Nancy Jooyoun Kim, WHAT WE KEPT TO OURSELVES
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.
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[1:03]Nancy, Jew Yun Kim, is the author of what we kept to ourselves, a novel.
[1:08]Nancy is the New York Times bestselling author, also of the last story of Mina Lee, a
[1:13]Reese's Book Club pick.
[1:14]She was on this podcast to talk about that book as well.
[1:16]Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
[1:20]Welcome, Nancy.
[1:21]Thank you for coming back on mom's, they don't have time to read books.
[1:24]Now to discuss what we kept to ourselves, a novel.
[1:27]Oh, thank you so much for having me Zippy.
[1:29]It's so great to be here again.
[1:31]Congratulations on Zippy Bookstore.
[1:34]Thanks, Zippy.
[1:35]Thank you.
[1:36]I love this cover.
[1:37]Do you just have like bowls of little clementines around or tantrums or cinnamon?
[1:42]Those are for cinnamon, which are, that's a food you for cinnamon, which are actually
[1:45]in season right now.
[1:46]And so you can find them at your local grocer.
[1:49]Maybe I'll bring your book into the grocery store.
[1:53]If I do this, I will tag you.
[1:55]I'll try and do it today.
[1:58]Oh my goodness.
[1:59]Okay, can you please tell us and answer what your book is about?
[2:02]Yeah, what we kept to ourselves is about a Korean American family that lives in Los Angeles
[2:07]that is unraveling during, it actually begins in Y2K, sort of December 1999.
[2:14]So it's unraveling for a lot of reasons, but primarily because of a missing mother
[2:19]who disappeared the past year and then a dead stranger who appears in the backyard.
[2:24]And so it begins with a real bang in a lot of ways.
[2:29]And it through this process of kind of coming to terms with what might have happened to
[2:34]her mother, who the mother, who the strangers in their backyard, the family begins to confront
[2:39]really what they know about their mother, what they know about themselves and what they've
[2:43]been keeping from each other all along.
[2:46]So it's a family saga, it's got a little suspense, a little mystery, some throws, some
[2:53]tears, a little bit of laughter.
[2:56]It's quite a, it's quite a book, it's quite big too.
[2:58]It's about 400 pages long, but it went so fast, like it's fast reading, like the way
[3:04]you write is not fast in a bad way, I mean, it doesn't feel long and heavy and like
[3:09]difficult to get through and it doesn't feel intimidating.
[3:12]That's the word.
[3:13]Oh, that's great.
[3:14]Thank you so much.
[3:15]Yeah.
[3:16]I mean, that's definitely a saga.
[3:17]I hope an approachable saga, because it's really real.
[3:20]Yes, these people are all very real.
[3:22]Like whether or not they remind us of what people on our families, we've encountered
[3:25]people like this.
[3:26]We know the dad who is holding on to his dilapidated car that means so much to him and probably
[3:32]shouldn't be driving as much as he does anymore.
[3:34]We all get that.
[3:35]So you also have the universal regret when people, we love or no longer with us in one
[3:43]way, shape or form and like what I wouldn't give to have another moment with this person
[3:48]or that person.
[3:49]And if only I had known this wouldn't have annoyed me or, you know, exactly, exactly.
[3:54]Yeah, that is entirely universal.
[3:56]I think so much of our lives, you know, in any ways, this is very specifically an immigrant
[4:00]story, but it's universal in the sense that, you know, and with an immigrant families
[4:05]and this is something that I explore in my book, there's this sort of intergenerational
[4:08]conflict between language and not having the language to tell each other different things.
[4:12]So we have Korean speaking parents, English speaking children.
[4:15]But I honestly think that that's kind of just like an intense representation of what
[4:19]we all go through universally.
[4:20]I think we all spend many hours in our day worrying about what to say to people, how to
[4:25]say it, thinking about how someone said something to us or didn't say something to us.
[4:30]And so this struggle to communicate how we really feel and to be heard and seen by people
[4:34]we love is belongs to everyone, right?
[4:37]I mean, it's our collective struggle, especially during the holiday season.
[4:40]I mean, this is what it all comes.
[4:43]This is like the boiling pot.
[4:45]That's true.
[4:46]Yes, it can feel, it can feel like you're not even speaking the same language exactly,
[4:50]exactly, because generations with our kids, sometimes we literally aren't and so and with
[4:56]our parents, sometimes we're literally not.
[4:58]I mean, it's it's wild.
[5:00]Even if you all speak English, yeah, yeah, the big golfs.
[5:06]I like how also how you explore mother, mother disappearing, right?
[5:10]Because everyone wonders.
[5:12]There's a piece of ourselves that always disappears when we become a mother.
[5:16]There's another part that grows, right?
[5:18]And maybe takes the place of, but there is something that you lose and sunny was so
[5:24]young and so clueless sort of getting into this whole relationship.
[5:27]I feel like she was almost duped a little bit, not duped, but you know, she was sold to
[5:32]Bill of Goods and then was like, Oh, wait, you're not the stashing prince.
[5:35]I thought you were.
[5:36]And here I am in America, you know, that's you you're working at a gas station.
[5:40]So anyway, but you know, you explore that, like, what does that mean?
[5:45]Where what would happen if we all got up and left to find ourselves?
[5:50]What would that do to the people who remain?
[5:53]It's so fascinating to me because I think that we like, as you say, I think we do disappear
[5:57]in a lot of ways, right?
[5:59]And so even though sunny physically disappears, and you know, I think that's a kind of
[6:03]metaphor for the way that we all disappear and the ways that we can kind of find ourselves
[6:07]ourselves also metaphorically without physically disappearing.
[6:10]So definitely this isn't a promotion, but I think that there are ways that we can in our
[6:17]daily lives make time for finding who we are.
[6:19]I became a mother while I was writing the final version of this book.
[6:22]You know, so for me, I mean, imagine, you know, I was a pandemic, you know, I really hunkered
[6:27]down the road this book during 2020 to 2022 and that was like peak pandemic and I was
[6:32]also a new mother.
[6:33]So in that process, of course, I knew first and what it was like, I mean, I disappeared
[6:37]from my friends in a lot of ways because suddenly I was a mom and I didn't have any time
[6:42]for them.
[6:43]I disappeared as a daughter to my mother because my mother started to sort of miss me because
[6:48]I wasn't around anymore, right?
[6:51]And I disappeared to myself in so many ways because I couldn't I couldn't spend time
[6:55]doing the things that I know myself for doing, you know, reading, writing, watching movies.
[7:00]Oh my gosh, I love movies.
[7:02]But the three hours is such a luxury two to three hours for movies is huge, right?
[7:07]And so, you know, I think this is in some ways an invitation to kind of reckon with
[7:11]the parts of ourselves that disappear and realize that there's still many manifestations
[7:16]and versions of our life that we can live.
[7:18]They're still out there.
[7:19]They're waiting for us.
[7:20]And it's just about timing and coincidence and when things just happen to work out as
[7:25]they do or don't for sunny in this book.
[7:27]Yeah.
[7:28]Interesting.
[7:30]Yeah.
[7:30]So for anybody who was struggling with motherhood.
[7:33]Oh my goodness.
[7:35]I think you will relate quite a bit to at least this desire to disappear.
[7:40]I think, you know, there's a good amount of fiction that, you know, I think of Lisa Coase
[7:44]the leavers.
[7:45]There's, there's a lot of books about mothers who, yes, who disappear and it's all about
[7:49]like that something happened to her, that she do this to herself.
[7:52]How could she possibly leave us?
[7:54]And so that's actually really a fascinating question because I think that in within society
[7:59]it's almost considered unthinkable and unforgivable, right?
[8:03]I mean, it's kind of like a considered and unforgivable act.
[8:06]In my own family, my father actually left my family when I was six.
[8:09]He disappeared.
[8:11]So and he didn't pay child support.
[8:12]I grew up in a single parent working class, a family.
[8:15]We eventually, you know, he eventually came back and my parents were divorced and, you
[8:19]know, he was a Sunday father.
[8:20]But my father disappeared.
[8:21]But I think we see that a lot more that that's a more familiar narrative.
[8:26]And that's actually in some ways a more acceptable narrative.
[8:29]The father that leaves because, you know, men have complicated lives and they've got
[8:33]to go to care of themselves.
[8:34]But what about women?
[8:35]Yeah.
[8:36]Yeah.
[8:37]Oh my gosh.
[8:38]Yeah.
[8:39]In Celeste's, I know this much is true.
[8:40]Is it remember the mom like goes away for a while?
[8:42]Doesn't she?
[8:43]I'm like, maybe I'm mixing.
[8:44]I never tell everything I never told you.
[8:46]Yeah.
[8:47]What did I say?
[8:48]I don't want to say that.
[8:49]Yes, you're right.
[8:50]Yeah.
[8:51]I know this much is true.
[8:52]Oh, God.
[8:53]No, that's Wally Lamb.
[8:54]Oh my gosh.
[8:55]Yeah.
[8:57]Well, I think we're in titles.
[8:59]Yeah.
[9:00]And I think they all have a similar cadence to them, you know?
[9:02]Yeah.
[9:03]The same rhythm.
[9:04]OK.
[9:05]So we won't tell anyone.
[9:06]Does this appear for a little bit?
[9:07]Doesn't she?
[9:08]And then she comes back or something.
[9:09]But yes, I see.
[9:10]I mean, in truth, any parent disappearing, it's not a good thing.
[9:13]Right.
[9:14]All right.
[9:15]Everyone is like, you know, there's the most destabilizing thing when you don't have
[9:20]answers to.
[9:21]I mean, it's one thing when you not to say anything is better at worst, but at least
[9:26]like when you lose someone, you can start the grieving process and you know how to
[9:30]go through that other people who've gone through that, but when there's so much uncertainty,
[9:33]then what?
[9:34]Yeah.
[9:35]And so John, six months after his wife disappears, and this is in the beginning of the book,
[9:38]he tells his kids that she's dead.
[9:40]Yeah.
[9:41]Yeah.
[9:42]Because he thinks that's easier.
[9:43]And that is easier in some weird way, right?
[9:46]Because then they can begin to move on, but the kids don't believe him.
[9:50]Of course.
[9:51]Yeah.
[9:52]Or one of them doesn't.
[9:53]One of them doesn't.
[9:54]You know, and that's also very complicated between siblings, I mean, that makes total
[9:57]sense to me.
[9:58]Yep.
[9:59]Do you have a sibling?
[10:00]I do. I have a sister. Yeah. Not close, necessarily. Okay.
[10:04]Okay. You almost didn't even need to say that.
[10:08]There's a lot of love though. There's a lot of love.
[10:10]But we all have such different experiences of the things that we go through as children.
[10:14]And, you know, we all grow differently too.
[10:18]Yeah. It's fascinating. Just siblings are fascinating and very complicated, you know, relationships.
[10:24]But also now is just one of the seasons of your relationship with her.
[10:28]I mean, like, you don't even know in 10 years.
[10:30]Right. You don't even know because I had never anticipated any of this either, you know.
[10:34]And I think that's what makes life so interesting to a certain extent.
[10:38]You know, like, you just never know how things can come together and how they don't.
[10:42]And, you know, one of the things that a lot of people,
[10:44]they read my books and both of my books deal with the loss or the disappearance of a mother or mother figures, mother characters.
[10:51]A lot of people will ask me about, you know,
[10:54]we'll tell me about how this book reminded them about how they had wished they had asked or spent more time with certain family members.
[11:00]Or they wish their parents had talked more about this or that.
[11:03]And I completely identify it with that feeling. I mean, I think that's why I write the books I wrote.
[11:07]I write, but I also hope this is an invitation for people to think about the stories that they tell.
[11:12]Not necessarily just their children, but the world about who they are.
[11:16]And to not assume that people aren't interested.
[11:19]I mean, I think that's what we do, right?
[11:21]Like, I was at a party this weekend and somebody was like, nobody's ever going to want to hear my story.
[11:25]Nobody's ever, but like, that's kind of just an assumption because it's really all about how you frame the story that really draws people in.
[11:33]Because any life can be made extraordinary, by the way, it's told, you know.
[11:37]And so the ticket is really thinking like, how are you going to pull people in with a story that might seem very ordinary on the outside?
[11:44]Because to us, our own lives are always ordinary.
[11:46]Right.
[11:47]But then like, look, look at Seinfeld, right?
[11:49]I mean, that was just, yeah, exactly.
[11:51]Making the everyday into something that makes the cell laugh and relate to like everybody.
[11:56]You know, right.
[11:57]And so I hope this book is also an invitation to share as much about ourselves with people that we love as possible.
[12:03]That's safe for you.
[12:04]And in a way that feels authentic to you.
[12:06]That could be in a form of, you know, telling a real story.
[12:09]It could be in the form of the way you dress in the meals that you cook.
[12:12]There's so many ways to tell stories that matter in that last.
[12:16]And that really down the line, I think, I mean, that's what people will remember about us.
[12:20]And what people hold on to the closest one they need us and we're not able to be there.
[12:24]You know, how did you learn how to tell stories?
[12:26]Oh, that's such a great question.
[12:27]It must be through because I grew up just like in the characters of my novel.
[12:31]I grew up in families where there were Korean speakers and English speakers.
[12:35]And I'm not fluent in Korean.
[12:36]So I couldn't access a lot of information.
[12:39]And I think for that reason, I became a storyteller because I had to kind of imagine.
[12:46]I had to kind of fill in a lot of gaps within my family's lives.
[12:49]And so it was very imaginative.
[12:51]I had a lot of free time and free play, if that makes sense.
[12:54]To sort of, I was a very big make believer, you know, I love make believe.
[12:58]I always cut dreaming.
[13:00]And so somewhere in that space, I kind of feel like I was so freely given an opportunity to imagine and play and make believe.
[13:08]And that's just somehow organized that information and through writing.
[13:11]I think it's just like a form of organization in some weird way.
[13:14]You know, because it's kind of a dream space that you're in that you're trying to communicate to others.
[13:18]But you can't exactly translate what's in your head to people without writing it down.
[13:23]And then going through the process of revising and advising.
[13:26]So for me, it was in that sense.
[13:28]And I also have storytellers in my family in the sense that my mother is an extraordinary cook.
[13:32]And I think that she, that's her form of storytelling.
[13:35]She got that from my grandmother and that was a very traditional kind of woman's role, right?
[13:40]Which is to pass down traditions and meaning through food and gathering.
[13:44]And, you know, my grandfather was an artist and that plays into the novel because I have a lot of painters and artists in my novel.
[13:50]And that was his form of storytelling.
[13:52]He was a silent man.
[13:53]He was so quiet.
[13:54]But when I looked deeply at his paintings, I realized what he was trying to tell me through them.
[14:00]I think that that's really, really wonderful. Regardless of what he knew about the effect of his paintings as he was creating them that he gives those that he has left me paintings.
[14:10]And it's a kind of artifact of where I come from without him having even known that he was doing this for me personally, right?
[14:17]My grandmother did the same thing.
[14:19]Oh, wow.
[14:20]Later in life, she took up painting.
[14:22]Oh, my goodness.
[14:23]You know, the paint tubes everywhere and would like give me.
[14:26]Oh, you know, and I have like all her paintings.
[14:30]Oh, my goodness.
[14:31]Of course I want them.
[14:32]You know, and they meant so much to her.
[14:34]Yes.
[14:35]Yeah.
[14:36]And it's like when people, you look at it on the wall and it's a reminder.
[14:40]It's just, it's just such a powerful form of storytelling for people who either personally couldn't express themselves or for whatever reason the social circumstances didn't allow them to.
[14:50]And my paintings are so meaningful and hopefully, you know, my daughter cares about them at one point in life.
[14:56]And just knowing that we can, we have this sort of focal point to be able to discuss our families in a way that isn't overwhelming.
[15:03]You know, it's an introduction to start a conversation. I mean, that's great art, great design. You know, yeah.
[15:09]Well, in your family, I know your title is what we kept to ourselves. What do you keep to yourselves?
[15:15]Oh, that's a great question. I think for many years, I, I had never heard my mother express how much she loved me, how much she felt.
[15:24]You know, she worked so hard. I don't, I think that it was so her emotional, her emotions were so overwhelming. I think that she just didn't know how to express that in words.
[15:34]You know, and so she did it by putting her head down and she was a single mom working class, not an English speaking career town Los Angeles. She worked so many jobs.
[15:43]And I think that she could not find the time to put the words together for whatever reason, you know, either it was too painful.
[15:52]She just couldn't process her emotions in that way because she was so busy.
[15:56]But I remember very explicitly, and this is, this is, and I carry this for the rest of my life. My mother, when I was in my, my teenage years, I was very worried about applying to colleges, you know, college applications.
[16:07]Everyone else seemed to be have so many more advantages than me. I was struggling so much in so many ways of my life, not necessarily academically, but with the dynamics of my family.
[16:17]And I remember my mother one time telling me over the phone very slowly and she doesn't speak English. She said very carefully, like she looked up every single word in the Korean to English dictionary because this was like before their regular internet where we had it everywhere.
[16:33]She said the words, I believe in you and she said it in this very soft robotic like she had strung together the sentence with all of her might and I broke down because I realized that she's always believed in me.
[16:54]But she never had found that it took her such an extraordinary, a Herculean amount of energy to express this to me.
[17:02]And I realized that, you know, a lot of people go through life this way. I think as writers and as readers were very, very lucky, like it's easier for us to express ourselves, but so many people go through life without the language, regardless of what language it is, but without the language to really be, to feel like their voice matters, to feel like they should be heard that it matters.
[17:24]So many people feel that way. And I really, that those words, which was her own little form of like telling me how much she believed in me was her way of kind of affirming that, you know, not only her emotional life, you know, and the things that she feels and what she's kept to herself, but that I had inherited so many of the qualities that had created her ability to do that.
[17:48]It was so affirming on such a multiple on so many multiple layers. So that is what my family kept to itself.
[17:55]Unfortunately, it withheld love when I needed it when I was younger because I think my mother, you know, just worked too hard and I think that for her, you know, for a lot of families, it's an expression of vulnerability of intimacy.
[18:08]And it's a very difficult thing to manage when the world requires you to be so tough in so many ways, right?
[18:14]I mean, especially for, you know, working parents who are spending so much of their lives like, you know, putting on a face to show that work, you know, we all relate to this.
[18:23]And then suddenly we are encountered with these creatures, children are so lovely because they're so vulnerable and they're so real, right?
[18:30]So kind of being able to switch and like that quickly on a dime when the world wants us to be so hard is very, very difficult.
[18:38]And so that's, yeah, that's definitely something my family comes with so hopefully and I'm the opposite with my daughter.
[18:44]I'm almost like annoyingly loving like she's probably.
[18:47]She's only three and I'm already like all the time like, I love you, you're amazing. Like, you know, I'm so proud of you, you know, she's just like, we're only her eyes at me already.
[18:57]So it's almost no surprise that you write books searching for your searching for moms who can bring their love back, right?
[19:04]Yes, definitely. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
[19:07]I mean, I have such a special bond with my mother. I mean, I think we all have special bonds with our parents in various ways.
[19:13]But for us, because I think we were a very small family, most of my family is in Korea or in Canada, we really had to be everything for each other.
[19:22]So that's the way that was kind of dysfunctional, you know, like I was like, you know, we were every, like there were times when I was her mother and she was my daughter.
[19:30]You know, and I had to take her to the DMV and take care of her.
[19:33]And that reversal of roles that you that sort of happens with elderly parents, you know, that we experience.
[19:38]I actually happened when I was very young because my mother couldn't navigate a lot of the systems that she was in an America as a Korean speaking, you know, single mother.
[19:46]She was on her own and, you know, so she had her little daughter taking her to the DMV and filling out forms for her, which I am planning on doing now actually for her simply because of age.
[19:57]Oh, well.
[20:00]Isn't it crazy how our brains just use all this information
[20:02]and then turn it into a story that's like immersive
[20:04]and wonderful for other people to read
[20:06]and yet has all these little bits and pieces
[20:08]of our own lives and feelings and yet there it is.
[20:11]Crazy. Yeah.
[20:13]It's wild and that's what makes it so magical.
[20:15]I mean, I think this is why there's no way,
[20:18]I mean, I know there's always this, you know,
[20:21]I know I know there are people who would like to replace us
[20:24]but there are people who like to replace us
[20:28]but the whole point of reading books
[20:30]is really a connection with another human being, you know?
[20:33]It's like the fact that it connects me and you together.
[20:36]We're from two very, you know,
[20:37]I'm not sure what time zone in you're in right now.
[20:39]I'm in the West Coast.
[20:40]But we're from very two different lives
[20:43]and yet we sat together at some point in time,
[20:46]maybe not at the exact same moment
[20:48]but we sat together with a world within a space
[20:52]and we both found some kind of meeting within it, right?
[20:54]Like it made sense to us in a way that is like conversational
[20:58]and beautiful without even us actually meeting each other.
[21:01]And I think that that is really the point of reading in books.
[21:04]And so ultimately, if books aren't really written by people,
[21:07]I think if there's no purpose,
[21:10]why wouldn't I feel like there's so many other things
[21:12]we could be doing?
[21:13]Yeah.
[21:13]I mean, I could be, you know, learning.
[21:16]I could be, you could be at the DMV.
[21:19]Yeah, exactly.
[21:20]I could be at the DMV.
[21:21]But I mean, I make the time to make connections with books
[21:24]because I connect with people through them, you know?
[21:26]I find the best people like you Zibi through books.
[21:28]I mean, really, don't we meet such cool people?
[21:31]Such cool people.
[21:32]A cool people.
[21:33]So, you know, because you have to look at the world
[21:36]in a certain way.
[21:37]Yeah.
[21:38]It's just so fascinating.
[21:40]Yeah, I think I've made some of the people
[21:43]that I would have never met without books.
[21:45]I mean, it's different.
[21:46]It's what it really is, like I like to say
[21:48]that no two people who've read the same book
[21:50]are really strangers because we all have mutual friends.
[21:53]It's like, oh, you know that girl from college?
[21:55]It's like a shorthand, right?
[21:56]Now we all have every book we read.
[21:58]It's a shorthand with other people.
[22:00]Yeah, it's a kind of community,
[22:01]which is really fascinating.
[22:02]And it's almost like, I kind of think of books
[22:05]as like instruments and everybody picks it up
[22:07]and plays it a little differently.
[22:08]Oh, I like that.
[22:09]You know, but we've all held the same instruments.
[22:11]So we all kind of, and we all understand its nuances
[22:14]to a certain extent.
[22:15]And it could create really beautiful conversation or music
[22:18]when it's played together in a really interesting way.
[22:21]And so, yeah, I love the idea of the book
[22:23]as this kind of object
[22:26]that people can kind of channel themselves through.
[22:29]And everyone will have a different way
[22:31]of playing the book.
[22:32]I mean, that's why we have books
[22:33]and some people hate them and some people love them.
