Wendy Walker, AMERICAN GIRL
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[1:03]Wendy Walker is the author of American Girl A Novel.
[1:07]She is back on the podcast to talk about her latest book.
[1:10]Wendy is also the author of Psychological Suspense Novel What Remains.
[1:14]Her novels have been translated into 23 foreign languages, topped bestseller lists both nationally
[1:19]and abroad, and have an option for television and film.
[1:22]Wendy holds degrees from Brown University in Georgetown Law School.
[1:25]She is a former family law attorney with training in child advocacy and has worked in finance
[1:29]and several areas of the law.
[1:31]Welcome, Wendy.
[1:32]Thank you so much for coming back on momstone of time to read books to discuss your latest
[1:36]American Girl.
[1:37]Congratulations.
[1:38]Thank you.
[1:39]Did the American Girl doll company have any issue with the title?
[1:43]No.
[1:44]And, you know, American Girl was after my years as a young girl.
[1:48]So I, the inspiration for the book was really a moment I had listening to the Tom Petty
[1:54]Song American Girl.
[1:56]So that is where the title came from.
[1:58]And then when I started using the hashtag on social media, I realized there was all
[2:03]American Girl like dolls.
[2:05]So yeah.
[2:06]That's okay.
[2:07]Not the dolls, unfortunately.
[2:10]I mean, honestly, the moms of the girls buying the dolls were on social, it's a good
[2:14]audience for them.
[2:15]So I didn't say working out perfectly.
[2:16]Yeah.
[2:17]And I only have sons.
[2:18]So I really know, no experience with American girls at all, but, you know, I have folks,
[2:25]too much experience with the American girls, stores, restaurants, anyway, I'll leave it
[2:31]at that.
[2:32]So, but your novel, which has nothing to do at all with dolls, but does have to do with
[2:36]a girl, not such a young girl, but we do go back to, you know, when she starts, I think
[2:41]she was four when her mom ran away from her grandparents or not sure how old she was, but
[2:46]we do get to follow her through her life through college, which is wonderful.
[2:50]And well, why don't you take it away?
[2:52]Why don't you tell us there's what the book is about.
[2:54]So the book is about a 17 year old autistic girl named Charlie Hudson, and she lives in
[3:00]a small town in rural Pennsylvania, and she gets sort of caught in the crosshairs when
[3:07]a ruthless business owner who was also her boss at the triple S sandwich shop is found murdered.
[3:14]So it has, it takes place only, then the span of a few days, but we do get a lot of
[3:20]back story about Charlie's life.
[3:23]And so it's a mystery who killed Clay Cooper.
[3:26]It's also a thriller because the things that Charlie may or may not know about the murder
[3:32]become valuable to the people who were actually involved in his death.
[3:38]And it's also really a small town drama about all of the people in her life.
[3:45]So she has a complicated relationship with her mother and her stepfather and her half-brothers.
[3:52]And these wonderful relationships with the people at the sandwich shop and the whole story
[3:57]is about her trying to find a way to keep them safe from the people who are after her
[4:04]and possibly after them and also to keep them from being suspects in the murder because
[4:11]all of them had a reason to want Clay Cooper dead.
[4:14]Well, there's definitely a lot in there.
[4:16]I feel like the mother daughter piece of it was so poignant, even just how you write about,
[4:22]like it's from the daughter's point of view, but she's somehow like knows what the mother
[4:28]is thinking or she knows her mother's like not going to get her out of the shower or touch her
[4:33]because that's going to upset her and so she tells us that even as the narrator.
[4:37]So you get, you almost like get this 360 view of their relationship as it progresses and all of that.
[4:42]Yeah, and so what's the reason actually that this story evolved into Charlie being
[4:47]autistic is that when I started writing it, I knew I wanted it from her point of view.
[4:53]I wanted it to be very interior, first person, present tense.
[4:57]And so I just started writing this teenager and and she had to have this 360 view, right?
[5:04]So she had to understand all of these people around her, their relationships, how they would
[5:09]respond to things, react to things, what their motivations were, how they viewed life.
[5:15]And those are things that a typical 17 year old just doesn't do. It's not, it's not a normal
[5:21]part of brain development actually for that age. And so, you know, we started thinking about
[5:30]well, why would she have that view? Why would she know what her mother could be thinking and
[5:37]feeling and why could she, you know, have all of these facts in her head already when this story
[5:43]starts to unfold. And she's been analyzing and evaluating all of these people for many years.
[5:48]And she has like this set of rules that she's made about people and human behavior. And then,
[5:54]you know, it just, it just fits so perfectly to make her neurodivergent and have a reason to have to
[6:01]develop these very analytical and sort of front brain skills for understanding people when naturally,
[6:10]you know, people who are not neurodivergent who are considered within, you know, the non divergent
[6:15]is, you know, scope of neurotypical.
[6:18]Neurotypical, thank you. Yes, yes, who are neurotypical. They, you know, it's more intuitive, right?
[6:25]So the way we react to people and respond to people is much more intuitive. We don't generally
[6:30]go around, you know, making these, these sort of front brain rules about people and then trying
[6:35]to actually apply the moment to moment when we experience new people or new situations. And so
[6:41]it just, so she became, she became autistic for the purpose of being able to tell the story. And
[6:47]then it just opened up this whole amazing world to be able to write in. And of course, I had,
[6:54]you know, to be educated in autism. And we had, you know, sensitivity readers. We had Paige
[7:00]Lao who's an autism advocate and educator performed the audiobook and weigh in on how Charlie
[7:09]would, you know, sound in her emotional reactions while she's, you know, saying the dialogue that
[7:15]I had written. So with many, many layers to make sure that we got it right. So yeah, it was
[7:21]definitely an evolution. But, but it's interesting to say that because that is where it began,
[7:25]was having, was the fact that I was writing all these characters from her point of view.
[7:30]I think this is actually maybe my favorite. I feel like I've read a bunch of your bussammit.
[7:34]There's something about this, the first person, the kid following the same person along.
[7:39]I don't know. It's like a different perspective. It's very, I wrote it on spec. It was not under
[7:47]contract. It was a struggle actually to convince people in my camp that it should see the light
[7:53]of day, even though it was such a great story. But it's not you. It's too light. It's, you know,
[8:00]it's not, it's too young. It's not twisty enough. And when I, and so that's another reason it
[8:07]ended up at audible because I felt like that was a compromise. Like, okay, we'll, you know,
[8:13]what if we do have it be like a different path for my work that, you know, and find a different
[8:19]audience. But then it turned out to be such a gift that it went to audible because it completely
[8:24]transformed the story. And we leaned into the autism. But yeah, I, when I went back and read the
[8:31]first past pages when it went to print. So that was a year, you know, a couple years later just
[8:37]this past year. And I was reading it again for the first time in, you know, probably four years.
[8:43]And I had the same feeling. I was like, oh, wow, like, I can write in this other sort of,
[8:49]you know, way. And it's still me and it's still very much my voice and my writing style.
[8:54]But it is, it is different. It's not, it's the first and only book I've written that is,
[8:59]that started with a character and a feeling. And like a, like just a visceral feeling about life
[9:07]and the trajectory of being a woman from that age to, you know, throughout life. And I wanted
[9:14]to get all of that in a story. And so I built the story to give life to all of those things.
[9:20]So it was a different process. And so a slightly different book. But I added the twist and
[9:23]turns. So I think my happy. Wow. Have you read Happiness Falls by Angie Kim?
[9:30]I'm halfway through it. Yeah, it's amazing. And yeah, and she, I love hearing her speak and we
[9:37]were actually on a panel together at the Boston Book Festival. And the way she describes it is
[9:42]she had this character as well. And then she built, what she calls like a container,
[9:46]which is the mystery of her, of the father missing. So to sort of keep a plot, to give it
[9:52]structure. But really it's a container and a structure to give life to this wonderful character.
[9:57]And all of the issues that she wanted to explore.
[10:00]or in that book.
[10:01]And American Girl was very much the same way.
[10:04]So interesting.
[10:06]Well, I think it's really neat to get inside the head
[10:10]of someone who doesn't think exactly the same way
[10:12]and to see how they categorize the world.
[10:15]And you can look the same, right?
[10:17]Like, you wouldn't know.
[10:18]We were all sitting on a bench or something, right?
[10:20]But the way that every, to experience life
[10:23]so completely differently is really mind-blowing
[10:26]when you get into a page by page account
[10:29]especially the rules and having to put everything in
[10:32]to a system and predictability
[10:35]and have one thing and throw you off.
[10:37]I mean, things throw me off all the time,
[10:39]but it's not like, but to have it,
[10:42]to even have the illusion that life is predictable
[10:45]is a fallacy, you know?
[10:47]So yeah.
[10:48]And it was really, you know, this moment
[10:50]I was dancing to American Girl at a restaurant bar
[10:54]in rural Pennsylvania.
[10:56]And just having this, it sort of brought me back in time
[10:59]to when I was 17 and a very, you know,
[11:01]how songs can do that, you know?
[11:03]And not all the time, but if you're in an environment
[11:08]where you're dancing or you're just not driving
[11:10]or doing something else, but really able to go
[11:13]where those feelings are taking you.
[11:15]And I just felt what I remembered when it felt
[11:19]like to be 17 in high school
[11:22]and be on the brink of everything in my life happening.
[11:25]And then now to be where I'm at
[11:27]and having had some dreams come true,
[11:29]so many dreams not come true.
[11:31]An understanding of life that evolved
[11:34]and the nuances of life and the ironies and the,
[11:37]and just the richness of life,
[11:42]bitter sweetness of life.
[11:44]And it was so overwhelming.
[11:47]I don't even have a word for it.
[11:49]I was overwhelmed with just the experience
[11:54]of being a human being.
[11:55]And being a woman.
[11:57]And in the bar, the restaurant,
[11:59]there was a cluster of younger women.
[12:02]I think they were probably teenagers.
[12:04]And they were all, the girls were all dressed up.
[12:06]Their hair, their makeup, the mid-riff shirts.
[12:08]And they were clustered together.
[12:11]And then there were all these cute boys
[12:12]in the corner playing darts.
[12:14]And they were sort of eyeing each other.
[12:15]And you could just feel the energy
[12:17]and you could feel the excitement they all had
[12:20]about being out on a Saturday night.
[12:21]And then in the bar area where the band
[12:25]was playing and playing a lot of cover bands,
[12:27]older music, probably did not interest
[12:29]those younger people at all.
[12:31]We're a pretty big, like two or three tables of moms.
[12:34]I think moms, but women in my age who were out together
[12:39]alone, no men.
[12:40]And they were just chilling.
[12:41]You know, they were just in their jeans and t-shirts
[12:44]and like just happy to be out with each other
[12:46]for the night and listening to the music.
[12:49]And I just seeing like, wow, like those girls over there
[12:54]are going to be those women in, you know, 25 years
[12:58]and the things that they're going to experience.
[13:01]Oh my gosh, so many things.
[13:03]And yet you can't, you know, you can't like go back,
[13:08]you can't reach those 17-year-olds
[13:10]and infuse them with your knowledge.
[13:12]They have to live it and experience it.
[13:14]And it will probably be different for them.
[13:16]So that was kind of the kind of issues,
[13:18]the kinds of issues that I wanted to explore.
[13:20]And every woman in American Girl
[13:23]was sort of designed to represent a different trajectory.
[13:27]So, you know, we have our narrator Charlie
[13:30]and she is autistic and she wants to get out of Sawyer.
[13:33]She, you know, is trying to do her best
[13:35]to listen to her mother's advice and go to college
[13:38]and not get caught up in love and marriage and babies
[13:41]and get stuck in this town where there's, you know,
[13:43]it's a dead end street, economically.
[13:46]And then her mother who did get trapped there
[13:49]by getting pregnant at 16 and abandoned by the father
[13:52]and feeling so stuck.
[13:54]And now trying to like rip out of her daughter,
[13:57]the instincts and the urges to be in love
[14:00]and maybe take those risks because of how her life turned out.
[14:03]And then, you know, in the sandwich shop,
[14:05]every woman in the sandwich shop
[14:07]from Charlie's best friend, Keller,
[14:09]who's madly in love with this beautiful boy
[14:11]from across the road.
[14:13]And, you know, Nora who's a professional and a loner
[14:17]and, you know, takes pride in her work in Janice,
[14:20]who has her four children and her marriage
[14:22]and she's just kind of a, you know,
[14:23]bundle of nervous energy all the time,
[14:25]just trying to make ends meet all of those women
[14:28]sort of represent different paths
[14:30]and that women's lives take.
[14:32]Wow.
