Jessica Lahey, THE GIFT OF FAILURE: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed + THE ADDICTION INOCULATION: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence
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[0:41]Jessica Leahy is the author of The New York Times Best-selling book, The Gift of Failure,
[0:45]how the best parents learn to let go so their children can succeed.
[0:48]And the addiction and oculation, raising healthy kids in a culture of dependence.
[0:53]Over 20 years, Jess has taught every grade from 6th to 12th in both public and private
[0:58]schools, and spent 5 years teaching in a drug and alcohol rehab for adolescents in Vermont.
[1:03]And she currently serves as a prevention and recovery coach at Sana at Stowe, a medical detox
[1:09]and recovery center in Stowe, Vermont.
[1:11]She writes about education, parenting, and child welfare for the Washington Post, the Atlantic,
[1:16]and the Atlantic, and is a book critic for air mail.
[1:19]Her biweekly column, The Parent Teacher Conference, ran for 3 years in The New York Times.
[1:23]She designed and wrote the educational curriculum for Amazon Kids' Award-winning animated series, The Stinky and Dirty Show,
[1:29]and was a 2019 pushcard prize nominee for her creative nonfiction magazine essay, I've taught Monsters.
[1:36]Jess holds the dubious honor of having written an article that was later adapted as a writing prompt for the 2018 SAT.
[1:43]She co-hosted the hashtag amwriting podcast with best-selling author, KJ, Del Antonio, and Serena Bowen,
[1:49]column, which by the way, they had me on as a guest, which was super nice.
[1:52]And she lives in Vermont with her husband, two sons, and a lot of dogs.
[1:56]Welcome, Jessica.
[1:57]Thank you so much for coming on mom's time to read books to discuss the addiction and
[2:02]inoculation, raising healthy kids in a cultural dependence, and the gift of failure, how the best parents learn to let go.
[2:09]So their children can succeed.
[2:11]And thank you for all the bookmarks, which are fabulous.
[2:13]Oh, that's so welcome.
[2:14]The bookmarks are fun actually as a first, speaking gigs, because people always want takeaways.
[2:19]So if you put takeaways on the bookmarks, then people can actually literally take them away, the advice away with them.
[2:26]Interesting. I like it.
[2:28]Yes.
[2:29]Number one of a thousand helpful things you will say in this podcast.
[2:32]Okay, you can check.
[2:33]Okay, this book, I like fell in love with you on the page with your whole story, which I did not know about.
[2:41]First of all, you are like tied for first and best opening lines of a book ever.
[2:46]Hi, my name is Jess, and I'm an alcoholic.
[2:48]The first chapter of this is like a whole memoir to me.
[2:52]It's like, I wanted more and more and more.
[2:54]Which, did you write that memoir?
[2:56]What's going on? Did you write that?
[2:58]No, my favorite books to read are nonfiction at the intersection of research into like, there's a wonderful book by Lulu Miller.
[3:08]They came out like two years ago called Fish, don't exist.
[3:11]And sort of those kind of books where you're researching something and then you realize holy crow, there's a lot of memoir here too.
[3:18]So that intersection of memoir and nonfiction research based nonfiction is one of my favorite places to be.
[3:24]Wow.
[3:25]Well, you were so open with your own story and how you identified how you've resisted the family history, how you fell into it, how you were such a high functioning alcoholic,
[3:37]how your friends didn't even believe you and you finally told them because he hit it so well.
[3:42]And how you're using your own experience of getting sober and how you're trying to protect your kids and thankfully by extension all of our kids.
[3:51]So, yeah.
[3:52]Yeah, it was, you know, as soon as I sort of got a hold on my stuff.
[3:56]And I went to go look at like, okay, now what am I dealing with? Clearly there's genetics, there's all kinds of other stuff.
[4:02]And, you know, the, the wisdom out there is substance use disorder is preventable, but that word preventable.
[4:08]I mean, what does that even mean like what's in our control, what's not in our control, all that sort of stuff.
[4:13]So given that I didn't have a horse in any particular race in terms of like, it's a brain, you know, substance use disorders brain disease substance use disorders,
[4:23]developmental issues, substance use disorder is a response to trauma.
[4:27]I got to just research everything and sort of pick and figure out what actually has the most evidence behind it.
[4:35]So it was, and I'm a big research geek.
[4:38]I love the research, love it, love it, love it.
[4:41]So that's why the journalism that I've done and the books that I've done are all about like, let me go find out the answer to this question and then translator for people who don't want to do all the research themselves.
[4:51]So nice of you. Thank you for that.
[4:53]Next big pressing issues I have. I'm going to, you know, come your way and just be like, if you would just solve this problem for my kids and me, that would be great.
[5:03]Well, it's funny because when people say, especially when I was doing when I was writing, I wrote for a couple of years at the Atlantic.
[5:10]And people say, you know, where do you get your ideas and, you know, how do you manage to have articles that, you know, do well over and over again.
[5:17]Well, luckily, I guess other people are as interested in the big question marks having to do with education and parenting and all that sort of stuff.
[5:24]As I am. So my, my position has always been right about the stuff that interests you the most.
[5:30]And often I hope that, you know, readers will follow, but trying to write to what other people want, I think, obviously you have to know your audience and write to an audience and all that sort of stuff, but trying to follow trends and writing is just sort of a losing game.
[5:45]Either you have to be interested or.
[5:47]Yeah, well, if you're, if you're not, nobody else.
[5:49]I mean, because you can tell, you can tell and you're writing if you're just like phoning it in right.
[5:53]Well, and that's works with teaching too, like it's so much easier to get students interested in, you know, something you're reading or something unassignment if you're really pumped about it.
[6:03]Some of that energy transfers over.
[6:05]Writing is always at its best when I'm either playing my the most successful blog post I ever wrote with something I wrote just because I needed to fall in love with writing again.
[6:16]And it was just a silly thing and it's been one of the most successful things I've ever written in terms of my own blog or the books, you know, you have to be willing to live with ideas and questions and promotion for years.
[6:29]So boy, if you don't like it going in, you're in big trouble.
[6:32]Yes.
[6:33]Wait, so when I want to talk more about let's start with this because I want I want people to know the few takeaways that might be on the bookmark for this podcast.
[6:43]If they want to prevent or do whatever they can to prevent their children from drug addiction alcohol, all of that.
[6:51]I think there are many chapters all of which have very effective lists and things and how you parent and not my kid and you had the whole thing on like get enough sleep and I was like, oh no, well, except for me is ever my kid is it like we're both doomed we're all doomed.
[7:08]What are like the top three things we need to remember.
[7:11]So the very first thing and I think if you were to interview someone like I don't know Peggy Ornstein inner books boys and sex girls and sex, those are, you know, any hard conversation any conversation that makes you really nervous.
[7:22]The more often you have it the earlier you start and the more you sort of have that conversation be something that you know sort of grows with your kid and it developmentally and you know if it's glee appropriate way.
[7:34]The easier those conversations get like the first time I talked to my kids about my substance use disorder.
[7:40]I just I threw up you know it was really scary, but the more you have those conversations whether it's sex whether it's drugs whether it's you know any high risk activity the easier it gets so.
[7:51]start early talk early talk often and in the book I give scripts about how to do that and when I say early I'm talking preschool kindergarten and you know those starts start with conversations about you know safety and what we put in our body and you know thinking about.
[8:08]why prescriptions have someone's name on them and it doesn't just say you know anybody can take this kind of thing and then.
[8:15]besides start talk early talk often delay delay delay I'm not only because so 90% of people who have substance use disorder in adulthood started before they were started taking drugs now call before they were 18 and.
[8:30]statistically speaking, the later a kid the older a kid is when they try drugs and alcohol for the first time.
[8:36]The lower their likelihood is of developing substance use disorder during their lifetime so a kid at like in eighth grade if they try drugs and alcohol for the first time.
[8:45]They have like a 50% chance of having substance use disorder during their lifetime and if they start at 18 or 21.
[8:52]they get that all the way down to 10% and there was a lot of stuff so those are the first two most important things you know the talk early talk often delay delay delay and then be willing to think about some of the.
[9:08]assumptions that you make about drugs and alcohol and also about your own use and about the use in your family and just try to be a little objective about it because when I start talking about risk factors.
[9:20]And then we're really common things you know divorce and separation and adoption and things like that and there's no blame no shame here this is just about information that information is really helpful and you know the big one that tends to really piss people off is people really really want to believe that sort of.
[9:40]that my kids have zips of alcohol in our house before there of age it'll sort of somehow teach the moderation and they won't go as crazy later and that is absolutely 100% a myth and not only because we can't teach moderation but because the European Union as a whole has the largest.
[10:00]the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the entire world, according to the world,
[10:05]world health organization. So there's a bunch of reasons why that's a myth. But the biggest
[10:10]one is that delay, delay, delay issue. You know, the longer we can keep kids from having their first
[10:14]strength, their first drug, the lower their lifelong rate of substance use disorder will become.
