Carl Safina

How did you become a writer?

Very slowly, by writing first a few little items for newsletters, then a lot of research papers, then in policy journals, then books and magazines. It was 20 years from my first newsletter article (age 22) to my first book (age 42).

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

Peter Matthiessen, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Thoreau, John McPhee, Barry Lopez—

When and where do you write?

Wherever I can as I bounce around and when not bouncing in a small comfortable studio behind my house.

What are you working on now?

Planning a new book on animal behavior.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

For me it doesn’t seem to apply to non-fiction.

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

“Whenever you write, tell a story.”

What’s your advice to new writers?

There are no rules, but there is one rule: to be a writer you have to write.

Carl Safina’s writing about the living world has won a MacArthur “genius” prize, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships; book awards from Lannan, Orion, and the National Academies; and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. His seabird studies earned a PhD in ecology from Rutgers; he then spent a decade working to ban high-seas drift nets and to overhaul U.S. fishing policy. Safina is now the first Endowed Professor for Nature and Humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and runs the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the PBS series Saving the Ocean. His writing appears in The New York Times, TIME, Audubon, and on the Web at National Geographic News and Views, Huffington Post, CNN.com, and elsewhere. He is author of the classic book, Song for the Blue Ocean. Carl’s seventh book is Beyond Words; What Animals Think and Feel. He lives on Long Island, New York with his wife Patricia and their dogs and feathered friends.

Larry Tye

How did you become a writer?

By accident. 

I was deferring law school after college and, as a native New Englander, wanted to see another part of America. Being a reporter seemed like just the way to be a voyeur, so I talked myself into a job at the Anniston Star in Alabama, found I loved reporting and writing, and stayed in journalism 20 years (I never did get that law degree). Then I made the easy jump to books, which were a longer form of telling the same kind of stories I loved doing in journalism.

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

Too many to name them all, but the ones who matter most in my life are my literary agent/friend/handholder Jill Kneerim, my old Boston Globe pal and best journalist I know Sally Jacobs, my Nieman Fellowship curator/mentor Bill Kovach, and my wife Lisa.

When and where do you write? 

I start at 4:30 in the morning, go until lunch, restart early afternoon and go until dinner. I like writing best at our place near the water on Cape Cod.

What are you working on now?

I just sold to Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt my next book--a bio of Senator Joe McCarthy, whose dark story seems more relevant today than ever.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Journalists can't afford to, and that's one of the best habits I have taken from journalist to books.

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

To think before I start writing about what my book talk will be, because those are the high points/takeaways you want to convey to readers, then to work backwards.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Persistence -- with everything from coming up with just the right topic, to finding a literary agent who loves you and your topic, to sticking it out and reworking your proposal until you find a publisher, to writing about something you love so much you have no choice.

Larry Tye is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book is a biography of Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general, U.S. senator, and presidential candidate. Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon explores RFK’s extraordinary transformation from cold warrior to fiery leftist.

Mark Kurlansky

How did you become a writer?

I decided when I was about seven or eight years old that I wanted to be a writer and that has always been my identity. If when I was ten years old someone had asked me I would have told them, “I am a writer.” The great thing about being a kid is that you can fly under the radar because no one asks you. They only ask pointlessly “How’s school?” And you don’t even have to answer because you know they don’t really care.

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

When I was growing up my big influences were Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Jack London  the beats and Ferlinghetti. But then there was Dostoyevsky and the French classic , especially Zola and Hugo. My tenth grade teacher Walt Taylor who played a jazz alto sax and said things like “Can you dig this, cats”  and loved literature and great writing was a great influence. And I am only beginning to realize how much of an influence my father was. He was a dentist with an office within walking distance. No receptionist or hygienist, he worked very long hours alone with his patients listening to opera. 

When and where do you write? 

I write in an apartment across the street from the one I live in for ten to twelve hours a day if I am in town.

What are you working on now? 

I am working on a book about milk, ten thousand years of recipes and arguments about health, environment, treatment of animals and more. Lots of very old recipes. And a YA book on disappearing insect—a huge threat to the natural order. And a book about salmon, magnificent poetic animal threatened by urbanization, deforestation, dams, pollution, climate change, mismanagement, and a few other things.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Can’t imagine it. Just the opposite, I am incapable of stopping. Maybe it is not always good but I always have to do it.

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

Since I am not big on writer advice this is a hard one for me to answer. It is always said that you should write about subjects with which you are familiar and this is good advice. To me this has always meant that to be a writer you had to have lots of experiences. Going to the right college, making a connection and getting a book contract as soon as you are out of school is not a good path to great writing.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Two things. Write constantly. It's like playing a musical instrument. You won’t get there if you don’t practice. And the other piece of advice is don’t listen to me. Or anyone else. A writer has to find her or his own way. Nancy Miller, who has edited about eighteen of my thirty books, once said to me that my great strength was that I didn’t listen to my teachers in school. Major in something else in school. Use that time to learn something useful like philosophy or art or history or biology. I majored in theater. Don’t spend a lot of time on courses and workshops. Spend that time on writing. A writer works alone, if you don’t like being alone it will be very hard for you to be a good writer. 

Mark Kurlansky’s thirtieth book, Havana: A Subtropical Delirium, is coming out in March from Bloomsbury. His web site is markkurlansky.com.