inspiration

The author of The Step Back offers strategies for short story writers trying to draft a novel for the first time and shares how a new approach—aiming to pen a thousand pages—led to his first novel.

The author of five poetry collections, most recently frank: sonnets, meditates on the idea of order and revisits her past to consider how shaping a book is like forging and acknowledging a self.  

With daily life so affected by the pandemic, the author and playwright offers suggestions for staying creative such as writing letters, trying a short form, and letting yourself take a break.

After years of using everything from a laptop cart to a kitchen nook as a designated writing space, the author finally creates a room of her own in her home in Long Beach, California.

Eight authors—Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Mark Wunderlich, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, Samantha Hunt, Edward Carey, Juan Felipe Herrera, Darcey Steinke, and Terrance Hayes—offer a glimpse into their notebooks and their creative process. 

Write a poem considering what you see without focusing on its meaning, a short story based on a mysterious occurrence, or an essay about your New Year’s traditions. 

The author describes her failed attempts at sitting down to write, and turns to the lives and methods of famous writers, as well as her experiences as a mother, to find a way to write with a sense of spontaneity and play.  

The author presents his theory of the writing life as a “toilsome, magical, unpredictable road,” and illustrates the hurdles an ambitious writer might encounter.

The author finds solace in rereading George Saunders’s novel, Lincoln in the Bardo, while mourning the death of her father during the pandemic.