S5 EP242 | Robert Gwaltney and the Dark Magic of Southern Gothic

Hello, My Happy People,

If you love Southern Gothic, magical realism, old folklore, and stories where the line between the living and the dead gets a little blurry, you are going to want to meet my guest today, Robert Gwaltney.

Some of you may recognize Robert’s name. Shortly after I interviewed him, I spoke with Amy Pence, author of Yellow, and she told me about the role Robert played as a mentor while she navigated publishing her first novel. I had literally just interviewed him, so hearing Amy talk about how much his guidance had meant to her gave me another glimpse into the person behind the books.

Robert joined me to talk about his latest novel, Sing Down the Moon, a story filled with family legacies, ghosts, a mysterious fig tree, and wonderfully dark Southern folklore. We also talked about his Southern roots, magical realism, the pressure of following a successful debut, and the writing community. And because this is Book Banter, somehow sweet tea, falling iguanas, and the possibility of haints wandering around Germany also made it into the conversation.

Once you've listened to today's episode, don't forget to check out the BTS blog at BurckhardtBooks.com/blog for more from my interview with Robert.

Robert's Website

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Transcript

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Dianne Burckhardt 0:01

You're listening to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, your Book Talk podcast. Join me every Wednesday for real conversations with authors and publishing insiders, where you get to connect with the humans behind the books you love. Let's get on with our show today. Well, hello, my happy people. Today is September 30th, 2026, and we have reached that wonderful point this season where our fall finds are starting to give way to our hauntingly good reads. I cannot think of a better author to bridge the two than today's guest. We have also finally reached an interview that I have been teasing since about August 5th. If you listened to episode 234 with Amy Pence, the author of Yellow, you may remember her talking about a fellow author who had been a wonderful mentor to her as she navigated publishing her first novel. She also gave us her opinion of his latest book. Well, today, you finally get to meet the author himself. Our guest is a Southern Gothic novelist whose work blends folklore, magical realism, family legacy, and that wonderfully unsettling space between the living and the dead. His debut novel, The Cicada Tree, introduced readers to his distinctive take on Southern Gothic fiction. And his latest release carries that tradition. And today we get to learn more about the author behind those stories. And as always, don't forget to stick around until the very end, because I will be telling you who's coming up next week and giving you some more information about the wonderful finds from our trip to Scotland at the beginning of September. And one thing I forgot to mention last week, I also had a birthday and leveled up another year, and so did my dog. And I'll tell you a little bit about all of that as well. But that's enough blather for me for right now. Let's get right to today's interview. Please welcome to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart, Southern Gothic author, Robert Gualtney. Please tell everyone who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

First of all, thank you for having me. My name is Robert Gualtney. By day I am vice president of operations for a nonprofit in Atlanta, Georgia. And in all the hours between, I'm a novelist.

Dianne Burckhardt 2:21

According to your bio, you actually grew up in Georgia. How was growing up in Georgia with that southern influence, how did that affect your storytelling?

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Well, I think that it those early years certainly. I think that had I not grown up in a small rural southwest Georgia town, being a bit of a peculiar artistic boy, I don't think I would have probably possessed the sensibility to be a writer. I think like most creative types as a young person, and even still today, I feel like I sort of live on the fringe. I'm an observer, a watcher. And so it certainly has had lasting impact on my voice as a writer.

Dianne Burckhardt 3:01

Now I know in your bio it listed your day job as the vice president of Easter Seals in Georgia. That is an amazing job. And I know it has to include supporting so many families and children. That has got to be demanding. How on earth do you balance that kind of a day job with writing such complex novels?

