Gay Talese

How did you become a writer?

I desired to be a writer from reading wonderful writers when I was in grade school.

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

Writers who influenced me included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Carson McCullers, John O'Hara and Irwin Shaw. These are writers I read between high school and college. Later, I came under the influence of writers closer to my own age: John Fowles, Philip Roth, and many contributors to The New Yorker magazine, such as Joe Mitchell, A.J. Liebling, E.B. White and John Cheever.  Finally, there was a history teacher of the French Revolutionary period, at the University of Alabama, Prof. Bernard C. Weber, who greatly influenced me in story-telling technique and scene-setting. He was a dramatic orator, and his retelling of the court life of the Bourbon kings prior to and during the French revolution so captured my imagination as a student that I wanted to write as Dr. Weber spoke: filled with visual detail, precise descriptions of places and artifacts and personal characteristics (the pocked skin of Louis 14th, and the power he used in an attempt to cover it up), etc…. This really is the way to learn: to listen to someone who not only knows the material, but knows how to communicate it. As a nonfiction writer, I try to do just that: really know what I'm writing about, and know how to make it clear and interesting in presenting it.

When and where do you write?

I write in a private place under my house (no telephone, no windows; a converted wine cellar that I call "the bunker.")  

What are you working on now?

I'm working on a book for Knopf on a fifty-year marriage (nonfiction)--my own marriage; also doing some magazine pieces, one a profile for The New Yorker on the manager of the Yankees, Joe Girardi.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No, but I write so slowly--and never rush myself because I try to achieve quality and never quantity . . . that some fast and facile people might think I'm blocked. But I'm not. I prefer writing little that I love to writing a lot just to keep my name in print.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Take your time. Your name is on it. It should always be your best.

Bio: Born in l932 in Ocean City, N.J. (13 miles south of Atlantic City); attended University of Alabama l949-53; worked for New York Times as staff writer (1956-65); have written many articles for The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine; have published eleven books, many of them translated into several languages. Married since l959 to Nan Talese, publisher with her own imprint at Doubleday; we have two daughters, Pamela and Catherine, both residing, as we do, in New York City.

Richard Walter

How did you become a writer?

I came to California for what I thought would be a couple of weeks, tops. That was forty-five years ago. I fell into film school at USC where my classmates were George Lucas, John Milius, Walter Murch, Randal Kleiser, Bob Zemeckis, Caleb Deschanel, and a host of other phenomenal, youthful talents. I enrolled in the legendary Irwin R. Blacker’s screenwriting course, wrote a feature length script. Never sold it, but it served as a worthy showcase, winning me representation at what is now ICM and a job as a staff writer at Universal. Never looked back!

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

The aforementioned Irwin R. Blacker, first of all.  Billy Wilder. Preston Sturges. Charlie Chaplin. Orson Welles. Charlie Dennis, my swim coach at Harpur College, who taught me not to fade in the stretch. Yetta Rosenblum, photographer and photography teacher, who taught me to look at the frame and that “photography” means “writing with light.”

When and where do you write?

Whenever I can (pretty much every day) at my aerie—a wonderful studio with preposterously beautiful, distracting views-- high atop my house in the Silver Lake Section of Los Angeles.

What are you working on now?

The working title is Richie’s Greatest Hits. It’s a memoir-ish collection of charming, sweetly frustrating lessons I’ve learned from forty years writing in Hollywood.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Only every minute of every day. Actually, I preach that there is no such thing as writer’s block. Writer’s block is the natural state of the art and the craft of creating narratives. Thanks to my position at UCLA there are few people who know as many writers as I do, and I’ve never known even merely one who flew eagerly to the word processor early in the morning, peppy and perky and ready to write.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Remember that every single successful writer, without exception, was once brand new and totally inexperienced and unknown. Contrary to one among the many myths about Hollywood, as I profess in my most recent book, Essentials of Screenwriting, it’s not connections, it’s not who you know but how well you write that drives success in screenwriting. The two biggest mistakes writers make is 1) we write too much – descriptions of action and lines of dialogue must clearly and constantly advance the story in a palpable, identifiable, measurable way and 2) we show our scripts too soon, before they’re truly ready. It’s wise, before exposing a new script to the industry, to engage the services of a worthy consultant who can provide notes, who can help you get rid of what you need to get rid of.

Richard Walter is a celebrated storytelling guru, movie industry expert, and longtime chairman of UCLA’s legendary graduate program in screenwriting. A screenwriter and published novelist, his latest book, Essentials of Screenwriting, is available in stores now. Professor Walter lectures throughout North America and the world and serves as a court authorized expert in intellectual property litigation. For more information and to order the new Essentials of Screenwriting, visit www.richardwalter.com. Contact Professor Walter at rwalter@tft.ucla.edu if you would like to subscribe to his monthly screenwriting tips newsletter.

Robert Lipsyte

How did you become a writer?

I was a fat kid and in elementary school I started writing stories in which skinny kids died horribly. I discovered that stories were a way to control or at least contain my world. I still feel that way. After I lost my weight, around 14, I kept writing because it was the most satisfying part of my life. Still is.

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

My parents were public school teachers and encouraging. That became a pattern - teachers in middle school who let me write crazy sci-fi (what else did I know about besides aliens?) and high school and college teachers (and Gay Talese in the NY Times sports department) all of whom patted me on the butt and said, "Get into the game, big guy, you can do it."  A little encouragement is all you need - your imagination enlarges it. As for writers - John Steinbeck when I was a kid. I loved his compassion, social conscience, story-telling.

When and where do you write?

At home, in de-basement, often sparsely dressed, early, lots of coffee. First drafts of fiction in pencil on yellow legal pads, next drafts and all else right on the computer.

What are you working on now?

My memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter, just came out in paperback and it's led me back to more sportswriting, for The Times and for online mags, Salon, Slate and Daily Beast. Also, my first middle grade novel, The Twinning Project, comes out in October, 2012 (Clarion) and I'm on the sequel, pencil and pad so far.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not yet. Remember, I started my professional career in the press box, boxing and baseball, on deadline, and if I choked I'd be dead meat. I make outlines, know what I'm going to do, but I love to write, I live to write, and being blocked would be like being unable to breathe.

What’s your advice to new writers?

One - READ. Sounds obvious but it's amazing to me how many new writers don't read enough, and don't read as writers, looking for examples of how other writers handled transitions, character descriptions, etc. the same way young athletes watch pros at work. Two - REWRITE. Also obvious, but there's too much satisfaction with the first draft, which is never as good as it could be.

Robert Lipsyte, a long-time sports and city columnist of the New York Times, is the author of a recent memoir, An Accidental Sportswriter. His first middle grade novel,The Twinning Project (Clarion) is due out October, 2012. Lipsyte was a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning and for the NBC Nightly News. In 1990, he received an Emmy as host of The Eleventh Hour, a nightly PBS public affairs show on WNET in New York. He won Columbia University’s Mike Berger Award for distinguished reporting in 1966 and 1996, and in 1992 was runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize in commentary.

His books also include Dick Gregory’s autobiography, Nigger, and SportsWorld: An American Dreamland. In 2001 he won the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement in Young Adult literature. His YA novels includeThe Contender, One Fat Summer, andCenter Field. He lives on Shelter Island, NY, with his wife, Lois B. Morris, a writer, and their dog, Milo.