Cameran Eubanks Wimberly, ONE DAY YOU'LL THANK ME

One Day You'll Thank Me: Essays on Dating, Motherhood, and Everything In Between Buy on Amazon

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Zibby Owens: Cameran Eubanks Wimberly is the author of One Day You'll Thank Me: Essays on Dating, Motherhood, and Everything In Between. She is an alumna of Southern Charm, the hit Bravo reality series, and also The Real World. She is a real estate agent based in Charleston, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband Jason and their daughter Palmer. I recorded this conversation with Cameran through Anderson's Bookshop on a late night when everything went wrong with our technology. This episode could've probably been filmed in fifteen, twenty minutes, or something like that, but it took us almost an hour and fifteen in the end. It was really fun. We had a lot of laughs. Forgive any awkward cuts in and out due to Wi-Fi and technical issues.

Welcome, Cameran. So excited we get to chat. I was worried that wasn't going to happen, but how delightful.

Cameran Eubanks Wimberly: Me too, honestly. I was thinking, oh, gosh, this is not going to work. Thank y'all so much for being so patient. I wish I could see you and see your faces and say hey to you. Thank you, Zibby, for doing this.

Zibby: It's my pleasure. Got to hone my little stand-up skills. [laughs] Cameran, first of all, congratulations on writing your book, One Day You'll Thank Me.

Cameran: I'll thank you today.

Zibby: Thank you.

Cameran: Thank you so much. It was so hard for me to come up with a title for that book. You're like, what do I want to call my book? My god, this is a big decision. I thought about that because that is one thing my mom always used to say to me. One day you'll thank me for this. That's how the book came to be.

Zibby: That's a great title. I love it. It's perfect. Cameran, what made you write a book? How did this come about?

Cameran: Obviously, being on reality television, it gives you a platform and an audience for a brief window of time. I was joking earlier today that in a few years I will just be a washed-up reality television star. If I'm going to write a book, now is the time to do it. Really, being on Southern Charm, you obviously have access to social media. People can DM you on Instagram. Women would DM me nonstop about relationship advice, asking me about my indecision to have a child. It seemed to really resonate with a lot of women. Women would write me and say, oh, my gosh, I resonated with you with your whole breastfeeding quandary. I'm sitting here in my DMs counseling these women. I may as well just put it all in a book that you can hold and is tangible.

Zibby: Perfect. I bet that has not stopped the DMs. I bet you're [indiscernible/crosstalk] say that.

Cameran: I get even more now. I feel so guilty because I can't get to them all, but I do. I try to read as many as I can.

Zibby: When you sat down to write about new motherhood and this whole thing, how did you go about it? Did you decide, all right, I'm going to start from way back when in dating and just go all the way through? How did you even decide on the scope of the book? Then what was it like just getting it all down and reliving it?

Cameran: I still get asked about The Real World all the time. Some of y'all are probably too young to even have been old enough to watch it back in the day. The Real World used to be a pretty big deal in its heyday back when I was on it. I figured I may as well start the book with The Real World because that's a question I get all the time. Then there were parts of my life on Southern Charm that I didn't really talk about it. I really didn't talk about my relationship. I kept that private. I kept Jason private. I kept my marriage off the air. I knew I wanted to use the book as a way to be more open and honest about that so people could feel like they really got to know me. Then I would get into bed. I would drop Palmer off at school. I'd get cozy. I'd get in the bed. I'd just start writing. It was easy. It came pretty easy to me. The whole process was about a year and a half total.

Zibby: That’s not too bad in the grand scheme of book project world. Amazing. Tell me about what it was like debating whether or not to have a child and your initial reluctance which you were really open about in the book and I so appreciated because a lot of people don't discuss it or they feel very judged about that.

Cameran: Speaking of, here's Palmer and Jason really quick. They want to say hey to y'all. Hold on. Palmer just had her bath. Hey.

Zibby: Aw, so cute.

Cameran: Here's Jason. He's real. He exists.

Jason: Palmer, show them your little Elvis. 

Zibby: Hi, Palmer.

Cameran: Ok, buh-bye. Sorry.

Zibby: So cute.

Cameran: The question was...? Before I got interrupted.

Zibby: It was about being so open about whether or not to even have children.

Cameran: Having a kid is a pretty big deal. Bringing another human into the world, I think, is a decision that should not be made lightly. For me, I was never the little girl that played with baby dolls and had this dream of having a big family. I felt guilty for a long time because after you get married, people start saying, when are you going to have a baby? I was in my thirties. To make a very long story short, it finally got to the point where I started to think, I might regret not doing this. I'm getting older. If I'm going to do it, I should probably do it now. I know I'm not going to regret having a child, but I might regret not having one. I'm so glad that I did it because it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. It's also the hardest thing that's ever happened to me. It's all the things. Motherhood is all the things.

Zibby: Yes. Thank you for being so open and sharing. Cameran, when you were leaving the hospital with Palmer and you were trying to deal with the car seat, you said, "What the heck do I with this?" I feel like that is basically the big question in all of parenting. What do we do with this? What do we do with this situation? How do we put in a car seat? What do we do as all the things change? Tell me about that. What do you do with all of the uncertainty? How the heck do we do this?

Cameran: One theme that I tried to make common in the book is when you become a mom, there is something kind of primal that takes over. It's like a superpower that you've never had before. You all of a sudden get this keen intuition. At least, I did. You can read all the books in the world and take all the advice in the world. Ultimately, it's really only you that knows what's best for your baby because your baby is unlike any other baby and you are unlike any other mother. That is what I tell people. Then obviously, with stuff like the car seat and all that, thank god we have Google. Back when my mom had me, if she had an issue with the car seat, she was screwed. At least now, you just get on your cell phone. You can watch a YouTube video. I remember the stroller I got, I used to always have trouble unhinging it. I would just get on YouTube and watch the video, and it was no problem.

Zibby: I think I took my car seat to the fire station, honestly. I feel like that was where you had to go to get it installed properly. I didn't go myself. I think my ex-husband did or something. So crazy. In addition to leaving the hospital, you got the car seat in, and then you went home and you had six weeks of what you called the baby blues which sounded very much like postpartum depression. My heart was just breaking for you crying every day for six weeks. Tell me about that feeling. You were beating yourself up for being sad on top of being sad. Tell me about that.

Cameran: It's weird. When I was in the hospital, they give you a little questionnaire to ask -- of course, you've literally just had the baby, so I don't think your hormones are necessarily raging at that point. When I left the hospital, I felt totally fine. Then a couple days after being at home, I remember one night I started crying. I looked at Jason and I said, "I can't believe we did this to our life. We had such an easy life. We used to sleep. Why did we do this?" Of course, you feel so guilty feeling that because you love this little baby. You would step in front of a car for this child, but you also feel just -- it's hormones. You can't help it. It's not your fault. It was extremely hard for me. At the same time, I knew in the back of my head, this is not who I am. This is not really the way that I feel. This is a chemical reaction happening to my brain. It's not going to last forever. I at least was aware of the fact that it was not my fault.

Zibby: That is a lot of to be able to identify that and go easier on yourself for it, especially when you're in the throes of it.

Cameran: My mom had it. She, luckily, talked to me about it. I knew there is a genetic component to it.

Zibby: So you were on the lookout.

Cameran: Yes, I was on the lookout.

Zibby: You had a whole chapter about, what about having a second child? Clearly, nobody is satisfied with whatever you do. Whether you have a kid, great. Now they want another kid.

Cameran: If it's two girls, you have to have a boy.

Zibby: How do you deal with this public pressure? This is your life. All these people are weighing in on it. How do you deal with that? Also, talk about your decision that one is enough for you. That's fine.

Cameran: What I tell people and what I have learned through all this is just don't talk about these things with women. Don't ever ask a woman, when are you going to have another child? Are you going to have a baby? Are you thinking about having a baby? When are you going to get pregnant? You never know what that woman is going through. For all anybody knows, I could've been trying to have a baby for the last six months and had two miscarriages. Nobody knows. It's best just to keep your mouth shut and leave bringing a child into the world up to the person that is actually doing it and not give your opinion. Don't ask. Obviously, people don't mean anything by it. They can't help it, but those questions can end up hurting somebody that might be having issues with it. I say don't ask the question.

Zibby: That's a great point. Yes, you never know in so many areas. You just never know what anyone's going through about really anything.

Cameran: You really don't. You don't know what people are going through. For me, again, it just goes back to me trying to be self-aware, tuning out societal pressures, and going with my gut. Obviously, my head says, oh, gosh, Cameran, what a horrible mother you are. You need to give Palmer a sibling. Don't be so -- what's the word? I don't know. Then in my gut, in my heart, which I think is the part of you that you really should listen to, will say, Cameran, more than one is going to put you over the edge. You are going to be overwhelmed. You're probably not going to be the best mother to two as you can to one. Obviously, there are women out there who can mother five and six children. They're spectacular at it. I wish I could be that person, but I'm not. I try to be self-aware and know that one is my limit. I would rather give Palmer a happy and sane mama rather than a sibling. I never say never. I could wake up tomorrow and change my mind, but that's where I am now.

Zibby: I don't want to pile on and be another person asking you about all these decisions in your life, so I'm just going to let it go at this point. [laughs] You do whatever is right for you. 

Cameran: It's like Shakespeare said. If I was to ever get a tattoo, it would be, to thine own self be true. Be true to yourself. Don't worry what other people think. It was funny, I was talking to somebody earlier today. She said, "You need to have another because when you have two, it's actually easier for you because they play together. One is actually more work." I'm like, oh, god, maybe they have a point.

Zibby: I have four kids. It is not easier. It's another person, for gosh sakes. It's another person. If nothing else, it's another set of forms for everything.

Cameran: I know, but you're going to be so well-taken care of in your old age. You're going to be a queen on a throne.

Zibby: Yeah. Although, the other day they were talking about where they wanted to live. They're like, "We're just going to take this house because either you'll be dead or you'll live somewhere else." I'm like, I'm booted out of my own house already? What is going on? [laughs] 

Cameran: There's someone saying, "What about hubby? He must be okay with just Palmer." If was down for it, he would have another child for sure. He would have another. He obviously loves Palmer and is very happy with our one, but he would have another one. He wants a boy. I would get pregnant, and I'd have twin girls.

Zibby: [laughs] Tell me about the way that your work and your public life -- how do you integrate that with your personal life? How do you turn it on and turn it off?

Cameran: For me, I did The Real World when I was nineteen years old. I hate even using the words fame. To me, I consider someone famous if they have done something notable or if they have a talent. I don't consider reality television people famous. What have we really done? We just live our lives on a TV show. The Real World gave me that little taste of what it feels like for people to all of a sudden recognize you on the street. I truly compartmentalize it. I try not to even think about it a lot. I feel like I'm a normal person. I live my life as a normal person. I do not consider myself a celebrity by any means. If anything, it kind of weirds me out that anybody could even perceive me as that. I'm kind of boring to live that exciting of a life.

Zibby: What kind of plans do you have going forward? You are an amazing mom. You're obviously so invested in Palmer. She's all over your Instagram. You're so lucky in that way. What do you have coming next? You have this amazing book coming out. Are you looking to do more?

Cameran: I don't know what I have next. I think I'm done with reality television, for sure, at least in the context that I have been on it. I think if I were to ever go back on it, it would have to be no drama, maybe like HGTV. That's my new speed of reality television. I don't like the fighting. I don't like the vitriol, the toxic -- it seems like the whole reality television world is taking a dumpster dive lately.

Zibby: Cameran, if you can hear us, to all the people here, do you have any words of wisdom or anything to say to them about your journey and this book and why it's so important to you?

Cameran: Oh, gosh, that's such a huge question. I'm thirty-seven years old. I have a little bit of life behind me. What I have learned from motherhood and life in general is, one, be true to yourself. Listen to that inner voice. Learn to decipher what is your head talking to you versus what is your heart. I've been reading a lot of books about this lately. It's helping me a lot in my life, listening to my heart instead of my head. I think the heart will always lead you in the direction that is good for your life. That would be my biggest advice. I would say to girls that are not married and do not have children yet, take your time. It is not something that has to be accomplished by a certain age like society tells you. Live your life. Learn your lessons. Say yes to many different men so you can, I don't want to say test drive. That sounds bad, but so you can learn who is the best partner for you and also as a potential father of your future children. Be open. I guess that would be my advice.

Zibby: That's great. That was great. You pulled that out perfectly. What about one more piece of advice for people who would like to write a book, aspiring authors?

Cameran: Oh, my gosh, just do it. Get on your computer and start writing. It can be very cathartic. I feel like writing a book, it's kind of like going to therapy with yourself because you learn a lot about yourself in the process of doing it. Just get on your computer and start doing it.

Zibby: Amazing. I love it.

Cameran: Bye, Zibby. I'm so sorry we had so many technical difficulties.

Zibby: That's okay. Bye. Thanks.

Isabel Wilkerson, CASTE

Zibby Owens: Welcome to "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books," Isabel Wilkerson. I'm so excited that you're here to talk about Caste.

Isabel Wilkerson: Thank you for having me.

Zibby: You must be exhausted. You must be doing a thousand interviews every day. You're on every list of recommended books everywhere. How are you holding up?

Isabel: You just power through because this is what you have to do. No one could've expected how this year would turn out. You just simply could not have imagined. The idea of working on something for so long and so hard and then to introduce it to the world in the midst of a global pandemic, you just never could've imagined. I want to always say, of course, that compared to people who are really experiencing challenges in this world at this time, this is so low on the totem pole in terms of what I'm going through here at all. It's not in the same category of true suffering, but it does create challenges. It can be exhausting, but it's necessary. I'm just glad that we have ways to be able to speak to people and to be able to communicate, as I am here with you. What would we do without it?

Zibby: I don't know. We'd be back in another century. We can dive back into some of your research. We can imagine what it would be like. [laughs] I'm glad you're holding up enough to at least chit-chat a little today. Your book, before I read it, my mother was like, "This is the most amazing book you'll ever read." When I know that, I'm like, all right, I better sit down and button up. Then we have to have a whole talk about it. Obviously, everybody's mother and sibling and everyone has now read this book, which is amazing. Tell me about all the research it took to do this, about the thousands of interviews for both this and The Warmth of Other Suns. Also, what do you think makes a great interview? How do you extract the information you need from other people?

Isabel: Those are really great questions. For one thing, the work that I do is called narrative nonfiction. It combines what ideally would be the best of both worlds, meaning that you have to do a tremendous amount of research in order to find and to be able to determine and excavate truths that are verifiable fact that help explain some phenomenon. Then you translate that into a narrative using many of the tools that novelists would use so that the best of both worlds would be, you're learning something, you exposed a phenomenon you otherwise would not know about, but it's told in such a way that, hopefully, it builds suspense. It's a page-turner. It tells a story. You get involved in the people. To do that takes a long time. I say that I have sort of have a gestational lifespan of an elephant. [laughter] It takes a lot time. The Warmth of Other Suns took fifteen years. I'd say that if it were a human being, it would be in high school and dating. That's how long it took me to work on that book. Then this one, I got a little bit better. It took about eight years of germinating and distilling it and thinking about it. In the course of that, it means that one project leads into the other. This grew out The Warmth of Other Suns, which is where I started first using the word caste to describe the hierarchies built into our country going back to colonial times. I used that word because it was the most comprehensive, accurate way to describe the world that a lot of us don't even know about.

It's a world in which the hierarchy of the American South, for much of our country's history, was so tightly delineated. It was this graded ranking of human value that went on until, essentially, the 1970s, legally, formally, until basically the 1960s legislation, but then didn't take effect until the 1970s. This was a world where it was against the law for black people and white people to merely play checkers together in Birmingham. There was a white Bible and an altogether separate black Bible to swear to tell the truth on it in court. The very word of God was segregated in that era. It could mean your very life if you breached any of the protocols and laws of that system. That's what I was describing in The Warmth of Other Suns. That was the term I started to use, caste. It was more evocative. It was more comprehensive. It was language that anthropologists who had studied the Jim Crow South actually used as well. The second book grew out of the first. What started it was really what happened with Trevon Martin. He was a teenager walking home from a convenience store in a suburban subdivision in Florida where his very image, what he looked like, was viewed as suspicious by someone who stopped and ultimately killed him. That actually occurred in an area, a part of Florida, that -- one of the protagonists from The Warmth of Other Suns was from that same area, so it sparked my interest and attention from the very start. I wrote an op-ed piece in The New York Times connecting caste to what had happened to him. That was really the beginning of my thinking that led to this book.

Zibby: Tell me a little bit about when you interview people, what you do to get them to open up. What are some of the things you look for when you're talking to somebody new? What is that about for you? What are some of the things that you've really taken away from people you've met all over the world?

Isabel: That's such a great question because I don't consider myself to do interviews, really. The kind of work that I'm doing takes a lot of time. I both don't have enough time -- there's never enough time, apropos of the title of your podcast. [laughs]

Zibby: Nobody has any time for anything. Yes.

Isabel: There's this Cuban saying. I believe it's Cuban. It says something along the lines of, slow down, I'm in a hurry. I think that's an interesting way of thinking about life itself. Because there's never enough time and yet the work that I do takes time, I end up allowing myself the time to spend with people as opposed to a Q&A because I'm not going to be able to learn what I need to learn if I have a set of questions for the work that I do. The work that I do is attempting to get deep into the heart and the minds of people, into their motivations, into their thoughts, their dreams, their triumphs and their tribulations, what they’ve actually been through. It's hard to even formulate a single question that will elicit from someone, your deepest dreams, thoughts, and motivation. I have to spend time with people. I generally do more closely what we would identify with anthropologists, which is participant observation, ethnography, spending time with them, getting to know them in a more relaxed and hopefully more holistic way. It just takes a tremendous amount of time. It does.

For The Warmth of Other Suns, for example, in order to find the protagonists for that book, I had to go to the places where they would be. I went to -- there were actually Baptist churches in Brooklyn where everyone was from South Carolina. There were Catholic churches in California where everyone was from Louisiana. Obviously, I was writing about the Great Migration of people who went from the South and then spread out to the rest of the country following beautifully predictable streams. That's what I found in the process of that. I interviewed over twelve hundred people for that, basically a casting call. It was like auditioning people for the role of the being a protagonist in this book. That's where I had a chance to meet many, many people. For the most part, I, in some ways, throw out prompts just to get people talking and to see where that leads and to allow them to talk. Whatever it is that can get them to feel comfortable and to talk is what I would do. Generally, it means asking fewer questions than you might think.

A lot of it is responding to what they’ve said to keep the conversation going, to make it conversational, to sort of sit at their knee and to hear their experiences, to make it comfortable for them, essentially, to till the soil to make it receptive to whatever is pouring forth from them. That's what this is all about. It just takes a lot of time. It really does. Some of those people end up telling me things that they hadn’t told their own children because they had been through so much pain and trauma that they didn't want to burden their children with that. They didn't want to revisit it. That was post-traumatic stress for a lot of the people who endured and suffered and survived Jim Crow. They were telling me things that were very, very painful. The most that I can do is be the very best listener that I can be, be encouraging, empathetic, understanding, and to validate their experiences and their feelings. That's what my job is.

Zibby: Once you have to absorb all of that stress and trauma and history and narrative that's very disturbing, how do you then walk away and have a normal night? How do you extract yourself from that intensity and deal with those emotions, aside from obviously turning it into a best-selling narrative nonfiction book? Emotionally, how do you toggle back and forth from that intimacy, really?

Isabel: It's probably one's individual constitution that makes the person more likely to be able to think long term about something. That's how I am. These are huge projects that take a long time. I go into it knowing that it's going to take a long time. I'm going to have to sit with it, live with it for a long time. There's several answers to that question. One of them is that I often focus in on people with whom I already have developed or feel there is some kind of connection. There is some chemistry that makes me feel that I want to spend time with them and they want to spend time with me because this is a long-haul journey here. This is really years in the making. You have to feel that there is connection that can power you through. That's one of them. In the case for the things I do, I end up absorbing myself into what their lives has been. I am, by definition, kind of an empath. I just am, so I absorb it. That's just who I am. Knowing that it's going to be for the long haul, it means that I have absorbed who they are into my being. They become part of me. I just live with it. They become part of me. All of the people that I write about on some level become part of me. I don't view that as draining as much as enriching because I get to know these amazing, incredible people. If I didn't have a chemistry and love for them, then it would be harder for the reader to experience that as well. If I feel this love and connection to them, then reader will as well.

I think that the way particularly The Warmth of Other Suns has been received -- the book has been out for ten years. It was on the best-seller list when it first came out. It's back on the best-seller list again ten years later. It's incredible. I think that that's because people can feel the connection, the love, the empathy. They can see themselves in the people. I say that narrative nonfiction is the closest that you get to be another person. We know that empathy can be elicited when we read novels. Narrative nonfiction allows you to feel that same empathy for people who were real, who actually existed. What allows me to get through it is my sense of connection, compassion, and in fact, love and admiration for the people that I'm writing about. That does not mean that I'm writing about them as if they're perfect. You get to see them in their full humanity. It actually is a disservice to people to overly romanticize a person. I think that a full humanity means the range of emotions and experiences, and so that's what comes through. That's one of the things that powers me through, that gets me through the really difficult aspects.

The other thing is ultimately the reader. I embark upon these projects, these massive research immersions, because I ultimately want to share this with readers. I'm thinking about the reader the whole time. Thinking about the reader and knowing that ultimately whatever it is that I'm having to experience, suffer, go through will reach someone else, that's what inspires me. I love the definition that Tolstoy gives for art. He says that art is the transfer of emotion from one person to another. That's a beautiful, concise description of art, the most beautiful that I've heard. That is what this is. This is literally being the person in between the sender of emotion and experience, and the receiver of that emotion and experience. The sender is the person whose story is being told. The receiver is the reader who is now getting to learn and immerse him or herself in someone else's story. I am the intercessor. I am the interpreter of that experience. That's what I'm thinking about too. It's not complete until it gets out of me and out to the reader. That's what also inspires me and motivates me even for some of the really difficult parts of the work that I have to do.

Zibby: How did this all get started? You referred to your constitution earlier. Were you always this empathic? Give me a picture of you in seventh grade or preschool. Were you always the one connecting everybody? When did you know you wanted to embark on these deep dives into other people's lives?

