But she has, and here is the record of that change in the decade since the publication of her last nonfiction collection, The Language of the Night. And what a mind — strong, supple, disciplined, playful, ranging over the whole field of its concerns, from modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos, with an eloquence, wit, and precision that makes for exhilarating reading.

    Compiled by a decorated ex-Royal Marine surgeon, it contains often-hilarious examples of common usage, useful cross-references, and comic illustrations by Tugg, the popular cartoonist from the service newspaper Navy News. Jackspeak is essential for anyone with an interest in the Royal Navy--or who just enjoys fun wordplay!

    In speeches, essays, and book reviews, the novelist Katherine Paterson discusses why she writes children's books, where her ideas come from, how she develops her characters and realistic plots, and her experiences growing up in China.

    -- Brings together the best criticism on the most widely read poets, novelists, and playwrights-- Presents complex critical portraits of the most influential writers in the English-speaking world -- from the English medievalists to contemporary writers

    Originally published: Grand Rapids, Mich.: Broadmoor Books, c1989.

    M. Forster, perhaps the greatest living author of the time. Subsequent issues carried interviews with, among others, François Mauriac, Graham Greene, Irwin Shaw, William Styron, Ralph Ellison, and William Faulkner; in the intervening years, many of the world's most significant writers (Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, and John Dos Passos) sat down with The Paris Review. Many of the interviews have been collected in a series of volumes entitled Writers at Work. From these interviews, The Paris Review's editor, George Plimpton, has selected the best and most illuminating insights that the writers have provided and arranged them by subject rather than by author. The book is divided into four parts: "The Writer: A Profile" (including the sections "On Reading," "On Work Habits," On the Audi-ence," etc.); Part II is "Technical Matters" ("On Style," "On Plot," etc.); Part III is "Different Forms" ("On Biography," "On Journalism"); and Part IV is "The Writer's Life," covering topics like conferences, courses, and teaching, along with a section in which writers provided portraits of other writers.         The Writer's Chapbook is a fund of observations by writers on writing. These range from marvel-ous one-liners (Eugene O'Neill on critics: "I love every bone in their heads"; T. S. Eliot on editors: "I suppose some editors are failed writers--but so are most writers") to expositions on plot, character, and the technical process of putting pen to paper and doing it for a living. "I don't even have a plot," says Norman Mailer; Paul Bowles describes writing in bed; Toni Morrison talks about inventing characters; and Edward Albee and Tom Wolfe explain where they discovered the titles for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Bonfire of the Vanities.        This book is a treasure. But beware: What is true for the Writers at Work series holds for The Writer's Chapbook even more--a reader who picks it up, intending just to dip into it, might not emerge for days.

    Journalist, essayist, reviewer, playwright, and novelist, Robertson Davies has not only been a leading figure in Canadian literature since World War II, but, since the publication of Fifth Business in 1970, he has become known throughout the world.Conversations with Robertson Davies will be of interest both to the student of Canadian literature and culture and to the scholar examining Davies's plays and novels as well as to the general reader who would like to know more about the awesome man behind the Salterton and Deptford trilogies, What's Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus.A majority of this anthology of twenty-eight interviews has never before appeared in print. Along with these previously unpublished interviews, the reader finds a selection of the best print interviews: Tom Harpur of the Toronto Star proves Davies's spiritual beliefs, Ann Saddlemyer looks into his dreams, and author Terence M. Green questions Davies on the supernatural.

    

    Throughout the time he was creating his greatest work, Steinbeck faithfully kept a journal revealing his arduous journey toward its completion.The journal, like the novel it chronicles, tells a tale of dramatic proportions—of dogged determination and inspiration, yet also of paranoia, self-doubt, and obstacles. It records in intimate detail the conception and genesis of The Grapes of Wrath and its huge though controversial success. It is a unique and penetrating portrait of an emblematic American writer creating an essential American masterpiece.

    

    Line drawings.

    

    

    They are fun to listen to and fun to tell. They are presented in a form in which the structure and pattern of the story is highly visible. Children participate by predicting and anticipating the action. This makes the stories easy to learn and easy to modify and adapt. Draw-and-Tell stories will also help to enhance listening skills, teach children to recognize and use common language structures in their story telling and writing, help to develop their abilities to read with greater attention, comprehension and recall, develop their confidence and poise in speaking, and provide a vehicle for exploring other language experiences. Story telling, like many of the best learning media, allows the child to develop and grow from where he or she is now. Draw-and-Tell stories are suitable for early primary to junior grades.

    KEY TOPICS: Selecting characters; using classic "hooks," creating effective dialog; developing theme fiction, fantasy, and sagas; do's and dont's of query letters; writing an interview; finding an agent; and analyzing contracts and royalties.

    The information contained in this book unites the role of the screenwriter and the artistic bases of motion pictures to provide the first complete approach to the craft. The Screenplay is written in an engaging manner, inviting the reader to develop their writing and creative abilities through projects and challenging exercises. This book also features illustrative excerpts from such successful screenplays as Witness, Out of Africa, Body and Soul, Beverly Hills Cop, Rebel Without a Cause, and An Officer and a Gentlemen.

    Presents the basics of English grammar and composition in a light hearted, user-friendly manner.

    We've merely been taught to talk as if it had: as though weather maps were more 'real' than the breath of autumn; as though, for that matter, Reason was really 'cool.' What we're saying whenever we say is a theme this book illumines for anyone attentive." — Hugh Kenner, Johns Hopkins University "In this bold and powerful book, Lakoff and Turner continue their use of metaphor to show how our minds get hold of the world. They have achieved nothing less than a postmodern Understanding Poetry, a new way of reading and teaching that makes poetry again important." — Norman Holland, University of Florida

    

    Arranged alphabetically from "accent" to "zeugma," The Poets Dictionary is clear, superb, and complete.

    Families should be writingrecollections, whims, stories of love and pain and laughter, the troubling, sad, or silly things that together make your family richly different from all the rest. Family stuff. Important stuff. In this very practical book, Stillman details why and how to record words that go straight to the heartthe simple, vital words that will speak to those you care most about and to their descendants many years from now. The real family treasures, writes Stillman, are those made of words, not dusty artifacts. And he proves it, with example after example of what happens when families write together, along with scores of ideas for activities that will generate your own keepsake writing. The first edition of Families Writing sold widely, and many copies were picked up by teachers who have successfully used the Families Writing approach in the classroom. In this second edition, therefore, Stillman has added an entirely new chapter of suggestions for teachers.

    The second part of the book is concerned with the preparation of a typescript, market research, submissions, contracts, and many other subjects related to the professional approach to writing.

    . . Fleischman's book takes the study of medieval literature to new hermeneutic horizons. . . . Furthermore, through the use of sociolinguistics she connects the modern and medieval worlds in a way that will make the medieval world less alien to us, and thus her perspective gives us another means by which we can make medieval literature more relevant to our students. --Studies in the Age of Chaucer In this pathfinding study, Suzanne Fleischman brings together theory and methodology from various quarters to shed important new light on the linguistic structure of narrative, a primary and universal device for translating our experiences into language. Fleischman sees linguistics as laying the foundation for all narratological study, since it offers insight into how narratives are constructed in their most primary context: everyday speech. She uses a linguistic model designed for natural narrative to explicate the organizational structure of artificial narrative texts, primarily from the Middle Ages and the postmodern period, whose seemingly idiosyncratic use of tenses has long perplexed those who study them. Fleischman develops a functional theory of tense and aspect in narrative that accounts for the wide variety of functions--pragmatic as well as grammatical--that these two categories of grammar are called upon to perform in the linguistic economy of a narration.

    With the help of consultant editors in specificareas--particularly for Jewish, Spanish, and Gaelic names--the authors present information about the language or region in which the surname originated, major events in the history of noted names, the original meaning, peculiarites of regional distribution, and in some cases the form, date, andlocation of early instances of the name. Uniquely organized to allow comparison between names that share the same etymology, the dictionary groups together within a single entry many different cognate and variant forms, including diminutives and patronymics. A comprehensive alphabetical indexallows easy cross-referencing. Summarizing a wealth of historical and etymological information in a clear and concise manner, the dictionary will be interesting and accessible to the general reader, and an essential reference tool for historians, genealogists, philologists, and local family historysocieties.

    This fourth edition gives advanced writers and reporters a thorough look at newspaper, magazine, newsletter, and online publications, with emphasis on daily newspapers and consumer magazines. Three primary aspects of feature writing are emphasized: introduction and writing skills/basics, article types, and the collegiate and professional writing life. Each chapter includes excerpts and complete articles from some of the nation's leading publications that illustrate points made in the text.Professional Feature Writing provides a wide variety of perspectives and experiences of both young and experienced writers, editors, publishers, and professors. Emphasizing writing values that will strengthen a new writer's journalistic practices, readers will gain insights and expertise from the narrative, the advice of professionals, and current writing examples. The book offers lists of tips, observations, in-depth looks at both young and veteran writers, guidelines, sources, and story ideas. As such, this volume is a solid tour of the forms and approaches to feature writing. Building on introductory writing and reporting skills, this text is written for advanced students, and is filled with practical advice for writing a wide variety of features.