Mending Lives

Jane_Houng: [00:00:00] Hi, I'm Jane Hong, and this is Mending Lives, where I'm talking with people from a patchwork of places. Some have had their lives ripped apart by loss, some are in the business of repairing others brokenness, but we're all seeking to make this world more beautiful.

Jess Rinker is an award winning writer who has several books for young readers, including picture book biographies and middle grade fiction. Titles include Gloria Takes a Stand, a biography of the feminist icon Gloria Steinem, and Send a Girl, the true story of how women joined the FDNY. Middle grade novels include The Dare Sisters and The Dare Sisters Shipwrecked, Out of Time, Lost on the Titanic, The Hike to Home, and Monolith, the first of what is almost certain to be a string of independent publications under her own imprint, [00:01:00] Wandering Moth Press. Jess has a B. A. in Social Welfare and an M. F. A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts. That's where I first met her. She's taught at the University of Reno, Nevada for Lake Tahoe's MFA program in the Writing for Children and Young Adults, and the Undergraduate Creative Writing program offered by Centenary University in New Jersey.

Jane_Houng: It's rather a grey day here at the Highlights Foundation, but I'm absolutely delighted to be reconnecting with Jess Rinker. I should explain that the Highlights Foundation positively impacts children by amplifying the voices of storytellers [00:02:00] who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves. And they provide education, support and encouragement for writers and illustrators through workshops, courses and retreats. And this is a retreat. It's not just any old retreat. It's the Rebecca Dykes Writers Retreat, which is the community I established in my daughter's name. How are you, Jess?

Jess Rinker: I'm well.

Jane_Houng: You've just had a, quite a long journey to get here. Where did you come from?

Jess Rinker: It wasn't too bad. I'm about two and a half hours south of here. So it's a fairly easy road trip and I've done it many times. So I know it already by heart. I just drive on up.

Jane_Houng: Great to see you. And when were you last at Highlights?

Jess Rinker: Um, I want to say it was sometime within the last year. Um, I don't remember exactly what the dates were, but, um, I'm up here usually at least once a year, doing something. Yeah

Jane_Houng: This is my second time and, uh, I hope this is going to be [00:03:00] an annual event. Yes. And, uh, so the title of this year's retreat is Writing Through Trauma to Empower Readers. And, uh, I should also mention that you are the recipient of the Rebecca Dykes scholarship. How does it feel to be here again?

Jess Rinker: Um, humbling. Yeah, when you reached out to me to, to offer that, I was, it was very unexpected and um, I feel very grateful for being able to be here, especially under this topic and, you know, with the foundation being part of that. Um, so thank you very much for that.

Jane_Houng: Well, it's an absolute pleasure and the last time we met was at Vermont College of Fine Arts between 2012 and 2014. We were in the same cohort for the Writing for Children and Young Adults MFA program. I don't know about you, but that was a [00:04:00] formative experience for me as a writer. Would you recommend budding MFA program in creative writing?

Jess Rinker: That's a very loaded question. First of all, I can't believe it's been 10 years since we were in school together. Um, So that's really wonderful to be able to see you again. And I do believe the MFA question is a loaded question. For me, it also was a life changing experience on a lot of levels. A lot of personal levels as well as professional level. I will never regret going back to school to get my master's at Vermont College. But it's a personal choice. I don't believe that it's necessary for a writer to get an MFA and still be successful There's plenty of authors who don't have MFAs who are very successful writers. Um for me, it was a perfect path because I love school I love the structure of it. And then once I got to be a CFA. I didn't even know what I was getting into, really. I didn't know anything about the program. I just got accepted and went.

Jane_Houng: Me too.

Jess Rinker: And [00:05:00] so once I got there and how tight our class was and how wonderful that whole community was, that made it 10 times even more special and um, effective, I think, than traditional school. You know, there was just something really, really special about that program. And all of us in our class, you know, how close we became, um, made it.

Jane_Houng: Certainly did. Allies in Wonderland. That's what we named ourselves, wasn't it? And it was a fantastic location.

Jess Rinker: Oh, yes. It was.

Jane_Houng: So, , one reason why I decided to reward you with the Rebecca Dyke Scholarship is that you've had a tough few years, right? In 2018, you lost your home and most of your personal property in a fire. And in 2023, your beloved husband was diagnosed with stage four esophageal cancer. How on earth have you managed to keep so strong and productive?

Jess Rinker: I really don't know. You know, a lot of people have asked me that question. Um, Both of these [00:06:00] events, and crazy that they're, you know, it's just five years between them, um, both of these events were so shocking, obviously. The fire was, was a, was more than just a fire. It was a truck that went through the building and blew up the building next to us. And I mean, it was a big event. Um, five departments fired, fire wasn't put out for like a day later, you know, it was a big deal. And in a tiny little town where nothing like that ever happens. And the shock of that was, you know, Um, a lot, but there was some level of being okay because we were okay.

Jane_Houng: Absolutely. You know, and then the chips are on the table.

