Zibby Owens on Losing the Plot, Starting Over, and Building a Life Around Books Description:

Description:

Calling all book lovers, calling all readers, calling everyone who has faced down a reinvention in the middle of life. Zibby Owens is one of the book world’s most tireless and warm-hearted connectors: a podcaster who has interviewed more than 2,000 authors, a publisher, a bookstore owner, a self-described accidental activist, and now an author herself. Ten years ago she was a perfectionistic stay-at-home mom of four on the Upper East Side, up at 4:55 a.m. to sign up for parent teacher conferences, with color-coded calendars and no time to read. Then she got divorced, fell in love with her tennis pro, recorded a podcast into her phone from her bed on a whim, and rebuilt the whole thing: new career, new marriage, new name, new voice.

Her memoir in essays, Between Chapters: How I Started Over, Took Some Chances, and Found the Plot, is out now. In this Sacred Work conversation, Jen and Zibby get into what losing the plot actually feels like from the inside, the tiny unglamorous steps that add up to an entirely different life, why she sunsets things that are still making money, and how books became the connection vehicle for a whole community of women. Also: shy kids who grew up into very public careers, and the permission slip Zibby would hand her 39-year-old self.

Thought-provoking Quotes:

• "There is a way. You are not stuck. Your life is not over. You can take these small steps to remember who you are. And it is not selfish. It is imperative." - Zibby Owens
• "When you cannot remember the last time you belly laughed, that could be a red flag to pay attention to." - Jen Hatmaker
• "Save nothing for the swim home." - Jen Hatmaker, quoting her agent Margaret
• "Talking about books is really talking about life." - Zibby Owens
• "It’s not just, well, I guess this is it because it has to be. This is it because it can be, and it should be." - Jen Hatmaker

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Between Chapters: How I Started Over, Took Some Chances, and Found the Plot by Zibby Owens (Zibby Publishing)
• On Being Jewish Now, edited by Zibby Owens
• "A Mother’s Right to Sanity," Zibby’s essay that went viral overnight
• The Between Chapters essay platform on Substack, where readers write about their own chapters
• Authors in the mix: Dani Shapiro, Anna Quindlen, and Sarah Mlynowski, who told Zibby to start a podcast
• Childhood favorites: The Secret Garden, A Little Princess, Charlotte’s Web, Nancy Drew, and Little House on the Prairie

Guest’s Links:

Website - https://zibbymedia.com/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/zibbyowens/

Substack - https://www.zibbyowens.com/

Podcast - Totally Booked with Zibby https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/totally-booked-with-zibby/id1366633318

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