Meet Fiona Young-Brown

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Fiona Young-Brown a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Fiona, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

It may sound paradoxical but I think a large part of my resilience was born out of hopelessness. You reach a point where you don’t know if you can carry on, but the alternative is just stopping and doing nothing. That means you stay in the situation that is making you feel unhappy. So instead, you keep going. You keep pushing along because it’s better than giving up.

My mother was a huge influence. At the age of 23, she divorced and became a single mother struggling to raise three young children. She will sometimes tell of how she would have to run around to her parents’ house to borrow enough money for a loaf of bread and some sausages so we could have something to eat. She worked nights so that she could be there with us during the day, and she always pushed for us to get an education. She wanted to be sure that we could support ourselves.

A few years later, my mother remarried but some of those earliest life lessons shaped who I became. My younger sisters and I all won scholarships to a local private school. I was the first in my family to finish school, get a degree, and go to graduate school. Much of that was thanks to the support of my mother who taught me I had as much right to be there as anyone else.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

Growing up in a coastal town in the South of England, I would never have imagined that I would be living in Kentucky and working as a writer. But here I am.

I actually ended up here via Japan. After graduating from university, I moved there to teach and spent three years living in a small rural community. While there, I met my husband who happened to be from Kentucky. After we left Japan, I moved to Iowa for graduate school before joining him in Lexington.

I always joke that I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up. I love learning and would happily stay in school forever rolling my way through the class catalog. I taught Japanese and women’s studies at the University of Kentucky for a few years, trained as a life coach, and had a candle-making company for a while. But I kept coming back to writing. I started writing for academic publications and then was approached about writing a local history book. That led to another and then another. At the same time, I started writing for magazines on all manner of topics. I also edit and fact-check for other writers.

To date, I have written 18 books, with the 19th due for release later this year. In addition to local history and food history, I’ve written a few cookbooks, and a number of books for children on topics from Eleanor Roosevelt to nuclear science. The variety of topics means I’m always learning and feeding my research interests. I am working on my first fiction pieces, a cozy mystery and a darker, more serious novel, plus I am going down a rabbit hole of local history research. And to top that all off, I’ve also returned to running two travel websites.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

In many ways, my journey has been very accidental. Opportunities have arisen at just the right time and I’ve said, “Why not?” I often envy those people who know exactly what path they want to follow and are able to map out a direct route. On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed the twists and turns my path has taken. If I had to pick three qualities, they would be:
1. Curiosity. I love learning so if even the idea of a topic interests me, I am thrilled to spend hours, days, going down rabbit holes to learn all that I can about a topic. I only write about topics that interest me. Some would argue that limits my potential income, and to a certain extent it does. But why would I want to spend my days writing about things that don’t interest me? And why would you want to read the results? Always be curious.
2. Reliability. I recently ended a two-year stint editing the blog of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. When I finished, someone thanked me for always being reliable. Her words were, “It’s not the sexiest of traits but it’s among the most important.” People always focus so much on trying to be different or dynamic, or whatever buzzword looks good on the resume. But at the end of the day, be remembered as the person who got the job done, got the job done well, and got the job done on deadline.
3. Knowing when to say no. In many ways I think this is the hardest one, especially if you are a freelancer. It can be really hard knowing when to turn down a project, especially when it pays. Early in my career, I thought I had to take every job that came my way but you know what – there would be that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I just needed to get it done and move on. Going into any project with that mindset already puts you on the wrong track. I’d find myself putting them off because I didn’t really want to be doing them in the first place. And that wasn’t going to work for me and my mental health. Saying no is still hard for me, but I’ve learned how important it can be.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

I have struggled with mental health problems and depression for much of my life. I am also very introverted and have struggled with impostor syndrome. I was among the first cohort of girls admitted to a boys’ school, and later the first student in a new graduate program. I’ve often fought the sense of not belonging and have tended to hide away, working solo and believing that shining a light on my achievements was bragging and not “proper.”

The most important thing in overcoming those kinds of challenges has been to find my people. Find people who understand what you do and support it, who shine your light and know that it doesn’t dim theirs. Learn to distance yourself from those who don’t offer that kind of support.

My husband has always been incredibly supportive. I am lucky that his work has been very stable. He has always encouraged me to pursue my interests rather than take a more conventional job. He is also a writer and filmmaker in his spare time so he gets the creative side of my life.

I’ve also found community through professional organizations and local groups. I’m currently a member of Sisters in Crime where I am learning a huge amount that helps with my forays into fiction. I’m in the Editorial Freelancers Association which helps me develop skills in that area. And more importantly, I am a member of the Lexington Writer’s Room, a local organization that provides space for writers. It’s helped me meet writers of all backgrounds here in Lexington and having those contacts to share progress with and bounce ideas off of is a joy.

Find your people and treasure them.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

2022 Headshot by Sarah Jane Sanders

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience is often the x-factor that differentiates between mild and wild success. The stories of

Productivity
Beating Burnout

Often the key to having massive impact is the ability to keep going when others

Leadership Development
Finding Your Why

Not knowing why you are going wherever it is that you are going sounds silly,