Zibby Publishing’s Start at the End by International Bestseller Emma Grey

Summary

Podcast Summary: Totally Booked with Zibby

Episode: Zibby Publishing’s Start at the End by International Bestseller Emma Grey

Host: Zibby Owens | Guest: Emma Grey

Release Date: April 7, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this heartfelt and inspiring conversation, host Zibby Owens welcomes back bestselling Australian author Emma Grey to discuss her latest novel, Start at the End. As both author and publisher (through Zibby Publishing), the two share a personal and professional bond that colors the discussion of Emma’s creative and personal journey—including her experiences with grief, resilience, and late-blooming transformation. This episode dives into the roots and themes behind Start at the End, Emma’s writing process, and the impact her stories have had on readers.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Emma Grey’s Authorial Journey (03:30–07:32)

• Recap of Previous Works:
  • The Last Love Note was written after Emma’s husband Jeff died, chronicling a midlife widow’s path toward new love:

    “I wanted to write a book about a midlife widow who was falling in love again. …That part is based on my life.” —Emma Grey (04:06)

  • Pictures of You deals with coercive control, inspired by her daughter Hannah’s PhD research on gendered violence. Both mother and daughter collaborate on a potential TV adaptation.
  • Emma describes the embrace of American readers since being published by Zibby Publishing and the deep connections she’s formed.
• Writing as Healing:
  • The new novel coincides with the 10th anniversary of her husband's death, marking a milestone for her family:

    “We really don’t know the person that we are going to become. … There’s something just so exciting about this idea of late blooming, of picking up career changes late in life.” —Emma Grey (06:34)

2. Grief, Community, and Reader Connection (07:32–10:02)

• Powerful Reader Moments:
  • Emma shares a moving story from a book event where she comforted a widow in the audience, underscoring the deep impact of her work on readers:

    “…for me, that one moment was worth all the work that goes into writing a book. …It’s touching individual readers that makes all the difference because it’s such a lonely pursuit…” —Emma Grey (09:13)

3. Inside Start at the End: Themes & Structure (10:12–16:12)

• Concept Inspiration:
  • Described as Sliding Doors meets P.S. I Love You. The novel explores life’s “what ifs” and the consequences of alternative choices:

    “I wanted to write this book to convince myself that even though another path would have been different, it could still have been great.” —Emma Grey (10:51)

• Parallel Realities & Narrative Experimentation:
  • Uses dual viewpoints and a parallel structure to explore characters’ alternate paths—both in reality and in hypothetical scenarios.
  • Zibby highlights the multilayered approach, noting how the novel grapples with “careers, family loyalty, truth and secrets, ambition, disappointment…” (12:41)
• Creative Resilience & Late-Blooming:
  • One character, a classical composer, faces professional setbacks, exemplifying the book’s theme that “it’s never too late” for reinvention—mirroring Emma’s own career trajectory.

    “…my career pretty much starting in midlife…to now see this happening in midlife I think is such a great message for young people that it is never too late.” —Emma Grey (15:46)

4. Writing Children and Authentic Relationships (20:20–23:38)

• Portraying Young Characters:
  • Emma discusses drawing on her diaries and real-life experiences with her children to authentically write child and teen characters.
  • The child in Start at the End becomes the story’s hero, reflecting Emma’s belief in the wisdom and agency of children:

    “I absolutely loved writing a very empowered child character because I do look at children and think they are the future. …They teach us so much.” —Emma Grey (22:21)

• Blended Families & Positive Divorce Representation:
  • Emma intentionally writes Maggie, an ex-wife, with nuance—depicting friction alongside generosity and support, offering an alternative to adversarial portrayals:

    “I’m so proud that she was able to set aside any of the angst…and say, here is another human being who is in our family orbit—how can I help them?” —Emma Grey (23:38)

5. Speaking Up and Career Setbacks (24:46–29:42)

• Navigating Power Dynamics:
  • Discussion of when and how to speak out against those in power, especially as a young woman in creative industries:

    “When there are people in positions of power doing the wrong thing, it’s not always so easy to say, speak up.” —Zibby Owens (24:46)

  • Emma ties this to themes from previous work and her daughter's research, advocating for mentorship and transparency around failure.
• Resilience and the Power of Persistence:
  • Emma describes giving a graduation speech that focused on her failures and rejections to emphasize persistence:

    “…the first six minutes were everything that’s gone wrong in my career since I left that school. …But here’s what’s gone right, and I don’t think that ‘here’s what’s gone right’ bit was going to be anywhere near as powerful if they hadn’t seen that it’s OK that all the way along all these other things didn’t work out…” —Emma Grey (28:17)

• The Healing Power of Fiction:
  • On processing grief through story:

    “I wanted to write about a character surmounting the emotional challenge of grief…when you read a novel, something happens and you just, you forget who you are. You inhabit that character and if they’re OK, you can almost take that on yourself and imagine that maybe you can be OK…” —Emma Grey (29:40)

6. Music, Creativity, and Final Reflections (29:42–30:17)

• Music as a Motif:
  • The novel draws on Emma’s own experiences co-writing a musical with a friend, infusing the story with theatrical and musical vibrancy.
• Final Thoughts:
  • Zibby and Emma reflect on the emotional and thematic richness of the novel and Emma’s ongoing journey:

    “Thank you for sharing your beautiful soul with us yet again and for all of your hard work. And I can’t wait for readers to discover Start at the End.” —Zibby Owens (30:11)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We haven’t yet met all the people we’re going to meet…there’s something just so exciting about this idea of late blooming...” —Emma Grey (06:34)
• “For me, that one moment was worth all the work that goes into writing a book…” —Emma Grey (09:13)
• “I wanted each of them to find their way through the same problem or the same event in their lives and see how each of them would have handled it differently.” —Emma Grey (13:33)
• “I feel like they’re all real, but I am so proud that she [Maggie] was able to set aside any of the angst…and say, here is another human being who is in our family orbit. How can I help them?” —Emma Grey (23:38)
• “When you read a novel, something happens and you just, you forget who you are. You inhabit that character and if they’re OK, you can almost take that on yourself and imagine that maybe you can be OK…” —Emma Grey (29:40)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Emma’s Writing Background and Journey – 03:25–07:32
• Moving Story About Grief and Reader Connection – 08:10–10:02
• Discussion of Start at the End Themes/Structure – 10:12–16:12
• On Writing Children & Blended Families – 20:20–23:38
• Speaking Up & Overcoming Career Setbacks – 24:46–29:42
• The Power of Fiction, Music, and Final Reflections – 29:42–30:17

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Tone & Style

The conversation is warm, candid, and deeply empathetic—interweaving personal anecdotes with thoughtful discussion of creative craft. Both host and guest use humor, vulnerability, and optimism, offering hope and encouragement to listeners navigating midlife, grief, or creative uncertainties.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode captures the emotional intelligence, wit, and warmth of both Zibby Owens and Emma Grey. Through the lens of Emma’s new novel, Start at the End, listeners are treated to an honest dialogue about grief, late-blooming success, resilience after rejection, the joys and challenges of creative life, and the unique power of fiction to comfort and transform. Emma’s stories and reflections will resonate with anyone seeking hope, courage, or a new chapter—reminding us that it’s never too late to start again.

Transcript

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[Emma Gray]

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[Emma Gray]

Thank you so much. It's lovely to be here again. I just, I feel like we were only just here the other day.

[Zibby Owens]

I know this is crazy. As you know and now listeners know, I'm Zivi Publishing is your US publisher and we are so honored. Starting with the Last Love Note. Moving on to pictures of you. And now your third novels. Start at the End. You're just cranking them out, Emma. Unbelievable. Okay, well, why don't you just take us back? And I know even before those two you had other books and music. I mean, you're just all over the place. Start with the Last Love Note. Give like a one sentence for the other two so that we understand how you arrived here at Start at the End.

[Emma Gray]

Sure. No, it does feel like a little whirlwind, doesn't it? Because it was 2023 that you and I first met. And the last love note was a. No, that I wrote in the wake of my husband's death. Jeff had passed away a few years before that and I wanted to write a book about a midlife widow who was falling in love again. And I always have to clarify, that part is based on my life. People always ask, do you have a hue? And I have to let them down.

[Zibby Owens]

Anyway, one day, Emma, you can stop making that joke and you will look

[Emma Gray]

back and say, oh, I shouldn't have said that all those times. And then so. And you very kindly published that novel. And that was my first novel in the US And I have just felt completely embraced by American readers ever since. It's been incredible. I'm even staying with somebody I met at one of your events when I come over on my upcoming book tour. And I've just made friends with so many people, so I'm so grateful. And then Pictures of youf was my second adult novel and I wrote that. And that the theme in that is coercive control. And that really grew out of my daughter Hannah Robertson's research. She's just handed in her PhD thesis here in Australia and studies gendered violence. So she and I together are actually now working with the TV producers on the potential TV series based on that novel, which is hugely exciting, which we hope to get to the screens over there as well with you, because it's. I think it's just such a universal topic, unfortunately, and then still start at the end. So this is a very special year for me. It's the 10th anniversary since Jeff died and I feel like it's a chance for our family to really commemorate him, but celebrate us having made it through a whole decade on our own. And so we've got some really fun sort of family trips and things planned and just some little ways that we're going to, you know, give ourselves a pat on the back, I think, for surviving something so difficult. And I feel like this book is part of that. It's this real sense that I love this idea that. That now I'm 52 now, and I love the idea that life can begin again at any age. And I do remember being young and looking at women our age and thinking, wow, that's really old, you know, and not imagining this sense of excitement that we can still have at this age. And I love this idea that we. We haven't yet met all the people we're going to meet. We haven't seen all the places we're going to see and love. We've got hobbies and interests in our future that we haven't discovered yet. And photography for me was like that. And that's, you know, that's a big theme in pictures of you. And, you know, that was something that Jeff never knew I loved. I didn't know I loved it. I picked that up in the last few years. And so there's other things like that in our future and we really don't know that the person that we are going to become. And there's something just so exciting about this idea that of late blooming, of picking up career changes late in life. And I know every time I post anything on social media about this kind of thing about being in midlife and starting again, and, you know, I'm just flooded with people sort of finding that inspiring and sharing their own stories about midlife transformation and that kind of thing. So really all of that comes into this book.

[Zibby Owens]

And tell thank you for that rundown and I'm so sorry. I know that the 10 year anniversary. I mean, it's hard to believe you've gotten here so far so fast, and yet I know it feels like yesterday and then so far away, and it's just insane. Grief is so crazy. And your family and you have been just through the wringer. And I'm so glad, selfishly, that you have turned to writing to get yourself through, because it has ended up helping so many people, and you have just built this amazing following of people that you have been helping so much. And I'm sure the new book will do the same. So bravo to you, you know.

[Emma Gray]

Thank you. And it has been very much mutual help. And one of the most beautiful moments in my whole career happened on my book tour last year in Grand Rapids. And we were at a book event with Kelly Hook, who I'm sure you know, and we were talking about. We're actually talking about pictures of you. But there was a woman in the audience who had lost her husband fairly recently, a couple of months earlier. And at some point she said, you know, she was appreciative that I was there and speaking the way that I was, because it was giving her hope that she would have, you know, a chance to recover from her loss and to move into a life that she might actually still love in the future. And then she became really emotional, and I just. I mean, we just stopped the event. We just. I got off the stage and just sat beside her, and for a few minutes, we just spoke about grief and loss together. I'm giving myself goosebumps again for every time I think of this story. I feel that every person in that room just held us in this moment of mutual compassion for this woman. And we were all crying, and it was absolutely beautiful. And then it sort of ended, and I got back up on stage and we continued on with our conversation. But for me, that one moment was worth all the work that goes into writing a book. It's touching individual readers that makes all the difference because it's such a lonely pursuit as, you know, writing novels at home. And then when you actually go out and meet your readers and realize the impact that you're making, it just makes it all worthwhile. It's just so rewarding.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, I love that. Oh, my gosh, I wish I had been there. I feel like crying just hearing about that. That event. Oh, my gosh.

