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Trusting the Process: Emma Pattee

Madison Utley speaks to debut author Emma Pattee following the publication of her novel, Tilt, which is both a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and USA TODAY Bestseller. The two discuss Emma’s dual writing pursuits, what powered her through the four-year process of getting her inaugural book out into the world, and how to know when it’s time to let go. 

 

               

 

MU: To start, can you give me an overview of your writing career thus far?

EP: I went to Emerson in Boston. Right after I graduated college, I worked with Stuart. I got so much out of his teaching. In formal writing school, stuff like plot gets talked about in a certain way whereas Stuart brought a fresh, innovative perspective to it. I’m incredibly grateful to have gotten to work with him so early on. When I moved back home to Portland, I continued to write but as my side gig, as I built a career and tried to make money. I got really into journalism and started building a career as a climate journalist. Then, I had an experience in my real life that spawned the idea for this book, Tilt. 

MU: What is the relationship between your two very distinct areas of writing–creative fiction and journalism? What do they lend to each other, and how are they different?

EP: I think of them as very separate. Being able to write articles about the climate crisis is an ethical calling for me. Creative writing is more of a lifelong passion. 

That said, I take a lot of both into each other. Journalism has taught me not to be precious about writing. People that read news are frequently busy. You have to have a lot of respect for their time and attention span. I think I bring that into my fiction. Fiction often comes from such a self-exploratory, true internal place, that I think it can lack an awareness of how it’s landing for the reader. You can’t think about that too much early on. When I’m writing fiction, I’m trying to process something that’s happening internally for me so it’s a very self-serving exercise. But at some point you do have to ask what a piece of writing actually does for the reader. 

But ultimately, at a prose level, journalism is about trying to answer a question that is easily verbalized. I want someone to read the article and, at the end, understand the answer to the question. When someone reads my fiction, there is no crisp answer to a single question. I instead want them to have an emotional experience that transcends words, so that the feeling that is in my body ends up in the reader’s body. 

MU: Where did the idea for Tilt come from? Did the genesis of the idea feel different from other creative projects you’ve worked on in the past?

EP: It really did. My book opens with a very pregnant woman at Ikea. She’s shopping for a crib. And then the earthquake hits. In reality, I was also very pregnant and at Ikea when the building started to shake. I thought, “Oh my god, it’s the big earthquake.” It wasn’t. A truck had backed up to the loading dock or something. When the building stopped shaking I was like, “Oh, this is my book.” It was almost fully formed in my mind. 

The belief in the project lasted a week, maybe. That was 2019. I sold my book in 2023. In between, I had tons of periods of doubt. There were months and months where I was in despair about the book. People thought the idea was weird. No one really got it. I couldn’t explain it. So yes, there was that moment of inspiration but I think it’s a miracle this book made it out into the world because of the amount of times I gave up on it. 

MU: What kept you going for those four years?

EP: I talk about this a lot; for me, it was about community. I have a couple very close friends I meet with every week. They held the belief in me and in the book during the times that I could not. The more I’m in community, the more I’m moving forward. The more I’m alone, the more I’m standing still. (To be honest, that’s the core lesson that my narrator learns in Tilt; it was clearly a lesson I had to learn too). 

MU: From the conception of the idea for this book through to earlier today when you had a meeting about TV rights, what has surprised you most during this process?

EP: I wrote a first draft of this book and I was like, “This is not very good.” People reading it were like, “Yeah, meh. Not that good.” Based on that, I thought: Okay, this book idea is a bad idea. It didn’t occur to me: Emma, you’re going to write 15 drafts of this book. Nothing in this draft is going to exist at the end. I didn’t understand that the ideas in the first draft–and the second, third, and fourth–are very separate things. 

So the true amount a book changes really surprised me, and the way you have to have commitment to an idea that is almost completely separate from whatever words you have on the page. That was a lesson I will definitely keep with me: to not hold my early drafts that tightly. To be more committed to my idea than I am to a timeline or to a specific draft. 

MU: How do you balance that with knowing when you’re done and it’s time to query agents?

EP: That’s an eternal question. You ask if it’s done when you query, but then you ask that question again with your agent about sending it out on submission. Then you ask that question again with your editor when you’re trying to finalize the book. I did not feel like my book was ready to progress at any of those junctures, so I think chasing that feeling of doneness may speak more to perfectionism. 

There are definitely people who wait too long, but there are also people who write one draft and they’re like, “This is great! Let’s go out.” I think we need to work against our worse impulses. For the people who write one draft and think they’re done, I’d say they need to write until they can’t stand it anymore. And the people who are inclined to think they have to write 20 drafts before trying to get an agent, they need to send out way sooner than they feel ready.

MU: What final advice do you have for other writers?

EP: For me, consistency and commitment to the idea was more important than my given talent on any day, my writing ability on any day, or how much somebody at a workshop did or didn’t like what I was doing. So talent is enormously important, but it’s really not within our control. What is within our control is our commitment to the project and the consistency with which we show up–literally, with our time–to the project.

A Playlist For The Inspired Writer

Many newsletters ago, Stuart shared 10 albums he enjoys that have no words (or else have lyrics in a foreign language, which serves somewhat the same purpose), allowing the mind to simply engage with rhythm and tone. The right soundtrack can make you feel more whole while you are writing, more grounded in your experience and more enthusiastic about the prospects of what you are doing.

It seems our subscribers agree as people loved the list, and so a year later he shared 8 more albums. Now, it’s my (Madison’s) turn.

I have taken a different approach and, rather than a tidy list of albums with little writeups for each, I have simply compiled 30+ of my favorite wordless or non-English songs into a banger playlist.

There are tracks that were recorded in the mid 1900s and songs that were released just last year by brand new gen Z artists (a tell: the refusal to use capital letters). There are brass bands and French disco and Acholi crooning. The only unifying element? These are songs that stir something within me, that lend inspiration and energy, that quiet the noise and allow me to move towards clarity.

Given the playlist’s erratic range, you will likely dislike a few of the songs. And you will surely love some–most?–of them. Just promise me one listen through, please. (And if you do find yourself vibing with the entire playlist, we’re almost certainly destined to be friends and you should let me know/give me recommendations of your own).

Without further ado:

Hablaojos – Michelle Blades

Pays imaginaire – Polo & Pan

Sweet Disposition – Feeling Blew

fiano – the wine is ok

soft shadows – signac

(The Death of Ruby) – Ruby Haunt

À Los Angeles – Pomplamoose

Brontosaurus – Funkmammoth

La femme a la peau bleue – Vendredi sur Mer

Lait de coco – Maya

Pista (Fresh Start) – Los Bitchos

Give Me Everything – Stripped – Archer Marsh

Ciao Ciao – La rappresentante di lista

Low Sun – Hermanos Gutiérrez 

Santé – spill tab

doces bárbaros interlúdio – papi, Jyu

Quedate Luna – Devendra Banhart

Algum Ritmo – Gilsons, Jovem Dionisio

CANYON SUN – Distant Cowboy 

Calcanhar – Concê

Redbone – Sean Angus Watson

L’enfer – Stromae 

Corazón Adentro (Escorpio) – Bomba Estéreo, Rawayana, ASTROPICAL  

Ladyfingers – Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

Makambo – Geoffrey Oryema

Peur des filles – L’Impératrice

Mulberry Mouse – Alan Gogoll

Soul Makossa – Manu Dibango

Pontos de Exclamação – Jovem Dionisio

Minha Voz – Versos Que Compomos Na Estrada

Ma quale idea – Pino D’Angiò

Monstre d’amour – Clara Luciani

La Noche De Anoche – Milky Chance

Futuro Incierto – iiis, Dromedarios Mágicos

Sara’ Perche Ti Amo – Ricchi E Poveri

Nucléaire (Unplugged) – Odezenne

Caulk

This month, Inkhouse Public Relations debuted its fifth book of employee-authored essays. Entitled Faded Lines, this volume explores the unlikely teachers that helped us connect across difference. The prompt asked:

When did you learn something important from an unlikely place? It could be a person you overlooked or misjudged, an event that revealed deeper significance than you anticipated. What chance encounter, unlikely alliance, or uncomfortable situation taught you something meaningful? 

InkHouse founder Beth Monaghan described succinctly why such corporate culture books are important: “Stories are a foundational way of forming community, in the workplace, in our personal lives, and in the world.”

Over the course of the previous year, Book Architecture assisted as editors and writing coaches, with the proper dash of literary theory thrown in there. And, of course, we wrote, too! Catch a glimpse of Stuart’s contribution here.

 



Revision Is Where You Meet The Creative Gods: Kim Frank

Stuart Horwitz speaks to writer, photographer, and documentary maker, Kim Frank about the years-long process of writing Elephants in the Hourglass: A Journey of Reckoning and Hope Along the Himalaya, published by Pegasus Books earlier this year. Frank shares what kept her motivated throughout, her commitment to authenticity during the sometimes challenging promotion phase of authorship, and why she so ardently believes in the importance of refusing to rush through revision–or any part of the creative process. 

 

 

S: How long did you work on this book? From the moment you got the idea to the time you held a copy in your hand. 

K: I went to India for the first time in the spring of 2018, and soon realized I couldn’t possibly tell the whole story from just one trip. It’s so complicated, so culturally imbued. I wasn’t sure what the project was going to be then. I thought it might be a magazine article, or maybe a documentary, perhaps a book. That’s when Anthony Geffen, the founder and CEO of Atlantic Productions, took a look at my stuff. I had photographs and field notes spread out on his kitchen table. He told me, “You need to write the book in order to figure out what the story is–then you can consider a documentary.” 

I was a fiction writer so I didn’t really know how to tackle a full-length nonfiction book. At first, I was in despair. As you know, because that’s when you and I talked. The first time I ever had a call with you, I was about ready to give up. And you stopped me from giving up, so thank you for that. Around the same time Anthony, who had become a mentor to me, said something that I’ve carried with me since: “Kim! Sometimes you have to fight for the story!” And so that’s what I did. I thought about the people I met in India. The people who gave me their trust there, their time, their story, in the hopes that I would amplify their voices and make them feel seen in a way they haven’t before now. And then there’s the people who invested on the home front–my husband, my children, my parents–all those who gave me the time and space to write. It was all of them who helped me not give up over the years of working on this project. I felt this incredible responsibility to finish because I wasn’t just by myself anymore. Six years later, in January 2025, I held a copy of the book in my hands for the first time. 

S: Let’s talk about promotion. How do you make it authentic, and how do you keep yourself fresh when you’re answering the same questions over and over?

K: The more time I’ve spent working on this project in India and beyond, I’ve come to really believe there’s a force bigger than me at play. I’m a vessel. I’m just doing my part: the storytelling, the authenticity. As long as I stay connected to the elephants’ energy, to the thing that’s bigger than me, all will be smooth. The way will open, whatever that’s meant to be. The challenge is the more you have to promote your work and promote yourself, there’s this real danger of the ego becoming bigger. “Oh, I didn’t get invited to speak at that event. What’s that about?” “Oh, that person’s book is getting more attention than mine.” This growing ego feeling is very different from the connected channel I had been able to tap into when I’m focused on the creative piece of it. 

But I do love talking to people who get it. I really love doing interviews. I especially love when people have an open mind and heart that can talk about the more ethereal bits involved in the creative process. I really have enjoyed talking to people like you that I care about, that have helped me along the way. Second to that, I like doing talks because I feel like I’m able to connect with people and I’m able to bring the story to life through myself. There are parts of promotion that I am actually having fun doing. 

S: I feel as if your commitment and perseverance is a talent. Without that personality trait, as a writer, you’re cooked, really. You’ve got to be somebody who can say, “This is what I’m doing; I don’t know whether it’s going to be a success or not. I don’t know how many years it’s going to take. I don’t know whether you agree with me or not…but this is what I’m doing.” 

K: I’d love to speak to that from a craft perspective. I often hear writers say, “I’m a one-and-done. I wrote that draft to the end and it’s good enough.” For me, and what I want to teach others, the art is in the revision. Revision is where you meet the creative gods. You have to get the whole thing on paper first, and then the work begins. Then, the art begins. It’s like a sculpture. You have this great big mass and you have a vision for what you want that hunk to look like and through revision, revision, revision, all the shaping, all the detail comes out. So if you’re not in love with the process, you won’t finish the work the way it needs to be finished. If you’re in a hurry to get to the end, the end is going to feel really hollow. 

People say to me, “You must be so excited to have your book in your hands!” And yeah, I’m thrilled to be holding a physical book from a traditional publisher, that I had an agent for, all those things. But if I rushed through writing the book in the hurry to get an agent or to get it published, I would have missed out on the growth of myself as a creative human. People on the outside would ask me, “Isn’t it good enough now? Why do you have to keep writing it?” Because it wasn’t done. It’s a process. It has to nourish you. It can be frustrating as hell sometimes, but the process also has to nourish you or else what are we doing? 

S: It is frustrating and there are so many unknowns, the biggest being: is it going to reach this hard to define level of success we carry somewhere in our minds? 

K: And you can’t control that. You just have to get out of your own way. If we grip too hard to something we want, sometimes we block the path for what’s possible. Right now with promotion, I know I need to be doing all these things. I need to be promoting the hell out of the book. People have to be doing the Amazon reviews and all the things, but there’s also part of me that thinks it will seek its own level somehow. I want to be more focused on: Who am I every day? I can’t become preoccupied with how successful the book is or isn’t… In my opinion, if the book has made a difference in someone’s life or if it inspired them in some meaningful way, that’s a win to me. 

It’s very easy to get out of balance. I’ve done a lot of work to deepen my practice: my yoga practice, my mantras, my spiritual connection, and build the tools necessary to take it on the road, so to speak. When I’m at home, it’s easy to have that balance. But when I’m out traveling things begin to feel overwhelming. So I’m recognizing that exercise–for me, yoga and what yoga means as far as its spiritual practice–is as important as hygiene, and I need to constantly prioritize it as such. You never question, no matter where you are, if you’re still going to bathe and brush your teeth. I haven’t yet mastered incorporating those elements into my daily hygiene to where I prioritize it on the road as well as I can prioritize it when I’m at home, but that’s the goal.