Ten years later, am I still an emerging writer?
How long have I been emerging? Can a writer be emerging in perpetuity? Will I be emerging until, if ever, I publish a book?
I’m constantly trawling the internet for places I can send my writing, and I recently came across the Grace Marion Wilson Emerging Writers Competition run by Writers Victoria. Upon a closer look at the terms and conditions, I discovered that I was ineligible to enter. How could that be possible?
I’m a big fan of Writers Victoria, my current state writing body. I think they do great and necessary work. They are currently running a Fund Our Future campaign after being recently defunded. I went to two of their writing workshops last year, including a fantastic one on creative nonfiction run by Hayley Singer, and was awarded their inaugural Edenhope Artist Residency.
I’m always on the lookout for what they’re doing next, and a competition for emerging writers sounded perfect for me. I mentally started thinking about which story I could send them. I felt the unexpected rush of genuine surprise surge through my body when I clicked in to read the details: the competition is only open to writers with three or less published stories.
I was first paid to write by Feminartsy back in 2016. I was nineteen years old and in my second year of undergraduate study. At the time Feminartsy was a Canberra-based online publication. They have recently relaunched as a mail club and are now on Substack as well.
My third such story ‘Deconstructing the Bechdel Test’ was published by Feminartsy in May 2016. So when I opened the information for this competition, thinking it would be a really good fit for me, I had actually become ineligible over ten years ago.
It triggered a moment of personal crisis. Does this mean I emerged ten years ago? Am I successful writer who doesn’t need competitions like this? I don’t feel like one.
It’s not new for me to open an opportunity and discover that I’m ineligible. Like I said, I’m often on the lookout online, and I’m used to finding something that sounds exciting only to subsequently discover that I can’t apply based on something like my location or my age. Sometimes I’m the one disqualifying an opportunity if it turns out the entry fee is really high or it looks like a scam.
I’m not used to being ineligible because of my actual work. Beyond Writers Victoria, I experienced the same weird sensation when I investigated the newly announced Melbourne Press Club x Deakin University Women’s Sports Fellowship. It was only open to women sports writers without a publication in a mainstream media outlet. Again, I hit this milestone when my story ‘How university students are bringing equity to a 60-year-old sport called Inward Bound’ was published by ABC Sport in August 2022, almost four years ago.
What is an emerging writer? For most opportunities out there, an emerging writer is defined as someone who is yet to publish their first book. This is the most common definition I encounter and why I still usually refer to myself as an emerging writer.
Obviously the definition varies across arts organisations as evidenced by this current example. Sometimes it blows out the other way—I have seen some opportunities which define an emerging writer as someone with one or two books published.
How long have I been emerging? Can a writer be emerging in perpetuity? Will I be emerging until, if ever, I publish a book?
I never know how to answer questions about the number of years of my creative practice. I won my first filmmaking award when I was thirteen years old. I finished writing the first draft of a novel manuscript when I was fifteen years old. I was paid for my writing for the first time when I was nineteen years old. I first submitted a manuscript to a publisher when I was twenty-one years old. I finished uni and ‘entered the workforce’ when I was twenty-three years old.
What is the beginning point? I could pick any of those examples and dozens more. Sometimes it’s hard to remember the time in my life from before I wanted to become a writer. It did exist—I think my ambitions crystallised around the time I started high school. But I can trace the seeds of the idea much further back into my childhood.
Personally, I still consider myself an emerging writer. This understanding of myself is informed by the general consensus of the industry. I’m in the process of determining my creative identity and pathways. I think I’ve grown considerably over the last ten years, both as my own creative self and regarding externally measured achievements—but ultimately this is where I am.