Maya Johnson’s Journey and Memoir ‘Searching for a Black Writer’
Writing, Publishing, and Being Vulnerable … All While In College at UC Santa Barbara
From the patio of UCSB’s College of Creative Studies (CCS) to the storefront of Chaucer’s Books, UCSB alumna ‘24 Maya Johnson’s memoir, Searching for a Black Writer, is making its way into the hands of new and familiar readers.
Published in June of this year, Johnson’s memoir was part of her Senior Capstone, the culminating end project for students in CCS. Through the RAAB Writing Fellowship, Johnson used the funds awarded with the fellowship to self-publish her memoir. The book first debuted at a small book launch party, where friends and professors gathered in the CCS patio to hear Maya read aloud her book for the first time. Fast forward to November and she was sitting in Chaucer’s Books, doing a talk, reading, and a Q&A.
I’ve known Maya since my first day of college. A year older than me, she had transferred to UCSB and CCS and was taking all the intro classes with our cohort. We were, as she described in her book, “an eclectic group, like most groups of writers are: oddballs in their own ways.”
The book’s description reads: “A school like UC Santa Barbara should be a paradise. It’s frat boys skipping class to surf three steps from their dorms. It’s day-long ragers and girls in bikinis on a Monday. In the party town of Isla Vista, college years are meant to be reckless, inebriated, and untouchable, and everyone is trying to be something they’re not.”
She was joined at Chaucer’s by UCSB professor Ellen O’Connell Whittet, Johnson’s advisor through the writing of her memoir. Whittet, who teaches in the writing department and CCS noted that for Johnson, the best advice she could give was to just keep writing.
“Something changes when you learn to stand in the world by yourself,” Johnson said before reading an excerpt from a chapter titled “To Render.” The chapter retraces a writing class she took with a former professor and the validation she received for the work she was producing. The validation soon changed to something less appealing, more concerning, as she continued to take classes with this professor, making her begin to question her own writing and self.
Her memoir follows a series of experiences that unfolded during her time at UCSB, ranging from classes and academic conferences, to road trips and family gatherings. Together, these memories woven together explore Johnson’s identity and her overlapping identities.
“Writing has been a way to heal, which is why I’m so attracted to it,” Johnson explained later when we sat down to catch up after her talk.
She self-published her book, which was both challenging and rewarding. Johnson explained that she had to take the time to look at different self-publishing companies to find the right one for the memoir she had written.
“It’s difficult to get into the publishing industry. And it’s not easy for a young, queer, Black, female writer,” she said. Johnson chose to publish her book through IngramSparks where she was then tasked with formatting the book through Adobe InDesign and submitting something for the cover art, which was created by UCSB student Sonny Yiu.
“This is vulnerable writing. Opening up was hard,” Johnson admitted. “But that’s part of the point of writing.” The process of writing the memoir, and reading it back was a form of healing for her. Johnson and I have discussed this on multiple occasions over coffee, talking about our writing projects and the fear that comes with asking loved ones to read such personal work.
The crowd at Chaucer’s Books was a mix of friends, professors who hadn’t yet heard Maya talk about her writing, and strangers who had come across her memoir.
“Knowing that other people with similar experiences resonate a lot with my work was cool,” she said. “It makes the writing feel more important.”
Johnson is already working on her next book, which will be a work of fiction that has speculative elements. She teased that it will also examine identity and connect it to this modern era of technology.
The recording of Johnson’s book talk can be found on the Chaucer’s Books Youtube page. In addition to Chaucer’s Books, Johnson’s memoir can also be found on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores.
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