Goodreads asked Chris Manno:

What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Chris Manno That's pretty simple, and it's a twofold answer: write, read, and study both. Reading good writers is key--experience the work of Toni Morrison, J.M. Coetzee and other Nobel laureates who will teach you more about the craft than all the genre, formula-hugging and sadly, popular writers of the marketplace. Read oppositional writers like Sherman Alexie, Cormack McCarthy; colorists like Cristina Garcia and Derk Walcott. Study reading and writing: how does this rhetoric work, how does this narrative engage the heart and mind? The aspect of "studying" both reading and writing is what prompted me to visit the local university (Texas Christian University, for me) English Department and ask about grad programs--I emerged seven years later with a doctorate in English and a better understanding of the writing craft, which I now teach at Texas Wesleyan University. Finally, and simply: WRITE. It's what writers do.

flag