Member Spotlight: Nina Kentsis

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? I’ve always been a writer, even from a young age. At the risk of sounding a little crazy, I write as a way to get all the stories out of my head. I mostly read fiction, and I’ve only ever written fiction. I love film and TV as ways to tell stories as well, but what I like best about a novel is that I get to visualize how everything looks. To me, experiencing the world through fictional characters and their lives, hopes, dreams, disappointments, is just as meaningful as reading about real people.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Perhaps I am lucky, but I have never had writer’s block! I have a million ideas, so if I’m stuck on one idea, I work on something else for a while. Maybe that is a cure for writer’s block!

What is your favorite time to write? Since writing is not my full-time job, I can’t be as choosy about when I write. I write when I have the time. However, when I can choose, I prefer early in the morning.

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’ve ever received was not given to me, since it comes from Nora Ephron, who said, “Everything is copy.” I live in New York City and when I am out and about, I never listen to music or podcasts; I want to be able to hear what people are saying. It’s a wealth of free dialogue and information! I also think often of Joan Didion’s statement that, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I self-published my novel, which isn’t how I had hoped to get it out into the world, but it’s how it happened. So being able to do that, and have means to promote it online and on social media is pretty exciting.

Nina Kentsis’s Acts of Lovingkindness is out now with‎ Porter Place Publishing.