Every writer has a moment when the world shifted. For me, it happened when I was 14 years old.
Once the Iron Curtain fell, Russia was flooded with bootleg translations. I had plenty of exposure to hard science fiction, but what I got after Perestroika was fantasy, sword and sorcery, sword and planet, and light SF. Harry Harrison, Leigh Bracket, Robert E Howard. I devoured it. You are what you eat, and finally in the spring of 1990, my brain overloaded. I commandeered the manual typewriter my dad had used years before to write his dissertation and vomited a story out over the course of three months.
Looking back at it, it was probably novella length, but it felt like a huge novel to me. Also, it was awful. It was this weird mishmash of knights, castles, magic zones, mutated monsters… Anyway, I finished it. Now that it was done, I didn’t know what to do with it. In a moment of slight insanity, I decided to show it to my dad.
My parents had taken zero interest in my writing attempts. To be fair, they took zero interest in all of my academic attempts. It was just expected that I would do well. My father took my stack of papers and promised to read it.
Two weeks later, we were having dinner, and my dad casually mentioned that he showed my “novel” to the Dean of Russian Literature Faculty at the city university. My mom asked what he said. And my father looked at me and told me, “He said that with writing, you either have it or don’t. And Ilona has it.”
This was the moment I realized I could be a writer.
I told this story to a friend and she said that it would make a good blog post and wouldn’t it be fun to find out how other writers figured out they were writers. So I asked and a lot of people responded. Here are their stories in no particular order.
Grace Draven
The moment I realized I could be a writer came when I was in my first meeting with my new boss at my new job. I’d just graduated from college, and until then, had worked in retail (a bookstore) and a hair salon. This was my first corporate gig, and it was in finance and retirement funds. Honestly, I hate math, and I suck at it – except for money math. Accounting has always made perfect sense to me. That being said, I didn’t land this particular job with my number-crunching skills. My new boss (whom I still stay in contact with and love to bits) looked me in the eye and said “I hired you because you can write.”
That statement stayed with me as I spent several years in finance, where my writing was limited to business letters and departmental processes. And then I discovered fan fiction. That was the game changer for me. First, I read it; then I wrote it. Talk about bust open a door. That was the second moment I thought “Hey, I could be a writer!” I went commercial in 2005 and haven’t looked back since. It’s been a helluva ride.
Grace’s Featured Release: THE MOON RAVEN
Disaris jin Gheza’s rare gift for code-breaking means she must flee a conquering army and a fanatical cult, or become their prisoner and pawn. To evade capture, she will cross perilous territories and sorcerous borders, her aim, two-fold: rescue her sister from captivity and stop a goddess bent on remaking the world through destruction and bloodshed.
But she won’t be facing danger alone. The battle mage known as the Moon Raven travels by her side. Once Disaris’s best friend and lover, Bron is now an uneasy ally with a death bounty on his head for desertion.
Bound together by memories and a bond that they both believed broken, the two fugitives must outrun a deadly tracker, save a kingdom, and crush a savage deity – all without dying in the effort.
A tale of loyalty and longing.
Devon Monk
Two moments: I was the shy, dorky, book-reading poor kid in an upper-class public school. In fourth grade, the fourth and fifth graders all entered poems for the school newsletter. My poem was chosen to be printed.
My teacher took me out of class that day. We stood alone in the empty hallway. In firm, hushed tones she told me I had a real gift. All the teachers had been surprised and impressed with the poem. She told me to keep doing it, keep writing things. She also said I shouldn’t tell the other kids she had said anything because she didn’t want to be seen as playing favorites.
I was proud, but came away with the mixed message that I was good, but not the kind of good that should be shared with others.
A few years later, my mother (tired of me always having my nose in a book) snapped: “You’re always reading all the time, why don’t you just write a book?”
Until that moment, I hadn’t realized writing was a career choice a poor kid like me (who might be good, but should keep it a secret) could have. But oh, once that idea took root, there was no going back. I didn’t just realize I was a writer, I realized nothing was going to stop me from being a writer. And, hey, here I am. Decades later. Still a writer.
Devon’s Featured Release: WAYWARD SOULS
Betrayals and secrets, devils and saviors, and magic stronger than even the gods can tame…
Lovers Lula and Brogan Gauge have dealt with magic, monsters, and gods for nearly a hundred years—it’s not as fun as you’d think. After a vicious attack turned Lula into a half-vampire, and left Brogan an earthbound spirit, they rebuilt their lives around one goal: Revenge.
Now their hunt for the monster who destroyed their lives and ripped their souls in half might finally come to an end—if the ghost in Illinois is telling the truth about the spell book of the gods.
But Lula and Brogan aren’t the only ones who want that spell book. Gods made it, gods lost it, and the gods want it back.
All Lula and Brogan have to do is get to it first, but doing so will turn into the fight of their un-lives…
Jessie Mihalik
I’m so glad Ilona invited me to share my story about the moment I thought I could be a writer, because she’s a key player in it!
Like many romance authors, I started in fanfiction. I wrote fic in college, but I never considered writing to be a career option—it was just something I did for fun. Then, after college was over and I had a “real” job, I dropped writing altogether because I just didn’t have time.
But the urge to write never quite went away.
Then in 2008, I did my first NaNoWriMo—an event in November designed to encourage you to write 50k words during the month—with friends from work. I hit the goal with a terrible novel that will never see the light of day. I completed it again in 2009, and started to think that maybe writing was something I wanted to do.
Then, in 2010, Ilona and Gordon were the guests of honor at a SF/F convention here in town. I was a huge fan, so of course I was going to go.
But they were also participating in a writing workshop. So I wrote a little story which my bestie raved was awesome (as besties are required to do) and sent it off with the hope that I’d be in Ilona and Gordon’s group.
Long story long, I was in Ilona and Gordon’s group, and they were so very kind. Ilona encouraged me to keep going and told me I could likely write professionally if I wanted to. That nudge of encouragement changed my life, and I will forever be grateful to her for it—and for all of the help and encouragement she and Gordon have given me since then.
Of course, it took another seven years for me to actually get a book written and sold, but that’s another story. 🙂
Jessie’s Featured Release: SILVER & BLOOD
On a deadly mission to kill the mythical beast that has been haunting her woods, a desperate mage finds her fate intertwined with the handsome, powerful man who saves her in this dark and sexy romantasy—perfect for readers of Jennifer L. Armentrout, Callie Hart, and Holly Black.
There’s something in the woods…
When a vicious beast begins attacking her fellow villagers, Riela reluctantly agrees to enter the forbidden forest and kill the monster as she’s the only mage available—or so she thought.
Untrained and barely armed, Riela is quickly overwhelmed when one beast turns into two. She fears her death is at hand until the unexpected arrival of a scarred, strikingly handsome man with gleaming moonlit magic changes her fate—and provides a rare opportunity to learn more about her own fickle power.
After being rescued and healed from the beast’s poison, Riela awakens in a magical castle complete with a gorgeous library, a strange wolf, and the surly man who saved her life. She soon learns Garrick is both more powerful and far deadlier than a mere mortal mage—but thanks to a century-long curse, his powers are weakening.
Trapped in his castle and surrounded by the treacherous woods, the spark of attraction between Riela and Garrick slowly ignites into fiery desire. But the more they discover about Riela’s magic, the more suspicious Garrick grows of her identity. As they unravel the secrets and lies connecting Riela’s past to Garrick’s, the tenuous threads of trust between them start to fray.
Because Riela’s life—or her death—might be the key to regaining everything Garrick has lost.
Melissa Marr
In 2005, I was driving along I-5 in South CA with my daughter (11) and son (6). Asia hated road trips or planes or really anything that meant she couldn’t move, and Dylan was easy going, so I made up stories to tell them as I drove. SoCal traffic between LA and San Diego is awful, and I was distracted by it. My kids were impatient because I had, according to them, not started exactly when we ended. I pointed out that it was not a real book, and I was, in fact, not an audiobook. To that, my precocious daughter said, “You’re an author, but you have terrible memory or we wouldn’t be lost again, so maybe you should write it down and I’ll read it aloud when we drive so you can get lost less often.”
