Elizabeth C. Faulkner: Author Origins

By Elizabeth C. Faulkner

Imagine the following: A bespectacled, discomfited teenaged girl, in complete derision of her Tuesday and Thursday afternoon karate classes. (She was home schooled and in need of PE credits. The dojo was conveniently five minutes from her house.)

Probably thinking she wouldn't be quite as motivated as she became, her dad told her, “You can quit once you get your black belt.”

Determined to end this twice-a-week misery, she persevered through the ranks. White. Yellow. Orange. Green. Blue. Purple. Brown. And, at last, she reached black belt.

Unfortunately for her, she was still home schooled and still in need of PE credits. So, in karate she stayed.

Now, as a black belt, she was of high enough rank to help out around the dojo, and she, along with the other senpais, was tapped by the sensei to teach the kohais their katas.

She helped teach karate to the end of her high school days.

Why is a story about a disgruntled karate student on an author blog?

It’s me. I’m the disgruntled black belt.

And thankfully, karate isn’t the only thing I have taught. Throughout high school, I was also a Geometry tutor and a piano teacher.

The first instance of teaching I can remember was when I was nine and I taught my six-year-old neighbor how to ride her bike:

“Just don’t let go!” she called out (though she was already flying six feet ahead of me on the drive).

“I won’t!” I called back.

She looked over her shoulder for reassurance only to find that she was already doing it on her own. She gaped in surprise at how far behind her I was.

Then she toppled over.

Despite the tiny setback, my friend was able to hop back on the bike and never use training wheels again.

I’m honored to claim I’ve taught someone how to ride a bike, how to write geometric proofs, and how to play scales. But what I cherish most, by far, is having the privilege to come alongside people in the art of writing.

Helping others learn has long been a part of my DNA, but more than that, storytelling and language have always been at the center of who I am.

Once high school was over, I made the frightening decision to be an English major in college.

My dad asked me what on earth I was going to do with an English degree. At the time, my plan was to teach for a couple years and transition into becoming a school librarian.

During college, in order to get some library experience on my resume, I attained a position at the library circulation desk. I had fun shelving books and using the tally counter every hour to track how many patrons were in the library, but mostly I spent my time shooting the breeze with my coworkers and “studying.”

When I saw a job posting at the Writing Center, just a few paces away from where I was planted at the circulation desk, I leapt at the opportunity.

The appeal of the Writing Center was that the work would be more engaging: I would be able to help people more directly and put my burgeoning ELA knowledge to good use. So, I applied and got the job.

That position was life changing.

As I’ve said, I’ve always been a teacher at heart. But prior to this job, I had never worked so closely with something I was so passionate about. This job gave me the privilege of helping people put their thoughts onto the physical page. I saw light bulbs go on in their eyes. I saw them beam when they read a sentence they had written, knowing that whoever read that sentence would be able to clearly understand their idea, their thesis, their heart.

The Writing Center deepened my love for language, story, and the written word in a way nothing else had before.

Because I loved this work so much and wanted to continue it outside the Writing Center, I started my own tutoring business. Through it, I worked with middle school, high school, and college students, helping them strengthen their writing and find confidence in their voices.

One of the most meaningful projects I ever worked on was helping my neighbor write his autobiography in 2019.

At the time, he was in his late seventies, and he told me he’d always wanted to express himself through writing. Over the course of many months, he wrote tidbits about his life. A little here and a little there, and soon he had written enough for a book.

I couldn’t get this out of my mind:

I helped my dear friend write a book.

I HELPED HIM WRITE A BOOK.

A man—who for decades aspired to better express himself through writing—wrote a book.

AND I HELPED HIM.

The honor and delight of that knowledge is unreal.

Writing is a kind of magic. With the right tools and knowledge, anyone can wield this magic. Just as Chef Auguste Gusteau from Ratatouille said, “Anyone can cook,” so I say, “Anyone can write.”

Upon my college graduation in 2020, I had to leave my job at the Writing Center and slow down my tutoring work. I thought perhaps my new job as an eighth grade English Language Arts teacher would be just as fulfilling and great as my work at the Writing Center had been.

