David Kushner

How did you become a writer?

My freshman writing teacher in college encouraged me to pursue it. So I switched my major from Business to English Lit. I liked how it didn’t require me to memorize anything for a grade. Writing came more easily to me than other things, and I enjoyed it. I started writing for the school paper, mainly to get free concert tickets and CDs. Then I discovered Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe, and decided to move to New York after college and try to make it as a writer. It took me a while to break into magazines, but, after working for an early online startup, I got my break with Spin magazine. The Internet was just taking off, and, because of my experience in the field, I was sort of an expert by default. I began writing a monthly digital culture column for Spin then finally got an assignment for Rolling Stone, which eventually led to my first book, Masters of Doom. 

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

Hunter Thompson, Tom Wolfe, MAD magazine, the Atari 2600, The Executioner’s Song, David Foster Wallace, T.C. Boyle, Vonnegut, Kafka, Orwell, Cormac McCarthy, my parents, film and TV.

When and where do you write?

Ideally my desk during the day. But if need be any time or place (preferably with electricity and WiFi).

What are you working on now?

Magazine stories, a screenplay, a book.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No. I consider time spent staring blankly at my screen to be part of the process. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read, write, and be persistent.

David Kushner is the author of Masters of Doom, Jonny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, Levittown, Jacked, and The Bones of Marianna. A contributing editor of Rolling Stone, he has written for publications including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Wired, New York Times Magazine, New York, GQ, and Playboy. The winner of the New York Press Club award for Best Feature Reporting, Kushner has been included in The Best American Crime Reporting, The Best Music Writing, and The Columbia Journalism Review's Best Business Writing anthologies. His ebook, The Bones of Marianna, was chosen by Amazon as a Best Digital Single of 2013. He has taught as an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University, and is the former digital culture essayist for National Public Radio Weekend Edition Sunday. In the mid-90s, we was a prouder and writer for the pioneering music site, SonicNet. Several of his books and articles are being developed for feature film and television. Web: www.davidkushner.com,Twitter: @davidkushner.

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.