Alisha Fernandez Miranda, SOMEONE'S GOTTA GIVE: A Novel

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Totally Booked with Zibby

Episode: Alisha Fernandez Miranda, SOMEONE'S GOTTA GIVE: A Novel
Date: October 2, 2025
Host: Zibby Owens
Guest: Alisha Fernandez Miranda

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Overview

In this engaging episode of Totally Booked, Zibby Owens talks with author Alisha Fernandez Miranda about her new novel, Someone’s Gotta Give. The conversation delves into Alisha’s journey from philanthropy advisor and memoirist to novelist, explores the wild and sometimes contradictory world of philanthropy, and examines the complexities of balancing ambition, motherhood, and personal values. The episode also highlights the unique challenges and insights of expat life and creative reinvention.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introduction to Alisha and Her New Novel

• Zibby welcomes Alisha, highlighting her as both a guest and one of the first authors published by Zibby Books.
• Alisha expresses excitement about being referred to as the author of a "latest book," underscoring her transition from memoirist to novelist.

“I'm thrilled to hear you say latest book, which means I wrote more than one book, which is pretty amazing still to me.” — Alisha (01:55)

About Someone’s Gotta Give (02:14)

• The novel follows Lucia, a Venezuelan-American and lifelong fundraiser who, after moving to London and becoming a new mother, seeks to rediscover her sense of purpose.
• Lucia takes a position at a prestigious private bank, advising the rich on giving, and navigates a world of glamorous yet morally ambiguous philanthropy while trying not to lose herself.

“…she becomes an advisor to the rich and powerful on how to give away their money and do good in the world. And she's trying very hard not to lose herself in the process…” — Alisha (02:28)

Alisha’s Journey to Fiction (03:10, 05:08)

• Alisha describes her real-life background: originally a philanthropy advisor, she took time off in 2019 for various unpaid internships (documented in her memoir My What If Year) that ultimately led her to writing.
• The novel took shape while waiting for her memoir to be published; writing became her “fifth secret internship.”
• She addresses her creative process:
  • Self-identifies as a plotter (“type A, organized, Excel spreadsheet kind of woman”).
  • Drew inspiration from “fish out of water” stories (i.e., Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Rich Asians), British romcoms, and the real-world absurdities of philanthropy.
  • The first draft received blunt negative feedback from her former agent but she persisted for “eleven drafts.”

“I had this idea. I knew there was something I wanted to say, even if I hadn't yet figured out how to say it. So I went back to it. Eleven drafts later, here it is.” — Alisha (06:53)

The Original Title & Double Meaning (07:04)

• The original title, Unrestricted Giving, refers to a common philanthropic term and was a metaphor for motherhood and self-sacrifice.
• It was changed for broader appeal, but the double meaning—between philanthropy and the all-giving nature of parenting—remains deeply rooted in the book’s themes.

“By the time Lucia meets her husband and has her daughter, she's 38. So she's lived a life, and she now has to become this person who has all of these ties to other people and figure out how to be that person in the world.” — Alisha (07:45)

Demystifying the World of Philanthropy (08:28)

• Philanthropy, as depicted in the novel, is full of contrasts:
  • Genuine generosity vs. luxury excess.
  • Grassroots activists alongside celebrities and royalty.
  • Paradoxes, e.g., private jets to climate conferences or lavish events for poverty fundraising.
• It’s a complex arena that tests personal values and motivations.

“Philanthropy brings together a huge swath of people…all trying to do good, but they have very, very different ways of approaching that.” — Alisha (10:00)

Motivation Behind Giving & Ethical Gray Areas (12:41)

• Motivations for philanthropy are varied: altruism, guilt, religious obligation, social status, business interests, or legacy.
• Alisha emphasizes that as a fundraiser, she cares less about the “why” if the impact is positive, but acknowledges the growing scrutiny over the origins and intent of donations.

