Yes, I Am A Writer

A trembling confession: fear, healing, and the courage to be seen

Although saying it aloud still sends a shiver through me, as if I were revealing an ancient secret kept in the depths of a wooden chest, worn down by time.

Since childhood, I knew that words held danger. In my home, I learned that whatever happened behind closed doors must be buried in silence, like the roots of a tree that must never grow. Communication was a delicate dance between what could be said and what had to be swallowed, and more often than not, silence won. But I—rebellious in spirit—found a sacred refuge within the pages of a notebook. My room became a temple, and my writings, prayers. I began writing almost as soon as I could remember—at first in secret, like a little girl hiding sweets beneath her pillow. And then, once I reclaimed trust in the intimate act of writing just for myself, I did so with greater fervour.

In my adolescence—that volcanic stage where everything burns from within—my mother’s need to know what stirred in my soul led her to read one of my notebooks. In her mind, it wasn’t a betrayal. But to me, it was. Because she turned my most intimate confessions into weapons. She confronted me, sitting on her bed, reading my sorrows aloud as if they were crimes. I stood there, rooted to the floor like a salt statue, watching trust dissolve as letters burned in the fire. And so I decided I would write no more.

But words do not surrender so easily. They saved me again when I invented my own alphabet—one only I could understand—and I began to write once more, this time in a secret language that not even love could betray.

When I finally left that house, and the echo of my emotions could no longer be silenced, I returned to the letters of the shared alphabet. Curiously, I began to write more in English than in Spanish, as though that foreign language could offer me a new hiding place. Today, as I write this, I realize that belief no longer belongs to me. It served me, yes, but it is no longer true.

When thoughts press in, when the heart beats with a fury too vast for the chest, I write. Writing is my way of not drowning. Writing is how I learned to say I am a writer to myself before it could ever be said aloud to others.

Now, life—with its infinite irony and its slow, deliberate wisdom—has taught me that to heal, one must speak. And more than that, one must allow oneself to be read. That is why I am here, open, unmasked. What I never imagined is that the whole world would find out I’m a writer through a co-authored book published by a press—and even less that I’d share my heart at the Bogotá International Book Fair, 2025.

And it’s not a dream—it’s real. Fifteen days until the launch. Fifteen days until the world reads what my heart has been writing in silence since I was a child. Am I afraid? Yes. I am terrified—so much so that it sometimes robs me of sleep. But here I am, writing with trembling hands, a bare soul, and a willing heart. Because the moment has come to reveal myself. To say, truly and finally: I am a writer.

Nel Duarte, Tuesday, April 08, 2025 Calgary AB. 4:36 am

Learn more about my journey → My Story

✨ Thank you for reading this confession. For years, I whispered it in private; now I say it aloud: I am a writer. Your presence here gives that sentence its breath and makes this declaration possible.