Isabel: Actually, like a lot of writers, I'm an introvert, probably an extreme introvert. I think a lot of writers are observers. They're people who were always the quiet one with a book in hand, that child in bed with the flashlight under the covers reading a book. That was who I was and am. I was feeling that connection through the stories that I was reading growing up. I was also the person who was usually the quiet one on the sidelines observing all the action that other people might have been in the midst of. That doesn't mean that there weren’t times where I might have been involved. Generally speaking, I'm very content to be the one who's watching, observing, interpreting, examining, and thinking about what is going on around me. The way that it comes out is through the writing. That's how it comes out.

Zibby: I think you can maybe put aside your flashlight. I think you've graduated to perhaps a lamp on your bedside table at this point. What do you think? Are you still hiding? [laughs]

Isabel: No, symbolically, of course. I'm long past that. It's the idea of being able to lose yourself in a story.

Zibby: No, I'm kidding. I feel the same way. I also had a flashlight. Literally, I would hide in my bathroom and read Charlotte's Web. Now my husband sleeps next to me, and the light is on. I'm the same way. I was also very quiet and observing as a kid. I relate to everything you're saying. It's awesome. In your book, you set out, obviously, all these different paradigms for analyzing societies, especially how we've gotten to where we are now through the lens of both cultures in India and the Holocaust and Jim Crow South and everything as to why we are the way we are, and perhaps we should look at it differently. I was just wondering, having gone through this complete analysis of our society as it stands today, how hopeful are you? What would you tell kids who are growing up now in this environment knowing what you know and all you've researched and everything? What would your advice to them be? Do you feel optimistic about where we can go, or not?

Isabel: I wouldn't have written these books if I were not optimistic. It takes a lot of faith and optimism to embark on something that will take years to complete with no guarantee of how it's going to turn out, no guarantee of what the world will be like by the time it comes out. Will people even be interested by the time you finally finish this thing you started? It takes a lot of faith and optimism to even start down the path that each of these books began with. I wouldn't have written them if I weren’t optimistic. Of course, one of the missions and purpose of these books is to help illuminate aspects of our country's history that we otherwise would not know so that we can together find ways to transcend these artificial barriers and boundaries that have been created long before even our ancestors were thought of. This is going back to the seventeenth century colonial America before there were the United States of America. The goal of this is to shine a light on these aspects of this old house that we call America.

I use this analogy, this metaphor, about our country being like an old house that we've all inherited. None of us alive are the ones who built it, but it's our responsibility now that we are in this house. That's the purpose of all of this. The purpose is to somehow find a way to recognize what we have inherited, to really look closely at what we've inherited in hopes that we can make the improvements, make the repairs, the massive repairs that are necessary in order for to be as strong as it needs to be. That's where my hopefulness comes, and also people's response to what happened over the summer after George Floyd. There was a sense of alarm and outrage that was absolutely warranted and that many, many people, not just in our country, but around the world felt and responded to, and a sense that this should not be happening in this country or any country, but especially not in our country given our creed and what we stand for. It should not be happening now. I think that that's where I get a lot of hopefulness, the fact that people did respond, the fact that people did recognize how woeful and how tragic that this is happening in our current era.

Zibby: This is probably none of my business, but when you are not being a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and researcher and of the amazing things that you're doing to help the country, what do you do in your spare time? What do you enjoy doing? How do you use time when you're not at your desk or at your computer? What are some of your things that make you tick?

Isabel: Sadly, for a lot of the last year or so, and especially with what's going on now in COVID, that takes up a vast majority of my waking time because that's what the circumstances require. The question you're asking is almost pre-COVID. So much of my time is spent just absolutely loving being able to travel and to see new and amazing cultures, connecting in that way. That's massively central to who I am, obviously. I love to spend time out in nature in any way that I can, and especially digging in the soil and the art of what can happen when you plant something and have it to grow. I'm such a tremendous, tremendous animal lover, animal rights advocate. I just absolutely can't imagine life without having some kind of animal in one's life. I'm a big dog lover. I love all kinds of animals. What I'm saying is there are many, many sources of joy in addition, of course, to family and friends and what's really important in life. The circumstance in which that we find ourselves now means that the world is the way that it is. That's what's necessary right now. For writers, it's not as difficult to transition to the world that we're in now in terms of being interior, being still engaged with words and engaged with talking about words. That's very, very natural because that's what we do.

Zibby: I was literally just saying yesterday that I couldn't -- I have a black lab that I recently inherited from my mother-in-law who passed away. I have fallen in love. I was like, I can't believe that I have the capacity for this much love for an animal. Every time I'm with her thinking about how much I love her, I'm already thinking, what am I going to do when she's not around? which is stupid. With people, you can fool yourself that they’ll be around forever. With animals, you can't. At least, I've found you can't have that.

Isabel: COVID has been such a devastation to everyone and more particularly, people who have suffered from it directly, clearly. It's been going on for long enough that many things, both good and bad, in life also happened because it's been going on for so long. One of the things that happened is that I lost my beloved westie who was seventeen. He'd made it to seventeen. In the early months of COVID, he passed away. You realize how they work their way into your heart in ways that you don't expect, in ways that humans don't. It's a different kind of love. They're by your side, essentially living for you, waiting for every gesture coming from you. They literally exist for you. They become so much a part of your life that you don't even think about it until they're no longer there. There were two. We had two. Now there's one. He made it to seventeen, and so I can't complain.

Zibby: I'm so sorry to hear that. On the street yesterday, I was walking the dog. This older man came over and was just like, "Can I stop and pet the dog?" Of course, I'm with my mask, like, why is he coming so close to me? He's like, "I lost my German shepherd after fourteen years. It's only been three weeks. I just have to hug your dog." My heart broke. Yeah, animal love. Anyway, last question because I know you have to go soon, do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Isabel: I don't have anything that you haven't probably heard before, so I apologize in advance for not being any more insightful about this. We're often told, read, read, read. Read good things, things that you admire, and things that you could learn from because they're not as good as they could be. There are people who say write every single day. That is true. It's probably a great idea. I, however, believe that there are some of us who -- I actually do better when I am writing because I feel as if I am bursting with something that has to be on the page, where I cannot stop myself from having to write. That, I find to be more productive. When you have to write and you're on deadline, of course you write. I find that, to me, the most inspiring and inspired and effective writing comes from when I feel as if, oh, my god, where's a piece of paper? I need to write this down right this second. I just have to write this down before I lose it.

One suggestion I would have is to always have pen and paper or whatever it is. If you write in your device, have it available. If something hits you, write it down then. Do not assume that it will be there tomorrow or next week or next month. If something hits you, some revelation or some way of thinking about something, some idea, some turn of phrase, write it down right then and there because it may not be there again. The mind works in mysterious ways. You need to capture it while you can. I always have something nearby that I can write on, envelopes. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, always have something nearby. I would say to be kind to one's self when things aren't coming as you wish them to be. Know that if you've done it before, you can do it again. It will come. Be patient with yourself. I personally, as I said, don't believe in suffering and torturing yourself when it's not coming, when it's not working. I just don't feel that you should suffer. Of course, if you're on deadline, that's a different thing. You've got to get it done. The most beautiful things that are more naturally, holistically emerging from your subconscious will come when you least expect. Be there to capture it.

Also, in terms of being kind to one's self and patient with one's self is to realize that all times when you're working on something, your subconscious is working all the time. It is constantly trying to make sense of what it knows has to come out of you. To know that even when you're not in front of a screen, or for people who -- there are many people who still do write in longhand. I like combining both. Whatever I write in longhand is usually going to be, often, the most powerful, meaningful, oddly enough, well-constructed observation or passage, generally. I don't know why that happens. Maybe there's some direct connection from the brain going through the neck and then through the arms and into hands. I don't know. Maybe somebody has studied that. That's what I find. To know that we are working even when we're not in front of the screen, the subconscious is constantly trying to make sense of it because it knows it has a job to do. It knows that it needs to get this thing written. It absolutely knows it. It's working on it whether we realize it or not. Then when it reveals itself to us and when we sit down to write, then it can all pour forth. That's how I work. That's what works for me.

Zibby: Maybe this can be your next book, how the brain and the hand interact. You can go around the country and talk to every writer. I think that would be really cool. I'm sure you have other ideas. [laughs] Thank you so much for your time and for the fantastic contributions to literature and for the conversation.

Isabel: Thank you. I so enjoyed it. Thank you.

Zibby: Have a great day. Buh-bye.

Isabel: You as well. Bye.

Clarissa Ward, ON ALL FRONTS

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

Clarissa Ward: Thank you so much for having me on.

Zibby: How great, we just made all these personal connections that we should've known each other ahead of time. We didn't, but anyway, here we are.

Clarissa: Now we're meeting.

Zibby: Now here we go. On All Fronts, your latest -- your memoir, not your latest, your memoir, it just came out. It details your incredible experiences as this award-winning, badass journalist. I cannot believe how much you've accomplished since graduating after me from Yale. It's amazing and humbling. I'm just totally impressed. Can you please tell listeners what your book is about? Then what inspired you to sit down and write the story of your life so far?

Clarissa: The book is really about my journey starting from my childhood -- it wasn't necessarily a childhood where it would've been an obvious trajectory for me to go on and become a war correspondent -- and then through 9/11 which for me was kind of an epiphany moment. I was studying comparative literature at Yale. I thought I wanted to be an actress. Suddenly, my world was turned upside down. I became consumed by this idea that I wanted to go out there and understand how this had happened and why this had happened and what was at the root of it. I really wanted to be at the tip of the spear. Then it basically goes through my career. I think the problem is when you're watching the news, you're only getting half of the story. You're only seeing what's happening in front of the camera. You're not seeing what's happening behind the camera. You're not seeing these beautiful moments of human connection, moments of laughter, acts of kindness, acts of bravery and sacrifice.

Those are moments, to be honest, that, first of all, make this the best job in the world. They're also the moments that really shape the way you see and understand the world or a culture or a conflict. I wanted to share that with a wider audience. I wanted people who are not slavishly following every development in Syria to be able to connect to people in Syria and see the conflict through their eyes and feel it, but do it in a way where it's more approachable. It's like going on a journey with me to some of these really exciting and interesting and often difficult and dangerous places. I only really decided that I wanted to write a book when I got pregnant with my first son. I was like, I really need to have some kind of a record for him because I'm probably not going to tell him a lot of these stories at the dinner table, but I want him to know about these things and to know who I am other than being Mom.

Zibby: I read your Glamour article about this. It's called "I work in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Motherhood hasn’t changed that." You talk, obviously, about having a newborn and a two-year-old and how it feels to still be the one juggling the playdates while you're at war on the battlefields, essentially, still dealing with playgroup. Your point, of course, in the article was much more complex than that, which is, a lot of people have thought you're going to give it up now that you have two kids. You must be staying home now. You're like, would a man in the same position professionally be asked the same thing? I was hoping you could talk about that because I thought it was such a powerful piece.

Clarissa: Thank you. It's a really tough one. On the one hand, yeah, I get a little bit like, come on, I know so many dads doing this job. I know they're not being asked every five minutes if they're going to keep doing this work now that they're fathers. On the other hand, I do get it. I get why people ask that. I do really take my security very seriously. I take my responsibility for midwifing these two young souls into the world really seriously as well. I think it's a fair question. I've given it a lot of thought. Really, what I come up with at the end of the day is there have to be boundaries and there have to be limits. There are certain assignments that I won't do if they're too dangerous. I will actively avoid being in a really kinetic situation on a front line. I won't be away for longer than two weeks max, but ideally one week. I do my due diligence for months to plan these trips to the best of my ability to be sure to mitigate every single risk. I feel like it's important to have mothers covering war. I think we bring a different perspective to the table. I think that I have changed a lot since becoming a mother. I know I've become more emotionally porous. I feel like my heart is sort of out there beating in the wind sensitive to every small act of suffering I see or a child or a woman who's pregnant or a mother making sacrifices for her children. I just feel acutely attuned to it and profoundly moved by it. I hope that makes its way into my reporting. Maybe if there were more mothers covering war, we wouldn't have so many wars, which is not to say that I think all moms should leave their kids and head to the front line, not at all. It's not for everyone. We need to have a diversity of voices telling these stories. I guess that's my point.

Zibby: Moms don't have time to go to war. [laughs]

Clarissa: Exactly. Definitely not.

Zibby: What do you think it was -- I know you spell out so much of this in the book. You take us all the way back to even childhood babysitters and all of it. What do you think made you able to do this job so well? This isn't something that everybody could just hop into and excel at. I know I couldn't do it. I have too much fear and anxiety to even fly to visit my grandmother right now. Seriously, is it bravery? Tell me, what do you think it is? What is it?

Clarissa: It's definitely not bravery because I don't think I'm exceptionally brave. I'm able to stay calm in incredibly stressful situations, but on the inside, I'm a wreck. I get very scared. It's not bravery. I think it's a combination of things. If I'm being generous with myself, it's -- I was an only child. My parents were very busy with their careers, always. I had to be able to perform to get attention. That meant learning to tell stories in a compelling way. It also meant learning to be really adaptable. I went to boarding school at the age of ten years old. I had come from the US. It was miserable. I hated it. It was a sink or swim situation. I needed to fit in. I needed to make friends. I needed to make it work. I did. That has allowed me, that skill in my career, to go into any culture in any place in the world and form human connections with people and just immerse myself. As long as I have a working Wi-Fi connection and maybe air conditioning at a push, I'm okay. I'll be okay. I also think there's a level of passion that you have to have because there is a lot of sacrifice that comes with a job like this both in terms of your personal life and trying to make that work and in terms of the emotional toll that obviously this kind of work inevitably takes. You really have to want it deep, deep, deep in your core. I tell that all the time to young journalists who are like, should I do this? I'm like, if you're even asking yourself that question, it's not going to happen. You have to want this with every fiber of your being. You have to feel it's a vocation.

Zibby: Interesting. Tell me more about the 9/11 experience for you and how this became your calling.

Clarissa: I don't know what your experience was like at Yale. My experience at Yale, it was tremendous. It was so thrilling in terms of the incredible education and campus life and all of it. We were making movies and starting magazines and enjoying French new wave cinema classes. I had pink hair and lots of piercings and was indulging in all sort of more superficial self-exploration, let's say. Then 9/11 happened. It was like a thunderbolt from the sky. It was like, oh, my goodness, this has been lovely, but let's face it, there is some really important stuff happening in the world. It's been happening for a while. I haven't been engaged. I haven't been paying attention. Why do these people hate us so much? What do they understand about America versus how America sees itself? How they can be engaged with? How can there be better communication? It felt to me on some level that this mutual process of dehumanization and miscommunication, that it was really fundamentally arising from this failure to understand each other. Keep in mind, I'm twenty-two. There's a lot of idealism and hubris at work, but I became impassioned by this idea that I wanted to go and act as a communicator between worlds and in the process of going to these places, take something of America with me to share with them, but also take their stories back to America. I have subsequently realized that that's a hard job because not everybody wants to hear that. Some people think that listening or humanizing the other is tantamount to weakness. It's been a humbling journey in many ways, but also one that I'm profoundly grateful for.

Zibby: Wow. You're so articulate. I love listening to people who speak in complete paragraphs. I feel like there are speechwriters who would want to grab what you just said and throw it down on the page and claim it as their own. It's awesome. I have such appreciation for your language. Anyway, so when you keep going from place to place -- I know you've worked in Moscow and Syria. You been everywhere, Bin Laden. You have traversed the planet, essentially. I know, yes, okay fine, only child and performance, but how do you literally land on your feet everywhere you go? How do you just pick up and immerse yourself in something totally new? How do you do it?

Clarissa: What drew me to television rather than print is that television is a team sport. It's collaborative. You work with a cameraman and a producer. That really, for me, is a hugely important part of what I do. I thrive on that collaboration. I really get a lot of energy from just joking around and hanging out. What people never tell you about covering war is ninety-nine percent of it is killing time and waiting for something big to happen. Then one percent of it is totally mental. Everything is going off. You're just trying to get as much done as you can. Then it's back to sitting around and waiting for a press conference, waiting for a ride to the front line. Waiting, waiting, waiting is a huge theme. You need to be with people in the field who make you laugh, who keep you grounded, who keep you sane, who look out for you, who feed you, who you feed. That comradery is a huge part of it.

Definitely, that's what's allowed me to parachute into all these crazy places and live in Beirut and Baghdad and Beijing and Moscow and all the places that I've lived because it is lonely. It is lonely. Definitely, when I've been on my own on these trips, and some of them I've had to do alone, you have moments where you witness something so beautiful or so profound or so sad or whatever it may be, and it's tinged with this real sense of loneliness that you can't share it with other people in that moment, people who you love or people who you work with. It is hard to be away from home for so long. It is hard, as successful as you can be at it, immersing yourself in other people's lives. They are other people's lives at the end of the day. One of the most challenging parts of the job is trying to carve out your own real life. What does that look like? Where is that? Who's a part of that? It's not possible, really, to do this forever, constantly being in other people's lives.

Zibby: When you come home and you have your husband, let's just say even before kids, how do navigate going through intense -- you would think you'd come back with PTSD every week. Then you come back and maybe -- like your girlfriend who we were talking about earlier who we both know, how do you confront, then, a girlfriend who's just having relationship problems when you've been watching a man be carried in a casket through the streets? How do you keep perspective and relate to everybody else?

Clarissa: I think this is one of the biggest challenges of the job, to be honest, because you are straddling different worlds and shuttling back and forth. It's polar opposites. How do you acclimatize? I think there's a lot of guilt as well that comes with leaving the front lines of Aleppo and going to the South of France and sitting with my girlfriends around the pool drinking rosé. It's like, on what planet is this okay? On what planet does that make any sense? Is there any justice in this world? It's a lot. What you come to realize as you do the job longer is that if you can't make that work, if you can't experience joy and allow yourself to have that joy and love and spiritual nourishment or physical decadence, pampering, whatever it is that you need to fill the tank when you're at home, you can't go back out and do the job again. You need to fill the tank. Once you understand that, you're able to navigate it a little bit better. There have been times, and I talk about this in the book, where I would come back and I didn't feel like I wanted to be me anymore.

I didn't feel in love with my life anymore. I would bristle when my husband would try to hug me. I would zone out when I would go out with girlfriends for dinner and catch up with them. They would ask me sincerely about Syria, and I would not be able to engage with them on it. That is not a healthy state to be in. You do need to be proactive if you're doing this kind of work and you're witnessing this kind of trauma. You need to be proactive about your mental health. You need to be seeing a therapist. You need to start to recognize the telltale signs of when you're burning out a little bit or when you are getting too detached and too numb. It's a little counterintuitive. You see movies and you think, oh, they see something bad and then you feel sad. No. Feeling sad would be great because that means I'm processing. There's catharsis in grief or sadness. There is not any catharsis in feeling numb, in feeling detached, in feeling irascible. That's when you know that you really need to do some work to get back to a place where you can feel joy, where you can feel love, and where you can feel connection.

Zibby: You have a great therapist. I need this person's number instantly. I think I have a lot of people who could benefit from this information. Or you're just super highly evolved and self-aware, which is also fantastic. It's a great combination. Tell me about the process of writing this book. When did you find the time to do this? How long did it take and all that?

Clarissa: I wrote it on my maternity leave because masochism comes naturally to me. I was like, what should I do with this time I have off as a first-time mother? I know, I'll write a book. I started out, the process for me was like, I'm going to write a thousand words a day. Then I quickly realized that didn't make sense for me. There would be days where I could write a thousand words no problem. There would be other days where I would become too obsessive about this word count thing, and it was impeding the flow. Then I shifted gears. I was like, okay, write as much as you want or as little as you want, but just sit down for two to three hours every day and write. That's manageable even when you have a baby. I was lucky. I had a maternity nurse. My parents were around, a lot of my husband. I had a lot of support. Two to three hours was manageable. What I think many people who writes memoirs find is that when you're writing about your own experiences, it's a lot easier. It does flow, and especially when it comes from a place of truth. It's an amazing experience. You're just like, wow, all I'm doing right now is typing out the words that are pouring out of me. That was the first draft. Then I went back to work. The first draft was done in three months. The second draft took almost a year because I was back at work. I was traveling a lot. It was much more difficult to find time to really immerse again in it. The second round, a lot of, flesh out a bit here, what the situation was like in Syria. It's stuff I know, but it's more the research, the "let me tell you in three paragraphs, the history of Syria" part. That requires a bit more discipline, I would say. That was harder. The first round flowed. The second round was work.

Zibby: Do you feel like now that you've had all this exposure and research and writing about it, you have intense political views? Does it shift how you feel about international relations and all of that on a bigger-picture scale?

Clarissa: It's interesting you ask that. I think not so much about political issues. I'm pretty passionate about Syria. I have pretty strong views on that. Obviously, I testified at the United Nations Security Council, which is kind of on the edge of, are you a journalist or an activist? I've definitely entered that hazy space. For the most part, I think what writing did, actually, was to give me more courage of my convictions in terms of what makes a great journalist, what makes a great story, and what these human moments of connection -- I know I keep coming back to that, but it made me understand better why I do this and what it's all about for me and the privilege that comes not just with witnessing history, which I have had the fortunate of doing on occasion, but of making profound connections with people who live a hundred thousand miles away and every metaphorical sense of that.

Zibby: Then how did you deal with COVID? When the brakes slammed on your life, how did you cope? How was it being back?

Clarissa: I was heavily pregnant. Basically, everyone was on lockdown with me. I was already on lockdown. Listen, it was really challenging because it's the first war I've covered from my living room. It's a very tough story to cover in terms of the way I like to cover stories, which is usually with more of a human angle. You have to rely a lot on technology and getting people to do video diaries. It's hard. I definitely learned a lot. Now I'm on maternity leave. It also meant that my book release was delayed by six months, which was a blessing in some ways because I don't think I realized with how much work releasing a book is. It turns out it's basically a full-time job. [laughter] We're calling this a maternity leave, but basically, it's a full-time job. It's a really fun full-time job because you're out there talking about something that you feel passionate and excited about. I'm definitely thinking now, okay, I'll be going back to work. I'll probably go back after the election. I have no idea what the world's going to look like both in terms of the election and in terms of COVID. What kinds of stories are people going to want to hear? This is one of these things, COVID, much like 9/11, it's a bolt from the sky again that's going to profoundly change the way we live and function as a society in ways that we don't really yet understand. We haven't quite got our arms around it. It's going to be tremendously interesting, but it's definitely going to be challenging as well.

Zibby: Yes, I would agree with that. Knowing how much work is involved in the whole thing, would you ever write another book, or are you like, this was great and now I'll be more prepared?

Clarissa: I haven't started therapy for that yet. [laughter] Yes, at some point I would like to write another book, but not for a while.

Zibby: Do you find time to read yourself?

Clarissa: I really wish that I had more -- I used to be a voracious reader of novels. I was a comp lit major. That's really what I loved.

Zibby: Which two languages?

Clarissa: I did French, Italian, and Russian, but my Russian wasn't good enough, so I was reading in translation. As you know, hence the name of the podcast, having kids is like, wow, when do you find time? I have this beautiful stack of books by my bedside. Then I get into bed. My husband's reading Netflix. I'm making sure that I haven't missed fifty Zoom calls or whatever. I get the book out. Then before I know it, I'm like, [snoring]. It's really hard. I'm not going to pretend it's not. One way that I get to read books is people ask me a lot to write blurbs for their books. That's great because then you really have to read the book. I do try to read, but man, I really wish I had more time and that I could read more. That's why I think it's so awesome what you're doing because we do need to carve out more time and find these little moments to read. It's such an important thing. I think social media and everything, we've gotten a little bit distracted.

Zibby: I hope by doing the show that I entice people to read. Once they hear somebody's story like yours, they're like, oh, my gosh, I have to hear more. I want to read the whole thing. That's my goal, whet the appetite like having movie trailers. This is the book trailer channel or something. [laughs]

Clarissa: Believe me, authors are so grateful to you for that. Your sincerity and your curiosity and enthusiasm is just really, really awesome.

Zibby: Thanks. I feel like a child. I really do get so excited. [laughs] I do. It's really awesome. My kids just went to school. Now they're only in school in real life for the mornings, my little guys at least. They come home after three and a half hours. My daughter was just at lunch. She was like, "Wow, I feel like I didn't even leave." I was like, "Yeah, I feel like that too except that I had three podcasts this morning and I met the most interesting women ever." I talked to somebody in Florence. I talked to somebody in Chicago. How else would I ever met all these interesting people? I feel very lucky.

Clarissa: That's kind of like my job, though. I feel the same way. I think that's how you know when you're onto a good thing. It's not about whatever the trappings of success might -- it's about that, wow, I'm really excited. I'm learning. I'm meeting interesting people. I'm seeing different ideas. That's the thrill of it. That's the excitement.

Zibby: Totally. Then once you're in it, more ideas and more things happen as opposed to when I was home when my twins who are now thirteen. When they were little and every day was like a thousand hours long, I was just like, I can't even think of a single essay to write right now. I'm so burnt out. Now, like with you, I'm sure, you just throw one more thing in the fire, and you're already going at warp speed.

Clarissa: Oh, yeah. It's long days, short years.

Zibby: Yes, exactly. It was so great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books." Thanks for sharing your journey with everybody. I'll look for you eventually on TV.

Clarissa: Yes, or in person hopefully if we ever find a vaccine.

Zibby: In person would be great. It would be even better. It would be awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Hopefully, I'll see you soon.

Clarissa: Take care. Thank you.

Zibby: Thanks, Clarissa. Buh-bye.

Clarissa: Bye.

Bryan Washington, MEMORIAL

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

Bryan Washington: Thanks so much for having me, Zibby.

Zibby: Congratulations on Memorial, your debut novel. I know you already have Lot, which was a collection of stories. Now your debut novel making a big, big splash in the world, congratulations.

Bryan: Thanks so much. It's all very surreal. I feel like anytime someone's interested in the thing that you're trying to do, it's deeply surreal.

Zibby: I bet.

Bryan: Massively surreal, but very grateful.

Zibby: I heard from your publicist that you are the next GMA Book Club pick, which I am so thrilled about. That's amazing.

Bryan: That comment about things being surreal, it would've been surreal just to have the book come out. To see it on that scale, on that platform, you can only be grateful because it's just such an unexpected thing.

Zibby: Oh, my gosh. I'm almost sorry I'm not talking to you after because I would've wanted to hear what it was like to have your book in Times Square and all the rest. Just DM me or something because you won't be busy or anything. [laughs]

Bryan: I'll reach out.

Zibby: Aside from the success of your endeavors, let's talk about your actual endeavors and all of your writing. I read so many of your amazing essays in all sort of different publications like BuzzFeed and The New York Times and just everywhere, New Yorker, fiction, nonfiction, all your stories. Let's start with your roots going back to Jamaica. Can we talk about that a little bit? You wrote a few really beautiful pieces about that and having different cultures in different countries and going back and everybody clapping on the plane on the way to Jamaica, which, by the way, is one of my favorite places in the world. I think that's why I want to talk about it.

Bryan: Anytime that you land. It's just like, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. [laughs]

Zibby: It's one of the only places we regularly travelled to growing up. I just thought that's what you did on planes.

Bryan: Oh, my god, can you imagine? I feel like that's all we should do on planes. It's so beautiful that we've landed in a lot of ways.

Zibby: Until I read what you wrote, it didn't even occur to me it was only there. Then I had to go back in my head. I'm like, no way, was it really only to Jamaica? Anyway, you taught me something about my own life.

Bryan: When you fly to New York, no one seems terribly excited to be there. It's just like, let's get off the plane. I was born in Kentucky, but my mom's Jamaican. Pretty early on, I had the opportunity to go back a handful of times. I think that with every piece that I've written, in some capacity, a lot of it has come down to the generosity of the editors that I've been able to work with because I've been able to work with a lot of folks who are so great at their jobs like Nicole Chung over at Catapult and Rachel Sanders who used to be at BuzzFeed and now Racheal Arons at the New Yorker. They’ve been super receptive to me writing about a lot of different stuff and not really siloing me into one particular beat. It's made for a lot of opportunities to spread myself around as far as interests are concerned.

Zibby: I feel like this theme of travel and negotiating different relationships is very present in Memorial in many ways, and also the search for family and what that really means and all of that. Maybe you could start by telling people who don't know what Memorial is about, what it's about and how you ended up writing that novel.

Bryan: It really has depended on who I'm talking to. Sometimes I'll call it a gay psycho-dramedy. I've called it a lowercase love story. My editor started saying a rom-com with teeth a few months ago. I actually really like that. It really does depend on what headspace I'm in. I just use one of them. I think that at its base, it's a love story. I wanted to write a love story about characters that I wanted to read and that I hadn’t seen on the page. I wanted it to be a love story featuring characters in communities that were in conversation with one another as opposed to a reaction to trauma or a reaction to the obstacles, whether infrastructural or personal, that they may have been facing. Trying to write a love story that allowed room for each partner to grow into both that relationship but also the relationships around them and themselves was the overarching goal.

It started as a short story that I wrote for a zine. I was in the middle of writing another project that I will never turn back to. I keep turning back to this short story because it was easier to write, partly, but also because it was one that I wanted to see the ending of. Friends would tell me, "Hey, that's actually a big clue that you need to just do that." I was like, "No, no, no, no one would read this. It's not marketable." I pitched it to my agent. She was super receptive, but I was still a bit tentative. Then I pitched it to my editor, Laura Perciasepe. She was super receptive when she really didn't have to be. At that point, I sat down and really seriously started drafting it. It took about three years or so and about eleven-ish drafts or so. It was a little bit of work trying to get it to come together and trying to get the different threads in the place that I wanted them to be. Really, it was just reaching toward the sort of thing that I wanted to read and the sort of book that I thought that I might enjoy if it existed that got me to finish it.

Zibby: Wow. Your writing style is very unique. Rough around the edge is not -- I don't mean that in a bad way. Maybe raw around the edges. It's just so -- I used to have a good vocabulary. Today, it's failing me. Now I feel like I insulted you, which I obviously did not mean to do. I don't mean rough around the edges.

Bryan: No, rough around the edges, that's amazing as a description. [laughs]

Zibby: It's just so raw. I don't know how else to say it, bold. You don't mess around with words you don't need. You don't use flowery language that has no use. You just say it. It's in such a sparse way that's even more powerful, especially the dialogue and your use of punctuation. I was really into it.

Bryan: I so appreciate that. I'm really interested in the silences between characters and the spaces between what characters say to one another and also the spaces between what's actually said by someone and what they understand and what they internalize and how the context in which they're in when they hear the thing can impact what they actually take with them and how when that context changes, perhaps, their memory or their internalization of the thing that they heard could change as well. Really playing with the space between what's said and what's understood is always in the back of my head. Also, I'm hyperconscious of accessibility when it comes to language. That might have to do with the fact that I wasn't the most prodigious reader growing up. What's most impressive to me or what's really most amazing to me as far as fiction is concerned is folks who use a simplicity of language in order to get five, six, seven, eight, nine different themes across at the same time. Really striving for that is important to me generally, but also for Memorial too.

Zibby: Oh, good. Okay, great. [laughter] Good, you tried to do that. That's awesome.

Bryan: There was a little bit of tension on it, so it's been nice to hear -- I feel like you try to do a thing and then it's like, did I do the thing? Then other people tell you, you did the thing. I can talk about it now. [laughs]

Zibby: You did the thing. That's awesome. Wait, go back to not being a big reader growing up. Did you not like to read at all? Were you a late reader? Tell me about your reading in childhood and maybe just your childhood. You said you grew up in Kentucky, but now you're in Houston. What happened in between? Where'd you go? Tell me about growing up. We only have a little bit of time. [laughs] I'm like, tell me your life story.

Bryan: Oh, my god, who are you? I was born in Kentucky, moved to Texas when I was three or so. The first house we lived in was just outside of Houston proper. It was a very white neighborhood, a very white subdivision. The street itself was deeply diverse. My parents' friends, and there are a cohort of folks who moved to that area at the same time, was deeply diverse. I was really fortunate to be privy to a lot of different folks coming from a lot of different communities, cooking a number of different cuisines. I think that my earliest reading ventures were cookbooks, partly because of the fact that my parents worked. If I wanted to eat, I had to cook. I didn't know how to do that, so really just bugging friends and bugging friends' parents. Reading cookbooks was how I passed my time pretty early on. I did all of the Texas cis-boy things. I was really into football for a time. Then I was no longer. Once I stopped playing football, it left my brain. It entirely evaporated.

Zibby: What position did you play?

Bryan: I played fullback, which was an experience. I was pretty slow, so it really didn't make sense structurally for me to be doing that. What I really fell into narratively was film. It's a boon now. It's something that I can appreciate now. I watched a lot of foreign film, or foreign from the States in either case, so the ways in which you could tell a story both structurally and also narratively. The kind of stories that you could tell always seemed really wide open to me. We had a local Blockbuster. They had everything. You can travel the world at Blockbuster. A lot of my early narrative edification was through film. Then I went to the University of Houston for undergrad. I took a class with a guy named Matt Johnson. He was incredibly generous with his time and deeply kind as far as what I was trying to do on the page. It was encouragement to just keep going. It was really fortuitous to meet him. Then I did an MFA after undergrad. I met Joanna Leake who was also deeply generous with her time and deeply encouraging, so being really lucky to meet folks who were into what I was trying to do and receptive to it.

Zibby: Amazing. Why didn't you give up? What made you keep going? This is the thing I'm always most curious about. Eleven drafts of Memorial, why not just put it aside? What drove you to keep working on it?

Bryan: I've gotten to think a lot about it now. At this point, it seems like a bit much. [laughs] When I wrote Memorial, it wasn't a book that I wrote on contract. If I hadn’t finished it, then no one would've cared because there was no financial obligation one way or the other. I really wanted to see how it would end. I was teaching ESL at the time, which is a job that I loved. I would teach and then I would write on the weekends or write during lunch. If I had a day off, I would go to the coffee shop and work on it. I just wanted to see how it would end. For the longest time, I thought that I would finish an iteration of it, and then I would show it to my friends and then they would read it or not read, and that would be the story of Memorial. I was quite all right with that. I was quite happy with it. Really, just wanting to see what a narrative where there isn't really a clear antagonist and where there are characters that are hopefully approaching one another from a place of love and from a place of growth could end up and what that would look like, it was and is really important to me. Just trying to see if it was a thing that I could do was the driver in a lot of ways.

Zibby: Interesting. Was there anything in your life that happened, particularly I'm referring to not especially the mother-in-law, but the mother-in-law-ish person coming to stay from Tokyo and the boyfriend jetting off and leaving the -- I'm not explaining this well -- leaving the new person there so that he doesn't have to deal with his mother. It'd be like I start dating someone and I'm like, see ya, you hang out with my mom. That would not play probably even now, and I'm married. What inspired that? Where did that piece of it come from?

Bryan: That scenario arrived for me intact. There isn't really a one-to-one correlation between any of the characters and any of their arcs and things that I've experienced. The most tangible one might be that I worked at an aftercare place for five years. It was a job that I really loved. Aside from that, there's not a lot where you could draw a direct line. At the same time, I wanted to read something featuring the kinds of relationships that I'd had, the kind of relationships that my friends had had. Trying to put that on the page was really important to me. I knew that if I wanted to write a story in which the ending was open for the characters, not necessarily structurally open, but open as far as a possibility for them, I would need to at least create a stable foundation in the intro, a sort of bait and switch. If you're going to read the narrative about one particular thing, like a very strange [indiscernible], and then it becomes something else or it becomes many different things. I was really lucky in that that scenario arrived mostly intact from the very outset. At the same time, I think that was one of the very few things about the book that from the beginning I knew that this will probably stay. Everything else changed a handful of times, at least, over the course of writing it.

Zibby: I was struck in one of your essays about the experience with your uncle in Jamaica where you saw a group of gay men around a boat. You were like, oh, look, great. Before you knew it, your uncle was hurling stones at them. You were just standing there. Then you all just paddled off or something like that and left the men. You were like, well, I'm not coming out to this crew. Forget that. How did everybody in your family then react to this book which is very open and graphic? I don't know if that's the right word, but very graphic, as many sexual scenes are no matter what. You're right in that it doesn't happen as often in literature between two men. What does your family think about that?

Bryan: The family members that I know have read it have been overwhelmingly positive. I gave a galley of it to my mom once I had a solidified galley back in December. She would send updates every few weeks just sort of like USPS telling me, it's here right now, not whether they liked it or not whether they finished. [laughs]

Zibby: Just her page number?

Bryan: Like, the galley is in Atlanta. That galley's in New York. This is the person who has it. Everyone that I've heard from has been really supportive of the story and really just overwhelmingly positive toward what I was trying to do. I feel like if everyone is positive that also makes me a bit weary because I'm like, what am I not seeing? I'm grateful for it, but it also comes back to this idea of what I wanted to try to do with the book is not operate in binaries and not silo characters into archetypes that don't give them room to change or room to grow or room to expand their language or to silo them into one position or another. They may not have the language or the lexicon to have the conversations that the folks around them, whether it's family, whether it's lovers, whether it's friends, want them to have, and just putting every character in a position to be able to move toward goodness. So far, everyone has been overwhelmingly supportive, which is also a bit concerning. I'm waiting for the other shoe to fall. It's very strange.

Zibby: Holding your breath a little bit.

Bryan: Not too long. As soon as I say this, I'm going to get a text, so-and-so is [indiscernible/crosstalk].

Zibby: You're like, oh, good, I was waiting for that one.

Bryan: Exactly. Confirmed.

Zibby: Are you working on anything new now?

Bryan: Yeah. I have a project that I'm trying to get into shape. I don't know if it'll stick or if it's just a hiccup and then it'll go away. The biggest thing on the horizon is that I'm adapting this series for television. A24 is producing it. Rudin Productions is assisting in the production. A big thing for me during the option process was that if it was going to end up on screen, I wanted to be a person to adapt it because it just seemed like a really cool opportunity, for one thing. Also, there was a certain way that I wanted it done or a certain way that I wanted to see it. I'm really fortunate that A24 was super receptive to that. They're such great folks. The Rutin Production folks are such great folks. Trying to figure out what the iteration on screen will look like will probably keep me busy for a while.

Zibby: I would think.

Bryan: [laughs] Yeah, just a little bit.

Zibby: That sounds like a big job to do.

Bryan: It'll be an undertaking. I'm working with really cool folks. I think that everyone is approaching it from the standpoint of, we just want to make a cool thing, a really solid thing. I think it'll be a good experience.

Zibby: I didn't mean job in a negative way. I meant an exciting, fulfilling, wonderful project.

Bryan: No, it is work. It is certainly work. I'm in the midst of all of this work. I'm like, oh, my god, more work. I have to cast a positive light on the amount of work it is because otherwise it would be untenable.

Zibby: I feel like it actually might be easier than most to adapt just because I feel like your scenes are so visual. I can see it all, like the taxi or whatever, the car pulling up to the curb at the airport and the kitchen scene with waking up late and having the mother-in-law character be there. I see it. I don't know if that's what's in your head, but I have a clear vision of those scenes.

Bryan: When I'm writing, I pull a lot from film because so many of my narrative reference points and so many of my structural reference points are from things that I've seen. Trying to paint as clear a picture of the world and of the characters and of their interactions as possible is really important to me and something that I really set out to do. That probably comes through more in the editing process once the story is actually there, trying to hone it and cut away all of the unnecessary bits so that you just have story. You have the reader, and they're able to, ideally, have a relationship with that story. It becomes their own.

Zibby: I feel like I have to use what you keep referring to as -- what do you say? Your narrative creative process or something through film? I feel like I need to use that to justify the amount of TV I let my kids watch. I'll be like, no, no, no, they're just bolstering their film narrative of storytelling.

Bryan: That's exactly what it is. They're expanding the canon.

Zibby: Expanding the canon, thank you. That's even better. They're expanding the canon. I'm just going to leave them in front of the TV. [laughs] Do you have any advice to aspiring authors other than perhaps watching lots of TV?

Bryan: Watch as much TV as you can. Other than that, one thing that I would say is not to take too much heed of the market, which can be an incredible temptation, especially when you're first starting out or if you feel as though you don't have connections or if you feel like you don't have a byline or if you feel like you need to add more to your byline. The market really doesn't know what the market wants until the market wants it. For Memorial, a difficulty when it came to initially drafting it and then editing it was that there weren’t too many direct comps that I could pull from. There really weren’t very many total comps that I could pull from. It wasn't until, really, probably early March of this year that I was convinced that like six people would not read it. [laughs] I would just try to tell the story that you're trying to tell to the best of your ability and really create a world on the page, which is going to be difficult regardless of what your narrative looks like or what you set out to do. If you're able to achieve that, I think that that's the biggest boon in a lot of ways.

Zibby: Awesome. Great. Thank you, Bryan. Thanks for our little chat today. I hope I didn't offend you. [laughs]

Bryan: No, no, not at all. Thank you so much for having me.

Zibby: Thanks for coming on. I'll be watching Good Morning America to see when everything's announced. I'm so excited for you. That's awesome.

Bryan: Thanks so much, Zibby.

Zibby: Take care.

Bryan: Likewise. Please take care.

Zibby: Bye.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, MELANIA AND ME

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff: I've been listening to your podcast. Amazing. Thank you.

Zibby Owen: Thank you. Thanks for listening to it.

Stephanie: Really interesting. Very interesting.

Zibby: Congratulations on your book.

Stephanie: Thank you. I appreciate that.

Zibby: Let's discuss Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady. When did you decide you were going to write about your experience?

Stephanie: The first thing to say is that my experience with Melania and the White House and the presidential inauguration committee was fast and furious. I am a meticulous recordkeeper. I've always been. It's just who I am. My intent in having all the administrative things that you would do normally under any circumstance as part of your job -- mine was very much about budgets with my work that I've done. Things just didn't seem to add up. Let's just put it that way. After the presidential inauguration committee, producing the events, I then went into the White House with Melania because she had no one else. I mean, no one.

Zibby: Maybe I should back up. I was so interested. I just wanted to hear you answer that question so badly, but maybe I should provide more context, which is that you and Melania were friends. You met, in part, through your kids. You would go to lunches. You would hang out. She considered you one of her inner circle, essentially, beforehand and would always give you birthday gifts and call you if she needed favors and recommendations. You were her go-to. That's the context.

Stephanie: The orchid was yearly. That was the birthday gift, the orchid.

Zibby: Yeah, the orchid. Sorry, not flowers. Orchid.

Stephanie: I think it's really important because, for me at the time, every year I would get them and I would think to myself, oh, my god, she remembered. Your friends remember these things. She wasn't the one ordering it. It was a yearly -- those were the things that I had to pick up on and take a step back and go, yes, it was a lovely gesture and it was wonderful to be acknowledged and have your friend write -- all you want is your friends to reach out in a text and say happy birthday. At the time when was so much was going on, you think, wow, that was really nice. I considered it more care than maybe really what it was.

Zibby: You don't think that it was from a place of care at all?

Stephanie: No, not at all. I definitely think it was from a place of care, but that's just who she is. It's part of her makeup, is to make sure that things are recognized on behalf of others, a thank you note. She's very cordial. She does things very formally. That's more how I was thinking of it versus my scattered brain where I'm all over the place. I'm, last minute, writing my friends and calling them. Life, between work and kids --

Zibby: -- Wait, just teasing this out, so do you think that she had it in her calendar and that it's less care?

Stephanie: Not that it's less care, but it is in her calendar. Melania does have assistants and people that take care of those things. She had to want to do it. It's that next step where not only do you see it on your iCal, but you take the time to make sure that it gets there and you ask and you talk about it. It was a very kind gesture.

Zibby: You think it was a kind gesture, but it seemed kinder than it actually was because of how it was -- I don't want to keep dwelling on this. Anyway, let me just let it go. That ended up happening. [laughs] Then as you had gotten closer and you recorded a bunch of your emails and all this stuff --

Stephanie: -- I didn't record.

Zibby: I'm sorry. That was the wrong word. You were just saying you're a great recordkeeper, so I think that's why it was in my head that you keep meticulous records and everything. Then you have so many of the emails you exchanged in the book. Like everybody, they save.

Stephanie: Absolutely. That's the thing too. One of the most important things for me in writing this book was to clear my conscience because it was immediately after I was fed to the wolves, thrown under the bus, and accused of a financial crime and headlined all over the world as, Melania's friend gets twenty-six million dollars. Then the following week, Melania's friend gets fired. They attached it. They made it culpable. Neither headline was true. Again, that's why I felt like I had to take a big step back. I started writing because I was writing an op-ed. I was trying to put this into an op-ed thinking if I write what happened in eight hundred words -- I'm trying to fit this in so everyone can understand. That op-ed just kept going and going and going and going because I couldn't get enough out.

Zibby: Now your op-ed is this long, is basically what happened.

Stephanie: There it is. That's my op-ed based on all facts. There's not a line that's disputable. When the White House kept coming after me saying I was delusional, I made things up, those are the reasons why you hear some of those recordings now.

Zibby: For people who don't know what happened, you went into the White House. You were hired to help with the inauguration. You had a whole history running the Met Ball for many, many years and were a complete superstar event producer and a thousand trillion other amazing, reputable things in society. You go. Melania says she wants you to be part of the inauguration. You orchestrate that in your way that you are used to doing. Then what happens?

Stephanie: I was working with a lot of people during the inauguration. There were a lot of things going on around me that I wasn't accustomed to but I also wasn't familiar with. I would constantly bring up to Donald and Melania, a lot of inconsistencies and inaccuracies of things that didn't add up and also didn't make sense. After the inauguration, we planned eighteen events. I was only supposed to go in to do creative on a couple events. I ended up being the central figure. I became the face of the inauguration for some odd reason. I do know there was a meeting a couple days, a week, before that. "Steph, you need to go out front. We're going to do a New York Times article. We need you out there to show everyone that you're in support of this." I hadn’t done any press. I had no intention of doing press. I was just doing it actually out of honor because it is the United States of America. I am a producer. I felt it's an amazing thing to be asked to do. Melania's my friend. Nobody else would do it. The reality is even if other people would've done it, it's my own fault, I didn't take policy into consideration at the time at all, neither was I that familiar with it. I've had to educate myself. Quite honestly, I thought I could separate politics and ethics. The way I was able to live my life was to work on humanitarian, contribute in producing like the inauguration, but I always blocked out the noise of politics. You cannot live your life like that. That is my fault for going into this and saying yes to something that I knew nothing about.

This was no fairy-tale. This was no New York Fashion Week. This was a different world, a different beast, and I didn't know enough. That's one of the biggest lessons I learned. No matter how close you are to someone, you’ve got to ask questions. You've got to make sure you understand who the players are before you agree to jump into anything that you do in your life. I wanted to believe that good over evil -- it doesn't matter. It does not work that way in politics or in this world that I was dealing with with these people, but I always felt Melania had my back, and Donald. It was really with the support of Melania -- when I came back to New York, literally two days later I flew to DC. She had no one else. I mean, no one. I was interviewing everyone for her office during the inauguration. As I was planning the inauguration and I was working on Ralph Lauren and organizing her for the swearing in, every step of the way working on production and broadcast, I was interviewing and met and hired a few people for the East Wing. When I went back to the White House, it was empty. It was an empty, dark place. I was alone. I turned on the lights. I remember calling her and being like -- there I was standing in Michelle Obama's office. To me, I was like, oh, my god, I'm standing in Michelle Obama's office. She was like, no big deal. I'm FaceTiming her. I just remember that moment. I'm like, "My god. Look where I am. I'm in your office. This is the White House. This is the United States of America." She just moved on, laughed, and moved on to what's next, which is the redecorating and the staffing. She didn't really want to even talk about that. Again, I think I held the regard. I was obviously projecting what I felt onto her.

That's another thing that I see in retrospect. Because I was in a position to help her and the proximity to her, the power that she wielded, the platform that she had at her fingertips, obviously, it was something that I -- people say, you wanted the power. No, no. There's so much about children and social/emotional learning that's very personal to me because of my children, and the importance of not identifying children based on how they look. Are they typical? Are they not? Our family's been through a lot, the journeys that we've had to take to understand how important it is for children to be able to, first of all, understand themselves and be able to express themselves. They need the tools to know how to do that. That's all about prevention. It's not about intervention. When you go into kindergarten, you need to learn that -- "I don't feel well," what does that mean? Express your feelings. Understand what that means. Regulate yourself. These are things that my husband and I and my kids learned over ten years. I felt that every child should have this because it's not just for children with learning disabilities and differences. It's for every child. The fact that she only wanted to focus on cyber bullying -- she was open to a bigger umbrella. For me, I was working with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Aspen Institute, Tim Shriver. We had an amazing team of people that truly -- Ivanka wanted to usurp the first lady. The West Wing did not want her to continue moving on on a platform, honestly. There's so much going on at once. I apologize. I was banging my head against the wall every day about her and about the position I put myself in and also looking forward and tunnel vision to get it done.

Zibby: Basically, you took an assignment and then didn't totally process because who could know what would come with it? Then you find yourself in this new environment. Then you didn't have your one ally, you feel, enough.

Stephanie: I had her until I had her. I did, I had her until they needed to place blame. They heard there was an investigation opening up into the presidential inauguration committee. As soon as that happened, she turned her back on me when I needed her most. All I needed her to do was speak the truth. She says it to me personally. People say, I can't believe you recorded a friend. No, no. They had already accused me of getting twenty-six million dollars. They accused me of being fired and all the other accusations that came with it. I already had hired a lawyer when I was in the White House still in January. She knew about it because there was this setup to taking me down, and I was aware of it.

Zibby: Why did they want to take you down?

Stephanie: Again, in the book, but it was the importance of mitigating the negative response to any type of headline for the first lady in reference to me working for her because of the accusations of the pick. Now, I'm the one who raised all the red flags. I didn't have any signing powers. I didn't have budget powers. I was a piece of chewing gum between everyone. I was being pulled and pushed in every direction. I never even had access to a bank account. I never had a checkbook. I was kicked out of financial meetings. I could run over to their apartment at Trump Tower and show them things and say, oh, my god, I'm going to end up in the bottom of the Potomac because I'm pointing this out to you. They would pick up the phone and fire Rick Gates. At the end of the day, I had no financial responsibility, which made it even worse, so the fact that this worked -- internally, there were these sixty-two questions that went around the White House for a year. Inauguration's over in January 2017.

In February 2018, they released the 990. It's form 990 that's going to the federal election committee. When they did that, they list the top five companies. You don't list individuals ever. As [indiscernible] was created -- for full transparency, it's literally four people from Tiny Horse and myself. Again, we were only supposed to be overseeing $1.62 million. How it got to where it got to is a whole nother story. I'm working with the United States attorney general for the District of Columbia. I know I'm going all over the place. I apologize. I'm involved in three different investigations. I was subpoenaed by the grand jury of the Southern District of New York, the intelligence committee, as well as working with DC NOW. It took over my life. I pressed record after I was in the White House, after I had already hired a lawyer because they wanted me to create a narrative. I wouldn't go along with theirs, which was, this was the most peaceful transition of power and everything was done by the book. I wouldn't do it. This is when I'm sitting in the first lady's office creating her initiatives. I was a problem. I was a problem for everyone. I actually expressed that to the lawyers. I was very vocal about the fact of what had happened during the inauguration. I wouldn't keep my mouth shut. Not only did they not want the initiative to move forward, they needed me to stop talking about the improprieties.

Zibby: I get everything. I did read your book. I followed you on the news.

Stephanie: I'm sorry.

Zibby: No, no, I just want you to know I do have some background. Part of this is teasing out what happened. I am sorry for what's happened to you. I can sense your fear, really. There's a lot going on. A lot of it is out of your control. All you've done is work hard. Yet all this stuff is happening to you. I can tell how unfair you feel that is, and justifiably.

Stephanie: It took over my life, financially, socially, emotionally, physically. I was in the hospital for over a month. I almost died. I gave up all my businesses. I literally gave up all my partnerships to go do this for her. That's why that betrayal was so hard. It still affects me. It wasn't like your friend just didn't call you back. I gave up twenty-five years of my life's work, my career, my livelihood. My three children had to watch this.

Zibby: Do you think she had the free will, almost, enough to do -- from just how it looks on the outside -- I shouldn't say that. Do you think that she was an independent actor enough to have, if she wanted to, have had your back? Do you think she could have?

Stephanie: That's when I have the recordings. That's where she couldn't have, and she told me. These are her words.

Zibby: It's almost like, is it really her fault? Not to say that there's not a huge amount of wrongdoing here. It seems like with the book at least, the point of view of the book is the friend who does you wrong. I'm not saying she didn't. I'm just wondering, is all the rage and the frustration and justifiable sentiment you feel, is it really because of her, or is it because of this whole situation?

Stephanie: Had it not been for her, I wouldn't have put myself in that situation. The first story that said I got twenty-six million dollars, which to begin with wasn't true, whatever. It was the second story where all she had to do was say I wasn't fired. That made me culpable to the money. It made it look as if I was on a contract that was terminated due to Jared and Rob Porter's security clearances. It had nothing to do with the pick. She asked me to keep it quiet about my contract because there was only one other person who had the same contract. Had I actually said that and told the world that, then they could have made me culpable to the first article. Again, the persuasiveness to keep my mouth quiet -- talk to a lawyer, but keep your mouth quiet. I had the NDA, so I was gagged. I couldn't say a word. When your friend tells you to get over it and don't be so dramatic after that happens to you, that's not a friend. There was no empathy. There was no understanding. This came to that because of politics. Those were her words. Again, I didn't need for her to do anything with the presidential inauguration committee misdeeds. She wanted to stay out of that. I just needed her to say I wasn't fired because I wasn't.

Zibby: Do you think she feels remorse? Do you think she feels anything? In the book, you paint her as somebody who doesn't have that many emotions. Sometimes we're like, how can she stand by? How can this not bother her? That's the common thing. She seems so, you describe it as calm, but it's also, can she feel the feelings? Is she capable of remorse? What do you think? That's sort of different. That's like a kid at school who doesn't have the ability, necessarily. We're all very up to date, Child Mind, different socioemotional stuff. Is it that she lacks the ability, or is it that it was intentional?

Stephanie: There are many different angles to Melania. There are many different Melanias. What's consistent is that, I say that she's unapologetically skin deep. If she cannot control how you think about her, she will not even consider how you're feeling or what you're thinking. That's a fact. She must be able to control the narrative. She says it over and over, I don't care. Somebody hurts her, somebody does something mean to terrible to her, they expose her nudies on the cover of a magazine; politics. The RNC speech; politics, liberal media. She literally says about those type of things, it'll pass in a day. We had a lot of conversations, she and I, where I said, I wish I could live my life somewhat like that. I can't. I wear my heart on my sleeve. She does and did express how she is able to move on and people need to just stand up, hold your head up high, and move on and get on with it because you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, the next week, the next month. These are her words. She did say I love you and I'm sorry. That's not enough.

Zibby: You have the letter in here where she's apologetic-ish and saying "Love, Melania" and all this stuff to the end. Did you ever think of yourself as a person who would write a book about a friendship gone wrong type of thing, your other friendships and all the rest?

Stephanie: Never. I literally looked at my husband one night. I was like, "I'm an author?" I never ever, ever, ever -- this was me to be able to understand what happened to me and the world around me because I could make sense of, who is Melania, then? How is it possible that she could be so callous yet at the same time I was drawn to her because she had such great common advice, because she was so strong and independent? What that is, there's a barrier. She feels it, but she's not going to internalize it ever.

Zibby: I totally get that you need to figure her out and process it. You must have just a trillion feelings about this whole thing, but that's one bucket. Another bucket is taking it and sharing it with the entire world.

Stephanie: The entire world needs to know she supports him. She's his biggest cheerleader. She thinks that he should be very strong and assertive about everything that he's doing. She is not at all concerned about what you think, nor does she want to tell you what's really going in the incident with the meme Free Melania. As you know, Barron accidently kicked her in the foot. She will never reveal to anyone the source of what's happening because she doesn't want you to know her emotions. She doesn't want the reader to know who she is. She doesn't want anyone in the world to have any inkling. The truth is, she does not care. She really doesn't. If it's good for Melania, it's good for Melania. Forget about me. I'm talking about everyone else from anyone else's situation to the way I watched her deal with certain people that were very close friends. She will ask, "How's that person doing?" She really doesn't care.

Zibby: Do you think that anyone doesn't believe that she supports her husband?

Stephanie: I do. That's one of the reasons why I did release the tape in addition to the fact that they were calling me a paranoid liar. People need to hear it from her so they understand that Melania, in order for her to do something, she needs to be recognized for doing it. That's where she and Donald are very similar, but he'll cry about it if someone's beating him up. She doesn't care. You could say anything you want about her. That's the difference between the two of them. They both want the attention. They both internalize it. But Melania, that's where it ends.

Zibby: Based on your friendship before, do you feel like you had any loyalty to her to not share her inner stuff?

Stephanie: Honestly, the whole thing that happened with the recording yesterday, I, in my mind, never even went there. To think that that's what it would turn into, a battle between Twitter, I honestly was sick to my stomach. Not my intent. Honestly, I wanted to write the book and move on. I really thought, I'm going to write this. I'm going to make sure that the world knows what really happened. I'm involved in these investigations, so I was leaving some breadcrumbs as well. Because of my NDA, I am still gagged. I worked with first amendment lawyers to be able to write as much as I could. There is a lot of bad going on in our administration. I mean, a lot. The people that are leading it are connected in so many different ways that people don't even realize, the intricacies of what's going on and how it's affecting us and how it will affect our children and our children's children. I felt like I'm still protecting them if I don't release the tape as well. After the presidential debate, the way he acted to Joe Biden and then when she went on stage and admiringly looked at him and smiled, regardless of how they held each other because that's a whole different -- that's not what they do anyway. All of a sudden, I felt my blood boil. I felt like it just wasn't right. If it was my husband, I would've gone on stage regardless on cameras or not, I would've looked at him like, what was that? I understand he's the president, but don't treat people that way. It's not okay. The disrespect, the lack of character and integrity, she stands behind that because that is who she is too. There is no Free Melania. There is no, oh, poor Melania.

Zibby: You don't want us to feel sorry for her at all.

Stephanie: Neither does she. She doesn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. She knows exactly what she's doing. She's says, consequences or no consequences, I do what I do because I want to. She doesn't feel it the way that everyone thinks she feels it. She just doesn't at all. We're a month away from this election. Having spent the time, these couple of years, learning about politics and learning about the fact that you've got to educate yourself and you have to know the differences not only between right and wrong -- for me, it was never left versus right. It was always right versus wrong. You have to know the differences because, as I said earlier, your ethics, your values, have to be in line with your politics. I have a responsibility to myself, my children, my family. They watched me suffer and give up. I had a responsibility to learn what I didn't know. Now I'm vocalizing it and verbalizing it so people understand that they need to know more.

Zibby: Is this helping you? I feel like you're still really upset.

Stephanie: Can I tell you? There's something that happened. Things got a little -- again, I wanted to write the book and go like this. The fact is that I have so much information that people are still using because of the investigations. I'm a witness in all of them. The weight on me in not being able to talk about the things I know and the expectations from all of these prosecutors and people -- again, I spent millions of dollars. Why? For what? So I can give the government the information that I kept calling out over and over and over? What's happening? These people are still walking around -- for me, the emotion is not so much, it's not Melania. It's not the betrayal because I really got it. I understand the fact that it's inhumane. It is. Yet we have a humanitarian crisis in our back yard. That's all anyone should be talking about. That's all she should be doing. Yet what she did to the Rose Garden is just -- I tie those things together and I say to myself, that's what makes me angry, is that she's in a position to make a difference, and she doesn't. What still upsets me is that I am a voice that knows her and knows this family in a very different way. I know Melania to her core. I have sat with that family at dinner tables. Now, do I know Donald and the boys and Ivanka? Not anywhere near how I know Melanie at all. I know Melania. I can say to everyone, do not worry about her. Do not think that she has, remotely, any sad feelings or she's locked up. I do have to vocalize. I must verbalize the fact that, I can't say it enough, people really need to understand the politics of this all and how it's going to affect our next generation. We're not going to be here to protect them.

Zibby: Wow. This is intense.

Stephanie: I'm sorry.

Zibby: No, don't be sorry. You have a lot going on. This is a lot to carry for anyone. It sounds like you're using the book to sort out your feelings. You're trying hard not to succumb to the things that have happened. You're trying to look for why they happened. You're angry and frustrated.

Stephanie: Here's the thing. The truth is that what happened to me is happening to everyone else. Writing the book and expressing those sixty-nine days, I was able to tell it from my friendship with Melania because of the NDA. Through my friendship with Melania, I didn't have an NDA. I wasn't being paid for my work for Melania. Everything I did was on my own dime.

Zibby: I understand. I get it.

Stephanie: It was a journey.

Zibby: It's a journey. We're out of time already. I didn't even ask you about the writing of the book.

Stephanie: I'm so sorry that I went off topic.

Zibby: No, I just feel like there's so much to unpack in your experience. I feel like I am watching someone who is really struggling. That is really hard. Maybe I'm not. I'm blind saying that.

Stephanie: When I say I almost died, I've had two pulmonary embolisms. I had two spinal fusions. I wear a neck brace around my house. I can't do the things I used to do. I am not the same person.

Zibby: Oh, god, I have to get my daughter. [laughs]

Stephanie: Oh, my god, go. Go, go, go.

Zibby: Oh, my gosh. I'm like, let's just ask a few more questions. Meanwhile, she's waiting.

Stephanie: Well, you're not wrong. Let me just say that. You're not wrong.

Zibby: I hope that this book plays into your being able to find some sort of inner peace and make sense of what's happened and move on because ultimately, you can't save the world. You have to focus, maybe, on you.

Stephanie: A hundred percent. That's why, again, writing the book and closing the door would've been perfect. It didn't allow me to because of everything else that's going on. It's out of my control.

Zibby: I'm happy to continue this in another forum, but... [laughs]

Stephanie: Thank you so much. Again, I'm so sorry that I over-spoke about other things.

Zibby: No, it's very interesting.

Stephanie: If you want to speak some more even off the podcast, I'm happy to. I do apologize.

Zibby: No, please don't apologize.

Stephanie: Thank you so much. This has been great.

Zibby: Thanks for coming on the show. Buh-bye.

Stephanie: Thanks. Bye.

Charlotte Wood, THE WEEKEND

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

Charlotte Wood: Thanks for having me, Zibby, so much.

Zibby: I'm so excited to discuss The Weekend with you. This book was so lovely and moving and really well-written. Oh, my gosh, I was just really looking forward to this conversation. I still think about your character sitting on the side of the road whenever I'm getting in my car now trapped under an underpass too narrow to even get out. I'm like, ah! [laughter]

Charlotte: I'm glad they stayed with you.

Zibby: Yes. Can you please tell listeners what The Weekend is about?

Charlotte: The Weekend is about friendship and getting older. The book opens when three friends -- some people have described them as frenemies, but I think they love each other more than that. They're aged in their seventies. Their names are Jude, Wendy, and Adele. They come together on a very hot weekend in Australia just before Christmas, which I know is kind of weird for American readers to think about Christmas being in the middle of the boiling summer. In Australia, that's what it's like often. They come together at the beach house of their fourth friend, Sylvie, who has died just around a year before the book opens. They are there to clean out Sylvie's house. They’ve been friends for a really long time, for around forty years. Their friendship is worn by this stage and worn by grief as well. They’re discovering over this weekend particularly that Sylvie was the one who really held this group together. Without her, they’ve kind of lost the sense of how to be with each other. They just feel lost to one another. It's a very difficult time for them while they grapple with their grief and Sylvie and their grief for their friendship that seems to be dissolving in front of them.

Zibby: What inspired you to write this book? Why these characters? Why this weekend? How did you come up with the structure of it and the whole thing? Why not the month or the long weekend? [laughs]

Charlotte: The reason I wanted to write about these women is that I've always been interested in female friendships and how sustaining they are for so many of us. I've always had quite intense friendship from when I was very young. I have a really nice husband and my own siblings, but friendships are the thing that kind of propel my days. My last book, The Natural Way of Things, was about really young women. It was very dark and nearly brutal book about misogyny. I wanted to release myself and my readers from the darkness of that book. The way to get away from a previous book is almost just to flip it and go to something opposite. That was young women. This is older women. That book was set in the middle of the desert in Australia. This book is at the beach on the coast. It's a much lighter book even though the story is about these women having to face the fact that they're in the last years of their lives. Even if that's another ten or twenty years, it's obviously the last phase of their life that they're heading into. They haven't really thought about that properly. That's one of the things that each of them is grappling with.

One of the things I was interested in is, how do long friendship sustain themselves or not? I have friends that are twenty-five years standing. I love them, but we have changed a lot over that twenty-five years. Sometimes I feel that old friendships, we can just [indiscernible]. We can sort of set them in cement in some way. I feel like we need to be able to have our old friendships move and change and live and be as rich as -- sometimes when you meet a new person, you kind of fall in love with a friend, with this person, because they're facing up with the contemporary you. Whereas sometimes our olds friends, and we all do it to each other, can think, no, I know who you are. You're the person that I met twenty years ago, thirty years ago. I was really interested in casting forward for myself about, what kind of woman might I be if I'm lucky enough to reach my seventies? How will that woman live within the friendships of old? What might be the forces at work upon all of us at that point?

Zibby: Wow. You had a great quote in the book. You wrote, "The thirties were the age you fell most dangerously in love, Adele had discovered after the fact, not with a man or a woman, but with your friends." You write, "Lovers back then came and went like the weather," but you said, "No, it wasn't lovers, but friends, these courageous, shining people you pursued, romanced with dinners and gifts and weekends away. It was so long ago, forty years." It's so true because usually your life is somewhat set, friends. Obviously, you can get divorced and remarried and whatever, but that's one or two major changes in your life. The friends, they come in and out I feel like so often at just the right times for what you need.

Charlotte: For these women, they all met, as Adele says, in their thirties. All of them were quite powerful in their professional lives. A lot of this book is about work, actually, and how women don't just identify with their family identity. They identify with their work. I feel like the ways that we think about older age in popular culture, in television and in books, often older women are just identified by their family roles, by their roles as mothers or grandmothers or whatever, or spouses. The women who I know in their seventies are working or wish they were working. They had very fulfilling professional lives. These women in my book, Jude was a restauranter. She ran the city's finest restaurants. She was one of those very powerful women in the hospitality world. Everyone wanted a table at her restaurant in the city in this book. Adele was a very well-known stage actress. Wendy was a public intellectual and globally known as a feminist academic and intellectual. Her books are still on university lists around the world. In their thirties was the really blossoming time of their cultural power that had this blazing allure for all of them. They came together through various means. They were this shining little crowd in their world.

Now they're looking at each other going, oh, man, I remember when you were so powerful. Now I feel that you might be hiding something. Your health isn't great. You are in a bit of denial about what's going on for you professionally. They all think that about each other while not really facing their own doubts and little crises of confidence. They feel like they can't afford to look at some things that are creeping in at the edges of their vision. This weekend together forces them to look at those things. Actually, just going back to your earlier question about why a weekend, it's really helpful, I've found, in fiction to bring in the boundaries of time and space to create pressure on people. For a book like this that is about -- it's the internal lives of women where not a lot of dramatic things happen. It does build to a big crisis for them, but there are not world events crashing in on these women. Bringing those edges of the setting in time and space in more tightly allows a sort of concentrated focus. It's kind of The Crucible effect, I hope. The pressure builds. Part of that is the fact that they are just there trapped together in this house for three days.

Zibby: Tell me about the writing of it. You started out and you found the structure that would work for you and what would create the most pressure to exhibit all these wonderful things and goals that you had for the book. How was the writing process for you? How did it differ from your first book? Do you write right there? How do you do it?

Charlotte: I write here in my studio in Sydney. I also write at a house at the coast where the town in the book is kind of modeled on. It's a couple of hours north of Sydney. It's a middle-class people's holiday town. That's where Sylvie's beach house is. I wrote it over a few years. My previous book was the first one I had published in the States. This is actually my sixth novel. I had a lot of books published in Australia before that. I start usually with a place. This time, as I said, I knew I wanted to be near the ocean for the -- I felt like I wanted light and air and weather at my disposal fictionally. I knew it was going to be about friendship. Then I just put them in this house together. For ages, Sylvie didn't exist. I just had these three friends. I had them in this house. I don't really plan my books at all apart from this setting. They were having these fractious moments. I needed to figure out, why are they there? If they are having such struggles with their friendship, why don't they just not go? Then I finally hit on the idea of Sylvie. Actually, fairly early on in the process of writing the book a really lovely friend of mine became sick and died. She was a writer. Her name was Georgia Blain. She was very, very loved in this country as a writer.

I was really astonished by my grief for Georgia, the ferocity of my grief. She was my first friend who had died. I've been through grief before in my family, but this was really different. I felt really overwhelmed by the primitive feelings of my grief and the way that I felt like a child and felt angry and so jealous. It was such a weird series of feelings that I needed to work them out. I knew that Georgia would approve of this way of doing it because she wrote very close to life herself. I could pour all my feelings about this unmanageable grief into these women and their feelings for their friend Sylvie. When I said jealousy, it's that thing of feeling that -- early on in the book, Jude confesses in her own head that she was just impatient in hearing about anybody else's death. It was sort of irrelevant. Sylvie was the one who had died. She just couldn't tolerate anybody else whining about people dying. She says, "People die all the time. Of course they do. But Sylvie, this is different."

I think we all, on some level, can feel that sense of ownership and protectiveness of this person. They had a rich and beautiful individuality that shouldn't be just lumped in with anybody else's. I actually think this is one of the saddest things about the pandemic. You've been through it more than anybody. We're sort of lumping all these people in together, and they are not like other people. I channeled all that stuff into the story as well. Then I just observed as much as I could, people around me, people I see in the street, thinking about my own friendships and how they may or may not change over the next twenty years, and about how we -- I used to think that as we grow older we necessarily begin to know ourselves better and better. I'm not sure that's true. I don't think that anymore. I feel like we can carry on illusions about ourselves forever. Sometimes it's our friends who present us with a really shocking assessment of who we are. I was interested in exploring that as well.

Zibby: I'm so sorry about your friend. That's terrible. Did it help? The pouring into the characters of all the emotion, did that actually work?

Charlotte: I think it did. I think it did in a way that it didn't go away. I still miss her. I felt like I honored her in some way, in a way that she would understand because she was a fiction writer. Also, she was a very funny person. She had a very dark sense of humor. I like to think she would've liked this book. It helped to express some of those things that you feel kind of ashamed of. I don't know if other people do, but in my grief for her, I felt like I should be more grown up about this. I've been through the deaths of both my parents. I've been through other deaths. I should know how to do this by now. I was just hammered by these very primitive, savage feelings. I think sometimes that's what literature is for, is to allow space for these kind of things that are unspeakable, feelings we're not allowed to have. Literature is a place where we are allowed to have them.

Zibby: It's funny to think about the bookshelves behind you and everything, that in each one is all the feelings that people couldn't say. We open it up and we're like, oh, my gosh. It's poured out. It's almost like containers, like a wall of Tupperware, almost, for everybody's feelings.

Charlotte: I think that's true.

Zibby: It's like The Container Store.

Charlotte: And it's private. It's a private place for us to go to. Unlike television or film or other media, a book is such a private space for the reader and the story. I feel like that's why reading is so precious to me, because it's only me and the book. I know you can watch television by yourself, but somehow it doesn't have the same effect, because it's in your own head I guess. All the pictures are pictures that you make. The people are people that you make as a reader. It sounds weird, but it's almost a holy thing to me, that space of a book for a reader.

Zibby: It's true. It's the only form of mental telepathy that we have. It's spilling out the insides of your mind that goes right into the insides of someone else's mind. How else would you do that? TV, you're like, I'm on my phone. I'm like, whatever. This, it also requires your complete attention or else you can't actually read.

Charlotte: That's right, the absorption that comes with reading. You can't cook and read at the same time.

Zibby: I guess audiobooks.

Charlotte: That's true, actually. That's another whole discussion.

Zibby: Pretty skilled. [laughs] Are you working on another novel now?

Charlotte: I am. I just started. It's taken me a while to settle in. The pandemic, we've been really lucky in Australia, very, very lucky in terms of scale. Everyone was terrified. We had a big lockdown that has gone on for some parts of the country for a long time. The mental focus was not there for a long time, but I'm getting back into it now. The new one is going to be about, in some ways -- it's so embryonic that I don't really know anything about it yet, but it's going to involve Catholic nuns. I grew up a Catholic. I've never really written about that, the influences on me. I just thought there's some interesting stuff there. That tension between in the world and being out of the world is really interesting to me, the big capitalist world [indiscernible]. It's very early days, so who knows.

Zibby: Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Charlotte: My advice would be don't wait to start doing it. Just start because life is short. We know that now more than ever. Just dive in wherever you are even if you don't have time, even if you are working full time in a job. My first several books were written, and I had full-time work. I used to write on the couch at night or on the weekend. You don't need a space to work in. All you need, really, at the most basic is a pencil and a piece of paper. There's nothing stopping you but your own mind. It can be a home to go to. It can be the most thrilling, wonderful, liberating thing to have in your life. I would just say don't wait. The other thing I would say is try and tell the truth. That sounds weird when you're talking about fiction, but write stuff that feels true to you, not to please anybody else, not to impress anybody else, not for the market. Readers will respond when you are deeply connected and immersed in the work. I think a lot of new writers spend far too much time worrying about whether this kind of work will sell, or you shouldn't write in first person because blah. There's so many bits of really silly advice out there. I hope this isn't another one of those. Just start. Be sincere. Put everything into it.

Zibby: Thank you, Charlotte. Thank you for sharing your grief in this way that now comes and helps the rest of us. Thanks for your lovely, wonderful book and for introducing us to these characters.

Charlotte: Thank you so much, Zibby, for having me. I send lots of love to everyone in the States right now.

Zibby: Thank you so much. Thank you, and to Australia. We'll just send love to our entire nations. Why not? Ambassadors for the evening. [laughs]

Charlotte: Thank you, Zibby.

Zibby: Thank you so much. Buh-bye.

Charlotte: Buh-bye.

Alisson Wood, BEING LOLITA

Zibby Owens: Welcome, Alisson. Thanks for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books."

Alisson Wood: Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you.

Zibby: I am just sorry this took us so long. Especially as soon as I started reading your book, I was like, what has the holdup been? I'm so sorry. Anyway, delighted to be talking to you. Being Lolita, can you please tell listeners what this is about?

Alisson: At its core, this is a book very much about power and sex and gender. In a much more simple plot way, it's about how when I was seventeen, I became ensnared in this incredibly abusive relationship with an English teacher in high school. He gave me the book Lolita. He told me it was a beautiful story about love. I was seventeen. I didn't know any better. The book follows the story of how I was groomed and how things escalated very quickly and became very abusive and how I was able to leave the relationship and then what my life has been like since and how this experience has impacted me both for good and bad.

Zibby: How would you say the experience has impacted you?

Alisson: On the not-so-good hand, trauma never goes away. This experience was incredibly bad. It was very traumatic. In a lot of ways, it set me up for a lot of bad relationships. This is why it's so important to talk to teenagers about healthy relationships and consent and boundaries and red flags of abuse. There's all this research that shows that your first relationship very much creates this mold for future relationships. My first relationship was a secret. It was incredibly abusive. It was full of manipulation and lying. That was what I thought love was. That was tough to figure out that that's not love. I'm thirty-six now. I spent a lot of time in therapy and just figuring things out and making a lot of mistakes. There is the other side. You can get through it. On the good side, though, I think that because of what happened to me I am incredibly, incredibly aware and supportive of my students. I teach now at NYU. I teach undergraduate students. I'm so aware and careful. I want to be a teacher that I wish that I had had as opposed to the teacher I had.

Zibby: It's so funny. I feel like so many of the authors I interview mention the influence of one teacher along the way as setting them on their path to becoming a published author. Someone has to notice your gift or your potential or whatever. That can just change everything. The power that you have as a teacher on all these aspiring authors -- you teach creative writing, right?

Alisson: Yeah.

Zibby: It's pretty, I would think, almost a daunting responsibility in a way.

Alisson: It is. A funny thing is that I got angry about what happened to me in a brand-new way once I started teaching. Undergraduates, they're eighteen, nineteen. I teach an intro class, so it's a lot of freshman. As I'm sure any parent knows, they're still kids. They’ve never rented an apartment on their own. They’ve probably never paid a bill. They’ve probably never worked full time. They might not even know how to cook. In so many ways, they're still kids. When we send them off to college, it's this wonderful opportunity for a safety net for them to figure out how to be an adult. There's a dorm, so they’ll never be homeless. There's a dining hall, so they’ll never go hungry. There's all these safety nets in place, which is wonderful. When I began teaching, the first time I went into a classroom with my own students I was just struck by how young they are. For someone to go into a classroom thinking anything except, how can I support and encourage and keep these students safe -- for someone to go into a classroom and be thinking about their own sexual or emotional or ego gratification is just monstrous. It made me angry about what happened to me in a whole new way because I think teaching is sacred. I think young people should be nothing but supported. To do anything else is just horrible.

Zibby: What do you think your teacher originally thought when he went into teaching? Do you think that this just happened? Do you think he went in with lofty goals? I know he was so young at the time as well.

Alisson: He was somewhere between twenty-six and twenty-eight. I don't remember. There's sort of two options for how that went. On one side, he really did misread Lolita. [laughter] He really did think this was this utterly romantic story. He really did think that he and I were in love and this was this thing that was fine. That means he was kind of stupid, to be frank. I'm sorry, really? I was seventeen. I was a high school student. How on earth could you do the backflips in your head to make that seem fine? The other option is that he was a predator from the start and he knew exactly what he was doing and he was doing it on purpose. That's also incredibly, incredibly difficult because I want to believe that people are good and that people aren't evil or anything. I don't know. I never will. Either he was stupid or he's a terrible person, and probably a little bit of both.

Zibby: These are the choices today. Not so great.

Alisson: No, not so great. One of the toughest things -- this is something I've had to face and acknowledge over time. This is what I lean to, I think he was predatory from the get-go. I think he knew what he was doing. I just don't understand how you can go into a high school and not think, huh, maybe I should not try to fuck my students, and how you can make that seem okay. That then means that I was a victim, clean-cut a victim. Something that's interesting about victim blaming, even especially when you do it yourself, which I did, of course, for a long time -- I was like, well, I flirted with him. I wanted this. I thought he was so cute. To start with, that's completely developmentally appropriate. It's completely okay for a teenager to have a crush on their teacher. No big deal. That's fine. It's part of what's going on when you're a teenager. Hormones are flying. It's so exciting. Then there's this teacher who maybe pays attention to you. That's totally fine. What's wrong is when the adult, the teacher, crosses that line. That's morally and ethically and, at times, legally wrong. My experience was normal and completely okay. The victim blaming part came in when I wanted to believe that I had some level of control over what had happened, so I blamed myself which is then blaming my choices, my actions. In actuality, I think I was just a victim. I don't think there was really any blame on my part. That's also really hard to face because that's really sad. You want to believe that you're a powerful, strong person who has some control. It's tough to face that that's not always the truth. It's been a process.

Zibby: Everyone's got their stuff. Do you think you became a teacher in a way to kind of right the wrongs of what happened?

Alisson: The funny thing is it was in no way conscious. I've always wanted to teach. I've always loved that. I've always loved writing. It felt very natural and organic. Then of course as I'm writing the book, I'm like, huh, interesting. I end up a teacher. It's one of those things where it's like, I don't know if it's quite that simple. Clearly, part of what I do is to try and right the wrong that happened to me and be the kind of teacher that I wish that I had had. That's really important to me.

Zibby: It's almost a way of making amends in a way.

Alisson: Definitely. Reparations, but I'm not the one who should be making the reparations.

Zibby: I know you're not. I know. I didn't say it made sense. I'm just saying from one of those weird subconscious things that we all do to cope with something.

Alisson: Isn't that such the work of women to do this kind of work for others? That's such a woman thing that we are trained to do. We're trained to care and fix things. That's a whole other conversation. [laughs]

Zibby: Yes. Let's save that for a cup of coffee or something.

Alisson: Maybe a glass of wine.

Zibby: A glass of wine, that would be great. I was so interested in how you came into this book and how you came into, not the book itself, but how you as a character came into the relationship of the book and your backstory and how you started it feeling so other than other people in your school and that you had gone through a lot yourself. There were all these rumors about your hospitalization. Had she tried to kill herself? Had she been doing this with other guys? All that swirling around you and your previous diagnoses and also the whole insomnia part which I thought was really fascinating. You got in so much trouble for that all the time, missing classes and everything. Even though it was documented, it put you on a totally different trajectory from an academic standpoint. Tell me a little more about all of that.

Alisson: Like so many teenagers, I struggled when I was a teenager. Starting probably when I was fourteen or fifteen, I began having really serious depression. There was no specific reason. It just happened like it does oftentimes with teenagers. When you start hormones and puberty, that can often be a time when depressive episodes or any sort of mental illness will sort of kick in. I just became incredibly depressed. At one point, I was cutting myself. I never tried to kill myself, but I was in a very dark place for a very long time. Like you mentioned, I became an insomniac. I switched my nights and days for a while. I was not a happy, stable camper. I was very, very depressed for a long time, and so I stopped going to school. If you're up all night and you're sleeping during the day, you're not making class. My depression was so serious that it was at the point where I had ECT. I had electroconvulsive therapy when I was in high school to try and snap me out of it. ECT is incredibly safe. We have this real stigma about it in our culture because of the way that it's portrayed in movies and in TV, but it's actually really safe. It's only a couple seconds. You're under anesthesia. You're not awake. They give you muscle relaxers. There's no shaking. It's an incredibly effective treatment for depression. This is very much an aside in my book, but it is something that I think is important that I wish we didn't stigmatize treatments for depression. I think we've gotten better about talking about mental illness and medication. We're better at that, but I think ECT is still something that's sort of, that's only if you're psychotic or something. It's really dangerous. It's really not. It's actually one of the safest treatments for pregnant women because anesthesia doesn't pass through the placenta, so there's no danger to the baby as there are in many medications. I'm sorry, this is an aside.

Zibby: No, I find it really interesting. I'm like, gosh, I could've used a little ECT when I was pregnant. [laughs]

Alisson: It saved my life. I really believe that. It's this dark corner of mental health that people don't talk about because there's this horrible stigma. When this was happening, this was the late nineties, early two thousands. This was almost twenty years ago or more than twenty years ago. There was a lot of stigma about mental illness at that point still. It's interesting thinking about that because part of the reason that medication has come so far in being normalized is because prescription companies were able to start advertising their drugs. I remember the first time I saw the ad for Prozac in a magazine. It was the stormy and then the sun. Prozac, it'll fix it. That's part of why. There's been all this money in advertising to make medication seem okay and thus to make people buy it, whereas there's no big ECT. There's big pharma. There's no big ECT. It's machines. There's no money to be made, so there's not this public service trying to break down the stigma.

Anyway, when I came back to school -- I had gone to a therapeutic day school my junior year. Also, that was a normal school, smaller population. The only real difference was that we had group therapy in the afternoons where it's just teenagers in a circle talking about what's bugging them. [laughs] I came back my senior year, and people thought I had died. People were like, she ended up at a hospital because she tried to kill herself. She's this slut, blah, blah, blah. Teenagers can be cruel. I think that hasn’t changed. I was very much an outsider when I first came back to school. I didn't really have any friends. I felt very alone, which also made me really easy prey. One of the first steps in an abusive relationship or in an abuser's plan of action is to isolate their victim. I was already pretty isolated. It just made it easier.

Zibby: Wow. To your point about stigma, by the way, I'm on the board of the Child Mind Institute. It's all about helping childhood mental illness up through teenagers, so it would include high school and all that. There's research and there's treatment, but a huge component is trying to get rid of the stigma of mental illness because that's a whole added layer of everything.

Alisson: I really struggled with -- that was something that I wasn't sure if I should include. On one hand, I felt like it was really important context to who I was and how this happened. I was very lonely. I was very sad. I was depressed. I was very vulnerable. It was part of why I think I was such an easy target. I really believe that. At the same time, I was afraid that because of the stigma it'd be used against me.

Zibby: No.

Alisson: It has been.

Zibby: Really?

Alisson: Yes. One of the first critical reviews of the book, the opening line was, "Alisson Wood had shock therapy, was a cutter, was on twenty different medications, and then this happened." It set me up to be like, oh, she's this crazy unreliable narrator. Who's going to listen to this book? Honestly, that first review was sort of all of my fears. It was everything I was afraid of that would happen. I really felt like it was important to be honest and to be fully honest and fully vulnerable with my reader. I feel like that makes a good memoir. That's part of the point, to share.

Zibby: A hundred percent. It would've been a different story without that context. It's not like because you're depressed you deserved to be sexually abused. Who would think that? The behaviors come from the underlying stuff. I'm sorry that that happened to you. That's really beside the point and someone who just missed the plot of your book entirely.

Alisson: It's so common. It's so common for teenagers and for any age group, but I think it's especially common for teenagers because oftentimes that's when it'll first start popping up. I just think we're so bad at supporting teenagers with this. We're just so bad at it. I think we've come a long way, but there's still a long way to go. Especially queer teenagers or trans teenagers or women, it's tough.

Zibby: I know you worried about the beginning, but even just having the whole story out there when you decided to make this a memoir and publish it and then actually as you were writing it and it was coming out, did you have fears about that for all the personal stuff? The whole thing is very personal.

Alisson: The book is really personal.

Zibby: [laughs] I know. That's what I'm saying.

Alisson: It is a very personal book. You know, I actually am not and didn't worry that much about that. Really, what I worried about was the being honest about the depression part. I worried about how I would be judged for that. For some reason, I was like, this is what it is. I feel like when you write a memoir you make a contract with the reader. It's like, okay, the whole truth, nothing but the truth even when it's really ugly, when it's not flattering. It's funny. I didn't struggle with, someone's going to read this, people are going to know this about me. I struggled at times with the actual writing because it was going back to something really traumatic. It was going back to something really awful and painful and embarrassing and just like, oh, my god, I cannot believe I need to write this scene when this happened. I knew it was important. This bothered me to no end, early readers were like, oh, my god, the scene where he made you pee in front of him, that's the best scene. I'm like, that one? One of the most embarrassing things and shameful and awful things, sexual humiliation things, that ever happened, that's your favorite scene? Okay, great. [laughs] To me, that speaks to how universal in some ways, maybe not that exact situation, but I think for so many women we've been put in situations where we had to do things that we didn't want to. Abuse is so common. Also, the power imbalance abusive relationships like with the teacher, it's incredibly common. I hear from readers every single day still. I hear from readers, emails and DMs and things like that of women thanking me for writing the book, which is just so amazing, but then talking about how, I feel understood. I feel seen. I feel acknowledged because this happened to me or something very similar happened to me. That's honestly the best part about this book and has been the best part about publishing it.

Zibby: Having made it through the trauma of reliving the moment and going through the actual writing and being a creative writing teacher, I have to get your advice for aspiring authors. You must have hours' worth. What are some of the things that were most helpful to you and that you think are the most key in trying to write a memoir?

Alisson: I was really lucky in that I had an awful lot of primary source documents. I had a stack of journals from my senior year. I had all these photographs of me from that time. I had a whole bunch of letters and notes and hall passes and hotel receipts and all these things that were really helpful in creating the timeline because memory is faulty. Memory can make mistakes. An example of something I write about in the book is how I distinctly remembered this moment or this scene where the teacher, in the shop room, in his study hall, the teacher wanted to trade me my bra size for the size of his penis. I distinctly remembered that happening, but I thought it had happened in May. In May, I would've been eighteen. We would've been almost "together." That's still awful, but it sort of mitigated it a bit in my mind.

Then when I was going through my journals and trying to track things, I realized that it had happened on November 21st. That meant I was seventeen. He had only known me for, at most, two months. That also showed how quickly it escalated from after-school help because I was a really good writer to sexual coercion stuff. That today, of course, would've been over text message or a Snapchat or whatever, trying to coerce me to send him a topless photo for a dick pic. That was a moment when I really snapped through the victim blaming and was like, nope, there is no way, no how that anyone can make an excuse for this. There are no jumping jacks that you can do to say this was fine and this was my fault. Nope, nope, nope. That was really upsetting, again, to just face that. I think that was one of the hardest parts about the book. At some points, it felt like I was opening up this onion of trauma. The more I looked, the more I reread, the more I dove into it, the worse it was. Writing the book was really hard.

Zibby: I bet. Also, tell me two seconds about Pigeon Pages.

Alisson: Pigeon Pages is a writing community that I founded about four years ago. I founded it because I really wanted to create my own writing community. I wanted it to be full of women and queer people and non-binary folks and trans folks. Basically, I didn't want any straight white guys in it. [laughs] I wanted to create my own community. We hold monthly readings. We are a literary journal. We publish every week, poetry and prose. It's really wonderful. We're opening tomorrow, an essay contest with Morgan Jerkins, who's the wonderful author, as our judge. We're so excited.

Zibby: I just had her on my podcast.

Alisson: She's the best. She's so wonderful. She's judging our essay contest. It opens October 1st and runs through November 15th. You can find out all sorts of information at --

Zibby: -- Maybe I'll enter. [laughs]

Alisson: We're @PigeonPagesNYC on all the socials, and that's our website.

Zibby: I couldn't believe how many authors who I've had on my podcast have been contributors in some way to Pigeon Pages. I was going down and down and down. Oh, my gosh, so many. I'm all about it. I followed it. I'm very interested. It's awesome.

Alisson: We're a lovely nest.

Zibby: That's so nice.

Alisson: Also, a lot of bird puns.

Zibby: Yes. Why not?

Alisson: We believe writing is joy. Let's be a little silly. We can all get a little pretentious. Pigeon Pages is a place for, all right, let's knock that down a bit. Let's talk about writing, which is what it's supposed to be.

Zibby: I love it. Alisson, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on, for discussing Being Lolita, for going through the pain that you had to go through to get it on the page so that other people could benefit. I hope to continue our conversation offline sometime.

Alisson: Yes. Thank you so much. I'm so honored to be here. I truly appreciate it.

Zibby: It was my pleasure. Bye.

Alisson: Bye.

Deshaun Watson, PASS IT ON

Zibby Owens: Deshaun Watson is American football quarterback for the Houston Texans of the NFL. He played college football at Clemson and led the team to a CFP championship game appearance in 2015 and a national championship win in 2016. He was selected by the Texans twelfth overall in the 2017 NFL Draft. He was named to his first Pro Bowl in 2018. Deshaun, at age twenty-four, has already written a book, which is humbling to someone like me who is forty-four who has not written a book like this. His book is called Pass It On: Work Hard, Serve Others...Repeat. I have to say, I had to -- well, maybe I shouldn't admit this. I had to ask my husband Kyle, I was like, hey, have you heard of Deshaun Watson? He was like, oh, my god! My husband and my son thought that this was pretty much the coolest thing I've done on this podcast. I did it. Now I'm following him on the Houston Texans and spotting him on replays on TV. I had the best time talking to him about his life and the interesting relationship with his mom and Habitat for Humanity and how another football player whose name I'm forgetting who's super, super famous actually helped him get his first home at Habitat for Humanity. Now he's giving back to his community. You should definitely listen to this episode. Then you should get any football lovers in your life to listen to it as well, and they will think you are very, very cool.

Hi, Deshaun. Thanks for doing this. I'm really excited to have you on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books." I can't believe you're not even twenty-five years old and you've already written this book. What is going on? I was like, did I read this right? 1995? I was already in college. I feel like an old lady, oh, my gosh.

Deshaun Watson: Not at all. It's incredible. It's truly a blessing. It's a new experience even for myself, like you said, being twenty-four years old and already have a book coming out. It's something I never even thought of. With the right support cast and the right team I have, they inspired me to be able to take this next step.

Zibby: Wow. Obviously, you're an NFL quarterback. You've accomplished a lot in the football world. What made you want to write this book? Why shame all these people out there who have been trying to write books for their whole lives and come out from the starting gate and do it already?

Deshaun: Just because I feel like it was the best way to touch more people around the world. Of course, if you're a sports fan, then you know about American football. You have the United States and my testimony, you heard about me before. The people that don't watch sports, the people that are in Europe -- I love to travel. I love to travel to Germany. I love London. I love Amsterdam, places like that. Of course, they hear about American football, but they don't know anything about us. For me to be able to express my testimony and my story, I felt like this book can go global. Those people over there can actually read something and find it interesting and pick a nugget.

Zibby: Totally. Has this been a really hard time that you can't travel, being locked down?

Deshaun: It's definitely hard. I'm so ready to get on a flight and just go and have some free time. Definitely been hard.

Zibby: I feel like I will never be upset by an airplane delay again the rest of my life. I will be so excited to get on a plane. I don't think I've ever been in one place so long in my life. Who does this? Who sits around? I don't know. It's amazing. Let's talk more about your book. I didn't know much about your backstory at all. One of the things I was most impressed about was your telling the story starting from a young age when you got the house through Habitat for Humanity and then how as you've grown into this successful football player, now you've even gone back and you've started your own foundation, the Deshaun Watson Foundation. Tell me about that whole full circle of your life and how Habitat for Humanity helped you and how now you're giving back again.

Deshaun: Habitat for Humanity really changed my foundation of me and my family's life growing up in the neighborhood, 815 Harrison Square. I know a lot people see me write 815. That's what it is. It's not my area code. It's the neighborhood that I [audio cuts outs] my first birthday, everything, until I was eleven or twelve years old. It was a different environment. It was the norm for me, but it was a different environment. It was Section 8 apartments. You had to get it how you live and just go from there. My mom did a good job of really managing that. Then Warrick Dunn was able to bless us with that Habitat for Humanity home and put us in a different environment where we never even really experienced or thought we were ever going to have a chance to live. It just opened my eyes to more life. For me to be able to have this platform and do the same thing I watched Warrick Dunn do to change my life and help me get to where I am today, I want to be able to do the same thing, partner up with Habitat, writing the book, and get to these communities to be able to do the same. If I can change one person's life out of all the people that I touch and meet, it's a dream come true for me.

Zibby: What do you think it was about your life? You're someone who decides to give back to the ladies in the cafeteria line because you just feel like it. You started a foundation. You've done all this stuff so early. This desire to give back is amazing. What do you think it was? Is it your mom? She's obviously been such an amazing mom. I was reading your stories. I'm like, how do I be as good a mom as her? What do you think it was about your upbringing or whatever that's made you want to give back in this way?

Deshaun: I think it's because so many people, and I'm not afraid to say it, just so many people helped me along the way and steered my in the right direction. Even if I was falling in the wrong direction, there was always somebody to there to throw me a nugget. I listened. My mom taught me that, to be able to listen and observe everyone that you meet because you can get something good out of whoever you meet. Also, you can get something bad. You want to be balanced in the middle where you see both sides and you take the energy where it takes you and what really stirs in you. I'm a big energy person. I need to be able to do that. I've been at the worst of the worst and at the lowest peak. When I see somebody else that is struggling or needs a little help, I feel like it's my blessing, it's my purpose to be able to help them out in some type of way because I've been there before. I know what they're going through. I want to be able to help them out of that situation.

Zibby: That's amazing. The ability to be so empathetic is so important. It will serve you well, I'm sure, on the field and off the field and all the rest. When you talked in the book about when you were drafted -- that's probably not the right -- when you were the draft pick or whatever -- that's probably not the right way to say that either. I have actually watched the draft with my husband who's a huge football fan, so I could imagine what you were doing. When you read the letter from your mom and she said, we were not supposed to be here, and you were crying and all that, tell me about that moment and her cancer and all the stuff you guys went through. What was it like to get up there? I know it's still early.

Deshaun: I'm literally getting chills now when you mention that because I'm reminiscing about that night and that moment. I couldn't hold it back. There's only been a couple times where I actually just flat-out cried. That was a moment where it was just so much joy, so much passion, so much hard work. Out of twenty-three years of my life and my mom taking care of me and the other kids, it was the moment. She knows too. She's the one that instilled in me, hey, we wasn't supposed to be here. The numbers say we we're not supposed to be here, where we come from. You did it, son. You made it. We made it. We made it together from all the bad with all the good. We stayed focused. We didn't get too comfortable. We kept working. Now we're at this moment and your dream has come true. I used to always tell her as a little boy, "Mom, I'm going to play in the NFL. I'm going to get you in a house." I was always that little boy playing. Now that it came true, it's amazing. When she dealt with her cancer, the first thing she told me, she's like, "Hey son, don't change anything. Get closer to the Lord. Continue to be the son that I want you to be. Continue to go out and be the kid playing football. Don't change your perspective on how you look at life and try to take the street life. You focus on school, football. You focus on the Lord. We're going to be fine." Ever since then, that's what I've been locked in on.

Zibby: Wow. Again, your mom, hats off. I'm telling you. Tell me about your love of chess. I thought that was so interesting, how you called yourself some sort of nerd. What did you say? Hold on, I have a quote. You said, "A football in one hand, a chess piece in the other. How athlete nerdy can you get?" You talked about how chess really helps with football and strategy and your leadership ability. Tell me a little more about the role of chess. I've got my five-year-old playing, so now hopefully he can be a quarterback. [laughs]

Deshaun: I'd never really thought about playing chess. I've always saw it. My QB coach, Quincy Avery, he's got, I don't know if you call it master or professional. He's out in Los Angeles. They came together. We sat down and he taught me how to play chess one day. It was supposed to be thirty minutes. Next thing you know, I looked at the time and it was already three hours. I'm like, whoa, this is actually fun. I'm getting so much out of it. We include it into our workouts. I feel like what I get out of chess is, being the quarterback, I'm always making decisions. I'm always reading my opponent. I'm sitting across the table, I'm reading his move. I'm trying to think what he's thinking. I'm trying to see what he sees at the same time. When I'm sitting back there at quarterback, I'm doing the same thing against the defense guys and making sure that my guys on the right read are making very, very smart decisions at the right time, being patient. Sometimes I got to attack, but sometimes I need to be patient. All that stuff ties in together, especially with the position that I play. It's been awesome.

Zibby: How do you not get distracted? How do you keep all of it in and all those plays and managing where everybody is on the field and then having all the people in the stands? Or maybe not anymore. Who knows what's happening? How do you maintain your focus?

Deshaun: I get in the zone. Once I step on the field, I don't even hear the noise, honestly, especially on the road games. Even home games, I just block out everything. I'm so locked in and focused on that moment and what needs to be done and what job need to be done. I just block it all out. I've always had that way. Sometimes it's hard for people. Sometimes it's not. For me, it's just always been that way.

Zibby: This is how I know I'm not a real athlete. I play tennis. There's a lawnmower five houses away and I'm like, I can't. I just can't. You have stadiums of people and you're like, it doesn't bother me. Speaking of what makes an athlete, you talk about managing losses and how you don't know any great athletes who haven't tried to understand what it was that caused the loss. Otherwise, you can't be a great athlete unless you're really evaluating that and learning from it. Tell me a little more about managing losses and that strategy.

Deshaun: I feel like you get so much more out of the loss than you do a win. You realize a lot more problems or detail issues that happen that caused the loss. If you win, you're, okay, I won. I did this wrong, but onto the next thing. It's not too much correction. When you lose and you take that loss, especially coming into an NFL locker room on that Monday, it's not a good feeling. It's not a good energy. You evaluate every single play that you do. You point out everything. What caused it? What did I miss out? Should I study a little bit harder this week? Should I correct the way I look at different things and different situations? Losses, I look at them as a positive thing. It's really a negative. I look at it as a positive thing because I get so much more out of it.

Zibby: I was reading different parts of your book out to my husband. I'm like, "You know, this guy watches videos all the time." He's like, "That's what you're supposed to do." I guess you're constantly analyzing all the plays and what you can do and how other people find it boring, but you're like, no, no, no. Your brain is just constantly processing.

Deshaun: Yeah, I'm always thinking about football and different situations and always watching film. I've learned too, being in the NFL for three years, that you don't just watch the previous game or you don't watch two weeks ago. You're actually watching the coach that's coaching that team from 1995. I'm like, yo, I was born in 1995. He's still doing the same things? Yeah, he did it versus this player and blah, blah, blah. It's incredible the consistency that a lot of coaches stay and the film work that they do.

Zibby: How are you not afraid? In your book you talk about all your injuries and tearing your ACL twice and all these things that happened to you. How do you get back on the field and not worry? How do you have that confidence in your body that it keeps coming back? How are you not afraid?

Deshaun: I think it just comes with the preparation and the training that I do to get back. I trust in that. I just let it loose on the field. If I have a little fear or have a little doubt or worry, I feel like that's going to cause my injury or that's going to cause me not to perform at my highest level. Before I even step on the field, I make sure that I'm good, locked in. Then once I'm on the field, I just let it loose.

Zibby: You talked in the book several times about how you lined up all your toys as a kid and how everything had to be straight and organized and how that's led to this pursuit. I'm just wondering for all the parents out there who have kids who like to line up their stuff, does this give us hope that maybe we have athletes of your caliber? What do you think?

Deshaun: Your athletes are somebody that's very thoughtful in their decision-making or in strategizing different moves. I used to take marbles, to pencils, I used to break pencils and line them up in different plays, to my toys, to batteries that my mom used to throw away. I'd go through the trash can. I'd get them out. [Indiscernible] would play against each other. That's age four, five, six, seven, eight, all the way until, really, high school. Then I threw all that stuff away once we moved to the Habitat home. My whole time growing up, childhood, I used to always draw up plays and control everyone else was around me when we played football or any type of sports activity.

Zibby: I was going to say, if you're still playing with batteries, maybe I could offer up some other toy suggestions at this point if you run out that one. [laughs] You have incorporated all these principles in your book. You've obviously done a ton of work. I know you worked with a ghostwriter. I read up about her. She's super impressive in her own right. How did you two pair up? What it was like working with a ghostwriter?

Deshaun: We met my rookie year in 2017. I was at the Galleria Mall. She was at a hotel next door. We ran into each other. She hit up my agent. She was like, "Hey, I'm next door. I just seen Deshaun." We met at the hotel lobby. She sat me down and introduced herself, wrote books. She was like, "Your testimony, your story, I feel like you should write a book." At first, I'm like, no, I'm just focused on football. I'm not trying to do all that. I don't even like reading. [laughter] We kind of put that toward the side. She kept contacting my agent, contacting my agent. She was very, very -- it wasn't annoying, but she was very, very passionate about, hey, we need to get this done. I have a feeling this is going to be good. A year and a half later, two years later, we come to this moment and she's still calling. I'm like, yo, let's give it a try. We sat down again and really listened to her and thought out the whole book project. It was just the best situation. I felt like, yeah, you've been right a long time ago. We should've did this in 2017. I would've probably had three books out now.

Zibby: No, but you had so many more stories to include. Imagine your book when you're forty. You'll have shelves like this, like a hundred books by then.

Deshaun: Exactly. I just felt like it was the perfect time to wait and build more stories and build more of my professional career. At this moment at age twenty-four, the first book comes out. Then there's many more stories to happen.

Zibby: How did you do it? Did you dictate to her and she recorded it? What was your process like with her?

Deshaun: It was a lot of phone calls, a lot of FaceTimes, a lot of me talking to my agent when I'm at practice, what's going on, her sending questions to me. I'm filling out questions through emails. It was a lot of that kind of contact. Especially during the season, it was very hard for her to just pop up here. She didn't want to bother me. She wanted me to lock in, which was awesome. We did a lot of emailing and FaceTimes and calls and things like that.

Zibby: Wow, amazing. The line between annoying and persistent and passionate, it's a tricky line. It seems to have paid off for her. That's funny. Now you're going into a new season. Who knows what is going on in the world? You're so thoughtful in the book about outlining your approach to basically every way in which you're living your life, which is just so astounding for anybody, but particularly somebody your age, not to keep talking about your age. How are you taking all this in and managing the uncertainty with the upcoming season? What do you expect? How are you getting yourself ready when there's so much out in the world that we don't know?

Deshaun: Honestly, I had to change the way I process things. Like you said, the word expect, I haven't expected anything. I'm going with the flow now. I had to change that look on, I have a deadline, this is when we're reporting. This is what's going on. We're going to play this team in preseason. I need to be ready to hype it up. Now I have no expectations because I don't know what's going on. I don't want to be disappointed. I don't want to get too high and it brings me too low. I just take it day by day, step by step, but always staying prepared for the next situation and being ready to adjust as fast as possible. If I have that mindset approaching this season, then I think I'll be fine.

Zibby: Are you still training? Do you do all that stuff? All of it?

Deshaun: Yeah, training in an hour or so. I usually train every day and condition and throw and watch a little tape and things like that. Then I hang out.

Zibby: It's exciting. If the NFL season really doesn't happen, I don't know what my husband's going to do.

Deshaun: I don't know what I'm going to do either.

Zibby: Oh, my gosh, a lot more tape to watch, I guess. If you were going to write another book, if you were to give advice to people writing a book, what would you tell them having gone through this process already?

Deshaun: I'd just say open up. Open up your imagination. Open up the experiences that you've dealt with growing up. Just tell your story. That's the biggest thing. Everyone has a story. Everyone has experiences, good, bad, adversity. Be able to open up everything that you have and be able to just let it loose on paper. It might sound crazy. It might be out of order. If you have someone like I had in Lavaille, who was my ghostwriter, they're going to organize it and get it on track. That's what we did.

Zibby: I have to say, when I first started reading your book, I downloaded it onto my iPad. There was the opening scene of you basically getting baptized in Israel. I was like, I think I downloaded the wrong book. [laughs] This must be something else. What is going on?

Deshaun: That was definitely a special moment of my journey.

Zibby: Tell me about the significance of that in the overall context. Then I'll leave you alone in a minute.

Deshaun: It was amazing. My QB trainer, Quincy, he's like my big brother now, they contacted him. It was like, "We want you and Deshaun to come out and train and get the experience and the tour." We decided to do that, spent the week in Israel. They were like, "Hey, you want to get baptized in the river that Jesus got baptized in?" We were like, yeah, that’ll be the coolest moment ever. We did that. It was amazing. The energy, the passion, the people that made sure we were good each and every day, and the food, everything was just amazing. It was probably one of my favorite trips I've ever been on.

Zibby: Wow, I've never been there. Now I'm inspired. For your last question, I'll let you go train and do everything else that's more important, but what do you say to people who are growing up and all have dreams of doing what you're doing? I know you're still in the beginning of your career and everything, but what advice would you give to people so they don't give up, so they don't give up to the point to get to where you are right now? What's the advice? What's your inspiration?

Deshaun: I would say don't have any doubt. Whatever your goals and your dreams are, if it's being the quarterback of an NFL team or being in a movie or whatever you want to be in life, don't have any doubt behind it. Go full throttle at it. Don't be afraid to take losses and make mistakes. That's one thing that I wasn't afraid of going through my path and my journey. I was always very confident in myself in a humble way. Also, I knew that some losses and some mistakes was going to happen, but I'm going to use it into a positive momentum and keep pushing forward.

Zibby: That's great. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books." Thanks for passing it on. Thanks for all of your advice and advice for people like my son and myself and everybody. It's just really awesome life advice. I can't wait to now follow you and see as you get to be old and stodgy like me, I'm kidding, in my forties, but what advice you're going to have over the course of your career. I'm excited to watch it all unfold.

Deshaun: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on here.

Zibby: Have a great day.

Deshaun: You too.

Zibby: Take care. Buh-bye.

Robert Weintraub, THE DIVINE MISS MARBLE

Zibby Owens: Robert Weintraub is the author of The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery. He has written about sports for Slate, Play, ESPN.com, The Guardian, Deadspin, and many more. He's the author of four books including The Divine Miss Marble and also the New York Times best seller No Better Friend. He currently lives in Decatur, Georgia, but grew up in the large shadow cast by Yankee Stadium in Rye, New York.

Thank you so much for coming on "Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books." I'm so excited to discuss Miss Marble with you.

Robert Weintraub: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Zibby: The Divine Miss Marble: A Life of Tennis, Fame, and Mystery is a deep, deep dive into Alice Marble's life. As I was reading it, I was thinking, what was it about her that kept you so interested? You must have spent so much time on this book. What was about her that captivated you so much? What made you write this book?

Robert: A lot of time and a lot of miles back when you could travel freely without worrying about things. I was so impressed by Alice's stick-to-it-ivness, the fact that she got hit with so many obstacles in her life constantly. She always rose back up on her feet and came back stronger. She was a great player, but came from nothing. She had to start playing on hardscrabble cement courts in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and really came from nothing to become this great champion. Then just on the verge of her breakthrough, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was in a sanitarium partially and was out of the sport for two full years and came back from that to win what we would call today the US Open, then it was called the US Nationals, and became the biggest star in the sport. From then on, it was one body blow after another, whether it was other battles with health problems that were debilitating but she kept going through them and a lot of personal issues in her private life and the war which ended her career prematurely, World War II, which really kept her from being an all-time great who everybody would know about today. As I came across and discovered yet one more pitfall after another that she managed to get back from, I just became so impressed with her. I started to idolize her. It made the travel and the long days in the archives going through these dusty old manuscripts and materials, it was easy because I was fascinated by every step she took from then on.

Zibby: You mention at several points in the book how this is what she recorded, but you couldn't verify it anywhere. There was no backup, so you're like, this is what she said. We'll have to take her at her word. It sounded like you had a lot of skepticism about some of it. How did you end up feeling about her retelling of her story? Do you think it was all accurate? What really happened?

Robert: Where the facts met the legend, she liked to print the legend, so they say. You have to put it in context. She talked a lot this espionage mission that she went on during World War II at the behest of the army intelligence to reconnect with a former lover who was a Swiss banker who was working with the Nazis to launder their money. Her assignment was to go and find him in Switzerland, reconnect, and find any evidence she could of this nefarious duty and then come back to America with it. She says she found it and was shot for her troubles by a Russian double agent while being chased through the mountains of the Swiss Alps. It's an incredible story. There's just enough truth or unprovable falsehood in it to make it at least sort of believe. However, as you say, I couldn't really verify much of it. You have to understand, she was a woman who was at these incredible heights of fame during the Depression when everybody in the country was on their knees, really. By the sixties, she was a forgotten figure. She had very little money because she didn't get to earn any through her tennis greatness because it was all amateur in those days. She was a forgotten figure living on the margins in Palm Desert, California. I think there was a lot, this is who I was and if I have to embellish my tale a little bit to get people to remember me a little bit more, then it's okay because I've earned it. I think she did earn it. She always had this maxim, give the fans what they want, whether she was on the tennis court or whether she was singing in a night club, which she did; or appearing on the radio, which she did all the time when she was at the height of her fame; or designing fashions. She also did quite a bit of her own and then sported them on the court and in public. She did many different things in her life. She always did it to please her public. I think this tale of her World War II derring-do may have gone along the same line and she just exaggerated for effect, as we say.

Zibby: It's so interesting because when you talk to memoir writers, there's this whole debate about what exactly is truth? Is it your truth? What do you believe? Is it your perception? Then someone like you comes in who tries to make sense of all of the interpretation and try to squeeze out all the facts. It's a tricky job. It's sort of murky when you have to rely on people's memory or their depictions of themselves.

Robert: You are not kidding. It is. You always have to take the fifty thousand-foot view. It's not always easy because you want to believe the memoir writer. You want to go on what she says was her journey at all times. Memory is tricky, of course. You never want to believe the person closest to the action because their memories are the least reliable. I found that for the most part she was accurate for what she remembered and talked about. She actually wrote two memoirs. Another one came out right at the height of her fame. In both of them, there's a lot of truth in there. There's just a little bit extra involved that was done either to sell more books or to give her what she thought was the true, as you mentioned, this true life that she thought about in her head as opposed to the facts that you come across in the newspapers of the time. I tried to walk that tightrope very carefully and not not give her the benefit of the doubt but at the same time not crap all over what she saw in her own life. [laughs]

Zibby: One of the things that you said that drew you to her and what drew me to this story and to many sports stories, honestly, is the ability to persevere and what makes some people be able to overcome things in their life and flourish and use their physical gifts and translate it all with a perfect combination of mental toughness and physical agility to become a huge sports star, whereas so many others, most people, can't achieve that. Then when I was reading about Alice and even the rape scene at the beginning of the book, even if you just had that -- then she had so many people die and drop dead next to her and one thing after another and then coming back from a two-year break. Nowadays on the tennis tour, we hear about somebody gets surgery or Djokovic is out for a little bit or something. Back then, they didn't have all of that machinery to rehabilitate people. Anyway, that was my long way of saying, first of all, what do you think makes some people able to overcome this type of adversity? Second, why do you think we're all just so drawn to stories like this?

Robert: I wish I knew what made people be able to do it. I would do it myself. It's really incredible, as you say. I didn't even mention her sexual assault, absolutely. She lost her father when she was very young. It's an incredible portrait of somebody who just refused to lose, to use a cliché. I hate to do that. Michael Jordan's been in the news lately just because of this documentary about him recently. He's somebody else who just manifested everything around him to use to a single-minded purpose, which was win games. I think Alice was maybe not quite that single-minded, but had the same sort of mindset, which was, this is what I want to do. Not only am I not going to let things happen to me that will derail me from that, I'm going to use them as fuel. That's really rare. It's incredibly admirable. It's just something in the brain chemistry, I suppose, that makes them, these rare few, for better or for worse and mostly for worse, something to overcome, as something to push them day in and day out. When she was laid up for two years, she got out of bed and began a really rigorous physical training program that we would take for granted today, obviously, but at the time was just unheard of. People were like, why are you skipping rope every day and doing all this physical training? She said, I'm going to get back to the top. I'm going to do what it takes to be there. That's what I want to do in life. You have to really admire somebody who sets aside everything else like that and uses that kind of motivation to get to where they want to go. It's so rare and so hard to do that. As I say, that's what really in the end drew me to her and to her story. For all the things that she did that we might question in terms of memoir writing, it was overwhelmed by the fact that my admiration for her was so deep because of her amazing comeback abilities.

Zibby: This book felt very cinematic to me. It felt like I was reading the movie that I was going to eventually watch. Do you have an actress in mind who would play Alice if this were to become a movie?

Robert: Wow, that's a great question. I suppose the first person just who leaps to mind, maybe, is Charlize Theron because she has that combination of great physical presence as well as the beauty and grace and all the other attributes that Alice had but is very believable as somebody you could see running her opponent into the ground on the tennis court and then changing her clothes and singing in a night club or going out on the town with one of her many admirers. There's probably no shortage of actresses who could make it happen, but Charlize is the first one that leaps to mind. Obviously, that would be great if it ever came to pass, but I'm not holding my breath.

Zibby: Still, fun to think about it.

Robert: Yes, very much so.

Zibby: You write about all kinds of sports, not just tennis. Tell me about your love of sports yourself. Do you love to play sports? How did you end up becoming an avid sportswriter?

Robert: I think I followed the traditional path, which was I played avidly until I realized I was not very good at them, and certainly not good at them to continue playing beyond high school, at which point I switched over to covering them. I worked in sports television for a long time and then when I had a family transitioned into writing because it was a lot less travel and long hours. I've just always been really fascinated by the history of sports and the day in, day out competition of sports and the outsized personalities that come with it and the things that we are talking about. People who wind up achieving greatness have these incredible qualities that so few of us have. I think most of us, certainly myself included, are drawn to that. By writing about them, I get to sort of walk in their shoes a little bit. I get to feel at least a little bit how it must have felt for Alice to be at her lowest of lows and overcome all that to get to this incredible precipice. I think that's what draws a lot of us to sports in general, is the fact that you get to see these athletes who are performing at this incredibly high level and knowing how they got there, each of them with their individual stories intact. It's really something that's fascinating. It's a drama that never ends. When we get sports back someday, hopefully, that will certainly continue to be the case. I'll keep covering it until the day I die. I can't get enough of, really.

Zibby: My husband is such a sports fan. This quarantine, I swear, I think that's been the hardest part for him. Whenever anyone askes, he's like, "I miss sports so much."

Robert: Him and me both. It becomes part of your everyday life. It really does. We can talk in the abstract about how seeing these great athletes perform is so much of it, but it's also just a daily thing that's part of your life. It becomes as much a part of your day as brushing your teeth or walking the dog, turning on the ballgame and seeing how your team did. When you take that away out of nowhere, really, that's very tough to overcome for all of us. In a way, we're all Alice Marble right now and we have to overcome this body blow. We'll get there. We'll get back to the heights. I'm sure of it.

Zibby: It's true. I feel like it's a double whammy with sports because you have the community of shared rooting for someone. To be a fan, you're a part of something. I feel like it's hard these days to feel a part of anything, particularly now. Then to have that taken away, what does it mean if you're a Denver Broncos fan when nobody's playing? I'll just say we've had a lot of Tennis Channel reruns on the TVs around here. I'm ready for some new matches.

Robert: Very understandable. Exactly, these live dramas missing from the -- the matches may be great, but when you know who won already, it kind of takes away from a lot of the pleasure, unfortunately. I'm with you. I'm dying for the return of live sports. I'm a big New York Yankees fan and Cincinnati Bengals fan. It's part of your identity after a long time. Especially, as you say, you become a community with your fellow fans. To have that ripped away from you, you start to question who you are a little bit. The sooner sports can get back and make us all whole again, that’ll be a good day.

Zibby: It's true. How long did it take, by the way, to do all this research and write this book? It must have been a while.

Robert: Two-year range from beginning to end including the preproduction, as they say, trying to figure out if it was really a book. Then once it was and I had a way to tell it, there were a lot of ways to go with it, but I had to kind of insert myself into the story a little bit more than I usually would be inclined to do because of the mystery involved and because so much of it is trying to figure out what exactly Alice did and did not do. I turned it into a little bit of a mystery story where I'm the dogged detective on the case just figuring out what in Alice's life and what happened was real and was not real. That took a little bit longer than usual, but about a two-year range, which is pretty standard for me for turning a book around. Some people take a lot longer. Other people who write a lot faster than I do and I'm envious of can crank them out in less time. For me, it's about two-year range.

Zibby: Do you know what your next two years are allocated to at this point?

Robert: Great question. Nothing set definitely set in stone, so I probably shouldn't talk about it, but more interesting tales of a fascinating figure. Let's put it that way, not necessarily involved in tennis, but another rich human being. Let's say that.

Zibby: Great. Awesome. Do you play tennis, by the way?

Robert: Yeah, absolutely. I love to play. I don't play as much as I used to with the family and the wonky knees. I definitely enjoy playing. I live in Atlanta where there's a huge doubles league scene, so I've played for many years in the doubles leagues around Atlanta. It's great. It's the kind of thing I hope to get back to when we can all shake hands over the net again. That's for sure.

Zibby: Exactly. I love tennis. I feel like it's like you're having a conversation when you're not even talking. It's so fun. That's what I love about it.

Robert: Every stroke is another witticism or declaratory statement. That's right.

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

Robert: Boy, that's an open question. I'll tell you, yeah. I would say certainly if you think something is worthy of a story to be told at book length, do it. Like I say, I started in television. I was a big reader. I always thought I could write a book, but at no point did I ever say to myself, let's just go ahead and do it, until the time came and somebody encouraged me and said, "You can do it." I said, "Yeah, you're probably right. I can." There's no alternative to just sitting down and doing it and banging it out. I would certainly say if you're writing a book-length treatise there, don't think about the big picture. That gets too overwhelming. Just think about that day's writing. What's this small little chunk that you can bite off and finish in the near future? Keep your goals small and easily attainable. That way after a lot of those goals are achieved, you find yourself with a big goal achieved as well, a big book all ready to be published. It takes some doing, but it's not beyond any of you out there. I'd say that for sure.

Zibby: I think that's good life advice in general. Anything could seem overwhelming unless you break it down into small pieces.

Robert: Exactly. That's the best way to go, as you say, hour by hour. If you look at the big picture, boy, you'll just bury your head under your covers and stay in bed forever.

Zibby: Yes, particularly these days, particularly at the thought of perhaps not even having school in the fall. Oh, my gosh. How old are your kids?

Robert: I have a twelve-year-old girl and a ten-year-old boy. They are enjoying the idea of not going back to school very much, but I'm dreading it. [laughs] Like most people, you get more of a parent/teacher role this fall. It's a cross we all have to bear, it looks like.

Zibby: Yeah. I have thirteen-year-old boy-girl twins. Then I have a five and seven-year-old. My little kids are fine, but my twins, my thirteen-year-old daughter misses her friends so much that she's willing to sit in school all day if she gets to hang out with them.

Robert: Exactly. That's the other thing, the social component. This is beyond the dumbing down of our kids. It's horrible for these kids not to be able to see their friends every single day. I feel so bad for them. Can't get them sick either, so it's a rock and a hard place.

Zibby: Right, I know. I keep thinking this is probably the ideal time in my own personal life for this to have happened where I'm happy not really being that social and getting all my socializing done over the internet by talking to friends and family and just hanging out with my kids and being very settled. At so many other parts of my life, this would've been a total disaster when things were up in the air or when I was trying to meet somebody. Anyway, whatever, I'm going on a tangent here.

Robert: I hear you. Listen, as a writer, I'm a natural shut-in anyway, so this is right up my alley. In that sense, social distancing isn't a problem, but all the other aspects of it are just terrible. The sooner it's over, the better, absolutely.

Zibby: Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks so much for chatting with me today. Thanks for the entertainment of your book. I will channel Miss Marble as I'm playing tennis later today and the resilience that she had.

Robert: Good for you, very good. Wear shorts. That was her big thing. She chucked aside the skirts and put on the shorts and changed the game forever. I would definitely advise you to not play the game in calf-length skirts if you can avoid it.

Zibby: You know, I actually wouldn't mind playing tennis in a calf-length. I love long skirts. I'm wearing a tennis skirt now. I hate shorts. I feel like I should've been born in a different era. I would've been happy with --

Robert: -- You were a pre-Alice Marble type.

Zibby: Exactly. Maybe one of these days we'll meet in person and could play some tennis and all the rest.

Robert: No doubt. I'd love to have a conversation over the net with you at any time.

Zibby: Sounds great. Thanks so much.

Robert: Thank you very much. I appreciate the time.

Zibby: Take care. Buh-bye.

Robert: Take care. Bye.

Ali Wenzke, THE ART OF HAPPY MOVING

Zibby Owens: I'm here today with Ali Wenzke who's the debut author of The Art of Happy Moving: How to Declutter, Pack, and Start Over While Maintaining Your Sanity and Finding Happiness. She moved ten times in eleven years and started a blog called The Art of Happy Moving. She currently lives in Chicago with her husband and three children.

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

Ali Wenzke: Thank you so much for having me, Zibby. I love your podcast. I'm so excited to get to chat with you. Thank you so much for having me.

Zibby: It's my pleasure. I was just about to tell you, I had so much fun going through your book. There is so much useful and fun information. It was like a home improvement magazine meets self-help life skills meets really hands-on, useful advice. It was great, and so pretty and so fun to look at. It was a treat. I felt like it was total escapist-type book.

Ali: Thank you so much. I really appreciate that.

Zibby: No problem. Why don't you tell listeners what The Art of Happy Moving is about?

Ali: The Art of Happy Moving is a guide to make moving a less stressful and a happier experience. It's divided up into two halves. The first half is really getting ready for the move, so deciding whether you should move at all and how to declutter, buying and selling a home, moving with pets, telling your kids about it, and how to go through that whole process. That's the first half. Then the second half of the book is once you're there and how to really live happily ever after, so how to create a home that you love, how to make connections with people when you move to a new city, how to create new habits when you move. That's one thing that I hope readers take away from this, is that it is a fresh start and this is a perfect time to start new habits and to have your life you [indiscernible] expected. I was thinking of it later that it's like a makeover book. You're starting off, and the beginning is like the before. The second half is the after. This is the new fabulous you after you move and the steps to get there.

Zibby: I also think -- we're recording this now in quarantine via Skype. This obviously has huge applications for when people are about and out and there's tons of moving. I know there is some moving now too. I feel like this book is so helpful, particularly now because people are at home and regrouping in such a big way and looking at their home and spending time in their home. Half of your book is all about that. It's so useful. People are talking about how they don't have time -- they're meeting their neighbors for the first time. It's almost like the entire world has decided to just move and live where they actually live. Do you know what I mean?

Ali: [laughs] Uh-huh. I grew up in Miami. We went through some hurricane situations where everything was shut down. It was very similar where you get to know your neighbors. You're living at home and just finding joy in where you are and the things that you love about your house, or deciding to make changes. I know a lot of people are decluttering right now. I keep seeing everyone posting on Instagram of things that they have decided to declutter all of their stuff. They're doing their closets. I think people want a sense of organization and structure amidst all the chaos. They're trying to find some place to have control. It's a good time. You're at home, so a good time to start doing your closets and everything. I do think it's helping to find ways to love your home right now because that's where we all are right now.

Zibby: You might as well.

Ali: You might as well, exactly.

Zibby: You might as well love it because that's what you got. You moved ten times in eleven years. Then you started a blog about it called The Art of Happy Moving. Why did you move so much? I want to know about each one, a sentence about each move.

Ali: I would love to say Dan and I are romantic nomads who go where the wind takes us, but no, we're very practical. We went for medical school for my husband, law school for me. We were following our education and our careers. We moved from Massachusetts to Maryland to Ohio to California to Illinois to Tennessee and then back to Illinois with a few local moves in there as well. It was really to follow our dreams and our life goals that took us crisscrossing around the country.

Zibby: Then some of that time you had children too in the mix.

Ali: Yes. We had three kids once we moved to -- when we were in Chicago. We were in Illinois. Then we moved to Tennessee with all of them. Then we moved back. My youngest daughter, by the time she was a little past two years old, she had moved into her fourth house. She was like, "I'm never moving again." She would just walk around the house and be like, "Never moving. Never moving." She had been through a lot.

Zibby: I actually liked, you were really open about how you moved one place and you just didn't like it. It wasn't what you expected. It was Knoxville, right?

Ali: Yes.

Zibby: It just wasn't the community you had in mind. The suburban lifestyle was a little too spread out for you. You had to reassess. That's a big deal, having to come to that conclusion based on feeling. Talk about that.

Ali: It was a tough experience because we had moved so often. I just figured we could live anywhere and we would be happy anywhere. Knoxville, Tennessee, is beautiful. It is a wonderful place. The people are really nice. We had made a pros and cons list when we were leaving Chicago. On the pros list was no state income tax, the beautiful weather. I'm from Miami, so weather is important. There was no state income tax. The weather was beautiful. We're by the mountains, a great place to raise the kids, all of these things which are true. Knoxville, Tennessee, is a beautiful place, really family friendly. Then on the other side were all the things that I didn't really look inward to me and think of what is important in my day-to-day life. Now, for me, I know I love being at the lake and going for runs around the lake. That's something that brings me a lot of joy. Going to comedy clubs in Chicago, the restaurants, having our kids walk to school, there were a lot of things that Knoxville didn't have. It's not Knoxville. It's just the things that are important to me. I do talk about a lot in the book, to really look inward of what's important to you. Florida is a fabulous place to live. I love Florida, but a lot of people hate living in Florida. It's not that it's the location. It's who you are and what's important to you. Connections was hard for me in Knoxville. It was a very tight-knit community. That was one of the big reasons I wrote this book, was because of social connections and wanting to help people when they moved to a city and they were displaced and they didn't know anyone. It was really hard for me. I have found that many people find themselves in that situation. That was really the inspiration for writing the book.

Zibby: Wow. When did the blog start?

Ali: Going a little bit backwards, one of the first things that I did was I created a company called Friend Matchup. This was, again, because I wanted to find a solution to people moving to a new place. Friend Matchup was just like match.com but for platonic friendships when you move to a new city. It was specifically for people moving to a new city. I didn't have the money to make it what I wanted to do with it. I shut it down, but I had written a lot for my website, Friend Matchup. I had all of this information and knowledge that I wanted to share. I thought, there's a need for this. I know because all these people from around the world had signed up Friend Matchup and said, I'm in Paris. I'm in Seattle. I just moved here and I'm really lonely. I figured, all this information, I need to get it out of me and create a book. I wrote a first draft of my book. Then I was very fortunate to get an agent. I realized I needed to flesh out my writing more. I had focused a lot on families and kids in the first draft. I started interviewing dozens and dozens of people about their moves and talking to movers and realtors and home stagers and getting the whole picture of moving. A blog seemed like the perfect place to do this, to have my different posts all the time about all the different aspects of moving. It was really fun getting direct feedback from readers and connecting with readers and just learning about the different issues that they were having and for me to be able to help them. I had my blog. Then I was very fortunate to get a publisher with William Morrow. That was how The Art of Happy Moving was born.

Zibby: You threw in there that law school was one of the reasons why you moved. I'm assuming you're also a trained lawyer, that you finished law school?

Ali: I did. Yes, I'm a lawyer by training, but I didn't practice law.

Zibby: What brought you to law school?

Ali: That's a great question. Originally, I thought I was going to be an international lawyer because I studied French, Spanish, and Italian in college. I wanted to help people through negotiations and what not. Then I got married. We were going to be domestic here in the US. I just wanted to have a background in something that could help me anything. With the law, the law comes up all the time, so any contract negotiation, real estate, but then also other things that pop up. I thought I would probably use it more in a business setting than in a legal setting at that point. Actually, I love school. [laughs] Going to law school was really fun.

Zibby: I love school too. Actually, what I'm doing now is more similar to school than anything I've done in the last twenty years because now I have routine deadlines and books to read and assignments. I feel like I've tried to structure my own little school.

Ali: That's fantastic. You're living the dream.

Zibby: [laughs] Yeah, right. Oh, yeah, that's it, living the dream. You include a five-step roadmap to moving, which is change your mindset, set goals, simplify, prepare, and focus on community, I'm just summarizing there, which is really what we can do about basically any challenge in our lives, moving, anything we're going through now. How do you feel like this might apply to the fact that we're all at home? Changing your mindset, setting goals, simplifying, preparing, community, which of these is most relevant to you today?

Ali: I want to say all of them. I do. With changing the mindset, for me when we first started all these pandemic -- we've now been home, we're twenty-eight days that we've been at home. I felt a lot of panic. Panic was my mindset at the time. My husband's a doctor. Lots of his family is doctors. My college roommates are doctors. I was very worried about a lot of people that I care about. Then I started switching my mindset to gratitude where I started to feel thankful for any moment that we had together. Then thinking about food, I was very panicked in the beginning about food. Did I get enough food? Are we going to be okay? Then I switched to gratitude. We have the food that we have right now. I'm so thankful for what we have on the table. I'm so thankful for Instacart that came and brought more food. It was a very big day. I think changing your mindset is just critical at all points to really look at the positive and to try to find ways to see goodness in tough times. It's the same thing with the moving that I try to do. It's stressful, of course. People look at it as stressful and dread, but then at the end thinking of it as an opportunity and what can come of it. I think the same is true with the pandemic and what we're going through right now.

I also think the setting goals was another one of them. I realized that for me it's sort of like a coping mechanism, setting goals, because it gives you a purpose. About a week ago when we realized, okay, we're in this, we're going to be here for a while, being the self-help author mom that I am, I was like, all right kids, here's some worksheets and we're going to set goals. Each of the kids set their goals of what their academic goals are. What do they hope to accomplish in the next couple months? What their physical fitness goals are, if they're going to try out for teams next year. What do they need to do to get ready for that? What are their social goals? Who are the people that they want to make sure to keep in contact with? whether it's friends or family members, cousins. Even though we're all at home, we do have limited energy of expending and time, so to really make time for those relationships.

Then also hobby goals, what are fun things that we want to do in these next couple months? I think setting goals is important just to give you purpose through all of this. Again, control over chaos where you can just find ways to make things work. Preparedness is important, reducing stress and simplifying. I do think the most important is connection. Again, it's the reason I wrote the book. Also, if you look at all the happiness research, the number-one indication of happiness is your social connections. I think we all feel that right now. That's never more true than this moment that we realize we need each other. Finding ways to connect with our loved ones right now, whether it is over Skype -- we've been doing Houseparty. I don't know if you've used that app, but it's really fun because you can play games with people at the same time. I think all five steps are important, but connections, I think the connections is everything.

Zibby: I think you're right. I didn't mean to ask you to have to pick one. [laughter] I wanted to highlight all five too. They really are great. By the way, that's really good advice about what you're doing with your kids because we have not set any goals. I'm going to literally get off this podcast and go write up some charts for those.

Ali: I can send you mine if you want.

Zibby: Awesome. Great. Even better. How old are your kids?

Ali: Fourteen, twelve, and my daughter just turned eleven a couple weeks ago. We had a quarantine birthday party.

Zibby: Nice. We haven't had a birthday in quarantine yet, but I'm sure we'll get there. I love doing quizzes. I feel like I was trained by Seventeen and YM and all those magazines back in the day. Now of course, they have quiz magazines that are just quizzes. Did you know that?

