Elin Hilderbrand, TROUBLES IN PARADISE

[1:40]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books. This thirty minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, three hundred and sixty five days a year for about thirty minutes. I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction and memoir. Our books are already out now. You can check it out on zippybooks.com. And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag where we have lots of wonderful essays and lifestyle features. That's at zippymag.com. We have classes at zippyclasses.com. And I recently opened a bookstore in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue at 11th Street in Santa Monica. I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings. But this Here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018.

[2:32]Elin Hilderbrand: And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing. Enjoy. Today, I'm re releasing my episode with Ellen Hildebrand because she is the most prolific, amazing author. And by the way, her books cannot stay on the shelves at Zippy's Bookshop. So you should definitely listen to this. She's been a huge help to Zippy Books and is on our advisory board and, is just such a rock star. So I hope you enjoy this episode where you get to know a lot about her. Ellen Hildebrand is a bestselling author of 26 novels, including 28 Summers and the Paradise series. The latest book, Troubles in Paradise,

[3:23]Elin Hilderbrand: Welcome, Ellen. Thank you so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books. Oh, thank you, Zibby. Thank you so much for having me. It's my pleasure. I know that you and I have been conversing on Instagram about various different crazy things that are happening in life. Plus, of course, you have all of your own books to discuss as well. So I don't know. We have so much to talk about. I don't even know where to start. Why don't we talk first about troubles in paradise, which is your most recent book and the last of a trilogy, which starts off with, like, amazing gossip. We can sort of segue into talking about gossip from there. Okay. Perfect. So, you know, I can't say too too much about troubles in paradise because it is a book three. Just a little history as to how I came to write the paradise series is that back in 2013, my publisher, Hachette, called and said, we've had a book fall off our holiday list. Can you write a Christmas book in four weeks? And I was writing a novel called The Matchmaker, which was, like, very emotionally draining. And I said, you know what? I'm not gonna stop this and write a Christmas book, but I'll do it when I finish. So I came up with an idea for a Christmas trilogy. And I know this sounds like I'm talking about something else, but I am getting to paradise. So It's okay. It's okay. Yeah. So I came up with this idea for a Christmas trilogy, and it turns out they didn't want a trilogy. They only wanted one book. So I wrote this novel, Winter Street, and gave it no ending. And immediately, a contract for the next two books appeared because they really they they loved the premise. And then ironically, in the summer of two thousand and sixteen, my editor called and said, what do I have to do to get you to write a fourth book in the Winter Street series? And at that point, Zippy, I was finished. Like, I didn't want to write a fourth book in the Winter Street series. So I they really had to be persuasive. And I said to them, I'd really like to write a novel or a series of novels that are set in the Virgin Islands because that was the place where I had sort of styled a self, you know, a writing retreat and time for myself in the Virgin Islands. And I felt fallen in love with it. And I I feel like, again, like, Hachette was a little bit hesitant. They didn't necessarily want you know, because I was a Nantucket author. They didn't necessarily want a series set in the Virgin Islands, but they very desperately wanted this fourth Winter Street book. So they said yes. And then, you know, again, irony is that the Paradise series has far, far, far outsold the winter street series and has sort of taken me to a new location. And so it's been very successful. So I was right. Like, I felt vindicated. Like, I was right. And the paradise series, book one, focuses on a woman in her mid fifties named Irene Steele whose husband on New Year's Day, she gets a call that her husband has been killed in a helicopter crash in the Virgin Islands. Hello. She didn't know he was in the Virgin Islands. She's completely gobsmacked. She and her two adult sons fly down there only to find, guess what? This dude has a second life, including a mistress and a child. And then it's like, well, what else was going on? And so that sort of takes us through to book three where I'm trying to tie up all of the mysterious loose ends in a way that is satisfying and surprising. So that is where we are. Awesome. And it's so funny because in the beginning of book three, you open it up and you talk directly to the reader and you're like, no. No. No. This is book three. So just, like, put this down and go back to the beginning and read the other two facts. And I was like, okay. I am very concerned. I mean, I think I feel like some people may be like, oh, just be opportunistic. And if they buy it accidentally, oh, well, I am not that person. I am the person who is like, I would like