Margaret Mitchell's path to success offers important lessons that hold true after eight decades of drastic changes in tastes, culture, mores, business and technology. Besides the obvious -- be a spellbinding storyteller -- here are six takeaways that may help other writers.

Artists are recovering the classics in an attempt to highlight the value of making information free.

Okay, the snacks were great, and so was the wine. But the books were awful. I wanted to have fun, but everyone kept voting for books that were depressing. They called them "classics."