I began my week at the New Orleans Writing Marathon, where we’re all given I am a writer stickers to wear on our persons or notebooks. Every year, Richard Louth, the “father” of this event, invites us to kick things off by responding to that statement before descending on the city to write in cafés, bars, and restaurants. This is what I wrote.

I am a writer.

I say that now when people ask me one of those—sometimes genuinely curious, sometimes polite nothingness, sometimes label-seeking—questions:
What do you do?
What are you?

There was a time certain things needed to align before I would claim this title.
But now, I wear it forward and often don’t even bother adding “and also a world languages editor.”

I’m moving away from professional identities I have worn for decades, which is scary and also exhilarating. This feels like coming home.
I am a writer.

And I invite others to join me by facilitating events that help them come home to their truth:
I am a writer.

The most meaningful work I do is not convincing people they can write, but helping them recognize they already are writers.
We’re all writers.

That might make some question, “If we’re all writers, what’s so special about being one?”

It’s special not because it’s exclusive. It’s special because it opens a door.

At the Well

When we allow ourselves to sink into this part of ourselves—this identity, this truth—we open the well into our essence, lower a bucket into our chamber of treasures.

We draw up what waits for us there. Stories, memories, secrets, questions.
The pail rises dripping our truths, our eyes darting with wonder, breath still with surprise, hands electric holding the rope—the tether connecting us to something deeper than certainty.
This is me.
I really am a writer.

I hope through events like this marathon and my own humble InkWell WordShop and Words to Brew On offerings, more people find their way to the well.
Not because they need permission.
Because the water is already theirs.

©Pennie Nichols. All Rights Reserved. 2026