I am a writer.
A writer writes.
In Fall 2025 I went back to school for a Master’s degree in Creative Writing. I was easily two decades older than the majority of my cohort, many of whom had just finished undergrad three months earlier. Upon meeting one another the first question invariably was, “Where are you from?” The second, “What’s your genre?”
The first question wasn’t as easy for me as it seemed to be for the others. I was born in Portland, Oregon but spent much of my childhood in the Bay Area; my 20s were mostly in LA, my 30s mostly in and around San Francisco. In my 40s I moved back to the Portland area, and I departed from Portland to travel to Dartmouth for school… Does that make me from Portland? Erasing all of the other places I’ve thought of—and still think of—as home? Or, in the eyes of these East Coast denizens is it enough (and rather more accurate) to say that I’m from the West Coast?
The second is much more complicated. What is my genre? The first time the question was poised to me, I stared blankly with my jaw fully hanging open. My genre? How could I limit myself to one medium, much less one genre?
The first book I ever completed was erotic BDSM, my response to the anti-consent rhetoric of 50 Shades which had been popular at the time. My second was a cookbook, my third a non-fiction interdisciplinary exploration of how to leverage the mechanics of change to improve quality of life. I’ve recently completed a murder mystery, and am plotting its sequel while writing a thrutopia about what society might look like if we figure out how to manage AI and climate change. For funsies (and self care) I wrote and illustrated a picture book about a non-binary mouse named Taylor who has the most wonderful quilt.
I’m about to propose my master’s thesis, “Menopause: A Poetic Journey,” a collection of poems and essays illuminating the challenges presented by undergoing menopause under patriarchal hegemony, and identifying methods of cultivating agency in spite of invisibilization.
Oh, and I just finished a romcom screenplay that I am absolutely in love with.
A writer writes. I’ve been hired to write guided meditations, DVD reviews, blog posts… I joked to a friend the other day, “If someone called and asked me to write a story about a penguin wearing roller skates on Air Force One, I’d figure out a way to do it.” Creativity doesn’t come with guard rails. Curiosity can lead our minds anywhere.
Writers write—and writers read. We research for tone and style and formatting, to ensure we adhere to any expectations we aren’t intentionally subverting. We read and re-read and revise our work as many times as we need to (within the allotted deadline) so that every word rings true. Criticism isn’t intrinsically negative. A rough draft is just that.
As a newly minted grad student I half-wittedly spluttered, “Fiction.”
But the truth is, my genre is the written word. I am a writer. A writer writes.