Jesse Thistle, FROM THE ASHES: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way
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[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Jesse Thistle is the author of From the Ashes, my story of being Metis, Homeless, and Finding My Way.
[0:44]This number one, internationally best-selling and award-winning memoir about overcoming trauma, prejudice, and addiction
[0:52]by a Metis-Cree author as he struggles to find a way back to himself and his indigenous culture
[0:57]is an illuminating, this is a quote now, an illuminating, inside account of homelessness, a study of survival, and freedom.
[1:03]So says Amanda Lindhout, bestselling co-author of a house in the sky.
[1:07]Abandoned by his parents as a toddler, Jesse and his two brothers were cut off from all they knew when they were placed in the foster care system.
[1:14]Eventually placed with their paternal grandparents, the children often clashed with their tough love, attitude, and worse,
[1:19]the ghost of Jesse's drug-addicted father seemed to haunt the memories of every member of the family.
[1:24]Soon, he's to come to a self-destructive cycle of drug and alcohol addiction and petty crime, resulting in more than a decade living on and off the streets.
[1:32]Facing struggles many of us cannot even imagine, Jesse knew he would die unless he turned his life around.
[1:37]Through sheer perseverance and new found love, he managed to find his way back into the loving embrace of his indigenous culture and family.
[1:43]Now, in this heart-wrenching and triumphant memoir, Jesse honestly and fearlessly divulges his painful past, the abuse he endured, and the tragic truth about his parents.
[1:53]An eloquent exploration of the dangerous impact of prejudice and racism from the ashes is ultimately a celebration of love, and a story of courage and resilience, certain to strike accord with readers from many backgrounds, according to the library journal.
[2:06]Welcome, Jesse. Thank you so much for coming on Moms. Don't have time to read books.
[2:10]Thanks for having me.
[2:11]Your story is sensational and moving and amazing, and when my daughter didn't want to go to school this morning,
[2:18]I was telling her all about your book and your story and the turnip and the beer and the fridge and the foster home.
[2:25]I mean, it's just unbelievable the stuff as a young child.
[2:28]You had to go and the stuffing your mom's pages and the bed from the Macy's kind of like, oh my gosh, Jesse, I can't believe your life.
[2:36]I truly can't believe it. It's unbelievable.
[2:40]Yeah, I'm lucky as it really though it's the life of a lot of indigenous people in Canada, right?
[2:48]I'm just one of thousands and I have to be humble and know that, you know, my life might seem extreme to you, but two other indigenous peoples they recognize and see a lot of their uncles or their
[3:00]aunties or grandparents story and mine.
[3:04]Still, the fact that there's a lot of pain doesn't make any one person's pain any less, I think, you know, but obviously you're not the only one.
[3:15]I mean, do you attribute your history mostly to that to being an indigenous people of Canada and or I mean, it could be more of a drug addiction story or the, you know,
[3:28]the effect of drugs or the effect of, you know, young parents who aren't red, you know, it could be a lot of factors when you look back when you attribute it mostly to.
[3:39]Okay, so I inherited a very traumatic history from my what are called michif or métis were mixed blooded people that had our own political consciousness and fought against imperial expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries.
[3:54]So I have that trauma because they stole everything from us. They stole our land. They murdered the bison.
[4:01]They put us on to what are called road allowances. These are public strips of land that Pete we had to squat on because they wouldn't treat with us. They didn't give us treating because we were such a martial force.
[4:12]They wanted to destroy our nation and that's what they did. And so you're seeing a glimpse of that at the beginning of the story.
[4:19]Right. I'm on the road allowance with my grandparents and they're trying to explain it to me, but I don't really understand.
[4:26]Because that's how I looked at it as a kid. It wasn't until I came years later and looked at my history of my mom's people that I understood. Hey, this trauma has been bequeathed to me.
[4:37]And I'm not talking about epigenetically. I'm talking about like socialization over time became dysfunctional misogyny, alcoholism, addictions, abuse, all these things are responses to massive stress over time.
[4:52]Right. And then they pass it. It's almost like the way the some of the literature I draw off of is actually second generation Holocaust survivor families. They talk about that's who started this.
[5:04]Right. And so native people have just taken those theories and applied them to their lives and say, Hey, this is actually true for us too.
