Interviews with Creatives

This month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sandra Evans, author of the delightful middle-grade novel, THIS IS NOT A WEREWOLF STORY. Sandy and I met through our mutual friend, the writer Tamiko Nimura, who knew we both wrote middle-grade novels and thought we might hit it off. She was right. The first time I met Sandy at Corina Bakery in Tacoma, Washington, we talked for hours like we’d known each other for years. She is a kind soul, a kindred spirit, and a talented and tenacious writer. It’s my distinct pleasure to share with you how Sandy got to where she is today, and what keeps her motivated after more than thirty years of writing.

Peg: When did you first start doing creative writing and what inspired you to do it?

Sandra: I started writing poetry when I was in middle school. I wasn’t a big talker and I was pretty shy. I think it was a way for me to process my feelings at a time when I didn’t have anyone to tell them to and I wouldn’t have known how to if I had.

P: How and when did you know you wanted to be a novelist?

S: I can’t think of a time in my life when I didn’t want to be a writer. From the youngest age, I’m sure. My parents love books. They read to me all the time. Creating one has always seemed like the greatest good.

P: In addition to writing, you’re a mom, and you teach French at a high school. How do you balance writing, working, and home life?

S: I don’t. It’s pretty messy and sometimes a little depressing. Sometimes I feel like I fight for every minute that I take to write—I’m fighting myself as much as everyone else.

This year I’ve gotten in a rhythm of dropping my son off for school and then heading to the coffee shop for an hour before I go to school myself. It’s tempting to go straight to work instead. Students always need more time—that’s an abyss. You’ll never climb out of it. There’s always another stack of papers to correct. There’s always a handful of kids that make you lose sleep. My classroom always needs cleaning. I could spend an hour a day making photocopies, another hour writing emails to parents, and another harassing counselors and admins about kids that are freefalling through the cracks.

So I try not to be a perfectionist. In theory I’m part time and so I try to work within the six hours a day I get paid for.

On the weekend I try to get in at least three or four hours at a time. That way I can get my head around the whole story.

I work out at least four times a week now that I’m at a gym that has classes on a near hourly basis. It gives me headspace to think about scenes and gets rid of all the stress of my work day. Also, there’s something about learning how to push through discomfort physically that has really helped me deal with the frustration that sometimes come with writing, and the eternal and never-ending self-doubt.

My house and garden take the biggest hit. I try not to dwell on it.

A friend recently described me as very disciplined. It kind of startled me. I don’t think of myself that way, but maybe it’s true. I try not to be rigid. I just know that if I want to do something, I’m the only one who can make that happen. Nobody else can do it for me, and nobody is really going to go out of their way to make it easy for me.

P: Thanks for being so honest. It’s refreshing to hear you admit that you don’t balance it all—that it can get messy and a little depressing. What inspired you to write THIS IS NOT A WEREWOLF STORY?

S: My son, for sure. I wanted to write a book for kids like him—who like science, and myths, and animals. I wanted to make a story that would give kids some of the emotional vocabulary that we don’t always learn. I think the sooner we can describe how we feel, the sooner we can figure out who we are and what we want and what we need.

P: Couldn’t agree more. How did you come up with the title?

S: It was originally titled A Secret You Must Keep. An agent who had requested the first 50 pages in response to my query wrote back with a little note saying, I’m not looking for werewolf stories. Or something along those lines. I tossed the returned pages onto my dining room table and said out loud to the empty room, Didn’t she even read it? This is not a werewolf story! And then I realized that was the perfect title since it would tell future agents that there might be a whiff of werewolf within these pages.

P: I read on Query Tracker’s interview with you that you’d been writing books for twenty years before you sold THIS IS NOT A WEREWOLF STORY to Simon & Schuster. How did you stay motivated all those years?

S: At a certain point I decided that whether or not I could ever sell a novel, I would always be writing one. The time I spend writing is like exercising or eating right or traveling or continuing education—it’s part of being happy and healthy. As a parent, I think it’s a good attitude and behavior to model—creative expression is an end in and of itself.

P: I love that. Creative expression is an end in and of itself. What tips do you have for debut authors trying to find an agent?

S: Don’t worry about doing extra research in order to personalize your query letters. That never worked for me, and I think trying to make some kind of emotional connection actually creates one on your part but not necessarily theirs! So, you lose time and you get too invested. I found two agents, for two different novels, through QueryTracker, without personalizing the query letters to either. I mean, obviously, use their name! And if you are truly contacting them because you love authors they represent, then include that. But don’t spend an hour or two combing through their list. Don’t force anything ever. Be honest.

Don’t query too soon—the novel should be the best you know how to make it. But don’t wait forever either. A lot of agents aren’t looking for perfection—they’re looking for a spark, a voice, a hook that makes them light up a little.

Query in small batches—five to ten at a time, one day a week. It’s a little soul crushing—the burst of hope that follows sending a query and then the silence. If after a few weeks you’ve gotten a few nibbles (as in, requests for partial or full manuscripts), then have faith in what you’re doing. If you’re getting nothing, then pull back and revise your pitch. Also, start working on a new story as soon as the querying begins.

P: This is great advice. I wish I had known to do small batches one day a week when I started querying. You grew up on U.S. Navy bases from Florida to Hawaii. Did growing up in lots of different places influence your writing?

S: Yes. It made me very shy, and in turn, that made me a huge reader as a kid. In middle school—the loneliest time—my mom would take me to the library every two weeks and hand me two grocery sacks to fill with books. Everyone does need friends but, in the meantime, books will do.

