Lauren Mechling, HOW COULD SHE
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[0:40]Hi, listeners.
[0:41]I am so sorry.
[0:42]I did something wrong.
[0:43]I don't even know what I did, but the sound quality on Lauren Meckling and Marcy Dermanski's
[0:49]episodes is not quite up to par with my normal episodes.
[0:53]Honestly, I've done, I don't know, close to 150 episodes, and this is the first time
[0:58]this has happened, and I am so sorry.
[1:00]I'm not a technical whiz, and I guess I did something wrong.
[1:04]So please listen anyway.
[1:06]It's just not perfect, which bothers me, and now it's also a great time to read the transcripts
[1:12]of these interviews on my website, zibiowens.com slash transcript, which has all the transcripts
[1:18]for all my episodes, including a link to audio, a link to buy, and it's just another great
[1:23]way to get to know the authors.
[1:25]So again, I'm really sorry, please listen anyway, and it won't happen again.
[1:30]Thanks.
[1:31]I'm really excited to be here today with Lauren Meckling.
[1:33]She's the author of How Could She A Novel, a former reporter at the New York Sun and
[1:38]features editor at the Wall Street Journal.
[1:40]Lauren has written for The New York Times, Vogue, where she is a contributing editor,
[1:44]and The New Yorker Online.
[1:46]She has written several young adult novels, and is also the founder of Hashtag Clog Life,
[1:50]and the Associated Instagram again.
[1:52]A graduate of Harvard College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children,
[1:56]so welcome Lauren.
[1:57]Thank you.
[1:58]I'm so happy to be here.
[1:59]Oh, thanks for coming on the show.
[2:01]So could you please tell listeners what?
[2:03]How could she is it at, and then what inspired you to write it?
[2:06]Sure.
[2:07]In very short, how could she is about the trouble and heartbreak of female friendship?
[2:13]And in a longer description, it's a friendship triangle, about three women who have
[2:20]a past together.
[2:21]They met and came up together in their 20s, and the story takes place over the course
[2:26]of one year when the women are a little older than 35, and they all find themselves
[2:32]in very different stations in life, and they are still in mesh in each other's lives,
[2:38]but they have a difficult time digesting each other's successes and failures.
[2:44]And over the course of the year, two of the women through a series of manipulations end
[2:50]up trading places.
[2:51]Very cool.
[2:52]And so why this story?
[2:53]How did you come out of it?
[2:56]The story came out of my obsession that really started in my 30s with friendship is
[3:04]sent, especially with having been dumped by my best friend.
[3:07]Oh, no!
[3:08]It was painful.
[3:09]I was...
[3:12]Yes.
[3:13]Like, teenager.
[3:14]I had a best friend in my 20s, and in my early 30s, my friend decided it was time for
[3:24]her to move on.
[3:25]And it was a very strange experience looking back on it because part of it was a total
[3:31]mystery and remains the total mystery.
[3:34]And then part of it was a painful circumstance that I actually understood by trying to
[3:39]piece it up together.
[3:40]And I had thinking about what the dynamic of our friendship had been like and trying to
[3:44]wonder why it had gotten to a point where she just couldn't stand it anymore.
[3:49]And anyway, I was so hurtful.
[3:52]That's terrible.
[3:53]It was...
[3:54]And it's still hard because I miss her, and she's a really cool woman.
[3:59]But that was what she had to do.
[4:01]And I was writing young adult novels, and I've been writing young adult novels through
[4:06]my 20s and in my early 30s.
[4:09]And this obsession with why women matter so much to each other was building within me.
[4:15]And I finally had the courage to write a book that I wanted to read, a book about women
[4:21]like myself and my friends.
[4:23]Wow.
[4:24]Well, those are the best stories where I want to come to the truth that you're dealing
[4:27]with yourself, right?
[4:28]Yes.
[4:29]Yes.
[4:30]And I had no idea that anyone would want it.
[4:34]So I was able to just really lift the veil and get in there and be truthful about the
[4:41]dark underside of friendship.
[4:43]You know, friendships are super complicated.
[4:46]Yeah, right?
[4:47]It's also the best thing on it.
[4:48]They're also the best thing on earth.
[4:50]Yeah.
[4:51]I don't know.
[4:52]I've got some friends.
[4:53]I know that you get this advice in like magazine articles and everything, but friends
[4:57]who are a little bit less supportive, maybe than others, or too demanding, or maybe there's
[5:02]not as much time, right, people who need you to like stay on the phone for an hour and
[5:07]a half or every issue.
[5:08]You know what I mean?
[5:09]And don't ever ask you a question back or, you know, yeah, well, the thing is, because
[5:12]you get older, you have more and more friends because we, you know, hopefully maintain
[5:18]their older friendships.
[5:19]And it's so exciting to meet new people and bring them into our lives.
[5:23]And then one of the difficulties is being in this very polyamorous situation where there's
[5:29]multiple people whom you love and who all need something from you.
[5:33]And then, you know, to look at each friendship in particular, I think each friendship
[5:37]is always uneven.
[5:38]And there's always somebody who wishes that we're more consuming or they were getting
[5:43]more.
[5:44]Right.
[5:45]Polyamorous.
[5:47]I've never used that word before.
[5:48]It's my new favorite word.
[5:50]Cool.
[5:51]Yeah.
[5:52]So there's a lot I want to discuss in the book, just a few things.
[5:54]So let's discuss the role of wealth in the book because it's one of the themes that you
[5:59]write about it.
[6:00]And you wrote, most of the unspeakably rich people, Sonny and Nick were friends with,
[6:04]were self-aware enough to understand that they did not count as good souls, even if they
[6:08]voted and donated in the right direction.
[6:10]There was no shaking off the shame inextricably bound up in the privilege.
[6:14]So I wanted to know what you meant by this.
[6:16]And if you were trying to say, like, does wealth mean you can't be a good soul?
[6:20]That's an interesting question.
[6:22]No one has asked about that aspect of the book yet.
[6:26]The answer is it's a comment to social satire.
[6:30]The book is really looking at the way we live now in New York City.
[6:35]And I don't think it's possible to tell that story without talking about class and talking
[6:39]about money.
[6:41]And this particular set of people are so consumed with markers of success and cultural
[6:49]cashay and coolness.
[6:51]And I wasn't trying, you know, I don't have any problems with the wealthy as a group of people.
[7:00]But this particular group of people, I was looking at the way that a certain sharp
[7:06]elbow-ness and a certain element of cold, it's almost a self-delusion that I think needs
[7:13]to set in for the people who, at the beginning of the story, are the true winners.
[7:18]And at the top of the totem pole, how they got there.
[7:21]And I wouldn't say that morals have driven them to where we find them in the beginning.
[7:27]Right.
[7:28]And so the three main characters of the book are Geraldine, who is the only one of the
[7:35]triangle who is still in Toronto at the outset of the story.
[7:38]She is traumatized by a fiancé who left her four years ago.
[7:43]And both of her friends spend a lot of time looking at Geraldine and caring about Geraldine
[7:49]and wishing that her circumstances were equal to her goodness and feeling sorry for her.
[7:56]And there's also Rachel, who is a married mother of a very sweet baby.
[8:04]And she's a failed young adult novelist and she works part time at a magazine.
[8:09]And she is struggling with trying to just, she feels like the brass ring that she wants
[8:15]is just out of reach.
[8:16]She's trying to get her career back on track.
[8:20]And finally, there is Sunny, who has managed to become this, it girl, watercolor artist,
[8:27]who has made a very lucrative business, essentially, of being Sunny, of being this person
[8:33]who people know of and people want to be associated with in any way possible.
[8:39]So she makes a living and she stays busy doing a lot of, quote unquote, collaborations
[8:44]with brands and with magazines and she's people pay her a lot of money to say, what's
[8:49]cool?
[8:50]That's awesome.
[8:51]I want that job.
[8:52]I want her taste.
[8:53]Does anyone care about having a school?
[8:55]That's cool.
[8:56]Yeah, I don't really like it.
[8:59]So another part of your book that I thought was really interesting and different is that
[9:04]you talk a lot about podcasts in the book, which as somebody who hosted podcasts, I think
[9:09]it's pretty cool.
[9:10]You even have a moment where you have Jeremy whispering to Rachel, one of three women,
[9:16]is it terrible that I don't listen to podcasts?
[9:18]Which was great, because I feel like people are saying that to each other now.
