Tag: writing

creativity

The galley of my novel, Emerson Page and Where the Light Leads, is finalized

Christa Avampato
From the author page of my book

Buzzing with excitement! The watermarked galley (proof copy) of my novel, Emerson Page and Where the Light Leads, is finalized! The press release and sell sheet are in progress. The manuscript along with the press release, sell sheet, and cover letter comprise the media packet. These will start to go out to media reviewers next week, as well as feature editors, book sellers, podcast hosts, book award competitions, and potential partners.

My website and socials will be updated, as well as my newsletter, in the new year. The next season of my podcast, JoyProject, will focus on the book, writing, and publishing. I want this book to be a bright spot, not a blind spot. I want Emerson’s story to be a respite so everyone who slips into her world for a short time can gather the strength and inspiration they need to keep going. A trip through a magical version of New York City and Ireland can do wonders for the imagination!

Publishing a book is akin to starting a business, marketing and promoting a book is a joint responsibility between the publisher and the author. My experience in business (specifically as an entrepreneur and product developer) is enormously helpful in my work as an author. Because I’m often pitched to as a journalist, I work hard to craft my pitches so they’re personal, relevant, and as interesting as possible. I need to make it easy to want to read and share my book, and I’m grateful to anyone and everyone who takes the time to even consider my pitch. I know how precious time is.

To that end, if you or someone you know would be interested in reviewing or selling the book in any medium or channel, please let me know at christa.avampato@gmail.com. A million thank yous!

creativity

How Rilke and the forest became part of my graduate school dissertation

Christa Avampato
Me surrounded by ginko gold in Prospect Park

I’m deep into the work of my University of Cambridge dissertation. The more I learn, the more questions I have. I’m sitting at my laptop, looking at the research and also monitoring the news. Where do I begin with all of the problems, pain, and promise in the world? How can I make a difference?

I close my laptop and go to the forest, where I always go when I don’t know what to do. My forest is Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The ginko trees are putting on a show—my favorite kind of gold. Walking there among the crunchy colorful leaves on the forest floor, the autumn sun on my face, breathing in the cool dry air, I think of Rilke and his beautiful quote about living the questions in the book Letters to a Young Poet. 

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Maybe the point of my dissertation is not to find an answer, but instead to find a way to ask powerful questions that help readers live into answers of their own making and choosing. Maybe I’ve been trying to make my dissertation a solution when what’s really needed is a mirror, using stories to reflect individual truths back to people who haven’t yet seen them on their own, to help them stand in the power they don’t know they have to shape the world in a way where everyone brings their gifts and resources to the table and uses them to collaboratively to win together. 

This is how a forest operates, the flora and fauna sharing with and caring for one another, each taking what they need and giving what they have. Diversity is celebrated, and necessary for health. Abundance is created through deep cooperation. Imagine a human society like that. Maybe I’ve found an answer after all. 

creativity

Books are magic

Christa Avampato
One of my favorite bookstores, Books are Magic, in Brooklyn, NY. Photo by bookstore.

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” ~Stephen King

My dog, Phin, and I were enjoying the gorgeous Fall weather on our tree-lined block in Brooklyn, the sweet scent of dried leaves in the air. He’s an old man now – 14 last month – and he doesn’t move as well as he used to.

A young girl was walking toward us, her nose deep in a book—A Wrinkle in Time. I picked up Phin from his sunny spot in the middle of the sidewalk so he wouldn’t be in her way. Her mother walked a few paces behind her and saw me move Phin of her daughter’s way. The girl passed us without taking any notice.

“I’m so sorry,” her mother aid to me. “When she’s reading she’s in another world.”

I smiled. “No apologies needed. I’m the same way,” I said.

That’s the magic of fiction. As a reader and author, books have carried me away to fantastical places. The characters have become my friends and traveling companions. Their adventures are as real to me as my own in this physical world. 

When I finally look up from reading or writing, I’ve lost all track of time. After having been on a book’s journey, my own world looks and feels different. I feel different. Books change us, and our perspective.

