By Damiana Andonova
I remember writing my first children’s book manuscript in one sitting as a high schooler. In college, I sent perhaps seventy query letters. I reached out to my mentors at the journalism institute where I worked, I talked to literature professors at my university. I even had my lab partner provide beautiful, watercolor illustration. I remember posting every rejection above my bed as if they were a trophy. And I remember how I thought no one would ever give me the time of day. Even though I did my best to put it out there, it remains safely tucked in a box of writing projects that still need a home.
In college, without paint brushes in sight, I turned to pen and paper and spent whatever time I had as a pre-med to write. Short bursts of insight on the corner of lab reports, notes on the margins became poems. And I kept those poems until I came back to Chicago after college. At some point that year, I joined the Chicago Writer’s Association Facebook page, and I ended up hosting a party to make friends with other members at my apartment.
That’s how I met Eric Allen Yankee, a newspaper hat-wearing, self-proclaimed revolutionary poet. I didn’t know at the time that he would be my “cultural broker” into the poetry scene in Chicago, inviting me to open mics, introducing me to movers and shakers like Vittorio Carli, who introduced me to yet other poets, and that in the span of nearly a decade, Eric Allen Yankee would become the publisher of my debut poetry collection. Our literary friendship was fruitful. We collaborated on a political poem, “Too Balenciaga,” merging our styles together at an Andersonville coffeeshop one afternoon right before the Uber came, and later performed it before students at Harold Washington College, and then once again in front of 100,000 poets for peace for an international webinar last year.
Even though my first poetry collection took nearly a decade from the first poems I penned while spending the summer of 2014 at Stanford, to burning the oil at both ends grappling over fonts and pagination in the summer of 2023, I take pride in that journey. And, I recognize that Eric Allen Yankee’s support was the most valuable help I could have asked for as a new poet.
Who you know matters. And it’s not about having a huge following of people you’ve never really met or heard or touched, or rubbing elbows at the local golf club with your dad’s screenwriting friends, although that might help. There’s no denying the benefits of listening to jazz records with your friend’s dad who happens to work for LucasFilm, if screenwriting is your thing. But, what I am talking about is the authentic nurturing of your network and building relationships that are deep and meaningful. Because those you know will speak your name in rooms where you are not present. They will champion your work when you are at your weakest—when you question every word, punctuation mark, your very sanity. And they will know someone who will love your work, and that person will invite you to a poetry reading, and someone else will invite you to a talk, and then a panel, and then someone in the audience will nominate you for an award you’ve never heard of, and then you’ll get an email, and you’ll stare in disbelief that someone read your work, and not only liked it but felt inspired by it, moved by it, and that they felt that was something to be recognized. You’ll barely catch breath thinking of this, and smile knowing it’s all because you knew somebody who knew somebody who told you to join the Chicago Writers’ Association.
In a world where the publishing world feels completely impenetrable by the masses of writers who stay awake long after the sun retires to bed, in a world where not everyone’s mother is a network or magazine executive, in a world where writing for the sake of writing is a revolutionary, humanistic act, the ability to build relationship continues to break barriers, move obstacles, and pave paths to opportunity that eludes everyday writers. And I live for everyday writers, for I am one.
Here’s my best advice to really build relationships, get out of your own way, and support your network as you build your brand, get published, and get read.
- Get out of your own way. Attend conferences, spend money to go to a local event, buy a beer or a mocktail at an open mic and support your peers. Sending submissions out into the ether is a little like sending resumes these days. You never know who will forward an Authors Publish email to you in time to apply for your next successful submission or who will introduce you to your future agent or publisher at a conference after-party. And they do exist. Few writers got lucky by sitting on the couch. No writer is an island, though we sometimes want to be.
- Nurture those relationships with authenticity. Let people get to know who you really are. Don’t hide behind the ‘gram. After all, people judge people, people read people, and people write about people. I befriended one of my interviewers and she has become one of my biggest supporters. I also invite writing professors to my birthdays and family gatherings.
- Still, don’t forget to write. You should always be writing, or reading, or writing. Write when something is begging to be told. Read when you can’t find the words or the fuel to keep writing.
- You are your work’s best marketer and VP of Sales. If you aren’t on social media, if you aren’t effectively growing your brand as a writer, you are selling yourself short. Agents and publishers want to see writers who are self-advocating, who have following, who are able to grow their audience. So, you’ll want to build digital presence that is primed to “convert”. There are a ton of tutorials and tips on this, but you know your audience best.
- And finally, plan. For many years, I never quite had the presence of mind to earmark registration and scholarship deadlines. Post-its, no matter how colorful, would get lost or buried. This year I’ve managed to find the right apps and tools to keep me up to date on the opportunities that matter to me. Do that so you are more prepared for when opportunities pop up. Get out there. Develop that self-discipline. It is the biggest form of self-love.
Bio: Damiana Andonova is the author of black holes and gypsy hearts are forever (Honeybees for Peace Press, 2023), nominated for a Best New Poetry Collection in Chicago; and her second poetry collection, Baby Universes is forthcoming summer of 2024. She lives in Chicago with her Bernese Mountain Dog, Berlius.
