Nicholas Griffin

How did you become a writer?

I used to work in documentary film. I loved the idea of bringing unknown stories to light. My first job out of college I got involved in a decent sized project for PBS. I was there from start to finish and the thing that amazed me was the constant compromising. We ended up with something very different from what we’d set out to do. It occurred to me the only medium I could have complete control in was the world of books. I wrote at night and then (25 rejections later) sold my first book and shook the hand of my new editor. First thing he did was cut out my opening five chapters.

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

There are two ways to learn. First read. Then reread the good stuff. Once you’ve written for years, you know all the story-telling tricks out there. There is always plenty to learn. For narrative I always look at Dickens and William Boyd. To remind myself there are no limits, Italo Calvino. I always think about “voice,” so I read the strong ones, from Marquez to Philip Roth, to Nick Hornby to Carl Hiassen.

When and where do you write?

I have a small office at home that I find hard to use. I have young kids and a dog that wants to play fetch with my laptop. So I walk uptown to the New York Public Library and use the “Rose Reading Room.” I love it in there. It’s a strange combination of med students, writers and the homeless. 

What are you working on now?

For a while now I've been working on a book tentatively titled Ping Pong Diplomacy, which I sold to Scribner. It's a piece of history that ties together a British spy, World War Two, China's Great Famine and Cultural Revolution and Mao and Nixon's “Week that Changed the World.” Oh yes, and table tennis. Just one of those stories that slipped through the gaps that I was lucky enough to see clearly.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No. Choosing a subject is the most difficult period for me. Sometimes stories are thinner than you think they are. You start breaking down a plot for a novel or a history and then realize that what you’ve really got is 40 pages. I file these ideas away and then think of myself as a mad scientist. Every now and then I scroll through the story ideas, throw them all together and occasionally the chemicals react to produce something half-decent. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

I think every writer was probably told not to write at some stage. I remember the one novelist I knew in my mid-twenties almost begging me not to start writing. His warnings were all true. It’s an unpredictable game, you’ll be struggling for fresh ideas all your life, the money will probably be poor and if you sell a book and your publisher gives you a reading, only your friends will come. My only advice is, it should take more than encouragement from friends. Take a course, get a bit of professional advice from somewhere. There are fresh voices lurking all around that we need to hear, but there are also plenty who will be wasting their time. My brother-in-law once sent me a chapter written by a close friend of his. It’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever read. I thought I was having my leg pulled. Luckily, my sister was soon divorced, so I never had to meet the guy.

Bio: I was born in England. Came over to the States aged 18 for college. Have lived in NYC since then and written six books, including Dizzy City, The Requiem Shark, The House of Sight and Shadow, Caucasus, the Masquerade, plus the Kindle Single Before the Swarm. Ping Pong Diplomacy should be out in January 2014.

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.