A discussion on the new small area plan, seven sub-areas for guiding growth, and the city’s proactive vision for balancing residential and commercial development.

In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, host Rico Figliolini discusses the recently concluded moratorium on residential mixed-use development in Peachtree Corners’ Central Business District with Shaun Adams, the city’s Community Development Director. They explore the creation of a small area plan, which subdivides the district into seven distinct zones, enabling tailored development strategies for each. Shaun highlights the goals of this plan: better aligning future projects with the city’s vision, enhancing placemaking, and ensuring balanced growth. They also discuss updates to the city’s 2045 Comprehensive Plan, public engagement efforts, and upcoming steps, including the December 17th City Council vote. Listen to learn how Peachtree Corners is shaping its future while preserving its unique community character.

Resources:
Peachtree Corners Website
Community Development
Upcoming City Council Meeting Tuesday, December 17

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – Residential Mixed-Use Moratorium and Central Business District Revamp
00:04:40 – Comprehensive Plan Guiding City’s 10-20 Year Vision
00:06:50 – Distinguishing Institutional and Commercial Areas in the Central Business District
00:10:17 – Differentiating Commercial and Residential Zones in City Planning
00:15:56 – Planned Roundabout and Redevelopment Opportunities
00:17:40 – Balancing Town Center Development and Traffic Concerns
00:20:30 – Flexible Zoning for Diverse Housing Options
00:25:06 – Suburban Condo Financing Challenges
00:27:22 – Suburban Density and Apartment Conversions
00:28:49 – Targeted Infill Development to Support Existing Office
00:35:42 – Envisioning Flex Office Redevelopment in Chamblee
00:38:37 – Envisioning a Balanced Suburban Density
00:40:50 – Zoning Changes Headed to City Council

Podcast Transcript

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life. We have a great guest today. We’re going to be discussing a lot of things here regarding residential, mixed use, the moratorium that recently ended on that development. Shaun Adams is with me today. Hey, Shaun. Thanks for being with me.

00:00:48 – Shaun Adams

Hey, how are you?

00:00:49 – Rico Figliolini

Good, good. So we’re going to talk, let’s set the stage a little bit about why, if you could give me a two-minute brief about why the moratorium was put in place and then what you were doing during that moratorium to start developing the ideas that we’re going to be visually showing our guests?

00:01:11 – Shaun Adams

Sure thing. So back in May, we put the moratorium in place on May 3rd. And one of the reasons that led to that is we were starting to see from the marketplace, a lot of properties in our central business district come online for sale. Office was not in great shape. They’re looking to redevelop sites in a way that didn’t necessarily align with what we felt our long-term vision of the central business district was. And when you look at the central business district, it’s a big piece of all of our office parks, including Tech Park and some of our retail nodes. And having one policy, if you will, that covered that whole area, you know, seemed to be a little broader than what we were ultimately looking for. And so we pressed pause, moratorium, and started working on a small area plan, which has now gotten to the point where we heard in planning commission a couple weeks ago, November 12th. And it’s set to go before council on December 17th. And through that process, we’ve held a couple of focus groups with brokers and owners, office owners in the central business district. We had a public engagement meeting. I’ve had some one-on-one conversations with members of the public who have reached out to me as well and provided feedback. And so we’ve taken all of that. And we actually, as a byproduct of that, we had a couple of themes that came out of those engagement sessions that spoke to more placemaking opportunities or amenitizing the Tech Park Central Business District area, taking it from an eight-hour day to a sixteen-hour day type of thought process, more gathering space where we could, a better mix of housing stock within the area. And so we also turned around and did an asset inventory, as I call it, where we put eyes on every commercial building in the Central Business District. We did a market analysis as well to determine how they were from a condition standpoint, what their occupancy rates were, what’s on the market, what’s not, what properties have kind of more underutilized space or parking than others. And as a byproduct of that, we’ve kind of set out these seven sub areas, which is probably the biggest change in the small area plan within the sub-district that allows us to get a little more granular and look at each of these areas and say, okay, what may make sense from a redevelopment standpoint or development standpoint in one area may not make sense in another. So how can we take all this information that the public and the experts have given us and, you know, mix it around and come out with all of that. So I have seven sub areas within the central business district that will be presenting to council.

00:03:50 – Rico Figliolini

And the moratorium was placed on the central business district area. So no one could apply for rezoning within that six month period that ended November 3rd, right? So during that time, you guys did what you needed to do as far as research and the inventory assets and developing these ideas. Because like you said before, from someone walking in that doesn’t know anything about this, the central business district area was governed by or ruled by one broad regulation, if you will. And now by subdividing these into seven districts, each of them will be uniquely managed, if you will, right? About what can go there or how it can be developed. So now that it ended November 3rd and city council is going to be seeing this December 17th as the last public hearing, if you will, before it’s voted on. When would it take effect?

00:04:46 – Shaun Adams

So and remember, this small area plan is essentially going to be an addendum to the 2045 comp plan. So it’ll be baked up under that. And, you know, once they vote on it in December, it’s being voted on to be adopted as a part of our comp plan. So it’ll essentially take effect right away. It is a policy document. It’s not a law document. And so it’s one of the things that we try to help people know is that the comprehensive plan is meant to guide our 10 to 20 year vision of how we see the city progressing. And, you know, some of that is, you know, proactive in nature and some of it is obviously defensive in nature. But this will plug right into that and allow us as staff when projects come through right away, we’ll be able to point to this. If it’s a project that comes in a central business district, we will immediately be able to point to this once council votes on it and says, hey, you know, this is kind of how we view this area in this property.

00:05:48 – Rico Figliolini

Right. And the comp plan gets reviewed every, was it every five years, I guess?

00:05:53 – Shaun Adams

It’s every five years from that day. The reality of the process for us is it feels like every three to four we get started on it.

00:05:59 – Rico Figliolini

Right, right. That’s true. Because by the time you finish public hearings and all that, I mean, it takes a while. So like you said, I mean, this is a guide, right? So what may be on there at least allows the city and developers to know exactly what’s expected, what’s going on. But it does give you that leeway to be able to adjust as you go. City council votes on it, planning commission votes on it. So it’s a process, right? Public hearings are done. So it’s not like all of a sudden something shows up that might be different from what would be on there all of a sudden, because it has to still go through the process of public hearings and all that. We were talking before we started this. I mean, it was interesting to me that a certain, maybe you want to pull up the map and we can start with that. Because one of the sections that is in the Central Business District, I didn’t even realize, was the G section that we talked about, the intersection of Peachtree Corner Circle and West Jones Bridge Road and Crooked Creek, where the elementary school is as well. I didn’t even realize that was in the Central Business District area. But you all have been proactive when you went through this process to make sure about a few things. So let’s start there a little bit. So what we’re seeing on here is the seven subdivided areas to our central business district. And the G, which is the green area, so the top one is the intersection of where the YMCA is, Peachtree Corners Baptist Church, and Cornerstone Christian Academy. And the one on the left side on this top map is the Crooked Creek and Peachtree Elementary School area. Correct? Yeah. So explain to us why that was pulled out separate.

00:07:56 – Shaun Adams

So, you know, as you kind of look at that area, you see they kind of stick out anyway from the core central business district. I think the reason why they are probably originally included in is because they are mostly institutional uses, which tend to lean on the commercial side versus everything around it being residential. But when, when you have a broad policy guide or policy statements like we have in the central business district before this, where, you know, the central business district in most places is where your highest intensity of development shall occur both mix of uses you know things like you see at town center and the forum you know that’s also common central business district. And so when you just say that broadly across the whole character area well that means everywhere that you see on this map right now, which includes those two sections. But we identified and understood that what may be appropriate along 141 and sub-area A probably isn’t appropriate in G. And so we wanted to try to carve that out for a couple reasons. And one is for the community to understand that we recognize there’s a difference in what might be able to go there, but also for developers to know that while it’s in the central business district, the athletic fields and parking lot of PCVC probably isn’t the place for an intense development. And so what this is called the suburban transition sub area is what G is. And the way we articulate it is that it’s the idea is that it will maintain its existing institutional character with the schools and the churches and the YMCA there. To the extent that if it were to be redeveloped in the future, it needs to take on the low intensity residential character of all the residential around it. And so if anything, it should act more like the Amberfield and Peachtree Station and everything that’s right by it and less like Central Business District. And so it kind of gives us that buffer and then now gives staff the ability if somebody were to come in and try to buy one of those pieces, we would be looking at this and saying, your development is inconsistent with our small area plan and surrounding uses. And that would give us some of the ammunition we need to be able to make a recommendation of denial in that case.

00:10:14 – Rico Figliolini

Which wasn’t in the original plan. I mean, anyone could have probably come in and bought that parking lot, if you will, across from PCBA and decided, or the YMCA, if that was ever to be sold or whatever, that someone could come in and say, well, you know, it’s a transition point. We could put townhouses there, which, you know, in a reasonable way, you might say that that could be like type of thing, type of development. But this eliminates sort of that.

00:10:58 – Shaun Adams

And townhomes are lower to medium intensity but the bigger thing is you can take that YMCA property and it’s big enough that could try and come in with a mix of uses, and even more intense. And while we can certainly from a staff standpoint leverage the fact that all the surrounding uses are lower intensity and try to use that to drive a staff report of denial, it will be harder for us to say it’s inconsistent with the comp plan when the comp plan is calling for the higher intensity use in that character area. But now this sub-area allows us to be able to point to both and say, no, that type of intense use in that area would not be appropriate.

00:11:23 – Rico Figliolini

And was this, I don’t remember now, but obviously the city’s thirteen years old. And we adopted Gwinnett County’s plans, right? I mean, when we became a city, essentially. And now that’s slowly been amended and changed over time. But would that have been allowed? I wonder if that would have been allowed during that time before we became a city.

00:11:50 – Shaun Adams

I’m not, well, I mean Gwinnett County would have had larger character areas since it was county-wide they would have certainly looked at this area along 141 and had more of a commercial node for it would be my guess. So we would have done our own comp plan before this to kind of have character specific to the city but a lot of times what happens as you see here is this is the core of our commercial and retail district and so that and then everything above it is residential and but now as we start to grow and develop you know and you start to see some of these properties in the market kind of change from what it was in the 80s and 90s, then, you know, now that becomes more at risk today than 20 years ago and mixed use wasn’t really a thing.

00:12:36 – Rico Figliolini

So city’s being proactive by doing this, obviously, and subdividing this makes sense to me too as well, as we were discussing before we started. Tell everyone what the darkened areas are. They should know from map but like the Forum, Town Center, I guess Dick’s Sporting Goods is on the south end, along with where the Chick-fil-A is, those areas. And they’re darkened because why?

00:13:04 – Shaun Adams

So they’re darkened for a couple of reasons. One, that’s really our retail entertainment sections right there, which, you know, from my perspective, really isn’t the same as the rest of the central business district, which is office focused. But also, you know, as we kind of talked before, the comp plan gets updated about every, you know, four to five years. These two areas here, our town center and the forum, they’re pretty much, from a redevelopment standpoint, they are what they are. They’re either in process or already built out. There’s not a lot of potential for change. Really, I’d say the only property grayed out would be the Ingles. But whether that’s something that would ever change in five years or not we don’t know I mean it’s a stable shopping center that’s leased up right now and so you know there hasn’t been anything of a recent note to indicate that it would be different but it is probably the only property in that area that doesn’t have that post 2000 design to it and the same thing at the bottom with Target, Dick’s Sporting Goods, LA Fitness Plaza, that’s a retail node that’s not likely to change in the next five years. And so what I would posit to you is that the next comp plan update, if anything, I could see those becoming a different character area potentially in the central business district. But in order to kind of fully flesh that out now, it would have taken another full-blown update. And so we wanted to focus on the areas that were ripe for potential redevelopment within the next four to five years, like what’s likely to change. And so that’s why you’ll notice the E section as well, where even though a lot of times that area around Peachtree Corner Circle with the Lidl DaVinci Court hexagon is often part of that downtown focus, that is an area that one has attempted redevelopment recently and probably has the potential for redevelopment in the next five years at some point in time. And so we included that and made it its own sub-area as a town center gateway because we wanted feedback from the community on that since we felt like it would likely be sought for some sort of transition over the next five years.

00:15:20 – Rico Figliolini

In that area, I know that, for example, the E part, the west side of 141 there, that’s where the day building is. I know that they applied for rezoning there. They’d like to put mixed use, a residential, I think. And then you have the E. Let’s start there. Let’s talk about that.

00:15:40 – Shaun Adams

Actually, so yeah, the west side here, my cursor is the curve that you see is the Cowart Parcel that’s not developed yet, but that’s where he has the entitlements for the 56 condos. The day building is actually over here in our commercial 4. So since it’s a little further down Peachtree Corner Circle, it kind of fell out of the gateway. Based off of our review.

00:16:05 – Rico Figliolini

So is the 50-unit condo still, that’s the one that I think butts up to the intuitive properties maybe or neither?

00:16:16 – Shaun Adams

It does. So it’s kind of the one that’s tucked in behind the QT and the creme de la creme. And then part of the intuitive campus is on the other side of it.

00:16:25 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. By the way, is that, I think the roundabout that was being planned has that been approved and going into that part with the creme de la creme and the exit from the forum is, is that, has that been approved?

00:16:40 – Shaun Adams

I believe that kind of falls more on my public work side. I believe it’s in design, but I’m going to leave that for Brian and Greg to speak more clearly to it. I believe it is still in play, but it would be aligned with the creme access where that has been discussed to be slated.

00:17:01 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Do you foresee, I know in the E part on the south, on the east side or south side, there’s a couple of other buildings there that are being looked at, right? Is Regis one of those buildings?

00:17:14 – Shaun Adams

Regis Hexagon is one where I think half of it’s vacant right now. The Hexagon has moved out. Regis still has their side. So, you know, that’s a building, again, 50% or less occupancy, a lot of parking. So, you know, in my mind, that’s one where you could see somebody coming in and kicking tires at any point. And so it was important to make sure that was included as a part of this conversation.

00:17:44 – Rico Figliolini

Sure. Why don’t we, why don’t you start, I guess from there, I mean, that’s the town center gateway it’s called, right? And let’s work our way around to tell us a little bit about why each of these have been adjusted the way they are.

00:17:58 – Shaun Adams

Certainly. So, I mean, I guess the town center gateway, you know, what we point out here is that it is kind of a wrapping around as a part of that downtown and, you know, could provide opportunity to connect directly into the town center area to amenitize. And, you know, not only those office buildings there, but there is enough excess parking there to provide some additional body heat and residential units to further support town center and the forum. And so that’s kind of been looked at as an area, you know, for meeting the high bill for equity product. There was discussion at planning commission, you know, that I’d say the one, one concern that some of the community has expressed is with regards to our recommendation of medium to high density in the E area, largely over traffic concerns in terms of, you know, if you put a few more hundred units in that area, what will that do from a traffic standpoint? We are, you know, continuing to work to look at that and provide, you know, analysis for it in advance of council. But, you know, what I have kind of spoken to is the reason again this being a guide right, is the importance of having somewhat of a range and saying medium to high intensity is you know I’ll use da vinci as an example just because they kind of made this reference in their public hearing but they talked about the fact that they currently of the twelve plus acres they have about nine acres of it is asphalt. Four acres of I believe it, is what they said in a public is hearing, is excess. So they can maintain their four to one parking ratio that they need for their tenants and get rid of four acres. And so if they were to come back in with a proposal with residential units so that, you know, were what city and the community wanted. People generally were like, that’s a good proposal. And we’ll just, you know, for the sake of easy math, you know, it’s four acres that they came in with, you know, eighty units of townhomes and, but they did it as a whole twelve acre property. That’s less than eight units an acre, right? That’s like low end of medium, if anything, you know, in terms of density. So everybody be like, that’s great. That’s awesome. Great job. You know, it looks good. Everybody’s happy. Well, if they sold off the four acres of parking and a different, whoever bought the four acres or was contracted to buy the four acres comes in to zone eighty townhomes. Now that density is being accounted for off of four acres, not twelve. And so what was a less than seven acre, seven unit per acre project now looks like a twenty unit per acre project. And now it sounds like high density. And so the reason for having the range is saying, look, all of these properties within that gateway, in order to put one residential unit on it, they’d have to come to us for a rezoning. So we get to look at it on a case-by-case basis and say, you know what? If it’s eighty townhomes there on four acres, whether it’s all twelve acres is zoned as a mud or four acres of it is zoned, you know, residential infill or some other zoning opportunity there. The idea is that it’s eighty units for the core of that site that’s meant to serve the property. So we might look at that differently okay more supportive than 350 units on say the hexagon building or the synergy building or something right? You know so that’s still high but it’s a lot more units and so by baking in a range it allows us to contemplate those scenarios where you might have parcel carve-outs and that person comes in because maybe the office owner doesn’t want to wrap everything into a mixed use for whatever reason, but he’s okay giving a piece of the parking to add something to it. And so from a planning standpoint, we have to look at what’s the total number of units going on the ground in an area. And that’s really what’s going to come down from a traffic standpoint anyway from support. But if we just said medium and that same project came in, I mean, technically, council could look at it case by case and still say, I understand based off of the four acres, it looks like higher intensity. But, you know, totality of the circumstances, if you will, it really is more like medium and therefore we would support it they still have that ability to do it but I think it’s from a legal standpoint from a policy standpoint to have the range in there it’s easier for us to kind of defend and support on a case-by-case basis. And so that’s something that we’re looking at and trying to help articulate why the importance of the range is there.

00:22:51 – Rico Figliolini

So when equity is talked about, I mean, the only equity that I hear all the time is either homes or townhomes. I don’t hear anything about condos. So it transitions right to apartments. Like if someone came in and decided they wanted to apply for, I don’t know 180, 200 units, it’s always looked at as multifamily apartments versus an equity property like condos would be. Is that even in the plans? Does that allow for that? Or is that one of those expanded uses that could be but it’s not explicit in there?

00:23:32 – Shaun Adams

So one of the changes we made as well is instead of trying to speak to known housing product types, we spoke to intensity of the residential use. So low to medium, medium to high density. And the reason why is, we are, I think we are at a point where the residential housing community is trying to shift to find more creative housing product types to help address, you know, the fact that we have less land to develop on, the need for more attainable price points for housing. People, not everybody wants five, four in a door and there’s not opportunity to build it. And in most places anymore. And so where do our empty nesters want to go if they want to own, but downsize. And so, you know, we’re starting to see stack townhome options where it looks like a townhome, but it’s two units stacked on top of each other. They each have a garage. They still have that indoor parking, but they have flat level living once they get there. We’re seeing courtyard style homes are coming out, smaller cottages, kind of going back to that 900 to 1500 square foot single family detached on small lots. And so, you know, as what I don’t know 10 years from now, if I did, you know, I’d probably be in the construction side is what are those types of uses? You know, what does that mix a housing product type? And so what we want to be able to do is say, look, it really matters the intensity of the use. And then we’ll know when we see it, what comes in, if it’s the type of housing product type that makes sense in the area and kind of assimilates into the surrounding environment. So rather than boxing us in and saying no single family detached or no townhome, let’s do it that way. But to your point on the condo front, most people forget that a mid-rise stacked flat building can be equity or rental, right? Condos and ownership type, not a structure. But we are, I think suburban condos, if you will. Like a mid-rise condominium project doesn’t finance or pay for it in suburbia right now. And that’s why you don’t see it like you see inside the perimeter. But what does are we’re starting to see kind of like what you know waterside they have that condo component where there’s three levels with the parking deck you know that type of product works and the reason why is because if you know for condos you have to pre-sell 50 percent before you can get the financing you need to go vertical on the building. So if you take a 50 unit mid-rise, you got to sell 25 units before you start going unless you’re self-funding. And the problem with that is you’re asking people to put money down where they won’t be able to benefit from it for potentially two to three years. But if you have an eight unit kind of stacked townhome building or something like that, one, that building is a lot cheaper to build than a mid-rise. But two, you have to pre-sell four units and then you get the aggregate of the pre-sales moving forward. So once you get four units sold, you build one, you put a couple models in there. And as you sell that out, you can now build the next one. And so that tends to work better in suburbia. And we’re starting to see some of those products come in and kick around.

00:26:50 – Rico Figliolini

Right. And I can appreciate that and understand that. And they look nicer that way, too. There’s better quality of living, maybe. But I’ve also seen, and maybe this is more urban, I guess, where apartments come in, let’s say, multi-unit apartments, but they’re pre-wired, they’re set. They could be condo products. And eventually some of them do turn into that, right? Seven years later, they become condo equity property. That’s actually an easy way of doing it, right? Build the apartment, finance it that way, and then the conversion can happen later. So that’s been done before. But you’re right. Maybe the suburban area we live in right now doesn’t need to be quite that dense with those types of developments.

00:27:41 – Shaun Adams

Well, I will say on that end though, the apartment projects that are coming in, even the ones, I know a couple of them have been denied, but the proposals and Tucson Court as well, Broadstone, they are sub-metered, they are pre-wired in a way to where they could be converted. And I know that’s the difficulty. The irony is like, well, then why can’t it finance as a rental product but not an ownership product? And we can go into the legal weeds on that one. But they are being built now to have that conversion. If we ever find that people are going back towards wanting to buy like that, I could see that happening.

00:28:18 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. And it’s mainly a financial issue, right? It’s mainly the banks and what they’re willing to finance. And I’m glad that actually the city, I think it was a few years ago, started doing that, conditioning developments to be sub-wide and all that. Because that made sense. I mean, to be able to look to the future and all that. Plus, energy-wise and everything else, it just makes sense to have it done that way. Alright, let’s go into the Ds and the C area. Let’s go into the C area and why is that? And describe what business is actually there at that point.

00:28:56 – Shaun Adams

Certainly. So the C is what we’re calling targeted infill. These are typically slightly smaller lots in general, but you still have businesses and buildings where there’s some underutilized space, maybe over development, or in some cases you might have a smaller office building on a smaller site that isn’t doing so great, but you have better office around it. And so there’s the potential for maybe one property might change so that it betters the ones around it. And so with the targeted infill, you know, what we’re really looking at here is some of that medium. In some cases, you might say higher density, but again, because it’s a smaller lot. So we’re not talking a lot of units, but it might be, you know, more in that ten to fifteen unit range or, you know, fifteen to twenty unit per acre range, but still maybe only 80 to 100, 150 units, something like that. But the idea behind it is it needs to be something that’s meant to kind of help stand up and support existing and surrounding office. So we’re still focusing on that goal. Some of the areas you see here, down here at the bottom, is 20 and 22 Tech Park South. It’s already zoned as a mixed use. And then that spur right across from it is the Isaacson one that just came through, which is the office to condo conversion for 13 units. So again, this right here is an example of where this office was sacrificed, but around it these office buildings here are much better performing, a better condition, doing well. And so by adding some residential here, right on PIB, kind of in the gateway in, it’s gonna now help support some of what is around this. And so that’s kind of the idea. This section back here is research court. You’ve got Peachtree Farms down here, which already kind of has that little bit more of a residential type of character to it. But a couple of these buildings here are either fully vacant or, you know, in need of quiet repair. So there’s the opportunity to do some stuff around here that can maybe stand up some of the office within here, but also help further support, what we have at D. And then this is Spalding 141. So Goodwill Plaza here, Hapag-Lloyd, 5550 Triangle, and that’s this whole section here. And then on the other side, you have the Summit Building, Bank of America, and it’s kind of the space in front of it and the hotel. So that’s kind of a corridor area of some smaller lots where you could probably see some redevelopment occur at some point in time, which that kind of gives us the idea. D is our, we’re calling it commercial core. D is really the area where we don’t expect to see a lot of change away from office. A lot of the office and flex space or what have you in that area is doing well or conditioned well. So we don’t see substantive change. Obviously, most of this area up here is intuitive. The flex office space here, 5250 and 5390 is leasing up well. It’s performing. And so, you know, here what we say is any redevelopment here is going to be accessory in nature to the existing and surrounding office. So much lower intensity if it’s residential, odds are because it’s off the major corridors, it’s probably not going to support retail anyway. And so this is where you can amenitize it, you know, the trail heads can come through in certain places, that type of thing. And so that’s that to me is kind of like our stable base of office. And so not a lot of change.

00:32:32 – Rico Figliolini

Right.

00:32:33 – Shaun Adams

A, as you see here, we’re calling it the district hub, but it’s pretty center or central to the central business district, if you will. It’s right along 141. For context, this is engineering drive comes through right here so this kind of southeastern side of 141 is rod stone the liquor store the racetrack so that’s already is what it is. That’s built out and developed. The other side you have DR Horton back here and then this is the CarMax Plaza. There’s a little kind of right angle building tucked away that you don’t really see from the road, but overlooks the lake. So CarMax, parking right on 141, full signalized intersection, really underutilized space. And part of what we heard when people talked about amenitizing Tech Park beyond gathering spaces and trails was creating opportunities for entertainment, placemaking uses that wouldn’t pluck from town center and the Forum. Don’t want to start to compete fully with that. If there is a place to do it, it should be on a major thoroughfare. And so this is probably where your highest intensity of redevelopment would occur as it relates to additional commercial uses and residential because of its proximity and full access. And so it’s kind of the idea is that hopefully this kind of becomes your entertainment placemaking hub for the central business district.

00:34:05 – Rico Figliolini

I think part of that, wasn’t there at one point about adjusting some of the regulations for allowing recreational uses inside certain buildings that don’t exist actually at this point as far as an allowed use. Is that amended, I think, already?

00:34:16 – Shaun Adams

Yes, back in March. I think March, April timeframe, we did the social recreation facility and social hobbyist tax amendments that kind of address some of those smaller scale uses that didn’t, we didn’t really have a clean and tidy place for. But yeah, I mean, this could be the kind of thing where, you know, your fairway and socials or brewery, things like that. We’d love to see that type of anchor use come in here, something that could hopefully stabilize and make the CarMax building more, more valuable. Because it’s a pretty good shape building. If you put some stuff around it, you could foresee a situation. You’ve got 295 multifamily, 26 towns on this side, 75 towns coming on DR Horton. So you’re kind of in that 380, just shy of 400 range if out of all this you know in this area if you had a little more residential along with some entertainment uses you really have a core that can support that additional retail or entertainment use coming in so it brings a product to the city we don’t have hopefully that all of our residents up here in the shaded out area can easily pop down into and out but most anybody else coming to it is going to leverage you know the main thoroughfare 141 in the city to do it and so you know that’s we felt like if there was a place to have it that’s it okay and then I’ll hit F real quick because it should be real quick. This is really our saturn court down here. This is off of PIB. We call it flex office, but this is where most of our true kind of industrial one-story bay door flex office buildings are. Anything here is going to be more to enhance that. It shouldn’t see much in the way of true redevelopment there. It’s a pretty stable spot. And so we kind of drew those out on their own. And then the last one is B, we’re calling it district infill. Perspective wise, I mean, this is Jaybird Alley right here. So down here, you have the Comcast building down here below. This is Mary Our Queen up here. These two buildings right here are one property my understanding is this building is fully vacant most people are in this back building as you can see you look around you have a ton of underutilized parking and space an office park. And even the public engagement sector, our public engagement meeting this is where most people said hey the intensity of residential and everything if anywhere, that’s where it should be. It’s further away from town center where a lot of people feel like we already have a lot of growth going on. It’s adjacent to Holcomb Bridge Road corridor. We’re trying to do a lot to redevelop that corridor. And so this is where it makes the most sense. And so here is where we’re kind of proposing that medium to high opportunity as well for residential mix of uses. Still with a preference for built for equity products, I think there’s some opportunity because unlike C, these properties are larger. So you can take one property and do more. Where C, you might have some three to four acre sites. Here, you’ve got a lot of 12, 15 acre sites. So there could be some opportunity to do more with a mix of product types. You could potentially stabilize the office building with it, or you may have to take one to support others.

00:37:40 – Rico Figliolini

So let’s, I mean, medium to high density. So when, for example, I drove through, I think it was, what was it, Beaufort Highway? No, Peachtree Industrial Boulevard going south into the city. It was actually Chamblee I was driving through. And I hadn’t been through that part in quite a while, apparently, because all of a sudden I noticed all these buildings. Beautiful architecture, actually. Well-designed apartment buildings. Prettier looking, I’ve got to say, than Broadstone. But that’s just my take on it. Better architectural planning on that. Do we foresee that type of local development, too, maybe in that B area? Because, I mean, does that. Just so that people can sort of envision what is going to go where maybe as far as that goes.

00:38:31 – Shaun Adams

I consider that to be more of an urban higher density than a suburban higher density you know my vision for down here is there certainly may be a couple of sites where, you know, multifamily might be needed or might make some sense to be able to support the retail that’s right here. But really, when I look at this, doing some of that residential infill, you know, like a couple of zoning districts are talking about, I could see an opportunity for a mix of product types, whether it’s attached and detached townhomes with some stacked townhomes or smaller cottage homes, you know, where we can find an opportunity to do that, to bring in some more of that equity product, but it can be smaller footprints. And so it may be 15 to 20 units an acre. And, you know, in my mind, anything less than 20, you’re still kind of in that medium range. You get over 20 is when there’s a two in front of it and it starts to feel like, okay, for suburban areas, that’s probably, that’s the low end of high. You know, when you get like the Chamblee area, they’re probably 40, 50, 60 units an acre is what you’re probably seeing there. I don’t foresee that, you know, even our current regional or I say regional, but our current mixed use ordinance that we have, even with all the bonus density, you can get caps at 45. And 32 is the base. And so I don’t foresee it being Chamblee-esque, if you will. I want it to be a more efficient use of the space supporting the office. But I think my mind, when you say medium to high, I’m thinking this area is probably likely to be more in that 15 to 25 type of range and hopefully supporting as many of those office buildings as we can.

00:40:16 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Sounds good. So this is going to be presented to the city council again on December 17th. Public comments, public hearing. People can come to that meeting and make their public comments about that plan. It’s been out there already. There’s been public focus groups, a public meeting. So it’s been out there. Just for those people that might look at this, listen to this and say, I didn’t know about it, but it’s been out there. It’s been advertised. God, it’s been ad nauseum with being out there. So finally, it’s coming to city council, and it’ll be voted on at that meeting, because it’s gone past the first reading on it. Do you foresee any additional, is there any additional things that you should share, that you want to share right now that we haven’t covered, Shaun?

00:41:07 – Shaun Adams

As far as the plan, no. I mean, I think it’s pretty well out there. I mean, this is, to me, the biggest change is what the sub-areas are allowing us to do. I mean, other than stating that we’ve got a couple of zoning districts in the works as a byproduct of this so that we can fully implement the plan. But outside of that, we do have two applications in for December Planning Commission, but they’re not really specific to these changes. So we haven’t had that rush, even thought the moratorium ended on November 3rd, of people coming in. So it’ll be interesting as people maybe flip their heads out of the sand after the holidays in January and start to kick tires again to kind of see the reaction of the development community. The first couple of times they come in on some of these properties and talk with us about it.

00:42:00 – Rico Figliolini

Sounds good. Great. So again, for those, it’s December 17th, the city council meeting. If you have any questions, what I’m going to do is in the show notes for this, I’ll have a link to the meeting. I’ll have a link. I think we could get a link to this plan as well.

00:42:18 – Shaun Adams

It’ll be in the packet.

00:42:22 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Is there a separate PDF available on this that we can link to?

00:42:27 – Shaun Adams

I can get one set up for the full plan that’ll be shown. This was a specific presentation that doesn’t have the full plan in it that I’m sharing right now. But I can get the full plan maybe with a draft watermark on it or something and then have that so it can be shared.

00:42:45 – Rico Figliolini

Alright, that’d be great if you could do that. If anyone has comments certainly leave it in the comments email, myself or actually Shaun Adams at the city if you have any questions and sorry my cats are going crazy so just you know put your comments and we’ll see about getting answers to you before the meeting or certainly bring them to that meeting and you’ll know a little bit more about what’s going on. So Shaun, thank you. Appreciate you being with me. Hang in there for a minute while we say goodbye. In fact, if you want to take the map off, you’re fine to do that. Everyone else, thank you again. This is Peachtree Corners Life. My name is Rico Figliolini, host of this, and publisher of Peachtree Corners Magazine and Southwest Gwinnett Magazine, and Shaun Adams here. Give me your title again, Shaun, because I should remember that.

00:43:39 – Shaun Adams

Community Development Director.

00:43:41 – Rico Figliolini

There you go. So tell us all what you think. Give us some feedback in the comments. We’ll look forward to the next episode of this podcast when we talk to Shaun again, likely Brian Johnson, the City Manager, and we’ll get more information about what’s going on. There’s going to be a lot going on in 2025, that’s for sure. So thanks again. Hang in there.

In this episode of UrbanEBB, host Rico Figliolini sits down with Mike Logan, Chief Commercial Officer of AVID Products, to explore the world of esports, gaming headsets, and innovation in audio technology. Mike shares how AVID’s employee-owned ethos drives its mission to create affordable, durable, and communication-focused products like the AVIGA gaming headset. They discuss AVID’s presence at DreamHack, the transformative power of audio, and the growing gaming accessibility for diverse communities. With insights into market trends and the role of AI in audio, Mike offers a compelling look at how AVID fosters connection and creativity through sound.

Resources:
Avid’s Website: https://shop.avidproducts.com/
Aviga Headset

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – From Athlete to Esports Advocate
00:01:49 – Esports Offers Valuable Life Skills for All Students
00:05:22 – The Transformative Power of Audio
00:07:42 – Affordable, Communication-Focused Gaming Headset
00:12:36 – Expanding Aviga Headsets Beyond Gaming
00:15:15 – A Gamer-Centric Festival at Dreamhack 
00:17:48 – Leveraging Niche Markets and Affordable Solutions
00:20:31 – The Importance of Quality Products and Authentic Marketing
00:23:10 – Accessibility in Gaming and Lowering Barriers to Entry
00:28:06 – The Rise of AI-Generated Content and Audio Importance
00:30:54 – The Vibrant Gaming Community

Podcast transcript

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of UrbanEBB here based in Atlanta, Georgia. Hope you’re all doing well. I have a great guest today. I missed meeting him recently at DreamHack Atlanta, but Mike Logan, Chief Commercial Officer of Avid. Hey, Mike. Thank you for joining me.

00:00:17 – Mike Logan

Thank you, Rico. It’s great to be here.

00:00:19 – Rico Figliolini

You know what? We had a conversation before we started this and it’s good to get to know you a little bit more before we dive into this because it’s an interesting industry, and you have an interesting background. In fact, let’s start off with that. There’s a passion for esports that you have, I believe. something that you got, sort of turned on to with a high school coach. Was that what you said?

00:00:45 – Mike Logan

It was. I was at an event one time, a conference, our company that was there was sponsoring one of the speakers. And the speaker was an esports coach out of Alabama. And of course, we’re the sponsor. So he comes up to me and says, oh, you’re a big fan of esports. And maybe honesty, maybe I was too honest with him because I said, not really. And he said, why not? I said, well, I was a real athlete in school and, you know, in high school and in college and just don’t understand how video games can be considered a sport. He says, well, he goes, what if I told you that I gave my first varsity letter to a child in a wheelchair because esports? And I was like, well, that’s compelling. And he told me, he said, Mike, he goes, let me ask you. He goes, when you played sports, soccer and football were my two sports of choice. He goes, what did you learn? I said, teamwork and, you know, how to depend on people and how to be reliable and how to take accountability and be responsible for showing up to practice and doing your job. And he goes, but do you still have the physical cardiovascular benefits that you gained in high school today? And I said, well, no, they’re long since gone. And he goes, do you still have the teamwork skills and the benefits that you learned from being part of a team and working together? I said, absolutely. That carried with me through my career. And he says, those are the skills that we’re going to use and we’re going to develop when we do esports in high school. He says, I understand the argument that it’s not a cardiovascular pull like it is when you’re out on the field and you’re sweating in the hot sun. He said, but the life skills that sports teach kids are the same life skills that esports teaches kids. How to rely on somebody, how to be dependable, the accountability, how to lose and win humbly. All the different benefits that you learned on the field that you carried with you are the same benefits that we can offer kids that may not have a body type that allows them to take the field and represent their school. But now we do. And so now we have this outlet, the available option to offer kids the ability to say, hey, I might not have a body type. I might not be physically fit. I might not be athletic per se, but I can still represent my school and have school spirit and bring home a trophy. And so we’re seeing that. We’re seeing people groups, very diverse people groups start to come together under the umbrella of esports. So it’s opening up an entire cultural mix that we never had the opportunity to see before. And I’ll be honest with you, that was the moment when I realized the power of esports and was just sold on it.

00:03:13 – Rico Figliolini

It’s amazing. And you’re right. I mean, just knowing the kids that I know in the school here in Atlanta and Gwinnett County and stuff, these kids are learning a lot from that. And you’re right, team building. I mean, you don’t lose that. You have to be able to learn how to take defeat and how to work with other people that you normally may not be able to work with and appreciate people around you. So yeah, I can see that happening. So did you end up, you weren’t a game player before that, I’m assuming.

00:03:45 – Mike Logan

I’ve always been a video gamer. You know, I was right at that cusp of the generation that came up playing the old original Nintendo, maybe even a little Atari built into the early days, but never really viewed it as a sport until that time. Until I talked to that coach.

00:04:00 – Rico Figliolini

Interesting. Yeah, I had, you know, not for anything, I had the same feeling when I started seeing esports, which is big in the state of Georgia, actually. Very big here, and it’s getting bigger. But I felt the same way you did, Mike. Like, this is a sport? Yes, you have teams competing. But it’s interesting to see. And especially when I’ve played games like Fortnite with my kids and just the teamwork in getting through a game where you’re ranked going from 100 to 1 you really have to work as a team. And my kids would be like dad, just like you know we’re gonna leave you behind and stuff. I had to get better at what I was doing. I at least used the skills that I could use. So then I wasn’t weighing them down. So I can appreciate that. But yeah, and you’ve been in the audio education technology industry for like 25 years. E-Gaming hasn’t really been part of that. But Avid is a company on a mission, right? So tell us a little bit of what that core mission is and how that relates to what you all started doing this past summer, late May, when you introduced your gaming.

00:05:17 – Mike Logan

Sure. Avid really believes in the power of audio. And when you start looking at the science behind what audio can do for somebody, it has a visceral transformative impact on people. And what’s interesting is, you don’t even need a research study to know that because everybody knows that maybe you drove a little faster on the interstate when your favorite song came on, or, you know, there’s maybe a reason why they play Black Sabbath at the beginning of every stadium, right? Because it gets people’s adrenaline fired up and ready to go. So people know that music has an impact on them, but it doesn’t just have to be to get someone pumped up for a sport. They can actually be used for calming effects. And so Avid got into the audio industry by being the first company to ever put a headset on a commercial airliner. And we did that because we wanted to reduce that anxiety that people had of flying by playing music and relaxing them a little bit and just offering a better experience. So we’ve been doing this for 60 plus years with airlines. We got into the medical industry about 20 years later. And so we’re, a lot of people, I say some people say, I have never heard of Avid. I said, well, you probably have used this, though, because if you flew on an airplane and you had a headset on, there was a chance that was us. If you went to a hotel and they gave you a headset to work out with, that was probably us. If you went to a hospital for dialysis and they gave you a headset, that was likely us as well. So we’re very purposeful in what we do. And it’s all about using audio to transform some type of an experience. So that drove us to education where, you know, we see this influx of devices and the individualized learning. And so for the bulk of the, after the turn of the century, our focus has really been on schools and classrooms. And so that, obviously you can imagine that transition from just a learning headset and then using everything we’ve learned from that to go into the esports market where we see this other emerging technology or need for technology.

00:07:09 – Rico Figliolini

So what actually drove that idea of getting into that space? Because it’s a competitive space. A lot of products out there, a lot of companies doing this. It’s like pickleball almost in a way. They’re going to have a shakeout at some point because there’s hundreds of companies selling pickleball products. And just to differentiate yourself within that market space is a difficult chore. So, you know, with the new product you have, Aviga, the gaming headset that was introduced this past May at DreamHack Dallas, what got you guys started? How long did it take you? What, you know, did you look at technology to make this intentionally affordable headset for gamers?

00:07:56 – Mike Logan

So we were able to leverage some of our strength areas, similar to what you said when you play Fortnite with your kids. You know, you find your strength areas and you leverage those. And we did the same thing when we created this headset. What we knew is that we knew how to make an affordable headset because of the education market. It demands affordability. We knew we could make a durable headset. And we knew we had the ability to create a headset that had a really good microphone on it so that you could hear really well because we’ve made creator headsets before, budget-friendly creator headsets. But what ended up happening is some gamers picked up that creator headset and said, I really like using this for gaming. We said, well, why? They said, we can hear each other really good on this headset. So we started looking at it and we realized that most of the gaming headsets out there do a really good job of boosting the sound effects because that’s what we all like to hear, right? We, you know, we’re of the age where we can appreciate the old car stereos with the three knobs and we got in and what did we do? We turned the bass up, we turned the treble up, we turned the mid-range down. We basically made a smiley face with the EQ because that’s what we wanted to hear. Headset manufacturers aren’t that far off of doing the same thing. They boost that bass up. So the explosions and the gunshots sound really good. The big thuds come through. But you might be inadvertently drowning out a little bit of that vocal frequency range. And so what we’ve done is we said, let’s not overly boost those sound effects, focus on the vocal range and give people a really good communication-focused centric headset that they can afford. And so between the affordability of knowing the education space, the durability of making sure it lasts, and then this communication-centric mentality when we created it, we’ve created something that the industry is responding really well to.

00:09:32 – Rico Figliolini

Did you find, Mike, anything surprising as you guys went through this development of doing this, of creating it?

00:09:39 – Mike Logan

I think the surprise was how quick people fell in love with it. The headset was intended to be a K-12-focused esports-centric headset. It was going to be something that a high school esports team, a middle school esports team could pick up, purchase very affordably, outfit their whole team and have a really good communication experience. But what we have found is that all of a sudden within a year of releasing the product, we’re all of a sudden the headset for the U.S. national team. The Oklahoma City Chargers pro esports team uses our headset. Atlanta Detonate right in your backyard uses our headset. So we just signed the Carolina Reapers, not what, I think it was last week or two weeks ago, which is that’s the team that has the cat on it, which is just signed to the U.S. Olympic team so we have, we’re getting an awkward amount of attention because people just really like this approach that we’ve taken and they say we can just hear each other better and that’s what esports is all about is the communication.

00:10:36 – Rico Figliolini

Right. I was, prior to us getting on today, I was doing some research and stuff, going through some reviews, and the clarity was the biggest part of some of these reviews. The simplicity of the headset. I mean, there’s only one knob on the headset. But the simplicity of it, the ability to mute the mic, as most headsets do nowadays, but the clarity of the sound between players was the biggest thing that I saw in reviews that they were really happy about. So I could see that and that feedback probably. So as you do this, as you’ve rolled this out to gamers and stuff, do you look at that feedback? Is there ways to address anything? Is there wheels turning of what else you can do in the coming year of developing other headsets for this space? Are you going to work with that?

00:11:33 – Mike Logan

So one of the things I think makes our company different is we’re a small company. We’re not one of these behemoth companies out there that just can’t turn their ship very quickly. So VOC, or voice of customer is one of the primary driving factors that we use when we design a product. So upon release of the Aviga, we started asking customers, what could we do different? What do you love about this? What would you change about this? And so out of the gate, we’ve already started with our product definitions, getting ready for the next version of the product and we’ll continue to make it better just like we do with all of our products.

00:12:08 – Rico Figliolini

You’re an employee owned company, I think.

00:12:12 – Mike Logan

That’s right. So the entire company is owned by the employees. So everyone that you call, if you picked up the phone and called anyone at my company, they’re an employee owner. And based on how long they’ve been there, it determines their level of ownership.

00:12:26 – Rico Figliolini

You know, that’s impressive actually to me to have a company like that because that means you’re all vested in the success of the company, the products. And I’m sure that the feedback you all get at every level probably is really looked at and fed back to the team, I would imagine. So your primary audience at this point for Aviga headsets, we’re just talking gamers? Or you said before this, I think this is finding its way certainly in the high school level. What other areas is this beyond where you’ve mentioned? I mean, there’s a lot of places obviously that are using this, a lot of industries and market areas. How do you work with that? How do you find,  it can’t be everywhere you could be but you know how do you market that?

00:13:14 – Mike Logan

We have different divisions within our organization and you’re right, it was originally created as this gaming centric headset with the volume control to flip to mute and then this communication centric first type of a build. And so what we have found because of that, we’re seeing even K-12 schools, they’ll use it for STEM or STEAM labs instead of just e-sports because it gives that isolated experience and kind of allows a child to immerse themselves into the audio. But we’re also seeing it in telemedicine. So just about everybody has been exposed to an online or virtual doctor’s appointment at this point. That requires clear communication and isolated experience, private audio. So we’re seeing that pick up in healthcare as well. But then in the gaming space, the real target audience for the gaming space is not necessarily the pro gamer. It’s not going to be the next Counter-Strike champion out there. What we’re targeting is the everyday gamer, someone who wants to sit down, play games casually, and just enjoy the gaming experience and communicate with their friends.

00:14:17 – Rico Figliolini

So you all were at DreamHack Dallas, then you were at DreamHack Atlanta during Georgia’s Game Week, which was an expanded week of gaming and stuff. And I mean, they’re going crazy with the expansion of how they’re doing these things now. So not just, you know, gaming, what was it? The LAN games? Or bring your own computers also? I mean, there’s so many things going on at DreamHack. Dungeons and Dragons, board games. How do you market to that? You guys had a booth and stuff, giveaways. I think you were using even some influencers or gamers. How did that work? How did you get into that? Was that successful for what you wanted to do?

00:15:03 – Mike Logan

I’ll give a big shout out to DreamHack. Just to anybody that hasn’t been, you should absolutely put that on your to-do list. DreamHack is an incredible conference, and it’s not your typical trade show of sorts. They limit the number of vendors. It’s really a festival. And so it’s more gamer-centric and not necessarily vendor-centric. Even though we’re a vendor, we have a booth there. You have to keep in mind how you want to market to people. And so what we do is we do very, very hands on demonstrations. So we have people come up. We want them to experience it so they can put the headset on. They can talk to their friend over top of the sound effects of a game and they can hear it and really appreciate that. So that’s how we chose to approach DreamHack, is really try to make it more of a user-centric experience. And it was really successful.

00:15:51 – Rico Figliolini

You’ve had e-players, e-sports players, anyone that people could recognize or content creators?

00:16:00 – Mike Logan

So I think the funniest one was we talked about the Atlanta Detonate. They signed Fatality. And Detonate had a booth at the DreamHack event as well. And we decided to have some fun. We said anybody that was able to beat Fatality in a match of Street Fighter would get a free Aviga headset. And after three days, we ended up giving out none. So that was probably one of the most fun elements of DreamHack is that nobody could beat Fatality so obviously that’s one of the names people might recognize.

00:16:37 – Rico Figliolini

That’s amazing to do a giveaway and not be able to give it away.

00:16:40 – Mike Logan

No one could beat him, so.

00:16:42 – Rico Figliolini

That’s funny. And there were a lot of people. I remember the year, even though I missed this year, the year before that, I met several people, several, I mean, such an age group, such an age range of people that have come to DreamHack from, you know, 13-year-olds to 75-year-olds that I met. I met a 75-year-old who was there with his son. So you can imagine how young was that. And he was just hanging out while his son was playing one of the games. And, you know, so you have families coming there. I met another family from Minnesota. I met the mom who was there with her 13-year-old son who was competing in Fortnite, brought his own computer, but his father had to drive the computer from Minneapolis to Atlanta that day because they didn’t want to put it on the plane because, God forbid, something happened and it broke. It was one of those bring your own computer setups. So you have a variety of people, families. I think once you start selling, quite frankly, people are funny the way they are. They’re creatures of habits to some degree, right? If they start out with certain brands when they’re younger and stuff, they tend to want to live and keep with those brands a little bit. Loyalty to that. And I know you’re in a space, education also and stuff, where it’s a competitive space too, right? So you always have to look at new technology, advancing what you have maybe you’re working with the things that are coming up like vr and stuff right? Augmented reality. I mean all this stuff is coming to play. Does any of that fit into how you guys look at the future of what you’re doing?

00:18:26 – Mike Logan

It does. You know, it’s interesting you talk about those big companies that are out there and they’re basically everybody’s trying to go for that space. Audio specifically, individual audio, is a rapidly growing market in spaces where we don’t play. Typically we don’t play in the fitness industry for example, as heavily as we do in other markets. But fitness, the individual wireless earbuds in the fitness industry, it’s a booming market. But it’s interesting that we’re not a small player in that the number of headsets we sell every year is grossly inadequate to these other companies. We’re putting out just over 14 million headsets a year or headphones a year. And when people realize that, they’re like, wait a minute, how come I haven’t heard of you? And it’s just because we don’t invest as heavily in the marketing. We’ve really just invest in keeping our costs down and then going directly after a market that we know we can make a difference in, such as, you know, I mentioned earlier dialysis. It’s a great example of somewhere that just people weren’t focusing on that, but it really was a need to say people want a headset while they’re sitting there for, you know, possibly up to an hour and, you know, there’s just nothing to do. So it’s a great example where we could offer that experience to somebody. In education, it’s similar. That we were able to offer a low cost, very durable headset. The needs of an education headset aren’t what the big guys are looking at right now. They’re looking at something that looks cool and has the flashy stuff on it. Education, if you sell to educators, they want something that’s going to last them a couple of years, give them a great experience and be affordable. I think that finding a niche and finding an area where other companies don’t play and they just don’t have the expertise, I think that’s been the key for us and it will continue to be. We’ll find opportunities. We have meetings every month, every quarter to say, what else should we be doing?

00:20:13 – Rico Figliolini

It’s amazing. I mean, you’re right about the education system. I’m so involved a bit in Gwinnett County with different things. And I can see everything gets banged around. I mean, my high school, one of my kids went to a STEM high school. And things have to be made to last a while in these school systems because they will be banged on. They will be used quite a bit. Different people will be using that headset and stuff. It’s not one person, one kid that’s using it. So I can, you know, and I’ll share something. My background is publishing and marketing, right? And I checked out and I’m looking and I’m searching and I’m checking your website and I’m checking, you guys don’t do Google AdWords really that I’ve seen. You guys are not out there. You know, there are brands out there that might have 100,000 followers, but when you zone down to who they are and the amount of engagement, you could tell that sometimes these are bought or these are not real engaged audiences and stuff. So for you to be selling 14 million products, it’s just amazing to me, considering what I see. And I’m like, they’re not really marketing they don’t, you know, I don’t see that on the web if you will. So I can tell then that it’s really a relationship thing that you guys are building. And I mean it’s just, I’m impressed that you all are doing as well as you’re doing selling a product that’s a good product then without having to do what the big boys, they’re all playing Google AdWords, they’re all doing that stuff. You apparently don’t need that.

00:21:53 – Mike Logan

It’s about authenticity and creating an experience for someone that says, let’s first solve a problem. Let’s not just create a product to see if we can sell it. And that’s oftentimes what happens, right? And it’s sad, but people create a product, they put enough money into marketing. And I used to work for an amazing CEO that told me, he used to use this saying all the time. He said, every successful company has a genius. They’re either in engineering or marketing. And it’s interesting. So many people have their genius in marketing. They have a product and they just market it really well. We try to make sure our products themselves are exceptionally well-designed. They solve a problem better than anybody else. And because of that, we don’t have to spend as much money trying to market it. We just solve a problem, present it, and people appreciate it. And that’s really what’s happened with this Aviga, right? I mean, we’re still not the biggest booth at DreamHack. You know, we’re small players off to the side, but people seem to really resonate. You get people bringing their friends back over to the booth, affiliates, pro esports teams saying, I’ve got to see this. I have to see this one more time. And we’re continuing to get this churn and this buzz around the experience.

00:23:03 – Rico Figliolini

And that’s great because people sometimes they don’t respect the price, right? They look at something and say, well, is that really good? Look at the price on it. And it’s like, well, damn, if you read the reviews, they’re very good, you know? And it’s just like, you don’t have to be a $120 headset to be good. You know, that a lot of that goes is paying for marketing. A lot of that higher, higher in money. So I can see, yeah. Do you see trends in gaming, or audio gaming changing? What emerging trends are you seeing out there? Where do you all see things going over the next five years?

00:23:44 – Mike Logan

I think that one of the issues that the gaming industry in general has faced is this economic barrier to entry that continues to exist where if you want to be a pro gamer, you need a $3,000 or $4,000 PC, a couple hundred dollars worth of monitors, an expensive headset. You need expensive gear. One of the things that I’ve seen emerging, and again, hats off to DreamHack. I think they’ve done a great job of this, is all of a sudden you’re seeing Switch tournaments and you’re seeing just mobile tournaments, which of course are out there. But you’re even seeing PlayStation 2 tournaments come back up where the economic barrier to entry is very, very low. People can afford it. And the gamers that are emerging out of the areas that are you know maybe less economically advantaged than they have been, the gamers that are emerging from these other areas are exceptional and so we’re seeing a whole nother generation of gamers a whole nother people group of gamers come up because they can now afford to compete in these other types of tournaments. And so I think that’s one of the coolest things right now that we’re seeing in the gaming industry. Of course, I’d be remiss if I said I wasn’t excited about that because we have a very budget-friendly, high-quality headset. So it fits into that same market. But I think the thing that I like is that you don’t have to have a fortune and capital to get into gaming anymore.

00:25:09 – Rico Figliolini

That almost felt like the second I was thinking of street basketball pickup games. I mean, you just need the basketball and the net. You don’t even need the net. You just need the hoop.

00:25:15 – Mike Logan

That’s right.

00:25:20 – Rico Figliolini

So, yeah, I can see that. And even the nostalgia of playing games. I think my oldest has a PS5 and he’s just like he misses some of the old games because they were immersive. I think when you get to a certain age also, you sort of find that some of the stuff that’s going on now is just too much. You almost want to get back to the basics of gaming versus being immersed sometimes in these things. They’re getting so real. Like, in fact, Unreal Engine or the software that’s out there, you could literally walk into a war game, shooting game, for a shooter that you almost, if you didn’t know, you were like right in there, in real, like, texture and everything. Yeah. Be immersed and go to heaven. So do you, as far as the company, I mean, you’ve been there a year and a half. And the team, is the team like all in-person, hybrid, remote? Are you finding the industry like that too?

00:26:35 – Mike Logan

We have a combination. We are. I think most companies have figured out that when you use remote opportunities, when you’re willing to hire a remote employee, of course, there’s always challenges that that presents. But you open yourself up to a much larger pool of talent than when you are restricted to a certain number of zip codes so people can drive in. Our company is based in Providence, Rhode Island. We’ve been very blessed to have a very good talent pool in Providence. And that’s where most of our company is still based. But our sales staff, the regional account managers, they’re remote throughout the country.

00:27:08 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. Which is good because you don’t necessarily want them in the office, right? They should be out meeting people and doing things and marketing and selling. I guess the last question I have is, you know, with the personal experiences that you all have, you know, the shaping of leadership innovation, you know, what’s happening in gaming now, the way things are changing, AI, how AI would figure into audio. Does that even come to play in audio?

00:27:42 – Mike Logan

It does. So AI has already reached audio. There’s video generation engines that allow you to take you know two or three minutes of you giving a speech and then I can generate an ai video of you saying anything that I want you to say. So there’s that technology’s already out there and of course you know I always, we’re seeing this even in, you know, I hate to go back to schools, but we’re seeing it really heavy in schools because schools are using AI in some software to do grading and students speak into their headset and how they speak, how they pronounce words is being graded by an AI engine. This is the same thing that’s going on with these AI video.But it really boils down to the quality of input from the headset or from the microphone is going to drive the efficacy of the AI engine. So audio is becoming very important. As AI continues to emerge, the engines aren’t quite sophisticated enough to recognize nuances, accents, deviations, and voice patterns. And so it becomes inherently important for the accuracy of the pickup of the microphone to input into the system.

00:28:50 – Rico Figliolini

Interesting. I didn’t even think about that aspect of it. And you’re right. I mean, every time I think about Siri getting something wrong, it’s not listening to exactly what I’m saying. And I have a bad accent, maybe. Mine’s from original Brooklyn, New York. So every once in a while it comes out and it’s like I have to recorrect stuff. So I get what you’re saying as far as that being clear, I guess. Do you have any closing thoughts of what you want to share that maybe we haven’t covered during this podcast?

00:29:24 – Mike Logan

I think the only thing that we haven’t talked about, you kind of hinted at it a little bit with DreamHack, and maybe a commercial for DreamHack is if people haven’t gone, it’s an environment. And what’s interesting about DreamHack, and I think even the industry in general, is we grew up in an era where a video gamer was almost taboo. It was a black mark. You didn’t tell people that you were a gamer because they would think less of you. That guy’s just a nerd. I mean, I was a nerd in high school because I was a gamer and it was just known, but it’s so acceptable now. And when you go to a DreamHack and you’re surrounded by 55,000 people or 40,000 people that are all okay with you being exactly who you are. And it’s such a judgment-free zone. I think the industry and DreamHack is just a representation, a manifestation of that, that fact that you can exist in a world where you are who you are and there’s no judgment. And I think that’s what’s interesting about this next generation of gamers coming up is that they don’t have to hide from it.

00:30:25 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I like that. You’re right. I mean, and they’re welcoming. I don’t even think it matters the age level you are. We see a variety of people doing. And it just becomes a whole community. I mean, my 27-year-old, she’s playing on Fortnite and some other games as well. And she’s on Discord and she’s communicating with her friends from across the country. Such a time zone difference that sometimes I’ll find her gaming at like two in the morning. I’m like, what are you doing? You got work tomorrow. She’s like, they’re in California. It’s only 11 o’clock there. You know, it’s just like, but it is such a community of people. And they talk to each other and they share everything. I mean, you’ve got Reddit. I mean, my youngest goes to Reddit for everything. He’s like, if he needs to find out about a headset or something, he’s on Reddit and he’s checking it. He’s putting out the question. He’s looking up what everyone is saying. So, yeah. So it’s a great community. I can see that. This has been a good conversation, Mike. I enjoyed learning a bit more about Avid and your products and stuff and how you guys look at things.

00:31:36 – Mike Logan

I appreciate you having us. It was pleasant. And, you know, you’re a heck of a conversationalist. So I appreciate the format and just the casual nature of the conversation. So thank you.

00:31:46 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, thank you. And everyone else that’s listening, UrbanEBB is one of these podcasts that I do, one of several, that really talks about culture, business, politics sometimes and stuff. So I’m glad that’s over with. But it’s enjoyable talking about gaming and talking about this stuff. And it’s just, Mike, I appreciate you making time for me. Thank you again. Yeah, hang on for a second. Thank you everyone. If you like this podcast, definitely like it, subscribe to us, the subscribe button down there somewhere. Or if you’re listening to it on Spotify or iHeart or anywhere on YouTube or Facebook, wherever you’re listening to the video or the audio podcast, leave a review, leave a comment. Appreciate you all. Thank you.

Balancing Creativity and Parenting: Jill Tew’s Journey

In this episode of Peachtree Corners Life, Rico Figliolini sits down with debut author Jill Tew to discuss her gripping sci-fi novel The Dividing Sky. Jill shares her fascinating journey from a corporate career to becoming a published author, revealing how her love for science fiction and storytelling shaped her path.

Dive into the themes of worldbuilding, dystopian futures, and emotional experiences that form the core of her book. Jill also opens up about the evolving publishing landscape, offering insight into how authors today must stay agile and seize new opportunities. Plus, hear her thoughts on balancing writing with parenting and her excitement for her upcoming middle-grade novel with Disney.

This episode is perfect for fans of sci-fi, aspiring writers, and anyone curious about the creative process behind a debut novel. Tune in to discover more about The Dividing Sky and Jill Tew’s captivating writing journey!

Resources:
The Dividing Sky on Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/736783/the-dividing-sky-by-jill-tew/
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/764010/freedom-fire-kaya-morgans-crowning-achievement-by-jill-tew
Jill Tew’s Website: https://www.jilltew.com/books

Timestamp:
00:00:00 – From Corporate to Creative and Spreadsheets to Sci-Fi
00:08:12 – Exploring the Dividing Sky, A Dystopian Tale
00:13:17 – Worldbuilding Responsibility for Sci-Fi Authors
00:17:49 – Exploring Mixed Media Formats for Storytelling
00:20:43 – The Evolving Publishing Landscape
00:26:22 – Balancing Writing and Parenting
00:28:00 – Writing Tricks and Techniques
00:30:02 – A Young Black Girl’s Renaissance Faire Journey
00:32:11 – Writing for Young Readers
00:33:06 – Capturing Friendship, Uncertainty, and the Power of Perspective
00:35:40 – Closing Thoughts

Podcast Transcript

00:00:00 – Rico Figliolini

Hi, everyone. This is Rico Figliolini, host of Peachtree Corners Life, a podcast here in the city of Peachtree Corners in the county of Gwinnett, just north of Atlanta. So I want to welcome you all for visiting with us today. We have a first-time author, Jill Tew, who’s visiting with us, who lives here in Peachtree Corners, actually, as well. Hey, Jill.

00:00:20 – Jill Tew

Thanks for having me. Yeah, thank you.

00:00:23 – Rico Figliolini

This is great. I mean, I just love the idea of being an author myself. I’m sure I have a book in me somewhere, but I can appreciate the endeavors of a first-time writer and author doing this. Yours is actually called The Dividing Sky and is available on Penguin Publishing, their website, and anywhere else that you can find a book.

00:00:50 – Jill Tew

Anywhere books are sold. Yeah, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. I’ll always shout out local indie bookstores. If it’s not on the shelf, you can always make a request.

00:00:58 – Rico Figliolini

Excellent. So you were born in Georgia. You went away for college. You ended up in Denver for a few years, and then you came back to Georgia. Tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and where you’ve been in life.

00:01:14 – Jill Tew

Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up not far from here in the Dunwoody, Sandy Springs area. When I was growing up, it was Dunwoody, and then they incorporated, and so that changed.

00:01:22 – Rico Figliolini

Right.

00:01:23 – Jill Tew

And yeah, I grew up, I always loved writing and storytelling and went away for college to do something more practical. I thought that that was kind of what I was supposed to do. So I went away to school in Philadelphia at an undergraduate business degree and did that and was convinced that that was what I was going to do. I was going to go be an international businesswoman. And I was on the right track. You know, I graduated, I did pretty well in school, I got a very sort of like prestigious corporate job out of school, I was a management consultant. So I was working in New York advising major corporations. And yeah, after that, you know, I decided that maybe the corporate environment wasn’t quite for me, but I still loved business and I loved solving problems that way. And so I ended up moving out to Denver and worked at a startup for another couple of years. That startup ended up getting acquired by Comcast and it was kind of a really cool process to be a part of from start to finish. And that was when the time that I realized that I still had this like creative bug in me from when I was younger and I began to pursue writing as a hobby. And then a few years later, as things kind of shifted, the pandemic happened and I was growing in my craft. Then it shifted from being, you know, less of a hobby to more of, you know, a full kind of wholehearted pursuit. And now it’s a career.

00:02:47 – Rico Figliolini

Cool. What did, when you were younger let’s say, I don’t know growing up being a tween and stuff, what was your, did you have any, did you see yourself being creative at that point? What transpired even at that age? Because usually it seems to start young.

00:02:58 – Jill Tew

Yeah, totally. So it’s funny, you know, I never had any like visual art ability so I never thought of myself as like a creative person because I was like, oh I can’t paint or draw for beans. But I loved wordplay and so I loved like making things rhyme and making up funny like poems and like parodies of songs. My favorite book when I was growing up was actually my rhyming dictionary because I would use it to just like make up funny stories and poems and stuff. I loved books you know, I loved, I think, storytelling in all of its forms. So my favorite at that point ended up being musicals. So I, again, kind of love musicals for the storytelling ability. And I would find myself, you know, watching, you know, science fiction movies or books, or shows, excuse me, or when I was a little bit older, the Lord of the Rings trilogy came out. And I would just like, think about these worlds and thinking about these adventures and, you know, kind of come up with some of my own. I never wrote any fan fiction, but I read it heavily. And I just loved, you know, kind of imagining the different places that these stories could take me. And looking back now, it all kind of clicks. And I see, you know, where that spark kind of started. I loved writing stories and creative writing in school, but when I pivoted to that point of more pragmatic and practical approach, I should have known that eventually I was going to end up circling back.

00:04:17 – Rico Figliolini

That’s funny. So was science fiction, fantasy, was that area mainly your interest?

00:04:23 – Jill Tew

Yeah, mainly. I grew up you know reading animorphs. That was probably my first like science fiction love as a kid. I watched this show that not everyone remembers but if you know you know. There was a show that ran like the late 90s early 2000s called Farscape and it was like yeah. So it’s like Jim Henson Studios, like Muppets in space, but for like adults, like, you know, just like the best, like found family space opera of these like kooky alien characters coming together. I imprinted really hard on that show actually. And I feel like that was kind of where I got the bug.

00:05:00 – Rico Figliolini

Okay, cool. I agree. You listen, people get it from different places and depending on your age, it’s just, you know, it goes. I mean, my kids are voracious readers, and they’re into fantasy, sci-fi as well. Lord of the Rings was like a 13-year-old kid reading it. It’s a dense piece of work also.

00:05:21 – Jill Tew

Yeah, absolutely.

00:05:25 – Rico Figliolini

I can see that. So with the work you’ve done, you know, getting into it as a hobby, how’d you get into it as a hobby? What were you doing as far as writing profiles, short stories, trying to pull together a novel idea? How’d that work?

00:05:38 – Jill Tew

Yeah, it’s really funny. I have some friends who kind of started writing with short stories. I have a lot of friends actually that feel like they’re either good at short stories or novels. And like very few can really do both because they’re very different kind of media, like very different formats.

00:05:52 – Rico Figliolini

Sure.

00:05:53 – Jill Tew

So for me, you know, when I thought about a story, when my first story came to me, it really was this kind of bigger story that needed kind of a full length novel. I was at the startup job on the verge of burnout. And some coworkers thought that we should go see a movie after work. And so we went to the theater and it was Divergent. It was that movie that came out probably a decade ago. And walking home from the theater, I remember like that spark, like reigniting in me and me saying like, oh my gosh, like I’ve been missing this. Like this is what I want to do. I don’t want to make spreadsheets for the rest of my life, I just want to tell a story and I went home and instead of like working on work that night I started like plotting out this novel that I had in my head. It was the idea for like a parallel universe like sci-fi story and seven years later that story got me my agent. And then we went on submission and which means like you take the story to publishers and see if they want it. That book did not sell. But while it was out to editors, I ended up writing the book that became my debut, The Dividing Sky. So yeah, that was kind of the beginning of the journey was seeing Divergent and remembering that part of who I was.

00:07:01 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, Divergent. That was a YA novel that that movie was based on. A trilogy, I think, even because they came out with some more stories.

00:07:09 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:07:10 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. I love the process of writing the whole idea of doing it. You know, reading up on and listen to, you know, podcasts about writing the craft, like you said, because it is a craft, right? It’s an artisan craft almost in some ways. But putting things together, usually most authors that I’ve heard about or read about say that first book is usually that exercise of writing. But it’s not the book that ever gets published. It’s always the second or third book that might get you there. So is this book a duology, a trilogy, or is it a one-off book?

00:07:47 – Jill Tew

Yeah, right now it’s a standalone, I think. So actually I should say that next fall, actually I’m publishing The Penguin Random House again, a book that you could think of as like a companion novel. So it’s another kind of dystopian romance. It’s about a hundred years before the events of this book. So it kind of sets up how we get here, but you can read them in either order, honestly. Readers have been clamoring for a sequel already for The Dividing Sky. And so I am putting some thoughts together about what I want to pitch to my editors. It definitely has, it’s not a cliffhanger, but it leaves some questions open-ended at the end. There’s room for more. And so I’ve been thinking about where else the story might go.

00:08:28 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. No, I could tell. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but just the synopsis of what the story is about. It takes place in 2364. It’s an 18-year-old Liv Newman. Interesting storyline about what she does.

00:08:43 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:08:43 – Rico Figliolini

And that the rookie police force person, I guess, Adrienne Rowe, that follows her and finds her, and she’s lost all her memory, even though memory is part of her job. So, I mean, it’s just I think it’s such a great premise, and I can see how it could go further. You’ve done a lot of good reviews, it seems. Kirkus Reviews called your debut a gutsy novel. You’ve had other reviews in there and your comparisons even to Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower. What does it feel to be talked about like that? You know, to get those reviews?

00:09:21 – Jill Tew

Yeah, it’s a lot. I mean, when I finished it, and we were kind of wrapping up the editing process, I knew it was something special. But you never know, you know? I think, a lot of the power of those reviews comes in, like, who they assign to read it. And all you can do as a reader, as an author, honestly, is like, hope your book finds its people, like at every level, even, you know, bookstores. And so when I saw those star reviews, my first thought was like, oh my gosh, like this book might have a shot at like finding its people. And, you know, I mean like any author I think would like dream of being compared to Octavia Butler. I feel like I don’t want the book to be like overhyped, but you know, it’s funny. Like, I mean, I love Parable of the Sower. I love that book and Octavia Butler, her writing was brilliant. I think when I reread Octavia Butler or the Parable of the Sower this past year, I was reminded of how much of that story kind of seeped into my authorial DNA. In that book, the main character has this sort of like, you could call it a gift or a curse or just ability to feel like the physical things that others feel you know like if somebody gets punched in the face like she feels that pain and this idea of like a character like having empathy for like extreme like speculative like couldn’t possibly be real like empathy for others in that way has leaked into my DNA for sure. I think you know Liv in the Dividing Sky she’s what we call an emo proxy meaning that her job is actually to read books, watch movies, look at blades of grass blowing in the wind or sunsets, and have emotional experiences about those things. And then sell those emotional experiences, those emotional memories to wealthy clients who are too busy working to live life for themselves. And so this idea of transferring emotions, of channeling an emotion so that someone else can experience it, I feel like is tangential to that ability and Parable of the Sower in a lot of ways.

