Since 2010, in various publications, I’ve interviewed authors—mostly memoirists—about aspects of writing and publishing. Initially I did this for my own edification, as someone who was struggling to find the courage and support to write and publish my memoir. I’m still curious about other authors’ experiences, and I know many of you are, too. So, inspired by the popularity of The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire, I’ve launched The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire.
Here’s the 190th installment, featuring Jodi-Ann Burey, author of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work. - Sari Botton
P.S. Check out all the interviews in The Memoir Land Author Questionnaire series.
Jodi-Ann Burey (she/her) is a writer, critic, and sought-after speaker on race, culture, and health equity. She is the author of Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work. Her essays appear in various arts, business, and literary publications. Jodi-Ann created and hosts the prose and poetry salon and podcast Lit Lounge: The People’s Art. She was born in Jamaica, raised in New York City and lives in Seattle.
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How old are you, and for how long have you been writing?
Right now, my age is not a searchable data point online and I want to see how long that lasts! That said, I’m probably as old as you think I am.
I’ve been writing since grade school. I saw my older sister writing, and like most younger siblings, wanted to try it myself. My early writings were poems. I still have my elementary school publication about fish getting caught in plastic in the ocean. I wrote a poem about the Columbine school shooting, which had a profound impact on me. I won an award for a poem about my grandmother who died before I had any real memories of her. I spent too much time and too many years writing poems about boys. These days, I write creative non-fiction. I am obsessed with essays.
What’s the title of your latest book, and when was it published?
Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work. It was published by Flatiron Books in September, 2025.
What number book is this for you?
One.
How do you categorize your book—as a memoir, memoir-in-essays, essay collection, creative nonfiction, graphic memoir, autofiction—and why?
I think of Authentic as a critical memoir, although I’m not sure that’s a real category. Authentic is a work of criticism that blends memoir, reportage, pop culture, and interviews.
What is the “elevator pitch” for your book?
Have you ever heard someone say, “Bring your full authentic self to work” and roll your eyes? Authentic is that eye roll in book form. Authentic is a critical examination of workplace culture that cyclically trades on our identities when it is convenient and profitable. It’s a call to reimagine and redefine what agency means for us at work.
I began writing seriously in college, soon after a professor/mentor introduced me to bell hooks. bell wrote Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism at 19 years old. I read it for the first time when I was 19. Somehow that connection made me believe a career as a writer was possible. bell took her curiosities seriously, and turned her own critical engagement with pop culture into theories and knowledge. Her work inspired me to take my own curiosities seriously.
What’s the back story of this book, including your origin story as a writer? How did you become a writer, and how did this book come to be?
I began writing seriously in college, soon after a professor/mentor introduced me to bell hooks. bell wrote Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism at 19 years old. I read it for the first time when I was 19. Somehow that connection made me believe a career as a writer was possible. bell took her curiosities seriously, and turned her own critical engagement with pop culture into theories and knowledge. Her work inspired me to take my own curiosities seriously. Nobody enjoyed watching TV with me in college. I was (and mostly still am) insufferable.
I wrote here and there after college, but mostly for myself or a job. I wanted to publish, but fear really kept me back. Like most life crises, everything changed when I was diagnosed in 2018 with a spinal cord tumor. I wrote feverishly leading up to my surgery and during my hospitalization. I haven’t stopped since.
Authentic is derived from a talk I gave for TEDxSeattle in November 2020. That talk came from a 2019 graduate seminar lecture I gave at the University of Washington. That seminar came from a rant I had in a private conversation earlier that year. That rant came from my frustration with always hearing people saying “Come as you are,” and “Bring your full authentic self to work.”
I noticed those narratives more because I’d become increasingly sensitive to platitudes after my 2018 diagnosis. Facing such a major health crisis, my whole world was filled with platitudes from well-meaning people who did not have the capacity or courage to be honest. Everyone said, “Take it a day at a time.” Do you know how long a day is when you’re in pain, stuck in a hospital bed? I remember asking my doctor once whether surgery would paralyze me for the rest of my life and he was the only person who told the truth: “It’s possible, but not probable.” In that spirit, I did not try to write a hopeful book. I just wanted to be honest.
What were the hardest aspects of writing this book and getting it published?
