Katya Apekina, MOTHER DOLL
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.4 • 602 Ratings
🗓️ 13 March 2024
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zibby is joined by award-winning novelist, screenwriter, and translator Katya Apekina to discuss MOTHER DOLL, a spellbinding, hallucinatory, and very funny novel about four generations of mothers and daughters and the inherited trauma cast by Russian history. Katya describes her novel’s protagonist, Zhenia, a young woman navigating pregnancy and a complex relationship in LA, and the strange phone call she receives from a medium channeling her dead great-grandmother, a Russian revolutionary. She delves into themes of ancestral trauma, grief, relationships, abortion, and creative process, touching on her own experiences and inspirations. Finally, she shares her best advice for aspiring authors.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Zivie Owens, and I am the host of this podcast. Moms don't have time to read books. |
| 0:08.1 | I am also a newly minted USA Today bestselling author of the novel, Blank. |
| 0:14.2 | I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats, a bookstore, and more. |
| 0:21.8 | Learn more at zivimedia.com or follow me on social at Zivie Owens or join the community at |
| 0:28.4 | Zibby Readers. Katya Apakina is the author of Mother Doll, a novel. Katia is a novelist, |
| 0:36.1 | screenwriter, and translator. Her novel, The Deeper, the Water, the Uglier the Fish, was named a best book of 2018 by Kirkus, BuzzFeed, Litav, and others. It was a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, and has been translated into Spanish, Catalan, French, German, and Italian. She has published stories in various literary magazines, and translated poetry and prose for night wraps the sky |
| 0:54.2 | writings by and about Mayakovsky shortlisted for the best translated book award she co-wrote |
| 0:59.4 | the screenplay for the feature film new Orleans mona more which premiered it south by southwest in |
| 1:03.8 | 2008 she is the recipient of an elizabeth george grant an olin felonship the elena wilson prize and a third-year |
| 1:09.8 | fiction fellowship from washington university in st louis where she did her MFA. She has done residencies at VCCA, Playa, |
| 1:16.6 | Ucross, Art Omi, Writing, and Foundation, Jan McColsky, and Switzerland. Born in Moscow, she grew up |
| 1:22.2 | in Boston and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and dog. Welcome, Katia. |
| 1:27.2 | Thank you so much for coming |
| 1:28.6 | on moms. Don't have time to read books to discuss Mother Doll, a novel. Thank you so much for having me. |
| 1:34.9 | Listeners, Katia is in L.A. right now, and it is five in the morning, and she is still doing this |
| 1:41.8 | podcast. So for everybody out there, even like in your cars or wherever you are, |
| 1:46.6 | just like stop and applaud that Katya got up so early for this. |
| 1:51.0 | Go follow her on Instagram and read her book and do all the things because this is like true dedication. |
| 1:58.6 | Thank you so much. |
| 2:00.3 | It's really exciting to be here. Okay, so Mother Doll, please tell |
| 2:05.5 | listeners what your book is about. So my book is about this woman, Jenga, who is in her early 20s, |
| 2:13.4 | living in Los Angeles. She's pregnant. She's in a relationship she's sort of sleepwalked into. |
... |
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