Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes, BLACK BROTHER, BLACK BROTHER
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[1:22]I'm so honored to be here today with Dr. Jewel Parker Rhodes,
[1:26]settling because this is kind of a long while because she's such a rock star.
[1:29]Dr. Jewel Parker Rhodes is an award winning and best-selling author of many books,
[1:33]including her most recent Black Brother, Black Brother. Her books include Ninth Ward,
[1:37]which was the winner of the credit sky king honor, sugar, winner of the Jane Adams Children's
[1:42]Book Award and Ghost Voice. Both the hardback and paperback editions of Ghost Boys are New York Times
[1:47]bestsellers. Ghost Boys is also an indie-bound bestseller, number one, kids, indie-next pick,
[1:52]and ALA 2019 Children's Notable List, pick among others. And I have to also say it's a Walter
[1:58]Award, Eevee White, read aloud award, and children's choice book award. Dr. Rhodes is also written
[2:03]in many award-winning novels for adults, like the American Book Award winning Douglas' Women,
[2:08]plus two writing guides, and a memoir called Port Stories, a grandmother's guide to happiness.
[2:12]Her adult literary awards include the American Book Award, the National Endowment of the Arts Award
[2:16]and Fiction, the Black Caucus of the American Library Award for Literary Excellence,
[2:20]and the Penn Oakland slash Josephine Miles Award for Outstanding Writing.
[2:24]When she's not writing, Dr. Rhodes visits schools to talk about her books and teaches writing
[2:28]at Arizona State University, where she is the founding artistic director and chair
[2:32]of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Originally from Pittsburgh,
[2:37]she received a BA in Drama Criticism, an MA in English, and a doctorate in arts in English
[2:42]creative writing from Carnegie Mellon University. She currently lives in Seattle, Washington.
[2:47]Welcome, Dr. Rhodes. Thank you so much for coming on moms. Don't have time to read books.
[2:52]I am so delighted and hello to all the moms and being a mom for me is the best job next to
[3:00]writing that I ever had. It's a pleasure. Okay, I have to hear more about that. So why
[3:05]why is it the best job? People have all sorts of views on motherhood. Why the best job ever?
[3:11]You know, actually, well, I always wanted to be as much as possible a good mom. When I was
[3:17]about eight months old, my mother left the family, and she didn't come back until I was in the
[3:22]third grade. And then, you know, by the time I was 15, she was kicking me out of the house,
[3:28]and I was on my own. So that's the trauma. So to be a good mom was an important goal of mine.
[3:36]And I remember when I was pregnant with my daughter Kelly, everyone said, oh, this will take away
[3:42]your time. This will ruin your writing career. You know, they had all these negatives.
[3:48]And in truth, though, I had written a draft of a novel. It wasn't quite ready. I found that
[3:54]motherhood, in fact, made so much more sense in terms of my entire life, that my emotional death
[4:02]grew, my intellectual death grew. And sometimes it's just writing, seeing my little baby and her
[4:07]cradle, it had a new purpose that I was like, my career was bigger than myself. And so I actually
[4:14]told my daughter when she was having her baby. And everybody said, oh, you're your writing career
[4:20]will go out the window. And I says, no, baby center and focus you children do that, that make it
[4:28]all wonderful. And I have this policy that when I was writing as a kids were growing, that I would
[4:34]leave my office door open. And I actually got this from Tony Morrison, because there's a picture
[4:39]of her trying to write an edited fandom house and her children are totally in, you know,
[4:44]calling along the floor. And so my theory was that any task of my writing that couldn't withstand
[4:52]the interruption of a child, then the idea wasn't good anyway. So that my kids would come in and
[5:00]in and out. And true enough, the ideas that really had legs would stay with me. And I would
[5:08]continue writing them. And when I was also writing, I would pretty much write when the kids were,
[5:14]you know, asleep, you know, not all the time, but sort of I would go to the latter hours,
[5:19]because I really enjoyed so thoroughly my son showing me aunts, my daughter talking about,
[5:25]you know, let's make a butterfly garden, or taking shaving cream and putting it in the sink
[5:30]and letting them make a mess. And those days we didn't have all the fancy things that kids
[5:34]could play with, probably shaving cream wasn't a good idea, but we did it anyway. So I was absolutely
[5:41]thrilled and feel that it's a great haunted cry. I feel it's a great gift in terms of increasing,
[5:50]and I mean, just selfish here, but in terms of increasing my humanity, being a mom is the best thing
[5:56]that ever happened to me. So for that, I think my children, and I try to show my things every day.
