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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.
“Because I am an American and often worry about many things, I seek out consolation before beginning to write, and little in this world consoles me more than the male falsetto: Skip James, Jónsi Birgisson, Pepe Núñez, Roscoe Holcomb, Antony Hegarty and company.
“Pandit Pran Nath was a conduit for an understanding of Indian classical singing, and a major influence on American minimalism, whose disciples included Lamonte Young and Terry Riley.
“When I’m in the thick of a project, the most important sources of inspiration are those that help me open the gates of reverie, that make me descend into that nonverbal realm from which potent fiction paradoxically springs.
“Often I thumb through animal books—the National Audubon Society’s field guides to birds and fish almost always shake something loose. For instance my poem ‘Parts of a Feather’ in Sagittarius Agitprop (Black Lawrence Press, 2009) was inspired by, and depends heavily on, such bird facts.
“I don’t intentionally scrapbook for inspiration, but that always ends up happening. I will see a graphic or image, or hear a song on the radio, and start to collect them for characters whose perspectives I am about to inhabit.
“Lately I’ve been going to the symphony for inspiration. I don’t know classical music well, so most of what happens surprises me. The long segments of developing sounds break me out of my tight verbal boxes of thought.
“A common statement, I know, but the best stimulant for writing is reading. When it’s prose, I’ll turn to rich sentences from Nabokov or F. Scott Fitzgerald. If poetry, I start with the Eastern Europeans (especially Zbigniew Herbert).
“I am inspired by love, which sounds simplistic and dreamy, but in my case is brutally real. My son, Ronan, is nearly two years old and has Tay-Sachs, a disease that is always fatal and results in a slow regression
“When I’m stuck, I daydream my way back to a place that still holds a great deal of emotion for me, and a ritual that used to take place there, lingering on the objects that vibrate and glow with some hidden, deeper meaning
“Whenever I finish writing a novel, I feel bereft of the characters. I also believe I’ve expended everything I know
