Emma Grey, THE LAST LOVE NOTE: A Novel
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[2:35]Migrate is the author of the last love note, a novel.
[2:38]I am so excited to be bringing this novel to all of you because I am 100% absolutely obsessed
[2:44]with it.
[2:45]Emma's book was pitched for this podcast and I loved it so much.
[2:49]She's an Australian author that I asked if the rights were available and they were.
[2:54]And so at zippy books, we acquired the rights.
[2:57]And now we are the US publisher for the last love note, which is already a book of the
[3:03]month club pick for November.
[3:05]It's an indie next pick for December, which means all the independent bookstore readers
[3:11]loved it so much.
[3:12]They nominated it to appear on this heralded list.
[3:16]And we have so much more fun news coming.
[3:20]So keep your eyes peeled.
[3:22]Emma is an acclaimed Australian journalist and young adult fiction writer.
[3:27]Her writing has appeared in The Age, Canvaera Times and Herald Sun.
[3:31]The last love note is her debut adult novel.
[3:34]She lives in Canvaera, Australia with her family.
[3:37]And just so you know, this novel came out of, well, I guess she'll talk about it, but
[3:41]it came out of her own loss of her husband, Jeff, who had a heart attack and died suddenly
[3:47]leaving her with three children.
[3:49]And it's funny and amazing and sad and readers are going nuts over this book and over Emma.
[3:57]So check it out and enjoy.
[3:59]Welcome Emma.
[4:00]Thank you so much for coming on mom's Don't Have Time to Read books to discuss the last
[4:04]love note here, a novel from zippy books.
[4:07]It's lovely to see you zippy.
[4:11]As you know, I'm just obsessed with your book from the moment I read it.
[4:14]It's so great.
[4:15]I'm so excited for it to be released into the world.
[4:18]Tell listeners who don't know about it yet.
[4:21]The whole story, what the book is about and your personal connection to the story and all
[4:27]of that.
[4:28]What made you write it?
[4:29]How did we get here?
[4:30]Dazzle, everyone.
[4:31]Well, sadly, the book had a genesis in my own personal loss and my husband, Jeff, passed
[4:39]away in 2016.
[4:40]He had a heart attack.
[4:42]And I remember as an author and a writer thinking the only way through this loss is going
[4:49]to be through words.
[4:50]And I started to write little pieces of articles and memoir pieces about our loss and focused
[4:57]on that at first.
[4:58]And I remember thinking I just need more words.
[5:01]I can't express everything that I'm going through in a 600 piece or an 800 piece article.
[5:08]I also felt like it was a little bit too close when I was writing about our own personal
[5:13]story.
[5:14]So I decided that I might attempt some fiction about grief.
[5:19]And somehow this novel turned into a bit of a romantic comedy.
[5:23]I think because my background is just as such a romantic ever since I fell for Anne of
[5:28]Green Gables and Gilbert back in the 80s, you know, I've just loved romance and found
[5:32]it.
[5:33]It's so hopeful and so joyous.
[5:37]And I didn't want to write a book that was going to be too devastating to read.
[5:42]Although, as you know, it is very devastating in parts.
[5:46]So I wanted to capture that light and shade of loss because there is a lot of both when
[5:51]we lose someone and there's a real sense of hope in this novel.
[5:56]So it's about a woman who is 38, her name is Kate and it's a story of her processing
[6:03]and her husband's death while she starts to fall for someone else.
[6:07]So there's really two big love stories in one.
[6:10]And so much more.
[6:12]Motherhood, friendship, work, balance, juggling, just always feeling like you can't do
[6:18]enough, do it right.
[6:20]Like I feel like there was something just so imminently relatable about every piece of this
[6:26]book that anyone in today's crazy world with multiple obligations will be able to find
[6:31]their selves in.
[6:32]Yes.
[6:33]Well, I think that's the case, isn't it, whenever we go through something traumatic or profound
[6:38]like this, we can't just switch off all that other stuff.
[6:41]We have to juggle it with my dog, for example, who is running around with a toy and his
[6:46]mouth crying as we record this call with kids and with schooling and homework and washing
[6:53]and cooking.
[6:54]And in my case, as well, the pressures of having, if being in that sandwich generation
[6:59]where I have elder or had elderly parents, my mum passed away a couple of months ago from
[7:04]dementia at 91.
[7:06]So there was all of that going on.
[7:08]You know, in her case, she kept asking where my husband was and we had to keep telling
[7:12]her over again that he had died.
