Writers’ History Lessons
The Depression-era Federal Writers’ Project enlisted writers to tell a nation’s stories. Now the People’s Recorder podcast explores the history of the project and its continued relevance.
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Article Archive
Articles from Poet & Writers Magazine include material from the print edition plus exclusive online-only material.
Page One: Where New and Noteworthy Books Begin
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books, including The Palace by Andrés Cerpa and The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
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Inspiration, Imagined
Since 2010 we have asked graphic designers and artists to create new, surprising, and uniquely inspiring covers for the first issue of the year; in this portfolio we look back at their work.
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Dare to Defamiliarize: In Praise of Fluidity
The acclaimed fiction writer, essayist, comic book writer, and screenwriter cautions against growing too rigid in your practice and suggests kicking down some doors and using writing as a multi-tool.
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Brave New Metaphors: Lessons From Science Fiction
The celebrated writer shows how science fiction’s “novums”—the futuristic or fantastical developments a writer invents in their work—can delve into philosophical questions, explore contemporary issues, and help us see worlds that are not yet real.
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Seek the Unknown in the Familiar: Lessons From Historical Fiction
The best historical fiction “vibrates with a past that is in the present” and reveals the unseen in stories thought we knew—craft skills any writer can bring to their work.
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New Ways of Seeing: Our Twenty-First Annual Look at Debut Poets
Ten debut poets, including Gbenga Adesina and Kalehua Kim, share the inspiration, advice, and writers block remedies that have sustained their literary practices.
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Cultivate Suspense: Lessons From Thrillers
The author of Winter Counts offers a masterclass in building suspense, whether your character is planning a heist or planting a garden.
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Embrace the “And Then”: Lessons From Fairy Tales
Fairy tales are built on their own enchanting associative logic. A maestro of magical realism explores what writers can unlock when they let readers leap between a story’s plot points—and where such a trail of breadcrumbs can lead.
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Conjure the Strange: Lessons From Horror
The award-winning writer studies how the most powerful horror stories are grounded in “deeply human dilemma,” and how daring the ghoulish can bring us closer to our characters.
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Inspiration From Across the Literary Landscape
Five acclaimed writers traverse the literary landscape, gleaning lessons from diverse genres of writing and bringing them back to bear on any work.
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Ten Writers on Writing Advice: 2025
Ten authors answer the tenth question in our Ten Questions series: What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?
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Toward the Sensuous Form: Origins and Possible Trajectories of the Essay
The author of Voice of the Fish: A Lyric Essay (Graywolf Press, 2022) reflects on the ancient origins of the essay form.
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Ten Questions for Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida and Alison Entrekin
This week’s installment of Ten Questions features Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida and Alison Entrekin, the author and the translator of Three Stories of Forgetting.
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Ten Questions for Raquel Gutiérrez
“You have to learn to write when you don’t feel like it.” —Raquel Gutiérrez, author of Southwest Reconstruction
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The Long and Rolling Line
The author of Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025) considers the lineage of his own loping lines and encourages poets to try them.
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Ten Questions for Juhea Kim
“Art is following your soul’s demand.” —Juhea Kim, author of A Love Story From the End of the World
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Plotting Form Ahead of Time
The author of Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025) considers the benefits of planning elements of a poem before its composition.
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Ten Questions for Devon Walker-Figueroa
“It can take days, months, years for me to know when notes pass into the arena of poem or story.” —Devon Walker Figueroa, author of Lazarus Species
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Catching the “Chune”
The author of Ocean of Clouds (Knopf, 2025) reflects on the practice of poetry as one of both composition and listening.
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Ten Questions for Eshani Surya
“I’ve learned to be most interested in enjoying the process of making something emotionally true and honest.” —Ashani Surya, author of Ravishing
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Ten Questions for Sarah Hall
“I think the creative process is unboundaried.” —Sarah Hall, author of Helm
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Queering Language
The author of Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023) and Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019) explores what it means to write a self that “is in a perpetual state of becoming.”
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Ten Questions for Brandon Hobson
“How can we reach a higher truth in storytelling and art?” —Brandon Hobson, author of The Devil Is a Southpaw
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Writing Queerly
The author of Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023) and Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019) considers what it means to estrange a familiar motif in one’s writing.
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