Christie Matheson, SHELTER
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[0:41]Kristi Matheson is the author of Shelter.
[0:44]She's also the author of five award-winning picture books, including Tap the Magic Tree,
[0:49]and Plant the Tiny Seed.
[0:50]This is her first novel.
[0:52]Kristi lives in San Francisco with her family.
[0:55]Welcome, Kristi.
[0:56]Thanks for coming on moms.
[0:57]Don't have time to read books, to discuss shelter, and all of your other amazing work.
[1:01]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:03]I am so happy to be here zibby.
[1:05]This is such a treat.
[1:06]Thank you.
[1:07]Uh-oh.
[1:08]Well, Elisa Strauss, of course, told me about you.
[1:11]I have had her on this podcast about her cookbooks, which you wrote and helped her with
[1:16]and did everything, the confetti cakes.
[1:18]Tell me first about that, and then I want to go into your middle grade, and I know you've
[1:21]done so much other stuff.
[1:22]Yeah, so that's right.
[1:23]I love that we both know Elisa.
[1:25]So much fun.
[1:26]She's just, you know, happiness and joy personified, basically.
[1:32]So yeah, we first met Elisa and I first met in 2004, and she needed a writer to work
[1:37]on her cookbook.
[1:38]And at the time, I was living in Boston, and I was a writer for Boston Magazine, and
[1:45]I did a lot of food writing.
[1:47]And so my literary agent, my new then literary agent, said, I have this, you know, this
[1:54]person who has this amazing cake business, and I said, yes, yes, she was thinking about
[1:58]doing a book.
[1:59]And I went to New York.
[2:00]I had to be in New York for something else and we met, and I just fell in love with
[2:03]her.
[2:04]And we made two cake cookbooks, confetti cakes, and confetti cakes for kids, yay.
[2:10]And they're so great, too.
[2:11]I mean, we have them like right in our kitchen down low so the kids pull them off and
[2:15]like we sit, you know, go through them often.
[2:17]So my kids do the same thing, and I always say, did you make this?
[2:20]Can you make this again?
[2:21]And I say, no, I wrote it.
[2:23]I did not make it.
[2:24]Yeah.
[2:25]And they're like, let's try this one.
[2:26]I'm like, no, I don't think so.
[2:28]We're not going to try that.
[2:29]But let's look at the picture again.
[2:31]Yeah.
[2:32]Exactly.
[2:33]Let's talk about shelter.
[2:34]This is so good.
[2:35]This book was so good.
[2:36]I'm like, I can't play.
[2:37]I'm sitting here on my weekend reading a full-on, like, middle grade book and loving every
[2:41]second.
[2:42]But it's so good and it also really put me in the frame of mind of what it's like to be
[2:49]in a homeless shelter, to have such food instability, to be, you know, maybe I shouldn't
[2:55]jump in.
[2:56]Why don't you tell everybody what shelter is that?
[2:58]And especially how you decided to structure it over the course of a day, which I thought
[3:01]was so genius because you're so immersed in the experience and all of that.
[3:05]So, well, thank you for reading middle grade novels over your weekend.
[3:10]I appreciate that.
[3:11]So, shelter is the story of Maya, who is 10, almost 11-year-old living in San Francisco.
[3:20]And she and her family through a series of unfortunate and tragic circumstances, who's
[3:27]their home and she and her mother and her baby sister, Gabby, end up living in a homeless
[3:32]shelter.
[3:33]And she also is on scholarship at an independent school in San Francisco.
[3:41]And so she is commuting to a pretty fancy independent school from her homeless shelter.
[3:47]So she's really switching between two worlds and we're following her for one day for
[3:52]a lot of reasons.
[3:53]And that's a great question.
[3:54]So thank you for asking.
[3:55]We do it for one day because I wanted to get really granular with it.
[4:00]I wanted to have the reader living the day along with her.
[4:04]And you know, when you're a kid, a day can feel so, so long.
[4:08]I mean, when you're adult and adult too, so that the days can feel so, so long.
[4:13]And you know, I wanted people to feel that with her, feel those moments of pain, feel
[4:17]what she went through, feel her highs and her lows, a lot of lows, but also some really
[4:21]beautiful, wonderful highs and just the feel her friendships, feel her interactions, those
[4:27]small moments of human connection that she had throughout the day.
