Member Spotlight: Ruth Knafo Setton

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is my way of connecting with the world. I see myself as a storyteller passing on traditions — tales that hold our wisdom, our dreams, fears, and longings. Whether we tell or sing stories, write them, or perform them, we are links in an ancient, timeless chain. And in a world that’s fracturing — where we’re told to fear each other, where walls go up faster than bridges — story is the one thing that can make you feel what it’s like to live inside someone else’s skin. For me, it’s a chance to expand my horizons and live multiple lives through my imagination. For the world, it’s survival.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I play. I write something fun, silly, ridiculous. We get so hung up on perfectionism we forget that creating is supposed to feel like recess. Deep play unlocks what discipline can’t. I bring my notebook to a coffee shop and eavesdrop shamelessly. Real people say things no writer would dare invent. I read a passage I love — Borges, Marquez, Angela Carter — and let the rhythm infect me. Jealousy is a great motivator.

What is your favorite time to write? I write every morning, a cup of coffee in one hand, pen in the other. I write by hand in sketch books —no lined pages, no computer screen — nothing but my pen painting the white pages. The act of writing is intensely physical and sensual, and deeply personal as well. I hug this private world I’ve created between the covers of my notebook and keep it intimate and mine for as long as I can—until the story threatens to burst from the notebook. Then I type it up. That’s the movement from personal to public. That’s when I can edit, see clearly (at least more clearly), and share it with the world.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Years ago, I asked my Creative Writing professor—a National Book Award-winning writer — “Do I have talent?” I shudder at the thought of asking anyone that question today, but I was young, naive, hopeful. And I waited for his response. He said, “You’re asking the wrong question, Ruth. Yes, you have talent. But so do many others. The real question is: Do you have perseverance? Can you keep writing through years of rejections, despair, frustrations, and obstacles of all kinds? Can you carry on despite everything life throws at you?” I returned to my apartment, depressed and wishing I’d never asked. His advice was bitter and useless, I concluded. But. Many years later, I realized that he gave me a gift which I transformed into my mantra: Don’t give up. And I found I had it in me — the discipline to keep writing through everything, with or without recognition. As I started receiving honors, awards, publications, it felt wonderful and affirming, but by then, the rewards came from within me. I couldn’t not write. I can’t not write. As W. Somerset Maugham wrote, “We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.” So — if you can quit, then by all means, quit. But if like me you can’t, then buckle up — it’s gonna be a long and twisty ride. Enjoy it!

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? What excites me most is that in an age of AI and algorithms and infinite noise, the human imagination matters more than ever — not less. Technology can do many things, but it can’t sit on a rooftop in Morocco and paint a pigeon’s wings. It can’t taste freedom for the first time crossing a border. It can’t fall in love with the wrong person and write a novel about it. Story is how we make sense of the unknown, and we are entering a great unknown. That’s not frightening for a writer. That’s the job. Rilke told a young poet: “Don’t search for the answers. Live the questions.” We are living in an age of extraordinary questions. I can’t imagine a better time to be a writer.

Ruth Knafo Setton’s ZigZag Girl is out now with Black Spring Crime.