Adam Rubin, THE ICE CREAM MACHINE

[1:34]Zibby Owens: Hi. I'm Zibby Owens, and you're listening to the award winning podcast, moms don't have time to read books. If you like this podcast, you will love my new anthology called Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids. Check it out, and you'll hear from 49 authors about all sorts of things moms don't have time to do. All the authors have been on this podcast. Also, check out my TikTok at withzivyandtracey, my other podcast, Sex Talk with Zibby and Tracy. Check out moms don't have time to write on Medium, and of course, my new publishing company called Zibby Books. And now back to our daily author interview site and a quick hello from some of my kids. Hi. Hi. Hello. Enjoy the show. Adam Rubin is the author of The Ice Cream Machine and he is also the number one New York Times bestselling author of 10 critically acclaimed books including Dragons Love Tacos, Dragons Love Tacos two, the sequel, High Five, Secret Pizza Party, Robo Sauce, and El Chupa Cabras, which won the Texas Bluebonnet Award. You can follow him on Twitter at rubingo. Welcome, Adam. Thanks so much for coming on moms don't have time to read books. So excited to have you here to discuss your latest book, the ice cream machine, and just all your amazing work. Thank you for having me. I'm glad moms have time to listen to podcasts at least. I mean, I hope they do. Someone's gotta be listening.

[2:54]Adam Rubin: I don't know. There's probably some sort of technology to tell you. Yes. No. I'm

[3:00]Zibby Owens: I know people are listening. I don't know who they are, though. That would be nice. Maybe you all could send me an email every so often so I know. But anyway Just a little a little hello, a little little photo of you, where you are when you're listening. Yeah. That'd be great. Paint a picture. Even better. Yes. We could start a whole campaign. You can tag Adam.

[3:17]Adam Rubin: Tag Adam to let him know that this worked. Yeah. Tag me. I would love to know where you were listening to this. And I would say, I'll send you a photo back of where I am when I see the photo. Oh. You, where you're listening to it. It will be this whole it'll be like a whole chain I love it. A viral campaign.

[3:36]Zibby Owens: Perfect. Alright. Everybody, if you're listening, stop what you're doing. Take a picture and tag Adam Rubin. Are you just at Adam Rubin? I'm on Twitter at Rubingo. Rubingo. That's right. You're not on Instagram?

[3:47]Adam Rubin: You know, I feel weird about Instagram. I don't know how to deal with Instagram because it's extraordinarily intimate, I feel, to post photos of yourself. So I guess it is a big ask to invite people to send a photo. But it just I don't know. It it started feeling a little weird when most of the people following me on Instagram and looking at my vacation pictures were people I didn't know. Mhmm. And I still don't really know how to reconcile that, so I haven't I haven't quite figured out how to deal with Instagram.

[4:13]Zibby Owens: Yeah. I actually love Instagram. But, you know, you don't have to post your vacation pictures. What do you post? Actually, I guess I did post a vacation picture recently.

[4:23]Adam Rubin: Did it. Artist. If I was I have friends that are visual artists, Instagram for them is wonderful because they post pictures of their work and people get to see it. They get a lot of They even get, like, professional jobs from art directors who scroll through Instagram and look for great illustrators or photographers or painters. And for me, I'm a word person. So I want I'm going to take a picture of this. This is, you know, like, this is the most interesting visual stuff I've got. It's not not so compelling.

[4:51]Zibby Owens: Other than that, it's like a snapshot. It's like I'm showing pictures of my life, which is is very intimate. Yeah. I don't know. I've somehow come to terms with it. Like, I really like taking pictures showing pictures of what I'm reading or people who I've had on the podcast. Or I'm like, here are the four podcasts I just did, or here are some books that I think are great. Or Absolutely.

[5:10]Adam Rubin: It's a very powerful marketing tool, and I'm willing to use it as that. I just posted a photo of my new book, but I try to remember that it is an advertising platform, and I don't really want to advertise myself.

[5:23]Zibby Owens: Okay. All right. So you don't have to post it on Instagram listeners. Post on Twitter. Why not? You know? I really like Instagram, though. I find Twitter very hard to use. I I I don't know where to start. I I don't know. It I don't know what to do with Twitter. And I feel like everybody on Twitter is mean, and I get very scared. So I kind of dip in and dip out and just try to get out of there. Like, I'm, you know I don't know. I'm I'm scared of the Twitter people. Not that they're all bad. But can be intense. No question. There's some there's some meanies

[5:55]Adam Rubin: lurking out there on Twitter. Yeah.

