Jennifer. J. Chow

Why I Love Pods

I’m not talking about Cascade pods, though those keep my dishes clean. Or coffee pods (#TeamTea here, and I use bags or loose leaf). I’m referring to dolphins.

Over Thanksgiving weekend, my extended family went whale watching. The last time we tried (at a different location), the kids were young, and one of them did not enjoy the rocky ride.

Alas, that previous experience had us squinting in the distance, trying to figure out if the black speck we saw was actually a whale tail or not.

This time around, it happened to be a gorgeous day, and there were calm waters. A dolphin splashed right by us.

And then we encountered a pod of dolphins. While spying a single dolphin was amazing, watching a pod of dolphins was magical.

That got me thinking about the pods in my life.

Here are three:

  1. The first pod is, of course, Chicks on the Case. I’m so glad I got invited to be part of this group. Though we’ve bonded through our writing (please buy our books), we’ve also been through real life together.

  2. The second pod is my new publishing squad at Minotaur (St. Martin’s). I’ve got an amazing editor, Lily, who really pushes me to make my words and story shine. And, interestingly, there are two Saras (both great!) on the team. There are more people in the SMP crew—if you want details, you’ll be able to find them in the acknowledgments of the forthcoming Ill-Fated Fortune.
     
  3. The third is actually a super pod. (Fun animal fact: Super pods can consist of a thousand or more dolphins.) This would be my Sisters in Crime community. And today just happens to be #WeLoveSinC day, so follow the hashtag and join in celebrating SinC. And if you’re a member, feel free to post your own appreciation of SinC on your social media channels.

P.S. Here’s my video of the pod of dolphins on my rarely used YouTube channel with only one subscriber.

P.P.S. We also did see a humpback whale on the trip!

What pods do you appreciate in your own life?

25 thoughts on “Why I Love Pods”

  1. The only pod in my life is my family. I have a few aunts still with us and I try to stay in contact with, all my siblings are still here and we reach out to each often, my son and his wife with my 3 granddaughters. I have more cousins than I can count and all but one is still here. 3 nieces, 1 nephew, 2 great nieces and 1 great nephew. I hoping along with another cousin on my mom’s side to plan a family reunion. It’s been more years than I can remember since we have all been together. We can each have a small memorial for our parent and/or parents that have left us.

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  2. I have to admit that I have never looked at my life quite that way before. I have many pods in my life that I am very grateful for. My family, my church, and my friends are all a constant source of love and support. But this year we added one more BIG pod. We moved to a retirement community which has given us another pod of friends, neighbors with more love and support, but also security. We couldn’t be more grateful for everyone who helped make this move happen.
    Also, we love whale watches! Living in New England, we have been on several. Watching the huge whales swim up to the boat and show off for us. One blew in our faces. (that was actually pretty gross. Whales have bad breath) But we were most excited on the first trip, a pod of Atlantic Dolphins swam up behind us and began playing in the wake of the boat. The boat captain was enjoying it as much as we were, and we were out for an extra half hour. Thank you Jennifer for sparking that wonderful memory!

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    1. Congrats on your new big pod! My dad and stepmom live in 55+ housing, and they’ve had a wonderful time making connections with their neighbors!

      Also, thanks for the extra details on whale watching. (I was thinking being even closer to a whale would be amazing, but now I’m not so sure because of the whale halitosis.) And so glad that this post brought back great memories!

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  5. Jennifer: The dolphins know about the magic of community, for sure. I am more of a back-row dolphin in the SinC pod (not posting often), but I sure learn a ton from the front-row gang. Everyone is so generous with insights and information.

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  7. The word “pod” always reminds me of the “pod people” in “The Invasion of the Body Snathchers,” a movie which gave me nightmares for weeks. So I’m very happy to have this much happier context for the word to discuss!

    Like you, Jen, two of my most beloved pods are my fellow Chicks on the Case and Sisters in Crime, as well as all the amazing folks at Severn House Publishers. But my “super pod” is most definitely the crime writing community at large: the readers, writers, bloggers, editors, reviewers–everyone who makes this the most generous and marvelous community I’ve ever had the good fortune to be a part of!

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    1. Even pod people was better than my first thought, Leslie. “Is Jen gonna wax poetic about peas or edamame??” Not that I have anything against any of those, mind you.

      I’ve never really thought about my pods, but many of mine are similar within the crime fiction community, but I’ll add something different. My Broadway peeps. I LOVE knowing people who get my obscure lyric references from obscure shows. (And I have lyrics for every single sitch.)

      My DIL owns a toy store and, because she loves me and wants me to be happy, gave me a Venn diagram game. That’s mostly how I think of the people in my life … a big ‘ol mess of intersections. Although I still think it’s weird that one of my writing friends here in CO went to college with the wife of *my* college pal in CA. Or that when I went to stalk my daughter’s boyfriend in the early days of facebook, I saw that he and I had a real-life mutual friend!

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      1. Well, I do have some edamame in the house, so I could talk about that…

        Speaking of Broadway, you should connect with my older daughter. She was telling me about her year’s summary of Spotify selections, which basically is all musicals.

        As for your Venn diagram, it’s no surprise to me that you’re so *popular* (sing it, Becky!).

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    2. Yeah, let’s not be pod people. 🙂

      The crime writing community–including readers, reviewers, and more–is very wonderful!

      Aside: I’ve been in other author groups, and crime folks (literary ones, to be clear) are so warm and supportive.

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  9. Jen, love this post! Even though I live in New England, home of The Perfect Storm (your daughter may want to never see that movie, and the book is equally terrifying), I have never been on a whale watch. I have been deep sea fishing—once—very far off the coast of Miami. That was one rough ride and all we caught were barracuda who tried to bite us on the floor of the boat. But dolphins are fun and gentle, and I’ve seen them most often from the beach in…Brooklyn, NY! So graceful, and quite adept at navigating boat traffic. Chicks is my favorite pod for sure!

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    1. Lisa, there are a couple of Whale Watches that go out of Gloucester, MA. Those are the ones we used, but all the New England WW’s pretty much end up in the same spot, where the whales are. You should go. They are wonderful!!!!!!

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