Mark Kriegel

How did you become a writer?

My father is a writer, so I set out not to be one. For a while in college, I had some vague idea that I might be a lawyer. That lasted until I walked out of the LSATs. I was 21, and by then knew just enough to think I should apprentice as a newspaper reporter. It was a pretty good idea, actually. Being a reporter should give you an ability to observe well, and a lot of good material from which to work. 

That said, I remember Richard Price telling me that writing wasn’t something you choose, so much as it chooses you. In my case, I suspect it’s also a genetic affliction. My father writes about polio (he lost the use of his legs in 1944, when he was 11), the Bronx (where he grew up) and the idea of masculinity.

I write about fame, New York (well, not so much anymore), the idea of masculinity (every sportswriter does, whether he – or she – realizes it or not), and – great surprise – fathers and sons.

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

My father made sure I knew sentence structure and grammar. But it runs deeper than mere instruction. There are certain beats to his sentences, cadences that find their way into my copy without me consciously knowing – even for the essay pieces I write for television. 

I had a professor at Columbia J-School, Robin Reisig. She was always xeroxing and handing out great pieces of journalism – New York journalism, mostly, Breslin, Gay Talese, Tom Wolfe, as I recall – and explaining exactly why they were great. She wasn’t always organized, but she had the most keen and precise sense of journalistic anatomy, from word choices to sentence structure to paragraphs. I’m ever in her debt. 

Pete Hamill was a wonderful, generous teacher. I turned a newspaper column into a first novel under his watch. He showed me how every step of the way, though he should be held harmless for the final product. 

Other influences: Richard Price; Pete Dexter, whose collection of newspaper columns, Paper Trails, should be required reading anywhere any kind of writing is taught; and Nick Tosches, whose biography of Dean Martin gave me an idea of how I might write about Joe Namath. 

When and where do you write?

Mostly, when I absolutely need to. I used to write late into the night. Now I find my head most clear early in the morning. I write in my office at home, unless I’m on the road.

What are you working on now?

The last couple of years I’ve written mostly essay pieces for television. I write about football for the NFL Network, and boxing for Showtime. As it happens, though, I think I finally found a subject today, something for a big, fat biography. Or, at least, I envision it as such. And as it remains in the envisioning stages, it’s not something I can share. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Every day, in some form or another. And I only know of one cure – the deadline. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Never underestimate the value of sheer physical endurance. 

Mark Kriegel is the author of critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers, Namath: A Biography, about Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Namath, and Pistol: the Life of Pete Maravich. His 2012 book, The Good Son: The Life of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini – about a boxer’s relationship with his father, and a man who died at his hands in the ring – was made into a documentary by the same name.

Edward Hirsch

How did you become a writer?

I began writing in high school out of a kind of emotional desperation. I was overwhelmed by feelings I didn’t understand. Writing helped me get a grip on myself, it helped me gain some distance and control. I wouldn’t call what I was doing writing poetry, exactly, because I was just emoting, not really making anything. Later, in college, I fell in love with poetry and began trying to craft it. I became addicted to making poems, or trying to make them. That addiction turned out to be lifelong. 

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

The English Metaphysical poets were my first love. I came to them through the moderns, especially Eliot, their great champion.  I loved the way that Donne and Herbert shaped poems, their verbal wit and intellectual mode. Then I fell in love with the romantic poets, who brought so much feeling into the lyric. I moved from the great moderns to the Middle Generation, who created poetry on a more intimate, human scale, which I still find moving. 

When and where do you write?

I’ve always liked working in coffee shops and diners.  But I also work at home, of course, and sometimes at my office, after hours.  All through my thirties I often worked through the night in my study at home.  Now I like early mornings. 

What are you working on now?

Last year I published a book-length elegy for my son Gabriel.  Now I’m trying to write poems in the aftermath of a great grief. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

The very term fills me with a kind of superstitious dread. Every writer has dry spells. Sometimes the cisterns empty and need to be refilled. In the meantime, one continues to work, to hope and trust.   

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read, read, read. There has never been a great writer who was not also a great reader. In fact, most writers are readers who have spilled over. We respond to what we read and find ourselves, our own voices, in the process. 

Edward Hirsch, a MacArthur Fellow, has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010), which brings together thirty-five years of work, and Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy that The New Yorker called “a masterpiece of sorrow.” He has also written five prose books, among them A Poet’s Glossary (2014), a complete compendium of poetic terms, and How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), a national bestseller.

Mark Leibovich

How did you become a writer?

It was mostly by a stroke of accidental masochism, which I think is how a lot of writers get started. I was an English major in college mostly by default (I was terrible at math, science and a lot of other things). My first job was as an editorial assistant in Boston, at the alternative weekly, the Boston Phoenix. I wasn’t led there by any particular hunger to get into journalism; I just needed a job. It paid nothing and involved mostly clerical work and sorting the mail of actual reporters, some of who had gone onto greatness (long-ago Phoenician Susan Orlean!). I loved the osmosis factor of being in a newsroom and listening to reporters talk. After a few years, I realized these were my people. Eventually they made me a reporter.

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

Dorothy Gonson, an English teacher at Newton South High School, in Newton, Massachusetts, encouraged me to get into journalism. She was the faculty advisor of the school newspaper. I’ve had too many great editors to name, but I will never forget the late great Caroline Knapp, my first editor – an amazing writer/editor and beautiful soul. Every year, I try to read “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser, “Mr. Personality” by Mark Singer and “The Woman at the Washington Zoo” by Marjorie Williams.

When and where do you write?

I’m a newsroom guy – not one of those disappear-into-the-wilderness writers. I like being around other reporters and I miss it if I’m not. Even when no one is around – if it’s a weekend or something – I like to be in an office. There is angst in the walls of a newsroom. I like it.

What are you working on now?

Besides my day job, which involves finishing a profile of a presidential candidate, I’m embarking on a book about Tom Brady and the NFL.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Of course. It is part of the process. Or at least that’s how I’ve rationalized it.  I don’t have any great remedies except to just fight through it and “keep your ass in the chair,” which is a great piece of wisdom I picked up from Richard Ben Cramer (he said that in some book). I’ve written that on many Post-It Notes and stuck it on many computers over the years.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Keep your ass in the chair. If it comes too easily, you’re disqualified.

Mark Leibovich is the chief national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine, based in Washington, D.C. He is known for his profiles on political and media figures, and is the author of three books, including This Town, about the gilded culture of contemporary Washington. The book debuted at #1 on the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in July 2013 and remained on the Times best-seller list for 12 weeks. Leibovich was previously a national political correspondent in the New York Times' Washington Bureau. He came to the Times in 2006 from the Washington Post, where he spent nine years, first as a technology reporter for the Post's business section, then as a political reporter. He lives in Washington with his wife and three daughters.