First Draft Episode #247: Jennifer de Leon
APRIL 14, 2020
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Jennifer De Leon is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Framingham State University, and a GrubStreet instructor and board member. Her debut young adult novel, Don’t Ask Me Where I’m From, is out from Atheneum/Simon & Schuster on August 4, 2020.
This episode was sponsored by HIGHLAND 2, a better way to write, and by We Didn’t Ask For This, the newest novel by Adi Alsaid, out from Inkyard Press April 7 (listen to his First Draft interview here).
Saraj Enni: First Draft is sponsored by the newest novel from critically acclaimed young adult author Adi Alsaid’s We Didn't Ask For This. Inspired by the Breakfast Club, this timely new novel brings climate change to the forefront as a group of international students turn their annual lock-in night into a platform to use their voice for environmental change.
We Didn't Ask For This is a powerful look at not only how we treat the planet, but how we treat one another. We Didn't Ask For This has earned star reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus reviews, and it's out from Inkyard Press now wherever books and eBooks are sold. You can also find a link to buy the book in the show notes of this episode.
First Draft is brought to you by our sponsor HIGHLAND 2, a writing software created by John August, screenwriter and cohost of the Scriptnotes podcast. Highland 2 offers way more than just screenwriting capabilities. It has templates for blog posts, school papers, and, of course, novels. Highland 2 has an entire template that will automatically format your manuscript to industry standard and you can export as a word file.
I just finished writing a first draft of a book and I wrote the entire thing in Highland 2, and here's why I loved it. In Highland you write in plain text, the software is just a clean beautiful main document and one sidebar that has powerful tools like statistics, a bin to throw in text that you might want to retrieve later, and a navigator which is like a table of contents, where you can pin chapters or make notes for places you want to revisit later.
Highland 2 is clean, beautiful, and organized, which is to say it didn't distract me, it just gave me the space to write. I loved it and I highly recommend that you go check it out. It is available for download at the app store, or at quoteunquoteapps.com. You can also find a link in this week's show notes.
Sarah Enni: Welcome to First Draft with me, Sarah Enni. This week I'm talking to Jennifer de Leon, Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Framingham State University and a GrubStreet instructor and board member. Her debut young adult novel, Don't Ask Me Where I'm From, is out on May 5th. Everything Jennifer and I talk about in today's episode can be found in the show notes.
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I am so excited to announce a new project within the world of First Draft, Track Changes, a nine episode podcast mini series will get into everything you don't know you don't know about book publishing. Jenn and I talk about it a little bit in this episode, but Track Changes explores the publishing industry by following Jenn along her journey of having her debut novel come out into the world.
Jenn is so honest, and just like me, she believes deeply in providing information to other writers. Which is the purpose of Track Changes, to make sure that other creative professionals have the understanding that they need to feel empowered and to make more informed choices. The first episode of Track Changes airs April 16th and you can find a trailer in the First Draft feed right now.
In researching the mini series, I learned way more than I could fit into nine episodes, so on April 16th I will also be launching the Track Changes newsletter, a subscription newsletter that every week will bring you further insights into how books get made. Both projects aim to provide transparency and give writers the information they need to think of their art as their career. Find more information about both @firstdraftpod.com/TrackChanges.
Okay, now please, sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with Jennifer de Leon.
Sarah Enni: Hi Jenn. How are you?
Jennifer de Leon: Ah [laughs] yeah. I'm hanging in, I'm hanging in.
Sarah Enni: Set the scene in case someone's listening to this maybe in the future when we're past this, but we are talking in late March 2020 at the onset of the Coronavirus quarantine period of shelter in place for everybody. I know you have two kids at home and you have a full time job and so it must be a lot going on right now.
Jennifer de Leon: Yes. There is a lot going on right now. This is the third week that we've been sheltered in place and we're finding a new routine, every day reinventing that. But we're housebound and when we go for walks, we go for a couple hikes, but that's it. So I live on the screen kind of right now.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Seriously. OK, we'll get to that cause I really want to talk about how that is impacting the release of Don't Ask Me Where I'm From and where it's put you in your mindset as a creative person. But, as you know, I want to go way back to the beginning and I love to start these interviews with where were you born and raised?
Jennifer de Leon: So I was born in Boston and when I was two years old, my family moved to a suburb of Boston, Framingham. And that's where my sisters and I grew up. I have one older sister, one younger sister.
Sarah Enni: Amazing. And how was reading and writing a part of growing up for you?
Jennifer de Leon: I would say that reading and writing weren't a huge part of my upbringing until middle school when I started keeping a journal, like a diary, pretty religiously. I just wrote in that thing all the time really through my twenties. So that was a practice that started in eighth grade, but books were not really something that were in my household. I tell people this all the time, but it's true. We didn't read newspapers, we delivered them. And the only book that was in our house was the Bible and it was in Spanish.
I mean, my mom had some Reader's Digest Magazines, and I had books from school. In third grade I remember there was this contest, a read-a-thon. And so that got me hooked into reading.
Sarah Enni: I'm interested in the compulsion to start the diary. That's so interesting to me. Do you remember what it was that finally, like for someone that didn't necessarily grow up with reading or writing as a go-to for expression, what was pulling you to doing that?
Jennifer de Leon: I remember actually distinctly because it was a summer between seventh and eighth grade and my family, we had a big family reunion in LA, which is where my parents first moved when they moved to this country from Guatemala in the 70's. So my dad had five brothers out there and two sisters. I mean, it was massive family. So we went for this reunion and I brought my childhood photo album.
And I had actually remade it for this reunion and I took the best pictures from all our albums and put it into one album. And I was like, "The story of me until eighth grade." And I brought it and we had a great time. I remember showing it to family members and then we went to the airport to fly back to Boston and we stopped at a souvenir shop to buy t-shirts, magnets, all that. And we were robbed while we were in the souvenir shop.
Sarah Enni: Oh my god.
Jennifer de Leon: All of our luggage, including my dad's camcorder. I had babysitting money rolled up in my sock, and my photo album was taken. So all of these pictures, everything, were gone instantly. And I didn't have scans of them, I didn't have digital copies, it was way before any of that. And I remember being devastated and my mom was like, "These are things, these are things." She just instilled that in me. Like, "We have each other, we have our stories, we have our future. It's all good."
So I think that consciously, or subconsciously, instilled in me this drive to just write things down, to record, to be a witness, to write testimonies. Like, "Wow. they can take all of our stuff, but they can't take our stories," kind of thing. Maybe. I dunno.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Well that's devastating. But yeah, a good way to react to a response like that, or to a situation like that to say like, "I'm gonna own my story and write it everywhere I can." So I want to talk a little bit about because Don't Ask Me Where I'm From, your debut novel, is explicitly about a young Central American woman who is going to an affluent white, predominantly white, school. So I wanna just ask about that experience for you and what that was like growing up in Boston and your high school experience.
Jennifer de Leon: So I had a similar experience to the main character, Liliana, in that I felt like I was living in two worlds but not really fully belonging to either one. I was born in the United States, just like Liliana, and I moved when I was two. So I was living in this middle-class, affluent suburb, about 25 minutes outside of Boston. And it was diverse by some measures, but it was still very segregated. Like the Jewish kids hung out with the Jewish kids. The Asian kids hung out with the Asian kids. And then all the students of color were either in METCO, which is a real program a desegregation program, or we were looked upon like we were in METCO. Not that it was a bad thing, but people would be like, "Your METCO bus is leaving."
And I'm like, "I'm not in METCO." They would just say that cause I looked Latina, I mean, I am Latina, so that's what they would assume. Teachers, well, meaning teachers I think, but it was constantly in between these two worlds. And I went to elementary school, middle school, high school and all my friends were white. All of the families of my friends were white. I'd go and have sleepovers and just do all this. That was my experience. And then on the weekends I'd go to Jamaica Plain, which is where all my cousins lived. My grandmother, I mean it was a totally different world. Friday night to Sunday night we were there. We were just in this other universe. And I felt like I was constantly going back and forth, back and forth.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, we have a word for it, it's code switching, right? But, it's not only just changing how you talk or how you communicate with people, it's putting on this entirely new identity, which can be exhausting when you have to flip back and forth all the time
Jennifer de Leon: Completely. And I remember actually feeling more comfortable in white spaces, and in school, and with my friends because that's where I was the majority of the time. And I just felt natural. I didn't really feel like an outsider in a huge way. I guess it's like you don't know, you're just living your life. You're like, "These are my friends."
But I do remember the closer I got to middle school, my cousins would start to make fun of me when I talked a certain way. They'd be like, "Oh white girl!" Or, "Gringa!" Or if I had a book with me or something, or my journal later on, they'd be like, "Why are you doing homework?" [Laughs]
And then the big thing was when one of my cousins, he's like a brother to me, they moved to Framingham when I was in middle school. And when he moved it was like, "Wait a minute, he's gonna go to my school?" This is like worlds colliding. I don't know how I'm gonna be. Because I'm in honors classes, taking French, hanging out with my friends. And then with my cousins, it was slang and like, "Yeah, school is stupid." And that was stressful for me.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. Did he end up going to your school?
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah, but he was so popular, within a minute. So then it was great because I was like, "Oh, I got some cred now."
Sarah Enni: [Laughs] That's so funny. Yeah. This is not the same thing at all, but the way I'm relating to it is I'm the person that has friend groups that I kept separate for a lot of my life. And so my childhood friends versus my friends that I just met when I moved to LA five years ago. I've had to really work at becoming okay with integrating everybody because it's like, "Okay, I need to be just the same person across all of them somehow. Or just accept that they're gonna know different sides of me and that's okay." But it is really stressful.
I really want to get to your journey to taking writing seriously. I know you still write nonfiction sometimes, but to developing your voice as a fiction writer. Can you talk to me about your 20's and your journey to discovering writing?
Jennifer de Leon: Yes. Oh my goodness. Alright. So I wrote in my journal a lot in high school and when I got to college I didn't have the guts to major in English. I felt like it was just out of my reach. I was scared of the Shakespeare and British Lit classes and all of that. I did take a creative writing class and it was very pivotal because the professor that I had, this is a quick story that I'll tell you, the professor that I had one class, she told us, "Listen, I can recommend somebody for an internship at Ms Magazine this summer."
And this was in the fall of my sophomore year. And I'm thinking, "Oh, that's so cool. I want to do that." And she's like, "It's in New York City, it's this major magazine. Gloria Steinem founded it." And I'm just like, "Check, check, check." So she says, "Come to my office hours if you're interested." So I remember dressing up. I had these Payless boots, I can't even believe it. They were these four inch high boots. And I was like, "I'm going to her office, I'm gonna make a great impression and tell her I'm interested."
And she's sitting there on this tan couch. The wall is tan, the desk is tan. She's like, "Where are you tan?" I could not have stuck out more. I'm wearing a magenta shirt and my black Payless boots. I'm like, "I want to do this internship." And she just nods and says, "Your interest is noted." And I didn't really know what that meant, but I left thinking, "Okay, cool."
So that next semester I studied abroad in Vietnam. So fast forward a few months and I email her to follow up, "Oh yeah, I'm still interested in that internship." And she writes back and says, "Dear Jennifer, I cannot recommend you for this internship because in your email to me, you split an infinitive. And my name is attached to this, I just can't recommend you. This is a major magazine. You can't do that."
So I don't even know what she was talking about. And this is 1999 I'm in Hanoi, Vietnam, living across the world. And I remember thinking like, "No, no. You have to recommend me for this. It's not gonna go down like this for an infinitive." And I barely even know what that was. I, by the way, have since then learned that you can split infinitives. Like you can say "To quickly run" you don't have to say "To run quickly." It's not against the law.
So anyway, I go back to my dorm and I asked my friend to help me write a reply. And we wrote the reply on this yellow pad of paper. And she was an English major so she helped me. And every preposition was in place. Everything. And then I went back the next day to the internet cafe, wrote her back and I was like, "You have to recommend me. Ms Magazine needs my voice. I can learn grammar, I can do all that, but my experience, my voice matters. And you need to recommend me." Like, please and thank you, bye. Click. Send.
And I checked my email the next day cause it was a 12 hour difference. So she writes back and she's like, "In my however many years of teaching, I've never had a student take such authority over their own education." She was like, "I will recommend you. I will give you my highest recommendation." I was like, "What?!"
So that really made things click like, "Wow. Writing has power. It can make things happen." It's beyond just like, "I wrote this cool description." It's like, "This can get me to New York for three months this summer." I'm into this space that I would never have access to on my own.
That said, it was an unpaid internship. And living in New York City, even the Metro was more than I could afford. And I'm just like, "How do they expect people to do this? Oh, it's people from Yale and Vassar and Duke and their parents are just paying for them to live in the city." So I'm like, "I can't do this." So it came up to maybe a couple of weeks before, and that's when my college, Connecticut College, they really came through and gave me an internship grant essentially.
So I was able to go and complete the internship. And sure enough, there were girls from Yale but we all became friends and went out for happy hour and did the whole New York thing. And at the end of the summer, or maybe it was afterwards that fall, one of the editors asked us if we wanted to submit a column, or write a piece for the column that they had.
And I pitched a piece on my experience of going to the gynecologist to get birth control without telling my parents. And just how that experience was shaped by growing up in a traditionally Latino household, which shapes that experience. So anyway, they took it and that was the first piece I ever published. And I remember it was $934 or whatever it was. And I was like, "I'm rich!" So that was when I was nineteen and I thought, "Okay, I'm going to be a journalist. I'm going to write and live around the world, work for the UN or something."
I majored in International Relations. I studied abroad in twelve different countries as an undergrad. So I felt very comfortable claiming that as my future. But then the year after college, I just didn't know what the exact next step was. It wasn't like senior in college, next year work for the United Nations. So I took a job working for a Congressman and it was in Boston. And it was tough, just transitioning from college to working, but I craved writing.
I still wrote in my journal, but I wanted structure, I wanted deadlines, I wanted a community. And so a free class was offered, I don't know how I found out about it, but it was at the church in Stoneham, which is a really small town next to Medford, which is where I was living. And I'm like, "Oh, it's free? Great. I'm there."
