One Way to Keep Writing: 'Remember Death'
Russell Banks's biggest inspiration isn't another author—it's a gravestone inscription lurking near his desk.
By Heart
Authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature.
The 'Stubborn Gladness' of Elizabeth Gilbert's Favorite Poet
The Eat, Pray, Love author celebrates the late Jack Gilbert, whose works challenge readers to find joy within suffering.
Should Literature Be Personal or Political?
Bob Shacochis confronts the tension between exploring the everyday "frivolity" of our private worlds and making broad statements about the one we share.
'Stephen King Saved My Life'
Young-adult novelist Robin Wasserman says the famous horror writer empowered her as a teen reader by capturing the uneasy teenage phase between childhood and adulthood.
The Poem That Made Sherman Alexie Want to 'Drop Everything and Be a Poet'
Alexie never thought he could leave his reservation to pursue a writing career—but a line written by Adrian C. Louis taught him to venture outside the "reservation of his mind."
The Case for Writing a Story Before Knowing How It Ends
Andre Dubus III, author of Dirty Love and The House of Sand and Fog, explains why the best work happens when you "back the fuck off."
Jonathan Franzen on the 19th-Century Writer Behind His Internet Skepticism
His new book translates works by Karl Kraus, whose misgivings toward progress mirror Franzen's belief that technology can be "very harmful" to artistic production.
'How Dare It Make Me Feel So Much': The Spell of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Author Ron Carlson was an unassuming, baseball-playing college student until a Fitzgerald story turned him into an impassioned English-major library vandal.
'Think About Characters Like a Sphere': How John Cheever Wrote Inner Turmoil
Novelist Paul Harding explains what Cheever's short story "The Jewels of the Cabots" taught him about portraying humans' contradictory impulses.
Two Tacos for A Moveable Feast: A Writer's Life-Changing Barter in Tijuana
In 1972, Daniel Woodrell traded part of his lunch for a copy of Ernest Hemingway's posthumous novel. After he read it, he became determined to be a writer.