[9:22]When I started a podcast, I didn't even know what a podcast was.
[9:24]I didn't even start like early last year, which is embarrassing.
[9:29]I know you've been listening to podcasts since 2005, like in your closet, but I was, I mean,
[9:33]I listened to, we had talked about Jess Harris's from scratch, podcast, but I had listened
[9:37]to hers, but aside from that, I didn't know much about it.
[9:42]So you have a character and then this podcast keeps coming up in the book at different
[9:46]parts.
[9:47]People referring to podcasts or listening or whatever.
[9:50]And you wrote this fantastic book essay called Confessions of a Pod Person, which was amazing
[9:56]about your whole history of how much you love podcasts, so I've just said a lot of stuff.
[10:00]I've touched me about podcasts, and I'll see you somewhere about it.
[10:02]Of course.
[10:03]Like, I made you paid podcasts in the book.
[10:05]I don't know how I could have written a book without a podcast just given how much time
[10:09]and thought I put into my podcast obsession.
[10:13]And the book is also about the collapse of the traditional media world.
[10:19]And I love the idea of podcasts gaining in reputation and importance as we move forward.
[10:27]And I thought, you know, novelistically, I thought it was fun to think of a podcast being
[10:32]a vehicle for a woman to orientate herself and be express herself.
[10:38]And to a smaller degree, I thought it was fun to think about the way that Geraldine's
[10:43]friends or friend of me is, in some points, listen to her podcast and they can gleam little
[10:48]clues about what's happening in her life.
[10:50]And that's something that I do when I've been doing forever when I listen to podcasts
[10:53]because I really know my hosts, you know, even from listening to your podcast, you know,
[10:59]I'm fascinated by your personal.
[11:00]I know that, you know, I know you have four children.
[11:02]I know that you're divorced.
[11:04]I know that you're remarried.
[11:06]And that interests me whenever you start that comes into your conversations.
[11:10]So I've been listening since, yes, 2005, which I can date because I remember that was
[11:16]when Slate launched its political God fast and it was initially just fascinated by hearing
[11:22]the voices of the people whose articles I was reading.
[11:26]And, you know, then came Mark Marin.
[11:29]I think he's the comedian who has an amazing, if it was a Rolex then, I mean, he hasn't
[11:35]been amazing on it.
[11:36]So he would just bring on him, you know, Lucy K and Sarah Silverman and get his friends
[11:41]to talk about absolutely everything in this very intimate way that felt novel to me.
[11:47]And I guess especially back then, people weren't listening so much to podcasts.
[11:51]So there's a sense of comfort and, you know, self-revelation that you weren't getting
[11:57]when you read articles in glossy magazines about people.
[12:02]And I've been, you know, riding the wave ever since of this explosion and I stayed loyal
[12:08]to my show.
[12:09]So I just listened to more and more and I had them on.
[12:12]Wow.
[12:13]So how many shows do you listen to?
[12:14]What'd you say?
[12:15]Each week, for instance.
[12:16]Like a van.
[12:17]Yeah.
[12:18]Maybe there's two.
[12:19]Like 20?
[12:20]I don't.
[12:21]I'm really lousy at television.
[12:23]I, yes, I don't, I'm not even watching anything on TV at the moment.
[12:29]And I read, I was in a podcast and I listened to podcasts in the middle of the night.
[12:34]So it varies.
[12:35]If I'm sleeping very well, I will be remiss in my podcast consumption.
[12:41]But there are sometimes when I'm just having a very hard time sleeping and I lie there
[12:48]and bed with my friends in my head and my ears.
[12:52]It is really intimate.
[12:53]I've done that like falling asleep in the lights are off and I have my little headphones
[12:56]in.
[12:57]And I'm like, this is crazy.
[12:58]I have like strangers in my, you know, telling me a bedtime story basically is weird
[13:02]if you think about that.
[13:03]Yeah.
[13:04]It's weird.
[13:05]I have a, I was a friend who like, there's a woman I became friends with and I was working
[13:08]at Vogue and she had a podcast.
[13:10]And we really like each other and we were getting to know each other.
[13:13]And I would go and have lunch with her and I would think this is so strange that you were
[13:17]in bed with me.
[13:18]And I couldn't tell her at first and then I finally, you know, confessed about how much
[13:23]I was getting to know her and, you know, I still listen to her podcast.
