Wondering if any other moms out there feel like you do during quarantine and the pandemic? They do, and this book will help you connect with other moms just like you. The new book by Zibby Owens, Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology, answers the question many of us found ourselves asking during 2020: am I the only one who doesn’t have time to…?
More than 60 authors who’ve also been featured on Zibby’s podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, share personal essays about five things moms don’t have time to do: eat, breathe, work out, read and have sex. These essays, by dozens of best-selling and acclaimed authors, address the ever-increasing demands on a mother’s time, especially during quarantine.
We chatted with writer and host Zibby Owens about her project and how the pandemic changed her focus and helped her get this book out quickly to the world.
What was it like adding this project to your already full plate during a pandemic?
This collection was originally intended to be an online magazine or content site for which I had plans to design a whole new website and do a big launch event around. When the pandemic hit, I decided to scrap all those plans and just get the content written and disseminated as quickly as possible. We launched the site as a part of my own website, zibbyowens.com, and called it “We Found Time.” At that point, we had all found time; we were stuck at home and terrified! It wasn’t until months later that I realized I had enough for a book. Having projects like this — plus my podcast, two Instagram Live shows that I launched, and Zibby’s Virtual Book Club — are what helped me get through the pandemic! Yes, I was at home indefinitely with just my husband and kids, but I was helping others connect. And that helped me!
Which essay in the anthology hit closest to home for you, and why?
Well, I did write three of the pieces in the book, so those hit pretty close to home! One was about my history with weight loss and what the pandemic did for my eating (hint: nothing good!). Another was about managing my new marriage and letting the stress of kids get in the way of, well, everything. And another was about how to be a step-parent.
These essays are written by notable and inspiring women … what’s the takeaway you hope the every day mom in America gets from reading this book?
That she isn’t alone! That women everywhere (and some men, too!) have the same thoughts, feelings, obstacles and struggles. And that by sharing our most intimate parts of our thoughts, we’re helping everyone else.
Is there anything you found, through your interviews, that moms DO have more time for during quarantine?
Instagram. And eating!
Order your copy of this inspiring book of essays here.
About Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology
Join award-winning podcaster Zibby Owens of Moms Don’t Have Time to Read on a quarantine journey filled with food, exercise, sex, books, and more.
It’s impossible to ignore how life has changed since COVID-19 spread across the world. People from all over quarantined and did their best to keep on living during the pandemic.
Zibby Owens, host of the award-winning podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books and a mother of four herself, wanted to do something to help people carry on and to give them something to focus on other than the horrors of their news feeds. So she launched an online magazine called We Found Time. Authors who had been on her podcast wrote original, brilliant essays for busy readers. Zibby organized these profound pieces into buckets of things moms don’t have time to do: eat, read, work out, breathe, and have sex. Now compiled as an anthology named Moms Don’t Have Time To, these inspiring, beautiful, original essays by dozens of bestselling and acclaimed authors speak to the ever-increasing demands on a mother’s time, especially during the quarantine, in a unique, literary way.
Actress Evangeline Lilly writes about the importance and impact of film. Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder and The Butterfly Girl, focuses on her relationship with food after growing up homeless. Lea Carpenter, screenwriter and author of Eleven Days and Red, White, Blue, and Suzanne Falter, author, speaker, and host of the podcast “Self-Care for Extremely Busy Women,” focus on loss. Chris Bohjalian, #1 New York Times best-selling author of Midwives and The Flight Attendant, and Gretchen Rubin, New York Times best-selling author of The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, The Four Tendencies, Better than Before and Outer Order Inner Calm and the host of award-winning podcast “Happier with Gretchen Rubin,” write about the importance of reading. Others write about working out, love and sex, eating, and more.
Join Zibby on her journey through the winding road of quarantine and perhaps you, too, will find time.
About Zibby Owens
Zibby Owens is the creator and host of award-winning podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books. Zibby, named “NYC’s Most Powerful Book-fluencer” by New York Magazine’s Vulture, conducts warm, inquisitive conversations with authors as wide-ranging as Alicia Keys and Lena Dunham to Delia Owens and Jennifer Weiner, making her show a top literary podcast as selected by Oprah.com in 2019 and 2020. She also created the Moms Don’t Have Time to Lose Weight community and hosts the accompanying podcast.
Before the pandemic, Zibby ran a literary salon, hosted her own book fairs, and was a frequent bookstore event moderator. During the quarantine, Zibby hosted a daily Instagram Live author talk show “Z-IGTV,” a weekly live show with her husband “KZ Time,” launched an online magazine with original author-written essays called We Found Time, and started Zibby’s Virtual Book Club. “Z-IGTV” is now a limited podcast on Spotify and is on YouTube. It has won multiple awards.
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