Sabaa Tahir, A SKY BEYOND THE STORM
[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 me in all these different channels and enjoy this podcast.
[0:53]Today's sponsor is my bookshop.org store and my Amazon store.
[0:59]I don't know if you guys even know that I have these, but you should check it out because I sell all the books that I've had on this podcast, so you can easily find them and buy them.
[1:10]The bookshop.org site is bookshop.org slash shop slash zibiowens.
[1:17]And the Amazon shop is amazon.com slash shop slash moms don't have time to read books.
[1:24]So I hope that you will check out my Amazon influencer store and my bookshop.org store front and the bookshop.org store front also has all the books from my Zibi's virtual book club and some other suggested reads.
[1:36]So I hope you will check those both out and go shopping go buy some books from the podcast and support all these amazing authors.
[1:42]I did this Instagram live with Saba to hear for the Good Morning America book club Instagram page at GMA book club.
[1:49]So you can watch it there. I'm sure it's saved in their Instagram archives and is also up on my IGTV as well.
[1:55]If you want to watch it plus of course YouTube and everywhere else, but here is her bio Saba to hear is the number one New York Times best selling author of the ember in the ashes series, which has been translated into over 35 languages.
[2:09]She grew up in California as Mojave Desert at her family's 18 room motel. They are she spent her time devouring fantasy novels rating her brothers comic book stash and playing guitar badly.
[2:19]She began writing an ember in the ashes while working nights as a newspaper editor. She likes thunderous indie rock, garish socks and all things nerd.
[2:28]Saba currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her family. I was really excited to talk to her about the number four book in her series called Sky Beyond the Storm.
[2:38]By the way, Saba is one of the few of Hackest to any American authors writing speculative fiction and she brings a unique perspective to the fantasy genre. I really love talking to her.
[2:47]Hi. Hello. How are you, baby? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
[2:55]Congratulations on book four of the series. Thank you.
[2:58]Exciting. Oh, my God. Very exciting.
[3:01]Crazy. I read many times over that you said you were not a crier, but that finishing this series made you really cry. Tell me about what that was like.
[3:10]I think I didn't anticipate how characters start to feel like friends and especially I've spent 13 years with these characters.
[3:19]So I started writing this series in 2007. It took me, you know, seven years to have the first book published.
[3:26]So I just didn't realize that it was going to be so emotional. So, you know, I sort of compared to when I was a little girl and, you know, I was afraid or, you know, nervous or whatever, I'd go hide in the laundry basket.
[3:40]And I would like kind of sort through my thoughts there and everything. And these books and these these characters ended up kind of being like my adult laundry basket. Like, this is the world where I would hide when I when everything got to be kind of too much or I just needed an escape. So now, you know, my laundry basket's gone. So sad.
[4:00]I will say I am going to FedEx you a laundry basket from Amazon.
[4:05]Maybe we could put like two over your head or maybe you just need a laundry room. I don't know something coming. Yeah. Maybe I should do a laundry room. There you go.
[4:18]No, but I mean so many people depend on characters and story to get them through everything. And when it's your own and you're creating it, I imagine that's just, you know,
[4:28]a million folds. What does it feel like to sort of hold the torch as one of the first women, Pakistani American fantasy writers and how you got to represent like a whole new cross section of people I should say in both the protagonist and the villains and every character in your book and
[4:48]and the community in which you're writing and how you basically went from feeling bullied in the motel your parents had you living in with like 18 people are sitting growing up to like being in number one best selling author. So just I know that's a big question.
[5:04]It isn't a question. But, you know, one thing is I think I try really hard not to think almost like not to think too much about it.
[5:11]It's not to look too directly at it because it does feel so so big sometimes. I think what really helps me is to focus on the art to focus on the writing because ultimately it's so important to me to tell these stories for every single one of those, you know, young adults from all over the world who send me messages and they're like, thank you for telling the story.
[5:32]I need to see myself. I need to see my family. I need to see my friends. I really try to focus on that because that allows me to kind of put the art first. I sort of feel like you're only as good as your last book to something.
[5:44]So it's very important to me that that's my focus. And then, you know, I have two little kids and I think that they don't let me focus on anything other than that.
[5:55]So it's, you know, it's one of those situations where it's like anytime where I might be like, you know, oh, you know, I'm, I'm really cool like they'll be like, mom, you, you know, did A, B or C wrong or I just dropped everything on the floor. I don't know how to clean it up.
[6:10]Whatever the case may be, they've forces me back down to earth. I didn't really consider the impact that Ember would have until a couple of years after it was published.
[6:18]And I started really seeing people reading it and saying, this is the reason why I'm a writer or this is the reason why I believe I can be a writer.
[6:27]As before has come out, I have gotten hundreds of those messages and it has blown my mind because I didn't.
[6:34]I didn't know when I wrote it that that's what it would be. I was just trying to write a story where I could see myself where my sons would be able to see themselves one day where my niece and nephew would be able to see themselves one day.
[6:48]Where the problems that that, you know, people from who, you know, who whose ethnicity is from my part of the world, which is Pakistan or South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, a lot of these places with the mythology that you see in an Ember in the ashes.
[7:03]And a lot of places that are going through some terrible things right now. I wanted to see that in a story. I hadn't seen that in a story and I felt very erased.
[7:13]Well, that's why it was important to me to write these, but it really has only started thinking in recently.
[7:19]Certainly nothing like kids to make you feel like you're, you know, two inches tall instead of.
[7:26]You even wrote like the most beautiful dedication that I had read at the beginning of your fourth book. You said for my own children, my felon and my sword of all the world's where and I dwell yours is the most beautiful.
[7:40]That is so nice.
[7:42]I mean, thank you.
[7:43]And it just like said such a tone for the poetic is a lyrical way you write in general. Right. It's just like.
[7:52]I don't know. So harkens back. I mean, I know it takes place like 500 years ago, but I definitely like harkens back to another era and another time of life and is just completely escapist and I feel like particularly now everyone needs that.
[8:06]I hope that the book provides an escape and I really hope that it allows people to feel some measure of hope. Right. Like that's what I need right now.
[8:16]That's the books that I'm turning to the ones that even if something really harrowing and stressful is happening.
[8:22]You know, there's hope in the book. I that matters to me so much. So I wanted to give that to my readers.
[8:29]I worked on that. Dedications are always so difficult for me because I'm like, Oh, you know, I have it's a first thing people read. I mean, some people don't just skip them, but generally I think people read dedication.
[8:39]So very first thing they see that I've written.
[8:42]And then this is for my kids. I was like, well, this has to feel good like when they're 25. You know, hopefully when they're, you know, much older and I'm gone, like I want them to be able to open this book and feel that love coming for me.
[8:54]And I was like, you know, you know, I read to my mom and she's like, I don't know about that. You know, so it was a process. I'm glad I got there in the end.
[9:10]You totally got there.
[9:12]But I was like, well, I love that, maybe you should compile all the discarded dedication because maybe they'd want to see that in 25 years. I should totally do that. I had one where I was like, you know, to my Falcon and my sword.
[9:25]You know, you're the reason I almost didn't finish this book because I was like, Oh, I'm not going to put that in.
[9:33]for the, you know, for the people hanging from my ankles who are not letting me do this.
[9:38]Do my job. Thank you. You know, I did it anyway.
[9:44]So do you read fantasy yourself? Are you a huge fantasy fan? Like, how did you learn how to write like this?
[9:51]So I'm a big, big fantasy fan. I've been reading fantasy since I was 11, 10, 11,
[9:58]the very first fantasy book I
[10:00]I got was the sort of chanera by Terry Brooks.
[10:03]It's written in the 70s.
[10:05]You know, it's all dudes.
[10:06]It's like a very classic old school fantasy,
[10:09]but I just loved that book.
[10:10]It took me away from my troubles.
[10:12]I was in middle school at the time.
[10:14]Everyone knows middle school's awful.
[10:16]It was just a wonderful escape.
[10:18]And that was really my gateway book into fantasy.
[10:22]And then after that, I started reading a lot more.
[10:25]And I found that I really connected
[10:28]to these characters and these places that didn't exist.
[10:33]And so as I grew older, I got into literature,
[10:37]like more sort of literary works, that kind of thing.
[10:39]And actually, that's what I was working on.
[10:42]I was working on a memoir.
[10:43]I was like 20, I don't know.
[10:45]I don't know what I was going to write about the motel.
[10:46]But my mother was talking to me on the phone.
[10:48]I was complaining yet again about how
[10:50]I was having a difficult time writing this book.
[10:52]And I was just doing it my spare time as I was working.
[10:54]And she was like, why don't you write a fantasy?
[10:56]You love fantasy.
