creative process

A daily phone call from India spurs an emerging writer to complete her first novel.

Writers discuss what prompted them to start or return to journal writing, and why sometimes it’s better to destroy rather than preserve such catalogues of the past.

One author argues that talent is the least important part of becoming a writer.

Through her work with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, a poet discovers that writing can grant a type of freedom to incarcerated men—and in the process finds her own sense of peace in the wake of personal trauma. 

In her genre-defying book Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir, published in 2000 by Random House, Lauren Slater toys with the conventions of fact, fiction, memory, and art, introducing fabricated occurrences and physical conditions to unveil the truth of her experience—and of the human condition.

Two novelists discuss the excitement and challenges of editing an anthology of essays.

Years after leaving her family farm in Kansas, a memoirist discovers meaning in her work while revisiting the past, and exploring her family’s relationship to the land.

A writer’s search for a typewriter brings her face to face with both present and past, and helps her understand ideas of friendship, memory, connection, and loss.