Author, alumna Lauren Woods talks new book ‘The Great Grown-up Game of Make-Believe’ – The Daily Texan

Winning the Autumn House Press 2024 Fiction Prize enabled alumna Lauren Woods to release her debut book, “The Great Grown-up Game of Make-Believe,” on Oct. 21. With girlhood as the unifying theme, the book weaves together short stories about struggle and joy through magical realism. On Tuesday, she spoke at the Liberal Arts Career Services’ Futures Initiatives Program to discuss how studying liberal arts develops professional skills. The Daily Texan sat down with Woods to discuss her new book and experience returning to UT for the first time in 20 years.

The Daily Texan: How do you think (studying humanities and social studies) helps prepare people for the real world?

Lauren Wood: In almost any job that I’ve had, being a generalist and being a thoughtful, proactive problem solver is the most important skill. It tends to be, particularly as you progress in your career, less technical things that you learn in the classroom, and more, “How are you, as a person, thinking, analyzing (and) remaining open to the world and really building those soft skills?” As a firm believer in the liberal arts and someone who’s quite worried about the state of liberal arts across the country, those are the most valuable skills that you can have. I’m hopeful that we continue to empower English majors and liberal arts majors of all kinds.

DT: What do you hope people get out of reading your book?

LW: I love the short story form. I really do. I know that everybody loves novels, but I hope people will be inspired to read more short story writers because it’s a form that has been forgotten about (over) the years. I hope people will feel seen. A lot of the stories use magical realism to get at deeper themes and issues. There’s one about depression that you know talks about giving birth to a spider. There’s one about the first story, and it’s about what it feels like when we change ourselves for other people. I hope that as people read, they can find ways that the stories may articulate things that feel universal to them.

DT: How does it feel now that your first book has been published?

LW: On some level, I had not really believed that it would be a book, or that I would have a book. Now that I feel like I’ve crossed that barrier a little bit, I find myself writing a little bit more freely and a little bit strangely and actually more authentically because I feel like I don’t have to worry about that as much. And if books are possible, then I can be a little weirder and less concerned with what might be accessible and just trust the process a little more. 

DT: What advice would you give current UT students? 

LW: If school is going okay, and you’re generally feeling good about your classes, then take some of the stress off (to) explore an area that you’re interested in that may not contribute to your larger goals because it can be really life-affirming to take a class just for fun, or to explore an aspect of yourself that you won’t otherwise get to.