Charlotte McConaghy, MIGRATIONS

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

Charlotte McConaghy: Thank you very much for having me. It's lovely.

Zibby: Your novel, Migrations, oh, my gosh, so good. Lots of questions. First, please tell everybody what Migrations is about. Then also, what inspired you to write this as your debut novel?

Charlotte: Migrations is the story of a woman who decides to follow the migration of the last flock of Arctic terns on their journey from the Artic to the Antarctic. This is probably going to be their last migration because the book is set in the very near future during the peak of the extinction crisis when most of the animals have either gone extinct or they're headed that way quickly. It's the story of Franny's life and all the moments that lead her up to taking on this journey. In terms of inspiration or where it came from, it's a hard one to pin down. It didn't really come in any kind of formed pieces. It came in a lot of different fragments. I knew that I wanted to engage with my concern around the climate crisis, but I didn't really know how to do that. First, I went traveling. I went exploring Ireland, which is where my ancestors were from. I went to Iceland, which is the most beautiful place. I fell in love with the greylag geese. That got me thinking about migratory bird and the incredible journeys that they take and the type of people that study these birds. That's how Fanny, the ornithologist, came into my mind. I was imagining how amazing it would be if we could actually go on this journey with the birds. Then as I got to understand Franny, I started to realize what kind of world I needed to place her in to really be able to tell her story with impact and also safely engage with my own fear around the climate crisis. That's how the environmental side of this book got slowly drawn in. That was to support her.

Zibby: Wow. By the way, you’ve gotten already just such amazing press about this book. It's just fantastic. Everybody's so excited to read it. It's already such a hit. I hope that is making you feel good.

Charlotte: Thank you. It is.

Zibby: I know that a lot of it is focusing on the environmental piece, which of course is a huge part of this novel and differentiates it from so many others. I feel like not enough has been said about the character and the relationship and the mother-daughter drama and her abandonment issues and dealing with her parents and her grandmother and how that affects her relationship later in life and remorse and trauma. There's so much here. The migration, that's part of it, of course. It's almost her own migration through her own life that is so spectacular in this book.

Charlotte: Yeah, that's right. As I said, Franny was the one who came first for me. It is a story of family more than anything. That's the touchstone that I always came back to when I was writing it. She's this real lost soul. She's a wanderer who moves from place to place through her life. She's searching for home and family and a place to belong, but it's probably something that's part of her contradictory nature. It's hard for her to have those things because she does have this instinct to drive, to be moving, and to be leaving. We see that really manifested in her passionate but troubled relationship with her husband. Because she didn't grow up a family, she found one instead in the natural world. That makes her keenly aware of its loss. For me, it is a relationship story more than anything. I wouldn't know what to sink my teeth into if I wasn't writing about relationships.

Zibby: There was a lot of dunking into cold water. I feel like I needed a blanket after I finished this book in part for all the times that poor Franny was underwater and all the rest.

Charlotte: But she loves it. It's fine.

Zibby: She loves it. I know. She's like a fish of some kind of. She can survive when others can't. I'm like, oh, my gosh, she's back in the water. Tell me a little about the sleepwalking and the sleep torturing, essentially. Where did that piece come from? Franny has this darker side where she has these habits that are very not only self-destructive, but externally destructive. Then it comes out on herself a lot as well. Tell me a little bit about how sleepwalking fit into that. What made you choose that as a device to harness her anger in a way?

Charlotte: I suppose the idea was that she's such a migratory person when she's awake that even this kind of drive to always be moving was afflicting her while she slept, that idea that she couldn't control her wandering feet. This became a really difficult burden for her. It also meant that she wasn't just hurting her husband emotionally by going off and leaving him, but she was sort of threatening him physically because she lashes out as she sleeps. She kind of enacts this lifelong trauma that she's had around being abandoned and things that I don't want to give away because they're part of the secrets in plot that she means to reveal to the readers. There's a lot of stuff that she's buried down really deep. I think the sleepwalking and sleep-acting out is a way of that just manifesting, really. I think that that's something that happens potentially when we don't deal with our trauma. Franny's certainly someone that doesn't deal with things. She runs and tries to outrun them. I think there's a point where you can't get away from it any longer.

Zibby: Tell me a little about all these dual timelines that you interweave so seemingly effortlessly and different places and different times and backwards and forwards. The way you just played with time was really amazing. Tell me about the writing of that and how you kept track and structure and everything.

Charlotte: The story's told in, as you said, the two timelines, the front and the back story. One's set in the present day with the ship journey. The other timeline goes back and looks at the big moments of Franny's life. I actually wrote the book as you read it. I didn't separate out the two timelines because it felt important to write it as you read it just to keep a sense of the pacing and the rhythm of it all so that I could be feeling how it would be read. I chose the nonlinear structure for a couple of reasons. The first one's really simple. I just get bored easily when I'm writing. The thought of writing an entire novel from a single first-person point of view in a linear structure just wasn't maybe challenging enough for me, or maybe it was too challenging. It's a more natural space for me to move around a bit in time. I think it allows you to experience those major moments in Franny's life in a really intimate way with her. Instead of getting told about them in dialogue, you can kind of feel them because you're inside them. It's a great way to build tension as well. You can establish a clear transformation between her past and present. She used to be like that. Now she's like this. I wonder what happened to change her in the middle. You can seed in little clues. Then you can build to these really climatic reveals and information. That's ultimately to create catharsis for the reader. The only thing I would say about doing that is you just have to keep them linked by a theme. If they reflect each other and explore the same thing, then you can do as many timelines and as many characters as you want.

Zibby: It takes a lot of skill to pull it off really well. Hats off to you on that.

Charlotte: Thank you.

Zibby: How did you even start writing? Did you always know you wanted to write? Did you always want to write a novel? How did we get to this point where I'm holding your book in my hands?

Charlotte: I actually started writing when I was fourteen. I started books. That was my first novel. I always knew that I wanted to be a writer. I was a huge, huge reader and lover of stories. When I was fourteen, at the time I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, so that's what I wrote. I was very lucky that that book got picked up a publisher in Australia. That started me on this journey of publishing. I did several series for YA readers. They're fantasy and sci-fi epics. I think I was about twenty-five when I decided I needed to learn more about story craft. I did two degrees in screenwriting at the film school here, which sounds a bit of an odd choice, but it was actually excellent in terms of teaching me about structure and character transformations and theme and all that really juicy story craft stuff. Then after I graduated, that's when I went traveling. I decided I wanted to challenge myself to write something really different, which is how I came to Migrations. It was certainly the hardest thing I've ever done, the most difficult project. There were definitely moments where I thought I'd never finish it and I didn't know what it was about. I think it was the training that you get when you write every day for a decade that prepares you and teaches you the discipline you need to be able to understand that there's ebbs and flows and highs and lows while you write. You've just got to ride it out and really stick with something and finish it. I guess I got that practice because I spent most of my school life writing instead of doing homework or studying for an exam. Maybe I got a head start.

Zibby: It's so funny to think that writing is really like cheating on school when the whole point of school is to educate people who can be brilliant enough to write.

Charlotte: It was a bit like that. I made a decision early on when I got out of school and I didn't want to go straight to uni, which was a bit of surprise for most people. I just wanted to focus on writing. I don't know if that was the right thing.

Zibby: What about in your own life? I know in Migrations, there's a lot of really difficult family stuff. I won't go into it, but there's just a lot of stuff that happened to Franny and her family and all the rest. I was just wondering if any of it came from any personal space, if there had been some sort of trauma in your life or some mental illness even, perhaps, in your family. I'm being very personal. You can totally ignore this question. I was just wondering if there was something on a personal level that inspired any of this.

Charlotte: That's a really interesting question. I guess it's the idea of how much of me is in Franny. Look, I've been very fortunate in my life that I haven't gone through the same losses and griefs that she has. She had this really difficult life. My life's been great, really. [laughs] I've had a really loving family. There were difficulties. My parents split up when I was young. I had a single mom. She moved around a lot. We worked out by the time I was twenty-one I'd lived in twenty-one different houses. That was by no means traumatic at all. It was just a different experience. I suppose that it made me a little unsure about where I belonged and where my home is. I guess that's one of the reasons that that infused Franny's character. She's this wandering searcher. She's made up of a lot of things that I wish I was more of and a lot of things that I'm really glad that I'm not. A lot of her damage is, instead of it being a way for me to explore my own personal trauma, it's more of a way to explore a larger grief about what's happening to the planet. That sounds strange. I had this real concern and fear for the wildness that we're losing and a longing to have wildness in my life. I didn't quite know how to explore that. I brought it to bear in the internal pain of a person and hoped that that would be how we could access that feeling to make it more intimate and personal, if that makes sense.

Zibby: It does. It totally makes sense. I can see that reflected in the story. You had one line where you said, "The rhythm of the seas' tides are the only things we humans have not yet destroyed." I feel like that set the tone for the whole thing. You can see the sea going in and out, and in and out, and yet all of the things around it in fast-forward shapeshifting quickly, quickly, and not in good places. I know this is such a passion of yours. How do you approach this aside from obviously raising so much awareness with this book, for instance? Not how do you sleep at night, but what do you do to change it? What can we do to change it? What's your strategy and plan? What do you think in terms of activism or education or all the rest?

Charlotte: Education comes first, obviously, and starting the conversation. We want people to be aware of what's happening. That's one reason I wanted to write about this just to try and give voice to some of what's happening and my own concerns around it. In terms of the way I live, I'll try to do as many small things as I can because they all add up. If we're all doing the small things, they add up to major change. When I say small things, I am talking about, I don't eat meat. I know that’s not something that everyone will be able to do. If you can reduce your meat eating, that's amazing. Things like composting, worm farming, switch your energy to renewable energy providers. Ride your bike instead of driving your car, if you can, or walk. Lots of those smaller things, think about the products that you're buying and whether you can recycle them. Try to reduce the waste so things aren't just going into landfill. The biggest thing that we can actually do is contact our politicians because the change has to come from above, unfortunately. We can do a lot of smaller things. They do work. But we really, really need to change the systems that are in place because they're not supporting the planet. They're actually doing incredible damage.

Zibby: My daughter, she's thirteen, but from the time she was born she's been obsessed with polar bears.

Charlotte: Aw.

Zibby: I know. Who knew that over her, even, lifetime that the risk to polar bears would've escalated as much as it is? She's become this big advocate, preventing climate change and all of this stuff. I'm intimately aware. It's funny to have it brought to forefront by a child instead of necessarily by me. I do feel that this next generation is so aware already, not that I wasn't growing up. There was Greenpeace and all this stuff. It's not like I wasn't aware, but I think there's a newfound dedication to preventing their globe from losing all these species and everything.

Charlotte: It's wonderful to hear that your daughter is really aware of all this stuff. We are in good hands with them, with the next generation, but that doesn't mean that we can rest on our laurels. We've got to start slowing this down now because by the time it gets to them it might be too late.

Zibby: Oh, my gosh, do not wait for my daughter. [laughs] Certainly, do not wait for her, the little impact she -- I'm kidding. The fate of our country certainly cannot rest on her. That's for sure.

Charlotte: You never know. She might wind up being the first female president.

Zibby: She might. You know, you never know. You never know. So tell me what you're working on next. I feel like you sold another book. Am I right about that?

Charlotte: You are right. The next book's coming out this time next year. I've spent the last year and a half writing and editing it. It's called Creatures, All. It's the story of a wolf biologist who is charged with reintroducing wolves into a forest in the Scottish Highlands in order to rewild the ecosystem. It's a love story and a mystery. Ultimately, it's a story of the healing power of nature, which is recurring theme for me apparently.

Zibby: I see that. It's good you know. Sometimes I talk to authors who have written ten books and they're like, it turns out it's all about my dad. [laughs] At least with nature, it's pretty clear-cut.

Charlotte: It makes sense that people return to the same themes, the ideas that they love or that fascinate them, or maybe they're trying to work through some terrible issue of themselves.

Zibby: Yep, that's so true. What advice would you have to aspiring authors?

Charlotte: Firstly, I would say -- this is a cliché, but it's really true. Write from your heart. Write about something that you really, really care about, something that matters to you because you have to sustain interest in this thing for a long time. You've got to sustain your passion. It's so easy to just start something on a whim and realize halfway through that, actually, you've lost interest or you don't care about it anymore. That's probably the main reason that so many start and don't finish books. Chose something that matters to you. Chose something that isn't necessarily about what the market wants or what you think people will enjoy because it's much more important to write about what you enjoy. Write the book that you want to read. That comes through to readers. They can really feel that passion. That would definitely be my main piece of advice. Practice heaps. Build the skill. You don't have to necessarily write every day, but you do have to write a lot. Otherwise, you're not practicing a skill. It's a skill like any other. Just be determined. Don't give up. Don't take no for an answer. There's a time for everything. If you're having trouble with one book, then maybe it's time to start a new one. I could go on all day about this stuff, but they would be the main points.

Zibby: I think another thing you should add is always end your chapters with a bang. I feel like your chapter endings were always, they were so good that you had to keep going. I just feel like that's always really important in moving things along.

Charlotte: Totally. Also, especially if you're moving timelines because sometimes people hate that. It really annoys them. If you can leave them on a note of wanting more, then they're really happy to come back to that timeline or that scene. That's a really good point.

Zibby: I'm just adding tips for you there. [laughs]

Charlotte: Please do.

Zibby: Charlotte, thank you so much. Thank you for your book and for all of your advice and for raising awareness for such an important issue for everyone on the planet and just for taking the time to talk to me today. Thank you.

Charlotte: Thank you so much, Zibby. It was lovely to chat. I really appreciate you having me on.

Zibby: My pleasure. Have a great day.

Charlotte: Thank you. You too.

Zibby: Buh-bye.

Holly Martyn, WOULD IT KILL YOU TO PUT ON SOME LIPSTICK?

Zibby Owens: Holly Martyn is the author of Would It Kill You to Put on Some Lipstick? She's a writer, storyteller, memoirist, mother, frequent flyer, and former Wall Street executive who shares her many adventures in life, travel, and dating.

Welcome, Holly. Thanks for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Holly Martyn: Thanks for having me on, Zibby.

Zibby: We spoke about a month ago on my Instagram Live show, which was much fun. I loved talking to you then. I wanted to hear more from you now, so that's how we got here.

Holly: I know where our conversation kind of lit up the last time we spoke was when -- you're a divorced mom as well. Now you've remarried. We had started to get into some of the psychological aspects of being a single mom and being divorced and dating, which I think you could relate to as well.

Zibby: Yeah. You want to talk about that? That sounds juicy and good. [laughs]

Holly: I think part of what you have to do when you are deciding to get divorced or going through that process and dating is to kind of get your head on straight. One of the things that I realized as I was writing the book was that I felt this huge sense of shame about being divorced. I felt like in many ways our society reinforces that view of women, particularly single women and single moms. Would you agree with that?

Zibby: You know, I think just sometimes people don't know what to do with things that don't fit in all the right boxes, necessarily. I think when you go from the world of being part of a couple to then not, particularly the people who were still part of couples don't exactly know how to handle it. I think they immediately feel badly for you when maybe you don't need any sympathy. People make a lot of assumptions about what you must feel or you must think. I think some people, and I don't know if you experienced this, didn't know how to, I know at least when I got separated and then divorced, didn't exactly know how to deal with me or talk to me or what it meant for them. I think that's the other thing. When a close friend or something gets divorced, and I don't know if this happened with your friends, people are like, if it could happen to her, it could happen to me, or I better stay away, like it's contagious or something.

Holly: Yeah, divorce cooties.

Zibby: Exactly. Back up for two seconds and tell everybody the name of your book, why you wrote your book, what's in your book. Then let's go back to this.

Holly: The name of my book is Would It Kill You to Put on Some Lipstick?: A Year and 100 Dates. It's a memoir/manual about the first year after my divorce as I grappled with being a single mom and having to date again. I was absolutely flabbergasted that I was twice divorced. I thought I'd never have to date again. Frankly, I'd never really dated that much ever. I decided to chronicle the experience of trying to rebuild my life.

Zibby: How'd it go?

Holly: I think we talked about this last time. The backstory was that I had been sitting in a spa feeling sorry for myself. I happened upon an article about a woman in a position similar to mine. She was a widow in her late thirties with a newborn. Her husband had died of cancer. She crossed paths with the late Joan Rivers who knew the woman well enough to look at her and say, "You're kind of letting yourself go. Would it kill you to put on some lipstick? Set up an online account. Go on a hundred dates. You'll meet somebody." I was struck by that. I thought, wow, could it really be that simple? That's the motivation and the idea behind my memoir. I found that the book got away from me in the best of ways. It's a little bit like Sex and the City meets Eat Pray Love. I talk about a lot of the funny dates, the heartbreak, and then also what's happening with me in my head and my heart as I try to reconcile my life up until this point. That became a big thing that I was looking at as I was dating again. I really didn't want to make the same mistakes I'd made in the past. I wanted a fresh start. I thought, this is really my chance to get it right this time.

Zibby: I always make proclamations like that. This time, I'm not going to snap at my kids. This new year, now I'm going to be patient. I'm going to not repeat the same things that have been my default coping. Somehow, they keep creeping back in. Did you find that happened to you?

Holly: One thing I did do well is that I decided to keep an open mind. What I found was that because I'd already had a child, I'd had my attempt at a happy traditional family, I thought, this time around, rather than dating and maybe being with someone, marrying somebody that I "should" be with, what if I just cleared the decks and kept an open mind about age, income, all of those things, just being totally openminded and openhearted to who I might date and to not be bound by societal ideas of what I should be doing?

Zibby: That sounds like something you can achieve. [laughs]

Holly: What is great is that what was different this time around for me when I was dating is dating apps and online dating didn't exist the last time I was single. Suddenly, the dating landscape had changed. It really opens up opportunities for you to meet people that you would've never crossed paths with otherwise. In the past, we tended to date and marry the people we worked with or the people we went to school with or the people that we met at church or synagogue, people in our circle. Technology allows us now to really break right out of that. It's exciting.

Zibby: How did your daughter handle your hundred dates?

Holly: At the time, she was eight, nine years old. She was a hilarious peanut gallery. I don't know if you saw my book trailer, but there's a moment in the book trailer which literally happened exactly as in real life. I thought, I'm going to update my wardrobe. I'm going to try to be a little more chic. I'm going to get out of my mom garb. I go out and I buy this big fluffy jacket and get on some cool jeans. I'm getting ready to go out on a date. I walk out. I say to my daughter, "How do I look?" She looks me up and down head to toe and says, "You look like a werewolf." [laughter] She was always correcting me. I'd come out and she'd go, "Don't you think you need a camisole under that?" I tried to be really honest with her about the things that were going through my head. I wanted her to start to think about, who should we be with? Who shouldn't we be with? Why? I would only introduce her to somebody if I had become serious about the person. Even if she hadn’t met the person, she would say, "How's it going with X, Y, Z?" I would give her a cleaned-up version for a child, but explain, "I broke up with him because he treated me this way," or "It's going well because..." I wanted her to learn. It was something that I was never taught. How do we be treated well in love?

Zibby: Yes, it's so important. The whole thing of dating when you have kids is such a crazy experience. I remember when I was already in a relationship with Kyle, who became my husband, I was about to introduce them. I remember asking the kids, "If you could design a perfect guy for me to date, what characteristics would be important to you?" I remember holding my breath thinking, I hope they pick some of the things that he has. [laughs]

Holly: Did they?

Zibby: They did. He's a pretty great guy. I was lucky, but I was sort of holding my breath there. I think that one of them said that he had to play with dolls. I had a little kid too. He didn't meet all of the boxes, but the ones that he could meet that were reasonable. At least, I wanted them to know, not that they could pick who I ended up with, but that their input really mattered to me because it was a decision that was going to be for all of us and not just something that would benefit or affect me. They were integral players in the whole thing.

Holly: It's a new member of the family. It's a big deal.

Zibby: It's like adopting a grown-up. [laughs]

Holly: Exactly, and their family and maybe their kids. Did Kyle bring children as well?

Zibby: He did not. No, he's just been a great stepdad to my four kids. I told him, "I'm not having more kids, so you should just run the other way and go marry some young, pretty thing who wants to have her own family. You should just do that." He's like, "No, I want to be with you." He probably regrets it. [laughs]

Holly: I'm sure he does not.

Zibby: Obviously, that would add a layer of complication to things. No, we didn't have to deal with that. Going back to your book, having gone on all these dates and realized, perhaps, what's more important to you and what's not as important to you, going forward, what are some of the most important things you learned? What are some of the things that if somebody else was like, "Gosh, where do I even start in this process? I'm totally overwhelmed," what would your advice be for that person or all of that?

Holly: I would say the first thing is to ask yourself if you're really serious about wanting to have love in your life again. Some people approach it halfheartedly and say, yeah, maybe. Or maybe they're not really being honest with themselves. For me, I realized I did want to find my person. I did want love in my life. I was willing to commit to it. I wasn't going to do this in a half-assed way. I was going to go for it. The whole premise of the book kind of set me up to do that. It gave me the discipline. I started to approach dating in my forties with a plan and a commitment. I told myself that whenever my daughter was with her dad I would not stay at home and Netflix and eat pizza. I would go down to the local wine bar or go into the city to a restaurant and eat dinner up at the bar. If someone spoke to me or started a conversation, I would talk to people. I would start to expand my circle.

That opened up a whole new world. It opened up a whole new world for me not only in terms of people that I might date. I made great women friends. I've made great professional contacts. That's one thing that happens to people when they get divorced. You kind of lose some of your friends. You lose some family members. People tend to take sides. It's really important when you get divorced to expand your circle. Expand your circle with fresh, positive people who are going to support you in this new phase of your life. It's an opportunity. It's painful, but it's also an opportunity to do some spring cleaning. Then the other thing I did to get the dates was I did go on dating apps and try different apps. I got some dates that way. I met some wonderful people that way. Then the third thing that I did was I put the world out to friends and family. Hey, I'm single. If you know of anybody who's single and you want to set me up on a blind date, I'll go on it. I was really openminded about it. I figured it's one hour out of your life to go have a coffee or go have a drink. Again, I met wonderful people that way too.

