Best Books for Writers

From the newly published to the invaluable classic, our list of essential books for creative writers.

  • The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase

    by
    Mark Forsyth
    Published in 2014
    by Berkley

    In this book on style and the art of articulation, the author of The Etymologicon and The Horologicon explains the figures of classical rhetoric, dedicating each chapter to a figure of speech with examples of its use, particularly in the works of William Shakespeare. Forsyth begins by noting that Shakespeare was not a genius, and, in fact, his early work was not very good, proving his argument that great writing can be learned. “A poet is not somebody who has great thoughts. That is the menial duty of the philosopher,” writes Forsyth. “A poet is somebody who expresses his thoughts, however commonplace they may be, exquisitely.” In thirty-nine detailed chapters of this wonderfully erudite guide, Forsyth introduces lessons on alliteration, hyperbole, paradox, rhetorical questions, personification, and more that explain the secrets behind the phrases of our most beloved poems, songs, and dialogue.  

  • Watch Your Language: Visual and Literary Reflections on a Century of American Poetry

    by
    Terrance Hayes
    Published in 2023
    by Penguin Books

    In this collection of essays, award-winning poet Terrance Hayes offers a road map to poetic reading and interpretation, shining a light on the influential works of African American poets. Each of the six sections are titled with provocative questions, such as, “How old is contemporary poetry?” and “How many of your muses rest in peace?” The mix of illustrated micro-essays, graphic book reviews, biographical prose poems, and nonfiction sketches by Hayes enrich the reading experience and imagination of readers. Through personal essays laced with challenging questions, Hayes guides readers through the literary landscape of contemporary poetry so that they can map their own routes. “Like any guidebook, this book should leave the curious reader with more questions than answers,” writes Hayes in the preface.   

     

  • The Art of Slow Writing: Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity

    by
    Louise DeSalvo
    Published in 2014
    by St. Martin’s Press

    “Slow writing is a meditative act: slowing down to understand our relationship to our writing, slowing down to determine our authentic subjects, slowing down to write complex works, slowing down to study our literary antecedents,” writes Louise DeSalvo in the introduction to this guide examining the benefits of taking time to explore one’s creative process. Within this five-part book, the award-winning teacher and writer walks writers through preparing to write, understanding patience and humility, the challenges and successes of writing, the importance of rest, and how to build a book. The guide includes inspirational anecdotes from classic and contemporary writers such as Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, John Steinbeck, and Virginia Woolf. Throughout the book, DeSalvo encourages writers to explore the complexities of craft by getting to know one’s stories and oneself more fully over time. “[Slow writing] acknowledges that we are all beginners and insists we cultivate empathy for ourselves because being a writer isn’t easy,” writes DeSalvo. “Slow writing is a way to resist the dehumanization inherent in a world that values speed. It’s one way to find—or return to—our authentic selves.”  

  • Wallace Stegner: On Teaching and Writing Fiction

    by
    Lynn Stegner, editor
    Published in 2002
    by Penguin Books

    In this collection, editor Lynn Stegner brings together eight of Wallace Stegner’s previously uncollected essays on writing fiction and teaching creative writing. The Pulitzer Prize–winning author and founder of the acclaimed Stanford Creative Writing Program, addresses every aspect of fiction writing: from the writer’s vision to his or her audience, from the use of symbolism to swear words, from the mystery of the creative process to the recognizable truth it seeks finally to reveal. “The work of art is not a gem, as some schools of criticism would insist, but truly a lens. We look through it for the purified and honestly offered spirit of the artist,” writes Stegner. 