Jess Rinker: Exactly. And we are so close and have remained so close through all of this that I think that just having that made that situation manageable. And so we had our initial shock. We were given a home for two weeks. We were, a landlord found us and gave us a home. I mean, we still had to pay for rent, but you know, found us a home and everything just sort of found into place very quickly. Um, none of our kids were there that night. So it just [00:07:00] us. We didn't have to deal with like trauma with the kids, so that relatively worked itself out quickly. And we just kept going. We just kept working. Um, with cancer is a different story because again, it was out of the blue. There was no symptoms until all of a sudden he had symptoms and he had, and he was sick. And this has definitely rocked my world in a very different way because, It's this is a long lasting thing. This is something we have to live with from here on out You know, it's not you don't recover from this particular situation and move on with your life in the same way. It's always going to be the before and after, in a very different way than the fire was Um

Jane_Houng: For me, it's just like a wall. It's like my life was like that,

Jess Rinker: Right.

Jane_Houng: And then it's a huge thing happened and then it wasn't and then it wasn't

Jess Rinker: and and you're not going back.

Jane_Houng: And you're not going back.

Jess Rinker: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Yeah

Jess Rinker: And I think it for the first year you know, we're going into the second year of this now. The first year was really, really hard for me to [00:08:00] accept that. And that made creativity even harder because I was so against this like change and I didn't want this to be happening to Joe and I didn't want this to be happening to me, you know, and I've fought that for a long time on my own. Um, I wasn't very creatively productive in the last year. I was productive in different ways, like working on monoliths which came out at the beginning of this year, but I'd already written that book. I wrote it in 2020, um, during the pandemic, which, you know, sometimes I can be productive in stressful times. Um, but this particular time it's been more focused on projects that are sort of writing adjacent. I haven't drafted much new work in the last year, other than my own journals, which I always do. Um, but not create, not fiction.

Jane_Houng: Well, I suppose you've been really busy day to day, just managing your life. I mean, just keeping the show on the road in terms of eating and sleeping, getting to the hospital,

Jess Rinker: Moving a couple of times. We're moving again [00:09:00] in June.

Jane_Houng: Toad Hall. I've checked it. Yeah. And Facebook. Yeah.

Jess Rinker: It's like kind of just like chaos after chaos.

Jane_Houng: Very unsettling. I find it hard to imagine because it came out of the blue. Didn't it? That's the thing. Just like, you know, the death of my daughter did. And for me it was more like, What next? And I just felt my whole worldview shifting, and there was a lot of kind of processing that I had to do personally, never mind trying to get something on the page. Right.

Jess Rinker: Because was that really important? You know, I think that's what I've been reminding myself too, is that, is that was really, is writing fiction what's really important to me right now? No. Taking care of Joe and making sure that we can figure out what our next steps are and, um. Keep a sense of peace between us as much as possible things like that or is really what has been important to me especially over the last year. Joe's been much more productive than me [00:10:00]

Jane_Houng: Well

Jess Rinker: But I think it's

Jane_Houng: You're a caregiver right.

Jess Rinker: A caregiver and a very much all of a sudden it feels like you know. We had a, we have a wonderful partnership, but it's different. It's different now than what it was, you know, just

Jane_Houng: How's it changed

Jess Rinker: Responsibilities have shifted, you know, just because they have to um, I started to feel a lot of pressure of like i've got to get i've got to get like this amazing career going so that I can afford to buy us a house in New Jersey or you know the pressure just got huge for me um. That's not something I've ever done. I've never been the breadwinner or, you know, I, or the responsible person like that in that way, financially speaking, I was a stay at home mom. I got married the first time, very young. I was very, I went into my first life very naive and. Um, an experience and so, you know, it's just, it's just not a role I've ever had. Yeah. It's just not an experience I've ever had where all of a sudden all of [00:11:00] this responsibility, um,

Jane_Houng: fell on your shoulders.

Jess Rinker: Felt like it was on my shoulders. Yeah. Felt like it was. And for a little while it was, because Joe was not able to do it.

Jane_Houng: Very ill.

Jess Rinker: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Yeah. Very ill, right? And you have what? Six children between you?

Jess Rinker: Yeah. We have six. None of them live with us now, though. They're all grown. But we did have my daughter living with us at the time, last year, she was still living with us. But, most of them are have all like, you know, graduated high school, graduated college, so they don't live with us. Um,

Jane_Houng: but still,

Jess Rinker: but still, but but still you're managing

Jane_Houng: Yeah.

Jess Rinker: The emotional surprise. Lives of six kids. Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Jess, how do you do it? I look at you and you look so refined and, and you're so articulate and you laughing and ah, but what is what, yeah. We have choices, don't we? What is the choice? I mean, yes. What's the choice? Yeah,

Jess Rinker: exactly. I mean, there is a choice. I, you know, this was something I, I wrestled with last year when I was in a panic mode, um, be when we were still in West Virginia. [00:12:00] And, and we're going back to West Virginia, but, um, we were in West Virginia and I felt very alone. And all of a sudden all this was on my shoulders. I've never taken care of a person who's ill before other than my kids, you know, but nothing, nothing this serious. And it is very different, um, feeling very panicky and being like, I don't want, this is, I don't want this. I didn't choose this. I didn't sign up for this. And then. Processing that and realizing, no, actually I did choose this. And

Jane_Houng: you chose him.

Jess Rinker: I chose him and I do sign up for this.

Jane_Houng: You're married.

Jess Rinker: And I want to do this. I want to be the person to do this. But it's, you know, it took, it took a shift because at first the response is just like, I got to get out of here. I got to hightail it out of here. Um, cause it's just cause it's so scary.

Jane_Houng: And it's so scary.

Jess Rinker: Right. The survival is like that fight or flight. And my. Initial it was kind of both, I guess. First it was the flight of like, I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this.

Jane_Houng: Help. And why me?

Jess Rinker: Right? Yeah. And a lot [00:13:00] of that, why is this happening? And then some processing and then realizing like, no, this is, this is what I want. This is the life I chose and the life I want. It's hard.

Jane_Houng: What's been the toughest part?

Jess Rinker: Um, I think the toughest part is just not knowing. What is in the future and obviously we never know what's in the future and I know that Maybe what better than some other people and I know you know that better than some other people but it's still hard because of course you want to be able to make a plan and you want to be able to say I can schedule this, you know in six months or we can take a trip next year, you know, I have no idea no idea so it's very it's very sobering of like realizing you really do have to kind of, not kind of, you really do have to live in the moment. So much more than I ever have. It's more important for me to be present today, figure out today.

Jane_Houng: That's what I felt. And [00:14:00] a good friend said, Hey, how about you just live one, try to live one day at a time. Right.

Jess Rinker: And it's hard.

Jane_Houng: It's really hard. I try to have some, some happiness. In that day somehow, despite the terrible situation.

Jess Rinker: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: But I mean, you, you look so fit. I mean, you, you eat well, you exercise. Jess, what's your secret?

Jess Rinker: I mean, I do take care of myself mostly. Um, not, you know, I'm not like perfect at it, but.

Jane_Houng: Who is?

Jess Rinker: It is important to me to, to continue being healthy and being strong, um, for Joe, if nothing else, you know. It's just kind of who I am, you know, at the core, I haven't really changed that much in retrospect, you know, it's really like, it's, it feels like the better parts of me are able to come up, you know, and which means also means being really vulnerable to, but it's still like the better things, the better things are there and I need to lean into that more, [00:15:00] It's okay to take care of myself. It's okay to go exercise. It's okay to go take a class, go out with my girlfriends, whatever. Um, because we're not in the crisis mode right now. So like last year there was, there was a good six months where it was, that was not happening. None of that was going to happen. And that was, I mean, I had to take care of Joe. That was where we were at.

Jane_Houng: That was it.

Jess Rinker: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Very defining.

Jess Rinker: We're not in that right now. You know, now I, now I can kind of go back to being quote unquote normal a little bit.

Jane_Houng: Yeah. Well, there was huge fallout, um, in my family as a result of the trauma, right? Of, of losing a daughter and you know, uh, she was, she had many first cousins, and one thing that kept me strong was thinking of that, of, her friends. They were devastated. So, I mean, about your six children. I mean, it's a terrible shock for them. Right. And then for [00:16:00] me, I, yeah, I've just got 2, but I mean, if, if I'd crashed and burn, then it would, it would have made the situation so much more tragic.

Jess Rinker: Right. And at the same time, you do have to have moments where there's plenty of times where I just go cry in my car or, or in the middle of the night, or, I had to take a time to just go kind of rage on my own. I, I was just at an interview a couple of weeks ago where I was telling the woman I was interviewing with about how, when we were still in West Virginia, sometimes I would just go outside and build a campfire because you can do anything you want in West Virginia.

Jane_Houng: Is that why you're going back? Yeah,

Jess Rinker: that's why we're going back. Yeah. Um, And just like burn stuff, you know, I, we had this old furniture we had to get rid of before we were moving. And it was just like old wooden chairs, nothing, nothing toxic. And I just bashed him with a sledgehammer and had music in my ears. And it was very primal and loud and angry music. And that felt good. Like that felt really good as [00:17:00] crazy as I probably looked. If anyone drove by, um, Sometimes you do have to not look so refined. Yeah, just put together. Yeah, and and i'm i'm fully capable of doing that. I just usually do that on my own time.

Jane_Houng: Uh, me too. . Me too. I mean, sometimes people sort of say to me, do you cry? You know? I said, well, yeah, of course I do. I cry every day somewhere, but I'm used to solving problems by myself. That's just me in my life experience. . I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I can, I can really imagine the, the pleasure of

Jess Rinker: breaking things,

Jane_Houng: breaking things and setting them alight and sitting there in the darkness and, but seeing the flames. I don't know. It's, uh, Oh, Jess, it's a big one, but, um, yeah, I, I was quite interested cause when I first asked about how you do, you immediately started talking about your writing and you're like oh I haven't written very much. And I'm like, Did you ever think of writing a word? So you're, [00:18:00] you're a compulsive writer, aren't you? I know you're prolific.

Jess Rinker: I'm very prolific. Yeah. And I have been writing. I have many, many, many, many pages of journaling. Um, I will always be writing, I guess. I kind of frame it of like, am I writing for me or am I writing to try to publish something? And those are two very different categories.

Jane_Houng: And has that changed as a result of this experience?

Jess Rinker: I don't, I think what has changed? Yes. A monolith has made that change for me. Um, And that maybe that's one of the weird, like freeing things for the caregiver is when something like this happened, when this happened to Joe and it just sort of like, this is like the worst case scenario in my head right now. What am I afraid of? Like in everything else in my life, why am I afraid to try this new thing? Why am I close minded to this? Why am I just not giving everything a chance? You know?

Jane_Houng: So it's made you more fearless.

Jess Rinker: It's yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Jane_Houng: Liberate. So it's liberating in a way.

Jess Rinker: I don't know if I can swear on this podcast, but like give less fucks, you know what I mean? Like, I [00:19:00] don't have tolerance for a lot of BS anymore. Yep. And so that was, that was a big thing for me creatively was with Monolith. I, I wanted that book published so badly and it had gotten really close and it was such a disappointment. And so when Joe was doing better and we, we went, we had moved back to with my dad for a little while. That's where we are right now. Yeah. Kind of like get our, you know, gather ourselves a little bit and figure out what the heck we're doing. I thought I'm going to start looking into self publishing. I'd always been very close minded to it. I wanted when I, after I graduated from VCFA, I was like, I'm going to be traditionally published. I'm going to have an agent. I'm going to be published with the big houses. You know, I just said,

Jane_Houng: Sure that's the highest tier isn't it?

Jess Rinker: Right. That I set the goal at really, really high and I got it. And then realize that it meant very little in the end, you know, I didn't get a lot, my books didn't get a lot of attention. Some of them have done better than others, but they came out during the pandemic. I couldn't do any public appearances, couldn't [00:20:00] do school visits. There were no festivals. There were no conferences for two years. So that's all three, three of my books came out 2021 and 22.

Jane_Houng: Which ones were they?

Jess Rinker: Dare Sisters 1, 2, and The Hike to Home.

Jane_Houng: Okay. The first Dare sisters. Okay. My mind. They've sort of been there forever. Yeah. 'cause I know that, yeah, I mean, they're well known, aren't they?

Jess Rinker: I mean, they've done them okay. They just haven't done, you know, they haven't like put me, nobody knows who I am. You know what I mean? Just like another author.

Jane_Houng: It's very suffering.

Jess Rinker: So I think that was eyeopening to me that why am I really doing this? Mm. You know, does it really matter? It would be amazing to be on the New York Times bestseller or to win a big award. I would love to win a big award. Um, but that's not really why I'm doing what I'm doing. Mm. I'm doing it because I really love writing. I've been writing since I was 10 years old. Mm. I won't ever not be writing, and so I have to start thinking about it as two, publishing and writing as two different things. [00:21:00] So where I can write for myself forever, and I need to be happy with that. You know, that's what, that's what really, that's my therapy for sure.

Jane_Houng: Oh right I think writing is very cathartic. It was it has been for me and

Jess Rinker: Absolutely is for me too. And that was one of the things with this retreat, this whole idea of writing through trauma, and I've been thinking about that so much because I felt like I haven't been writing, but I have, I've been writing, I still write almost every single day, it's just, it's me writing to work things out in my head. You know processing what do I really want? How what kind of job do I really want to have? Where do I really want to go? Where do I want? What do I want our life to look like now? It's not the life. I thought we were going to have.

Jane_Houng: One challenge i've had is that we we were trained and to write for kids right and I and I still love the idea of writing for kids because you know kids read an inspiring book and you can change their lives. You can open their minds so many things um and yet [00:22:00] What's happened to me is a very adult theme and also maybe for you, I mean, do you find that you have more of an interest to write nonfiction now or for adults?

Jess Rinker: I have written quite a bit of, um, like personal essay, creative nonfiction kinds of things. I've never, I've attempted some adult novel. I have an adult novel that's like in progress, but it's a disaster. Um I'll go back to it at some point, but I love I do love writing personal essays and You know the sub stack stuff Oh, yeah I really like I like that a lot and I do feel like not all the time It doesn't always get a great response but I do frequently get a lot of responses from other women who either are writers or mothers or have had Lost in their life or whatever who respond to it Um In exactly what exactly in the way I would want them to, where they can feel like they're not alone, that I to feel like I'm not alone, that what I'm thinking and feeling makes sense to other adults, you know, I do really enjoy [00:23:00] that quite a bit. How to get that published for real. I have no idea. That's not something I've really looked into, but I enjoy it.

