Best Books for Writers

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

  • Craft and Conscience: How to Write About Social Issues

    by
    Kavita Das
    Published in 2022
    by Beacon Press

    “Writing and social change work are both about transformation,” writes Kavita Das in the introduction to this craft book examining writing through the lens of social justice. The book features essays by Das as well as classic and contemporary essays by James Baldwin, Alexander, Chee, Jaquira Díaz, Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Imani Perry, and others. Each chapter includes engaging questions for writers to consider and covers a variety of topics—such as the nuances behind writing personal narratives, understanding cultural sensitivity and avoiding cultural appropriation, and the relationship between writer, reader, and subject. Ideal for any writer seeking tools on how to integrate collective social issues into their writing, Craft and Conscience rises to the occasion by offering a multitude of perspectives on the ways in which writing is a political act. “When writing about social issues is effective, it has the power to spark a personal transformation that feeds into collective social and cultural transformation,” writes Das.  

  • Isherwood on Writing: The Complete Lectures in California

    by
    James J. Berg, editor
    Published in 2022
    by University of Minnesota Press

    In this revised edition first published in 2007, scholar and editor James J. Berg introduces readers to a poignant series of lectures Christopher Isherwood delivered at California universities in the late 1950s and early 1960s titled “A Writer and His World.” The series captures Isherwood at a crucial time in his writing life as he turned from fiction to memoir and reflects on the novels he wrote in the 1930s and hints at new works to come in the 1960s and 1970s, such as his novel A Single Man and his memoirs Kathleen and Frank and Christopher and His Kind. Isherwood discusses techniques of composition and characterization, as well as his work in the film industry, his working relationship with W. H. Auden, and his literary friendships with E. M. Forster, Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, and others. This updated edition also contains a long-lost conclusion to the second lecture, published for the first time, which includes a discussion of his best-known novel, A Single Man, and his final novel, A Meeting By the River. As Berg writes in the introduction, these lectures of Isherwood, who would become known as one of the fathers of modern gay literature, present “an example of a man, comfortable in his own sexuality and self, trying to talk about himself and his own life in a society that is not yet ready to hear the whole story.”  

  • Subjects in Poetry

    by
    Daniel Brown
    Published in 2021
    by Louisiana State University Press

    In this book examining poetic subject matter, poet and critic Daniel Brown begins by acknowledging the elusive nature of the topic: “The subject of subjects in poetry is like a mountain you’re standing at the base of: so huge you can fail to see it unless you look upward,” he writes. Through clear examples and critical analyses of the works of poets such as Elizabeth Bishop, Langston Hughes, and David Kirby, Brown identifies how the subject of a poem affects its making. In the first chapter of the book, Brown argues that a poem can say something either by expressing, evoking, or addressing, and analyzing these ways opens a vast range of possible subjects for poems. The concluding chapter titled “Working with Subjects” offers guidance for poets to find and improve upon their subject matter and fulfill the potential of their work with helpful tips such as sketching a poem’s line of thought to see where it is headed or adjusting the poem’s subject to more clearly identify an emotional core. Both practical and challenging, Subjects in Poetry is a rare exploration into one of poetry’s most underexplored elements of craft.   

  • Letters to a Writer of Color

    by
    Deepa Anappara and Taymour Soomro, editors
    Published in 2023
    by Random House

    Encouraging readers to reevaluate the codes and conventions that shape assumptions about how fiction should be written, and for whom, this collection of essays covers more than the writer’s craft. In essays by authors such as Kiese Laymon, Sharlene Teo, Madeleine Thien, and Tiphanie Yanique, as well as a conversation between Nadifa Mohamed and Leila Aboulela, Letters to a Writer of Color offers the start of a more inclusive discussion about storytelling. Taymour Soomro cautions writers—and readers—to resist rigid stories about who they are; Tahmima Anam writes about giving herself permission to be funny; and Deepa Anappara describes the importance of writing through conditions that impede the creation of art. “We need more stories from more cultures, races, communities, and nations to dismantle structures that suppress difference and to challenge the perception that difference is failure,” the editors write. “This book is not, and shouldn’t be, the last word on the subject.”  