[5:58]Zibby Owens: So maybe And it makes it exciting. No. I don't find that exciting. I'm I I have I don't know. I need to be in, like, a warm and fuzzy place like my Instagram feed. Okay. Anyway, off topic. Your new book. First of all, your old books. As with most people who have kids, I have four kids of my own who are obsessed with your books. We've read all your books. We read them night and day. We've been reading them for years. I have kids who are 14 and seven and eight, and everybody loves the books. Everybody's so excited. So I was asking them this morning what to talk to you about or what questions they would have. So my daughter who is eight wants to know what inspired you to start writing for children? You know, they say luck is chance

[6:35]Adam Rubin: or wait. Luck. They say luck is opportunity, meaning preparation, right? Is that right? Well, when I was about 22, I got a call from my friend Corey. I was working in advertising at the time. Was writing Happy Meal commercials at a company called Leo Burnett. And I got a call from my buddy Corey and there's like, it's just weird how it worked out, but there's like the stinky cheese man is on my shelf. My desk is covered with toys because every time I got to write a commercial for a Happy Meal, they send me all the toys that are in the Happy Meal and there's six toys in each option of a Happy Meal. So I'm surrounded by children's toys. I'm surrounded by children's books. And my friend calls me up and says, Hey, you should work with my friend Dan. He just graduated. He's a year behind us in school, and he wants to illustrate picture books. You guys should work together because you'd really hit it off. I know you both well. I know you've never met, but you've got a similar sense of humor and you should talk. So we did, and he was right. We hit it off right away. We've been friends ever since. He was the witness at my wedding during the pandemic. We started making books together. I wrote a story about this old man that was fighting with the squirrels in his backyard that were stealing from his bird feeders. It was inspired by my dad. When I was a kid, I lived in the woods and my dad would constantly be outsmarted by the squirrels who were stealing from the bird feeders that he set up. And Dan did some sketches for it. He liked the manuscript. He went out and hit the brakes in New York and was knocking on doors and dropping off his portfolio to different art directors. And we got a book deal. It was just one book. It was a little book. Nobody expected really anything of it. I thought, oh, that was a fun thing. I'll never do again. But it was so satisfying and so fulfilling to see someone illustrate the words that I had written. And I got a little bit of that sense working in the advertising world because there is a bit of like copy and art relationship and collaboration. But it was different with a story, of course. And then to see the book, the physical book on the shelf, that was maybe one of the most thrilling moments of my whole life. When I first walked into a bookstore and there was something that I wrote on the shelf. And even still, I get this thrill, especially when it's someplace unexpected, like an airport. And you walk in and there's your idea in a physical form on the shelf. That is really exciting to see. And I just thought it was great. I was so happy about the whole thing, and I never imagined it would be my full time job. But we got a nice award from Borders, which was a bookstore back in the 90s and 2000s that said we were the best original voices or something like that. And that was really flattering. But more importantly, it gave us an opportunity to make two more Squirrels books, which we did very happily. And then a couple of years after that, I proposed an idea for a book to the publisher that they thought was too silly and they passed on it. But Dan's agent, Rebecca Sherman, really liked it. So she brought it to somebody else and they wound up buying it. And that book was called Dragons Love Tacos. So after that and a few more other books that were way more popular than I ever expected, I quit my day job in advertising and started writing full time.

[9:54]Zibby Owens: Wow.

[9:55]Adam Rubin: So the question was, how did I wind up writing for kids? And the truth of it is I'm not really writing for kids. I'm writing for me. Know, Maurice Sendak always used to say that the difference between children's books and adult books is marketing. And now that I've written a middle grade book, I really see how much that's true because words are words. Obviously, don't want to put drug use or any sort of serious adult themes in a book for kids. But I find that when people are really trying to talk down to their audience or trying to really figure out what the people they're writing for want to hear or want to read about, it feels fake. It feels like too manufactured. It feels like a marketing product. And it's just from a writer's perspective, it's so much more satisfying to write things that you like and that you are proud of. So that's what I've always tried to do. And that's the advice I would give to anybody that's trying to write for kids is like, don't maybe don't dumb it down. You know? Try to make something you really think is great, but doesn't have anything in it that's gonna give a kid nightmares or ruin their day.