Boy, was I wrong.

Twenty-to-one instruction, unsupportive administration, helicopter parents, and the COVID-19 pandemic were all too much for me. I don’t want to go into much detail on my time as a teacher. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, and the year I spent doing it was the worst of my life thus far. Despite wanting so badly to teach my students about the magic of writing, I had to save myself and leave that position.

Utilizing my ELA degree in an unexpected way, I turned instead to technical writing and editing as a government contractor. Now, I review various documents and deliverables. I make templates. I rewrite poorly written sentences.

It’s been chill. It’s also been boring.

And in that boredom, I was finally able to heal from the turmoil of public education. In that boredom, I was given the mental space to reconnect with the things I loved.

One of those things was reading.

I restarted my old Instagram account, once used for marketing my tutoring business, and transformed it into a Bookstagram. At first, I simply posted about books I’d been reading. Then I connected with a community of writers and readers that reignited something in me.

Their creativity inspired me to pick up my old hobby and put pen to page again.

In August of 2023, I reconnected with my former Writing Center coworker when I saw a post requesting beta readers for her upcoming book.

“Hey! What would being a beta reader entail?” I DM’d her.

She explained the process to me, and it sounded exciting. She emailed me her manuscript draft along with a few questions she wanted me to keep in mind while reading.

So, I began.

I gave that project my all. I read her manuscript three times, answered all her questions, and filled the margins with comments, deeply probing the story in efforts to clarify plot points and strengthen characterization.

In all my years of studying literature, I don’t think I had ever put as much energy into story analysis as I did hers.

I felt alive again.

More than anything, I remember being thrilled to be part of the storytelling process and honored to help another friend bring a book into fuller form.

One day after I returned the manuscript, comments and all, she replied:

“This is such great feedback! I’m really impressed.”

Since then, my friend brought me on in support of the editorial team at her boutique publishing company on various projects. Working alongside writers and stories has been a thrill. I don’t think I’ll ever get over the feeling of joy that comes from seeing written work come into its fullness of form: a book. An essay. A poem. A published work with an audience.

The written word connects people.

Readers are pulled into the writing. The author’s concepts are realized. Together, the story becomes tangible.

Magic. Pure magic.

Allow me to go on a tangent about where my love for writing and reading came from.

I’ve been a writer since my older brother started writing stories and I wanted to copy him. He allowed me to co-write some things with him. I doubt he enjoyed that as much as I did. Nevertheless, I held him in high regard (and still do), and his creativity ignited mine.

I’ve been a reader for as long as I can remember.

I have fond memories of sitting curled up with my dad while he read to me from a Winnie the Pooh book. Whenever certain words appeared on the page, he’d point at the text and let me read aloud, “Pooh” or “Piglet” or “Tigger.”

Other times, before deployments, he pre-recorded himself reading from our collection of Great Illustrated Classics. When we missed him, my mom would pop the VHS tapes into the small, boxy TV, and my dad would materialize out of the black-and-white static, wearing my too-small-for-him gypsy dress-up costume while reading an abridged version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

It was our personalized book-on-tape.

My mom, however, was the main driver of my love for books. I will always be in awe of how she finished the entire Hunger Games trilogy in less than two days. She instilled in me the idea that the library is a once-a-week event. A non-negotiable always.

When we lived in Brunswick, Maine, she would load my brother and me up on our bikes, and we would pedal away to Curtis Memorial Library to fill our backpacks with books.

A military family lives an upheaved life, but church and the library were our two firm foundations.

So where did this author blog come from?

It came from learning how to teach people, whether through karate, piano, bike riding, or geometry.

It came from surrounding myself with fellow writers and readers in pursuit of the freedom of expression writing provides.

It came from my desire to honor God through storytelling and the written word.

It came from a seed planted in childhood: my family sharing stories with me, my father reading to me, my mother biking with me to the library, my brother writing beside me.

It came from the people whose eyes lit up when they attained a writing goal and would share their success with me like Mr. Bridges did:

And it came from rediscovering, over and over again, how stories connect us.

Thank you for being here. I’m excited to share my author journey with you.