Lisa Taddeo, THREE WOMEN
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[0:59]Hi, I'm so excited to be interviewing Lisa Todello.
[1:02]Lisa is the author of Three Women, a groundbreaking nonfiction book about three women's lives,
[1:07]intersected by desire.
[1:08]Winner of two push guard prizes for her short stories, including a riveting essay called 42, from the New England Review of Books.
[1:15]Lisa has contributed to Esquire, Elle, Glamour, and many other publications.
[1:19]Her nonfiction has been included in the Best American Political Writing and Best American Sports Writing Anthologies.
[1:24]She currently lives in Connecticut with her husband and daughter.
[1:27]Thanks so much, Lisa, for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[1:30]Oh my gosh, yeah.
[1:32]I mean, I've been following you on Instagram's chin.
[1:35]Well, I've actually heard about you for a while, but I wasn't on Instagram or Twitter until very recently.
[1:42]So I'm kind of like, I'm like, oh, these are all people that I know, and so it's been quite illuminating.
[1:48]Anyway, absolutely loves your Instagram.
[1:50]I love what you do.
[1:51]It's just really cool, obviously, for a mom, that's what I'm going to read.
[1:58]So anyway, thank you.
[2:00]Like literally makes me feel so happy.
[2:02]Oh, that's like made my whole day.
[2:04]Thank you, because I'm having one of those days today where nothing is going right.
[2:08]So that actually just carried me a long way.
[2:10]So thanks.
[2:11]Oh, good.
[2:12]And it's funny when things aren't going right by like 10, 15.
[2:16]And it's like, oh my gosh, there's like this whole other part of the day to live.
[2:20]Totally exactly.
[2:21]As if I can't turn it around, right?
[2:23]It just started.
[2:24]Yeah, exactly.
[2:27]Well, you're a book three women.
[2:30]I'm so excited to talk to you about it because this is like a holy shit book for me.
[2:35]Like I would not get over this book.
[2:39]I was like enthralled from the very beginning.
[2:42]And I have so many questions.
[2:44]So first of all, thank you for this book.
[2:47]I mean, oh my gosh, it's like a work of art.
[2:49]Thank you for calling it a holy shit book.
[2:50]I see my favorite compliment ever.
[2:53]So thank you.
[2:54]Oh, okay.
[2:56]So can you just tell listeners what three women is about and what inspired you to take
[3:01]on this this really massive sort of nonfiction project that reads just like fiction?
[3:09]Women is about read this stinks and ordinary.
[3:13]And I say ordinary meaning they're not celebrities or, you know, anyone that is sort of
[3:17]known in the world.
[3:18]So I wanted to, you know, take people who were, you know, just like everyone else and
[3:24]just kind of highlight that there is importance to every single life story since I feel
[3:28]like a lot of people don't, their life stories aren't told in a certain way.
[3:32]So the first woman, her name is Lena, she is a housewife in suburban Indiana.
[3:38]I'm not suburban.
[3:39]I'm sorry, somewhat rural Indiana and her husband when I met her, I started the discussion
[3:44]group in Indiana after moving there from New York City because I felt that New York City
[3:48]was just not, it wasn't sort of conducive to getting into someone else's worldview
[3:55]and out of my own, which, you know, I had a life there.
[3:57]So anyway, sorry to be 10 gentle, but I moved to Indiana, started a discussion group with
[4:04]the help of a doctor who, you know, had a bunch of patients that were sort of talking
[4:09]to him about, you know, weight loss and he was giving them hormones.
[4:13]It was a very interesting group of women.
[4:16]And one of the women who came into the discussion group her name was Lena.
[4:21]On the day that I met her, she was sort of deciding to separate from her husband, which
[4:27]is something that is, you know, not done in her family and her part of Indiana.
[4:31]She couldn't talk to anyone about it, but she was making this decision.
[4:34]And the reason she was deciding to was because her husband for over a decade had not
[4:40]kissed her on the mouth and said that the sensation offended him.
[4:45]And they went to a couple of therapists who basically said, that's okay, Lena, you know
[4:50]how you don't like the feeling of what will on your skin, that's the way that your husband
[4:55]feels about kissing you on the mouth.
[4:57]It offended him.
[4:58]So, you know, it was sort of this like, I mean, it was horrifying to hear that, but,
[5:03]you know, it was just horrifying.
[5:05]And she also was embarking upon an affair with her high school lover who she had been
[5:10]obsessed with her whole life.
[5:12]And she had just recently found him on Facebook.
[5:15]So both these things were happening and the immediacy of her story was just so, you know,
[5:20]heartbreaking and also really wonderful to sort of write about because it was happening
[5:24]in the moment.
[5:25]And she needed someone to talk to and it was just a kind of a perfect storm.
[5:30]The second woman, Maggie, I thought, can I read a quote that you wrote about Lena, which
[5:35]was so beautiful about her and her sort of lack of affection with her husband, Ed.
[5:41]You wrote, she felt life, she felt life slipping.
[5:44]She felt that her body was being wasted, that her heart was resting like steak on a cutting
[5:49]board.
[5:50]I love that line.
[5:51]Anyway, you could go on now.
[5:53]I found the second woman, Maggie.
[5:58]I'd driven across the country by this point, like four or five times, I would do it six
[6:02]times before finding all of the people.
[6:06]So in North Dakota, I was sort of researching this group of women that were immigrants
[6:12]working at a coffee shop during the day and being trucked into the local oil field at night
[6:18]as prostitutes for the men.
[6:20]So, you know, it was very interesting to me, but I was in this coffee shop and I was reading
[6:24]a local paper and I read about Maggie's trial wherein this young woman who had an
[6:31]alleged relationship with her high school teacher who went on to win the award of North
[6:36]Dakota's teacher of the year, she would come forward with her story after several years
[6:41]and nobody was, you know, the trial went a certain way and nobody in her town believed
[6:46]her, including people very close to her.
[6:49]And the thing that struck me about the article was that there had been like hundreds
[6:54]of hours, I think, of phone calls after 11 in mid-night between the teacher and Maggie.
[7:01]And you know, those were like, they were beautiful because they didn't have the text
[7:05]messages anymore, but they had these phone calls and these notes in her Twilight book where
[7:09]he had written things like, you know, is this like us?
[7:13]I can't wait for your 18.
[7:14]He was comparing himself to the vampire lover, you know, in Twilight and it was just shocking
[7:20]to me that nobody believed her.
[7:22]So, I drove to Fargo the next day and, you know, introduced myself and that's kind
[7:27]of how Maggie began.
[7:30]And the third woman's flown is a very beautiful entrepreneur who's husband likes to watch
[7:37]her have sex with men and other women either in front of him or, you know, sort of somewhere
[7:42]else and she videotapes it for him.
[7:44]So I hadn't already moved into that town because I'd been talking to other people in
[7:48]the town as like, you know, possible subjects.
[7:50]But then when I heard about Sloan, I heard all these rumors that the first rumor that
[7:54]I heard, which was shocking to me that it was a rumor was not even about the sort
[7:58]of swinging, but rather about the fact that she and her husband had, that her husband wanted
[8:03]to have sex with her every day, not only did she quote unquote allow it, but she also
[8:07]wanted to do it too.
[8:09]And what was shocking to me was just sort of like, can you believe it?
[8:13]Like, and it was almost like, you know, because in whatever it's fine, you know, some
[8:18]people want you and some people don't, but it was the sort of, you know, mocking of
[8:23]her, which I found so just interesting and kind of horrifying also.
[8:29]So for me, these three women sort of became to define the way that, you know, our culture,
[8:34]our society, the way we, you know, something is other than us.
[8:38]We, you know, revile it and or it makes us, you know, project our own, we protect our
[8:42]own spheres onto others and then sort of, you know, freak out.
[8:45]So those are three women.
[8:47]I feel like I'm talking so much, please stop me.
[8:50]Okay.
[8:51]So you found these three women.
[8:52]You tied together their stories, which were woven in and out beautifully.
[8:56]You started the book with a passage that you wrote in the first person and then you
[9:01]ended with a passage in the first person.
[9:03]So structurally, I found that really interesting and you open up by talking about your mother
[9:07]and how when she was, you know, young girl in Italy, this dirty old man would like masturbate
[9:12]behind her on the street and how she allowed that to happen and that sort of like sets
[9:15]the stage for this sort of sexually tinted narrative, which comes after.
[9:20]So how did you decide to start off with your own story or her own story, really?
[9:25]Well, that's been very late in the game.
[9:28]Most of the book, I'd say, you know, all of the book had already been written and was
[9:31]already interwoven.
[9:33]What happened was that, you know, well, first of all, the publisher had said, you know,
[9:37]I think you need to at some point give a little bit of how you feel because I had left
[9:42]myself out purposefully.
[9:45]So I thought I considered that and that, you know, I still didn't want to like say how
[9:48]I felt because how I felt is not as important as the way that other people feel just hearing
[9:53]the stories.
[9:54]I think.
[9:55]what I did decide was that these women, indeed, all of the people who I.
[10:00]spoken to you for the book, which were in the 100s and like 20 to 30 sort of very in depth.
[10:04]So all of these people had given themselves to this book in a way, through no gain of their own
[10:13]and kind of without ego, except for some of the men I spoke to, which was a lot of ego and
[10:18]balls and them. But the women, for the most part, and a lot of the men had not, you know,
[10:24]we're not getting anything out of it. They were talking, they were kind of, you know, if anything,
[10:28]they were getting out of it, you know, just sort of a release and talking about it. But because they
[10:33]had put themselves out there in such a way, I felt like, you know, I should do the same in a sense of like,
[10:41]you know, I didn't want it to be about me, but I wanted it to show what shapes us. And, you know,
[10:47]I think that a lot of people talk about daddy issues, which, you know, are a thing. But for me,
[10:53]and a lot of the women in the book, and, you know, I think all of them had, you know,
[10:58]mommy issues in a way where like, I think the, you know, the sort of weight of the mother really
[11:04]is greater than we know until later in life, which is something I think about every day when I feel
[11:10]like I'm, you know, messing my child up for life with the wrong word.
[11:15]Totally.
[11:19]So can I ask you a little more about Maggie's section to start?
[11:22]Yeah.
[11:22]Okay. So Maggie's section, and this was basically the first one you opened the book with,
[11:27]you say six years ago, you were smaller and he loved your little hands. Back then, his own hands
[11:33]fluttered inside you. A lot has changed. Your father is dead. And August, he slit his wrists
[11:38]in a nearby cemetery. That is a lot for the first page of the book.
[11:44]Yeah.
[11:46]So tell me about your writing style. So I was so grabbed to with Maggie, especially with Maggie
[11:53]and the way you describe the teacher, like the way you bring to life that sort of
[12:00]abuse question mark with the two of them and how you crafted it. So I was wondering,
[12:07]did you always write in this way? It's sort of like a super visual, like sometimes second person,
[12:13]tell me about your writing style and how it developed. And did you have to take a class for this?
[12:18]Is this just the way you write?
[12:20]Well, it's always kind of, you know, the principle I kind of lead with is that I never want
[12:26]to be boring. And specifically, you know, with nonfiction, I think boring is easy to slip into
[12:32]to even for me, for everyone. It's difficult because there are these facts and you need to be
[12:37]honest about the facts. So, you know, it's more difficult to take the sort of poetic license that
[12:43]one can take with fiction or poetry, of course. So I had it very much in mind, specifically,
[12:48]I had it in mind with Maggie's story that I needed people to feel what she had felt from the
[12:56]inside out, rather than the outside in. And in order to do that, I chose the second person to
[13:02]start it with because I wanted, you know, I wanted there to be, you know, a sort of immediate
[13:07]immersion in her feelings and thoughts. And so that's kind of where I went to. But I also, you know,
[13:13]I write fiction. My novel is coming out next year and then my collection, the short stories to
[13:19]follow. So I definitely have, you know, a fiction background and I got my MFA at BU. So,
[13:25]you know, while I was kind of finishing the end of the book, so I was reading so much fiction,
[13:30]always, I almost exclusively read fiction. I read nonfiction essays like I love Mary Gates
[13:36]skills. Somebody with a little hammer is one of the most recent collections of nonfiction that
[13:41]I've read, which I think is absolutely amazing. But for the most part, I read fiction. So,
[13:46]you know, I think that that's kind of where a lot of it comes from in fiction. You can be free.
[13:50]And in nonfiction, I wanted to bring that same freedom to it while still obviously having
[13:56]everything be true. Well, I'm going to read one more quote from Maggie section about texting,
[14:01]which I think is like the most beautiful thing I've read about texting. You said,
[14:05]lines of communication pile up like Tetris blocks. For the most part,
[14:11]their entries leave a good-natured slot for the other person to reply, except that some of
[14:16]Maggie's don't. But there's enough in them for a nodal to find a filament, pick it up,
[14:20]and thread it forward into a new conversation. Like, you could have just said they texted back and
[14:25]and forth, right? It's like a literary event. I don't know. I thought that was really cool.
[14:30]Thank you. Well, you know, just to give you a sort of background in that is that, you know,
[14:35]I would ask Maggie specifically like, you know, what did you write? And then she would say,
[14:40]I wrote this because she remembered it, you know, I would say verbatim because that's what
[14:45]young women remember when you're, you know, in love with someone. And, you know, and so she
[14:51]would tell me that and I'd be like, well, was it like, you know, did he sort of text back or,
[14:56]you know, and she was like, no, and then I didn't write, you know, I didn't do anything for like
[14:59]three hours. And that's still like, we talked about the same, that same instance because it was the
[15:03]first instance of like them connecting in that way and him sort of, you know, reaching out in a
[15:09]non-teacher manner. So, you know, I just really wanted to get down the way that it happened,
[15:15]because I think when you, you know, when it's in the trial, it's like, and then there were these
[15:19]texts and it's like, but we don't, you know, like, you need to know how the text worked and who
[15:24]was sort of pushing it in order to believe her, which, you know, I did implicitly and write away.
[15:29]Wow. So cool. In Sloan section now, so sorry to jump around, but I like wanting to
[15:34]talk about all these girls. So Sloan, who's the one who was having sex with her husband every day,
[15:38]and that was shocking and in the town. So terrible. So a lot of sort of the press around your
[15:47]book and everything is about women's desire and how this is like a commentary on women in some
[15:53]way. So this quote is about women's perception of each other. When you wrote Sloan, who was
[15:58]known for being thin and sexy, immediately there in the kitchen began to list the ways in which
[16:03]she was better than Karen and the ways in which Karen was better than her. Sloan was thinner,
[16:07]Karen was younger. Sloan owned the restaurant and Karen really worked in it and you go on and on
[16:12]describing how they like sized each other up right away. Do you think that women do this
[16:18]more than men and why? And do you feel like it's like a detriment? Like is this part of the
[16:24]of women like making some sort of statement or I don't know. Just talk to me about that passage.
[16:30]Yeah. I mean, I do, I do think women do it more than men. You know, I just read that piece in
[16:35]New York magazine the other day. I don't know if you guys saw it, but about the themselves who
[16:39]like get all this plastic surgery. I didn't see it. Oh, it's really, it's just absolutely amazing.
