Amy Shearn, Novelist, On Launching A Book In A Pandemic
What have you seen lately that’s been inspiring?
I think it's pretty delightful how people and bookstores and publishing houses and magazines have come together to support writers whose books are launching during these perfectly wild times. A novel can feel like a frivolous thing against the dire background of the pandemic, our national reckoning with racism, and the chaotic state of the world. But people work for years and years to write a book, and in troubled moments of history I think we need fiction, and all kinds of art, more than ever. So I've loved seeing people magically put together virtual book launches, literary zooms, online book tours, and that kind of thing -- seemingly out of thin air. Novelists and all-around great literary citizens Caroline Leavitt and Jenna Blum have invented the Mighty Blaze, which is a concerted effort to help get new books in front of readers' eyes, news cycle or twitter meltdown of the day be darned. And there are all sorts of neat virtual reading series, like Brian Gresko's Antibody Series and many more. Quarantine life has made me feel extremely sleepy and slow, so I'm extra impressed by how people have pulled together these kinds of projects.
What have you been associated with that has been inspiring?
The conceptual artist Lenka Clayton invented this great self-directed artist residency called the Artist's Residency in Motherhood that sort of saved my sanity a couple years ago when I was feeling so overwhelmed with family and work that I felt like I'd never write again. What the ARIM does is essentially give you permission to call any length of time -- whether that's every baby nap time for a month, or a week you're blocking off for yourself -- your own artists' residency. She offers signs and cards and other tools that help make it feel really official. I connected with some writer moms I know and for a while, pre-pandemic, we'd coordinate two weekends a year where we all agreed to steal away from our families and devote ourselves to writing -- often in a borrowed apartment or rented house. The gestalt of the thing has really stuck with me -- no matter how messy your life is, you can declare any amount of time to be your own personal residency, and prioritize your creative work.
What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you were 22? OR, what advice would you give to a young(er) person who wants to do what you do?
Well, what's funny and frustrating about this is that it would be exactly the advice I was given but just couldn't absorb at 22. A graduate school professor in my creative writing MFA (see if you can guess who, Kevin!) told me: don't be in a rush to publish. The writing is the best part, and the writing will always be the best part. Publishing won't change your life or make the writing any easier or more satisfying. It's really, really true! Your joy has to come from the writing itself -- that's where the satisfaction lies.
What would you do (or pursue) if money were no object?
I love my day job as an editor at an online publication -- I really, really do. I think editing makes me a better writer, and I work with brilliant people, and it never ceases to astound me that I've managed to have an actual career despite, you know, studying creative writing. That said. I really think I would be so good at being a lady of leisure. If I didn't have to work to support myself and my children, I would definitely: Live in the country somewhere in a lovely house with a lovely writing shed out back. Every day I'd go for a long walk, and then I'd write for 4-5 hours -- probably more if I was revising. Then I'd spend the afternoon reading, maybe swimming in a lake. I just had a weeklong writing residency on a farm that was basically exactly this, and it confirmed my suspicions that it's a very good look for me. Oh and surely I'd have time and money to devote to worthy causes, I promise I'd do a ton of that too.
What are you excited about now?
It's a little bit hard to get excited about anything right now, to be honest. The uncertainty of life during the pandemic makes the future feel nebulous. But I do have a book coming out in the fall -- my third novel, Unseen City -- and I'm starting to feel like that's really happening, after months of it feeling very abstract. I'm excited to have it out in the world after many many years of work and waiting. And I'm very excited about the next book, the one I'm still writing! That always feels like the best thing I've ever written, whatever I'm working on in the moment. I'm happy to be in that stage still.
Amy Shearn is the author of the critically acclaimed novels How Far Is the Ocean from Here, chosen as a notable debut by Poets & Writers and a hot summer read by the Chicago Tribune, and The Mermaid of Brooklyn, which was a selection of Target’s Emerging Authors program, a Hudson News Summer Reads pick, and was also published in the UK and as an audiobook. Her third book Unseen City comes out in September of 2020 from Red Hen Press. She is a senior editor for Forge, a fiction editor for Joyland Magazine, and her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Real Simple, and many literary publications. She earned an MFA from the University of Minnesota, has received a Promise Award grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and has participated in residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm, the Unruly Retreat, and elsewhere. Amy lives in New York City with her two children.
