Sakinah Hofler

How did you become a writer? I’ve always loved reading and writing. When I was younger and my parents placed me on punishment (which was often…I had a smart mouth and didn’t like rules), I would stay in my room and read. When I got tired of rereading my books, I would write new endings for them. Soon I started writing my own stories. As I grew, though, I didn’t know any writers. I didn’t know how to become a writer. So I figured I’d get a “real” job and then figure out how to write later. I became a chemical engineer. On my first day at my full-time engineering job, I realized it wasn’t for me, and I gave myself five years to try something new. During those five years, I took writing, acting, improv, and French classes after I got off work. Soon writing overtook everything—I would write on the vanpool ride on my way to work, write during my lunch breaks, write after work. I would write during meetings. I limited my social events so I could write. After a while, I realized it would be better for me to have more time to write, so I applied to MFA programs. Very quickly, I was rejected, but I kept on writing and taking writing classes. Eventually I found a lovely writing group (shoutout to No M.A.P.s) where I submitted work regularly and received generous feedback. Two years after my series of rejections, I got into 6 MFA programs. I do want to add that the MFA did not make me a writer—it gave me the time and space to improve my craft. I became a writer when I made writing a priority, starting taking myself seriously as a writer, and wrote regularly.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). Where to begin?! My writing heroes that I savor and read over and over include Octavia Butler, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Edward P. Jones, Rita Dove, Ted Chiang, Robert Frost, Haruki Murakami, Claudia Rankine, Michio Kaiku, Ursula K. Le Guin. The teachers that have been instrumental include Hasanthika Sirisena (one of my first writing teachers ever!), Bob Shacochis, Barbara Hamby, David Kirby, Leah Stewart. Ah, for the books. The Bluest Eye and Sula and Song of Solomon by Morrison, The Passage by Justin Cronin, Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston, Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Also, shoutout to my high school AP English teacher Ms. Jackson, who was a certified genius and LOVED every book she taught.

When and where do you write? Whenever and wherever I can. Prior to having a child, I had strict schedule for writing (with strictness comes freedom). After having a child, that schedule went out the window. Now, I commute by train about an hour each way for my day job and that has become my writing time—on NJ Transit at 6:53 a.m. on the way to work and on NJ Transit around 4ish/5is/6ish on my way back from work. On the weekends, I wake up before my son gets up to write and that’s usually on the sofa in my living room.

What are you working on now? I’m working on a novel that has two different titles: Starshine, Stock, Clay and The Missing. Situated in Newark, NJ, this novel follows a young African American woman, Kiana, who is a prostitute, the mother-figure maintaining order in a stable (a house where trafficked victims stay), and the mother of a young daughter. For nearly five years, Kiana has been manipulated by her pimp and child’s father, Marcus. As their daughter grows, Kiana must try to find a way out for both of them. This novel toggles between first-person, linear narration (can/will Kiana escape?) and second-person, achronological “Before” sections (how did Kiana wind up in this situation?) that converge towards the end. Most of the linear narration takes place in Newark, which is part of the New York Metropolitan area. Way back when I had given myself five years to figure out what to do, back when I was still an engineer, I volunteered for a nonprofit called Polaris Project whose mission is to eradicate modern-day slavery. The work as well as my prior ignorance about forced prostitution strongly impacted me.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? YES! I’ve never had a situation where I didn’t know what to write (I keep journals, draft emails, etc. to keep track of stories in case I sit down and I’m unsure where to start). But I am sometimes faced with an intense fear and anxiety (maybe imposter syndrome?) that I don’t know what I’m doing and that I might as well stop writing, that no one is going to read it, etc. I sometimes have to do affirmations to get myself to sit down and write. Journaling usually gets me through. I also have to write pieces that no one else is going to see.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? When I volunteered for the 2008 campaign trail, I met a published author. I shyly told her I wanted to do what she did but didn’t know how. She told me: “Concentrate on the writing. Spend a long time getting good at the writing. Take classes, send work out, try to get better and better and then worry about publishing. The business side sucks.” I’m so glad she told me that. I feel like there’s an immense pressure to publish quickly, but I spent time getting better and getting used to rejection.

What’s your advice to new writers? It’s all about tenacity. Writing is getting up, doing the work, figuring out what works, what doesn’t work, and then doing it again the next day and the next day. It’s reading. It’s rejection. Lots of rejection. A dash of success then more rejection. Working through those highs and lows builds you. Keep reading. Keep writing. Keep trying.

Sakinah Hofler is a fiction writer, poet, and playwright. Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, among other literary journals, and her plays have been produced by Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. She won the Yemasee Poetry Prize, the Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers in Fiction, the Manchester Fiction Prize, and the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award. Her work has received support from the Albert C. Yates Foundation, the Kingsbury Foundation, the Taft Research Center, and the P.E.O. Scholar Award. A former chemical engineer for the United States Department of Defense, she’s currently a lecturer in Princeton’s Writing Program. She’s at work on her first novel.