Dawn Hogan loves Lego and writing

Dawn Hogan, also known as DW Hogan, is a Hunstville-based author and publishing her first novel on October 5th. We talk about women's access to healthcare, homes for unwed mothers that were common the United States in the 1950-70s, and her family's love affair with Lego sets.

CW: Leah and Dawn talk about coerced adoption, access to abortion, access to birth control and modern searches for biological parents.

Unbroken Bonds by DW Hogan is available on October 5, 2020, in print and digital.

Follow @DawnHoganAuthor on Instagram and Facebook

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Show Notes

Visit NASA in Huntsville, Alabama
Concerned United Birth Parents
Inside a home for unwed mothers
Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race before Roe V Wade
The Girls Who Went Away
Birthright Film
LEGO bookshop
LEGO chess set
LEGO Design software
LEGO Friends
LEGO and gendered toys
Debbie Patrick cross-stitch patterns
NANOWRIMO

Transcript follows

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Dawn  0:00  
Hi, my name is Dawn Hogan, I'm an author, and my favorite thing is Legos.

Announcer  0:07  
Welcome to the Finding Favorites podcast, where we explore your favorite things without using an algorithm. Here's your host, Leah Jones.

Leah Jones  0:19  
Hello, and welcome to Finding Favorites. I am your host, Leah Jones, and this is the podcast where we learn about people's favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. This week, we are continuing a fall of meeting with authors and celebrating their book launches. And today, I have Dawn Hogan with me. Dawn's first novel is being released in about a month. So today, you will go and pre-order it, and get ready to receive it in October. Her book is called "Unbroken Bonds," and it traces the life-long consequences of the naive indiscretions which thrust countless young women into ruined lives, the effects of which are still felt today. And it is about the stories of adoption, we will talk more about as we get into it. Dawn, how are you doing tonight?

Dawn  1:14  
I'm doing wonderful. How are you, Leah?

Leah Jones  1:16  
I'm good. I'm so happy to be talking to you.

Dawn  1:18  
Me, too.

Leah Jones  1:20  
Now, we're really gonna get into the book at the end. But do you want to fix -- I was reading part of the synopsis off your website, is there anything you'd like to on one foot -- a quick explanation of the book?

Dawn  1:33  
It's about four teenage girls that meet in a home for unwed mothers in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1957. And through that experience, they bond into a life-long friendship, which, during that time, they're keeping the secrets of how they know each other, because it was a really shameful thing. As their lives go along, and attitudes change, and times change, and it's not such a shameful thing to be an unwed mother. And eventually, something bad happens, and they have to decide if they're going to keep their secrets or look for the children they were forced to give away. 

Leah Jones  2:32  
That sounds like a really, I'm excited to to get my hands on it this fall. 

Dawn  2:38  
Well, it's so much about female friendship, as well. Which, women know that those close female friendships are the best; they are your support group. So it's a lot about female friendship as well.

Leah Jones  3:01  
Oh, outstanding. Outstanding. Now, Dawn before I hit record, you said you were a Chicago girl; that you grew up here before you moved. Where in the Chicagoland area did you grow up?

Dawn  3:17  
I was born in Chicago, and then when I was about six, my parents moved out to Streamwood. Then when I was 14, we moved back into the city into the Old Irving Park area. So, I went to Schurz high school -- graduated from Schurz. It was pretty cool, being a teenager growing up in the city, because we could get on a bus or train and go anywhere we wanted. Of course, Cub games were a lot cheaper, back then.

Leah Jones  3:57  
You could you go without spending your entire year's allowance on one seat.

Dawn  4:03  
But, Water Tower Place to go to the movies or Marshall Field's. After I graduated from high school, I got a job at a law firm downtown. So, that was riding the train in my gym shoes, and then putting my heels on when I got to work.

Leah Jones  4:26  
Very, very Melanie Griffith "Working Girl."

Dawn  4:30  
Well, I was a clerk in a law firm, but that was pretty exciting. I moved away from there when I was about 19, and I haven't lived there since.

Leah Jones  4:46  
We lost you!!

Dawn  4:49  
Now I'm down in Alabama, in Huntsville, Alabama. I've been here since 1987, so I've lived here longer than anywhere I've ever lived. 

Leah Jones  5:04  
Is Huntsville where Auburn is?

Dawn  5:07  
No. Huntsville is the Rocket City. It's where on was. This is Silicon Valley of the South. So, we've got Boeing. We've got NASA. We've got huge tech companies. It has now just reached the biggest city, population wise, in Alabama, this year. So, a lot of good things.

Leah Jones  5:41  
What's it like being in a city that's starting to boom, or that's growing like that?

Dawn  5:47  
Like I said, I've been here for 30-something years. And it always kind of had a small town feel to it; traffic is a lot worse, but I try not to be out during rush hour, or whatever.  And housing prices have gone through the roof. Which is nice for us, when you have a home that you own. It's hard to say, because we've all been in lockdown.

Leah Jones  6:20  
Right.

Dawn  6:22  
I mean, we've grown during this time, which is phenomenal. But we really haven't been out that much.

Leah Jones  6:32  
It is a weird feeling to emerge. I emerge from my apartment sometimes, and I'm like, "Oh, that's new. That's gone." That's a lot of taking stock on what has happened.

Dawn  6:47  
Exactly, exactly. And, you know, some of our old mom and pop restaurants didn't make it through. Where we used to love to go on Sunday mornings for breakfast, was just a little mom and pop place. And they didn't make it, and that's so sad. But then, there's new restaurants that have come out during the pandemic, and they seem to be doing well. 

Leah Jones  7:14  
What are what are some of your favorite places to either get a meal or go out for an evening in Huntsville?

Dawn  7:22  
We used to like to go to the movies. Of course, we haven't been to the movies now. Yeah, we've got some good restaurants here. There's a little Mexican place around the corner, El Herredura, and it is privately owned, it's not a chain. Service is good, food is fantastic, margaritas out of this world.

Leah Jones  7:47  
Which helps when it's around the corner. 

Dawn  7:49  
Exactly -- you don't have to go that far!

Leah Jones  7:53  
Maybe ... you can walk there.

Dawn  7:56  
They started out in one little storefront, and went to -- expanded really quick. And they play music on Friday nights, they have either keyboard or a little band playing, so that's always fun. Barbecue, we've got some good barbecue.

Leah Jones  8:17  
Oh, I bet.  Does Alabama have its own style? Because I know there's like North Carolina barbecue, there's West Texas barbecue. Does Alabama have a style, or do you guys just enjoy the best of the region?

Dawn  8:31  
I think that it's just a Southern barbecue; I think it's probably more of a Memphis barbecue that is down here.

Leah Jones  8:48  
Nice. We had for dinner last week, we got -- there's a new, it's called ATX Tacos, so it's Austin tacos, a few blocks away from my apartment -- got some brisket from there last week, and it was so good. Just to have some smoked brisket that somebody else spent hours tending.

Dawn  9:15  
Well, our favorite date, my husband and I, during the pandemic, was Saturday mornings going to the farmer's market. That was that was our big date for the week.

Leah Jones  9:32  
A romantic morning shopping for fruits and veg.

Dawn  9:36  
Well and I absolutely blew his mind one day and just to make the day more fun, we went through the car wash.

Leah Jones  9:44  
[laughter] Dawn, you know how to plan a special morning.

Dawn  9:52  
I'm telling you, it was a killer date. What can I say?

Leah Jones  9:57  
So, how did you and your husband meet?

Dawn  9:59  
When I moved down to Huntsville, I was divorced like a year later. He and I met at the same company that we worked at. I was the receptionist, and he was an engineer. He came down for -- I mean, we knew each other. In fact, on Friday nights, a group of us would go out to wherever happy hour was, and there was a band. And we'd gone out several times. But, one day, he came down to meet a customer and he was in a suit. 

Leah Jones  10:39  
Uh-oh. That was it.

Dawn  10:41  
Yep. That was that. So I told him how good he looked in a suit, he said, "We should have lunch one day."  And I'm like, "Okay." So, about a week later, when he hadn't asked me out to lunch, I picked up the phone and I said, "Did you want lunch to be totally your idea, or did you want me to remind you, that you said we should have lunch?" [laughter] After that, that was it. And, we've been married 30 years. 

Leah Jones  11:10  
Oh, congratulations.

Dawn  11:12  
Thank you.

Leah Jones  11:14  
And I think I saw on your website that for a while, the two of you owned a photography business together?

Dawn  11:20  
Yes. We were creative photography, and we shot over 400 weddings together as a husband and wife team. 

Leah Jones  11:31  
That's a lot of weddings.

Dawn  11:33  
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. We shot Hassleblads, medium format, and Nikon. So, we always backed each other up, and it was really fun to do that as a husband and wife team. And it meant a lot to a lot of the brides and grooms that the people that were supporting them--

Leah Jones  11:58  
-- had a successful marriage of their own --

Dawn  12:01  
-- were husband and wife team, and it was so much more than photography. We would show up and I'd walk into the bride's room and they'd go, "Oh, thank God, you're here. My mother is driving me crazy. The bridesmaids need something to do, and out of my way. We're missing a boutonniere. What are we gonna do?" Well, we're gonna pull a flower out of one of the bridesmaid's bouquets, and we're gonna make a boutonniere. It was so much more than that. And then later, a lot of times, I would go up to the hospital and take their first baby pictures, and then photograph their families, as they -- so, yeah, it was a really neat experience.