[7:15]And so that was the kind of chaos that I think is real and honest and raw.
[7:20]And I think it's important to capture that in fiction just as much as it is to share
[7:24]it in interviews like this.
[7:26]Oh my gosh.
[7:28]And talk about a little bit parenting through grief.
[7:31]And I don't mean to only spotlight the grief.
[7:33]I want to like focus more on the humor as well, but just to start off in that piece of
[7:38]it because you had a young son in the midst of it and your daughter and everything.
[7:43]Just talk about, you know, sort of what that was like for you and then how you wrote
[7:47]about how you turned that into what happens to the characters.
[7:52]I think when you lose a partner, but you have children, it's a lot of your grief tends
[7:58]to be focused on their grief.
[8:00]I think as parents, we automatically prioritise our children.
[8:05]And so really, from that very first moment, my first thought went to my five-year-old son
[8:11]at the time.
[8:12]And I had two daughters from my, I have two daughters from my first marriage who were
[8:16]a crucial parts of their education in what we call year 12 in Australia.
[8:21]So the final year of high school and year 10 just facing exams and the sort of interview
[8:27]of formals like your proms and all of that sort of stuff.
[8:30]So it was an intense situation to find ourselves in very unexpectedly in this case.
[8:38]And I remember really sort of sidelining my own grief for some time and it wasn't until
[8:44]about eight months after Jeff died that I was actually flown over to America for a conference
[8:50]in his honour.
[8:51]He was a military historian and the president of the Society for Military Historians there.
[8:56]And so they flew me over and I remember crying from Sydney to LA on the plane.
[9:02]I still think of the poor 16-year-old boy that was sitting beside me some strange kid who
[9:08]wound up with his woman who was just distraught.
[9:10]And it was because I was finally on my own away from my children and my own grief had
[9:15]time to surface and to breathe.
[9:18]And I really reached my very lowest point at that conference having to go back to the hotel
[9:25]room at the end of the night after speaking about Jeff all day with his colleagues and friends.
[9:29]It was just very, very difficult but beautiful as well that they were doing this.
[9:34]And then after that I took myself to New York for three days and I'd never been.
[9:39]and Jeff loved New York, it was his favourite city and had always intended to take me.
[9:44]So I went there and I remember looking at the city and thinking, you know, this is a place
[9:49]that has experienced so much grief and yet look at it, it's thriving, it's dazzling
[9:55]and beautiful and I remember sort of getting this first little hint.
[10:00]of hope that perhaps there was a future for me as well. So as an aside to be bringing this book
[10:06]back to you and you know to have been picked up by zibi books and published in New York as just
[10:11]sort of a dream come true and this beautiful full circle experience. But I wrote about the parenting
[10:18]in the book and about the fact that my character then ends up sort of stranded with her boss
[10:25]in a beautiful gorgeous Australian sort of beach, hamlet, north of bar and bay which is where all
[10:31]the Hollywood stars come and purchase their Australian properties. But she winds up there and it's again
[10:37]the same experience where her grief finally finds air and it's really such a crucial part of being
[10:45]able to process that when you're when you're a parent and you've lost someone. I'm so sorry.
[10:50]And you had a full circle moment in particular at the New York Public Library that I loved hearing about
[10:55]and so I'm very excited to bring you back there. Yes that's right. So when I was in New York
[11:02]having started to experience these feelings of hope, I thought you know I really need to start
[11:08]writing a book about grief and that was the moment and I thought I'll take myself to the reading room
[11:13]at the New York Public Library and just get some words down, not really even knowing at that point
[11:18]the direction the book would take and I managed to work those very words into the book
[11:23]as if they were written by my character Kate. So that feels really special and I can't wait to
[11:28]visit again. Oh my gosh. Crazy. Well we were meant to find each other I feel like. I want to talk
[11:38]about the humor but I also I've we've spent a lot of time even over the months that we've
[11:43]known each other talking about your loss of Jeff but not as much about the discovery of Jeff
[11:48]and how you fell in love with him. Can you just talk about that for a little bit?
[11:52]Sure. I think one of the things that I noticed first about him you know how they say that you can
[11:57]tell a lot about people by how they treat people serving in restaurants and that kind of thing.