[5:12]So that's one vein. And then if you look at my father's life, he's really the catalyst for when everything goes wrong. Right.
[5:20]And so he was a white dude. Right. He had an ancestral Algonquin roots, but he knew himself as a white guy.
[5:27]And so really the early what's called ace adverse childhood experiences that I that happened in foster care that happened with abuse and whatnot was because of his decision because he was an addict.
[5:40]And now I'm doing my dissertation. I started tracing back his lines and I saw holy cow. He comes from Gaelic people that were displaced in Cape Ritten.
[5:50]They were displaced in what's called the Highland clearances back in Scotland. And that trauma reverberated through time, you know, to my father. And so all these things are converging.
[6:02]And I make sense. I know who I am. I know what happened to me. And with that comes a clarity, right, an acceptance of history to change it, you know, it's up to me.
[6:12]And yeah, so that's those are all the competing narratives and all the other things that you mentioned to addictions, play into it, family dysfunction, toxic masculinity.
[6:21]All of these things are part of my, but my story and that's real life. Right. It's not one vein. It's it's multiple and the converging crisscross all through the story.
[6:31]I mean, your story is so inspirational because you've pulled yourself through and out and over and everything. And yet there's something something very depressing about the idea that we've all like so many people have inherited.
[6:47]But everyone's past history. If everybody feels the inherited trauma of their people who have been displaced like the mass amounts of suffering, it's almost hard to grasp how that we could all just sort of function with all of this heaviness.
[7:04]What you said about the Holocaust, I've been fascinated with that for years. In fact, way back in college and now I'm pretty old, but, you know, I took a whole class on what is what is it like to be the child of a Holocaust survivor.
[7:14]What is that like and what are those people write about and how do those out of the grandchildren function and it's something I've been personally like very invested and obsessed with over time.
[7:24]This now inherited trauma has become, you know, like a buzzword of sorts now that people have identified this as like a thing that happens.
[7:33]How do you, how do we like collectively, I mean, this is kind of a giant question, you can't, I don't know that has an answer, but with all of that out there, how can we change it?
[7:44]Like, how can we disrupt that narrative and make it so that like, yes, we've all, we are here where we are, but how can other people and entire groups of people try to overcome this.
[7:59]I mean, it sounds like it's maybe overly simplistic, but it just seems like very depressing.
[8:04]No, that's a, these are some interesting questions that arise when we're talking about trauma. We're like, well, how come indigenous people can't heal from this trauma where, you know, two or three generations out, Jewish populations seem to be recovering.
[8:19]What's the difference? Well, I look at work done by Lakota Sioux scholar her name is Maria yellow horse brave heart.
[8:27]And she talks about how trauma needs to be witnessed and understood by the mainstream so that the people that suffered the trauma can grieve publicly, right.
[8:40]And they can come together and it makes meaning of their suffering. It's valid. It has like a purpose, right. Instead of it being a victim narrative then it becomes like a survivor narrative, right.
[8:52]We survived this, not we were victims of colonialism, correct.
[8:56]And so this hasn't happened for indigenous people that has happened certainly for Jewish people. Look at all the plethora of movies about the families and the books that have been written and about the Holocaust.
[9:09]And so this hasn't happened for indigenous people. And when I lecture about this, I give an example, Canada here or war one was really, really traumatic for our country lost like a whole generation of young men.
[9:21]Right. It was senseless.
[9:23]They were sent to the slaughter basically for the British Empire. And so in the years after the war, the country was reeling and they couldn't make sense of it.
[9:32]And so to publicly grieve, they created something called Remembrance Day, right. This is what they're doing. That's what it is. We're saying, oh, they died for this reason collectively for our freedom.
[9:45]They sacrificed.
[9:47]The families actually have some sort of sense out of what they've gone through, right. And so I say like for my people, especially the mischief or the meaty we people don't even know that we exist. So how can.