Jane_Houng: Because as a writer, you have the skills, you have the ability, you can put things on, on the paper. And, and I mean, let's face it, there are probably tens of thousands of people in America that are

Jess Rinker: Probably more

Jane_Houng: Suffering from cancer at the moment. In fact, we've got three coming to this retreat. I think two are in remission and one sort of

Jess Rinker: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Yeah

Jess Rinker: It's everywhere. Yeah. Cancer is everywhere.

Jane_Houng: And what, what's the message you think you can, you can give people or let's be more specific. One of the personal essays that you've written about this experience, the people who have reached out and said, Hey, that really helped me. What, what was it exactly?

Jess Rinker: Um, I think it's just that You know, uh, just to like backtrack a little bit, if I'm really to be like, it's psychological about it. When I was young, I grew up, I [00:24:00] grew up in a home where you didn't express feelings. Um, it was an alcoholic home. It wasn't always happy. It was very chaotic. There was some domestic violence, things like that. So I grew up, I grew up. Very isolated and invisible and never really had a voice. I was extremely shy for most of my life. Not until I got to, I would say somewhere in high school, kind of started to come out of my shell and I was like, it's now or never, I've got to do stuff or, you know, I got to try things. And I got into theater and music and, um, all kinds of things. Volunteering, you know, I just threw myself into everything. It was just, I don't even, I honestly don't even know what, I don't know why the turnaround happened, but it did. Um, but I felt for a very, very, very long time that I had no voice. I know I was definitely a typical, like good girl who would never speak up or never, um, talk back to authority or, and I have a hard time with authority. I fully admit it, but I would still be [00:25:00] the good girl. You know, I, I would always back down and. Um, and then I married into a fundamental Baptist family where women are not allowed to speak up. Women are not allowed to be angry. Um, women weren't allowed to be pastors. You know, I just was, then I lived in this world where I could be that introverted person pretty comfortably, but it really wasn't

Jane_Houng: You,

Jess Rinker: me. I mean, I'm, I wasn't that submissive, good wife, whatever in that world. And I lived in that for a really, really long time. So I think these pieces, even though it's just substack or medium or, I mean, I've gotten a couple published, but not nothing huge. When I do get a response like that, it's very validating. It makes me feel like you were not crazy all those years. You were not wrong all those years. What you feel is real. Um, we feel it too. There's like that community between women in particular.

Jane_Houng: Yes.

Jess Rinker: Um, Yeah. And that just, that means a lot to [00:26:00] me. It's not really, it's not even about the writing. It's just knowing that what I'm saying makes sense to someone.

Jane_Houng: Makes sense and gives meaning to their lives. Maybe it gives words to the emotions that they're feeling and, and the difficulties,

Jess Rinker: Yeah. And maybe encourages them to speak up as well, or, you know, not be afraid to admit the way they feel or what they want.

Jane_Houng: So maybe expose their vulnerabilities. But, uh, paradoxically, maybe by doing that, one can become more resilient?

Jess Rinker: I think so. Yeah. I think so. Hmm. And sometimes it's a bit, you know, you're chipping away at it bit by bit. I feel like I'm still, I feel like I'm still got so much room to grow, so much to figure out about myself and how I view the world. Um, And the only way I really know how to do that is by writing. I'm not.

Jane_Houng: What appeals to you to going back to live in Toad Hall? And I should just explain to our listeners. I've seen pictures of it in photo. I mean,

Jess Rinker: Yeah,

Jane_Houng: On Facebook and, um, [00:27:00] it's in the, it really is in the middle of the woods, right?

Jess Rinker: It likes this Yeah. It's in the middle of the woods. I will say it's on the side of a mountain. It's idyllic and quiet and peaceful. Um, the wildlife is wonderful, and that's, nature is my most favorite thing, other than writing. Nature is the only spiritual side of me. I'm not a spiritual person at all. Um, but nature is that for me, I guess. Um, so for me it's like, that's a haven. That home was a haven. And, in reality, it's only ten minutes from town. So, it's not far away, you know, it's not close to great restaurants, it's not close to great culture. It's not, you know, I'm not, we're not going to go see a play. Um, you have to coordinate with friends who live 45 minutes away because everything's very spread out. We have a bookstore, but it's 45 minutes from the house. So, It is a different way of living for sure. You have to plan a little bit [00:28:00] more. You have to be more prepared. Um.

Jane_Houng: Sounds like a good writing space.

Jess Rinker: It is a wonderful writing space. Yeah. I mean, I wrote monolith there. Um, We had such a wonderful time actually through their pandemic, which I sometimes hate to admit, but we it was just the two of us during 2020. The kids really couldn't even come visit because of all the restrictions. And like, you know, this person was sick. And then that person was sick. So we didn't even see the kids a whole lot that year, which was rough. Um, It was like we were in college again. We had art nights and game nights and music nights and, um, spent all day working on the yard and the house. And like, it was great, very basic, but pure, wonderful things.

Jane_Houng: Simple life.

Jess Rinker: Yeah. And still be able to be the creative people that we are. So we're still reading and writing and, you know, and getting on zoom and talking with friends and, um,

Jane_Houng: Yeah, that's a huge change, isn't it?

Jess Rinker: It's a big change.

Jane_Houng: To be able to [00:29:00] get, to get online. So the internet is such a brilliant resource for seeing things secondhand. Right. You can watch the theater. Um, yeah, you can listen to some music and you can do all the research for your books. It's strange to me how quickly things have changed.

Jess Rinker: With the internet. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot of things that you can, that you can do online that if you can't get to the place that you in person, you know, it's there. It takes some work. I love research though. I wrote, that's one of my most favorite things about being a writer, is researching. And I frequently do go visit the places I'm writing about, or I'm writing about places I've been to, um, So I love that part of diving in deep, and I have no problem hunkering down in the woods and getting lost in my computer or a book. Like, that's, for me, it's very natural. It's how I grew up. It's how I've lived most of my life. I've always been rural. This is a little bit of next level rural because it's West Virginia, but I'm comfortable there. You know, it [00:30:00] doesn't, It doesn't feel that abnormal to me. I do miss what being able to walk around a small town or being able to jump on my bike and you know, ride along the river, like where we are in New Jersey. You walk outside and there's, you can walk to town, you can ride your bike to town. The river is right there. There's a lot of convenience, but it comes down to what's really important. And living in my father's basement is not.

Jane_Houng: You're in the basement.

Jess Rinker: Yeah. I mean, I say basement. It's not like a dungeon, but it's the basement basically. We're on the bottom floor. He's on the top floor. Um, and we're very grateful to have that time to recover a little bit, but we cannot afford New Jersey. Um, I'm not going to walk into a career that makes it possible for us to afford New Jersey. I've never done anything other than patchwork. You know, freelancing, writing, teaching, editing, working in offices.

Jane_Houng: Yeah, but you're such a committed writer.

Jess Rinker: Yeah, but I don't make enough money to live in New Jersey. So, [00:31:00] that was a big part of it. Like, do we, do we scramble like crazy just to try to get an apartment here? Which we don't really want. We have two dogs. And we like a yard. And we like, I love gardening. I want my gardens back. Um. Hmm.

Jane_Houng: Hmm.

Jess Rinker: So yeah, there's, we're going to give up some of the convenience and the, the location of like friends and everything, but it's for a better quality of actual daily life. No question. So, um.

Jane_Houng: It's funny how things go around in a circle.

Jess Rinker: I know it really, sometimes you have to step out of it

Jane_Houng: for a while

Jess Rinker: For a while to really get like a grip on your perspective for sure.

Jane_Houng: And tell me about self publishing and the differences you experienced from, yeah, going through the traditional ways and doing something yourself.

Jess Rinker: So it's been really fun. It's been really, really fun. It's been hard. It was really hard. I knew enough from talking to other people who had done it, um, the same through Ingram, the same way I was doing it, that I would need to [00:32:00] give myself a lot of time to do the work. I mean, do the research and make sure that I knew what I was doing. I think I was coming from a benefit. A benefited perspective because I am traditionally published. I know what the product's supposed to look like. I know what the industry standards are. You know, there's a lot of different technical specs and formatting and designing and all this stuff.

Jane_Houng: You could do all that?

Jess Rinker: I don't do all of it now, but I figured out how to hire the people who do.

Jane_Houng: Who do.

Jess Rinker: Right. Um, so it's still a collaboration. Uh, and I will say, like, I never had a bad experience with any of my editors or publishers in the past. It wasn't sort of like, oh, I'm rebelling against the industry because they took all my creative control away from me. It was nothing like that. And you will, you will hear stories like that from people a lot. For me, it was more just, well, nobody wants this book right now. I need a project, desperately. I need something to focus on. I wasn't writing anything new. And so I decided to dive in. Um, I [00:33:00] hired a cover designer cause I can't draw.

Jane_Houng: Me too.

Jess Rinker: I won't even pretend. So I hired the cover designer and she fortunately is, was also a book formatter. So she not only designed the outside of the book, she designed the entire interior of the book. And when you look at it, you'll see, there's all kinds of interesting symbols in there. There's a map in there. There's a glossary in the back. It was all her. all her brainchild. After reading the book, you know, she ran with it and it was wonderful to see someone be so excited about the book because I think that is one of the joys of traditional publishing is that you have an editor that's like on your side and is like a champion for your work and that feels really good. It feels validating to have that self publishing. I was afraid I was just gonna be like, I'm putting my little book in the world. You know, no one's going to But she, Karina is her name. Karina was so on board with this book that it felt like working traditionally. You know, she was on my side. She was helping me figure out Ingram, which is [00:34:00] a nightmare. Um, and then I had to figure out how to make sure it was showing up in every bookstores Website. You know, like that's actually something the publisher does. They make sure that the covers are, are populating on bookstore websites. And I, I wanna get into all the details on how that works, but that was a, a lot to unravel and figure out how to make sure that happened. The pricing, you know, making sure that the discounts and the compensation, it's like just a whole other world of things that I had no idea what I was getting into.

Jane_Houng: Sounds like a steep learning curve to me.

Jess Rinker: It was a huge learning curve, but I'm so, I'm so glad I did it. I think it's, I think it's, other than Send A Girl, Send A Girl, I'm very, very proud of that book. Um, I would say this, I'm, this is my other, this is one I'm super proud of too.

Jane_Houng: Yeah, let's just, uh, Think about Send A Girl because, um, the full title, right. Is Gloria takes a stand.

Jess Rinker: That's the glorious dining book.

Jane_Houng: Oh, okay. I've got the mixed up again. All right. Okay. Send [00:35:00] A Girl. Yeah. So that's about the fire girl, isn't it?

Jess Rinker: Yes so Send A Girl is about the story of Brenda Berkman, who was a New York city firefighter, um, for about 25 years. But she originally, the fire department, um, was not adhering to the new law of allowing women to take part. apply, basically. They were beefing up their exams. They were making them ridiculous, trying to keep women out of the service, even though at that, it was like the late 70s. Um, technically women were allowed to be firefighters, but they were, it's a good old boys club in New York City. They were not making it easy and Brenda really wanted the job. And so she had also been a lawyer and she decided to sue The New York city fire department and she won and she, and I think it was 40 or 41 other women were the first women firefighters, um, in New York city so.

Jane_Houng: Did you write this before or after you experienced a fire?

Jess Rinker: So that's the, isn't it [00:36:00] like very meta? Um, the book was picked up in 2018, which was the same year as the fire. So, but the book didn't come out until 2021. So it came out after the fire, but it actually was purchased by Bloomsbury the same year as the fire.

Jane_Houng: Did you modify it at all after the personal experience?

Jess Rinker: No I definitely had, I definitely had a brand new appreciation for what Brenda and what any firefighter walks into. Um, I worked with Brenda directly on this book. So I went into the city, met her several times. We would email back and forth. She would correct me every time I made any mistake. You know, she, she was Full part of this book, and she is probably the biggest advocate for this book. She donates it to schools all over the place. She does her own signings, her own readings, like it's amazing. It's the coolest thing.

Jane_Houng: And how did you come across her? Through research?

Jess Rinker: Yeah, just by accident. So after I wrote Gloria Steinem's biography, [00:37:00] I really wanted to do another biography that was similar with a modern woman who was still alive, who had done the work in my lifetime. Because I think that's what struck me the most with Gloria. I was like, I could see how she had done all of this for me, essentially. And it was, I knew that, but diving into her life the way I did, it really made that apparent. And I, and I was like, I want to find another woman who was doing this work when I was a little kid and I had no clue. What she was doing for my generation and for future generations. And so I was just researching things like modern trailblazer or trailblazing women or just literally just randomly Googling and seeing what I could come up with. And I came across in, um, an NPR article, I think it was about her life. And I thought, Oh my gosh, this is so cool. And then I then as a good publishing writer wants to do, you want to make sure it hasn't already been done. And so I started Googling Brenda Berkman, children's [00:38:00] books, children's stories, picture books, but you know, whatever. And there was nothing out there for kids.

Jane_Houng: Great.

Jess Rinker: So I was like yeah. But then I also knew that Brenda, Gloria Steinem is like a celebrity. You can write a book about her and publish it. I asked for permission with Gloria's office. And they said that they, they basically declined to get, you know, to bring her in on it and they wished me the best of luck. So I was like, all right, well, that's a blessing. I'm writing the book. Um, I wanted Brenda's blessing as well when I started this book. And so I found her website, she's an artist and I found her art website and I emailed her and I explained who I was and my book or what, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she wrote back to me. I would say, Maybe within 48 hours, she knows Gloria. She's friends with Gloria. She'd seen my book. Um, And she was on board to meet for coffee. So it was like that it was, it was like, you know, the most [00:39:00] investigative journalism kind of a thing that I think most writers either fantasize about or love doing, I had never really done it, but that's very much what this project was. And so I went into the city, she was definitely, um, very protective at first, you know, of her story and how it was going to be right. She's still here and she's still doing all the work. She's not a firefighter, but she's still an advocate or an activist. Um, So she was very protective at first and a little bit of walls, you know, that had to break down and, and I had to earn her trust essentially. And, um, I always went back to her every time the editor wanted to change something or add a question. I always brought Brenda in on it and, and kept her part of the story. Also had to explain to her how. Children's publishing works where I don't really have a say with the art a whole lot You know, they pick the artist and they pick meg hunt who was amazing. I love the art in that book um but trying [00:40:00] to explain to brenda how this how there's a design team an art team and they all are part of it and I Don't really have that I don't have the power to come in and say, you know, this can't happen or whatever But you do have the power to make suggestions and to say You know, the number on her hat is wrong, which was an edit on the cover. So it's little things like that, that they, you know, they do obviously make those changes. So it was, that was a really fun process.

