25 Authors and the Authors they Draw Inspiration From
25 Authors and the Authors they Draw Inspiration From for National Author's Day
Mag Dimond
Joan Didion … She is a language master, an observer with a keen eye for what is true and real on the physical, psychological, and social level. Her word mastery takes my breath away. When you read an essay of hers, you inhabit her mind, you get to know this keenly intelligent, sensitive, and often comic personality. Hers is a mind you can trust, always. As a writer who loves sensory detail and the telling of the truth, I’m right at home in her essays. Ever since Slouching Towards Bethlehem, that landmark collection of pieces published in the late 60’s, I have paid attention to the wisdom of her observations.
A. J. Banner
I draw inspiration from many authors and from different authors at different times. Recently, I was inspired by ALL THE NAMES THEY USED FOR GOD by Anjali Sachdeva. Lauren Groff’s short story collection, FLORIDA, is pushing me to pay attention to every sentence. I’m also re-reading THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood.
Lori B. Duff
Truly it depends on the day. I want to make people laugh like David Sedaris, Jenny Lawson, and Dave Barry do. There’s not enough laughter in the world.
Sherry Thomas
So many. From Laura Kinsale I learned to write scenes in which nothing much seems to happen yet are fraught and tense. My love of using photographs to evoke emotions in my books probably comes from having read THE BLIND ASSASSIN by Margaret Atwood. And since I’m writing Sherlock Holmes pastiche, obviously I’m drawing on Arthur Conan Doyle and all the terrific writers who have interpreted Sherlock Holmes in their own manner, most notably Laurie R. King, who made me want to write my own Sherlock Holmes take in the first place.
Katey Schultz
One writer I always carry close to my heart is Claire Davis, whose short story collection, Labors of the Heart accomplishes everything in one book that I could hope to accomplish in a lifetime. Also, Aimee Bender for her unassuming, whipsmart, witty worldviews. Louise Erdrich for her humor and unapologetic, wholesome, emotional beats. Stuart Dybek for his proof that people and place inherently make each other. Michael Cunningham for a few of his sentences that do cartwheels. And most recently, Peter Ho Davies for “telling it slant” in The Fortunes.
Gill Paul
Hazel Gaynor. I love everything she writes, from novels to social media posts.
Anne Leigh Parrish
Oh, there are SO many! Virginia Woolf; Flannery O’Connor; Eudora Welty; Alice Munro – please note that these are all women!
Deborah Crombie
Lately, I am in love with Kate Atkinson. I’m starting the Jackson Brodie books over from the beginning and reading Life After Life.
Nicola Moriarty
Marian Keyes – I love her incredible sense of humor and her raw honesty.
Holly Peterson
Truman Capote for his “show don’t tell” genius in Breakfast at Tiffany’s — the first time I read it, I immediately started it again and read it again.
Kristín Eiríksdóttir
The first name that comes to mind is Alice Munro. I can barely finish her stories, because they are so rewarding, and always make me want to start writing myself.
Zoe Fishman
Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, Jami Attenberg, Nora Ephron
Ames Sheldon
Barbara Kingsolver
Bella Ellis
I know it is going to sound contrived, but honestly I get so much inspiration from the Brontë sisters, particularly Charlotte. I love the passion and drive in her books, and thanks to her letters we know so much about her as an author, her insecurities and uncertainties, resilience and determination. I love Emily’s freedom, her disregard for convention, the noise and music in her writing, and I love Anne’s rebellious nature, her strong ideas and courage to write about what mattered to her, not what was considered appropriate.
John Marrs
As a boy, I grew up obsessed with the Hardy Boys books, and wanted to write like their author, Franklin W Dixon. It was only as an adult that I learned he didn’t exist, he was a conglomerate of writers! So can I be greedy and pick two authors who actually exist instead? I am a huge fan of Peter Swanson. No two books of his are alike. He is not afraid to take risks, explore the darker side of human nature yet makes his characters relatable. And for me, Gillian Flynn is a fearless and innovative writer. Her stories both fascinate and scare the living daylights out of me.
Elizabeth Ames
Toni Morrison, whose work I’m rereading upon learning the news that we’ve lost her. We all stand in her tremendous shadow, and in her light. It’s hard to fathom how one person was able to do so much with and for the form of the novel, and then also give us so much in the way of more workaday inspiration—how to be a person in the world. Jesmyn Ward inspires me in this way as well. Both women, in addition to being extraordinary writers and thinkers, have been clear about writing for black audiences. While their work is not for me, I need it—we all do. So taking inspiration from them is indeed a tall order, but their art invites more art, and more artful lives.
Katherine Center
It’s a toss up between Jane Austen and Nora Ephron. I imprinted on them both early and will never let go.
Karen Kelly
Shakespeare. With every line I write, I’m thinking: Is there a briefer, cleverer, more incisive, or more original way to say this? Shakespeare is the apotheosis of all of that. There are scads of other writers who inspire me, of course. Those at the top of the list include Nabokov and Faulkner, mainly for their fearlessness, their commitment, and their backbreaking effort.
Wendy Wax
All of them. Like most authors I know, I’m a voracious and eclectic reader. I draw inspiration from everyone I read. (Including longtime critique partners Karen White and Susan Crandall whose books I read as they’re being written.) I have great admiration for anyone who can not only conceive but complete a novel, and I’m grateful to every author who’s sucked me in on page one and refused to let go.
Armando Lucas Correa
I've always been obsessed with historical events that no one talks about, those events people want to file away and forget. First was the tragedy of the MS Saint Louis that, thanks to my Cuban grandmother, I first heard about as a kid. When I started researching what happened aboard the Saint Louis —and to the passengers who were sent to France after Cuba, the U.S., and Canada denied them entry— I found this idyllic post card from Oradour-sur-Glane, a small town in Haute Vienne, close to Limoges, France. One day during the war, the Nazis arrived there, locked up all the women and children in a church, and set them on fire, alive. They shot the men and tried to erase that town from the face of the Earth. In this genocide, directed by the Nazi SS, members of the French army participated as well.
Laura Kalpakian
Two books that left me dazzled from the first time I read them, and have rewarded me every time I’ve returned are Scott Fitzgerald’s THE GREAT GATSBY and Virginia Woolf’s TO THE LIGHTHOUSE.
Elizabeth Letts
One? You’ve gotta be kidding. Here’s a partial list. Contemporary writers— Anne Tyler and Kent Haruf, classics— Hardy, Dickens, and Edith Wharton, poets, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. And of course the inimitable L. Frank Baum.
Elin Hilderbrand
Jane Smiley, Lorrie Moore, Toni Morrison
Sophie Jordan
There are so many! When I first started writing historical romances, I was a huge Johanna Lindsey fan. She definitely inspired me. Currently, there are so many historical romance authors that are breathing new life into the genre: Sarah MacLean, Joanna Shupe and Lisa Berne.
Maureen Callahan
Christopher Hitchens. Question everything and everyone, even Mother Teresa.
