The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Search results for “advice for writers”

Queer Kids’ Endearing Letters to Judy Blume and Her Timeless Advice to Their Parents
Queer Kids’ Endearing Letters to Judy Blume and Her Timeless Advice to Their Parents

Warm wisdom from the beloved author to console on one of life’s deepest sources of isolation.

read article

How to Master on the Art of Getting Noticed: Austin Kleon’s Advice to Aspiring Artists
How to Master on the Art of Getting Noticed: Austin Kleon’s Advice to Aspiring Artists

How to balance the contagiousness of raw enthusiasm with the humility of knowing we’re all in this together.

read article

Advice from Artists on How to Overcome Creative Block, Handle Criticism, and Nurture Your Sense of Self-Worth
Advice from Artists on How to Overcome Creative Block, Handle Criticism, and Nurture Your Sense of Self-Worth

Mastering the balance of restriction and imaginative play, or why unbridling your self-worth from your professional success is essential for happiness.

read article

John Updike on How to Have a Productive Daily Routine, and the Most Important Things Aspiring Writers Should Know
John Updike on How to Have a Productive Daily Routine, and the Most Important Things Aspiring Writers Should Know

“In a country this large and a language even larger … there ought to be a living for somebody who cares and wants to entertain and instruct a reader.”

read article

Great Writers Reflect on the Divide Between Private Person and Public Persona in Hand-Drawn Self-Portraits
Great Writers Reflect on the Divide Between Private Person and Public Persona in Hand-Drawn Self-Portraits

“Only the crazed and the privileged permit themselves the luxury of disintegration into more than one self.”

read article

Anthony Trollope’s Witty and Wise Advice on How to Be a Successful Writer
Anthony Trollope’s Witty and Wise Advice on How to Be a Successful Writer

“My belief of book writing is much the same as my belief as to shoemaking. The man who… will work with the most honest purpose, will work the best.”

read article

The Distracted Public: Saul Bellow on How Writers and Artists Save Us from the “Moronic Inferno” of Our Time
The Distracted Public: Saul Bellow on How Writers and Artists Save Us from the “Moronic Inferno” of Our Time

“The writer cannot make the seas of distraction stand still, but he [or she] can at times come between the madly distracted and the distractions.”

read article

The Six Motives of Creativity: Mary Gaitskill on Why Writers Write
The Six Motives of Creativity: Mary Gaitskill on Why Writers Write

The art of integrating the ego and the impulse for empathy in a dynamic call and response.

read article

How to Be a Writer: Hemingway’s Advice to Aspiring Authors
How to Be a Writer: Hemingway’s Advice to Aspiring Authors

“As a writer you should not judge. You should understand.”

read article

Naomi Wolf’s Spectacular, No-Bullshit Letter of Advice to Her Younger Self
Naomi Wolf’s Spectacular, No-Bullshit Letter of Advice to Her Younger Self

“Don’t gossip; it makes you untrustworthy. . . . Kindness is everything.”

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Bookshop.org and Amazon.com affiliate programs, designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to books. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book from a link here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)