Drawing on the author's experience as both a graduate student and ESL practitioner, this article explores the process of taking on a voice of authority within a new discourse. The author reflects on her own struggles with authorship in the professional discourse community of TESOL, and she uses these experiences to illuminate the struggles of her ESL students with authorship in the academic genre. It is suggested that for graduate students or ESL students to become authors in their target discourses, they must be able to use that language for authentic communication.