The Paradox of My First Author Event

On never underestimating the power of a grandma’s network, Appalachian diaspora, and how to feel when that full circle moment arrives.

While growing up in a tiny, rural, historic town near the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, I often daydreamed of – what us kids referred to as – “getting out.” There were many reasons, ranging from childhood trauma and boredom to economic opportunity and the luxury of identity. Geographically, culturally, physically…I couldn’t wait to be from the other side of the tracks. For real. Not just metaphorically.

My high school graduating class had just 94 students and was one of the biggest at the time. Most of our parents also went to our same high school, or one close by. Everybody knows everybody. And everybody knows your business, whether you want them to or not.

I couldn’t wait to be anonymous. To not have my name resonate with a slew of memories, most of which had nothing to do with me. I wanted to go somewhere where no one would know my face or ask that question every small-town kid knows and dreads: “Ain’t you so-and-so’s kid?”

I wanted that fresh start, to have the opportunity to create the person I wanted to be. To be seen.

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet”. – Aristotle

My dad understood, I think. He’s never much liked anyone telling him what to do or think, a trait I inherited. We’ve got that Appalachian can-do spirit, that Italian-American pride. My dad made sure I went to college, something I probably owe him a very overdue thank you for.

From middle school on, he’d ask what I wanted to study.

There was a moment where I wanted to be a lawyer and go to Notre Dame; the sweatshirt arrived the next week.

A brief period when I wanted to be a forensic scientist and a used microscope science kit made an appearance. High school chemistry took care of this dream, and it was for the best, considering I didn’t really want to be a forensic scientist; I just wanted to be Dana Scully.

I promise my crush on Fox Mulder had nothing to do with it.

I got really into rocks for awhile, unprompted. My dad excitedly gave me his college textbooks on geology, the field (unbeknownst to me) he himself studied. When I asked why he wasn’t out in the desert digging up hidden historical artifacts (betrayed by my teenage daydreams of one day growing up to be Lara Croft) and instead had worked on the railroad his entire life, he told me there wasn’t any money in digging dirt, and to maybe consider something else.

Writing was always such a core part of who I was, who I already identified as; it didn’t occur to me to study it. I told my silly little stories as a coping method for my trauma and excelled in English class and devoured books to escape my reality and won writing contests. I was already a writer. I was hungry for an education I didn’t have direct access to: life sciences, biology, astronomy. Part escapist fantasy, part teenage logic, I thought these fields would set me on a path that could take me far, far away from my hometown. From everyone I ever knew – and more importantly, from everyone who ever knew me.

I often struggled with my identity in a way a lot my friends and family didn’t back then. There was always a feeling of “other.” I have been referred to as a rebel by those who have known me most of my life (to both my embarrassment and delight). Sometimes for a good cause, sometimes utterly lacking the need of one. As I came of age, my identity crisis peaked, and I clung to writerhood with both hands and all of my teeth.

I told anyone who’d listen that I was going to be a writer someday. I proudly announced it, just a kid with a dream and a lot of gumption, because my dreams were often all I had.

I ended up following in my dad’s footsteps, becoming a legacy student at West Virginia University, where I learned how to truly appreciate my Appalachian culture. WVU wasn’t nearly as far as I had wanted to go, but it turned out to be just far enough for me to get that anonymity I so strongly desired.

I studied journalism (because, ironically, or perhaps ignorantly, I thought there was more money in it than creative writing, ha) and minored in creative writing. Suddenly, a world of craft, nuance, and appreciation for the written word exploded before me. I was a part of a community of writers, of people just like me! I belonged.

It came with dues.

Going to college meant I was fulfilling expectations for my dad. On the other side of my family, I was the first to go to a four-year college, the first to graduate with a degree, the first to make the transition from blue collar working class to a white collar professional. My first real job was on the 57th floor of a skyscraper in the heart of downtown. I was a regular old fish out of water. The culture split came on fast – both in my professional and personal lives – and my identity, once again, became as muddy as the cricks I used to play in.

I technically left home at 20. I never moved back after my sophomore year of college, choosing to stay in Morgantown during the summers, and then moving to Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and back again, to chase work and opportunity.

I was and am part of Appalachian flight.

Although, I argue, often, that I am still very much an Appalachian – not just culturally, but geographically, as Pittsburgh is the Paris of Appalachia, the largest city in the region. My four years in West Virginia made me different than my neighbors. (Literally – we’ve been asked by more than one neighbor if our truck is a “work truck” and have struggled to not sound like the HickLibs we are when we answer). I’m not so sure that many Pittsburghers identify as Appalachian as much as they identity as Yinzers, Pittsburgh’s own unique, steel-driven, blue collar, city of immigrants, melting pot, culture.

