The Power of Canine Love in Literature: A Conversation with Author J Wynn Rousuck

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If you're an animal lover, particularly a dog enthusiast, then you will surely appreciate the profound love and inspiration author J Wynn Rousuck draws from our furry friends. Our latest podcast episode explores how her childhood experiences attending dog shows with her AKC judge father blossomed into a deep appreciation for dogs, influencing her life and her writing.
Rousuck's narrative is rich with heartwarming tales of her adventures in the world of dogs. One particularly touching recollection is of rescuing her adorable dog, Zippy, from Baltimore's rough streets. The experiences with Zippy, a dog that became a beloved member of her family, influenced her storytelling, shaping the quirky Boston terrier character in her latest novel, "Please Write: A Novel in Letters" and revealing how dogs often provide vital support during tough times.
The discussion also takes a turn towards the world of literature and creativity. The author shares her journey of rediscovering her creativity through writing about dogs. The episode shines a light on the unique influence her mentor, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, had on her character development and storytelling. Rousuck's background as a theater critic and her love for researching famous pet owners add another layer of depth to her narrative.
One highlight of the episode is the exploration of Rousuck's book, a story narrated through letters between two dogs and their owner. This novel is not only a heartwarming story of the bond between humans and dogs but also a profound journey through loss and grief. The author's reading of an excerpt from the book is a powerful testament to the impact of the story on its readers, including the publisher who adopted a rescue dog after reading it.
Whether you're a dog lover, an avid reader, or a rescue advocate, this episode is bound to stir your emotions with its powerful storytelling and the joy of rescue. It invites you to take a closer look at the world of dogs and the impact they can have on our lives and our creativity. So, prepare for a tail-wagging adventure that will make you want to curl up with your furry friend and a good book. Tune in, subscribe, share with fellow pet l

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interview with Jay WynneRussick.
She is a writer, a theatercritic and now an author of the

(00:26):
very fun and heartwarming bookplease write a novel in letters.
I really enjoy meeting her andtalking to her about her love
for dogs and how she grew upwith dogs in her life, literally
from the day she was born,because her dad was an AKC dog
show judge.

(00:47):
So she attended dog showsthroughout her life and had so
many amazing dogs in her familybecause of it.
But she also learned the valueand importance of rescuing dogs
and she tells that story thestory of her rescuing her dog
Zippy off the streets ofBaltimore, in her new novel.

(01:07):
I think you all are really gonnaenjoy this conversation and I
think it's great timing becausefor those of you here in the
United States you know that theofficial happenings today after
the Macy's Thanksgiving paradeis the dog show that is shown.
But you'll get to hear some ofher experience growing up
attending dog shows and also herexperience being a dog mom,

(01:31):
being a rescue dog mom, and howall of that played into her
writing this novel.
So I really hope you into itsconversation, hope you enjoyed
this episode and for all of myfriends, fellow animal lovers
and listeners here in the UnitedStates, happy Thanksgiving.
Hello my friends and fellowanimal lovers, welcome to

(01:57):
another episode of the story ofmy pet podcast.
I am very excited to welcome mynew guest today, jay Wyn
Russick.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Hello and welcome to the podcast thank you, I'm
delighted to be here.
I really admire the work thatyou do thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
I appreciate that.
So we are here to talk aboutyour new novel called please
write a novel and letters, butbefore we get into that, I want
to talk a little bit about howanimals, and specifically dogs,
have been such an important partof your life animals were a
part of my life even before Iwas born in utero, because my

(02:37):
father was an AKC dog judge.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
That was his lifelong hobby.
He started out judging Bostonterriers there's a Boston
terrier figures prominently inmy book and then he branched out
into other dogs in non-sporting.
At the time I was born myparents had the greatest show
dog they ever had.
It was a Boston terrier namedchampion morsels Bonnie May 48,
best in shows, never shown underthe same judge twice.

(03:02):
And when I was born andsometimes I say they only had me
because at the time theycouldn't find another dog they
really liked, but they were veryworried that the dog would be
jealous.
I think a lot of parents wouldbe worried about the baby.
But so my parents hired ahandler and the dog went all
through shows at North and SouthAmerica for three years until

(03:24):
they felt I was mature enough tohandle the dog and not bother
the dog.
And then that came.
That dog came home and was myfirst dog, bonnie, and I reacted
to her, I think, the way mostlittle children would.
I thought this was just themost marvelous creature to enter
my life and by then I wasalready going to dog shows.
I went to dog shows from thetime I was a toddler and my

(03:47):
father would seat me inobedience because it was more
interesting to a child.
They didn't have quite as manyevents as they do now and I
would sit there all day, happyas this could be.
And one time we came home froma dog show and my mother was in
the kitchen making dinner and Itook all of my toys, stuffed

