A Village Approach To Removing Roadblocks

By Ann Kathryn Kelly

I thought I had written a gripping memoir. (Don’t we all?)

My story is about the mysterious and ongoing neurological issues I’d experienced from childhood into adulthood. A limp. Crossed eye. Severe headaches. Smaller and weaker muscles on my left side. An ice-cold foot.

After decades without answers, punctuated by doctors’ theories and workarounds, all I could do was adapt—until my symptoms worsened. Nonstop hiccupping for weeks. Dry-heaving every morning. Tingling in my left foot, ankle, and calf.

When I finally found out what had been behind my long history of pain, I faced a frightening choice that would either save my life or put me in a nursing home at age 40.

An irresistible story, right?

I started writing my memoir eight years ago, finished what I thought was a solid draft two years ago, and began querying a year and a half ago. But I got zero interest—though, admittedly, I’d queried only 50 agents.

I set my sights on the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference, held in Kansas City in February of this year, hoping it would reignite my passion to begin querying again. Shifting my focus to small and university presses, I reasoned, might be my answer. Several were scheduled to give panel presentations and others had booths in the Book Fair exhibition center.

Invite Insights From Others

I was finishing breakfast on the first day of the conference when another attendee took a seat across from me. We discovered we both wrote memoir. I shared my dismal agent querying stats and said I was at AWP to learn more about opportunities with smaller presses. Sofia agreed that broadening my targets was worthwhile. 

Sofia’s memoir had been published through a Big Five a few years earlier. I asked how she had piqued the interest of her agent and such a sought-after publisher. What she told me made me shake my head. Of course! Why hadn’t I realized this up to now?

Sofia had researched and braided in themes with universal relevance—immigration, discrimination, social justice. She had turned her personal story into something bigger.

We’ve all heard how we need to strive for universality in our writing. But, how many of us take the time to research—in depth—the impacts of a universal theme, and how it can be specifically braided throughout our memoirs? Research is often woven into personal essays, but in memoir? Not so much.

Sofia’s approach landed her not just an agent and publisher, but more readers able to see themselves within the context of her story. Clearly, my memoir was lacking that “something bigger.” Trouble was, I’d been too close to see it.

I felt renewed excitement stirring. Sofia, a stranger minutes earlier, was helping me see that my story contained mostly personal information and not enough universal significance. But how, I pondered, could I thread a universal theme into my draft in a natural way that would complement my arc?

Sofia mentioned a friend whose memoir was also published with a Big Five a year ago. Her friend’s story, like mine, examines a personal health crisis made more devastating because doctors could not name what was causing years of pain and exhaustion.

She promised to introduce us. With that, it was time to head off to our respective sessions.

Back home again, I followed up with Sofia’s friend and learned that she had widened the lens on her personal “mystery illness” story to include research on environmental impacts on sickness, along with gender bias.

Jennifer Lunden’s memoir, American Breakdown: Our Ailing Nation, My Body’s Revolt, and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Who Brought Me Back to Life, now sits on my nightstand. I’m reading it for pleasure and to study how she handled braiding her personal story with universal relevance.

It took more pondering before I understood the larger frame I had to offer. I could braid my personal story with the tug of war between independence and dependence, and the vulnerability it introduces. In sharing the toll my illness took on my family and me, I could also bring in the national impact of caregiving. All of us fear losing our independence, yet it’s something many will encounter through illness or accident. And at some point, many of us will also be caretakers.

I was sitting on two powerfully universal themes with the capacity to entice more readers—and possibly an agent.  

Be Intentional About Networking

Though I went to AWP to attend panel sessions, it was the spontaneous conversations with other writers that proved the most valuable.

We writers can sometimes find networking difficult, but what worked for me was being intentional about what I wanted to learn (querying)—and having the curiosity and flexibility to pivot when introduced to something not on my radar.  

Next time, I’ll go further. I’ll prepare a “script” of issues I’m working through, perhaps my top three. I’ll rehearse, and when I find common ground with a fellow memoirist, whether walking down the hall or standing in line for coffee, I’ll ask about their roadblocks. That will open the door to discussing my own, where I may find yet more aha! moments.

Networking is an opportunity to turn strangers into allies on this shared writing path we travel. My experience at AWP added two people to my village, who helped me see that my memoir has a larger story to tell. After revising based on insights I uncovered through networking, I may just find a portal that leads to agent interest.

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Ann Kathryn Kelly writes from New Hampshire’s Seacoast region. She’s an editor with Barren Magazine and a columnist with WOW! Women on Writing. Ann leads writing workshops for a nonprofit that offers therapeutic arts programming to people living with brain injury. Her writing has appeared in a number of literary journals. Learn more at her website.