Some Insight and Tips for Writing and Publishing Nonfiction: An Interview with Margaret Montet

I recently had the opportunity to interview friend and fellow writer Margaret Montet about her forthcoming book, Nerd Traveler. While Margaret has had many essays and articles published through the years, this is her first full-length book. The publishing industry can be tricky to navigate, so I was interested in Margaret’s experience and what tips and suggestions she might have for writers–especially for writers of nonfiction. I am sharing her answers here and hope that you’ll find them helpful! (Margaret was also a guest blogger on my site back in 2019; you can read that post here.)

An Interview with Margaret Montet

Q. To get started, briefly tell us a little bit about yourself.

MM: Writing is the most fun part of my life, but I make a living as a college librarian. I’ve spent a few decades helping patrons and students with their research, which I really enjoy. I’ve been writing all my life in one way or another, always nonfiction and usually with research in some form. It’s only in the last couple of decades that I’ve let anyone besides teachers, bosses, and colleagues read my stuff! Besides my MFA and my library degree, I also have a master’s degree in music theory. Music was my first love, and while pursuing that degree, I learned that I really enjoyed writing and speaking about music.

Q. How would you classify what you write?

MM: I write creative nonfiction, usually in the form of essays. Writing about my travels feels natural to me, and I like to include information about the music, art, literature, history, and uniqueness of a place. Somewhere along the way, I realized that most travelers are unaware of these things and have not tried to learn the language of a place, not even a little bit. I decided I must be a nerd because of this, and that’s where the title of my travel essay collection comes from: NERD TRAVELER!

Q. What do you like to read, and how does what you read influence your writing? Any authors or books you’d like to recommend?

MM: I have always been a big reader. I love to read about the arts, history, travel, and memoir, but I enjoy a good novel, too. I’m currently reading a book called What a Library Means to a Woman: Edith Wharton & the Will to Collect Books by Sheila Liming (2020). It’s a smart book that talks about how a person’s library reveals a lot about them and the time in which they live. In this case, it’s mostly Edith Wharton’s collection of books, which I find fascinating because she’s one of my all-time favorite authors. I also like novelists Jane Austen, Barbara Kingsolver, and Elizabeth Gilbert, to name just a few. My favorite nonfiction authors include John McPhee (everything), Paul Theroux (his train journeys), Susan Orlean (The Library Book!!!), Janet Malcolm (Forty-One False Starts!!!), and Joan Didion. I could go on for days.

Q. How would you describe your writing practice?

MM: It’s important to write often–as much as humanly possible, in fact. I don’t have a routine because I write in different places (my house, my family’s beach house, on location), and at different times because I have a crazy, busy, and crazy-busy schedule. I find a lot of inspiration at the beach and on nature walks. Some of my favorite composers (Beethoven, Schubert) found musical inspiration while walking in nature.

Q. What advice would you give an aspiring writer who has their eye on getting published?

MM:

• Write as often as possible.
• Revise as often as possible. In fact, one revision/version might be best for a certain market while another revision/version might be best for a different market. Save your revisions.
• Use a thesaurus to find the best word, but don’t use any words you don’t actually know. My thesauruses are memory aids. Sometimes a dictionary can help with this, too.
• If you’re incorporating any kind of research, be meticulous about where you found that information, and make sure you tell your readers which ideas were not originally your own. There are creative ways to do this so that your piece doesn’t read like a high school research paper.
• Don’t be discouraged by rejections. Submit a lot, read submission guidelines carefully, and keep careful records. Throw a quarter in a jar for each rejection, and when you have enough, buy yourself a gift.

Q. Your book, Nerd Traveler, is due out soon (July 20, 2021); how long did it take you to write this book of essays?

MM: This collection served as my thesis requirement for my MFA degree, so I started it in 2015 for the most part. I was lucky that I identified this nerd traveler theme early on so that I could focus my essays on travel. My deadline for submitting it for my degree was the summer of 2017, but I did some revisions and rearranging after that for the book. I did write other essays during this time, too. Some of these were published, some are waiting for the next essay collection, and some are just slow-cooking.

Q. Could you describe the process of getting published (at least, how the process played out for you)? What did you learn throughout the process?

MM: Oh my gosh, I could write an essay about that. When the essay collection was “finished,” I wrote a proposal (there are some great books about this process), and then started pitching it to agents who seemed like they’d “get it.” I used Duotrope and writing magazines to find them, and always signed up for at least one agent meeting at writing conferences that offered this option. When I met the right agent (one who “got it”), she called my manuscript a breath of fresh air and seemed very excited. Before becoming an agent, she had been a book publicist, so I felt like I struck gold. Unfortunately, though, my agent died unexpectedly.

I had always planned to start pitching the book to smaller presses that did not require agents if we couldn’t find a home for it at a bigger publisher. Serendipitously, I was chatting with an editor of a small, local publisher for whom I had contributed essays to their themed anthologies. They asked if I had a book (!!) and I said yes. I went with that publisher and have been very pleased with them.

I think what I learned from this is to keep all avenues open, talk to people, go to conferences, read writing magazines, and network even if you hate networking. I’m a supreme introvert, so my networking is creatively putting myself in situations where I might be able to pitch my book!

Q. I understand that you are working on your next collection of essays. How do you come up with your ideas or figure out a common theme for a collection?

MM: My next collection of essays will be a collection of music-themed pieces. A few writing mentors suggested I do this, and I realized I had a few good ones already slow-cooking. When the pandemic happened and I couldn’t travel, I wrote about music. I wrote about 1960s Bubblegum pop. I wrote about watching the Metropolitan Opera’s nightly opera streams during the pandemic (174 straight evenings). And I had already published a few about jazz. So the collection will be about many kinds of music and maybe I’ll include life lessons from being a musician. I still might change the format, but so far I like the content and the range of content.

Q. Could you tell us a little bit about your upcoming book–what it’s about and where it’s available for order/purchase?

MM: Nerd Traveler is a collection of grown-up travel essays in which I visit places in Europe mostly: Prague, Vienna, Barcelona, Dublin, Galway; but also places closer to home: New York City, Pittsburgh, and my original hometown of Cape May, NJ. Anything can be a travel destination if you approach it with open eyes and an open mind. I like to play with the idea of different people visiting the same place and having completely different experiences. This happens all the time for me in Cape May. (You want to do what?!) My essays are rich with history and culture, and I include my own experiences and anecdotes when I think they might be interesting.Nerd Traveler is available from the publisher, Read Furiously, as well as all the other usual booksellers.

About the Author: Margaret Montet

Margaret Montet’s narratives of place are combined with memoir, research, and culture. She’s a college librarian, professor, and musician with an MFA in Creative Writing from the Pan-European Program at Cedar Crest College. Her creative nonfiction has been published in The Bangalore Review, Clever Magazine, Dragon Poet Review, Pink Pangea, Flying South, and other fine periodicals and anthologies. Margaret speaks frequently on colorful and quirky places, music, news literacy, and information-seeking. Her collection of travel essays, Nerd Traveler (published by Read Furiously), will be born in July 2021. Visit Margaret’s website at http://www.margaretmontet.com/.