[10:00]know about our trauma and what happened to us and help us publicly grieve. There is no public
[10:04]witnessing then, right? And so by and large, this is just starting to happen for indigenous
[10:09]people, right? Up here in Canada, we just found a bunch of bodies and graves that indigenous people
[10:15]that we're talking about for years at residential schools. And so if the country is just now
[10:20]coming to realize this, we're just at the beginning of the public grieving, right? Because we're
[10:26]just gathering our truths right now to share them, right? And so it's a long process. This is
[10:31]going to be generations, I believe. But I'm part of the early conversations towards this public
[10:36]grieving and healing. Don't you feel like this enormous responsibility? No, I kind of do. But I kind
[10:43]of don't too, because like I just don't care, really. I just had an opportunity to share my life
[10:50]you know, other people are making something of it that maybe, you know, I don't know, it means something
[10:56]more to them. But for me, I was just sharing my truth to get it off of my back basically. And so I
[11:00]could live and function. And you know, so people could understand my brother or my my my brothers who
[11:07]have mental health challenges, right? They're suffering from trauma. Where without this book, it just
[11:13]looks like they're aggressive and mean online, right? And that's not what who they are. They're
[11:18]just suffering from what happened to us. And so in that respect, it is a great responsibility,
[11:25]you know, because I'm representative of my family, my people and myself. But in the same
[11:29]token, I can't care what people think about my life. Because for some people it will be shocking,
[11:34]some people it will be it'll tear away their facade of what they think a just society is.
[11:40]You know, or what our institutions are there for and who they protect. You see all the different
[11:45]institutions that come in contact with and none of them had my back, right? And I almost died.
[11:51]And we're supposed to be Canada, the benevolent, right? And that just didn't exist for an
[11:56]indigenous person in my era. So yeah, it's a great responsibility, but I can't care too much about it
[12:03]or that would shut me down right from the beginning, right? It's too, too great of a wait to carry.
[12:08]I'm so sorry. I'm just so sorry. I know you don't need my, my one little empathy. But reading your
[12:15]story, I just my heart like just absolutely broke for you and thinking about your brothers and
[12:21]just how could how I mean, after the some of the things, it's like, well, of course they're going
[12:28]to grow up with how can you not grow up with it with without serious effects on yourself? How can
[12:34]these experiences not damage the person, right? And what what do you need to then overcome these things?
[12:43]Like, why do you think you are here, you know, having written this book and now your career and all
[12:49]of this? Like, why you? Why could you do this? Why can everyone not do this? Where did you find deep
[12:54]inside you or whatever? Is it your makeup or, you know, I'm always sort of fascinated with like what
[13:00]makes one person able to survive something horrific? Where's the next person suffers in totally
[13:07]different ways from it? This keeps me up at night, right? I have survivors guilt. Like, why did
[13:13]I survive? I get emails every like three or four months of someone from my past who's died,
[13:20]right? And they used to be a lot more frequent. They're getting thinner and thinner. That's
[13:24]because no one's left. I'm like one of the last ones. And so I don't know, it's like it was luck,
[13:29]it was luck. There's no other way that I can say that. Like, I could try to want to claim
[13:36]responsibility, but it was the way that the court system plucked me from jail when I was sober for
[13:44]the first time in a while. And I knew the opportunity. And, you know, I took it. But that was me by chance,
[13:55]you know, by reference of a friend calling this place and getting in there. And so I am,
[14:02]you ever hear that song lucky man? It's the same group that did bittersweet symphony. I put that
[14:07]on in the morning. And I listened to that because I know it was by chance alone that I survived.
[14:13]And, you know, I'm no better. It wasn't a bootstrap. I didn't pull myself up by my boots or
[14:20]really what happened was once that court plucked me out of the system, an institution wrapped
[14:25]around me for the first time, right? And they started building relationships back up.
[14:30]And in those relationships, I met my wife, you know, I found pride. I found education. And so,
[14:38]I theorize in a lot of my work that I do, the opposite of addiction and homelessness is not
[14:43]sobriety and being put in a house. It's love. That's why we're the shirt, right?
[14:48]The hope is love. Home is love. Home or hope. Home. Home. Home is love. And it's that simple. And
[14:55]everybody knows that, right? Everybody, this is not a revelation. But what I'm talking about is
[15:01]I believe in what's called relationships first alongside housing first. So we need housing,
[15:06]no doubt. But we also need those relationships of love and trust in community that wrap around us
[15:11]that give us meaning. And so I was lucky to find that. I can't say that I was searching for that.
[15:17]But I knew to take advantage of it because my life had been so desolate before that.
[15:23]Wow. So how has your life changed since writing this book? And it becoming like a number one
[15:28]international reseller and all this stuff. And suddenly your, your, your private pain and your
[15:34]experience is now so out there. How has, how has life changed for you?
