Making Things is Hard #2: Sarvenaz Tash

"My agent emails me and she goes, 'I've never actually had this happen in the twenty years I've been agenting, but they're not going to offer. They took it back.' And I was like, 'WHAT?'"

Hello! Good morning. Very excited you’re here for this second installment of my interview series, as this one is with the funny and versatile Sarvenaz Tash, who’s achieved the coveted trifecta of novel-writing, with young adult (YA), middle grade (MG), and adult novels. (I’m not sure if this is actually a trifecta people covet, but I find it impressive!)

Her debut MG novel The Mapmaker and the Ghost (aimed at readers ages 8-12) came out in 2012 and—after a bumpy beginning you’ll hear about shortly that nearly stopped her writing altogether—kickstarted a really cool and interesting career trajectory that includes her most recent YA novel, the charming A Whole Song and Dance (last month’s Target pick for YA of the month), and her upcoming MG mystery, a love letter to Coney Island, The Queen of Ocean Parkway.

In 2019, I blurbed Sarvenaz’s delightful YA romcom Virtually Yours because I loved it so much. Also in 2019, Sarvenaz did something incredibly generous that I will be forever grateful for: after reading an advance copy of Crying Laughing six months before it came out, she pointed out that Asmaa, one of the names of Winnie’s best friends—two Iranian-American twin sisters—was not in fact an Iranian name. Suffice it to say, I was horrified.

The name Asmaa was already in the advance copies that were being reviewed (though my Muslim authenticity reader had done a thorough and fantastic job, this name issue had not been on their radar), but Sarvenaz caught this just in time for me to make the change for the published book. The name Asmaa had been shortened a lot in the book to Oz, so Sarvenaz kindly even suggested a replacement name. “How about Azadeh? So you can retain the nickname.” I loved that. Then I asked her to please pronounce it for me, so I would know how to say the name of one of my main characters. She sent me this recording:

So this is all to say that Sarvenaz rules, and I think it’s also a beautiful example of the way collaboration is always happening when we make things, often in unexpected ways. No solo work is really a solo work.

Sarvenaz and I talked over Facetime. I condensed and edited our conversation for your enjoyment. 

Something I’m curious to ask everyone these days: what is your relationship to your phone in regards to your creative process? Do you actively put it away at times? Does it intertwine with the writing?

I actually literally just put my phone on Do Not Disturb because I was in the zone. And I was getting text messages from my friends and I was like, Yeah, I just can’t. I don’t do it as often as I should. But I do try to put the phone away and usually I’m not looking at it unless I’m getting texts or something.

The text conversations are so hard because sometimes you’re genuinely happy to be texting with a friend and then twenty minutes go by and you’re like, What just happened?

And it’s the same reason I can’t write when my kids are at home, because I need space to be in that world [of my book], not the real world. But, if I need a break, I will take my phone and play some stupid card game or whatever, while I’m working something out in my head, but I try not to be on social media. I’m trying to cut back social media in general.

What does that look like?

I’ve managed to pull away from Twitter entirely. Which has been great.

Yeah. It’s nice.

I don’t miss it at all. In fact, I was not even that sad that it kind of imploded. It was so toxic I felt like even before that, so I was just glad to have an excuse to be like, You know what? I don’t need to be here. I occasionally go on Threads, but I kind of feel like Threads is the same as Twitter in some ways. I think the algorithm is designed to incense you. It shows you things that make you mad, and I was like, I don’t need to feel this way again.

I think I’ve made peace with the fact that I can’t really move the [book sales] needle on social media. And it’s not worth my mental health. If I feel like doing something, or if I think it’s funny or fun, I’ll do it. Or obviously, if a book’s coming out, I will post about it. But otherwise, I’m like, “Nah.” It’s just not what it was. And I used to be a social media manager for MTV/Bravo, back in the day.

Oh wow.

So it was really my life. And I used to really like it then. It used to be fun.

Yeah. It was.

And it stopped being fun.

I think that’s a realization that we’re all kind of having simultaneously. Like, Wait, why are we doing this?

I feel like my content is my books. That’s the content I want to create. I don’t want to create other content. Which is what social media is.

Okay, so in terms of a creative struggle, have you thought about one or two you’d want to share?

I did! And what’s funny is that I was like, There are so many. But we never talk about them! But there are definitely more struggles and failures than there are successes.

Yes! The ratio is, of course, that.

But you’re not going to post about that. I mean, some people do, I guess.

Some people do, but in general the system is set up…not for that.

No. ‘Cause also you don’t want to be the one who’s complaining all the time.

Right. And then to post about failure and not get many likes or validation would feel even worse.

Which is also interesting as a parent because I feel like you kind of want to teach your kids that failure happens. And that you need to get up and keep going!

Yes! One of the biggest lessons we can impart as parents.

It’s going to happen—you’re not going to succeed at everything you do. Not all your dreams will come true!

So, again, I had a lot of ideas, but the struggle I’m going to talk about is what was supposed to be my second book way back when. And how I almost quit writing! [laughter]

Ha, I’m glad you didn’t.

So, I got my book deal in 2010. Obviously I remember that day so well. I was in my office at MTV and my agent called. I went into a conference room, and it was such an amazing moment. I’ll never forget it. It always will be, like, this lifelong dream, you know? And it was. It really was great. But that being said, I feel like there wasn’t a road map for what happens after, and what that actually looks like.

You’re like, “Oh, I have a book deal! Great! That’s it. I’m an author now. I will never be rejected again.”

Yup. Totally.

So my debut [The Mapmaker and the Ghost] kind of… Things about it were great. I had a really great debut group. I’m still friends with a lot of those people, and that was really nice. But my actual book coming out was kind of a…disaster.

So about three months before my book was going to come out, my editor left. Which I now know is pretty common. At the time, I did not. I was like, “OH MY GOD.”

Well, even if it’s common, it’s not ideal, no matter when it happens.

No, it’s not ideal. And I really loved my editor. She had already edited the book and everything, but for three months, all of the promo stuff, she was gone. So she had read my option book, which was this fantasy about djinns and Middle Eastern folklore, and she really liked it. She was like, “Yeah, we’re probably going to buy this,” but she passed me onto a new editor and told her they were probably going to buy my second book. So she left. Then my agent…stopped agenting.

How soon after? Still before the book came out?

I want to say it was right before my editor left because I actually reached out to [my editor] to give me agent referrals. And she introduced me to my next agent, which was nice of her. And she said to the agent, “We’re probably buying her next book, just so you know.”

So my debut happened, and I told my publicist—remember, this was my debut launch, and it was at BookCourt [note: RIP, BookCourt]—and I told her: I’m probably going to need like one hundred books. And I don’t know whether she didn’t believe me, or she didn’t—I don’t know what happened. But there were twenty books there. And there were probably a hundred people there. Because again, it was my debut book, and everyone from all walks of my life had come. My elementary school violin teacher was there! So I started my debut launch, like, crying, “There’s only twenty books here!” Something that now I’d be like, whatever, but at the time felt huge.

Anyway, after my debut comes out, I had written this manuscript [note: the fantasy book about djinns], I’d revised it, I sent it to the new editor. She took it to acquisitions. She came back to my agent and said it passed acquisitions and they were going to make an offer next week.

So next week comes around and my agent emails me and she goes—I think she emailed me, I don’t think she called me—she said, “I’ve actually never had this happen in the twenty years I’ve been agenting, but they’re not going to offer. They took it back.” And I was like, “What?”

Oh my god.

And like, at this point now, I can look back and see: you went to acquisitions and said yes and then… That is weird. But at the time, I was devastated. I didn’t know what to do. And there was a lot going on in my personal life, like I had left my job at MTV, partially because it was—I really loved that job, and I really loved my co-workers—but it was so stressful. I couldn’t write and [also] do that. I got another job, but it was more low-key. I really didn’t like it. I didn’t really have co-workers, it was very lonely.

So I had left this job I really loved, I was getting married so I was doing wedding planning stuff, and my agent had left, and my editor had left. The [debut] book came out and didn’t really do anything [in terms of sales]—again, now I know better about what that means, but at the time I didn’t. I was like, “Why didn’t it, like…explode?”

Of course. We’re all expecting our books to explode.

So then that happened, I didn’t know what to do, so I was like, “I want to go back to writing what I want to write. Let’s pretend my deal didn’t happen.”

So I really wanted to write a book about Woodstock. I’ve always loved it, and I thought, That’s the only way I could attend Woodstock, if I write about it. We almost got married actually in Bethel, where Woodstock took place. We’d looked at it as a venue. And I’d gone to the museum recently. So I was like, “I’m gonna do this, it’s gonna be great. But it can’t be Middle Grade.” For obvious reasons. So it was going to be YA.

And I remember when I debuted, literally thinking, I can never write YA. I’ll never be able to write teen. Which is funny because now most of my books are YA. But I think I also realized I can write anything if I want to write it. I’m a little bit of a genre agnostic. So I wrote this Woodstock romance, and it was totally different, and it took me a few months, and I sent it to my agent. This is now about a year after my debut, and she wrote back a week later…and she broke up with me.

What? Oh no!

Yes. “I just don’t connect to this.” And she actually said to me…basically that my editor had told her that they were going to buy my second book, and that’s why she had signed me. Which now I’m like, “That was kinda crappy of you.” But at the time I was like, “Oh my god, my editor told her that, and then she didn’t get the sale, and I’ve been with her for a year and…”  

So, you know, I was devastated. I felt like, “This is the universe telling me this is it. I’m a one and done author. I’m done! I just feel like this business is too hard. So much is out of my control. I did all this work and nothing really came of it.”

I thought I would probably always write, but for me. Probably wouldn’t publish again, so I thought about what I wanted to do with my career—whether I wanted to go back to working in media, or whether I wanted to go back to the corporate ladder. So for six months, that’s what I did.

But then, by the end of 2013, just like Taylor Swift went through the five stages of a break-up... I got mad. And I reread the Woodstock book and was like, “I really like this!” And I was like, “Man, I’m really pissed off about how this all played out, and I think this is good. You know what? I’m gonna get myself another agent.” So I had a short query list, and one of them was Victoria Marini, who I’d met at my book launch actually. She came and she introduced herself to me; at the time she was a newer agent. I just remembered that she knew who I was.

So I queried her, and she got both the djinn book and Three Day Summer (which is what the Woodstock book became) and she loved them both. She gave me notes on both, so this was February 2014, and by May, she had sold the Woodstock book.

Wow. That Woodstock book—how many drafts was that? That sounds like a quick—I mean, other than the horror of your other agent being like no, we’re done—did the actual writing of the book flow?

Yeah, that one flowed. Not as much as [The] Geek’s Guide [to Unrequited Love], which was the one that flowed the most, but that one flowed and even the edits were pretty minor.

So she sold it and I was like, “Okay!” And then she sold Geek’s Guide, and the funny thing is that my djinn book—which she actually sent out in a few different iterations—is the only one of my books that’s ever been subbed that’s never sold.

Have you given up hope entirely for that book? Do you even connect to it anymore years later?

I do, and I think about it a lot. It’s high fantasy, which is challenging for me. I feel like I have to get to a point where I’m a little bit of a better writer maybe, so I can do the world-building better. I can see why it didn’t sell. I think the world-building is a little shaky. But there are things about it I really love, and I feel like if I don’t ever sell the whole thing, I’m sure I’ll Frankenstein it and sell something from it.

The other funny thing is I literally did not write another middle grade novel until my 8^th book.

Coming out in the fall! [Pre-order here, it sounds awesome.] So your first book was middle grade, and it took till your eighth to return to writing for that age. Wild. Thank you for that story—it demonstrates so well the ups and downs, and the arbitrary nature of how this thing goes.

In a way, it was kind of like everything that could have gone wrong, kinda went wrong the first time around. ‘Cause now everything else I’m like, “Eh, it’s fine. It’ll all kinda shake out in the end.” It taught me a very valuable lesson, that I should only write if I want to write. Nothing else is in my control, and writing to try and be successful as an author is not worth it for me. I can only control how I feel about the work, so I want to be proud of what I did and be like, okay, I really like this thing that I spent a chunk of my life on.

In terms of creative wisdom you would pass back to your younger self who’s about to have that debut book come out, is there anything you would add to that?

I just feel like she wouldn’t listen to me unless she went through it. Even now, I see people on Twitter or Threads who are writers and want to be authors, and people give them advice, and they don’t like the advice. And I get it! Because you have to kind of suspend disbelief a little bit in order to do this.

Any creative career.

Yeah, because you’re like what are the chances this will actually… You don’t want to think too hard about that. You need to dream a little bit.

Yes, if you go in with a cold sense of reality, it wouldn’t be appealing at all. Or sustainable.

The main wisdom I’d pass on to myself is: work on the next thing. Always keep working on the next thing.

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Thanks so much to Sarvenaz, and thanks so much to you for reading. Truly appreciate everyone who’s here and has subscribed and has been spreading the word to others. It means a ton.

Enjoy your Thursday! Splurge on a cold beverage, do something kind for a stranger, and keep working on the next thing.