Category Archives: non-fiction

“I’ve sometimes wondered whether novelists like to be remembered for what they’ve said or because they’ve said it in their own particular way – in their own distinctive voice.”

Posted on April 3, 2024 by Kate Stover

In 1978, the BBC invited Barbara Pym to be a guest on its program where well-known writers discussed their work. Her views on the “distinctive voice” of a writer was of particular interest: in the 1960s, her publisher declined her … Continue reading →

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“You have to give yourself the space to write a lot without a destination.”

Posted on March 28, 2024 by Kate Stover

After winning the UK’s most prestigious writing award, this Irish novelist was asked which books had influenced her most. She said she loved Writing Down the Bones because it told her to “just have a go and see what comes … Continue reading →

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“When people write reviews, they are really writing a kind of memoir – here’s what my experience was eating at this restaurant or getting my hair cut at this barbershop.”

Posted on February 29, 2024 by Kate Stover

Is this book a memoir? The title – The Anthropocene Reviewed and the subtitle Essays on a Human-Centered Planet — offer no clues. However, in the introduction, the author says that he wants to tell us stories about his life … Continue reading →

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“In 1848 William and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia, embarked on a five-thousand-mile journey of mutual self-emancipation across the world.”

Posted on February 21, 2024 by Kate Stover

How does a writer create suspense when the outcome of the real-life story is already known? This book excels at keeping readers at the edge of their seats. How? Woo did a “staggering amount” of research to learn the sensory … Continue reading →

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“Part of these essays probably are rooted in genuine recollections, but how, in the circumstances, can we trust anything that he [John Forster] says in them?”

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Kate Stover

But how much can we trust the new conclusions drawn by this author, writing 150 years after Dickens died? That’s the question readers need to consider. Newly digitized information is now available, and the author has a Ph.D. in English … Continue reading →

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“I had lost my self-confidence where you were concerned, had traded it for a boundless sense of guilt

Posted on September 14, 2023 by Kate Stover

I’ve been thinking about Kafka’s story about turning into an insect this week, and why he would write a story about a young man who shamed his family by turning into a useless cockroach. A Czech bookstore had a book-length … Continue reading →

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“Then she leaned over and bit him hard on the cheek.”

Posted on August 31, 2023 by Kate Stover

Even though this biography of novelist Barbara Pym was picked as a “Best Book of the Year 2021” by the London Times, the Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph, I was initially reluctant to read it. I didn’t want to learn … Continue reading →

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“You make the path boldly and follow it fearfully.”

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Kate Stover

The last word of this sentence stunned me. The Annie Dillard I know is one of the boldest writers. Could she experience fear when writing? She does. She says, “In your humility, you lay down the words carefully, watching all … Continue reading →

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“Fiction . . . is not dropped like a pebble upon the ground, as science may be; fiction is like a spider’s web . . .”

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Kate Stover

Virginia Woolf continues, “attached ever so lightly, perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, seem to hang there complete by themselves.” It’s only when the web is … Continue reading →

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“When I wrote my book ‘On Writing Well,’ I had a definite model in mind. . . it was Alec Wilder’s book about music.”

Posted on June 30, 2023 by Kate Stover

A veteran of WWII, William Zinsser was one of the first to give American writers advice that might be described as “touchy-feely.” In his classic On Writing Well, he says that he is most “interested in the intangibles that produce … Continue reading →

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“Remember: Your biggest stories will often have less to do with their subject than with their significance . . .”

Posted on April 27, 2023 by Kate Stover

William Zinsser continues, “. . .not what you did in a certain situation, but how that situation affected you and shaped the person you became.” Zinsser reminds us that readers don’t want to be impressed by your accomplishments. They don’t … Continue reading →

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“His job wasn’t to recreate reality, but to immerse viewers in a kind of dream.”

Posted on March 26, 2023 by Kate Stover

When writing stories, the most important thing is to tell everything that happened, right? Well, maybe not. Hart argues that the author’s goal is not to describe the world in all its complexity.  Rather, consider the advice offered by David … Continue reading →

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“Kafka attended courses on the History of German Art, History of Architecture, History of Dutch Painting, and History of Christian Sculpture.”

Posted on February 26, 2023 by Kate Stover

Anne Tyler, John Updike, and Flannery O’Connor all made paintings and sketches in addition to writing fiction. As it turns out, so did Franz Kafka, who had a strong interest in art from his teens to his untimely death at … Continue reading →

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“Lately I’ve found myself reaching for the books of certain familiar writers, whose own zest and energy offer some kindly remedy to my condition.”

Posted on December 22, 2022 by Kate Stover

Perhaps you can relate to this: while I enjoy the holidays, I also am running low on the “zest and energy” that Mary Oliver describes in this essay. Her solution to this problem is to reconnect with familiar writers. Her … Continue reading →

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“Observe, observe perpetually.”

Posted on November 30, 2022 by Kate Stover

More than 400 years ago, Michel de Montaigne of France invented a new literary tradition of close inward observation. “It is a thorny undertaking,” he writes, “to follow a movement so wandering as that of our mind.” Scholars, such as … Continue reading →

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