By Kristen Holt-Browning
Ten years ago, I took a writing class in my small town in upstate New York with the novelist Julie Chibbaro. Although I had written poems and stories as a kid and a young person, I had pretty much stopped writing in my thirties. My husband was working full-time and commuting, I was freelancing as an editor, we had had our first kid—a familiar story to so many people (and to working mother-writers in particular).
But then that baby turned five, and began school, and I had a little more time and space—and so, I began to write again. In Julie’s class, I wrote a short story about a woman in her thirties, an academic medievalist, who is struggling in the wake of a miscarriage and her father’s death. I read several scholarly articles to familiarize myself with my protagonist’s world, including one about the twelfth-century nun and mystic Hildegard of Bingen—which mentioned that Hildegard might have been enclosed in a monastery cell with an anchoress, a woman who chose to have herself locked up in a small stone room for her entire life, in an act of radical piety. Imagine being a girl in such a weird and scary situation, I thought. And then, that’s a great idea for a book. Or a short story, at least. And I wrote that short story.
I kept adding to both stories, sketching scenes, wondering what to do with them next—and then, I became pregnant with our second child. I took a break from Julie’s class, and I turned to writing poems, as they felt more accessible during those busy years (in fact, I would go on to publish a chapbook of poetry in 2021).
And then, we paused. Covid. Despite the all-encompassing fear and anxiety around us, not to mention the stress of navigating remote school with a first-grader and a sixth-grader, I decided on a whim one evening to reread those short stories from years ago. Hey, these don’t suck, I thought to myself. But they’re not done.
What if they belong together?
In that moment, it seemed so obvious. My two stories were one novel about two women, hundreds of years apart. In 2021, I joined a Zoom-based advanced novel writing group offered by the musician and writer Nerissa Nields called “Weeding and Pruning.” With feedback and encouragement from the other writers in the group, I wove the stories together, and they began to mirror and support one another, in a dance of revision.
In late 2022, I began to submit my novel to literary agents, and small presses that didn’t require an agent. Prior to become a freelance book editor, I had worked in publishing for about ten years, so I knew I wanted to go with a traditional publisher, and that I could work well within its structures and timelines. But, I also knew that, as a debut author in my forties living outside New York City with a modest social media presence, I might not be the most appealing client for an agent or one of the Big 5 publishers.
In total, I submitted to forty-five agents and fifteen small presses. By June of 2023, I had received requests for my full manuscript from two agents and two small publishers. While the agents and other press were reviewing it, Anne McGrath at Monkfish Book Publishing Company wrote a very enthusiastic email, expressing her interest in acquiring it. From her description of her reaction to the manuscript, I could tell that Anne “got” what I was trying to do with the book, and so I let the other interested parties know that I would be signing with Monkfish. This isn’t to say Ordinary Devotion breezed through production; I did three rounds of extensive editing and revision with Anne.
Now, the cover has been designed, page proofs have been reviewed, ARCs have been sent out (Ordinary Devotion has received a very good review from Kirkus!), and I’m looking forward to my publication date of November 5. Sometimes I berate myself for taking so long to get this book published. On the other hand, I’m confident that Ordinary Devotion is as good as I could possibly make it. I lived with it for a decade, and now I’m ready to send it out into the world.
Bio: Kristen Holt-Browning’s poetry chapbook, The Only Animal Awake in the House, was published by Moonstone Press. Her work has appeared in journals including Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hunger Mountain, and Little Patuxent Review. She was awarded a Hortus Arboretum Residency for Literary Artists in 2024. Ordinary Devotion is her first novel. You can learn more about Kristen here, and preorder Ordinary Devotion here.
