DEAR WRITER: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life. By Maggie Smith. Washington Square Press. 272 pages. $28.99. Good news, friends: you’ve got mail. As in old-school actual letters.

Today I’m here with the tiniest pep talk, in case you need one. This one’s as much about saying no as it is about saying yes. In my memoir "You Could Make This Place Beautiful," I wrote, “Life, like a ...

Poet Maggie Smith is back with her eighth book — this time focused on writers and the act of creativity. Smith, a New York Times bestselling author whose poem “Good Bones” garnered her a sudden and ...

Back when Maggie Smith penned her poem “Good Bones,” which reached nearly 1 million readers after going viral in 2016, she was a mom working from home. She went on to become a New York Times ...

Poet Maggie Smith is the new host of American Public Media’s poetry podcast, The Slowdown. Poet Maggie Smith once said that a poet’s job is to “lean toward wonder.” Smith gained fame when her poem ...

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE’s books column. In this ongoing series, authors share an assortment of their most memorable reads: the books that have shaped their lives as writers and as human beings.