Everyone can write (but that doesn't mean it's easy)

Writing can happen at any time, and doesn't have to be a chore

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I don’t believe that everyone should write or wants to write, but I do believe everyone can write. That principle has animated my entire career, from my own fledgling writings as a child and teenager, to my later work bringing together communities of writers and readers, whether at live readings for anthologies I was part of, including my very first anthology I was published in, Best Lesbian Erotica 2001, where we held a reading at Lower East Side bookstore Bluestockings, to my reading series In the Flesh, publishing over 750 authors in my anthologies, and now publishing essayists at

Open Secrets

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Lately, I’ve heard several variations of the following from people I know:

“I wish I could write.”

“I can write for work, but I can’t write about my life.”

“I’ll never be a real writer.”

I’m not going to lie to you and say that writing is easy (and getting published certainly isn’t), though I do think expressing yourself via writing comes naturally to some people and to others, feels like pulling teeth. So here I want to emphasize that, while writing can be challenging, and is still something I often do essentially when I’ve put it off and off and off, writing can also be such a wonderful way to get at the heart of either who we are and what we believe (in nonfiction), or worlds that we want to create (in fiction). Rather than wondering whether you “can” write or about what people will think about your writing, first focus on what you want to say, and what your priorities are.

Based on having taught hundreds of students in writing classes, worked with dozens of authors on their manuscripts, and talking with friends and acquaintances, I’ve observed that one of the biggest fears people have is that their writing “won’t be good enough.”

My response to that is threefold:

First, “good enough” is a subjective standard. Yes, to get your work published in a publication, you will need someone else, and in many cases, multiple someone elses (someones else’s?), to deem your work acceptable for publication. But ultimately, that’s their opinion. If you keep trying, I firmly believe you will find a home for your writing, even if that’s a home you create for yourself. In 2023 there are so many ways to get your writing seen that I don’t think this is the best way to approach the question, especially if wondering whether your writing is “good enough” prevents you from actually making it better.

Of course a given piece of writing can always be improved upon, or changed, tweaked based on what you learn through the writing and revision process, your goals, and/or an editor’s decisions. I’m not saying you should slap down the first thoughts that pop into your head, send them off, and wash your hands of them. But on the other hand, I don’t think you should entirely rely on someone else’s external validation of “good enough” without first asking yourself if you think your work is “good enough,” if it’s said what you want to say, if it’s accomplished what you want to accomplish. Get feedback, ideally from more than one person, but also trust your own values and impulses. I think handing over the power to someone else to decide if your writing is “good enough” can be a fruitless endeavor if you don’t also hold that power for yourself.