Ishi Robinson
Sweetness in the Skin
(Literary fiction, April, HarperCollins)
“Sweetness in the Skin is about a Jamaican girl named Pumkin, struggling with her identity and trying to find her place in the world, who is determined to bake her way into the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Berlin. I started off writing short stories as a child, a couple of which got published, then as a teenager, I wrote a weekly opinion column on teenage life in Kingston, Jamaica, for the national newspaper. In Rome, I wrote a weekly opinion column on life as an expat for a now-defunct e-zine. I got back into fiction writing in Berlin: I wrote short stories, a number of which were published in online magazines and one in an anthology. I started writing it in the month of my 40 birthday, which is significant for me because I just don’t think I could have written this book when I was younger. I started out with NaNoWriMo and finished it in about two years, although I took a few months off writing during the pandemic. I’ve been a member of a writing organization, The Reader Berlin, for about a decade. The founder, Victoria Gosling (a fantastic author!), read my draft and asked me if she could send it to my now agent, Jenny Hewson from Lutyens & Rubinstein, because she thought it was right up her alley. Hilariously, when I got my book deals in September, I thought the book would be published by that same December, three months later. I was to learn it would take almost two years! So much is about being in the right place at the right time, which isn’t in anyone’s control, so I don’t think it’s about doing anything “right” or “wrong.” What helped me, and what were the only things I could control, were: 1) always, always, always writing. There’s a reason it’s called a writing practice; and 2) finding community. Not one thing. If you’re blocked and you just can’t think what else to write for your story, just write literally anything else! Write 750 words of stream of consciousness, write about how you can’t write today, find a random writing prompt, and write about that. … You’d be surprised how those ramblings can sometimes turn into your best chapters. I’m working on a second novel, which is completely independent from this one.