Leah Jones  13:00  
It's like you get to -- through being a part of their wedding, you become like a surrogate aunt and uncle to the family.

Dawn  13:07  
Right. The aunt that takes pictures. It was a lot of fun doing that. It came to the place where digital came in, and everybody with a digital camera thought they were a photographer, right? And it got to the point where people were coming in and going, "Oh, why is your stuff so expensive?" We've done this for 15 years, we know what we're doing, you have a reputation. 

Dawn  13:49  
At that point, my husband got a job. I managed the studio, and he was an engineer. So, we would work together on the weekends, but I did all the studio work. So he got a job where he was, as he puts it, he went from engineering to sales, and he went to the dark side. So, he had to travel a lot, and it just got to the place where it was not feasible anymore to try to do that. And, when you're not having fun anymore ...

Leah Jones  14:31  
Time to move on.

Dawn  14:32  
Right. He'd come home and I'm like, "We've got a rehearsal dinner tomorrow night". And he's like "[sigh]." I was like, "Okay, it's time to let it go." And then I got to concentrate on what I really love doing, and that was writing.

Leah Jones  15:01  
How long did you work on this book from first idea to maybe to finding -- to getting to your agent.

Dawn  15:16  
That book was a long time in coming. It was the second book I wrote, and I put it out there, and I got a drawer full of "Thank you very much, but it's not what we're looking for at this time." And, I put it away. It wasn't until two years ago that I pulled it back out at a writer's retreat. Then I was asked to be in a competition. So, we're talking about -- it was over 10 years. 

Leah Jones  15:59  
Now I told you, "We'll talk about the book at the end."  Apparently, I was lying. We'll talk about it again at the end, how about that? Do you feel like because it is about adoption and sealed adoptions, do you think that 23andme, and ancestry.com has changed people's appetite for talking about these types of family secrets?

Dawn  16:29  
Absolutely. The way this book started, was my roommate, when I was divorced, a very good close friend of mine, came to me with her unsealed adoption records from the state of Tennessee. I'm such a geek. I just love research. So, she asked me if I would help her locate her birth mother. And the more I dug into her story, her mother had gone to a home for unwed mothers in Nashville. And the more I dug into it, the more fascinated I was. And then the more appalled I was, because when you're talking about the 1950s, the attitude was so different about unwed mothers. 

Dawn  17:32  
That was the worst thing a girl could do, was to get pregnant as a teenager or unwed. And it was secret, they would shuttle them off to these homes for unwed mothers, and take away their names. I mean, they changed their names when they went into that home, so that they would have anonymity when they got out. They pressured the girls to put the babies up for adoption, because if they truly cared about their child, they would give it a better life and not subject it to poverty and being called a bastard. The times were so different. I'd heard of homes for unwed mothers, but, I had *no clue* how bad it actually was. And when I heard the numbers, between 1950 and 1980, 1.5 million girls went through those homes.

Leah Jones  18:42  
What? 1.5 million? That is *truly* shocking to me.

Dawn  18:50  
And the majority of them gave the babies up for adoption, and were pressured to do so. Now, I've been in contact with Concerned United Birthparents and Adoptees Connect, and a lot of these different groups. The numbers go as high as 4 million. When you start about gray market and black market babies during that time, the numbers go as high as 4 million. That's a lot of people.

Leah Jones  19:24  
Wow. So it's a lot, yeah.

Dawn  19:27  
And 19 states right now, still have their adoption records sealed. People, like you said, people are getting around it with 23andMe, and finding their birth parents or birth families, but when I was researching all this, I was just like, "Oh my gosh, I've got to write a book. I've got to take these stories and put them in a fictional format, because that will reach a wide number of people. If it's fiction, I think it will reach more people."

Dawn  20:20  
 And I took -- I read everything I could get my hands on. Rickie Solinger's "Wake Up little Susie," and [Ann] Fessler's "Girls That Went Away." I was on the internet researching all these different stories from these women. I really did my research, and I wanted my characters to reflect the experiences of these girls and what these homes were like, and, the aftermath.

Leah Jones  20:54  
Cause you're just supposed to go back home and just have been away for a year.

Dawn  21:01  
I mean, they told them, "You go home and act like nothing ever happened."

Leah Jones  21:06  
Just suppress it. 

Dawn  21:07  
They didn't have counseling.

Leah Jones  21:08  
Of course not, no.

