Judy Blume, LIVE at the Streicker Center!
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.4 • 602 Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this very special episode (and live event at the Streicker Center), Zibby interviews a literary icon: the extraordinary Judy Blume. Judy shares deeply personal stories—including how she coped with anxiety as a young girl, her childhood secrets, her complex relationship with religion, her journey into writing, and her evolution from children’s literature to adult fiction. The discussion touches on love, marriage, motherhood, aging, tap dancing, the joys of running a bookstore, and what it means to live a creative, meaningful, and enduringly curious life. Finally, she reflects on her legacy, gratitude for her readers, and the seriousness of today’s book-banning climate.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.4 | I was incredibly honored to interview Judy Bloom on stage at the Temple Emmanuel Stryker Center |
| 0:50.7 | in front of hundreds and hundreds of her adoring fans. I must say this was |
| 0:55.5 | like a life highlight for me. We had the best time. And she gave permission for us to use the audio |
| 1:02.8 | for this podcast, which was also incredibly generous. And I am very grateful. So now all of you |
| 1:08.3 | get to hear our really special conversation and get to know Judy in a whole new way. |
| 1:13.4 | For those of you who aren't familiar with Judy Blume, she is a legend. |
| 1:17.6 | Here's a little bit of her backstory. Judy Blume spent her childhood in Elizabeth, New Jersey, making up stories inside her head. |
| 1:26.0 | She has spent her adult years in many places doing the same thing. |
| 1:29.2 | Only now she writes her stories down on paper. Adults as well as children will recognize such |
| 1:33.8 | Judy Blum titles as Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, which was just made into a fabulous movie, |
| 1:39.5 | Blubber, just as long as we're together, and the five-book series about the irrepressible fudge, |
| 1:44.6 | beginning with Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. |
| 1:47.0 | Judy has also written novels for adults that include wifie, smart women, summer sisters, |
| 1:51.9 | and her most recent in the unlikely event, all of them, New York Times bestsellers. |
| 1:57.3 | Together, her 29 books have sold more than 92 million copies in 40 languages. |
| 2:03.9 | She was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American |
| 2:07.9 | Letters in 2004 and the Library of Congress's Living Legends Award in 2000. |
... |
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