How did you become a writer?

When I was 12 years old, I wrote what I called a novel. It was illustrated and handwritten and probably if I typed it up, it would have been less than 15 pages. Still I got a lot of attention for this from others who could not imagine spending any time writing something they did not have to. I liked the attention and I imagined a writer's life as filled with coffee shops and waking up late and having no boss. 

At 12, I did not think about things such as a lack of healthcare and a regular paycheck.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).

Valerie Martin, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Kay Boyle, Kent Haruf, and so many others.

When I was young I read a lot of Hemingway and Faulkner and the Bible. The very different rhythm of those sentences will stay with me, and within my work, forever. 

When and where do you write?

There is never a good time for writing. It is difficult and scary and it’s easy to put off until later. Therefore you have to make regular time for it, sort of like flossing your teeth. if you work at it regularly, it gets so much easier. With practice, you can train your mind to work better at that time of the day.

I write each morning, first thing, for several hours. I try to choose a place with a view of something interesting. Then my eyes can wander, while my brain works.

What are you working on now?

At the moment I am taking a vacation from writing. I've just finished my most recent novel, called The Dolphin House. It will be published in the spring of 2022. The novel was inspired by a research experiment that happened in 1965. A woman lived in a pool with a dolphin for several months trying to teach it to speak English. Dolphins make noise with their blowholes, not with their mouths, so they have no teeth or tongue or lips with which to form the words. Asking them to speak would be as hard as enunciating through a kazoo. Meanwhile the other researchers are all men and the head of the research center was experimenting with LSD. In the novel, my character works hard to protect the dolphin and herself.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Writer's block, I think, is about a fear of failure. It's that blank white page in front of me making me scared that what I write might be terrible. 

However, I have little fear of failure because I am pretty certain that my writing will always be bad at the start of a project. Luckily I am deeply stubborn and willing to commit to the project over a long period of time to improve it. If I am willing to accept the certainty of failure as part of the process, the failure changes from something I fear, to something that moves me forward toward something that could be worthwhile. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

To read stories in front of other people and listen hard for when the audience gets very still. That is when your writing is good. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

• Write regularly, every day.

• Accept that it will take you at least 10,000 hours of solid hard writing to become a good writer. Be comfortable with writing a lot of bad stuff until then and always assume you can do better.

• Accept that, even after those 10,000 hours, your writing will be bad and if you keep working, it will improve.

• Write about subjects and people and situations that you never tire of, write about them in the way that only you can do.

• Rather than going to writing school and spending tens of thousands of dollars, find other writers who will expect the best from you and can point out with respect when you don’t achieve that, and when you do. Teach each other with kindness and honesty how to write.

• Understand the relationship between money and writing. Writing takes time and means you have less time to earn money. Every time you spend a dollar, think that dollar is coming from your writing time.

Bio: Born a long time ago, in another country, I have traveled enough to have vomited on four continents, including once onto a Masai tribesman’s feet. He, unfortunately, was barefoot.

I have published five novels including The Cage, Swimming with Jonah, A House Named Brazil, Three Weeks in December and A Theory of Bastards.

My novels have been translated into 12 languages, reviewed by The New York Times, New Yorker and CNN. They have won the Phillip K. Dick Award 2019, Dartmouth College’s Neukom Award and twice been selected as notable books by the American Library Association. 

My books aren't boring. For a short time, one was even optioned for a movie with Wes Craven (the director of Nightmare on Elm Street). Articles I’ve written have been anthologized, as well as published in Orion, Grist, Ms. Magazine, Bust and others. I now live near Boston and run an energy-efficiency nonprofit called HEET.