Social media is a weird, weird little thing, isn’t it? (I think we can all agree)
I’ve seen people go back and forth about how useful it is for authors to have a presence there, so I want to add my voice to the conversation, because without Twitter/X I truly might be in a different place in a few significant ways.
Heads up: This post isn’t full of analytics. Or graphs. Or statistics or conclusions about how “effective” social media is at helping people out in their careers, book sales, or anything else. IT IS PURELY ANECDOTAL (ya know, just setting expectation for my numbers friends, heh heh). But I can personally say that without Twitter, I would literally be in a different place in my life.
The BBC interview & more
Once upon a time, I wrote a poem.
I’m mainly a novelist, but occasionally, when I’m really feeling the feelings, I write a poem. It was 2023. My sister Heidi had died in August of 2022, and 7 months later, I was still in a dark season of grief over losing her.
I remember just sobbing and sobbing in the shower, and as I cried, these words sparked in my head: “If you have the curse of advance notice, throw a party.”
That’s what we did for Heidi; she wanted a party, i.e. a “living funeral,” before she got too weak to celebrate. And suddenly, I hate to write about that.
I went straight from the shower to the laptop and pounded out this poem, Advice for the Dying. I didn’t think it was any good, but it was exactly what I needed to write—cathartic, like channeling all my sorrow into words. It just so happened that the Saturday following, I was attending an Art Salon with friends, and at the last minute, I decided to share my poem there.
To my utter astonishment, after I read my piece, people were moved to tears right in front of me. This isn’t a fake humble moment where I already knew this poem was so great and was going to touch people—no. I was honestly taken aback. In my mind, it was a but dry and utilitarian… but based on the reactions I got, I started to think that maybe there was something in this poem that people could connect with?
The next day, I tossed it up on Twitter. What followed … blew me away.
It was a deluge of views, comments, and people moved to share their own stories about death and loss. I’ve never been so touched or uplifted in a comments section on social media as I was that day and in the days following.
Months later, someone from the BBC stumbled across it and commented on it. I’m grateful to this day that I even saw her comment and followed her, enabling her to DM me this:
One thing led to another, and I found myself booked on the historic radio show The Woman’s Hour on the BBC. It was an incredible experience to get to talk about Heidi’s death, and the living funeral that we threw while she was still alive to celebrate her life.
You can listen to a piece of my little segment here.
After that, the story circulated online, The Morning X radio station reached out, and I did an interview with them…
…and then The Daily Blast talk show reached out and I got to talk about Heidi on live TV—a lovely experience that I still can’t believe happened.
And it all started with a poem on Twitter.
The job
As I was looking for jobs as a literary agent toward the end of last summer as my 1st internship neared its close, I mostly operated through email. I’d send an introduction “hi, you don’t know me but I admire your agency, etc” to whoever seemed to be the person in charge at the agency, and attach my resume, and … let’s just say there were lots of crickets.
I happened to follow Michelle Hauk from Storm Literary on Twitter, and (so lucky) she followed me! So I DM’d her and asked if Storm was hiring. It wasn’t.
BUT. About five months later, she DM’d me back and told me to contact her boss Vicki if I was still interested, because Storm was looking to expand.
WELL HELLO. I was definitely still interested. Ehem!
Vicki responded with a request for an interview. She hired me as an Associate Literary Agent in January 2024, and here we are.
This job has been completely life-changing for me. I know that sounds dramatic, but for 20 years, I’ve been working to pay the bills and doing all the things I love on the side. To be able to work doing something I love? To wake up and know that today I GET TO DO x y or z, whether it’s talking to an author, reading queries, building a sub list or sending an edit letter on a manuscript? Guys guys guys. I don’t have the words to adequately describe how different life feels. It is night and day. I wake up every day with a glow of anticipation over the work I get to do.
And as over-the-top Pollyanna-ish as this may sound, you’ll have to trust that this is not an exaggeration—(plus, y’all should know at this point I don’t f&%* around about feelings ;).
Thank you, Michelle! And Vicki! And… Twitter.
The book deal
So this is the one I can’t give too much detail about for *publishing reasons,* BUT rest assured that without Twitter, I would not have sold my 3rd book. Via a crazy string of circumstances, tweets and DM’s, I was made aware of a UK editor looking for *something,* and I thought I might be a match. (Spoiler alert, this Big News is dropping later this week, so stay tuned!)
We connected, and one thing led to another (so sorry I can’t be more specific here but, again, publishing), and long story short… I ended up with a book deal.
I owe a million thanks to Danai Christopoulou, my agent sibling extraordinaire who connected me with the tweet in question, my editor (who I will finally get to name and scream about on Thursday!) and … Twitter.
In Conclusion
I know a lot of people have left Twitter/X for *musky* reasons, and I get that. But based on all the good things that have come into my life via this weird little ex-bird app… I’m probably going to stay until it literally falls out from under me.
After all, who knows what other magic connections might happen.
What about you all? Have you experienced any magical connections through social media that just wouldn’t have happened otherwise? Do tell…
I have met a ton of writers, of course, in the writing community. However, I was fortunate to make friends with an Ottawa writer. That friendship led to a partnership with him and a bunch of other authors that put together an anthology. It was my first entry in the horror genre, and it was a blast from start to finish. The book was called Remnants and was the brainchild of Stephen Coghlan.
https://www.amazon.com/Remnants-One-Stephen-Coghlan/dp/1956492062
That is one of the good things Twitter did for me.
I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your sister (sending lots of hugs). I'm looking forward to hearing your news on Thursday! :)