I didn’t meet a writer until my early twenties.
Even then, the writers I met were also university lecturers, offering a slim and specific window into the world of letters. I was left struggling to make sense of it.
Could I be a writer?
What did that mean?
It’s hard when you’re young, and it’s only getting harder. Young people are told that they can be and do anything—and that they should be tremendously successful, but no pressure—but how to actually make their dreams come true is a complete unknown.
Especially when it comes to creative work. It’s a beautiful, unwieldy mystery.
So when my mentor/teacher Sarah Selecky asked me to write some advice to young writers for her website, I was thrilled.
Here’s what I wished I’d known when I was young.
If you know a young person with a writerly spark in their eye, please send this their way.
xo,