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“Be very patient, even patient with chaos,” Lydia Davis advises writers in this compilation of interviews by Louisiana Channel. Seasoned writers from around the world, including Alaa Al Aswany, Umberto Eco, Richard Ford, Patti Smith, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, also offer their thoughts on how to keep writing.
“The key to an amazing story is the heart of the story,” says novelist Daniel José Older in this segment of Penguin Random House’s Meet the Author series. “If you’re a writer, it’s your compass. It’s what’s going to guide you forward to finish the story.”
“When you think you’re getting good, be humble. There’s no end to the learning.” In this video, Arthur Sze visits his high school, the Lawrenceville School, and offers advice from his years of experience as a poet. Sze is the recipient of the 2013 Jackson Poetry Prize and won the 2019 National Book Award in poetry for his collection Sight Lines (Copper Canyon Press, 2019).
“I don’t really think you can teach people to write, you can just teach them to read. Read everything you can about your setting or your characters or whatever it is you don’t know.” In this Granta video, Sarah Moss, the author most recently of Ghost Wall (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), offers advice on first drafts, research, and the importance of reading to a writer.
“Just keep going.” In this video from the 2017 Bay Area Book Festival, Literary Hub senior editor Emily Temple speaks to authors, including Michael Chabon, Vanessa Hua, Katie Kitamura, Paul Murray, Hannah Tinti, Ayelet Waldman, and Esmé Weijun Wang, about the best writing advice they have ever received.
Stephanie Powell Watts talks to Mary Laura Philpott of A Word on Words about how her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us (Ecco, 2017), is just like The Great Gatsby except totally different, and why honest criticism is necessary for a writer.
“Learn how to write jokes...” Gabe Hudson, author of the science fiction novel, Gork, the Teenage Dragon (Knopf, 2017), talks about the craft behind humorous writing, and having to adapt to a new environment during his MFA years at Brown University.
“If you don’t know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it.” In this TED Talk, Anne Lamott, author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anchor Books, 1995), shares twelve truths she’s learned from life and her writing.
“Language is tough. Using the right words is so important to me.” Paul Beatty, author of the Man Booker Prize–winning novel, The Sellout (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), speaks about the labor of writing and his advice to students on Late Night With Seth Meyers.
“What you can do is tell your best story, at that moment.” Camille T. Dungy, whose first essay collection, Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys Into Race, Motherhood, and History (Norton, 2017), is featured in Page One in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, offers writers advice on how to overcome roadblocks.
