Influences

What influences you the most?

We asked writers to tell us what other writers, written works, or cultural influences effected their writing the most. The answers below show that each person is a unique reflection of all the things that make them who they are.

“Vladimir Nabokov was an inspiration, partly because he was just such a MASTER STORYTELLER and had such great command of the English language, but he also was an INSPIRATION simply because he was another non-U.S.-born writer.”

Gustavo Arellano

“I try to emulate their COURAGE and their DRIVE, and their sort of CURIOSITY with the world, if not necessarily their literary style.”

“If it’s GOOD writing, it’s just good writing, no matter WHERE it comes from.”

"The idea of kind of traveling between worlds in this kind of fluid way, but as an ADVENTURER rather than as someone who’s SUFFERING or someone who is in need—though these characters would do that as well—that was very appealing."

Dipika Mukherjee

"I grew up with this NONLINEAR way of telling stories."

"I think perhaps the most EXCITING and IMPORTANT thing about Melville is that he gave AGENCY to non-humans."

"The VIRGINIA WOOLF I carry in my head, I wanted to write a book that I could SHOW to HER."

"As a woman one of the writers who was EXTREMELY IMPORTANT for my development as a person and as a writer is Fatema Mernissi, who’s this WONDERFUL public INTELLECTUAL from Morocco."

"As a kid I was just reading stuff and causing TROUBLE in my house as a result of the BOOKS I was reading."

"There's a way of tackling that PROBLEM as an immigrant writer which is to ADMIT to yourself that you're never gonna quite be able to PASS YOURSELF off as an American, and then ask yourself, well what am I gonna do about that stylistically."

"I love that they’ve dedicated their lives to the PERFECTION of this one form."

Edwidge Danticat

"Haiti has a VERY STRONG cultural lineage."

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