[13:27]It's called Fat mascara and it's a beauty podcast and it's hilarious.
[13:32]So what types of podcasts do you listen to?
[13:34]Mostly beauty.
[13:35]Mostly.
[13:36]No.
[13:37]No.
[13:38]I mean, I listen to that one because I think the two hosts are so clever and fun.
[13:41]It's Jessica Matlin and Jennifer Goldstein and they're both beauty editors.
[13:44]But they, they bring on these characters from the world of hairdressing and modeling
[13:50]and beauty.
[13:51]And I just find that there's a lot of larger than life personality in that recording
[13:55]booth and I love it.
[13:56]I would say on to generally group my podcast preferences.
[14:01]I love the ones that feel DIY and raw and conversational.
[14:07]I'm not as interested in the, you know, the heavily produced narrative podcast is cool
[14:12]as they are.
[14:14]I guess I come to podcast as a way to feel connected to real people and also to learn a bit
[14:21]about, you know, like, learn about culture and the news unfortunately too much.
[14:26]It's a proportionally versus how much I'm reading a newspaper or, well, Twitter or something.
[14:31]I don't know if that's a virtue or vice.
[14:33]So yes, I like the podcasts where they're people who I think about and who I know.
[14:40]You mentioned Twitter in the book and you had some funny quote, I almost was going to write
[14:44]it down about like one of the characters again, a half-hearted half-thought-out newsings
[14:50]of Twitter or something like that.
[14:52]Well, there's one character, she was like checking her.
[14:55]I can find it.
[14:56]But anyway, it was like this funny take on Twitter how like you thought none of the thoughts
[15:01]were like fully formed of people who are posting to our tweeting issues.
[15:04]Right.
[15:05]Well, there's also there's one character that failed young adult novelist who kind
[15:08]of has a bipolar Twitter presence where she will tweet sometimes very sharp witty observations
[15:16]and nobody cares.
[15:17]And then she will watch, you know, it shall try to tweet the way that the successful young
[15:21]adult writers are tweeting like hashtag cupcakes hashtag I'm writing and then she'll
[15:26]get a little more traction there.
[15:28]It's so refreshing to have that in a novel because at least for me, like this is like
[15:32]the stuff I'm doing every day, but it's not so much in fiction yet.
[15:34]So I don't know.
[15:35]It's so cool to have you put it in like all the stuff and it's in my brain.
[15:39]It's so good.
[15:40]I wanted to feel like and then for me, relevant.
[15:43]Why just wanted to feel like the way it feels to be country or your phone and texting with
[15:49]a fascinating friend or maybe gossip thing, an auto-third friend.
[15:53]And I just wanted to capture the way we actually do communicate and live now.
[15:57]So of course Twitter comes in.
[16:00]Thanks.
[16:01]So when did you write this book?
[16:02]Tell me about like a little more about the process.
[16:04]How long did this dictate to write when and where you said you've found it?
[16:07]You were like, your husband encouraged you to pull it off the shelf?
[16:10]Yes.
[16:11]So I started it.
[16:12]I was praying it with my daughter who's about to turn five.
[16:14]So I started maybe six years ago when I was in my, you know, I was 35 and still really
[16:20]bruised.
[16:21]And, you know, I still hadn't found a new intimate friend and, you know, I still haven't
[16:28]replaced that friend.
[16:29]I started writing it when I was 35, I had just written a young adult novel that nobody
[16:35]wanted to buy.
[16:36]And when I say that, I don't mean no one in the bookstore.
[16:38]I mean, nobody wanted to produce it as a book.
[16:41]So I literally, I was, I had a, at that point, a part-time job at the Wall Street Journal
[16:46]and I had a couple of days a week when I was going to a writing space.
[16:50]And I thought, all right, this is my time.
[16:52]I'm going to write the book.
[16:53]I actually really want to read.
[16:55]And then after having written about 80 pages, I got an amazing and very conceiving job
[17:01]as an editor at Vogue.
[17:03]And I had to come up to speed on so many levels to figure out how to do that job.
[17:09]So I put my book to the side.
[17:11]And maybe a year in my wonderful husband said he wanted to see, you know, he remembered
[17:18]my talking about those pages and he looked at them and he encouraged me to see it through.
