Joanne Harris

How did you become a writer?

I've always written. As a child and an adolescent I began by copying the writers I most admired, then I began slowly to find my own style. Until Chocolat, it never crossed my mind that I could make a living from writing books; I was a teacher and liked my job; I enjoyed writing in my spare time, and until then the two things had been perfectly compatible. With the success of Chocolat, I had to make a decision to either carry on with teaching or to become a full time writer. Writing is an uncertain profession at best, and I had no indication at that time whether or not my subsequent books would also be bestsellers. As it happens, they were. I got lucky, but I would have written regardless of whether I was even published at all.

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

All kinds of people in all kinds of ways. From inspirational writers such as Victor Hugo, Mervyn Peake and Ray Bradbury, to people I meet when I’m travelling and places I see.

When and where do you write?If I’m at home, I write in my shed at the bottom of my garden. If I’m there, people know not to disturb me. If I’m travelling, which I do a lot, I write when I can, in hotel rooms, at airports and on trains. I use a laptop so that I can use any available time, and I carry notebooks around with me so that I can jot down thoughts and ideas. My optimal writing conditions are: an empty house; a tidy desk; an endless supply of tea and biscuits; fine weather and no deadline. Needless to say these rarely, if ever, occur.

What are you working on now?

I never talk about projects in their early stages. Most of the time I rarely even know myself what’s going to happen next and I tend to have a couple of things ongoing at any one time.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I always get stuck about three-quarters of the way through a book, and panic that I'm not going to be able to finish, but usually within a week or two the problem has worked itself out

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write what you want to write and not what you think you ought to write or what other people think you should write. If you enjoy your writing then it’s likely other people will too.

Joanne Harris gave up teaching in 2000 to become a full-time writer and has written thirteen novels, including Chocolat, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film, two books of short stories and two cookbooks with Fran Warde. Her books are now published in over 40 countries and have won a number of British and international awards. She plays bass guitar in a band first formed when she was 16 and still lives in West Yorkshire, a few miles from where she grew up, with her husband.

Naomi Benaron

How did you become a writer?

I have written all my life, but I did not become brave enough to commit until rather late in life. I was a geophysicist, but after taking care of my father through the last year of his life, I did not have the will to go back to it. I had met a wonderful poet who was a hospice volunteer, and she encouraged me to write. I thank her every day of my life.

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

My original mentor at Pima Community College, Meg Files, set me on this path and taught me to test and push boundaries.

Books/authors I can think of (this week) include:

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels

Swimming Home by Deborah Levy

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chris Abani

Michael Ondaatje

Shahrnush Parsipur

Natasha Tretheway

When and where do you write?

Ideally, I like to write in my office first thing in the morning - like 4:00 AM, but I will write in any snitch of time I can grab. Right now, I am at a residency at MacDowell Colony, which is awesome. A writing studio and uninterrupted writing time. Lunch delivered to my door in a basket. Have I died and gone to heaven?

What are you working on now?

I am working on a novel about three generations of Holocaust survivors: a direct survivor, her daughter, and granddaughter. It's about art and resistance. It's also about hip hop.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

That's a term I refuse to use.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write from your heart. Keep writing. Never give up.

Naomi Benaron’s novel Running the Rift (Algonquin Books, 2012) was selected by Barbara Kingsolver as the winner of the 2010 Bellwether Prize, an award for a novel that addresses issues of social justice. Her other prizes include the Sharat Chandra Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Lover Letters from a Fat Man, the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize, and the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in journals including New Letters, Poets’ Quarterly, Calyx, The MacGuffin, Spillway, and Green Mountains Review. She teaches writing through UCLA Extension and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, a project to mentor Afghan women writers living in Afghanistan and abroad.

Mark Childress

How did you become a writer?

When I was in the second grade our classroom had an aquarium. One morning we came in to find that a swordfish had jumped out of the tank and died on the floor. The teacher was putting together a little mimeographed "newspaper" with stories written by us students. My three-sentence narrative of the death of the swordfish was printed, along with my name. I was thrilled to see it, hooked for life. It made me feel immortal.

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

I was influenced a lot by the books I loved to read as a child and especially as a teenager - I was besotted with Latin American writing of the 60s and 70s, and with Dickens and Capote and with certain obscure short-story writers. I had many terrific English teachers who introduced me to writers I still love. English teachers are especially wonderful people, in my experience. Then I went to college to learn to be a writer. I had a famous writer, Barry Hannah, as a teacher, but mainly he taught me how not to be a writer because he was in an alcoholic haze at the time. So that was a powerful influence too and I promised myself I would never write drunk. Luckily I had a graduate student as a teacher called Kitty Johnson. She took my stories seriously and made me feel like a real writer for having written them. She was one of the first people to tell me I had talent as a writer.

When and where do you write?

I have a large and cluttered desk which is really a huge sheet of Formica-covered particle board laid across two filing cabinets. I look out on my little yard here in Key West where I like to grow orchids, which always need a bit of tending when you are stuck for the next sentence. I start out after coffee and email and go as long as I can through the day. I almost never work past four o'clock.

What are you working on now?

At the moment I am writing a piece for the Wall Street Journal about Alabama football, and I am also writing the libretto of an opera that will be produced in 2014 but can't quite be announced yet.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Yes, every day since I started writing. Sometimes it only lasts a few seconds, in which case it is called "writing." Sometimes it lasts days or weeks, when it becomes "writer's block." The key is to always have something else to work on if you run out of juice on the main project. Usually letting it get cold and going back is the only solution - you have to divorce yourself from the person who wrote it before you can find the mistakes by yourself. If you have a good editor, you are blessed.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read read read read read read. Write write write write write. All else is madness or pose.

Mark Childress is the author of seven novels: A World Made of Fire, V for Victor, Tender, Crazy in Alabama, Gone for Good, One Mississippi, and Georgia Bottoms, and three books for children. He wrote the screenplay for the Columbia Pictures film of "Crazy in Alabama," a main selection of the Venice and San Sebastian film festivals.