Amit Majmudar: Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian reminds me of how “more can be more”
Lysley Tenorio: Bharati Mukherjee as catalyst and inspiration
About what could be: C. D. Wright’s impact on Patrick Johnson’s Gatekeeper
Jeffrey Colvin: The wide-ranging influences that helped inspire Africaville
Baldwin and Merwin: Matthew Zapruder’s guiding spirits in Father’s Day
Kimberly King Parsons salutes Eileen Myles, Denis Johnson, and other voices she “would follow anywhere”
Liza Wieland: From Dickinson to Mary Oliver, a lineage of poets behind Paris, 7 A.M.
Kali Fajardo-Anstine: the “old universal truths” of Chicano pioneer Arturo Islas
Sarah Pinsker: Octavia Butler, Woody Guthrie, and other classics that inspired my debut
Forrest Gander: Writing from the edge of the abyss—the books that influenced Be With
Ling Ma: William Maxwell, Bret Easton Ellis, and how fiction can do the impossible
Alexia Arthurs: Jamaica Kincaid’s lesson in “doing and being and desiring without permission”
Cheston Knapp: Weird, feral Ralph Waldo Emerson, wily William Gass, and other influences on Up Up, Down Down
Morgan Jerkins: Roxane Gay’s Bad Feminist made me believe that I could be honest
Carmen Maria Machado: American classics that influenced Her Body and Other Parties
Eugene Lim: American classics that influenced Dear Cyborgs, mostly in pairs
