We're excited to share our conversation with award-winning poet and novelist, Andrew McMillan! With the success and acclaim of his debut novel 'Pity', released earlier this year, Andrew sat down with us to discuss why he writes (and, just as importantly, reads), his advice for other writers, and more.

What’s one thing about writing you think everyone should know and would benefit from? 

That to read is much more important than to write. That you should always write the things you want to , because you have to live with your work the longest, after everything else has moved on. Those are two things - perhaps a third thing: your writing will be the sum of everything you read and absorb and see - so take in as much as possible. 

Why do you write? 

I think it's as simple as it begins for the self; I enjoyed reading so much, and I think if you enjoy reading, sometimes something happens where you begin to want to speak into that great ongoing conversation of literature. Also as a way to process, to understand the world and why things happen. To be a witness to the world around me as I move through it. 

What do you hope readers take away from your work? 

I often think that's not an easy thing to articulate, because to a certain extent that's in the hands of the reader - whether they get enjoyment, or not, or inspiration, or not, or certain insights into something they might not otherwise have been able to glimpse, or not. I think though, perhaps at least with the novel Pity, that if I could dream of someone taking anything away from it, it might be permission. Permission to write about their own town or village in that way, a permission for them to know that stories and literature aren't elsewhere, they're simply wherever you are.