SPEAKER_01 3:21

It's very challenging trying to balance my writing time. But I think that my creative life actually feeds the work, makes me a better servant leader in the work that I do in nonprofit, especially serving children that are living in poverty along with their families. But I wake up very early in the mornings when I'm in the midst of a project, about 4:30. I write for a couple of hours, 4:30 to 6:30. Then I get dressed, get myself ready for work, and then I'm a weekend writing warrior. So I do a lot of writing over the weekend, Saturdays, Sundays. I'm up by 7 in the morning at my writing desk by 7:30 with coffee in hand. I can write from about 7:30 until early afternoon, maybe six, six hours, and then I'm done.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:07

I have so much respect for authors who can get up early in the morning and write. I am one of those people that when I wake up, it takes me like two hours to fully become conscious. Now, if I have time from like midnight to 4 a.m., I can write all night long. But trying to get up early to do it, that is not me.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

It's hard. It's interesting. Um, I have some writer friends that are early morning writers and some that can write later in the day. For me, not much is going to happen later on in the day, especially after I've had um a regular work day. But for me, I think I'm more creative, fresh from the sleep state. And I'm oftentimes able to work through potential plot obstacles or to be able to find my creative way in the early hours of the morning.

Dianne Burckhardt 4:52

Your first book, The Cicada Tree, was an incredibly successful debut. What was it like for you training to follow that success with Sing Down the Moon?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Terrifying.

Dianne Burckhardt 5:04

I would imagine.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

My my mom, very early on, said, you know, she she calls me Robbie. My family still still all call me Robbie, my my my boyhood name. And she says, you know, a lot of people like the cicada tree. People are going to be expecting a lot from you next time around. So I think well, I think sophomore novels in general can be challenging for writers. I think there's certain expectations in place. And you're and for me, you know, I I hope that I continue to grow from from book to book. But getting this second book out, you know, I think that in the back of my, I didn't think about the reader really when I was writing the book. I really wanted to write the book that I wanted to write, hoping along the way that that people would like it as well. But then I began to worry, hoping that those individuals that like the Cicada Tree wouldn't be disappointed with this second book. Because though it is southern gothic fiction, um, it really is different in tone. You know, that I've I upped the ante with magical realism. And there are these these threads of world building and fantasy in this second book.

Dianne Burckhardt 6:10

I don't know for anybody who's spent time in like the Midwest and the South and the US, cicadas are such an enigma. I mean, there's like so much folklore and just traditions around them when they finally come out.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Yes. Yeah. So the cicada tree really, in to some degree, was inspired by a brood of cicadas that made its way through when I was probably in the third or fourth grade. And I don't recall ever having experienced anything like that since. And we were just covered up in cicadas, nothing like the novel. Um, you know, that was sort of a cataclysmic plague of cicadas in that book. But I was very much influenced by that experience I had very early on, the summer of my third or fourth grade year.

Dianne Burckhardt 6:56

One thing that's really impressive about that too is you have over a thousand reviews on Amazon.com and on Goodreads. I mean, for so many authors, it's so hard to get a decent number of reviews on any social media. And that is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Thank you. I do not know how that happened. But I'm grateful for it.

Dianne Burckhardt 7:18

Well, and even your second book is already on a good trajectory.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah, I think so. Um I'm I'm pleased with how things are going. You know, I I worked well, what was some things are a little easier the second time around. You know, you do have the beginnings of a of a humble readership. You have the beginnings of a platform. It's not your it's not your first time at the rodeo. So it's some things are a little easier, but uh in some regards, I think that uh that things can also be a little more challenging as well second time around.

Dianne Burckhardt 7:51

Now, many of your stories explore the line between the living and the dead. What is it that fascinates you about that topic?

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Oh gosh, well, I think I like the idea, first of all, from a southern perspective, uh, how beauty and decay live alongside one another. I I like the idea of these fine lines between things, you know, beauty, decay, pleasure, pain, the living and the dead. And uh the the the living and dead, those things, you know, my fascination with with the uh folklore of the Gullighi and African tradition and how that made its way into Southern consciousness, um, yeah, uh really was the seed for me beginning to explore that thin veil between the living and the dead.

Dianne Burckhardt 8:39

And what is it about the magical realism? I mean, because these kind of go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

They do. It's interesting. Very early on, when I was trying to figure out who I was going to be as a writer, I wasn't trying to find my voice. And and a voice isn't a forever thing, you know, that you find once and you put away in a box. It's something that you continue to develop. But when I finally decided that, well, I'm just going to attempt to write the story that I've been looking for my whole life and haven't been able to find. And I didn't set out and proclaim, oh, I'm going to be a Southern author, and it will be gothic in nature, and there will be elements of magical realism. It just so happened that when I stepped back from having begun writing the cicada tree, that's who I seem to be on the page.

