What’s something you know now about writing that you didn’t know when you started your first book? What is it about other than you? If you don’t know, you’re probably not ready to write one, or you may not have a memoir, just an interesting life. My belief is that great memoirs are about something bigger than the person or character we’re following. You have to first ask yourself if you’d buy and read this book you’re planning, and why. What advice would you give to someone who wanted to write a memoir?Īn interesting life is not necessarily an interesting story. I pull up a Susan Orlean article whenever I’m weary. If you’re feeling blocked, what do you do to get yourself writing again? God isn’t very interesting if she doesn’t animate the universe. Too many are too generic, dull and imprecise. If you could wave a red pencil and magically change one bad writing habit that many of your students make, what would that habit be? Drafting belongs to the morning, editing belongs to the afternoon. I draft about two or three hours a day, and edit or rewrite for another two or three. No waiting for inspiration woo woo stuff for me. I treat it like work, because that’s what it is. I write in my office at Capilano University five days a week.

When not otherwise engaged, he teaches creative writing.Ĭan you briefly describe your writing day (how much time do you spend at it where do you do it?) Meanwhile, Knighton is adapting Ronald Wright’s novel A Scientific Romance and writing a travel book, Nothing to See Here. His director is going to be Jodie Foster although the movie is on hold for now, while Foster works on other projects. Although he’d never before written a screenplay, his first effort won him a place at the Screenwriters’ Lab at Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute and a $40,000 award for science writing via a staged reading at the Tribeca Film Festival. According to a recent story in Vancouver Magazine, he’s currently adapting his first book, the memoir Cockeyed (about how he lost his vision) for the screen. He’s also, apparently, a writing machine. That he became blind as an 18-year old (from retinitis pigmentosa) is the leitmotif of his writing, but he eschews self-pity and sentimentality in favour of a kind of wry cynicism. I was entranced! His writing is sharp, clear and hysterically funny. I liked what he had to say and quickly acquired a copy of his latest memoir C’mon Papa.

I first heard him interviewed on Canadian public radio a few months ago. Ryan Knighton seems to be everywhere these days. Today, I speak with Ryan Knighton, author of Cockeyed and C’mon Papa… Here is another in my series of interviews with writers about the process of writing.

Cockeyed memoir