writing well

An essay is not the process of translating a fully-formed idea into words on a page; it is the process of discovering and testing an idea by challenging it with form, syntax, structure.

The root of the word essay comes from the French essayer, meaning “to try.”

“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.”

Poetry gives the griever not release from grief but companionship in grief.

Didion has defined a writer as “a person whose most absorbed and passion ate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. I write entirely to find out what’s on my mind, what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I’m seeing and what it means, what I want and what I’m afraid of.” She has also said that “all writing is an attempt to find out... See more

He said that what’s wonderful about poetry is that it tells you things that you’ve already known.

Remnick does not dispute her account. “I think I would be happy if Judith Thurman wanted to write next about the National Football League,” he explained to me in an email. “The point is, I love reading her on whatever moves her, and she is a woman of parts, of wide-ranging interests and sensibility, a deep reader of literature, someone with a keen... See more

Bring them into a world. Give them a reason to stay.