The Writing Life: Writers On How They Think And Work

The Writing Life: Writers On How They Think And Work

by Marie Arana
The Writing Life: Writers On How They Think And Work

The Writing Life: Writers On How They Think And Work

by Marie Arana

Paperback(1ST)

$18.99 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

Featuring a gathering of more than fifty of contemporary literature's finest voices, this volume will enchant, move, and inspire readers with its tales of The Writing Life. In it, authors divulge professional secrets: how they first discovered they were writers, how they work, how they deal with the myriad frustrations and delights a writer's life affords. Culled from ten years of the distinguished Washington Post column of the same name, The Writing Life highlights an eclectic group of luminaries who have wildly varied stories to tell, but who share this singularly beguiling career. Here are their pleasures as well as their peeves; revelations of their deepest fears; dramas of triumphs and failures; insights into the demands and rewards.

Each piece is accompanied by a brief and vivid biography of the writer by Washington Post Book World editor Marie Arana who also provides an introduction to the collection. The result is a rare view from the inside: a close examination of writers' concerns about the creative process and the place of literature in America. For anyone interested in the making of fiction and nonfiction, here is a fascinating vantage on the writer's world — an indispensable guide to the craft.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781586481490
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Publication date: 05/08/2003
Edition description: 1ST
Pages: 426
Product dimensions: 5.30(w) x 8.05(h) x 1.95(d)
Age Range: 14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Marie Arana is the editor in chief of the Washington Post Book World. A former publishing executive, she is author of a highly acclaimed memoir, American Chica. She and her husband, Jonathan Yardley, live in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introductionxiii
Part 1On Becoming a Writer
The Seduction of the Text3
The Importance of Childhood11
Looking for the Spark19
How to Identify and Nurture Young Writers25
Touched by an Angel33
The Leap from Necessity to Invention39
A Real-Life Education46
Emerging from Under Your Rejection Slips52
Being a Product of Your Dwelling Place58
Doing It for Love64
Part 2Raw Material
Too Happy for Words73
Using My Father's Story78
Between Origins and Art84
The Writer As Outlaw90
From Memory to the Imagination95
Can Whites Write About Blacks?103
In Praise of Silence111
Bicultural, Adrift, and Wandering118
On Finding a Latino Voice126
Living in Irish, Writing in English134
Part 3Hunkering Down
Holidays at the Keyboard Inn143
The Passionate Researcher150
From Packrat to Historian156
Climbing Into Another Head162
Hunter of Metaphors168
Following the Script178
Headbirths: Bookish Midwifery184
Guided by Voices: The Work of a Ghostwriter194
Part 4Old Bottle, New Wine
From Will-of-the-Wisp to Full-Blown Novel205
Reincarnation, Translation and Adventure212
Master of My Universe221
Sounds and Sensibilities228
Writer with Scalpel235
A Chronicle of the Plague Years242
On Being a Novice Playwright250
Acting Out, Letting Go258
Pen Names Galore264
Summer Lite270
Part 5Facing the Facts
History Is Their Beat: The New Journalist Historians279
A Novel Approach to Reality: Basing a Story in Facts289
Making the Truth Believable297
Describing the World As It Is, Not As It Would Be304
The Political Memoir: Taking Note of History312
President in Search of a Publisher322
Biographer, Get a Life330
From the Clinic338
Notes from the Road344
Natural Selections351
Speaking Up for the Environment359
Part 6Looking Back
The Trouble with Finishing367
The Hardest Critics373
Literary Executions380
Taking It All Back387
Writer, Be Afraid393
In Search of the Next Idea399
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews