Bill Roorbach

How did you become a writer?

I'm not certain, but I know it has something to do with my mother reading to us when we were little. Maybe that's where I got the idea. At age five my mom took me to see Santa at Shopper's World, the original shopping mall, outside Boston. I asked him for a desk.  On the way home my mom said, "Why on earth did you ask Santa for a desk?" he said. And I told her, "I want to be a writer." Still have the desk. It's a tiny oak rolltop from Sears. My daughter used it for some years and perhaps her kid will use it too one day.  

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

So many influences, across all the arts, but pretty much all subjects and disciplines. When I was young I liked writers like Bukowski and Jim Harrison and even Cheever and Updike. By the time I went to grad school at age 33 I'd read much more widely, but grad school broke it all open, and soon I was reading Didion and Toni Morrison and Mary McCarthy and on and on and on, very wide-ranging. I play music, too, and music is an influence for sure. I like all kinds, just as I like all kinds of writing. The only requirement is that it's terrific.

When and where do you write? 

I write anywhere and everywhere, five minutes here, a half hour there, in the car waiting for my daughter at dance class, at the kitchen table, in my office, on the beach, waiting at the dentist, you name it. 

What are you working on now? 

I've just finished a new novel, Lucky Turtle, which will be available everywhere April 26. It's available for pre-order right now, and as you know, pre-orders really help! 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not really. More like Writer feels like doing something else.

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

Write every day, whether a little or a lot, just simply every day. Also read. 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write every day, whether a little or a lot! 

Bill Roorbach is the author most recently of Lucky Turtle, a novel, also five previous books of fiction, including The Girl of the Lake, the Kirkus Prize finalist The Remedy for Love, the bestselling Life Among Giants, and the Flannery O’Connor Award–winning collection Big Bend. His memoir in nature, Temple Stream, won the Maine Literary Award in nonfiction. Roorbach has received fellowships from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He held the William H. P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. His craft book, Writing Life Stories, has been in print for twenty-five years. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Ploughshares, Granta, Ecotone, New York Magazine, and other publications. He lives in Maine with his family.

Gina Sorell

How did you become a writer?

I started writing poems when I was about seven years old. I had a lot of big feelings, and it was a place for me to put them all. That writing grew into performance pieces; monologues, plays, sketch comedy, stand-up, and eventually novel writing. I was an actor for many years, and writing my own material was a way to stay creative and keep performing in between hired gigs.

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

My parents had a beauty salon (my dad was a hairdresser), and one of my dad's clients was the highly respected South African writer Isaac Pfaff. He had written over a dozen plays, three novels, and many short stories and radio plays. A lot of his writing centered around human rights and compassion. My dad mentioned that I was also interested in writing, and Mr. Pfaff took it upon himself to read my work and offer feedback. For years he would check-in and follow up on my writing progress. I was barely a teenager, but his interest and encouragement made all the difference. Much later, after many years as an actor, I returned to school, enrolling in UCLA Extensions' Writing Program. There I studied under the wonderful writer Caroline Leavitt, who became my mentor and dear friend. Caroline has advised, read, critiqued, supported, and encouraged me throughout my writing journey. It is no exaggeration to say that I wouldn't be a working writer without her.  

When and where do you write?

I try to write before the rest of my life wakes up, 5:30-7:00 a.m., and then again in the afternoon after doing other freelance work like copywriting and naming. I focus better when my desk is clear. I also like to take a few hours on the weekend to write. Anytime I can get an uninterrupted stretch where no one in my family needs me, you can find me in my home office at my desk overlooking the backyard, with a thermos of coffee in hand.

What are you working on now?

Right now, I'm working on a book about three friends who are all in need of a second chance, professionally and personally. It's been ten years since they were all together, and they reunite in the city where they met twenty years earlier. 

Have you ever suffered from writer's block?

I get stuck. But I don't think of that as writer's block; I just think of it as part of the process. Often I just need to step away from the work and go for a walk. Walking always helps me.

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

“Don't give up,” and “you're not alone.” At some point, writing feels hard and lonely and scary for everyone—even the most accomplished writers! 

