Jackie Shannon Hollis

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’ve had three careers: social worker, human resources manager, writer. A freedom that has come from not having children has been being able to pivot and follow my passions and curiosities. I had the resources and time to do this. For the past twenty years, my passion and focus has been writing. I’ve had short stories and essays published and finally my memoir This Particular Happiness: A Childless Love Story (you likely notice here, I used the term childless, but this was a necessary part of publishing and helping potential readers know what they were buying, even though my story expands beyond the childless story).

Currently I am on a hiatus from writing. I’m enjoying reading other people’s work in process, and also voraciously reading published books. Possibly this is study for future writing of my own. But it may be, because there is so much good writing out there, that I am looking to explore a new passion in this new stage of my life. I am curious to see what happens.

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2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B? 
When I was younger, I never thought of writing as a possibility. But shortly after I turned forty, I was struggling with my work situation and feeling quite depressed and sort of asking myself, what’s all this about? A friend pointed to my garden, my home, the way I dressed – “there is something so creative in you waiting to come out beyond these things.” I began to explore my creative parts, using The Artists's Way as my guide. What a delightful time this was! To examine the stories I’d told myself that had tamped down my creative drive. The daily pages led to more and more writing, to classes, to having my work published in literary magazines, to becoming part of an incredibly supportive and inspiring writing community here in Portland, Oregon. In a way this may all have evolved as a plan B ... but it was many years after I knew I wouldn’t have children that I began writing.

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3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?

The everyday offers so many ideas. An overheard snippet of dialogue, a memory, an image, an argument, a news story, a story someone else tells me and I ask them if I can take part of it and put it in a short story. Much of my early writing was inspired by and set in a fictionalized version of the small wheat farming town where I grew up.

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4. What does the process of writing involve for you?

As I said, I am not writing at the moment, though I continue to be a part of my writing critique group and love looking at others’ works in progress. When I am working on a writing project, I spend my mornings getting my daily tasks done - walk the dog, get some exercise, tidy up, correspondence. The afternoon is about writing. But not every day.

I am most excited about writing when I have a rough draft and begin editing. Sharing my work with my critique group is a big part of this process. It’s exciting to discover what can be discovered by moving things around, cutting a line here, adding detail there. What is this story really about? Ahhhh … so this is where I should have started.

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
There is nothing like being in the exhilarating zone of head down (whether it is writing or playing ukulele or gardening or a deep conversation) and looking up and realizing time has passed and I was completely present and engaged in that moment.

What is also true for me is that writing can be a pain in the ass, a sense of a burden … I SHOULD be doing that. I admire people who have a strong writing practice and move past that feeling and get back to work.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?

Having my book published was a DELIGHT! I’d been writing for over 20 years, I had had short stories and essays published. But a book! To work with my publisher (Laura Stanfill at Forest Avenue Press), to narrate the audiobook, to have a book launch at Powell’s (the huge bookstore here in Portland) - what an exciting time and an acknowledgement for all the hard work I had done. Here was something I could hold in my hands and celebrate as an ACCOMPLISHMENT.

There is something about this that cements the sense of the work, when you share your writing, it takes on a new life, through the eyes of the readers. To hear their experiences of the work is another aspect of experiencing my work.

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The fact that my memoir told the story of this part of my life, about having wanted children but falling in love with someone who didn’t, led me to more fully and openly step into my NoMo status. And it led to powerful connection with other NoMo people.

I also know my book helped others who have children reconsider their thoughts and judgements about people who don’t have children. Perhaps leading to compassion and curiosity.

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?
I think telling my story revealed a sadness many people didn’t know I carried. While I live a robust and joyful life, there was that loss of the possible, that other path I might have taken. My memoir is also about many other things that I have held close. And so there was a vulnerability in this being out in the world.

I shaped my book launch and tour around conversations about different themes in the book, friendship, family, aunthood, my relationship with Bill and childlessness. These conversations were with people who were part of my story, and then included the audience in discussion. I think it helped bring folks into conversation about these topics, and reaffirmed how I am already seen, as someone who likes an intimate conversation.

Most rewarding has been the letters from readers, which I receive even now four years later. These are mostly women, though a few men, who found something helpful and hopeful for themselves from my story. This may be one of the most rewarding parts of having written this book, is to have a reader say they felt 'transformed' from having read my book. If you are a reader and you are deeply moved by a book, there is not a writer I know who wouldn’t love to hear this from you about their work.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
The so-called 'happy endings' in many novels involve a pregnancy or birth. We are left with the romantic ideal that becoming pregnant or having a baby is the end goal, the final thing without which a life is not complete. But so much comes after that. The realities of parenthood which can be complex and challenging. So this ending is one dimensional and also leaves out all the other possible happy endings that aren’t about parenthood.

Many women who want to have children cannot and these women are either not written about or are side characters written as sad and bitter. Childfree women are portrayed as hard and selfish and striving (as though striving is a bad word). Women who don’t have children are portrayed as 'odd' (but odd is just the opposite of even, and I think I prefer it).

Often, these women are written as cliches, received from other stories, passed on and on, and never examined for truth or a fresh look. This keeps the hurtful stereotype entrenched.

We need central female characters who are doing OTHER things, who ride off into the sunset happy without a pregnant belly or a child in their arms. We need single childless mature women as primary characters who are joyful, inspiring and nurturing without neediness. This is how so many of the NoMo women I know are.

All that said, I’ve been hopeful in the past ten years or so to see more complex portrayals of motherhood. The loneliness, postpartum depression … I’ve seen this in both fiction and memoir. Thank you to these women who are speaking honestly about this experience.

And we are beginning to see strong female characters where motherhood isn’t a central part of their story. Most inspiring are the many wonderful books that have come out in the past 10 years that are written about childlessness, about being childfree.

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9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
Many people are choosing not to have children these days. They will be looking for stories that reflect their experiences. When my memoir was first out on submission to publishers, several editors said that it wouldn’t appeal to a wide enough audience. Which seemed wild to me when 20% of the USA population (and growing) are childless or childfree. I think the view is opening up among publishers and they are seeing that our story has a broader appeal than just selling it to ourselves. I’ve really appreciated the number of mothers of adult daughters who have said it really helped them to read my memoir and learn they needed to stop pressuring their daughters for grandchildren. 

I just finished reading Daisy Jones & The Six (the book, not the TV series), and felt compelled by the character of Karen, the keyboardist in the band, who does not want children and is very clear about this. The book is set in the 70s, when few women were outspoken about the childfree choice. Karen feels the pressure to conform. Though not central to the story, I felt this had a good place in the overall novel. We need more of this, and also just to have a story of a woman who doesn’t have children and to not even have that BE a 'story' issue or question. Just a what is …there are some people who have children and some who don’t, neither good nor bad, just what is.

What is a woman’s story besides the motherhood story, which has been told time and time again?

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10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
I have been reading voraciously and hope that this leads me back to a novel I started many years ago. Or perhaps a new story. I’m open to it. But I also feel there are SO MANY brilliant writers and I am enjoying the work they are producing.

In the meantime, I’ve become a dog person and am completely engaged with this little fellow named JoJo. My husband and I spend a lot of time with friends and family, and we are mentors to a number of younger people, and we share quality time.

Creativity takes many forms and I like discovering how it shows up in my life, whether it is how I arrange the pillows, watching the dog discover ALL THE NEW SCENTS!, helping a friend sort through a personal complication, or following a line on a page to become either a sentence or a drawing or a song.