Nicola Twilley

How did you become a writer? I have always loved reading. I used to create newspapers as a kid, illustrating and handwriting every story. I didn't think writing was going to be something I made a living doing, but then, when I was in my twenties, my husband, writer Geoff Manaugh, started a blog. I thought what he was doing looked like fun, so I started a blog of my own, and built a career from there.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). Geoff has been a huge influence. Michael Pollan has been a mentor and supporter as well as an inspiration. I have learned an enormous amount from brilliant editors like Leo Carey at The New Yorker and Anthony Lydgate, who is now at Wired. I love reading novels—a few of my favorite authors are Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Rachel Cusk, Tessa Hadley, James Meek, and Gwendolyn Riley.  

When and where do you write? I write at my desk, on my laptop connected to a large monitor. I have a tendency to hunch over my screen otherwise, and the large monitor helps me put my shoulders back and breathe. I write in the morning and the evening, but that's mostly because I'm working on my podcast, Gastropod, all day.

What are you working on now? My most recent book, Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves, came out a couple of months ago, so I'm writing a few articles and short pieces connected to that. I'm also working on a new New Yorker feature, and I'm beginning to tinker with a couple of new book ideas. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? Not really. I do procrastinate, which has a lot to do with not wanting to ruin the illusion of what my brilliant book/article/essay aspires to be with the disappointments of reality. (This quote resonates through my mind on a regular basis: "A book is whittled down from hope.") I also do a lot of preliminary reporting, research, organization, and structuring, which can feel like procrastination, but I've found that until I know what I want to write, I can't sit down and write it. It will likely change as I'm writing it, but I need the sense that I have a map to get started.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Michael Pollan told me I'd have to go back and rewrite the first chapter of my book after I finished it. He was right (though it took Helen Thorpe to help me figure out how to do it). Geoff Manaugh, my husband and co-author for my first book, Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, helped me see that I can't just build an argument and let the reader arrive at the conclusion on their own, I need to cap it off with a sentence that feels like a polished nugget, to hold the insight.

What’s your advice to new writers? Read as much as you can, and make sure you read good writing. I sometimes see journalists only read other journalism, or science writers stick to science writing, and I think that's a mistake. Literary fiction might seem irrelevant, but it's not: stepping into an imaginary world filled with fully realized characters and stakes is not only deeply enjoyable, it's also giving you the chance to absorb the rhythms, structures, and language that are necessary to bring nonfiction to life, too. 

Nicola Twilley is author of Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves(Penguin Press, June 2024), and co-host of the award-winning Gastropod podcast, which looks at food through the lens of history and science, and which is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network in partnership with Eater. Her first book, Until Proven Safe: The History and Future of Quarantine, was co-authored with Geoff Manaugh and was named one of the best books of 2021 by Time Magazine, NPR, the Guardian, and the Financial Times. She is a contributing writer at The New Yorker and the author of Edible Geography. She lives in Los Angeles.

Ruby Todd

How did you become a writer? I suppose it was initially through the process of being a reader, and delighting in the conjuring power of words as a means of describing the world and, in various strange ways, supplementing it. I was lucky to be surrounded, as a kid, by books, and people who loved words, who would encourage me in my early efforts to produce stories and “books” of my own. Eventually, I ended up studying literature and writing, and combining both teaching and library work while I wrote. My path to the recent publication of my novel, Bright Objects, was a circuitous one, involving the abandonment of more than one previous fiction manuscript, a period of time retraining myself in short stories, and a fortunate competition win that led to a phone call with my agent, who picked up the new ms. I’d only just begun writing. So, I guess part of the story of how I became a writer was through a kind of irrational tenacity, which could also be seen simply as a love of the practice of writing that precludes the sense of its ever really having been a choice, which of course is hardly uncommon in the arts.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). I think the most significant influences for me in becoming a writer were in place from when I was very young. I grew up among librarians and booksellers, and had a wonderful teacher in primary school who encouraged the whole class to view itself as a publishing company, with book launches and our own library of titles. I have vivid memories of my parents reading to me, and also of my dad and I taking it in turns to make up spoken installments of an epic witches and wizards saga. My dad in particular has always had a way with words, and was immensely creative in how he brought stories to life and taught me the magic of language and imagination. (I should say that my mum was similar in this, but I have fewer memories of her from that time as she was working full time.) When I was older, as I read more widely and began studying and practicing writing myself, there were many points of connection that led me further down the path. I recall a uni tutor in my first year of a creative arts degree, who really encouraged me in my writing at a pivotal point when I might otherwise have questioned myself. Some particular touchstones for me in terms of inspiration early on (among others) were Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, The Glass Essay by Anne Carson, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept by Elizabeth Smart, Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard, and Emily Dickinson in general. I was very preoccupied with lyricism, imagery, and detail on the level of the phrase/sentence/scene, for years, to the detriment of my understanding of broader narrative structure, pacing, and causality, which really weren’t much of a feature of my uni studies. So developing that understanding came later, through independent study and experimentation. Side note: I found Lisa Cron’s Story Genius to be brilliant, in the context of thinking technically about the psychology of traditionally satisfying narratives, although I’m also interested in more experimental forms.

When and where do you write? I usually write at home in my study, with some kind of ambient noise or music playing. In the past, I’ve often written in public spaces like cafes and libraries, though, with headphones on, which I often find helpful, perhaps because being surrounded by people alleviates some of the loneliness that writing can induce. I also love writing on the kind of long-distance trains that have tables—there’s something about being still in a capsule that’s speeding through the world that induces calm and comfort in me.

