LibGuides: Creative Writing Guide: Inspiration

Print Sources: Inspiration

The Next American Essay by John D'Agata, ed.
A diverse, idiosyncratic anthology of creative nonfiction.
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
A classic memoir of the day-to-day experience of observing and writing.
The Situation and the Story: the Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick
In this short book, Gornick discusses the nuances of writing memoirs and essays.
On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
King's modern classic is both a memoir of his coming of age as a writer, and a one-stop shop for learning the basics of writing: memorable characters, well-crafted prose, nuanced description.
Fiction and the Figures of Life by William H. Gass
ISBN: 0879232544
In his essays, Gass considers language, style, and the philosophy of writing fiction.
Writers on Writing: the Art of the Short Story by Maurice A. Lee, ed.
An anthology of writers discussing their methods, their lives and what short fiction means to them.
The Paris Review Interviews by The Paris Review, ed.
For years the Paris Review has been conducting in-depth interviews with writers who range from poets to novelists and dramatists. This recent series collects the best of these interviews in book form.
Reading Like a Writer: a Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose
With devoted attention, Prose reads through a wide range of books, stories and individual sentences to discover their lessons for the writer in such categories as "narration, "character," "gesture."