MY PATH TO PUBLICATION
The nature writer describes how her response to racial abuse led to her first book, I Belong Here
Anita Sethi
I can't remember a time I did not love writing, and it’s been a vocation of mine since childhood (but for the brief time before that I dreamed of being an astronaut). Since I learnt and write I’ve been entranced by the powers of language and wanted to try and use it in the very best way I could. I also have a bit of an obsession with the actual tools of writing – and a geeky love of fountain pens and ink.
‘I didn’t know any writers and writing wasn’t particularly encouraged as a profession for me to pursue –I learnt to love reading through the local library and subsequently went on to study English Literature at university. I was offered a place on the MA in Creative Writing at UEA but couldn’t afford the fees. I went into freelance writing and journalism and was published in several anthologies before my first book was published, including the anthologies Seasons, Common People, and am forthcoming in Women on Nature. I’m also lucky in that I’ve got to interview some of my favourite writers –I went birdwatching with Margaret Atwood as a setting for an interview, for example, in the UK’s oldest nature reserve an experience that informed by thinking and writing about nature.