Clients

Julie Wu

Julie Wu’s novel, “The Third Son,” was shortlisted for the 2009 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Novel-in-Progress Competition and will be published by Algonquin Books in Fall 2012. She has also been published in Columbia Magazine and in JAMA, which for those of you who don’t know (we didn’t) is the Journal of the American Medical Association. You think you don’t have time to write? Julie’s a doctor.

The Sixty Second Interview with… Julie Wu

How do you take your coffee? I don’t drink coffee. I stopped drinking coffee Freshman year in college, when taking No-Doz gave me hallucinations. I may be the only living person who made it through medical school and residency without coffee.
What’s the best piece of publishing advice you’ve ever received? Publish as soon as possible. Raymond Kennedy told me that in 1996. I sold my first short story in 2010.
What kinds of advice do your friends ask you for? They ask me about service providers and hotels. I’m addicted to yelp, angies list, and tripadvisor.
Of all the metaphors by which writing has been portrayed, which is your favorite (i.e. bricklaying, marathon running, etc.)? I really don’t find that writing is like any other experience.
Do you have any writing tics or blind spots that you had to conquer the hard way? It took many years to learn how to let go of a piece enough to truly revise it.
What is your mantra for handling rejection? No mantra. I take whatever information is given—comments or lack thereof, and use it the best I can. (How’s that for a scientist!)
What question do you wish more people would ask you? Which tropical island may we send you to?

Our (current) favorite sentence of Julie’s: “In an oppressed society there are three main means of survival. There is the farmer’s way, plowing on as he has for centuries, his hat shadowing his face. There is opportunism. And then there are those who cannot or will not accept things as they are…”