We recently connected with Joe Wright and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joe, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I would say my most meaningful project to date would be my youth storytelling program. Near the end of 2019, I had to leave a job that meant a lot to me because of problems I had with one of the partners on that project. Shortly after my fifth book was released and I was kind of trying to figure out what to do next. a friend who worked in education asked me to come and speak at one of the local high schools about being a storyteller and finding success while dealing with ADHD. That went really well, so he asked me to develop a full afterschool type program that expands on my own experience and what storytelling really means, and I would get paid for it, so I thought “Great!”. It wasn’t the only project I had in the works, but it was the only one that came with a guaranteed paycheck, so I was excited and got started right away.
About a month or so later, he ended up ending his own life. Not only had I just lost a friend, but I also lost that guarantee of income that I was depending on.
I was depressed, but I kept working on the program and reaching out to local schools on my own to try and keep the thing alive. Then the pandemic hit and schools shut down.
I didn’t really give up hope, though. I kept developing the program, and decided to continue my education at the same time.
I spent a total of four years building this thing with no clue if I’d ever be able to actually do it. In fact I developed different versions of it depending on the age group, and how much time I’d be given. The focus shifted from my experiences to the connection between storytelling and the human experience. I took it back to the first stories we ever told painted on the walls of caves and explore the history and art of storytelling in all its forms all the way up to TikTok videos. I put so much of my soul into it. But, again, I had no idea if I’d ever be able to show it to anyone.
Then, Spring 2023, I get a message from someone else who knew I’d been working on this asking if I’d be willing to do it as a summer arts program. Needless to say I was overjoyed.
I jumped at the opportunity and sent in the proposal.
My summer program, The Art of Storytelling was a huge success. I’m currently running it as an afterschool program funded by two separate grants at two elementary schools and the local Boys & Girls Club. I’ve been asked to run it as a summer program again, but for four different groups so I’m going to have a busy summer. A local high school has asked me to work it as a tutoring program for next school year, and I’ve been asked by people across the state to bring it to their cities. Also, I’ve recently developed a version for adults, which is identical to the 4th & 5th grade program, finger paint and all, except there’s wine.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I do a lot of things but they all kind of center around storytelling so I consider myself first and foremost a storyteller. I love to talk and write. I also love listening to and collecting other people’s stories. This has always been the case, even when I was very young. Making a career out of it, though, didn’t even cross my mind until I was in my mid-20s. Honestly, this is a difficult question for me to answer, because there is so much that has happened between then and now. Everything that I’ve built and the skills I’ve learned have all kind of been on accident or simply out of necessity. I’m in such a different place now, and I am a completely different person than I was when this journey began. I guess the first step I took was in early 2011. My son had just been born in November the year before and my dad passed away a month later. I realized I wasn’t satisfied just working retail. I wanted to build a career doing something I love, which was writing. I started was working freelance at a local newspaper and was only with them for a few months, but it got my foot in the door. Needing something full-time, I stumbled across a small magazine that was just getting started. The pay was horrible and inconsistent, and the business was not run well at all, but I stayed there for about four or five years because I didn’t know where else to go. To fill the gaps I got jobs in everything from retail to security to car sales.
During this time my journey branched off a bit when I got my first book published. The experience was a total nightmare. The publisher was predatory and I was willing prey. The fact was, though, I was desperate to get published and tired of rejection letters from agents and publishers who had never even glanced at my manuscript. So, when they said they could help me be a successful offer as long as I forked out a couple thousand dollars for marketing, I believed them. That publisher doesn’t exist anymore, fortunately, but there are dozens of predatory publishers who follow the same business model, which lead me to one of my other projects that I’m incredibly proud of. But more on that later.
I’d also begun a journey to understand myself better. I’ve dealt with depression, anxiety, and ADHD my entire life and always felt sort of like a mutant. My entire life people would ask me why I can’t just be normal like everyone else, and I decided to finally try to figure out the answer to that question. I started being open about my experiences and struggles with my own mental health just because I felt like I needed to.
My journey as a journalist felt like it was over after I left the magazine. I was proud of the work I’d done there, and I had become a much better journalist and communicator because of my time there, but ownership of the company had changed hands, and in all those years I’d worked there the pay never improved and remained ridiculously inconsistent.
All my experience did prove useful, though, when I applied to do some coms and PR work for an international trade association that represents companies that grow, transport, and import fresh produce between Mexico and the United States. They were in the middle of working on the NAFTA renegotiations and needed someone with experience who could dedicate time to that. This was another roller coaster of an experience.