[6:02]Oh, that's so beautiful. Also, by the way, I have my kids play with shaving cream a lot. In fact,
[6:08]I keep it in the shower, obviously. And every so often they say, can we play with it? And I
[6:14]decide whether or not I can deal with the mess after. And if I have the time to deal with a mess,
[6:18]then I say, go for it. And they put it all over it. We have a glass, you know, like a glass door.
[6:23]So they put it all over and then they draw pictures. And I can get a lot of stuff done, by the way,
[6:28]while they're sort of in the shower with the shaving cream. And I'm on the outside.
[6:32]You make me so happy. I thought that was way out of style, because my kids are now in their 30s.
[6:37]So I feel really good. Go shaving cream moms. I mean, maybe if your kids are in their 30s,
[6:43]they should not still be playing with shaving cream. Okay, good. All right.
[6:50]Yeah, I know. I feel like the shower is like the best resource for a parent, because if your kids
[6:55]are in there playing, I take all the plastic toys. I probably shouldn't have blab shirts, not PC to have
[7:00]plastic toys. But anyway, the little figurines that we have. And I throw them like a bucket of
[7:04]them in the shower. And they stay in there for a long time. Oh, that's great. Well, my granddaughter,
[7:10]who's three, had her very first shower yesterday. My daughter was saying she was just so tired,
[7:16]and she was like just too tired to do a bath. Her husband's working like he'll 12, 14 hour days.
[7:22]So she said, let's take a shower. And she said, Claire was a little scared at first. But she then went
[7:28]in, because her mom said, well, give you a sucker afterwards. But no, which was probably
[7:36]but she went in. And apparently she loved it. And Claire said, shower's tickle.
[7:42]Oh, just laughing the whole time. So that's yeah. So she's now going to have her adventure
[7:47]and our remind Kelly to try some shaving cream. You should write a children's book about it called
[7:53]showers tickle. That would be funny. Oh, Jimmy, that would be great. And if I do, I'm going to
[7:59]dedicate it to you and your kids. Okay. So much fun. But you're right, showers tickle. That's a great
[8:05]idea. All right. Let's do it together. Okay. Sounds good. So that was so much amazing information.
[8:13]I feel like I'm satisfied enough. I could just get off the phone. No, I'm kidding. I just finished
[8:17]your recent black brother, black brother, which was obviously so well written as everything
[8:22]you write is. And it had some really interesting themes. And I just wanted to find out
[8:26]what made you write that book, what gave you the idea? Tell listeners what it's even about.
[8:31]And let's talk about it. Okay. Black brother, black brother is about two biracial boys,
[8:38]saying mom, saying dad, but one is fair skinned and one is dark skinned. And the one who is dark
[8:46]experiences colorism, experiences prejudice and bias. And he is bullied. And he's called, oh,
[8:53]you're the black brother, black brother, you know, which annoys him to no end. And also is
[8:58]discriminatory. It's actually based on the raising of my two kids. My husband of 30 some years is
[9:09]tall Norwegian scotch iron sky. And our daughter is fair. And our son is brown. And particularly
[9:18]when they turned about 12 years of age, particularly for my son, the world started treating him
[9:24]differently. And he learned that there were some people, even though he we had talked about it,
[9:30]he had never really experienced it in a visceral way that some people saw him and would see him
[9:35]him as a threat, would see him as a possible thief in a store that he'd had to be extra careful
[9:41]while, you know, driving if he was stopped by the police. And it really just rocked his world, you know,
[9:48]because we had grown up in such an equitable home. So it's based on my personal experience.
