Breathing New Life into My Book Publishing Journey

By Karin K. Jensen

A Timely Chance to Humanize the Immigrant Experience

Throughout my childhood, my mother told stories of growing up in her father’s Detroit laundry business during the infancy of the auto industry, and later in a Cantonese village on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War. She also spoke of what it was like to survive as a live-in domestic worker and teen waitress in mid-century California. These stories felt almost mythological, being so far removed from my middle-class upbringing in the San Francisco Bay Area. How had this transformation happened in a generation? 

There were stories of gamblers, an American dream, and dashed hopes. And there were tales almost Dickensian in their pathos, of those who take advantage of the poor, of wartime privations, and toxic cultural expectations relating to marriage. But there were also stories about the power of persistence, the kindness of strangers, and the value of fighting for one’s little slice of happiness in this world.

In years past, I had interviewed Mom and her siblings and set down their powerful stories. I could hear my mother’s voice so clearly that I wrote in the first person. I had pipe dreams of publishing …someday. During the COVID-19 pandemic, with a life suddenly decluttered, someday called. 

And yet, who was I fooling? At the time, I was a ballet and ballroom instructor with little writing experience. I had done technical writing in previous employment, yet this hardly felt like a sterling credit. 

Still, I couldn’t help but think that if my mother had lived this extraordinary life and overcome so many hurdles to succeed, I could somehow find a way. With help from a developmental editor and a query-writing course, I polished a manuscript, sent out dozens of queries, and, to my astonishment, won a publishing contract for my book, The Strength of Water, with a small press in London. 

What I didn’t fully grasp was how heavily this press would rely on me to do the marketing. And what did I know as a dance instructor about marketing? Extremely little. Sales struggled.

Still, the book won recognition, including a coveted starred Kirkus Review and a spot on Kirkus’s annual list of Top 100 Indie Books. And that led to its being picked up for republication by Sibylline Press, which is based in my home state of California.

Working with Sibylline has been a pleasure as their author support has been significantly more comprehensive. Sibylline’s tag line is “Publishing the brilliant work of women authors over 50.” Consequently, not only has Sibylline offered mentorship as a company, but it has also provided a community of wonderfully warm, intelligent, and creative women of a certain age who make the effort to show up and support one another. For me, this represents a chance to roll out my book the way I’d always hoped among old friends and new.

What has changed since the first edition? For one thing, I am now a professional writer, and not just because I authored a book. During the pandemic, I picked up freelance employment as a community news writer so I could work from home. Four years later, I still write for my local news outlet and have even represented my employer at a recent Council on Foreign Relations workshop for local journalists.

With my skills improved, republishing has allowed me to improve the book’s language, make its theme more intentional, and add new vignettes, thereby enriching the story. Sibylline’s book cover is beautiful, and they have improved the formatting with the inclusion of photos throughout.

Most of all, in today’s environment, I look forward to amplifying a story that humanizes the immigrant experience. As I relate in The Strength of Water, my great-grandfather was an illegal immigrant. While I am not proud of that, I am not ashamed either. I understand why he and my grandfather chose to emigrate to a country that was hostile to them–they couldn’t earn enough at home to feed themselves and their families.

Too often, illegal immigrants are painted as nothing more than law-breakers. And so we peel away their humanity. We learn not to care what happens to them. Stories can help tear down the walls we build around our hearts and inspire us to do the hard work of crafting better solutions to pressing problems.

Each of us embarks on a journey to find a sense of belonging and our place in the world. When you’re an immigrant or an immigrant daughter, as my mother was, that story is so much more challenging–sometimes even epic. The Strength of Water is such a story.

—

Karin K. Jensen is a local news writer for the Alameda Post and the debut author of The Strength of Water, an Asian American Coming-of-Age Memoir. She has won NewsBreak editorial awards on the topics of #StopAsianHate and #AAPI Voices. For her work, Authority Magazine named her a Social Impact Author. Besides writing, she enjoys dancing, acting, reading, and being a mom. She makes her home in sunny Alameda, California. Her website: karinkjensen.blog ; on Instagram: karinkjensen. 

The Strength of Water

An Asian American Coming-of-Age Memoir

In 1920s Detroit, King Ying stands on a box to iron clothes in her parents’ laundry business, endures taunts of Ching-Ching Chinaman on the playground, and tries to reconcile what passes for normal in Jazz-Age America with her father’s vastly different cultural values.

She dreams of a real home, the elegance of her Jane Arden paper dolls, and winning her stern father’s affection. But when Ba can no longer support his family during the Great Depression, he sends her far from hope to his ancestral village.

In remote Tai Ting Pong, in the Guangdong Province of China, she feels as foreign in the land of her heritage as in the country of her birth. She must survive hunger, dangerous superstitions, and Japanese invasion as the Sino-Japanese War begins.

When guardian angels help her return to the U.S., it’s a chance to seize her American dream.

Order through Bookshop, Amazon, and wherever books are sold.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing