What Even is a Book?
How artist books blew my writer's mind wide open
It’s pub month for Outside Women, people are starting to receive their early copies, and “overwhelming” is an understatement for this feeling. I’m also reflecting these days on what a privilege it is to be on this emotional rollercoaster in a broken publishing industry that silences so many deserving voices. And that’s led me to remembering the question that helped me get through a time when I felt excluded from publishing — What even is a book?
Recently, I was speaking to my multi-talented friend Patrice Gopo for her podcast, Picture Books are for Grown-ups Too (more about Patrice coming to this space soon!). Our conversation reminded me how picture books and artist books rescued me from publishing despair and got me writing again.
A few years ago, Outside Women had been rejected by just about everyone and my relationship with books felt broken. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t read. Then, Patrice recommended a class on picture book writing and at first, I was skeptical. I thought picture books were beautiful and important, but not my thing. I’d never really considered writing one. But at this stage, I needed to shake things up and I was ready to try anything. I signed up for the class.
The weeks I spent in that class got me thinking in new ways and I even wrote a picture book that I love. But more importantly, this new way of considering words opened up my writer’s mind. I started to ask myself, what is a book, really? What are the bounds of this form that I’ve been caught up in? What are the ways in which those beliefs are constraining me?
When I stumbled upon The Book As Art from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, my mind was blown wide open. Books could be so many things! Artists had made books out of tea bags and rolled up in medicine bottles. They had made accordions and boxes and pebbles and lettuce into books. I found artist Julie Chen, I found Booklyn, I found 1,000 Artist Books at the library and pored over it constantly.
Inspired, I started to play around with the book form. I tried making ceramic book covers out of clay croissants with an accordion book inside. I made a clay sculpture of a potted plant which would have a tiny book that you could pull up by the roots. None of these ideas resulted in books in the end. Play was what I needed.
Around that time, I left for an artist residency in Boise, Idaho. There, I found scrap paper and old flyers in a drawer and pieced together a little book with my inexpert hands. Through my month in Boise, I sketched what I saw around me on my little scrap pages. I scribbled observations and overheard poems, I taped in leaves and other flotsam. I made a humble book about my month, and I made it in a month.
Later, I made other books — most of them hastily patched together. One of them helped me process a particular few months of grief. Others were more for fun or to use up an interesting paper or object that would’ve been thrown away. I tried my hand at making altered books, and was surprised to find that cutting up or “defacing” a book was oddly terrifying. It felt so wrong and uncomfortable! And yet, that was a clue to me that it was a practice I needed to try — at least once.
At some point in this process, I found that I wanted to write stories again. Slowly, my writing practice began to take shape again. Making and playing with picture books and artist books did not suddenly cure me of my sadness over rejection. I’d poured so much effort and love into Outside Women, and I still desperately wanted it to find readers.
But what did shift was that feeling of creative brokenness. Becoming aware of the enormous possibility of the book form changed how small and stuck rejection had made me feel. And it helped me regain my trust in my oldest friend: books.
Outside Women Updates
A couple of new events to share:
April 26th, Book launch celebration at Pyaari Azaadi’s Xenana in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY. Sponsored by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. With Mona Eltahawy and Yashica Dutt. Super excited about this powerhouse feminist event!
May 9-11, Debut writers panel at Spring Writes Festival in Ithaca, NY. With K.E. Semmel, Aggeliki Pelekidis, Kim Coleman Foote.
As always, events and RSVP links are updated on my website.
Good thoughts are welcome!
Hi Roohi! As a Pakistani writer, I somehow always find a way to stumble on other Pakistanis who write, and I am so glad the great algorithm and my search for representation brought me here. I am acutely aware that the journey of taking my manuscript into the world will be a tough journey (especially so as I live in Pakistan, so geography doesn't help), so reading this helps me to frame how I should be thinking of rejection, when it happens because it invariably will. I love the narrative here; taking apart the book, to help you build yourself and your creativity again. I obviously don't know you but I'm always so happy to see South Asian stories being published; wishing you and "other women" all the best- rooting for you, all the way from Lahore!
Roohi! Oh, I love all of this. Such beautiful reflections. I loved what you wrote about "defacing" a book feeling oddly terrifying--a clue that this was a practice you needed to try. I think I'll take that thought into the days ahead and pay attention to what might feel oddly terrifying for me and what clue that might offer me. Thank you for these words! And also, thank you so much for the sweet mention. I can't wait to share your podcast episode! :)