Moving Forward

In writing and in life

It’s Iowa City’s Pride weekend, and as a proud ally, I’m reminded of the resilience of my LGBTQ+ friends and their determination to keep Iowa as their home, even as much of the state threatens to make their home untenable. I’m at the upstairs Back Desk at Prairie Lights this Saturday, subbing for a sick colleague and taking in the joyous celebration on Dubuque Street below. (And yes, that makes this week’s Back Desk post rather literal!)

I got to have my own joyous celebrations this past week, which I’m hopeful will propel me and my writing goals forward. The first happened this past Saturday, when I was invited to read at Porchlight as a finalist of their first-ever Iowa Writers’ Residency. As the first of three readers (the other two being Samuel Burt, this year’s inaugural resident, and award-winning poet Sandra Marchetti), I read from the beginning of my memoir manuscript. My reading was well received by the event’s attendees, and a few even asked, “When’s your book coming out?” This delighted me. I told them I didn’t know, that I was still searching for an agent and a publisher, and they urged me to reach out when I did. That’s the best possible feeling as a writer, to know that an audience of strangers wants to read the book you’ve been working on for 3+ years. I took this as a good sign from the universe and as momentum for my own writing career. (See my instagram account for photos!)

Later in the week, I hit another huge milestone that’s worth celebrating: On June 20th, right before the summer solstice, I finished the draft of my memoir I’ve been working on for the past year. This is a significant revision of the version I submitted in 2024 for my creative nonfiction MFA thesis. It goes deeper into my own vulnerabilities and is more marketable (which in this context just means more readable) to a wider audience. I don’t doubt a future agent or editor will have further suggested edits for me, but I think it’s the best I can possibly do on my own, which means it’s ready to go out into the world again. And first, it’s going to the indie press editor who invited me to send her my whole manuscript back in April. I held onto it for two more months, enough time to finish the draft and polish it to a high-gloss shine. It’s ready.

Image description: A photo of my memoir manuscript’s page count and word count as of June 20, 2025: 246 pages, 81,526 words. A long journey.

Sending out such a massive project is scary, of course. I only have about 30% confidence that this is the kind of book she’ll be interested in, but I’m hoping that if she’s feeling generous and happens to know at least one other editor or agent, maybe she’ll recommend it to them. Just a wish and a prayer. I’ll query more agents, too. Now that I have a better grasp of what my book is and how to market it, I at least feel more prepared this time. (I queried about a dozen agents last summer and heard back from three, all of whom rejected my pitch but gave a couple of encouraging words all the same.)

This is hard, hard work. As Melissa Febos said in her Prairie Lights reading on June 2nd, there are no shortcuts. But, the sheer number of books for sale here remind me that it’s not impossible to get a book out in the world. All that’s required is to keep moving forward, celebrate each milestone, and not give up.

Writing, I’m slowly figuring out, is not all that different from living.

Back Desk Questions:

• Which writing milestones have you recently celebrated?

• How do you keep yourself motivated, as an artist/writer/creative, through periods of uncertainty?

• What inspires you to not give up and keep moving forward?