An interesting question. I’m writing memoir based on what I know of the people involved, or thought I knew. That weekend my mother wasn’t acting like my mother.

Pamela Gay – 24 July 2020

The Back Flap

I’m So Glad You’re Here is the story of a family disrupted by ramifications of a father’s mental illness. The memoir opens with a riveting account of Gay, age eighteen, witnessing her father being bound in a straitjacket and carried out of the house on a stretcher. The trauma she experiences escalates when, after her father has had electroshock treatments at a state mental hospital, her parents leave her in a college dorm room and move from Massachusetts to Florida without her. She feels abandoned. Both her parents have gone missing.

Decades later, when Gay and her three much-older siblings show up for their father’s funeral, she witnesses her sundered family’s inability to gather together. Eventually, she is diagnosed with PTSD of abandonment and treated with EMDR therapy—and finally begins to heal. Poignant and powerful, I’m So Glad You’re Here is Gay’s exploration of the idea that while the wounds we carry from growing up in fractured families stay with us, they do not have to control us—a reflective journey that will inspire readers to think about their own relational lives.

About the Book

What is the book about?

I’m So Glad You’re Here is the story of a family disrupted by ramifications of a father’s mental illness.

When did you start writing the book?

At first I tried to write it as a short story called The Family Funeral, but it wanted to be a book. I started treating it as a book around 2015.

How long did it take you to write it?

A couple decades of picking it up, putting it down, turning it inside out and finally, right side up! Writing about trauma takes time, and I’m So Glad I took time to open up my story.

Where did you get the idea from?

From my life and later into my writing, thinking about all our lives. I found Paul John Eakin’s book How Our Lives Become Stories helpful. He would call this a “relational” memoir: “the self’s story viewed through the lens of its relation with some other key person…most often a parent.” That insight got me thinking more about readers as I worked my way through. While readers have different life stories, everyone has a “relational” life, one way or another. My goal was not just to tell my story but to tell it in such a way that it would invite conversation.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Many parts! I struggled with coming to voice. For some time, I hid the opening called “Turkey Day” that captures the trauma I felt, age eighteen, somewhere later in the book. After taking a workshop with writer Dana Shapiro who talked about the importance of where you start readers, especially memoir, I knew I had to move that up front. I now had the courage, but that move required struggling with narrative coherence. I struggled with how to write about healing from trauma that at first sounded like a more academic-sounding essay that didn’t belong. I finally found a voice that would work and keep the story I wanted to tell going. I struggled with how to line up all the pieces so together they make a “story.” That took me another year and last, I struggled with the ending. I had some ideas about how I wanted to end and wrote longer and muddled about and then finally zoomed into what felt like a good last shot for me and my readers.

What came easily?

 At first, writing about when my sundered family tried to gather together at our mother’s house in Florida the weekend of my father’s funeral came easily in journal entries, one right after the other. Perspective came later.

Are your characters entirely fictitious or have you borrowed from real world people you know?

An interesting question. I’m writing memoir based on what I know of the people involved, or thought I knew. That weekend my mother wasn’t acting like my mother. I was raised much later than my three much older siblings. What I knew of them over the years I learned from my mother. That weekend, their mother didn’t seem like my mother. Where was my mother? I wanted the mother of my childhood—the ever-present mother who cooked and gardened and was quiet. She went missing.  I do come to realize through the process of writing that this mother was my mother after all she’d been through, and that realization made me feel compassion and also broke my heart.

Do you have a target reader?

The obvious one is a reader who has experienced trauma in relation to a parent and is still feeling wounded and looking for ways to heal. Another target reader: someone experiencing difficult sibling relationships, especially with aging parents and/or coming together for a funeral. Still another: readers looking for hopeful and attainable ways of being in relation to family members who have their own stories after all.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so, can you please describe it?

I start with an idea and start scribbling. I might have an idea in the night & make a note. Then I do what I call “JustWrite.” I don’t call this drafting until later when I’m onto something I want to pursue. JustWriting will take me where I need to go to find out what I really want to write about.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

No, I never outline to plan writing. Later at some point when I’m drafting, I consider order, whether something is out of place or breaking the narration. I often read a printed copy out loud of what I wrote the previous day.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

I might catch something minor as I write, but I don’t make editing-as-I-go a priority. When I’m nearly finished, I read for content and may edit. Then I read one more time and also check editing.

Do you hire a professional editor?

For this book, a proofreader who works for She Writes Press was required in the late stage of the manuscript, allowing time for corrections. I also hired on my own two editors at different stages of writing to discuss content and editing. The conversations were helpful.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

No. I need quiet time when I write.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

I did submit this book to several agents at an earlier stage. Two were very interested, but one said she was having trouble selling memoir. The other praised my writing but said that the book lacked narrative coherence, which was true at the time. She also added that she was sure she was going to see my writing in print. Her response and encouragement helped me go to another stage of revision. It is difficult to get an agent today and get published by one of the Big 5. And there are so many creative writing programs and writers seeking publication. Even well-known and respected independent publishers are getting overwhelmed with requests.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

A colleague and writer friend of mine gave me a book published by She Writes Press and said that the author did very well. She thought I should look into it. And I did and my manuscript was accepted. And I’m So Glad for the great experience with this publisher and team—and the outcome: a beautifully cared-for book all the way through.  

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

The cover was professionally done by She Writes Press based on a photograph that

I took. You can judge my book by its artful cover and I’m so grateful.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

I hired BookSparks, a publicity team associated with She Writes Press. The marketing plan is non-stop, varied, and outstanding!

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

Check out indie publishers that are more and more in demand now. How are you going to get your book noticed? Read? It won’t happen if it stays in storage. Promotion is key. I can’t imagine doing even a quarter of what my publicists are doing—and I don’t have the contacts, the knowledge…  And I wanna be writing. Hiring a team may be costly but is really necessary if you want to see your book travel about and meet up with readers everywhere and not just in your own back yard.

About You

Where did you grow up?

In western Massachusetts: Agawam outside Springfield.

Where do you live now?

I live in upstate New York.

What would you like readers to know about you?

That I’m intrepid! And I like my second life as a full-time writer at age 75.

What are you working on now?

I’m continuing to write flash memoir and flash fiction and am working on a chapbook collection called WHITEFOOD: micro-stories.

End of interview:

For more from Pamela Gay, visit her website.

Get your copy of I’m So Glad You’re Here from Amazon US or Amazon UK.