Writing Advice at the Bay Area Book Festival

Earlier this summer, editor Emily Temple visited the 2017 Bay Area Book Festival, an annual event that brings authors to Berkeley, California for readings, panels, and interviews—plus an awesome street fair and quite a bit of casual book-talk in bars. While Emily was there, she met some great people, ate a lot of free ice cream, and also interviewed a slew of writers, including Jim Shepard, Vanessa Hua, Karen Shepard, Ayelet Waldman, Michael Chabon, Katie Kitamura, Paul Murray, Esmé Weijun Wang, Hannah Tinti, Lindy West, Charlie Jane Anders, Edan Lepucki, and Scott Turow. Among other things, she asked each of them to talk about the best piece of writing advice they’d ever received—after all, whatever it was, it obviously worked pretty well for them. Below, see their answers, and feel free to chime in with your own favorite bits of writing advice in the comments—whether you’re a famous writer yet or not. Read more at Lit Hub: http://lithub.com/just-fill-up-the-pit-and-other-writing-advice-from-famous-authors/.