Most of my life, I’ve always felt slightly out of the loop, slightly out of step. I always thought I felt like an outsider because of moving so much and always being the new kid. As I get older though, I see that most of us feel that way at least some of the time. It’s just part of being human. I do think identifying yourself as an outsider helps in writing middle-grade fiction. It’s an age that is practically defined by the feeling of being overlooked, awkward, and excluded. Well, it was for me anyway!

P: I can relate to that. It’s probably why I love reading and writing middle-grade novels. What are you currently working on?

S: Agh. That question always makes me feel like Charlie Brown when Lucy swipes the football away. I knew it was coming and I’m never ready. Here goes.

I am finishing up a second draft of a side-quel to THIS IS NOT A WEREWOLF STORY. It follows Mary Anne during the summer that Raul has disappeared. On her last day of school before summer, Mary Anne unwittingly unleashes something—and someone—entirely unexpected in White Deer Woods. The magic follows her when she is sent to stay with Dean Swift’s friends in Paris, the last of the Lusignan dynasty. In their marvelous Parisian hôtel particulier, Mary Anne stumbles on secret after secret, until finally she comes to understand her own role in the mystery.

P: I’d buy that book in a hot second. Is there anything else you’re working on?

S: I have a lot of side projects—a couple romance/mysteries, a couple adaptations of medieval epics, a rambling coming of age novel about waitressing in Seattle in the 90’s.  Eventually I’ll have time to work through each. Right?

P: Right! Thank you so much, Sandy, for taking the time to answer my questions, and for being so open, honest, and encouraging. I loved THIS IS NOT A WEREWOLF STORY and highly recommend it to anyone who likes animals, misfits, and magic (a fantastic combination). I wish you all the best with your current projects and eagerly await the release of your next novel.

Sandra Evans is a writer and high school teacher from the Pacific Northwest. Her middle-grade novel, THIS IS NOT A WEREWOLF STORY (Simon & Schuster, 2016), was inspired by her favorite 12th century French tale, Bisclavret, by Marie de France. Sandra holds a Ph.D. in French Literature from the University of Washington. Over the years, she has taught courses on medieval literature as well as French language and culture at the University of Washington, the University of Puget Sound, and the Université de Paul Valéry in Montpellier, France. She shares her free time with her husband, son, and her dog Bingo—walking on the beach, playing tennis, going to the YMCA, hanging out in bookstores, playing cards in coffee shops, and wandering through museums. To learn more about Sandra and her book, visit her site and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel that asks, can enemies become friends? She is currently querying a novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also the creator of Fear & Writing, a workshop for procrastinating writers from all walks of life.

This month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Donna Miscolta, Filipino-Mexican-American author and essayist. I had followed Donna for a while on Twitter when I got the chance to meet her at her Dissolving or Deepening Tension with Humor workshop through the Seattle Public Library’s Seattle Writes Program. I then read her awesome collection of short stories, HOLA AND GOODBYE, and loved the pathos and humor in every story—some of the best I’ve read in a long time. All these things made me want to know more about Donna, how she got to where she is today, and what keeps her motivated after more than twenty years of writing.

Peg: When did you first start doing creative writing and what inspired you to do it?

Donna: I think I always wanted to be a writer. I remember writing a story about a cat when I was in fourth grade. I was quite pleased with it. I knew that producing that story gave me satisfaction.

At some level, maybe I thought about becoming a writer. But at another level, a more persuasive one, I didn’t believe I could become one. But throughout school, including college, I did well on writing assignments, so well at times that when I was studying science as an undergraduate two professors questioned the authenticity of my writing.

Later when I was trying to figure out a career path that would provide an income to help support a family, I took a poetry class, which made me realize it was stories I wanted to write. But I set that desire aside for a later time in my life—for when I retired, I thought. Except that retirement was forever away, and the urge to write seemed to manifest utmost just at the most chaotic time in my life.

My husband was starting a business, I was early in my career as a project manager with a county agency, our daughters were seven and three, and our fixer-upper house was still in need of fixing. And yet I couldn’t ignore the impulse to write. What made me act on that impulse was hearing my friend Kathleen Alcalá read from her first book, a collection of stories called Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist. I realized how much I wanted to do what she was doing: writing stories and sharing them with an audience.

P: I read somewhere that it took you twenty years to write the stories that went into HOLA AND GOODBYE. How did you stay motivated to keep writing during all those years?

D: During many of those years I was just learning how to write, figuring out what makes a story, and even more, what makes a good story. And while I was writing the stories that would eventually form HOLA AND GOODBYE, I was also writing my first novel WHEN THE DE LA CRUZ FAMILY DANCED, which was also a time of trial and error.

There were long periods of feeling lost and doubts about whether I would have a book published. It helped that I would occasionally get a story published, win a grant, or be invited to do a reading, all of which made me feel as if I was on to something. But I never felt like abandoning writing. Even though there were times when I thought I would never get a book published, I knew I would continue to write, because it’s always been the writing that counted.

P: What does a typical week of writing look like for you?

D: I still have my habit formed many years ago of writing in the evenings. I’m able to spend a couple of hours at my desk, but I’m tired after a day at work, so the writing is slow and intermittent. I’m an old car sputtering down a rutted dirt lane. I do try to write every day. It doesn’t always happen, but that’s okay. Despite my metaphor, writers are people, not machines.

P: How do you balance working at a job, having a family, and writing?