(04:08):
dogs, because I didn't have manydolls, didn't care for dogs
like dolls.
I wanted dogs and I lined themall up in the living room and
then I ran into the kitchen.
I didn't say anything and thenI went back into the living room
and then I came back in thekitchen and I said to my mother
they all stayed.
So that was my lesson fromobedience and I have to say it's

(04:28):
the best I ever did with dog.
Later on had one of Bonnie'spuppies.
That was the dog throughoutmost of my childhood and then,
when I turned 16, my parentsgave me a puppy for my 16th
birthday and that puppy wasnamed Judy's punch.
Punch was a wild man.
So then I went off to collegeand to grad school and by the

(04:52):
time I was hired by theBaltimore Sun.
I didn't have a dog and Ididn't have a dog for a while in
Baltimore and that was really ahuge gap in my life.
I was very friendly with peoplein my apartment building who
did have dogs, including onelovely lady who had a Boston
terrier just drew me like amagnet, and when I finally did
get a dog, I got a Boston, andthat dog actually was very

(05:15):
interesting.
That dog was called Woodrow andwhen Woodrow was about a year
and a half old he had a seizure,a grand mal seizure, and this
was a time when there reallyweren't emergency vet clinics
and 24-hour vets, and I found avery good bet, though it took a
little while.
One of the reasons I think hewas so good is he knew when to

(05:38):
refer you to a specialist.
He referred me to theUniversity of Pennsylvania,
which is about an hour and ahalf drive from Baltimore.
They wanted to use the dog forresearch and they had something
that they wanted to try on thedog and I said how many dogs
have you tried this on?
And they said they're a few inGermany and I said no, but the

(06:02):
epilepsy wasn't being controlledand so finally I said okay and
the work that they did with thatdog.
I would bring him up there onvarious intervals, kept the dog
alive until past eight years oldand the dog died of pneumonia,
not of a grand mal seizure.
I wrote an article about the dog.

(06:24):
I was so impressed with thework that they did with this dog
and with the care that theygave the dog.
There were very few times whenthe dog was there overnight, but
when the dog was there I couldcall anytime and you can tell
people are really invested incaring for the dog.
The dog just had a wonderfulspirit.
I wrote an article about this,talking about the wonderful work

(06:46):
that they had done, and it wasprinted in Dog World.
My editor at the Sun kept sayingwe have to put this in the sun,
we have to write it for the sun, print it in the sun.
I didn't want to do it becauseI thought I'm going to get all
of this mail and all of thesecalls from people saying how can
you lavish all this attentionon a dog when people are
starving.
But he convinced me.

(07:07):
We took some of the medicalstuff out of it, cut it about in
half and ran it as an op-edpiece in the Sunday paper I went
into work with some trepidationthe next day and I have to tell
you I got calls frompharmacists asking what the
medication was.
I got calls from people whosuffered from seizures.
I got calls from people sayingI just lost a dog.

(07:28):
Could we get together sometimeand talk?
I got calls asking for picturesof the dog.
I worked for the Baltimore Sunprobably for 20-some years after
that and I was still gettingcomments about that dog.
It was a remarkable experienceknowing that dog.
Because the FDA is not involvedin pet medications, as I'm sure

(07:50):
they can do things much sooner,I should say that while that
dog, wild Woodrow, was stillalive, we rescued a dog off the
streets of Baltimore.
Baltimore has a mild enoughclimate that a hearty dog can
live on the streets here yearround.
Sometimes there have beenstudies done about this at Johns

(08:12):
Hopkins University.
Sometimes these dogs don't makeit to shelters so they form
packs.
That was my first rescued dog.
She was wonderful, wonderful, Ithink Woodrow initially thought
what is this dog doing in mylife?
One of the big lessons for methere was that when Woodrow did

(08:34):
die which is just a horriblething, even though he had a
pretty good life and a prettylong life for an animal as sick
as he was.
It was such a help to me to beable to come home and not just
see an empty dog bed and emptydog bowls.
That really taught me a lesson.
I know that a lot of people dobelieve that if you bring a

(08:56):
younger dog in, the dog you haveis elderly or ailing, it can be
a bomb for the older dog aswell.
I actually followed that againwith my next rescued dog.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
I have to say what you just said is so important
for a couple reasons.
I have to grab a photo of twoof my childhood dogs for you.
This is the Oldie, the goldenretriever, and this is little
champ as a puppy.
Goldie was our golden retriever.
I think I was around six orseven when my dad rescued her

(09:30):
from the shelter and someonelost a great dog.
She was one or two and she wasfully trained.
I'd always wanted a puppy.
I wanted a cocker spaniel.
I loved the lady in the tramp,all those things.
When I was sick, when I was insixth or seventh grade, they
agreed to let me get a puppy.
I went and picked it out.
My sister paid someone $5 forme to adopt champ.

(09:52):
At that point Goldie wasgetting older and maybe not
moving as much.
Here comes puppy champ.
She took him under her winglike she was his mom.
They bonded and it kept heractive.
It really did.
I think it was such anincredible bond to see.
I think that people think whenyou have an older dog maybe
they're not going to get alongwith a new dog.

(10:13):
That's not always true.
Sometimes it actually helpsthem in a lot of ways.
The other thing you said that Ihave to say about champ was when
he was around one year old hehad a grandma seizure.
We went through that journeywith him.
Luckily for us, the regularepilepsy medication worked to
manage him.
He lived to be about 12 or 13years old.

(10:33):
In the end he died of otherissues because of the impact the
medication had on some of hisorgans.
He lived a happy, good lifeeven though he would still have
a seizure once in a while.
It's such a hard thing to gothrough.
Just hearing you tell thatstory, I immediately thought of
champ and how hard it was.
When he started having those.

(10:54):
We were so worried about him,but in the end he lived this
long, happy life with us thatI'm so grateful for.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Oh, that's wonderful.
He was a champ.
Obviously the dog has had aseizure and doesn't know it has
had a seizure.
It's original personality.
If it's a happy, fun dog, it'sback immediately.
You've got to admire the spirit.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, it's amazing how fast they bounce back, but
it's very dramatic for us towitness, especially when you
don't realize at first what'shappening.
It sounds like you dideverything you possibly could
for Woodrow to give him the bestlife possible.
I definitely am.
The story is you're telling itand I'm like this sounds
familiar.
I think I've read a similarstory.

(11:39):
We'll get to that in a minute.
You were talking about therescue dog you had when you
still had Woodrow.
What was that dog's name?

Speaker 2 (11:50):
That dog.
There are two names in my novelthat are actual names and one
of them is the name of that dog,that's Zippy.
Oh, and although I must sayZippy was a very sweet mannered
little lady, and Zippy in thebook has all of the Noddiness of
every naughty thing any dog Iever had did.
I'm sorry that Zippy is nolonger with us and I'm sorry

(12:12):
that in death she is doing someslightly bad things without
Dematures in the course of thebook.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
So in the relationship between Woodrow and
Zippy, is that of what youdiscuss in your novel?
Please write, or is it justsimilar, similar, similar, it's
similar.

Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yes, the dog called Winslow in the book is, is
fairly is a healthy dog, fairlysimilar to Woodrow, but Zippy,
poor little Zippy, she didn't.
She didn't do even a tenth ofthe things that that this puppy
does in the novel.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
She definitely Zippy.
In the novel, I would say, is acompilation of all those
mischievous dogs you've met, butprobably all of them put
together.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yes, that's what I was going for.
That's exactly it.
I think any dog owner wouldlook at any one of those things
and say, yep, seen that before.
Yep.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
So then you were saying, after Woodrow had passed
away, you got another dog, andthat was while you still had
Zippy.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yes, this is now towards the end of Zippy's life
and and again the sort of thesame pattern and it worked out
pretty similarly.
I have to say that the rescuedogs I have had have been some
of the healthiest dogs I've had,and I think this is also often
true of mixed breeds.
There's probably no inbreedinggoing on with a mixed breed, so

(13:31):
that that in itself cancontribute to, I think, a dog's
stamina and overall health attimes.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Yeah, that's definitely something I've talked
with other guests before about.
There's this Stereotype thatdogs and shelters are bad dogs,
when in fact, because most ofthem are mixed breed and who
knows how many mixes, for someof them have ten different
breeds they actually oftentimesdo live longer, healthier lives
because they're not goingthrough those patterns of

(13:59):
breeding that people go throughwhen they have a full bred dog,
for whatever reason, and becauseof that I've always heard so
many people say oh, my mutt wasthe best dog I ever had.

Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely, and I'm really one
of my goals for this book.
I have many things that I hopepeople will get out of it, but
one of the goals is that Ireally hope that it will lead to
more people adopting andrescuing dogs, because they do
change your life for the better,and I hope this book gives that

(14:33):
message very clearly, becausecharacters in the book go
through some really tough stuffand it's a book I wrote really
to show how Imagination, loveand dogs can help us cope with
hardships and loss and grief,absolutely.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
I think that's so important.
Our pets give us so much tosupport.
Sometimes we don't realize itat the time and we look back and
think, wow, I don't think Iwould have got through that
without them.
Yes, yeah, absolutely and thebig thing I would say to people
considering rescue or Adoptingis you may not change the whole
world by adopting one pet, butyou're gonna change the entire

(15:11):
world for that one pet andyou're gonna get a lot back in
return.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
You're gonna change your life for the better?