[15:39]It's incredible. Like it's gone global. Like you said, it's gone right around the world. And
[15:44]each country picks out something different. Like in America, they focused on race. It's on my race
[15:50]being indigenous, right? North America is actually like that in Europe. It's more about recovery,
[15:56]right? In England, continental Europe, it was more about here's someone that was homeless,
[16:01]that became a professor in Asia. So with Asia, it was more about like the adoption story for some
[16:08]reason. They were more interested in like connection and stuff like that, especially in Vietnam for
[16:12]some reason. And each country focuses on something different. Like you were saying, there's all these
[16:17]threads, right? And when you tell your truth, the universal has just come to the fore and people
[16:22]will pick what, you know, because life is life and they can see themselves in your life. And so
[16:29]it's changed in the most unreal way. Like when I drive to work in the morning or to pick up my
[16:35]morning coffee, I get spotted, you know, at the stop sign that happened to me. And we're talking
[16:41]about like five a.m, right? Where no one should be up. Hey, there's Jesse, this is like, oh shit,
[16:47]I haven't had my coffee. Sorry, I didn't mean to sort of, I haven't had my coffee yet. So I
[16:51]have to be friendly. And it happened when I was at the spa, there was this group of women that
[16:54]were just trying to come over and talk to me. And it's just so weird because you got a contrast
[17:00]that had against what I was. I was a homeless addict in and out of jail. People literally step
[17:05]over top of me while I was trying to catch their attention. And now everybody's lining up to listen to
[17:11]I don't know how to take that. You know, so what I've actually done is I've just shut down.
[17:16]I've receded to myself and I've taken care of what's important in my home because I know that
[17:21]that's real. And all that out there, you know, it's nice, but it's really not beneficial to me in
[17:30]a way, you know, I don't know, I sound really bad. No, no, not at all, not at all. I mean,
[17:35]yeah, it's it's made my circle much smaller the people that I trust if that makes
[17:39]course it makes sense. Well, suddenly, I mean, I think anytime people suddenly change how they
[17:45]feel about you, they must it just implies that they didn't really necessarily know you before.
[17:51]Right. Like, or I don't know, yes, of course you have to trust the inner circle when when all
[17:57]of a sudden it feels like who knows what people want and what what parts of you do they want to
[18:02]talk to. And anyway, it makes total sense. And it never ends. It never ends. And you get like I've
[18:07]got a hundred million cousins now, like literally. I got I'm related to half a Nova Scotia,
[18:13]all of Northern Ontario and the whole of the Western provinces somehow are related to me that I
[18:18]didn't know about. I like, you could have helped me when I was on the street. That would have been
[18:23]really nice. But now that it's like I'm on the other end of it, you know, anyway, I can't be bitter
[18:28]if I look bad. That's that's part of resentment that gets you sick and keeps you in addiction.
[18:33]I forgive everyone and I move forward with a clean slate team. Lovely. What was the actual experience
[18:38]of writing this book like for you? It was cool. I sat down to write in August 2018 or 17 and I had
[18:49]it finished by November. Wow. I would love November. So the book took three months. Oh my gosh.
[18:55]What I would do is I'd sit down in the morning. I'd get up at like 430 or 530 and I'd write for
[18:59]two or three hours and then I'd send that off to my editor, Laurie, grassy at Simon and Schuster.
[19:06]And if it was good, then it came back with some edits and comments and questions, right?
[19:12]But if it was crappy, then it just kind of disappeared into the ether. And that was her polite way
[19:17]of saying, this is not good enough for the book. And so we did that the whole way along. That's
[19:21]how the book came. And Laurie said, I'm literally the fastest writer that she's ever worked with.
[19:28]And yeah, the book has been on the charts now here in Canada. I guess six times or eight times
[19:34]longer than it took to write, which is crazy. Wow. And it was like a stream of consciousness.
[19:40]You know, it just came out of me. And when I went to go to edit in the morning, that's
[19:45]what I knew I was done. And that's when I'd send it off. So a lot of the stuff is unedited
[19:50]in the book. And that's just how it came out of me. Right. So and that's not to say that Laurie
[19:55]didn't have a, she was the one who arranged the meta narrative and all that stuff. Like, she did.