them to have a pleasant reading experience where they're reading book one, book two, and book three words very clear, like, where they are. I mean, I know that people have read book three first, which just gives me I just honestly makes me upset. That's so funny. And you have another book coming out soon and you've been like posting about that one. That's exciting and coming out in June? Yes. Have a book out in June called Golden Girl, which is my summer novel. From here on out, like I was doing two books a year and it has been extremely stressful for the last seven years. And so I'm going back with Golden Girl just to one book every summer. That is my new jam. And I'm I don't know what I'm gonna do with all my extra time, but I mean, I'll find something. How did you even get into this? Like, how did you become who you are today? Where when did you start writing so much and at this rapid pace? And how did this whole thing happen? Let's see. How did this whole thing happen? So it's, of course, a longer story. So I went to Johns Hopkins undergrad. I was a writing seminar's major. A lot of people don't think of Hopkins as, like, a place where write writers are born. However, they do have a dedicated creative writing major. So, like, every week I would go to workshop, and I had Steve Dixon, Madison Smart Bell, John Garth, like, really, like, great writers guiding me. And when I graduated, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I went and I sat with Madison Bell and I said, you know, what do I do? Do I go to graduate school? Do I get a job? And he said, you know, you have to go out in the world and live, Ellen. You have to have experiences. You're 22. And so I moved to New York City. I lived on the Upper East Side. I worked in publishing and I hated it. I thought like because I wanted to be a writer for some reason that publishing would be my thing. No, I hated it. And I needed a job where I would have time. So I started teaching. And I taught first in the New York City public schools at IS two twenty seven in Queens. And then I got a better job teaching in Westchester County out of the city and I would commute backwards. And the summer between those two school years, I wanted to get out of the city for the summer. And so I decided I would go to Nantucket. My family I had grown up going to Cape Cod in the summers with my family, and I had been to the vineyard in college. And I just felt like Nantucket was like the natural third point on the triangle. So I got a room and a house, fell madly in love with the island. And then after my second year of teaching, I moved back to Nantucket, and I'm like, I'm gonna live in Nantucket. And I traveled in the off season. So, like, I would work in the during the summer season and then travel. And eventually after I felt like I had gone out and lived, I applied to the University of Iowa for graduate school and ended up getting in there miraculously and went to Iowa and was totally miserable. It's a very intense place. There's a lot of competition. I was just very unhappy. I was away from the ocean. I was, like, out in Iowa City. It was bad. And one of the ways that I made myself feel better is I started writing a novel that was set on Nantucket, and that was the beach club. And then in my final workshop at Iowa, my professor had his agent come and his agent said, which one of you lives on Nantucket? I said, that's me. And it was sort of like a small world coincidence. And he said, stay and see me after class, which I wasn't even gonna do because I had my U Haul packed. Was ready to go. But I decided to, and thank goodness because Michael has been my agent for twenty one or twenty two years now. And so I told him I was working on a book set on Nantucket called The Beach Club. He said, when you're finished with it, send it to me, which I did. And it's like, at that point, 1999, so, like, I'm printing out the novel, sticking it in a box and taking it to the post office. And he read it and he said, you know, I'd like to represent you and I'm gonna make you lots and lots of money. So who doesn't wanna hear that? Right? This is the greatest words ever. And he sends the book out and it gets rejected everywhere. Finally, he like, five months later, he calls and says he has an offer of $5,000. And I'm like, is $5,000 a lot of money? Because I can't quit my job. But since it was the only offer that we had, we took it, and the beach club was published in the summer of two thousand. And two weeks after it came out, it was People Magazine's book of the week. And immediately, my publisher ran out of copies. This was my first publisher who I think will remain nameless during this interview. I'm not sure. And I was frustrated, but, you know, they it because they we were without books for three weeks, and this is in 2000. So it's not like you can't download it on your Kindle and you cannot watch it, you know, read it on your iPhone. And these copies have to be in the stores. And it sold pretty well, and I ended up with a two book deal. And those books did less well, and then I got another two book deal, and those books did even worse. And I got my own publicist for book five, like a private publicist that I paid for myself, and she did an excellent job. And, again, I got the People magazine with the picture. It was like book of the week and four stars, and I was so excited. And, again, the