Some thoughts on a life of books and maybe even courage....

There I am. Internally panicking, externally crushing it

I have been meaning to share the text of the talk I gave at Creative Mornings back in March and keep forgetting to. So in honor of #BookLoversDay, it seems like an apt time to do so.

I was invited back in March to take part in Creative Mornings' "Audience Takes the Stage" event. It was a funny roundabout route there, too.

It all started back in February at the Mercantile Library. I did what I so often do, recommend a book to a complete (and usually startled) stranger, who had not asked for any such recommendation. It's just that I am just! so! passionate! about books and reading. I can't contain myself.

That stranger turned out to be a friend. She had a recommendation of her own: I should start going to Creative Mornings. I went in February, and met another nice lady who I bombarded with book recos. At the end of the event, the organizers said that if you had a light bulb on your name tag, you should come see them. I did not have a light bulb. So I went about chatting with people. Suddenly the nice lady I'd given the book list to came up, stuck her name tag on me (she did have a light bulb), and put me in front of the organizers, proclaiming, "This young lady has great energy—you should let her do it!"

Do what? Oh, give a talk at the next event. On courage. NBD. Me being me, I immediately answered "Sure, why not?" And then walked out to my car and thought, "OMG. What did I just agree to?"

All's well that ends well, and the event was actually great. So at long last here is the text of the talk I wrote for it.

Courage

So how ironic is it that I am supposed to talk to you about courage today, and I am more than a little nervous?

I think it was Shakespeare who wrote, “Welcome to your life. There’s no turning back.” Wait, no…that was Tears for Fears. The sentiment holds, though.

When I found out that this month’s Creative Mornings event was going to be here, at the Mercantile Library, I was honestly a little overwhelmed. I have been attending readings and events here for years. I sometimes use this beautiful room as a workspace. I find everything about this place inspiring. (And if you are not a member here, do yourself a gigantic favor and become one.)

I would be lying if I said I had never pictured myself on this side of the podium in this very place. In my imagination, I am giving a reading from my first published book (hardcover, with jacket. Cover designed by Chip Kidd; blurbs from Ann Patchett, Lidia Yuknavitch, Tupelo Hassman—no, I haven’t given this ANY thought at all!). It’s a memoir, by the way; the line for my signing goes out the door…

We all have that dream. That thing that we imagine that keeps us going every day; that thing that when we work on it, we cannot help but be energized by, totally stoked on it. That thing that we have dreamed of, perhaps since we were children; when maybe we didn’t yet know how often life can knock you on your ass, when we still dreamt freely.

That thing that perhaps we are even afraid to work on—what if it doesn’t happen? What if we fail? If you never start, you can’t fail at it, right? True. Sort of. Technically. But you can also never succeed at it, either.

My dream has always centered squarely on books. Reading them, editing them, writing about them, and one day, perhaps, even writing them myself.

That is why today’s location is so serendipitous!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was in this room for a reading by the incomparable Min Jin Lee. I worked up my nerve to ask a question—“Where did you find the courage to take the leap, and follow your passion to write?” And I also said something out loud that night that I hadn’t said out loud yet: “I quit my day job yesterday.”

And it’s true, I did. I had come to the realization that I was not following my true passion. That I was playing it safe when I needed to be more brave. And that had to change. More on that in a minute….

Let’s go back to the very beginning, so you can understand a little more about who I am, why books matter to me so much. I was born in the winter of 1970-something to teenaged parents, who brought me home from the hospital to the nicest single-wide trailer a laborer could afford to rent in those days in Trimble County, Kentucky.

It’s probably not very shocking to hear that my parents’ marriage didn’t last much past my third birthday. So then it was me and my mom.

We didn’t have much, financially; we were frankly, poor. But my mother gave me something that has carried me through my entire academic, professional, and personal life: She taught me how to read before I even got to Head Start.

When my first grade teacher, Julie Lauer, read us E. B. White’s classic, Charlotte’s Web, out loud, chapter by chapter, the deal was sealed. The magic of books became so obvious to me. It changed my life; I was utterly hooked. Books became my refuge from a difficult childhood and adolescence. Through books, I could escape any time I wanted to—I could journey to Narnia, explore Terabithia, or just spend quiet hours in the Zuckermans’ barn cellar.

I was a first-gen college student. When I got to NKU, I had no idea really what I was doing. I was just grateful to be there. I ended up getting a degree in Literature and Writing. I loved spending entire days reading. Here I encountered writers like Marge Piercy, Toni Morison, Joyce Carol Oates, Maya Angelou, Flannery O’Connor. These women wrote so powerfully, so fiercely. With so much, ahem, courage? They inspired me. Still do.

Could I ever do that? Write that way? The 20-year-old me wondered…And then did what a lot of people do: got a job in brand identity and set about the business of trying to pay off my student loans. I left that dream pinned to a board in my room that quickly gathered dust, got covered over with utility bills, pizza coupons,  band flyers…

I did eventually end up working as an editor in book publishing, in my mid-20s. I couldn’t believe my luck: You mean I can actually get paid to read books all day?! This work took me to the Yale Publishing Course, to a job at Columbia University in New York, and then back here, home, to Cincinnati, where I am once again editing books, and writing about them, on my own, as a freelancer.

From “the holler” to the Ivy League. If that isn’t proof that anything is possible, I don’t know what is. Did I ever have moments where I felt like I didn’t belong? Surely. I still do. But the best things have always happened when I just had the courage to show  up, be myself, and dive in…

So back to that whole quitting my day job thing….Just a few weeks ago I was sitting at Iris Book Café with our very own Katie Hicks here, and I picked up a book by the writer Sarah Orne Jewett. In it there were a few lines from a letter she once wrote to fellow writer Willa Cather. She said, “Write it [your story] as it is. Don’t try to make it like this or that. You can’t do it anybody else’s way. You will have to make a way of your own.”

“You can’t do it anybody else’s way. You will have to make a way of your own”—that hit me like so much good writing does—like a bomb. I had only just the day before made a very large decision—I needed to leave my day job, and get back to working on books. And, maybe even dust off that old dream—and write something myself.

So here I am today at the beginning of a new journey. And am I scared? Absolutely. But am I also more excited than I have been in ages? No doubt about it. I’m still not sure exactly where I’m going to land. But I do know how I’m going to land: On my feet. That’s what courage really is: Taking a leap even when you can’t see the ground yet, but having faith that you will be OK.

So what’s my point? What do I want to inspire you good people to do today? What’s that dream of yours that’s gathering dust? Or, are you working on that dream and feel like you’ve hit a wall?

Start. Or, keep going. What do you have to lose? Your passion. Your entire life. What do you have to gain? Your passion. Your entire life.

Essentially, in the immortal words of that great American statesman and poet, Mr. David Lee Roth: “Might as well jump!”