Q&A with 2012 Featured Author David O. Stewart
David O. Stewart is a historian whose third book, “American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America” (Simon & Schuster), tells the story of America’s third Vice President as a daring, and perhaps deluded, figure who shook the nation’s foundations in its earliest, most vulnerable decades. The book follows his well-received books, “The Summer of 1787” and “Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy.” Stewart is a Washington, D.C.-based constitutional lawyer; and it is his love of the intricacies of the law drew him to write non-fiction books on the subjects in American history that have shaped or tested the constitution.
Where do you find inspiration?
I’m not sure that writing is primarily about inspiration. Very occasionally I write something in a semi-feverish state, positive in that moment that I’m being outrageously creative, only to discover the next morning that it’s not very good. Other times it feels like I’m taking out the trash, just humping through the material, but it turns out it was a lot better than that. You need a commitment to tell the story as well as you possibly can. That gives you the discipline to do the work. There’s a lot more work than inspiration.
What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Write. Don’t talk about what you’re going to write. Just write. And if you want to sell your manuscript to a publisher, it’s a very good idea to be a TV celebrity.
What are you reading right now?
Elmore Leonard’s “Djibouti” and T.J. Stiles’ “The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.”
What’s your favorite opening line from a book?
By David O. Stewart.
What book has inspired or affected you in some way?
Wow. Not an easy question. Because I write historical narratives, I should mention some of the best examples of that work – examples that illustrate how the past can be brought alive while being true to what really happened. David McCullough’s “John Adams,” Joseph Ellis’ “American Sphinx” or Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals.”
If you could sit down at dinner with three other authors, living or dead, which three authors would you choose, and why?
It would probably be best to dine with each of these authors separately, seriatim, as they might not have a great deal in common.
Ben Franklin, because there really hasn’t been a more interesting person … ever.
Charles Dickens, because I cannot fathom how he wrote so much, so wonderfully, using only pen and ink, and because his passion for life comes through so powerfully in his books.
John LeCarre, because I cannot think of another contemporary writer who has produced so many consistently first-class books over such a long period of time. He’s so much more than a spy novelist. For the last 50 years, he has charted the large movements of world politics by filtering them through small, so-human characters who are entirely believable and are caught in compelling troubles.