publisher ran out of books. And I was super frustrated at that point. And my agent same agent said, I think we need to switch publishers. I was like had Stockholm Syndrome and was in love with my captor, and I'm like, I will not switch publishers. But he persuaded me, and I went and had what I call my Cinderella Day in New York and met with 10 publishers and ended up settling or deciding on Little Brown. And Little Brown has turned my last twenty twenty one books into New York Times bestsellers. And they did that gradually, Zippy. I mean, I I didn't write crawdads. Like, I didn't go right to number one. The first book I had that hit number one was summer of sixty nine, and it was my twenty third novel. And so it was like an incremental climb and a a gathering of readers and it was a very careful, thoughtful process to get to the top. Wow. That is an amazing story. I love that. That's amazing. And just that you kept persisting through and just kept doing what you do. I mean, that's, like, the greatest part. Right? Like, you had confidence in what you were producing, and you just had to wait till everybody caught up with you. Yeah. And I don't think I understood the book business. I didn't. Like, the first five books or but also publishing was changing too. I can remember my second book with Little Brown was this called The Summer Affair. And I had a marketing person named Miriam Parker, who's now she's an echo. She's a brilliant woman. At that time, she's like, we're gonna go to all these blogs and we're gonna get all these blogs. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't even know what a blog is. Why are we doing this? Like, why is this where we're putting our resources? And because, you know, she was a visionary and it was 2000 and they came out in the summer of two thousand and eight and that was the thing to do. So they were very systematic and careful about how and they still are about how they do their marketing and how they get more readers. And they're so impressive. So I'm very lucky. That's great. That's really awesome. And I know that reader response and how people accept or embrace your book is something that's been really important to you. You have all these like devoted fans and everything else. And then when we were talking about, well, talking, communicating about the recent situation with Jane Rosen's book on Instagram about how a mom's group turned against her and ended up banning her from the group and canceling her book event, you were up in arms about it. And I just wanted to talk to you a little about that. Okay. So I've only gotten to the I'm in I'm on, like, page 40 of Jane's book, which I'm so enjoying. I am so enjoying. And I have to say, like, my appetite was really wetted by the fact that this group canceled her because and I can't figure out because I'm not sure if it comes back up, but I've gotten to the part where, like, the upper east side group is mentioned. And I'm like, was this what Yeah. That's it. That's it. That's the whole thing? That that was it. That's the whole thing is, on page 39 to 40, and and the whole rest of Eliza starts rumor has nothing else to do with Upper East Side moms. Okay. That that cracks that cracks me up. And I just feel like, wouldn't you be excited or laugh? Because it was very tongue in cheek, I thought. And I'd be interested to know if I actually know anyone. I mean, you live in New York, right, Zippy? You may know somebody in that group. I mean, I live on Nantucket. I may know somebody in that group, But I just feel like, you know, it just felt so it it felt so over unnecessary for them to decide to cancel the book based especially now that I know what you're talking about. I thought maybe there was more later in the book that was really scandalous. Yeah. I mean, it's tough. And also it's fiction. So she Jane very skillfully sort of picks up the essence of things, and I'm really, really enjoying her book. I'm also going to post about it, and I may, I can't decide, mention this scandal because I think it will encourage other people to wanna read it too because people always sort of like things that are attached to real life, which makes no sense because we are in the business of writing fiction. But as if it has, like, a real life scandal attached so much, the better. And I predict big things for Jane. But I'm really, really enjoying the book. Oh, good. Yeah. Well, come to our event. We're doing an event. Well, I can talk to about this later, but I'm gonna do an event with her coming up too. But, anyway, back to your bugs and all that. But I actually thought I mean, you open up troubles in paradise with a whole gorgeous description of, like, the juiciness of gossip. Right? And, like, how it's, like, you know, peel it's like a mango where you debated which fruit to pick and and all the rest. And there is something just so irresistible about, like, small town gossip or even big town gossip, right, New York City, which really in different neighborhoods is just as much a small town as probably Nantucket Right. Wherever you go. So what do you think how do you use gossip in in fiction and in your work in particular to sort of keep the entry going? No. So I wrote a novel, and what year did it come out? 2015 called the rumor. And my purpose with The Rumor had been to where there was a lot of gossip going on on Nantucket. There's always there's