2021-04-05

Sinclair Lewis on writing with little time

In 1921 Sinclair Lewis wrote a short essay entitled "How I wrote a novel on trains and beside a kitchen sink." (Nine years before he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.)
I first saw this article referenced in a quote by Tom Wolfe on the craft of writing. I googled for it and found it referenced in a blog, where someone commented on where it appeared. I tracked down the issues of The American Magazine (in the public domain and posted on the internet archive. Then I downloaded the huge psd and extracted the pages for the Sinclair Lewis article. You can download the three page article (as a pdf) by clicking here.