[Emma Gray]

Well, you did make that event possible, so.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, well, sort of in a roundabout way. And now you have. Start at the end. Talk about that.

[Emma Gray]

Well, so I think this is. I think this novel, I guess the quickest way to describe it would be that it's sliding doors meets P.S. i love you. And I think all of us question sometimes the what ifs in our lives. We all imagine sometimes whether we've had events happen to us or we've made choices and decisions that have sort of pushed us down a different path. We get to this certain place in life and then we kind of look over there and think, what if this had been the other way around? What if this had unfolded differently? Am I in the right place? Have I done the right thing? You know, would that have been better or worse? And you can get quite caught in that sort of comparison thing and. And worrying about whether you've, you know, engineered the right set of circumstances that has taken you to this. This point. And I wanted to write this book to convince myself that even though another path would have been different, it could still have been great. Like it could still have worked out for everyone. And, you know, in my particular case, it was that. That Jeff had died. And I'd wondered so many times since then, what would have happened if this was the other way around? What if it had been me who had died? How would that have impacted all of the people around me? My children, where would they be living? Would it have changed their lives, their careers, who they met? You know, would they have moved somewhere else? It could have been completely transformational for just so many different people. And so it was sort of those thoughts that led me to write this book. And I also wanted to. I'm always trying to tell myself an uplifting, hopeful story. And there's a. I kind of see this book as a movie and there is this big scene near the end that reminds me of that joyous airport scene at the end of Love, actually, where everything's folding in and, you know, there's this chase and it's all coming together in a beautiful, uplifting kind of way. And that's what I want to leave people with, that sense of hope. And you mentioned the musical. There's a musical in this book and one in my life as well that I've co written with a friend who's a composer, based on my teenager novel. And I think I borrowed some of that just excitement of theatre, kids and the ability to escape onto a stage and be a completely different person. I'm not the one on the stage in life normally, but it's such an escape. And so there's a lot of that in this book as well.

[Zibby Owens]

Well, there's a lot about careers, family loyalty, truth and secrets, ambition Disappointment. I mean, you really have a lot when you pack it in, as you always do. I mean, your books are about one thing, but they're about a hundred things, right? You tackle all the things in life that people wonder about. Should I have gone this path? Should I have stood up to this person? Should I have? You know, but the cool thing about this book, not that the other books aren't cool, I didn't mean that. I mean. Let me. Let me rephrase. One of the cool things about this book, too, is that you take two different viewpoints in the present, and then at one point it shifts, and then. Well, I mean, it's always two different viewpoints. But then it becomes sort of hypothetical. I mean, I guess all of fiction is hypothetical, but it becomes, you know, parallel.

[Emma Gray]

That's right. There's a parallel world. And that was so much fun. I mean, that really was. And I do always thank my editors deeply for everything that they helped me with, because that was really complex. And that's so such a mind experiment to go, you know, to go down that path. And I think it's always fun to explore something fictionally that you imagine in real life as well. And I wanted to make it okay for all these characters. I wanted each of them to find their way through the same problem or the same event in their lives and see how each of them would have handled it differently. And that, yeah, there's a big story of creative resilience in this book. And we all know when we're in a creative field that. That our career is never a straight line and that there are setbacks and. And I talk a lot about failure and rejection, and I feel like I'm becoming an international expert on being rejected. I keep getting asked to write articles about it. I love it because I feel like when I hear other authors talking about this, it really helps me to sort of normalize what I go through and what we all go through. And I see so many authors, they haven't learned how to be rejected yet. And so as a result, they sometimes give up. And I often think about the brilliant manuscripts that we're never going to see because somebody has given up. So one of the characters in this book is a classical composer, and she goes through a really serious career setback early on, and she allows it to really knock her completely. And I think this is the thing. Things can happen to us that are very serious that aren't fair, and to some extent, we can kind of wallow a little bit at the time. But then there comes a point where if we continue to wallow and allow that to stop us, then we've taken that problem on ourselves and we are the solution to it. So I gave her a really big problem and it was just such a joy to see that she managed to get her act together in the end and reclaim her career. And again, to know that it's never too late to do that. And that's the exciting thing. I actually love the fact that my own children who are now in their twenties and one teenager are able to see me, my career pretty much starting in midlife. I have been working all these years in different jobs and different writing different books and things that were published but didn't set the world on fire necessarily. And so to now see this happening in midlife I think is such a great message for young, young people that it is never too late.