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country of the girl. Or whatever.

I still feel sometimes like a betrayer; the big city girl in the Hallmark movie who left her hometown and has a complicated relationship with moving back. (I did marry my high school sweetheart, though, who also ran away to California and back to Pittsburgh on his own, so make of it what you will. At least we have a shared sense of crazy and love of flannel).

The identity crisis never ends. Twenty years in, just as I thought I had a handle on it, the past came knocking, and it’s all my grandma’s fault. (Love you, Ninny).

“The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.” – B.B. King

In a twist of events I don’t think anyone saw coming, my small hometown library became the focus of a community uproar.

In a small town where access to education was already limited, the word progress is both a curse and a necessity, and politics divide every single aspect of life, the decision for the school board to evict the community library from it’s home within the high school was in and of itself a paradox.

The library has since found a new home and is on its way to becoming a bright beacon in the community, a “Read Banned Books” sign proudly flown right next to the front door.

Last spring, the library’s board put out a plea to the community: they needed help building a website, a place where they could advertise their community events, direct donations, and showcase the good they are doing for the community.

Welp. My grandma saw the beacons lit and all but Gondor Calls For Aid-ed me, and next thing I know, I’m volunteering to build a website for a library I haven’t stepped foot in in twenty years. My middle school best friend’s mom is president of the board. I’m scared to death to talk to everyone again. I don’t know if I’ll be welcomed or run out of town.

Long story short, I was dumb, a lot of leftover childhood fear threatening to get the best of me. Everyone was beyond kind, (overly, in my opinion) grateful, and I had a lot of fun, too. (No, really. It felt so good to give back). We launched their site during the summer and I help with updates. It is…healing for me, a way to give back to the books that raised me, a way for me to remain connected to a place I ran away from.

A lot of my writing deals with the concept of home and themes of finding yourself. My creative nonfiction casts a look inside growing up Appalachian, and was the focus of my studies at WVU. My fiction, without my knowledge or consent, always ends up baring my soul, my underdog characters searching tirelessly for a place to belong. That was, perhaps more than anything, how my novel came to be.

I sat down to write about a guy who wanted to be a rock star and fell in love along the way, and it became a story about the juxtaposition of existing in the dark while living in literal sunshine.

I didn’t mention to the library board that I was writing a book. My involvement wasn’t about me. But I shouldn’t have bothered, because my grandma did.

Bless her and her grandma bragging rights.

I received an email I never could or would have expected: the library board asked me if I would like to read an excerpt of my novel at their annual fundraiser.

All of a sudden, I’m being called home to prove I did the one thing I vowed to.

The moment hit like a sack of rocks. I panicked, debating saying no because I don’t even have a book to sell yet, got yelled at by my supportive girlfriends and husband to not be a self-sacrificing idiot, took to my internet writer friends who pointed all of the ways this was a positive, and then spiraled into a three-hour Pinterest deep dive on what kind of outfits real authors wear.

I slept on it. Then I said yes.

The event was yesterday. I went over my time limit and sweated so much that it was literally dripping on the microphone at one point, and I might have also been weirdly embarrassed and quiet the entire ride home, but I did it. I stood up in front of the hometown crowd and said, I’m an author, a writer, and here is an excerpt from my book.

There will be no crowd tougher than that. Give me 500 strangers and I’ll be fine.

A few people came up to me afterwards and asked how they could read more. One of the school’s teachers said they wanted to give the book to their students and get it into the library. Someone who has read 141 books this year told me it was exactly the kind of book she loves to read. Another came up and demanded to know what happened next because I cut myself off before I finished a scene.

And that was the moment. The moment I felt entirely comfortable in myself, that I knew I could do this, that my book doesn’t in fact suck (querying will make you doubt everything), and that I was right where I was supposed to be, my past and future all blended up into a hurricane of emotions in a school social hall.

My grandma was there. My dad came, too. My stepmom’s excitement was contagious. My sister and mother in law gave me big hugs. An old colleague drove over an hour to support me and the library. My best friend of twenty years yelled to keep reading when I checked in on the time. And my husband was there throughout it all, taking photos and my mood swings with grace, and supporting me with candor, humor, and quiet determination like he always does.

Yesterday, I got a taste of what being an author is like.

Today, I have the determination to keep going.

All because those tracks that led me away from home brought me right back.