Alli Frank and Asha Youmans
Alli Frank has worked in education for over twenty years, from an overcrowded, cacophonous public high school to a pristine private girl’s school. She has been a teacher, curriculum leader, college counselor, assistant head, co-founder, sometimes pastor, often mayor, and de facto parent therapist. A graduate of Cornell and Stanford University, Alli lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters. She is the co-author of Tiny Imperfections and Never Meant to Meet You.
Asha Youmans: The daughter of an education pioneer and Children’s Hospital administrator, after attending UC Berkeley Asha spent the next twenty years teaching elementary school. Asha continues to work in schools in the Pacific Northwest believing children keep her youthful, as do her husband and two sons. She is the co-author of Tiny Imperfections and Never Meant to Meet You.
Twitter: @AlliAndAsha
Instagram: @AlliAndAsha
What is your favorite non-reading activity?
Alli: Anything that involves going up and down a mountain! Trail running and hiking in summer and fall downhill and Nordic skiing in the winter. Spring I usually end up nursing an injury from three seasons of activity, ahhhhh to be an aging athlete.
Asha: I spend a lot of time with family and friends in my spare time. I am a recent empty nester and, after a twenty-year career spent in the company of elementary school children as a teacher, I am reveling in the delightful conversations I have been missing all these years with people my age.
What is your go to comfort food, sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?
Alli: Anything where one of the main ingredients is melted cheese. Grilled cheese sandwiches, nachos, Asha’s mac ‘n cheese. I’m killer at the first two, Asha knows to make double vats of mac ‘n cheese for me.
Asha: Savory all the way for me. I could go the rest of my life without cake, but I do not see how I could live without rib-eye steak, and I always prefer my own cooking. Food inspires my writing as it pertains to the complex relationships on display when folks share a meal. The dining room milieu is a stage for everyone from eccentric uncles to naughty toddlers to drunk cousins and I am always ready for that show.
Is there a work of art that you love? Why? Have you ever visited it in person
Alli: Gustav Klimpt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer (also known as the Lady in Gold). A piece commissioned out of great love, painted in gold to represent a Jewish family who was experiencing a personal golden era, only to have it taken by the Nazis is a tale representative of many Jewish families of the era. The legal efforts to return the painting to the family were monumental and represent the tenacity and resilience of the Jewish people (my people). I have visited the piece several times in the Neue Gallerie in New York City.
Asha: I have become a fan of the theater since my son was bitten by the acting bug in high school; he is now an actor in New York. Accompanying him to Broadway shows is magical and my favorite show so far was The Color Purple starring Cynthia Erivo.
Is there another profession you would like to try?
Alli: I’m dying to play back up violin/fiddle for Adele. Have I ever played the instrument? No. But a girl can dream.
Asha: I would be chef/owner of a burger joint and I'd call it "House Burgers." I'd hand-cut russet potatoes for french fries and serve my burgers on Wonder bread just like I had as a kid.
What brings you great joy?
Alli: Nothing brings me greater joy than pure, spontaneous, gut-busting laughter! I love laughing until there are tears running down my face and seeing that others, who are with me, are doubled over laughing too. The BEST feeling,
Asha: I have to agree with Alli. Meeting new people, sharing funny stories, and being suffused with conviviality is my idea of heaven. If my cheeks hurt from laughing, life is good.
