Mike Errico

How did you become a writer? I always wanted to be one, so I always wrote, but I never had anything that needed to be read, if you know what I mean. It was therapy, and sketches, and atrocious conversations between talking dogs. A lot of that became songs—talking dogs and all. It wasn’t until I began teaching that I felt I could write something worth someone’s time.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). I didn’t get an MFA or anything, so I basically had to teach myself how to write. I found books by Stephen King, Verlyn Klinkenborg, Annie Dillard, and others. For how to structure an abstract thought, I went to Rebecca Solnit, George Saunders, Mary Ruefle, and back as far as I could reach with philosophers—I wrote a lot during the pandemic, and for some reason, the Stoics spoke to me. I shared some Stoic principles with my students in order to help us all survive, because by late 2020, their songs were getting pretty damn bleak! Lots of “dancing to the end of the world” stuff. I tried to infuse some hope and a sense of agency, which, now that I think about it, is what a lot of pop songs try to do. Stylistically, I love anything that proposes an alternate reality: Richard Brautigan is a long-time favorite, and more recently I discovered Ocean Vuong, who seems to blur poetry, prose, and lyric. I think it would be cool to set him to music. For the life of the songwriter, I read David Byrne, Jeff Tweedy, Questlove, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Patti Smith (of course), among many others. Biographies are a mixed bag because their journeys are not replicable, and oftentimes the writers are as baffled as the readers about how it all happened. Or they just talk about drugs, which gets boring. And I always try to interject the heavy reading with fun stuff: Andrew Sean Greer, Maria Semple, graphic novels… Bill Bryson had me snorting, which I did not expect. There’s a list of books at the end of Music, Lyrics, and Lifeentitled “Summer Reading for Some Time Later in Life”—it’s as scattered as my music collection, but it’s a good list. I recommend them all.

When and where do you write? I write in the morning, mostly. I get up at insane hours without an alarm, and go till I can’t, or till it’s getting dumb, or till my hand gives out. By then, the house is waking up, and I’m grateful. I find that the writing tools really do act on my thoughts, to paraphrase Nietzsche—longhand for longer prose, computer for blurting what might be songs. Where do I write? Wherever. “Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark.” That’s Annie Dillard, a complete boss.

What are you working on now? I am in the middle of an EP, which I’ve had to pull back on because I have some long Covid symptoms that are affecting my voice. As for prose, I’m taking notes for a follow up to Music, Lyrics, and Life. The similarities and dysfunctions of the music and publishing industries are really stunning. But I just put my head down and do what I do.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? I go into this at length in my book: There’s no such thing as writer’s block. It was invented by a Freudian psychiatrist named Dr. Edmund Bergler in the 1940’s. He blamed things like breastfeeding mothers who were stingy with their milk, which is something I enjoy telling my 18- to 21-year-old students in 2023. Anyway, people who studied the “affliction” actually did come up with a cure: Write through it. Which is to say, keep doing what you’re doing whether or not you have the “affliction.” Which is to say, it doesn’t matter if you have the “affliction” or not. I definitely do have feelings that are mistaken for writer’s block: I’ll hate what I’ve written, or resist completing an idea for a thousand different reasons. That’s not a block, though—that’s fear. The only real block is getting hit by a bus.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? I don’t know if it’s advice, but when I walk into the indie bookstore in my neighborhood, my lungs fill as if I’ve been holding my breath since the last time I was there. I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I love the energy coming off the shelves; I love the covers, and the spines, and the feel of the pages, and the anticipation of a new and transporting piece of work. That feeling comes to me as advice: “You’re in the right place. Keep going.”

What’s your advice to new writers? I can only give what was given to me by an old showman: Save your money; Never believe your publicity, and leave the party early.

Mike Errico is a recording artist, author, and songwriting professor at Yale, the New School, and NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. In addition to his performing and teaching careers, Errico’s opinions and insights have appeared in publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and CNN. His new book, Music, Lyrics, and Life: A Field Guide for the Advancing Songwriter, is available everywhere, including: Bookshop | Books Are Magic | Amazon |  Bandcamp (signed copies).

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.