[10:57]But you read it all the time.
[10:59]And as per usual, she was right.
[11:02]So I started working on it.
[11:04]And then in terms of training, it was really
[11:06]working at the Washington Post.
[11:08]I was an editor there.
[11:10]I was a copy editor.
[11:11]So I worked late at night.
[11:12]I worked on headlines and captions
[11:14]and kind of did the last edit on a story.
[11:16]And I learned so much about the building blocks of writing
[11:20]from reading all these incredible reporters
[11:23]at the Washington Post.
[11:24]And I always recommend the young writers
[11:25]that if you are struggling with the form,
[11:28]you're struggling with making your sentences beautiful
[11:31]or making them something that you feel like convey what
[11:35]you want to convey, read and use paper every day for a year.
[11:38]Because the economy of language and the way
[11:43]that stories are structured that you can learn from use paper,
[11:46]it's so helpful.
[11:48]That's great advice.
[11:48]I thought you were going to just tell everybody
[11:50]to try to get a job at the Washington Post.
[11:51]And I was going to say that into a very nice story.
[11:55]I know even those easy things,
[11:57]everybody knows.
[11:58]If it's nice to throw it out there as a suggestion.
[12:02]I want to talk a little more about your relationship
[12:04]with your mom, because you obviously are very close.
[12:07]And you said one of the interviews I read about you
[12:09]that you were going to kill off one of your characters.
[12:12]And she said she wouldn't cook for you anymore
[12:14]if you did that.
[12:15]Which is like, that's not even passive aggressive.
[12:18]That's just like outright on the table.
[12:21]Control rate having gone with.
[12:23]She ended on the gone with it.
[12:24]Yeah, we were talking about the book.
[12:27]And she's really funny.
[12:28]She'll always try to get me to talk to her about it.
[12:31]And she'll be like, so what's going to happen?
[12:33]And who's going to end up together?
[12:37]She's very invested in these characters.
[12:38]And I told her, I was like, so I'm
[12:40]thinking about killing this character.
[12:42]These are the reasons why.
[12:43]And she just looked at me.
[12:45]I wasn't her child anymore.
[12:47]And she was like, don't you dare?
[12:49]What do you think?
[12:50]No.
[12:51]And then so then there's this Pakistani
[12:53]a bread called Barata, which is like a deep fried bread.
[12:56]It's so good.
[12:57]And she was like, I'll never make it for you again.
[12:59]And that's that's a serious threat.
[13:01]That's I mean, that's the rest of my life,
[13:03]like not having it.
[13:04]So I had to capitulate.
[13:07]I was like that.
[13:09]Gosh, if I knew deep fried bread was sort of on the menu
[13:13]as an incentive tool for anything, I think I would have.
[13:17]Yeah, just near in that direction.
[13:19]Oh my gosh.
[13:20]So now that the book is out, like what has this,
[13:23]even what is this week been like?
[13:25]Are you are people, how are people even responding?
[13:27]I know it's probably too fast for people to read,
[13:29]but you have so many fans from the whole series.
[13:31]Now you have the ending of it.
[13:32]Like what is it like now that it's out there?
[13:36]It's a relief in many ways.
[13:38]It feels like sort of a weight off my shoulders.
[13:41]It's out in the world.
[13:43]I can't change it at this point.
[13:45]It is what it is.
[13:46]So that's really wonderful.
[13:48]I've had an overwhelmingly positive response.
[13:51]My readers are so sweet.
[13:54]And so many of them have actually said something
[13:56]that I think is very selfless as a reader,
[13:58]which is a lot of them have said, no matter how it ends,
[14:02]no matter what you decided, I want you to know
[14:05]that these books have meant so much to me.
[14:07]And that's such a sweet and beautiful thing to say
[14:10]to an author because it really shows faith in my skill
[14:13]as a writer.
[14:14]They're basically saying, hey, we trust you.
[14:16]We trust, you know what you did.
[14:17]I've had a couple of people who were like,
[14:19]how dare you go so far from the most part?
[14:23]It's been overwhelmingly positive.
[14:25]It's been a weird week to be because like,
[14:27]usually I'm traveling, right?
[14:29]So I'm going to bookstores and I'm going to schools
[14:33]and I'm meeting readers.
[14:35]And it's really cool.
[14:37]And it's kind of something you look forward to almost
[14:40]as a way to acknowledge that the book is done.
