Member Spotlight: Jyotsna Sreenivasan

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is a way for me to understand myself and my place in the world. I hope that my fiction helps readers empathize with people who are different from them, whether that is an age difference, a gender difference, or a cultural difference.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Free writing and letting go of the idea that I have to write well all the time. Allowing first drafts to be awful. Allowing time for rest and fun when I don’t feel like writing.

What is your favorite time to write? I generally write more in the summer, since I am a secondary school teacher and have the summers off.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? In the past, when I had that niggling sense that something wasn’t working in a piece, but I didn’t know how to fix it, Id ignore or reject that niggling feeling, trying to convince myself that everything was fine. Now, I know that if I make space for that feeling, the solution often comes to me eventually.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I love connecting with other writers and readers. Social media makes that much easier.

Jyotsna Sreenivasan’s These Americans is out now with Minerva Rising Press.