Appendix: Writing My Way Up and Out
A Gloss on an Annotation. It's a META GLOSS!
Next Time: Appendix: Writing My Way Up and Out
[this is a GLOSS on the Appendix, which has been linked here for your convenience. This chapter-like ending will also be reshared on Substack Notes.]
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(But first, howzabout my book proposal description again?)
Next Time — a strong woman under the gaslight
The exploitation of adjunct faculty is one of academia’s nastiest little secrets. And it wasn’t until twenty years of hard teaching labor had passed that I began to realize: in my career there was no next time, like I’d been promised. No promotions, no raises, no opportunities. No health insurance. It also hit me at this same time that my husband had been doing the exact same thing to me that my academic and theatrical careers had been: expecting me to give everything, returning nothing but empty promises of a Next Time that never existed.
Next Time draws parallels between the gaslighting abuse I’ve suffered through the same twenty years by a husband, the theatre world, and a career in academia. Throughout the dozen sections of this memoir, I weave together the abuses of three central and powerful forces in my life, draw out the common themes that unite them, and reflect on how this sort of thing can happen even to a strong, interesting woman. I then tell the story of my own emergence from these abusive systems, and offer a narrative of hope for other people caught in similar, intertwined cycles of personal and institutional abuse.
There’s one suggestion that Herb gave me at the end of this process, and that’s about this (what we called) Chapter-Like-Object. He suggested I keep this Annotated Bibliography or Lit Review in at the very end as an Appendix, but to make it more about me; more memoir-like than pure bibliography, in other words. Here’s how he put it:
‘So I think it's good and could go as it is. But... it's still about those books. I'm wondering if you can make it about you. About the evolution of your project, about how you decided what to look at next, about what convinced you that your project was even a project at all, about what each book gave you that you hadn't already had. That means you'll probably blow past some of them in a sentence or two, and then sit for three pages with another one that revolutionized your thinking... a book that gave you another way to think about YOU, and about your contexts. See what happens if you make the bibliography into another story about your own experience. A messay, if you will.’
A Messay, if I will.
I think I will. And I think I will now, mainly because of two factors: 1) the events that I focus on in the meat of the whole enchilada are farther away from me as far as time, and therefore emotional distance; 2) Since I’ve started (and continued) my Substack, I’ve written so very many more personal essays that are, well… personal, that I’m way more used to that sort of writing than I was back when I started this project. When I began, I wanted it to be way more Braided Essay / research based, that kind of thing, and it was only the repeated pleas of my husband and exasperated feedback from my writing coach in tandem that got me to deepen it in a good way. To wit, they both lost hair and sanity by having to repeat, MORE ABOUT YOU…
I’m wondering a few things about how to restructure this: do I keep it to the categories I’ve got it divided up into now? Do I begin with the books I was reading when I first met Herb, then move through the list in chronological order as I read them as I wrote? Some other order entirely?
I aim to cull and prune this existing list, too: I want to add and subtract works to update and curate it till it’s perfect. In fact, now that I mention it…
TODAY’S BIBLIOGRAPHY:
This whole chapter is essentially a bibliography, so. Let’s do this one differently. How about like this:
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TO ADD:
Boughn, Jenn Zuko. Stage Combat—Fisticuffs, Stunts and Swordplay for Theatre and Film. NYC: Allworth Press, 2006.
I don’t really have any particular reason to include my book in this bibliography, other than that I wrote it. But when I think about it a little more, I realize that it’s pretty central to my hiring at the Theatre department at that university, and of course central to my stage combat expertise as well as prowess. Some of my very first students there, as well as my husband at the time, appear as demo pics throughout the book, too.
And I was thinking maybe I could include some of my process of its creation and publication, what my life was like during its building, etc. It was right in the middle of these chapters, chronologically: just post-Band of Young Men and just pre-burlesque and divorce.
DeRuiter, Geraldine. If You Can’t Take the Heat. NYC: Penguin Random House, 2025.
The only reason I didn’t include this dynamite feminist foodie memoir in my original Appendix, is that it wasn’t out yet. I plan to add this to my list and explain why it’s a great exemplar of what I’m doing with mine, but I’ll also likely include it in my comp list for book proposal purposes.
Karr, Mary. The Art of Memoir. Harper Perennial, 2016.
This is one of those How-To-Memoir texts that I hadn’t known about until just this past academic quarter, wherein I was teaching a memoir class. I like this one (and used this one in my re-visioning of this work) just as much as the others I already have included here.
TO SUBTRACT:
Ehrenreich, Barbara, Nickel & Dimed. Picador Modern Classics, 2001.
This is a famous immersed-topic piece of journalism that I really didn’t like. I think I included it in my original list because I felt obligated to cover the classics. But especially if I’m making this Appendix more about me than about the books, this one has no place on my list.
Farrow, Ronan. Catch & Kill. Little, Brown & co. 2019.
This is a gorgeous piece of phenomenal journalism, and I had read it, inspired by the fantastic writing, as I drafted my book, but it’s not really relevant or even a similar monster to mine. And as much as I love to celebrate all the fantastic (especially non-fiction) work I’d discovered and read during my own composition, again if I include them all, this bibliography will be longer than the book it appends.
Hogue, Seamus, and Peony Rosette. Parallel Bars. Blog: March 2017-March 2020. (Link)
I don’t feel like I need to talk about this old blog here in my appendix. Though it was some of my first forays into personal essay as a genre, it’s best left to the archives. Though I do mulch some of these pieces in my Substack.
McGowan, Rose. Brave. HarperOne, 2018.
I didn’t read this memoir all the way through; I felt it was too intense for even a sombre enjoyment in my own life with its own intensities. And if I include every single memoir ever written by a woman who has come through oppression and hardship (even only the bestselling ones), my bibliography would be neverending. Maybe I’ll mention it in my comp list for my book proposal.
Newitz, Annalee. Four Lost Cities. W.W. Norton & co. 2021.
This is another book that’s a brilliant and enjoyable non-fiction read, but it’s just irrelevant to my book. I highly recommend it, though – I gave away my copy and I want to buy it again to reread.
Pullman, Philip. Daemon Voices. Alfred A. Knopf, 2018.
Another collection of stellar essays that are both brilliant brain food and highly entertaining to read. Also not relevant to my book, other than that I like them very much and am always generally inspired by good non-fiction writing.
NOT SURE ABOUT:
Buford, Bill. Among the Thugs. First Vintage Departures Edition, 1993.
I’m wondering if I should make myself finish this one before including it, though it was originally something I lost interest in / lost the vibe early on and skimmed the rest. It’s more a work of what’s called ‘literary journalism’ than a personal work. Though it kind of is, though, since he puts himself in the action he describes, along with the immersion process. He’s certainly a character in his own narrative, and he treats on ideas of violence and camaraderie, which is a big theme in my work too. Maybe I just talked myself into this…
Burroway, Janet. Writing Fiction (10th ed). U. of Chicago Press, 2019.
I am clear in this annotation why I include a fiction textbook in this list of how-tos, but I’m second guessing myself as to its relevance, even if I did literally use it in my construction process. I mean, it’s not like that’s the only source from which I’ve found versions of Freytag’s Pyramid.
Druyor, Gwendolyn, Geoffe Kent, and Jennifer Zukowski. “More Metal; Less Art.” Colorado Renaissance Festival 1997, On Edge Productions.
This is an ancient script that was never published but for the performers, and produced for one summer only. I don’t actually quote directly from it, either, except when it’s actually a quote from Aliens, so. But I was wondering if the process of making stage combat scripts, and how one writes dialogue for fights only, is interesting enough here that I should keep it, or even expand upon it.
Gaiman, Neil. The View From the Cheap Seats. HarperCollins, 2016.
I’m questioning whether I should continue to include this essay collection, as the awful stories of Gaiman’s personal violence have exploded into public knowledge. The essays are multiply weird and charming and they were indeed inspirations for me when it comes to nonfiction Musings. But. Ugh. I’ll have to think more on this conflict, on my own.
Haas, Sarah. ‘Jenn Zuko on the Arts of Violence and Sex Onstage,’ Boulder Weekly: Nov. 20, 2018. (Link)
Though I am chuffed that a whole feature article was focused on me and published in a local newspaper, it was so badly wrong about several points that I don’t really feel super comfortable including it after all. She obviously did no fact-checking before it went to print, and I feel not only embarrassed, but worried about my ow reputation if I allow this to be reshared and seen more than it was when it came out. But I do refer to it in Chapter One. So. Is just mentioning it enough, without citing it?
Zuko, Jenn. Zuko’s Musings on Substack. (Link)
I don’t know how kosher it is to cite more of my own personal writing within this book-length piece of memoir, which is also personal writing. None of my Substack as it is existed when I wrote and finished the memoir, so I don’t have a precedent for that.
One More Thing (saith Columbo),
Are the four categories of this Appendix working? Do I adapt the Works Cited section into something else? I ask this because since I have an extended Annotated Bibliography / Lit Review included in this manuscript here, do I then need to provide a Works Cited list in a more basic way, after the annotated section? Those of you knowledgeable about creative nonfiction and memoir and citing sources, let me know what a best practice should be..
So. Whaddya think? I’d love to hear any of you tell me your thoughts, especially on the Not Sure items and the format of the Appendix (with or without added plain ol’ biblio).
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Thank you so much for following me on Saturday Morning Serial, both for the Actual Thing, and for the GLOSS that came after. Now. Anyone know an agent? Or a publisher that likes memoir? Slide into my DMs.
Maybe Next Time.