Maggie Downs, BRAVER THAN YOU THINK

Zibby Owens: Welcome, Maggie. Thank you so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books" to discuss Braver Than You Think: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother's) Lifetime.

Maggie Downs: Thank you so much for having me. This is a pleasure.

Zibby: It's my pleasure. I was starting to tell this before. I had been so excited to read this book that I kept trying to sneak into it when I had lots of other books on the horizon in the shorter term. I'm delighted I finally got a chance to read the whole thing because it was really good. I kind of feel like I know at least a version of you that you put forth in the book now. Thank you for sharing all of that with your readers and with me.

Maggie: Thank you for reading it. I appreciate it. I'm like you. I read multiple books at the same time, and so I'm always cheating on one book or another.

Zibby: Totally. Good. Now I don't feel as bad. Book cheaters anonymous or something. Why don't you tell listeners a little about what your book is about and what inspired you to write it?

Maggie: The elevator pitch is that it's a memoir about a year that I spent backpacking solo around the world to complete my mom's bucket list while she was in the final stage of Alzheimer's. The longer version is so much more difficult. It starts when my mom was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's. I was so young when that happened. It kind of sent me into a tailspin just reckoning with the fact that I would never know my mom as an adult. I was in my early twenties when she was diagnosed. I was just learning how to become a person. I didn't know how to deal with the fact that she was in decline. It happened so rapidly. Within a couple years, she had no idea who I was. All of that, of course, forced me to think about my own mortality and just how I wanted to live my life. I knew that there were a lot of things that my mom wanted to do with her own life and all these dreams and goals she had. When I thought about, what would she do if she could have this time back, if she had the option to do it all over again, what would she do? I pulled on some of my memories of things she had talked about. I compiled a bucket list for her. I did the things that I thought she might want to do. I quit my job. I sold all of my things. I had ten thousand dollars. I didn't know how far that would take me. It took me through South America, Africa, and then Asia before I went home again. It's no spoiler that she dies halfway through my trip. There was a big grieving process in the traveling and then also trying to figure out how to heal from that.

Zibby: Wow. I loved how you interspersed all of the trips and all of the challenges that came from underwear and socks that wouldn't dry in time for a hike and sleeping on the floor of an airport and all these things, and getting attacked by monkeys. You just had all sorts of bizarre things happen. Yet on every page was something about your mom, I felt like. It permeated everything that happened to you that whole year. It was like a love letter, the trip, the book, all of it. Do you feel like once you spent all that time and emotional energy writing, did it give you some sort of relief in a way? How did you feel when you finally had the book done and you went back to life?

Maggie: Grief is such a strange thing. I feel like you never fully heal from it. It did make me feel like there was a way out of it. When I tell my friends in California how grief feels, I describe it like a labyrinth. Since I'm from Ohio, it's more like a corn maze. I think of it personally like this scary place. I don't know how to get out. I'm just trying to navigate through it. I felt like writing the book was one passage out. It was another way to get around my grief a little bit after being steeped in it for so long. Also, in writing the book, I really wanted to help other people who were grappling with the loss of a loved one, and especially people who their loved ones might have an extended illness because that process of grief and mourning them is so extended. It happens for so long before they ever die. That's really, really hard. It was hard when my mom was diagnosed for me to read any book about Alzheimer's because there's no happy ending with that disease. It's an always-fatal disease. I wanted to write a book that tackled these topics but also had some light and some hope in it. 

Zibby: There's another book coming out in January. This might run after that. It's by a rabbi named Steve Leder called The Beauty in What Remains. His father had Alzheimer's. He had to deal with a ten-year journey. It's also about grief. I feel like you two should team up. Those two together would be a perfect, almost like a grief bundle. I know that sounds terrible and commercial, but they're both so helpful in different ways. His was about a man losing his dad. Yours is losing your mom to the same illness. It's just very complementary. Anyway, look into it.

Maggie: I will.

Zibby: Speaking of Ohio and the corn maze, my mom and her whole family are from Dayton, Ohio. My grandma's from Cincinnati.

Maggie: That's where I'm from.

Zibby: I know. I read that in the book. I was like, oh, that's so great. I've been to Dayton a zillion times. Small world.

Maggie: That's great. That's so funny. I always forget that people know these things about my life because it's in the book. Someone will say something now and I'm like, how did you know that about me? Then I remember, oh, yeah, I put it in a book that anyone can read. [laughs] 

Zibby: Pretty much, the secret is out. The midwestern roots cannot be dyed. Take me back a little to growing up, not just that you were in Dayton, but you referenced your sickly childhood a lot and your asthma and pneumonias or bronchitis, that you were sick a lot. Obviously, that has long-term effects when people go through a lot as children, more resilient or this, that, or the other thing. Tell me about that and what was wrong and how you got over it.

Maggie: I just was very sickly. I have an older brother and an older sister. They were natural athletes. They were always playing basketball or that kind of thing. I was the kid who, I would literally make a fort out of books. I would sit inside my fort and just read books because it was a struggle for me to do physical activities. My asthma was so profound. It took a while to diagnosis that. I was always the kid at the tail end of races in PE class and what not. I never thought of myself as a physically strong person. I do think that remains with you. That’s just always in the back of your head. Maybe I can't do this. Maybe I'm not strong enough. Maybe I don't have the physical capacity to do this. When I embarked on this backpacking trip, I was really scared that I wouldn't be able to endure it, that I might have a medical emergency somewhere or just not be able to breathe. That's so scary. I spent a lot of time working with a travel nurse and getting vaccines for every possible place I was traveling to and getting special medical insurance that could airlift me out of a place. I had all my bases covered. I just had to do the thing. You're right. That does have a long-lasting effect on a person.

Zibby: Then it's even more of an accomplishment that you were able to go to high altitudes and hike and crawl up different mountains and stuff. That's amazing. I feel like a lot of people who have really bad asthma would not necessarily even want to do that. Then I found myself worrying about you with COVID. I was like, I wonder how that would affect her lungs. She's already susceptible. I hope you're being really careful. I'm sure you are.

Maggie: I've thought a lot about the trip I took and what it would be like now with COVID. There were so many moments that were really physical between me and strangers. I remember being on these long-haul buses where people would just fall asleep on me. It was these really tender, intimate moments that you have with strangers. I miss that. I'm sad that that's not happening right now.

Zibby: That's true. It's one of many things to be sad about right now. You met your husband skydiving, which is so cool. I don't think I know anybody else who I can say that about. You didn't want to do it. You were kind of annoyed. Then you did it together. Then you kept doing it over and over again. Then you realized he was your person. Next thing you know, you've set off on this adventure. Part of your adventure was spending all this time without him. What made you want to do it alone? I know you were sad in the book when he left and all of that. You reunite and everything, not to give anything away. I can delete that if it's a secret.

Maggie: No, it's fine. I don't think it's a spoiler.

Zibby: I feel like if you go to Instagram or something, you'll see what the culmination of it was. Tell me about getting together with him and then the decision so soon immediately after you get married to separate.

Maggie: I feel like when you meet someone skydiving, that's already an unconventional kind of relationship. This isn't in the book, but he proposed to me six or seven times. I was like, "I don't know. I don't want to be a traditional wife." I kept saying, "I don't want to be Donna Reed," as though there's no other way to be a wife or to be in a marriage. Finally, he said, "Our relationship is something that we create. It doesn't have to look a certain way. It doesn't have to go a certain way. If you're afraid of being stuck at home in a certain place or in a neighborhood you don't like or having a certain role, it doesn't have to be that." Then we ended up getting married before this trip because we did want the security of being able to -- if I needed help in a country, a husband would have access to me that a boyfriend wouldn't. It was very practical when we ended up getting married. Also, I think it's very romantic that someone wants to care for you. I don't know why I thought a year apart would just be easy. I'm very independent. I would go away for the weekend or a couple weeks traveling. I just didn't think anything of it. I thought a year would be the same, but a year was a really long time, especially when you're not traveling the same direction. Different things were happening in his life than with mine. It was a real struggle to find common ground at a certain point. When I returned home, it was a difficult time, but we worked that out. Honestly, I was reluctant to even put my marriage that much in the book because I feel like so many women's stories have a romance facet to them, and I was kind of resentful of that. You can be a whole, interesting, complex person without a partner or without romance in there. I think it actually adds something to the story, so I was finally convinced to put that in.

Zibby: It's just like any other part. Any relationship actually just tells the reader more about you. It's not about the romance. It's who is she in a relationship? Who is she when she goes to visit her mother? Who is she with her siblings? It all just is of a piece. I don't think it's about the man or the partner, even. That's my two cents about it. 

Maggie: I agree. I really like that it's not the main storyline because that's not what the story's about. I appreciate that it's there.

Zibby: Backdrop. Backstory. I was really moved when you were writing about your hesitation to have your own kids because you were so worried that you would be carrying the gene for early Alzheimer's and that you would be condemning your children to that type of illness down the line for them. I'm just going to read this little passage. You said, "What I've never said out loud is that I'm afraid. Every time I misplace my keys or leave my purse in the car, I text my sister in a panic believing I'm in the early stages of Alzheimer's myself. Shortly after my mom's diagnosis, my dad tried to comfort me on the phone. 'By the time you're old enough to worry about it, there will be a cure for this disease,' he said. 'There might not be hope for your mom, but there's hope for you.' Almost a decade later, we are no closer to a cure or a way to prevent this thing, but I am closer to an age where I need to make a decision. I don't want to be a parent if I can't be fully present and mentally aware. I don't want my child to watch me disintegrate the way I witnessed my mom's decay. I don't want to pass the disease on. Parenthood is an enormous risk." Then you say, "However, the choice feels simple in this living room where the wallpaper peels and the roof sags with mold. I wonder what I am waiting for. I wonder if not taking a chance is in fact the bigger risk." I love that passage.

Maggie: Thank you. That was an experience that really taught me something. That passage is from when I'm with some kids in Argentina whose parents have left them with me. I'm watching these kids grow up kind of like Lord of the Flies. They have to fend for themselves. It really brought out a maternal instinct that I didn't know that I had. That was on my mind a lot as I was traveling, just thinking about if I wanted to have my own children and what that would mean.

Zibby: Did you ever want to get tested for the gene? Have you ever thought about that?

Maggie: My siblings and I, we've talked about that. We've all decided that we don't want to know.

Zibby: Wow. Have you seen the movie Ask Alice? Is that what it's called?

Maggie: Go Ask Alice, I think.

Zibby: Go Ask Alice with Julianne Moore.

Maggie: I know what you're talking about. Still Alice.

Zibby: Still Alice, yes.

Maggie: No, I haven't seen it yet because it looks too hard for me. A lot of people have recommended it. 

Zibby: It's so good. It's literally one of my favorite movies, and so I mistakenly think that I know somebody who's been through this because I got to watch Julianne Moore's depiction of a woman going through early-stage Alzheimer's and what that felt like. The kids, like you, have all those same fears. It was a big debate in the movie. Should they get tested or not? That's scary. You never know what you're going to give your kids. It's also, does that make life not worth living? Ultimately, I know what you decided, but that's a tough choice. Aren't you glad your mom lived? It's one of those things. 

