Dave Eggers, WE BECAME JAGUARS
[0:01]Hi, this is Vivi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
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[0:35]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:38]Dave Eggers is the award-winning and best-selling author of many books, including The Circle, the Monk of Mocha,
[0:44]her right foot, lifters, and the heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
[0:49]He is founder of McSweeny's, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books,
[0:55]a humor website and a journal of new writing McSweeny's quarterly concern.
[0:59]Eggers is also the co-founder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center, which has inspired dozens of other centers worldwide.
[1:06]Today we'll be talking about his new children's book.
[1:09]We became Jaguars, which is amazing.
[1:12]So enjoy my conversation with this literary legend.
[1:16]Welcome, Dave. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read books.
[1:20]Good to be here.
[1:21]I'm thrilled to talk to you about so much of the amazing work that you do to support other writers, younger writers,
[1:29]and just the amazing philanthropy that you're involved in.
[1:32]But also, we became Jaguars, your latest children's book, which is just amazing and also a perfect gift for Mother's Day,
[1:41]with this whole grandmother, you know, kneeling on the floor playing games with her grandchild.
[1:47]So maybe we could just talk about this book first and how this book came to be.
[1:51]Well, you know, I don't even know if I have an origin story for this one.
[1:56]This one just sort of came out of the blue, which sometimes happens with picture books in particular.
[2:02]Sometimes it just starts with a phrase, which like in this case, it was a title, and I just wrote it down.
[2:09]I always start by writing things down on just sheets of copy paper, usually that I keep all over the house and by the bed.
[2:17]And I just wrote down, we became Jaguars and woke up with that next to me by the bed with those words.
[2:23]And then I went from there.
[2:25]What would it be like if, you know, a little boy and his grandmother pretended or actually became Jaguars?
[2:34]And I think, you know, I didn't have grandparents who were, you know, spry or with us too long when I was a kid.
[2:42]But I do know that, you know, my kids have the benefit of having very active and engaged and incredible grandparents.
[2:52]And, you know, the adventures that they go on with them are completely apart from, you know, what we all the rest of us do as a family.
[3:00]And I think that there's something really sacred and then sometimes very mysterious even about those adventures with grandparents.
[3:07]And so this sort of takes that as a starting point.
[3:11]I love that. That's, that's awesome.
[3:13]And also you had this edited by your editors in progress.
[3:17]Tell me a little bit more about the young editors project as part of a 26 national and all the other awesome things that you do.
[3:27]Well, you know, this is actually this grew out of a little project that we call the Hawkins project, which is sort of it works with schools and teachers and young authors.
[3:38]And we collaborate with different A to six centers around the country and then centers that are like our.
[3:46]We started this center here in San Francisco where I am right now across the street from A to six Valencia, which is a writing and tutoring center in the Mission District San Francisco.
[3:56]And now there's like maybe 60 or 70 centers around the world that are kind of based on that model where you have a whimsical theme.
[4:07]In our case, it's a pirate store. So the whole place looks like a pirate ship and a pirate store.
[4:12]And then it's sort of a mysterious front for a writing and tutoring center that supports younger writers as young as six.
[4:21]And so at one point, you know, I would read works in progress to kids for the last, you know, 10 15 years.
[4:30]And then we sort of decided to make it a little bit more of a formal one that's not formal, but more of an expanded program that we call the young editors project.
[4:41]And so a lot of other picture book writers like Sean Harris and Mac Barnett and Bethany Maria and have, you know, they give manuscripts in progress that to us that we then send to teachers and classrooms around the country and around the world.
[4:59]And then the kids in the class will comment and say, oh, I really like this or I wish there was more of that.
[5:06]The comments are always very generous and, you know, encouraging their very forgiving and enthusiastic editors.
[5:16]And then every so often they'll say, you know, what about, what about this?
[5:20]Have you ever thought about that?
[5:22]And sometimes these suggestions end up helping the authors with a next draft or with the final draft.
[5:29]And I just like that.
[5:31]I don't know about you, but as a kid, you grow up assuming that all authors lived hundreds of years ago and that you'd never encounter one in the real world.
[5:42]But when I was a kid, I got to meet, well, sort of meet Gwendolyn Brooks, who was the poet Laureate at the time and she, you know, I grew up in Illinois.
[5:51]She was a well-known author from Chicago and to see that she was a living person who was also in our textbooks and everything.
[5:59]It meant a lot and kind of collapse that space between being a young kid and then also thinking like, oh, there's actually authors in the world that are, you know,
[6:10]visible and reachable and engaged.
[6:13]And so this is a way where kids can see, feel part of the process and get in touch a little bit with authors that they might know.
[6:21]And then their names are always included in the book that they advised on.
[6:28]And so we're hoping to keep expanding the program and make it sort of a staple of a lot of picture books that each one of them might have 15, 20 names as young editors who helped bring that book to fruition.
[6:44]Well, that must just be the most amazing feeling for those kids to see their names in there.
[6:49]And it's just the coolest.
[6:52]How much you're changing their lives in their point of view.
[6:55]I feel like when I was younger, I had a pen pal relationship with one author.
[6:59]And the first time she wrote me back, I was shocked.
[7:02]I was holding this piece of blue paper with her script handwriting on it.
[7:05]And I was just like, oh my gosh, a real writer wrote me back.
[7:08]I couldn't believe it.
[7:09]Who was it?
[7:10]Her name was Zibi O'Neill, which I thought was amazing because I didn't know anybody else in the world.
[7:15]Yeah.
[7:16]Well, that was why you were attracted to her work a little bit, right?
[7:18]Or maybe why your parents got you her book?
[7:20]Yeah.
[7:21]It was.
[7:22]And anyway, she wrote a book called The Language of Goldfish, which I just loved.
[7:25]And then we kept in touch for all these years.
[7:26]And then eventually she took me to tea at the plaza.
[7:28]And it was like, I was like, oh my gosh.
[7:30]You know, I always think I'm sitting here at the McQueenie's offices and haven't been here that much since the pandemic.
[7:38]But you know, I get mail here and I'm sitting here answering mail or I was this morning before talking to you.
[7:44]And that's my favorite thing in the world is just that personal connection.
[7:48]And if somebody writes to you and says that, you know, a book meant to meant something to them.
[7:53]I think people I only get mail via paper mail.
[7:57]Like if you if somebody I love that process.
[8:01]I don't have a public email address because I'm just not good at email.
[8:06]And I love writing letters and getting letters in the mail.
[8:11]And I remember that too. I used to write to the Lego company.
[8:15]My friend and partner and I would Lego obsessed.
[8:19]And we would once a month write letters to the Lego company and end field Connecticut with ideas about how they, you know, what they could do next.
[8:28]And we always had ideas for Lego sets.
[8:31]And there was a woman there that wrote back to us every time.
[8:35]She was in the public relations department, I'm sure.
[8:38]She had beautiful stationery and beautiful envelopes in it.
[8:42]And she'd always put little extra things in there like, I don't know, information about upcoming Lego things.
[8:48]And to have that connection.
[8:50]To have a human on the other end of something that you admired so much actually take the time.
[8:55]To recognize you as a human.
[8:58]Right. And say, you know, I got your letter. I read it.
[9:01]Here's my, it just was, I kept all of them. I still have them all.
[9:05]I think there's like 12 letters that we got and I have them on a scrapbook and it meant the world.
[9:10]And so I think having that sort of lifeline or having that connection, I think it means a lot to the authors too.
[9:19]To have somebody on the other end of what you do.
[9:22]Because unlike a musician that's, you know, playing a concert or where you're hearing from people immediately very often, writing is kind of solitary.
[9:31]And you're not there the moment that somebody listens to, you know, read your work.
[9:37]You're not sitting over their shoulder and you get the benefit of them, you know, responding in real time.
[9:44]And so that love those letters mean a lot.
[9:47]And sometimes we authors are just as eager for that connection as are the readers.
[9:55]And I think you reached out to your fellow Zibi.
[9:58]And I always tell everybody to.
[10:00]because you won't always get an answer,
[10:02]or sometimes somebody's in a stage of life
[10:04]where they can't answer.
[10:06]And I've been there years ago
[10:07]where I just fell behind with male,
[10:10]and I couldn't get back to her people,
[10:11]but chances are that person will write you back
[10:16]and that connection is complete.
[10:18]And that's what keeps us going in some cases.
[10:22]I think you should take those 12 LEGO letters
[10:25]and make those into another children's book.
[10:28]Yeah, I wish they were in deep storage now.
[10:31]I wonder what they said.
[10:33]A little bit of it was like a little formal,
[10:35]like, well, we can't accept your ideas,
[10:37]Dave and Dan, because we have our own LEGO creators,
[10:41]but then we have turned around
[10:45]and send them another idea the next month.
[10:47]Like we would not get the message.
[10:49]But you know, so I don't know if they would be,
[10:52]they don't necessarily have a compelling narrative
[10:55]so much, but they personalized us.
[10:58]And she eventually would say,
[10:59]good to hear from you again, Dan and Dave.
[11:02]As I said before, but you know, she was very kind.
[11:06]I wish I could remember her name off the top of my head,
[11:09]but I do still have them somewhere.
[11:11]All right, I will let you just keep coming up
[11:13]with your own book ideas then.
[11:15]Yeah, I'll just leave that.
[11:16]Well, you're welcome.
[11:17]I'll keep presenting, I'll keep listening
[11:20]and take that into consideration, Zippy.
[11:22]Thank you very much.
[11:25]Anytime, anytime.
[11:26]Speaking of coming up with ideas,
[11:28]you have written so many books and children,
[11:32]like so many things.
[11:33]You just, and you've started mixed weenies
[11:36]to help and other people have written things.
[11:38]And you have ideas all the time.
[11:40]And yes, your scraps of paper and what you said earlier
[11:44]is part of the process.
[11:45]But what else helps you come up with the ideas
[11:48]and decide which ones are worth your time pursuing?
[11:52]Well, I'll stick with picture books for now.
[11:55]You know, what's funny is it is a process where,
[11:59]and I know that a lot of your listeners
[12:01]probably have picture books in mind.
[12:04]And the good friend of mine,
[12:06]I went to high school with a writer named Amy Cross-Rose
[12:09]and thought who passed away a few years ago.
[12:13]But we went to high school together
[12:15]and then I think her kids were teenagers
[12:17]and we used to publish her at an old magazine
[12:19]called Might Magazine.
[12:21]So I've been a fan of her work forever
[12:23]since we were in our 20s together.
[12:26]And then a little later on, she started writing picture books.
[12:29]And she was just so gifted at it.
[12:31]And she's written so many classics
[12:33]and they have obviously reached a really wide audience.
[12:38]Still, I remember picking her brain about it
[12:41]because I was after she had published a number of books
[12:44]and I always wanted to write picture books
[12:47]when she was out in San Francisco one time.
[12:51]We took a long walk and I was like,
[12:53]so how do you do this and who do you reach out to?
[12:56]And she really clarified that a lot of it is like
[13:00]that alchemy between your idea,
[13:04]how it comes together on the page,
[13:06]how an agent might respond to it
[13:09]and then how a publisher,
[13:11]an editor at that publisher responds to it.
[13:14]And anyone that's aspiring to write a book
[13:17]has to realize that it's a very human process
[13:22]every step of the way.
[13:23]And I've written picture books that no editors
[13:27]responded to and that's because it's,
[13:33]I might think it's really good idea
[13:36]but then the editor has her particular taste
[13:40]and things that my editors are all women.
[13:43]And so I'm just thinking of Taylor Norman
[13:46]who edits my books at Chronicle and Andrea Cooper
[13:50]who's at Little Brown and they,
[13:53]I might send them something and they say,
[13:55]oh, this is for me or this isn't for me
[13:57]or this still needs work or those gently somehow indicate
[14:01]it doesn't have merit.
[14:02]And I think that as long as you realize
[14:05]that it really is a personal and idiosyncratic process
[14:10]that you have to perfectly match up that idea
[14:15]with the execution with the editor
[14:17]and when it all comes together,
[14:19]something really nice can happen.
[14:21]And in this case, Taylor Norman,
[14:23]my editor, Chronicle really liked,
[14:25]we became Jaguars and then she helps improve it
[14:28]and shape it and then we find an artist
[14:32]in this case would draw white
[14:35]who had not illustrated a picture book before.
[14:39]He was just a fine artist that I'd loved his work
[14:43]when I'd seen it online and we asked him
[14:46]if he'd ever considered doing it
[14:48]and he took it on and then just made this gorgeous
[14:51]bunch of illustrations.
[14:54]And I think I always just wanna,
[14:56]because I've been on the publishing side for so long
[14:59]and I always wanna tell people that you have to be really patient,
[15:04]you have to be very flexible
[15:05]and you really have to be very understanding
[15:08]that the people that are on the other end,
[15:10]on the publishing side, on the agent side,
[15:12]they're all humans and they're all really busy.
[15:16]They're all trying to put out books
[15:18]and it's not like a kinko service.
[15:22]You send in your manuscript
[15:24]and you get a book back in two days.
[15:27]And they should know or immediately respond
[15:30]to whatever you think is a finished product.
[15:32]I think it's much more idiosyncratic
[15:35]and much more personal.
[15:37]Than people often imagine.
[15:40]Does that make sense?
[15:41]Of course.
[15:42]Yeah, I think the acceptance of different projects,
[15:45]obviously, is personal and has so many factors
[15:48]whereas if you're the person writing it,
[15:50]all you're thinking about is your creation, right?
[15:52]You're not, you don't realize that the person
[15:55]might have 70 different picture books sitting in front of them
[15:58]and they've already committed to these
[15:59]and they have to rush home for this.
[16:02]And yes, of course.
[16:03]I think it's so much in life.
[16:05]You don't realize what's going on in the other end.
[16:08]Of your hopes and dreams.
[16:10]Yeah, I feel like more so than in a lot of fields.
[16:14]I don't know if the submitter always understands
[16:18]that the person on the other side
[16:20]is almost in the exact same spot.
[16:22]They're sitting at home.
[16:24]You know, they've got a lot of tall stack of manuscripts.
[16:27]They can only publish probably eight books a year,
[16:29]12 or whatever.
[16:31]And they've got a thousand options to do it.
[16:34]And so I win in the picture book realm
[16:38]because they don't, you know, it's,
[16:41]I don't know.
[16:42]I have far more ideas than ever get to print
[16:46]and it's up to the editors to sort of help sort out
[16:50]and find the best ones and save me from that idea.
[16:54]I think which is a personal.
[16:57]I have a lot of gratitude toward them
[16:59]for gently helping sift through
[17:02]and find the ones that are worthy.
[17:04]Well, I feel like it makes,
[17:06]it will make other people feel better
[17:08]to know that even your ideas get passed on occasionally.
[17:12]And that it perhaps it's not just them being rejected.
[17:16]More than occasionally, I'd say two thirds
[17:18]of the picture book notions I have are passed on for sure.
[17:24]And then there's the ones that sometimes you're just looking
[17:26]for somebody to, you know, you might take it 80% of the way
[17:29]and you say, what do you think of this so far?
[17:32]If there's polite silence, you know,
[17:35]that maybe you could direct your energy somewhere else.
[17:38]And so to me, to finish something,
[17:40]I usually need somebody's enthusiasm a little bit.
[17:43]And so those last, you know, bunch of drafts
[17:47]or it becomes more fun and more easy to do it
[17:50]when you have somebody on the receiving
[17:53]and has already expressed, you know,
[17:55]some kind of affection for it.
[17:56]And can urge you over the finish line.
[17:58]I actually have a picture book coming out
[17:59]from Penguin Random House next year.
[18:01]I'm very excited.
[18:02]It's called Princess charming.
[18:04]Oh, good.
[18:05]Congratulations.
[18:06]Isn't it a fun process, especially when the illustrator
[18:10]starts sending you our back?
[18:11]Yes, it's the coolest.
[18:13]You can only compare it to sort of Christmas morning
[18:15]or your birthday or whatever holiday is meaningful to you
[18:20]because it's just when you open that email
[18:23]and you see, you know, some new creation
[18:28]based on your words, it's just indescribable.
[18:31]Don't you, mate?
[18:32]Have they already started illustrating yours?
[18:33]They have and I got like two of the character drawings
[18:36]and I was so excited.
[18:37]I printed them out and I gave copies to, I have four kids.
[18:41]So I like printed them out, one for each kid
[18:43]and everybody's running around holding the coffee.
[18:45]That's so great.
[18:47]How old are your kids?
[18:48]Six, seven and then I have twins that are almost 14.
[18:52]They're 13.
[18:53]Wow.
[18:54]Wow, what fun for them, right?
[18:56]Yes, yes.
[18:58]I always included, you know, I always took my kids' brains
[19:02]and had them read early drafts.
[19:05]You know, there's such a supportive audience, you know,
[19:08]like they maybe my kids were just polite,
[19:11]but you know, they were always like, yeah.
[19:14]You know, I mean, and that's one of the things.
[19:16]We used to have kids at 86 Valencia review movies
[19:20]for the San Francisco Chronicle
[19:22]because I always thought kids should review kids' movies.
[19:25]I just don't know if there's any point
[19:27]in adults reviewing kids' movies.
[19:29]It's just a total disconnect.
[19:32]And these kids would come in after school here
[19:35]to get, you know, to do writing and tutoring
[19:37]and then they would send them to screenings of movies
[19:41]that they would get to see what their family is for free.
[19:44]And then the Chronicle would run five, six
[19:46]of these reviews together.
[19:48]And they were all uniformly glowing, you know,
[19:51]because they'd seen the movie for free
[19:54]with their family, they'd get to see it
[19:56]before other people.
[19:57]And generally speaking, kids are just so...
[20:00]full of wonder and awe and enthusiasm for everything that they are sort of in a
[20:08]way the best audience because they're like whatever movie that we think isn't
[20:14]the best kids movie ever they think is the best movie that was ever made which is
[20:18]always the last movie they saw was pretty much the best movie ever made and so
[20:22]I think there's something about their unbridled and unsullied enthusiasm that
[20:28]I think authors should avail themselves of and if you're not sure about
[20:34]something showing at the kids I think will give you that shot in the arm I
[20:38]don't know if you find that to do the same thing with yours I think focus groups
[20:41]are always a good idea yeah yeah let's see focus groups at home where they
[20:46]count on you for food and shelter so there's like an exchange there that they
[20:50]know that if they don't support mom's book maybe they don't eat yeah I
[20:57]should really tie it to the allocation of of Robux which is sort of you
[21:02]know sweeping the family at the moment Robux what are Robux oh my gosh so Roblox is this
[21:08]online video game thing where in the it's almost like a it has a ton of games
[21:14]under the banner of Roblox and you can pick which ones you want and you have
[21:17]your own person who's your character and it's essentially like virtual
[21:21]reality of sorts like you're walking through and you've got to and you can see
[21:24]your friends who are also so if my two kids are on two iPads they meet up in
[21:29]the game with their little personas oh right okay yeah actually sounding
[21:33]familiar somebody actually just went public last week and I was like looking at
[21:37]the newspaper and there was this full-page ad about like congratulations on Roblox
[21:41]going public and I was like you're kidding like my whole life is Roblox so
[21:46]anyway but yeah this is why my kids don't read enough clearly but well it's a
[21:52]weird time I think I hope when the pandemic's over we can sort of get back to
[21:56]a little bit more of a balance where they don't they're not required to be on
[22:00]screens as much as they are right now yeah but it's the way it's the only way
[22:05]obviously right now and teachers have done an incredible job of you know we
[22:12]engineering everything to work through screens but I do feel like it's out of
[22:16]balance for sure the kids are sort of on you know required to to sit in one
[22:23]place and be on screens for so much of the day and I hope that when it's over
[22:27]we can recalibrate and make sure that they have enough quiet time away from
[22:34]screens to be able to find that sort of peace of mind that you need to be
[22:39]able to sit quietly with a book and I you know I grew up in a house where we
[22:44]had the TV on probably 16 hours a day and so I it does alter the mind especially
[22:49]growing mine and so I was only able to read if I was really isolated for a
[22:56]while and because I think my brain had been you know sort of you know
[23:02]engineered to expect more diversion and more noise and it's going on but to
[23:12]really read and I you know I'll say this to any parents out there like for me
[23:15]the first time I was able to sort of just read on my own was my freshman year in
[23:20]high school not the first time I certainly read everything that we had to
[23:23]read in school anything they told me to read I read but on my own really for
[23:28]fun we had a class in freshman year it was like a class that was supposed to be
[23:35]for counseling I guess and if you weren't seeing your counselor that period you
[23:39]just were sent to this little quiet room that was full of books and you had to
[23:45]sit on a pillow and read for that hour so I told Frank Herbert's tune off of
[23:51]the shelf I'd never heard it or anything about it but and then I read and
[23:56]and it was because we had that isolated space and nothing else to do no other
[24:04]options but to read that's what got me finally in that space where I could you
[24:09]know really read an adult novel for for fun and and it's just to say for those
[24:16]of you out there parents who you know have especially kids that are reluctant
[24:23]readers or have or a little squirmy have a hard time sitting still just
[24:28]realize it takes isolation well thank you for making me feel better and not
[25:06]feeling worse mom on the planet which I feel like half the time so well you
[25:10]know I hope that you don't I hope that you're not serious I know I'm just
[25:14]getting yeah we can never yes it's we're never gonna it'll be a decade before
[25:26]we realize college like that but I do feel like parents you know modeling
[25:38]that behavior having a reading hour or reading 90 minutes at home or reading
[25:43]out loud mm-hmm I can't say I'm a big reading out loud as a family person but
[25:49]I do we've done it some cool mm-hmm if you can spare that time and then I
[25:56]always that when I do for signings in twenty two-year-old company they have
[26:16]that time read aloud to each other allowed to do exactly where I sat who is the
[26:42]next to me feel of the carpet everything about it and that book that's a nice
[26:53]image I love that yeah I read I did read every night out loud to my kids and I
[26:58]actually read to my husband when I have like a book that I think he would
[27:03]love because I read all the time you know for my podcast and all this anyway so if
[27:08]it's a book I think I love I'm like well let me read it to you so then I read
[27:10]it out loud to him and that's really fun wow I'll read like a couple chapters
[27:19]before bed or if we're in a long car ride and we don't have to have the kids or
[27:22]they're all in their eye beds or something and it's a great book I'll read it
[27:25]and you know he likes it wow well I'll give a plug for the best book on tape
[27:32]because we drive from California to Idaho fairly often then the best book so
[27:37]we'll listen to books on tape and the best one I ever heard was Sissy
[27:40]Spacek doing to kill Mockingbird and you know there there's been some
[27:46]extraordinary books taped beyond Graham it's a great area at it but it's such an
[28:02]under-appreciated art and could imagine what scouts voice would have been like
[28:22]as an adult it's her maybe okay when I need a break I know I've already taken
[28:34]so much of your time can I just ask one last question which is what advice would
[28:38]you have for aspiring authors you know I would get yourself in a writing group
[28:44]before almost anything else because you need peer editing you need people to
[28:51]bounce ideas off and say how is this reading and I'm a pretty obsessive editor
[28:56]and a seeker of editing and I feel like the one mistake some people make is not
[29:03]showing your work to anybody until you send it to a publisher which I think is
[29:08]like skipping a hundred steps in between I always compare it to deciding that
[29:13]you're gonna be a professional football player and just showing up at the
[29:17]stadium one day dressed up it's like so wait you missed high school football
[29:22]college football the draft you know combat you could you skip every step in
[29:27]between now you're just gonna show up at the stadium it seems in the publishing
[29:32]world it can work every one in a thousand times but otherwise going through
[29:38]those normal steps of you know rigorously improving your work and being willing
[29:44]to edit and take feedback and holding yourself to the highest standard and
[29:50]having the community of fellow writers they're gonna help you and support
[29:54]you and encourage you and helping them and then when ten people you know all
[30:00]say, okay, this is perfect.
[30:01]It's ready to go.
[30:02]Then that's time to send your work out.
[30:04]But I feel like it's always a little people are so,
[30:07]I think he gets so excited and so impatient
[30:11]that you start sending your work out when you've done one draft.
[30:15]And then that disappointment can be crushing.
[30:18]And then a lot of it is that you haven't prepared.
[30:21]You run to the stadium half dressed, you know?
[30:25]And so I think being patient and then going back
[30:28]to what I was saying before is that the person
[30:30]on the other end of your submission is overworked.
[30:34]Underpaid has a 12 foot stack of manuscripts
[30:37]they're desperately trying to get through
[30:39]and they're doing the best they can.
[30:40]So, and if you don't find that publisher,
[30:43]publish it yourself.
[30:44]This has never been easier in the history of humankind
[30:48]to put a book out into the world and find an audience.
[30:50]It's very lucky to be living in this time in that way
[30:54]and that you can put it online.
[30:56]You can find a printer.
[31:04]You don't find that agent publisher connection
[31:08]then do it yourself and be patient
[31:16]but don't wait forever.
[31:17]Love it.
[31:18]Well, Dave, thank you so much.
[31:19]This has been so enjoyable for me
[31:21]and I hope that I meet you in person
[31:24]and I'm so glad I've gotten to know you
[31:25]and your wife, Ventilavita, about her book.
[31:29]We run the tides and it's just been great.
[31:31]So thank you so much.
[31:33]Thanks a lot.
[31:33]It'd be great to meet you.
[31:34]Okay, you too.
[31:35]Bye-bye.
[31:36]Bye.
[31:38]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms.
[31:40]Don't have time to read books.
[31:41]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram,
[31:43]at Zibi Owens and at Moms.
[31:45]Don't have time to read books.
[31:46]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com
[31:49]and sign up for my virtual book club
[31:51]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[31:53]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan,
[31:55]in fact, Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[31:57]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[31:59]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.