Eleven years. Over 30 revisions. Full-time professions including a receptionist, jewelry salesperson, data entry clerk, and waitress—all while enrolled in Brooklyn College’s M.F.A. Creative Writing Program in Fiction. This is what it took for Marie-Helene Bertino ’08 M.F.A. to publish her debut novel, 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas (Crown Publishers, 2014). “Writing has never been a choice for me,” says Bertino. “It’s not a dress I’m trying on. It’s not something I’m doing because I think it’s cool. It’s not something I’m doing to garner any kind of acclaim. I keep writing over every obstacle because I have always been and will always be someone who responds to and moves through the world with writing as my sword.” 2 a.m. at the Cat’s Pajamas, a 2014 Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers Pick” and Publisher’s Marketplace “Buzz Book,” is a story about an evening—Christmas Eve’s eve—in the lives of a few struggling Philadelphians, most notably a mourning, foulmouthed little girl who wants to be a jazz singer. NPR featured Bertino on their Weekend Edition Saturday show and described her as having “a knack for turning phrases,” which “she uses [to turn] otherwise mundane observations into jabs in the gut.” A Philadelphia native and the winner of the 2012 Iowa Short Fiction Prize and the Pushcart Prize for her collection of short stories, Safe as Houses (which she wrote concurrently with her novel over the course of nine years), Bertino moved to Brooklyn and enrolled in the college’s creative writing program because of its affordability, location, and because it had the same caliber of instructors as the more expensive programs. “I spent a few years after college debating whether or not I thought an M.F.A. would help me be a better writer. I didn’t think it would. But I wanted to be in a community of people who loved to write as much as I did. So, ultimately I decided to go to Brooklyn College not to be a better writer, but for the community,” says Bertino, adding, “And I absolutely did learn how to be a better writer.” To learn more about Marie-Helene Bertino and her work, please visit her website.