[12:02]It was it was the way that his students and colleagues held him in such high esteem. It was the
[12:08]fact that he was being invited to his students weddings and the christenings of their children and
[12:12]that sort of that sort of event. I thought you know there's something about a person
[12:17]that is held in high esteem by all the people around them in their network and it was something that
[12:22]he did that I noticed right until the very last week of his life when for example my parents who were
[12:30]well into their late 80s at this point mum with advanced dementia. Jeff would do all the cooking in our
[12:36]family that was one of the the big losses that we felt actually that he was no longer
[12:41]cooking beautiful meals for us but he would always make enough for my parents and so even on the
[12:46]Sunday before he died I carried around a you know a Tupperware container filled with a
[12:53]casserole and and something that you know my dad loved and he was looking after them right until
[12:58]the very end so that was the kind of person that he was and I think that sort of love is what
[13:05]is behind this story and I found it so difficult to express the way I felt in just a love story
[13:13]about one person so I feel like there's these two heroes in the book and they're both a bit of a
[13:17]combination about what he was like. So you sat in the library and you were like I'm gonna
[13:24]rate my way through grief and yet this is a complicated story with character not complicated
[13:30]about me that's a in-depth fully formed multi character thing right how did you know how to
[13:37]I mean I know you're a huge YA you know author but how did you know how to take this concept and just
[13:44]like and turn it into an actual story like how did when did you figure out character and plot
[13:49]and all of the elements to make it into an actual novel. Well I just figured that out as I went
[13:55]along because I never plot my novels I just sit down with a very high level concept this woman
[14:02]has lost a lot who husband and she's going to fall in love again and I just start writing with
[14:08]no idea about any of those things and it's almost like the the action unfolds on a movie screen in
[14:14]front of me and I'm just scrambling to try to get it down on the page and I know a lot of writers
[14:19]have that experience and it's exciting and you sort of discovering it and wanting to race to the
[14:25]end and find out what happens you know I'll do things there's a secret that exists between Kate's
[14:31]husband and her new love interest and I sort of planted that early on in the book and said there
[14:36]was this big secret but I had no idea what it was at the time and I just couldn't wait to find
[14:41]out myself and really didn't figure it out until almost she figured it out quite a long way into
[14:47]the writing process and then of course you do go back after you've done that first draft and
[14:52]think right well what do we need to now sort of feed in and see it in earlier on and so you go
[14:58]back and a lot of the writing is in the rewriting and the editing and really that first draft I sort
[15:04]of threw together in a very short space of time mainly it sort of two o'clock in the morning just
[15:09]because the you know I had children and I was sort of squeezing it in it odd hours of the day
[15:15]but then the rewriting process took much longer and what was it like working with different
[15:20]editors for your Australia UK you know all of that addition versus then having to you know touch
[15:27]it again with us it's you know it was such I just feel so privileged with with the editors I've
[15:34]had here and and with you it's been such a beautiful sort of collaborative experience I think
[15:41]to me I feel as though I get to a point where the book where I've gone as far as I can possibly
[15:45]go on my own and I need professional help at that point from editors who come in there with a
[15:52]different different viewpoint and I was really appreciative that you have accepted this Australian
[15:58]set story and kept it in Australia because really the story of grief could have been transplanted
[16:04]and put anywhere in the world and it means a lot to me that I've written about my hometown of Canberra
[16:09]and my you know a place near where I grew up but Christmas holidays having having these gorgeous
[16:14]beach experiences and you know I think it'll be something that I hope American readers are going to
[16:21]to love exploring they will for sure also as you're talking I'm like I have to I've never been to
[16:27]Australia and I'm dying to go and so I have to do like some sort of last love note trip you know
[16:34]anyone who's never been to Australia I don't know like many retreat or something I didn't want
[16:38]more question related to grief with children and all of that there was a mom who who passed away
[16:44]suddenly at my kid's school I don't know the family at all but obviously you know they're in the
[16:50]community and I sent a note to the husband on email from the directory just to say you know my
[16:56]thoughts are with you blah blah blah but is there anything anything other people can do when they
[17:01]know of someone either someone close to them or someone they know who has lost a parent who has
[17:05]kids like what what is your advice to people who who can be of service but don't quite know how
[17:13]you know it's interesting because I I was very privileged in that I had a huge community of support
[17:19]behind rally behind us when it happened and when I look back on it everyone contributed
[17:24]something that is from their own area of specialty and and so if they have good cooks they would cook
[17:31]lasagnas and other dishes for us I had one woman who saw me post something on Facebook where I
[17:37]said I just I hate admin I'm drowning under all these forms that you got to fill out when somebody
[17:42]dies and she had a business where she called herself admin banned it and it was where she would go
[17:47]and help people with their admin and she said look I'll come and sit with you while you fill out
[17:51]these forms and help you organize at all and as we went through there was there was something for
[17:56]everyone and it was it and the other important thing I would say is that there's a lot of support
[18:01]at the very beginning and then that support tends to drop off as it as it must because everyone
[18:06]has to go back to their their lives so if you can't see something sort of right at the start
[18:12]when this happens to someone bear in mind that they still need help a year later or two years later
[18:17]and that you you will always have an opportunity to contribute the other thing too is not to wait
[18:23]for people to ask for their help and so we often say not let me know if I can do anything
[18:29]but it's hard to ask for that help a lot of the time so to just sort of do things proactively
[18:35]that can help them and then I would say too that people are worried about sort of
[18:40]tiptoeing around and not talking about the person who died and I think that they're kind of
[18:44]worried they'll remind you and it's on your mind constantly you can't be reminded of something
[18:50]that you're already thinking about most people that I've met that have had these big losses
[18:55]love to talk about their loved one and to to keep them alive in that way and to hear stories
[19:01]about them and particularly when you've lost somebody when they have young children it's so important
[19:07]to capture those stories so that when the children grow up they have you know this secondary source
[19:13]sort of library of remembering from other people because they didn't have a chance to form
[19:18]enough of their own memories well I love that you do such a great job also with these hilarious
[19:25]situations where in this sort of Bridget Jones-esque tone you're you're just really rooting for
[19:32]Kate to get through anything and you're just so funny I mean even the dialogue all of it it's
[19:37]hilarious what are the tricks to pulling off great humor writing and how did you always write like this
[19:44]and where did this voice sort of come from or is it just totally natural to you you know I'm
[19:49]I'm pretty sure that voice came from my mom because after she died we found a whole lot of letters
[19:54]that she'd written home to her parents when we were kids and
[20:00]They were absolutely hilarious just her observation
[20:03]of the ordinary and the sense of the ridiculous.
[20:06]I think there's so much there's just so much content
[20:09]in all of our lives.
[20:10]And a lot of the things that happen
[20:12]that at the time might feel sort of like you know,
[20:15]you're having a bad day are actually really quite funny
[20:18]if you can just sort of put that slant on it.
[20:20]And you do that really now yourself.
[20:22]I see it all the time on social media
[20:24]and your videos, it's hilarious.
[20:26]So I think it's about paying attention.
[20:28]But it's also, I mean, you know,
[20:30]one of the classic stories from my book
[20:32]was that scene where the five-year-old walks out
[20:35]and says, why did Daddy have a grenade in his study?
[20:39]And that was entirely based on what happened in our house
[20:41]because it was a military historian.
[20:44]He had a grenade said walked out with it when he was five.
[20:47]And almost everything that I wrote there
[20:49]was actually real, unfortunately,
[20:51]without the hot neighbor and thought just fast.
[20:55]But you know, the rest of it was pretty much accurate.
[20:58]And so I would just say to pay attention
[21:00]because it's just so much in every day life
[21:03]that can make us laugh if we're looking for it.
[21:05]So true, I was just this morning I had this MRI thing
[21:09]for my heart just as preventative, you know,
[21:11]there's this scan you can get.
[21:14]And I went in and it was like,
[21:16]you had to, there was this electronic voice
[21:18]and it was like, please hold your breath.
[21:20]And then they would say, and now release it.
[21:23]And I just, the whole time I was sitting there,
[21:24]I was like, what if the machine backfires
[21:26]and they forget to see that second half?
[21:28]And I was literally like, I'm gonna start laughing
[21:30]and now I'm gonna have to redo this whole thing.
[21:32]But I was like, what if this room,
[21:33]just everybody just keeps like, I don't know.
[21:36]I've seen it all, actually.
[21:38]I know, that's the sort of thing.
[21:39]It's, you know, it's part imagination
[21:41]and part just observation.
[21:42]Anyway, very funny.
[21:43]How did you originally get into writing?
[21:45]I started writing the day after I finished watching
[21:49]and of Green Gables in 1989,
[21:52]I can remember it to this day.
[21:54]We're at my grandmother's house.
[21:55]I remember watching this
[21:56]and really strongly identifying with the romance
[21:59]between Anne and Gilbert,
[22:00]but also the fact that Anne was a writer.
[22:02]And I thought, I feel like I'm a writer
[22:05]and I went and bought a notebook
[22:06]and pen pre-computer days
[22:09]and started writing this novel.
[22:10]It was absolutely atrocious looking back,
[22:13]but I was 14, you know.
