Hanna Halperin

How did you become a writer?

I’ve been writing stories since I was a kid. I would make up extra chapters of the books that I was reading in school and then I started making up my own. I took as many writing classes as I could because it was the thing I was most excited about. After college I took a few workshops with Sackett Street Writers Workshop and that’s when I learned about MFA programs. I got fixated on wanting to do one. At Wisconsin I wrote more in a relatively short time period than I ever had before, and I loved it. I felt really lucky to be writing and talking about books all the time. I’m always happiest when I’m in the middle of a draft. Since then I’ve been working and writing and it’s a balance that works for me. 

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

Mary Gaitskill, Deborah Eisenberg, Jhumpa Lahiri, Joan Silber, Lorrie Moore. I used to read a lot of The Best American Short Story collections and fall in love with stories—then authors—that way. Every time I read a book and am struck by it, I feel like it influences me or encourages me or gives me a sort of permission I didn’t even realize I was waiting for. I don’t know if that will ever stop and I hope it doesn’t. A few of those books in the past few years have been A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell and Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan. 

When and where do you write?

Before the pandemic I worked a lot in coffee shops. Now I mostly work in my apartment, either at my desk or on my couch. When I’m really engrossed in a project, I write all day, but mornings are always most productive. I work part-time so I don’t write on the days I’m working or teaching. I usually spend a good part of my weekends writing.

What are you working on now?

I’m editing my second novel. I would describe it as a portrait of a relationship having to do with addiction and codependence and obsession. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I go through periods—sometimes long ones—where I’m not writing anything but I don’t think of it as writer’s block. I’m soaking things in and reading and living. What inevitably happens is that I’ll return to writing sooner or later, and it’s always exciting when I do. 

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

Different advice hits differently at different times, I think. Most recently: Stay off social media. 

What’s your advice to new writers? 

If it’s feeling weird or vulnerable or scary to write it, keep going! There are certain things that only you can write—try writing those things. Strangely enough, those will be the parts that resonate with someone else. 

Hanna Halperin is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her stories have been published in The Kenyon Review, n+1, New Ohio Review, Joyland, and others. She teaches fiction workshops at GrubStreet in Boston and works as a domestic violence counselor. Something Wild is her debut novel out now from Viking.

Courtney Zoffness

How did you become a writer?

I was enamored by language and storytelling at a young age and went on to major in English as an undergraduate. After college, I worked briefly in journalism, then pursued graduate school for fiction. It feels important to note that it took over 15 years from MFA to published book, but I just kept doing this thing I loved to do. Which means I’m either obstinate or nuts.

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

Early influences were authors who showed me that you could tell propulsive stories in beautiful prose: Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston. I think I’ve learned from nearly every book I’ve read since, even if a text is just revealing a technique I may not wish to use.

When and where do you write?

I don’t adhere to a set schedule, in part because the nature of my life doesn’t permit it. I have a full-time job and two young kids, one of whom wakes before 6 AM. That said, I squeeze in writing time every week, where I can: during slow office hours or on my commute or, sometimes, after the kids are in bed. I’m most productive in the summer.

What are you working on now?

I’m back to writing fiction, my first literary language. I’m still not sure yet what shape the project will take…

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I used to, especially when I was a much younger writer and overeager to be in the world. That kind of desperation was paralyzing. These days my challenge is finding time in my schedule to tend to various ideas.

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

I appreciate every teacher and mentor and writer-friend who said some variation of “don’t give up.” Who promised that the stick-with-it-ness would pay off.  

What’s your advice to new writers?

See above?

Courtney Zoffness is the author of the critically acclaimed Spilt Milk (McSweeney’s), named a best debut memoir of 2021 by BookPage. She won the 2018 Sunday Times Short Story Award, the largest international prize for fiction, as well as fellowships from The Center for Fiction and MacDowell. She directs the creative writing program at Drew University.

Audrey Schulman

How did you become a writer?

When I was 12 years old, I wrote what I called a novel. It was illustrated and handwritten and probably if I typed it up, it would have been less than 15 pages. Still I got a lot of attention for this from others who could not imagine spending any time writing something they did not have to. I liked the attention and I imagined a writer's life as filled with coffee shops and waking up late and having no boss. 

At 12, I did not think about things such as a lack of healthcare and a regular paycheck.

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

Valerie Martin, Cormac McCarthy, Toni Morrison, Kay Boyle, Kent Haruf, and so many others.

When I was young I read a lot of Hemingway and Faulkner and the Bible. The very different rhythm of those sentences will stay with me, and within my work, forever. 

When and where do you write?

There is never a good time for writing. It is difficult and scary and it’s easy to put off until later. Therefore you have to make regular time for it, sort of like flossing your teeth. if you work at it regularly, it gets so much easier. With practice, you can train your mind to work better at that time of the day.

I write each morning, first thing, for several hours. I try to choose a place with a view of something interesting. Then my eyes can wander, while my brain works.

What are you working on now?

At the moment I am taking a vacation from writing. I've just finished my most recent novel, called The Dolphin House. It will be published in the spring of 2022. The novel was inspired by a research experiment that happened in 1965. A woman lived in a pool with a dolphin for several months trying to teach it to speak English. Dolphins make noise with their blowholes, not with their mouths, so they have no teeth or tongue or lips with which to form the words. Asking them to speak would be as hard as enunciating through a kazoo. Meanwhile the other researchers are all men and the head of the research center was experimenting with LSD. In the novel, my character works hard to protect the dolphin and herself.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Writer's block, I think, is about a fear of failure. It's that blank white page in front of me making me scared that what I write might be terrible. 

However, I have little fear of failure because I am pretty certain that my writing will always be bad at the start of a project. Luckily I am deeply stubborn and willing to commit to the project over a long period of time to improve it. If I am willing to accept the certainty of failure as part of the process, the failure changes from something I fear, to something that moves me forward toward something that could be worthwhile. 

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

To read stories in front of other people and listen hard for when the audience gets very still. That is when your writing is good. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

• Write regularly, every day.

• Accept that it will take you at least 10,000 hours of solid hard writing to become a good writer. Be comfortable with writing a lot of bad stuff until then and always assume you can do better.

• Accept that, even after those 10,000 hours, your writing will be bad and if you keep working, it will improve.

• Write about subjects and people and situations that you never tire of, write about them in the way that only you can do.

• Rather than going to writing school and spending tens of thousands of dollars, find other writers who will expect the best from you and can point out with respect when you don’t achieve that, and when you do. Teach each other with kindness and honesty how to write.

• Understand the relationship between money and writing. Writing takes time and means you have less time to earn money. Every time you spend a dollar, think that dollar is coming from your writing time.

Bio: Born a long time ago, in another country, I have traveled enough to have vomited on four continents, including once onto a Masai tribesman’s feet. He, unfortunately, was barefoot.

I have published five novels including The Cage, Swimming with Jonah, A House Named Brazil, Three Weeks in December and A Theory of Bastards.

My novels have been translated into 12 languages, reviewed by The New York Times, New Yorker and CNN. They have won the Phillip K. Dick Award 2019, Dartmouth College’s Neukom Award and twice been selected as notable books by the American Library Association. 

My books aren't boring. For a short time, one was even optioned for a movie with Wes Craven (the director of Nightmare on Elm Street). Articles I’ve written have been anthologized, as well as published in Orion, Grist, Ms. Magazine, Bust and others. I now live near Boston and run an energy-efficiency nonprofit called HEET.