Isabel Allende began writing daily letters to her mother when she was a teenager. Over the next several decades, they exchanged over 24,000 of them. Allende credits their letter writing with removing the need for small talk and creating a deep bond between them. Knowing that she had to write to her mother every day pushed her to pay attention to her life in a way that, she says, was central to her becoming a writer. 

Letters have been a throughline in her books as well. Allende?s best-selling novel, ?The House of the Spirits,? began as a letter to her dying grandfather. ?The House of the Spirits? has just been adapted into a new TV series, and the connection between mothers and daughters is central to this multigenerational saga.

In this episode of ?Modern Love,? Allende tells the host Anna Martin about the transformative power of letter writing on her relationships and career. 

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Tracy Clark-Flory was 16 when she learned something that would change her world forever: She had a half sister she?d never met. Tracy's mother, Deborah, had gotten pregnant as a freshman in college. She?d given birth to a baby girl in secret and placed the baby for adoption.

Tracy could tell that talking about this baby made her mom uncomfortable, so she didn?t pry. But from that moment on, Tracy was full of questions. Where was this sister? What was her life like? Would she want to hear from Tracy if there was a way to get in touch?

These days, Clark-Flory is a writer, and she is a mother herself. She has a new memoir coming out called ?My Mother?s Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family?s Fractured Past.? In this episode of the ?Modern Love? podcast, Clark-Flory tells Anna Martin how she finally got answers about her sister. She also shares what she found out about her mom: Turns out, there was so much more to her story, too.

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Explore the trials and tribulations of love in these deeply personal essays. A collaboration of The New York Times and WBUR in Boston, Modern Love: The Podcast features the popular New York Times column, with readings by notable personalities and updates from the essayists themselves. Join host Meghna Chakrabarti (WBUR) and Modern Love editor Daniel Jones (NYT) -- and fall in love at first listen.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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