Craft Advice with Stephanie Land
On getting the best ideas in the shower and in therapy, writing sex scenes, writing about people you love, writing about people who've been shitty to you, vivid settings, and reading work out loud.
Intimate conversations with our greatest heart-centered minds.
Her potent writing style is widely compelling. Maid, her first memoir, has sold half a million copies worldwide, been translated into thirty languages, garnered a place in the New York Times 100 Notable Books, included on Barack Obama’s “Summer Reading List” of 2019, and made into a wildly popular Netflix mini-series.
Her most recent memoir, Class, debuted last year as Good Morning America’s Book of the Month and was named as one of the best books of 2023 by Amazon. Her essays have been featured in numerous outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and The Atlantic.
In other words, Stephanie knows a thing or two about writing. So it was a delight to ask her how she did it! I learned a lot. I think you will, as well.
If you missed part one of our interview, you can read it here.
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Where do you write?
Anywhere possible. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve told myself that I need some kind of writing device in the shower because that’s where the ideas come. Usually, a therapy session will give me some kind of idea for my Substack. So much so that I’ve had to force myself to not do that, because I don’t want every Substack to be like, "Well, I just had a therapy appointment, and…"
So you have a therapy session, and you’re like, "Oh, that gave me a great idea." Then how do you turn that into a Substack or chapter or scene?