Jake Needham

How did you become a writer?

It was an accident. Seriously, it actually was an accident. I had practiced law for a couple of decades, doing mostly international corporate work, and I found myself involved in a complicated and rather hostile corporate acquisition. When the smoke eventually cleared, I ended up personally buying out of the deal a major interest in a little Hollywood production company that mostly made cable TV movies. Looking back, I can only conclude I was either in a highly inebriated state or temporarily possessed by a fit of unrestrained hubris. Either way, once I had gone and done it, I did my level best to make the company profitable. My principle strategy was to focus the company more tightly on what I thought it could do best, and I even dashed off an outline of the kind of movies I wanted the company to try to sell to its production partners. A copy of that outline got sent by mistake to one of the cable TV networks we worked with and one day the network called up and asked me to make it for them. Make what? I asked. The movie you wrote that treatment for, they said. We really liked it.

And that, girls and boys, is how I became a writer…

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

I've always figured one day I would sit down think up an uplifting answer to toss out when I’m asked this question, one that makes me appear thoughtful, reflective, and terribly, terribly intellectual. Sadly, I’ve never gotten around to it. I guess the simple truth is that every author I’ve ever read has influenced me to some degree. I see ways others have told stories that I like and wish I could manage to do similar work myself, and I see ways they’ve told stories that I hate and swear to avoid forever.

A number of reviewers compared my early books to Elmore Leonard -– ‘If Elmore Leonard had written a book about Bangkok, this would be it!’ — and some interviewers are still jumping to the conclusion that I was once bitten by a Leonard bug and am trying to go down that road with my own books. That’s just not the case. All the Leonard titles I’ve read have been too disjointed in their narratives and tried too hard for cleverness in their characters to engage me for very long. Great dialogue, of course, but weak narratives. And weak narratives ultimately make you care very little about the characters no matter how snappy their dialogue may be. So, no, not Elmore Leonard. And, honestly, not anyone else in particular either.

When and where do you write?

I have libraries in both our Bangkok and US homes and my family accepts that those are my private retreats where I can work without being disturbed. The two rooms were designed to be very similar in order to minimize any sense of dislocation. Both are lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases and both have a carefully-positioned Eames chair where I listen to music, enjoy the view out the windows, and work on a laptop with my feet up. Okay, so owning two original Eames chairs is probably a definition of serious self-indulgence. I admit it. Guilty.

What are you working on now?

I finished the final edits on my fourth Jack Shepherd novel last month and now it’s out of my hands and with the proofreaders. It will be published in January, 2014, as THE KING OF MACAU. Since the day after I let that one go I’ve been working oh the third Inspector Samuel Tay novel. It’s called THE DEAD AMERICAN and is scheduled for summer 2014.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No such thing as writer’s block. You ever hear of doctor’s block or architect’s block? Look, writing is a job. John Gregory Dunne said that writing is manual labor of the mind. It’s like laying pipe. You show up every day, dig a few feet further, and put down some more pipe. You do your job. Wasting perfectly good writing time whining about so-called writer’s block is something professional writers don’t do.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Sit down, put your fingers on the keyboard of your choice, and do it. I’m sick to death of people talking about the writing process, examining the writing process, and analyzing the writing process. That's just malarkey. You DO writing. That's all there is to it.

Jake Needham is an American screen and television writer who began writing novels when he realized he didn’t really like movies and television very much. He has since published six popular novels set in the cities of contemporary Asia and his seventh, THE KING OF MACAU, will be published in January, 2014. The Bangkok Post said, “Jake Needham is Michael Connelly with steamed rice.” 

Mr. Needham has lived and worked in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand for over twenty-five years. He is a lawyer by education and has held a number of significant positions in both the public and private sectors where he took part in a lengthy list of international operations he has absolutely no intention of telling you about. He, his wife, and their two sons now divide their time between homes in Thailand and the United States. 

The print editions of Jake’s novels have been distributed only in Europe, Asia, and the UK, where they have all been bestsellers. E-book editions of his novels are now available worldwide. You can learn more about Jake Needham and his books at his official website: www.JakeNeedham.com.

Richard Slotkin

How did you become a writer?

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I learned to read. In school, what absorbed me was writing, whether class papers or articles for the school newspaper. I chose college teaching as a profession because it would allow me to write. But writing always meant two different things: non-fiction, in my case academic writing; and literary fiction. I suppose one doesn’t really “become a writer” till the work is published – and you know that you can not only put words on paper, but that they “work” for an audience. So I first became an academic writer (starting in 1966) and then – when academic publication boosted my confidence – a fiction writer (in 1980).

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

Teachers: Miss Rockmore in Freshman English at Brooklyn College, who took my writing seriously as writing as opposed to responding just to the ideas. Writers were my best teachers. Mark Twain, Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Hemingway, Conrad, Paul Horgan – in a strange way, John Ford

When and where do you write?

If I’m committed to a project, I prefer to write in the morning, break for lunch – then perhaps go over what I’ve written in the afternoon. If I’m between projects I’m usually still writing, sketching ideas, taking notes – on a more random schedule.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished a novel, THE BROOKLYN BOYS, about a Jewish war veteran and union organizer (in 1931) trying to get the gangsters out of the garment unions.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not as such. I’m always at least playing with possible projects, and I can always sit down and write an article or lecture for a particular occasion. But I’m often between projects, when there’s no book project I can fully commit to.

What’s your advice to new writers?

I’m assuming “fiction writers” here. You have to have confidence in the validity of what you have to say, and in your ability to get it said. You have to give yourself license to speak freely on your subject – not worry about critics, but see yourself as the authority on the subject at hand. Of course you’re the authority – who knows better than you what it is you’re trying to say? After that, it’s putting in the time to get the work done.

Richard Slotkin is Olin Professor of American Studies (Emeritus) at Wesleyan University, where he began teaching in 1966. He developed and for more than twenty years directed the American Studies Program, for which he received the 1995 Mary C. Turpie Award of the American Studies Association. He also helped develop Wesleyan’s Film Studies Program.

He was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1942, and educated in the public schools and Brooklyn College before getting his Ph.D. in American Civilization at Brown University (1967).

He is best known for an award-winning trilogy of scholarly books on the myth of the frontier in American cultural history. Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860 (1973) was a Finalist for the 1974 National Book Award in History, and received the 1973 Albert J. Beveridge Award of the American Historical Association. The Fatal Environment: The Myth of the Frontier in the Age of Industrialization, 1800-1890 (1985) received the literary award of the Little Big Horn Associates, and has become a standard reference in the field of American Studies. Gunfighter Nation: The Myth of the Frontier in Twentieth Century America (1992) was a Finalist for the 1993 National Book Award. Lost Battalions: The Great War and the Crisis of American Nationality (2005) combined military and social history to show how war transformed the nation’s understanding of race, ethnicity and social justice. In 2009 he published No Quarter: The Battle of the Petersburg Crater, 1864, a study of the political and military forces that shaped the war’s largest racial massacre. His latest book is Long Road to Antietam: How the Civil War Became a Revolution (2012), which deals with the political and strategic crisis that transformed the conduct and objectives of the Union and the Confederacy.

He has also written three historical novels. Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln (2000) received the Michael Shaara Award for Civil War Fiction (2001) and the Salon.com Book Award (2000). A chapter was reprinted in the Library of America’s Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy (2009). The Return of Henry Starr (1988), is a historical Western about an American social bandit. The Crater: A Novel of the Civil War (1980) was the first work of fiction offered by the History Book Club. His other works include So Dreadfull a Judgment, a collection of primary documents concerning King Philip's War (1675-77), published in 1978. Articles and reviews have appeared in American Literary History, American Quarterly, Berkshire Review, Journal of Popular Culture, Prospects 9, American Historical Review, Journal of the West, Western Historical Quarterly, William and Mary Quarterly, Radical History Review and Representations. His article "Nostalgia and Progress: Theodore Roosevelt's Myth of the Frontier," in American Quarterly received the 1981 Don D. Walker Prize as the best article on Western American literature.

Slotkin has been awarded fellowships from the NEH and Rockefeller Foundation. In 1987 he received a Distinguished Achievement Citation from Brown University; and in 1986 was elected a Fellow of the Society of American Historians. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010, and in 2012 received the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Western Literature Association. He has twice received Wesleyan’s Binswanger “Excellence in Teaching” Award (1997 and 2007).

He often serves as a consultant and on-screen interviewee for media projects on violence, racism, popular culture, the Civil War and the West. Recent projects include “America: The Story of Us,” History Channel (2009-10); Custer’s Last Stand: American Experience (2010); “Clint Eastwood” (American Masters, 2000), “Colt: Legend and Legacy” (PBS/1998), "Big Guns Talk" (TNT, 1997), and “Gunfighter Nation” on Bill Moyers & Co., PBS (2013). 

Julie Salamon

How did you become a writer?

During my childhood in a tiny, rural village in Southern Ohio, it never occurred to me that writing books was a possibility. But when I arrived at college that fall and people asked what I wanted to do, I said, as if I’d always known, I want to be a writer. That desire never wavered.

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

I’ve been influenced by almost every writer I’ve read, but some have inspired in particular ways: Rebecca West, E.B. White, Norman Mailer, Upton Sinclair, Edith Wharton, Isaac B. Singer, Philip Roth and Laura Ingalls Wilder. George Dardess and Jesper Rosenmeir were influential teachers, as was Raymond Sokolov, my editor at The Wall Street Journal arts section for a decade.

When and where do you write?

For first drafts, I keep “business hours,” force myself to sit in front of my computer pretty much 9-5, hoping a few hours of productivity will emerge (with breaks to walk the dog, pace, make cups of tea).  I write on a PC perched on a big wooden desk in my office, which doubles as a guest room, in my apartment in New York City.

What are you working on now?

I just finished “Cat in the City,” an illustrated novel for young readers (7-12), working again with the wonderful artist Jill Weber. Penguin’s Dial Press for Young Readers is publishing the book next fall.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Depends on how you define writer’s block. I’ve gone for stretches when I’ve hated everything I’ve written, but I always keep writing.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Whenever you think something is finished, put it aside for a week or more, then take another look.

Julie  Salamon has written a nine books in many genres, on the subjects of show business, the Holocaust, murder, charity and philanthropy, and life in a big city hospital. She was a reporter and the film critic for The Wall Street Journal for 16 years, and then a culture writer on the staff of the New York Times. She is a graduate of Tufts University and New York University School of Law. She is chair of the BRC, a social services organization in New York City that provides care for people who are homeless and may suffer from addiction or mental disease. She is co-president of The Village Temple, a Reform Jewish congregation in Greenwich Village, and a mentor with Girls Write Now, a writing and mentoring program for New York City public high school girls. Born in Cincinnati and raised in Seaman, Ohio, a rural town of 800; in 2008 she was inducted into the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame. New York City has long been home; she lives in downtown Manhattan with her husband Bill Abrams, executive director of Trickle Up. They have two children, Roxie and Eli, and a cat and dog, Kuro and Maggie.