Dec 6, 2025
I certainly learned all sorts of things about craft from the writers mentioned above, but just by how I speak of them it becomes clear that I’m seeing them largely as psychological mentors, writers whose work showed what was possible in terms of how to think about the self, and about self-expression; writers who all have in common that they have shown me what courage can look like for a writer; or perhaps it’s not courage, so much as a belief that, for oneself, there is no other way than this way to be, on paper and in the life away from it.
Carl Phillips from On Influence
