Thursday, Feb. 22 at 4 p.m., the Bowers Writers House had a craft talk with Tom Zoellner. The Bowers Writers House often has craft talks, consisting of the authors talking about their craft of writing and how writing aided and shaped where they are currently.

Tom Zoellner is an author of several nonfiction books and is currently working on a new one.

He is co-author of the New York Times bestselling book “An Ordinary Man.”

Zoellner has also spent time working as a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and The Arizona Republic.

He is a professor of English at Chapman University in Southern California.

The craft talk began with Zoellner talking about his interest in the writing industry. He told the audience that he has always shown a passion for writing.

He has been writing for a long time and was involved in writing for the newspaper when he was in college.

As Zoellner further discussed his background with writing, he mentioned that it has developed over the years.

A mindset that Zoellner holds close to his heart and spreads to other writers as encouragement is, “in order to be a good writer, you need to give yourself permission to be a bad writer.”

When he began writing his first book, there was no plan set in stone. Things would come to him as he wrote and influenced the end product of his book.

Zoellner gave a tip for other writers wary of the writing process.

“If you want to write, just sit down and do it,” Zoellner said. “You can’t be afraid to make mistakes because that’ll hold you back from growing.”

Sophomore Celine Velazquez said she felt very inspired by Zoellner’s advice. She added that she will always think about what he said when approaching a paper.

After talking about his method for starting his writing process, Zoellner branched into discussing the overlap between writing and teaching.

He called the two a constant dialogue, pointing out that they both help to strengthen one another.

Zoellner said that as a person works towards a skill, it allows him or her to share that knowledge with others.

He also added that no one is truly an expert because everyone can still add to their knowledge in some way.

Tom Zoellner closed the event by telling the audience about his love for teaching nonfiction writing.

He emphasizes his love for teaching with saying that “it’s a miracle that such a job exists. It’s a job where you get paid to talk to young people about important things.”

There are many ways to go about writing nonfiction, and Zoellner takes pride in allowing his students to choose their own topics.

With every paper, Zoellner said that he learns just as much from his students as they learn from him.

The Bowers Writers House7 p.m. event was a book reading with Zoellner. Zoellner has five published books, but he read some of his unpublished works.

He started the event with reading a piece written about why people are “nasty” to each other on the internet more so than in person.

The event closed with him reading sections of an upcoming book about the rebellion of enslaved people in Jamaica 1831.