Jamie Harrison

How did you become a writer? Out of desperation! I’d lost my job as an editor and I lived in an area with extremely low wages—Montana—and didn’t want to move back to New York. I’d read mysteries all my life, and tried writing one, and managed to sell it as part of a series.

Name your writing influences (writers, books, teachers, etc.). My father was a novelist and poet and our house was full of books and talk of writing. I went to a tiny public school—most kids didn’t go on to college—but we had an English teacher who taught everything from Gilgamesh to Hamlin Garland, Goethe to Faulkner, and he let me spend study hour alone in the cafeteria, reading novels. There are too many writers to mention, but let me start with Louise Erdrich, David Mitchell, Edward Jones, Penelope Lively, Michael Ondaatje, James McBride. I’d also recommend Jane Alison’s Meander, Spiral, Explode and James Woods’  How Fiction Works.

When and where do you write? Anywhere and anytime I can, but I usually start with a block of time in the morning, back in bed with coffee. When the weather is good (as I mentioned: Montana), I try for the picnic table. My office is currently a mound of paper.

What are you working on now? Another Jules Clement novel and an essay. I’m touring off and on, and because my work time is fragmented, I’m also letting my head float around another book linked to The Widow Nash.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? No. The problem is always distraction or avoidance, or simply not knowing how to approach a scene or an edit.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? I can’t remember any one perfect and succinct line, but here’s a couple that work: Reading makes you a better writer, and when you’re stuck, reading will free you up. Take time away from your manuscript for the sake of perspective, and embrace edits. Less is almost always more.

What’s your advice to new writers? Work through different ideas on top of the novel, and try to avoid I.

Jamie Harrison is the author of The Center of Everything, The Widow Nash, and five mysteries in the Jules Clement series, most recently The River View. She’s the winner of the Reading the West Award, a finalist for the High Plains Book Award, and a Ucross fellow. Before writing, she worked in food and magazines, and was the editor of Clark City Press. She lives in Livingston, Montana.