Member Spotlight: Sasenarine Persaud

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? Writing is important to me because it is one of the thing that makes me feel whole. While writing I internalize and transform some facet of “truth.” Writing also makes me feel that I have accomplished something, given back something back to society. Writing is an important medium for our society because it records and documents some facet of our society–something that someone somewhere in the future will find useful as a window in this out of which we write– providing the writing is truthful and honest and there is “authorial integrity” in the writing.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? I don’t worry about writer’s block. I can always write when I want to–even if it is “nonsensical” or a journal entry of a few lines summarizing a week or an event, which in turn becomes raw material for something else later. I think writer’s block occurs when writing is a chore and a task

What is your favorite time to write? I prefer mornings and evenings.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? The great Indian writer, Rabindranath Tagore, once noted that (and this is based on an ancient Indian concept of time): “no time is ever lost, my lord..” It is the best “advice” I have ever received (although Tagore was not writing specifically to me) as a person and a writer. It is the long view. Understanding this “erases” writer’s block as everything becomes “grist for the mill.” – I would like to pass this on, with an addendum: live fully–lived experience is the greatest stimulant for the writing life.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? Knowing we are in the midst of great change and being able to record a tiny part of this for posterity is a blessing; it is fulfilling knowing that my dharma is functional.

Sasenarine Persaud’s Mattress Makers is out May 30 with Mawenzi House Publishers.