00:11:13 – Rico Figliolini

I love that idea. I mean, the fact that we look at COVID, we look at the sense of loss of personal connections with people, eventually losing you know I could see that it’s sad world almost a dystopian world where you literally have to work through other people’s emotions. Which is really what we do with social media right? When we scroll through TikTok for about 30 minutes we’re living through other people’s lives. It’s not that much different.

00:11:39 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:11:39 – Rico Figliolini

So is there, and as you know, every book always says, none of this is based on real events or real characters or people, but you know, an author writes from what they know a bit, right? Is there a particular part that was difficult to write or a particular part that you felt more deeply about in this book?

00:12:01 – Jill Tew

Yeah, that’s a really good question. So I think, there’s the world of the book starts off and it’s called the Metro. And it’s sort of this like hyper capitalist world where everything is hinged around productivity. And so you’re only valuable insofar as you can earn money for this mega corporation that we call Life Corp in the book. And that’s why everyone is so, you know, focused on working is because like, that’s how you get not only money, you know your productivity score dictates you know where you can live what you can do kind of just like the confines of your life. And so like of course you’re going to outsource reading books or child care or you know repair work or like dates with your wife to like proxies who will go and handle that for you. Now Liv and Adrian end up discovering this other community outside of the borders of the Metro called the Outerlands. And there are people out there who have been kind of vilified. But the closer they get to this community, the more they realize that they have a very different way of living that feels more connected and feels more like in harmony and is slower paced and appreciates the value of human life, not for being productive, but just for being intrinsically valuable. And that was hard. I mean, I did some thinking about what I wanted that world to look like, because, you know, I think as an author, like you’re going to be depicting a society that is like, you know, in some ways, kind of what you’re saying, what we should like swing closer towards or keep in mind, something that’s supposed to show, you know, what could be be possible. And you have to like take that responsibility really seriously. So I thought a lot about the elements I wanted to highlight and you know what I wanted to kind of telegraph as yeah, like a way of life that is you know maybe more in balance.

00:13:37 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. I mean you’re not too far off with the, with what you were saying before about how work or credits may affect your life because, I mean China does that right?

00:13:42 – Jill Tew

Oh yeah, the social credit, exactly, right.

00:13:48 – Rico Figliolini

And we’re not that far from that. I mean, we’re stepping towards it a little bit because even credit ratings, it used to be that apartment rent wasn’t counted in that. Now it is. Utilities and the use of utilities is being counted in that. It wasn’t before.

00:14:10 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:14:11 – Rico Figliolini

So I don’t think we’re too far from that social credit kind of deal.

00:14:13 – Jill Tew

I agree. Yeah.

00:14:15 – Rico Figliolini

So, and you do take responsibility as an author to be able to, I mean, as a reader, I take responsibility of what I want, what I like. So it’s a two-way thing, two-way street, right? To a degree like that?

00:14:31 – Jill Tew

Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:32 – Rico Figliolini

But I like where you’re going with that. World building is a very difficult thing.

00:14:36 – Jill Tew

It’s hard. It’s real hard. Yeah.

00:14:38 – Rico Figliolini

I mean, you do it well. I think people realize that without even putting too much thought into it they all of a sudden realize they’re in it and they like it. A bit like Blade Runner.

00:14:52 – Jill Tew

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think you know all of those stories. I think it’s funny as a sci-fi author and like dystopian author especially like you just realize you’ve been like swimming in this like ether and like all these ideas and you know there’s like androids in my book you know like all these things have just kind of like seeped into like your, the compost pile that you’re using to you know to grow your story.

00:15:13 – Rico Figliolini

Definitely, for sure. So where do you find, so you mentioned like movies, a couple of movies and stuff and obviously some books. Are there other books of sci-fi or movies or shows besides Farscape and some of the ones you’ve mentioned already that you’ve taken inspiration from?

00:15:28 – Jill Tew

Yeah, definitely those. You know, I mean, I haven’t really, I haven’t sold a book in space yet, but like I love Battlestar Galactica. That’s kind of like a classic space, you know, space story. What was I talking to somebody in an interview the other day about when I was younger, there were these two movies that came out back to back that were both about like androids that like you know kind of bordered on being human. So one was like AI, the Haley Joel Osment movie but he was like a little boy almost like a pinocchio metaphor. And then the other one was Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams.

00:16:00 – Rico Figliolini

Yes.

00:16:06 – Jill Tew

Where he lives over like 200 years. And I think those books, I mean the movies came out like back to back and I just feel like there was a moment there where everyone was kind of thinking about like technology and humanity and like where do you draw the line. And I think like I always wrestle with those ideas. The android character in Dividing Sky, Naz is Adrian’s like partner on the force. They’re like buddied up and he like he’s got a heart of gold right? Heart of like chrome and gold, I guess. But he you know, for being you know a robot essentially like he cares a lot about his partner. And I wanted to kind of subvert the idea of an android being clinical and like hard and cold and have one who’s like prime directive really was like the care of his partner. And there’s a book that is a little bit more recent it’s another like YA sci-fi book a trilogy actually, called the Illuminae Files. So if anyone’s listening and like has a young reader in your life that likes science fiction, this book is fantastic. It’s like a mixed media format so instead of just like prose on the page it’s told through like chat transcripts and like security camera footage and like all this really cool like artifacts. It’s a really fun read and also great on audiobook so I would highly recommend that one as well.

00:17:18 – Rico Figliolini

Okay. I haven’t heard about that one yet. But I guess trending today, I mean, you see, my kids are into YA novels too, or at least they were in YA novels. They’re into young adult novels, maybe, right? And so there’s trends out there, right? Different ways of writing. Like you said, I mean, it could be multimedia. It could be transcripts. It could be just different ways of doing it. Do you find, are there any, is there anything out there that’s trending that you think would work for you even for you to do?

00:17:53 – Jill Tew

I like, it’s my dream to someday do like a full mixed media like mixed format book like that’d be awesome. There are a few of those in Dividing Sky like we have some like police reports there’s some doodles in there that are really cute. We have like a scientific study abstract and a job description actually opens up the book so there’s like some fun little things we did in there from a design perspective to kind of make the world feel more fleshed out. But I would love to be able to play around with different mixed media formats because it’s almost like a puzzle coming together even more than like a novel already is. It’s like thinking about what elements you pull from like the real world that you’ve created to give a full picture of the story. So I think that’s really cool.

00:18:34 – Rico Figliolini

I’m curious. Your book is probably available as an audible.

00:18:38 – Jill Tew

Yeah. Oh, the audio book is fantastic. So we have two amazing voices. The story is dual POV. So it’s Liv’s perspective and Adrian’s perspective. And so we have two narrators, which is great. So Kaya Freight does Liv’s voice, and she is like a well-known anime voice actress. She does a bunch of audiobooks. She just did the voice of Violet from Fourth Wing on the like full cast edition of the audiobook so she’s amazing. And then Junior Nyong’o did Adrian’s voice and he’s a fantastic actor in his own right. He’s done a few audiobooks as well I think some things for the stage. He’s also Lupita Nyong’o’s little brother which is really cool too. So they both did a fantastic job. I’m like so, I’m a big like audiobook, I have like a high standard for audio books. And so I was like, okay, like can’t get just anybody. But I’m so pleased with how it turned out.

00:19:30 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, no, I can appreciate that. When I go on my two, three mile walks, I always listen to a novel or something. And if I hear a really good performance or voice, I always look for what other stories they’ve read.

00:19:42 – Jill Tew

Yeah, exactly.

00:19:42 – Rico Figliolini

Because I mean, just, you can have a really bad reader or performer just.

00:19:51 – Jill Tew

They can ruin a great book, yes. That’s happened to me, unfortunately, a few times when I’ve listened. It’s like, ugh, yeah.

00:19:55 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, same on that, but it goes that way sometimes. So you’ve gone through the process of writing your book, publishing it. I’m sure it took a little time to, like you said, it took seven years to get an agent. You wrote the book for seven years, but your first book.

00:20:09 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:20:12 – Rico Figliolini

And you got an agent. Were you surprised about the process of actually, behind the scenes process of what it took to get the book published?

00:20:19 – Jill Tew

Yeah. So the process of going on submission, I think, was more straightforward. It’s basically like getting an agent, but like all over again. So, you know, you send the manuscript out to editors, you know, your agent ideally has relationships with different editors and publishing houses. And, you know, in science fiction and speculative work, especially, it just takes a long time because editors are also editing books they’ve already acquired. So they’re editing those things. They’re reading a bunch of submissions every day, every week. So the time it took, like that was kind of expected for me. The Dividing Sky actually sold in like five or six weeks, which was pretty fast. And that was amazing. But yeah, so after that, I think, you know, I knew that it would take about 18 months to two years for the book to come out after that, which is about right. So we sold it in October 2022. It just came out. So that’s about right. And over that time period, yeah, you’re editing more at the high level story structure level. And then you go into line edits. So that’s like at the prose level. And then you get to copy edits, which is like typos. So all of that takes, you know, months and months and months. You know, I think what might have been surprising to me is that, you know, a year before the book even comes out, that’s when like marketing and sales and like cover conversations really kick off. And so, you know, you might be working with your editor for a year before that, but it’s like that one year timeline like starts like now all of a sudden it’s a real thing for like everybody else at the publisher. So that part’s always really exciting. So now we’ve got, we’re going through that process now for my next YA book.

00:21:55 – Rico Figliolini

Gotcha, okay. And publishing has changed right? So I mean you have Amazon selling books you have Audible selling books on credit. So authors aren’t making the millions that they used to make before, let’s say. And it was definitely an exclusive club to some degree, right? Where you can make at least a full-time living between a book and then talking tours and stuff like that. Did you find anything about that that was surprising?

00:22:27 – Jill Tew

Yeah, you know, I don’t have much to compare it to because I’m an author now. But you know, from what I gather, you know, I think the biggest thing that’s changed is that people’s attention is just split in so many different ways. And that has upstream effects, right? So if people don’t read the way that they used to, you know, we have so many different things vying for our attention between, you know, the different streaming services and social media, and, you know, all the other forms of media out there, video games. And so I think authors are not, you know, one of only a handful of different forms of entertainment anymore. There’s so much more out there. And so, yeah, I think it’s harder. You know, I think publishing houses definitely feel this, you know, both because, you know the big five publishing houses that they have their own like traditional way of doing things that now may not be as effective and because new players are entering the fray. Like TikTok has their own publishing house now called Bindery. And Bindery partners with local TikTok influencers to like who become editors and like kind of curate their own stable of authors and then promote them through you know going viral on TikTok. And so you know there’s all, and it’s working really well. I mean, I have good friends that have Bindery deals and they’re being treated very well. And I think for authors it’s a totally viable path. So yeah it’s just fascinating to see and then also even downstream you have like book boxes so they’re these companies that will create these beautiful exclusive editions of books and kind of spray the edges and maybe redo the cover and put the illustrations inside and now they have their own publishing houses as well. So they’ve spent years getting to know what readers want really, really well. And now they’re like great, like we can just go buy that we don’t have to pay the publisher to acquire the licenses for these books, we’ll just edit and like have our own authors. And so I think from all these different angles, publishers are feeling this push of like, okay, how do we get closer to readers, but also explore these new channels of marketing, right? I think it’s kind of a free-for-all right now. And I think, yeah, authors can just stay agile and nimble and kind of react to what the market’s doing and just try to seize opportunity where it comes honestly.

