Under $25
From John Steinbeck
1. Round pencils and a good sharpener
Steinbeck wrote in pencil and was fussy about it. He wanted round barrels, because a hexagonal one left ridges in his fingers after five or six hours, and each morning he lined up two or three dozen freshly sharpened pencils in a tray and wrote until each one dulled. A box of round pencils and a sharpener that can keep up makes a small gift with a good story attached.
From Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou
2. A stack of yellow legal pads
Toni Morrison wrote her first drafts in pencil on yellow legal pads, then typed them into a computer herself before she started revising. Maya Angelou took a yellow legal pad to the hotel room where she wrote every morning. It's about as plain as a gift gets, and two of the great American writers drafted on it.
From Vladimir Nabokov
3. Lined index cards and a card box
Nabokov wrote his novels on lined index cards, in pencil and out of sequence, filling cards until the book was done. For a writer who thinks in scenes, or who freezes in front of a blank page, a box of cards is permission to write one small piece at a time.
From Joan Didion
4. A notebook that fits in a pocket
Didion carried a notebook for fragments, observations and lines she overheard, the raw material she wrote about in Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The drafting happened at a keyboard. The notebook was for catching things. Pick one small enough to go everywhere.
From Agatha Christie
5. A waterproof notepad for the shower
Christie told The New York Times in 1966 that she thought out her plots in an old-fashioned rimmed bathtub, eating apples. A waterproof pad that sticks to the shower wall catches the idea that always shows up when your hands are wet. Add a bag of apples if you want the joke to land.
From Ernest Hemingway
6. A wall chart for word counts
Hemingway tracked his daily word count on a chart tacked to the wall beside his writing spot. A big wall calendar or a small whiteboard does the same job, and a visible row of good days is hard to break.
Full disclosure: I wrote this one
The Writer's Daily Practice
It has a page for every morning of the year, each with a quote from a writer, a short reflection and a prompt to write from. It's meant for the person who wants to write every day and keeps not starting, and it's small enough to sit next to the coffee maker. Weigh my opinion of it accordingly.
Get it on Amazon →Paperback $16.99 · Kindle $9.99 · Amazon #1 Bestseller in Journal Writing
$25 to $100
From Truman Capote
7. A lap desk
Capote called himself “a completely horizontal author” and did his real writing lying flat in bed or on a couch, a pad held up over his chest. A lap desk makes that much kinder on the wrists, and it works just as well for a writer who drafts on a laptop in bed.
From Haruki Murakami
8. Murakami's running memoir, or a pair of running shoes
Murakami writes in the morning, then goes out and runs ten kilometers or swims fifteen hundred meters. He has run more than thirty marathons and treats the running and the writing as one long project about endurance. For a writer who already runs, give What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. For one who doesn't yet, give the shoes.
From Charles Dickens
9. A long walk, planned and paid for
Dickens wrote through the morning, ate lunch, and then walked for the rest of the afternoon. A good pair of walking shoes, or a day trip with a long walk built into it, gives a writer the part of the routine that people forget.
Bigger gifts
From Hemingway, Woolf and Nabokov
10. A standing desk, or a converter for the one they have
Hemingway wrote standing at a bookshelf about chest height with a board laid across it. Virginia Woolf used a tall oak standing desk with a sloping top for years, and Nabokov wrote standing up too. A converter that sits on top of an existing desk is the cheaper way in.
From Marcel Proust and Stephen King
11. Noise-cancelling headphones
Proust lined his bedroom walls with cork to keep out the street noise of Paris, then wrote through the night. Stephen King drafts with music on, either without lyrics or with songs he's heard so often they've turned into wallpaper. Good headphones cover both kinds of writer.
From Jack Kerouac and Ray Bradbury
12. A manual typewriter
Kerouac taped sheets of paper into one continuous roll so he'd never have to stop and reload, and typed the first draft of On the Road on it in about three weeks. Bradbury wrote the novella that became Fahrenheit 451 on a rented machine in a library basement, at ten cents per half hour. A refurbished manual typewriter has no notifications at all.
From Maya Angelou
13. A night in a hotel room, with the kit packed
Angelou rented a hotel room in every city she lived in and was at work there by 6:30 each morning. She asked the hotel to take the pictures off the walls, and she brought a yellow legal pad, a Bible, a thesaurus, a deck of cards and a bottle of sherry. Book a writer one quiet night somewhere and pack the bag for them.
Gifts that cost almost nothing
14. A protected morning
Take over whatever eats their first hour, the school run or the dishes, and give them that time to write. A lot of the routines on this site start early, and for most of those writers the hard part was guarding the time.
From Ray Bradbury
15. A library card
Bradbury had little money for college. He had the library, which he'd been using as a free university since he was twelve. If the writer in your life doesn't have a card, go with them to get one.
16. A close reading of their draft
Read the pages they've been nervous about and tell them one specific line or scene that worked, and why. Writers hold on to that kind of note for years.
Books on writing worth giving
Craft books are the safest gift on this page, as long as you match the book to the writer.
On Writing
Stephen King, 2000
Half memoir, half toolbox. King's case for two thousand words a day sits beside his account of the 1999 accident that nearly killed him.
How King worked →Steering the Craft
Ursula K. Le Guin, 1998, revised 2015
A slim workbook that starts with the sound and rhythm of prose before any rule about grammar. Best for a writer who'd rather do exercises than read encouragement.
How Guin worked →Bird by Bird
Anne Lamott, 1994
Warm and very funny about short assignments and bad first drafts. The title comes from her father's advice to her brother, who had a school report on birds due the next day.
The Writing Life
Annie Dillard, 1989
Short and exact about what a day of writing feels like. It's the book where she wrote that a schedule defends from chaos and whim.
How Dillard worked →A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
George Saunders, 2021
Saunders reads seven Russian short stories the way he teaches them at Syracuse, and shows how he revises his own work by instinct and repetition.
How Saunders worked →Journal of a Novel
John Steinbeck, 1969
The letters Steinbeck wrote to his editor each morning as a warm-up while he drafted East of Eden. The closest you can get to sitting beside a great novelist at his desk, pencils and all.
How Steinbeck worked →Zen in the Art of Writing
Ray Bradbury, 1990
Bradbury's essays on the joy and speed of writing. Give it to someone who has started taking their writing too seriously to enjoy it.
How Bradbury worked →Questions people ask
What do you give a writer who has everything?
Time and attention. Give them a protected morning to write, or read a draft closely and tell them which line or scene worked. If you want something to unwrap, a craft book by a writer they admire is hard to get wrong.
What is a good gift for a beginner writer?
Something that makes starting easy, like a pocket notebook or a book with something short to read and write for each day. Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird is the classic pep talk, and The Writer's Daily Practice has a quote, a reflection and a prompt for every morning of the year.
What are the best books on writing to give as a gift?
Seven reliable picks: On Writing by Stephen King, Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, Journal of a Novel by John Steinbeck and Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. Match the book to the writer. King suits someone who needs a push, and Lamott suits someone who needs a friend.
What did famous writers actually write with?
Toni Morrison drafted in pencil on yellow legal pads. Nabokov used lined index cards. Steinbeck wrote in round pencils and sharpened two or three dozen each morning. Kerouac typed On the Road on a taped-together roll of paper, and Bradbury wrote early Fahrenheit 451 material on a coin-operated library typewriter.