What are you working on now? A novel that explores questions of reputation, authenticity and obsession through the lenses of both the international art market and an unlikely female friendship.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? Periodically, I’ve experienced periods of feeling lost in my writing, and unable to work. This has always been due to either being in between projects and still searching for the right idea and form, or exhausted and occupied by some other aspect of life. The remedy for me tends to be time and space spent in silence, in addition to nature, art galleries, wide-ranging research, and instrumental music. And patience, of course, when I can manage it.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? To deeply explore characterization, thematic architecture, and a vision of key points in a narrative before launching into the writing, while allowing for the inevitable and necessary surprises and changes along the way when the writing begins.

What’s your advice to new writers? I’ll share what I’d tell myself if I could travel back in time: Don’t assume that if you’re a literary writer, the best way for you to work is to “pants” it. Explore a variety of working methods and don’t assume that any one writer’s method, however passionately promoted, will work best for you. Nothing beats firsthand experience and experimentation. Don’t take anyone else’s word for it, or let the simplistic dichotomy of “pantsing v.s. plotting” lead you astray.

Ruby Todd is an Australian writer with a PhD in writing and literature. She is the recipient of the 2019 Ploughshares Emerging Writer's Contest award for Fiction and the inaugural 2020 Furphy Literary Award, among others. Shortlisted for the 2023 Victorian Premier's Unpublished Manuscript Award, her debut novel, Bright Objects, an "intoxicating...lyrical and inventive literary mystery" (Publisher's Weekly) is out now through Allen & Unwin (ANZ), and Simon & Schuster (US), and is forthcoming through Éditions Gallmeister (France).

Website: www.ruby-todd.com|

Substack: https://bookofhrs.substack.com

Sarah Easter Collins

How did you become a writer? I was a reader first, the sort of child whose nose was always buried in a book. Later, I studied English and Fine Art at university, and my love for these subjects have stayed with me ever since. I always felt the urge to write, but for a long time it felt like an immensely private, almost secret, activity. Then, in 2018, I took a ten-week course with Oxford University called ‘Getting Started with Creative Writing.’ That course was an important step for me because, for the first time, I was sharing my words with other people. Also, it made that small writerly flame that had been burning in me for so long become something of a bonfire: I realised without a doubt that I LOVED writing, both in terms of the craftmanship involved and the freedom it gave me to invent. Even more vitally, I felt as if I had somehow been given permission to do so. Later, while writing my novel THINGS DON’T BREAK ON THEIR OWN, I took an online three-month course with Curtis Brown Creative, the teaching arm of the literary agent Curtis Brown in London, at the end of which I was (brilliantly, wonderfully, life-changingly) offered representation.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). I’m a huge fan of Barbara Kingsolver, Ruth Ozeki, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, Bernadine Evaristo, Sarah Waters, Sarah Moss, Sarah Winman, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ian McEwan, Carol Shields, Jane Gardam, Anne Enright, Deborah Levy, Jenny Offill, Tobias Wolff, Kazuo Ishiguro, Meg Wolitzer, Miriam Toews, John Boyne, Claire Keegan, Maggie O’Farrell, Siri Hustvedt, Annie Dillard, Elena Ferrante, David Nicholls, Ben Myers…I could go on (and on…) I also read a lot of poetry, and I especially love Mary Oliver, Maya Angelou and Louise Glück. I love the language of poetry, the weight and importance given to each word, and the fact that poems do not necessarily offer up easy answers. 

Also, I should say that I am indebted to a teacher at my secondary school, Mrs Bradford, who saw something in my writing when I was an adolescent, and who was hugely encouraging to me. I have also had many wonderful tutors since. It is a very motivating thing to be told, ‘I think you can do this,’ and to all those teachers and tutors who are quietly empowering their students with that phrase, thank you. 

When and where do you write? I’m very much an early morning writer. I find writing very immersive, and I often find it hard to sleep deeply when I’m involved in writing a story. Rather I find I’m continually hovering somewhere between sleep and consciousness, with scenes and entire conversations running through my head. While I was writing THINGS DON’T BREAK ON THEIR OWN, I was getting up at four or five in the morning and creeping downstairs to write, accompanied by my beloved ancient lurcher, Sid. I don’t want to give the impression that this was a chore, not at all. I was enjoying myself immensely. 

What are you working on now? I am currently writing my second novel. It’s a story about secrets, friendship, privilege, possession, binary definitions, and the whole complex mess of familial relationships. At its heart is a mother’s warrior love.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? If I’m struggling with a certain passage or plot detail, then I will take the dogs up onto the moor and just let my mind roam. It’s amazing what a good walk can resolve!

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? To read my work aloud. I think there is no better way for identifying what is not working, that is, sentences that are clunky or, for instance, dialogue that simply sounds ‘wrong.’ Also, I think Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing are superb. You can find them here. 

What’s your advice to new writers? Write the story YOU want to tell, the one that you are moved by, and that you believe in. Also, for the beauty, the craftsmanship and for learning how to write ‘between the lines,’ read poetry. 

Sarah Easter Collins: Writing and painting have always been my two great loves. My third is travel. I studied English and Fine Art at University and, on graduating, signed up for the Teachers for Botswana Recruitment Scheme where I was lucky enough to be posted to Maun, a village on the edge of the Okavango Delta, a vast wilderness full of extraordinary wildlife. I lived in a rondavel, drove an ancient VW Beetle, adopted some stray animals, and was never happier. Later I worked in Thailand and Malawi, before finally returning to teach in the South-East of England. Now I live on Exmoor, a little national park in the South-West of England, surrounded by open moorland, steep wooded combes, wild ponies, and a dramatic ragged coastline and where, in my spare time, I love running and wild swimming with our two dogs.

When I’m not writing I work as an artist. In my painting, as in my writing, I’m interested in shades and layers. I like the idea of a painting having a history. I love storm light, morning light, evening light, low light, and I’m especially interested in the way the light can change everything for one instant, creating ephemeral moments of wonder.