For starters, I wasn’t hired for the full-time position I applied for. That job went the grand-daughter of the woman in charge of Human Resources. Instead, I was hired as a private contractor to focus on the NAFTA renegotiations. The whole time I was there I was constantly told how great my work was and how much they needed my skills. I was even told on several occasions that the job would most definitely turn into a full-time position. This caused some conflict with some of the employees who felt I didn’t deserve the job because I didn’t have a college degree and that the company had no need to hire an outsider to work on NAFTA when they could do all the work in-house. And then, even though I was private contractor I was required to work from their office instead of my office at home. Then out of nowhere the company president asked me to leave because my services were no longer needed even though just two days before we’d had a discussion about me becoming a full-time employee. I was only there for nine months, but the skills I built, the connections I’ve made, and all that frustration and uncertainty have pushed me to where I am now.
Once again, I was left unsure of what to do next. All of my experiences up to that point had left me insecure about my skills and hireability. It also left me wondering how I was going to provide for my family. I’d published a total of four books by that point – most of them independently published – but the money that came from them was minimal and generally tapered out after around six months.
It wasn’t long, though, before another opportunity came knocking. One of the guys who’d started that first magazine I wrote for had started a new media project called “We Love Nogales” and asked if I wanted to be a part of it. I’d basically get my own talk show that would broadcast over Facebook Live and YouTube. Of course there was a catch. The company wasn’t even registered as a company yet, and there was no money. So, the idea was that I would host and co-produce my own show, work as an 0n-the-street reported for special broadcasts, AND help them get some advertisers so that we could actually make some money.
Due to my desperation for consistent income and desire to get back into some form of journalism, I jumped at the chance. It was great in that I was doing something I loved and the community was really responding to it. The platform that was started before I joined began to blow up. We’d become one of the top media organizations locally. The work we did was respected and appreciated. But it was also terrible in that the pay was still basically nothing and ridiculously inconsistent. So after a year we parted ways, and it wasn’t on great terms.
That was in late 2019, just before I published my fifth book and started building my storytelling program.
During my first run with We Love Nogales, I’d starting working as a contributor for Futuro Media’s Latino Rebels platform. Since I was born, raised, and worked in a community along the US/Mexico border, the majority of my journalism work has been related to that. In fact, being a fronterizo is one of the core aspects of my entire personality. Latino Rebels allowed me to take my unique perspective and offer it to a broader audience. Anyone who grew up in a border town knows that our voices are rarely allowed to contribute to the larger national discussion around border issues, so being able to use my voice and my perspective to represent not only Nogales, but all of the cities, towns and wildlife that run along our southern border has been one of the greatest things about the work I do.
I also got the chance to return to the newspaper where I launched my career, but this time as a regular columnist. My monthly column, The Wright Idea, has been running in the Nogales International for nearly five years now. The themes I right about range from mental health, to immigration, public policy, abuse of power, elections, labor, and even history and philosophy.
As far as my books are concerned, that first experience with a publisher traumatized me so much that I haven’t submitted another manuscript to an agent or publisher since. Instead, I decided to use what I’d learned from that horrible experience and combine it with everything else I’ve learned along my journey and apply that to independent publishing. It’s forced me to expand my skill set far outside of my comfort zone, but I’ve learned more and improved with each book.
During the pandemic, as I was building my storytelling program and getting as many professional certificates in as many areas as possible, I had a lot of people who suddenly had a lot of extra time on their hands asking me about the publishing process. My instinct was to warn them away from publishing altogether, which I fought back because I understood what it felt like to have an idea or a manuscript that you desperately want to see bound and sitting on a shelf in a bookstore. But i also couldn’t in good conscience send them to the wolves without any weapons, armor, or at least some guidance.
I”d already given some consideration to the idea that I could use my experience in publishing to help other aspiring authors navigate the perils of the industry. But it was during this period of time that I really started to take that idea seriously. But it had to be in a way that helped me provide for my family while also avoiding the predatory practices that had caused me so much trauma.
Rather than making anything official, I just decided to start helping authors with some of the basics like tips on how to remain focused and consistent while writing, help writing query emails to publishers and agents, help with editing and revisions, and if they managed to get their work published I help them write and distribute press releases and to plan book launch events. The only thing I’ve charged for thus far are the press releases.
Stll, I wasn’t really thinking about making my publishing services a business yet. I just really didn’t want anyone else to fall into the same traps I had. And in late 2022, all that kinda got put on the backburner when “We Love Nogales” asked me to come back with the promise that this time would be different.
