Kathy Anderson is a Philadelphia-based author who worked as a librarian for over 25 years. Her debut short story collection, Bull and Other Stories, was the winner of the 2015 Autumn House Press Fiction Prize. She released her debut novel, The New Town Librarian, through NineStar Press in January 2023.
The novel follows Nan Nethercott, a queer, middle-aged librarian who moves to a small New Jersey town in search of a new life. Faced with numerous challenges, such as landlady Immaculata’s intrusions and butch deli owner Thomasina’s irresistible charm, Nan must fight for the life that she truly wants.
I had the chance to sit down with Kathy and talk about her writing journey and the publication of her debut novel.
Beck Schneider: First off, could you tell our readers how you got started as a writer?
Kathy Anderson: From a very young age, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I was an English major, but my university didn’t have a huge amount of creative writing options. I was trying to figure out how I was going to grow as a writer, and I knew an MFA program wasn’t the right path for me. One thing I did that was really great was joining a writers’ workshop. It was informal, just people meeting in the city, but it was really helpful. I got feedback on my writing, and I read a lot of other people’s work and gave feedback, and this went on for many years.
That’s basically how I got started, and then I chose to make a living as a librarian. The atmosphere is good for a writer since you’re around books and people, and it’s also very flexible. If I did a fellowship or a writing residency, I could take a leave of absence. All those things really helped me.
BS: You recently released your first novel, The New Town Librarian. What has the experience of becoming a published novelist been like?
KA: It feels incredibly different from my first book, which was published through winning a fiction prize. It was a wonderful experience, but it was much more private. Readers aren’t as familiar with short story collections, and many people love novels. I felt incredibly embraced by so many people in my life as well as strangers because they relate to the novel in a different way than they can a short story collection.
The other reason it’s such a big thrill is that I really stuck with it. Becoming a novelist was a lifelong dream, and I tried a million times to bring the characters to life in this form, and it just didn’t happen for so many years. Having it finally all come together is pretty astounding.
BS: What was your inspiration for the novel?
KA: A few of the characters came into my writing life a long time ago. I kept trying to put them in a play or a short story, and it never worked. It’s so rare when characters come to you like that, and I knew that I had to do something specifically with them, so they were a big inspiration.
I was also inspired by my life experience of being a queer city person who moved to a very small town to work in South Jersey. That culture shock was an impetus because I thought it was a very rich setting.
BS: You mentioned that you’ve written a collection of short stories. Was there a process involved in switching from writing short stories to writing a novel? What was that process like?
KA: Well, it went on for a long time. I’ve been trying to write a novel for many years, and I’ve been writing and publishing short stories for many years. The novel had to have a big enough world in it. In a short story, your world is about 13 pages, but the novel had to have enough breadth and enough rich material to carry it for 300 pages.
BS: I imagine that can’t be an easy process, having to stretch the whole narrative.
KA: It’s not, but to me short stories are also incredibly difficult because you have to fit a whole world into 13 pages. There is no rational explanation for how you do it, so I think there’s unique difficulties with that. But I absolutely love that form so much.
BS: Something that I noticed about the novel is the fact that you have a protagonist who’s not only queer, but also middle-aged. A lot of the queer representation that I’m familiar with focuses on teenagers and young adults, so I would love to know about the significance of having a queer character that falls in a different age demographic than what a lot of people may be familiar with.
KA: It was incredibly important to me because I and many other people are aware that we have a very youth-obsessed culture. Older queer people, especially older queer women, are almost invisible on screen and in books. Older women in general are often written as being depressed, having dementia, struggling with divorce, and dying. It’s so drab and dreadful. I wanted to write a funny older queer person because that reflects who I know in real life, and I was hopeful the reader could relate to the women in the book that are older and having fun.
BS: What can readers expect from The New Town Librarian?
KA: It’s funny. People love funny books, but they’re hard to find sometimes. It was a goal of mine to write a funny book, and the fact that people are finding it funny means a lot. I also intentionally wrote a feel-good story because I appreciate that as a reader, and these characters called for it. Even if I’m writing dark material, there’s always a core of hope or humor.
BS: How do you think you’ve grown as a writer throughout the process of writing and publishing a novel?
KA: Writing a novel has a lot to do with revision, and this novel went through some significant revisions. Even though I had all the core characters, setting, tone, many of those major elements, good editing helped the story get to a place where everything really worked. I think learning to work with an editor is a big part of growing as a writer, and I’ve been lucky to have had really good editors that I trusted.
BS: What do you think is your next step as a writer?
KA: In terms of something concrete, I’m actually working on a second short story collection. But in a larger sense, completing the novel and getting it published made me feel the need to set my goals high again. I’ve struggled with thinking big enough for myself, so I guess my next step is to think about what that next big thing is.
BS: Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists or writers of any genre?
KA: The best advice I always give is to develop the habit of persistence. I’ve known a lot of writers over the years that had innate talents and I was blown away by what they could do. But they didn’t have that habit of persistence, the thick skin that you need to keep getting rejected all the time. Developing persistence and a thick skin is important, but it’s also important to find joy in the writing process because the joy of making something is what’s going to get you through the rejection and the repeated attempts to get something right. Even if nobody’s waiting for your work, is creating it how you want to spend your life? Is it a delightful thing for you? That’s really what it’s about.
More information about Kathy Anderson and her work can be found on her website.
Beck Schneider (he/him) is a second-year Drexel student pursuing a BA in English with a concentration in writing. He recently began his first co-op with Drexel’s Office of Postdoctoral Affairs and became a Peer Reader at the Drexel Writing Center. In his free time, he enjoys making Spotify playlists and writing poems, some of which have appeared in Drexel’s undergraduate literary magazine Maya. He soon hopes to launch his blog Brocamorphosis with writings about his relationship with language and his experiences as an autistic person.