Writer’s Desk: Do What Zadie Smith Says

[image error]Zadie Smith—you know her, buzzy English novelist (White Teeth, On Beauty) with an incomparably cool style and legions of fans—is an accomplished enough author at a relatively young age that when she laid down a list of writing tips for the Guardian back in 2010, people paid attention.

Listen up:

1 When still a child, make sure you read a lot of books. Spend more time doing this than anything else.

2 When an adult, try to read your own work as a stranger would read it, or even better, as an en...