“Some people give because they want access to whatever the world of giving is going to give them... I really don't care why people are giving as long as they're giving personally.” — Alisha (13:10)

Navigating Ethical Tensions in the Book

• Lucia’s journey is marked by internal and external conflicts:
  • Moving from hands-on fundraising to facilitating wealthy donors challenges her core beliefs.
  • Exposure to different approaches to “doing good,” and constantly encountering dilemmas about red lines and compromises.

“She's really out of her comfort zone and she's out of her depth in every possible way.” — Alisha (14:30)

Expat Life and Its Gifts (16:30)

• Zibby and Alisha discuss the realities of living abroad:
  • Alisha appreciates how living in the UK has exposed her to different parenting styles and cultural norms.
  • She enjoys the continued sense of unfamiliarity and personal growth that comes from being in a new environment.

“I love that feeling of not always knowing exactly what's gonna happen next.” — Alisha (17:53)

The “Juggle” — Motherhood, Ambition, and Identity (18:30)

• Alisha describes how her personal experiences of early motherhood and perpetual balancing influenced Lucia’s character.
  • Writing about a character with an 18-month-old while having teens offered both perspective and nostalgia.
  • The theme of “balance” is ever-present—sometimes elusive and always evolving.
• Zibby shares theories about integrating various “selves,” while Alisha quotes advice: “you can have it all, but not all at the same time.”

“Balance is really just the second before you fall in either direction.” — (Advice Alisha quotes, 20:48)

Reader Reactions/Themes Resonating Most (21:37)

• Audience questions often focus on:
  • Whether characters are based on real people (they aren’t).
  • Dream casting for a movie adaptation.
  • The struggle between motherhood and ambition.
  • Navigating the gap between intentions and outcomes in philanthropy.
  • Where to draw the line between personal values and real-world compromises.
• Stories of readers laughing, staying up late, and connecting deeply with the characters are highlights for Alisha.

“And the nicest things people have said have been that they've, like, stayed up late reading it, woke up their spouse laughing, like, those are my favorites. I love people reading it in bed, on beaches, in bathtubs.” — Alisha (23:40)

What’s Next for Alisha? (23:48)

• She dreams of a Disney theme park internship—“manifesting” it aloud.
• Is working on improving her tennis (despite setbacks).
• Learning scriptwriting and aspires to adapt Someone’s Gotta Give for the screen.
• Supporting her husband’s new food podcast in Edinburgh.

“I keep having to put this out there because one day it will happen. I'm so desperate to do an internship for Disney.” — Alisha (23:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On writing fiction after memoir:
  “I had this idea. I knew there was something I wanted to say, even if I hadn't yet figured out how to say it. So I went back to it. Eleven drafts later, here it is.” (06:53)

• On the paradoxes of philanthropy:
  “I've been to conferences about climate change, where people have flown in on private jets to get there… There are all these paradoxes that exist in this world.” (09:50)

• On the challenge of “balance”:
  “Balance is really just the second before you fall in either direction.” (20:48, quoting a parenting expert)

• On living abroad:
  “You get to understand that the world is vast and wide and that people are so different in how they approach things.” (17:10)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:31] Introduction and welcome
• [02:14] Alisha describes Someone’s Gotta Give
• [03:10] Her memoir background and starting fiction
• [05:08] Writing process and influences
• [06:53] Eleven drafts and resilience after rejection
• [07:04] Book title origin and double meaning
• [08:28] Behind the scenes of philanthropy
• [12:41] Motivation in giving and ethical complexities
• [14:30] How crossing into the world of the wealthy challenges Lucia
• [16:30] Expat life and parenting abroad
• [18:30] Work/life balance, influence on the novel
• [21:37] What’s resonating with readers
• [23:48] Alisha’s “what if” dreams and upcoming goals

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Tone

• Conversational, honest, and witty
• Deeply personal yet relatable
• Balances humor with thoughtful insights

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Conclusion

This episode gives listeners an insider’s look at the making of Someone’s Gotta Give, why the philanthropic world is such fertile ground for fiction, and the universal struggles of ambition, motherhood, and personal integrity. Alisha Fernandez Miranda’s candid, self-deprecating humor and Zibby Owens’ warm curiosity make for a vibrant conversation full of wisdom, encouragement, and inspiration for creatives and book lovers alike.

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Transcript

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[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Welcome to Totally Booked Live. I am thrilled to be here with Alicia Fernandez Miranda, whose latest book is Someone's Gotta Give. Welcome, Alicia.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you. Yay.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

And not only did do I have you on this podcast, but we published this book as well.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Sure, yeah.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Which is wonderful. And you were our very first author at Tiffany Books, which is now Tiffany Books.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

I'm thrilled to hear you say latest book, which means I wrote more than one book, which is pretty amazing still to me.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

So yeah, I'll just keep saying latest book from the USA Today best selling author.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

What such a surprise. Thank you. I am very proud and excited about that.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Amazing. Alicia, tell everybody what your book is about.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

So. So Someone's gotta Give is a novel, which I usually have to start with because when I start talking about myself and my life, people then think I actually just wrote a memoir. But it is definitely, definitely fiction. And it's the story of Lucia Lucia is Venezuelan American. She's a lifelong fundraiser, passionate about her work. And the book finds her at the beginning, after a whirlwind romance, living in London. She's a new mom, a new expat, a new wife. And she's trying to find her purpose again after having her daughter. And so she gets a job at London's poshest private bank, where she becomes an advisor to the rich and powerful on how to give away their money and do good in the world. And she's trying very hard not to lose herself in the process of all of these shenanigans that she gets to experience.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

And maybe we should back up just a minute to get context on you for my what if year. Why don't you explain what that was so that we know why it's especially cool that you wrote a novel now.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

So for most of my career, up until really about 2019, I was a philanthropy advisor. I still am a philanthropy advisor. I work with individuals, families, foundations, and companies, helping them do some good in the world. But in 2019, I had my pre midlife. Midlife crisis, as I like to call it, generously, because I was so young back then. And I decided that I had this deep yearning to go and try out all the paths that I never took when I was younger. And that took the form for me of a series of unpai internships at the dream jobs of my childhood, because I couldn't go Eat, Pray, Love. So I needed to go work, work, work for free. And so I worked on Broadway and Off Broadway. I worked for a contemporary art dealer. I worked in a hotel in the Isle of Skye. I worked for a retro dance and fitness company. And in the process, I was writing about my experience and then found I, like, really loved the writing process. And that that was sort of my fifth secret internship that turned out to be the one that stuck. And so I found Zibby originally when I was submitting and kind of looking for an agent and thinking, could this be a book? Could I be a writer? I don't know. And she was just so unbelievably supportive of me from, like, day one. I think you wrote me back within 24 hours. And we're like, let's get on a zoom call right now. This heyday of COVID And so that is kind of what helped me turn my eye to writing. And I loved the process of writing my what if year so much. I still kind of can't believe that that gets to be a real book in the world. And so While I was waiting in between finishing my memoir and it being published, which takes a really long time, actually, for those of you that are not in publishing.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

I mean, we do it faster than.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

You were, faster than most. Some people wait much longer. But I was not used to the long time scales of publishing. And I was like, wait, you mean I just. That's it. Like, I can't write anymore. I need to write something. So I started this novel right then.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

So when you decided what if write a novel, then what happened? You came up with the idea first or you just started writing Lucia or like, what came. What came first?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

So I'm a plotter, not a pantser. I'm a very type A organized Excel spreadsheet kind of woman. And so I had an outline. I had this idea for a woman who was not me, but had shared some similar experiences. I love the kind of fish out of water stories that you get from something like the Devil Wears Prada. I love the rich people behaving badly, elements of Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians. Those are all books. And I love a British rom com, like so, so, so, so, so much. Which it will be obvious to anybody that has read this book, because even Colin Firth makes an appearance. So those are all of my kind of influences and inspirations. And so it was so clear to me that I wanted to write a book about something like that. I wanted to write something that took place in the philanthropy world because I think it is a weird, wild, wonderful place that is kind of unbelievable. Some of the things that I get to see and experience if you've not been part of it. And I desperately wanted to write about being a mom because that was becoming a mother and continuing to be a mother has been probably the single most transformational experience of my life, for good and for bad. So I sort of had all of these ideas. I set out an outline, I wrote a draft, I went back and edited it. I wrote a second draft. I sent it to my former agent and she just wrote back. She was like, this is bad. I can't tell you why this is bad, but this is.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

That is why she is no longer Alicia's agent.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

There was no constructive feedback in it.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

No, I'm kidding.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

And so, I mean, it's true, she is no longer my agent, but I put it. Then I was like, okay, I guess I can't write a novel. I guess that what if just like, died a sad to horrible death? So I put it away and I ignored it for about three or four months. And I Just couldn't let the story go. I had this idea. I knew there was something I wanted to say, even if I hadn't yet figured out how to say it. So I went back to it.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Amazing.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Eleven drafts later, here it is.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

And just like that. Okay, the World of Philanthropy. Let's talk about. Because you had a different title originally.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

I did for the book.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Can you share that?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Yes. It's still in my. Actually, I've come around completely to this title. As usual. The Zippy publishing team has renamed both of my books for the better.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Like, truly, this was. I have to say this was ants.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

And like, kudos to Anne because I get so many compliments on the title all the time, and I think it just works perfectly. The original title was called Unrestricted Giving, which is a technical term in philanthropy when you give a donation or a gift and you don't designate where it has to go. So you say, I'm going to give this to you nonprofit, who I love and trust, and you use it the best way that you see fit. And unrestricted giving is a great way to give and one of the most helpful ways that you can make a gift to a nonprofit. But it also, for me, was such a parallel for being a mother and how much of life and having children becomes about having to give of yourself in almost this unrestricted way where you are constantly being asked to be there and do things and be the person that your children needs or your partner needs. And that. That can be, you know, a challenge to go through life where you didn't do that before. By the time Lucia meets her husband and has her daughter, she's 38. So she's lived a life, and she now has to become this person who has all of these ties to other people and figure out how to be that person in the world. So I loved that title. It was deemed too, like, philanthropy, wonky still in my heart it's called that. But I think we ended up with a pretty great one.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

I think so, too. Well, we did a little poll, and most people didn't know, didn't get the double meaning of unrestricted giving. So that just highlights the world of philanthropy being somewhat of a closed system and not everybody is involved in it, and that's why it's so ripe for fiction. What are some of the things about the world of philanthropy as someone who's in it and from Lucia's point of view, that you really wanted to let everybody in and let them know about?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Yeah, I mean, I think when you read about or hear about philanthropy. You hear about these huge multimillion dollar gifts coming from people naming things and kind of big charities, or you might see something that's been donated by someone and you think, gosh, isn't that. But philanthropy exists in this world where you see some of the most true, pure form of generosity I think that you see in humans anywhere. I have met so many extraordinary people who really just for whatever their motivations, and personally, I don't care what their motivations are, but whatever their motivations want to give and give and give and help others. And it is beautiful. Like, it is one of the most. If you're ever feeling down on what's happening, you just spend a little bit of time with people who are either working in nonprofits or giving. And it's a really sure fire way to kind of boost your mood because it's amazing. But at the same time, there are all these paradoxes that exist in this world. I have been to conferences about climate change, where people have flown in on private jets to get there. I mean, not like for real. I've been to events where we're talking about our fundraising for people in extreme poverty, and they're passing around the nicest champagne I've ever drank, which I will take a glass of that because it is delicious. Philanthropy brings together a huge swath of people, people that are grassroots activists working on the ground, people who are celebrities and royal and all of these amazing things. And they exist together in this world where they're all trying to do good, but they have very, very different ways of approaching that. And so that was something I really wanted to tease out. I mean, on the one hand, it's a fun world. Like you're in Buckingham palace in this book, you're on a private island, you're having this kind of amazing experience, which is weird that you get to do that in philanthropy, but you do. And at the same time, you are trying to understand what are people's motivations, what are they trying to do, how much am I willing to compromise in my values and the purpose that I'm trying to achieve, to help others come along the way? And I just think it's fascinating. I think the whole world is fascinating because you've got all these people that are ostensibly trying to do good and do this one great purpose, and they're all approaching it in really different ways. And so that's narrative tension for you right there. I think.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

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[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

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[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

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[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

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[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

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[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

So what are motivations? You said it doesn't matter what the motivation is. Tell me a little more about that.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

I mean, that is my personal opinion, I will say, because a lot of people do think it matters. But I think people give for lots of reason. People give for religious reasons. Some people give for altruistic reasons. Some people feel guilt. They give because they feel guilty. Some people give because they want access to whatever the world of giving is going to give them, whether it's being connected to high profile people who are also supporting the same cause, being able to go to amazing, glamorous events, or a lot of people give because it helps their businesses and it helps their businesses kind of do better. So there are so many reasons why people choose to give, and I think it's complicated. Some people give because of their family history and legacy or their own legacy. They want to be remembered. And so people come to giving whether you're giving $5 or whether you're giving $50 million. People come to it from very different, typically very personal places. And I really think there are few things more personal for people than your legacy and your money and your family. And so all of that emotional and psychological stuff comes to play a part of it for me. I really don't care why people are giving as long as they're giving personally. That's because I've worked as a fundraiser for many years, and I've seen what that money can do. But this gray area of whether it matters more where money has come from, why money has come from a particular place or where it's going is a really complicated question. In philanthropy. It's a big gray area. There are no right answers. And I think now, in what is becoming an increasingly polarized climate, it's becoming an even more important question that people are asking. And I could geek out about this all day long, but I will not.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

And why would this threaten Lucia and who she is? Why would being in this world threaten her beliefs?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Lucia is. She was a fundraiser. That's how she started her career, supporting an organization in Texas that someone told me that I made up, and someone said, I wish I could go work for them. I was like, oh, maybe we should start this. That uses all art and culture to support immigrants and refugees. And she comes from an immigrant background, and so it's really personal for her. She grows up with her grandparents. They pass away when she's in college, so she's on her own. Her whole life is her work, and she is dedicated. She gives. Talk about unrestricted giving. She is giving all of herself, all the time, to her job and what she sees as her purpose, which is to leave the world a little bit better than she came into it. And when she moves into the other side of the table, where she's not asking for money but helping people give it away, she's kind of faced with all of these people whose value systems are maybe different from hers in certain ways. She's got this boss, Celeste, who's French and glamorous and very beautiful and very driven. And Celeste, like Lucia, also wants to do a lot of good in the world. But Celeste's approach to it is you need to do whatever it takes to amass as much power and as much money as possible. And once you're in charge, you can go and do all the things you want. So just keep your head down and stick with me. And eventually we're going to get to that place. She meets other people that she works with who feel completely the opposite. It's our job to be agitating all the time. And she is a person who worked somewhere where she was, like, counting pens and paper clips, and all of a sudden she's working in a private bank where she's taking limos everywhere, and she's got nice shiny new MacBooks at her desk and things like that. So it's a real questioning for her of all of her beliefs, the reasons that she came into this space and how she, as a person, needs to behave, what she needs to decide how to act within it in a country where she doesn't know any of the rules, everyone's throwing around British language. She's going to, like, baby classes where they're talking about bobbins and buggies and nappies and prams, and she has to, like, look all this stuff up later. And so she's really out of her comfort zone and she's out of her depth in every possible way.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Well, the expat life is something so many people can relate to. And you are a case in point. How is it for you not living where you grew up?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

That's such a good question. Because unlike Lucia, I moved to the UK completely by choice. My husband is not British. We didn't have any family connections there. I went to graduate school there. I fell in love with being in Europe and being abroad. And so as soon as I got engaged, I said to my husband, like, the next day, my now husband, I was like, we're going back to the uk. Cause that's where we met in London. And I have now been overseas almost as much of my life as I lived in Miami for. Which is crazy to me because I still very much consider myself a person from Miami. But I've lived in the UK longer than I've lived almost anywh. And I think for me, it's been incredible and it's been a real gift, because when you leave the country where you were raised, you get to see it from a new and different perspective. And you get to understand that the world is vast and wide and that people are so different in how they approach things. And I think being able to raise kids in a different country has been kind of an amazing experience, because I've got all my friends here with children, and I know what they're doing and how many times they're going to the pediatrician and what vaccines they're getting and what the schools are like and what happens on the playground. And then I have my life in the uk and I get to see all of these things that maybe sometimes you take for granted if you only see one way of doing things and I actually get to see all of these different ways of being a mom, all of these different ways of raising kids and of existing in the world. So it feels like a gift to be able to be always in a different context. And I think, as evidenced by my what if Year, I really love the feeling of being slightly out of my comfort zone all the time. And living abroad will do that to you. Even now, after so many years, if I get into a taxi with a Glaswegian driver, I cannot understand what he's saying. His accent is very thick. We can't have a good conversation. He's saying all these words in like, Gaelic or Scots that I don't know. And I love that. I love that feeling of not always knowing exactly what's gonna happen next.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Amazing. Well, you do a great job in the book with the whole notion of the juggle of the parenting and managing work and managing relationships and just all of it, which is, of course, you know, the bee in most people's bonnet who try to balance all of the things. How did your balancing affect Lucia's? Like, what did you learn that you could infuse in your character?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

It was amazing writing this book about a woman with an 18 month old having 13 year olds, because I'm a much more. I don't know if I'm any better at being a mother, but I'm certainly. I've had more experience being a mother than I did when I was in Lucia's shoes. And so I think I have looked back on all of these periods of my life where I have been trying to figure out what is the right balance between work and having children. And I can see where I have failed miserably. I can see where I've maybe succeeded a little for a day and then got back to failing miserably. And so that kind of hindsight is 2020 has been really valuable. I loved taking myself back to those feelings of new motherhood, which in very many ways are similar to the feelings of being new to a country and are similar to the feel of being new in a job or a new world. It's this kind of like, I have this huge responsibility. I don't know exactly what to do, and I'm really worried I'm gonna mess something up. And so it was so nice and cathartic. I think in a way, to go back to those early days, some of those feelings came straight back to me, like being in a Mommy and Me class. There's a scene where she's in the library. She's like, trying to make friends. Nobody wants to be friends with her. I was like, that was me in the library in my dressiest sweatpants singing for Iraj. I had a friend to be there with me, and so I really enjoyed and appreciated that. I don't know that I know Much more now, 13 years on from having kids about balancing things better than I did back then. I feel like I'm still trying to get it right every day. But yesterday at my event, I was with a woman who's working on a parenting book, and I asked her her opinion of this question, and she said someone once told her that balance is really just the second before you fall in either direction. So I think that's what I'm going to. I'm gonna adopt that approach to thinking about balance from now on.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Well, there's another author named Amanda Goetz who has a whole theory of the different self, your different selves, and how you can only sort of be one piece for a certain percent of the day. But on a macro level, it all sort of evens out.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Yeah. Someone once told me when I was in my 20s, and she was very wise in her 40s, and she said, you can. She said, I think you can have it all, but not all at the same time. And that's also stuck with me a lot. But I think, you know, I'm doing my best. I'm trying. I don't always get it right. I feel like most of the moms I know are doing their best and trying and not always getting it right. And the topic, it never seems to be exhausted. In my circle of friends, in my WhatsApp groups, this is always the thing we're talking about. How do we figure out how to be good moms but also pursue the other dreams that we have outside of being moms? And so it's just such a rich topic for discussion.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Amazing. So you've done an insane amount of events in the last couple weeks and have many more to come. What have been some of the themes that are resonating most with the people reading the book and the questions you're getting? What are some of the nuggets you've gotten so far?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Okay, so a lot of people want to know if I base the characters on anyone in real life and who. And I very politely say, no, of course not. It's a novel. Also dream casting for the movie. That's what a lot of people want to do. They're like, who would be in this cast? The balance, the motherhood and ambition kind of Conundrum, the tension that really seems to sit with a lot of people, I think, and for all of those reasons that we just discussed. And the other thing that comes out for people, I think, is this difference between meaning well and doing good, between intention and impact that comes into play in the philanthropy world and how you sort of square that circle where you are surrounded with people who are. Are really trying to do their best, but sometimes that has unintended consequences. And when you as a person know where your red lines are. So Lucia has plenty of moments in the book where she has to make a decision about what to say or what to do or who to support, where she's questioning how this sits with her values and not always knowing what the right answer is. And that conflict, I think, manifests itself in everybody's life in a lot of different ways, whether you are in philanthropy or not in philanthropy. And I think those red lines have been something people have really wanted to talk about. Where are my red lines? To which my answer is, I don't have any idea. I think they change all the time. And how do you exist as a person who is true to your values and what matters to you, but also knowing that sometimes you can't always say exactly what you want to say to everybody that you want to say it to, because we have to exist as people in this world who are with each other and supporting each other. And not always. You don't always catch the flies with. What is it? Vinegar. Honey. Instead of honey, you need the honey, not the vinegar. And so I think people have really wanted to talk about that. And the nicest things people have said have been that they've, like, stayed up late reading it, woke up their spouse laughing, like, those are my favorites. I love people reading it in bed, on beaches, in bathtubs. That's been in bathtubs. Yeah.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

All right, what is next on your what if list?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Okay. I keep having to put this out there because one day it will happen. I'm so desperate to do an internship for Disney. I keep saying it out loud. One day, I need a Disney executive to listen and be like, sure, we'll give this girl an unpaid internship. So just manifesting that for everybody in this room and anybody who's listening, I'll do anything. I'll be the greeter, like, at the front of the park.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

So you want to be in a theme park?

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

I want to be in a theme park embedded in the theme park universe, working for free, which is apparently what I do. So that is definitely on my what if list? I'm really trying to get better at tennis. I've been playing for two and a half years now. I am no better than I was when I started. I had an injury earlier this year and then I had to start playing with my right hand and my tennis coach was like, oh, you're just. Oh, no. I started playing with my left hand. She was like, oh, you're just as good with the left hand as you are on the right hand. And I was like, so I'm terrible in both arms and I'm still writing. I really am trying to get better at screenwriting. I've taken a few screenwriting classes now. I wrote a short film script. It's pretty bad, but I always think the first draft has to be bad to get to a better place. I'd love to adapt Someone's Gotta Give and write a screenplay of it. That's on my bucket list of goals for next year. So we'll see what else happens after that. I'm actually spending a lot of time supporting my husband in his what if moment right now. He has just launched a podcast, actually an Edinburgh food podcast, which you should all listen to. It's called Eating and Waiting to Eat. And so he's like, having his best what if life as well. So now I'm on the other side of the what if, holding it all together while he lives his dream.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Amazing. Alicia, thank you so much. Congratulations.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Thank you for having me. Thank you, everyone.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Thank you for listening to Totally Buzz Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have time to read books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review. Follow me on Instagram ibeowens and spread the word.

[Alicia Fernandez Miranda]

Thanks so much.

[Podcast Host (Zibby Owens)]

Oh, and buy the books.

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