always gossip. Oh my god. I mean, I've lived here twenty six years. I've heard it all. And I decided that I was going to write a novel called The Rumor, and it was and I was gonna every single person who gossiped on Nantucket in the book. This was my this was my goal. And this is exactly, in fact, what I did. I put everybody that gossiped in the book. However, I disguised them so much because they have to fit the narrative. And so I disguise everybody so well that I am the only person that knows who's in there. No one has ever come up to me and said, oh, I was the blah blah blah in your book. No one has ever said that. And, also, you know, if you're a villainous or whatever, you will not you often will not recognize yourself. So that was very satisfying to me because I did in fact get to put all the gossipy people in in the novel, but nobody knew it. One of the things about being a mother, and you know this, and we all know this, everybody listening to this knows this, is that it is a very fraught group. So the gossip, like, among the moms, I mean, it's mind blowing and it's ruthless. And I have graduated out of it, which I'm very, very happy to say. So my children are 21, 18, and 15. And one of my sons is at college where gossip is no longer an issue. One of my sons is at boarding school again because it's sort of remote. I don't have to worry about any of that. And my daughter is 15. She's my third child. I know everybody. I no longer engage in any of the gossip. I almost feel like that is something you do more with, like, your first child and sometimes your second child. By the time you get to the third child, you're like, you know what? I am so done. Also with age, I feel like, is this piece of information important to me? And the answer is no. So I just I just do not engage in any local Nantucket gossip. I now say that, and I'll probably, like, be be embroiled in a scandal next week. But for the time like, over the last, like, five or six years since the kids have been in high school, it's been very, very mild. So it is something that I think you graduate out of. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. 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[21:43]Zibby Owens: What? That can't be right.

[22:10]Elin Hilderbrand: Well, I think the thing with moms, especially first time moms are just really insecure. I mean, gossip is the grounds of the insecure, right? It's like their feed the feeding ground. So when you're in a new situation, like trying to figure out what on earth you're supposed to be doing with your kids, right? Especially in the beginning, all you wanna do is compare yourself to other people and then somehow get that little glint of, you know, not that I'm speaking for myself, but just, you know, I've heard, right? Like any sort of little win that you can have, like, oh, well, you know, I heard her kid did x, y, z, or I don't know. There's always something to make you feel better when you feel so bad. And it's not any justification for it. And as you it's not just that the kids are older, it's that like you're better. Know what you're doing and that confidence that comes from Right. I mean, that's the thing is that ideally you're the one that has evolved. You are now self aware. You do not need to be boosted or fed by other people's misfortunes. So you just like it's more like live I mean, I think if you evolve the right way, it's just live and let live. We can help. It's so true. You know, what you said in the beginning was also super interesting to me because a lot of people grow up wanting to be writers. And there really is something to waiting, that it's not a career you can necessarily dive into out of college and like go up the ranks. You can go to sort of adjacent careers like publishing or maybe a magazine in the olden days or something related. But to just sit down and become a novelist without that wisdom or experience is really tricky. And when you're that age, you don't want to be told that you have to go live. Like, that's very annoying to hear. Right? Because you know what you want. I mean, like, let's say your kids now want to go be writers. Like, what do you say to them? Like, what does it mean to go live really? Yeah. I mean, they have to have experiences. They have to travel. I mean, we've traveled with the kids. So my ex husband and I traveled extensively, like, lived in Australia and, like, did a bunch of things. So they've been all over the place, but they they need to go out and have experiences. They need to have jobs. They need to fall in love. They need to, you know, have their heart broken. Like, all of those things you know, when I started Zippy, I had I think I was pregnant I was pregnant with Max. It was twenty one years ago. That's when I started writing the beach club. What did I know about life? Not one thing, really. You know, I hadn't had children. I hadn't been divorced. I hadn't had cancer. Like, all of the things that have happened to me over the twenty years that I've been doing this, in theory, should have been contributing to the richness and the nuance and the emotional integrity of the writing. That's the best case scenario. So hopefully it has. Right? So in theory, every every book gets better and and I've also been reading and, like, one of the great things about you and other inflow book influencers like you is that the way we