[16:44]But anyway, you know, I was looking at that and I actually, you know, there was a part about
[16:48]there's a passage that's awesome in that where it says the author writes, this one young man
[16:53]that she had been talking to was saying that he just, his ideal dream was to have, was to live
[16:59]in a plastic surgery office and have the doctor write there on hand. So anytime he looked in
[17:05]the mirror and found something that he didn't like, he could just go into the operating room
[17:09]and take care of it. And I, you know, my friend had like written to me about the story and I
[17:14]copied that passage and texted it back to her and I said, clock, am I in Excel? Because I was like,
[17:19]I know, I want that same thing too. And, you know, I just think and, you know, a lot of the women
[17:25]I talked to, like Lena, you know, Lena who was, you know, constantly assessing her looks in the mirror
[17:32]and it affected the way she went about her day. Sloan has this part where she looks in a mirror
[17:37]and is seeing like age around her eyes and her eyes are like, like, I can't drink anymore
[17:43]at night because I wake up looking like this and that didn't use to happen when I was 25 and even
[17:48]35. So, you know, there was still much of that in almost every woman that I spoke to, whereas
[17:53]many of them that obviously some of the men had something similar, but most of the men did not,
[17:59]they were more concerned with, you know, their position in the world and financials and,
[18:05]you know, for them it was kind of just like, you know, if they weren't looking at their looks
[18:10]unless they were a particular kind of man. And for the most part with women, I mean, I do think
[18:15]there's a sizing up, especially when you're younger. And, you know, Sloan was younger when she
[18:19]did that. I remember I had one friend in college who would not go to a party unless she was assured
[18:24]that she would be the most attractive person in the room. You know, so I've seen so much, and I
[18:29]remember thinking like that's insane, but I also understood it. I was like, you know, I don't feel
[18:34]that way, but I have felt something like that way in my life. And, you know, I think that we do
[18:42]do it in different circumstances, and almost everybody, as I spoke to a group of swingers and
[18:47]Cleveland, you know, so I was interested in the whole thing. And then when I spoke to them more,
[18:51]it was kind of not, you know, it wasn't that deep and where I Sloan was. But the swingers in Cleveland
[18:58]were very much like, you know, they needed the other woman or the other man or whoever
[19:04]they needed to feel better looking than them, because otherwise there's a sort of like,
[19:09]is this person, you know, is this person performing oral sex on this other person more because
[19:16]they're more attractive? And I just think it's a biological feeling that it's also been molded by society.
[19:23]So what is it about you that made you want to learn about all these stories, right? This is like
[19:30]unusual that you spent so many years digging into other people's lives, crafting them into this
[19:36]really awesome book. How did you get here? Like, how did you, I know you want to push card for your
[19:41]great essay 42 and another push card in 42, by the way, was amazing because I am 42. But like,
[19:48]how did you grow up or what is it along your journey that made you attracted to this sort of a
[19:53]project? You know, I mean, I think that the two things that I'm the most innocent, the two things
[19:58]that I think drive most of.
[20:00]Our lives are sex and death not to be modules, but I mean, I had a lot of loss in my 20s
[20:06]I lost my parents my dog my aunt my uncle just like almost my entire family was
[20:11]Defemated again not to be a model it, but it was it was a lot of lot. So for me
[20:15]You know a lot of what I
[20:18]Decided to do after and this process this project started very differently than how it ended so it wasn't so much
[20:24]So when I started finding people that I really thought were both narratively interesting and just you know
[20:32]Relatable on a human level. I you know, I just because I had so much lot
[20:37]I think that I was drawn to the
[20:41]Lowness that one can feel in desire and you know
[20:45]I just didn't want people to feel alone
[20:47]So a lot of the kind of conversations that I had with with people were me sort of listening and making sure that they
[20:54]I knew that there was someone seeing them on the other side because there are a lot of these women for Lena
[21:00]Specifically for so many other people I spoke to the lack of being seen was heart-breaking
[21:05]And I remember it not remember this happened recently
[21:08]But the German editor of my book that's me that the thing that struck him the most was how the indifference of men or you know
[21:17]Any person who has sort of the alpha in a relationship how the indifference could be so wounding
[21:22]You know, whereas a man or a person might just not text back because they're busy and they've compartmentalized
[21:28]The other human being as something that they see when they need to or want to see her or him
[21:34]You know that sort of not responding just because you don't really need to in that moment is I think that you know
[21:41]It's a heartbreaking thing and that was something that I was very in tune with and
[21:46]I tuned to and that I wanted to understand more about and I'm so sorry to hear about all of your loss. That's tragic and terrible
[21:57]I just realized I used the word decimated, but just pretty aggressive, but do you not please don't apologize like I want to hear
[22:04]I mean, that's like I wanted to get to know you. That's like what it's all about right?