00:24:29 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah and hopefully that you know maybe one of these becomes a Netflix series or movie or something, right?

00:24:35 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:24:40 – Rico Figliolini

With all the streaming services looking for content and stuff it’s unbelievable. And with ChatGPT. I’ve had a few friends that think they’re authors now because they can just get ChatGPT to write a piece for them. It’s amazing. It’s not that easy.

00:24:57 – Jill Tew

No, it’s not. And like you, if you don’t enjoy the like puzzle and like mental exercise that is writing, maybe being an author is not for you. Like you should enjoy, it’s hard, but you should enjoy the process.

00:25:10 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, that’s for sure. It is hard. And it’s, if you’re not willing to spend weeks, months and several years on it, then just drop it. You’re a parent of two kids, two young kids. I think one of them is starting school, maybe shortly? How do you balance? Writing is different than a 9-to-5 job, and it’s even different than some of these remote or hybrid jobs. Because someone could say, well, you can write almost any time. Although your creativity might be good at 6 to 7 in the morning maybe, or maybe at night after the kids go to sleep. So how do you balance that? How does that work for you creatively?

00:25:49 – Jill Tew

Absolutely. So yeah, so when I, before I got an agent, when I was like, when they were very young, I would write mostly at night. Now I write in the morning. So, you know, you can write anywhere. But for me, like once my kids are awake, like a good half of my brain is just like tuned in to wherever they are, like whatever they might need. Even if like I’m in the basement of my office and they’re upstairs, like you hear the pitter patter of little feet and I’m like, oh, like there goes like a chunk of my focus. So I need to write when they’re asleep. So, yeah, I get up early. I write, my like dedicated writing time is usually in the morning from like 6:30 to 8:00 or so. And now because my oldest is in like full time school now and my youngest is in a half day preschool program, I have more of the time during like waking hours to write. But you know, I’m still a full-time mom so my you know, I’m doing grocery shopping, I’m doing laundry. Like that time gets filled with other things too. So I really protect that 6:00 to 6:30 to 8:00 time and I can get a lot done in that time. If I’m like plotting out my story and I know what the next scene is and I know, you know, what I need to happen and what conversations need to happen in that part of the book, I can bang it out. You know, as long as I’m just like keeping that time and like holding it sacred and getting up every morning to do it a little bit at a time, I can chip away at a manuscript.

00:27:11 – Rico Figliolini

Do you set up an outline? Do you start with an outline?

00:27:15 – Jill Tew

I do. Yeah. Some authors can be more kind of like flexible and kind of discover, you know, where their story takes them. I always outline. I’m a plotter, as they say. So I plot out my story. I made spreadsheets for a living, you know, before I was an author. Now I make them for my like outlines and my revisions. Love a good spreadsheet still. And yeah, I need that. Yeah.

00:27:37 – Rico Figliolini

Do you create profiles for some of your characters or do you let them tell you where they go as you’re writing?

00:27:44 – Jill Tew

Yeah. Some authors do that and have like a big story bible. I’m not, I don’t do that only because I know that it will make me procrastinate. Like I could spend forever building that out and then never actually get to the story. So I kind of let, I have like a few character details that I use in service of like figuring out how the plot works. And then the rest of it, I kind of build in over the course of revisions as things kind of flesh themselves out. Yeah.

00:28:06 – Rico Figliolini

Are you a bit of a procrastinator?

00:28:09 – Jill Tew

I’m not, but I can get in my head about like a story not being good enough to get started and I think that’s the biggest thing when you’re writing. Even, you know, for an established author writing the next thing and like that blank page is always scary. So yeah, if I don’t just like start then like I can get in my head and say like, oh let’s wait you know, a few more days. Like just, nope, just got to do it. You cannot revise what doesn’t exist. So you have to start first.

00:28:29 – Rico Figliolini

That’s good. I love that. Do you set goals for yourself, like word counts or time or anything like that?

00:28:37 – Jill Tew

Yeah, I try, you know, I’m generous with myself because I know that I, if I’m not careful, I’ll burn out. And then like that goal won’t be hit anyway. So especially when I’m on my own deadlines, not my editor’s deadlines, I try to take it easy, you know. I can do 1000 words a day pretty reliably. And so you know, that gets like three months later, that’s a full book, right? So that’s kind of usually my pace. And I do like to kind of backwards plan and think about, okay, by the end of the week, I want to be at this chapter. By the end of the month, I want to be here. That way I just know that I’m on track. Or that I need to adjust my plan if I’m falling behind or, you know, sometimes as you’re writing, you’re like, oh, like that scene actually belongs somewhere else. Or I can like accomplish that in a paragraph instead. So you’re always revising, like you’re not holding it too tightly, but I like a good plan. It just helps me know where I’m going.

00:29:26 – Rico Figliolini

I know the kids are kind of young, but the oldest, what does she feel about mom being a writer and author?

00:29:34 – Jill Tew

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So the moment they began to kind of finally get it actually was last February. I sold my middle grade book, which is like a nine to twelve year old reader, kind of like that’s like younger than young adult right? I sold two books to Disney. So my first one, my first Disney book’s coming out in April. But when I told them that it was with Disney, they were like, oh, Disney, like we get it. That was amazing. And then actually like three days ago, I was going to, we were picking up Mellow Mushroom for dinner. And we went to Johns Creek Books and Gifts, which is like right down the street. And my book is there. And so I was like, our oh, pizza’s not ready yet. Let’s just go in this bookstore. So my oldest was with me. And I was like, hey, do you see anything that looks familiar? And like her eyes popped out of her head. I think for her, she was like, oh, like mommy writes real books. And they’re like in the stores. And that was, I think she was like proud, but like also just like over, like it was very cute. But yeah she like, she couldn’t believe it so that was really cool.

00:30:33 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, that must have been a great feeling.

00:30:35 – Jill Tew

Yeah, I mean she, you know, like the whole house, my husband’s been amazing about this too. Just like the whole house has been like, mommy’s books coming out. So we have like just keep track of like whose birthdays come in like the calendar year and so it’s like, oh like daddy’s birthday, mommy’s birthday, you know my youngest, my oldest, whatever. And they slotted my book’s birthday in there so they’re like, mommy’s book’s birthday. And then yeah, and then Christmas. And so yeah. So it’s been like a big thing we’ve been building up to so yeah.

00:31:00 – Rico Figliolini

That’s fun. Now you did mention a middle grade book you wrote. So tell us a few you know tell us about that.

00:31:10 – Jill Tew

Yeah. So that’s coming out April 1st. Oh I have that, I’ll show you the cover because it’s very cute. So that book is, it’s called Kaya Morgan’s Crowning Achievement and it’s about a, let’s see put the camera, a black girl growing up in suburban Atlanta who is competing to be crowned the first black queen of her local Renaissance Festival summer camp. And it’s really good. I loved the Renaissance Festival growing up. It was a big part of my nerd awakening, probably. And there’s just so much in here about this girl kind of discovering where she belongs and what she’s interested in, even as society tells her that maybe those things don’t make sense for who she is. And also a bunch of Renaissance Faire puns in here.

00:31:54 – Rico Figliolini

So that’s great. And that’s a great festival. First of all, anyone that lives in Atlanta should be able to visit.

00:31:59 – Jill Tew

It’s amazing. Yeah, I go every year. So, yeah, that one’s coming out in April. And Disney has, it’s been great to work with too. It’s kind of fun to think about younger kids and readers that are maybe still looking for, they don’t know that they’re readers yet. They’re looking for the right book to hook them. And so I think a lot about the reader looking at this on the shelf and saying, okay, maybe I can get into books.

00:32:13 – Rico Figliolini

So that’s a lot different to write than a YA novel.

00:32:21 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:32:22 – Rico Figliolini

I mean, did that process take longer? Is it the same agent or you had to find a different agent?

00:32:30 – Jill Tew

Yeah. Same agent, different publisher, obviously. So yeah, for this one, you know, it’s interesting. You know, I love a good love story. There’s no romance in my middle grade, right? So where’s my romance arc? But that’s okay. There’s a friendship arc, which is really good. And yeah, the voice is different. I think younger kids, I think even for a young adult, like in YA, everything is so immediate and urgent, but for middle grade, even more so, right? So your best friend doesn’t invite you to the birthday party, your world is crashing. It’s crumbling down, right? And so it was fun to kind of get back into my like 12-year-old headspace. Remember what it was like, like not knowing who I was going to be, like who I was going to end up becoming. There’s a lot of that uncertainty and like, who am I, where do I fit in? It was fun to revisit that and kind of provide, you know, one perspective.

00:33:20 – Rico Figliolini

That’d be interesting for your kids to pick that up as they get older.

00:33:24 – Jill Tew

Yeah exactly. It’s different yeah.

00:33:37 – Rico Figliolini

Yes, critiquing mom on, I don’t know about this mom.

00:33:38 – Jill Tew

Yeah I can’t wait. Yeah my oldest is still, she loves her like Dog Man and Captain Underpants right now. But I think as she gets older she’s like, she’s close to getting ready for this. yeah we’re going

00:33:42 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah, I remember Captain Underpants, my kids bought those too. Actually, because of the school book fair, it’s scholastic books and stuff.

00:33:50 – Jill Tew

Yeah.

00:33:56 – Rico Figliolini

How far out do you think? I know you’re working on the other book. So how far out do you plan? I mean, or are you taking it as you go?

00:34:08 – Jill Tew

Yeah, I think I take it as I go. I mean, I have a few books, book ideas in me. So right now I’m actually, I need to start drafting. My second Disney book comes out April, 2026. So I need to start drafting that. I have the outline ready to go, but that’s kind of where I’m at in terms of my like workload. After that, I have no other contracted books yet. We’re on submission with an adult space opera, which I’m holding my, crossing my fingers for. But I’m excited to have some time in the early part of next year for a book that like, is not under contract, like nobody else knows about like, I just want to like play around again. Because I think, like, you know, it’s amazing to have book deals. But you know, there’s, you know pluses and minuses to everything and I miss that feeling of like this is just for me. So I’m excited to get back into that.

00:34:51 – Rico Figliolini

That’s cool. So have we missed anything that you’d like to cover that’s maybe, that I didn’t quite get to?

00:34:59 – Jill Tew

I don’t think so. I think that’s me.

00:35:02 – Rico Figliolini

Do you want to show us the cover of your new book? Do you have that?

00:35:04 – Jill Tew

Yeah, I do. Let’s see. This is The Dividing Sky, which this cover is absolutely gorgeous. It gives me all of the science fiction, romance vibes. Yeah, they did it, so pretty.

00:35:17 – Rico Figliolini

Yeah. Excellent. Well, we’ve been speaking to Jill Tew, author, first-time author, lots of books out at this point with Disney and this first novel. Appreciate you spending time with us. And it’s great to see, you know, Peachtree Corners has a lot going on and it’s good to see, again, I’d love the opportunity to talk to different people from different areas of different professions, different skill sets. So this was great. Love talking about the, talking shop to some degree, although I don’t do writing, I publish magazines, but that’s about it.

00:35:53 – Jill Tew

It’s all connected. Absolutely. Thank you so much for this and for having the spotlight. I love the city. When we were moving back, it was top of our list. So we’re so happy to be here.

00:36:02 – Rico Figliolini

Great to have you. Hang in with me for a minute. I just want to sign off a little bit, but I also want to tell everyone EV Remodeling Inc. is our sponsor for these podcasts and for our publications. So check them out. Eli lives here in Peachtree Corners with his family. They do great work from start to finish. So no matter what you’re doing, whether it’s one room or all the rooms in your house, you should visit them. So EVRemodelingInc.com is where you can get that info. And if you’re listening to this through our website or wherever you’re listening, I’ll have links in the show notes. So this way you can find more about Jill’s books and about the Disney book as well. We’ll have that link as well. So thank you all for being with us. Appreciate it.