Who: Mary Beth Keane

Claim To Fame: Mary Beth Keane is the author of the instant New York Times bestseller Ask Again, Yes. Her first novel The Walking People was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and her second novel, Fever was named a best book of 2013 by NPR Books, Library Journal, and The San Francisco Chronicle. In 2011, she was named to the National Book Foundation’s “5 under 35,” and she was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction in 2015.

Where To Find Mary Beth: Her Website, Amazon, Twitter

Praise For Mary Beth: “Mary Beth Keane takes on one of the most difficult problems in fiction—how to write about human decency. In Ask Again, Yes, Keane creates a layered emotional truth that makes a compelling case for compassion over blame, understanding over grudge, and the resilience of hearts that can accept the contradictions of love.” — Louise Erdrich, author of The Round House

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

Now that my kids are in school full time I have a regular routine. I like to go for a run early in the morning – I think it helps settle me for writing. Then I come home, get my sons up and out for school. Once they’re on their school bus, I begin. To help that transition from morning chaos to writing I usually read for about twenty minutes before I really get going.

Do you struggle at all with that dreaded enemy of writing: writer’s block? Do you think such a thing exists?

This is a tough one. There are certainly some stretches that feel much more difficult than others. At one point I changed Ask Again, Yes from the first person to the third person and when I made that change it felt as if I couldn’t think of a single sentence in the third person. But I really believe you have to write through that, even if the writing is shitty. I think you have to write your way back to quality sentences. I don’t think skipping days and weeks because you’re “blocked” will get you there.

What do you like to do when you are not writing?

I read a lot, of course. I wish there were more hours in a day to read. I have two young boys so I’m out with them quite a bit – at their ball games and school events. The whole family likes to hike. But this all makes me sound very active. I also love lying around doing nothing. Binge watching a show. Especially if it’s rainy or cold outside.

Deciding on an idea to pursue writing about can be the most challenging aspect for a writer. Do you have a process for generating and capturing ideas? And how do you come to the point of ‘this is something I want to write about’?

How to choose one’s subject is so incredibly personal. A writing professor of mine at the University of Virginia once gave my workshop the best advice. He said to wait to start writing until we felt like pots boiling over. I really try to live by that advice. It seems to me that when an idea is true and right, it sort of takes seed and grows. Some ideas SEEM great, but leave me cold when I think too much about them. It’s the ones that make my heart beat faster that are the ones to pursue, I’ve learned. You have to pick something that you’re going to want to stick with for YEARS.

What does a successful writing day mean for you? And how do you finish out a day of writing? Do you have a process, or is it just that you know you’ve hit a natural stopping point?

I have a word count goal of 1000 net words per writing day, with (realistically) around four writing days per week. Sometimes I meet that goal easily, and sometimes I barely make it. If I cut a lot from whatever I wrote the day before, then I end up having to write far more than a thousand words to meet that goal. Most days I find my natural stopping point right around 1000 words.

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

William Trevor’s short stories have always been a huge influence. Seamus Heaney’s poetry. Alice Munro. Margaret Atwood. Elizabeth Strout. To name just a few. Individual books have also been instrumental at criticial moments in my writing education: The Known World by Edward P. Jones. The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida. How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia by Mohsin Hamid. The Round House by Louise Erdrich. When I find a particular book that cracks open a particular moment of struggle in my own writing life it’s absolutely magical.

What is your advice to aspiring writers?

Read constantly. Read at the level you want to be writing. If you read crap books, your writing will be crap.

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