A Fond P.S. to My Writing Career

Sometime in the early 2000’s, we had moved to Seattle. I was Of Counsel to a boutique downtown software firm, and Nancy was in-house with a biotech called Immunex. On the side I was shepherding our first book through the publication process and writing and finding a publisher for our second book.

I was also still trying to flog a new novel, at the stage of unsuccessfully querying literary agents, who I firmly believe should all be lined up against a wall and shot. Without a last cigarette. Which they wouldn’t want because they’d all be busy talking nonstop nonsense.

One day a postcard showed up in the mail. On the front was a picture of the cover of a book; on the reverse, my name and address on a mailing label, information about the novel, and a note: “Hi G—New one! Check it out. J.”

Obviously the note was by the author, Julianna Baggott, of whom I’d never heard. Who was this? A hint showed itself on the mailing label: it was the same odd font as the one that my MFA program used to send me announcements of readings, publications, and so on. My feeble mind realized that probably this Julianna Baggott had gone to UNC-G for her MFA, and they had provided their mailing list for her to market her book. I was furious.

I Googled her, and, sure enough, she had gotten an MFA at UNC-G, she was young, this was her third novel, and she was also drop-dead gorgeous. So she was one of Fred Chappell’s women—there was a popular theory among the loser men in the program that Fred was better working with women than men. Or, more probably, we men just couldn’t write. I freely admit that my boiling temper was caused by mere jealousy: who was she to publish a novel (a “new one”?) and then shove my unpublished face in it?

I found her email address on her website--www.juliannabaggott.com--and started my screed, which went something like this: “I don’t know who you are, we’ve never met, and I am rather annoyed that you chose to write me anyway and in such a breezily casual manner—‘Hi G’. I assume that you got this mailing list from UNC-G. I don’t care to hear from you further. Please take my name off your mailing list.” I’m pretty sure there was more of a caustic nature, but fortunately I’ve blocked it out.

I hit send faster than you can say irritation and assumed that the matter was closed. You can imagine me dusting my hands off as I left my laptop. Showed HER. But underlying my annoyance was the certainty that she was too successful to see this email. She probably had an assistant who would make sure that she would never see it. I had vented without ramifications.

About a half hour later, Julianna replied, actually something very much like this as her response is seared into what is left of my evil blackened soul: “George, I am SO sorry. I apologize for being presumptuous. It’s just that this book isn’t selling like it was supposed to, and I don’t know what to do. I’m just trying to get it in front of as many people as possible because I was planning to support my family with this. If you have any ideas how to do this, please let me know! And I’ll make sure your name gets taken off the mailing list.”

Utterly humiliated and embarrassed, I opened several important veins, and then I wrote her back. “Abject” and “profuse” and “prostrate” don’t rise to an accurate description of my apology. She accepted my apology more readily than I had any right to expect.

Over the ensuing years, we corresponded very cordially by email, and I followed her remarkable career. Once I wrote her that as a lawyer I usually ended mean letters with, “I will appreciate your close attention to and compliance with the foregoing.” She said she was delighted by that and hoped to use it, which delight was typical of her.

There is a lesson in the trouble she had with her third book, The Madam, which she told me is about her family and thus was very difficult to write. Apparently her publisher abandoned it when it turned out not to be an immediate bestseller—and her previous two books had been. I’m only guessing here, but she may have been really flummoxed.

So, weirdly she had encountered this obstacle, but she didn’t cave in or give up, like I have in my fiction-writing career. She reinvented herself: first as the author, cleverly named N.E. Bode, of a number of children’s novels. It was one of the children’s novels, Pure, that allowed her to take a financial breath. She’s also written novels under the name Bridget Asher; my favorite was My Husband’s Sweethearts.

At this point, I think, Julianna had nabbed a job at Florida State, where she’s now tenured. At that point, I quit worrying about her financial situation. I suspect it’s only gotten better. She writes everything, even books of poetry. How is she so good at everything? It’s not a gift. Writing is hard. Writing poetry is impossible.

Part of what I think makes Julianna special is her diligence, her persistence, her inventiveness, what seems to me a relentless drive to write good stuff. And she hustles. Back when we were corresponding, I’d email her and not expect to hear back, but she always responded within an hour. (Including that first email. She could bloody have waited a little longer!) She responded to my email about this blog post the morning after the evening I wrote her. She does workshops. She gives speeches. She’s on media. She has four kids! How many writers can one describe with as much energy and diligence?

More: She and I had a friend in common, the writer Bernie Kaplan, who taught her when she was an undergraduate at the University of Delaware. When I lived in Wilmington, Bernie helped me with my novels, and we became good friends. When subsequently I asked Bernie about her, he said, “Oh, yes, of course, everyone loves Julianna.” Jesus. Is she perfect? So she’s also as kind to everyone else as she is to me?

She wrote a novel in collaboration with Steve Almond, Which Brings Me to You. It’s funny, brutally smart, fond, oh everything good. I picked it up a year ago or so to read it again and, after a few paragraphs, thought, I just can’t. It’s too good. Julianna and Mr. Almond were doing a reading in Redmond or somewhere nearby. Julianna and I corresponded, and I said I’d be there. Finally I would get to meet this amazing person! If nothing else, I could ask her how she and I could have come from the same writing program.

But when the day approached, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to go watch the two of them, brilliant, funny, broadly talented, read from this great novel. If I’d gone, I might have killed myself.

Finally, think back to that first email: she put herself out there, apologizing to me (unnecessarily, really) and describing her financial situation. She allowed herself to be vulnerable. How many complete strangers will do that? Writers have to do that, to stick themselves out there emotionally. Julianna Baggott is also brave.

Here’s to Julianna Baggott. She is a fabulous writer, a brutally hard worker, a navigator of the publishing and movie-making world, a mother of four, and a very kind person. Why she didn’t fire off an email back at me, perhaps a concise “fuck off, loser”, only says what a great person she is.

Hers is a lesson I’ve known all along, and my wife knows it, and I think my daughter has picked it up too. We are in a highly competitive world. You can be as smart as anyone in the room, but you beat them if you hustle. Julianna hustles. She teaches, writes, does workshops, publishes writing tips, appears on media, whatever there is, she does it.

She wrote me recently about her postcard, how quaint it seems now, after social media has exploded, and now every writer is selling herself all the time. I wrote back that that mindset was utterly beyond my ability, that I can’t promote myself at all, mainly because I don’t believe in the product. But Julianna and her career have adapted to the new world. I hope that we can all agree that she’s won the success that she deserves.

Julianna Baggott