Member Spotlight: Albert Russo

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world?
Writing is my passion, it is existential, I therefore need it like I need to eat and to sleep, it is thus also a therapy, like swimming in the sea is. It is important for the world because good writing creates or echoes beauty. When it touches the reader’s heart. When it is about social justice and fights prejudice.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block?
Read a good book that will soothe you, or, on the contrary, excite you to the point of making you want to resume your writing. Walk in a park or in the country to breathe fresh air. Go fishing, if you like it, or swim. Physical exercise can also help.

What is your favorite time to write?
In the afternoon, when I can see natural light from my window, maybe a flower growing on a tree.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers?
Writing must count for you, so much, that you feel an emptiness when you stop writing. Read, read and read, the classics, modern literature, history books, books of social science, art books, biographies, even easy-to-grasp scientific books. Be curious. And, don’t let anybody tell you that you’re not good enough and that you should do something else, like André Gide told Marcel Proust. You are the one to decide.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age?
My response is double-edged. You can reach many more readers if you use social networks on the Internet, but that takes an enormous amount of time, time during which you should be writing. Self-publishing can be very helpful, specially if you choose a good and honest platform. There are places now where you can publish without spending a cent. And that is great. Of course, one always hopes to have a traditional publisher with a good distribution  

Albert Russo’s Zapinette’s Bible Odyssey Continues in Mexico, Japan and the North Pole is out now.