Lauren Tarshis, I SURVIVED: THE CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:13]Please sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com for weekly updates about my podcast's events and more.
[0:20]Also, follow me on Instagram at zibiowens and also at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:26]And finally, join my virtual book club called Zibi's Virtual Book Club, which meets every other Tuesday at 2 p.m.
[0:32]Eastern Time until 3 p.m. and features half an hour of book club discussion followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the author whose book we've just discussed.
[0:41]You can sign up on my website zibiowens.com under the virtual book club section or even on Instagram, under the link in my bio.
[0:49]I hope you'll find me in all these different channels and enjoy this podcast.
[0:53]Hi, everybody. So today, the sponsor for my podcast is my other podcast. I am launching Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight.
[1:01]It launched Monday, October 12th, and hopefully it'll stick around for a long time. It features
[1:08]women talking to other women about their journeys of their bodies and getting tips and
[1:14]commiseration and all the things we need so that we don't feel alone in trying to make our bodies
[1:20]feel better tomorrow than they do today. So check out Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight.
[1:25]And it's also a community now on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight. So if you
[1:29]will fall into that category, like I do and so many of us, come join us, the doors open.
[1:35]Welcome to Day 2 of the Children's Book last week. I'm excited you're here and I hope you
[1:40]enjoyed the episodes yesterday. Today, I have another two episodes. The first is with Lauren Tarshis.
[1:46]She's the New York Times best-selling author of the Eye-Survived series with more than
[1:51]30 million copies in print. She tells stories of young people and their resilience and strength
[1:56]in the midst of unimaginable disasters and times of turmoil. She's covered such topics as
[2:01]D-Day, Hurricane Katrina, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and other world events. In this book,
[2:07]it's Eye-Survived the California Wildfires, which is unfortunately a very timely book.
[2:12]In addition to being an acclaimed author, Lauren is a mom and an editor of Scholastic
[2:16]Classroom magazines, which includes storyworks and acclaimed national language arts
[2:20]classroom magazine. She currently lives in Connecticut with her family and can be found online
[2:25]at lorantarshis.com. Hi, hello. So nice to see you. You too. Look at your beautiful. It's like
[2:34]a milks chamber of books. Yes, it is. Oh my gosh, we're just shut that door. Second before my
[2:40]son comes in, we're still doing like gradual back-to-school. How old is he? He is five.
[2:46]I also have a seven-year-old and two-thirteen-year-old, so I'm like goodness. He does like every
[2:52]other day and next week, he'll go back for good. But what about you? You have four kids too, right?
[2:56]You do. But they're much older. I feel like everyone but our oldest is home. It's like we're sort
[3:00]of like a we work meets the Waltons. That's the vibe to create. So we've got our, my youngest is 16.
[3:09]So she's able to manage her hybrid schooling pretty independently. I just, my heart, I
[3:16]thinking of your, you know, a year old, particularly. They're in school though. I mean, it's crazy.
[3:21]They're doing Zoom in the afternoons. But the mornings at least they get to go and it's so nice.
[3:26]Where you run around. We're in New York City and we just came back.
[3:31]You know, I have to tell you, I love your podcast so much. And I really, in my book club,
[3:37]and I listen to you. We were with us. And this was before, you know, I was so thrilled and honored
[3:43]when Alex told me that I would be talking to you because we had, it was very, it was like a date
[3:49]was very strangely serendipitous because it had been maybe just a couple days after we had
[3:56]just gone wild over disappearing earth. And we listened to you because we were just fascinated.
[4:04]So yeah, that was great. That was great. In fact, I would love to like change the topic of our
[4:11]podcast. Let's talk about that. Because I'm sure everyone wants to hear my opinion.
[4:17]But I had never had the experience. It really, that last line of that book, it physically took
[4:24]my breath away. No, I get it. I get it. I mean, I actually listened to that book, which I don't
[4:29]always do. And so I feel like I was like so immersed in it. And like, I don't know, there's something
[4:34]about listening to books, but I don't know. It's almost like, like you're more, I don't know. I can't
[4:38]explain it, but hopefully you're not talking about it. Yeah, I actually like to toggle between them.