I started writing when my daughters were seven and three, and I had to really compartmentalize my day from morning until bedtime. In addition to setting aside an hour each night after the kids were in bed to write, I also used my bus commute to and from work to write or at least edit, even it amounted to only a paragraph or two. Of course, there was more time once they were away at college, and now they’re off living their own lives, so I have more time to write in the evenings. Now I’m on the cusp of retirement and for the first time in my life, soon I can devote whole days to writing. The balancing act is over.

P: That’s great that you’re close to retirement. Once you’re retired, what does your ideal day look like?

D: My days will be very much like my days when I’m at a writing residency. I get up, work out, eat breakfast, then sit down to write until lunchtime. After lunch, it’s more writing until mid-afternoon when I break for a walk or a bike ride. Maybe a little more writing or some reading before dinner. After dinner, it’s the New York Times crossword online, then a little more writing and reading. Maybe end the day with Netflix. I’m sure I won’t be able to sustain that for more than a week or two at a time. Real life intervenes with all its everyday exigencies.

P: I saw on your web site that you grew up in National City, California, with a Filipino/Mexican family. How did your heritage and/or your hometown influence your writing?

D: My first book was about a Filipino American family. My second book was about a Mexican American family. They’re both set in a place called Kimball Park, which is a fictional stand-in for my hometown of National City, California. Almost all my other fiction is set in Kimball Park as well. And I’ve written an essay about National City. So, yes, my heritage and my hometown have played a significant role in my writing.

I recently attended the NonfictioNOW Conference. One of the panels I attended was called Hauntings in Nonfiction. The moderator, Harrison Candelaria Fletcher, said he was haunted by his home state New Mexico. I think I might be haunted by National City. Or maybe I’m haunted by a lack of imagination. I hope that’s not the case.

I have set an intention of setting my next story in a place other than Kimball Park/National City, though once I complete my two manuscripts in progress, I’ll be working on a series of essays about family which will inevitably mean writing about National City. Let’s say sometime in the future I will stop writing about my hometown.

P: Can you tell us about the projects you’re currently working on?

D: I have a collection called Angie Rubio Stories that’s done and twiddling its thumbs hoping someone will see fit to publish it. Each of the stories is a lesson about life, race, and identity that Angie Rubio learns in school. A couple of the stories have been published, one in The Adirondack Review and one in Santa Ana River Review. I’ve been submitting the finished manuscript here and there whenever I have time. This is the painful part. The rejection-filled part. The part where you think no one will ever love it enough to put it out in the world. The part where you begin to doubt your love for it. The part where you have to hang on and believe.

I’m hoping to finish by the end of the year another project, tentatively titled Ofelia and Norma. I’m taking the characters from “Strong Girls,” one of the stories in my collection, HOLA AND GOODBYE, and following them into young adulthood as they grapple with issues that can complicate and even nearly destroy lives—issues such as body image, eating disorders, and gender and racial stereotypes. I think I might love these characters more than any I’ve created previously. I want readers to have a chance to love them too.

P: They will! Ofelia and Norma were two of my favorite characters from HOLA AND GOODBYE too. Last question: what advice would you give someone in their 40s, 50s, or 60s who says they’ve always wanted to write but fear that they are “too old” to start?

D: I think that if you really want to write, at some point the impulse will become too strong to resist. So however old you are when that happens, go at it with the belief that this is what you were meant to do. And if you get discouraged and feel that the words you’re putting on paper or typing on the screen have no value, remember what Cynthia Ozick says, “Play what feeble notes you can and keep practicing.”

P: Such great advice! Do what you can and keep practicing. Thank you so much, Donna, for taking the time to answer my questions, and for being so honest and encouraging. I’m looking forward to reading your next two books when they’re published.

Donna Miscolta’s short story collection HOLA AND GOODBYE won the Doris Bakwin Award for Writing by a Woman, the Independent Publishers gold medal for Best Regional Fiction, and an International Latino Book Award silver medal for Best Latino Focused Fiction in English. She is also the author of the novel WHEN THE DE LA CRUZ FAMILY DANCED, and her stories and essays have appeared in a number of journals including The Adirondack Review, Calyx, Cha, Connecticut Review, Moss, Raven Chronicles, and Waxwing. Donna is a two-time recipient of an Artist Trust Fellowship, has received awards from 4Culture, the Bread Loaf/Rona Jaffe Foundation, and the City of Seattle, as well as residencies from Anderson Center, Artsmith, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Hedgebrook, Ragdale, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Mineral School, amongst others. To learn more about Donna and her books, visit her site and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel that asks, can enemies become friends? She is currently querying a novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also the creator of Fear & Writing, a workshop for procrastinating writers from all walks of life.

Photo of Donna Miscolta by Meryl Shenker.

This month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jonathan Hill, Vietnamese-American cartoonist, illustrator, and educator. I’d been following Jonathan for a few years on Twitter when I got the chance to meet him at Short Run, Seattle’s comix and arts festival, in November 2017, and at Portland Book Festival right after. Upon meeting him, Jonathan immediately struck me as a kindred spirit—an artist who’s dedicated to honing his craft, teaching his craft, and fostering the creative process in others—and it made me want to know more about him, his creative background, and how he got to where he is today.

Peg: At what age did you know you wanted to be a working artist? And how did you arrive at that decision?

Jonathan: I guess the moment I decided to go to art school? Honestly, looking back, I don’t know that my brain even really thought that far ahead to what working as an artist would be like.

It wasn’t a lifelong dream of mine. When it came time to go through the whole college application process, I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I have always only been good at one thing (though that’s debatable) and could only see myself continuing to do that. I was also in an incredibly privileged position to be the oldest of three siblings and able to have my pick of where and what I would study.

Here’s the thing—I was an okay student in high school, A’s in the subjects I really liked, and then a lot of B’s, no C’s or anything—but I didn’t really apply myself as much as I could have. But when I went to art school and had the opportunity to study this thing that I had done my whole life and to really dig deep…I committed completely. I was totally on board and 100% into it.

I know there’s a lot of pros and cons to art school, the main con being the cost. It’s completely unnecessary to be a professional artist. You can self-teach yourself everything you need. But for someone like me, I needed it to find what I wanted to do, to set me on the right path. I wasn’t motivated enough to do any of that on my own.

P: I think many people will be relieved when they read this. Not every artist knew they wanted to work as an artist when they were younger. It’s okay to start when you’re ready to start. That said, when you were ready, you were really ready. In fact, you were valedictorian of Savannah College of Art & Design (SCAD) in 2003 with a degree in Sequential Art. That’s awesome. Can you explain what ‘sequential art’ is?

J: Thanks! It’s a fun thing to say I was valedictorian, but it just means I was good at school (ha ha). Sequential Art is a term coined by comics legend Will Eisner. It’s a fancy way of saying comics, or any other visual storytelling through a sequence of images. Basically, I have a degree in comics.

P: Thanks for explaining that. What did you enjoy the most at SCAD?

J: The community. I had so many wonderful mentors and met so many wonderful people that were inspiring and pushed me and just opened the world to me. And taking advantage of every opportunity that SCAD and the city of Savannah gave me.

P: What did you like least at SCAD?

J: The politics of academia. I know every school has its politics, and art school has its own set of politics, especially a big school like SCAD. Some of that is specific to SCAD, but a lot of it is specific to the institutions of private art school. I guess seeing all of that and knowing what went on was very frustrating at times. I don’t know that it could or would ever change.

P: Are there other artists or creative types in your family?

J: My youngest brother is also creative. He does some doodling and writing, but his main creative pursuit is playing bass guitar. He was in a band for a couple of years that toured around. My mom also writes, but it’s mainly academic articles and poetry for herself. My dad loved to draw, but he never pursued it. I honestly forgot this until recently when I found some drawings he did in an old box of his photos.

P: I remember reading in one of your tweets that you went to high school in Kuwait. How did your family end up there? What was it like being a teenager in Kuwait?

J: My dad’s company contracted with the army, so although we weren’t army brats, we moved around every four years like we were. One of those contracts was in Kuwait, so we ended up moving there the winter of my eighth grade year.

The second part of the question is a big one, but I’ll keep it simple. It was probably one of the best and most definitive events of my life. I was pretty depressed and feeling a lot of social pressure of feeling out of place at the beginning of eighth grade. All my friends from elementary school were sort of going their own way. I remember being so upset and angry when we learned we were moving, but I think I also was secretly happy to have a chance to get away because I was pretty depressed.

It was the opportunity of a lifetime to spend my high school years overseas and to see so much of the world and meet people from so many different places. It humbles you.

P: That’s amazing. I’m glad moving to Kuwait provided a fresh start for you, especially at such a crucial time. So, after going to high school in Kuwait, you then went to college at SCAD in Georgia. But then, how did you end up in Portland?

J: My mother got her BA and PhD at the University of Oregon, and we would spend summers with her in Eugene, Oregon, which is about two hours south of Portland. When graduation came around, some buddies of mine and I didn’t really know what we wanted to do or where we wanted to go. I had spent a decent bit of time in Portland from those summers we spent with my mom, and it sounded good to them too, so we packed up a U-Haul and headed west.

P: I was incredibly touched by the two-page comic you posted in your blog about your brother’s suicide. They’re beautiful and powerful panels. Would you ever consider creating a comic or graphic novel based on stories from your childhood or young adult life?

J: That is something I’ve been thinking a lot about now. Publishing is weird because to keep momentum up, you have to start thinking about your next project halfway through the one you’re working on now. I actually have a few ideas in mind for books about my childhood and my experiences that I need to sit down and get in order. Not necessarily autobiographical, but inspired by the events of my youth, especially living overseas. We’ll see if anyone is interested.

P: Count me in—I’d be very interested in all of these. I enjoyed reading your graphic novel, Americus, written by MK Reed and illustrated by you (First Second Books, 2011). How did that gig happen? What was it like to work with MK?

J: So Americus started because Greg Means (who runs Tugboat Press) and who is kind of this patron of comics here in Portland had been a fan of MK’s and of mine, and pitched the idea of us working together. MK and I didn’t know each other and we had never worked with someone else before, but we decided to give it a shot.

We ended making what was essentially the first chapter of Americus that could stand on its own as a short story. It ended up running in the seventh issue of Greg’s award-winning anthology, Papercutter, and we were nominated for an Ignatz Award for Best Short Story that year. The long and short of it is that we kept working on it and eventually MK pitched it to Calista Brill, the editor at First Second. It got picked up and that was that.

It was really fun working on Americus with MK. At first I didn’t think I would like working with a writer, but over time I realized how much I loved it. There is a certain freedom that comes with not having to worry about story and just focusing on bringing the storytelling to life. But it took us awhile to learn how to work as together. I always tell people that if you really pay attention when reading Americus you can see two people learning to work with each other. It’s almost like watching two strangers learning how to dance together. In the beginning, they’re stepping on each other’s toes, but at the end, they’re totally in rhythm and are in total unison.

We ended up becoming really good friends and have collaborated on a handful of projects together since Americus, including an upcoming book in First Second’s Science Comics series. We did it on the weather. It should be out in March 2019.

P: You’re a cartoonist and illustrator, but you’re also an educator. How did you become an associate professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA)?

J: I’ve always loved teaching. I say now that the only thing that I love more than making comics is teaching comics. I love helping people get the best out of themselves and showing them that they can do it. I had the honor of having mentors that did that for me and I like thinking that I’m putting that same energy into the world.

I had a friend, Meg Hunt, who was teaching at PNCA. She had a lot of students interested in making comics and would send them to me for their final projects or whatever to give them editorial feedback on their work if they were making comics. Eventually she mentioned my name to the head of the illustration department. We started a discussion, and I created some lesson plans and goals that I would have for the class.

I had a lot of experience teaching youth and in continuing education classes for the other art school in town, the Oregon College of Art and Craft, and through Literary Arts’ Writers in the Schools program. It took a couple of years, but eventually, when there was an opening, he asked me to come on board. I taught my first class at PNCA in Fall 2014.

P: What are some of your favorite projects or published works?

J: I’m working on my first book right now that I’m both writing and drawing. It’s called The Searchers and will be published by Oni Press. It should be out (fingers crossed) in 2020. It’s really special to me not just because it’s my first book that I’m doing by myself, but also because it’s basically a love letter to my brothers and us growing up.

I am also really proud of the comic I did about my brother’s suicide that you mentioned earlier. I struggled for a long time with his death, but then on the third anniversary of his death, I just sat down and it came out. It only took me a couple of hours and I was crying through the whole thing, but it’s like I just drew it straight from my heart. I think I was able to come to terms with it in the only way I knew how—through comics.

It also helped me flex my more serious storytelling muscles a bit. Lately, I only do comics for kids and teens, and it was nice to know I could step out and do something different. I actually have a comic in the October/November issue of The Believer where I try to tackle my cultural identity. I’m excited (and nervous) to have that out in the world.

P: I can’t wait to read that issue of The Believer, and The Searchers when it comes out. One last question. What would you recommend to a 19-year-old who wants to be a working artist and who’s trying to decide between going to art school or getting a job and doing their art when they can?

J: I think it depends on the person. That’s what’s great about doing art professionally. It’s not like being a doctor or a lawyer where you have to go through a set process to become that thing. Everyone is going to have their own way and there’s no right way.

I understand that might be a frustrating answer to some people. Often people just want someone to tell them, ‘Here. Go do this. That’s the way.’ But it’s not like that. What works for one person won’t work for the next. What matters is your portfolio and what’s in it. Whatever path you choose that helps you get to the place where you do that work and build that portfolio and those professional skills is the right one.

I guess I can only use my own experience, but I loved art school. I needed art school. As I mentioned before, I had done art my whole life and considered it to be the only thing I was halfway good at, but I didn’t take it seriously until art school. I needed art school to show me that. I didn’t have the raw talent that a lot of people do. I wasn’t a prodigy. Art school was an opportunity for me to play, experiment, get better, and to realize that it’s work—it’s hard work.

In a vacuum, I would recommend art school to anybody. Except it’s expensive as hell and totally unnecessary. The biggest things it has going for it are a built-in community and resources. If you can put yourself in a position to do all of those things I mentioned earlier: experiment, learn and grow, push yourself, etc., then you don’t need art school. You can do all of that on your own and there are SO MANY RESOURCES now to help you do that. There are communities, there’s the internet, there’s the school of YouTube. But you need to have a certain drive to seek those things out. It can be harder to be that self-motivated. I surely wasn’t when I was eighteen or nineteen.

I guess the last thing I’ll say is to remember this: there is no timeline for where you are supposed to be or what you are supposed to be doing. It’s easy to look at someone else and say, “Orson Welles made Citizen Kane at 25?!! I’m 25 and I haven’t made Citizen Kane, so I must be a failure!”

No, no, no, no, no. That’s not how life works. You should always be working towards something…whether that is art school, or writing a book, or whatever. You might not get that thing you are working towards, but it will help put you in a place you need to be by working towards it.

Life—like writing, like comics, like art—is a process.

We often want to skip over that process and get to the final object, but that’s not really what’s important. It’s learning and the experience we get in doing so.

P: I love this advice. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for taking the time to answer my questions, and for being so open, honest, vulnerable, and encouraging. Really looking forward to reading your comic in the October/November 2018 issue of The Believer, and can’t wait for the release of The Searchers in 2020!

Update: The Searchers is now called Odessa and it released on November 10, 2020. Order it today!

Jonathan Hill is a Vietnamese-American, Ignatz-nominated cartoonist making graphic novels for Oni Press and First Second Books, an associate professor in the illustration department at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, and an instructor of comics and illustration for youth programs at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. He lives in Portland.

To learn more about Jonathan and his creations, visit his site, follow him on Twitter and Instagram, and check out his stuff on Amazon.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel that asks, can enemies become friends? She is currently querying a novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also the creator of Fear & Writing, a workshop for procrastinating writers from all walks of life.

This month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam Wiebe, author of Vancouver crime novels Last of the Independents, Invisible Dead, and just released this year, Cut You Down.

I’ve been following Sam for a couple of years on Twitter, and recently got the chance to see him in conversation with Seattle mystery writer Brian Thornton at Third Place Books. After enjoying Invisible Dead and meeting him in person, I knew I wanted to learn more about Sam and his writing.

Peg: Sam, how did you decide to become an author?

