The Value of Traveling for Workplace Writers

For business, scientific, and technical writers, factual accuracy, precise language, and grammatical correctness matter. But how can employees achieve these objectives if their frames of reference are limited? Will online or local onsite education close the knowledge gap? I doubt it.

 

One way to expand a writer’s acumen, ability, and ultimately, authority, is traveling. I understand that staycations are growing in popularity because of the prohibitive costs of travel. If you think like that, believe me, you are right. Nevertheless, I consider travel as an investment in my professional development, even when I am vacationing. I’m not talking about cruises or resorts where everything is handed to you. I mean walking through the streets of Barcelona, Berlin, or Brussels at dawn, or strolling along the Croisette in Cannes at dusk, or hiking through the Rocky Mountain National Park. Though usually seen as a leisure activity, travel offers at least invaluable benefits for writers in any work-related field.

1.   New Perspectives on Global Markets. Travelers get immediate exposure to different business cultures, market conditions, and international trends. Understanding how the world works helps writers craft content that connects to a broader audience, insights hard to realize from a distance.

2.   Improved Problem-Solving. When traveling, businesspeople encounter new ways of solving problems, whether it’s how Beijing handles transportation or how a small business in Valletta uses technology. These experiences can inspire innovative approaches in writing, especially when addressing complex technical subjects.

3.   Enhanced Communication Skills. Navigating foreign environments requires loads of adaptability, patience, and communication—skills vital to business and technical writing. The ability to break down complex ideas into understandable concepts is sharpened when communicating across language and cultural barriers.

4.   Cultural Competency. Global industries demand cultural awareness. Traveling provides firsthand experience with diverse business practices. Therefore, a writer with such experiences is likely to write with greater sensitivity to divergent perspectives, regulations, and expectations, a key skill for writing to international audiences.

5.   Heightened Creativity. One of the most profound aspects of travel is meeting new people. These encounters affect our understanding of human nature. Everyone has a unique story to tell from which we can all learn. Conversation with a server in a Copenhagen restaurant, a cab driver in Sydney, a concierge in Hyderabad, or fellow travelers in Havana cultivates new ideas for writers.

6.   Enhanced Confidence. Travel fosters self-reliance and independence. These attributes are indispensable for writers, as they infuse their story lines with an expanded horizon. Writers can eliminate a lot of guesswork because they’ve been there and done that.

Writing in the workplace requires talent, for sure, but even more, it demands insight, creativity, and determination. Travel can strengthen these qualities. You do not have to travel far to prove my point.

Libraries: The Writer's House

Sometimes when I speak to writing students about the pleasure I get from going to the library, their eyes glaze over in a total loss of interest. Other times, they purse their lips, hoping I won't ask them if they also go to the library, as they likely don't. The American Library Association estimates that only two-thirds of Americans hold library cards. This number is ten percent less than eligible Americans registered to vote. While news stories abound about low voter turnout in the United States, similar spotlights about diminishing library usage seem to be ignored.

 One of the greatest benefits of living in the modern world is our access to virtually any book, journal, or magazine at no cost. Yet too many people do not take advantage of this unique privilege. Even more surprisingly, many people who want to improve their writing skills avoid libraries.

But the library is a writer's house. It is an endless reservoir of ideas, the best place to break writer's block, an indispensable source of inspiration, and the perfect site for bringing meaning and value to human lives. Want to be a better writer? Get a library card! 

127, uh, 139 Influences: A Postscript

I could have added so many more categories and hundreds of more names to those people who have affected my thinking and communication skills. As it was, over the past 9 weeks and 12 posts, I overran my promise of 120 influences and ended with 127, adding 7 names to the last 3 categories (2 artists, 2 composers, and 3 musicians). All this did was make me want to start the list all over again to add a dozen or poets, dramatists, philosophers, and so one. But I have to stop somewhere.

