I am a writer but I am not an exhibitionist. In about six months, my first book will be released and there are some other projects on the horizon that will likely result in… attention and attention makes me uncomfortable. I am, despite what people assume about me, quite shy and awkward. I confess I am freaking out about what it means to begin to breach what feels like the fairly safe bubble of independent publishing. In my head, I am hiding in plain sight. You see me but you don’t know me. My work is out there but in a measured, modest way. I recognize that these may be delusions I am desperately clinging too, but I need those delusions or I will feel uncomfortably exposed to the elements. I will feel naked.

I am also realizing that for better or worse, my family and friends will soon be increasingly aware my writing is more than “that little hobby” of mine. It is pretty easy to stay under the radar when you primarily publish in literary magazines, particularly very small ones. The reality is that most people don’t read them. We can wax poetically about the vibrancy of literature but that won’t change the fact that there are many well-read people who have never heard of even the biggest literary outlets whose pages we covet. My parents and most of the people in my life read constantly and their awareness of literary magazines generally begins with The New Yorker and ends with The Atlantic.

My writing is not a secret from the people in my life. Many of my friends follow my blog, as does my boyfriend. That’s weird at times but I have no expectation of privacy online. I don’t blog about anything that I wouldn’t want people to know. I simply keep telling myself, again, that I’m hiding in plain sight. It’s my crazy coping mechanism because it’s a fairly open secret that I write. My parents gave me my first typewriter when I was six or seven because they would always find me writing little stories on scraps of paper or napkins or any surface. When my mother found a tiny story I had written on one of the slick pages of the family’s Encyclopedia Brittanica, I think she decided enough was enough, and she and my father endeavored to outfit me properly. Since then, I’ve written more and more and now it would be pretty hard to ignore that my writing is not so much a hobby as it is, perhaps, a vocation.

Many children of immigrants can probably relate to my parents’ attitude that writing is well and good but it is more important to pursue a real career, one that will reliably support me, one that will assure I will always find work. When I decided to switch my college major from Biology (premed) to Architecture and finally to English, my parents were lovingly apoplectic as they worried over my future, how I would support myself and how I could sustain a professional career with a head full of ideas about words instead of, say, something more realistic and responsible like math or science, the law or engineering. They have always been supportive but concerned. They have been supportive, but in many ways, indifferent because they can’t walk into a Barnes & Noble to find something I’ve written and as such, my being a writer is not that tangible. They’re great parents so I don’t really mind their attitude and given the tone of a lot of my writing, it’s kind of a relief. I need their indifference because there’s a safety in that.

I don’t share a lot of my writing with my parents or real life friends. This is not because I am ashamed but rather because in my professional life, creative writing is not considered that relevant and my family is conservative. They would not be thrilled with the graphic subject matters I often take up in my writing. I can just hear my mother reading something darkly sexual in nature and saying, “Ce n’est pas necessaire, Roxane,” it’s not necessary. We have wildly different interpretations of that which is necessary. I keep my parents abreast of the broad strokes of my writing career and gloss over the more specific details. It is a mutually agreeable arrangement where they don’t Google me and I try not to disgrace the family name. So far, this arrangement has worked out quite well but I would be lying to myself to imagine that this arrangement could last forever. Even many years ago, there was an incident where a member of my extended family happened upon some of my words in an anthology and shared them with my parents and it was… uncomfortable encounter. I felt naked.

My parents also have a tendency to confuse autobiography and fiction. While my writing very much tends to draw from my personal life, there is a distinct line between fact and fiction. My parents are often unable to see that line and understand where I orient myself and my writing in relation to that line because, at the end of the day, they love me unconditionally and because of that love, they want to understand me. They have, at times, read a story of mine and proceeded to interrogate me exhaustively as to when each and every incident in a story occurred (See: uncomfortable encounter). That sort of thing is awkward because I either have to admit, for example, that yes, I may have had sex before marriage or I have to admit that yes, my mind is pretty dark and twisted and writing about a brutal kidnapping is something I find interesting and necessary. These are not conversations I want to have with the people who pushed me around in a stroller and put barrettes in my hair and tucked me in every night. These conversations or the anticipation of future such conversations leave me feeling naked in front of the people who know me best and know me least but whose opinion I value the most.

My first book, Ayiti is a collection of short stories and other writings about Haiti and being Haitian from my perspective which is only one very narrow perspective. I am part of the Diaspora. My time in Haiti has always been temporary and privileged. I have questioned my right to write this book over and over. What do I really know about that (my?) country? Ayiti is not the book I ever would have imagined would be my first book. I’m nervous about how my parents will react, how other Haitians will react, how other writers will react, how reviewers will react, how readers will react and, of course WWJD. The whole idea of this book in the hands of others fills me with dread. There’s excitement too, but most days it’s hard to hold on to that excitement. I’m weird. Writers are weird. We write to be read, right? And then we get exactly what we asked for and second guess ourselves. It makes no sense.

I have another collection, Strange Gods that’s about to be shopped to publishers great and small. This book is even more personal than Ayiti. This is that book where I wrote what I know. I think it’s a collection of my best writing. I believe in this book as fiercely as I believe in anything, maybe more. I believe in this book so much I want… no, I need others to believe in it too and to imagine readers not believing in it, leaves me feeling naked in a horrifying way. Most of the stories from Strange Gods are in various magazines but it’s easier to feel less anxiety when each story can be read individually by a handful of people than to consider how the stories will be read when they’re together in one book. As a whole, the book overwhelms me—I read through it and feel something and I can’t quite understand how those words came out of me. It feels like my entire life will be out there, awaiting judgment or derision or disgust. When I imagine my friends and family reading this book my brain basically shuts down. When I imagine anyone reading this book, really, my brain shuts down. And yet, I am putting this book out there. I am willingly, willfully stripping myself for me, for you, for us. I am complicit.

I am on the edge of something indescribable and scary and magnetic. There’s a gravity to being on this edge. With the eventual publication of these two books, I’ll be standing in front of everyone I’ve ever known and everyone I will ever know and everyone I will never know, completely naked. I won’t be able to hide my ugliness and my darkness and my truth and my lies and maybe there will be a glimmer of beauty. The only thing of which I’m uncertain is whether or not I want you to look away.