Member Spotlight: Nancy A. Ferraro

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? We are a community that needs to be told stories and to tell our stories, so that we know we are not alone, to make connections, and to feel part of something larger than ourselves. Writing is not a luxury: it is necessary for our wellbeing.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Well, I have tried doing laundry (yuck), vacuuming (double yuck) and daydreaming (fun, but mostly unproductive). The writer’s block usually breaks after I sleep on the topic or chapter that’s giving me trouble. If all else fails, typing nonsense words or making fun of the blinker with the zero-word count until sentences start to form is the cure; but it’s painful and there’s no telling how long it will take.

What is your favorite time to write? The muse is untrustworthy, so when she appears, I have to listen, sometimes for an entire day at a time, to the exclusion of everything else. She (the muse) is kind of a b*** that way.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? I don’t remember who said it, but the best piece of writing advice ever has been “Writers write. Every day.”

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The most exciting thing about being a writer today is also the most terrifying… the ability to reach a wide audience is a short period of time. When you are someone who is technologically challenged, as I am, and you do not own a teenager, however, the pendulum swings the other way. Not knowing how to make lemonade out of the lemons that are SEO, tweets and instas, makes it that much harder to reach the potential that social media dangles in my face.

Nancy A. Ferraro’s When the Bough Breaks: A Mother’s Story of Carnage, Courage, and the Triumph of Faith is out now with Woodhall Press.