[22:08]Finding out no seriously finding out like what motivates people to write and you know if if it was like and also how people handle
[22:16]Loss, right? So you took your own loss and made it into something like this
[22:20]Whereas other people handle it in very different ways
[22:22]So I find that really fascinating and I love hearing about it. So please don't apologize for that. That was like my favorite
[22:28]Not to say it's my favorite part of the interview
[22:32]You tell me more about your family's decimation. This is getting juicy
[22:37]So I totally get it and thank you for it was sometimes people are like they don't know how to do like and I'm like look
[22:42]I'm brought it up a lot to see you know fine with discussing it and people are like, you know
[22:47]Death kind of makes people
[22:49]Death and desire make people nervous because they don't you know
[22:53]There's a lot going on there and you know, yeah, so I also had a lot of loss in my 20s
[22:58]So I feel like no no it's fine, but death doesn't put I mean, I'm very open. I don't get scared away
[23:05]I'll just say that. Okay, like I I feel like once you've been through a lot of stuff
[23:10]It's you know some people who haven't been through stuff are a little sort of trepidatious
[23:14]Is that even the right word about like getting close to it, but yeah, I'm not one of those people so don't worry
[23:21]When when you went through all that did you use writing as like a way to I mean
[23:26]Copus such a like cliche word, but did you find yourself writing to help you through that period of time or did you sort of handle it in other ways?
[23:33]I did I mean it took a while to get back into it
[23:37]But I did you know not to again not to be whatever, but I after my father passed away
[23:42]I was I'll move back come to live with my mom because she was kind of you know lost without him and I
[23:49]wrote this
[23:50]Novel about sort of a young woman taking care of her mother who was sick and what was funny is my mother was not sick at the time
[23:59]But I was kind of like likening what I was doing to dealing with somebody with a disease because that's how it felt because she was so depressed
[24:07]and then she actually did get sick and then she passed away
[24:11]So it was like so I had this new novel that I almost felt had like you know foretold this thing
[24:17]so that was like kind of devastating and I thought it was cathartic
[24:21]But they just became horrified so then from there, you know, it took a little bit of time because I thought that you know
[24:27]I just wasn't I was just scared so then after that I did you know
[24:32]I think that when I started writing short stories again, you know in my like early my late 20s and early 30s
[24:38]That was kind of when I started to feel like I'll put darsus from getting back into it
[24:44]Wow, I mean what what a journey. I mean, I feel like I feel terrible that you felt like not that you foretold it
[24:51]But you know that something that you've dreamed of had happened and it being such a terrible thing
[24:57]I've been like you must have been I would be afraid I would have been afraid to write anything
[25:01]Right like what if it happened?
[25:04]Yeah, exactly. Well, I definitely still am. That's definitely still good like third things
[25:09]I won't sort of touch which is why you know writing nonfiction is a lot you know more
[25:15]It's a lot easier in a way because you know, it's just it's real and someone else's story
[25:20]So it feels it just feels cleaner in a sense and more straight forward
[25:26]Interesting. So what is your new novel about?
[25:29]So it is about a woman's rage
[25:33]I suppose is the best way to put it. It starts out with a man coming into a restaurant while a woman is having dinner with
[25:41]Married man who is not hurt husband and this other man walks up to the table and pulled that a gun and shoots himself in front of her
[25:50]So after that happened she and we don't really know why in the beginning, but she drives from New York to California
[26:00]It's sort of like the kickoff for her. It's like the last straw because of a several things that have happened in her past
[26:06]And she drives the California to find another woman and we don't know what the sort of relationship is
[26:12]But then they meet and they sort of become friends and then following journey is sort of like figuring out why it was important for her
[26:20]To find this woman and then there's a lot of sort of, you know, devastation that happens at the end where she sort of takes out her rage on
[26:28]several people Wow
[26:32]What is that what's that gonna be called?
