Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney, LORETTA LITTLE LOOKS BACK

[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 podcasts, 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]Today's episode has been sponsored by SugarWish.

[0:56]SugarWish is an online gifting site that provides a delightful gift experience followed by delicious treats.

[1:02]They get to choose delivered directly to their dorm.

[1:05]Here's how it works.

[1:06]A sugar-wish can be sent to anybody.

[1:09]So if you're the recipient, you open up an email and it says someone is sent you a sugar-wish.

[1:13]And you open it up, you click and it says pick any four of these delicious candies to fill your basket.

[1:19]So you get to look through everything from gummy worms and M&M's and skittles and jelly beans and everything.

[1:26]And you click and then check it out and it's sent to you in this beautiful box with all these candies inside in a ribbon.

[1:33]And it's just beautifully packaged and sent right to your door.

[1:38]And so somebody basically you get to customize your own gift and it's really awesome.

[1:42]And I did this and I sent them to my son at boarding school and we got some here for Halloween.

[1:47]And I highly, highly recommend this company.

[1:52]Definitely go check it out, sugarwish.com.

[1:55]Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney have made an outstanding contribution to the field of children's literature, both as individuals and as a team.

[2:03]Between them, they have published more than 70 children's books that have received the highest awards and accolades, including Caldicott Honors, Coretta Scott, King Honors, NAACP Image Award nominations,

[2:14]and the Mayhill Are Boost Not Honor Lecture Award to name a few.

[2:18]You can visit their websites Andrea Davis Pinkney.com and Brian Pinkney.net.

[2:23]Brian does a lot of the illustrations and Andrea does the writing in addition to her other huge role at Scholastic.

[2:30]And their latest book together is called Loretta Little Talks Back and that's what we're talking about today.

[2:35]Welcome Andrea and Brian. This is such a huge thrill to be interviewing both of you and getting a visual element.

[2:42]And literary, it's so exciting. So thanks for joining me on mom's time to read books.

[2:46]Thank you.

[2:47]So let's talk about your first, your most recent book first, Loretta Little Looks Back.

[2:53]I can't speak today.

[2:54]Can you please tell everybody what this particular book is about because it's so unique and interesting and also what inspired you to read it?

[3:01]Yeah, it is a mouthful, isn't it? Loretta Little Looks Back, you know, say that 10 times fast.

[3:08]So maybe I will begin by telling you what it's about by introducing you to some of the characters.

[3:15]And so the title is Loretta Little Looks Back, three voices go tell it.

[3:21]So as Loretta says, right here, I'm sharing the honest to goodness.

[3:27]And as young brother, Roly proclaims, I'm going to reach back, tell how it all went.

[3:34]I'm going to speak on it my way.

[3:37]And as young Aggie B, who is 12 years old, will tell you, folks claim I got more nerve than a bad tooth.

[3:45]But there is nothing bad about being bold.

[3:49]So this is their three stories and it is the story of the little family.

[3:55]Loretta, Roly and Aggie B, it spans from 1927 and we begin in a Mississippi sharecropping field.

[4:04]And we go all the way up to the 1968 presidential election.

[4:08]So it spans three generations.

[4:10]And we really get a front row seat to African Americans on the civil rights journey, but also claiming the right to vote.

[4:17]That's a little bit about the book.

[4:19]And you structured this as what you call it, go tell it, a monologue novel.

[4:24]And the way you wrote it was even though it reads as a novel is more like poetry.

[4:29]Some are more like scenes from play.

[4:31]It's all very visual and auditory as well.

[4:35]It must as if it should be on stage as well as a book.

[4:38]So tell me about how you structured it because it was so interesting this format.

[4:42]Tell me.

[4:42]Well, Loretta Little looks back is it is I am calling it a monologue novel.

[4:47]And it really is a mix of poetry, first person narratives, gospel rhythms, a little bit of blues thrown in.

[4:56]But in each of the sections, the characters come out on stage, as you will.

[5:01]And they talk to us.

[5:02]So the idea is that we're really getting behind the eyes of Loretta.

[5:07]We're getting in the belly of rolling, you know, we're getting right, right heart and soul of Aggie B.

[5:14]So kids, young readers can really feel what they're feeling and make it it's very experiential.

[5:20]And the idea also is that the book can be shared with friends.

[5:24]It can be done as a reader's theater.

[5:26]You can read it quietly and contemplatively on your own.

[5:29]But really, we just want to hear those voices of the three characters.

[5:33]And we really want to inhabit who they are.

[5:35]So we can experience what they're going through.

[5:38]Did you consider just writing this as a play?

[5:41]I did.

[5:42]I did speaking as one who likes that front row seat.

[5:45]We live in New York City.

[5:46]And I spent a lot of time in the theater.

[5:49]That was kind of my first thought.

[5:51]And, you know, we just kind of strung it together as a narrative.

[5:53]And now it lives as a novel.

[5:54]Maybe it will live as a play or a film someday at some point.

[5:58]Yeah, there you go.

[5:59]Very versatile.

[5:59]And of course you have your husband.

[6:01]So an acclaimed illustrator in his own, right?

[6:04]This you guys are like such a power duo.

[6:06]This is like insane.

[6:07]So he does all the illustrations.

[6:09]And now Brian, we're looking at your incredible studio here with all these drawings behind you.

[6:13]Tell me about what it was like working together.

[6:15]I know you have it before.

[6:16]But what was it like illustrating for this novel in particular?

[6:20]Okay, so when I illustrate with Andrea, it's amazing process.

[6:24]It's always different because her approach to writing changes with every novel for every book that she does.

[6:29]So my first thing is that I just read the stories over and over into the point where I know them so well,

[6:34]I start feeling them in my heart.

[6:36]And then I just start making artwork.

[6:39]And the best way for me to explain that is to actually show it while I'm talking.

[6:44]So that's why I have cameras going at the same time.

[6:47]So I guess you'll be able to go back and forth between the two cameras.

[6:50]Yeah.

[6:50]They do this.

[6:51]Okay.

[6:51]So this is a paint that I use.

[6:54]It's called, there's gouache here.

[6:57]I have acrylic.

[6:58]I have watercolor.

[6:59]And I think with the paintbrush.

[7:01]And it's almost like I'm thinking theatrically.

[7:04]So in the case of doing the cover, I'm thinking about, you know, what color would be in the South?

[7:11]You know, I'm going, I'm thinking blue.

[7:14]You know, when I think of the sky, think of lots of sunlight.

[7:17]So I'm making, you know, circles.

[7:20]I know in my mind, this is going to be Aggie's face.

[7:23]And you know, I wonder talks about her looking back in the title.

[7:27]And I thought, you know, what would that be like to be looking back, but also moving forward at the same time?

[7:31]So, you know, I'm thinking abstractly, this is going to be your face.

[7:35]This is going to be land.

[7:36]This is going to be sunlight, you know, back here.

[7:39]It's very wet.

[7:40]The watercolor is moved very fast.

[7:42]I'm using a sumier brush, which is a Japanese watercolor brush.

[7:46]And then I'll go back in with like just intuitively thinking about, you know, brown skin, her face, you know, it's going to be somewhere here.

[7:55]You know, the soil is also brown.

[7:58]They work on their sharecroppers, you know, there's green for the vegetation that's growing.

[8:03]So get something very messy like this.

[8:06]And then I'll just sit with that for a while because you can see I think really fast.

[8:12]Oh, I'm going to show you a piece that I done earlier.

[8:15]That's very similar, but it's already dry because it has to dry.

[8:18]And you hold it up in the top screen just in case it's for some reason it doesn't capture both for, I don't know what it is.

[8:24]This is kind of my under painting.

[8:27]And again, I'll do a lot of sketches like this until I find one that I like.

[8:31]And then I'll go back in with another brush called a DaVinci Maestro, which is a very fine pointed brush and I'll go in with with black ink.

[8:41]So I'm using black ink here and a brush.

[8:44]While I work, it is, I mean, I'm thinking about the blues and jazz and it's very improvisational.

[8:50]And again, my hand is like dancing while I'm drawing so I'm thinking, okay, this is going to be the red of little looking back.

[8:56]So, you know, I'll look at like hundreds of pictures of beautiful young African American girls to get an idea of what she should look like.

[9:08]And in my mind, she kind of looks like my niece who is about 12 or 13 now, you know, very curious and I think what would have been like for her, that was her.

[9:19]And just with the paintbrush, you know, drawing her hair.

[9:24]Now I'm different, pressure.

[9:27]And what's great about this is because my studio is not in the home.

[9:31]I'm just actually does not know what I'm doing.

[9:33]I'm loving it.

[9:35]I'm, it's always a wonderful surprise.

[9:39]Yeah.

[9:40]So this is kind of, you know, how I work, you know, and now look at outfits like costumes of, you know, what did the clothing look like?

[9:47]And make sure everything is authentic to the time.

[9:50]You know, I look at like cotton fields, like how does the cotton grow?

[9:54]And all the while I'm thinking, you know, what is this saying about the main character?

[9:58]You know, she's looking back over her show.

[10:00]They're here. So, you know, I don't know if it breaks and go back into more color. I may do this image four or five times six or seven times to get the one that I think is is exactly what I want.

[10:12]I can hold this up a little bit on the bigger screen so you can kind of see how it's coming out. You know the cover of the book.

[10:18]Right. And I'm going to hold this up where you can see it.

[10:22]And what what I love about the cover is that Loretta little is indeed looking back. But what Brian has done so brilliantly is that she's gazing back at her, her history, her legacy and also kind of, you know, looking looking ahead into a future into an unknown future. So that's what I just I really love the cover.

[10:47]I love the cover too.

[10:49]Yeah. So that's basically the process. Now in terms of Andre and I working together, we've come up with a couple guidelines so that we can stay happily married work together.

[10:59]Do you want me to kind of like start out to get off Brian? You got it. So some of the rules we came up with that, you know, Andre as an editor and then off there, she has an amazing eye for like details.

[11:10]And I appreciate that. But I'm also very sensitive. So it's very important for me that when Andre sees something that doesn't look quite right to her, she words it correctly for me. For example, if she sees Loretta little's foot, she can't say something like it looks like a football because that kind of hurts my feelings.

[11:26]Has that has that actually happened or is this happening?

[11:29]Okay, it sounded like that might have been an actual fact.

[11:32]Yeah. And so my first thing is that something that doesn't look quite right, she can't say Loretta little's foot looks like a football. She has to say Loretta's foot looks unresolved.

[11:42]That way. It's unresolved. It's it's a work in progress work in progress. So then I can like, you know, my self esteem stays intact and then I can come up with some lame excuse or maybe a good one.

[11:52]Now on your always has guidelines for me, which is that she loves it when I read her manuscripts no matter what stays there.

[11:58]Because as the artists, I do kind of have like the the peripheral vision of it. And I can kind of see it and and her rule for me is that no matter what I think of her operating at the time, I must start out my comments out with honey, you're off to a great start.

[12:14]I mean, we're all off to a great start one way or the other. And Brian and I also, you know, Brian mentioned his studio is not in our home.

[12:21]And that's deliberate. Most authors and illustrators don't meet each other. They don't collaborate in the traditional sense.

[12:27]The person in the publishing company, the editor keeps those individuals hard and it seems very strange.

[12:33]But that really is how it works. So if I weren't married to him, if the illustrator, many of my books, you know, war wasn't sharing a box of cereal or a tube of toothpaste, and I wouldn't see what he's doing in the studio.

[12:44]So we don't talk about it. We do get together once a week on a Saturday. And it's usually from around noon to three o'clock in the afternoon, three hours, we come to the dining room table.

[12:55]And that's really when we talk about the work. We have a designated time period. There's a beginning, a middle and an end.

[13:01]And I know that if there's something else I want to say or convey, I wait till the phone Saturday. So there's a nice boundary around that, you know, because we were talking about work all the time.

[13:12]And so that meeting space allows us to talk about it and to move on and have a happy family life in a great marriage.

[13:20]Yes.

[13:21]I mean, that should definitely be your next book, by the way, is like all these tips. This is great. Honey, you're off to a good start is a great way to really preface any conversations, right?

[13:32]Almost any idea, right? It's always true.

[13:35]Anyone in a relationship, you know, partners is they're going to clean the room they don't or they do and you're not quite happy to say honey, it looks a little unresolved.

[13:43]Okay. Good start and unresolved things. All right. I'm making mental notes here.

[13:50]So this is good to know the secrets to a successful collaboration. I love it, especially in a creative field where, you know, it's not right or wrong and it's always in the eyes of the beholder essentially what the work is from a book to a drawing to everything.

[14:04]Yeah. Excellent. Excellent advice. Can I hear a little more about how both of you got into your fields to begin with? And I want to also hear how you how you met. I heard that it was through work or something. So do you I want to hear like go back in time for me a little bit, give us some background.

[14:19]So I guess I'll start because I, my family is, is, are all in the art. My father is Jerry Pinkney who's an award winning children's book illustrator. So growing up, I always visited him in the studio and with T and make pictures and I kind of followed in his footsteps in the way.

[14:34]And then I went to art school, university arts, school of visual arts and came on and started illustrating and getting freelance jobs and doing books and, you know, it was hard work, but I love doing hard work. And that's how I got started.

[14:47]Yeah. I fell into children's book publishing and really book publishing a little bit by accident, which happens to a lot of people.

[14:54]I did go to journalism school. I wanted to be a journalist, which I was. I worked for a lot of the women's leading women's magazines and my was the contemporary living editor at Essence magazine.

[15:05]And, you know, part of that job at Essence was that every month I had to fill a section with information about African American children's books. Now this was in the mid 80s. So I would call up publishers and I'd say send me your best books and there

[15:22]weren't a lot to send. Like now, you know, someone who works in publishing, you know, we'll do anything to get that coverage in the media. And my editor in chief at the time Susan Taylor said, Andre, you've got to fill this section and I said, Susan, I can't. There's just not enough books for every month. So I met someone at the book Expo America conference and I said, Hey, you know, we need like the black babysitters club. We need more board books for babies. We need biographies.

[15:50]And we got to talking and one thing led to another and I got my first job in publishing at Simon and Schuster where I was a children's book editor and then I went on from there. So and then I started writing books, you know, Brian was illustrating textbooks at the time.

[16:05]And I kept saying to him, you know, you should call your editor at this and that publishing company and tell them we need, you know, black team series, you know, board books for babies, mysteries, fantasy, adventure,

[16:16]biographies. And he said, well, why don't you write some of those books? Yeah, we are. So that's amazing. So how did you even get like with so many ideas of what you wanted to do? How did you even decide where to begin?

[16:31]Well, as a magazine editor, I almost feel like you're installed with a radar. So when you're working for a magazine, you have to have ideas constantly because you have to be filling that magazine, you know, every month, you know, long lead four months ahead.

[16:46]So the radar is always up. So I was saying to my, my then fiance, you know, maybe somebody should do a book about, I don't know, the dancer Alvin Ailey, you know, is there any children's book about Duke Ellington?

[16:59]Has anybody written like, you know, just like a little cute series for babies, like just riffing on the ideas and, you know, Brian was saying you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it, you do it.

[17:08]And, you know, again, here, here we are. So always got the idea of mill going.

[17:13]And then from an editor perspective, tell me about ushering in other people's work on these same themes and topics. What's that been like on, on basically both sides of the, of the fence, so to speak.

[17:25]Right. Okay. So I work as a, as a publisher, an editor in a publishing company and I work at Scholastic and then I'm an author and, you know, I do have a lot of ideas and they're not always the books that I am inclined to or that I have the right voice to write them myself.

[17:42]So, you know, part of what I love to do is think, okay, here's an idea who would be amazing to deliver this and I'll often contact that person or their agent or ask somebody, you know, I got this idea.

[17:54]Who do you think would be, is it versus a good idea and who do you think would be a great person to write it. So it works both ways. Let me just say that when I've got my author hat on, my editor switch is turned off.

[18:05]I can't edit myself and when I have my editor or publisher hat on, the author has gone to sleep, you know, I'm there in service to help other writers tell their stories.

[18:16]Wow. Amazing. So can we go back now to Loretta little talks back, which now I said it right. There we go.

[18:22]In doing all the research for the book you mentioned in the, in the note at the end how you had talked to so many people and gotten real oral histories, including many people from your own family.

[18:32]Can you talk to me a little about what that was like and how you conducted that research and investigation. Sure. So my family, well, and Brian's family as well, our families both come from the South, a mind from Virginia, Brian's from North Carolina.

[18:45]So I grew up hearing a lot of these stories, you know, on front porches, summer evenings, fireflies, sweet tea, you know, hearing about the legacy of civil rights from members of my own family.

[18:59]And, you know, somehow those stories stuck with me. So the other thing is that I will say that both my parents were civil rights foot soldiers, you know, my father marched with King.

[19:11]I was born a few blocks and a few days after the march on Washington happened in Washington, D.C. And, you know, I'm the kid who, you know, they say, what did you do this summer? We had the same summer vacation, which is that my family gotten that would paneled station wagon.

[19:28]And in July, we went to the NAACP annual national convention every year. We went to the National Urban League conference and right before school was going to start in September.

[19:39]We went to something called the Congressional Congress. And I would hear African American notables giving speeches, but my family didn't have to talk about it. I'd be like,

[19:48]I dreaded what did you do this summer because everyone said they went to the beach, they went to camp, you know, and how often can you say I went to the NAACP, you know, national convention, but looking

[20:00]that it's stuck, you know, a lot of what you read

[20:03]and Loretta little looks back are from those experiences.

[20:07]You know, hearing fanning, you know,

[20:08]fanning Lou Hamer, you know, the civil rights voting activist

[20:12]plays a role in Loretta little looks back.

[20:14]And those were the kinds of speakers I heard as a kid myself,

[20:17]you know, like Aggie B is hearing in the story.

[20:19]And in terms of what was from your own life versus fiction,

[20:23]did someone in your family get cancer

[20:26]from harsh materials that were sprayed

[20:28]in the fields from mosquitoes?

[20:30]Like, did that happen?

[20:31]Did the MF happen?

[20:32]What was real and what did you make it?

[20:34]Okay, so there is a part of the book

[20:37]where a parent dies of cancer as the result of pesticides

[20:43]that are used coming on new to the scene in sharecropping.

[20:47]So yeah, I won't give it away,

[20:48]but I will just say that did not happen,

[20:51]but I have had a parent die of cancer.

[20:53]And so I infused the emotions of that young girl

[20:57]into that experience.

[20:58]I'm sorry, I hope I didn't give anything away.

[21:00]I was wondering, I'd like to know,

[21:02]I'm really sorry to hear about your parent's experience.

[21:05]And what about the disease of the nervous

[21:07]as you talk about in the book?

[21:10]Right, okay.

[21:10]So one of the characters has MS multiple sclerosis.

[21:15]And so no, so that is not my own experience.

[21:17]It's not the experience of anyone I know,

[21:19]but again, people that I do know,

[21:21]family members have had similar afflictions.

[21:24]And so I infused in the book.

[21:26]I was really fortunate to work

[21:27]with the multiple sclerosis society

[21:30]to get all the depictions correct

[21:32]and kind of infuse it with the history of that disease.

[21:36]And so everything is really on point.

[21:39]So tell me a little more about your actual writing process.

[21:43]Like for instance, the chapter Billy Club bullies,

[21:47]which was like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

[21:49]It was like, tell me about like sitting down,

[21:51]where are you typing these words out?

[21:54]Like give me a visual of like how you're getting it done.

[21:56]And how you structured it,

[21:58]do you have like post-its everywhere?

[22:00]What's the process like?

[22:02]And then where are you and you're pounding these at?

[22:05]Okay, so no, I'm not sitting in front of a keyboard, mostly.

[22:09]My husband will tell you, here's an example.

[22:11]So I get up at four in the morning and I'm up

[22:14]and this happened today.

[22:16]And I go out and I'm walking and it's dark out

[22:19]and I've got a big hoodie with a big zippered pocket

[22:22]in the front and a pen.

[22:24]And this morning, for example, it was raining.

[22:26]So I came in dripping with the big hoodie

[22:29]and you know, stuff in the front pocket.

[22:31]It's like a kangaroo pocket.

[22:33]You know, this little rickety pen and a notebook

[22:36]and that stuff hopefully will end up in a book

[22:38]and that's how the red little looks back started

[22:40]and many of the books.

[22:41]I mean, I eventually get to the keyboard.

[22:43]So my writing is really kind of from 4 a.m.

[22:46]to about six or six 30 in the morning.

[22:48]It takes many forms.

[22:50]Yes, I have posted notes, scraps.

[22:52]It eventually gets to the keyboard.

[22:53]But I don't get up, sit down and start writing.

[22:56]Wow, what a process.

[22:57]4 to 6 and then you do your regular work

[23:00]the rest of the day.

[23:01]Yes, then I check out in a non-COVID moment.

[23:05]I change clothes and go to my office in lower Manhattan.

[23:09]Then what time do you go to bed?

[23:10]Like how much sleep are you getting?

[23:12]I go to bed.

[23:13]Not enough.

[23:13]I mean, yeah.

[23:14]Not enough.

[23:15]But anyway, yeah.

[23:16]Pretty like, wow.

[23:17]Well, I guess it's one of the perks

[23:18]of not needing as much sleep.

[23:20]There you go.

[23:21]Do you also get up at 4 a.m. brain?

[23:23]No.

[23:24]I'm going to be roll over when I hear get up

[23:26]and I get up around seven and usually

[23:28]leave the house around seven 30 to get to my studio

[23:31]these days around 8 30.

[23:33]And how my own creative process, I'll get to the studio,

[23:37]look at everything you have to do for the day,

[23:39]and then meditate or do yoga.

[23:42]And then I have a whole kitchen here.

[23:44]I make my food and everything.

[23:46]And then I just start sketching and painting.

[23:48]And I'm working and meditating and moving all the time.

[23:54]Like I usually don't even sit in a chair.

[23:56]I'm either walking, moving, working, or taking a nap.

[24:00]I love taking a nap, which is part of my work.

[24:03]Because I come up with my ideas come to me when I'm

[24:06]meditating and mapping and that I put them on the paper.

[24:09]How convenient is that?

[24:11]I want to put a nap thing into my work day.

[24:13]Let's see if my kids really go for that.

[24:15]Now I'm working now, really.

[24:18]So what are you working on next?

[24:20]I know this book is coming out.

[24:21]Do you have more coming down the pike together, separate?

[24:24]Yes.

[24:25]We're always working on several projects at the same time.

[24:28]Some are in concept phase, some are in the sketch phase,

[24:32]some are working on finishes.

[24:34]So I have projects that I'm working on that.

[24:36]I've written, I have projects I'm working on that.

[24:38]And I'm just written.

[24:39]And some, we don't even know yet.

[24:42]What's your point to be?

[24:43]Yeah.

[24:45]The next one I'll just tell you is something

[24:47]for very young children.

