Almanza, Campbell Law Grad, Writes A Novel
Emily Almanza is a 2023 graduate of Campbell Law School, and she is also a published author.
Last year, Almanza joined King Law Offices, where she practices civil litigation in the Polk County location in Columbus.
During her third year in law school, she began co-writing the novel “The Traitor’s Schemes” before publishing the final version of the book, “The Guileful Rose.” While at Campbell, Almanza served as the pro bono project manager of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, and she founded and was the president of the American Constitution Society. Almanza received her bachelor’s degree in political science and pre-law and history from Campbell.
In this interview, we spoke with her about her achievements, which include beginning her career as a civil litigator, publishing her book, and engaging in pro bono work as a law student.
Last year, you passed the bar exam, began your first role as an attorney, and published a novel. What was it like to have accomplished each of these milestones in the same year?
It was a lot of fatigue, honestly. I am very tired, but writing a book helps with trying to figure out how to manage the stress of the bar and to detach from it, because you’re getting slammed with questions like, ‘What’s a mortgage? What’s the rule against perpetuities?’ It helped to detach and relax in a way.
I would love to hear about your background and how you became a civil litigation attorney and a published author. What led to your interest in both of these fields?
When I was an undergrad, I thought I was going to be a medical doctor. I went to the Health Sciences Academy. It’s a program that, when I went to pick county schools, in Greenville, they have the Health Sciences program, and part of that program was you got to shadow a doctor in the field you thought you wanted to do. And I was crazy. And I thought I wanted to do trauma surgery. And I got to shadow a doctor, and I did not know there was that much blood in the human body. I did not like seeing that much blood come out of the human body. I had to pivot really fast. I didn’t know what my major would be.
I ended up in political science and history, and I was like, I like arguing. This is fun. Someone told me I should go to law school, and I listened to them, and went to law school. I originally was interested in medical law, like medical malpractice and doing medical regulations. I did my internship with the Department of Justice, and I liked it. But at the same time, I didn’t understand all the doctors. I realized I liked being in the civil field. I’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s only been four months. King had about 15 new associates join this year. It’s all very new.
Almanza and family photographed following her swearing-in ceremony at the Henderson County Courthouse.
What does it feel like to have obtained your first position as an attorney?
The practice of law is not something they teach in law school. There are a lot of things you are taught in law school. You’re taught how to draft a complaint or an answer or what a 12(b)(6) motion is, but it’s a little bit different than when you are having to deal with a pro se defendant, and they give you two lines of an answer back, and you’re like, well, what do I do with these two lines? I wasn’t taught this. Or I learned this in evidence, and this is how the rules go, and the judge is like, I don’t feel like that. Our firm assigns each new attorney a mentor, and I am constantly texting mine and asking for advice.
Where did your love for reading and writing come from?
I always did like to read. I did have a teacher who inspired me, but not as a wholesome, inspirational teacher. She was my first- or second-grade teacher, and she was someone who had no business teaching children whatsoever because she told me when I was six or seven years old that I was too dumb to read big books. In my spite, I read the fifth Harry Potter book because it was the biggest book in the library. I was very, very confused because I did not read the other four before it, and then started reading the rest of the Harry Potter series. And then I really liked the other books.
You continue to be interested in the genre of fantasy. When did you begin writing your novel?
I worked with a co-author on “The Traitor’s Schemes,” the first version of the novel. There were some creative differences, so it is unpublished. After working on that version, I bought the full rights to it and bought it out. I revamped and did new things, and I restarted the series. The one that’s out and available to the public now is called “The Guileful Rose.”
That is fascinating. Can you say more about how you decided to buy the rights to the book and edit it? What was the writing process like?
Some of the decisions of the co-author were jarring with the rest of the themes. I think the second version is better than the first version. We had a better marketing launch. When I initially started, I didn’t actually ever intend to publish it.
I realized I liked the publishing thing, like meeting other authors with it – you get that opportunity. So I bought the rights, I revamped it, and redid it. It’s kind of the vibe of “The Golden Compass.” It has like the political intrigue of the “Game of Thrones” series and some of the harsh realism of fantasy. In “The Guileful Rose,” I did the six-part structure of the “Six of Crows” series, which I thought was very helpful in organizing and if you have to do time jumps. There’s a long process. You have your developmental editors, and you have your alpha and your beta editors. Then you have grammar editors – copy and line editors – and I would take the advice of these editors.
Almanza holds a copy of her novel “The Guileful Rose.”
Were you in grad school while you were editing the novel?
I was writing “The Traitor’s Schemes” while I was at the end of law school. Then, when we did the buyout, and I published The Guileful Rose in November 2023, which was the relaunch, with that in mind, I was doing some piecing together of old parts and rewriting it and developmental and line edits while studying for the bar. And if you read it, you could definitely just see the underlying frustration that I had with some of my bar preps.
Was it helpful for you to channel that energy into your creative work?
I think it was. In speaking to a lot of people about the bar exam, I learned that some people would go run a marathon and be in the best shape of their lives to take out the pent-up frustrations that they had from sitting for the bar and their bar prep. There is the stress of ‘My entire life seems to hinge on this one test.’ Instead of doing exercise and running a marathon like some people did, I wrote.
Is “The Guileful Rose” part of a larger project?
I am launching a whole series. Right now, I’m working on the second book of the trilogy. It’s called “Winterthorne’s Shards.” And then the third book that will be next, the working title is “The Topaz Crown.”
What are some of your writing habits?
I break it down. I’m much better with smaller pieces. I bite it off, and then move to the big picture instead of looking at the big picture. My first book was about 115,000 words. The second book will probably be around the same thing, and it’s really scary to think about 115,000 words. That’s a lot to get out. But if you divide that across 52 weeks, and then divide that across seven days, that’s only about 800 words a day. It is about three pages, give or take, which is a feasible daily goal. I just try to get around 800 words in a day, and then once it’s out, it’s out. It can be fixed. It’s not going to be great coming out, but it’ll exist.
In what ways is your love for the law connected to your passion for creative pursuits?
I think that the two styles of writing are interconnected, but also not interconnected like, I’m sure everyone’s heard the phrase, “legal writing, bad writing,” and I don’t necessarily agree, but I don’t disagree either. It’s bad writing if you’re comparing it to novel writing, but novel writing is horrible writing if you’re comparing it to an objective research paper.
It’s helped me in that I can be objective with my characters, as if I could turn into a prosecutor or defense attorney at any given moment. I write pretty realistic, morally grey characters, so they’re doing some things I’m not necessarily going to condone, but they’re still the protagonist of the story, so there has to be a sympathetic lens.
Being able to write such objective briefs, but also to do argumentative briefs that we learned in law school, has helped me to be almost be detached in a way and to be able to at the flip of the switch to become a prosecutor or become their defense attorney, and I feel like it’s helped my writing become a little bit more realistic and better because, as a reader or an author, you could excuse XYZ of a character. That doesn’t necessarily mean your other characters will excuse or handle that character’s actions well.
It is all storytelling. I did advanced trial and trial advocacy, which were like mock trial classes at Campbell, and there, you had to tell a story based on the facts you were given, the witnesses you were given, the law you were given and trying to draft the story.
So that was helpful, too. It is similar to a mock trial. You’re not doing a trial, but you’re still crafting a story, and you have a predetermined set of facts, but it’s in the universe. You’re not going to be inventing something that doesn’t make sense. That relates to novel writing. Something still must be within the parameters of the world I created, and it still has to make sense. It can’t be ‘Where did that come from? There was no foreshadowing,’ or it doesn’t make sense. Even in real trials, and I’ve not had a full-on real trial yet, I’ve just had hearings, but there is that kind of set world of parameters. You can’t bring in something when there’s no evidence, or evidence the opposing side hasn’t seen. You have to make your story based on the set parameters, and, sometimes, it’s bad facts. Sometimes, it’s not great. So you’re trying to make a bad situation as fully sympathetic as you can.
Almanza, center row, fifth from the left, serving as part of a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program event at Campbell.
Do you find that your creative work gives you some mental energy for your work as an attorney?
Somewhat. I am trying to tease it out right now. I’ve been trying to transition into law, so I’ve not done as much creative work in these past few months, but it will help.
Do you have advice for attorneys who are also interested in creative projects?
Just do it. The worst that can happen is you hate it, and you scrap it, but it’s a good exercise, and you can also revise it. Nothing is perfect the first time. You go through so many revisions, and, also, because attorneys can be very achievement oriented, just look at the stats of how many people become attorneys, and then look at how many people successfully write a book, and then just combine them together. And you’ve done something most people won’t do, so there’s your achievement unlocked.
Do you have a specialty within civil litigation? Is that the field you want to work in long term?
I like litigation. Right now, I have a lot of real estate litigation cases, and I’ve had a few 50Cs here and there. I would like to stay in civil litigation, but I’d also like to do appellate work because I really liked taking appellate-level classes. I interned for Judge Stroud at the Court of Appeals, and I just really like that style of advocacy.
Pro bono work has been a really important part of your life. I’d love to hear about your pro bono experience with the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program and any other organizations.
I did VITA volunteer income tax throughout law school. I started during my 1L year. I did it my 2L year, and during my 3L year, I was running it along with my co-chair, Kylie, and it was fun. I don’t think I’d go beyond basic taxes because beyond basic taxes is way over my head. There is a lot of math involved.
It was worthwhile. The individuals we helped had a lot of questions. They needed their taxes filled out, and they didn’t know how. This was around the time that the tax credits that were changing and of covid stimulus checks, and you had to file taxes to be able to get those. A lot of the individuals needed stimulus checks for childcare or for groceries. Some of them were filing their taxes for the first time, and it was helpful to be able to get them the refunds and the credits and the special taxes tax benefits we had during that covid era.
Almanza, right, served as the president of the American Constitution Society at Campbell. She hosted a panel in 2023 entitled “Policing White Spaces.” Seated are Deonte’ Thomas, Wake County Chief Public Defender, and Shawn Fields, a professor at California Western School of Law.
You founded and served as the president of Campbell Law School’s American Constitution Society. What were you most proud of about your leadership with the organization?
Getting it up and running was like a bit of a challenge. I helped to plan a large event on campus. A professor, Shawn Fields, who specializes in criminal procedure, criminal law, and trial advocacy presented on the book he had written called “Neighborhood Watch: Policing White Spaces in America.” Deonte’ Thomas, Wake County Chief Public Defender, also spoke at that event.
Why is it important to you to be involved in serving your community?
There’s a level of inherent privilege just being able to go to law school and be an attorney. The debt load alone – a lot of people could not even get to that point and decide that it would be worth it. As lawyers, we were able to get here. Serving our communities is a duty. We have to be able to give back in some way.
Jessica Junqueira is communications manager for the North Carolina Bar Association.