[4:44]It's very decadent, but I'll have like the hard cover of that and then listen to it. And especially
[4:50]for that one, because I read on a low level, because I need like a lot of support. So just having
[4:55]her pronounce all the names and the places, you know, the audio helping in that way,
[5:01]then going back to the book. What do you mean you read at a low level?
[5:05]Well, I actually, I was a terrible reader. It was like the first thing I tell the children when I
[5:09]go to a school. I didn't read a book show. I was 14. But that's really not. I mean, I know,
[5:14]obviously I read fine now, but I do have trouble like synthesizing information. I have to,
[5:19]especially when I'm doing research. I'll have to read, you know, if I'm reading a real tone with a
[5:24]lot of dates and places and people. Anyway, it's quite ironic that I find like shocking that I
[5:31]find myself talking to you. When I flat met my childhood self, I actually tried to reach out to you
[5:38]like two years ago. When I first started my podcast, because my daughter, who's now 13, had been
[5:44]reading your Japanese tsunami, I survived book for school better. But anyway, per school, we were
[5:49]reading that together. And I was like, this book is amazing. I have to. And she's like,
[5:53]do you think you're in the other? I was like, I don't know. I'll try it. But it was, I was so new
[5:57]to it. So I don't know. If you come to me directly or did you go through scholastic?
[6:02]No, I think I emailed you on your website or something. Whoa. That was a period of time. My reader
[6:08]mail is a source because I try to answer everyone. And it's like, it's a source of, as I'm getting
[6:12]older, I'm trying to let go of shame and guilt. But it's like, I'm haunted by it because I try like,
[6:19]I make, you know, I like, I expand a large amount of energy. And then still I hear from kids,
[6:24]like, you never wrote me, you know, I never heard. Anyway, well, I'm glad you forgave me.
[6:29]As I forget, no, and at the time, I was so new to it. I think, you know, I didn't know to go to
[6:33]publicism. Like now, you know, well, I know, you know, I would have left it the chance.
[6:40]But I've been, you know, focused on, well, I'll just say, so nice to be able to talk to you.
[6:45]I can't believe you were saying you're sort of a slower reader because the amount of research
[6:50]and information and the way you create environments makes everybody feel like they actually
[6:56]lived through all your stories. Like, for real, like, I feel like I'm like traumatized after
[7:01]I finished reading because I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel like I've survived all this stuff.
[7:05]It's amazing. So how do you do it? Like, first of all, how do you pick which I survived topics?
[7:11]How did you, I know, I read somewhere that you had started at Bring Your Son,
[7:14]Dylan on your website, you said that, but tell me about starting the whole series and how
[7:18]you now pick which disasters to focus on. Okay. So definitely right, the series was inspired.
[7:25]I think by both my experience as a mom of four kids, my boys, my older, my boys who were the older
[7:32]three, the middle two, particularly were not interested in reading it also. I was always in
[7:36]that situation that so many parents are of just constantly trying to find books that
[7:42]light them up and this will be it and not succeeding. And at the same time, for many years,
[7:48]for 30 years, I was just very staggering and now increasingly shocking number. I have worked at
[7:55]Scholastic in the magazine division for my dog. And so in that role, I have been, I spent an enormous
[8:03]amount of time with teachers and in classrooms and with kids and trying to take topics that are
[8:08]generally considered, I mean, that are either not engaging inherently or are removed from the lives
[8:14]of our kids. You know, if it's a story about the Civil War or a story about Korea, anything,
[8:19]trying to make those engaging. And so I found that through the magazine work that any time I had
[8:24]a real child or a fictional child and put them in the middle of the story, those were the stories
[8:29]that their teachers wrote to me about and kids wanted to know more about. And so I was actually
[8:34]really surprised when I started to think about, you know, that there wasn't already a book series
[8:40]for that age for that sort of third to fifth grade level that did that. Now, there are, of course,
[8:46]there are wonderful narrative nonfiction books written by incredible authors, you know, like
[8:52]Debra Hopkinson and Tom Rebold, Tommy Bolden, all these amazing authors, but there really wasn't
[8:57]anything in that between Magic Treehouse and Lightning Thief. There was this gap in, you know,
[9:02]for my, for my sons. So I think the hybrid experience for me of being the parent and the, you know,
[9:09]the sort of author educator gave me that inspiration. And that is your right there. They are an
[9:15]enormous amount of research because what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to do with a very fine
[9:20]brush stroke, create these little, you know, these vignettes for kids. So they really know, you know,
[9:27]what is it smell like, you know, on an inside of tornado, actually, or, you know, what is it feel
[9:33]like to hold a cannonball. So that's really the, the, I mean, that's the fun part of the research.
[9:39]But that is, that does mean that it's not just a sort of linear research path of learning
[9:45]about a topic. It's really trying to find is a lot of the research is ancillary, you know, I'm looking
[9:52]kind of going down tributaries, hoping that that will unearth, you know, some incredible detail about,
[9:58]you know, for my California.
[10:00]file fires book, which is unfortunately way too timely at this moment, you know, it was
[10:05]really wanting kids to understand because what it was like for a firefighter in a wildfire,
[10:10]what are the sensory experiences that you would have if you had to deploy your fire shelter?
[10:15]So you're interviewing people and reading, you know, very arcane firefighter blogs and,
[10:23]you know, trying to get as close to the sources as you can, whether it's a, which is
[10:28]easier, obviously, for contemporary topics that it would be, you know, writing about ancient
[10:33]Rome. But it's really, I mean, that's definitely the most exciting part. Other than,
[10:38]well, the most exciting part is being with kids and talking to you and that of, you know, being
[10:46]on that kind of treasure hunt for the detail that I really want a kid to be like, you know,
[10:51]there's always like three or four facts in a book that I just, I want the kids, even if it's not
[10:56]about the detail, it's certainly the topic itself, maybe it's something for the California
[11:02]wildfires. I had this whole front story that the characters, one of them, they run this reptile rescue,
[11:08]which is like a real thing that people give up their large pet reptiles because they can't
[11:13]take care of them. And then you or I would like have a shelter for them. So details about like
[11:18]having a large monitor lizard that you're taking care of. And I want kids to just, you know,
[11:23]that that breaks up that more, the background information and all those facts that you also
[11:29]that I really want them to absorb. So it almost, you know, it's alternating between the boring
[11:34]facts or the just, and these sparkling details that distract them from the fact that they're actually
[11:40]learning stuff. It's amazing. You should do this for grownups. I mean, it's actually just an
[11:45]exercise and empathy is what you're doing. You're literally putting kids in other people's shoes
[11:50]and you're using it in like historical context. But it's really a gift. It's like, how can you
[11:55]imagine what life is like for someone else going through something hard? And yet, you're also teaching
[12:00]them. So I don't know. I feel like the main gift is that is the empathy piece and the ability to,
[12:06]it's almost like memoir for kids, right? You're inspiring me. I'm going to cling to your words,
[12:13]and I'm going to like put them in my heart and my brain, and they will be there with me all day,
[12:18]you know, it's sort of sometimes it feels like almost a ridiculous amount of work. You know, like
[12:23]luckily my editor and my, you know, the people who I work with, they do understand, but these books,
[12:28]they, they, you would be looking at these little, that little paperbacks. You'd think that I just
[12:33]sort of, you know, that they could be, especially now that I've written 20, that they would just be
[12:37]sort of so easy. They're quite torturous. And my, when I'm about to, you know, get into that heavy
[12:44]deadline mode with my family, everyone's like, all right, it's going to be, it's, and I'll say
[12:50]to my husband, I think this one's going to be easier. And he's like, okay, I'm glad we play that before
[12:56]every single one, but I don't think it's, I think you're free. It's going to be horrible.
[13:05]Like how long does it take? Like how long do you research? And then how long does the writing take
[13:10]well, I generally because I have very kind of understanding, you know, the editor, my editor, Katie and
[13:15]the whole team. I have been generally gotten away with writing all the way up to the very last
[13:21]second. And they have wanted to a year up till now. So that means six months for each one,
[13:27]but it's really, it became too much for me. I mean, I just, I just, because the minute I finished
[13:32]one, I would have like a week. And then I would just have to completely shed, you know,
[13:38]revolutionary war and plunge into, you know, World War II or, you know, so I just became, and then
[13:45]the joy of it kind of started to go away from me to be honest. You know, I, this is very much,
[13:50]I feel so for, you know, I don't want to sound, you know, like one of those people, like it's
[13:53]such a joy, you know, all that because it's, but it is a, it's a very, I mean, look, the experience
[13:59]again of being able to talk to you and hear you respond to this work that I've done in the way
[14:03]that you do. It's an incredible, I just feel like tickled by it constantly. And I found myself,
[14:09]you know, around maybe 15, 16 really feeling like I just couldn't keep this up.
[14:14]So fortunately, they had the very genius idea of creating a line of graphic novels based on
[14:20]I survived. So there, you know, and I'm a little bit involved. I mean, you know, they're
[14:24]incredibly kind about, you know, I approve things and I had, there's this incredible author named
[14:29]Georgia Ball. She's a script writer for graphic novels and she somehow interprets my stories in
[14:34]this really lyrical way. So she, the team just does a beautiful job and I get to kind of watch and
[14:39]then weigh in the history and all of that. So that now has enabled us to create a schedule, like
[14:46]an, you know, an annual schedule that is much more, that lives, leaves more breathing room.
[14:50]But it's really six months by the, you know, researching and I, one of the problems now is with
[14:55]COVID, I'm not able to travel. So I have traveled except for Japan and the bottom of the North
[15:02]of Lantec to see the Titanic. I've gone everywhere for, for the books because I do feel like
[15:07]that's a super important thing. And I like to take video there because I like to, you know, be
[15:11]able to show the kids, you know, what, what it would have been like for, you know, the characters
[15:16]and for them to walk in the characters shoes. And often the stories then give birth to nonfiction
[15:22]articles that appear in the magazine story work on it, which I, which is like this beautiful
[15:27]labor and love that I create with the team at Scholastic. It's this ELA magazine. I'll send you
[15:33]something for your, well, I'll send you storyworks the second grade version, which is so adorable
[15:37]for your seven year old. So, you know, the work I do when I survived actually many different sprouts
[15:44]come from it that end up blooming in different places. So I bet, I mean, I'm sure you know,
[15:50]this, but I bet there are a lot of people who would jump at the chance to help you do your research
[15:54]and like speed along the process of these books. Do you feel like it's hard to outsource that?
[15:59]You're so, you're so, I would love it. And I've, you know, there, and I, but the problem is it
[16:04]goes back to what we talked about earlier is that so much of, is I really do. I, I've learned to
[16:10]create the character for the most part. That's the first thing I do know. And that's, that's
[16:15]something I learned from my editor, Katie, who's, who's only been doing the books for the past, I think
[16:19]three or four, but she's really helped me understand that I used to discover the character
[16:24]during the writing process and then have to go back and research to create additional experiences
[16:28]for my, my character to have these, you know, epiphanies or opportunities for growth. But she was
[16:35]like, that is not enough. You have to figure out the character. It's like 101, you know,
[16:40]I'm sure this is when your daughter's 13 year old writing the character's journey. So that
[16:47]is something, you know, that now I do, I really do try to figure that out beforehand after a
[16:51]little bit of research just understanding basically kind of the trajectory of the book. But then
[16:57]all of that a great stuff, all those really is, I discovered accidentally. And I, and sometimes
[17:02]what I discover in research, like I spent several days just researching helicopters for the wildfire
[17:09]story. And I learned that like the cool, the ones that many of the firefighters have loved the most
[17:14]are these old Hueys from Vietnam, you know, from the Vietnam War. So just, that's the kind of thing
[17:19]that I couldn't have that a person, a researcher. And that became like a little chapter head spots,
[17:26]those helicopters. And they led me into this whole incredible world of like magazine articles and,
[17:33]you know, blog posts by firefighter, you know, helicopter pilots, the people who are now in Oregon.
[17:39]And that create, help me create these two characters that are, you know, one particular character
[17:44]one of the firefighters is this woman who's just, you know, very badass, who's the best helicopter
[17:50]pilot in their cow fire district. What do you, I mean, I know the forest fires now are raging
[17:57]again. It's like unthinkable that, I mean, they're both going to be coming on me this
[18:02]timely. I know you mentioned it. But like, how are you to say leveraging it sounds totally crude
[18:07]and commercial. But like, how are you, how are you getting the word out? Because now people are
[18:12]really suffering right now and could probably use this experience. You know, I mean, I feel like
[18:16]you should be like air dropping books of them to California or something. I don't know.
[18:21]I don't know. I mean, it's a really good question. I mean, I've been in touch, you know, that
[18:24]I don't know. The story of that book is very, it had a very wonderful emotional component,
[18:31]which is that one of the things that happens to me as the author of the series,
[18:36]also in my role at the magazines is that a lot of people do reach out to me directly in the
[18:41]aftermath of disasters. So this lovely woman named Holly Fisher wrote to me four days after,
[18:48]I think four days after the town of paradise burned down. She had grown up there and her son,
[18:52]Lucas reads my books. And she just wrote me this beautiful email. Like, you know, I'm right,
[18:56]the camp that you might have heard about the fire that destroyed my town of paradise.
[19:01]The fire is still bulb burning. I think that you should come here. I know you'd have many
[19:05]people who would want to share their stories. So we got in touch and there were other people who
[19:10]had written to me from from those areas. So a few months later, my three of the four kids and
[19:15]my husband and I went to paradise and we met Holly and her husband, Josh, who's a firefighter who
[19:20]helped save people and a parking lot, you know, unbelievable. And they took us around the
[19:25]ruins of the town. And then we went back in the summer to kind of see how things were. And
[19:30]I wrote an article about it for the magazine and we created a video. And I wasn't really intending
[19:34]to write and I survived book about it. But a lot of the kids said to me, are you going to write
[19:38]about this? And then I thought, you know, I learned so much when I was there. And I do think it's
[19:43]a very important climate story. You know, and it's a story also about, you know, our relationship
[19:48]with nature and, you know, not all of it is climate. I mean, a huge part of it is, but it's also
[19:54]how we have, you know, this interesting, I don't know if you remember the book, The Big Burn,
[19:58]I think it was Tim Egan.
[20:00]He writes about that was the biggest wildfire in American history.
[20:04]I think it was 1910 if I'm not mistaken, but that fire in the bitter root mountains in Idaho
[20:09]and Montana, it gave rise to the whole fire of suppression policy.
[20:15]We're going to put out every fire because it was so terrifying and it made sense like,
[20:19]but people didn't understand how important regular fires were to forest health and preventing
[20:26]the overload of dead trees and brush that is fueling.
[20:31]There's some crazy, I mean, it's like we could talk for a long time about this,
[20:35]but so I want to decide that it would be worthwhile to do.
[20:38]But I don't want to be tweeting about my wildfire book every day now that the wildfire
[20:46]is burning and I think if kids discover it, I'm in touch with Holly every day because they're
[20:52]in paradise, their house, it survived nothing else and their neighborhood did.
[20:57]And she's very involved in trying to rebuild paradise.