[10:19]But I feel like, let me just play those out and get on all the research.
[10:24]Sure. I agree that if a child says, like, hey, can I have a sip of that or can I try that?
[10:29]And I don't give it to them. That's not like they're going to not try to get it elsewhere.
[10:34]Aren't they going to just ask someone else for a sip? Or are they going to?
[10:37]So actually, that's really interesting. Like, I thought, okay, first of all, teenagers and drugs
[10:44]now call foregone conclusion, right? And then of course, I almost didn't even write the college chapter
[10:48]something like, well, forget. And I mean, I'm, I date myself with this, but I'm 52. So I'm thinking
[10:53]like animal house, you know, it's all about alcoholic college. And so it turns out that that's
[10:58]absolutely not true, that there are lots and lots of kids that make it to 18 without using drugs
[11:05]or alcohol. And the numbers are actually a lot lower than we might expect. So that was a big eye
[11:11]opener for me. Not only are they lower than we might expect, even in college, it is the vast,
[11:18]minority of students that are drinking the vast, vast majority of the alcohol on campus. So
[11:24]the other thing is, it's not about the know. It's about, let me explain why. So I have,
[11:32]the tricky thing here is I did the research for this book in between my two kids coming of age.
[11:39]So I now have a 23 year old and an 18 year old. And the 23 year old was allowed sips in the 23 year
[11:47]year old. As I've met in the book had tasted wine right after he was born, because it was a
[11:52]really nice bottle of wine. And so now I have completely changed the way I parent because my 18 year
[12:01]old we talk about the stuff that's in this book. And he was obviously there for all the research
[12:05]I was doing that we talked about it over dinner and stuff like that. So now if he wants a sip of
[12:11]something, I say, you know, no, I mean, I wrote this book and I know for a fact that if you put off
[12:18]having drugs and alcohol until you are of age. And when I talk about legality, really what I'm
[12:23]talking about is brain development, then you are a lot less likely to have substance use disorder.
[12:28]And I'm an alcoholic. And I know how painful and hard that is. So given that he knows the statistics
[12:34]on this, because we've talked about it so much, if I were to give him a sip, I would be saying,
[12:39]I know what the research says, but it's easier for me or you'll like me more if I'll be that
[12:48]cool parent if I let you have sips. But he knows that the opposite is what the statistics say
[12:56]in terms of what I should be doing. So if I were to give him a sip, I would be saying, you know,
[13:00]yes, I know what the deal is. But I don't care. I'm going to be the popular one today.
[13:05]So anyway, it's all about them because even like a sip, even just like, how it's not what happens
[13:12]to you. It's not about it's not about the quantity. It's about the attitude. So there's a
[13:18]permissive attitude around drugs now called, which is, you know, oh, kids are going to do it.
[13:22]Anyway, I might as well have the kids over here and take all the keys that way they'll be safe,
[13:26]or I'm going to let you have sips. And that just, you know, there are gradations of that, of course,
[13:33]but there's, and obviously there are religious ceremonies in which, you know, it, in fact,
[13:37]there are exemptions in state laws around religious celebrations. It's kind of beside the point
[13:43]when we start nitpicking all of those details of volume and how often and all that sort of stuff.
[13:49]The research is really clear that parents that have a consistent and clear message of no,
[13:53]not until it's legal for you, which, as I said, for me is all about brain development,
[13:57]and we do a lot of talking about that brain development and what it means and why it's important
[14:02]and why drugs now call are much more dangerous for an adolescent brain than for an adult brain.
[14:07]And parents who they have a much lower risk of substance use disorder during their lifetime,
[14:12]whereas parents with a permissive attitude towards drug and alcohol, their kids have a much higher
[14:17]rate of substance use disorder during their lifetime. So from my perspective, my message is always,
[14:23]I've been there. I want to avoid this. If at all possible for you, this is the best parenting
[14:28]practices I know about based on the statistics and based on the fact that I'm married to a statistician
[14:32]who, you know, really helped me break this stuff down. And this goes back to gift of failure,
[14:37]which is I did the best I could do with your brother, given the information I had at the time,
[14:43]I was wrong. I now know better. And so I am going to do my maya culpa and move forward
[14:49]from a place of knowledge and do the best I can now based on what I know. And what I know
[14:54]is really, really clear. Like I said, based on the statistics.
[14:59]Wow. Okay. Good to know. This is perfect. I have to do it to 14 and a half year old. It's
[15:06]just becoming like a question of can I have a second. This is like the perfect timing. Thank you
[15:10]for the research. Well, and again, you don't just say no, you say no. And you talked to them about
[15:17]their brains. And you know, exactly why you're saying no, because for adolescents in particular,
[15:24]the why is the most important part of this. And that's why these conversations are really
[15:30]important to have early and often. Interesting. Okay. Those were amazing takeaways.
[15:36]Super useful. And again, there are scripts in there because I know how difficult these conversations
[15:42]are. And the feedback I got from the gift of failure when I was out on the road was,
[15:47]yeah, yeah, yeah, these generalizations are great. But I'm going to write down. I want you to tell
[15:50]me exactly what to say and how to say it. And frankly, the most fun part of the book,
[15:56]the addiction inoculation was this like two and a half pages where I pulled all these adolescents
[16:03]about ways. You can say no to a drink or a drug without looking like a total dork at a party.
[16:10]And there are two and a half pages of totally legit excuses that can get you out of it if you
[16:18]don't want to partake. And, you know, that was, I love writing those scripts that they're coming
[16:22]from a place of, you know, these are kids who are telling me, you know, really, these are things
[16:26]we use and they work. The only excuse, I remember that people used to tell at parties, like
[16:33]back in the day and I'm 45. So like a little, I did watch Animal House, but didn't like come out
[16:39]of. I feel like the only people who who said they were all saying like, well, I'm going to
[16:45]I'm going to run for president one day. I don't know if that ever happened to you.
[16:48]That is so interesting in college. Yes, that totally happened. There was a political science major
[16:53]in college I knew and really just adored. And that was his excuse too. Isn't that interesting?
[16:59]Yeah. Yeah. Well, I hope more people want to be president. So, you know, mine usually was
[17:04]mine usually was undriving or, you know, I just liked. I said, you know, I was sort of the caretaker
[17:11]so I, you know, it would hold the hair back when the friend puked or, you know, but I was scared
[17:15]to death of alcohol because I was raised by an alcoholic parent. So, yeah, it was just easier for
[17:20]me to be the designated driver than anything else. Yes. Amazing. Can we go back in time for like
[17:26]two seconds? And of course, tell me a little bit more about you're growing up and, you know,
[17:31]you grew up with an alcoholic parent. You wrote about your childhood here, your childhood friend
[17:36]and trying alcohol the first time, but not alcohol related. Like, what was your background?
[17:41]Where do you go to school? Like, what, when did you know you wanted to write and tell me about
[17:46]leading all the way up to these books in Christian Bell and your podcast in KJ.
[17:50]I think you're the president. So, yeah, how many brothers and sisters? Like, the whole
[17:55]I had. So, I was raised in a little town outside of Boston called Sherburne, which is sort of near like
[18:02]Wellesley, Native, Framingham, that area. And it was a predominantly sort of farmhouses and things
[18:08]like that. It looks a little different now. It was so fortunate to go to a fantastic, fantastic
[18:14]public high school called Dover Sherburne High School. And my English teachers there. Well, I had
[18:19]great teachers pretty much throughout, but I knew I wanted to be a writer from really early on.
[18:24]I wrote always, always, always wrote. Did the editor in chief of my school paper, that kind of thing.
[18:29]But I had two teachers, Don Cannon and Casey Potts. And my maiden name is Potts, but there's no
[18:34]relation. They both really were cheerleaders for me. And in fact, I still have a paper.
[18:40]I wrote for Casey Potts where in the margin he indicated just how he could see what I was
[18:47]describing, just how well my sensory language, my, you know, my language worked there.
[18:52]And I just knew. And that I wanted to be a writer. So, I started on my school paper and did
[18:57]all that sort of stuff and just kept writing and kept writing and didn't get serious about it in
[19:02]terms of, you know, being published until later until really I always blogged. I blogged as a teacher.
[19:10]Tons of teachers blog about education because it helps other teachers know what works and what
[19:16]doesn't. And my education blog, my teaching blog started getting popular. And it was picked up in
[19:22]a couple of various places. And then I started writing for the Atlantic. But to also to back up,
[19:26]I have a little sister. She's fantastic. I heard she has two girls. So I get to be an
[19:30]auntie to two girls. Whereas I have two boys. Yeah, married to physician here. We live in
[19:36]Northern Vermont. My husband's infectious disease is doc and a medical ethicist. And so I'm looking
[19:42]out over the woods of Vermont. But fantastic parents, you know, yes, one of them was an alcoholic.
