Mark Liam Piggott

In the cold hard winter of 1983, I was an angry, skint 16-year-old sharing a room with a mate, having been booted out of home a few months before. It was a desperate time, but there were chinks of light, and for reasons then unclear, one night I put pen to paper and wrote a poem. 37 years later it was published in an anthology.

In the new issue of The Author, I write about my feelings at seeing my old poem in print, ruminating on why we write, and for whom. Above all else, I hope my story will serve as a lesson to all wannabe writers out there: keep writing, keep dreaming, and above all, Never Give Up.

Read my essay, “Opening the anthology”, in the Winter 2021 issue of The Author.