Sarah Damoff, The Burning Side
[0:00]Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Book to Zibi.
[0:06]Formerly, moms don't have time to read books.
[0:08]In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors
[0:14]and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time.
[0:18]As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously a podcaster, I get a comprehensive
[0:24]look at everything that's coming up, and spend my time curating the best books, so you
[0:29]don't have to.
[0:30]Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests, like I do, every single
[0:35]day.
[0:36]For more information, go to zibimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens.
[0:45]Sarah Damoff is the author of The Burning Side, A Novel, which, by the way, is one of
[0:50]my favorite books ever.
[0:51]I posted a picture of myself basically sobbing when I finished it.
[0:55]It is my book club pick for this summer, and you can find information about that.
[1:01]I'll add it to the show notes, but also it's on zibimedia under book club, and you can
[1:06]join me in asking Sarah any questions you want.
[1:10]Sarah is the author of The Bright Years, also, which was a USA Today bestseller, and is
[1:15]being translated into 12 languages.
[1:18]She lives with her husband and children in Texas, where she has been a social worker.
[1:22]You have to listen to this episode.
[1:23]Welcome, Sarah.
[1:24]Thank you so much for coming on totally booked to talk about The Burning Side, congrats.
[1:30]Thank you so much for having me zibi.
[1:31]I have to say I posted it as I know you saw.
[1:34]After I finished the book, I was sobbing on an airplane, and I think it's one of the most
[1:39]popular posts I've ever done.
[1:41]I have 200,000 people who are saving it and wanting to read it, and I was like, okay,
[1:46]this is it, the secret sauce.
[1:48]You write a book like this, you get people to just feel so connected to the characters,
[1:52]and that's like the Holy Grail of books right there.
[1:55]Yes, I think emotional, it's so interesting because people will just respond by telling me
[2:02]how hard they solved, and I just kind of wait to, I'm like, I'm sorry slash, thank
[2:08]you.
[2:09]You know, I always want to give a big hug, but then people will always reassure, like, no,
[2:14]no, it was a good.
[2:15]It was cathartic.
[2:16]It's good to cry, you know, most people, and it's not to say the book is sad, because
[2:20]I feel like I'm spending a lot, there's a lot of attention based on people crying at
[2:24]the end, but it's not necessarily, it's not like painful and sad, it's just so moving.
[2:30]It's so beautiful and moving, and it's just life itself passing by in a way, and that's
[2:37]not something you have to necessarily mourn it, you celebrate it too.
[2:41]So I don't view this book as all sadness, like there's so many moments of joy and connection
[2:47]and love and everything, but maybe we should go back because I could just go up.
[2:50]Why don't you tell us now?
[2:51]But I want to thank you for saying that, because that means a lot.
[2:54]I think that it's a heart opener rather than only a heartbreaker, totally.
[3:00]So thank you for saying that.
[3:01]You just find the words.
[3:03]That's the other thing I want to say, like, there were so many lines in here that were
[3:08]so beautiful, like little pieces of poetry sprinkled throughout that I wanted to underline
[3:13]and I'll try to find some while we talk.
[3:16]But they're just so beautiful.
[3:18]Like the way you see the world and the way you condense it into these succinct little
[3:23]missives that just shoot right into people's hearts.
[3:25]It's just really amazing.
[3:28]Thank you.
[3:29]As an avid poetry lover, that is a gift to hear.
[3:31]So thank you.
[3:32]Yeah.
[3:33]Okay.
[3:34]Well, I'm not surprised.
[3:35]Okay.
[3:36]Let's find out more about you.
[3:37]First of all, the book.
[3:38]So the burning side is a multi-generational family saga.
[3:43]We open.
[3:44]This is not a spoiler.
[3:45]We open with a house fire, April and Leo and their two young kids just narrowly escape,
[3:50]but they lose their home.
[3:51]They take shelter with April's parents.
[3:54]Nobody else knows except for them is that a few hours before the fire, they had decided
[3:58]to pursue divorce and everything was just kind of in shambles before the fire happened
[4:04]anyway.
[4:05]And April's parents also have something they haven't shared with her or her siblings,
[4:10]which is that her father has recently been diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's.
[4:15]So here we have two couples under one roof over this period of time, really for one summer,
[4:22]where they are having to decide how to move forward and who to move forward with in two
[4:29]very different marriages and very different stages of their marriage with very different
[4:34]histories in their relationships and individually as people even going back to their
[4:39]families of origin.
