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In the Inspiration Issue we present our twenty-first annual look at ten of the year’s best debut poets; craft lessons from five authors exploring genres across the literary landscape; a portfolio of Inspiration Issue covers since 2010; tips for helping you start the new year with confidence; an interview with U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze; Benjamin Percy on writing as a multi-tool; plus writing prompts, contest deadlines, writers retreats, and more.
Since 2010 we have asked graphic designers and artists to create new, surprising, and uniquely inspiring covers for the first issue of the year; in this portfolio we look back at their work.
Five acclaimed writers traverse the literary landscape, gleaning lessons from diverse genres of writing and bringing them back to bear on any work.
The award-winning writer studies how the most powerful horror stories are grounded in “deeply human dilemma,” and how daring the ghoulish can bring us closer to our characters.
Fairy tales are built on their own enchanting associative logic. A maestro of magical realism explores what writers can unlock when they let readers leap between a story’s plot points—and where such a trail of breadcrumbs can lead.
The author of Winter Counts offers a masterclass in building suspense, whether your character is planning a heist or planting a garden.
The best historical fiction “vibrates with a past that is in the present” and reveals the unseen in stories thought we knew—craft skills any writer can bring to their work.
The celebrated writer shows how science fiction’s “novums”—the futuristic or fantastical developments a writer invents in their work—can delve into philosophical questions, explore contemporary issues, and help us see worlds that are not yet real.
Ten debut poets who published in 2025, including Gbenga Adesina and Kalehua Kim, share the inspiration, advice, and writers block remedies that have sustained their literary practices.
The Depression-era Federal Writers’ Project enlisted writers to tell a nation’s stories. Now the People’s Recorder podcast explores the history of the project and its continued relevance.
The first lines of a dozen noteworthy books, including The Palace by Andrés Cerpa and The Flower Bearers by Rachel Eliza Griffiths.
Bellevue Literary Review celebrates twenty-five years of platforming creative writing about health and the world of the body.
A study in iScience found a 43 percent drop over the last twenty years in the number of Americans who report reading for pleasure daily.
Founded in Singapore in 2015 and now based in New York City, Half Mystic Press publishes two books each year that engage with music—in theme or in spirit—as well as an annual journal.
The flash fiction writer Patricia Q. Bidar highlights journals, including Ghost Parachute and Flash Frog, that embrace the shortest of short fiction and have published her work.
Based in Matanzas, Cuba, Ediciones Vigía has transformed over forty years from an informal gathering of creatives into an inventive artisan book press and publishing workshop.
The newly appointed U.S. poet laureate discusses how he learned his craft as a literary translator and his plans for promoting poetry in translation.
A writer of fiction and nonfiction forgets her laptop on a mini writing retreat and discovers new and productive paths through creativity without the constant pull of technology.
A poet recommends a three-day program to examine your writing, where you write, what you write with, and what your goals are as a way to refresh your spirit and energize your writing practice.
Write a poem that reflects on the passing of time, a story that uses anonymity to build themes of disappearance and loneliness, or a personal essay about your relationship to a specific technology.
The acclaimed fiction writer, essayist, comic book writer, and screenwriter cautions against growing too rigid in your practice and suggests kicking down some doors and using writing as a multi-tool.
When a memoirist studies her manuscript for patterns in theme and style, the symmetries she cultivates bring powerful shape to her book.
