Gifts for Writers: Inspiring Ideas for Every Kind of Writer

Writers are easy to buy for badly — another notebook, another mug with a joke about deadlines — and hard to buy for well. The best gifts for writers are things that make the desk a better place to sit, and things that spark ideas.

For the writing itself

A quill pen. Writing with ink and a nib slows the hand and the mind, and many writers find their first drafts come differently when written by hand. A feathered quill with a set of steel nibs is a beautiful object on a desk and a genuine pleasure to use for signing books, letters and journal pages. How to write with a quill pen.

Add a bottle of ink and some heavy paper.

For story ideas

A tarot deck. Novelists, screenwriters and game writers use tarot cards as story prompts: draw three cards for a character's past, present and future, or deal out a plot in the Celtic Cross. The archetypes — the Fool, the Tower, the Lovers — are ready-made story beats. A deck with the classic 1909 artwork, gilded edges and a tin is lovely to own.

A rune set. Twenty-four symbols, each with a meaning, drawn from a bag: a random starting point for a scene, a character's fate, a twist. Elder Futhark runes and meanings.

For the deadline

An hourglass coin. A memento mori coin with an hourglass on one face is the most elegant deadline reminder there is: time is short, write the book. Many writers keep one by the keyboard. Memento mori meaning.

A pocket watch on the desk, for the writer who works in timed sprints.

For restless hands

Writers think with their hands. An infinity cube or a metal fidget gives fingers something to do while the next sentence arrives, and makes no noise at all.

For historical and fantasy writers

• A compass in an antique case, for the adventure writer.
• A quill and runes, for anyone writing a world with older magic in it.
• A deck of themed playing cards — pirates, Wonderland, Chinese opera — as reference and inspiration.

Gifts for writers — men and women

These work for anyone who writes. For a writer who is just starting out, the quill pen and the tarot deck are the most encouraging: one says "you're a writer", the other says "here are a thousand stories to start".

A note to go with it

The best writer's gift includes a few written lines of your own — fittingly, by hand.

Gifts for history buffs · Tarot card meanings.