And it met really early on the weekend mornings. I'm like, "That's fine, I can do that." And I drove to the first one and I sit down, it smelled like pledge. It was in this room, in the back of a church. I'm like, "What is going on?" And it was all old people. And I was like, "Oh my God, this is a class for senior citizens." [Laughs] And I sit in there with my notebook ready to share this story about a girl who hooks up with two guys in one night. And I'm like, "This is great."
Sarah Enni: [Laughing] Oh my god. Amazing.
Jennifer de Leon: So that happened. I just kept writing. Then I did Teach For America in California, in San Jose. Went to USF and got my master's in education. And that whole time I was writing in my journal. I had a professor though, Herb Cole, who's an amazing writer and an activist educator. And one day in his office I was so upset, I was crying, I was stressed out.
And he was like, "What are you not doing in your life that you need to be doing?" And I was like, "Why is he asking me that? I'm taking so many classes, I'm teaching full time, I'm so tired." And he asks me this question and I'm like, "Oh, that's easy writing. I'm not writing and I need to write more. I'm writing in my journal barely." So he's like, "Alright, let's start this writing group."
I'm like, "The last thing I need to do is commit to something else and drive to the city for something else". But it was the kind of thing that just fills the well, it feeds you. And we workshopped. I had never workshopped before. We were all young teachers, activists, educators working in the Bay Area and writing creatively. And it was almost spiritual. We met in his loft apartment in the Mission and sat there and read our stories aloud. And then people would clap and then say something.
And I'm like, "Wow, I love this." So when I moved back to Boston after two years doing TFA, I looked into classes, but everything was so expensive. So I took a class at the Boston Center for Adult Education. Same thing, it was in this old attic. I feel comfortable with school and with writing, but sometimes being in these spaces, I always feel nervous like, "Can I really write honestly?" Even in fiction, am I gonna write stories that people are going to be like, "That sucks." Or like, "That's weird." I guess normal feelings that people have. But there was an element of, I mean, everyone was always white in these classes. So I was like, "Okay, are they gonna think this is crazy or dumb?"
So I took a memoir class there, and then I signed up for a class at Emerson in their continuing education program. And I remember walking by the office, I went to drop off my check. It was $1,500 for a class in continuing ed. And it was every Tuesday night for a semester. And I'm like, "This is how it is. This is what you have to do to be a writer." So I went to drop off my check and I remember talking to the guy at the desk like, "This is worth it, right?" And he didn't care. He was like, "Yeah, okay, just give me your check, fill out this form." And I'm like, "This is what my dad makes in a month. This is a lot of money." And this guy is just like, "Oh, okay."
So I give him the check. And then I take the class, same thing. Everyone's white, the professor's white. He was so great though, Ben Brooks, I owe him so much. And so he starts leading the class and the whole maybe first few weeks, I'm just like, "When is the deadline for me to be able to drop the class and still get half my money back?" I kept making all these excuses.
And it just felt like, "I don't know, is this worth it? It's so expensive." I didn't tell anybody that I spent that much money on it. And then one night I'm like, "Alright, I'm gonna drop the class." I decided. So I go to get some food before class at this Vietnamese place and I walk in and Ben is sitting there in a booth and I'm like, "Oh God!" It's always awkward seeing your professor.
And I am a professor now which is so funny. So I felt like I was letting him down and he's like, "Hey, how's the class?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah, it's okay." And in my head I'm like, "I'm quitting tonight." So I get my food and I'm about to leave and he was like, "Hey." And I'm like, "Yes?" And he says, "You have a talent for it. I think you should stick with it." And I just felt like, "Oh my God, it's a sign." He didn't even know I was gonna quit and he said it. And maybe he says that to everybody, but I felt like it's what I needed to hear. So I stuck with that class. And then it led to me finding out about GrubStreet.
I Googled "Writing Boston," and GrubStreet they were much more affordable than the Emerson classes. And I didn't need credits and the Emerson class was giving you credits. So GrubStreet I joined in 2006 and I have never looked back. Oh my god, that's fourteen years ago. And so I'm on the board now. I mean, I'm obsessed with Grub and my whole thing with GrubStreet is that I honestly cannot imagine my life without this organization. I've taken a zillion classes, I've taught a zillion classes.
But same thing, I went to their open house, I rode the elevator up and I get to this second floor, cool space. And mostly everybody was white. And again, I felt like, "I don't know, I just, I don't know." And Chris Castellani who is the Artistic Director, he I remember was sitting on this red couch and he came up and he's like, "Hey."
And he introduced himself. I just needed those mini bridges to stay in the room, just stay in the room. It allowed me to seek out other programs that I wouldn't have known about like Bread Loaf, like VONA, Voices of Our Nation Arts Foundation, like Macondo Foundation. All these organizations, conferences, and I know people think I'm crazy they're like, "Jenn you're always going to conferences."
But I guess I feel I just wanted to learn as much as I could about writing and gain confidence in it, and inspiration. But also it was helpful for my process to have deadlines, to have knowledge of the publishing industry. And all of that came from me going to these spaces and places and talking to people. So it's not like you get more cred if you do it alone.
I never understood that. Sometimes I got that vibe like, "You're going to another conference?" And it's like, "You know what? You do you. This works for me and I love it and it's fine."
Sarah Enni: I want to just hone in on a couple things there. I'm a little bit losing track. You're a committed diarist and then you talked about taking, early on, writing essays about your personal life and then taking that memoir class. I'm curious about when you thought about fiction or when that impulse showed up.
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah. I wrote in my diary forever, in a journal. And then I took that class in college, Narrative Nonfiction, and then after college, after California, came back to Boston, I took a memoir class at the Boston Center for Adult Ed. And then the very first fiction class was at Emerson with Ben Brooks and it was like Fiction One, or something. And that was the first short story that I wrote about this character who's influenced by Liliana. Or Liliana is influenced by this character.
She was a teen and I remember writing this story and getting feedback and then I brought that story to VONA, when I studied with Junot Diaz (Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao). And we workshopped that piece and then I brought that story to the Vermont Studio Center. And I just brought that story with me to different places. And that's a story I submitted when I applied to an MFA program. And I felt with fiction, that's what my MFA is in is fiction, I felt like I was allowed to be a little bit more truthful in some ways.
And I felt like, "Okay, I can start with something true and then use all of these different elements, almost like they're options on my palette. And I can dip in here, I can do a little bit of this, do a little of that. And I felt comfortable in fiction but I love nonfiction too. I never want to have to choose, but I felt I could say a lot in fiction and use different craft elements to spin stories.
Sarah Enni: It's really interesting to hear you say that you felt like you could be more honest in fiction. I think a lot of us can relate to that. But also, and tell me if this is wrong, but in my perception of your story, connecting it to, there might've been some hesitancy to tell your own story because you were in these super predominantly white spaces. And I wonder if maybe some of the pressure was off when you were presenting something that was fiction as opposed to being like, "This is me and my story."
Jennifer de Leon: Yes, yes, I remember. So a couple of things come to mind. I remember having instructors say, maybe it was Ben Brooks who said this, but he basically was like, "In fiction you can't ask the author, did this really happen? iI's not allowed. That's not okay." And I love that he said that because it just took the pressure off. This could be a hundred percent autobiographical, first person, narrator fiction, but you don't know.
