I was looking through old photographs and happened across this one — winter 2003, the first time I was acknowledged as a professional writer.

When I wrote and thanked them, they were so kind to me.

I was that eight-year-old writer sending little stories to Reader’s Digest and poems to Highlights magazine, the breath sucked out of me by my surprise bravery.

I had such big dreams, validated by my elementary school librarian, who typed up my first, full-length manuscript (at eleven years old) and s...