[22:14]And I just remember looking at my sister
[22:16]and thinking, why isn't she spending her summer holidays
[22:20]writing a novel?
[22:21]Maybe that's what writing being a writer is.
[22:24]It's this compulsion to tell stories.
[22:28]Even when you have an idea in your head
[22:30]and what you're putting on the page is nowhere near
[22:33]as good as what you're hoping to achieve.
[22:36]And I think that's the key for writers
[22:38]to be able to push through that initial first draft
[22:41]and the mess of it all, that it's the storytelling.
[22:44]I think, you know, even as things are happening
[22:46]and I bet this happens to you too,
[22:48]I'm often thinking, well, how am I gonna express that
[22:50]on Facebook or we know what's going on?
[22:53]How will I tell this story?
[22:54]And it's just a constant, I don't know,
[22:57]it's never not been there, I guess, right from the start.
[22:59]Yeah, almost narrating life as it happens.
[23:02]Yeah.
[23:03]Like, maybe, you know that.
[23:05]And then what was the story of your first book of sale
[23:08]when you realized you'd be a, you know,
[23:10]you'd be a, I was gonna say famous author,
[23:12]but of course that's not just early question.
[23:16]No, no.
[23:17]That's what we think maybe before our first book is published,
[23:20]but before your first book was published,
[23:22]like, tell me that story of acquisition
[23:24]and what that experience was like
[23:25]and how you kept going and then switching genres a little bit.
[23:29]Yes.
[23:30]The first book that I had published was in 2005 called
[23:33]Whits End Before Breakfast, Confessions of a Working Mum.
[23:37]And that actually came about because I used to write,
[23:40]like my mum writing The Letter's Home,
[23:41]I used to write emails once a week to my friends and family
[23:44]just sort of with chaotic stories
[23:46]of what it was like to have little children in a job.
[23:49]And one day one of my friends overheard a stranger
[23:52]on the sidelines of a kid's soccer match,
[23:55]relaying one of these stories.
[23:57]So obviously the emails have been sort of forwarded on
[23:59]and she said just stop sending these emails
[24:02]and bound a little up and send it to a publisher,
[24:05]which is pretty much what I did.
[24:07]And so that book was published.
[24:08]And then the second, then I moved a few years later
[24:12]into writing fiction and my young adult,
[24:16]my first young adult novel was called Unrequited.
[24:19]And I wrote this because my 14-year-old daughter
[24:23]at the time hated reading, but she loved Harry Styles.
[24:27]And so I thought, well, I just might start a little story
[24:31]about a girl and a boy band and show her
[24:33]that reading can be fun.
[24:36]And it got completely out of control
[24:38]and ended up in a two-book deal with Harper Collins.
[24:40]I just became obsessed with this story.
[24:42]And then my own high school friend,
[24:45]who was a composer in Sydney and has won multiple awards,
[24:48]said, I'm desperate to write a musical based on that novel.
[24:51]So we've done that and performed it in a high school
[24:54]and we're constantly working on that show
[24:57]and developing it.
[24:57]And it's really my happy place.
[24:59]It's just, in fact, that got me through the year after Jeff died.
[25:02]That show, it was just magical.
[25:05]And things surrounded by the exuberance of teenagers
[25:08]and romance and music and fun, it was just incredible.
[25:12]And then I moved into this adult debut,
[25:15]which feels very grown up in comparison with some of that,
[25:18]but I'm just loving writing for adults now.
[25:21]And I don't know who knows what I might morph into next.
[25:25]I seem to like to jump around,
[25:26]but I've also got a non-fiction title
[25:29]that I co-wrote with Audrey Thomas,
[25:31]called I Don't Have Time,
[25:33]which is another connection that you and I have.
[25:36]It's all about productivity, but also things like,
[25:40]being kind to yourself
[25:41]and embracing failure and having persistence
[25:44]and all of that sort of stuff.
[25:46]So yes, we've got a few fingers in a few different pies,
[25:49]I think.
[25:49]Oh my gosh.
[25:52]And you have another novel coming out with us.
[25:54]And like, you know, simultaneously,
[25:56]hopefully simultaneously, but close in publishing date
[25:59]with your Australian release.
[26:00]Can you talk about that book?
[26:02]Yes, that one's called Pictures of You.
[26:04]There's a photography theme to this one
[26:06]because that's one of my other passions.
[26:09]It's really a, it's a romance,
[26:11]but there's a fair bit of psychological suspense as well.
