Hi, I'm Zivie Owens, and I am the host of this podcast. Moms don't have time to read books.

I am also a newly minted USA Today bestselling author of the novel, Blank.

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Jamie Ficarola is back on Momsone have time to read books to discuss Mother Island,

a daughter claims Puerto Rico.

Jamie is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Brother, Sister, Mother Explorer.

Long-listed for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, and shortlisted for the Reading

The West Book Award, Figueroa's debut novel, brims with spill-binding prose, magical elements,

and wounded, full-hearted characters that

nearly jump off the page. Faculty in the MFA creative writing program at the Institute of American

Indian Arts, Figueroa's writing has appeared in American short fiction, emergence magazine

L. McSweeney's Agney, The New York Times, and the Boston Review, among others. Avona Alam,

she received a Truman Capote Award and was a breadloaf, Rona Jaffe scholar. Boriqua, Afro-Taino,

by way of Ohio, Figueroa is a longtime residence of northern New Mexico.

Welcome, Jamie. Thank you so much for coming back on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

To discuss Mother Island Daughter Claims Puerto Rico. This book was so beautiful. Oh my gosh. Congratulations.

Thank you so very much. I appreciate all the work that you do in the world. It's so inspiring,

and I really appreciate you having me back. Oh my gosh. Seriously. I mean, the way you write really about

everything, but even like there was a passage you wrote about the hot stones that you were using

for your massages and how they were like just melting into your client's backs and the heat.

...