From Working in Publishing to Entrepreneur (and Author!) with Panio Gianopoulos

[1:58]Zibby Owens: This is Zibby Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest best selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't have to. Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. For more information, go to zibbymedia.com and follow me on Instagram at zibby owens. Panio Gianopoulos is the author of How to Get Into Our House and Where We Keep the Money, a short story collection, and the indie bestselling novella A Familiar Beast. His writing has also appeared in Tin House, McSweeney's Northwest Review, Weekly Humorist, and Literary Hub, among others. A veteran book editor, Panio has worked with authors as diverse as Anthony Bourdain Chelsea Handler and JT Leroy Currently, he is the co founder and editorial director of the Next Big Idea Club, a nonfiction subscription book club. He lives in New York where he is writing a novel about a multigenerational Greek American family. It's a long book. It's taking a while. Welcome, Panio. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about your whole career, your books, your business, just everything, including How to Get Into Our House and Where We Keep the Money, your collection of short stories. Congrats.

[3:38]Panio Gianopoulos: Thanks for having me. I'm I'm excited to talk about books, my book, and just books in general because my whole life is about books, kinda like yours Yep. Where every capacity. So, yeah, let's do it. Okay. Well, back up. Why is your life about books? Well, so my career I've been in publishing pretty much since I got out of college. I started as a an assistant editor way back at Crown at Penguin Random House, and then I was a book editor for years at Bloomsbury. And then I went off to business school, which is kind of a weird angle for literary people. I know you did that too. Right? Mhmm. So I went to Stanford, and then that got me all jazzed up for entrepreneurial stuff because they sort of indoctrinate you. Like, you know, change the world. Change know? So so I started a couple media companies with a friend, which sounds more glamorous than it is. They nothing happened with them. We didn't make any money. We actually lost our investors' money. Sorry, guys. Yeah. That sounds very LA glamorous. Yeah. Nothing came of it except we did it was this was when the Kindle had just come out, and so we were doing essentially serialized You novels Oh. With these authors. And then the idea was that our our investors were a production company, so they would get a first look. Nothing came of it. What we were really good at, it turns out, is sourcing talent. Because a lot of our writers ended up being really big. Like, Kate McKinnon was one of our writers. Oh, wow. Right. Super funny, super smart. This is before she got an SNL. Oh my gosh. She wrote two of our books and she goes, oh, hey. I can't write the third one because I've gotta go audition for SNL. I'm like, okay. Fingers crossed. And she's like, hey. I got it. We're like, okay. I guess we'll never see you again. So we didn't. Anyway, so I did all that, and then eventually, I came back to New York. I had been living in LA. And I thought, okay. Well, I'm done with publishing. I'm done with books. I'm gonna do something totally different. And then a friend of mine who's a journalist in New York Times, she said, hey. You should meet this guy I know. He ran NERV for a while, and he's in the media space, and he's looking for a publishing thing. I was like, yeah. I don't wanna do publishing anymore. She goes, oh, just meet him. He's an interesting smart guy. I was like, okay. Fine. Whatever. I'll get lunch. Never hurts to just chat with somebody. So I went and I sat down with him. His name is Rufus Griskum. And he said, oh, yeah. I'm thinking about doing this, like, nonfiction sort of network for authors. And and he and he said, but I need someone who's really editorialist editorially experienced and knows the book world inside out, but also has business background. I was like, okay. It's kinda like the Venn diagram. I'm your guy. So I you know, it's like it's always when you don't want something that it shows up. Like, you know, you don't like, you're not looking for a girlfriend or boyfriend, boyfriend and suddenly the perfect person meets you. You're not looking for a job, suddenly it jumps in your lap. Look for a job, you'll spend a year not finding one. So I thought, oh my god, this is great. So I started with that. So then the past nine, ten years, I've been working at a company called the Next Big Idea Club, which is essentially a non fiction book subscription club. That's been fascinating because I've always been a fiction devotee. I've loved novels. I always published first time novelists. That's been my passion. I write fiction. But for the past decade, I've just lived in the trenches of non fiction. It's it it I mean, obviously, it has its its strengths and it's got its charms. I feel like I've sort of done both now so deeply

