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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A. L. Kennedy’s 10 Rules for Writing Fiction

A. L. Kennedy’s 10 Rules for Writing Fiction These writing tips were gleaned from an interview A. L. Kennedy gave to the Guardian. Writer and performer, Alison Louise “A. L.” Kennedy is the author of 17 books: 6 literary novels, 1 science fiction novel, 7 short story collections, and 3 works of non-fiction. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and […]

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10 Brilliant Tips for Writing Fiction Inspired by Famous Authors

Discover Your Story in the Act of Writing It’s natural to want to know where your story is headed or at the very least, know that you are not wasting your time — especially on something as grand as the first draft of a novel — but it’s not always easy to relinquish control and let the act of writing itself discover your story. Yet often it is in doing […]

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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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Juice Bar | What to Eat to Keep Calm & Creative

Following on from last week’s post, find calm equilibrium with these nutritional tips for stressed out creatives. Writers and artists aren’t necessarily known for their healthy dietary habits. Honore de Balzac famously consumed as many as 50 cups of coffee every day. Andy Warhol was equally hooked on sugar. Alice B. Toklas published a recipe for hashish fudge. While Edvard Munch […]

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Margaret Atwood’s Ten Tips for Writers

Margaret Atwood is widely known for her award-winning book, The Handmaid’s Tale. While she is mostly known as a novelist, she has also published many volumes of poetry, including poems inspired by myths and fairytales. Here she offers writers some practical [and perhaps not-so-practical] writing  tips: 1. Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the […]

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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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