I had always dreamed of writing a book, but I think hearing my kid say I was an author made me think I could be. So I wrote Wicked Lovely (my debut novel that was actually just re-published in mid-2025) for her. I think sometimes kids (or parents or spouses or sibs) have the faith in us that we might lack. I wrote that while homeschooling them, while watching at gymnastics class, while they were in summer camp at museums in Balboa Park. I think it was very much a case of not trusting my belief, but I trusted my kids. If they believed in me, I figured I better get it done. I did, but it didn’t cure my directional issues.
Melissa’s Featured Release: A TREASON OF MAGIC
(June 23, 2026; adult fantasy)
Two young women. Heirs to altogether different hereditary burdens. Bound by a monstrous threat to their village.
Gabrielle is the first girl in Alveus to carry the mantle of Hunter, an obligation to kill the faery beasts murdering travelers in the Brimmond Wood. Wary of the power she wields—as guardian of her people—Gabrielle is summoned by her first love, a seductress who shattered her heart into pieces a decade ago.
Isabeau is the rarest of nobility—a lady duke. She is also afflicted by a curse that leaves her in a deep sleep between the gloaming and daylight. How can she begin her tenure as protector when she can’t keep her village safe from whatever stalks its darkest hours? For that, she needs the help of the Hunter.
Against her will, Gabrielle is falling in love all over again. But what new threats will arise when Gabrielle and Isabeau’s star-crossed destinies collide with the beast of Brimmond Wood?
Stay tuned for Part 2 next Wednesday.
Hi again!
Oh, First?
My first love was The Narnia series of books. The Wizards’s Nephew. I was 7! I can’t write but I can quilt and sew. Thank Heavens you can write, craft, cook and do all kinds of creative things. We of the BDH truly appreciate you and all the other wonderful writers!
Indeed 🙂
Thank you for the lovely stories! Now off to read snippets and add to my reading list 😊 I have no regrets!! 😆
+1
very cool information from other authors. thank you.
I love this. I am the opposite. I love reading but always hated writing. When I was writing graduate school applications, my sister was proofing and tearing everything to pieces, until I got to writing about my undergrad research. So I now I am a patent agent and write about science and inventions.
Thank you for sharing these origin stories! Who doesn’t love an origin story! Off to look for more books by these authors!
A huge thanks for pulling together all these stories! I admire so much anyone who has actually put pen on paper and created something — much less getting it published and read!! To hear what sparked and inspired them is so revealing. And it touched me that so often it’s that one affirmation from someone they love, trust, or respect that they held on to despite all the tough times. I had one of those smiling tears in my eye as I read… Can’t wait until part 2!!
What a lovely post. Thank you so much, I love reading about people and why they do what they do.
Thank you so much for sharing!
I love to read, which was not an easy road with me when I was little. Writing was worse. It was my dad who told me to read out loud so I could see what I was reading.
Writing took a long time to catch up. I am in awe of writers who can pull me into their worlds and keep me there. It’s not easy to keep me in a world if I think it is boring or not interesting to me.
Thank you to all the writers, living and dead, for keeping all of us readers reading your stories. All of you have a special gift. 😊
This is fun! Great timing, too, for Christmas gift ideas.
Those are great!
Once I learned to read in first grade (1964), I never looked back. Half the library at my grade school, my mom’s mythology books (college textbooks), my dad’s books on Ancient Greece and Rome (he was a World Civ h.s. teacher). I’ve only written one story, in my late thirties, and only showed it to my mom. She liked it, and that was enough for me. Reading is my passion, and I am very glad for it!! 📚💖📚
Oh this is such a cool post. Thanks for sharing and getting writer friends to share as well!
I LOVE THIS. It’s making me a bit teary reading everyone’s stories! Interesting, too, how diverse they are. There’s no common denominator beyond a desire to write.
This was quite interesting. Thanks!
❤️
Love these authors. Love their stories. What a wonderful idea. Always wish I had the writing gift.
This was lovely to read and now I have several new books to add to my TBR. Thank you!
I have started writing a new novel at least a few times every year. Maybe if I can actually finish my current WIP I can have a story just like this one day.
I love Jesse Milhalik’s Consortium novels – just another reason I am a proud BDH member.
What an incredible post! Thank you so much for sharing these stories!
This is really cool to read, thank you!
I loved reading the stories of how these women became professional storytellers. And I appreciate the book summaries for each one. Your blog is like a very necessary palette cleanser for the brain.
Thanks HA.