Dawn  21:11  
The aftermath of that was so many girls got into abusive relationships, because they didn't think they deserved anything better. Alcohol abuse, drug abuse, suicide. Just always feeling like there was something wrong with you. And always afraid that that secret was gonna catch up with them. That's why I wrote the book. I did find my friend's mother, within about a week. I actually found her sister, and talked to her sister, gave her all the information, and she didn't want anything to do with her. So, that was sad. And I think part of writing the book, I used her mother's story, and I changed the narrative.

Leah Jones  22:19  
You gave your friend the outcome she wanted. You were like a fairy godmother.

Dawn  22:27  
Well, in fiction, I made her a much more caring individual. It's been an interesting ride, especially with everything that's going on. You look at the 1950s and 60s and women didn't have any kind of rights as far as their own bodies went. Birth control was only given to women if you were married. Up until really the 70s, birth control was not accessible if you were a single woman. And, we're facing a lot of weird things, right now. 

Dawn  23:16  
I just think that we need to remember a time when women were put in a position where they didn't have power over their own bodies, over their own reproduction. And we don't ever want to get to the place where birth control -- and I'm just talking actual, you know, I'm not talking abortion -- I'm talking birth control is hard for women to get right. And it seems like we're kind of spiraling that way right now. It's scary to me.

Leah Jones  23:52  
Yeah. It is scary. I saw a movie, maybe three years ago now, it was called "Birthright." And it was a film about women's access to health care. Part of it was about access to abortion, but part of it was about what happens when your county in the adjacent counties only have Catholic health care? And when you can't get a tubal ligation, you can't access the birth control you want, because all of the whole health care system is tied up with the Catholic Church, even if you're not somebody who is Catholic. 

Leah Jones  24:39  
And that to me, was really eye-opening. Because I live in Chicago, and I happen to have had my hysterectomy at a Catholic church -- at a Catholic hospital. But my doctor did all the paperwork she needed to do to prove that as a single, childless woman, it was still medically necessary. And she protected me from any pushback she might have gotten from that hospital's administration. But that was coming from a place of incredible privilege, with good health insurance, right?

Dawn  25:11  
Exactly. If you look at, say, rural, or underserved communities, you take away Planned Parenthood? They do so much more.

Leah Jones  25:28  
They do so much.

Dawn  25:30  
We're talking cancer screenings, health care, birth control pills, whatever device. prenatal. There is so much that they do that is being rejected, and just blanketed by this one issue. Which, I have four grown children. I've never had an abortion. I've never needed one. But I would not ever take the right away from some other woman who feels that is her option. Or what I say to the pro-life people --  they're not entitled to their opinion. And bravo that you have strong beliefs, but if that's how you feel, don't have an abortion. Don't allow your daughter to have an abortion. But don't tell somebody else what they should do. All right, that's my soapbox.

Leah Jones  26:51  
It's an outstanding soapbox. I'm glad that you got on it. 

Dawn  26:57  
I feel right now, that we don't need to go backwards. There will still be abortions, but they will be back-alley, they will be dangerous, and women will die.

Leah Jones  27:13  
I think that there have been -- we just have such short memories for all sorts of things in this country. I think even a lot of women my age, I'm 44. So I've always been in a post-Roe world. So I've always known that it was --

Dawn  27:38  
taken for granted!

Leah Jones  27:39  
-- taken for granted. The more and more access to health care that people lose. Because women and people that can't have, can't afford -- can't, for whatever reason -- that pregnancy is not part of their life plan. They will do what they can, or more women will be coerced into staying pregnant, giving the baby up for adoption, and what you saw in your research for the book will pick up. Of young women being coerced into keeping a pregnancy, and then giving birth,and still having their life go off-track a bit. You know, it's, it's a really --

Dawn  28:33  
-- and I think part of the issue at this point is, you know, I was born in 1960. Even when I was in high school, there were girls that were pregnant that were in the school, and it became more and more accepted. Now, I'm 60 years old, and I am in the place where *I* don't remember when I didn't have access to birth control, where I didn't have options. It hasn't been in my adult life, that we were in the situation of the 1950s and 60s. And the people coming up and young women *today,* do not realize the severity of what it was like, and what it can be, because the homes for unwed mothers were so secretive.

Dawn  29:43  
The things that happened, there are women that have gone to their graves with the secret. Young women today don't realize there was a stigma involved with all this. They don't remember a time they were denied the right to choose what they do with their own reproductive health. So, I don't want young women today to be blase about it. I want them to be educated. I want them to fight for their rights. So we don't go back to a time when women's rights are decided, arbitrarily, by somebody who doesn't have a uterus, thank you.

