Welcome to this week's episode of the Modern Mentor Podcast.

I'm your host, Rachel Cook.

Today we'll be talking about that creative thing you love, writing, painting, designing,

composing, you know, that thing you do for pleasure

to relax and escape? Many of us hold the belief that the thing we love to do and the thing we get

paid to do can never be one in the same, unless, of course, you're Lizzo or Stephen King.

But what if that assumption is wrong? What if there's a way

to add a small revenue stream or even make a full-time career out of the creative thing you love?

I sat down with novelist and NYU professor Grant Ginder, author of the people we hate at the

wedding, and honestly we met well. And he boldly shares

his advice on how he turned his writing hobby into a profession and how he believes you can

follow his lead down any artistic path you choose. I began by asking Grant, what makes someone an artist?

It's such a loaded question.

When people ask me what I do, I always lead with, oh, I teach writing at NYU.

And then it's like so often my husband who has to be the person who says,

oh, but you're also a novelist.

Like you've published a number of books and you have another one

coming out. And I see other writers do it as well. I see people, you know, people who have

written a novel, other writers I've worked with who have written a novel, maybe it hasn't sold

yet or it hasn't been published yet. And they say, I've written a novel as opposed to I'm a

novelist. Which, like, if you've written a novel, you're a novelist. Come on.

I think that it's, it's so much of it is a matter of just taking ownership that like you're not allowed to call yourself a painter unless you are selling paintings.

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