Member Spotlight: MaryEllen Beveridge

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? It is something I can take ownership of completely. It brings connection to the wider literary community as well as access to my own interior world, so I can realize the act of self-exploration and bring it later to the reader. The importance of this medium is the opportunity it presents for the shared human experience.  

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block?
A few things–
I do a lot of reading of literary fiction so I am immersed in this medium and it becomes a part of my thinking.
I always take notes, mostly handwritten on my desk as I am working.
If I am stuck I think about what it is I am trying to say–what themes are at work. I do a lot of visualizing.
This is old advice, that when I end my writing day, I know the place where the work will pick up the next day.
I try not to limit my idea of myself a writer to any one project but (one hopes) about the broader contributions I hope to make to the field.

What is your favorite time to write? Mornings bring me more energy but I do like the night as well, when all is quiet, and I seem to dream and write at the same time–things are often more accessible then.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? See above: to always know where your work will begin the next day.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I am an interior fiction writer so that will probably never change. But more recently things have been named, and so it is easier I believe to access those experiences for what they truly are.

MaryEllen Beveridge’s After the Hunger is out now with Fomite.