The Point Radio: The Homegrown Genius Of Mary Kubica

Just a few years ago, Mary Kubica was a wife and mother raising her family in the suburbs of Chicago, but she has a passion to follow. That led her right to the top of the NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller list with her first novel, THE GOOD GIRL. Mary’s second book is just hitting there shelves while her first is headed for TV. Plus summer just seems hotter thanks to those dramas on CBS. We talk to the stars of UNDER THE DOME and ZOO about what lies ahead for the rest of the season

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Transcript

The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. Well, the summer's been a lot hotter the past couple years, thanks to some pretty cool shows from CBS. We talked to the stars of Under the Dome and a zoo about what's coming up for the rest of the season. And best selling author Mary Kubigah talks about how tough it was to get that first book out there,

and how now the good girl is headed to TV. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio. Get The Point Radio.

Just a few years ago, Mary Kubigah was raising her young family in the suburbs of Chicago. But she also kept following her passion for writing. And eventually, her first book, The Good Girl, was a New York Times best seller. I talked to her about how she got started in writing. I loved to write since I was a little girl.

It was always kind of a hobby of mine, a passion of mine. But it wasn't something that I pursued professionally. And I was a high school history teacher instead. But then when my daughter was born, I decided to stay home and care for her. And then two years after my daughter, my son arrived.

So, yes, like you said, I was a stay-at-home mom busy with the two kids. And that was when I decided to start working on The Good Girl. And, you know, at first, I just kind of had this idea of a storyline that just was kind of a kidnapping that wasn't all it seemed to be. And I found, you know, some quiet time.

The kids were napping. And I sat down at the computer and just started to work on the story. And it wasn't anything, you know, I didn't think, you know, honestly, that I'd probably ever finished this book. Or certainly, I didn't think that I'd get it published. But it was just something that interested me.

And so, little by little, over the course of the next five years, I got the story down on paper. And as I started to develop it, I started to get an inkling that there was maybe something special about this book. I was really into the characters. And there was an up-and-came that whether or not it ever got published, I really wanted to see this story through. And I wanted to tell this story.

And so, sure enough, I finished it. And then I started to send it out to agents. And it actually took another two years to find an agent. There was a lot of rejection all along the way. And, in fact, the woman that I decided to take it on was one whose company originally declined it.

But then two years later, you know, kind of she reached back out to me to see if the book was yet represented or if I had sold it. So it was really kind of a strange twist of events. But then within a couple months, I had a publishing contract, which was really exciting. And, you know, it was the start of a very exciting career. While she worked on The Good Girl, Mary kept that project pretty much to herself.

I did, absolutely. I told my husband, and that was it. I didn't tell family members or friends. I really kept it to myself. And I kind of blamed the huge self-doubt.

You know, I didn't think this book was ever going to get published. And I think I didn't want to get other people's hopes up. You know, if people knew I was working on a book, then they would, you know, immediately start hoping for me. I thought the book would be published. And I didn't want to get their hopes up.

And I knew that the likelihood of publishing a book was just – it was not in my favor. So I did – I kept it to myself. And through all of that, through writing the book, through the years that it took to find an agent, I kept it all to myself. And it wasn't until I had secured a publishing deal that it called my family and my friends. And I let them know that not only had I written a book, but it was going to be published as well.

So what happens from the time you finished that last page to the point where the book, well, is actually in a bookstore window? I asked Mary to talk about that challenge. Good thing, yes. It was definitely a challenge, as you said. I didn't have any author friends.

I had no contacts within the publishing industry. And I didn't, in all honesty, really know what I was doing. So I had to hop on Google, first of all, and just figure out what are the next steps. You know, I've written this book, so now what do I do? I had no idea.

And so, yes, I sent out basically like a synopsis of my story with a couple of family chapters. And I sent it to pretty much every single agent that I could find. And the rejection was just almost immediate. And there are so many, so many authors out there, so many writers that are also trying to do the same thing. And so competition is fierce.

So it's certainly not easy to find an agent. That's what anybody that is trying to do that, you know, I think it's important to stick with it and not give up. Because as is the case with me, sometimes it takes years to find that agent. But, you know, even once I had found the agent and secured the publishing deal, it's a long process. I finally secured the publishing deal in December of 2012, and it wasn't until July of 2014 that the book hit shelves.

So it's a long process in there. The book went through some revision. You know, there's some time to publicize it and cover design and just so many things that go on behind the scenes that I had no idea about a couple of years ago. So you've got that first book, and it's a success. Where do you go from there?

Did you have ideas for a second book? I didn't have any ideas initially. When I sold The Good Girl, I was offered a two-book deal. So they offered me, you know, For the Good Girl and then for a book that I had not yet written, which turned out to be Pretty Baby. And I was a little scared, you know.

It had taken me so many years to write The Good Girl. And, of course, for the second novel, I was going to be under a deadline, and I had to have a proposal approved first. So things were definitely different than they had been when I wrote The Good Girl. But that said, I also had a support system that I didn't have in place for The Good Girl. Now I had an agent, and I had an editor, and I knew this book was going to be published.

So I definitely had some people that I could lean on or brainstorm ideas and, you know, knock on wood. The story came together pretty much as well as I could have hoped for. But there is a moment when you finish with one book, and you really kind of have to digest it and let it settle before you're ready to delve into, you know, some other character's world and start over, essentially, with a branding story. As far as Mary's second novel. Pretty Baby is set mostly in Chicago, and it's about a Chicago woman.

Her name is Heidi Wood. She's a mother. She has her own 12-year-old daughter. She commutes to work every day on the L train. And one day she's about to hop on the train and head off to work when she comes across this young homeless girl waiting beside the train with a baby.

And Heidi becomes instantly captivated with her, and she wants to help her. It's cold outside. It's April in Chicago. It's like 40 degrees, raining. The weather's pretty yucky.

And so she wants to help them. And she actually ends up bringing this girl and her baby into her family's home, which her husband completely disapproves of. But then we start to discover who this girl is, and she has a pretty stark and twisted past. And, you know, you start to see as the reader what effect her being there is going to have on this family's life. In all of Mary's work so far, the locations pretty much center around Chicago.

And I asked her if that particular place was well near and dear to her heart. It is, yes. I've lived in Chicago almost my entire life, and I love it. You know, it definitely is near and dear to my heart. I love setting my stories here just because it's me.

It's what I know. It's what I'm comfortable with. And I can bring really the landscape and the people and the culture and all of that right into my books. And as a reader, too, I love reading stories that are set in Chicago or other areas that I'm familiar with. This summer, the rights to the good girl had been optioned by a major production company.

I asked her what the latest on that was. Yeah, I know that the plan is to go with a limited TV series. So, you know, it's slowly making progress. I know that they've hired a screenwriter. So things are moving in the right direction.

And I'm really excited to see how it all turns out. And luckily for all her fans, Mary's got more ideas on the way. Yes, absolutely. I recently signed another two-book deal with Mere Books. So I'm working on my third.

And then as soon as I wrap up with that one, I'll dive right into my fourth. Mary's latest Pretty Baby just hit bookstores in the past few days. Check it out right now at amazon.com. The flight radio. Things are getting a little bloody over the sci-fi channel.

And that's just part of what's going on with pop culture. Looks like there is an end in sight for Game of Thrones right now. The series is filming its sixth season. But according to HBO sources, the series will end with season eight a couple of years down the road. Of course, that can change a lot between now and then.

But right now that's the plan at least as far as HBO is concerned. The famous Monsters line of comics from American Gothic Press has announced plans to create and publish a fourth season of Lost in Space. The series will actually use items found in the collection of the late Erwin Allen. Original scripts and unshod scenes we put together for the run of books. No word yet on the creative team or when the comics will actually hit publication.

Grindhouse is coming to the sci-fi channel with a new over the top scripted series that they say is done in the classic movie tradition. It's called Blood Drive. It's set in a near apocalyptic future with 13 episodes centering around L.A.'s last good cop was forced to join a twisted gory cross country death race with cars powered by blood. Look for the casting and premiere dates to be released sometime in the next few weeks. Look out for a new Spider-Man series this time going back to the roots of the character.

It's called the Spidey. It's a new ongoing series, part of the new Marvel launch set for the fall. It'll be written by Robbie Thompson and drawn by Nick Bradshaw. And it goes back to the early days, as we said, of Peter Parker when he was in high school and had just become the not yet amazing Spider-Man. Again, Spidey is part of the new Marvel launch and will be in comic stores in the fall.

TV Land has struck a new deal with Melissa McCarthy and her actor, director husband Ben Falcone. They'll serve as executive producers for a new series called Friends with Melissa, which will feature Hugh Davidson, Larry Dorf and Rachel Ramirez. McCarthy herself will appear in the pilot. In recording artist Ed Sheeran is making a move to the small screen. He'll be part of the new FX series, The Bastard Executioner, the one created and written by Kurt Sutter.

Sheeran plays a high ranking church elder. The series will debut on FX in the fall. Starting a couple of years ago, CBS began reviving the concept of the hit summertime series. It began with Under the Dome now enjoying its third season and constantly evolving by well-adding new cast members. Like Mark Helgenberger, who's having a great time in her role.

Honestly, it's been a lot of fun. The cast has been super welcoming towards me. I like shooting in Wilmington. I shot there 20 years ago and I have fond memories of it then. And I've just been, it's a fun character for Steve. I mean, she's, you know, forced to be reckoned with and has a lot of different sides to her personality. Which I've had a lot of fun exploring and I've, I like, I get pitted against certain characters a lot.

And some of them I'm actually been really helpful towards. For the most part I've been pretty helpful to your character. And a couple of other characters and some that don't necessarily, you know, understand where I'm coming from. You know, they, I don't gel with and that's how this show, there's kind of become two camps within Justice, you know. Mark's been a mainstay at hit network shows and I ask if she feels any pressure these days from the growing cable networks.

Far more competitive for sure. But on the other hand, it's a lot more opportunity for actors, writers, directors, everybody, you know, technicians. And you know, when I first started in network television, there were three networks. And even when I started on CSI, it was, I mean cable was just starting to make programming, to do programming. I think FX was just starting to get into like the shield and stuff like that. And then, just in the last couple of years, it's been the internet, you know, and that's just exploded.

And so ultimately it's a good thing. I mean, you know, the ratings, I mean, networks are relying less and less upon the ratings, you know, as they should. Because most people have DVR now and I know they factor that in as well, but you know, a competition is good all around. The show is based on the works of Stephen King, or at least it was originally, but now it's grown beyond that. As series star Mike Vogel explains. We've spent the last three years sort of setting up where the end game is going to, not that this season is the end game,

but it will wrap up the questions that we've kind of set in motion that we've been trying to figure out all these last three years. Where has the dome come from? Why is it here? Who brought it down? All that we'll be taking care of by the end of this season. And it'll ask more questions when it does that. But I think those will be the biggest revelations yet to come and we don't know those yet. We find out sort of week by week as the audience. Summer CBS took another famous author James Patterson and brought one of his best sellers to the small screen.

Zoo was one of the summer's biggest hits and star James Wolff said that the way the show is shot makes it very distinctive. The way that the show is being shot in terms of the use of the live animals and then obviously there's a green screen and all that. But I mean, I'm in awe when I see it and you know, we've just had some beautiful animals down on set. I think it's going to create a very exciting atmosphere for people to watch, you know. Zoo has a message but it isn't preaching.

I think that it's a very clear message. I mean, you know, what you'll find out with the cast as we start to go on this journey is that the animals are changing because of something humans are doing to the environment. And I think it's a very clear metaphor. You know, the show is not on a soapbox. It's an entertaining show. But I think it's great that there is a message if you want to find one in there which is stop messing with the environment, you know. Another bat, you might compare the basics here to stuff like Planet of the Apes or the birds. But James says there's some big differences.

I think it's more wrong along the lines. It's kind of like a blend of them because it's not horror necessarily. But the animals are not like talking in the way that the Planet of the Apes actually that the Apes are speaking. But they are communicating. So it has the mystery element of the birds and it has the kind of apocalyptic element of Planet of the Apes. It really is kind of a mixture. You can see new episodes of Under the Dome every Thursday and Zoo has new episodes every Tuesday.

And if you want to catch up, you can do that right now at CBS.com. That's it for the podcast. When we come back, it's Scooby Doo who's back with Kiss, believe it or not. Brand new DVD is on the shelves and we'll talk to the people who put it together. All that and more on websites like ComicMix.com, GiveThePointRadio.com and in the iTunes podcast directory, of course. On social media with The Point Radio on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Have a great weekend. See you back here in a few days.