Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith

How did you become a writer?

Growing up an only child on a sailboat without a TV, I was always inventing little stories and was encouraged to do so by my smart and funny parents. I was encouraged by teachers to pursue writing, and in high school, I worked in a library and a video store so I could be close to the art forms that fortified me the most: books and movies.

When I was at Occidental College, I was writing a lot of poetry and published in the school literary mag. I did readings on campus and began obsessively submitting my poetry to journals. I got over 40 poems published and it led me to get a writing fellowship at Breadloaf Writer’s Conference and a residency at MacDowell and others.  Also at Occidental, I got an internship at CineTel Films, a small production company. I read probably close to 400 scripts there and did coverage on them—writing synopses and an analyses of the characters, story, and dialogue. It was great training for an aspiring screenwriter. 

So then I was at a crossroads: do I go to grad school and pursue a poetry and academia career or return to LA and try my hand at screenwriting? 

After I graduated, I was in residence at MacDowell Colony writing poetry, then returned to doing odd jobs back in LA when my boss from CineTel, Catalaine Knell, called and offered me a paid position job doing coverage, which led to a full-time job as a development executive. Catalaine gave Quentin Tarantino his first rewrite job. She taught me about script structure, and brought me into meetings with real life screenwriters! She always reminded me to keep writing and even had me write a poem for Poison Ivy 2 starring Alyssa Milano! Not to brag, but a “Poem by” credit on Poison Ivy 2 is my first credit on IMDB.  

At that job, I met a writer named Karen McCullah over query letter who lived in Denver, and when she came to LA, we met for drinks and had a blast. We started writing a script on cocktail napkins that night. It didn’t sell, but then we decided to write another script: a teen movie based on a classic story. That led to us writing “10 Things I Hate About You,” which got us a manager, and the script found some fans in the industry like Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger. Finally was bought by Mark Vahradian at Disney. When I look back, there were lots of little “big breaks” that were strung together to equal a career.

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

My high school English teacher Susan Phillips was a huge source of encouragement and empowerment.  As was the aforementioned Catalaine Knell. 

 My poetry heroes were Sharon Olds and Marge Piercy. I love The Dead and The Living and The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds.  Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin was a literary rom com novel that inspired me so much. I studied under writers like Amy Hempel, Lucille Clifton and Marilynne Robinson, and am deeply indebted to those superhero women. John Hughes, Preston Sturges and Billy Wilder are my probably my top screenwriting influences.

When and where do you write? 

I have a home office above my garage, but during lockdown I found it pretty hard to leave my bed. Recently I’ve been working in my guest room bed, which is weird. What’s wrong with me? Have I become so sedentary I find it impossible to walk downstairs?!

What are you working on now? 

My longtime screenwriting partner Karen and I just turned in a reimagining of the Blake Edward’s comedy 10 to Warner Bros, and I’m also working on a romantic comedy for Dakota Fanning at Amazon. And I’m developing a number of feature and TV ideas, including a YA animated series based on the graphic novels I co-wrote, Misfit City.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

More like procrastination to the point where then the muscle gets rusty and I have a bit of self doubt, so I have to write a bunch of dreck to push through and really reconnect with the characters and story. 

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

To keep going forward and not go back and rewrite the same first 10 pages over and over again.  And if somebody found a way to permanently disable the internet and can teach me how to do that, I welcome that advice and it will surely be the best advice I’ve ever received.

What’s your advice to new writers? 

Outline before you write. Ideally try to end the day with a path forward for the next day’s writing.  Set small attainable goals. Beating them will feel better than not achieving the big impossible ones.

Kirsten “Kiwi” Smith is the co-writer of the films Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You and She’s the Man. She also co-created and executive produced the Netflix series Trinkets, based on her YA novel, which has been translated into 15 languages. She co-wrote and executive produced The House Bunny and The Ugly Truth. Her first novel, The Geography of Girlhood, was based off of her early work as a poet. Her poetry has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Witness, The Massachusetts Review and Rookie. 

Avram Alpert

How did you become a writer?

I find this question flattering, because for most of my adult life I’ve been more scholar than writer. But over the past few years, I have indeed been working to take the lessons I learned from years of study and try to find meaningful ways to communicate them to broader audiences. Doing this is a way of reconnecting with an impulse that I’ve always felt about how writing—both fiction and nonfiction—can help us to build a world that is full of decency and meaningfulness for everyone. I thought being a writer as a profession would be too hard, and that university life would provide security. It turns out that I was quite wrong—security is vanishing everywhere. I don’t think I could be a writer outside of the idea that writing is about creating some universal conditions for stability.

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

Ever since I came across it in my undergraduate studies, I’ve been inspired by Edward Said’s definition of the intellectual as an amateur, that is, someone who is “moved not by profit or reward but by love for and unquenchable interest in the larger picture, in making connections across lines and barriers, in refusing to be tied down to a specialty, in caring for ideas and values despite the restrictions of a profession.” I find myself almost incapable of doing very narrow or technical work (as much as I respect those who do). I feel recognition in Said’s definition of a vocation to pursue different kinds of study, writing, and action. I get regular inspiration from writers who embody these ideals and cross between genres and between scholarly and public writing. W.E.B. Du Bois is a remarkable example. As are the existentialists—Sartre, de Beauvoir, Fanon, Camus.

When and where do you write?                                                                                               

I write when I feel that it is time. I used to write mostly at night. Now I tend to write in the late morning and afternoon. I often write when I am supposed to be doing something else. There’s something about the pressure, and the slight disobedience, that makes we want to write. 

I am a little fastidious about my setup because of back problems. I need a good ergonomic arrangement. Over the years, I’ve learned how to recreate this in less-than-ideal conditions. That’s important because I like how my environment shifts my writing. I write differently in the woods than in the city. And when I can’t get my setup right, I write longhand, which also changes how my thoughts translate onto the page. These different modes of writing bring out different aspects of my thinking. I hope to create writings that provide that rich texture of the plurality we experience as humans. 

What are you working on now? 

I am usually working on a variety of projects. I’m finishing one book on the idea of a “good-enough life” and starting a new one on what it would mean to be wise today. I’ve got a screenplay and a novella that I tinker with endlessly. And I have two collaborative projects with friends—a graphic novel and a series of short stories—that I am particularly excited about. I don’t, however, work all the time. I like to work in bursts and keep separate time for leisure and especially to be with friends and family and meet new people.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Not really. And—perhaps it’s a lie I tell myself—I assume that if I am not writing one day it’s just because my body or mind is telling me that the idea or story is not ready, and that it will come out worse in the end if I try to write too soon. So if I can’t write, I assume that’s for the best, and I pace around or give it a few days and try again.

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

I’m not good with bests. But I was listening to George Saunders give an interview the other day. And he talked about his writing process as sitting with a text and letting a kind of positive or negative meter register each sentence. The trick was learning how not to ignore the meter, and also not to register false positives because the mind just wants the writing to be good. This made a lot of intuitive sense to me and referred me back to a lot of moments in my own writing, both good and bad. Sometimes deadlines or other pressures force us to turn the meter off. But I think he’s right: if you have the patience and endurance, you can eventually feel mostly positive about every word in whatever you’ve written.

What’s your advice to new writers?

There’s a lot of advice out there on how to write. I think the most important thing is to find how you write—what your rhythm is, what makes sense for you. A trick that works for one person may not be universally applicable. Sometimes it makes sense; sometimes it doesn’t. Try things out but don’t assume that just because a writer you like said it worked for them that it will work for you.

I think there’s a difference when it comes to the profession of being a writer. Because here we need a little more universality. One thing that really matters today is that writers are part of the creation of new institutions that provide stability and purpose to more people pursuing writing careers. Writing, like so much else today, is a kind of pyramid scheme, with a few very successful able to make a career and the vast majority scraping by, regardless of talent. The poet Donald Justice said it very well some years ago, “There is a randomness in the operation of the laws of fame that approaches the chaotic.” This chaos is bad for everyone. I think part of being a writer today means addressing the structural problems.

Avram Alpert teaches writing at Princeton University. He is the author of Global Origins of the Modern Self, from Montaigne to Suzuki (2019), A Partial Enlightenment: What Modern Literature and Buddhism Can Teach Us About Living Well Without Perfection (2021), and the forthcoming Beyond Greatness: A Good-Enough Life for All (2022). He is also coeditor of Shifter magazine and codirector of the Interdisciplinary Art and Theory Program, a free school for artists and writers in New York. He has written cultural criticism for outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Aeon, the Brooklyn Rail, and Truthout.

Jen Palmares Meadows

How did you become a writer?

I’ve always written. In middle school, I kept a regular journal and wrote short essays and little slice-of-life pieces that I shared with friends. After my early start, staying a writer was a matter of consistently choosing writing for myself. I went to grad school for creative writing. I belong to a writing community, attend literary events, and read as much as I can. But mostly, I write. 

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

There are many, but I’ll name some that stand out in my mind—Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee, Sandra Cisneros’ House on Mango Street, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets. Also, Ray Bradbury, Carole Maso, Chinua Achebe, and Kahlil Gibran. I also must mention my seventh grade English teacher, Mrs. Sophia Linnell, who encouraged my writing and introduced me to so much wonderful literature by writers like Langston Hughes, Shirley Jackson, and Sophocles. 

When and where do you write?

I often do first draft work on my phone because it is easily accessible. Whether in line at the pharmacy or picking up my kids from school, if I can get in ten minutes of writing, it’s worthwhile. My more intense revision, I do on my laptop, early in the morning or late at night when I can work undisturbed.

What are you working on now?

A coming of age gambling memoir centered around my Filipino family and our frequent trips to Las Vegas when I was growing up.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I recently had a pretty good stretch of writer’s block. What helped me get back on track was joining a local writing group that met twice a week. I belong to an incredibly supportive community made up of women writers of color that provides accountability and a space to work through my writing challenges.   

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

The best writing advice is straight forward and often repeated: Read a lot. Write a lot. Put in the work. Lately, a bit of writing advice I’ve been holding on to comes from my friend, Valerie Fioravanti. Once, when I was being very critical of a draft I’d been working on, she said simply, “Don’t judge a cookie when it’s half baked.” The simple metaphor helped me set aside doubt and trust in the revision process. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Cultivate a rich inner life and let it escape on the page. Be a kind, thoughtful person and you’ll always have something meaningful to write about and say.   

Jen Palmares Meadows writes from the Sacramento Valley. Her essays have been published in Lit Hub, Fourth Genre, The Rumpus, The Los Angeles Review, and elsewhere. She is a Millay Colony Fellow and a Sustainable Arts Foundation grant recipient. She is currently at work on a coming of age gambling memoir. You can visit her at jenpalmaresmeadows.com.