Emily J. Smith

Questions

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’m a Brooklyn-based writer. My debut novel, Nothing Serious, was published earlier this year by William Morrow / HarperCollins. The novel explores dating, childlessness, platonic obsession, and gendered double-standards, among other things, through the lens of a 35-year-old woman in tech. It’s a literary novel with comedic and suspense undertones, but the heart, to me, is a coming-of-age story about a woman untangling from male influence. It's been included in a number of most-anticipated lists, including The New York Times, and received fantastic reviews from the The SF Chronicle, Publishers Weekly, and others.

I also write essays and short stories, most of which center on themes of identity, reinvention, relationships, childlessness, and technology. My essays have been published in The Rumpus, Catapult, Curbed, Slate, Hobart, The Washington Post, Vice, and elsewhere. I publish regularly in my newsletter,
Unresolving, and host the workshop From Corporate to Creative Writer. 

Before discovering writing in my thirties, I worked in tech and nonprofits. I studied computer engineering in undergrad, knowing I’d need to pay for college and support myself financially. Years into my tech job, I got my MBA at UC Berkeley in order to study the intersection of social impact and business. I worked in non-profits for many years before throwing myself into creative writing.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B? 
Writing was definitely a later-in-life discovery for me. I never considered the arts before my thirties. Having grown up without any financial safety net, I knew I needed to establish one of my own. Anything in the “arts” did not occur to me as an option until I felt like I had both feet on the ground financially, and that took many years to establish.

My decision to pursue writing was also very much related to the discovery that kids were not in the cards. Growing up in the 80s, I always assumed I’d have children because that’s what adults seemed to do. But as I entered my mid-30s, I was very much single and had yet to feel a desire for kids. My life looked nothing like how I imagined an “adult” life would look. This was briefly stressful, feeling as if I’d “failed” in some way, but eventually I asked myself: societal expectations aside, what did I actually want my life to look like? The answer was not marriage or kids — I wanted to try writing. To really take it seriously. And so I did. If I’d been a mother at that time, I don’t think I would have had the freedom and flexibility to throw myself into writing.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
I write what I can’t stop thinking about. Most of my fiction is pulled from my life. Many scenes in Nothing Serious are pulled directly from my own experience. I love using life as fiction, taking something that really gets under my skin, that I feel ashamed to think about, and building it out into a character, or taking a real-life scenario to an exaggerated extreme. I tend to think and write a lot about relationships, gender dynamics, and women breaking from typical paths of adulthood, all of which relate to my everyday life.

I also get many of my ideas from talking with friends. Friendships are a huge part of my life, I’m regularly chatting on the phone, having dinner or going for walks with my friends. If I find that we’re all animated by a topic, really feeling understood by one another and having a common experience, there’s a good chance it’ll be interesting to write about, that others will connect to it as well.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
It depends on what I’m writing and what stage I’m in. But I need to be completely alone and somewhere very comfortable, like a cozy chair, or (even better) in bed. I write scenes from my life to get started. I try to let myself follow my energy, which sounds a bit woo-woo, but I find it crucial at certain stages. For example, if I’m working on a novel there will be scenes that really activate me, that feel incredibly poignant or emotionally heavy, and I lean into those first. These scenes are the heart of the story (even if some end up being cut!), they guide the characters and set the tone. Then there’ll be scenes that are more like connective tissue and I’ll usually write the bare minimum of those at first, and make a note to come back to them later once I have a better handle on the characters and themes so I can do more with them. I tell my students there’s always a mix of discipline and motivation in writing, some days are driven by motivation and inspiration, following your energy, diving deep into what you can’t stop thinking about,
and other days have to be discipline days, pushing through, rewarding yourself by snacking on candy or setting mini goals followed by TV breaks, literally doing whatever it takes to push through!

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
For better or worse I’ve come to rely on writing the way I used to rely on running, in order to feel like myself. If I go too long without writing, I feel tangled up inside. It helps me process the world around me and my reaction to it. For me, writing is thinking, it’s a way of giving myself space to experience what’s happening, to look deeper, not just move through motions mindlessly. It’s also a form of connection and communication. The act of writing can be excruciating but it’s thrilling when you finally figure out what you’re actually trying to say, to capture something just right. Sharing that with someone, communicating a feeling or thought you’ve spent weeks trying to grasp and having someone else really understand and appreciate that is tremendously powerful. Writing can be maddeningly lonely but when someone’s writing touches you, or you’re lucky enough to write something that touches someone else, you feel the very opposite of alone, it’s that rare flash of feeling fully seen and understood.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
It took me a long time to feel like a “real writer,” although I now recognize that phrase as ridiculous and believe that anyone who writes is a “real writer.” But because I have no formal writing training and did not come from a publishing or literary background, I was self-conscious and insecure for a long time. So in that sense, definitely, having a hard cover novel from a big publisher, makes me feel legitimate. I will acknowledge that I hate that I feel this way — every writer is legitimate and the reason someone gets a book deal is vast and not at all directly related to the quality of the work. But it does help me feel more secure in my identity as a writer.

I used to joke with my therapist, “If I can’t sell my novel, I should just have a baby.” Obviously, this was a joke. But like any joke, there was some twisted truth to it. I felt like putting a book into the world was a way to have a concrete impact — creating something that was uniquely my own. And if I failed at that, well, having a child was another way to create something uniquely my own, one that many people relied on to ease their existential terror. Obviously, this is a terrible reason to have a child. And, again, I hate admitting this because it’s insane that someone should feel they need to publish a book or have a baby in order to have meaning in their life (there are infinite ways to have an impact on the world!), but in the dark corners of my mind, I did worry that I would need something to fill this existential hole, that I wouldn’t have the stamina or courage to keep trying to give my life meaning outside of children.
 

Progressing in my writing career has also confirmed that I do not want children. Another version of me used to think, maybe if I publish a book, then I’ll be ready to have a child. But all publishing my novel did was show me that what I want to do more than anything else is write more novels. I enjoy the slow life of thinking and writing and consuming art in different forms, having long conversations with friends, and feeling inspired in turn. It is very very hard to make a living writing. Having a child, for me, would mean going back to work full-time in something other than writing, giving up my current life and all the things I’ve realized make me immensely happy.

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
The reception has been wonderful and very kind! The thing about publishing a novel is, strangely, you don’t hear from the people who hated it. It’s not a headline on the internet. People actually have to buy and read the book, and if they don’t like the book or the topic, they probably won’t do that. You end up primarily hearing from the people who loved it. I’m grateful I can share a story about a woman figuring out that she doesn’t want kids, and I love hearing from other women who are on that same journey, especially women who ultimately decide that kids are not for them. I personally think, given the weight of the decision, it’s one of the most under-explored themes in literature.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
There are far too few stories with childless / childfree women. Specifically women 35 and older, who are actively deciding or have firmly decided that children are not for them. I am seeing more stories like this, which is great, but for the weight of the decision, there is still not enough. I did a list for Electric Literature about books featuring childfree women and I cling to these stories, reread them frequently. I want more and more stories of women living their lives without children.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
It’s a huge and growing audience! The stories are endless and there are so many fascinating ways to live a fulfilling life that is not by way of parenthood. We should be publishing more of those stories!

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I’m deep into working on my second book. I have a finished draft and am now in the revision process. It is also about a childfree woman, but one who is tangled up in a relationship with a man who has a child, and how that affects their dynamic, as well as the dynamic with the child’s mother. The book also explores her own process of deciding if she wants a child, how that might impact (and likely destroy) her ability to write given the added financial pressure that would come with it, and the subtle and overt ways society pressures women into partnership and motherhood.

I’m also teaching a workshop this fall for professionals who are interested in starting a creative writing practice but don’t know where to begin. You can learn more and apply here!