L.M. Archer

In 2007, I took a creative writing workshop, hoping to ‘inspire’ my writing beyond its corporate confines. For the final project, our instructor allowed us to choose any topic. I chose wine, probably because I had helped organize a wine tasting some years earlier for a professional organization to which I belonged, and never forgot the feeling of warmth and congeniality surrounding the experience. As someone who suffered from chronic shyness at the time, I suppose I thirsted for that warmth in my writing.

After submitting that wine story, I felt something shift inside. The final day of the workshop, I returned home and told my husband, “I think I want to write about wine.” (In 2017, when I received a fellowship to Meadowood Professional Wine Writers Symposium, that same workshop instructor proved the first person I wrote to thank for their inspiration years earlier.)

However, ever the pragmatist, it took me over four years—and much prodding by my unconditionally supportive husband—to take that leap of faith.

After leaping, I worked hard to earn designations in areas of interest (French Wine, Bourgogne, Champagne) in order to establish credibility as a professional.

Additionally, despite my shyness, I forced myself to work in tasting rooms to learn the business of wine (family-owned, boutique, corporate, prestige). Sadly, my chronic shyness proved an impediment in an industry driven by those with superior social skills. In 2015, I realized I just needed to do was I was put on this earth to do—write. Ironically, once I stopped ‘trying’ to be something I wasn’t, and focus on what I am (a writer), my shyness disappeared.