Good Literary Citizenship: Finding My Way Back, by Kristin Bair

In 2015, just a year after my second novel, The Art of Floating, was published, I turned in my good literary citizen card and, for the most part, dropped out of sight.

Up to that point, I’d been an exemplary literary citizen. Putting my BA and MFA degrees to good use, I taught writing anywhere and everywhere—colleges, high schools, middle schools, homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, bookstores, cafés, libraries, community centers, and my very cozy living room. I taught in Chicago, Shanghai, Pittsburgh, New England, and New Mexico. I taught in person and online. I created and hosted a number of reading series. I served as a reader and editor for literary magazines. I spoke about writing, reading, and publishing at conferences and festivals. I was a self-proclaimed social media maven. I blogged religiously, wrote articles and a monthly newsletter, and engaged with anyone who said the magic words, “I want to be a writer.”

While at first glance a writer’s life can seem like a solitary existence, it’s actually a life built upon relationships—relationships with librarians, teachers, readers, agents, editors, young writers, old writers, students, publicists, proofreaders, conference organizers, bookstore clerks, city stoop storytellers, bartenders, baristas, and more. And, as we all know, in order to have successful relationships, you must give and receive. Being a good literary citizen means giving your support, attention, kindness, creativity, ideas, money, and time.

For many years, I was able to do all that and more. Then, in 2015, we adopted our son. He was nearly two and a half years old. Our daughter was seven. Suddenly, as a mom to two young humans, I found myself unable to connect beyond that triad. All the energy that I’d poured into the writerly world, into teaching and sharing and uplifting other writers, was funneled into parenting. Every. Last. Ounce.

This reality shocked me. In the years leading up to our adoption, I’d told myself I’d be able to do it all once we brought our son home: write, read, connect, teach, uplift, share. In preparation, I’d read a gazillion interviews with that one wildly successful author mom who wrote her novels at the kitchen table with five kids climbing on her head and a pot of homemade chicken soup bubbling on the stove. If she’d been able to hold onto her good literary citizen card while writing and parenting, I could, too.

I so wanted to be that mom, that author. The one who could do it all.

But within months of bringing our son home, the truth hit me.

I was not that mom. I was not that author. I could not do it all.

Maybe it was because my son, who’d spent his first two-and-a-half years in an orphanage, needed more than other kids. Maybe it was because parenting two kids was a much bigger job than parenting one. Maybe it was because I was an older mom whose energy was not quite what it had been when I was 25 or 30 years old. Maybe it was because I no longer had enough quiet moments of stillness to fill the reservoir of creativity. Or maybe it was because I only had so much to give.

In the end, it didn’t matter why. All I knew was that I had to pull back, take care of my family, and continue to do the one thing that mattered most in the equation: write.

So I did. For nearly five years, I parented and wrote. Every day I was at my desk by 4:30 a.m. and, slowly, my new novel Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything began to take shape. After a solid two hours of writing, one kid or the other would holler, “Mom!” and, from that moment on, I was consumed. 

As the years ticked by, my kids grew, Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything got a little bit closer to being done, and I, once again, began to long for that deep connection with the literary community. It was kind of like hearing the bells of the ice cream truck a few streets away on a steamy summer day and then not being able to get the promise of a bomb pop out of your head.

Flash forward to today, August 15, 2020. Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything will land in bookstores on November 10. My kids are older and a bit more independent. A global pandemic is wreaking havoc on communities all around the world. The Black Lives Matter movement is, thankfully, hopefully, starting to shake the very foundations on which the United States was built. And I am hungry to reconnect with writers and readers around the world, to teach and share and uplift, to be an integral part of this very special something, and to once again earn a gold star in literary citizenship.

In an unexpected twist, the pandemic has helped me to reengage. I now attend three or four author readings and book events every week thanks to Zoom and Crowdcast. I’m reading essays, poetry, and novels that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise (then following through by writing reviews on key websites). And, thanks to social media, I’m reconnecting with old friends and getting to know new ones.

I’d love for you to join me in my efforts. Flag me down on Twitter. Give me a wave on Instagram. And, while we’re at it, let’s do the same for Barbara Bos, the owner and managing editor of this deliciously bookish magazine that offers such a great opportunity to be the best literary citizens we can be. 

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Kristin Bair is the author of Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything. As Kristin Bair O’Keeffe, she has published two novels, The Art of Floating and Thirsty. Her essays and articles have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, including The Manifest-Station, The Gettysburg Review, Flyway: Journal of Writing and Environment, The Christian Science Monitor, Poets & Writers Magazine, Writer’s Digest, and other publications. As a writing instructor, her peripatetic nature has landed her in classrooms and conferences around the world. A native Pittsburgher, Kristin now lives north of Boston with her husband, two kiddos, and pup named Smookie. Visit her at kristinbairokeeffe.com. Give her a wave at Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and Facebook.

Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything

A quirky, nervous wreck of a New England mom is forced to face her many fears in this touching, irresistible novel from author Kristin Bair.

Agatha Arch’s life shatters when she discovers her husband in their backyard shed, in flagrante delicto, giving the local dog walker some heavy petting. Suddenly, Agatha finds herself face to face with everything that frightens her…and that’s a loooooong list.

Agatha keeps those she loves close. Everyone else, she keeps as far away as possible. So she’s a mystery to nearly everyone in her New England town. To her husband, she’s a saucy, no-B.S. writer. To her Facebook Moms group, she’s a provocateur. To her neighbor, she’s a standoffish pain in the butt. To her sons, she’s chocolate pudding with marshmallows. And to her shrink, she’s a bundle of nerves on the brink of a cataclysmic implosion.

Defying her abundant assortment of anxieties, Agatha dons her “spy pants”–a pair of khakis whose many pockets she crams with binoculars, fishing line, scissors, flashlight, a Leatherman Super Tool 300 EOD, candy, and other espionage essentials–and sets out to spy on her husband and the dog walker. Along the way, she finds another intriguing target to follow: a mysterious young woman who’s panhandling on the busiest street in town.

It’s all a bit much for timorous Agatha. But with the help of her Bear Grylls bobblehead, a trio of goats, and a dog named Balderdash, Agatha may just find the courage to build a better life.

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