Jill Watts

How did you become a writer?  

I think the first step in becoming a writer is to become a reader. My mom encouraged us to love reading. And I hadn’t thought about it until recently but from the time I was small I was fascinated by books. When I was really young, I made illustrated books mostly of people working in factories. I think this was because there was an electronics manufacturer near where we lived and you could see the people working through the large windows that faced the street. What drove me as an adult to become a writer was my desire to learn, teach, and contribute to the greater social good. I went to graduate school at UCLA and was fortunate enough to be hired as a History Professor at California State University San Marcos. What they say about universities is true, you must publish. But I enjoy writing and welcome the opportunity because my goal as a historian is to write to support change for the better.

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

In addition to my mom, I had two terrific high school English teachers. Betsy Scarborough and Crandallyn Graham drilled us on smart writing and analysis. In college, I took courses from Professor Edward Reynolds who, at the time, was working on Stand the Storm, his book on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. From him I learned the importance of “Sankofa,” which in Akan means “return and fetch it.” This gave me the understanding of the urgent need to recover the stories of the past for the benefit the present and future. Doris Kearns Goodwin’s political histories, Blanche Wiesen Cook’s multi-volume biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, and John Lewis’s autobiography Walking in the Wind have all inspired my recent work. When I need a change of pace, I read Raymond Chandler. Chandler is problematic in our time but he weaves suspenseful tales and paints gripping portraits of Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s.  

When and where do you write? 

Since I teach at the university full-time, I mostly write at home during winter and summer breaks. I recently set up a writing space at home that is separate from where I work on my teaching. That has helped me focus. I like to write in the mornings or at night when everything is quiet. Writing with a view is great and turning off email even better. 

What are you working on now? 

I have started a biography of Mary McLeod Bethune. She is a major figure in The Black Cabinet book that I just finished. Few people know that she was the first African American woman to be appointed as an administrator of a federal program. And almost no one remembers that she was not only the most influential African American woman of the first half of the twentieth century but that she ranked overall as one the most important women in the United States at the time. There was so much about her life’s story that I couldn’t include in The Black Cabinet. She rose from the cotton fields of South Carolina to become the founder of Bethune-Cookman University. That trajectory allowed her to emerge as one of the most significant civil and women’s rights activists of the period that preceded Martin Luther King. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I was blocked for several months at a really critical time a number of years ago. What I learned was first that you can’t force writing. Second, I came to the realization that you have to have something you need to say. Third, you have to clean out the clutter in your head before writing. Talk to someone. Meditate. Do yoga. Play or listen to music. Take a walk. Eat desserts but not too many. 

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

Sit down and do it. But even more helpful was the idea that writing just to write is the best place to start. It commences an internal dialogue that allows the ideas to flow and take form as they compete with each other on the page. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

First, write what you know. It is authenticity that reaches readers and allows you to make your contribution. Do your research if the nature of your work requires it. Second, make sure you are writing for the sole purpose of writing. The end goal needs to be selfless. If you are writing for any other purpose—like money or fame or even to settle a score­––it will undermine the work. Third, find a mentor—someone who is familiar with your genre and can give you good honest advice. But most of all, enjoy writing. If you love what you do, it will show. 

Jill Watts (https://jill-watts.com/) is the author of The Black Cabinet: The Untold Story of African Americans and Politics During the Age of Roosevelt (Grove). She has also published three other books: Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood (Amistad), Mae West: An Icon in Black and White (Oxford), and God, Harlem U.S.A.: The Father Divine Story (University of California Press). She is a California native and is a Professor of History at California State University San Marcos where has served as department chair and is currently the coordinator of the History Graduate Program. Her books on Hattie McDaniel and Father Divine have been optioned for film.

Emrys Westacott

How did you become a writer?

I've always dabbled in creative writing, mainly poetry, but the writing I've done for publication has generally been more scholarly. After finishing graduate school I started publishing articles in philosophy journals. That's what academics are and required to do in order to get tenure. A disappointing aspect of that sort of publication, though, is that one typically gets virtually no feedback for the simple reason that most scholarly articles are read by very few people. But then articles that I published on the ethics of gossiping and on the topic of rudeness received some media attention, and the philosophy editor at Princeton University Press invited me to put together a collection of essays on everyday ethics. In doing this, I began consciously to write for a more general audience of readers who might not have much background in philosophy, but who were interested in my topics and were willing to think. 

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

That's a difficult question, because if I name the writers I most admire I might seem to be comparing myself to them, which I wouldn't want to do! In the philosophical canon, the writer who does best what I try to do is perhaps David Hume: he combines originality, philosophical clarity, literary elegance, and a dash of humour. Nietzsche is my favourite stylist, but I wouldn't try to emulate him. Instead, I strive for what he calls, when criticizing John Stuart Mill, "an insulting clarity." I view absolute clarity as a great virtue, and I admire thinkers like Plato, Descartes, and Schopenhauer who achieve it. I'm impatient with any obscurity that I think is deliberate, pretentious, or the result of careless thinking.

When and where do you write? 

Mostly I write in my study in the early morning. I try to write every day, even if it's only for twenty minutes. I find that just turning the engine over a couple of times helps to keep it from rusting up: that is, it keeps me mulling over the matter in hand. If I have a deadline to meet, I'll write anywhere and at any time. But I do find that after about three hours I often stop being very productive.

What are you working on now? 

