Member Spotlight: Amy Stewart

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is important to me because reading is important to me. Reading is the first thing I l truly loved to do, and writing remains the only thing I can imagine doing with my life. It matters because it’s durable. I’m reading a biography of Dante right now, and I’m amazed at how much we know about his life because of paper records that generations of civil servants, librarians, and archivists preserved in Florence. The fact that I can read a poem written in 1308 is remarkable enough, but it’s even more incredible that we know so much about the life of the writer from the paper trail he left behind. A hundred years from now, our Instagram posts will be gone. But our books will stick around. Writing also matters because it allows people to have an intimate experience of someone’s else’s life, or someone else’s imagination, in a way that even the best film can’t replicate. Pick up any Murakami novel and notice how it feels to fall under its spell. That’s an experience that’s very particular to books, because your brain has to be very actively involved in conjuring up the story the writer is telling.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I don’t have it and I don’t believe in it. If I can’t think of something to write, it means I don’t have anything to say. That means it’s time to go away and do some more research, or to write another section of the book where I do know exactly what to say. Sometimes, if I’m feeling stuck, I’ll ask myself if the scene I’m writing really needs to be written. Maybe I think the book has to have a scene in which the sister finally tells her brother the truth about their mother. But maybe that scene doesn’t need to be there. Maybe we leapfrog over it, like hopping across a river on stepping stones. Or perhaps I’ll come back later and realize that I actually do know how to write that scene after all–I just needed to get around it and move on for a while first. I’m also a painter, and it’s very nice to be able to go off and paint a painting when I’m tired of words. I truly believe that your hobby needs a hobby–which is to say that your creative endeavor (whether it’s a hobby or a profession) needs another little creative outlet to help it along. Maybe you’re a writer but you also draw. Maybe you’re a musician but you also build boats. Maybe you’re a painter but you also garden. Hobbies are very useful.

What is your favorite time to write? Afternoons! I’m not a morning person, but I’m also not a night person. That sounds ridiculous, I know, but I can really get a good head of steam going right after lunch and knock out about four hours’ worth of work before dinner, which is honestly about as much productive creative time as anyone has in a day. I spend the morning doing other things–taking walks, painting, maybe handling some urgent business. I’ll also save boring admin tasks and email for the evening, when I’m kind of brain-dead anyway.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? Carl Klaus, who founded the University of Iowa nonfiction writing program, helped me enormously when he heard me complaining about how hard it was to throw away early drafts of my first two books and start over. He said, “Oh, I know what kind of writer you are. I’ve seen a lot of writers come through this program, and there are two kinds: The kind who doesn’t know where she’s going, so she makes a big mess and has to re-write endlessly until she figures it out, and the other kind of writer, who takes a really long time to figure out what the book is about before writing a single line, but then writes it pretty quickly.” I said, “Oh, I like that second kind better. I’m going to do it that way.” He told me that it didn’t work like that. “You’re either one or the other. You can’t change.” “Watch me,” I said, and I did. From that moment, I just decided that I’d do all the research first, and make sure I knew the story from beginning to end before I wrote a single word. It served me well. I became that second kind of writer–I just needed someone to tell me it was a possibility.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I’m excited about the ease with which I can find people to interview around the world and talk to them on Zoom. My latest book started in the middle of the pandemic, when none of us could go anywhere. I knew I wanted it to be a global book, so I had to find tree collectors to interview from all over the world. I was thrilled to realize that nearly everyone, everywhere, had grown accustomed to Zoom in a short time. I spoke to people in Ethiopia, in rural Brazil, in Japan and China–sometimes with interpreters on the call to basically do the interview for me and translate it later–and I’m very grateful for the technology that makes this possible. I’m also excited about the possibilities offered by platforms like Substack. An email newsletter is nothing new, but by combining it with a way to attract readers, and an option to charge for subscriptions, it’s possible for an ambitious writer to get a start. A Substack newsletter is similar to a newspaper column, and that was a great way for an author to get started back in the day. I’d tell any aspiring writer today to pick something they’re interested in and start writing about it on Substack. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t attract a big audience right away. What matters is that you’re writing for a real audience, and that’s a great way to develop your skills as a writer.

Amy Stewart’s The Tree Collectors is out now with Random House.