Christopher Schaberg

How did you become a writer?

I suppose I became a writer by just trying a lot of different forms—essays, short stories, poems, book reviews, collaborative experiments, a Master’s thesis, academic articles, and eventually a dissertation—as I went through graduate school. And then when I got my tenure track job as a professor at Loyola University New Orleans, I realized that writing (and having real deadlines!) was a way to fuel my teaching and also a way to have something outside of the job proper, something else to be able to focus on. In other words, writing was always part of this academic pursuit, for me, but I have always used it to try new forms and reach different audiences. (And I’ve only scratched the surface, really.)

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

My writing influences are kind of whomever I’m reading or talking to or working with at the moment. I’ve had wonderful mentors along the way, and I’m always reading new stuff that gets me inspired. For instance, I credit a lot of my writing early on to my professor at Montana State Susan Kollin, who just gave me a book one day and told me to review it, and helped me get it placed in a small journal called Western American Literature. I liked the feel of writing something then seeing it published. Working with Tim Morton at UC Davis gave me a really clear sense of how to stagger and move through discrete (if related) projects swiftly and efficiently. I just finished reading Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s The Sound of a Snail Eating and loved it; it gave me lots of ideas for a new book I’m starting to write about fly-fishing. 

When and where do you write?

I snatch and grab odd minutes and occasional hours in which to write! Whenever I can, whenever I am motivated and can carve out the space and time. I have no dedicated place where I write—right now I’m writing this at the kitchen table surrounded by my kids’ detritus and crumbs from the day. I’ve learned to just write wherever and whenever (and however) I can. Often I wake up in the night and start to construct sentences in my head…and sometimes I can remember them in the morning, and get them down into a document on the computer. Other times it’s just a sudden idea that sparks and I need to get quickly into a note on my phone or scrawled onto piece of paper. I write on Google Docs sometimes, so I can move between different computers (my home, my office) and keep working on the same text. Same with Notes on my phone. I’ll write with whatever tool I have handy. 

What are you working on now?

Three books: A textbook on how to write short essays, that I’m writing with my co-editor Ian Bogost; a collection of keywords for the future of air travel, which I’m co-editing with Erica Durante; and a short book on fly-fishing that I’m writing for Duke’s new series Practices (short books on life-shaping activities). I’ll probably write some short essays in the midst of working on all these things, too. I tend to write a bunch of essays and then eventually realize that they have formed the broad contours of a book. Then I propose and flesh out the book. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not really. I mean, I’ve gone through spells where I’ve been depressed and frustrated that no good or solid ideas are taking shape. Maybe that’s writer’s block. But it doesn’t usually last long, because I tend to keep reading, keep talking to friends and colleagues and editors, and before long something gets jostled free. I’m always putting things out into the world regularly, pitching essays and book ideas, getting plenty of rejections but some acceptances along the way, too. It’s work, a hustle. Writing is usually hard, always a pain-inducing experience of extraction, from murky brain to white paper. Every once and a while, it comes on fast and feels thrilling. 

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

My creative writing professor and great friend at Montana State University, Greg Keeler, explained a really effective writing technique to me this way: he pantomimes fingers drumming on a keyboard and makes a ppppppffffftpfptpfptpfffftftpfpftftpfffpffttttffttfp-fpfppffpppfpttpppppft sound with his mouth. In other words, just put words down on the page. There’s plenty of time for editing and cutting and revising, later. But just getting them down on the page is the way to get started, no matter how sloppy. Again, not that this is always easy!!! But it takes off some of the pressure. When in doubt or when flustered, just pppppfffptpfptpfffftftpfpftftpfffpfftt.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Four pieces of advice: 1) Understand who your intended audience is. Or in other words, pay attention to what audiences exist, and what formats and styles those audiences expect. Then you can know how to write for these audiences, and when you can push the envelope and be creative. But it helps to think of audience, first. 2) Deadlines are your friend. Use deadlines to motivate you to just sit down and produce a draft. 3) Learn to accept edits; don’t throw a fit over a cut sentence or replaced word. Trust your editor. Your writing will be better for it, even if you don’t understand how in the moment. 4) And always thank your editor. 

Christopher Schaberg is Dorothy Harrell Brown Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, the author of six books and co-editor of two essay collections. His most recent book is Grounded: Perpetual Flight . . . and Then the Pandemic. He is also the founding co-editor of Object Lessons, a book series about the hidden life of ordinary things, published by Bloomsbury.

Dantiel W. Moniz

How did you become a writer? 

I’ve always been a writer—it’s the way I understand my thoughts and feelings. I think most people who write are called to it in one way or another, so there might be an argument to be made about being “born a writer,” but I also think there’s a distinction in what people choose to do with their writing and what they pursue. It took me a very long time to realize I could be a person who wrote books, even though I was making up stories all the time.   

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

When I answer this question it’s impossible to feel like I’m not leaving something out. I’m a product of so many people, places, and things. To list a few: books like White Oleander and The Color Purple; movies like Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrmann), The Virgin Suicides; Crooklyn; teachers like Judith Claire Mitchell, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Danielle Evans; and on and on.   

When and where do you write?

I like to start writing in the afternoon, around 2pm. If I’m at a coffee shop (my preferred space) I can go until the shop closes. At home, it’s whenever I’m tired or feel like I’ve done good work for the day. I’m not an every-day writer, but when I’m deep into a project I can write every day.

What are you working on now?

A novel about love, grief, and forgiveness. I’m private when the work’s early, so that’s all I’ll say. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Most definitely. But I’ve found the block is usually fear, and when I’m able to accept and examine that, I can usually pinpoint the source and move past it. Sometimes that’s difficult to do, but it’s always a relief to come back to the page. 

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

There are no absolute writing rules and if anyone tries to convince you otherwise, proceed with caution. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

In the later stages of a writing project, the work very much becomes a community effort—trusted early readers and editors, and of course if your work is lucky to find its people, then there’s engagement between the work and the audience. I think whoever you build community with is important to the work. But I also think it’s critical for writers to protect and nourish what’s solitary and individual about the work so a community can be beneficial to it. Learn to distinguish your own voice and instincts from what’s external and maybe contrary to your own intentions. Once you know where you’re trying to go, you can find the people who will help you get there. 

Dantiel W. Moniz is the recipient of the Alice Hoffman Prize for Fiction, the Cecelia Joyce Johnson Emerging Writer Award by the Key West Literary Seminar, and a Tin House Scholarship. Her debut collection, Milk Blood Heat, is an Indie Next Pick and has been hailed as "must-read" by TIME, Entertainment Weekly, Buzzefeed, Elle, and O, The Oprah Magazine, among others. Her work has appeared in the Paris Review, Harper’s Bazaar, Tin House, One Story, American Short Fiction, Ploughshares, The Yale Review, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern and elsewhere. Moniz is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John Woodrow Cox

How did you become a writer?

My mom, Nan, told me to give it a try. I came to college as a philosophy major, inexplicably, before switching to psychology, which didn’t work out. She knew I liked to write as a kid (though I wouldn’t have described myself as a writer before college; I’ve read some of the stuff I wrote back then, and it’s awful). So, at her suggestion, I signed up for a journalism class.

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

Mike Foley’s class changed my life. He’s a legend at the University of Florida, where he teaches an intro reporting course. I knew by the end of the semester that this is what I wanted to do for a living. Ted Spiker, also at UF, was a terrific teacher as well. He introduced me to voice, pacing, structure. I also must have read Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools a half-dozen times before I graduated. So many narrative journalists influenced me in those early years. Kelley Benham, Tom French and Anne Hull all come to mind.

When I started at what was then the St. Pete Times, Mike Wilson (now at the New York Times) and Bill Duryea (now at Politico) both did a lot to shape my sensibilities as a young reporter and writer. Now, at the Washington Post, I have the privilege to work for Lynda Robinson, one of the great narrative editors in America.

I admire so many authors, and for reasons I can’t explain, I’m often drawn to the ones whose styles most diverge from my own. I find Cormac McCarthy’s prose to be captivating, and I try to learn something from them, though I can’t imagine attempting to write a single sentence the way he does.

When and where do you write?

Anything of length, I write at home, mostly in the afternoons and into the evening. My prime writing hours come after my wife’s gone to bed, from about 9:30 p.m. until 2 a.m.

What are you working on now?

I’ve just published my first book, Children Under Fire: An American Crisis, and am working on a couple more projects about what the gun violence epidemic does to kids in this country. I’ve devoted much of the past five years to that subject, but, unfortunately, the stories keep coming.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Only at the beginning, middle and sometimes end of every piece I write.

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

I struggled with this question, mostly because I’ve received an abundance of great advice through the years. I cherish many tips that editors and colleagues have offered on craft, but I think the best lesson I’ve learned is the importance of empathy, both as a reporter and a writer. It’s so essential to every phase of what we do, and I’d like to believe it, as much as anything else, is what makes me good at my job.

Here’s one example from early in my career, when I was working as a cops reporter in Florida. I wrote a story on deadline about a child who drowned in his backyard pool. It was a brutal day. The photographer and I arrived on scene just as the ambulance was pulling away. An officer we knew soon told us the boy was dead, but police hadn’t shared that news with his parents yet. When they told them, the dad burst out of the front door and collapsed on the grass in front of us, weeping. His wife staggered out behind him. We saw the whole thing. The photographer, Will Vragovic, captured the moment. Then we heard what the couple said to each other as they got into the cruiser and left for the hospital.

I wrote and filed the story, which, I suspect, was a mess. Mike Wilson, who I believe was the managing editor at the time, handled the story himself. He helped me reshape and sharpen it, but he did something else that has stuck with me ever since. Mike cut two details: one, that the police initially wouldn’t let the mom in the house because her husband was vomiting inside; and two, that the boy’s older sibling left the backdoor open, allowing the toddler to wander outside and drown. A reasonable person could argue that one, or both, of those details should have stayed in the story, but I so admired the way Mike thought about that story, and every story. These were human beings first, not subjects. Was the detail about the dad vomiting necessary in a story that was already so devastating? And don’t we have a responsibility not to do additional harm to the innocent child who left the back door open? I believe Mike made the right choices that day, but I’m certain that the reasons for his choices were the right ones.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Well, I suppose I’m now obligated to implore them to show empathy. Do that, please.

Also: read good writing. There are only two ways to get better at this. One is to do it, and the other is to read people who do it well.

Finally, because I always give this advice, never undervalue hard work. Someone will always be more talented. You can’t control that. What you can control is how hard you work. That’s a choice.

John Woodrow Cox is an enterprise reporter at The Washington Post and the author of Children Under Fire: An American Crisis. In 2018, his series about the impact of gun violence on children in America was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. He has won Scripps Howard's Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Storytelling, the Dart Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, Columbia Journalism School’s Meyer “Mike” Berger Award for human-interest reporting and the Education Writers Association's Hechinger Grand Prize for Distinguished Education Reporting. He has also been named a finalist for the Michael Kelly Award, the Online News Association's Investigative Data Journalism award and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He previously worked at the Tampa Bay Times and at the Valley News in New Hampshire. He attended the University of Florida, where he has taught narrative writing and currently serves on the Department of Journalism’s Advisory Council.