[20:00]edit it, but like, yeah, that's how the book came up.
[20:02]But I know it was a lovely process.
[20:03]I was, I got to meet three year old me, you know,
[20:06]eight year old me.
[20:07]I got to relive my first love, you know,
[20:10]the first time I broke a girl's hearts.
[20:12]And my rave days back in the 90s,
[20:14]all these things I got to look back at
[20:17]and see the totality of it.
[20:18]And learned I'm not such a bad guy.
[20:21]I just had a lot of bad experiences.
[20:23]And, you know, I didn't have the best
[20:24]lot in life or hand in cards, you know, so.
[20:28]Did you think you were a bad guy?
[20:30]Oh, yeah.
[20:30]My record certainly says so, right?
[20:33]And I'm sure there are a lot of police and judges
[20:35]who probably still think that.
[20:38]But when it came down to it,
[20:39]especially there's one moment in the book
[20:41]where I had the choice, choose that life
[20:44]or choose justice.
[20:46]And I chose justice when it mattered most.
[20:49]When nobody else was there, I stood up.
[20:52]And that's when I realized that I wasn't that bad of a person.
[20:55]We have a political leader here.
[20:57]His name is Jagneet Singh.
[20:59]He's one of the leaders of the party in that.
[21:02]The person that I stood up for was actually his uncle.
[21:05]He was a young man when that happened.
[21:07]He was with the cab driver,
[21:10]the night that he got murdered.
[21:12]And the family had begged him not to go out.
[21:15]And I didn't realize this until years later
[21:18]when someone from his NDP contacted me and said,
[21:21]man, you did a really solid for their family.
[21:23]And then I started talking with them.
[21:25]And I said, no, when it mattered most,
[21:28]I did do the right thing.
[21:30]So I have no hero either.
[21:32]I think anybody with a brain would have done the same thing.
[21:34]So.
[21:35]Wow.
[21:38]So is this going to be a movie?
[21:40]This feels very cinematic.
[21:41]Do you want it to be a movie?
[21:43]Well, we're in, I don't know how much I can share here.
[21:47]We're in negotiations right now.
[21:49]Someone has an option, but the option's
[21:51]going to run out soon.
[21:52]And if anybody knows optioning and moviemaking,
[21:55]it's a whole long process.
[21:58]It's very expensive and a lot of different parts in it.
[22:01]And so we're hopeful we're hoping something happens.
[22:05]But their option runs out like at the end of the year here.
[22:08]So I don't know if you can make a movie in that short of time.
[22:12]So if anybody's interested in it in the future,
[22:15]I don't know.
[22:15]I don't know.
[22:16]We'll see.
[22:17]We'll see.
[22:17]OK.
[22:18]Wow.
[22:20]So what happens now with life?
[22:23]You go on your professor, where do you go from here?
[22:26]Where do you go from this moment where your book is just everywhere?
[22:32]And your story is there.
[22:34]And you're trying to live your life.
[22:36]Like what happens next for you?
[22:38]I, yeah, this is, I'm at a crossroads in my life, actually.
[22:42]I always remember the story of Achilles, right?
[22:44]I think Minerva came to him and she said,
[22:47]you have the option to go to Troy and achieve immortality.
[22:52]But you will not come back, or you can stay home.
[22:56]And no one will ever know who you are on your legacy
[22:58]will live on through your family.
[23:00]You can't do both.
[23:02]And so I'm not going to Troy.
[23:05]I'm going to stay home, you know?
[23:07]I'm going to stay home and I'm going to read.
[23:09]And I'm going to be a professor.
[23:10]And I'm going to melt back into normalcy
[23:13]and just teach people about indigenous history.
[23:16]Because that's really what got me to the ball, right?
[23:20]I'm not going to step on her toes, right?
[23:22]That's what's most important to me.
[23:24]And I've been charged by my elders and Saskatchewan
[23:28]to be a knowledge keeper.
[23:29]And if it's all about me, which it has been because of this book,
[23:32]which was total accidental, then I lose that really more
[23:37]important community role.
[23:38]And so that's my dream.
[23:41]I want to be a father.
[23:42]My wife is pregnant right now.
[23:44]she's doing December 12.
[23:46]And I want to end that cycle of trauma in my family line, right?
[23:50]I want to be a good, upstanding provider
[23:53]that my dad wasn't.
[23:55]And I think that's the best way that I can apply myself.
[23:58]I might not be as famous as I would if I went to Troy,
[24:01]but I think I'll be happier in the longer
[24:03]and if that makes sense.
[24:04]Do you have like an amazing therapist
[24:07]or is this all coming from you?
[24:09]Like, because you don't sound like.
[24:11]I have a trauma therapist, but we've never talked about
[24:13]what I just talked about.
[24:14]Wow.
[24:15]You're I just your approach and your articulation of it.
[24:20]And it's amazing and inspiring.
[24:23]And it's really what's important in life.
[24:26]I mean, this is it.
[24:27]Your whole thing about love and home and even what
[24:31]where this crossroads is.
[24:33]I mean, because what's left?
[24:35]What's left at the end anyway?
[24:36]It's love, right?
[24:37]It's love.
[24:38]And that's what you're going to die with.
[24:39]That's the only thing that you're really
[24:41]given in this world, right?
[24:43]And so yeah, I want to honor that.
[24:46]And I want to any and you honor that by showing that.
[24:48]You know, I could say that, but love is shown by taking
[24:52]my kid to hockey at six to him on Saturdays, right?
[24:55]When I don't want to go, that's where the real expression
[24:57]of love is.
[24:59]And so I want to do that.
[25:00]You know, I want to go canoeing in Elgonquin park
[25:03]with my daughter, you know, and do those things.
[25:06]And I can't do that if I'm off at Troy
[25:08]finding a battle that's not mine, right?
[25:10]Yes, amazing.
[25:12]Oh, my gosh.
[25:13]What advice would you have for an aspiring author?
[25:16]Just know that writing a memoir is like throwing a hand
[25:19]grenade into Christmas dinner.
[25:21]If you're going to write a memoir and it's
[25:23]you're going to suffer massive damage,
[25:26]truths will be told, family members will abandon you.
[25:29]But you'll have a close retinue of people
[25:32]that come to support you, that those are your real friends.
[25:35]Those are your real family, right?
[25:37]And it's a great, I guess, crucible.
[25:40]It cuts away all that crap, all those crap people.
[25:43]And then you're only left with the good.
[25:45]So be fearless in what in your telling.
[25:48]Don't try to make people look bad.
[25:51]Don't be accused of touring on purpose or angry
[25:53]because that'll just shut your reader down.
[25:55]Just tell your truth.
[25:56]Just show it.
[25:57]You know, without resentment in your heart
[25:59]and it's always the most powerful and impactful way
[26:02]to communicate with people.
[26:04]Love it.
[26:05]Well, Jesse, it's really been just such an honor
[26:08]to even talk to you.
[26:09]I have so much respect for you.
[26:12]And what you like, you don't miss the plot.
[26:15]Like you get the big picture.
[26:16]It's this is it.
[26:18]Like you've cut to the heart of life and what's important.
[26:21]And it's really refreshing to hear.
[26:24]And anyway, just bravo to you.
[26:26]Not that you need my tiny little bravo
[26:29]in the chorus of accolades, but your decision
[26:33]to stay inward and kind of like stay where your feet are.
[26:36]And I don't know.
[26:37]It's really, and after overcoming all this stuff
[26:40]in particular, it's just really, really awesome.
[26:43]So thank you.
[26:44]Can I ask something of you?
[26:46]Of course, yeah, sure.
[26:47]Or any of your listeners, just if you can, it's simple.
[26:51]I ask people to do two things for me.
[26:53]Just go by a homeless person or someone down
[26:57]on their luck a meal and ask them their name.
[26:59]That's it.
[27:00]Just do that for me.
[27:02]Yeah, it means a lot to be seen, right?
[27:04]Amazing.
[27:06]OK, I will.
[27:08]All right.
[27:08]All right.
[27:09]Thank you, Jesse.
[27:10]All right.
[27:11]Thank you.
[27:11]Have a great day.
[27:12]Bye-bye.
[27:12]Bye-bye.
[27:14]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't
[27:16]Have Time to Read Books.
[27:18]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at ziby Owens,
[27:21]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:23]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibyowens.com
[27:25]and sign up for my virtual book club
[27:27]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[27:30]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan.
[27:31]In fact, texture sound for the sound editing.
[27:34]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[27:35]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.