In the mini free libraries of Eugene, you may find a blue-spined book with two girls hand-in-hand on its cover, walking into an ocean. The book? “A Girl Is An Ocean,” left on respective shelves by its author, Maya McLeroy, in hopes of sharing her labor of love.
McLeroy grew up on a vineyard in Newberg, Oregon alongside two parents, two grandparents, a younger brother and various farm dogs. A student of UO’s Clark Honors College, she studies journalism and creative writing.
McLeroy has published her writing online since middle school, when she started a blog titled “La Vie en Maya” — a nod to the French saying “La vie en rose” (“life in pink”) — but it’s long been a dream of hers to hold her writing in her hands. A virtual writing workshop class she took during the COVID-19 pandemic played a key role in her realizing this dream could become a reality.
A few years later, when McLeroy was a sophomore in college, she took UO’s Kidd Creative Writing Workshop, a year-long workshop that facilitates the writing of poetry or fiction. It was on the poetry track that McLeroy explored her grief, falling in love and what it means to be strong, producing many of the poems that would make up “A Girl Is An Ocean.”
“As corny as it sounds, it was through the Kidd Workshop — coming back to poetry and expressing myself — it was kind of a way of me coming back to life in a way,” McLeroy said. It was McLeroy’s mother who encouraged her to consider publishing the poems she’d written, highlighting that self-publishing was immediately less daunting when the writing portion was already complete. Convinced, McLeroy spent the following summer revising poems, sourcing potential covers from her grandmother’s painting portfolio and researching self-publishing platforms.
“I didn’t really know anyone who had ever put together a chapbook and distributed it,” McLeroy said. “But a quick Google search showed me a lot of different resources that are out there and made the process a little less scary.” According to Blurb, chapbooks are books of about 20 to 40 pages, often used to showcase poetry collections and experimental writing. Chapbooks prove favorable to self-publishers as they are relatively inexpensive.
McLeroy settled on using Blurb’s BookWright software to fulfill her formatting and printing needs. After some copying and pasting, she ordered a mock copy to survey the final product. With few revisions, “A Girl Is An Ocean” was completed and published in October 2024, shortly before McLeroy’s 21st birthday.
McLeroy ordered 100 copies. She gifted copies to professors and mailed others to those who expressed interest around the United States, noting that she’s “not a good salesperson” and may have been better off taking advantage of BookWright’s partnership withAmazon intended to help authors sell books easily. When asked what she’d say to someone reluctant but interested in self-publishing, McLeroy expressed her belief in one’s time to write without thinking of publishing, focusing instead on finding their voice. She does believe, however, that there’s also a time to just go for it.
“There’s a difference between feeling like your work isn’t ready to be shared and also just the natural kind of fear of putting yourself out there,” McLeroy said. “If you truly think that you’ve revised it enough and you feel like you want to put it out into the world, then just try and separate your ego from the work itself. … And just go for it.”
Because published writing, if nothing else, is a time capsule for its author. “A Girl Is An Ocean” is McLeroy’s sophomore year of college in prose, sestina and halibun form. So if you are interested in self-publishing but don’t know where to begin, revisit old journal entries and class projects; you may be surprised to find that you’ve already begun the process.
After some revision and tinkering with bookmaking resources, you may add a chapbook of your own to the mini, free libraries of Eugene. And finally, upon returning to those libraries, you may find that the copies you left on respective shelves have been taken to be read, as McLeroy found with “A Girl Is An Ocean.”
“Must have been popular,” McLeroy said with a smile.
