Andrew Shaffer

How did you become a writer?

I've just always known. It's funny—we're all "writers" as children. We all play with Barbies or Transformers, and create our own stories. Most of us grow out of playing make-believe. I never did.

****************************

What’s your advice to new writers

I regularly mentor beginning and intermediate-level writers, and the number-one thing I see—consistently, across the board—is a lack of awareness of genre. Are you writing literary fiction? A thriller? Young adult or middle grade? It's important to know where your book would be shelved in a bookstore. (Don't say, "With the bestsellers.") Even if you're not going the traditional publishing route, you'll need to know the genre so you can find bloggers and readers willing to take a chance on a book by a new author. Don't let this advice limit you, though: Let your imagination go where it wants. Have fun. Write without boundaries. But when you're finished, take a serious, detached look at what you've written.

Andrew Shaffer is the New York Times bestselling author of Hope Never Dies: An Obama Biden Mystery, the parody Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, and numerous other humorous works of fiction and nonfiction. He attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and studied comedy writing at Chicago's famed The Second City. An Iowa native, Shaffer lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife, novelist Tiffany Reisz. He teaches and mentors writers at Lexington's Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning.