Nora Raleigh Baskin

How did you become a writer?

I suppose that is a two-part question. I wanted to be a writer since I was twelve years old. At that point in my life I had moved eleven times and gone to five different schools, had been abandoned by my mother, my father, and then most recently my step-mother. On July 25, 1974, I wrote in my diary, “It was just today I realized what a nobody I am. I can write but after all I am just one of, perhaps a thousand who dream of a career.” What I didn’t know then was that as soon as you decide to write, and then you write, you are a writer. Becoming an author, however, and getting published didn’t happen for another 27 years. It took just under a decade of rejections, until I found my voice and my true heart and I had accumulated enough skill to put it all together. 

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

If it were not for my language Arts teacher, Mr. Thompson encouraging me to express myself creatively, instead of acting out and getting in trouble (I was suspended from school in 6th grade)I would not be where I am today. Writing, and Mr. Thompson saved my life. As far as writers and books, every single book I read influences me. I’ve just discovered the beauty of rereading a novel. I used to think it was a waste of time when there are so many great books to be read, but I see now that the first time can be for STORY, and the second time I can slow down and pay more attention to the LANGUAGE. Presently, I am rereading The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender. Her sentences and word choice are blowing me away. Even more. 

When and where do you write?

I write at home, always. To be near my kitchen, and my dog and my cat. I need to be where I feel safe, and comfortable enough to let myself be carried away. When? I write whenever. If I am deeply engaged in something, as I am now, I will write from 6 am to bedtime, taking time to eat, yoga, walk in the woods, but getting right back to it. Other times, I can go months without actually writing. Living and thinking, reading and learning are all parts of the process. I hope I never stop doing that. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block

I am going to say no, because as I wrote above, a part of writing is sometimes just being. Experiencing. Certainly, reading. That is NOT to say that every time I sit down to write, I write anything good or worthwhile. But that is another question and answer altogether. 

What are you working on now? 

I am about 100 pages into what will be an adult psychological thriller-type literary novel. At least that’s my goal. Wish me luck. 

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

Every time you write a sentence, ask yourself: Is it true? Is it true? Is it true?

What’s your advice to new writers?

Everyone is so different with different approaches and different styles. Some people revise every chapter before moving on (not me!) others want to get the whole thing out before they even know what they are writing about. I’d be very hesitant to give any advice. If I had to say one thing though, I’d say write what you are passionate about, write what truly and deeply interests you, because you are going to be living with it for a long, long time. Write on!

Nora Raleigh Baskin (norabaskin.com) is the author of fourteen novels for young adults and a contributor to several short story collections. Her personal narrative essays have appeared in Writer Magazine, Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and NCTE Voices From the Middle. Her books have won several awards, including the 2010 American Library Association Schneider Family Book Award for Anything But Typical (S&S), and in 2016, an International Literacy Association Notable Books for a Global Society for Ruby on the Outside (S&S). Ms. Baskin has taught creative writing classes for both adults and young adults for over twenty years in such places as Gotham Writers Workshop, Fairfield Co. Writers Studio, Manhattanville College MFA, and S.U.N.Y Purchase. Her newest middle-grade novel Seven Clues to Home, a collaborative two-voice project will be published Spring, 2020 (Knopf).

Carole Barrowman

How did you become a writer?

I’ve always been a writer. I can’t remember any time when I wasn’t writing stories. My first public piece was for a high school writing contest. I wrote a story based on David Bowie’s Life on Mars…because, you know, at 15 I decided I could do better. Then I went to journalism school where I learned to craft a story and write well on a deadline.

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

I was always a voracious reader and my parents never placed limits on what I could read. Everyone in my family read. So I grew up with books. I remember reading my papa’s pulp fiction westerns when he finished them. My tastes were eclectic. I grew up in the ’60s in a small town outside of Glasgow, Scotland. When I was eight, I developed a rare blood disorder and was hospitalized for a couple of months. The head of my primary school wouldn’t let my mom bring me books from school that were above my grade level and I quickly ran out. Luckily my teacher, Mrs. Silver (a hero in my reading life) ignored him and she kept me supplied with all the books I wanted. As a child, I read lots of classics like Alexander Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, CS Lewis, Enid Blyton and E. Nesbit. I loved adventure stories of all kinds and I think they influenced the way I pace and structure a story to this day. And I still read voraciously. I read four or five books a week. When I leave the house, I always take a book. You know, just in case…

When and where do you write?  

