Janet Mock is adding “novelist” to her résumé.
The author, producer, director, and transgender activist told Them that she is turning her attention to writing fiction.
Asked by reporter Wren Sanders what projects she’s working on, Mock responded, “I’ve really been spending the last couple of years just healing, slowing down my pace, saying ‘no,’ listening to my body, listening to my instincts. And through that space, I'’ve been able to return to writing. I’ve just finished working on a show for HBO in a writer’s room, which was a fulfilling experience. I’m working on a novel that I’ve been quietly doing and just concentrating on me.”
Mock started her career as a journalist, working as an editor at People magazine for several years. She made her literary debut in 2014 with Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More; a critic for Kirkus praised the book as “an enlightening, much-needed perspective on transgender identity.”
She followed that book up three years later with Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me. In 2018, she joined the television show Pose as a writer, executive producer, and director. She earned three Emmy nominations for her work on the series.
Asked by Sanders if she could tell her “a teeny bit about the novel,” Mock replied, “Not yet, no.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
