Anne Enright’s Finest 10 Tips for Writing Fiction

In this humble offering before the next longer post, author Anne Enright, who was named the inaugural Laureate for Irish Fiction, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for her novel, The Forgotten Waltz, and won the Man Booker Prize for her novel, The Gathering, shares ten writing tips gleaned from her fiction writing […]

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Madeleine L’Engle on the 3 Most Important Things for Writers

“I have advice for people who want to write. I don’t care whether they’re 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think […]

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Anais Nin on June Miller—& a Rare Radio Interview

“Words and certain languages and certain rhythms belong to certain personalities — the writing takes on the color of the certain personality that I describe.” ~ Anaïs Nin Listen to a rare interview with Anaïs Nin Frank Roberts of KPFK radio interviews Anaïs Nin, following the publication of the first volume of her eponymous diary in 1966. […]

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Henry Miller on Art, Creation & Change

The artist is never defending art, but simply his own petty conception of art. Art is as deep and high and wide as the universe. #Art is as deep and high and wide as the universe. —Henry Miller Click To Tweet There is nothing but art, if you look at it properly. It is almost […]

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Sarah Waters on being disciplined

“Treat writing as a job. Be disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch, then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly, like […]

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8 Ways to Reignite Your Passion for Writing and Write [Even If You Don’t Feel Like It]

In a brilliant interview in The Paris Review, E. B. White said, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” To allow the seeds of inspiration grow into tiny shoots and push through the soil, like the magnificent miracles they are, you need to metaphorically water them […]

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Annie Dillard on How Reading Can Inspire Us with Wisdom, Courage, and the Possibility of Meaningfulness

“Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is […]

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