Noah Berlatsky

How did you become a writer?

I've wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember, just about. I got a creative writing degree in college, and when I got out I failed at being a poet and then failed at writing zines. I started doing freelance criticism and arts writing and blogging, and haven't failed at that yet, so here we are.

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

I had a wonderful third grade teacher, Mrs. Stone, who encouraged me to write and told me I was good at it; I'm still thankful for that. As far as writers, James Baldwin is certainly a hero of mine; he's someone who believed, and demonstrated, that criticism could be art. Carol Clover, Sharon Marcus, and Julia Serano are all folks whose work has inspired mine. And of course William Marston and Harry Peter, the creators of the original Wonder Woman comic; I love their work so much I wrote a book about it.

When and where do you write? 

Writing’s a job. I work from home and write every day, sometimes work for hire, sometimes criticism or essays, often both.

What are you working on now? 

My current gigs are working on articles for a business/economics encyclopedia and an online literature study guide. I'm always working on articles and criticism of various sorts. I also have a couple of potential book projects percolating that may or may not happen.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

When I was working on poetry and fiction, I'd sometimes get stuck. That hasn't happened in a long while though. Again, I write every day, and if I don't write the bills don't get paid, so you learn to forge ahead, and if it's not perfect…well you finish it anyway, and move on to the next thing.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read a lot, practice, and remember that success in anything involves a lot of luck, of various sorts. Folks will tell you that if you really want to be a writer, you'll be one, and that if you don't end up as one, it was because you didn't want it enough. This is nonsense. You try your best, and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't, often depending on whether you know the right people, are in the right place at the right time, and/or have enough resources that you can afford to take risks and not earn a whole lot while you struggle to get your feet. Think of writing as any other job, not as a spiritual calling. And think broadly about what being a writer can mean. Work-for-hire isn't necessarily very glamorous, but it's a living.

Noah Berlatsky has written for The Atlantic, Pacific Standard, Reason, and Splice Today, among other venues. He is the editor of the comics and culture blog The Hooded Utilitarian. His book Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter Comics, 1941-1948, is out in January 2015 from Rutgers University Press.

David Hair

How did you become a writer?

I'd always wanted to write, but for various reasons — some practical (young family, busy and stressful work life) and some psychological (lack of confidence) — it took a while to get started. I finally found the space to write, and to my quiet amazement my first novel (a YA fantasy called The Bone Tiki, set in my homeland of New Zealand) got published in 2009, won an award and spawned a six book series, which set me off into fulltime writing, both YA and adult fantasy novels. I'm now 13 books into what I hope will be a lifelong new career.

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

When I was trying to kick-start my writing I attended some writing courses at night school in Wellington, one with Frances Cherry and another with Chris Else. They were invaluable in finding my 'voice' and thinking about technical aspects of character development and story structure, as well as helping to give me the confidence to write. In terms of books, I've never read 'how to' manuals on writing, but tried to learn by reading widely and seeing what works for me as a reader. In terms of writing role-models, I loved Alan Garner's YA books (written before 'YA' was a category) and the way he blended the mythic with the modern; and I fell in love with fantasy after reading Tolkien, Eddings and Donaldson.

When and where do you write?

I write at home, in an upstairs office with a skylight, and a window looking out over the rooftops to Totara Park in Auckland, where I go running most days around midday to clear my head and freshen up. I like to be up early and am usually at my desk by 7.30 am, and will chip away at whatever project I'm busy with for most of the day.

What are you working on now?

I'm currently finalising Book 4 of my adult fantasy series, The Moontide Quartet. It's the last book of the series, with lots of wrapping up and big events, and the deadline is looming!

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not really - unless you count all the years before I began writing! Some days things don't flow, and I step away, work on something else or do jobs around the house, and before long I'm back in the mood. Sometimes I'll run up against a problem with a particular scene or plot device, and will simply skip ahead in the story and keep writing, then go back to the problem scene later to find it's more or less resolved, because looking at what happens after the problem scene helps me focus on what was important in that scene, and enables me to finish it.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write! Have a go, and believe in yourself. You'll never find out what you are capable of if you don't try.

David Hair is a YA and Adult fantasy writer living in Auckland, New Zealand. After a career in financial services, he became a fulltime writer following the publication of his first novel in 2009. He has a degree in History and Classical Studies, and a Diploma in Financial Planning, two grown children and is on the feline side of the cats versus dogs debate. He has two writing awards:

'Best First Book' award, for The Bone Tiki, NZ Post Children's Book Awards 2010

'Young Adult' award, for Pyre of Queens, LIANZA Childrens Book Awards 2012

David has lived in the UK and India and is inspired by travel, history and folklore.

Jacob Appel

How did you become a writer?

I wish I could claim I'd had a great epiphany like Martin Luther in his outhouse or that I'd had a typewriter delivered to my house by accident like Penny Sycamore in "You Can't Take It With You," but I have no such dramatic story to offer. I suppose I became a writer because I was always afraid of not being a writer -- of ending up one of those hopeless souls out of John Cheever's stories, boarding the 5:48 train to Westchester. I watched those unfortunate men and women disembarking from the commuter train as a child, returning to the safety of a town with (to pilfer from Hemingway) wide lawns and narrow minds, and I am so glad I did not become one of them.  How can you argue with a job you can do in your bathrobe?

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

I've been very fortunate to have a series of brilliant teachers -- essayist Andre Aciman, playwrights Tina Howe and Richard Schotter, bioethicist Edward Beiser -- who have taken the time to share their wisdom. I also had a handful of high school teachers (among whom Julie Leerburger, Eric Rothschild and Neil Ginsberg remain living) who tolerated and even encouraged my unconventional ways. I'm reluctant to credit any living writers with influencing me, because I'm not so sure they'd want the "credit"; among the dead, Phillip Larkin has certainly been a profound influence. His appreciation for disappointment and diminished expectations dovetails well with my own innate cynicism. (I can overlook his politics for his poetry.) I'm also a great admirer of Willa Cather, whose slow banishment from the canon is a cause for considerable grief, as well as Shirley Jackson, whose sudden resurrection merits much joy.

When and where do you write?

I'm a psychiatrist at a busy New York City hospital, so I do a lot of my writing in the nursing stations. So do many of my literary-minded colleagues. When you see a doctor typing away in the emergency room, odds are 50-50 that he's working on his novel and not a patient chart.

What are you working on now?

Seducing Sophia Loren through my prose -- she hasn't responded to my novels yet, but I tell myself she's just playing hard to get. On the subject of novels, I have two novels on my agent's desk--one about a sociopathic cardiologist and the other about a teacher who discovers that the American Civil War is a hoax. If you're a publisher interested in buying them, please be in touch. I'm also scribbling away on more stories, all well below the radar screen.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not really. I'm fortunate in that I always have another bad idea for a story or a novel up my sleeve--although it often takes me several hundred pages and months of work to realize how truly deplorable my idea is.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Marry wealthy. And if you marry wealthy, ask your spouse if she has a younger sister who'd be interested in meeting a ne'er-do-well physician-writer in New York City.

Jacob M. Appel is a physician, attorney and bioethicist based in New York City. He is the author of more than two hundred published short stories and is a past winner of the Boston Review Short Fiction Competition, the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award for the Short Story, the Dana Award, the Arts & Letters Prize for Fiction, the North American Review’s Kurt Vonnegut Prize, the Missouri Review’s Editor’s Prize, the Sycamore Review’s Wabash Prize, the Briar Cliff Review’s Short Fiction Prize, the H. E. Francis Prize, the New Millennium Writings Fiction Award in four different years, an Elizabeth George Fellowship and a Sherwood Anderson Foundation Writers Grant. His stories have been short-listed for the O. Henry Award, Best American Short Stories, Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best American Mystery Stories, and the Pushcart Prize anthology on numerous occasions. His first novel, The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up, won the Dundee International Book Prize in 2012. His second novel, The Biology of Luck, was short-listed for the Hoffer Society's Montaigne Medal. Jacob holds graduate degrees from Brown University, Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, Harvard Law School, New York University’s MFA program in fiction and Albany Medical College’s Alden March Institute of Bioethics. He taught for many years at Brown University and currently teaches at the Gotham Writers’ Workshop and the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.