Maggie: Ultimately, it's like anything. It's just so much up to chance. Any choice this brave, no matter what a woman decides to do, I think just being a person in the world is brave. That's an act of bravery in itself. Just being out there and being a person every day I think is an act of bravery. If people read this book, I don't want them to think that they have to skydive or they have to travel to remote Ethiopia. They can have meaningful experiences no matter what they choose to do.

Zibby: I know you were an award-winning journalist for years. You were amazing. Tell me about your journalism career and how you got into that and what that was like for you and then how it shifted having to work on one project for a sustained period of time like this.

Maggie: I thought I was going to be a cool writer for Rolling Stone. It turns out I ended up at a newspaper in Appalachian Ohio at a small-town paper. I was like, this is fine. I'll just do this for a few years and then move to New York and be a cool person. That really never happened. I just continued working through newspapers. I worked at some different publications in Ohio. I went on to The Cincinnati Enquirer. To me growing up in Dayton, Ohio, The Cincinnati Enquirer, that was it. This was big city, huge newspaper. It's a great paper. I had my own column there. I felt very much like Cincinnati Carrie Bradshaw. [laughs] I was lucky enough to have some really great editors who helped me develop the craft of writing and really dig into some wonderful stories. They would give me the freedom to follow pieces for a long period of time and do some long form, which was really rare. Then somehow, I ended up working the nighttime cops beat in Cincinnati. It just involved a lot of listening to police scanners. If there was a shooting or a body dredged from the river, I was the person who was there. That's not a really creative or fulfilling life. It's important. Somebody needs to be reporting these things, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. Then I ended up moving to Palm Springs and writing feature stories here and writing about the Coachella Music Festival and the film festival and interviewing Brad Pitt and all sorts of amazing things. Even that after a while starts to feel a little formulaic. I just wanted to expand my aperture. I wanted to get a bigger worldview. That's when I decided to go on this trip.

Zibby: Now that you've written a book, do you like writing at this length, this style versus going back to shorter pieces? What do you have in mind after? What comes after this?

Maggie: It turns out books are really, really long. [laughs] It sounds so obvious, but I was used to writing really short pieces, columns that were seven hundred words. When I embarked on a book, it was just a whole new thing to realize, wow, I really need to sustain this narrative for such a long period of time and keep it compelling. I went back to school. I got my MFA. I learned a lot more about writing. It's hard, but I love it. I love the freedom that books offer. I have an idea for another book. Right now, I'm thinking of it as a collection of essays because I think that seems less daunting, but really, I think it's not really a collection of essays. I need to trick myself into thinking this is something I can tackle in small bits. Otherwise, I'll never do it. 

Zibby: Gosh, now I'm blanking on who this was. I just recently interviewed someone who said don't think of a book as a book, think of it as twelve chapters. Same mental trick. It's really just little pieces strung together becomes something bigger, which sounds so obvious, but it's not when you are at a blank page or what you feel like might be hundreds of pages versus ten pages.

Maggie: I always had to trick myself. I think I said in the book even when I was skydiving, I knew I would enjoy the skydive once I was out of the airplane. It was just a matter of getting out the door. I would tell myself I'm Angelia Jolie's stunt double for Tomb Raider or I'm on the Olympic skydiving team, which doesn't actually exist, but it was enough to get me out the door. Then once I was out, you can't get back in. You just have to enjoy the fall. I feel like that's the same thing with books too. Once I was so far into writing this book, I thought, I can't stop now. I just need to enjoy this writing. Ultimately, I love it because being a reader for so many years, I know how books are a conversation and how every reader brings their own thing to the story. I love that. I love knowing that I'm having this conversation with readers. No matter who gets this book into their hands, we're having a dialogue. I want to have that opportunity again. I think that will get me going on my next project. Then also, just launching a book during a pandemic, I feel like I need a do-over, so I have to have a second book.

Zibby: It's true. I recently reposted all these interviews I did all the way at the beginning of the pandemic back in March and April. Some of those books are now coming out in paperback. I'm like, I cannot believe that now we're still in this world and their paperbacks are coming out. It stretched for so long that I feel like pandemic publishing is like, that's just it. That's just what the world is now. 

Maggie: I know. I think my paperback comes out in May. I'm really hoping that I'll have some kind of tour. Before the pandemic, I had all of these expectations of the book. It's going to be on all these lists. I'm going to be besties with Oprah. I'm going to go on this glitzy book tour. In this scenario, I'm also in a trench coat at a train station with hotboxes like a femme fatale in the 1940s. Now I'm like, I just want to be in a bookstore with people. That's all I want. I just want to see people in real life and feel their energy and maybe sign a book for people.

Zibby: I totally get it. You can probably relate given your mother's fascination with weight. You talked about her dieting and the Tab sodas. My mother was the same way. I have this anthology coming out in February. I've been thinking, before the anthology -- now I'm like, I'm going to be right here. Where am I going? I don't need to get outfits. Nobody sees my body anyway. No one's going to see it two months. It doesn't matter. Here we are. It's sort of funny.

Maggie: I know. I had outfits picked out for my book tour. I had a whole thing. I had a plan for my hair with my stylist. Nothing happened. It's just me on Zoom.

Zibby: Who was it? I think it was this author, Janelle Brown, she posted every day for a week, all her book tour outfits, but just her with a mirror shoot. She just wanted to show everybody what she would've worn had she gone on tour. Craziness. What advice would you have to aspiring authors?

Maggie: I would tell them to do it for the writing, not for the external gratification. That's a conversation that I've been having with my friend Ron Currie, who is a writer, because I had this real letdown after the book came out. He was like, "No, that's real. You have to realize that you are doing this for the writing. You're doing it to find sanctuary on the page. It's about you and the words. It's not about any lists you're on or certain things that come outside of that." That was really important. That's just a brand-new lesson that I've learned. The other big thing that really affected me, the writer Steve Almond, he has this teeny, tiny, little writing book, a craft book. One of his lessons is slow down where it hurts.

Zibby: Ooh, I like that.

Maggie: I love it. For a long time, I had it on a Post-it in the corner of my laptop. I realized not just with this book, but a lot of things, I was just trying to rush past the painful things. That's no way to heal.

Zibby: I'm writing it down as we talk. Slow down where it hurts. I love it.

Maggie: You never really get to the source of your pain if you're just trying to move past it as quickly as possible. Once I knew that, it really helped me dig into my writing and look at the things I was avoiding. It works on the page, but it also works as a really great life lesson too.

Zibby: Very inspiring. Maggie, thank you. I'm sorry you had the feeling of letdown when your book came out. I know I'm just one of many, many readers of yours. Every experience you shared, it finds its way into the readers' consciousness and it lodges itself there. Now it's in there for me. I'll be thinking about it. You're doing that so many times over. It doesn't matter what list [indiscernible/crosstalk].

Maggie: That's what I mean about a conversation. That's where the real value is. It's just in having these moments with readers. I really appreciate it.

Zibby: Thanks. Me too. I appreciate your book. If I ever get to Palm Spring again for this tennis tournament and Indian Wells, I'll look you up.

Maggie: Yes, I will show you around. Thank you so much.

Zibby: Take care. Buh-bye.

Maggie: Bye.

Peter Ho Davies, A LIE SOMEONE TOLD YOU ABOUT YOURSELF

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Zibby Owens: Welcome, Peter. Thank you so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books." 

Peter Ho Davies: It's a pleasure to be here.

Zibby: We are talking about your beautiful book, A Lie Someone Told You About Yourself, which is fiction. Although, when I was reading it, I was positive it was nonfiction. I had to keep flipping back until I saw this tiny little "novel" word on the cover. Would you mind telling listeners what the book is about and what inspired you to write it?

Peter: It is a novel. Although, certainly, parts of it are true. I like to think the whole is fictional even if parts are derived from real experience. It's a novel about parenting with some of the familiar trials and tribulations of that, but one that I hope starts from an unfamiliar place and even defamiliarizes that experience since it starts with an abortion. The couple involved at the center of the book, their first pregnancy is interrupted by some pretty catastrophic prenatal test results. They choose to not have that child. Even though later they go on to have a second successful pregnancy and have a child, I think that experience of parenting for them is sort of shadowed but also maybe in some ways also illuminated by that sense of loss from the first pregnancy as well. That's roughly the tenor of the book.

It's interesting you mentioned that sense of fiction/memoir, the burry line between those two things. There is something of that going on in this space. I feel like I need to take the fifth in terms of explaining what's true and what's not, probably because for most of us in our lived experience, memory itself is a kind of means of fiction. If I look back at some of these experiences, I'm not quite sure where reality gives over to fiction in some ways along the way too. In a way, that uncertainty for the reader is in part intentional on my part. What the characters go through, the book is very much about the uncertainty of diagnosis in many ways, that sense of, this might be ninety-nine percent this way, but there's a small sliver of a chance that it might go in the other direction. For the reader to wonder, is this part true, is this part fiction? is a way of giving them a glimpse into the experience of the characters themselves. That's the notional idea behind that uncertainty that the book breeds in the reader as well.

Zibby: The book, it wasn't only about the uncertainty that comes with whether or not to have a child, and the test results. It's even as a child gets older, what do you do when things don't seem to be going a hundred percent the way they should? I'm sure so many parents can relate to this. You think that your child will pass flying colors with -- I'm trying to think of an example. I don't know. Jumping or climbing or monkey bars or something. Then all of a sudden, they don't. What does that mean? Then there's all that anxiety and so much accompanying worry. Then what do you do? This novel delves right into that from the dad's point of view, which I found so refreshing because I just feel like there aren't that many beautiful literary works about fatherhood, whereas I feel like there are many more about motherhood.

Peter: Thanks for saying that. I really appreciate that. I do think there's a deep anxiety for all of us even in the smoothest parenting experiences. I guess none of them are actually genuinely all that smooth. We're worried about all those benchmarks, all those percentiles. We're anxious about, inevitably, even though we wish we didn't, comparing our children to other children whether statistically or whether in the playground, however it might play out in some ways. I think there's a kind of tyranny of the normal. We want our children, we yearn for our children to sort of fit within recognizable spaces, maybe sometimes a space that looks like our own childhood so we feel reassured that they're having an experience that we recognize in some ways or that they're having an experience that feels as though it's very much typical. I think the great anxiety for all of us, and maybe the great truth because all of our kids are so individual, is that nobody has a normal childhood. Nobody has a typical childhood. They have their own individual childhood as well. 

What's weird about that for a writer when writing about parenthood is that fiction tends to be not made up of normal or typical experiences. That's not where drama often lies. There's an odd disjuncture between that feeling that we want to have something that seems very familiar for our children in their experiences and writing a fiction that feels as though it pushes our children and pushes our own experience of having children into extremis in some ways. There's an odd tension going on in that space. For me, what's going on in this book is that these characters, because of their various anxieties and because of their past experiences, they sort of yearn for that normality. I hope there are aspects of the book, as I say, that do seem very familiar to other parents -- I think there's a great universal quality to many of those things -- but also makes us maybe appreciate those universal qualities because we understand how tenuous they are for some people and some characters.

Zibby: It's so true. One part that I kept inserting myself into and thinking, how would I have handled this, what would I have done? which I feel like most readers do at some point or another while reading, when you and your wife were debating -- sorry, when your character and the character's wife -- sorry.

Peter: [laughs] I appreciate that.

Zibby: Were debating whether or not after the fact to find out if the fetus had, for sure, this abnormality and you couldn't decide whether or not you wanted that information and ultimately -- I hope I'm not giving anything away. I don't have to. Anyway, you made a decision one way or another together and now have had to live with that decision. Tell me about that. What do you do if your spouse wants to know and you don't want to know? What do you do when there's information out there? I felt like I wanted to call the test person and get the results of this even though -- I was like, maybe they don't want to know, but I would like to know the answer. [laughs] 

Peter: That makes perfect sense. In a way, that's also what the book is about. It's about marriage. It's about the way that we know somebody incredibly intimately and have spent a lot of time with that person and yet still when we come to these crucial moments, find ourselves on opposite sides of a feeling, on opposite sides in various ways. We feel as though some part of our essential characters are revealed in those moments. Also, part of a marriage is learning those things about one's spouse and living with them or finding a way collectively to live with those kind of differences that we go through. The book is very much about charting the ups and downs and the stresses placed on a marriage by these kind of circumstances as we progress through those spaces. For these characters in this book, the uncertainty they're grappling with is, as I say, medical uncertainty, diagnostic uncertainty. I think a lot of the times in our lives we grapple with uncertainty. We don't have a sense of the sure thing. We don't have the hundred percent knowledge of a certain thing. We don't have perfect information. 

That's very true for these characters. I think it crops up in a lot of fiction. We often talk as writers about writing what you know. Of course, this book does in some degree derive from lived experience. We often write into what we don't know and, in some ways, also maybe have to write books that live with uncertainty. I think there's a way in which that's the nature of our lives. Of course, I think that's been brought home very powerfully and painfully to many of us and I know yourself. Your family's gone through this too through the process of the pandemic over the last few months as well. We've been grappling with not knowing when this will end, not knowing what it means. Again, uncertainties of diagnosis creep into this space as well. It feels as though, although this is by no means the intention in writing the book, that it also hits that odd timely note where we have a kind of global uncertainty that we're all grappling with now.

Zibby: It's so true. I feel like in the pandemic I've had to rely -- and probably most people. When everyone's doing different things, where should we be? What do you feel is okay? What do I feel is okay? I'm not sure. I feel like this is a time where I'm like, okay, I just have to look inside myself and go with it because that's all I really have at the end of the day. Everyone else could be wrong. Everyone else could be right. I have to do what I feel comfortable doing, although not being led exclusively by anxiety. I feel like lately I haven't even wanted to leave the house. I'm like, this is fine. I'm okay here. [laughs] 

Peter: It reminds me a little bit of -- I studied this years ago -- risk assessment. It's sometimes about the statistics. It's also a little bit about our emotions in response to that risk as well. It's the feeling that if somebody chooses to be a smoker, they're choosing to take that risk on for themselves. If the government puts a nuclear power station nearby, even though the risk statistically might be a lot smaller than the risk from smoking, we feel that risk is being imposed upon us. It's not just about the numbers. It's something about our emotional response to that space. I think we're all grappling with that sense of not only just, how do we deal with the numbers, but also how do we emotionally process the numbers of this particular moment? The characters have to think about that. I think we as a society are thinking about that too.

Zibby: It's so true. Yes, it's very timely an emotion, for sure. Absolutely. By the way, the wife in this book is so funny and likable. I found myself wanting to take whoever this was out to coffee. If she happens to exist, tell this fictious [indiscernible/crosstalk] that I really appreciate her sense of humor.

Peter: I really appreciate you saying that. That's actually very moving to me because the wife in the book, at least in some part, is modeled on a wife that I know very well, that I love very deeply, and who's behind the door behind me back there. I was very conscious writing the book. You mentioned it's a story about fatherhood, which is very much true. The reason that I think there are fewer books that talk about parenting from the father's point of view is because we understand, of course, and I think it's very true, that the motherhood experience, certainly the birth experience, is so much more intense than the father's experience in so many ways. I was cautious and tentative a little bit about trying to take on subjects like parenthood and certainly subjects like abortion from a male point of view. I don't claim this is a complete point of view, obviously. One of the ways that the book is structured is written in these short fragments that also leave a lot of space between those sections. The way the book is composed in fragments allows readers to read between the lines a little bit and to think that this is not the whole story, of course. 

There's a story that the wife would tell in the novel and maybe even the son would tell eventually in the book as well that I can't claim to access but I'm trying to leave some space for so the readers might imagine what's going on with those characters in the background along the way as well and maybe fill in the gaps. I'm a big believer in the way that the reader helps complete a book in some ways as well. I'm hoping to leave some space in that territory. Although, it's funny. I also think that some part of the structure of the book, the fact that it's written in short sections, short vignettes, comes out of the parenting experience. This book, although mostly written over the last three or four years, the first chapter goes back about ten years or so. It comes out of a time when I was trying to write when my son was pretty small, and so everything about the writing experience was sort of stolen in those moments where there was a nap or there was a small gap in that busy schedule you have when you're parenting. Something about the form of the book also comes out of the parenting experience.

Zibby: The way I've digested it also comes out of the parenting experience. I read snippets. I have to look here and there. I love all different types of books. I'm also reading now, a book with multiple viewpoints where each chapter, it shifts. That's much harder. I still really enjoy it, but that's better if I have a longer stretch of time. When I put it down and pick it up, I'm like, wait, wait, who is she? Then I have to flip back. This book, no, you're in it. I get it. Was it easier? You have written all this historical fiction in the past which I'm sure involved a great deal of research and time and digging and all of that. Was it a breeze for you to do this? Was it harder because you were going into more emotional territory, or is that not even true?

Peter: It's difficult to compare. The historical work does require a lot of preparation. There's a lot of anxiety. It's also a space where fact and fiction, and where fact gives over to fiction, feels like it's also an important question. This book has some callbacks to that previous experience. This was probably slightly easier in the actual writing experience. It took less time. It's a shorter book, of course, than my previous historical novels. You're absolutely right to suggest that emotionally it was a tougher book. While I've written about real historical figures in the past and there are questions there ethically about how they're represented -- we think about questions of appropriation that comes up in those spaces -- it felt that those questions were much closer to home, literally speaking, in the context of this book. There was a certain amount of anxiety and a degree of soul searching in those questions in the writing of this book. To some degree, as I often do, some of the things that I worry about when I'm writing a book -- can I write this book? How do I write this book? -- those questions ultimately in some ways become the subject of the book. It feels as though those questions sort of inhabit the book. Rather than having them stop me or censor me, it feels as though the book is an opportunity to explore and engage with those questions in some ways as well.

Zibby: I love how you just put A Lie in the title because I feel like all the best books are all -- in fact, I would say most stories are about some sort of secret. Either you're keeping it from yourself or someone's keeping it from you. There's always a secret, which I think is a flip side of a lie because you have to disguise that. I just feel like it so touches on this basic interest people have in reading about what is not straightforward and what you might not be able to say straight out and all of that.

Peter: It's the great mystery of fiction. It advertises itself as lie, it's a fiction, and invites us to think into, do I believe in this? What don't I believe in? Where might my suspension of disbelief begin or end in some ways as well? We often talk about fiction as a kind of engine of empathy, which I think is true. I buy into those ideas, the importance of that. There's also a way in which I think the reading of fiction sharpens our sense of reality by engaging us with that sense of what might not be real in some ways as well. I thought about this particularly over the last three or four years. The reading of fiction sort of sharpens our bullshit detectors in a strange way. It feels as though it helps us figure out what's true and what's not, what to believe or what not to believe in. Even as it plays with that sense of where the line lies, I think it also sharpens our feelings about reality as well.

Zibby: How did you become a writer to begin with?

Peter: It's weird. I know this comes a little bit out of the book. The main character, he starts off as a physicist. I started off as a physicist. My physics career, such as it was, at least as an undergraduate, was entirely derailed by the first really serious writing I did. When I was younger when I was a teenager, I wanted nothing more than to write science fiction. If I had been any good at it, I might still be doing that. I wrote a story that was closer to home, more about my family. My grandmother was beginning to suffer with dementia. It was a very difficult passage for the family to go through and for me as well. By writing about it in fiction, I found I'd untapped something emotionally that I hadn’t been previously aware was there in the fiction. I wrote a story about that. It went on to be the first story that I published, although not for many years later. Even when I wrote it, I think I sensed something of the power and the allure of fiction in doing that. In a strange way, that story entirely derailed my physics career.

Zibby: Wow, so I guess we should keep all the novels away from essential physicists. That's the lesson here. [laughs] What do you like to read? What types of books do you like to read?

Peter: It's funny. Once I became a parent, I became very drawn to the idea of reading a lot of short books because it was so easy to get through them. I sympathized with what you were suggesting earlier on. We're talking about the interrupted, distractable life of a parent or a young parent and how they find time to read in that space or how they find the bandwidth to engage with a book in those kind of moments. I think, too, that that distractibility is a cultural phenomenon. There's something about the way that we read even when we're reading the news or we're reading online and we're hopping around, it feels like the net and the web have become really interesting metaphors for the way we hop from connection to connection to connection. There's a way in which we, when we engage with the world like that, are making our own novel. I'm going to jump from this link to this link to this link. I do think there's a body of work out there, a body of fiction, that begins to operate in those sort of elusive connective ways. I think back to a book that I teach a great deal to my undergraduates almost every year, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, which has that same kind of elusive connective quality. I find that really interesting. I always talk to them about how once they’ve read it, it sort of rewires their brains in interesting ways. Although, I think in some ways it's actually just playing into a rewiring of their brains that the world is engaging it in, in some ways for them as well. I like that. I'm interested in that sense in which we're encouraged as readers to make connections between pieces, that we're asked to fill the gaps in, again, that sense of feeling as though we're collaborators with the author. Those are books that I'm really engaged in.

Zibby: Do you have more books in the works? What's coming next for you?

Peter: It's funny. I was writing this book, or at least finishing, simultaneously with another book that I'm working on. It's a nonfiction book, a teacherly book, a craft book about the writing of fiction, but specifically about revision. It's called The Art of Revision, subtitled The Last Word, which sounds a bit ominous, but it's not quite as grim as that sounds. I've been teaching for the best part of twenty-five years, so it feels like it's a distillation of those kind of things. As you know, in this new novel, the main character is also a writer and a teacher of writing. There's a little bit of osmosis between these two projects in some ways as well. That one will come out in November of this year. My friends are like, oh, you've got two books coming out in the same year. I have to admit, they're both very short books, as you know from this one. It doesn't feel like it's quite as great an achievement of that. Although, it's fun. I enjoyed working on both of them.

Zibby: I have two anthologies coming out this year, actually.

Peter: Excellent. Congratulations.

Zibby: Thank you. I assembled them. November. I'll see you in the November party then.

Peter: That's a lot of work, though, assembling anthologies like that.

Zibby: It is. It is a lot of work. It's great. I'm really proud of them. It'll be great, but it's not like I sat down and wrote them all.

Peter: It's the way I feel about even when I'm putting together a list of readings for a course. You're interested in the way the pieces in anthologies bounce off each other, speak to each other. I do think there's a way in which Visit from the Goon Squad calls back to this space as well. I'm interested in novels that borrow from not the structure of short stories, per se, but from the structure of short story collections which I think do invite us to think about links, think about comparisons. Anthologies do that work in really interesting ways. Again, it's a fun way of the brain moving laterally which is an interesting contrast sometimes to the linearity of some fiction as well.

Zibby: I like that. I might have to steal that quote when describing anthology work. You have already started talking about this. I'm sure you have a lot of views on revision. I read your essay. I think it was called "Done" on [indiscernible/crosstalk] and everything. What advice would you have for aspiring authors, people who are just starting out?

Peter: This probably goes to some of the ways I think about revision. I think there's a way in which it's important for us to outwait the project, outwait the story, outwait the book. As much as we claim to love writing, there is a way in which we're often, all of us, in an unholy hurry to be finished with whatever we're writing. That's understandable in a first draft. We build that first draft. It's like a rickety bridge that we're constructing across the chasm of our doubt. We feel if we don't finish the bridge it'll just fall into the chasm and we won't get to the end of this thing. I think it's really important, often, to move quite quickly in a first draft. I see students doing that. You can also feel them, at the end of that early draft, particularly if it's a story, they're like a sprinter who's dipping for the line. We're trying very hard to get across that line and get it built. Then afterwards in revision, though, I think it's really smart to take some time to explore the work and to let it expand for a little bit. We talked earlier on about that I'd been writing what you know, but often, we don't quite know what we know when write a first draft. We're sort of feeling our way into that space. The more we expand, the more we explore our own work in many ways. 

I'm really interested in that idea, that sense of hanging out with the work long enough to understand what it's doing and maybe ultimately figuring out why we wrote it in the first place. That's how I know that I'm finally done. I feel like I finally understand my own work in certain ways. Nearly always with different books, there's some late moment when I understand why something that seemed out of place or I wasn't quite sure why it was there, what work it was doing, it suddenly speaks back to me and says, I'm here for this reason. This reason is essential. That's why you've hung onto me for as long as you have. The advice that I give to people, there's so much, of course. The line I like to quote is the line of Flaubert. The line goes that talent is long patience. When I first heard that when I was quite a young writer, I didn't get it. I think I even thought it was just a bad translation from the French. Talent is long patience. What does that mean? Of course, the older I get, the more I think I understand that. I try to talk about it often with young writers. I'm lucky I work with very talented young writers. Talent and youth are sort of the enemies of patience. We often embrace talent as a shortcut. We don't need to have as much patience if we're talented. I think that's part of the seduction of our feelings about talent. I do think there's a way in which just being patient with ourselves and with our work, which feels like a value that seems sometimes counterintuitive to the pace of modern life in some ways, it's a chance for the work to speak back to us and for the characters to speak back to us and for us to grow into the work and understand it. 

In a certain fundamental way, it's about reading our work carefully so that we allow it to speak back to us and we become readers of our own work and not just the writers of it. Maybe that's the fundamental essence of revision. It's an aspect of re-seeing. We move from seeing it through the eyes of the writer who thinks they know what they're doing with it and we come back to it and read it through the eyes of a reader. I always suggest -- you must have gone through this too, I'm sure. It's that moment when we share our work for the first time with somebody else, a friend, a loved one, a critic, or we hit submit if we're sending it out to a magazine or we hit submit if we're sending it to the editor or the agent. Even before we hear back from them, there's a moment as soon as we've let go it where we're like, oh, shit, I should've fixed that. There's something that we recognize that we should've changed, that we meant to change, that we suddenly see in a different way. It's because we intuit new eyes looking at it. That's the beginning of revision because we're starting to see it through the eyes of our imagined readers out there.

Zibby: It's true. I feel like revision is, it's the most important thing. I feel like even for an essay, if I write a first draft that's a thousand words and I know I have to get it to 750 or something, or 800, it's going to be much better. It always gets better when I cut it down, inevitably. I don't know what that says. [laughs] I have to keep it really brief. I think the point is when you're more intentional about which words end up making it, you have to have them sort of go up to the battle line and fight to make their way in. If they survive, then they have a place for themselves.

Peter: You also wouldn't find those if you hadn’t written long in the first place. I think it's really important to allow ourselves to have that expansive moment before we contract. Occasionally with young writers that I work with, there's that feeling that they think of revision -- this is another parenting way of thinking about this. I feel when I encourage them to revise that I'm like their mom telling them to tidy their room. It feels like this is the boring work of writing. I've had all the fun creative stuff. Now I have to do the dull thing. I wanted to suggest to them that revision is also part of the creative process. It's an opportunity also for new discoveries to be made, new moments of creation to occur to them. I'm often encouraging them to take that piece and the way I put it is to allow it to breathe out -- sometimes it gets a little bit longer than it needs to -- and then in a subsequent draft, to cut it back so it breathes in. That sense of the draft as this breathing, living thing feels like a healthy way also to think about it.

Zibby: It's sort of like when I make sugar cookies with my kids. You need all that dough. You have to roll it all out. Then you put the cookie cutters in it. Nobody ever says, oh, I shouldn't have made all that dough. You had to make the dough to get the perfect cookie.

Peter: That's a great idea. That's a really good description of that and actually also really helpful to me because I feel as though one of the struggles I have talking about revision sometimes with students is it can feel a little mysterious. Even that sense of, I suddenly understood it was done or the character spoke back to me, these things seem a little mystical in some ways. Anything that makes it seem more down to earth makes it more tangible. That's a great metaphor for that. I really like that idea of that.

Zibby: You can use that metaphor as often as you like if you tell the person you're talking to they have to listen to my podcast. That's my only... [laughs]

Peter: I will do that. That's a deal. I like that. 

Zibby: I'm kidding. No, of course, you can use it if it ever helps you. I think it is kind of like that. Anyway, thank you so much for this chat. That was really fun. I really, truly enjoyed reading your book, not the least because I could pick it up and put it down eight thousand times before even finishing two hundred pages, or one hundred. I don't know. It was great. It was lovely getting to know you. Thank you for coming on my show.

Peter: Thanks so much for having me, Zibby. It was a real pleasure chatting to you.

Zibby: I'll send you some sugar cookies one day. 

Peter: That'd be great. I'd love that. [laughter] Thanks.

Zibby: Buh-bye.

Peter: Bye.

Cameron Douglas, LONG WAY HOME

Zibby Owens: Hi, Cameron.

Cameron Douglas: Hi, Zibby.

Zibby: I'm looking forward to our conversation. We got a little preview beforehand. All these people stole some of my questions, but I'll come up with some more.

Cameron: Because you're a pro.

Zibby: Long Way Home: A Memoir of Fame, Family, and Redemption, you have been through so much in your life, and you're younger than me. It's unbelievable. Why did you decide to put it all into a book? Why write a book about this at all?

Cameron: I'll give you the short answer first. Then I'll elaborate a little bit. The short answer was to try to take some of these experiences that I've been through, some of them very painful, some of them lovely, and turn them into something useful for people. That's the short answer. To be a little more long-winded, at first, it was my father that was really pushing me to write this book. I was confused about that, as we talked about earlier, because our family has always been very private. It was helpful. It was out of love that he was pushing me to write this book and also out of the fact that he and the rest of my family felt that I had a story to tell and a story to share. At the expense of some of their privacy, they felt that it was worthwhile. It's been an interesting journey. It's been a long journey. I started writing the book before I came home in 2015, 2016. It took about four years to write all in all. I must say, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself, which is important to have insights like that when you paid such a high price for your decisions.

Zibby: You mentioned earlier that it was really your time in prison that allowed you to get in touch with your feelings. I wanted just to hear a little more about how that happened. Were you in prison one day and you asked for a notebook? How did you start writing there? How did you find the time? How in control of your time even were you?

Cameron: It started, really, when I was doing my first fairly long stretch in solitary confinement. It was around eleven months. It was fairly early on in my sojourn through prison. I had a really difficult time adjusting. My journey was very atypical. I started at a minimum security, and I worked my way up to high security. That's not the way it's supposed to work. You're supposed to go the other way. As I said, I really had a difficult time settling in. I was very angry at myself, which I think is understandable. I don't think I dealt with that very well. As a result, I just made life even more difficult for myself. I'd like to think that some of it was necessary. It's part of my journey. From where I'm sitting today, I probably wouldn't be here without a lot of those experiences. I was in solitary confinement. Obviously, you can imagine. You're in there twenty-three hours a day. You get one hour three times a week. Most days, you're in there twenty-four/seven. Then on the days that you do come out for that hour, usually they’ll come get you at around four thirty in the morning. If you're on the East Coast, they take you outside to a little cage. It's just freezing out there. I opted to sleep in most of the time anyway. I started journaling. What I tried to do is I tried to set up a curriculum for myself to keep my mind active. It made me feel like I was taking some of my freedom back. The curriculum was reading. I'd read three books. I'd have a self-help type of book. Then I'd read a literary classic, something you might read in an English lit class in college. Then I'd have a beach read like Game of Thrones or something like that. Had that. I had my exercise, meditation, and writing. I don't want to speak for too long, but that's where it started.

Zibby: I love the idea of you sitting -- I mean, not love, but the comical vision of you in solitary confinement with a beach read. [laughs] It's so against what you would think. That's great that literature could provide you with that outlet, as it does. That's some of the power of books to begin with. Where better to escape than when you literally can't?

Cameron: It really is. Then I'll fully answer your question. You have this book cart that comes around a couple times a week. I got this book off the cart by this great American classic author, Stephen Crane. This was his book of short stories called The Red Badge of Courage. They're all fantastic stories. The Red Badge of Courage in particular really spoke to me and gave me something that I think was necessary for me at the time. I was so taken by his writing that I got in touch with my -- you get one phone call every three weeks. I got on the phone and I asked, I forget who, I said, "Find me some more books by this guy Stephen Crane." I didn't realize he was a well-known poet as well. What came in the mail was all these books of poetry. I was like, what am I going to do with this? I was fairly well-educated, but I've never really connected with poetry. I started reading them, as you can imagine [indiscernible]. For the first time, I really was taken by poetry and inspired by it. I started playing around a little bit. That's kind of where it started.

