Ask the Author: John Witherow
Answered Questions (8)
John Witherow
The inspiration for my novel, The Gap, was my service as a platoon leader and helicopter pilot in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard, stationed at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, from 1984 through 1991. There, I met the awe-inspiring pilots whose fictional counterparts populate The Gap. As the back cover suggests, "they may seem rather crusty in the first pages, but things are always more complicated than they may seem."
John Witherow
When I asked who was at the door, the answer was, "Pizza Delivery Guy."
But when I answered the door, it was the LANDSHARK!
But when I answered the door, it was the LANDSHARK!
John Witherow
I write for a living, so for me, the inspiration for my daily legal writing is the paycheck. For my novel, The Gap, I was awed and inspired by the Vietnam-veteran pilots with whom I flew at Fort Indiantown Gap, and I wanted to tell a story about them as a sort of a homage. Another great interest of mine, in college, was the War on Drugs, so I intergrated a theme based on that subject into the story.
John Witherow
My law job is fairly all consuming at present, but I've been laying the groundwork for a legal allegory about a young man who has a natural gift for reason who takes an internship on a court where the judges seem immune to it.
John Witherow
Be prepared to fail a few times (I'm still on the first try!). I believe that quality will always rise, but unless you're a prodigy, it's probably going to take some time to produce that kind of quality.
John Witherow
I can't take credit for it, but I like the saying, "the best thing about writing is 'having written,'" because I find that writing can be quite exhausting.
John Witherow
I think the writer has to fill up before he or she can disgorge, so if I am stuck, I read background materials in the subject area. Most of my writing is non-fiction ( legal writing), so ordinarily for me this means reading court decisions and secondary sources like law review articles. For my novel, The Gap, I read lots of books about Vietnam and the War on Drugs, including great fiction writers like Tim O'Brien (e.g., The Things They Carried, Going After Cachiato, Lake of the Woods).
John Witherow
I would love to visit Maycomb and hang out with Atticus Finch.
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