I’ve read some of Hemingway’s advice in other places, but this post pulls a lot of the best together. I was unaware of Arnold Samuelson and his connection to Papa; what a great story! Best of all, Hemingway shares his reading list for writers.
Thanks to Abigayle Blood for the post.

Enjoy!

“As a writer you should not judge. You should understand,” Ernest Hemingway (July 21, 1899–July 2, 1961) counseled in his 1935 Esquire compendium of writing advice, addressed to an archetypal young correspondent but based on a real-life encounter that had taken place a year earlier.

In 1934, a 22-year-old aspiring writer named Arnold Samuelson set out to meet his literary hero, hoping to steal a few moments with Hemingway to talk about writing. The son of Norwegian immigrant wheat farmers, he had just completed his coursework in journalism at the University of Minnesota, but had refused to pay the $5 diploma fee. Convinced…