our winter,
waiting to bust forth for another glorious Seattle spring. I held up my hand and whooshed it
through the thick healthy air. What other city has given birth to the jumbo jet, the internet
super store, the personal computer, the cellular phone, online travel, grunge music, the big-box
store, good coffee? Where else could somebody like me ride bikes along with the man with the
fourth most watched TED Talk? I started laughing. ‘What's wrong?’ LG asked. ‘Oh nothing.’ I
was remembering how crushed I was when my father couldn't afford to send me to USC and
instead I had to go to the UW. I'd hardly had been out of Washington State and I still have
never even been in New York City. Suddenly, I didn't care. Let everyone else travel all over the
world. What they're searching for in Los Angeles and New York and beyond is something I
already have right here in Seattle. I want it all to myself.” And then -- I'll do one final piece
which I think is kind of, the people always ask me about this. This has a few pieces in it that
people are curious about. This is again from Sue Lynn to Audrey. “Audrey, this morning I got
on the connector at my usual stop and settled into a seat in the back. LG boarded a few stops
later looking like he hadn't slept. He lit up when he saw me. I think he'd forgotten I'd signed us
up for the same connector. Did you know he's from a prominent family in Philadelphia? Not
that he would come out and say such a thing, but as a boy he spent all of his summers in
Europe. I was embarrassed to admit that I'd never left the United States. ‘We'll have to change
that, won't we?’ he said. Don't jump to any conclusions Audrey. He said that rhetorically. It's
not like he's planning on taking me on a trip to Europe or anything [laughter]. He went to
boarding school. On that topic it seems you and I were simply misinformed. People like me
and you who are born in Seattle and went to the UW, we lack the, well, I don't want to use the
word sophistication, but we lack the something to understand this broader worldview. When
LG asked about me I was flustered because I've led such a dull life. The only thing I could think
of that is remotely interesting is how my father went blind when I was seven and that I had to
take care of him. ‘No kidding?’ LG said. ‘So you communicated in sign language?’ [laughter].
‘Only when I was feeling cruel,’ I retorted [laughter]. LG was confused. ‘He was blind,’ I said,
‘not deaf.’ We both broke up laughing. Someone quipped, ‘What is this, the Belltown
connector?’ It's an inside joke. The Belltown connector is the notoriously raucous, much more
so than the Queen Ann connector. So it was a combination of get a room and a reference to
what fun they have on the Belltown connector. I'm not sure my explanation helps you get the
humor; maybe you had to be there. We turned to the subject of work. LG was anxious about
the amount of time he was taking off for Christmas.” And now they talk a little bit about that.
So I think I'm going to stop here for now. This is just, and now I'll talk a little bit about, about
how this Microsoft piece came out, because I wanted to write this book because of the
Bernadette Fox character, because that really was what I was going through. I moved from Los
Angeles. I'd been a TV writer. I had a whole context of life going on and I just assumed that I'd
move up to Seattle where we knew nobody and that I would just kind of move here and make
friends and everything would pick up where it left off. And I moved here and was just, I don't
know, how to… I kind of do know how to explain it, but it's too personal and boring, but I really
did not feel welcome here. I felt like nobody got me. I felt just really scared and shut out, kind
of socially from Seattle and so I write about that in the book, the Seattle freeze and all of the
stuff, you know, people talk about this, but I really experienced it. I had no idea. And I kind of
thought I was going crazy and instead of taking responsibility for myself, I just decided that I
hated Seattle. And so it was very, it was bad. It was a bad mental state to be in, but I at least
recognized that it is funny [laughter] for someone to… You know, I wasn't writing. I never
thought I'd write again and instead of just like dealing with that, I instead hated an entire city of
people I didn't even know. It was easier than looking inward. And so I came up with this crazy
character in Bernadette Fox and my daughter goes to Meridian, that school in Wallingford. We
live in Belltown. My daughter goes to Meridian, and when I first moved here I was thumbing
through the Meridian parent handbook and I was really surprisedat all of the Microsoft.com email addresses and I just assumed that that meant that EarthLink.net or, you know, yahoo.com
or something. I didn't understand that it meant that those people work at Microsoft and so I
was trying to make the book as authentic as I could and so I knew I wanted the husband to be in
tech because, see -- Blaze, are you here? Blaze isn't here. He didn't come. No I didn't think he
would. So Blaze, no okay, so Blaze is my friend. Do you guys know Blaze? You're nodding?
How do you pronounce his last name?
>>: Blaze [indiscernible] is in Europe getting a TED Talk.
