Writers' stories

Kazuo Ishiguro, the winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize for Literature, transports us to a realm where public history and private memory create both harmony and dissonance. In his novels, public and private realms intermingle - and in their intricate intermingling, and delicate tension, lies Ishiguro's enduring appeal. He is a writer of unfettered imagination and undeterred ambition.  Read more

Whether you are an indie author struggling to get discovered, a well-known traditionally published writer, or somewhere in between, writer's block may sneak up on you once in a while-maybe even more than once in a while.

Leslye Penelope says she found refuge in writing as a child: "Writing was always my way to make sense of the world. I was an extremely shy child, but I had this creative outlet where I could really run wild." The Maryland-based author's earliest influences included the classic work of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Jane Austen.  Read more

I stumbled upon my literary fairy godmother, Lynne Tillman, in college. During our first meeting I took a deep breath, puffed out my chest and said, "I want to be a writer."  Read more

Barbara Kingsolver says that people often get her titles wrong. "Once a TV interviewer asked me how writing The Beans of Egypt, Maine has affected my life," she recalls. "I was able to say honestly, ‘Not at all!' " That's of course because the interviewer mistook Kingsolver's 1988 novel The Bean Trees for a novel by Carolyn Chute.  Read more