The piece, published by Literary Hub, reflects on the author’s early experiences at a writers’ conference in Middletown, Connecticut, where she observed a room of aspiring authors driven by a “dry fever of ambition.” At twenty-five, the author was navigating the transition between the first and second years of a fiction MFA program, surrounded by peers who were terrified of their impending irrelevance.
The essay uses three distinct scenarios to illustrate the pervasive nature of writerly insecurity. In 2017, the author reviewed applications for a two-year fellowship at a small Midwest college, noting that candidates often listed minor publications and contest placements as primary evidence of their value. In 2012, during an artist residency, she observed that while visual artists and musicians produced tangible work, writers frequently returned to dinner exhausted by the intangible, anxiety-provoking nature of their labor.
A third example from 2021 highlights the online literary journal 3:AM Magazine, which the author describes as briefly infamous for publishing a controversial poem. She notes that the magazine’s layout prioritized large author headshots over the text itself, suggesting a cultural shift where the writer’s image often supersedes the work.
The author argues that common therapeutic advice, such as affirming that “My writing is not a reflection of my worth,” may inadvertently reinforce the very insecurities it aims to alleviate. By focusing on low self-esteem, writers may become trapped in a cycle of evaluating their value based on their output. The essay concludes that writing is fundamentally difficult to disentangle from the self, and that the struggle with self-doubt is a defining characteristic of the creative process.