On writing
The Best Essay
paulgraham.com
Follow the link in our bio to read our Art of Fiction interview with Shirley Hazzard in issue no. 173 (Spring 2005).
instagram.comThere’s a wonderful letter Chekhov wrote to his brother Alexander about the meaning of grace, how grace is when you make the least number of movements between two points – and that type of athletic prose has always appealed to me, coupled with light-handedness and restraint. Elegance, to me, is writing just enough. And, as James Baldwin said, in hi
... See moreBooks are disruptors. Books are questions. I’m not talking about How To Manuals that pretend to give us answers. I’m talking about the noisy row that breaks out in our heads when we have to think past ourselves
Books Because...
Jeanette
Poetry likes that kind of intelligence. Poetry likes the rhythms of your body and the movements of your body. I realized that, for me as a poet, the more physical intelligence I could put in my poems, the better they were.
That’s because the one thing we have in common is the same body. We have hearts and lungs, and the kind of rhythms of living are... See more
That’s because the one thing we have in common is the same body. We have hearts and lungs, and the kind of rhythms of living are... See more
Ted Gioia • How to Write
Ted Gioia
I learned something when I came here. I'll be working on something, and I'll come to an impasse. I'll say, “I don't know where this poem is going.” Or let's say I'm writing the libretto for an opera, and I won't know what these two characters are going to do.
I'll go out and I'll prune a tree for an hour, cut away the dead wood—and things like that.... See more
I'll go out and I'll prune a tree for an hour, cut away the dead wood—and things like that.... See more
Ted Gioia • How to Write
Ted Gioia
