“Edit for editing” is my mantra because you’re never going to catch everything in your own papers, and not everyone’s going to catch everything when they look at your paper. So I think there are some people who are born naturally to be good writers, but I think everyone else, we are all good writers because we all keep practicing the craft. To be a good writer is to practice the craft. How many people are going to be the Hemingways or, for me, the Chaim Potoks? That’s beautiful writing, but he did most of his work in the later period of his life. Who knows what his early writing looked like?”
Austin DeRay is a 2nd year PhD student in Cultural Studies.