Lit Hib editor Jessie Gaynor’s debut novel The Glow is a hysterically funny satire of misguided millennial girl bosses and the wack wellness industry. Twenty-nine-year-old Jane Dorner works a mind-numbing PR job, hocking vibrators that “put the OHHHHH in She-E-O,” while paralyzed by overdue medical bills. When she’s nearly fired, Jane tries to save her career by landing wellness guru and maybe-cult-leader Cass as a potential client. Jane packs her bags and leaves for FortPath, Cass’s farmhouse wellness retreat Jane discovered on Instagram. Jane doesn’t save her PR job but soon finds a new one at FortPath, sending her life in an unexpected direction. 

Over text, Jessie and I discussed novels as escapism and missing cigarettes. Read our conversation below. 

Anna Dorn:
            Hi Jessie! Is now still a good time to talk The Glow? 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Hi! Yes! 

Anna Dorn:
            Yay, ok, the book was so so enjoyable. First I’m just curious about the initial spark for the novel…how did it come to be?

Jessie Gaynor:
            Thank you so much! I really wanted to write a fun book (as penance for making people read my poetry for so long?) so I really appreciate that.
            I started writing in 2017, a very cult-centric time in publishing 
            So the initial thought was what if a character really wanted to join a cult but just couldn’t get it up
            In almost every scenario I’ve been in where people are really like, FEELING SOMETHING, I am sort of detached and unable to fully get into it 
            Yoga, Catholicism, poetry…

Anna Dorn:
            LMAO
            Love it, also love that you wanted to write a FUN book because I think the novel as a medium is meant to be somewhat escapist

Jessie Gaynor:
            Yeah, I really want escape! Which I definitely have an inferiority complex around at times, but I finally admitted at 30 that I don’t care about music so maybe 37 is when I can finally, confidently say that I’m not that interested in lyrical meditations on the nature of time etc

Anna Dorn:
            LOL, I’m about to turn 37 and I’m so embarrassed that I used to read theory, anyway!
            This book is an amazing satire of both the wellness and PR industries, as well as misguided virtue signaling. I LOLd when Jane’s colleague tells her about “an amazing app that lets you track the periods of women in Africa.” Do you consider this novel a satire? Are there any satirists that inspired this book? 

Jessie Gaynor:
            I sort of resisted thinking of it that way for a long time mostly because I had an idea of satire as being broader and I felt like this one had weird specificities that I didn’t want people to think I ascribed to the whole world? But also maybe I just don’t know what satire means now? 
            There were definitely moments of satire 
            Like the period app!
            I kept thinking of The Sellout when I wrote this book because I love how it has satirical elements and also is just fucking weird
            Definitely one poet holdover is just being a magpie for weird

Anna Dorn:
            Paul Beatty is so fun

Jessie Gaynor:
            Yes!! Also this is my first note, which I hope to include in a future novel 
            [Jessie sends screenshot of iphone note that says: “Attending adobe webinars out of loneliness”]
            Just building characters out of dumb notes like that 

Anna Dorn:
            Related to this note, can you walk me through your novel-writing process a little?

Jessie Gaynor:
            I am extremely not an outliner. I just barrel ahead, which is not always great! The plot of this novel owes A LOT to my editor, Clio, whose main note throughout was sort of “funny digression! What if you did some plot here instead”

Anna Dorn:
            The more I talk to novelists I don’t actually know anyone who outlines 
            Outlining is fake news!

Jessie Gaynor:
            Thank god
            It sounds so boring to me!
            Did you have to make index cards for research papers in high school?

Anna Dorn:
            Ya I also went to law school where outlining is a BIG DEAL 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Ooooooh right!
            I was a corporate paralegal 

Anna Dorn:
            I’m so sorry

Jessie Gaynor:
            I forgive you

Anna Dorn:
            So other than Paul Beatty, did anyone other novels/novelists inspire The Glow? Or inspire you generally? 

