Tracking Down an Endangered Species

Working on my college personal statement, which centers around my love for creative writing, has left me to reflect quite a lot on my relationship to the craft, and has made me recollect just how far back this love goes. There have been signs that I would develop a passion for creative writing, and looking back it seems clear that things would always end up this way, with reading and writing as my primary academic and extracurricular interests. Still, for so many years, I wandered in a way, and only became serious about this art once I found mentor figures who could guide me onto the right path. This has really made me realize the value of a site like this, where young writers can get a bit of wisdom from the old-timer that I am. Of course, I do not pretend to be what I am not, and there are plenty of areas for growth for me and anybody who seeks to develop their skills, but I do feel like my many experiences have allowed for me to have a significant degree of expertise in this arena. I also realized that I was only able to feel like I truly belonged among a community of writers after joining my school literary magazine, which not only gave me a whole new group of friends but also people I could bounce ideas off of and chat with about my favorite activity. Thus, with this post, I am going to talk about ways writers can become a part of something and find guidance even in this world that seems to be suffocating the arts and humanities nowadays. It goes without saying that the first step for any interested writer should be to seek out a group of writers somehow. By far the easiest way to accomplish this is to join or create a school club such as a literary magazine or, if you feel more included to write non-fiction, newspaper. This should not only grant you access to your similarly-interested peers, but an interested faculty member as well. That brings me to my next suggestion, that you find an English or, even better, creative writing teacher who can serve as your mentor. Build a close relationship with a mentor and you now have a very experienced person with whom you can workshop your best pieces with. I have two such people I love to work with at my school. You will be shocked with how much of a difference this can make, and how many flaws an experienced teacher can spot in a seemingly perfect piece. Stick with your mentor for a while, and they could surely write you a fantastic letter of recommendation! These two ideas above are relatively small-scale, confined to what your school has to offer. If you want access to some of the finest young writers in the country, or even the world, an application to one of the top writing summer programs listed in my previous post is worth a shot. Additionally, winning a top youth writing competition (post on this coming soon!) can do a lot for both getting your name out there and take you to perhaps the most exclusive gatherings of writers in the world, even more so than top summer programs can. Both YoungArts and the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards fly in competition winners for award ceremonies, allowing lucky writers the chance to network with the best of the best. Finding a good writing community is essential to both producing well-revised work and becoming connected to the craft through the others who love it. Joining my school literary magazine and eventually becoming editor-in-chief allowed for me to tap into a group of like-minded individuals that I did not even know existed, and proved hugely impactful for me.