Valentine’s Reads and Second Chances: a Look at "Considering Us" -113

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Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:02

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time, and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kathleen Bassey. I'm an award winning musical composer, feature writer, essayist, and, of course, storyteller. Let me tell you a little about today's guest.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:00:35

Jen Bouchard is the author of First Course, which was published in 2021 and won 14 awards. Her second novel, considering us, will be published on February 6, 2025 by Black Rose Writing. Kirkus Reviews calls it a soul searching second chance romance for readers who love a strong female lead. She is a high school social studies teacher of 25 years and lives with her family in the suburbs of Boston. Welcome, Jen, to Author Express.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:01:03

Hi, Kathleen. Thanks for having me.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:05

We're glad to have you. So we start with the same question with everyone. What is the most interesting thing about where you're from?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:01:12

So I live in the suburbs of Boston. As you said, I live in a town that has revolutionary war reenactments, including this really interesting tradition called the pole capping. There is a pole around the really tall wooden pole around the corner from my house, and this is all to commemorate something that happened around the revolutionary war where someone climbed this pole and put a red cap on the top of it. And there's all this fanfare around it. And so, literally, we walk down the street and watch this event take place, and then politicians make speeches and things like that.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:01:47

Of course, I do.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:01:48

We also have a New England style town meeting. So if you've ever watched the Gilmore Girls, we literally do that. We hold up colored placards to vote for different agenda items for our town. We just did it last week. And so a couple times, and we have an annual town meeting, but then we also have special town meetings, you know, usually once in the fall to vote on different things. So some New England towns are too big, and they vote for people to represent them, but ours is small enough that we still vote. It's just not at miss Patty's, like, in Gilmore Girls.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:20

That is really interesting. Really, really interesting.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:02:22

Yeah.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:02:23

You know, I live out in the center of the country, and nothing is that old. And even what you're talking about, revolutionary war old, does not compare to the age of things in Europe and Greece and all of that, but still just that sense of oldness that just it's that's really interesting. Yeah. So I'd like to ask you to get to know you a little bit better. What is something that you wish you understood more deeply when you were 20 years old?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:02:51

I wish I had the confidence to start dabbling in writing. It was something I always thought about a little bit. I always enjoyed writing when I was younger, writing for English class, and things like that, but I think it does take a certain amount of confidence to feel like this could possibly be good enough. And I just didn't have that, I think, at that age, and it really took until I was in my mid thirties to think about it more deeply and think, well, maybe I could just give it a try. Even if it's not any good, I could just try it.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:03:22

That's very cool. So let's talk about your book, Considering Us. Give us the one sentence overview of Considering Us.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:03:32

I will try to condense this the best I can, but Devin Page is a private chef in Boston who's been embroiled in a scandal, and she needs to find a job. And she finds herself on the steps of the Rock Woods School, which is a boarding school in around Portsmouth, New Hampshire to be their new director of dining. And once she gets on campus, she finds Kyle Holling, who was the one who got away 15 years ago. Now they have to figure out their new reality, a little bit of forced proximity.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:00

Oh, I I love everything about this. I've actually been to Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:04:04

Oh, it's the best. It's so charming.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:06

It is. I went to a a good friend's wedding there years years ago and saw a ship coming by.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:04:13

Yeah. There's a shipyard.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:14

Yeah. There was a ship coming by on its way out, and I pulled off in my little rental car and to see this because, you know, I'm from landlocked Midwest and just watch this ship just kept coming and coming and coming and coming. I could imagine how big that thing was. Anyway, sorry. I just had that moment.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:32

It lit up in

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:33

my brain when you said Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:04:35

It's significant. There's a navy shipyard across the water, and, actually, my dad was a a career naval officer. A submariner, and my parents lived there when they were first married because my dad's submarine was there.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:04:47

But you did not live there yourself?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:04:49

No. But I live really close. I only live an hour away. I'm in Massachusetts, and I went to college in Maine, which is another hour up the road from Portsmouth. So Portsmouth's in between where I live in Massachusetts and where I went to college.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:04

That's very cool. Yeah. So why Portsmouth, Maine for the setting?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:05:09

I like writing these coastal New England books, and my my debut novel, first course, was set at Cape Elizabeth, Maine, which is just outside of Portland, Maine. And so for this book, I was thinking about different locations. It was actually my husband who's from New Hampshire. He's from the Concord, New Hampshire area. He said, why don't you just set it in Portsmouth? He's like, that's an area that would give you a lot of material, and he was right. And so I ended up making up a fictitious island off of Portsmouth, and there are islands. There's Newcastle, which is really lovely, that's there. But I I created another island, Saint George's Island, where I would put my boarding school.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:05:43

And part of that was because there are some controversies with the town in the book, and I wanted to not embroil anyone else. And so I decided I would make up this island.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:05:53

That's really cool. So now both of your books have had a food tie in as well. Yeah?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:05:59

Yes. Absolutely.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:00

So, is that sort of a brand? Is food a thing in your life?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:06:05

Absolutely. I cook a lot, and it is something that I feel I can relate to really well. I have another book that I think will see the see the light of day at some point that's set on Cape Cod that also ties in food. And the book I'm writing right now, actually, the guy, the love interest is the cook.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:06:24

Okay. Very cool. Yeah. I've we'll have to talk cooking sometime after we finish recording. But for right now, I'm gonna ask, who do you think will connect with your book? Who are you thinking of when you wrote it?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:06:37

I've had to think about this a lot lately because I've been reaching out to some bookstores and libraries and other places to do some promotional work and really thinking a lot about audience. I do have a solid readership that has emerged from First Course, and they're really anxious for another book, so I'm I'm excited to reconnect with them. I also think it's gonna be releasing in early February, which in New England, I'm sure it's similar to where you are where it's not the most

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:04

Not very pleasant.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:07:06

No. And I think that it's fun. It's light. It's funny. I cozy. I think that it will be a great time for this kind of book, also right around Valentine's Day. I think anyone who's just looking for a light read that is not too stressful will enjoy this in the depths of winter.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:07:25

Who in the world is not looking for that right now? Let's be honest. That's fantastic. So do you think this book would have been exactly the same if you'd written it 10 years ago or 10 years from now?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:07:37

I think it was the book I had to write when I wrote it. I am a high school teacher. I taught through the pandemic. We went back to school in the fall of 2020 in person, and it was one of these things where it was just policies were changing constantly. And at one point, instead of having 5 classes of students, I was dealing with 10 and just juggling all of that. And when I got to the summer of 2022, first course had been out for a year, and that had gone relatively well. I think it's, you know, it's it's the book that's a little engine that could. It it's still doing well over 3 years later, which is great, but it was such a strange time to release a debut novel that by the time I got to the summer of 2022, I was like, I just need something that's so much fun to write.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:08:23

And I came up with this idea. I contacted friends of mine who either who either went to boarding school or taught at a boarding school, and they filled out these questionnaires for me that were incredibly helpful.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:08:37

Oh, wow. Look at you.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:08:39

Yeah. It was great, and they're all mentioned in my acknowledgments. They were so helpful to me, and that really allowed me to write this book because I knew I wanted the setting in order to have the kinds of funny moments that I needed. There's an underground newspaper on campus. There is a controversial art installation. There's pranks. There's a whole prank night. I knew I needed this setting to make all this happen.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:05

Oh, here in the Midwest, boarding schools are not really a thing. So I was actually curious to know how much of a thing that still is. That just feels like Harry Potter, England, not really something we do in the United States kind of thing. So, apparently, it is.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:09:20

Yeah. There's a ton of them. Yeah. In the northeast, especially, there are a ton of boarding schools. Some schools are have, you know, pretty much a 50 50 mix of day and boarding students, but there are a lot of them. And my kids go to public school in town, but we have a lot of friends whose kids go to private school, and some of them do go to boarding school. And so it really is part of the northeast culture. And they're beautiful.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:09:44

Oh my gosh. They're so gorgeous to drive through.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:09:46

Yeah. I'll bet they are. I think all of New England is quite beautiful to drive through. I as at least based on pictures that I see. Maybe they only show the pictures of the nice places. I don't know.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:09:57

There might be a little bit of that, but there are so many fun towns to explore. Like, that's one of my favorite things to do here is just go explore a town for the day, and there's so many great places to go.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:08

That's how very fun. Alright. Well, let's talk just

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:10:11

a little bit more about writing.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:13

What is one thing you wish you knew sooner about the process of getting a novel published?