Dianne Burckhardt 9:25

Those are some of my favorite topics, anyway, in in stories. I love, I love Southern Gothic. I love magic realism. So this has got like all of them.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Thank you. Well, it it's what I enjoy reading. It's it's what interests me, it's what piques my curiosity, it's what keeps me keeps me going. And I think that, you know, magical realism for me is really sort of an element of hope. I can't, I I like the idea of um of possibility. And for me, I think magical realism, though my writing is very dark, I think it does inject some level of hope into the world through the lens of my characters.

Dianne Burckhardt 10:05

What is your process, right? Whenever you come up with an idea, how do you translate your idea onto the page?

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Well, I think that for me, uh until now, story comes to me in three waves. First, it's it's character, then it's place, you know, where where the where the story is is going to unfurl. And and in southern fiction, you know, the South itself is is always a significant character. And then it's really plot for um, so it's it's character, place, and then plot. Because once I have a sense of who the characters are, especially the protagonist, you know, you have a sense of who they are in the world, or at least who they think they are in the world and what they think that they want, and then the world that they live in. And then from there, the the story begins to make its way to me on the page. For Sing Down the Moon, very early on, I heard this sentence that made its way onto the first page, as the first sentence of the book, Saint Down the Moon. And it it's this thing I heard over and over again, and it is we are all dead here on Good Hope. And I didn't know who said it, I didn't know why they said it, but I was intrigued by that. And it just it helped propel me into the story as I found my way. So I don't know everything that's going to happen in the book from the beginning because I think that if I did, I wouldn't want to write it.

Dianne Burckhardt 11:31

Whenever you decided you wanted to start your writing career, do you have like a writing community that you actually work with and do like workshops or writing groups? I mean, what kind of support do you have?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Community early on was so important and it still is extremely important to me. In college, I took creative writing classes, uh, but I don't have an MFA. I moved to Atlanta, Georgia from Tallahassee, Florida, in in 2000. And on around 2003, I decided that I would get serious. And I had this vision of myself being a much older person, not ever having tried to write. I was very bitter about it in this vision that I had of myself. So I that frightened me, and I felt like deep down I had the potential to be a writer. So very early on in building my community, uh took a class, a fiction writing class at the Margaret Mitchell House in Georgia, just to get a sense of uh perhaps did I have what it takes to continue to attempt to be a writer. From there I joined the Atlanta Writers Club, and that's where I was able to begin to build community. And it was through those relationships at the Atlanta Writers Club that I found my way to a very small critique group. And of course, you know, my community has continued to grow, especially since uh the publication of the Cicada Tree. The writing community in Atlanta, Georgia is an amazing one. Everyone is very supportive of one another. So that community continues to grow. I do have through my writing process, and I'm a very insecure writer, but I do need to have feedback as I go along. So I have a few beta readers. I have a very small critique group that I mentioned that I'm a part of, but I have a couple of other published authors who read my work as I go. We exchange pages as well. So it's very helpful to have that sounding board.

Dianne Burckhardt 13:20

Well, if it makes you feel better, most of the authors that I talk to always say that they are very insecure about their writing. It's a common thing for all of us.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Agreed. Agreed. And uh and writing is such a lonesome endeavor. We spend so much time alone behind closed doors, and I know I do. And so it is wonderful to be able to have people who understand and are on that same journey with you.

Dianne Burckhardt 13:48

Well, and I think we just we pour so much of ourselves into our work that it's like giving a piece of ourselves for people to approve of whenever we put a new book out there.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Agree. Yeah, I always say, you know, how do you know you're any good unless someone tells you?

Dianne Burckhardt 14:04

I think now is the perfect time for you to go ahead and give us a synopsis of Sing Down the Moon.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Of course. So it is so Sing Down the Moon is told from the perspective of 16-year-old Leintine Skye. And she is bound by blood and legacy to Damascus, an ancient fig tree that grows on a Georgia coastal barrier island called Good Hope, a tree that feeds the dead and poisons the living. As Leontine's mother, Eulele, disintegrates before her very eyes, Leintine must confront a birthright that will take everything from her as it has her mother, teeth, hair, and bone. Leonine's already lost parts of herself, a hand in her memory in a happening two years prior, known as Tribulation Day. When a mysterious, handsome stranger arrives on Good Hope, Leonine's memories slowly resurface, and with those memories, the discovery of a chilling truth. Rejecting her legacy will shatter the fragile balance between the living and dead, forcing Leonine to choose. She can save the island and those she loves, or she can save herself.