[14:33]And then to go, you talked about all your different dreams
[14:36]and, you know, I feel like at this age,
[14:39]many of my friends and I are wrestling
[14:41]sort of with the same thing, right?
[14:42]Like, oh, we've ended up, here's where we are, you know,
[14:45]what dreams of yours do you feel like you have not achieved?
[14:49]Wow.
[14:50]So yeah, I mean, actually when I,
[14:52]I actually work in a sandwich shop,
[14:54]so a lot of the descriptions of the sandwich shop
[14:56]were from my experiences.
[14:58]And by the time I was in high school working in a sandwich shop,
[15:01]I had already lost my child's adrenal being
[15:04]a competitive Olympic figure skater.
[15:07]And I pursued that for many years.
[15:08]I trained out in Colorado for three years alone,
[15:11]like in a dormitory.
[15:13]So it was a big dream.
[15:14]And I wasn't, it was something that I pursued
[15:16]and that my parents supported for many years.
[15:19]And when I gave up at 16 sort of realizing
[15:21]that I wasn't going to make it
[15:23]and having to come to that decision on my own,
[15:25]my parents really didn't want me to quit.
[15:27]But I just knew I could see the writing on the wall
[15:30]and I was trying to make the best decision for me.
[15:33]It was really hard and really painful.
[15:35]And I remember that experience very well.
[15:38]But, you know, then I found new dreams
[15:40]and I can like trace all the different parts of my life.
[15:43]But I never stop dreaming.
[15:46]I mean, I have dreams for my kids,
[15:47]but they're really just for them to be happy.
[15:50]Most of my concrete dreams are for myself.
[15:53]My writing career, you know, a long relationship
[15:57]of with a partner, friendships and during friendships.
[16:01]Of course, at this age, economic stability, you know,
[16:04]just maintaining that, making sure that, you know,
[16:07]that I have what I need for the rest of my life
[16:11]and to be able to enjoy life.
[16:13]And now actually, I think I'm shifting into as many of us do
[16:17]and to really try to identify the things I enjoy doing
[16:21]and trying to build a life where I have time
[16:24]and resources to do those things.
[16:27]Is there something in particular you'd like
[16:29]to have more time to do?
[16:30]Yeah, what about you?
[16:31]I mean, you're the busiest woman on the planet.
[16:33]So we're all so busy.
[16:35]I'm just like, I don't even know what I would do.
[16:37]What would I do?
[16:38]Like watch more TV?
[16:39]Yeah, like, I don't know.
[16:40]For dreams, you've published a memoir.
[16:42]You've published a novel.
[16:43]I don't know.
[16:44]No, I just mean like, what would we add for pleasure?
[16:48]Oh, my gosh, do you have any?
[16:49]I feel like I don't, my youngest son went to college last year
[16:53]and so this is my second year being empty nested.
[16:56]And I was like, okay, I'm gonna find out what I like to do.
[17:00]What do I like to do now at age?
[17:03]Because I haven't had any hobbies.
[17:05]Last year, the only thing was joining BIM,
[17:07]which isn't really a hobby.
[17:08]It's just, instead of like working out in my basement,
[17:11]I actually now go somewhere.
[17:13]And that's just not, you know, that's not good.
[17:15]So I did, I will say like going,
[17:17]I went to Iceland, New R last year
[17:18]and I'm going back in a few weeks.
[17:20]And that experience made me realize that I do actually love
[17:25]to travel even alone or with a friend or with my kids,
[17:28]but to travel in a different way than when my kids were younger
[17:31]where it was about, okay, we're gonna go to Paris
[17:34]because my kids need to go to Paris
[17:35]and I want them to really see the world
[17:37]and see these, you know, the Eiffel Tower and all,
[17:40]and you know, experience, you know, local restaurants
[17:43]and all of that and within a gender,
[17:44]like a real agenda for my kids.
[17:47]When I went to Iceland, I had a few days just traveling
[17:50]with another author with Gene Kwok actually.
[17:52]And we had so much fun.
[17:56]We were, it was just, we just went on these tours
[17:59]and it was just for our own.
[18:01]We weren't, we didn't know what we were supposed to see there.
[18:03]We just wanted to experience it.
[18:05]And that I realized that putting yourself
[18:08]in a different environment, whether it's traveling
[18:11]or with new people, it really changes.
[18:15]It throws all of your thinking.
[18:17]It's like takes it out of the,
[18:18]out of the little runners that they're in
[18:20]and just throws it all up in the air
[18:22]and then when all the, you know, beliefs and the thoughts
[18:26]and the feelings that have come back down,
[18:28]they sometimes settle in different places
[18:30]and you can get a shift of perspective.
[18:33]And that is really, really exhilarating to me.
[18:36]So yeah, so I think I want to,
[18:39]I want to try to build in more experiences like that travel
[18:42]and also new people, you know, just new, new things
[18:46]that I haven't already done in my life.
[18:49]Oh, that's amazing.
[18:51]My, my son the other day, I taught him how to use like
[18:55]the Google maps where you can like add a location.
[18:57]Yeah, so went through and was,
[19:00]ranking all the countries in the world,
[19:03]like where he would want to go.
[19:04]So now it's on a list and he's like, okay,
[19:06]next summer we'll go here.
[19:07]Then I'm like, I'm not going all these places.
[19:09]I go anyway.
[19:10]Then we started cross referencing them with the safety
[19:13]of the morning system.
[19:15]So I was like, these five have to get off our list
[19:17]and like maybe we should put this on the list.
[19:19]But yeah, I love that.
[19:22]Yeah, it's great.
[19:22]I think it's, and it's so fun to, you know,
[19:24]I have my now adult children and,
[19:27]and I'm just, I just love, I love, you know,
[19:30]being with them and spending time with them.
[19:32]It's so different now.
[19:33]When we watch, I have a son studying screenwriting.
[19:35]When we watch TV movies, you know,
[19:38]we analyze every piece of dialogue,
[19:41]what could be better, what was great about it
[19:42]or even that cinematography and the plot.
[19:46]And you know, just each, each of my sons has like
[19:49]amazing different qualities that I just,
[19:52]if they're just so much fun to be with now.
[19:55]So yeah, I mean, that, those, those things, I don't know.
[19:58]I think, I keep thinking I want to.
[20:00]the guitar, but I'm so bad. I'm just so bad. I don't have the patience. But I do want that is on my
[20:05]bucket list is to be able to actually play a musical instrument and actually play it and not just,
[20:10]you know, memorize one song, but actually, no, just understand it in the chords. I don't know.
[20:16]I don't know. You could start with American girl. I know. I had a little challenging, but yeah.
[20:23]So, and I've watched my kids learn online. I had two sons who've learned to play guitar really well.
[20:30]So, that's on my list. I don't know. We'll see. But right now, writing, I have, I'm writing. I'm writing
[20:36]all day, every day, working on new projects. And in new mediums too, which is exciting.
[20:43]Expand. What do you mean? Okay. So, yeah. So, I have coming out in 2024, hopefully. I think maybe
[20:50]the strikes have slowed things down because it's an audio play for Audible. So, it's called
[20:55]Mad Love. And it's kind of, I describe it as the Tinder swimler meets Dirty John meets the psychological
[21:03]thriller. So, it's almost, please script it, almost all scripted. And it's going to be about,
[21:07]I think four to five hours long listening time. And that's exciting. And I'm going to write
[21:12]another piece for Audible that will be more like American girl in terms of a novel with some
[21:17]scripted chapters. And that's a different kind of story for me. I can't say too much about it.
[21:21]Because I haven't even started it yet. So, yeah. But that's been just so exciting. And then
[21:27]I'm working on a new novel, which is also exciting. So, hoping, yeah. I mean, I just keep
[21:33]developing stories and finding new ways to tell them, you know, and spending time with authors
[21:39]is amazing too. And just seeing, you know, the author community is really quite incredible. So,
[21:45]when you're always out there supporting everybody else, it's really amazing. They give back.
[21:50]It's really, it's wonderful. It's wonderful. I feel like I don't know your sons, obviously.
[21:57]But from the time when I interviewed you the first time, it couldn't be that many,
[22:00]what, couple years. But you were talking about writing your first book, like in the back of the
[22:04]minivan or whatever, imagining your kids so little back then. And then like we went to where
[22:10]you didn't want to go out and date because you want to just hang out with your sons,
[22:13]knowing your time was about to end. And now here we are. And I'm like, oh my gosh, really, they're
[22:18]both gone and now they're at jobs. Like, it's such a, yes, it's like art. We are, right. I mean,
[22:26]but that's, you know, that, that's, you know, what really inspired this book because it hits you,
[22:33]right? You go through these experiences. And then when something makes you stop and assess where
[22:39]you are and take stock of where you've been and the thoughts and feelings you've had, you know,
[22:45]at different stages. And then how things actually turned out. And there's like this desire to just
[22:50]like stop every, like somebody stopped the world, like stop time because I got it like,
[22:55]I got to get my stuff together. Like I got to think this through and figure out how things ended
[22:59]up here, which isn't bad, but different. And is this what I intended? And if not, you know,
[23:06]like what can I do now to, you know, differently to plan better or, or just make better choices
[23:13]or, and then there isn't. You realize there isn't that each stage you've made the best choices
[23:17]you could. You've done the best that you could at the time. And it's just this like, it's
[23:23]really overwhelming. That's that we're just going to keep moving forward. And in a few years,
[23:29]maybe, you know, we'll speak again and it'll be some it'll be getting married or I don't even know,
[23:34]right? Oh, yeah. I don't know. That's that's really good advice, especially because you can
[23:42]be so stressed when kids are home. And I don't know, having your perspective is so good. Okay,
[23:46]now that we've gotten to parenting advice, what writing advice can you share with aspiring authors?
[23:53]Oh my gosh, you know, I it's there's so much it's not I it's it's there's business advice,
[24:01]which I, you know, say for another conversation. I think it's really important to be smart about
[24:05]the business. Really important to connect with authors. I mean, just my book tour in June for what
[24:12]remains, which was the book that came up before American Girl. And now just, you know, recently
[24:16]with American Girl and visiting your lovely bookshop in Santa Monica. And with, you know, Caroline
[24:22]Keptness and Janelle Brown. And I'm just spending time with other authors because they have so
[24:28]much advice, writing advice, but also business advice. And I can't stress that strongly enough
[24:34]and the way that especially in the thriller community, suspense community, the support is incredible.
[24:39]And then from there, because I'm not a trained writer, I think the most important thing is to
[24:45]always be building your skill set, your toolbox. And so, you know, when you read read as much as
[24:52]as you can in your genre. And I try to pay attention to what I what I like, where am I stopping
[25:00]and getting a little bored or a little, you know, just disinterested. And why? What is it about the
[25:06]story? Or is it about the way the story is told that has made me sort of stop and pause and not
[25:13]keep turning pages? Or what is it that is making me read every single word? What is it that is
[25:19]making me not want to leave this book, even if it's painful, even if it's uncomfortable, right?
[25:25]So what is keeping me glued to this page and want to turn the pages? And it will be different
[25:30]for every person. I've really good author friends and I'll send a book or, you know, like the
[25:37]manuscript. Oh, I just blurb this book. You have to read it. And they're like, I don't know. I don't
[25:42]know. When does it get good? You know, it'll get a text like, when does this when does this get good? I'm like,
[25:46]what are you jogging about? And then the same thing will happen. So everyone is different. And
[25:51]I think the best thing is to really pay attention to what you want to be writing and and how to write
[25:58]in the how to how to then write the best way that you can for what you want to be writing,
[26:03]what you're interested in writing. I love that. Amazing. Wendy, thank you so much. Thanks for coming back.
[26:09]I don't know. I've just love your whole successful career watching the whole thing and felt
[26:14]it's really awesome. And it really, really enjoyed American Girl. And I particularly loved
[26:18]the notion that there are no rules for love. Yes. That's the best one she has. There are no rules
[26:24]when it comes to love. Yep. And that's exactly right. Yeah. So one thing that you can't predict or
[26:31]build anything around, make predictions about it comes in and it just takes us over. And that's
[26:38]really what is at the core. And actually the last chapter of this book is my most favorite chapter
[26:42]I've ever written. So it's really good. That rule is what is right at the end. So thank you so much.
[26:50]It's like a goosebumps. You know, like I get you get the chills kind of chapter, especially with
[26:54]the left. It's got a lot of rings. Yeah. It's really good. Thank you so much. Okay. Have a great day, Wendy.
[27:03]Okay. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[27:09]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[27:13]Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[27:18]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture
[27:23]Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this
[27:27]this fantastic intro and outro music.