Month: August 2024

The American Library

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

By now you know I’m a book person. 

I’m even one of the lucky ones — during college I worked in a public library for several years. I only left that job because I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree and had secured a teaching position. (And a huge, life-changing bonus — one of my closest friends is a woman I met at the library. She still works there, and we’re still friends.)

So, naturally I had been wanting to visit The American Library by Yinka Shonibare CBE RA at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. (If you’re in L.A., the exhibit closes on Sunday, September 1st, so don’t delay.)

From the Skirball’s website:

“This exhibition creates a library setting where the shelves are filled with more than six thousand books individually wrapped in Shonibare’s signature Dutch wax-printed cotton textiles. Each book bears a name on its spine of a notable American individual. First- and second-generation immigrants and Black Americans affected by the Great Migration are featured alongside one another.”

Six thousand books, wrapped in colorful, eye-catching textiles. It’s rather stunning — the bold colors, the row after row after row of books.

Also from the website:

“An imaginative portrait of a nation, The American Library by internationally recognized artist Yinka Shonibare explores how ideas of citizenship, home, and nationalism hold complex meanings.”

The exhibition is meant to spark a conversation about immigration, about culture, about a sense of belonging. 

And while all that is quite powerful, I found myself scanning the shelves, imagining what it would look like, and what it would feel like, to see my name on the spine of a book (though not a book wrapped in vivid textiles) . 

Years ago, when my high-school-aged son was a little guy, a package arrived containing an anthology which included one of my personal essays. I was quite excited for the book to arrive, and I remember my son helping me carefully open the package and remove the book. 

He looked at the front cover, flipped it around to check out the back cover, looked at the spine, and told me he couldn’t find my name. I explained the book was an anthology, a collection of many stories and poems written by many different people, and my name was inside. We looked at the Table of Contents and found my name. We turned to the page where my essay began and found my name under the title. We found my name in the back of the book, where each contributor’s biography was listed. And I remember telling my son that for now my name was on the inside of books, but that one day my name would be on the outside — on the spine and on the front cover as the sole author of the book. 

I’m still working to achieve that goal. 

I continue to query agents. I continue to search for that one person who will grant me that one “yes,” that will be the gatekeeper to help me move along to the next stage of my writing journey — the publication of my memoir-in-essays. 

Maybe all this sounds selfish. My husband and I went to the Museum, stood among this striking, immersive art installation, and my thoughts turned to my own future book.

Then again, that’s the power of art — the way it can touch each individual in such a personal way. 

Questions and Clues

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I sign up for many writing-related webinars (mostly free, though some are fee-based), and I like to watch interviews with authors on YouTube. I consider myself a life-long student, and have found the writing community to be very generous when it comes to sharing information and advice and encouraging other writers. 

I attend these webinars and watch these videos in my quest to learn more about building a writing career. As I continue to query literary agents, I have been learning about establishing and maintaining an author newsletter (something I plan to do in the future, so stay tuned!), creating a readership, and the different types of marketing options available for writers. 

A couple of weeks ago, I watched two different writing-related videos, featuring two different authors, and both videos left me with questions I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.

One author was asked how she shows herself self-compassion. I thought it was an interesting question for an interview. The memoir author spoke first of acknowledging the difficulty in writing about painful experiences. Writing memoir, particularly writing about a traumatic experience, requires a very different mindset than writing a scene in a romantic-comedy, for example. The author spoke of giving herself breaks, and being very intentional when it came to planning her writing time. She knew she would need to strategically plan when and where she’d engage in this writing, and then give herself the space and time needed to rest afterward. 

In another interview, a different author was asked what she does to nurture her resilience.

The questions stumped me. Me, who is seemingly always writing or thinking about writing, was at a loss for words. 

Do I show myself self-compassion? Probably not nearly as much as I should. 

Do I nurture my resilience? Honestly, I’m not a hundred percent certain what that means or how that would look. 

But that’s what I’ve been thinking about. Those are questions that I can’t seem to let go.

Then over the weekend, as I tried to make my way through a full inbox, I read agent Kate McKean’s latest Substack post titled, “Compulsory Rest.” This sentence stood out to me: “The universe is going to do what it’s going to do—and all you can do is make sure you’re taking care of yourself the best you can.”

She’s completely right. I like to think I’m in control, with my lists and schedules and dinner meals planned out a week in advance. But really, the truth is, I’m not at all. There is actually little I can control, and when it comes to my own body, there’s really very little I have control over. 

It’s been hard. “It” meaning life, though I hesitate to put that in writing. Thankfully, my family is healthy and safe. We are not worried about having enough food in the fridge or a roof over our heads. We are lucky, fortunate, blessed in so many ways. 

And yet, life has been hard.

I feel like these interview questions and this Substack statement are like clues. Clues from multiple sources and multiple people. Clues I am paying attention to. 

But, also, clues I’m not  entirely sure what to do with or how to use them as a springboard for changes in my daily life.

Anyone else feel that way?

My Word For the Year – An Update

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
Photos allow us to choose what we share. What you don't see in this photo is my wheelchair. It was the first time I had visited The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens using my wheelchair.

Back in January, I wrote a blog post about my word for the year — Share. (If you missed it, you can click here to read the post.) 

2024 certainly isn’t wrapping up just yet, though 2025 calendars keep arriving in the mail. However, we are about three-quarters of the way through the year, and it occurred to me that now would be a good time for a check-in of sorts.

In terms of my writing, I absolutely do share. I consistently write this weekly blog. I regularly write personal essays and submit them for publication. I began querying literary agents in March and continue to do so, searching for that one yes from the right person who will serve as an advocate for my memoir-in-essays and assist me in the publication of my first book. 

When it comes to other areas of my life, my sharing is less consistent. Oftentimes, I revert back to predictable patterns of behavior of holding my tongue and trying not to make things more difficult/complicated/unsettling for those around me. I admit I don’t always honestly, and completely, share how I’m feeling — physically or emotionally. 

Like many people who live with chronic illness and chronic pain, I have learned how to fake it. I know how to downplay my pain so as not to make those around me uncomfortable. I know how to present as a person fully in control of a situation, even though most of the time my body feels very much out of my control. 

Because let’s face it. I don’t often have good news to share when it comes to my pain level or energy level. And I realize it’s frustrating for my loved ones to know I’m uncomfortable (which is putting it mildly, again me not completely sharing) yet there’s not a whole lot they can do to make it better. 

I think that’s one of the reasons I’m a writer. Generally speaking, I have always found it so much easier to share through my writing than through conversations. 

So I continue to write and am grateful I can share here and on my Instagram account, which I have found has an incredibly supportive chronic illness community. Thank you, readers, for being on this journey with me. 

How are you doing, dear readers, with your words for the year? Feel free to share in the comments. 

Wow, No Thank You.

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

The older I get, the more I realize how lucky I was to grow up and see myself represented in many of the books I read and movies I watched. (Though the Wakefield twins of Sweet Valley High were blondes and not brunettes.)

On the surface, you might not think author Samantha Irby and I share much in common. She is a Black woman living with her wife in the midwest. Plus, she curses a lot more in her writing than I do. 

Yet, Samantha Irby is a member of the club I belong to. The club, in fact, many people belong to — the chronic illness club. Ms. Irby lives with Crohn’s Disease.  

I recently finished reading my first Samantha Irby book, her essay collection titled Wow, No Thank You. And you’ll notice from the photo that my copy is full of sticky notes. 

Here are just a few of the passages that stood out to me, resonated with me, and/or made me laugh out loud:

“Mixtapes were the love language of my youth. If you got one from me, that shit was as serious as a marriage proposal. Maybe because they were so time-consuming to make? I had a painstaking process I went through before I put a mix together.” (Side note – when we were dating, I made my now-husband a mixtape. I agree – it was a big deal to make a tape for someone else.)

“… and I guess what I’m actually saying is that, sure, I move this body around every day but I’m not actually in charge of it, and I have no idea and no control over anything that happens within it.”

Pretty much, the entire chapter titled “hung up” could have sticky notes on each page. Ms. Irby’s observations and comments about the “five-hundred dollar computer in my pocket” were so entertaining and so spot-on.

I also found the entire chapter titled “body negativity” to be amusing and fun to read. 

The chapter starts with: 

“I have been stuck with a smelly, actively decaying body that I never asked for and am constantly on the receiving end of confusing, overwhelming messages for how to properly care for and feed it.”

And there’s this passage:  

“Your neck is supposed to be firm and long, but I thought that was only asked of penises. Why does my neck have to do anything other than hold up my head? I do not, and will never, use any specific treatments for my neck. I cannot be bothered to care about my neck. Of all the things I have to check off this endless list, ‘neck maintenance’ is not going to be one of them.”

“I don’t treat my Crohn’s like it’s an albatross around my neck, like I’m laboring under the weight of this oppressive disease.”

“It’s a serious topic that can be dealt with in a really funny way while also repping for the chronically ill and constantly medicated, like me.”

“… it would mean a lot to me to put chronic illness in people’s faces, especially the silent kind that you might not even know a person is struggling through. I bet if you met me on the street, you wouldn’t automatically think ‘sick,’ but if you looked at my CT scans you would, and I want to represent for all my people taking twelve pills a day with bald joints and intestines lined with scar tissue.”

Readers, have you read any of Samantha Irby’s books? I’d love to know what you thought of them. 

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.