Jane_Houng: So you identified that you wanted to write about inspiring women, women who've done remarkable things for the good of the future.

Jess Rinker: Yeah, for themselves and for their future generations.

Jane_Houng: And for society.

Jess Rinker: Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Yeah. . Now, where did Dare Sisters come from though? That's fiction.

Jess Rinker: The Dare Sisters? So that was a story that was probably many years in the making in some ways. Um, it takes place on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, which is a place that I've been visiting since I was about 13 or 14 years old. And it's a very, it [00:41:00] used to be a very quiet little fishing island. Now it's very touristy and well, it's not really, it doesn't look touristy. It still looks very quaint and, but it gets packed with people in the summer. Um, but it's a very, very fun little island. And I always thought I would set a story there. And then somewhere down the line, um, well, we were, Joe and I were in Key West and I don't know. Have you ever been to the Keys?

Jane_Houng: I'm afraid I haven't. No.

Jess Rinker: There's like one highway that just goes down through all of the islands. It's called Route 1. And there's a highway just like that in North Carolina, Outer Banks. It's called Route 12. It just goes all the way down the, the barrier islands. And there were these three little girls on the side of the road. Carbon copies of each other. Clearly three sisters, on skateboards, just like the cover of the book. And that's what my girls are doing in the Dare. Sisters on skateboards all the time. And the oldest one's skateboarding, she has a rope to her sister who is like sitting on the second skateboard to [00:42:00] the third sister sitting on a skateboard like they were, you know, the Elizabethan line where little kids like hold onto the rope.

Jane_Houng: Oh, sweet.

Jess Rinker: And they walk along the street that these three girls had themselves roped up on skateboards. And the older sisters just. It was the coolest thing. I'll never forget it. And then they just became the Dare sisters and I set them on Ocracoke and gave them an adventure story.

Jane_Houng: A few adventure stories, right?

Jess Rinker: Two.

Jane_Houng: Two. Are you going to do another?

Jess Rinker: No, because unfortunately that imprint closed with COVID.

Jane_Houng: Oh. Oh.

Jess Rinker: Yep. One of the casualties of the pandemic.

Jane_Houng: Uh, well, anyway, Jess, you're here now to retreat about writing through trauma to empower readers. Has it given you any ideas?

Jess Rinker: Not new. No, but I have a project that I started, um, before Joe was diagnosed, um, I want to say in 20, I might've started it in 2022. It's a haunted house story, uh, middle grade and a domestic [00:43:00] violence story. So it's, this is sort of my, my, I'm going to say autobiographical. It is autobiographical minus the ghost part, but, um, it is very much based in my own life, my own experiences as a young person. And the very first time I've ever tried to write something.

Jane_Houng: Traumatic.

Jess Rinker: About that. Yeah.

Jane_Houng: Yes.

Jess Rinker: Like for, for fiction. I mean, I've written about my experiences for myself, um, and for adults, but not trying to turn it. And that's what I think is the big challenge with trauma, turning it into fiction for children that isn't going to be like, First of all, traumatic to them or beating them over the head with issues and, you know, lessons and preaching. Right. I can't, I can't stand that. So trying to find the balance of like, this is real. This is, this is the kind of thing that happens in kids lives. Um. Balanced out with just a really good story. So [00:44:00] that's what I'll be working on in theory while we're here. It did win the Katherine Patterson prize through Hunger Mountain last year.

Jane_Houng: Yay. Oh, fabulous.

Jess Rinker: So I know it has some merit. It was a little bit of validation for me, but it's not finished yet. So I need to finish it.

Jane_Houng: Well, I sincerely hope that in the next few days, you have some time to yourself. Um, to do some work on it.

Jess Rinker: Me too. I think I will.

Jane_Houng: You think

Jess Rinker: I just have to do it.

Jane_Houng: You don't have to.

Jess Rinker: I have to get my butt in the chair. I'm not, it's been so long since I've drafted something new, you know? So it's like, I got to get back into that. I gotta find that zone again.

Jane_Houng: Yeah, well, whatever. We've got a lot of old friends here, haven't we, that we're really looking forward to catch up with. But, um, okay then. So, um, it's been great talking to you. It's lovely to see you again.

Jess Rinker: It's good to see you too.

Jane_Houng: And, the first event starts, in about 20 minutes. So we better wine this up and, uh, oh yeah, they've got the hors d'oeuvres as usual. [00:45:00] Yeah. Cheese,

Jess Rinker: Wine,

Jane_Houng: Beer. So, despite such hardships, one thing, I think one thing that's helped me is, is just try to celebrate the good times and find some happiness with, yeah, with people. So, all right, well, I'll see you at the bar.

Jess Rinker: All right sounds good

Jane_Houng: Thanks again for listening to Mending Lives with me, Jane Hong. It was produced by Brian Ho. You can find relevant links to this show in the comments section. I would not, could not, be doing this without many people's support and encouragement. So until next time, [00:46:00] goodbye.