The Complete Writing Lessons

Poets, novelists, essayists, journalists, and scholars recall a piece of advice or an experience that was most helpful to their writing career.

Words of wisdom from Ralph Lombreglia, Kate Moses, Hannah Nordhaus, Aaron Sachs, Michael Katakis, Sarah Manguso, Douglas L. Wilson, Peter Turchi, Ann Hood, Christian G. Appy, George O’Brien, Graeme Wood, Dava Sobel, Joshua Davis, Robert Hellenga, M. G. Lord, Stanley Plumly, S. C. Gwynne, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Jeremy Bernstein, Ann Beattie, David Huddle, Lee Upton, Ingrid D. Rowland, Owen Gingerich, Annette Gordon-Reed, Robert Hahn, Wendy Smith, Ernest B. Furgurson, Sheila Kohler, Maud Casey, Ben Yagoda, Henry Wiencek, Paul Elie, Simon Winchester, Martha McPhee, Jeffrey Tayler, Brenda Wineapple, Ewa Hryniewicz-Yarbrough, Mary-Sherman Willis, Andrea Barrett, Howard Norman, Phyllis Rose, Michael Dirda, Fergus M. Bordewich, Rachel Hadas, Lee Sandlin, Emily Bernard, Sissela Bok, Jill McCorkle, Nathaniel Rich, Neil Shea, David Guterson, Paul Salopek, Colum McCann, Dennis McFarland, Robert Campbell, Charles Bowden, Bret Anthony Johnston, Jerome Charyn, Edith Pearlman, William S. McFeely, James McConkey, Stephen Goodwin, Witold Rybczynski, Hampton Sides, Maxine Kumin, and Pico Iyer

• Learning to Steal
• Wrong Is Right
• Forgive Yourself
• The Bookroom
• Just Jump
• Life Is Too Short
• A Book to Remember
• First, Please Yourself
• Every Story is Two Stories
• Go On
• Jump
• Lighten Up
• Go to the (Primary) Source
• Make it Happen
• Be Open to Surprise
• Show, Don’t Tell
• The Art of the Sentence
• Write What You Know
• Know What You Like—And What You Don’t
• Don’t Back Into Things
• Break the Rules
• What I Talk About When I Try To Talk About the Most Important Writing Advice I Ever Received
• A Scene of Instruction
• More Sober To Say
• Goodbye, ! ! !
• “It’s Never Too Late”
• Drawing to an Inside Straight
• Cut, Cut, Cut
• Against the Grain
• Bops and Dadgums
• Inchoate Reaching in Heartfelt Darkness
• Seven Things Writers Can Learn from Stand-up Comedians
• All Writing is Reporting
• Advice You’ll Never Outgrow
• Keep Wonder Alive
• Details, Please
• Be Bold, Be Brave
• The Odd Couple
• Writing like a Foreigner
• Emily’s Pocket
• Don’t Be Afraid to Start Over
• Writing Without Worry
• Letter to Ira Glass
• Bash It Out
• The Art of Elegant Simplicity
• The Corner
• To Feel and Keep the Eyes Open
• The 15-Second Rule
• Useful
• Greater Freedom to Write
• The Horse’s Mouth
• On Weirdness
• Learning to Let It Happen
• Taking the Plunge
• Literature as Lucha Libre
• The Art of the Doorstep
• Start Off Dead
• The Family Trade
• What I Learned and How I Learned It
• My Best Advice
• Meeting Bellow
• The Short-Story Writer’s Freedom
• Writing Means Rewriting
• How a Poem Helped Me to Write Prose
• The Zen of Short-Story Writing
• The Best Advice for Biographers
• Don’t Talk a Book Away; Just Write
• The Best Foreign Language for Writers
• The Best Writing Advice I Ever Received