Sam: From a very early age I liked making stories. In my teens and early twenties I wrote, submitting short literary pieces and accumulated rejections. When I started grad school, I realized that it was “sh– or get off the pot” time. I focused on writing a novel, revising it, and submitting it. That became my first book, Last of the Independents.

P: So many writers have that “sh– or get off the pot” moment. But not many moments lead to writing a novel that wins the Arthur Ellis Award for best unpublished manuscript. Congrats, Sam! What made you decide to write crime fiction?

S: I didn’t see the through-line until much later. I always read everything: from lit fic to sci fi, westerns, you name it. But mysteries and crime were a big part of it, ever since Encyclopedia Brown and the Hardy Boys. My first attempt at a novel was supposedly mainstream, but had a violent crime and an investigation. There was a point I remember looking at my bookcase, overstuffed with predominantly crime novels, Sue Grafton, Elmore Leonard, etc., and thinking, “Hunh, I guess I like crime fiction the most.” It was an important moment of recognizing the tendencies which were already there.

P: How did you develop your writing chops?

S: I’m basically self-taught, though I took a great screenwriting class in college. I read a ton of how-to books, starting with Michael Newton’s How to Write Action Adventure Novels. Mostly, though, it was work—just writing stories, learning through trial and error. I’m probably part of the last generation that got actual physical rejection slips.

P: Hey, I’m part of that generation too. You wrote your first book while in graduate school, but you were also self taught in terms of writing. What did you think of your graduate school experience? Did it help you with your writing?

S: I studied English literature, which of course is helpful, but doesn’t have a lot to do with learning how to write novels. I clarified some parts of my writing process in grad school—writing my first draft by hand, for instance. It helps to figure out your true thoughts on something.

P: Wow. Do you still write your drafts by hand? Also, are you a pantser or plotter or both?

S: For the most part, yeah. All three of my books started out as handwritten first drafts. However, I’ve been working on a stand-alone novel, and I wrote the first draft of that on my computer. As for pantser/plotter, I’m somewhere in between, like most people. I like to have a rough idea of where I’m going, but that can take the form of a “beat sheet,” or just an idea of the ending. But anything can change as the book’s written.

P: Do you have a job? If not, what job did you leave to write full time?

S: I taught college English for five years. I write full-time, though I’m also doing more speaking events and also teaching writing. Last weekend, I ran my first seminar, a “Mystery Writing Masterclass,” and it was resoundingly successful. I hope to do more of those.

P: Congrats on the masterclass. I’m glad to hear it went well. What was it like teaching college English? How did you decide to leave?

S: I really enjoyed it, for the most part. Most of my students were science and economics majors, for whom English was a second language. It was challenging to find readings that would speak to them. I left when I was chosen as the Writer in Residence for the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) in 2016.

P: You said at the Third Place Books reading that being VPL’s Writer in Residence was the best job you’d ever had. What was it like?

S: The residency was split between time spent writing and designing workshops and events that would help aspiring writers. I ran three craft-related writing courses, led an Asian Mystery Novel book club, moderated a panel of historical crime fiction authors, and did events for low-income writers and seniors. It was great.

P: Asian Mystery Novel book club? That sounds awesome. Do you earn a full-time income from your books and speaking/teaching, or do you support yourself in other ways?

S: The short answer is yes; the longer answer: a writing career is very dependent on outside forces, the choices that agents and publishers make. Income varies book to book. At the moment I’m supporting myself through writing, with the odd seminar and speaking event. But there’s no guarantee or safety net.

P: That’s great that you’re supporting yourself from your books and speaking gigs. Is there a novel out there that you wish you had written?

S: True Grit, The Long Goodbye, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein…there’s a lot of brilliant fiction out there. I try not to allow myself to get too jealous about contemporary writers, but I have tremendous respect for Peter Temple and Sue Grafton, both of whom we lost in the last year.

P: Your first novel, Last of the Independents, is a stand-alone, but your second novel, Invisible Dead, turned out to be the first book in the Dave Wakeland mystery series. Did you know when you created Dave that he would be part of a series?

S: I knew that Invisible Dead, because of its subject matter, was tonally different than Last of the Independents, darker, and more realistic, more based on the Vancouver and Pacific Northwest that I live in. I wanted to build on that world.

P: What inspired you to create Dave Wakeland? Is he based on someone you know?

S: He reflects some of the concerns and issues I’ve confronted in my own life. He’s a young guy, trying to find his place in a rapidly changing and occasional hostile city.

P: Something I love about Invisible Dead are all the Vancouver details such as Jefferson Chen being Dave Wakeland’s business partner instead of a white guy, his coworker Shuzhen offering him a Chinese donut, and Dave walking down real streets such as Thurlow and Pender. It’s obvious that you love your city, while at the same time, you’re aware of its growing problems. Will your future novels be set in Vancouver or other cities?

S: I’ll definitely continue to write about Vancouver as long as I can. I find it a fascinating place. At the same time, I’m working on a stand-alone novel set closer to the US-Canada border.

P: The beginning of Invisible Dead starts off with, “I don’t know why this city sees fit to kill its women. Answers won’t be forthcoming.” Did you gain any insights into this dilemma by the time you finished writing your novel?

S: Yes and no. I did a lot of research on the subject of murdered and missing women, and while I think I have a good understanding of the systemic forces at play, I can’t claim any special insights. My hope for the book was to point out and acknowledge the lack of those stories in the cultural discourse—to focus on one disappearance and use that to illustrate some of the social forces at play.

