#AtoZChallenge: Nathaniel

Nathaniel Glanzmann is one of our very own Operation Awesome bloggers. Thanks for sitting down and answering so thoroughly!

Why do you write?

I’ve always been better at writing than speaking. In the beginning, I used writing as purely an escape. Something that I did to not think about certain things or express myself in ways that I didn’t know how to yet. Now, it’s to make myself happy and meet new friends.

What is your genre/age category of preference?

I tend to write Upper YA to Lower NA, although I have dabbled in MG. As for genre, I either write quirky slice-of-life stories or psychological thrillers. It’s pretty much exclusively those two things.

Are there any themes or tropes you find yourself returning to story after story? 

In almost everything I write, you will be able to find:

1. -Deep-seated family issues
2. -”Chosen family” or friends who act like family
3. -Trauma of some kind
4. -References to psychology and/or neuroscience
5. -An older sibling/younger sibling-type friendship featuring two people who are typically not related
6. -Mentally ill/disabled/LGBTQ+/POC characters
7. -An almost complete lack of romance
8. -A loving, albeit eccentric father-figure
9. -Gruesome deaths
10. -Wholesome jokes'

Can you talk a little about what Query Kombat is as well as what your experience during Query Kombat 2018 was like?

Query Kombat is a competition in which you submit your query letter and first 250 words of your completed manuscript for a chance to be entered into a 64-person tournament bracket. If you get selected to compete, the judges will give thoughts and constructive feedback to both people in the round and will vote on which one they think is stronger. You’ll advance if you get more votes than your opponent. It’s cool because you have the opportunity to interact with other writers and showcase your work to agents if you get far enough to make the agent round.

Would you recommend the writing contest to other authors looking for agents and/or feedback?

Absolutely! I met a lot of friends during QK, some of whom I became critique partners with. One of them is a fellow sensitivity reader who hooks me up with potential clients who are seeking sensitivity reading for characters who share my identities, and I do the same for her. I also got two full manuscript requests as a result of the agent round. And it’s crazy to think that, when I first submitted my work, I didn’t think I’d even be considered, let alone make the quarterfinals.

Do you write about mental health matters? Why do you believe it’s important, if you do?

I do, but with the exception of one Medium article that I wrote, I don’t do so directly because I don’t particularly enjoy writing about myself and feel that a minor in psychology is not enough education to diagnose other people. Instead, I tend to write about characters who share mental illnesses/disabilities with me, have experienced things that I have or display traits of disorders that I don’t share but have thoroughly researched. I have what we Autistics call a “special interest” in psychology and it’s fun for me to write about it. It’s also a healthy way of expressing things that I usually keep to myself.

How did you get your start in sensitivity reading?

I saw that it was a new and emerging field and that I felt I met the criteria for a successful one. I’ve done freelance editing in the past, I have a Bachelor’s in English and fall under many different marginalized categories--all of this made me, in my opinion, knowledgeable and versatile. I thought that I could help people while making enough money to pay for therapy and medication.

Can you give a brief overview, for those who may not know, of what sensitivity reading services you offer?

I mainly provide full manuscript reads, in which I will make comments all  throughout the word document and write a full report at the end about any stereotypes/microaggressions/offensive elements that I spot as well as what I think the client does well to represent their marginalized character(s). I also offer partial manuscript reads and sensitivity consulting, which is an option for people who are in the planning stages of creating a marginalized character, but need assistance on developing them. My website can go into further detail with that, as well as list all of the identities I am qualified to read for. :)

Everyone’s writing is informed by their identity; how does your identity as an Autistic Filipino transgender man inform your writing, from the stories you choose to tell to the way you tell them? 

It definitely influences the kinds of characters I create. I admittedly have to think harder when creating a White cishet abled character. Because of my experience as a child of an immigrant,  (My mother is from the Philippines) I tend to include themes of immigration, “otherness” and familial pressure to perform. While we’re on the subject of race, I’m actually half-Filipino--my father is mostly Ashkenazi Jewish. I remember being a little brown Asian kid walking around in public with my older White father and having the cops called on us because people thought I was kidnapped. I also have the experience of knowing just how alienating it is to be biracial “not belonging” to one group or the other, which is what I meant by “otherness” earlier. 

I include a fair amount of trans people in my work, and strive to make their transness relevant to who they are (As in, their identity influencing some of their thoughts and experiences) but not to the point where they are The Trans Character (™). I don’t write “issue books” is what I mean. I simply include people with my identities and make those identities relevant to who they are without having that identity define them.

I also include a good handful of Autistic characters, as well. In fact, it was through writing the novel that got me into Query Kombat that made me realize I was Autistic and should get tested. Most of the characters that I write are characters that non-marginalized people get wrong all the time and I want to show the general public how people like me actually are. (Although, I do believe that non-marginalized people can write marginalized characters--including the specific experiences of those characters--as long as they do the research, but that’s a rant for another day.)

At any rate, I am fully convinced that I am incapable of writing characters who are devoid completely of some kind of neurodivergence. I legitimately would have to do research on how to write a NON-mentally ill/disabled character. That’s how f’d up I am.

You've mentioned your high school English teaching career; why was that a career you were drawn to?

I wanted to help people. I wanted to teach people that their words are powerful, and to help them develop as critical readers and writers. I wanted to support and protect people like I was not supported and protected. There was just one problem: Nobody, including myself, thought that I could do it. From birth to the end of high school, I was told--with some exceptions--that I would amount to nothing. I was labeled stupid and lazy because I had undiagnosed developmental/learning disabilities that I wasn’t getting help for and floundered in school as a result. I was told that I’d be lucky if I could make it in food service. (Not that I think there’s anything wrong with food service--culinary arts are a thing. But I don’t think that’s what they meant.) I was conveniently in the mental hospital for the third time my senior year for more than a month during the time that college applications were due. As a result, I couldn’t send any in and ended up going to the local community college. This was the best decision of my life. Because once the shock wore off that I had received an almost-perfect GPA my first semester...I thought, “Oh, my god...I can actually do this.” And I worked my ass off until I graduated magna cum laude from a state university and gained international teaching experience through doing one of my student teaching placements in Australia. I wanted to help people believe in themselves because I learned how powerful it is when you finally do.

What happened with that career?

I’m not teaching currently, but I resigned by choice. I had been brought into the psychiatric hospital two times that school year, and I stepped down because I did not feel that I was what was best for the students. They deserved someone more stable who would be equipped to not have a breakdown once a semester. The good thing is that, when I signed the resignation paperwork at HR, they told me that because my administration was strongly considering hiring me for next year and that I left for medical reasons, I could reapply to the district when I was ready. I’ll be back in the classroom eventually--I just know that I need to get my mental health sorted out to the point where I’m no longer a danger to myself. But hey, all of this makes for good writing material. My dad always said, “Turn pain into art,” after all.

Thanks so much for answering these questions, Nathaniel!