Author Q & A: Irena Smith’s The Golden Ticket Offers Readers a Worthy Ride
As a Stanford admissions officer and private college counselor, Irena Smith navigated the competitive and complex world of college applications, essays and teen angst. But as a struggling mother raising three children with developmental delays, her expertise and professional insights did nothing to quell her parental fears. Here, she shares with us the backstory of her memoir The Golden Ticket, which is a stunning mashup of messy motherhood and college prep—a surprisingly fun read, packed with family drama, humor, and wisdom.
The Golden Ticket (Book Blurb)
Every fall, millions of high school seniors agonize over how to respond to college application essay prompts. In a timely, incisive memoir that blends humor and heartache, Irena Smith takes a stab at answering them as an adult.
Irena is a Russian Jewish immigrant, a PhD in comparative literature, a former Stanford admissions officer, and a private college counselor in Palo Alto, California—a city where everyone has to be good at something and where success often means the name of a prestigious college on the back of a late-model luxury car. But as Irena works with some of the most ambitious, tightly wound students in the world, she struggles to keep her own family from unraveling, and that sharp-edged divide lies at the heart of her memoir.
The Golden Ticket is narrated using a form Irena knows best: college application essay prompts. In her responses, Irena weaves together personal history, sharp social commentary, and the lessons of literature ranging from The Odyssey to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Her memoir asks difficult questions—What exactly do parents mean when they say they want the best for their children? What happens when the best of intentions result in unexpected consequences?—and envisions a broader, more generous view of what it means to succeed.
Author Q&A: Irena Smith
- Tell us where you’re from…
I was born in Moscow and emigrated to the US with my parents when I was nine years old, so my formative years were pretty evenly split between the former Soviet Union and Sunnyvale, California.
- What sparked the idea for your book?
As an independent college counselor, I spend a lot of time working with high school seniors on college essays. But while counseling my students on how to tell their best story and gain admission to some of the most selective colleges in the world, I was grappling with the chasm between my professional life and my personal life. At home, my husband and I were struggling to raise three children with developmental delays, depression, anxiety, and learning differences. That disconnect was the catalyst for the book— I wanted to tell our story and to create space for conversations about and for students who aren’t ready for college, or don’t want to go to college, or are struggling with challenges that go beyond deciding which top 20 colleges they’ll apply to.
Writing a book is a process with highs and lows. What challenges did you overcome to get your story written, and what tools or practices helped you achieve the goal?
Finding time (or, more accurately, the motivation) to write consistently was challenging; I tend to write when an idea I’m excited about pops into my head, but the problem with not having a consistent writing practice is that ideas are harder to come by. And then, of course, there was the roller coaster of getting the book published—I got incredibly lucky in that I found an extraordinarily capable agent who loved the manuscript and who showed superhuman persistence in pitching it to 60+ traditional publishers… all of whom turned it down. I’m very grateful to Brooke Warner at She Writes Press for her dedication to providing an extraordinary publishing experience and a supportive community to so many women writers.
I wish I could say I have a reliable collection of writing tools in my toolkit, but I think in my case it comes down to persistence, panic-induced motivation, and having a vision for the story I wanted to tell. And while I’m not always the most motivated writer when it comes to first drafts, I’m a committed reviser, and I think that a willingness to revisit your writing and peel away the layers until you get at the crystalline heart underneath is vital.
- Tell us about the people, places or things that inspire your creativity…
Writing in moderately crowded coffee shops, blank notebooks (with which I have an aspirational rather than creative relationship), long, non-linear conversations with my daughter, wandering around bookstores and libraries, reading.
- Is there any section chapter or line from your book that you’re most proud of?
There’s a chapter toward the end of the book where I envision myself as Odysseus while running errands. In the course of my internal monologue as I navigate the real and perceived dangers and temptations of Palo Alto, where I live, it occurs to me that my husband and I—and so many other parents—were drawn to Palo Alto’s promise of excellent schools, safety, and economic promise only to be disillusioned. I particularly love the moment of realization that closes the chapter:
“In truth, I’m no Odysseus. I’m more of a Circe (not the alluring witch part; the part where I’m stuck in perpetual exile, gathering my herbs, weaving my stratagems, turning things into other things, helping scions of Bay Area royalty gain spots at highly coveted universities). Or maybe it’s not me who is Circe—it’s this cursed town that lured us all in and then turned us into swine.”
— The Golden Ticket, Irena Smith
- What are your next projects, writing or otherwise?
I’m working on a collection of stories about literary and real-life journeys and exploring themes of exile, flight, border crossings, and transformation.
Author Irena Smith:
Irena is the author of the recently released memoir, The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays. Before she was an author, she was a Russian Jewish immigrant, an English major, a PhD in comparative literature, a humanities and composition lecturer, a mother of three extraordinary children, a Stanford admissions officer, and a private college admissions counselor. She is an inveterate advocate of reading as many books at one time as possible, imperfect but earnest parenting, and the Oxford comma.
Website: Irena Smith
