Member Spotlight: Liza J. Rankow

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is a portal into a deeper relationship with life… And this is true of both my reading the words of others, and listening for the words that come through my own writing process. I am constantly stretched, surprised, and nourished by this powerful practice.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Sometimes it helps to write at different times of day, or in different locations. I seem to have access to a different part of my brain (or intuition!) early in the morning, before even getting out of bed, and before the intrusion of the world. Similarly, sitting outside or in a different room of my house can open up something new. If the words aren’t coming, I may go for a walk and ask the question I’m wrestling with, and then listen for an answer–capturing it as a voice memo on my phone. Or I listen to the words and insights of others to find inspiration. Sometimes it may even be one phrase that leaps out and opens the way. I find that there is always something to be done besides looking at a blank page. Research, editing, re-reading what I’ve already written and finding the momentum there to take me to the next thought.

What is your favorite time to write? It depends on what part of the writing process I’m in. When I started working on the book, I had to set aside long stretches of uninterrupted time to really enter into the place where the writing lives. But later on, I was able to dip in and out of it whenever a spare hour was available.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Trust the process! We hear this and it sounds abstract, but what I’ve learned is that the book or piece of writing has a life and wisdom of its own. We are in service to it, in partnership with it. It’s a relationship. The flow works best when we cultivate our ability to follow its lead!

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I am so profoundly grateful for the writing of others throughout my life–informed, inspired, challenged, comforted, strengthened, even changed. The idea that my work might offer some of that back (or forward!) as a gift to others is probably what excites me most.

Liza J. Rankow’s Soul Medicine for a Fractured World: Healing, Justice, and the Path of Wholeness is out now with Orbis Books.