Member Spotlight: Carrie Finison

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Now, more than ever, I think writing is a way of connecting as humans. I write for children and I can think of nothing more important than making something real for them — something that comes from my brain and reaches out to them to entertain, enlighten, inspire, make them curious, make them laugh, and make them feel connected with our common humanity.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? One thing that helps me is to open up a picture book (one I didn’t write) and start typing out the text of the story. This was an exercise that Ann Whitford Paul recommends in her book Writing Picture Books as a method for seeing how a picture book manuscript looks on a page, but I find that it’s also a terrific way to jumpstart my own writing when I’m feeling stuck or unmotivated. Just getting my fingers moving, typing SOMETHING, even if it’s not my own, getting my brain in the space for writing, is helpful.

What is your favorite time to write? Generally morning to early afternoon, when I have lots of energy.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? When I first started writing, I would listen to published authors speak and think that I needed to do exactly what they were doing. Write at a set time every day. DON’T write at a set time every day. Write on the computer. Write longhand. ACK! Then at some point I heard a writer speak at a conference and they said, “This is the way that I do it. You will find your own way that works for you.” That felt really freeing because I realized there is no RIGHT way, there’s just the way that works for me. And even that might change over time, or depending on the project I’m working on.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? In this age where AI is threatening our profession in various ways, it can feel daunting to keep doing this. But I do feel a strange sense of optimism about continuing to write. I’m inspired to make books that AI could never create, and that speak to kids where they are, right now.

Carrie Finison’s Even Steven: A Book About Sharing, illustrated by Daniel Wiseman, is out now with G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers.