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.

Lucia Perillo

4.1.09

“What I find most inspirational are large masses of birds—any kind. Geese, blackbirds, crows, etc.

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Matthew Dickman

3.25.09

“If I ever get stuck writing a poem, I will play some Talking Heads. That band is the poet I want to be! The album Stop Making Sense is especially meaningful to me. Although pop music might not always be clever or complicated, it is deeply honest and open.

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Rolf Potts

3.18.09

“I hate to sound so directly instructional, but a book I’ve found immensely useful is Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers Guide From the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University

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Afaa Michael Weaver

3.11.09

“I assemble things to maintain a place in my creative thinking, a little like stumbling around in the undergrowth of a slightly wild place.

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Preeta Samarasan

3.4.09

“When my writing stagnates, I do occasionally turn to fiction for motivation or inspiration: I might read a favorite passage, say, the epilogue to A. S. Byatt’s Possession, or a random page of Bleak House. But I’m actually much more likely to read poetry—Yeats, Eliot, Auden, e.e.

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H. L. Hix

2.25.09

“I find it easier to follow form to content than content to form (forgive the false dilemma), which means I depend on discovering an essential rather than an accidental relationship between the two

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Martha Ronk

2.9.09

“Baffled by my obsession with writing about objects both in poetry and fiction, I discovered The Tears of Things: Melancholy and Physical Objects by Peter Schwenger.

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Rishi Reddi

1.30.09

“When I despair about my work, I dig out a book that I discovered years ago in college: Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write.

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Adam Braver

1.26.09

“Go to a museum. Not to find ideas or to seek inspiration from what hangs on the walls, rather to be in a place that’s purpose is for responding to art and artistic thought.

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