After we shared our list of the fifty most inspiring authors in the world, we asked our readers to add their favorites. Culled from the responses on pw.org and our Facebook page, here are the results:
| Kim Addonizio | Beckian Fritz Goldberg | Alice Munro |
| Sherman Alexie | Peter Handke | Cees Nooteboom |
| Aharon Appelfeld | Joy Harjo | Naomi Shihab Nye |
| Suzanna Arundhati Roy | Jim Harrison | Mary Oliver |
| Margaret Atwood | Seamus Heaney | Michael Ondaatje |
| Paul Auster | Mark Helprin |
Robert Pinsky |
| Nicholson Baker | Alice Hoffman | Sheenagh Pugh |
| Russell Banks | bell hooks | Adrienne Rich |
| Wendell Berry | Michel Houellebecq | Marilyn Robinson |
| Eric Bogosian | Eduardo Hughes Galeano |
Richard Rodriguez |
| Ray Bradbury | John Irving |
Philip Roth |
| J. M. G. Le Clézio | Kazuo Ishiguro | Carlos Ruiz Zafón |
| Lucille Clifton | Denis Johnson | Scott Russell Sanders |
| Evan Shelby Connell | Edward P. Jones | George Saunders |
| Dennis Cooper | Mary Karr | Ruth Schwartz |
| Wendy Cope | Jamaica Kincaid | Tom Sharpe |
| Edwidge Danticat | Barbara Kingsolver | Joan Silber |
| Marie Darrieussecq | Milan Kundera | Charles Simic |
| Annie Dillard | Jhumpa Lahiri |
José de Sousa Saramago |
| Rita Dove | Wally Lamb |
Mark Strand |
| John Dufresne | Anne Lamott |
Elizabeth Strout |
| Peter Everwine | Li-Young Lee |
Natasha Trethewey |
| Lillian Faderman | Ursula K. Le Guin |
Anne Tyler |
| Neil Gaiman | Jan Heller Levi | William T. Vollmann |
| William H. Gass | Larry McMurtry |
Alice Walker |
| Amy Gerstler | W. S. Merwin |
Rebecca Walker |
| Ellen Gilchrist | Steven Millhauser | Terry Tempest Williams |
| Nikki Giovanni |
Patrick Modiano |
Josef Winkler |
| Natalie Goldberg | Lorrie Moore |
Franz Wright |
| Dean Young |