And so I felt like, "Alright, I could do that." Ironically though, and this was even in Adam's classes at GrubStreet, the first ten stories I wrote, maybe first five or six, they were really cliche and really safe and just not that complicated. I remember it was stories of a good little girl stealing something at the supermarket and her mother finding out at the register.
Or the little girl who really wanted a Cabbage Patch doll but her mother couldn't afford it. A lot of these things happened to me and I started to play in fiction. Like, "What would this be like if this were fictionalized?" But I needed to really take big leaps to be able to free myself. So change something big like the gender or the time period.
But the more I read, I would say I have read more in the second half of my life than all my previous lives combined because I just press the gas on reading like never before, just devouring books. And I really think that influenced my writing. Just the comfort in being able to go off on tangents, or to describe something, or to dip into someone's memory, or have them have a dream, it just feels so fluid.
But I think Junot Diaz, I remember in his workshop, there was a lot of crying. I mean he made us cry. But it was out of such love and respect because VONA is all writers of color. So it was polar opposite of every experience I'd ever had. And to be dropped into that, I mean, in my first class I remember Tiphanie Yanique was in there. Of course, now I'm blanking on everybody. Charlene Chang was in there, Julissa Fidelis, Dixon Lam, Patricia Engle, it was crazy. We would all sit there and the very first assignment that Junot gives out is to write a letter to your critical self.
And I remember thinking like, "When are we gonna get to the part about flashbacks?" I wanted like, "Give me some knowledge!" And he barely blinked at us in our enthusiasm in that way because he's like, "This isn't school. School is what fucked you up. And now you're here and we're trying to rewire your brain. So calm down, and also just do what I say." And what he said was like, "Write a letter to your critical self because if you don't learn to manage that, and give your critical self a job, it's just going to always suffocate you moving forward."
And so that was really intense because, of course, your first line of defense is like, "What do you mean? I don't have a critical self. I had a great upbringing, I have so much to write. And all this blah blah." And it's like, "Oh my god." So that broke me in the best way where I was like, "Who am I even writing for? Who is this story about? This little girl sealing something." Not who cares in a bad way like your story is stupid, but more like, "What are you afraid to really write? What are you not writing? What's in the white space?"
So that felt instrumental. And then the people I met there, the way they were brave on the page, but in life, showing up and taking ownership over these labels of like, "I'm a writer. I'm an author. I'm an activist." I just felt like, "Oh wow, this is bigger than writing, quote/unquote, just writing a story. And that for me was VONA all the way.
And Macondo was similar but it was more like, "What is your writing doing for the world?" A lot of people think Macondo is just for Latino writers, but it's not. It's open to anyone who views their writing as fuel for social justice. So it brought together a real beautiful range of writers.
Sarah Enni: I was so moved when we talked about your trip to Guatemala, when you shared it with me before. I wonder if maybe we can just take a minute to talk about your trip to Guatemala and how that factored into your desire to develop as an artist, as a creative person.
Jennifer de Leon: Definitely. Yeah. I was twenty-eight and all arrows are pointing to this in my life. I wasn't really happy in my job. I had just started an MFA program, but I was like, "I don't know man. Do I need to read another New Yorker story and analyze it? What I need to do is go to the motherland." You know? And I felt like this was a roots trip in that sense. And it's something that was important to me because I felt like I wanted to finally give myself permission to learn as much as I could about my parent's country. And I felt going there by myself was the way to do that.
So what I did was I quit my job and I sublet my apartment. I kept my car at my parent's house, and I bought a one way ticket to Guatemala City, to my parent's horror. Because they are proud of where they're from and they go back every year, all that stuff. But they did not see this coming. Which I find ironic because my whole life they pushed college, they pushed graduate school, they pushed travel, they pushed, you know, "Buy your own condominium. Have your own savings. Own your own car." All these kinds of things.
And then all of a sudden it's like, "Well, you're twenty-eight, so maybe you could get married and have kids." And it's like, "Uh-nah. Nope, no backsies. You told us we could do whatever we wanted, so this is what I want." And my mom was like, "Why don't you go to Italy instead?" I'm like, "You're not getting it. I don't want another stamp in my passport. I want to go and learn, and all this." And my dad was terrified.
I've written a lot of nonfiction about this. But basically he flew down a week before me and met up with my uncle who was living there. And they got a car and picked me up from the airport. And I was pushing my suitcases on this cart and he waving his hand like a crazy person. I'm thinking like, "What are you gonna do after you leave? You know I'm staying here, right? And you can't protect me."
But I thought it was sweet. And that week we went around and we said hello to different relatives in the Capital and then we rented a car and drove four hours west to the Western Highlands, which is where I was going to be living in this city called Quetzaltenango. And that's where I was going to be studying Spanish at a language school where the teachers are mostly ex Gettiuarros and Gettiuarras.
So they were in the war and now this is a job that they can have, which is teaching English to foreigners, which is interesting because I was a foreigner but not really. And people were really confused cause they were like, "You look Guatemalan but you definitely look American. You talk like a white girl. You speak Spanish, but it's not that good." And they were like, "Your parents are Guatemalan. What are you doing here? Where are your parents?" They were so confused. And I was like, "I know, I get it. It's weird."
But then my dad, that whole week that we spent together, I learned so much about his life, about my parent's lives, about just our whole history. He's different when he's in Guatemala. He walks different, he talks different, he relaxes his shoulders, he jokes. I'm like, "This is like a different man." And so what happened is he left, and I stayed. And I lived with a host family for a month and then traveled, lived alone, did some trips.
And my goal was to write a novel. And I brought all these books packed with my peanut butter. And it just was not happening. I felt very stuck. I was writing like crazy in my journal, but I wasn't counting that as writing. I mean, it was really bad. There were some days where I'm like, "What did I even do today?" I would sleep late, I'd write in my journal, I'd eat something. I take the van, they have these minivans, ride 45 minutes across town. Go to the gym, this Western gym. Do the same thing all the way back, make something to eat, maybe read, watch TV, go to sleep.
And I'm like, "I could be anywhere. This is dumb." But I was writing and working through so much stuff. Anyway, I wrote a lot. I didn't think I was, but I was writing essays, basically that would turn into essays. And I was getting a lot of sensory details and foundation for what would be this novel that I wrote. About a man who wants to move back to Guatemala but his wife wants to stay in Boston and they need to decide. Anyway, it's this whole novel that never got published. But I couldn't have written it unless I'd lived there.
And these essays that will be published, a collection called White Space, they're actually announcing it very soon. So I'm excited about that. But this trip to Guatemala was everything. It shaped how I write, how I view my writing. Just everything.
Sarah Enni: It's so interesting, I think this is so sweet, cause I think we've all had these moments of doing it to ourselves with being like, "I'm gonna go write the novel." And it's like, well you're living your life at that point. It's so obvious to look back and be like, you needed to go do the experience that you could then reflect on. But I think we all do this to ourselves. I mean, the moment we're in right now, right? People are like, "Go write your novel." And it's like, "Actually we're all going through something huge that we're just gonna need to reflect on. Take it easy."
