“Don’t worry about finding a voice that appeals to other people, but find the voice that you have. Embrace the voice that you have because you are the only person who can write what you’re going to write. And if you don’t write it, then it will never get written. Trying to write like other people think you should write or like other people write is a good exercise. But ultimately, you’re going to have to find how you write. You’re going to have to find your voice and take that to its maximum potential… Ultimately, what you have to write is worth writing. It might not be worth publishing according to other people, but it’s worth writing, worth putting those words out into the world, and worth putting it down on paper for you to use later.”
Andrew Cartwright is a 3rd year non-fiction MFA graduate student.