Jay Turner

How did you become a writer? One summer, when I was in my early twenties, someone gifted me a box of great American novels. I read each one. By the end of the summer, I knew I wanted to write. I just didn’t know what. I spent a year trying to write my own novel, but realized I was going to need more structure than that. That led me to pursue graduate studies in history, which has been the focus of my writing since.

Name your writing influences. The power of William Styron’s descriptive language and the endless depths of his vocabulary caught my imagination early on. John McPhee’s eye for detail, his gift for developing characters, and his ability to make the most common of topics fascinating convinced me that I wanted to write non-fiction. William Cronon, who blurred the conceptual boundary between the natural and unnatural in ways that made the environment meaningful to me in new ways made me want to be an environmental historian.

When and where do you write? When I’m working on a book, I usually write at home in the morning. I’ll get up at 5:30 am or so, make a cup of tea, and starting working until 8 am or so. I never write much past that, and if I’m working on a big project, I try not to skip a day – weekends, holidays, even vacation…everyday starts with writing, even if just for an hour or so. If I skip a day, it takes two days to catch up.

What are you working on now? I’m in between projects. I’m writing short articles, opinion pieces, and research papers while I figure out what my next book is going to be about.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? No. I just write. I’m a big believer in getting something down that I can then return to. I almost never delete…I keep pushing text down the page, often circling back to what didn’t seem so good at first, and findings ways it works.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? Write every day, even if just for a little bit.

What’s your advice to new writers? Sometimes it makes sense to start over. My most recent book is a history of batteries. I actually wrote a different book first, sent the manuscript to the publisher, and got positive comments back. But in writing that first manuscript, I realized what I was really trying to accomplish. So when I sat down to revise it, I actually hit the reset button, turning the previous manuscript into one chapter of what became the final book.  

Bio: I’m a professor in the Environmental Studies Department at Wellesley College. I grew up in Virginia, completed a PhD in history of science at Princeton University, and have spent most of my career at Wellesley College.