Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

A splendid combination of Zen wisdom and down-to-earth advice about writing.

"Long live the King" hailed Entertainment Weekly upon the publication of Stephen King's On Writing. Part memoir, part master class by one of the bestselling authors of all time, this superb volume is a revealing and practical view of the writer's craft, comprising the basic tools of the trade every writer must have. King's advice is grounded in his vivid memories from childhood through his emergence as a... (more)

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

by Anne Lamott

A step-by-step guide to writing and managing the writer's life covers each portion of a written project, addresses such concerns as writer's block and getting published, and offers awareness and survival tips. Reprint. Tour. K. NYT.

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them

by Francine Prose

Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries, says Francine Prose. In Reading Like a Writer , Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads the work of the very best writers&#8212Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen,... (more)

Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True

Escaping Into the Open: The Art of Writing True

by Elizabeth Berg

Elizabeth Berg touches women's lives with heartbreakingly funny and true novels -- including the New York Times bestseller Talk Before Sleep -- that distinctly capture the essence of their lives. Now this critically acclaimed author and writing instructor offers an inspiring, practical handbook on the joys, challenges, and creative possibilities inherent in the writing life. Both autobiography and primer, ... (more)

The Writing Life

by Annie Dillard

With color, irony and sensitivity, Pulitzer prize-winner Annie Dillard illuminates the dedication absurdity, and daring that is the writer's life. As it probes and exposes, examines and analyzes, The Writing Life offers deeper insight into one of the most mysterious of professions.

Making a Literary Life

by Carolyn See

As Carolyn See says, writing guides are like preachers on Sunday—there may be a lot of them, but you can’t have too many, and there’s always an audience of the faithful. And while Making a Literary Life is ostensibly a book that teaches you how to write, it really teaches you how to make your interior life into your exterior life, how to find and join that community of like-minded souls you’re sure is out there... (more)

The Official Nora Roberts Companion

by Nora Roberts

With insights into the #1 New York Times bestselling author's life, work, and career-and little-known facts about her most popular novels-this beautifully designed book celebrates Nora Roberts's enduring legacy of powerful, passionate storytelling. - The books: a cross-referenced list of Roberts's books-with trivia, quotes, and family trees - The career: a timeline of Roberts's career, with a list of... (more)

A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse for the Writing Life

A Writer's Book of Days: A Spirited Companion and Lively Muse for the Writing Life

by Judith Reeves

Practice makes perfect, and this book makes practice easy by providing writers and would-be writers with stimulating topics, helpful instruction, monthly guidelines, dozens of inspiring quotes, writerly lore, and tips for special writing sessions such as marathons, caf writing, and other ways to make the work of writing more creative and fun.

The Weekend Novelist

by Robert J. Ray

Covering novel-writing basics and offering a skeleton model on which to build individual novels, a fifty-two week program takes aspiring writers, working one weekend at a time, step by step through a program that will help them produce a novel.

Sound of Paper

by Julia Cameron

The bestselling author of The Artist's Way draws on her many years of personal experience as both a writer and a teacher to uncover the difficult soul work that artists must do to find inspiration. In The Sound of Paper , Julia Cameron delves deep into the heart of the personal struggles that all artists experience. What can we do when we face our keyboard or canvas with nothing but a cold emptiness? How... (more)

The Spooky Art: Thoughts on Writing

by Norman Mailer

In The Spooky Art , Norman Mailer discusses with signature candor the rewards and trials of the writing life, and recommends the tools to navigate it. Addressing the reader in a conversational tone, he draws on the best of more than fifty years of his own criticism, advice, and detailed observations about the writer’s craft.

The Lie That Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

The Lie That Tells a Truth: A Guide to Writing Fiction

by John Dufresne

"This is the most practical, hard-nosed, generous, direct, and useful guide to writing fiction."—Brad Watson Finally, a truly creative—and hilarious—guide to creative writing, full of encouragement and sound advice. Provocative and reassuring, nurturing and wise, The Lie That Tells a Truth is essential to writers in general, fiction writers in particular, beginning writers, serious writers, and anyone... (more)

The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis In The Creative Interpretation Of Human Motives

The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis In The Creative Interpretation Of Human Motives

by Lajos Egri

Learn the basic techniques every successful playwright knows Among the many "how-to" playwriting books that have appeared over the years, there have been few that attempt to analyze the mysteries of play construction. Lajos Egri's classic, The Art of Dramatic Writing, does just that, with instruction that can be applied equally well to a short story, novel, or screenplay. Examining a play from the inside... (more)

The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers

The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers

Believer Books has collected, in alphabetical order, twenty-three conversations and correspondences between much admired writers and the writers they admire. The interviews include favorites gleaned from the pages of the Believer magazine along with previously unpublished conversations. The book is rife with astonishing insights and profound quips. To wit: George Saunders: "I see writing as part of an... (more)

A Question of Balance : Artists and Writers on Motherhood

A Question of Balance : Artists and Writers on Motherhood

Candidly sharing how they organize their lives to nurture both their children and their craft, Ursula le Guin, Rita Dove, Dorothy Allison, Faith Ringgold, Linda Vallejo, and 20 other remarkable artists and writers illuminate how their challenging and renewing experiences as mothers have shaped their creative work. 25 photos.

Take joy : a writer's guide to loving the craft

Take joy : a writer's guide to loving the craft

by Jane Yolen

Are you a writer longing to rediscover the joy that you once had in the craft (or even find it for the first time)? In this inspiring guide, Jane Yolen, an author who has been called America’s Hans Christian Andersen, shows writers how to focus on aspects of the craft that bring them joy. She remarks in the first chapter, "Save the blood and pain for real life, where tourniquets and ibuprofen can have some... (more)

2005 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market (Novel and Short Story Writer's Market)

2005 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market (Novel and Short Story Writer's Market)

For nearly 25 years, Novel & Short Story Writer's Market has been the only resource of its kind exclusively for fiction writers--no other resource provides as many listings devoted specifically to the craft of story. Each entry details what editors are looking for, how much they pay, how soon they respond and how to get in touch with them. Inside, you'll find: *2000 completely updated listings,... (more)

Room to Write

by Bonni Goldberg

In two hundred ingenious essays, a teacher of creative writing explores the writing process in a series of exercises designed to kindle a writer's imagination, reveal the world through a writer's eyes, and respond to the creativity manifested by good writing. Original.

Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times (Writers on Writing (Times Books Hardcover))

Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times (Writers on Writing (Times Books Hardcover))

by The New York Times

By turns poignant, hilarious, and practical, Writers on Writing brings together more than forty of contemporary literatures finest voices. Pieces range from reflections on the daily craft of writing to the intersection of arts and lifes consequential moments. Authors discuss what impels them to write: creating a sense of control in a turbulent universe; bearing witness to events that would otherwise be lost in... (more)

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Tags: the writing life