A rising tide lifts all boats is an aphorism that comes from economic policy, but it’s one that I and many others have applied to community building for years. There’s room for one; there’s room for all. One gets through; hold the door open. One of us succeeds; we all succeed. I root for you, I do everything I can to support you, I promote your books — not in a way that’s quid pro quo, but rather, because I know that queer community is precious, is rare, and that dominant systems do not want us to succeed, so we need to link arms and bolster each other.
Apply to your corner of the world. Rinse and repeat.
A rising tide lifts all boats embraces an abundance mindset, not scarcity. My book deal does not mean yours has vanished, and yours does not threaten my own prospects. My money doesn’t mean yours is gone, and yours does not mean mine is gone. There actually is more than enough to go around — the issue lies not with each other, but with capitalism’s systematic abuse and exploitation. Witness the publishing industry’s record profits while they pay so many marginalized authors meager advances and their own employees even less. My own publisher, HarperCollins, has had record-breaking profits through the pandemic, and yet punished striking unionized employees this last week, docking their wages for the day. They had billions in profits last year.
This isn’t about someone taking someone else’s spot. This is only ever about capitalist greed and the systems that uphold it.
A rising tide lifts all boats means we share information with each other (like 2020’s viral #PublishingPaidMe tweets & spreadsheet). Means creating more visibility in an often purposefully invisible industry. Means sharing contacts, numbers, processes. Means getting vulnerable — such as how it felt when my book didn’t sell the first time on submission. Means reading each others’ work. Encouraging others who share our identities. Reading others whose work intersects with our own. Embracing the overlap rather than fearing it, knowing that it is, in fact, the overlap — the abundance! — that creates more of a market for our own writing. (An example: Vanessa A. Bee has a wonderful experimental memoir, Home Bound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging, that comes out two weeks before mine. Bee’s upbringing spans three continents, but also deals with the evangelical church — y’all will want to read this one and should pre-order!)
A rising tide lifts all boats also means that we aren’t afraid to take up space when we have something to share.
This New Moon arrives at 5* of Leo on Thursday, July 28 at 1:55p Eastern. Connecting via a smooth, slip ‘n’ slide of a trine to healer-teacher Jupiter in Aries, it’s particularly buoyant, supportive, and expansive. This moon is optimistic, confident, and ready to promote itself — even if it’s not entirely sure how to go about doing so.
In a society that so thrives on toxic individualism, it’s easy to shoehorn Leo into the “you” and Aquarius, its opposite sign, into the “us” of a binary axis. But Leo isn’t just about shining on your own. Leo, maladjusted, craves the solitary spotlight at all costs; this is why Leo can so often get a reputation for rubbing folks the wrong way. In the age of meme astrology, Leo is a much-maligned sign, but I think this is symptomatic of the society we live in. Leo is archetypal of so much that we value: courage, bravery, confidence. But the irony, the toxicity of white supremacy, is that it so prizes the “do-it-yourself,” “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps,” “I got here on my own” mindset and so easily turns on folks who refuse to acknowledge the inevitable help that we all receive at some point or another. Because no one is an island.
More than being interconnected, good energy that shares the spotlight and brings others along for the ride is contagious. In “Juice,” Lizzo sings, “If I’m shinin’, everybody gonna shine.” This is Leo at its best. I shine, you shine. I rise, you rise. I look hot, my backup dancers look hot, we all look hotter together (if you haven’t seen her show Watch Out for the Big Grrls, WHAT ARE YOU DOING).
It isn’t a coincidence that this connectivity, this community, so deeply oppositional to the isolation of white supremacy, is so integral to the Black Feminist thought of theorists like Audre Lorde and Angela Y. Davis, of the lived practice of artists like Lizzo and authors Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. Sow and Friedman call this everyday way of living “Shine Theory,” or “a mutual practice of investment in each other”:
People know you by the company you keep. Shine Theory is recognizing that true confidence is infectious, and if someone is tearing you down or targeting you as competition, it’s often because they are lacking in confidence or support themselves. It’s a practice of cultivating a spirit of genuine happiness and excitement when your friends are doing well, and being there for them when they aren’t.