[17:24]And so I, at that point, it was crazy.
[17:28]I wrote it while I was working at Vogue.
[17:29]I wrote it every morning and I would wake up at five and write for about an hour.
[17:34]And then it became a superstitious process where I often didn't know how it was going
[17:41]or if it was good, but I told myself the one thing I can do is just write every day.
[17:46]So sometimes if I didn't manage to, you know, if the baby wake up the same time as
[17:52]I did and I didn't have time to write in the morning, I would bring my computer and I would
[17:55]go for my, you know, lunch break and go to a coffee shop and just write for 20 minutes.
[18:01]This is rule I had.
[18:02]So I was often lugging around a heavy computer and lunch shoulder.
[18:07]And here we are.
[18:08]So it took a while and it's funny because people who read it say it takes about five
[18:14]hours to, like it's not, it's not really hard work to read.
[18:19]And I'm happy to hear that.
[18:21]I mean, you often don't know all the, like the blood, sweat and tears that go into making
[18:24]it so seamless.
[18:25]I mean, like to consume it, it's like watching a movie, right?
[18:29]It's, if you think about the 8,000 people who are like holding the equipment on the sides
[18:33]and the takes that they do, but when you watch them, I mean, it's just like boom, you're in it.
[18:37]Yes.
[18:38]Like your best.
[18:39]It's like immersed.
[18:40]Yes.
[18:41]I mean, I'm sure there are people who are able to, I mean, Sally Rooney, I think writes books
[18:44]in seven weeks and I also, you can read them on a Saturday afternoon and she's totally brilliant.
[18:50]My process is a lot of writing and rewriting and smoothing over and a lot of the times
[18:56]that I work on the book, you know, not at work, but in downtown Manhattan, you know, the
[19:02]Japanese bakery, I wasn't writing new sentences.
[19:06]I was just playing with paragraphs.
[19:08]So isn't Sally Rooney though in her 20s?
[19:11]She is, right?
[19:12]I mean, I didn't write a book in seven weeks in my 20s either, okay fine, but maybe she
[19:16]doesn't.
[19:17]Okay.
[19:18]Yes.
[19:19]However, maybe she has more time, maybe she doesn't have another job.
[19:22]I don't know.
[19:23]I can delete this for a day.
[19:24]No, that's fine.
[19:25]It's fine.
[19:26]I mean, Rooney is more of a genius.
[19:27]No, I mean, this is how I feel about people who can get up and like give speeches without
[19:31]any notes.
[19:32]Like if I ever speak in public, like I like to have everything written out every word, you
[19:35]know, because that's easy for me.
[19:36]It's easy for me to like sit down, just do it in a regular whole thing out.
[19:39]But if I have to say it, it's so much harder.
[19:41]So when I go to a speech or an event and I see someone stand up and like basically speak
[19:46]in paragraphs, isn't it marvelous?
[19:48]It's amazing.
[19:49]And now like how do they do that is amazing.
[19:51]I was at a birthday party this weekend for my friends 50th birthday and suddenly it was
[19:56]all women.
[19:57]It was one of those wonderful, like beautiful, all women gathering.
[20:00]like around 11 o'clock so people had been drinking and but one by one her friends just got to the
[20:06]front of the room and gave the most epic, epic tributes to her and they hadn't prepared them.
[20:12]No, anytime I give a speech at like a wedding, my own wedding, anybody, it's either printed out
[20:18]and like in my hand or I don't do it. I relate to that, yes. So tell me about hashtag
[20:26]clog life a little, it's, you know, it was a wave from the buck, but you wrote this article in
[20:30]The New Yorker a while ago and you talked about how you had just left your job, you were basically
[20:36]having tequila for breakfast, but yeah, my job left me. So I appreciate that, but it's fine. I was
[20:43]laid off. It's in the wonderful world of magazines people get laid off and was that your
[20:47]vocal job of your time? Yeah, so it was a vote for three years and change and then I was not in
[20:55]and I was I was a completely lost. I just remember just feeling like I was living an out of body
[21:03]experience because so much of my identity by that point had become working so hard. It was incredibly
[21:09]intense magazine and I just needed something I guess that was more grounded and more tangible to wrap
[21:18]all of my anxiety and confusion around and for me it became purchasing a pair of clogs because
[21:25]at Vogue one doesn't wear clogs and I, you know, it was home. I had boxes and boxes and like
[21:30]the contents of my office, including all these high heels that I used to change into and I figured
[21:35]are just going to become one of those cool women. I see who have an amorphous line of work and they
[21:42]just look so beautiful and creative and they're floating around Brooklyn where I live and they're
[21:48]always wearing clogs and I wrote a piece for the New Yorker about what I called hashtag clog life
[21:55]because I started putting pictures on my Instagram account of life outside of this skyscraper,
[22:01]you know, strange, you know, crackers and peanut butter in my apartment for lunch hashtag
[22:08]clog life and it just became a way to survive. It was a, I found it very amusing at, you know,
[22:16]people didn't really understand what's happening. Someone thought I was starting a clog
[22:20]zine. I remember the woman who I worked with in the Vogue, he was like, is this even a new job now?
[22:24]And then the New Yorker article came out and that actually resonated with people. I think A because
[22:31]they were shocked to read somebody right. So, nudely or nakedly about being fired, but also because
[22:41]clogs in certain zip codes are the only thing people wear and it hadn't yet actually been explored
[22:48]and so it was one of those like a lot of you know, messages of why didn't I think of that? You know,
[22:52]I should have written that article like, how did it not occur to me that we were like walking around
[22:57]like Dutch farmers. And so I clog life, a really good friend of mine named Evianne. At the time,
[23:05]she said, this article, I love it. You should also start an Instagram account. You should just
[23:10]keep it going. So I did and I didn't know what the point of it was, but I sort of like the right
[23:15]about that my book and then I wrote every single day. I have ever since every day posted a picture
[23:23]that is somehow a clog life to me and it has come to me. You know, it's sort of this dreamy alternative
[23:29]reality where everyone is creative and has time to read, you know, essays by Rachel Cusk for hours
[23:36]and hours and eat beautiful, freshly taken from the land salads for lunch. And at this point, though,
[23:44]it's become a community. There's, I don't think I don't qualify as a microfluencer because you have
[23:50]to have 50,000 followers. I am a maybe a nano specko fluencer. But I have these 5,000 friends all over
[24:01]the world and it keeps me happy. It's the strangest name because I've never actually had a circle of
[24:07]friends. I've always had specific, you know, one-on-one friendships and suddenly I feel like, okay, I get
[24:15]it. I understand now why people joined sororities or why people managed to stay in book clubs for
[24:21]more than two months. It's a wonderful thing to feel like you're united with women. And there's no
[24:27]man in clog life men do not like clogs. There's one pervert who messages every single woman on
[24:33]clog life to tell her that he is a clog fetishist. But that's it. Other than that, we are just,
[24:39]you can block, you know, I'm sure you know this. I do. I do. And then I go out and say,
[24:43]well, I've done my clog heads. Are you kidding me? And I say, do you know about this guy?
[24:48]Wow. Yeah. That's so neat that you did that. It's so, it's just the coolest. It's like,
[24:54]you just did what you were doing. And next thing, you know, you found all these like-minded people.
[24:58]And now you have, I have to take it to some amazing, you're like manifested this is what you
[25:02]needed. It was a real lemons to lemonade thing. So cool. And it's been really great with the book
[25:07]because, you know, a lot of the people who followed clog life are, you know, they're, they're just
[25:13]helping with them. I'm having a reading at a clog store in the Hudson Valley. And one, my moderator is
[25:20]a clog life friend. She's a wonderful food writer and Colu Henry. I met her through that. She is providing
[25:28]wine through some cloggy vineyard. And then there's another clog life member. Her name is Tamar
[25:36]Adler. And she is a, you know, food writer. And she's providing, she's making beveled eggs.
[25:40]I think like all these people are coming together through it and being friends. I feel like clogs,
[25:46]the finding of the word clogs is it completely disarms other women. And sometimes it can be
[25:52]tricky to kind of conversation for the first time with a woman. But for some reason when clogs
[25:58]becomes specific, everyone has something to say even if it's that they hate clogs. It's just
[26:02]just silly. It's maybe just because the word is silly sounding. I wore clogs in high school,
[26:08]who raised like black clogs with the wood bottom. They had like a little strap you could wear
[26:12]it behind. But I wore it on top. You were like, yeah, that was like the thing I would wear. It
[26:16]was like black jeans that I cut off at the bottom. So you wore it. So I wore a clog head.
