For most of us November marks the beginning of the holiday season with Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and a calendar chock full of seasonal events.
For writers November is National Novel Writing Month or for those in the know — NaNoWriMo for short. This nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, promotes creative writing around the world. Its flagship program is the annual writing event where participants attempt to pen a 50,000-word manuscript in 30 days. It started in 1999 with 15 participants and has grown to a community of 427,653 writers who participated in 2021.
The Hutchinson Public Library is celebrating National Novel Writing Month with an author presentation by Gretchen Anthony at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 19.
“I was researching ideas for an author program when a patron mentioned Gretchen Anthony’s newest book, ‘The Book Haters’ Book Club,’” said Katy Hiltner, Hutchinson head librarian. “When I learned of the book’s Minnesota connections, I immediately reached out to Gretchen. The timing of the program works out great as it coincides with November’s National Novel Writing Month. I think this will be a fun and inspiring author program for both readers and writers.”
The Twin Cities-based author, wife and mother of three boys said her program is divided into three parts. The first 20 minutes is spent talking about her new book — “The Book Haters’ Book Club” — and what inspired it.
“I show a pretty funny video,” Anthony said.
Next up is a Q&A segment. She described this part as “always fun.”
“I love hearing readers’ impressions, whether they’ve read the book or not. It’s a fun conversation,” she said.
The last third of the program is devoted to a book trivia game with audience involvement.
“It makes for a lot of laughs and I usually bring prizes,” Anthony said.
Since the book’s release in September, Anthony said she was averaging two to three events a week. Things have slowed down a bit with one event a week or weekend through mid-December. She also makes appearances at book clubs, which she joins in-person or on video.
“I like doing that,” she said. “I do a lot of book club events.”
Like many writers, Anthony harbored a dream of writing a novel. She was practical, so after college, she headed to corporate America where she worked in management consulting, marketing and corporate communications. While most people stay within one area, Anthony spread herself and earned experience in all three.
She was working at Famous Dave’s as director of communications for 200 restaurants when they laid off 20% of the workforce including Anthony.
“I led the communications for the big layoff including mine,” she recalled. “As part of my severance package, I worked with a transition coach. I thought my resume looked choppy, but she said, ‘It reads to me like chapters. Your career is a story and these are chapters in your story.’”
It was a serendipitous comment because Anthony told her coach that she had a goal that she had never completed — that of publishing books.
“I had reached all my corporate goals, if I was ever going to write this book, I better get a move on,” she said. “Whether you open the door or not, it swings open and you have to know where you are going to go when you go through that door.”
Anthony’s first published book was “Evergreen Tidings From the Baumgartners.”
“In terms of the matriarch Violet Baumgartner, she is a force to be reckoned with,” Anthony said. “She has been in my head for many years. I wrote another book that was never and will never be published. It was my learning novel. I wrote it and did the good student thing. I took it through master and online classes. That was the book that taught me how to write a novel.”
Anthony had a writer and instructor at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis who read her book and told her to put it in your desk drawer and never look at it again.
“It was in that class, I started ‘Evergreen,” she said. “It was published in 2018.”
While anyone can be a writer, it’s a tough-as-nails field to break into. When it was time to find an agent, Anthony did her homework. She read somewhere that you didn’t have to start worrying until you had received 60 rejections. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if she could handle that. Desire to be a published writer overcame her fear of rejection, so she stepped into the unknown keeping a spreadsheet to track her submissions. She had received 32 rejections when she got an email out of the blue. She had read that if you haven’t heard back from an agent within six weeks or so to consider it a pass. The email was from an agent who she had assumed wasn’t interested, but that wasn’t true. It happened that the agent was in the process of leaving a big New York agency she was with to set up her own agency.
“She signed me as one of her first clients,” Anthony said. “Now she’s huge. She’s brought in partners. It’s pretty crazy.”
Anthony’s commitment to her work has paid off. Her first book, “Evergreen Tidings from the Baumgartners” was a Midwestern Connections Pick and a Best Books Pick by Amazon, BookBub, PopSugar and the New York Post. It was her second book, “The Kids are Gonna Ask,” that was a 2021 recipient of the prestigious Alex Award given by the American Library Association. The annual award recognizes 10 books written for adults that have special appeal to youth age 12 through 18.
“When my agent called with that news (about the Alex Award), I could have stopped writing that day,” she said. It was that big of a deal. “They aren’t kidding when they call them medals. When I opened the velveteen box that weighed about 5 pounds, I wasn’t expecting it. (My agent) said it matters. They would love it more if I was on a bestseller list. My editor was really funny that day. ‘Now you never have to describe yourself as anything other than an award-winning author.’”
Anthony said she often thinks back to the conversations she had with her transition coach and wonders if writing novels is just another chapter in her life book.
“Once a day I wonder if this will be my last day,” she said. “Maybe I don’t want to do this anymore. I love it. You know, I’m not declaring ‘author closed’ by any means. Maybe it’s just one chapter. Maybe there’s something else. I’m not closing the door on that.”
