Member Spotlights Member Spotlight: Patricia Albers February 10, 2026 Share on Twitter (opens in a new tab) on Facebook (opens in a new tab) on Linkedin (opens in a new tab) via email Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Researching and writing biographies lead me to immerse myself in other times, other places, and other ways of being in all their complexity. If I’m successful, my books transport my readers and spur them to consider how they would have handled the situations my subjects face. Biography breeds the empathetic understanding that the world sorely needs. What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I think writer’s block is a myth. If I’m stuck, I write anyway, knowing that I’ll delete, rethink, and revise later. Sometimes I can get a toehold by reading something related to what I’m writing about or trying to explain the situate to a friend whose responses and questions help clarify my own. Other times ideas pop up when I’m driving or doing the laundry. What is your favorite time to write? Mornings in a café with a great cup of coffee. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? For other biographers: Take nothing for granted. Keep asking yourself what’s missing. Don’t overlook photographs, knowledgeably and shrewdly analyzed, as sources of information. That’s three! What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? As always, communities of engaged readers and writers. Patricia Albers’s Everything Is Photograph: A Life of André Kertész is out now with Other Press.
