Using data collected from 44 college faculty members, a study investigated the personality characteristics of writers, the ways in which highly productive writers differ from less productive ones, differences in writing strategies, and underlying motivations to write. The subjects were all male, tenured faculty members of a midwestern university who had published in any genre. They represented the major disciplines of humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences. For purposes of the study, productivity as a writer was quantified by converting self-report information on number and types of publications to a single numerical score. Based on these data, six subjects, three higher productive and three lower productive writers, were chosen for indepth interviews to further explore their underlying motivations and strategies. Data analysis yielded a number of conclusions, including the following: (1) writers seem to be characterized by high scores on achievement, endurance, and understanding, and low scores on play, impulsivity, and aggression; (2) dominance is significantly positively related and nurturance significantly negatively related to productivity as a writer; (3) an underlying motivation to write seemed to be a desire to achieve distinction; and (4) highly productive writers seemed to have an effective psychological writing strategy that emphasized productivity as well as creativity. (FL)