How Bestselling Crime Novelist Walter Mosley Writes: Redux

The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience

Note: I revisited a chat with the amazing Walter Mosley from 2021.

Celebrated author, Walter Mosley, took a timeout to chat with me about how he didn't write a sentence he liked until age 35, the sprawling muse of Los Angeles, and his conflicted feelings after winning a big National Book Award.

“Write your truth, and believe in it. And if your mother doesn’t like it ... too bad.” – Walter Mosley

Walter is the first Black man to receive the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters for lifetime achievement in writing.

The critically acclaimed author, playwright, screenwriter, and producer has written over 60 books including fiction (literary, mystery, and science fiction), writing guides, memoir, a YA novel, has won dozens of prestigious awards (including an Emmy), and been translated into 25 languages.

His bestselling historical mysteries feature infamous, hard-boiled detective "Easy" Rawlins, a black PI living in the Watts neighborhood of LA.

Blood Grove (Easy Rawlins Book 15) is the latest in that series and described as "... a novel of vast scope and intimate insight, and a soulful call for justice by any means necessary."

Walter's work has also been adapted for film and TV including Devil in a Blue Dress (starring Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle and Jennifer Beals) and the HBO production of Always Outnumbered (starring Laurence Fishburne and Natalie Cole).

Preview a sample of a podcast at the break from this week's sponsor Look Closer: The Found Fiction Podcast, more at foundfiction.org.

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In this file Walter Mosley and I discussed:

His winding career path

How the apex of post-hippie Los Angeles, California affected his writing

What it was like to work with the late, Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton (Boyz N the Hood)

Why you need to read your drafts out loud

And more!

Show Notes:

WalterMosley.com

Walter Mosley Amazon author page

Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology: A Library of America Special Publication (Amazon)

Roger Zelazny Amazon author page

Walter Mosley on Facebook

Kelton Reid on Twitter

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