Bill Roorbach

How did you become a writer?

I'm not certain, but I know it has something to do with my mother reading to us when we were little. Maybe that's where I got the idea. At age five my mom took me to see Santa at Shopper's World, the original shopping mall, outside Boston. I asked him for a desk.  On the way home my mom said, "Why on earth did you ask Santa for a desk?" he said. And I told her, "I want to be a writer." Still have the desk. It's a tiny oak rolltop from Sears. My daughter used it for some years and perhaps her kid will use it too one day.  

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

So many influences, across all the arts, but pretty much all subjects and disciplines. When I was young I liked writers like Bukowski and Jim Harrison and even Cheever and Updike. By the time I went to grad school at age 33 I'd read much more widely, but grad school broke it all open, and soon I was reading Didion and Toni Morrison and Mary McCarthy and on and on and on, very wide-ranging. I play music, too, and music is an influence for sure. I like all kinds, just as I like all kinds of writing. The only requirement is that it's terrific.

When and where do you write? 

I write anywhere and everywhere, five minutes here, a half hour there, in the car waiting for my daughter at dance class, at the kitchen table, in my office, on the beach, waiting at the dentist, you name it. 

What are you working on now? 

I've just finished a new novel, Lucky Turtle, which will be available everywhere April 26. It's available for pre-order right now, and as you know, pre-orders really help! 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not really. More like Writer feels like doing something else.

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

Write every day, whether a little or a lot, just simply every day. Also read. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write every day, whether a little or a lot! 

Bill Roorbach is the author most recently of Lucky Turtle, a novel, also five previous books of fiction, including The Girl of the Lake, the Kirkus Prize finalist The Remedy for Love, the bestselling Life Among Giants, and the Flannery O’Connor Award–winning collection Big Bend. His memoir in nature, Temple Stream, won the Maine Literary Award in nonfiction. Roorbach has received fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He held the William H. P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. His craft book, Writing Life Stories, has been in print for twenty-five years. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Ploughshares, Granta, Ecotone, New York Magazine, and other publications. He lives in Maine with his family.