I graduated from a creative writing doctoral program right as COVID hit in 2020, and when the academic job market dried up, so did my desire to keep working at breakneck speed to stay involved in the creative writing community. Dead ass tired and burnt out, I was dealing with the kind of life-fatigue that happens when you’ve been overworked for low wages and something deep inside of you has slowly shifted. I began to see a real need for change and knew the path I was once on wasn’t opening for me and doors were shutting. I was like a jilted lover who wanted desperately to hold onto a relationship that had already slipped away.
While I was able to find new professional prospects and landed a job in a different field, I let myself fall away from being an active participant in the writing community. I was 30 and had been reading a lot of articles about how people spend years obtaining their PhD, only to be shut out of an academic career upon graduation (and meanwhile, peers of the same age have already spent years gaining experience in their industry and getting a leg up). Simply put I did not want to be left behind. I started a new role doing content writing in tech, and while I could afford rent and small things I wasn’t able to before—like new socks and underwear without holes in them—I sincerely felt lasting grief over the life I’d left behind.
Admittedly I was lost and lonely. And yes, I let myself languish for quite a while. I told myself I was resting after all the trouble I’d been through. But part of me knew I had let my passion go. And what did I have to show for my 11 years in higher education (not an easy feat given the stiff competition and class dynamics I witnessed as a writer from a rural, blue-collar background). I still explored my interests and thought with inquiry and curiosity about my writing obsessions, but I was no longer a part of a dialogue or conversation about them. I lived in a vacuum.
The languishing I don’t regret; at some point it made clear and evident the growing problem and the steps I wanted to take that would walk me toward solving it. And let me tell you, I am still figuring it all out. I am writing this out of a need to connect and commune and collaborate and conversate. I am writing this to speak with you honestly about the struggles of the publishing world today. And more than anything, I am writing this as a missive on the importance of re-finding our writing juice and place in the community.
Here's what happened: I started making small posts on social media about, well, the transformation I’d undergone after stepping away from the writing community. Turns out, this is something that resonates with folks (and here I was sitting in my basement office for years thinking I was all alone holding this grief, and that nobody could help get me unstuck). I started discovering a connection I had with folks in similar positions: we felt as though the publishing landscape and creative writing community had changed significantly in the last ten years. There have been obvious shifts toward author platform, numbers, followers, overall marketability, and less room for genre-bending weirdness that might not find a spot on bookshelves. If I may share my own personal grievance here, it’s that rural working-class writers continue to be overlooked in the publishing industry in favor of those from more elite backgrounds because they don’t have the social capital or, let’s face it, real capital. This bottlenecks the type of memoirs and essay collections we see published.
As I’ve begun dipping my toe back into the communal waters such that I am no longer writing in a vacuum, I’ve noticed that my close writer friends feel similarly about the publishing industry at large today, and in spite of the obvious uphill battle it takes to get a book out there, we are still writing and trying anyway. Because we have to, because we love the battle, because we love to write.
And we’re not backing down. We’re sending missives into the void even when nobody is listening. Hell, if nobody reads this, I will be fine, trust me. I’ve spent so many listless nights huddled in my basement office speaking to the dead to catch their whispers on the page that truly I will be doing this forever even when nobody’s paying attention.
Here’s the thing: there are a lot of serious, talented writers out there who are uncomfortable with the kind of self-promotion it seems to take to grow a platform and community. Believe me, I get it. I am way more comfortable in my underground hole with the candles lit as I drill down labyrinthine passages back into the wound that made me write to begin with. But this is an economy where quality writing meets market positioning. Hard fact.
We need to follow the red thread, the bloodline throughout our work, the parts of our stories that not only connect with a broader audience but add value. Give people a good reason to read your work, a unique perspective that only YOU can share, let your world touch theirs through the screen. Make friends, goddammit. Read their letters. If you read something you enjoyed, say so. If you felt it, follow the warmth. Build your community authentically.
My advice: go toward the warmth.
I’m putting together a playbook for getting unstuck, finding your juice, creating community, and finishing your project. Stay tuned for more.
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Brilliantly said. Thanks for sharing
I sincerely needed to read this today, thank you for sharing! 🫶