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Read weekly interviews with authors to learn the inside stories of how their books were written, edited, and published; insights into the creative process; the best writing advice they’ve ever heard; and more.
“Becoming a mother, and feeling the ferocity of love that parents hold for their children, and doing the daily work of parenting, helped me find the emotional core of the book.” —Megha Majumdar, author of A Guardian and a Thief
“It should be possible to both write good and live good. Go see your friends. Be with your family. Taste something new. Fall in love with the world again and again while you still can.” —Joshua Wheeler, author of The High Heaven
“I think I’m a natural maximalist, and I still enjoy orchestrating a complex, layered scene or sentence, but I often found myself paring down versus building up.” —Jade Chang, author of What a Time to Be Alive
“I try to write every day, whether that’s generating new words or taking a walk to think about a revision problem.” —E. Y. Zhao, author of Underspin
“I wish all writers the audiences they desire and the acclaim they deserve.” —Ashley M. Jones, author of Lullaby for the Grieving
“When an impediment arrives, I try writing about it. This helps me remain patient.” —Jeannie Vanasco, author of A Silent Treatment
“Stop telling yourself you can’t do this.” —Patrick Ryan, author of Buckeye
“[Y]ou can’t edit something into being good before getting it down.” —Austyn Wohlers, author of Hothouse Bloom
“I needed time away from text to indulge in paintings and drawings and collage art. I spent a lot of days in art galleries mulling over my memories and the text I was writing.” —Raymond Antrobus, author of The Quiet Ear: An Investigation of Missing Sound
“I like the idea of action writing, putting text on the floor and playing with arrangement like abstract expressionist painting.” —Anne Waldman, author of Mesopotopia
“But fear can be galvanizing; perhaps the novel would not have been written without it.” —Xenobe Purvis, author of The Hounding
“I just remember the miraculous appearance of story seeds, bursts of inspiration, and cloudless composition.” —Ed Park, author of An Oral History of Atlantis
“I think every writer carries with them someone they wish they could’ve told all their stories to.” —Katie Yee, author of Maggie; Or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
“I tend to work across these different forms, on different projects at the same time.” —Issa Quincy, author of Absence
“Writing lends itself to filmmaking in terms of structuring a story, but I think filmmaking lends itself to more visually stimulating writing.” —Lawrence Burney, author of No Sense in Wishing
“Notes/fragments help me relive moments that carry seeds, sparks, moments of import, humor, and beauty.” —Rhoni Blankenhorn, author of Rooms for the Dead and the Not Yet
“The research I did for this novel was so intriguing, looking at the psychology and science of siblinghood, memory, identity.” —Fran Littlewood, author of The Accidental Favorite
“If you put the hours in, the work will work itself out.” —Shoshana von Blanckensee, author of Girls Girls Girls
“[Y]ou should write, or at the very least revise, with a reader always in mind.” —Robert P. Baird, author of The Nimbus
“A book takes a long time to write, and a long time to publish. So, you know, take a breath!” —Lucas Schaefer, author of The Slip
“But so much of the work is done in those gaps, when the book sits in the back of your mind with your subconscious untangling it.” —Nicola Dinan, author of Disappoint Me
“And while it is an expansive, strange book, it manages to feel contained and possible. I think that’s in part because it was written from a place of confinement.” —July Westhale, author of moon moon
“Everything will take longer than you feel like it should, and this is a gift.” —Rickey Fayne, author of The Devil Three Times
“The magnitude of space around me must have opened a kind of interior spaciousness where the writing came from.” —Lisa Fishman, author of One Big Time
“Stories that are planned are boring and flat and unlike life, which is messy and has its own logic.” —Craig Thompson, author of Ginseng Roots
