Do you spell that with an uppercase or a lowercase ‘w’?

In art class, my professor has been asking “What is art?” His idea is that something cannot be called art, and someone cannot be called an artist, until their work has been curated for exhibition by people in the “art world” and put on display. Even someone who creates amazing things is not an artist until this happens.  A girl in our class said she had a painting on display in a cafe somewhere, so did that make her an artist? “No.” His opinion is that the closer artwork is to food, the less likely it is to be called art (which I guess is why in Chapters Margaret Atwood’s books are on the furthest possible wall from Starbucks, which is instead closest to the teenage, self-help, and children’s section).

But I kind of agree with him with respect to the art of writing. I would say that I am a person who enjoys creative writing, but no matter how great I think my own writing is (which, by the way, I don’t), and no matter how great someone else thinks my writing is (mostly my mother), I will never consider myself a writer until someone in the “literary world” publishes my work.

Now, this doesn’t mean I think that everything published by publishing companies is worth reading or that all of those authors should be considered good writers either, or that some unpublished people may not be far superior writers, but I feel like I do not personally have the right to confer that title upon myself. I just think of myself as a person who participates in the act of writing. At what point can a person feel justified in calling themselves “a writer” as opposed to just “a person who writes?” Is there a difference between being a writer and being a Writer?