"If your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything." - David Foster Wallace

Here's an interview with David Foster Wallace by Leonard Lopate recorded on March 4, 1996. In it, Wallace discusses perfectionism, receiving (and neglecting) constructive lessons, and ambition.

In this new RSA Animate, renowned experimental psychologist Steven Pinker shows us how the mind turns the finite building blocks of language into infinite meanings. Taken from the RSA's free public events programme www.thersa.org/events.

On the publication of his collection This Is How You Lose Her, Junot Díaz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, talks about how he writes novels and short stories and the inspiration behind them.

On today's Writers' Reel George Saunders talks about what he thinks produces bad writing.
"The reader is a person you need to charm, you better bring your good shit…because they don't have time to wait around for you to work through your Hemingway phase."

Today we take a glimpse inside the lives of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald in this rare compilation of photographs and footage taken of the eccentric couple. The material of this video focuses primarily on the pair during the early-to-mid Twenties, before the deterioration of their marriage, and ultimately Zelda's sanity.

In honor of National Poetry Month meet Kioni "Popcorn" Marshall, an extraordinary 12-year-old poet from the Bronx. Follow Kioni's emotional journey as she prepares for her first featured performance at New York's famed Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Created and produced by @radical.media, THNKR gives you extraordinary access to the people, stories, places and thinking that will change your mind.

Every writer has an inner critic. This is what Anne Lamott says in her book Bird by Bird: "Close your eyes and get quiet for a minute, until the chatter starts up. Then isolate one of the voices and imagine the person speaking as a mouse. Pick it up by the tail and drop it into a mason jar. And so on. Drop in any high-maintenance parental units, drop in any contractors, lawyers, colleagues, children, anyone who is whining in your head."

In this video from Thnkr, bestselling author Daniel H. Pink introduces some very creative and effective pitches that all writers should try.

E.B. White frequently wrote about animals. Once, he even wrote a letter to his wife from the perspective of their dog. In this Bookd Margins video by Thnkr, Michael Sims, author of The Story of Charlotte's Web, shares fascinating details about White's eccentric life.

Author and former literary agent John Hodgman gives tips on how to make it as a writer. Find out why writing what you know may not be enough.