writerly

Exuberance and dreaminess, writerly sophistication and technical ambition, drugs and madness: Wilson’s exquisite craft captured all of it, with his band the Beach Boys leaving behind a singularly inventive and exultant body of work, one that scripted and embodied California to the world.

Em dashes are among the most writerly of punctuation marks precisely because they don’t really need to be there.

The novelist, who arrived in the U.S. as a child refugee with his family in 1975, elucidates his writerly influences and interrogates the idea that any minority voice might serve as a “model” for one race or ethnicity.

Authored from his unique perspective at the heart of the industry, Wolf’s autobiography makes for an unusual celebrity narrative — rather than concentrating on self-aggrandizing storylines, the musician devotes his writerly energy to bringing the look, sound and feel of as-it-happened rock history to life.

In her utterly diverting collection of 12 short stories, “Show Don’t Tell,” she contemplates youthful insecurity and first love; the quandary of privilege; the satisfactions of friendship; the disappointments of marriage; and the perils of writerly ambition.