can make ourselves better, like, way every single woman can make themselves better is to read. I definitely believe that. And so all of the thousands of books that I've read over the last twenty years have all contributed also to my own work. So true. I I think the value of reading is is huge. Thank you for saying that about me in particular. It's so funny. Someone posted today, like, a little funny thing how she couldn't remember she couldn't, like, keep up with, like, all the details of her family group chat, but she could remember all the details in, like, a multigenerational family saga, like, novel that she read six years ago. Yes. And I feel like I'm the same way. Like, I can look around and be like, oh, yeah. I totally remember. Like like, the characters in that book and the spec. And then I'm like, you know, when it comes to my own life, I have these big blanks. Like, why do I remember all this stuff about books? It's the weirdest thing. Well, we attach, you know, and we escape and we attach. And, you know, one of the things that I hear a lot from my readers just because I do write escapist fiction is, you know, I'll hear about the terrible, terrible worst moments of their lives. They're in the chemo chair, their parents are dying, They're at the hospital. Their children have cancer, like whatever. And they have my book and my book allows them to escape. And that is the most humbling experience. I don't need to write the great American novel. I have no no desire to do so. Like, what I'm doing now is so fulfilling just because I'm giving people with in a lot of pain, either physical or emotional, a place to go. And so that I I find value in that. There's tremendous value in that. Wait, tell me briefly about your whole experience with cancer. No, that sounds terrible. I know you are a breast cancer survivor. I would love to know, like in terms of feeding the richness of your work, how did going through that and how did you even manage that when you're churning out so much fiction, like at such a rapid pace? Did you stop writing for a while? How did you handle all that? No. So the writing was really like my was my gasoline gasoline because I I'm very disciplined anyway, but I got sick and I just said to myself, okay, I'm not gonna stop. Like, I'm gonna stop only when it's absolutely necessary. So I was diagnosed in May 2014 and I had a book coming out, The Matchmaker. Had a book coming out on June 10. And so my oncologist called, She said, you have cancer. Then we went through you you go through a lot of steps. As it turns out, I had to have a double mastectomy. And I said to her, can we just schedule it for August? Because and preferably, like, after all my social obligations because, you know, I have a book coming out and it's somewhere in Nantucket and I, you know, she was just like, Ellen, like, reality check. Like, no. You need to have this as soon as possible. So I had my book came out on a Tuesday as they do. And I had my book came out on Tuesday, June 10. I had the double mastectomy on the thirteenth. The following had I had to cancel all these events. So I did a couple events, and then I had to cancel a bunch of events. And then and then I said to my publicist, okay. I'm two weeks after my surgery. I'm gonna start back and do a tour. And I did. So two weeks after twelve days. Twelve days after my surgery, I flew to Chicago, and I did two events in Chicago. And I tell the story. Sometimes I cry. I will recover if I cry. The first event was I I was on drugs. I don't even remember it. It was a straight signing, though. The second event was the brown bag lunch at the Cook County Library. There were 200 women. There were two women upfront that had one had no hair, one had very short hair. At that point, I have drains in, which I which were hidden by my dress. But, like, you have drains, which are these horrible things that come out your back and then they collect the lymphatic fluid. It's too awful to talk about. Anyway and I was on Oxy and very emotional, and everybody there knew that what I had gone through had been on the news. I went on with Gail King and Nora and Charlie on CBS this morning. And the women come through my line and they say to me, Ellen, we've both had double mastectomies. Together, we've undergone 13 rounds 36 rounds of chemo and 64 rounds of radiation. We came today to tell you that you're gonna be fine. And I thought to myself, okay, these women are far sicker than I am. And they showed up at my book signing and they are so optimistic and so encouraging. And I really, at that point, felt like they passed me a baton, which I held on to for a while once I was recovered and I had some bumps in the road. Wasn't really recovered until May 2015. And then I started speaking, you know, at breast cancer events and telling that story. The good thing, I guess, about breast cancer is that the demographic, it's my demographic of my readers as well. So there was a lot of opportunity for me to connect with people, other people who were just starting out. I do it all the time on my social media. People will say, you know, my sister has breast cancer, you know, she's starting chemo tomorrow. You know, always, you know, I always reach out, always if I can, personally. And I've met a lot of wonderful, really wonderful, wonderful women that way. So, in some sense, it was a gift, not only because of the