  • What Is Poetry? (Just Kidding, I Know You Know): Interviews From the Poetry Project Newsletter (1983–2009)

    by
    Anselm Berrigan, editor
    Published in 2017
    by Wave Books

    The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in the East Village neighborhood of New York City was founded in 1966 as a community space for poets of the downtown poetry scene. Since its founding, the historic venue has held readings and conversations with influential figures such as Ted Berrigan, Samuel Delany, Allen Ginsberg, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Lisa Jarnot, Eileen Myles, Harryette Mullen, and Maggie Nelson. Edited by poet and former artistic director of the Poetry Project Anselm Berrigan, this anthology celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the organization with interviews first published in their newsletter featuring writers discussing various topics including, Kenneth Koch characterizing anthologies, Alice Notley on the construction of narratives, Bernadette Mayer on her vocation as a writer, and Anne Waldman on the joys of collaboration. The anthology captures the lively spirit of the historic poetry scene and is an opportunity, as Berrigan writes in the introduction, “to speak directly to a community one could perceive as known, imaginary, expanding, unwieldy, intermittent, formative, desperately necessary, and sometimes peculiarly unsatisfying all at once.”  

     

  • How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill

    by
    Jericho Brown, editor
    Published in 2023
    by Amistad

    The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Tradition (Copper Canyon Press, 2019) collects essays by and interviews with more than thirty acclaimed writers, including Camille T. Dungy, Nikki Giovanni, Charles Johnson, Tayari Jones, Elizabeth Nunez, Carl Phillips, Natasha Trethewey, and Jacqueline Woodson, who together offer an inspiring and informative guide to a wide range of writing styles and craft choices. “How We Do It is a kind of selfish gift,” Jericho Brown writes in his introduction. “I want you to have what I always wanted. Here is an anthology that gives us modes to try on the way we might wear and change clothing. And these wonderful writers are proof that nothing ever beat a failure but a try.” Arranged to defy supposed boundaries between genres, the eight sections of the book include insights and observations intended for “anyone who is a student of the craft.”  

  • A Forest on Many Stems: Essays on the Poet’s Novel

    by
    Laynie Browne, editor
    Published in 2021
    by Nightboat Books

    Edited by poet and novelist Laynie Browne, this unique anthology brings together essays by contemporary poets about their favorite “poet’s novel”—a novel written by a poet that defies the traditional conventions of plot, character, setting, and action. The fifty-seven essays include Kazim Ali on Fanny Howe, Rachel Blau DuPlessis on Gertrude Stein, Julia Bloch on Gwendolyn Brooks, Jeanne Heuving on Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, John Keene on Fernando Pessoa, and Lynn Xu on Ben Lerner. Each poet provides original insights and approaches to their essays, such as Norma Cole addressing her essay of Emmanuel Hocquard’s Aerea dans les forêts de Manhattan to the late poet Stacy Doris and Traci Brimhall’s question-and-answer essay on Hilda Hilst’s The Obscene Madame D. Perfect for writers seeking to venture past the confines of genre, this anthology is both a collection of innovative critical essays and an excellent reading list of lyrical novels.  

     

  • The 4 AM Breakthrough: Unconventional Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction

    by
    Brian Kiteley
    Published in 2008
    by Writer’s Digest Books

    In this companion book to The 3 AM Epiphany: Uncommon Writing Exercises That Transform Your Fiction, Brian Kiteley, former director of the University of Denver’s creative writing program, offers two hundred more writing prompts to help fiction writers expand their craft. Kiteley begins with personal stories that provide insight into what inspired his teachings and divides the book into three sections—Patterns; Concepts; and People, Places, Things—providing lessons and exercises focused on style, language, character, and more. Also included in the book is an appendix with a list of reference books, advice for teachers and students, and an essay about teaching fiction exercises. The straightforward yet playful mix of lessons and prompts from Kiteley are perfect for creative writing teachers and any writer seeking guidance and inspiration.  

  • Thinking Its Presence: Form, Race, and Subjectivity in Contemporary Asian American Poetry

    by
    Dorothy J. Wang
    Published in 2013
    by Stanford University Press

    In this collection of essays, Dorothy J. Wang offers a roadmap to rethinking how poetry is critically discussed, and the ways in which the role of race is often occluded, through the study of five contemporary Asian American poets—Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Marilyn Chin, Li-Young Lee, Pamela Lu, and John Yau. Through these close studies, Wang exemplifies a rigorous way of thinking about each poet’s craft while contending that aesthetic forms are inseparable from social, political, and historical contexts in the writing and reception of all poetry. Wang covers a vast range of aesthetics, from traditional lyric poetry to avant-garde work, looking into the nuances behind metaphor, desire, form, and irony. The book asks us all to be better readers, in particular, when considering the ways in which we critique poetry. As Wang contends in the preface of the book: “Critics should accord the same degree of complexity and respect to the whole stylistic range of minority poetry as they do to ‘racially unmarked’ poetry.”  

  • Of Color: Poets’ Ways of Making: An Anthology of Essays on Transformative Poetics

    by
    Amanda Galvan Huynh and Luisa A. Igloria, editors
    Published in 2019
    by The Operating System

    “The essays offered in this important collection not only open the heart to feel and be encouraged, they also demand for the ear to hear, to heed, to receive,” writes Mai Der Vang in the foreword to this anthology of essays written by poets of color about their writing practice. Through varied essay forms and strong, idiosyncratic voices, the essays in this collection offer a multitude of lenses through which one can think through issues of craft. The fifteen essays from poets at various stages of their careers include, “On Reading, and Shame” by Sasha Pimentel, “On Writing From Unincorporated Territory” by Craig Santos Perez, and “My Life Is Not a Stereotype Though Sometimes Writing About it Feels That Way” by Melissa Coss Aquino. This anthology aims to share a bonded experience and to learn from one another’s experiences, as Luisa A. Igloria writes in the introduction: “In this collection, we make no claims of presenting any definitive theoretical or other stance. Neither do we offer these essays as prescriptive of certain ways of thinking of craft or of doing things, although in them is expressed a collective wish—that writers of color find ways to gain strength and visibility.”  

  • Things I Don’t Want to Know: On Writing

    by
    Deborah Levy
    Published in 2014
    by Bloomsbury

    From the author of the memoir The Cost of Living: A Working Autobiography comes this slim volume combining craft with autobiography and offering a response from a woman’s perspective to George Orwell’s influential essay “Why I Write.” Organized into chapters named after Orwell’s four reasons to write—“Political Purpose,” “Historical Impulse,” “Sheer Egoism,” and “Aesthetic Enthusiasm”—Levy identifies the life experiences that have shaped her novels, including her South African childhood, her family’s expatriation to England, and the challenges of motherhood. Levy spans continents and decades as she analyzes what it means to be a woman writer, quoting authors such as Adrienne Rich and Marguerite Duras. Both philosophical and practical, this unique book of memories and lessons portrays how creative ideas come to life, offering readers an inspiring look into the life of a working writer.  

  • Out of Silence, Sound. Out of Nothing, Something.: A Writer’s Guide

    by
    Susan Griffin
    Published in 2023
    by Counterpoint

    “Consider this: at one time, all the stories we know so well, every line we may have memorized from a poem or a play, all the literature that has shaped our collective imagination, did not exist,” writes award-winning author and teacher Susan Griffin in this step-by-step guide to the creative process. With encouraging words to support writers across genres, this meditative and practical guide is organized into three parts with short chapters “arranged according to an imagined but not always followed (or even appropriate) chronology of the process of writing, from beginning to end.” The first section of the book focuses on the elusive process through which ideas and images form before the writing begins, the second section dives into lessons on how to write gleaned from Griffin’s decades of teaching, and the final section helps writers find organic endings to their work. Threaded throughout the book is an essay titled “How I Learned to Write,” in which Griffin allows readers into her personal journey as a writer. Ideal for writers just beginning or for anyone stuck in their writing, Griffin reminds readers that “human beings are all creative” and “what is important is that you are present to the process.”  

