Rene Denfeld, THE BUTTERFLY GIRL
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[0:49]I'm here today with Renee Denfeld, who's the best-selling author of the Child Finder and the Enchanted.
[0:54]Her latest book, The Butterfly Girl tackles the plight of homeless children,
[0:58]a marginalized population she's familiar with after growing up homeless and in the foster care system
[1:03]an award-winning journalist and licensed private investigator. Renee was named hero of the year by
[1:08]The New York Times and won a Breaking the Silence award in Washington, D.C. for Advocacy for Victims.
[1:14]Her work has been published in The Washington Post. The modern love column of The New York Times,
[1:17]The New York Times Magazine, and the Philadelphia Enquirer. Despite her only receiving a ninth
[1:22]grade education, she currently lives in Portland, Oregon with her three children adopted from
[1:26]foster care. So thanks Renee for coming on mom's and have time to read books.
[1:30]Thank you for having me. Can you please tell listeners what your beautiful novel The Butterfly Girl
[1:36]is about and what inspired you to write it? Sure, so The Butterfly Girl is my third novel and
[1:43]you know my books have been described as thrillers written as poems. They're very poetic,
[1:49]but they're also page-turners. And The Butterfly Girl is very much this way. It's a very exciting
[1:55]story and it centers on a 12-year-old homeless girl who's living on the streets of Portland, Oregon
[2:02]while somebody is basically taking and killing the girls. And a character, another character that
[2:10]appears is Naomi, who is a young investigator who has come to the city to find someone else. And
[2:17]her path and the path of the 12-year-old homeless girl named Celia Collides in the story.
[2:23]And Naomi was the protagonist in the child finder your previous book is that that's right.
[2:27]Exactly right. So this can work as a companion or a sequel. You don't have to read the child
[2:34]finder to read The Butterfly Girl, but you certainly can't. Now I know I want to.
[2:40]So why did you decide to keep writing about Naomi? Like what was it about her that made you want
[2:45]to keep featuring her or was it just a vehicle to tell this story? And why this story? I know your
[2:52]has collided in some ways with some of the characters. So tell me a little more about that.
[2:57]You know it's interesting. So I finished the child finder and I realized right away I wanted to hear
[3:03]more of Naomi's story. I felt like the character wasn't finished for me, but I wasn't sure
[3:10]what the story was after that. It took me a little bit of time before this particular story came to
[3:17]to me. And when Celia came up to me when this character appeared, this 12 year old street kid, I thought,
[3:22]this is it. This is the next chapter of Naomi's life. And you know, so the story just kind of
[3:30]just came to me. And it was I think in part because it was very much inspired by my own experiences.
[3:36]And I'm pretty open about this. I had a very difficult childhood growing up. I grew up in a
[3:42]family with a lot of abuse, a lot of violence, a lot of crime. The man I considered my father
[3:48]is actually a registered predatory sex offender. He was also an armed robber and a pimp. So you know,
[3:55]you can imagine the kind of family I grew up in. And by the time I was a young girl, I was actually
[4:01]living on the streets myself. And it took me until this period of my life that I was really comfortable
[4:08]writing about it. So my experiences as a homeless child really are directly inspiring the portions
[4:16]of this story that deal with Celia and her life on the streets. How did you get through that
[4:22]period of time? Like, how did you go from pulling yourself out of a really difficult home environment,
[4:30]putting yourself out there on the street? And I feel like not that I have any idea what it's like.
[4:34]but now that at least I've been in Celia's head, I can have some perspective on what the day
[4:39]to day of that would look like. And almost the courage it takes to have to do that. And then end
[4:44]up here as an amazing author. And how did that journey happen?
[4:49]Oh, that's, you know, I love that question. Because I think it's so important and that's part
[4:53]of the reason I write is, you know, and I want to make it really clear. This is a very hopeful
[5:01]story. It's a story not just about surviving, but it's a story about surviving even after really
[5:07]significant trauma. And I feel like it's really something I can bring to people because we all
[5:14]experience trauma, right? We all have grief and loss and hardship. And, you know, we live in this
[5:20]culture where we're kind of told, particularly if we have certain kind of traumas happen to us,
[5:25]like I did. I got all these messages growing up that I was broken and damaged. And, you know,
[5:34]I felt, you know, you get these messages. And so I really internalized it for a long time.
[5:40]And the way I actually survived, I think my saving grace was the public library. And starting
[5:46]when I was little, I would run to the public library every day after school. And I would surround
[5:50]myself with these walls of books. And I escaped into story. And I escaped into my imagination.
