Will Shetterly quotes:

Is art influential? It can be - 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' rallied abolitionists, and 'The Jungle' provoked the demand for a safer food industry.

Country music, the music of the white rural working class, has often been mocked by elitists whose understanding of power and art was shaped at expensive private schools.

There've always been people in the borderland between childhood and adulthood. That state is not a matter of chronological age. It's a matter of understanding that you can accept a future that has been defined by the previous generation, or you can reject it and make something new.

Many elitists hate rap as much as they hate country, though they don't like to admit it for fear of appearing racially insensitive.

Unless you're writing for a humorous effect, elves or space aliens and all creatures who aren't human should at least be as strange as, oh, the French.

Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk.

The great thing about revision is that it's your opportunity to fake being brilliant.

There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing away.

In fantasy, impossible things exist. In science fiction, impossible things exist and can be understood by humans. In supernatural horror, impossible things exist and cannot live in peace with humans.

It is better to write a bad first draft than to write no first draft at all.

It's always good to hear that people you like are happy.

Politics is a dirty business, but if you do not do politics, politics will be done to you.