Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I write short features, reviews and long research based articles also. My first published piece was a short flash fiction I have written for my college magazine.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I have been writing sporadically, on and off, for 10-15 years now. My first ever published work was a short flash fiction, I have written for my college magazine, in final year while pursuing my graduation in English literature.

It turned out to be a damp squib, as it failed get any response from anywhere. Even my friends didn’t know about it because I didn’t tell anyone for the fear of being wrong and making some mistakes in it. Everyone kept reading the vernacular section, ignoring the English one. You see, English is not my native language. My mother tongue is Assamese. But I write only in English. So I am the odd man out from the very beginning.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
”You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too, that’s a part of it.” – Denzel Washington

What is your most evocative memory?
Growing up in Jorhat, a town and district headquarters of Jorhat district, some 306 kms east of Guwahati, through my childhood and early adolescent years.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
To convince others of my viability as a creative writer.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
The Medieval times.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It is far too lengthy, despite being so captivating. I couldn’t keep the patience towards the end and left it halfway.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
The death of my father. I have never seen death from such a close proximity until then. I am yet to get over it. There’s something unreal about the whole scenario, despite being so depressingly common.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
That’s a difficult question to answer. I have read the works of lot of writers. W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, Pablo Neruda, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, Terrence Hayes…etc. The list is endless. Some of them might inadvertently influenced my writing. My readers will be able to tell whose writing is similar to mine.

What does your creative process look like?
First the idea. It might be based on an object, a view or a situation. Speculative, deeply philosophical, overtly sentimental or emotional, autobiographical – these are not for me. Then there’s a lot of brainstorming. Finally, putting it into words…writing and deleting. Re-writing again, until it satisfies me. It takes a lot of time. Sometimes a piece I have started remain half-written for months.

Have you had to make tradeoffs in order to have time for creativity in your life?
Yes, being poor.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
36. People found the images charming. funny and intriguing.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
Jesus wept

What is your most evocative memory?
Hitting a car on my motorcycle and flying very high in the air

How long does it take you to close the gap between the work as you imagine it and the real, finished piece?
One to twelve months

What historical time would you most like to live in?
1920s

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
Dostoevsky- The Brothers Karamasov - too slow

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
Some drug addled men kidnapped my brother and bought him to my worksite claiming he was possessed

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Don't know

What does your creative process look like?
Painting in my room about 10 pics worked on at a time

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I also dabble in music.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I was eight years old when I produced my first story. My parents gave it a kind review.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
"All that you touch you change." Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler.

What is your most evocative memory?
Playing in a little grove of pines with my friends next to our school grounds.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
My biggest creative doubt is that despite trusting the process and practicing daily, my next story will not be better than my last one.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern because I'm not in the right headspace for where this novel is taking readers.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I was face-to-face with a wild giraffe in South Africa once. It was a surreal experience.

What does your creative process look like?
My creative process involves a lot of looking out the window daydreaming, trying to remember dreams I've had at night, and rewriting the same sentence over and over again.

Have you had to make trade-offs in order to have time for creativity in your life?
I refuted some lucrative teaching proposals to give more time to reading and writing. Hopeful to be a full-time author someday, at times I had ignored some practical financial benefits, just because I needed to be more occupied in writing.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
It was a first draft of a short story I wrote in Hindi and submitted to Amar Ujala, a Hindi Daily circulated in western Utter Pradesh, India. I was eight years old. The submission was instantly rejected citing it was an illicit romance tale and I was too young for writing such a thing. Rather, I was advised to pen down children’s literature.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
Fiction is a lie that tells the truth by Stephen King. I regard it quite high and agree to King.

What is your most evocative memory?
I recall my very early childhood when I was four. One of my cousins brought a paperback Hindi translation to Bram Stoker’s Dracula. He gave the copy to my father claiming it as the most horrific novel ever written. My father was hooked to it, and so was I. The same year my father died, but the book stayed in the family. My all siblings read it. I was the youngest one in the family and was not even admitted to school then. So, I had to wait for another four years, before, I could read it. Stoker’s masterpiece caused me to become a writer myself. Today my influences are many but Stoker is my darling writer till date. Because of him, speculative elements run through almost all of my works.