Leah Jones  30:40  
It's something -- and we also need to teach our young men, that this impacts them, too. That it's not something you walk away from, that it's also their responsibility. And their and their lives are impacted, too.

Dawn  31:01  
Speaking of someone who has some boys, you know, we drilled it into them. You know, "You think you love this girl? Oh, my gosh, there's a real fine line between love and hate if she turns up pregnant. And you have to step up, that's a life-changing event for not being responsible". So far, so good, knock on wood. But, I think they get it. I mean, the boys have been around me enough to hear me spouting about it.

Leah Jones  31:48  
I'm sure they're like, ?Mom, mom, we know, we know. We get it .. all of our friends get it."

Dawn  31:56  
Well, let's hope so. I mean, you have to look at -- in the last 20 years, the rate of teenage pregnancy has gone down.

Leah Jones  32:06  
Yeah, it's really plummeted. 

Dawn  32:09  
And, this is a very positive thing. We don't want to have to see teenage girls having back-alley abortions, because they weren't ready to be mothers, and it was an "oops."

Leah Jones  32:27  
In my family we have -- so like three or four years ago, we met a half sister through 23andMe, who my dad didn't know about, she was 52 when we found her, and it has been such a blessing to have her in our life. It's really been a remarkable positive, like the best possible outcome, I think, of one of these 23andMe stories has been what has happened to our family. But we did uncover other stories in our family that -- you know, I have a great aunt who took some stuff to her grave. That as things turned up in the genetic reports that didn't match our paper understanding of the family, she was like, "Welp, we're done talking about that."

Leah Jones  33:23  
But I think as people have some of those conversations with their extended family, because every family is got secrets turning up somewhere, I do think that helps people understand. Hopefully, they can learn from their families, and looking at the generations that came before them, to understand what the what the stigma was like. To learn that a beloved aunt would hold a story to her grave.

Dawn  33:53  
Right. And I think that, and I hope -- that my book does open up some conversations. Because I was in a clinical setting -- I mean, I've gone there for years and years -- and this lady and I have always exchanged books with each other, always talking about our favorite one we're reading now, and this and that. She knew I was a writer, and I told her, "I've got a contract, I'm publishing this book," and I told her what it was about; I've known her for years. She looked me dead in the eyes, and she said, " Iwent away to home for unwed mothers when I was 15, in Nashville. I've never told anyone." 

Leah Jones  34:51  
Wow. 

Dawn  34:53  
When she said that, it was like, "Oh, my God." It gave her the freedom to finally say, "That happened to me."

Leah Jones  35:03  
It must have just been a weight lifted, to be able to share that secret.

Dawn  35:09  
Well, and since then she's told me some of her experiences. And I was kind of in the last edit of the book, and I put some of the things that she told me. 

Leah Jones  35:22  
She added some some color. 

Dawn  35:24  
I added some personal things that she went through into the book. Because at that point, I felt I owed it to her. I mean, she told me this, and she'd never told anyone. I mean, she went home, and her parents *never* spoke to her about it.

Leah Jones  35:54  
So it's like she was abducted by an alien ship for a year. "Oh, you're back. Wonderful to see you. Tommy was in the school play!"

Dawn  36:04  
She said, it wasn't until like five years ago -- her mother already passed away -- that her dad actually brought it up and said, "Do you regret giving the baby up?" And she said, "No, I didn't have a choice." I just, I can't imagine going through that, and coming home to my parents, and them never saying a word about it.

Leah Jones  36:37  
Right. Because your parents are the people who know what it is to have brought life into the world, and raise someone, and they're the people that know what you have given up.

Dawn  36:50  
They should be your soft place to land. To be able to, to cry with them and say, "Oh, my gosh, I gave birth to this child, and I'm never going to see it again."  I mean, I can't, I can't even imagine.

Leah Jones  37:09  
Well, Dawn, I'm intrigued. I'm sure our listeners are as well. "Unbroken Bonds" -- October 19th Is your publishing date, right? 

Dawn  37:09  
No, it's October 5th.

Leah Jones  37:11  
October 5th! Even better.

Dawn  37:13  
October 5th, it comes out. It's on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com. And they have Kindle versions as well, for those that like it on their tablet. I think people will really like it for -- the title "Unbroken Bonds," talks about the friendship of these four girls. But, it also talks about the bond of the children that they gave away. That even though they weren't there, they were in their thoughts all the time. And the children always wondered, as well.  There's a bond that isn't broken.

Leah Jones  38:21  
Well, Dawn, we're also here to talk about your favorite things! It is so clear to me that writing and research and telling stories is one of your favorites. But you also have, over your shoulder, bookshelves that are filled with a cityscape that are all made out of Lego.