Ali: No, I didn't know that.

Zibby: I have a tween daughter. I have tween twins. The quizzes in your book were great because it asks you how to pick out where you want to live, what type of environment. Do you want a Carrie Bradshaw lifestyle? Do you want to listen to chirping birds when you wake up? I took this quiz. I live -- not right now because I'm out of the city just while this is all going on, but I mostly live in New York City and have my entire life. I didn't pick any letter A, which would tell you to live in a city. I'm a little concerned now about my choice of where my main home base is. I got D, which was basically you just want to be around your family and your loved ones, and it almost doesn't matter where you live. Tell me about the categories. What do you do if you are not living in the right place or you're a D like me?

Ali: For D, you love the country. Is that true? That's kind of the way that the quiz is. If you're a D, you are a country person. Do you think you're a country person in the city?

Zibby: Maybe. Right now, I'm a country person in the country and I'm really happy. [laughs]

Ali: It's fun to do the quizzes. I also grew up on Seventeen and doing all those magazines. I wanted to put them in there so that there would be just something fun and lighthearted while you're moving, there's a lot going on when you're moving, but also to create it as a starting point for a discussion. If you're moving with other people, you could see what's important to you, what's important to them. Let's say you are in the city. My advice would be to focus on the things that you can change. If you are a country person or someone who just likes to be at home, then focus on making sure that your home is a place that you can entertain people, if that's the way that you like to be with family or, if possible, to get an apartment with a garden view or a little bit quieter. There's always tradeoffs, but to change the things that you can change or focus on the things you can change. Then also, having your vacations. Let's say you have to be in New York City for work or whatever. Then make sure that your vacation time is in the space where you feel recharged. Instead of going to San Francisco for vacation, then find a country house somewhere that you can spend a week there.

Throughout the book and doing all the quizzes, I just wanted it as a way that people could really be more in tune with themselves. What are the little things that make them happy? Then you can incorporate that. It was fun doing it with my kids. They were doing the quiz of where they liked to be. For me, I'm a nature person and more suburban nature. I realized I need to be outside. I need to, whenever I can, go for a walk. That will make me feel better. Then hearing my kids, it's just funny. It was a different quiz about the home and what's important to you in your house, whether you are a visual person, or the smells. My daughter was a listener. She loved the sounds. I never would've known that had we not done the quiz together and talked about it. Now she has a fountain in her room. She always has music going or a sound maker. Those are things that bring her joy.

Zibby: I love that. I was a feeling person, which I could've told you because everything, I have to touch and put up to my face. All your tips, I was like, that is what my dining room looks like. That is my bedroom carpet. Those were awesome. I loved those. What is coming next for you? What do you want to do next? By the way, are you done moving? Are you firmly set where you are now? Or do you feel there are more moves in your future?

Ali: The average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime. I think statistically we probably have more moves left. I don't know. I wouldn't say never. We may be moving again. In terms of what's next, I love helping people with moving. I'm going to continue with my blogging. I do a lot of speaking engagements. Right now, I'm trying to help people through the pandemic of moving because a lot of people are having to move right now. They had houses for sale or they're buying places. They need to move. I'm trying to work with organizations to -- donations right now, you can't donate things because of the pandemic. That is one thing I'd love to tell listeners who are decluttering. Please hold onto your items right now while you're decluttering. I went for a run a couple days ago. There were bags and bags and bags outside of a donation bin of things that people has been discarding during the pandemic. It's been raining. They're all sopping wet. They're not getting picked up. All these items that will not be able to be used is really sad. Please hold onto your items. They will be needed more than ever when this pandemic is over.

I'm trying to find a solution. I'm working with a major moving and storage organization, and moving with movers, and trying to find a storage facility where potentially people who are moving could just leave their things in storage and leave them there in quarantine, basically, so that when this is all over all of these charities can come pick up the items. I'm hoping to get that put together. If I do, I will let everybody know. For now, I'm focused on this and trying to help people through the move. It's different people that are moving every year. I just want to help them as they're going through it. Eventually, I'll probably write another book. For now, I'm just really focused on getting the message out about happy moving and how to make it a less stressful experience and to get the joy out of it because it is an incredible opportunity. I love the fresh start of moving. I am someone who actually enjoys moving because there is this goodness at the other end of it. That's what I'm doing for now.

Zibby: I would hope you like moving after dedicating your whole life. If you were like, ugh, what a pain, then I would say maybe it's time to look into something else. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Ali: Yes. One of the main things I would say would be to get on social media. I'm not saying this in terms of selling books. I think you hear that, you should be on social media. For me, I was never on social media until I started my blog. It was really scary because I was private. I just wasn't on social media. Having a social media author presence where you can connect with other writers is so important because you will get to go through all the stages with them. Writing can be a rollercoaster of ups and downs as you're going through it. To have other people on the ride with you makes it so much fun. You will celebrate each other's victories. You will commiserate over the tough parts. It makes all the difference. I have been very fortunate throughout this whole journey to make friends all around the world through Instagram. Some people prefer Twitter, Facebook, whatever, but for me, through Instagram, just meeting all these amazing writers everywhere. I would say get on social media because writing can be a lonely profession. This way, you always have your friends with you. You will make all these great connections. Start there. You learn a lot from each other too. Any questions, you can just ask your writer friends on social media.

Zibby: I love that. That's awesome. Thank you also, by the way, for contributing an essay to wefoundtime.com, my new online magazine that will be coming out soon too.

Ali: Thank you so much. I love your new magazine. I was reading all the articles last night. It just made me feel better.

Zibby: Good. That was the point. Thank god. Okay, I helped one person. It was all worth it. [laughs]

Ali: It was totally worth it. It did. It made me smile. Thank you, Zibby.

Zibby: Thanks so much, Ali.

Ali: Thank you. Buh-bye.

Zibby: Bye.

Beatriz Williams, HER LAST FLIGHT

Zibby Owens: Beatriz Williams is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally best-selling author of The Golden Hour, The Summer Wives, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, A Hundred Summers, and several other works of historical fiction including her latest book, Her Last Flight. She is the screenwriter for the television adaptation of The Summer Wives which is currently in development with John Wells Productions. A graduate of Stanford University with an MBA in finance from Columbia University, Beatriz worked as a communications and corporate strategy consultant in New York and London before she turned her attention to writing novels that combine her passion for history with an obsessive devotion to voice and characterization. Beatriz’s books have won numerous awards, have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and appear regularly in best-seller lists around the world. Born in Seattle, Washington, Beatriz now lives near the Connecticut shore with her husband and four children, where she divides her time between writing and laundry.

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

Beatriz Williams: Thank you so much for having me.

Zibby: You have such an interesting background for an author having gotten your MBA and all of that. I actually got an MBA too. I wanted to talk to you a little about that and how your traditional, more consultant, strategy-type brain morphed and now started writing all this fiction. Tell me about that.

Beatriz: It's actually the other way around.

Zibby: Oh, no way.

Beatriz: I was somebody who never wanted to do anything but write books. What was I doing in the business world, getting an MBA, finance, and all that? It does help -- my father's an engineer. I was never that kind of writer who is allergic to numbers and science. I always loved numbers and science. In fact, a couple of my books have dealt with science-y issues. In The Secret Life of Violet Grant, I was in the world of physics in pre-war Germany. Actually, my current book that's coming out, Her Last Flight, deals with early aviation. Of course, I'm not going into long, technical explanations, but that whole process fascinates me, the science of flight and the various things that pilots would have to do in the age before GPS and sophisticated instruments to figure out where they were on the face of the Earth. This is all very fascinating to me. My love has always been literature and writing. I always wanted to do that. I think I was just scared, partly because my father, he's British, and having grown up in a post-war rationing Britain, really wanted to have me do something practical with my life. I went to college. I actually majored in anthropology. He was very proud. It was more like trying to get a liberal arts education and wanting to square that circle.

How do I find a way to make a living and yet write? Writing, you do have to have a lot of guts or else just an enormous amount of unjustified self-confidence. You're putting yourself out into the world kind of naked. People will judge you. They will say things to you that your boss would never say to you in a normal job. You just have to take it. You're not even allowed to respond back to criticism. You do have to go in there with a certain amount of courage. As my father would say, many are called, few are chosen. What if this thing that was supposed to be my big talent all my life, what if I'm not actually good at it? I had all these fears. Also, going to a college where people were very success oriented, there was no point in doing anything unless you were going to be wildly successful, I went into the business world, Wall Street. Believe it or not, easier to succeed on Wall Street than to succeed in publishing. Then I got married, had kids. I was home with the kids and I thought, okay, this is the moment for me to actually do what I really want to do with my life, which was to write. I started taking classes and learning the more technical side of writing and storytelling in particular and eventually got to the point where I thought I had something other people might actually want to read.

Zibby: That's amazing. I love that story. Thank you.

Beatriz: [Indiscernible].

Zibby: It's true. I feel like it really informs the reading when you know where the author's coming from and how you had to keep coming back to that passion of yours. I think it's really always nice to hear.

Beatriz: I had this enormous burst of creativity when I first started writing. You see I have so many books. I even had a pen name I was writing under. There are additional books there. It was partly because it was just, I had so much inside me, all this pent-up decades of stories that I wanted to tell. Now that kind of has slowed down a bit for me. I'm a little more measured about my books and just the sentences and everything that goes into them. There's a complexity there. That initial freshness, that burst of huge creativity, it's definitely transitioning for me into something more nuanced and thoughtful. I think the books are getting more complicated and not quite the sense of an ending that's obvious and pat. If you're somebody who doesn't like ambiguous ending, I'm starting to kind of transition into that. That sense of ambiguity to me is so fascinating because it's just so much of what we encounter in real life.

Zibby: I read you said somewhere that even though you write a lot of historical fiction, it's really just the people in those moments, it's the history itself that draws you to the stories. Tell me a little more about that.

Beatriz: I'm obsessed with history from my childhood. We were out there in suburban Seattle. My parents, we would go to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, every year. That was our family vacation. Everyone else got to go to the beach. I was watching Shakespeare plays. We had season tickets to the Seattle Opera, which was actually quite, certainly at the time and I think even now, a very innovative opera house. They had a really dynamic company there. Opera is historical fiction. They were doing historical fiction. Shakespeare was doing historical fiction even in his own time. To me, the past has always been a window into the present. The best way to understand what is going on today is to understand what happened in the past. I go back to [indiscernible] again. It was [indiscernible] who said facts are not important, which is heresy right now if you're a historical fiction writer. Facts are obviously important. You want to create that verisimilitude.

What is more important, because can disagree about the facts and the interpretation of the facts, to me, what is important is understanding how people lived and breathed and talked and ate and encountered the world around them in a particular historical era. I will do everything I can to make sure that the facts are right. If I need to sort of bend a few dates and so on for the purposes of storytelling, I will try to make it very clear in my author's note. You can read facts in nonfiction. There are some amazing nonfiction writers who do it brilliantly. What you're coming to with fiction is the human story and what it is like to exist within a certain historical environment. What we learn is not just that, wow, these people are the same as us, but that also history is repeating itself. We are so often making the same choices or faced with the same impossible, sometimes, choices that we were in the past. How do we get through that? How do we square human nature with the sense of civilization? Learning to become better human beings, to me, that's kind of the core of my project as a historical fiction author.

Zibby: Tell me a little more about Her Last Flight.

Beatriz: Her Last Flight kind of goes back to -- I keep talking about my dad, but he really did have an enormous influence on me as a child. He actually was a pilot back in his college days until they figured out he's actually colorblind. He was flying with, they called it the University Air Squadron. In the UK, it's like the ROTC for pilots going into the RAF. I always had a background of aviation going on in the household, loved to fly, and had read some books that were set in that period. I'm fascinated by it, and particularly by the pilots. Your chances of dying were so high. I wanted to write a book about a female pilot. My initial prompt was the Amelia Earhart mystery, which of course is one of the most fascinating mysteries in recent human history, what happened to her. I sort of posed a what-if. Then I went off and did research and realized that she was not the only fascinating female pilot out there. She just had a really good publicist who happened to be her husband. That's one part of the story, a female pilot who has a really good publicist for a husband and is not quite sure that this is the life she wants to lead. She wants to fly. All this other stuff going on, to her, gets in the way of the purity, the beauty of flight.

The story's actually told through the eyes of another character, a photojournalist. War-weary, she has been taking photographs in the European battlefield in the second world war. She was there during the trials at Nuremberg. She's at a moment in her life when she really wants to find something worthwhile. She goes in search of, actually, the pilot that had been this -- Irene Foster, her flying partner, who also disappeared around the same time. She goes all the way to Hawaii. She follows clues and ends up in Hawaii and discovers a woman who's living there who she thinks is actually Irene Foster, the vanished pilot. That's actually the starting point of this story. We go back and forth between Irene's story, which is told as excerpts of a biography written by our photojournalist, Janey Everett, many years later. We hear Irene's story through Janey's eyes. Then we hear Janey's story as she slowly starts to unpeel the layers and we start to realize why she's been so obsessed with these pilots and their disappearance.

Zibby: Wow. That's the best sell.

Beatriz: I just realized in the middle that I haven't actually done the sell speech yet, so I was really making it up as I went along. I hope it wasn't too convoluted there.

Zibby: No, it's great. I'm sorry. I always put people on the spot. I like to hear what people come up with.

Beatriz: Discovering the mystery behind what happened to this person. It's not Amelia. I certainly borrow some biographical details from Amelia Earhart because she is a fascinating person. So much is woven in there. There are all these other pilots. To me, that sense of, god, the courage it took to get out there and fly back then. Whether you were a man or a woman, the odds were good you were going to crash and die. What kind of person does that? Why do they do it? What's driving them? Where are these people today, by the way? What are they doing now, this type of person? To me, the psychology that is so fascinating, particularly when you're telling it -- I use that device of the biography, excerpts from a biography, because I wanted to tell that story a little bit from the outside in trying to understand this person as a public figure, but also the private figure behind that public figure. I wrote that part first, the biography first. I kind of knew Janey before I started writing her actual story on the page. That was a really interesting process as well, how I created a voice for a character that we hadn’t actually met yet because of course the biography is inevitably in Janey's voice, not that of Irene. I'm always trying to challenge myself a bit in terms of storytelling technique. This was certainly a fascinating challenge for me to get into. I was trying to understand two different women at the same time. I think that adds a certain layer to the story. You find out why as we get towards the end and the mysteries start revealing themselves.

Zibby: What does this process look like? Do you use notecards? Is it spread out all over? Is it all in your head? Where do you do all this work? It's in your head?

Beatriz: I have a notebook. I scribble things down in the notebook. There's the classic debate between the plotters and the pantsers. The pantsers plot by the seat of their pants. They make it up as they go along. I do a little of both. I know where I want to go. This is one book where I kind of knew what the twist was going to be going in, which was good because it's essential to the story. I visualize it in my head almost as a three-dimensional piece of architecture. I can see the scaffolding, but I can't see all the layers and the cladding and everything that goes on top. Gradually, everything gets -- you have this bare bones. Then you just keep adding flesh onto it and flesh onto it until it becomes a real thing. I am linear. In fact, I'm so linear, that's why I write that piece that takes place in the past first. Then I layer the other piece, the mystery-hunting piece of it, on top, because I need to know what happens from beginning to end, the actual mystery taking place. I need to know the solution. I need to know how it happens. I need to know who these people are before I can send my sleuth on the hunt and picking it apart. I know a lot of writers who do the dual narrative write back and forth even as it's written. I'm so incredibly linear that I have to do it literally from one, beginning to end, and then start the other one beginning to end. Everyone's got a process. Everyone's astonished when I say that's how I do it. I just literally can't imagine writing it any other way.

Zibby: You're clearly super smart. In fact, as an aside, I think one of the smartest things you did was decide to coauthor books with two of your good friends so that you could travel together on press tours.

Beatriz: The best idea ever. It is breaking our hearts right now that we can't get together. We're usually together two or three times a year. It's so much fun. We need to plot out our next book. We're managing to do it by Zoom, but it's not the same. Yes, it did start out as very much wanting to spend more time with each other, but also really loving each other's talents and getting together. Creating stories together is just the most incredibly creative process ever because there's three of us. We like to say it's like three brains in one body. When we're really tired, we accidentally say that it's one brain in three bodies, but that's a completely different scenario. I think the challenge with plotting on your own is that you can't foresee the problems that lie ahead. Suddenly, you realize you've written yourself into a corner and you've got to go back and rework something. When it's three of you, you've got everybody picking apart all the ideas as we go along so that by the time we finish plotting something out, and in this case we do actually plot the whole thing out very carefully before we start writing, we're able to sort of troubleshoot and foresee all these problems before we get to them in the writing. I love doing it because it's just a much more efficient process than using one singular feeble brain that needs a considerable amount of caffeination in order to work properly.

Zibby: You've written so many books. As you mentioned, you also have written a ton of historical romance and mystery. How many books have you written in total?

Beatriz: You know what? I kind of stopped counting. I wrote some books as Juliana Gray. There were two romance trilogies. Then I moved into more historical mystery. There's two of those plus a novella that connects. I like to have my worlds all sort of be the same, so there's a novella that connects the romance to the historical mysteries. I guess that's six, seven, eight, plus a novella. I left some threads dangling in historical mystery number two, so I would like to get back to that at some point. Then of course, we have now written three books as Willig, White, and Williams. Then I think Her Last Flight is my twelfth book as Beatriz Williams.

Zibby: Amazing.

Beatriz: After a while, it's not that I don't want to count, it's just that it doesn't matter to me. It's not something I keep a tally board how many books I've written or how many words I've written. It's really the stories. Some of them connect. Some of them are a little more stand-alone. I have three books that literally were a sequence. They're not exactly a trilogy because they're three different women, but they're sisters. The stories flow a little bit into each other. That's the most connected books. Then I've got my Wicked City series as well, which is a definite series, Wicked City, Wicked Redhead. The next one is still in my head. I tend to see the books that way rather than, oh, I've written my twelfth book. I have to literally count them up when we do the biography for the book jacket and be like, okay, how many is that?

Zibby: What does writing do for you? What do you get out of it?

Beatriz: It's a little bit like what I hope my readers get out of it when they're reading, which is not so much escape as just immersion in a different world. I think that when I'm writing well, I'm writing fast, I'm writing in that flow state that we all try to get to when we're writing, which is just a total immersion in a story. That is what keeps me going through the harder bits when it's just not working and I need to figure out why it's not working and get these characters where I know them well enough that everything that happens to them just seems preordained. It is really that process, getting myself into that flow state and creating that world that is what motivates me, what gets me in front of my laptop every day. I don't want to make this sound magical, but to a certain extent maybe just the way some people are born mathematicians -- they have a knack for mathematics. They see something more in mathematics than we do. They see the story that is in mathematics. They see the truth that is inside the numbers. When you're laboriously graphing out what -- you're graphing an equation, and so these numbers actually mean something real and tangible. They translate into things. I think that you're somebody who instinctively feels that or not.

I think with storytelling, you're somebody who -- when I write a story, it's like the words on the page are maybe ten percent of the story that is in my head. All the details of a person's life and personality and so on, it's really distilling that. I think a part of that is just innate. I think our DNA kind of gives us certain jobs that we're good at because that's what I was -- here, here's the anthropology major speaking here. We need storytellers. We need mathematicians. We need inventors. We even need a couple of sociopaths to sort of make the tough moral choices that we don't want to make. That's why, whatever, five to ten percent of the population is technically psychopath. I think we kind of need them in some way. We just have to channel that evil energy into good. I think that's what my role is in the hunter-gatherer group. I'm the one who -- we're by the campfire. It's nighttime. We need to process and understand what's happened to us today or the past few weeks, and so you spin a story that helps people come to terms with what has happened and who they are and literally put that to bed.

Zibby: Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?

Beatriz: Read. Definitely, read. Read widely. I'm on deadline right now, but I do try to get some fiction in in the evening. I finally started Donna Tartt's The Secret History. Maybe it's just because my brain is so occupied during the day because I'm also, by the way, running a B&B for -- I've got four kids at home. Three of them are teenagers. One's almost twelve years old, plus my husband and all these pets and everything. I don't know these people who are like, lockdown is so boring. I'm like, are you kidding? I am on my feet all day long. Then I get these little pockets of time to write in. I was trying to read. I was like, you know what, I need to read something more fun right now. My lovely friend, Eloisa James, wrote her latest -- I haven't read a historical romance in actually quite a while. I was like, I'm just going to read something that is fun and engaging and romantic. She always delivers. I started that last night. I felt so much better. I actually learned a lot from romance authors. They're just good storytellers. They know instinctively what certain elements of human relationships are irresistible to us and also how to tell a story to keep the reader engaged on the page.

I would say read everything, romance, mystery, literature fiction, classics. I find reading novels that were written in the period that I'm writing about are just so much more useful than many other sources. You get the feeling and the rhythm of human interaction and storytelling. Read all you can. We spend so much time worrying about the words. I feel like the words come when the story is there. You need to think about, what is the story you're trying to tell? Why would be people be interested in this story, anyone other than you yourself? Those are my two pieces of advice. Read all you can and really think of yourself as a storyteller. Worry about the writing later. The writing obviously comes with the editing. Focus on the story. Think about why it is you're telling this story and why it's important and why people would care.

Zibby: That's great. Thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your life experience and your technique and all the rest of it.

Beatriz: Thank you so much. Like I said, I've been sitting in front of my laptop, so talking to somebody outside my family is just a really exciting moment for me right now. I appreciate it. [laughter]

Zibby: I agree. I'm glad we got this to work. By the way, like you, I have four kids. I loved how you said that you write while you're not doing laundry because I feel like I do laundry all day, every day. That's what I do.

Beatriz: I've got a load right up there. As soon as I'm done here, I have to go put that in the dryer and make sure the right stuff is hung up. I could hand it off to somebody, but I just don't trust anybody else with the laundry.

Zibby: No, me neither. Anyway, thank you. Hang in there.

Beatriz: You too.

Zibby: Send me any laundry tips.

Beatriz: We will get through this. I love the microphone, by the way. I need a microphone like that.

Zibby: Thank you. Blue Yeti. Have a great day. Thanks again.

Beatriz: Thanks so much.

Zibby: Buh-bye.