My name is Towles. I’m a writer.
Often, when I tell people I’m a writer, they ask, “What do you write?” Right now, I write whatever anyone will pay me to write. But what I really love is narrative journalism, essay and poetry, and if I could spend my life doing any combination of those three things and make enough money to feel legitimate (which, I’ll admit, isn’t a lot) – I’d die happy.
Until just recently, I hadn’t been able to own being a writer, and even now, after completing an MFA in creative nonfiction, I feel a little shy about telling anyone that’s what I do, or who I am.
I think I feel this way because I hold writers – real writers, established writers, writers who do indeed make a living putting words together – in such high regard. I don’t quite feel worthy of the title.
I also feel a little shy about admitting this because it is, for me, an intimate detail. I might as well tell anyone who asks what I do that I pray, or that I am a pray-er.
Nevertheless, I’m trying to get used to the awkwardness of it all.
Welcome to my blog.
An Abbreviated Resume
Education
Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina: B.A. – English, 1999.
Goucher College, Towson, Maryland: M.F.A. – Creative Nonfiction Writing, 2007.
Experience
Current List of Ongoing Freelance Gigs:
Cushman & Wakefield - Commercial Real Estate – Atlanta, GA: Write high-level marketing pieces for CFOs & real estate executives.
Carson-Newman College – Jefferson City, TN: Write articles & profiles for newspaper placement and alumni media.
Smarthinking.com - Tutor: Tutor high school, college, and graduate school students in Smarthinking’s writing center.
Previous Experience/Publications …
The Writer’s Chronicle (September 2007)
Oglethorpe University: Assisted with an upper level writing memoir/nonfiction narrative class. Taught students interviewing techniques and narrative journalism.
Techlinks Magazine (Fall 2005)
Atlanta Intown Newspaper (2004-2006)
East Alabama Living (2005-2006)
Bas Bleu (2004-2006) – Book Reviews
some comment
I went to art school to become a product designer, and I found I was very critical of myself and of anyone who came up to me and told me that they were an artist or a designer. They needed to prove it to me. When I was in my sophomore year someone asked “how do you know when you’re really a designer?”
The answer given was this: When you can look in the mirror and say “I’m *insert name* and I’m an Industrial Designer” without laughing at yourself.
Hey, Towles. I read your piece on Brevity about blogging. I live in the Atlanta area as well and I think I’m doing a similar thing with my new blog sweetsuburbia.org. I’m attempting a creative nonfiction treatment of chronicling life here in suburbia. I’d love to chat about this sometime.
I studied Creative Writing at GSU and am a working journalist and freelancer as well.
Let me know if you have a few minutes.
Adam