Nyla Matuk

What’s your advice to new writers?

I think for poets, it would be to read as much as possible. It sounds very mundane, but one needs to understand, through reading, what is possible, inspirational, or aesthetically pleasing. It’s a great help. And the other piece of advice is to learn not to expect responses or reactions (good or bad) to one’s work. I simply expect indifference as a default. While writing might be about gaining a readership or an audience, on another level it has to be entirely not about those things. My sense is that not many writers cultivate this attitude at first.

Nyla Matuk
Interview