[26:21]I wore a clog head. But that was my last pair. I don't know. Then I went to like Duck Martins. And
[26:26]I felt like every time. And now I wear vans like every day I wear vans. And that's what I
[26:32]was saying. I want to start like now I want to start like hashtag vans life because right
[26:35]maybe there's like a whole group of people out there. Oh, there is. Only wear vans. Like
[26:39]moms who wear vans. There's not to be confused in van life. Right. Right. Not living in a van. No.
[26:44]This is it. I am. It's very cool. I haven't I haven't done over to the van side yet. But I
[26:51]understand that they have their own connotations. And I respect. I don't even know what
[26:56]I have to like dig into the steeper. What does it say about me as a person that I wear vans now
[27:00]instead of like like I almost never wear heels. Like almost never. It works my knees. It's like
[27:06]I'm running after the kids. I'm often literally running places that I'm often late these days.
[27:10]I don't know. I'm like I have to wear something. I honestly think that should be one of your next
[27:15]articles. Right articles. And yeah, I think I will. And I was thinking why did you not write a book
[27:23]about collard life? You must have been pitched that. Or like that should be your next book.
[27:28]It can even just be like Instagram. Any like really cool pictures like CPA tone like of the clogs.
[27:33]Like a maybe like a coffee table. Exactly. My name is a coffee table book that might do really well
[27:38]Japan. Right. It could be sold at every single clogster. Like every clogster could sell it. I
[27:44]appreciate yours. Because it just like reinforces like sometimes I'll buy something or a book
[27:51]that even if I'm not going to read a cover to cover or whatever. It reminds me of something that I
[27:56]care about. So I'd like to have it as like a talisman on us. Yes. So it's not like it has to
[28:01]commercialize what you're doing. Right. As much as like. Right. If it wasn't selling up. It's different
[28:07]than making. Right. Or something. Right. It would be different. Because someone reached out to me
[28:10]or something about doing like sponsored content. And anyway, anyway. Anyway. Okay. We've
[28:15]talked about it. You have to do this. Okay. So what's coming. We have to ask you about your
[28:22]young adult fiction. Yes. Right. Because that's like a whole thing in and of itself. Do you
[28:26]don't do it anymore? I don't write them at all fiction anymore. You wrote a lot about 10th grade.
[28:31]I always spoke to you. I had to rise and follow the 10th grade social climber dream life. And you had
[28:37]foreign exposure, social climber abroad. I'll cue no A more tales of 10th grade social climber.
[28:42]That's what happened in 10th grade. Tell me about this social climbing situation. That's
[28:47]funny. 10th grade. Well, 10th grade is really, really fun. It was actually too fun. And I
[28:53]where did you go? So I grew up in Brooklyn. And I went to a small progressive school for my whole life
[29:00]until ninth grade. And then I got into Stuyveson, which is like the math and science public school.
[29:07]And I was so excited to go and be new somewhere. Somewhere everyone did know every
[29:12]thing about me. I ended up really enjoying it to a degree where a psychologist was called in.
[29:20]And it was decided that perhaps it would be best if I returned to my small school in the neighborhood
[29:29]where I grew up where I would be under a bit more supervision. And when I came back in the 11th grade,
[29:38]I was sort of alienated. But the kids from my school that I returned to didn't really want to
[29:46]accept me back. I think there's an element of, you know, well, she left us. And I hadn't maintained
[29:51]ties as well as I could have. And anyway, so I went from being this wild city creature of the 90
[30:00]to being a, you know, I spent all my time in the library and we have this amazing librarian
[30:07]who had the most adult literary fiction. Like she, she had the stack by the front of the
[30:13]library and it was all the vintage contemporaries. So it was like, it was less than zero and
[30:19]married date skill. So basically I hung out and read a lot about sex workers in the East Village
[30:26]and a, you know, my married date skill obsession was born. But anyway, I had a very intense,
[30:35]emotionally intense adolescence. So it did lend itself to, you know, fictionalization. And what
[30:41]happened was I was a journalist or I'm a journalist, but I tried to get a newspaper job in London
[30:47]when I was in my mid 20s and I went to London and I would always use paper editors and they all
[30:54]looked at me like I was insane and nobody thought that I needed to be the next voice of
[31:02]their generation. I came back to New York, but then I started getting assignments from British
[31:06]editors who needed someone to go do an interview in New York. And I was asked to go and interview
[31:13]Gossip Girl, which was not something I'd ever heard of, but I went to Barnes & Noble. Then I
[31:18]discovered this series and it was delicious. And I called a friend of mine Laura Moser, who is
[31:28]one of the most hilarious and women and also just an amazing writer. And we'd always
[31:32]collaborate on creative things. And I said, do you want it? Should we try to write a comedy for
[31:37]teenagers? You know, with this stuff that they're putting out is totally different from the
[31:41]Paula Danseger and Bigger's Clubs that we grew up on. And we get so much fun with that. So that's
[31:47]how I started writing Young Adult Fiction. So cool. And do your kids? Is it still too old?