I have a spinal cord injury and must manage neuropathic pain all over my body, every moment of every day. The hardest aspect of writing, first, is its physical toll. Sitting in place at a desk for a long time is very uncomfortable. Writing longhand stresses my shoulder after just a few minutes. I usually write from home because I can control my environment and body to best fit my physical needs.
Because Authentic started with a TED talk, I struggled at first to break its tone. TED talks are more plain-spoken and service-oriented than I imagined for a book. I knew my stylistic choices might make marketing Authentic more challenging. It’s not a how-to book, nor is it a traditional “work book.” Authentic is a deeply memoiric, artful storytelling about our lives at work. I find it fascinating that we can imagine and engage with books that artfully examine poverty, voting, and homelessness, but it’s as if all our writing about our professional lives must only serve the institution. Not to be corny, but I found it impossible to write a book about authenticity without my authenticity. I learned to write what fed me, not what was expected of me.
Have you ever heard someone say, “Bring your full authentic self to work” and roll your eyes? Authentic is that eye roll in book form. Authentic is a critical examination of workplace culture that cyclically trades on our identities when it is convenient and profitable. It’s a call to reimagine and redefine what agency means for us at work.
How did you handle writing about real people in your life? Did you use real or changed names and identifying details? Did you run passages or the whole book by people who appear in the narrative? Did you make the changes they requested?
For people I interviewed, I used a process of radical consent: I provided interview questions in advance; some interviewees I spoke with twice, or clarified some answers via email; I reviewed quotes/passages and gave each person the option to revise (clarify statements, remove identifying details, change their names, etc). I had one interviewee pull her quotes completely because of the changing climate targeting undocumented and trans people. This happened very late in the final editing process. I decided to remove her whole section and a special note of why that story was missing since it affirmed the larger point of the book about the cycling way we trade on marginalized identities within institutions.
I did not reach out to former colleagues and employers I discuss unfavorably in the book. I also anonymized the companies I used to work for: The Schools, The Gym, The Org, The Start Up, The Store. I made that choice not to protect the companies or myself, but to protect the book. I didn’t want the distraction that any one company is a bad actor. These dynamics exist everywhere. It’s a bad system.
For family, friends, and my doctors I discuss neutrally or favorably, I didn’t run any passages by them. I used my doctor’s name, with permission. When I told my mother I secretly recorded her and included her quotes, she told me (jokingly, I hope!) I needed to pay her.
Who is another writer you took inspiration from in producing this book? Was it a specific book, or their whole body of work?
I was inspired by Kiese Laymon’s How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America (Second Edition). It’s a polyphonic text in that he includes so many voices in such a slim essay collection. For example, Kiese structures one chapter with him and six other writers writing letters to each other. Most of that essay is not Kiese’s own words. It gave me permission to make space for more voices in Authentic.
I’m also really inspired by Tressie McMillan Cottom’s essay collection, Thick: and Other Essays. I’ve read it cover to cover about six or seven times. Her mind is so brilliant, but I find her style, down to the sentence level, really compelling. Tressie has such a refined skill of making complex sociological concepts accessible. It comes across as a values-driven way of writing and working I hope to emulate in my own way.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers looking to publish a book like yours, who are maybe afraid, or intimidated by the process?
It took three years to write Authentic, and an additional year of final edits until publication. Although this timeline was unplanned, it meant my writing was bookended by the 2020 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections. Cultural narratives, institutional policies, and federal law transformed how we treated and talked about identity at work during that time. I had a bit of anxiety that Authentic would feel “old” and come out at the “wrong time.”
I find it difficult, especially when I write about structural inequities, to want your work to be both timely and timeless. Still, I think any artist wants their work to resonate with audiences. To feel fresh and meaningful to them. I worked through my anxiety by reminding myself that Authentic was not reportage. My job wasn’t to speak to headlines, but about patterns and cycles. However overwhelming and disheartened I might feel about this, the reality is, the very worst violences and inequities we face right now have been faced in varying degrees before. I think the job of the critic is to identify patterns that can help readers locate an issue or even themselves across place and time. For aspiring writers looking to publish books that both meet a moment and live beyond it, widen your lens and see, we are not alone.
What do you love about writing?
I love/hate the blank page. It is so terrifying. The best way to describe it is standing at the edge of a diving board. I’m afraid to jump, but I’m also afraid not to jump. I know the water is safe, but I still have to convince myself I will be okay. Perhaps it’s not fear? Perhaps it’s the thrill that just feels like fear, or it’s easier to talk about that feeling as fear. I love that thrill when I write. It might take some time, but I always end up finding that version of me who believes I’ll be okay.
