Who: Jack Gantos

Claim To Fame: Jack Gantos has written books for readers of all ages, from picture books and middle-grade fiction to novels for young adults and adults. His works include Hole in My Life, a memoir that won the Michael L. Printz and Robert F. Sibert honors; Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, a National Book Award Finalist, Joey Pigza Loses Control, a Newbery Honor book, and Dead End in Norvelt, the 2012 Newbery Medal Winner, and the Scott O’Dell Award Winner for Best Historic Fiction. His most recent book Writing Radar was named one of Amazon’s best children’s nonfiction books of 2017.

Where To Find Jack: His Website, Amazon, Instagram

Praise For Jack: “Jack’s a survivor, an ‘everyboy’ whose world may be wacko but whose heart and spirit are eminently sane . . . Gantos is a terrific writer with a wonderfully wry sensibility.” — Starred, School Library Journal

When and where do you like to write? Are you the same-thing-every-day kind of guy or can you write anytime anywhere?

I went to Emerson College for my BFA in writing. I lived in a rooming house during my college years and for about fifteen years after graduating.  It was a small room, so at that time I did most all of my writing sitting in Bates Hall in the McKim building of the Boston Public Library. Seat number 37 was my favorite. Writing in the library was nothing new for me. As a kid and young writer, I was a bit of a library rat and hung out in my school library all the time and made friends with the librarian and other kid readers. I wrote about twenty books sitting in the BPL—all by hand in notebooks. When cell phones were invented Bates Hall transformed from a quiet, thoughtful space into a cell phone lounge/or train station for hundreds of people. It was very distracting, so then I moved down to The Boston Athenaeum which is an old 1807 subscription library. It is quiet, has brilliant librarians, a fantastic book collection and a “writer’s floor” where there is no cell phone use, and no talking. So I come to the Boston Athenaeum five or six days a week depending on my other responsibilities. I find that a good “routine” is very helpful for my production. That is not to say that I don’t get ideas elsewhere—quite the opposite—I carry small notebooks with me no matter where I go and find the “odd” idea can strike at any time, and I’m always ready to receive it.

Do you have any pre-writing rituals that help you get in the zone? Anything to signal to yourself ‘The writing day has begun’?

Not entirely. I get up. Feed the cats. Make strong coffee. Go to the gym with a journal or book. I do forty minutes on the exercise bike and I find that is very productive for writing—especially for receiving raw ideas. After I clean up I head to the library and then polish up the ideas, add them into the manuscript and push more deeply into my writing day, which also includes reading time.

What does a successful writing day mean for you? Is there anything you do when the writing doesn’t come easy?

A successful day can be measured by many accomplishments. Word count is a very common yardstick. People seem to like a thousand words per day, or more. I do too. But I’m always keenly aware that a portion of my mind is trying to leap into the far reaches of the unwritten book in order to capture some clues as to where the story is going—the plot or themes or actions or character epiphanies or significant imagery that casts my imaginative grasp into uncharted pages/chapters of the novel so that I can steer the present writing toward the significant events which will take place deeper into the novel. I’m always aware of the daily writing goals, but keen to plot the navigation within the novel.

You’ve written books for readers of all ages, from picture books and middle-grade fiction to novels for young adults and adults. Are there any distinct adjustments to your writing routine or process depending on the age group you are writing for?

I do have books which span a wide range—probably because I read widely (though I read poetry yet don’t write poetry for publication). Who could abandon the love of the characters of your early reading? Harry The Dirty Dog, Hop On Pop, Bread And Jam For Frances, The Squirrel Hotel,  The Wing In The Willows, Winnie-The-Pooh… and the hundreds of brilliant characters in picture books by Jim Marshall and Edward Gorey and Tomi Ungerer and hundreds more, and chapter books and then upper elementary novels like A Cricket In Time Square, Charlotte’s Web, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler… and then there are the young adult books (which I blasted through) and went right on to adult titles like The Catcher In The Rye, The Bell Jar, On The Road, City Of Night, 1984, A Clockwork Orange, The Car Thief, Junky, To Kill A Mockingbird… The literature was so rich, and captured me so thoroughly that I never considered that I was one ‘kind’ of writer. If I got a good idea about a rotten cat like Rotten Ralph, then I’d write about it. If I got a good idea about an ADHD kid like Joey Pigza, I’d write about it. After I went to prison as a teen for drug smuggling, later on, I wrote about it in Hole In My Life.  The reading life, and the well-lived life, offer up so much material that I find it self-censoring and silly to want to narrow myself down.

