Jordan Salama, EVERY DAY THE RIVER CHANGES: Four Weeks Down the Magdalena
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[1:13]Jordan Salama is the author of every day the river changes four weeks down the Magdalena
[1:18]And let me just say from the outset that if there is a young
[1:23]Writer who you should follow who has a huge career ahead of him
[1:27]It is this guy Jordan is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in national geographic magazine
[1:33]The New York Times scientific Americans Smithsonian and more
[1:36]His first book every day the river changes four weeks down the Magdalena
[1:40]Chronicles is journey down the greatest river in Colombia
[1:43]Upon its publication in November 2021
[1:46]It was named a Kirkus review's best book of 2021 and a top travel book of the season by the New York Times book review
[1:54]A 2019 graduate of Princeton University. He lives in New York
[1:59]2019 when I'm recording this it is 2022 and he has already accomplished all of this
[2:04]I was ridiculously impressed by him and if I could pick a star to follow it would be his
[2:10]Welcome Jordan. Thank you so much for coming on momstone have time to read books. It's so fun to have you
[2:15]Thanks for having me. I am so impressed with you for so many reasons. I know you and I connected what a year ago at this point
[2:23]So long ago. Not only was your book beautifully written and amazing and I learned so much
[2:30]That I didn't know about the whole region and you know, it's it was amazing
[2:34]But your national geographic articles are so awesome. You are just I feel like you are gonna win every big award in the journalism space
[2:45]Travel log everything like I don't know. I'm just
[2:49]I would pin my
[2:51]You know in the author stock market. I would I would like go long on on your stock
[2:57]You I appreciate that. Wait, so let's start let's start a little bit with the book and tell tell listeners about how it came out of
[3:05]How we'll start with the first trip from Princeton when you went down there and then when you went back and how it became a book on the Magdalene River and
[3:13]Just the whole thing sure definitely so this book started out as my college thesis and then was kind of
[3:18]expanded and adapted to become what is today every day the river changes and it started out
[3:22]Well, the idea kind of was planted when I had a chance to go to Columbia for the first time in 2016
[3:26]I was a freshman in college
[3:28]I never traveled alone by myself, you know before it to another country and of course
[3:32]Columbia as a country kind of in the United States conjures up these preconceptions preconceived notions of
[3:39]Violence of war and everybody was terrified for me
[3:41]Everybody thought that I was going to basically get that per killed going to Columbia
[3:45]It was pre peace deal and and everybody I told about this had some kind of negative reaction except for one person and this was
[3:52]My childhood piano teacher who then had become a family friend. I'd long stopped taking piano lessons
[3:58]She said to me. Oh my god. This is amazing
[4:01]You can stay with my grandmother and she'll take care of you and I'm thinking this like young
[4:05]Sprightly grandmother and having me there and you know, love this woman. She was a wonderful wonderful person
[4:12]She was 96 years old bedridden
[4:14]She had an aid in the house and the only thing that she had kind of control over me was that she would lock the door
[4:19]With a key at 7 p.m. And not let me leave after the sun went down because this was her way of kind of keeping me safe
[4:24]Now what happened that meant that I was I had nothing to do
[4:27]I didn't bring a phone in 2016 to Columbia because people told me these people would steal my phone now
[4:31]This is all again
[4:33]Tells you how overblown these things are and of course
[4:36]When thinking about traveling in security and everything like there's always a measured approach that should be done
[4:39]But I went kind of blind and taking people's a bit crazy advice and I didn't bring a phone
[4:45]I didn't have a computer
[4:46]I didn't have internet like I just had my notebook and a pen and I started writing down the things that that happened to me during
[4:53]The days when I was out and about and kind of traveling around the country or in the city of collie where it where she lived
[4:57]And it turned out that those notes actually really helped me when it came time for me to pick an idea for my senior thesis to write this
[5:04]You know this like kind of long project
