All Member Spotlights
Member Spotlights

Member Spotlight: Caitlin Scarano

author Caitlin Scarano smiling looking at the camera and an image of her book The Necessity of Wildfire

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing, poetry specifically, is important to me because it is a way in which I create experience from experience. It adds and embraces complexity, ambiguity, meaning, and mythology.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I think the best antidote to writer’s block is returning to reading—reading as deeply and vastly as you can create time for, without putting expectations or pressure on yourself to write. I also find micro-adventures (like going on a short hike somewhere new) are invigorating for writing.

What is your favorite time to write? My favorite time to write is between 6 and 9AM in the morning, while the world is still relatively quiet and I still have impressions from my dreams the night before.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? The best writing advice I ever heard was from one of my previous professors. He used to say that the only way to write was to put your butt in the chair and stay there.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I am most excited about all the opportunities for hybridity, collaboration and transdisclipinary projects that a writer in today’s age can take part in.

Caitlin Scarano’s The Necessity of Wildfire is out April 5 with Blair.