[19:47]One of them was raised by an alcoholic. And so when I got a hand on my own sobriety. And by the way,
[19:53]it was my dad who confronted me and said my sobriety date is June 7th.
[20:00]2013, which coincides with a couple things,
[20:03]coincides with the sale of the gift of failure,
[20:06]mainly because I couldn't be a full-time alcoholic
[20:09]and writer and teacher, something had to give there.
[20:12]And so it was the alcohol.
[20:13]And I knew that was coming.
[20:15]But on June 7th was my mom's birthday
[20:20]and I got black out drunk at her birthday party.
[20:22]And so my dad the next morning came up
[20:25]and just sort of said, you know,
[20:26]I know what an alcoholic looks like
[20:28]and you're an alcoholic and you need help
[20:29]and I was ready at that point.
[20:32]And I often talk about getting to that point
[20:35]as being like a 100-piece puzzle.
[20:36]I think in the book I call it a 50-piece puzzle.
[20:39]But either way, let's say on 100-piece puzzle
[20:41]where you know, over and over again,
[20:43]you get these little hints of like,
[20:45]oh, maybe I'm drinking too much or whatever.
[20:47]And so I can never, ever guarantee
[20:50]that the stuff I'm doing with my kids will keep them
[20:53]from developing addiction or substance use disorder.
[20:58]But if they can start with more pieces
[21:02]of the puzzle fitting together than I had,
[21:04]when I started really losing control of my drinking,
[21:07]then the faster they'll be able to get to a place
[21:10]of knowing that they need help.
[21:12]And my dad was my 100-piece, but again,
[21:14]I couldn't have gotten there without, you know,
[21:16]pieces 57 and pieces 68 and stuff like that.
[21:20]So I'm hoping that all of this information
[21:22]that my kids get for me about prevention
[21:24]sort of bumps them up to, you know,
[21:26]like at least, you know, piece 30 or 40 or 50
[21:29]or something like that.
[21:30]So that, you know, if they do develop a problem
[21:32]that they'll have a shorter road
[21:33]to knowing that they need help.
[21:36]So anyway, I'm so grateful to my dad.
[21:38]And my dad's also really conflict diverse,
[21:41]hates fighting with me, hates it when I'm angry.
[21:44]Will avoid that at all costs.
[21:46]So the fact that he put all of that aside
[21:48]to come and confront me is like the most amazing show
[21:51]of love that I can even imagine.
[21:53]So then how did you get from there,
[21:57]the gift of failure?
[21:58]Tell me about what happened with Kristen Bell and his book.
[22:01]And when you, how you met up with KJ
[22:04]and decided to do on writing, hashtag on ready.
[22:07]So let's see.
[22:09]So gift of failure came out of actually an article
[22:11]in the Atlantic that went viral in January of 2013.
[22:14]And the funny part about that is I had been chasing
[22:17]my agent, Lori Abkamire, for about 10 years at that point.
[22:20]I knew I wanted her to be my agent.
[22:24]I just admired her writers.
[22:27]And so I just kept sending, I kept querying her.
[22:29]And she's like, no, this isn't quite right.
[22:32]But I just kept, I would say like,
[22:34]hi, it's me again.
[22:36]Here's another query.
[22:37]And finally, when this article,
[22:40]why parents need to let their children fail
[22:42]went viral at the Atlantic.
[22:43]And actually it was my first article at the Atlantic.
[22:46]I ended up writing for them for a couple of years
[22:49]on a really regular basis.
[22:50]But that was my first one.
[22:52]It went nuts.
[22:52]I did all the big, all the morning shows and stuff like that.
[22:55]And then it sold, we sold it a 14, 14 editors wanted the book.
[23:01]So we had a round robin auction for that book.
[23:05]And it was exciting.
[23:06]Everything, I sort of hoped and prayed it would be.
[23:09]And it sold it and I think now it's 16 countries
[23:13]or something like that.
[23:14]And it was just really exciting.
[23:16]Now, as you well know,
[23:19]the New York Times bestseller list changes over time.
[23:22]They take lists out, they put lists in at the time.
[23:26]I hit the New York Times bestseller list with the gift of failure.
[23:29]There was an education list and there was a parenting list.
[23:33]And those don't exist anymore.
[23:34]It's much, it's really strange to me how,
[23:39]the fact that I have a New York Times best selling book
[23:42]will always follow my name.
[23:44]And it makes or breaks your next book.
[23:46]It makes or breaks the amount of money
[23:48]you get for your next book.
[23:50]And it is really at the whim of the New York Times book review
[23:54]what lists they choose to keep in there
[23:56]and which lists they get rid of.
[23:58]And yeah, it's just a weird, weird thing.
[24:01]Anyway, so I was wrote for the Atlantic for a while.
[24:04]And then KJ, Delentonia took on the job
[24:08]that Lisa Belkin had started at the mother load
[24:11]at the New York Times.
[24:12]And when she did that, oh, we were so excited for her.
[24:15]And I had started answering questions for her
[24:19]because I was at the intersection of parenting and education.
[24:22]There wasn't anyone really writing
[24:23]at that intersection at that time.
[24:25]So got super lucky, got to slide into that niche
[24:28]and that became my niche.
[24:29]And so I started writing a column for her called
[24:32]The Parent Teacher Conference.
[24:33]And I wrote that for three years.
[24:35]And it was great.
[24:36]I loved writing that article or that column.
[24:40]And KJ and I are friends.
[24:41]We lived near each other.
[24:43]And so we had talked and talked and talked and talked
[24:46]about starting a podcast.
[24:47]And it wasn't until KJ finally said, no, no, no, we just
[24:50]have to do this or we're never going to start.
[24:53]And we did.
[24:53]And we're now, we just posted our 300th episode,
[24:56]not that long ago.
[24:58]I have never repeated an episode, have never missed a week.
[25:01]And it's been, and we added Serena Bowen,
[25:04]the best-selling romance author.
[25:06]And it has been such a fun thing.
[25:08]And we just, we said we would do it until it wasn't fun anymore.
[25:11]And then, yeah, so that covers all that.
[25:13]What else did you ask me?
[25:14]Oh, Kristin Bell.
[25:15]It's funny, I do a lot of help with author.
[25:18]I help a lot of authors with their platform
[25:20]and their marketing and how they can make connections.
[25:25]Because it can be so hard to get the books into the hands
[25:28]of the people you want to get them into.
[25:30]And I just talk about persistence all the time
[25:33]and being resourceful and things like that.
[25:35]But I can actually trace.
[25:37]So Kristin Bell in the summer of 20, maybe 17, 16, or 17,
[25:43]did an Instagram post holding up the cover of my book,
[25:46]saying, thank you so much, Jesse.
[25:48]He, for teacher, like he, at teacher, like he on Instagram
[25:52]for writing this book.
[25:53]And I was doing something I was working on my phone blew up.
[25:58]It was my sister telling me what was going on
[26:00]and the books sold out everywhere, like everywhere.
[26:03]And I actually have a pretty good idea
[26:06]of how that book landed in her lap.
[26:08]And I can trace it back to a couple of people
[26:11]who I got books too early on when the book first came out.
[26:14]And it's one of those things where you never,
[26:17]you can't make that happen.
[26:19]And you never know when it will happen.
[26:20]But there's a lot of luck involved.
[26:23]There's a lot of serendipity involved.
[26:25]But again, I feel like there are opportunities
[26:28]to make serendipity happen.
[26:29]But it's, it takes years to build a platform.
[26:34]And anyone who's promising you,
[26:38]whether as a publicist or as a social media manager,
[26:41]that they can make something like that happen,
[26:45]unless their crystal bells best friend,
[26:47]that's not really possible.
[26:48]And I got to do the armchair expert podcast, which was a hoot.
[26:52]So yeah, I've been very, very fortunate.
[26:55]And the gift of failure will always be my baby.
[26:58]But for me, the addiction and occupation
[27:00]was actually the book that I was sort of born to write.
[27:02]And it's what has made the hell of going through,
[27:07]substance use disorder definitely worth it.
[27:09]I'm really proud of that book,
[27:11]mainly because of all the crap I had to face
[27:13]and try not to get defensive about in order to write the book.
[27:17]Did I answer all the questions?
[27:19]You did.
[27:19]Thank you.
[27:20]I'll check it.
[27:21]I'll check it.
[27:23]So do you have other books?
[27:24]Do you have other topics?
[27:25]You're currently researching it?
[27:26]OK, what's on your list?
[27:29]So I'm in a really interesting spot right now
[27:31]where I have two.
[27:32]So I had an idea for a book about a year ago.
[27:35]And the way nonfiction books work,
[27:37]the way selling a nonfiction book works
[27:39]is that you have to write a proposal.
[27:40]And my agent, Lori Abkemire, is she's also my first editor.
[27:46]And she is so good at this.
[27:48]And so we have been tweaking a proposal
[27:51]for a book for about a year.
