Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Angela Brown. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Angela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

Earning a full-time living from my writing was always the ultimate goal for me. However, I knew from early-on that it was a goal that might not come easily, one that would require patience and time.

One of the most important pieces of advice I received early in my career was to remind myself that it was okay to work another full-time job while I continued to work on my writing craft. I think sometimes, especially when we’re just starting out in a creative field, it can feel like a failure, or like we’re following the wrong path, if we’re not fully dedicating ourselves to our art. However, in my personal experience, the best way to crush one’s creativity and imagination is to have to deal with the daily stress of money (or, more specifically, not having enough of it). And so as much as I wanted to just hide out in my apartment back in my early twenties and do absolutely nothing but write, write, write until I got my first book deal, I knew it wasn’t a practical approach – at least not for me.

After I earned my MFA in my later-twenties, I took a job teaching writing – one that I ended up keeping for nearly fifteen years. I’ve never bought into that old adage, “those who can’t do teach.” Teaching was the perfect “day” job for me while I continued to work toward my ultimate goal of writing full-time. It allowed me the opportunity to read and to talk about craft and process all day so that my mind was always thinking about language and stories. It also wiped out the day-to-day worries that some creatives deal with (things like steady pay and health insurance). For a number of years, I dedicated the evenings, and some weekends, to my writing. Mostly, I used that time to freelance with different regional and national magazines and newspapers, and then saved any gigs that required me to travel for the summer months when I had more flexibility. It wasn’t perfect – I knew that – but it allowed me to strengthen my writing voice and build my portfolio in a way that simultaneously afforded me the chance to fully live and enjoy my life along the way (i.e: not having to hide out in a cabin for months to crank out a novel).

Flash forward a few years to my early thirties. I began to pivot from shorter essays and articles to book-length work while out on maternity leave with my first child. I didn’t have long swaths of time to write – I had a baby to take care of, after all – but I did have more quiet time at home (see: nap time) than I was accustomed to, and so I used those stretches to write. I finished my first novel around my daughter’s first birthday. I submitted it to agents for months and had some good interest, but in the end, it didn’t work out (it happens!). About three years later, when the world was in quarantine, I began work on a new novel, which I wrote mostly in the very early mornings before my family was awake, and then again late at night once everyone (except me) was asleep. By the time I was ready to send that novel out to agents, I was pregnant with my second child. Before I even had an agent, I told myself I could only leave teaching if I received a book contract that met or exceeded my current salary, otherwise it just wasn’t realistic (certainly not with two kids). I was fortunate. The timing was right. The writing was finally right. My agent sold my first two books while I was out on maternity leave with my second child, and I’ve been writing full-time ever since.

Angela, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m the author of the novel, OLIVIA STRAUSS IS RUNNING OUT OF TIME, which debuted in January 2024 (Little A). The book was a Zibby Owens Book Club Pick and a Women’s Fiction Pick in Amazon’s First Reads Program. Prior to writing novels full-time, I wrote articles and essays for dozens of print and online publications, including REAL SIMPLE and the NEW YORK TIMES. I have an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University and a BA in English from the University of Vermont. I’m also the recipient of an Artist’s Grant from the Vermont Studio Center and have been called a “fresh new voice in fiction,” by outlets such as GOOD MORNING AMERICA. I live in New Jersey with my husband and two young children. My second novel is forthcoming in 2025 (Little A).

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding part of being a writer is the feeling that I have autonomy over my life. Although I work with an incredibly talented team (my editor, my agent…), and, like all writers, work on deadlines, on a typical day, I have control of how I divide my time. I have the space to think and be creative and also get to engage with new people from all different parts of the country and world through my work. I feel very lucky to do what I do for a living.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

I love to read books about craft, and there are a number of them that I reread over and over again. My favorites are Stephen King’s, ON WRITING: A MEMOIR OF THE CRAFT, in which he discusses in great detail his own journey to writing, his early rejections and road bumps, and offers up countless tips for creatives. I also have a heavily annotated copy of Anne Lamott’s, BIRD BY BIRD: SOME INSTRUCTIONS ON WRITING AND LIFE, which is a beautifully written and completely honest book about how to approach writing (ex: a whole chapter dedicated to “shitty first drafts” [her words, not mine! Ha!]).

Contact Info:

• Website: www.AngelaBrownBooks.com
• Instagram: @AngelaBrownBooks

Image Credits
Photo Credit: Sylvie Rosokoff, 2023