Dawn  38:45  
Legos. I am a Lego maniac. There is no doubt about it. When my kids were little, we bought Legos for Christmas. There was always a new set coming out. And of course, when they were little, mom had to help them because they're six, and it's a nine and above kit. So, we would work with the Legos together. We were always buying more and more Legos. When my husband got the job where he was traveling a lot, it was like, "All right, Dad's not going to be home this weekend; we're going to have a Lego weekend." 

Leah Jones  39:37  
Ooooh. 

Dawn  39:37  
So that meant we set up a big table in the living room, we'd get out all the Legos. We'd build a farm, we'd build a castle, we'd build an empire. Some of these things had elevators ...  We'd eat pizza, and we didn't worry about the Legos on the floor, We would just have total Lego weekends. When they came out with these exclusive sets, that was what I wanted for Mother's Day. So, for Mother's Day, I would get one of these, and we would sit down as a family and we'd build Mom's new Lego set. Now *these,* do not go into the bins. Legos once they are built, they're built. Don't touch.

Leah Jones  40:39  
No harvesting. 

Dawn  40:41  
Nope. Nope. No pieces off of these, these are Mom's. So for years, we've done that where it's been Mother's Day, it's Legos. It was so funny that the year that I got my publishing contract, they came out with a bookstore.

Leah Jones  41:07  
Awwww ... 

Dawn  41:11  
So, I got that one for my birthday!

Leah Jones  41:13  
Good. They knew the assignment. 

Dawn  41:17  
Now when my first granddaughter was born, my daughter lived up in Wisconsin at the time, and I went up there threw her a baby shower. And I made sure that in her bassinette, there was a little Lego kit. So, she was born with Legos in her bassinette. And she is my Lego granddaughter. She and I -- I have a bench here in my office that's kind of a window seat. And right now, it's got a countertop on it, cause they were here in July, and Grammy brings down her Legos, and we just make a big mess and we play --Legos. 

Leah Jones  42:08  
Oh, that's so fun.

Dawn  42:09  
-- while they're here. And it was so funny -- my husband and I had the chance to go to Germany -- it was probably 2006. And we were walking down this thing of shops, and there was a Lego shop, a Lego store. And that was the first one we've ever been in, and my son, Andrew, had wanted the Lego chess set. 

Leah Jones  42:15  
Ooh, I've never seen that. 

Leah Jones  42:20  
Yeah, there's the Lego Chess set. And you couldn't get it in the United States. So, we went into this German shop, they did not understand what we were saying. I was like "Chess, king, queen, checkmate." "Oh, checkmate! Okay, Lego set, chess set!" They brought it out, you never saw two Americans go so nuts in a German shop in your life. [laughter] But, we found this Lego set for him in Germany, and brought it home. 

Dawn  42:20  
Ohhh, you won the souvenir game that trip.

Dawn  43:20  
Yeah, we did. He's like, "I can't believe you found it!!" Yeah. I just think they're the best toy ever made. Because you can make anything.

Leah Jones  43:37  
Well, and especially with your creative -- I mean, you're a writer, but also with the photography, such a visual eye, your husband's an engineer. Those are two skill sets that I mean, what I love about Lego is other than -- the tactile experience is perfect --the generic Legos, the off-brand Legos are not --

Dawn  44:04  
-- No, you don't mix them.  Don't mix them.

Leah Jones  44:09  
But they're really whatever you can imagine in your head, your only limitation is the number of bricks in the Tupperware, right? In the Rubbermaid bin?

Dawn  44:18  
Exactly. Well, not only that, but there is a thing online called "Lego Designer" that you can download.

Leah Jones  44:32  
Do you design what you want to make online, and then you export the directions?

Dawn  44:39  
You actually can do a thing with directions and send it to Lego, and they will send you the bricks. The one I've got is not connected online, but you can take all the different blocks, change the colors, as far as what you want them to be. My thing is I love building Victorian houses with them. And using the hinges where you can open it up -- 

Leah Jones  45:09  
Ooooh.

Dawn  45:09  
-- and see inside, and all that. And, the great thing about doing it online, is you're not going to step on them in the middle of the night.

Leah Jones  45:21  
[laughter] How do you have any nightmares from stepping on the bricks when the kids were little?

Dawn  45:32  
Yeah, but it was usually my fault. I encouraged the whole Lego thing. My husband, on the other hand, was not that happy when he would step on 'em. But they're the best creative kind of thing as far as -- if you dream it, you can build it. I'm just that kind of a person. I'm totally right-brained, completely right-brained. If I do a project, or if I can see it in my mind, I can make it.  And my engineer husband, I'll tell him, "Well, honey, you know, this is what I'm saying." And I'll try to explain it, and he's like, "I can't see it." I'm like, "But, you don't get it. I can see it. I can see it, in my mind. So, just trust me."

Leah Jones  46:37  
It's gonna get there. 

Leah Jones  46:38  
Yeah. He's like, "Okay, I trust you, go." I am completely right-brained. And that's probably why I love Lego so much. 

Leah Jones  46:51  
So, behind you, it is all buildings, right?

Dawn  46:55  
Yes. It's like a --

Leah Jones  46:56  
-- like a village -- like a main street?

Dawn  47:01  
Yeah, I've got a movie theater, I've got an Emporium, I've got a pet shop. And there's two townhouses that went with the pet shop and the bookstore. Oh, and I have a fire house. 

Leah Jones  47:20  
Oooh -- that's the red one on the -- over here?

Dawn  47:26  
And, the garage door opens up in this little fire engine, it's so cute. Now, I don't have all of them. But if you notice, I could take a board, and put across there, and I could do at least five more. I told my husband that.

Leah Jones  47:47  
What did he say?

Dawn  47:49  
It's like, "Do you know how much money is sitting on those shelves right now?" I'm like, "Yeah, so?"

Leah Jones  47:58  
There are so few people out there who, even three months later, can put their hands on their Mother's Day gifts. You know where yours are!

Dawn  48:11  
I do. Woe to anyone who takes a piece off of there. You know, my kids love Legos. And as they've grown up and moved out, they understand that the Legos don't leave the house.

Leah Jones  48:28  
They're welcome to start their own collections.

Dawn  48:31  
Well, they're welcome to bring their children over here and play. 

Leah Jones  48:34  
Oh, even better.

Dawn  48:37  
Legos stay here for the grandkids. I love my my granddaughters -- "You're my Lego Grammy". "Yeah, you're my Lego granddaughter."

Leah Jones  48:51  
That's so sweet. How old is she?

Dawn  48:53  
She's eight -- she'll be eight.

Leah Jones  48:55  
Such a fun age.

Dawn  48:58  
She's gotten to the place where she's really good at being able to follow directions and put it together herself. So, she's at that age where she's finally being able to get a kit. Like, "No, don't touch. I can do it." It's fun to watch her as she's developed because I bought her her own Lego sets. They have the Lego Friends now. And the people are kind of bigger. They're not your standard, squat, little, square Lego guys. It's more designed for girls. I think in the beginning, Legos were generic, and then they started being more for boys. And then they figured out really quick, "Oh, wait! Oh, girls like Legos, too!" So they started incorporating like Lego friends and stuff. And she really likes the Lego Friends. So she's got several kits of those. But yeah, I'm a total Lego geek.

Leah Jones  50:17  
What are the what are some buildings or kits that you have on your wish list?

Dawn  50:23  
Oooh, there's more Lego exclusives that I haven't gotten, I'm not sure. They've come out with a new police station, I think. And there's other ones that were from the past that if I'm not careful, I won't be able to get. They get too hard to find, and then you can't find them. But I do want to get -- I can't find it -- is the Legos from Big Bang Theory.

Leah Jones  50:54  
Oh, of like their apartments? 

Dawn  50:56  
Yeah, it's Sheldon and Leonard's apartment. And I love Big Bang Theory. Just great writing, so funny. And because I've lived with an engineer, and actually worked in that kind of environment, it's so true, and so funny. And they have a kit for Big Bang, but I haven't been able to find it. And they just came out with with one from Seinfeld.

Leah Jones  51:34  
That's smart. The licensing agreements with the networks is, it's smart.

Dawn  51:41  
Well, and athey have them for what is -- kids like, that cube game? 

Leah Jones  51:48  
Minecraft. 

Dawn  51:49  
Minecraft. They have Minecraft, they've got Harry Potter, Batman. So many of the franchise stuff they brought in to catch the kids, with different movies or whatever that they like. I like the town stuff, cause most of it is kind of the Victorian feel.

Leah Jones  52:22  
I guess a Lego kit is is more manageable -- and you can always like have it, pick it up and move it, or keep it in a room without cats, there are some options there. 

Dawn  52:36  
Well, they're divided usually. And when you're building something, they're divided in compartments of a box where you kind of have them separated out. So yeah, they're movable. What I got into during COVID  -- my daughter moved from Wisconsin, down to Indiana. I'm so glad, because it's so much closer. They bought a place and re-did the kitchen. Just ripped it out and re-did the kitchen, and she wanted to do it with sunflowers in her kitchen. So, I did her a counted cross-stitch in sunflowers. Now I hadn't done counted cross-stitch in *years.*  And I remembered why.