[11:07]Zibby Owens: Unless that's what you're going for because R. L. Stine made a career out of that. Right? Yes. That's true. Now we have enough things that the kids are scared of. Thank you very much. Don't need any more night terrors or anything.

[11:18]Adam Rubin: Some people like to be scared. Just like us. I don't like scary movies, but some people some of my friends, they love watching horror horrifying things. And I'm with you. I think you want to be scared. Turn on the news. Go out for a walk or talk to somebody that's down on their luck. Like, there's a lot of reality that is horrifying. I prefer to make fictional things that are funny or a little distracting from that sort of anguish.

[11:43]Zibby Owens: Yes. I actually have a children's book coming out in April from Flamingo from part of Penguin Random House. It's called Oh, cool. Yeah. It's about a character named Princess Charming. So Princess Charming. Oh, I see what you're doing here. Yeah. Got a little twist at the end. Uh-huh. Yeah. You'll see. Okay. Your new book. First of all, I loved the part where you talk about the magic of words because I think about this all the time. Obviously, I'm, like, immersed in words all the time, and I'm always marveling at, like, does anybody else see how cool this is? Like, I'm inside your head, and I can just read what you're thinking, and this is, magic, and anytime I want, I can dip into your words or or words that I wrote, like, thirty years ago that, like, now I can pull out an older version of me and, like, here I am. It's so cool. Anyway, I love that you start the whole thing with just marveling on this thing that everybody kind of takes for granted. Writing is magic. It really is. It's think about before they have writing

[12:37]Adam Rubin: and then after they have writing. Just that change in human culture and the sharing of information and the recording of information. It lasts hypothetically forever. And that is just in itself incredible. But the idea, like you said, that you can describe something and then put that idea into someone else's mind, it's almost like a form of telepathy to be able to merge your imagination with somebody else's. Now, they never see exactly what you saw. Even the greatest writers in the world struggle to communicate exactly what they put on the to get what exactly what they were trying to put into the reader's imagination to manifest there in full detail. But that's also another part of the magic of writing is it's totally subjective. The thing that you're trying to say is not always what people take away from what you wrote. So there's all these different facets of writing that to me are completely fascinating. And it's exciting. It's a privilege to be able to talk about it with an audience of people that maybe aren't familiar with that power and to give them the opportunity to express themselves and feel that power that you get from being able to do and create whatever you want. That's a rare invitation that a kid is asked to say or do anything that they want. Most of the time, they're working under very specific constraints.

[14:18]Zibby Owens: It's true. I love the rebranding on the part of kids. Right? We've you're basically just rebranding reading for kids, rebranding it as an act of, you know, something that should be on like a magic kit, just like what you're saying. But it's just So reading is actually closely related to writing, of course. Mhmm. But it's a little different because

[14:38]Adam Rubin: for the past ten years, I've been the guy that shows up at the gymnasium and they stuff all the kids in the gym and they give me a microphone. By the way, nobody ever asks me what I'm going to say. They're never like, Hey, can we see your notes? Or like, Don't do that. The fact that I wrote a book somehow qualifies me with no censorship at all. So yes, I get out there and I what do I nobody says this is what you should tell the kids. So for ten years, I've been telling them reading is fun. And I try to show them that because I write books that they think are fun. We try to have fun while I'm there in person, and I want them to leave that assembly and think, yeah, maybe reading is fun. That's cool. I can go places I've never been before. I can meet people that never existed. I can go explore the world. And that is fun and very cool and magical. But it's a little passive. And I started to question that message after a decade of sharing this idea because it started to feel a little passive and consumerist and maybe even self serving. You know, reading is fun. Read my books, you know? So I started to think that there is a more profound opportunity for me to encourage these kids to create stuff on their own and to share the ideas that they have swirling around in their imaginations. Kids are fearless. It's one of my favorite things about hanging out with young people is they haven't burdened themselves with the shackles of comparison. When adults think about writing, they're constantly thinking about how they're not as good as that writer that they love or drawing even or singing. And the young kid thinks they're a great singer, thinks they're a great writer or drawer. And eventually, by comparison with their classmates or whatever else they see in the world, they decide, I am not a good drawer, and so I should not draw. And that sucks because drawing is fun and singing is fun, even if you're bad at it. I mean, at karaoke. It's a perfect example. You don't have to be good at singing to have fun singing. And that's true for almost any artistic expression. Now, there are people that will say, Oh, you shouldn't tell everyone they're going to be a professional author like you're setting their expectations. I'm not saying that. And it's a weird jump that people have come to that it's like, Oh, so we shouldn't teach kids how to play basketball because they're never going to play in the NBA? No, you want people. There's so many benefits to just practicing something, to just going out there and going for a run. Are you going to win a gold medal? No. Who cares? You love running and it gives you all these physical mental benefits. And the same is true of writing. I think that if you get kids to express themselves and help them to express themselves more clearly, it not only helps them personally, it helps society, helps the world because it's a symptom of ignorance. It's a symptom of this problem that we have where people can't even agree on the set of facts that they're going to have an argument about. Part of that is because they're not good enough at expressing themselves. And when you are writing, especially fiction, you have to practice empathy because you have to imagine what these characters might be feeling. And if we can get a generation of young people to improve their empathy, that can only help society become a more loving and understanding

