Jarred McGinnis: The boundary-pushing American authors who taught this emigrant how to write

Ariel Delgado Dixon: Three influences on Don’t Say We Didn’t Warn You

Cara Blue Adams: Denis Johnson’s “lush minimalism” and other influences on You Never Get It Back

Leopoldine Core: Nella Larsen’s radical Passing and other influences on When Watched

Sarah Pinsker: Octavia Butler, Woody Guthrie, and other classics that inspired my debut

Shangyang Fang: Hearing the “meticulous music” in contemporary American poetry

Lev Grossman on Ernest Hemingway, verbal membrane, and The Sun Also Rises

Shane McCrae: My war with John Ashbery

Amit Majmudar: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian reminds me of how “more can be more”

Lysley Tenorio: Bharati Mukherjee as catalyst and inspiration

Deborah Baker on Lafcadio Hearn and “the Orient at home”

Viet Thanh Nguyen: We still live in Ralph Ellison’s moment

About what could be: C. D. Wright’s impact on Patrick Johnson’s Gatekeeper

Jeffrey Colvin: The wide-ranging influences that helped inspire Africaville

Lauren Groff on the “profound generosity” of James Salter

Baldwin and Merwin: Matthew Zapruder’s guiding spirits in Father’s Day