Tom Zoellner

How did you become a writer?

I started as a reporter and worked for a decade at a series of local daily newspapers. The pay was low, but the exposure to all levels of American society was high. I learned how to sit and listen, how to ask questions that elicit answers, how to not take no for an answer, how to write fast and not fear a blinking cursor.

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

I remain awed and humbled by a school of midcentury regionalism; writers like George Rippey Stewart, Zora Neale Hurston, John Gunther, Mary Austin, Wallace Stegner, Richard Rhodes, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the anonymous authors of the 1940s WPA Guides. They knew how to synthesize a pile of facts into supple narratives. Places have as much personality as people.

When and where do you write? 

In a spare bedroom in my house, on a desk purchased from a Kmart in West Lebanon, New Hampshire when I was in graduate school. I aim for 1,000 words a day, per the advice of Carolyn See, typically in the mornings. It's a formula that works.

What are you working on now?

A collection of essays about my home state of Arizona. Regionalism again. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No -- that's an invention. Ignore it. Just start writing, not worrying about quality, and your path will become clear. 

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

Other than the aforementioned 1,000 words a day, every day, and the forsaking of quality in favor of production, it would be an image from Stephen King's "On Writing," in which he compares the act to paleontology -- the exhumation of a dinosaur bone in the subconscious that was always there. You didn't so much create it as unearth it. All you need to do is show up and start digging to find the writing that you've already done. This provides enormous relief, and disproves writer's block.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Understand you'll have to make it an annex of your life rather than the center. We all have to cobble together a living. Don't listen to those who say that teaching is a distraction -- that's a fiction on the level of writer's block. If you set the alarm two hours earlier than you otherwise might, and stay faithful to the thousand-word benchmark, your success at producing a manuscript within six months is as guaranteed as a law of physics. Then it becomes a matter of perseverance. Rejection is normal. Keep submitting. And also understand that the real rewards do not come from publication, money or honors. The best compensation is in the pure act of discovery.

Tom Zoellner teaches at Chapman University and Dartmouth College, and serves as the politics editor for The Los Angeles Review of Books. He is the author of eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction for 2020.

Catherine Dang

How did you become a writer?

My parents owned a liquor store when I was a kid, and occasionally my sister and I were stuck there. We did our homework and read books in the backroom, but I’d get bored. That was when I started writing short stories in a notebook. They were often about shows that I wished I was watching instead.

I was a pragmatic kid. Writing never seemed like a “real” career. I figured I was supposed to do something more realistic, like law. Since my family never had much money, I wanted to change that in my own future.

I botched those plans in college, though. I told myself that I was only taking fiction and screenwriting classes for “fun.” But I think a part of me just wanted to test the waters. I wanted to see how my writing stacked up to my peers. I wanted to see if I could commit to writing whole projects. I started with poems, then short stories. Then I finished an entire two-hour screenplay for my thesis. And I understood that I was a decent writer.

I knew I was going to regret it if I didn’t take writing seriously. I wanted to give myself at least one chance to fail. So right after graduation, I started work on the manuscript that would become Nice Girls. I also entered the workforce. I got a day job, I hated the day job, and then I left the day job in 10 months. That experience changed my life, though. It made me desperate enough to finish Nice Girls. It kept me disciplined enough to edit the manuscript. And I began querying agents right after. Slowly, things took off from there.

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

I was a "Reading Rainbow" kid. LeVar Burton told stories in such a captivating way—he made me want to read everything. I also watched a lot of anime and true crime in childhood, then movies as a teenager. I think all those experiences taught me the mechanics of a good story.

Judy Blume and Sylvia Plath are probably the two biggest influences in my own fiction writing. Their novels felt so honest and confessional, and I happened to read them at the right times in my life. They resonated with me deeply. Blume gave me comfort, and Plath seemed to understand me. I’ve always wanted my own writing to have that same undercurrent of honest emotion. It doesn’t matter how light or brutal the feeling—it just has to feel real.

I also admire distinct prose. I love Sally Rooney, Ocean Vuong, and Haruki Murakami. Their prose is sparse and delves into the mundane (Murakami loves his food descriptions!), but they know how to pack an emotional punch. On the other hand, I’ve also been struck by Cormac McCarthy’s and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ prose. I read The Road and Between the World and Me in two entirely different summers. But the writing had the same kind of magic: just beautiful, elegant, winding prose about some of the most painful, brutal things. Their writing lingers.

I’m someone who gets influenced by a little of everything—music, articles, the way people talk. I even get impressed by memes.

When and where do you write?

I usually write in the mornings at home. But when I’m in a slump, I like to go to a coffee shop and pretend that I’m as productive as the people around me.

What are you working on now?

I’m working on my next novel. I told myself it would be lighter. So far, it’s…bloodier.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

It hits me fairly often. For me, writer’s block can happen for a multitude of reasons: I’m bored, I’m not inspired, something in the book feels “off.” If I’m feeling really stubborn, I’ll keep chipping away at the writing. Sometimes a good run or exercise helps get rid of the block. Other times, I get out of that funk by consuming other stories, whether it’s reading a book or watching a movie. I like experiencing someone else’s creation—it motivates me to get back into my own work. And honestly, some of the best writing comes after the writer’s block.

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

The one Nike ad: “Yesterday you said tomorrow.”

What’s your advice to new writers?

Talent is good; resolve is better.

Catherine Dang is a former legal assistant based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is a graduate of the University of Minnesota. Nice Girls is her first novel.

Zak Salih

How did you become a writer?

It started out as just a bit of fun with a childhood friend of mine. We’d write these slapdash, nonsensical stories about monsters, famous people, or our classmates more as a way to have fun with my father’s electric typewriter than to tell an actual story. And then one day, when I was probably 15 or 16, I sat down by myself at the new family computer to write a story more like the kinds of stories I was reading at the time (I was a huge Stephen King junkie). After that, my love of writing, and my desire to be a writer, just never really went away.

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

I credit my English teachers—in high school, in college, in graduate school—with shaping how I think about writing. Because of them, I was exposed to so many wonderful novels and stories I would never have encountered on my own. While I’ve never taken a writing course at the college level, I like to think these teachers helped me learn how to write better by showing me how to read better. Thanks to them, I’m not rudderless when I sit down at my desk. 

When and where do you write? 

I balance my fiction with my day job writing marketing copy. I try to give myself at least two to three hours every morning to work on my fiction, then spend the rest of the day working different writing muscles for clients. My desk is a big piece of plywood on four wobbly legs from IKEA. There’s a small window through which I can see an imposing black walnut tree that blocks out a lot of the afternoon heat. There are also shelves of books and films I’ve read and loved over the years; I like to think they give off good vibes as I sit here and write. 

What are you working on now? 

I’m currently making my way through a third draft of a new novel. Once I’ve finished that, I’ll likely turn my attention to some more short stories currently percolating in the back of my mind.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

There was a period in my life, roughly from 2000 to 2017, where I did not write any fiction whatsoever. It’s not that the passion or ideas weren’t there—it’s that I was overwhelmed by the terror all writers struggle with. What if what I’m writing isn’t good enough? What if I have nothing to say? What if people hate what I write? The fear was just too much for me. I don’t think such fear can ever be mastered; only managed. And managing that fear was my path around it. Now, I feel as if I’m making up for lost time. 

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

I had a teacher in high school who once wrote on a short story of mine this commandment: “Never stop writing.” I’m ashamed to say, I did stop for quite some time, with the result being that when I came back to fiction as an adult, I felt I somewhat had to start from scratch. Which is to say that showing up every day and doing the work—even if you don’t want to, even if what’s coming out is reprehensible, even if you’re terrified of it—is the best possible thing to do. In many respects, I learned from those three words that writing is as much about perseverance as it is about creativity.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Likeability in one’s characters is highly overrated. Fiction is for thinking about what it means to be a human, not for making friends. Write interesting characters, not likeable ones. Flawed characters covered in mud are so much more memorable (to this reader, at least) than characters spit-shined and set up in public squares as role models. 

Zak Salih is the author of the novel Let’s Get Back to the Party (2021). His writing has appeared in Foglifter, Crazyhorse, Epiphany, The Florida Review, the Millions, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other publications. He lives in Washington, DC.