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Meet the Teaching Artist: How to Sell Your First Book with Cameron Dezen Hammon
by Writing Workshops Staff
5 months ago
Cameron Dezen Hammon often finds herself at her desk, wrestling with words that bridge the sacred and the profane. As the author of This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession, Hammon has traversed the tumultuous landscapes of faith, love, and identity, carving a space for herself in the literary world with unflinching honesty and lyrical prose. Her work has graced the pages of Vogue, Guernica, and Prairie Schooner, each piece a testament to her ability to distill the complexities of the human experience into something profoundly relatable.
But Hammon's journey to publication was not a straightforward path. It was a labyrinth of queries sent into the void, elevator pitches, and a relentless pursuit of the right words to capture the essence of her story. Now, as she crafts her second book—a reported memoir delving into post-divorce liberation, with its first chapter recently featured in The Sun—she turns her gaze outward, eager to guide aspiring writers through the often opaque corridors of the publishing world.
In anticipation of her upcoming Zoom seminar, How to Sell Your First Book, Hammon opens up about the alchemy of transforming a manuscript into a marketable work. The class promises not just insider knowledge on navigating agents and publishers, but also the tools to articulate one's narrative in a way that resonates. Participants will leave with more than just notes; they'll have the scaffolding of their literary ambitions—a polished elevator pitch, a query letter outline, and a writer's bio that doesn't just list accomplishments but tells a story.
We sat down with Hammon to discuss the art of selling a book, the nuances between writing and pitching, and how she helps writers find that elusive balance between creative integrity and market appeal. For anyone who has ever felt their manuscript burning a hole in their desk drawer, Hammon's insights might just be the key to unlocking the next chapter of their writing journey.
Hi Cameron, please introduce yourself to our audience.
I'm an essayist and memoirist who teaches for both the creative writing and medical humanities programs at Rice University. My first memoir, This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession, (Lookout Books), was the Nonfiction Discovery Prize Winner for the 2019 Writers’ League of Texas Book Awards, a bronze medalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award in Creative Nonfiction, and a finalist for the Foreword INDIE Book of the Year in Autobiography and Memoir. I'm at work on my second memoir about sexual and spiritual exploration, which is currently out on submission through my agent. I'm the mother of one human, a dog named Sugar, and a cat named Winona Ryder.
What made you want to teach this specific class? Is it something you are focusing on in your own writing practice? Have you noticed a need to focus on this element of craft?
Publishing your first book can feel overwhelming. I remember when I was in grad school, I felt like the entire process was complicated and out of reach. But I soon learned, through the generosity of writers who were further ahead in the process, that it was possible. I want to offer novice writers the same sort of actionable advice that I received from writer-friends.
Give us a breakdown of how the course is going to go. What can the students expect? What is your favorite part about this class you've dreamed up?
We will start with a brief introductory ice breaker, followed by a generative writing prompt designed to get us started thinking about the books we hope to sell. I will offer a craft lecture about how to navigate publishing as a novice, as well as insights I've gleaned from my own experience selling a memoir. In the second half of the class I will introduce a special guest, novelist Alison Wisdom, who will talk about her experience selling her first novel. We will conclude with a writing exercise designed to get the students started on the elevator pitch for their first book, followed by a q & a.
What was your first literary crush?
Emily of New Moon by Lucy Maud Montgomery.
What are you currently reading?
Three Strong Women, by Marie NDiaye.
How do you choose what you're working on? When do you know it is the next thing you want to write all the way to THE END?
It's a strange process! The projects I've finished have been built around a question I didn't have the answer to. I write to the end to try to answer that question, but the question is unanswerable. I think the best a book can do for its writer is inspire her to ask better questions.
Where do you find inspiration?
Popular culture, other writers, art, travel, but above all reading. Nothing makes me sit down in front of my laptop to write faster than reading something good.
What is the best piece of writing wisdom you've received that you can pass along to our readers? How did it impact your work? Why has this advice stuck with you?
"All a first draft has to do is exist." I think this was something I threw together based on several related pieces of advice, but it's impactful because it helps to distract the perfectionism just long enough to write the first draft. Without which there would be no second, or third, etc.
What is your favorite book to recommend on the craft of writing? Why this book?
The Art of Time in Memoir by Sven Birkerts. It's an invaluable craft book on how to handle time not only in memoir but fiction as well.
Bonus question: What’s your teaching vibe?
Relaxed, fun, approachable.
Cameron Dezen Hammon is the author of This Is My Body: A Memoir of Religious and Romantic Obsession (Lookout Books, 2019) winner of the Nonfiction Discovery Prize from The Writers’ League of Texas, the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publisher Books Awards for Creative Nonfiction, and a finalist for the Foreword INDIE Book of the Year in Memoir and Autobiography. She has written for Vogue, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, Ecotone, NYLON, the Houston Chronicle, and elsewhere. She is at work on her second book, a reported memoir about post-divorce sexual and spiritual liberation, the first chapter of which was recently published in The Sun. Cameron teaches creative writing and literature at Rice University in Houston, TX.
