How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays, by Alexander Chee “Writing is a way of going to the depth of Being,” wrote Marguerite Yourcenar, and the sixteen essays that make up Alexander Chee’s 2018 memoir are at their heart about writing—but they are also about striving to succeed as a writer, reconciling the pain and [….]
How to Read to Read a Sentence and How to Write One, by Stanley Fish For writers, the sentence is the coin of the realm, the catch that holds a reader fast to a story. And I love that Stanley Fish wrote a book just about sentences. A professor of law and dean emeritus at [….]
How Fiction Works, by James Wood. When it comes to books on the craft of writing, I tend to gravitate to titles that teach through close readings of literature. Maybe it has to do with the grad program I attended, or that when I’m caught up in a book, I’m both figuring out my response [….]
A Writer’s Notebook by Somerset Maugham Somerset Maugham’s A Writer’s Notebook was first published in 1949, and though his work may have since fallen out of fashion, in his time he was a literary light, outselling contemporaries like Joseph Conrad and Robert Louis Stevenson—The Guardian called Maugham “the first superstar novelist.” At the age of [….]
Crash Course: essays from where writing and life collide, by Robin Black The third book from short story writer and novelist Robin Black collects her recent essays, many of which first appeared on the great, and sadly erstwhile literary blog, Beyond the Margins. Crash Course, subtitled essays from where writing and life collide, is aptly [….]
How to Read a Sentence and How to Write One, by Stanley Fish The sentence is the coin of the realm, the catch that keeps a reader securely in a story, and Stanley Fish wrote a book just about sentences. A professor of law and dean emeritus at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences [….]
How to Read to Read a Sentence and How to Write One, by Stanley Fish The sentence is the coin of the realm, the catch that holds a reader fast to a story. And I love that Stanley Fish wrote a book just about sentences. A professor of law and dean emeritus at the College [….]
So there I am, in a small hotel between the Costa Brava and Sitges, once again unpacking the bag I’ve carried through France and Spain. It’s been five weeks, and by now the contents are painfully familiar: five t-shirts, two pairs of shorts, and various smaller items, including an excellent pair of sandals purchased on [….]
A Writer’s Notebook by Somerset Maugham Like most writers, I keep a notebook. It’s small and transportable, since the point is to record in the moment—things seen in passing, or sentences that arise unexpectedly, the kind that must be put down before they vanish. I also like to keep track of words, ones unexpectedly found [….]
Knowing that a B.A. in English wasn’t likely to land him a good-paying job, Anthony Huso did the only thing he could think of: he got the degree as quickly and cheaply as he could. Having dreamt of being an author since age eight, he reveled in his classes until June of 1996 when, after [….]
