Walter Mosley on Writing

Walter Mosley is best known as a writer of the Easy Rawlings detective series, but he's written in many other genres and about politics. Last Saturday (March 12, 2011), he visited the St. Louis County Library to discuss his latest title, When the Thrill is Gone, covering the latest adventures of private investigator Leonid McGill. Around 100 people attended.

Mosley can be brutally candid, but his tone is never harsh and it is leavened by a dry sense of humor. Some quotes, some thoughts, some insights:

• With fiction you write what you mean to say. With non-fiction most authors bring an agenda to their subject.
• On editing the N Word out of Huckleberry Finn: Better to not read a book than change their book.
• For aspiring writers: "Write every day. It's about finding the writer inside of you. Write about the same thing every day."
• "If you see what's in store for the protagonists after the end it's a good ending."
• On Easy Rawlings: He was a tribute to my father and his generation. But that world of the 1950s Watts was one of certainty and predictability (such as they both were). America is no longer than country and the world is no longer that world, so Easy Rawlings stories were inappropriate to the times. That's why he created Leonid McGill.
• He gives short readings so people will buy his books and not feel like they just heard it all.
• On Leonid's son: "Twill is my favorite character that I ever wrote. Twill is certainly a sociopath . . . an unrepentant sociopath." Twill sees clearly because that is the world we live in.
• He was asked the inevitable "Who were your favorite writer's growing up?" He said all other authors will lie answering this one. He did a delightful riff on how the author will notice the questioner is a black female, so the author will name black female authors through time, ending with Alice Walker and Toni Morrison. (Pause.) "In reality it's Nancy Drew" because the author was too old for Toni Morrison to affect him or her. He said if an 8 year-old read Toni Morrison "she'd kill herself or her mother."
• He said he read Marvel comics growing up, mentioning the Fantastic Four before calling Spiderman the first black super-hero because Peter Parker could never make any money, everyone's afraid of him wherever he goes, he got his uncle killed, he saves the city but never gets any credit for it . . .
• Most authors don't write about friendships between men. That's one thing he's attempting to do in the McGill series.

All-in-all, I left inspired and excited about writing. Whether or not you've read any of his books, don't miss a chance to hear him if he lands near you!