L.C. Spotlight: Brooke Knisley — Emily Collins Writer

Screen Shot 2020-11-23 at 11.10.51 AM.png — Brooke Knisley

L.C. Spotlight 11.23.20

Welcome back to The Literary Copywriter spotlight where I feature professional writers with literary pursuits. I knew I wanted to interview Brooke Knisley after reading her compelling work on feminism, ableism, and pop culture in publications such as Bitch Media, HuffPost, The Boston Globe Magazine, DAME Magazine, and others.

Bio: Brooke Knisley is a disabled writer and writing instructor whose work has appeared in a variety of publications. She thinks she’s funny.*

(Interviewer’s note: She is!)*

Let’s hear from Brooke!

Literary Copywriter: You've written extensively and beautifully about the effects of unbalanced power dynamics on the female psyche. This is courageous and necessary work. What continues to motivate you to write about these experiences in a unique way?

Brooke Knisley: I hate assumptions. When anyone assumes anything about anyone because of their gender, race, disability, age, etc. I find it infuriating and lazy—relying on a stereotype instead of engaging with an individual and coming to terms with their viewpoint is disrespectful. I bring that up to say, I've encountered many people throughout my life who have made assumptions about me based on my gender and it never fails to piss me off. I'm privileged in that I've never experienced racism, and I can only imagine what that would be like in addition to the sexism I've experienced. Rampant ableism has also been something I've grown accustomed to, which is a problematic statement indeed. All of this to say, I've been angry for a long time and writing about these different power dynamics and the outcome of perpetuating them is the only positive way I can think of to handle my anger. I used to drink a lot; this is healthier for me. People socialized as female tend to blame themselves when traumatic events happen to them—at least, I did. It took me a long time to realize self-flagellation isn't the way forward. It'd be nice if others could realize this without ending up in a 10-day coma.

L.C. In recent articles, you write about how COVID-19 has further decimated support systems for the disabled community. As a writer and member of the disabled community, what's helped you to stay committed to the creative path despite 2020?

B.K. What's great about being disabled (no sarcasm, there are a lot of great things that able-bodied people can't seem to wrap their heads around) is that we're a resilient bunch. And we're innovative and enterprising. 2020 has been hard and the lack of understanding and care for disabled people has been frustrating and infuriating, but we've always found ways to support each other. In the early months, a lot of disabled people were having issues getting groceries delivered since Instacart and other services were being flooded by the general population. My buddy Ryan Honick in D.C. and I were sharing alternate food services with each other and brainstorming different ideas to have our needs met. Twitter's been amazing for finding other members of the disability community with which to commiserate and share tips/suggestions about life. Of course, all of this doesn't replace the integral direct-care providers needed by members of the disabled community, and that shouldn't be forgotten.

L.C. Tell me more about your freelance writing business. I see you have bylines in venues such as Al Jazeera, HuffPost, Bitch Media, The Boston Globe Magazine, and more. When did you start freelancing and where do you hope writing will take you career wise?

B.K. I was finishing up a degree in Literature from UC Santa Cruz when I had my accident in 2015. After I got out of the inpatient hospital, I was living with my parents and doing outpatient rehabilitation in San Diego. All of the doctors kept telling me the only way I'd recover cognitively was if I kept doing the life tasks I did before. Well, my "life tasks" consisted of getting drunk and shooting pool, which were no longer viable pursuits. So, I checked out books from the library and wrote analyses of them, I started doing Duolingo everyday (I actually finished the Spanish track and mentioned it to a friend recently who said, "....that's possible? You can finish Duolingo?"), and I started trolling Subreddits about TBI and Writing. That's how I discovered UpWork and made some quick money ghostwriting stories since I was fast. It took me a couple months to figure out I was being grossly underpaid, but then I abandoned UpWork. At the same time, I signed up for a bunch of different newsletters to get the free white papers provided for subscription to learn about pitching/the ins and outs of freelancing, including Carol Tice's How to Make a Living Writing Guides.

Reddit is actually where I found one of my first, and longest standing, anchor clients. An editor for the rental company Doorsteps was looking for someone to write about San Diego and I was all, "That's me." It's also pretty cool not having to explain my disabilities and the accommodations I need since freelance clients only care about results and I've only met a client once in person. But I had also been applying to part-time jobs that would allow me to sit (I have ataxia) and not have to write by hand (poor fine motor skills), and coincidentally an academic publishing company in San Diego was hiring seasonal production assistants to layout textbooks. They hired me about 3 weeks after my eye surgery (end of April 2016), about 9 months out from my accident.

I started picking up other freelancing gigs, including one ghostwriting for a public speaking coach (haha), and finished up my remaining credits at UC San Diego to get my Bachelor's. But I only tell you that since it's how I ended up moving across the country and teaching; having a degree did not play into my original freelance trajectory at all. I needed health insurance and applied to grad school to get it, at a professor's suggestion. And freelancing is how I paid my bills/paid down my student loans while I was in the program.

The freedom and flexibility of freelancing is amazing and has made all of the difference in my life. I don't have to deal with ableism or assumptions about my capabilities; I just have to deliver. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with your 2020 question, but if I didn't have established freelancing career, 2020 would have hit me hard. I'm immunocompromised and disabled which means I'm at high-risk and can't go in-office. I've been teaching remotely and writing articles ad nauseum. In a way, it's very similar to the first year following my accident when I was still recovering and my mobility wasn't great. I couldn't physically do much, but I could research, read, and write, a good chunk of freelancing, anyway.

L.C. I love supporting professional writers who are also committed to their creative projects. I see that you're working on a memoir about trauma and its damage. If comfortable, I'd love to hear more about this compelling work in progress.

Well, the project came about because I kind of forgot to do my homework. A publishing professor at Emerson was about to assign us a book proposal project and we were supposed to bring in our ideas to share with the class. I had been toying with a half-baked idea about a nonfiction book about female-fronted garage bands and sexism in the DIY music scene, but it wasn't a fully developed idea. About 15 minutes before class I was printing out my idea to turn in and scrapped the amorphous blob that was my music proposal and wrote about my brain damage instead. When presenting to the class, I said something akin to: "In 2015, I fell about 25-feet out of a tree and was in a 10-day coma. This guy told everyone he was my boyfriend while I was unconscious and the next year, I had to relearn how to swallow, walk, and think. It was kind of a nightmare, but also kind of funny." That professor was immediately onboard and said, "If you write this, I will help you," which is amazing, having someone in your corner from the get-go.

From there, it seemed necessary to go back and explain everything that happened before the accident that led me to being the drunk I was doing this type of risky behavior. It sounds naïve and over-simplistic to say this, but my traumatic brain injury taught me the mind and body are irrevocably connected and all of the disassociation and lengths I went to not feel anything only made doing the work of healing that much more difficult. To over-simplify even further, it's taken me a lifetime to be nice to myself; some things are my fault, but I wasn't equipped with the initial groundwork that would have led me to make better decisions later. I swear I'm not being deliberately obtuse—the book comprises many factors in my life, like having a mother with unmedicated bipolar disorder who drank heavily and an always-absent military father who was also a drinker (I wrote about this a little bit last year for the Independent). I have a brother, too, but his story isn't mine to tell so I only talk about the portions that involve me.

Anyway, all of that to say, I finished the manuscript in 2019 and have been revising it with the help of that professor ever since.

L.C. Like many writers, you're also an educator. I'd love to hear your thoughts on teaching college writing and if there are any teachers past or present who continue to inspire you.

B.K. I actually didn't have any plans to teach, but Emerson College (where I went to grad school) had incoming students rank classes for the first semester and I ended up in a How to Teach Composition course and loved it. I like reading pedagogical texts and all of those readings plus my time rehabbing my brain and relearning concepts helped me to form my own pedagogical ideologies. Stress isn't conducive to learning; I'm more interested in students really examining their ideas than worrying about making arbitrary deadlines. After all, the classes I teach (Intro to Composition and Research Writing) are foundational courses where students learn the principles and features of these different forms of writing. Cortisol inhibits the brain from retaining information. I'd rather my students learn the basics thoroughly and save the quick turn-arounds for advanced courses later on in their academic careers.

L.C. Say someone much younger than you says they want to write but are afraid they won't succeed. What would you tell them?

B.K. When I started freelancing, I was in pretty dire straits, cognitively and physically (I went to meet with a woman who would end up being one of my first ghostwriting clients, the public speaking coach—two weeks after an eye surgery to fix my diplopia and my eyesight still hadn't completely righted itself). In a way, I think the brain fog and general confusion my TBI caused helped me, since I never had the capacity to think, "Am I really capable of doing this? Not just right now, but at all?" And then as my acuity returned and I realized, "Oh, wow, probably shouldn't have been trying to do that then," it helped to think, "Welp, I already got that part out of the way. Onward." I'm a big proponent of doing what you want to do. Just give it a go. Everyone's vying for something, why not you, too? If you feel insecure, do a little more research. Read everything you can. Everything you need to know can be found for free somewhere on the internet or at the library.