Books are sense-making devices. When I don’t know how I feel about something, I read and write. In those acts, things become a little bit clearer. 26 letters arranged in countless ways to create portals across time and space, conveying emotions, sharing thoughts and experiences, connecting us to each other, attempting to make meaning of the messiness of life. There is no more magical invention than a book.

creativity

My second novel has a publishing date

Christa Avampato
Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters

Breaking news: my second novel, Emerson Page and Where the Light Leads, will be released in Spring 2024!

The publisher is working on the final steps and around the holidays we’ll have a better sense of a set release date along with pre-order links. On Wednesday, September 27th, I’ll post a cover reveal sneak peek on here.

Set in a mgaical version of New York City, and Ireland’s Dublin, the Dark Hedges, and Newgrange, I can’t wait to share this next chapter of Emerson’s adventures with you. Thank you to everyone who has cheered me on these many years in a million different ways. Writing novels is a solo art form that takes a village to bring to life. I’m grateful to be in this village with all of you.

Leading up to publication, I’ll be sharing loads of info on the book, the process of book publication, querying, storytelling and writing, and other behind-the-scenes goodies and giveaways. Book publishing can feel like such a mystery from the outside, so come on inside with me and I’ll show you around this wild and always-changing world!

More details soon and stay tuned on Wednesday for the gorgeous cover. In the meantime, you can read my Medium post titled A Publisher Bought My YA Novel Trilogy—Here’s Everything I Did Wrong and Emerson’s first book, Emerson Page and Where the Light Enters.

creativity

To write well, we must read well and take a break

Christa Avampato
Look for Me There by Luke Russert
Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara

After a two-day break from dissertation literature review writing, I’m back at it today. It’s amazing the clarity we get from stepping back, focusing on other things, and returning with fresh eyes. I would have loved to take a longer break to let the words accumulate a good thick layer of dust but deadlines and NYC Climate Week next week demand otherwise.

I spent the last couple days doing work for clients, reaching out to potential collaborators for interviews, finally hanging up art in my apartment, and reading two beautiful books that I highly recommend: Unreasonable Hospitality by top-notch restauranteur Will Guidara and Look for Me There, Luke Russert‘s stunning memoir about the life he’s built in the wake of the sudden and untimely passing of his larger-than-life dad, Tim Russert, whom I still dearly miss, especially in these trying times of U.S. politics.

Now with a more colorful space, inspired by the writing of others, some items off the to-do list, and my top-tier dream collaborators booked for the project, I’m re-writing, editing, and honing what I hope will be a decent first draft for my supervisor to review. As my first year tutor Angus always said to me, we’ll see how it goes in prose.

Will Guidara so beautifully writes, “Most important, we have an opportunity—a responsibility—to make magic in a world that desperately needs more of it.” I’ll do my best to make good on that opportunity and responsibility in my writing.

creativity

How to directly help the people of Ukraine stay alive

Christa Avampato
Photo by Max Kukurudziak on Unsplash

Today is my 14th Alive Day, and to mark it I’m directly helping people in Ukraine stay alive. (At the end of this post, I tell the story of my Alive Day at the end of this post for those who didn’t know me 14 years ago.)

My friend and Cambridge classmate, Iuliia Takhtarova, is from Ukraine and raising money to buy tourniquets for her fellow Ukrainians as they head to the frontlines of the war to fight for their country. All this money will be used to directly help them. Tourniquets save lives. I made a donation and I hope you will, too. 

A talented public speaker who’s curated over 150 TEDx speeches by NGO and business leaders, ambassadors, and government officials, Iuliia will provide a 45-minute individual session on impact-driven pitches and presentations to every donor who makes a $60+donation (the price of 2 high-quality tourniquets from a repurtable supplier). She will also provide all donors of any size with a detailed update on the impact of their gift. She has set up a Paypal account specifically for this fundraiser: takhtarovajulia@gmail.com. You can find more information about the fundraiser on her LinkedIn post: Iuliia’s fundraiser for Ukraine tourniquets. 

 — 
A bit more about my Alive Day for those who have never heard the story:

Though I have never been in a war, I know what it feels like to lose a home. 14 years ago on this day I had to run for my life away from flames and into the terrifying void that followed. My neighbor accidentally set fire to her gas stove. Rather than turn off the gas, she ran out of the building and the rest of the building caught fire. I was home, just out of the shower, and went into the kitchen where I heard the radiator ticking on a very hot day. A closer look and I realized the tiles on my kitchen floor were heaving up and down. I grabbed my keys and went downstairs to see what was going on.

Seconds later I was surrounded by thick, black, noxious smoke. I had no idea where the smoke was coming from but I knew I had to get out of that building if I wanted to stay alive. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face and I ran for my life down 4 flights of stairs. At one point, I was flying so quickly that I felt as if I was being carried.

Out on the sidewalk, I was covered in soot and shaking as I stared at my building. Flames shot out of every window as the New York City fire truck sirens blared. Later I would learn that I was seconds away from running right into the flames when the fire in my neighbor’s apartment got so hot that the front door fell off its hinges and the entire hallway was engulfed in flames.

I was lucky to be alive, and the trauma from losing almost all my belongings, my home, and nearly my life started me on a difficult years-long mental health journey as I reckoned with an entire lifetime of trauma and unrelenting PTSD. It got so unbearable at one point that I considered jumping from the roof of my new apartment building months later. When PTSD has you in its clutches, life feels hopeless. I found hope in writing and in nature, but I still needed professional help.

I was lucky to get years of therapy with Brian, my incredible therapist who remains a blessing in my life today. He led me through the darkness and for the first time in my life, into the light. This experience is why I’m such an enormous advocate for mental health, and why today I don’t take a moment of life for granted. I know how chancey it can be. We have to help each other along the road in any and every way we can.

A much longer version of my Alive Day story with more details about how writing became my lifeline is at https://itstartsatmidnight.com/2017/10/shatteringstigmas-guest-post-writing-frees-us-free-others/.

creativity

Stories of climate change teach us that we are each other’s tomorrow

Christa Avampato
Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash

This morning’s joyful find—THIS is the style of academic writing I’m here for! I’m reading through an academic paper about climate change communications that quotes one of my storytelling queens, the great author Ursula Le Guin. I nearly fell out of my chair with happiness!

Paraphrasing, it says we need to lay aside stories of the one hero versus one villain and begin to tell what Ursula Le Guin in “Dancing at the Edge of the World” called “the carrier bag narrative”: collecting stories to construct transformative narratives to help us find the strength to “stay with the trouble” so that we can change and inspire change in others. Stories transform our world by affording us the chance to co-construct our shared future.

We are all in this narrative of climate change, though our personal stories of its impact are not the same. Following Le Guin’s counsel, we need to tell our stories and also listen to the stories of others to construct the narrative system of climate change. There are many voices, many perspectives, and many outcomes, simultaneously being told and lived. They are all valid. They all play a part. It is therefore our responsibility to not just make ourselves heard and understood, but also to make sure others have the opportunity to do the same.

This isn’t about getting and taking what we think is ours. It’s about the idea of being the Mother Tree in the forest, making sure that each individual in the system has what they need to grow and thrive. We are all made better when each of us is well.

creativity

When writing feels like play

Christa Avampato
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

Even though it’s Labor Day weekend, I’m laboring away at the outline for my University of Cambridge dissertation with the goal of having a single page of my literature review written and edited by the end of the day.

The weird and wonderful part of the work at this point is that it doesn’t feel like work at all, but play. Like a set of LEGO blocks, I’m linking the information and data to support the story, synthesizing everything I’ve learned after all this reading and note taking into a cohesive, communicable form that helps people and the planet.

I’m sure there will be rough spots along the way where I get jammed up on the journey. I’ve a long way to go over the next year. But for now, I’m excited to begin writing and using prose for purpose. Happy days.

creativity

The danger of Texas school libraries becoming “discipline centers”

Christa Avampato
Photo by Joe Ciciarelli on Unsplash

“Libraries are about freedom. Freedom to read, freedom of ideas, freedom of communication. They are about education, about entertainment, about making safe spaces, and about access to information. We need libraries. We need books. We need literate citizens. I hope we can give our children a world in which they will read, and be read to, and imagine, and understand.” ~Neil Gaiman

When I was a kid, the school library was my refuge. I’d go there when I felt bullied, sad, and lost, and I wanted to escape. I would go to books to go into new worlds that weren’t my physical world. Through them I could travel, find adventure, and be anywhere except where I was when my world was not where I wanted to be. I returned stronger, wiser, and braver because of libraries. 

As I got older, I realized I was not alone in finding my haven in books and libraries. So many kids all over the country, and all over the world, did the same thing if they were fortunate enough to have a library. I also learned millions of children didn’t have libraries to escape to, and that broke my heart and opened my wallet to support libraries, books, authors, reading, writing, and creating in every way I could. When I became a journalist, then an essayist, and then a novelist, my dedication to libraries, books, readers, and writers grew even bigger.

So it’s with devastation that I learned last week about the dire state of school libraries in Houston, Texas that are part of the Houston independent school district (HISD). Superintendent Mike Miles will turn the city’s school libraries into “discipline centers”, and librarian and media-specialist positions will be eliminated. Teachers will be able to send “misbehaving students” to these centers to learn remotely. This is a state decision, not a city decision, and Miles was given this post by the Texas Education Agency. He thinks this will improve student performance in Texas’s largest school district and the 8th largest district in the country.

HISD has 276 schools and 196,943 students. 90% of students identify as ethnic minorities, and 59.4% are economically disadvantaged. They are students who need libraries, extra educational support, and places of refuge. I know this because I was an economically disadvantaged student. Libraries, librarians, and books saved me. They helped me dream of a better life than I had as a kid, and it’s largely because of libraries, librarians, and books that I have the life I have now, a life I love where I make a living through my creativity every day. 

I don’t live in Houston, but I care deeply about these students and what happens to them because they will eventually grow into adults who will go out into our shared world on their own. Without libraries and books, and with goodness knows what goes on in a “discipline center”, imagine how angry and deprived they will be. Imagine how deprived every student in these schools will be without libraries and librarians. What message are we sending all students by denying them free access to books, and the ideas and freedom they afford those who face an unjust uphill climb in our current society? 

Here’s my great hope for the HISD and the city of Houston: that the students, administrators, teachers, voters, politicians, and residents will rise up against Mike Miles. I hope they won’t allow students to be deprived of books, reading, and librarians, and I hope all of us outside of Houston will support them in every way they need. The students of HISD deserve better than this policy, and better than Mike Miles. We can’t allow one man to take their books and their futures from them.

creativity

New York. What a character. My latest essay for Pipeline Artists.

Christa Avampato
Feature image from dikaya888 (Adobe)

If you know me, you know how much I love New York and how proud I am to be a New Yorker. To that end, this is my toast and roast to dear old New York. Essentially a love letter to my city, published by Pipeline Artists. You can read the full piece here.

An excerpt:
“Dearly Beloved,

We are gathered here today to toast and roast our dear old chum, someone who’s like no one, someone who’s a chameleon, a shape shifter. You may know them as the Big Apple, Gotham, the City So Nice They Named It Twice, the City that Never Sleeps, the Empire City. Many simply call it The City. Me? The nickname I like best is A Beautiful Disaster.

I give you the dynamic, the dastardly, the dreamy—New York.

I’ve left New York multiple times over the years, sworn them off for good, to never return, only to eventually make my way back. I’m not alone in this pursuit to try to live without New York only to find that New York lures me back just by existing.”

You can read the full piece here.