Kristy Woodson Harvey, UNDER THE SOUTHERN SKY

[1:20]Zibby Owens: which I didn't. But at that time, was like going to the guy at Joe and the Juice behind the counter asking him to vote for me and anyone I could. So now I'm coming to all of you to ask you to please vote for moms don't have time to read books to win the People's Choice Webby Award for Best Live Podcast. If you go to vote.webbyawards.com again, that's vote.webbywebbyawards.com and then go to the little magnifying glass search thing on the upper right. All you have to type in is search my name or entry and just type in moms and it will come up. And then you can click on the best live podcast recording nominee and vote for me. Also, by the way, won honoree for best influencer, which is crazy. Anyway, thank you for voting. I really, really would appreciate it. I would love to win the People's Voice Award, especially after trying so hard and failing two years ago. So if you could just take a few minutes and vote, I would be so grateful. You could email me after if you want at infosibbyowens dot com. And I will say thank you to you via email myself because I'm so grateful. So email me if you've done it, post about it. I'm just I would be so grateful. Thank you. Hi, this is Zippy Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I'm also the host of Moms Don't Have Time to Lose Weight, and I'm the editor of the anthology, which you should run out and buy, called Moms Don't Have A Quarantine Anthology. All proceeds of that book go to COVID-nineteen Vaccine Research. And I'm the editor in chief of Moms Don't Have Time to Write, a new publication on Medium, and we're accepting submissions, so please send your personal essays there. And if all that isn't enough, you can follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and my website is zibbyowens.com. Okay. Now back to this amazing podcast. So this is a recording of the live event I did with Christie Woods and Harvey and Left Bank Books, the largest independent bookstore in St. Louis. And I have to say my contribution to this leading up to it was sort of a nightmare because I had decided to go to this random hotel with my husband, Kyle, and we thought it would be fun. But when we got there, there was no Wi Fi in the room, or it kept freezing. And so I had to cart my laptop all around the hotel, which ended up being a terrible hotel. And the walk to my room was fifteen minutes long, and it was just one of those awful situations. So with no time to spare, I ended up in this, like, abandoned, disgusting event space room with upside down chairs on every table and men kind of coming in and out the whole time, like flopping a chair or grabbing a cart or something crazy. Anyway, I was definitely crying up until the second that this started. So I rallied because I love Christy, Witts, and Harvey, and did the event. We ended up having a blast. But just that was the preamble to what actually happened. Here's a little bio about Christy, and it may show you part of why I love her so much, but honestly, I am obsessed with this book, Under the Southern Sky, and it is really really fantastic. So I was honored to talk to her about it. Anyway here's her bio. Christy Woodson Harvey is the USA Today bestselling author of Feels Like Falling, The Southern Side of Paradise, The Secret to Southern Charms, Slightly South of Simple, Lies and Other Acts of Love, Dear Carolina, and the Forthcoming Under the Southern Sky, which has now arrived. Christie is the winner of the Lucy Bramlett Patterson Award for Excellence in Creative Writing, a finalist for the Southern Book Prize, and her work has been optioned for film and has gotten so many accolades including Southern Living's Most Anticipated Beach Reads, Southern Living's Best Spring Break Reads, Southern Independent Bookseller Association's Okra Pick, Parades, Big Fiction Reads, Every Book Club will love. It just goes on and on. Entertainment Weekly, Us Weekly, Women's World, PopSugar, USA Today, Deep South Magazine, Raleigh News, Charlotte Observer, HuffPost. She also blogged with her mom, Beth Woodson, on Design Chic about how creating a beautiful home can be the catalyst for creating a beautiful life. And by the way she is a Phi Beta Kappa Summa Cum Laude graduate of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill School of Journalism with a Masters in English from East Carolina University and her publication, her writing has been in everywhere from Domino, Parade, today.com, Washington Post, Marie Claire, everywhere. And she's a member of the Tall Poppy Writers. She also serves on the board of the Beaufort Historical Association and is a member of the UNC Women's Leadership Council. And she's always working on another novel. So enjoy this episode. Christy, congratulations on your publication. This is so exciting.

