I wanted to throw my arms around this dotty old bat in her George Bernard Shaw costume and hug her until her juices ran out.

Every once in a bestseller list, you come across a truly exceptional craftsman, a wordsmith so adept at cutting, shaping, and honing strings of words that you find yourself holding your breath while those words...

I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.”[Letter to J. Beauchamp Jones, August 8, 1839]

In truly good writing no matter how many times you read it you do not know how it is done. That is beacause there is a mystery in all great writing and that mystery does...

You become a great writer by writing lots and lots of stories, not by rewriting the same story over and over again.

There are books full of great writing that don’t have very good stories. Read sometimes for the story… don’t be like the book-snobs who won’t do that. Read sometimes for the words–the language. Don’t be...