I made business cards for my writing group and we got in a semantics discussion of that whole subject a while back.

The ones who had published, I identified as "Author." Those who had not YET published, I identified as "Writer." I struggled with that and even did some research to determine those titles.
Seems to me you have a right to identify yourself as both a writer because you write, and an author because your work (even if it is only one essay) has been published.
So I say ENJOY!!
smile