My 16 year degree: Or, I finally graduated college!

I dropped out of college in 2009. By then, I’d been out of high school since 2005 and I was in a hurry to grow up, to be someone—or perhaps to simply be.

This is perhaps the reason I always caution writers who want to skip college or quit a job to be a full time writer. Think again. Wait a little bit. THIS IS NOT TO SAY YOU HAVE TO GO TO COLLEGE FOR WRITING OR STAY IN A JOB YOU HATE. (Sorry, I have Twitter PTSD.)

Let me expound. Book writing is either/both:

Commercial / Literary

Art / Entertainment

A dream / A career

One thing it will always be is a gamble. One of the biggest lessons publishing taught me is to take the gamble on yourself.

So when I was 21/22, I dropped out of Hunter College. I’d drop out of Hunter not once, but twice. Technically, the first time I transferred to the University of Montana in Missoula. I loved it, but I was lonely. It was also the first time I understood white Americans are not the same as spicy white New Yorkers from the boroughs and Long Izzy. I’m glad I went and love the beauty of the state and the friends I made. In the end, I returned home, and gave Hunter another shot. I got a job at a nightclub. I started writing again.

I had about a year and a half worth of classes left. It should have been a semester but I had stopped taking the required classes and picked literature classes I definitely would one day use in my career (you can read this dripping with sarcasm or excitement). These classes were Arthurian literature, the Gothic novel, every Jane Austen book ever, multi-cultural literature, surrealism and magical realism, etc.

I loved literary theory. I loved my creative writing classes. At the same time, I hated writing literary theory papers (though I never got less than a B+), and I hated being told in workshops that the magical/scifi-fantasy parts of my work were extraneous metaphors for immigration and self-discovery, so I should just writer “my” story.

At this time in my life I was making very, very, (I need another very even though you’ll never know the full spectrum of how bad these decision were) bad choices. One day, while working on the book that would be my debut novel at the back of my Latina Women class, I got in trouble for not paying attention. I made up a lie, went to my night job, and then decided that my time was better put toward finishing my novel.

I stopped taking the F train to 63rd street, and instead took it all the way to Coney Island where I wrote the majority of The Vicious Deep, which debuted in 2012.

I know I made the right choice for the person I needed to be at the time, even though I wish I’d had someone tell me I’d eventually regret it. That my trajectory was not an arrow steadily climbing upward like some of my contemporaries. That every few years would feel like a reset. Resetting, rebranding, “diversifying,” it’s exhausting. But you try telling a 22-year-old know-it-all a life lesson amirite.

Some careers are a straight line. Up, steady, or down. Others are indirect, constellations made of lines connecting big bursts. Or a cardiogram after I’ve had my daily double shot of sparkling espresso (don’t judge). But my motto is the same as Stan Lee and the State of New York’s—Ever upward. Excelsior.

I feel extremely lucky to have had the success (and failures) I’ve had over the last 13 years.

So, why, after all this time, did I wake up one day and decide to enroll back in school? It was a slow build. The following isn’t a critique on other writers, but over the years I felt some snobbery around education. The majority of these interactions have been stellar. Still. Colleagues would ask at events where I studied, and I would always reply honestly. I was never embarrassed, but something happened. The “oh, well that’s okays” and “oh, well good thing it worked outs” consolatory comments are the career equivalent of coupled straights asking if you’re still single and going, “oh, well, you’ve got time.” A former friend always reminded me that she went and graduated from a Fancy Ivy School, especially at lunches, dinners, and when she’d cry over losing at Scrabble. Some people have that need to keep reminding you, and I get it, getting into Yale and Harvard and NYU are socially and culturally big deals and you should be proud of yourself. I often talked myself out of these unfamiliar insecurities because this was a me-problem. And again #notallauthors.

You don’t need an Ivy league degree, or any degree, to succeed as a writer. You need voice, consistency, and an ergonomic desk set-up. [mutters about the current state of publishing]

Look. Being judged is a part of life. I judge everyone I meet and see on the internet. It’s automatic. I am my grandmother’s grandchild and there’s no one more judgy than an abuela. So I don’t care about being judged. I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished.

Some time in 2021, during the height of the pandemic, I had my yearly mental breakdown and started browsing what my options were to re-enroll. “This will fix all my problems,” I thought. (It hasn’t.)

I’m not going to lie, I’ve felt pretty lost over the last several years. The avenues for midlist writers are shrinking. I’m now too old to follow my dreams of being a sugar baby. The pandemic changed our society. Yes, I have my anchors—my friends and my family—but this is something that only I could help myself through.

In fall 2023 I ran away to Scotland where the gray winter sky matched the inside of my brain. Sometime during my stay in Edinburgh, I was working on my edits for ANGEL BOOK and thinking about the research I needed to do for a book I’ve been calling “600 Years of Solitude” and thought, “I might as well get my degree if I’m going to audit this many classes.”

So in December 2023 I enrolled back in school. The choice to return to Hunter felt almost as impulsive as the choice to leave it, but it wasn’t because I felt insecure or unaccomplished. I wanted to learn. I wanted to do something for me. At first, I took online classes, then in Fall 24 I went in person.

What followed was the most stressful six months of my life. I had wanted to finish my edits over that summer and get into copyedits so I could enjoy being a full time student with my lil backpack and glasses. But my revision didn’t land on my desk until winter 24, and by then, I had finals. I was in school full time, trying to balance freelance gigs, and going through the most anxious period I’ve ever experienced. Ever. Sometimes I think back to a time in 2014 when I said “I’ve never had anxiety” and laugh. And laugh some more.

Since January ‘25 I’ve been basically rewriting an entire novel, taking my last classes, and figuring out if I’ll be able to keep publishing books after the book I’m contracted for comes out in 2026 (ANGEL BOOK). Publishers, you know where I live.

Despite the chaos of the last couple of years, I am so happy that I finally finished. It only took 20 years since I graduated high school, but I have my bachelor’s degree. I didn’t tell a lot of people, only close friends and some family. I’ve called it “my other job” or “super secret project” here in the newsletter and on Threads. I’m sorry if you thought the secret was a new book.

When I’ve mentioned it, people ask “what is your degree in?” A surprise to no one: I have a Bachelor’s in English-Creative Writing with a focus study minor in Africana/Puerto Rican/and Latino Studies. 🤓

Most of my classes were math and science and other electives. Let me tell you, trying to math and science at 36 was HARD, bro. But I now know how much to put in a high yield savings account to have X amount of money by the time I retire, which, at the rate publishing moves, is never. Also, I’ve been walking around the city looking at rocks like:

🤓 🤓 🤓

If you’re reading this and thinking you need to go back to school—wait a minute. That’s not the point of this newsletter. You don’t have to go to college to be a writer, but I do think you have to find something to say. Sometimes that comes from taking a 16 year “gap year” and sometimes it comes from studying the most random historical or sciency or mythology thing that you find interesting. Never let a guy on a podcast whose daddy gave him start up money tell you that college is a waste of time.

You’ll know what your constellation looks like, but let it be you who shapes it.

20% of Latinas in this country have a bachelor’s degree [as of 2021] according to the UCLA LPPI Data Brief. It is an honor join those ranks. I have loved learning and absorbing and refreshing everything in my brain noodles. I also had the best time eavesdropping on 19 year olds who recently discovered 90s rock, and got a little ego boost when I’d tell youths I was 37 and they wouldn’t believe me.

I am not the first person in my immigrant family to get a bachelor’s degree. My cousins are all awesome science nerds. But in my small branch, where it’s just me, my mom, and my brother, I am the first.

This is something I had to do for myself. At the ceremony, I got to see over five thousand graduates (the largest ever for Hunter). everyone had small details: pins, flag stoles, decorated caps, hair accessories. These personal touches made it clear how beautifully diverse this city is, and how important the freedom to learn is. I got my stole from Etsy, made by a Guatemalan artisan, and we stopped by the Ripped Bodice after the ceremony since it was nearby.

I wrote “Write On” on my graduation cap because it’s something one of my first writing mentors, the poet Meg Kearney, used to say. She used to sign her emails and say it at the end of our chats at camp. It’s stuck with me 20, even 20 years later.

That’s it. That’s my secret project I’ve been referencing for the last year and change. I’m hoping the next secret project I tease will be a new novel. Wish me luck!

And write on.