ABOUT ME
Growing up in Chicago, my parents were avid readers who passed on to me a love of the written word, my earliest influences being Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Mad Magazine.
Inspired to become a writer, the notion of writing books was far too daunting, so I set my sights on screenwriting. My quest began with a college year-abroad in Japan where I served an internship with film director and writer, Masahiro Shinoda. While in Japan, I became immersed in Japanese Cinema, screening at least five films per week, an experience that profoundly impacted my thinking about storytelling.
Career Highlights
“I love this book! HOUNDED: A LOVE STORY is a heartfelt exploration of how a dog helps a broken man find the best version of himself. With a deft touch and a healthy dose of longing, humor and pain, Jeff Pohn shows us how the past informs the present and lays out a fanciful, entertaining road map of a positive way towards redemption.”
- Albert Berger
Producer, Little Miss Sunshine, Election
“Like Jeff Pohn’s first book, BLOTTO, his unique wit shines brightest in life’s darkest corners. HOUNDED: A LOVE STORY is sure to surprise and entertain, as a former stray trains his master to join the human race.”
- Brian Levant,
Director, Beethoven, Snow Dogs
Pohn’s novel HOUNDED: A LOVE STORY is sharply written, hilarious and all-too-human. Though as Darth the dog himself would say, being human is nothing to brag about.
- David Weber
Professor of Screenwriting, USC School of Cinematic Arts.
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Article Highlights
FROM SUBSTACK
FATHERHOOD?
After we divorced 20 years later, I was shocked that she left me with custody of Baby, her “daughter.” They had been inseparable, to the extent that I often felt like a third wheel. When we rescued Baby five years ago, it was clear that she had been horribly abused, and would need a great deal of care. My ex, a natural care-taker, assumed the lion’s share of those responsibilities. Our split-up occurred at the very beginning of Covid. For almost a year, Baby was the only being with whom I had physical contact. The care and feeding and loving of my dog became the central focus of my life. We grew as close as Siamese twins, attached at the hip. It was (and is) a profound pleasure being velcroed to a munchkin who is affectionate, loyal, mischievous, neurotic (like her owner), endlessly entertaining, and belly-laugh funny. It felt like my life was a buddy movie, with a buddy who slept on my bed, inches from me, with her head resting on a pillow.
I don’t necessarily think of myself as Baby’s father, but when dog owners refer to themselves as their dog’s “mommy” or “daddy”, I never think it’s silly. I relate. At this point in my life, it is highly doubtful I will ever be a father, but I know someone who thinks I’m hers.
STICKS & STONES
My blogs get read more than the ones my human writes. His last blog was about politics, and nobody read it. From what I can see on the shows we watch, like Rachel Madcow, politics is mostly about hating. Same with religion. With humans, things that are supposed to be good are bad.
When my last family imprisoned (new word) me in a shelter, they told me it would be fun, I’d have lots of new friends, and I would have sweet dreams there. Fun is not the word I would use to describe the shelter, especially when my ‘new friends’ were getting killed. A better word is nightmare (new word). And the only dream I had there was that someone would rescue me. When humans came to see which of us they wanted to take home, I tried to look adoptable (new word) but they only wanted puppies. It’s a miracle somebody finally chose me.
The word shelter is supposed to mean safety and protection (new words) but that’s just another word trick. Humans use their mouths to make other humans, and sometimes dogs, feel bad. One time my human called me a ‘good-for-nothing mutt’. He was very sorry but I didn’t like him for the whole afternoon. In the five years I’ve been alive it seems that human’s word attacks have gotten worse and worser. You hear sayings like, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” That is a big pile of poop. Words do hurt.
What if humans couldn’t talk? Just imagine (new word).
More Substack Articles
THE YOYO YEARS (COMING SOON)
“In THE YOYO YEARS, Jeff Pohn wages a courageous battle with the past, slaying demons with humor and heart while steadily marching the bumpy road towards enlightenment. At the center of this vivid world with its host of memorable characters is the one and only Josh Peterskin who rivals Alexander Portnoy in the category of complaints while hijacking us on a wild, entertaining ride through his beloved Chicago.”
- Albert Berger
Producer, Little Miss Sunshine, Election
“Jeff Pohn continues to find shafts of sunlight in life’s darkest corners. The YoYo Years brims with his acute observational skills, compassion and humor.”
- Brian Levant
Director - Beethoven, The Flintstones
“The Yoyo Years tells the moving and surprisingly funny story of Josh Peterskin, AKA Yoyo, raised on Chicago’s Gold Coast but wishing he was black. A talented, basketball-playing, movie-obsessed, fast-living, hard-drinking wild man, who, no matter how much he’s achieved or how far he travels, can never shake the baleful legacy of his alcoholic father. Jeffrey Pohn’s latest novel is deeply personal, heartbreakingly true, and often hilarious - necessary in an era where so many of us can’t keep getting in our own way.”
- David Weber
Professor of Screenwriting, USC School of Cinematic Arts
TRACIE HOTCHNER
- NPR RADIO SHOW DOG TALK INTERVIEW (30 MINUTES)
Jeff Pohn’s very funny novel “Hounded: A Love Story,” features a neurotic, addictive protagonist whose loquacious witty dog is tasked with helping him make better choices.
