Elizabeth Berg, I'LL BE SEEING YOU
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[0:53]Today's episode has been sponsored by SugarWish.
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[1:02]They get to choose delivered directly to their dorm.
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[1:54]This may have been one of my favorite episodes lately.
[1:57]I had the best time talking to Elizabeth Berg about her latest book, I'll be seeing him.
[2:03]Elizabeth is the author of many best-selling novels, including Open House, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection.
[2:08]Talk before sleep and the year of pleasures, as well as the short story collection, which by the way, have to go out, and get the day I ate whatever I wanted.
[2:17]Durable goods and joy school were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year.
[2:21]She adapted the pull of the moon into a play that enjoyed sold out performances in Chicago and Indianapolis.
[2:27]Berg's work has been published in 31 countries and three of her novels have been turned into television movies.
[2:32]She is the founder of Writing Matters, a quality reading series dedicated to serving author, audience, and community.
[2:38]She teaches one-day writing workshops and is a popular speaker at venues around the country.
[2:42]Some of her most popular Facebook postings have been collected and make someone happy, still happy, and happy to be here.
[2:49]She lives outside Chicago.
[2:51]Hi! How are you?
[2:53]Good, how are you?
[2:54]Hi, thank you.
[2:56]I'm sorry to keep you waiting a minute.
[2:58]Well, you didn't. It's not even, it's not even 10 o'clock yet.
[3:02]I know. I try to be early, but I can't always.
[3:04]I understand.
[3:06]I want to tell you, you know, thank you for what you do.
[3:11]I've got about you. It's so, especially now. It's so important.
[3:16]And it's so impressive, and thank you for including me.
[3:20]I'm delighted to include you, and thank you for thanking me.
[3:23]I love what I do. I just, every day, it's so amazing.
[3:28]I get to talk to women like you, but women from all over the world,
[3:31]with so many interesting stories, novelist, nonfiction.
[3:34]It is so, like, intellectually and emotionally engaging, and I just love it.
[3:39]It's like a dream come true.
[3:41]And give that to so many others.
[3:43]So it's such a good thing, and especially now, again, those kinds of good things mean a lot.
[3:51]Oh, okay.
[3:52]Okay.
[3:53]Well, thank you for saying all that. I'll be seeing you is so beautiful.
[3:57]You're a memoir. I mean, I was crying at times.
[4:00]It made me so sentimental the way you write about your parents was absolutely beautiful.
[4:05]As I'm sure you know, but maybe it doesn't hurt to hear again.
[4:09]It was just a sensational memoir about aging and caregiving and all the rest.
[4:14]So bravo, I loved it.
[4:16]But I appreciate that on lots of levels, not least to which is the fact that writing something this honest is scary.
[4:24]And you wonder if you're betraying people and presenting them this way.
[4:30]And of course, there's a section in the book about that.
[4:33]But in the end, I thought it was probably worth it.
[4:37]And from what I've been able to see so far, it really has helped people.
[4:42]I think there's something about making yourself vulnerable about a complex issue that opens up a lot of things for people.
[4:51]So I'm very much gratified by that.
[4:53]Well, I'm grateful to your writing group who I know you discussed this with early to see what they thought about it.
[4:59]I'm glad they encouraged you to get over the line and actually put it out into the world because it's true.
[5:06]I mean, sometimes you need a guide from other people.
[5:09]And we all are going through this for the first time.
[5:12]We don't know what to do.
[5:13]So having a guidebook like yours or just knowing someone else's experience is so encouraging.
[5:19]And it's of course an issue for so many people having aging parents.
[5:23]I was wondering because you wrote it in a diary style.
[5:27]And of course it started in 2010.
[5:30]Did you write it at that time and then just leave it and wait till now?
[5:34]Or what happened? Tell me about the writing of this.
[5:37]It was a mix.
[5:38]But for me as a writer, the way that I process things, the way I come to understand them is by writing about it.
[5:45]I wasn't sure that I would publish it, but I wanted to remember.
[5:50]And I wanted to just get it out.
[5:52]Because it can feel like an incredibly emotional love that you're carrying around going through these things.
[5:59]It struck me oddly that it's a kind of parallel for what we're going through right now in that you're stuck in the middle.
[6:07]You don't know when it's going to end.
[6:09]You don't know how it's going to turn out.
[6:11]There are so many sad and fearful things about the pandemic's a little bigger than this.
[6:17]Of course, because aging is a natural part of life.
[6:21]So, but in the same way that what helped me go through this experience was to, as I say, get small and take it day by day.
[6:30]That kind of philosophy is also helping me go through what we're all enduring now.
[6:35]And are you writing about it?
[6:36]I know you have a big Facebook blog and everything, but are you writing every day to record how you feel in the moment now so you don't forget?
[6:43]No.
[6:44]With regard to the pandemic. No, I do post occasionally and I whoa, I've really been struck by how people need that too.
[6:53]Not just from me of course, but from all kinds of sources where people are talking about it getting it out.
[7:00]They're expressing their fears, expressing their anxieties and their sorrows, but also expressing what is still joyful.
[7:08]The things that remain that can really nourish and sustain us and support us and people need that too.
[7:16]So, for example, the last post I did was about trying to formalize some of the things that I do that bring me joy like reading like listening to music.
[7:26]And I'm a person like so many others that says, I'm going to do that and then I don't do it helps if I formalize it.
[7:35]So, I say, okay, every Tuesday you're going to a concert in your own house.
[7:40]So, I had on Benny Goodman the other day and I'm telling you, I'm telling you it is joyful music.
[7:48]I could just see those women standing at the big square microphone in their formal, you know, it's swaying and singing these songs and it was a moment and it can be hard at a time of such crisis to take that in and have it.
[8:05]And for me, it's a matter of compartmentalization and saying, look, it's okay if you have this moment of joy, you're not taking away anything from anyone else.
[8:15]You're building yourself up so that you can help yourself and others better.
[8:21]So, come on, you know, like if the mom doesn't take care of herself, forget about it.
[8:27]Yes.
[8:28]I did that all too well.
[8:30]Actually going, actually what you're saying about music, you had such a beautiful scene in your book about going to the concert by yourself and sitting there and seeing an older couple in front of you, the man, I think his name was Walter and the wife trying to help him down the aisle.
[8:44]And how when everybody applauded for the beautiful symphony, you felt like you were taking that as applause for Walter and the wife and the little steps nudging up the aisle to get out and on their way.
[8:57]And it was just such a precious moment.
[9:00]And of course in your imagination, as you did throughout the book, you're like wondering what it's like for them at home.
[9:05]You know, it's like you did for one of the nurses who gave a weary glance and then you imagine her with like putting an astronaut.
[9:13]But I can just see your mind working.
[9:15]Like, tell me about that.
[9:17]Well, first of all, music and second of all, how your brain just seems to wonder.
[9:23]It seems like you're always just wondering about what comes after what you've seen.
[9:28]Yeah, that evening was one of those times when you never know where inspiration or comfort is going to come.
[9:37]And I admire that couple so much.
[9:40]I don't know their ages exactly, of course, but I think they were approaching 90.
[9:45]They were quite frail.
[9:47]By God, they went out to the symphony.
[9:50]Not only did they go out to it, but they heard it.
[9:53]They felt it and it was so difficult for the husband, especially the wife was in a little bit better.
[10:00]but he had his walker and he moved so slowly, but he came.
[10:07]And I guess it's just to the second part of your question.
[10:11]I guess if you're a writer, if you're a novelist in particular,
[10:16]that is the way that your mind works are incredibly curious and
[10:21]always wondering about things and making stuff up.
[10:24]And I've done that since I was a child.
[10:27]I mean, it could be a lady, but well, where is she going home to?
[10:31]And what's her little house look like?
[10:33]And that's something that's been with me all my life.
[10:35]And honestly, I hope it always will be because it makes life very rich.
[10:41]Yeah, I do that too.
[10:42]And I wonder like if I see a family, you know, what has just happened
[10:46]and what must people think of my family?
[10:48]Do they have it right?
[10:49]Do they know that this is my sister-in-law?
[10:52]You know, I mean, like, you have to wonder, I don't know.
[10:56]It keeps it interesting, I guess.
[10:58]Yeah. Yeah.
[10:59]The gears are always turning for certain kinds of people.
[11:02]It sounds like you're one of us.
[11:05]I noticed on your website, it took me like,
[11:08]I could have read a book in the amount of times.
[11:10]The amount of time it took just to read the descriptions of all your books
[11:13]and the motivation.
[11:14]You've written so many amazing books and so many best sellers.
[11:17]And they all seem to have a little piece of your own experience,
[11:20]even just a smit or inspiration came from something inside you.
[11:24]So I just wanted to hear a little more about that and how you embark on book projects.
[11:30]Yeah.
[11:31]I think it's inevitable that pieces of writers show up in their work
[11:36]or I'll keep it to myself because I'll talk about me because I don't want to speak
[11:40]for other writers who might say, no, that's not true for me at all.
[11:44]But for me, I have to draw on my own life predilections and experiences
[11:49]in order to enrich the material and writing.
[11:51]What becomes the fiction part is the overarching theme of what it is that I'm trying to get at
[11:57]in this particular book or in this particular case.
[12:01]I do think, though, that writers write about the same thing over and over in different ways.
[12:07]And for me, it's love, loss, longing, and the search for home over and over and over again.
[12:14]Maybe everybody has those themes a little bit in their work.
[12:19]But that's because of the way I am, you know, the way I turned out to be.
[12:24]And so it's manifested in everything I write.
[12:28]So even though the stories are different, those themes are always there.
[12:33]In all those books, I'm, oh my goodness, you had to do so much research in your reading.
[12:38]No, I loved it.
[12:39]Because I haven't read most of your books.
[12:41]I've read some, of course, but I was like, well, this one looks good.
[12:44]The one that looked really great that I was like, I have to order this right away is the one.
[12:48]And I think it's called the day I ate whatever I wanted.
[12:51]That's a good one.
[12:52]That's a fun one.
[12:53]That will be a good antidote.
[12:56]That's who is sat in my, that short stories.
[12:59]And they all have to do in some way or another with food.
[13:02]And it was so much fun writing them.
[13:05]I will tell you that there's a couple in there that are, that are sad.
[13:08]I think there's two that are sad.
[13:10]But the, the others are pretty funny.
[13:13]I like reading about sad stuff too.
[13:15]I like all of that.
[13:17]I actually, I just started a new group and a new podcast called,
[13:21]mom's don't have time to lose weight.
[13:24]Wow.
[13:26]Yeah.
[13:27]So I feel like maybe that we should have a book club for that podcast or something.
[13:31]Because that seems like a good place to start.
[13:34]I like to talk about food.
[13:36]I mean, I know.
[13:37]I know.
[13:38]It's like, because we can talk about it all day.
[13:40]So when you think about your longing for home,
[13:44]I know you grew up at Army Brad and all the rest.
[13:47]And a lot of your writing in this book was about growing up and your dad
[13:51]and how your relationship with him changed over time.
[13:54]Tell me about how your sort of constant relocation has affected that search
[13:58]for you and that need for belonging.
[14:00]Yeah.
[14:01]It really does have an impact particularly on sensitive children.
[14:06]I went to one high school reunion in my life.
[14:10]And I went two years of high school in Germany and two years in St. Louis, Missouri.
[14:15]And in Germany, it was a bunch of army kids.
[14:19]You know, all going to this actually quite good school there.
[14:23]And it was they who wanted to have the reunion only because we're so small.
[14:29]They said, OK, if you went to Ludwigsburg American high school between the years of this and this,
[14:35]come to a reunion.
[14:36]So it wasn't the typical, you know, 1966 reunion.
[14:41]And one of the things that happened at that reunion is that a large group of us got together
[14:46]and talked about that notion of what it feels like to be uprooted all the time.
[14:51]And how does that impact your personality?
[14:54]And we all agreed that here's what it does.
[14:58]You become a fake.
[15:01]You seem gregarious. You seem like you're wide open and ready for friendship, but you're always holding back because you know you're going to have to leak.
[15:10]And I think that that can bleed into relationships in general that you have that kind of reserve.
[15:18]And I guess you can't invest fully in in everything around you because you're going to be pulled away from it.
[15:25]And it's just too devastating.
[15:27]So you invest a little bit.
[15:29]And I was really struck with how every single person in that in that rather large group agreed with that.
[15:36]That's very interesting.
[15:37]Is that why you mentioned in the book how you feel like you fail at your relationships like with your partner now even and then be very patient with you, but that you failed in your first marriage.
[15:46]And I was wondering because you didn't elaborate on that and I found myself thinking well like what does she mean like how did she fail how is she feeling now.
[15:54]So can you give us because okay we're just going to deliver the goods here okay because i'm always one step away from saying fine, the end we're done.
[16:07]It's not easy for me i'm sorry to say it's a real character flaw it's very easy for me to get to that place of saying forget we're done.
[16:16]Because I've I've been there so many times with the place we're done with this place we're leaving.
[16:21]And then the other part is it really is true that my parents had what my agent calls a Reagan marriage they they really laid the gauntlet down and and I don't expect in my lifetime to see that kind of.
[16:36]That kind of love and loyalty again and boy, as you know having read the book it was tough for a while holy moly it was really tough for a while.
[16:48]But I think that the redeeming part of reading this book is to see how it got worked out that it ended ended as well as it could have.
[17:01]Yeah, that was part of the power of it I think is watching the changes that go on with somebody else and how that love still manifests itself, even in the smallest of gestures and that was that's like what the those things that that made me cry the little lunches or I don't know just these little moments at the table or.
[17:22]You know, I got you the most out of all those moments, the fly swatter my dad you know who was this mighty army guy who scared him out of everybody mellowed in his older years and then.
[17:37]At the end when he went to what was essentially a daycare center, although we call it the bia center any made a fly swatter decorated with the days, I mean.
[17:48]Well, now flies waters have a whole other meeting, but never mind.
[17:52]But but here she has this essentially useless fly water fly so I don't decorate it with flowers and who would want to keep that but she said yes, your father made that for me and she said it aside and oh man.
[18:09]I had to stand really still for a moment.
[18:14]Yeah, there were there were lots of those when he was trying to change the battery and the hearing aid and you and your sister were trying you were like rooting for him to do it.
[18:24]It's not just these moments it's somehow the way that you're writing about them how you're so in the moment like.
[18:30]Like the fact that you and your sister like that moment from the outside might not have been so notice like that she's in the kitchen and you guys are waiting but there's actually all that unspoken stuff is what you write about and you capture it I don't know it's so powerful.
[18:46]We were both watching him so intently please let him have at least this let him be able to change his own hearing aid battery but you know.
[18:58]Well, are you still are you working on another book now what what how can you follow that up with something I mean that's like it's so personal.
[19:07]You know, I think in part because of the situation in which we find ourselves I'm uncharacteristically scattered so I wrote another Mason book that I wrote these books it take place in a fictional town.
[19:22]Three of them the first one is the story of Arthur true love and I wrote two one and so I wrote another one of those but I'm also.
[19:31]I'm very taken with nonfiction suddenly after having written 10,000 novels you know I'm very taken with with nonfiction so.
[19:41]I thought about doing a collection about old boyfriends because if there were a party and if there were a group of women talking about old boyfriends I would so be there I think that whenever we reveal things about the relationships we had with old boyfriends there's a commonality.
[20:00]but there are also delicious differences.
[20:03]So I've written three,
[20:05]and I wanted to do, in essence, a life in boyfriends,
[20:10]how I was at the time,
[20:12]how they were at the time,
[20:13]how these relationships shaped me.
[20:15]And at least two instances,
[20:17]I went back after many, many years
[20:20]and had conversations with these guys.
[20:24]One was a musician,
[20:25]and the other, the one who took my heart,
[20:29]ran over it with a tank,
[20:32]and then stepped on it, that guy.
[20:35]We all have, I think,
[20:36]one of those, or many of us do anyway,
[20:39]and that was an interesting conversation.
[20:43]So yeah, that's another thought,
[20:45]and then I have a lot of ideas that I haven't fleshed out.
[20:49]But I'm, I guess I'm happy at this age
[20:51]that I still have ideas.
[20:55]I am interested too in paying it forward in a way.
[20:59]I do writing workshops, not lately, of course.
[21:03]But what I wanna do, my legacy,
[21:06]in a way, here's a big secret, not that secret,
[21:10]but kind of secret, but what I would like to do
[21:13]is provide writing retreat house,
[21:16]where a group of women could come
[21:19]and know that all that we're gonna hear is support.
[21:22]And all that we're gonna do is have time for themselves.
[21:25]And each woman gets a room,
[21:28]and I wanna put fresh flowers in there,
[21:31]and I wanna have books everywhere,
[21:32]and a big dining room table that they can gather around
[21:36]and share the day's work with.
[21:38]And so I did share some of this,
[21:41]and it enlarged to become not just a writing retreat,
[21:46]but a gathering place for women
[21:47]who could just disconnect for a few days,
[21:51]and come back to themselves
[21:53]and be offered cooking classes, painting classes,
[21:57]just a place to enrich themselves.
[22:00]So I kind of wanna do this,
[22:02]I've been like to rescue houses
[22:04]because, you know, search for home, search for home.
[22:07]So I find these wrecks and transform them
[22:11]into what they used to be.
[22:13]And there's a little one, I got this, oh my God,
[22:17]my partner, who's the guy who just constructed
[22:20]said, don't go in there, do not go inside there.
[22:22]I used to really bad, but it's a cute little house.
[22:26]So I wanted to turn that into a cottage,
[22:29]I'm really taken with cottages,
[22:31]and that's the place where I wanna provide this.
[22:36]I don't know, I guess it would be my legacy, you know,
[22:39]this place for women.
[22:42]No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[22:44]no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[22:46]I think that's amazing.
[22:47]I would love to stay there in a room,
[22:49]a peaceful room with fresh flowers,
[22:51]and nothing but connection and dialogue
[22:54]and time for self, that's like a dream.
[22:58]I can't even, I don't think I can extricate myself
[23:00]from my life, but boy, that sounds heavenly.
[23:04]By the way, on your last book idea,
[23:05]there's a memoir called Five Men Who Broke My Heart
[23:08]by an author named Susan Shapiro,
[23:10]who actually got me a class at the new school
[23:13]when I was like 20 something.
[23:14]Anyway, it's sort of the same way she goes back
[23:17]and talks to her past five, her five loves of her life
[23:21]and sees what happens to them.
[23:22]An older book or an older?
[23:24]Yeah.
[23:25]Five men who broke my heart, five men who broke my heart.
[23:30]I think I have it behind me.
[23:31]I can find it in a minute, but you should check that out.
[23:33]It's good.
[23:34]And also then Laura Munson is an author.
[23:36]I don't know if you know her,
[23:37]but she just had a book come out called Willis Grove
[23:40]and in it, the women go to a retreat similar
[23:43]to what you're talking about, but it's fictionalized
[23:46]and she actually runs retreats.
[23:47]They're not in a cottage, they're in Montana, I think,
[23:50]but it's the same kind of idea
[23:52]where she has women come and connect,
[23:54]but not only a couple, she has like bigger groups.
[23:56]I think, anyway, you might want to just
[23:58]in your comp research.
[23:59]That's so interesting.
[24:01]See, there's no new ideas.
[24:03]It's just the exit.
[24:03]It's not true.
[24:04]It's not true.
[24:05]I mean, it's totally.
[24:07]Well, in a way, and it's all in the execution.
[24:10]One of the most interesting things I ever did as a writer
[24:14]was to be given a sentence that someone else came up with.
[24:18]The sentence was, it wasn't until she got outside
[24:21]that she realized her socks didn't match,
[24:23]but somehow they didn't surprise her.
[24:25]And when I was given the sentence,
[24:27]I thought, no, I don't like that sentence.
[24:28]I don't want to write using that,
[24:30]but three different authors got that sentence
[24:34]and were told write a story using that as the first sentence.
[24:38]They were so remarkably different,
[24:41]so remarkably different, all incredibly different directions
[24:46]that we went.
[24:46]So in the same respect for a woman to write about five men
[24:50]who wrote my heart, if you wrote that book,
[24:52]if I wrote that book, she writes that book,
[24:54]they would all be so different.
[24:57]Very true.
[24:58]And I would probably want to read all of them.
[25:00]Oh, right.
[25:02]I mean, yeah.
[25:03]So what advice would you have to aspiring authors?
[25:06]You've like done every genre.
[25:09]You've been a successful prolific author for years.
[25:13]What is the secret truly?
[25:15]How do you do it and what advice can you get?
[25:17]In a way, I had an advantage in that
[25:20]I never took a writing class.
[25:22]I didn't do the, you know, literary journals,
[25:25]the Iowa Writers Workshop or any of that.
[25:27]I didn't know anything about that stuff.
[25:31]I read a lot.
[25:32]I read a lot.
[25:34]And I had always written from the time I was a little kid.
[25:37]So I entered into this whole publishing world
[25:40]with a great deal of baby tape,
[25:42]which I think it began to help me.
[25:44]But as to your point about it,
[25:46]a succinct piece of advice.
[25:48]And this really is straight.
[25:50]It's absolute truth.
[25:52]Don't try to imitate anyone else.
[25:56]Your voice is so valuable.
[25:59]Your point of view has merit.
[26:01]Your way of expressing that point of view
[26:04]should come from you.
[26:06]Because, and that's what's interesting
[26:09]is to really know a person.
[26:11]I can't abide in small talk
[26:13]because to me it's a lot of noise.
[26:16]I don't want to, I don't want to engage in it.
[26:19]I don't want to hear it.
[26:20]So the same thing in writing.
[26:22]I don't want to see somebody's being manipulative
[26:26]or calculating.
[26:28]I want to see inside them truly,
[26:30]even if they're talking about other characters.
[26:33]So I'm sitting here at my desk
[26:35]and I have these little quotes around
[26:38]but one thing that I put on here is truth, love, and risk.
[26:43]And those elements are something
[26:45]I always want to be in whatever work I do.
[26:49]So if you want to write
[26:52]and you're a little nervous about it,
[26:54]remember that nobody has to see it at first.
[26:58]It can be just for you.
[27:00]The truth is that when most of us write,
[27:03]we get to the point pretty early on
[27:06]when we think, oh boy, this is great.
[27:08]I want to show everybody this.
[27:09]But if you're afraid of that,
[27:12]don't worry about that.
[27:13]It's okay, you can be afraid and in fact,
[27:16]if you're nervous about it, it's probably a good sign.
[27:19]If you're taking a risk in whatever form that takes
[27:23]and you're a little nervous about it
[27:25]because you're thinking, I don't know.
[27:26]I don't know if this is any good.
[27:28]It's kind of strange.
[27:28]It's probably pretty good.
[27:30]So be yourself first and foremost
[27:34]and understand too that the Nobel committee
[27:37]is not going to come and knock at your door
[27:38]and say, have you finished your book yet?
[27:40]You have to get it out there if you want to be published.
[27:43]You have to take that chance of submitting
[27:47]and being rejected.
[27:48]If you rejected, you have to remember that
[27:51]reading other people's work is subjective.
[27:54]And if you get rejected,
[27:56]it might have nothing to do with how good your work is.
[28:00]It might have to do with let's say you submitted a novel.
[28:03]It could be that they just bought a novel on this theme.
[28:07]And yours is even better, but I can't find out
[28:09]because they just bought that.
[28:10]So you have to keep it church and state.
[28:14]You have to concentrate on your writing
[28:17]and what it is that you're trying to do
[28:20]when you're all done.
[28:21]And if you want to be published
[28:23]and you want to submit at that point,
[28:25]think about marketing and all that other stuff.
[28:29]Frankly, I think it's better to let other people
[28:31]think about that entirely.
[28:32]But I can't tell you how many people have told me.
[28:35]I have this great idea and they're already thinking about
[28:37]marketing and how much money they're gonna make
[28:40]and that they write in the beautiful car
[28:42]to go to the sun and they haven't written it yet.
[28:46]The joy is always in the writing.
[28:48]That's always the best part is getting from what's in here
[28:53]out there.
[28:54]And the other stuff is it's nice.
[28:56]It's wonderful to be on the best cellulose.
[28:58]I mean, who wouldn't want to do that?
[29:01]But it doesn't top that feeling of having gotten
[29:04]something out that you needed to get out.
[29:08]Blah, blah, blah.
[29:09]That was a long answer to you.
[29:10]I loved it.
[29:11]I'm like hanging on your everywhere and thank you.
[29:13]No, that was great advice.
[29:15]And I'm sure that there's somebody out there
[29:17]who just heard that who really needed to hear it today.
[29:19]So thank you.
[29:21]I'm glad.
[29:22]The other thing of course, as you know,
[29:23]is read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read.
[29:27]Yes, I do.
[29:28]I, yeah, we love it.
[29:30]Yeah, we love it.
[29:31]We love it for a miracle.
[29:33]Not only do you read, you know,
[29:35]do you know how many interviews are done?
[29:37]Can I just say this?
[29:38]How many interviews are done with the interviewer?
[29:41]Obviously, he has not read the book.
[29:43]And so you understand that right away,
[29:47]as an interviewee, you glean that information pretty quickly.
[29:51]And then you know how you're going to have to structure
[29:53]everything.
[29:54]You actually read the book, not only did you read the book,
[29:57]but you remember everything about.
[30:00]And I know you do that with, you know, all your books.
[30:03]So that's an incredible challenge.
[30:07]I try.
[30:07]I mean, I can't get through every book I have on the show.
[30:10]Sometimes I haven't read more than 50 pages.
[30:12]But when I love a book, as I did yours, I love it.
[30:15]And I do.
[30:16]I can't remember anything about my life.
[30:18]Like college, forget it.
[30:19]But like, if you want to ask me something about your book
[30:22]in like five years, I'm going to remember it.
[30:24]I don't know.
[30:25]It's the weird twist of memory.
[30:27]So at least I can use it now.
[30:29]Anyway, well, thank you.
[30:32]This has been so nice.
[30:34]And thank you again for your book.
[30:36]And I'm going to give it to so many people and recommend it
[30:39]and whatever.
[30:40]And just thanks for spending your time with me today.
[30:42]I'm truly appreciated.
[30:43]Thank you.
[30:44]And again, thank you, generally for all you're doing.
[30:47]And keep me posted on the cottage.
[30:49]And maybe by the time you have it rolled out into the world,
[30:52]I'll have older kids and you can get there.
[30:54]We teach quilts in every room.
[30:57]I'm just saying.
[30:58]OK, all right.
[31:01]All right, thanks so much.
[31:02]Bye-bye.
[31:03]Bye.
[31:05]Thanks again to today's sponsor SugarWish.
[31:08]Send a surprise SugarWish to somebody you love
[31:11]and check it out yourself, sugarwish.com.
[31:13]Thanks for listening to this episode of Mom's Don't Have
[31:16]Time to Read Books.
[31:17]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at ZB Owens,
[31:20]and at Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[31:22]Also sign up for my newsletter at ZB Owens.com
[31:25]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors
[31:28]on Zoom every other week.
[31:29]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound
[31:32]for the Sound Editing.
[31:33]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:35]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.