On Saturday, July 18, at 3pm, Jacqueline LeKachman joins us for a workshop on selling personal essays to publications like Slate, The Guardian, and major newspapers like the Washington Post—without selling yourself.
We caught up with her recently to talk about her approach to difficult personal topics (and they're all difficult!)
Donna:
We're so excited to bring your workshop on publishing personal essays to The Sparkle! I am amazed at the array of topics showcased on your website. When did you start publishing personal and reported essays and how did you start down that path?
Jacqueline:
Publishing my writing has been my dream since I was six, but coming from a buttoned-up Pittsburgh suburb, there weren't many avenues toward that goal. Then, during my junior year of college, I took an NYU class with my mentor Susan Shapiro, who taught me how to pitch essays and introduced me to countless editors. Two of those editors ended up publishing my work: one took my reported piece on bad-news paralysis for WIRED, and the other accepted my personal essay about how my mom's hoarding affected our relationship. Ever since then, I've published essays every year. I love that they never stop teaching me new ways to see the world.
Donna:
You describe your "beat" as family relationships, women's sexuality, and health, and that delving into difficult topics is actually freeing. What advice would you give to writers with stories to tell who are afraid to begin?
Jacqueline:
My advice is that the story that scares you most is the story you need to write. For twenty years my mom's hoarding was a massive secret that dominated my relationships and my mental health. Telling my mom what I was writing was terrifying, but it was also liberating –– it was the first time my mom and I said the word "hoarding" out loud. I also found so much healing from connecting with other people struggling with their relationship with their parents. The same was true when I published a revealing essay in Women's Health about having non-consensual sex. These stories were pulsing within me, begging to come out, and in taking them to the page, I got to discover what I could learn from them. So if telling your story scares you, lean in. Ask yourself why. In considering that, you might even find the root of your story.
Donna:
I see that you're working on a novel! And it's related to the topics you explore in your nonfiction. Can you tell me a little about your experience with creating fiction from truth?
Jacqueline:
My primary focus right now is writing my nonfiction book, which explores how living with my mom's hoarding and losing my virginity to sexual compliance led me to be celibate for two years in my twenties. But I've also begun the early stages of writing a YA novel, Through the Mess, about a seventeen-year-old who struggles to connect with her mother due to her mom's compulsive hoarding and her mysterious estrangement from her side of the family. The thing I love about creating fiction from truth is that I'm already so invested in the emotional landscape of the characters, but I also have room to play with making up a story and seeing how the narrative pieces fall into place. Writing this story as a YA novel was particularly important to me, as I want to give kids like me who struggle with shame a language to understand their experience. Plus, as a former NYC public high school teacher, I love engaging teenagers in literature.