Adam Nemett

How did you become a writer?

I’m lucky. And I’ve worked hard. Luck: I have incredible parents who spoiled me at bookstores and libraries, lauded my bad childhood writing and supported the slightly better stuff that followed in high school, college and grad school. I have them to thank for making my career possible. Work: I did my best not to squander these opportunities and spent 12 years writing and revising my first novel, repeatedly smashing into the gates of the publishing industry until some kind folks with impeccable taste let me through. 

For the past decade I’ve also worked a fulltime job as a nonfiction author/creative lead for a specialty marketing firm, writing history books under tight deadlines. This taught me how to be a working writer and still carve out time for creative indulgences. 

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

My teachers, especially Elden Schneider and Chris Mihavetz in high school; Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffrey Stout and Cornel West in college; Tom Barbash, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Holly Payne and Leslie Carol Roberts at California College of the Arts MFA Writing program. My agent Noah Ballard and my publisher/editor Olivia Taylor Smith—their ideas and edits make my work infinitely better. Every book, film, conversation and life experience has been influential, but some favorite writers: Margaret Atwood, Clara Bingham, Italo Calvino, Michael Chabon, Mark Danielewski, Samuel Delaney, Don DeLillo, Katherine Dunn, Roxane Gay, Keith Gessen, Ursula K. Le Guin, Sam Lipsyte, Vladimir Nabokov, Barry Nemett, Rebecca Solnit, Donna Tartt, Justin Taylor and Henry David Thoreau. 

When and where do you write? 

I don’t have a schedule. I write nonfiction for a living (typically 9-6, but sometimes not), and write fiction whenever I spot a window. In coffee shops, on trains, middle of the night, on my phone’s Notes app, in a box, with a fox. I have an outdoor writing studio now, which is great, but I don’t need to be there in order to work. I respect writers who are disciplined enough to have a set time and place, but with two kids and a fulltime job I steal minutes wherever/whenever I can. 

What are you working on now? 

My debut novel, WE CAN SAVE US ALL, was published in November by The Unnamed Press. It’s set at Princeton University during the escalating days of climate change, where a bunch of students form an endtimes cult based on superheroes and fueled by psychedelic drugs. I’m still in the marketing/publicity phase, doing events/interviews and writing personal essays, including one about my grandfather(who may have been Batman), another about my father(a working artist and inspiration), and another about my four-year-old son(a magical lunatic). In my mild-mannered dayjob, I’m writing a book with one of the 25 women CEOs currently leading a Fortune 500 company. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Totally paralyzed by this question. I’m going to watch seven hours of New Girl episodes on Netflix and will get back to you…  

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

On crafting scenes: “Enter late, leave early.” (usually attributed to William Goldman). See also, Alfred Hitchcock: “What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out.”

On getting published: “Make it a numbers game and prepare to be rejected a lot in search on the one, enthusiastic hell yes. Pick yourself up and keep grinding and do what you do.” (from my supportive cousin, Jason Dressel).

And relatedly, Joyce Carol Oates once told me: “You might just be masochistic enough to become a real writer.” (see below). 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Go get 50 rejections, then keep grinding. Most people can’t deal with rejection, so if you make it through those first 50 you’ve surpassed most of the field, thickened your skin, gotten on the gatekeepers’ radar, and received a ton of useful feedback that’s made you a better writer. Now, march forth. 

Adam Nemett is the author of the debut novel We Can Save Us All (The Unnamed Press) and his work has been published, reviewed and featured in The New York Times Book Review, Salon.com, LA Weekly, The New Yorker, and Washington Post. He is co-founder of the educational nonprofit MIMA Music and serves as creative lead and author for History Factory, where he’s written award-winning nonfiction books and directed global campaigns for Lockheed Martin, Brooks Brothers, 21st Century Fox, Adobe Systems, HarperCollins, New Balance and Pfizer. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and two kids.

Sue Prideaux

How did you become a writer?

I adored elephants as a child. I suppose I was about seven when I began an elephant newspaper reporting all the goings-on in an imagined herd. I illustrated it, too – a talent that hasn’t survived into adulthood. 

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

I might answer that every book I have ever read has influenced me for better or worse, but you’ll be maddened by such a non-specific answer. Books were my deepest connection in a thoughtful and solitary childhood. Earliest favorites were The Odyssey, the Greek myths and the Nordic sagas. In retrospect, I can see that they were the very best textbooks for a writer-to-be. Nothing better to teach you the technical things like plot, character and vivid economy of style, while at the same time nurturing your own human characteristics of creativity, empathy and imagination.   

When and where do you write? 

Everywhere and all the time, invisibly in my head. Then it’s just a matter of getting it onto paper. That can happen wherever I can find a flat surface to put my laptop. There’s only one constraint: it has to be totally quiet. I can only write in absolute silence. 

What are you working on now? 

Dear old Nietzsche so often comes up with the right word for things. He talks about a fishhook in the brain. Rather a disgusting image, but spot-on for how I feel when the idea for a new book takes hold of me. The fishhook tugs and tugs and won’t leave my brain alone until I start writing and then it tugs me along all through the book. As yet, no fisherman has sunk a new hook into my brain. I think I’m still recovering from Nietzsche, which isn’t surprising. I knew it would be a hugely difficult book to write. He’s vastly controversial of course. Not only that, but in the end he goes mad. Surely the ultimate challenge for a writer. You have be an excellent technician to wriggle under the skin of insanity and write it believably. If you can do that you can probably do anything. No wonder it took me four years and the deepest investigation into my own humanity. Writing about Nietzsche also involved a masterly juggling act in terms of making the philosophy as clear, vivid and exciting to the reader as any cliff-hanging sub-plot. If the reader skips the philosophy, I’ve failed. I felt I had succeeded when the wonderful Sarah Bakewell wrote about the book: “This is what every biography should be like – engrossing, intelligent, moving and often downright funny. Simply a blast!” I’ll take that. 

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

Most mornings. I call it terror.

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

Most mornings, when my husband says; “Go to your desk.” 

What’s your advice to new writers?

Give it a go. You’ll know if it works. 

Bio: I never do this. Three-headed Cerberus guards the door to my personal life – he’d eat me if I let anyone in.

Brian Kimberling

How did you become a writer?

Partly through a literary arms race with the neighbor girl. If she wrote a poem about a chain link fence I had to write one too; when she wrote a gruesome medical scene I had to follow suit. She’s had 3 novels published now, and I’m on 2. But she’s 6 months older.

Also, everybody in my orbit as a child was a voracious reader. Becoming such myself was probably crucial to developing a penchant for writing later.

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

Carolyn Baugh, neighbor girl and author above. Peter Taylor, Katherine Anne Porter, and Frank O’Connor. Salinger. Much later Tessa Hadley. I’ve been accused of writing with a pointillistic style, whatever that means — I think it comes from revering the compression and economy of the short story above all else. I had to grow up to learn that character and feelings are important too.

When and where do you write? 

Sporadically in the kitchen. This has changed over the years. My first book, Snapper, was written in a garage with a pool table in the southern English countryside. I could watch cows out the window, take a few shots on the pool table, and then go write a paragraph or smoke a cigarette or both. I’m amazed that book got written, let alone quickly and easily, but the truth is that shooting pool alone is pretty boring. My second book, Goulash, took much longer and was written in a variety of dwellings.

What are you working on now? 

A long narrative in 3rd person. May sound vague but both my previous books have been first person faux memoirs. In 3rd I’m enjoying the omniscience and the ability to condescend to my characters. But it’s best not to say much more about it until it’s complete.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? 

No, I don’t think so. I suffer heavily from procrastination and distraction and some other things.  There have been times when I was too stricken by one thing or another to work. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt blocked per se. I am however often unwilling to do the sheer amount of work writing involves — at least the way I do it — false starts and dead ends and starting all over again.

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

Don’t shine. Don’t seek to shine. Burn. (Richard Mitchell)

What’s your advice to new writers?

Writing is hard work! Don’t forget that or let anyone persuade you otherwise.

Brian Kimberling grew up in southern Indiana and spent several years working in the Czech Republic, Mexico, and Turkey before settling in England. Snapper, his first novel, was published by Pantheon in 2013, and Goulash, his second, by the same imprint in 2019.