Member Spotlight: Tim Riley

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world? We keep facing these false choices between print and digital, reminds me of the music industry assuming we’d choose between vinyl and CD. I still have stacks of vinyl, AND CDs, and now use streaming. We keep adding platforms, channels, and modes, not leaving the old behind but finding different ways to produce and consume content.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block? Start writing a letter to a cherished relative, living or dead, with your story/review/article. Think of them as the only reader who will see this writing.

What is your favorite time to write? Mornings.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers? It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do with it. And: The only sure guide to success stems from your own commitment to the material.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age? The complete lack of historical precedent for such information abundance, makes it all the more important to write well in order to stand out.

Tim Riley’s What Goes On: The Beatles, Their Music, and Their Time, co-written with Walter Everett is out now with Oxford University Press.