Member Spotlight: Laura Mullen

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is soul work: a making of self and world (the invention and repair of the relationship between self and world). The process matters more than the product, which is why the use of AI should be restricted. The struggle to find the right word or phrase is the birth struggle of the authentic self.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? What are “your tried and tested remedies to cure” lover’s block, loss of appetite, the disinterest in exercise, the fear of trying to dance or paint, a sudden loss of confidence in your ability to do your job? The fear of speaking or writing isn’t special: it’s one among the many ways a human can feel afraid or incapacitated and lose confidence in themselves. I have never had “writer’s block”: I have had times when I could not face what I wrote or didn’t like what I wrote–and didn’t want to see it. There’s no way out of that but through it. The only “cure” is to write.

What is your favorite time to write? I write whenever I can, and I like making space for the work that is both regular and also surprising. Sometimes the regular writing time doesn’t feel productive, but sets up the possibility of a break-through later in the day, when I’m grabbing a moment to write I didn’t expect to have.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? “Stay at the desk”: Bob Hass “Trust the coherence of your own mind”: Carole Maso Gertrude Stein’s admonition about keeping the work alive, making sure it doesn’t go dead… Jorie Graham modeled poetry as quest, it was not so much “advice” as a beacon. She made me aware that the work of the writer was always a high stakes ongoing investigation, and that resting with the easy answers was unacceptable.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? My lively brilliant surprising and wonderful contemporaries! What luck to be alive today, and among such extraordinarily diverse, courageous, innovative companions! The book you are listing was written by Stéphanie Chaillou–an author living in Paris. (I am the translator.) I feel so lucky to be living at the same time as Stéphanie Chaillou, and to be able to bring her brilliance to an English-speaking audience.

Laura Mullen’s translation of Stéphanie Chaillou’s something happens is out now with Diálogos.