What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Becoming a Writer #5: Greg Kearney
By Zoe Whittall
Greg Kearney is a playwright, novelist , short story writer and humour writer. His latest book, The Desperates, was shortlisted for a LAMBDA, and is a really smart, hilarious and outrageous book. Greg will probably email me to tell me to erase the fawning previous sentence, but I won't.
What do you wish someone had told you before publishing your first book?
Advice before first book: in almost every case, wait. Otherwise, you'll be left with an artifact of an unformed sensibility. I look back on my first book and want to die. (Zoe interjects: Greg's first collection "Mommy, Daddy, Baby" is hilarious and perfect.)
What advice do you give to emerging writers?
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if it's not something you absolutely must write about, don't. Let obsession be your guide, always. Don't add to the already tippy stockpile of trifling narratives.
The views expressed in the Writer-in-Residence blogs are those held by the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Open Book.
Zoe Whittall’s next novel, The Best Kind of People, will be published in fall of 2016 with House of Anansi Press. Her novel Holding Still for as Long as Possible, won a Lambda Literary award, was shortlisted for the Relit award, and was an American Library Association’s Stonewall Honor Book. She’s published three books of poetry, and works as a freelance TV writer and journalist in Toronto.
Her books have been translated into French, Swedish, and Korean.