Don’t mistake this for networking. Shine Theory is not about trying to help everyone you meet along the way in your career, because if you’re doing it right, it’s simply not possible to invest deeply in that many people. There are only so many hours and so many email replies in any given day.
Shine Theory is intentional. It is accountable. It is personal.
Ultimately, this kind of mindset/energy/living is about owning your space — and your right to take up space. Because when you know that you have that right, you can respect other people’s right, and the amount that you feel threatened by other people just moving in their own lane goes wayyyy down. And as a result, your ability to deeply invest in the people around you whose work you love skyrockets.
That’s how you build creative community. And the kickass, confident archetypally Leo energy that says I am here, and I deserve to be here, and you can’t legislate my body or tell me to quiet down — or tell my people to sit down is foundational to it all.
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Which brings us to: what is commonly called self-promotion. AKA, just talking about what you’re doing. AKA, sharing your passion projects. Your accomplishments. Your creativity. Your essential contributions to the collective.
AKA, just moving in your lane and glowing in the richness of your life.
Which is something we all just get to do, actually?
I have a memoir, Heretic, coming out this October. I’m really excited for it. But mostly, I’m excited for it because I’ve learned that freedom is contagious. When a woman or a queer person tells their story of how they got free — of how they started moving in the world differently, of how they got out of an abusive situation, of how they started believing in themselves — there is power there. Whether you are hearing that person’s story at the gay bar, or at a house party, or over Zoom, or whether you’re reading it in a library book, those stories are the stuff that help us imagine possibility in our own lives and remember that the horizon exists. That we are never as stuck as we think we are. That if she could do it, if they could do it, then maybe I can, too.
I’ve experienced this in sharing my story with strangers IRL, and I’ve experienced it so very many times both reading other folks’ memoirs and hearing their stories. And I’m really excited to get to share mine.
The way we get to that collective. The way we get to that community. The way we divest from systems that hold us down, that hold our sisters and our trans siblings down, is to cut the cords and start living and investing in people and in ourselves differently. Intentionally.
Stories help us see that possibility; this is what makes book bans and the Far Right’s crusade against LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors particularly heartbreaking and hateful. I’m excited for my story to be out there. But I want yours to be out there, too. There is no such thing as too many queer memoirs. Too many trans narratives. Too many first generation YA novelists. Too many Black writers sharing joy rather than trauma; as Frederick Joseph recently tweeted, “the mainstream media barely covers Black authors unless it’s juneteenth, Black history month, or some other white guilt moment.” There aren’t enough of any of us. We need more, and we need each other. All the stories. All the writers. All the intersections. All the protagonists being their beautiful and interesting and magical selves.
Write your story — and hold the door open for the people behind you.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Writing Prompts for the New Moon in Leo
How would you describe your relationship to confidence? To what gets called “self-promotion”? Why is this?
How do you feel about supporting other writers? About other writers announcing their own successes (say, on social media)?
How can you (or do you) practice Shine Theory in your own life? Who is a part of your community?
What stories/books have encouraged you to pursue more happiness and freedom in your own life? What stories/books have brought you more awareness of systemic oppression and motivated you to make changes in your day-to-day? How do you feel about this? How might you apply this to your own work?
Some Additional Offerings
✨ I’m giving away two copies of HERETIC galleys on Twitter and Instagram! Details to enter on social.
✨ I get asked for astrology/tarot/magic book recommendations quite a bit, so I finally made an affiliate list that you can shop over at Bookshop! I’ve also got recommendation lists for writing/creative inspiration and resources for other ex-evangelicals.
✨ Also also also. I’ve been slowly releasing playlists for the Heretic chapters on Spotify, and they are about to start dropping more in earnest (there are 10 total). So far we’ve got the first four chapters out: 1 (religious trauma; “in the beginning”), 2 (family/midwest; “a wall to work upon”), 3 (purity culture; “you are (not) your own”), and 4 (early marriage 🔪; “live laugh love”).
I love the Shine Theory so much. And holy moly am I read for your book!
excited i found this substack :)