How does someone achieve their dream job? What on Earth does that process look like? 

Juliana Goodman is a professional author, having published one Y.A. novel (The Black Girls Left Standing (TBGLS)) and one short story (One on One) in a sports anthology novel (Out of Our League). Goodman studied English Literature at WIU, obtaining her B.A in 2014. She continued her education at Purdue University, earning an MFA in Fiction Writing in 2017. She was also a Tulsa Artist Fellow from 2019-2022; she honed her craft here and worked full-time writing novels. She published TBGLS, her first novel, shortly following this, but what did this journey look like? In an interview with published author Juliana Goodman, I spoke with her about how she turned her passion for writing into being published and more:

I began the interview by questioning how she discovered her passion – how she knew what she wanted to do with her life:

Carter Myers: What is writing to you? What does it mean? Is it a passion? Is it a hobby? (. . .) Where did you see writing going in your life?

Juliana Goodman: So, for me, writing has always been a passion. I knew eventually, as I got older that I wanted to turn it into a job. But as I was growing up (. . .) I was writing when I was really young and didn’t even have a concept of knowing I’d need to get a job and have money, and I was still doing it and loving it, and it was the only thing that really kind of made life worth living sometimes (. . .) it really saved me in a way, from the things I was running from in life.

Knowing that she wanted to turn writing into a career, Goodman studied literature at University. During her schooling and time within the Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Goodman wrote and wrote and wrote; it was what she spent most of her time doing. She wrote multiple novel manuscripts during this time and sought out agents to begin publishing them. But how did her debut novel, TBGLS, begin? How did her journey to professional writing start post-education?

Carter Myers: What was that process [of submitting TBGLS] like? (. . .) what helped you to establish the agent?

Juliana Goodman: So the first time I was sending out my [TBGLS] manuscript, I was trying to find an agent. So I would send it out to maybe thirty or forty agents at a time, and I did that maybe like three rounds. Then, once I got my agent (. . .), we worked on it together.

Goodman worked for a while with her new agent, Patricia, on the manuscript for TBGLS. She dived into a cycle of revision, send to agent, revision, send to agent, revision, over and over. Eventually, her manuscript got to a point where she and Patricia began looking for a publisher.

Juliana Goodman: We went on submission again, but this time to editors and publishers. This time, it wasn’t as big. It wasn’t like 30 or 40 publishers. It was maybe like Eight or nine (. . .) at that point we had a polished version, at least what we both considered to be the most polished version of the draft that we were sending out.

But how did Goodman decide which publisher and editor to work with?

Carter Myers: What helped you end up deciding on this publisher?

Juliana Goodman: What helped me sign with Feiwel and Friends? Well, at the time, they were the only ones who made an offer on the book, so my agent had also worked with this editor- This specific editor before, so she was able to tell me like, this is what [my editor] Kats like. This is what she’s interested in. It’s really easy to get feedback from her. She’s prompt. She’s on time. So that was our main focus.

Once her book had been edited, it was only a matter of time until TBGLS was officially published for-profit. After post-education, Goodman brought forth her dream of becoming a paid and published author in only three years. Since then, she has been traveling, giving presentations on TBGLS, talking about her writing process, and teaching others about the art of literature. Goodman currently teaches at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and travels nationwide, teaching and presenting to students. She recently visited and spoke at WIU as a Lola Austin case writer (the reason for this interview). I thoroughly enjoyed speaking with Juliana Goodman; she enlightened me about the writer’s process. It was sparkling, and I eagerly await her future published works.

I encourage all to read the full interview I took with Goodman. If anyone is interested in reading my whole interview with Juliana Goodman, scan the QR code below: