Sylvia Plath’s desire for ‘salable stories’ hindered her progress as a writer

Writing
Author

Didelphis

Published

October 12, 2025

As she struggled to meet her own high expectations, Plath wrote in her journal:

“I must be so overconscious of markets and places to send things that I can write nothing honest and really satisfying. . . . I write as if an eye were upon me. That is fatal.”

Source: Meg Schoerke, “Never Stop Writing: Sylvia Plath’s Prose,” The Hudson Review