How to become a writer

of poetry, articles and non-fiction books. You don't need formal training, to be a certain age or to feel threatened by fellow writers. Also: notes on being paid to write and writing with dyslexia.

I have had more questions about ‘how to write’ in recent weeks than ever before.

My sister’s son (my nephew) is an avid reader, aged 7, and told her he might like to become an author.

She wondered if he needed to be writing more, to work towards that, but I told her I thought reading was more important.

This is where we learn about form, structure, dialogu…