Viola Shipman, A WISH FOR WINTER
[0:02]Hi, I'm Zivi Owens, the creator and host of the award-winning podcast that you're listening to right now
[0:07]Thank you so much. Called moms. Don't have time to read books
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[0:58]Viola Shipman is the pen name of the author Wade Ross a wish for winter is by Viola Shipman
[1:05]Wade also writes books under his own name. It's a little confusing
[1:08]But I talk all about it to him in this podcast
[1:11]Wade is the USA today
[1:13]Publishers weekly and internationally best-selling author of 15 books including five memoirs and 10 novels
[1:19]Wade's books have been translated into 21 languages and have been bestsellers across the world
[1:24]He chose his grandmother's name, Viola Shipman as a pen name to honor the working poor Ozarks woman
[1:29]Who sacrifices changed his family's life and whose memory inspires his fiction
[1:34]He published three new books in 2022
[1:37]They include his latest novel The Edge of Summer which came out in July
[1:40]Inspired by his grandmother's buttons and button jars which was an instant national and indie bestseller
[1:46]Magic season came out in May
[1:48]It was his first memoir in a decade about how the love of baseball was the only thing to bond him and his Ozarks father
[1:54]Which was a Barnes and Noble Father's Day selection
[1:56]A USA today summer reading sports book selection and a best book of summer by the St. Louis post dispatch and Milwaukee Journal sent to know
[2:04]His winter slash Christmas novel a wish for winter just came out and has already been selected as a
[2:10]November my year book pick club and
[2:13]Hailed by the New York Times best-selling authors Susan Mallory and Sheryl Woods sweet Magnolias and many others
[2:19]A noted humorist and memoirist Wade was a finalist for the Goodreads choice awards in humor
[2:24]He lost to Tina Fey and was named by writer's digest as the number two writer dead or alive
[2:29]We'd like to have drinks with
[2:31]Wade's previous novels include his first holiday winter book The Secret of Snow which was an instant national and indie bestseller
[2:38]The summer cottage the Clover Girls the char bracelet the hook chest the recipe box and the
[2:43]heirloom garden his books have been selected multiple times as must reads by NBC's today show featured in the Washington post USA
[2:50]Today on Chelsea lately and chosen as indie next picks by the nation's independent book sellers
[2:57]His writing has appeared in a diverse range of publications in media including coast to living time all things considered people
[3:03]Goodhouse keep in parade salon Forbes writers digest and publishers weekly
[3:08]Wade earned his BA from jury university and his master's in journalism from Northwestern
[3:13]He divides his time between sag attack michigan and palm strings california and is an acclaimed writing teacher
[3:18]Who has mentored numerous students to becoming published authors
[3:23]Wade hosts the popular Facebook live literary happy hour wine and words with Wade
[3:27]Thursdays at 6 30 p.m. On his violet shipment author page where he talks writing inspiration and hope among others
[3:34]Welcome Wade. Thank you so much for coming on momstone have time to read books
[3:39]Thank you for having me very much. I appreciate it and I adore you
[3:43]I do so glad we got to know each other last summer. That was super fun. Me too
[3:47]I feel like I always say there are people in the world that
[3:51]You know, I I do believe in these god winks and I believe that that certain people are meant to come into your universe and you're one of them
[3:57]So I'm really glad this this happened and I'm excited to talk to you today. Oh, I love that god winks
[4:03]That's I love that. It's so nice. Okay, first of all
[4:06]You are not only Wade, but you are a violet shipment explain why you have
[4:12]manufactured two of you and what and the reasoning behind it when that started
[4:19]And sort of the evolution of these two brands that you're managing
[4:23]Yeah, you know, it's I wish that people think it sounds like a literary victor victoria a little bit
[4:29]You know, they expect me to show up in like a wig in a house
[4:33]You know, I chose that my grandmother's pen name for a deeply personal reason
[4:37]I actually started my career writing humorous memoir more along the lines of like David Sedaris or
[4:42]Nora ephron or my bomb back one of my idols and
[4:47]there was a point in my life when
[4:50]I'd lost my mother
[4:51]My father was battling dimension things really weren't super fun anymore to write about in my life
[4:58]And I happened upon all of my grandmother's airlines boxed up in my dad's attic and I think you know
[5:04]Instinct for most people. It's just kind of a state sale. I'm get rid of them throw them away
[5:09]But I found all of these belongings that you know, we're like her charm bracelets and recipe boxes and quilts and
[5:16]Her sewing machine and all of these things that meant the world of her on my grandma shipment was a working course seems stress