[5:55]And that's a really significant theme in this story too was how the power story, you know,
[6:01]I think it's true in most of us. We can all cite this one book, you know, one or two books that
[6:06]really changed their lives. And that's what saved me was the power of books and stories. And this
[6:12]eternal hope I always had that things could be better. And you've said that you taught yourself
[6:18]to write basically through reading all these books and reading all the time that you have
[6:23]only ninth grade education. And yet here you are with these masterpieces that people at the most
[6:27]advanced MFA programs that can't come up with. And yet you are like a self-taught artist, really.
[6:33]I mean, thank you. Yeah, I've joked. I got my free MFA at the public library.
[6:39]Studied at the feet. You know, and for people out there that that have want to be writers,
[6:44]you know, I really encourage them because I think the world needs our stories too.
[6:50]You know, it's wonderful if you can get an MFA, but you don't need to. You know, the world needs
[6:56]stories from all sorts of kind of people. And yeah, what I did is I read a lot. I read voraciously
[7:03]and I write a lot. And I think I was actually really lucky to grow up going to the library because
[7:09]the library is one place you can go if you're homeless. And so I spent a lot when I was on the
[7:14]street, I spent a lot of time in the public library. And I think reading that much and escaping
[7:20]in the books gave me a very kind of poetic way of looking at the world even. It really changed
[7:26]how I saw the world and it gave me a lot of hope. Did you have something like Celia's butterflies
[7:31]that helped you sort of get out of the actual present and into a better place while you coped with it?
[7:38]Yeah, I did actually. It's kind of embarrassing to admit, but I escaped into a world of fantasy myself.
[7:46]And yeah, I would imagine that the families in the books were my families. I had all these amazing
[7:52]like different fantasies I lived in. I like to imagine that Native Americans were going to come
[7:58]safe. And you know, I had these like very elaborate daydreams that were kind of more like books
[8:03]I was telling myself, novels, I was telling myself where different people would come rescue me.
[8:09]And it was actually, I think that allowed me to hold on to hope that things could change and that
[8:15]I could get off the streets. And eventually I was able to. How? You know, when I turned 16, I was
[8:22]able to get a work permit. And so I got my first job actually in a fast food restaurant. And I
[8:28]rented a dirt cheap apartment, which I have to say is not an avenue that's really available anymore
[8:35]for people to escape poverty and homelessness. But yeah, I remember it was a tiny little studio
[8:40]apartment filled with cockroaches. And when the first things I went out and did is I went to a
[8:46]thrift store and I bought a used typewriter for just a couple dollars. And I vividly remember it
[8:52]was like missing the R key. And go right, you know, this letter with a pen. And when I first got
[9:01]off the streets, I would sit around in this little studio apartment writing poems. And I would leave
[9:08]them at bus stops for other street kids. And you know, so you know, I always dreamed of being a
[9:14]writer. And it was it was such a hope that I had that I could, you know, take my experiences and
[9:19]things I went through and help other people with it. Tell me a little more about not to keep
[9:24]talking about the homeless girl angle of this book because there was so much more. And I will get
[9:28]into that in just a second. But in terms of how kids end up on the streets and how do then make
[9:35]sure or to help them not have to have that happen, is there anything that we can do to help,
[9:40]like having lived through it, like what can people really do?
[9:44]You know, I think there's a lot we can do. You know, I'm a big fan of leaving that there's really
[9:51]not a hierarchy and activism. You know, I think we all have this capacity to help other people,
[9:57]you know, like what you're doing is helping people.
[10:00]You know, you're getting books out to readers, which could, you know, you're probably saving people's lives and, you know, you won't even meet these people.
[10:08]You know, but, you know, people like volunteering in schools, you know, intervening in the lives of people.
[10:15]Like for instance, you know, checking in on the troubled family down the street, volunteering in homeless shelters, making sure politicians are addressing the issue.
[10:26]You know, there's just so many things we can do. And I think a lot of people really care about this issue.
[10:31]You know, it just can seem really daunting.
[10:34]So what I encourage is just, you know, taking those little steps because those little things really add up.
[10:40]And I know that my life was really changed for the better, just like little things like there was an elderly librarian when I was on the streets and she befriended me.
[10:51]And she always used to say hi to me and she would do things like keep food behind her desk and hand me like a can of nuts when I came into the library and it meant the world to me.
[11:03]You know, it's when your homeless people just kind of look through you.
[11:06]And being a child on the streets, it just meant so much that there were people that reached out to me that showed me that they cared.