I think I’d be right in assuming that I’m not the only person with a story opposite of this… I think I was 14 or 15 when my English teacher said that my writing was derivative (possibly not those words) but, whatever I was reading (Elinor M. Brent-Dyer) was what I wrote in assignments.
Definitely not alone! *hugs*
Very cool.
Thank you.
This was very interesting!
This left mixed feelings. As I am truly happy for all those authors, I cant just escape my feeling of envy. I was the girl prized by teachers. I was the girl winning small writing competitions. Where am I now?
Buried in office with corporate job slowly killing my soul. That is the sad reality of small country with a few true fans of fantasy.
Please, dont end like me. If you were born with this wings, fly you fool…
Linthea, you probably heard about Raymond Chandler’s work. Massive, massive name, so influential. The Big Sleep was his first novel. It was published when he was 51. He lost his job during the Great Depression and had to earn money somehow.
Richard Adams, civil servant, started writing at 46, published at 54. The book was called Watership Down.
Both of my daughters produced publishable work by the time they finished high school. We had to walk a very fine line between encouragement and tempering their careers, because to be a writer, one must accumulate life experience.
Buried wine ages better. This weekend, take a minute and write something. See how it goes. You might surprise yourself.
Thank you so much, Ilona !
Many of us needed to hear that: such kind and wise advice.
(I actually teared up when I read this reply.)
Yet another reason we love Ilona and HA.
So kind and generous, and encouraging. Thank you.
Very true, about life experience being helpful for writing.
Alan Bradley too, author of the delightful Flavia De Luce mystery series. Started writing after he retired from his television engineering job. Older writers have so much to offer!
Thank you ever so much for this response. It is wonderful to feel that there are kindred souls of kindness in this world. I teared up reading this, too.
Delia Owens published Where The Crawdads Sing when she was almost 70.
Take Ilona’s advice and don’t give up! At least write for yourself…you never know what might happen.
So exciting!
I have not been keeping track of the release date for the Moon Raven. But I have it now.
Me too! 😄
I didn’t even know there was a new Grace Draven book until I read the above.
love this!! thanks for sharing!
Love these stories, but also
MY ARCANE SOCIETY COPIES OF BURN FOR ME ARRIVES TODAY!!!
That is all
Whoot!! Happy for you and that is everything! Lol
I love this, I have done NaNoWriMo’s and am passionate about writing, but have still yet to pony-up. I have a successful career but I always say next time. Hopefully next time will be sooner this round.
I have such mixed feelings here. I really enjoyed writing as a kid but I watched my brother (seven years older than me) really struggle trying to be a writer. When I went to college my parents told me to please PLEASE not be an English major like him. I stopped writing. It didn’t feel safe. Maybe someday I’ll write something again.
This was awesome! Thank you for getting these authors to share.
Wow, beautiful stories!
I’m an avid reader, and like many readers, I’ve been asked often if I’m going to write a book. One day I had the glimmer of an idea, so I sat down and wrote a one page outline. And I was done. That was all I had, and I was satisfied.
I’m not a fiction writer, I’m a fiction reader. I use my writing ability for writing personal histories of family members.
That’s a very cool and beautiful thing to do for your family members!! 💖📝
I love stuff like this – stories about those moments which made people believe in themselves and their potential.
Those are lovely stories. Thanks for sharing them.
This is such a cool post. Thank you Ilona, and thanks to the writers for sharing their stories.
Thank you for this. I’ve never read Melissa Marr, but I will try her books.
This is awesome. I love these stories
I love these little sparks of inspiration! I hope this helps someone reading this to never give up.
Also thank you for adding new authors to my TBR!
Thank you for this, dear Ilona,
Your words are like magic, even if it is only a blog post, and the words of all of the authors above hold the same power.
It was so lovely to read.
I love these tidbits and stories of how encouragement can change the trajectory of a person’s life. It reminds me to pay attention so I can help those around me too!
What a great collection of stories from an awesome group of writers. My brain is a scrambled mess this morning, but I wanted to say thank you for sharing and for giving me the start of my 2026 tbr list.
Love the blog subject today and especially that you reached out to collect other author stories. thanks for the treat!
It was so great to read how each writer finally found their destiny. Thank you to each for letting us see how they began.
Very fun blog post. I never imagined there would be light bulb moments for authors. I thought it would be a more compulsive thing.
Love this post! Thank you for choosing to put it together and to share your story and others.
My mind is creative in other ways and I’m voracious fiction reader but never had a pull to be a writer. It’s so interesting to read about what launched someone to become a writer. I’m often in awe as to the characters and worlds created by authors (“how did they come up with that???”).
This was a wonderful! It was interesting to see how these authors found their way to writing. I enjoy reading Grace Draven, and now I have more authors to check out! Looking forward to Part 2!
What a cool set of stories! This gives me hope that maybe I can try to get my stories written some day.
Wow! What a great blog post; loved it! 😲
I love reading about these “ah-ha” moments. Thank you for sharing and introducing me to some new-to-me authors!
Wow. Just wow. Love this. Can’t wait for part 2!
Great post, very interesting to hear what happened at the start, thankyou.
I’m not a professional and never will be as I prefer more cozy stories that aren’t popular nowadays. But….
When I was working my first job, there was a woman who I sorta didn’t get along with all that well. During my spare time I wrote a fantasy story of sorts. She was an avid reader and persuaded me to let her read it.
When she finished, she started crying. I’ve been writing stories, and later novels since then. Have no desire to sell them. They’re just for a small (tiny if I have to be honest) audience that enjoys the type of thing I produce.
As Ilona said, “the joy is in the writing”. That’s enough for me.
First, I immediately went to pre-order Grace’s book and… realized I’d already done it. Hah! Go, me. Second, I remember reading Wicked Lovely right when it came out, and thinking it was the greatest thing ever. What a hoot to imagine trying to TELL it as a story whilst driving in LA traffic!! Definitely best written down.
Thank you, this is a really fun feature.
Kind of late for commenting, but although I am not a professional writer, this post struck a chord. My father was a writer, a professional one, with published books in the 80-90s that made low to moderate success in my original country. He started as a teenager in the 70s with a small book and his own press (I still have part of the press cover somewhere), and found himself becoming an author due to the absurd amount of reading around him. My dad’s family had a library in a time and place where this was absolutely not usual. They exchanged books weekly, and we had all the first small, cheap books of fiction and fantasy from the 70s, and all the big, important books of the time. According to my family, my dad and my grandad also had an ongoing competition to see who would read books in the more “purest” form, so they began in our native language, went to English, and if it was the case, went to the original language of publication. I grew up in this bubble, to the point that I had problems as a kid talking to other kids because of my “strange” vocabulary and perchance to have my nose in a book at all times. At the time that I was a teenager, I had stories written in various lengths, was known in my school as the person who knew how to write, and even had a few small stories sent to editors (dad’s friend, at this point long gone) who believed I could be a writer. And then, when I had to choose which college I would go to, I had a therapist saying that writing-related options were not a good fit for me because I already socialized too little. I was also very interested in health and ended up choosing a health-related field, and then I changed directions after a few years, and then I changed again after a few more, and today my main line of work has a heavy component of writing technical and health literacy documents. So, now, I am almost a professional writer, not in the editor-approved, fantastical literature sense of writer, but I feel that my writing came with me, in a way. At some point, I started reading Ilona Andrews in English, because it was not being translated fast enough for my original language. Now, after a few good years, I can even write in English almost coherently 🙂
Your writing in English is excellent. Professional writing of nonfiction is still professional writing. And an editor’s POV is valuable for any writing.
Thank you for posting this lovely ‘behind the scenes’ look at when authors truly believe their creative abilities were ‘real’.
Thank you to the authors who shared!
Thank you for increasing my TBR list! (One cannot have too many books; just too few shelves)
Sending peace, health and safety to all!
I have a somewhat similar story. When I was in fifth grade, I wrote to a favorite author, saying I liked the story but here were some holes in the plot.
They wrote back, saying I was the youngest fan to ever contact them, and maybe I’d grow up to be a critic or an editor. I had no idea there was a career that would *pay me to read!*
And now I’m a freelance editor. 🙂
wow, what an amazing set of ‘coming of age as a writer’ memories…
That is so cool, The different ways authors came into there own.
When I tell you I love this, I mean it!! Thanks to everyone for sharing your journies!!
Ah, thank you so much for including a sapphic author!!