The Unique Experience of Being “The Writer in the Family”
By Guest | April 25, 2023 |
Please welcome guest and author Jennifer De Leon to Writer Unboxed! WU contributor Desmond Hall made the introduction, and said we absolutely had to meet Jennifer. We’re so glad that he did, and we think you’ll feel the same once you’ve read today’s post. More about Jennifer from her bio:
Jennifer De Leon is author of the YA novel Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From (Simon & Schuster, 2020), which was a Junior Library Guild selection, and the Juniper Award winning essay collection White Space: Essays on Culture, Race, & Writing (UMass Press). Her latest YA novel, Borderless, releases today!
Borderless follows Maya, a talented teen fashion designer who is caught in the crosshairs of gang violence, when she and her mother set off on a perilous journey from Guatemala City to the US in this heart-wrenching young adult novel that gives humanity to migrants at our border.
You can connect with Jennifer on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
My parents came to this country with hopes and dreams like so many immigrants do. They wanted to learn English, become U.S. citizens, work, send money home, and eventually—get married, have children, and buy a house. The dreams they had for their three daughters included: graduate from college, become independent women (never having to rely on anyone, certainly not a man), and have a choice in your profession. My father, in particular, always told us, “Get a job where you don’t have to work with your hands.” He worked in a steel manufacturing factory for decades, and my mother was a housekeeper. I knew what he meant, although as a writer, technically I work with my hands every day.
For me, the path toward becoming a published author was not easy. While I loved reading, and I spent endless hours writing in my journal, I didn’t really think that being an author was a real possibility. Maybe when I was older, in my seventies, I thought. Because this was the image I had of writers—older, sophisticated, well-read and well-traveled, white-haired, usually men. I didn’t read a book by a Latina author until I was a freshman in college (The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros). Being a writer was something other people did, not in my family, not me.
Yet, after reading Cisneros, I began to believe. I asked questions. I persevered. I moved to California. I became a teacher. I held so many odd jobs in between (house sitter, assistant, cashier, nanny, receptionist). All the while, I read and wrote like crazy. I attended conferences and writing workshops and graduate programs and salons. I realized that I had inherited my parents’ trailblazer essence, as I, too, was carving a new path.
Much has been said about being a first-generation college graduate, or a first-time home buyer, or the first woman in space. But being the first writer in the family is such a unique and often emotional experience. Here are a few things that have helped me.
Remember that it’s a job. It’s easy to say now, but for a long time I didn’t see writing as “a real job.” It was my hobby. It was something I did when I felt like it. I didn’t have any real deadlines. I now have contracts with publishing houses, deadlines for my agent and my editor, deliverables (such as this blog post!), and research to do for my next book. For a very long time, I did not get paid for my writing. But if I could go back in time, I would tell my younger self: it is a job, whether you get paid or not. It’s work. Real work. Really hard work, sometimes. It’s not frivolous. It matters. So: roll up your sleeves, make a schedule, commit to your art, and get to work.
Write about them. Yes, write about your family. For me, this helped bridge the gap between my identity as a writer and my relationships with family members. I have written about my parents, extended relatives, children, husband, and sisters, in my creative nonfiction essays. And in my novels and short stories, I often pinch certain characteristics from family members and give them to fictional characters. This doesn’t work for everyone, of course, but for me, I find that it is a privilege to finally be able to bring often marginalized stories, to the center. I love this quote by playwright Suzan-Lori Parks: “Write for them, fight for them.”
Take your family with you to readings and events. I have taken my mom to countless readings and even the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in Sicily. My husband and I have spent time in several writing residencies across the country. I bring my young sons to readings and events. I have a distinct memory of my then three-year-old son running across an enormous stage towards me while I read at the podium. I looked at his sweet face, picked him up, and kept reading.
Know that it’s okay if they don’t “get it.” Sometimes family will say dumb stuff. Or ask questions at holiday tables that make you feel totally deflated. What have you published lately? How much do you get paid for writing a book? How long does it take? What page are you on now? Take it with a grain of salt. Most people don’t know what really goes into being a writer, into publishing a book.
Have a sense of humor. It really does help.
Above all, my advice is to keep going. Being the first writer in the family can be trying at times, joyous and celebratory at others, but above all, it is an honor to be able to do what you love in this life. And by being the first, it means you are helping to carve a path for others.
Are you the first or only writer in your family? What does that mean for you? Does it present with challenges you’ve learned how to manage? We’d love to hear from you in comments.
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
Comments from my family: “How’s that writing thing you do?”
“You make any money yet?”
“I wrote some back in high school. Wanna hear my poems?”
“Write about Uncle Jerry. Now there’s a REAL story!”
And last but not least. When CBS in Atlanta requested an interview about my novel, my dad said, “What the hell do they want to talk to HER for?”
Ouch!
No prophet is without honor except in his own country . . .
