An article from The Guardian. I agree with some of the things he says, but I think he ignores the side of writing that is simply entertainment (and, in these days, "commercial events" such as the release of a book by, say, Michael Crichton). Entertainment-oriented writing will be not necessarily be art, and it might not necessarily have a message beyond "some people are bad." The portion of the article I like best is when he describes how the story carries the writer forward, rather than the other way around: it's definitely true.