[6:33]Zibby Owens: that probably the next thing would be for me to actually write a nonfiction book, but I don't want to. I like I like novels too much. I like making things up. Wow. That was a very long answer. So No. It's it's perfect. By the way, I just bought the next big idea, like, three pack for my brother for Oh, got that. Yeah. Oh, great. So I'm very excited. He's gonna love it. Thanks. Anyway, actually, I shouldn't on the offhand chance he's listening, he'll find out. But he will be. Anyway. Okay. Well, let's go to your fiction for a few minutes because you are actually I shouldn't say actually. You are a really talented writer. You're a beautiful, beautiful writer. Beautiful senses, insightful. The way you write about relationships and longing and sort of all this subversive behavior and the things people don't say and sounds. Like, you're such an auditory writer. Like, the the the this or that, the the sound of this, the like, it's it's a very immersive writing style, and you're really good at it.

[7:29]Panio Gianopoulos: Thank you so much. That's really it's nice to hear because I've been working on a new novel for about eight years. And, you know, writing on, like, acting or performing or musician, like, there's no audience until you bring out the book. So I'm just writing these sentences after sentences, and it's just just like an empty auditorium. I'm like, is that good? Like, no one's clapping. No one's smiling. No one's laughing. Like, am I crazy? So it's nice to hear something positive about something I've written. I've interviewed two author pairs this week, actually, and both of them said the main thing, because they've all written separately, is that there's finally someone there to be like, that was great. What a great chapter. I know. It's it's really hard to just I know it sounds so childish. Like, oh, you know, I want someone to clap for me. It's not that. It's just writing, storytelling. It's a kind of communication. You know? It'd be like, imagine you're sitting down with a really good friend, and you're gonna tell them an anecdote. It's gonna take you three years, and they're not gonna say anything for three years. They're gonna be like, wait. Tell me more. Really? Or what? It's unreasonable as a pursuit to talk to somebody for that long and not get some sort of feedback, get some sort of connection with them. Mean, you might wanna join, like, a writing group or something. Just saying. You're right. No. I actually I did start a writing group myself in my hometown about six months ago, and that has been really wonderful,

[8:44]Zibby Owens: actually. That's been great. I underestimated how incredibly helpful that is. I'm always a little afraid to share, though. Because until it's done, it's like I know. Don't

[8:54]Panio Gianopoulos: Do you feel that way? Jink well, that's a different thing. Jinkxing, I just worry that I it takes me so many drafts to get where I'm going. Like, the first story in my in my collection, I almost didn't I do almost didn't include it because it took me honestly 12 drafts to get it right or as right as it gets. And I kept writing it and rewriting it, and I thought, no. This isn't right. Like, the tone's off. No. The ending doesn't work. And I was about to give up, like, draft 10. And then Finally, I got there, but I just muddled through it myself. I thought, what if I gave draft three to somebody and they're like, Oh, you should bring in a mother figure or something. Then I think, Oh gosh, should I bring in a mom? I guess I worry about being misdirected. Like, I feel like the the the struggle and the wandering and the false starts and the weird turns are sort of all part of the process of getting there because it's so intuitive to me. Mhmm. Like, the process of writing. And sometimes I I just don't wanna be overly influenced. I

[9:49]Zibby Owens: loved your first essay, by the way. I mean, I loved I mean, not essay, story. I loved many of them. But was there something different with, like, the plot aspects? Like, was like, what did you rewrite? I'm now I'm so curious. How could there be 12 drafts of this? Right. It's funny because I don't I mean, I'm glad you liked it because I really afterwards, you're not supposed to, like, express your regrets. Right? But I'm going to re I thought, oh, I shouldn't have put that one first. No. It really good. Really? It was okay. I thought it was just too, like,

[10:16]Panio Gianopoulos: come not to say complex, but I some of the other stories are much more straightforward. You know, like, Murmur, which I wrote later, is just kind of almost like a coming of age story. It's very sweet. Mhmm. It's very you know, like, you know what you're getting. And that story, you're like, wait. Like, is she good? Is she bad? Am I on her side? What's happening? I just worry, like, is it it's not like a like, come into my house. I mean, that's the title of the book. Right? How to get her it's not like, come in. Come in. Welcome. Like, Venus in Fir is, like, a funny story about a guy who's competitive with his girlfriend's tiny little Pomeranian. Like, that's a very straightforward, like, entertaining. And I guess I worried that this story, and that was my struggle when I was writing it, was, like, it almost felt like it needed to be a novel because you needed the emotional complexity of, like, here's this woman, and she's, like, muddling her way through her life. She's, you know, not to give anything away. I mean, you find out she's having this affair with this guy she meets. She doesn't really know why she's doing it. You don't really know much because you don't get her husband's perspective, but you just get her interior life as a mother. And then there's this twist where because I always thought this was interesting when you because I did see this in real life around me. I'd see people were like, they were happier when they were having an affair. Like, you're not supposed to say it's like a dirty secret. Right? Because it's sort of like it's like a steam valve. Like Mhmm. Whatever resentment she has towards her husband or her family or her situation kinda get relieved by this exciting thing she's got going on. So I thought, what an interesting kind of reversal or inversion. It's like, here's this woman, and actually her life is going better because this is going on. She's not she's not racked with guilt. I guess I worry a lot about stories that feel like they're kind of moralistic fables. I don't really feel like that's what fiction's about. I feel like there's kind of two different kinds of fiction, and I know that's a guaranteed bad idea to say. But No. I feel like there's fiction that, like, represents the world and human behavior and all of its contradictions and messiness and dirtiness and beauty, don't get me wrong, and all the wonder. And then there's fiction that's kinda like how we want the world to be. Right? It's like this is a is a a fantasy version of it. I don't mean elves and dwarves. I just mean, wouldn't it be great if we behave like this? And wouldn't it be great if like the good guys win at the end? Wouldn't it be great if, you know, all this happens? And I've always been attracted in my reading as a you know, to a fiction that just shows you everything, shows you the good and the bad and shows you that a person at one moment can be wonderful and kind, and another moment, they can be petty and selfish. And all those contradictions we have are so challenging to write in short fiction because you have very little time to establish enough of a pattern of behavior. So someone says, okay. I know who this character is. She's the kind of person who does this and this. Got it. But then you need to throw in the contradictions because we are not perfect little machines. Mhmm. And we have, you know, all these strange turnabouts within us, and it's really hard to do it. So with that story specifically, I thought, how do I create this persona? How do I show this person who is really multifaceted? And there's so much going on in her life, and she's all these different people and make it believable, and you still kind of sympathize with her to some degree.

[13:19]Zibby Owens: Well, I think you totally did that, by the way. And I feel like in showing all these tiny scenes, like, I'm trying to analyze what it is you did that made that happen. Like, when she's hiding in the bathroom and she's on the phone and she doesn't know how to deal with, you know, her old friend. Does she tell? Does she not? When she was feeling so frustrated and is like, I'm like, to your point, like, was a better mom before, now I'm snapping at my kids because of this. I mean, you have us go through all of her doubts and and the longing that she feels because

[13:51]Panio Gianopoulos: at our core, most of us want to be happier than we are. Right? That is a driving force, and that's, like, what she's after. And so you're kind of rooting for her even though it feels wrong a little bit. I don't know. Right. If you feel a little guilty I know. Me too. I I cared for her. It's weird. You care for your characters even though you invent them. But and also, I mean, this this story, you know, is about it's called another life. Right? And, I mean, who hasn't had that thought of like, oh, what if what if I totally changed my life? What if I just blew it up and then went off and just did this instead? Or or and then, of course, there's the what if I hadn't done this? What if I didn't move here? What if I went to school here instead? And, I mean, that to me is the heart of fiction. It's like the what if. That's what always compels me as a writer. I mean, I actually did blow up my life and change it completely and, like, live in

[14:41]Zibby Owens: a completely different life. So maybe I'm relating to some of this. No. I'm kidding. But yeah, because you never know. I mean and it and it doesn't have to be set until like, there's no there's no one who says it's ever too late. Right? That you can always take a new path. And so yeah. Yeah. But why I mean, you're saying, oh, I felt like it was hard to fit these characters into short form. Like, I don't short fiction is the thing I haven't done since, like, high school, basically. Mhmm. Because it feels like it's so much harder actually to, as you said, to get it done quickly. So why

