Hi, I’m Stephanie.
When I was 8, I wrote a story for my grandfather titled Why Grandpas Are Special. It was about a little girl’s grandfather who bought her a pony (and kept it in his yard, of course, since hers was too small). And she loved him SO, SO much.
I handed him the story bound in red construction paper, rolled and tied with a ribbon. He read it aloud like a kindergarten teacher to his class, all the while laughing and wiping away tears.
It was thrilling to have a story created in my imagination received so emotionally by my ideal audience, and even though I didn’t get a pony out of the deal, that feeling has long stayed with me. I decided then to be An Author.
Sometimes life gets in the way of our dreams.
I had other interests too, one of which was working with children. Life lead me to teaching in public education, where – shocker! – my favorite subject was writing. Coaching students from second grade through college to generate an idea and see it come alive on the page was so satisfying. I saw many of them go from deeply doubting their ability to write to seeing themselves as writers.
I founded a nonprofit creative writing program for kids and teens in my community. For six years, we offered free workshops, teen writing conferences, and one-on-one support to local young writers with volunteer writers.
Sometimes we do everything BUT write.
There I was, talking about writing all day…but I wasn’t doing my own writing.
The problem was that I didn’t believe in myself as a writer. I thought I was too busy, too distracted, too unmotivated to ever make my dream a reality. I thought I was unqualified, untrained, unlikely to ever get published.
Sound familiar? It is such common self-talk among creatives. But there is a way out.
We must understand what it really takes.
It wasn’t enough to WANT to write. I realized that if I was going to be a writer, I needed to be willing to believe in myself and my ideas. And the only way I was going to do that was to learn how to manage my own self-doubt.
I needed to follow the advice I’d been giving my students for years. To help myself sit with the doubt and fear and put words on the page in an intentional way. I needed to learn how to manage my thinking and my expectations.
So I did that work for myself. And the result was the publication of my first book, Unspoken, in early 2020.
Guess what? I still do this work for myself. Every day. It’s not just possible…it’s totally worth it.
A little more about me:
I live in Bellingham, WA with my husband, two teenagers, two cats, and a dog who is as much of a challenge as he is adorable. I love reading, taking walks, coffee dates with friends, and naps. In addition to writing and coaching, I work part-time at my local indie bookstore.
I’m an avid reader, an introvert, an Enneagram 4, and I’m obsessed with sunflowers and dahlias, though I can’t keep plants alive no matter what I do. I love to be in, on, or next to the water as much as possible.
Stephanie Dethlefs is a writer, certified book coach, teacher, and lifelong avid reader. She has spent decades working with writers of all ages in the classroom as a teacher and now as a book coach where she’s finding her own voice and holding space in which others can find their own. Stephanie is the author of the middle grade novel Unspoken and has contributed to a number of regional and national publications. She lives in Pacific NW Washington.