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Who is Lindsay Merbaum?
Represented by the Karpfinger Literary Agency, Lindsay Merbaum is a fiction writer, essayist, and creative coach helping writers and artists set goals and action plans for success, overcome self-doubt, and build their brand. She also serves as a Fiction Editor at Rivet: Writing that Risks, a literary journal published by Red Bridge Press. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Electric Literature, Bitch Media, Bustle Magazine, Hello Giggles, The Rumpus, Marie Claire, PANK, Harpur Palate, Day One, The Collagist, Anomalous Press, Whiskey Paper, Hobart, Gargoyle, Epiphany, Lost Coast Review, and Dzanc Books Best of the Web, among others. Lindsay's work has been nominated for numerous awards, including a Pushcart Prize. She earned an MFA in Fiction from Brooklyn College, where she was a recipient of the Himan Brown Award for Fiction. Currently, she lives in the Bay Area, California with her partner.
Interviews |
Becoming a Coach
When my good friend and editor told me her clients often stop working when their books are 95% finished, I was shocked. Why come so far, only to balk at the finish line? But I soon realized exactly why.
Obviously someone who writes most of a novel—which is likely hundreds of pages—doesn’t lack for ambition or inspiration. Instead, there’s a deeper psychological construct at work: fear.
Certainly the knowledge I gathered from my experience as an educator backed this up. Time and again, I saw arts students flounder just as they were about to graduate, terrified of jumping off that cliff into the wider unknown. My experience in marketing also demonstrated how many of us generate great ideas, but figuring out how to share ideas with the world is daunting. I realized creatives need a coach to push, support, and guide them, just as much as we sometimes need a trainer at the gym or a tutor in school.
Here’s the secret: everyone needs help. Every successful artist you wish to emulate got help—probably a lot of it. And likely benefited from some luck, too, not to mention the privileges of wealth and education. Nobody does this in a vacuum. Because it’s really f-ing hard.
Personally, I had the privilege of attending a college with one of the best writing programs in the country. I then got an MFA and worked with illustrious faculty. I seemed to be on the right path, but I wasn’t learning what I really needed to know about how to build my career, just my craft.
More than anything, the MFA experience taught me when not to listen to critics and how to develop my own voice. I let go of caring if everyone liked my work and began to focus on the stories I wanted to tell. Nevertheless, I knew little about the business of writing, despite pouring over Writer’s Market. I wasn’t great at networking, not because I wasn’t social, but because I didn’t know how to promote myself. I didn’t even consider writing outside fiction, despite my love of essays, because I thought I had to be on one track and no one told me differently. There were no classes in my grad school program about building your brand or diversifying your skillset to earn more money.
It’s really no surprise that, after a few years of art shows and readings and getting their work hammered by their peers, many graduates of MFA programs do not continue with their chosen craft.
I did continue, but I had to learn the hard way how to build a consistent practice and make connections that would serve me. Now I take that knowledge I gained through trial and error or, in some cases, trial by fire, and use it to help others redefine success, meet their goals, and live a creative life of fulfillment.
Obviously someone who writes most of a novel—which is likely hundreds of pages—doesn’t lack for ambition or inspiration. Instead, there’s a deeper psychological construct at work: fear.
Certainly the knowledge I gathered from my experience as an educator backed this up. Time and again, I saw arts students flounder just as they were about to graduate, terrified of jumping off that cliff into the wider unknown. My experience in marketing also demonstrated how many of us generate great ideas, but figuring out how to share ideas with the world is daunting. I realized creatives need a coach to push, support, and guide them, just as much as we sometimes need a trainer at the gym or a tutor in school.
Here’s the secret: everyone needs help. Every successful artist you wish to emulate got help—probably a lot of it. And likely benefited from some luck, too, not to mention the privileges of wealth and education. Nobody does this in a vacuum. Because it’s really f-ing hard.
Personally, I had the privilege of attending a college with one of the best writing programs in the country. I then got an MFA and worked with illustrious faculty. I seemed to be on the right path, but I wasn’t learning what I really needed to know about how to build my career, just my craft.
More than anything, the MFA experience taught me when not to listen to critics and how to develop my own voice. I let go of caring if everyone liked my work and began to focus on the stories I wanted to tell. Nevertheless, I knew little about the business of writing, despite pouring over Writer’s Market. I wasn’t great at networking, not because I wasn’t social, but because I didn’t know how to promote myself. I didn’t even consider writing outside fiction, despite my love of essays, because I thought I had to be on one track and no one told me differently. There were no classes in my grad school program about building your brand or diversifying your skillset to earn more money.
It’s really no surprise that, after a few years of art shows and readings and getting their work hammered by their peers, many graduates of MFA programs do not continue with their chosen craft.
I did continue, but I had to learn the hard way how to build a consistent practice and make connections that would serve me. Now I take that knowledge I gained through trial and error or, in some cases, trial by fire, and use it to help others redefine success, meet their goals, and live a creative life of fulfillment.
