Totally Booked with Zibby: "From Infertility to Empty Nesting in Fiction"

Host: Zibby Owens
Date: March 5, 2026
Episode Theme:
This special episode of Totally Booked with Zibby explores the journey of motherhood as reflected in recent fiction, from infertility and found motherhood to the transition into empty nesting. Zibby shares edited conversations with three novelists—Angela Brown (Ways to Find Yourself), Saba Sams (Gunk), and Lindsey Goldstein (Gap Year)—each tackling a different phase of the motherhood spectrum. The episode connects their personal stories, creative processes, and insights on identity, resilience, love, and the ongoing process of self-discovery throughout motherhood.

Episode Overview

• Main Theme: The motherhood journey, from before children to after they've left home, as depicted in three new novels.
• Structure: Three author interviews in sequence; Zibby highlights what unites and differentiates their perspectives on motherhood.

[01:27] Zibby’s Framing & Episode Structure

• Zibby introduces the unique structure: snippets from conversations with three authors, each touching a different motherhood stage:
  • Infertility and loss (Angela Brown)
  • Physicality and chaos of birth/found motherhood (Saba Sams)
  • Empty nesting/reinvention (Lindsey Goldstein)
• Zibby describes the connective tissue among the novels: relationships that end, finding oneself after seismic changes, and threads of grief, identity, and familial love.
  • “All three books have relationships that end in pretty big ways... you have before the kids come and right after they leave—a trajectory many of us have been through or will go through.” (04:40, Zibby Owens)

[07:03] Segment 1: Angela Brown, Ways to Find Yourself

Book Summary

• Story of Grace, a 30-something woman:
  • Infertility struggles
  • Marriage ending
  • Losing her mother (only living family)
  • Retreats to a family beach cottage and encounters past versions of herself, journeying toward self-reclamation.

Key Points & Insights

• Personal Connection: Angela shares that the infertility storyline is drawn from her own life—a desire to write about fertility grief and the “invisible” suffering of repeated loss.
  • “Every time I would have a loss, the doctors were like, ‘there’s nothing actually wrong, this is just, you know, not the right time.’ And for a woman going through that, that’s about the worst thing you could possibly hear.” (11:27, Angela Brown)
• Setting as Character: The beach setting reflects the passage of time; like the protagonist, readers might recall places that have “seen so many versions” of themselves.
• Mother-Daughter Bond: The novel is, at its core, “a love letter between a mother and a daughter—about knowing which voices to trust” even after loss. (13:33, Angela Brown)

Notable Quotes

• “With Grace, I knew from very early on this is part of her story. And, yeah, in my personal life, I have two children...but it took me so many years to arrive at that point...I wanted very much to take those feelings I had experienced and almost find a purpose later in life...put them on the page in the hopes that maybe somebody else reading it will see a little bit of themselves.” (11:06, Angela Brown)
• “It’s about knowing which voices to trust in your life...even when someone’s gone, her mother’s still very much there, guiding her.” (13:33, Angela Brown)

[14:13] Segment 2: Saba Sams, Gunk

Book Summary

• Focuses on found motherhood:
  • Jules, near 40, childless, runs nightclub owned by her feckless ex.
  • Nim, 19, starts working there, gets pregnant, connected to Jules.
  • Themes: nontraditional paths to motherhood, chaos of birth, women forging relationships across generations.

Key Points & Insights

• Messiness & Boundaries: Gunk intentionally pushes against tidy definitions of motherhood, love, and family.
• Writing (and Not Writing) a Birth Scene: Saba wanted to depict birth in its graphic, real detail, as a long, “visceral” experience—deliberately placing readers in the room.
  • Could not write it believably from the POV of the person giving birth—a witness was needed instead, hence Jules as narrator.
  • “There’s a kind of scene in the book where Nim’s just about to give birth and they get in a taxi and the taxi driver’s like, ‘Ah, don’t get in my car!’...a stand in for the way we all refuse to witness birth in day-to-day life.” (16:52, Saba Sams)
• Challenging Silence: Birth is rarely portrayed in fiction—Saba aimed to include it even in unexpected settings, challenging what is “appropriate” for literary fiction.

Notable Quotes

• “I wanted to write a birth scene that was just intense and visceral and long...I wanted it to take up multiple chapters. Let’s force my readers to witness this birth scene.” (16:45, Saba Sams)
• “I wanted to explore how you could become a mother without giving birth or, you know, without being pregnant.” (18:33, Saba Sams)
• On writing about birth for a broad audience: “I want all the men to read about it, too. And I want men who aren’t thinking about being fathers ever to read about it.” (22:40, Saba Sams)

Advice to Writers

• Writing for publication vs. for oneself: Publication brings both joy and new pressure.
  • “Since being published, writing is also harder for me. It feels like I’m now the other side of the wall…as much as sometimes I feel like I’ve ruined myself by monetizing my hobby, it’s also the most magical thing that's ever happened to me.” (24:46, Saba Sams)

[25:27] Segment 3: Lindsey Goldstein, Gap Year

Book Summary

• Jane, 46: Daughter Liza leaves for a gap year in Spain; Jane’s husband suddenly says he's fallen for another woman.
• Jane, never loving her CPA job, decides to take her own “gap year” in Ecuador.
• Explores how mothers—and women in general—redefine themselves post-childrearing and/or divorce.
• The adventure is both literal and existential.

Key Points & Insights

• Mother’s Identity Beyond Children: Lindsey wanted to show this phase as a beginning, not an end.
  • “It’s not too late and everyone has, I think, more than two chapters to their lives...there’s always new possibilities.” (28:17, Lindsey Goldstein)
• Multi-Layered Adventure: The novel weaves the protagonist’s journey—mixing “domestic stuff at home” and “really fun” travel episodes, with both struggles and excitement.
• Role Models and Reinvention: The importance of seeing mothers and other women reinvent themselves—not just for themselves, but as inspiration for others.
  • “There’s a hearkening back to who we were. Or you can figure out, hey, I have totally different interests and I want to go in this direction now.” (28:51, Lindsey Goldstein)
• Letting Go: On redefining communication with grown children and allowing for independence.

Notable Quotes

• “Trying to remember who you were before is almost irrelevant, because even if you hadn’t had kids over an 18-year period, you’ve basically become somebody else anyway...” (29:35, Zibby Owens)
• “Starting over is not pretty…I think that’s sort of—it encapsulates the theme of it. You can start something new, but it’s not going to be all roses and sunshine at the beginning.” (33:28, Zibby Owens)

[34:14] Conclusion: Zibby’s Reflections

• Zibby hopes listeners will “get another glimpse, another take, another three takes on what it means to be a mother.”
• She thanks her guests and invites feedback, encouraging listeners to reflect on their own journey or their relationships with their children and parents.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:27] — Zibby’s episode overview & structure
• [07:03] — Angela Brown interview begins
• [09:55] — Discussion about infertility storyline
• [13:33] — Themes of mother-daughter love and guidance
• [14:13] — Saba Sams interview begins
• [16:45] — On writing & witnessing a birth scene
• [18:50] — The boundaries of motherhood
• [22:40] — Importance of telling birth stories for all readers
• [24:27] — Advice to aspiring authors
• [25:27] — Lindsey Goldstein interview begins
• [27:51] — Reinvention, possibility, and role models post-empty nest
• [29:35] — The futility and promise of reclaiming past identities
• [33:28] — Starting over: reality vs. fantasy
• [34:14] — Zibby's sign-off and episode close

Takeaways for Listeners

• Motherhood is experienced through a profound range of circumstances—fertility challenges, found families, and letting go.
• Literary fiction can expose the realities of motherhood—messiness, grief, rebirth—sometimes in ways that non-fiction or culture at large do not.
• Each phase can be a new beginning, not just an ending.
• Writers use fiction to process personal experience and bring taboo or under-discussed realities (like infertility or birth trauma) into the light.

For Book Lovers:

If you're interested in fiction centered on the emotional realities of motherhood across the decades, check out:

• Ways to Find Yourself by Angela Brown
• Gunk by Saba Sams
• Gap Year by Lindsey Goldstein

Zibby urges you to reflect, discuss, and—of course—buy the books!