✍️ “When you stop asking for permission, you become dangerous.”

Poet, author, and Substack Bestselling writer of the utter, Yrsa Daley-Ward shares how she built a wide-ranging creative career — and why betting on yourself is essential.

📚 Editor’s Note: How Yrsa Daley-Ward Writes Without Waiting for Permission

One of the greatest joys of running From the Desk of Amy Suto: Make Writing Your Job is getting to meet and spotlight writers who inspire me — and today’s GuestStack feature is no exception. I first discovered Yrsa Daley-Ward through our Substack community, and I’ve been obsessed with her powerful, lyrical work ever since. Her most recent piece, “you learned how to cope, and then called it your personality,” published on her Substack the utter, is a must-read — it’s a raw, unforgettable meditation on resilience, self-reinvention, and finding moments of softness.

Yrsa’s writing crackles with honesty and emotional depth, whether she’s reflecting on creativity, consciousness, or the business of surviving as a writer in today’s world. I’m thrilled to share this interview with her for the From the Desk interview series about betting on yourself, building a career without waiting for permission, and the real work behind making writing your job.

-Amy

Editor & Curator of GuestStack

✍️ From the Desk of Yrsa Daley-Ward

1. Where’s your desk these days — and what does it look like?

Wherever I can find a pocket of stillness. Currently, that setup is located in Los Angeles, featuring a combination sitting/standing desk in front of a large window. On it, Sharpies, coloured paper, colored notebooks, and an assortment of books. There's always a mason jar of water and a cup of tea. Coasters are very important in my world!

2. What does “making writing your job” look like in your world right now?

Making writing my job has meant constantly negotiating how best to use my time. I’ve written books Bone, The Terrible, The How, and my upcoming novel The Catch, which I’m wildly excited about, but the truth is, traditional publishing moves at a glacial pace. So if you want to survive (and eat), you have to get creative. That’s why I’ve always found other ways to pay the bills, particularly as a poet. You don’t have to wait for permission, and I wish I’d known that earlier on. I wrote a PDF about it, called 'PAY YOUR RENT WITH POEMS, ' offering poets who want to earn from their words without waiting for gatekeepers. These days, though, the most consistent place I write is my Substack, the utter. It’s where I’m sharpest, most honest, and least filtered.

What surprises me the most is that writing is no longer just the work. We’re in a digital age. Making a living from it means learning new ways to share it and sell it without burning out.

3. What’s one lesson you wish someone had told you earlier about the business of writing?

That writing well is not the central part of it. I used to think that if you wrote something well enough or raw and authentic enough, it would travel on its own. Sometimes it does - some brilliant things make it through, but most of the time, to cut through the noise, you have to be its legs. You need to pitch, position and reshare your work without cringing. Even when no one is cheering. You have to be a bit of a strategist unless you’re lucky and have a million-dollar PR team. Most of us don't. This realisation doesn't make the work less sacred, it just makes it real.

4. What’s your writing routine like — or do you even have one?

Fresh out of dreaming, heart open, in the dark early hours, before the day has had time to flatten me! When everything is possible and glimmering. Before the emails or the bills or who needs what or can you answer this please etc etc etc. Mostly at my desk. On occasion, in bed.

5. Was there a moment you realized, “Wait… I can actually do this”?

I am lucky - I think - in that writing has often felt like the only option - it’s the place where I am most myself, and has been for as long as I can remember. My first few attempts at novels in my late teens were rejected, and then I toured as a poet for a while to a warm reception. Next, I self-published my first work, bone in 2014. It was kind of an underground thing. I also shared my work on Instagram, and I’m sure you can guess the discourse that followed, but it helped me gain an audience! bone was republished in 2017 by Penguin with a two-book deal (they also bought my memoir, The Terrible).

I want to say this, though - it all came from the understanding that I was going to do this with or without a traditional stamp of approval. I had to bet on myself first.

6. What’s something you tried that didn’t work — and what did you learn from it?

Waiting around for permission. THIS NEVER WORKS! When you stop asking for permission, you become dangerous. I realised that if there are no doors, you don't have to wait for them to open. No one will ever be more invested in your career than you.

7. How do you find or create opportunities for yourself as a writer?

Pitching, partnerships, joining forces with other creatives (e.g working with a musician for my poetry tours), Substack, international speaking engagements. I source of a lot of these things on social media. It’s a very important tool for me.

8. What’s the best investment you’ve made in your writing life (time, money, or energy)?

Time above all. I just got the GALLEYS for The Catch, and I am over the moon about this book. I wrote it on planes, in hotel rooms, in bed, on set, whenever I could squeeze it in. It can't happen if you don't show up for it.

9. What’s a piece of writing advice you’ve heard a million times… but you actually believe in?

Don’t think - write.

Love this one. There are a million quiet things inside you. Get out of the way, and let them lead. Be without an agenda. Be the vessel. Sit down quietly and let it come.

10. What’s something you’re currently obsessed with — and how is it influencing your writing?

I want my writing to feel like a warm hand on the shoulder. I am highly interested in the effects of poetry and language on the brain, particularly in the areas of imagery, introspection, imagination and beauty. A poem is a bridge between thought and feeling, travelling through the same neural pathways as music. Language doesn’t just move you emotionally, it rewires your brain. Studies show that it activates reward circuits, such as those associated with music, strengthens memory and introspection, and even lowers stress. I’m pretty obsessed with learning about this at the moment. I frequently discuss this in my writing on social media and Substack. Digital overload is hijacking our minds, collapsing our attention spans, and burning out our nervous systems. It isn’t sustainable. I want to use my writing to raise awareness.

📚 Get Yrsa’s Upcoming Book: The Catch

The Catch (June 3rd 2015) WW NORTON (Liveright)

THE CATCH is @yrsadaleyward's dark, whimsical tale. Twin sisters Clara and Dempsey have always struggled to relate, their familial bond severed after their mother vanished into the Thames. As infants, they were adopted into different families, Clara sent to live with a successful, upper-class couple, and Dempsey with a sullen, unaffectionate city councillor. In adulthood, they are content to be all but estranged, until Clara sees a woman who looks exactly like their mother on the streets of London. The catch: this version of Serene, aged not a day, has enjoyed a childless life—the very life, it seems, she might have had if the girls had never been born. Clashing over this stranger who burrows deeper and deeper into their lives, the sisters hurtle toward an altercation that threatens their very existence, forcing them to finally confront their pasts together. In stores June 3rd, 2025, THE CATCH is available now for preorder wherever books are sold!

👋 About Yrsa Daley-Ward, This Week’s Featured GuestStack Writer

Of Jamaican and Nigerian heritage, and raised in northwest England, Yrsa Daley-Ward is a best-selling author and speaker. Based in Los Angeles, she writes the utter, Substack, reaching tens of thousands of readers weekly with lyrical insights on mental health, creativity, and consciousness. Yrsa is the author of Bone, The Terrible (winner of the PEN/Ackerley Prize), and co-writer of Beyoncé’s Black Is King. Her highly anticipated suspense novel, The Catch, will be published in June 2025. Known for her spellbinding performances and genre-defying work, Yrsa moves at the intersection of poetry, brain health, and storytelling, shifting how we see ourselves and each other.

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Wishing you warm writing vibes,

-Amy