[31:52]Sometimes I get bored of what we read at that time. So it's like they're the other night
[31:58]pick out. There was on the shelf and I did start reading a scene that was set in an art gallery.
[32:03]And my son was lying there and listening for a little bit. And then he said, oh, this is terrible.
[32:10]What is that? That's really funny. So aside from producing the book I want you to do about the
[32:19]cloud life, what do you have coming next to after this? I'm gonna write another novel. Do you have
[32:24]an idea for it already? I have an idea. Yes, I'm excited to make space. Oh, get really started. And
[32:31]you're still a contributing editor at Vogue. So does that mean you still go in? And I don't go in,
[32:35]but I write about books for them every month. So that takes a lot of time, too. I spend a lot
[32:40]of time reviewing galleries of new books and figuring out what the column should be. And most of my
[32:46]columns are about several books. And I'm a very slow reader. I like to hear a book when I read,
[32:51]you know, I like to imagine what it sounds like. So that's kind of, that's what I do. I split my
[32:57]time between writing about books and I'm currently spending a lot of time putting a book out in the
[33:04]world. And then I will go back to writing another book. So when do you find all the time to read
[33:10]all the books for the ones you review, ones you maybe do for fun, or maybe the same? Well, I think
[33:16]the question is more, the question has really been, when do I find time to write? That's something
[33:19]I mean to work on better, okay? Yes. Yes, I have deadlines for when I read the books. So that's how I
[33:26]find the time. Yeah, I just make it. You know, I wake up in the kids are at school and I need to have,
[33:31]you know, a column by next week about three books. I don't read yet. So I get to it. Yeah.
[33:37]That's how I found time to read. Like if you make it like a thing, right? Like I'm interviewing
[33:41]these people. I have to read these by exactly. I'm going to do it. Like, God, right? But yeah,
[33:45]that's what I'm doing. But I do it because I love it. And I'm sure you love it too.
[33:48]Oh, it's the best job ever. As far as like, oh, I can't read it. And reading to me was like getting
[33:53]a massage. So I don't know. Like, I'm going to sit on my couch and read the afternoon. No, I
[33:56]didn't write. Like, he didn't bond bonds. Exactly. My dad always, what do you want to do? Like,
[34:01]say around, did you bond bonds? So it's like every time in my head, I think that all of
[34:04]them. But when you make it into something, right? Yeah. And you know, every excuse to do what
[34:09]you love. Yeah. See a hard answer wonderful. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
[34:16]I, what the cliche advice is read a lot. And when I say that, I will say, be honest,
[34:24]write something that you'd be a little scared of people seeing. It might be really good.
[34:29]Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on momstone. Have time to read books.
[34:33]Oh, thanks for having me. I love the show. Oh, it's so great to meet you in person. Thank you.
[34:40]Thanks again to my sponsor, mermaid pillow co mermaid pillow co dot com slash zibi and her
[34:48]code zibi for 10% off. Thanks so much. Check out those really awesome giftable pillows and blankets.
[34:53]Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read books. You can follow me on Instagram
[34:57]at moms don't have time to read books and at zibi Owens and my new podcast at kids do have time
[35:04]to read. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you
[35:09]to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music. Thanks for listening.
[35:14]You can always email me at zibi at zibi Owens dot com.