Mahtem Shiferraw
Writing poetry for me is an act of collecting. It requires me to be in a state of total surrender, to be able to listen where I haven’t before, to take notice of the silences around me.
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.
Karisma Price
Poetry can be serious work. When writing my debut collection, I’m Always So Serious, soul and blues music became their own characters in the collection
Christine Hume
Writing Everything I Never Wanted to Know almost entirely in the hellish eternity of the T%&*! Years—where the daily feed of sexual violence, finally widely recognized, became layered eventually into other (medical and social) epidemics—sometimes seized me with an untouchable despair
Maria Dong
For me, writing often doesn’t feel that great; in the space between flashes of inspiration is me swearing at my manuscript and regretting my life choices. Struggle is normal, but when I have several difficult drafting days in a row, it means it’s time to step back and reassess.
Emmanuel Iduma
I keep a Leica V-LUX 5 and an Olympus OM20 on my desk, and I use either camera depending on the extent to which I am in stasis with my writing.
Michal ‘MJ’ Jones
It’s not clear in my memory which love came first—writing or music—but the pair are inextricably linked in a creative process which layers like melody and harmony.
Kathryn Ma
Reading novels by the bucketload is why I became a writer, but it can be limiting when I’m trying to write. I live in danger of overanalyzing instead of feeling my way through the act of writing, down blind corridors that might lead to an undiscovered tomb or a passageway to the sea.
Janine Joseph
In late 2008, I survived a traffic collision while stopped at a red light. I have no memory of that night, and spotty memories of my life before, though I know the accident—and traumatic brain injury I sustained—changed me and my writing process.
Vanessa A. Bee
I have found that when I am uninspired or dissatisfied with a project’s structure, the key to unlocking my brain is almost always to consume great writing by other people. If I am feeling lucky, I reach out for whatever literary fiction is sitting on my nightstand.
Janice Obuchowski
When writing, I can get lost in my thoughts, which feels metaphorically like darkness: I can’t see my way forward; I feel hemmed in. Most often, my answer is to get outside. I need the counterbalance of movement, light, open air.