This is an encouragement to you, as well as it is to me; let’s publish young writers when we are able.
Of course, many writers will give up and move on to other things.
But for the ones that are still writing decades later, you can where they get their start.
The one that took a chance on them when nobody else would, or the one that gave them their first byline on a raw first piece…
People remember the breaks they get.
And getting a break here or there can change a life.
Whether you are an international publishing house, a booming network website, or a personal blog – let’s have a soft heart, and publish young writers when we can.
How lucky was I to send my first novel to a smart, kindly reader, who himself took the trouble to send it up the way; and how lucky I was too to begin my career at a time when it was relatively easy to publish first novels. More than one hundred were published by trade publishers in 1961, the year I published Horseman. Publishers then still considered themselves to be gentlemen and scholars, and they still thought it was important to publish young writers, carrying them for a book or two until they matured and, hopefully, produced a little revenue for the firm.
-Larry McMurtry, Literary Life (Amazon)