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah, definitely. I put way too much pressure on myself. And the more time that passed, the more pressure I put because I'm like, "You've been here two months. What do you have to show for it?" And then I felt guilty because I saw people around me, carrying baskets of fruit to sell, and bread. And walking miles to work and all this. And I'm like, "I need more coffee." [Chuckles]
Sarah Enni: Well, I want to get us back to Don't Ask Me Where I'm From, but I'm interested in your first experience with the adult novel and how that segued into turning to YA, and Don't Ask Me. So do you mind talking a little bit about that?
Jennifer de Leon: Sure. So I wrote my first novel and I had an agent that represented adult literary fiction. We went out with that book and it did not sell. And this was the year that I had a fellowship at the Boston Public Library. Just to explain that a little bit. I had never written YA. I didn't, to be totally honest, I didn't know what YA really truly was. I got an email from a former student about this fellowship for writing children's books in YA at the Boston Public Library. You'd get $20,000 and an office room of your own. Great.
So I remember thinking, "Oh, that's too bad. I don't write YA." But then I looked closer and realized that you just needed 15 pages and a one page proposal. So I took one of the stories that I had written that had a teen protagonist and submitted it and called it chapter one. And I remember Googling YA and all these YALL stuff came up and had all these one liners, descriptions of books.
So I just took a bunch of those and then wrote mine based on that structure, and boom sent it off. So I didn't get the fellowship the first year, but I was a runner up. And then the following year I applied again and I did get it, which I was thrilled about. And this was right when We Need Diverse Books is booming. And I also applied for a grant, an emerging writers grant, which I got from We Need Diverse Books. It was amazing.
It allowed me to pay for my son's preschool that summer so I could keep writing. So all of these things braided together. And I read a bunch of YA that year and I started working on Don't Ask Me Where I'm From. And I changed agents because I was learning a lot. And one of the things I learned was you really want an agent who specializes in YA, or gets that world. Because it is a different world.
I mean writing is writing in the sense that there's obviously still setting, and dialogue, and stakes, and all of that technical stuff, but there are different elements. So I switched agents and I started working with Faye Bender who's amazing. And she and I came up with a plan. She had me do a light revision on the manuscript. We waited for the holidays to end, and we sent it out in January, 2018.
Sarah Enni: Amazing. I want to ask a little bit about writing the story and then I definitely want to hear about selling it and getting into it. But I'm so interested in, so Don't Ask Me Where I'm From, how similar or dissimilar is it to that short story that you were workshopping many times? You said that you made it chapter one, but what was it like to then look at this short story from that whole new viewpoint?
Jennifer de Leon: I had the short story with a fourteen-year-old protagonist. And like I said, I put her in a couple of different story scenarios, but it was mainly this one story. And so I called it chapter one, but once I got the fellowship, I spent the first three months actually just reading like crazy. And I definitely got a sense of some of the common denominators of at least contemporary realistic YA.
So I felt like I got my footing a little bit in that world. And then I started writing. And I wrote this same character, putting her in different scenarios, because I needed a novel, not a short story. And so I was like, "Okay, what is the scope here? What's the story?" I researched METCO like crazy. I don't know when that came up, but I knew I wanted her to be in METCO and to have her be literally and emotionally traveling between two worlds on the daily, and making all those choices. And I knew I needed a climax.
So I didn't have things figured out, but I was just writing my way into them. But at this point it was third person close past tense, but it was set in the 90's. And I went to the KWELI Conference, the Color of Children's Literature Conference, that April which was incredible. One of the things that I learned there was that writing realistic fiction in the 90's is considered historical fiction, which I thought was insane.
But the editor that I met with was like, "That's when the teens now... that's when their parents were teens. They don't want to read about them having their first kisses and all that stuff." And I was like, "Oh yeah." So I was devastated cause this is April of my residency that ended in June. And I was like, "What am I gonna do?"
So I went back and it was kind of a rock bottom moment because I was like, "Here's this big time editor telling me, no." And I was like, "What am I gonna do? I've been working on this." But then I thought, "You know what, I'm just going to try to write first person from Liliana, if she were right now, talking." And what I heard in my mind, what I heard was my students, because I was teaching middle school and high school, but mostly middle school for the last ten years in Boston Public.
And I heard her voice so clearly. And it really is like she cleared her throat and was like, "Give me the money." And it was crazy because I'd never really had that experience before where it was like my fingers are moving on the keyboard and she's just like, "And nothing, my jeans are tight. So what?" She just had so much attitude and I just heard these students, oh my god, my girls they were just so full of life and attitude and drama and confusion and ambition and I felt like, "Alright, alright, here we are."
So I switched the whole thing and made it contemporary first person.
Sarah Enni: Because by this point, you're talking about two or three years ago at this point, kind of breaking through. And you'd been writing for many, many years until then. But this is a whole new feeling. What was that like? How did you think about that?
Jennifer de Leon: You know, it felt really joyful. I didn't feel pained as much like, "I'm carving this sentence." I think adult literary fiction can be a little stressful in that way. There's a lot more anxiety.
Sarah Enni: Splitting your infinitive stress?
Jennifer de Leon: Yes, exactly! No wonder I have such pressure in that world, like somebody's on my shoulder being like, "You sure about that?" But with YA this was something that I felt like nobody could tell me that I was getting this wrong when it came to her voice. Other stuff, a thousand percent. I mean, there's was no plot, that's for one, right? So there's that.
But in terms of her voice, I felt really plugged in in that way. And it was because of years of experience of working with teens but also in her core, Liliana and I share a lot in common. So I felt like it was me too, but it wasn't me. But I think it felt easier in a lot of ways.
Now I would say, "What was I waiting for?" I love YA. I feel like I want to live here, I want to buy property here. I want to tell all my friends to move here. This is where I want to be. That's not to say... I love the essay form and I do feel like I have maybe a couple of adult novels in me and maybe I'll go back to that one. But it's like you don't know what you don't know. And I didn't know YA was an option. If anything, if I had heard about it vaguely, I hate to say this, but it was a little bit talked down upon like, "That's not real literature." Which is totally bullshit.
Sarah Enni: I think that narrative is out there and hopefully it's fading. But especially when YA was dominated by Twilight and whatever. I think people were quick to dismiss it.
Jennifer de Leon: Right. But my spirit age is between eleven and fifteen, so I feel that it makes sense that I'm in YA. And now even my husband is like, "It makes total sense that you write YA because you are YA." Like how I am with our family and our kids and the way I teach. It's just very much in that world. But it still was intimidating.
I mean, here I was coming from the adult literary fiction world, I had these publications that I had worked so hard to get in these journals that most of the world has never heard of. And I'm coming at this kind of as a newbie and there are these big players. And I just felt there was so much to know all over again.
Sarah Enni: Okay. I want to talk about the publishing journey, getting to selling Don't Ask Me Where I'm From. And then I want to talk specifically about the book a little bit, and then we'll talk about this new phase of your publishing journey. So because you did have a pretty cool, dreamy, sale experience with Faye. I'd love, to whatever extent you can or want to share about that, how it went down.
