Writers say what they believe about writing in interviews, and almost nobody lines those claims up side by side. Word of Mouth does. Each position is mapped to the claim it takes a side on, so agreements and feuds across decades become visible. Explore the map, play Who Said It, and find out which writers you'd side with.
The cloud
Writers are the dark dots; the claims they take sides on are the outlined labels. A solid line means for, a dashed line means against. Tap anything to see the positions behind it.
Every claim, and who stands where
Kindred and opposed
Inferred from what they said, not from who they knew. Two writers are kindred when they take the same side of the same claims, and opposed when they take opposite sides.
Kindred
Opposed
Who said it?
Which writer are you?
Take a side on as many claims as you like. Your matches update as you go.
Fault lines
The claims writers split on most evenly, and the ones only one side has spoken to yet.
Then and now
Positions taken before 2000 set against positions taken since, claim by claim. Where the lines cross, the consensus moved.
The record
Every position, with its source and page. Search it, filter it, or download it as a spreadsheet.
How this grows
Each entry is one line of data: a writer, a claim, a side, a paraphrase and the source. The full edition will draw on four decades of long-form interviews (the Paris Review's Art of Fiction and Art of Poetry series, the New Yorker, the Believer) plus essays and lectures. That's enough to answer harder questions. Which beliefs do prizewinners share? Which positions have flipped since the 1980s? Which living writers sound most like the dead ones?
All positions are paraphrased by Poetic.ly from the named source, never quoted at length. Each one records a side taken in a specific interview, essay or speech, which may not be the writer's last word on the subject.