[26:34]It's called animal. Wow. I'm like envisioning the cover
[26:40]Thank you. I try to sometimes it's funny because with three women
[26:44]I really love the cover. I also love all the other covers of the other
[26:49]Country so that seems so hard, but I was like when I thought I was like oh my god
[26:52]I can't imagine it ever having been at different
[26:55]cover and the designer whose name is Alice in the corner is just like I mean her talent is just so
[27:01]Amazing a lot of the cover. There's a lot of people on you know in the sort of other people who are being published at the same time
[27:07]Who has covered by her and that just all still unique
[27:10]You would never know that it's all her in a way right? Anyway, so sorry to go on a sort of tangent
[27:16]Don't be silly. It's a great cover
[27:18]So do you find time to read and I know your mom like me at my daughter was you know made a little cameo before
[27:24]When do you find time to read if at all without the writing and the mom it's stuffs and whatever really
[27:31]Hard it's so hard and you know as you know
[27:34]It is like that was the one thing before I had a child that I did the most and I would like you know
[27:39]Austin my favorite thing to do literally was to go out to dinner and sit at like the bar of like a
[27:45]Restaurant and read a book with like a glass of wine and I haven't done that or with my other favorite thing was on
[27:51]I just love fitting it cools with a book like that was I mean
[27:55]I could not be happier than doing that literally and that neither has happened like
[28:03]Definitely she's four so I would say five years because I was pregnant and not really you know
[28:09]Out and about too much, but yeah, so it's been a long so now
[28:13]I have you know I forget what the
[28:15]Japanese word is but there's a Japanese word for when you just backbook
[28:19]Up from your bedside table or like next to your workspace and so I have that to a point that is like a scene
[28:25]I have like seven stacks of books just on my desk and so what I do is I don't have time to read a full book
[28:33]So I read like passages of books, you know either books that I've already read or new books
[28:38]But I just kind of start the first page and then I'll like wait a day and you know get it when I it's really basically and like these
[28:45]Sniffets of time so and then at night
[28:48]I'm like I worked for like 11 because it's been crazy lately
[28:51]So I'm too exotic. I mean, I put my kids at bed at like 730 and then I worked from like 730 to 10 or 11 and then you know by 11
[29:00]I'm like, you know just
[29:02]That tired so that's all sounds familiar
[29:08]My latest thing is like reading in Texas because I'm in New York City, but I used to I used to mostly do stuff on my phone in
[29:14]Texas, you know, like that was a good time to deal with Instagram or whatever now
[29:18]I'm like, you know what? I'm going all the way to like the channel center
[29:21]I'm having good 30 minutes. I could do Instagram or I could get through like a whole section
[29:26]But I like what you said I like what you said too about
[29:28]You know, sometimes you can only read a few passages or you can only read a chapter
[29:32]Half a book or whatever and it's still good, you know
[29:35]Like you still get a sense and you're selling someone else's world and I feel like the pressure to read books start to finish can be overwhelming
[29:41]So anyway, I actually just decided maybe you should do this
[29:44]I just decided I had like such a towering stack on my desk
[29:47]And I just did an interviewed Gretchen Reuben who's all about like outer order intercom and like getting your desktop clean
[29:53]And I'm looking at my desk with this huge stack of books. Oh my gosh
[29:55]So I just did like a big giveaway on Instagram of like all the books that like
[30:00]I'm actually not going to get around to reading.
[30:02]And you should do that.
[30:04]You know, I don't know.
[30:06]I want you, but I don't know that I can.
[30:11]So I mean, yeah, whenever I read about the art of tidying
[30:15]or whatever, I'm just like, OK, but not for books.
[30:20]So it's a good idea, but I don't know.
[30:22]I'm like way too.
[30:23]I'm also like kind of a sentimentalist,
[30:25]so I just keep everything.
[30:28]Well, these are my caveat is that these are books
[30:32]that I had like a galley copy of as well,
[30:35]or a second copy, or I knew it or that someone had sent me
[30:38]that I wasn't going to get to or whatever.
[30:40]OK, well, ignore my idea, but anyway.
[30:42]No, no, no, no, I want you.
[30:45]I want to do that.
[30:46]I know we're almost out of time, and I
[30:47]have like a silly and other question,
[30:49]so we're going to have to meet in person or something,
[30:51]but do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[30:55]You know, the main thing, and I find it
[30:58]with a lot of younger people, is that there's a lot of waiting
[31:03]for some sort of thing to go off, and you can't wait.
[31:07]You just have to, right?
[31:09]Because otherwise nothing's going to happen
[31:10]if you don't just finish something.
[31:12]The other thing that I've told a lot of younger people
[31:15]that I've sort of taught and stuff like that
[31:17]is perfectionism has no place.
[31:21]I think in almost anything, I always just get,
[31:25]I've always my whole life to gotten stuff out the door
[31:28]and then waited for feedback.
[31:30]I think there's a real fear with writing,
[31:32]of being seen and being thought to be not as intelligent
[31:36]or not as creative.
[31:38]And you know, the truth is, that stuff is, you know,
[31:40]it's all normal fears, but it's not something
[31:42]that's going to get you to the next place where you want to be.
[31:45]So that's like my main thing.
[31:47]It's still kind of like overwork a draft of anything.
[31:51]I have a friend who is an amazing writer,
[31:53]and she is just beautiful writer.
[31:55]And she just works on things for years, like short stories.
[31:59]And I'm like, well, this is good and not
[32:01]to get in almost anywhere.
[32:03]So, you know, just send it.
[32:05]And so finally, I'm like, I'm like,
[32:06]I'm sending this to someone to an editor I know today.
[32:09]So you can try to stop me, but like I just couldn't take it.
[32:12]It was just insane.
[32:14]So yeah, just do it.
[32:15]Just finish it and don't worry too much about it.
[32:19]And yeah, that's my main made advice
[32:22]and I think that's the biggest hurdle that most people face.
[32:24]And the other thing is, one more thing is that, you know,
[32:27]I feel like, you know, the old adage right what you know
[32:30]is obviously so time old.
[32:32]You know, it's just eight.
[32:33]I'm sorry, time, whatever the word.
[32:35]Hey Joe, hey Joe, thank you.
[32:37]Hey Joe, thank you, thank you, time old for tonight.
[32:40]I'm like clearly should not be giving writing advice,
[32:42]but the age old adage right what you know,
[32:46]it's like, you know, it really is so true
[32:49]because when people write what they're going through
[32:52]in the moment and not necessarily the exact thing,
[32:55]especially when it's like fiction, I always say, you know,
[32:57]take the truth of what you're feeling.
[33:00]And, you know, attach it to a different character
[33:04]in a different world or place so that you can feel more free
[33:09]to, you know, invent, but also, you know,
[33:12]stay true to this thing you understand very deeply.
[33:16]So that's my other.
[33:17]Excellent, that is excellent advice.
[33:20]Well, thanks Lisa for coming on mom's
[33:22]don't have time to read books.
[33:23]And thanks for coming out July 9th.
[33:26]Is that right, July 9th?
[33:27]Yeah, July 9th.
[33:29]Okay, well, thank you for everything.
[33:31]I appreciate all your time.
[33:33]Thank you for everything.
[33:34]And I think the thing that made me the most excited
[33:36]with seeing your daughter come into the room.
[33:38]So beyond everything else that you're doing,
[33:40]thank you for that.
[33:42]Oh, well, I can arrange that anytime.
[33:44]Maybe they can skys together while, you know,
[33:49]we do like our work elsewhere.
[33:50]Totally, totally great.
[33:52]Great, thank you so much.
[33:55]And so lovely to meet you to Nora.
[33:57]And I will be the first one.
[33:59]In section.
[34:00]Okay, time of good day.
[34:03]All right, cool.
[34:04]You too, bye.
[34:06]So I just had to comment on my interview with Lisa today.
[34:09]I feel like her book was so dark and disturbing in parts,
[34:14]but so riveting.
[34:16]And I felt like I really got in the heart of the matter
[34:19]when I found out about all of the loss she's had in her life.
[34:22]I feel like I'm interviewing a lot of authors lately
[34:25]whose brilliance is inspired by periods of intense grief
[34:31]or something tragic and terrible.
[34:34]And once I find out where that has happened in their lives,
[34:38]I feel like it informs the book for me a little bit more.
[34:42]So anyway, I just wanted to say that I didn't know
[34:45]about that ahead of time, but it all kind of makes sense
[34:48]a little more for me now.
[34:49]So maybe when you're reading the book,
[34:52]you keep that in mind and it might just make
[34:54]the whole experience a little richer for you.
[34:58]Thanks again to my sponsor, Mermaid PillowCo.
[35:01]Mermaid PillowCo.com slash zibi and her code zibi
[35:06]for 10% off.
[35:07]Thanks so much, check out those really awesome giftable
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[35:11]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books.
[35:13]You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time
[35:17]to read books and at zibi Owens.
[35:19]And my new podcast at Kids Do Have Time to Read.
[35:22]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[35:25]for the sound editing.
[35:26]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[35:28]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[35:31]Thanks for listening.
[35:31]You can always email me at zibiatzibiowens.com.