Writing is usually seen as a solitary pursuit. Rather, the author or journalist is typically depicted as a lonely figure bludgeoning away at a blank page in hermetic seclusion. The reality is more nuanced, of course. Even the artists we think of as singular geniuses were, in some sense, collaborators, entering into productive communion with others. Vladimir Nabokov relied on his wife Véra for translation and first impressions; an elder James Joyce, eyesight failing, relied on the help of a yo...

Writing is usually seen as a solitary pursuit. Rather, the author or journalist is typically depicted as a lonely figure bludgeoning away at a blank page in hermetic seclusion. The reality is more nuanced, of course. Even the artists we think of as singular geniuses were, in some sense, collaborators, entering into productive communion with others. Vladimir Nabokov relied on his wife Véra for translation and first impressions; an elder James Joyce, eyesight failing, relied on the help of a yo...