Vera Kurian

How did you become a writer?
I think by becoming an avid reader first. Around fourth grade or so I started writing a long story that combined horror elements with Greek mythology, then it was a My Side of the Mountain knockoff except with a girl, then on to the inevitable vampire novel when I was in high school. I was offered the unusual privilege of attending writing workshops for free my last two years of high school (I went to a special arts school) where I then worked on some short stories and a young adult novel which is unfortunately lost to the digital archive that is floppy disks. I wrote a lot in college—this was before literary magazines were really online—and started to cluelessly send out submissions. Things took a bit of a break when I went to graduate school because of how intense the pace was, but I went back to writing short stories in 2013, after I came back to Washington DC after graduate school. I always said that I never wanted to write a novel, because frankly short stories are easier to write and easier to get published, but one day I wrote a story that someone said I should turn into a novel, which I did. That was the first novel I unsuccessfully queried. Never Saw Me Coming is probably the sixth novel I’ve written, but the first to get an agent and get a book deal. 

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.).
I grew up reading Stephen King and think in many ways I’ve developed into an old-fashioned storyteller like him: character and setting driven, where the crazy stuff is in the setup, not the execution. I am always in deep admiration of writers who can do the lyrical prose I can’t, writers like William Faulkner and Toni Morrison. I like authors who can handle big, unapologetically expansive novels, like Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell. I would kill to have lunch with Elena Ferrante. There are a lot of writing teachers I could shout out (the encouraging ones, the ones who were excited when I walked into literary workshops with space opera) and shout down (the ones who doubted me), but I had one teacher in particular who I want to highlight. Regrettably I can’t remember her name, but she was my typing teacher in eighth grade and during her class period she let me work on a novella (a Western clearly inspired by Young Guns II) and defended me against an English teacher who accused me of plagiarism without any evidence. The English teacher “questioned the authenticity” of a creative project I had turned in because she “hadn’t seen anything like it before” from me. The typing teacher talked to her and said, she’s writing a wholeass novel. (Okay, she probably didn’t word it that way). 

When and where do you write?
Mostly at my kitchen table. Pre-COVID I would sometimes work at coffeeshops because I like the ambient noise (when I’m not listening to chillhop, or the soundtrack to The Lord of the Rings, I’m listening to coffeeshop sounds on Spotify). As for when, there’s a brief period after work, after dinner, but before the gym where I write. A few hours on the weekend. I am hugely a believer that you can work full time and still be a writer, and it doesn’t require waking up at 5am or making some enormous, painful sacrifice. I still see my friends, play with my dog, work out, and watch shocking amounts of terrible TV. You just need to be efficient with your time.  

What are you working on now?
Secret project. It’s a mystery, and a more complicated one than Never Saw Me Coming. I did a lot of the foundation-laying for this book during the downtime of the publishing cycle of my debut novel. Now there is so much going on with the book coming out that I don’t have a ton of time to devote to the new book—at least for now. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?
I’m not a believer in writer’s block. I’m either actively writing or passively writing. I tend to write really fast, but when I’m not writing, it looks like I’m not working at all, but I am. It looks like I’m binging old seasons of Survivor and Love Island and writing long blog reviews of horror novels, but what I’m actually doing is percolating. By the time I sit down to write something, I’ve already worked out 80 percent of it in my head, both characters and plot. I’m “writing” when I’m walking my dog or lifting weights or driving somewhere because I’m mulling things over. I like to think that I’m feeding my unconscious the stimuli, then letting it stew for a while. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
Two things. The first was told to me by a college writing professor, who said that the most successful writers from his doctoral program were not necessarily the most talented, but the ones who had some combination of talent and persistence. To be a writer you need to have some talent. To be a traditionally published author, at some point the skillset shifts from just being someone who can write a book to a whole other set of things: someone who endures despite all the rejections, someone who has the business savvy to figure out how to get an agent and how the industry works, someone who can market a book, write copy, be charming in interviews. You can be good at writing and be bad at all the other stuff, but ideally you would be good at everything. The second thing is more nuts-and-bolts: I took a workshop with novelist Daniel Torday, and he said when revising a book to only work on one thing per revision. (So go through the book entirely only looking at one problem at a time, rather than a vague sense of “fix everything” at the same time.) This is particularly useful when working on multiple POV novels. 

