Totally Booked with Zibby

Susan Coll sits down with Zibby Owens to discuss her new novel Word Salad, a bookish comedy about former economics major Matilda who finds herself working at her hometown bookstore where she must navigate the nonsensical business of publishing and the people in it.

Susan talks about teaching herself to write, structuring each chapter as a scene, the remarkable literary community in Washington, DC, and her endless fascination with the publishing industry.

She also shares her own background as a bookseller, the determination that kept her writing after her first novel died on submission, and using different parts of her brain at work versus while writing.

Learn more about Susan here https://susancoll.com and follow her on Instagram @susan_keselenko_coll.

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Fran Hauser joins Zibby Owens to discuss her new book Twenty Minutes is the New Hour, a guide to help women embrace the twenty-minute mindset, reclaim their time, and take small steps towards better productivity.

Fran talks about the techniques she used to launch her bookstore Bedford Books in just eight weeks, how time becomes the enemy of the good, and adding more kairos over chronos in women's lives.

She also dives deeper into setting boundaries around notifications, the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people, the fear connected to procrastination, email management, and what she feels guilty about.

Learn more about Fran here https://www.franhauser.com/about and follow her on Instagram @fran_hauser.

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Allison Sweet Grant joins Zibby Owens to talk about her new poetic memoir Lump, an unconventional, moving collection of essays and verse about her experience with breast cancer.

Allison discusses how the book started out as a journal to process the difficult moments of her cancer journey, being diagnosed at the beginning of Covid at forty years old, what kept her from going to the doctor right away, and the psychological weight of this horrible disease.

She also shares her initial attraction to poetry in elementary school, how intimidating it is to publish a book while married to a bestselling author, the barometer cancer becomes for daily life challenges, and sharing the book with her daughters.

Follow Allison on Instagram @allisonsweetgrant.

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Isabel Allende joins Zibby Owens to discuss her new memoir Story Telling, a heartfelt love letter to life and writing that recounts the past forty-five years of her career, the philosophy and emotion behind craft, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.

Inspired by the masterclass she did with the BBC, Isabel writes about the quiet happiness of aging, how the inner critic never goes away, the loss of her daughter, and the bad aspects of life that make great literature.

She also shares the challenges of irony and humor in translation, her soul’s need to write, her belief that her stories exist in another dimension, how to overcome feeling stuck while writing, and the benefits of writing a bad novel.

Learn more about Isabel here https://isabelallende.com/en/home.

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Bestselling author Renée Rosen interviews Zibby Owens about her new book Between Chapters, a heartfelt and candid collection of essays centered around her decade of extreme change and where it all led.

Zibby discusses overcoming intense social anxiety as a young girl, the impact of her first published piece in Seventeen Magazine after her parent’s divorce, her editing process, and launching a Between Chapters essay platform on Substack featuring stories from her community.

She also talks about the overwhelming aspects of motherhood, the rocky journey with weight loss and food noise that ended with Mounjaro, the pain and devastation of the Palisades wildfires, the start of her podcast, and navigating the online hate after speaking about October 7th.

Order Between Chapters here https://zibbymedia.com/products/between-chapters or follow Zibby on Instagram @zibbyowens.

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