Speaker 1 (15:17):
Yes, so your whole life, your whole professional
life, I should say.
You're a writer and a A criticand a teacher.
You've done all these amazingthings.
What made you decide at thispoint to write a book about a
couple of dogs?
I?

Speaker 2 (15:33):
should say I'm spent most.
I'm a theater critic byprofession and I spent 23 years
as a theater critic for theBaltimore Sun and then
immediately became the theatercritic for the NPR affiliate
here in Baltimore, and Writingtheater reviews has a lot of
similarities to just plainreporting.
I'm part of the job isreporting.

(15:54):
What am I seeing up there onthe stage in front of me?
What is it like to sit in mytheater seat?
And after doing that fordecades I didn't know if I had
any imagination left, if I hadany creativity left.
And so I got in touch with aPulitzer Prize winning
playwright I had written a greatdeal about over the years and
really developed a professionalrelationship with her, and

(16:16):
that's Paul of Vogel, who wasalso a dog lover, by the way.
And oh boy, and I should saythis, I do deep research and my
husband used to say to me youhave gone overboard when you not
only know the type of pet thatyour subject has but the name of
the pet.
So I can tell you, for example,the Wendy Wasserstein had a cat

(16:37):
named ginger and StephenSondheim had two standard
poodles named Wilson and Addison.
And no, that doesn't show up intoo many of the interviews,
although one of my proudeststories was interviewing the dog
that played Sandy in a touringcompany of Annie and there was
actually an Understudy dog thatthey called the underdog.

(16:58):
I have a picture of myself withone of those dogs and it's
proudly displayed.
But I did have.
I had a story I wanted to tell,I had characters that I wanted
to share and I honestly did notknow if I could do this.
And and Paul of Vogel, verygraciously, at the time she was
head of the graduate playwritingprogram at Brown University and

(17:20):
I said to her I don't know if Ihave any creativity left, but
if I do, I think you can find it.
And she said come on up.
And she invited me to be avisiting student in her graduate
program for the next academicyear.
And, boy, she really didrediscover by creativity.
And many years ago she taught aworkshop for the media in

(17:42):
Washington DC and she invited meto this and she spelled out her
philosophy in broad strokes inthe morning and at lunchtime she
Is signed us to write a shortplay, one of three types either
a play about a dog, a monologueor a play.
That was impossible, the stagenot being willing to follow

(18:02):
directions, I combined and Iwrote a dog's inner monologue
and she came up to me at the endof the day and said you can do
this.
So from the beginning, really,my writing was very involved
with dogs and I don't think thatI would have come up with quite
the same novel structurally ifI hadn't been studying with

(18:25):
someone who takes so many risksin her own writing and who does
what she calls making thefamiliar strange and the strange
familiar.
So in my case I have dogs,everyone is familiar with dogs
and I have typewriters and mostpeople still remember
typewriters.
But typewriting dogs is alittle more unusual, it's a
little stranger, and it wentthrough many drafts afterwards

(18:49):
to finally get to the pointwhere it is now as a Completed
hardback book and an e-book andan audio book, and it was as I
think you know.
It was just officiallypublished yesterday actually.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Congratulations, thank you.
Thank you.
I realized that as I waspreparing.
I'm like, oh my gosh, itliterally just came out.
I feel lucky to have had itahead of time and gotten to read
it myself and really enjoyed it.
Oh, thank you, I Well.
I thought I think it would begreat for everyone to get a
snippet of the way in which youwrote the book, and so I was
thinking it'd be a good time tohave you read an excerpt from

(19:24):
the beginning of the book, ifyou'd like to do that.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I would love to do that, and so the book is written
entirely in letters.
There are three correspondence.
Two of them are dogs Winslow,who's a noble, sophisticated,
very literate Boston Terrier,and Zippy, who is a puppy.
She's a terrier mix, she's a, aragamuffin rescued off the
streets of Baltimore, similar towhat we just talked about.

(19:48):
And and Winslow and Zippy arecorresponding with grandma
Vivian, who is an artistrecently what an artist in
Cleveland.
So the entire book is theirletters.
There are three secondarycharacters.
The correspondence right abouta lot, and they are the dogs
owners, pamela and Frank, acouple whose marriage is

(20:08):
unraveling, and Pamela's mother,who is facing Increasing health
crises.
So I should say in the theaterin place.
It's often a good thing tostart on a day when something
unusual or different happens,and that's the way this book
starts.
And the letter I'm going toread is written by Winslow to

(20:29):
Grandma Vivian.
And you will see, he's a veryformal dog, he is a Boston, he
wears a tuxedo all the time, hehas a large vocabulary and he
takes things very seriously.
So this is the letter thatstarts the book, his letter.
Dear Grandma Vivian, you know Ionly write if something is
amiss With considerable dismay.

(20:50):
I must inform you there isanother dog in the house.
Frank brought home a puppy.
Why?
This is a perfectly contentedone dog household.
The puppy arrived here dirtyand shivering in the small hours
.
Pamela and I were asleep whenFrank came into the bedroom,
turned on the light anddeposited the muddy pup on the

(21:10):
bed.
Pamela sat up, none too happy,and told Frank to get the puppy
off the bed and out of thebedroom.
And what was he doing?
Staying out until this hour.
And where was he?
And we cannot keep that puppyand some other things.
I didn't catch because Ifollowed Frank and the puppy out
of the room.
Frank gave the pup a bath in thebasement wash tub.

(21:32):
It wouldn't stop whining andwhimpering.
At one point it jumped out ofthe tub and shook dirty
bathwater all over me.
The indignity Pamela and Frankneeded to locate its owners soon
.
I have enough to deal withtrying to keep things on a
steady keel around here.
We do not need a superfluousauxiliary animal.

(21:53):
It's not even a Boston Terrier.
Yours wins slow PS.
The scruffy stelfish pup hasalready eaten my dinner, stolen
two dog biscuits and decimatedmy favorite tennis ball.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
First of all, that dog's a better writer than I am.
So proper and fancy and justthe way that you brought through
in that letter like thecomplete, utter disapproval that
he had with having some newanimal brought into his home.
How could that possibly happen?
And you just?

(22:27):
I just think of so many petsand the way that they would feel
like that.
What did you just do?

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Good, that's what I'm going for.
I have to tell you one otherthing.
I want to tell you a littlesomething about how this book
happened to get published andfind a publisher, because this
also has something to do withrescuing dogs.
There are various ways to goabout trying to get a book
published.
You write to agents, you writeto publishers.

(22:53):
They all ask for differentthings.
Some of them want five pages,some of them want 50 pages, a
few of them want the wholemanuscript and this particular
publisher requested the wholemanuscript and I think I sent it
, like on a Thursday, and onSaturday I got an email from him
that said I just want to letyou know I don't like epistolary
novels and I don't think I cansuspend my disbelief enough to

(23:17):
believe that dogs are writingletters.
But he set up a Zoom meetingfor Monday and so I thought I
know where he stands and hecalled me Monday and the first
thing he said was I have toapologize for my Saturday email.
I love this book.
So that's how we got from thereto a little more than a year

(23:39):
later, the book.
But in March of last year thispast year he sent me an email
and the subject line said thisis what your damn book made me
do.
And I opened the email and hehad adopted his first ever dog,
a rescue dog.
And it has changed his life.
And I thought boy, the book hasalready done something.

(24:02):
I really wanted it to do.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
That's amazing.
The power of storytelling,whether it's podcasting and
radio or movies and TV and plays, and now books.
That's one of the reasons I'mdoing this.
I'm telling stories to inspireother people to adopt, to foster
, to rescue, and the fact thatyour book was able to do what
you wanted it to do before itwas even published is amazing.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
It is, I'm very grateful and I have already
gotten it.
It's shown up.
You said you'd read some of thereviews.
It is also already seeming tohelp people dealing particularly
with grief and loss, and thatmeans an immense amount to me.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, that's definitely a theme in the book.
There are several differenttypes of loss that you go
through, from the loss of aparent to the loss of an unborn
child, to the loss of anotherparent.
And the way that you weave thestory of the dogs and their
involvement and their not justtheir involvement but their
reaction to it, but also theirinvolvement with helping the

(25:04):
humans in the book deal withthese losses, I think is why it
is a powerful story.
But it is because it's reallife events happening and
they're the way that the dogsare a part of it throughout.
The story is really powerful.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Thank you, Thank you.
Thank you for that.
And there is a lot of humor inthe book.
The publisher thinks it'sbasically aimed at 16 and up
because of some of the seriousthemes.
And there are also recipes inthe book.
They're greeting cards andthere are various things.
There's at one point the dogswrite a letter to the White
House.
But the recipes there are halfa dozen recipes in the book.

(25:41):
They have all been tested.
I have tasted every single oneand I have walked around with at
least one of the types of dogbiscuits in my pocket.
So when I see my neighborswalking their dogs and the
meatloaf recipe in the book hasbecome our favorite family
meatloaf recipe.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
So I love that.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
That's another fun aspect of the book.

Speaker 1 (26:02):
Yes, I love how a part of the book so grandma
Vivian, who the dogs are writingback and forth with, decides
she's going to write a bookherself about recipes for dog
friendly food, and I thinkthat's something that, in and of
itself, you have weaved severaldifferent types of books in it,
so that's like a bonus foranyone reading the book.
Now you can try it out for yourown dog.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
And, I have to admit, the easiest recipe is probably
the frozen yogurt dog treat, andyou can certainly make this for
yourself.
You might want to leave out themilk bone.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
Just in case.
Maybe put some extra peanutbutter in there or something.

Speaker 1 (26:38):
And that's such a popular thing to do for dogs.
I live in California.
When I get so hot here duringthe summer, we're always trying
to find ways to keep our petscool, so those types of recipes
anything you can make into apopsicle or something frozen are
such great ways to help keepyour pets cool and give them a
little enrichment at the sametime.
I would say there's probably alot of your own personal stories

(26:59):
weaved into the book, Probablyloss.
I know the big loss that'sgoing on with grandma Vivian's
character in terms of the lossof a spouse and then the other
character's loss of a father.
So was that something that youwanted to include?
Was it difficult for you toweave into the story or did it

(27:20):
help you process it by writingit in the book?

Speaker 2 (27:23):
Oh, the latter definitely, and I always knew
where this book was going.
I do have to say I think myhusband was the first person to
say this to me, but other peoplehave said this too.
Please tell me that no dogs diein the book, and so I want to
assure everyone listening tothis that no, no dogs die in
this book, so you don't have toworry about that.

(27:43):
The dogs, in a lot of ways, aresaviors.
They're saviors of the spirit.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Absolutely yes.
So many friends I know or havemet in the last couple of years,
going through all of my animalrescue work with the podcast, is
we always say oh, I'll watchany movie unless a dog dies in
it, that I'm out, sorry, no,you're safe with, please write.
Yes, it definitely deals withgrief and loss, but the pets are

(28:08):
the stars in terms of being thetherapy, being the support and
them being the championthroughout the books.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
So I know that Winslow the Bosinteria is
modeled after your Woodrow.
What aspects of him really areparts of what made your actual
dog, woodrow, the best dog?

Speaker 2 (28:33):
I think the combination of sort of gravitas
and playfulness, which these aretraits of many Boston Terriers,
I think, and Boston Terrierswere bred and continue to be
bred as companion dogs, as manydogs in the non-sporting group
are, unlike dogs in the workinggroup that have to have a job
all the time, and I have had oneof those.

(28:53):
A Boston Terrier really wantsto please its people and be with
its people and those aredefinitely traits.
I think.
Winslow in the book very muchis very concerned about the
people in his life and what'sgoing on with them and we see
that whole human story filteredthrough dog's eyes and so they

(29:14):
don't understand everything,especially Zippy, who has almost
no attention span and tends totake everything at face value.
So that at one point whenVivian writes that the dog judge
would have gotten a kick out ofZippy, zippy gets really upset
and says why would the dog judgehave kicked Zippy?
Zippy didn't do anything wrong.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah, there's so many moments where Zippy, as he's
trying to understand and learn,wait, what do you mean by?
He's very literal in hisinterpretation of the letters.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
Yes, exactly, exactly .
So you have two verydiametrically opposed but, I
think, very real dogpersonalities.
And it takes Zippy quite awhile to learn how to read and
write.
She learns this from readingthe newspapers, particularly the
headlines in the papers thatare spread on the floor in the
kitchen and you know why thoseare there and initially is

(30:09):
copying headlines, but justmastering the keyboard is very
difficult.
So a lot of this is in thebeginning of the book, is
practically just gibberish and Ihad no idea how the actress
doing the audio book was goingto make these strange
combinations of letters andsymbols into something audible.

(30:29):
But she did an extraordinaryjob and she has a different
voice, very distinct voices foreach of these characters, and it
was very important for me onthe page.
It's one of the reasons lettersworked well to have different
voices for these characters.
So hearing those voices comethrough and be realized by an
actress has been part of the funfor me.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Yeah, that must be great because they're all.
Obviously all three have verydistinct voices in the way they
write, in the way they explain,and Zippy obviously has a huge
transformation throughout thewhole book.
So I'm sure it was great foryou to just actually hear them
come to life for the audio book.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yes, definitely.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
And one of the things you talk about you mentioned a
few times in the book is MarilynSPCA and how the characters in
the book take little Zippy therefor dog obedience and for
training and all these things totry to help this little terrier
.
That can only seem to do wrongin many ways, and so is Marilyn

(31:31):
SPCA.
She says she's veryenthusiastic.
Yes, she does everything notalways right, but very
enthusiastically.
So is Marilyn SPCA, anorganization you've actually
worked with in any way or hadinteractions with.

