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In an elegant but contemporary voice, award-winning author Susan Griffin breaks down the creative process step-by-step, guiding the reader through a practical course in how to begin and end a work of literature, whether fiction or nonfiction, poetry, or prose The distinguished author of more than twenty-two books, many award-winning, Susan Griffin distills daily wisdom garnered from more than five decades teaching creative writing and editing manuscripts, as well as from her own writing. This collection of brief but ultimately pithy chapters designed to help beginning writers get started also guides experienced writers through blocks and difficulties of all kinds. Organized according to a practical timeline, Out of Silence, Sound. Out of Nothing, Something. elucidates the process of writing from beginning to end, presenting an approach that is similar to the practice of meditation as it encourages and enlarges the mind's intrinsic capacity for creativity. An autobiographical account, a sometimes humorous, at times moving essay called "How I Learned to Write" is threaded throughout the book.

Reviewed: NYT/BR 31 Jan. 2021 p. 16.
Description: Mathew Salesses argues that the traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what is called craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing–including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability–and aspects of workshop–including the silenced writer and the imagined reader–Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces? Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights, Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Asian American classic No-No Boy, Salesses asks us to re-imagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR Dec 2021/Jan 2022 p. 32.
Description: In this witty “how-to” guide, Wisława Szymborska has nothing but sympathy for the labors of would-be writers generally: “I myself started out with rotten poetry and stories,” she confesses in this collection of pieces culled from the advice she gave-anonymously-for many years in the well-known Polish journal Literary Life. She returns time and again to the mundane business of writing poetry properly, that is to say, painstakingly and sparingly. “I sigh to be a poet,” Miss A. P. from Bialogard exclaims. “I groan to be an editor,” Szymborska responds. Szymborska stubbornly insists on poetry’s “prosaic side”: “Let’s take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?”

Reviewed: TLS 17 Dec. 2021 p. 24.
Description: Revision is a kind of writing, argues William Germano, indeed the only writing that ultimately counts. That’s because only revision makes a piece of writing worth the time and attention of readers. With the wit and wisdom that distinguished his now classic guides Getting It Published and From Dissertation to Book, Germano explains how to get your writing up to the level where it matters not just to yourself but to others. Revision goes far beyond the usual advice to cut for concision, discussing revision as expansion, structural revision across the larger span of a work, revision as response to one’s audience, and revision as rethinking. Although full of practical advice, this book is no mere how-to, and to approach it only as a guide wouldn’t do it justice. It is also a learned, deeply thoughtful essay on what impels revising, and on the writer’s task. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 31 Jan. 2021 p. 16.
Description: Mathew Salesses argues that the traditional writing workshop was established with white male writers in mind; what is called craft is informed by their cultural values. In this bold and original examination of elements of writing–including plot, character, conflict, structure, and believability–and aspects of workshop–including the silenced writer and the imagined reader–Salesses asks questions to invigorate these familiar concepts. He upends Western notions of how a story must progress. How can we rethink craft, and the teaching of it, to better reach writers with diverse backgrounds? How can we invite diverse storytelling traditions into literary spaces? Drawing from examples including One Thousand and One Nights, Curious George, Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea, and the Asian American classic No-No Boy, Salesses asks us to reimagine craft and the workshop. In the pages of exercises included here, teachers will find suggestions for building syllabi, grading, and introducing new methods to the classroom; students will find revision and editing guidance, as well as a new lens for reading their work. Salesses shows that we need to interrogate the lack of diversity at the core of published fiction: how we teach and write it. (publ.)

Description: A new world has opened to writers who wish to have their words turned into finished books. With technological advances in typesetting, printing, distribution, and sales, self-publishing has become a reality. But while converting your writing into a commercially available title may sound relatively easy–based upon the claims of some companies that offer this service–there are many important considerations you should be aware of be-fore going to press. Publishing expert Dr. Jan Yager has created an easy-to-follow guide that will take you from a book’s conception and writing to its production and sales. Whether your work is fiction or nonfiction, this book offers sound and proven advice at every turn, enabling you to avoid common pitfalls along the way to becoming a self-published author. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 21 June 2019 p. 8; LR Nov. 2019 p. 28.
Description: Sooner or later, our words take on meanings other than we intended. David Bromwich suggests that the conventional idea of persuasive rhetoric (which assumes a speaker’s control of calculated effects) and the modern idea of literary autonomy (which assumes that “poetry makes nothing happen”) together have produced a misleading account of the relations between words and human action. Words do make things happen. But they cannot be counted on to produce the result they intend. This volume studies examples from a range of speakers and writers and offers close readings of their words. Chapter 1 considers the theory of speech-acts propounded by J.L. Austin. “Speakers Who Convince Themselves” is the subject of chapter 2, which interprets two soliloquies by Shakespeare’s characters and two by Milton’s Satan. The oratory of Burke and Lincoln come in for extended treatment in chapter 3, while chapter 4 looks at the rival tendencies of moral suasion and aestheticism in the poetry of Yeats and Auden. The final chapter, a cause of controversy when first published in the London Re-view of Books, supports a policy of unrestricted free speech against con-temporary proposals of censorship. Since we cannot know what our own words are going to do, we have no standing to justify the banishment of one set of words in favour of another. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 6 Mar. 2020 p. 4.
Description: There seems to be widespread agreement that–when it comes to the writing skills of college students–we are in the midst of a crisis. In this book, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn’t caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we’re teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform writing-related simulations, “which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities.” This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn’t prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules–such as the five-paragraph essay–designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 47.
Description: In the tradition of The Elements of Style comes Trish Hall’s essential new work on writing well–a sparkling instructional guide to persuading (almost) anyone, on (nearly) anything. As the person in charge of the Op-Ed page for the New York Times, Hall spent years immersed in argument, passion, and trendsetting ideas–but also in tangled sentences, migraine-inducing jargon, and dull-as-dishwater writing. Drawing on her vast experience editing everyone from Nobel Prize winners and global strongmen (Putin) to first-time pundits (Angelina Jolie), Hall presents the ultimate guide to writing persuasively for students, job applicants, and rookie authors looking to get published. She sets out the core principles for connecting with readers–laid out in illuminating chapters such as “Cultivate Empathy,” “Abandon Jargon,” and “Prune Ruthlessly.” Combining boisterous anecdotes with practical advice (relayed in “tracked changes” bubbles), Hall offers an infinitely accessible primer on the art of effectively communicating above the digital noise of the twenty-first century. (publ.)

Description: A writer’s goal–whether they are a traveler, memoirist, journalist, novelist, or blogger–is to live with the keenness of the foreigner, that is, to experience the sensations and events offered up by their surroundings and evoke them so thoroughly on the page that readers are transported to a rich and miraculous world. A time-honored way this may be accomplished is through a field notebook. For many years Sara Mansfield Taber has welcomed adults into her writing seminars–wonderful people writing of their travels, their explorations of interesting people, their childhoods, their fictional characters, and their complex lives. Each and every one has unique tales to tell and wisdom to impart. The one thing they too-often lack is ad-equate notes on the very people and places they want to write about. Their notes–and consequently their writings–have a fundamental flaw: an insufficiency of concrete and sensory detail with which to build flavorful, satisfying stories. Taber has written this field notebook to rectify the situation. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR Oct. 2018 p. 54; TLS 29 Nov. 2019 p. 16 (TLS Book of the Year 2019); TLS 6 Mar. 2020 p. 4.
Description: Whether dealing with finding the ideal word, building a sentence or constructing a paragraph, Joe Moran informs by light example: much richer than a style guide, it can be read not just for instruction but for pleasure and delight. And along the way it shows how good writing can help us notice the world, make ourselves known to others and live more meaningful lives. It’s an elegant gem in praise of the English sentence. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 30 Apr. 2018 p. 50.
Description: In 2014, novelist Leslie Schwartz was sentenced to 90 days in Los Angeles County Jail for a DUI and battery of an officer. After more than a decade clean and sober, Schwartz had a 414-day relapse into alcohol and drug ad-diction. The damage she inflicted that year upon her friends, her husband, her teenage daughter, and herself was nearly impossible to fathom. Incarceration might have ruined her altogether, if not for the stories that sustained her while she was behind bars–both the artful tales in the books she read while there, and, more immediately, the stories of her fellow inmates. With classics like Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome to contemporary accounts like Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken, Schwartz’s reading list is woven together with visceral recollections of both her daily humiliations and small triumphs within the county jail system. Through the stories of others–whether rendered on the page or whispered in a jail cell–she learned powerful lessons about how to banish shame, use guilt for good, level her grief, and find the lost joy and magic of her astonishing life. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR Sept. 2018 p. 27.
Description: In 1857, after two years of writing The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell fled England for Rome on the eve of publication. The project had become so fraught with criticism, with different truths and different lies, that Mrs Gaskell couldn’t stand it any more. She threw her book out into the world and disappeared to Italy with her two eldest daughters. In Rome she found excitement, inspiration, and love: a group of artists and writers who would become lifelong friends, and a man–Charles Norton–who would become the love of Mrs Gaskell’s life, though they would never be together. In 2013, Nell Stevens is embarking on her Ph.D.–about the community of artists and writers living in Rome in the mid-nineteenth century–and falling drastically in love with a man who lives in another city. As Nell chases her heart around the world, and as Mrs Gaskell forms the greatest connection of her life, these two women, though centuries apart, are drawn together. (publ.) “Nell Stevens is the go-to writer for accounts of not getting on with writing, a state which many writers will be excruciating familiar…” (LR).

