Member Spotlight: Ann Z. Leventhal

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Once I outgrew being a kid who could scream whenever I needed to be heard, I had to come up with some other way to get people’s attention. Talking, and then writing thrilled me. Who knew I had so much in me that wanted uttering? Words form bridges between readers and writers. Those bridges connect all sorts of people, even the living and the dead, with each other.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I am seldom blocked for long. If I don’t write at least a few words every day, the pressure becomes unbearable. So, setting something down on paper or up on a screen is like eating prunes. Soon nature takes over, and I find myself yet again speaking in print.

What is your favorite time to write? When I have a deadline.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? “Imagine yourself in the scene,” Maria Mutch told her Grub Street students, “and say what you see.”

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The work. Talk about interesting!

Ann Z. Leventhal’s The Makings of a Nobody is out now with Magic Circle Press