WRITE ABOUT NOW
by Jonathan Small
Writers recount slogging through obscurity, low pay, addictions, and self-doubt on their way to fame and book deals in these scintillating interviews.
Author Small reprints portions of 31 conversations from his Write About Now podcast with novelists, journalists, critics, playwrights, screenwriters, cartoonists, and the odd rock star and fashion designer on their early careers. From this raucous variety, some themes emerge—juvenile literary yens, the influence of great teachers, lucky breaks (and the hard work that makes them possible), the disruptions of the internet (which crushed the well-paying print media that used to sustain professional writers but also let talented unknowns self-publish and find an audience), and the importance of taking risks, being pushy, and just going for it. Interviewees include Amy Morin, who cranked out internet content at $15 per piece until her article about bad mental habits went viral; Lori Majewski, who parlayed her teenage Duran Duran fanzine into a music-writing career; Andy Weir, who spent 25 years as a software engineer before posting his SF novel The Martian on Amazon (it eventually reached orbit as a Matt Damon movie); Sue Monk Kidd, who was 53 when she published her first novel—the mega-seller The Secret Life of Bees; and Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz, who recalls the band’s big break at CBGB’s: “I heard Johnny Ramone say…‘They can open for us because they suck. They’re gonna make us look good.’” The interviews are warm, free-flowing, and evocative, as when New York Times journalist Dan Barry recollects his Irish-born mother’s storytelling: “She would go to the ShopRite to buy a quart of milk, and then come home and spin this Homeric epic out of having bought a quart of milk….what the checkout clerk was doing; what kind of gum she was snapping; what kind of mother was the woman in front of her because she was buying Lucky Charms cereal, and we all know that’s not good cereal.” The result is an engrossing read and a reassuring prod to aspiring scribes.
A stimulating group meditation on the grungy yet joyous craft of wordsmithing.