I'm working on a book about how we need to rethink our notions of both work and leisure as the consequences of the computer revolution really start to kick in and increasing levels of automation make it possible for people to work much less than they do. I believe that instead of having millions unemployed and millions feeling overworked, we should try to make possible a more equitable redistribution of work. And education should not just be about equipping people for the workplace; it should also aim at helping them to get the most out of their leisure time.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

No. Writing is hard work, and sometimes I don't write due to laziness. But I assume that is different from writer's block.

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

Write every day, even if only for twenty minutes. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

1. Write every day. 100 words a day (which is hardly anything) = 70,000 words in two years (which is a book).

2. Be a perfectionist. Work hard in choosing your words, crafting your sentences, and organizing your text with a view to making the finished product as clear, precise, and as engaging as possible.

3. Don't be a perfectionist. That is, don't let an awareness of your limitations, or fear of criticism, inhibit you. When I play golf, I know perfectly well that I'm not Tiger Woods. But I can still enjoy playing, can hope to improve, and can occasionally hit a fine shot. I find it helps to adopt the same attitude toward my writing. There are many philosophers who are cleverer than me, scholars who are more erudite than me, and writers who are more creative or stylish than me. But that's no reason for me not to have a go.

Emrys Westacott was born in Nottingham, and grew up in Chesterfield (UK). He studied philosophy at the University of Sheffield, McGill University, and the University of Texas at Austin. Since 1996 he has taught philosophy at Alfred University in Western New York. His work has appeared in various publications, both scholarly and popular, including Philosophy Now, The Humanist, The Philosophical Forum, International Studies in Philosophy, the International Journal of Applied Philosophy, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Think, and The Philosopher's Magazine. He has written three books: Thinking Through Philosophy (co-authored with Chris Horner) (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2000); The Virtues of our Vices (Princeton Univ. Press, 2012); and The Wisdom of Frugality (Princeton, 2016). Further information, including links to his writings in a variety of genres can be found at his website:

https://sites.google.com/site/ewestacott/

Scott Newstok

How did you become a writer?

Until How to Think like Shakespeare, I’ve felt stuck in some ruts that are endemic to academics. It’s really only now that I feel I can begin to claim to have become a writer.

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

As I gladly acknowledge in the book, my secondary school teacher Tim Blackburn first taught me how to think like Shakespeare. He assigned serious reading, crafted ingenious writing prompts, and gave us shockingly detailed and rapid feedback (often returning a batch of 60 marked papers the day after they were submitted). He made us think we had something to say. 

Some favorite essayists: Christopher Alexander, Hannah Arendt, James Baldwin, John Berger, Jorge Luis Borges, Kenneth Burke, Willa Cather, Stanley Cavell, J. M. Coetzee, Lydia Davis, Emerson, Geoff Dyer, Ralph Ellison, Zbigniew Herbert, Pauline Kael, Montaigne, Zadie Smith, Edward Tufte, Robert Warshow, Virginia Woolf. With Emily Dickinson, I thank these Kinsmen of the Shelf.

When and where do you write? 

I used to think I wrote best late at night, but now in mid-life, my head seems clearest early in the morning, before my family wakes. 

Where do I write? Ideally, in silence, in seclusion, and surrounded by my books. All three are rare! But occasionally they converge: in my college office; in a basement closet; ideally, at lakeside cabin.

• In silence: like the cranky Arthur Schoepenhauer, I feel something akin to pain at the sudden sharp crack, which paralyzes the brain, rends the thread of reflection, and murders thought.

• In seclusion: as Virginia Woolf knew, all writers need (and women have chronically lacked) a room of [their] own, let alone a quiet room or a sound-proof room.

• Surrounded by my books: like Montaigne, without order, without method, and by peece-meales I turne over and ransacke, now one booke and now another.

What are you working on now? 

I just finished an essay on Ira Aldridge, whose stunning career took him across 19th century Europe. We remember Aldridge today as the first black Shakespearean to achieve international professional renown. In fact, he’s the first American actor to do so. 

I’ve long been fascinated by the career of Orson Welles. Last year I was lucky to have a fellowship at the Folger Shakespeare Library, where I explored their archives, as well as those at the Library of Congress, just across the street.

Other projects have been simmering off-and-on for over a decade: thinking through the multilingual roots of English phrases such as “love and cherish”; pondering the odd status of Duluth, my hometown, in the American cultural imagination.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Frequently. I love this advice from Alastair Fowler’s How to Write: “the best way to begin is not to. Or rather, to have already begun in the past.” When stuck, I delve into research. This can become a crutch; I know I read far too much in proportion to how little I write. But I can’t help it — I really enjoy it, and every time I chance upon a new insight, as we rub and polish our brains by contact with those of others, per Montaigne. 

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

Erasmus knew that the secret of style was no secret at all: write, write, and again write. Even something as banal as an email can be an occasion to think hard about the best way to phrase something. As Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us: The intellect is a muscle; it must be exercised.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Little more than what Werner Herzog advises aspiring filmmakers: Read, read, read, read, read. Those who read own the world; those who immerse themselves in the Internet or watch too much television lose it. 

For more detailed guidance, I endorse what Lydia Davis enjoins: 

Go to primary sources and go to the great works to learn technique. . . .  Read the best writers: maybe it would help to set a goal of one classic per year at least. Classics have stood the test of time, as we say. Keep trying them, if you don’t like them at first — come back to them.  . . . How should you read? What should the diet of your reading be? Read the best writers from all different periods; keep your reading of contemporaries in proportion—you do not want a steady diet of contemporary literature. You already belong to your time.

Scott Newstok is professor of English and founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment at Rhodes College. A parent and an award-winning teacher, he is the author of Quoting Death in Early Modern England and the editor of several other books. He lives in Memphis, Tennessee.