[4:31]Well, first of all, her family is in this precarious situation for many reasons, but one
[4:37]because her father's been in this accident, so you're just sort of waiting to see what
[4:41]happens.
[4:43]Especially with somebody who's a writer, an artist, and like her mother was a teacher,
[4:48]and all these projects that you think are going to come to fruition.
[4:52]And then if for some reason you get taken out of the workforce or your sick or this little
[4:56]thing happens, the whole house of cards just goes tumbling down.
[5:00]And I feel like that's happened to them in such a profound way.
[5:04]Like they were just, you know, they were, they were fine.
[5:07]They were like getting by, you know, everything was like not great, but okay until it
[5:11]it absolutely wasn't.
[5:12]And the next thing you know, they're literally in a shelter and they're like, and it's
[5:17]like, it's as if anybody who's reading the book is all of a sudden now living in a shelter
[5:21]unexpectedly and waking up to what that reality is like, and all of it.
[5:27]And as I was reading it, I was thinking to myself, like, how is Christy, how does she know
[5:30]this so well?
[5:31]Like, because it felt like you lived this whole thing.
[5:33]Did you go and like stay at a shelter or like, do you know somebody who this has happened
[5:37]to?
[5:38]Is it just from lots of research like, how did you get us to really live this experience?
[5:43]Well, thanks for asking that.
[5:45]So I never, I went and spent some time at a shelter.
[5:50]There's a shelter in San Francisco called Rafael House, which is an amazing beautiful family
[5:55]shelter.
[5:56]I mean, it's, it's, and I went and spent time there and I was just blown away by how warm
[6:01]and welcoming it is.
[6:02]And they're very respectful of their client space and their clients privacy as they, as
[6:07]they should be.
[6:08]And so I just toured it and got to see behind the scenes and they do.
[6:13]They have an art room and they have story time and night and they really nurture families.
[6:18]Is that to say it's, you know, the place where someone would want to be?
[6:22]No, but it's, it's really amazing.
[6:25]And so, you know, there are, I wanted to just, I guess, look into, you know, actually,
[6:30]I'm gonna back up.
[6:31]Okay.
[6:32]And if it's okay, I talk about why I wrote this book if that's okay because that, because
[6:36]that kind of, I should have asked that.
[6:38]I should have, let's start this whole thing again.
[6:40]I'm sorry.
[6:41]No.
[6:42]You know, because it's, it's such a very specific topic.
[6:46]And so I was coaching my daughter's soccer team, my older daughter, Ellie, I was playing
[6:51]soccer on a San Francisco youth soccer league team and you get a sign to fields all over
[6:56]the city.
[6:57]And we were playing a lot of games that year at a field where there was a homeless
[7:02]camp set up right near the perimeter, tent camp.
[7:06]And where we parked, usually, because where there was the most parking was right by
[7:11]the tent camp.
[7:12]And so we'd get out of the car.
[7:14]And sometimes it was very early on Saturday morning and there would be people not yet asleep
[7:19]waking up.
[7:20]It wasn't always comfortable.
[7:21]In fact, it was very uncomfortable sometimes.
[7:24]And whenever we had a game there, my girls used to, my girl, my soccer girls used to say,
[7:28]oh, I don't want to go there, I hate going there.
[7:30]It's scary.
[7:31]And I'd say, okay, well, I understand, let's talk about that.
[7:34]Why is it scary?
[7:35]Because of the homeless people and one girl said, yeah, I'm scared of homeless people.
[7:40]And I thought, okay, are you scared of all homeless people?
[7:45]What is that about?
[7:46]And she said, yeah, homeless people are scary.
[7:48]And I said, okay, we're really going to have to back this up because we can't generalize
[7:51]about a whole group of people.
[7:53]You know, I said, would you be scared of a family who's homeless, a child who is homeless?
[7:58]And I said, no, of course not.
[7:59]And I said, okay, we're going to write about that because I want people to think about
[8:05]where someone, a child who is homeless, what that child is experiencing.
[8:09]And you know, to engender some empathy, hopefully.
[8:13]And so that's where that came from.
[8:14]And so then I did the research and, you know, my family and I started volunteering.
[8:18]We can make, you know, Valentine's crafts and things like that at Raphael House.
[8:23]And so it's not a lived experience that I did as much research as I could.
[8:28]And that's, yeah, that's where it came from.
[8:31]Oh my gosh.
[8:32]Well, I feel like part of the issue with homeless people seeming scary is that there's
[8:38]such a confluence with mental illness now, right?
[8:41]The many people are unpredictable in that situation because they're not getting the care
[8:46]that they need and the treatment and all of that and more and more mental illness facilities
[8:51]are being closed.
[8:52]And so they're on the streets.
[8:54]And yet more and more people have met up.
[8:57]So now you don't know, it's just unpredictable, right?
[9:00]The cross section of people.
[9:02]So I hear what your kids are saying, but like, of course, right?
[9:06]Just being homeless is not, that's not the scary part, right?
[9:10]The scary part is, is how do you determine who is there, who is also a criminal and who
[9:16]is there because they're down on their luck and who is there, right?
[9:19]There's such a, anyway, obviously, this is an obvious statement, but you know, especially
[9:23]from the point of view of a child, how do you determine just from looking?
[9:26]It's easier to be like this whole category.
[9:28]I'm going to stay away from them, which is why it's even more important to highlight
[9:32]what the experience is like.
[9:34]Yeah.
[9:35]I think that's right.
[9:36]I think having some understanding in them, I think I really wanted the book to go beyond
[9:42]that and get into my, the character as a person because, you know, as I say when the chapters,
[9:48]who she is, homeless is not all she is, she is many other things as we all are.
[9:52]We all have so much going on.
[9:54]We are all complex.
[9:56]We all have just so much happening beneath the surface and.
[10:00]That was one of the points. You know, you can look at someone and think, oh, she's fine. She's happy. She's great and not understand that we're all going through hard things.
[10:10]And we're all, you know, we may be struggling. We may have had a bad morning. We may have had a bad week or a bad month. And you can't see all of that on the surface.
[10:18]And so, you know, we should all and we can all be better with this. We should all approach everyone with some empathy because you don't know. You don't know what's going on beneath the surface.
[10:30]Absolutely true. So true. And whether or not she was had this homeless shelter element to her, there is still the mean girl situation in middle school going on.
[10:42]And some, you know, was it her name is Sloan, right? Isn't that, it's like the ultimate mean girl name. I feel like, right. It's a great name. I have a lot of my kids have lots of friends to have Sloan. I love the name. It's just like, it's like one of those. Anyway, like the layers, like gossip girl.
[10:58]I don't know. Anyway, but you have to deal with that no matter what's going on in your life, right? And then you don't know what's necessarily going on in her life.
[11:06]But still, it doesn't excuse the way that she now treats Maya. And the mean thing she does. And, but I guess it's true. I mean, you don't know what's going on with her. And obviously her family life is really difficult.
[11:19]But, you know, who has the right to get away with this stuff at school. And then you get into all of those politics.
[11:26]First of all, apologies to all people named Sloan. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean anything by it. I love the name Sloan. I do too. I think it's a great name. But as you said, it works in the situation and actually, I feel badly because, you know, I wrote this.
[11:41]The book publishing process can take a while. And so I wrote this before my, my younger daughter started kindergarten. And when she got to kindergarten, she had a class name Sloan.
[11:51]And I just, you know, feel the need to apologize that this is not, Sloan is not based on a real person, but she is a mean girl. And I think, you know, and, and you know, none of my kids or no, no kid that I know has experienced something as extreme as what Sloan did.
[12:08]Thankfully, but stuff like that does happen, you know, just just the, the meanness and the, and the disregard for other people's space and property and, and feelings.
[12:18]And so, I needed Maya to have conflict in her day that was outside of what she was going through. I mean, she had a rough day. This day that we're, we're taking her through is, is really, is really rough.
[12:29]Yeah, stuff goes on. There are, there are school politics. There's homework. There are tests that you forget to study for. And, you know, so I wanted to show the full range of the experience difficult though that could be.
[12:43]And the impact of food allergies too. So Gabby her sister has really horrific food allergies, which require the mom to basically not work or not to have to have a job and which the baby that toddler is nearby for her survival because she tried a few times and it didn't work.
[13:02]There was like an episode. So yeah, tell me about food allergies and how that factored in.
[13:08]So that is a little bit based on a lived experience. My, my oldest, Ellie has food allergies. They're not as severe as Gabby's, but they're pretty severe.
[13:17]And unfortunately, no one as hard as they try. No one is careful as careful as a mom, you know, when dealing with food allergies. And we had a few incidents when she went to preschool and we love her preschool and it was amazing and they were so careful.
[13:31]And yet they forgot because it's easy when someone is allergic to egg and gluten and tree nuts and you know, it's very easy to to slip.
[13:41]Unless you're that person's mom and you have it, you know, laser it onto your onto your brain. And so I needed a reason why it was extra difficult to for her to get a job and why she had left.
[13:54]And I also just I like, you know, sharing the idea that food allergies are very real because people can make assumptions about food allergies too, which seems like such a simple thing, but not everyone takes food allergies as seriously as they might.
[14:09]And I can speak to the fact that they're pretty serious. And so I wanted to.
[14:14]And it occurred to me I didn't have, you know, go into this with an agenda of talking about food allergies, but it unfolded organically. And so it's so worked. Yeah.
[14:24]I have two of my four kids have food allergies. Maybe I don't know the severity of your daughter, but you know, I whenever I'm not with them.
[14:32]I think to myself like, Oh, this little thing that like at this restaurant that just, you know, like there are just like risks everywhere.
[14:40]So that would have been so easy to miss. I hope that they're not going to just like pick that up like that would be so you would just do it without thinking. I don't know. There just seems like, you know, risks everywhere.
[14:53]And so I have three children in my, my oldest says the allergies and then my younger two don't. And I didn't appreciate until my younger two came along. How much easier it is when they don't have food allergies. I mean, it's, you know, it's just my younger two also.
[15:07]There's no stress.
[15:08]Like you can just eat a nut like it's no big deal. And every time I'm like waiting, you know, but still, you know, they're fine. So I do the same thing.
[15:18]My, my son loves these, you know, those kind bars with all the cashews and cans in them. Every time it eats one of like, Oh, I know, I don't like just waiting. Yeah. Yeah. But he's fine. Always every time. So, yeah.
[15:32]It's stressful.
[15:35]It's stressful. Yes. So where, like, first of all, how do we get this book into like every school because this should be like, are you working on this plan of selling it like into schools or something because, you know, they're, they're doing a whole thing on food food insecurity at one of my kids schools right now.
[15:51]And I'm like, this is, this should be, they should be reading this book right now. I mean, I'll give it to them. But I hope you have some sort of marketing plan to, to get it into lots of schools.
[16:01]So thank you. Yeah. I think it is. So it was a junior library, Yale selection, which is great. And so one thing that was fun was that the librarian at my son's school emailed me, you know, right.
[16:13]Maybe a month before the book came out and she said, I just heard about your book from, I think she read about it in school library journal or, or, geez, maybe seeing it in the junior library,
[16:24]and so they're hearing about it. And that's definitely something that my publisher is working on getting it out into schools and has been working on. And I think it's in a lot of schools, but to the extent that it can be in more schools.
[16:35]It's great because, you know, it, it is something at my kid's schools, they, they do work around community engagement and my, my daughter's school, they, they do actually go volunteer at the very food pantry that I described.
[16:49]That's, that's a real place. They're, you know, they, we talk about a field trip that they take to go volunteer at the food pantry. That's real. So it's, yeah, it's an important topic. And yeah, I hope it does get into schools. I've done. This has been so exciting. I've done some live in person school visits,
[17:04]which is so nice. I love, love, love meeting with kids and answering their questions. It's, it's the most fun thing. So that's been, that's been great is actually talking to kids.
[17:16]And you know, they always ask those ask, is there going to be a sequel? And I'm like, that's, it's so interesting because there's not going to be a sequel. I'm not planning a sequel to this one, but it's just, it's just fascinating that they attached to this character and want to know what happens next to her. So that's good.
[17:29]I don't know what happens next. You know, think about it. All right. What is the, what are your next projects? Well, thanks for asking that. So I have a new middle grade novel that is.
[17:40]You know, done. And I'm going through rounds of edits with my editor, same, same editor who worked in this one, Trisha Leonard random house and she's fantastic.
[17:47]And that one is about soccer.
