Caroline Frost

How did you become a writer? 

The first time I started to think of myself as a writer was after writing a feature on my English teacher for the high school newspaper. It was a simple, observational piece, just the two of us baking her mother’s sand tarts in her odd little kitchen, but it meant something to me. Then, when a number of people stopped me and told me how much they were moved, I became hooked. Not just making people feel things, but helping them feel what I was feeling.

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

There’s a storytelling cadence I find difficult to attribute, but I think it’s an amalgam of the people in my life. I come from a line of big talkers (though I’m not one myself), readers, dealmakers, cooks, restaurateurs, housewives, cattlemen, oilmen, artists, Texan ladies, both polite and no so very. I also come from people who talk a lot about death and the dead, which is a favorite topic. Specific works that marked me early on: The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry, Sula by Toni Morrison, Lolita and Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov, Carrie by Stephen King, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, In Cold Blood and others by Truman Capote, plays by Tennessee Williams. I think movies have influenced my writing as much as books. I love the Coen Brothers, Cassavetes, Wes Anderson, small rural films like Tender Mercies and other Old Salt redemption stories, nineties thrillers like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle and Fatal Attraction. The Silence of the Lambs is etched in my soul. 

When and where do you write?

I finally have a proper workday in my home office, a pretty, crowded, old fashioned room with cracked paint and a view into the backyard. It’s a fairly strict 10-3 while the kids are in school. In a perfect world I would write 8-1 and then do something physical or take an art class and then do household stuff, but I let a lot of things slide when I’m writing. I write a lot in my mind when I’m out in the world and frequently use my notes app to jot down the scenes that find me in the school drop-off line. 

What are you working on now?

I’ve just finished a draft of my second book, MURDER BALLAD, another dark southern novel, this time about a young songwriter, a gruesome crime, and a stolen song against the backdrop of the 1977 Nashville country music scene. I’m also romancing my third book, my take on an old New Mexican campfire story. I’m thinking of branching out and writing this one as literary horror. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

I don’t anymore—I can’t wait to get started every day—but I remember being younger, mid-twenties, and realizing that the act of writing regularly is its own language, and that I wasn’t yet fluent. I think I had a healthy sense of humility telling me, Not yet, keep working. It took me years of squeezing writing into the cracks of my day before I felt confident enough to treat it like I could give it the best of me. I didn’t publish until I was 41 and I really think I needed the time to incubate. 

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

Anchor every scene in the senses. (Janet Fitch) I also love this one for writing the unexpected: Have your character find out their husband has died, and then quietly make themselves a cup of coffee. 

What’s your advice to new writers? 

Follow the pleasure. When you hit a stale patch, walk away and dream about the fun scene you’d rather write. Avoid dutiful or didactic writing. Write the lively and the daring. 

Caroline Frost is the author of Shadows of Pecan Hollow: A Novel. www.carolinefrost.com; Instagram: @carolinefrostwriter; Facebook: @carolinefrostwriter.

Jennifer Homans

How did you become a writer?

I became a writer by being a shy person and a dancer. I am very internal and have always liked to sit alone in dark theaters watching dance and scribbling thoughts. Or performing, which is also a very private experience, even (or because) it is for a public. Writing is always for me a way of thinking – I don't know what I am going to “say” before I write it. Dance mattered because, somehow, the direct connection between seeing or moving and the task of describing my own thoughts in the moment, as a thing, but also as an effect on my own being, is something private and natural to me. I see better and feel more when I write it down. I have ideas when I move to music, and often took a pen and paper with me to dance classes. The process was so private that I never imagined I would share my writing, and to this day, I feel oddly surprised when I see my work in print. When I am writing, no one else is there, just me (barely) and the material. In this sense, it is very much like dancing.

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

This is hard – there are so many, and each project brings its own library of influences. Here are a few. Some are dances and dancers; art and music: The dances of George Balanchine. The dancing and teaching of Suzanne Farrell, Melissa Hayden, Maria Tallchief. I have always learned from art – especially painting and sculpture. Recently, Russian literature, especially Tolstoy. Cervantes. Don Quixote. Henry James. William James. So many more.

When and where do you write?

I write at home, usually beginning very early in the morning through early afternoon, with breaks to walk, snack, pace, and talk to myself. I began this way because I didn't have an office or job to go to; later I had young children and wanted to be near them, even if someone else was caring for them so that I could write. Now that I do have an office, I still write mostly at home. I use the floor a lot – for notes, spread out in a sea around me – and I am often on the floor, talking to the pages and moving them around like pieces of a puzzle.

What are you working on now?

At the moment I am working on finding a new subject, which for me means trying out ideas by living with them for a time to see which sift to the bottom and which stay with me. I try to be open and let fate and chance play a role – I don't want to miss a subject that might surprise me. I try to follow my body and go where it takes me – not in a meditative sense, but literally: Where do I find myself standing?

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block?

No. I see writing as a craft and if I am stuck, I just keep at it. I don't think of it as writer's block, just a bad day. There are many!

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

Keep going. Stay at your desk and fight it out, BUT also know when to stop and take a walk, go on a trip, get on a train, or go to a gallery. The best ideas usually come to me when I am not at my desk. It is a balancing act, and I try not to get stuck in my own tenaciousness.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Write about something you care about and want to know more about. Do not write about yourself unless you have a rare talent and something unusual to say. Curiosity and delight in learning is for me a key; it takes me out of myself.

Jennifer Homans is the dance critic and a contributing writer for The New Yorker. She is the author of Mr. B: George Balanchine’s 20th Century (2022) and Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet. Trained in dance at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, she performed professionally with the Pacific Northwest Ballet before earning a BA at Columbia University and a PhD in modern European history at New York University, where she is currently a Scholar in Residence and the Founding Director of the Center for Ballet and the Arts.

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.