Writers like myself are a ubiquitous lot, as a visit to any Starbucks makes clear, but my experience suggests that non-writers know relatively little about the profession. Indeed, while many Americans ...

Write the name of a place (house, spot in nature, work, restaurant, etc.) at the top of your paper, and then do a stream-of-consciousness writing about that place and see what bubbles up. Pick a ...

It might seem that writers live pretty safe lives. Yes, there are some, mostly journalists, who immerse themselves in troubled and war-torn countries, and they can and do get hurt. But most of us who ...

Humans spend a lot of their waking hours avoiding thoughts of our inevitable end. That’s probably for the best, since dwelling on your death is a morbid exercise. But, it turns out, it’s also a very ...

Today’s guest on "Poetry from Daily Life" is Scot Young, who grew up in Raytown, Missouri before settling in Ozark County. He has been writing since his junior and high school days. Scot says he ...

Writers get their inspiration from all sorts of places — real life, current events, favorite books, other writers, their own imagination, and more recently: podcasts. Podcasts about writing have been ...

Yiyun Li’s prose is lean and intense, and her ideas about books and writing are wholly original. Read the essays gathered in “Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life” and you’ll be left ...

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This story comes from Life Kit, NPR's podcast with tools to help you get it together. To listen to this episode, play the audio at the top of the page or find it here. It's kind of a truism that ...