Joan Frank

How did you become a writer? 

I grew up with books and music, and the public library was my church. My parents were English teachers. I did not start until way late, after everyone was dead whom I'd have feared to offend or disappoint. It seemed genetically ordained.

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

E. B. White was perhaps the earliest, with Charlotte's Web. Later, White's essays. Later, To Kill a Mockingbird. My beloved high school English teacher. Later, Thaisa Frank [no relation], Bob Hass, and Stephen Dobyns. Later, everyone who has ever intensely toured interior anguish in prose that makes distilled, wrought, irreducible, shapely music. I've loved the English, the Russians, the French; James, Woolf, McCullers, Mansfield, O'Brien, Porter, Moore, Silber, Munro, Colwin, Maxwell, Toibin, McGahan, Van Booy. There are many, many "sleepers" who mean inexpressible amounts to me—like tiny golden keys to an otherwise terrifying territory—and for which I hold permanent shrines in my heart, like J. L. Carr's A Month in the Country. Anne Michaels, Joan London. I write the still-living authors letters to thank them; invariably they are gobsmacked and delighted, because we all live in the tortured vacuum of our own heads. There are so many, many names to whom I owe a loving debt of gratitude I cannot possibly gather them all at a single bidding. So I keep a constantly-expanding written list of them, many pages single-spaced, and hand over that list or e-mail it to people when they ask. People are, of course, horrified.

Where and when do you write? 

When I worked a day job [most of my life] I wrote wherever and whenever I could steal two minutes. I stole time ruthlessly for years. Now, usually mornings until about 2 p.m., in a little studio converted from an old garage in our backyard. But the notes are always being scribbled and the mind churning.

What are you working on now?

A collection of essays for writers. 

Have you ever suffered from writer's block? 

Sometimes. I just try to accept it quietly and tell myself nothing matters anyway so if the writing comes, it comes, and if not, I'll hang out (in a state of relaxed attentiveness) until it does.

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

Various people have said it different ways. The gist is, shut up about everything else, kick fear aside (we're all gonna be dead soon anyway), and gather all your tools and resources and blind rude chaotic instincts to say what must be said. Also: annihilate expectations attached to its reception.

What's your advice to new writers? 

Shut up about everything else, kick fear aside, and gather all your resources to say what must be said. Also: annihilate expectations attached to its reception.

Joan Frank ( www.joanfrank.org ) is the author of eleven books; eight of literary fiction and three essay collections. Her newest novel, THE OUTLOOK FOR EARTHLINGS, appeared in Fall 2020. Prior recent works include WHERE YOU'RE ALL GOING: FOUR NOVELLAS (Sarabande Books), which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction, and TRY TO GET LOST: ESSAYS ON TRAVEL AND PLACE (Univ. of New Mexico Press), which won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize. She lives in Northern California.

Suzanne Redfearn

How did you become a writer?

I didn’t realize I was a storyteller until I was in my thirties. I always loved to read and would make up elaborate daydreams that would last for hours, but it wasn’t until I actually sat down and wrote out one of my ideas that I realized how much I wanted to share my stories with others. My first story was nothing more than a bucket-list endeavor to prove I could write a novel, but after I finished, I realized how much I love writing, and then I was hooked.

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

The first book that truly moved me was THE OUTSIDERS by S.E. Hinton. It was the first time I got so entirely lost in a story and the characters, I couldn’t get it out of my head. The next great moment in reading was when I was in college and read Ayn Rand’s ATLAS SHRUGGED. Her ideas resonated so strongly with me and I realized novels could change perspectives. A few years later, I read, THE POWER OF ONE by Bryce Courtenay, and it was the perfect combination of both—a story and characters that stayed with me and a theme that altered the way I looked at life.

When and where do you write? 

I used to write at Starbuck’s, but with the pandemic, my routine has been changed to buying my coffee at Starbuck’s and writing in my car in the parking lot where I still have access to Wi-fi. I know it's strange, but I find it hard to focus at home where there are distractions. I write every day and always in the morning. I find, if I skip days, I lose my mojo and it’s hard to get back in the groove.

What are you working on now? 

I was working on a new novel, but then I got the opportunity to write an Amazon Original Story (a short story only 7,000 to 10,000 words long), and so I have switched gears to work on that. I’ve never written a short story, and I am finding it challenging but exciting.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Every day I suffer from writer’s resistance, the reluctance to sit down and do the hard work of writing, knowing it will hurt my brain and make me feel like I am an untalented imposter who has no right to call herself an author. But never once, have I sat down, and not had words end up on the page. They might not be very good words, but all of it is progress that leads me forward, so I am not a big believer in writer’s block.

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

If you want to be a writer, you need to write. The more stories you tell, the more chance you have for success.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Make your characters likable. They can have flaws, but readers want to root for your protagonists (and sometimes even the antagonists).

Suzanne is the bestselling author of four novels: Hush Little Baby, No Ordinary Life, In An Instant, and Hadley & Grace. Born and raised on the East Coast, Suzanne moved to California when she was fifteen. She currently lives in Laguna Beach with her husband where they own two restaurants: Lumberyard and Slice Pizza & Beer. In addition to being an author, Suzanne is an architect specializing in residential and commercial design. When not writing, she enjoys doing anything and everything with her family—skiing, golf, tennis, pickleball, hiking, board games, and reality TV. She is an avid baseball fan. Her team is the Angels.

Lee Goldberg

How did you become a writer?

I've always been one. When I was ten or eleven, I was already pecking novels out on my Mom’s old typewriters. The first one was a futuristic tale about a cop born in an underwater sperm bank. I don’t know why the bank was underwater, or how deposits were made, but I thought it was very cool. I sold these novels for a dime to my friends and even managed to make a dollar or two. In fact, I think my royalties per book were better then than they are now.

I continued writing novels all through my teenage years. By the time I was 17, I was writing articles for The Contra Costa Times and other San Francisco Bay Area newspapers and applying to colleges. Once I got into UCLA, I put myself through school as a freelance writer…for American Film, Los Angeles Times Syndicate, UPI, Newsweek. Anybody who would pay me. Most of the articles I wrote were interviews with novelists or people in the entertainment industry, so it was like getting a graduate school education in publishing and the movie business for free… better yet, I was paid for it!

I had a journalism advisor at UCLA who wrote spy novels. We became friends and talked a lot about mysteries, thrillers, plotting, etc. One day, while I was still his student, his publisher came to him and asked him if he’d write a “men’s action adventure series,” sort of the male equivalent of the Harlequin romance. He said he wasn’t desperate enough, hungry enough, or stupid enough to do it…but he knew someone who was: Me. So I wrote an outline and some sample chapters and they bought it. The book was called .357 Vigilante (aka The Jury Series). I wrote it as “Ian Ludlow” so I’d be on the shelf next to Robert Ludlum who was, at the time, the bestselling author in America.

It was a huge success. I ended up writing four books in the series. Naturally, the publisher promptly went bankrupt and I never saw a dime in royalties. But New World Pictures bought the movie rights to .357 Vigilante and hired me to write the screenplay…and my dual careers as a novelist and a screenwriter were born. I've been going ever since.

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

It was Gregory McDonald and his novels Fletch and Confess, Fletch. The dialogue was so good that the publisher put a full page of it on the covers of his books. It was the first time I'd read great crime stories that were told primarily through dialogue. Yet they were every bit as rich, in character and plot, as far wordier and less dialogue-driven books. I studied Fletch and Confess, Fletch the way some Jews study the Talmud. I didn’t have McDonald’s skill, but somehow, I knew after reading his books that I could become a writer. I also devoured and studied books by Elmore Leonard, Ed McBain, Larry McMurtry, John Irving, Robert B. Parker and Lawrence Block.

In television, my mentors were writer-producers Michael Gleason (who created REMINGTON STEELE), Ernie Wallengren (who worked on shows like THE WALTONS and FALCON CREST) and Stephen J. Cannell (who is perhaps best known for THE A-TEAM). They taught me more than just how to write scripts, or how to produce television, but also how to survive in the business while still remaining a decent person.

When and where do you write? 

I write anywhere and everywhere, in airplanes, in hotel rooms, in the bathroom, in waiting rooms, in restaurants, in a parked car while my wife is shopping, or on a folding chair on the set of a film, to name just a few places. But most of the time, I write in my home office. I do my best work between 8 pm and 2 am. I get up 10 am, rewrite the crap I wrote the day before, and start fresh again at 8 pm...and so it goes until a novel or screenplay somehow emerges from the process.

What are you working on now? 

I’m working on my fourth “Eve Ronin” crime novel (following GATED PREY, which comes out in October) and a screenplay adaptation of one of my books for a major studio.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Never. I’ve hit walls plotting, or had questions about what a character should say or do next in a chapter or scene, but that’s not a block. That’s writing.

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

Put your butt in the chair and write, even if it’s crap. You can’t rewrite a blank page.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Far too many authors are impatient and self-publish their work way too early…when they still have a long way to go in terms of mastering the craft of writing…and it’s very damaging. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and if you write a terrible book, or even one that’s merely mediocre, that’s what people will remember…and they won’t come back for the second one. And then they compound the mistake by focusing more on social media self-promotion than on their writing.

Lee Goldberg is a two-time Edgar & two-time Shamus Award nominee and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over thirty novels, including True Fiction, Lost Hills, 15 Monk mysteries, five Fox & O'Hare adventures (co-written with Janet Evanovich), and the new thriller Gated Prey (Oct 2021). He's written and/or produced many TV shows, including Diagnosis Murder, SeaQuest, Monk, The Glades, and co-created the hit Hallmark series Mystery 101. He's also the co-founder of Brash Books, which has published over 100 crime novels & thrillers. www.leegoldberg.com