>> Maria Semple: Oh he is? Okay. [laughter]. Okay. So good. So how do you pronounce his
last name?
>>: Acquevaviacas [phonetic].
>> Maria Semple: Okay, so that [laughter]. That last name that he just said. Okay. So Blaze I
had met before we moved to Seattle, before we even thought about moving to Seattle at the
TED conference because my boyfriend and I would go and it was really fun and when my, when
our daughter was just six months old, we were checking into the hotel and next to us was this
cool guy and his wife and they had a baby, and we were kind of joking about we were the only
two people stupid enough to bring a baby to a TED conference, but we were all there and we
just became, hey you with the baby across the room type thing. And they were friendly and
then he gave a TED Talk, the photo synth one, the first one he did. And it was really, it was like
hey, that's my friend the dad, and now he's getting it TED Talk. And I can say this because I told
his wife. This is really pretty open. I found Blaze incredibly smart and attractive and I just
thought that he was so cool. I couldn't, because I know show business people. I didn't know
these tech people, and I thought that he was just so charming and so I thought what if I make
the dad like Blaze, right? But by the time we moved up here I'd lost touch with him. This was
really just a four-year-old impression that I had of Blaze. And so I, you know, went on the
TED.com and looked at the TED Talk and thought it was funny about the fourth most watched
TED Talk and, you know, I just thought that was a funny marker. Because in the TED world it's
such currency, these TED Talks and I just thought that it was funny to kind of write about that.
And so he was always the one that I had in my mind a little bit, just vaguely. If I thought okay if
I'm going to do Microsoft it should be kind of like that guy I met down in, at the TED
conference. And then I realized I needed the, at the time I thought the word was secretary. I
needed the secretary, the mom to work at Microsoft and I had never been out here. I didn't
know anybody, you know, who work here and so I was at the ballet one night and this guy next
to me during intermission got his phone out and started noodling around on the phone. And I
think we'd been chatting before that and I said oh, what's that? Because I had never seen this
thing before and he said oh, it's a Windows Phone, and I said oh I didn't know that they made
Windows Phone's. And he said well it's a prototype and it comes out in a month, or it's being a
released whenever, you know, shortly. And I was right in my writing mode and I was like ready
to just write this stuff and I said hey, you work at Microsoft. And he said yes, and I said I'm a
novelist and I'm writing this book and I really want the character to be, to work at Microsoft. At
this point I didn't know what the job or name of what he would be and Saba [phonetic], does
anyone know Saba? From the Windows Phone, right? Okay. So Saba who is in Europe also.
They're all in Europe, my people [laughter], my two guys. And so Saba then within two or three
days I was out here on the campus with him and all my Microsoft stuff -- I mean people think
that I spent a lot of time here, but really I was only here for about two hours. It was the only
time I've ever been here. And he just showed me around and basically every single thing in the
book that I've read to you was just from that two hour little meeting with, going to the visiting
center, going to the Commons, going to his office. The Seahawks cheerleaders weren't there
that day, but there was a poster up saying, you know -- I wanted to call them the SeaGals which
is what they're called but if this, I felt like if this was a book going out across the country they
wouldn't know what the SeaGals was so I hated to have to call them the Seahawks
cheerleaders. And there was stuff about the dunk tank. I don't no, I just started absorbing all
of this stuff, basically posters all over. And so I, I just thought I'll write about this because it
seems like what people in Seattle do his work at Microsoft, because I didn't know that really.
And so I was really happy to be, to find Saba and he then read several drafts of the novel. And
in fact, this is an arc. This is right before, I think I did two little passes after this. And I think that
he -- if there are some little things that are wrong in terms of terminology, he fixed them for the
final book because he read through and I said no detail too small. I want it all exactly right. And
so he was a great friend, and is now a great friend. And he really helped me with all the details
in the book, so like I say, this is the room where probably you all think I got the details wrong,
but I'm telling you, out in the world they think I got the details right [laughter] so that will just
be our little secret. And so I was very happy to -- and the weird thing about Microsoft is I didn't
think that I was doing anything that interesting, let's say, and I thought okay. I just want to
make it real, but people around the country and around the world, I mean, this book, just this
morning just sold Polish rights. I sold it in 25 countries and almost every letter that -- you know,
when you sell foreign rights and they want you to go to their publishing house, they send you a
letter explaining what they love about the book and all of these foreign editors have -Microsoft has been in the first paragraph of what they love about the book and why they think
they'll sell the book so well because I -- they see it as this window into this very mysterious
world. And, you know, you don't want to say hey, don't listen to me; I've been there for two
hours [laughter]. Like I really don't have the secrets. But they seem to think that the book
represents some kind of taking the curtain off of Microsoft, which I'm sorry. I really, and I didn't
think that I was doing that and I didn't bill myself that way. I just thought if I'm going to do it, I
want to try to get the details right, but you all work in a very fascinating place is basically what
I'm trying to tell you to the rest of the world. And so okay, that's it. So that's what I'm going to
say about Microsoft and about the book. And I'm wondering if there's any questions. Yes?
>>: Was this, writing this book a form of therapy for you? Have you come to terms with Seattle
now? [laughter] or are you still…
>> Maria Semple: Yeah. Well see, I love Seattle now and in fact, I even loved Seattle as I was
writing the book, but the thing is I was kind of stuck with the character who hated Seattle. And
by the end of the book she loves Seattle, you know, and the only pro-Seattle stuff is that little
piece that I read of Sue Lynn’s which actually I think is valid. You know, at the end of the bike
ride, about the weather and how beautiful it is. I mean, I couldn't make it too poetic because
she's not a poet, but you know, I think there's something beautiful about the winters in
knowing, and just how grey it is and then knowing how beautiful it's going to be and it's kind of
your little secret, you know, that you know how fabulous it's about to become and when it all
goes into bloom. And then at the end, Bernadette speaks quite rapturously and kind of
poetically in the last two or three pages about Seattle. And I knew that that's where I was
headed, and as I was writing the book I was really liking Seattle, but I also recognized how
irrational and specific and funny my hatred of Seattle was and so I just wanted to get it down as
soon as I could. You know, it's nothing that I'm proud of now as I stand here, you know, and
talk about it. It was really just a low point of my life, but, it's something I'm ashamed of even,
you know, just that I really couldn't get it together. But like I said, I'm a writer and I'm a
comedy writer and, you know, so I just recognized that there was something that was funny
about that fundamentally. And so writing the book wasn't exactly cathartic. I mean I think the
fact that, the cathartic thing was finding when I understood that what I was doing… In all of
this, while I was in this bad state I talked to a friend back in LA and I was going on and on and on
and on about how miserable I was here and how I didn't like anyone and just running down the
place and its people. Just trust me. It was not pretty, and he said to me, Maria, you're a writer
and writers must write and if you don't write you will become a menace to society. [laughter].
And that's a big line in the book that somebody tells Bernadette, and so in that moment when
he said you'll be a menace to society, in that moment I knew my book. It was like flashed in my
head. I thought me in 15 years, if I don't move forward, what would my life be? You know, I
would be so crippled by social anxiety I wouldn't be able to have interactions with people. I
would be totally alienated from my boyfriend, you know, the husband in the book. But at the
same time I had this daughter who I was just totally in love with and I thought that I would still
really love my daughter. You know, that would be the only good thing in my life and so I just
wrote a book about that, in 15 years what menace to society looks like. And so the therapeutic
thing was deciding to turn, you know, lemons into lemonade, to put it stupidly. And in that
moment when I kind of said I'm a writer and I'm going to do what I love, that's the thing that
solves all your problems. And I'm sure a lot of people here can relate to that, you know, when
you're doing what you love the perspective changes very quickly. You know, then the person
that cuts you off doesn't seem that bad, you know, in traffic, but if you're miserable then you
just want to chase that person down and, you know, they've ruined your life and so it was that
shift that really helped me. Question, yes?
>>: What message would you like your readers of your book to walk away with?
>> Maria Semple: Interesting, the message that I -- well I think that if there was a message it
would be to move forward. I think just off of my last answer. I think that if there's any
message, novelists won't really talk about, the good novelists don't talk about messages and
they don't think about messages, but what I will say is that I knew in the beginning of the book
my character was stuck and I knew my book would end when she had moved forward and
become an artist again. You know, and so that to me was hopefully what the book is kind of
about or something. It's about, it's the journey from not doing what you love to doing what you
love and how doing what you love heals. So I think if that's as close to a theme or something,
you know, that I can, that I can come up with. Yes?
>>: A lot of the humor in the book revolves around the school and the parents and their
obsession with, you know, participating enough but also building up a stature at the school. It
sounds like your daughter is still in a private school?
>> Maria Semple: Oh yes. So the thing is, okay, so there's this crazy school -- well, it's actually
kind of a normal good school. You know, basically the school and Microsoft, what I'd say about
both of them is that they're, I actually portray them as good places. There's just crazy people
running around them, you know, which I think I'm sure you all know your share of crazy people
running around Microsoft. So basically, I actually think the school is a good school. There's
nothing the school does that's bad. They have a good kind of -- I was just talking to my
boyfriend about it today, you know, about the crazy curriculum that my, you know, it's all, it's
not crazy but it's all just, it's all just super PC in a way that I was never taught, you know, and it's
all the wells in Africa and raising money and, you know, it's all that type of thing that we never
did. And its community and its all this anti-bullying stuff which I guess is going on all around
the, every school now does that. You know, character traits they're kind of teaching, you know,
and so -- yeah, my daughter goes to a private school and I love the private school that she goes
to and I didn't, again, it's going to sound disingenuous, but I didn't really think that I was writing
a parody of private -- it just may be -- I didn't think I was writing a parody of private school and
it might speak to the fact that perhaps I didn't have a good command of the tone or something,
but I was trying to write about school and then I just, I can't help myself. I then have to be
funny about it, but I'm a big fan of these super liberal private schools. I see no problem with
them. But you know, there's some funny details in the school and it's, I was going through all
my papers of my drafts of this and I found a flyer in there just yesterday in all my boxes of
papers and one of them was this handout for global studies day where the fourth grade was
debating the pros and cons of the Chinese occupation of Tibet. [laughter]. Which I wrote about
in the book if anyone remembers that part in where the daughter says that's how PC our school
is. It's so PC it turns around and comes full circle so they have kids debating the pros of the
Chinese occupation of Tibet. You know, it's just so extreme. But stuff like that, you know, you
see those things and it's kind of funny, but I don't really mean to be going after it in such a
mean way. I hope I'm not. Yes?
>>: I really enjoyed the Antarctica part.
>> Maria Semple: Oh yes, the Antarctica.
>>: I wondered why you who your resource was for that, or if you spent two hours in
Antarctica? [laughter].
>> Maria Semple: I spent three weeks in Antarctica, so at the end they all end up in Antarctica.
And I went on the exact same cruise, right? It was already booked when I came up with the
idea for the book and I didn't -- and I actually think it's pretty normal to go to Antarctica
because I'm a really big traveler and anyone who kind of likes travel, you know about Antarctica
and you get the Lindblad catalogs and you think I want to go there someday and it didn't seem
that weird to me. But we had signed up for maybe in February for the following December and
just anecdotally people would say what are you doing over Christmas. We're going to
Antarctica. And there like you're what? And, you know, nobody could believe it. That that was
the craziest thing they'd ever heard and so I thought okay. Well why don't I point my family
from the beginning of the book to Antarctica because it's apparently interesting to people. You
know, I mean I obviously am going because I'm interested in, but I didn't know how kind of
weird it sounded and so I didn't know how it would play out or if they would ever actually get to
Antarctica, but I thought it’s original and it's of interest and so when I went down there I just
fell in love with it, the way Bernadette did and so I wanted to include it in the book, and so I did.
Yes?
>>: [indiscernible] Microsoft in this [indiscernible] do you think about other companies like
Amazon or Starbucks? Why did you choose Microsoft?
>> Maria Semple: Okay. So Starbucks or Amazon, see I thought that because Blaze was my guy,
I needed it to be tech and I wanted to do TED. You know, I thought TED was kind of funny,
again in the same Antarctica way, that we would go to the TED conference and it's very
different when you are there and it's kind of interesting and I thought oh. If I can do a little
piece about backstage at TED, it's going to be interesting for the reader, you know, so I needed
the guy to be in the tech world. So therefore, no Starbucks, no Costco, no Boeing. And Amazon
I thought about, but I felt it would be too inside and kind of meta to write a book about Amazon
and I really don't like Amazon and so I felt like [laughter] I felt like yeah, good. I didn't want to
give them real estate in my book [laughter]. And I just, and also I didn't know that I -- you don't
want to be the writer, you just don't want to be the novelist who writes about Amazon. Then
it's all like you ever, what do you think about Amazon, and then I can't control myself and I'll
say I hate them. And then you don't want to be that person, you know, and so I just thought
let's just stay away from Amazon and pretend it doesn't exist because, you know, it just felt like
a writer writing about, a novelist writing about Amazon it just felt like too naval gazing kind of,
you know? So I didn't think it would be interesting. Yes?
>>: I absolutely love the book. I have a question about something earlier in your career,
Arrested Development.
>> Maria Semple: Arrested Development, yes.
>>: Have you seen Season 4?
>> Maria Semple: Yes. I seen the first three or four episodes, I'd say of Season 4 and I'm frankly
surprised that they make any sense at all because I feel like the show is on a trajectory of
making less and less sense. I was there in year three and I had no idea what was going on most
of the time in the rewrite room. As the people who have read this book, I mean I really pride
myself on being able to complicate a plot, as complicated as the big boys. You know, I think I'm
better at it than those people, honestly, on Arrested Development. I mean I think that's my
real, my real strength is being able to just plant stuff that you don't know that I'm planting it
and then it comes back, right? Look, I'm not tooting my own horn. I'm just saying that this is
something that I know I can do. I'd be in that rewrite room. It would be like panic that
someone would ask me what you think should happen now? Because I'd be like I don't know
what anyone's talking about. It doesn't make any sense. Like what are their motivations? And
I felt like it was very hard for me to write on that show. Now that said, I apparently did a good
job on it, you know, because they all like me there and I guess I just, whenever I look at them I
can't even look at Season 3 without having PTSD. [laughter]. But anytime I have seen it on TV,
so there's my joke; there's my joke, so, you know, there's stuff… I, for some reason in my mind I
seem to think it was making less and less sense every year. Did people agree with that? That
the seasons got less coherent as they went along? No? Yes. Okay. So you know what I'm
saying. So then you just think that if everything goes the way it has been then Season 4 would
really make no sense and it would just be like a jumble. But I actually think it's -- there's some
really funny stuff in that. I think it's, I was really impressed with, there's some really good weird
jokes. I think a lot of it is referring back to the first three seasons. I think there's a lot of just
like naming funny runs from the past which is, I can't -- and I just barely remember those runs.
But I guess this is for super fans, the whole Netflix thing. And then there are a lot of them, so,
you know, and then they seem to have done well. It was, yeah, it was fun. I liked it, but it was
just a crazy year of my life. Yes?
>>: A couple of online questions. I don't know what the first one is so you'll have to tell me.
Where did you get the idea for the group VAV.
>> Maria Semple: Oh VAV, all my favorite thing. [laughter]. That was a Sue Lynn. I didn't read
this. So VAV, I love that. Thank you mister disembodied online person. [laughter]. Okay. So
VAV is the thing that Sue Lynn, the admin, it's her support group and VAV stands for Victims
Against Victimhood. [laughter]. And so I like it because it's kind of a gross -- it sounds gross
VAV so already I'm loving it. But so Victims Against Victimhood is this thing where I got it
because I wanted her to have a support group and I didn't want it to just be Al-Anon or -because I love Al-Anon too much and I didn't want to just make fun of Al-Anon, but I wanted it
to be an Al-Anon type -- I wanted to do Al-Anon but without having to bring Al-Anon down in
the mud, so I came up with this thing. I wish I could find the passage, but so what it is is it's for
people who are victims but they don't want to be treated like victims, but they are victims. You
know, and so it just keeps going on and on and on, you know, the way she describes it and so
the reason why I thought of that was because I like to read small-town newspapers online and
you just, I like the little stories and stuff. You can get a lot of interesting facts about human
existence from these little newspapers and it was a small-town paper where a yoga teacher had
apparently, you know, giving a woman a correction and a downward dog had reached into her
yoga pants or something, you know, and so she was suing him and there was a lawsuit going on
and it had gone to trial and the yoga teacher was there and then when they called up the
woman to testify she wouldn't testify because her lawyer said it would be re-victimizing her.
And I just thought that was really funny to be re-victimized and so I thought I want to do
something with being a victim here, but because a lot of things these people who are victims
and they talk like they're victims and you say oh I'm sorry you are a victim. I'm not a victim!
You know, and it's like, what is it? I don't under… And so I just, there's just something funny to
me about that, and so that's what VAV is, and it's her insane support group and its one of my
favorite things. That was a real weird -- that sounds like something out of Arrested
Development. I mean, that could be on that show. And they have crazy acronyms for
everything that don't even really track, which is what I think is funny. I don't know. It's just a
really second-rate support group. [laughter]. Yeah. Yes?
>>: So we discussed this book in a book club. We had some really strong opinions against LG.
>> Maria Semple: Against LG, yeah.
>>: Because we thought that he sort of gave up on the marriage and then we had some guys in
the group who thought that it just happened organically and that maybe he wasn't as at fault as
some of the other people are thinking. What was your perspective?
>> Maria Semple: On LG?
>>: And the marriage sort of…
>> Maria Semple: On the marriage, well, okay. So it, you know, I think that -- I'm much more
down on Bernadette myself. See, it's so weird. I didn't think that people would like her
particularly, because I didn't really like her. I don't think she's likable, you know, and I think
that if in the marriage that's gone wrong between the two of them, I really think it's her fault
entirely. I think that he -- because she's a liar. You know, he's not a liar. I guess later he has a
thing, but that's like way after the fact. You know, I think that she leads this secret life of, you
know, over sharing with her personal assistant in India and like that's her emotional life is this
person she pays $.75 an hour to to order takeout from Daniel's Broiler and she acts like she's
doing all of this stuff herself. And so to me she's the problem in the marriage. Now, but what I
will say is that when you write novels or at least when I write novels, I should say, is that I think
you start being, you begin and you have an interest in certain characters. So the characters
that I really was interested in were Bernadette and the daughter Bee, right, those were
obviously -- I mean, I'm saying obviously but those were my ways in. And I also loved Audrey.
She was real easy to write. And I loved Sue Lynn. She was really easy to write. Now, the
husband over the many drafts of the book that I wrote before I tried to get an agent or anything
for it, everyone who read it, and these were just friends of mine who are not writers, just kind
of moms who were in book groups and I was saying will you read this and tell me what you
think. Everyone had a problem with the LG character, and I think it's because I didn't kind of
care about him enough in the beginning because he wasn't my way into the book. You know,
and so I spent two, three, four, five drafts trying to bring him up to the level of the others and
then I think one of the problems with the book -- I have a compulsion to just rip apart my book
which I'm sure most novelists don't do when they give talks about it, but I think that one of the
kind of bodies that's buried in the book, is that Bernadette’s been kind of crazy for 20 years.
Let's call it 15 years up in Seattle, and I don't know what this marriage has been like for 15
years. And I kind of -- I mean look. And you didn't want to read about it believe me. I didn't
want to write about it so it's not even like I should have had like oh the summary of 15 years of
marriage, but I -- and I think that it's a little unclear about how the marriage went off the track
because I didn't write about it in the book. You know, this is being made into a movie and the
screenwriters, these guys who wrote 500 days of Summer, just e-mailed me desperately, like
what went on in their marriage? And I'm like, I don't know. That's your problem now, you
know? [laughter]. And so I mean I think there is, I think there is, I mean I think charitably it's
room for discussion. Uncharitably, it's like maybe I didn't do my work. See, why am I saying
that publicly? Okay, yes?
>>: Didn't the home kind of…
>> Maria Semple: Yeah, the house. Yeah, there was a lot of kind of symbolism to what happen
to Bernadette, yeah.
>>: [indiscernible] description of the place she chose to live in Seattle is, I just thought that kind
of represented the…
>> Maria Semple: Exactly. It represents it exactly, the decay. And it's kind of gone wild. Now it
seems like times up, that everyone has a job to do. One more. Yes?
>>: What's wrong with Amazon?
>> Maria Semple: Oh okay. So why don't I like Amazon? You know, I don't like Amazon
because I feel like it's destroying life as we know it [laughter] and I think that that's their
mission and I think that that's what they are. They're picking off sectors of the economy one by
one by one destroying the middle class, destroying life as we know it. I really think that. I
wrote an op-ed piece for the Seattle Times in December about it, which didn't win me any
friends at Amazon [laughter], so but I feel like I've come out. I'm one of the few novelists who
will come out against Amazon, but I think that, you know, and I wrote this op-ed piece because
he was trying, my daughter had a birthday party to go to. There was a, I wanted to get a toy
and I went to this toy store and I went into the Wallingford Center to buy a toy and the person
said oh, no. This place has been closed for six months. It went out of business. And I realized
that's my experience of Seattle and my neighborhoods are that place is out of business. That
place is out of business. That place is out of business, and the thing that they all have in
common is that I started buying that stuff on Amazon. And I felt like it's my fault, so for the last
year and a half I've been boycotting Amazon. You know, I canceled my account. I don't do
anything there and I wrote this op-ed piece for the Seattle Times to try to encourage people to
do it themselves and to realize it's not that hard. You just, hey, it's what we were all doing five
years ago is you go into a store and you buy something. It's not, everyone acts like I could
never do that. You know, it's so inconvenient [laughter]. And as I said in my op-ed piece, you
could get sex from a hooker, but most people wouldn't enjoy it. And that's what I feel like. I
feel like it's getting sex from a hooker, Amazon is. [laughter]. [applause]. On that crude joke,
I'll say goodbye. Thank you. [applause].