[24:50]That's all I'll say.

[24:52]We're going to talk to you about the details of it.

[24:54]Yeah.

[24:55]But it is in progress.

[24:56]You probably.

[24:57]And when are you going to write your memoir?

[24:59]When is that going to happen?

[25:01]Brian, are you working on your memoir?

[25:03]I'm always working on my memoir.

[25:06]That memoir is some sort.

[25:07]And it just keeps shifting and changing.

[25:10]But yeah, a lot of my growing up, just

[25:14]being creative and playing with art and images

[25:17]and imagination, most of the books that

[25:19]I write are about imagination.

[25:20]So and most of the books that I've written

[25:22]are somewhat autobiographical.

[25:25]Amazing.

[25:26]Well, you two seem to have it all figured out.

[25:28]I'm incredibly impressed.

[25:29]The marriage and the workflow and the meetings on Saturdays

[25:33]and the creativity and the awareness of how you work best,

[25:37]I'm very impressed.

[25:39]I have to say, what advice would you both have

[25:42]to aspiring artists and aspiring authors?

[25:45]So my advice to aspiring artists

[25:47]is to make art, you know, artists make art.

[25:51]And find a way that feels most true to you to make art.

[25:54]Like for me, it's with traditional material.

[25:57]Watercolors, gouache, ink, and I let myself change.

[26:01]Like sometimes I discover a meeting that I never

[26:03]used before, like working with acrylic is pretty new.

[26:06]But some artists work on computers.

[26:08]They work on art, whatever feels natural

[26:11]and to just make art and continue to draw everyday,

[26:15]make art every day.

[26:16]That would be my first, you know,

[26:18]and look at people that you admire.

[26:20]Right, I would say the same thing.

[26:21]You know, writers write daily.

[26:23]You know, people say to me, you know, oh, come on.

[26:26]You know, do you write on your birthday?

[26:27]Yes.

[26:28]You know, do you write on Christmas?

[26:29]Yes.

[26:30]You write on New Year's.

[26:30]Yes.

[26:31]You know, do you write when your house is a mess, especially

[26:34]because I don't want to clean it, you know?

[26:35]So writers write every single day of the week

[26:38]under all circumstances and conditions.

[26:40]And is everything I write publishable?

[26:43]Most of it isn't.

[26:44]But I'm in the active pursuit of the craft.

[26:46]And I also say read everything, read, you know,

[26:50]push past that comfort zone, you know,

[26:52]I hear a lot of people say, oh, I don't do fantasy.

[26:54]Oh, I'm not a mystery kind of person.

[26:56]Read those books, you know, read everything, become a sponge.

[27:01]And you know, it's like, I love it.

[27:02]You know, it would be like me saying, you know,

[27:04]I think I'm going to just kind of, I don't know,

[27:07]become a ballerina, you know, and just do it every now

[27:10]and then I have to, you have to work at that.

[27:12]And so that I would say writers

[27:14]just always be in the active pursuit of the event.

[27:17]Well, thank you.

[27:18]Thanks so much to both of you for coming on mom's own time

[27:20]to read books and for sharing your beautiful work

[27:23]in every format and all your marriage tips.

[27:25]I'll probably have a better day because of it.

[27:28]Thank you.

[27:28]Thank you, Zibi.

[27:29]All right.

[27:30]Thanks so much for your time.

[27:31]Bye bye.

[27:32]Bye bye.

[27:34]Thanks again to today's sponsor SugarWish,

[27:37]send a surprise SugarWish to somebody you love

[27:40]and check it out yourself, sugarwish.com.

[27:43]Thanks for listening to this episode

[27:44]of mom's don't have time to read books.

[27:46]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens

[27:49]and at mom's don't have time to read books.

[27:51]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com

[27:54]and sign up for my virtual book club

[27:56]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.

[27:58]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound

[28:01]for the Sound Editing.

[28:02]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions

[28:04]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.