March Member of the Month, Nancy Johnson. Q & A with Laura Engel
LE: How did you discover SDMWA?
NJ: I began taking classes from Marni Freedman a couple of years ago, and she is the best at connecting writers with their writing communities. She invited me to the Memoir Showcase for its inaugural event, and it wasn’t long before I was submitting my own stories. I am happy to serve SDMWA now as Director of Teen Programming for the San Diego Writers Festival on April 4th at Coronado Library.
LE: Have you been taking writing classes/workshops and are you in any writing groups? If so, where, and have they made a big impact on your writing?
NJ: I have taken classes from Tami Greenwood and Marni Freedman at San Diego Writers Ink. Memoir writing introduced me to writers at every stage of their storytelling. Some of us got together outside of class and read and critiqued each other’s work. The biggest impact came when I decided to focus on one critique and hired Marni to be my writing coach.
LE: Could you tell us a little bit about your blog and also your previous publications?
NJ: I started my blog, Slightlysquinting.com during an especially difficult time in my life. I thought if I could fully open my eyes and stop saying “everything is fine,” I could begin to heal. I started to write my stories; we all know the power in writing and speaking our stories.
I was a high school English teacher at the time in the inner city and also started writing about teen issues for publications like Sunshine Noir II. I wrote a series of articles for La Mesa Courier on gardening and a series of articles for My City La Mesa Magazine on volunteers making a difference in our community. My most recent joy is having a short story published in Shaking the Tree 2.
LE: Please tell us about your upcoming memoir.
NJ: My memoir is called Things My Mama Never Told Me . . . about being a girl: A funny and sometimes serious guide for teenage girls and their mothers. The book shares my own coming-of-age stories and those stories given to me through personal interviews with teenage girls. The topics cover everything from body image, self-esteem, bullying, stress & healthy living to LGBTQIA issues, intimacy, sex, birth control, red flags, abuse, and addiction. It ends with lessons for all women about setting boundaries, self-care, and forgiveness. I am grateful to my writing coach Marni Freedman, my Beta readers and classmates from San Diego Writers Ink. I am currently sending it out to small presses.
LE: You were a winner in the 2018 Memoir Showcase Anthology – Shaking the Tree, Vol. 2 (Congratulations!). Please tell us about that experience.
NJ: I was thrilled to have my story, “Glass Shards,” chosen for the anthology. It is one of the teen stories shared in my memoir. I loved working with Donna Agins and Tracy Jones in the process of first draft, revision, revision, revision, and finally publication. I am grateful to everyone who had a part in providing me the opportunity to publish.
LE: What are some of your favorite Memoirs? Your favorite authors?
NJ: My favorite newer memoirs are Crux by Jean Guerrero, Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman, How to Eat a Small Country by Amy Finley, Educated by Tara Westover, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. My favorite classic memoir is Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt,
My favorite authors are Anne Lamott, Barbara Kingsolver, Wally Lamb, Elizabeth Gilbert and Cheryl Strayed.
LE: Any advice for new writers?
NJ: Just write. At a writing conference in New Mexico an author I met standing in line said, “Write the book. When the book is written, you will find a way to publish it.”
Create a blog. At another conference in San Diego, I met with an agent who said, “Create a blog. Write short articles about your unique experiences. Once you begin to write, you’ll see who your audience is. Then hang out with those people. Volunteer and create with them. They will help you build your platform.”
Bird by bird, you’ll meet your goal. Anne Lamott says, “Just write the first shitty draft, bird by bird.