Best Books for Writers

“This book will give you a panoramic view of what you need to know most and what you need to know first....” Paulette Perhach’s introductory guide is a comprehensive volume containing hard-earned wisdom and organizational ideas, covering everything from writing and reading habits, to craft and editing. The book is full of helpful writing exercises and prompts, lists of prizes and literary journals, strategies for social media and financial budgeting, and inspirational anecdotes from poets and prose writers offering insightful advice gleaned from their personal experiences. 

In the second edition of this primer on the craft of editing, Renni Browne and Dave King have updated their original 1994 book to provide more thorough guidance on not only what not to do, but what to actively do as a self-editor. This revised edition also reflects the evolving nature of the publishing industry and includes online opportunities. For writers who have completed a first draft, this book provides indispensable insights into polishing and perfecting dialogue, exposition, characterization, point of view, and voice to create publication-ready writing.

“Imagine a type of writing so hard to define its very name should be something like: an effort, an attempt, a trial. Surmise or hazard, followed likely by failure.” In roving and fragmentary prose, Brian Dillon approaches the work of essayists including Roland Barthes, Michel de Montaigne, Jacques Derrida, Joan Didion, Elizabeth Hardwick, Georges Perec, W. G. Sebald, Susan Sontag, William Carlos Williams, and Virginia Woolf, to demonstrate the expansiveness of the form and its distinctive possibilities as a medium for exploring new ideas.

The subjects and ideas explored in this collection of essays by Nancy Willard span a wide range of the poet and novelist’s many passions: creative muses, fairy tales, litany as poetic form, and children’s literature. Readers and writers of all genres and levels of experience will enjoy Willard’s practical and entertaining insights and analyses, and find inspiration in her examination of the imaginative processes integral not only to literature, but to other creative disciplines such as art and film.

In this collection, Elizabeth Benedict gathers thirty essays from accomplished writers on their experiences with life-changing mentors and the transformative power of creative influence and community. Writers of all levels will find inspiration in these stories by acclaimed authors such as Alexander Chee, Michael Cunningham, Samantha Hunt, Dinaw Mengestu, Sigrid Nunez, and Cheryl Strayed, who look back on role models whose support and guidance had a meaningful impact at an early stage in their writing careers.    

“These are not pages of criticism nor of philosophy. Nor are they merely literary pages. They are pages that have to do with one of the enlargements of life,” writes Wallace Stevens in the introduction to this 1965 edition of his collection. Throughout the seven essays, Stevens explores the expansive capabilities of poetry, connections between reality and creativity, the use of metaphors, and the role of sound and music in language. Writers will be inspired to examine and redefine their own notions of poetry and its capacity to enlarge the imagination.

“Like looking directly at the sun, looking directly at the creation of intimacy in fiction seems like a dangerous business.” This installment of Graywolf’s “Art of” series examines the various ways authors, including Joan Didion, D. H. Lawrence, Toni Morrison, and Virginia Woolf, have approached the challenge of crafting intimate relationships on the page, between friends, lovers, family members, and enemies. Writers will be inspired by D’Erasmo’s insights on methods of portraying the complexity of true connections between characters, and her emphasis on building intimacy between author and reader.

“The essays gathered in this volume contain reading suggestions and imprecations, records of enthusiasms, pieces that start with particular books and move toward the larger subject of how and what and why we read....” In this essay collection, literary critic and novelist Francine Prose examines the enduring value found in reading literature by authors including Roberto Bolaño, Jennifer Egan, George Eliot, and Mohsin Hamid, taking a closer look at the craft of writing on the sentence level. By reflecting on the specific elements of writing that can provide for powerfully transformative and transportive reading experiences, Prose offers writers an opportunity to approach their own work from new angles and with fresh inspiration.

The Business of Being a Writer is a comprehensive guide to the publishing industry for writers with chapters covering topics such as “Online and Digital Media,” “Researching Agents and Publishers,” “The Basics of Book Launches,” and “Crowdfunding and Donations.” Friedman provides in-depth and current knowledge to help writers position themselves for a long-term career of writing, sharing her expertise and advice on fundamental business principles and the benefits of using digital tools and online media.

This anthology focusing on lyric poetry gathers essays by David Baker and Ann Townsend, as well as other poets and critics such as Linda Gregerson, Carl Phillips, and Stanley Plumly, whose writing exploring the form ranges from conversational to investigative, from practical to enlightening. Divided into two parts, lyric modes and lyric means, the essays will be helpful to poets interested in the historical origins and evolution of lyric poetry, the different strategies used to create meaning, and its present status in contemporary literature.

Written in a clear and straightforward style, novelist Ross Raisin’s book is an indispensable guide through essential elements of craft for fiction writing such as planning, research, characters, point of view, dialogue, and editing. Each of the book’s three sections is filled with helpful tips and exercises, and exemplary passages by authors including Italo Calvino, Lydia Davis, Denis Johnson, James Joyce, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Zadie Smith.

Unlike most craft books, this collection of lyric essays about the experiences at the intersection of lived life and literary life is not prescriptive and offers no advice for composition or revision. Instead the author of five books, including Not Merely Because of the Unknown That Was Stalking Toward Them (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2011), lingers on the joys and challenges of the uncertainty that accompanies creative work. The result is a slim book that captures an author’s practice and the relationships she draws between writing and falling in love, dreaming, and memory.