The best young writers are convinced they need blurbs from famous writers before an editor will even read the first page of a manuscript. If this is true, then the editorial system that prevails today stinks. And let's start reforming it.
Six books… my mother didn’t want books falling into my hands. It never occurred to her that I fell into the books – that I put myself inside them for safe keeping.
I don't read a lot of books that were published after 1755. One thing about having friends in New York who belong to the literary world, however, is that I have a steady stream of books coming to the house.
Creatively, most of my influences come from the literary world: Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara. Writers are my heroes.
Writing is a little door. Some fantasies, like big pieces of furniture, won’t come through.
While thoughts exist, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.
My home was in a pleasant place outside of Philadelphia. But I really lived, truly lived, somewhere else. I lived within the covers of books.
The hoary joke in the literary world, based on 'Dreams From My Father,' was that if things had worked out differently for Barack Obama, he could have made it as a writer.
Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.
Books" - Snell smiled - "are a kind of magic.
It's a delicious thing to write. To be no longer yourself but to move in an entire universe of your own creating.
Tin House magazine is a port in the storm for people who love language. It is unfailingly excellent, and committed to publishing new voices in addition to delivering freaky-fresh work from established writers.
A book is a dream that you hold in your hands.
I love to read. I remember hearing that the average author takes two years to write a book. So when I read a book, I feel like I am getting two years of life experiences.
The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.
When it's in a book I don't think it'll hurt any more ...exist any more. One of the things writing does is wipe things out. Replace them.
I will not allow people to impose rules on me that don't make sense to me. And I live and work very much outside the literary world and the literary system. What they think and what they believe and what their rules are mean nothing to me.
I was alone as a child. I lived in fairytales, adventures, Shakespeare. They are the friends, my books.
Hillary has already gotten a record $8 million advance from Simon & Schuster for the book -- reportedly the most anyone has ever received for rewriting history.
The literary world has to compete with YouTube, Instagram, PlayStation, Xbox, Hulu.
So much of literary sci-fi is about creating worlds that are rich and detailed and make sense at a social level. We'll create a world for people and then later present a narrative in that world.
Writing is a hard business...but nothing makes you feel better.
Books. I'd probably spend all my time alone and lost in books if I could. It's easier that way.
I think poets should work in the non-literary, non-academic world, get to know more than a workshop or a university.
I tend to prefer the shelter of fiction.