Deciding on an idea to pursue writing about can be the most challenging aspect for a writer. How do you come to the point of ‘this is something I want to write about’?

Good question. With so many ideas to choose from what is the essential mechanism that makes me choose one idea over the other. For me, it is the voice of the character. I have to hear it and feel it and empathize with it and allow myself to be transformed by the voice and the lens through which the character sees the world.

Yes, physical events/some key action can inspire a story, but for me, the character enlivens all aspects of the novel.

You’re always writing and have published so much. What’s your secret to keeping that momentum?

No secret. I’m a full-time writer so I have to write. It’s my job. Years ago I was a professor of creative writing and literature at Emerson College. They hired me upon my graduation to start teaching as I had published three books as an undergrad. So I had a job—which grew into a full-time tenured position. I loved that job and I was cut out for it, but I could not have that job and pursue what ambitious dreams I had for myself as a writer. So I had to let that job go. But, teaching is in my blood so I go into schools (elementary, middle, high school, colleges) and teach students and teachers, and reveal step-by-step hands-on and effective approaches to writing that they can use and refine in order to find success in their own writing. So my writing momentum is primarily with driving hard to finish a book, while at the same time devoting three months or more as a visiting author in schools.

When did your aspirations to become a writer begin? At what age did you start writing in hopes of making a living out of it?

I really didn’t give much thought to writing books when I was a kid. I did have a journal but my writing wasn’t anything precocious. It was fairly routine. I had no discipline for it. I had no grasp on how to manage all the elements of writing. I just wrote—or jotted down—all the crazy stuff that was happening around me and a fair amount of my personal thoughts. In high school, it dawned on me that I liked books and should have a bookish life in some way even if I didn’t know what that exactly meant.  So I expanded my writing within my journals about that time. And then when I foolishly  went to prison for sailing a boat of hashish from St. Croix in the USVI to New York City, I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands and so I became more intentional about writing down the world around me (which was interesting) and the world with me (which was interesting).

What are the best pieces of writing advice you’ve ever received or read?

I think most of my teachers were from the “Write about what you know about” school of writing and they were good for me—and to me. I think the WRITERS AT WORK: Paris Review Interviews were also very influential. I was so eager to ‘know’ what writers were thinking, or how they thought, and how they created, and how they polished their craft.  The Paris Review interviews opened up a world to me that I had never known before.  I highly recommend them.

What writers or books have most influenced the way you think and the way you write?

That is a difficult question and I may be unable to properly respond to it as some of what I do is blind to me and I can’t fully explain what unconscious forces circulate within me. I think I try to read good books-fiction, non-fiction, essays, poetry …  as I can say with authority that without reading good books—a wide range of good books—I would be far less competent and certainly far less interesting to myself and thus to others. I am curious about the world—about people especially—and so I’m keen on paying attention to both the outrageous events of the day, and the small events that motivate people. When I lose my writing way I read my favorites: Moby Dick, Blood Meridian, Dog Soldiers, Frankenstein, The Bluest Eye, The Chocolate Wars, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory… and everything on down the line to Goodnight Moon, Frog And Toad, George And Martha, Amphigory, Where The Wild Things Are…There is an endless world of inspiration within the library. I haven’t even touched on non-fiction titles and so much more. In short, I can safely say that the path to good writing is always paved with good reading.

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