How did you become a writer? 

I’ve always been a writer—it’s the way I understand my thoughts and feelings. I think most people who write are called to it in one way or another, so there might be an argument to be made about being “born a writer,” but I also think there’s a distinction in what people choose to do with their writing and what they pursue. It took me a very long time to realize I could be a person who wrote books, even though I was making up stories all the time.   

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

When I answer this question it’s impossible to feel like I’m not leaving something out. I’m a product of so many people, places, and things. To list a few: books like White Oleander and The Color Purple; movies like Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrmann), The Virgin Suicides; Crooklyn; teachers like Judith Claire Mitchell, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Danielle Evans; and on and on.   

When and where do you write?

I like to start writing in the afternoon, around 2pm. If I’m at a coffee shop (my preferred space) I can go until the shop closes. At home, it’s whenever I’m tired or feel like I’ve done good work for the day. I’m not an every-day writer, but when I’m deep into a project I can write every day.

What are you working on now?

A novel about love, grief, and forgiveness. I’m private when the work’s early, so that’s all I’ll say. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Most definitely. But I’ve found the block is usually fear, and when I’m able to accept and examine that, I can usually pinpoint the source and move past it. Sometimes that’s difficult to do, but it’s always a relief to come back to the page. 

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

There are no absolute writing rules and if anyone tries to convince you otherwise, proceed with caution. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

In the later stages of a writing project, the work very much becomes a community effort—trusted early readers and editors, and of course if your work is lucky to find its people, then there’s engagement between the work and the audience. I think whoever you build community with is important to the work. But I also think it’s critical for writers to protect and nourish what’s solitary and individual about the work so a community can be beneficial to it. Learn to distinguish your own voice and instincts from what’s external and maybe contrary to your own intentions. Once you know where you’re trying to go, you can find the people who will help you get there. 

Dantiel W. Moniz is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, the Cecelia Joyce Johnson Emerging Writer Award by the Key West Literary Seminar, and a Tin House Scholarship. Her debut collection, Milk Blood Heat, is an Indie Next Pick and has been hailed as "must-read" by TIME, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzefeed, Elle, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, One Story, American Short Fiction, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and elsewhere. Moniz is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.