How long does it take you to close the gap between the work as you imagine it and the real, finished piece?
Sometimes it’s finished as expected, but most of the time it surprizes me too. Creativity comes from an unknown source, so even a writer, I believe, does not understand precisely how the story will exactly unfold until it is finished. I am no exception to the rule of writing.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I’m most comfortable in writing the stories from 1988 to present time. The reason behind it is: I was born on 14th of August 1985 in a north India countryside, Johri. So, my earliest memories start from 1988 onwards. The backdrop, I more often than not cater to my works, generally sets in that early childhood when I was around three or more. My fingers write with spontaneity as if they know everything. It’s thus the most suitable period for me to write about.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
At Night All Blood is Black, by David Diop, for it was torn by my wife one day in a fit of rage. Though I assembled it again yet didn’t feel like reading it, anymore. As I tend to keep my books in beautiful shape and don’t read torn and overused books.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
A revelation: the world’s got three major issues to solve—1. Poverty 2. Terrorism and 3. Illicit relations. I believe the third universal issue of illegitimate relationship is incurable, impossible to get a remedy. My next long fiction work is based on it.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
“The Rattrap,” by Selma Lagerlof has slight resemblance, but the originality in The Mysterious Tramp is stark and glittering. The Swedish writer’s work carries the theme: every human being has an essential goodness that can be awakened through understanding and love. While the theme of my work is: selfless service rendered to someone has its own rewards unknown to common human eyes.

What does your creative process look like?
A clean, beautiful, and smooth highway in the beginning, a labyrinth in the middle but in the end coming to a place where all the threads bind together into a meaningful knot but with a surprising conclusion.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
First and foremost, I'm an actress, always have been. I've written several short plays in recent years, my favorite of those is currently being developed into a short film. I'm forever a singer and I've always loved taking pictures.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
"Some men live, all men die". Saw it on a t-shirt on the train years ago and it's been with me ever since.

What is your most evocative memory?
Swimming through kelp forests, completely alone in the freezing ocean, Vinalhaven, Maine.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
A huge preoccupation of mine is to consume less and create more, and to use my free time to create. There's really no excuse. I'd also like to make something I and others can keep, that will always be there.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I love Anton Chekhov, so I'd like to be a young woman in a Russian country house at the turn of the 20th century who plays piano, speaks French and likes both talking and listening, but she listens more and she listens well. Her words count and she's a full person, a woman of ideas and the heart. And she dresses gorgeously and makes her own clothes! Perhaps this is how she finds her way to independence.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
Being born and raised in New York City.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Tom Waits.

What does your creative process look like?
Right now, I really care about finding ways to speak more directly about my self in my art. I've often used poetry to talk to and about people I miss or I can't access. How can I commune with my self, instead of just longing for them?

I do a lot of noting, the notes app is an extension of my brain ... I love to commemorate special moments with a poem, or gather all the information I've learned about someone I want to be close to there. I write by hand, on my phone and on my computer ... Everything eventually ends up on my computer and often has a funny tendency to be exactly one page long! It delights me, but it's also nice to deviate from.

Have you had to make tradeoffs in order to have time for creativity in your life?
Yes. In addition to writing, I have to work a day job to pay the bills. I also like to spend time with family and friends, read books, play guitar, draw pictures, and a million other things. But there is a finite amount of time in the day, and it is difficult to make writing a priority. One of my mentors told me that writing is a muscle, and you have to work that muscle every day to develop it, or it will atrophy. That stuck with me, and I realized I needed to both consider my writing as work and make that work a daily practice. Sometimes, that means I don't have time to read or play guitar, but I do write every day. I also have a very understanding and encouraging partner who gives me the time and space I need.

When did you first realize you wanted to be an author/artist?
There was no defining moment. I have always been a creative type. I remember writing plays when I was in grade school and getting my neighbors to perform with me. In a high school English class, we were asked to respond to a poem, and my response won a prize. It was the first time I felt really successful at something. Unfortunately, I think it would be difficult to support myself by writing fiction. There are a few who can - and that's the dream, but the reality is having a day job that pays the light bill and still having time to create. I consider myself fortunate to be able to live that dream.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
"I went into the room and stayed with Catherine until she died." (A Farewell To Arms - Hemingway). There are supposedly 47 versions of that ending - I bet there are more we don't know about, though. The sentence is such a fucking gut punch, and he doesn't use any flowery language or description - he doesn't need it.

How long does it take you to close the gap between the work as you imagine it and the real, finished piece?
I don't know if a work is ever finished. When I first got serious about writing, that used to bother me, but not anymore. And each story is different. Sometimes, a character will come to me so clearly, and they will beg me so persistently to get their story down, that I just hammer it out and then make small changes. Sometimes, a story develops over years. I like to think of stories as lumps of clay. When characters first come to me, they usually tell me a  glossed-over, truncated version of the whole thing. It's as if I met someone on a train, or waiting in line at the grocery store. They give me the highlight reel. I have to keep working the story over and over and over to chisel away the bits of unnecessary clay until I get the 'sculpture' to appear. And characters lie, just like real people. They like to put themselves in the best (and most dramatic) light. Finding the 'truth' of the story also takes sculpting, feeling around blindly with your pen. Rewriting over and over. This particular story has been in the works for a couple of years. It is an excerpt from a book I am writing, and the main character is based on someone I knew as a child, someone who sparked my imagination. But I have found that writing a book takes even more work and revision because all the individual chapters and pieces must fit together. 

What historical time would you most like to live in?
I used to think I would love to live in the 60s - so many interesting things going on politically and so much music. But really, we have that now. I can't think of a better time or place to be than the one I am in.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
I have several books in progress, and I will read most anything. But I had to put down Fifty Shades. I tried. It was terrible. The plot was thin and improbable. The protagonist was annoying and simple (talking over and over again about her "inner goddess"). The language was dull. Sorry, E.L. James - I am certain you have writing talent, and it sure sold a lot of copies. Maybe I missed something, but there were too many good books waiting to be read to waste time on this one.

Name a book/author/artist that you feel deserves more recognition.
Carolyn Chute. Her writing is superb. Evocative. Clear and yet complex characters. The structures are unlike anything out there. Her work is totally original (as is the author) and unsullied by the internet or canon. The way and manner in which she constructs stories is on another level and yet, her later books do not sell. Such a shame that publishers promote the heck out of drivel with sex, but let Chute's work - true art - take a back seat.

What does your creative process look like?
Anytime a character whispers in my ear, I write it down. Sometimes, I am driving and asking Siri to "take a note," (and I imagine those notes look pretty crazy to someone else) but I eventually transfer those bits and pieces into a folder on my computer. If the character whispers more, I add it to the file. At some point, the blob of notes (clay) starts to take form and once it gets to a certain point, there is no turning back - the story has grabbed hold of me and I have to finish it. I write most often on the couch. I like having things going on around me while I write. I have horrendous tinnitus and without things clattering around me, I get distracted. Eventually, I submit my work. When I get a rejection, I revise and submit it again. Then rinse and repeat until someone publishes it. The rejections can get depressing, but when a piece gets accepted, it is so satisfying!

Have you had to make tradeoffs in order to have time for creativity in your life?
Yes but these were necessary and I have no regrets. As I believe the film director John Huston once said, "you have to give one, to get one," i.e., under the studio system, he was required to direct one movie that met aims other than his own in return for which the studio allowed him to make a film that was primarily his creative vision. The former paid the bills, the latter fed the soul.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I was ten years old when I wrote — in ballpoint pen on stationery, bound in twine — a history of World War II. I sent it to the editors at Houghton Mifflin, who sent me and my mother one of the kindest and most encouraging rejection letters I have ever received. I can only imagine their smiles as they opened what I sent them.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
What a superb and devilish question! How many angels could dance on a semi-colon? After lots of wonderful deliberation, I select from a vast number of candidates: "A line is a dot that went for a walk," by Paul Klee. Intriguingly, the quote is usually left without citation of its original source. I had assumed it was from his Pedagogical Sketchbook, thus the words in English being those of translator Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (1953, from the 1925 German original). Reviewing my copy of the book, I cannot in fact find this sentence. Klee's writing — like his visual artwork — was voluminous, so I have begun to search for it. Regardless, a deep favorite of mine.

How long does it take you to close the gap between the work as you imagine it and the real, finished piece?
Varies tremendously. I have notes, drabbles, sketches dating back decades in some cases. Many of my poems can gestate for 10 years or more. Oddly, my novels took quicker routes: an average of five years each.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
A near-future when we have moved entirely to sustainable energy, yielding genuine equity in opportunity and shared wealth across the globe.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
Meeting my future spouse entirely by chance, within a 90 second window of possibility, both of us strangers in a foreign country.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
I strive to emulate Angela Carter and Susanna Clarke in prose, Marianne Moore and Seamus Heaney in poetry. Annie Dillard and Ursula K. Le Guin are overall inspirations.

What does your creative process look like?
Gloriously messy. I am a pantser, not a plotter. Scenes, vignettes, images, dialogues tumble out willy-nilly, almost always as I am waking. I rarely know where they came from or where they may be going. I rush to capture them. They are tricksters, teasing me, resisting my intellectual blandishments and attempts to impose proper order. I wrestle mightily to figure out what, if any, narrative they may represent. Call it the happy breakdown of project management, the sliding away from budget and outline.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Neither in the past nor the future. In the present. It’s all we have. (Or ever have.) My effort is to become more fully present in the present moment.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
Poetry. I am also a journalist and write about the environment.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I was born. Everything else pales in comparison.

What does your creative process look like?
I try to get quiet inside and see what comes up. Sometimes just an image or a line. The poem unfurls from that.

I never know where I am going until I get there.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
“Be still and know that I AM God.” It is in the Bible. The I AM in each of us is Divine. The pure awareness, joy and love at the core of ourselves is the source of all creative work.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
My biggest fear is that won’t find something new to say. But if I get quiet enough inside and receptive something always comes.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
I am an avid gardener and love transformative projects, taking spaces, large or small and reimagining them for the user. In the past few years, since selling our fashion biz (a creative endeavor of 4 decades), I’ve designed and coordinated the re-landscaping 4 different properties in greater Seattle and consulted on three others – such joy!

How old were you when you produced your first work?
Age 17, I wrote an essay I was particularly proud of.

How was it received?
My English lit teacher had quit a professorship to teach in high school because so many entering college freshmen didn’t know how to write and she told me that I could.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
By Sarah Waters: “As if one’s grief is a fallen house, and one has to pick one’s way over the rubble to the ground on the other side…I’ve got lost in my rubble, Mickey.”

What is your most evocative memory?
When my twin boys were being born vaginally and things were a bit dicey.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
That my characters won’t resonate down to the bone.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Right now, in the whirlwind of so much change and hard-to-bear honesty. There’s a strength to be gained in knowing who folks really are.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler. I just couldn’t grab onto the tale, so few scenes and so much telling, I got lost in the trying. I know, I know, Pulitzer prize winning author, Man Booker prize nominee….sigh…

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you? Becoming the first female buyer in the men’s division of Neiman Marcus.

Whose work do you feel most resembles your own?
Any writer who paints a vivid scene where the place and time are the undercarriage.

What does your creative process look like?
I get up around 6-6:30 and try not to interact with any human while I make a latte then scurry back to bed, where I prop up with my lap desk and go at it, rarely coming up for air before 9:30 a.m.

Have you had to make tradeoffs in order to have time for creativity in your life?
Building creative time into my day has required hard choices. The temptation to pursue every shiny new activity is ever present. I have had to become much more intentional about which organizations I support and where I devote my time. Now that my commitments are more strategic, I am focused on work that has the greatest value for me. Although I am not always successful, I try to give writing time the same weight as other tasks on the calendar.

When did you first realize you wanted to be an author/artist?
I was a strange child who enjoyed reading the dictionary. The desire to be an author has lurked in the back of my mind since my earliest days of fitting words together on the page.

What is your most evocative memory?
In 2015 I traveled to Alaska for the first time. Watching glaciers “calve” was a breathtaking experience too powerful to capture in words or photos. Nevertheless, that magical setting continues to inspire much of my work.

How long does it take you to close the gap between the work as you imagine it and the real, finished piece?
Closing the gap between the concept for a poem and the finished product can take one to two weeks. In contrast, my flash fiction generally evolves within three or four days.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
Provided I could take a few vials of penicillin with me, I would love to pay a visit to the 19th century. Perhaps I could meet the reclusive Emily Dickinson, the Brontë sisters, or Edgar Allen Poe.

What's the last book you didn't finish reading, and why did you put it down?
The last book I didn’t finish was American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. My inability to complete the novel had nothing to do with the quality of her writing. I started reading Cummins’ work just before I came across several reports on brutality at the US-Mexico border. The fear that motivates people to leave everything and everyone they know behind is beyond my imagination, but the stories cut my heart. At that time I could not carry any more sadness, so I had to stop reading American Dirt.

Many artists and authors are creative in multiple disciplines. What other types of art do you create?
Photography is my second medium. The importance of contrast in composition carries over to my writing, as I try to bring together different kinds of language and different traditions without squashing everything into a homogenous mushy middle. I also dabble in other visual arts, especially acrylic painting.

How old were you when you produced your first work? How was it received?
I don’t know. Even before I wrote, I told stories and acted them out with friends or dolls. I do remember writing couplets about cats, snow, and Advent in early elementary school, as well as a story that was Star Trek except the crew were all dinosaurs.

What is the single best sentence you've ever read?
The sentence that ends and begins Finnegans Wake: it manages shifts in tone, and the explosion of the notion that a book has a clear start and finish, in what becomes conventional syntax. That said, I have a lot more fun using the first sentence of “The Dead”–Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet–to mess with prescriptivists.

What is your most evocative memory?
Saying goodbye, hungover, on the Tokyo Metro, days before I left the country, to someone I had only just admitted to myself that I loved. He told me to keep writing and to write to him. Over the last seventeen years, I have tried to forget that moment, and it has at times been submerged by traumas that resulted from my decision to leave, but it always comes back.

What is your biggest creative doubt?
Is it right to use my time to write work that so few will read? I know capitalism and commodification underlie that kind of thinking, but I also know that I could be using my time to have a material impact on people’s lives.

What historical time would you most like to live in?
There are many historical periods I would like to visit but none I would want to live in. I like having internet access and indoor plumbing. I like that I can live independently, in different countries, as a single woman.

What is the most unbelievable thing that has ever happened to you?
I actually can’t answer this question because of potential legal issues. Suffice to say, it happened at AWP.

What does your creative process look like?
I incubate work for a long time before I start writing it down. As a result, I make fewer major revisions than might otherwise be required. I have preferred writing directly on a computer since I was ten: handwriting has always been a struggle for me.