What is And a Dog?
If you love memoir, you’re in the right place - because I am obsessed with it.
If you’re interested in the publication process, from start to finish, you’re also in the right place.
Although when your book is out there, it never really finishes…
My debut Sins of My Father: A Daughter, A Cult, A Wild Unravelling – was published by W&N to great critical acclaim - The Guardian and The Spectator Book of the Year 2022,
I have a book on commission on the craft of memoir: INTO BEING: the radical craft of memoir and its power to transform (MUP, 2025), which is about the transformative power of memoir, for writer and reader alike.
I also will have a novel out on submission and plan to open my inbox and take my paid subscribers through the horrible process of what that entails… all the rejections, the worries, the self absorption!
The rest of the time, I will be using AND A Dog, as a kind of notebook, making note of those daily moments of my life that I don’t want to forget, and you can read them each week in my Ten important things post. Here I will be sharing insights I might have any given week, and my inspirations and frustrations, as a mother of two teen kids, living in a stepfamily with a young working breed dog and an old cat.
The bigger themes I am interested in exploring are what is perfection? What are we driven to do to form the model life? And actually, in the end, is perfection a kind of imperfection?
Click on the subscribe button if you are interested in writing or publishing memoir, and want to learn more about how a book is made, from initial idea, to commission, to watching it come alive. There will be much to share around the time of publication, too. Once I have enough paid subscribers I’ll also be hosting open threads where people can ask questions about writing and publishing memoir, and we can build a community of support. How do we protect ourselves and our family when we write personal stuff? What does it feel like to have your work out there in the world? Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and publication archives.
For now subscriptions cost £5.50 a month of £45 a year. But this is an experiment, so I am open to revisiting it as we go along. Subscriptions get you about twice as much content: the inside experience of writing for publication, from submission to when the book is finally out there, lots of juicy stuff about memoir and its wonders, open group discussion threads to help build a network of support. Lots of other random things, like amazing books I’m reading.
I am so grateful to all my readers and really look forward to learning more about what you are up to and what you hope to achieve.
