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From the newly published to the invaluable classic, our list of essential books for creative writers.
New York Times notable author David Corbett offers a unique and indispensable toolkit for creating characters that come vividly to life on the page and linger in memory. Corbett delves into the human heart of characterization, showing beginning and advanced writers how to plumb the rich source materials of their own lives and the world around them to fashion credible, compelling characters.
Based on a series of his lectures, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Robert Olen Butler provides in-depth guidance about how to fully develop one's fiction. Butler's advice stems from his belief that "art does not come from the mind. Art comes from the place where we dream."
Based on a series of lectures Canadian author Margaret Atwood delivered at the University of Cambridge in 2000, this book comprises six essays that explore the role of the writer—especially the woman writer—in society. Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and nonfiction and is best known for her novels. Her many literary accolades include the Governor General's Award in 1985 for her novel The Handmaid's Tale (McClelland and Stewart) and the Man Booker Prize in 2000 for her novel The Blind Assassin (McClelland and Stewart).
Poet W. T. Pfefferle take a roadtrip across the United States to interview America's poets about how they relate to where they live and how it informs their poetry. The interviews, some of which originally appeared in Poets & Writers Magazine, feature poets such as Marvin Bell, Lucy Brock-Broido, Rita Dove, Linda Gregerson, Carol Muske-Dukes, Paisley Rekdal, Alberto Rios, Mark Strand, Karen Volkman, and more.
Edited by Robert Atwan, with an introduction by David Brooks, this collection continues the series launched in 1986. It includes essays by writers such as Jonathan Franzen, Malcolm Gladwell, Sandra Tsing Loh, Francine Prose, and Wesley Yang.
Translated by Edith Grossman, In Praise of Reading and Fiction is Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa's lecture delivered after he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010. Llosa argues for the necessity of literature in our lives today. As he puts it, "literature not only submerges us in the dream of beauty and happiness but alerts us to every kind of oppression."
Originally published in 1973, this seminal text, written by scholar and critic Harold Bloom, explores the relationship between individual artists and those who came before them. Bloom argues that all literary texts are a strong misreading of those that precede them.
A follow-up to The Writer's Notebook, published in 2009, this collection includes essays based on workshop lectures from Tin House's annual Summer Writers Workshop, plus freshly commissioned pieces that together guide writers on the craft of writing fiction. Contributors include Steve Almond, Andrea Barrett, Christopher R. Beha, Aimee Bender, Adam Breaver, Anthony Doerr, Ann Hood, Bret Anthony Johnston, Jim Krusoe, Antonya Nelson, Maggie Nelson, Benjamin Percy, Karen Russell, Elissa Schappell, and Mary Szybist, with an introduction by Francine Prose.
Winner of the 1993 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, Proofs and Theories is a compilation of essays on the work of other poets, as well as reflections on the art. Author Louise Gluck is a former U.S. poet laureate who has written numerous poetry collections, including the The Wild Iris, which received the Pulitzer Prize.
With an introduction by John Darnton, Writers on Writing: Collected Essays From The New York Times features contributions from more than forty authors, including André Aciman, Russell Banks, Richard Ford, Kent Haruf,Alice Hoffman, Jamaica Kincaid, Barbara Kingsolver, Sue Miller, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Alice Walker, and Elie Wiesel, who share what inspires them to keep at it.
In this collection from McSweeney’s Books editor Dominic Luxford chose ten poems from ten different poets, and then asked each of them to contribute an additional poem of his or her own, plus a poem from another poet. That new poet was then asked to do the same. As Luxford writes in the introduction, “The result: ten chains, five poets per chain, two poems per poet—one almighty collection of verse.” With poems by authors such as Elizabeth Alexander, Tina Chang, Mark Doty, Heidi Johannesen Poon, Mary Ruefle, C. D. Wright, and Dean Young, the collaboration offers poetry by a range of older, more accomplished poets as well as by poets at the beginning of their careers and allows readers to discover what each writer values most in both his or her own work and the work of others.
In his classic, originally published in 1928, William Wallace Cook analyzes the elements of compelling fiction, laying out his own approach to writing in painstaking detail, exemplified by hundreds of scenarios.
Edited by Dinty W. Moore, who is also the longtime editor of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction, this book features twenty-six essays by the genre's most established writers. Each essay is followed by an exercise or writing prompt to help readers apply to their own practice the ideas the essayists offer.
Poet and professor Jack Myers explores the craft of poetry with an instructional guide on what goes into making a poem. The Portable Poetry Workshop offers a thorough look at the elements of good poetry, and offers practical advice about generating material, assembling metaphors, workshopping poems in a group, and more.
Joseph M. Williams offers a practical guide to improving one’s writing by focusing on the sentence and paragraph levels. Style: Toward Clarity and Grace includes strategies for identifying weak writing and using form as a way to approach revision.
In this comprehensive how-to guide for the genre, Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine, provides insights on writing creative nonfiction--from memoir to literary journalism and everything in between, including chapters on point of view, narrative, research, structure, and more.
John B. Thompson presents an accessible overview of the book publishing business—from the changes in agenting to the conglomeration of publishing houses to the growth of the retail chains to the digital revolution. This book provides writers with an in-depth understanding of publishing's ecosystem, providing them with the background they need before taking their manuscript to market.
In this collection of essays, poet Lia Purpura explores the act of observation as it relates the to the writer's endeavor. Purpura is an award-winning writer who teaches at the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program in Tacoma, Washington.
Novelist and essayist Barbara Abercrombie offers a collection of wide-ranging anecdotes, lessons, and prompts for beginning and veteran writers. A Year of Writing Dangerously devotes sections to writerly topics such as “failing better,” mentorship, and keeping faith, and pairs each lesson with a quotation from a famous writer.
This volume of travel writing contains twenty-one pieces pairing well known writers with their favorite exotic locales. Russell Banks writes on the Everglades, Francine Prose explores the secrets of Prague, Robert Hughes takes us on a tour of Italy, and more. The collection also includes practical advice and insider travel tips on the featured locations.
Published in partnership with the New York Public Library and based on an exhibit that originally appeared there, this guide offers a comprehensive but idiosyncratic look at the small press publishing scene in San Francisco and in downtown Manhattan during the 1960s and '70s. It includes a timeline and over two hundred images from one of the richest periods of American writing and publishing.
The author of numerous books of fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin offers in this guide advice about crafting stories and presents examples from other master storytellers to illuminate her points.
Author Luke Reynolds reflects on forging his own writing life and interviews fourteen other authors—including Jane Smiley, Daniel Handler, Robert Pinsky, George Saunders, Lindsey Collen, and David Wroblewski—about their worst rejections, their first publications, what keeps them motivated, and why they believe in the power of words.
In this practical guide, National Book Award–nominee Sandra Scofield offers straightforward information and exercises designed to help writers write strong scenes in fiction.
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.
