Poet’s Choice
Drawn from poet Ed Hirsch's Washington Post Book World column "Poet's Choice," this collection features classic and contemporary poems with essays by Hirsch about the poems and their various forms.
Best Books for Writers
From the newly published to the invaluable classic, our list of essential books for creative writers.
Ron Carlson Writes a Story
In this guide to writing a short story, acclaimed fiction writer Ron Carlson, who is also director of the graduate program in fiction at the University of California, Irvine, invites readers to join him in the process of crafting his story "The Governer's Ball."
Literally, the Best Language Book Ever: Annoying Words and Abused Phrases You Should Never Use Again
A witty guide to which words and phrases should not only be avoided, but, as the author puts it, "taken to the language dump to never be heard from again."
New Tax Guide for Writers, Artists, Performers, and Other Creative People
Written by certified public accountant Peter J. Riley, this practical guide—including tips, worksheets, tax forms, and other information—gives writers and artists an overall understanding of the best strategies for collecting data throughout the year in preparation for tax filing.
A Field Guide for Immersion Writing: Memoir, Journalism and Travel
Robin Hemley examines memoir, journalism, and travel writing as categories of immersion writing and further breaks them down—into the quest, the experiment, the investigation, the infiltration, and the reenactment—in order to define the way writers approach their relationship to their subjects. The book includes helpful exercises, as well as addressing the ethics and legalities of writing about other people.
To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry
In this collection of essays, Pulitzer Prize–winning author W. D. Snodgrass—who was central to the rise of confessional poetry in the United States during the 1960s—meditates on the importance of voice in a poet's work.
Women on Poetry: Writing, Revising, Publishing and Teaching
In this collection of essays, fifty-nine women poets offer far-ranging guidance and advice on everything from revision, chapbooks, daily practice, writing conferences, publishing, and writing about the unspeakable. Aimed at emerging and established poets alike, the book is arranged in four themed sections and includes a foreword by poet Molly Peacock.
A Beautiful Marsupial Afternoon: New (Soma)tics
"I cannot stress enough how much this mechanistic world, as it becomes more and more efficient, resulting in ever increasing brutality, has required me to FIND MY BODY to FIND MY PLANET in order to find my poetry," begins CAConrad in this collection of unorthodox writing exercises meant to upset our perception of everyday life. The poet also includes poems that resulted from the writing exercises featured.
The Made-Up Self: Impersonation in the Personal Essay
In this book-length study of the personal essay, Carl Klaus unpacks the made-up self and the manifold ways in which a wide range of essayists and essays have brought it to life. By reconceiving the most fundamental aspect of the personal essay—the I of the essayist—Klaus demonstrates that this seemingly uncontrived form of writing is inherently problematic, not willfully devious but bordering upon the world of fiction.
The New New Journalism: Conversations With America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft
In this compilation of interviews, each prefaced by a biographical introduction, some of America's most prominent working journalists— including Ted Conover, Jon Krakauer, Jane Kramer, Susan Orlean, and Gay Talese—reveal their approaches to composing their best known works.
19th Century American Writers on Writing
This anthology of essays, letters, poems, prose, and excerpts of interviews by fifty-seven authors of the 19th century—including Kate Chopin, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Walt Whitman—offers insight into what it means to be a writer within the context of history, as well as classic guidance about craft, style, and form.
ABC of Reading
Originally published in 1934, Pound's book serves as a guide for those interested in honing their critical thinking through reading the classics. The book is based on the premise that to be a good writer one must be a good reader, aware of the traditions out of which the best literature has emerged.
A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft
This anthology features essays by twenty fiction writers, including Charles Baxter, Maud Casey, Lan Samantha Chang, Stacey D'Erasmo, and Kevin McIlvoy, covering narrative distance and voice, character, setting, structure, and more. As the editors write in the introduction, "Writers and readers interested...in contemplation of various aspects of the fiction writer's craft will, we think, find this collection surprising, provocative, and even useful." One hundred percent of the book's royalties go to Friends of Writers, Inc., to provide scholarships for developing writers.
The Autobiographer's Handbook: The 826 National Guide to Writing Your Memoir
Edited by memoirist and 826 Valencia tutor and workshop teacher Jennifer Traig, this resource offers advice from contemporary memoirists, including Steve Almond, Jonathan Ames, Ishmael Beah, Elizabeth Gilbert, Nick Hornby, Maxine Hong Kingston, Tobias Wolff, and many more, plus writing exercises and work plans to get writers started.
Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth
This anthology includes more than sixty works of the three main forms of creative nonfiction—literary memoir by writers such as Mary McCarthy, Annie Dillard, and Judy Ruiz; personal essays by authors such as E. B. White to Phillip Lopate to Ntozake Shange; and literary journalism by Truman Capote, Barbara Ehrenreich, Sebastian Junger, and many others. Bill Roorbach's general introduction and introductions to each of the five sections provide useful definitions, crucial history, and critical context for the genre.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Best-selling author Stephen King offers an entertaining writing guide that draws on his life experiences, including his near-fatal accident in 1999, to offer insight into the origin of the writer's imagination and perception of the world.
Old Friend From Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
Written by Natalie Goldberg, author of the best-selling classic Writing Down the Bones, Old Friend From Far Away is a meditation on the capacity of the written word to remember the past, free us from any stifling effects it may have on our voice, and transform the way we think—and write—about ourselves and our lives.
The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers
Author and longtime writing instructor Laura Oliver offers a guide to aspiring writers on how to access and bring to life personal stories. The Story Within employs memoir to advise readers on craft, writing principles, cultivating the creative spirit, publication, and more.
The Art of the Short Story: 52 Great Authors, Their Best Short Fiction, and Their Insights on Writing
Poets Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn present pieces of short fiction from fifty-two classic, contemporary and new voices alongside material to place the stories in historical, biographical, and critical context. A section called "Critical Approaches to Literature" explains how to take an informed, critical stance when reading literature, and a glossary of literary terms further enhances the experience of reading the works.
Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
Anne Lamott, best-selling author of seven novels and five books of nonfiction, offers witty step-by-step instructions on writing and how to manage a writer’s life—including challenges such as writer’s block, jealousy, and unsatisfactory drafts—in this classic guide.
The Wink of the Zenith: The Shaping of a Writer's Life
At forty-one, novelist and poet Floyd Skoot suffered from a brain disease that damaged his memory. The Wink of the Zenith is a memoir about how his unique circumstances made him develop as a writer. The book explores fundamental questions about how life shapes the creative spirit.
Beautiful and Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry
Award-winning poetry critic David Orr provides a tour and guide to contemporary poetry and the ways in which to appreciate it. Beautiful & Pointless examines what poets and poetry readers talk about when they discuss poetry, such as why poetry seems especially personal and what it means to write "in form."
A Human Eye: Essays on Art in Society, 1996-2008
American poet and essayist Adrienne Rich examines a diverse section of writings and their place in past and present social disorders and transformations. Beyond literary theories, she explores from many angles how the art of language has acted on and been shaped by their creators’ worlds.
Sol Stein's A-Z Guide to Writing Success and Publishing Know-How
Sol Stein—novelist, editor, and publisher—offers a handy reference on a wide variety of writing-related questions and concerns. Readers will find explanations of publishing terms, information about craft, advice on constructive writing habits, and more.
Letters to a Young Poet
Drawn by some sympathetic note in one of his poems, young people often wrote to Rilke with their problems and hopes. From 1903 to 1908 Rilke wrote a series of responses to a young would-be poet, on poetry and on surviving as a sensitive observer in a harsh world. An accompanying chronicle of Rilke's life shows what he was experiencing in his own relationship to life and work when he wrote these letters.
