Kim Liao

How did you become a writer?

I think that I've wanted to be a writer ever since I could finish a chapter book myself. When I was a kid, my mom and I would read a chapter of a classic kid's book each night at bedtime. When I got to be a good enough reader, I would just finish the book the next morning to find out what happened next. When Anne of Green Gables says that she's a writer (maybe it's in Anne of Avonlea), I was like, YEAH, ME TOO, ONE DAY. I was probably eight or nine when I became aware that this was my lifelong dream.

In terms of the actual series of events, I wrote on my own without showing anyone anything until college, when I took Ryan Harty's short fiction class in the spring of my freshman year. It was magical. I was totally sold on being a writer for about six months; then in my sophomore year, I took a very harsh workshop class that completely discouraged me from being a writer, so I decided to be an academic or a trade publishing house editor. I went to Emerson College for their Master's Program in Publishing, but after taking Doug Whynott's Creative Nonfiction class, I declared my wholehearted commitment to being a nonfiction/prose writer and never turned back. I wound up getting an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing at Emerson, and then toiling away trying to get published for the next decade or so. And that about brings us up to date.

The funny thing is that I think writers are always questioning whether they are "real" writers. My first publication in a literary journal was in 2008, but I didn't really feel like a "real" writer until my essay on collecting 100 rejections in Lit Hub went viral in 2016, because then people were actually reading my writing in a more widespread way. (I actually joked with a friend that I should retire that summer, because it was only going to be downhill after that one surprise bit of success.)

When I published a personal piece in The New York Times in February 2020 (mere weeks before lockdown in NYC), I remember asking a writing friend if now I could call myself a real writer. "Have I emerged from emerging?" I asked him. He nodded, rolled his eyes at the ridiculousness of my question and my enduring insecurity, and said, "Definitely." But I think some of us feel like one has to have a book out to be a real writer, so I suppose that is the next goal.

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

Some of my most wonderful writing teachers ever include Doug Whynott, Megan Marshall, Richard Hoffman, Michele Filgate, and Ryan Harty. The books that have inspired me most include those written by Tracy Kidder, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Betty Smith, T Kira Madden, Ann Patchett, Alison Bechdel, Rebecca Makkai, Charles Yu, Samuel Beckett, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Ottessa Moshfegh. I'm a craft book junkie, so I read Anne Lamott and Natalie Goldberg until the paperback spines of their books fell apart. I call Natalie Goldberg my teacher, because I believe in the truths of Writing Down the Bones so fiercely, but I have never taken a class with her. 

When and where do you write?

I write best in the mornings, first thing, right after waking up, before I have really settled into the day and into reality. With that being said, life has demands, so I still try to get pages in on mornings if I can. I try for weekends when the semester is in full force and I'm teaching (I don't write very well at the same time as teaching, but then I do deep dives during breaks). I've had glorious days of writing residencies when I get to write all day, but I usually don't write at night anymore. (When I was in my 20s, I wrote at night a lot.) 

Prior to COVID-19, I was a huge cafe writer and loved the white noise and caffeinated highs of coffee shops. Now, I have a shared home office/studio and I actually really love writing there. It's almost a room of my own, and when I'm at my cozy desk, I feel like my best writer self.

What are you working on now?

Good question. I thought that I finished revisions of a nonfiction family memoir about the Taiwanese Independence Movement over the summer, but I just got some constructive agent feedback that is making me think I need to restructure the book and re-frame it as more of a historical adventure drama. So I am about to dive into those structural and framing revisions now. 

I am also working on some shorter pitches for articles, essays, and book reviews, trying to keep my spirits up. When I work on a long thing for awhile, I need a little instant gratification in the form of shorter stuff. I go back and forth. I have a new idea for a long thing that's percolating, but can't discuss it yet. Here's something I've learned the hard way: don't talk about your work until you're ready!

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I used to not really be a writer's block person, since I usually had a big project I was working on, as well as short little projects (essays or articles or book reviews) that I would spin off periodically. But I actually had terrible writer's block during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially during 2020. I think that there are a lot of us who felt like, how can we possibly create art during this horrific time. Also, I found that whenever I did write something, it was about how COVID-19 changed... x, y, and z... it was very boring. 

