Philip Hensher

How did you become a writer?

I always had that itch to write. I suppose it needs an opportunity--an urgent subject coinciding with a stretch of time. In my case the occasional, disorganised desire to write something came to a point during four weeks in a house in Sicily in the summer of 1991, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. 

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

The influences come and go, and sometimes I've gone crazy for a writer in the period leading up to writing a particular book - Natalia Ginzburg, Henry Green, Dickens, Kingsley Amis, Arnold Bennett, Evelyn Waugh - a varied lot, I see.

When and where do you write?

When I'm writing, between 7 and 10 or 11 in the morning. I've got a desk but actually I write more naturally at the end of the dining room table. Then all the papers have to be lifted off in time for lunch. 

What are you working on now?

I finished a novel in the spring, which I'm putting on one side and will come back to in a couple of months. It's scheduled for publication in February 2018. I didn't want to rush this one.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No. Sometimes I haven't written for a few months or even a year. That's called not writing. If it really won't come you walk away and go and look at life and forget you're supposed to be a writer altogether. In the end it comes. Real writer's block - the sort where you just cannot do it - is rare and I believe terrifying. The sort where you just can't think of something to write isn't worth worrying about - it is a waste of everyone's time to sit and force yourself to type when the tank is empty.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Never, ever, write "As X happened, Y started to happen" unless there is a direct cause between the two. There's no need to explain how things are linked in fiction. "As John looked out of the window, Mary started to chop the tomatoes" is always inferior to "John looked out of the window. Mary started to chop the tomatoes." A simple point with profound ramifications about the writer's responsibility to the reader's imagination.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Focus on the externals when writing about character, social exchange, events. The insides of characters' heads are always much more similar than what bags they are carrying, and in the end much less revealing.

Philip Hensher was born in London in 1965. His novels have won the Ondaatje Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and been shortlisted for many others, including the Man Booker Prize. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1998 and awarded an honorary degree by Sheffield University in 2015. He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bath Spa and lives in London and Geneva.

Brin-Jonathan Butler

How did you become a writer?

My first memory is of the sound my father's finger tips pounding away at an old type writer before dawn up in the country. It stirred me out of a dream. I had an early romance with the mystery and dark magic of his private struggle filling blank pages yet not being able to finish the book. It was never a stain I had much interest in mopping up. The spike broke off in the vein pretty early for me with this racket and with my old man.   

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

Italo Calvino, George Orwell, Van Gogh's letters, J.D. Salinger, Lydia Davis, Margarite Duras, Robert Hughes, Cervantes, Richard Ben Cramer, Steinbeck, Gogol, DBC Pierre, Jimmy Cannon, Mark Kram Sr., Hunter S. Thompson, Kundera, Kerouac, Michael Herr, Hemingway, Kafka, Patricia Highsmith

When and where do you write? 

I write at four in the morning wherever I happen to be located, preferably in the company of my cat Raul here in Spanish Harlem. I come from generations of Dutch farmers and don't think I look at a blank page much different than they looked at untended, fertile soil. 

What are you working on now? 

A profile of an aging fighter looking for redemption with a heavyweight title shot. Maybe another book down the road. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Nearly every morning, but that makes a couple thousand words a little sweeter by the time you're done. Maybe you get to keep 500 of them as a bonus. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?

Van Gogh's: “What am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart.” Having written a million words before I sold even one, these words kept me afloat. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

People are always remembered for what they gave, never what they had. Funny how that is, huh? Well, unfortunately we don't always make it that easy, but try to find something in your audience that makes us worth letting all your stars out. 

Brin-Jonathan Butler has had his work published in ESPN The Magazine, Esquire, Harper's, The Paris Review, Salon, and Vice. His Cuban memoir, The Domino Diaries, was short-listed for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing and was a Boston Globe Best of 2015.

Imbolo Mbue

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer after first teaching myself to write over the span of almost a decade, then writing a novel, and finding an agent to represent me. Most of my self-education came from reading writers I admire—in their works I found inspiration and saw what excellence looked like. I also read far and wide: thrillers, poems, non-fiction, works by authors from all over the world, anything and everything I could read to see great writing in as many forms as possible.

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

The long list of writers whose works inspired me include Toni Morrison, Frank McCourt, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Junot Diaz, Jonathan Franzen, Gary Shtenygart, Isabel Allende, Ha Jin, Jhumpa Lahiri, Pablo Neruda, Kazuo Ishiguro…

When and where do you write?

I write sitting at the dining table in my living room, usually early in the morning or late at night.

What are you working on now?

I’m mostly writing essays on topics like dreams, home, and migration.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Thankfully, no, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays at bay. I have, however, decided at many times to step away from my work so I could “spend time” with characters, or see the story more clearly.

What’s your advice to new writers?

My advice is to keep writing—it’s the advice I got from agents who read my earlier work but rejected it because it wasn’t yet ready. Getting rejected repeatedly was far from pleasant, but I’m glad I took the advice and kept writing and pushing myself to get better.

Imbolo Mbue is a native of Limbe, Cameroon. She holds a B.S. from Rutgers University and an M.A. from Columbia University. A resident of the United States for over a decade, she lives in New York City. Behold the Dreamers is her first novel.