Zibby: [child noises] Nice to have the little one. I was warning you that this good stage was going to end. Anyway, in your book, you talked when you were younger about developing what your mom called the curly-whirlies where you would spin your hair around. Your anxiety was clearly manifesting itself from an early age. Do you feel like some of your later behaviors were your own way of coping with maybe an anxiety disorder that wasn't really treated or underlying things? Now that you're in a totally new place emotionally, where did that all come from? What would you do to prevent this trajectory from happening to, say, your daughter?

Cameron: Especially as a child and then as a teenager, I always felt sort of uncomfortable in my own skin. I would do everything I could to not let onto that. I think I learned at a fairly early age that by getting high or getting buzzed, it would allow me to feel comfortable. Looking back on everything, one thing that I really had a chance to take advantage of but I didn't that I think would've been extremely helpful is therapy. Had I been a little more open and willing to talk to somebody as a teenager, I think maybe it would've been helpful. That's something I let anybody know. I have friends that have kids that are struggling. I tell people that I care about to give it a chance. It's a big part of my life today. It just took me so long. It wasn't until maybe six months before I was being released from prison. I remember one day saying to myself, I think I'm ready to give therapy a chance when I get home. I followed through on that. It's been very helpful for me.

Zibby: I thought it was so funny that when you got out of prison, one of the things you realized you missed the most was going to the dentist. Who knew?

Cameron: Exactly. I was pretty fortunate with my dental situation in prison. It's funny. My partner, Vivian, who I live with and we have a daughter together, I've known her for many years. She reached out to me. She wrote me a letter. I wrote her a letter back. We hadn’t seen each other in many, many years. Finally when we got on the phone together -- I had my visiting privileges suspended for a long time. Finally, I was getting them back. We'd been talking for about a year. I was on the phone with her. I said, "Look, I just want to warn you. I only have three teeth left. I feel a little self-conscious about it." There was dead silence on the line for a second. Then I started laughing. It can be a bad place for your teeth. That's for sure.

Zibby: [laughs] You wrote throughout the book about so many different losses. I don't feel like you necessarily framed them as such, but they just kept popping up in one way or another, even your manny, essentially. I thought it was so funny that your dad had a busboy and was like, "He seems like a good nanny." The next thing you know, he takes care of you intimately for years, which is one method of recruiting babysitters I have not tried yet. Now I'm going to open my mind to that. Even with him being so close to you for so many years and then gets let go of and immediately disappears, that's a big loss. Even your pet ferret getting eaten by your dog, these are heartbreaking things, particularly at that age and time of life, and then of course as life goes on and more things happen. What do you think those early losses -- do you feel like they were as significant as I'm perhaps making them or less so? I know you wrote about them a lot, so clearly you found them to have some importance.

Cameron: Joaquin is somebody that to this day I think about. Sometimes I'll even think I see him. He was a huge part of my life. That was a difficult loss. Kids are sensitive. In life, things are going to happen. When you're young, you need people to help you through it. They may not be available. I think they do leave a little scar. You try to figure out a way to deal with it yourself. You don't, maybe, have all the coping mechanisms at the time. Again, listen, life is -- that's what it is. It's full of loss and hardship. That's what builds character. We have the decision to make choices as a result of these things that we go through. Some choices are better than others. Can't really blame it on Joaquin and my ferret, although I would've liked to. [laughter] I think I told that to the judge.

Zibby: Maybe we could talk about your family in case that played more of a role in some way. You painted such a loving picture of your dad, and your mom at times. You painted her as somewhat inconsistent, I would say, in her availability and emotional availability, physical presence, all of that. You really made your dad seem like he wanted to compensate for having a famous father himself by being a great dad to you and making sure that you didn't feel the way he had felt, it's this whole full circle thing, and was really there for you and tried all these things when you did develop your drug addition to help. I wonder looking back, what do you think he could have done or your mom could have done to have prevented your addiction from spiraling in the way that it did, or was it just once it started, there was sort of no way to really reel it back in because you didn't really want it to stop?

Cameron: Quite frankly, I got to a place in my life where there was nothing that they could do. It's interesting. My father, one of his bones that he had with my mother -- my mother was so young when she had me, nineteen or twenty. My father's career was just getting going. It's a career that takes a lot of time and a lot of focus, a lot of attention. My father often felt like he had two kids to take care of, my mother and myself. My mother was so young. She didn't like the business. She's European and came to the States and met my father and didn't like the business and was angry and lonely as well. She was still extremely young herself. They had a lot of things going on. I was always loved and well-cared for, but maybe just didn't have the attention that I was needing. That kind of forced me to look elsewhere for that love and attention. Starting as younger teenager, I started finding that with a group of people that were rough around the edges. That's not to say they were bad people or anything like that. It's just people that were going down that road that would eventually lead to some issues. That's what happened. I remember at one point in my life I was wondering to myself, if I'm not in prison, who are these people in prison? I was wrapped up in all these different things. But I was. I just wasn't physically there yet. I was well on my way. That's it. If you're living that life, there's a place for you if you continue to live that way.

Zibby: There were so many moments where you just should not have survived, the car crash. There were just so many, the drugs, the seizures. It's a miracle that we're even on a Zoom call right now. It's crazy. What do you attribute that to? Do you feel like you have some sort of perspective on life having lived through all of this that perhaps others of us can't have or don't necessary have having cheated death so many times?

Cameron: I have been fortunate. I have angels watching over me. I've certainly not been careful with my life and often not valued it properly. Maybe subconsciously there was some purpose behind that. I guess that wasn't to be my story. That wasn't going to be the way that my story was going to end, whether I wanted it to or not. I like to think that there's something that I have to offer before it's all said and done.

Zibby: Obviously, one thing you have to offer is your story which is going to help so many other people who are struggling. Hopefully, they’ll all be reading it and can get back on track or get what they need out of it. It's an amazing gift when somebody shares their story so openly like that. That's awesome. You also talked about dealing with your dad's cancer diagnosis and treatment and how you felt about it. I was just wondering if you could share a little about that period of time and what it was like for you.

Cameron: For those of you that haven't read my book, I found out that he had cancer by one of the inmates that I was on the compound with. He came up to me and he said, "Hey Cam, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad." I said, "What are you talking about? I just saw him. What are you talking about?" He said, "I heard he has cancer." I said, "No, I don't think so." Then a couple more steps, and then somebody else came up to me. I went in and got on the payphone and tried to call him. He didn't answer, so I called a friend of mine. The first thing she said when she picked up the phone was, "I'm so sorry to hear about your father." I said, "What's going on? What happened?" She told me that it came out in the press that he had stage four throat cancer. I sat with that for a little while and obviously tried to get in touch with him. When I finally did, he felt bad. He said that he didn't want me to worry. I'll tell you, it really gave me a real respect for what these cancer survivors go through. I saw him about three weeks before he started his treatments, which was the radiation and the chemotherapy. He looked great. He looked healthy, how he always does. Then he came to visit me about a month and a half after his last treatment. It was maybe three months or something like that. I've never seen a body change so drastically in such a short amount of time. It's a real fight. Fortunately, he made it. One of the extremely unfortunate things about going away for so long is that life goes on, and as a result, you lose people. It happens a lot. I was hoping that I would make it home to see him. He got better long before I came home, so that was good.

Zibby: Wow. What is your relationship like now with your family? Do you feel like you've repaired any of the riffs that may have occurred over time? Do you feel this, still, enormous support? What's it like now? How has it been with the book as an entrant into the family as well?

Cameron: Ironically enough or oddly enough, everybody was really behind the book, which was nice. Obviously, that's important to me. That made it easier. My relationship with my mother and father are fantastic. It's taken some time, particularly with my father. So many years, I had been living in a certain way. Nobody knows that better than the people that are closest to you. To be living like that for so many years and then to go away to a place like prison -- as I said, I spent most of my time in higher-security prisons, which is a different reality in and of itself. It's like, who is coming home? I think everybody was kind of protecting themselves a little bit or maybe even more than a little bit. It's just consistency. I did a lot of growing up while I was away. I wish I was able to do that before having to go to that length. I feel like I made the most of it, if that can be possible in a situation like that. The consistency that I've shown since coming home is everything. We're in a great place.

Zibby: That's great. Tell me more about your current writing. You had mentioned that you are working on screenplays, that this book is being adapted. Tell me about all your exciting projects now.

Cameron: It's nice. Things are really just starting to come together. It was three years of awkwardness and trying to find my stride. Then it just takes a little bit of time. Things start to come together. The acting is something I jumped right into. I finished filming my first feature-length film in years in January of this year, so the beginning of this year. I just finally saw a cut of it. It looked good. It's been submitted to all the film festivals and stuff like that. We'll see what happens with that. Then I've been writing a lot during this quarantine. I hate to say it's been great because I know it's been so hard and difficult for so many people. As somebody that's procrastinated a lot in life and wasted a lot of time, I went into this quarantine with a mindset like, I have these projects that I really want to accomplish. I feel like I did so. I finished my first screenplay just a couple of weeks ago. Now I'm just refining it a little bit. It's too long. That's a good problem to have, at least initially. Then the book, Long Way Home, people have been interested in it. I teamed up with a production company called Fabrik and this amazing writer/showrunner named Tom Fontana. He's adapted it into an ongoing series. It's been exciting for me. It's been great to work with these guys in particular. Tom, he's a great writer. It's nice because it's a fictionalized version of my story. It's just based on my story, but all the characters will be fictionalized. Of course, to make it an ongoing series, you need some wiggle room. It's been exciting. It's been very exciting.

Zibby: You have a chapter, Orange Isn't the New Black. This is going to be the counter show to that one or a companion piece in a way. [laughs]

Cameron: It looks like it's going to be interesting. I'm excited to see what comes of that.

Zibby: This is a big question. What has it been like being a dad? How does it feel to have a daughter and to have a whole new perspective on life as a parent? What's that been like for you?

Cameron: It's been interesting. In regards to my own mother and father, it's been nice for them I think in particular because it sort of balanced the playing field a little bit. It's given me some insights into what they were dealing with and what a parent deals with. My daughter is my biggest teacher. She really is. I've learned so much about myself and really grown as a human being since she's graced us with her presence. It's pretty special, as you know.

Zibby: That's awesome. What advice would you have to aspiring authors, somebody who wants to write their story? Maybe it's not quite as dramatic as yours, but wants to get it down, wants it to help other people. What would you say?

Cameron: Nothing happens until you put the pen to paper or until you start banging away on the keyboard. That's the first thing with anything. Even with this screenplay, I've been thinking about it for so long. Screenplays is an art in and of itself. I was a little intimidated by it. It was just, write the screenplay and start figuring it out and banging away. It comes. I don't think one writes with the intention of making some big best seller. That's great if that happens, but you just write because you have something inside of you that you want to share or that needs to come out. You got to get started. I think if you get started and it's something that's for you, then you'll see that. You'll go from there. If you get started and you're like, no, this is not for me, then you can move on to the project.