[9:54]And then it's also based on the school to prison pipeline. When I was writing ghost boys,
[10:00]I learned that children of color, even starting at toddlers in preschool, were suspended
[10:07]disproportionately to white kids, sent to Juvie Hall, or prison, disproportionately to
[10:13]white kids, and were punished more harshly, pretty much all across the United States.
[10:19]And in fact, the zero tolerance policy that some schools have literally makes it that
[10:25]if a child talks back, they can go to Juvie now detention.
[10:29]And when you go to Juvie, the criminal justice laws are completely different, and that
[10:34]the judge has an incredible amount of power, because now you're considered a delinquent, and
[10:40]the judge can decide, yeah, we're going to let you stay in Juvie for six months.
[10:45]So Black brother, you know, Dante, you know, he slams down his backpack because he's
[10:51]been accused of something he didn't do, and they card him off to jail.
[10:56]Dante has privilege, he's rich, his mom's a lawyer, his dad is in computer sciences,
[11:02]and so they're able to fight this, but he actually goes to the courthouse and he makes
[11:07]the association that if you're impoverished, how much more difficult it is to fight this
[11:13]kind of zero tolerance school to prison pipeline.
[11:17]So the third thing that my book is about, because oh, my books are complicated, they
[11:22]read I hope well, but I have a lot of ideas.
[11:26]And the other third thing was that I was shocked when I was an adult and discovered
[11:30]an Alexander Dumas, the author of the Three Musketeers, a man with an iron mask, an
[11:36]Anamani Cristo, was in fact a Black man, French Haitian, and that his dad was called the
[11:44]Black Count and was the famous general of Napoleon's army.
[11:48]And then I thought, oh wait a minute, if all the movies and Calvin shows about the musketeers,
[11:54]it showed them as also as people of color, that might have been another sport that, you
[11:59]know, young people would have gone into, you know, and we wouldn't see it as a kind
[12:03]of white aristocratic sport.
[12:05]So how options get closed down when we don't pay enough attention to diversity?
[12:11]Wow.
[12:13]And I could still go on, girl, but anyway, you can still go on, I love hacking my books
[12:22]come with so many ideas, Zibi, and they're important to me, but the big thing is not then
[12:27]to write a didactic novel, to write a novel about family, friendship, you know, brotherly
[12:34]love, self-esteem, and affirmation, but I do like the idea that my books teach in a sense,
[12:42]they always have an element of historical fiction, and that they sort of uplift.
[12:48]And I also like having characters from all kinds of cultures in my books.
[12:52]So in general, I've had Cajun, I've had Creole, I've had Vietnamese, I've had Chinese,
[12:58]and in Black brother, you know, I make reference to in the neighborhood, there are Pakistanis,
[13:03]you know, there are people from India, there are Africans, and two twins, he start learning
[13:10]how to fence are from Jamaica.
[13:12]So I just love that idea of a mixed blood stew, because my grandma told me that everyone
[13:19]is family.
[13:20]She says we're all kin or she says she's unfortunately dead, she says we're all mixed
[13:26]blood stew.
[13:28]So everybody is related, everybody is kin, and this whole idea that color would be a
[13:35]a determining factor for someone to discriminate against you has got to stop.
[13:40]Okay, good.
[13:43]Pound down our fists, stop, I don't know if your listeners heard that, but I had ponded
[13:48]my desk.
[13:49]I pounded my desk too, we're pounding together, yes, you can't even see we're on Skype.
[13:54]Well, you know, I thought it was interesting in Black brother, how when Dante goes to the
[13:59]police department in the first place, the mother, well, first when his dad shows up, and
[14:05]they realize his dad is white, they treat him completely differently than they had when they
[14:09]didn't know that about him.
[14:10]And same as the judge, when they find out that he fences and that is what his family's
[14:14]like, everybody has a different impression of him altogether than they did at the beginning.
[14:20]And that is me, go ahead, go ahead, no, you go ahead, no, I was just going to say, and
[14:25]that his mother, when she was picking him up at the station, was just so shocked that
[14:30]they wouldn't think to call her.
[14:32]I mean, I think about this with Mike, like the idea that something could happen at school,
[14:36]and they wouldn't call the parents, they would go right to the police is so crazy.
[14:41]And yet it's happening all the time, it's really hard to believe.
[14:44]Oh, absolutely, it's the most frightening thing as a mom for them not to notify you about
[14:50]the welfare of your child, but actually when we were raising our kids for Kelly, people
[14:56]very much thought that I was the nanny, and were very dismissive towards me.
[15:01]And then when my husband was walking with Evan, they were confident that he was such
[15:07]a great guy, because he adopted a black son, that that couldn't be his son.
[15:11]I mean, we even had vacations in Hawaii, say where the kids would go and make ladies,
[15:17]and adults would tell them at the laymaking session that they couldn't possibly be brothers
[15:22]and sisters, and the kids would come back to us and just crying, you know, and then
[15:27]mama had to go on the war path.
[15:29]It's really, it's really amazing.
[15:32]And that's another thing which I don't go into that, that I think children by racial
[15:37]children have to sometimes deal with, and I didn't speak because I don't know enough
[15:41]about it from my children's point of view, but that every day Evan knows my son that
[15:47]society gives him his dad privileges that they don't give him.
[15:53]And a dear friend of mine, she had, there were no robberies in the neighborhood, and
[15:58]they have, in fact, a black son that they adopted, and the police wanted to explore, investigate
[16:05]their home, and she thought it was necessary that she tell them, I have a black son in
[16:11]the bedroom, because she was afraid he would be in danger if the policeman just entered
[16:16]the house and saw the young black kid, so that the sort of mental toll that it takes
[16:22]on everyone is just horrible.
[16:25]And I love Zippy how you said the way that people interpret it, interpret Dante, you're
[16:30]absolutely right.
[16:32]And last night in my ethnic literature class, my student said, well, people interpret
[16:37]you in a certain way that has nothing to do with really who you are.
[16:41]And we've got to stop that.
[16:43]And we interpret you more positively if you're rich, if you're so-called have degrees
[16:49]and educated, when actually my grandmother never finished third grade was the most brilliant
[16:53]person I knew, you know, and we interpret you if you are a different skin tone, and we
[16:59]do that for religion and gender and all kinds of things.
[17:02]And it's really a sad commentary, because, you know, Martin Luther King said it should
[17:08]be the content of your character, and yet it's so hard for us to live that way.
[17:14]So what can we do?
[17:15]Well, I think that's why I'm a middle grade writer.
[17:18]I think that middle grade kids have such empathy, such wondrous hearts, and they are growing
[17:26]up in a time when there are more positive reminders of diversity, that we have made progress
[17:34]in our civil rights, and they've had, you know, friends of different colors, different
[17:40]ethnic, you know, religions, different classes.
[17:43]And my books remind them, or I hope it reminds them to keep that, to not like become cynical
[17:50]and lose it, say in high school or in college, to remind them that, yes, you are on the right
[17:56]track, and that's why I'm very often, and why not very often, but in my books, it's generally
[18:01]the kids who are smarter than adults, the kids, you know, even in ghost boys, when the police
[18:07]officer shoots a young black boy, it's his daughter, his white daughter, who is able to
[18:13]say, dad, you know, I still love you, but you did wrong.
[18:18]And I think that critical thinking that I try to remind kids about is what they need.
[18:24]So they don't wake up one day, and they are just following family tropes, cultural tropes,
[18:30]you know, I'm thinking unconscious bias tropes, you know, that they stop and think,
[18:35]and remember, oh, no, this is about how I choose to live, and life is always better
[18:42]with all different kinds of friends.
[18:45]I would pound my fist again if you could, it was amazing.