[4:41]So really exploring all the interweaving of those relational dynamics and family relationships
[4:47]through the lens of specifically these two marriage partnerships.
[4:53]And where did this idea come from?
[4:55]So about a year after my husband and I got married, which we've we're at 16 years
[5:01]now.
[5:02]We moved in with his grandparents.
[5:05]His grandmother was sick and his grandfather was healthy and his grandfather just needed
[5:11]some support in taking care of her.
[5:14]So I had this very profound, unique experience of being at a very early new chapter of
[5:22]my life and family sitting across the table every single night for about a year and
[5:27]a half.
[5:28]We live with them with this two, these two people who were at the very end of their story.
[5:34]There's really no way to put into words the profound challenge, sadness or profound
[5:42]beauty that came from that.
[5:44]I knew even at the time I'm gaining some perspective here on the passage of time and
[5:51]the seasons that we go through and the changes that our families go through.
[5:56]that most 24, 25 year olds don't get to have very up close and personal.
[6:02]And so the details were also different, but a few years ago I just was reflecting on that
[6:09]time and how interesting it was for me to experience that multi generational living where
[6:16]you just get close to people's stories in a way that there's no other way to do that
[6:21]other than being under the same roof for a while.
[6:24]And again, like I said, this daily struggle that was present with that, but also the moments
[6:30]of extreme beauty that wouldn't have otherwise happened.
[6:35]And so as I was reflecting on that, it just was too much of a story not to try to explore.
[6:42]Like how could I do this where I also have these characters under one roof together and
[6:47]what they, how might that change their trajectory, you know, because I still think sometimes
[6:54]I don't know if it would or wouldn't have, but changed my own trajectory.
[6:58]We had our first child in his grandparents home and what might it have looked like.
[7:04]What different choices might we have made if we didn't have that experience?
[7:09]And so I really wanted to explore that with these four characters in the burning side.
[7:14]So that's kind of where that came from.
[7:17]And how did you pick the fire as the vehicle?
[7:21]Because obviously now there've been, I mean, there are always many wildfires, but it feels
[7:25]like they're increasing every single day.
[7:27]Yeah.
[7:28]And this is not a wildfire.
[7:29]It's the house fire, but still.
[7:31]No, that's a great question.
[7:33]And thank you for asking it.
[7:34]It was originally just, okay, I need a tool to get them all under one roof at this kind
[7:41]of moment in crisis when they wouldn't necessarily pursue to all live together.
[7:45]They wouldn't necessarily choose that, but it's like all of a sudden they have no
[7:50]other choice.
[7:51]And even though, you know, there's all this going on in their marriage, it's like the tyranny
[7:56]of the urgent, the priority becomes, okay, we have nowhere to live.
[8:00]Right now we're homeless and we just need to, we fortunately have, you know, these parents
[8:04]slash in-laws to go take shelter with.
[8:07]So it was the first like tool, I would say, that came to mind.
[8:11]But then as I began to write about it, it's an extremely powerful metaphor.
[8:16]Just what is the meaning of home and a house is a very real and important part of that,
[8:22]but only a part.
[8:23]So there's more to it, you know, the meaning of home and very interestingly, as I was
[8:29]about halfway through the first draft is when the wildfires in LA happened.
[8:35]And I was just completely sucked into like the, the interviews and the footage and the
[8:44]personal stories of what people were going through.
[8:47]And it only, and I know you're in LA, I haven't talked to anybody in LA about this.
[8:53]So I know that's extremely sensitive and close to home.
[8:57]And I just remember feeling like this is so major, whether you've lived in your home,
[9:05]it's your starter home and you've lived there for a year and a half or it's your childhood
[9:08]home or I mean, our material possessions, I think our homes first and foremost are like memory
[9:15]holders and they all represent something to us, whether it's safety or danger or whatever
[9:22]it might be, they're, they're very, the material, our material possessions are just so powerful.
[9:26]This gateway to memory and this extremely important thing.
[9:29]So the absolute devastation of the LA wildfires happening as it was drafting a book that
[9:35]opens with a fire, you know, really meant something to me in terms of I felt the responsibility
[9:42]to do diligence, even though that's not the main plot point, but it's in the background
[9:48]the whole time because the logistics and the emotions that come along with, we lost our
[9:54]house, what are we going to do?
[9:56]And then of course you have the layer in the burning side of and.
