We love books because they transport us on adventures, provide escapes when life stresses us out, teach us ways to improve ourselves, and evoke all the feelings. A good book is always there for you, whenever and wherever you need to flip it open, thumb through the pages, and completely lose yourself in the moment. And if you need further support and community to rally around you, chances are Zibby Owens has a podcast, book, or article under her media empire that can help you.
Right now, the world sees Zibby Owens as an iconic literary changemaker in progress. There’s the “Moms Don’t Have Time To” community that aggregates personal essays and for which Owens edited and published two anthologies: Moms Don't Have Time to Have Kids and Moms Don't Have Time To: A Quarantine Anthology. Zibby’s Virtual Book Club and Moms Don’t Have Time to Write writing community also fall under this aspect of her brand umbrella. Then there’s her Zcast podcast network, powered by Acast. That includes her wildly popular show, Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, which releases 365 days a year with a new author every day. It also includes a bunch of shows hosted by others. And as if that’s not enough to bite off, Zibby Books, a publishing home for fiction and memoirs, launched in January 2023 and has already acquired some amazing books.
“We’re rebuilding the way publishing houses run to make it completely author-centric and collaborative,” Owens tells LittleThings.
She even hosts the Zibby Awards, celebrating the often overlooked parts of a book, released a children’s book titled Princess Charming, and writes the Good Morning America monthly books column, among other initiatives.
But wait, there’s more. Owens serves on multiple boards, including the Child Mind Institute, helping with childhood mental health; the Mount Sinai Health System, one of the largest health systems in the world through which she founded the Susan Felice Owens Vaccine Research Foundation; the Mount Sinai Parenting Center; the New York Public Library; and the Center for Fiction, among others.
If we were to judge her by her cover, so to speak, we would see the daughter of American billionaire businessman and philanthropist Stephen Allen Schwarzman, who has most likely collected many lessons on how to succeed in life. But there’s so much more to Owens’ story than you can get from reading her exterior synopsis. Her life chapters, it turns out, are actually quite relatable to many moms. As she tells LittleThings, one message from her father that has stuck with her is, “Life’s too short to be miserable."
Yet, she was.
Owens took an 11-year hiatus from work to become a stay-at-home mom with her children. Today, they are ages 7½, almost 9, and 15 years old (twins), and she declares that life is now “so much better.”
“I felt like an injured athlete at times as a stay-at-home mom, even though I chose to stay home and wouldn’t trade a minute of it,” elaborates Owens. “But I had an underlying depression not being able to pursue anything for me with all this horsepower just stalling. The kids love seeing me so energized and engaged. I’m a happier person and consequently a better mom. I’m more fun and spontaneous, I laugh more, I have more fun — and so do the kids!! Yes, sometimes I get stressed, but I always get stressed, whether it’s packing for a family trip or launching a new company!”
Owens has known she wanted to be a writer since she was a little girl.
“Part of starting my podcast, originally, was to build a ‘platform’ to be able to sell the memoir I’d worked on for years and years,” she reveals. “After I launched it, I was driven to grow it and had a million ideas for how to do that and what brand extensions would come next. It all unfolded — and continues to! I’m starting Moms Don’t Have Time To, a new content and community site launching by July 1st, and a new podcast and community, Moms Don’t Have Time to Move and Shake. And that’s just this week! I’ve always worked extremely hard and have been time-efficient, driven, and entrepreneurial from day one.”
The memoir she refers to is Bookends, and it tells the deeply personal tale of how Owens found her voice and rewrote her story. After losing her closest friend on 9/11 and later becoming utterly stressed out and overwhelmed by motherhood, Owens was forgetting what made her who she was. She turned to books and writing for help. Just when things seemed particularly bleak, Owens unexpectedly fell in love with a tennis pro turned movie producer who showed her the path to happiness: away from type-A perfectionism and toward letting things unfold organically. What unfolded was a meaningful career, a great love, and finally her voice, now heard by millions of listeners. Bookends is an honest and moving story about relationships, love, food issues, the writing life, and finding one’s true calling.
She faced a lot of rejection while shopping her book to publishers.
“I wallowed in self-pity for a good month or two each time,” she admits. “But then what choice did I have? I still wanted to accomplish my goal. I couldn’t give up. I’ve felt compelled deeply and primally to get this story out into the world.”
Picking herself up and moving on takes work. Owens shares, “I’ve been in therapy on and off since I was 14 years old. I’m on Zoloft. I write to sort out my feelings. And I try to exercise, even just walking, to regulate my mood.”
Owens follows a core mindset: “We only get to do this once. Life is truly short and can end at any second. I’ve had so many losses in life that I wake up and go to bed thinking about this every day. Death is not an abstract concept for me; it’s a motivator.”
Despite all that keeps her busy, Owens says, “Parenting is always my main full-time job! It’s incredibly stressful with the mass shootings, COVID, the war in Ukraine, and everything else globally. I try to make my kids feel as safe and loved as possible, be open about my own fears while reassuring them, and empowering them to be kind to others and help the world.”
For other moms who feel like they want to chase their dreams but are not sure where to start, Owens shares, “I started with recording a podcast in my bedroom on my phone one afternoon and look what happened? Test the concepts. Start with something low-risk. Get the data and pivot. Get help from like-minded people if that’s helpful or possible. Think about what you love and go from there.”
She urges moms who feel stuck to remember, “It’s never too late to change your life. If not now, when?”
Lessons she instills in her children include be kind to others, make someone else smile, give back, and “always go to parties in the rain.”
Owens knows that at the end of the chapter, a rainbow is going to emerge after the storm. And she’s helping the world grow by providing the platforms to help you dance under dreary clouds rather than dodge raindrops.
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