Someone is definitely telling young and early career writers that they need to have ‘a brand’ because I get asked a lot, Bekah, what’s yours? And at first I feel like apologizing to them on behalf of the World that they even get asked the question at all. A writer shouldn’t have to come up with buzz words that articulate themselves, their writing should speak for itself. And then I say no, I do not have a brand, I have a body of work.

UNTIL TODAY. I just realized that these two cards I wrote out for myself last year — one, an excerpt from a baptist sermon I attended, the other, a mantra given to me personally by the woman who wrote The Secret, that I set next to each other, so that they might inform, not contradict each other, ARE MY BRAND.

So young writers, maybe it’s fine to have a Brand? But don’t sit and try and articulate it. Live your life until you one day you clock something absurd in your own behavior or world view, something that captures the contradictions that you embody as a person, and THERE IS YOUR BRAND.