Writers Recommend

“Mary Oliver used to walk in the woods with a notebook. Walking so inspired her that she kept pens in the trees so if an idea or thought came to her, she’d be able to stop and write it down. Like Mary Oliver, my inspiration almost always occurs while I am walking, not while I am sitting at a stodgy old desk in my messy office where the enemies of thought—phones and computers—lie in wait to distract me. It is while walking that most of my writing takes place. Something about being on the trail in the early morning with the hawks, the owls, and coyotes inspires me.

“As the mother of young children, the hours I spend working on poems are unaccountably precious. My husband and I exert huge amounts of energy to craft a family life that leaves space for my work, and after all that effort, I have no choice but to sit down and write. First I brew a cup of tea, and then I light a candle, a simple ritual of return that brings me back to my work. I’m a very methodical writer, so I believe wholeheartedly in the process of writing: ideas first, revision later, preferably in small, easily digested steps.

“Someone—a teacher of mine, though I am not sure who—told me that once you know what you’re doing in writing, you have to give up and move on. In major moments of writer’s block, I think of that advice and how writing from a sudden moment of loss or blankness is part of the vocation; how not knowing is such an important part, even central to language and what it can accomplish. And though it is important to understand the workings of writing and deploy its techniques and tools, it is equally important to remember that the writer is sometimes a seer, an adherent, or a conjurer.