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I went to college, though I didn't take many writing courses.

Reading taught me how to write.

I took a lot of writing courses.

I started writing after college, slowly, secretly writing.

I didn't start writing until late high school and then I was just diddling. Mainly I loved to read and my writing was an outgrowth of that.

I didn't study writing. I didn't write anything substantial until I got to California.

Once I began college, I was committed to writing, which I think is different from saying I wanted to become a writer. I knew I would always write; I just wasn't always sure how I would go about doing so.

I entered the literary world, really, from outside. My entire background has been in sciences; I was a biology major in college, then went to medical school. I've never had any formal training in writing.

I got into writing in college... well, in elementary school. But in college, I started writing seriously and had a professor who read my writing and gave me permission to pursue that as a real effort and time-consuming effort.