Daniel Mendelsohn writes with the television on. Donald Antrim “lurches” between periods of writing and not writing. Nino Ricci writes when he is not engaging in his habits, which, apparently, include playing computer games. Only Catherine Mavirikakis, the odd woman out on the Saturday afternoon panel discussion on “Why I write,” said that she writes every day.

Maybe because writing is such a solitary activity, hearing about why and how someone writes is like having a magician show how the card trick works. Except that in the case of writing, the trick never loses its mystery. Book in hand, the reader is once again seduced by the story and the writing process becomes a puzzle all over again.

But for those moments while we were in a room hearing Antrim talk about his writing anxiety, or Mendelsohn about his unhealthy attachment to Battlestar Galactica in the face of deadlines, we got a glimpse of the magician standing in front of the mirror practicing his tricks.