Y.L. Wolfe

1. Please tell us a bit about yourself and your work.
I’ve been a writer all my life, but it’s only been since my 40s that I decided to throw myself fully into this work. Like many women, I’m in the process of excavating my true self, and learning how to speak up for myself. My writing and art projects have played a huge part in that. Though my passion is writing novels, most of my current work is in the form of non-fiction essays – either commentary on current events and cultural phenomena or explorations of my experiences and the process of growth and change.

2. Has writing always been a focus for you or was it a Plan B? 
Writing has always been my focus and my passion. I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was in 2nd grade and have always called myself a writer, even during the many years when I was working in other fields. My relationship with writing has always been a constant in my life, regardless of my circumstances. And interestingly, it was always as important to me as becoming a mother. I always imagined that I would be both because writing has always been my primary source of joy and fulfilment.

3. How do you explore ideas or find inspiration for your work?
I always follow the emotion. I pay attention to what brings me joy, what I’m looking forward to, what feels like a win, what turns me on (metaphorically or otherwise), and what pisses me off. Writing, like all art, is all about tapping into and expressing our feelings. This is what makes any kind of art interesting, what draws people in, what keeps their attention, and most importantly, how it becomes a meaningful exchange between writer and reader, artist and audience.

4. What does the process of writing involve for you?
I keep writing as simple as possible. I’ve found that when I use emotion as the entry point, everything else just happens organically. The hardest part, for me, is coming up with an effective way to immediately grab a reader’s interest with the first line I write. Once I’ve figured that out, the rest is pretty simple.

I often feel that I’m just channelling an energy, a message that happens to flow through my fingers and onto the keyboard. It doesn’t belong to me – it just comes through me. My job is to craft it in a way that makes the message as impactful as possible and to make sure I have as few typos as possible. (I wish I could say none, but even after spending hours editing my work, I still find mistakes here and there.)

5. And what does writing then also give you in return?
Years ago, I think I would have answered this by stating it was the craft itself that fed me. It was so thrilling to compose pages of material that could fit together into a cohesive, emotionally-satisfying story. But today, I would answer this differently. I think in my early stages of middle age, writing has given me a way to work out the pains, sorrows, and traumas of my past. It’s been invaluable to me as I’ve been doing a deep-dive in therapy these past several years. And not only that, but I feel that my writing encourages me to speak, to use my voice after decades of subduing, softening, and even silencing it.

6. Has seeing your work in print changed how you view yourself, and also how you view your NoMo status?
In my 30s, seeing my work in print was absolutely thrilling. It felt like the realization of a lifelong dream. But it doesn’t have the same thrill for me now that it did back then. Now it just feels like a normal part of my life. In fact, sometimes I get emails from people who tell me they are big fans, and it always takes me by surprise. I forget that I have an audience of 100,000 on Medium and that some level of clout comes with that. To me, I’m just a regular, middle-aged woman trying to find her way. 

 

Though I do think it has had a positive impact on my NoMo status. I feel extra proud to be a voice somewhat well-known in that circle, and it thrills me that my work has comforted other women in my circumstances.

7. Tell us about the wider reception that you’ve had to sharing your story - has it changed how others have viewed you and your identity as a non-parent?
I don’t actually know how to accurately answer this question. I get such a huge spectrum of responses from people – from hate to love, from condemnation to support. Six years into this, I honestly feel like I couldn’t say what the general reception is. The internet is such a strange
place! But I will say that while I don’t think it has affected people much in terms of how they see me, I do think that NoMos telling their stories is incredibly important. I believe that makes a genuine impact.

8. How do you feel about the current representation of childless and/or childfree people in literature?
I think it has been, and remains, stunningly lacking. Even in 2025, I continue to find that childless women are routinely positioned as villains, or at least characters who unintentionally do harm to others. At best, we’re relegated to sidekick scapegoats, like Linda Cardellini’s character in Dead to Me.
And not only are we represented in very negative ways, but we aren’t usually represented, at all. It’s so rare to encounter childless female characters in any media, and in this day and age, it shouldn’t be.

9. What would you like the publishing world to know about non-parents, both as writers and readers, and our stories?
We aren’t a super niche demographic anymore, and we want to see ourselves in novels. We want to read memoirs by childless women. Being childless is just another story of motherhood, a subject that is beloved by the publishing industry. So why not embrace all of us and let us tell our stories, too? I think there are so many women who have important stories to tell, and I truly believe there are plenty of people out there who want to read them.

I also want to add that NoMos are always going to be considered niche so long as there exists this gatekeeping to our stories. Traditional motherhood is considered a default narrative in our culture – it’s expected that even women who don’t have children (for any reason) will want to consume content about mothers and/or motherhood. That expectation should run in both directions. There should be an assumption that women who have kids are willing to engage in stories about women who do not – and that’s never going to happen so long as we fail at giving childless and childfree women fair representation in the media.

10. What future plans do you have, especially for your writing?
My future plans feel a little murky at the moment. I’ve just come off two years of major issues happening in my family, including my father’s illness and death. I’ve put much of my life on hold and even now that I have some space from it all, I’ve found myself a bit frozen with overwhelm.

But I do know that I would like to explore more outdoor adventures (I love to hike and paddle board and would like to get into camping), pursue some travel dreams (visiting my ancestral homelands), or some combination of both (hiking the West Highland Way).

As for my writing, I’d love to get back to my fiction projects. It’s still my dream to publish a novel, though so much has changed in the publishing world at this point that the sparkle of that dream has worn off a bit. For now, I’m just focused on processing all the hardships of the past couple of years and allowing my next steps to emerge in their own time.