Overcoming Dyslexia to Write an Award-Winning Novel

by Mary Avery Kabrich

Like many aspiring writers, I knew early in my life I wanted to be a writer.

I loved to make up stories and was quite imaginative. However, I had severe dyslexia, and was told by my teacher in grade school, if you can’t read, you can’t write.

So I buried this desire.

Dyslexia Made Me Feel Like I Couldn’t be a Writer

Many years later, with a successful career as a school psychologist, I experienced a bout of depression and went to therapy for the first time. I had completely sealed myself off from who I was growing up. I worried if anyone knew, they would view me as not very smart (the way I viewed myself).

My therapist helped me to re-establish a relationship with my nine-year-old self from a place of compassion and understanding instead of shame and embarrassment. Therapy changed this, not only healing my relationship with who I was but also bringing to the forefront my deep desire to be a writer.

Upon leaving therapy I knew I needed to give voice to this child I had long ago buried. Writing Once Upon a Time a Sparrow gave me the opportunity to tell my story with the positive outcome I never dreamed would be possible.

I Barely Passed English 101, but I Learned to Write by Writing

Once I started writing this story, I was absolutely thrilled with myself because I knew without a doubt I was telling a very important story that needed to be told.

I think I did a wise thing in that I stayed in this sweet protective state of allowing myself to be satisfied that I was actually writing a novel. Then I passed into a more critical phase and realized as someone with dyslexia I have little experience of what a good novel is like.

I remember thinking I was finished but then realized I had no dialogue. So, I got some books on writing and systematically tried to address all the issues. I then got the courage up to go to a writing conference and met someone in my neighborhood who knew someone else and we have been in a writing group for ten years now – all of us have published our works.

I, who barely passed English 101, avoided any and all writing classes, learned to write by writing. It did take twelve years from start to ending.

I Felt I Wasn’t Intelligent Enough to Write a Good Novel

The biggest emotional challenge was the one that haunted me my entire life – I’m not intelligent enough to do this.

I continued to seek feedback, made changes, and noticed the manuscript improved. This statement makes it sound easy. Truth was, I fell into despair each time I realized how inadequate my writing was.

Yet, I knew in my heart this story needed to be told. Not just for me but for so many others who found themselves boxed in by a set of limiting beliefs.

When I Faced My Own Vulnerability, the Story Improved

I worked and re-worked the story telling it first person from the eyes of a nine year old. And yet it needed more.

I can still vividly recall the moment I became honest with myself and realized it was incomplete without the inclusion of the adult’s journey of self-acceptance.

I faced my vulnerability and the story improved tremendously.

Writing this first book had a profound impact upon me. Not only did I publicly come out as being dyslexic, but writing this story freed me up to move on and claim myself as a writer.

Taking Myself Seriously as a Writer is My Way of Honoring My Inner Voice

Is writing a spiritual practice for me? Absolutely on many levels.

I view myself and everyone foremost as spiritual beings. Listening to one’s heart, one’s passion, and claiming this no matter how crazy and scary it feels, to me is what life is about.

Taking myself seriously as a writer is my way of honoring my inner voice and passion and for me this is spiritual practice.

Advice for a Young Writer: Leave the Critic Behind

Start by leaving the critic behind. Revel in the joy that welled up within you proclaiming that you have a story to tell. Gently tell the critic that there will be plenty of time to get his/her input; but for starters, allow yourself to explore free of judgment.

Give yourself the opportunity to fall in love with all your characters just as you would a pouty beautiful three year old. Once you are thoroughly grounded in devotion for the story that wants to be birthed, then welcome the critic.

However, make clear that the critic is completely under your rule – you get to set limits. The most important boundary is that the critic can only comment on the manuscript and not on you.

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Mary Avery Kabrich grew up in rural Minnesota and moved to Seattle when she was twenty-three, fulfilling her childhood desire of becoming an urban dweller. She spent all of elementary school confused about how everyone else had figured out the mysterious process of reading.

Once Upon a Time a Sparrow is fiction informed by her life experiences as a child with severe dyslexia in the late ‘60s, early 70’s, at a time and place when an inability to read was not understood.

Mary has worked as a special education teacher, private tutor, and university instructor. She currently fulfills her passions serving students in Seattle School District as a school psychologist and writing stories of transformation. For more information on Mary and her work, please see her website or Amazon author page.

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Once Upon a Time a Sparrow: School psychologist Dr. Mary Meyers evaluates students who fail to fit in. While skillfully responding to these children’s emotional needs, she is entirely sealed off from her own.

When her mother dies, Mary discovers an artifact from her past, the tattered black hooded coat she had worn throughout third grade. Reuniting with the coat sets in motion a stream of long-forgotten memories of her childhood and her nine-year-old self, a girl with a love of stories who struggled to read even the simplest words. Overwhelmed with intrusions from a past filled with failure, Mary finds her professional practice beginning to crumble as she struggles to separate herself from who she once was.

Once Upon a Time a Sparrow artfully weaves past and present into a fabric that reveals the dangers of denying the past, how our imperfections can make us whole, and the abundant possibility of transformation at any stage in life.

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound. Winner of the following awards:

2017/2018, Reader Views, First Place, General Fiction/Novel

2017, Nautilus Book Award, Silver, Fiction/small press

2017, Jewel Kats Special Needs Award

2017/2018, USA Best Book Awards, Finalist, General Fiction

2017/2018, National Indie Excellence Awards, Finalist, Fiction

2017/2018, International Book Awards, Finalist, General Fiction

2018, Readers’ Favorite International Contest, Silver, Fiction/Inspirational