Totally Booked with Zibby

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 fea...

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...

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...

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, confrontati...

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, essa...

I had so much fun interviewing Lionel Shriver about her latest book, The Motion of the Body Through Space . Lionel's previous novels include the international best-seller We Need to Talk About Kevin, among other terrific books like Double Fault. Her journalism has appeared in The Guardian ,  The New York Times ,  The Wall Street Journal , and many other publications. Lionel is witty and insightful...

I had the privilege of interviewing author Anna Solomon on the Good Morning America Book Club Instagram Live account. Her book, The Book of V. , was the GMA Book Club pick for the month of May! The most recent of Anna’s three novels is The Book of V. , an intricate tale interweaving three stories of three women spread out across three different centuries. I was completely floored when I reached th...

Elizabeth Wetmore is the debut author — at age 52 — of Valentine , which is a #ReadWithJenna Today Show  pick. Elizabeth also came to my virtual book club, which was so much fun! She and her thrilling, emotional debut novel that explores a brutal crime in a small Texas town, are on a huge meteoric rise! I loved our conversation about how she blended her experiences with compelling characters to cr...

I had the best time talking to Ruthie Lindsey, the author of  There I Am: The Journey from Hopelessness to Healing - A Memoir . A speaker, author, podcast host, and social media figure, Ruthie travels the globe sharing her story empowering others to find purpose in their pain and to "look for beauty in the midst of their sacred wounds." Ruthie and I talked about the trauma she faced while in "Eart...

I was over the moon (!!!) to interview Alicia Keys recently. Just in case you don't already know, Alicia Keys is a modern-day renaissance woman. A 15-time Grammy Award-winning artist, Alicia is a songwriter, musician, producer, accomplished actress, New York Times  best-selling author, film/television/Broadway producer, entrepreneur, and a powerful force in the world of activism. Alicia recently r...

Lindsay Powers is the author of You Can't F*ck Up Your Kids: A Judgment-Free Guide to Stress-Free Parenting and the creator of the perfectly named #NoShameParenting movement which has reached more than 170 million people across social media. A long-time journalist, her work has appeared in The Washington Post,  the New York Post , CBS This Morning,  Good Morning America,  CNN, and more. She was fo...

Today’s guest, Brad Meltzer, is unbelievably accomplished. He is the #1 New York Times  best-selling author of 12 thrillers, he has written several nonfiction books, and now his latest adult book is available: The Lincoln Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill America's 16th President--and Why It Failed , co-written with Josh Mensch. Brad has also written gift and advice books, as well as the massive...

I loved talking to Kimberly McCreight about her latest book, A Good Marriage. Kimberly has such an her impressive body of work including The New York Times  best-selling book Reconstructing Amelia , which was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Alex Awards and was called Entertainment Weekly ’s favorite book of the year and optioned for film by HBO and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films. Her second a...

Alli Frank and Asha Youmans are the debut co-authors of Tiny Imperfections , a novel. Alli has worked in education for 20-plus years in San Francisco and Seattle in both public and private schools as a teacher, college counselor, coach, and assistant head. Asha has taught in public and private elementary schools for almost 20 years. Their book, an intergenerational, mother-daughter story, is hilar...

I recently interviewed Betsey Johnson, the supremely colorful, world-renowned fashion designer and author of Betsey: A Memoir . A designer at the forefront of fashion for the past forty years, Betsey's new memoir illustrates more than just her iconic brand, exploring the fierce fashion industry, motherhood, love, cancer, and more. Betsey and I talked about hard work, talent, and luck as a trifecta...

Margarita Montimore is the author of Oona Out of Order , a Good Morning America Book Club pick and a USA Today  best seller. Her previous book is Asleep from Day . I absolutely loved reading Oona Out of Order - it's so original, surprising, and captivating. Margarita and I talked about what it means to be or feel your age, the discovery process in revising your work, and her advice to aspiring wri...

Jeff Gordinier is the author of Hungry: Eating, Road-Tripping, and Risking It All with the Greatest Chef in the World . Jeff is the Food and Drinks editor at Esquire and a frequent contributor to The New York Times  where he was previously a reporter. Written in a time when we could go out to restaurants and enjoy the beauty of that type of hospitality, this interview made me long for culinary exp...

Kari Lizer is the author of Aren't You Forgetting Someone?: Essays from My Mid-Life Revenge . She is the creator of the award-winning show The New Adventures of Old Christine , which was based on her life as a single working mom, and an Emmy-nominated co-executive producer of Will & Grace.  We talked all about what Kari calls the "no-man's-land time of life," shaping identity through motherhood, e...

Amy Klein is the author of The Trying Game: Get Through Fertility Treatment and Get Pregnant without Losing Your Mind . Amy wrote The Fertility Diary column for The New York Times Motherlode blog for three years and writes frequently about health and fertility for publications like Newsweek,  Slate,  and The Washington Post.  Amy and I talked about her fertility journey, what the much-discussed "b...

R. Eric Thomas is the author of a collection of essays called Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America . A senior staff writer at elle.com  where he has written the pop culture and politics humor column Eric Reads the News since 2016, Eric has also been published by The New York Times  and is a long-running host of The Moth StorySLAMs. I loved talking to Eric about going viral, figuring o...

Emily Gould is the author of Perfect Tunes: A Novel . She also wrote the books And the Heart Says Whatever and Friendship . She has contributed to many anthologies, Bookforum, and The Cut. She also ran Emily Books, an imprint of Coffee House Press which publishes books by women! Perfect Tunes is a fusion of love, music, loss, and motherhood. Emily and I talked about the dreams of her protagonists...

My interview with Susan Isaacs was a special recording that happened earlier in the year at an event at Temple Emanu-El in New York City for their women's group. We did this in front of a live audience, which was a lot of fun. Susan is the best-selling author of 14 novels including her latest, It Takes One to Know One . Her literary accomplishments are beyond impressive! Her novels have been turne...

Mallory Kasdan is the author of Ella , a hilarious, smart children's book that made Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten Must List and was featured in Time, Vogue, The LA Times, and The New York Post. Mallory is also a podcast producer and host of “MILK” as well as a professional voice-over actor for TV and radio. My daughter is obsessed with Ella , which is a perfectly executed modern take on Eloise at...

Lisa Damour, Ph. D, is the New York Times best-selling author of Untangled and her latest book, Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls . She is a graduate of Yale University where she worked at the Yale Child Study Center (which I also did when I was at Yale!). She is an expert on child development and education which she applies as a research center director, priv...

I interviewed Amy Fish (over Skype - the new normal!), the author of the fabulously titled I Wanted Fries with That: How to Ask for What You Want and Get What You Need . She is the ombudsperson, also known as the Chief Complaints Officer at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and regularly teaches, speaks, and writes about how to complain effectively. Her book is both funny and absolutely he...