By Krystyna Poray Goddu | Dec 18, 2020 Darcie Little Badger wrote her first book—a 40-page mystery—when she was in first grade, and even submitted it to a publisher, with help from her father, then a graduate student of English literature. Undeterred by the publisher’s rejection, she kept writing, producing a 400-page fantasy at the age of 12. She never doubted that she was a writer, so when she was rejected (twice) by Princeton University’s creative writing program, she decided to pursue a newly discovered interest in oceanography instead, ultimately earning a PhD in the subject. “I thought, okay, I’ll just do the writing on my own, then,” she recalls.