Leah Jones  53:24  
But you stuck it out.

Dawn  53:26  
The thing was, I found that 3x magnification reading glasses and large-eyed needles made this a much funner experience. Cause I had done them years ago, and then I got on doing counted cross-stitch of Victorian houses. And those, I'm not giving away. I went online and found these on Etsy. I don't know if you can see that. So, I started doing them for myself, it's like, you can't go anywhere, so... 

Leah Jones  54:21  
Oh, that's beautiful.

Dawn  54:21  
It's a Debbie Patrick, is the gal who has done the patterns? On eBay. And they're just dimensional, they're so cool. 

Leah Jones  54:31  
Oh, my goodness, I *love* that one. So it's a blue house, it's like three stories tall with a witch's -- a widow's peak? A witch's peak?

Dawn  54:40  
Yeah, it's in San Francisco. She's taken actual homes and done these patterns of these Victorian houses. I 'd love to have a Victorian house, but they're so expensive and upkeep's ridiculous.

Leah Jones  54:54  
The upkeep is intense.

Dawn  54:56  
So, I just make my house look like a Victorian house with gingerbread on the front. Keep it simple. I loved doing that kind of stuff during the pandemic, because I'm editing this book, I'm working on getting it out, and when I need to just chill and get away from that for a while, I need something else that my brain can think about.

Leah Jones  55:26  
Yeah. And it's -- between the counted cross-stitch and the Legos, it's two hobbies that are not about the screen. You're doing them with their hands, they're very physical, they're tactile. Although I guess maybe your pattern might be on the screen, but it helps, I imagine. 

Dawn  55:48  
With Etsy, you just print them off, and tape them together, and then go to Hobby Lobby and get your thread in the colors that she recommended. Yeah, I mean, it's just, again, it's kind of little blocks. 

Leah Jones  56:08  
I'm seeing a theme. So Dawn, your book, "Unbroken Bonds" comes out on October 5th. It'll be listed under D.W. Hogan, which is your book name. It'll be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, print, digital. Any plans of an audio book?

Dawn  56:32  
I don't know, I'll have to talk to my publisher about that. We'll see how that goes; I hope so. I think that it's a really touching read about the relationships in one's life. And some not so good, and some very good. And I'm fortunate enough that I'm going to have an in-person book launch.

Leah Jones  57:04  
That's so exciting. *That's* the October 19th I had in my head.

Dawn  57:08  
October 19th is my book launch. And I'm doing it at the historical Lowry house here in Huntsville. It's an 1832 house. And I'm doing it with a local bookstore called Snail on the Wall. We're gonna make it nice, we'll have some book readings, we'll do book signings, we'll have '50s music playing, and hors d'oeuvres and sparkling cider. Just make it fun, big celebration.

Leah Jones  57:46  
The big celebration that you deserve at the end of -- 17 year career of writing, getting this first one out in the in the world is -- it's such an accomplishment, it truly is.

Dawn  58:01  
It really feels big. And the exciting thing is, I got lots more books.

Leah Jones  58:08  
Great.

Dawn  58:09  
This is the first one, and I don't intend on stopping anytime soon. I love to write, and I for years I did NaNoWriMo. You know what that is --

Leah Jones  58:22  
Yes! The National November -- 

Dawn  58:25  
-- Novel Writing Month. Yes. And, the premise is that you write 50,000 words from November 1st until the end of the month. The whole idea is if you do something for 30 days consistently, it makes a habit. It shows you you can do it, and I've done it for years. I've told my family, even when they were younger, "Okay, it's November, I'm writing. There's stuff in the refrigerator, work it out. Unless the house is on fire, or there's copious amounts of blood, leave me alone, I'm writing."

Leah Jones  59:07  
"I'll see you on Thanksgiving, but otherwise, I'm writing."

Dawn  59:13  
I trained them well, so now that it's come to, "Oh, gosh, Mom's a published author!"' Now, they understand all the times that I'm going, "I'm writing, go away!"

Leah Jones  59:25  
Fantastic. The in-person book launch, October 19th, at the historic Lowry house in Huntsville, Alabama. People can see you there, they can find you DWhogan.com. You've got DW Hogan, author, on Facebook, and Dawn Hogan, author, on Instagram as well.

Dawn  59:47  
Thank you so much. 

Leah Jones  59:48  
You're welcome. Thank, you. 

Dawn  59:51  
Well, this has been fun. 

Leah Jones  59:52  
This was super fun.

Announcer  59:53  
Thank you for listening to Finding Favorites with Leah Jones. Please make sure to subscribe, and drop us a five-star review on iTunes. Now, go out and enjoy your favorite things.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai