‘Sloppy’ author Rax King says she’s inspired by writers who did their best work sober

On Writing is Stephen King’s musings on his craft—about how he discovered writing, what he learned about it, and his advice to you as a writer. Part memoir and part practical advice, it’s a personal look at one of the bestselling authors of all time.

Learn how Stephen King got his start by writing as a teenager, then struggled as an early writer until his breakthrough book Carrie. Then learn his key tips on writing good fiction, including how to develop a realistic story and characters, why you must avoid adverbs, and how to make it in the writing business.

Do you prefer to listen to sad songs? Do you seek out beauty in everyday life? If so, you may have a bittersweet disposition. In Bittersweet, Susan Cain defines bittersweetness as the state of experiencing intense joy, sadness, and yearning simultaneously. She argues that you can glean greater meaning and wisdom from life when you embrace bittersweetness, even if you don’t naturally have a bittersweet disposition.

In this guide, we’ll explore different facets of bittersweetness, starting with the link between bittersweetness and our yearning for love and belonging. We’ll also discuss the hidden power of sadness for fostering empathy and creativity. Finally, we’ll examine how awareness of life’s impermanence can help us find deeper meaning in our relationships and everyday lives. In our commentary, we’ll discuss the science behind bittersweet emotions, different perspectives on how to think about impermanence, and further suggestions for coping with grief.

If you’ve ever felt a creative tug or impulse, writer Elizabeth Gilbert can help you act on it. According to Gilbert, the author of the best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love, creativity is not just the domain of a few brilliant professional artists, but rather an enriching way of life that anyone can adopt at any time. If you embrace creativity, you’ll experience “Big Magic”: a mystical or spiritual force of creativity that brings joy and purpose.

In this guide, you’ll learn how, according to Gilbert, you can commune with the forces of creativity and establish an enjoyable, rewarding creative practice that can last a lifetime. You’ll also find commentary that provides actionables to help you implement Gilbert’s ideas around creativity, gives context around Gilbert’s writing on spirituality and art, and explores scientific explanations for the creative phenomena Gilbert attributes to magic.

Rupi Kaur experienced oppression and abuse throughout her life. From an uncle who raped her as a child to a father who demanded she stay silent, she grew up in an environment that taught her she was worthless. However, as she grew up, her experiences with love and heartbreak taught her how to find the beauty in herself and how to heal in the face of painful experiences.

milk and honey is an award-winning collection of poems that dive into the themes of sexual assault, the complexity of relationships, and the healing power of self-love. Through her use of beautiful language, Kaur takes you on her emotional journey to love herself in the face of painful and oppressive experiences.

You’ve seen him play a cigarette-smoking, intimacy-fearing, humor-as-a-cudgel-wielding twenty-something from a broken home trying to find love and build a meaningful career. But Matthew Perry’s role as Chandler on the iconic show Friends is a lot closer to reality than you might have imagined. In Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry shares his story of battling loneliness, health scares, and the big terrible thing: addiction. His hope is that it will help others who are also struggling with substance abuse know they are not alone in their challenges, and that, if he could get sober, they can, too.

This guide explores the evolution of three major themes throughout Perry’s life: his addiction, struggles in establishing relationships, and his search for fame. We also contextualize the events and struggles of his life within psychological theories about childhood trauma, attachment theory, and the nature of addiction and recovery.