Pope Leo, delivering his first craft talk: “Writing... is an act of truth, of revelation, for it reveals who we are, what we believe and hope for, the world we strive toward and the future of which we dream. We are never masters of the truth; if anything, it is the truth that ‘conquers’ us."

I'm spending this summer drafting my next nonfiction book: TYPO, coming soon from Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series! As part of my research, I'm collecting stories and anecdotes about memorable typos and similar errors from other writers/readers, if you'd like to contribute. More at the link!

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

One year Assistant Teaching Professor (Fiction) BGSU: come be my colleague for a year! www.schooljobs.com/careers/bgsu...

"Stay on the melody, or the idea, until it acquires a gravity—just stay with it, repeat, repeat, repeat, and something will break through." —Ethan Rutherford

"The shortest essay I ever wrote, maybe the shortest essay anyone has ever written, was 'Little Essay on Form.' It went like this: 'We build the corral as we reinvent the horse.'” —Stephen Dunn

This book has meant so much to me these past ten years, and I remain so grateful to @bossfightbooks.com editor Gabe Durham for shepherding this book through the writing process. Maybe the most an editor has ever helped/saved me! I’m excited to see it in its new skin.

"Inspiration is an ongoing, continuing process in the composition of a book. One doesn't, for example, plot a joke. Like a lot of what happens in novels, inspiration is a sort of spontaneous combustion—the oily rags of the head and heart." —Stanley Elkin

"[A book is one way] of codifying and keeping human knowledge. When it cannot be kept in a person’s head, this is one method of keeping it safe. It is a good way of moving ideas from one head to another, as it only requires one person’s time to do it, and not two.” –Jesse Ball, A Cure for Suicide

I listened to eight or ten hours of Wilson’s Odyssey during a 50-mile trail race, a perfect venue for a story about a man who just wants to go home. It’s a great performance.

Went to the eye doctor with a lot of high-minded reasons it was time for my aging eyes to finally graduate from readers to progressives but obviously the real reason is wanting to be able to read and watch baseball without constantly adjusting my eyeglasses.

I saw goody proctor dancing at patricia’s sunset cocktails

This isn’t exactly the question asked but it made me think of Salter: "There's wide agreement that writing is difficult even for very good writers. Sometimes it's more difficult, sometimes less. In climbing the difficulty defines the achievement. In writing it doesn't have anything to do with it."

This is entirely my own problem, but it is amazing how confusing I find it (and have always found it) when child protagonists call their parents by their first names. I just never get a handle on it. Even though I know plenty of families like this in real life! (But not mine, obviously.)

“It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.”

"If you can’t tell me what your book is about, then a reader can’t tell their friends why they should read it." --> that's just one of the things I've learned in my twenty years being a literary agent. The other 19 are here: www.agentsandbooks.com/20-things-i-...

@vandroidhelsing.bsky.social's THE WEST PASSAGE is one of my absolute favorite books of the last few years.

The novella "Paradises Lost" first appeared in the collection The Birthday of the World (HarperCollins, 2002).

"It takes close attention to see what is happening in front of you. it takes work, pious effort, to see what you are looking at.. the depths that were possible in the slowing of motion, the things to see, the depths of things so easy to miss in the shallow habit of seeing." —Don DeLillo, POINT OMEGA

I loved this book. My favorite of Adrienne's excellent body of work!

I'm a big Ishiguro fan but bounced off Klara and the Sun hard. I'm a Taika Waititi fan too, but the trailer for the movie of Klara isn't my thing either. One of those books I know so many people love that did not work for me at all. Always a mystery, especially when it's a writer I otherwise love.

"Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like—then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping." —Jean Cocteau

I’m not a dad, but I spent the first half of this Sunday afternoon simultaneously watching a ball game and reading a Western, which feels like something a dad would’ve been really good at too.

One of the many ways I've hurt my protagonists: I've never given a single one of them a dad as good as mine was. (This pic is from the last time my dad and I went hiking together at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan, one of our favorite places.) I'm so glad I got so much time with him!

The Death of Robin Hood was a pretty good Saturday matinee! Simultaneously the most violent and the most meditative Robin Hood I’ve seen, working from one of my favorites of the tales. Glad I saw it!

Still open for Barrelhouse essay subs, keep em coming

My first novel, In the House Upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods, came out 13 years ago today. Probably wouldn't have remembered the anniversary if my phone hadn't resurfaced this picture my dad took of my book launch. I'm glad he was there to capture it!

Had a great, easy writing day yesterday, a brutally hard one today. As I force myself to keep typing, Annie Dillard whispers: “Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.”

Killian Jornet on endurance sports this morning fits exactly with Erika Swyler on novels: in the beginning, says, Jornet, "is the hardest time to keep going, because the investment still feels small"; by the end, says Swyler, "Bleh, I'm officially too far in to stop." We must pass through both!

In the Save the Cat screenplay format, a character should state the theme of the movie on page 5 or so. I told my students last week that I think a lot of contemporary novels do the same. It sounds too formulaic—perhaps it can be!—but when you’re looking for it, it’s amazing how often you find it.

Spent the day writing a nonfiction chapter on a favorite medieval demon, a task that took me seven hours and ended with a word count of exactly 1666. Seems like the right place to stop!

First good day back at the desk since returning home. First truly new drafting since April? A long break for me. Nice to feel the joy of making new stuff again!

The RMP Field Guide to Writing the Lyric Essay, edited by @heidiczerwiec.bsky.social & @artichokeheart.bsky.social, is available for preordering! The book releases in October & is the 5th in our award-winning Field Guide series! Everything you've ever wanted to know about lyric essay! icont.ac/51iZr

"My definition of a good editor is a man I think charming, who sends me large checks, praises my work, my physical beauty, and my sexual prowess, and who has a stranglehold on the publisher and the bank." —John Cheever

Listening to Andrew McCarthy's travel books, where he writes something like this about being a young actor: “I was far from home with work to do and happy as if for the first time.” That's an emotion I know exactly, certainly in rare residencies but even daily, living alone far from my family. Whew.

I'm home from six weeks in Spain, Portugal, Greece, and England! Hiked a pilgrimage with mom, visited dozens of churches/museums, saw the Parthenon, taught on a Greek island, and ended the trip alongside my brilliant, beautiful partner. Never imagined this could be a part of my life. A lucky summer!

COVER REVEAL: I'm super excited to share the cover of my story collection After Last Call, coming out next April from @malarkeybooks.bsky.social. And thanks to @mrwojorising.bsky.social for the amazing work he did designing the cover 💙 Pre-order link: malarkeybooks.com/store/afterl...

Today, Deb and I went to Athen’s Panatheniac Stadium (the modern version of which was apparently built for the 1896 Olympics) and went down on the track and each ran a 400m lap. No one was faster/no one else was racing us! Champions both. A fun morning for two runners!

It feels almost ridiculous to say it, but it turns out the Parthenon at sunrise is pretty stunning.

“If I were a writer, how I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating, to work in the margins, outside a central perception." —Don DeLillo, The Names

Visited the Ancient Agora in Athens today, and found the Temple of Hephaestus surprisingly moving. As I was reviewing my photos, it occurred to me that probably no Ancient Greek had a way to make their vision so wide angle as to see it the way my iPhone did this morning.

This morning, the owner of my Athens neighborhood grocery took two “expensive” wine bottles from me and replaced them with cheaper bottles that are truly very good and perfect for a last nip on my rooftop terrace with the Acropolis in view. An impossible thing for so many versions of me to imagine.

Every major museum has too much art to truly see in a day. But every major museum also has a cafe or restaurant where you can pause, have a beer or a glass of wine, and think about what you’ve seen so far. The pause buys you at least 30-45 more minutes of looking at art. It’s my favorite break.

Landed in Athens! I promised my partner I wouldn’t go to the Acropolis before she arrives tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean I can’t sneak up a big hill and take a look. Unreal. Unlike so many famous things, it’s actually quite a bit bigger than I imagined! (See: the tiny Mona Lisa…)

Today Mom and I took a bus to Finisterre, the “one more stage” farthest end of the Camino, and the westernmost point of Spain and of the Roman world, or what they thought was the end of the world in 200 BC. Time and geography, truly felt!

In Spain today, I got matching tattoos with my 70-year-old mom, something I never could’ve imagined happening back when she was scolding me about getting my first tattoo at 18. Guess all this time she was just mad about not being included!

For the second year in a row, I completed a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, this time from Porto, Portugal to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. Twelve days of backpacking, 150+ miles, all in the company of my 70-year-old mother. A truly amazing adventure I’ll never forget.

It was such an honor to get read Le Guin’s “The Lynx,” an essay I’d been thinking about for years already. It’s amazing.

Last night in Porto! Signing off for a couple weeks as mom and I finally begin our pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. It’s been such a good time with her the past week in Porto and Fatima, and now we’re ready to hit the road. Can’t wait to get started.

Someone should write a book warning about this. (APPLESEED, 2021)