“What Book Most Inspired You To Become A Writer?”

For National Reading Month, we asked local authors this question. Here’s what they said.

“Studs Terkel’s Working, a book of oral histories with brilliant voices leaping off the pages. Each person in that book was vivid and particular. I remember the waitress, Dolores Dante, bragging about ‘a certain way’ she likes to weave between the tables. ‘I do it with an air,’ she said.” 

—Marilyn Johnson,
author of Lives in Ruins


Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney. It’s so perfectly written and it really opened my eyes as far as what good contemporary fiction could be.” 

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—Jonathan Tropper, author of This Is Where I Leave You


Seventeenth-Century English Poetry: An assigned text for a college course, this anthology contained the first poems that filled me with jealousy, which turned out to be an indispensible emotion for the writing life.” 

—Billy Collins, former poet laureate of the United States


Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone. It was about the CIA, drug smuggling from Vietnam, and lost values, and it created suspense as well as any thriller, which said to me, ‘I want to write like that.’” 

—Andrew Grossman, author of Lost Sky

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“First it was Winnie-the-Pooh, used by my parents to entertain themselves while forcing children into unconsciousness. By the time I was putting myself to bed, I had fallen for Walden. Henry David Thoreau stripped life to its bare essentials. Then he explained it. He wasn’t funny, but he did like to be out of doors, which was almost as good.”

—Ben Cheever, author of The Plagiarist

Our Best of Westchester Elimination Ballot is open through March 13!

Unveiled: A Boutique Bridal Brunch is February 23!

Our Women in Business Awards event is November 21!

Our Best of Business event is October 30!

Our CEOs & Business Leaders Golf Outing is August 5!

Our Best of Westchester Party is July 24!

Our Westchester Home Design Awards event is June 26!

Our Wine & Food Festival returns June 4-9!

Our Wunderkinds event takes place on May 23!

Our Best of Business Ballot is open through May 15!

Our Healthcare Heroes Awards event takes place on May 9!

Our Westchester Home Builders Awards take place on April 4!

Our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Forum is March 14!

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