31 of the Best WordPress Themes for Writers

May 19th, 2009 by Cameron Chapman in Resources

I am a WordPress junkie. There, I’ve said it. I love anything to do with WordPress: using it, designing themes for it, customizing it, reading about it. But themes, especially, are my favorite part. I’ve just started designing some themes for public release (stay tuned for more details on those) but I love using themes others have designed, too. And I especially love making little tweaks here or there to make them reflect my personality.

But choosing a theme can be overwhelming (I think it took me about six weeks to decide on the theme for this site). There are thousands of themes out there. And while there are plenty of great themes, not all of them are particularly well-suited to the blogs of writers, which tend to be text-heavy and image-light.

So here is a collection of WP themes particularly suited to writers, along with links to try them out and download them. A few things most of them have in common:

They have light backgrounds with dark text. Reading large blocks of white text against a black or other very dark background can be trying on your eyes. Since most writers want their blog visitors to spend plenty of time reading their work, a dark background can be counterproductive.
They put the emphasis on the text. Again, you want people to read your work, not spend hours admiring your design.
They look good even without adding tons images to every post (some require at least one image per post, especially for featured posts).

When looking for your own themes, keep these guidelines in mind. The goal is to have your work read. You don’t want to do anything that may jeopardize that.

14 Comments

Alice Gray May 19, 2009 at 2:56 pm

I love all things WordPress, too! Though I’m partial to the Black Letterhead theme for my work

Great article!

~Alice
Alice Gray May 19, 2009 at 3:08 pm

I love all things WordPress, too! I’m partial to Black Letterhead for work
Denver May 20, 2009 at 9:30 am

nice collection !
Tami Boehmer May 22, 2009 at 9:00 am

Thanks, this comes at the perfect timing. I am working on a professional blog for my writing and to help publicize my upcoming book.
kunal bansal July 1, 2009 at 4:50 am

hey, great themes there.. i am trying myself for the
professional blogging..
and best of luck yourself.;)
Kourtnie McKenzie July 16, 2009 at 5:05 pm

Thank you for contributing this!
Carla August 7, 2009 at 1:44 am

I just uploaded the Oulipo theme and I love it! I’ve tried so many themes for my personal blog in the past and this one is the best so far.
Sedat Kumcu August 10, 2009 at 10:51 pm

Great article Cameron. Thanks for writing.
subcorpus August 11, 2009 at 5:49 am

very good collection of themes here …
i tend to like darker themes … but some of the themese here may change my mind a bit … hehe …
thanks for sharing … appreciated …
top books October 12, 2009 at 3:00 pm

I love the Arthemia . it is really nice . but I can’t find any one like it .
Cameron Chapman October 12, 2009 at 5:10 pm

Here is the link to the Arthemia theme: http://michaelhutagalung.com/2008/05/arthemia-magazine-blog-wordpress-theme-released/

It’s available for free.
31 of the Best WordPress Themes for Writers | Cameron Chapman July 13, 2009 at 6:06 am

[...] from: 31 of the Best WordPress Themes for Writers | Cameron Chapman Tags: Comments0 Leave a Reply Click here to cancel [...]
Twitter Trackbacks for 31 of the Best WordPress Themes for Writers | Cameron Chapman [cameronchapman.com] on Topsy.com August 31, 2009 at 8:13 pm

[...] 31 of the Best WordPress Themes for Writers | Cameron Chapman cameronchapman.com/2009/05/31-of-the-best-wordpress-themes-for-writers – view page – cached I am a WordPress junkie. There, I’ve said it. I love anything to do with WordPress: using it, designing themes for it, customizing it, reading about it. But — From the page [...]
fritz freiheit.com blog » Link dump February 19, 2010 at 5:10 pm

[...] 31 of the Best WordPress Themes for Writers | Cameron Chapman (WordPress,Theme,Free,List,Author,Writ… [...]