How did you become a writer?

I’ve been making up stories since childhood and always aspired to be a writer. I majored in English lit in college and wrote my first full-length novel during my sophomore year. With all the optimism of the ignorant, I sent it off to a big-time New York publisher – who rejected it almost by return mail. Daunted, I decided on a different career path and went to law school. But during my many years of practicing law, I never lost the writing itch. I wrote another novel, and another, and the third time was finally the charm. Here’s a nice irony: my publisher today is the same one who rejected my sophomoric effort all those years ago. 

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

My specialty in college was the nineteenth-century English novel – Dickens, Thackeray, Trollope, Eliot, the Brontës. I love the rich tapestries of those big books, the huge casts of characters, the many subplots. But fiction today demands a tighter pace, and that’s what I learned from film and TV – how to distill an idea to its essentials, how to accelerate the action, how to build suspense, etc.

When and where do you write?

 I write in my home office on the top floor of our house. I could have a nice view of the mountains from there, but I deliberately turn my desk to a blank wall so I can’t be distracted. I never listen to music while I write, and I can’t focus if I’m even just aware of other people in the house. An isolation chamber would make a good office for me.

I write whenever the urge hits me – but only when the urge hits me. I don’t hew to a schedule or clock word count. Whenever I try to force my writing, it reads that way – forced. Instead, I let the stories wander around my mind for a while, and when the words come spitting out, that’s when I sit down and write.

I know this is contrary to the practice of most writers, who subscribe to the view that it’s best to simply get something on the page and revise later. But that workmanlike approach doesn’t work for me.  

What are you working on now?

My current project is another psychological thriller, but I should call this one a capital P Psychological thriller, because it’s about mind games and dementia and gaslighting. Very dark, even though it’s set in Florida.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don’t believe in writer’s block. If I can’t write, it’s because I’m not ready to write. The ideas need to ferment a little longer. The book will come when it’s ready to come.

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

“Bonnie, make time,” my agent once said when I told her my frenetic law practice left no time for writing. Her words were what convinced me that it was finally time to leave the law and write full-time.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I have two bits of advice for young people who wish to become writers:

A. Become something else first. Your writing will be that much richer for having lived in the wider world and encountered different kinds of people. 

B. To be a good writer, first be a good reader. Read, then deconstruct what you’ve read. Think about what worked for you and how the author accomplished it. Think about what didn’t work for you and how you might avoid the same traps.

Bonnie Kistler is a former Philadelphia trial lawyer and the author of House on Fire and The Cage. Her next novel, Her, Too, will be released in February 2023. She graduated from Bryn Mawr College, magna cum laude, with Honors in English literature, and she received her law degree from the University of the Pennsylvania Law School. She now lives in Florida and the Blue Ridge Mountains.