Author Priya Ramsingh shares the “whispers” that drove her to finish writing her debut novel, Brown Girl in the Room (Tightrope Books), as well as an inside look at the anxiety – and, eventually, joy – at readers discussing their reception of her book.
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ALU Editor
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Writing my first novel was a cathartic experience.It started out as an idea in my head — a story that developed over years while I was tangled in corporate workplaces, struggling to make a clear path. I wrote blogs and op-eds, hoping that, at some point, the nagging inside my mind would cease. But they were only quick fixes, forcing me to find yet another avenue to satisfy the need.By then, it had become agony.I’m not exactly certain when the story was born. I only know that I started writing one day. I didn’t have an outline, a plan, or even a synopsis. I just had a story in my mind that begged to be released.It took about three years to complete, although I can’t say for sure. I know that there were pauses for a few months here and there, in between contract assignments necessary to pay the bills. But as each of my contracts ended and I found some time on my hands, the whisper grew louder, forcing me go back to the story again.The release came in December 2015. Just as I was finishing radiation treatment for breast cancer, I finished the story. It had become a book. Six months later there was a publisher who believed that my story needed to be shared. I was grateful. It was a good story, I thought. The tale of a young woman of colour trying to make her way in the workplace. Some insights about office politics and a romance here and there. An easy read.
When the book started to sell in the fall of 2017, I was nervous, which is normal for a first-time author. I had expected criticism; I expected some resonance with the characters. But I didn’t expect the emotional reaction that I received.Too realistic, too close to home, too much to re-live, I was told.“I had to put it down for a bit because I was getting heart palpitations. It reminded me too much of what I had gone through,” a woman confessed.“I felt the same way about the girls on the subway,” said an older woman at a Sunday morning event after I read a sample of Chapter 25. “I’m not ethnic, but my family were working class.”“It upset me at the end because it felt like a real story,” said another.I was taken aback. My intention was not to upset others. In fact, I had no agenda when writing the book. I was simply answering the call for the story to be written.But I wanted people to enjoy it. After all, literature can be a way of escaping the realities of the world. Fantasy. Living through a character that we all want to be. I began to second-guess the story. What did I do?It was at a book signing that my answer came, in the form of a woman who walked up to my table at the bookstore in Brampton, with a half smile and quiet demeanour. She introduced herself and in a soft voice said something to the effect of, “This story is my life. Many women like us live this every day. But no one has been brave enough to write about it, so for that, I thank you.”That’s why the story of Brown Girl in the Room needed to be told. “There’s no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you,” Maya Angelou. * * *Priya Ramsingh is an English graduate from Carleton University. She spent 22 years in communications, with nine as a freelance writer. Brown Girl in the Room is her first novel.* * *Our thanks to Priya for writing this piece about her first novel and its surprise fans, and to Heather at Tightrope for making the connection.
