We're so excited to share our interview with Professor Rebecca Flowers! She teaches nonfiction writing with an interdisciplinary focus, drawing on her own experience studying biology. Her writing has been published in Essay Daily, DIAGRAM, and Guernica.
Flowers spoke to us about her academic journey from biologist to writer and shared her best advice for combatting those first draft nerves.
- In your undergrad, you studied both English and Biology. How do you feel that interdisciplinary background contributes to your writing? To your teaching?
My loves of science and writing have always been intertwined. Growing up, I loved animals, particularly sharks, and I also loved making up fantasy worlds and writing stories. When I went to college, my original plan was to become a marine biologist and do writing on the side, but after a study abroad biology program in Costa Rica, I realized that field research wasn’t for me. During that program, I had written a weekly blog about our experiences tracking down sloths and studying beetle reproduction, and I realized that writing about science and nature was the part I truly loved. I ended up writing an undergraduate thesis about the ethics of aquariums under writer Jeffrey Sharlet, which solidified my love for the creative nonfiction genre. Even today, in writing my manuscript about scuba diving, my STEM background often comes in handy as I pour through journal articles, statistical models, and patents to get a better understanding of how SCUBA technology has developed.
My interdisciplinary background has also been hugely influential for my teaching. I usually find that the best teachers are ones who bring in topics they are excited about, so I try to apply this same approach in my classes. For example, there was a period of time when scientists wrote about their personal biases at the beginning of their abstracts, which is a helpful discussion point in class conversations about subjectivity. Another example: in my Technical Seminar in Nonfiction: Adventures in Research class, I had my students read about Genie, a girl who was abused for much of her childhood and therefore never acquired language. I learned about Genie in one of my undergraduate psychology classes, but now I bring her case in as an example for my students to consider how they can write about someone who cannot communicate with empathy and humanity.
- What advice do you have for students sharing personal narratives in writing classes, especially considering how vulnerable the workshop environment can be?
Remember that no piece of writing is perfect. Some authors continue revising their pieces even after they have been published! So, if you bring something to workshop that is completely done, expecting to receive only praise, that is a waste of time for you and the other work-shoppers, and will only be a negative experience for you. The point of workshop is to hear others’ perspectives and to keep working towards the goals you set out in your piece, so going in with realistic expectations that other students will have both points of praise and ideas for improvement is incredibly helpful. Once I stopped hoping that workshops would reassure me how amazing I was, they became much more helpful, less nerve-wracking, and more confidence boosting. You should come out of a workshop excited to work on your piece and make it better.
- What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve received? Who was it from?
I have received a lot of great writing advice from my wonderful mentors, but what comes to mind for me is actually a quote from actor Terry Crews while he was on the spicy chicken wing interview show, Hot Ones. It’s a funny place to find inspiration, but Crews says at one point that the following phrase motivates him: “God will not have his will made manifest by cowards.” I’m not a religious person, but whenever I think about this idea, it reminds me to push through the fear – of a blank page, of a terrible draft, of rejection, etc. – and continue. It reminds me that bravery is not the absence of fear, but action in spite of it, and that creating art means you will have to make sacrifices. It reminds me that an unfinished draft on paper is better than a perfect draft in your head. Creation is scary for everyone. All you have to do is keep going.
- What are you reading right now?
Right now, I’m reading Finger Exercises for Poets by Dorianne Laux. I’m not a poet by any means, but I love reading poetry when I’m in a writing slump because nothing inspires me like reveling in some gorgeous words. I also love when writers take you through their thought processes about craft because it makes me feel like I’m in English class again, mesmerized and excited about the possibilities of language and storytelling – John McPhee’s Draft No. 4 and George Saunders’ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain are both great examples of this. Plus, I’m always on the lookout for teaching ideas, and Laux has stuffed her book full of exercises like “write a poem from a newspaper headline” and “describe the quality of light in an imaginary room.”