Writers Recommend

In this online exclusive we ask authors to share books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired them in their writing. We see this as a place for writers to turn to for ideas that will help feed their creative process.

Ruth Padel

7.10.24
“My deepest inspiration is being in the forest, watching the whole bright tangle—trees, wildlife, tracks, smells and birdsong—in which the elephants evolved to exist: the secret hush they move in.
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Eric Yip

6.5.24
“As I read the works of writers who were persecuted, censored, or killed, I am reminded of moments where language is truly at risk, and thus more necessary, more pressing.
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Wei Tchou

5.22.24
“Here’s what I recommend: Go to Baja California Sur. Avoid lingering in the airport towns of Cabo San Lucas or San José del Cabo.
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Mosab Abu Toha

5.8.24
“What inspires me is the nature of Gaza: the trees, the plants, the sunrise, and the sea, namely.
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Andrés N. Ordorica

4.24.24
“We live too much in the digital, becoming the blinking cursor of a Word document and infiltrating a world untethered from the land.
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Saretta Morgan

4.3.24
“One way I’ve learned to curb the aggression of institutional tone is to stop whatever project I’m working on, and write a letter or email to a friend.
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Tommy Orange

3.20.24
“I move characters between grammatical persons to see how the language changes, and whether it reveals something new about them.
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Lucy Sante

2.21.24
“The major indication I get that my writing is headed in the wrong direction is a surfeit of Latinate words.
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