I’m pleased to share that I’ve been named as a Writer in Residence at City Books, a local used bookstore in Pittsburgh. You can read more about the opportunity here. You can also read a conversation between the owner of City Books, Arlan Hess, and local author Deesha Philyaw here.
I first knew I loved to write in my first writer’s workshop, in Miss Klim’s fifth grade class. I filled marble composition books with double-spaced thick pencil chicken scrawl. The stories were inventive and nonsensical and shared without fear of judgment. My classmates Grant and Caitlin would swap pages with me and we’d share animated suggestions before returning to our work with fervor. You can read Grant’s poetry on his Instagram, @grantcpoetry, or buy a copy of his recent book, He Felt Unwell (So He Wrote This).
In high school, we read Catcher in the Rye and Wuthering Heights and Sense and Sensibility and The Stranger. I devoured non-fiction as my Fun Reading outside of assignments: David Sedaris’ Barrel Fever, Sloane Crosley’s I Was Told There’d Be Cake. [Any of my high school friends will remember my infatuation with Crosley, and one of you, who I will find someday, still has my copies of her books that I’d loaned you.] These writers introduced me to the subject I would return to over and over: myself.
Self doubt is a cancer to a writer’s career. I’m certainly no exception. Over time, I stopped telling people I wanted to be a writer. I felt self-conscious and didn’t understand how it was even feasible. Writing became something I did, but not who I was. It was more palatable for others, in a society that dictates that what you do is how you define yourself, and what you do is defined as why you are paid.
I woke up at 5:30 on weekdays and wrote for two hours in Ground Central before work. I invested in my first workshop with writer Chloe Caldwell, and on that first day, I realized I was the only one who’d never read her books. It was Chloe who told me that I don’t need permission to call myself a writer. “You write, so you’re a writer.”
This residency will give me space, encouragement and accountability to continue drafting my first collection of essays. I’m super proud of myself, but also grateful for the heaps of support that has guided me here. Especially Andrew, who two years ago looked me straight in the eyes and told me to quit my full-time job in order to pursue writing.
In the words of The Bachelorette, I’m ready to let the journey begin!
If you missed it, my essay The End of Small Talk was published last month in Hobart. Thank you all for the outpouring of support. “It means a lot to me” feels trite to say, but it’s true.
In Bird by Bird, Ann Lamott writes,
I go on telling people to consider finding someone who would not mind reading their drafts and marking them up with useful suggestions. The person may not have an answer to what is missing or annoying about the piece, but writing is so often about making mistakes and feeling lost…in a little while it may strike you as a small miracle that you have someone in your life, whose taste you admire (after all, this person loves you and your work), who will tell you the truth and help you stay on the straight and narrow, or find your way back to it if you are lost.
Jenna is my small miracle. You can read her essay, Burn Seasons, in the current issue Fatal Flaw. Her writing inspires me to write better.
Happy Publication Day to my incredible mentor Courtney Cook! ILY!!!!!
As always, thanks for reading.