  • The Hopwood Lectures, Sixth Series

    by
    Nicholas Delbanco, editor
    Published in 2009
    by University of Michigan Press

    This sixth edition of compiled speeches from the prestigious Hopwood Creative Writing Awards includes lectures by recipients such as Charles Baxter, Donald Hall, Charles Johnson, Susan Orlean, and Edmund White. With an introduction by Nicholas Delbanco, who edited the book and directed the Hopwood Program at the University of Michigan until 2015, this collection includes lectures from 1999 to 2008. Topics include the relationship between reading and writing, the evolution of the gay novel, and the successes and failures of the creative writing workshop. Varying in approaches and writing styles, these instructive, thoughtful lectures offer writers of all backgrounds a chance to learn from literary figures at the height of their craft.  

  • The Art of Revising Poetry: 21 U.S. Poets on their Drafts, Craft, and Process

    by
    Charles Finn and Kim Stafford, editors
    Published in 2023
    by Bloomsbury Academic

    “There has long been a gap in the writing trade,” the editors write in the introduction to this unique volume. “Books written to serve writers offer strategies to fight writer’s block, to enrich the creative imagination, and to seek publication—but offer little about how a work evolves through revision, how it gets clearer, stronger, and deeper, start to finish.” Enter The Art of Revising Poetry, which displays side-by-side sets of first drafts and final versions of poems by Jane Hirshfield, Naomi Shihab Nye, Terry Tempest Williams, and eighteen others to track the precise details of the creative process. The behind-the-scenes look includes full-page reproductions from the poets’ personal notebooks and an essay by each poet about “how and why the poem changed between drafts, how it was expanded, distilled, transformed, revised, and finally released from the labors of change.”   

     

  • How to Write Like a Writer: A Sharp and Subversive Guide to Ignoring Inhibitions, Inviting Inspiration, and Finding Your True Voice

    by
    Thomas C. Foster
    Published in 2022
    by Harper Perennial

    “Is it any wonder that any writing task fills so many people with dread? It’s about time we brought them in from the cold and let them find fulfillment in writing from inside themselves,” writes Thomas C. Foster, professor emeritus of English at the University of Michigan–Flint, in the introduction to this approachable guide on developing a voice and maintaining a writing practice. The book is organized into three sections (Why Write?, What to Write and How, and Soaring Practice) and is written with a combination of personal anecdotes and lessons with exemplary writing from authors such as Joan Didion, Robert Frost, Malcolm Gladwell, and Ernest Hemingway. Topics include how to sharpen one’s sense of description, revision on a structural level, and development of one’s personal style of writing. Although primarily focused on memoir writing, the book’s lessons, writing exercises and prompts, and sentiment to “write like you mean it” can prove useful for writers of all levels and genres.  

  • Less Than One: Selected Essays

    by
    Joseph Brodsky
    Published in 2020
    by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

    First published in 1986 and reissued in 2020 to mark what would have been Joseph Brodsky’s eightieth birthday, this collection of essays offers an intimate look into his life and work. The book begins and concludes with a set of autobiographical essays about the Nobel laureate’s difficult life as a poet in Soviet Russia, while other essays include insights on the works of Russian writers such as Anna Akhmatova, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Osip Mandelstam as well as other influential poets such as C. P. Cavafy, W. H. Auden, and Eugenio Montale. Brodsky’s close readings of beloved poems are in-depth and comprehensive; in particular his essay titled “On ‘September 1, 1939’ by W. H. Auden,” in which he provides line-by-line commentary of the iconic poem. Brodsky’s mastery of language is unmistakable in this award-winning collection of essays, providing deep analysis of great works and reflections on the life of an artist who survived extraordinary obstacles.   

  • The Art and Craft of Asian Stories: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology

    by
    Robin Hemley and Xu Xi
    Published in 2021
    by Bloomsbury Publishing

    Edited by Robin Hemley, author of Turning Life Into Fiction (Graywolf Press, 2006), and Xu Xi, author of This Fish Is Fowl: Essays of Being (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), this craft book finds inspiration and guidance in the diverse literary traditions of Asia. Featuring works in translation by writers from Japan, China, India, Singapore, and beyond, as well as writers from Asian diasporas in Europe and America, this guide and anthology offers a wide range of voices and approaches to crafting short fiction. “Our aim is to open up a world of stories you might not otherwise come across and to glean from these stories’ techniques and approaches, some of which you might find in your typical fiction writing text and some that you likely wouldn’t find,” write the editors in the introduction to the book. Each of the eleven themed chapters includes a complete short story and writing exercises that invite readers to practice narrative techniques used by exemplary writers such as Lysley Tenorio, Nam Le, Dorothy Tse, and Banana Yoshimoto. Covering themes such as race and identity, history and power, family and aspirations, this guide offers a fresh take on craft that invites writers to look beyond the western canon.  

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  • Courage and Craft: Writing Your Life Into Story

    by
    Barbara Abercrombie
    Published in 2007
    by New World Library

    “Here is my goal for you with this book: by the time you finish it you’ll have written a crafted story about your life, either a short piece or the opening chapter of a book,” writes author and writing instructor Barbara Abercrombie in the introduction to this book offering guidance for anyone looking for ways to get started. In five chapters, Abercrombie covers the nuts and bolts of journal writing and guides writers through the genres of creative nonfiction, auto-fiction, and poetry with personal anecdotes and prompts. The final chapter explores the writing life and discusses the benefits of writing courses, publishing, writing rituals, and more. Written in a playful and approachable tone, Abercrombie posits that “writing is about discovering who you really are, where you’ve been, and where you’re headed.” The lessons from this book will energize all writers to stop dreaming and begin writing.  

  • The Lover of a Subversive Is Also a Subversive: Essays and Commentaries

    by
    Martín Espada
    Published in 2010
    by University of Michigan Press

    In this collection of essays on poetry and politics, award-winning poet and professor Martín Espada examines the intersections of social advocacy and poetry. Espada uses his personal experience as a poet and former tenant lawyer in Boston’s Latino community to discuss the way poets have advocated for the voiceless, such as Edgar Lee Masters with his groundbreaking 1915 collection Spoon River Anthology, Walt Whitman with his ever-growing editions of Leaves of Grass, and Jack Agüeros with his Sonnets From the Puerto Rican. “Clearly, there is common ground between bards and barristers which goes beyond a fascination with language or the use of words as weapons. In my experience, that common ground is advocacy,” writes Espada. With topics including the poetry of rebellion in Puerto Rico, the art of “speaking of the unspoken places,” and the importance of rejecting the poetics of self-marginalization, this collection of essays offers inspiration and an exploration of what it means to embrace the role of the poet as activist.  

  • Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction

    by
    Will Blythe, editor
    Published in 1998
    by Little, Brown

    Edited by Will Blythe, this anthology gathers essays by twenty-six renowned writers offering their perspectives on what motivates them to write. With contributions from Mary Gaitskill, Denis Johnson, Norman Mailer, Ann Patchett, David Foster Wallace, and Joy Williams, to name a few, each essay is as unique as the fiction they write. In Williams’s essay “Uncanny the Singing That Comes From Certain Husks,” the author discusses the transfigurative nature of the writing process: “Writers when they’re writing live in a spooky, clamorous silence, a state somewhat like the advanced stages of prayer but without prayer’s calming benefits.” In Wallace’s essay “The Nature of the Fun,” the prolific author writes: “You discover a tricky thing about fiction writing; a certain amount of vanity is necessary to be able to do it all, but any vanity above that certain amount is lethal.” Whether searching for solidarity or a new perspective on the creative process, this anthology of essays offers an invigorating reminder of why writers come to write in the first place.   

  • Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life With Words

    by
    Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge
    Published in 1996
    by Three Rivers Press

    “Poems arrive. They hide in feelings and images, in weeds and delivery vans, daring us to notice and give them form with our words,” writes Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge in the introduction to this craft book in which she invites writers to tap into the poetry of their daily lives. Drawing on her years of experience as a poet and teacher leading workshops for the California Poets in the School program, Wooldridge mixes personal vignettes with lessons on how to create images, develop metaphors, and use all the senses as a writer. Featuring five evocatively titled sections, including “Listening to Ourselves,” “Open the Window,” and “Lights and Mysteries,” Wooldridge inserts practice sections throughout the book providing themed prompts and instructions on how to expand one’s writing practice in order to lead to new work. “Poems hang out where life is,” writes Wooldridge, offering encouragement to foster a sense of attention to the world and play with words.  

  • Novelist as a Vocation

    by
    Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen
    Published in 2022
    by Knopf

    From the mind of internationally best-selling author Haruki Murakami comes this long-awaited collection of essays on the craft of writing novels and life as a novelist, first published in Japan in 2015. Through humorous, introspective, and often self-deprecating essays, Murakami shares his thoughts on the role of the novel in society, his origins as a writer, how his daily running routine affects his writing, and more. Reflecting on how he prefers not to explain his novels to others and is uncomfortable talking about his own work, Murakami writes in the introduction to these essays: “I wonder, then, how useful this somewhat self-indulgent, personal writing here—less message than record of a personal thought process—will prove to the reader. If it does turn out to be even a little useful in a practical way, I would be very pleased.”  

  • Marbles on the Floor: How to Assemble a Book of Poems

    by
    Sarah Giragosian and Virginia Konchan, editors
    Published in 2023
    by University of Akron Press

    “Just as there is no ready-made compositional formula, heuristic, syllogism, or algorithm for poetry or its reception by a reader or reading public, there is also no one, true, proven, repeatable, or even identifiable way to assemble a book of poems,” write editors Sarah Giragosian and Virginia Konchan in the introduction to this anthology of essays on the art and science of constructing a poetry manuscript. The essays by poets such as Kazim Ali, Victoria Chang, Annie Finch, Philip Metres, and Diane Seuss vary in their approach as they move from lyrical to critical to instructional. Topics include discussions on the use of autobiography in a narrative arc, the relationship between poetry and visual art, how to establish an organizing structural principle, and FAQs from writers at various stages of their work. Rather than provide a clear answer to the elusive practice of manuscript assembly, this anthology offers an eclectic mix of approaches for any writer seeking guidance on how to put a book together.  

  • Write Yourself Out of a Corner: 100 Exercises to Unlock Creativity

    by
    Alice LaPlante
    Published in 2023
    by Norton

    The author of the popular The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Writing Fiction and Nonfiction (Norton, 2007), Alice LaPlante draws on her experience as an award-winning novelist and editor as well as her two decades of teaching creative writing at Stanford University and San Francisco State University to compile a hundred original writing exercises. Each is inspired by the idea that creative constraints—using a predetermined set of words or a specific setting, or adhering to a certain word count or line length, and so on—can lead to unexpected and highly imaginative results. Designed for poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, the prompts in Write Yourself Out of a Corner impose limitations intended to isolate and strengthen various elements of the writer’s craft, including dialogue, imagery, and emotional resonance.  

  • Bookworm: Conversations With Michael Silverblatt

    by
    Alan Felsenthal, editor
    Published in 2023
    by Song Cave

    Published by the Song Cave and edited by Alan Felsenthal, this collection gathers in print selected interviews from over thirty years of the nationally syndicated radio program Bookworm, hosted by Michael Silverblatt, who Norman Mailer once called “the best reader in America.” The iconic host is known for developing relationships with writers over many years and producing intimate conversations including interviews with David Foster Wallace, who was a frequent guest from 1996 to 2006. Twelve interviews with esteemed writers such as John Ashbery, John Berger, Joan Didion, Carlos Fuentes, Toni Morrison, Grace Paley, and W. G. Sebald are selected in this rare anthology. Filled with passionate conversations and instructive close readings of exemplary texts, this collection provides a close look into the life and craft of some of our era’s most iconic minds.   

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