Alina Rubin

How did you become a writer? A bit over three years ago, I was writing nothing but heart-wrenching IT compliance documents. Then, because of the pandemic, I had more time to watch TV, and I became obsessed with watching historical fiction mini-series. Ideas started coming to my head, especially at night. One morning, in February of 2021, I had this overwhelming urge to write. I went to the computer, and the story poured so fast, my fingers could barely keep up. An hour later, tears of joy ran down my face. I knew at that moment that I would become an author.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). In my childhood, I loved Jules Verne and Alexander Dumas. In school, I had wonderful English teachers, and I thank them in all my books. The best craft books I read were Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody, Dynamic Story Creation by Maxwell Alexander Drake, Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury, and On Writing by Stephen King. 

When and where do you write? I write in my office and try to be at my desk at 5:30 a.m. with my coffee. I write till 7, which is the time I get my daughter to school. Hopefully I carve out more time for writing later in the day, but that morning session is very important to me.

What are you working on now? I’m plotting Book 4 of the Hearts and Sails series.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? No. I hope it’s not a real thing.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Turn off your inner critic.

What’s your advice to new writers? You can’t do everything yourself. Find your tribe. Show your work to people you trust. 

Alina Rubin is an award-winning author who celebrates heroines with strong voices and able hands. Amidst the pandemic, she authored her debut novel while working in IT. Her characters took her on a journey beyond her wildest dreams. She’s an accomplished speaker and the owner of Hearts and Sails Author Services. Her novel, A Girl with a Knife, won the Illinois Soon to be Famous Author Competition. Her book series is set in Regency England, but her characters are more likely to suture wounds than dance at a ball. Alina obtained B.S. and M.S. degrees in Business and Information Technology from DePaul University. She lives near Chicago with her husband and daughter. She enjoys yoga, hiking, and traveling.

Ellen Baker

How did you become a writer? I always loved to write stories, from the time I was a little kid, and I loved to read, too. I feel like I always knew it was what I wanted to do. I studied some other things (psychology, history, American Studies) and worked in museums before transitioning to working at a bookstore and then finally getting a book contract and becoming a full-time writer.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). When I was fifteen, I read Joyce Carol Oates’s Because it Is Bitter and Because it Is My Heart and I Lock My Door Upon Myself, and though I’d thought before about wanting to write novels, the experience I had reading these two books cemented that I really wanted to try to make a career of it. I still draw inspiration from the feeling I had then, which was of being understood completely at the same time that I was being swept away into another world. Then, when I was seventeen, I had the opportunity to meet Minnesota writer Frederick Manfred, and he read some of my writing and told me I would be published by the time I was thirty. I was inspired to try to prove him right! Beyond that, I've always read widely and constantly, from classics to bestsellers and everything in between. I love family sagas, mysteries, memoirs and biographies, and historical, literary, and commercial fiction. I look carefully at everything I read and try to figure out why something works or why it doesn't. I feel like I learn something from everything I read. Also, working at an independent bookstore for a number of years, I was constantly interacting with passionate readers, and they helped me understand a lot about the experience they're looking for when they pick up a novel. I would say they were tremendously influential, as well.  

When and where do you write? I write first thing in the morning (sometimes this is 5 am, sometimes more like 8 am) until noonish. I write everywhere in my house, depending on my mood and the weather. Sofa, dining room table, desk in the upstairs office, kitchen counter, front porch. If I’m writing a first draft, I prefer to be reclined on the sofa. For editing, I’m more likely to sit up straight at a desk or table. If the weather’s nice, I love to be outside. 

What are you working on now? A family saga set on the coast of Maine which spans from the 1930s to 2010, with three generations of strong women at its heart. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? There have definitely been times when the writing doesn't flow easily, and there have been weeks or even months in a row where I haven't written because life has made other demands. At those times, I do sometimes wonder if any more ideas will come. But when I sit down to write with a goal in mind, I have a pretty good system for keeping myself on track. 

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? I think the most transformative feedback I got was in a workshop led by J. Robert Lennon in about 2004. He and the other students in the workshop all pointed out that I seemed not to want anything bad to happen to my characters, nor anything impolite to be said about them. It was surprising to me to realize that if I wanted to write interesting fiction, I was going to have to let go of my Minnesota-nice upbringing and start getting more honest -- and even maybe a little mean. :) 

What’s your advice to new writers? Everyone says “don’t give up” and “stay in your chair.” I agree with those pieces of advice! One thing I would also add is “find your true voice.” Write about things you truly care about, in a way that sounds right to you. Authentic storytelling is what will finally resonate with readers – not with all of them, but with the ones you’re meant to find, and who are meant to find you.

Ellen Baker is the author of the novel The Hidden Life of Cecily Larson, which was the HarperCollins Lead Read for Winter 2024, an Indie Next pick, a People Best New Book, and a Woman's World Best New Book. It was also named as one of winter's most anticipated books by Goodreads and placed on multiple Best-of lists by BookBub, including Best Historical Fiction of 2024. Authors including Lisa Wingate, Tara Conklin, Kim Michele Richardson, Thao Thai and Kristin Harmel praised it respectively as “colorful,” “gorgeous,” “electrifying,” “riveting” and “beautiful. Ellen’s earlier novels, Keeping the House and I Gave My Heart to Know This, both published by Random House, were called “masterful” (Booklist), “vivid” (Chicago Tribune), and “artful” (Philadelphia Inquirer). Keeping the House won the Great Lakes Book Award and was a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, as well as an Insider Discovery of the Literary Guild, a featured selection of the Doubleday Book Club and Random House Reader’s Circle, a BookSense Notable Book, and a Midwest Connections Pick.

After living most of her early life in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Ellen currently resides on the coast of Maine. Her online course, Start Your Novel With Confidence, offering a proven framework for getting your novel started plus a year of group coaching to support you as you write it, is available through www.ellenbakercreative.com.

Lauren Acampora

How did you become a writer? I was always scribbling stories from the time I could write my letters. They were usually about animals: dogs, horses, and bunnies. I also read a lot as a kid and was obsessed with the Little House on the Prairie books; I wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder, which included being a writer. As I continued to read more widely, I became both exhilarated and completely overwhelmed by the idea of writing fiction, the sheer enormity of its possibilities. I wrote poetry through high school, college, and beyond. For a long time, I believed I lacked the confidence writing fiction required. But I was still reading much more fiction than poetry, and finally my poems morphed into prose poems, which then morphed into stories. While living and working in New York, I enrolled in evening classes in a fiction MFA program, and those instructors and classmates gave me validation and encouragement to keep hammering away outside of office hours. Finally, I started to get a few things published, and I just kept at it.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). Having just outlined my path to writing fiction, I understand the core importance of those nature-based books I read as a young person: the Little House on the Prairie series, and all the novels in Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series and Jim Kjelgaard’s books about dogs (Big Red, etc.). My mind was also blown by the unsettling psychological tangles of Lois Duncan’s dreamy, spooky thrillers, and William Sleator’s time travel novel, The Green Futures of Tycho. I had two especially transformative teachers at Darien High School—Faye Gage and Lynda Sorensen—who challenged my thinking and nurtured my creative experimentation. John Steinbeck, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ray Bradbury, Richard Brautigan, and Henry David Thoreau all made deep impressions on me then. At Brown, my poetry professor, Gale Nelson, introduced me to the weird and wonderful. And Professor Arnold Weinstein, whose comparative literature classes I devoured, was—and continues to be—a major force in my thinking, writing, and reading. Literary influences from that era include Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Bronte, E. E. Cummings, and Franz Kafka. At Brooklyn College’s MFA program, I worked with incredible instructors who’ve become mentors, friends, and artistic influences in their own right: Irini Spanidou, Susan Choi, and Michael Cunningham. These days, writers and creators who excite my imagination include George Saunders, Donna Tartt, T.C. Boyle, John Cheever, Flannery O’Connor, and David Lynch. 

When and where do you write? I write at home on my back deck whenever I can. If the weather isn’t amenable, I work at my desk in a little blue office/guest room with a window. But truthfully, I get more done when I’m not at home, where there’s less temptation to get up out of the chair and putter around. The best place is the library. Being in view of strangers keeps me honest.

What are you working on now? I’m just finishing up a collection of linked stories about human-animal dynamics. I guess I never really stopped writing about dogs, horses, and bunnies.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? I don’t think I’ve suffered from “writer’s block,” as such, but rather “story’s block.” I think all writers sometimes come up against a problem in a story, some intractable issue in the plot, or a question of character, or just how to get from here to there in a narrative—and realize the story is stuck. I’ve found a few useful strategies for dealing with this. One is going for a walk. Another is leaving the house with a notebook, finding somewhere quiet, and just scrawling out the problem and all its associated questions and ideas. Showers also help.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Michael Cunningham’s advice has to be the best, although the hardest to follow: “Keep your butt in the chair.”

What’s your advice to new writers? Read the writers who make you feel like you can do it, too. Steer clear of the ones who make you want to give up. For very new writers, I’d say, don’t be too hard on yourself, and try not to put too much pressure on the work. Let your writing breathe and develop as naturally and joyfully as possible. Write about what’s really on your mind, no matter how unsettling or bizarre or silly. Write about what obsesses or perplexes you, what makes you feel excited, giddy, nervous. Crucially, write like no one is watching. In order to do this, I suggest labeling any work-in-progress with the word “freewrite” as a psychological insurance policy in case you are hit by a bus and someone finds it. 

Lauren Acampora is the author of three books of fiction published by Grove Atlantic: The Wonder Garden, The Paper Wasp, and The Hundred Waters. Her books have won or been nominated for the GLCA New Writers Award, the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the Story Prize, and the New England Book Award, and she’s been named an Artist Fellow in Fiction by The New York Foundation for the Arts. Lauren’s writing has appeared in The Paris Review, New England Review, Missouri Review, Guernica, and The New York Times, among other places. She lives in New York.