Author Interview: Edan Lepucki

MFA Faculty

Interviewed by Nathan Batchelor, MFA alumnus

What book—fiction or non-fiction—had the largest impact on you as a writer? 

Oh this feels impossible to answer! In a notebook from graduate school I have an unattributed quote: "Voice is the amalgamation of books read." I just love that idea--that all the things we read, even the things we read and hate, end up informing our writing style and voice, our habits and obsessions. I'd say that certain books that I loved from my twenties certainly shaped my work. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Look at Me By Jennifer Egan.The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty. The short stories of Lorrie Moore. Certain classics: Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, The Scarlet Letter, even Moby Dick. And books from long before that: Judy Blume's novels, for instance, or the poetry of Anne Sexton. There are so many books that swept me away, startled me, made me clutch my chest at their beauty, made me laugh, made me say: I want to do THAT. 

But I can't think of one book that changed me so entirely that it stands alone. The DNA of all of these books, and ones I've read more recently, too, like the noir detective novels of Ross MacDonald, or Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, or The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields, or The Chinese Groove by Kathryn Ma, are rattling around in me, helping me, giving me ideas and inspiration. You just never know what might shake something loose in you, and totally energize your own work. 

I got this question from a book about how to speak to experts: What aspect of writing do you feel you spent the most time on that ended up not being that important?

To me, every part of writing is important and cannot be eliminated: daydreaming and worldbuilding, the sentence making and paragraph-fiddling, the pull-out-your-hair to fix the plot days, the scene work--it all matters! Even the stupid days when you're focused on some irrelevant description that will probably get cut later is useful because it leads you to understand what your work means. I will say that the thing I initially felt wasn't the most important--revising--is, actually, the most important part. It took me years before I realized the immense value and power in deep revising. You have to write and rewrite and rewrite again and again to get closer to what your work is meant to be. 

How important is “habit” to your writing? Do you sit and do it at the same time every day? Can you talk a little about what you need for a good writing environment?

Since I have three kids and barely enough childcare, I am unable to write every day, or even five days a week. Also, what works for me now is going to disintegrate come summer when school ends and the camp schedule is spotty. And that is okay! Life may be constantly changing, but my writing is always there for me, waiting for me when I'm able to work on it. That is a solace and it keeps me from spinning out about not being sufficiently productive. 

My general goal is to write for two to three hours per work day, and stay away from the evil, distracting internet while doing so. I like to write in the morning and when I'm deep in a project I am most productive when I do it first thing, before emailing or teaching or exercising or going to the optometrist, and on and on. That doesn't always happen, but I know that's when I work best. A good writing environment is either my home office, or at one of my local cafes--with an excellent cappuccino within arm's reach. I always listen to music when I work. This not only blocks out any distracting noise, it also allows me to slip into an emotive mode. I will also say that I have had wonderful luck working in intense bursts at artists' retreats. I just returned from a residency at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming, where I started a new novel. I wrote for hours a day for twelve days straight, and I reveled in all the time and space I had to focus and feel inspired. Once or twice a year I spend a week at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, in Southern California, not too far from where I live in Los Angeles. I get so much work done on these trips, and they remind me how much I love to write and to sink deeply into my own work.

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Edan Lepucki is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels California and Woman No. 17, as well as the editor of Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them. Her new novel, Time's Mouth, will be published in August 2023. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Esquire, and The Cut, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.