  • Native American Fiction: A User’s Manual

    by
    David Treuer
    Published in 2006
    by Graywolf Press

    Ojibwe author, critic, and professor David Treuer challenges readers to broaden how they engage with Native American literature in this collection of essays examining the works of authors such as Forrest Carter, James Fenimore Cooper, Louise Erdrich, and Leslie Marmon Silko. With playful chapter titles including “How to Hate/Love an Indian,” “The Myth of Myth,” and “Some Final Thoughts About the Non-Existence of Native American Fiction,” Treuer looks at the ways in which Native American writing has been judged by their origins and by what is seen as authentic rather than the literary quality of their work. “The sentiment (and it is a sentiment) that Native American literature should be defined by the ethnicity of its producers (more so that defined by anything else) says more about politics and identity than it does about literature,” writes Treuer. “Ultimately, the study of Native American fiction should be the study of style.”     

  • On Moral Fiction

    by
    John Gardner
    by Basic Books

    First published in 1979, John Gardner’s classic On Moral Fiction explores what he believed to be the moral obligation of literature. Using provocative language and critical knowledge amassed from years as a professor of writing and literature, Gardner posits that “art discovers, generation after generation, what is necessary to humanness,” and that all writers should raise the stakes of their work. “The artist’s imagination, or the world it builds, is the laboratory of the unexperienced, both the heroic and the unspeakable,” he writes. “Art is as original and important as it is precisely because it does not start out with clear knowledge of what it means to say. Out of the artist’s imagination, as out of nature’s inexhaustible well, pours one thing after another.” Decades later, Gardner’s treatise on writing moral fiction continues to challenge and inspire all those who encounter it.  

  • Rhyme’s Rooms: The Architecture of Poetry

    by
    Brad Leithauser
    Published in 2022
    by Knopf

    “A poem is a compact sonic parade, marching clamorously through the tunnel of the ear canal, an ever-shifting zone of commotion,” writes poet, critic, and scholar Brad Leithauser in this book that explores the building blocks of poetry. In twenty-four neat chapters, Leithauser guides the reader through everything from enjambment to off rhymes, and topics such as how rhyme can be used to reflect everyday speech and the ways in which wordplay makes a poem more concise. Providing literary analyses of some of his favorite poets such as Conrad Aiken, Amy Clampitt, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Paul Muldoon, Leithauser offers passionate discussions on how poetry conveys meaning and how it “insists that we read and reread and reeducate ourselves.” Rhyme’s Rooms is a guide into poetry for those new to the genre as well as experienced poets and readers looking to rediscover and dive deeper into the craft of poetry.  

  • Black Women Writers at Work

    by
    Claudia Tate, editor
    Published in 2023
    by Haymarket Books

    Originally published in 1983 by Continuum, the late Claudia Tate’s collection of interviews has long been out of print. This new edition, with a foreword by Tillie Olsen, brings candid conversations with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nikki Giovanni, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, and others to a new generation of writers. Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art. “This collection transcends its genre,” writes Olsen. “It becomes a harbinger book, a book of revelation, of haunting challenge, opening on to central concerns not only of writing, but of life, of living, today.”  

  • A Martian Muse: Further Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry

    by
    Reginald Shepherd
    Published in 2010
    by University of Michigan Press

    From the author of Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry (University of Michigan Press, 2007), as well as five books of poetry, comes this collection of essays on the craft of creating poetry. Published posthumously and edited by his longtime partner Robert Philen, the essays by the late Reginald Shepherd cover challenging topics such as poetic imagery, writing anti-colonialist texts, the issues behind teaching creative writing, and the existence of muses. In the introduction to the book, Philen writes: “The essays in A Martian Muse, reflecting the broad-ranging nature of Shepherd’s mind, explore the big issues of any consideration of poetry, How poetry works, and How poetry is written or comes to be, though with each essay characterized by the precision and specificity that are a hallmark of his poetry and prose.” This collection of essays not only explores poetry through the eyes of a prolific writer and lover of the art, but will inspire writers to dig deeper into their craft. “The poem, when it is at its best, when we are at our best, is a kind of agon between the poet and the language, and the poet has to bring all his or her resources to bear, or it’s not a real struggle at all, just a performance,” writes Shepherd.  

  • Getting to the Truth: The Craft and Practice of Creative Nonfiction

    by
    Rae Pagliarulo and Donna Talarico, editors
    Published in 2021
    by Books by Hippocampus

    Inspired by Hippocampus Magazine’s annual creative nonfiction writers conference, this anthology includes craft essays on the writing life, paths to publication, and engagement with an audience. Featuring essays from creative nonfiction writers such as Steph Auteri, Randon Billings Noble, Athena Dixon, and Beth Kephart, this collection covers impostor syndrome, writing strong beginnings and endings, hybrid genres, and the limits of using memory, to name a few topics. The book also includes writing exercises and prompts as well as reading recommendations. Ideal for any writer experimenting with new forms of storytelling and looking to improve their craft, Getting to the Truth offers practical lessons and inspiration from the minds of over twenty contemporary creative nonfiction writers.  

  • Writing the Novella

    by
    Sharon Oard Warner
    Published in 2021
    by University of New Mexico Press

    This detailed guide is devoted to the craft of the novella, looking at the long history of the form and the nuances of its structure. Sharon Oard Warner, professor emeritus of English and creative writing at the University of New Mexico, leads writers through the characteristics of the novella and how to approach character, plot, and point of view. Throughout the chapters are references to iconic authors, such as Ray Bradbury, Sandra Cisneros, Ted Chiang, Steven King, and Edith Wharton, who have written novellas and serve as inspiration. The book also includes writing prompts, templates for story maps with diagrams and charts, as well as an appendix with book recommendations and places to submit for publication. For any writer looking to start and complete a work of fiction, Warner offers this advice: “Before you write a novel, write a novella.”  

  • The Craft: A Guide to Making Poetry Happen in the 21st Century

    by
    Rishi Dastidar, editor
    Published in 2019
    by Nine Arches Press

    “For so many of us, ‘craft’ is a word that is double-edged when it comes to writing poetry,” writes editor Rishi Dastidar in the foreword to this collection of essays that not only discusses poetic forms and devices but explores the idea of craft itself. Organized into four sections—“On Poetic Forms,” “On Making Poems,” “On Bringing Poems to Life,” and “Where Poetic Craft Meets Real Life”—the essays written by British poets such as Liz Berry, Debjani Chatterjee, Clare Pollard, Roger Robinson, and Will Harris cover practical techniques as well as topics ranging from the importance of voice to power and politics in poetry. The book concludes with a coda of questions to ask while writing a poem as well as helpful writing prompts and reading suggestions. This guide to poetic craft aims to invite all writers in to the many ways poetry is created. As Dastidar writes, “This collection of essays is an attempt, not to supplant craft in poetry or overthrow it, but rather to broaden and deepen what it means in the 21st century—making it live for all poets, no matter what tradition you’re writing in and from.”  

  • 27 Essential Principles of Story: Master the Secrets of Great Storytelling, From Shakespeare to South Park

    by
    Daniel Joshua Rubin
    Published in 2020
    by Workman Publishing Company

    In this collection of twenty-seven lessons drawn from classic short stories, novels, films, graphic novels, television shows, and plays, screenwriter and playwright Daniel Joshua Rubin breaks down the fundamentals of storytelling, the “old-school principles of plot, character, setting, dialogue, and theme—the same ones Aristotle wrote about more than 2,100 years ago.” Each chapter follows the same structure: a quick take of the exemplary story, a breakdown of the story’s mechanics, a study of how a great storyteller executed a particular principle, then step-by-step instructions for writers to try the same principle. Featuring lessons inspired by James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk, Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Shirley Jackson’s short story “The Lottery,” among others, Rubin offers humorous, practical, and engaging lessons on storytelling that any writer can learn from regardless of experience. “Storytelling is a personal and revealing art. You write stories to express the truth as you see it,” writes Rubin. “My hope is that each chapter will help you figure out how to execute each principle in your own unique way.”  

  • How to Write It: Work With Words

    by
    Anthony Anaxagorou
    Published in 2020
    by Merky Books

    This practical guide to writing from British-born Cypriot poet, fiction writer, and essayist Anthony Anaxagorou provides tips, anecdotes, and publishing advice for writers looking for encouragement and inspiration. Infusing memoir into the book, Anaxagorou begins with an account of his upbringing as a child of a working-class immigrant family in London to his first poetry slam win and evolving relationship with literature and the poetry scene. These personal lessons not only contextualize the passion and dedication necessary to become a writer and to keep writing, but also bring to light the joy of writing. “The act of writing, specifically poetry, opened me up to a space where I didn’t have to be certain,” writes Anaxagorou. “It was a space where anything could happen, where there was no one to judge or fail me. It was my most private and solitary world.” With approachable chapter titles such as “Learning From Failure,” “Technique and Craft,” and “You Have a Manuscript, Now What?” this guide encourages writers to overcome challenging obstacles and provoke change in and through their practice.  

  • Your Story Matters: Find Your Voice, Sharpen Your Skills, Tell Your Story

    by
    Nikesh Shukla
    Published in 2022
    by Bluebird

    From the coeditor of the essay anthology The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America (Little, Brown, 2019) comes this practical and inclusive guide to storytelling for “those of you who want to write, know you have a story to tell, know you have something important to say, and don’t know how to start, how to go on, and what to do when you’re done.” Throughout the book, Shukla includes relatable anecdotes from his own writing career to encourage writers to tell their own stories as well as helpful writing exercises and prompts. Organized into six chapters, many are titled after central craft questions, including “How Do I Find My Voice?” and “How Do I Plan a Story?” Shukla concludes the book with an afterward of “Ten Bad Writing Tips Debunked” and a list of creative writing books for future references. Your Story Matters reiterates this mantra as Shukla offers his knowledge and companionship with each lesson. “Writing is hard. And that’s okay. Because I’m going to be with you the whole way,” writes Shukla. “This isn’t about telling you about structure and sending you off into the wilderness. This is about showing you how structure can complement the instincts you already have.”   

  • On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose of Theodore Roethke

    by
    Theodore Roethke
    Published in 2001
    by Copper Canyon Press

    “Roethke was an extraordinarily rigorous critic, and if you couldn’t take it, you didn’t learn much. For example, he said the real test was that every line of a poem should be a poem. That’s about as tough as you can get,” writes poet Carolyn Kizer about her former writing teacher and mentor in the foreword to this volume of selected prose and journal entries. Roethke, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for his poetry collection The Waking, taught at various colleges and universities and was a mentor to a generation of Northwest poets that included Kizer, Tess Gallagher, Richard Hugo, and David Wagoner. Compiled from two previous volumes of Roethke’s prose notebooks, this four-part volume includes essays on identity, lessons on rhythm, the teaching of poetry, critical analyses of the works of Dylan Thomas and Louise Bogan, and advice for young writers. This rare collection of essays reintroduces Roethke to a new generation of poets seeking instruction from an acclaimed and influential poet and teacher.   

  • Voice First: A Writer’s Manifesto

    by
    Sonya Huber
    Published in 2022
    by University of Nebraska Press

    Through Voice First, the author of Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day (Mad Creek Books, 2021) and Pain Woman Takes Your Keys, and Other Essays From a Nervous System (University of Nebraska Press, 2017) offers a resource for writers to navigate and explore the concept of voice. “Voice is a term that vexes writers and teachers. We use it quite a lot, and we know it when we see it, but most of us have struggled to define where it comes from or how to encourage it,” writes Huber, arguing for a more complex and updated definition that includes multiple voices. Through essays and writing prompts, Huber helps writers identify, develop, and experience the many voices used when writing. Featuring chapters such as “Time and Place Grow Voices,” “Embodied Voices, Racialized Lives,” and “Editing and Revising with Voices,” the book investigates how identity markers—such as gender, place of origin, race, and ethnicity—can influence and shape how writers encounter voice, offering a timely and inclusive discussion of the elusive literary term. Huber guides writers every step of the way with relatable anecdotes and references, and gets to the heart of how voice “gives us a sense of connection to another live human presence, creating a real and complex moment of communication.”  

  • Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry

    by
    Ruben Quesada, editor
    Published in 2022
    by University of New Mexico Press

    “What are the ingredients of a Latinx poetics? Is there such a thing? How do we go about it? These concerns are tackled in every essay in this most wisdom-deep and visionary collection,” writes former U.S. poet laureate Juan Felipe Herrera in the foreword to this unique anthology of personal and academic essays from Latino, Latin American, Latinx, and Luso poets on the nature of poetry and its practice. With over twenty essays from poets and scholars such as Daniel Borzutzky, Rafael Campo, Brenda Cárdenas, Raina J. León, and Tomás Q. Morín, this collection explores the ways in which history and language can influence a poet’s imagination and showcases the wide variety of voices, styles, and perspectives present in a lineage of influential Latinx poets. Covering topics including ekphrasis, lyric poetry, duende, and class consciousness in poetry, this seminal anthology expands the poetic landscape with insights on the lasting impact Latinx poets have on global literature.  

  • The Write Prescription: Telling Your Story to Live With and Beyond Illness

    by
    Judith Hannan
    Published in 2015
    by Archer/Rare Bird Books

    The author of Motherhood Exaggerated (CavanKerry Press, 2012), a memoir recounting her young daughter’s battle with cancer, assembles a thoughtful guide for anyone dealing with illness to tell their stories, whether for themselves or a larger audience. Divided into three sections—“Getting Started,” “Parting the Curtains, Setting the Scenes,” and “Inside the System”—Hannan eases writers into their storytelling journey with a series of warm-up exercises, then through an exploration of specific scenes and events, and finally challenges them to consider their experiences with the medical system. Hannan approaches writing about illness in a practical and caring way, offering writing prompts throughout the book as gateways for your writing to grow. “I don’t believe we can move on from trauma, but we need to be able to move with what has happened to us. Writing can be a companion that takes our arm as we walk. It can heal or nourish or fortify,” writes Hannan.  

  • Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More From 27 Years of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop

    by
    Kate Wilhelm
    Published in 2005
    by Small Beer Press

    In Storyteller, the late award-winning author Kate Wilhelm compiles her memories of teaching and cofounding the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop as well as the lessons she imparted over the years to countless students, often using examples from the short stories workshopped in her classes. The book takes readers through the first days of the workshops in the late 1960s and the lessons and exercises developed over the years, then into chapters with writing exercises and advice. Ideal for anybody interested in learning the fundamentals of a good story, this mix of memoir and craft book is as much about writing as it is about the importance of good teaching and community. “It is a truism that a writer reveals the self, sometimes in full awareness, sometimes unconsciously, but that is the goal. That finally is all that any of us has to offer as writers: our own perceptions of the world, our own interpretation of our culture, our experiences in fictional terms,” writes Wilhelm.  

  • A Beat Beyond: Selected Prose of Major Jackson

    by
    Amor Kohli, editor
    Published in 2022
    by University of Michigan Press

    In this collection of essays, lectures, and reviews gathered from several decades, award-winning poet and professor Major Jackson reveals an intimate look at what it means to be a poet in our times and the social function of the art of poetry amidst political unrest and inner conflict. Exploring subjects such as the necessity of language as freedom, the historical poem, the relationship between music and poetry, and the making of a “lyric self,” Jackson also surveys a range of poets who challenge the intellectual and sonic possibilities of the art form, including Ai, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Frank Bidart, Afaa Michael Weaver, and Terrance Hayes. Both intellectually rigorous and readable, this installment of the Poets on Poetry series published by the University of Michigan Press and edited by Amor Kohli allows readers to marvel at the known wonders of poetry and the power unleashed through song.  

  • My Trade Is Mystery: Seven Meditations From a Life in Writing

    by
    Carl Phillips
    Published in 2022
    by Yale University Press

    In this collection of meditative essays, award-winning poet Carl Phillips draws upon his decades of teaching and mentorship to create a book “not in terms of how to write or to be a writer, but in terms of how to live, as a writer.” In the preface, Phillips writes: “If writing is an ongoing quest—and I believe it is—then this book is meant as a guide for navigating the various distractions that hinder the writing (and sometimes the life), things that we’re all susceptible to, like self-doubt, a feeling of having nothing left to say, a fear that we’re somehow not doing this thing ‘correctly.’” Throughout seven succinctly titled essays, including “Ambition,” “Stamina,” and “Community,” Phillips balances personal interrogation with insights on the mysteries of creating art, guiding emerging and seasoned writers through what is arguably the most challenging aspect of being a writer: sustaining the practice across a lifetime.   

  • To Be the Poet

    by
    Maxine Hong Kingston
    Published in 2002
    by Harvard University Press

    Written in the intimate style of a personal journal, this short volume from the collection of William E. Massey, Sr., Lectures in American Studies at Harvard University captures Maxine Hong Kingston’s journey from celebrated memoirist and novelist to poet. “I have almost finished my longbook,” she writes. “Let my life as Poet begin. I want the life of the Poet. I have labored for over twelve years, one thousand pages of prose. Now, I want the easiness of poetry. The brevity of the poem.” Kingston reflects on the lives of her late parents, her travels to the U.K. and Hawaii, daily events, and advice from her contemporaries such as Clayton Eshelman, Tess Gallagher, Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder while exploring the struggle of embarking on something new with her attempts to write verse. “The Poet truly lives the happening moment, and gives the very bodily feeling of it to whosoever would read. To put myself into the state of poetry, I need to learn the habit of living constantly within the present moment,” writes Kingston. To Be the Poet not only offers a glimpse into the mind of a great American thinker but an exploration of a writer moving into the world of poetry.   

  • A Horse at Night: On Writing

    by
    Amina Cain
    Published in 2022
    by Dorothy, a Publishing Project

    The author of the novel Indelicacy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020) as well as two earlier collections of short fiction returns with her first nonfiction book, an essayistic meditation on writers and their work and an argument for the “essential unity of writing and life.” What started as the author’s diary of reading and writing fiction expands to include topics such as female friendships, landscape painting, book titles, and the politics of excess explored through readings of Marguerite Duras, Elena Ferrante, Renee Gladman, Virginia Woolf, and others in a paean to personal authenticity and artistic freedom. “A Horse at Night is like light from a candle in the evening: intimate, pleasurable, full of wonder,” writes novelist Ayşegül Savaş. “It asks us to consider fiction as life and life as fiction. Amina Cain is our generous, gentle guide through an exquisite library.”  

  • The Poem: Lyric, Sign, Metre

    by
    Don Paterson
    Published in 2019
    by Faber & Faber

    “This book is not a primer, a how-to guide, or a handbook of forms: there are plenty of those out there already,” writes Don Paterson in the preface to this collection of craft essays on the inner workings of poetry. “The Poem is essentially a treatise, consisting of three long essays.” Titled “Lyric,” “Sign,” and “Metre,” the three sections explore fundamental, personal, and theoretical ideas about how poems operate. The award-winning poet, professor, and poetry editor draws from his experience as well as from literary analysis, cognitive science, linguistics, and metaphysics to investigate subjects such as the music and sound patterns of poetry; the theories surrounding metaphor, metonym, and symbol; and poetry’s relationship to time and the rhythms of speech. For those seeking an insider’s view of poetry, this book is sure to challenge, instruct, and deepen what you know about the art form and its many elusive properties.  

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