Dean King

How did you become a writer? From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I loved to read, and that led to wanting to write. My mother, an avid reader of The New Yorker and books of all sorts, particularly nurtured my love of reading, taking me to the library weekly to get books. There is no replacement for reading voraciously when you’re young. You soak up the words and the style like a sponge. It all becomes part of your DNA. Later, when it was actually time to write and I was at a loss on how to go about it, I did two things. First, I started keeping a journal so that I was writing at least a little bit every day. And second, I did some Q&A interviews, the most basic kind of writing you can do. I sent my clips to Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and got my foot in the door of the magazine world.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). There are so many. First my mother and my grandmother, who also read The New Yorker cover to cover and loved to do crossword puzzles. Then my kindergarten and first grade teachers, Mrs. Carver and Mrs. McGrath, who had us write and make books, wrapping the covers in burlap and stitching them together. They tried to have one of my early stories published as a children’s book. A middle school teacher, Liston Rudd, loved The Hobbit and inspired me to read the Tolkien Trilogy. In high school two teachers stand out: George Squires admired my concise writing, which made me realize that longer did not mean better. And Ron Smith challenged me (and all his students) to think deeper and to be more exacting. As an undergraduate writing student in Chapel Hill, I studied with such literary lights as the poet Jim Seay and the novelists Doris Betts and Bland Simpson. In graduate school at NYU, I studied with Gloria Naylor, Wesley Brown, John A. Williams, and E. L. Doctorow. Along the way the authors I read and loved, and now certainly draw upon, are too many to name. The grooms’ gifts at my wedding were volumes of Faulkner. Then there’s Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, J. D. Salinger, Cormac McCarthy, Charles Portis, Patrick O’Brian, Studs Terkel, Tom Wolfe, Larry McMurtry, Annie Proulx, Richard Price, Hillary Mantel, James Elroy, Tim Gautreaux, Daniel Woodrell, Mark Bowden…. 

When and where do you write? I write in my office in the house that I grew up in, which my wife and I bought from my mother when we moved back to Richmond from New York City. The house was built in 1917 as a country summer cottage for people living in downtown Richmond. My office is in what used to be a screened-in porch, where we ate dinner most summer nights at a rustic octagonal game table made by my father. I remember watching storms blow in, furious downpours, and lightning strikes in the backyard, as well as languid nights made magical by the flash of lightning bugs. Alas, the city grew up around us. The street traffic is more dominant, and now the porch is enclosed. It makes for a great sunny office though. I am there 24/7, except when I can’t be.

What are you working on now? I am in the thick of promoting Guardians of the Valley. After spending five years or so working on a book, I enjoy speaking and connecting with readers. It gives me a break before I dive headfirst into the next book.  

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? Since I write nonfiction, I’m not very susceptible to writer’s block. If anything, it’s the opposite. As I’m figuring out my path through the true story, I sometimes go down intriguing rabbit holes and write whole chapters that won’t ever appear in the book. I don’t feel like this is a waste of time, though, because I’m absorbing the story as I write and gaining insight. And often bits of the cut chapters make it into another part of the book.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Having had the fortune to study with so many talented writers, I’ve been the recipient of a lot of great writing advice, but I’ll never forget Jim Seay’s admonishment on the first day of poetry class: “No autumn leaves.” It was sage advice. As beginning writers, we were not equipped to take on so common and romanticized a subject matter. To add meaningfully to the autumn leaves conversation, there’s a very high bar of voice, originality, and insight needed to avoid cliché. Easier to begin with something more personal or under the popular radar. When I first heard the idea that a book is “never finished, only abandoned,” it was freeing. I repeat it to many writers. You have to let go at some point. 

What’s your advice to new writers? Don’t write about autumn leaves. Kidding. Leap in and tell your story. Don’t worry about how well you’re writing. Just write. That is success in and of itself. Make the effort and exercise your writing muscles. There will be plenty of time to get it right. But also know that editing is part of writing, and you will need to edit far beyond your original expectations. 

Dean King is a nationally best-selling author of nonfiction books, including Patrick O’Brian: A Life Revealed, Skeletons on the Zahara, and The Feud. The Wall Street Journal called The Feud “popular history the way it ought to be written.” “King’s poetry is a match for Muir’s,” says the New York Times Book Review of his latest book, Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship That Saved Yosemite (Scribner, 2023). King’s writing has also appeared in Esquire, Granta, Garden & Gun, Men’s Journal, National Geographic Adventure, Outside, New York, and The New York Times. www.deanhking.com