W E L C O M E

My name is Towles. I’m a writer.

Often, when I tell people I’m a writer, they ask, “What do you write?” Right now, I write whatever anyone will pay me to write. But what I really love is narrative journalism, essay and poetry, and if I could spend my life doing any combination of those three things and make enough money to feel legitimate (which, I’ll admit, isn’t a lot) – I’d die happy.

Until just recently, I hadn’t been able to own being a writer, and even now, after completing an MFA in creative nonfiction, I feel a little shy about telling anyone that’s what I do, or who I am.

I think I feel this way because I hold writers – real writers, established writers, writers who do indeed make a living putting words together – in such high regard. I don’t quite feel worthy of the title.

I also feel a little shy about admitting this because it is, for me, an intimate detail. I might as well tell anyone who asks what I do that I pray, or that I am a pray-er.

Nevertheless, I’m trying to get used to the awkwardness of it all.

Welcome to my blog.

2 thoughts on “W E L C O M E”

So very true. Any answer to the question, “What do you write?” never seems to satisfy either the asker or the asked. My name is Kevin. I’m a writer, too.

I just read your article in the September 2007 Writer’s Chronicle (yeah, a few months slow…). Three things caught my eye: 1) Wow – this is a good article. 2) Wow – a WC contributer under the age of 55. 3) You went to Davidson, as did some friends of mine up here in New Hampshire (unusual for around here).

Anyway, always fun to find somebody else in the “I’m old enough to feel the weight of finances and responsibility, but young enough to not really be able to do anything about it just yet” stage. Good times. I hope the writing is going well, chronicling songwriters in Nashville. I’m sure you must have some good stories–pusblishable or not–from that pursuit.

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