[17:51]It's about a girl who is playing. It's called select. And it's about a girl who ends up playing for this select soccer team in San Francisco. It's also set to San Francisco, but she's playing for a select soccer team and coming to understand that all the pressures and the, and the
[18:09]I'll explain. It's like the focus on soccer and the sort of insane way that people think about soccer is not very healthy and she has a verbally abusive coach and, but it ultimately is a great girl power novel.
[18:21]And so that is fun. And that's coming out in the spring of 23 right before the women's World Cup, which is exciting.
[18:29]And then I have a bunch of picture books that I'm working on right now. I have. Let's see. I am obsessed with collective animal nouns, which is a really strange thing.
[18:41]And I also really love fall books. So I'm doing a fall picture book called a mischief of mice.
[18:47]And it's a mystery and a mischief of mice disappears in the woods and we have to figure out what happened to them, but there are a whole lot of other animals.
[18:57]So, and they all where you learn all their collective names and gaze of raccoons and a parliament of owls and on kindness of ravens and a clutter of spiders. Anyway, I could go on about this.
[19:07]And then there's a follow up to that called a fluffled bunnies that's a spring time book.
[19:12]And then I have a book that's really, really personal to me that is a collection of mom and baby animal art portraits of mom and baby animals and information about that and it's called mom is in babies.
[19:23]And that's that's fun. And then I'm working on a middle grade mystery. So I'm really excited about that.
[19:29]Wow. So when do you do all this when your kids are at school or like what's your what's your what's your work life. What does it look like.
[19:37]Do you work well before before they wake up like now.
[19:42]I mean, you also get this and you have so many projects going on and you have four kids and you have to find time right to to work.
[19:50]And so yeah, well, they're at school is the main time in the morning before they wake up and then after they go to bed.
[19:56]Yeah, whenever whenever I can find time. Yeah, yeah.
[19:59]When do you do it? How do you.
[20:00]You do it. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. I'm also, though, I'm divorced and remarried.
[20:04]So I do have every other weekend without the kids. So I feel every other weekend.
[20:08]Oh, sure. So that's all the time you need. I mean, I don't know. At least I feel like,
[20:14]I don't know. I feel like that's my like hack that, you know, at least I have that most people
[20:19]are married with their kids. I mean, or I don't know, not most, but I don't know. I just want
[20:23]people to know, like I do have some time where I'm not with them. I don't know if I could do it.
[20:27]honestly, all of it. If I didn't have the time to regroup, maybe I could. I don't know. I just,
[20:33]this is the way it's been set up. So yeah, well, it's, it's amazing. By the way, may I say, I'm so
[20:38]excited for your memoir. That's coming out. I'm so excited for it. I'm really nervous. I, um, yeah, I just,
[20:47]like, the galley link just went up and I'm now, I'm like, oh, God, feel like an arena. And,
[20:53]oh, anyway, I'm really open about everything. But, and I'm ready. Obviously, I want it out there.
[20:59]I just like, oh, gosh, so nerve wracking. That's all.
[21:03]No, it's when something is so personal to put it out into the world. It's, I mean, even when you're
[21:08]putting out, you know, anything that you've written, people are going to read it and they don't care
[21:13]who they're just going to pick it apart. They don't, you know, most people are very kind, but some
[21:18]people are not. No, I know. I heard to, I heard to like, I should prepare that at least 30%
[21:24]like the in general for any book that comes out, about 30% of people will like it and 30%
[21:28]of people will hate it. And then there's like the plus or minus in between. So you should just like
[21:32]go in preparing for that, which I don't like because that's like you're preparing for a C-minus
[21:35]basically, right? You're already like down to a 70s. So I don't know. But thank you for saying that.
[21:40]Yeah. I don't know if there's no going back. So it is what it is. It's, it's coming. It's like a
[21:46]train roll. I know. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well, what advice do you have for aspiring authors?
[21:55]A great question. Well, I'll speak to, well, all authors, but especially aspiring children's
[22:01]authors. Um, one, I will say, you know, a lot of people will come to me and say, Oh, I have this,
[22:08]I have this children's book idea. And if I just had, you know, an hour, I could get it done. And I
[22:12]think, well, you know, so children's books take time. And so give yourself time. And, you know,
[22:20]whether it's a picture book or a novel or, you know, whatever form someone is writing in, give
[22:26]yourself time. And if you stick to it and sit down and write every day, it can feel at the beginning,
[22:35]very daunting. Like I have this carnal of an idea. I'm not quite sure where it's going.
[22:41]But I want to get there. And then, you know, the first day you actually stare at the blank page and
[22:45]get something down there. You think, wow, I have so far to go. And that's true. You do. You have a long way
[22:50]to go. But if you do a little bit each day, it will come. And it's amazing. You know, if you give
[22:55]yourself, I do this thing. I give myself a word count every day. And depending on how busy it is and how
[23:00]much time I have with my kids, my numbers either 500 or 1000 words, which is not that much.
[23:05]But you have to do it every day. And it seems like you're not making progress. But then, you know,
[23:09]months later, wow, you have however many words you have. And so there's progress. So I would say,
[23:14]yeah, do something every day. But even more important than that, I don't think this will shock you.
[23:19]What I'm about to say is read, read, read, read, read, read. You know, read everything you can get
[23:23]your hands on in the genre that you're writing and other genres, really good writers who have such
[23:29]an amazing way with words, just read and just fill your head with with words. And I now warm up every
[23:36]day by doing wordle. That's my first thing. I wouldn't like every other writer out there. But I
[23:41]just, you know, wordle's a fun way to get yourself thinking about different words and letters.
[23:46]So there you go. There's my plug for wordle. My daughter just told me she's doing that now.
[23:51]My teenager, anyway, she's like, no, I'm turning my day with wordle. That's like, oh, okay.
[23:56]I don't think TikTok. Not that she's not. My kids do it too. And they text me the,
[24:00]or my older two. They, they text me the, the blocks. Anyway, for someone who's done wordle,
[24:06]you get that. If not, don't worry about it. It's addictive, but it only takes up like three minutes a
[24:11]day. So it's fine. What, what, what's like your go-to genre when you're not reading for work stuff?
[24:17]It's a great question. So I, it varies. I'll get in on kicks, you know, where I love reading
[24:24]mysteries, you know, and especially during the pandemic when we're all like, yeah, can't deal with
[24:29]reality. I find mysteries to be like cozy and comforting, even though they're murder mysteries,
[24:34]you know, just an escapeist. And so I love that. I do love reading memoir. So this is part of what,
[24:40]because it just, you know, when someone is that vulnerable on the page and share so much and is open,
[24:45]you know, it's just, it's beautiful. I love realistic fiction, you know, they're just so many
[24:50]authors, especially women authors who are just writing such beautiful, beautiful stuff,
[24:55]nonfiction at times. I'm, I'm reading that. This is an exactly nonfiction, but this is a great
[25:01]writer's book to read the George Saunders book. The new one about writing where he, where he unpacks
[25:05]the, you know, the, the short stories by Russian writers is he's such a compelling writer
[25:12]that it's just like I, I kind of got in thought I should read this and then it turns out I
[25:16]really want to be reading this. So it's great. And then I love reading children's books. I love
[25:21]reading picture books. I love whenever my kids read a middle grade that they love, I grab it and
[25:26]read it when they're done. So yeah, I love reading in my own, in my own genre. I guess how old are
[25:33]your kids? So my kids are 12, although she's almost 13. We're about to have a teenager. And then my
[25:40]son just turned 11 and then my little one just turned seven. Okay. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Well,
[25:49]this has been so fine, Christy. I hope we meet in person at some point. Maybe and I'm hoping to
[25:54]like get all over at the country and go to the summer and I don't know. Anyway, but I'll just say,
[25:59]I love how you write. I love your whole sensitivity and the way you make the reader feel and learn.
[26:06]And I'm excited for my kids to read this and everybody else's kids. And, and yeah, I can't wait
[26:12]for what's next. And I, I don't know. I'd be really up for the sequel. So thank you so much,
[26:17]Sibi. This was so much fun. You are so wonderful to talk to. And thank you for this. And just
[26:24]for doing what you're doing and telling the world about so many books in such a fun and relatable
[26:31]and wonderful way. I just thank you. Thank you so much. This is great. And welcome. Sorry. All right.
[26:37]Bye bye. Thanks so much. Bye. Thank you. Have a good day. Thanks you too.
[26:42]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to
[26:46]follow me on Instagram at Zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:50]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zibi Owens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots
[26:55]of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the
[27:00]sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and
[27:05]now trim music.