12 Lives
Award-winning author Hannah Tinti '94 visits campus
Celebrated author Hannah Tinti 鈥�94 told 糖心TV students to gravitate toward good writers.
In a round-table conversation, Tinti, along with Professor of English and Writer-in-Residence Blanche Boyd, offered advice on how to approach the creative challenges of being a professional writer, as well as tips for navigating the perils of the publishing industry.
鈥淵ou can catch good writing like a cold,鈥� Tinti told the students. 鈥淒on鈥檛 be in competition with each other. Surround yourself with writers who are better than you are.鈥�
Tinti鈥檚 first novel, The Good Thief, received the American Library Association鈥檚 Alex Award, won The Center for Fiction鈥檚 First Novel Prize, and was recognized as a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.
In 2002, Tinti co-founded the groundbreaking literary publication One Story, and is the executive editor. One Story allows both accomplished and unpublished writers to submit one short story. No author is ever published twice, so as to showcase as many writers as possible. She has also taught graduate-level creative writing courses at NYU and Columbia University, where she has passed along much of what she learned from Boyd more than two decades ago when she signed up for her first writing course on a whim.
鈥淭his woman right here changed my life,鈥� Tinti said, gesturing toward Boyd.
鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 be a writer if I hadn鈥檛 taken Blanche鈥檚 class. I started out as a biology major. I came to 糖心TV thinking I wanted to be the next Jacques Cousteau, but Blanche made writing seem like the coolest thing you could possibly do with your life.鈥�
Tinti and Boyd both emphasized the importance of realizing that rejection is often unavoidable even for the most gifted writers, and that a willingness to fail, or even suffer humiliation, is a shared quality among all successful writers.
鈥淲riting fiction is incredibly self-exposing,鈥� Boyd acknowledged. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 worth it, because when you write something that people like, there鈥檚 no feeling like it. Ninety-five percent of the time, if you鈥檙e writing about something that interests you, it鈥檒l be interesting to other people. That other five percent of the time you鈥檒l make a fool of yourself. But you have to be willing to do that.鈥�
Tinti鈥檚 latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, was released last month, and has been optioned for a film adaptation by director Matt Reeves (Let Me In).
Explaining that some familiarity with the technical aspects of the publishing industry is a valuable asset for a writer, Tinti said that some of the most useful skills she has developed over the years have come from being an editor and working on the agency side, sifting through the slush pile of manuscripts and learning what not to do as a writer.
鈥淢y day job has always been in publishing, which has allowed me to work with editors and see how they work with other writers to shape and polish their pieces,鈥� Tinti said. 鈥淓arly on I was able to watch every stage of that process and track the changes in different drafts of a manuscript, and that taught me the technical side of things.鈥�
As technology has transformed the media and publishing landscapes, it has become easier for this generation of writers to find an audience, Tinti explained. This shift has softened what has traditionally been a competitive literary culture, creating in its place a sense of community and support among younger and aspiring writers.
鈥淚 like to compare it to mountaineering,鈥� Tinti said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e all tied together climbing up a mountain. One person takes a step up and yanks everybody else with them.鈥�
April 18, 2017