[10:00]And we're also losing our marriage,
[10:02]kind of all at the same time.
[10:04]What do we do with that?
[10:05]Wow. Well, I'm not in LA right this second,
[10:09]but yes, like our home was in the area
[10:11]and it survived, but so many people I know
[10:15]and care about their homes did not.
[10:16]And obviously just thousands in my neighborhood.
[10:19]And it's even more, I feel like than just the possessions.
[10:22]It's like it is where you are rooted in the world.
[10:25]And it's so disorienting.
[10:27]Even when we were just out of that house for a year
[10:29]to like be nearby, but not feel settled.
[10:33]And I feel like that is what April and Leo also had, right?
[10:35]They can see it.
[10:37]It's like an hour away basically and they keep going
[10:40]and also the way that you end up not to belabor the fire
[10:43]because that's only just one small piece of the story.
[10:45]But it is an important piece
[10:47]because you also, you don't just use it
[10:50]as some like literary thing, like we're in it with you.
[10:52]We're at every step of the actual,
[10:55]like what happens this day?
[10:56]What happens that day?
[10:57]Who has to get involved?
[10:59]Like the whole nuts and bolts of it were also here.
[11:04]And I feel like it actually is quite a gift
[11:07]to people who have lost their home.
[11:08]And especially because of the scale of that recently.
[11:12]Like feeling seen in the way that April and Leo
[11:17]have had their lives uprooted and the little things
[11:20]that you realize make a huge difference
[11:22]and just having that safe space.
[11:24]But anyway.
[11:25]Yes, I talked to an insurance guy,
[11:28]like a home insurance guy
[11:30]because I just was like, you know,
[11:32]I can maybe read what my policy says
[11:34]but I have an experience his first hand.
[11:35]So what do you see and what actually happens?
[11:38]And you know, most of those details don't go into the book
[11:41]but it informs, what's the real life lived experience
[11:45]of people who go through this?
[11:48]Yeah, and not to dissuade anyone who has been through this.
[11:52]I feel like if you have this is even more relevant
[11:55]but it is a back round thing in a way.
[11:58]I feel the real story is the relationships,
[12:01]the way that you just like with a fine tooth comb
[12:04]go through every little piece of history
[12:08]and present day interaction and feeling
[12:12]and resentment and dashed expectations, but deep love
[12:16]and oh my gosh, like these people actually aren't real.
[12:21]Like I had to keep reminding myself, how do you do that?
[12:24]Like what is the dialogue and those little feelings?
[12:29]Like just the, and the tiny little shifts
[12:32]and the little moments and the little movements even,
[12:36]like all of it is like it's like all like in a painting
[12:39]or something almost like in slow motion.
[12:42]That's beautiful.
[12:43]I mean, can I just take you everywhere
[12:45]to like tell people because it's just beautiful to hear
[12:48]you say that, especially because it's so much what I want
[12:51]and you never know as a writer is this translating
[12:54]to the page is this what readers are feeling.
[12:56]So thank you for saying that.
[12:58]It's beautiful to hear that.
[12:59]I think there's a multifaceted answer to this.
[13:02]So first of all, something I did not realize
[13:04]until I became a writer or I didn't realize
[13:07]how it had impacted the way I see and talk about things
[13:12]until I became a writer is that I was raised
[13:15]by a single mom who was blind.
[13:17]And so I was describing the world to her.
[13:21]That was just in great.
[13:22]It was natural.
[13:23]It was my norm.
[13:25]And that included like I have so many thousands and thousands
[13:29]of memories of not only maybe telling her what the sunset
[13:34]looks like or a tree looks like,
[13:35]but also telling her like, okay, those people ahead
[13:38]of us in the grocery store line,
[13:40]there's like some tension going on.
[13:41]Like really relational attention as well.
[13:44]And so I always will say that she taught me to see
[13:48]because she would always say I was her eyes.
[13:50]And I think that now that people have asked me questions
[13:54]exactly like what you're asking,
[13:56]I kind of realize, oh, that's not everybody notices
[14:01]these little things.
[14:02]But it was ingrained in me.
[14:04]And I was taught how to see the world that way
[14:06]because I was describing it to someone else every day.
[14:10]So that has really come into my writing
[14:11]in a way I didn't realize was happening
[14:13]until the books were out and people were asking me about it.
[14:17]And another thing that's, so both of my books so far
[14:21]are very character driven.
[14:23]The characters are really what I follow.
[14:25]I don't outline, I have characters in mind
[14:28]and then I just kind of follow them on the page.
[14:30]It's so fun.
[14:32]It's like reading but better
[14:33]because it's just where will they lead me?
[14:35]And I might have an idea in my head
[14:37]but similar to how we have ideas about people
[14:40]when you get close to them,
[14:42]whether real or fictional people,
[14:44]you start to feel like, well, that's actually,
[14:46]that's not realistic or that idea I had of wasn't.
[14:49]And so once I get on the line level on the page with them,
[14:52]they kind of reveal themselves, you know?
[14:54]And I did, I was a theater kid.
[14:56]And so it feels really similar to like getting a script
[15:00]and starting to ask questions about
[15:03]what is my character's motivation?
[15:05]Why would they, you know, to make it feel real?
[15:07]And so it's, I mean, sometimes I'll be working on a draft
[15:11]and I'll like get up and move around to think,
[15:14]like, how would their face really look like
[15:16]or what would their body really do?
[15:18]Would they, you know, saying it out loud
[15:20]would just to test the reality of it?
[15:23]So yeah, I think that's,
[15:26]can we go back for a second to growing up
[15:28]with a single mom who was blind?
[15:30]Tell me more about where you grew up,
[15:33]what that was like, was she always blind?
[15:35]Did she become blind?
[15:36]Did you have a relationship with your dad?
[15:38]Like how did that work?
[15:39]Would just take, tell me everything.
[15:42]Okay, wow.
[15:43]Okay.
[15:44]Um, I am in Dallas now and I was born and raised
[15:48]in the Dallas area.
[15:49]And my, I did have a relationship with my dad.
[15:53]He left when I was 11 and I had a younger sister.
[15:57]So then my younger sister and I continued to live with my mom.
[16:01]She had a disease called retinitis pigmentosa.
[16:04]It's hereditary, it's genetic.
[16:07]There is no cure.
[16:08]So they chose not to test my sister or I for it
[16:12]because there's no cure.
[16:14]And my mom started going blind when she was 30
[16:19]and that's about the time when she had kids.
[16:21]So she still chose to have kids.
[16:23]And she was almost entirely blind.
[16:28]I mean, I remember being in kindergarten
[16:31]and that's when she like had to give up her driver's license.
[16:35]Like I have vague memories from being really small
[16:37]being in the car with her and like hitting curbs and her
[16:40]and her being like, we're done with it.
[16:43]I can't do this anymore.
[16:44]It's not safe.
[16:45]So yes, she, it was a degenerative disease
[16:49]that runs in families.
[16:51]So, wow.
[16:53]Oh my gosh.
[16:54]That's a lot of responsibility.
[16:56]Oh, on the kids, right on you and your sister?
[16:59]It is.
[17:00]It's interesting to, there was a very mutually,
[17:03]I mean, my mom was still a mom to me and a good mom.
[17:07]But I kind of mutually caretaking,
[17:09]especially once my dad was gotten really, very
[17:12]mutual caretaker relationship there
[17:14]that I do know is different and unique than,
[17:17]and I knew at the, I don't know if I knew at the time,
[17:19]but like fully, you know, that it was just so different
[17:22]than maybe how my peers were living life.
[17:25]But yeah, understand it more now,
[17:28]especially as I have kids that are,
[17:30]I have three kids that are in the home
[17:33]and you know, still young and just thinking,
[17:35]sometimes seeing them at the same age
[17:37]is where I'm realizing, oh, yeah, like,
[17:39]I was helping my mom with XYZ at that age.
[17:42]So it definitely was how old are your kids?
[17:45]Not to keep crying into your life.
[17:47]No, you're good.
[17:48]I have not, I've never talked about this
[17:50]so you'll be like the exclusive interviewer.
[17:53]Talk about my family.
[17:54]My kids are 10, just turn 13 and almost 15.
[17:58]Awesome.
[17:59]I have an 11, 12, and then two 19-year-olds, the middle school
[18:05]years are quite, quite interesting.
[18:08]Yes, I know.
[18:10]Well, so we're kind of similar there.
[18:11]Yeah, I'm on our other kids.
[18:13]Oh my gosh.
[18:14]Okay, back to the book.
[18:16]No, okay.
[18:17]How did you become a writer?
[18:18]How did you become?
[18:19]How did this start?
