Anne Giardini writes about growing up in a writing household and how advice can change the way a young writer enters things.

I grew up in a house in which books were read and written, and so for me the jump into novels from journalism and short stories did not feel like an enormous leap. Finishing and then publishing my first novel, The Sad Truth About Happiness, four years ago, felt to me like the next logical step in a writing life.

I do think it is an advantage (although not essential) to grow up in a writing house if you want to be a writer, and I compare it sometimes to being the butcher’s child and becoming a butcher yourself in turn. If you grow up around a particular art or business, there isn’t as much mystique in it. You know generally how to go about it.

Hm, in my experience, young writers don’t listen to dick all if it doesn’t come from their own infallible, brilliant, perfect minds. But that’s coming from a formerly-young writer who grew up in a house where people were not only not writers, they weren’t readers either.