[18:13]Zibby Owens: kind of place to live. I love it. I absolutely love that. And you had such a funny line, by the way, when you said that when you write, you have the opportunity. You don't always have to put forth the opinions that you believe to be right and that the people who wanna do that tend to be politicians.

[18:31]Adam Rubin: Or something like that. Maybe I mangled your quote, but it was something like that. I said something along the lines of how the most popular question I get asked from kids and adults is where do you get your ideas from? Or how do you come up with ideas? And the truth of it is that people have ideas all day long, not just writers, but airplane pilots and pastry chefs and samurais. They have ideas all day, every day. The trick is not having the ideas. The trick is letting yourself believe that it that your idea is a good idea from time to time. Because the people that think that all their ideas are good ideas often go into politics. That it was something along those lines. And and Yes. You look, it's culturally universally funny to make fun of politicians because by definition, they've pissed everybody off in some way or another. But I wish that more people that were empathetic and selfless would go into politics. I don't know anything about politics. It just Yeah,

[19:26]Zibby Owens: I don't wanna talk about it. Okay. I'm kidding. We're not talking about politics. I also don't wanna talk about politics at all. I just appreciated the humor. So I'll leave it at that. That is a funny that is funny in every culture, in every language.

[19:38]Adam Rubin: I've traveled a lot around the world. I always try to learn, like, a couple words in the different languages, and I can say some jokes in a bunch of different languages. I don't know how to speak them. In some cases, I don't even know what the words I'm saying, which word means what, but it just helps kind of break the ice when you're somewhere where you're in a different culture and you're so obviously bewildered by what the hell is going on everywhere. So I've learned that it is always funny to make fun of politicians, and it's always funny to accuse an old man of having a secret family. These are just things like it doesn't matter where you are. It's just these are things that people think are funny. And I lived in Spain for three years, and that was part of the revelation to me of this whole idea of writing being so magical because you realize when you see something in a different language that you don't speak, like Catalan, for example, that it's meaningless. It's just squiggly lines. Or if you go to China or Russia and you don't know what the alphabet, it's like you just can't even imagine what it might mean. And yet if it's in a language you do speak, it's so immediately clear that you completely take it for granted. But in The US, we're overwhelmingly monolingual. And so we don't have that kind of experience very often. But it is really profound and kind of surprising once you realize, oh, what I'm saying, what I'm writing is not necessarily

[21:06]Zibby Owens: what everybody else understands. This is like when I was a kid and I was like, how do I know that the color red that's in my head is the same color red? Maybe for you, it's blue. And I was like That's right. Amazed by this. Yeah. The

[21:19]Adam Rubin: realization that reality is subjective is kind of mind expanding for a kid. For me, it came through learning magic tricks. And when I was a kid, would I learned a bunch of magic tricks. I still know about that. I mean, a magic poster. Some of these are magic books. I love magic tricks. And part of the reason that I love magic tricks and optical illusions and puzzles is because they're like definitive proof that reality is subjective. Because what feels like a miracle to my dad when I walk into his office and show him something to me, it's just like there's a piece of string, you know, and he just can't see it. And so that led me down the whole path that I'm still traveling to this day.

[22:03]Zibby Owens: It's endlessly fascinating to me. Yes. Wow, I agree. You made a comment in the book about how this had been your first middle grade book and how it was so hard that you ended up throwing away half of it and starting over or something like that or had to rewrite. What happened? Today's episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still easy. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C E Dot Com Slash Zippy for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quince.com/zippy.

[25:01]Zibby Owens: It's okay. You don't have to talk about it, actually. Maybe I'm, like, retraumatizing

[25:07]Adam Rubin: it. No, Zibby. Okay, so I'd never written a 400 page book before. And I was so intimidated by the word count that that was all I could focus on. I was like, all right, I just got to write a thousand words a day or whatever. Think 500 words a day or a thousand words a day. I don't remember what I was trying, what I was going for. But I thought if I just keep going like this, eventually forty days from now or sixty days from now, I'll have a 60,000 word book and I'll be done. And I can edit. And then that will be the easy part. This is what I thought. So I wrote 60,000 words. Then I went back and read it, and it was a fucking mess. I couldn't I didn't know what to do. I was like, wow, what a waste of time that was. So have learned the value of outlines and how important it is to make a detailed outline, not just like a general outline, but really to treat your outline with the same respect as a draft where you make it, give it some time away from it, come back to it, look at it with a critical eye, Try to poke holes in it because it will save you so much time later on. And even now, like I'm working on the second installment of short stories, the second collection of short stories to follow-up on the ice cream machine. And like, there's a story. It's coming up on a third draft, and I have to make this big change that is going to take a long time to fix because you make that one little tweak and then there's all these domino effects and you got to change everything. Then you got to go back through and make sure you didn't screw anything up or totally, totally break the universe. So, yeah, outlines. Super important. Very helpful.

[26:53]Zibby Owens: And yet you're doing it again. Like you're going to do it. You're well.

[26:57]Adam Rubin: It happens, right? You can't really know what the story is going to be about or exactly how it's going be until you write it. And sometimes you write it and you read it and you go, Oh, dang, this it's missing something. Like, it should be spookier.

[27:11]Zibby Owens: Or

[27:12]Adam Rubin: it, this character, why are they doing that? I know they need to do that, but why are they doing that? And you realize, Oh, because they need that rock. They need it. So now I got to now I got to make sure they need that rock all the way through in every scene there. So that happens. I mean, you can never know for sure. I've been doing George Saunders Story Club. Have you have you done that? I have not. Oh, man, it's so great. He's as good a teacher as he is a writer. Okay. And it's so illuminating and interesting and encouraging to read his thoughts about writing. He's obviously been teaching at Syracuse for a long time at the MFA program, but the way he approaches it is so What's the opposite of precious? Experimental, like bold or

[27:59]Zibby Owens: Expansive. Fearless. Fearless.

[28:01]Adam Rubin: Just like those kids. It's like you just write it and then you see what it is and you discover what it needs to be through the process and how it needs to change. And there's no right or wrong. And I love that attitude. I love that philosophy. It makes me feel excited about writing. Yeah. Why not? Just throw it out there. See what sticks. I would highly recommend subscribing to George Saunders' Story Club. It is excellent. And

[28:27]Zibby Owens: how did you end up, by the way, having all the different illustrators illustrate this book? Because that's pretty rare to find also. Yeah. Yeah. Well, like I said,

[28:38]Adam Rubin: I've been telling kids reading is fun for a while now, and I wanted to convince them that writing is fun. And I have found through experience that the biggest hurdle for kids, just like adults, is getting started. The terrifying sight of the blank page has stopped many aspiring writers from ever putting pen to paper or tickling the keyboard. And it's related to that question that I get asked all the time is where do your ideas come from? And some people seem to think they have to have some sort of excellent idea or groundbreaking idea in order to write anything or make anything. And the truth is the idea is just an excuse to get started. So what I tried to do is give everybody that reads the book an idea, which was the title, The Ice Cream Machine. Because for me, and this is different for every writer, I'm sure, but for me, I always start with the title. And so I look at The Ice Cream Machine and I think this could be a million different stories. And I can say that, but who's going to believe me? So I wrote six totally different stories with the same title, The Ice Cream Machine, and they're totally different. They're different genres, different characters, different universes. And my hope is that that is proof enough for a reader to say, okay, I wrote six, now you write one. What's your version of the ice cream machine? You've got the title. You know where to start. Go ahead and write your own story. I actually want to read those stories, stories, too. Like, I put my address in the book. I saw that. Sent it to me. I don't know if you have a physical copy, but the dust jacket of the book actually comes off, turns inside out and transforms into an envelope that's already addressed to me the kid can put their story into that envelope, slap a stamp on it, and it will get to me in New York. And if I get enough responses before the end of the year, I'm going put the best ones in the paperback edition of The Ice How cool would that be? That's really cool. For like a fifth grade kid to be a published author. Wow. So to the illustrators, I thought all of these stories are different. I really want them to feel like they have are from a totally different universe and that they're totally distinct. And I got this idea that it would be even more eclectic and diverse and wild to have every single story be illustrated by a different illustrator. And it turns out that it looks awesome in the You look through, you see all these different styles, these different people from all over the world that have illustrated these stories. In this book, there's Sierra Miller, Nicole Miles, Charles Santoso, Emily Hughes, Linears, and my pal, Manuel Salmeri. But more than that, it was like selfishly a real opportunity to just collaborate with six very smart, very talented people because they read the stories and they had ideas about the stories. And then I got to incorporate their great ideas and they brought them to life in a way that I couldn't have done without them. So in that way, it was for me six times as exciting as working with just one illustrator.

[31:43]Zibby Owens: That's amazing. I love that. But are you still going to do more picture books or are you? Yeah.

[31:48]Adam Rubin: Yeah. I love picture books. And I don't want to be one of those people that's like, I have seven picture books coming out this year. I don't. I mean, yes, I could write a picture book that fast, but it's like writing a song, you know, like you want it to be you want it to be memorable. You want it to be something that you while you're walking down the street and it gets stuck in your head. So I do have some ideas for picture books, but I like to kind of- one a year maybe at most. But I had a really cool idea for one that I got to build a prototype. It's sort of it's like if RoboSauce was a paper engineering challenge, this one's going to be it's like borderline pop up. I don't know. I don't know. I got to figure it out, but I'm excited about it. I love how you're you see the book as such an object, like that the book itself isn't part of the experience, that it's not just It really is. It it really is because, look, you read a PDF of this book, The Ice Cream Machine, right? It's just not the same. I know. It's just not the same. There's this kinesthetic experience of dealing with an object of the ritual you have because, yeah, you do a lot of stuff in front of the computer and some of it's fun and some of it's really not fun. But when you sit on the couch and you read a book, for me at least, I'm lucky, it's always for pleasure. And I go into a mindset that is about enjoying and relishing this time that I have with this author's words and the sound of the pages turning and the feel of the book in my hand. Like, I just got this great coffee table book, this artist, this designer called Nendo. It's like a design collective in Japan, and it's so heavy and it's hard to read the book. Like, you know, it's one of those huge, not tash, it's a Feiden book, but it's so big and that's a totally different experience. So I have to, I can't sit in the way that I usually read. I have to like sit down and look at these pictures and all of that contributes to a more rich and memorable experience with the stories, with the book, with the content that's on those pages. So, yeah, I've had a Kobo and read on the beach, that is nice. But I find I remember those books poorly. Yes. Knowing how far you are along in the story and seeing where the bookmark is and

[33:54]Zibby Owens: where it is on the page, all of that somehow in my brain makes it a little easier to remember the whole thing. Me too. And having it on the shelf. Then every time I see it, I get reminded of it, I think about the characters again. Right? Yeah. I noticed you have your books color coded behind I do. I know this is yes. Controversial. Very controversial. It is very controversial. It is. I know. I didn't realize how controversial. It's been like that for a year. But yeah, I love it. Look, everybody found So a pandemic

[34:24]Adam Rubin: I said everybody found a pandemic hobby. So you Yes, exactly. Yes. This is what I did. Yeah. But do you find that when you're in your room with your books, you feel smarter? Do I feel smarter? Like, no more. Your knowledge is at hand, is more palpable and easier to access. Because when I moved to Barcelona, I brought like a backpack and a suitcase. I put everything in storage. I had nothing with me. And when I came back to New York three years later, have a lot of books. This is a sliver. And when I unpacked all those boxes and put all those books on the shelf, it felt like part of my brain had had been the mist had been cleared away. And now all those things that I had read were just a little bit more accessible in my memory. Yes.

