Dear Writer: Pep Talks & Practical Advice for the Creative Life

by Maggie Smith

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

With personal anecdotes, writing exercises and a deep-dive into the pillars of creativity, this is a one-stop shop for budding authors from a bestselling voice in literature.

INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith distills creativity and the craft of writing with a practical guide perfect for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic and Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird.

Drawing from her twenty years of teaching experience and her bestselling Substack newsletter, For Dear Life, Maggie Smith breaks down creativity into ten essential elements: attention, wonder, vision, play, surprise, vulnerability, restlessness, tenacity, connection, and hope. Each element is explored through short, inspiring, and craft-focused essays, followed by generative writing prompts. Dear Writer provides tools that artists of all experience levels can apply to their own creative practices and carry with them into all genres and all areas of life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982170905
Publisher:	Washington Square Press
Publication date:	04/01/2025
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Maggie Smith is the award-winning New York Times bestselling author of nine books of poetry and prose, including A Suit or a Suitcase, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Good Bones, Goldenrod, Keep Moving, and My Thoughts Have Wings.  She has been widely published, appearing in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The Nation, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Best American Poetry, and more. She is the host of The Slowdown. You can find her on social media @MaggieSmithPoet.

Editorial Reviews

"Every so often, a book comes along that fundamentally changes how we think about art, and the lives and work of writers and artists both seasoned and new. Dear Writer is this book, and anyone who strives to put pen to paper will be profoundly changed by it and by Maggie Smith's creative clarity, generosity, and heart. This is a book that is meant to be savored, and read again and again. I absolutely loved it."
—Elissa Altman, author of Permission and Motherland

"In her winsome, practical Dear Writer, poet and memoirist Maggie Smith shares reflections on the elements of creativity, plus useful tools and prompts for artistic practice. Smith's approach is both playful and serious: she is committed to writing with clarity, honesty, and grace. But she's also a student of delight, of 'artistic mischief' and experimentation. Dear Writer urges readers to take the creative process seriously but treat their own work lightly--and to relish wordplay and shenanigans, pause when a fleeting 'beauty emergency' arises, and notice moments of humor and joy. The creative life, Smith says, is full of gifts to acknowledge and celebrate, and Dear Writer is a joyous, wise companion for the journey."
—Shelf Awareness

“Like some seminal texts for writers by writers (Eudora Welty's One Writer's Beginnings, Virginia Woolf's A Letter to a Young Poet), this is at once pure craftmanship and a glimpse of the gut-wrenching, visceral ways great writers feel the world around them. A lovely invitation into Smith's processes that is luminous and shimmering, designed to make writing feel accessible yet magical!”
—Library Journal (starred review)

"This guide on craft is an open, thoughtful gold mine of advice for writers and nonwriters alike. Filled with breakdowns of Smith's own poems, as well as exercises and suggested outside reading, these pages invite you to reference their knowledge over and over, for a lifetime."
— Christina Cala, senior producer of Code Switch

"Oh, how I wish I'd had access to this book thirty-five years ago, when I was just starting out as a writer! Maggie Smith has created an offering here of great substance and generosity—walking  writers of all ages (and of all levels) through the sometimes wild and terrifying landscape of literary endeavor. With encouraging words, stories from her own life, and—best of all—exercises that are actually helpful, she lends a hand to all. I admire this book, and its author, with all my heart."
—Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic

From the Publisher