Dianne Burckhardt 15:12

That's chilling. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Thank you.

Dianne Burckhardt 15:17

Now the fig tree Damascus almost becomes like a character in its own right. Where did that inspiration come from?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

So Damascus is very much a character and a central set piece for uh Sing Down the Moon. And there is this thing in the Gulagie folklore, and you see it throughout the South, these things called bottle trees, and these blue, these blue bottles that um are placed on the limbs of trees. And the folklore is such that these bottles uh attract haints, and haints being a southern ghost, a mischievous ghost, and that they find their way into these bottles and then um they're captured and they dissolve away. So when I was thinking about uh initially I would Damascus was really going to be just a bottle tree, but as the story got larger, I wanted it to be mythological in scale. So I I just sort of took the seed of that folklore and I made it my own. And Damascus turned into this enormous fig tree with these banyan-like roots that make that that meander out into the marsh, sucking the life from the farthest regions of the island. And on Damascus grow these figs, these things called seraphigs. Damascus places windshime song that lures haints across the river. And it's the uh fig trees that also attract the haints. And these haints that have this corporeal presence on the page, they they swim the sky like puffer fish, and they have these tines on their back. They wheedle their way into the middle of the seraphig, and the seraphig dissolves the haints, and when the haint has been dissolved, the fig falls away into the marsh. The sky women, Leon Tina and the women who've come before her, have discovered that from these seraphigs, these haint-infused seraphigs, they can make a highly addictive drug called redemption. Those individuals who are addicted to redemption are known as sinners. So basically, they're drug traffickers.

Dianne Burckhardt 17:22

That is amazing. I love that your stories are so complex.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Thank you. Sometimes I think they're too complex to even get them down onto the page, but but I think that that's what um that's what motivates me. You know, can I pull this story off? Can I make it happen?

Dianne Burckhardt 17:38

Well, and that's what makes you fall into them. Whenever you have a story that has so much color to it, I mean, it makes you fall into that story.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Agreed. Agreed. And it it just makes me want to keep going. And when you write a story like Sing Down the Moon, there are all of these threads, you know, and then about 60, 70% through the book, I begin to panic. Am I going to be able to gather and collect all of these threads back and make the story make sense to the reader? So that's one of the primary challenges I think of writing a complex, a complex novel.

Dianne Burckhardt 18:11

And I love that the bottle tree was an inspiration for this. That's one of my favorite things about going to visit my sister. She's lived in the south most of my life, and she's always had a bottle tree in her yard somewhere. And I've actually thought about bringing that tradition to Germany too. And if we get a house, I want one too.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

You should absolutely get one. Hants are everywhere, even in Germany, I suspect.

Dianne Burckhardt 18:34

We'll just have to explain it to our neighbors. Maybe we can get them to do it too.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

Those peculiar, those peculiar Americans with the bottles on the tree.

Dianne Burckhardt 18:43

What do you hope that a reader takes away from sing down the moon?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Well, I hope that first and foremost, that that the root that on the surface the reader will enjoy the story. And you have to really love language to enjoy Sing Down the Moon. But I also think that for those individuals, you know, who are more interested in a Laird story, there's that for sing Down the Moon as well. But I think that when it's all said and done, I think that people will realize that that sing Down the Moon, you know, is a tale of generational trauma. You know, it explores inheritance, addiction, identity, all of these things that that that that swarm and swirl around us. And it's a story about the legacies, you know, particularly in this book, The Legacies That Women Carry, The Ghosts We Inherit, and the Cost of Breaking Free.

Dianne Burckhardt 19:37

Are you working on anything new at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

I am. I'm about a third of the way through a very rough first draft of my third novel. Uh, and I'm I'm branching out. You know, my first two books are told from the perspective of female protagonists, and this story is told from the perspective of a 13-year-old boy named John Mark Alderbranch. And it is tonally similar to Sing Down the Moon. It's southern gothic elements of magical realism. But in this particular story, young John Mark Alderbranch doesn't stay in one place as my protagonists do in the first two novels. He actually travels a bit. He leaves his home in a place called Babel, Georgia, finds his way to the Oki Finoki swamp, to an internment camp called Bleakwater. And then at the end of the book, in the third act, he finds his way to the highest elevation in Georgia, the highest elevation in the world, a mountain called King David Sorrow. And the working title of the book is All the Kingdoms of the World.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:40

That sounds fascinating. When do you think you might have that one ready for publication?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Oh gosh. Well, I hope to at least I hope to at least have a solid first draft, maybe by this time next year. We will see. I'm a slow, slow writer. I labor at the line level.

Dianne Burckhardt 20:58

Oh, but there's nothing wrong with that. But you'll have to let us know when that one's ready to publish, and we'll bring you back to talk about that one as well.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Thank you. I appreciate that.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:07

Now is the time that we always like to do our five quick questions that never turn out to be quick, but I have eternal hope it will happen someday. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 21:17

I'm ready.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:18

So since you are a lifelong southerner, these are special questions for you. Question one.

unknown 21:28

Sweet tea.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Well, it is important sometimes. You know, I I I grew up drinking sweet tea. Uh, there's a I find that in restaurants it's never sweet enough. Um, but my granny Gualtney would make when I was a boy, would make us these Arnold Palmer. So it would be half lemonade, half super sweet tea. So on occasion, you know, I will I'll have an Arnold Palmer.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:51

I like those too. Those are really good.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah.

Dianne Burckhardt 21:54

Question two How important is it to take proper precautions during a winter? Falling iguana alert.

unknown 22:02

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Well, I think probably is equally important. You would address as similarly as you would in preparing for a cicada plug.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:12

They always think of it like um like large hail storm.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Yeah. Yes, yes. Exactly. I've never experienced um an iguana storm. And I don't think that I've ever really seen an iguana in person.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:25

My sister was telling me that in Florida that they can actually go through a car if they're big enough. Like it can go through the roof of a car. Or the hood of the car. So yeah, you got to make sure that your car is not under trees whenever there's a falling iguana alert.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Good to know.

Dianne Burckhardt 22:43

Now, question three. Is there one myth about southerners you would like to dispel?

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Oh gosh, I think that there are many myths about southerners, but I think that when it's all said and done, we really are all the same northerners, southerners. It's just the way that we speak, it's our frame of reference. I think that sometimes, unfortunately, people think that individuals with southern accents might not be too terribly bright. So perhaps maybe that would be one of those myths that I might like to dispel.

Dianne Burckhardt 23:11

Well, I think just with your work, you're already dispelling that one.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Thank you.

Dianne Burckhardt 23:16

Now, question four. What is one of the best things about living in the America South?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Well, I think that there's the sheer beauty of the place. You know, you and I spoke earlier before we started recording about the heat. It's very hot there in Germany. It's very hot here in the South. But, you know, there is, you know, when I was a boy, you know, in a small rural southern town, you know, there's a slower pace to life, I think, that I appreciate. Sometimes I still long for. And then, you know, there's the tradition of family. Um, so I think those things are very important. You know, there's the beauty of the language, there's the beauty of the landscape, and there's there's a strong sense of family, I think, that I most appreciate.

Dianne Burckhardt 24:01

Now, question five, we're asking everyone the same question because we're building a list to put in our year-in book buying guide for holiday shopping. In your opinion, what is the best book to movie adaptation that you have seen so far?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

I would say Michael Cunningham's The Hours, which was adapted from Michael Cunningham's Pillars of Winning novel by the same name, The Hours. It's a favorite of mine, a favorite book and a favorite film adaptation.

Dianne Burckhardt 24:31

I think that is one thing. I had absolutely forgotten that that was even a book. I remembered seeing the movie and forgot about the book, and that I kept thinking, I need to go back and read that.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

The book is brilliant. Oh my gosh, I love that book. And it's interesting because it's not, it's certainly not what I write. It's not southern in any nature, but it's strong female characters, and I love the way that these three points of view are connected over time. You know, from Virginia Wolf and her writing of her book, Mrs. Dalloway, you have the 1950s woman who is reading Mrs. Dalloway, her love unfurling, much like uh Virginia Woolf's, and then in more contemporary time, the character and her love. So I just love the way that those three timelines are intertwined. I think it was done brilliantly.