Jennifer de Leon: So I feel really grateful about the experience. I did not expect it. Like I said, I did not sell my first novel, so I was coming at this from like, "It can only go up." And so I had Faye in my corner, big time, and we went out with a book January 2nd or something, 2018. And she shared the list of editors that she sent it to, which was really exciting.
And a few days into January, she sent me some emails that started coming in, editors saying like, "I just want you to know I'm reading, I'm loving what I'm reading, I'm gonna share this with people in my office." That kind of thing. So the next couple of weeks were a total crazy awesome blur of just excitement and frenzy because editors started showing interest and they started sharing the manuscript with people at their houses.
And then I started getting on the phone with editors. So that period, that two week period, I talked to ten editors on the phone and a couple of film agents. And every conversation was incredible. It felt like everybody was coming at this from a space of like, "We really want to honor your story, and publish the hell out of this book, and put marketing behind it."
It felt like a dream come true. And the other thing that was happening in my life at this point, it's such a long story but I'll just tell you really fast. At this point we had one son Mateo, who is downstairs in my house right now, but he is six-and-a--half. So at the time he was three-and-a-half.
Sarah Enni: Or four? In 2018?
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah! He was four. 2018 he was four, oh my god. We had been trying for a second baby for some time and were really struggling with that. And it was just something we were really private about because it sucked. And when you're in it, it's hard to know how to be. So we felt we had tried different things and we're at the end of that journey and we said, "Okay, this is what our family looks like. We're gonna move on."
And then literally that month, this is so weird, the week before the New Year's I took a pregnancy test and I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm pregnant." And I just couldn't believe it. We had been through, we had been through hell and back in multiple ways, multiple times, just treatments, different things. And we had closed that chapter. And then this happens and I'm like, "I can't even right now." Like, "I can't tell anybody anything."
And so I'm holding this in and talking to editors. And then going to an appointment and then freaking out, and then having a call and then throwing up. It was crazy. And then we had an auction and Faye did an incredible job just balancing all of that. And I was pinching myself because I got to work with Caitlyn Dlouhy from Atheneum at Simon and Schuster. And she works with so many of the greats like Jason Reynolds (author of Ghost, Long Way Down, and Look Both Ways (listen to his First Draft interview here).
And as accomplished as she is, there's something in the sound of her voice in that conversation. She was on my side. She's like, "We're gonna work this together. And you are going to drive it." Not drive it, but it was more like she was like, "We're not gonna do anything that you're not okay with. That's just not even a question." And I love that she started off like that.
Sarah Enni: What is really wonderful about it is you got to have this incredible [experience]. Talking to ten people, having having Faye in your corner guiding you through it, all this stuff. But you also knew how unusual and one in a million that was. So how were you thinking about it as this was going on?
It's easy to get wrapped up in something that's happening. But you, through many years of being a professional in this space, have some context for what was going on. So how were you trying to stay sane while this was going on?
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah, I know. Trying to stay sane. Oh my god. I mean, it was the exact opposite experience I had before where it was radio silence from editors. And you're checking your email every five minutes. And this was on the phone, long conversations with editors which is very emotional. And you're trying to be there with your brain, but your heart's beating and you're just trying to take notes. But then you're also like, "Oh my god, I'm talking to this editor right now."
It just was nuts. And I was helped by the fact that my writing group, people had been through some similar experiences. So I remember calling my friend Whitney in between and being like, "What is happening?" And she was like, "Just take notes, just keep taking notes. Because you can't think and process. So just go back to the notes, write everything down."
And I'm like, "Okay." And then I would go back into the next call. So that was great. And then Faye walked me through the different steps. And she was like, "Don't promise away your next five books." Cause I get excited and I'm like, "You're my new best friend!" You know? And she's like, "Yeah, you have five more calls." I'm like, "Oh, okay." That's just how I am.
So anyway, she was really good about reigning me in a little bit.
Sarah Enni: I love that mean. That's what agents are for, right? So let's talk about the book, finally. Thank you for walking through so much other stuff with me. But before we get into the details of it, do you mind - you've talked a little bit about what's in the book - but do you mind just pitching Don't Ask Me Where I'm From for us?
Jennifer de Leon: Don't Ask Me Where I'm From tells the story of Liliana Cruz who is fifteen and she is living in Jamaica Plain, which is a neighborhood in Boston. And she's trying to fit in at her new school as part of this METCO program, which is a desegregation program. So every day she takes the bus an hour outside of Boston to this suburb and goes to school there and comes back.
So she's trying to fit in and all the while she's holding this secret in about her father, which is that he has been deported. And up until now she didn't even realize that her parents were undocumented. So it cracks open her world. It's a point of no return and she is trying to keep this a secret. And then at school someone posts a meme of her with her head on a piñata saying, "Go back where you're from."
And it sets off a chain of events. And really, I think it's a story about a young girl who is realizing for the first time that her story is part of a larger story.
Sarah Enni: That's a very YA type of theme to be exploring. The other thing that really struck me about Liliana is in her experience, because of what her family is going through, and I've heard this from many authors who are first generation immigrants, that so early on in their life they have to take on a lot of adult roles. And in some cases they just have to be the parent and teach their parent how things are done or tell them like, "No, I have to do this certain thing." Or learn how the school system works, and how college works.
And you really portray that beautifully, I think, in the book. That tension of wanting to be the kid but needing to be the parent. How did you think about that? Was that reflective of your experience?
Jennifer de Leon: That's a great question. Growing up I would say both of them were extremely supportive, but my father was more hands off. He didn't go to the meetings with teachers and he didn't go to open houses, that was all my mom. But my mom made up for his absence. She was up in the schools big time and people knew her and she knew the secretaries and like, "Oh my God." So in that way she was super involved.
But when it came to picking classes, and tracking, and honors and you know, "Should I take a fourth year of French or an elective?" I never talked to her about that kind of thing. And then when I applied to college, I did all the applications and financial aid forms with the help of counselors and different mentors. But I remember, especially for my dad, he would leave for work really early. He worked at a painting factory and I would leave the post-its with arrows and be like, "Just sign here." And he would. He would just put his signature.
And so I got through in that way. But both my parents speak English. They spoke English and they were citizens before I was born. So that wasn't necessarily a barrier, but language isn't just about translation, right? It's about feeling comfortable in the dominant culture. Being able to make an appointment with the guidance counselor and roll up in there like, "I deserve to be here and you're gonna listen to me talk about my kid." Versus like, "I don't know, is it okay if I call the school? Is it, you know, blah, blah blah, blah, blah, blah." And so what I mean is, I was not like Liliana in that way where she's really doing a lot more.
Sarah Enni: Because you mentioned a little bit earlier about plots and I know contemporary YA can be, I write contempt too, so I'm like, "Yeah, it can be kind of difficult to..." It doesn't always lend itself to a hero's journey type of arc, or something like that. And I might be wrong, but I think you've said before that you are not an outline driven writer.
Jennifer de Leon: Not usually, no.
Sarah Enni: And it also strikes me that in a story like this, having an arc or a storyline in incapable hands could end up being an after school special type of feeling to it, right? Like, "At the end everyone learned something." And wanting to avoid that kind of feeling. So how did you carve out a plot in all of this and go about fine tuning it?
