by Athena Kildegaard

I first loved my husband in the fall of 1979, and I’ve been loving him again and again ever since. All that time I’ve written poetry, but until January first this year I’d written only a handful of love poems.

That curious pair of facts began to needle me in early December last year. Driving from here to there I thought about a love poem by Dorianne Laux I’d read that morning, how true and necessary it was and how unwrought it seemed. That thinking led me to wonder why I’d written so few love poems over the years. I realized that I was just plain afraid of writing them.

Interview by Dara Syrkin

During her 1999 Bush Fellowship for midcareer physicians, Maggie O’Connor dedicated 10 percent of her time to learning how to write. “I had terrible writer’s anxiety. I chose my college classes based on which ones required the fewest essays. English 101 gave me stomach cramps. I decided I had grown up. The time had come to deal with my anxiety about writing.”

Fear or no, Maggie embraced the newness of writing. “My dad started weaving when he retired. So when I set out for the Loft with my guts quaking, I had the reassurance that old people can learn. I sat in classes and introduced myself as a science and math jock who wanted to learn how to write. One of the wonderful things about being a beginner is that you are free to ask any question.

by Emily Brisse

When I was a sophomore in college, I took a course called Ethnic American Literature. Being that I was (1) an English major, (2) from an ethnically homogeneous small town, and (3) desperate for “culture,” I was incredulous when the reading list my professor passed out that first day had no Ralph Ellison, Leslie Marmon Silko, Maxine Hong Kingston, or Toni Morrison, but instead was full of, as he called them, “regional writers,” a mix of poets, novelists, and essayists from my home state that I’d never heard of and was sure had absolutely no relevance to my life. After all, I was going to teach, and how was I supposed to do that if I wasn’t introduced to the writers who’d been anthologized?

I went to another professor and complained (and, Minnesotan that I am, this practically killed me) until she loaded up my arms with every Toni Morrison book she owned. Walking back to my dorm room, clickety-clack, holding these canonical texts close to my chest, I felt fortified. Soothed. I would teach myself, then! And for the rest of the semester I gave those regional authors only bitter, cursory glances. I never took another class with that professor.

by Eugénie de Rosier

It was a grand task to take up the humanitarian challenge of Peace Corps work for 27 months in Southeast Asia. Whew! It was great to come home in May 2008, but not so fine to be faced with the chore of a job search in our slumped economy. Nonetheless, I started a disciplined and organized effort in June.

Seventeen months later, in December 2009, I was still without full-time employment and had been wrestling with writing fiction full time. I’d made a commitment to writing twice and did so for two weeks each time. Downbeat newspaper articles or national labor statistics affected me and I returned to networking. Not seeking paid employment was scary.