On July 21, 2026, in exactly one year and four days (but who’s counting!), my memoir SOBER MOM will be published by She Writes Press. Yay!
The other day, my dad’s girlfriend asked me, “How long did it take you to write your memoir?” I struggled with the answer because officially, it took me 10 years. Gulp, that’s a long time! But I didn’t want to tell her that in case it discouraged her from writing, and in all honesty, it shouldn’t have taken me that long. I took the scenic route, the road with many U-turns and stop signs, and I got lost along the way, too.
Which got me thinking. It might be helpful to other writers to map out my timeline, so that if you’re interested in publishing, you can see which turns to take and which to avoid!
2015-16: The Beginning of Everything
January 2015 – My friend posted on Facebook that she was taking a memoir class with Project Write Now. I want to write my memoir, I thought, and I enrolled in the class. (I met the indomitable Jennifer Chauhan and thus began my 10-year relationship with my now employer, Project Write Now!)
2016 – An essay I had written as a response to a prompt in the Memoir class was a finalist for a contest. Maybe I am a good writer, I thought. (After many rounds of revision, that essay eventually got published by The Rumpus in December 2023.)
Status of Memoir: Realizing that writing a full-length book was way harder than I originally thought, I decided I just wanted to write and publish essays. I didn’t need to be an author.
2016-17: Learning the Craft
2016 – I continued taking classes at Project Write Now. After Jennifer Chauhan’s Memoir Intensive class, there were several iterations of a Creative Writing Intensive class. (Fellow memoirist Eileen Toomey wrote about these classes for an article in our local paper. Read it here.)
January – June 2017 – Anxious to make real progress on a book, I enrolled in a “Write Your Memoir in Six Months” program with Brooke Warner. But my mother passed away in February 2017, and my writing goals were derailed by grief. I could never get my groove back. Although I enjoyed the program and learned a bunch, I wasn’t able to pull together a cohesive memoir.
Sometime in Mid-2017 – PWN’s Writers Institute hired me as a volunteer. I continued to write and was getting a little more serious at this point. I attended two conferences in the fall of 2017—one at Rutgers and the Sag Harbor Creative Nonfiction Conference. I began to self-identify as a writer.
Status of Memoir: I guess I had to admit that at this point, I did want to write a memoir. (I mean, I signed up for that Write Your Memoir in Six Months program!) I had a bunch of rough chapters but no clear path forward. Life kept getting in the way, and I felt like I just couldn’t get it together.
2018: Finding My Voice
2018 – I continued volunteering for PWN’s Writers Institute while taking classes. Melissa Febos came to Project Write Now, and in response to my question about worrying that other moms would judge me after reading my deepest darkest secrets in my memoir, she said, “Fuck the PTA moms,” a sentiment I repeat to myself often.
Status of Memoir: I had at least 20 chapters, which was starting to feel like an actual book. But I got sidelined figuring out what exactly my story was. I was realizing I might have two memoirs to tell—one about my recovery from alcoholism and one about the loss of my siblings.
2019-20: The Pause
2019 – My part-time job as an administrative assistant phased out when my boss retired. As my kids grew older and more self-sufficient, I felt the need to secure a more stable career. I stopped volunteering and taking classes at Project Write Now. But I didn’t totally give up. An essay I’m proud of, “How to Set the Dining Room Table,” got shortlisted for Caligibi‘s Macron Prize.
2020 – The pandemic hit, and not much happened. I’m forced to admit that my issue with getting writing done is NOT that I don’t have enough time. Instead of writing, I binge-watched “Dawson’s Creek.” Things were weird.
I kept a toe in the writing water, though. A flash piece, “Just Breathe,” was published by Pangyrus.
Status of Memoir: During these years, there was no forward progress. My memoir sat in a drawer. Well, really, in a file folder on my computer. Again, I thought: Maybe I’m just an essayist.
2021-22: Finally, A Draft
2021 – At the end of 2021, a colleague floated the idea of my joining a new yearlong writing program, Memoir Incubator, developed by bookinc.org, an arm of Project Write Now that focused on book-length projects. I responded to his email by saying, “I’m not against writing a memoir … “
January – December 2022 – I enrolled in the Memoir Incubator. I loved being a part of a writing community, sharing resources and cheering each other on. But I was still procrastinating writing my damn memoir. Thank god for the deadline, a date by which I needed to submit an actual draft to my cohorts. That deadline forced me to finally compile all my previously written scenes, establish a narrative arc, and eliminate scenes that belonged in Memoir #2.
Status of Memoir: By September 2022, my memoir had officially become a draft with a beginning, middle, and end.
2023-24 – There’s a Draft, Now What?
January – July 2023 – I joined bookinc’s newly developed Book Revision Lab and started the arduous work of revising my memoir.
May 2023 – October 2024 – I sporadically queried agents, about 25 in total. I received only two responses:
“Unfortunately, although we’re glad to read of your recovery, we’re not persuaded that we can sell your work in this very competitive market and so cannot offer representation.”
Another simply said, “Memoir doesn’t sell.”
January 2024 – I became the Peer Artist Leader for the Memoir Incubator. I was officially working on Memoir #2, which focused on the topic of grief. Additionally, this month, I joined the Book Submission Lab and refined my query package for SOBER MOM.
Status of Memoir: It felt like a complete draft, but no one wanted to publish it. The process of querying agents was soul-crushing.
2024-25: The Breakthrough
November 2024 – After learning about a fellow bookinc writer’s positive publishing experience with the hybrid publisher She Writes Press and watching a presentation given by Brooke Warner on the paths to publication, I considered the hybrid publishing path. I kept stalking the website to learn about their submission process. I saw that if you submitted your manuscript, you would be put on one of three tracks: 1) ready to publish, 2) needs a developmental edit, or 3) declined.
I thought, Well, let’s just see if my manuscript needs a developmental edit, and I submitted my book proposal to She Writes Press in November. When I received notice in December that I had passed the first round of cuts, I became more serious about pursuing this publishing route. I passed my book off to a trusted friend who is a reader, not a writer, and said, “Is this good?” She responded, “Yes.”
January 2025 – On January 6, I got the news that She Writes Press would publish my memoir. No developmental edits needed, only copy edits. The cost? $10,000, and that didn’t include additional costs like publicity and a DIY book tour. Was it worth the expense?
I talked with my husband to see if our family could afford the publishing costs. Once we realized we could, I made the decision that my memoir was worth it; it deserved to be in the world. I signed the contract.
Status of Memoir: It’s happening! My memoir, titled SOBER MOM, will be published on July 21, 2026.
What Comes Next: My Editorial Calendar
Once I signed the contract, I received an editorial calendar from my project manager at She Writes Press. Stay tuned to my next Journal post to learn about that timeline. Spoiler alert: It’s a lot slower than I’m comfortable with!
What I’ve Learned So Far
Looking back at this timeline, I see all the detours and delays that felt frustrating in the moment but were actually necessary parts of my journey. The classes that taught me craft, the rejections that built up necessary callouses, the pandemic pause that gave me perspective—they all led to this moment.
And I know that this journey is not yet over. I’m learning a ton about the publishing process, about blurbs and ARCs and warehouse inventory. I’m eager to share what I’m learning with you in this column, The Inside Scoop.
If you’re working on your memoir or novel and wondering if it’s taking too long, remember: there’s no such thing as the “right” timeline. Some writers finish their books in a year; others take a decade, like me! What matters is that you keep showing up to the page, keep learning, and keep believing in your story.