Meet Josiah Degraaf

We were lucky to catch up with Josiah Degraaf recently and have shared our conversation below.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I’m a fantasy novelist who’s publishing my debut novel this year: a magic school story told from the teacher’s perspective. I grew up loving magic school stories as a teen. But once I became a high school English teacher myself, I realized there was a whole other side to schools that students don’t know about. So I wrote this novel to revisit this familiar setting as adults to see what it would take to teach at one of these memorable academies.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think it’s easy for creatives or entrepreneurs to just focus on the next tasks in front of them and what they need to do individually. But in my experience, great projects arise out of a strong community. Building strong relationships with other creatives in the field was so important for me to learn the skills I needed to know, have supporters to go to when the journey became tough, and to learn from what worked for others. I’d highly recommend that other writers and creatives work on finding “their people,” whether they be local or online.

In addition to building a strong community, as a writer, I also found working extensively with professional editors throughout my writing journey to be invaluable. The challenge with books, courses, and lectures is that while they give you useful head knowledge on how to write a story, head knowledge isn’t the same thing as actual practicing skill. And that’s what professional editors provided me. Even when I worked with an editor on a project I didn’t end up polishing, I grew a ton through the process.

Finally, look for inspirations from your everyday life that can bring more authenticity to your art. It was my own experience as a public school classroom teacher that gave me the lived stories I needed to be able to come up with and write this story well. In many ways, the secret to writing well is to first make sure you’re living life well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://josiahdegraaf.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/josiahdegraaf/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/josiahdegraaf/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josiahdegraaf/
• Twitter: https://x.com/josiahdegraaf/