Member Spotlight: Larry Zuckerman

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is how I have a voice and feel creative, populating the page with the dramas I have in my head. Stories help us understand ourselves, dream, experience empathy, share ideas, take us out of ourselves. That’s why writing matters.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I feel sheepish admitting this, but I don’t suffer writer’s block, though maybe some people wish I did. I have moments when I don’t feel like working, but when I do anyway, I’m almost always glad I did.

What is your favorite time to write? I’m a morning person. The first four or five hours of the day are best for me.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Write what you believe in, not what you think others will want to read.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Though I broke into print writing nonfiction, I always wanted to be a novelist. I wrote somewhere between fifteen and twenty novels before I sold my first one a couple years ago. Validation was long in coming, but it’s sweet, and it wouldn’t have happened without the recent rise of small presses. I don’t expect to make much money, but I’ve found the satisfaction I’ve been waiting twenty years for.

Larry Zuckerman’s To Save a Life is out now with ‎ Cynren Press.