[22:35]But at the same, at the end of the day,
[22:37]that book kind of passed through a person passed
[22:41]through that book in a really fascinating way.
[22:44]And like, nothing really replaces.
[22:46]I mean, you know, that's like,
[22:49]that's almost like the point of life.
[22:50]Nancy, I think they should like take us on the road here
[22:53]and just talk about reading, right?
[22:55]Look at us.
[22:56]We're just like a big advertisement
[22:57]for the power of reading.
[22:58]I mean, look it.
[22:59]Oh, we're great.
[23:00]I mean, who's out there?
[23:02]Who's out there?
[23:03]We're available kind of.
[23:07]Well, I mean, I think a lot of people will hear this
[23:12]and they, I think they, it'll click.
[23:13]Like, I think they totally don't.
[23:15]We know our people are out there.
[23:17]Yes.
[23:18]And hopefully they're listening.
[23:21]Oh my gosh.
[23:23]What are you working on now?
[23:24]Do you have another book?
[23:24]Are you, what do you have to?
[23:26]Yes.
[23:27]So my brain is like half in one book, this book
[23:29]and then half in an end of the book.
[23:30]I'm working on a third book, which would be considered
[23:32]the third book in a kind of trilogy.
[23:35]So this is, you know, and they're not sequels
[23:37]in the sense that you don't have to read
[23:38]one to understand the other,
[23:39]but they're kind of reflections on family
[23:41]and they all invite crime and punishment, secret, shame, you know.
[23:45]And so my third book will be a literary also,
[23:48]but it'll kind of play on elements of thriller,
[23:50]which to me is new because I do,
[23:53]I use mystery and I use suspense in my first two books,
[23:55]but I'm kind of more,
[23:56]I'm kind of interested in a different kind of pace
[23:59]for my next book.
[24:00]So that'll be an adventure,
[24:01]but it'll also be a free and American family
[24:03]and Los Angeles.
[24:04]So it should be fun.
[24:06]I mean, I'm trying to just keep it fun, to be honest.
[24:09]Not fun.
[24:10]Like, I mean, I know the content of my stories.
[24:12]You know, it's very emotional.
[24:13]It can be heavy at times,
[24:15]but I'm trying to keep the actual genre
[24:17]and the, I try to keep the playfulness alive
[24:20]because I think that's just gonna be,
[24:23]everyone's motivated by different things.
[24:24]And what motivates me is I need to constantly be challenged.
[24:27]So this is like my next challenge.
[24:29]I love it.
[24:29]I feel so happy to do it.
[24:30]It's not fun for you.
[24:32]You know, it's not gonna be fun for us to read.
[24:33]So you might as well enjoy it.
[24:34]Oh, exactly.
[24:35]Yeah.
[24:36]Well, congratulations.
[24:38]What we kept to ourselves.
[24:39]Thank you so much for having me.
[24:40]I'm having the grocery store now.
[24:42]So I can take a book picture.
[24:43]Yeah.
[24:44]Brought to you by Persimmons.
[24:47]This was made for by Persimmons now.
[24:49]You know, by Persimmons and the American Readiness Association.
[24:54]I know.
[24:55]Well, we love the, well, I love them both.
[24:56]So, you know, there we go.
[24:58]See, maybe we'll, I mean,
[24:59]we can all use a little bit more fruit and vegetables
[25:02]in our lives.
[25:02]So that's true.
[25:04]You knew I would get mine on a book cover.
[25:05]Yeah, that's it.
[25:06]That's it.
[25:07]Thank you so much for catching up with me.
[25:09]That was so fun.
[25:10]That was so fun.
[25:10]That was so fun.
[25:11]That was fun.
[25:12]Okay.
[25:14]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[25:17]to Read Books.
[25:18]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[25:20]at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[25:23]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowans.com
[25:26]and sign up for my virtual book club
[25:27]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[25:30]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[25:32]at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing.
[25:34]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[25:36]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.