Etaf Rum, EVIL EYE

[0:02]Hi, I'm Zippy Owens, and you're listening to moms don't have time to read books.

[0:06]This 30-minute podcast features a new author interviewed by me every single day, 365 days

[0:12]a year for about 30 minutes.

[0:15]I am also the publisher for Zippy Books, which publishes 12 books a year in fiction and

[0:21]memoir.

[0:22]Our books are already out now.

[0:23]You can check it out on zippybooks.com.

[0:26]And we have a magazine called Zippy Mag, where we have lots of wonderful essays and

[0:30]lifestyle features.

[0:31]That's at zippymag.com.

[0:33]We have classes, it's a B-Classist.com.

[0:36]And I recently opened a book store in LA called Zippy's Bookshop at 1113 Montana Avenue

[0:43]at 11th Street in San Monica.

[0:45]I hope that you are able to enjoy some of our other offerings.

[0:49]But this here podcast is the basis of all of it and started in 2018.

[0:54]And no matter what I do, this is basically my favorite thing.

[0:57]Enjoy.

[1:03]Yita from is the author of Evil Eye, a novel.

[1:07]Yita was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York by Palestinian immigrants.

[1:10]She has taught English literature in North Carolina, where she lives with her two children.

[1:14]Yita also runs the Instagram account at books and beans, and is a book of the month club

[1:19]ambassador.

[1:20]Welcome, Yita.

[1:21]Thank you so much for coming on mom's, moms don't have time to read books.

[1:24]I can't even pronounce my own show, but that's fine to discuss a woman is no man and

[1:30]evil eye.

[1:31]So thank you for coming on.

[1:32]Thank you so much for having me.

[1:34]No, it's my pleasure.

[1:35]I know I first reached out to you through Claire Gibson, who I had gotten to know and

[1:39]knew you, I think, from your neighborhood and I don't even know.

[1:43]So, and I think I told you back then how much of a fan my mother is of you and all of

[1:47]your work.

[1:48]So I just had to put her name out there so she could be really happy.

[1:52]I didn't want to send her all my love.

[1:54]It's such a blessing to hear that.

[1:57]Of course, she's not the only one year in New York Times, best selling author blah, blah,

[2:00]blah, blah.

[2:01]Priorities, got to start with some family.

[2:04]I just wanted to kick off this episode by reading a tiny bit from the beginning of a woman

[2:08]is no man because it's so striking and people who might not be familiar with you yet might

[2:13]not know what your voice is like and this is particularly voiced related.

[2:17]So I just want to read even this opening, is that okay, like a sentence or two, so to give

[2:21]a little preview, you want me to read it?

[2:24]Oh, I was going to read it.

[2:25]But do you want to read it?

[2:26]No, you read it.

[2:27]No, I'll be quick.

[2:28]This is how a woman is no man starts for anyone who has not read it yet.

[2:32]I was born without a voice when cold over caste in Brooklyn, New York.

[2:36]No one ever spoke of my condition.

[2:37]I did not know I was mute until years later when I opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted

[2:42]and realized no one could hear me.

[2:44]Where I come from, voicelessness is the condition of my gender as normal as the bosoms

[2:49]on a woman's chest as necessary as the next generation growing inside her belly.

[2:53]But we will never tell you this, of course, where I come from, we've learned to conceal

[2:56]our condition.

[2:57]We've been taught to silence ourselves that our silence will save us.

[3:01]It is only now many years later that I know this to be false.

[3:04]Only now, as I write this story, do I feel my voice coming?

[3:08]You've never heard this story before, no matter how many books you've read, how many

[3:11]tales you know, believe me, no one has ever told you a story like this one.

[3:17]Okay, so with that, you're setting the expectations very, very high.

[3:24]Why would I do that?

[3:28]And I'm like, why would I do that?

[3:30]No, it's amazing.

[3:32]It's amazing.

[3:33]You want your, you know, to be immersed in a world like this.

[3:36]Okay, let's back up.

[3:38]First of all, your latest book, Congratulations.

[3:41]Why don't you tell listeners about that?

[3:44]And then I want to go back to this book and talk about voice and voice throughout your

[3:48]books, honestly.

[3:49]So yes, so my latest book, Evil Eye, comes out September 5th.

[3:55]It's about a Arab American woman, mother of two, who has worked really hard to escape

[4:03]the demons of her past is highly educated, is in the art field and thinks that she has

[4:10]a life that is very different than the life of the women that she's seen growing up, the

[4:13]powerless women that she's seen.

[4:16]And after an incident at work, her mom told her that she might be cursed with a curse that's

[4:21]been in their family for generations.

[4:23]And all of a sudden, Yara, our main character is now questioning everything she thought

[4:28]she knew about her life, her future, and if she's ever really escaped the past.

[4:34]I mean, can we really escape the past?

[4:36]Yeah.

[4:37]So we're on this journey to figure out, you know, what are the decisions I need to be made

[4:42]for this character?

[4:43]And I read you saying that this came from a personal place, part of this story.

[4:48]Tell me about that.

[4:49]Yeah, I've both of my novels come from a personal place.

[4:52]I'm a Palestinian American woman.

[4:54]I was born and raised in this country to Palestinian immigrants.

[4:58]And so both of my novels are set in the Arab American community, both of them feature

[5:05]characters that we don't often see in bookstores, minority women, women who have been

[5:12]taught that all women's role is confined in the home as a mother.

[5:19]And these women are now looking back at their lives and questioning, well, what parts

[5:24]of tradition and culture do I resonate with and what parts have I been perpetuating and

[5:30]passing on that I don't really resonate with me and what can we do from here.

[5:34]So in that regard, I think both novels do come from a autobiographical place.

[5:39]Not just for me as a woman, as a Palestinian American woman, but I think it reflects many

[5:45]women in cultures or in societies or in families that feel like they have to play a certain

[5:50]role and then figuring out, well, then who am I, really?

[5:55]Yes, which is sort of a blanket for many, many of you people trying to figure out who

[6:01]we are in our place in the world and all of that.

[6:04]If you were writing a memoir now, how would it differ?

[6:07]And when did you realize that this part of your identity is something you wanted to explore

[6:11]through fiction?

[6:12]I realized it in 2016.

[6:16]I was teaching full time at a community college.

[6:19]I was teaching American literature and English 111, just like writing.

[6:24]And I realized that as an Arab American woman, our stories were not as an in bookshelves

[6:30]in bookstores and literature in general, we were underrepresented at that very same time

[6:35]that I was teaching.

[6:36]And I was also going through a hard time personally in my life, just questioning how

[6:42]I had gotten to the point that I was at and why despite all of my accomplishment, I still

[6:49]felt really empty and I still felt like I was pretending like I was playing a role.

[6:55]And I had obviously succeeded at the role of all this teaching.

[6:57]I had a master's degree, I had children, everything was perfect.

[7:02]I managed to hold on to my culture and to my American dreams, right?

[7:07]But something was really long.

[7:09]And so it was the combination of being in the classroom and teaching and realizing how

[7:14]little of my identity and my community is in this country is seen in this country for what

[7:21]it really is and not just, oh, the terrorists on the news or Palestine is being bombed

[7:27]and outside of that, like the domestic lives of these women, what do they look like?

[7:33]But I wanted to portray that and I wanted it to be accessed easily.

[7:37]And then I also had a lot of questions myself about how I got here and what, who am I?

[7:43]And as a woman, where are my limits?

[7:47]And I wanted to explore all that through fiction.

[7:49]I thought it was cathartic for me as someone that was depressed and going through this

[7:55]difficult time.

[7:56]Also, I wanted to use that pain to get answers for myself, but hopefully to help someone

[8:03]else that could possibly be in my position if they read the story and resonated with it,

[8:08]if it could give them some clarity, because at that point I felt like I did not have any

[8:11]clarity or guidance.

[8:13]And did it work?

[8:14]Yes.

[8:15]It was hard and uncomfortable and ugly and messy, but it helped writing a woman as no man

[8:23]and even writing evil eye, helped me pierce into some truths that I couldn't really

[8:28]pierce through in memoir.

[8:30]We don't look at ourselves objectively, I think.

[8:34]We're so much in denial and there's so many facades and layers of pretending and layers

[8:38]of conditioning and programming, especially when you come from these strict societies

[8:43]and cultures.

[8:44]I had so many layers of trauma and just so many facades to uphill and I could not do that

[8:50]in memoir.

[8:51]I did not have the courage to do that in memoir.

[8:54]Whereas with fiction, I felt, okay, I know what I want to find and I know that I'm looking

[8:59]for truth and I can look for it at my pace with these characters that I'm pretending are

[9:05]characters, but they really are people in my mind, voices in my head that I can use to

[9:11]work through some things and get through a place of healing.

[9:14]And I think that both those books, because they were fiction, helped me find healing.

[9:21]That's amazing.

[9:22]So what are you, what do you need healing on now?

[9:25]Are you working on something?

[9:26]No, we all, we've been in this summer and I'm working on healing myself through the

[9:34]aging process.

[9:35]I'm going to delve deeper that into fiction and see how I feel about it.

[9:39]You're beautiful.

[9:40]I don't know what you're talking about.

[9:43]No, no.

[9:44]I don't know.

[9:46]I don't know what you're saying.

[9:47]Your smile is so radiant.

[9:48]Yes.

[9:49]Thank you.

[9:50]I just, we're all working through something and it's, I don't know, just much in the

[9:58]same way that reading helps us.

[10:00]game and work through emotional problems with different characters for writers that writing

[10:05]process is just, you know, it's just this powerful. So were you surprised then after writing

[10:12]your first book and I'm curious when you found time to do that when you were still teaching,

[10:15]I'm assuming you're still teaching and parenting and all the rest and how you felt once that

[10:21]sort of hit big and then where you found the time to write evil eye and like could you still

[10:26]protect your sanity and trying to write a second book? Oh my god, evil eye, first of all,

[10:32]great question. Evil eye was really challenging. So after open this one, man got written. I wrote it

[10:38]just very quickly. I wrote it in between classes or on my lunch break or in the mornings I'd wake up

[10:45]really early and I would write before the kids went to school, I'd take them to school,

[10:50]go to work, do my routine and find some times to write and I will say that I will say that

[10:55]woman is the man who wrote itself. That novel, like my heart cracked open and everything just

[11:00]came out. It was years and years and years of memories. It started out as a journal entry so a lot of

[11:08]it was memories, direct memories and things that I was working through that, you know, it just poured

[11:14]out of me. But evil eye was, it was a COVID novel. So when a woman to some end came out, it was 2019,

[11:21]I went on tour, I came back 2019. I'm like, all right, it's time to start writing. I could do this,

[11:27]I still have more to say, right? And then COVID happened and a woman is no man blew up at the same

[11:33]time. So I had this imposter syndrome like, wait a minute, I can't write anything that's going to

[11:39]level up, that's going to match the level of success that this novel has gotten. And also I was,

[11:45]it was COVID and I was running, my children were home from school, I was running businesses,

[11:51]with my husband that I had to, you know, need to close down. There was a lot going on and the

[11:56]world was, I don't need to explain to you, it has happening in the world. But I will say that

[12:02]it was harder to write this novel because I had the first novel. And then also I hadn't worked

[12:08]through as much as I thought I had in terms of, you know, work like I had, but there was more layers.

[12:15]And this novel was showing me the layers and I didn't like it. I didn't like it. And I got the

[12:21]pressed, this is probably all the two parts that offered the picture. No, no, I love the

[12:25]personal. Keep going. No, I mean, I got the pressed, it was COVID. I was depressed because I just

[12:32]felt alone. And I was hurting for this world that I created in both novels and for, you know,

[12:41]just the women that go through this, the specific women in my mind, in my life and other women,

[12:48]you know, on a separate note, like I got a lot of the ends from women that read a woman is no man

[12:53]and say, you know, this book has really changed my life or I really never looked at it like,

[12:59]you know, in this way. And now I have the courage to talk to my mom or to talk to my sister or,

[13:04]you know, to take certain steps because they were able to work through some emotional being in

[13:10]the novel. So I think that responsibility was now even clearer because when I was writing a woman

[13:16]is no man, it was just for me to write out that story and it was the idea of helping people

[13:22]and helping people find some sort of residents with a work. But then when you know that they

[13:28]have found residents and now you have to do it again, it just really scared me. So that was

[13:33]a difference between the two. So what did you do on the moments that you were most doubting yourself

[13:38]and it was just you in the screen? I just told myself to keep going. I knew that if I didn't push

[13:45]through it that I had worked so hard to get to that moment where I had a place and a paper and a pen

[13:52]and an ability to reach people and I knew that even if it wasn't what I wanted it to be and it didn't

[13:58]turn out the way that I wanted it to turn out. The fact that I was here was an immense privilege,

[14:02]like I am constantly reminded of my immense privilege when I think about women all over the world

[14:11]that are living in far less circumstances, children and Palestine that are being bombed, people that

[14:17]are feeling unsafe every day, that don't have access to food or clean water, that can't go to school.

[14:26]I have so much in my life and so I think that's the thought that always comes when I'm having a dark

[14:31]moment. I made it here. My parents bought me to this country like I was able to get an education.

[14:38]I got myself here and so I need to keep going and quickly that, I don't know if it's survival

[14:46]mode, I don't know, but it pushes me to complete the day. It sounds like guilting yourself into it.

[14:53]You better do this right now. Oh my gosh, whatever it takes. Okay, wait, I want to pivot for one

[15:03]second and talk about your bookstore. When did that come into the equation? That came into the

[15:08]equation at the end of 2019, right before COVID. I was so excited about the opportunity to open up

[15:16]a spot in Rocky Mountain of Toronto where I live, where I can create a space for people to just

[15:24]gather. I live in a small town so we don't have many places here where you can come and grab

[15:30]a cup of coffee, browse through a book, a small library. We have so many diverse books on our

[15:37]shelf in our library and on our for sale shelf that I wanted to create that space here and so

[15:43]that happened in 2019 and I just came back from there and it's exciting. It's exciting to see

[15:50]people come in and watch what books they choose to buy and you know kind of judge them a little

[15:54]bit like all right this is what you like. It's really nice and to know that a lot of like someone's

[16:02]choosing to spend their time in that space. Someone's choosing to go have dinner or I mean I'm sorry,

[16:08]go have a coffee before dinner or just sit down and read. The girls will come in and just sit there

[16:17]and read and to me I'm thinking this is the best that there's a space here for you to do that.

[16:23]Awesome. So I started a bookstore also this year. Santa Monica, yeah, called Zippy's Bookshop.

[16:29]I'm wearing the sweatshirt today which I wear all the time. This is my husband's but yeah,

[16:34]it's the most fun and rewarding and amazing thing to like put yourself at the center of this

[16:41]literary connection fest essentially and just watch people as they browse and ask questions

[16:48]and then what they pick and interact with everybody else in the store. I think it is the most

[16:55]amazing thing. I think everybody should spend an entire day in a small bookstore and just like yes

[17:01]watch and listen. Yes, it's so intimate because there's nowhere to go and people are just coming to

[17:10]either escape or for personal growth or for just some time for self-care time and you're there

[17:19]watching and aiding in that so it's so rewarding like you said it's really nice. But somehow you

[17:26]have like a bazillion followers on books and beans and I have like none for my store that I just

[17:33]started. How did you grow that fall? Like that's actually the reason why I had I have so many

[17:38]followers is because I started the account when I started writing a woman as a man and it was

[17:44]it was years before I've ever opened the store and so the following was more it was my personal

[17:52]account that I was going to bookstores and talking about books and you know getting quotes of books

[18:00]that I like with coffee and it started in 2016 and so I was before that algorithm and Instagram

[18:09]changed. So if you were to ask me right now like how do you do that I will tell you I have no idea

[18:15]because this was before reels before it was easier I think to grow back then because there weren't

[18:23]many people on Instagram. I don't like more like the threads of today or something just starting

[18:30]out maybe although not really but anyway would you ever open a second store have people asked you

[18:35]to expand and would you I don't know would you have thought people have asked me to expand in

[18:42]different states or in other locations here in town but I don't think that no I would I guess

[18:51]the answer I wouldn't I don't I'm not I think that I'm just such a creative and a person that

[18:57]wants to explore and I think that it's hard with businesses because you have to run the business

[19:03]and with the way the world is now and the lack of help in for businesses and it's hard to find

[19:13]staff to help so I think that would be I would love to like I have the vision to open

[19:20]so many things but practically I don't think I would because I would I don't have the time

[19:27]when do you find time to read I find time to read at night or sometimes I'll just go

[19:35]like take a 30 minute break and read during my day like if I have a block of time I haven't

[19:40]know what to do it I'll go have a couple of coffee or something and I'll just read but even that's

[19:45]it's even hard finding time to read like I have to schedule in I'll make it part of my like

[19:50]nightly routine all right this is what I'm gonna do I'm gonna go first my teeth sit down and just

[19:55]read and then go to bed you know I'll have to I have to tell myself these are the times because

[20:00]throughout the day. There's, there's just so much to do.

[20:03]Yeah.

[20:04]I seem to have gotten reading in like I'd always read before bed. Now I'm trying to teach my kids, you know, and it was so sweet. Last night, my daughter,

[20:11]when I went to like straight enough for room this morning, which she should have done herself. I know I'm like a bad mom, but anyway, whatever. But I found her, her book was like right there on her bed. She had she had fallen asleep with it right there. And I was like, this is like a dream come true.

[20:24]It is. It's so important to teach kids that. It's so important reading, teaching your kids to love reading or to enjoy it. At least is the best thing you can do for a child. In my opinion, is the most it teaches them so many things. Yeah. And they wanted to stay up reading the other night. I was like, how can I contradict myself by making that and put down the book. I all I do is trying to get them to pick a book. This is the one time. I'm like, okay, fine, stay up to a minute. I don't even care.

[20:55]Right now, yeah, but it's fine. Yeah. But your kids, are they readers? Yeah. Yeah. My daughter, we were at the beach yesterday and at the beach house, there was a selection of books and I like go right in and I go into the books and I'm going through them. Oh, this person has such good taste and luck.

