Cannolis, trauma, Pleasantville, Byline Bible, obituary and other endings: Author Christina Wyman
Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews writers of SCBWI-MI. In this piece, meet author Christina Wyman.
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| Christina and Alfred |
Rescue cats named Alfred and Greta Cannoli. Are Alfred and Greta a couple? Cannoli like the Italian dessert?
I love questions about my cats! Alfred and Greta are quite the pair. She is completely bonded to him – he is less enthusiastic. Actually, he’s a jerk. And yes, Greta’s middle name is indeed in honor of one of my most favorite Italian desserts.
She grew up in a tiny apartment with her family in Brooklyn, New York, where she dreamed of becoming a writer. Did you also grow up dreaming of having a wildlife sanctuary in your tree in midwest Michigan?
HAHA! If you told me twenty years ago that I’d be married to a Midwesterner and living in the middle of Michigan (and surrounded by wildlife), I definitely would have looked at you sideways.
Jawbreaker, Slouch, and now Breakout. It seems like a new novel a year. What kind of working schedule does a novel a year entail?
It’s a lot of sweat! A lot of tears! Honestly, I generally have about 2k words in me per day – and that’s if I’m having a great day. And I wrote Breakout twice, and am currently rewriting Mean. That’s just the way these things go sometimes!
When I’m drafting, we’re talking 7-day workweeks. So maybe it entails adding days to the calendar that did not previously exist? I wish I had a good answer. It just entails hard work, the way all hard work entails hard work.
You do have more time, now that M.S.U. has shrunk their budget on you. Before then, how long had you taught teachers? What was the most rewarding part of the job?
I have been teaching teachers since 2008. So, nearly 20 years. Teaching is the second love of my life (writing is the first, and I’ve known that since the 6th grade).
My absolute favorite part of teaching is the relationship building. I’m still in touch with many students, and I’m also in touch with one family from my days as a middle school teacher. That student is now in his thirties. Which I think means I’m old.
Books that dealt with life-altering bullying didn’t seem to exist when I was growing up—and I’m not sure that they’re plentiful even now. That was your final sentence in relaying your first rejection, a short story for Highlights. It’s funny that you felt you didn’t read the room, that kids’ stories needed optimism. But the reason you were scathingly rejected was because they thought the bullying wasn’t realistic. Was trauma part of your growing up?
Ha! You’re a good sleuth, because I don’t recall naming them in that piece!!!
Yes, trauma was a very real part of my childhood, both at home and at school. I would say it defined my childhood. I don’t think we’re supposed to say that negative things define us sometimes, but to hell with that. Trauma defined my childhood and I have the therapy bills to prove it.
Ha! You’re a good sleuth, because I don’t recall naming them in that piece!!!
Yes, trauma was a very real part of my childhood, both at home and at school. I would say it defined my childhood. I don’t think we’re supposed to say that negative things define us sometimes, but to hell with that. Trauma defined my childhood and I have the therapy bills to prove it.
I cannot think about childhood without also thinking about the bullying and trauma and family dysfunction that narrated it at the time. I’ve seen and heard things no kid should see or hear. That’s just the damned truth.
Some things just can’t be divorced from each other, and childhood shapes who (and how) we become as adults. I would not be able to write my books divorced from that “shaping.”
And now you’re an author writing about the bullying that happens to young people. Are you giving today’s kids knowledge that you wish you had when growing up and going through it?
What I hope is that children are feeling seen and heard in my stories. I do wish I would have identified with books a bit more when I was growing up (still, I was an avid reader).
And now you’re an author writing about the bullying that happens to young people. Are you giving today’s kids knowledge that you wish you had when growing up and going through it?
What I hope is that children are feeling seen and heard in my stories. I do wish I would have identified with books a bit more when I was growing up (still, I was an avid reader).
I don’t really try to dictate the knowledge gleaned for kids. That piece is up to them, as individuals, and I’m also delighted to learn what kids take away from my stories.
That’s a rich vein you’re mining, adolescent angst. What’s next?
I mean, are there other topics? I’m not sure! Maybe YA? Maybe adult fiction? I have lots of stories in me. Terrifying, now that I think about it.
Essays are how you got your big break, and you’ve had a lot of yours published. How do you sell essays to Rolling Stone and Writer’s Digest and more obscure publications?
I have one word. Okay, several words. Susan Shapiro’s book, The Byline Bible: Get Published In 5 Weeks, teaches more about this than I ever could, and explains it far more eloquently. I strongly suggest that anyone interested in selling essays should buy that book and/or take her classes!
This kid from Brooklyn wanted to feel like she could be anything and go anywhere. That’s what going to Pace did for me. Tell us about the college life in Pleasantville.
Ha! Bucolic. Fairy tale-esque. I went to college on a Pell Grant up the road from where Washington Irving imagined The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to take place, and also where several Judy Blume novels take place. It was a magical place to be. Still is. Everyone should visit Sleepy Hollow and neighboring Tarrytown. It’s just stunning.
My writing teacher and mentor Susan Shapiro, author of The Byline Bible: Get Published In 5 Weeks, often uses a quirky, eye-catching line in her bio: Susan Shapiro is the bestselling author of several books her family hates.
You give Susan full credit for your children’s book career. Tell us about Susan, and as her student, spill the tea.
Sue is an unbelievably generous teacher. Generous with her wisdom, her time, her connections, everything. She’s also an unbelievably talented and successful writer, but she is a consummate teacher – she takes tremendous pride in watching her students succeed. That’s the only tea I got. Anyone who wants to write so much as a grocery list should take her writing classes. I will die on that hill.
I am a big believer in what is perhaps Anne Lamott's most famous (and controversial) commentary about writing. In her book Bird By Bird, which functions as part memoir, part guide for writers, she asserts the following: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Have you ever crossed paths with Anne Lamott?
I, sadly, have not. But I’d love to.
This Woman's Controversial Obituary For Her Mom Caused Outrage — But We Need More Like It. This was the essay that made it to WaPo? You had written tons of essays on tons of topics. Did you wish you had gotten famous for one of your other essays?
That essay was first published by HuffPost, and then picked up by Buzzfeed, who I believe is their parent company (I don’t know how these things work). And you are very kind – I wouldn’t say that I’m famous. And I just like seeing what my different essays do out in the world. It’s been a wild ride.
Essay writing is a whole different genre than, say, children’s book writing. If someone wanted to follow your footsteps by writing essays, what would you tell them?
Here again, pickup up Sue’s Byline Bible book and take her classes! Or, they can email me directly, and – because I get asked this question so much – I put together a document of tips that I would happily share with them, most of which center on getting Byline Bible and taking Sue’s classes. But they can certainly start here, with an article I wrote for Writer’s Digest about how my success story began with getting over myself.
As for my family, I guess they hated my essay. Which means I found my voice. But I’ll take it one step further: I not only found my voice, I found my truth. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, is there any reconciliation within your family? Anybody getting any therapy?
The one person in therapy is the person writing to you here. And now that I know what I know about healing from trauma, I would argue that reconciliation isn’t always the desired endgame, nor does it have to be.
That’s a rich vein you’re mining, adolescent angst. What’s next?
I mean, are there other topics? I’m not sure! Maybe YA? Maybe adult fiction? I have lots of stories in me. Terrifying, now that I think about it.
Essays are how you got your big break, and you’ve had a lot of yours published. How do you sell essays to Rolling Stone and Writer’s Digest and more obscure publications?
I have one word. Okay, several words. Susan Shapiro’s book, The Byline Bible: Get Published In 5 Weeks, teaches more about this than I ever could, and explains it far more eloquently. I strongly suggest that anyone interested in selling essays should buy that book and/or take her classes!
This kid from Brooklyn wanted to feel like she could be anything and go anywhere. That’s what going to Pace did for me. Tell us about the college life in Pleasantville.
Ha! Bucolic. Fairy tale-esque. I went to college on a Pell Grant up the road from where Washington Irving imagined The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to take place, and also where several Judy Blume novels take place. It was a magical place to be. Still is. Everyone should visit Sleepy Hollow and neighboring Tarrytown. It’s just stunning.
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| Unboxing with feline approval |
My writing teacher and mentor Susan Shapiro, author of The Byline Bible: Get Published In 5 Weeks, often uses a quirky, eye-catching line in her bio: Susan Shapiro is the bestselling author of several books her family hates.
You give Susan full credit for your children’s book career. Tell us about Susan, and as her student, spill the tea.
Sue is an unbelievably generous teacher. Generous with her wisdom, her time, her connections, everything. She’s also an unbelievably talented and successful writer, but she is a consummate teacher – she takes tremendous pride in watching her students succeed. That’s the only tea I got. Anyone who wants to write so much as a grocery list should take her writing classes. I will die on that hill.
.jfif) |
| At a bookstore event with Ruth McNally Barshaw and Sondra Soderborg. |
I am a big believer in what is perhaps Anne Lamott's most famous (and controversial) commentary about writing. In her book Bird By Bird, which functions as part memoir, part guide for writers, she asserts the following: “You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
Have you ever crossed paths with Anne Lamott?
I, sadly, have not. But I’d love to.
This Woman's Controversial Obituary For Her Mom Caused Outrage — But We Need More Like It. This was the essay that made it to WaPo? You had written tons of essays on tons of topics. Did you wish you had gotten famous for one of your other essays?
That essay was first published by HuffPost, and then picked up by Buzzfeed, who I believe is their parent company (I don’t know how these things work). And you are very kind – I wouldn’t say that I’m famous. And I just like seeing what my different essays do out in the world. It’s been a wild ride.
Essay writing is a whole different genre than, say, children’s book writing. If someone wanted to follow your footsteps by writing essays, what would you tell them?
Here again, pickup up Sue’s Byline Bible book and take her classes! Or, they can email me directly, and – because I get asked this question so much – I put together a document of tips that I would happily share with them, most of which center on getting Byline Bible and taking Sue’s classes. But they can certainly start here, with an article I wrote for Writer’s Digest about how my success story began with getting over myself.