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah, I mean it was really hard. That part was not natural to me. I will say that I tried to outline but it was torture. It just wasn't happening. I brought poster board, I was like, "I'll get fancy markers." It just was not. So I felt once I got the voice, I just wrote, wrote, wrote and then backtracked and tried to figure out like, "Okay, what's happening here?" I needed cause and effect. I needed her to want something. I needed things in her way. I needed her to make choices about what is she willing to do to get what she wants. Or not.
Basic fiction elements that are basic, but are kind of big, you know? Because I felt like I could change the color of the walls, I could change the curtains, I could change her earrings and all that kind of thing. But the foundational elements, I felt I probably should figure those out sooner rather than later. I'm not even explaining myself. What I mean is, I wrote a ton of her voice. I didn't know what was happening in the story. I really didn't.
And she was just going to school, going home, going to her friend's, meeting a new girl, hating her class. She was way more negative in the earlier drafts. And that's something that my editor pointed out to me and was kinda like, "She's kind of mean." I'm like, "Yeah, I guess." I think I needed to get that out in the first couple drafts. But what Caitlyn, my editor, really helped with, so many things, but one thing that I remember her saying in the very first letter that I got from her, which was a twenty pager. She was like, "I can't wait to see what you do with everything that you have here." Or something like that.
Sarah Enni: [Laughs] What does that mean?
Jennifer de Leon: And I was like, "What? You can't wait to see? I don't know what I... You have to help me. I don't know what I'm going to do. What do I do?" There was something about reading that line that was like, "I can't wait to see what she's... I can't wait either because I had no idea what I'm gonna do!" But also it relaxed me in the sense that she was like, "It'll come. We'll figure it out, we'll tighten this up. But you have the pieces here."
Sarah Enni: Is it correct to say then that you feel the bulk of the true work on this book came after you sold it and you and Caitlyn started to really shape it?
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah. You know, some of my friends asked me that, because we did edit it a lot, a lot. And it's like, "Okay, what? What did you edit?" And the reality is, it's so bizarre, because the story itself is the same. It starts in the same place and it ends in the same place. And it's always Liliana, her father's always gone. Dustin's always there. She's got the best friend Jade, but then she's got the best friend at school, Holly. And it's like, "Okay."
But I think a lot of what we did was taking out extra scenes. I had another boyfriend in there at some point. Basically everything we took out, this is how Caitlyn explained it, she's like, "You're cleaning a room in your house, or you're taking out one piece of furniture." And you're like, "We don't need that anymore." But then there's an empty space so then you have to rearrange the other furniture. And then when you do that, you realize, "We need more stuff on the walls." And then you put more on the walls and then you're like, "Oh my God, there's no light in this room."
So it was a lot of that, which is kind of frustrating because it's not like, "You know what? I think you should give her a little sibling or something." And then you add the sibling and it's like, "I did that." Instead, it's stuff you almost can't see, but that's really critical. And draft after draft, it was just a lot of tightening, a lot of trimming the fat. She looked at every single word.
I don't know how she keeps things in her brain, from draft to draft, and be like, "I feel like we're missing something from like three drafts ago about the mother's hair band." Or something. And I'm like, "How in the hell?" She has a like a super brain. It's amazing.
Sarah Enni: I really liked that metaphor about rearranging a room. I think that captures it. It reminds me of us talking about explaining this to other people in our lives who aren't creative writers. It can be really hard to say like, "No, it took this much work." Like years of work. And it just all had to happen sequentially in order for you to see that there wasn't light. You did have to take all those first steps and that's just what it takes. A frustratingly long time.
Jennifer de Leon: Right, right. But she's very comforting in that she validates your feelings. She'll be like, "Oh I know. Okay, get this back by Friday." [Chuckles] So I feel like she's comforting and then she's like, "Now roll up your sleeves. Can't wait to see what you do." So it's the best of both worlds. "I can't wait to see what you do." I'm like, "Me too!"
Sarah Enni: Ha! I love that. Okay. Now, was there anything more about Don't Ask Me that you wanted to make sure we got to?
Jennifer de Leon: One thing I guess I really want to say is that I think that for a lot of LatinX teens, there might be this pressure, like it's hard enough to figure yourself out, right? To grow up. To be like, "Who am I? My identity." All that. But I think there's this added pressure for LatinX teens, particularly in our world right now and in our political climate, to really have a lot figured out in terms of where they stand, where they're from, where their family's from, how well do they speak Spanish? How well do they speak English?
Do they look quote/unquote Latina enough, Latino enough? Do they use the word LatinX or do they use Spanish? I mean that comes up in here. The people misuse that word all the time like, "My Spanish friend." So I hope that the book reaches a lot of readers. But I mean this sincerely, I hope it really connects with young teens who are trying to figure out who they are. Teens who have inherited such a rich cultural history that they don't feel burdened by it, but they feel lifted up by it, you know? And so I would love that to happen if someone reads this book and feels that way.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, I love that. Let's talk about your publishing journey because, as you mentioned, it sold in an auction. It was a really exciting big deal. And your publisher was really setting you up to have a big rollout, and this has gotten interrupted. So just can you lead me through building up to that and then how you've been pivoting and adjusting to the reality of what's going on right now?
Jennifer de Leon: Yeah. Oh my goodness [laughs]. Alright, I will just tell you that this is not what I expected. That's like this experience in a nutshell. I could say that at every turn, right? We land and I'm like, "This is not what I expected." And twelve more times. Because you were just saying about the cover. You know Elena Garner, she an artist from Spain, so I can say she's Spanish, did a beautiful job.
And once I saw that cover I was like, "Okay. They are behind this!" I mean they commissioned an artist to do the sketches and everything. And they really thought about everything down to whether to give her hoop earrings or not. First they gave her moons and from the feedback I was like, "I just have one piece of feedback, could they be gold hoops?"
And Caitlyn was dying because she's like, "Jen, we had two whole meetings about this. We don't want to have cultural appropriation." And all this stuff. And I'm like, "The fact that you guys are even thinking about that, and meeting about this, is amazing. But okay, so yeah, can you get gold hoops?" So they changed that. Marketing, they've been behind it. They sent me the marketing plan months ago and Faye, my agent, was saying like, "Honestly this is amazing and what's really amazing on here is the fact that they're sending you on pre-pub book dinners."
I didn't even know what that was. It's basically to have dinner with booksellers in different parts of the country and talk about the book and answer questions, and then fly home. Like, that's a thing. I didn't know that was a thing. And they sent me to Winter Institute. Again, I had never been. It was a whole experience signing arcs.
So they pitched me to different festivals. All this was in the plan and it was really starting to come to fruition. Like, "This is happening." I'm getting emails about this conference, and ALA, and Book Expo. They meant what they said, you know, it's happening. And all the while I'm getting requests for readings and different events and so I'm like, "Okay, this is really building up."
And just a few weeks ago, in late February, I was in California and went to a bookseller dinner in LA and then San Francisco. And then came back and a week later was in New York, March 6th for a librarian preview. And I was able to do some filming in the Simon & Schuster offices. And just a few days later, everything changed. I was basically in New York at the last possible minute and came home and things shifted.
