Writing Beauty and Meaning—On Your Own Terms

By Michael Copperman

I was going through a tough time trying to find an agent a few years ago, and a literary mentor sat me down. He’d seen me flailing on social media, despairing after six months of being rejected for a project I had high hopes for because I felt it was commercially viable. Agents didn’t necessarily think so.

“Enough of this,” he said. “There are only two questions that you need to answer. The first is, what kind of artist do you want to be? When you know that answer, ...