What Else?: A conversation with Bianca Gillam
Your art will save your writing
I used to be a person with lots of hobbies and creative outlets.
Growing up, I took lessons for piano, guitar, and voice where I learned not only how to play popular songs but also composed a few of my own. I was also a prolific visual artist. Canvases as large as chairs and as small as jewelry boxes littered my parents’ house with my work. Different chapters of my life have found me dancing, doing photography, and sewing, as well. I wanted to try anything I could that was the least bit artsy and creative.
Some of these things I was pretty good at, winning a few awards for my paintings and receiving high scores in state music competitions. Others—notably ballet—I was mediocre at best. But regardless of skill, these interests were mostly left behind once I graduated college. The focus shifted from seeking out forms of creative pleasure to worrying about sources of employment.
In the midst of the pandemic, I thought economic funding was key to fulfilling my dreams of living a creative life. My recent conversation with Bianca Gillam shifted my perspective.
I discovered Bianca’s work at the end of last year. Her debut novel Bad Publicity introduces readers to Andie, who after landing her dream job as a senior book publicist finds her first order of business is working with author Jack Carlson: the same man who ruined her life at uni. The book ticks off a lot of things on romance readers’ wishlists. An enemies to lovers plot-line, endearing banter, and fantastic romps around some of the best European cities (my favorite bits are set in Dublin). However, it also goes deeper than most books in the genre on the topic of grief, and the idea of fixing ourselves before we can really open up to someone else.
Bianca and I chatted about how she was able to write such a powerful story, most especially while working a full-time job in the book industry. Read on to get some great advice about reconnecting with your creative self, plus how to be okay with being bad at things.
What is something that you do for yourself that is completely unrelated to your writing?
I paint, which is probably the thing that feels most core to my being. I haven’t done it in a long while but I have some new gouache paints that I bought recently that I’m kind of planning to use as a gateway into the edits I’m about to do on my second book.
My work is quite abstract, which probably some people look at and think, “What is this?” The point isn’t really for everyone to think it’s beautiful. The reason why I like doing it is it feels like a safe space to completely let go and try to put emotions onto paper. I find it to be quite a therapeutic practice.
How did you start painting?
I got into it during the pandemic. I think we all had to find ways to spend time that did not involve leaving the house. I was still on Twitter at the time, trying to move my feed toward something that made me happy. I started following a lot of really cool art. There was this one artist who I really liked who painted cats. I loved the way she did it, and I remember one day thinking I wanted to paint cats like that, too. So I gave it a go. A lot of my work is very inspired by other artists’, so I would never put it online or try to sell it and claim it as my own. But it did kickstart a joy in me.
I feel like the art let me go to a safe space where I could just be myself and be by myself; be meditative and not worry about things. The more emotions that came into it, the more abstract my work got. I was experimenting with color, throwing stuff on a page and seeing what happened, being very instinctive about it.
I did this for ages. My partner would often leave the house and be busy, but I’m a bit more of a homebody. I would have a few hours where I would get home from work and be excited to just paint until I felt better or felt like I had dealt with whatever from the day. It didn’t really matter what the end results were except for the fact that it helped me. I ended up with this huge collection of paintings.
What did you do with them?
One went to my friend, god bless her. She said they looked like me and ended up putting one on her wall, which is like the coolest thing ever. I wouldn’t have imagined anyone would like the look of them. Apart from that they’re just mine, in a pile in my apartment. I have a couple pieces up in my flat. My boyfriend is very open with the decor and quite likes my art, which probably just speaks to how much he loves me.
Did you find the painting related at all to your writing?
When I wrote the first book, I was going through a period of grief. Painting helped me process a lot of that. There’s some real kind of darkness and heaviness in losing someone in your life. Expressing that void in words can be difficult. I think the painting really became a gateway to that for me, expressing the inexpressible.
I also really don’t know much about art. I have a lot of art in my apartment, but my entire relationship with it is just asking myself if I feel good when I look at it. Do I feel moved? Taking that spark in myself and trying to put it on paper was really cool. I got really into it, and that kind of got me into the writing. I was reconnecting with my creativity.
Do you have any other hobbies that spark this same feeling for you?
I’ve been learning guitar, which is so fun. I’ve just turned thirty and it feels really cool to be learning something new. I was worried about it, because with painting there was less of an objective, whereas with guitar I did care if it sounded nice.
The first few lessons were very frustrating, when I started learning bar chords for example. You have to put your whole finger across the fret and try to make it make a sound. That took me a while. I’m at the point with my guitar teacher where I had a lesson and she told me I was the most advanced acoustic person she’s teaching right now. I still struggle with chord changes a bit. I couldn’t play a piece. But we’re working on a setlist together where in maybe six months time I could start playing some open mic nights, so that’s my goal. My lessons are just for me to absorb as much as I can. It also feels like I’m giving myself something.
I made a vision board for the first time ever this year—I’m a skeptic of those kinds of things—and “pick up the guitar again” was on there.
I have a vision board, as well! It’s the background on my phone. I actually did a visualization exercise of things I wanted to put my time into. I’m quite into this stuff in terms of figuring out where I want to direct my energy and what’s going to make me happy. I find it sometimes helps me to tune out the noise of what I think I should be doing and lets me go toward what I actually want. I saw a guitar and that it was something I wanted to invest time in.
During my working nine to five time, it felt like my creativity was a radical act, that I wasn’t just going to slip into doing what I had to do to survive. I was going to actively pull myself out of it and make something for myself. When I was no longer doing that job, I felt like I had to do justice to the fact that I now have all of this time. My main creative practice of writing was no longer the hobby, it was the job.
Can you talk a little bit more about how the relationship to writing has changed for you?
My writing at first was something where it didn’t matter if I failed. The success was in having done it, putting what I wanted to put on the page in the way I most authentically could. Now that it’s my job, there are other elements that are coming into play. I’m very lucky to get to do what I love. But I still wanted to fill that space where you’re not worrying at all about the quality and you’re not on a deadline. You’re just doing it for you. The guitar kind of came up to fill that.
Being a writer is also quite a solitary job, so I look forward to not only my guitar lessons but also seeing my guitar teacher because she’s really fun. She has a really deep understanding of music. I’m learning about music theory and she’s teaching me the principles of songwriting. I think at some point I would like to write a book set in the music industry, so there’s an additional element, as well, in that I really want to pay attention to this stuff and deepen my knowledge so it can all feed into each other.
Now that my creative practice is my primary earning, everything I do in my life that nurtures me also nurtures that. It’s all a symbiosis, a big ecosystem.
My personal theory is that the ability to do something unrelated to writing can help with writing. Would you agree?
My philosophy is that your creativity is a flame and the more that you nurture it, the more brightly it will burn and the better your work will be. Allowing yourself to find joy for the sake of finding joy contributes to the bigger picture. It’s something quite difficult to do in today’s age where there are so many distractions, but for me, other creative practices put the soul back into me and therefore into everything I do.
How did you manage to find that space while working a nine to five, most specifically in publishing?
I did write my first book while working my nine to five, and that’s something I feel quite passionate about. A lot of people say they can’t be creative because they have a day job. I think work feels like a barrier for a lot of people, which makes me sad.
I think the painting helped me get there. From being in a place of painting for self expression, I then went into the writing space in that same head space. It was mostly disconnected from my work. It was connected in the sense that I knew I had a good idea because it was something that I wanted to receive in my inbox as an editor who was building my own list. It was something that I wasn’t seeing and other people were saying that they wanted it, too. But I also thought that if I couldn’t find someone who shared my vision for the project, then maybe that’s fine. Maybe the pursuit is just getting this out in the way that I want. My goal was to make it feel like the most “me” thing I could.
I also felt like there was a bit of a disparity between the self I was putting forward at work—where I was very front facing and talking to people every day, needing to be very on it because I was working a very demanding job—and then the self I brought home who felt this huge void, all of these really deep things that I had to keep locked away. My creative practice brought these things out, trying to process them a little bit, which made me feel joyful.
That is obviously not something that can continue to apply because I’m now writing a book where there are certain expectations. I’ve had to shift my mindset a little bit. It does matter now that I produce something good. And I’m lucky to be in the position where I can hopefully continue to produce good things and have help to do so. But I think what helped me while I was working the nine to five was to really see writing as a separate thing and something for me. I took the character on a journey I was going on myself. I also got to experience a different job. I’ve never gotten to work as a book publicist and always wondered what it would be like, getting to travel to all the different places I wrote about. I didn’t have time to travel because I couldn’t take time off work, but I could go home and be in Paris in the book for a few hours. I also got to write a love letter to the romance space. It healed something in me, working as an editor on all of these books that really bring people joy and put light into the world; that give people respite from whatever it is they’re experiencing.
Tell us a little bit about Bad Publicity. It’s out in the UK and will soon be released in the states. What are your feelings as it enters the world?
I remember talking to an author who I edited and she told me prior to her first book coming out she felt so anxious and had a bit of a meltdown. At the time I didn’t understand why or how that would happen because everything was lining up for the book to go really well, and it did. But now having been in that space, I understand.
Overall, it’s been really great. But I think you need to find a way to shrink stuff down and keep yourself safe. How much of this am I going to absorb? How much of this am I going to seek out? It can get overwhelming. There’s so much uncertainty with all of it.
I got into that anxious space prior to its publication, which I think is very normal. But since the book came out in the UK I’ve been very calm. I don’t go on Goodreads. I don’t go on Netgalley. I only read reviews that I’ve been tagged in on Instagram. Touch wood, no one has tagged me in anything less than four stars yet. I know it does happen, it probably will happen, and that’s okay. People are entitled to their opinions and also entitled to tag me, even if I would prefer they didn’t. But for the most part it’s been really lovely.
I also get people DM’ing me directly to say how much the reading experience meant to them which always makes me cry. I get pictures of my book in airport bookshops all over the country. I walked into my local bookshop the other day and they had a copy. All of that is amazing and that is the joyful space I’m staying in.
You’re so well adjusted.
Speak to my boyfriend. He’s seen me cry a lot over the past year and half. I’m definitely more well adjusted than I have been, but I see every low point as an opportunity to suss out what’s going on and find a way to move forward. I’m trying to see it all as an opportunity for learning and growth.
Bianca Gillam is a London-based author and armchair expert on eighties and nineties rom-coms. Her poetry has been published in a variety of publications. She formerly worked in publishing, where she had the joy of editing a wide variety of brilliant authors; she was inspired by the books she published to write her own.
Rachel’s Weekly Recs:
I’ll be reading as part of the Columbia Selects series tomorrow evening at KGB Bar, which highlights former MFA students from the program. Come listen to a chapter from my romantic comedy novel and have a cheap drink. Things kick off around 7 PM.
Warmer weather in New York is not my cup of tea, but it does have me scoping out some new spring outfits. I particularly like these Quinn Striped Pants from Free People. Put together enough for the office, but casual enough for the beach.
Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” music video is perfect. I hope it plays on gay bar television sets the way you’ll find March Madness games in sports bars. Even if you’re not the biggest country music fan, I guarantee you’ll find this one fun.