The Correspondent: The Story Behind the Unexpected Bestseller Everyone is Reading

The Oprah Podcast - Harpo

In this episode of The Oprah Podcast, host Oprah Winfrey welcomes author Virginia Evans, whose debut novel 'The Correspondent' became an unexpected New York Times bestseller through

Key takeaways

• Word-of-mouth can propel a book to bestseller status without traditional marketing or industry backing.
• Persistence and resilience through hundreds of rejections are essential for long-term creative success.

Main topics

• The power of word-of-mouth in book discovery
• The journey of an unpublished author to overnight success

Notable quotes

"I didn't think I wasn't going to show this book to anyone. I wasn't going to show it to my agent."

"At some point, do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good?" – Virginia Evans on enduring rejection.

Conclusion

Virginia Evans' journey from decades of rejection to becoming a literary sensation with 'The Correspondent' underscores the

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Have you read The Correspondent? Speaker 4 (0:02) Everybody's talking about this book! The Correspondent was one of my favorite books last year. My Speaker 1 (0:09) goodness, I love this book. I love Sybil and so profoundly good. This book pulled itself to the Speaker 2 (0:14) top of the bestsellers list through word of mouth. That does not happen. This is your first published novel, but it's the eighth one you've written. And you wrote this book inside a closet thinking nobody would ever read it. How did you handle each rejection? Oh, gosh. At some point, do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good? I don't think I Speaker 5 (0:35) ever thought that. Most people have said to me, this book made me cry and it felt so good. Speaker 2 (0:43) Hi there and welcome to the Oprah podcast. I'm so glad to be here with you. When you love books as much as I do, you get recommendations, lots of recommendations. And there's one book in particular people kept asking me about. Have you read The Correspondent? You gotta read The Correspondent. You're gonna love The Correspondent. I had no choice but to read The Correspondent. And let me tell you, I'm so glad I did. Because the book tells the life story of Sybil Van Antwerp, a retired lawyer in her 70s, like I am, living in Maryland. Readers get to know Sybil and all her wonderful complexity entangled past solely through letters and emails that she writes and receives. Sybil writes to family, to friends, to complete strangers. She even writes to famous authors who are really famous authors. even her own neighbors, each note revealing a different strand of the fabric of her life. It's what the literary world calls an epistolary novel composed of letters. And I must say, other than The Color Purple, which was Seeley's letters to God, I'm not usually drawn to the epistolary form. But this book, The Correspondent, felt different. It felt bigger than one woman's letter writing. And it is obviously bigger because just through word of mouth, this book has put itself on the New York Times bestseller list. That is the goal for every author. And it's my pleasure to welcome you here. Thank Speaker 4 (2:17) you. It's my pleasure. The Speaker 2 (2:19) author of this Speaker 4 (2:19) profound book that everybody's talking about this Speaker 5 (2:22) book. Thank you. Thank you. It is my pleasure and honor to be here to talk to you about it. I'm so excited that you read it and that you Speaker 2 (2:30) liked it. Of course. I had to read it because everybody was saying read it. Writer Virginia Evans had tried for years before finally getting her first book published, The Correspondent. When it was released in April 2025, it sold less than 8,000 copies. Then something remarkable happened. The thousands of people who read it fell in love with it. Then they started recommending it to other people. And soon, word of mouth spread like wildfire. The Correspondent has now sold well over 2 billion copies. A story about a woman in her 70s who in today's digital world still writes handwritten letters became an unexpected number one New York Times bestseller. Welcome, Virginia Evans, to my front porch. Speaker 5 (3:14) Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 2 (3:15) Could you feel or sense what was happening in the zeitgeist that one person was telling another person? Because this book sort of pulled itself to the top of the bestsellers list through word of mouth. That does not happen. That's Speaker 5 (3:28) what everybody keeps telling me. I do think I started to understand that that's what was happening, but I didn't, I'm not sure when that was. I'm not sure how that happened. I think you're right. It's just one person said to two other people to read it. And those two people told two more people. Speaker 2 (3:45) Before you know it. And it was this story. And so before we get into this absolutely, you know, captivating, compelling book, let's talk about you. This is your first published novel. That's right. Okay. But it's the eighth one you've written. Tell us about your 20-year journey to become an overnight success. I Speaker 5 (4:07) know it is funny. People said, you just came out of nowhere. I sort of Speaker 2 (4:10) think, no. I wasn't nowhere. I've been writing for 20 years. For a long Speaker 5 (4:14) time. Yes, I started writing my first novel when I was 19. I was living in Italy, in Siena. And I wrote, I started writing a novel there. And then I wrote novels, kind of, you know, finished one. It takes a few years. For the first few years, I don't think I knew what you do. I didn't come from a family of authors. I didn't know any authors. And so I would finish a book. Had you taken a writing class? No. I mean, I took some writing classes in undergrad, but I wasn't, I didn't know what you do at the end. You know, you sort of have this book and I thought, okay, well, we'll do it again. So I. was writing these books. And then I started to teach myself. I bought a writer's almanac. You know, there was that big book. It was like the phone book. And I read about writing a query letter. And so then