How did you become a writer?

By writing. 

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

Working with Diane Lefer my first semester at VCFA changed my life. She had me read books that showed me entirely new possibilities for what writing could be. Since then my favorite authors have been the ones to upset my understanding of what I'm "allowed" to do on the page. Some of those writers are Marguerite Duras, Italo Calvino, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Miranda July, Donald Barthelme. Of course there are classics that get under the skin, The Great Gatsby, Tortilla Flat, 100 Years of Solitude, The Florida Keys: A History & Guide. 

When and where do you write? 

It seems to happen when I'm moving--walking, on a plane, in a car. 

What are you working on now? 

I'm not working on anything specific, but I am thinking a lot about swans. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I have stopped beating myself up over not being more prolific, so I guess I wouldn't call periods of not writing writer's block, which is a phrase that says more about feeling anxious about not writing than the relationship between pen and paper. 

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

It's a lesson I've learned from visual arts: process over product. Who can write a book? Who even knows what a book is before it's a book? It's too much. Write a sentence, if you're lucky, there will be a second.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Get plenty of rest, eat well, don't smoke cigarettes, stay hydrated, get outside, be kind to yourself and others. 

Tatiana Ryckman is the author of the novel, The Ancestry of Objects, the novella, I Don't Think of You (Until I Do), and two chapbooks of prose, Twenty-Something and VHS and Why it's Hard to Live. Tatiana is the Editor of Awst Press and has attended residencies at Yaddo, Arthub, and 100W Corsicana.