How Literature Inspires Empathy
The Egyptian writer and activist Alaa Al Aswany explains how one word in Dostoyevsky’s novel The House of the Dead showed him how literature can help us understand one another.
How Writers Can Find Meaning in Nonsense
The author Jesse Ball discusses Lewis Carroll's ‘Jabberwocky’ and how precise prose doesn’t always make for powerful work.
How Writing Achieves Grace
The author Mary-Beth Hughes discusses how Penelope Fitzgerald’s novel The Blue Flower showed her that words can dance.
For Readers, Writing Is a Process of ‘Emotional Osmosis’
The author Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses how his novel The Sympathizer is the product of decades of enjoying other works.
When Writers Put Themselves Into the Story
Joshua Cohen, the author of Book of Numbers, discusses Dostoyevsky’s The Double, in which the author becomes a presence in the novella.
To Write a Great Essay, Think and Care Deeply
The nonfiction writer Lucas Mann offers advice for essayists worried about whether they have anything interesting to say.
Writing Is the Process of Abandoning the Familiar
The novelist and editor Anna North discusses the Odyssey’s timeless lesson about leaving the comforts of home.
Writing Should Be a Continued Exploration
Mark Z. Danielewski discusses how the interplay of words and images can open up new ways of perceiving both literature and the world.
Writers Should Look for What Others Don't See
The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Simic discusses the importance of noticing hidden truths—from the horrors of war to the mundane aspects of daily life.
Karl Ove Knausgaard on the Power of Brevity
The Norwegian author, known for the multivolume autobiography My Struggle, finds inspiration in the restraint of the tale of Cain and Abel.
How T.C. Boyle Finds His Endings
The author of The Harder They Come adheres to an organic, spontaneous finale-writing process ruled only by his desire to leave readers with room for interpretation.
Laura Marling on Why Writers Should Look Back for Inspiration
The English folk singer-songwriter reveals how an appreciation for humanity's history has informed her art.
What Writers Can Gain From Seeing the World Through Different Eyes
The author Tania James shares a lesson she gleaned from a book about a poacher: The best prose comes from experimenting with new perspectives.
What Writing Has in Common With Happiness
The author Yasmina Reza says that Borges taught her fiction, like joy, is borne of mysterious, instinctual processes achieved in an unconscious state.
The Fine Art of Ambiguous Writing
The author Reif Larsen says Joseph Conrad and Anselm Kiefer taught him how to practice omission without infuriating his readers.
How Writing Fiction Masters Fear
When novelist Harriet Lane received a serious diagnosis, she started telling stories that let her meet anxiety on her own terms.
With Writing, Opportunity Comes From Small Moments
Author Katherine Heiny describes how the best details in fiction can be ripped from small talk and eavesdropped conversations on the bus.
Scott McCloud on the Secret of Humor
The writer draws inspiration from Art Spiegelman's Breakdowns, "a toolkit to think about humor using comics."
With Language, Seeking Out the Sublime
Writer Thomas Pierce finds inspiration in the concise beauty of Theodore Roethke's notebooks.
Mark Ronson on How Fiction Inspired Uptown Special
The songwriter-producer collaborated with author Michael Chabon on his new album.
Shakespeare: One of the First and Greatest Psychologists
Steven Pinker finds insight into the frailty of human nature within Measure for Measure.
Great Writing Is Humble
Peter Stamm, author of All Days Are Night, says his work became deeper once he shed some delusions of grandeur.
The Hidden Labor Behind Food: How to 'Read' a Tomato
The creator of a new documentary outlines how closely farmworkers' lives are connected to what's on grocery-store shelves
Artists Must Be Delusional
American Interior author and rock musician Gruff Rhys learned a lot by following in footsteps of a gullible pioneer.
Write to Transcend Space and Time
Reading Lolita in Tehran author Azar Nafisi says the best books are "republics of imagination" erasing national and historic boundaries.
The First Sentence Is a Handshake
According to science fiction writer William Gibson, a book's opening should be an inviting enigma to the reader—and a motivational benchmark for the writer.
The Joy of the Memorized Poem
A panicked moment reciting William Butler Yeats in an MRI convinced the former poet laureate Billy Collins that oration is poetry's last, most enlightened defense.
'Realism Is a Figure of Speech'
Ernest Hemingway's matter-of-fact style taught author Vikram Chandra to find sublime in the ordinary, and depth in deceptively flat prose.
'Writing Is an Exercise in Freedom'
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley looks to Our Mutual Friend for inspiration on how to harness the spontaneous, liberating energy that comes from writing imagery.
A 50-Year Protest for Good Writing
A crisis of quality in literary criticism led Robert Silvers to found The New York Review of Books—and he believes the crisis continues today, online.
David Mitchell on How to Write: ‘Neglect Everything Else’
The Cloud Atlas author keeps a James Wright poem as a reminder to live in the now.
Jeff Tweedy's Subconscious Songwriting
The Wilco singer says Daniel Johnston epitomizes his mostly instinctual creative process.
Write Like the Handmaid
Novelist Edan Lepucki looks to the subversive metaphors in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale for lessons in channeling characters' weird, rebellious spirits.
Envision the Novel Like a Museum
Using the guard-turned-vandal in The Heart So White as his guide, author Ben Lerner writes books in which characters interact with art, and occasionally try to set it on fire.
Writers Should Examine Everything, Even the Supermarket
Author Stephan Eirik Clark returns to Don DeLillo's White Noise for lessons in interrogating American culture.
Honest Writing Is Funny Writing
Memoirist Sean Wilsey says he knows he's finished with a story when it makes him laugh.
The Miracle of Writing
A Midsummer Night's Dream got it right, Richard Bausch says: Authors must find a way to turn nothing into something.
Confronting Reality by Reading Fantasy
Author Lev Grossman says C.S. Lewis taught him that in fiction, stepping into magical realms means encountering earthly concerns in transfigured form.
Don't Write for the Barbarians
Hot Chip singer Alexis Taylor explains why he tries to forget critics—and his own self-consciousness—when creating.
Writers Can Do Anything
William T. Vollmann, author of Last Stories and Other Stories, explains why he works by an assassin's credo: "Nothing is true; all is permissible."
Taking Sides in the Great Literary Divide Between Nabokov and Roth
Author Joshua Ferris used to believe in 'art for art's sake.' Then he read The Human Stain.
The Leftovers, Our Town, and the Brutal Power of Ordinary Details
Author Tom Perrotta, co-creator of a much-hyped new HBO drama, says Thornton Wilder's play taught him to write about finding meaning in the banal.
The Brilliant Nonsense of Elvis Lyrics
Songwriting lessons from the King, as told by indie-rock singer Hamilton Leithauser
The Surprising Power of Stories That Are Shorter Than Short Stories
Author Stuart Dybek talks about how to layer meaning into works of "flash fiction."
What Writers Must Do: 'Love People'
Author Rupert Thomson says a Yevgeny Yevtushenko poem taught him the value of risk.
'Writing Almost Feels Like Method Acting'
The UnAmericans author Molly Antopol learned from Grace Paley how to inhabit characters that represent political sentiments but don't preach to readers.
How John Muir Is Revolutionizing the Farm-to-Table Food Movement
Yes, that John Muir. His observations on nature's interconnected systems deeply influenced award-winning chef Dan Barber's new book, The Third Plate.
What Zadie Smith Taught Roxane Gay: Identity Is Drag
Gay, author of An Untamed State and the forthcoming Bad Feminist, sees her own questions of multi-ethnic and multi-national identity reflected in Smith's NW.
How Creativity Could Save Humanity
Stefan Zweig, the obscure Austrian writer whose life and work inspired The Grand Budapest Hotel, believed imagination could help propel society toward universal tolerance and accord.
The Epic Drama of the Imperfect Love Story
Author Mona Simpson talks about Chekhov's "Three Years," which plays on rom-com tropes to convey just how grand a story of two people learning to appreciate each other can be.
Before You Can Write a Good Plot, You Need to Write a Good Place
The author Linn Ulmann makes the case for the importance of here in “Something happened here.”
Why Every Writer Needs Two Educations
Marcus Burke, author of Team Seven and a former college athlete, learned from Carter G. Woodson that teaching yourself is just as important as being taught in the classroom.
'What Plot Is Grander or More Essential Than Time Passing?'
Maggie Shipstead, author of Astonish Me, looks to Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse as an example of how to speed up and slow down fiction narratives effectively.
'We Sweat, Crave, and Itch All Day': Why Writing About Bodies Is Vital
The Empathy Exams author Leslie Jamison felt ashamed of writing about the physical form until a Virginia Woolf essay vindicated her interest in the fluids and muscles that make us human.
How to Write a Believable Happy Ending
As author Ted Thompson learned from John Cheever, a redemptive resolution doesn't erase the darkness of a story, but instead finds the light within it.
'Words on Paper Will Outlast Us': How Claire Messud Distills Her Life
The author of The Woman Upstairs says that writing preserves the worlds we inhabit—even if so much of them dies with us.
'I Don't Believe in Writer's Block'
John Steinbeck’s To a God Unknown showed author Alexai Galaviz-Budziszewski that great work can happen when you write without knowing where you're going.
How Novels Widen Your Vision
Author Dinaw Mengestu says good books help you to recognize yourself in the unfamiliar.
An Uncomfortable Trick for Honest Writing: Staring at Strangers
Author Yiyun Li doesn't just study people on the subway—she studies her characters, unflinchingly imagining their gaze until she understands them fully.
Why You Never Truly Finish a Book
Thirty Girls author Susan Minot says great writing—like T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"—is a source of nourishment readers turn to again and again.