Aha!

You've Always Had the Power

One night of sleep and more studying and I found some calm about the author bio.

In my initial post for this new Pen and Paper section, I bemoaned my self-loathing while trying to compose an author biography. Eek.

I reached for my copy of Will Write for Food by Dianne Jacob and revisited the chapter on book proposals. When I first read the book, I wasn’t anywhere near ready to absorb the last chapter about how to get your book published. Sure enough, Dianne has all the details. She never steers me wrong.

“A book proposal must answer these questions: Why you, why now, and who cares?”

I started reading a book by Alia Hanna Habib called Take It From Me, An Agent’s Guide to Building a Nonfiction Writing Career from Scratch. The chapter I read this morning included info on, you guessed it, the author biography.

Here’s the Aha moment:

“Tell the story of how you came to your book’s subject…”

Instead of writing a bio in third person and feeling like I’m writing my (lackluster) resumé, I can focus on why I am writing about my subject and why I’m passionate about it.

Oh, I can do that!

Then I remembered my debut post on Substack in March of 2022. It describes the who, what, why, how. It’s my nonfiction origin story. Maybe my bio is mostly written already?

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One of the things I’m concentrating on now in my memoir is how to add my food journey back into it. The last two years of work has zeroed in on the inner workings of my family and my grief, both from living with them and from losing them.

My food essays live in a different folder now and are separate from the work I’ve compiled. How do I weave them back in?

This whole thing started because a woman named Ann Hood read some of my work and told me that the line “Cooking saved me” was my guiding light. As you can see in the above photo, I have that posted on the inspiration board above my desk.

Not knowing nor caring about food until I was in my thirties…taking evening culinary classes while caregiving…attending culinary school…I visualize this little trail of bread crumbs that led to the life I have now, writing about food, using food memories to learn about myself, remember my family.

And now, I understand that when I feel scared, insecure, anxious, I head to the kitchen. When I come across a difficult scene I need to write, I head to the kitchen. When I miss my mom and dad so much it hurts, I head to the kitchen.

I do know what’s required. More sleep. More studying. More mining aha’s.

Maybe some homemade pasta this week? A snacking cake!