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:10:19

I think I expected just too much perfection from myself on the first go around. It took me two and a half years to write the first draft of first course. And now I wrote Considering Us in 6 months. Yeah. It was far from perfect, but I got the draft out. And I don't write very long books, so that helps. And then another book that I wrote, Palms in the Cape, took 6 months, and I and I think the book I'm working on right now, I could get it done by the end of this calendar year. This is the first draft, which would make it around the same.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:10:49

So, hopefully, I can hold myself to that that schedule. But You

Kathleen Basi [: 00:10:53

are a rock star if you can do that while teaching high school social studies. That's all I have to say.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:10:57

Yeah. I mean, I I'm lucky that my kids are at the age where they're a little bit more self sufficient now. And my, you know, my son my son's a senior, and he drives and drives his little sister. So that definitely has taken off a lot of burden for me when when I first started writing. I mean, they were little. So, you know, it's we're in a different different stage of life, which helps. But it is something that I wish I had just, you know, allowed myself the leeway to just kinda go with it and pants a little bit more than plot as we as we talk about pantsing and plotting a lot in the writing world. In this book I'm writing right now, I am truly like, I had a general idea.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:11:32

I knew the characters ahead of time, but I'm definitely pantsing it more than I've ever done it before. I wrote out an outline for an entire book last summer that I wrote a chapter and a half of, and I'm like, I hate this book. This is not you know? And you have to allow yourself the freedom to do that too.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:48

That's interesting. I find that pantsing leads to paralysis if I try it.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:11:53

I've never done it until now, and I have to say

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:55

I, like, go, and then

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:56

I'm like, well, now what? I don't

Kathleen Basi [: 00:11:57

I don't know what happens next. So I have to stop even if I'm outlining as I go.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:12:02

Right. And I think that in those cases, what I've done because I'd certainly hit those walls. I have to take some time away from it, and I have to kind of immerse myself in something else, either listening to a lot of music or watching a new TV show or actually, I watched Nobody Wants This on Netflix, and that actually really helped me write the next scene I had to do because I saw characters and how they were acting in certain tense moments. I was like, no. Actually, she could do that. And so I think sometimes I have to be inspired in other ways.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:12:35

Interesting. The lessons everywhere in this conversation. Well, we as we're starting to reach the end of our time together, tell us what's the best place for people to find you.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:12:46

I think my my social media, I do keep my Instagram especially updated quite a bit with upcoming events, and I tend to share those over to Facebook. So wherever you're following me at jenbouchard, b o s for Boston, that's where the most recent things are. My website, jenbouchard.com, is also where I have an events calendar.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:13:06

And so in closing today, tell us what book or story is inspiring you the most these days.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:13:12

I would say that I have been a fan of Jennifer Weiner from the beginning, and she has been the most influential writer to me starting back with her debut novel, Good in Bed, a long time ago. I've got the chance to meet her at an event in Newport, Rhode Island in 2021. She is just as funny and delightful in person as you would imagine, but her career has been inspiring to me in so many ways. And when I her most recent book, The Getaway well, no. She's got another one now, but I I most recently read The Getaway. And I wasn't sure how I was gonna like it because it was all about biking, and I'm not I'm not a biker. I get on a bike, like, once a year. And it was amazing, and I I just walked away from it.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:13:55

I can't remember who I told, but I was like, she's still doing it, and she's still writing fantastic, engaging books. And I just admire her so much.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:04

That's very awesome. Thank you for that recommendation, and thank you so much for being with us on Author Express.

Jenn Bouchard [: 00:14:10

Thanks, Kathleen.

Kathleen Basi [: 00:14:14

Thanks for joining us today. Reviews help other people to find us, so please take a minute to give us a rating and leave a few words. We'll be here again next Wednesday. In the meantime, follow us on Instagram at author express podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget. Keep it express, but keep it interesting.