At Zibby’s Bookshop, Wendy Walker discussed her new novel, What Remains, with New York Times bestselling author Julie Clark. How did Wendy become a successful published author?
By John Lavitt
Santa Monica, CA (The Hollywood Times) 06-27-2023
If you want to know what makes a successful writer in the 21st century, you only need to examine the unlikely and extraordinary career of Wendy Walker. By maintaining a passionate discipline for the work and her craft, she has evolved from a magne cum laude Georgetown law school graduate who worked as a corporate litigator to a psychologically-insightful plotter of engrossing modern thrillers. Along the way, Wendy has worn many other hats, including working in mergers and acquisitions at Goldman Sachs to being the mom of three fine young men. Indeed, on her website, she presents her work and her story.
Suppose you want to understand, however, how her passionate discipline became her greatest asset. In that case, you have to go back to Wendy’s childhood in Connecticut when she began training at eight years old to be a competitive figure skater. If you want to understand Wendy, you need to picture that little blond girl in your mind’s eye, getting up well before dawn every morning to head to the ice-skating rink. She practiced before and after school with a focus and discipline that is the territory of young athletes and musicians. How she later translated this focus and discipline into her writing is the heart of this article.
Before unearthing Wendy’s childhood, let’s take a moment to look at the underpinnings of what we are doing. First, I have known Wendy for longer than we care to admit. We lived next door to each other during our freshman year at Brown University and quickly connected. Although Wendy was one of our dorm’s best-looking students, we knew we were destined to be close friends and not romantic partners. Very few people have remained in my life as a friend for so many years. Even when life got in the way, we always reconnected quickly with a smile.
Rather than make me biased, my close friendship with Wendy Walker provides a unique insight into her remarkable career as a successful author. After all, with her razor focus on economics and political science, Wendy would not have been in anyone’s top ten in our freshman dorm to become a renowned fiction writer later in life. Indeed, the unlikely nature of her career path is what makes it so damn impressive. Since I knew her for many years before the writing began, there is a particular insight into the journey that is tangible and, thus, valuable.
The genesis of this article was a public discussion that Wendy had recently at Zibby’s Bookshop to promote her latest well-reviewed thriller, What Remains. Although this powerfully engaging thriller deserves to be reviewed and read, it is not the goal of this article to do so. Instead, my focus is on Wendy’s journey. Wendy’s discussion of her career at Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica allowed me to pay tribute to a friend. However, I must admit that this article has been spinning in my head for many years since I first learned about Wendy’s initial success as a published author. The fact that she accomplished what she accomplished was incredible, inspiring, and surprising. But not all that surprising.
Zibby’s Bookshop was the perfect setting for Wendy’s promotion of What Remains as a highly-curated, inviting indie bookstore. Founded by Good Morning America contributor and “NYC’s Top Bookfluencer” (Vulture) Zibby Owens, the bookshop reflects the spirit of its founder. With a history of putting on intimate events designed to connect books and authors to readers and each other, the bookshop provided an ideal backdrop for Wendy to speak with fellow thriller writer Julie Clark, the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight and The Lies I Tell.
Although I would like to tell you about their discussion, I do not have the space on the page or the notes available to provide accurate details. I will mention that it was fascinating watching two consummate plotters discuss the intricacies of their craft. When you watched Julie and Wendy in action, you realized their obvious talent. Since the focus was on What Remains, Julie was generous and insightful as the interviewer, providing a precise but safe foil for Wendy to parry with while promoting the new book.
However, at this point, I will leave the two authors at Zibby’s Bookshop and return to that young girl getting on the ice every weekday morning before the sun rises. I don’t know about you, but I never could have done it. As a kid, I loved to sleep in, and I lacked the motivation to maintain such a disciplined schedule. Wendy did not; she trained for eight years, getting very close to making Nationals. She eventually went to Colorado Springs to train with Olympic coach Carlo Fassi, renowned for coaching gold medalists Dorothy Hammill and Peggy Fleming. If not for an ankle injury that ended her skating career around her sixteenth birthday, Wendy Walker might have taken it to the next level.
What is fascinating about Wendy Walker is she never abandoned the discipline and passion of those early years. Although she left the ice behind, she took the passion for hard work and the discipline for showing up as distinctive ongoing character traits. Thus, at Brown University, she graduated magna cum laude with a double bachelor’s degree in economics and political science. After spending a year at the London School of Economics, she got a job upon graduating with Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions.
Her dream job, however, became problematic for a young, ambitious woman. The question became, after the dream job sags, what remains? Where does she go from here? Wanting to do more and transcend the bad boy culture of Wall Street, she left Goldman Sachs and matriculated to Georgetown Law School. Once again, she graduated at the top of her class. She worked as a corporate litigator until she married and started having her sons. Although she loved her kids, she wanted to find a way to be with them and succeed on her own. Ruminating on the success of John Grisham, she decided to take a shot at writing fiction. Once again, Wendy Walker focused the same passionate discipline she developed on the ice to her writing.
I was amazed when I reconnected with her and discovered she had published two books. Talking to Wendy, I learned she was not satisfied. The first two novels, reflections of her life and experiences in Greenwich, Connecticut, did not forge a path for a sustainable career. Instead, she had to find her genre to discover her true calling as a writer. Working part-time in a family law practice, she became fascinated by the commonality of trauma and the psychology behind it. With All Is Not Forgotten, Wendy entered the psychological thriller space and has never looked back. From forging Hollywood deals to selling foreign rights, she established a career trajectory that allowed her to become a full-time rider as a writer.
Brilliant and intricate, Wendy’s thrillers show tremendous hard work dedicated to the process of plotting while building tension and delving into the emotional complexity of her characters. Like that young girl on the ice, she never backs away from a challenge. Rather than resting on her laurels, success makes her get up earlier and work even harder. If you want to understand what makes a best-selling author in the 21st century, look at the passionate discipline of Wendy Walker and read her books. It is a great place to start your excavation into genuine success.
Photos by John Lavitt