[27:53]And then about three months ago,
[27:54]I had an idea for a book I want to do more and first.
[28:00]So now I'm driving Lori crazy because we
[28:02]have this proposal that's pretty much done.
[28:04]That Lori's really excited about.
[28:07]And hopefully my editor will be really excited
[28:09]with my editor's Gail Winston at Harper Books.
[28:11]Like my dream editor, that was the other thing
[28:14]that was amazing is when we had this huge auction,
[28:16]the way around Robin auction works just for listeners
[28:19]is everyone gets to submit their first offer for the book.
[28:25]And there were some pre-amps people
[28:27]trying to not make it so that auction didn't happen.
[28:29]Because the auction usually works in the favor of the author.
[28:32]There were some pre-amps we didn't take on.
[28:34]I wanted to throw up because I'm like, really?
[28:36]That's a sure thing.
[28:37]So we had this auction where everyone had to submit
[28:39]their first offer.
[28:40]And that happened on a Wednesday at 10 a.m.
[28:42]And the auction ended at 5 p.m. on Friday on Easter weekend,
[28:47]I think.
[28:48]And it just so happened that my first choice of an editor
[28:52]ended up on top.
[28:53]And that was Gail Winston.
[28:54]I didn't have to take Gail's offer.
[28:55]I could have taken someone else.
[28:57]And number two would have been fantastic too.
[29:00]But Gail is my dream editor.
[29:02]She's fantastic.
[29:04]She's really, really wonderful.
[29:06]So the answer to your question is, what book comes out next?
[29:09]I'm not sure.
[29:10]And I can't say what they're about because Gail has not
[29:13]seen them yet.
[29:14]But my editor or my agent is really smart about this,
[29:18]where we always have a long-form proposal,
[29:21]which is like 80 pages, because it's sample chapter,
[29:25]summaries, market analysis, my media contacts,
[29:30]what I've done, my speaking engagements,
[29:32]all that sort of stuff.
[29:33]And it's got this long-table of contents.
[29:35]We submit the full-on big ass.
[29:38]Sorry, big, big book proposal to my editor.
[29:42]Because if she says, no, we don't want it.
[29:44]And if I still want to do it without my editor,
[29:47]then we can go out to other publishers.
[29:50]And that's, you know, I think I also,
[29:53]that sounds like a major pain in the butt.
[29:56]But doing a non-fiction book proposal really helps.
[30:00]figure out what the book is. Having to articulate what every chapter is going to be about,
[30:06]the narrative, it's going to feature. I always write with a narrative arc in every,
[30:09]no matter how wonky the science is. I always have a narrative arc. And so figuring out what the
[30:14]stories will be about so that I can get to the research and contextualize the research.
[30:19]You know, that's hard because often that requires me to go find people. And to do most of the
[30:23]research for the book. So by the time I had done the book proposal for the addiction and
[30:28]inoculation, I had read two-thirds of the books that I eventually ended up using in the
[30:35]in the book. So you start off in a place of kind of knowing the landscape of your book a little
[30:40]bit better. And anyway, it's a really pain in the butt process that pays off huge if you sell the book
[30:48]because you're not just feeling your way around in the dark. It's really, it's a cool process.
[30:54]Is there anything left in your literary wish list? Yeah, actually. So I really,
[31:00]I love Marylore Philpott's. I miss you when I blink and bomb shelter and Marylore's the
[31:05]friend of mine. And I happen to be a huge fan of essay collections. I love them. I love them.
[31:12]I also love creative nonfiction. One of my bucket list items was to be published in the magazine
[31:18]Creative Nonfiction, edited by Lee Guckind. And I was. And it was, it's one of the pieces I'm
[31:23]most proud of. So something in that sweet spot of essays and creative nonfiction, I think it would be
[31:29]my ideal. And I do have two novels in progress, both of which are fun to tinker with. And they
[31:36]sort of take a backseat usually to the nonfiction because I'm, it's just really writing fiction is
[31:42]extremely hard for me. It's really, it's like pulling teeth. So I can only do, I don't know,
[31:48]maybe it would get easier with more practice, but like dialogue for me is tough and stuff like that.
