LIVE at Zibby's Bookshop: Elisa Albert and Zibby Owens!
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[0:43]Alyssa Alpert and I did an event together at Zibi's Bookshop, and this is the recording of that.
[0:48]Thanks for coming, Alyssa. She also is the author of Human Blue's A Novel.
[0:53]After birth, the book of Dahlia, how this night is different, an editor of the anthology,
[0:57]Freud's Blind Spot. Her stories and essays have appeared in Time, The Guardian, The New York Times,
[1:02]and plus one, Bennington Review, Tinhouse, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Literary Review,
[1:06]The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She lives in F State New York. Thanks for joining
[1:11]us, Alyssa.
[1:12]So let me just start. Alyssa in her books says she cannot be in LA, or her character,
[1:17]Aviva, cannot be in LA more than five consecutive days. How long have you been here this trip?
[1:23]A week, actually.
[1:24]Oh my gosh!
[1:25]Yeah, truth is stranger than fiction.
[1:28]So do you believe that at all? How do you feel about LA? Let's just start there.
[1:32]I love LA. I grew up here, but I haven't lived here since I was in high school.
[1:37]I left for college and never came back, and now I just visit, and it's really fun, especially
[1:42]in December or January or February or March. And it's always a treat, and I have so many loved ones here,
[1:50]so it's great.
[1:51]Well, for all the LA locals here, there are so many place-specific references that it is fun to
[1:58]take yourselves through Brentwood and everywhere else and Marina everywhere. So you can,
[2:03]it's fun to have a local story that you don't necessarily know the circle.
[2:07]But in terms of what the book is about in general, why don't you share a little bit about
[2:11]the overall plot?
[2:12]What is that book about?
[2:13]I could try.
[2:14]Oh, this book is written in the form of nine chapters. Each chapter is a menstrual cycle
[2:22]during which the protagonist tries and fails to get pregnant. And at the end of every
[2:28]chapter, she is bleeding, tragically, and very, very despondent. Until the end,
[2:35]when she transcends somehow, mysteriously, but we won't share how, because you have
[2:41]no spoilers. Yeah, transcendence is so obscure anyway. So it's kind of an ink plot.
[2:45]You decide if she transcends or not.
[2:47]Yes, I like how you left it at the end.
[2:50]I was hoping I could just read a paragraph or two, is that okay?
[2:52]Oh my God.
[2:53]That are human me.
[2:54]Okay, this is a piece just about LA since here we are in cinematic it.
[2:59]Okay, mortal illness, notwithstanding, the rule was ironclad, never more than five consecutive
[3:04]days in LA. More than five consecutive days in LA was certain disaster. The familiar
[3:10]ghosts lay in weight. But it was her hometown and she loved it dearly. The sweet mix of
[3:15]Pacific air and car exhaust, unparalleled salads and smoothies and sunshine and shopping.
[3:21]The sunset boulevard curves she could drive from muscle memory backward, forward,
[3:26]blindfolded, high, let the red hot chili peppers and Tom Petty in Jane's addiction and
[3:31]counting crows serenade her in traffic on Wilshire slash sunset slash Olympics slash pico
[3:37]or looking for parking by the theater or trying not to get killed on the 405 or the 101 or the 10.
[3:44]She was a girl again here forever and ever a third generation LA girl whose adventurous
[3:49]forebears had left behind first the shuttle and then the rust belt and struck out for the west
[3:54]coast dream factory to gobble up a good amount of bargain real estate decades before there was
[4:00]so much as the hope of multi platform media synergy forget about a philanthroponic or a proper
[4:06]art museum and let us say amen amen that's a good passage yeah take me on the road to do
[4:17]I'll just keep doing you're great you're great writing the way that you write has so much emotion
[4:23]and I love how like every so many words are italicized so it actually sounds as though you are
[4:28]reading and we can hear you being like really again does have any again what about this what about that
[4:33]talk a little bit about your writing style and how this intimacy of voice affects the overall
[4:39]sort of trajectory of the story the voice like really drives for me so that's how I get where
[4:45]I'm going I don't have like a prefab plot ever I don't like know how I'm getting where I'm going
[4:53]and the voice is what leads me there like the voice has a life of its own and my job as I see it
[4:59]is just to sustain the voice and trust the voice and let the voice like evolve and develop
[5:06]on its own terms and sometimes it leads me places that I don't necessarily want to go but you know
[5:13]tough shit so Aviva is yes it is about her quest to have children but she is also a musician
[5:22]and as the book starts she's coming out with her fourth album and she feels like she's now a
[5:27]legitimate musician because after four albums come on that's not just one two or three right like
[5:31]this is the real deal and so there is this trajectory of success and ambition and what that gets
[5:38]you that also you know sometimes goes indirect opposition to this need to stay home and rebirth
[5:45]and whatever so talk a little bit about how you came up with her career and all that yeah well
[5:51]put I was thinking a lot about ambition when I was working on this book and about like you know
[5:57]what the failures of ambition are like how far work and vision and commitment to your
[6:05]vocation can take you and then what happens when you know it can only take you so far and so like
[6:13]this character wants more than anything to have a child and is the worded in that pursuit even as
[6:20]she's like ascendant as a creative person and like being rewarded for that and so it's like
[6:26]you know what's really important and like what is you know what can we like will in life and what
[6:33]can't be forced and can't be you know can't be willed really so we can we can do a lot for ourselves
[6:40]career wise we can we can like we can make things happen in certain directions in certain ways
[6:46]if we work hard enough if we're committed enough and there are other things that are elusive
[6:51]and like that's an interesting tension especially for somebody who has grown up in a space of
[6:58]privilege and entitlement and like whatever you want can be yours you know like life and death don't
[7:04]work that way so how do we how do we reconcile that or that's her struggle and also how she's keeping
[7:13]these private things a secret and yet she is so public so people start coming over to her
[7:18]and recognizing her and saying she they feel us alone because of her music and yet she's going through
[7:24]all these deeply personal upsetting traumas but doesn't want to share them or talk about them so
[7:29]how do you how do you connect with someone when you're keeping so much back like a negotiation between
[7:34]the public and the private and as a creative person I deal with that a lot as a writer so that
[7:40]this was like this character was a great sort of avatar i'm really into alter egos i love to
[7:47]write about people who are a lot like me except for something super fundamental and huge and central
[7:55]because then i can bring to bear all of my own perspectives observation struggles all the things
[8:01]i have seen and heard and felt and i can bring them to bear in a way that's not just kind of like
[8:06]a one to one which i think would be boring as a writer for me i wouldn't have the i wouldn't have
[8:12]like the energy to follow through a whole novel if i was just kind of giving voice to like
[8:18]you know what happened to me or like the details of my own life it's kind of it's not that
[8:23]interesting but to swap out some really fundamental stuff and then bring all this other
[8:30]access to bear is fun it's like an inversion or like a fun house or Philip Roth said something
[8:36]about like like subverting and torturing your biography which i love so it's like a it's like a
[8:42]what it for there but for the grace of god so as a writer i'm always sharing really intimate stuff
[8:48]sometimes it's true sometimes it's not true but it's couched in something that's maybe true or
[8:54]partly true it's like it's playful you know and it's fun but it's confusing sometimes and i get a
[8:59]lot of feedback let's say that is like sometimes really weird and like and like uncomfortable or
[9:06]like uncalled for or just irrelevant and like it has nothing to do with me per se but how do you deal
[9:15]with that so like a viva was an awesome avatar so what about a viva is the big central thing that
[9:21]is not like you well a viva doesn't have a child i have a child a viva's a musician i'm a writer
[9:29]and just about it everything else is the same you know give her take you also write a well i'm
[9:37]not you a viva also deals with her and there's more seats well actually they're not really
[9:42]but two three here and there's room if you want to stand back there
[9:47]priestee anybody want to get another okay or not whatever not to put all the attention sorry a viva
[9:53]also deals with her her father getting older and having a health
[10:00]crisis that she rushes to his bedside for.
[10:03]He is having these sort of later-in-life thoughts
[10:06]and feelings and what does it all mean,
[10:08]which is an interesting way to convey our thoughts
[10:11]in general about life.
[10:12]Tell me about that piece of the storyline
[10:14]and what we can learn from her father.
[10:17]I don't remember.
[10:21]I worked on this book for,
[10:22]I mean, I remember that scene.
[10:23]I do remember that scene.
[10:25]I worked on this book for seven years.
[10:27]It was like, it was a huge undertaking.
[10:29]And actually, we cut 100 pages.
[10:33]This was a 500 page monster.
[10:35]And I was like, I was into this idea
[10:38]of experimenting with maximalism
[10:40]because I had written a few novels that shorter novels.
[10:44]And I really wanted to see if I could do it, you know?
[10:47]Like a door stop.
[10:48]Usually it's like the literary men
[10:51]who get to produce the door stops.
[10:53]And I was like, what if I could write a maximalist novel
[10:57]that contains like everything
[10:59]and has a million stories within it, you know?
[11:02]So it was an epic marathon this book.
[11:06]And there's stuff in this book that,
[11:07]I mean, of course we edited it.
[11:09]And it was years and years and years
[11:10]of copy edits and edits edits.
[11:13]And, but, you know, I think I was done
[11:16]with my final pass at the end of 2020.
[11:21]And that's like a while ago now.
[11:23]That was a while ago.
[11:24]So, you know, and we did cut 100 pages.
[11:27]So there's just like, this was a real,
[11:29]this was a real epic undertaking.
[11:31]And I'm not on the most intimate terms of it anymore.
[11:34]That's okay.
[11:35]That's all right.
[11:36]This happens sometimes.
[11:37]I totally understand, you know?
[11:39]Well, I got a lot out of that scene
[11:41]because it makes you think about your own relationship
[11:44]with your parents and how time is fragile
[11:47]and all of that.
[11:48]And yet funny because a lot of humor,
[11:52]one might say Jewish humor, but maybe not.
[11:54]But how she would finally is opening up to her dad
[11:58]about her struggles to have kids
[12:00]and she's crying about it.
[12:02]And he's like, I'm so sorry,
[12:03]but meanwhile, he's like playing a game on his phone
[12:05]as he's like dying.
[12:07]Anyway, it was like one of these moments
[12:09]where it's like, you can hold all these things at once.
[12:11]You can procrastinate and get stuck
[12:13]in these daily things that waste your time in life
[12:17]while your time in life is actually ending.
[12:19]So, I don't know, I found it to be profound.
[12:21]So, sure, there's so much I loved in this book,
[12:23]this like playing with attention
[12:26]between like the profound and the profane
[12:30]and everything in between all at once as much as possible.
[12:34]And there's another element to this book,
[12:36]which is that Aviva is kind of struggling
[12:40]with the question of, should I undertake
[12:43]some assisted reproductive technology?
[12:45]Because I really want a child
[12:47]and like, this is available to me
[12:50]and I don't want to do it.
[12:52]And why?
[12:53]Why?
[12:54]That's like one of the big central struggles
[12:57]in the book too, you know, what is sacred?
[13:02]What is a mystery?
[13:03]What is not?
[13:04]What is, you know, the old joke about the guy
[13:06]who he's drowning?
[13:08]And he says like, you know, the lifeboat passes by
[13:11]and he's like, no, no, no, God will save me, God will save me.
[13:14]Fine, like then like a helicopter lowers a ladder
[13:17]to him, no, no, no, God will save me, God will save me.
[13:20]over and over and over again until finally he drowns
[13:22]and he goes to heaven or whatever.
[13:24]And he says, God, what the hell?
[13:27]And God's like, I sent you a lifeboat,
[13:29]sent you a helicopter.
[13:30]Send you like, what do you know,
[13:31]so like that's kind of Aviva's struggle too,
[13:34]is like, how much do we avail ourselves
[13:38]of what's available to us versus letting go
[13:41]of our like destiny and, you know, accepting life dev,
[13:46]like the refusal to be conceived of this like of this nascent
[13:51]imaginary creature that she would so like
[13:54]to bring into the world, contrasted with so many kinds
[13:58]of like refusing to exist or refusing to play along
[14:01]or refusing to partake of interventive, you know, things
[14:06]that could change our fate.
[14:08]These are the big questions.
[14:10]And she doesn't really find any answers.
[14:13]But the asking of the questions is,
[14:15]she finds a lot of meaning through Amy Winehouse,
[14:17]but you just have to read it to find out what.
[14:20]Right.
[14:21]So she's obsessed with Amy Winehouse,
[14:22]the girl who refused to live versus the unborn,
[14:26]the unconceived, not unborn, big difference.
[14:28]Unconceived child is like always imagined to be a girl.
[14:31]So it's like the girl who refuses to be,
[14:34]to be, you know, brought into life
[14:36]versus this like epic figure who refuses to live,
[14:40]who destroys herself.
[14:42]And like, can you tell,
[14:44]can you tell somebody like that, what to do?
[14:46]If you have a child, can you tell it what to do?
[14:48]How much control versus how much letting go?
[14:51]I have four kids and they don't listen anything.
[14:53]So I guess you can't really tell them what to do.
[14:55]No, I'm kidding.
[14:56]They listen to some things.
[14:57]Just kidding.
[14:58]Another thing that I really liked about the book
[15:01]is you don't know necessarily until you get into it
[15:04]that a big part of a Viva's identity is being Jewish.
[15:07]And she has therapists who may or may not be a rabbi,
[15:10]but she calls him rabbi.
[15:12]And he's not.
[15:13]Okay, I thought it was, you never know.
[15:15]It's just his nickname.
[15:16]It's just his nickname, the rabbi.
[15:17]But she has a lot of jokes and introspection
[15:21]about Jewish people in general,
[15:22]including one guy who only decided to embrace his Judaism
[15:27]at all because he kept getting beaten up for it.
[15:29]And it was finally like, okay, fine.
[15:30]I'm Jewish.
[15:31]And then marry someone who converted to Judaism.
[15:34]And he like doesn't know what to do with that.
[15:37]Which I thought was funny.
[15:38]Now of course the environment into which books
[15:41]featuring Jewish people has changed.
[15:43]But when you were writing this,
[15:44]perhaps it was more hospitable.
[15:46]Did it occur to you not to make your main character?
[15:49]Jewish was that essential piece of it?
[15:51]Where does that, where do you fall on that whole line?
[15:53]It would never occur to me not to make her Jewish
[15:57]or anyone Jewish.
[15:58]And I don't, I'm not really of the of the school of thought
[16:01]that like one can't write about someone
[16:04]from a different background or history.
[16:06]But I don't find myself wanting to in general
[16:10]that would seem strange to me personally
[16:13]as the writer I am.
[16:14]I think I will be writing about Jews
[16:17]as long as I'm writing because I am one.
[16:20]And it fascinates me to no end.
[16:24]So I edited this anthology called on being Jewish now,
[16:27]which came out last month.
[16:29]And in it I asked a bunch of authors,
[16:32]what does it mean and how does it feel to be Jewish now?
[16:35]Tell me as if you're sitting across the table from a friend.
[16:38]How does it feel post October 7th
[16:41]or just something joyous about being Jewish?
[16:43]So I'm wondering what is your Jewish identity?
[16:45]How does it mean and what does it feel for you to be Jewish now?
[16:48]It's a multilayer, deep, long, hard question.
[16:54]Yeah, settle in, everyone.
[16:55]I have to say it's changed a lot.
[16:59]I used to be a much more open and sort of like a big tent
[17:05]and I was always, I was often the only Jew in the room
[17:09]and I was fine with it.
[17:11]And I felt like it was almost like a duty.
[17:14]I was kind of like a shalia a lot if that word lands here.
[17:18]And it was just a given.
[17:20]Like I was often the, you know,
[17:24]if I was in Jewish space as I would be the leftiest person
[17:27]in the room without fail, you know?
[17:30]I was a, I was a, I'm part of a wonderful community
[17:33]of Jewish writers called the Sammy Roar Institute.
[17:36]Really love being part of that group.
[17:39]And every two years, there's a conference.
[17:41]There's like a meeting and, and I, it was probably four years ago
[17:45]now was the last one before this past summer.
[17:49]And you were having a heated discussion about identity politics,
[17:53]about race and ethnicity.
[17:56]And I was arguing fervently like guys, we're white people.
[18:02]Stop pretending we're not like we got to just like accept
[18:06]how they like really like let's like get with the times,
[18:09]you know, it really doesn't sound good when you're saying,
[18:12]you know, things that contradict that.
[18:14]It's just not going to fly.
[18:15]Let's be realistic, et cetera.
[18:17]And this past summer, the conference was in Jerusalem.
[18:20]And it was wonderful.
[18:22]And a fellow fellow approached me, a key power wearing gentleman
[18:27]and said, hey, do you remember last time when you were really,
[18:32]you know, I'm like, I'm just wondering, like, do you still feel
[18:34]that way?
[18:34]And I was like, no, I do not.
[18:36]It's like, awesome, good to know.
[18:39]It's everything has changed radically, dramatically and horribly.
[18:44]And I no longer feel at home in spaces that I once thought were
[18:51]my own spaces I helped build.
[18:55]I mean, there's a lot of cliches and they're all true.
[18:57]I don't know where we are in this.
[19:01]So it's hard to know, you know, it's hard to make any statements
[19:05]about where the anything will be when the dust settles
[19:09]or if the dust will settle or if there's any such thing
[19:12]given the scope of history, it would seem not.
[19:14]But I feel very alienated from a lot of people, spaces, communities
[19:20]that I used to call home.
[19:22]And I'm not entirely sorry about it.
[19:27]It feels liberating in a way.
[19:28]And there's a lot of kind of static that for years,
[19:31]I would sort of absorb, excuse, overlook, you know.
[19:38]And there's something that he said for finally being in a place
[19:43]where I have no mercy for that kind of garbage
[19:48]and people who are not on the level I don't want in my home.
[19:55]It's been, it's been a test for those of you who don't know.
[19:58]Can I share about the festival?
[20:00]So there was, and you can fill in details that I don't have, but there was a panel of four authors.
[20:08]Two of the authors wrote the organizer of the festival saying they didn't want to be on the panel anymore, because Elisa was such a Zionist.
[20:16]Actually, right?
[20:17]Okay, you tell the whole thing.
[20:18]You tell the whole thing.
[20:19]You tell the whole thing.
[20:20]Okay.
[20:21]There's no documentation, and it's still ongoing with Pan-America, the free speech organization,
[20:27]which is trying to scramble around figuring out how to do its job.
[20:32]The two out of three participants on this panel, none of whom I knew, demanded that I be removed.
[20:39]Because they were uncomfortable sharing space with a Zionist, quote unquote.
[20:43]The organizers of the festival rightfully understood that that would be a violation of the civil rights act.
[20:49]Don't want to do that.
[20:50]So they said no.
[20:51]And then the two said, well, we're not coming.
[20:53]We refuse.
[20:54]We're boycotting, you know, out of solidarity with the people of Gaza.
[20:58]Because Gaza is dependent, as you know, on the going on at the Albany Book Festival.
[21:06]And, uh, four mentors of jihad is, um, are greatly bolstered by mid-list, mid-career novelists and their literary festival.
[21:17]And then again, some, we are very important.
[21:20]Who knew?
[21:21]So, and then there was a, the third panelist who was called, you know, and asked like,
[21:27]well, what do you, what do you think?
[21:28]You know, what do you, do you have an opinion?
[21:30]And this person was just kind of like, oh, this is all pretty terrible.
[21:33]I don't really want to be anywhere near it.
[21:35]Count me out, which sounds like a nice, nice option to have.
[21:42]And I, they called me up that organizers like, oh, like, well, this is a bad situation.
[21:48]And I was like, you look festival and discuss why I'm there alone.
[21:52]That's how it goes.
[21:53]And they said, no, that's not, that doesn't sound pleasant.
[21:56]So why don't we just not?
[21:58]And I was like, guys, not going to go quietly.
[22:01]Like, you're going to look real bad.
[22:03]Don't do this.
[22:05]It's a real error.
[22:07]And they said, oh, sure, sure.
[22:09]Okay, little lady.
[22:11]And I just emailed five of the most influential people I know in media and publishing.
[22:17]And I said, hey, here's a situation, help.
[22:19]And each one of them ran with it.
[22:22]And it went all over the world.
[22:24]And I think the Writers Institute, which runs that book festival,
[22:28]got something like 3000 emails in 48 hours from people all over the world,
[22:34]which was amazing.
[22:35]There was a huge outpouring of support.
[22:38]There was a little bit of psychotic, frightening, hate mail.
[22:42]And that's the story.
[22:45]It hasn't ended.
[22:48]Oh, nothing.
[22:49]The festival went on as planned.
[22:51]No.
[22:52]I was told not to go.
[22:53]And I'm not a masochist.
[22:55]I'm many things.
[22:57]But I wasn't going to like storm it.
[23:00]You know, it didn't.
[23:01]It didn't.
[23:02]The panel didn't take place.
[23:03]The book festival went on.
[23:05]And one of the writers in question, the boycotters lost a $30,000
[23:10]a year fellowship at a very cushy library in Connecticut.
[23:14]Yeah.
[23:15]You know, on and on.
[23:17]You know, but this.
[23:18]She is a teacher and English teacher at a private school in Connecticut,
[23:23]who has had to deal with this.
[23:24]And she is still a teacher there.
[23:26]She has not been her defense.
[23:28]Yeah.
[23:29]I am not going to bring that out there.
[23:30]Yeah.
[23:31]The Greenwich Academy.
[23:32]See what's interesting to me is that we have a script at this point.
[23:35]We've been through, I would say, decade generously of like identity
[23:40]politics and like, you know, microaggression and like you can't say that
[23:45]word and you can't do that.
[23:46]And you know, me too.
[23:47]And we have a script now.
[23:49]If you air, if you make a mistake, if you're accidentally a big it,
[23:55]you say, I'm so sorry, I will learn and do better.
[23:58]better. And then it's partially alleviated, right? And then it's like, okay, let's all move on
[24:04]and you can be forget we don't need to purge people. We don't need to live in like a, you know,
[24:09]I'm going to purge you. No, I'm going to purge you like, you know, and it's fascinating to me that
[24:14]like with this script that exists and that we've had so much practice using and seeing other people
[24:21]use. And it's dehrigur. It's like proforma. You know what you say if you mess up. If you
[24:26]you might grow a grass. If you misgender someone, if you use the wrong word, if you're, you know,
[24:32]there's a script. So like, what's fascinating to me is that neither of these people or their
[24:37]literary agents or their publishers or their employers or they said, hey, you need to apologize
[24:43]and here's your script. And then, you know, maybe you don't lose your $30,000 or your fellowship
[24:50]or maybe you don't, you know, get a lot of hate mail and, you know, why is this the only,
[24:59]you know, bigotry that is allowed? I think that's something that I just cannot get past right now
[25:08]that it is only okay to speak badly about Jewish people. Why is that okay? Why, how is that
[25:16]sanctioned? If anybody else had said, I'm not going to sit on a panel because of this person's
[25:21]the color of their skin or their sexuality or anything else, that would be horrific abhorrent.
[25:27]And of course, all like a lot of people objected to what happened to you. In fact, that's part of why
[25:32]you're here because I didn't know you before. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry,
[25:36]this happened to you. And I'm like, you want a place to talk? Come to my store. You know, here we go,
[25:40]there we are. But still, I mean, I don't know how it is okay. And I don't know how we all
[25:45]like move forward in a world where it's only okay to bully one group. And it happens to be
[25:51]not everybody here, but like for the people here who are in that group, that group, us.
[25:56]It's not okay. And we have to make sure it's not okay. And, you know, the hypocrisy and the
[26:02]intellectual fraudulance need to be called out hard and consistently. And it's going to take
[26:10]more than once or twice or, you know, and we don't have a choice, unfortunately, you know, here we are.
[26:17]Well, I would encourage you all to read your essay that you ended up writing about it, which was
[26:22]so amazing. But maybe you could just summarize or say one or two points from that, not to
[26:27]get too far from the book, but, you know, it's important. And the essay was amazing.
[26:31]Thank you. So, you know, a lot of people reached out to me in the wake of that
[26:35]asking me to write stuff or, you know, and I thought a lot about it. I didn't want to write a,
[26:41]a sort of, you know, sanitized op-ed. I felt a lot of feelings that they always let me say what
[26:49]I want to say, how I want to say it. They never, they never sort of forced me to modulate my tone or
[26:55]like take out any of the flavor, you know. And so I wrote what I wanted to write and they,
[27:01]they ran it. And it was basically saying, you know, this sucks. And the, the, the gist was like,
[27:10]hey, guys, unfortunate, bigots who made a mistake and surely want to write it.
[27:15]R-I-G-H-T, write it. Why don't you come to my house for Chavez dinner and we'll talk it over.
[27:22]And I wasn't being facetious, you know, I was, I was making a genuine offer. I don't
[27:27]think it was taken as such. I never heard anything. And that's the story. So having things
[27:33]all that is, I'm guessing they were aware of it. I think, I think they're pretty aware of what goes
[27:39]on on the internet. That's, that's the vibe that I'm getting very, very internet aware to their
[27:45]detriment. To leave things more on a hopeful note, because I do feel that there is a lot of hope.
[27:51]One of the things that I've seen through this conversation through Alisa standing up and speaking
[27:57]through groups like this, coming together to listen and contribute and learn, that is the strength
[28:03]that is building and helping the whole community at large. And I think supporting each other,
[28:09]having each other's backs, helping when somebody gets discriminated against so openly and not
[28:14]being one of the people to say, oh, that's fine. But one of the people, Jewish or not, to say,
[28:19]you know what, this is not okay. That is the work we can all do. And I think that anything
[28:25]you could like Alisa can write a novel and she can write a beautiful essay in response to a really
[28:29]painful situation. But everybody in this room has something that really good at, even if it's just
[28:34]talking to your kids or speaking at a school or working at art museum, whatever it is, you all have
[28:40]your things. And we can all use our things to help the situation and communicate to the people
[28:45]in our little circles. And if everybody starts doing that, that is a huge ripple effect, which
[28:52]will have consequences. And I really believe in that, that we can all actually make a difference
[28:57]one person at a time and armed with information like Alisa's situation, like use that as a jumping
[29:03]off point. Like, what do you think about that? Like, do you think this is fair? Like, what would you
[29:07]have done if you were in that situation for something about you that, you know, that's,
[29:13]anyway. So I feel a lot of hope in that. If anybody is interested for on being Jewish now,
[29:18]we have a new sub stack where we're accepting essays about what it means to be Jewish for
[29:22]everybody, not just the people in the book who are authors. So if anybody is interested in writing
[29:26]an essay and maybe exploring what it means and how it feels to be Jewish now, if you're Jewish,
[29:31]even if you're not Jewish and you're just responding to what's going on culturally,
[29:35]please feel free to submit and follow along there. And just we are all activists now because this
[29:40]is the world we live in. So we get to make our, we get to choose our next steps very carefully.
[29:45]And it seems clear which way we should go. So take that, if it would take that with you. Anyway,
[29:51]any parting words from you or thank you for coming? I'm worth it. You've been doing and this
[29:55]route has been super inspiring. Oh, you too. You too. Let's go the same way.
[30:00]Okay, well, at least I will sign books that they're available at the desk.
[30:03]Thank you all for coming.
[30:08]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[30:11]If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Civi Owens and at Civi Readers.