HerCanberra

With the rise of BookTok, Lit-Girl culture and the popularity of book clubs, the dream of becoming an author is no longer reserved for the literary elite. Here, Online Editor Erin Cross asks a simple question with a complicated answer: Why does it feel like everyone wants to write a book?

A strange thing happened to me the other week – in the space of three days I happened to meet four aspiring authors. One was a close friend, one was a former intern, and the other two were mutual acquaintances. Each had interests spanning different genres, and all were from different backgrounds; the one thing they had in common was that they were all young women aged between 20 and 35.

It feels like everyone wants to write a book.

Scroll through your LinkedIn feed, open Instagram or grab coffee with an old friend, and it feels like you’ll hear the inevitable announcement: “I’m writing a book!”. When did writing a book go from a lifelong, gruelling artistic pursuit to the new universal bucket-list item?

Canberra-based Australian Chinese writer, editor and literary advocate Emma Pei Yin believes that people have always wanted to tell stories – what has changed is the visibility of authorship.

“Writers are no longer encountered only through a photograph on a dust jacket. They’re on Instagram, TikTok, podcasts and festival stages, discussing their routines, advances, rejections and stationery. The profession feels less mysterious and therefore more imaginable,” she says.

“Of course, wanting to have written a book and wanting to write one are two very different desires. One involves a beautiful object with your name on it. The other involves spending three years wondering whether a fictional dinner scene has any reason to exist and if a character has nodded one too many times.”

From solitary craft to social aesthetic

Reading culture has always been shaped by popular culture. From platforms like The New York Times to celebrities like Reese Witherspoon, public figures have long dominated what people should be seen reading. But with the introduction of BookTok came ‘Lit-Girl’ culture – and it’s completely changed the way people see authorship.

However, Emma warns that what people see on social media is completely different to the reality of working as an author.

“The contemporary literary world can look like a very attractive social universe from the outside. There are book launches, linen dresses, candlelit readings, tote bags, European residencies and photographs of people appearing beautifully exhausted beside annotated proofs,” she says.

“There’s also a class dimension to the ‘lit girl’ fantasy. The image often assumes a person has the time, money and cultural access to attend festivals, buy hardbacks, work from cafés and participate in an aesthetic of cultivated leisure. That lifestyle isn’t the reality of most writers.”

Emma published her debut novel When Sleeping Women Wake in 2025, and the historical fiction novel has made waves in Australia’s literary scene. Featured in Vogue Australia, Cosmopolitan and even Glamour UK, her work has been named a ‘must-read’ multiple times by various media companies. But with the average annual income for practising authors estimated at $18,200, even with acclaim, writing does not offer a sustainable life.

Add in the pressure for authors to become miniature media companies in their own right and the reality of writing a book is harder than it seems.

“You’re expected to write the book, explain the book, package your personality, film yourself explaining the book, respond to comments about the book and somehow begin the next book while doing all of this. Some authors genuinely enjoy content creation and are brilliant at it. Others became writers precisely because they prefer spending time alone with imaginary people,” says Emma.

“There’s also an uncomfortable inequality in who is expected to be visible. Women, writers of colour and queer authors are often asked to turn their identities into accessible content. You’re not merely promoting a novel. You’re expected to explain your culture, your politics and your trauma.”

MARION Chair and Vogel Award-winning author Emma Batchelor has been a part of the literary scene for many years. She believes that it’s incredibly important for people to interrogate why they want to write before jumping in headfirst.

“Is it to achieve fame? Financial success? Is it to find community? To nurture a creative outlet? To gain respect? I think understanding what lies behind your desire to become an author will help point you toward the right path to achieving your idea of success,” she says.

“Research from the Australian Society of Authors has revealed that it is almost impossible to make a living wage as a writer. Achieving global success is almost like winning the lottery.”

Through her work with MARION, Emma B says that the number of people interested in writing in Canberra and the surrounding region has remained consistent. What she finds interesting is evolution in the types of people interested in writing and the works they want to share.

“I am also having more conversations with young femmes about writing and art making lately, and this is also reflected through engagement in our programs at MARION,” she explains.

“I feel like several factors are contributing to this. Appetites for reading and writing have shifted since the pandemic; online mechanisms for sharing writing and connecting with readers have become more prevalent; there seems to be an increased desire to connect through creative expression; and intriguingly, writing seems to be particularly fashionable at the moment. At least in my corner of the internet.”

Accessory or intellect?

In June 2023, Dua Lipa made headlines when she launched her own book club, Service95. Then, in 2024, Miu Miu made books the new fashion status symbol, hosting a multi-day event in Milan with its inaugural Literary Club. Jump forward to 2026, and Dior has launched a bag collection celebrating literary classics while Chanel is focusing on fairy tales in its Fall/Winter 2026 Haute Couture show.

The rise of books and their link to celebrity – as well as fashion houses – has been meteoric. But with books becoming the basis for accessories and events, are they simply the new status symbol – a way to perform intellectualism?

“Throughout history, the possession of books – both as objects and as containers of knowledge – has been connected to wealth and privilege, which in some ways makes them a natural fashion accessory. They too connote exclusivity, just like a Miu Miu bag,” says Emma B.

“There is also something appealing in the juxtaposition of these art forms; one is often seen as feminine and frivolous while the other is more often perceived as intellectual and rigorous.”

Emma also agrees that books can be seen as an accessory that signals intellectuality.

“Books have always had symbolic value beyond their contents. A wall of leather-bound volumes once communicated wealth and education. Today, a carefully positioned paperback beside a handbag can communicate taste, politics, sensitivity and a very specific kind of leisure. But performance and genuine engagement are not mutually exclusive,” she says.

“Human beings perform identity through everything we consume. Clothes, films, restaurants, music, even reusable water bottles. Books are not somehow corrupted because people also use them socially or aesthetically.”

For both women, the more interesting question is: what happens after the performance?

“Did you read the book? Did it unsettle you? Did it make you reconsider something? Or was it merely an accessory in the photograph? I’m not terribly scandalised by someone buying a book because the cover looks good on their coffee table,” says Emma.

“The problem begins when books are treated as evidence of moral or intellectual superiority rather than invitations to think.”

“I think the degree to which that intellectualism is read by others might depend on the book and its medium,” adds Emma B.

“I know I feel a bit smug wearing a killer outfit while reading my weird little book on the tram among a sea of people on their phones. Am I actually cooler? Who’s to say.”

For 29-year-old aspiring author Grace Barbic, this performance is frustrating. While she is happy that more people are interested in writing, she says that she can’t help but question whether people actually want to write a book or be seen writing a book.

“Books are now chic,” she says. “It can make the industry look very misleading.”

“It would be great if it could translate into infrastructure or support, like writers’ grants, residencies or basic income for artists while their work is in development.”

Finding connection in the ‘romantasy boom’

Statistics show that Australians love reading. With over two-thirds of the population (aged 15+) reporting that they read for pleasure and Australian bookstores selling around 69 million books a year, reading has become one of the most popular and common pastimes.

Grace believes that the rise in the interest in authorship can be directly attributed to the rise in the popularity of reading.

“Overall, it’s a good thing, but it’s less about people wanting to be authors and more about people getting interested in books again,” says Grace.

“People are being surrounded by books and, like anything, it makes you want to do it yourself. The great thing about now is you can just go and write a book. But I do think that there’s a difference between wanting to be an author and wanting to write a book.”

Grace is firmly in the earlier camp. Currently working on two ideas, she has been an aspiring author since her early 20s, applying for international residency programs. She says that while more people want to write, she’s not sure if it will actually translate into more books on the market.

“It’s also very genre-specific. Romantasy in particular has had a really big boom because people love it and they want to join in.”

According to Google Trend data, the term ‘romantasy’ has had over a 5,000 per cent increase in interest in Australia over the past five years.

A literary hybrid that fuses fantasy’s mythical worlds and supernatural beings with the emotional pull (and steaminess) of romance, the genre is largely led by female authors with names like Sarah J Maas at the helm.

As the saying goes, you can’t be what you can’t see, and with more women being published, Grace believes that the romantasy boom can be thanked for the sudden spike of interest.

“I’m 30 next year, and it’s a time when you’re reflecting on your life – especially when you are starting to think about having children, getting married or starting the next stage in your life. For a lot of women it’s an outlet,” she says.

“I also think women have this innate desire to share. I’m thinking of the classic authors like Austen, Woolf and the Brontës – they just had this innate desire to share. I think a lot of women are reading those stories and finding connection with them.”

Emma also believes that writing offers something particularly powerful to young women.

“It allows them to move from being observed to being the observer. Women are raised inside cultures that constantly narrate them, what they should look like, desire, tolerate and become. Writing gives them the authority to interrupt that narration,” she says.

“There is also a political dimension. We’re living through renewed attempts to control women’s bodies, queer lives, racial histories and reproductive choices. Writing becomes a way of recording what institutions would prefer to simplify, sanitise or erase. A novel can say, ‘This happened. This interior life existed. You do not get to reduce it to a headline’.”

Human authenticity in an AI era

In a world increasingly flooded with AI content, more people are craving and searching for human authenticity. In a story about The Era of The Bookish Influencer Vogue Business reported that knowledge-seeking is also increasingly becoming an important shared activity. Linked to the rise of book clubs, it turns out that Gen Z are gravitating towards communal spaces where intellectual life is embedded.

For many people, writing is also an urge that stems from a desire to create something permanent and human.

“Personally, I write to connect. I write to express myself and to explore feelings and ideas, and in sharing what I create, I hope to find connection and community. This desire is inherently human, I think,” says Emma B.

“I engage with art to feel something, to learn something and to be part of something, and I don’t believe AI-derived content will ever be able to ignite those responses.”

Emma also agrees that the desire to create is real, but permanence is increasingly difficult to promise.

“AI can produce language quickly. What it cannot possess is a life. It has no body, inheritance, shame, longing, family mythology or memory of being misunderstood in a particular room,” she says.

“The value of human writing is not that every sentence is perfect or entirely unprecedented. It is that someone risked something in making it. They chose what to remember, what to conceal, what to distort and what they could finally bear to name. I suspect many people are drawn to writing because they feel overwhelmed by disposable content.”

However, with the rise of AI comes another layer: it’s even more accessible to write a book. Through her own observations of the industry and her own experiences, Grace believes this is not necessarily a good thing.

“I think while there are people who have a desire to create something human and create something beautiful or just create for themselves, there will also be people who use AI as a tool to do it for them,” she says.

“Anyone can write a book, which is fantastic! But anyone can write a book, and that is also worrisome…Humans want things written by humans, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a rise in books that are AI-generated in some way.”

Craft over clout

Anyone who writes knows that the act of writing itself is unglamorous. Often, it’s solitary, emotional and hard. But it’s also rewarding, cathartic and a pursuit that shouldn’t be gatekept.

As books and writing continue to be seen as ‘chic’, it highlights something important: whether a person is published or not, creating a piece of work is exactly that – work. And it deserves to be celebrated.

And while she warns that we should not romanticise authorship for a multitude of reasons, Emma wants society to stop treating the desire to write as embarrassing or delusional.

After all, as Robin Williams said as John Keating in Dead Poets Society, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.”

“People are permitted to learn pottery, run marathons or play music without immediately being asked whether they will become commercially successful,” says Emma.

“Writing should also be allowed to be a practice, not only a product.”