Dani Shapiro

How did you become a writer?

I didn’t know it was possible to be a writer, when I was growing up. I loved to read, and I wrote constantly, but the idea that I could actually become the person who wrote the books – simply never occurred to me. It wasn’t until I went to college at Sarah Lawrence that I first met “real” writers who taught there. Grace Paley was a teacher and mentor of mine. It wasn’t a smooth road. I dropped out of college after a few years, knocked around for a while, made a mess of my life, and when I went back to school it seemed I had something to write about. (I don’t recommend this as a career path.) I got my MFA, and my graduate thesis became my first published novel. 

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

Virginia Woolf; Anne Truitt; Elizabeth Hardwick; Grace Paley.

When and where do you write? 

Mornings are best. I write either at home in my small office, or in a local cafe.  

What are you working on now? 

I’ve just finished a new book, Hourglass, which will be published by Knopf in April. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

John Gregory Dunne once described what we call writer’s block as a “failure of nerve.” I try to keep that in mind because it de-mystifies it, and makes it possible for me to push past my resistance. It’s all about courage — which involves feeling the fear and doing it anyway. 

What’s your advice to new writers?  

Read. Walk. Don’t succumb to impatience. Play the long game. 

Dani Shapiro is the bestselling author of the memoirs Still Writing, Devotion, and Slow Motion, and five novels including Black & White and Family History. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, One Story, Elle, The New York Times Book Review, the op-ed pages of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and has been broadcast on This American Life. Dani was recently Oprah Winfrey’s guest on Super Soul Sunday. She has taught in the writing programs at Columbia, NYU, The New School and Wesleyan University; she is co-founder of the Sirenland Writers Conference in Positano, Italy. A contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler, Dani lives with her family in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Her next book, Hourglass, will be published by Knopf in the spring of 2017.

Ken Atchity

How did you become a writer?

I don’t remember ever not being a writer, though I’m sure it was my mother’s fault. She’d sit me down at the kitchen table and insist that I write because she knew I had the storytelling genes of her Cajun family in me.

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

Aside from Mom, I was inspired and egged on by teachers in elementary, high school, and college—many through their example. My Yale mentor Tom Bergin published around 60 books BEFORE he retired, then another 20 or so after retirement, illustrating my favorite quote from Benjamin Franklin: “I see nothing wrong with retirement as long as it does not interfere with a man’s work.” Novelist John Gardner was my first and toughest editor, who weaned me from academic writing and taught me to write to be helpful or entertaining—or both. My favorite writers include Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, Robert Ludlum (when he was alive), Carson McCullers (“I can’t stand the word ‘prose’; it’s too prosaic.”), and some of the writers I’ve managed or published including Martin Ott, Misti Mosteller, Jerry Amernic, Milton Lyles and John Scott Shepherd.

When and where do you write?

I write anywhere (right now I’m writing on a flight between Dublin and Newark), including at my desk every day I’m home, on the airplane, train, bus, car (while someone else is driving)—the more exotic location, the better. I also write any time of the day, though much prefer the early morning before the phone, email, and texts begin. You’ll never experience writer’s block if you follow my simple rule: Never sit down to write without knowing what you’re going to write when you sit down.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on a new nonfiction book about “how to get your story to the screen”; a second “romance of mythic identity,” this one set in Naples; and the Louisiana volume of my memoirs—as well as an article about “yoga and the myth of the world tree.”

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

See above. Norman Mailer said, “Writer’s block is a failure of the ego.” And Ray Bradbury: “Start doing more. It’ll get rid of all those moods you’re having!” When you think you’re blocked, you’re not. You just need to take a long walk and let your story figure itself out again so you can sit back down and write it. Good writing should be “automatic writing.”

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don’t confuse writing with rewriting. If you try to do both at the same time, you’ll sabotage yourself. Rewriting is what you start doing when you’ve completed your first draft. Good luck to you all.

Former professor Ken Atchity is a writer (of novels and nonfiction), producer of films for television and theater, literary manager, and publisher (Story Merchant Books). He can be reached at atchity@storymerchant.com.

Curtis Sittenfeld

How did you become a writer?

Like many writers, I wrote stories from the time I was literate, which I think was about age six. Now I have children who are becoming literate. I don't assume they'll be writers or even hope they will, but I suspect I'm more relaxed than some parents about the fact that what they write is often some mix of plagiarism and fan fiction, and that what they like to read is not necessarily high quality (picture books based on episodes of "Dora the Explorer," anyone?). And I'm relaxed because I was the same at their age—enthusiastically influenced by others' work, indiscriminate in my reading choices. As a sidenote, I think I could have had a career writing those picture books based on episodes of TV shows. Some are a mess, and some are quite artful, and I often think about their authors.

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

Alice Munro, Mona Simpson, Lorrie Moore, Andrea Lee, Susan Minot, Jane Austen, Tobias Wolff, Matthew Klam, Ethan Canin, Frank Conroy, Marilynne Robinson, Chris Offutt, The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, The New Yorker.  

When and where do you write? 

I write in an office in my house, usually after my kids go to school. My brain is definitely sharpest in the morning. I almost never write in a public place like a coffee house, and I almost never write when I travel. I'm not philosophically opposed to either, but I have to really be able to concentrate to write fiction. 

What are you working on now? 

I've written a few pages of a new novel. Has anyone ever noticed it's a little daunting to start writing a novel? Just kidding, but it is funny to me that I can have faith in the process and my own abilities yet still feel riddled with doubt at the beginning. When I wrote my third novel, American Wife, which was a fictional retelling of the life of Laura Bush, I saw it as an experiment and decided I'd write about 100 pages and only then decide whether or not to continue moving forward. And this method worked so well (because I hadn't invested years and years, yet I'd also written enough not to hastily abandon it) that I decided I'd always use it going forward. Now I need to remind myself of this decision.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Not in the profound way that I think people mean it. I do allow myself to write very bad sentences that no one ever sees. (Some critics might say I also allow myself to write very bad sentences that others do see? Heaven forbid!)

What’s your advice to new writers?

The usual: read a lot, protect your writing time, make sure you have something to say rather than writing just to be a writer. Because it's rewarding if you like the process, but (alas) it's really not that glamorous.

Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of the novels Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, and Eligible which have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her nonfiction has been published widely, including in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Time, and Glamour, and broadcast on public radio’s This American Life. A native of Cincinnati, she currently lives with her family in St. Louis.