Announcing, my forthcoming memoir: MAID: A Single Mother’s Journey from Cleaning House to Finding Home

On June 16th, I celebrated my youngest daughter Coraline’s second birthday. While she opened presents, I relished the memory of her entering my life. She was born a month after I’d graduated college, during a time when I was totally unsure of how I’d find enough work or how to make it as a freelancer. This year, as I watched her eat cupcakes, I felt our journey intensely—how far we’d come since the beginning— in part because that afternoon, I’d accepted an offer with a publishing company, Hachette Books, for my book.
announcementExactly 11 months after my essay about cleaning houses was published on Vox and went viral, I accepted the offer for my memoir—an expansion of that essay. For months, I’d spent what I felt were luxurious hours not writing for pay, but working, quietly at night, with a sleeping baby in my lap, crafting the perfect book proposal with my agent, Jeff Kleinman at Folio. It felt incredibly strange to be going after something I’d wanted since I was ten years old, and at first, I didn’t have much faith in it. For over twenty years, I had been writing, reading, and studying the art of writing. It was shocking to even have an agent.
Three years ago, I shared an essay with one of my writing instructors, Debra Earling, who now heads the creative writing program at the University of Montana. It was a piece called “Confessions of the Housekeeper,” which I’d written in a workshop the semester before. Debra and I met one afternoon at a coffee shop to discuss writing and my application for the MFA program. I timidly handed her the pages from across the table and got up to order coffee. When I returned, she was sitting in the exact same position, but with her hand clasped over her mouth.
“This,” she said, looking up at me. “Stephanie, this is going to be a book.” She went on to describe, in detail, my book tour, and my success, and even my finding love. It rolled out of her, like a fortune. On my walk home, I remember skipping a little. Someone believed in me and in my story.
Fullscreen capture 7162015 24823 PM.bmpI would work on that essay for the next two years, chiseling away at it little by little. When Vox bought it for $500, I about fell over. It seemed a massive amount of money, especially since I had spent the last eight years on assistance programs, and my current hourly wages from various freelancing jobs were about $10.00. I thought it would surely be the most I’d ever receive for my writing. When the essay went viral, with almost 500,000 hits in the span of three days, my career took off. Within two months, accepted a position as a writing fellow with the Center for Community Change, and had several more pieces published, including one through Barbara Ehrenreich’s Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
In May, just before sending out the finished book proposal, I was finalizing a new essay with an editor at the EHRP, which would go on to be published in the print edition of the New York Times. I also sent her my book proposal–all 70-some pages of it–and asked if she might be able to show it to Barbara. Maybe Barbara could possibly read it, or even write a few sentences about it?
Two days later, she emailed back with sentences in quotes from Barbara, my journalist hero, a woman I have long admired:
“We need more books like MAID, with the view from the fridge and under the couch. Stephanie Land has something to teach us about both sides of the inequality divide. Neither is what you are expecting.”
barbaraquoteWith that, MAID became real. My book, my memoir, was finally happening. Not even a week later, I accepted an offer from Hachette Books to bring my story out into the world.
I spent four days talking to editors, publicists, presidents, vice presidents, marketing teams, and senior editors from publishing houses all over the country about myself and my book. I felt so small, just some girl in Missoula, Montana. I paced around my living room, headphones in, gesturing wildly. It seemed unbelievable that I was talking to the very publishers who had been responsible for bringing my favorite writers’ words into the world.
The sleepy Thursday afternoon of Coraline’s birthday was the first day since the publishing conferences had begun that I didn’t have any scheduled calls. The only call came from my agent, asking me what I thought about an offer by Hachette Books. Because four or five publishing houses were about to make a bid, they had made a preemptive offer to take my book off the table, in order to keep it from going to auction.
Hachette had been my last call the day before, and it wasn’t like the others. I talked to a group of four people, and all said they’d reacted to my story differently. Krishan Trotman, who would  become my editor, is also a single mother, and we gave each other a verbal fist-bump. I could tell by her voice that she felt a passion for the message I wanted to share.
During the meeting, I felt comfortable enough to be vulnerable. When they asked me what scared me most about writing this book, I answered honestly and easily. I closed my eyes, breathed in, and told them my fears of not writing the story as it played out in my head. Of not getting it perfect enough. Of jumping into something so huge when I was so small.
When Jeff called the next day to ask if I wanted to accept their (amazing, incredible, beyond my wildest dreams, life-changing) offer, I held my breath.. Alone in my tiny apartment, I said yes.  And then went out to buy cupcakes for Coraline’s birthday.
IMG_9341A couple of weeks after I accepted the offer, Krishan and I spoke again on the phone. “I just have to tell you,” she said. “Our office, our floor, is all open. When we received the news that you’d accepted our offer, everyone jumped up from their desks to cheer, and started hugging each other. Even the CEO of the company came out to give me a hug. I’ve never seen anything like that in publishing before. It was amazing.”
When I told this story to my best friend over a celebration dinner a few days later, she got tears in her eyes. While I’ve told this story several times to friends throughout the last couple of months, I haven’t been able to formally announce it through my platforms. There was a part of it that didn’t feel real unless I talked about it. This summer has been a hibernation of sorts, an internal resting and journeying, knowing that I was going to begin full-time work on the book in the fall. I slowed down with work, and stopped hustling to pitch and publish articles. I gave myself time to mentally freak out. I made some feeble attempts at planning the next two or three years, all the while knowing that I had no way to even imagine it.
While in this limbo period of time, waiting for the publishing agreement to be negotiated, I have worked less, which has meant less income. For most of the summer, the cupboards have been almost bare. Now, I’ll still have to budget, plan, and live the same life we are, but I can buy the groceries I want without feeling anxiety building in my chest as I watch the total increase at the register. I can get the axles fixed on my truck. Hell, I can get a real stereo for my truck. I won’t have to stare at this little piece of paper next to my desk, detailing which bills are due on what date, and for how much, figuring out who I can pay and when, and who I can skip.
I’ve been sitting on this news for so many long days. Publishing this post and sharing it with all of you is what finally makes it real. So I celebrate today with all of you, my friends, and followers, who have stuck with me through all of these years. Thank you for your support. Thank you for reading. I can’t wait to share my book with you. I can’t wait to change the stigma and narrative of single mothers in poverty. I can’t wait to raise my voice for the domestic workers who aren’t paid enough to make ends meet. I can’t wait to bring attention to how the system of government assistance fails millions. And I can’t wait to share my own journey, the moments of heartache and beauty, the bone-numbing exhaustion, the deep love I carry for my daughters, and the pride I feel for having gotten where we are today. With all my heart, thank you for being someone I can share my story with. Thank you for being someone I can depend on to read it. That support will carry me through the next year of this new journey, and writing this book, tentatively titled:
MAID: A single mother’s journey from cleaning house to finding home.
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Writing Out of Poverty. Literally.

