Best Books for Writers

With The Writer’s Portable Mentor, Priscilla Long has written a comprehensive manual covering integral topics in chapters such as “Daily Writing,” “Working With Language,” “Dramatic Story Structure,” “Transitions,” and “Metaphor and Simile.” In this second edition, Long has replaced exemplary sentences and passages with revelatory new models, and updated sections to reflect how writing and publishing practices have evolved since the 2010 edition, including changes in the average length of stories, scientific findings about handwriting versus typing, and perceptions about self-publishing.

In this 2002 edition with a new introduction, California poet laureate Dana Gioia explores a range of topics on poetry’s evolving roles through his collection of essays, and considers integral craft elements with a focus on modernist poets such as Elizabeth Bishop and Robinson Jeffers. Written in lively and straightforward prose, Gioia’s insights on poetry’s marginalization, free verse versus formalism, and the merits of long narrative poetry will inspire writers to reevaluate their form and style, and examine how their work fits into contemporary society.

In A Stranger’s Journey, poet, memoirist, and critic David Mura explores the ways in which relationships to personal identity and race play an integral role in narrative expression and craft, particularly in memoir writing, using examples from authors such as Mary Karr, Maxine Hong Kingston, and ZZ Packer. Writers of all genres and levels of experience will find helpful inspiration in Mura’s guidance into using an understanding and interrogation of self as a timeless and transformative storytelling tool.

“These are not pages of criticism nor of philosophy. Nor are they merely literary pages. They are pages that have to do with one of the enlargements of life,” writes Wallace Stevens in the introduction to this 1965 edition of his collection. Throughout the seven essays, Stevens explores the expansive capabilities of poetry, connections between reality and creativity, the use of metaphors, and the role of sound and music in language. Writers will be inspired to examine and redefine their own notions of poetry and its capacity to enlarge the imagination.

“Like looking directly at the sun, looking directly at the creation of intimacy in fiction seems like a dangerous business.” This installment of Graywolf’s “Art of” series examines the various ways authors, including Joan Didion, D. H. Lawrence, Toni Morrison, and Virginia Woolf, have approached the challenge of crafting intimate relationships on the page, between friends, lovers, family members, and enemies. Writers will be inspired by D’Erasmo’s insights on methods of portraying the complexity of true connections between characters, and her emphasis on building intimacy between author and reader.

“The essays gathered in this volume contain reading suggestions and imprecations, records of enthusiasms, pieces that start with particular books and move toward the larger subject of how and what and why we read....” In this essay collection, literary critic and novelist Francine Prose examines the enduring value found in reading literature by authors including Roberto Bolaño, Jennifer Egan, George Eliot, and Mohsin Hamid, taking a closer look at the craft of writing on the sentence level. By reflecting on the specific elements of writing that can provide for powerfully transformative and transportive reading experiences, Prose offers writers an opportunity to approach their own work from new angles and with fresh inspiration.

The Business of Being a Writer is a comprehensive guide to the publishing industry for writers with chapters covering topics such as “Online and Digital Media,” “Researching Agents and Publishers,” “The Basics of Book Launches,” and “Crowdfunding and Donations.” Friedman provides in-depth and current knowledge to help writers position themselves for a long-term career of writing, sharing her expertise and advice on fundamental business principles and the benefits of using digital tools and online media.

This anthology focusing on lyric poetry gathers essays by David Baker and Ann Townsend, as well as other poets and critics such as Linda Gregerson, Carl Phillips, and Stanley Plumly, whose writing exploring the form ranges from conversational to investigative, from practical to enlightening. Divided into two parts, lyric modes and lyric means, the essays will be helpful to poets interested in the historical origins and evolution of lyric poetry, the different strategies used to create meaning, and its present status in contemporary literature.

Written in a clear and straightforward style, novelist Ross Raisin’s book is an indispensable guide through essential elements of craft for fiction writing such as planning, research, characters, point of view, dialogue, and editing. Each of the book’s three sections is filled with helpful tips and exercises, and exemplary passages by authors including Italo Calvino, Lydia Davis, Denis Johnson, James Joyce, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Zadie Smith.

Unlike most craft books, this collection of lyric essays about the experiences at the intersection of lived life and literary life is not prescriptive and offers no advice for composition or revision. Instead the author of five books, including Not Merely Because of the Unknown That Was Stalking Toward Them (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2011), lingers on the joys and challenges of the uncertainty that accompanies creative work. The result is a slim book that captures an author’s practice and the relationships she draws between writing and falling in love, dreaming, and memory.

Poetic Meter and Poetic Form delves into the tools of meter, rhyme, and stanza in poetry. In this 1979 revised edition, which adds a new chapter on free verse, Paul Fussell offers an overview of the history of these tools, as well as practical advice for applying them. The two-part book addresses writers who are seeking to improve their poetic techniques, but it is also intended “to help aspiring readers deepen their sensitivity to the rhythmical and formal properties of poetry and thus heighten their pleasure and illumination.”

This revised and expanded edition, with a foreword by novelist Dennis Lehane, is a thorough and practical how-to guide for writing a first novel divided into two parts. The first section, written by young adult novelist Laura Whitcomb, provides guidance through the writing process from initial ideas and preparations, to fleshing out the plot and going through revisions. The second section, written by literary agent Ann Rittenberg, goes through the steps of acquiring and working with an agent to the publication of a first book. Interspersed are writing exercises, tips, and firsthand accounts from authors sharing their experiences in publishing.