[15:13]Panio Gianopoulos: mean, I was this it's not like this was an assignment for you. You, like, chose to do this. Right? Why did you choose to make a collection of short stories rather than a novel at this point? Like, what compelled this collection to begin with? Okay. Well, the truth so, honestly, as a writer who works in publishing, I knew that publishing a story collection was really stupid tactically because it's very hard to sell short story collections unless you're George Saunders or Mhmm. Jhumpa Lahiri. Like, you're not gonna sell many copies. So I thought, okay. Like, career wise, this is dumb. But the truth is that I had I wrote one novel, you know, like, in my early twenties, tried to sell it, couldn't sell it. Fine. And then I wrote a kind of a second novel after that, which was really tepid and boring because my first book kinda got rejected because it was there was, like, too much sex and violence, and it was kinda cruel. You know? And the guy's like, no. No. I'm not interested in this, like, angry young man novel. He's like, okay. So then the next one, was like, oh, I'm gonna I'll show them. I'll make this really boring. Nailed it. So nothing happened. It was like the tension wasn't great. So then that didn't sell either. And at that point, I was in my early thirties, and I had a career. I had a child. So I didn't have time to write a novel. I mean, that was the truth. I thought, okay. I just have to stick with these little things I can actually work on on weekends. So it was really just the nature of my life. I mean, if I could have taken six months to work in a book, I probably would have tried a novel again. But what I found was I liked stories because they let me pursue a question or an idea or just a hunch and then follow it to its end. Whereas with a novel, as you know, you've written novels, it takes a few years. It's such a commitment. It's like, oh, if writing a story, can think, here's an example. There's a short story I want to write, but I haven't I started it, but then I put it aside because I've been busy with a novel. But the idea was I was picking up my daughter from soccer practice. She was 14 at the time. I pull into the parking lot, I'm early. So I'm just sitting there by myself. It was in a small town, and suddenly I see a crow. Okay? The bird. Right? And it just lands like in a tree nearby, and I get really excited because I think, oh, like, everybody says crows are really smart. And if you befriend a crow, then it tells other crows. And then suddenly all the crows love you, and you're just like a crow crow bestie. And so I thought, I'm gonna I'm gonna befriend this crow. And how do you befriend a crow? Well, you, like, give it snacks. Right? That's how you befriend animals. So I'm looking at my car, and I'm looking. I was like, god. I need snacks. I need snacks. All I have is, like, a power bar. So and, like, one of those quest bars, they're almost fake and they're like so I was like, alright, whatever. So I break off a piece of chocolate chip cookie power bar. I get out of the car, and I put it on top of this little stone staircase. I back up enough so it's not intimidated by me. I'm like, Hey, crow, here's your little snack. The crow waits a little while, flies down, looks at the thing, and is like, Nope, flies away. I was devastated. I was like, Ouch, I just got rejected by a crow. This sucks. Then I spent the next few days panning the skies looking for a crow thinking, I want to redeem myself. I had crackers in the car now. Like, I'm make friends with the crow. About a week or two later, I'm in totally different town. Again, picking up my daughter. You know, this is as a parent, you're always driving your kids around, especially in the suburbs. And I see a crow. I'm like, oh, great. Great. A bunch of them. They're all in this this rooftop. So I start flinging crackers like they're Frisbees, just like flinging them on this rooftop. And they just could not give a crap. Like, they were just not I was like, crackers? You're turning down crackers? So I got in my car. I gave up in becoming crows becoming the crow friend. But then I thought, oh, there's a story there. Like, why is this person obsessed with becoming friends to crow? Like, so then I wanted to back into who is this guy or girl. I mean, I don't know what the gender is yet of the of the character. What's happened to them that, like, this is their last chance? Mhmm. Like, how socially isolated are they that that they need this? Then I started developing this guy, and he plays video games a lot, and his son is his son is gonna leave for college soon, so it's bit of like a preempty nest thing. Maybe he's a little estranged from his wife. And I started putting together the story, long answer to your question, that to me is where stories come from. I thought, okay. I can spend a few weeks and just figure out who's this guy? Why is he obsessed with Crohn's? But the guy is you. But he's not anymore.

[19:25]Zibby Owens: He's not like Okay. Okay. That's the thing that was But maybe but I'm interested in, like, why why were you trying to get the crows' attention so badly?

[19:33]Panio Gianopoulos: Like, let's let's go there. Let's go another crow. I mean, I don't know. I've always wanted a crow as a friend. I you know what? It's the same okay. Here it is. It's probably a desire for some kind of validation. Right? You're like like, you know, when you go to somebody's apartment for, like, a dinner or something and they have a dog and the dog comes in, and everyone secretly wants the dog to like them the most. Everyone's, like, petting the dog. And then when the dog, like, goes over to somebody else, you're a little bit like, oh, I'm not enough for this dog. Right? The dog loves this person more. So I I'm sure it's some spin off of that. Like, I mean, you're not my therapist. I don't know what where that crowed friendship desire comes from, But a lot of my stories come from that. Like, I'll have a weird little impulse, and then I'll think and then I'll back it I'll back up and think, well, where did that come from? And then I'll fictionalize it. And then as you know, you change enough things, and then suddenly this person's not you anymore. You change their history. You change their, you know, dating history, who they're married to, they have kids, their gender, sexual orientation. You know, eventually, it's like it's just a you're just a a faded memory. Mhmm. Today's episode is sponsored by Quince.

[20:37]Zibby Owens: Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics, better materials, pieces that just feel good the moment you put them on and look effortless. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, washable silk, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated, but still easy. Quince has beautiful everyday pieces like 100% European linen pants, dresses, and tops with styles starting at $32. Their denim is soft and easy to wear. I wear my jean jacket all the time. And their organic cotton sweaters are perfect for layering on cool summer nights. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80 less than similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're paying for quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince has really become a destination for elevated essentials across home, kitchen, bedding, and beyond, making it easy to bring a more premium feel into everyday life. In addition to my jean jacket, I recently got a white tank top dress with a beautiful cotton skirt that is absolutely gorgeous, and I can't wait for it to be warm enough so I can wear it every day, but it has been a cool spring. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com/zippy for free shipping on your order and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I N C E Dot Com Slash Zibi for free shipping and three hundred and sixty five day returns. Quince.com/zibi.

[23:27]Zibby Owens: So what was the spark for the story how to get into our house and where we keep the money? Was it the the nephew? Was it wanting an another kid? Was it you know, because So that was so a lot of the stories in the book are really about

[23:43]Panio Gianopoulos: characters who god. Yeah. This is really embarrassing. Feel like I've made more progress with you emotionally than I have in therapy. But I really This is what I'm here for. This is what I'm here for. I do this all day. I feel like a lot of the stories about people who don't feel like they're seen. Mhmm. They feel alienated or neglected, and they want attention. They want validation. Right? And so many of them are love stories or sort of flawed love stories. Right? Because that's so much what we look for in love. We look for that person to complete us for better or for worse. So that story was based on when my wife and I were living in LA, and we had I think we just had one kid at the time, our daughter, Matilda, and her nephew came to stay with us for a little while. Very sweet guy, by the way. Not like I mean, Not I guess like this guy. Not like this guy. Sweet guy. But he was into graffiti, which this guy is. He's like a graffiti artist. And he stayed with us, and suddenly everybody was like, oh, he's so cool. Everybody everybody just thought he was the coolest guy. Like, all of our friends thought he was cool. And I remember stepping back and thinking, it's crazy. Like, we're all in our thirties and some of us in our forties, and we all want this, like, 19 year old to say we're cool. You know? And, like, that's bizarre. Like, why? Like, why is our obsession with, like, youth culture, like, so pervasive? And then I thought, oh, this would be great. Like, let's have him be jealous of this nephew, and let's have it escalate into this almost, like, farce where he's just stumbling over. So that's where it came from. I mean, it's really not about her nephew. But Right. But the the validation when, like, the nephew thinks it's cool that he likes Neil Young or whatever. Yeah. Was like, why? It's kinda like, you know, like, everybody tells you, like, flattery Will get you everywhere. Flattery will get flattery works on you even if you know it's just a technique. You know, someone's, like, saying saying it, you're just like, oh, stop. And you're like, actually, I kinda like this person more now that they flattered me.

[25:28]Zibby Owens: Well, I feel like your use of short story to investigate some of these moments in life is is why people write. Right? Isn't that like we aren't we all just trying to make sense of what's going on around us and the the issues that we all face and and all of that? So when you are taking all of those questions to your new novel, tell me about that. And what has propelled you to keep working on it for eight years? What are some of the what were some of the the inspirations for it?

[25:56]Panio Gianopoulos: Right. Well, the new novel is a is very different than anything I've written because even though, as we've talked about, you know, it might a story might be generated by an idea or an anecdote or or something happens to me. This one is very, very autobiographical in the sense that it's based on my parents and their my parents were originally from Greece and they came to America. My dad when he was 19. And so I always wanted to write about them. I thought it was an interesting story, but I didn't really know the way in. Because as you know, like, you can have a great story, but you're like, how do I start it? What's the what's the drama? And then very sadly, my mom, my mother had a terrible accident. She fell down the stairs, which is so like pedestrian. You think like, oh, people die from like cancer or they like get hit by a car, but my mom just fell down the stairs. Nobody knows how or why. And she hit her head. She had this traumatic brain injury. This was way back in 2011. And from then on, she was really, really incapacitated. Right? She was in the hospital for a month. I flew to Greece to to be with my family. My sister already lives there. And anyway, that was the that was what happened personally to me. Then she started to get a little better, but not really. She was still struggling. My father, who'd always battled depression but had managed it, then he killed himself two months Oh my gosh. Was obviously devastating. And I felt terrible. I felt guilty. I felt like I was so focused on my mother and her recovery that I felt like I was not that I was dismissive of my father. I mean, I was sympathetic to him, but I didn't really understand the intensity of what he was going through. Oh. And so I don't know if if you've ever survived suicide, had somebody who died. It's a it's a different kind of grief in the sense of, like, you know, somebody dies who's close to you, and you miss them, and you love them, and you care about them. But when someone takes their own life, in my experience, you do feel this constant, like, what if? Like, oh, what if I talk to him more? What if I'd stayed in Greece to spend time? So I felt so wracked with guilt. And so that from then on, I found that I couldn't write anything, actually. Anytime I would start a story, because I was still writing stories, it would constantly veer into somebody would die. Mean, like very I'd start a story about one thing, and then by the end, like, sister would die, and then I'd start another, and the kid would die. And I'm like, oh my god. Every I'm so preoccupied just Yeah. Unconsciously that I'm either gonna write nothing or I'm gonna write about this. And so, you know, to be honest, another year went by before I write anything because it's it was so devastating. And then I started writing this book. And the hard part about it is every time I go into it, I'm, like, reopening the wound. Right? I'm writing about my mother's injury. I'm writing about my father's death. And it's it's so unpleasant. It's terrible to say. I I mean, look, every writer I know says writing is hard, and they struggle with it, and they kinda hate it. And, you know, they like it when it's done. But the truth is I like writing, or at least I used to. Like, I like it's it's like it's music. Like, it's a kind of music, but it has a meaning in it, and you're trying to mix in story. And so the first few years writing the book were just like torture. Like, it just it was awful, but I felt like there was nothing else I could do. Mhmm. There's nothing else I could write. And then finally, once I got, you know, to my second draft, my third draft, you know, years went by. And then it just felt like something I just had to get out. Not like it was a poison or a toxin, but it was just it it kept changing. My relationship to it kept changing. Mhmm. And then finally, this this last draft, and I really swear this is my last draft. I'm close. I'm in the last two chapters. I finally had enough distance where it had changed enough where I could think, okay, this actually isn't me anymore. This isn't a memoir. At one point, thought, should I just write this as a memoir? But I decided against it. You know, I changed it enough that I could suddenly start making big alterations that would help the story because I no longer felt personally connected to it. So the mother was really no longer my mother. The father was no I was you know, I break myself into two brothers. And I thought, oh, I can make one of these brothers really awful and not feel like I'm, you know, outing myself as a bad person because this is a different character for me. And I pray I never have to write another book like this because it is it has been just, like, heart wrenching and devastating. I'm don't get me wrong. I'm proud of it. I I like the book, but I would love to write something just a little less close to home and a little less about grief. Wow. I'm first of all, I'm so sorry that happened. And second of all, wait. What happened with your mom after she went Well, that's also sad. In fact, I really I had to change it for the book because it was too depressing. No. Tell me. Like, there's only so much sadness. So she got a little better, and then she had a seizure and then got worse and worse. She just kind of got worse and worse until eventually she died two and a half years later. So those last three years were really grim and miserable and really hard on my sister, I will say. My sister and I are very close and we're even closer now after having gone through that, where my mother lived with her for a while, we had a live in nurse stay with my sister, and then eventually we put her she just needed more medical around the block care, and then she died. Actually, that's one of the changes I'm making in the book, and maybe I'm wrong and you can tell me, is I thought I can't have the mother die at the end. That's originally how I ended it because it's just such a bummer. I mean, like, yeah, I lived through it, but I don't want my readers to live through that. So she's not in great shape at the end of the book anymore, but she's not dead. I just I can't do it to the reader. You know, the obviously, the father still dies, but he does pretty early in the book because that's one of the big moments that kind of brings the children together, the adult children together. I've been calling it, like, the Greek American corrections as a shorthand.

[31:41]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Well, as as a book, it sounds amazing. As a life, it sounds really hard. So I'm sorry that you and your sister had to go through that and your family. I mean, of course, that's what you wanna write about. Right? How can you Right. I mean You have to process. You like, writing is a tool, right, for for all of us to make sense of everything. So

[32:00]Panio Gianopoulos: It is. I you know, people say, oh, you shouldn't write. You know, it shouldn't be your therapy, and I get that. I mean, that it I think that's why it took me eight years to do it right because Mhmm. I do feel like that first version really was just therapeutic, just getting it out. And then and you have to go in and think like an actual storyteller. Mhmm. Like, okay. What helps the story? Like, what makes sense? You stop thinking about what feels good and what actually moves things along. One thing I learned from a trauma therapist, this woman, Megan Reardon Jarvis, is that once you put the trauma down on paper, it frees up your brain in in, like I'm sure you know this. Yeah. Sure you've read enough

[32:33]Zibby Owens: nonfiction, but, like, it literally is out of your brain, and your brain doesn't feel like it has to remember it all the time. So it stops, like, replaying it. It's like it fixes the glitch in the DVD or whatever. Absolutely.

[32:43]Panio Gianopoulos: So But you know a weird a weird little corollary of that I found is I never keep journals. I mean, I'm I'm very inconsistent. And so now my memories of what actually happened have been overwritten a little bit by these fictionalized versions. Interesting. So this like, moment I had with my mother in the hospital when she finally woke up from a coma. She was in a medley medically induced coma for a month. So when she woke up, she looked at me, she was startled, and she looked around. She had no idea where she was. The last thing she remembered was, I guess, being on the stairs. She looked at me and I held her hand. I'm like, Hey, mom, it's okay. It's me. You're in the hospital, but you're to be okay. Slowly saw the panic subside in her eyes and she calmed down. Then she shut her eyes and about fifteen seconds went by. Then she opened her eyes again and the same thing happened. Mhmm. She looked around. She didn't know where she was. It was like Groundhog Day. Yeah. And I had to just keep reassuring her and reassuring her. And I'll never forget that. I mean, talk about her core memory. Like, it was devastating, and I was so worried about her, but I was also so grateful that she finally woke up. Mhmm. And then I changed that scene for the book at one point. I kinda changed it back eventually. And I remember thinking, like, wait. What happened? Like, what happened to my life and what happened in the book? And that's one of the dangers, personally. I feel like if you're going to write something that is heavily autobiographical, just, like, take a weekend and even just bullet point what actually happened in your life so you can just go back when you're done with the book and be like, okay. But these are my memories. Yeah. Right? The book is not my memories. The book is a fictionalized, you know, modified account because memory is so plastic and so impressionable

[34:10]Zibby Owens: that it's a little scary to to think like, oh, yeah. I can just I I can rethink my way into different memories. Okay. So basically, I could talk to you all day about the stuff we've, like, barely scratched the surface, and our time is already up. Oh my god. Okay. Our therapy session is over, Penny. I'm really sorry to say. I hope we've made some good work and hope to meet back here another time. But,

[34:29]Panio Gianopoulos: you know, all that you've done with Next Big Idea Book Club and, like, all the authors you've helped and your author insider, like, all the stuff you do is so awesome and so helpful, and it's just nice to see you as author in this little session. Oh, yeah. Can I give a little shout out to author insider? It's this Yes. Of sort of newsletter substack that I've been running for about six months now, it's just for it's for authors. We have about 3,000 members, and I talk to people in the publishing industry. I talked to writers and some craft stuff. And it's been really nice because as as I said earlier, like, it feels very isolating. So it's been a place for me to kinda share and create this big author community. So it's called Author Insider if anybody wants to thoughts on on book publicity. I'm like, okay. I'm gonna change my strategy here. Thanks to that interview. Yeah. I was I was like, okay. Yeah. Interesting. To know. Very good to know.

[35:14]Zibby Owens: Yeah. Kanyo, thank you so much, and I can't wait to read that. Oh, well, good luck. Keep going. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens, and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.