Lately I’ve been writing a lot about how it feels to live in poverty. I’ve been published or featured seven times in the last week. I’m waiting on three more to go through edits, and another two to go live. On Tuesday, I’ll stand on a stage in front of a class at the college where I just graduated and give a talk about freelancing. I took that class two years ago.
DSCN1960But that’s not even the biggest full-circle moment. I’m working my way out of poverty by writing about my experiences in it. By opening myself up and taking a risk of admitting to others (namely internet trolls) that I’m still struggling enough to qualify for government assistance, I am getting to a place where I don’t need it anymore.
My first piece through the Economic Hardship Reporting Project was published yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve ever published something that said the words “I’m on food stamps.” Yesterday I wanted to curl onto my knees and heave sobs because of those four words appearing on a website. It was admitting how hard this has been while knowing the journey is almost over.
The piece was about the stigma involved in being on government assistance, or welfare, as most incorrectly call it. It’s about being compared to a wild animal receiving handouts on social media. It’s about feeling that judgment and hatred every time I pay for groceries, or even select items off the shelf.
I can honestly say I’ve never felt encouraged to get a college education as a single mother. I especially didn’t feel encouraged to pursue writing. I felt encouraged to work. I felt like I needed to work as many hours as I possibly could, no matter how low the pay, to get ahead. This is an idiotic system. Why wouldn’t low-income people be encouraged to educate themselves to earn higher wages? Not only was I going to school, though, I was taking out the maximum amount of student loans to pay for our meager fixed expenses like rent, insurance, internet, gas, phone, and utilities. I worked my way through college, and received grants and scholarships, but still ended at $50,000 in debt. Graduating meant failing my family at a chance to own a house.
DSCN1965Without the degree, though, I don’t think I would have stopped cleaning houses. I don’t think I would have thought myself on the same level as the people whose houses I cleaned. I don’t think I would have set my sights on top of the mountain, instead of being okay with remaining in the comfort of the trailhead at a job that required little skill or brain-power. Not thinking, not going to school, only working, was easy.
In a sense, I still feel the pull to get a regular job. I’ve written about this before. I think it’s only because writing is such a hobby to me and I feel like I’m not truly working. What is work, anyway? To a low-income person, it means being on your feet, asking people if you can get them anything, and performing customer service in the most direct way possible. Even if you’re working behind the scenes as a janitor, you still have customers to please.
But we’re all working in customer service. We’re all freelancers. Nobody (hopefully) forces us to work and we can leave anytime. And somebody, somewhere, appreciates the work we do, even if they don’t notice it.
I’m sitting in a café right now. I have a store-bought coffee sitting next to my laptop. I’m waiting for emails from editors, sending off essays, and fielding comments on my social media platforms. Last night I stayed up until 2 in order to meet a deadline. The work is constant, a mad dash, and a delicious hustle.
I just found out The Guardian’s running my op-ed tomorrow.
I think I deserve the night off.
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Make. Good. Art.

Neil Gaiman’s commencement speech to the University of the Arts found me a couple of years ago. At the time, I’d just lived through the equivalent of a mother’s existential dilemma. I have a scattering of essays I’ve tried to write about that time, those months, but keeping it in my past has been enough. We’ve recovered. Well, we still work at recovering.
Snapshot_20130319_1Pursing an art degree as a single mom has always been a struggle for me. Not just in the act of going to school. I felt like my status as a solo mom and a low-income one at that didn’t allow me art degrees. I thought I should be getting a two-year degree for a fast-track path to getting a job as an administrative assistant. Anything that would earn me an 8-5 office job with some benefits and enough pay to just barely not qualify for government assistance. And that would be my life. I’d wake up, get the kids ready, and go to work.
But that’s never been my life.
Working as a freelancer adds a special sort of stress. Yes, you make your own hours, are your own boss, and don’t have to ask permission to take a day off. But you don’t apply once for work. You apply again and again. You have work disappear and you have no one to go to for more hours. It’s up to you to get out there, promote yourself, and earn their trust that you’ll do a good job.
Two weeks ago I wrote about feeling despaired over not having any work. In the last week I’ve started my position at an academic writing firm with a vengeance. I have one client I’ll write content for. ESME.net asked me to write a few pieces for them. And I still have my editing job with MissoulaEvents. It’s finally enough for the words “I WORK” to flash in my mind. It’s a sense of pride to pay the bills and have a little bit left over. It’s a sense of hope to think I might be on track to having enough to pay off the debts I’ve been making minimum payments on to keep in good standing.
It’s a sense of maybe feeling like my refusal to sink into a full-time office job until I retire, get tattooed all over my arms, and stubbornly try to hack a writing career out of nothing but my own determination was a pretty awesome idea. That’s always been my mountain, like Gaiman speaks of.
Then this happened.
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It’s like a nod. A congratulatory nod. It’s a blessing. Not because I’ve made it to the top of the mountain. I’m nowhere near it. But I kept trekking. I keep trekking.
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"Coraline looks like a real name…" -Neil Gaiman

“I hope you’ll make mistakes. If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something. And the mistakes in themselves can be useful. I once misspelled Caroline, in a letter, transposing the A and the O, and I thought, “Coraline looks like a real name…”
And remember that whatever discipline you are in, whether you are a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a designer, whatever you do you have one thing that’s unique. You have the ability to make art.
And for me, and for so many of the people I have known, that’s been a lifesaver. The ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times and it gets you through the other ones.
Life is sometimes hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do.
Make good art.”
-Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Keynote Address, University of the Arts, 2012

Emilia and Coraline

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