Zibby Owens, author, award-winning podcast host, and mom of four, will celebrate her first anthology, Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology, during a special virtual launch co-hosted by BookHampton and Children’s Museum of the East End on Tuesday, February 16 at 7:00 p.m.
Proceeds from the evening will support the Susan Felice Owens Program for COVID-19 Vaccine Research at Mount Sinai Health System. “I’m honored to be raising awareness for the amazing work Mount Sinai Health System is doing in formulating their own vaccine that can also be a booster to stop mutations and variants,” Owens noted. “My husband, Kyle, and his sister, Stefanie, lost their mother and grandmother to COVID-19 within six weeks of each other last summer. I wanted to help spare other families from the pain ours went through.”
Owens hosts the award-winning literary podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books and a new podcast, Moms Don’t Have Time to Lose Weight. The anthology features more than 60 original essays penned by podcast guests.
“The anthology was the result of authors coming together during the early days of the pandemic — some, even before! — to bare their souls on the page,” Owens shared. “The essays, inspired by five things moms don’t have time to do (eat, read, work out, breathe, and have sex), are raw, real, literary, and will make every reader out there feel less alone.”
“Zibby Owens is a genius at throwing a party- the kind where all the guests will like each other, the chatter won’t stop and everybody leaves feeling like they’re part of a chic bookish girls club. But with the pandemic throwing a wrench in IRL parties, Zibby found that she was just at home throwing a party via essay collection and that’s what this is: a vertical rolodex of friends who will remind you that women can, do, and always have had the power to balance entire impossible lives- and still read books. Welcome this explosion of joy onto your bookshelf that is so relevant, so now and so purely Zibby,” lauded Lena Dunham, actress and Not That Kind of Girl author.
In A Quarantine Anthology, Actress Evangeline Lilly focuses on film’s importance and impact. The Child Finder and The Butterfly Girl Rene Denfeld covers how growing up homeless impacted her relationship with food. Eleven Days and Red, White, Blue author Lea Carpenter and Self-Care for Extremely Busy Women, Suzanne Falter delve into loss. Midwives and The Flight Attendant author Chris Bohjalian and The Happiness Project, Happier at Home, The Four Tendencies, Better than Before, and Outer Order Inner Calm author Gretchen Rubin explore the importance of reading.
“Zibby Owens is a force for the good in more ways than I can count. In this anthology borne of a longing to connect and heal, she has gathered a group of wise and generous writers – herself included! — who are quite simply the best company. Curl up with this book and I promise you’ll be surrounded by kindred spirits,” said Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love author Dani Shapiro.
Owens’ next anthology, Moms Really Don’t Have Time To: A Second Anthology, is expected to be released November 2021. It was inspired by another round of things moms lack the time to do: write, get sick, sleep, lose weight, and see friends.
“The perfect reminder for every mom that none of us have it all together, all of us are doing our best and most importantly… even your worst days make a great story,” reflected Nora McInerny, author of No Happy Endings and host of popular podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking.
Tickets to the Moms Don’t Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology virtual launch start at $50.
For tickets, visit www.bookhampton.com.