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I romanticize the ground on which I walk, for without this glorification I would have nothing to live for.
Featured Writer: Katie Dawkins
If it involves the arts, Katie Dawkins has tried it. The British native dabbles in everything from photography and drawing to violin and filmmaking. Remarkably, Katie still manages to dedicate time to writing–even if that time happens to be at 3 a.m! This week, we learn more about Katie’s personal goals for 2017, what she loves about living amongst the diverse landscape of North East England, and how writing and the arts have enriched her life.
In addition to writing, you're interested in photography, filmmaking, drawing, music and acting. Each weekend you also attend a stage school for students with a love of the performing arts. How have the arts enriched your life?
They make me feel free. With acting I don't have to be me so if something is bothering me, I don't have to think about it. With drawing or photography, I can capture one moment. We are moving through time constantly and will forget many things from our lives but a captured moment will always be remembered. I often can't express myself through words the first time so engaging in the arts helps me clear my head and understand myself better. Performing also brings me great joy and has allowed me to meet amazing people who inspire me constantly.
You're quite busy with all of your artistic endeavors. How do you find the time and space to write?
I write story ideas on my hand throughout the school day. I also have a bad sleeping pattern and have discovered that 3 a.m. is a good time for creativity.
Many writers go away on what's known as a "writer’s retreat" to focus solely on their craft. If you could go on a writer’s retreat anywhere in the world, where would you go? What would you work on?
Somewhere in the woods. A woodland retreat. I used to live in the countryside and make up so many stories in my head while wandering through the trees. I miss the atmosphere so much! I'd probably work on this book I've been trying to write for about a year now. I keep going back through it and changing details so new chapters hardly ever get finished.
Do you have any New Year’s resolutions?
I want to be more organised: less procrastination, less distractions, less last minute homework. I would also like to reserve more time for myself as I'm always busy.
How would you describe the North East of England to someone who's never been?
You can stand in one place, look right, and see the North Sea; cliffs and beaches stretching up and down the coast. Then, if you look left, you’ll see rolling hills, fields and woodlands. There are small, quaint villages and bustling cities. I believe I'm lucky to be able to live where I do as there's a little bit of everything!
About Katie
I'm from the North East of England, along the coast. My interests are writing, drawing and filmmaking. I love photography and am often employed by different teachers within my school to be a photographer for their events. In the future I hope to write scripts, direct, and to continue to pursue photography. I am also a performer; I attend a theatre school where I sing and act. I also take piano lessons and am working on teaching myself the ukulele. I'm often described as having a disturbing imagination, but it's my favourite thing–I don't know how I'd cope without it.
2026 Write the World Personal Essay Competition
2026 Write the World Personal Essay Competition Deadline: June 22 Categories: Non-fiction, Essays Prizes: Winner receives $100 writetheworld.org #writetheworld The 2026 Write the World Personal Essay Competition invites young writers (ages 13-19) to share personal stories, focusing on the theme ‘Build a bridge.’ Participants are encouraged to include characters, descriptions, and narrative…
@auspost can you please re-release the 65c CARD ONLY stamps while we are all self isolating? Let’s #WriteTheWorld & send cards to our loved ones - or even a hand written letter!! This is such a strange time, let’s create little memories that we can look back at & remind us that we are strong, resilient & connected. Great project for kids too!! https://www.instagram.com/p/B95Psv3gqf4/?igshid=15hjrnn0y24zh
December 2017 Editor’s Picks
Today marks our last batch of Editor’s Picks for 2017. Throughout the past twelve months, we’ve seen our writing community grow, not only in size but in spirit. More writers than ever are reviewing each other’s work and leaving a steady stream of encouraging words in the comments sections. Your brilliance and individual growth has not gone unnoticed! And the proof of how amazing all of you are can be seen in the responses to three of our recent prompts: “Fernweh,” “Ten Words to You,” and “My December.”
“Fernweh” asked you to think about a concept that can not quite be expressed by a single word in the English language. The word fernweh, for instance, is German for being homesick for a place you’ve never been to. In the pieces below, you’ll find a bevy of words that writers created to describe the (currently) indescribable. And who knows, if we all start using these words, they might become part of the official English lexicon!
“Trepsomnis” by AJ Robinson (Canada)
“Tacitagrim” by JCWriter (US)
“Yatra” by sKRUwriting (India)
“New Words!” by WhiltiernaWolfLord (US)
“the words I need” by Shanti (India)
The final month of the year brings with it a palpable feeling of nostalgia. In your responses to the prompt Ten Words to You—which asks writers to pen a piece about their home country in only ten words—we could feel the weight of these final few weeks of the year. Some writers, like the ones below, used this prompt as an opportunity to reflect upon their home country, covering topics like social injustice and economic inequality.
“United States of American Contradictions” by abigailholder (US)
“Surroundings” by Jacob Hickman (US)
“Winnipeg, Manitoba” by Gabe Krawec (Canada)
“Albania” by Patt (Albania)
Other responses were lighter, reading more like love letters, resplendent in rich descriptions of landscapes and musings about weather patterns:
“Jersey, Darling” by Rachel A. (US)
“Home” by raindrops (South Korea)
“Japan” by IzzyRE (Australia)
“Just a grey town in Wales” by Rosie (UK)
“Embrace” by darlingdrizzle (UK)
To round out our Editor’s Picks, we’re thrilled to share a few of our favorite responses to the “My December” competition. This December, writers from around the world wrote about the rituals and traditions that define the final month of the year in their corner of the globe. We learned about December in the sweltering heat from our friends in the tropics, and December in sub-zero temperatures in places like Canada. Despite the differences in physical location, however, a constant theme prevailed: December is about family and friends and setting goals for the new year. Here, we’ve listed some fabulous “My December” pieces, as well as photos to accompany each piece from the authors themselves.
“A Christmas Far Away From Home” by theMGCpage (Netherlands)
“Quickly” by nd360 (US)
“The End of the Old The Soon to be New” by Natalieshift13 (Malaysia)
Wishing you a happy and healthy New Year from everyone at Write the World!
Featured Writer: Holly Richardson
At Write the World, our hope is that all of you find the strength and support necessary to thrive as writers and as people. And if you end up pursuing a degree in a writing related field, well, that’s just a bonus! Canadian writer Holly Richardson, a second year English major, is committed to making her last year on Write the World a memorable one. In her Q&A, Holly offers advice on pursuing English at the university level and discusses her goals for carving out a career in the writing industry.
In your profile you write, "Because my nineteenth birthday is coming up, I won't be here much longer, and I'm trying to make the most of the time I have left on the site." What do you hope to gain from the rest of your time on Write the World? What have you gained thus far?
Write the World has helped me gain confidence as a writer from other young writers' comments and peer reviews. Compared to other sites I have used to interact with other writers, Write the World feels like a closer community where people truly care about helping one another as writers. I am hoping to both contribute to this community as well as receive more feedback in the time I have left.
You’re a second year college student studying English. What’s different about studying English at the university level?
English at the college level is much more open than high school English courses; instructors urge you to pick your own topics to write on and the essay format is looser giving you more room to argue your position on a subject. In addition, choosing specific English courses such as Detective Fiction or Children's Literature allows students to focus on their interests. And finally, college instructors provide feedback to help students improve as much as possible, so my writing has benefited greatly from that.
What advice do you have for young writers who are interested in pursuing English beyond high school?
First of all, I would say that an English degree does not lead to the most jobs. However, if you want to write professionally, or want to pursue a career in an English-related field, then it is a great way to start. Once you enroll, it is important to prioritize your classes so you get instruction in the type of writing you’d most like to explore. If you write poetry, be sure to enroll in a poetry workshop, and so on. Just don't expect too much course diversity until your second year.
Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?
This is a tough question because I am just starting to learn how to develop my writing. I would, however, like to publish a book with a fairly large publishing company. I have a long way to go, but I am willing to work for it. I am especially interested in writing to help people struggling with mental illnesses—whether that means helping people find refuge in fiction, or to provide support through nonfiction self-help books.
What is your hometown of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada like this time of year?
Around the holiday season, the stores are full of people and everywhere is busy. Even eating out on a weekday is difficult. The trees downtown are wrapped in colored lights, and the grass is covered in fluffy snow. Usually, it is much colder than this, but we're lucky this year, and it's hardly been below -10℃. It gets dark very early (about 5 pm), but it can be nice because I get to see the sun set almost every night, and the neighborhood Christmas lights turn on earlier.
About Holly
My name is Holly Richardson, and I’m from the city of Red Deer in Alberta, Canada. I am 18 years old and currently in my second year of college earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Writing has had a big impact on my life since middle school, when I first started to write stories. I’m so passionate about writing that I even switched my major to pursue it. Besides writing, my interests include music, films, and baking. When I’m not too busy with school work, I mostly spend my time with my fiancé and the friends I have made at my church. No matter what, I still find time to work on any story ideas I have floating around, or I at least jot down any ideas I may have for a new one. It can take me a long time to be happy with a story or poem, but the important thing is to keep writing. When it comes down to it, I’m a quirky college student hoping to touch others with words.
Antonia Harrison on her Winning Peer Review Entry
As a Peer Ambassador, young writer Antonia Harrison dedicates time each week to helping her fellow Write the World members improve their drafts. Last month, Antonia’s stellar review earned her much acclaim from guest judge Cath Crowley who deemed her the winner of Best Peer Review in our Novel Writing Competition. Today, Antonia reflects on the editing process and what she’s learned about her own writing from serving as a Write the World Ambassador.
What drew you to Becky H's piece?
I'm really attracted to pieces with a distinctive tone—maybe the writer is using descriptive phrases that I haven't heard before or conveying aspects of character through their voice. For me, this shows that the writing has genuine meaning to the writer and that they can project their own quirks and individuality onto the work. It's also refreshing to read something that nobody else could have written in the same way—it's more inspiring as a writer to be exposed to freshness and something new. This is what drew me to 'Suspicion'—the way it was written didn't stray into conventionality or cliché, but sustained a really personal element throughout.
You're one of our Peer Ambassadors. What does the role consist of and what has being an ambassador taught you?
As a Peer Ambassador, I write a set number of reviews per week in a fairly professional capacity and discuss with others what we have learned from such exposure to the review process. It's taught me a lot, partially because it's been really interesting to hear how others approach this and partially because the volume of reviews we write makes it possible to really evaluate how people respond to feedback and what's helpful. One thing that strikes me especially now is how important it is to encourage writers to keep at it. I frequently get responses to my reviews from people who haven't had their work acknowledged or commented on before and who have felt disheartened by this. As writers, we can all recognize this feeling, which is why it's so essential that we all encourage one another to keep going.
How has being a Peer Ambassador changed the way you view your own work?
The exposure I've had to lots of different styles of writing, and the way different individuals craft their work, has been so useful to me. You can only really consider how you want to articulate or scribe your thoughts when you've seen how others' emotions are manifested on the page. I'm more likely now to try to apply an original voice, for instance, because I've learned how engaging that can be to a reader and how it can make a piece stand out.
If you could get feedback on your work from any writer in history, who would it be and why?
This is so difficult to choose! There are a million people I could choose, but I'll say either D.H. Lawrence or Dylan Thomas because they both have a really unique, unmistakable style of writing that nobody can quite mimic. I'd love to be able to write in such a vivid way. Lawrence was also a stern social critic and offers really interesting social commentary, which I find very important!
You're a self described "activist, feminist and socialist." In what ways do your morals and/or political leanings influence your writing?
I'm a firm believer in the fact that, as a writer, you can't remain distanced from the world around you. Especially in this day and age, it's so important for writers to strive to make a change. Writing without critiquing society is missing one of the key functions of being an artist. As an activist, I've been on the streets trying to make changes in small ways, and it's made me realize the momentous impact that words and language can have on a listener. That's why I think it's always important to use your words to right some of the wrongs we see everyday. Otherwise, why are you doing it?
The Write Place: ‘Tis the Season - My December
by Lisa Hiton
Looking for the right advice on pursuing the writer’s life? You’ve come to the write place!
My family is Jewish. We don’t celebrate Christmas. And yet, isn’t going to a movie and eating Chinese food while the rest of the world closes down for a day a kind of ritual—its own kind of made-up holiday? I’m sure that these details seem usual as well. But, dear writers, a lot more is there than meets the eye. Your family’s traditions, rituals, and habits—no matter how ordinary they seem—can be made extraordinary by turning them into words.
Family Hanukkah with multiple Hannukiahs! These are different than menorahs as they hold nine candles instead of seven.
