Coming back to writing has been a journey for me. One that is ever-winding and rooted in insecurity. I decided that when I moved to England that I would begin to take my writing seriously. Whatever that meant. I am known to sit on pieces for ages and never share them. My worldview of writing is quite narrow, since I believed for me to be successful I needed to write a novel first. Moving abroad made me realize that I had a lot to say and that a novel wasn’t the only pathway for me. I enjoy exploring social commentaries, analyzing the communities I frequent and inputting my thoughts. 

I started writing short stories about four years ago now, two years ago outside of the academic space. I never thought that I would publish my work until a book-deal appeared out of nowhere. Then, I found Substack, which worked well for a short period of time. But I felt like that platform was not autonomous enough for me – I needed something personal. After a decade of developing a blog and deleting and following that pattern through adolescence and adulthood, I finally understood what it’s all about. 

I was reading Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov and in most of the topics he speaks about his audience. When asked who does he write for he said: 

“I don’t think that an artist should bother about his audience. His best audience is the person he sees shaving in his mirror every morning. I think that the audience that an artist imagines, when he imagines that kind of a thing, is a room filled with people wearing his own mask. (68).”

For years I had been writing for an imaginary audience instead of for myself. While I would like to lie and say there is no audience, my target demographic are people who are extremely cerebral and judgmental. Those who still believe in individuality, education and history, the baseline of human creativity. In a time when books are dumb and people are too, I hope you find this space to be not only interesting but motivational to challenge you as a reader and consumer.