The one person in therapy is the person writing to you here. And now that I know what I know about healing from trauma, I would argue that reconciliation isn’t always the desired endgame, nor does it have to be.
For adult survivors, there’s often too much trauma and too much lack of accountability for reconciliation to even be possible (and this is not by my choice).
A lot of people believe that estrangement is a tragedy. This is not a mentality to which I subscribe. I don’t believe that healing can take place while connected to that which made the healing necessary to begin with. I will die on all of these hills.
You are a doctor. And you wrote an essay about Dr. Jill Biden that caused some controversy. What did it take for you to earn your doctorate?
Six years of unrelenting study, committed mentors, and a profound interest in understanding teachers and education! You know, all of the things our current administration doesn’t believe in. Oh wait, did I say that out loud?
It seems at times you are fully immersed in the zeitgeist. Do your essays have to provoke emotion in order to be successful?
Ha! Honestly, I have found that my most successful essays are the ones that piss off the most people. But yes, provoking/evoking strong emotion is a huge part of that formula.
Also, be wildly open to feedback but learn how to filter out the garbage. A few years before I wrote Jawbreaker, someone told me to stop writing for children, essentially because they didn’t think my stories were believable or relatable. (Spoiler: What they’d read at the time was a short story I’d written which was based on an earlier version of Max Plink, Jawbreaker’s main character.) One person’s opinion should not define whether you keep going, and you get to decide which opinions matter and which don’t. I can be really hard-headed, which is why I kept going.
On that note: Keep going. Is this pretty much your advice to writers?
Yes! But I’ll offer one more: Before I was a professional writer, I had gotten my hands on a book by bestselling romance novelist Kristan Higgins. This was strictly by chance. And I loved her book, and from there, sought out everything else she’d written to that point.
I also sent her an email asking, “How on earth do you do this?” I just loved her writing and I wanted that to be my life. She wrote back (first author to ever respond to me!) and said, “Butt in chair, Missy!”
It was the best advice I’d ever received, and it turned out to be true every time. The writing doesn’t happen unless your butt is in that chair and you are writing. I am so grateful to Kristan and her wise words. So much so that she’s in my Jawbreaker dedications page.
You mentioned that a key writing moment came for you in the sixth grade, when your task was to rewrite the ending of a famous children’s book. Gary Schmidt asked the writers he was tutoring in jail to rewrite the ending of Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.
What is it about endings that inspire writers? Would you want readers to rewrite your endings?
I think endings are the piece that stay with us. It’s the thing we think about most, for better or for worse, after we’re long done with a novel. And as a class assignment, it’s so much fun! I would absolutely love to learn how readers rewrite my endings!
What’s next?
I am currently revising my fourth MG novel, MEAN. And boy, is the MC mean with a cherry on top.
Please share any social media platforms:
https://www.instagram.com/christina.wyman.books/
You are a doctor. And you wrote an essay about Dr. Jill Biden that caused some controversy. What did it take for you to earn your doctorate?
Six years of unrelenting study, committed mentors, and a profound interest in understanding teachers and education! You know, all of the things our current administration doesn’t believe in. Oh wait, did I say that out loud?
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| The Cannoli Cats |
It seems at times you are fully immersed in the zeitgeist. Do your essays have to provoke emotion in order to be successful?
Ha! Honestly, I have found that my most successful essays are the ones that piss off the most people. But yes, provoking/evoking strong emotion is a huge part of that formula.
Also, be wildly open to feedback but learn how to filter out the garbage. A few years before I wrote Jawbreaker, someone told me to stop writing for children, essentially because they didn’t think my stories were believable or relatable. (Spoiler: What they’d read at the time was a short story I’d written which was based on an earlier version of Max Plink, Jawbreaker’s main character.) One person’s opinion should not define whether you keep going, and you get to decide which opinions matter and which don’t. I can be really hard-headed, which is why I kept going.
On that note: Keep going. Is this pretty much your advice to writers?
Yes! But I’ll offer one more: Before I was a professional writer, I had gotten my hands on a book by bestselling romance novelist Kristan Higgins. This was strictly by chance. And I loved her book, and from there, sought out everything else she’d written to that point.
I also sent her an email asking, “How on earth do you do this?” I just loved her writing and I wanted that to be my life. She wrote back (first author to ever respond to me!) and said, “Butt in chair, Missy!”
It was the best advice I’d ever received, and it turned out to be true every time. The writing doesn’t happen unless your butt is in that chair and you are writing. I am so grateful to Kristan and her wise words. So much so that she’s in my Jawbreaker dedications page.
What is it about endings that inspire writers? Would you want readers to rewrite your endings?
I think endings are the piece that stay with us. It’s the thing we think about most, for better or for worse, after we’re long done with a novel. And as a class assignment, it’s so much fun! I would absolutely love to learn how readers rewrite my endings!
What’s next?
I am currently revising my fourth MG novel, MEAN. And boy, is the MC mean with a cherry on top.
Please share any social media platforms:
https://www.instagram.com/christina.wyman.books/
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