[5:06]And everybody I met talked about the Magdalena River as it's like magical place to understand Columbia
[5:11]And of course as somebody who just came from this experience of misunderstanding of Columbia
[5:16]I wanted to understand this vastly diverse and beautiful country that I came to be very interested in
[5:21]And so I decided to go back and travel the entire length of this river from source to sea
[5:26]And live with the people who live along this banks and that's the book every day the river changes
[5:29]Oh my gosh, and now I guess it's being assigned to everybody at Princeton this year
[5:33]Which is also that's an amazing development
[5:36]And I couldn't believe it would have basically they have this thing called the pre-read
[5:39]It's kind of like a book club for all the incoming undergraduates to come and usually they pick
[5:44]Like, you know books by famous people or important people or books that are in like the national conversation
[5:48]My book is not I'm not that I'm 25 like this is totally
[5:54]What came as a shock
[5:55]But I think what they were interested in is that this book tells the story of a young person's journey down a river
[6:01]Not just a journey down a river kind of physically
[6:03]But also figuratively in the sense of like an academic development from start to finish how a project comes together like this
[6:08]And so I'm going to be in Princeton for a little while this fall
[6:11]Talking with students about the book and I'm really excited because it's just going to be a wonderful opportunity
[6:16]Because that's where the book was born. So it's um, it's cool. We will go back. That is amazing
[6:21]And I read that you handwrote all of these obviously you didn't have your computer there
[6:24]So you had to literally like have scraps and that you always do that for all of your projects that you handwrite
[6:30]Everything even even when you do have access to all of that equipment. Yeah, it's one of the ways that I work
[6:35]It's like I think maybe a kind of weird thing
[6:37]But I try to write as well definitely all my notes by hand and then a lot of the drafts of stuff
[6:42]I write by hand too and so
[6:45]My college roommates for example will will remember that I was writing my thesis
[6:50]On scraps of life old paper like on the back of of just random pieces of paper and I had them
[6:56]I don't know if I still have them. I should probably look but that was the beginnings of this book, which is kind of crazy
[7:01]You should do like a like a
[7:04]One of the shutter fly albums or something
[7:06]You know with like all pictures of all of the things and with all of the next to the pictures that you have of the region
[7:12]You know, that's such a good idea or even like pictures of the the writing
[7:16]Yeah, the pictures of the book. Yeah, the show like the differences between the paragraphs and things like that
[7:21]Yeah, that too. I wonder how much yes as uh, you know kind of carried over
[7:26]Yeah, it's almost like a behind the scenes actually you could do a whole thing on the process
[7:30]You know, just like the writing process in general. Yeah, that's a good TikTok
[7:34]Yeah, yeah
[7:35]Now that I'm into TikTok apparently as as everybody my age has to
[7:39]Trying to figure out how to find an audience on TikTok and so it's been
[7:42]Interesting to say the least no, but you're good. You're really good. I was analyzing your Instagram feed and
[7:49]I was like what is this is great because you have quotes from your book that you've written quotes from articles
[7:55]You've written but then you have reels right you have like the real about prison
[8:00]I was because I have a really hard time with reels and I'm like
[8:02]I know I have to get better at reels. I mean
[8:04]I know it's a great mix where you I don't know you engage the the reader you give just enough
[8:10]Of a preview of some of the characters you meet along the way
[8:12]So that it almost feels like you're reading a book when you're on your account versus
[8:17]Just self promotional whatever like you get something from it you've learned from it so
[8:21]Yeah, I mean and the kind of goal of that or the idea behind that is that this is added
[8:25]It's hard
[8:26]I mean this is a book about a river in a country that a lot of people don't know about and so that's kind of in the challenge here
[8:30]Is how to get people excited about a book that takes place in a place that maybe they didn't realize they were interested in
[8:36]But once they start reading the book
[8:37]They realize it's so much more than an analysis of it of kind of maybe quote-unquote obscure place
