Ksenia Anske

How did you become a writer?

I started writing for therapy. My therapist asked me to. I was depressed and very much wanted to kill myself. Journaling forced me to get the pain on paper, and the more I did it, the more I wanted to write stories. Not my own sad depressing story, but stories that have been germinating in my head all these years. It's like I've opened a faucet and out they came, pouring.

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

Gosh, there are too many. Perhaps the biggest are Russian writers Pushkin and Chekhov and morbid Russian fairy tales I grew up on. Then in my teens I have discovered Stephen King (translated in Russian) and have devoured every book of his I could find. Then came Bulgakov, Nabokov, Dostoyevsky, J.R.R. Tolkien. Later, when I came to US without knowing English, my lit teacher in college said I should write. I couldn't believe him. "It's not my first language," I thought. Then my daughter hooked me up on Chuck Palahniuk, and I fell in love with his style. Then there was Harry Potter and if I won't stop now, I can keep going for another 10 pages... So books. Books were my teachers.

When and where do you write? 

I write at a writing desk in my bedroom. Every day. I don't really go anywhere, put on some colorful socks in the morning, drink a bucket of coffee, tweet a little (okay, I tweet a lot), and then start and don't stop until I have written at least 2K words.

What are you working on now? 

CORNERS, a book about 4 kids jumping in and out of 30 books after they discover that corners of the world can be turned like pages of a book. It's a fun story, really, because I get to revisit all those books I loved reading when I was a kid, like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Little Prince and One Thousand and One Nights and Pippi Longstalking.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I don't believe in writer's block. When I'm stuck, I get up and jump around or do a silly dance or stand on my head (for real) and think and think and think. I wait for a new thought to pop in my head, then sit back down and keep writing. If I'm still stuck and slow, it's either because I haven't slept much (then I take a nap) or because the story doesn't excite me anymore. Then I go back and reread it from beginning. That usually gets me going. Or, if still stuck, I read something brilliant. Always gets me unstuck.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write a lot and read a lot. Every day. Don't worry about rules or being read or making a living. Worry about the music of your writing. The rhythm. Train your ear. Listen to the rhythm of others. That will help you discover your own. Your voice. That's all there is to it, really. It's that easy and that hard.

Ksenia was born in Moscow, Russia, and came to US in 1998 not knowing English, having studied architecture and not dreaming that one day she'd be writing. She lives in Seattle with her boyfriend and their combined three kids in a house that they like to call The Loony Bin. She gives all her ebooks away for FREE and tweets a lot.

Philip Ball

How did you become a writer?

The only real answer is that I wrote. Ever since I can remember (in fact, I recently unearthed my first "book" in my cellar, written at the age of 10). Yet it never crossed my mind until I was in my mid-20s that a career in writing was an option. I was always supposed to be a scientist, which is what happens if you seem to have an aptitude for science. Only in retrospect is it clear to me that writing is what I always really wanted to do. But in practical terms, I got there by getting a job as an editor at a top journal (Nature), through pure good furtune, and then using that as a launching base for learning about how to write "properly".

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

There are stacks of good science writers, and while I never had a key influence among them, I learn little bits from anyone who writes well. For example, I noticed my style changing in tiny ways (fewer subjectives at the start of sentences) after reviewing James Gleick's The Information. I felt vindicated in my wish to write beyond the bounds of traditional science writing by the final pages of Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder. My one published novel was hugely indebted to James Meek's The People's Act of Love for showing that it was OK to write in a thoughtful, intelligent way while telling a fantastic yarn. I get influenced by people not because they are doing things similar to me, but because they are inspiring writers: Sebald, Ishiguro, Angela Carter…

When and where do you write?

I write almost entirely in my study in my converted attic, looking out over all of London - which sounds grand, but it's an absolute tip, crammed with books, obsolete children's toys, a spare bed etc. I regard it as a job, and do it from 9.30 until 6.00 each day. A job but not a chore - it's a privilege that I hope I never take for granted.

What are you working on now?

A book on the role of water in Chinese culture and history. It is an absurdly immense subject, but I'm learning a lot - which is one of my key criteria for choosing a new subject for a book. I think I know what my next three books will be after this one, but I'm not saying yet...

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No, I just write really badly when uninspired, and hope that I'll find a way to fix it later. But I suspect it is easier for non-fiction writers, who can fill in the "blocked" days with research. Doing journalism as well as books is great for combatting writer's block too: when the deadline is tomorrow, you have no choice.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Never try to tailor your writing to what you think will sell. But that's not the same as trying to make it engaging, accessible, topical etc. - those are fine. But the subject has to be one you really care about and have something to say about. In the final days of writing the book that won me my biggest award, I was convinced that it was a waste of time and that no one would want to read the book except me. Fortunately I didn't listen to that voice, but it taught me a lesson.

Bio: I am a freelance writer, and previously for many years an editor at the science journal Nature. I studied chemistry at Oxford and physics at Bristol. I have written something like 20 books, depending on how you count them, generally on science and its intersections with culture, art, history and society. I also write regular columns for various science and other magazines, and contribute to newspapers and magazines of whatever kind will have me.

Stuart Dybek

How did you become a writer?

Writing (and reading) gave me a special jolt even as a kid, but I got more serious about writing in high school, although my main passion then was music, especially jazz. I played saxophone but not well enough and I'd ultimately trade the horn for the instrument that in those days was called a typewriter.

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

Music and for that matter the other arts are strong influences. Writing is the only art that has an abstract medium, the other arts come through the senses so I try to swim upstream against abstraction and make language as sensual as possible. the writers I'd list as influences generally are doing that very thing. I read a lot of poetry. Fiction writers who've influenced me over the years include Isaac Babel, Franz Kafka, Hemingway, Eudora Welty, James Joyce...for starters.

When and where do you write?

I rent a little studio stuffed with books, notebooks, tons of records, cds, stereo gear. I spend the day there when I am not teaching, but try as I might, I don't get down to writing until afternoon and work then until evening.

What are you working on now?

A comic--hopefully--memoir type novel set in Chicago where I grew up and a book of poems set in the Caribbean where I once lived for a couple lovely years.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I run hot and cold and in between. I'm grateful for when it seems to come easy, but don't expect that or even trust it. I write to music and that often helps me through the slow times.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Try to practice another art as it will give you a better idea of the role of craft in writing. Learn the craft as if you are learning to make something as that's what writing is: making something, not lit interp. Read as my friend the poet Michael Ryan says "carnivorously."

Two new collections of fiction by Stuart Dybek, Ecstatic Cahoots and Paper Lantern, were published simultaneously by FSG in June 2014. His previous books of fiction are Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, and I Sailed with Magellan. He has also published two volumes of poetry, Brass Knuckles and Streets In Their Own Ink. His work is widely anthologized and appears in publications such as The New Yorker, Harpers, The Atlantic, Tin House, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, and Poetry. Dybek is the recipient of many literary awards including the PEN/Bernard Malamud Prize for “distinguished achievement in the short story”, a Lannan Award, the Academy Institute Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writer’s Award, the Harold Washington Literary Award, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and four O’Henry Prizes. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry and in Best American Fiction. In 2007, he was awarded both a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and the Rea Award for the Short Story. He is the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Northwestern University.