Best Books for Writers

Divided into two parts, the first half of this guide focuses on syntax, covering parts of speech and the grammar of phrases and clauses. The second half concentrates on usage and propriety, exploring topics such as dangling participles, Oxford commas, language myths, and sentence fragments. June Casagrande’s guidance is humorous and straightforward, and provides writers with clarification of the ever-evolving nature of words, and the confidence to use language more intentionally in their creative work.

“Modernist poetry’s reputation for difficulty leads many readers to overlook the fact that poets of the modern era are continually joking, mocking, and making puns,” Rachel Trousdale writes in the introduction to this book highlighting humor. In this collection of ten essays, professors and scholars of modern poetry discuss humor as a “structurally central” and “constitutive part” of poetry citing work by Elizabeth Bishop, Phyllis McGinley, Marianne Moore, Ezra Pound, and others. The essays focus on the different ways humor can connect, alienate, push boundaries, or demonstrate how a writer approaches a particular audience.

Published in hardcover by Knopf last May, the bestselling novelist’s essay collection, now in a paperback edition, contains insights into Russo’s life as a writer, teacher, and reader. While the nine pieces that make up the collection hold the same warmth, generosity, compassion, and humor that have drawn readers to his previous books, including the novels Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic and the memoir Elsewhere, it is Russo’s insightful record of the writing life, with all the usual markers of rejection, failure, revision, and hard work, as well as his sober take on the business of publishing that are the real draw for writers.

“Literary influence...is the story of a writer’s deliberate attempt to find and make something like a literary home,” writes the poet, professor, and former director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in the preface to this collection. Writers seeking to make a literary home of their own will be inspired by Collier’s illuminating essays, written over the course of twenty years, which explore how he has been influenced by authors including Louise Bogan, Jorge Luis Borges, William Meredith, and Walt Whitman.

This book is an engaging primer on the art of writing flash fiction. David Galef covers the origins, evolution, and subcategories of the form that include vignettes, prose poems, character sketches, fables, lists, twist stories, surrealism, and metafiction. Each chapter is full of practical tips, techniques, and editing strategies specific to flash fiction, as well as inspiring prompts and exemplary stories by authors such as Donald Barthelme, Colette, Roxane Gay, Yusef Komunyakaa, Bharati Mukherjee, Sei Shōnagon, Alice Walker, and John Edgar Wideman.

“This collection of short chapters emphasizes the ways in which a strong poetic voice is connective, binding the speaker and the reader into a conversation compelling enough to be called a relationship,” Tony Hoagland writes in the introduction to his posthumously published guide to crafting the poetic voice. In twelve concise sections, the award-winning poet offers an intimate manual with chapters on worldliness, vernacular, speech register, material imagination, audience, and more. The appendix is replete with exercises and prompts for instructors and writers who want to put their new skills into practice.

“Memory is rarely whole or factually correct....What we remember is a reconstruction of image and feeling that suits our needs and purposes.” Author and psychotherapist Maureen Murdock begins this two-part book by exploring the mutability of memory and its powerful connection to identity, drawing upon her own experiences with a mother struggling with Alzheimer’s disease and examining works of memoir by authors such as Isabel Allende, J. M. Coetzee, and Mary Karr. The second part of the book acts as a primer guiding writers through the practical elements of craft with writing exercises and chapters including “Getting Started,” “Universality,” and “Emotional Truth and the Voice of the Narrator.”

Each of the ten sections of this book edited by poet Diane Lockward focuses on a poetic concept, covering topics including diction, etymology, sound, tone, point of view, and revision. There are thirty micro craft essays by acclaimed poets such as Natasha Sajé, Maggie Smith, and Diane Seuss, each in turn followed by writing prompts and model poems. The craft pointers provide a helpful review and challenge for writers wishing to push beyond the basics, and the Top Tips lists are compiled by poets who share their most inspiring words of advice and wisdom. 

In Critical Creative Writing, Janelle Adsit has anthologized twenty-five critical essays by international writers, including Conchitina Cruz, Porochista Khakpour, Ayana Mathis, Craig Santos Perez, Taiye Selasi, Leslie Marmon Silko, and Dorothy Wang, on essential topics in today’s literary and cultural landscape. Chapters cover craft, identity, representation, appropriation, and more with each essay offering an introduction, sample questions, writing prompts, and suggested supplemental readings.

Natalie Goldberg’s guide to the writing life begins on the first page with her rules for writing practice starting with: “Keep your hand moving.” The book goes on to relay numerous anecdotes, insights, lessons, and short writing exercise prompts gathered from over three decades of experience as a teacher of craft and meditation. “Trusting your own mind is essential for writing. Words come out of the mind,” Goldberg writes.

The longtime copy chief of Random House, who has copyedited books by authors such as E. L. Doctorow, David Ebershoff, Frank Rich, and Elizabeth Strout, offers authoritative yet amusing lessons on punctuation, grammar, and other rules and non-rules of writing, including “confusables” (affect/effect), “trimmables” (added bonus, end result), and miscellany (“you don’t tow the line, you toe it”) in a fun, appealing style that puts a contemporary spin on William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White’s The Elements of Style. 

This book is a collection of conversations that David Elliott, professor emeritus at Keystone College, conducted over the course of sixteen years with poets of various styles including Robert Creeley, Marie Howe, W. S. Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Lucien Stryk. The dialogues explore topics such as the musicality of poetry, imagery, myth, narrative, writing process, and poetry’s social and political roles, offering a source of inspiration for poets seeking new perspectives on writing verse.