"Being a Writer is an inspiring assemblage of wit, wisdom and hard-won practical advice from some of the world's greatest authors musing on the art of writing and how they came to define themselves as writers. It is an anthology for dipping into, but also for drawing genuine lessons about the whole messy business of writing literature and what it takes to be a writer. Its contributors range from the canon to the contemporary: from Samuel Johnson in eighteenth-century London to Lorrie Moore in twenty-first-century Wisconsin, Being a Writer covers more than 250 years and features novelists and short-story writers from across the world. Through its text and beautiful, original illustrations, the book attempts to explore and illuminate the pleasures and pitfalls of the compulsion to write, and to inspire and delight writers and readers in equal measure"--Publisher's description.