Clarissa Ward, ON ALL FRONTS
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:13]Please sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com for weekly updates about my podcast, events, and more.
[0:20]Also, follow me on Instagram at zibiowens and also at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:26]And finally, join my virtual book club called Zibi's virtual book club, which meets every other Tuesday at 2 p.m.
[0:32]Eastern Time until 3 p.m. and features half an hour of book club discussion followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the author whose book we've just discussed.
[0:41]You can sign up on my website zibiowens.com under the virtual book club section or even on Instagram, under the link in my bio.
[0:49]I hope you'll find to me in all these different channels and enjoy this podcast.
[0:53]Thank you so much to Audible for sponsoring today's episode.
[0:57]For those of you who don't know, Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, business motivation, and also podcasts.
[1:08]They've recently launched their newest plan called Audible Plus.
[1:11]With Audible Plus, you get full access to their Plus catalog filled with thousands of select originals, audiobooks, and podcasts, and connects you to just amazing content.
[1:22]The best time to try it is now with their holiday offer because for only $4.95 a month for your first six months, this is a fantastic deal.
[1:31]And all you have to do to get it is visit audible.com slash zibi zi bbi or text zibi zi bbi to 500-500.
[1:43]Again, visit audible.com slash zibi or text zibi to 500-500.
[1:50]I love Audible and listen all the time in my car and on walks.
[1:54]I recently finished searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Quack, also small animals by Kim Brooks,
[2:00]his only wife by piece, Medi, and also on all fronts by Clarissa Word.
[2:05]So those are for my recent ones.
[2:07]I hope you'll join me in checking out Audible, audible.com slash zibi or text zibi to 500-500.
[2:14]Did I say that enough times?
[2:15]Clarissa Word is the author of On All Fronts, the education of a journalist.
[2:20]She is CNN's chief international correspondent.
[2:22]In her 15-year career spanning Fox, CBS, and ABC,
[2:26]Word has reported from front lines across the world.
[2:29]She's received five Emmy Awards, two George Foster Peabody Awards, two Alfred DuPont
[2:34]Columbia University Awards, two Edward R. Murrow Awards for Distinguished Journalism.
[2:39]Honors from the Radio and Television Correspondence Association,
[2:42]the 2016 David Kaplan Award from the Overseas Press Club and the Excellence in International
[2:47]Reporting Award from the International Center for Journalists.
[2:50]She graduated with Distinction from Yale University, and in 2013 received an Honorary
[2:55]Doctor of Letters degree from Middlebury College in Vermont.
[2:58]She currently lives in London.
[2:59]Welcome, Clarissa.
[3:00]Thank you so much for coming on moms.
[3:02]Don't have time to read books.
[3:03]Thank you so much for having me on.
[3:05]And how great we just made all these personal connections that we should have known each other
[3:09]ahead of time, but anyway, here we are.
[3:12]Now we're reading.
[3:13]Yeah, now here we go.
[3:14]Okay, so on All Fronts, your latest, your memoir, not your latest, your memoir,
[3:19]just came out in details your incredible experiences as this award-winning
[3:25]badass, basically, journalist who I cannot believe how much you've accomplished since graduating
[3:31]after me from Yale.
[3:32]It's like amazing and humbling and I'm just totally impressed.
[3:37]So can you please tell us in there is what your book is about and then what inspired you to
[3:42]sit down and write the story of your life so far?
[3:44]So I mean, the book is really about my journey starting from my childhood and it wasn't
[3:50]necessarily a childhood where it would have been an obvious trajectory for me to go on and become
[3:55]a war correspondent and then through 911, which for me was kind of an epiphany moment.
[4:01]I was studying comparative literature at Yale.
[4:03]I thought I wanted to be an actress suddenly my world was turned upside down and I became
[4:09]consumed by this idea that I wanted to go out there and understand how this had happened
[4:13]and why this had happened and what was it the root of it and I really wanted to be at the
[4:18]tip of the spear.
[4:18]And yeah, then it sort of basically goes through my career because I think the problem is,
[4:25]when you're watching the news, you're only getting half of the story.
[4:27]You're only seeing what's happening in front of the camera.
[4:30]You're not seeing what's happening behind the camera.
[4:32]You're not seeing these beautiful moments of human connection, moments of laughter,
[4:37]acts of kindness, acts of bravery and sacrifice.
[4:40]And those are the moments to be honest that first of all, make this I think
[4:44]like the best job in the world.
[4:46]But they're also the moments that really shape the way you see and understand the world or
[4:50]a culture or a conflict and so I kind of wanted to share that with a wider audience.
[4:56]I wanted people who are not, you know, slavishly following every development in Syria to be
[5:00]able to connect to people in Syria and see the conflict through their eyes and feel it.
[5:07]But do it in a way where it's kind of more approachable.
[5:09]It's like going on a journey with me to some of these really exciting and interesting
[5:13]and often difficult and dangerous places.
[5:15]I only really decided that I wanted to write a book when I got pregnant with my first son.
[5:21]And I was like, okay, I really need to have some kind of a record for him because I'm
[5:26]probably not going to tell him a lot of these stories at the dinner table, but I want him to know
[5:30]about these things and to know who I am other than being mom.
[5:34]I read your glamour article just about this, thought I worked in some of the most dangerous
[5:39]places in the world.
[5:40]Motherhood hasn't changed that.
[5:42]And you talk obviously about having a newborn and a two-year-old and how it feels to like still be
[5:49]the one juggling the play dates while you're at war.
[5:52]You know, like on the battlefield, essentially still dealing with like playgroup.
[5:57]And at your point, of course, the article is much more complex than that, which is a lot of
[6:01]people have thought you're going to give it up now that you have two kids and oh, you must be staying
[6:05]home now. And you're like, would a man in the same position professionally be asked the same thing?
[6:11]So I just was hoping you could talk about that because I thought it was a powerful piece.
[6:17]Thank you. I mean, you know, it is. It's a really, it's a really tough one because on the one
[6:21]hand, yeah, I get a little bit like, come on. I know so many dads doing this job. And I know they're
[6:26]not being asked every five minutes that they're going to keep doing this work now that their
[6:30]fathers. On the other hand, I do get it. I get why people ask that and I do really take my
[6:36]security very seriously. And I take my responsibility for midwifeing these two young souls into the
[6:42]world really seriously as well. So I think it's a fair question. And I've given it a lot of thought.
[6:48]And really what I sort of come up with at the end of the day is, okay, there have to be boundaries
[6:54]and there have to be limits. There are certain assignments that I won't do if they're too dangerous.
[6:58]I will actively avoid being in a kind of really kinetic situation on a front line.
[7:04]I won't be away for longer than two weeks max, but ideally one week. And I do my due diligence
[7:12]for months to plan these trips to the best of my ability to be sure to mitigate every single risk.
[7:18]But I feel like it's important to have mothers covering war. I think we bring a different
[7:24]perspective to the table. I think that I have changed a lot since becoming a mother.
[7:28]I know I've become more emotionally porous. I feel like my heart is sort of out there beating
[7:35]in the wind sensitive to every small act of suffering I see or a child or a woman who's pregnant
[7:43]or a mother making sacrifices for a child. I just feel acutely attuned to it and profoundly
[7:48]moved by it. And I hope that makes its way into my reporting. And I, you know, maybe if there
[7:55]were more mothers covering war, we wouldn't have so many wars, which is not to say that I think
[8:01]all moms should leave their kids and heads with the front line. Not at all. It's not for everyone.
[8:07]And we need to have a diversity of voices telling these stories. I guess that's my point.
[8:12]Don't have time to go to war. I don't know. Yeah. Exactly. Definitely not. So what do you think
[8:18]it was? And I know you spell out so much of this in the book and you take us all the way back to
[8:23]even like childhood babysitters and like all of it. But like what do you think made you
[8:27]able to do this job so well? Like this isn't something that everybody could just hop into and
[8:33]excel at. Like I know I couldn't do it. I have too much fear and anxiety to even like, you know,
[8:37]flight of is at my grandmother right now. So like, how do you, is it, is it bravery? Is it like
[8:45]tell me what do you think it is? What is it? It's definitely not bravery because I don't think
[8:50]I'm exceptionally brave. I'm able to stay calm and incredibly stressful situations. But on the
[8:56]inside, I'm a wreck. And I get very scared. So it's not bravery. I think it's, I think it's a combination
[9:02]of things. Like if I'm being generous with myself, it's, you know, I was an only child. My parents
[9:08]were very busy with their careers always. And I had to be able to perform to get attention and
[9:16]that meant learning to tell stories in a sort of compelling way. And it also meant learning
[9:21]to be really adaptable. I went to boarding school at the age of 10 years old and I had come from
[9:25]the US and it was miserable. I hated it. But I understood that I needed to, it was like a sink or
[9:32]swim situation. I needed to fit in. I needed to make friends and needed to make it work. And I
[9:36]did. And that has allowed me that skill. I think in my career to kind of go into any culture
[9:44]in any place in the world and form human connections with people and just sort of immersed myself.
[9:51]And as long as I have a working Wi-Fi connection and maybe air conditioning at a push, like,
[9:57]I'm OK. I'll be OK.
[10:00]But I also think, yeah, there's a level of passion that you have to have because there is a lot of
[10:06]sacrifice that comes with a job like this, both in terms of your personal life and trying to make
[10:10]that work. And in terms of like the emotional toll that obviously this kind of work inevitably
[10:16]takes. So you really have to want it deep, deep, deep in your core. And I tell that all the time
[10:22]to young journalists who are like, what should I do this? And I'm like, if you're even asking
[10:26]yourself that question is not going to happen. Like, you have to want this with every fiber
[10:30]of your being. You have to feel it's a vocation. Interesting. And tell me more about the 9-11
[10:36]experience for you and how this became your calling. So I mean, you know, I don't know what your
[10:41]experience was like at Yale, but like my experience at Yale was, I mean, it was tremendous. It was so
[10:47]thrilling in terms of, you know, the incredible education and campus life and all of it we were making
[10:54]movies and starting magazines and, you know, enjoying French new wife cinema classes and I had
[10:59]pink hair and lots of piercings and it was indulging in all sorts of, you know, more superficial
[11:05]self exploration, let's say. Then 9-11 happened and it was like a thunderbolt from the sky, right?
[11:11]It was like, oh my goodness, like this has been lovely. But let's face it, there is like some really
[11:19]important stuff happening in the world and it's been happening for a while and I haven't been
[11:24]engaged and I haven't been being attention and why do these people hate us so much and what do they
[11:31]understand about America versus how America sees itself and how can they be engaged with and
[11:37]how can there be better communication? Because it felt to me on some level that this mutual
[11:42]process of dehumanization and miscommunication that it was really fundamentally arising from this
[11:49]failure to understand each other and give in mind, you know, I'm 22, okay? There's a lot of
[11:54]idealism and hubris that work but I became impassioned by this idea that I wanted to go and act as
[12:00]a communicator between worlds and in the process of going to these places take something of
[12:06]America with me to share with them but also take their stories back to America and I have subsequently
[12:14]realized that, you know, that's a hard job because not everybody wants to hear that. Some people
[12:20]think that listening or humanizing the other is tantamount to weakness and so it's been a
[12:27]humbling journey in many ways but also one that I'm profoundly grateful for. Wow, and you're so
[12:34]articulate. I love when you're like listening to people who speak in like complete paragraphs.
[12:39]Like there are speech writers who would want to just like grab what you just said and throw it
[12:44]down on the page and claim it as their own. It's awesome. I have such appreciation for your
[12:49]language anyway. So when you keep going from place to place, I know you've worked in Moscow and
[12:55]Syria and you've been everywhere, like been a lot and like you just like you've like traversed
[13:00]the planet essentially. How do you? And I know yes, okay, fine. Only child's and, you know,
[13:05]performance. But how do you literally land on your feet everywhere you go? How do you just pick up and
[13:11]immerse yourself in something totally new with how do you do it? Yeah, so I mean what drew me
[13:18]a television rather than print is the television is a team sport and it's collaborative and you work
[13:24]with a cameraman and a producer and that really for me is a hugely important part of what I do
[13:33]and I thrive on that collaboration and I really get a lot of energy from just joking around
[13:41]and hanging out because what people never tell you about covering war is like 99% of it is
[13:48]killing time and waiting for something big to happen and then 1% of it is like totally mental and
[13:53]everything is going off and you're just trying to get as much done as you can and then it's back
[13:57]just sitting around and you know waiting for a press conference waiting for a ride to the front line
[14:02]waiting waiting waiting is a huge thing. So you need to be with people in the field who make you
[14:08]laugh, who keep you grounded, who keep you sane, who look out for you, who feed you, who you feed
[14:14]and that camaraderie is a huge part of it and definitely that's what's allowed me to kind of
[14:22]parachute into all these crazy places and live and be rude and Baghdad and Beijing and Moscow and
[14:27]all the places that I've lived because it is lonely. It is lonely and definitely when I've been on
[14:34]my own on these trips and some of them I've had to do alone you have moments where you witness
[14:39]something so beautiful or so profound or so sad or whatever it may be and you're like oh it's
[14:46]it's tinge with this real sense of loneliness that you can't share it with other people in that
[14:52]moment people who you love or people you work with so it is hard to be away from home for so long
[14:59]and it is hard as as successful as you can be at it immersing yourself at other people's lives they
[15:06]are other people's lives at the end of the day and I think one of the most challenging parts of
[15:11]the job is trying to carve out your own real life and what does that look like and where is that
[15:17]and who's a part of that because it's not possible really to do this forever constantly being in
[15:24]other people's lives. Right so when you come home and you have your husband like let's just say even
[15:30]before kids like how do you navigate going through intense you know you would think you'd come back
[15:36]with PTSD like every week and then you come back and maybe like your girlfriend who we were
[15:40]talking about earlier who we both tell like if like how do you confront a girlfriend who's just
[15:45]having like relationship problems when you've been watching like a man be carried in a casket like
[15:50]through the streets how do you keep perspective and relate really to everybody else. So I think
[15:56]this is one of the biggest challenges of the job to be honest because you are straddling different
[16:02]worlds and and shoveling back and forth it's like you know it's polar opposites and how do you
[16:09]acclimatize and I think there's a lot of guilt as well that comes with leaving the front lines
[16:15]of Aleppo and you know going to the south of France and sitting with my girlfriends around the
[16:20]pool drinking rosé it's like on what planet is this okay okay on what planet does this make any
[16:27]sense or is there any justice in this world it's a lot what you come to realize as you do the job
[16:35]longer is that if you can't make that work if you can't experience joy and allow yourself
[16:42]to have that joy and love and spiritual nourishment or physical
[16:48]decadence pampering whatever it is that you need to fill the tank when you're at home
[16:54]you can't go back out and do the job again you need to fill the tank and once you understand that
[17:01]you're able to navigate it a little bit better there have been times and you know I talk about
[17:07]this in the book where I would come back and I didn't feel like I wanted to be me anymore I
[17:12]didn't feel in love with my life anymore I would bristle when my husband would try to hug me I
[17:18]could zone out when I would go out with girlfriends for dinner and catch up with them they would
[17:23]ask me sincerely about Syria and I would not be able to engage with them on it and that is not
[17:31]a healthy state to be in and so you do need to be proactive if you're doing this kind of work
[17:37]and you're witnessing this kind of trauma you need to be proactive about your mental health you
[17:42]need to be seeing the therapist you need to start to recognize the telltale signs of when you're
[17:47]burning out a little bit or when you are getting too detached and too numb because it's a little
[17:52]counterintuitive you see movies and you think oh they see something bad and then you feel sad it's
[17:57]like no feeling sad would be great because that means I'm processing there's catharsis
[18:02]in grief or sadness there is not any catharsis in feeling numb in feeling detached in feeling
[18:10]irascible and and that's when you know that you really need to to do some work to get back to a
[18:17]place where you can feel joy where you can't feel love and where you can feel connection you have
[18:21]a great therapist if that's why I mean I need this person's number instantly I think I have a
[18:28]lot of people who could benefit from this information or you're just like super highly evolved and
[18:33]self-aware which is also fantastic you know it's a great great combination they're telling me
[18:39]about the process of writing this book when did you find the time to do this and how long did it
[18:44]take and all that yeah so I wrote it on my maternity leave you know because masochism comes
[18:50]naturally today I was like what should I do with this time I have off as the first time mother
[18:55]I was like I know I'll write a book and I started out the process for me was like I'm going to write
[18:59]a thousand words a day and then I quickly realized that didn't make sense for me because there
[19:04]would be days where I could write a thousand words no problem and there would be other days where
[19:08]I would become too obsessive about this word counting and and I was impeding the flow if you like
[19:16]so then I shift to gears and I was like okay write as much as you want or as little as you want
[19:21]but just sit down for two to three hours every day and right and that's manageable even when you
[19:29]have a baby and I was lucky I had a maternity nurse and my parents were around a lot of my husband
[19:34]so I had a lot of support but two to three hours was manageable and what I think you know many
[19:40]people who write memoirs find is that when you're writing about your own experiences it's a lot
[19:45]easier right it does flow and especially when it comes from a place of truth it's an amazing
[19:51]experience you're just like wow well I'm doing right now is like typing out the words that are
[19:56]pouring out of me that was the first draft that I went
[20:00]back to work. So the first draft was done in like three months. The second draft took
[20:04]almost a year because I was back at work. I was traveling a lot and it was much more difficult
[20:10]to find time to really immerse myself again in it. And the second round seemed this
[20:16]a lot of kind of flesh out a bit here, you know, what the situation was like in Syria. You know,
[20:21]it's more like the, you know, it's stuff I know, but it's like more the research, the kind of
[20:25]let me tell you in three paragraphs like the history of Syria part. And so that requires a bit
[20:32]more kind of discipline, I would say. And that was that was harder. The first round flow, the
[20:36]second round was like work. Do you feel like now that you've had all this exposure and research
[20:42]and writing about it, you have like intense political views, like does it, does it shift how
[20:47]you feel about like international relations and all of that on like a bigger picture scale?
[20:52]That's interesting. You asked that. I think not so much about political issues. I mean,
[20:57]I'm pretty passionate about Syria and I have pretty strong views on that. And obviously I like
[21:01]testify to the United Nations Security Council, which is, you know, kind of on the edge of like,
[21:06]are you a journalist or an activist? So I've definitely entered that hazy space, let's say.
[21:12]But for the most part, I think what writing did actually was to give me more
[21:18]courage of my convictions in terms of what makes a great journalist, what makes a great story,
[21:25]and what these sort of human moments of connection. I know I keep coming back to that, but like,
[21:32]it made me understand better why I do this and what it's all about for me. And the privilege
[21:39]that comes, not just with witnessing history, which I have had the fortune of doing on occasion,
[21:46]but of making profound connections with people who live 100,000 miles away in every metaphorical
[21:54]sense of that, you know? And so then how did you deal with COVID? How did you like, when the
[21:59]breaks slammed on your life? How did you cope with how well it being back? So I was heavily pregnant.
[22:06]So basically, everyone was on lockdown with me. I was already on lockdown. But if listen,
[22:12]was really challenging because it's the first war I've covered from my living room.
[22:17]And I think it's very tough story to cover in terms of the way I like to cover stories,
[22:22]which is usually with more of a human angle. And so you have to rely a lot on technology and
[22:28]getting people to do video diaries. And it's hard. I definitely learned a lot and I'm still
[22:35]thinking now I'm on maternity leave. It also meant that my book release was delayed by six months.
[22:40]That's right. Yeah. So which was a blessing in some ways because I don't think I realized quite
[22:47]how much work releasing a book is. It turns out it's basically a full-time job. We're calling this
[22:54]a maternity leave, but basically it's a full-time job. It's a really fun full-time job because you're
[23:00]out there talking about something that you feel passionate and excited about. But yeah,
[23:04]I'm definitely thinking now of like, okay, I'll be going back to work. I'll probably go back
[23:09]after the election. I have no idea what the world's going to look like both in terms of the
[23:13]election and in terms of COVID. And what kinds of stories are people going to want to hear?
[23:19]This is one of these things. COVID, much like 9-11. It's like a, it's a bolt from the sky again
[23:25]that's going to profoundly change the way we live and function as a society in ways that we don't
[23:31]really yet understand. We haven't quite got our arms around it. So it's going to be tremendously
[23:37]interesting, but it's definitely going to be challenging as well. Yes, I would agree with that.
[23:42]Would you ever know knowing how much work is involved in the whole thing? Would you ever write
[23:45]another book? Are you like this? Great. And you know, I have a sort of therapy for that yet.
[23:53]But no, yes. At some point, I would like to write a book, another book, but not for a while.
[24:01]Not for a while. Oh my gosh. Do you find time to read yourself? I really wish that I had more,
[24:09]I used to be a voracious reader of novels. And, you know, it was like a conflict major. And that's
[24:14]really what I loved with language, which two languages to do. I did French Italian and Russian,
[24:19]but Russian, my Russian wasn't good enough. So I was reading in translation. But as you know,
[24:24]I mean, hence the name of the podcast, having kids is like, wow, when do you find time,
[24:30]you know, I have this beautiful stack of books by my bedside. And then I get into bed and like,
[24:34]my husband's reading that books. And I'm sort of making sure that I haven't like missed 50
[24:39]Zoom calls or whatever. And I get the book out. And it's like, and then, you know, before I know it,
[24:44]I'm like, you know, so it's like, it's really hard. I'm not going to pretend it's not one way
[24:50]that I get to read books is that people ask me a lot to write blurbs for their books.
[24:55]So that's great. Because then you really have to read the book, right? And so I do try to read,
[25:02]but man, I really wish I had more time and that I could read more. And that's why I think it's
[25:07]so awesome what you're doing because, you know, we do need to carve out more time and find these
[25:13]little moments to read. And it's such an important thing that we I think social media and
[25:20]everything is we've all gotten a little bit distracted. Well, I hope like by doing the show that I
[25:25]entice people to read because once they hear somebody's story like yours, they're like, oh my gosh,
[25:30]I have to hear more. I want to read the whole thing. So that's my goal. Kind of wet the appetite,
[25:34]like having movie trailers. This is like the book trailer channel thing. No, and believe me,
[25:41]authors are so grateful to you for that. And your sincerity and your curiosity and enthusiasm is
[25:46]just really, really awesome. Oh, thanks. I know. I feel like a child. I really do get like so excited.
[25:53]Yeah, but I do. But it's really awesome. And how great to like, you know, my kids just went to school
[25:58]and now they're only in school in real life for the mornings, my little guys at least. So they
[26:02]come home after three and a half hours. And my daughter was just lunged and she was like, wow, I feel
[26:07]like I didn't even leave. And I was like, yeah, I feel like that too, except that I had three podcasts
[26:11]this morning. And I met the most interesting women ever. And I talked to somebody in Florence and I
[26:16]talked to somebody in Chicago. And I talked to somebody, you know, it's just like, how else would I
[26:21]ever meet all these interesting people? So I, yeah, I am feel very lucky. That's kind of like my job,
[26:26]though, you know, I feel the same way. And I think that's how you know when you're onto a good thing,
[26:31]right? It's not about whatever the trappings of success might look. It's about that kind of,
[26:36]wow, I'm really excited. I'm learning. I'm meeting interesting people. I'm seeing different
[26:41]ideas. And that is, that's the thrill of it. That's the excitement. And then like once you're in it,
[26:47]more ideas and more things happen, you know, like, yeah, as opposed to when I was home with my twins
[26:51]who were now 13, like when they were little and every day was like a thousand hours long. And I was
[26:56]just like, I can't even think of a single essay to write right now, you know, so burnt out. I'm just
[27:00]like, now it's like, you know, you throw one thing. Like with you, I'm sure like you just throw
[27:05]one more thing in the fire and you're already going at warp speeds. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, it's long,
[27:09]long days, short years. Yes, exactly. Well, it was so great to talk to you. Thanks for coming
[27:15]on mom's own time to read books. Thanks for sharing your journey with everybody. And yeah,
[27:20]I'll look for you eventually on TV. Yes, whatever person, hopefully, if things ever,
[27:27]if we ever want to graduate, it would be awesome. Yes. All right. So I'll talk to you soon.
[27:34]Hopefully I'll see you soon. Take care. Thank you. Thanks. Bye bye. Bye.
[27:39]Thanks for audible sponsoring this episode. Get your amazing deal for 95 for six months for your
[27:47]first six months for their holiday Audible Plus offer. Go to audible.com slash zibi or text
[27:53]zibi to 500-500. Thanks, Audible. Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read
[27:59]books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read
[28:04]books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet
[28:09]lots of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at the texture sound
[28:14]for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro
[28:19]and atrium music.