Reading time: About 2 minutes
Merrie-Ellen Wilcox says she can never restrict herself to reading a single book and can often be found starting whatever shiny new book happens to pass her by…
A resident of Victoria, B.C., Merrie-Ellen Wilcox is a partner in West Coast Editorial Associates and has been writing and editing professionally since 1987. She has written four nonfiction books for middle-years readers (ages 9–13), all published by Orca Book Publishers: What’s the Buzz: Keeping Bees in Flight (2015); After Life: Ways We Think About Death (2018); Nature Out of Balance: How Invasive Species Are Changing the Planet (2021); and Taking Care of Where We Live (2024). She has two more books coming in 2028, including a new edition of After Life.
I was excited to talk to Merrie-Ellen about how she approaches writing.
Q. Roughly how much time do you spend writing every day?
Unless I’m working on a specific writing project, very little – a few minutes in the morning, generally. I expect this to change in the future as I work less.
Q. What’s a simple activity or habit that makes you a better writer?
Reading. Always.
Q. What interferes with your writing?
Working on other peoples’ text, as an editor, all day, every day. It doesn’t leave much time or mental energy for my own work.
Q. How do you persuade yourself to sit down to write on days when you really, really DON’T feel like doing it?
When I’m working on a specific writing project – either a book or a text that I’m being paid to write for a client – this usually isn’t a problem. Deadlines and other time constraints mean there isn’t time to not write. If for some reason I’m having trouble getting started, I’ll work on something easy first and then go back to the more challenging part later.
Q. Is there a particular motto or saying that you’ve found helpful for writing?
Dorothy Parker: “Writing well is the best revenge.” And, “Writing is the art of applying the ass to the seat.”
Q. Which stage of the writing process do you enjoy the most: researching, writing or editing/rewriting and why?
When it comes right down to it, I enjoy them all. Researching is fun and easy. Writing is hard work, but massively satisfying. Editing/rewriting my own work, especially when it comes back from the editor a long time after the writing stage, is probably the least enjoyable because by that point I’m starting to get bored.
Q. What’s one of the best books you’ve read (either fiction or non) in the last five years?
That’s a very hard question to answer, because I read so much and I think in terms of writers more than specific books. But the writers and books that have had the biggest impact on me in the last five years, perhaps because they surprised me in one way or another, are Lydia Davis, Our Strangers; Janet Malcolm, Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers; and the artist Anne Truitt’s extraordinary series of memoirs (Daybook, Turn, Prospect, and Yield). And so, so many more…
Q. What book are you reading right now?
I’m never reading a single book; I have a terrible habit of starting whatever shiny new book passes by and ending up with stacks (literally) of books partially read. (This must change!) But the one I’m currently enjoying most is Marcel Proust: Letters to His Neighbor, translated by Lydia Davis.
Q. What do you think is the biggest misperception that new writers have about the act of writing?
I don’t work with or know any new writers, but I suspect that it’s the expectation that they will get published and make a living from their writing.