[14:42]And it's out in the world now.
[14:44]It doesn't belong to anymore.
[14:45]It's sort of like a weird kind of ritual, I would say.
[14:48]I've kind of turned it into that.
[14:50]So that's not happening this week for obvious reasons.
[14:53]But I've still managed to have these events,
[14:56]you know, and I have a bunch, you know,
[14:57]this week and next week where I'm talking to a friend
[15:01]or a fellow writer about, you know, the journey
[15:04]and the process.
[15:05]And then doing these sort of one-on-one meet in greets
[15:08]after that are really short, but really lovely
[15:10]because you just get to talk to readers face to face.
[15:13]And that's awesome.
[15:14]We live in a time where it could be so much worse.
[15:18]You know, I think that if this was 10 years ago,
[15:20]that wouldn't be an option.
[15:21]We would just be like, sorry, you know,
[15:23]book is out, you know, find me on Facebook
[15:26]or tweet at me if you want and that's kind of it.
[15:28]But the fact that we could do something like this
[15:31]is really wonderful.
[15:32]And I found it to be kind of life-saving
[15:34]as I go through this week
[15:35]because it's really allowed me to connect to the readers.
[15:38]And I love that part of writing.
[15:40]It's one of the best parts.
[15:41]I think it's been life-saving for so many people
[15:43]for the whole year.
[15:44]I mean, that's like, what would we have done?
[15:46]Every so often I'm like, what if it disappears?
[15:48]What if I'm seeing crashes in a world, you know?
[15:51]Yeah, that's great.
[15:52]No, it's great.
[15:53]Because I'm sure hearing from the fans directly
[15:55]is part of the reward in and of itself, right?
[15:59]Like you were saying earlier with people writing
[16:01]is because of you.
[16:02]So at least you still can access them somehow,
[16:04]which is great.
[16:05]So I was watching the trailer for your first book
[16:08]and I was like, wait, is this a trailer for a book
[16:10]or is this like a movie that I didn't know was a movie?
[16:12]And then I was like, why is this not a movie?
[16:14]So what is the deal?
[16:15]Is this going to be a movie?
[16:17]What's the story there?
[16:18]So it is going to be something,
[16:22]but I can't say anything about it
[16:24]because the producers will find me and kill me.
[16:28]We both have a book to tell me,
[16:30]but they won't be very happy.
[16:31]But it is in development as something.
[16:34]And I'm more deeply involved.
[16:35]You know, it's sort of iterated a few times
[16:38]as fantasies often do in Hollywood,
[16:41]but this iteration is one in which I am more directly
[16:44]involved, which is awesome.
[16:46]And I think makes a really big difference
[16:47]to how everything about it, you know,
[16:50]being able to make sure that the cast
[16:54]is properly reflects the book
[16:56]and being able to make sure that the story
[16:58]properly reflects the nature of the actual book.
[17:03]All of that is really important to me.
[17:05]And so that's all I can say about it.
[17:07]I'm really hopeful and crossing my fingers.
[17:12]And I hope everyone else will do.
[17:13]I won't ask anyone.
[17:14]You know, we'll see.
[17:16]We'll all be just waiting and watching
[17:18]and I'm sure whatever form it takes will be fantastic.
[17:21]And what are your writing plans going forward?
[17:24]You finally have like put a capstone on this whole collection.
[17:27]This is a lot of pages.
[17:28]And this is only, and this is still missing the most recent one.
[17:31]So what's next?
[17:32]Are you going to start a new series
[17:34]or what's the plan?
[17:35]So I have something coming up.
[17:37]I can't say much about it again
[17:39]because my publishing house this time would yell at me.
[17:43]But it is very different from anything I've written before.
[17:46]At the same time, it has the whole marks
[17:49]of a sub-book sort of classic book,
[17:51]which is very harrowing and very stressful.
[17:55]So I will probably be announcing that next year
[17:57]and I'm really excited about it.
[17:58]And then after that, I'm really considering kind of
[18:02]what I want to do.
[18:03]I think there are so many stories left in the world of Ember.
[18:07]I have absolutely left that door open in the hopes
[18:10]that I will be able to return there
[18:12]when I'm ready and when readers are ready for that.
[18:14]So we will see, but I think that I don't think
[18:17]we've heard the last of these characters.
[18:20]I feel like you should pull that memoir back out.
[18:23]Maybe now with like the vantage point
[18:25]of all of these experiences and being a mom yourself.
[18:28]I don't know.
[18:29]I feel like maybe there's something there.
[18:30]You might get through what show?
[18:33]All right, maybe I read your mind.
[18:36]Awesome.
[18:37]Well, you've already done a little bit of advice,
[18:39]which was fantastic that aspiring authors
[18:41]can read a newspaper every day for a year,
[18:43]which is really so important.
[18:45]Anyway, I feel like I'm one of the last people
[18:47]who reads paper newspapers to read paper or do you read?
[18:50]I read online mostly, but I do buy
[18:52]the actual physical paper occasionally,
[18:54]not so much anymore.
[18:56]But before I would try to get at least once a month,
[18:58]I try to pick up the papers that are available to me,
[19:01]which is usually like the New York Times
[19:02]or the Wall Street.
[19:03]You're not trying to just grab a copy and read it.
[19:05]I really think there's something for reading it end to end.
[19:08]I always would find something that I wouldn't anticipate
[19:10]and I feel like when you read it online,
[19:12]like unless you're very methodical
[19:14]and like going through each section,
[19:15]it's a little bit more difficult to do that.
[19:17]It was such a beautiful ritualistic thing, right?
[19:20]To like have your paper with your copy
[19:22]and like read through it especially like on Sunday morning.
[19:24]So I think that that's what I would usually try to do
[19:27]is grab that one in New York Times and just enjoy it.
[19:31]Yeah.
[19:32]I do have to say, I get them every day.
[19:33]I get the title of the journal in New York Post every day
[19:36]and I have to read it.
[19:38]Sometimes they stack up for like a week
[19:40]and I'll say to my husband like,
[19:41]oh my gosh, did you know this?
[19:42]Have you like it happened a week ago?
[19:44]Like, all right, well, whatever, I'm catching up.
[19:46]But I'm with you.
[19:46]I love to read the papers and I think it's great to also
[19:50]just like train yourself based on a certain type of writing.
[19:53]So what other advice do you have up your sleeve
[19:55]or you don't have to?
[19:56]It's, you know, you already gave great advice.
[19:58]But if you happen to have more writing advice.
[20:00]is somebody who can, obviously, like, how do you keep your focus and just keep turning
[20:04]out words?
[20:05]Like, do you have days where you sit down?
[20:06]You're like, I really don't feel like doing this or I can't think of anything, you know?
[20:11]Absolutely.
[20:12]I have days where I don't feel like writing.
[20:14]I have days where everything I write is garbage.
[20:16]I have days where I'm supposed to write, but, you know, like I said, I have a family
[20:21]and I have children and that sort of takes precedence with everything that's happened with
[20:25]COVID.
[20:26]I've actually found that my hours have been significantly cut because I have to educate
[20:32]my kids in the morning and then my husband will take, usually take over for a few hours
[20:36]in the afternoon.
[20:37]And so that has really had a huge impact on my ability to write.
[20:41]And what I've sort of found is, look, I started writing when I was working at the Washington
[20:45]Post and then I continued writing through, you know, the infancy and toddlerhood of two
[20:50]children and I was a stay-at-home mom during that time and I found that I had to write
[20:56]very much, you know, as Tony Morrison once described it in, like, these slices of time.
[21:00]I call them elbows of time.
[21:02]It's not really about getting a ton done at once.
[21:05]It's about just taking any little snippet and finding some way to make it worthwhile in
[21:10]terms of writing.
[21:11]I would talk into my phone.
[21:13]I would be holding my baby, you know, like, I have a nice big hand.
[21:17]So I'd be holding my baby with a bottle and I'd be talking into my phone to dictate, you
[21:21]know, part of a story or talking to a recorder way back when, right, to dictate part
[21:25]of a story.
[21:26]I would take an hour, you know, I would steal an hour, you know, whenever I could to start
[21:31]scribbling and working on it.
[21:32]And for the first couple of years, that's how I wrote.
[21:35]Sometimes I had help, but it wasn't really dependable and it wasn't a lot.
[21:39]And sometimes it was family.
[21:40]Sometimes it was someone I hired.
[21:42]But, you know, I just was sort of clawing away at this book, but it added up.
[21:46]And I think that's what I would love for writers to know, particularly writers who are
[21:51]are parents or who are caretakers or who have really demanding jobs.
[21:56]You don't have to write all day, every day to finish a book.