PANNING FOR GOLD
An easy way to describe your holiday season to someone else (and kickstart your writing process) is to make a list of traditions and rituals that you think of when this time of year comes around. Mine looks something like this:
Tuesday before Thanksgiving
take a train into the city
to go to the Art Institute with my mom
followed by shopping for new art supplies
and a nice dinner
and train ride home
Thanksgiving Eve and Day
prepare spinach balls
set table
cook cook cook
eat eat eat
play games with cousins
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
hang Hanukkah stockings
attend Cathy Nathan’s x-mas party
cook a big breakfast including eggs, fresh squeezed OJ, and bacon
open stockings
hang out
go to a movie at the theatre
cook a nice dinner (Chinese food takes too long in my hometown since we live in a pretty Jewish part of Chicagoland)
watch holiday movies with mom and brother, especially The Family Stone
Winters in Chicago can be brutal; there’s no better antidote than playing in the snow! Here I am enjoying the snow with my first friend, Rebel.
Are you bored yet? This isn’t even counting Hanukkah since it doesn’t always fall near Christmas! All of these things may seem pretty usual. That might be true if you make your list of traditions as well. You might decorate a tree, hang twinkle lights, go caroling, go to the same person’s house every year to celebrate, leave out cookies for Santa, etc. Most neighborhoods and cultures have their usual lists of traditions. Part of your goal as a writer is to pan for gold among them.
Looking at this list, I began to ask myself, Why is it that my mom, brother, and I do these same things every single year? Some of it seems like the larger culture, but some of it was made by us. As I think about why, it’s clear that a lot of these rituals are in some way related to my parent’s divorce. Through that lens, I might start panning for my own gold—to sift through this litany to find something that might be worth more than meets the eye. Each of these seemingly usual bullet points, in fact, triggers different memories for me. In that field of memories, where might I find a scene that begins a longer story? How might I organize these scenes and memories into something cohesive for myself and my readers? I’ll begin with my freshman year.
My freshman year of high school marked the first year of spending winter break with divorced parents. While breakfast time was never particularly special in my house, Christmas day posed a dilemma: what would my mom, brother, and I do in this new situation, just the three of us? Especially since nearly everything is closed on Christmas day and people are with their families, filling the time posed some anxiety for my mother and me, especially with my young, shy brother.
To be sure, I already had thrown one tantrum about adjusting to these new circumstances. It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. In elementary school and middle school, I normally had that day off as part of my holiday break. In high school though, this was not the case. It was second period when I received a pink slip during chorus to report to my advisor’s office. As a self-proclaimed academic, I was not used to be in trouble. With a room full of eyes on me as I left the choir room, my angst only increased.
It seemed my senior leaders had gone to my advisor worried about my general sadness. In my humiliation that anyone had noticed such negative energy, I proceeded to have the first of many tearful conversations with my advisor about adjusting: to high school, to a new home situation, and more. My mom came and picked me up from school so we could play hooky and keep our one ritual of going to the Art Institute of Chicago. I knew it was a temporary solution to a larger problem, and that this was just one of many adjustments I’d have to make. Yet, the gesture helped me persevere despite my pain.
That choir room would continue to serve as a literary backdrop for growth and tough love throughout high school. It was also a common community I kept throughout high school while everything else changed. For our annual fundraiser, we sold grapefruits and oranges by the box. When the trucks pulled up to the high school, we passed the boxes one by one down the line, just like the who’s down in Whoville, singing all the while in the face of another frigid Chicagoland winter.
While I’m more of a night owl than a morning person, and certainly not a big breakfast eater, this introduction to ripe grapefruits became my exception. Cut in half with a little bit of sugar was all I needed to jump-start my day with a jolt of Vitamin C. And so when the week of Christmas came around, my mom picked up a citrus juicer. The morning of Christmas. My brother and I sat on the island in our kitchen cutting oranges in half. We took turns pressing oranges onto the machine as it whirred and whirred. In an absolute mess of pulp, we finally squeezed enough halves for three cups of juice, just as our bacon was coming out of the oven. It was a new tradition, mundane as it may seem now, and a way of lightening the day and passing the time on a holiday that is not ours.
Christmas may not be our holiday, but it would be a boring day without our own tradition of “Hanukkah stockings”. My brother, Merrick, and I still give each other socks and chapstick as a ritual!
AMONG THESE ROCKS
Among the rocks in the river, there are some that are worth spending time with as a writer, and others that probably don’t add much to the larger story. The larger story in a personal essay is not always about a narrative arc. In the passage I just wrote about making orange juice, the larger story is about recasting the family unit as three instead of four, connecting to my younger brother, and trying to lift my spirit despite how hard it was to start high school with divorce at the forefront of my thinking and feeling. While all of that may not have come out precisely, writing this little passage is a signal that with time and effort, I could write that longer essay. Now as a writer, it will be up to me to describe these anecdotes as scenes, make characters out of my self and my family members, and reflect on the meaning. If this can all be done well—the showing and the telling—then it’s likely the reader will feel a similar sense of nostalgia.
The house where I grew up is on a hill whose swale leads to the north fork of the Chicago River. My fondest memories of winter are sledding down that hill and walking on the frozen river. Here I am teaching a new friend, Miriam, about these prairie-land games.
That is, perhaps, the most important way to approach material. If something is significant, memorable, or worthy of reflection to your own sense of self or personal narrative, there is probably a way to translate that to your reader in writing. Take for example Vani Dadoo’s My December piece from last year, “December in Delhi”, about waiting for the train:
Winter is not good for a polluted city like mine. December, being the main month of winter in India, is always the coldest.
All things in nature huddle together in winter, trying to find, or steal, some warmth from the other.
The clouds creep towards the ground. The fog and the smoke meet and embrace, and together try to steal the little sunlight before it touches the earth. The smog becomes denser, trying to wrap the earth in a heavier, grayish blanket, like the people sleeping in woolen quilts in their homes. Evening darkness approaches faster than before, as if the smog did succeed in robbing the sunlight. Even after twilight, the smog refuses to diffuse. The air becomes thicker, but the world puts on an old, dull, sweater and wraps a muffler around its neck and walks on.
Some evenings, it coughs and some mornings, it can see its breath. But most days, it can’t peer into the distance.
This year, my father decided to travel to escape the harsh winters. “Migration over hibernation,” he called it, and, “better to get the sun somewhere than get closer to that old, rusty heater at home,” is what he said. We decide to journey to the western coast around Mumbai by train. Indian Railways was a part of family, as all cross-country trips; from Himalayan foothills to the Rajasthani deserts, were made by train.
As we take a cab to the New Delhi railway station, the moon is rising. The moon is a blurred piece of white in the black sky, clouds and smog. The street lights, though, filter through this, illuminating every speck of dust. The cars zoom past on the highway.
One can rarely see stars in my city.
Dadoo wavers between a present-tense meditation on December, and a swell of memory related to waiting for a train in Delhi. While these may be ordinary in another context—waiting for a late train or reflecting on the season—Dadoo weaves these two threads together, a double helix, to arrive at grand statements of the human condition: that like waiting for a train, we wait for a season’s end so that we may be carried into a new one.
Dadoo also brings us Delhi in her sensory details. From the opening passage about all things in nature “huddling together”, Dadoo mirrors her descriptions to match the crowded and polluted city around her. Just as Dadoo was able to give the details of December in Delhi while waiting for a train, you can give your own details as you think about your family—their traditions and rituals, the personalities of each member, and the things that make you nostalgic.
A reader gets a clear sense of a train station in Mumbai from this piece. If you’re familiar with such a place, you will get swept up in a shared nostalgia. If you’re unfamiliar with this land, you may find these descriptions to be exotic. In both cases, the very things that are both familiar and new bring the reader into a shared sense of the human condition with the writer herself. That shared humanness is the the entire point of sharing stories! And all of that came from writing about waiting for the train!
So, dear writers, as you think of Decembers past and enjoy your current December, what memories and rituals are for keeps? What gold will you find in waiting for the train, cooking with your grandmother, visiting a museum, playing in the snow? Show us your favorite places, traditions, and people at this time of year by tagging your stories and images with #MyDecember on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
About Lisa
Lisa Hiton is an editorial associate at Write the World. She writes two series on our blog: The Write Place where she comments on life as a writer, and Reading like a Writer where she recommends books about writing in different genres. She’s also the interviews editor of Cosmonauts Avenue and the poetry editor of the Adroit Journal.
