Member Spotlight: Katherine Dykstra

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Recently, my 8-year-old asked me to google “the most important person in the world.” When I did, a touch fearfully, I was met with a list of people, at the top of which was Johannes Gutenberg the inventor of the printing press. This was as good an answer as any I could come up with. I think there’s little more important that story-telling and the spread of information.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Sitting down and opening the document. You might not get far, but you for sure won’t get anywhere, if you don’t start.

What is your favorite time to write? When the house is quiet and my kids are at school. Something that has been very very rare over the last more than a year.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? I once texted a writing partner apologizing for how messy the draft I’d shared with him was. He said, “Ha ha, shush. That’s how the sausage gets made.”

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Ha. Not much! It’s so much work for so little reward, but it’s the only thing I’m good at and the only thing that I love, so what am I going to do?