What’s your advice to new writers?
Read promiscuously. Read both literary and genre fiction. Read more than you write. Spend less time daydreaming about publication and more time reading and writing. 

Vera Kurian is a writer and scientist based in Washington DC. Her debut novel, Never Saw Me Coming, is forthcoming from Park Row Books (US) and Harvill Secker, Vintage (UK) in September. Her short fiction has been published in magazines such as Glimmer Train, Day One, and The Pinch. She has lived in Washington DC for most of her adult life. She has a PhD in Social Psychology, where she studied intergroup relations, ideology, and quantitative methods.

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.

Nathan Gorenstein

How did you become a writer?

In the 6th grade I failed to complete the required reading for a book report, so I concocted something, don't recall exactly what, and got a B+. So I figured I could write. My next writing adventure was in high school, when I joined the student newspaper as a reporter and ended up as managing editor. As was reinforced by my college experience, I found the managing editor actually runs things while the editor does long lunches. Despite being managing editor at the college daily I gravitated towards writing rather than editing for much of my career.
Not that I am adverse to long lunches.

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

Oddly, for someone who has spent a career writing non-fiction, the author whose prose I admired the most when starting out was John le Carré, and I recall telling a friend in a burst of youthful hubris that I could do what le Carré did. Of course I could not, but his skill with language was something to aspire to. In college my enthusiasm for newspapers was mightily encouraged by the late, great Howard Ziff at the University of Massachusetts, who placed journalism's importance within the context of history, governance and democracy, lessons that have withstood the test of time. George Orwell’s work was also a major inspiration, and once I met Seymour Hersh, who was friendly to a young journalist. Despite a career in newspapers, I always wanted to write books, which I finally did after taking a buyout.

When and where do you write?

At a desk, in a home office, on a computer. I work newspaper reporter hours, starting from about 10 am with a break in the afternoon and ending between 6 and 8, depending on how the work is going. As I write non-fiction, the writing is almost always interspersed with reporting, as no matter how much one does before sitting down, new questions constantly arise. I couldn't do what I do – within a reasonable timeframe and without research assistants – if not for the internet. 

What are you working on now?

Just finished my second book, published in May 2021 by Simon & Schuster, “The Guns of John Moses Browning,” a social history/biography of the man whose inventions, as my elevator pitch goes, started World War One and won World War Two. I’m casting about for another topic sufficient to sustain my interest for three years…all suggestions welcome.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not in the usual sense. I do struggle on how to structure complex non-fiction timelines, say where an event in 1900 only becomes significant in 1920, while in the meantime I need to write about events in 1910. As my editor at S&S, Rick Horgan, told me, you need to keep a linear timeline or else risk loosing the reader. It was a struggle but I figured out how.

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

Not sure who gave it, or whether I figured it out myself, but you need the ability to see what is actually on the page, not what you think is on the page. That requires the brutal ability to be a candid critic of yourself. And that means tossing pages and pages of supposedly finished text, and much research, upon realizing the approach you’ve taken isn’t working. For my latest book I spent much time researching and writing about a young man who used a lightweight flintlock “squirrel gun” to track and shoot the “last” wild deer in Indiana. (Yes, deer were almost extinct 120 years ago). Yet it just didn’t fit the chapter and I ended up using one sentence from all that work.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Re-write. And then re-write again. And once more. Don’t let anyone tell you no if, after an honest self-critique, you believe you are right.

Bio: I grew up in Medford, Mass., went to UMass Amherst, majored in Journalism/English, barely graduated, worked on the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton Mass., the Wilmington Delaware News-Journal, and The Philadelphia Inquirer, where I did long investigative pieces, daily reporting, political reporting, and was an editor for a few years, which helped with my writing. My first book was “Tommy Gun Winter,” about a once-infamous 1930s Boston criminal gang: an MIT grad, a minister’s daughter, and two of my relatives (first cousins twice removed.) Its on option to the left coast, but we’ve all heard that before! Then the John Browning book. It’s pretty good. Actually, both are! :)