Dianne Burckhardt 25:17

Now, why don't we go ahead and remind all of our listeners who you are and where they can find your work?

SPEAKER_01 25:23

I am Robert Gualtney, an author living in the American South and Atlanta, Georgia. You can learn a little bit more about me by visiting my website, robertlgwaltney.com. I am on Facebook and Instagram. And my books are sold where all books are sold.

Dianne Burckhardt 25:38

And of course, as always, all of your information will be in the description of today's podcast with links so that people can just click and go and go buy your books.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Thank you.

Dianne Burckhardt 25:48

This has been absolutely fabulous. It's like your books are incredible. I mean, the reviews that you've been getting on the Cicada tree and the ones that you're already starting to get on Sing Down the Moon. I hope that you will keep coming back with some amazing work because I see this just stretching out for a foreseeable future for you.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.

Dianne Burckhardt 26:11

So there you have it, folks. That was my interview with the Southern Gothic author, Robert Guiltney. I really enjoyed getting the chance to finally introduce Robert to all of you after hearing Amy Pence talk about the impact he had on her as a mentor. And after talking with him myself, I think one of the things that really stood out was how naturally his southern roots, folklore, and fascination with the darker side of storytelling all find their way into his work. I also loved our conversation about the writing community and how important those connections between authors can be. I've definitely learned that firsthand doing this podcast. Now, next week our hauntingly good reads episodes officially begin, and I have an absolutely perfect guest to kick them all off. Aaron Starmer has been writing middle grade and young adult books for about 15 years with around 16 books to his name, including Spontaneous, which was adapted into a film in 2020. We'll be talking about his latest middle grade novel, You Are Now Old Enough to Hear This, along with his writing career, what it was like watching one of his stories become a movie, and why Halloween had such an influence on him as a young writer. Now I promised you a little more from our trip to Scotland, and this week I want to jump ahead to Inverness, which is actually the last place we stayed. And of course I found another bookstore there, Leaky's Bookshop. They have been buying and selling books in the Scottish Highlands for 46 years, and the shop itself is incredible. It's housed in an old church with stained glass, the old pulpit, and this enormous freestanding metal fireplace right in the middle. It's absolutely packed with books, and we found some amazing finds there about Scotland and Scottish history. Pedro even found this incredible multi-volume collection of historical letters that he desperately wanted, but there was simply no way for us to be getting them home from there. If you are ever in Inverness, Leaky's is absolutely worth a visit. Although I can pretty much guarantee you're going to be leaving with at least one book, if not more. We also took two fantastic boat trips while we were in Inverness. One was with Jacobite Loch Ness Cruises, where we finally got out onto the Loch Ness itself. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, and as usual, the people running the cruise were wonderful, kind, and so helpful. We came home with some incredible photographs. I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt as relaxed as I did as I was sitting out on the water during these cruises. There was just something about being out there surrounded by all that nature that was just incredibly peaceful. Our other boat trip was with the wildlife crew's dolphin spirit boat trips, and that was another fantastic experience. We saw all kinds of water birds, seals, and even pods of dolphins. We also passed this absolutely enormous fort right along the river that was just incredible to see, even from the boat. The crew told us about the local areas we traveled around and answered our questions, and once again everyone was just wonderful. Between the wildlife, the scenery, and the people, and all the photographs we were able to take, I cannot recommend either of these boat trips highly enough. If you find yourself in that part of Scotland, you really need to go and find these boat trips. While we were in Venice, we stayed at the coolest place. Hopefully I'm gonna say this right, the Torvian Caravan Park. We stayed in cabin two. These things are so adorable. We had our own little bathroom and kitchenette, a seating area, and a big TV, and just this clever place in the back where the table turned into another bed so we didn't have to go up a ladder to sleep in the loft. It was just so comfortable and wonderful. And one of the best finds that we had on this trip when we were inverness was right outside the entrance to the caravan park. It was a food stand called Ollie's Pops. Our cabin had a kitchen, but we were on vacation and neither Pedro nor I wanted to cook. So we walked over there and checked out the things that they have, and their food was absolutely fabulous. We had breakfast there every morning. And as I've said before, we can sometimes have a little bit of a problem finding food that both Pedro and I want because with him being a carnivore and me being vegetarian, a lot of times places that he would like to go, the only thing that they have for me is French fries, and that gets old fast. At Ollie's Pops, they were so accommodating. All I had to do was ask them, it's like, hey, can you give me the bacon egg roll, but put the bacon on my husband's sandwich and give me an extra order of hash browns and put that in there instead of the bacon. No problem. And it was fabulous. It tasted so good. That was breakfast every day while we were there. And we also ended up getting coffee from there every morning because it was so much better than what we were making in the cabin. I had an ice latte while Pedro had a cappuccino every morning, and it was being made for us by Minnie. And whenever I was saying goodbye and thanking Luke and Bruce for all of the great food that they gave us and the wonderful coffee, Bruce, the owner, who is actually Ollie's pop, explained to me that the day that we started getting coffee there was Minnie's first time making coffee and she was really worried that she wasn't going to do it well. Minnie, if you're listening, you did a fantastic job. Don't worry, girl, you got it. I just want to thank Luke, Bruce, and Minnie for taking such good care of us while we're there. If you are at the caravan park, you have to stop in and get food from these three because you will love it. Now, as I had mentioned earlier, somehow with everything going on this month, I completely forgot to mention that I leveled up another year on September 19th, and my dog did so as well on September 25th. My birthday, however, happens to fall on Chile's National Day, so I can always count on my husband Pedro making Chilean empanadas to celebrate National Day, and then I get them for my birthday too. And let me tell you, he makes really good empanadas. One of the other traditions that we have though is we each on our birthdays get to request the other person make whatever cake we want. Normally I'm pretty easy. I just want a plain chocolate cake with a chocolate glaze, nothing fancy, no flowers, no nothing. I'm a very simple girl. This year I decided to give Pedro a little bit more of a challenge, and I asked for my granny's World War II recipe of egless, milkless, butterless cake. It tasted right, but unfortunately I had the wrong flour, so the texture was a little off. And now Pedro is determined that we're going to go get the correct flour so that he can try this again. He wants to get it perfect, and honestly, I'm not gonna turn down more cake. I love this recipe, and we've never made it here, so yeah, I'm I'm gonna go for a second birthday cake. I'm fine with that. Shaggy, on the other hand, gets a chicken liver cake, which he never complains about, and he doesn't care about the texture. And of course, I got books for my birthday. But one of the more important things was I got some money from different people, and I finally get to buy a block of ISBNs for Burkhart books. Now, many of you probably already know that this year I decided to turn Burkhart books from a hobby into an actual, hopefully one day, money-making business, and registered here in Germany. Up until now, I had not been marketing, I'd not been trying to make money. It was just something to keep me busy, keep me entertained. But this year I actually wrote a business plan, registered everywhere, got it all together, and I am trying to make money and getting this block of ISBNs so that I can reissue all of our magazines and our books and everything that we've published with our own ISBNs under Burkhart Books, we get to turn ourselves into a real imprint. So if you haven't already done it, you should really go to burkhartbooks.com slash subscribe and sign up for our newsletter so that you will be sure to be able to keep up to date with all of the great things that we are getting going here at Burkhart Books and Book Band Productions. This year has been incredible for all of the new innovations that we're doing, the new products that we're bringing to our lineup, and we have got so many more things planned that are going to be coming in the next year. And trust me when I tell you, you don't want to miss out. So don't forget to come back next week when I will tell you about the first and last place we actually went in Scotland, Edinburgh. So where we started and ended and came back home. But I think that is more than enough for right now. So you know what that means. It's that time. It's time for y'all to go forth and be really happy that I have so much more to share with you next week. Thank you for joining us today. Be sure to subscribe to BookBanter with Diane Burkhart on your favorite podcast streaming service. Because if you love books like we do, you do not want to miss a single episode of this podcast.