I tried writing a query letter and it wasn't very good and I didn't get any interest from agents. But then I think the next book, I had a better query letter and I, you know, I kind of kept going. And by the sixth book, I did get an agent. And I thought that was sort of the end. I sort of thought, okay, now I'll be... Now this will actually happen. We worked together for a year and then it didn't work out. And we parted ways. That was extremely crushing to have that Speaker 4 (5:34) happen. Speaker 5 (5:35) I was a mother by then and I thought that was it. I thought that's what you did. How did you handle each rejection? Oh, gosh. Speaker 5 (5:44) You know, it's interesting. I don't think I ever felt offended or indignant. You know, I don't think I thought, well, how dare you? I just thought, OK, I have to do better. I have to do a better I have to do a better job. This isn't enough. This doesn't cut it. And that was a motivator. I mean, it is a good question to ask because all those years or it's it was very demoralizing. Speaker 2 (6:10) I mean, it was extremely demoralizing. And I hit. I know. I mean, if I got turned down by one, but that's why I never really became a full working actress. Because I remember going to a speech coach once and I said I wanted to be an actress. This is when I was in news in Baltimore. And she said, my dear, you don't want to be an actress. You want to be a star. Because if you wanted to be an actress, you would be waiting tables right now in New York. But you don't Speaker 3 (6:35) want Speaker 2 (6:35) to give up your job in the news to do that. And I was like, no, you're right. I don't want to do that. And I said, I'm not going to be able to handle the rejection. You know, I have one of my girls from my school in South Africa who's a... who's an actress now and it's constant. It Speaker 5 (6:50) is. It is. It's something, I don't know, you just have to sort of take it. You have to just keep taking it. I mean, hundreds, thousands of rejections. I don't know how many times I was rejected. I've queried every agent in New York City. It was agonizing. I mean, it was Speaker 2 (7:07) agonizing. So at some point do you think, well, maybe I'm just not good? I don't think I ever thought that. Okay. At some point, do you think, well, maybe I'm not good enough? Yes. At some point, do you think, well, maybe this is never going to happen? Oh, Speaker 5 (7:22) yeah. Oh, yeah. Speaker 2 (7:23) This is never going to happen. This is never Speaker 5 (7:25) going to happen. And I ended up kind of thinking I would like to teach. I wanted to teach in prisons. I wanted to teach writing in prisons. And so I thought I should go get a master's degree. That's what I should do. This was after the sixth book. And so... Speaker 2 (7:38) The sixth book that's been rejected. Yes. Speaker 5 (7:40) Okay. Yep. And so then we moved to Ireland, my husband and my two children. And I moved to Dublin and I went to Trinity College for my master's. Yes. And I wrote my seventh novel as my coursework there. I studied with Claire Keegan. I studied with Claire. Yes. I mean, it was wonderful. And that book, the book I wrote as my coursework there. With that, I got another agent and we thought this will, she said, this book will sell. This is a great book. It didn't sell. We had it out. Speaker 2 (8:15) Where all those books are now in your closet somewhere. Oh, Speaker 5 (8:18) they're on. Well, I've lost two hard drives. I never backed anything up. So I have one copy of every book, Speaker 2 (8:23) which is on a Speaker 5 (8:25) shelf in my house, you know. But Speaker 2 (8:27) now. Is your agent, because you have an agent, obviously, your agent is like, let's bring those books out. Speaker 5 (8:33) Yeah, we have a conversation about that pretty regularly. But so that book, the seventh book was out for sale. It wasn't selling. And then I wrote the correspondent. Speaker 2 (8:43) And that was the ticket. And you wrote this correspondent book inside a closet, I understand, during the pandemic, thinking nobody would ever read it. So you had reached the point, Virginia, where you're like. what Toni Morrison was at one point where she felt like, I'm going to write the book for myself. Maybe a few friends will read it, but I'm going to write because I now feel the need to write. I have to write. Is that where you were? Speaker 5 (9:08) Oh, yeah. That's exactly. I'm glad to hear that. That's exactly where I was. I didn't think I wasn't going to show this book to anyone. I wasn't going to show it to my agent. She knew I was working on something, but I told her I'm cleansing my palate and then I'll write something else for you to sell. And this was what I was working on. And she kind of kept saying, you know, show it to me, show it to me. And I said, no, no, no. And she said, show it to me. And finally I did. And she said, we can sell this book. And I still didn't think it would sell. Speaker 2 (9:38) Okay, so because... If I were you, I wouldn't think it would sell either, having been turned down so many times. And so I understand you have a... How old are your children? Now they're Speaker 5 (9:47) 10 and 12. Speaker 2 (9:48) Okay. So all these years you've had a writing schedule, even with children, where you write from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m.? Yes, that's correct. Yes. And so for writing the correspondent, during the pandemic, you have like a little space that you've carved out in the closet? Yes. Speaker 5 (10:06) We were living in this... small rental and it was this sort of like 90s concept open built, you know, no doors, everything's, it's one room. The kitchen is the living room is the study, which is sweet, I guess, in concept, but it's not great for working. And so there was this, it was this small space, but the bathroom was the size of a ballroom. I mean, I can't explain it. It was humongous. And so off the bathroom was this tiny closet. And I was, I was, just fed up. And so I, when my husband was in work one day, I went in and I took out all of his clothes and I shoved my small writing desk into the closet and I sent him a photo and I said, this is what I did