But they sent in an email that was like, "We've stopped, or we've canceled all events through the end of May." And they sent that maybe mid-March. So I knew right then that the launch was going to have to be canceled. I mean, the Boston Public Library isn't even open.
Sarah Enni: Cause your release day is May 5th.
Jennifer de Leon: May 5th. Yeah. So there's that. And then bookstore readings, events at libraries, schools, I felt like, "Okay, you know what? These things can be rescheduled. Luckily there'll always be libraries and schools and that." But when I found out that YALLWest was canceled, I was really crushed. I've heard it's just really incredible and fun. And I was looking forward to that. But I did find some comfort when the organizer sent an email saying that, "Don't worry, you're already invited to 2021."
I felt really comforted by that because I'm like, "Oh wow. Alright. It's not like I missed the only boat." You know? Cause I did have that feeling like, "No!" [Laughs] So I'm like, "Alright, I can already look forward to something next spring." But then it was like boom, boom, boom. They just kept coming in, these emails. Like, "ALA is canceled. Simon and Schuster isn't sending anyone to Book Expo anymore, or BookCon. The launch obviously won't happen. Whatever we were planning in July in New York, done." Like just, "No, no, no."
And it's crushing because, I mean, for all the reasons you think. You work so hard and so long on something and you just can't wait to share it with the world. But it's also just another layer to it, which is that I fear that now not as many people might not know about the book. And that's just very real. I get nervous about that.
If I went to ALA, all these librarians would now know about it. If I'm on a panel at BookCon, it's like, "Wow, all those people in the audience are gonna get an arc and they're gonna know about it." So I, on a practical level, am shifting gears now like, "Okay, radical acceptance. I'm not gonna find a cure to Coronavirus before May 5th so I'm gonna work with what I have and make lemonade or whatever out of lemons." So it's like Limonada, right?
So I'm like, "Okay, what am I gonna do?" And Simon and Schuster's on it. I've had calls with the digital marketing person, I've had a call with my publicist, I've had a big PDF sent to me about strategies for shifting to on an online presence. And so I feel they have a plan and that makes me feel better about not really having a plan. And so that's on a practical level making me feel better.
Sarah Enni: Yeah. It's sorta like everybody's in the same boat, which is something that I think makes this different than, it's not personal is what I think is helpful. Everybody's sort of like, "Okay, we're all in this new reality so we all have to figure this out together." And seeing the community online get so engaged has been really powerful too. So that's nice.
But how are you, I mean, we'll wrap up here, but I just want to check in. You only get to debut once and it is happening in this turbulent moment. How are you emotionally trying to grapple with that, or stay optimistic or, I dunno, how are you feeling?
Jennifer de Leon: It goes in waves, you know. Sometimes I'm like, "Why can't it just be...?" But then I go back to this like, "Okay, just make the most of what you can with what you have." And there is a lot. I mean, the glass half full view is like, "Okay, maybe this will be even better." Maybe this will be reaching an even wider net of readers. Maybe kids will be so bored at home, they'll be like, "Fine, I'll read this book."
No, I mean, I do think too that writers, authors, are rallying, like you said, in big and small ways. Like there's A Mighty Blaze that Jenna Blum is organizing, co-organizing I should say. And she is really behind supporting authors who are missing these debut moments. But I do take comfort in the fact that YA seems to have a longer tail in that there'll be festivals and conferences all year round. So it's not like I'm missing all the boats. I don't even know if that makes sense. But you know what I mean?
Sarah Enni: Yeah, and school visits are perennial, right? There's always gonna be people Liliana's age who are an appropriate audience to talk this book too. And schools always want to bring people in to talk to their kids. So there is some comfort to fall back on with that. And kid's librarians are gonna.... the kids age, but the librarians stay the same, you know? So once they know...
Jennifer de Leon: Right, right, right, right. Yeah. That's cool. That's cool. I love that.
Sarah Enni: Oh my gosh. Okay. You've been so gracious with your time today. I so appreciate it. And I'm gonna wrap up with advice, but I do just want to let everyone know that the reason you and I have been talking before we even did this interview is cause you are one of the pivotal characters in the Track Changes mini series that's gonna debut just a couple of days after this podcast comes out.
So everybody should go listen to Track Changes and learn a lot about the publishing process and a lot more about Jenn's process and what she's gone through. And we're gonna get into all the nitty gritty of a lot of this stuff in more detail on that. But let's wrap up with advice. There's so much you can speak to because you have been a teacher of writing and all this stuff. So I'm sure you give a ton of advice, but I'd love to hear... I guess I'd like to open it up to you whatever advice you'd to give to writers.
Jennifer de Leon: Yes, I have some advice I'd love to give, but I just really want to thank you so much for everything. This conversation, especially now in this Coronavirus crisis, this is like therapy to me right now. So thank you. I'll send you a copayment. But the whole Track Changes series too is really cool to be able to process this debut. So yeah, I might not have the launch on May 5th but you've helped me process this through our conversations and also now have a record of it in a way that it won't get stolen at a souvenir shop in LA.
Sarah Enni: Yes, oh my god, I know. Seriously.
Jennifer de Leon: But yeah, no, so thank you. But advice I have, I mean, is to do it anyway. There's something you're thinking of doing, and I know you are if you're listening, you're a writer, you're like, "Man, I want to do this thing. I want to go on this writing retreat, or I want to work with this person, or I wanna get my MFA, or I want to work part-time, or I want to take this class."
Whatever it is, my advice is to just do it. Listen to me right now, just do it. Do it anyway. Because the doubt that we have sometimes makes it feel hazy like it means don't do it. But no. You can still have doubt and that doesn't mean that it's the wrong decision. One thing I've learned is to do the thing. Do the thing anyway because over time it gets easier to put that doubt on mute, or lower the volume, or just have other things be louder. So that you're like, "I can't hear you doubt!" Like, "Nope!" And I think that makes you feel more than willing to do something else, and something else, and that's the part that we can control.
Sarah Enni: Yeah, I love that. That's really excellent advice. I love directly addressing the listener. Just, "Go do it!" Ah Jenn, it's a pleasure as always to talk to you. I'm so thrilled we got to sit down and do this and I'm so excited for Don't Ask Me Where I'm From to be in the world. And one day we'll meet in person... I swear.
Jennifer de Leon: Right, I know. Yeah. I can't wait.
Sarah Enni: I know. Thank you so much Jen. This has been so fun.
Jennifer de Leon: Yes. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do.
Sarah Enni: Talk to you later.
Jennifer de Leon: Alright, talk to you later. Bye!
Sarah Enni: Thank you so much to Jen. Follow her on Twitter @JdeLeonwriter and Instagram @Delejenn and follow me on both at Sarah Enni (Twitter and Instagram), the show @FirstDraftPod (Twitter and Instagram).
This show was brought to you by Highland 2 the writing software that won't break the bank or your brain. Available at the app store and at quoteunquoteapps.com. And by We Didn't Ask For This, the newest novel by Adi Alsaid out from Inkyard press.
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Hayley Hershman produces First Draft and today's episode was produced and sound designed by Callie Wright. The theme music is by Dan Bailey and the logo was designed by Collin Keith. Thanks also to transcriptionist -at-large, Julie Anderson.
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