An Interview with Janet Burroway, by Jocelyn Cullity

Cullity: If you had one thing—only one thing—that you wanted to get across to apprentice-writers, what might it be?

Burroway: This: Right now—whether you’re in writing courses getting “paid” in credit for writing, or burdened and distracted by earning a living and changing diapers—figure out how to make writing an integral part of your life. Publication is good, and gives you the courage to go on, but publication is not as important as the act of writing. And never let anyone tell you that what you’re doing is worthless or selfish. Writing is a way of trying to be honest to yourself, and fiction writing is a way of trying to feel what it is to live in someone else’s skin. Such writing literally “takes you out of yourself.” The American character is in severe danger of xenophobia, and the most urgent political, global need is the capacity to imagine one another. Writing is an antidote to xenophobia. We need all the writers we can get.