Start listening at 2:10 to skip the intro.
Start listening at 2:10 to skip the intro.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE FIDO
Article With New York Lifestyles Magazine
Over the years, service dogs have become an increasingly familiar sight on trains, planes and buses; in restaurants, nail salons and shopping malls, and even at the beach, diligently escorting and protecting their human charges through blindness, hearing loss, ambulatory limitations and even mental-health challenges—there are now half a million service dogs at work in this country. I’ve come to marvel at these fantastic beasts, the organizations and volunteers who train them and the Americans with Disabilities Act that provides a protective infrastructure. These four-legged friends are heroes. Heroes, one and all.
This week, I discovered that September is National Service Dog Month, and it occurred to me that I have been living with one of these heroes - albeit a non-credentialed one - for the past eight years.
When my wife and I rescued Baby, a fifteen-pound terry-poo with a rasta-like coat and a slight underbite, she had been found on the streets of Tijuana, emaciated, and obviously abused. Baby immediately bonded with my wife, but every time I entered the room, she would shake violently. I finally suggested to my wife that we should take Baby back, it was hard living with someone who feared me. After my wife nixed that idea, I found myself tiptoeing around our home, in the most unthreatening way possible. Eventually, Baby came to at least tolerate me.
Then came COVID. My wife, Baby’s north star, decided to travel to England, to wait it out with her family. She never returned. Suddenly, it was just me and Baby, who was shattered by the disappearance of her “mommy”. Baby went on a hunger strike, and constantly gave me the stink-eye, blaming me for her heartbreaking loss. It destroyed my appetite, too, and ruined my sleep. I became a wreck. As a recovering alcoholic with bipolar disorder, and now utterly isolated and wifeless, with my only personal contact a dog who actively resented me, I was not exactly a “vision for you”.
Over time, Baby mellowed and began to display affection for me. Perhaps that’s because she realized I was the sole provider of her food and walks, but I like to think it was more than that. We became inseparable, velcro-ed together. On the rare occasion that I left our house, Baby welcomed me home as if I was returning from the war. She started to sleep on the pillow next to mine, and the moment my eyes opened, I was the recipient of a thorough tongue bath.
Baby became my own personal, emotional service dog; a daily calming presence, a reliable rock of support who demanded my attention 24/7, effectively yanking me out of myself by encouraging me to stroke, scratch, massage, and play with her. She was a nonstop source of activity, humor, and love, a furry anti-depressant, instrumental in my struggle to maintain my sanity. Having to focus on Baby’s care, feeding and happiness, I became largely freed from the bondage of crippling self-concern.
Even before COVID, I had been experiencing debilitating panic attacks, mostly in public, and, I was on the verge of becoming agoraphobic. But Baby coerced her couch potato master into taking her on walks more adventurous than our usual spin around the block. On these outings, she walked me. During a time when everyone else was retreating into their homes, my dog was leading me back into the world I had fled from; she took me to dog parks where she networked, and I got to enjoy distanced interactions with other humans. We became regulars at a nearby beach where she chased birds she would never catch, and insisted I join her, running on the sand, and frolicking in the surf. I think I became her new (less incandescent) north star.
Suffering from “COVID Brain”, I began talking to Baby all day long. My ridiculous longing for her to respond verbally was, of course, never requited. At the time, I was dying to write my second novel, but was unable to find a subject matter compelling enough to sustain the few years it would take to write. One night, when Baby and I were lying in bed, I leaned over to give her a goodnight kiss on the nose. She sneezed into my face, and it hit me, the idea for a new book to write - a tale about an isolated man and his talking dog. A couple of years later, fueled by love for and from a dog, and wish fulfillment, I published the book, HOUNDED: A LOVE STORY.
My rescue dog rescued me.
I am childless, at least when it comes to humans. I live with regret over never having children, but Baby is a comforting consolation prize. Unfortunately, my wife did not want children. When we divorced, I was shocked that she left me with custody of Baby. They had been inseparable, to the extent that I often felt like a third wheel. The care and feeding and loving of my dog became the central focus of my life, and I discovered the profound pleasure being attached at the hip to a munchkin who is affectionate, loyal, mischievous, neurotic (like her parent), endlessly entertaining, and belly-laugh funny. It felt like my life was a buddy movie, with a buddy who slept on my bed, inches from me, with her head resting on a pillow.
I don’t necessarily think of myself as Baby’s father, but when dog owners refer to themselves as their dog’s “mommy” or “daddy”, I never think it’s silly. I relate. At this point in my life, it is highly doubtful I will ever be a father, but I know someone who thinks I’m hers.
Having had the profound privilege of being serviced and saved by a dog, during National Service Dog Month, I salute all service dogs, credentialed and non-credentialed. I acknowledge their noble and necessary service to we humans. And to all of our heroic service dogs, with love and gratitude, I proclaim…Thank you for your service.
Jeffpohn@gmail.com
805-798-9060
https://substack.com/@jeffpohn