Do I need a degree to be an author?

You do not have to have a degree, you only have to have a good novel to get published. Prize winning authors do seem to have an English degree or Masters in Literature. J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis had doctorates and taught university while they wrote. I would say this, no one that has a degree regrets it. It is your choice. I would say some is better than none. I used to attend a writer's group at a community college, and that was going to college! My degrees are not in English or literature, but they helped me learn to craft my writing.
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These writers went to college: Allen Ginsberg, Herman Wouk, Isaac Asimov. T.S. Eliot, William S. Burroughs, John Updike. Tom Wolfe, Tom Robbins. James A. Michener, Jonathan Franzen.Emma McLaughlin, Nicola Kraus, Judy Blume. E.B. White, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut. A lot of people do not know that E.B. White, writer of children's books, was the co-writer of The Elements of Style which was a required handbook for writing when I went to college.
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Hillsdale College offers free courses online on literature. I took the one on Classical Literature before I went to Greece. Travel, read, take courses, and write and I bet you will write something worth reading.
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Whenever I look for a new book to read I make sure the author has a college degree. I picked up a book the other day by some uneducated loser named Mark Twain. I saw no college degree in the introduction. Needless to say I tossed the book in the fireplace. While it was smoldering into ashes I saw some half assed quote by him that read “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” Don’t be like Mark Twain. Get that degree!
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No, BUT I have to admit that my two degrees helped me in another way. Not degrees in writing or English, but in biology and botany. My science degrees do help in my writing of science fiction because I'm trained to study scientific materials and I do play with scientific concepts in my work. My characters are scientists. They research and study to make their discoveries; I've done my fair share of both! I've also been a computer educator and an engineering tech, and that technology background has also aided my sci-fi writing. You use what you have, whether through formal education, on the job training, or just dogged study.