How did you become a writer?
Sometimes it feels like I've always been a writer, in part because it's the only thing for which I've ever had much of an aptitude. I've been writing professionally since I was 15, when I started covering sports events for the Downers Grove Reporter, a now-defunct weekly newspaper in my hometown outside of Chicago. Later, I studied journalism at the University of Illinois, where I worked on a college newspaper, the Daily Illini, with an incredible number of stunningly talented people, including Dave Cullen, who went on to write the bestseller Columbine, and Larry Doyle, who later wrote for "The Simpsons," became a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and won the 2008 Thurber Award for American Humor. After spending a number of years in journalism--most notably at the political magazine In These Times--I went back to school and got an MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan, where I studied with a bunch of amazing folks who've gone on to become authors, including William Lychack, Michael Paterniti, Sara Corbett and Cammie McGovern. I was a good reporter and researcher before I went to graduate school. But Michigan was where I really learned about storytelling.
Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
Among the educators who had an early impact on me were a high-school journalism teacher, Rita DuChateau, and a college journalism professor, Bob Reid. In the MFA program at the University of Michigan, I was lucky to study under two great writers, Nicholas Delbanco and Charles Baxter, both of whom taught me much about the writing life and the craft. I've also had great magazine editors (especially James Weinstein and Sheryl Larson at In These Times) and book editors (Jonathan Karp at Random House and Ben George at Little, Brown). My long-list of favorite writers would be the about size of Jorge Luis Borges's Library of Babel, so I'll start my short-list with Borges himself. Among the others who would, depending on the day, probably be included: Virginia Woolf, Alice Munro, Cees Nooteboom, José Saramago, António Lobo Antunes, W.G. Sebald, Toni Morrison, William Maxwell, László Krasznahorkai, Rachel Cusk, Eudora Welty and Wisława Szymborska.
When and where do you write?
In normal times, I love to write in coffee shops. I like being around other people, and I seem to concentrate well in a crowd. (Also, I love the smell of coffee, not to mention the taste, not to mention the caffeine.) I wrote a fairly large percentage my first book, The Island of Lost Maps, at a great pace in Chicago called the Kopi Cafe. During the pandemic, of course, I've had to spend more time in the basement of my house, where I have a messy office overflowing with books.
I write pretty compulsively at this point in life, especially when I'm in the midst of a book project. When I was younger, I used to envy writers who got up early in the morning to work, but I could never quite bring myself of to do it. A case of mid-life insomnia has cured me of that problem. Now I love getting in an hour or two of writing before breakfast.
What are you working on now?
I'm writing some short fiction and looking around for my next nonfiction project. I'm also looking forward to starting as the first-ever director of a new Publishing Institute at DePaul University in Chicago, where I teach creative writing.
Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
I'm an extremely slow writer, so writer's block feels like a chronic condition. When you spend two hours on the same paragraph, writer's block and writing are pretty much the same thing.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
I can't think of any single nugget of wisdom that has had a lasting impact on me. What I cherish is endless input and advice from other writers with whom I exchange drafts of work. I've learned so much from gifted friends like William Lychack, Michael Paterniti and Scott Blackwood, for instance. And I'm blessed to be part of a wonderful writing group that has been meeting more or less regularly for the past 30 years. I love and admire the people in that group--and I always learn from them.
What’s your advice to new writers?
For most people, I'm sorry to report, getting good at the craft takes years. You have to be patient, and you have to keep slogging. And, of course, you have to read. I'm always amazed to encounter young writers who don't seem particularly interested in books. No one expects that someone who doesn't care much for music will miraculously become a good guitarist. Nor should we expect that someone who isn't inclined to read--widely, deeply, passionately, methodically, endlessly--will become a good writer.
Miles Harvey's most recent book is The King of Confidence, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice selection that has been described as a "masterpiece" by National Book Award winner Nathaniel Philbrick. Harvey is also the author of the national and international bestseller The Island of Lost Maps and the recipient of a Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellowship at the University of Michigan. His book Painter in a Savage Land was named a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year and a Booklist Editors’ Choice. He teaches creative writing at DePaul University in Chicago, where he is a founding editor of Big Shoulders Books.
