Best Books for Writers

“Embracing a seasonal approach to your creativity can change everything, because it roots you to your own innate rhythms in a way our social media-fueled, busy-as-a-badge-of-honor culture does not,” writes Nicole Gulotta in Wild Words. Broken down into ten chapters—including “The Season of Self-Doubt,” “The Season of Listening to Your Body,” and “The Season of Finishing”—this book covers self-care rituals, personal stories, and practical routines that aid writers in embracing their craft amidst all their daily duties. Guided by an approach that “allows you the spaciousness to be exceedingly gracious with yourself,” writers can learn how to enter into a new, sustainable, and healthy relationship with their creativity. 

American Audacity, part of the Writers on Writing series, is a collection of essays examining the significant role regionalism has played in literary criticism and American literature. In the book’s three sections—Northerners, Southerners, and the Union Reconsidered—Christopher Benfey writes about authors, such as James Agee, John Dos Passos, Emma Lazarus, Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Faulkner, and Eudora Welty, and how their work is situated in the country’s literary tradition, providing an inspiring new perspective on how social identity informs an author’s work.

A student of Vonnegut’s at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop from 1965 to 1967, during a time when the teacher was finishing his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five, McConnell guides the reader through nearly everything the famous author ever said or wrote about the art and craft of writing. “Practicing an art form is a way to grow your soul,” Vonnegut said, and with rare photographs and reproductions as well as a generous offering of the novelist’s aphorisms, short essays, articles, and speeches, Pity the Reader proves the profound truth in that statement, offering insight and inspiration on every page.

In this first of two planned volumes, Lydia Davis offers her insights, analyses, and observations on craft, art, translation, and the writing life. Sections of the book include reflections and notes on the practice of writing—forms and influences, revision, writing habits—and closer looks at the work of notable authors, such as Rae Armantrout, Lucia Berlin, Jane Bowles, Gustave Flaubert, and Thomas Pynchon. Davis also examines the work of renowned visual artists and their influence on her writing.

“As a writer, I had learned the power of releasing my control of a story, of letting the words, the characters, the images, the mysterious underpinnings of a piece of prose take me in unexpected directions.” In this slender, enlightening volume, author and professor Dinty W. Moore applies concepts from Buddhism and mindfulness studies to the practice and process of creative writing. The book presents a series of illuminating quotations by writers and artists—including Anton Chekhov, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Carlos Fuentes, Ursula K. Le Guin, George Saunders, and August Wilson—followed by short meditations applying the quotes to four integral components of the writing life: initial inspiration, practicalities of process, growing as a writer, and the writer’s place in today’s world.

This anthology collects twenty-four essays by contemporary women poets whose careers were influenced by the women who came before them. Selections include Beth Ann Fennelly on Denise Duhamel, Katy Lederer on Lyn Hejinian, Aimee Nezhukumatathil on Naomi Shihab Nye, Eleni Sikelianos on Alice Notley, and Tracy K. Smith on Lucie Brock-Broido, with poems by both the mentors and mentees following the essays. The book demonstrates the powerful, varied, and complex ways in which mentorship takes form and poetic traditions move between generations and within a community.

Curated by editors Eleanor Wilner and Maurice Manning, this book of thirty-five essays—by poets such as Tony Hoagland, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Linda Gregerson, A. Van Jordan, Thomas Lux, and C. Dale Young—discusses the unexpected sources of poetic discovery, unique approaches to revision, and offers personal insights into the writing process. “The venture of this collection is to look, from the many vantages that the poets in this eclectic anthology chose to look, at what it was—knowing that a poem can’t be conceived in advance of its creation—that nevertheless helped their poems to emerge or connected them over time.”

“Making a sentence sing is a way of making others more likely to listen and ourselves more likely to be understood. A good sentence gives order to our thoughts and takes us out of our solitudes.” English professor Joe Moran provides a guide to the construction of effective sentences, covering integral considerations such as word order, nouns and verbs, plain words, and long sentences. With examples from the Bible and Shakespeare to Orwell and Diana Athill, and with support from scientific studies on what attracts readers, writers of all genres will find Moran’s tips and examples practical and helpful in developing their skills.

The Anatomy of Story, based on lessons taught in John Truby’s acclaimed screenwriting courses, is a comprehensive guide through the process of building and shaping narrative, using elements such as dialogue, symbolism, tone, and characterization to propel the story forward. The book is full of techniques and insightful anecdotes that can be applied to writers seeking to strengthen their own fiction and nonfiction storytelling skills.

“Let us go to the school of writing, where we’ll spend three school days initiating ourselves in the strange science of writing, which is a science of farewells. Of reunitings,” writes Hélène Cixous at the start of this Wellek Library Lectures series book, based on her 1990 lectures given at the University of California, Irvine. Cixous reflects on the writing process and explores three integral elements of writing: The School of the Dead (the death of something or someone which gives birth to writing), The School of Dreams (the crucial role of dreams), and The School of Roots (the importance of delving into the “nether realms”).

Former U.S. poet laureate Ted Kooser and veteran editor Steve Cox provide invaluable guidance for getting started, or restarted, with creative writing in this book designed to motivate and inspire a vigorous and pleasurable practice. Each of the nine sections consists of short, straightforward chapters focusing on every aspect of the process, including writing exercises, developing good habits, considering your reader, sensory details, revision, and practical advice about publishing.

The tenth edition of Janet Burroway’s classic 1982 book guides fiction writers of all levels through the entire creative process, with updated exemplary passages and advice from contemporary authors, and sections on current issues such as distraction, appropriation, different genres, and young adult fiction. Chapters focus on characterization, setting, plot and structure, point of view, and revision, and each closes with a list of suggested readings and writing prompts that allow for further study.