What Writers Really Want For the Holidays (23 Glorious Gifts)

Jenn Scheck-Kahn, Journal of the Month Founder, offers holiday gift ideas for writers

Welcome to our weekly column offering perspectives on lit mag publishing, with contributions from readers, writers, and editors around the world.

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No one knows what to buy a writer for the holidays. Our loved ones succumb to pun-y t-shirts, quill pens, and library stamps because they are desperate. Do they really think we want a candle that smells like Edgar Allen Poe’s Raven? Too often they settle for a gimmick that’s all window-dressing, objects that claim us as professionals but do nothing to support our actual work. I’m here to help them out.

We want gifts that help us build our skills and resilience, gifts that celebrate our literary pursuit by brushing aside obstacles that impede it, gifts that help us feel part of a community, and gifts that sustain us when the going gets dark.

Here’s a list of 23 gifts writers will cherish. They offer inspiration and focus, whimsy and comfort, education and humor. Most of all they center our literary ambition. Feel free to accidentally forward this list to your special person.

For the Warm-Hearted, Cold-Blooded Writer

Heated mug from Ember

Winter is coming. Gear up your writer like they are a Scandinavian toddler. Cold feet? Consider a slipper-like foot warmer/massager. Cold hands? These heated gloves will do the trick. Cold mug of fortifying favorite beverage? Go for a heated coaster or splurge for a heated mug.

For the Memoirist or Historical Writer

custom birthday book

The best way to immerse yourself in another time and place is to summon its artifacts. For a memoirist, the front page of the newspaper produced on the day they were born in book or puzzle form can stimulate their writing mojo.

Imagine what a writer of historical fiction will create upon receiving replicas of famous documents in their mailbox!

For a Writer’s Room of Their Own

retro wireless keyboard

So many writers think with their keyboard. It’s like the soulmate of their muse. Which one will keep a writer wordsmithing into eternity? This one might catch the eye of the retro chic, although this one offers a retro tactile feel with a satisfying click and this one is easiest on the wrists.

But what if a writer prefers to put pen to paper with an actual pen? Ensure they always have a pen handy with this device.

Does your writer work late into the night? They need blue light-blocking glasses! I won’t presume to know which frames suit their fancy, but surely you’ll find some contenders here.

For the Writer Seeking Distraction

After hours in the brainy world of words, we need a break. Some of us like building things with our hands, like this 3-D storybook puzzle, while others prefer the extroverted stimulation in a literary-themed party game or a deck of tarot cards designed by contemporary writers.

FOR EVERY WRITER

Friends, you’ve found it: the place where the salt-of-the-earth writing gifts wait to be plucked up. They won’t sparkle and preen and that’s how they declare their authenticity. Because writing isn’t glamorous. It’s arduous, inefficient, solitary, and absorbing. What writers need to keep writing is privacy, time, and inspiration. Your writer will treasure these gifts because they remove the obstacles that thwart us from doing what we love most. Without further ado.

Inspiration and Education in Community

Is your writer seeking instruction, seclusion, or community? Writing residencies, conferences, and classes can feel like indulgences that are too costly for many to consider because, in addition to the financial expense, they require time away from work and family responsibilities, but these getaways can refuel writers in a way that nothing else can. Earmark a check for your writer's creati-vacation. Throw in some childcare while they’re gone or a dropped-off dinner for their family and they may return with a sonnet inspired by you.

Alternatively, your writer can stay put and participate in Weekly Writes, a generative and accountability program that sends writing prompts on the regular along with writing and publishing advice from editors of The Common literary magazine.

Books on Writing

Chances are that your writer has already read Bird by Bird, and may be ready to level up. Ideal for the MFA graduate/mid-level emerging prose writer, The Kite and the String: How to Write with Spontaneity and Control -- And Live to Tell the Tale, by Alice Mattison and Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative, by Melissa Febos will fire up your writer. With wisdom and empathy, they leave a writer feeling validated, empowered, and more knowledgeable, and with the certainty that the writing life is a valiant, rewarding aspiration.

Publication Assist

What’s keeping your writer from seeing their name on a book’s spine or a literary magazine’s table of contents? Have they labored over a draft for months and are not sure what’s missing? Be your writer’s patron saint of editorial assistance, by funding a developmental or copy edit by a professional who can identify where a manuscript is too tight-lipped or needs a sheering. You provide the dollars, and let your writer choose the editor from an organization or hire a trusted former teacher.

Is your writer relatively new to publishing? Most writers are published first in literary magazines, but with over 600 in print in the US and countless more offered online and internationally, the market is daunting.

How does a writer know where to begin? Why, you can subscribe them to Lit Mag News to watch interviews with lit mag editors, get the skinny on the latest lit mag dust-ups, and chat with other writers on the particulars of navigating the little mag scene.

Maybe they love lit mags and want more more more! Consider a subscription to a service--full disclosure--I created called Journal of the Month that drops a surprise lit mag in their mailbox on a regular basis.

Another service, Chill Subs, provides an abundance of information about literary magazines. With a paid subscription to their newsletter Sub Club, a writer can read articles about submission trends and interact with a budding community of fellow Woolfs and Baldwins.

But did you know that getting published often comes with a cost, an actual cost? With many lit mags charging $3 to read a story or group of poems, writers can feel that they’ve ponied up the price of a hay-guzzling pony by the time they’ve sent their work to 20 or 30 outlets. Become a writer’s publication sponsor, like artists had in the days of yore. Give a gift card with the instruction that it’s to be spent on contest entrees and submission fees only, removing one angst-ridden part of an angsty process.

Got gift ideas of your own?

Ever received a great gift that has nourished your writing? Please tell us about it.

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