What's your advice to new writers?

Try it all and find your own way. I know writers who can write anywhere: in line at the grocery store, on the subway, on their lunch break from work…and others who need three solid hours to get anything done. The important thing is to write and build a writing practice. Eventually, you'll find what works for you. Just keep at it. And know that while it can feel like everything, it isn't everything. It's words on the page, and there are an infinite number of ways to arrange them—trust that, and be sure to get out and live too, so you have things to write about! 

A graduate with distinction of UCLA Extension Writers' Program, Gina Sorell is the author of Mothers and Other Strangers, a Great Group Reads selection, and a 2017 best book of Refinery 29, and Self Magazine. Her second book, The Wise Women (HarperCollins, 4/5/2022), has been named a most anticipated book of 2022 by Parade Magazine and The Today Show's Read with Jenna Book Club Community. She lives with her family in Toronto, Canada. Visit her at www.ginasorell.com.

Rebecca Sacks

How did you become a writer?

When the poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky was on trial in the Soviet courts for "social parasitism" in 1964, he gave his profession as "poet." According to the translated transcript published in the New York Times, the judge asked, "And who said that you were a poet? Who included you among the ranks of the poets?" Brodsky's reply: "No one. And who included me among the ranks of the human race?" 

 I wish I shared his certainty! I myself struggled to call myself a “writer” for quite a while. I knew I was someone who wrote. But what would make me a writer? Who would make me a writer? Who would include me among the ranks of writers? It turns out, Brodsky was right: a writer makes themselves. I became a writer by writing every day.

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

Oh gosh, I fear this question because I live in such debt to so many books and teachers that I know I will answer incompletely! I’ll attempt to list books and authors chronologically as I encountered them: Lang’s Fairy Books, D’aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths; the King James Bible; The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil; the Epic of Gilgamesh; Anne Carson; Averno by Louise Glück; Gilead by Marilynne Robinson; The Future of Nostalgia by Svetlana Boym; Orientalism by Edward Said; Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill; A.B. Yehoshua; Mahmoud Darwish; Terrance Hayes; Claudia Rankine; Edward Siken; Homegoing by Yaa Gysasi; The Known World and Lost in the City by Edward P. Jones; Look by Solmaz Sharif; Black Skin, White Masks by Franz Fanon; The Kingdom of Strangers by Elias Khoury; the Talmud, which I am encountering slowly as part of a queer yeshiva; Minor Detail by Adania Shibli; Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd.

The writers who have influenced me as teachers are Michelle Latiolais, Vu Tran, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Danzy Senna, and Amy Gerstler. I’m also grateful to my teachers of Talmud at the “traditionally radical yeshiva,” Svara. 

When and where do you write? 

I’m a morning writer. From the time I get up, I feel that an hourglass has been overturned and my time is running out as the morning slips by. I write at home. My desk is by a window.

What are you working on now? 

I am working on a novel about a love affair unfolding within political ideology.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Shhhh, it can hear you. (Yes. When this happens, I forgive myself and try again the next day.)

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

Vu Tran taught me that plot is a character device: it is a way to reveal a character by forcing them to make decisions; this changed the way I write. Michelle Latiolais taught me to build recovery time into my writing, as I give so much of my emotional and physical self to the work; this has allowed me to develop a sustainable writing practice.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Forget the fantasy that you’ll sit down and out of your fingers will pour a story ready for The Paris Review. Embrace the mess, embrace revision. Let the first draft be a story that you tell yourself. Then, lose yourself in the process of editing as that story becomes an act of communication with a reader. You got this. 

Rebecca Sacks is a graduate of the Programs in Writing at the University of California, Irvine. Rebecca, who uses both “she” and “they” pronouns, has been awarded grants, prizes, and fellowships from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Mellon-Sawyer Documenting War Seminar Series. A graduate of Dartmouth College, they worked for several years at Vanity Fair before moving to Tel Aviv to pursue an M.A. in Jewish studies. City of a Thousand Gates (HarperCollins, 2021) is her first novel. They live in Los Angeles.