This week I am interviewing Sonia Huber, a prolific and award winning writer in many genres, but primarily in creative nonfiction. Her book of essays on chronic pain, Pain Woman Takes Your Keys and Other Essays from a Nervous System was named a best book of 2018 by The New Statesman. Her other books include Love and Industry (2023), Voice First: A Writer's Manifesto (2022) and Supremely Tiny Acts (2021). Her essays have been included in the Best American Essays series numerous times. And she is a professor in the department of English at Fairfield university and in the Fairfield low residency MFA program. Despite all these places where Sonya's work has appeared, I found her on Substack, where she publishes a newsletter called Nuts and Bolts with Sonya.

We covered:

Why and how Sonya works on multiple books at one time (“maybe because I’m super distractible”)

Not being afraid to follow a tangent

Having zero expectations for your writing output, and just having fun exploring the things you’re curious about or mulling over

How much “tiny steps add up to bigger works”

How farm-sitting goats pays as much or better than writing

The book about writing that was written in 1938 that played a huge role in Sonya’s approach to writing

Sitting down for one hour in the mornings even if you’re bored or uninspired to “unsnarl one tiny knot I’ve made for myself”

Strategies for keeping your various ideas accessible, if not exactly organized

Using writing as a tool for dealing with chronic pain

For full show notes with links to everything we discuss, plus bonus photos!, visit katehanley.substack.com.

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