My Career Transition from Writing Instructor to Published Novelist

I never, ever considered teaching writing—not once. The mere chance of being forced to re-read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness gave me everything I needed to choose journalism, and then publishing, over the classroom. So, twenty-five years into my career, when my manager at an education company asked if I could teach creative writing to high schoolers, I shook my head.  She finally convinced me that it would never involve Conrad’s novel. That’s when I began to see that guiding teens in discovering their writing voices would educate me in more ways than I could ever teach them.

Let’s face it, even as professional writers, many of us don’t spend significant amounts of time breaking down the foundations of the craft. The act of understanding and then implementing story structure, try/fail cycles, situational irony, or juxtaposition is reserved for those deep in an MFA program or finishing up an English degree. Much of what we do in the process of storytelling is pantsing it. We put words down on paper and hope that typing “The End” after 394 pages means that the story is finally finished.

There is no pantsing it when it comes to teaching. In fact, if you sat in on a class of mine this afternoon, you would hear these very words, “There are no pantsers here, only plotters.” The kids hate it, but they know I am right. Without the understanding of story structure, of how to lay down a path to create situational irony, of how a piece of literature is transformed by the choice of narrative point of view and a dozen other structural choices along the way, you cannot write well.

Teaching forced me, in many ways, to become a better writer. I could no longer singularly rely on instinct or hunch, what felt right, to tell stories. That allowed me to develop a deep respect for the process and the people it NEEDS to involve—developmental and copy editors who see flaws a writer is too close to notice. That is what transformed me, I believe, into a published novelist. 

As I continue to interweave those paths of educator and storyteller in my life, I find myself deeply engaged in a constant learning process. My students challenge me to empower them with diverse and complete toolboxes. They teach me patience and humility. My writing challenges me to lay down the foundations of a good book before indulging in the research and imagination that define my storytelling voice. That combination, for me, is gold. It brings with it a deep respect for student and professional. While there is a structural foundation for storytelling, it is that freshness of ideas and interpretation that keeps the formulas from becoming cliché. To stop learning is to stop creating. As for Conrad, well, he and I have made our peace with the literary wounds he inflicted on me thirty years ago, sort of.

Novelist Robin Rivers obsesses over stories of lost times and nerds out in the realm of all things historical, fantastical, female, and mythological. She spends her days in a literary universe best described as slipstream — a mix of historical, magical realism, and haunting romance.  When not writing, she helps young writers learn the craft as the CEO of Quill Academy of Creative Writing. Her wee family and Hypatia, their sphynx cat, tolerate her most of the time. She lives and writes on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples in Vancouver, Canada. Find her on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

Claudia Lux on Getting Comfy In Hell

Wellness is trending. We know this, we see it all the time in our feeds: juice cleanses and yoga pants, keto recipes and tests to determine what kind of animal we should be sleeping like. Most recently, it seems to be the concept of “work/life balance.” Like most of the social-media-packaged “wellness” trends, this is a lot easier to achieve in theory (or on camera) than it is in practice, and often leaves us feeling crappy when we fail. Because what exactly does work/life balance mean? Is it about the time one spends at work versus the time one spends on the couch? (But what if a person works from their couch??) Is it about productivity, or sense of purpose, or simply getting through each day without fantasizing about driving off a bridge during the commute? For all the talk about the benefits of work/life balance, the barometer for success in this arena is suspiciously absent. I know I’ve found myself wishing for endless time, so I can buckle down and figure it out. 

But more time is not always the answer.

In my debut novel, Sign Here, Peyote Trip lives in Hell, literally, and spends his days working in the Deals Department, making deals in exchange for souls. He has nothing but time. But instead of giving him the breathing room to determine the best energy flow in his wall-to-wall carpeted (including the bathroom!) micro-studio, the endless time is his primary torment. Because truthfully, endless time—along with the lack of an exit—is terrifying. Even more so, in my opinion, than time running out. 

When I started writing, I knew I wanted Peyote’s endless Hell to be an office space. So many of us are accustomed to the low-grade hell that is a 9-5. We know the feeling of a meeting that goes on forever without accomplishing anything, a boss who doesn’t listen, a coworker who hits on everyone at the office Christmas party. A coffee machine that never works, the permanent funk of microwaved broccoli in the kitchen. But one thing I realized when I began crowd-sourcing hell details from the people around me, is the unifying power of humor. People got into it. I would start a conversation with a couple of friends and soon the whole bar or dog park would be a jumbled mess of stories and laughter and communal groans as strangers clambered to commiserate together. They were all talking about the ugliness that mars their lives, but the collective result was something beautiful. 

So I’ve come up with an answer to the questions generated by wellness posts and “should you sleep like a wolf or a dolphin?” tests. The questions I used to bury myself with as proof that I wasn’t balanced, and therefore broken. 

Ready? 

Tell other people about the shit that you hate. Listen to what they hate and agree with abundance. High five over it, send memes that capture it, joke about it. Revel in each other’s hells. Because all of it is life, even work. And being alive is something we have in common, but only for now. 

Even when it’s ugly, that’s pretty damn beautiful. 

Claudia Lux is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, and has a master’s in social work from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts. Sign Here is her first novel.

Why Visible Queer Physicians Matter

As only one of five women in a medical school class of 100 in Salt Lake City, it was too risky to be out as a lesbian to most of my fellow students and professors. Here is a short excerpt from my book, Making the Rounds: Defying Norms in Love and Medicine:

My roommate Arlis and I were walking from our apartment to the anatomy lab when several of our Mormon classmates caught up and walked beside us. Looking over their lab coats, clean and pressed by their wives, I became uncomfortably aware of mine: greasy and wrinkled and reeking of formaldehyde. 

Muttering to no one and half joking, I lamented, “I need a wife.” 

Arlis heard me and said loudly, “What about that woman in San Francisco?” 

…This was Utah in 1971. I hadn’t known until this moment Arlis was on to me. I questioned her motives. We were both competitive. If it became known to my professors I was a lesbian, they could make it even harder for me in medical school. My face burned, and I said nothing—just pulled my greasy lab coat tighter around me and walked on in silence. I detected a faint smirk on Arlis’s face. 

That morning, I decided I’d better find a more compatible roommate and better cover. I’d begun getting to know David, one of the other ten non-Mormons who I suspected was gay. 

I invited David to share an apartment with me and he agreed. People would assume we were in a romantic relationship; in Utah, we would be a scandalous couple living together in assumed sin. But at least we wouldn’t be in danger of being ostracized for being queer, compounding the discrimination I felt as a woman in a nearly all-male profession. There were few women, let alone visible lesbians, who could serve as role models for me.

Times have certainly changed since I started medical school in the early 1970s. Nevertheless, LGBTQ+ medical students, and doctors still weigh the benefits and risks of being openly visible. A survey of graduating medical students as late as 2010 showed that 30% kept their sexual orientation a secret due to fear of discrimination.

LGBTQ+ people, who I will refer to with the current umbrella term “queer,” comprise every race, ethnicity, religion, age, and socioeconomic group and are estimated at 5% of the population of the US. However, we are disproportionally affected by lack of access to health care and health insurance, and the impact of societal biases on physical and mental health and well-being.

Queer youth are at a higher risk for substance use, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), cancers, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, obesity, bullying, isolation, rejection, anxiety, depression, and suicide as compared to the general population. Up to 40% of homeless youth are queer usually due to familial rejection. To cope with stress and discrimination these young people are more likely to engage in risky behaviors and self-medicate with smoking, alcohol, and drug use. Queer youth receive inferior quality of care due to stigma, lack of healthcare providers’ awareness, and insensitivity to their unique needs.

Queer adults also have poorer physical and mental health and a higher incidence of preventable illness and substance abuse. Significant shares of our community report negative experiences when seeking care, including disrespectful treatment from providers and staff.

A few years ago, a study showed positive role modeling by, and increased interaction with, queer physicians decreased both implicit and explicit bias among medical students toward the patients they serve. Doctors with such exposure are more likely to perform more comprehensive patient histories, hold more positive attitudes toward queer patients, and possess greater knowledge of our unique health care concerns. 

Early in my career as a doctor, it outraged me that I was denied disability insurance with the explanation that women doctors were more likely to become depressed and alcoholic (due to discrimination). Later, after the passage of Title IX, prohibiting discrimination in education based on sex, many more women entered medicine. This correlated with improved outcomes.

For example, if you’re a woman needing surgery, you may be far better off in the hands of a female, rather than a male, surgeon. A study recently published in JAMA Surgery reviewed outcomes for more than 1.3 million patients and found that women were 32 percent less likely to die (and 16 percent less likely to experience complications) if treated by a female surgeon rather than a male one. We are more likely to follow guidelines, collaborate with specialists and ask patients about social circumstances that may affect their health; we also spend more time with patients. 

I can’t help but believe the visible presence of queer doctors, especially in positions of power in more medical schools and residency training programs, would also improve health care outcomes for queer patients as the increased presence of women doctors did for women’s health care. In choosing my own primary care physician, I not only chose a woman, but also an out lesbian. The health intake form asked about my partner rather than my spouse (although we are now married). Inquiries about whether I was sexually active did not assume I had sex with men. Pre-examination chit-chat, inquiring about life and my relationship with my partner as well as my medical history flowed easily without having to change pronouns or omit relevant information (as I had with previous doctors who were also my peers).

I would wish for my queer sisters and brothers similarly comfortable experiences with their health care providers, so that trust and understanding can begin to improve health outcomes for all. I regret that for most of my medical career I was not able to be a totally-out lesbian until about a decade from retirement--for fear of the very real likelihood of career damage and discrimination. However, society has progressed to the point, that I hope all queer physicians now make the choice to be out and proud.

Patricia Grayhall is a medical doctor and author of Making the Rounds: Defying Norms in Love and Medicine as well as articles in Queer Forty and The Gay and Lesbian Review. After nearly forty years of medical practice, this is her debut, very personal, and frank memoir about coming out as a lesbian in the late 1960s and training to become a doctor when society disapproved of both for a woman. She chose to write using a pen name to protect the privacy of some of her characters as well as her own.  Patricia lives with the love of her life on an island in the Pacific Northwest where she enjoys other people’s dogs and the occasional Orca and black bear.