The Millions posted an essay by Michael Bourne titled “Magical Thinking: Talent and the Cult of Craft,” which prominently features John Updike.

“It is, of course, impossible to write a good book without a deep appreciation of how language and stories work, but it doesn’t follow that successful writers have simply worked at it harder than less successful ones or that their understanding of the craft of fiction is any more accurate,” Bourne writes. “What successful writers have that their less successful counterparts do not is talent.

“This inconvenient fact offends our sensibilities because it is elitist and because it means that for all but a very lucky few of us, literary greatness remains beyond our grasp.”

Here’s the full article.