Member Spotlight: David E. Gumpert

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is the most effective way for me to organize and communicate creatively. I see my personal mission as educating audiences about important trends and challenges. Despite the ever wider availability of other means of expression (like video and photos) writing remains the most effective and efficient way for me to clearly explain complex ideas.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I find that taking a break and either exercising or meditating enables me to unblock my resistance, and get my mind churning out new material. Somehow, the mind has to be periodically allowed to just do its thing, and not be pressured too heavily.

What is your favorite time to write? My favorite time to write is first thing in the morning, when my mind is fresh and, hopefully, rested. Yet sometimes I find myself writing productively at other times, especially late at night….which I sometimes regret because it disturbs my sleep.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? The best writing advice I ever received was when I started as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and a very successful veteran reporter advised me that the best writing comes from frequent and persistent rewriting. So, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I am especially excited about my forays into fiction. I have a new novel out, historical fiction about white flight and racial conflict in Chicago in the early 1960s, done from  the perspective of an interracial romance. The novel is Gouster Girl. Even trying to get past the barriers I face by virtue of being an old white guy promoting a book about race is exciting, and extremely challenging.

David E. Gumpert’s Gouster Girl is out now with Lauson Publishing.