Good Reading

Want to be a writer? Easy, says Brian Doyle, who is one and has now spilled the writing beans. He’s editor of Portland magazine at the University of Portland, the author of 13 books, and bearded. In a punchy column in the American Scholar he offers a bunch of good advice to those who would be writers but can’t start. Write, he says; write every day. Ask questions and shut up and listen; people will fill the silence by telling more than they intended to.  And read, read, read. You can read his column in four minutes. And then go to work.
—Mike Feinsilber.