Zibby: Screenwriting's not for me. Next. [laughs] I also was wondering, are you still friends -- in the book, you mentioned there was a boy named John you were friends with. You filmed a movie together. Your dad started to help and he was like, "Well, this production value's gone up a lot." Are you still friends with that guy?

Cameron: I am.

Zibby: You are. That's awesome.

Cameron: He's one of my oldest friends. He's actually a very successful producer now in his own right here in town. He's doing fantastic. He just had a little boy. He's married and lives about fifteen minutes away from me. We snuck a couple visits in during quarantine, but really just been keeping to ourselves like most people. Looking forward to seeing my friends and everything. Him and I have also been through a lot. We have a lot of funny stories together.

Zibby: That's great. I know there are going to be a lot of questions. Thank you for chatting with me, particularly the pre-chat. Now maybe I'll take some questions for you from the audience. What do you want to accomplish with the rest of your life? Good luck with this question.

Cameron: It's a good question. It's an important question. When it's all said and done, I want to feel like I've been useful. That's the short answer to a question that could possibly be endless. I want to feel useful. I wanted to be inspired. I want to have a purpose. I think that goes hand in hand with being useful.

Zibby: Good answer. If anybody else has questions, they can put them in the Q&A here on Zoom, and Cameron will answer them.

Cameron: I have a question for you, Zibby. How is your brother?

Zibby: My brother's great. He's actually a big producer in your town now too. He runs Black Bear Pictures. It's funny. I didn't actually even talk to him before this interview to get some inside scoop for you at sleepaway camp, but I'm going to have to.

Cameron: [laughs] That's probably better.

Zibby: Yeah. He may or may not have been kicked out himself. I'll just leave it at that. [laughs]

Cameron: Maybe I'll cross paths with him one of these days.

Zibby: You should.

Cameron: Tell him I said hello.

Zibby: I will. I absolutely will. Now we have a lot more questions. Although, you can keep asking me questions. We can turn this whole thing around. Okay, thank you for sharing your story. You are so positive after going through so much. How did you come to terms with accepting yourself and your faults and mistakes?

Cameron: It's a process. It starts with forgiveness. I certainly didn't come up with it, but a little slogan that's always stuck with me is, forgive, but you never forget. The forgiveness, especially forgiving yourself, allows you to begin to heal. The part of about not forgetting allows you to build from some of those choices. I've paid a high price for some of my decisions. The way I look at it is I might as well get what I paid for.

Zibby: I love that. Have you gotten involved in any prison support or work to reform?

Cameron: Yeah. One of the things that I'm involved in now is these voting rights for people that have either done their time -- for instance, supervised release is something that men and women are under once they finish their term in federal prison. In some states, they allow it. In some states, they don't. Look, I put it like this. Our judicial system and our government is not known for being particularly warm and fuzzy. If the time that you do is enough for them to call it even, then it should be enough for you to have your voting rights back at the very least. It goes on from there. It's really a struggle for men and women coming home. I'm very fortunate in that I have the support of my family. They believed in me. They never gave up on me. The reality for most men and women coming home is that they have nothing. To even get a job or a place to live being a convicted felon is really difficult. I think it's something that we need to work on. That's what you're doing. You're going there. You're paying the ultimate price for your misgivings.

Zibby: Someone is asking, what was your relationship with your grandfather?

Cameron: My relationship with my grandfather has always been amazing. My grandfather is notoriously a tough guy and was hard on my father and my uncles. With me, he was always full of love. Him and I had a lot in common. My grandfather was an athlete and a wrestler. I was as well. We're similar in a lot of ways and always had a lovely relationship. I was really blessed because I moved out to LA and got to spend the last years of his life with him. I moved about ten minutes away from him. I was over at his house two, three times a week, bringing my daughter, Vivian, and then just spending time with him myself. That was special for me, for sure, and hopefully for him as well.

Zibby: As you learn in the book, he often slipped you fifty-dollar bills whenever he said hello to you. That's always nice. [laughs]

Cameron: That's right, right on up through my twenties.

Zibby: Do you have a relationship with Judaism? Has it provided you with a way of gaining a purpose in life?

Cameron: My grandfather was bar mitzvahed in his seventies. He made a full circle. He was brought up Jewish and then wandered away from religion or spirituality in general and then made his way back. I'm not so religious. I was never raised in any particular religion. I am very spiritual. I believe in a higher power. I take little bits and pieces from all the different religions that I feel resonate with me. Having said that, my younger brother is bar mitzvahed. He's in Brown now and lives in a Jewish dorm and is doing his Shabbat dinners and things like that. My younger sister has been bat mitzvahed. They really resonate with Judaism.

Zibby: My daughter's bat mitzvah is on Saturday.

Cameron: Nice.

Zibby: It's on Zoom, so you can come if you want. We could do this again.

Cameron: Yes. They’ll be like, who is that guy?

Zibby: [laughs] Someone says, I'm Steve from Houston. Thank you for this awesome presentation. What is your favorite all-time movie not including one your father and/or grandfather starred in?

Cameron: My favorite all-time movie, that is tough. I'm going to throw out a couple just off the top of my head. True Romance keeps jumping into my mind for some reason. Apocalypse Now is great. I really love Legends of the Fall. Maybe I just had a big crush on Brad Pitt. I don't know. He's pretty good-looking. I just think of the cover. If anybody's seen it, it's him with that mane. It's a great movie. I loved it. I love period pieces, so Dances with Wolves. I love Star Wars. I love all of the Star Wars. I like sci-fi stuff.

Zibby: I'm going to vote for When Harry Met Sally if anybody's wondering.

Cameron: I was going to say that one.

Zibby: Yeah, I bet. Did the title of Mandela's book, Long Walk to Freedom, influence you in the choice of the title for your book?

Cameron: Not consciously, but may have subconscious. That was a great book. I loved it. Long Way Home, the impetus for that title is a band called Supertramp which is a seventies rock band. They have one song called "Take the Long Way Home." I've always loved that song. Then I felt like that's what I was doing, is taking the long way home. When I say home, it's not the destination. It's not the physical destination. I guess it's sort of arriving to a destination in my mind and in my heart. Family's probably a big part of that as well. That's where that came -- come here. Want to say hello? Come here.

Zibby: Are we getting a cameo?

Cameron: No, she's gone. She just came to grab her toy.

Zibby: Some stage fright. Do you do any speaking engagements or work with teens that have an addiction problem?

Cameron: I have. I've been doing a lot of these book tour things, but haven't been doing much just during this quarantine recently. Working with juveniles, particularly juveniles that are in that sort of trouble age which in my opinion is from thirteen, sixteen, seventeen, I think that's a critical age. I know just because I know myself when I was that age. It's important for these kids to be able to talk to somebody or listen to somebody that has been through some of the same stuff or else they don't want to hear about it. That's definitely something that I will get more involved in moving forward. I like to think that as my career starts gaining momentum it will allow me to reach more people. I feel like with success comes responsibility. That's certainly one of the areas that I care about and I think is important.

Zibby: Someone says, you mentioned all your reading in solitary. Are you still an avid reader?

Cameron: I am. I love to read. We were talking about it before the show. Yeah, I do. I love reading.

Zibby: What are you reading now? What's on your bedside table?

Cameron: I've been so focused on the screenplay that I haven't been doing too much reading. I have this book of prose from World War I authors that I've been reading at night before I go to sleep. I don't remember the name offhand. Want to come say hello?

Zibby: Hi, cutie. She's so cute. I like the pink hat. There's nothing like an indoors hat for a winter hat appearance. So cute.

Cameron: Do you have any good -- I know you said The Vanishing Half.

Zibby: Yes, that was very good. I'm reading this book about parenthood you might enjoy called Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear by Kim Brooks. Very interesting.

Cameron: Very cool.

Zibby: That's at the top of my stack at the moment. I have more questions for you. Sorry, a couple more. Are you close to Catherine, your dad's wife? Somebody else was asking about those siblings of yours.

Cameron: Those siblings of mine. [laughs]

Zibby: I was going to say those half-siblings. I wanted to make sure I was right before I said that. Yes, half-siblings. What is your relationship like with your stepmother and half-siblings? There it is.

Cameron: I'll answer the question about Catherine first. My relationship with her has always been fantastic. I was my father's best man at their wedding. Just always had a really good relationship. As I said, when I came home, my father in particular was protecting himself and was not really opening up to me as much as I would have liked. I think Catherine was one of my champions in sort of pushing him to open himself back up to me a little bit. I thought that was beautiful. My brother, Dylan, is amazing. He's at Brown. He's a tremendous actor. He's super involved in politics. In fact, he started his own political group called Make Room, makeroom.org. It's a really great movement. He's just an amazing young man. My sister, Carys, is gorgeous, sweet as can be. She's in boarding school in Switzerland. She's extremely smart and also an amazing actress in her own right. We'll certainly be hearing from them. We have already, actually. My sister's got a hundred-plus thousand followers or something on Instagram. She's miles ahead of her old brother.

Zibby: Wow. All right, I'll have to start following her. I think we're almost done with questions. What advice would you give employers with regard to hiring former prisoners?

Cameron: Like I said --

Child: -- Toy.

Zibby: Give them toys.

Cameron: Give them toys, exactly. If somebody has served their time and they're looking for a job -- this has been my experience anyway. Some of the smartest people that I've met, I met in prison. Sometimes life is difficult and people make some bad decisions. One thing I know for sure that is none of us are the same person now that we were ten years before that. We weren’t the same person then that we were ten years before that. People evolve. People make changes. When you've given years of your life based on some decisions that you've made and you come home and you're looking for a different kind of life, I think you might find that they’ll probably be some of the best employees that you can find.

Zibby: Last one. What was it like working with your family in It Runs in the Family?

Cameron: That was an amazing experience. Working with my father and my grandfather as well as my grandmother -- my dear grandmother, Diana Darrid, was also in the movie. It was fantastic. It was a lot fun. For me, I was young. I was twenty-two or something like that. Working with the two of them, it was just such a good feeling for me. I will treasure that.

Zibby: Excellent. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for doing this for the JCC. Thanks for letting us seriously into your home in the chaos that is having a small child which I am very familiar with.

Cameron: [laughs] I'm sorry about that. We made it. We did pretty good. I thought it was going to fall apart earlier, but we did pretty good.

Zibby: No, it was great.

Cameron: Thank you. I had a lot of fun with you, Zibby. I look forward to seeing you somewhere down the road or staying in touch. Thank you all for having me. I appreciate it. It's been really a lot of fun.

Kimberly Derting & Shelli Johannes, CECE LOVES SCIENCE

Zibby Owens: Thanks so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books." I'm here with the authors of Cece Loves Science and Libby Loves Science, Kimberly Derting and Shelli Johannes. Welcome. Welcome to my show.

Shelli Johannes: Thank you for having us.

Zibby: You were so nice to have sent me these. My kids lined all these up on the table yesterday, all the little cards of the different characters. We had this whole game with all of them. Thanks for sending these too. Of course, we've been reading Cece Loves Science since it came out. As I mentioned to one of you -- sorry, I'm rambling here -- I literally had just seen this in the bookstore and was so excited and had read it with my son. When you reached out, I was like, this is perfect.

Shelli: That was so weird. It was just crazy.

Zibby: Tell me how the two of you came to collaborate in the first place and how you came up with the idea for the series.

Shelli: You want to go, Kim?

Kimberly Derting: Shelli and I have been critique partners for twelve years. We actually met online, of all places, back when blogging was still a big thing. We both started in young adult novels. SCBWI held a summer conference every year in LA. We were communicating via blog back and forth. One of us would post a blog. The other one would comment, back and forth like that. I think I had said I was going to go to the SCBWI summer conference. All of a sudden, I get an email from Shelli saying, "Hey, I have this really great idea. How would you feel about rooming together at this conference?" We had not met.

Shelli: That's not creepy or anything.

Kimberly: We had never met in person before. I go, "Sure." My husband says, "That's how Dateline starts." [laughter] We had kind of formed this friendship online. We met in LA and instantly formed a connection. We really liked each other. From there, we started critiquing each other's young adult novels for years. We had become instant friends. We'd talk every day on the phone, just fast friends. Fast-forward, Shelli had this idea. She says, "I have this idea. My daughter --" Tell the story, Shelli, about your daughter.

Shelli: My daughter was nine at the time and loves science. We were writing YA, so we had never written picture books at all. I went to my daughter and was like, "Are you ready for science camp this year?" She's like, "Well, I don't know if I'm ready for science camp. Science is kind of for boys." I was like, "What?" She said, "Yeah. Every club I go into, every camp I go into, it's always boys." My husband has a PhD in topography. I love science. I volunteer at the zoo. We do a lot of conservation stuff. I couldn't figure out how she got that message. It kind of scared me that someone could get a message like that outside of the house that we had not given. It was such a strong message that she was deciding not to go to camp because of that message. It scared me that someone could have that kind of voice in my child's head. I immediately got this -- this little girl came in my head and was super sassy and was like, science is not for boys. Science is fun. Science is cool. I just thought maybe I could write a Fancy Nancy for science, was kind of the initial thought.

I called Kim and told her the story and just how bothered I was. She was like, "You know, that's so weird because Abby said that too. She loves science, and she kind of got out of it during school." I said, "I'm going to write it. I'll send it to you." When Kim and I critique, we write back and forth and obviously just do little notes and overviews. For some reason, this time, I would send it to her and it would come back completely edited. I was like, "Aren't you just taking some liberty?" We were kind of kidding back and forth. I couldn't find the voice. Kim's really, really good at voice. I was like, "This is a really weird idea, maybe not as weird as going to a hotel at a CBWI, but close. Would you want to write a picture book with me?" She goes, "I would love to. I totally love this picture book. I think it's a great idea." That's how it started. We went to our agents. We're like, "We're going to write a picture book." They were like, "But you're YA authors." We're like, "Yeah, yeah, we know, but we're going to write a picture book." They were like, "But you're YA authors. You write thrillers." We're like, "Yeah, but we're going to write a picture book." We just started and studied for a really long time. That was how it got started.

Zibby: Wow. Wait, tell me more about that. What did you study? How did you learn how to do it?

Shelli: At the time, there wasn't that much online. Now Josh Funk has a great blog. We just went through articles and studied picture books and tried to map out picture books and how the arcs were for stories. Kim, do you remember if we -- there were no classes.

Kimberly: We had one friend who had just sold a picture book to Harper Collins. We went to her and said, "What format do you use?" She gave us the layout of how the spreads are. She was really helpful. We had another friend who was agenting, and she went through some picture books with us and showed us some dos and don'ts. We reached out to people we knew who were in the industry and said, "Give us some ideas of what works and what doesn't work." The internet was really helpful, but it was also helpful to make some personal connections with people and see what is working and what isn't working. There's a lot of what doesn't work. There really isn't a right way to do it because there are so many different kinds of books. One of the things we really did wrong is we didn't understand word count at all. Our first book, Cece Loves Science, is probably over the word count anyway, but our first draft was maybe three thousand words, which is humongous in picture book terms. Our agents kept going, "You need to cut. You need to cut." We had so many art notes for the illustrators. Illustrators, they want to have creative license to use their imagination, and they should because they're so good at it. They're so talented. They have so much more imagination than we possibly could ever have. We had so many notes down to what Cece should be wearing in the book. We're not illustrators. We should've cut all of that out.

Shelli: That was Robin Mellom, right?

Kimberly: Yeah. Robin Mellom is the author we had gone to to ask for help.

Shelli: Zibby, both of our agents are at the same agency. When we say our agents, we just mean one --

Kimberly: -- Our agents are friends too.

Shelli: We kind of put them together. What do we call them? [Indiscernible]. We kind of give them their Hollywood name because they both email at the same time. Then Zibby, when we talked over email, the person who ended up taking our book at Harper, Virginia Duncan at Greenwillow, her daughter had said the same thing. I think it was just that moment where our stars align and something clicks or there's some kind of connection that accidentally happens. I think she clicked with that because her daughter was the same age as my daughter at the time. Her daughter had said the exact same thing to her in recent months. She was thinking, this is obviously a problem.

Zibby: Wow, how great to identify a problem and then just go ahead and solve it. This is how we're addressing it, right now, boom, I'm done. Here's my book. It's great. Why wait for someone else when you can fix it yourself? That's fantastic. When my daughter got home from school and we had this stuff waiting, I was like, "What was your special today at school?" Now they're actually in school again, which is a miracle. She's like, "Actually, it was science." Then she held up the book. She's only seven. Maybe by starting with earlier kids it will help. Do you have a lot of people who are going to love science? Is this a whole series with fifty kids? What's your plan with the series?

Shelli: Yes, Virginia, this is a series for fifty kids. [laughter] No, we have six books. We have the ICR coming out in February for Libby, so Libby's I Can Read. The Cece I Can Read is out. Then we have Vivy Loves Science which comes out next summer. There's six books right now in the series.

Kimberly: It's three characters. The third character is Vivy. She is a little marine biologist. She'll be going down to the seashore and exploring marine life and the ocean. Each character has their little specialty. Libby's is chemistry, obviously. What we like to do is include little experiments or things that kids can do at home. It's especially timely now with parents on the frontline with educators, a lot of parents at home trying to keep their kids busy and engaged. It's nice to have those interactive things that they can do at home.

Zibby: Yes. As a mother of four, I will agree with that.

Shelli: We were thinking about starting to go out and do more virtual school visits to actually see if there was a way to see if we could do experiments over Zoom. Could we have them do the ice cream? It's very simple to do that and lead them through that process while we read the book and have it be a little bit more hands-on. I think picture books right now are a great way to supplement and have it be fun at home because it's hard right now. I've got kids at home. It is hard to keep it fun. My kids are older, but they're struggling to stay engaged, I think is the hardest thing.

Zibby: How old are your kids?

Shelli: Mine? Thirteen and sixteen.

Zibby: How about you?

Kimberly: My kids are older. They're out of the house. My youngest is nineteen. She just came back from college when COVID hit. My grandkids are six and three. My daughter is struggling with that. While my six-year-old grandson is online, I bring my three-year-old granddaughter over here. We do preschool. I'm teaching her her letters and numbers just to keep her out of my daughter's hair while -- not to say out of her hair, but to kind of keep her out of the way while she's trying to keep my grandson online on school. They're still in virtual.

Zibby: My goal now is to try to look more like you when I'm a grandmother. I would never think you had grandchildren ever. Wow, that's awesome. Fantastic. Tell me about working with the illustrator. You gave her all these notes. Then did she hate you? What was it like?

Shelli: We took them out.

Zibby: You took them all out, okay.

Shelli: Vashti did not need any art notes. She's amazing. We took them out just so that the illustrator could have creative liberty and just make Cece who she was. We love her. Joelle Murray is the new illustrator for Libby and Vivy. Vashti is so amazing. She got super booked. Virginia really wanted to have the books come out a lot faster. We actually found Joelle on Instagram. She seemed to have a similar style. She's amazing as well. We didn't give any notes. That's what's hard about picture books. There's no book that's just one author. There's all these people that play into it. Illustrators are half of that.

Kimberly: Can I just say, we have been so fortunate in illustration. Picture books take so much longer than a novel to produce because it's pairing -- our editor, she probably took a year to find the right illustrator for Cece Loves Science. She searched far and wide. When she came to us, we had a vision of who Cece was going to be. Like I said, we had a million art notes. We had stripped all those out. It's like handing your baby over to somebody and saying, now make it come to life. Vashti Harrison, if nobody knows who she is, you have to look her up. She is absolutely brilliant. When we got the first sketches, Shelli and I opened them together over Skype. I think both of us started to cry a little because Cece was almost exactly who we pictured. Vashti brought her to life so brilliantly. We just felt so blessed to work with Vashti. Then when Joelle came on board, she complimented the series so beautifully. It was just such a lovely pairing. An illustrator can make or break a book. Kids are so visual, almost more so than adults. Everybody's visual, but kids, children, you say, don't judge a book by a cover, but how do you not? Those characters can bring a story to life. We've just been so fortunate.

Shelli: We were so upset when Vashti couldn't, obviously, because we had built three books together. When Virginia said Vashti can't sign on, we were thinking, oh, my gosh, how are we going to find someone that can step into those shoes? When we started in 2015, Bold Little Leaders hadn’t come out yet. It was so new. She was so new. She grew so fast because Bold Little Leaders was so amazing. We were so nervous. Then when we found Joelle, it was exactly the same. We were just so grateful that she could step in and make it so seamless and colorful. We were really lucky. Starting in the middle of a series is really hard to find someone that can fill or even come close to filling Vashti's shoes. I think Joelle does a great job of that.

Zibby: That's great. Vashti, as you know, was on this podcast to talk about those books. She came to my book fair. Then I had her at a book club recently. She's amazing. It was so sweet when she was here. She drew a little picture of a monkey and my son's name. I don't think he knows how precious that is. I'm like, this is so amazing. You will appreciate this as you get older. I'm such a huge fan of Vashti's. You're right. Even just holding them side by side, you wouldn't even necessarily know. They certainly look complimentary, as you well know.

Shelli: The art direction, obviously, at Harper did a great job of doing that. It definitely was a nervous time to make that transition, but it's worked out really well.

Zibby: Do you already have plans, maybe you have this and I just didn't know, to do Cece Loves Science kits or kits you can buy or subscription boxes or something to bring that science-y experiment into the home even more?

Shelli: We would love that.

Kimberly: That's a great idea. Cece has been included in some subscription book boxes already, Jambo Books I think just for September. I can't remember the other one. I should know this off the top of my head. A science kit would be super fun.

Zibby: You should team up with -- I can introduce you if you want, if I can find the email. There's a company called Kiwi Crate which we subscribe to.

Shelli: I love Kiwi.

Zibby: You should do a Cece Loves Science-branded, at least, kit.

Shelli: Wouldn't that be great?

Zibby: That wouldn't even be hard. You could just include some of this stuff. That could be the craft.

Shelli: That's a great idea.

Zibby: Foodstirs also has a box, I don't know if you follow them, with fantastic baking and cooking crafts for kids. You could do the ice cream maybe in that.

Kimberly: In the Libby Love Science: I Can Read is mix and measure. It's baking. That would be super fun.

Zibby: I know. It's very similar. Anyway, that's your assignment for today. [laughs]

Kimberly: Thank you.

Shelli: [Indiscernible] hours on Skype coming up with assignments for ourselves and talking assignments and talking about the future and where it could go.

Zibby: I feel like this is such a natural thing. Those boxes already exist. I know we rip open our boxes because we're so in need of stuff. Instead of having to scrounge for materials, it's all right there.

Shelli: That's a great idea. I hadn’t even thought about the subscription boxes, going to them ourselves.

Kimberly: The boxes are so fun, though. I'm a subscription box junkie.

Shelli: I am too.

Kimberly: I love the book boxes. I get the FabFitFun box.

Shelli: I love FabFitFun.

Zibby: I don't have that box. Maybe I have to check it out. Is that a fitness one?

Shelli: It's fab, fit, and fun. You get some kind of beauty supply. Then you get some kind of health thing. Then you get some kind of fun thing. It comes four times a year. I get mine and my daughter's like, "Can I look at it with you?" I'm like, "No, this is my box. I have my own box. It's a mom box." Bubble baths and whatever comes for that season.

Zibby: I do Book of the Month. Then I also do -- I know we're totally off topic. I get the LOL box for my kids. It's this huge craze. All they do is unbox and unwrap stuff. It's basically like all we do is clean up packaging. They think it's so fun, so whatever.

Shelli: Whatever works, right?

Zibby: They're like, "Did you order us this present?" I'm like, "I think this is the box I ordered. I don't know." [laughs]

Shelli: Which box is it?

Zibby: Which box is it? I know. I can't even keep track. Anyway, that would, I feel like, be such a natural. I'm sure there's so many other brand extensions. It's just an approachable -- I feel like there are other companies and things trying to get kids, and girls especially, to enjoy science. I feel like this is so important. Your brand is so playful and fun and young and targeted that it would be really easy.

Shelli: I think a lot of kids start to think science is a subject in school. Once kids get to middle school and it becomes like, you're going to science now and then you're going to social studies, you're going to ELA, then somehow the fun of science I think gets lost that they have in elementary school. That's what we always think about. What would be something fun that kids could do at home? Science is everywhere. It's not just a subject in school. How do we keep kids off of that track that it's just a subject that you're supposed to get an A in? It's everywhere. It's outside. When I do some of my talks at schools, at the end I'll have people raise their hand. I'll say, "Who loves science?" They're like -- [laughter]. I'm like, "It's okay. You don't have to love science. Just raise your hand if you love science. Keep your hand down if you don't." Then I'll say, "Who loves baking?" Then people will raise their hand. I'll say, "Who loves being outside in nature?" They're raise their hand. Then I'll just go down the list. There'll always be a few kids that are just like, that's not for me, you haven't listed anything yet. Then of course I say, "Who loves computers?" They're like, "[gasp]." Everyone raises their hand. They start screaming. I'm like, "That's computer science." They're like, "What?" It's so cute. They just don't think of those things as science.

Zibby: I feel like science as a word, we need to rename it or something. I mean, not now because you have the books and everything. [laughter] It has a negative connotation, which it shouldn't. It's not even representative of all the stuff. If you said Cece loves experimenting, everyone would be like, totally, of course she does. She loves potions and magic.

Kimberly: Asking questions. I feel like just the whole idea of keeping kids curious, asking questions, getting out there and exploring is kind of the whole thing. Don't squash their curiosity.

Zibby: That's all kids do. Why? Why? Why? So what's going on in your other writing lives? Are you still doing YA? Have you stopped the other types of writing? How are you integrating this with the rest of your professional lives?

Kimberly: It's interrupted it a little bit, but we're both still writing. We both have projects in the works, nothing announce-able. We definitely are both writing. I think COVID has been the biggest hiccup. If anything, you would think that would give you more writing time, but it's definitely been a creativity damper for me. I'll speak for me personally. I know probably some people found it easier to hunker down at home and find time to write. For me, it's actually been the opposite. I've found that it's kind of taken away my creativity a little bit. Now I'm finding it again. The picture books are actually kind of nice. Shelli and I have other picture books in the works. We found that writing together, this team thing, works really well for us. Shelli has other individual picture books. Our team one, we have another one coming out in 2020. Wait, this is 2020.

Shelli: 2022.

Kimberly: 2022, it sounds forever away.

Shelli: I have a couple. I'm kind of an overachiever. With COVID, for me, it helped me focus because I wasn't going to soccer. I feel bad because my husband built this super cute she-shed for me. It's just amazing. I actually have two picture books coming out next year. I kind of moved away from YA and was just like, I love picture books. Kim and I do the STEM picture books. I've got Thesaurus, which is a dinosaur who loved words. That's coming out with Penguin. You have a book coming out with Penguin, right?

Zibby: Flamingo is the new imprint under Penguin Random House, so it's going to be through that.

Shelli: I love that emblem, the logo. I think it's so cute.

Zibby: Yeah, so cute.

Shelli: Then I have Shine Like a Unicorn which is coming out with Harper that is a how-to book. How do you stand out? How do you be a unicorn in a herd of horses? is kind of the tagline. I went down the picture book a little bit more. I'm working on a YA now. It's nice to get back. I've actually found that since I don't have anywhere to be with my kids, it's given me that space. I'm not driving all the time. I'm not in my car all the time. I'm not sitting at soccer fields, which is sad, but it definitely has given me time to focus.

Zibby: Is it sad, though? [laughter] I don't know. Do I miss sitting there, hockey or baseball and ice skating? I'm pretty happy here at my desk.

Shelli: I just feel like it gives you more space to be creative. Before, I felt like I was trying to squeeze it in. I also do marketing. I'm a copywriter on the side. I do freelance. I feel like I was always trying to squeeze my writing in between writing picture books and writing YA and being with the kids and doing that and being with the husband and cooking dinner. Now everybody's just here. I have no place to go. Instacart's taking care of me.

Kimberly: Except your fancy she-shed.

Shelli: My she-shed gets me away from the house, which is nice to have my own space.

Zibby: I totally agree, by the way. Not having to race around and get people to assorted things has been completely freeing for me.

Shelli: Maybe it's because I have ADHD and I'm scattered. Maybe that is just too much scatter for me.

Zibby: I think it's too much scatter for most of us. It was a lot. Now that we've slowed down, I'm like, oh, what was I doing? How did I even do that? Anyway, what parting advice would you guys have for aspiring picture book writers, or writers at all?

Shelli: I will tell you that I watched your podcast with Greer and Sarah. Kim and I would like to take them on in a battle of the coauthors. I was listening to their podcast. They were like, "No other writer writes like us. We're on Skype all the time. We feel like our relationship's different." I was thinking, no, it's not. We get on Skype every day. We talk every day, all day. In my head, I was a little bit competitive. I was thinking, I think we could take them. Maybe we know more about them than they know about us. That's a challenge.

Zibby: I am going to find a way to pitch that as a TV show, Battle of the Coauthors or Author Battle or something. You guys will be the first contestants.

Shelli: Instead of the newlyweds, it'll be The Authors That Know Each Other the Best. That would be my advice, though. I think when you do do a coauthor, the relationship has to be -- you have to have trust first because you do have conflict. You do come across things that you are not expecting to come across. That is the first thing Kim and I made a pact from the very beginning. You are for me. I am for you. We are a team. No one else matters. We have to be with it first. If you don't like something, I don't want to like it. We both have to love it and move forward. No matter what, it's you and I against the world.

Kimberly: Right, the friendship always comes first with the coauthoring.

Shelli: You have to really trust each other.

Kimberly: It doesn't mean [indiscernible/crosstalk].

Shelli: Oh, yeah, we have our own challenges. I would say that's the biggest. We are on the phone pretty much every day for hours. My daughter came out the other day and started talking. I said, "I'm on the phone." She goes, "Yeah, but is it just Kim?" I said, "We're working." She goes, "It doesn't sound like you're working." I'm like, "We work and we play at the same time." We get a lot of work done. We just have to catch up a little bit. Kim was like, "Just Kim, that's great." [laughter] What do you think, Kim, for advice?

Kimberly: For picture book authors in general, I think the best thing you can do is join a great organization like SCBWI. Get involved with meeting other authors. If you're an illustrator, meet other illustrators. Get involved with the organizations out there in your area. Right now, you can't actually do it in person. They have so many great virtual events. Find out what resources are available. Like I said, Shelli and I had to go out and scour the internet. Meeting, actually talking to other authors who are in the industry was more helpful even than the stuff we found online.

Shelli: I think writing picture books is hard. It is harder, I find, than it is for YA. Not saying that anyone doesn't work as hard as a picture book author, but getting a story and a character in eight hundred words, six hundred words, enough to where people can connect to the character, enough to where you know what's going on, it's hard. We really struggle trying to pare back our words. I think really making sure that your characters have clear arcs. Just because they're picture books, they still have to have a clear arc, clear story, personality, voice. That's hard to do in six hundred words.

Zibby: Agree. Right before you, I interviewed Sophie Blackall, the author/illustrator. She's starting, you should know, a retreat for children's book authors and illustrators, like a Yaddo for children's books, basically. I can't find the little sticky here, but it's called something-farm, Wilford -- Milkwood. Milkwood Farm.

Shelli: It sounds like a picture book.

Zibby: Right? It does. She's Australian. Anyway, check it out. She has a new Instagram for it. It would be really neat to go. I was like, when is this opening? Can I go on a retreat right now? Anyway, thank you, ladies, so much. This was so fun. I'm so thankful for all the little fun cards and books and everything. Your books are just fantastic. Thank you.

Shelli: It made me so happy when you said you'd already gotten Libby Loves Science. I thought, oh, that's great. Libby's been hard because it's been over COVID.

Zibby: It jumped right out to me. It had great placement. I was at a bookstore. It was front and center. Idiotically, I didn't even realize it was related to Cece Loves Science when I got it. I was like, oh, Libby. I was taking this with my son. I was like, "Look, it's kind of like Zibby Loves Science." It's the closest title of a book to my name ever.

Shelli: You know what's funny? When I was signing it to you, I got all nervous. Then I looked down and I had written "To Libby" because I flipped Libby/Zibby. Then I put it aside and had to make another one. I was like, oh, Zibby would be a cute name. I wonder if that would be weird. [laughs]

Zibby: No, that'd be great. I was so excited. Even this is -- I feel like I'm famous, so thank you. [laughs] All right, have a great day, guys.

Kimberly: Thank you so much for having us.

Zibby: Buh-bye.