Jessie Gaynor:
            I love Sam Lipsyte—Home Land is one of the few novels I can remember making me laugh out loud 
            I’m also obsessed with Nell Zink 
            Mislaid is so zany it really opened up the idea that I could write silly shit 
            (Also I want to be friends with Jonathan Franzen and am always trying to get his attention with little blogs on Lit Hub but it will never work)

Anna Dorn:
            I LOVE Nell Zink and I def see her in your work 
            I’m also a Franzen apologist 
            Crossroads SLAPPED

Jessie Gaynor:
            YES!
            Speaking of fun books!
            That man writes a fun book

Anna Dorn:
            Yes very gossipy 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Yeah I really think of him as a juicy beach read in the most flattering way

Anna Dorn:
            Flattering is the only way to read that imo 
            Ok so I have to ask: is Cass at all based on the very beautiful cult leader Teal Swan?

Jessie Gaynor:
            Whoa no—I actually had to google her! But I think it speaks to ubiquity of the Cass Type

Anna Dorn:
            You need to watch The Deep End… How did you imagine her? More Gwyneth? Or? 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Yeah I saw her as very Gwyneth 
            Also though I knew this guy who was very attractive 
            But had interests that, had he been less hot, people would have just thought he was a vintage loser 
            But because he was hot, people were like OH tell us more about your love of Medieval dance! 
            And it just added depth to his hotness
            So I always thought about how Cass’s speeches would hit if she were average looking, because it felt important for the question of “is she wise or just hot” to be hanging over everything 

Anna Dorn:
            Hot people can get away with anything 

Jessie Gaynor:
            She was definitely more manipulative and aware at first 
            And then I sort of bent toward Jon Hamm in the 30 Rock episode The Bubble

Anna Dorn:
            Lmaoo 
            So you talked a little about poetry - since you studied poetry at Iowa, I’m curious about writing poetry v writing a novel, how the process differs, etc

Jessie Gaynor:
            I know that people do revise poetry successfully, but I don’t think I’ve ever done it. I feel like a poem is so rooted in the time I wrote it that revising always feels a little bit like shittily fixing a rip in a piece of clothing (I know many people can not-shittily fix a rip, but I am bad at sewing): it might be functional, but it’s always going to look a little off. So writing a novel was amazing because I could actually MAKE IT BETTER. Revision is a dream! Having an editor who can give feedback beyond “this would be better if you were better at writing” was a revelation

Anna Dorn:
            Lol yes it's hard to give/get feedback on poetry, it’s all very “vibes” 

Jessie Gaynor:
            100% vibes!
            I wrote about this once, but I think I sort of became a poet because it was the thing I got early praise for
            But I’ve always preferred reading novels. Like I got to Iowa and was like oh wow, you guys really like poetry!
            I do want to write a collection of poems based on Housewives though 

Anna Dorn:
            OH MY GOD 
            WRITE THAT
            Wait like regular housewives or REAL housewives 

Jessie Gaynor:
            REAL 
            that kind of poem I love 
            Iowa… did not love it as much!

Anna Dorn:
            Sounds like they have bad taste no offense 
            So I saw on your bio that you live in Richmond, VA—I love a writer who doesn’t live in Brooklyn. Not really a question more a comment I guess but please go off on that 

Jessie Gaynor:
            I moved here last year! I did live in Brooklyn before that but now I am ~the salt of the earth~
            I have been trying to make friends with this couple on the playground who are from Brooklyn
            I have children 
            So I am allowed to be at the playground 

Anna Dorn:
            Lmao... why did you decide Virginia? I’m from DC and went to college in North Carolina so I drove through Richmond a lot, I remember that big cigarette 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Hahaha
            That might have been the reason—I do miss cigarettes

Anna Dorn:
            I miss cigarettes too 

Jessie Gaynor:
            If we get a definitive timeline for the apocalypse I’m starting again

Anna Dorn:
            Same same 
            Ok last question - are you working on a new novel? 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Sort of! 
            I really want to write something set in middle school because middle school is where all the real trauma begins 
            Like all the worst parts of my personality are a direct result of middle school
            So I’m trying to figure out how to write an adult book about middle school, but with humor 

Anna Dorn:
            I love middle school girls, which probably makes me a mean girl but I think they’re so fun

Jessie Gaynor:
            I will always want 13 year old girls to think I’m cool!
            Not great but very true!

Anna Dorn:
            Same!
            Ok thanks so much Jessie, this was fun and congrats on The Glow!! Excited for the middle school novel 

Jessie Gaynor:
            Thanks so much, Anna! I do not like interviews and this one was actually fun! 
            🚬🚬🚬