John Larison

How did you become a writer? 

At first, I tried not to be one, because writing didn't seem like a stable way to make a living. I tried teaching high school, guiding anglers, and many odd jobs, but writing kept drawing me nearer and nearer--like gravity draws a river to the sea. At first, I started writing articles for outdoor magazines, and soon found luck. Within a year, I had started a how-to book on fly fishing, which seemed like the perfect way to learn the craft of writing a big project. At about that point, I applied to MFA programs, lured by the promise of knowledgeable mentors and a small writing stipend. I got very lucky to get into one program at Oregon State University.  

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

My early influences were all fishing related: Norman Maclean, David James Duncan, and Ted Leeson. Leeson taught at OSU, so I immediately sought his wisdom and guidance in person once I arrived; he has remained a friend and mentor over all these years since. As I turned toward writing fiction, my list of influences grew widely. I count Annie Proulx, Marianne Robinson, Charles Portis, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Larry McMurtry as major influences; however, if I'm totally honest, I feel like I learn something from every great novel I read, and I try to read widely, at the pace of 3-4 books a month.  

When and where do you write?

Six days a week I "commute" about 50 yards to a cabin I built with my parents behind my house in Oregon's Coast Range. I have big windows overlooking a creek and field, and books on three walls. I use a stand-up desk, but spend large amounts of time on the floor or in a chair thinking through what will come next. I show up at the cabin with two big thermoses full of hot water for the green tea I brew on-site, and once the water is gone, I return "home" for lunch and a refill; usually that takes 4-5 hours. After lunch, I go for a hike on the hill above our house, then return to the office with fresh hot water, for another 2-3 hours. When I'm drafting something new, I will usually return to the cabin after the kids go to bed in the evening for another hour of thought, but not writing. The trick for me is to find the inspiration, then keep it stoked for as long as possible; my friends know me to be a flake when the writing is going well. 

What are you working on now? 

I'm working on a novel called Peacemaker, which is set in 1924 in remote Oregon and follows four kids who are on a journey to find their mother. It's after WWI, and the historic West was, then, missing a generation of young men, including the characters' father. The novel is set in a world that remembers the characters from my last novel, Whiskey When We're Dry, as historic figures, which allows for me to build on the world I created in that novel. I'm loving the characters and the story, and so are my early readers. So fingers crossed!   

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Not really, though there are definitely times when I couldn't write if I wanted to. September is one of those times. In September, my mind is consumed with the garden, the salmon in the rivers, the mushrooms in the hills. I cut myself a break, and follow my whims, which all have to do with harvesting the bounty of fall. I read a lot between outings, but I don't write much. I justify the break by thinking that I'm storing up energy for the hard work coming during the winter. Most of me thinks that's true. 

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

The how is the shape of the what. David Keplinger, an American poet, offered that advice during a reading I once attended. I was blown away with it at the time; I couldn't understand what he meant, but the phrase wouldn't leave my mind. I count it as the most significant single line of advice I have ever encountered. In a writing context, consider this breakdown: if you want to write a great story, create a great story-writing process. The trick, of course, is learning what kind of process works for you. It took ten years, but for me, I've learned that good sleep, minimal alcohol, daily reading, and lots of walking are essential for my process. I never give myself a hard time when the writing ("the what") isn't going well; instead, I tweak "the how" of my writing life.  

What’s your advice to new writers?

Beyond Keplinger's gem, I advise my students to read more than they write. I believe that before we can write great stories, we have to have internalized the largely ineffable movements of great stories. Personally, I sometimes think the first year of any MFA should be spent reading seven hours a day and writing for one hour. In the very least, I advise budding writers (of any age) to locate their first novel between three or four other published works of fiction; these books can serve like lighthouses when the waves are leaving you dizzy. 

John Larison is the author of Whiskey When We're Dry, a September 2018 Indie Next Pick. Whiskey When We're Dry has been selected a Best Book by Entertainment Weekly, New York Post, Goodreads, O Magazine, and many others, and is currently being developed into a feature film by Shinbone Productions. He lives and writes in the mountains of western Oregon.