I can’t write every day because of my teaching schedule. I try block off one day a week when I write for 8-9 hours and the rest of the week I write when I can. When my children were young, I converted my side of a double closet into a cubby where I wrote for years. I also wrote what I now call my ‘practice’ novel in that cubby (where it shall forever remain). When my daughter went off to college, I took over her bedroom as my office. It’s packed with my books and lots of pop culture figures and toys. I like to play when I’m thinking.

What are you working on now? 

For the last few years when I’m between projects, I’ve been working on a story about a female photographer documenting the civil war in the camps and field hospitals around Washington. Walt Whitman and Clara Barton are also main characters. When I realized the story had become a novel, my agent encouraged me to finish it. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I don’t do writer’s block. Getting stuck, hitting a dead-end, feeling uninspired, or hating every word on my page are all part of writing. I’m okay with all of those fraught moments because I’ve learned to trust my imagination and my process. I know I’ll work things out. 

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

I’m a student of Elmore Leonard’s school of writing. I think his Ten Rules (yes, they are rules, and, yes, they can be broken, but in my experience beginning writers deserve to know some of the rules that more experienced writers have figured out how to break). I think I’ve always resonated with Leonard’s advice because I trained as a journalist and most of his advice comes from that particular wellspring. I also hate adverbs. Kill them all… or at least wound them a little.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read like a writer…and kill all the adverbs!

Carole Barrowman was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland, which she credits for her inherent sarcasm and cheekiness. Carole is a Professor of English and Director of the Creative Studies in Writing program at Alverno College in Milwaukee, WI. In collaboration with her wee brother, John Barrowman (Arrow, Torchwood, Doctor Who), Carole has written nine books, including the acclaimed middle grade trilogy, Hollow Earth (Simon & Schuster), a YA series, The Orion Chronicles (Head of Zeus), comic series for DC Comics (The Dark Archer), Titan Comics (The Tale of the Selkie, Station Zero, The Culling), and a web-based series with Legendary Comics (Acursian). Barrowman is a regular reviewer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and a contributor to WTMJ4’s The Morning Blend. Barrowman is also one of the Hugo Award winning writers for the Chicks Dig Timelords anthology.

Tess Gerritsen

How did you become a writer? 

First I was an avid reader. I was crazy about Nancy Drew mysteries, and by the age of 7, I knew I wanted to write stories as well. My parents weren't convinced that was a viable choice of career, and my father insisted I go into the sciences. I took a detour to medical school, worked as a doctor for about 5 years, but never stopped nurturing the hope that I'd write novels someday. When I went on maternity leave for my first child (who was a very good napper!) I'd write whenever he was asleep. That's how I wrote my first novels -- on maternity leave. A few years later I sold my first romantic thriller to Harlequin, and that's how I first broke into publishing.

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

Number one influences were the books I loved in my childhood, by Tolkien, Asimov, Victoria Holt, Agatha Christie. And I had wonderful teachers in high school who kept encouraging me to write -- and who knew I'd be a novelist long before my parents did. 

When and where do you write? 

I have a home office overlooking the sea. That's where I do all my writing, usually with pen and paper for the first draft.

What are you working on now? 

I've just finished writing a thriller novel in collaboration with Gary Braver, a project where he wrote the male POV and I wrote the female POV. And now I'm working on the next Rizzoli & Isles novel, tentatively titled MRS RIZZOLI.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Every single time. It's a consequence of my plotting process, which involves no planning whatsoever. I start writing, get stuck midway through when I don't know whodunnit or whydunnit and I have to stop and figure out the last third of the book. I have to walk away from it, spend a lot of time walking or driving or staring up at the ceiling. But I always manage to solve the problem.

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

My literary agent once told me: "Readers want to know secrets. They want to learn how insiders (in whatever profession) think." So I try to open the door to the medical world, and reveal how doctors or pathologists would approach a problem.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don't get hung up on the first draft. Don't worry if it's flawed. Just keep writing till the end and don't stop to revise. Don't feel you have to know everything about a character, or everything about your plot, before you can start writing. Sometimes the best plot twists happen on the fly.  

Trained as a medical doctor, Tess built a second career as a thriller writer. Her 28 novels include the Rizzoli and Isles crime series, on which the TV show "Rizzoli & Isles" is based. Among her titles are HARVEST, GRAVITY, THE SURGEON, PLAYING WITH FIRE, and THE SHAPE OF NIGHT. Her books are translated into 40 languages and more than 30 million copies have been sold. She lives in Maine.