[18:20]And I also want to hear about the bright years,
[18:22]which I have to go back and read and how that happened
[18:24]and how the success of that affected this book
[18:27]and give me a little more backstory on that.
[18:29]So you grew up, you were helping your mom,
[18:31]and then what happened?
[18:32]You went to college or?
[18:34]Yes, I did go to college.
[18:36]I studied family studies and psychology.
[18:39]I started with education and then realized I really wanted
[18:42]to focus on nonprofit.
[18:44]I had already started when I was 17 years old
[18:47]from a broken family myself.
[18:49]I also lost my mom as a teenager.
[18:52]And she had, yeah, died suddenly when I was 16.
[18:55]And so very like a year after that,
[18:59]I started volunteering with foster kids
[19:02]and foster kids.
[19:03]And I was like, oh my gosh, Sarah, okay, keep going.
[19:10]So yeah, I had been, like I mentioned,
[19:13]I was a theater kid, it was pretty much my whole life.
[19:15]And after she passed, I really,
[19:20]I couldn't do that at the time anymore.
[19:22]And I was already teaching theater
[19:25]and I realized how much I loved being with children.
[19:29]And so I really studied family studies,
[19:33]specifically like families in the community.
[19:35]I know some people are like family studies as a degree.
[19:37]It is, it pretty much only qualifies you
[19:40]for nonprofit work, which is what I did.
[19:42]I worked writing curriculum.
[19:44]I worked in different facets of the foster care system.
[19:48]So I worked in residential treatment.
[19:51]After I was married, my husband and I were foster parents
[19:53]for a little while.
[19:54]And then I worked on the court side of foster care
[19:58]for about seven years, until I...
[20:00]I just recently a couple years ago started writing full time
[20:03]and really working with foster families for so many years
[20:07]from so many different angles is what led me to writing.
[20:10]To me, it's a very clear like through line
[20:14]of I was working with families
[20:15]and now I'm writing about families five or six years ago.
[20:18]I read a novel called Lost Children Archive
[20:21]and it is about a family and the backdrop
[20:24]is the crisis of the Southern border specifically with children
[20:28]and because it sounds obvious
[20:31]and I've been a reader my whole life
[20:32]but I just had this moment of like anything
[20:35]I'm interested in or passionate about,
[20:38]I can take that to fiction.
[20:40]It was just this exciting like exhilarating thought
[20:43]challenge and I joke with people I had the right mix
[20:46]of ignorance and arrogance to then lead me
[20:49]to just decide to try to start writing a novel.
[20:51]So I didn't have any writing background
[20:54]or formal training and definitely did not know
[20:57]a single thing about the publishing industry
[21:00]which was a whole other like part of my brain
[21:02]and processed to learn about after I started writing.
[21:05]I had one manuscript before the bright years
[21:07]I call it my learning manuscript.
[21:09]I had too much to say in that manuscript
[21:12]and so I kind of came to the end of it
[21:14]and realized I tried to write about foster care
[21:17]and I'm very passionate about that
[21:19]and I'm fine with people knowing that
[21:20]but as a reader I'm reading back over my own work
[21:23]kind of thinking I'm telling people too much
[21:26]instead of just following the characters
[21:29]but I loved just creative writing
[21:31]and I will be doing it my whole life
[21:33]whether it's published or not I will always be doing that
[21:36]and so a few months later I sat down at the blank page
[21:39]and wrote what would become the bright years
[21:41]and I said out loud my only agenda
[21:44]is to tell a beautiful family story.
[21:45]I just felt like I had too much agenda
[21:47]and that first attempt at writing a manuscript
[21:50]and so I like took that all the way I just was like
[21:52]I had no idea you know the bright years
[21:55]one of the three main characters really struggles
[21:57]with addiction I didn't know I was gonna write about that
[22:00]I discovered it as I was going
[22:02]and I think that was it worked out a lot better
[22:05]than coming with like things I wanted to say
[22:08]and it was freeing too because I was like
[22:10]I can through these characters relationships
[22:13]and what they go through I can leave questions on the page
[22:16]I don't have to answer them
[22:17]I don't have the answers to all these very intimate
[22:21]intricate relational dynamic type questions
[22:24]I don't have solutions
[22:26]but so many of these things we can all relate to
[22:29]and to see bits of our own experiences
[22:33]or someone's experience that we might know in real life
[22:37]on the page is something beautiful about literature
[22:39]and about fiction and so that was
[22:43]you know that was how I came into this.
[22:46]Wow.
[22:47]Well I think you nailed the beautiful family story
[22:50]is certainly from this one.
[22:52]What was the what was the main basic premise of the bright years?
[22:57]So the bright years began as the bright letters
[23:00]it was fully told in letters that did not stay that way
[23:03]it was going to be a mother daughter story
[23:05]and it still is a mother daughter story
[23:08]but the husband and father made himself put himself
[23:11]on the page much more than I was expecting
[23:13]I tried to write him off the page
[23:15]and it was like everyone I've ever known or known
[23:18]known about who has had any kind of addiction
[23:21]or alcohol dependence was like tapping me on the shoulder
[23:23]and saying don't make me a stereotype
[23:25]like give me a full story and a voice
[23:29]and this is my story too and so the book is told
[23:34]in three points of view it starts with Lilian
[23:37]the who Mary's Ryan and they have Georgia at their daughter
[23:41]and these points of view are not alternating
[23:43]so different from the burning side
[23:44]we are with Lilian for the first
[23:46]third really almost half of the book
[23:48]and then we hear from Georgia as she comes of age
[23:52]and she has to make sense of what her
[23:56]the intangibles that she's inheriting from her parents
[23:59]so her father by that point is really struggling
[24:01]with addiction her mother had placed a child for adoption
[24:05]before like long before she got married
[24:07]and started this family and she hadn't told anybody about that
[24:11]and so Georgia comes of age discovers these things
[24:15]about her parents and what they're going to mean
[24:17]her has her own experiences losses tragedies and triumphs
[24:21]of those coming of age years and has to figure out
[24:24]what her relationship with her parents is going to be
[24:27]and with her just life and love and all of that
[24:31]and our last point of view that we hear from is Ryan
[24:34]in the bright ears and their last name is is bright
[24:36]and we span we start we start with an opening
[24:41]where Ryan is a child and then we skip 20 years
[24:44]but overall including that we span 60 years
[24:46]and we follow them through the decades
[24:49]and see what we just get real close with this family's journey
[24:53]and just see how parents really how parents
[24:57]impact their children and how children
[24:59]impact their parents was I think the heart
[25:01]you know I always say it's like not everybody has kids
[25:03]but everyone has some family context that we're born into
[25:07]that we have no say over and we have to make sense of it
[25:10]as children and then once when someone is a parent
[25:14]they have to kind of figure out how and when will I share
[25:17]with the next generation with my children
[25:20]who I was before they were here and what might that mean
[25:23]to them so that's very much at the heart
[25:25]and the core of the bright ears.
[25:27]Oh my gosh.
[25:28]Well I love seeing some of the threads
[25:31]or inspiration for some of this you know
[25:34]even down to the testing and you know
[25:36]the slow disintegration of memory as it aligns
[25:39]not to you know draw to straight line obviously
[25:42]the brains creative juices of flow
[25:45]and you turn out fictitious people and all that
[25:48]but even hearing where some of this may have come from
[25:52]is just absolutely fascinating and I see why you know
[25:57]it's like you've almost lost a layer like you're so in touch
[26:00]with the world and emotions and grief
[26:03]because you've had so much yourself
[26:05]and you can sense that it's like tangible in the book
[26:07]and I think that's where the beauty of it really comes from
[26:10]it's like that immediacy and rawness
[26:13]translated into beautiful prose it's really original
[26:17]and I just you did such a good job
[26:20]and this book is going to blow up
[26:23]and if it doesn't it's like the biggest travesty ever
[26:25]but it will because it's so good.
[26:27]So Sarah I'm so excited for you thank you so much
[26:30]I have like eight zillion more questions
[26:31]I can't believe our time is up really
[26:33]but to be continued in our retreat in January
[26:35]thank you so much for coming on and congratulations
[26:38]and bravo to you standing ovation.
[26:40]thank you for having me thank you for supporting the book
[26:42]and thank you just for who you are in the book world
[26:46]it's really meaningful to a lot of people.
[26:48]Thank you.
[26:49]Okay.
[26:50]All right thank you Sarah.
[26:51]Okay.
[26:52]Libby.
[26:53]Okay.
[26:54]Bye.
[26:55]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zibi
[26:58]formerly mom's don't have time to read books.
[27:00]If you loved the show tell a friend,
[27:02]leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens
[27:06]and spread the word.
[27:08]Thanks so much.
[27:09]Oh and bye the books.