Member Spotlights Member Spotlight: Scott Spencer June 19, 2020 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? Writing is low-tech and intimate. Writing is also mysterious –preserving memories, creating emotions, analyzing history all through the manipulation of a common language. When you get it right, you know it, and the reader does, too. What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Finding the error that stopped the thing in its tracks. What is your favorite time to write? I don’t write after dinner. When I have, it has caused horrible insomnia. What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? When I was broke and without a place to live, a friend of a friend got me 4 months house-sitting for Bernard Malamud. I told him I wrote and hoped to finish a novel while I was looking after his place in Bennington, Vermont. Malamud told me “You can’t rush a novel.” He was right! What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? I actually wouldn’t mind being a writer in a previous age. Scott Spencer’s An Ocean Without a Shore is out now with Ecco.
