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- Candice Yacono | Helping Others Through Writing
Candice Yacono | Helping Others Through Writing
My Journey to #AchieveMore
The first “book” I ever wrote, back in first grade, was called Choose Your Own Adventure: The Haunted House and Terrible School. It was followed by Nancy Drew novels (complete with some truly stellar illustrations), a hand-bound rewrite of The Three Musketeers from Anne of Austria’s perspective, and school writing awards.
But when I reached age 15, creative writing became a “selfish” hobby, as my father put it. There was no room for frivolity. A lifetime of poverty and its associated terrors left me focused on financial stability.
I arrived at university in San Francisco at the peak of the dot-com housing bubble and a dorm room shortage due to toxic mold. So I slept on the floor of my office, where I worked full-time for an unscrupulous recruiter while attending classes and showering at a nearby gym. That job ended in what we would now call a #MeToo story, but I finished my coursework.
I now work as an editor at a community college, where I help students realize their myriad options—from getting a technical certificate to transferring to a top 4-year university. Faculty always asked me, “When are you going to join us and teach English?” I laughed their questions aside but they lingered in my mind. A creative writing professor told me I had a gift and encouraged me to explore my newly rediscovered passion. I soon received a fellowship to study English and creative writing in graduate school.
I am in my first year of this program, which has allowed me to enter a life I had previously eschewed. After a career spent writing for other people, how strange it feels to learn I have my own stories inside, bursting to be told, and that I can help other students tell their stories as well.
But when I reached age 15, creative writing became a “selfish” hobby, as my father put it. There was no room for frivolity. A lifetime of poverty and its associated terrors left me focused on financial stability.
I arrived at university in San Francisco at the peak of the dot-com housing bubble and a dorm room shortage due to toxic mold. So I slept on the floor of my office, where I worked full-time for an unscrupulous recruiter while attending classes and showering at a nearby gym. That job ended in what we would now call a #MeToo story, but I finished my coursework.
I now work as an editor at a community college, where I help students realize their myriad options—from getting a technical certificate to transferring to a top 4-year university. Faculty always asked me, “When are you going to join us and teach English?” I laughed their questions aside but they lingered in my mind. A creative writing professor told me I had a gift and encouraged me to explore my newly rediscovered passion. I soon received a fellowship to study English and creative writing in graduate school.
I am in my first year of this program, which has allowed me to enter a life I had previously eschewed. After a career spent writing for other people, how strange it feels to learn I have my own stories inside, bursting to be told, and that I can help other students tell their stories as well.
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What Drives You to #AchieveMore?