[21:01]So it's tricky. I feel like I know that the people of paradise and those counts
[21:08]want people to know what happened to them and share and they were really just that these
[21:16]people fighting the fires, all of that. So I really want this to be about honoring them,
[21:21]but I don't want to be like in any way. I mean, I don't want people to, and I don't want
[21:26]people to, I don't think it's appropriate frankly for someone, I don't imagine if I was a parent,
[21:33]I would necessarily, I mean, even though there was the fire fire book has a very happy ending, of course,
[21:38]and it's a very, it's a story of resilience like all of them. If I keep thinking, if I was
[21:43]a parent in Paris in California, Oregon right now, this would be the book I want my kid reading,
[21:48]maybe not. So later, you know, when they can really connect and for people elsewhere to empathize
[21:55]and to really want to engage and help people in the back, there's stuff on what you can do.
[22:00]So that I think is super important.
[22:03]Totally. I sat down, I tried to read it to my two little guys, who as I mentioned, are
[22:07]Ivan 7 and I started reading it and they're like, but this is a fire, this is so scary.
[22:12]And I was like, okay, I'm going to say that for a while, it's okay, it's true. Yeah, it's true.
[22:17]I mean, I think that I'm, I have to, you know, I'm continually, they are my daughter never read
[22:23]my daughter did not read my books. She was too scared. And I think that's, you know, I think
[22:28]these are really, these are books that are four certain kids who are not going to over-identify.
[22:35]And so I hear you know, I recommend, you know, I don't recommend them for very young kids.
[22:42]I'm shocked, I'll get letters from parents like, we just read the 9-11 book together to
[22:47]lock kindergarten. Have you ever thought about writing an adult version? Like, I survived,
[22:53]you know, I mean, it would have to be, you know, repackaged. But I don't know, I just feel like these,
[22:57]there are a lot of grownups you can benefit from learning about the wildfares right now. We're
[23:01]learning about all these scenes and, you know, people, a lot of grownups have short intentions
[23:06]bands now that almost, I mean, not that reading your younger kids books couldn't benefit them,
[23:10]but I just feel like parents might be reluctant to read them on their own. But you have to read it
[23:15]from Meeshian and the sensibility behind them, you know, not that you need another project,
[23:20]you're overwhelmed as it is. But I'm just saying, like, it's a unique skill to be able to take
[23:25]something that happens in the world and make it so relatable immediately that I feel like the world
[23:31]could really use even for grownups. That's all. Well, that's, I think it would be, you know,
[23:36]I, there are so many, I'm a, that's definitely my favorite genre, you know, the great narrative
[23:40]nonfiction writers and there's so many of them. Is it William Long Beach? I can never pronounce
[23:45]his name. William Long Beach, he's right for the Atlantic. He wrote the, this is the looming tower
[23:50]Tim Egan. There are just so many amazing authors who are doing this and I read all of their books and
[23:56]I think, oh my gosh, you know, I would be sort of a dream to be able to spend a couple of years and
[24:01]and even there was this great book and you're my, I'm showing my age because I have zero short term
[24:06]memory where it's quite a problem. Other people seem to be fairly indulgent, where there's a
[24:10]great, there's a great book I recommend, which is the kind of book I would love to write called,
[24:14]this is chance. Have you heard of this? Not the Alaska earthquake. It just came out this past year.
[24:19]It's so wonderful. And the author, I can tell you, because it's, I can tell you, the author, it's
[24:24]this 1962 earthquake that happened in Alaska, right when Alaska was sort of, you know, getting on
[24:31]solid ground as a state and anchorage was sort of growing and, and just pulls in all these
[24:38]wonderful tangents about Alaska, about the time period and about this woman, Jenny Chance, who is
[24:43]the weather, weather woman and brought people hope and calm in the aftermath of this completely
[24:50]devastating earthquake and tsunami in Alaska. So the idea of bringing to life an, a little known
[24:58]event, but also illuminating this large chapter of our history and of course, there are all sorts
[25:04]of things that all sorts of insights that are applicable to us today. So maybe I will see.
[25:10]If you were going to write and I survived about something really awful from your own life,
[25:16]like what would that be about? Oh boy, that's a great question. No one's ever asked me that
[25:22]for my own life. Well, I think that I'm fortunate that I've, as I always tell the kids,
[25:28]there was like to do live through any of those disasters. So I always say, well, I've seen a tornado
[25:32]from a distance and I've been through a bunch of hurricanes because you're on the east coast and I
[25:36]in an earthquake, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't a, it was in California, but it wasn't a,
[25:40]you know, a huge one. So I've never felt that my life has been in danger through because of an
[25:45]event like the way my characters are. But I have been through one of our sons had, you know, was
[25:51]what had an illness that lasted a few years and he's great. So, you know, and fortunately it was not
[26:00]this dire, you know, thing like many people experience. But, you know, the experience, I think,
[26:05]of your life shattering apart, which is what so many of the people now, so many people are
[26:13]experiencing at this moment, whether it's because of COVID directly or because of the economic
[26:19]collapse or because of now these fires, you know, that's something that I, you know, fortunately
[26:24]have not, you know, ever been through. But of course, it's what we all, you know, we all know,
[26:30]I think that's what keeps me writing these stories in a lot of ways is we think we have all this
[26:35]control over, that's what I've learned over and over, these two big lessons. We think we have a
[26:39]lot of control and that we can really by being really careful or very planning in advance or
[26:45]disciplined or good, that we can forestall something, but we, you know, we can't. The other piece,
[26:52]the flip side, which is why I keep doing it, because if you only focus on that first part, it
[26:55]gets very grim, is that I am really honestly like talking to Holly Fisher from Paradise,
[27:02]I hang up the phone with her and I just feel so like stronger. People go through those shattering
[27:07]events and you see it, whether it's looking at, you know, what happened, you know, during the
[27:13]Holocaust or what happened during the Chicago fire or, you know, these wild, you know, in paradise,
[27:19]people find the strength, you know, they go through a grieving process, it's really hard,
[27:24]it's not quick for some people, it's, you know, terrible and agonizing and lengthy, but people,
[27:31]for the most part, do find the strength somehow to go on and feel joyful again. And I'm sitting here,
[27:37]I'm in this beautiful office of mine because there used to be my mother-in-law's apartment,
[27:41]which is connected to our house, she died at the age of 97 a couple of years ago.
[27:46]So she lived with us for 10 years and she was a survivor of World War I and a refugee and she
[27:50]decided a life that you cannot even, I mean, that should be a book. And one of my, one regret
[27:57]is that I didn't write her story because I didn't think she wanted me to and it wasn't until
[28:01]the very end that it was clear that she would have liked that and she was going to write it herself.
[28:07]But I would wake up sometimes and she was a real night out, she would stay up until two in the
[28:12]morning and she lived for many years in the Jewish ghetto of Shanghai during World War II and lost
[28:19]people in the Holocaust. And I would, you know, get up in the middle of the night to get a drink
[28:23]water if one of my kids needed me. And I hear this noise coming from here and it was her on the
[28:27]phone with like her friend Hilda in Rome laughing, this joyful, you know, Hilda Huda, and I would
[28:34]think what, you know, after all you've been through, you know, there's still a lot of joy. So
[28:41]that's, I think, you know, what makes me happiest would really give me a lot of satisfaction.
[28:46]What you can imagine is when I hear from kids who go, who are going through difficult things and
[28:50]I learn, they write to me where their parents write to me and they say that the books somehow,
[28:55]you know, kids who've been through difficult events, fine, they connect with my characters and
[29:00]they find, you know, it's not a trauma to be triggering them, but it's actually bolstering them in
[29:05]some way. So I think of course, every person reacts differently, but it's been a lesson,
[29:13]it's a constant lesson through all the research. You know, it's an inspiring takeaway. I mean,
[29:18]it's just super inspiring. That's what, and especially now it's what people need. So
[29:22]do you have any advice for aspiring authors? I think, yes, I mean, I don't know what you think,
[29:27]but and I'd actually love that at other time we'll have to talk because I'm curious on your
[29:31]take after speaking to so many authors, but you know, I don't consider myself, you know,
[29:35]a Julia Phillips-like literary novelist, Alice Monroe, you know, by heroes, but I really think
[29:41]of myself as a storyteller who is constantly working on her craft. Like I do embroidery. Here's my
[29:48]latest embroidery sampler that I do. I'm very analogous. You know, you like you learn these
[29:53]different stitches and you practice them and you notice one, like I, in Julia's book or
[29:59]and, you know, when they out.
[30:00]and I'll sort of see this amazing, like look at this sentence and I'll look it right
[30:04]it down and study it. So I think that writing is something that can be learned and people
[30:10]improve and that writing, you know, a few books that are bad and unpublishable is really
[30:18]part of that journey. So that's the advice. You know, just you have to start writing your
[30:23]bad books and kind of and looking at those as part of the learning process.
[30:28]I have heard from so many people and it seems to me that the magic number is three.
[30:32]You have to write like three novels before like the third one might sell but the first two
[30:37]you should just say even though you think you're gonna be like the great American novel like
[30:41]it's okay if they don't sell at the end. Like most people have to write two full novels before
[30:46]they sell one. That's just my anecdotal. Yeah, I think you're totally right and I also think
[30:50]you know the other piece of it is that maybe it's different now because I think people see,
[30:55]you know, write the world of writing and writers who's changed so much over the past 20 years and
[31:00]it's you know it's hard to make a living as a writer, right? So most I think the idea of taking it
[31:06]on and not be as upset not being as obsessed with becoming a bestseller or because you know
[31:12]that saying this is something I want to do this is something I'm gonna do. I mean that was sort
[31:17]of my rep you know I wrote like a really terrible first novel that I sent out like beautifully
[31:22]bound from kinkos with a spiral to like you know an imagining like the movie rights and you know
[31:27]maybe I'll be able to ask me to do a cameo after it was terrible you know so but it wasn't my dad
[31:33]who was a writer. He's a freelance writer and I was growing up and he worked for magazines very
[31:38]scrappy when you could make a sort of living as a freelance writer. My mom was a teacher in that
[31:44]helped but my dad loved when he did and he did all kinds of you know all kind of you know all non
[31:49]fiction and but he I remember when I like proudly told him you know I was writing you know this
[31:53]this novel and I was very stressed. I wanted to finish it. I mean in my dad's the nicest guy in
[31:59]the whole world he never says anymore but he kind of looked at me and he goes no one is waiting
[32:03]for your novel. And it was actually like no one cares if you finish it and make it good and
[32:12]and the idea of like wanting to finish something. So my two pieces of advice feel great and excited
[32:18]about your you know the books that you might consider bad and then it is an ongoing learning process
[32:23]so and that's what makes it I think that's what makes it satisfying anything. Well Lauren I
[32:29]feel like our time is sort of up because I try to keep my shirt a 30 minutes but I feel like I
[32:32]could sit here and chat books with you all day and I hope that some time we can like get together
[32:37]something. I wouldn't love it. I want to hear what your book love is reading and you know all
[32:42]the rest out. I just your your work is so wonderful and I love you know I love listening to your
[32:48]podcast and it's very I sort of feel like I know you so this is so it's been a huge treat for me
[32:56]to be on time with you so yes please stay in touch with me. Okay well thank you Lauren I really
[33:04]appreciate it. Have a great day. Okay you fine okay bye. Thanks for tuning in to day two of the
[33:10]children's book last week. I hope you enjoyed today's episode I know I enjoyed recording it.
[33:17]Don't forget to check out my new podcast moms don't have time to lose weight pretty soon
[33:23]moms won't have time to listen to podcasts and check out the Instagram community that goes along
[33:28]with it and if you would like to join please request to join. It's for anyone who wants to feel
[33:33]body better in their body tomorrow than they do today and it's a supportive group of like-minded
[33:38]souls who just need the community to achieve their goals. Moms don't have time to lose weight.
[33:43]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[33:47]follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my
[33:53]newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom
[33:58]every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing
[34:03]and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.