Vintage Shorts Writing Selections

In this chapter from his classic instructive handbook, The Art of Fiction, John Gardner illustrates the principles and techniques of good writing.  Exemplified with detailed excerpts from classic works of literature, Gardner explores how to achieve vivid, sensuous prose and how to avoid clumsy writing.

To the enormous challenges of being a writer, Anne Lamott offers invaluable advice and encouragement, which more than a million scribes and scribblers of all ages and abilities have been inspired by for a quarter century. In this selection from her essential volume, Bird by Bird, Lamott tenderly recommends and outlines the qualities that every writer should learn to hone: intuition, attention, morality, and more.

Becoming a first-class noticer is crucial to any creative process, but perhaps it is particularly crucial for a writer. In the era of white noise, when the ability to be present is often lost, Rob Walker’s provocations and exercises will enchant and delight, and help writers of all stripes develop an original point of view.

Susan Sontag read voraciously. Alexander Pope wrote “Imitations of English Poets.” Henri Poincaré sought distraction from the mathematical problems that occupied his mind. In these and other fascinating case studies, bestselling author Oliver Sacks seeks answers to the question of how creativity can be kindled and encouraged in a person’s life.

Taking us through his journey as a novelist and as a reader, Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk explores, with extraordinary insight, what constitutes what he calls “the center” of a work of fiction. Looking to works by writers as varied as Herman Melville and Virginia Woolf among many others, Pamuk examines the deeper reaches that emerge when we, as writers and readers, suspend our judgments and search for meaning inside the pages of a book, encouraging us all to do the same.