Liza Wieland: From Dickinson to Mary Oliver, a lineage of poets behind Paris, 7 A.M.
Kali Fajardo-Anstine: the “old universal truths” of Chicano pioneer Arturo Islas
Sarah Pinsker: Octavia Butler, Woody Guthrie, and other classics that inspired my debut
Forrest Gander: Writing from the edge of the abyss—the books that influenced Be With
Ling Ma: William Maxwell, Bret Easton Ellis, and how fiction can do the impossible
Alexia Arthurs: Jamaica Kincaid’s lesson in “doing and being and desiring without permission”
Cheston Knapp: Weird, feral Ralph Waldo Emerson, wily William Gass, and other influences on Up Up, Down Down
Morgan Jerkins: Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist made me believe that I could be honest
Carmen Maria Machado: American classics that influenced Her Body and Other Parties
Eugene Lim: American classics that influenced Dear Cyborgs, mostly in pairs
Julie Buntin: Liberated by Lorrie Moore’s Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?
Nick Norwood: What Carson McCullers knew about cotton mills and misery
Sarah Manguso: Thoreau, Annie Dillard, William Maxwell, and “lessons of constraint” on 300 Arguments
Shanthi Sekaran on time and received magic: Beloved’s gifts to Lucky Boy
Vanessa Hua: Kindred spirits in the heroines of Little Women and the Little House books
Leopoldine Core: Nella Larsen’s radical Passing and other influences on When Watched