Linda Villarosa

How did you become a writer? 

When I was a little girl, I used to have Wednesday night sleepovers with my Great Aunt May. She was a retired teacher who read to me and taught me how to read before I started kindergarten. She was the first person to tell me I could – and should – be a writer. 

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

My mother owned the Hue-Man Experience, which was the largest Black bookstore in the country. Being around books and authors was very inspiring to me as I was coming of age. I was also very influenced by Susan L. Taylor, the former editor in chief of Essence Magazine. She hired me as health editor and promoted me to executive editor of the magazine, and the experience of working in a Black women-centric environment was foundational to my growth. 

When and where do you write? 

I’m a morning person, but writing isn’t precious to me. It’s my profession, and I can do it anywhere, anytime.

What are you working on now? 

I just finished a book and am now contributing to a special report for the New York Times Magazine on gun violence and children that will run at the end of the year. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

There’s no such thing as writer’s block. 

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

There’s no such thing as writer’s block. If you feel stuck that means you need to find inspiration by doing more research.

What’s your advice to new writers? 

Don’t let anyone discourage you. Just out of college, at my first magazine job, my supervisor told the rest of the staff that I was an affirmative action hire the day before I started. She later advised other editors not to encourage me because I had no talent. Now I feel great satisfaction each time the New York Times Magazine lands on her doorstep with my name on the cover. 

Linda Villarosa is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine where she covers race, inequality and public health. Her 2018 Times Magazine cover story "Why America's Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She is the author of Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on American Lives and on the Health of Our Nation which was named as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, Publisher’s Weekly, Time Magazine and NPR – and by the Times as one of the Top 10 Books of 2022. Linda is a journalist in residence and professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism @ CUNY with a joint appointment at the City College of New York.

Elijah Kinch Spector

How did you become a writer?

I come from a long line of writers, so it always felt like a foregone conclusion. This may or may not have been a good thing. Would I have felt the constant urge to write if I hadn't been raised in that environment? Would I still have my deep, compulsive, need for approval and recognition from others? Who knows! But I was a sensitive only child, surrounded by artists and weirdos while I pined for adulthood, so here I am.

More concretely, I majored in Creative Writing, and then spent the next decade trying to break in. I wrote many attempted novels of many types. I made a spreadsheet with an unhinged amount of information on the 40 or so agents I wanted to query. I lay on the floor staring into space and moaning that I'd never get published. One doesn’t have to be published to be a writer, but that's what I fixated on and, in my case, that fixation forced me to improve.

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

Always a tough question, because of course the answer is, you know, everything.

That said, in college I took a course on writing in the first person from novelist Ed Park that still affects my writing every day, even as most of my education fades from memory. One of the books we read in that class was Charles Portis’ True Grit, which opened my eyes to how even the smallest choices in wording and incident can greatly inform a character.

Additionally, a major influence on me from out of left field is Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. In the Quartet’s later books, Durrell’s own… odious views come into clearer focus, but his lush prose, heavy with the history of the setting, remains marvelous—if also orientalist. I write fantasy, but a lot of the tone and texture of my worldbuilding came from Durrell.

When and where do you write?

I don't take well to routine, unfortunately, so I'm never good at having a particular time or place where I write. I have a beautiful little desk my spouse made for me, but it ends up being where I do most other work. I love to bring a notebook and pen to cafes, parks, and bars, or to scribble out a few pages on a lunch break from my day job; but I also love the feeling of banging away on an old typewriter for hours at a time, when I can manage it.

What are you working on now?

I'm currently in the beautiful little grace period between finishing the first draft of my second novel and getting edits back. So, right this second, I'm working on nothing, and it's glorious. But very soon I'll be deep in revisions on my first try at a sequel.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Absolutely, although I wonder if "writer's block" is one term applied to a thousand different things. For me, getting stuck on what should happen next plot-wise is totally different from not knowing what will make a new character interesting, and both problems have different remedies. But changing my location and/or writing tools almost always helps.

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

Don't listen to anyone who says you need to write for at least X hours a day—or even to write every day—in order to be a writer.

What’s your advice to new writers?

If your epigraph isn’t in public domain, you might have to pay for the rights to use it! I learned this the hard way, but it was worth the money.

Elijah Kinch Spector is a writer, dandy, and rootless cosmopolitan from the Bay Area who now lives in Brooklyn. His debut novel, Kalyna the Soothsayer, is available from Erewhon Books.

Ethan Joella

How did you become a writer?

I used to pass poems out to my teachers in second grade; I wrote a script for the TV show Growing Pains in middle school. In college, I wrote two novels in longhand after taking a fiction writing class. I did two graduate programs in creative writing, and in the midst of teaching and being a dad, I still tried to write whenever I could, relishing any small literary journal acceptance along the way. In 2019, after querying almost every agent in the country, I was so lucky to be taken on by Madeleine Milburn in London who has handled some of the biggest book deals in the world. She sold A Little Hope to Scribner, who was my absolute dream publisher, and from that point, I really felt like a writer.

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

Hundreds of writers have shaped me. Jesmyn Ward, Ernest Hemingway, Amy Hempel, John Cheever, Elizabeth Strout, Jamaica Kincaid, Jess Walter. The poets Naomi Shihab Nye, Ross Gay, and Marie Howe. But I think most of all, I remember reading Anne Tyler’s novels during my twenties and thinking, Oh, she’s doing exactly what the craft books talk about: using strong verbs, compelling characters, plot breadcrumbs. So I think she had one of the biggest effects on me. I learned so much from my MFA program and the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild, too.

When and where do you write?

I don’t have a set time, but I feel best when I write in the morning. If not, I try to get something in after lunch. I have a writing desk in our basement, but I rarely use it. I like to sit on the couch and do most of my work there because I enjoy being in the center of the house’s action. If I’m having a hard time revising or editing, I’ll sit at the dining room table, which I think signals something in my brain that this is serious.

What are you working on now?

I’m revising my next novel and planning out some ideas for one after that. I also try to keep working on short stories as I think they are important to understanding structure and overall craft. I often have a couple projects cooking at once and more ideas than I have writing time. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I can’t turn off that writer brain that’s taking in everything for possible later use. It’s like a big program using up all the memory on your hard drive, always running in the background!

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

Not exactly. I think I’ve suffered from a lack of discipline or a lack of writing something I’m proud of, but if I force myself to sit down, I can usually cough up something. I just can’t guarantee it will be good.

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

Write toward that moment when your characters surprise you. That’s what you want, and that’s when the characters are so real that readers will want to follow them—the whole Robert Frost no surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader thing. I think it’s always about the characters. Never be locked into a plot point or an ending. It has to be what’s organic to the characters.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Call yourself a writer. Find the right community who will both encourage and challenge you. Be okay with criticism. If you care about your writing, prioritize it and don’t treat it as a secret hobby or an afterthought. I think my writing life changed for the better when I started placing writing more prominently among my daily priorities.

Ethan Joella teaches English and psychology at the University of Delaware. His work has appeared in River Teeth, The Cimarron Review, The MacGuffin, Delaware Beach Life, and Third Wednesday. He is the author of A Little Hope, which was a Read with Jenna Bonus Selection and A Quiet Life, which comes out in November. He lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, with his wife and two daughters.