We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sam Tschida a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sam thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

In 2008 I found myself working at a law firm in downtown Minneapolis. I was in an office with maybe ten other lawyers doing document review on contract; i.e no bennies, to support a big class action. “Big case” and “class action” makes it sound kind of sexy, like I was part of a John Grisham novel, but it wasn’t anything like that. Doc review is lawyer scut work, doom scrolling through things like insurance documents for eight hours a day looking for anything that might be used for evidence. It’s doom scrolling with zero endorphin hits. My officemates and myself all had the misfortune to be looking for jobs during the Great Recession. Two of the law schools in the Twin Cities had closed or were about to and the big firms had just laid off a ton of lawyers. The environmental nonprofits I’d hoped to work for were not expanding. My future as a lawyer was bleak unless I moved, but my husband at the time was not wiling to leave the Twin Cities. I had boxed myself into a life I didn’t want. Sitting with the consequences of my own decisions, each of which had made less space for creativity and motherhood, gave me the motivation I needed to get the fuck out of the cubicle. This job wasn’t the first time I’d had this impulse. While I was supposed to be studying for the Bar the year before, I had written most of a comedic mystery. Sitting in that sterile office in a pair of khaki maternity pants. I decided to finish it.

Sam, 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 a romcom mystery author. Siri, Who Am I? came out in 2021. It’s a book about an influencer with amnesia who has to put her identity back together through her Instagram posts a la Memento. Errands and Espionage is about a divorcee who is recruited for an undercover spy mission. I have two more books coming out next fall, and hopefully more soon.

Besides writing, I run Smut University, an online writing community with weekly classes, morning writing sessions, guest speakers, and general support for authors. All genres welcome. I just thought the name was funny.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Every time I write a whole book that isn’t published and then I write another one. I can’t say that doesn’t hurt, but if you want a career, you keep going. I think most authors with lengthy careers have books under the bed. Just take that 80,000-word hit and keep going. Or you can self publish, but that sounds hard.

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

I just watched part of a David Sedaris Masterclass where he described his daily writing life. I would have watched the whole thing, but I’d already finished making the spaghetti. He writes from 10 to 1:30 every day. For most of the afternoon, he picks up trash. Before dinner, but very seldom after, he writes for another hour. This resonated because it roughly lines up with my schedule, with the notable exception that David Sedaris seems to be picking up public trash and I’m just picking up stuff that my kids left lying around.

I should listen to some business masterclasses, but I’m going to watch the rest of David Sedaris’s advice next time I cook. If you want to make money, you shouldn’t take any of my recommendations. I almost always put the writing ahead of marketing and business concerns. There’s some logic to that: what’s there to sell if you don’t have a product? But, I would probably do better to balance business and art. Instead, I’m just out here picking up trash and making jokes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.samtschida.com
• Instagram: @therealsamtschida
• Facebook: Sam Tschida
• Other: www.samtschida.substack.com

  @therealsamtschida on TikTok

Image Credits

They’re just snapshots from my phone.