Totally Booked with Zibby

Phyllis Grant is an IACP finalist for Personal Essays/Memoir Writing and a three-time Saveur Food Blog Award finalist for her blog, Dash and Bella. Her latest book is Everything Is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes. She has cooked in world-renowned restaurants, including Nobu, Michael's, and Bouley. Her essays and recipes have been published in a dozen anthologies and cookbooks, including Best Food Writing in both 2015 and 2016, and her work has been widely featured in everything from The New York Times to Food25. Her memoir is beautifully written and uniquely structured, tracing her appetites, desires, passions, challenges. I loved our conversation - especially Phyllis's hope that this book gives people confidence to play in the kitchen. She says the best learning comes from stepping back from recipes and getting creative with what you have in your kitchen! How perfect is that insight right now? (I’ve made her cottage cheese pancake recipe three times now in quarantine - with yogurt instead - and it’s AMAZING.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I had a blast interviewing Meena Harris. Meena is the author of Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea which is based on her aunt and mom, Senator Kamala Harris and Maya Harris, who campaigned to change the playground outside their building when they were kids. She's also the founder and CEO of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, which supports women everywhere and the critical work that's being done for women's rights. My kids and I loved her children's book - and the online activity book component is an amazing way to engage with your family! Meena and I chatted about creating children's literature that highlights girls in the world going after their big ideas, how to ingrain in people that activism starts small, and the importance of self-affirmation and the universal message that women are phenomenal. Check out the merch on the phenomenalwoman.com site. My daughter is obsessed with the Phenomenal Girl green, cozy sweatshirt! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I did an Instagram Live with Susan Choi, which was so much fun. Susan's first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction. Her second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award. In 2010 she was named the inaugural recipient of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award. Her fourth novel, My Education, received a 2014 Lammy Award. Her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, came out in April 2019 and is the one we talked about the most. It won the 2019 National Book Award for Fiction. Susan and I also talked about quarantine hair secrets, our agreement that the world students live in today is more complicated than the one we grew up in, and that different secrets to writing a book sometimes feel just like learning to parent different children. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I interviewed Emily Henry, author of Beach Read, which has been on every most-anticipated summer read list there is! Emily writes stories about love and family for both teens and adults. Her novel follows a romance writer who has stopped believing in love after uncovering some secrets that derail what she knew about her family. Emily and I talked about writing as a way of coping with things we fear, grabbing hold of happiness, and her wonderful insights into the literary world’s genre stereotypes. Enjoy listening to our conversation! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I had the best time interviewing David Baldacci at seven thirty in the morning on the publication day for his latest novel, Walk the Wire. David is a best-selling author. His first novel was Absolute Power in 1996. The feature film adaptation that followed with Clint Eastwood as its director and star was just one of the many film adaptations of his forty novels that he's written for adults. All have been national and international best sellers. David and I talked about how pub dates are exciting even after experiencing so many of them, his advice to aspiring writers that they need to find subject matter that they have a lot if interest in instead of writing about something they think will be popular, and the wonderful foundation he and his wife started, Wish You Well, which aims to eradicate adult illiteracy in the US. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Laura Hankin is the debut author Happy & You Know It, a darkly humorous novel set on New York's Upper East Side about a struggling musician who takes a gig as a playgroup entertainer and the clique of moms she comes to know. No one is as perfect as they seem. Laura is also an artist and performer herself. The viral videos that she creates and stars in with her comedy duo, Feminarchy, have been featured in NowThis, The New York Times, and Funny or Die. I don’t know why, but we recorded this episode so long ago (I think in December!!) and joked about what could possibly happen between then and now. Who ever would have imagined?!!? We had a fun conversation about the Upper East Side setting, female friendships, how we judge and label people before we know them, and the in-depth backstories that made her characters so detailed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lynne and Valerie Constantine are the terrific duo behind the pen name Liv Constantine. Their debut thriller, The Last Mrs. Parrish, was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection, a People magazine Book of the Week, a Target Book Club selection, and is in development for television. Their second book, The Last Time I Saw You, was published by HarperCollins and is also in development for film. Now they’ve just released The Wife Stalker - which you might devour in one sitting - a woman whose husband leaves her for another woman who is hiding chillingly disturbing secrets. I talked to the duo about female protagonists, how to weigh the past against the future, and how they came to craft perfectly unexpected plot twists! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maya Shanbhag Lang is the author of What We Carry: A Memoir and The Sixteenth of June, a novel. Lang’s work has been featured in The New York Times, The Observer, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and In Style, among others. I got to do an Instagram Live event with Maya for this interview. I was dazzled while reading What We Carry because Maya's self-discovery and unpacking of the family and personal histories we think we know are palpable and profound. Maya and I talked about giving yourself permission to talk about things freely and processing experiences through writing and also, weightlifting, which she says became an exercise not in picking up heavy weights, but in finally setting them down and giving herself permission to do that. I love that. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brian Platzer is the author of The Body Politic and Bed-Stuy Is Burning. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, The New Republic, and Salon, among other publications. The Body Politic is an incredibly savvy novel about a group of four friends who first meet after September 11th, but the narrative begins right after the 2016 election. Secrets, confrontation, and forgiveness are central - as is a deep first-person account of having a neurological disorder from one of the central characters. It really sets the novel apart, and listening to Brian talk about how it was based on his own neurological disorder infuses it with even more meaning. We had a really enlightening talk about vocabulary and self-advocacy around chronic illness, the delicate nature of entering into somebody else's "dark space" to help, and tipping points that prompt us to open up and take action. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I could not stop laughing during my interview with Mary Katherine Backstrom. It was late on a Friday afternoon/evening during the quarantine. We were both a little bit giddy. I kept getting interrupted by my kids. It was very informal. I almost decided to cut all of it. Then I said, you know what? This is what life was like that day, and it's fitting because she is the founder, viral blogger, essayist, and personality behind Mom Babble, a growing community of about half a million followers. MK, as she goes by, has been featured on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and was awarded the Today Show Iris Award. We talked about the challenges of postpartum depression, adventure-loving children, chasing dreams, and her latest book called Mom Babble, which will absolutely remind all the parents out there that they are not alone! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.