[35:14]Zibby Owens: It's true. I also feel like all the character this is gonna sound ridiculous, but, you know, when I look around, it's like there are actually all these characters sort of dancing in the room. Right? They're they're all hidden behind the spines and like but really they're all here in the I I this sounds ridiculous. No. I love this. I'm actually in a room with, like, all these characters. And sometimes they wanna, like, introduce the characters to each other in different books. And Who would be who would be your matchmaking pair? I actually was so convinced that these two characters would be friends that I emailed the authors, Alyssa Friedland and Lauren Weisberger. And I was like, the main characters of your books have to meet, you know, because I'm always, like, introducing people. That's and I was like, these guys have to meet. Could you just, like, write a you have to, like, just I don't know. Get them to meet. Write it together so they can they were like, oh, that's nice. But At least go out for coffee. Or something. Anyway, I know it's ridiculous, but I do I feel like characters have a whole life and why should the life end? But you put it out into the universe and then, you know, it doesn't end. Like, these characters, I keep thinking about a lot of the characters. And who's to say their life ends just because you stop writing about them? You're a connector. I'm a connector.

[36:28]Adam Rubin: Yeah. That's a very that's a very selfless and important kind of role to play. That's what Corey did for me and Dan. He he is a connector. He's the kind of guy that walks around New York City and somebody and you can't go anywhere with him. You go to some like basement barn in Queens and somebody walks in, Hey, Corey. I mean, he is just that sort of a person. And those people are fun to be friends with because you end up going to cool parties.

[36:52]Zibby Owens: Thanks. Yeah. Let's be friends. Yeah. I know when my husband, when he moved to New York, he was like, I don't understand how every time we open the door, like you run into somebody you know. How is that even possible? Like And I'm like, I don't know. It's just one of those things.

[37:07]Adam Rubin: Are you good at remembering names? I wish I were better. As I've gotten older, I'm not as good and I hate that. But I remember other things about them. I heard a good trick. Okay. I've used this trick. It works for me. I don't know if I'm just good at remembering names or not, but it's that you say the name three times when you first Well, meet the the first thing is you have to want to remember their name. Yes. That's the first thing. But you have to It's like Taoist, right? It's like eliminate desire. First step, eliminate. Okay, that's a hard one. But so you have to really want to remember their name. And then the second step is just say it three times. So you're like Zibby. I go, Oh, Zibby. That's an interesting name. Zibby. I've never met a Zibby before. And now I've got Zibby. Now how are you? Probably very few people forget your name, but that's a little technique I've been using in all of the many, many people I'm meeting in person in the last two years. All right. I'll try that. Yeah. My husband always makes it sound funny like,

[37:58]Zibby Owens: Adam. Adam, how are you doing? So he has to, like, separate the syllables and make it, like, a fun thing. Then here Whatever works for you. Whatever works for you. There's nothing everybody's favorite word is their own name. True. So if you remember somebody's name Should I say yours a few words? Adam? Yeah. You know, what's weird,

[38:17]Adam Rubin: this is just a little personal quirk, but when I was a kid, there were so many Adams in my grade growing up in Upstate New York. I say Upstate New York because I'm sitting in Manhattan or sitting in Brooklyn, but it's actually the southernmost tip of New York in Rockland County. But there was nine Adams. I'm not exaggerating. Nine Adams in my grade. It was a very popular name in the early eighties. And so I was never called Adam. I was always called Ruben, even today. And that has continued. Like all through high school, I was Ruben, college Ruben. Even now people meet me. They maybe they call me Adam when they first meet me, but eventually they wind up calling me Ruben. My wife, for example, if we're in a crowd and she's trying to get my attention, she won't yell Adam. I won't turn around. She'll yell Ruben. Interesting.

[39:01]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Okay. Secret trick here. Secrets. Secrets. Love it. By the way, I you should have a podcast. I don't think you have one unless you're you're hiding. Do you have a podcast?

[39:12]Adam Rubin: TBD.

[39:14]Zibby Owens: Okay. TBD. Stay tuned. Okay. I was gonna say if you don't, you want it on my you know, I can help or put you on the network or whatever, hook you up, but sounds like you're all good. I

[39:24]Adam Rubin: Yeah. We'll see. Let's see what happens. Okay. Alright. Fingers

[39:29]Zibby Owens: crossed. Okay. Alright. Well, I better let you go. I feel like I could talk to you all day, but I Did I plug the book? I I You plugged the book. Okay. Ice cream machine. Ice cream machine. Ice cream machine. Yeah.

[39:41]Adam Rubin: If you want your children, if you want the children in your life that you know, the kids to become fully actualized, happy people, you must buy them this book. And likely, you should buy two copies for them in case they wanna read it more than once. Good pitch. I like it. Thank you. Yeah. Alright. Bye, Adam. A really Hi, Zvi. Thank you for having me. Alright. Thanks for coming. Bye bye.

[40:07]Zibby Owens: Thanks 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.