Member Spotlight: JoeAnn Hart

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Literature develops empathy. To live in a manner that supports equality and justice, we must be able to go inside other heads. What better way than by reading? What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Sometimes I need to get away from words in order to write them fresh again. Museums (the place of the muse) are my go-to, taking in visual images and turning off the language part of my brain are like rebooting the computer. What is your favorite time to write? Mornings always, before the world impinges too deeply on my imagination. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Writing and editing are two different things. For first drafts especially, just let the mind go where it wants and don’t keep editing yourself. I got this advice from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg when I first started writing, and it’s held up all these years.What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? As E.L. Doctorow said, history tells you what happened, fiction tells you what it felt like. We are at a critical point in the history of our species, the point where we are actually making the planet unlivable. We need to keep writing about what that feels like, over and over, to instill the wonder, the awe, and the grief, in the hope that our words will create change in the reader’s mind. When minds change, our world can change.

JoeAnn Hart’s Arroyo Circle is out now with Green Writers Press.