As part of our Creative and Cultural Careers Festival 2026, Ama Asantewa Diaka is sharing her experience in the creative field and her invaluable advice on building a creative career by being open to non-linear paths. Ama is an alumna of the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago.
When I graduated with my MFA in Creative Writing, I thought I understood what a creative career looked like. I was wrong, and it wasn’t because my education failed me, but because the reality of building a creative livelihood often only becomes clear once you’re living it. The myth we’re sold is this: study your craft, build your portfolio, land the dream job or major opportunity, sustain yourself doing the thing you love. It’s clean. It’s linear. And for most of us, it’s completely divorced from how creative careers actually work.
My non-linear creative path
Since graduating, I’ve been a writer, publisher, arts organisation founder, theatre producer, and I’m currently developing a cultural institution. These aren’t pivots. They’re not evidence of indecision or lack of focus. They’re ecosystem-building. I started Black Girls Glow, an organisation running art residencies and programmes. I founded Tampered Press, which has published 150+ Ghanaian writers across eight journal issues, one anthology, and one short story collection. I co-created and premiered a musical at Ghana’s National Theatre. I’m now building a purpose-built arts institution. None of these were part of my original plan. All of them were necessary.
Start before you’re ready
I launched Tampered Press as a literary journal while still figuring out what publishing even meant. We published our first issue with no budget, no distribution plan, and no idea if anyone would read it. Eight years later, we’re Ghana’s first traditional publisher operating on a model most people said wouldn’t work here. The key is making your work visible and starting small enough that failure won’t destroy you. Don’t wait for permission. Don’t wait for funding. Don’t wait until you “know what you’re doing.” You learn by doing, and you build credibility through consistent output. Document everything. Your early attempts aren’t wasted effort, they’re proof you can execute.
Be prepared to wear many hats
Multiple income streams aren’t a backup plan. They’re THE plan. Very few creative professionals sustain themselves through a single source of income, especially in the first decade of their careers. I’ve funded my work through teaching, consulting, grant writing, commissioned performances, and yes, a business degree I got before my MFA that taught me financial literacy I use every single day. Treat your career like infrastructure you’re building, not a ladder you’re climbing.
The value of transferrable skills
Here’s what I’ve learned: the skills compound even when the titles change. Learning to fundraise for a non-profit teaches you how to pitch a book project. Managing a literary journal teaches you project management that translates to producing theatre. Building one thing teaches you how to build the next. The straight line doesn’t exist. Stop waiting for it.
In creative fields, what you’ve done carries more weight than what you studied. This is both liberating and terrifying.
Learn adjacent skills that aren’t “creative” but make creative work possible: budgeting, project management, fundraising, contract negotiation. These aren’t distractions from your art, they’re what allow your art to exist in the world.
No one talks about this enough: most of creative practice is admin. Grant applications; following up on emails; tracking expenses; building relationships; showing up consistently when nothing feels like it’s moving. The spectacular moments — a publication, a premiere, a major grant — are built on hundreds of small, boring tasks that no one sees. If you can’t make peace with that, creative entrepreneurship will break you. Find your version of “why this matters.” For me, it’s always been about equal access—building systems so the next generation doesn’t have to reinvent everything from scratch. That deeper motivation is what sustains you when the work feels thankless.
Systems thinking helps. I realised I wasn’t just running separate projects — I was building an ecosystem where each part strengthened the others. That realisation changed how I allocated my time and resources.
My advice to you
If you’re still a student or recent graduate, here’s what you can do now: start making work. Don’t wait for the right opportunity or the perfect conditions. Build in public, share your process, not just polished outcomes. People connect with the journey. Cultivate financial literacy. Understand budgets and contracts. This will save you later. Learn to write about your work: grant applications, artist statements, pitches. You’ll write hundreds of these. Find your people. Community isn’t optional. Build relationships with peers, mentors, and collaborators who share your values.
Creative careers are hard. They’re unstable. They require sacrifice, compromise, and doing work that doesn’t match your job title. But they’re also possible. You don’t need to have it all figured out. You need to start, stay consistent, and be willing to become more than one thing. The work that needs doing is rarely the work you planned for, and that’s not failure. That’s just how it works.
Thank you, Ama.
Ama talked about the importance of building an array of skills that will help you in your creative career. Explore different ways to build your skills and experience on our Careers Service website.
She also pointed out the value of community. Becoming a member of a student society is a great way to build or find a community of people with similar interests: Societies
Find out more about creative sectors, including the world of publishing, on our website: Sector information
