Shelly Jay Shore: On the Difference Between Competition and Community
In this interview author Shelly Jay Shore discusses the offhand comment her mother made that helped inspire her debut novel, Rules For Ghosting.
Shelly Jay Shore (she/they) is a writer, digital strategist, and nonprofit fundraiser. Her writing on queer Jewish identity has been published by Autostraddle, Hey Alma, and the Bisexual Resource Center. She lives in New York with her partner, where she attempts to wrangle two large dogs and two small children. Follow her on X (Twitter) and Instagram.
In this interview, Shelly discusses the off hand comment her mother made that helped inspire her debut novel, Rules For Ghosting, her hope for readers, and more!
Name: Shelly Jay Shore
Literary agent: Ayla Zuraw-Friedland
Book title: Rules For Ghosting
Publisher: Random House – Ballantine / Dell
Release date: August 20, 2024
Genre/category: General Fiction / LGBTQIA+ / Romance
Elevator pitch: To save his family's failing funeral home—and his own chance at a queer love story—a reluctant clairvoyant must embrace the gift he’s long ignored.
What prompted you to write this book?
The very first seed of this book was actually planted in 2018 at my grandmother’s funeral, when my mother made an offhand comment about the kinds of things people who work for funeral homes must hear on a daily basis. I remember thinking, Oh, there’s definitely a book there, but it wasn’t really the right time for it. It kind of hovered in the back of my head until I lost my job at the height of the pandemic, shortly after my remaining grandmother passed away, and I needed something to focus on while I sort of put myself back together. I didn’t set out to write a grief book, but in some ways, it kind of wrote itself.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I wrote the first draft in about two months and finished in March of 2021. That draft was totally unrecognizable—it was barely Jewish, didn’t have any ghosts, etc. There was a lot of metaphorical haunting, but it was missing the literal, and I had a moment of, “Okay, well, why do the ghosts only need to be metaphors?” That got everything to click into place. I revised over the spring and summer, started querying around Thanksgiving, and signed with my agent in March of 2022. We did a bunch of revision work together, went on sub on Halloween—capitalizing on the ghost thing, because my agent is a genius—and sold the book in about two weeks, which was wild.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
We changed the title! I sold the book as Bodies in Water, which was a reference to the Jewish practice of taharah, which is the ritual washing of the deceased before burial. We ended up deciding as a team that the title didn’t quite match the book. Coming up with a new one was so much more collaborative than I expected, and I’m so grateful to my team for making it so painless.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Getting to learn more about Jewish end-of-life rituals was both eye-opening and surprisingly emotional. One of the funeral professionals I spoke to had actually been at a funeral of a friend of mine, one that was deeply meaningful to me and came up a lot in the writing of the book. It was a completely unexpected moment of shared connection—which, in a lot of ways, is exactly what the book is about.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
That tenderness and love do not need to be earned. You don’t have to burn yourself up to deserve it. Your existence, your you-ness, is what makes you worth it.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Other creators are not your competition—they’re your community. Surround yourself with people who will lift you up, celebrate with you, call you in when you’ve made a mistake, find joy in your successes, and support you when the process (of writing, publishing, or both) is hard. Writing can be lonely, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
