Colum McCann on Facing the Terror of the Blank Page
The award-winning author discusses the poetry of Wendell Berry, and the importance of abandoning yourself to mystery.
By Heart
Authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature.
When a Writer’s Great Freedom Lies in Constraint
The memoirist Melissa Febos discusses how an Annie Dillard essay, “Living Like Weasels,” helped refocus her life after overcoming addiction.
The Peculiar Power of a Zadie Smith Sentence
Dissecting a line from the author’s story “The Embassy of Cambodia,” Jonathan Lee questions his own myopia as a novelist.
George Saunders on Chekhov's Different Visions of Happiness
The Lincoln in the Bardo author dissects the Russian writer’s masterful meditations on beauty and sorrow in the short story “Gooseberries,” and explains the importance of questioning your stance while writing.
The Key to Writing a Mystery Is Asking the Perfect Question
The veteran author John Rechy discusses the powerful enigma of William Faulkner and the beauty of the unsolved narrative.
Finding Meaning in Going Nowhere
Ottessa Moshfegh, the author of the novel Eileen, opens up about coping with depression, how writing saved her life, and finding solace in an overlooked song.
Opening Paragraphs Don’t Always Have to Be Exciting
The author Emily Ruskovich discusses the uncanny restraint of Alice Munro and the art of starting a short story.
Making Art at the Painful Margins
What the violent suffering in Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot taught the author Laurie Sheck about finding inspiration in torment and illness
Writing With Infinite Pity
The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon discusses what he learned about empathy from Borges’s “The Aleph.”
When Novels Frustrate, and Enthrall
Franz Kafka’s work taught the writer Jonathan Lethem about how to incorporate chaos into narratives.