Zibby is joined by the renowned founder of Well-Read Black Girl, Glory Edim, to discuss her inspiring memoir of family, community, resilience, and literature, GATHER ME: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me. Glory reflects on the books that were a refuge and guiding force throughout her life, especially in her childhood when her mother struggled with depression. She also highlights the authors that shaped her development, influencing how she approaches relationships, love, and activism. Finally, she describes her journey as a mother, from passing on her Nigerian traditions to surrounding her son with books—although all he can think about are monster trucks!

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome Glory. Thank you so much for coming back on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

Oh my gosh. So nice to see you again. 

Glory: Nice to see you as well. Thank you for having me. 

Zibby: I was just saying that I want to pick this. This will be my January book club pick. I'm so excited. I'm obsessed with this book. It was so good. And I can't wait to talk to you more and have everybody read it. Shout it from the rooftops.

Glory: Oh, thank you. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh. Okay. So, Glory, tell everybody, gather me a memoir in praise of the books that saved me. Tell everybody why you started writing the memoir, what it's about, the whole spiel. 

Glory: Oh, yes. Okay. So Gather Me is my memoir. It talks about all the books that I read throughout my life, especially when I was having challenging moments, when I was, you know, experiencing issues with my mother, she was experiencing severe depression, when I was trying to figure out how to go into motherhood when I was a child, just really trying to find myself.

So I think of it of my almost like my history in books, all the things that I read to help me form my childhood perspective and also me as an adult, you know, and there were so many things I reread and came back to time and time again. And so I found a way to document that journey in my book. And it was really, uh, I would say like a life changing experience.

Cause I don't think most times we sit back and like, you know, really look at our lives and all the choices we made or opportunities that came before us and allowed me to really reflect. On all those moments in my life. 

Zibby: It's so good. There are so many passages that I marked. Can I read a few and maybe we talk about them a little bit?

Okay, let's see. Page 18 and 19. Okay, this is about how you used to read with your brother, who is a huge character in this book. And I won't give things away, but you have a scene with him later in the book where you basically fix this giant problem and you're crying in the car on all on the way to you know, dealing with this, or you can share whatever you want.

I don't just want to tell your story, but the relationship you have with your brother, I think, is one of these main through lines of the story. And as someone with a younger brother, I like, oh my gosh. Anyway, just related to it. Maurice and I would huddle in the living room as they fought, meaning your parents, trying to distract each other with stupid games or our own little squabbles.

When my father would stumble out of the house and my mother would weep in her room. When the silence in the house seemed to press down on us in a way that made us gasp for breath, I would pick up Maurice and put him on the beanbag, then climb in next to him, dragging the big yellow book of Bible stories along with me.

For a moment we'd just sit side by side, my brother's little shoulder pressed up against mine, feeling the way the beanbag settled to the contours of our bodies and swelled up around us, soft and supportive. Ready, I'd ask Maurice, and he'd nod in return, his big brown eyes locked onto mine. This is a book of true stories I recited doing my best imitation of my mother's soft, patient voice. It was my turn to teach someone to read. Oh, I love that. 

Glory: This is like one of my first interviews talking about the books. I'm like trying to like stay composed and not cry, I mean. Me and my brother are extremely close and he actually just got married.

We had his wedding last month and it's been amazing to just like see how we've evolved and how our relationship continues to get stronger and stronger. But yes, like I used to read to him all the time. A lot of times like he wouldn't even know what I was picking up. I would just like find something in the vicinity and just like use it to comfort him or just, find ways to distract ourselves from what was going on around us.

Like as you mentioned, my parents had a challenging relationship, you know, so moments of tension, agitation, sometimes fighting, and to distract ourselves from that we would read together, we would go to our room, we would escape to the library. So I talk about that moment, that experience throughout the book, and I'm actually wearing a bracelet right now that says It says, trust the journey.

I don't know if you can see it, but my brother gave me that. He gave me that right before I started writing the book. And so we have like this, I don't know, I don't want to call it a special language, but a way that we can communicate and understand each other because we grew up in the same household and we understand how complicated it was and how vulnerable we felt with one another.

But we always like continue to trust the journey. And now in adulthood, yes, those things were extremely hard, but we were able to and have a sense of resilience, a sense of hope, and we both, I'm proud to say like we have like really incredible lives and we've been able to really accomplish a lot despite the things we experienced in our childhood.

So I really believe in this mode motto of like trusting the journey, writing your story, and just like seeing things through. I can't believe you picked that passage because that's like one of my favorite parts of the book, just like me and my brother just like being together and surviving it all together.

Zibby: Oh my gosh, I love that. There is something about how we go through all this stuff and the only people who really get it are the one, are the siblings through it all, right? 

Glory: Yeah. 

Zibby: I mean, it's just amazing. I interviewed somebody recently who had just lost his sister, actually Richard Powers, had just lost his sister and he was just saying like, they had just been so close and gone through everything together.

That the fact that she passed away, and I was so worried reading your book, I was so worried your brother was gonna have passed away or something, because I didn't know where it was going. Then I was like, thank goodness, you're like, we're still really close. And I was like, yes, thank God you told me that early on.

Glory: Yeah, it was a good ending. And I mean, that thing about having, because outside of your parents, if you have a sibling, that's like the person who knows you the longest, who understands your quirks, the nuances of your family dynamic. And I'm the oldest. Maurice is my middle brother. Then we have a younger brother who's like 13 years apart.

So our dynamic. is different too because I'm so much older. So me, Maurice are five years apart. So they're, they're just like a different relationship and I'm close with all my siblings, but there's definitely a different relationship between Maurice and I. And because he also like followed in my footsteps, he went to Howard like me and like, you know, he, he was just always at attached to my hip growing up in a way that my youngest brother, he ended up going to boarding school.

It was a little bit different. So Maurice and I had definitely have a special relationship. 

Zibby: I couldn't believe when you said you would walk around holding Tenday because you basically had full responsibility for taking care of him when you were 13 and people would sort of look at you like shaking their heads as if you were the mom and you kept being like, he's my brother.

Glory: He's my brother. Oh my goodness. Like that was a thing. So my youngest brother, like that big age gap of 13 years and again, he was always with me. I was always like babysitting or you know, had. I don't know if you've heard that saying like the eldest daughter syndrome where like the eldest daughter has to do all the things like she's like the manager of the house that definitely applied to me because I had to really maintain our household when my parents were working.

And with, with Cindy, my youngest brother, oh my goodness, like, if I would go to cheerleading practice, he was right there with me and people would make assumptions and, and I mean, now, now that I like look back, I can, I don't say I understand, but like, It seems so ridiculous that people make that assumption, but, you know, that's the reality.

People will project things, they have their own biases, and I just was, would make the correction, like, this is my brother. I love him immensely, but I'm not, like, a young mom. I'm just a sibling taking care of my brothers, and I just didn't want that judgment. That judgment felt, like, really, like, like unfair and just, you know, at times people would just make it ugly, make a thing that was like really pure and beautiful and make it ugly.

Zibby: People can be so, so mean. People can be so mean. Oh my gosh. Well, anyway, I loved that aspect of the story. Okay. Hold on one more. I have so much. I could talk to you about like 8 million different things related to your story, but wait one second. Okay. Let's talk about, um, You finding books, because that is one of the, obviously, main through lines of the story.

And you just said, There's something magical about finding just the right book at just the right time. It has happened to me over and over, and it never feels like a coincidence. It feels like fate or grace. If I believed in angels, my seraphim would speak to me through printed words on a page. 

Glory: Oh, my goodness.

Yes. I'm like, I love hearing. I mean, maybe you should do my audio book.

Zibby: Work for hire. Yes. Go. I'm happy to do it. 

Glory: I, I like, as I think about it, you know, writing my memoir was a journey of discovering Like myself and it was also like this process of reflection, like thinking about all the things that, that made me, me, you know, like really a lot of the books were cemented in this idea of who I was becoming.

So Maya Angelou was a huge, huge part of that. milestone for me, reading her work, seeing her face. Like I remember like getting the book and then, you know, back in the day, sometimes the, the author's face would cover the whole back cover and just like her distinct features. Like I felt like her eyes and her nose and her mouth, like we, we just had similar features.

And I just felt like a kindred spirit, like very drawn to her photo. But then when I started reading the actual words, it was, it was, a little dense. It was, I mean, I was like 12, 13 at the time. So the subjects were very intense. You know, she's talking about like raising a child and sexual assault and like protesting and activism.

Like she's talking about all these like really complicated things. And my mind is kind of like trying to keep up and understand. And at the time I didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. So I would just like read these things and kind of take them in. And it wasn't until I was in high school that I was able to really kind of like, okay, okay.

These books are teaching me lessons, and they're also providing a space for me that perhaps I'm lacking in other areas of my life. Like, this isn't a space that I can necessarily go to my mom or my dad. I can have these books as a wonderful substitute and a mentorship of sorts. And some books, like, I would read and I wouldn't even understand the lessons until much later.

Like, I mentioned Little Women and how, you know, I really loved, like, Jo March. And I think a lot of people can relate to that because like, like, little women is like canon. Everyone reads that book, but like her being a writer, I was like, so drawn to that aspect and her being independent. And so like resilient, you know, and I, all those characters and like scenes I would read, they just made me feel like, okay, this is the person I want to become.

And then as I got older, I would say in adulthood, the books I selected were more intentional versus in childhood, it was kind of haphazard. I would see a book that maybe I really liked the cover or I had to read it because of my syllabus at school or something. But then in adulthood, like when I was thinking about relationships and love, like I really sought out books that I felt like would teach me lessons.

And I like wrote in the margins and highlighted everything. Like I have read. Salvation by bell hooks so many times. Like it's like ridiculous. Like I've read that book. So in all about love, I've read that book so many times in different areas of my life. And you know, sometimes it's after a breakup or sometimes it's just like this idea of resetting what and the love ethic looks like.

I really believe in like practicing. love in all areas of my life. I'm like thinking about, you know, romantic relationships, but I'm also thinking about my family, and I'm also thinking about my son, and in the community that I'm building, I want like love to be centered at that. So as I got older, the books I sel I selected and talked about in the memoir were more, uh, more intentional about who I was trying to become, and how I wanted to show up in the world.

So, um, yeah, There were, I mean, there were so many things. I'm trying to think of a, oh, Nikki Giovanni. Nikki Giovanni really, really did influence how I thought about politics and how I would, when I think about activism and being radical, like that, she really shapes my viewpoint because she is just so forthright and so clear about her convictions.

And she does that in her poetry, but she also shows up that way as a professor. And like, I just. I really was drawn to her, to her work and how dynamic it was and how it didn't, it didn't seem pinch and hold. She just wasn't doing one thing like she was able to really be multifaceted and then, and I felt like that for so many of the authors, they just had so much range and depth and so much beauty in their work that I could like kind of pick and choose what I needed to feed me.

And I wrote about those different scenes and experiences to kind of share people, share with people. Cause I, I think people assume, you know, because I did well, we're a black girl that perhaps. And when I say, well, we're a black girl, my organization, my literary organization, perhaps like nothing has ever happened to me.

Like, I mean, I've had book club members come up to me like, Oh, you're so happy. Like, you're always so happy. And I'm just like, yes. And like, I'm, I'm very optimistic and hopeful, but I've also had challenging experiences. And I would like to share. that with people because I want them to know despite the experiences you might have, you can still accomplish a lot and you can still tell your story.

You shouldn't be ashamed of that. And I couldn't have written this book 10 years ago. I couldn't, I like, I mean, there's no way. I had so much. stuff to still process through about my relationship with my mother. I hadn't become a mother myself yet and that turn of motherhood really made me more compassionate towards my parents and made me like understand the the sacrifices they made and just the willingness they had to give us a good life despite their limited resources. So there was just like this full circle moment that like, I feel like within the last couple years, like this was like the perfect time for me to write it and really understand who I, who I am, you know, and now I'm, I'm like, I'm in my 40s, I'm 40. And so I'm just like, it took like two decades to get there.

But now that I'm here, I'm so happy. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, I love it. Well, I was so excited even when I heard you had a memoir, because obviously I, you know, I read, interviewed you, what, when did that come out? Four years ago or something? 

Glory: What? Yeah, it was like 2018. Like, I mean, so much has changed. 

Zibby: Six years ago. Oh my gosh.

Yeah, yeah. And you, like, came over and whatever, and I was like, and I've been following along as I've watched you grow your organization. And, I'll be it. I'm somewhat jealous, to be honest, with your like massive growth. I'm like, I can learn from her. Like, what is I doing wrong? What does she do?

Glory: Oh, I feel like we, I feel like we're, like, I feel like it's like book club sisters.

Seriously. I feel like we're a beautiful, like, alliance of awesome book clubs on the internet, in real life. And we're, it's like we're all cousins and like at the family reunion, you know, like I feel like I learned so much from you too. And I love, love your imprint. Like I've been reading, like I read all your books and your authors.

Zibby: Oh my gosh, you're so nice. 

Glory: The feeling is mutual. It's very, very mutual. 

Zibby: We need to take this on the road, like you and me and maybe get like two other people with different communities, like tapping into all different people and do one big event together. Wouldn't that be fun? 

Glory: That'd be so brilliant. I would love that.

Zibby: Let's do it. Yeah, that'd be really fun. Yeah, I love it. Okay, back to more stuff from your book. Well, I do want to talk about your mom, but wait, a couple more. Hold on. Oh my God, Obama reading in the book. 

Glory: Oh, yes. Yes. 

Zibby: Okay. Well, this is the last, the very last thing. I have like 20 more, but I'm going to run out of time.

Let me just read one more passage on books and then I want to talk about your mom. You said, books made me, this is a letter to your son. Books made me who I am, Zeke. Zeke, right? That's how you pronounce it? Zeke. They gave me wisdom and laughter, beauty and truth. Books challenged me and comforted me. They made me stretch and grow.

Books showed me how to dream and plan. They made me cry in big gasping, ugly sobs. Books made me furious. Sometimes they put me to sleep. Books made me nostalgic and gave me great hope for the future. They gave me a mirror to look into, a voice to my pain. They showed me a path. They lifted me to the stars.

They let me escape to a new world when the world I was living in was barely survivable. I was saved by books, my little son. Books and words are what I have to offer you. They are your inheritance. They are your legacy. They are the truest manifestation of my love. Glory, that's so amazing. I mean, it's all just so amazing.

It's so beautiful.

Glory: I, I, I love, I love my books, but I, I love my son so much. Motherhood really changed how I approached everything because like, I mean, I'm sure you understand, like, it becomes like, everything is for your kids, like everything that you're building and growing and trying to like put together it's, it's in one way or the other, it's like a form of legacy building and it's love.

It's just like, I love him so much. And I, I feel like. I want to impart so many lessons to him. I want him to have a good understanding of the makeup of our family, which is complicated, you know, like I am first generation and I was born here in the United States. My, both of my parents are Nigerian, but I didn't necessarily, I went, I go visit Nigeria a lot, but I didn't grow up in the fabric of a, traditional Nigerian home in Nigeria, which is just like, that's just what it is.

It's just, it's just different. I love where I'm from, but I didn't grow up there. So I feel like I'm always constantly trying to understand that duality. And now I have a child. I'm also trying to teach him about where he's from. So yes, we're going to make trips and we're going to go, we're going to eat the food.

We're going to, you know, learn the language. But it feels like a really immense responsibility, so I want to just be mindful about the things that I show him and my first, I don't know, my first thing to do is I go to a book, you know, so he has like a little book about Nigeria. Oh, I love that. You know, like, and so we're like, we're like, We read things, we do things with his grandmother, and we, like, my, again, my brother's wedding was recently, so we had a moment where we had, like, a ceremony, and we had, like, Nigerian flags, and so he can probably say, like, I'm Nigerian, he understands the flag, you know, like, I just want him to understand the history of our family, and, you know, Hopefully when he's an adult and he's able to process and understand everything, he can read this and we could talk about it together.

And perhaps he'll continue to add to the story. If he's a writer, you know, I would like love that. Or he's an artist, a creative person, he can continue the, the lineage of what our story is, including, you know, His on his father's side too. You know, there's so many beautiful attributes for his father too.

So I just want him to have a very well-rounded and full understanding of who he is. And I know for me Books did that, and I hope books do that for him too. I don't wanna assume, but I will be pushing that direction. For . 

Zibby: I feel like my greatest accomplishment, his mom, is that I've raised book lovers, particularly my youngest son, who's nine.

Almost 10. And the other day we were like leaving some activity and I was like, how was it? And he was like, I'd rather just be home reading a book. 

Glory: That's so awesome. 

Zibby: I know. I was like, my job here is done. 

Glory: I am definitely planting seeds. And I know it's like a long game, you know? 

Zibby: Yeah. It's a long game. 

Glory: Yeah.

I'm just like slowly but surely, but if you have any other tips, like momming tips on, you know, raising a reader, I will happily accept because I, he's really into monster trucks right now, so, and trains, wheels, anything like that's a vehicle, that's his jam. Again, he's four, but. I'm like trying to. 

Zibby: I think he's already going to be fine because he's surrounded by books.

I think that's one of the most important things, be surrounded by book lovers, be surrounded by people talking about the love of books. And I mean, you know, I'm sure you too, like I take my kids to bookstores on the weekend. We go to libraries. We go to like, that's like part of our thing. It's like another book event.

You know, that's their whole life. 

Glory: Yeah, absolutely. Right now, I was actually trying to do, like, clean out my, my books. I was like, oh, let me do like a book swap with some friends, so I have some books on the floor in my living room. And he's made it into a fort, and he's been calling it Book City. And so I'm just like, okay, like, you're not reading them.

And I'm like, please, I'm, Tear the pages, but you can play with them. So yeah, we are surrounded, like so many books in the house everywhere. And so he makes his little book cities, too. 

Zibby: We had one when my son was younger. He put all the books and like made pathways like around the house, you know, like into different rooms.

We would have to follow the books and yeah, just like have, buy books, not blocks. I don't know. 

Glory: Right. 

Zibby: Um, I know I said I want to talk about your mom, which I do, but I also have to read this last passage and then I promise I will stop reading from your book. But in the book, you also chronicle your own.

relationships and a difficult relationship and Tony and Chris and all of the loves of your life and where you are now and love in general. And I love, I love where you end up in the book, but here's where, can I say this or is it giving it away? 

Glory: Okay. 

Zibby: You say the next time I fall in love or this actually made me cry.

I feel like I'm going to cry reading this again. The next time I fall in love, words will fly between us like shooting stars. The next time I fall in love, I will lay in my man's arms as he whispers all the things he loves about me, telling me the way he sees me. I will let his words roll over me, stoking my fire with his voice.

The next time I fall in love, there will be endless poetry and prose and prayer between us. The next time I fall in love, we will sing together in the kitchen on rainy Sunday mornings. The next time I fall in love, we will yell when it is necessary. Then we will sweeten our voices and make up. Humming our forgiveness.

The next time I fall in love, there will be jokes told. Silliness and clowning. There will be laughter that rings through our whole home. The next time I fall in love, our life will be filled with words. 

Glory: That was like a really, you know, that was like probably the freshest part of my memoir. Just like talking about.

that separation and just like all the things that I'm longing for and I desire in the future. That was really challenging. That definitely was like the hardest part of it because I mean, I mean, I cry.

Zibby: It's okay. 

Glory: For the, for the most part, my, the experiences with my mother and my father and my brothers, that has been a lot of therapy, a lot of resolution.

I was in a good place to write about that because there was enough distance. I felt like I could be vulnerable and objective enough to write about that. Whereas, you know, my, separation and that that was very recent that happened during the pandemic. It was still my son had just been born. It was a very it was a very hard decision to come to that.

But I knew what was best for me and what in the future that I long for for my son. And that kind of really was like my North Star. I knew I had to make this decision. So it was very hard, but I have such a clear vision of what I want in the future and the love that I want to experience. And I'm adamant about experiencing that and I'm not going to settle or compromise.

Like, I just feel like I have a, very firm understanding of who I am now. And I can even see, you know, what drew me to that place, you know, in the beginning, you know, because I was a different person. I was much younger. And, and, you know, it's just like all these things, like, I don't even know if I can clearly articulate, there's so many things that have happened over the last couple of years, but I'm very proud to say, like, I feel like I'm in a space where I know myself, I know my value, I know my worth, and I love myself, you know, like, I am not compromising when it comes to that.

And in that space, I was thinking so much about bell hooks, I was thinking so much about Toni Morrison, there are lines from their books that really Holds me and when I feel maybe discouraged or you know, the dating scene isn't as like amazing as I want it to be I go back to that I go back to those lines.

I go back to like wanting that love that is very open and expressive and really brings me to a place of joy and happiness. Like I don't want to be silent. I don't want my relationship to be that way either. And so it was a, it was challenging and I'm, I know people can relate to that in so many levels, you know, when you're making a transition, when you're deciding to leave a romantic partner, or just trust yourself and love yourself.

Like you have to have so much conviction and trust yourself throughout the process. So I wrote that just knowing that I had to be honest with myself. I really had to be. very clear about like what I wanted for my future and I don't know I feel like I feel good about it. I feel like it's coming and I feel like there's just so many more possibilities in my future love wise and otherwise, you know, that maybe that's the second half of our tour.

It's like a dating show. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Glory: Bring some romance authors. You know. 

Zibby: Totally. Totally. 

Glory: Do some setups, you know. 

Zibby: Yeah. But yeah. 

Glory: We could do our own version of like love is blind for books. 

Zibby: We could totally do that. Yeah. I mean, I went through divorce and remarriage. I, I, it's just, it's never a straight line. 

Glory: It's never a straight line.

I put that on a shirt, Debbie. It's never a straight line. Like seriously, like. And that's why I wrote, like, my story, because it's so true on so many levels. Whether it's your career, motherhood, relationships, it's never a straight line. Like, you will just continue to have ups and downs, contours, like, all kinds of things will happen, but you have to continue to trust yourself and, like, really get through it.

Like trust your intuition, and I will say for sure that's one thing that was probably like the biggest discovery or takeaway from this writing experience and trying to like kind of pull out all these different memories. It's like, oh, like, I trust myself I know like who, who I am, and maybe I didn't so much when I was 19 or 20, but glory today knows who I am and I can like trust my decisions.

Zibby: Well, I dare anyone to read this and not fall in love with you. I mean, I mean it. It is so good. And even the way you start your introduction is like the best introduction I've read ever in my life. And how in the beginning you're, you know, when you describe well read black girl and you're like, you know, reader, I kept the shirt and left the man and we're like, yes, you know, like, I mean, we are rooting for you for the first page and all the stuff you go through and oh my gosh, your mom's depression too.

I didn't, we didn't even have time to touch on it as much, but how you got through that and her silence for so long. And how she just like came back it. So much stuff. Anyway, Gloria, everybody needs to read this book. I'm obsessed. You are amazing and let's do lots more stuff together. Really? 

Glory: Yes. 

Zibby: Sorry, I'm like embarrassingly phoning over you here.

But no, no, I'm a huge thing. 

Glory: The feeling is mutual. Like I'm ready to do all the things. I'm really grateful that you're, this is like officially one of my like first interviews for the book book. This is a re really good primer. I really appreciate you all your work, your team. It's, it's, I mean, it's phenomenal.

So I, I really want to just let you know the feeling is mutual. I've been watching and admiring and like giving emoji hearts online. I feel like that's the way we all love each other. Like pressing like and sharing. I thank you for this opportunity. And I can't wait for January. That sounds very exciting.

And I'll come up, I'll come up to New York. 

Zibby: Okay. Amazing. We'll plan. Okay. To be continued. 

Glory: Okay. 

Zibby: Thank you, Glory. All right. Good luck with everything. Okay. Bye. Bye.