[8:43]It is a book about humanity and people who live in certain kinds of worlds and communities
[8:49]And are working really hard to bring those kinds of those communities out of conflict or chaos or strife or whatever
[8:54]And I think a lot of parallels can be drawn to life here because it is a book about the universal human experience
[9:00]Though it takes place in maybe a place that's far off in our imaginations
[9:04]And so what I wanted to do with those kinds of posts and continue to do with kind of all the stories that I write
[9:09]Is show those human characters and then hope that people will you know take something away from it and connect with
[9:15]The people who I connected with because I at the end of the day and that bridge between the reader and the place that they don't
[9:22]Really have any experience with
[9:24]In reality, that was my own my own journey, too
[9:26]Because I didn't have an experience in this place and I came over a lot of time to have an experience
[9:31]This place and now I want to share that with people
[9:33]But now you've learned how to do it so you can replicate the model
[9:36]Right now you're taking trains across the entire country and doing the same thing
[9:40]Internally, which is fascinating like that's a really I mean, I can just see you like it's almost like you're unspooling these
[9:47]Maths right and then like you know scampering like a
[9:52]I had to like meet all the people and then like rolling out another mad and then like meeting the people you know
[9:56]Yeah, I like that metaphor. I mean, there's a lot of maps
[10:00]on school in my life, I think, because I come from this, first of all, come from this family
[10:05]that I was born and raised in, like, the New York suburbs, which is boring, if you think about it,
[10:09]but my family comes from all over the world, like my dad's family are Syrian Jews who went to Argentina
[10:13]and I came to the United States. My mom was born and bagged that and escaped persecution
[10:16]when she was seven years old, came to LA. I grew up in this world in New York of, like,
[10:21]languages and histories and, like, you know, kind of these weird and obscure traditions.
[10:28]And they started asking questions about them when I, as I got older. And as now,
[10:33]if you look at the kinds of things that I write, both the book and in my pieces for National Geographic
[10:37]and at the New York Times and other outlets, it's like, you can kind of look back into my own
[10:43]history, my own life and say, oh, that's why he's interested in that. That makes sense because
[10:49]I don't know why am I interested in trade routes because I had a great, great, great, great grandfather
[10:53]who was, you know, on the Silk Road with a caravan of a thousand camels. And my grandma used to
[10:58]tell me stories about it when I was a kid. Like, I'm really interested in the Silk Road. I'm
[11:01]interested in traveling salespeople, things like that. So journeys that connect disparate places and
[11:06]peoples and cultures, it's all, it all has a source. And I'm just kind of like picking the different
[11:13]threads now. And I think for my whole life, I'm just going to be unspooling those different nats or
[11:17]yarns or whatever. You're going to call it. Oh, my gosh. I loved your description of the Bibliobero
[11:22]in Columbia. Tell me more about that. Yes. So the Bibliobero is a school teacher named Louis
[11:29]Soriano who started about 20 years ago and maybe 25 years ago now, actually, it's been a long time
[11:34]delivering books on a donkey to his school, you know, students who live in rural areas and don't
[11:41]have access to libraries of their own and can't read it their own houses. So he learned when he
[11:46]you know, kind of a young teacher just starting out that the reason why his students weren't
[11:50]progressing and reading was because they didn't have a chance to practice at home because they
[11:53]didn't have books in their houses. And they also didn't have places to go nearby because they had
[11:57]to walk really far to get to the school where the books were. So he decided he was going to
[12:00]bring books to them. And because it's such a rural hard to get to area, he travels with these
[12:05]two donkeys, alpha and beta for alphabetha and goes through the countryside with these books on
[12:10]these donkeys. And it's kind of this magical realism, real life story of this literally superhero
[12:18]who has lived it up a whole community with literacy and stories. And he's just an amazing person.
[12:26]Wow. So wild. I feel like you did a lot to dispel the common misperceptions, some accurate,
[12:32]some completely inaccurate about Colombian, how it's all drug cartels and cocaine and, you know,
[12:39]one of your scenes in the beginning is wondering what the fishing boats were. And then hearing
[12:45]all these stories about potential executions coming and what the boats do and how they're really
[12:50]ferrying cocaine in the middle of the night and all of these things. And yet, as you go through
[12:55]the country and meet all these people, you're like, well, this is not so bad. Tell me about what
[13:01]it's like for the people. When you have this not misguided, but when one thing about a country
[13:07]is so magnified as how do you then get rid of that sort of discard that and peel the onion,
[13:16]if you will, and find the real people and the real stories. And what do they think about,
[13:21]it's like when I used to travel, when I was a teenager and I went to France and everybody was like,
[13:25]oh, you're an American. That means like you wear a fanny pack and jeans and you know, I'm like,
[13:30]well, I don't wear fanny pack. I'm not a terrible American. Like, I'm amazing. Tell me a little
[13:36]bit about that in these cultural stereotypes. Yeah. I mean, every country has cultural stereotypes
[13:42]that it suffers from, right? And Columbia is no exception. I mean, Narco's alone, just that show on
[13:48]Netflix has dispelled so many negative perceptions about this place. And, you know, it would be
[13:56]naive to say that this is a country without problems, right? This is a perfect place so safe,
[14:00]like what's, you know, to fantastic paradise. No, that's not the case at all. But it's also
[14:07]a, you know, completely blood-ridden disaster for every single person who goes there or lives
[14:12]there. Obviously the truth is always, as always, somewhere in the middle. And what this book tries to do
[14:18]is not only give the perspective of the outside traveler me, you know, I did not, I mean, I was
[14:24]very kind of cautious about the way I was going about this trip. I didn't feel kind of unsafe at
[14:29]all during the time I was traveling down the river, but also kind of digging deep into the life
[14:35]experiences of people who actually live there and go through life in these places day to day.
[14:39]And in those cases, sometimes, you know, it's all fine. And sometimes, as in the case with this
[14:46]one anthropologist who I went into the Andes with, it could, you know, be deadly, very deadly.
[14:53]His name was Luis Manuel Salamanca and he was murdered a year after I met him. So there's a
[14:57]a perfect example of how you know that this kind of specter of, of war and post-conflict trauma and
[15:05]violence and kind of continuing challenge to fix security issues in a very complicated place were
[15:12]definitely surrounding me. And I was finding out about those things in some ways, the hard way.
[15:16]But by no means is it kind of a one-sided store or, you know, a universal situation in any of these
[15:25]cases, it's it's just different for everybody. And that's what I tried to show in this book through
[15:28]anecdotes and lived experiences of regular people. I also love how you write about traveling alone
[15:36]is the is in part not necessarily completely alone, but traveling into these new places and new
[15:41]territories is also this way of connection for you. And you talked about the pandemic and
[15:47]the isolation of that and wanting to connect and yet being able to do so with with complete strangers
[15:53]and how that in and of itself is transformative. Yeah, it's interesting because I think now if it
[15:58]would have been possible for me to do this in the pandemic, something like this in the pandemic and
[16:02]I still don't think so. I was staying in people's houses like I don't know how I would feel about it.
[16:09]I don't know how they would feel about it. I haven't done a long journey like this since the pandemic
[16:14]started. So it's something we'll see. But in general, I think that when doing these reporting trips
[16:19]traveling alone, for me is the most social thing possible because when you travel with one other
[16:25]person or two other people or whatever, however, any other people, you're so wrapped up in the
[16:29]dynamic of the group that you're not, you don't have an outward look to the place or the people
[16:36]where you're traveling. And for a journalist or a reporter, it's so important to have those
[16:41]kind of that self-awareness, that awareness of the place and what's going on there and the context
[16:45]that traveling with other people just wouldn't work. And I mean, a lot of that just comes from
[16:51]the conversations. You have like people are more, it's easier to approach people if you're by yourself.
[16:55]And a lot of people actually want to help you when you're by yourself, which opens up kind of
[16:59]other kinds of, you know, kinds of conversations as well. Interesting. How do you take that curiosity
[17:05]and open the door to run out and get lunch or something? Like when you're in your day of day life,
[17:11]how often are you putting on that sort of reporter journalist hat and wondering about people and
[17:18]dipping into their stories? Like are you the type of person who finds out everything about
[17:22]the guy behind the counter at the local deadly? Too much, too much. My family and friends will tell
[17:28]you too much that every time I go anywhere. And someone says something that is slightly
[17:34]interesting to me. Kind of everything else goes away. And I have to ask questions and learn more.
[17:41]One example of this is that there's this Middle Eastern like an Iraqi cafe restaurant in Yonkers
[17:47]near where I grew up. And you know, for a long time, there was this man who would sit in the corner
[17:53]booth just having tea. And after a while, I just really, really, really wanted to talk to him. And
[17:59]so we kind of struck up conversations. I wrote about this in the New York Times. It was kind of a
[18:02]friendship across the span generations. And it became this really beautiful thing. But I, I went
[18:08]up to him like he didn't want to be bothered. I don't think by me in the first, I don't know. But
[18:15]but yeah, I don't know. I think, yeah, yes, I think that we could, I like to say in with the
[18:19]pandemic, this is definitely the case. It's like travel writing doesn't have to be something
[18:23]that you do far away. You can do it wherever you live. And you don't have to even write about it.
[18:27]You can do, you can like kind of embody these, this spirit in your everyday life by learning
[18:35]about the people who live in your neighborhood or in a neighborhood near you or in a city near you,
[18:40]especially in a place like New York. My god, the city is gigantic. And you have worlds and worlds
[18:44]and worlds in one place. It's amazing. Like you could just do these kinds of stories nearby. And in
[18:48]fact, when I couldn't travel because of the pandemic, I started doing a lot of work in Queens.
[18:54]And instead of using a river in a country as kind of a connecting thread, I used a street
[18:58]Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights. And for a summer, I just walked up and down Roosevelt Avenue
[19:03]and talked to the people who live and work along this amazingly diverse linguistically diverse
[19:09]street and wrote this piece that if you look at it, it's kind of like a micro version of everyday
[19:13]the river changes. But it's like a short digital article on National Geographic. And and
[19:20]tries to tell the story of a place through this one connecting thread. So you can do it whenever you
[19:25]are. I don't even necessarily think you have to travel for it. So what are you finding? Right. I mean,
[19:31]you've talked to more people in from so many different backgrounds and places in here. And you
[19:36]just love story, right? Which of course we all are drawn to story. And we want to know, you know,
[19:41]I could read a memoir every single day. Right. And yours is like almost like a collect, right. It's a
[19:45]a collection shining the light. And like lots of people all over the place. And so what are you
[19:51]what are you finding about people in general? I know it's such a sleeping question. But are you
[19:57]bold over by kindness?
[20:00]Are you finding that people are more different than we all think?
[20:05]Are you finding that, and at the base of it, we're all just so alike?
[20:11]Like, what are you, what is your general thesis now of people?
[20:14]Yeah. Well, first of all, one thing just to note about the book is that it is the kind of book
[20:18]where you can pick it up, read a chapter, put it down, and then like leave it for months,
[20:22]even if you wanted to, and then pick it up, start right where you left off, and you don't have
[20:26]to worry about like that. You don't have to read it in order, I don't think. No, it's better if
[20:29]you read it in order. What did I take away from about people? I'm going to steal from the
[20:34]people who were actually this quote from Luis Ojano, something he told me once, which is that the
[20:39]world is made of good people. And I think that so often in this time now where everything seems so
[20:45]bleak and awful and just like bad news after bad news, after bad news, it's easy to think that
[20:51]all of these bad people are everywhere. But the truth is that the vast majority of people are
[20:56]kind and nice and will take you in and will be hospitable and will be friends. That is not mutually
[21:04]exclusive with the fact that we are all different and all have different stories and that that should
[21:08]be celebrated. I like to believe most people are kind and good. But I think so. I think that when
[21:13]it seems like ordinary people are not kind and good at heart, it's because they're misguided
[21:18]in some way by somebody else who has power over them and is not have good intentions.
[21:25]Or mental illness. I feel like they've had so much bad stuff. I feel like people who have
[21:34]had all this abuse. And I mean, some people find they still overcome it. But I don't know.
[21:38]Some it seems hard to overcome some things, but maybe not all things. But I don't know. This is
[21:44]obviously way too generalization. So where are you? What is your ultimate goal? Is it a Pulitzer Prize?
[21:50]Is it like to go to every corner of the earth? Is it to, you know, write the what gets you
[21:58]super excited? And in the long, long term, like 30 years from now. Yeah, people have been asking this
[22:03]question a lot recently. Like just kind of, sorry, I hate us. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Not in interviews.
[22:09]I mean, like friends. I mean, just like generally in life people have been like, oh, so, you know,
[22:13]do you have like something you're working towards? And the truth is maybe this sounds like not good
[22:18]to say. But I just kind of want to keep doing what I'm doing now. And if I could find a way
[22:23]to do this where I can live well from it, which is the biggest challenge for any writer,
[22:28]right? Like I will do it for as long as I can find these stories and share them with the world.
[22:34]I have certain grand plans that are in the short term. Like I want to go to Iraq where my mom was
[22:40]born. And I want to be the first person my family to go back after they left 50 years ago.
[22:44]Like things like that. But those are individual ideas of like stories or even books or whatever
[22:49]I have those ideas. But I don't know if you come look for me in 30 years and I'm still
[22:55]writing these kinds of books and articles, then I'll be a happy, happy guy.
[22:59]That's awesome. I love that. And aside from Iraq, next destinations on your wish list.
[23:06]I want to go to my brother's actually going to Peru this summer. He's doing something in kind
[23:11]of a similar way. Now he's in, he's in college and he has a chance to do a research project abroad
[23:16]and so I'm excited for him. And he's peak to my interest in Peru. And also, I want to
[23:20]explore more of the United States. That train journey, which I just wrote about an article
[23:25]came out this week for Nat Geo, you know, finding peace on a 72 hour train across America was great.
[23:30]But I looked out the window and so much of it was like, oh, I want to get off here and I want to
[23:33]talk to people in this town. And so maybe something across the United States is next.
[23:38]I wonder if you shouldn't like team up with, you know, amazing documentary film people.
[23:43]And yeah, you know, somebody like to meet Chin and chive Australia who, you know,
[23:48]or like an awesome. And then like so that people who are not. Anyway, maybe people could get
[23:53]to know you that way. Maybe that would be a way in to all of your stories.
[23:57]If anybody listening to this and wants to partner up, I mean, this is the thing is like, I do
[24:01]want to go bigger with my stories. That is a goal that I have is like, I'm realizing it's sad.
[24:05]People don't read that much. And I want to find new ways to get my written stories. And I'm
[24:11]talking about essays and art and like shorter stuff now because people are inundated with content
[24:16]rather than books. Like how to get those kinds of stories to an audience. People my age, for example,
[24:20]who just don't subscribe to like magazines, for example, or like just don't read that much.
[24:25]And the answer is probably podcasts and documentaries and things because stories or stories
[24:29]and can be told them in different ways. But it's hard to do that all by myself. And I've yet to
[24:33]find the right kind of team to do it with me. So I'm looking. Okay, I'm going to try to help.
[24:39]I'm going to see, you know, because really what you need to do is that you should get all of these
[24:45]pieces starting to be optioned. Like in Hollywood. Yeah, like you should take that story from Nat
[24:51]Geo and sell it into a movie. It would be a great movie. Yeah. Interesting. Why do you think
[24:58]it would be a good movie? Now, ask. Why? I think it would be a good movie because that's something
[25:02]I would never do. Right. I'm not going to have the time to do that. It's something that I'm totally
[25:06]curious about. It's all the stories of the people, but it's really going to be the story about you.
[25:12]Right. Like you're going to have stuff going on. So it's why people, why you want to watch a
[25:15]movie about someone climbing a mountain because people are going through something.
[25:19]You're learning something. You're watching. You're learning about the country like for right now,
[25:24]when I feel like the country is so divided and we're in such a bleak moment for you to sort of
[25:30]literally blaze a trail through the center of the nation and find what unites us. I find
[25:36]extremely exciting. And I feel like you could position that as something to band us all together
[25:42]and bring back this sort of spirit and show in all of your moments. And then maybe there's some
[25:49]through line like you working through something with your fan. I don't know. I just feel like it
[25:54]would be so beautiful to watch. And I don't know. I think it would be really cool. Wow. Thanks.
[26:00]Yeah. That sounds great to me. I mean, it would be a visually beautiful thing for sure.
[26:05]Ride was just spectacular. The kinds of scenery. I guess you could start by turning the whole
[26:10]train ride into a book that could be the first thing if you want to. Or continue to ride
[26:14]trains across the United States and on the stories of people because trains are a through line.
[26:18]So here's something I like about trains and the rivers are the same way is that when I don't know,
[26:23]I guess maybe at all ages, but I feel like especially when you're like in your 20s and just like
[26:27]in college or graduating college, you think a lot about where you're going. And like you're
[26:31]always thinking about plans to the future, whatever. And trains, you don't have to worry about where
[26:34]you're going. You pass it there. It has a schedule. It has a set and out of time. And just like a
[26:39]river, which is why I did a story about a river when I was head to a thesis. Like I wanted to write
[26:44]something where the structure was kind of just laid out for me. And on a river, you don't have to
[26:48]worry about the direction. It all kind of, you know, lays itself out for you. Yeah, calming in the time
[26:54]when nothing's like it's something more like, you know, yeah, something like what you're saying,
[26:58]all going the same direction or tracks at journey of a country. Anyway, whatever. You're good
[27:04]at this. You're, I mean, you know, I'm sure you could turn whatever. But I do think that might be a piece
[27:09]for you to focus on to help you scale it on, not that you need help. I mean, obviously you're
[27:13]this amazing journalist for netting. I need help. I need help because it's it's it's again, like I said,
[27:17]hard to bring it out into the world in a way that is big. Yeah, it doesn't feel like it's just an
[27:22]article that people are going to forget about after three days and that's no, you should be
[27:25]optioning. You should, you should, they should also team up with like an agent who is in that
[27:29]world more. I'm going to introduce you to my agent who, but I'm, I don't do any film stuff, but he's
[27:35]like really good at selling articles and stories and you probably have an agent or any, but
[27:40]I have a literary agent who's amazing. And I thank him for every day for all that he's done for me. And
[27:45]but I mean, you know, we we're always interested in partnering with others to to make things happen
[27:50]on a bigger scale. Yeah, more on this after after the break. Anyway, oh gosh, no, I'm late again.
[27:56]Okay, Jordan, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on. I'm so excited about you. I really am.
[28:02]I feel like you embody the type of like literary meets journalistic talent that I hope that there's
[28:10]so many more of you out there. People like you who will document our world and help us all see
[28:16]things in a new way. And by doing so, help all of us grow. Thank you. That means a lot coming from
[28:22]you, especially. And I look forward to reading your book, which I got in the mail yesterday. So I
[28:26]know a lot about me. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode of moms
[28:36]don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms
[28:41]don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com and sign up for my virtual
[28:46]book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan
[28:50]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[28:55]this fantastic intro and outro music.