Yes … I have no problem with calling myself a writer, although I usually tell folks I’m an essayist. I always figured that one was a writer if they successfully completed anything from a short story to a full-blown novel, no matter how badly they wrote or whether they considered themselves a writer. Even high schoolers who complete a term paper could be said to be writers.

But perhaps the real test is to note the moment when someone else refers to you as a “writer”. I don’t know, and truthfully, I never really considered it a problem or concerned myself with the label or the question, until you just asked it. I just wrote to satisfy my own need to express my thoughts so that the world could see them and left the rest to the reader.

Between 2000 and 2022, I wrote a weekly column for a local newspaper, ‘The Rutherford Reader’, until the owners passed away and no one wanted to take over the publication and it closed its doors. Most of those years, I had publishers and other people describe me as a “journalist”, which was neither here nor there — I just had stuff to say … Hahaha.

But I’ve been writing in some form or fashion for several publications for over 45 years now, and I suppose I’d keep right on writing whether anyone published me or not, right on up to my last dying gasp seated in front of this steaming little laptop that gives me a means to try to do something of worth each day.

~ Justin