Description: How can twenty-first-century scholars and other experts craft their voices for audiences beyond their peers? Political scientist Mira Sucharov walks readers through the ins and outs of op-ed writing and social media engagement. Presented in a lively and engaging style, she coaches readers on the best approach to pitching and writing op-eds and other related analytical pieces, managing the ensuing conversation, conveying in-formed ideas to an evidence-resistant audience, avoiding social media hazards in an increasingly polarized environment, harnessing outrage culture to organize sensitively and intelligently, and using political labels in ways that cut through the noise. Enlivened with discussions of an array of hot-button issues and examples of public influence succeeding wildly and going terribly awry, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to harness the opportunities of public engagement in a dynamic digital age. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (May 2019 vol. 56 no. 9); Top 75 Titles recommended for community college libraries.
Description: A complete introduction to the art and craft of writing in a variety of short forms. The authors introduce both traditional and innovative approaches to the short form and demonstrate how it possesses structure, logic, and coherence while simultaneously resisting expectations. With discussion questions, writing prompts, flash interviews and glossary of key terms, the book covers: Prose poetry; Flash and micro fiction; The lyric essay; Short shorts; Micro memoir; Cross-genre/hybrid writing; Nano fiction; Sudden fiction; Drabble; Vignette; & Postcard poems/fiction. It also includes an anthology, offering inspiring examples of short-form writing in all of the styles covered by the book, including work by: Charles Baudelaire, Elizabeth Bishop, Jorges Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Trevor Dodge, Grant Faulkner, Robert Hass, Ilya Kaminsky, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Philip Levine, Anne Sexton and many others. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 47; PW 25 Mar. 2019 p. 88.
Description: Becoming a widow is one of the most traumatic life events that a woman can experience. Yet, as this remarkable new collection reveals, each woman responds to that trauma differently. Here, forty-three widows tell their stories, in their own words. Some were widowed young, while others were married for decades. Some cared for their late partners through long terminal illnesses, while others lost their partners suddenly. Some had male partners, while others had female partners. Yet each of these women faced the same basic dilemma: how to go on living when a part of you is gone. The book is arranged chronologically, starting with stories of women preparing for their partners’ deaths, followed by the experiences of recent widows still reeling from their fresh loss, and culminating in the accounts of women who lost their partners many years ago but still experience waves of grief. Their accounts deal honestly with feelings of pain, sorrow, and despair, and yet there are also powerful expressions of strength, hope, and even joy. Whether you are a widow yourself or have simply experienced loss, you will be sure to find something moving and profound in these diverse tales of mourning, remembrance, and resilience. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 6 Oct. 2017 p. 32
Description: This book is a guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed one hundred academics worldwide about their writing background and practices. Relatively few were trained as writers, she found, and yet all have developed strategies to thrive in their publish-or-perish environment. Sword identifies four cornerstones that anchor any successful writing practice: Behavioral habits of discipline and persistence; Artisanal habits of craftsmanship and care; Social habits of collegiality and collaboration; and Emotional habits of positivity and pleasure. Building on this “BASE,” she illuminates the emotional complexity of the writing process and exposes the lack of writing support typically available to early-career academics. She also lays to rest the myth that academics must produce safe, conventional prose or risk professional failure. (publ.)
Shelving Note: Shelved in Writer’s Shelf area of library.

Description: All writers conduct research. For some this means poring over records and combing, archives but for many creative writers research happens in the everyday world–when they scribble an observation on the subway, when they travel to get the feel for a city, or when they strike up a conversation with an interesting stranger. The Art of Creative Research helps writers take this natural inclination to explore and observe and turn it into a workable–and enjoyable–research plan. It shows that research shouldn’t be seen as a dry, plodding aspect of writing. Instead, it’s an art that all writers can master, one that unearths surprises and fuels imagination. This lends authenticity to fiction and poetry as well as nonfiction. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 8 Jan. 2018 p. 50.
Description: As young children, we are taught to read, but soon go on to forget just how miraculous a process it is, this turning of scratches and dots into understanding, unease and inspiration. Perhaps we need to stop and remember, stop and learn again how to read better. … Damon Young shows us how to do exactly this, walking alongside some of the greatest readers who light a path for us—Borges, Plato, Woolf. He shows his reader how cultivating their inner critic can expand their own lives as well as the lives of those on the pages of the books they love. (publ.)

Description: Offers the business education writers need but so rarely receive. This guide is meant for early-career writers looking to develop a realistic set of expectations about making money from their work or for working writers who want a better understanding of the industry. Writers will gain a comprehensive picture of how the publishing world works–from queries and agents to blogging and advertising–and will learn how they can best position themselves for success over the long term. (publ.)

Reviewed: Locus Feb. 2018 p. 65
Description: Between 2008 and 2017, author John Scalzi wrote fifteen books, became a New York Times bestselling author, and won numerous awards, including the Hugo, the Locus and the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Ohio. He also had book deals crater, lost more awards than he won, worried about his mortgage and health insurance, flubbed a few dead-lines, tried to be a decent parent and husband, and got into some arguments on the Internet, because, after all, that's what the Internet is for. Scalzi wrote about it all–the highs and lows in the life of a working writer–and gave his readers, and other writers, a glimpse of the day-to-day business of navigating a writing life in today’s world. Sometimes these essays offered advice. Sometimes they commented on the practical business of publishing and selling books. Sometimes they focused on the writing is-sues, arguments and personalities of the day. And sometimes, Scalzi reflected on his own writing life and career, and what both meant in the larger scheme of things. (publ.)

Reviewed: WSJ 2/3 Sept. 2017 p. C9; NYT/BR 12 Nov. 2017 p. 13; TLS 6 Apr. 2018 p. 29.
Description: A master class on the writer’s craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. (publ.)
Shelving Note: Shelved in Writer’s Shelf area of library.

Reviewed: TLS 23 Mar. 2018 p. 31.
Description: An engaging and frank guide to writing the very short story, full of sound advice, exemplary models, and provocative exercises. The history of fiction has been dominated by the novel and the short story. But now a brave new genre has emerged: very brief fiction. This guide identifies the qualities that make for excellent flash fiction, demystifies the writing process, and guides writers by exercise and example through the world of the very short story. John Dufresne’s characteristic warmth, wit, and humor remind writers of the joy in the creative process, making this a perfect guide for any writer interested in trying a new form. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 18 Dec. 2018 p. 114.
Description: The author’s manifesto on the entangling of life, literature, and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these essays, he grows from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckons with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover, and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and the nation’s history, including his father’s death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing—Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley—the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump. By turns commanding, heartbreaking, and wry, Chee asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 26 June 2017 p. 52; LJ 1 Nov. 2017 p. 86
Description: This wise and friendly guide shows writers how to turn first-draft manuscripts into the novels of their dreams. A critic, longtime teacher, and award-winning novelist, Sandra Scofield illustrates how to reread a work of fiction with a view of its subject and vision, and how to take it apart and put it back together again, stronger and deeper. Scofield builds her explanations around helpful concepts like narrative structure, character agency, and core scenes, using models from classic and contemporary writers. (publ.)
Shelving Note: Shelved in Writer’s Shelf area of library.

Description: Contributors include Mary Gaitskill, Tom Perrotta, Ayana Mathis, and Stephen King.
Shelving Note: Shelved in Writer’s Shelf area of library.

Reviewed: PW 22 Jan. 2018 p. 71
Description: Le Guin, who died at 88 on January 22, 2018, shares her in-sights on writing in 3 interviews with Naimon. A towering figure in the field of science fiction, fantasy, and non-fiction writing, her 50-year career includes multiple Hugo & Nebula awards for her speculative fiction, as well as earning a World Fantasy Award, Eaton Award, and Pilgrim Award all for lifetime achievement and contribution to the fields of science fiction and fantasy. She is the daughter of renown writer Theodora Kroeber and legendary anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber.

Reviewed: TLS 22/29 Dec. 2017 p. 37
Description: Contributors make the case for why editing remains a vital function to writers–and readers–everywhere. Ironically for an industry built on words, there has been a scarcity of written guidance on how to actually approach the work of editing. This book will serve as a compendium of professional advice and will be a resource both for those entering the profession (or already in it) and for those outside publishing who seek an understanding of it. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 6 Apr. 2018 p. 29
Description: By delving into vivid memories of her traumatic childhood, confessions of self-doubt in her journals, and heartbreaking letters to and from her mother, bestselling author Amy Tan gives evidence to all that made it both unlikely and inevitable that she would become a writer. Through spontaneous storytelling, she shows how a fluid fictional state of mind unleashed near-forgotten memories that became the emotional nucleus of her novels. Tan explores shocking truths uncovered by family memorabilia–the real reason behind an IQ test she took at age six, why her parents lied about their education, mysteries surrounding her maternal grandmother–and, for the first time publicly, writes about her complex relationship with her father, who died when she was fifteen. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 23 Feb. 2018 p. 36
Description: Writing tends to make people anxious, and with good reason. The first sentence of a job application letter can consign it to the bin. A speech intended to rouse can put a room to sleep. A misstimed tweet can cost you your job. And a letter to a beloved may aim to convey feelings of tenderness but end up making the recipient laugh rather than melt. In this complete guide to persuasive writing, Sam Leith shows how to express yourself fully across any medium, and how to maximize your chances of getting your way in every situation. From work reports to Valentine cards, and from emails of condolence to tweets of complaint, Leith lays bare the secrets to successful communication, eloquence and off- and online etiquette. How do you write a job application, a thank-you card, or an email to your bank manager, to your children’s headteacher, to your clients or your boss? How do you prepare a speech to win the argument, get the vote of confidence, or embarrass the bridegroom? Getting these things right–or wrong–can be life-changing. (publ.)

Description: This book is meant for travelers of all backgrounds and writing levels: a student embarking on overseas study; a retiree realizing a dream of seeing China; a Peace Corps worker in Kenya. All can benefit from documenting their adventures, whether on paper or online. Through practical advice and adaptable exercises, this guide will help travelers hone their observational skills, conduct research and interviews, choose an appropriate literary form, and incorporate photos and videos into their writing. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 21 May 2017 p. 24; WSJ 18 May 2017 p. A13; TLS 19 Jan. 2018 p. 8.

Reviewed: Choice Jan 2016 vol. 53 no. 5 (Highly Recommended; Top 75 Titles Recommended for Community College Librar-ies)

Holdings: Updates earlier (5th; 1998) NICC/Peosta library ed.; call no. 808.0665 Day
Shelving Note: Writers Collection

Reviewed: CHE 14 Oct. 2016

Reviewed: NYT/BR 12 Feb. 2017 p. 26