[11:13]So let's talk a little about hope also which you have in the book a lot and you just reference.
[11:18]So Diane tells Jerome who is Naomi's husband, Diane is a friend there that they're staying with.
[11:23]Naomi is trying to find her sister, which is one of the main plot points of the book.
[11:28]And when Diane says, you know, I hope it's all going to work out for her, Jerome replies, hope is enough.
[11:33]Like, do you think that hope is enough to get people through their past?
[11:37]Was it enough to get Naomi and Celia through?
[11:41]Like, do you think that's is it always possible to have hope?
[11:44]Yeah, that's such a good question.
[11:46]You know, it's one of the it's kind of a trick trick answer maybe because I think in a way, hope is enough.
[11:52]But the question is how do we give each other hope?
[11:55]You know, so and it's really important because hope is kind of the gift that we can give each other.
[12:01]And you know, how do we do that?
[12:03]You know, sometimes it means giving someone hope might mean giving them an employment opportunity.
[12:09]It might mean making sure that they have safe housing.
[12:12]It might mean I think more than anything for a lot of us, it means being recognized.
[12:18]It means being seen and heard and giving each other.
[12:22]So that's I think probably the biggest gift we can give each other is the sense of like you matter.
[12:28]What happens to you matters to me.
[12:31]And even in just little daily interactions, I think that's just so critical.
[12:37]Because I think most of us what we really want is to feel that we matter.
[12:42]And there's so many ways that we can really give that sense to each other.
[12:46]So I think hope is all you need.
[12:48]But the question is embracing that doesn't mean that we just throw people out in the cold and say,
[12:54]go find some hope all by yourself.
[12:56]No, it's a community effort to give each other that gift.
[13:00]Well, that very well said.
[13:02]Your trick answer worked out for me.
[13:05]In the book, you mentioned things like that Celia had never had a real shower before that she used a yogurt container in her home before and that she had the one time she goes to a hotel with the shower.
[13:17]You know, looks like my daughters.
[13:19]Anyway, I feel like it was it was a disaster and that she actually had to eat the plaster chunks that fell from her bedroom wall when she was hungry.
[13:29]So what do you think the impact is of growing up without these things that so many take for granted, particularly in a society where we, you know, this isn't a third world country like everybody just takes these things for granted.
[13:43]But what about when you don't have them?
[13:45]Like what are the consequences?
[13:46]You know, I think there are so many kind of different consequences.
[13:50]You know, I grew up in that kind of poverty when I was little, which is how I understand the relate to it.
[13:57]I finally got my school records, for instance, and I was severely underweight because we didn't have enough to eat, you know, so I was, I literally went hungry as a child.
[14:08]And when you're really that poor, you know, things like, you know, I don't want to be too graphic, but if you get a bad case of headlice and you can't afford the medicine to fix it, you know, you can't afford to buy new clothes, you know, that sort of thing.
[14:22]There's a lot of people that live in that kind of poverty in our country.
[14:26]One thing that I see is lately, you know, now I think we're starting to recognize that we're having this epidemic, for instance, of homelessness and what we don't really recognize is a lot of those homeless people are children.
[14:38]So it's kind of, you know, to be that poor is to be seen and not seen.
[14:43]And I know for me actually growing up that poor, it gave me a profound appreciation for what I have.
[14:51]You know, I just go through everyday filled with gratitude, you know, just to be like out in the world.
[14:59]Like I love going for long walks and I appreciate that I can buy these nice sneakers, you know, and comfortable clothes and to be out in the world and experience the beauty of it, you know, because I think the world is beautiful.
[15:14]And we all, I guess we all have a right to that.
[15:18]You know what I mean?
[15:20]Like even people that come from trauma and sadness and grief have a right to experience the beauty of the world.
[15:26]And I think if you've really had a lot of hardship, you maybe get a little more tuned into how precious it is.
[15:32]The one upside of hard times.
[15:35]Everything else seems better.
[15:38]Exactly in comparison.
[15:40]Yeah, you know, when I'm parenting my kids, we have a family saying, when we're going through hard times, I say, well, nobody killed any puppies today.
[15:50]It's kind of, it's our code word for like, you know, what life could be a lot harder than this, you know, it gives you a real sense of what hardship really is.
[15:59]So tell me about your decision. You wrote about in your modern love piece, how you had adopted your first foster child.
[16:05]And now you've adopted several, I mean, it talked about you adopting several children.
[16:09]And you wrote, as far as I knew, I was capable of getting pregnant.
[16:12]I just didn't want to.
[16:13]There were half a million in foster care and need of an adoptive parent.
[16:16]And I wanted children, so this made perfect sense to me.
[16:18]You said that it didn't necessarily make sense to some of your friends at the time.
[16:21]But to you, like it was crystal clear.
[16:23]And then you said the first months of motherhood hit me like a lead filled gunny sack, which is the best way to put that.
[16:30]That was like, that's so unique and just awesome.
[16:33]So talk to me a little about your decision. Like, were you married at the time? How old were you?
[16:38]Like, when did you decide you were ready to do this and you just like went for it?
[16:44]You know, it was, so actually, I got off the streets when I was 16 and ended up, you know, working a variety of service jobs, you know,
[16:52]trying to be a writer while I worked at fast food restaurants, that sort of thing.
[16:57]And one of the virtues to it is actually, you know, you grow up fast.
[17:01]And so by the time I was actually in my early 20s, I realized I wanted to be a parent.
[17:07]And I did feel really called to kids in the foster care system. I really felt like I wanted to parent kids from backgrounds like mine.
[17:16]So like you said, you know, it made perfect sense to me. And it was so funny because I, you know, had made friends at that point and it didn't make perfect sense to them at all.
[17:25]You know, and I got a lot of questions like, well, don't you want kids of your own?
[17:29]And I felt, well, these are going to be my own kids.
[17:32]And so yeah, I was in my 20s and I was unmarried at the time.
[17:38]I was working as a freelance journalist and a writer. I ended up going into actually public defense work.
[17:45]And I just decided to do it.
[17:48]And yeah, so, you know, but ideals are kind of one thing.
[17:52]And then reality is it happens.
[17:55]And I'm sure, you know, everybody that's been a first time parent, you know, can relate to that feeling.
[18:01]And I remember when I got my first child, my daughter, all my kids came to me from foster care.
[18:07]And they were all considered very difficult to place. They all came with some significant challenges.
[18:14]And I just remember just sitting in the edge of my bed holding my daughter to thinking what have I got myself into.
[18:22]And so overwhelmed and yet committed and yet excited and horrified and stressed and just such a huge mixture of emotions with so intense.
[18:35]I would argue that secretly most parents have sat there on the bed with a screaming baby and thought what have I got myself into.
[18:43]And how can I cannot turn or I cannot like reverse this decision in any way.
[18:47]Now what?
[18:49]Yeah, exactly. Now you're committed now.
[18:52]But then like the baby smiles and you're like, oh, okay.
[18:56]It's enough.
[18:58]Exactly. Yeah. So actually, I think that's a real common part of parenting is that kind of universal experience of like, oh my gosh, what did I do?
[19:07]But you know, it's been over 20 years now.
[19:11]I've adopted three kids from foster care. I've fostered other kids.
[19:15]My most recent foster kid was actually a teenager who they were actually, you know, getting ready to drive her to a homeless shelter.
[19:24]So there was no place to take her.
[19:27]And you know, it's hands down. It's just been the best choice I ever made.
[19:32]It's been a wonderful journey. I love my kids so much. They're awesome kids.
[19:37]If you let me take your brag about my babies.
[19:41]It's been a way for me to take the pain I experienced and turn it into something positive.
[19:46]So I think it's been just as good for me, maybe even more than it's been for my kids.
[19:51]And you talked in the article also about how the best therapy you think for kids is just the permanence and the love that you show them more so than like.
[20:00]all the advanced services and this that are the other thing. But just and you wrote about it so
[20:04]beautifully with your son who took him so long and then finally he said I love you and he finally
[20:10]realized deep down you weren't going anywhere. I mean I was like I mean it's just beautiful and so
[20:15]I don't know. I mean is that still how you power through? Like how do you get through these
[20:20]really challenging parenting moments? How do you stay calm and patient and persevere and all the
[20:27]those good things that I feel like I love. I think that's I think yeah it's been a learning
[20:33]curve for me too. But you know I think for me to give up on my kids would have met giving up on
[20:40]myself. You know and so a lot of my parenting journeys been I can't give up on them because then I
[20:47]would be telling myself that I don't deserve to be saved either. You know and we all deserve to be
[20:53]saved. We all deserve love and a family. So I think that there was just you know such a deep
[21:00]commitment on my part to be honest. I just knew I couldn't give up. I couldn't give up on them to
[21:06]give up on them would be to give up on myself. And particularly my oldest son came to me with a
[21:12]great deal of rage and anger problems and it wasn't a matter of just having some bad weeks or
[21:18]we had bad years. It took years and now he is this very you know happy successful wonderful young
[21:27]adults he's doing great in his life. It's just a beautiful thing to see. So you know I do think part
[21:34]of it for me too is I've been with writing the same thing happens. It's learning to love the process.
[21:40]You know I stopped thinking about the end goal as much but I've learned to love the process. It's
[21:45]the process that can really bring us a lot of satisfaction. And so what's the writing process like
[21:50]for you? Do you go to the public library still? Do you write there? Do you write at home or what do you
[21:54]do? I write at home. You know I have a actually I got an old antique roll top desk which is by the
[22:01]mic. My magic it's my magic portal to another world. I love writing. When I'm writing it's like
[22:07]I'm it's like you're I fall down this delicious rabbit hole and it's you know I'm just as excited
[22:14]as any reader to find out what's going to happen. It's like it's kind of like being in the best of
[22:19]both worlds as I'm creating the story and yet I'm part of the story. And so yeah I absolutely love
[22:26]it. One thing I do is you know I'm a single mom and I have four kids and I usually always had
[22:33]three to four children at a time. I have my adopted kids and then foster kids and so I really
[22:39]prioritize it. I let the chores go. I remember hearing Margaret Atwood speak and somebody
[22:48]a reporter had asked her you know your mother and the writer who does the chores and Margaret Atwood
[22:56]said look under the couch. Thank you. I think you're battles. That's my attitude too. You have to
[23:06]you know you have to prioritize your art I think sometimes and I think it's been good for my kids
[23:10]to know that mom's writing is important to her. Wow you know it's so interesting because
[23:17]here you are this like I mean you're one of the most generous beautiful people right that you could
[23:22]take this horrendous childhood experiences. This trauma and turn it into something so positive and not
[23:29]only give back to rears with your work but to you know now take the foster kids in and adopt children
[23:36]and you're just like this endless fountain of hope. I wonder why like why do you think that's the
[23:43]direction you win it. You could have turned out. I mean I'm sure you thought about this yourself but
[23:48]anyone in your situation right who essentially was not particularly I would argue well parented right
[23:55]you must I don't know anything about your mom. I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say
[23:59]I think you might not have had parents who were like reading all the parenting literature and all
[24:03]of that and the other thing and yet look at how you turned out you turned out like amazingly well
[24:07]do parents even make a difference like can I mean I mean look at like you're you could come out
[24:13]of like thin air. So how does it happen do you think? I think it's partially locked to be honest
[24:19]you know when I was homeless and on the streets you get to you I was very close to other street
[24:24]kids and you know you get to know other people and most of those people are gone you know I
[24:30]think most people in my situation end up losing themselves to addictions to self harm you know
[24:38]there's just a lot of terrible things that could happen so you know in a sense it's kind of
[24:42]luck it's luck that I discovered books and life you know you know I'm a huge supporter of libraries
[24:48]you know anything that we can do you know people talk about resiliency and I like to think of
[24:54]it as imagination everything that we can do to give children a sense of resiliency of imagination
[25:01]of hope is just so just incredibly important but the other thing I think that I was lucky to do was
[25:08]stumbling into helping other people because I think that's what we can also do is we can take our
[25:13]trauma and turn it outwards and say hey I'm going to use this as the strength and embrace it but it's
[25:19]hard in our culture too you know it's we live in a culture that really shames people who are
[25:24]victims and so it's it's been a challenge for me as well to kind of push back against that shame
[25:29]wow in the context of all of this can you just tell me a little more about selling these books
[25:35]like you sold your book you became an author like was that the most amazing feeling ever like
[25:40]were you just over the moon tell me about that shift in your life to becoming a published author
[25:46]it was amazing you know when I wrote my first novel I didn't tell anybody I was doing it in
[25:52]fact you know I didn't even tell my kids I was writing my first novel they thought I was playing
[25:57]around on Facebook so you know I and I think when I wrote my first novel I was it was just it
[26:05]just felt like such a magical secret thing but maybe I also had a fear that nothing would become
[26:11]of it and so when I actually sold it and you know I got an agent who just told me he thought it
[26:17]was astonishing and it sold to a big publishing house honestly at first it sold all very unreal
[26:25]and then it happened and you know it came out it got a lot of rave reviews and one fancy awards
[26:32]and it you know it yeah it was it was really redemptive for me and you know I think one less
[26:39]and it really brought home is I think people relate to stories that feel honest and true to them
[26:46]you know they relate to my books not just because they deal with trauma and bad things happening
[26:52]but they relate to my stories because they can tell that I genuinely survive these things
[26:58]and my books kind of offer a road map to a better future you know so they deal with things
[27:04]in a realistic way but they're also are kind of imbued with that hope so yeah I mean I just I'm
[27:11]very intensely grateful I'm just so grateful I mean I get to write books and I get to be a mom I
[27:19]get to love people I get to share stories with readers I mean there's nothing better than that
[27:27]that's just amazing are you are you writing anything new or do you have another novel in you
[27:33]on this way or anything or you know I try I tend to be kind of top secret about things I'm
[27:39]I'm working I'm always afraid of jinxing the story all my books came to me as voices
[27:46]which sounds kind of woo woo but like the butterfly girl came to me when I was walking down a city street
[27:54]and I heard this girl a little 12 year old girl talking to me and she was telling me how
[28:00]she was homeless and she believed that butterflies were going to come save her and that's how
[28:05]this character Celia was born and of course I realize intellectually that that is inspired by my
[28:10]own experiences but these characters always kind of come to me as real people and the story kind
[28:16]of manifest from that point so I'm always waiting to hear the next the next voice the next story
[28:24]and you know it feels like such a privilege when I do and I get to escape back into the magic
[28:31]the magic of a story wow so thank you thank you so much for sharing this experience with
[28:38]listeners and with me and for all of your stories and wow just what a role model you are I mean
[28:45]I don't know I mean no matter what you're past to be so giving and grateful and have this you know
[28:51]I can tell sense of yourself I don't know it's just amazing so so much you know I really appreciate
[28:57]this and and appreciate what you do because I do think that stories and books just have they're
[29:04]just powerful magic and you know the more that we can spread the word about books the more that
[29:10]we can share these stories with each other particularly in times where people feel sometimes helpless
[29:17]and stressed and it you know life is difficult you know I think books are this way that we
[29:23]actually we're all having this conversation with each other you know when I'm writing a book I think
[29:27]of it as a private conversation between me and the reader and the story is this kind of soft place
[29:34]for us to fall it's a gentle and welcoming place where we can kind of all have this conversation
[29:41]and this connection with each other so what you're doing is just so immensely important and I'm
[29:47]very grateful for it thank you that's really nice really nice to be to say thank you I love it
[29:54]I agree with you I that's like my home mission like books have done so much for me and to give
[30:00]person the right book at the right time to help them through whatever they're going through,
[30:03]that's just the best thing I can ever do.
[30:05]Yeah, isn't it? You know, and it is. It's not exaggeration to say it's life-saving because it is.
[30:12]And you never know who you're reaching and how you're helping them.
[30:17]And that's I think that's kind of a beautiful, magical thing too, just to think that there's
[30:21]people out there that are listening to this show and you don't know how you've touched them,
[30:25]but you have. I hope people are listening. Is anybody out there?
[30:30]Someone's out there. If not, I've had a great time chatting with you.
[30:37]Oh, yeah, and I also really welcome. I love hearing from leaders too. So people, you know,
[30:43]read the novel, the butterfly girl and want to reach out to me and tell me about their own experiences.
[30:48]That is something that I think is one of the most special parts of being a writer is I get those
[30:53]emails or those messages. And it's just so wonderful. And to think, you know, a reader is some place
[31:00]in a state, you know, far away. How should they contact you? I'm on social media so they can go on
[31:07]Facebook or Twitter or whatever they're doing and hit the little message button. Yeah, I love
[31:12]hearing from people. And what is your Instagram? Okay, somebody's scrolling right now at
[31:16]do you remember what you are? Oh, yeah, it's our Denfeld. Okay, at our Denfeld, our
[31:21]E-N-F-E-L-D. So watch out somebody somebody direct message Renee so that she can know that somebody has
[31:28]listened to the end of this episode. And if not, I'm going to like shoot myself or something.
[31:33]All right. Well, thank you Renee. Thanks for coming on the show and hope you have great day.
[31:38]Yeah, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Hi.
[31:42]This episode has been sponsored by Book of the Month Club Book of the Month.com and
[31:47]your code Zibi to get your first book for $5. Thanks for listening to moms don't have time to read
[31:52]books. You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time to read books. Thanks so much to
[31:57]Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morningmoon Productions
[32:02]for providing this fantastic intro and outro music. Thanks for listening. You could always email me at
[32:07]Zibi at Zibiowans.com.