Happy Hour #60 is with Jillian Lauren. Jillian is a writer, storyteller, mom, rock-wife, and Los Angeleno, by way of Jersey. Jillian is the New York Times bestselling author of the memoirs Everything You Ever Wanted, Some Girls: My Life in a Harem and the novel Pretty. Some Girls has been translated into 18 different languages and is currently being adapted for TV. Jillian is married to the musician Scott Shriner, and together they adopted their son Tariku from Ethiopia in 2009.
On today's show we discuss her books Some Girls and Everything You Ever Wanted, how our husbands are both musicians. We discuss memoirs and how they are a powerful way to tell a story. Jillian shares about her journey in writing memoirs about such hard times in her life (working in a harem, and adopting a child from Ethiopia). Jillian and her husband are in the midst of adopting from the foster care system and so we talked about that new journey for her. We chat a lot about how motherhood surprised us and how our kids from hard places challenged us in our early years of parenting.
{You can listen to the show HERE and make sure you never miss a Happy Hour by subscribing through your favorite podcast app (ie. iTunes, Stitcher). And of course, I would love if you would share with your friends!}
Links from the Show
Jillian's books on Amazon: Some Girls, Everything You Ever Wanted, Pretty
Jillian blogging about Help One Now
Sole Hope – the organization that I traveled to Uganda with this Spring
What Jillian is loving: Jerusalem cookbook, MAC lipstick SYRUP, No Drama Discipline
Connect with Jillian
Blog // Twitter // Facebook // Instagram // Youtube
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Hi Jamie~ I don’t usually comment on here…but i wanted to mention that I loved when you and Jillian were talking about parents expectations. I am struggling with this right now with my 14 year old bio daughter. I just have these expectations that she is going to have similar interests as I do (or did). I also want her to make better decisions than I did (at her age).
When praying about it yesterday, God gave me this verse…
He is before all things and in Him all things hold together. (Colossisans 1:17)
This verse give me comfort that she is in GOD’s hands and he is going before us and He has a plan and a future for her. I just need to give her over to Him!
Jamie, what are some of the books you and or Jillian were referring to about trauma and how that effect our kids later? Though my son is not adopted he was a 29 week preemie and struggles in school especially working independently and I was interested in reading more about how trauma experiences impact their life.
Thanks for your help.