Best Books for Writers

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

  • Orpheus in the Bronx: Essays on Identity, Politics, and the Freedom of Poetry

    by
    Reginald Shepherd
    Published in 2007
    by University of Michigan Press

    In this collection of essays, the late poet and editor Reginald Shepherd explores the transformative power of poetry in a selection of autobiographical essays and those that focus on the work of other writers, including Alvin Feinman, Jorie Graham, Samuel R. Delany, and Linda Gregg. Shepherd invites readers into his childhood and formation as a writer in a way that provides context for his critical and analytical writings. His achievements, both artistically and intellectually, are sure to impact any devotee of literature. “The essays gathered here range in topic from the autobiographical to the exegetical to the theoretical, in style from the narrative to the lyrical to the analytical,” writes Shepherd in the introduction. “What unifies them is a resolute defense of poetry’s autonomy, and a celebration of the liberatory and utopian possibilities such autonomy offers.” 

     

  • Mythmaking: Self-Discovery and the Timeless Art of Memoir

    by
    Maureen Murdock
    Published in 2024
    by Shambhala

    In Mythmaking, psychotherapist and writing teacher Maureen Murdock explores the memoir genre through the lens of ancient myths and archetypes. Murdock offers close examinations of contemporary memoirs—including Terry Tempest Williams’s Refuge, Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, and David Carr’s The Night of the Gun—for an understanding of the rich scope of the genre and their thematic connections with ancient myths. The first part of the book encourages readers to explore their own personal mythology asking questions that are central to memoir, such as, “Who am I?” and “What is my journey?” The second part of the book considers common themes in one’s life to reflect upon, such as home and homecoming, loss, and spirituality. At the end of each chapter are writing prompts to help writers get started on their journey, along with more prompts and a bibliography of exemplary memoirs in the appendix. “Memoirs help us find meaning in our lives by showing us how our lives fit into a larger mythic pattern,” writes Murdock. “The essence of memoir is to participate in the writer’s struggle to achieve some understanding of the events, traumas, and triumphs of their personal recollection.”  

  • The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing

    by
    Margot Livesey
    Published in 2017
    by Tin House

    In The Hidden Machinery, award-winning novelist Margot Livesey looks to the authors and the works that have inspired her own writing. Each of the ten essays in this book is rooted in close readings of authors such as Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, Tom Stoppard, and Virginia Woolf, from whom Livesey draws invaluable lessons about rhythm in dialogue, the pitfalls of research, creating indelible characters, and much more about the inner workings of fiction. Within the essays are helpful prompts and tips on how to develop characters and sustain a narrative. “Read everything that is good for the good of your soul. Then learn to read as a writer, to search out that hidden machinery, which it is the business of art to conceal and the business of the apprentice to comprehend,” writes Livesey.  

  • Several Short Sentences About Writing

    by
    Verlyn Klinkenborg
    Published in 2012
    by Knopf

    Verlyn Klinkenborg draws from his years of experience as a writer and teacher of writing to offer fresh pieces of wisdom about the writing process in this insightful book on writing. Written in short prose bursts, Several Short Sentences About Writing provides tried-and-tested starting points, ideas, and experiments for writers at any level. Practical and inspirational, the lessons in this book focus on the structure and intention of a sentence and how each impacts a story. “Imagine it this way,” writes Klinkenborg. “One by one, each sentence takes the stage. It says the very thing it comes into existence to say. Then it leaves the stage.”  

  • In the Tempered Dark: Contemporary Poets Transcending Elegy

    by
    Lisa Fay Coutley, editor
    Published in 2024
    by Black Lawrence Press

    In this anthology examining the connection between bodies in grief and bodies of poems edited by Lisa Fay Coutley, over seventy contemporary poets share their elegiac work alongside a micro-essay on their corresponding grief. A wide range of contributors working in a variety of styles and forms are included, such as Ruth Awad, Sandra Beasley, Victoria Chang, torrin a. greathouse, Jay Hopler, Ilya Kaminsky, Diane Seuss, Lynne Thompson, Eric Tran, and Phillip B. Williams. Rather than instruct on how to craft grief poems, this expansive collection seeks to explore the ways in which poets give voice to what is difficult to put into words, and how to grieve and heal through poetry. 

