What is an author?

What is an author?

That is a very good question. And one I should be asking myself, especially if I call myself a “writer.”

So here we go, I’ll commence my ranting on what I think an author is.

As a young child I would scribble words down on copy paper from my dad’s office and staple it together claiming to be an author of a short novella. I’d also double as an illustrator by doodling in some pictures alongside my words. My stories were usually something I had seen on television or based on another story I had read elsewhere. But nonetheless, my words were my own, and those words created a story that was my own. I was the author of my own book. I told my parents, peers, extended family members, and teachers that my profession in life would be that of an author. I had this firmly embedded in my brain by fourth grade. I remember a guidance counselor asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I replied “I want to be an author.” She laughed and suggested another profession. But I was dead set on being the author of my own stories, my own words. I wanted to be a creator.

An author is a creator.

Now I’m in college. My last semester of my senior year and I’m about to embark into the real world as a so-called writer. But I don’t refer to myself as an author. Why? Are author and writer synonymous? Sure, I’ve written stuff. Loads of stuff. If I consider myself a writer shouldn’t I also consider myself an author? Did I not just assert that an author is a creator? Did I not create those writings with my own fingers tapping across the keyboard or my own fingers flowing across the page of paper? Yes I did create my own writings. Yet I still find myself hesitant to call myself an author. Snap, looks like I’ve contradicted myself.

Does an author have to be published? My young child mentality leaps out and shouts “yes!” Only can you be an author when the words you have created are bound in hardcover and on the shelf in Barnes and Noble. Is this why I do not consider myself a writer because I have not been published?

But what if someone came to me, holding a play I have written, and asked “are you the author of this play?” I would indeed say yes. I am the author of the play.

Now I’m just digging myself deeper and deeper now aren’t I?

Yet I still revert back to my earlier assertion that an author is creator.

Yet another question pops in my mind, does the term author only refer to writers? If I say that an author is a creator, well the word creator can be used to refer to anything. An artist creates a painting. A sculptor creates a sculpture. A chef creates a meal. An engineer creates a bridge. A teacher creates a lesson plan. Are we not all creators of something?

Maybe we are all authors. Authors of anything we create. My sister knitted a scarf. Is she the author of that scarf?

Now that just kind of sounds ridiculous.

So where do I draw the line? Draw the line between author of words and author of scarf? Does there need to be craft, attention to detail, intentionality, deeper meaning? I would say yes to all the above. But one could argue the same for that scarf my sister made. Who knows she could come up with a good reason as to how the scarf symbolizes all the people in the world intertwined by one common thread… blah blah blah.

And again I find myself digging deeper and deeper…

And yet I keep finding myself back to my original assertion, an author is a creator.

Creator of what? And what “creations” can really be authored? Can the term author be used in relation to all things or just “worthy” things? And what makes something worthy?

Now I feel like a philosophy major with more questions than answers.

But like I said, I’m only ranting here…