Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast,

Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

I'm excited to be here today with Danielle Gannock, who is the author of two novels,

Lulu Meets God and Doubtz him, and The Summer We Read Gatsby. A self-reclaimed

bookaholic, Danielle, a former magazine editor, currently lives in New York with her husband and children.

So thanks, Danielle. Thanks so much for coming on Mom's No Time to read books. Thank you so much for having me.

So you've written these two amazing novels, Lulu Meets God and Doubtzim from 2007 and also the summer we read Gatsby from 2010.

So let's start a little bit with Lulu Meets Scott and Doubtzim, which is really a funny take on the Manhattan art scene with this little death twist thrown in there.

So tell me about how you came up with the idea for that novel and how your own experience as an art collector kind of informed the writing of it.

Yeah, well, I'm always so interested in writing about women who wrestle with their creative ambitions.

And I'm particularly fascinated, obviously, with writers and people who are doing it with writing.

But working with art and wanting that,

sort of wanting to express yourself through art is something that I've, in all of the

characters that I explore. I'm always trying to get inside that kind of thing and maybe just

understand it for myself, but create characters who are trying to do that. So that was

where I had started a long time ago,

and I think you would ask me how long it took in that novel,

in a way, it took 20 years because I kind of had always wanted to be a novelist

and came to New York out of college with that plan

and then started working at jobs and magazines and things.

And I was writing all along, but I hadn't really written in the long form.

So it was a long process over a long period of time of kind of wrestling with those kinds of characters and those kinds of stories.

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