The Elements of Style -- First edition, 1918, by William Strunk, Jr. (before White). The beginning of what became simply the best resource on writing clearly. Buy a copy of Strunk and White. Read it. Plot -- an essay by Damon Knight.
Kinky Friedman -- Fun mystery series from the Kinkster. See also music. Rob MacGregor -- Rob's an old friend. Author of many movie adaptations (Indiana Jones series, among others) and fine original work. Winner of the Edgar Award. T.J. MacGregor -- Trish is an accomplished mystery author. Her novel Spree was set on my farm outside of Gainesville. Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö -- The Martin Beck series. Very good. Also a Swedish page. Nero Wolfe -- Rex Stout. Dated, but still a pretty good read. Tony Hillerman Lawrence Block -- Author several series characters. I really like his writing.
Larry Brown -- Author of Dirty Work, Big Bad Love and Joe, among others. Barry Hannah -- Airships is my favorite. I've read it several times. John Sayles -- A wonderfully talented man. Some of his best short fiction appears in The Anarchists' Convention & Other Stories. Pride of the Bimbos is probably my favorite novel of his. His movies include "Return of the Secacus Seven," "Brother From Another Planet," and "Lone Star." Yukio Mishima -- Japanese novelist, political radical. Harry Crews -- Fine writer. Good friend. Author of Karate is a Thing of the Spirit, The Gospel Singer, The Gypsy's Curse, Body, The Knockout Artist, and, my favorite, Naked in Garden Hills. Michael Ondaatje -- A very good fiction writer and poet. Author of Coming Through Slaughter and The Collected Works of Billy the Kid. Decent essay on him here. W.P. Kinsella -- Baseball and life on the Rez. Comprehensive listings for this fine writer are here. Randall Jarrell -- Very fine poet. Carl Sandburg -- Online version of Cornhuskers is here. Richard Brautigan -- Writers should be careful, or their lives can end up being spread over the web like the following: -- Richard Brautigan Papers Pat Conroy -- Author of The Great Santini. Edward Abbey -- Western essayist and novelist. One of my favorites is The Monkey Wrench Gang. E. L. Doctorow -- Author of Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, and others. William Faulkner -- One of the giants. Also here Joseph HellerAuthor of Catch-22, a classic blend of fantasy and stone realism. Also wrote Something Happened, a terribly depressing and well-written novel. The Papa Page -- All things Hemingway. This site is good and true. Tony Hillerman -- Excellent stories told within the fabric of Navajo and Hopi culture. Zora Neale Hurston -- Florida-born novelist, folklorist and anthropologist. John Irving -- Best known for The World According to Garp, his early works (Setting Free the Bears, The Water Method Man, and The 158-Pound Marriage) are my favorites. His books after Garp don't do much for me. Jack Kerouac -- The right person for the time and place. Ken Kesey -- Author of two pretty straight novels -- Sometimes A Great Notion and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, he was anything but straight. Views of the bus here Joyce Carol Oates -- very comprehensive site Flannery O'Connor -- Fine southern writer. Also
here. Ishmael Reed -- Excellent voice of the black experience. Hard-edged and sharp. John Steinbeck -- Many fine works, including Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. Kurt Vonnegut -- I much prefer his earlier work, Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, etc., through Slaughterhouse-Five. He wrote brilliant science fiction and wrote it so well the critics refused to call it science fiction. When he left these books he lost me as a reader. More links here. Tom Wolfe -- Being a product of the 60's I loved The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. As with many writers out on the edge, he could be uneven, but the splashes of brilliance are worth the rest. Madison Smartt Bell -- Of his many fine books, I think his second, Waiting
for the End of the World is my favorite. This site has a lot of good information. Truman Capote -- Raw and brilliant in his youth, crafty as he aged. His life seemed to mirror his writing style, or maybe it was the other way around. Elmore Leonard -- Switched genres from Westerns in, I believe, his 40s. I particularly enjoy Get Shorty. Larry McMurtry -- I met him briefly when he was writing Lonesome Dove. He seemed pretty discouraged, saying the book was too long and there were too many characters. He said novels were a young man's game. He was wrong on all counts. He also wrote Leaving Cheyenne, one of the most perfectly crafted novels I've ever read.