[21:17]There's a little bit in there. There was an Elizabeth Gilbert book in there. There was, oh my god, with the book that I made her name. And now I can't remember it and completely forgot.

[21:29]Anyways, she read the whole book in the day in a day. Wow. How old are your kids? We 14 and my son is 11. They're their book readers.

[21:38]Awesome. Are you working on a new book now and are you feeling depressed now or how do you feel in general at this?

[21:47]No, the depression was more of like a COVID thing. Like I just stopped dropped with this novel and I couldn't go out and I just had this novel.

[21:55]Yeah, I'm not currently working on anything. I'm taking some time to figure out what I want to work on back is

[22:02]maybe a little bit different. I feel like both a woman is so man and evil. I are heavy. And I want to work on something a little less dark next time. So I know that if I start a book now from this place, I won't give it the attention that it needs in terms of like what do I want to write about. It's not a good place right now for me, please.

[22:25]Okay. Are you excited about going? Are you going out on the road? I'm sure to tons of places for evil eye. What is that going to be like? Yeah. So the book comes out in September. So I officially start going on for them.

[22:37]But for now, I have been just doing a bunch of interviews and podcasts and that's been really exciting. Like now I'm all right. This is a real book now.

[22:47]You know, in my head anymore, it's out in the world and people are reading it and it's exciting to get to the stage. It's so exciting. Amazing. What advice do you have for aspiring authors?

[22:58]Keep writing every single day. If you can make it a priority to put your thoughts on on paper. I think discipline is the most the best advice I can give.

[23:11]And with discipline after you've mastered yourself, because that yourself is the number one person that's going to get in your way.

[23:20]And then I'm one person that's going to help you succeed and will often be self-sappetage. We say, Oh, I want to do something. And then we'll think of a million reasons why we can't do it that day.

[23:30]It's easy. At least for me, I realize that there's there's a voice in my head that wants to procrastinate if I let it. And so I've learned

[23:40]like mastered that. That's that's huge. And to just keep going. And I think that's yeah, that's that's why I say like what advice you give really it's managing yourself, learning how to discipline yourself, learning how to be in charge of yourself and not let your mind be in charge of you.

[23:57]And I think that just goes on to it covers many things, including being authentic and writing authentically because a lot of times we're writing and we think we have to write a specific story or tell it in a specific way.

[24:10]And it's about people pleasing and market pleasing and or even I'm writing because I want to hit the list or I'm writing because I want to sell for this amount and all of those reasons are not the reason to write.

[24:25]And so asking yourself, why am I writing? What about this story? What about these words or this process?

[24:32]What's at the what's the truth here that I'm trying to get out? Because that truth is what's going to help you be disciplined because it means more than hitting a list you can't control that, you know, you can't control hitting the list you can't control getting fame and whatever external motivator people have to achieve goals like those external circumstances are very shallow and superficial. I think if we dig deep and look for like the authentic reasons why we're doing things that can help us.

[25:02]Do that thing better make it more noble not noble but impactful because it's a real it's a real thing it's not another performance.

[25:13]He talked this has been so nice. I want to come see your bookstore. I'm like, I'm like, how do I get to where how do you even get to your story? Do you 40 fly into clients of Raleigh North Carolina, then how far as

[25:25]Have you ever been to North Carolina? Yes. Yeah, do you like it. Yeah, of course. And then it's an hour away from the airport. It's in a town called Rocky. No, you can look it up. Yeah, look it up. My brother went to Duke. So I was down there and yeah, been to like

[25:43]It's like when people say UNC Chapel Hill or Duke it's like you have to look around the room to see. Sorry. Should I know who said that? No, no, I mean, I don't have a preference for either. It's just it's just an North Carolina thing. So you just go to see where to do

[26:02]He just went there for a law school. So I don't know. Maybe just

[26:04]Anyway, well, good luck with your release. I'm so excited for you. And I hope to stay in touch. And if you want to come to LA and do an event in our bookstore

[26:13]We have events all the time. If you have any interest in getting out West, or you are already going to be out there. It's in Santa Monica. It's really cute. So I would love to. I can share my publicist information. Really. Like if I get invited somewhere, my publisher will send you there. So

[26:28]If you have an, yeah, like there are events. Yes. Yeah, if you think you want to do like an event on your bookstore or something. Yeah, that'll be great. Okay. All right.

[26:42]Okay. Bye. Okay. Bye.

[26:46]Thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books.

[26:54]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom every

[27:01]other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to

[27:06]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.