How National Book Award Winner Julia Glass Found Her Path to Publishing Books

Is there a secret recipe to becoming a famous author, or is it just luck? Acclaimed novelist Julia Glass joined students and faculty from Gordon College’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences on October 24 as the first guest in this year’s Princemere Writers series, a program that brings accomplished authors to campus for readings, workshops and professional development. Glass read from her latest novel, Vigil Harbor and answered questions from students in the creative writing concentration about her path to publishing books and her career in writing, offering important lessons for pursuing life as an author.  

Artistic Beginnings 

Not every successful author starts out as a writer; sometimes it takes time to discover your passion. While Glass grew up enjoying books, she fell in love with painting first. She was an art major at Yale University and got a fellowship to travel Europe and paint for a year after graduation. Then she moved to New York City to try and make it big “like all aspiring artists do,” she said.  

To make ends meet Glass started a day job as a proofreader and copyeditor for Cosmopolitan magazine. Over time her interest began to turn away from painting and towards writing fiction. Glass realized she was making her living by writing, even though it wasn’t what she thought she wanted to do. Although she struggled to give up painting, she began to realize that “for me, the greatest and most moving work of art will always be a novel.” It’s never too late to start writing or to choose another path. 

The Journey to Publishing Books 

Rejection is a common reality for aspiring writers publishing books, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. Glass’ early writing career was defined by a series of what she called “encouraging rejections.” She began writing and sending short stories to magazines like The Atlantic and the New Yorker. Her stories would be sent back, rejected, but with letters from the editors encouraging her to keep writing. They told her to send something else along in the future if she wrote more. These rejections left her feeling optimistic, and she continued to pursue writing with what she called “a combination of determination and denial.”  

Finally, when Glass was 37, she won a prize from The Chicago Tribune and got her first short story published. “They flew everybody to Chicago and had a big, fancy dinner in this beautiful space, the original public library...it was the most emotional moment of my life as a writer. There was a string quartet and a copy of the section with my writing in it on everyone's chair, and to be recognized like that I just felt so seen,” she said. 

After the publication of her short story, Glass realized that if she wanted to work full time as a writer, she needed to start publishing books or novels. She published Three Junes, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2002. “What my success did was introduce me to other writers,” Glass said. She “found her tribe” in the writing community, building connections that encouraged her to make writing a career. 

Reflecting Current Events in Writing 

Another part of writing is tackling difficult but true realities of life to create conversation through storytelling. Glass’ recent book, Vigil Harbor, was published in 2022 and takes place in a community like Glass’ own town of Marblehead. The book is set in the near future, which allowed her to highlight some of the problems she sees in the world today, including climate change, and explore what they might look like in 20 years. The novel completely changed the way she wrote about current issues.  

“I was accused by a reviewer of engineering my plot so that there were political issues in it and that's not at all the case. It's that my characters live in the world, and if they come up against something like healthcare, paying for healthcare or discrimination then those things happen to my characters,” Glass said. “But this book is probably the first book in which I really foregrounded the state of our world.” Glass hopes that her writing will help readers feel seen, as well as think deeply about the issues she presents.  

Inspiration and Advice for Young Writers 

When asked by students about her writing routine, Glass described a free flowing writing process, saying that she writes in sprints rather than on a regular schedule. She also doesn’t plan her novels beforehand. “I work forward into the dark, and the farther I work in, the more I hope I have about my ultimate destination,” she says. 

For many young writers, finding the determination to keep writing can be the hardest part of developing a sustainable writing process. Reminding the students that good writing comes from practice, Glass said, “I don’t believe in writer’s block.” She encouraged young writers to practice writing regularly and not to get stuck in a space of feeling unable to write. “I think that when you feel like you can't write, it's just that you aren't writing,” she said.  

Pictured above: Julia glass on the far right with three Gordon students.

Emily Jones ’25, English Language and Literature