P: This was one of the main reasons I picked up Invisible Dead. Not many mysteries have a social justice component, but I appreciated that yours did. Thanks so much, Sam, for taking the time to answer my questions. It was great getting to know you, and learning more about your background and approach to writing. I’m looking forward to reading Cut You Down and your future books!

Sam Wiebe is the author of the Vancouver crime novels Cut You Down, Invisible Dead, and Last of the Independents. His short stories have appeared in Thuglit, Spinetingler, and subTerrain, and he was the 2016 Vancouver Public Library Writer in Residence. He lives in Vancouver.

Hope you enjoyed this interview. To learn more about Sam and his books, visit his site, follow him on Twitter and Facebook, and check out his books on Amazon.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel that asks, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also the creator of Fear & Writing, a workshop for procrastinating writers from all walks of life.

I’m launching a new blog feature today called, Interviews with Creatives! I love chatting with fellow writers, artists, and makers, and learning from them–and thought you might too.

This month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Sapala, author, blogger, and writing coach. I’ve been following Lauren for a couple of years on Twitter and have found her to be a fount of advice on writing and the writing life. After reading her book The INFJ Writer and loving it, I wanted to know more about her and how she writes.

Peg: What motivated you to start your blog?

Lauren: Well, I had started a writing program in Seattle in 2009, and then when I moved back to San Francisco in 2010, I opened another branch there. As I was running these groups I noticed that the writers who showed up seemed to suffer from the same kind of writing problems I did—self-doubt, a lot of strong fear about showing anyone else their work, and sometimes, crippling writer’s block.

Week after week, I ended up counseling these writers and helping them overcome these problems, but because it was an in-person group, I only had so much time and energy. So, I could only help a handful of writers at a time. I thought of starting the blog because I knew it would be a way to reach much larger numbers of writers, and it wouldn’t be dependent on my physical presence to do so. That led to me starting my blog in 2013, and I’m still going strong with it today.

P: I like how your blog manifested from an actual situation. You saw a need and started your blog as a way to help other writers who weren’t in your in-person writing groups. That’s so great and so smart. When you first started blogging, how did it feel to have your writing out in the world?

L: My first two years of blogging were really tough. It wasn’t the learning curve of using the technology or getting into a regular posting routine, it was finding my own voice as a blogger that was so challenging.

I started out trying to do what all the other writing bloggers were doing, because I thought that was the road to success, and also, because I was scared of being “too much me” and being rejected by readers. So I wrote on topics that were very middle-of-the-road, had mass appeal, and didn’t rock the boat.

After about two years of this, I started to feel a much stronger pull to write on topics that I, personally, was very interested in, even if they weren’t apparently linked to writing—like limiting beliefs, personal growth, and personality and psychology. Funnily enough, the more I explored what truly interested me, the more I discovered that all of these topics DID lead back to writing, and the more readers I attracted who were on my same unique wavelength.

Those first two years were also a challenge because I was so hyper-focused on the blog as well. I was constantly checking my numbers and looking to see if anyone new had subscribed. If someone didn’t like a post or made a snarky comment, I felt crushed. I spent a lot of time looking for ways to promote the blog, and I also felt that it was mandatory that I post at least once a week. Now that I’ve been blogging regularly for five years, I’ve relaxed A LOT more about the whole thing. I never check my numbers, I ignore all snarky comments, I don’t really promote at all, and if I miss a week or two, oh well. It’s made blogging a MUCH more pleasurable process.

P: I know what you mean! I thought the same thing when I started my blog, but stressing about all these things made me want to blog less, not more. I’m glad you put that stuff aside and it made blogging a lot more pleasurable. How do you balance blogging with writing books?

L: This is a really hard question because I don’t have any easy answers. I live a busy life. A lot of people who only see me online assume that being a writer is my full-time job and I have oodles of free time to write and teach and work on publishing, etc.

The truth is that I still have a full-time day job (executive assistant at a startup company), and I also have a three-year-old son at home. I’m very lucky in that my husband is a fulltime stay-at-home dad—he is my rock and my support in everything. But, I’m still super busy. I blog, I coach other writers, I work on my own writing, I edit and beta read, etc.

The key I’ve found to balancing it all is being ruthless in eliminating other activities that only serve as “time fillers.” So, for instance, I watch no more than 45 minutes of TV per day, and that 45 minutes is only to spend time with my husband in the evening after our son has gone to bed. I don’t read the news, period. I spend very little time on social media. I only check my cell phone a few times a day and I don’t have social media enabled on my phone.

Basically, I’m extremely aware of activities that suck time away from me, bit by bit, and I don’t engage in them whenever possible. If I have an hour or 30 minutes unexpectedly free, I read a book or I go for a walk to think about my writing ideas. If I take public transit to commute, I read a book or work on writing ideas. Whenever I’m in a situation with a bunch of other people who are standing around and scrolling through their phones, I read or work on ideas. I’ve found that cutting out TV, most of the internet, and unnecessary texts from other people, and then filling that time with reading and ideas goes a long way toward helping me meet goals much, much faster.

P: I love how ruthless you are with cutting out time fillers. You’re inspiring me to figure out ways I can cut more out of my life too. I understand now how you carve out time to write, but how do you motivate yourself to write regularly?

L: Currently, I don’t have one method I use. I think the tricky thing about this is that so many writers have trouble motivating themselves to write, and we assume that there must be some strategy or method to get past that.

In my opinion, it really comes down to the writer and what is going on with them in their individual life. For instance, back in 2006 when I joined my first writing program, I had HUGE problems writing. I had to join that program to show up somewhere once a week and write silently for an hour with other people, because I just couldn’t do it on my own. However, at that time I was 28 years old and coming off seven years of alcoholism. In terms of being able to check in with myself internally and use my own internal signals to drive my life forward, forget about it. I just wasn’t there. That’s why I needed that writing group so badly, because I needed the support of other writers to help me along the way.

Now, in my current life, I still greatly benefit from the support of other writers, but I am much more internally directed and skilled at listening to my own intuition and what I know is right for me. So, consequently, I’m engaged in many projects that pull me to work on them. I don’t need to prod myself in any way to write anymore. This is also, incidentally, what I work on with writers when I coach them: cultivating their own unique rhythm, voice, and consciousness as a writer so that they can become internally-directed as an artist and write the things they truly want to write and that mean the most to them.

P: Over time, you turned your writing into a habit. I’m glad you followed your intuition, and it led you to do what was right for you. Speaking of which, your book, The INFJ Writer, helped me so much in understanding why I write the way I do, and how following my intuition would help me to be a more productive writer. What did it feel like to publish your first book and put it out there for people to buy?

L: Publishing The INFJ Writer was half terrifying and half totally okay.

It was terrifying because it was my first book and I had no idea what people would think of it. I had never experienced getting reviews, looking at sales figures, or anything else that came with publishing a book, so everything felt new and scary. However, it was also totally okay because I had been coaching writers for about three years at that point and I had talked to so many writers who were having the exact same very specific problems with writing.

At that time, almost all of my clients came to me through finding one of the articles I had written on INFJ and INFP writers on my blog, and then when I started coaching them, this same set of problems reared its ugly head. So, I knew there was a solid connection and I knew it was no coincidence that all of these INFJ and INFP writers were going through the same things. I was confident that if the right readers found my book it would be helpful for them.

P: You’re right. I’m glad you realized that connection. Whenever I meet a writer that’s a NF type on Myers-Briggs, I recommend that they read your book. Your second book, “Between the Shadow and Lo,” is very different from your first book. First, it’s fiction, and second, it’s based on your years as an alcoholic in your 20s. How did you decide to let people know it was based on your life rather than letting it be known as a work of fiction?

L: This might sound odd, but my past as a crazy alcoholic is actually something I value highly. I learned A LOT from that experience, it was very significant in helping to shape the person I am today. So I wanted to own it. Additionally, authors like Jack Kerouac, Jean Genet, and Charles Bukowski are some of my biggest influences and I wanted to emulate what they did in their writing. The idea of a book that is truth, but also fiction, but also memoir, but also pure story, really appeals to me.

P: Owning your past experiences is so powerful. I’m glad you owned it and ran with it. Your third book, which just came out, is called, Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers. How did you decide on this topic for your third book?

L: Firefly Magic was born much the way that The INFJ Writer was born, from my experiences with my clients. In the past few years, more and more of my clients have decided to go the self-publishing route, and they have run into the same mental obstacles I have run into myself through self-publishing. Namely, that you have to learn how to market your work but the whole concept sounds intimidating, overwhelming, tedious, and like something awful that you just would rather not do.

When I first decided to learn about marketing. I challenged myself to sift through the business shelves at the library and check out every book that looked like I would absolutely hate it. Well, I was really surprised. Because with almost every book that I thought I would “really hate,” I found some kind of insight that changed my thinking.

I thought about all my clients and the way they felt about marketing. I knew if they started reading the books I was reading, their way of thinking would probably change bit by bit, just like mine was. But, I also knew my clients—the highly sensitive, intuitive, creative, introverted dreamers and poets of the world—were not about to start going to the library in droves to check out these very traditional business books.

So I thought, “Well, what if I wrote a book about marketing, showing my tribe (all the highly sensitive writer folks out there) what marketing could be like if they thought about it differently?”

That was how the idea was born, and then when I started writing it, the book took on a life of its own. My biggest goal with this book was to write a marketing book that is NOT boring, that is easy to read, and that is also enjoyable to experience. Hopefully, I’ve succeeded!

P: I bet you did, and I can’t wait to read it. Congratulations again! So, here’s my last question, and it’s an important one. How do you reward yourself after you finish writing a book?

L: It’s funny you ask this, because I make it a big point with my clients to teach them to reward themselves when they hit writing milestones. It’s very important to celebrate in some way in order to acknowledge your work and nurture your self-esteem. When I finish a book, I go out for lunch at my favorite sushi place with one of my best friends. We order way too much food and spend hours just talking. It’s divine.

P: I love that. Your reward includes two things that you enjoy: sushi and time with a good friend. It’s a great tip for us all to give ourselves rewards that really match who we are and what we like, and not what others define as a “real” reward.

Thank you, Lauren, for your time and all your honest, thoughtful answers. You’ve inspired me all over again. I love your writing and can’t wait to read Firefly Magic and all your future books!

Lauren Sapala is the author of Firefly Magic: Heart Powered Marketing for Highly Sensitive Writers, a guide to help any HSP, INFJ, INFP, or introvert writer move past resistance to selling and marketing their work. She is also the author of The INFJ Writer, a writing guide made specifically for sensitive intuitive writers. She currently lives in San Francisco.

If you enjoyed this interview, sign up for Lauren’s newsletter, follow her on Twitter and Facebook, and check out her books on Amazon.

Peg Cheng is the author of The Contenders, a middle-grade novel that asks, can enemies become friends? She is currently writing another novel that is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairy tale set in 1980s Seattle. Peg is also the creator of Fear & Writing, a workshop for procrastinating writers from all walks of life.