I used to go to an urban writers’ colony to work on my memoir and poetry, surrounded by novelists, memoirists, poets, screenwriters, playwrights, travel writers, and journalists. I had published articles, essays, and poems but no books. I decided it would be a good idea to join Facebook like my writers’ colony friends. I added family, friends, and colleagues. I posted cute status updates about playing with my nephew and eventually news about my first published memoir. Now I share links to my books, essays, and poems and many, many photos of flowers. I only friend people I know offline. It works for me.
A classmate at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism became a bestselling novelist and he wanted to help me promote my memoir. He helped me design my cover and he encouraged me to join Twitter. I took his advice as gospel and set up an account. I quickly found my voice writing micro poems like: winter I am a sleeping bear/spring I am a singing bird. It may not have been what my friend imagined but I was prolific. I thought up tweets on my long walks in Central Park and posted them through the app on my iPhone. Tweets crowded out more complex thoughts. I thought in short, simple bursts that met the platform’s requirements. I followed a mix of published and unpublished writers and poets and they followed back. I even started a literary magazine and published micro poetry, prose, and humor that I found on Twitter. I gathered over a thousand followers and I hoped they would buy my book. When it came out I promoted my readings and honors and the crowd pushed back. Followers complained about people who used Twitter for self promotion. I grew frustrated and deleted my account. Eventually I started another account and began to follow published writers and poets. I tweeted sparingly about my events, publications, and writing workshops. Now I have over one thousand followers again. My followers occasionally like my posts but mostly they leave me alone.
Aspiring poets and writers used to look down on me for working as a financial journalist. This was after covering Latin America, the Middle East, and New York City. When a fashion designer friend invited me to join LinkedIn, I listed my most recent work as a writing instructor and freelance editor but only included one journalism job. I was worried about listing all my journalism jobs going back to my first as a staff writer for an English-language daily in Argentina. I thought I would look less than literary. After all, I had a master’s degree in journalism instead of creative writing. When I found a job writing evaluations for specialty occupation visa applications, I connected with colleagues who were authors, professors, copy editors, content writers, technical writers, and journalists. I finally updated my profile with all of my experience as a teacher, editor, journalist, memoirist, and poet. I feel whole.
I joined Instagram to promote my upcoming memoir, but it soon became a place to share artistic images of mosaics, architectural details, mountains, spring flowers, and poems. Some followers congratulated me when my book came out but hundreds endorsed my artistic photos, including a sketch from a time before writing took over as my way to express myself. I developed crushes on strangers, and was devastated when a young hipster said he stopped posting after his accident. What accident? He didn’t say. He posted a stack of selfies and when I flipped through I saw his prosthetic leg. I didn’t know what to say to this stranger who had suffered like this. I also found several women who lost hundreds of pounds and had their loose skin removed. I even followed the cast of a teen television series I binge watched over and over, a guilty pleasure like Boston Cream donuts. One of the actors from the show posted wise words from O. Henry: ‘Write what you like; there is no other rule.’
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Karol Nielsen is the author of the memoirs Walking A&P and Black Elephants and three poetry chapbooks. Her first memoir was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her full-length poetry collection was a finalist for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. Her poem ‘This New Manhattan’ was a finalist for the Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.
Image created on WOMBO
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