[22:00]If you can write like a page a week, then over the course of a few years, you will have
[22:05]a book.
[22:06]And it like I said, it took me from when I started writing it to when I saw on a book
[22:10]was seven and a half years for an number in the ashes in a long time.
[22:15]That's true.
[22:16]And I know that a lot of people would love to just like write a book in six months
[22:19]and then see it on the shelf.
[22:20]But if you don't have a choice, if you really can't quit that job or you can't become
[22:25]a full-time writer, this is a way for you to just like kind of claw away at it, like
[22:30]a little by little and just get a little bit done.
[22:32]And so that's really my advice for writers is you don't have to listen to people who
[22:36]are like, you must write every day, you know, you must write for four hours a day.
[22:39]You must have your own room to write like none of those rules hide you if you don't want
[22:44]them to.
[22:45]You know, you can sort of find writers write ultimately like they can find a way, usually,
[22:51]you know, if you're lucky, you can find a way to write.
[22:53]So that's that's my advice for I am like ridiculously impressed at the visual of you
[23:00]dictating while dealing with maybe and the bottle.
[23:04]And like I could bit like my thoughts were so incoherent at that time.
[23:09]Even the fact, even if you didn't, even if you weren't holding anything that you could
[23:11]dictate and it could become, like I feel like when I speak as evidenced right now,
[23:16]it doesn't always make sense.
[23:18]And when I write, it's clear and I can go back and did it up.
[23:21]But if it comes out, like that's impressed, just super impressive.
[23:25]It never, it never came out well.
[23:28]It was always like, and then the character runs away because they're scared.
[23:32]And then later on, I would sit down and be like, okay, how do I turn that into something
[23:36]that I want to read and that doesn't make me want to like run away?
[23:41]So it's also about iteration.
[23:42]I think a lot of people think that the first version of a book that writers write is perfect.
[23:48]And you know what, if you're that author, like that's awesome.
[23:52]I am not that author's to be like, my first drafts are so embarrassing.
[23:57]It's it's shocking.
[23:59]I think that if people read it, they'd be like, how did you become a writer?
[24:03]I sure that's not true.
[24:04]I you just iterate and he gets better and better with each iteration.
[24:09]And I must have had like 50 drafts of Ember, you know,
[24:13]the first one was something completely different.
[24:15]And the last one and the one you see is, you know, the work of, you know,
[24:19]just little by little, making it better.
[24:21]One paragraph, one page, one chapter, until the entire book is better.
[24:26]Well, that's very inspiring.
[24:28]I feel like you should also write a children's book while we're talking about
[24:30]all the things you should do because I feel like you can bring it down to like a kid's level,
[24:35]especially just how you want to represent different backgrounds and everything.
[24:39]And I don't know.
[24:40]I feel like you need to have a children's book in the in the mix.
[24:42]I would love that.
[24:43]I will now keep note of that.
[24:48]Yeah, you get on that.
[24:51]Yeah, just put me in the acknowledgement somewhere and that's all I need.
[24:55]I got you.
[24:57]Well, Sam, thank you so much.
[24:58]This was so much fun.
[25:00]And my son is going to dive into this whole series.
[25:03]I'm hoping to sketch them off the video games for a few hours.
[25:07]And, you know, thank you for taking the time to talk and coming on to give me a book
[25:11]club and that this will also be a podcast on mom's don't have time to read books.
[25:14]So my listeners can hear as well.
[25:16]Yeah.
[25:17]And just thanks for chatting and all that great writerly advice is awesome.
[25:19]Thank you so much.
[25:21]It was a pleasure.
[25:21]I really appreciate your time.
[25:23]It was a wonderful.
[25:24]Thank you.
[25:25]Thank you.
[25:26]Thank you.
[25:27]Bye bye.
[25:28]Bye.
[25:30]Thanks so much to today's sponsor.
[25:32]My bookshop.org and my Amazon influencer store.
[25:35]You can check out my Amazon store at amazon.com slash shop slash mom.
[25:40]Don't have time to read books and my bookshop.org store, which is bookshop.org slash
[25:47]shop slash zibi Owens.
[25:50]And I hope that you will find every book that you are looking for.
[25:54]Thanks.
[25:55]Thanks for listening to this episode of mom's don't have time to read books.
[25:58]Don't forget to follow me on instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.
[26:03]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:08]of authors on zoom every other week.
[26:10]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at texture sound for the sound editing.
[26:14]And thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.