Today we’d like to introduce you to Spencer Brown.
Hi Spencer, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My career as a writer began when I fell in love with reading. As a kid, I really didn’t have much interest in reading. Movies and music were my outlets for stories and being carried away to other worlds. Growing up, my parents had a massive library in our house. Floor to ceiling, the shelves were filled with books. From classic poetry and literature, to historical works and reference materials, my parents had collected just about anything you could wish to read. As I grew up, I began craving deeper stories, something that would take me to where my heart was wishing to go. I started pulling books off the shelves and reading, and from then on, I was hooked. My first attempts at writing were mostly copies of the stories I loved; imitation preceded invention. But I kept with it. Every day I would write and fill up notebooks and journals, most of it pretty terrible, but it led me down a path of perseverance and dedication to the craft. Eventually, the poems and stories got better and better. I studied Literature and Creative writing in college and learned from some of the finest writers and teachers I’ve ever known. Even now though, after winning some awards and having my second novel published, there are days that the writing is hard. Days when the words don’t seem to want to flow and the characters don’t wish to speak. I think back to those early days though, when I found the love of language and mystery of characters so magnetic and hypnotic. I trust in the art, in the language, when those blocks creep in and doubt along with it. I trust, and bet on the muse to help see me through.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The biggest struggles I had were in trying to create stories that I thought people would like or that imitated other writers I admired. This is an important step when first starting out, but it was stunting my growth as a writer. I was often self-conscious about everything I was putting on paper, terrified that people wouldn’t like my work or wouldn’t respect what I was doing. I had to let all of that go before I could really start. I found that, when I wrote for myself first, wrote from that deep part of myself that was true, the words always came. Self-doubt is always a battle, no matter what we do in life. But how you face it and stare it down every day makes the difference.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a novelist and poet. I started when I was in high school, and have kept at it ever since. I had my first poem published when I was 18 years old, and ever since, I’ve kept a very rigid writing schedule and taken my work very seriously. I am the recipient of the 2016 Penelope Niven Writing Award, the 2018 Flying South Fiction Prize winner, a finalist for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and the Doris Betts Fiction Prize. My novel “Move Over Mountain” was published in 2019, and now my second novel, “Hold Fast,” will be published in October 2022.
Risk taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think part of writing almost always involves taking risks. Whether it’s the subject matter of a story, or developing a certain character, I’m put up against various risks. If I follow a certain thread of a story, will it work? If I remain truthful about this difficult subject, will my ideas get through to the reader? And, always, I try to make everything better than what I’ve done before. Making art requires the artist to take risks on behalf of the art and themselves as the creator. For me, that is when the writing is best; when I challenge the status quo and those comfortable boundaries I’ve boxed myself into, I find myself free in this beautiful way. The trick is to keep going when I find that; to grab hold with both hands and trust in what you’re doing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.spencerkmbrown.com
- Instagram: @SpencerKMBrown
