The Power of Being Seen: An Interview with Patricia Leavy

1. Your body of work includes an extensive book catalog of novels, academic texts, a memoir, and more, presentations at conferences and universities, the creation of a dozen books series, an arts journal, a publishing imprint, blogs, and on and on. What have you learned about creativity?

We all have unlimited creative potential. People often think it’s some kind of gift that some people have access to and others don’t. Creativity is available to everyone. Creativity relies on discipline. Doing the work, day after day. Not just when it’s flowing, but when it’s hard. It’s like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it gets. Of course, it’s wonderful when we get a burst of inspiration and something beautiful just flows out of us and it feels absolutely magical. Those experiences fuel us to continue. However, the way to get more of those experiences is to do the work even when it’s painstaking. Discipline births magic. So we need to keep at it. Take risks. Experiment. Make mistakes. Work on our craft. Put in the time. Follow our intuition.

2. Looking across all the books you have written, what themes do you find yourself returning to again and again?

It’s funny because while the books are each distinct, in some ways, to me, they’re all about the same things. Themes keep coming up because they endlessly fascinate me. Love. Being truly seen by another. Art and creation. Survival. Hope. Identity. Becoming our fullest selves. Appearance versus reality, I don’t believe there’s real happiness or contentment without authenticity. We need to mind the gap between who we are and who we want to be. The gap between our life as it is and as we wish it to be.

3. Your career has crossed fiction, sociology, research, and arts advocacy. How have those different parts of your identity shaped the kinds of stories you feel compelled to tell?

The different parts of my identity deeply shape the kinds of stories I tell and how I tell them. They’re perspectives, like lenses for looking at things. Sociology is concerned with the macro level—society, culture, institutions. Sociology is also concerned with how our identities shape our experiences—race, gender, sexuality, social class, age. How do these things shape our lives? As a novelist, I’m always thinking about the specific characters in the story, but also how they’re shaped by larger forces. I try to tell stories about topics that matter. Even my feel-good romance novels tackle difficult subjects central to the human condition, such as trauma, violence, sexual assault, grief, depression, mass media, social media, and so on. I care deeply about the messages in my books. I don’t use some of the common tropes in romance, such as enemies to lovers or miscommunication.

There are no toxic relationships. Rather, the stories focus on partnership, vulnerability, intimacy. They model the best of love even in dark circumstances.

Each of my novels also includes an arts narrative because that’s something I’m passionate about. Many of my characters are actors, musicians, writers, publishers, and other artists, and there are often messages about the power of creativity to pull us through life’s hardest challenges.

4. Love appears throughout your novels in many forms, not only romantic love, but also self-love, friendship, healing, trust, and belonging. What continues to fascinate you about love as a subject?

In some ways I look at my entire catalog as a study in love. Each of my novels explores love, art, and another subject. I know it’s a cliché, but it’s true that love is the one thing we always need more of. It’s the candle in the darkness illuminating the path forward. It’s the way to become the best version of ourselves. It’s also an endlessly fascinating topic because there are so many dimensions to love. It’s not all candy hearts and sappy cards, and honestly, I’m not sure that stuff has anything to do with real love. Love is messy. Complex. Multifaceted. Not all the dimensions of love are pleasant. Compassion, empathy, bravery, courage, vulnerability, intimacy, honesty, understanding, coziness, passion, are all aspects of it. Love also brings hurt, pain, disappointment, loss, and grief. I don’t think of love as a noun. It’s not something we have. It’s a verb. Love is something we do. There’s nothing I enjoy more than writing novels showing people doing love well in all different kinds of circumstances. I adore thinking about what that looks like and feels like. As I write, the love on the pages lives inside of me, and as people read the books, I hope it lives inside of them too.

Patricia Leavy

5. Many of your characters are searching for something larger: a meaningful life, creative fulfillment, recognition, or a deeper connection with another person. What do you believe people are truly searching for beneath those visible desires?

People want to be seen. Truly seen. They want their experience and story to be acknowledged. We always hear that people want love and that’s true, but what does that really mean? I think when a person says, “I see you,” it’s the ultimate act of love, and deep down that’s what we want. To be seen, validated, and accepted for who we truly are. People also want their lives to matter in some way. They want to contribute something to the world, so they are remembered, whether that’s through others or the art or other work they leave behind. Finally, people want to become the best version of themselves—live their purpose. Carl Jung said the privilege of a lifetime is to become who we truly are and I couldn’t agree more. This is especially challenging in the age of social media where everyone curates a public persona which is like a highlight reel that may feel far from reality. There can be a real disjuncture between public myth and private hurt which can make it even more challenging to become our authentic, whole selves.

6. Which of your books changed you the most while you were writing it, and what did it force you to confront or understand differently?

Shooting Stars Above, hands down. From a very young age, I wanted to be a novelist more than anything, and more specifically, I wanted to write love stories. When I was nine years old, I was obsessed with the movie Romancing the Stone in which a romance novelist becomes swept up in her own romantic adventure. I rented the movie countless times, back in the days of VHS tapes. I rewound the first few minutes over and over again. During that scene the protagonist is typing the end of her novel and weeping.

That was what I wanted for myself. When I was ten, I even tried to write a novel. Despite my lifelong desire to be a romance novelist, I didn’t pursue it. I don’t even think I said the words out loud. I was afraid. Being an artist opens you up to a world of rejection and critique and my younger self couldn’t handle it. I was very shy and had survived terrible abuse and bullying. I didn’t want to invite more hurt into my life. So, I became a sociologist which led to becoming a nonfiction author. Eventually, I did become a novelist but in other genres. My first several novels are women’s, literary, and adventure fiction. Then one day, like a bolt, Shooting Stars Above came to me. I wrote the first draft in only ten days. I didn’t sleep or do anything else. I was completely immersed in the story world. It was the best creative experience of my life, up until that point. I loved every moment and the resulting book more than anything I had done before. It became crystal clear that writing love stories was my true calling. Life is short and while I still had fears, I wasn’t going to let them hold me back. I’ve been writing romance novels ever since. I know with certainty this is my true purpose, and it fills me with more joy than anything else despite the challenges.

7. You’re known in the publishing world for fiercely advocating for the rights of authors and artists. Tell us about your new publishing imprint, Paper Stars Press LLC, and if your advocacy for creators inspired the business.

For me, being an artist is truly the privilege of a lifetime. I love it more than anything. Yet it’s also incredibly difficult for many reasons. To begin, you make yourself vulnerable and share that which is most sacred to you. It’s like putting your beating heart in your shaking hand and extending it to the world. It is true that artists bleed in public. There’s always critique to navigate. Honestly, it can be soul-crushing at times. There’s also so much rejection. Add to this, because of all the rejection, authors and artists often feel desperate to take whatever deals they can get, and many publishing contracts are exploitive and poorly understood. So I have the utmost respect for what authors and artists do. The industry does not always show that same level of respect. I’ve tried to help in the ways that I can, through speaking out, offering webinars, and advocating for better terms for authors when I’ve been in a position to do so with my various publishers.

Paper Stars Press is my latest effort. It’s an indie imprint and we plan to keep our list small. We have an innovative model whereby we offer authors co-publishing agreements. It’s not traditional or hybrid publishing. I think of it as DIY with an experienced helping hand. Our contracts are extremely author centered.

For example, authors retain copyright, derivative rights, creative control over content and design, and there are no non-competes. We’re especially interested in crossover projects, such as novels or memoirs written by academics, or textbooks that merge traditional and artistic methods. I know how hard it was for me to publish boundary-crossing work and so I wanted to create a space that not only publishes this work but celebrates it.

8. You recently released two books through Paper Stars Press, your novel Cowboy Eyes, and your professional memoir and guidebook The Artist Academic. Is there more freedom publishing under your own imprint?

I’m lucky that I have worked with and continue to work with several publishers who support my creativity. There is, however, definitely a freedom that comes when you don’t have any gatekeepers. Sometimes it’s about the content, but sometimes it’s something more practical like the publishing schedule. I had originally intended to publish The Artist Academic elsewhere, but the publisher wanted to radically censor the book. It would not have been an honest account of the challenges doing border-crossing work, only the triumphs, and that would not have been as useful to readers. I also don’t agree with censorship and found many of the publisher’s demands misogynist. Owning a small press gave me the option to publish the book exactly as I wanted it to be. Cowboy Eyes is dedicated to one of my closest friends who died unexpectedly. My fiction publisher has a lead time of a couple years to get something into queue and I didn’t want to wait. On top of that, I wanted to design the cover myself as a tribute to my friend. So again, but for different reasons, having my own press allowed me to publish the book when and how I envisioned.

9. How does your forthcoming novel Sugar Sand Land build upon the themes readers may recognize from your earlier books, and in what ways does it represent a new direction for you as a novelist?

Sugar Sand Land signifies an evolution in my writing. There is the same kind of genuine, authentic, heartfelt romance at the center of the book that my readers have come to expect. But there is a noticeable shift in the writing too. There are stylistic changes, for the better. Thee are layers of narrative and meaning. There’s also a twist that I don’t want to give away, but that’s not something I usually do. I can say with all sincerity that I have never been prouder of a book or loved a book more. I have several other novels written that will be rolling out after Sugar Sand Land and continue to represent this evolution in my writing.

10. When readers look back on your full body of work, what do you hope they will understand about Patricia Leavy, not simply as an author, but as a person?

That is for time and others to tell. I can only say that I’ve tried to use my voice even when it’s been difficult or scary to do so. I care about people, humanity, justice, and art and I hope that comes through in my work. To me, and regardless of if the sentiment is shared by anyone else, my books are beautiful. I find beauty in the characters, story worlds, and messages. I’ve devoted my life to the craft of writing and been thoughtful about what I’ve put into the world, and I am truly proud to stand by my catalog knowing that it will live longer than I will.

https://paperstarspress.com/