What frustrates you about writing?
I don’t think I’ll ever write sentences as good as the ones in my head. I think that’s the point. My aspirations for my writing should be ahead of my skill set at the time. I hope that chase will continue to elevate my work.
What about writing surprises you?
I love writing non-fiction! It’s so cool to me when I reread something I wrote and realize how accurately it captures both the emotional truth and facts of what happened. Before Authentic published, I visited my former physiatrist and read the sections of the book that included our interactions. I recreated the scene of my spinal cord tumor diagnosis from memory. I never journaled about that moment, or verified our interaction before my manuscript went to production. When I finished reading he said, in his very matter-of-fact kind of way, “That is exactly what happened.” The factual and emotional truth of that scene also felt factually and emotionally true for the only other person that was there.
I am always so surprised by the process of interpreting such dynamic life experiences within the restrictions of 26 letters. How did something I read on a page, transport my mind and body that way? It’s truly magic how something so flat—literally words on a page—can translate and transport us to such depth.
Does your writing practice involve any kind of routine, or writing at specific times?
I never wanted to establish a particular routine because I never want to be discouraged if I couldn’t have my things just so. That said, I always take care of my body first. I’ll usually do a quick at-home yoga practice alone and walk my dog before I start. I put on my “writing clothes,” which is usually a short cotton skirt and a cotton tank top and make sure the temperature in my apartment is warm and I have my heating pad at my feet. I usually write to myself first before I write write. I like to talk to myself in my journal: how I’m feeling, how yesterday’s writing went, what I want to accomplish for the day. Usually this kind of administrative writing leads to “real” writing and I have to leave my couch for my desk.
I work mostly at my desk, but I often take my writing with me. I’ll voice record myself on a run. I bring a journal in the sauna. I’ve written pages and pages in saunas. At times I need brainstorming sessions when I can just write in a stream of consciousness, without even stopping to correct typos or anything. I like to do that work in coffee shops. The buzz reminds me there’s more life than what’s happening in my own brain, and lets me write more freely.
I write everyday if I’m working on a specific project. I’ll start at any time and go for however many hours I can. If I’m close to a deadline, I’ll write straight for three days, or however many days I give myself to be on “high alert.” Those days I write around the clock. I hate hate hate that kind of self-induced chaos, but having one thing to do quiets my mind.
Authentic is a deeply memoiric, artful storytelling about our lives at work. I find it fascinating that we can imagine and engage with books that artfully examine poverty, voting, and homelessness, but it’s as if all our writing about our professional lives must only serve the institution. Not to be corny, but I found it impossible to write a book about authenticity without my authenticity. I learned to write what fed me, not what was expected of me.
Do you engage in any other creative pursuits, professionally or for fun? Are there non-writing activities you consider to be “writing” or supportive of your process?
I defined myself as a visual artist well before I became interested in writing. I rediscovered my love for visual art while writing Authentic. I enrolled in an oil painting class at a local arts school in Seattle. It began as a way to rest my mind, find a sense of play in my artistry, and discipline myself to leave my writing desk. I think every artist should have an artistic outlet outside their discipline. While I do think of myself as a painter now, I know I don’t have to be good at painting. Nobody is waiting for my paintings. I don’t eat from my paintings. It’s my place to play.
Besides artistic play, I consider recreational play vital to my writing practice too. I snowboard about once a week in the winter and paddleboard a few times a week in the summer. I like to run, play tennis, and lift weights. Writing is so heady, for me, I sometimes forget I have a body (which is complicated given my disability). Keeping a regular movement practice keeps my mind and body connected.
What’s next for you? Do you have another book planned, or in the works?
I’m excited for Authentic to come out in paperback later this year and can’t wait for more readers to engage with my debut! In the meantime, I’m working on new essays and allowing those to feed into my next book projects. I’m also continuing to build my reading series, Lit Lounge: The People’s Art! I love love love working on Lit Lounge and can’t wait until the next installation!
Jodi-Ann, you had me with "I learned to write what fed me, not what was expected of me." I'll have what you're having. Thank you for your brave honesty. And hope.
I found this so illuminating and really lovely—this book is on my shortlist to read for my next CNF and it’s (permanently) timely. Thank you for this!