Writers

Holiday

Gifts For Wordsmiths and Aspiring Novelists

Can you believe it's almost December?

Can you believe it's almost December? And ready or not, the holiday season is in the air — Starbucks red cups, twinkling Christmas lights, and all. We've got holiday shopping on the brain, so we're sharing a roundup of gifts for the writers in your life. After all, November is National Novel Writing Month, so if you know any aspiring novelists who need a little nudge to get pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), these gifts could inspire a future Jane Austen. No matter what kind of writer they are, these novel gift ideas are sure to cure a case of writer's block — check them out now!

Books

10 Famous Unfinished Novels

Yesterday it was confirmed that Stieg Larsson's fourth book for the Millennium series (aka, the next Twilight) exists.
Unfinished Novels

Yesterday it was confirmed that Stieg Larsson's fourth book for the Millennium series (aka, the next Twilight) exists. He planned to make the series a total of 10 books before his 2004 death, but, as we now know, he did not get halfway through. He's not the first author to expire before wrapping up a project. Here are 10 unfinished books that were either published as found or edited for consumption by fellow writers.

Source: Flickr User hathu-

Books

Favorite Women Writers of the '00s

Each month we bring you the best new books with the Must Reads, but we rarely talk about the writers behind them.
Favorite Women Writers of the '00s

Each month we bring you the best new books with the Must Reads, but we rarely talk about the writers behind them. Check out some of our favorite contemporary female writers of the decade, and vote on your favorite at the end.

Don't forget to check out the rest of our Best of Decade and Best of 2009 coverage, and defend your favorites in our Best of 2009 group!


Art

The Significant Objects Project, Or, How to Sell Stuff on eBay

What makes an object significant, and possibly valuable?

What makes an object significant, and possibly valuable? Some writers wagered that it's the story behind the object, and they set out to test their theory.

The Significant Objects Project pairs writers with an object and asks them to write a fictional story about it, with the belief it will then become significant to someone. Significance, in this case, means that someone would be moved to buy the object on eBay.

If you'd like to read the description story that accompanied the smiley face mug's auction on eBay and to find out its final price (it started at one dollar), read more

Alcohol

Have Cafe Novelists Replaced Boozin' Writers?

In the past, the writer's life was often a lush life.

In the past, the writer's life was often a lush life. Many great American novelists — including Ernest Hemingway and John Cheever — were notorious drunks. In fact, according to an article by Tom Shone in the new issue of More Intelligent Life, five of America's seven Nobel literary laureates were alcoholics:

In America William Faulkner and Scott Fitzgerald were the Paris and Britney of their day, caught in the funhouse mirror of fame, their careers a vivid tabloid mash-up of hospitalizations and electroshock therapies.

Rehab wasn't something people did back in the '30s. Neither was recovery-centric memoir writing. When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a story for Esquire chronicling his struggles, Hemingway told him to cast his "balls into the sea—if you have any balls left."

Ever since rehab went mainstream in the 1960s, Shone observes, the boozing writer stereotype is less typical. Both Cheever and Raymond Carver came out of rehab and kept writing; Stephen King got sober after an intervention. So where have all the overindulgent writers gone?