[6:06]Kristy Woodson Harvey: Oh, thank you. Thank get excited for after so many books. Oh, my gosh. Yes, it is. I think it's like a new baby, I guess. You know, it's like, oh, like, you love it. You're so excited for it to be in the world. And, yes, I'm thrilled. And it's been so fun to be back on tour. And, I've been doing a few in person events. So that's felt kind of weird and great all at the same time. And so, yes, it's so exciting. It's so exciting. Thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it. Of course. No. I saw on Instagram how you were actually with real people at a book at book events, and I was like, that's amazing. I'm so excited that the world is is coming back. I know. Me too. Me too. It's great.

[6:45]Zibby Owens: And by the way, when I was listening to your bio, I think it's a disservice to call you a great southern writer. I mean, you are a great writer, full stop, period. Like, that's you it's not only in a region. Like, you have you're the way you tell stories is so beautiful and the stories themselves and the characters. So, anyway, I think you need to, you know, I don't know, shift the bio Thank or

[7:10]Kristy Woodson Harvey: you. Yes. Like, get some new quotes. I'm just kidding.

[7:15]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Yeah. No. I mean, I love the quote. I don't know. I really loved this book, and it was so thought provoking. And

[7:22]Kristy Woodson Harvey: what how did you come up with the idea for for this novel? So it kind of like a lot of things. It came to me in stages, but the real spark for this story was a few years ago. It was maybe was probably five years ago, because it was right after my first book, Dear Carolina had just come out. And I was at a party and a friend and I were talking. And she said, you know, I was at the doctor today, and we just found out that we have to decide what to do with our leftover frozen embryos. And she said, you know, I just never expected this. It wasn't something we were thinking about. All we were thinking about was, you know, this family and these children that we really wanted. And I think, you know, before they had their first baby, they thought, well, you know, we might have all of these embryos. You know, we might use all of them. Like, you just don't really know. But then they ended up not doing that, and they were just having a hard time deciding what to do. And she said, you really should write a book about this because a lot of people are gonna be going through this. And I was like, yes. Yes, I should. And it was one of those things that I knew just right away was going be something that I was going to want to write a story about at some point. But it wasn't until a few years later that so lies another acts of love was about to come out. The Peachtree Bluff series then came out. And of course, that was three books, so that took several years. And then Feels Like Falling, and I knew I was almost kind of like holding my breath because I thought, if I don't come up with a story about this topic, like somebody else this specific thing that somebody else is going to because I knew I really wanted to write about a man who had lost his wife and had to decide what to do with his leftover frozen embryos. So I was I was really holding my breath and so I was pretty excited. I mean, I don't think there's been another book about it. Maybe there has. But at any rate, I'm excited it's out. And it's felt very timely right now.

[9:06]Zibby Owens: It's so timely.

[9:08]Kristy Woodson Harvey: But I sent you the article for The New York Times a few days ago about abandoned embryos. You posted that, like, five other people had sent it to you. Mean, it's, like, literally right now, this is top of the news. It it was unbelievable. No. And when I saw it, I was, oh, my gosh. And, like, all these people were sharing it with me. And, yeah, it was crazy that something so similar was in the New York Times, like, just, you know, two days before the book was coming out. And sometimes I think, you know, those are, the little nudges, like, first we get from the universe, like, okay, you're on the right track. Like, this was the right time. And I really felt like there were a lot of those things throughout this process. Like, you know, one of the major things in this story is that there's an investigative journalist that is friends, one of her childhood friends is is the father of these embryos, and she sort of accidentally discovers that his embryos have been deemed abandoned. And so part of the inspiration for that was a big story in the New York Times while I was writing this book about abandoned embryos and how, you know, their fate is kind of up in the air and and what ethically can, you know, doctor's offices do with them because no one's paying for their storage. But are they life? Are they not life? Can you adopt them out? Like, what do you do with these embryos? So I think there's just there's been so much going on with this for the past few years anyway. And then I think we're gonna start to see a lot more. So it's it's it's an interesting topic for sure. I could have written 10 books about it, honestly. I bet.

[10:33]Zibby Owens: And I love the way you structured it, how you alternated who was telling the story when. You would have Parker. Then you would hear from the leftover diaries of Greer, who's his wife who had passed away, from Amelia, from Amelia's mom, from the moms. I mean, it was so great to get everybody's point of view. And, of course, everybody has different points of view on this particular issue. But then just life in general and how they deal with the loss in their life, in their small circle. How did you decide to structure it this way, particularly, I would say,

[11:05]Kristy Woodson Harvey: Greer, and how you got her voice into it, even though she had been passed away when when the novel begins. I was really nervous about that to be completely honest with you. It was not something that I really originally planned on doing. I thought, you know, we're gonna have Parker and Amelia. I hadn't actually planned on having Greer or Elizabeth. And then as the story progressed and for people who have read the book, Elizabeth who is Emilia's mother, actually her POV does not come onto the page until like 80 pages in. But I started to realize that something was gonna unfold in this story and we couldn't see it from Amelia's point of view, and we couldn't see it from Parker's point of view. So we had to have somebody else in the story. And for Greer, I actually really just kinda played around with it. I was not sold on the fact that Greer was going to appear in this story, And I wrote a few of her journal entries at the beginning. And normally, I don't let anyone read a book until I'm completely finished with a draft. But I actually sent the first, like, maybe seven or eight chapters to my agent and said, is this gonna work? You know, do you think it's too hokey to have her journal entries? And she said she wrote back and said, no, absolutely not. I think we need her. And I the the first journal entry that I wrote was the one where she's actually like saying goodbye to her embryos. And I think it would have been a different story if we hadn't had that scene. And I think it would have been a harder sell on why Parker feels so connected to these embryos if he had not seen how connected, you know, this woman that he loved so much felt to them. Yeah, but it was it was a risk. And that was

[12:33]Zibby Owens: no. I it was a it was it worked. It totally worked. And I loved how even in the book, you had other people then go read the same thing again. It was, like, of meta. Right? Like, she had the diary, you published it, then other people read it, and then you continued to sway the reader and all the characters over and over with why it was so essential to try this, which was genius. I loved that.

[12:59]Kristy Woodson Harvey: Well, you know, it it is something that I do think is contentious, and that was one of my main qualms about writing this story is that, you know, it's one of those issues where half the people that pick up a book about what people do with their leftover frozen embryos don't really care. And I mean, I don't mean that in, like, a flip way, but depending on how you feel about that issue, you just think, who cares? Get rid of them. But going back to that New York Times article, it was so interesting. And I think the thing that really struck me about that article was how the parents of those embryos, they were their children. Like, they weren't born, but they were their children. And that's how I think people feel about it. And if you haven't been through that situation, I think it's hard for you to kind of understand that and like really feel that and so I wanted readers to kind of feel how connected they felt to these embryos even though you know as Greer says all the life that will never be because that's kind of what they were to her. Wow.

[13:59]Zibby Owens: And even the ripple effects across generations, which you point out with the character of Greer's dad. So it's not just what the husband necessarily wants, but what about the family of the woman who has passed away? Or what about that and having to deal with another layer? That could have gone any direction. The father could have been happier, sad, or angry, or litigious, or whatever. Just think there's it's so unclear

[14:28]Kristy Woodson Harvey: what you're supposed to do. No. You're absolutely right. And that's such a good point that you bring up because that's happening in real life. I mean, I have friends who have frozen embryos, and like they have wills written so that like if they die, like their sister has to approve what their husband does. I mean, it this stuff goes very, very deep, but I think it also speaks to the fact that even five and six years ago, when my friend and I were talking about this, yes, lots of people were doing IVF and this was a very, you know, kind of normal way to have a baby at that point. But I don't think people were quite as up to speed on like, oh, wait, we have to figure out what we're gonna do after and oh, like, what if I die and I leave these embryos? Or what if we get divorced? And who gets the embryos? And there's a big court case going on right now with, a couple who, you know, he it's in their will that, you know, one of the members of the couple gets the embryos, but then the other one changed his mind. And and they're splitting up, they're in court over who gets the embryo. I mean, you know, it is it's just very interesting to me. Like I said, I could have written 10 books about it. So it was really hard to decide, like, okay. This is the story that I'm gonna write. And that's still only one piece. I mean, it's sort of the guiding principle of the story. There's a whole other piece of

[15:46]Zibby Owens: so you have the embryos and everything. But then you have the relationship between Parker and Amelia and how they feel about each other. And you have the loss. Right? You wrote so beautifully about that feeling of grief that I mean, Parker's sitting in his shower and, like, all these scenes. I mean and the times where the grief sort of wells up when he wasn't expecting it, which I think is so that's such a part of it, too, right? He's like, wow, today it really knocked me off my feet, whereas the other day he felt better. And tell me about how you're so tapped into grief. And I know from your essay in my upcoming anthology about your grandfather passing away, but tell me a little bit. I mean, I mean, was such a sweet essay. My gosh. Thank you. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited about the anthology. I cannot wait for that. You know, okay. So this is gonna sound really weird and it's I actually forgot about it until you just said this right now.

[16:38]Kristy Woodson Harvey: I was actually in the shower. And I just got this like, swamped feeling of, like, being this other person who was, like, grieving this really big loss. Like, it was very bizarre. I don't even really know how to explain it, but I remember, like, being, like, oh, this is really weird. There's, like, some part of a story in this. It was almost like I sort of felt it. But there was definitely a lot of, like, loss going on in my life at that time. I had lost a really good friend very unexpectedly, and I was very, like, deeply sad about it. Like, more than, you know, you know how you you have you have all those sort of layers of grief where you're, you know, you're sad and you're crying and you're at the funeral and whatever, but then the kind of, like, you just sort of can't move past it sort of thing. So that was definitely going on and my mother-in-law had just passed away after a really long illness, but it was very complicated because we were like evacuating for a hurricane and calling in a hospice and trying to figure out what to do and our house got destroyed in a hurricane. It was like all at the same time. And honestly, like, I think I handled it all really well. If I'm being honest, I really do. I never kind of, like, just fell apart at the seams. I was, okay. We're just we're problem solving here. And so I think in some ways, just like the the loss and like the grief of all of that kind of went into this story. It was just like, it was the way that I was like expressing what I was feeling, but I would not have told you that at the time. I didn't really actively realize that's what was happening until, like, honestly, kind of now. Like, as I've started talking about this book, I'm like, oh, well, that makes sense. Like, I'm writing about this house, like, crumbling at the seams and, like, my house is, like, you know, half gone. And, you know, I'm writing about these people losing people who are close to them and how that feels, and I've lost these people that are close to me. So I think, you know, in retrospect, it's certainly not the same thing. I mean, losing a spouse would just be so monstrous, you know, but I think it gave me enough to be able to kind of really put myself in the position of what that would feel like.

[18:49]Zibby Owens: I'm so sorry about your losses and thank you for sharing them. I think that's the thing about grief. I feel like therapists should just pick up someone's novel and be like, all right, here are all the things that are probably going on with you that maybe you're not aware of, but they come out in fiction. Come out in these scenes because after a while, your consciousness, you're wrestling with it. And for so long, it has to seep out. It's like, I don't know, like a sponge. I don't know a good analogy. But anyway, it's

[19:21]Kristy Woodson Harvey: right. And I think it is it's like my therapy. I mean, whatever is happening, I'm somehow putting it into these pages. And then, you know, that's where I go. Like, that's where my escape is. And like my outlet. And I mean, even during COVID. I mean, I wrote so many books during COVID because I was just like and they they weren't about COVID. They weren't even negative. I mean, I wrote this really fun happy Christmas book, like, during COVID, but it was because, like, that's what I wished I was doing right then. You know? I wrote that instead of focusing on all the things we weren't doing. So I think there's there's definitely some therapy happening on those pages for sure.

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[22:09]Kristy Woodson Harvey: Well, you are also an extremely talented writer too. And I think that I think that you are. And I think those I think all of that comes out, you know, in in our essays and things like that too. And that's why I think what you do is so incredible because you're giving people outlets for all of these different things that they're feeling, and it's really incredible. I mean, the anthology, like, just to see all the different, you know, all the different essays and all the different things that all these different women were going through, but yet they're all so relatable. Like, every single essay that you read, you're like, oh, yeah. Like, I felt like that or that's happened to me or So, I really I think it's incredible. I think it's a real gift to people to be able to pick up, you know, these anthologies, and especially during a time, you know, like, I think the past year, I don't know about you, but, well, no, I'm going to not say I don't know about you. You have had the attention span of, like, 30 people because you read so many books. But, you know, I think sometimes to pick up a book and, like, really commit to the whole book felt a little bit daunting. So to be able to pick up, you know, the anthology and read a complete beautiful thing in just a few minutes and then pick it up again and do the same thing. We didn't have to have a long attention span. So it was really good. A quarantine anthology was pretty genius.

[23:24]Zibby Owens: So thank you. Thank you. But no, this is about you and your book and your process.

[23:32]Kristy Woodson Harvey: And we have I mean, it's your anthology, but I mean, I I got to write something for the next one. So I'm pretty excited about it. You did.

[23:40]Zibby Owens: You should I mean, I loved your essay. Oh my gosh. It was so good. It was really good. Planning on writing. It was not what I was planning on writing, but you just never know what's gonna happen. So You never know. Did you always know you wanted to write?

[23:52]Kristy Woodson Harvey: No, actually, which is kind of interesting. So I actually really liked science when I was in school, like growing up and I thought maybe I would do something in that field. And I do think especially in this book, like you see a little bit of that just in I'm not gonna say you see a little bit of that, but like I knew a lot about what I was writing about because I had covered these science beats in college and, like, had done a lot of, you know, interviews and read a lot of studies about, you know, all the updates, all the things that were happening with IVF and, you know, things like that. So, I felt like I had a lot of kind of, like, the background knowledge that I needed to be able to kind of at least start the book and then, you know, fact check it later kind of thing. But, yeah, I thought I would do something in science. And then when I was in high school, I was a senior in high school, and I got an internship at my local newspaper. And I said this on Better Connecticut this morning, and they were like, this is not real. And I was like, yes, it is. My first article was about a giant squash that someone had grown in their garden, and it looked like Elvis. Like, it had, like, the face of Elvis on it. And I was like, no. I mean, if you live in a small southern town, like, you will read about something like this in your newspaper. So that was my first article, my foray into journalism. But and it was so silly. It was, like, the silliest thing. But I started writing this garden game series for the newspaper, and I would write about, you know, these silly things that people grew in their gardens, but I was also writing about their lives and their families. And I was just so struck by the idea that everyone had a story. And so it led me to go to journalism school, but I always swore the whole time I was there that I was gonna tell real stories. People would say, oh, you're a writer. Are you gonna write a novel? And I would always say, I don't really think so. And I kind of had in the back of my mind that, like, maybe I'll write a book. Maybe I'll try to write a book because, I mean, you know, you know, you don't know you can do it, think, until you do it. But I thought I would think, like, well, maybe I'll try to write a book one day just because I think that'd like, a cool bucket list thing, not to get published or anything like that. Just to, like, I did this, like, go me, you know? But it wasn't something that was like part of my plan, but, you know, I just think things continue to evolve. So, I got a master's in literature just because I wanted to read. I was like, I've written for four years. I'm gonna go read for two years. And so, I did and that was fantastic. And then I went and worked in finance and kind of missed writing while I was doing that and started getting all these story ideas. I sat down and started writing and actually wrote three well, I guess I wrote yeah, I wrote three complete manuscripts before I tried to get an agent and then signed with an agent and actually ended up not selling the book that I signed with the agent for, and then in the meantime, winning a writing contest for Dear Carolina and getting a contract at Berkeley for that one. So it I'm making it sound you know you know. Like, I'm making it sound like this short story is very long and twisty and emotional and took years. I don't know that, you know, there were a lot of rejection letters. You know, I still have them in folders and every now and then if I'm like, this is really hard, I'm tired. I'm like, go back and look rejection letters and like, remember how far you've come, you know, because it is, it's, I don't think anyone gets here without a lot of effort. I mean, I guess maybe some people do, but I think most everyone has experienced that feeling of having to really work hard to get where they are. And it's

[27:10]Zibby Owens: not a job that comes super easily, I don't think, for most people. No. I agree. And I mean, it seems to me you have to write at least a couple novels before you have any hope of selling any of them. People should just know that starting out. Don't even try. You'll think it's amazing,

[27:28]Kristy Woodson Harvey: and you'll pour your heart into it. But that is your first one. And just get it you have to do it to get to the fourth one or the fifth one. But like, that's going to be your practice book. Yeah, that's such a good point. And I think my saving grace in all of that was that, and this is still my process. So when I'm writing something about two thirds of the way through or even like half of the way through, I'll start to get another idea that I think is the best idea I've ever had. And it's so much better than the idea I'm working on now. And, oh my gosh, like, what am I doing with this silly little book? Because this one is just brilliant. You know, you like your next idea is always your best idea. Right? And so I'll kind of start writing. And so I think my my real saving grace was that, like, by the time I was finished with my first manuscript, I was about a third of the way through my second one, and I knew how much better it was. And by the time I was I was finished with my second, I was about a third of the way through my third and I knew how much better it was. And I do think by that third one, I think you have to find your voice a little bit. I think that takes some time. You can't just, you know, and maybe and and I don't know. And maybe it comes with age too. I mean, was young, like, I was, you know, in my mid twenties, like, starting all of this. And so I do think finding your voice, like, takes time and maybe learning a little bit more about who you are. Not to say there are plenty of like 20 year olds who write brilliant, beautiful things. So, but for me, it just, it took practice to be able to find like who I am on the page and what I want to say. And so there's definitely something to that, I think. I think you're right. One last thing about the book I wanted to mention that I thought was interesting was

[29:07]Zibby Owens: the feelings of loss that everybody had, particularly Amelia when Greer passed away, as a big deal Instagram person. Because that is only just now sort of happening more and more, whereas before, you didn't know the ins and outs of people's lives quite as intimately. And I don't feel like you could know them as well as you do now, particularly someone like Ria who had written her own books and had like 2,000,000 followers and blah, blah, blah. So I don't know. I just found that to be also really interesting because you can mourn the loss of someone you don't even really know yourself. And that also counts as loss and grief. And I feel like a lot of people are going through that right now in many ways. Oh, it's so true. You're such a good interviewer. I have said so many things tonight that I have not said in the 10,000,000

[29:55]Kristy Woodson Harvey: times I've talked about this book. So thank you for hitting on all these things. But yes, I think that is such a cultural phenomenon right now where I mean, think you're a really good example of that. Like I've met you one time super briefly at East Hampton Authors Night. But I feel like I really know you, you know, because I follow you and I know what you're doing and I know what your kids are up to and I know when your son's time for boarding school. I mean so, like, it's a real thing and, like, I listen to your interviews. And, I mean, I I do think that people you know, we feel connections with people that we don't really know. And so, you know, I understand it. Like, when someone will come up to me at a signing, and they'll be like, no. But, like, I know you. And I'm like, well, yeah. Because, like, I talk about myself all the time online, so you you do know me. You really do. But I do think that we feel attached to people in these ways. And especially, you know, I think Greer was someone who, you know, in this story, we we do find out, and I I worked really hard in making it so that we knew she wasn't a saint because I think when someone dies and they're young and it's kind of tragic that we do tend to saint them. And that would have been a really hard road in this story. She could not be so perfect. And I think her journal entries do sort of serve the purpose of making it so she's not quite as such a saint in the story. But, you know, she is someone that is, like, really trying to do good for the world in addition to, like, just being cool and, like, people want to know her. So, I do think that that we do feel those losses of people, and we feel like we know them. We feel like we're a part of their lives and their stories, and, you know, we root for them, and it's kind of cool, honestly. I think people tend to talk about, the negative parts of these online communities and people can just say anything and da da da. That's true, but also I think it's given us really strong connections with people especially during this time when we didn't have these real life connections anymore. I think it's important. And it's funny that, you know, that wasn't something we weren't experiencing the pandemic when I started writing this book, I think that is something that maybe we understand a little bit more even now

[32:03]Zibby Owens: than we did before because we are so connected via social media. That's true. I feel it's been a saving grace for so many people through this time when you couldn't be with people, especially with everybody just spanning spanning out and hunkering down themselves. You know? It's just anyway, I completely agree, and I loved that you put that in. I could chat with you all day about this book. And I really just honestly love it.

[32:28]Kristy Woodson Harvey: Thank you. Well, thank you. Well, I am so grateful that you took the time to read it because I almost like feel guilty because I'm like, I know how many just so many books that you're reading all the time. And so I really I do not take it for granted because I know how many books I'm reading all the time. And so sometimes when you're so overloaded and you you you get to read one more, but you're like, can I fit it in? Like, I just don't know. So I totally understand. It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure. I read most of it on the elliptical machine if it makes you feel any better. So That's really good. That's really good. I miss my elliptical. We're doing renovations at our house, and I don't have my elliptical. So I can't read and work out at the same time, which is really unfortunate.

[33:14]Zibby Owens: My just opened up my building after like a year, so I'm like very excited. I'm sure I'll stop going in another week. But you know, for now, I got to read your book and work out. For now.

[33:24]Kristy Woodson Harvey: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having It was awesome. Thank you all. I really appreciate

[33:30]Zibby Owens: for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens and at moms don't have time to read books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zibbyowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the sound editing, and thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.