[26:15]It starts with a woman who has,
[26:18]she has woken up in hospital
[26:20]and has misplaced half of her life.
[26:23]She's got a form of amnesia
[26:26]after being in a car accident
[26:28]that took her husband's life.
[26:31]And she can't remember anything about her husband
[26:33]or any of that period of her life.
[26:35]And as she's sitting in the funeral a few days later,
[26:38]she's looking at the slideshow
[26:39]that you tend to show at one of those services.
[26:42]And she's thinking,
[26:43]I not only don't recognize any of this,
[26:45]I don't even like what I'm seeing.
[26:47]I'm wondering how an earth I ended up here.
[26:49]And she begins to have a panic attack.
[26:52]So she effectively sort of goes absent
[26:56]from her husband's funeral.
[26:57]She calls an Uber, races outside,
[27:00]jumps in the car and says,
[27:01]just drive, take me anywhere.
[27:03]And it turns out that she's jumped into the car
[27:06]of somebody who wasn't an Uber driver
[27:09]and who was standing outside the church,
[27:11]trying to psych himself up to go into the funeral
[27:15]and to sort of face his past.
[27:17]And now a part of his past is in the back seat of his car.
[27:21]So good. Oh my gosh.
[27:22]Well, I have not read it yet.
[27:23]And I am dying too.
[27:24]So I'm very excited for this to be,
[27:27]to hurry up and get done.
[27:28]So I can enjoy.
[27:29]Yeah, I was working on it minutes before this calls.
[27:33]Okay, you keep at it.
[27:34]I'll get off this podcast and then I can go back
[27:36]and do it.
[27:37]Well, I've embraced you have for aspiring others.
[27:40]I think it's a similar to what I said before,
[27:42]which is just to push through that first draft,
[27:45]get through the mess of it.
[27:47]And just remember that once you've got the words
[27:50]on the page, then the magic happens.
[27:52]It's so easy for us to give up
[27:55]while we're writing the first draft.
[27:56]And if you get to a point and you think,
[27:58]I don't know what to do this and I'm stuck,
[28:00]I'm just gonna have to put it away.
[28:02]Just write something like insert a chapter later
[28:06]or fix this later and move on to something that you can do
[28:10]because the first draft, it feels like that for everyone.
[28:13]No matter how many books we've published,
[28:15]I think we all sort of go back and start again
[28:17]and think, I think I've forgotten how to write.
[28:19]And so just push through and you can do something
[28:24]with the first draft after that.
[28:25]Amazing.
[28:26]Well, I'm so excited.
[28:27]And by the way, I had shown a version of this cover
[28:30]for the last love note to old friends of mine,
[28:32]Sean and Juliana McBride.
[28:34]And they have like this amazing, I don't know,
[28:37]visual sense and they were like,
[28:38]I think you should do this and this and did it at any way.
[28:41]That's how we got to this final,
[28:42]the final piece of this cover.
[28:44]So shout out to them.
[28:45]Thank you to Sean and Juliana.
[28:46]Thank you.
[28:47]Yeah, I'm not too much.
[28:48]Anyway, Emma, I'm so, I'm so just proud to be the vehicle
[28:53]that gets this book into US hands.
[28:55]I feel like this was meant to be
[28:58]and everything that comes out of your mouth,
[29:00]I'm like, uh-huh, yep, yep, that's like,
[29:02]I don't know.
[29:03]Yes, Juliana, if I were, I don't know.
[29:06]Like you meet these kindred spirits all over the world.
[29:09]And it's just so nice when you actually find them
[29:12]and everybody has people like that all over.
[29:14]And it's just a question of like, oh my gosh,
[29:16]there's this person living here
[29:18]and here's what we have in common.
[29:19]And I don't know, it just makes the world feel much smaller.
[29:21]It does, it does.
[29:22]And I'm so grateful to you and all of your team.
[29:26]It's just been an amazing experience working with you.
[29:28]And I can't wait to come over there and go on tour.
[29:31]Yes, so fun.
[29:32]Okay, all right, well thanks, and my congratulations.
[29:35]Thanks, Libby, don't you see?
[29:37]Okay, bye, bye.
[29:40]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[29:42]Don't have time to read books.
[29:43]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[29:46]at Libby Owens and at Moms.
[29:47]Don't have time to read books.
[29:49]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com
[29:51]and sign up for my virtual book club
[29:53]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[29:55]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan Heck,
[29:57]Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[29:59]And.
[30:00]Thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.