When I learned my debut story collection was going to be published, my excitement quickly unraveled into streams of panic. Why did this celebratory moment suddenly feel so alarming?
Maybe it was because the stories had accumulated over years, written through various life phases — single, married, new mother, middle-aged. The collection bound together a range of where I’ve been rather than capturing a single moment in time, and this raised a question of identity — who was I now, when I stepped out of my walk-in closet turned writing office? And who was I supposed to be as a debut author? I’d longed to integrate my writing identity with my community engagement work that I do through Poetry on the Streets. But this was yet another self, and I was unsure how these parts fit together.
Whenever my family starts a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, my husband insists on throwing away the box so we can’t see the final image. For him, the pleasure comes from the process of discovery as the picture slowly emerges. This method makes me anxious, and I peek along the way. When I called my writer friends and asked to hear about their debut experiences, it felt like this, an urgent need to understand a larger picture through gathering friend-shaped pieces of the puzzle. Desperate to make sense of my unease, I took notes, scribbling down the generous wisdom and advice they imparted. My trepidation provoked gentle laughs and reassurances — It’s a great thing! Be excited! But, I was still wary.
Some of my friends offered practical advice, sharing notes on publicity tactics, timelines of to-dos leading up to publication. Others offered thoughts on craft, ordering a collection, discerning patterns and themes. And, others were philosophical, suggesting limitless possibilities of where one’s art can lead, investigating how to stay true to oneself and the work. Each conversation helped quiet the alarms.
But, three pieces of advice, offered by three different friends, resonated deeply and inspired new feelings of excitement and possibility:
1. “Publishing a book gives you a platform and you can use that to share whatever you’re passionate about, to talk about things, anything at all, that you really care about!”
2. “Think of going out with the book as one of your community projects!”
3. “Your art can be more than the book! It can take you to new places, new people.”
Their advice felt like permission to bring my full self into this book launch, regardless of how many hats I wore or how many phases of life the collection contained. The notion that publishing a book could fuel my community work and expand beyond itself was thrilling. This new perspective felt like it offered the potential to unlock this divide between seemingly disparate selves.
But what did that mean in terms of moving into a more public realm? As someone who never enjoyed the spotlight, why did publishing a book have to change this? At age seven, I won our town’s coloring contest, and a photographer came to our house to take my picture for the local newspaper. I hid under our dining table and refused to come out. The irony isn’t lost on me. It’s not that I want to hide now. I’m eager for my work to reach as wide and far as possible. I’ve taught for decades and am comfortable speaking in front of others. But I still pictured myself curled under that dining table whenever I imagined a book launch.
After reflecting on the notes from my conversations with friends, I realized the problem had to do with my faulty idea about what it meant to go from “writer” to “author.”
Becoming an author doesn’t mean adopting a new persona or enjoying the spotlight blinding me to whoever’s out there behind the glare. Rather, it means finding the courage to follow my friends’ advice, to “… share whatever you’re passionate about …” to think of it “… as one of your community projects” and to let it be “ …more than the book.” To bring my full self to the party. To me, this meant integrating the things I’m most passionate about, the projects I create through Poetry on the Streets, engaging communities in self-expression and bringing everyday people’s words into public spaces.
In 2017, I set up a typewriter in public spaces on city streets, inviting passersby to write a spontaneous poem about an emotion word. From this, Poetry on the Streets was born. For three years, people from different walks of life stopped and wrote about love, fear, pain, pleasure, loss, joy — strangers shared emotions, stories and moments of human connection. Poetry on the Streets has developed many projects since, and at its core holds the belief that everyone has a story, everyone has a poem inside, and asks, How many strangers’ stories do we pass by each day on the street and what if we stopped to listen?
Connecting people through self-expression is something I care deeply about. So I created The Community Poem Project, to accompany my book launch. The Community Poem Project invites people to contribute one line to a growing collaborative poem written by everyday voices across the country on themes of connection.
Notecards with QR codes will be handed out at readings, and each book will include a one as its bookmark. Some of the prompts are: “What does connection mean to you?” “What do you need?” “What do you miss?” “What do you love?” “Connection is … feels … looks like …” “I need more …” “I need less …” “I hope …” “I fear …” “I love …” “I carry …”
Once the poem grows large enough, the goal is to transform it into a physical exhibit in a public space, where strangers’ words are displayed for others to see and add to.
Putting together a picture of a debut experience that feels aligned has turned the panic into flutters of excitement. Just as my collection binds together stories from multiple phases of life, my book launch will also integrate multiple passions. My aim is to create gatherings and events that encourage interaction between strangers, that remind us of being human, where the spotlight blinds no one, but rather brings us closer together. I’m excited to incorporate these various parts as I return to my friend’s advice, “Your art can be more than the book!”
If you are a debut writer who receives publishing news that should make you cheer but instead sets off alarms, (First, congratulations! Second, it’s a great thing! Be excited!), I hope some of these ideas help add a piece to your own puzzle as you bring whoever you are to your own launch, and find the courage to make it whatever you want it to be.
Melanie Pappadis Faranello is the author of the story collection, “Everybody Needs Something,” which received the 2025 Donald L Jordan Prize for Literary Excellence from Columbus State University Press. Her stories and essays have appeared in Swamp Pink, Electric Literature, Hippocampus Magazine, StoryQuarterly, Blackbird, HuffPost Personal, Vol 1 Brooklyn, Vestal Review and elsewhere, and have been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize.
Originally from Chicago, she lives outside of Hartford, Conn., where she works as a teaching artist and creates projects through her initiative Poetry on the Streets, a community engagement project. She is at work on a novel. Read more of her work online at www.melaniefaranello.com.