Yet I won't stop not quite there but here. I should close on those a final dozen folks who have lived and learned and worked with me and had the greatest influence on my thinking. Unlike the previous 12 posts, whose influences appeared in alphabetical order, these influences appear in the order that they came into my life: Frank Vassallo, my father, for his remarkable storytelling; Elizabeth Hitz, my sister, for her aspirations to all things intellectual; Joseph Vella, my uncle, for his work ethic; Matthew Loscalzo, a neighborhood friend, high school classmate, and college classmate, for his remarkable leadership skills; Robert Doyle, a high school teacher who introduced me to music and art in its truest sense; Charles Lynch, an English professor in my undergraduate years, for showing me that great literature is not limited to the past; Georgia Kostares, my wife, for reminding me that selflessness and loyalty to family transfers to the writing discipline; Harry Kamish, my professional mentor, for his acumen and boundless knowledge; John Hitz, my brother-in-law, for the value he places on scholarship; Robert Delisle, a professor at Lehman College, for his perspective on children-centered education; J. J. Chambliss, a graduate professor at Rutgers, for his depth of intellectual inquiry; and Michael Bartlett, a spiritual mentor, for exemplifying how to walk the talk.

Books by Philip Vassallo

• How to Write Fast Under Pressure


• The Art of E-mail Writing


• The Art of On-the-Job Writing


• The Inwardness of the Outward Gaze: Learning and Teaching Through Philosophy

120 Influences, Part 12: Musicians

Once again, I could not narrow a top ten list from these thirteen:

1. Miles Davis, the trumpeter whose records from Blue Period (1951) through Seven Steps to Heaven (1963) are all jazz classics.
2. Bill Evans, one of the most influential jazz pianists ever. Any of his trio albums will do.
3. Stan Getz, known as "The Sound" for good reason. His tenor saxophone is immediately recognizable.
4. Dizzy Gillespie, who with Charlie Parker created a new music and extended his singular trumpet prowess to small groups and big bands as a worldwide ambassador of jazz.
5. Glenn Gould, playing the entire Bach solo piano collection, including Goldberg Variations (1955 and 1982 recordings), The Art of Fugue, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Inventions and Sinfonias, French Suites, English Suites, Partitas, and Toccatas.
6. Stephane Grappelli, whom I saw perform numerous times, would put a smile on anyone's face with the first note he played on his legendary violin.
7. Yo-Yo Ma, a cellist whose skill on the cello, passion for an astounding range of music, and credibility about nearly anything is unmatched.
8. Charlie Parker, the alto saxophone giant, co-founder of Be-Bop, and generator of Afro-Cuban music.
9. Oscar Peterson, Mr. Jazz, who played his piano in every format and with every jazz artist imaginable over a 60-year career.
10. George Rodriguez, a friend, leader of The New Swing Sextet, and vibraphonist committed to all things Salsa and who taught me to appreciate his music.
11. Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, his tenor has engaged me in live performance from Montreux, Switzerland to Carnegie Hall.
12. Andres Segovia, the master who brought dignity to the guitar as a classical instrument and played in the greatest concert halls into his nineties.
13. Toots Thielemans, who jazz harmonica just captured my imagination three decades ago, and I've never let go of him since.

120 Influences, Part 11: Composers

Here's another list I couldn't keep to just ten:

1. Johann Sebastian Bach: The father and the master of all composers. Everyone musical owes something to him. I shall listen to his solo pieces for piano, violin, and cello forever.



2. Ludwig van Beethoven: Yes, Symphony 9, but my favorites are his string quartets, especially his last four, no. 13 in B-flat (opus 130), no. 14 in C-sharp (opus 131), no 15 in A (opus 132), and no 16 in F (opus 135).



3. Frederic Chopin: His works for piano are the standard. His complete works for solo piano by Arthur Rubinstein and Vladimir Ashkenazy are readily available.



4. Bob Dylan: The prolific troubadour of the past half-century. Of his 50-plus albums, his first six remain all-time standouts: Bob Dylan (1962), The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), The Times They Are a-Changin' (1964), Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Bringing It All Back Home (1965), and Highway 61 Revisited (1965).



5. Duke Ellington: The greatest American composer of the twentieth century and perhaps of anywhere ever. Listen to any of his suites: Black, Brown and Beige, Liberian Suite, Such Sweet Thunder, Afro-Bossa, Far East Suite, Latin American Suite, New Orleans Suite, Afro-Eurasian Eclipse, and Toga Brava Suite. And these are just for starters.



6. George Gershwin: The romantic, inventive prodigy who crossed jazz, musical, and classical genres to unforgettable success and popular appeal. His songs are great, but so are Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess.



7. Antonio Carlos Jobim: He exported bossa nova to the world, and countless musicians have performed his masterpieces, including Agua de Beber, Aguas de Marco, Chega de Saudade, Corcovado, Desafinado, Dindi, Garota de Ipanema, Insensatez, Samba de Uma Nota So, So Danco Samba, Triste, and Vou te Contar.



8. John Lennon and Paul McCartney: I don't want to argue who wrote what; it's all about the voluminous, memorable music they produced in such a short timeframe.



9. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: So many of the world's most creative people have been inspired by his music. Check out his piano sonatas and concertos as well as his later symphonies (no. 31 in D "Paris"; no 35 in D, "Haffner"; no, 36 in C, "Linz"; no. 38 in D, "Prague"; and no. 41 in C, "Jupiter").



10. Cole Porter: The chief of Tin Pan Alley, the consummate composer of some 800 songs, the best known of which are All of You, Anything Goes, Begin the Beguine, Cheek to Cheek, Do I Love You?, Every Time We Say Goodbye, I Get a Kick Out of You, I Love Paris, In the Still of the Night, I've Got You Under My Skin, It's All Right with Me, Just One of Those Things, Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love), Let's Fly Away, Let's Misbehave, Love for Sale, Miss Otis Regrets, Night and Day, Too Darn Hot, What Is This Thing Called Love?, You Do Something to Me, You'd Be So Easy to Love, You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To, and You're the Top.



11. Richard Rodgers: He wrote the most melodic music, whether working with Lorenz Hart (Bewitched, Blue Moon, I Didn't Know What Time It Was, Isn't It Romantic, Johnny One Note, The Lady Is a Tramp, Lover, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, My Funny Valentine, There's a Small Hotel, You Took Advantage of Me, This Can't Be Love, and Where or When) or Oscar Hammerstein (Bali Hai, Climb Every Mountain, Do-Re-Mi, Getting to Know You, Hello Young Lovers, I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy, If I Loved You, It Might As Well Be Spring, My Favorite Things, O What a Beautiful Morning, Shall We Dance?, Some Enchanted Evening, The Sound of Music, You'll Never Walk Alone, and Younger Than Springtime).



12. Paul Simon: He kept stretching the boundaries of folk-rock with hundreds of songs over five decades. Most memorable are America, The Boxer, Bridge over Troubled Water, Cecilia, El Condor Pasa, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover, The 59th Street Bridge Song, Graceland, Homeward Bound, I Am a Rock, Kodachrome, Loves Me Like a Rock, Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Mother and Child Reunion, Mrs. Robinson, Old Friends, and The Sound of Silence.

120 Influences, Part 10: Artists

1. Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose stunning retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum in 2005 expanded my definition of what art is.


2. Pieter Bruegel, whose detailed allegorical renderings such as Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Children's Games, The Triumph of Death, The Tower of Babel, Massacre of the Innocents, and Peasant Wedding say more than hundred thousand word books.


3. Romare Bearden, whose dramatic representation of his culture through vivid color and a potent blend of abstraction and realism continues to amaze me.


4. Chuck Close, whose eight 7' X 9' black-and-white portraits of photographs of the late 1960s would have been enough, but his constant production and self-renewal in spite of paralysis from a spinal artery collapse in 1988 make him the ultimate artist's artist.


5. Salvador Dali, whose surrealism and subject matter, which I learned of in my high school years, still fascinate.


6. Keith Haring, whose public art I experienced as it happened in 1980 and 1981 on New York City subways. The seemingly endless exhibition was entertaining. At every subway stop, I would search for his signature white chalk on matte black paper childlike drawings.


7. Edward Hopper, whose art was the perfect representation of twentieth century detachment most Americans felt in the face of increased technology and sprawl.


8. Jacob Lawrence, whose distinctive depiction of the African-American experience is evident in all his work, starting with his 1940 Migration Series.


9. Claude Monet, who Impressionist illustrations from lily ponds and foot bridges to the London Parliament Building and the Grand Canal of Venice are sheer magic.


10. Edvard Munch, whose blending of somber portrait and dark Norwegian landscape mesmerizes the heart and soul.


11. Pablo Picasso, whose association with Cubism so downplays his prodigious achievements.


12. Diego Rivera, whose allegorical murals made him a twentieth century reincarnation of Bruegel and da Vinci, and whose politics so easily married his art.

I know I know I know. I said I mention only ten influences per discipline, but that would be cheating and lying. I couldn't resist these twelve.

120 Influences, Part 9: Educators

1. Harold Bloom, for his commitment to classic literature over three millennia from The Iliad to Angels in America.
2. Jon Amos Comenius, for writing four centuries ago The Great Didactic, which foresaw education as we know it today.
3. John Dewey, for providing the principles underlying The Child and the Curriculum, Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education, Experience and Education, Art and Education, and Art as Experience.
4. Janet Emig, for her research in the writing process in The Composing Processes of Twelfth Graders.
5. Paulo Freire, for his liberating ideology about what constitutes a real education and the teacher's and student's roles in it.
6. S. I. Hayakawa:, for his landmark work in general semantics, especially with Language in Thought and Action.
7. Maria Montessori, for her attitude about children and her knowledge of the best way to educate them.
8. Marcus Fabius Quintilianus, for Institutio Oratoria (Institutes of Oratory), "the book" on educating the young from birth to adolescence.
9. Bertrand Russell, for The History of Western Philosophy, The Problems of Philosophy, and Religion and Science, all helpful in understanding the purpose, development, and uses of philosophy.
10. Frank Lloyd Wright, for making modern architecture an art and a science.

120 Influences, Part 8: Philosophers

1. Thomas Aquinas: He reconciled Christianity with the wisdom of the Ancients in his masterwork, Summa Theologica.



2. Aristotle: He covered every topic and even invented some: astrology, botany, ethics, logic, metaphysics, poetics, politics, psychology, rhetoric, zoology. And he has influenced how we all think.



3. Confucius: His work on our oneness with nature, obligation toward morality, and imperative for self-development in the Analects remain standards nearly for more than two thousand years.



4. Rene Descartes: His quest for absolute certainty and clarity through the Cartesian method in Meditations on First Philosophy and Discourse on Method can serve as an introduction to formal philosophy.



5. Immanuel Kant: He had so much to say about the duality of human nature, and his categorical imperative remains the last resort of much reasoned argument today.



6. Soren Kierkegaard: His Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death ushered in existentialism, which has influenced a lot of my own writing.



7. Friedrich Nietzsche: Just reading the maxims of the philosopher of nihilism is a pleasure. What he says about the will and the conscience in its encounter with aesthetics despair is still relevant. Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, and The Birth of Tragedy are good starting points.



8. Plato: His Republic may be the most quoted philosophical text, and his Dialogues on beauty, wisdom, truth, valor, honor, and many other attributes are the foundation of Western thinking.



9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau: He shed light on humans in their natural state corrupted by human conduct in Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, The Social Contract, and Emile.



10. Jean Paul Sartre: We are thrust into this world. We encounter nothingness. We are despair. Yet we are doomed to act. His philosophy (Being and Nothingness), drama (No Exit), fiction (Nausea), and essays (Situations, Parts 1-10) made him the household name of existentialism.

120 Influences, Part 7: Orators

1. Clarence Darrow: His fiery rhetoric and compassion won me over at an early age. Read his summation speeches at the trails of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (1924), John T. Scopes (a.k.a. "Monkey Trial," 1925), and Ossian Sweet et al (1925).



2. Mohandas Gandhi: His words and deeds exuded selflessness, sacrifice, and peace. Reading his words is a stimulating intellectual exercise; hearing him speak them is a spiritual experience.



3. Jesus of Nazareth: His wisdom has influenced billions of people, Christian and non-Christian, for two millennia.



4. Helen Keller: That this deaf and blind woman chose to speak is a testament to her courage. That she spoke eloquently for the disabled, women's rights, peace, and the poor is a legacy matched by so few. She is a constant reminder that we should not be too proud of our accomplishments, as they pale in comparison to hers.



5. John F. Kennedy: He was the right speaker at the right time: charming, vigorous, eloquent, and insightful. He used his skills for good and bad, leading the US to space, upping the confrontational ante against the Iron Curtain, aggravating an unwinnable war, and inspiring volunteerism at an unprecedented rate.



6. Martin Luther King, Jr.: His sermon-style presentations are peerless, and he was quite a writer as well. His universal themes of peace and equality are enduring.



7. Abraham Lincoln: He was just the grounded, forward-thinking spokesman for unity that the United States needed during its Civil War. His speeches are gems.



8. Barack Obama: His rhetorical skills and speech-writing ability transcend politics. Many of his addresses will make the all-time lists of most rhetoricians.



9. Socrates: His approach to problem solving, debating, and teaching remains a standard for many educators and writers today. Read Plato's Apology, Crito, Gorgias, Meno, and Protagoras, and Republic to get a taste of the rhetorical style of Socrates.



10. Alan Watts: Listen to his compelling, witty, instructive podcasts on Eastern philosophy. Never a dull moment.

120 Influences, Part 6: Film Directors

1. Ingmar Bergman: There is Ingmar Bergman and then there is everyone else. The greatest director and screenwriter ever, but I place him only in this category to keep true the theme of 120 influences. My favorite eight of his are Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Shame, The Touch, Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage, Face to Face, and Autumn Sonata.



2. John Cassavetes: My favorite American film director. Films like Faces, Husbands, A Woman Under the Influence, Opening Night, and Love Streams show what a master of improvisation he is.



3. Francis Ford Coppola: A giant. The Godfather Trilogy is just the beginning. The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are masterpieces too.



4. Elia Kazan: Gentlemen's Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and his brilliant labor of love, America, America have influenced millions of people.



5. Akira Kurasowa: If he made only Ikiru, I would have put him on this list, but he also filmed Dodes'ka-den, Ran, and many other great stories.



6. Stanley Kramer: His The Defiant Ones, On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, and Judgment at Nuremberg arrived at times in my life to help shape my moral code.



7. Sidney Lumet: He was a premier director in the Golden Age of Television, and his classic films include Twelve Angry Men, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Pawnbroker, Fail-Safe, The Hill, Serpico, Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Equus, and The Verdict.



8. Mike Nichols: After establishing a reputation as a funny man, he began a legendary directing career 45 years ago. He is responsible for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, Catch-22, Carnal Knowledge, Wit, and Angels in America.



9. Julian Schnabel: First a great artists and then Basquiat, Before Night Falls, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He is inventive and radiant.



10. Fred Zinnemann: High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Hatful of Rain, A Man for All Seasons, and Julia show what a stunning range he had.

120 Influences, Part 5: Screenwriters

1. Woody Allen: Averages a screenplay a year over the past half-century, each one giving a load of laughs, a glimpse into Allen singular worldview, a lesson or two about the human condition.




2. Richard Brooks: Wrote terrific screen adaptations (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, The Professionals, In Cold Blood, Looking for Mr. Goodbar) and even better as a director.




3. Bo Goldman: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Melvin and Howard, Shoot the Moon, and Scent of a Woman, and many more have earned him every major screenwriting accolade.




4. Ben Hecht: Check out his page on imbd.com. It’s impossible that you have not been thoroughly entertained by at least a dozen of his 157 screenwriting credits. How did he do it?




5. Charlie Kaufman: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Synecdoche, New York (an all-time favorite) catapult this genius to the top of my list.




6. Waldo Salt: He touched me at many times in my life: as an adventurous child (The Flame and the Arrow), a disillusioned teenager (Midnight Cowboy), an inquisitive college student (Serpico), and an ambitious, young married man (Coming Home).




7. Alvin Sargent: After a stunningly successful career in TV (Naked City, Ben Casey, Route 66, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Doctors and the Nurses), he turned to writing excellent films, including Gambit, The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing, Julia, and now, in his late eighties, continues with the Spider Man series.




8. Rod Serling: I love this man for The Twilight Zone (yes, I watch the New Year's SyFy marathon), but his Requiem for a Heavyweight remains one of the greatest screenplays.




9. Robert Towne: His screenplays of The Last Detail, Chinatown, and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, as well as his uncredited script doctoring of Bonnie and Clyde, The New Centurions, Shampoo, The Missouri Breaks, and Heaven Can Wait, should put him on anyone's Top Ten.




10. Lina Wertmuller: The Seduction of Mimi, Love and Anarchy, and Seven Beauties are her masterpieces.

120 Influences, Part 4: Dramatists

1. Edward Albee: He is a student of language, an admirer of our dark side, and a master of dramatic tension. Recommended are The Zoo Story, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Tiny Alice, A Delicate Balance, All Over, Three Tall Women, The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, and Occupant.



2. Anton Chekov: You might need to reread the first act of his plays and keep a scorecard to link the characters with their motivations, dialogue, and actions, but the experience is well worth the effort. His most widely read and seen plays--and for good reasons--are The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters, and The Cherry Orchard.



3. Horton Foote: The mythical Wharton, Texas serves as the setting of many of Foote's plays. He made an enormous mark in the Golden Age of Television with 30- and 60-minute teleplays, such as The Trip to Bountiful, and in film, with the adapted screenplay of To Kill a Mockingbird and the orginal screenplay of Tender Mercies, both Oscar winnersw for him. But his 60+ plays are priceless, starting with his 9-play Orphan's Home Cycle (Roots in a Parched Ground, Convicts, Lily Dale, The Widow Claire, Courtship, Valentine's Day, 1918, Cousins, and The Death of Papa).



4. David Mamet: This Chicago native can make profound statements about who we are from seemingly random conversations. His imagination can be brutal and his dialogue vulgar, but Mamet is a consummate artist of the stage. Try American Buffalo, Edmond, Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, Oleanna, and Race.



5. Eugene O'Neill: The Father of American Drama. It all starts with him, and here is a partial list of his 50+ plays: Beyond the Horizon, Anna Christie, The Hairy Ape, Desire Under the Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra, Ah, Wilderness!, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten.



6. Harold Pinter: Something is always happening that between the lines or about to happen of Pinter's plays. Relationships between people, ideas, words, and actions



7. William Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Richard III, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear and 30 more plays are what world considers the standard by which to measure every other play. No argument.



8. Sam Shepard: One of the most produced playwrights in American history, Shepard is a poet of the rocker, the nomad, and the West. Seeing or reading Action, Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Fool for Love, and A Lie of the Mind will make believers, as will watching the Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas, for which he wrote the screenplay.



9. Tennessee Williams: He never stopped working as a playwright, poet, fiction writer, and essayist, even when he was no longer the darling of the stage. He did not care how small the theater was, as long as he continued producing. The author of The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, Summer and Smoke, The Rose Tattoo, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Orpheus Descending, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Night of the Iguana, In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel, and 70 more short and long plays.



10. August Wilson: His Pittsburgh Cycle, one play per decade of the twentieth century about the African-American experience, is the greatest achievement of American drama. He did not simply write ten great plays; he exposed the roots of a culture like no anthropologist, historian, psychologist, or sociologist could. Read Wilson's work not in order of composition, but in order of chronology within the Cycle: Gem of the Ocean (1904), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (1911), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (1927), The Piano Lesson (1936), Seven Guitars (1948), Fences (1957), Two Trains Running (1969), Jitney (1977), King Hedley II (1985), and Radio Golf (1997).

120 Influences, Part 3: Poets

1. Billy Collins: He is known for his humor, but he is also a great speaker, reader, and educator.



2. e. e. cummings: Quirky structure, yes. Small themes, indeed. But what a master of simplicity and observer of human nature.



3. Emily Dickinson: Sudden, lyrical, unconventional: a true American poet.



4. John Donne: This seventeenth century British poet and essayist is peerless. "Devotions upon Emergent Occasions" are as close to Scripture as a writer can get.



5. T. S. Eliot: His "The Waste Land" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" transformed English poetry and for decades set the standard for the literature that followed.



6. Robert Frost: He is deserving of all the accolades. His quality remained high through all his volumes of verse.



7. Allen Ginsberg: "A Supermarket in California," "Sunflower Sutra," and especially "Howl" are classics of the latter half of the twentieth century.



8. Pablo Neruda: Mystical, magical, stunning, life-affirming. Read "Ode to Ironing" and "The Dawn's Debility"; then read them all.



9. Theodore Roethke: Start with "The Waking," "In a Dark Time," and "I Knew a Woman." Roethke is to poetry what Thelonious Monk is to jazz.



10. Robert Penn Warren: I could have listed Warren as one of my top novelists, essayists, and educators, but his poetry has touched me most. Metaphysical, imaginative, pure.

120 Influences, Part 2: Novelists

1. William Faulkner – Just a read of the Collected and Uncollected short stories of this favorite son of Mississippi should be enough to prove why Faulkner won the Nobel Prize.
2. Ernest Hemingway – Despite all the criticism, he has received from revisionists, feminists, and critical theorists, Hemingway remains the master of the declarative sentence. Read his Complete Short Stories.
3. Hermann Hesse – Hesse taught me the mystical possibilities of the novel through Damien, Siddhartha and Steppenwolf.
4. Nikos Kazantzakis – The Cretan’s work and beliefs caused his excommunication from the Greek Orthodox Church. Any of his works will do as a starting point, but The Fratricides is my favorite, but read any of his books for a singular Greek flavor with universal themes, including Freedom and Death, The Greek Passion, The Last Temptation of Christ, and Zorba the Greek, among others.
5. D. H. Lawrence – An English novelist of sensuality, spirituality, and physicality, as evidenced in Lady Chatterley’s Lovers and Sons and Lovers.
6. Henry Roth – Sure this literary genius had a 45-year case of writer’s block, but Call It Sleep, written when Roth was 27, is a masterpiece. Enough said.
7. J. D. Salinger – Catcher in the Rye, which I read in the eleventh grade, has had an enduring effect on me and most people who have read it, at least in the first 40 years since its publication in 1951. Also check out Salinger’s Nine Stories.
8. John Steinbeck – He could describe people emerging from the Californian landscape as if they were one with the natural world. His narrative and characters in Tortilla Flat, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden are unforgettable.
9. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. – His quirky blend of psychology, science fiction, and pop culture has enormous appeal with young readers. Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade are good starting points.
10. Richard Wright – Native Son. Fear. Fate. Flight. Enough said. The great American novel.

120 Influences, Part 1: Essayists

1. James Baldwin – The preeminent black writer during the Civil Rights movement, Baldwin possessed a rich style, unorthodox and unpredictable viewpoints, and an unending commitment to social justice. Get started with his Collected Essays and The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings.
2. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – This Claremont Graduate University professor and psychologist is the author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience and Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, two seminal books on what makes the creative mind tick.
3. Joan Didion – Considered by most to be a masterful sentence writer, Didion has been the go-to analyst of American culture for more than a half-century. Her We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live: Collected Nonfiction is a compilation of her first seven nonfiction books.
4. Will Durant – His work on history and philosophy is nothing short of monumental. Most educated people do not read in a lifetime what this man wrote in his. Read his The Story of Philosophy and co-authored 11-volume magnum opus Story of Civilization, if you have the time.
5. Albert Einstein – Don’t let the genius of this man fool you. Read Ideas and Opinions to see how well Einstein writes on so many topics.
6. Edward T. Hall – This sociologist has volumes to say about how we communicate across cultures with and without language. Beyond Culture, The Silent Language, and The Hidden Dimension offer excellent insights into the human condition.
7. Robert Hughes – This brilliant Australian’s essays sent me to the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art on numerous occasions to see retrospectives of Richard Diebenkorn, Arthur Dove, Edward Keinholz, Bill Viola, and many other artists I would not have known if it were not for Hughes’s engaging prose. He writes expertly on politics (The Culture of Complaint: The Fraying of America) as well as art (Nothing Is Not Critical: Selected Essays on Art and Artists).
8. Pauline Kael – She could be ruthless in her attacks on directors and actors, but she was always smart and entertaining. Kael was the movie critic of her generation to read, and her successors have borrowed immensely from her work Her 1991 5001 Nights at the Movies is an ultimate guide to the movies.
9. Paul of Tarsus – Whether you are a believer or not, how can anyone living in a Western culture ignore Paul’s literature? The best way to get started on his contributions to the New Testament is at Bible Gateway.
10. Thomas Sowell – Regardless of one’s politics, Thomas Sowell, Professor at Stanford University and Fellow at the Hoover Institution, is a mind to reckon with. Sowell has written prolifically and masterfully on issues of racial equality, childhood development, and international politics for decades. Recommended are his Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, and A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles.