Member Spotlight: Amity Gaige

Why is writing important to you and why do you think it’s an important medium for the world?
I think that we have a felt sense of our collective experience, and when we read one another’s fiction, we are trying to imagine what might happen to any of us, and how we will handle it.

What are your tried and tested remedies to cure writer’s block?
Read, read, read.  If I have writer’s block, I am probably just depleted, and I need to fill myself up with new ideas and feelings.

What is your favorite time to write?
Any time I have a long stretch–ideally a couple days.  Like a writing bender.

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received and would like to impart to other writers?
To see yourself as an attribute of a larger whole–the generations-long project of artistic expression.

What excites you most about being a writer in today’s age?
If I answer that question about today–our current pandemic–I feel extremely heartened by the way folks have been drawn to fiction.  When people read the book I am publishing now, I feel helpful–more so than I would normally.

Amith Gaige’s Sea Wife is out now with Knopf Publishing Group.