How I Was Saved by a Book
In December 2016 I traveled to Pittsburgh from Rochester, NY, to look at an apartment. I’d been wanting to move back to Pittsburgh for a while, but the cost of living there was comparatively too expensive. Then I found a building of low-income apartments for people on federal disability, which I had been on for a few years as the result of complications from Crohn’s disease. My monthly disability payments were $647 a month; my Rochester rent/utilities were $657 a month, but with SSI, food stamps, Medicaid, and a little help from my dad, I made it work. The low-income apartment in Pittsburgh would be an opportunity to not spend 100% of my available cash on rent.
(Why I Choose to Self-Publish My Writing.)
The apartment itself was fairly conveniently located—several blocks away from the Carnegie Museum of Art and my favorite middle eastern restaurant. I tried to sell myself on these features—its central location on a bus route—but the truth was, the tour of the building was a depressing experience that made my future seem bleaker than ever. First, there were the apartment’s cinderblock walls. Then there was the fact that the residents lived out the remainder of their lives within those walls. It was almost impossible for me to imagine that this building would likely be the last address I’d ever have. Still, it was the best option I had, so I was put on the waiting list, which I expected to be on for upwards of a year.
The people in my tiny circle tried to celebrate this milestone of finding affordable housing and being able to move “home.” But it weighed on me; in many ways it felt like an end rather than a beginning.
At that time I was working a few hours a week at a library, and a few years prior I’d abandoned my decades-long filmmaking dreams and converted my creative energy into writing novels. I wrote six novels over four years, and sent out endless query letters to agents. At the risk of sounding ridiculous, I’d hoped that my writing—something I could work on at home—could become a source of modest income. My research, hard though it was to confirm, led me to believe that advances for traditionally-published novels averaged between $5,000 and $20,000. And that sounded like an incredible influx of cash to have every few years. $5,000 would allow me to catch up on buying all the things food stamps didn’t cover, like bras and shoes, household necessities and toiletries.
Then my life abruptly changed in a way beyond my imagination.
Two months after looking at the cinderblock-walled apartment, I signed with my first agent. And four weeks after that, Baby Teeth sold in a preempt for $125,000—an amount I’d never envisioned or considered possible. That was the most surreal day of my life: I felt spacey with brain fog, and Rochester had had a blizzard the night before and the world outside my windows was silent and dense with snow. The shock of selling the book for six figures was almost too much to process. I knew my life would change, but it’s taken the years since then to fully grasp the magnitude of those changes.
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Needless to say, I was no longer eligible for affordable housing, but a few months later I moved into a nice apartment in my favorite Pittsburgh neighborhood. Technically, that was the second thing Baby Teeth “bought” me, the first being a root canal and crown that I’d put off due to lack of money. Then Baby Teeth bought me my first sofa. That was how I thought of everything then: Baby Teeth bought me every element of my new life.
Shortly after moving back to Pennsylvania I was kicked off of federal disability. I’d been working with organizations in NY, and then PA, that helped people on disability return to the work force, and was promised I’d be able to keep my Medicare for a five-year safety net. But Pennsylvania declared me “cured” of my incurable disease and immediately cut off all my benefits. I had a choice to make: Did I want to fight them, or take the risk that I could continue to support myself as an author?
In certain ways it was good that I was so naïve, as I didn’t know most authors couldn’t support themselves with their writing. But I took the gamble, and became fully self-sufficient for the first time in my life. Learning about the ups and downs of the publishing business has been harrowing at times—it’s a precarious way to make a living. But, through being chronically ill and poor, I’d already learned to take life one day at a time, and now I’m more than six years into a career as a professional author.
I’m writing this from my office—a bedroom in the house I purchased shortly before the pandemic. Right now the school across the street is letting out and squealing kids are piling into their big yellow buses. I’m never unaware that I’m here because of a miracle: My writing bought me a house—a home that enabled me to adopt two cats—and changed everything about how I live. And maybe it isn’t surprising, but I’ve been much healthier since having more money in the bank. Being poor is incredibly stressful, and a lot of life’s little problems can be managed with a bit of cash.
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Publishing a first novel is a noteworthy milestone for many people, but rarely is it something that changes the entirety of their lives. For me, Baby Teeth is the demarcation point between a life of real limitations, and hope for endless possibilities.