The desire to write a novel is the single required prerequisite for writing a novel.

Sinclair Lewis may be ripe for a revival; his books raise several interesting issues of art and fashion.

In his 30 years of broadcasting and publishing fiction, Garrison Keillor has set the laugh bar pretty high.

When I came home for the summer after my first year of college, I told my mother that my best friend and I were driving to California. She laughed out loud - 2,000 miles in a what? Well, my best friend had an old Chevy. What could go wrong?

Men are competent in groups that mimic the playground, incompetent in groups that mimic the family

Because your goal is a complete rough draft of a novel, and every rough draft, by being complete, is perfect.

When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment.