A question about non-native writer

[lawrencelpy]

I wanna ask a question, will anyone read a story by a writer whose English is his second language?
Just wanna collect some opinions.

[Jackson Richardson]

I'm no fan of Joseph Conrad, but his first language was Polish. His stories are written in English.

[lawrencelpy]

Yeah, I know him. I am a Chinese, and I want to write in English. I just fear no one will read it.

[Steven Hunley]

Yeah, I know him. I am a Chinese, and I want to write in English. I just fear no one will read it.

You guys are being a bit silly about this. Take it from me, a Conrad fan. Don't tell them and they won't know. See if the mistakes you may make are overlooked. People post here all the time and many are not native English speakers. Some you can tell and some you can't.

If the grammar is half-way decent and the spelling's OK, the punctuation isn't too out of line, you're good to go. You're already confident enough to use Yeah instead of Yes. And you said wanna too, and that's a dead giveaway you're putting us on.

[Calidore]

While I can't give any examples off the top of my head, I can say that non-naive English speakers, being used to another language's structure and another culture's idioms, can put out some very unusual and nice turns of phrase that would never occur to a native speaker.

I will also point out that the number of wannabe writers vs. the number of outlets means few people will likely read your writing anyway. However, that number drops to none if you never actually write anything.

[stlukesguild]

Beside Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov immediately comes to mind... and I doubt many didn't realize that he was Russian. If you write in English and your writing is good I see no reason why someone wouldn't read your work.