[5:23]She never finished grade school. She never learned to drive
[5:26]She walked to work every day at a factory stitching overalls just just
[5:32]To make enough money to put food on her family's table
[5:36]My grandpa was an ore miner
[5:38]when that worked right up he raked rocks on farmer's fields to make extra cash and
[5:44]They knew their life was hard and they sacrificed everything for their family and they saved change truly
[5:49]They saved pennies and nickels and dimes for my my mom and a crock in their garage
[5:54]Until I got full and they took it to the community bank and started a college fund and choose the person our family to go to college
[6:00]And broke that cycle. So when I found all these things
[6:04]I'm a writer that is
[6:06]inspired by
[6:09]Depth of memory and very
[6:11]Deeply personal things and I just remembered my grandmother and she was the most unselfish
[6:17]Kindest human being in the world and I started writing a novel on top of a cardboard box that day with a with a pencil
[6:24]And you know, I told my agents that I wanted to write fiction
[6:28]Using my grandmother's name, which is like, you know, where you are your meds
[6:34]And it was I just felt called to do it and it took me three years to write my first novel
[6:38]Which was the charm price that my agent kept sending me
[6:42]Back over and over because she said you only get one chance to write a women's fiction novel perfectly and if you don't it's over
[6:49]And I did and you know to me using her name is just the smallest
[6:53]Thank you that I can give to a woman that gave me everything. You know, I would not
[6:57]You know, I
[6:58]Long story shorter
[7:00]I grew you know growing up gay in the Missouri Ozarks in the 1970s. I had a target on my back and
[7:07]My grandmother provided me with unconditional love and support and she volunteered at the library and she pushed books into my hand and made sure that reading and
[7:16]Literature were front and center in my life even though she never ever finished school and you know people are going to say her name in a hundred years long after
[7:26]I'm gone and that's that's really what matters to me is that connection back to who we are and who we were
[7:32]Wait, I don't want you to make that story shorter. I want to make that story longer
[7:37]Tell me what that was like and then how did books help you through it. Oh my gosh, you know
[7:43]The local library growing up for me was my refuge
[7:47]Librarians for my friends my both of my grandmothers for my best friends. I didn't you know
[7:53]Being out and about and rural America. I always say if you've seen the show Ozarks
[7:58]They actually kind of soft pebbled it. It was much more than that for me in the 70s
[8:04]You know, just this this was not what boys were supposed to look like or act like in in rural America and my grandmother
[8:14]Pretty much saved my life and she taught me that
[8:17]being the way I was
[8:19]was
[8:20]Grand being different was amazing and as soon as we lose that piece of ourselves
[8:26]We lose everything and to never stop being who I was
[8:30]So that carried me through my whole life, you know
[8:33]You know times in your life where you know all a kid wants to do is fit in
[8:37]You know we want to be accepted and liked and if we're not it makes it that much harder and it's hard to be different
[8:45]When you're young you don't want to be and so you know
[8:49]I always kind of help that close to me and it's saying to me the older I got so I'm glad I did
[8:54]Wow, so your latest so in the summer you had the edge of summer
[8:58]Now you have a wish for winter
[9:00]Go through both of those books and what they're about because it could be like a box set, you know
[9:05]You can't be like a it's like a holiday box set
[9:07]Yeah, you know the edge of summer was inspired by my grandmother's buttons and button jars of all things being a you know
[9:13]Being a seamstress. She would come home every night and she would sew her own enjoyment and she made most of my clothes growing up
[9:20]And I saved when I found all the stuff in the attic
[9:22]I saved her buttons and her sewing basket
[9:25]Then they have a place of honor and her cottage and Michigan on a shelf
[9:29]And I passed it one day and the light was hitting it. I'm like oh my gosh. This is
[9:33]These are lovely and you know if I took them out and played with them like I did as a kid and
[9:40]We have to remember back to the time when there were no plastic buttons and there were no zippers
[9:45]There were these beautiful
[9:47]buttons that were handmade in the US in the Great Lakes area mostly
[9:51]I'm that will make you know sent around the world and into people sewing baskets and they were gorgeous and
[9:57]You know my grandmother was I was with her and
[10:00]So she would often just go to Goodwill and get hand-me-down blouses but
[10:03]rip all the buttons off and put pretty ones on to make it new again to herself.
