Mark Anthony Jarman

How did you become a writer? Not sure how I ended up writing, I never knew what I was doing, never had a Five Year Plan. I was a bookworm as a kid and the family home had newspapers and magazines and books. After high school and a few years of blue-collar jobs, I went to the University of Victoria for English, which I liked, but I liked CW workshops more. I am very pro-workshop. Workshops gave me deadlines for years and the variety of feedback was often contradictory, but beneficial. I could tell what was helpful for what I was trying to do. CW seemed friendlier, hanging out at the pub after class to chat. Lit class was less so, but both were good for hearing about significant writers, too many to list. I haunted used bookstores, collecting. Cormac McCarthy said books come out of books, and he is correct.

Name your writing influences. In high school I was very lucky to find the John Dos Passos trilogy USA in the library: it was a huge influence in terms of what was possible in writing, the mix of headlines, bios, fragments, issues of class and labour, many different characters, and even drawings. In high school I also read Hemingway, very spare versus the spawl of Dos Passos. I admired both styles. I was also lucky to have a string of very good English teachers throughout grade school and high school.

In first-year university the short story writer Bill Valgardson got me to read Flannery O’Connor and I am indebted for that. Phyllis Webb showed me books by the poet John Thompson, and I also pored over Joan Didion and Alice Munro’s early books (how are they getting this effect?) and met Munro briefly in Victoria.

I was the kid who read every word of album covers (who’s playing bass on the Gilded Palace of Sin?), and I read and listened to song lyrics. I cannot separate music from books as an influence; in a way, music is everything.

When and where do you write? I write in different places. At home I may take over the dining room table for years on end, but I also like to get out the door, whether to a café or bar. I tend to cabin fever, so a different scene gives me new eyes and ears, unexpected words and ideas show up. I can write in noisy places and often collect stray bits of dialogue. I eavesdrop all the time and use the found material in my stories; very good for minor characters or parallels or humour. When it goes well, I’m happy. Sometimes I write in binges, sometimes I take time off and recharge. I don’t lose sleep over it, I’m not 9-5.

When traveling I look for “A Clean Well Lighted Place,” say a café where I can hide comfortably in a corner and catch up on my notes. My memory is not good and I need to jot notes or it’s lost.

Once I had jobs and kids, I realized I no longer had big blocks of time; I had to use what tiny bits of time I could; a minute here or there adds up over ten years. Being a night owl helps. I write differently at midnight than I do when the larks call.  

As a proud Luddite, I always carry pen and paper; I feel naked without a pen and a minor key harmonica. I print out an ongoing story and work it over by hand with a pen; I see a printed page differently, I can see more easily what isn’t working or flowing. And I like less time staring at screens.

What are you working on now? Right now I am working on a new story about a pickpocket who was following me last month in Venice. I evaded him, but in my story I get to play God and make him pay. I also have CNF travel pieces on the go concerning Florence, Marseille, and Arles. In Florence last year our neighbour became unbalanced, ranting and trying to break into our apartment at 4 am. A very romantic Italian interlude.

Another piece concerns four Afghan refugees trying to get to Paris, but it includes Van Gogh and the Camargue’s wild bulls. The Camargue is an amazing landscape.

Over a period of 25 years, off and on, I have written several Wild West stories to do with Custer, and to do with Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, leaders of Metis rebellions in western Canada. They all lived and died in the same era; the plan is to make this a novel.

Last fall while downsizing I found a folder of old notes from late ’70s and early ’80s, notes made when I was at Iowa and the Yaddo artists colony, then misplaced. From the old notes I made two new stories very quickly and sold both quickly to lit mags, which was much smoother than usual. I have a suspicion I will pay for this somehow.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? I keep very rough notebooks of anything I feel like jotting down, anything at all, so a blank page is rarely an issue. I may begin with an image or one scene and add to that. Postcard stories are a low-pressure way to start, and it may become longer, which is fine. When teaching CW I don’t give prompts or writing exercises. I tell my students that Margaret Atwood does not call me and say, Mark, what should I write? She knows what she wants to write about.

I do have sympathy for someone feeling blocked. After I was out of Iowa, out of workshops and deadlines and starting a new job, I lost momentum. I had to find a way to write on my own. It took a few long years to adjust. Now I can’t stop, can’t shut up.

Walks are a great aid for writing. I believe in letting the brain work; give it time and your brain will help you. Take it out for a stroll and the right word or new idea will pop into your head. Thanks for that!

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Decades ago I had strange, but memorable advice from Canadian writer Matt Cohen who told us, his CW students, that we needed to drop acid. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe he meant we needed to stir up our brains more, that our writing was not very exciting.

Bill Valgardson pointed out concrete vs. abstract diction, and to write in scenes. This was an eye opener. I devoured books, but hadn’t really noticed how prose was put together, word by word, scene by scene. It wasn’t visible to me. Then it was.

Martha Sharpe, my editor at Anansi, asked me to convert as much prose as possible to dialogue. Your Irish aunts are funny? Prove it. That’s too hard, I thought. But I became a believer. You need exposition and dialogue both, but the human eye and brain prefer dialogue.

Mamet’s very useful screenwriting dictum: Get into a scene late, get out early.

Elmore Leonard once mentioned getting out a notebook when watching a doc on coal miners. Now I always collect while watching TV, docs, films, sports, sitcoms, collecting slang, jargon, and odd expressions. You never know when you may find them useful.

What’s your advice to new writers? My simplest advice to new writers? Be very messy. No need for a draft to be perfect; I work with frags and ragged segments and my early drafts are a shambles. I’ll fix it later. And I leave lots of room to make changes, to improvise and add more as it hits me.

Take your time. One image or word or idea leads to another, then another, and the piece slowly builds to something larger with unexpected turns, which makes me curious and happy.

Mark Anthony Jarman is the author of Touch Anywhere to Begin, Czech Techno, Knife Party at the Hotel Europa, 19 Knives, and the travel book Ireland's Eye. Published in journals across Europe, Asia, and North America, he is a graduate of The Iowa Writers' Workshop and a fiction editor for The Fiddlehead literary journal. Burn Man, published in 2023 by Biblioasis, was an Editors’ Choice with The New York Times.

Jennifer Higgie

How did you become a writer? By being a reader. I trained as an artist and came to London from Australia on a painting fellowship. I was struggling with making pictures, and being anonymous in London somehow gave me the freedom to explore the written word in a way I didn’t have the confidence to do back home, as I was never very academic. I turned to writing as a way of working through my confusion with the world; also, it seemed a better option than waitressing, which I did on and off for about 15 years. I learned on the job when I joined frieze magazine after writing a few pieces for them. I was utterly unqualified, but being surrounded by a group of talented writers and editors was endlessly inspiring and editing other people’s work taught me a lot about my own. Also, having to write fast and hit deadlines meant learning not to muck about. It took me a long time to acknowledge that I was a writer, a calling I’ve always been in awe of. 

Name your writing influences. There are so many, but Robert Hughes was the first art historian I read who could bring an image alive through words. Even when I didn’t agree with him, his prose opened my mind to the possibilities of what language can do. It was a revelation. Griselda Pollock's books made me aware of the structural exclusions of art history and challenged me to rethink everything I had previously assumed was carved in stone. Writing by artists, in particular Louise Bourgeois and Agnes Martin, showed me that art and writing could respond to each other with a reciprocal imaginative flourish.

When and where do you write? These days either in bed or the library but my magazine training means that I can pretty much write anywhere. 

What are you working on now? A mix of essays for artist’s catalogues, and the seed of an idea for my next book, which is gradually blooming (she said hopefully).

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? No. As someone who lives off writing, it’s a luxury I can’t afford. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Be very disciplined. Don't get precious about it, just do it. No-one apart from you will read the first draft, so take risks, be stupid, play around – amid the dross, something will sparkle. Read what you’ve written out loud. Be rampantly self-critical, but not to the point that it stops you writing. If you're stuck, read something wonderful – other writers have been there before you, and they can show you the way. 

What’s your advice to new writers? Only do it if you can’t imagine doing anything else. And read, read, read. 

Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer who lives in London. Previously the editor of frieze magazine, her latest book is The Other Side: A Story of Women, Art and the Spirit World. She is also the author of The Mirror & The Palette: Rebellion, Resilience and Resistance: 500 Years of Women’s Self Portraits (2021), the author and illustrator of the children’s book There’s Not One; the editor of The Artist’s Joke and the author of Bedlam, a novel about the 19th century fairy painter, Richard Dadd. Her website is jenniferhiggie.com.

Jahmal Mayfield

How did you become a writer? I’m fond of saying “reader first, writer second” on my social media platforms, and it’s quite true. I remember devouring George Pelecanos’ novel, RIGHT AS RAIN, back in 2001. It was a transformative experience for me because here was a Greek man writing Black characters with, I believed, such verisimilitude. They came alive on the page. After finishing that novel, I wanted nothing more than to do something similar. 

Name your writing influences. Obviously, George Pelecanos, but also Dennis Lehane, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Don Winslow, and so many crime writers I can’t even begin to mention them all. Musically, Nas, who has always told impactful stories in his songs while also emphasizing the poetic beauty of words and how they can elevate you when placed together in a meaningful way. 

When and where do you write? On my couch, in my car, swivel chair in my home office. Almost always late at night when the world around me is quiet and doesn’t interfere with me listening to music playing softly in the background. I draft by longhand on yellow legal pads. This slows me down and forces me to write with intention. Transcribing those words into the computer also provides me with a built-in second draft, as I inevitably make changes during that time. 

What are you working on now? I don’t want to divulge too much, as I’m in the early stages and would hate to talk myself out of the enthusiasm you need to finish a project. I will say, it follows what I’ve determined will be my “brand.” It’s gritty, crime fiction, written with a Black gaze, and dealing with social commentary. In this case, racially motivated mass shootings. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? Probably, but I refuse to admit as much because that can be defeating. During those times when the words simply aren’t flowing, I’ll allow my mind to drift in ways that can still benefit the story. I might imagine a piece of dialogue that I know will happen at some point in the manuscript. Or attempt to answer a nagging question about a character’s motivations. Or search Google for interesting possibilities for character names. What this does is wire my brain to understand that, okay, yes, I’m not actively writing, but I most certainly am working on the manuscript. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.” Hat tip to the prolific Stephen King for that one. It acknowledges, and in fact cements the notion that a first draft is all about the writer. Whether we realize it or not, that first draft is borne mostly of our experiences and worldview. The edit, at least a thoughtful edit, welcomes the outside world and other ideas and experiences. That’s crucial, because if every character in my novels ends up being some facsimile of me, then I haven’t written an honest book. I want to write honest books. 

What’s your advice to new writers? Be a reader first, a writer second. Fall in love with the work of others and then interrogate their texts to understand why you loved it. Then take that understanding and apply it in your own unique way. No one else can write the book the way that you will. Embrace that knowledge, lean into it, and you will be the greatest of commodities. You'll be original.

Jahmal Mayfield was born in Virginia but currently resides in New Jersey. In addition to writing crime fiction, he serves as the director of a nonprofit program that provides employment support to people with disabilities. SMOKE KINGS was inspired by Kimberly Jones’ passionate viral video, “How can we win?”