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From the newly published to the invaluable classic, our list of essential books for creative writers.
In Odd Type Writers, Celia Blue Johnson explores the quirky writing habits of authors such as Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, and Virginia Woolf—who liked to use purple ink and, in her twenties, preferred to write while standing up.
Award-winning novelist John Casey's Beyond the First Draft is a collection of essays that address various topics of concern to fiction writers, including comedy, point of view, structure, and scene-setting. For example, in "Dogma and Anti-Dogma," Casey examines the advice of authors—like J. D. Salinger's "Write for yourself"—and offers ways to interpret their recommendations.
Why We Write is a collection of tips, tricks, and secrets from twenty acclaimed American authors on how to lead a successful writing life. The book was compiled and edited by Meredith Maran, and includes contributions from authors such as Ann Patchett, Jodi Picoult, and Jennifer Egan.
"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. In this state of god-like awareness one sings; in this realm the world exists as a poem." A collection of stories and essays by Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart offers musings on philosophy and writing.
According to poet and editor Robert Pinsky, one learns to write poetry by first learning to read it. Divided into four sections—Freedom, Listening, Form, and Dreaming Things Up—Pinsky presents his mentors' work in Singing School to encourage the reader to take a practical approach, with informed pleasure and sharp interest in the craft.
The Art of Fiction is a practical, instructive handbook based on novelist John Gardner's seminars on the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner employs detailed examples from classic works of literature and covers a range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence.
In Writing Wild, Tina Welling details a three-step "Spirit Walk" process for inviting nature to enliven and inspire our creativity. Welling suggests we form a creative parntnership with nature, because "everything we know about creating we know intuitively from the natural world."
This compilation of essays by George Orwell features the titular essay "Why I Write," originally published in the Summer 1946 edition of Gangrel, which offers a mini-autobiography detailing how he became a full-fledged writer. Orwell then goes on to highlight the "four great motives for writing," which he claims exist in every writer. Two other essays by Orwell are also included in the volume, "The Lion and the Unicorn" and "Politics and the English Language," as well as the short story "A Hanging."
First published in 1976, On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction offers readers fundamental principles on writing across all subjects, as well as insights on craft, style, and process from distinguished writer and teacher William Zinsser.
Bestselling author Neil Gaiman's graduation speech to Philidelphia's University of the Arts class of 2012 encourages young artists, writers, musicians, and dreamers to "make good art." The book is designed by graphic artist Chip Kidd and contains the full text of Gaiman's famous speech.
In To The Point: A Dictionary of Concise Writing, Robert Hartwell Fiske suggests how to identify and correct wordiness, and provides alternative expressions with real-world examples to help keep your writing clear and convincing.
The Best Punctuation Book, Period is an all-in-one reference from grammar columnist June Casagrande that covers the basic rules along with the finer rules of punctuation. Casagrande offers clear answers to perplexing questions; a guide to show how punctuation rules differ for book, news, academic, and science styles; and rulings from an expert "Punctuation Panel."
In Sarah Lewis's own words, The Rise "is about the advantages that come from the improbable ground of creative failure." In her "biography of an idea," Lewis riddles out the gift of failure using narratives of historical figures ranging from writers to entrepreneurs. Lewis writes about the creative failures of Frederick Douglass, Samuel F. B. Morse, and J. K. Rowling, along with those of choreographer Paul Taylor, Nobel Prize–winning physicists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, Arctic explorer Ben Saunders, and psychology professor Angela Duckworth.
Writer, editor, and teacher Laura Deutsch offers techniques, exercises, prompts, and examples that focus on honing in on our senses during the writing process to enrich our storytelling skills.
In more than one hundred poems, sixty poets from around the world, including Hayden Carruth, W. S. Merwin, Pablo Neruda, Carolyn Kizer, and Jim Harrison, explore the nature and function of poetry.
The editors of twenty literary magazines discuss the philosophy and practice of selecting poems.
Poet and critic John Hollander surveys the schemes, patterns, and forms of English verse, illustrating each variation with an original and witty, self-descriptive example.
The country’s most prominent journalists and nonfiction authors gather each year at Harvard’s Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism. Telling True Stories presents their best advice on everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book.
Advice and instruction from writers such as Nancy Kress, Elizabeth Sims, Hallie Ephron, N. M. Kelby, Heather Sellers, and Donald Maass, with a foreword by James Scott Bell.
"Poetry is not a means to an end," Addonizio maintains, "but a continuing engagement with being alive." Her generous guide is for beginners and experienced poets, for groups and in the classroom—indeed for anyone eager to glimpse the angel of poetry.
Anyone undertaking the project of writing a memoir knows that the events, memories, and emotions of the past often resist the orderly structure of a book. Inventing the Truth offers wisdom from nine notable memoirists about their process (Ian Frazier searched through generations of family papers to understand his parents' lives), the hurdles they faced (Annie Dillard tackles the central dilemma of memoir: what to put in and what to leave out), and the unexpected joys of bringing their pasts to the page.
In Aspects of the Novel, E. M. Forster delves into the seven elements essential to a novel: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophecy, pattern, and rhythm.
"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance," wrote Alexander Pope. "The dance," in the case of Oliver's brief and luminous book, refers to the interwoven pleasures of sound and sense to be found in some of the most celebrated and beautiful poems in the English language, from Shakespeare to Edna St. Vincent Millay to Robert Frost. With a poet's ear and a poet's grace of expression, Oliver shows what makes a metrical poem work, and enables readers, as only she can, to "enter the thudding deeps and the rippling shallows of sound-pleasure and rhythm-pleasure that intensify both the poem's narrative and its ideas."
Seasoned writer Jeff Gerke offers advice and insights regarding how to create a strong opening for a novel, and provides specific tasks that help writers avoid leaving readers disoriented, frustrated, or bored.
Author Beth Kephart explores the many personal and professional challenges of writing memoir. From remaining faithful to the searing language of truth, to navigating the thin line between remembering and imagining, the author offers practical advice for memoirists who seek wisdom regarding the craft as well as their legal rights.