[10:07]So all of that kind of hurtled in my mind.
[10:10]I don't know a little bit and I started doing a history of the button industry in America
[10:15]and it's fascinating how these buttons were made.
[10:17]And it's just a story of a woman who loses her mother to COVID.
[10:21]And the only thing that she's left are all of these sewing notions.
[10:25]And her mother really was very secretive and protective of her.
[10:29]Like so many of us, she goes out and search of who she really was.
[10:32]She puts her job, she's a fashion designer and kind of heads off into the world
[10:36]to find out who her mother really was and who she is.
[10:39]And it's a beautiful story of self-discovery with a great history, a little known history of
[10:43]America and it's a gorgeous book with a lot of sewing.
[10:47]If you're a sewer or you love fashion, it's a book for you.
[10:51]You know, a lot of fashion designers that I know really helped me kind of walk in her shoes.
[10:56]And then a wish for winter is inspired by my grandma, of course,
[11:00]and the Sears Wishbook, which I had growing up, which was the world in the 70s.
[11:05]And it's about a 40 year old independent bookseller named Susan,
[11:09]who's named after the little girl in the Miracle on 34th Street.
[11:12]His mother and grandmother both met their future husbands while they was dressed to Santa
[11:17]Claus.
[11:18]And Susan feels like it's been her destiny and curse,
[11:21]living in Northern Michigan.
[11:23]To meet a man the same way and the entire town set her up with every awful man wearing a cap.
[11:29]And so she's given up.
[11:30]She's 40, she's done.
[11:32]And her best friend encourages her to go to the Santa Run in Chicago, which is a real thing.
[11:37]It's a 10K where everybody dresses up the Santa or Mrs. Claus.
[11:41]And she goes dressed as Mrs. Claus because her grandmother and grandfather helped raise her
[11:46]still dressed every December as Mr. Mrs. Claus and come to the bookstore and greet all the kids.
[11:53]Take pictures.
[11:54]And she meets a guy at the start of the race that she feels for the first time in her
[11:59]election as an instant connection with.
[12:01]And before they can see each other's faces or get each other's names, the race starts and
[12:05]they're torn apart.
[12:06]And he yells at her to meet her at a local bar and she shows up and he doesn't.
[12:11]And she's, you know, finito.
[12:12]I'm done.
[12:13]And she goes back to her bookstore right before the start of the holidays.
[12:18]And behind her back, her grandparents and all of her friends and her bookstore employees
[12:22]started online dating at called the single Crangle to find this guy, because how difficult
[12:26]can it be?
[12:28]And so on the surface, it sounds very much like an Emily Henry romcom that all of my novels
[12:33]really have a much deeper piece.
[12:35]And, you know, I don't write holiday books that are just shiny perfection.
[12:41]This is about a woman who lost her parents when she was young and has never learned to forgive
[12:47]herself or others in the town.
[12:50]And it's, you know, a book really about we can't love another unconditionally until we
[12:56]truly learn to love ourselves unconditionally.
[12:59]And it was inspired by the loss of my brother at a young age and how that kind of
[13:04]shape shifted our holidays and turned everything on its head and much of Susan's emotions
[13:10]or mine, you know, it's just you, I fell in love later in life.
[13:15]I never really liked myself for a long time.
[13:19]And I always wanted and felt I deserve to be loved, but I never liked myself enough to open
[13:25]myself fully.
[13:27]So that's what, that's really what the undercurrent of the book is about.
[13:31]You know, on the surface, it's a beautiful, funny romantic comedy, but, you know, it's also about
[13:36]dealing with grief at the holidays.
[13:38]And so many of us, it's not that shiny perfection at the holiday season that so many of us
[13:44]believe it or want it to be, we're all dealing with something.
[13:48]And that's what I love to write about.
[13:50]And during these, these winter and holiday books.
[13:53]Oh, can you talk more about what happened with your brother?
[13:57]Yeah, he was, um, he, when he was 17 years old, he was during the summer right before the
[14:02]4th of July holiday and he was had a summer job and he was killed on a one lane bridge
[14:11]and our little town by a truck driver that had fallen asleep at the wheel.
[14:15]You know, my brother was everything.
[14:19]I was not.
[14:19]He was a true country guy, you know, a fish and, you know, tinkered with engines and all of that
[14:28]stuff.
[14:29]And he was also my protector, you know, nobody, nobody could pick on me in the little town
[14:35]if he was around.
[14:37]So I felt for many years that, you know, that there had been a mistake that had been made
[14:42]and that it should have been me because I'll never give my parents what they wanted.
[14:47]And I felt they needed, which would be, you know, family and grandchildren.
[14:51]So that's what I lived with.
[14:55]And I think so many of us on different levels live with during their lives.
[15:00]And, you know, it made me the person I am today because I finally learned not to push it aside
[15:09]but to embrace it.
[15:11]And that's when I that's when I started writing.
[15:13]My first book was a memoir about growing up gay in the Missouri Ozarks.
[15:17]First book I wrote published my agents sold it in like three days to Dutton at Penguin at the
[15:23]time and it changed my life that opened up in a whole avenue.
[15:28]So, you know, it's for anybody watching, please, you know, I hope that you allow yourself
[15:34]to embrace your grief and also forgive yourself at some point.
[15:38]So, my gosh, what a story.
[15:39]I'm so sorry about your brother and thank you for talking so openly about it.
[15:44]When you had your first book sell so quickly and it all came out,
[15:48]that must have been such a life-changing thing for someone who had been relatively private and
[15:54]all like what so tell me about that period of time for you.
[15:58]You're exactly right.
[15:59]I mean, you know, I lied for many years in my life.
[16:02]You know, I was straight and it when I started writing this book,
[16:10]the one thing and I teach this to every aspiring writer is there is the piece of writing,
[16:17]but there's a bigger psychological piece and the psychological piece is that you cannot be afraid.
[16:24]You know, we're taught in our life to be afraid from a very early age.
[16:28]You know, we're afraid of pursuing our dreams. We're afraid of being ourselves.
[16:31]We're afraid when we start writing that it's going to stink that it'll never be published.
[16:36]We'll never make a dime off of it.
[16:37]You know, should be getting dinner on the table for the kids or getting them to soccer
[16:41]practice or mowing the lawn or doing my real job and bad things happen from here to hear
[16:46]when you when that happens when you let fear win.
[16:50]And I had to unlearn all of that with that first book.
[16:54]You know, I was relying on the voice, but I was also reliant on knowing that readers,
[17:00]I was a big reader or incredibly smart. And you can't sugarcoat, you can't take a short cut.
[17:09]You have to be brutally, brutally honest, not only with them, but with yourself.
[17:15]And when you do that and you know this, you know this. When you do that, that, that, that, that
[17:21]cork is unleashed in many ways. I don't even know if that's the best analogy.
[17:26]And things pour out of you. And when you allow that to happen, readers are changed often in ways
[17:33]you never ever imagined it. They're taken by different parts of the story, but they're mostly
[17:39]taken by your honesty. And that's what changed to me greatly, not only my writing process,
[17:46]but my entire life. Wow. And probably the feedback from the readers.
[17:51]I encourage you to do more. I mean, some of your books. And you're so funny too. I mean,
[17:56]the title's alone. And I have to go back now and read all of these books, but you're so funny.
[18:00]I just have to read these for people listening. Okay. I'm not the biggest bitch in this relationship.
[18:07]And there's a picture of a dog with a crown hilarious heartwarming tales about man's best
[18:12]friend from America's favorite humorous against your anthology. And you have all of your
[18:17]volus shipment pieces, confessions of a prep school mommy handler, which I definitely have to read.
[18:24]That's really funny. At least in the city, someone would hear me scream, misadventures and search
[18:30]of the simple life. It's all relative to families, three dogs, 34 holidays and 50 boxes of wine.
[18:37]And then you have a more poignant one magic season, a sun story, which I would also love for you
[18:41]to talk about. Yeah, I've got to say this to you, Zebie. You've got to, okay, if you start magic season
[18:46]and confessions of a prep school mommy handler, because my previous career before I was in
[18:51]author, I was a PR and communications director and educational institutions for about 20 years.
[18:58]And one of them was a very elite prep school. And I was, it was one of the nation's oldest
[19:07]voice schools was merging with one of the nation's oldest girl schools. Huge, huge thing.
[19:14]And I was kind of brought in to oversee the merger and the communications and make everything
[19:19]okay, best as you could. I was not, this was back in the day and I was not particularly treated
[19:26]well by some of the mothers at the school, especially for being closeted, many of them knew that,
[19:34]how they treated me, how they kind of held that over my head. And this is the funniest,
[19:40]the funniest book about private school education, I think the most honest. And also just about,
[19:46]it's really a book about self esteem. You know, how I had a lack of self esteem, but also how
[19:53]many of these other people that treated me badly had a lack of self esteem as well.
[20:00]they just they just had more money and which to make their voices heard.
[20:05]But we were on the same level emotionally and it's a very funny book.
[20:10]And then at least in the city, someone would hear me scream this about a gay couple
[20:14]moving from the city to the woods and Michigan and thinking it'd be like the road.
[20:18]And it's tough.
[20:20]You know, it moved in February that with your town is cute.
[20:24]It shuts down.
[20:25]It's just, you know, it's, you know, everybody's in camo and buying ammo.
[20:29]Oh, and that's a book that is, I've always said should be like a sitcom.
[20:36]It's the best.
[20:37]It's the best.
[20:38]And it's been off and on option the number of times.
[20:42]But most people have wanted to make it a, a husband wife,
[20:47]vehicle.
[20:47]And I'm like, that's not, that's not what it should be.
[20:50]So holding out on that one.
[20:52]And then magic season is a memoir I wrote that came out in May.
[20:57]And it's, oh my gosh, it's a piece of my heart.
[21:00]It's my first memoir in a decade.
[21:02]And it's about the very tumultuous relationship I had with my Ozark's father,
[21:07]who was a highly combative, highly conservative, unevolved emotionally man.
[21:17]The only thing that bonded us was our lava baseball in the St. Louis Cardinals.
[21:21]And so the book goes ending by ending over the very last baseball game we ever watched.
[21:27]Together, and he would die two weeks later after that.
[21:30]And just kind of looks at our relationship.
[21:32]And truly how I never gave up on him,
[21:35]much like I never gave up on the Cardinals.
[21:37]You know, true fan always thinks there's going to be a better year ahead.
[21:40]And that's the way it was with him.
[21:42]And it's a book that asks why, why I probably didn't walk away from him.
[21:48]Someone that was could be very abusive to me.
[21:53]But my mother was in hospice nurse and she taught me out about unconditional love.
[21:57]And, you know, that is a very rare thing in this world to love somebody unconditionally.
[22:03]Because most of our relationships are based on conditions.
[22:07]You know, I love you if you do this for me or I love you.
[22:10]But you better.
[22:13]And I just tried to love my father unconditionally,
[22:16]faults and all and understand why he was the way he was.
