Emma Törzs
/How did you become a writer? Reading: constantly! Widely! Playing imaginative games as a weird kid with my weird friends. Growing up in a house full of books, courtesy of my mother, who reads more than anyone I know. Being read to by both my parents. Telling my sister stories late at night in our shared bedroom. Writing fan fiction in college. The truth is, I’ve been writing stories since I learned to hold a pencil, but I’m also pretty much the opposite of a self-taught writer. I minored in Creative Writing in undergrad, got an MFA in Fiction, went to the Clarion West Writers Workshop six years ago, and still take writing classes often (recently took two excellent ones via Catapult—an online seminar on experimental translation with Poupeh Missaghi, and a class with H.D. Hunter on character development in non-linear time). I love any chance to be a student, especially now that I’m a professor. I think I did not “become” a writer so much as am “becoming” one continuously.
Name your writing influences My very biggest writing influence is, and has always been, my friends. The first stories I created were all in collaboration with childhood friends; we built worlds and populated them with characters and lived in those stories completely. Since then, the different stages of my writing life have all come with different influential friendships, and when I write, I am often writing to delight, impress, and converse with those friends. Also I travel anywhere I can, any chance I get. In terms of my first book, the two biggest creative influences were probably Maggie Stiefvater’s novel Call Down the Hawk, which taught me to plot (finally!), and Joanna Newsom’s song “Emily” from her 2006 album Ys, which I will forever be trying to write into novel form.
Other random influences: A writer whose sentences are so good I’d let her walk on me in stilettos is Patricia Lockwood. When people ask me what to read for fun, I always recommend Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. A story collection with no false notes is Tender by Sofia Samatar. Two books that crack me up are The Idiot and Either/Or by Elif Batuman. A book that recently made me sob in public is The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. A book I wish I’d written is Piranesi by Susanna Clark. A book I read and loved twenty years ago is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. A book I read and loved last month is Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott. An author I’d follow anywhere is Leigh Bardugo. An author probably everyone should read is Octavia Butler. A book that made me say “OMG WTF I love this” every fifteen pages is The First Bad Man by Miranda July. A childhood life-changer was Monica Furlong’s Wise Child. A true and present genius is Kelly Link. Two stories I can’t read without crying are “The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu and “Wait a Minute” by Lucia Berlin. A story that works for every fiction-writing lesson plan imaginable is “Jubilee” by Kirsten Valdez Quade. A book I’d get into the ring for is Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker. A book that haunts me is Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys. A story collection that fizzes my brain is What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi. A book that lives up to nearly two centuries of hype is David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. Ditto The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
I have to stop there or I’ll be listing forever. I’m already stressed about all the things I didn’t include.
When and where do you write? I used to write exclusively in coffee shops, but during the pandemic one of our housemates moved out and I started renting their vacated room as an office, and now I do most of my work in there. It’s pine green and full of books and plants and art and cat fur, very “dark academia” meets “Wow, I see you just discovered Pinterest.” Also, I have a treadmill desk, and let me tell you, you haven’t written until you’ve written at 3.5 miles an hour. I write on days I’m not teaching, anytime before the sun goes down, after which I’m only good for a good time.
What are you working on now? I’ve just started a new novel. I’m too superstitious to give many details, and who knows, I may end up scrapping it, but for now it’s a contemporary fantasy that takes place on and around the Great Lakes. Keywords include: loon, moon, loom, broom.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? For me, “writer’s block” really means “anxiety” and/or “existential depression,” so, yes. The summer of 2020 was probably the worst writer’s block I’ve ever had. It was the early days of the pandemic and George Floyd had just been murdered blocks from my house, and it felt deeply selfish to devote my energy to fiction when there was so much in the real world that needed my attention. From May through August I wrote not one single word. Writer’s block often comes hand-in-hand with times of questioning my role in the world and in my community, because I cannot help but feel sometimes that my work is inconsequential and will help no one and my short time on this earth should be devoted elsewhere. But I always end up coming back to the page, because for better or worse, I love writing too much to ever truly give it up for a more noble cause.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Victor LaValle: “Don’t be an asshole to your peers.” Peter Bognanni: “The best books are both funny and sad.”
What’s your advice to new writers? Don’t be an asshole to your peers—or to anyone! Unless they really deserve it. Try to write because you’re curious, not because you think you have the answer.
Emma Törzs is a writer, teacher, and occasional translator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her fiction has been honored with an NEA fellowship in Prose,
a World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction, and an O. Henry Prize, and her debut novel, Ink Blood Sister Scribe, is out May 30th, 2023 with William Morrow in the US, and July 6th with Century/Del Rey in the UK.
