Literary Hub » imagination

Lynn Steger Strong on the Importance of Imaginative Truth in Fiction and Nonfiction

Lynn Steger Strong on the Importance of Imaginative Truth in Fiction and Nonfiction

“The goal is not to tell the reader the facts as they happened, but to, hopefully, bring a bunch of sentences and paragraphs to imagistic life.”

By Lynn Steger Strong | April 7, 2025

The Man Who Remembered Everything—and Thought It Was Normal

The Man Who Remembered Everything—and Thought It Was Normal

Charan Ranganath on the Famous Case of Solomon Shereshevsky

By Charan Ranganath | February 26, 2024

Beyond Words: On the Story Within a Single Painting

Beyond Words: On the Story Within a Single Painting

Christine Coulson Considers Finding Inspiration in Museum Wall Labels

By Christine Coulson | October 17, 2023

Another Possible World: Jen Silverman on Imagining Dystopias and Utopias

Another Possible World: Jen Silverman on Imagining Dystopias and Utopias

"What better future can we believe in, so that it can be made?"

By Jen Silverman | September 25, 2023

Dreams Are Serious Business: On the Dangers of a Fertile Fantasy Life

Dreams Are Serious Business: On the Dangers of a Fertile Fantasy Life

Robin Yeatman Considers the Intersections of Inner Death, Destructive Dreams, and Fiction

By Robin Yeatman | February 23, 2023

The Forty Year Kiss: Nickolas Butler on Why People-Watching Is Writing

The Forty Year Kiss: Nickolas Butler on Why People-Watching Is Writing

“All novelists are spies or should be.”

By Nickolas Butler | December 23, 2022

Best Reviewed
Books of the Week

Abundant Joy: 9 Black Diasporic Voices Imagine a Better World

By Natasha Marin | September 15, 2022

Dispatches From the Imaginative Childhood of a Future Pilot

By Mark Vanhoenacker | July 14, 2022

Shocked Into Dreaming: Why Puppets Inspire My Creativity and Spark My Curiosity

By Elizabeth Weiss | December 1, 2021

Jeff VanderMeer on Keeping Creative Play Alive

Jeff VanderMeer on Keeping Creative Play Alive

"Different forces are at work today with regard to the imagination."

By Jeff VanderMeer | September 3, 2021

Tom Robbins on Personalizing the Editorial Process and Knowing When to End a Novel

Tom Robbins on Personalizing the Editorial Process and Knowing When to End a Novel

Gary Lippman Talks to a Beloved American Author

By Gary Lippman | June 30, 2021

How Do Some Authors “Lose Control” of Their Characters?

How Do Some Authors “Lose Control” of Their Characters?

Is it the Mysterious Work of the Unconscious, or the Mechanized Brain?

By Jim Davies | December 18, 2019

Albert Camus on the Responsibility of the Artist

Albert Camus on the Responsibility of the Artist

Artists Should Not Doubt the Place of Creativity Amidst the Politics of Society

By Albert Camus | October 29, 2019

Jessica Hagedorn on Writing Experimentally and Trusting the Imagination

Jessica Hagedorn on Writing Experimentally and Trusting the Imagination

But That's Another Story">In Conversation with Will Schwalbe on But That's Another Story

By But That's Another Story | October 21, 2019

Philip Pullman on Children's Literature and the Critics Who Disdain It

Philip Pullman on Children's Literature and the Critics Who Disdain It

Don't Let Anyone Tell You What You Should or Should Not Be Reading

By Philip Pullman | October 8, 2019

Grown Ups Were Getting on Her Nerves, so Rivka Galchen Wrote a Kids' Book

Grown Ups Were Getting on Her Nerves, so Rivka Galchen Wrote a Kids' Book

When Writing for Adults Loses Its Joy

By Rivka Galchen | September 25, 2019

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