This came on the back end of the longest, deepest depression I’ve ever experienced. The book I’d written and published the year prior was a reflection of the depression and utter lack of hope, and readers did not respond well to it. “Too damn depressing to be enjoyable” is what one critic said. And she was probably right. That book is so damn depressing. This only deepened my depression and led to my first two, and so far only suicide attempts. I survived though, and came out stronger in the end, I think. But, because of this I was once again in desperate need of purpose. So I joined the We Love Nogales team again, and hit the ground running.
I wasn’t going to leave anything to fate or put too much faith in people who had proven to be unreliable in the past. I was going to work hard to guarantee success. And I did. So did the rest of the team, too. We wanted to really make We Love Nogales an organization that had a truly positive impact in the community.
Together we made the decision to turn We Love Nogales into a non-profit and we called it Santa Cruz County Public Media. I drafted up some bylaws and articles of incorporation (those certificates in American contract and tax law I got during the pandemic finally paid off) and we submitted them to the IRS. In just a short time we got approved for 501c3 non-profit status. That’s when things really started to accelerate. We then built a solid network of sponsors and donors and began producing even more content. I had my show again, which was great, and I was doing most of the on-the-street reporting, along with hosting and producing special segments with our sponsors.
Things were going amazing. That is until we got to the point where I thought we could start getting paid consistently for our work. It turns out they didn’t feel the same. So, again, we went our separate ways.
That may seem like a terrible, unfair thing, but while we were building the organization, I was also building and expanding on my storytelling programs along with my publishing service. Years ago I created a brand to stamp on my own books and decided to use that as the basis for both. I don’t want to give too much away, but I am currently in the process of turning London Bridge PS into my own 501c3 that will both serve as the platform for which I help writers and authors navigate the publishing process. If they want to seek out an agent or mainstream publisher then I will help them do that. If they want to publish independently, then I’ll help them with that too. Proofreading, editing, formatting, graphic design, marketing, or whatever else an author needs to be successful I will help them with. My hope is to fund the whole thing with grants and donations, but until then I do charge a small fee for the service, but at a fraction of the price that for-profit publishing services offer.
I also plan to bring my storytelling program – “The Art of Storytelling” under the same umbrella. So far I’m only in local schools and summer programs, but I’m having condensed programs that I am willing to take across the country to any school or organization that wants it. There are more plans to expand beyond just myself, but there’s still a lot to do before I can make that a reality.
I still work as a columnist and I’m always looking for more publications or other media platforms to work with. I love sharing my voice and my perspective, especially to advocate for those who need it the most, and to shine a spotlight on abuse, corruption, or incompetence from those who hold the power.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

This is an interesting question for me, because at first there really wasn’t. The original goal was just to write because writing to me is like drinking water. Sure, I might be able to go a couple of days without it, but not doing it begins to take a toll on my body and mind and would eventually kill me. The goal was to be able to provide for my family doing that so I would never have to stop. That goal started out as a blue sky and rainbows type of scenario that I had in my sights without really any idea on how to achieve it. I just wanted to share my voice and my stories. Once I took the first step on my journey it began to evolve. Every rejection letter, every negative experience with a publisher, agent, or employer hammered away at the original goal. With each chapter in my saga the goal morphed and evolved.
Sure, I still just want to share my voice and my stories, but that’s become more of a side quest for me. The mission that drives me is really to help others who may be facing the same things I’ve faced throughout my life. Whether it’s understanding their mental health, or not feeling so alone while dealing with it; trying to make it as an author; or maybe discovering the storyteller, artist, or philosopher inside themselves. That’s what drives me.
My son, who’s birth was one of the events that sent me on this journey, is thirteen now. Seeing him learn about his own mind, and discover his own love of music and art, and being here to help him on his own journey helps to remind me of my mission and recharge that drive every single day.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

So, I don’t actually believe there are any non-creatives. What we consider non-creatives are really those who either had that creative part of them suppressed or were never allowed to discover it in the first place. One of the foundations of my entire philosophy is that there is an artist and a storyteller in everyone. We just need the tools and the time to explore and discover where that is and how it manifests. But, to answer the question, I believe there’s a lot about my journey that many will struggle to understand. Probably the most difficult for them to grasp would be my tendency and impulse to choose passion over profit. I say this because I can’t even count how many times I’ve shared my story and that is something so many just do not get. I was doing a career day at a school a few years back and a staff member asked me how I make money doing what I do, and I explained to her that I often don’t, but that I do it because I can’t possibly see myself doing anything else. Her response was “Wow, Your family must hate you”.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @joewrightwrites
• Twitter: @joewrightwrites

Image Credits
First image: Tamuna Chkareuli