Lauren D. Woods On Books And Writing

Lauren D. Woods joins me for the latest edition of books and writing. She lives in Washington, DC.

This interview has been edited lightly.

“The Great Grownup Game of Make-Believe” is due out next year. Would you tell me a little bit about it?

This book is a collection of short stories that centers on the ways in which people try to escape the realities of their lives by becoming or attempting to become someone else. Sometimes, that escape might be a dream to run away, or a deep dive into memory, or drugs, or a car ride into the mountains.

Other stories are more surreal, and so the escape might be through shrinking or growing or shape-shifting, or giving birth to a spider, or escaping a human heart. I realized, without trying, that almost all my stories in this collection were about escape or lying or making believe in order to escape something, and I wanted the title to capture that.

How long did it take to write? Do you have a writing routine?

I wrote the oldest story about twenty years ago. Of course it went through many revisions since then. The newest one I wrote just days before I submitted the collection earlier this year. So there’s a big range in time.

Many of these stories I put away for months or years and then pulled them back out again. I try never to force a story. If it’s not moving or doesn’t feel right, I move to something else. When an idea to fix a story strikes me, or it feels exciting again, I always come back to it. I never want a story to feel forced, because you can tell when it’s not interesting to the writer, or there’s no passion or emotion for it. So if I’m not feeling it, I work on something I’m excited about. That’s probably why it takes me so long to finish everything. I’ve always got many different projects going, but that’s how I like working best.

When I first started writing, I read a book that said if you don’t write every day, you’re not a real writer. That made me sad, because I’ve never written every day. But then I got over it. I don’t have any routine. I don’t really believe in routines. I believe in having fun and being passionate about what I do.

I have a full-time job and four kids. I can’t wake up early to write because I’m too tired. I can’t guarantee I’ll write at lunchtime or in the evenings because there’s always a project or an appointment, or homework, and I’m also tired at night.

So I write when I can. That might be while the kids are swimming, or when I have a rare day off work, or everyone’s on screens after a big birthday party, like today. I don’t think it really matters if you have a routine or not.

Routines work because a lot of people need them, but since I can’t have one, I’ve learned to work without one. If I stop enjoying it, I just stop writing for a little while and come back when I feel the emotions again. I’d probably write more if I had a better routine, but I don’t think I’d necessarily write any better. Writing time is so rare for me that it feels like a huge gift when it happens, and then I get so excited to write, and I hope that excitement fuels the work.

How did it feel to win Autumn House’s Fiction Prize for 2024?

I had been a finalist for a fiction prize four times at this point, and I didn’t think I would ever win a prize. I was driving my kids to school when I saw an email from Christine Stroud at Autumn House asking to speak on the phone.

She couldn’t talk for a few more hours though. I told the kids I was excited, and that if I had good news, we would all get cake, so they were excited too. I was trying to work that day, but couldn’t focus, so I went on a long run to steady my mind, and at the end of it, Christine called and said I had won.

Kristen Arnett was the judge, and Christine read her comments to me. I couldn’t believe Kristen had chosen this collection, and her comments made me feel so seen, like she understood me and my stories. It was really surreal. I admire Kristen as a writer so much, so it was really cool. Then I called my husband and mom to share the news. Then, I just went back to work and finished the day. We didn’t end up getting cake, but we did have brownies and ice cream to celebrate.

Why do you write fiction?

It’s so fun. It’s like a drug, like entering another state of consciousness. You have to be a little crazy to do it, because the external rewards are low to non-existent. But to me, it feels like an adventure, to see what your mind will come up with. The surprises are the best part. I never write stories where I know the ending. It’s like entering into a really fun TV show, and then you can experiment and come up with your own twists. I love reading them at the end and thinking–why did I write that? Why is my brain obsessed with these subjects? Who knows? It’s also fun because of the insights about the self. It’s also a form of escape from real life, which if you read my collection, you’ll see is a topic I’m obsessed with.

Any other writing projects in the works?

I always have more. I’ve got a partially completed essay collection that engages in the same subject matter as this fiction collection, and centers on the four years after my divorce, when I was parenting my very young kids and experiencing a lot of personal turmoil but also a lot of sweet moments that go hand in hand with the earliest parenting years. I have a dystopian political novel I hope to find a publisher for, as well as a hybrid fiction and essay collection on war and foreign policy that encapsulates my thinking on those issues. In addition to writing, I’ve worked in foreign policy for twenty years, and I have distilled a lot of that into this collection. It’s a very weird but special collection, so I’m hoping to find the right press for that too.

I’ve got a partially completed YA novel and some other stuff in the works. If I could ever find more time to write, I’d love to finish all of these and more.