Waldo Jaquith
(1995)
How would you characterize the influence of your YWW experience in your life?
YWW taught me to write for the love of writing. That I don’t need to make a living as a writer. That I don’t need to make any money at all as a writer, but that I just need to write. It’s better to write a dozen lousy paragraphs than to write nothing for the fear of writing badly. You can’t edit nothing.
What’s the best advice you can give a Young Writer (in general or in your specific genre)?
Write, but do not aspire to make a living at it. Write for the love of writing. If money comes to you, great—that’s a rare gift, and you should be grateful.
What do you find yourself most often reading or listening to lately and why?
Thanks to Instapaper—the wonderful iPad app for sharing long-form writing—I read a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction, especially journalism, often from publications and writers of whom I’d never heard before. It’s an exciting time to be a reader.