What Makes a Writer a Writer?
An Exploration in Asking and Answering This Question
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 Julie Cordova
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Cover Art: Anya McManis, Kreative Keystrokes, Denver, CO. http://kreativekeystrokes.com/
Editor: Connor Fisher, Denver CO
Author Photograph: Molly Yamanaka Denver, CO.
Julie Cordova holds a Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies with a major in Arts and Culture and a Specialty in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. She also earned her B.A. in communication from DU and graduated Magna Cum Laude. She is currently putting into practice what she learned through this research and she is exceeding her expectations.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my family and friends with love and appreciation. It is also given with special thanks to Tracey Lee who gave up her time so unselfishly to help me transcribe the taped interviews and Dr. Laura Pritchett for helping me define and refine the research.
Acknowledgements
To the authors who so willingly gave of their time for interviews - Thank you!!
Amanda Rae who made interviewing humorous and delightful; Cortwright McMeel, whose enthusiasm and energy stayed with me as I pushed to meet the deadline and graduate; David Wroblewski, whose honest approach and metaphors helped me immensely; Diane Mott Davidson, my inspiration for over a decade, what an honor it was to learn from you; Eleanor Brown, who met with me in between a busy flight schedule and her promotional tour. I felt honored talking with you and enriched by your easy laugh and insight. Gary Schanbacher, who I now view as a mentor and friend, who is selflessly supportive of so many writers, thank you; Jenny Shank—interviewing Jenny was like having coffee with an old friend. Thank you for your insight into the publishing world and living the writer’s life as a wife, mother, friend, and writing-community member; Mario Acevedo whose humor stayed with me long after we met. I look forward to laughing with you more at literary events around town. Again, thank you for letting me see that living the writer’s life is possible. Your guidance into the world I want to live in was invaluable. Nick Arvin, thank you for sticking with the interview that was by far the most adventurous and for showing me that it is possible to devote oneself to two career paths and still meet other life commitments, joys, and fun. William Haywood Henderson, a giant in my mind—thank you for confirming a life in literature is valuable, doable, and worth the effort.
Table of Contents
Chapter Two: A Literature Review
Chapter Three: Further Exploration
Chapter Four: Results and Analysis
Chapter Five: Utilizing the Findings
Chapter Six: Other Considerations
Chapter One: Introduction
A decade ago, while consoling me through a fit of self doubt and angst, a friend held out my unpublished novel and said, “You wrote this. What else do you need to do to feel like a writer?” I was not able to answer that question immediately. After a few days of contemplation, I knew, for me, it didn’t just mean getting that one book published or journaling privately or filling my desk and file cabinet with edited stories no one would read. While trying to discern what the question did mean, I mulled over the books in my bookshelf and realized that the writers I read and enjoyed (both fiction and non-fiction) all had degrees.
I was thirty-seven years old.
I was a stay-at-home mom with one English class on my college transcripts that I had earned years earlier. I thought if I studied writing and finished my degree, I could confidently enter the world of the writer, so I became a student.
Ten years later, while I was considering topics for a research project which would culminate in my last paper as a graduate student, I attended a literary event at a local Denver gallery hosted by a non-profit writer’s community, the Lighthouse Writers Workshop. There, several people formed a group to discuss the news reports about a generous publishing contract that had just been awarded to a reality-TV celebrity. As people approached the group and introduced themselves to offer their thoughts and feelings, I noticed that most seemed apologetic when claiming to be a writer and those who appeared the most embarrassed almost immediately explained that they had yet to be published. I had seen and felt that discomfort before when meeting writers at other such events over the past two decades since I wrote my first short story. That recognizable apologetic disposition reminded me of the question that had prompted me to enroll in college to finish my undergraduate degree all those years ago.
Standing in that crowd, listening to others, I concluded that I still had doubts about my ability to one day be a writer even after completing my undergraduate degree and all the course work leading up to the final research project for my master’s degree. More importantly, I realized I still did not feel like a writer even though I had been published in a college newsletter, a small anthology also published on campus, and two small upstart magazines based in Denver.
As I watched and heard others apologize for not being published, I decided to investigate ways to examine this phenomenon and to determine what else I needed to do to feel like a writer.
Later, when I asked myself why the ability to see myself as a writer had evaded me, I initially thought it might be because I had not been paid (in dollars) for any of my work that had been published. However, I quickly discovered that the elusion had nothing to do with monetary gain. Deep in my heart, I wondered if the little bit of publishing success I had achieved had more to do with the editors (my professors and friends) liking me than whether my submissions merited publication. I also discovered that in order to ever really answer the question about feeling like a writer, I must look into another question—what makes a writer a writer?