Zibby: Can you share where you ended up in relationship land?

Holly: It's funny. I wrote Would It Kill You to Put on Some Lipstick? about four or five years ago. It covered a year of my life. I don't want to give away the ending, but let's just say the formula worked. I did meet somebody really wonderful. Since then, he and I are not together, but remain good friends. Our daughters remain good friends. Not too long after that, I ended up being in a two-year relationship with somebody who set me up on a blind date. He and I are not together anymore. We're still actually very close friends. I can't say that I've regretted anybody I've dated or any relationship I've been in. I think the further I get into dating, the more I realize that I every combination of two human beings, it's like new chemicals. It's always new and fresh. Just when you think that you've seen it all, met every personality type, you just never know what's around the corner. It's really exciting. I'm dating. I have a few stalkers. [laughter] Of course, I haven't really been able to see anybody very much in this pandemic.

Zibby: I love what you just said about every new interaction between two people creates new chemicals or whatever because it's so true. I feel like in every relationship, it's not just you learning about them. A new piece of you kind of rises up to meet them as well, a new version of yourself. You can snap into it so quickly, not dramatically different, but just a slightly different version. Does that make sense?

Holly: Absolutely. I read something today on Instagram. Someone had a quote about just how dating can trigger us, positively or negatively, into parts of ourselves, parts of our childhood that we may not even know is there. Whether we can face those triggers and those feelings, both positive and negative -- then this is also happening in the person you've met -- can also determine whether you choose to stay in that relationship. In some cases, it spurs you to bolt, right?

Zibby: Totally. I also realized -- I try to give advice to friends who are dating about this. I used to say, what was wrong with this guy? I don't know. I would highlight something about him. I didn't like his shirt. I didn't like the way he folded up his sleeves. I didn't like that he wore a necklace. I don't know, something stupid. But it wasn't that at all. It's just sometimes it's so hard to put a finger on when you don't know why, but it just wasn't right. It's so much easier to say this particular external thing is what did it when that has nothing to do with it.

Holly: It's hard to come up with a shorthand for friends or even acquaintances of, "Oh, you're not with so-and-so anymore? What happened?"

Zibby: Right, that too.

Holly: What's the sound bite to get them off your case?

Zibby: Relationships are so multilayered. There's so much that goes into every relationship, dating, marriage, our ex-husbands. It's so impossible to sum up any of it. What happened with your ten-year -- no, there's no one answer. It was a lifetime of something.

Holly: I write about this in Lipstick as well. My relationship with my ex-husband, the father of my daughter, has completely changed. We are truly friends. He has a girlfriend he's been with for six or seven years now. We get along great. It wasn't that in the beginning. We were all just, I don't want to say enemies, but there was no trust. We had to build a new relationship and a new extended family for our girl that we love.

Zibby: I think time is so critical. Things change so much over time after divorce, even with the friends. I don't know if you found this with your friends. Some people who I felt like at the very beginning were vocal opponents or did things that really hurt my feelings right at the beginning have since, now that it's been five years or so, come around and said, "You know what? I regretted my behavior. I'm really sorry for that." I feel like time in divorce, and probably in everything, it just changes so much for you and the people around you and also your relationship afterwards. Time itself just changes so much.

Holly: It's just what we were talking about a minute ago. When one couple splits up, it often motivates your circle to look at their own marriages and their own relationships. Sometimes what you're hearing in terms of their feedback about your split-up is really more about what's going on with them than what's going on with you.

Zibby: Yes. I wish I had known that the day that I was going around telling everybody. Some people would burst into tears. Some people would be like, "How do you feel?" Some people would just be like, "How could that happen?" It's a lot. You have to take on everyone else's stuff.

Holly: Yeah, at a time when you're feeling, chances are, pretty depleted.

Zibby: Yeah, probably. I don't know. Anyway, your book, so how long did it take, the actual writing of the book? Did you like it enough that you would want to do another book? If so, what would that be? If not, what's next?

Holly: It took a year to live it. Then it took about another three years to write it. I literally have ten different incarnations of the book. The tenth was the one that went to press. What's exciting, what's happening in the last few months, and I can't give too much detail, but I've actually been approached to turn it into a television series.

Zibby: That's awesome. I'm so happy for you.

Holly: Thank you. We're moving along. It would be sort of like a divorced Sex and the City. There is this episodic nature to a hundred dates. I'm definitely interested in being a writer on that project. I would definitely commit myself to that. I don't see myself as someone who's going to spend the rest of her life writing about her love life. I've started my next book which is called Drinking with Mimes. It's stories of me back in the day when we could still do this, jump on an airplane, show up in a new country, unscripted by myself and write about the people that I meet on the road, the stories, the crazy adventures. That book has been going really well. I think it's a great sequel, but not only to show that just because you get divorced and even if you haven't found somebody yet, you can still have these great adventures, and I did. The first trip I did, I went to Punta Mita, Mexico. Then I went to Copenhagen for Christmas. By the way, randomly met Katy Perry at the time when she was there. [laughs]

Zibby: Oh, my gosh. That's a good title, by the way, Copenhagen for Christmas.

Holly: Yeah. Then I got a bonus trip at Christmas. A friend of mine who's a writer said, "You got to go over to Sweden and meet my brother. He's a mime." That's why it's called Drinking with Mimes. He's a literal mime, you know, the people that don't speak. You're with me? [laughs]

Zibby: I'm with you. I'm following you.

