Photo: Indira Pagán
Camille Pagán could live just about anywhere. Her novels regularly reach bestseller lists, her work has appeared in national publications, and her career gives her a reason to travel. But she’s happiest in Ann Arbor, where her life is structured around school schedules, familiar streets, and the dependable calm of a Midwest town. It’s a choice that has shaped how she works and how she lives.
On weekday mornings, Pagán sends her kids off to school, heads to the Y for a workout, stops for coffee at Argus Farm Stop, and then settles in to write. She’s the author of eleven novels, with a twelfth on the way. Her stories feature relatable heroines grappling with complex choices, or, as Pagán says, “life’s what-ifs.” She’s also a freelance journalist, a podcast host, and a career coach for other novelists.
But in her Burns Park neighborhood, she’s just another parent. She drives her kids to activities, attends parent-teacher conferences, and spends many Friday nights at York, which she calls her Cheers.
“It’s surprising the number of people who have no idea what I do,” Pagán says. “Because I work from home, a lot of people assume I’m a stay-at-home mom. No shade to that job, but that’s not what I do. I write books all morning, and I’m a coach all afternoon.”
Pagán grew up in Dearborn, the daughter of blue-collar parents who assumed she’d follow a similar path, perhaps in the auto industry. Books, however, were always part of her life, thanks largely to an aunt and uncle who were devoted readers. “They became my mentors,” she says. “They were the ones who encouraged me to pursue writing.”
After earning an English degree from U-M, she enrolled in a publishing course at the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Harvard (it’s now held at Columbia University). From there, she worked in magazines for several years before building a career as an independent health and psychology journalist. Her byline has appeared in national publications such as the New York Times, Parade, and Time, and for a little over a year she served as the health editor at Real Simple.
Pagán met her husband, J.P., at Radcliffe. They settled in Brooklyn, where her daughter, Indira, was born. But having a child in the city felt like a struggle. She recalls the difficult logistics just to go to the pediatrician’s office or to get groceries. When they visited family in Michigan, things seemed easier.
Pagán and her husband made the move in 2010, when she was pregnant with their son, Xavi. “One weekend, we came in and found a house,” she says. “That was it. We’ve been here ever since.”
J.P. took a job at U-M and Pagán found herself in a city whose rhythms suited her work. “Life is very easy in Ann Arbor,” she says. “Having everything ten to fifteen minutes away is very conducive to writing.” She cherishes the daily habits she’s been able to build here. “The routine life is the writer’s life,” she says. “That’s the hill I will die on. It’s not glamorous. You do the same thing nearly every day.”
Pagán’s debut novel, The Art of Forgetting, was published in 2011. Her first signing took place at the Barnes & Noble on Washtenaw Ave., not long after the closure of Borders—a loss she still feels keenly. “It was heartbreaking. My sister and I used to drive from Dearborn just to hang out at the original Borders.”
Bookstores have remained central to her life and fiction. Her latest novel, Dog Person, is set largely inside an independent bookstore which is partly modeled after Literati and other favorite indies. “To me, Literati is the perfect little bookstore,” Pagán says. “You slip through the door and it’s like you’re in a different place.” Fittingly, her publication-day signing was held there on April 7. She signed books for an enthusiastic group of friends and fans who were eager to ask questions about her writing process and, of course, talk about dogs.
Despite her success, Pagán maintains a deliberately low profile. She says that too much visibility can clash with the temperament of writers. “What makes you an author makes you generally very introverted and private,” she says. “I love to sell books. I want to sell all the books. But if I could stay private, I would like that.”
Navigating that tension, along with frustration with the publishing world, led her to a second job as a career coach for novelists. Other writers kept seeking her advice, and she realized she had something to offer. “I was walking down Granger with my husband,” she recalls. “And I told him I was going to do this thing. He immediately said, ‘Of course you are.’” In the fall of 2020, she announced her new business on Instagram and had her first client within two days.
Today, she helps authors navigate the publishing industry and position their work for readers. In 2022, she launched The Career Novelist podcast as part of a coaching certification project. It has a small but devoted following, and Pagán says she gets more out of it than she puts into it. “Every conversation I have about writing helps me think through my process. And being a writer myself makes me a better coach.”
As busy as she is, parenting comes first. “Being a parent is my favorite thing I’ve ever done,” she says. She chose to write fewer books per year so she could be available to her kids. Indira is a senior, Xavi a freshman, and Pagán is still friends with the parents she met on the sidelines of her kids’ kindergarten soccer matches.
She thrives on the routine and the community, describing Ann Arbor as the ideal place to be a writer. “We loved living in New York,” Pagán says. “But I love Ann Arbor more.”
This article has been edited since it was published in the May 2026 Ann Arbor Observer. The name of the publishing course and Xavi’s grade were corrected, and a sentence was reworded to clarify that Pagán is a career coach for novelists.