[22:19]And it changed my life and it changed our relationship at the end.
[22:24]I don't think it's something many people could do or choose to do.
[22:28]But it was, I felt like, is what I had to do to move on in my life.
[22:32]It's a beautiful book.
[22:33]It was a USA Today.
[22:34]You know, Best Father's Day and Barnes & Noble Best Father's Day book.
[22:38]So I'm very proud of that.
[22:41]Oh my gosh.
[22:42]Wait, you're so prolific and so sort of soulful all these books.
[22:48]I mean, even the humor, the humor, the pain, you're using all of your emotions, fiction,
[22:55]nonfiction to connect.
[22:57]I mean, it's really what you're, you're doing.
[23:00]You're connecting and allowing like every nerve ending.
[23:02]It's like you're, you know, you're like unspooled so that you can connect in as many places as
[23:08]possible.
[23:09]It's really amazing that you can use language in this way and writing as a tool to,
[23:14]to do this.
[23:15]Did you ever think this is how things would go?
[23:18]Like, did you ever like to write as a kid or feel like, oh, I wish I could do this or read a book
[23:24]that you're like, like, how did you even turn to this medium?
[23:29]Essentially.
[23:31]And you put your finger on it, you know, it's, I always call it the three ages.
[23:35]You know, it's humor and heartache are intimately intertwined.
[23:40]You know, why are funny people often funny?
[23:43]It's one to bring you in, but it's also to kind of keep you at a distance.
[23:48]And that I always say those two ages, like equal honesty.
[23:52]And that's, that's really what it's about.
[23:53]You know, I, my grandmother, one of my first early gifts that she got me was a
[23:59]hot one Marine Selector typewriter.
[24:01]And she, my mother and grandma, both of my grandmothers and my mother always said that writing
[24:06]would be maybe a way that I can make sense of things in my world.
[24:10]You know, in my room, I could sit and write about what I was feeling or, you know,
[24:14]put it in a notebook.
[24:15]And I started doing that as I, on the typewriter.
[24:19]And there was a seminal moment in middle school when I was,
[24:23]oh my gosh, how old was I think there's maybe fifth grade or so.
[24:27]And I signed up for talent contest, which was a horrible mistake.
[24:30]And I sang Delta Don awful.
[24:33]Would you like, would you like to reenact it now perhaps?
[24:35]I could.
[24:36]I'm not, I don't do a bandtanya Tucker version.
[24:38]And I called it a faded rose.
[24:40]And I got, I got heckled off stage, brand off crying.
[24:44]And I was furious at my mother and my grandmothers.
[24:46]And like, how could you love me?
[24:48]Do that.
[24:48]And they're like, you were being you.
[24:50]We can't stop that.
[24:52]And they gave me like a journal.
[24:54]And they gave me arm a bomb back books.
[24:56]And they said, just maybe start whatever your funny kid,
[25:01]your sensitive boy, just maybe start putting some of what you're feeling down.
[25:05]And that's what I started doing.
[25:07]I always wanted to write, you know, but again, my dad was a chemical engineer.
[25:12]You go to college.
[25:14]Normal people don't do the arts.
[25:16]It's not, you're not going to make a living.
[25:18]It's not going to happen.
[25:19]So you're highly discouraged from a young age, from even your passion.
[25:23]So I channeled that to journalism.
[25:25]Got my master's degree in journalism at Northwestern.
[25:28]And then went into PR to make more money.
[25:31]And all of that was kind of a side hustle to writing,
[25:34]but nothing that ever made me complete and happy.
[25:38]And I remember one day my mother and my husband Gary
[25:42]right before New Year said, you know, why don't you just write a book?
[25:46]And I'm like, it's a bad easy.
[25:48]You just write a book.
[25:50]And it is.
[25:51]I think there's a point, you know, in which you have to put it on the line.
[25:54]And you know this too.
[25:56]You want to and you feel like you can't or aren't worthy or it's not going to happen,
[26:02]but you do.
[26:03]And when you allow yourself to do that, it could be writing a book.
[26:06]It could be painting.
[26:07]It could be pursuing a new career,
[26:11]things open and change.
[26:13]I think like you, you become the person you run that to be
[26:18]by allowing yourself to do that.
[26:21]We have to allow ourselves to do that too.
[26:24]And that's how I feel.
[26:25]I mean, that's just the world can change.
[26:28]So true.
[26:29]Oh my gosh.
[26:30]Thanks for saying that about me too.
[26:33]But it's true.
[26:34]You know what ends up not like.
[26:35]I mean, you have followed a very similar path.
[26:39]And it is, it is never easy.
[26:43]Every writer needs to know the path is very different for each person,
[26:48]but it's also very similar to sit down alone alone and right.
[26:54]That never changes.
[26:56]And it's the most beautiful horrifying,
[26:59]stupendous journey that anyone can take.
[27:03]What do you think about people not reading enough or the reading rate?
[27:07]I've been like sort of consumed by this and wondering what your thoughts are,
[27:11]that, you know, obviously in the pandemic, everybody read more.
[27:14]We were all home blah, blah, blah, but now like everyone's back to being busy,
[27:17]and the trends are not good for books,
[27:20]but that hasn't dissuaded a single writer.
[27:22]I mean, the urge to write is sort of fundamental, right?
[27:26]And you're not going to not do it because like readers are busy on TikTok or something.
[27:29]So, but what do we make?
[27:31]What is there a world out there where all these books just sit dusty
[27:35]and nobody's reading them?
[27:37]I don't know. That's like my horror story.
[27:39]I think it's, I truly think it's a cyclical process.
[27:42]You know, we were, you look years, just a few years ago.
[27:47]You know, oh my gosh, e-books are going to take over the world.
[27:50]A print books are gone.
[27:52]I mean, that was, those were the headlines.
[27:54]Publishers weekly everywhere you looked.
[27:57]And it kind of came full circle.
[28:00]You know, it got to a saturation level and then it returned.
[28:04]I think that's the same thing.
[28:05]People were home during COVID and reading like crazy.
[28:09]Now it's going to, it's trending back.
[28:11]And I think what will happen is it will turn back the other way.
[28:16]I really do.
[28:17]I just, you know, what has come through the pandemic are things like you're doing.
[28:22]What I try to do, what friends and fiction do.
[28:25]So many people are still talking about promoting loving books and literature,
[28:31]but there's, there are a lot of books being published.
[28:35]And the attention for those books is shrinking.
[28:40]You look at book review coverage.
[28:42]It's, it's, it's, it's not exist anymore.
[28:45]And, you know, I call publishing Bart these days.
[28:48]It's business means art.
[28:50]Art is a huge piece of it.
[28:51]But if you're getting into it, the business piece is a huge part of it.
[28:56]And authors have to know they just can't write a book and just,
[29:00]oh my gosh, it's going to be great, you know, like Harry Bradshaw and Sex in the City.
[29:04]You have to be a great brand ambassador.
[29:06]You have to know how to increase your social media presence,
[29:10]but you also have to know how to be real with those that are following you and connecting with you.
[29:15]The real way, the real is to be people like to connect on that deeply personal level.
[29:20]And once you do, then you can get, I think a base that's big enough to help support you.
[29:26]But you have to fight every day.
[29:27]You know, I write every single day.
[29:29]But the other part of the day after noon and I work out is
[29:34]battling to get attention to me, you know, in all the right ways.
[29:38]And that's never ending exhausting piece of the business.
[29:43]And you have to be aware to do that.
[29:45]I, I fight like man for everyone in my books, like crazy.
[29:50]And I think you have to do that in the world today.
[29:53]Or you're not going to get another book.
[29:55]Or you know, that's, that's the way it is.
[29:59]Wow.
[29:59]I love.
[30:00]that imagery production and you know like carving the way for everything you know it's I mean you're
[30:06]absolutely right so how do you limit your right like do you write for certain hours only are you
[30:11]like noon that's it I hit the gym and goodbye yeah pretty much I have like very early morning to
[30:16]you know to wake up like 6 6 30 caffeine and then I write for the day kind of intrudes and
[30:23]that's I've been doing two books a year right now summer winter so it's
[30:27]deadlines are tight I don't like to count pages I did it sucks the joy out of it so I really
[30:33]like to stay ahead of the curve and then I do I like work out and kind of you know when I get
[30:39]physically exhausted I become mentally alive and I kind of work through everything I've written
[30:43]that day and I go back and kind of alter that and where I'm going the next day and then it's all
[30:47]business the rest of the day usually until seven or eight at night it's you know podcasts and
[30:52]social media and book clubs and all of those things that you have to do you have to do them you
[30:58]have to when do you hang out Gary or Gary around the corner we can we just I told you we just got
[31:05]to call me spring so we had four days in the car together and believe me that's a lot you know
[31:09]the family right from that's a lot of bonding that's a lot of hot fries it's a lot of hot fries
[31:16]it's all overcome like this and it's been decorating we've been here we got here
[31:21]yesterday unpacked the car and he's already put he's putting up everything we're putting up 10
[31:27]trees we're getting lodged for the holidays it's gonna be amazing wait so what are your next two
[31:33]bags um next two books I have a working next June is a book called famous in a small town
[31:41]and it's about an intergenerational friendship two of our very best friends in the world are
[31:48]women in their eighties who I adore and who have changed our lives so so much because of what
[31:56]they've gone through in their lives as women and just how much gusto they've lived every day
[32:03]so it's a it's a book about a woman that um it's in her eighties in northern michigan and she's
[32:09]run the general store in post office in this tiny town or entire life and she's famous for
[32:14]having one the cherry pits been in contest which is a real deal of michigan they have it every year
[32:20]oh my gosh you spit a cherry stone and she's she was the only woman at the age of 15 to ever
[32:26]win in her record still stands and her mother and grandmother always told her a woman will break
[32:31]your record but you have to live to see it and along comes the woman in her 40s who has just
[32:36]broken up with her boyfriend she's an elementary school principal that goes on a girls weekend
[32:41]and gets drunk on chardonnay and goes to the cherry pits but in contest and wins it
[32:47]and be to form a bond and it's about two people that you never thought should even meet
[32:53]much less be friends have nothing in common that change each other's worlds beautiful story of
[32:58]friendship and then my next um I'm working on my next holiday novel that will be out probably about
[33:04]this time next year and it's set in frank and michigan which is a bit real the variant town
[33:10]known as christmas city u.s.a and it has the largest christ privately on christmas store in the world
[33:15]it's 40 acres of ornaments oh my gosh it's insanity um and it's a great story about a woman that
[33:23]is a corporate executive that's fighting for her job and her life and she comes back to try
[33:27]and convince her parents to sell out their little store to a bigger company so it's just all
[33:34]that love that I'm loving it so far so that's next year no title yet oh my gosh I'm so impressed
[33:40]you're so hard working and structured and doing all the things and just like producing
[33:46]producing it's awesome it's it's really wonderful yeah you're like the consummate entertainer oh my
[33:53]gosh I've gone over our time I'm sorry I could listen to you all day I have like eight million more
[33:57]questions I have to go read your whole backlist I'm so excited I want to read like all of these
[34:02]books and yeah I'm just so glad I've gotten a chance to know you and I feel like you're such an
[34:08]inspiration to authors to me to every it's really it's wonderful you're so open and it's it's
[34:15]really great thank you and back and back at you and I have to say from the bottom of my heart
[34:20]thank you for all you do on behalf of um authors readers books and you are you're launching a new
[34:28]path for writers and in the publishing world today that's much needed um so congratulations on
[34:36]everything thank you all right well I hope to see you soon we will okay bye thanks for listening to
[34:45]this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to follow me on instagram at
[34:50]zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com
[34:55]and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every other week thanks so
[35:00]much to steve and ryan fact texture sound for the sound editing and thank you to morning moon
[35:04]productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music