Todd Hasak-Lowy

How did you become a writer?

Indirectly, because I first wanted to be a professor, something I decided to become around the age of 20. I also knew that I wanted to study Israel and the Middle East. But it took me a while to decide which field or discipline I wanted to pursue.

I wound up settling on Comparative Literature. I attended the University of California, Berkeley for graduate school, where I started in 1994. There I studied Hebrew and Arabic literatures, though by the time I was writing my dissertation I was only working on Hebrew literature. The weird thing about being at Berkeley, especially at first, was that I really had no idea how to study literature. My undergraduate major had been interdisciplinary, with an emphasis on history. I had always loved reading novels, but had never much systematic instruction. Suddenly I was attending one of the top literature programs in the world, and I was lost. My first few semesters at Berkeley, were, needless to say, difficult.

But when I started making sense of fiction (and narrative in general), the payoff was huge. I still remember, sitting in my younger brother’s apartment (both my brothers moved to San Francisco around the time I moved to Berkeley), reading some comic or graphic novel that was clearly in the tradition of R. Crumb or Harvey Pekar. I was amazed how the author was able to represent an entire imagined world, and that this world was utterly specific and alive, and that the author was creating all this through some remarkable combination of decisions, techniques, ideas, etc.

I guess that was an epiphany of sorts. I suddenly realized, Oh, this [this=writing stories] is really interesting, and somehow no longer 100% mysterious, and so maybe I could do it. I had always had a creative impulse (one that largely manifested itself from a young age with my behaving like a clown), but I never had a form or a medium to work in. Now I sensed I may have found one. I started writing a few months later, my voice somehow mostly formed right from the beginning.

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

Two novels that I read around the time I started writing had a big impact on me: Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine and Yaakov Shabtai’s Past Continuous. These two works, each in its own way, offered me very particular models for forging my own prose. They were both highly analytical, which has always been central to my prose.

My main teachers were the people I was studying with at Berkeley at the time. Robert Alter, Chana Kronfeld, Miki Gluzman, and Naomi Seidman. None of them were creative writing teachers per se (I’ve only taken one creative writing class in my life, and that was back in undergrad and didn’t really lead anywhere), but they all taught me to be a better reader, which is probably just as important. 

When and where do you write? 

My most productive hours are 9 am-noon. Sometimes I’ll revise in the afternoon. I don’t write every day, but during the school year I’ll usually write every weekday morning except Thursday (when I teach). If possible I write in the sunroom in our house. This is one of my favorite places in the world, because of all the windows and because it’s my space and no one else’s. Unfortunately, it’s not winterized (or air conditioned), so the weather must cooperate for me to work out there. Otherwise, it’s our living room. I used to like writing in cafes, but now I’m too sensitive to sound to concentrate in such places.

What are you working on now? 

I’m finishing up a draft of a book currently titled We are Power: Nonviolent Activism in the 20th Century. This is a history for young readers, a follow-up of sorts to a book I co-wrote (with Susan Zimet) that came out in January 2018, Roses and Radicals: The Epic Story of How American Women Won the Right to Vote. I’m also working on a novel for adults about the prime minister of a fictional country that’s been locked in a conflict with another fictional country for decades and who decides one day to apologize to the other country. Last, I also recently started translating a Hebrew novel called Aquarium, by Yaari Shehori. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

I rarely if ever suffer from writer’s block. But I do somewhat regularly suffer from what might be called “sitting down to write at all block.” The distinction being: something (in the latter) is keeping me from bothering in the first place. So not a lack of ideas or lack of desire to write, but some other set of concerns (self-doubt, anxiety, other obligations) sort of tell me I shouldn’t write at all. It’s annoying, to say the least.

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

I don’t think I’ve heard anything that isn’t pretty cliched at this point, which doesn’t mean it wasn’t (and isn’t) valuable. For me the most valuable thing that others can give me is encouragement. Writing is lonely, the process is slow, and you’ll never know about or hear from 99.9% of your readers, which makes it easy to assume that no one is reading you at all. So anytime someone tells me to keep writing, well, that helps. The voice in my head telling me not to bother (even after publishing a bunch of books) is insanely loud and persistent at times.

What’s your advice to new writers?

First, read a lot, trying to find a balance between what you love and what you suspect you “should” be reading. The ratio of input (reading) to output (writing), especially early on, should probably be something along the lines of 10:1, maybe even 100:1. You just need to steep yourself in literary language and storytelling/literary techniques. And read reverse-engineering style: don’t just “like” and “dislike” things—try to figure out what exactly it is you’re liking and how the writer is creating that effect (whether it be a character, a description, the structure of a scene, etc.). Read like a writer, in other words.

Second, just write. Many aspiring writers (for reasons good and bad) expend a lot of energy agonizing over whether they should write at all, what to write, why to write, etc., etc. Either write or don’t write. And if you’re going to write, then just commit to it (indeed, schedule it into your week) and write. And early on simply produce pages. Focus on the process and don’t think about what it all might lead to. The inertia of not writing is formidable, so overcome and don’t look back.

Last, write what you want to read. Or, if children are your audience, what you think a younger version of you would have wanted. In seems crazy to me to write any other way for any other reason. 

Todd Hasak-Lowy has published two books for adults: a short story collection, THE TASK OF THIS TRANSLATOR (2005), and the novel CAPTIVES (2008). His first book for younger readers, a middle grade novel called 33 MINUTES, was published in 2013. In 2015 he published a young adult novel, ME BEING ME IS EXACTLY AS INSANE AS YOU BEING YOU. That same year, a narrative memoir for ages 10 and up that he co-wrote with and about Holocaust survivor Michael Gruenbaum called SOMEWHERE THERE IS STILL A SUN came out. In early 2018 a young person's history of the women's suffrage movement, ROSES & RADICALS, which he co-wrote with Susan Zimet, was published. In addition to writing, he teaches literature at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago and translates Hebrew literature into English. Todd lives in Evanston, Illinois (just outside Chicago), with his wife, two daughters, a dog, and two cats.

Kristan Higgins

How did you become a writer?

By writing! I’d always been an avid reader but I’d never imagined being a writer. Then came the day when I thought, “Why not? I’ll give myself a couple of years and see what happens. If I sell a book, great! If not, I’ll bartend a few nights a week.” 

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

Michael Hauge is my best teacher. Stephen King has a way of creating a powerful emotional response, and I think I learned through reading. Elinor Lipman can say more in five words than most writers can say in five pages. Reading has always been my best teacher. I love me a good class or workshop, but there’s nothing like the finished product to show you how it’s done.

When and where do you write? 

I write in a small office with a big comfy chair over my neighbor’s garage. It’s a tiny apartment that I rent from her, and I filled it with pictures of my kids, books, and houseplants. When the weather is nice, I write on the front porch.

What are you working on now? 

I’m wrapping up a big book tour and working on novel #20.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Not really. I can always write something. It may be deleted the next day, but it’s like digging for gold. You have to shovel a lot of dirt to get to the good stuff. 

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

Keep your head down and do your thing. Don’t listen to what’s popular or what’s selling. Just be true to what you want to write.

What’s your advice to new writers?

Read. Read, read, read.

Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of 18 novels, which have been translated into more than two dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have received dozens of awards and accolades, including starred reviews from Kirkus, The New York Journal of Books, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist. She is the three-time winner of the RITA Award and a five-time nominee for the Kirkus Prize for best work of fiction. Her books regularly appear on the lists for best novels of the year of many prestigious journals and review sites. The proud descendant of a butcher and a laundress, Kristan lives in Connecticut with her heroic firefighter husband, two entertaining and good-hearted children,a couple of frisky rescue dogs and an occasionally friendly cat.