Feels that way sometimes, I agree. Especially when you belong to a NUMBER of communities, and it seems as if not a one of them really picks you up. It’s probably not THAT bad, but maybe what we do is faintly suspicious? After all, as Lawrence Block so aptly put it, we TELL Lies for fun and profit.
Uff da, as my mother-in-law would say. Some people just don’t get it. It’s hard when it’s your own family.
It’s wonderful that your family attends your retreats and readings. Throughout my young adulthood, my mom and siblings gave me the title of ‘writer’. If an appeal or letter to someone needed writing, they came to me. I wasn’t thrilled about that but did it to help out.
In my 50’s I began studying fiction writing. My mom encouraged me to continue. Year after year she’d remind me that she wanted to attend at least one reading before she died. She’s alive, semi-well at 95 yrs old and thrilled that I have a novel debuting in June with another under contract for 2024. I agree with you, “It’s an honor to be able to do what you love…”
Terrific blog post. I really enjoy YA novels, so will look for your new release.
I’m definitely the first novelist in the family – second generation American on my Hungarian father’s side and on my mother’s father’s Mexican side – longer on the grandmother’s side from Illinois. Started life in California, spent from seven to nineteen in Mexico City, finished college in Seattle, grad school in Wisconsin, and insisted on retiring in California. I’m the oldest of 42 grandchildren.
My children wouldn’t exist if eight families hadn’t moved to the Americas from their original European nations (and added Italy and Germany) to the mix. Filling census forms in is [not] fun.
I always planned to write. [Long story in between.]
I write from experience, but not about my family. Major chronic illness was the driver, the subtext to the novels.
I don’t think my family knows quite what to make of the fiction writing. They love and support ME – and don’t buy, read, or recommend my books that I can tell – which have taken 15 and 7 years respectively for the first two in my mainstream trilogy. Possibly it’s, “We all know Alicia is a little odd”? I took my four sisters paperback copies of the first in 2015 – and haven’t heard a word.
It used to bother me, hurt my feelings, but just because you write doesn’t mean your pod of cousins galore read your kind of fiction. Now I’m happy they don’t pester for ‘the next book.’ Or give advice, or suggest topics, or even question my sanity.
Maybe the biggest gift of family is not treating you special when you do something different, accepting you as they’ve always done.
We’re good.
I am the only writer in my family. While no one has been overly negative, I have delayed my writing career partly because they (and me!) have thought of my writing as a hobby, rather than something which can be a real career. But also because there is a lot of “writing/publishing is hard, don’t expect to make $ out of it, get a day job” etc. And all these have subtlety undermined me in finishing my novels & short stories & trying to submit.
I think more positivity is needed, but also change on all levels so we have more respect for writers, authors, editors, etc and push more for substainal & living wages & payment.
Because writing is important & essential & writers deserve to live well!
Congratulations Jennifer, on being the writer in the family, the first to publish your stories. May the gift be imparted to future generations. Your advice is spot on. Thank you.
I come from a long line of storytellers. A great-great-great-aunt on my father’s side was the first published writer. She published an autobiographical novel titled Saguna. My father has published short stories and engineering books. My mother wrote poems and essays in Marathi. Her brother and father and grandfather were Anglican clergy and they wrote on theological matters. Two of her sisters wrote about social issues as well. My son is also a writer. As you can imagine, my family has been very supportive of my writing. They are a huge blessing.
I’m the first and only writer in my family. I work as a freelance writer and I’m writing my first romance novella.
The idea “write about your family” is a good one if you are careful, however I fear that as general advice, it will chaotically enable many aspirational authors who are in search of inspiration. They will then turn towards their family members in ways that are disrespectful and, unfortunately, affect real-world outcomes.
As the son of someone who in later age is trying to fulfill their dream of being an author, my experience has been that it is not safe general advice anymore to tell aspirational authors to write about their family, even if it is tangentially.
Simply put, the stakes are too high to be an amateur writer and to write about your family—just for the sake of the whole ‘write what you know’ mantra.
Further outlining my experience is what I’ve heard anecdotally in writing classes. The experiences of people who believe in ‘writing what they know’ (ie: family and friends) usually has devastating consequences on important relationships. These consequences are almost always more punishing than the rewards, and writers are losing their close connections in life because they start to see them as muses.
An extremely small number of authors (long-form writers) ever make a decent buck. Therefore, it is extremely risky for these individuals to start drawing from their personal life in general. They risk losing very important pieces of their life for nothing.
The best advice I have is to never focus on one family member. Never make it about family if the subject matter of the book is somewhat negative (or positive maybe even as well, haha). And for most, don’t make it about yourself. Writing is not an innocent endeavour. Sure, write what you know, but be EXTREMELY careful.
You have a great story to tell thanks to your unique upbringing, but most aspirational authors will not have this in the cards.