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Yes, definitely, definitely.
It's a very important andprobably the oldest organization
of its type in Maryland.
I know it's one of the oldestSPCAs in the United States.
And in the book Vivianconvinces Zippy's owners to take
her to Puppy Kindergarten, toobedience training, and Zippy is

(32:08):
again overly enthusiastic aboutthis which she gets there, and
I hate to give anything away,but she ends up going through
Kindergarten twice, at the endof which there is some thought
that she may have come out justwith a social promotion.
I have actually the real Zippydid go through Puppy
Kindergarten, and not twice.
The real Zippy made it throughthe first time and actually did

(32:32):
quite well.
And that's really just one ofthe many things that the Marilyn
SPCA does.
In the beginning of the bookit's mentioned that Pamela, as
you could tell from that letter,is not real happy about having
this puppy, and so one of thethings she does is contact the
Marilyn SPCA to see if she canfind its owners, which I think

(32:52):
any responsible person initiallydoes try to find the owners of
the pet, and sometimes you doand sometimes you don't.
So there's that essentialservice, and in 1990, you did
not have the internet and waysto go online and even write to
all your neighbors and say doyou know whose dog this is?
But the Marilyn SPCA.
It does have a very broadhistory.

(33:14):
It started, I think, similarlyto a lot of the SPCA's, which
were formed to help Baltimore'swar courses.
So the SPCA agents would gothrough the streets trying to
prevent people from beatingtheir horses or who might have
had harnesses on these animalsthat didn't fit or had them

(33:34):
pulling overloaded wagons.
The Marilyn SPCA was startedback in 1869.
And then, after it continuedit's for trying to protect
horses, but also about six oreight years later, got very
involved in protesting dogfighting and cock fighting.

(33:58):
There was engine shooting goingon.
They occupy a really beautifulestate, a historic estate right
here in Baltimore City, rightoff the major expressway, and
they normally bring in 3,000animals a year.
Some of them areowner-surrenders, some of them

(34:18):
are strays, Some of them aretransports that come from other
shelters, including othershelters in Maryland, because at
the SPCA there is no time limitfor how long they will keep an
animal, barring obviously majorillness or danger, and the
Marilyn SPCA always takesanimals back.
And though that may seem, howcan that possibly happen?

(34:43):
But sometimes it's not theright match for you, but it
might be absolutely the rightmatch for somebody else, and
some other dog that has beensitting there waiting for an
owner may find a happy home inyour home.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah, I don't think people realize how often,
unfortunately, animals,especially dogs, can be returned
to a shelter they were adoptedfrom.
I saw that a lot, even in myown local county shelter.
It still happens that shelterthat I volunteer with they
actually have a 30-day policythat if for any reason it
doesn't work out, whatever itmay be, they'd rather the dog

(35:17):
come back to them who alreadyknows them and can't find a
better fit.
And yes, that's so importantfor shelters to offer that so
that the animal can come back tothem and they can find the
right, exact right home for them.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
And the animal is then not being displaced too
many times.
I have to say I really admiredthe podcast you did about the
international SPCA.
I think sometimes people don'trealize how broad-based these
organizations, particularly theSPCA, is and the type of
important work that it can do inour war-torn world now.

(35:51):
And look at how many animalswere adopted during COVID, which
was just a wonderful thing, butnow I'm distressed by the
number of animals that are beingreturned, and that again is
where I hope my book might besome help.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
No, I think it's so important, especially the story
of Zippie being found on thestreet and the owners trying to
to strip the SPCA?
Yes, and unfortunately thathappens because people dump
animals near shelters, thinkingoh, it's okay, they'll find them
.
That's not always the case.
Don't ever do that, please,because that is dangerous,

(36:26):
exactly.
But Zippie was found by hissoon-to-be-new owners and they
did everything they can.
Anytime anyone finds a stray,take them to a shelter.
They will scan them to see ifthey have a chip.
They'll look them up in theirsystem all of those things and
that's all important Because wewant to return animals that are
lost.
I know when I was growing upour golden retriever got out

(36:46):
once while we were on vacationand we were distraught and
luckily we were able to find hera few days later at one of the
local shelters and we got herback.
That doesn't always happen andunfortunately not all stray dogs
are.
Their owners are looking forthem, but that is.
That's such an important rolethat the shelters play in
reuniting animals with theirfamilies.

Speaker 2 (37:07):
And there are so many more tools today.
There are so many more peopleout there willing to help.

Speaker 1 (37:15):
Absolutely.
I think about it being soinvolved now and being able to
just easily comment and shareand push out information for
dogs who are looking for homes,and I think, gosh, how did they
do it?
Even five years ago, let alone10 or 20 years ago Now, I know
there weren't the volume, maybe,of dogs we have now, but still,
technology does help in a lotof ways, and we talked about

(37:36):
technology when you and I firstspoke earlier, before we started
recording, and you said youwere purposeful in the time
period that you set your bucket,and so can you talk a little
bit about that?

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Yes, it's set between 1990 and 1993.
And I did that deliberatelybecause I wanted to not be in
the era of emails and textmessages.
Besides being a lover of dogs,I'm also a lover of letters, and
so much of what we knowhistorically about people from
everyday citizens to importanthistoric figures if you look at

(38:11):
most biographies so much of thatcomes from, and letters do
capture a writer's personalityin the way that certainly a text
message never can.
I don't know what historiansare going to do in the future,
but I wanted to celebrate letterwriting.
I wanted to celebrate dogs, so,of course, dogs writing letters
.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
No, I think that's so true.
I come up from a family mygrandfather was a postman.
My grandmother took over hisrural route when he was in World
War II.
I come from a family that lovescards and letters and sending
things in the mail and Iremember in my childhood being
away at camp and getting lettersfrom my family and sending them
and oh, I used to lovepostcards.

(38:52):
You can hard to find them now.
I think that is such animportant piece to the book.
But also, like you said, it's apart of history and how we can
look back on our history in away that we're losing in a lot
of ways.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Exactly, exactly.
I was going through a box thatI found of my mother's that was
all material relating to myfather's dog judging career and
I actually found one of the dogshows he judged the Morrison
Essex show in New Jersey, whichwas then the biggest single day
dog show in the country, on theestate of Geraldine Rockefeller
Dodge.

(39:26):
And they asked their judges tosay, to answer the question you
asked me, how did you first getinto dogs?
And I never knew that from myfather and I found that out and
if that letter hadn't been thereI would have gone through life
without knowing that.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
That's so great.
I lost my father five years agoand we are very lucky that he
spent time in his later yearswriting down stories of his life
.
He was a World War II veteranhimself and he lived a long,
interesting life, and not havinghim here now to ask certain
question of when we talk abouthim, it's so great that we have

(40:01):
some of it and we have someletters that he wrote about us
and our family and we were ableto even read some of them at his
funeral.
And so all of those pieces,like you're saying, with your
own father and his experience asa dog judge and having those
pieces of his history, are soimportant, and I loved how you
weaved in his experience intothe book as well how grandma

(40:24):
Vivian would teach the otherdogs about who he was and what
he did and how important thatwas in that family's life.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yes, exactly, and my father's actual oldest brother
wrote one of the first booksabout Boston Terriers back in
1926.
Oh, wow, yeah.
Boston Terriers and dogs ingeneral are deep in my genetic
code.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
Yeah, and I have to say I definitely had a face for
the Boston Terriers in the bookbecause I grew up with a very
close friend who lived threehouses down for me and they had
a Boston Terrier named Marty andhe was a little character and
always with them, went on roadtrips with them, like you said
was had to be involved witheverything going on with the
family.
So I loved reading it because Ihad this imagination and my

(41:11):
champ was a Terrier mix, sozippy.
I was like, oh yeah, I rememberthose things.
So it was definitely broughtdogs of my own past to life for
me and I really enjoyed that andI think anyone reading it will
find dogs from their lives seenin the words that you've written
in these letters.
Oh good, I hope so.

(41:32):
Judy, I want to thank you somuch for being here.
I apologize for the technicalissues at the beginning of our
podcast recording.
Gotta be true and say it's notall as easy as it looks, but I
really appreciate you being hereand talking about your love of
dogs, your life full of dogs andhow that all led you to write
this book.

(41:52):
Please write.
It was really an enjoyablething for me to read and I'm
actually going to be passing iton to my mom now.
I've read it and made somenotes.
My mom is a huge book lover andreader and I told her once I
recorded with you I was going topass it on to her to get to her
and enjoy the story as well.
So I really do appreciate yourtime and being here and sharing
all of this with us.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
And I appreciate your having me on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
Thank you so much and everyone, please go out and get
your copy of Please Write andNovel in Letters.
It'll be a great thing topurchase for your friends and
family for Christmas as well,and so I hope everyone will do
that after listening to thispodcast.
Thank you all for listening tothis episode.
I hope you enjoyed meeting Judyand hearing her story and all

(42:42):
about how she has become anauthor with her new book Please
Write, talking about dogs andtheir important connection to us
and how they really are just apart of our everyday lives and
how they just are our support,our precious sidekicks.
I really hope you enjoyedhearing her story and if you're

(43:04):
interested in learning moreabout her, all of her links are
in the show notes, as well as alink to purchase her new book,
please Write.
I've read it and it's reallyenjoyable.
I have family who've read itand really enjoyed it as well.
It's a great thing to sharewith others and even purchase as
a gift this holiday season foryour fellow animal lovers and

(43:24):
friends and family.
So thank you again for beinghere as always.
Please share this episode withyour friends and family and, if
you haven't done so already, hitthe subscribe or follow button
wherever you are listening tothis episode and follow the
podcast on Instagram at thestory of my pet podcast.
Until next time, my friends andfellow animal lovers, much love

(43:48):
to you and your pets.