writing process

“I had a substantially different version of this book that just wasn’t working, scrapped it, did that again, and then the third time was a charm.” —Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown

“It’s important to understand why the characters are writing to each other, what kind of language is particular to them, and what the form reveals or hides.” Mimi Lok contemplates the challenges and rewards of the epistolary form. 

“The book didn’t announce itself to me until 2017, when I went looking for it. I scanned over the poems I had been writing, scanning to see what my brain had been up to without me noticing.” —Danez Smith, author of Homie

“I spent much of 2016 and 2017 not just trying to find my way back into the book but also trying to convince myself that art still mattered.” —Meng Jin, author of Little Gods

“It was important to me to err on the side of generosity in writing this book.” —Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley

“The most challenging thing every time I sit down to write is to make the poem on the page as alive as the poem in my head.” —Barbara Crooker, author of Some Glad Morning

“Fridays I would slash and burn upwards of 80 percent of that week’s word haul. Anything that stayed had to earn its keep.” —Tommy Pico, author of Feed

“Writing—the writing it down—has increasingly become the least important part of the process. Living in the world of the novel, existing as the characters, viewing the day-to-day from their perspective, is the most important thing.” —Jeff VanderMeer, author of Dead Astronauts

“Sometimes at the end of an eight-hour day I’d have a single paragraph to show for it.” —Dexter Palmer, author of Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen

“My preferred notebook is a sharp-cornered, hardcover Roaring Spring black marble composition book with 20# paper, item number 77461, college ruled—I’m a Pisces and need a line to keep me grounded.” —Malcolm Tariq, author of Heed the Hollow