Emily Perkins’ new novel The Forrests made a more noticeable impression on me than any new book I’ve read in 20 years; in fact, by the end of it I was buzzing as though I’d taken a drug. I had to go back over the last 30 pages and immediately reread them because the effect was so powerful. An interview with Perkins has been on the cards (or the books) since The Good Word became required viewing for writers and book lovers, a show that will be sorely missed when the station is closed down in June (boo!). (Photo: Patricia Phelan)

John Sundman is author and publisher of the cyber-nano-biopunk novels Acts of the Apostles, Cheap Complex Devices, and The Pains. After Sundman blogged about selling his books at the hacker convention DEFCON, science fiction author Bruce Sterling described him as “the future of printed fiction”. Sundman lives on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

This poem, a work in progress, is based on a recent event. While you need an imagination to write fiction, in my experience at least, real life makes for better poetry. With apologies to Billy Collins, whose poem ‘Consolation’ gave me the self-belief to think good poems can be written about everyday disappointments, just as they can about life-changing events.

“Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm” is a great line from Emerson. If there’s no enthusiasm in what you do, it won’t be remarkable and certainly won’t connect with people on an emotional basis. But, if you put that magic energy into all of your work, you can create something that touches people on a deeper level. How can you bring MORE enthusiasm into your work? What do you have to think or believe about your work to be totally excited about it? Answer it now.

(Author: Mars Dorian; image: Larry David)

Dave Pell, the founder of delivereads – curated content delivered to your Kindle – is an internet early adopter who’s stuck with it, in spite (or perhaps because) of having blown cash and time on more than 50 startups, including: Corrigo, Dealbase, GrubHub, Liftopia, Marin Software, SendMe, Three Rings and Trazzler. He also tweets and blogs on Tweetage Wasteland. His posts are syndicated on NPR, Gizmodo, Forbes and Huffington Post. delivereads sends articles from the likes of GQ, Esquire, the New Yorker and the Boston Globe direct to your Kindle – the most satisfying place to read an article apart from on paper.

Steven Pressfield says inspiration comes from the Muse. I no longer believe in angels or muses, but I do believe writers tap into the collective consciousness, and having now read Pressfield’s motivational books I’m willing to suspend my disbelief. I’m not the first writer to confirm his methods succeed – what we have in common is that we’ve sat down and are writing. It’s that simple, so far. As revered screenplay instructor Robert McKee says: “When inspiration touches talent, she gives birth to truth and beauty. And when Steven Pressfield was writing The War of Art, she had her hands all over him.”

Lisa Dierbeck is the author of two novels, The Autobiography of Jenny X and One Pill Makes You Smaller, a New York Times Notable Book. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. A two-time Pushcart Prize nominee, Dierbeck has contributed to the Boston Globe, Glamour, New York Observer, New York Times Book Review, People and O, The Oprah Magazine. The Washington Post Book World has described her as “An undeniably talented writer”, and the Los Angeles Times as “passionate, observant, and funny.”

I’d decided not to re-publish an old post about Martin Amis, until I discovered a David Barrett article on Standpoint. I was defending Amis’s writing long before it became fashionable to deride him for being, as some would have it, “a really lousy writer”, “talentless” and, heaven forbid, “really annoying”. But if Barrett’s examples from Amis’s body-of-work are unconvincing, it’s incumbent on the haters to dazzle us: specimens from his superiors should be so incandescent that quotes by a talentless and lousy writer would shrivel and turn to ashes in our hands. I challenge anyone to do that by posting examples of inarguably better writing than the ones Barrett quotes. In the long silence inevitably to follow, here’s what I said about London Fields.

IN THE PENTHOUSE suite of the lavish hotel, the guest lit another luxury-length with his expensively butch silver lighter. It was already his third cigarette and the interview had not even begun yet. He shuffled in his beautifully unadorned but hideously expensive Italian suit on the overstuffed hotel room chair, which was crowned with a prim antimacassar.

If you’re not familiar with the Strawbs and their music, you’ll be surprised to learn that not only have you missed the 30th anniversary of the band, they’ve released at least 31 albums and are still playing live and releasing albums today. Formed in 1963, as the Strawberry Hill Boys, at that time they were a folk and bluegrass band. What is considered to be the band’s first album was released in 1968. Dave Cousins spares more than five minutes of his time to talk about his music then and now.