Writers With Day Jobs

EARNING A LIVING OUTSIDE OF LITERATURE

IN 2018, as a younger writer in a different phase of life, I was thrilled to interview prolific author William Vollmann. A digital magazine employed me at the time, but it clearly wouldn’t forever, and while Vollmann and I talked, my infant daughter slept in her crib in her nearby room. One piece of Vollmann’s advice struck me: “Don’t write for money.” Although writing earned him his living, he understood that, in a larger sense, separating your income from your creative output provides distinct benefits. Vollmann’s words rang with the authority of experience, so I listened. I was at a crossroads. After transforming from a childless, car-camping bohemian to a forty-three-year-old home-owning father, I needed to draw my income from a job more stable than one in magazine and book…

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Poets & Writers (Digital) - 1 Issue, March/April 2025

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