1. Talk Stories, Jamaica Kincaid
"I’m beginning this list in the year I was 21, since before that, who knows what I was. In my application to journalism school, I was asked to say, in a short essay, whose work I wanted mine to be like. We didn’t grow up with The New Yorker in the house, but I knew it was important. I researched The New Yorker writers until I found someone whose writing I could describe as 'silvery' – light, semi-precious, quick – and…