[Zibby Owens]

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[Zibby Owens]

In this book, like Last Love Note, there is one child who is a huge character in the book. And in the. In the book you talk about your son a little bit towards the end. Talk about writing children how you have to tap into some of like the joy and the angst and all of that. I mean, it takes a certain skill. I know you mentioned you had written for younger readers before, but that can be a challenge. Talk a little bit about that.

[Emma Gray]

Really can. In fact, when I wrote the teenage novels, my daughters were the age of the character and people said, how do you remember what it feels like to be a teenager? Or how did you capture the way they talk and how they act so closely? And I said, well, I was just surrounded by it all the time. That was the language I was hearing from my girls, you know, back then. And I also kept very detailed diaries of my own when I was a teenager. So I was able to tap back into that. I do every so often threaten to put those online to just take snippets, but it's so embarrassing. I'll have to, you know, get the courage. But I think somebody then said, well, would you write another one now? Another teen novel? And I thought, well, my son is a completely different person. He's a gamer, he's in his bedroom all the time, he doesn't talk as much. So I don't know if I could capture exactly the same, same the language and all of that side of it now because my girls have moved on and I'm just not surrounded by it as much. So I think part of it is to be. It's either remembering what it was like yourself, if you can, when you were younger, or it is being surrounded by kids of the age that you're trying to write about. And so I've got a little neighbor next door who's about the age of the child in this book. So that's helped me as well, just, you know, remembering. And I've occasionally messaged friends and who've got kids of that age and said just to sense check is, you know, for an eight year old, would they say this and what are they into all those sorts of questions because you just get so quickly out of touch when your children grown up a little bit. But I loved the character in this book, really. She's the hero of the whole story in the end. And I absolutely loved writing a very empowered child character because I do look at children and think they are the future. You know, they know what they're doing, they teach us so much. I learned so much, much from the young people in my life and just, you know, attitudes towards things and the way they just, I don't know everything about the way that they're encountering the same world that we're encountering. So it was such a thrill to be able to give her such a big storyline, make her the hero. And people have already said she's their favorite character in the book.

[Zibby Owens]

I could see that. I could see that. Well, that and maybe penguins, we should have put like a little penguin as a hidden thing on the. Not that they play a big role, but, you know, they play a role in bringing people together sort of in the beginning, but certainly not towards the end. I also really liked Maggie. I love that you have an ex wife and sort of a blended family situation and how it doesn't always have to be so confrontational and how new alliances form throughout life. And I found that really interesting.

[Emma Gray]

Yes, I was very deliberate about Maggie. I wanted to make there to be a little bit of friction and angst that was real, you know, between her and the others that was believably, you know, it wasn't all golden and wonderful the whole time. So there was this little bit of friction. But she really comes into her own. And in both potential realities, she steps up in a way that I'm so proud of her. You know, I feel like they're all real, but I am so proud that she was able to set aside any of the angst that she might have been feeling and say, here is another human being who is in our, in our family orbit. How can I help them? And I'm, I'm just, I'm really pleased with the way that, that I was able to write that divorce storyline in a positive manner because I do think that it, it can be like that. And that's. I like to be able to sort of write these role model relationships into books, not in a preachy kind of way, but just in a. So that we can see alternatives, I guess, to how things could be.

[Zibby Owens]

I love that. It also raises the question of when is it okay to speak out to those in power? Because it's a really interesting question. And you don't know necessarily when you're young, if it's you, if you did something wrong, if you can raise flags. I don't want to give things away, so I'm being a little cagey. But when there are people in positions of power doing the wrong thing, it's not always so easy to say, speak up.

[Emma Gray]

That's right. And in this particular case, and this is a career setting, somebody does the wrong thing and it is a person in a position of power. And what's really disappointing is that another person who she very much counted on as a friend and a colleague lets her down in a really big way. And so there's two people. And so then you are thinking, is it me? Is it me? Because there's two. And I think the, that's part of the storyline probably is a bit of a through line for pictures of you as well, where we have this coercive, controlling character in Oliver and his father as well. And you know, I think to my being influenced by my daughter Hannah and her research and she, you know, she's got countless stories that she's found of people in powerful positions doing the wrong thing. And it's often women who are, and young women who are in that position of, you know, if they do speak up, what is the consequence? What will happen to the career? And so that was one of the things that, that Audrey in Start at the End is tackling and something that has then taken so much from her and it's the thing that she needs to reclaim. And so I'm, I'm so glad that she does because she then I think she also realizes it's not just for her, it is for her stepchild, it is for other young musicians. I think, you know, you know, this where we, we get to a certain point where we become the mentor figure for the next generation coming through, certainly as writers. I mean, the young woman that does the playlists for all of my books for you, for Zibi Publishing. I'm kind of a mentor too now in a way because she's a writer and she's at university now and she just happened to do a playlist and send it to me when she was in high school for the Last Love Note and we've kept in touch and then we met in Chicago at my event last year and she interviewed Hannah and me for her student newspaper and just the whole stories. I love that kind of connection that you can make. But, you know, I look at her and think, I feel like I'm kind of in a mentoring position now as a creative person with somebody now in her early 20s just entering this. And you know that she's going to have setbacks like we all have. And I think the more open that we can be when we are, particularly if we're successful, because, you know, in fact, I was invited back to my old high school last year to deliver the graduation speech. And it was seven minutes and the first six minutes were everything that's gone wrong in my career since I left that school. It was every failure and rejection or, and, you know, all the, all the one star reviews and the criticisms, Emma,

[Zibby Owens]

you're making it sound like we're publishing the worst author ever.

[Emma Gray]

I said to them, what nobody says about getting, you know, this many one star reviews that you have to have sold, you know, thousands and thousands of books to get to that point. So then, you know, the, it kind of all then built up into. But here's what's gone right, and I don't think that here's what's gone right bit was going to be anywhere near as powerful if they hadn't seen that it's okay that all the way along all these other things didn't work out and that what actually happened was just an awful lot of persistence and picking yourself up when things go wrong. So, you know, it's, it's, you know, I said to them, you know, you can have the. Nearly all your reviews of five star and four stars, but you can focus in on those one star reviews or that sort of thing, you know, and that can be enough to sometimes stop people from doing this anymore. And so we really need to develop this sort of different perspective to get us all through. And I think when you can write characters that are going through something similar and explore how they get through it, I always think it's the same with grief. I wanted to write about a character surmounting the emotional challenge of grief because I think sometimes you can read all the self help kind of books in the world and it still doesn't penetrate through. But when you read a novel, something happens and you just, you forget who you are. You inhabit that character and if they're okay, you can almost take that on yourself and imagine that maybe you can be okay and feel what it feels like to get through something. I think that's the power of fiction.

[Zibby Owens]

Amazing, Emma. This was so great and we didn't even get into all the music of it, which was beautiful. I see a piano behind you. You have a. In the book of how real musical prodigies actually hear music, which I found fascinating, and the way that they interpret things and write things and I don't know, there was just so much. And anyway, thank you for sharing your beautiful soul with us yet again and for all of your hard work. And I can't wait for readers to discover. Start at the end.

[Emma Gray]

Oh, thanks, Siby. And thank you again for publishing it. I can't wait to come over there and see you again and chat with readers.

[Zibby Owens]

Yes, we'll see you soon.

[Emma Gray]

Thank you, Emma.

[Zibby Owens]

Bye bye. Thank you for listening to Totally 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. Thanks so much. Oh, and buy the books.

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