Totally Booked with Zibby

I had such a nice conversation with Brad Montague. It felt so easy getting to know him; he's just an all-around awesome guy. Brad's latest book is called Becoming Better Grownups: Rediscovering What Matters and Remembering How to Fly. He also developed the award-winning series Kid President. Brad goes around the country talking to teachers and educators and everybody else helping us all rediscover something we lost as children. His book was inspired by listening to kids talk about what they think it looks like to be a "good grownup.” It’s a lesson we all need to hear, especially now. Our conversation about what adults are missing and how to find it again will give you some really good insights and tools to get through the darkest hours. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Leslie Gray Streeter is an award-winning columnist and pop culture critic for The Palm Beach Post where she has worked since 2002. She wrote a beautiful book about being a widow called Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books with Words Like "Journey" in the Title. Her story is emotional, honest, and focuses on the small and very human things we notice and feel while mourning. I loved hearing from Leslie about how every person's experience with loss is different so there's no template for this type of book, how race and religion factor into her personal narrative, and finding moments of comic-relief in grief helped her process and tell her story. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Victoria James is the author of Wine Girl: The Obstacles, Humiliations, and Triumphs of America's Youngest Sommelier, her coming-of-age story in the wine world. Victoria has worked in restaurants since she was thirteen and was certified as a sommelier when she was twenty-one. She was Food & Wine's Sommelier of the Year in 2018 and has appeared on both Forbes and Zagat's "30 Under 30" lists. She's worked at some of the most prestigious restaurants in New York City and is currently a partner and beverage director at Cote, a Michelin-starred hotspot, and cofounder of Wine Empowered, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that aims to diversify the hospitality industry by offering tuition-free wine classes to women and minorities. I loved talking to Victoria about how hospitality has represented so much to her - irreplaceable community and culture, but also sexism and disciminartion - and how she can use her story to help other people navigate the restaurant industry.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I had the best time doing an Instagram Live with Wally Lamb who is the author of six New York Times best-selling novels: I’ll Take You There, We Are Water, Wishin’ and Hopin’, The Hour I First Believed, I Know This Much is True, and She’s Come Undone. I Know This Much is True and She’s Come Undone were both selected for Oprah’s Book Club. Lamb also edited Couldn’t Keep It to Myself and I’ll Fly Away, two volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution which is a women’s prison in Connecticut where he has been a volunteer facilitator for the past seventeen years. I Know This Much is True was first published in 1998, and has now been turned into an HBO original limited series which just aired. Wally and I talked about what drew him to write these characters originally, his curiosity about and research into mental illness, and being part of a fifteen year project to turn his writing into film. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was absolutely thrilled to interview Jeanine Cummins for my virtual book club. When American Dirt came out, it was an Oprah's book club pick, landed on the best-seller list, was optioned by Clint Eastwood…. and yet caused an enormous controversy, one that caused Jeanine to cancel her book tour and all events due to death threats and more. I wrote an article defending her work and a novelists’s right to create fictitious worlds. I felt compelled to write it because of how much I adored story. How much it moved me. How beautifully written and powerful it was. Just like a good book should be. After months of speculation about her feelings, I could finally speak to her directly about what happened and the unheard story about her writing the book itself. We spoke more about the important part —the book, her relationship with her dad and her devastating loss of him—than the controversy, but it was all relevant, inspiring and informative. Jeanine is a passionate advocate for borderlands migrants and is matching donations up to $100K until July 31st for anyone who wants to give here. I hope you’ll find our discussion as moving as I did.    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I loved my conversation with Lily King which I did via Instagram Live in conjunction with the Montclair Literary Festival. Lily's latest novel, Writers & Lovers, was so good that it kept me up late two nights in a row, which is very rare for me. Lily is the author of five best-selling, award-winning novels. Writers & Lovers has been the Read with Jenna book pick, a New York Times best seller, and on everybody's list of what book you need to be reading. We talked about so many of the little gems in the book about the pressure on authors to write the next great American novel; rejection, perseverance, and writing rituals; and balancing writing with raising children, Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary Beth Keane's most recent novel, Ask Again, Yes, is a New York Times best-seller and The Tonight Show Summer Reads Pick. She has authored two other books, was named one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35," and was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim fellowship for fiction writing. Mary Beth and I talked about the moving moving themes in her novel: forgiveness and sacrifice, depression and masking fear, and how we protect ourselves and the people we love. Centered around two neighboring families in a New York City suburb in the 1970s, I've heard her describe Ask Again, Yes as Romeo and Juliet, if the families had to hang out forever. It's a must-read! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I met Kristy Woodson Harvey last summer at Author's Night for the East Hampton Library, but I interviewed her virtually to talk about her latest book, Feels Like Falling. She has a seriously impressive bio (phi beta kappa!!) which includes authoring many books, some of which have also been optioned for film. Feels Like Falling, about a seemingly unlikely friendship, is funny, relevant, and a book people can really escape into. Kristy and I talked about book tours, her writing schedule, and her advice to aspiring authors. As she says, the creative part of writing is what lights us up and keeps us coming back to it, but treat it as a business because that part of it is what allows us to be able to do this as a career.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nina Renata Aron recently published a beautiful, gritty, and un-put-down-able memoir called Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls. Nina is a features editor at Full Stop, an online literary magazine and her work has appeared in The New Republic, The Rumpus, The Millions, and elsewhere. Nina calls her book a literary memoir about codependency - and while it is really an intense look at love and addiction, she encapsulated the universal appeal of her book during our conversation, which is broadly about the expectations that women place on themselves and that have been placed upon them culturally and how much of themselves to give in love - in motherhood, in family, in romance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I had the privilege of interviewing the legendary author Judith Viorst as part of the Women on the Move three-part series from the Streicker Center at Temple Emanu-El. Judith is basically who I want to be when I grow up. She has been a prolific writer for decades and just doesn't stop and is amazing. She wrote Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day in 1972, which has sold over two million copies and of course has become a movie from Disney. Recently, she has also written many books for adults about each decade, books from your thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, up until now. She wrote Nearing Ninety, which is a fantastic book of poems, thoughts, and reflections. I loved our conversation and Judith's insights about paying attention to the world you're in - no matter what age you are! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.