Member Spotlight: Cindy Eastman

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? I’m not just a writer, but a teacher, too, and as such I’ve always felt strongly that writing is an important tool for every human to make meaning of their lived experiences. It’s not just a way of communicating with others, but within ourselves to process and understand the world around us. What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? My cure is that I don’t believe in it! To quote Wendell Berry, “The mind that is not baffled is not employed.” When we have questions and when we struggle is when our brain gets to work. I believe there are work-arounds to this–write something else, like a poem or a grocery list–but keep writing. Something will shake loose. What is your favorite time to write? I wish I was disciplined enough to have a set time to write, but the truth is I write whenever I can. It’s what I tell my students, too…don’t worry about what all the “famous” authors tell you about writing at certain times or for how long. It’s up to the writer to determine what works best for their own schedule. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Write it all down. You may not keep or publish all the words, but all the words will inform the writing that comes next. What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The possibilities to get our work out there! We can post on blogs and newsletters, self-publish or hybrid publish, we can write on social media and even texting others is a way that we use writing to communicate our ideas and maintain connections. And writing to connect is what it’s all about.

Cindy Eastman’s True Confessions of an Ambivalent Caregiver: A Memoir in Essays is out tomorrow with She Writes Press.