If avid readers hadn't heard of Ta-Nehisi Coates before he published his recent 176-page New York Times bestseller Between the World and Me, they most certainly may have after Toni Morrison herself dubbed it required reading.
In the powerful video below, Coates talks about his time as a burgeoning writer beginning his career with a number of initial deterrents. Before starting as a writer at the Atlantic, Coates recalls facing a prolonged period of depression, unemployment, and weight gain as a result of a lull in the direction of his writing.
"I had to write an 8,000-word piece for the magazine which was absolutely — it was just hell," he says of coming out of that period to produce one of his first assignments for the Atlantic.
But there was a silver lining in the cards for the young writer, then in his early 30s, who would later move on to become a senior editor at the publication and a national fixture of political discourse and criticism.
Coates' words may speak to his experiences as a writer, but for all his many achievements, his message rings true for anyone: don't let your successes be defined by your failures — excel in spite of them.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates on writing: "I always consider the entire process about failure, and I think that's the reason why more people don't write."
Posted by The Atlantic on Wednesday, August 5, 2015
