Jade Angeles Fitton (97-03C) gave a heartfelt and empowering speech to students and guest at our OWBA Creative Industry Careers Event in February 2025. Her words were too good not to share so Jade kindly agreed to let us include them for you here. Here is her advice on becoming a writer...

'Be your own best critic – if you can’t edit yourself then you can’t write. Read and read widely. Have opinions, make judgments, have preferences, but also read outside of your comfort zone. Write outside of your comfort zone – write poetry, short stories, criticism, journalism, features, creative non-fiction, memoir, but rarely at the same time, rather, let them come in phases—that’s part of the fun. Other people will tell you to have a niche but I’m not other people, I’m telling you to write widely, at least at first: that’s how you will find your voice in any room.

'Don’t be afraid to make a joke, don’t be afraid to be sentimental—it’s easy to be snarky and sarcastic and is, therefore, basic and cowardly if never deviated from. Get used to rejection: if you’re not getting rejected you’re not getting anywhere. Learn where and where not to put a comma, it won’t hold you back much if you don’t (Jane Austen didn’t) but you might go places faster if you do. Pay attention: appreciate, concentrate, absorb, remember and, preferably, write it down. Think for yourself. Sit on your own, without your phone, for long enough to work out what it is that you think, feel and believe. It’s ok not to understand sometimes, but try to.

'Take chances. Trust your gut. Don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to punch above your weight. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you can’t do what you dream of doing—they don’t mean you can’t do it, they mean they can’t. You don’t need confidence, you need self-belief. No time is wasted, unless you choose to waste it. Get over yourself: it might be that you need to do menial work when you’re starting out because you can leave it at the door and that gives you the space you need to think, to write. Which is to say: don’t rely on someone else’s dime, not even your parents’, you need to be hungry if you’re to succeed. To begin with, take any opportunity offered, even if it’s outside your known field of interest. Equally, know when it’s time to leave.

'Celebrate the highs. When something good happens with your work—even if it’s small, and it will be small to begin with, pop a cork, or go dancing, or light a bin fire under the moon. Those highs are infrequent and should stand like beacons in the otherwise barren and lawless journey that it is to be a writer. Keep your sense of humour. Be interested in everyone and everything (which means you probably won’t be top of your class). Ask questions. Ask yourself questions. Listen. Check your facts. Check them twice.

'Explore. Learn what species the trees that you see on your bus route every day are. If you’re a writer in this day and age and you haven’t taken the time to learn about the natural world, how we affect it and it affects us, then you’re missing half of the picture. Laugh as much as you can. Be silly. If you feel like you don’t fit in, count your lucky stars—you’ll see things differently and that’s your gift. Be persistent, dogged, even, there’s no other way. Know that, every now and again, it is normal and natural to feel lost, but don’t expect anyone else to find you if you can’t. Instead, retrace your steps, where was the wrong turn? And remember, whatever it is you go on to do, there is always, always hope. Expect miracles.'

- Jade Angeles Fitton (97-03C)