connection it gave me with my readers, but also, you know, of the gut check with what's important. You know, when you and I talked just a little while ago about, like, the gossip. That ceased to be important. Like, who cares? Nobody. And and, you know, what became important is what was happening with my kids and the truth in my fiction. So Ellen, you have gone through so much and are such a powerhouse. Like, you can just tell it in the way you speak. You're just like a force. Like, you're so driven and just like, it's amazing. Anyway, I'm so impressed. Were you just born this way? Or do you feel like at some point do you feel like at some point this shifted or is this just your personality in everything you do? You know, I don't know. And also, like, I've really so I've always been I've always been disciplined, I guess. I mean, you know, I exercise like, so I do all this crazy stuff. Like, I exercise for three hours every morning. And I do that because it's a discipline that sets up my day, and I never ever skip a day. And, like, the people in my life, like my ex husband and my boyfriend now, like, they're they, like, really hate it because, of course, it takes, you know, three hours away from my time. But it's a very important discipline for me because doing what I do, is writing two books, now one book a year, requires like a laser focus. And the time in the morning, the discipline it's the discipline of doing something that nobody wants to exercise for three hours. Nobody wants to exercise for five minutes. So making yourself do it is is setting up a discipline. And I've always I've always been like that. And, you know, the connection with the readers, like, is just something that I've learned over twenty years of just, like, these readers, like, it's a process. And I could be sitting in my basement writing for myself, and it's so but it's so gratifying to have a back and forth with my readers. And they feel they feel the I think they feel the love. They know that I I love them very deeply. Wow. Amazing. Do you have any parting advice for aspiring authors aside from going out and living? Yeah. I mean, I think it's just you have to stick with it. And that's always what I say. Like, you have to start if you're writing a novel, you start at the beginning, you move through the middle. The middle is always tough. You know, there are lots of times when I do not know what's coming next and it feels scary. And that's when you put the novel in a drawer and you think, I guess I'll get to it later because I know how it ends. Right? So everyone always knows how it starts and you know how it ends. And, you know, the the challenge is making yourself get through it and moving scene by seeing. And I guess in a in a micro sense, I would say for serious writers, you must dramatize. You must have a scene in a location with dialogue and characters and a conflict. That is the scene. And my novels are one scene after another after another, but at least I can pinpoint them saying, okay, well, is the scene at the beach restaurant where she drops the tray of glasses and everybody stops and then the owner asks if she's on drugs. That, like, you need to have dramatization. And but in the larger sense, you just have to keep going until you get to the end, and then you can always go back and fix it. But so so wait, Zibby, you have a book coming out. When is your book coming out? I do. February 16. Oh my gosh. That's my anthology. So can we just talk about that, please, before we part? Sure. Yes. I'm super excited about it. I have 60 plus essays that authors wrote mostly during the pandemic, so some a little bit before. It was going to be like this whole website goop. I had this like whole idea and that did not happen. I ended up just posting them up on my website during the pandemic. And then afterwards, was like, wait a minute, I have enough for a book. This is like a book, what got published. So then I just sold it as a book, and now it's coming out. It's called moms don't have time to. And then is every essay a different ending to that sentence? No. So this book is five different sections. Moms don't have time to eat Okay. Workout, read, breathe, and have sex. Okay. So the essays are inspired by those topics, but they're not specifically about them. Right? It's like a personal essay about something. Yeah. And then I have another one coming out in November where I picked five different things that moms don't have time to What a great idea. I mean, I have to say, I'm sort of past it now, but it was definitely challenging where, like, moms don't have time to write novels. That would be my essay. When you do volume three, It like might you could try to if you wanna be in the next one. Not that you don't have enough to do. I know. But I mean, that that's the thing. It's like, moms don't have time time to, you know, to do anything. But I love, love, love. So make sure you send it. I will. I will absolutely send it to you. And thank you so much for coming on the show. And I loved talking to you and hope to see you in real life. I hope so too. All right. Bye, Sydney. Thank you. Speaker Okay. Bye, Ellen. Thanks. Bye. Speaker Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.

[35:38]Zibby Owens: Also, sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com

[35:41]Elin Hilderbrand: and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.