I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. It all started way back when I was five or six years old. My grandmother, MaMa, was a high school educator. I spent a lot of time with her growing up and she used to always encourage my creative writing style. I was always good with my words going through school, but I stopped writing for fun when writing became something I had to do. I was burnout of writing from school. Research paper after research paper, it was just so much.
Then I was officially diagnosed bipolar. I had to find an outlet to get everything out, or I felt like I was going to go crazy. I started writing poetry, something I hadn’t really done before. The words flowed out of me. Whether it was sitting in the hallways outside my college class waiting for class to start or sitting in my car outside of work, I would write.
That was when I revitalized my love for writing. I started writing more and more poetry. I had a few ideas for stories that I wrote here and there over the next four years, but it was mainly poetry. It was a way for me to escape my mind and be set free from the darkness. It simply felt good to right.
Then the idea for (Not) Alone struck me. I’ll never forget it. I was living with my grandparents with my fiance while our house was being built. On my way home from work one day, I simply saw the title in my mind: (Not) Alone. Once I saw the title, I knew what the book was going to be about.
My passion for mental health skyrocketed, and I wanted to make a difference. I strove to help people realize they were truly not alone, no matter how hard it can be to see that sometimes. I wanted so badly to help people, so nobody had to feel the loneliness I felt for so long.
All this to say, I write for two reasons: to help me and to help other people. Writing for me is therapeutic, it gives me purpose and drive. It allows my restless mind to be put to work and not focus on the negatives. I write because I want to help people. I focus my writing on mental health awareness because it’s a topic that needs more attention. We need to understand how mental illness affects people’s lives.
I will always write. I will always write for myself and for other people.
Tyler Wittkofsky is a multi-genre author, blogger, award-winning marketing and communications professional, and fierce mental health advocate from the southern coast of North Carolina. Tyler has been writing short stories for as long as he can remember. Growing up the grandson of an English teacher, Tyler had a constant fuel to his creative fire in his grandmother.
He started writing poetry in 2012 to cope with his mental health struggles with anxiety, bipolar, and depression. Using poetry as an escape, he developed a unique style of poetry that has left readers saying, “Tyler’s voice is compassionate, even while suffering, and I felt the despair and loneliness seeping out through his words.” His first poetry collection, composed of poems written from 2012 to 2016, was published in March 2020.
He began his first novel in 2019. The novel, (Not) Alone, was a story based on true events surrounding the struggles of living with mental illness. Described by readers as “An Intimate Closure with Mental Illness,” this began Tyler’s revitalized passion for mental health. He decided that his writing would have a focus on mental health.
His next novel, The Seeds of Love: Sunflower Kisses Book One, was his debut romance novel and debut series. Described as “a great job of relaying the realistic emotions of young love and emotional drama that is particularly difficult for young adults…”, his debut romance novel was met with much success.
In 2021, Tyler began writing short stories. He was accepted into several anthologies in mid-2021, expected for publication in early 2022. He also writes supernatural horror and historical fantasy for the online magazines In the Pantheon and In the Crescent. He has work published through Five Minute Affairs as well.
He built his website www.TeaButWithCoffee.com in 2021. On this site, he started his blogging journey. He began writing book reviews, interviewing indie authors, and writing on mental health. This passion sparked a new desire to connect with more people. Tyler is currently in the beginning stages of two podcasts that he hopes to be live by the end of 2021.
Tyler currently lives in Leland, North Carolina with his wife, Grace, and dogs, Dutch and Belle.
You can find him and his works here: https://linktr.ee/wittkofsky
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Tyler Wittkofsky 