  • Black Love Letters

    by
    Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson, editors
    Published in 2023
    by Get Lifted Books/Zando

    “We reserve this space for our humanity in all of its fond, ironic, elated, grief-stricken, confused glory. In the following pages you will find letters crafted by activists, statesmen, acclaimed and upcoming writers, artists, poets, and creators—all reflecting on what it means to be Black, to love, and to be loved in America,” write editors Cole Brown and Natalie Johnson in the introduction to this illustrated anthology of letters by a wide range of Black leaders and writers. Contributors include Mahogany Browne, Ben Crump, Morgan Jerkins, Douglas Kearney, Nadia Owusu, Imani Perry, Al Sharpton, Danez Smith, and Jamila Woods. The five sections of the book cover an array of ways love is expressed with the titles: Care, Awe, Loss, Ambivalence, and Transformation. Filled with intimate and powerful testaments, the editors have created “a site for our people to come together on the deepest, strongest emotion we share” and “a space for healing, together.” 

  • Experiences in Translation

    by
    Umberto Eco
    Published in 2001
    by University of Toronto Press

    In Experiences in Translation, translated from the Italian by Alastair McEwen, novelist and scholar Umberto Eco argues that translation is about interpretation and connotation, and a shift between cultures. Based on a series of lectures on translation given by Eco in 1998, the first half of the book reflects on his personal experiences translating literature as well as having his work translated by others. Eco demonstrates how a translation can express a deep understanding of a text while violating both lexical and referential faithfulness, and how translation can be thought of as a semiotic task, using examples from translations of his own and other novels, translations of the dialogue of American films into Italian, and versions of the Bible. The second half of the book dives into translation theories proposed by Roman Jakobson, C. S. Pierce, George Steiner, and others. Anyone interested in language and literary translation will appreciate Eco’s approachable and thoughtful discussion. 

  • The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story

    by
    John Freeman, editor
    Published in 2021
    by Penguin Press

    In this anthology, a half century of American short stories from all genres, including science fiction, horror, and fantasy, are presented and selected by editor and critic John Freeman. Spanning from 1970 to 2020, a variety of voices, forms, and styles are highlighted, as well as often overlooked stories from renowned authors such as Dorothy Allison, Percival Everett, and Charles Johnson. There are short tales by Tobias Wolff, George Saunders, and Lydia Davis, next to near novellas by Susan Sontag and Andrew Holleran. The wide-ranging collection also includes stories by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken Liu, and Claire Vaye Watkins. “This anthology, though it tracks the high points of the short story, is enabled by spaces these writers opened up,” writes Freeman in the introduction, noting the significant mark these authors have made for the future of the short story. 

  • Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life

    by
    Dani Shapiro
    Published in 2023
    by Grove Press

    In Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life, novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro offers wisdom, insights, and practical lessons drawn from her journey as a writer and teacher. “Everything I know about life, I learned from the daily practice of sitting down to write,” she writes. The book is a blend of personal stories, tales from other authors, and an examination of her own writing process, including insights on how she created her acclaimed novels and memoirs. This tenth anniversary edition, which includes a new forward from the author, is a testament to how valuable the lessons in this book have become for writers and teachers of creative writing.  

  • 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round

    by
    Jami Attenberg
    Published in 2024
    by Simon Element

    Inspired by her 1000 Words of Summer project, for which she encourages a growing online community to write a thousand words daily for two weeks straight, author Jami Attenberg has assembled a collection of helpful essays by a veritable who’s who of contemporary writers, including Alexander Chee, R. O. Kwon, Min Jin Lee, Ada Limón, Carmen Maria Machado, Celeste Ng, and Emma Straub. In 1000 Words, portions of which have appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine, Attenberg rightly leans on community to provide support, encouragement, and inspiration. “If we reach out to others admitting our challenges while also cheering one another on, we’re all capable of more than we expected,” she writes. In a noteworthy contribution to the book, Roxane Gay writes, “So today, you’re writing 1000 words. And you will write many more words after that. Those words will matter. They may not change the world, but they will change you.”  

  • Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul

    by
    Sue William Silverman
    Published in 2024
    by University of Nebraska Press

    In Acetylene Torch Songs, Sue William Silverman mixes memoir and craft lessons to illustrate how a writer’s imagination creates metaphor, literary masks, sensory memories, and voice on the page. Utilizing twenty-five years of teaching experience, Silverman offers guided prompts, worksheets, checklists, publishing advice, personal essays, and strategies to encourage writers at any stage to find the confidence to write their truths. Through instruction and inspiration, this book demonstrates the intersection of creativity, craft, and courage needed to write creative nonfiction. “This genre possesses double vision—the author’s ability to see a past experience joined with present awareness—thus heightening the intensity. Unlike real life, creative nonfiction is both microscopic and telescopic. It’s crucial to envision the smallest detail of a life while also presenting that detail in a way that reflects an entire world. Real life lacks metaphors. Creative nonfiction births them,” writes Silverman.  

     

  • Big Fiction: How Conglomeration Changed the Publishing Industry and American Literature

    by
    Dan Sinykin
    Published in 2023
    by Columbia University Press

    In Big Fiction, English professor and author Dan Sinykin offers an inside look into how the publishing industry has changed over the past six decades and how those changes have affected literary form and the life of an author. Sinykin explores different sectors of the publishing industry, including mass-market books by brand-name authors, trade publishers that embraced genres in literary fiction, the rebelliousness of nonprofit publishers, and independent publishers that refused to be bought out, as well as how women and authors of color shifted the industry. The book also features exemplary work by a range of novelists, such as Renata Adler, Joan Didion, E. L. Doctorow, Stephen King, Judith Krantz, Cormac McCarthy, and Walter Mosley. “This book is not only a narrative of the conglomeration of publishing,” writes Sinykin in the introduction. “It also tells how fiction was transformed. It transformed because conglomeration changed what it means to be an author.”  

  • Millions of Suns: On Writing and Life

    by
    Sharon Fagan McDermott and M. C. Benner Dixon
    Published in 2023
    by University of Michigan Press

    In this craft book, authors and teachers Sharon Fagan McDermott and M. C. Benner Dixon encourage writers to treat writing as a form of play while walking through practical elements of creative writing. Each chapter includes a pair of essays-in-dialogue between the authors addressing subjects such as memory, imagery, surprise, inspiration, metaphor, and revision. The chapters also include writing prompts which encourage writers to tap into the freedom and joy that comes with finding one’s voice. “Through writing, our anxieties and self-doubt, our trauma and our regret, our dearest memories and our fondest hopes, are transformed, crafted, and revised,” write the authors. “We hope this book on writing reminds you of the power, the play, the joy of writing.” 

  • Next Word, Better Word: The Craft of Writing Poetry

    by
    Stephen Dobyns
    Published in 2011
    by Palgrave Macmillan

    Author of Best Words, Best Order, Stephen Dobyns offers a helpful framework for creating poetry and navigates contemporary concerns and practices in this accessible guide to poetry. Each of the thirteen chapters includes useful lessons learned from renowned poets’ works, and covers topics such as subject matter, the mechanics of poetry, and the revision process. Dobyns explores the complex relationship between writers and their work, and in the process, demystifies a subtle art form. “Good poetry deals with emotions, and its purpose is not just to give the reader a sense of those emotions, but also to let the reader experience them as directly as possible,” writes Dobyns in the introduction. “For many writers, the world isn’t real until they have put it into language.”  

  • Tone

    by
    Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno
    Published in 2023
    by Columbia University Press

    This collaborative study by authors Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno, written together under the name of the Committee to Investigate Atmosphere, seeks to examine the indefinable quality of tone in literary work. In seven chapters, the authors interrogate how tone might be defined through human and living beings, the spaces we inhabit, and through sound and feel and our other senses. They write: “A tone is perhaps a room that we inhabit and are inhabited by. It is the interior that surrounds and the exterior that invades. Something we must listen to, be attuned to, within the necessity of silence.” Lyrically written with a conversational tone, this creative criticism seeks knowledge and answers from creative and theoretical works, including translation, by writers such as Paul Laurence Dunbar, Saidiya Hartman, Nella Larsen, Fred Moten, and Sianne Ngai. The authors pose lingering questions throughout the book about the power of atmosphere in literature and how readers often return to books, not for the plot or characters, but to “breathe that air again.” 

  • One Hundred Frogs: From Renga to Haiku to English

    by
    Hiroaki Sato
    Published in 1995
    by Weatherhill

    In One Hundred Frogs, poet and translator Hiroaki Sato guides readers through a detailed history and description of the poetic forms renga and haiku, beginning with the works of renowned Japanese poet Bashō. The first part of the book also explores how the poetic forms evolved, represented by exemplary poems of modern Japanese and Western poets. The book then moves into a discussion on the craft of translating renga and haiku, including an in-depth analysis of one of Japan’s most famous haiku written by Bashō, alongside a compilation of translations and variations of the poem. A short anthology of English-language renga and haiku by contemporary Western poets closes out the book, exemplifying the diversity and appreciation of the two ancient forms. Perfect for poets and translators, or fans of the forms, this instructive volume offers close readings, lessons, and an invitation to learn from an award-winning translator and scholar. 

  • The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction

    by
    Amy J. Schneider
    Published in 2023
    by University of Chicago Press

    In this guide to copyediting fiction from the publisher of The Chicago Manual of Style, veteran copyeditor Amy J. Schneider offers advice from her years of experience on how to deal with dialogue, voice, grammar, conscious language, blending fact and fiction, and other significant issues in writing fiction. Rather than a style guide or grammar text, Schneider intends the book to be “a road map for helping each author, character, and manuscript tell their own story in their own voice and their own style, clearly and consistently.” Divided into three parts with approachable thematic chapters, the book covers copyediting tasks specific to fiction, such as tracking the continuity of characters, places, and events, while providing solutions and suggestions on how to build a fiction style sheet. Although specific to fiction, poets and writers of other genres may find the book useful as a guide to self-editing before submission and a look into the work of copyeditors.   

  • The Sound on the Page: Great Writers Talk About Style and Voice in Writing

    by
    Ben Yagoda
    Published in 2005
    by Harper Perennial

    In this instructive book exploring voice and style in writing, journalist and English professor Ben Yagoda offers insights and close readings of the work of renowned writers, as well as interviews, to help writers discover and develop their own writing style. Nine informative chapters look at the theory and practice of style, including “A Field Guide to Style,” “Consistency and Change,” and “Style According to Form.” As Yagoda writes in the introduction of the book, he does not aim to present a how-to manual, but rather an invitation to discuss how “personal style is more democratic than it might first appear” and how to become more aware of one’s voice. “This book began with a single and simple observation: it is frequently the case that writers entertain, move and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it,” writes Yagoda. “What they say is information and ideas and (in the case of fiction) story and characters. How they say it is style.”  

  • It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences

    by
    June Casagrande
    Published in 2010
    by Ten Speed Press

    In this humorous and informative guide, journalist and editor June Casagrande breaks down the semantics of sentences, and explains how words and grammatical constructions relate to each other in logical and artful ways. A meticulous examination of sentence structure, content, and style, this book reveals the building blocks of successful sentences, and how writers can apply this knowledge to their own work. The easy-to-read manual is filled with short chapters and an appendix on grammar, punctuation, and “most incriminating errors” to help writers avoid them. “We all know bad writing when we see it,” writes Casagrande in the introduction. “Understanding the issues that plague it—that plague all our writing—requires thought, time, a grounding in grammar, and the energy to stop and look at the writer’s guiding question: what am I really trying to say?” 

  • Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You

    by
    Ray Bradbury
    Published in 1992
    by Bantam

    In this collection of essays written over a thirty-year period, renowned author Ray Bradbury shares his wisdom, experience, and enthusiasm from his lifetime of writing. The essay topics include the joy of writing, inspiration, creativity, and the writing process of his many works. All of his advice demonstrates that success as a writer depends on how well one knows themself. “If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer,” writes Bradbury. “It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don’t even know yourself. For the first thing a writer should be is—excited.”  

  • Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems That Matter Most

    by
    Erin Belieu and Carl Phillips, editors
    Published in 2023
    by Copper Canyon Press

    For this lively and engaging anthology, fifty-seven poets, including Kaveh Akbar, Diane Seuss, Solmaz Sharif, and Ocean Vuong, choose one of their own poems and explain in an essay why it represents their “personal best.” Together the poem-essay pairings provide an insightful look at the life of a poem and the personal experiences that shape the writing process. “We hope the essays here remind that there’s always a singular consciousness behind a poem, a maker with unique feelings and ways of thinking about the world,” the editors write in their introduction. A probing honesty is the common thread that runs through the best essays in the collection, including Danez Smith’s notes on the poem “waiting on you to die so i can be myself,” in which Smith writes, “Let me slow down my language, let me be dissatisfied with what comes first, let me finds the poem that answers to no one, that sings not for the high notes but for the deep, earthly truths.”  

  • The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself

    by
    Susan Bell
    Published in 2007
    by Norton

    In this guide, veteran book editor Susan Bell discusses the complex and necessary art of self-editing. Filled with writing examples, quotes, strategic tips, interviews, and case studies—including a discussion of Max Perkins’s editorial collaboration with F. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby—the book walks writers through the discipline and creativity of editing and how it can enhance one’s writing. “Writers need to learn to calibrate editing’s singular blend of mechanics and magic. For if writing builds the house, nothing but revision will complete it. One writer needs to be two carpenters: a builder with mettle, and a finisher with slow hands,” Bell writes in the introduction. “Editing is more an attitude than a system.”  

  • Family Trouble: Memoirists on the Hazards and Rewards of Revealing Family

    by
    Joy Castro, editor
    Published in 2013
    by University of Nebraska Press

    In this collection of essays edited by Joy Castro, twenty-five memoirists explore the complex personal emotions and literary responsibilities writers must negotiate when revealing private information about their families to the reading public. The essays cover a wide range of topics including adoption, sexuality, grief, illness, and cultural identity by authors such as Faith Adiele, Alison Bechdel, Jill Christman, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Rigoberto González, Robin Hemley, Dinty W. Moore, Bich Minh Nguyen, and Mimi Schwartz. “How family members react is not in your hands,” Castro writes in her introduction. “What is in your hands is the narrative: its fidelity to facts as you recall them, its fair-mindedness, its compassion for the straits in which your family members found themselves, its sincere quest to understand what happened.”  

     

  • Writing the Intimate Character: Create Unique, Compelling Characters Through Mastery of Point of View

    by
    Jordan Rosenfeld
    Published in 2016
    by Writer’s Digest Books

    In Writing the Intimate Character, novelist and teacher Jordan Rosenfeld explores how point of view creates powerful narratives and dynamic characters in fiction. The book is separated into three parts which explore character building, voice, plot, point of view, and more. Each chapter offers examples and exercises to help writers breathe life into their characters. Rosenfeld reminds writers that “readers connect with characters whose senses they can experience, whose minds they can enter, and whose emotions they can feel” and guides them through the ways to create vivid characters.  

     

  • Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

    by
    Natalie Goldberg
    Published in 2016
    by Shambhala Publications

    In Writing Down the Bones, painter and writing instructor Natalie Goldberg gives clear, accessible writing advice that approaches the art of writing as spiritual practice. First published in 1986, this thirtieth anniversary edition includes a preface and interview with the author. Goldberg offers guidance and advice throughout the book with short, easy-to-read chapters covering many aspects of the writer’s craft: writing from “first thoughts,” listening deeply, using verbs, overcoming doubts, and even the best places to write. “It is my sincere wish that…students learn how to do writing practice, that they come to know themselves, feel joy in expression, trust what they think. Once you connect with your mind, you are who you are and you’re free,” writes Goldberg.   

     

     

Pages