Ten Questions for Lydia Conklin
“I have to lock up my phone every day—in a box designed for locking up cookies—during the hours I’m writing. Text messages ruin me.” —Lydia Conklin, author of Rainbow Rainbow
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Read weekly interviews with authors to learn the inside stories of how their books were written, edited, and published; insights into the creative process; the best writing advice they’ve ever heard; and more.
“I have to lock up my phone every day—in a box designed for locking up cookies—during the hours I’m writing. Text messages ruin me.” —Lydia Conklin, author of Rainbow Rainbow
“Prioritize writing. Make time for it. Plan it like you plan your grocery lists. Plant your ass in the chair and do it.” —Gabe Montesanti, author of Brace for Impact
“There are plenty of hard truths in Ma and Me that were difficult to put down on the page, and then there are other truths that are mine, and mine alone, to keep.” —Putsata Reang, author of Ma and Me
“If I had known about the twists and turns beforehand, I like to think I would have kept going, but maybe it’s better not to know.” —Vanessa Hua, author of Forbidden City
“This book has its own life force. All you have to do is allow it to come together.” —Marwa Helal, author of Ante body
“Adjust one small plot point in the second half of the book, and you realize you’ve got to go back to the beginning and account for that change.” —Soon Wiley, author of When We Fell Apart
“I am a fitful writer: long periods of not writing followed by intense engagement.” —Dana Levin, author of Now Do You Know Where You Are
“To be a writer, the best thing someone can do, in my opinion, is read. Read everything.” —Eloisa Amezcua, author of Fighting Is Like a Wife
“I hope everyone who writes begins by recognizing their own value and the value of the very act of their having chosen to write.” —Dara Barrois/Dixon (formerly Dara Wier), author of Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina
“I have dogs who get me outside on walks every day, but otherwise I generally feel like I should be writing whenever I’m not.” —Maud Newton, author of Ancestor Trouble
“Get out of the way of the writing. Don’t make it precious. Sit down and get to it.” —Roger Reeves, author of Best Barbarian
“It’s good to know who to trust, I’ve been learning, but also who to doubt.” —Eloghosa Osunde, author of Vagabonds!
“I wasn’t ready for how much this novel would demand.” —NoViolet Bulawayo, author of Glory
“Then summer came and there was a lightning moment.” —Yanyi, author of Dream of the Divided Field
“What if there was an agency that verified people’s online dating personas?” —Jane Pek, author of The Verifiers
“How do you navigate a life in opposition to and in spite of systemic racism, with poetry?” —Angel Dominguez, author of Desgraciado
“Don’t let an algorithm tell you what to read. Disobey the algorithm.” —Sarah Manguso, author of Very Cold People
“It took me more than a year to put aside my fear of attempting it.” —Lan Samantha Chang, author of The Family Chao
“It’d be easier for me to stop talking than to stop writing.” —Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Goliath
“I will miss thinking about Joan and her world every second of every day.” —Weike Wang, author of Joan Is Okay
“Make it so good they can’t reject it.” —Edgar Gomez, author of High-Risk Homosexual
“Everything fell out of me in five intense sleepless weeks.” —Xavier Navarro Aquino, author of Velorio
Ten writers, including Alex Dimitrov and Kaitlyn Greenidge, share the best writing advice they’ve ever heard.
“If you feel that the story is good and that it needs to be read, then keep at it until you’re happy with it.” —Obed Silva, author of The Death of My Father the Pope
“This was the book I was meant to write my whole life.” —Neel Patel, author of Tell Me How to Be