[18:52]So just to go back, so when you grew up, you said your mother had left your family,
[18:56]you had gone through this trauma, is that what prompted you to start writing, and did
[19:00]you always know you wanted to be a writer?
[19:03]Every question, I would say that when my mother left, it spurred my imagination.
[19:09]One I thought I was responsible, so I would escape through my imagination, and I used
[19:14]to hide in the closet buried underneath all the winter coats, and just sort of like
[19:20]daydream, or I would lay in bed.
[19:23]So I would also like stare in other people's windows, or cars that were driving by,
[19:28]I can imagine what their lives were like.
[19:31]But I started writing as soon as I became a chapter reader, and so particularly around
[19:36]the third grade, I wrote my very first short story called The Last Screen, which I still
[19:41]have, and I read it to all my fellow classmates, and I was really hooked by that connection
[19:47]between writer and reader or writer and audience.
[19:51]Though I wrote always after that poetry, bad poetry, stories, starts of novels, I know...
[20:00]ever thought I could have a career as a writer
[20:03]because I never read a book by a person of color
[20:06]or even a non-American or British writer at all ever.
[20:12]So I didn't know black people wrote books.
[20:14]And even when I was in college for undergraduate masters,
[20:18]doctor of arts degree, I was never assigned a book
[20:22]by a person of color.
[20:24]And one day I was walking in the Carnegie Mellon University
[20:27]library and on the shelf, they had a book called
[20:30]Curricadora, New Fiction, which was written by Gail Jones,
[20:33]who was a black author.
[20:35]And it was like a revelation when I read it.
[20:37]Wow, black women write books.
[20:40]And I literally changed my major that week to English
[20:44]and started writing.
[20:45]In my class, I was the only person of color.
[20:48]So when I wrote my stories, my classmates
[20:51]would say, why didn't you tell me your characters were black?
[20:54]And I'd say, why don't you tell me
[20:57]your characters are white?
[20:58]But I realized then that I too had learned to read white
[21:02]unless people told me the characters were of color.
[21:05]And I went on a mission to write my stories
[21:08]and then came a page in terms of the university
[21:10]in terms of black studies, to kind of studies.
[21:14]And so it was a great time.
[21:16]But I almost missed my calling simply
[21:19]because I never saw writers of color.
[21:22]I was never offered that.
[21:24]And I was certainly not given a book in an educational system
[21:28]that showed anybody who was non-white.
[21:31]It's so funny how things have changed.
[21:32]I mean, when I went to college, I took a whole class
[21:34]of just African-American literature.
[21:36]I mean, it's like, you don't even think
[21:38]that it's not that long ago that you
[21:41]couldn't even find the books.
[21:42]It's really crazy for me to think about that.
[21:44]It is, and Zippy actually, to put it in context,
[21:47]I was in my late 20s.
[21:49]And now I'm in my mid 60s.
[21:51]So I was in my late 20s when they were just
[21:53]starting African-American studies programs.
[21:56]And when I was coming out looking for work as a assistant
[21:59]professor, I wanted to be a writing teacher.
[22:02]But everybody wanted me to be an African-American studies
[22:05]person.
[22:06]But I hadn't studied that.
[22:08]But I did on my own study it.
[22:10]I didn't study it within the university
[22:13]because they didn't offer it.
[22:14]So in fact, I eventually went on to become
[22:17]a professor of African-American studies
[22:20]and creative writing.
[22:22]So a lot of us, that first generation professors
[22:25]who taught African-American literature, we were self-taught.
[22:29]And then started creating the degrees.
[22:31]Isn't it cool?
[22:32]Yes.
[22:34]And then when I was a little girl, we had Dick and Jane.
[22:36]I bet you don't remember Dick and Jane,
[22:38]who had the nuclear family, the little dog name spot,
[22:42]and the picket fence.
[22:43]Yes.
[22:44]I mean, that didn't look familiar to me either.
[22:46]I mean, who were these blonde people
[22:48]with the little house in the fence?
[22:49]I mean, I'm living New York City.
[22:50]I'm like, I don't know.
[22:52]I mean, everybody's life is different.
[22:54]It kind of makes me wonder what classes are my kids
[22:57]going to be offered in college that I didn't get,
[23:00]like what literature will maybe expose to that.
[23:02]I wasn't and that I'm missing out on now,
[23:05]or what's going to come up in the next 20 years.
[23:08]Isn't that amazing?
[23:09]That's beautiful.
[23:10]It's wonderful.
[23:11]Yeah.
[23:12]Well, have a book, keep a book club with your children.
[23:15]And I say that to all moms and all of the dads.
[23:18]Because my son and I, we now have a book club.
[23:20]So all his friends are like 30, 31, 32.
[23:25]And we talk on the weekends.
[23:27]And we just get to pick a book.
[23:29]And it's been the most refreshing thing ever
[23:33]because they're sharing their ideas.
[23:35]And I'm sharing my ideas.
[23:36]And I just love it.
[23:38]So whatever your kids are reading 20 years from now,
[23:41]join a book club with them, or make a book club,
[23:44]and talk to them about it.
[23:45]And then you could tell them, oh, well, have you read?
[23:49]You can fill up one of your favorite books
[23:51]that from African American literature say.
[23:53]Wow.
[23:54]That's a great idea.
[23:55]I don't know if my kids would ever want to do that with me,
[23:57]but maybe some of them wouldn't.
[24:00]Or talk that my son's friends want to do a book club with me.
[24:03]But we have a great time talking.
[24:05]And I'm so privileged.
[24:06]I mean, if you were my kid's mom,
[24:08]they would want to do a book club with you, too.
[24:12]Yes.
[24:13]I want to do a book club with you.
[24:14]You should just like conference me in.
[24:15]That sounds fun.
[24:18]So what are you working on now?
[24:19]Are you doing, are you must be writing more books?
[24:21]So what do you have coming up?
[24:23]Well, I do have a picture book that I've
[24:25]been working on for a long time.
[24:27]And books, pictures are extraordinarily
[24:30]difficult to write.
[24:31]I'm hoping I wanted to do it.
[24:33]But in terms of a middle grade book,
[24:35]I'm actually writing about climate change in the wildfires.
[24:39]To me, living in California, being in the West,
[24:43]also seeing what's happening in Australia,
[24:45]having Greta get nominated as the team kind of activist.
[24:50]I really want to talk about that.
[24:53]But also, I went to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to give a talk.
[24:57]And Jackson Hole, Wyoming is predominantly a white community.
[25:00]And in the audience, in the back row,
[25:03]we're a group of black kids.
[25:05]And I was like, wow, that's so cool.
[25:07]And it turns out that they were part of a project
[25:10]based in DC called City Kids, where
[25:13]they take young city kids, oftentimes kids of color,
[25:17]and they take them out into the wilderness
[25:20]so that they get a chance to experience it.
[25:22]And they do it for multi-years.
[25:25]And so by the time they become high school students,
[25:27]they're the mentoring middle grade students.
[25:29]And so also based on that, I wanted
[25:32]to talk about how our city kids are starved for nature.
[25:37]And also, when I go visit the National Parks,
[25:40]to me, this was a great tragedy.
[25:42]You see little diversity in national parts.
[25:46]It's just amazing.
[25:48]It's a grand canyon Yosemite.
[25:50]I mean, the lack of diversity for our public treasures
[25:54]is just incredible.
[25:56]But myself, I never went to a public park
[25:59]or I mean, the National Park, when I was a kid,
[26:02]or I never learned how to swim when I was a kid.
[26:04]I just lived in the city when I was a kid.
[26:06]I didn't know the divorce.
[26:08]And so I want to talk about the healing of nature
[26:11]and then also about what happens when,
[26:13]with climate change, or irresponsible activities,
[26:17]we make situations where we're burning up the very thing
[26:20]that is so good for our souls.
[26:22]Wow, that sounds amazing.
[26:23]I can't wait for that.
[26:24]I don't know whether it's going to work.
[26:26]It's going to work.
[26:27]I'm going to put money on that.
[26:28]It's going to be beautiful, thank you.
[26:32]So I'm going to call you whenever I'm feeling insecure,
[26:35]which I do feel a lot.
[26:37]And I guess maybe this answers your question earlier
[26:40]a little bit better writing for children.
[26:43]I always wanted to write for children
[26:45]because I wanted to be able to see a book that
[26:48]represented their diversity and their wonder
[26:52]because I needed such books when I was a child.
[26:54]Even though I read about white authors,
[26:55]I learned empathy, humanity, books or books
[26:59]and they're wonderful, you know.
[27:01]But I am writing for the child of color.
[27:03]That's the way until she's a junior in college
[27:06]to see another character of color.
[27:08]But to me, books kept my hope a lot.
[27:12]It kept me from being bitter,
[27:14]kept me from being closed off from the world
[27:16]and healed me in a way.
[27:18]So to write for a child to me is the highest honor possible.
[27:23]So even when I started writing and I wrote like seven,
[27:26]say adult books, I'd always say to my agent,
[27:30]but I want to write for children.
[27:32]And so I kept practicing to become good enough,
[27:35]I thought, to be able to write for children.
[27:38]And the day that Hurricane Katrina hit,
[27:40]I had an adult novel about New Orleans
[27:43]get published that day.
[27:44]And it was really traumatizing.
[27:46]And then two weeks later,
[27:48]my publisher sent me to New Orleans for book tour live.
[27:52]And I do book tour, but basically it's a devastated community
[27:57]in town.
[27:58]And that's when I knew I had to try to write
[28:01]about the children who had to survive Katrina
[28:04]and the animals that had to survive Katrina
[28:07]and talk about their resilience.
[28:09]And that was when my middle grade career was born.
[28:13]And I finally felt that ready.
[28:16]So I am living my best life now.
[28:19]And the thing about being a woman,
[28:21]about being a mom,
[28:22]we go through all these marvelous stages
[28:24]from when our kids,
[28:26]well, you know, be pre-pregnancy,
[28:29]being pregnant, which I love,
[28:30]having the toddlers,
[28:32]you know, going up the whole chain
[28:34]and then being an older mother.
[28:36]But it's like the stages that I've gone through
[28:40]just as a person are just amazing.
[28:42]And it just keeps getting better and better.
[28:44]And I think that's such a cool gift that we have as moms.
[28:48]So my writing career in terms of me doing precisely
[28:52]what I wanted to do happened later.
[28:55]So if you ever get a patient moms
[28:57]with what you're doing or not doing,
[28:59]it's just like a symphony.
[29:01]Your life is a symphony and it has different movements
[29:05]and all will come to fruition.
[29:07]Wow, thank you.
[29:08]That's fantastic, fantastic advice.
[29:12]Well, thank you so much for coming on moms.
[29:14]And I have time to read books and for sharing everything.
[29:16]And I hope I get to meet you in person.
[29:18]You're such a special woman.
[29:20]And I wish there were billions of you out there
[29:23]because you're spreading such a great message
[29:25]and being so inclusive and uniting.
[29:28]And I think that's really what we need right now.
[29:29]So it's really wonderful.
[29:31]Well, I think you're amazing.
[29:33]And I hope to meet you too, Ziti.
[29:35]And I'm gonna get off line and we should think about
[29:39]doing that tickle book, showers, tickle together.
[29:41]I'm in.
[29:42]And thank you for your podcast and your service
[29:45]and keeping books alive for everyone.
[29:48]Love you, love you, love you, bye.
[29:51]You've been listening to moms
[29:52]and have time to read books with Ziti Owens.
[29:54]Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter
[29:57]at zibbyowans.com to get more updates about.
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[30:15]You can follow me on Instagram at momsdon'thavetimetoreadbooks.
[30:19]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at TextureSound for the sound editing,
[30:23]and thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[30:25]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.
[30:28]Thanks for listening.
[30:29]You can always email me at zibiatzibiowans.com.