[31:53]So I have lots of stuff I'm always working on. And there's a lot of stuff KJ and Serena and I
[31:59]were talking about this on a podcast recently. There's a lot of stuff that's in the back of my head
[32:04]that if something were to come up in the news or in the zeitgeist or whatever that happens to be
[32:08]a good fit with that thing, I would be like, oh, it's time for this. And I have lots of essay
[32:13]topics for things I would love to be in that essay book eventually. And I'm always thinking about
[32:19]those. I'm, I'm one of those people that is constantly cogitating on writing while I'm doing other
[32:26]stuff. So, you know, the writing process, getting to understand that the writing process for me is
[32:32]very much about weeding the garden and cleaning the bathroom and I'm remodeling some,
[32:39]I've grown to the rooms in my house right now. And while I'm, you know, doing drywall,
[32:43]I'm working on book stuff and understanding that that's not separate from the writing process for
[32:50]me has been really freeing because I used to feel guilty about that time. And now I just understand
[32:55]that when I'm on walks, when I'm, you know, laying in bed for 20 extra minutes in the morning,
[32:59]just letting my brain do that sort of unhinged wandering thing, that's when I get some of my best
[33:04]ideas. And that's when it's important for me to value that that daydreaming time. So, love it.
[33:11]Yeah. Jess, thank you. This is amazing. Thank you for coming on. I'm sorry I went a little over the
[33:16]time. I don't know this is great questions I wanted to ask you, but, you know, hopefully next time in
[33:22]person. I mean, I wouldn't have 300 podcasts of an episode about, you know, the writing life and what
[33:27]it means to be a writer out there if I didn't love talking about this stuff. I love all the
[33:32]angles, the writing and the publicity and all that stuff. It's all really fun. And I'm just,
[33:37]I'm so grateful to, you know, watch you cultivate this sort of literary existence that's been
[33:45]really fun to watch because you knew what you wanted. You went out and have started creating it.
[33:49]And it's, I think it allows people to say, oh, whether that's becoming a bookstagrammer or being
[33:56]a tech talker or whatever, a book talk. You know, there are ways into the literary life that
[34:01]aren't necessarily about being published yourself or aren't necessarily about, you know,
[34:06]anyway, I think it's really cool. And it makes this life accessible for lots of people.
[34:11]Okay. Thanks. I'm having so much fun. I love what you said about when it stops being fun. I'll
[34:17]stop doing it. Yeah. That's kind of how I feel. I love what I do. I love all that stuff. And it
[34:21]all just like feeds and feeds. And I get more excited. And I don't know. It's so fun for me.
[34:26]So it's very hard to, it's hard for me to ratchet it back. So you get it.
[34:29]Well, and the process stuff is what's really fun for me. Like when do you write what, you know,
[34:34]I have all these tricks for getting my brain into writing mode and a lot of them are stuff I
[34:39]learned from other people. Like having a, having a list, a music playlist that's specifically for
[34:45]serious work time. And my, I hear it. And my brain goes, Oh, we're in serious work time now,
[34:52]not like checking email time. And it automatically dumps me into that place. So yeah, I love
[34:57]learning other people's tips and tricks. Like I've learned so much from our guests. It's really
[35:01]helpful. Wow. Yeah. You should put them all together. Yeah. That would be really fun. There's,
[35:08]and actually every time I go on a podcast and I talk about, you know, like right after gift
[35:12]failure had some problems with it. I created this, like don't do this again, mistake list.
[35:18]All these people email me and they're like, can I have that? Don't do this mistake list.
[35:22]And I'm like, well, it's kind of specific to me. Like I use the word particularly too much. So
[35:27]take all those words out. But yeah, that would be really fun. I usually ask advice for aspiring
[35:32]authors, but I feel like you already gave it because you were just talking about the daydreaming
[35:35]thing. And then you had so much other advice. I was like, I can't even ask it again. I have so much
[35:39]great advice. I've already gotten. So let's do have another piece. Well, the biggest piece of advice I
[35:44]give is the same piece I give to my students. And I was a middle and high school teacher for 20 years.
[35:49]And that is read your own writing out loud because you catch so many mistakes.
[35:55]And if you're lucky enough to get to read your audio books, you'll get to know which things you
[35:59]can't say very easily. And which things just don't sound right. It's a little of that David
[36:03]solidarity. Like he gets to learn what it sounds like read out loud as well. But yeah, read what
[36:09]you write out loud, close the door, say it out loud. And you'll catch so many of your errors.
[36:16]And that way someone else doesn't have to catch as many of your errors. Perfect.
[36:21]Yeah. Thank you so much. To be able to say it at some other point, any time you want to talk
[36:25]books, I love it. I love the writing life. So anyway, absolutely. Thank you so much.
[36:30]All right. Thank you. Have a great day. All right. Bye bye.
[36:34]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[36:37]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[36:43]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of
[36:48]authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the
[36:52]Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and