Ten Years, Nine Books, and I Still Have My Day Job

A Timeline of my Writing Career

Recently, I took part at a Black book fair. Fifteen or so of us vendors were authors of children’s and young adult literature. Attendance was lukewarm. It could have been due to the snowstorm the day before, a chill in the air, or post-February burnout. Who knows? Regardless, we kept each others’ spirits up. We chatted, took selfies and photos, hugged, and enjoyed complimentary pizza and snacks. I kept soul, reggae, and R&B tunes from my Spotify playlist playing my wireless speaker. We were doing this for the Brampton parents and school community, even if the numbers of attendees didn’t reflect this.

One book vendor/author, I don’t remember her name, walked up to my table and said with a chuckle, “You should buy all of our books.” She gestured to my banner showing my glowing headshot image above the covers of my nine books, “C’mon!” I was like, what? She could have been joking, but was she? I laughed stiffly, not sure if I should cry.

“Hey, I still have my day job,” I said, jokingly, trying to indicate that I too, in fact, am not making a full-time living as an author, yet. But saddened by the fact that I was told such a thing in the first place. That such an assumption, whether joking or seriousness, was made.

There were a few other authors around my table and the topic shifted swiftly. Still, I was pondering, ‘Is this what others think? Do they have any idea about my journey? Where was this author when I had a my book launches or events when there were fewer in attendance the fingers on one hand? Is that what “people” perceive?’

On one hand, I really shouldn’t care what “this woman” thinks when it comes to my writing, but I think I kind of do. The path of a writer can feel pretty lonely at times, especially when you have been one of very few traditionally Black picture book writers for so long. My successes in Canadian book publishing have been particularly notable, but part of me wonders, a question that was asked of me a few years ago by a fellow Black writer, far more established than myself, “Shouldn’t you be further along?” The truth is, it’s hard to make a living as an writer. Notice, I didn’t say impossible. I said hard. I’ve done it for short spats— six months here, a year there. During my longest stretch, two years, I found that I kept my feet flutter-kicking, “treading water”with five side jobs in order to stay afloat— grad student, course instructor, editor, presenter, and freelance writer— as an author. This didn’t include the heavy social media and content creation schedule, I maintain. I slept four hours each night. Gained fifteenish pounds. Had to purchase additional extended health insurance as I managed pre-existing health issues. It wasn’t sustainable.

I wish this woman could see the amount of work I put in, have been putting in since I was very young, before I knew that being an author was a thing I could make a living at. Without a benefactor, wealthy spouse, inheritance, allowance, or endowment fund, I’ve had to rely on my own resourcefulness and tenacity, my “self sponsoring” plus arts grants (thanks Toronto, Ontario, and Canada Council for the Arts) to pay to attend expensive conferences and courses. The nights I waited at chilly or snowy bus stops, fell asleep on buses or subway trains, on my way home from CANSCAIP meetings, book events, or writing classes, to get up early the next morning to take multiple buses to teach in a challenging environment. The amount of kissed teeth’s I heard when I said I wanted to be a writer. Through it all, I’m blessed to have always had my fallback plan, teaching, come through for me time and time again, in seasons when I’d otherwise be starving as an artist.

Admittedly, maybe this woman doesn’t see the hard work, the sacrifices, behind anything really, including my writing career. She see the wins, the accolades, the highlight reel, the marquis sign of images scrolling along… without really getting beneath the veneer.

Perhaps “this woman” sounds a lot like me.

And so, I’ve decided to lay it out and place my writing career in this cute graphic (above).

Many people are shocked to learn that I still teach. In addition to being a busy author, I’ve listened to my mother’s adage, “Don’t give up your job,” in all of her Jamaican, working class, Black woman immigrant wisdom. I haven’t given up my day job— the benefits, the pension, the stability, the insurance, nor the income in its entirety— which have become rarer currencies in this “day and age”. The gifts that come from working with the audience I write for…

In creating this timeline, I’ve gained an appreciation for are the seeds I planted in childhood, the 10, 000 hours— fellow Canadian Jamaican, Malcom Gladwell claims are required to be an expert at anything— I began logging when I was still losing teeth and playing dolls, the times I poured my heart out into angsty poetry to be read by my teenaged peers in the pages of my school paper, the times I’ve been perceived as too serious or nerdy or quiet because I always had my pen and paper or a book at hand. They all count. And even though I did this for 30 years before I ever saw a dime for my writing, I continued to write as I was fuelled by passion, which still holds true today.

And so, I cling to the promise I made myself in 2011 as I recovered and underwent thyroid cancer treatment. No matter what, I will become a published author and later… I’ll kick wide the door so others can follow.