The constellation of influences in my work includes teachers and practitioners who encourage writers and artists to build their creativity in intuitive ways: regular practice, clear perception, close reading, trusting the natural speaking voice. Also: a certain wildness of mind. Much is about creating the conditions and processes in which the good stuff arises.

Of great significance has been the experience of contemplative education I encountered studying and later teaching at Naropa University. I try to ground and balance this with an understanding of practical matters about publishing I gained from working as an editor at Little, Brown and later freelancing for many other publishers.

Specific teachers who’ve inspired me in either their classrooms or their writings include: Natalie Goldberg, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Jack Collom, Bhanu Kapil, Keith Abbott, Lynda Barry, Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, Stephen King, Joe Brainard, Allen Ginsberg, Rachel Pollack, Robin Wall Kimmerer, George Saunders.

I also take to heart the following principles:

If you have to ask, ‘How do I do it?’ you’ll never do it. The whole thing is how to get in there and figure out how to do it.

— John Waters

All of these declarations of what writing ought to be, which I had myself — though, thank god I had never committed them to paper — I think are nonsense. You write what you write, and then either it holds up or it doesn’t hold up. There are no rules or particular sensibilities. I don’t believe in that at all anymore.

— Jamaica Kincaid

Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

— John Keats

I try to make writers actually see what they have written, where the strength is. Usually in fiction there’s something that leaps out—an image or a moment that is strong enough to center the story. If they can see it, they can exploit it, enhance it, and build a fiction that is subtle and new. I don’t try to teach technique, because frankly most technical problems go away when a writer realizes where the life of a story lies. I don’t see any reason in fine-tuning something that’s essentially not going anywhere anyway. What they have to do first is interact in a serious way with what they’re putting on a page. When people are fully engaged with what they’re writing, a striking change occurs, a discipline of language and imagination.

— Marilynne Robinson.

And though I don’t like to contradict St Marilynne, I do think there is a value to teaching/learning technique, especially in learning to read as a writer. My editorial feedback often includes lots of suggestions for reading – models in style and form, comparison titles, books on craft. Favourite works, acclaimed prizewinners, category bestsellers, classic texts, books from childhood: reading and rereading and listening to audio versions will help us develop an intuitive sense of what leaves an impression in writing.