Glenn Taylor
“As Jerome Washington wrote, 'The blues is our antidote.’ So I listen. Blues doctors like Neal Pattman inspire something in a writer’s blood. Anyone who can play harmonica like he can, with one arm no less, will get me going.
Writers Recommend
In this online exclusive we ask authors to share books, art, music, writing prompts, films—anything and everything—that has inspired them in their writing. We see this as a place for writers to turn to for ideas that will help feed their creative process.
Travis Nichols
“To get my mind ready for writing, I try to sit quietly and stare at nothing for ten minutes.
Sonia Sanchez
“José Martí wrote, ‘In the world there must be certain degrees of honor just as there must be certain degrees of light.
Brad Watson
“I’ve figured out things that were stonewalling me during cross-country drives, and usually when I’m trying to pull an all-nighter to avoid traffic and get there in less time—maybe it’s all the caffeine and the mesmerizing white lines in the middle of the road.
Porochista Khakpour
“Nothing inspires me like the imagination in a vacuum. I always pick the most closet-like, even coffin-like, space in the house for my writing room. No windows, no photos, no ‘stuff.’ I never play any music, I don’t have an inspiration board, I disable the internet, and the cell is always off.
Robert Vivian
“More and more my foremost, abiding desire is to write books of a surpassing strangeness, and to do this I’ve had to hold closely to Joyce's famous adage of silence, cunning, and exile every day.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
“These are the things that make me want to be a better writer: the desert sky, the dust storms, the smell of rain, the river that is no longer a river but a border—my entire landscape; the violence that is killing the city of Juárez; opening William Faulkner’s Absalom!
Molly Brodak
“For inspiration, I love to go to old, junky antique shops—which there are a lot of here in the South, thankfully—and hunt for a box of old postcards and photos.
Brian Culhane
“I write to solo piano music (recently I’ve been listening to Edvard Grieg’s Lyric Pieces). Then I pick up something close to hand and see what strikes me.
Khadijah Queen
“I recommend finding time to write every single day, even when you don’t feel inspired.