Holly: Then from there, I went to Lisbon for New Year's and ended up meeting this fabulous gay man who owned a small palace and invited me to his New Year's party.

Zibby: Why not?

Holly: Why not? That was the start of the book. Once we get out of this COVID situation and I'm able to travel again, I want to finish off that book.

Zibby: Excellent. Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?

Holly: The only advice I have is don't give up and just keep at it. I literally got up at five o'clock in the morning for fourteen years before I got published. Just dig in and don't give up. The writer that I thought I was at year one and what my voice was then bears almost no resemblance to what I write now. It's a process that you just have to go through. There's no shortcuts. Enjoy that process. If you enjoy the process, then whether you're published or not really becomes irrelevant.

Zibby: Very true. Awesome. Holly, thank you. [laughs] I feel like I had a little mini-therapy session of my own here about all the stuff that happened five years ago. Thank you for sharing your experiences and your great book and all the rest. Thank you.

Holly: Thank you so much. Take good care.

Zibby: You too. Bye.

Holly: Bye, Zibby.

Chioma Momah, FIRST DAY AT THE BIG SCHOOL

Zibby Owens: Chioma Momah is the author of First Day at the Big School. She is based in Nigeria where she's a regulatory sector lawyer and a member of the Nigerian Bar and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. A children's book author, she started the L.E.A.R.N program in schools where she speaks on reading and writing skills. She's passionate about encouraging working mothers through her blog, www.chioma.net.

Hi.

Chioma Momah: Hi, Zibby.

Zibby: Welcome to "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Chioma: How are you?

Zibby: Good. How are you?

Chioma: I'm fine. Thank you. Great to be here.

Zibby: Where in Nigeria are you?

Chioma: I'm in Abuja.

Zibby: Where is that in Nigeria? [laughs]

Chioma: Abuja is the capitol, so right in the middle. It's the north of Nigeria, actually, but it's kind of in the middle.

Zibby: Awesome. From around the world, here we go.

Chioma: Nice to be here.

Zibby: It's nice to be here with you. Tell me about The Big School, kids going to the big school. What made you want to write this book? Tell me the whole story of how you wrote a children's book and why about this topic and all the rest.

Chioma: First off, I always loved reading, voracious reader. The moment I started having children, I noticed that most of the books were, I didn't see enough Nigerian characters, people of color, people that they could relate to, which was the same thing I had when growing up. All the books were either Enid Blyton or -- what's his name? The guy that wrote about the giants. Just the same books I had read growing up. They were great books. Eric Carle. They were amazing books.

Zibby: Roald Dahl?

Chioma: Roald Dahl. I'm thinking of Roald Dahl. I love his books. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the same books I had read growing up. I wasn't seeing things with African characters or Nigerian characters. I was like, I would like to tell a story that had things that they recognized, Nigerian food, Nigerian names, Nigerian skin texture. That was it. I wrote it for my children, basically. I wanted my children to see a book where they had names and faces and events that they recognized. Then I thought of, my eldest childhood memory was when I left kindergarten and started grade school. For me, it was a big shock because I was leaving being a baby. In kindergarten and in earlier school, I had -- you're [indiscernible]. You're like a baby. Then when I got into grade one, it was a bit scary because I thought they wanted us to all be grown up all of a sudden. I just imagine that for other children, they would have the same issue, especially if they're changing to a new school, they were transitioning to a different school. They would be so uncertain.

For us in Nigeria, once you leave kindergarten to grade school, a lot of things change. You start wearing uniforms. You move to a different building. For me, I was like, I'm sure there are a lot of children who are wondering what it would be like to go to a different school and all the mix of emotions they would have, meeting new friends, having a new teacher, just dealing with so many new experiences all at once. Then there would be excitement as well. That was why I wrote that book. I wanted to be able to relate to children, for them to be able to see something they could relate with, children who are Nigerian children with Nigerian names and experience, which I think every child can relate with and even every adult because everyone has gone through that thing where you have to get a new job or go to a new school or move to a new city. You're faced with, what is it going to be like? Will I like it? Will it be scary? Will I make friends? That's really what that book was about, just all those mix of emotions that everybody goes through when they're dealing with a brand-new experience.

Zibby: It couldn’t have come at a better time. I have four kids. My littlest guy is starting kindergarten in the fall, which sounds more like the transition from K to first grade for you in that it will be a dress code and a new school and bigger building. Who knows if school will even start in the fall anymore, but all of those feelings, it's so great to have a book. Obviously, there are some other books that deal with back to school. Like you said, having new characters and having a new point of view and the fact that kids in Nigeria are going through the same things, people all over the world. You know when you say to yourself, I'm not the only one, people all over the world -- it's one thing to think that. Then to have an example of another child in a school in Nigeria, it makes it all just seem so relatable. Then you don't feel so weird that you're all nervous yourself.

Chioma: Exactly. We all have the same experiences. That's what I see. Everyone all over the world has their own example of that experience, but we all have similar experiences everywhere.

Zibby: It's true. Even though everyone knows that, I think everyone needs to see it to have it hit home. Just being able to think it is not enough. Did your kids appreciate when you wrote it?

Chioma: They did. I based the main character on my daughter. Her name is Olanna. I named her Lana after my daughter. They were really excited to see. They were super, super excited. Then the funniest thing happened. Other people were excited as well, but I didn't expect that. Like I said, I wrote it for my children. I said, my children will read it. Friends' children will read it. Just a few people in my community would read it. Then I had people who I didn't even know, people who I hadn’t spoken to in years were like, "Oh, my god, we loved it." It's on Amazon now, so people all over the world basically, people in Canada, people in South Africa, people in the US, people in England writing me to say, "I read your book. My child loves it." They could relate to it. They were transitioning to grade school or kindergarten or whatever, and they could relate to this story. It was just amazing for them. It went to places I would never have expected. I've gone to different cities in Nigeria where I've been told to come and read, do book reading to children transitioning just to prepare them for that next stage of school. My children loved it. A lot of other children loved it as well. It's done really well, thank goodness.

Zibby: That's great. What has it been like with your kids with the quarantine this spring? What is it like now?

Chioma: They are tired of online school. That's one thing I can say. They are tired of classes online. It's just a bit too much for them. They're happy that Mommy's home because I'm home 24/7 now. That's the best part. They have Mommy home with them all the time. I don't have to go to work. I think everyone is ready to be able to go back to school to learn. For them, the best part has just been having Mommy and Daddy here and baking a lot. I'm in the kitchen a lot. I'm playing games with them. We're doing hopscotch and playing football together. They're just happy to have me home. That's the best part for them.

Zibby: What's your day job?

Chioma: I'm a lawyer. I work for the government. I work for a government agency, a government office. I work in the legal department. It was a busy nine-to-five job. Basically, on a regular day, if I go home by six PM, they would be happy. Just seeing me here every day is like, oh, my goodness, they come and give me hugs every one hour, a new hug, "Oh, Mommy, I love you." It's going to be hard for them when I have to go back to work. We're just enjoying the moment. We're living in the moment. I told somebody, when you have family, you don't have that much to miss. You think of people who don't have families who have to be by themselves who have no siblings to play with or no family, no children or whatever. I guess they're all making the best of it in one way or the other. Thank god for technology so we can talk, do video calls, and stuff like that.

Zibby: For your book, how did you find an illustrator? You didn't illustrate it yourself?

Chioma: I did not. That was the hardest part. I was in England at that time. I was studying. I was in grad school, what you guys call grad school in the States. I was there with my two youngest children when I decided to write the book. I kept on looking for an illustrator. It was really tough. I didn't know where to start, to be honest. Luckily, I found somebody online. I think he lives in Vietnam. I discussed my ideas with him, sent him the characters' descriptions. A lot of the things I wrote about, he didn't understand the concepts, but he did really well. We've done a second book, which he did amazing. We're working on our third book together. I found him in Vietnam. He's really, really gifted. It was just amazing bringing this character to life with him. The whole concept of children with cornrows in their hair, he didn't understand any of that. I had to show him lots of pictures. I had lots of meetings with him. He did a great job.

Zibby: It's just so amazing to me that you thought of this idea in England. You wrote it in Nigeria. You collaborated with a man in Vietnam. Now you and I are on Skype. I'm here in New York. We're talking about your book that people read all over the world. It's just amazing. I always think about the power of books to bring people together. This is just such a great example. Look at this, and how your vision can make people feel better everywhere. It's the coolest. I just think it's the coolest.

Chioma: Technology's amazing. I tell kids, you can tell a story in front of your friends at home, but when you write a book, it could go anywhere, literally anywhere in the world. A lot of the books I read as a child were books like the classics, Little Women, Jane Eyre's books, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer. Those were books that were written somewhere in some corner maybe in the US or in the UK. People have read those books all over the world. Books are just amazing, really, how they bring people together.

Zibby: What are your next two books about?

Chioma: My second book is called A Fun Day in the Museum. It's a series. I'm still with Lana and her friends. They go to see a museum. In that book, I tried to talk about history. In Nigeria, children aren't taught history the way they should be. A lot of things are just glossed over. A lot of kids don't know about great people in our historical past who have done a lot for this country. I try to bring up our founding fathers in that book. I put their pictures there, spoke about our artifacts, spoke about stuff that has happened in Nigeria, the civil war we had. I tried to put all of that in the museum so as the children were going around, they were discovering stuff about their country. The third book, which is still far from finished, the children go to the village. Just to give you an example of what it is to go to the village, I live in Abuja, which is the city. It's an urban city, but everybody comes from some village or the other. My father was born in some village down east. A lot of Nigerians every year, either Christmastime or Eastertime or some time of the year, they go to visit their village. It's really rural. It's really rustic. It's really lots of fun. It's really different. Growing up, I did a lot of that. Every year, we went down to the village to spend time with my grandmother.

I want to bring those memories alive for those of us who had those experiences. Nowadays, it's not as common. Children don't go to the villages that often. For those of us that did, it was really, really a great experience for us, so I want to write about that so that children can see what village life was like. It was really fun, playing with goats, going to the stream. It was fun. It was really, really fun. That's what that book is about. Then just meeting up with your cousins who you haven't seen from all over the country and all over the world because it was like a big, great homecoming. Everyone would come home for Christmas. Then you would see people that you haven't seen in years. I'm really excited about that project. Then also, I'm writing a book for women as well, something different. Actually, two books. It started out as one book, but I've had to make it two books now. I'm writing about women in history who have done great things, women like Amelia Earhart, women like Mary Slessor who was a great missionary to Nigeria, women who have done amazing things over time and the lessons we can learn from them. I'm really excited about that project. That book should be out in another month or so. I'm really working hard on that to get it finished.

Zibby: Wow, good for you. This whole time of being at home has not affected your productivity in a negative way at all.

Chioma: At all. It's been a blessing in disguise for my writing. When I'm at work full time, I'm more engaged with work working as a lawyer. Now that I'm home, I don't get to do as much office work as I normally do, which I miss, but it's been a blessing in disguise, to be honest, because I've had time to catch up on all these projects, time to speak with you on Skype, and just do other things that I really enjoy, time to spend with the children and bond more with them, time to bake. It's been good. It's been a good time for me, to be honest.

Zibby: How do you come up with all the ideas for all of your different projects?

Chioma: Inspiration. I think for all of us, our inspiration is from our childhood. For many people that write, it's stuff that has happened to you. Like I said for my first book, it was my experience, the rude shock I got starting grade school, or primary school like we call it here. Now I was a big kid all of a sudden. I had to wear a uniform. Things just changed. Then also, my love for history inspired the second book. Then my love for just thinking back on village life inspired the third one. For me, I do a lot of speaking to women. I try to encourage women a lot because in our society, I think all over the world, women, once they start having children, they feel that that's it. I tell women there's so much more you can do. Yes, you can be a great parent. You can be a great mom. You can also do stuff that you love as well apart from parenting, apart from raising your children. I just try to encourage them to look. Whatever career path you want to do -- like you say, you don't have time to read, but you do have time to read. You can make time to do other things if you really want to. I just try to encourage women. With this latest book I'm working on for women, I've spoken about all these women who had so many things against them. There were gender issues. There was race discrimination that they had to deal with. There are so many issues. Yet they were able to do those things that they dreamt of doing, so just to encourage women to be like, go for your dreams. You can do it. That's where, especially, my writing comes from, is from things that I like to inspire ladies to do in real life. Go for your dreams. Don't let motherhood look like something negative. It's a beautiful thing. Being a mother should not make you be less of a human being or not accomplish any other thing that you need or you desire to accomplish.

Zibby: I think a lot of people need to hear that, so thank you for that. That's great. What do you like to read? What are you reading now? Any good books?

Chioma: The book I'm reading now, it's called Debra or Deborah. Like I said, I like being inspired by women as I inspire other women. I'm reading about Deborah who was a great judge in the Bible and just reading about all the amazing things she did, how she went to war with these mighty men and how she won, how basically if she hadn’t gone with them, they would not have won that war. I'm just reading stuff about inspiring people. Another book I just read recently, which was really amazing because I love history, was a book about sea women in Korea. That was really interesting just to see how women were so strong, how they made a living and still had to come back and be mothers. A lot of the books I'm reading are by inspiring women.

Zibby: Love it. What advice would you have to aspiring authors?

Chioma: Aspiring authors, your story is in you. You have your story right in you. You don't have to go searching for it. Think back. Think of your memories. Think of your experiences. Think of those things that really touched you when you were a child, or even adulthood. Think of those experiences that stand out to you, and you can tell a story from there. You don't have to copy someone's story. You can be original. We all have stories inside of us, hundreds of stories waiting to be told. Just think and think. What story would I like people to hear? What is that authentic story I have inside of me? That’s my number-one advice. Your story is in you. Think about it. Then don't be afraid to write. Your writing might not be perfect, but then we have editors. We have people who can help you. Just start. Start writing. Start today. Don't put it off until tomorrow. Start now.

Zibby: Love it. I'm going to go write right now. I'm going to just go now that you said that. No, I'm kidding. I don't have time for that today, but I would like to. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you came on my podcast. I'm so glad we could connect across the world about our kids and books and the power of not feeling alone.

Chioma: Thanks for having me.

Zibby: It's my pleasure, oh, my gosh.

Chioma: So how's New York? How are you guys doing?

Zibby: Okay. I'm not in the city right now. I haven't been to my home in the city now for three and half months or so. I miss it. I don't know. Slowly going back to normal, itsy-bitsy steps. I think the worst part is that --

Chioma: -- It's over.

Zibby: Yes, I think the worst part is over, but I think the lingering side effects are that everybody looks at each other as though they could be the enemy in a way. You don't know who has coronavirus.

Chioma: That's the saddest part. I agree.

Zibby: I like to hug people so much and have everybody over. It's created this distance when my whole thing is connection. It saddens me. That's the worst part. Other than that, my family is healthy, my close friends. People who have had it are better. How about you?

Chioma: I can totally relate. In my city, churches are open now, but I'm not going to church because like I told my husband, the whole issue going out to church, going out and meeting people, you want to hug them. You want to say, "How are you?" and give them a great big hug. Nobody's doing that right now. That just seems weird. It's a bit painful for me. I'd rather just stay home and wait it out a bit. Like you said, everybody suspicious. You see your friend and you're standing like, "Oh, hi. Hello." That's just not me. I'm big on physical connection. I'm very social as well. That, for me, is the saddest part as well. The other day I went out to get some groceries. I saw my very good friend and I just said hi. Normally, I would give her a big hug. I was sad I couldn't do that. I'm hoping that things will slowly get back to normal. It might take time. I'm just grateful. I'm thanking God for all the opportunities I've had during this period, thanking God that my family is well. Like you, I had a few people who were ill, and they're all fine. I have family all over the world, in the US, Seattle, Houston, [indiscernible]. Everybody's fine. That's something to be thankful for, that everybody's in good health. I can't wait for this to be over. I really can't.

Zibby: Me too. Maybe one day you and I can get together in real life and give each other a hug. That would be very nice.

Chioma: That would be awesome. That would be great. Thank you so much, Zibby.

Zibby: Now we have some long-term goals. [laughter] Thank you again. This has been so nice. Thanks for sending me your book and for helping my little guy through his transition in the fall to school. Thank you.

Chioma: Thank you. Such a pleasure. I'm glad he liked it. I'm glad you liked it. It was great to be able to talk to you. Thanks for all the great work you're doing with authors and just getting women to read more. It's pretty amazing. Thank you so much.

Zibby: Thank you. Thanks. Buh-bye.