Member Spotlight: Karol Lagodzki

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? I write fiction to add a minuscule amount to the world’s empathy quotient. Fiction helps us connect with people unlike us and makes “the other” less alien. And it helps that I love making up stories.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? At the risk of getting in trouble, I have to confess I’ve never suffered from writer’s block. I have, however, battled laziness and procrastination. I haven’t yet found a cure for the latter.

What is your favorite time to write? As most of us, I’m a writer with a day job and a family, which means that my favorite time to write is whatever time I can carve out to do it. I find myself most productive in the morning before noon and after 8 pm.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? I have Bryan Furuness’s quote from “Notes on Narrative” posted in my office: “Disruption and reaction and feeling—it’s all there. It’s a whole story.” (https://fictionwritersreview.com/shoptalk/notes-on-narrative/) Once I read it and realized what it meant, I have been writing with much greater freedom.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? “May you live in interesting times” (author unknown). I grew up in Soviet-controlled Poland during the latter years of the Cold War, and yet I find the challenges we face now and will face in the decades to come much more dire. We are the people who are here, and no one is coming to save us. As creators of culture, even if each of us may have only a near-imperceptible impact, writers have the power to be agents of change.

Karol Lagodzki’s Controlled Conversations is out tomorrow with Milford House Press.