Craft from the Couch: Episode 04 | Lauren Hough
A conversation with New York Times bestselling author Lauren Hough about a special topic. Plus, a discount code to Lauren's Substack, "Badreads."
Hello, and happy Wednesday!
Last week, we picked up some new subscribers thanks to my post on whether you should be writing an essay collection instead of a memoir. New subscribers, welcome! A few things for readers new and old alike before we talk to Lauren:
If you are a new subscriber, this footnote will tell you what we get up to here at Before and After the Book Deal.1 (This Substack is based on a guidebook to the publishing industry that I published with Catapult.)
If you are a new paid subscriber, you’ll want to check out the AMA (ask me anything) that I’m running the entire month of August. You can ask your question about publishing or writing directly in the comments and I’ll give you my best answer. Make sure to check out the exchanges we have going there; there are tons of questions being asked/answered, so you’re likely to find people struggling with issues that also challenge you. If you want to upgrade to ask a question this August, you can use the button below.
Registration is still open for the “Making Memoir Work” masterclass I’m teaching in September. All information is on my website— simply scroll down to the September Turning Points memoir course. Remember: my paying Substack subscribers get discounts to all Turning Points classes! The discount code is after the paywall at the end of last week’s post.
There has been a great demand to see photos of my French mother-in-law’s kitten. Ask, you shall receive:
Now that we have had our kitten fix, let’s get to talking dogs!
Take a seat: Welcome to “Craft from the Couch”
Craft from the Couch is a video interview series where I talk to writers about one specific topic and run a giveaway of their most recent book.2 In the past months we have welcomed:
Marie-Helene Bertino (BEAUTYLAND) on: Voice
Chloe Caldwell (WOMEN) on: Reprints
M.L. Rio (IF WE WERE VILLAINS) on: Deadlines
And today? We have none other than
on: Dogs.I’d like to preface this interview by explaining my own relationship to canines. If you read my May post about what got me through a challenging post-surgery recovery period, you’ll known I’m obsessed with the UK documentary “Dog House.” It would naturally follow that you might think I’m a dog person. Inside of me, there is the potential for a dog person to develop, but that development was arrested by the way that I grew up.
When people get divorced, they often hoist a freak flag that has been folded away in a dark cupboard somewhere, never getting sun. When my parents split, my mother got a Harley Davidson and my father procured not one but FIVE tremendous dogs. From the age of 13 until well into my thirties, my father kept a standing order of huge animals: five dogs at all times. In the beginning, there were two Bernese Mountain Dogs and three St. Bernards, but eventually, all five were St. Bernards: the largest of an already large breed.
Consequently, I shared my adolescence with seven hundred pounds of dog flesh. If you have ever experienced the viscous and pernicious perma-drip that is a St. Bernard’s drool, you will understand why I navigated my house with an apron every time I left my bedroom. Those dogs, they ate everything: tires, landlines, pizzas. Their drool was oceanic. Dog hair was the de facto upholstery for our furniture. My school uniform (a green plaid kilt) had snail-like drool marks coursing from east to west. All of my shoes…ha ha, what shoes? The terrible five gobbled up my footwear. It was hard for me, as an image-conscious teenager who hated stains and messiness, to be a fan of dogs.
Now that my father and stepmother are older, the standing order of large dogs has been reduced from five animals to two: a St. Bernard (obvs) and a Newfoundland. When we visit my family in Georgia, I have the impression that I’m watching my childhood repeat itself through the vehicle of my daughter who traipses about the house in one of her uncles’ massive sweatshirts so that the dogs drool on her sweatshirt instead of her clothes.
Given that dogs were a noisy, boisterous, unruly, unctuous presence in my childhood, when I got married, what I wanted more than anything on our registry was a purring, self-cleaning, independent cat. We adopted our first cat in 2008; a Maine Coon cat named Mylo. While Maine Coons are the largest of domestic cat breeds and are dog-like in their behavior, a cat is still a cat. My father’s side of the family was decorticated by this betrayal. I had ventured to the dark side. I had not stayed the course.
Contrary to everything I’ve shared, I do plan to make room in my home and heart for a canine in the future. When I’m an older lady living by the frigid beach in Brittany (my current retirement plan), I think it will make sense to have something large to care for that will force me outside of the house. Aesthetically, I like Beagles, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Lurchers and Saluki Crosses but I’ve heard horror stories about the incapacity of hunting dogs to live alongside cats without ending their lives. I cherish Newfoundlands, but I’ll have to start a savings account for the hip problems they have. My daughter wants a Pomeranian, and she wants one now. History repeats itself: I was forced to be a dog person as a child, so I elected to be a cat person. My daughter was born into a cat household so now she wants a dog.
It’s time to meet Lauren!
Someone who has had a much steadier relationship with dogs than me is the author Lauren Hough. Last week, I teed up Lauren’s “Craft from the Couch” episode with a post about essay collections vs. memoir in general, and her New York Times bestselling essay collection LEAVING ISN’T THE HARDEST THING, specifically.
In the words of Roxane Gay, Lauren’s debut is “a memoir in essays about so many things--growing up in an abusive cult, coming of age as a lesbian in the military, forced out by homophobia, living on the margins as a working class woman and what it's like to grow into the person you are meant to be.”
Lauren’s memoir-in-essays is an exceptional book that is seamless and original and wildly funny while also being devastating, and if you haven’t read it yet, I envy you, because the experience of reading LEAVING for the first time is really something special.
But we are not here to talk exclusively about Lauren’s memoir. Today, we’re tackling something that fuels her life, her writing, and her sanity (well, sometimes they break her sanity?) and that thing is: Dogs.
But before we get to dog talk, Lauren has a gracious gift for us:
A discount to BADREADS!
Lauren has created a link just for my subscribers that will give you a discount to her inimitable Substack BADREADS for an entire year! Click the hyperlink to take advantage of this offer—and thank you, Lauren, for offering it to us.
BADREADS makes for good reading. I hope you’ll take advantage of this deal! Now on to our convo.
Craft from the Couch: Episode 04 | Lauren Hough on Dogs
Steinbeck once said that “a dog is a bond between strangers.” Books are also a bond between strangers. I hope this conversation about dogs and books turns you into admirers of the deeply courageous, truly funny and matchless person that is Lauren Hough.
Thank you for listening and/or watching Craft from the Couch! Feel welcome to share your thoughts, memories or frustrations with canines in the comments.
Giveaway details:
Paid subscribers can enter to win the Craft from the Couch book giveaway by typing the special giveaway phrase from the video into the comments below. A few guidelines:
Book giveaways are a perk reserved for paid subscribers. Upgrade if you’d like to enter this giveaway and others.
Only residents in the continental United States can enter the giveaway.
The phrase must be typed exactly as Lauren read it with correct grammar and punctuation.
The winner will be notified in the comments and via Substack DM.
Stay tuned for September—our next Craft from the Couch interview will be with the wondrous Priyanka Mattoo whose memoir BIRD MILK AND MOSQUITO BONES came out this past June.
Enjoy the rest of your week, and thank you for being here.
Courtney
At “Before and After the Book Deal” (named after my publishing guidebook from 2020) readers will learn how to write better and gain valuable, actionable knowledge about the industry at large. To me, “learning to write better” does not only mean improving the quality of your creative writing on the page; it also encompasses writing about your own writing. Learning to identify—and communicate—what makes your writing unique and differentiated and readable is a skill I love to teach. We also do a ton of active reading, looking closely at texts from many genres to understand how celebrated authors write compelling stories. (Here is an example of an active reading post where I pit Ottessa Mosfegh against Colleen Hoover to see who does interiority better.) Nearly every Wednesday: Posts about craft conundrums and publishing tips with actionable advice, as well as “Craft from the Couch” dispatches (video interviews with other authors). These Wednesday posts are often behind a paywall. Occasional Fridays: Friday Office Hours, AMAs, book recommendations, book giveaways, job boards, subscriber workshops, a personal essay or a random rant. Friday posts are usually public but commenting, workshops and book giveaways are reserved for paid subscribers. I’m glad to have you here!
Read to the end of the post for giveaway details.
Another great episode! Not sure if someone has already been successful but:
It’s helpful, in the midst of an existential crisis, to find yourself driving a bread box Winnebago down a two-lane road, winding through Texas farmland.
In 1963, we lived for a year in a super-cool, Frank Lloyd Wright-ish type house in the well-heeled hills outside of Rockville, Maryland, housesitting for diplomats spending a year in Romania. We were at edge of a woods, on the perimeter of which were equally cool homes that were spaced far apart enough that we couldn't see each other. One day, my Dad picked up two reddish-tan beagle mixes from someone selling pups at the side of the road, and we immediately fell in love, naming them Ruffy and Tuffy. (We were five kids.) My French mother was not a dog person, but of course they adored her most for feeding them. We never had to walk them, because they did their business in the woods, where they loved running around with us. Near the end of our year there, I think they sensed somehow we were leaving this paradise, and one day simply did not come home when called. (This was in the days you often didn't even collar your dogs with ID if you live somewhat in the country.) We chose to believe they were adopted by one of the horse-owning families on the other side of the woods and turned into hunting hounds, which would totally have suited them. If they had a more untoward fate, (like being hit by a car) my parents were wise enough not to tell us, but our next dog, Zorro, was collared, tagged and regularly walked down our classic suburban street.
[I vote for a rescue mutt for you. Mixed breeds are also the healthiest.]