The Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by Annie Dillard
Genre : Literary Collections
Editor : Harper Collins
ISBN : 9780061863820
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 132
Download →

"For nonwriters, it is a glimpse into the trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling, conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague." — Chicago Tribune From Pulitzer Prize-winning Annie Dillard, a collection that illuminates the dedication and daring that characterizes a writer's life. In these short essays, Annie Dillard—the author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and An American Childhood—illuminates the dedication, absurdity, and daring that characterize the existence of a writer. A moving account of Dillard’s own experiences while writing her works, The Writing Life offers deep insight into one of the most mysterious professions.


The Geek S Guide To The Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by Stephanie Vanderslice
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Editor : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN : 9781350023581
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 184
Download →

The desire to create, to write, to fulfil our artistic dreams is a powerful human need. Yet the number of people who make a living solely by their pen is actually quite small. What does that mean for the rest of us, the self-described writing geeks, who are passionate about writing and who still want to sustain successful literary lives? What does it really mean to find time to build a rewarding writing life while pursuing a career, being a partner or raising a family, in the distracted, time-deprived, 21st-century? In The Geek's Guide to the Writing Life, based on her Huffington Post blog of the same name, Stephanie Vanderslice shares the secrets and tools to developing a successful, rewarding writing practice in a way that inspires the reader to persevere through the inevitable lows and even the highs of a literary life, so that anyone can pursue the path to realizing their artistic dreams.


A Dangerous Profession

Details Book:
Author by Frederick Busch
Genre : Literary Criticism
Editor : St. Martin's Press
ISBN : 9780312246082
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 256
Download →

Frederick Busch has an enduring love affair with great books, and here he brilliantly communicates his passion to us all. Whether expounding on Melville or Dickens, or celebrating Hemingway or O'Hara, he explains what literature can ineffably reveal about our own lives. For Busch, there was no other recourse save the "dangerous profession;" it was to be his calling, and in these piercing essays, he demonstrates that we as a culture ignore the fundamental truths about fiction only at our own peril. With keen ruminations that recall the critcs of yore- Edmund Wilson, Lionel Trilling, and Irving Howe-Busch, in this era of moral indirection, has revealed how the literature of our past is the key to our survival in the future.


The Write Quotes The Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by Landis Wade
Genre : Reference
Editor : Charlotte Readers Podcast, LLC
ISBN : 9798987695609
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 135
Download →

These inspirational and practical quotes come from 500+ podcast interviews with hard-working, award-winning, and New York Times bestselling authors in more than 33 U.S. states and five countries. In Book 1, authors share their honest reflections on The Writing Life. These quotes reveal what it really feels like to be a writer. Authors quoted include David Baldacci, Therese Anne Fowler, Steve Berry, Lisa Jewell, John Hart, Sophie Cousens, Ron Rash, C.J. Box, Craig Johnson, Wylie Cash, Kristy Harvey, Brad Taylor, Charlie Lovett, Judy Goldman, Chris Fabry, Amber Smith, Tracy Clark, John Gilstrap, Kimmery Martin, A.J. Hartley, Clyde Edgerton, Jill McCorkle, Jason Mott, Mark de Castrique, Cathy Pickens, David Joy, and many more. As the late Anthony Abbott so eloquently says in this book, “Writing is not about writing, necessarily. Writing is about living. And the more deeply and fully you live, the more you are able to write.” There is hope in this book but there is also angst and humility. Case in point is a quote by New York Timesbestselling author John Hart, who says that the writing life is so unbelievably wonderful that he feels “deep down that the universe must have plans to take that all away.” It makes him work even harder on his next book. The writers quoted in these pages grab for their pens and fire up their computers for the love of writing. They have a common urge to create, to use letters, words, and sentences to tell stories, either about themselves, or others, or about characters they create in their writing chambers. They write for therapy or to understand themselves and the world around them. They write for the sake of writing. They write for publication. They write to be remembered. They write to be heard and understood. And as more than one author says, they write because they can’t not write.


One Year To A Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by Susan M. Tiberghien
Genre : Reference
Editor : Da Capo Press
ISBN : 9780786750429
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 288
Download →

Whether you are a writer of fiction or essays, or want to explore poetry or memoir, Tiberghien's twelve fundamental lessons will help you discover and develop your own distinct voice. Tiberghien's inventive exercises focus on the processes unique to each genre, while also offering skills applicable to any kind of writing, from authentic dialogue to masterful short-shorts. With vivid examples from literary masters such as Rainer Maria Rilke, Eduardo Galeano, May Sarton, Terry Tempest Williams, and Orhan Pamuk, One Year to a Writing Life is an essential guidebook of exercises, practical advice, and wisdom for anyone looking to embrace, explore, and implement creativity in everyday life.


The Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by George Fetherling
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Editor : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN : 9780773588257
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 360
Download →

Selected from thousands of pages of the daily journals of George Fetherling - the inexhaustible novelist, poet, and cultural commentator - The Writing Life reveals an astute and candid observer of his contemporaries as well as himself. Hundreds of figures in the arts and public life crisscross the pages of Fetherling's journals, from Margaret Atwood and Marshall McLuhan, to Gwendolyn MacEwen and Conrad Black. The book begins in mid-1970s Toronto, a time of cultural ferment, and carries on to Vancouver and a new century. A captivating and intimate narrative, The Writing Life provides a compelling portrait of the last three decades of Canadian cultural life. From the book: Tuesday 4 February 1992 / Toronto Early this morning the latest in a series of strange phone calls from Edmund Carpenter in New York to discuss successive versions of his Canadian Notes & Queries piece on Marshall McLuhan. He falls to reminiscing and at one point says: "Marshall always reminded me of that passage in Boswell in which Boswell says that if you chanced to take shelter from a rain storm for a few minutes in Dr Johnson's company, you would come away convinced that you had just met the smartest man in the world. Marshall was like that too. Of course, if you spent an hour with Marshall, well, that was something quite different."


The Writing Life Of Hugh Kelly

Details Book:
Author by Robert R. Bataille
Genre : Dramatists, English
Editor : SIU Press
ISBN : 0809322889
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 230
Download →

Robert R. Bataille demonstrates convincingly that between 1767 and 1777, Anglo-Irish writer Hugh Kelly made major contributions in three areas of British culture: politics, journalism, and theater. Bataille shows how all three activities were integrated in Kelly s life, suggesting that such interrelationships often existed in the rough and ready London culture during the early reign of King George III.When he discovered several newspaper campaigns that Kelly orchestrated as a paid political propagandist for George III and his ministers, Bataille understood in part how important Kelly was to his era. In his capacity as propagandist, Kelly defended Hanoverian colonial policies on the eve of the American Revolution, served as a key opponent of the radical Wilkites, and promoted the acceptance of the 1774 Quebec Bill, which established, among other things, the right of the recently defeated French citizens of Quebec to maintain the French language.A belletristic journalist, Kelly published theater reviews and essays that played a major role in shaping the taste of his era. He wrote in defense of the controversial sentimental drama, and whenever he could, he promoted the major theatrical figure of the age, David Garrick. Under his editorship, the newspaper "Public Ledger" became a leading source of theater information. Seeking to raise the status of the profession of journalism, he wrote essays and articles that provided his middle-class readers with an insider s view of the operations of the journalist.Assessing Kelly s contributions to the novel and drama, Bataille argues that this powerful journalist stands in the vanguard in the larger struggle against traditional attitudes supporting male superiority and aristocratic privilege. Kelly wrote in favor of gender equality and middle-class respectability, striving to inculcate what modern scholars refer to as the values of sensibility. Bataille also argues, however, that Kelly knew his audience. Instrumental in the rise of professional writing and popular culture, he understood that he had to observe the needs of his audience, detecting cultural trends and using the skills of the rhetorician."


An American Childhood

Details Book:
Author by Annie Dillard
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Editor : Harper Collins
ISBN : 9780061843136
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 272
Download →

"[An American Childhood] combines the child's sense of wonder with the adult's intelligence and is written in some of the finest prose that exists in contemporary America. It is a special sort of memoir that is entirely successful...This new book is [Annie Dillard's] best, a joyous ode to her own happy childhood." — Chicago Tribune A book that instantly captured the hearts of readers across the country, An American Childhood is Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard's poignant, vivid memoir of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s. Dedicated to her parents - from whom she learned a love of language and the importance of following your deepest passions - this narrative tale will resonate for everyone who has ever recalled with longing playing baseball on an endless summer afternoon, caring for a pristine rock collection, or knowing in your heart that a book was written just for you.


Surviving The Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by Deren Hansen
Genre : Language Arts & Disciplines
Editor : Dunlith Hill
ISBN : 9781938994005
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 116
Download →

Like real life, the writing life is filled with contradictions and perplexities. The world of commercial publishing is counterintuitive and writers dive in weighed down with misconceptions, delusions, and unrealistic expectations. Perhaps because most of us write in some form every day we believe we can—and should—write a book. We also assume writing is the hard part and once our manuscript is finished publishers will line up for the privilege of delivering it to the world. This is why many people who say they want to write really mean they want to have written. This volume offers a sober perspective on the writing life: what writing for money is really about and what you need to be prepared to do in order to endure its rigors. Once you understand what’s actually going on, you’ll be able to steer a clear-headed course as you participate in the great conversation. And you’ll come out the other side with your sanity—and dreams—intact.


The Writing Life

Details Book:
Author by Ellen Gilchrist
Genre : Biography & Autobiography
Editor : Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN : 9781604739114
Type Books : PDF & Epub
File Pages : 226
Download →

Celebrated author Ellen Gilchrist has played many roles-writer and speaker, wife and lover, mother and grandmother. But she never tackled the role of teacher. Offered the opportunity to teach creative writing at the University of Arkansas, she took up the challenge and ventured into unknown territory. In the process of teaching more than two hundred students since her first class in 2000, she has found inspiration in their lives and ambitions and in the challenge of conveying to them the lessons she has learned from living and writing. The Writing Life brings together fifty essays and vignettes centered on the transforming magic of literature and the teaching and writing of it. A portion of the collection discusses the delicate balance between an artistic life and family commitments, especially the daily pressures and frequent compromises faced by a young mother. Gilchrist next focuses on the process of writing itself with essays ranging from "How I Wrote a Book of Short Stories in Three Months" to "Why Is Rewriting so Hard?" Several essays discuss her appreciation of other writers, from Shakespeare to Larry McMurtry, and the lessons she learned from them. Eudora Welty made an indelible impact on Gilchrist's work. When Gilchrist takes on the task of teaching, her essays reveal an enriched understanding of the role writing plays in any life devoted to the craft. Humorous and insightful, she assesses her own abilities as an instructor and confronts the challenge of inspiring students to attain the discipline and courage to pursue the sullen art. Some of these pieces have been previously published in magazines, but most are unpublished and all appear here in book form for the first time.