But at the beginning of 2021, I finally came out of it and started revising my Taiwan book with great abandon. Last summer was the most productive I've been in years, as a writer. Then this fall, less so. You've got to forgive yourself when you're not writing! It will come back. You just need to feel it and get back in the groove.

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

From Natalie Goldberg: Writing will always be waiting for you when you return to it. Cut through everything to your first thoughts, and don't judge yourself. You can look back at it later.

From Anne Lamott: Shitty first drafts pave the way to wonderful published pieces. Also, publication isn't everything you think it is. Find a way to be enough without the external gratification of others.

From my old friend Chip: Always submit to the New Yorker, New York Times, Paris Review. Whatever you see as your top place, always try it. You never know. Don't sell yourself short.

What’s your advice to new writers?

It takes time to get to know yourself and your own voice. Be fearless! Work hard! Play. Don't take it too seriously. Remember why you love writing and write to that place. Those who become great writers spend decades writing. Enjoy the journey. 

Kim Liao's writing has appeared in The New York Times, Catapult, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, Salon, The Millions, River Teeth, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Fringe, and others. Her essay in Lit Hub about collecting rejections went viral--starting the #100rejections challenge--and led to her being dubbed a "Rejection Expert," a title she wears with a healthy dose of irony. A Writing Lecturer at John Jay College, she is currently revising a historical drama about the Taiwanese Independence Movement.

Steve Sheinkin

How did you become a writer?

When I was about thirteen, my younger brother and I decided to be a famous filmmakers. We wrote short comedy sketches, which we videotaped. I watched some recently. The acting is awful, and don’t ask about the production value, but a few of the ideas are pretty funny. We went on to write and direct a feature film called A More Perfect Union in our early twenties. A total flop, and it left us deep in debt, but I’ve never learned so much so quickly. 

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

Mostly Mr. Linderman. We’re talking fourth or fifth grade. He’d tell these stories that, in my memory, lasted for weeks. The stories were from Greek mythology, the Odyssey, that kind of thing—but it was all new to me. I’ll never forget the feeling of wonder and excitement as he began a new tale. I’m not saying I can recreate that in my writing, but it’s worth trying. 

When and where do you write? 

I’m lucky to get to do this as my job. So I’m in my office all day almost every day, either researching, writing, or revising. Pretty unromantic, I guess, but it’s way better than the dozens of crummy jobs I’ve had over the years.

What are you working on now? 

I’m adapting one of my nonfiction books, Bomb, into a graphic novel. It’s a great experience, since I started by dreaming of screenplays, and comics and film are so similar. Plus, I get to make up dialogue, which you obviously can’t do in nonfiction. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Sure, mainly in terms of how to quickly explain something. For years I worked as a textbook writer. I know, it’s terrible. I apologize to kids all the time. So now, when I’m trying to introduce a complex concept that young readers may not know much about, I’m terrified of writing something that could be in a textbook. I get stuck on this all the time, and have found no solution other than the classic clunky first draft + revision. 

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

I think Tim Gunn gave great writing advice on Project Runway. I mean, he was talking about fashion, but I heard it as writing advice. He’d look at one piece and say, “Turn up the volume.” Then he’d look at another piece and say, “You already have one ‘wow’ factor, you don’t need another.” The balance between those two reactions—that’s what I’m going for. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

There’s no magic formula. Just start. Write a terrible first draft, step away, and then revise. Then show it to a trusted reader without comment. Listen to their feedback, especially if they feel that something in the draft was either slow or unclear. Then revise again. There may be a faster way, but I haven’t found it.

Steve Sheinkin is the author of young adult nonfiction books including Fallout, Bomb, Undefeated, Most Dangerous, and The Port Chicago 50. Awards include a Newbery Honor and three National Book Award finalists. Steve lives in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Victor Methos

How did you become a writer?

I used to spend my summers on my aunt's massive, forested ranch, and one year, around fifth grade, I had an unexplainable encounter with an animal I couldn't identify (that's the non-crazy sounding way to say you saw Bigfoot). I can't tell you how profound an experience that was. In an instant, everything the world had taught me was true was suddenly cast into doubt. All my teachers were wrong, all the top scientists were wrong, all the adults were wrong. Little twelve-year-old me had gained a knowledge about the world that few people knew to be true. It made me think, well what else is everyone wrong about? and I became obsessed with the paranormal. My main passion was and is reading. My local library and my school library had pretty much no books on paranormal phenomena at the time, so I thought, Why not write one? So that was my first piece of fiction writing. The hero finds a monster and has to either run from it or face it. That's pretty much the same story I've written ever since. 

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

Every person has a handful of books that changed the course of their lives. The first one I remember was DEAR MR.CRENSHAW by Beverly Cleary. I was in 2nd grade. The book was about a kid going through his parent's divorce, wanting nothing more in the world than for his parents to get back together, and having to learn to cope with the fact that it wouldn't happen. My parents were going through a divorce at the time, and that's when I knew the power of literature: when words on a page made me feel better about my own life.

My more recent influences are much different than other writers', I'm sure. I did some graduate work in philosophy before going to law school (because I didn't want to starve to death as a philosophy professor) and philosophy has always been a passion of mine. So the writers that influenced me most are philosophers like Plato, Nietzche, Ayn Rand, Sartre, and especially Albert Camus. I'm not satisfied with books, even commercial fiction books meant primarily for entertainment, if they don't raise some deeper philosophical issue. I try to do this in all my own work as well.

When and where do you write? 

At any time and everywhere. I've written in Ubers, in the middle of screaming kids, even once in court when I had a deadline. I would write as quickly as I could when the jury took breaks. I see writing as work, and you don't wait for inspiration to work. Just sit your ass down and write. Even if you know it's crap. Crap can be fixed later. Empty pages can't.

What are you working on now? 

Just finished the start of a new series based loosely on the Zodiac killer. I lived in Northern California and, for some reason, we had, per capita, more serial murderers than anywhere else in the country at the time. So I would go places and hear people talking about "The Golden State Killer killed a person in that neighborhood" or "Ted Bundy came to this Red Robin" or whatever. When I heard about the Zodiac, I learned that not only had he never been caught but the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Defense couldn't break his last cipher. I thought I had to learn everything I could about someone like that, and so I've always wanted to write something about Zodiac. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

No. 

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

"Ninety-nine percent of show business is just showing up." – Woody Allen

What’s your advice to new writers?

Don't have unrealistic expectations (or preferably any expectations). Accept failure and rejection and do the work anyway. The fact is, a writing career is not a Gaussian distribution: There's no bell curve of the great plethora of mid-list authors taking up the bulk of sales. Five authors account for almost 95% of all book sales worldwide. It's a winner take all market. The odds of becoming one of those authors are astronomical. So if you're telling yourself you're not going to be happy unless you're the next Stephen King, you may never be happy. We need to be happy now; it's a choice. Rather than, "I have to be the next Stephen King," tell yourself how privileged you are that you can write something and have other people read it. Writers, I would say especially commercial fiction writers because we're the ones people are actually going to remember a hundred years from now (no one will remember who won the Pulitzer Prize a century from now, but people will still be reading John Grisham and Anne Rice), are the keepers of the history. If I want to know what life was like in ancient Greece, I don't read the historians, I read the great playwrights. Fiction is an expression of the spirit of a people at a specific time. It's important. If you love writing, the fact that you get to do it at all is incredible. If you can make a living doing it, you're in the top 1% of all writers who have ever lived. Be happy now, and don't worry about the future. It's out of your hands anyway. 

At the age of thirteen, when his best friend was interrogated by the police for over eight hours and confessed to a crime he didn’t commit, Victor Methos knew he would one day become a lawyer. After graduating from law school at the University of Utah, he sharpened his teeth as a prosecutor for Salt Lake City before founding what would become the most successful criminal defense firm in Utah. In ten years, he conducted more than one hundred trials. One particular case stuck with him, and it eventually became the basis for his first major bestseller, The Neon Lawyer. Since that time, he has focused his work on legal thrillers and mysteries, winning the Harper Lee Prize for The Hallows and an Edgar nomination for Best Novel for his title A Gambler’s Jury. He currently splits his time between southern Utah and Las Vegas.