Drawing on a wide range of  great writers, from Philip Roth to Antonin Scalia to Jane Austen, How to Write a Sentence is much more than a writing manual—it is a spirited love letter to the written word, and a key to understanding how great writing works.

    Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer's Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book has over 150 contributors from all walks of the industry, including international bestselling authors Anthony Doerr, Roxane Gay, Garth Greenwell, Lisa Ko, R. O. Kwon, Rebecca Makkai, and Ottessa Moshfegh, alongside cult favorites Sarah Gerard, Melissa Febos, Mitchell S. Jackson, and Mira Jacob. Agents, film scouts, film producers, translators, disability and minority activists, and power agents and editors also weigh in, offering advice and sharing intimate anecdotes about even the most taboo topics in the industry. Their wisdom will help aspiring authors find a foothold in the publishing world and navigate the challenges of life before and after publication with sanity and grace.Are MFA programs worth the time and money? How do people actually sit down and finish a novel? Did you get a good advance? What do you do when you feel envious of other writers? And why the heck aren’t your friends saying anything about your book? Covering questions ranging from the logistical to the existential (and everything in between), Before and After the Book Deal is the definitive guide for anyone who has ever wanted to know what it’s really like to be an author.

    A book so raw it was banned in one small city in Iowa. If you are thinking about self-publishing or you just want to know all the juicy insider scoop this is a must read.

    And while Making a Literary Life is ostensibly a book that teaches you how to write, it really teaches you how to make your interior life into your exterior life, how to find and join that community of like-minded souls you're sure is out there somewhere.Carolyn See distills a lifetime of experience as novelist, memoirist, critic, and creative-writing professor into this marvelously engaging how-to book. Partly the nuts and bolts of writing (plot, point of view, character, voice) and partly an inspirational guide to living the life you dream of, Making a Literary Life takes you from the decision to "become" a writer to three months after the publication of your first book. A combination of writing and life strategies (do not tell everyone around you how you yearn to be a writer; send a "charming note" to someone you admire in the industry five days a week, every week, for the rest of your life; find the perfect characters right in front of you), Making a Literary Life is for people not usually considered part of the literary loop: the non?East Coasters, the secret scribblers. With sagacity, a magical sense of humor, and an abiding belief in the possibilities offered to "ordinary" people living "ordinary" lives, Carolyn See has summed up her life's work in a book so beguiling, irreverent, and giddily inspiring that you won't even realize it's changing your life until it already has.From the Hardcover edition.

    Here, Peter Elbow emphasizes that the essential activities underlying good writing and the essential exercises promoting it are really not difficult at all.Employing a cookbook approach, Elbow provides the reader (and writer) with various recipes: for getting words down on paper, for revising, for dealing with an audience, for getting feedback on a piece of writing, and still other recipes for approaching the mystery of power in writing. In a new introduction, he offers his reflections on the original edition, discusses the responses from people who have followed his techniques, how his methods may differ from other processes, and how his original topics are still pertinent to today's writer. By taking risks and embracing mistakes, Elbow hopes the writer may somehow find a hold on the creative process and be able to heighten two mentalities--the production of writing and the revision of it.From students and teachers to novelists and poets, Writing with Power reminds us that we can celebrate the uses of mystery, chaos, nonplanning, and magic, while achieving analysis, conscious control, explicitness, and care in whatever it is we set down on paper.

    Writers must learn to tolerate the early stages, the dreamlike and irrational states of mind, and then to move from jottings and ideas to a messy first draft, and onward  into the work of revision. Understanding these stages is key.The Kite and the String urges writers to let playfulness and spontaneity breathe life into the work—letting the kite move with the winds of feeling—while still holding on to the string that will keep it from flying away. Alice Mattison attends also to the difficulties of protecting writing time, preserving solitude, finding trusted readers, and setting the right goals for publication. The only writing guide that takes up both the stages of creative work and developing effective attitudes while progressing through them, plus strategies for learning more about the craft, The Kite and the String responds to a pressing need for writing guidance at all levels.

    KDP is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and format their titles for sale in the Kindle Store.

    Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”. . . Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day . . . Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.” Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books . . . Karl Marx . . . Woody Allen . . . Agatha Christie . . . George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing . . . Leo Tolstoy . . . Charles Dickens . . . Pablo Picasso . . . George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers . . . Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”). Brilliantly compiled and edited, and filled with detail and anecdote, Daily Rituals is irresistible, addictive, magically inspiring.

    Pressfield believes that “resistance” is the greatest enemy, and he offers many unique and helpful ways to overcome it.

    This opinion, commonplace among published as well as aspiring writers, struck Nisi as taking the easy way out and spurred her to write an essay addressing the problem of how to write about characters marked by racial and ethnic differences. In the course of writing the essay, however, she realized that similar problems arise when writers try to create characters whose gender, sexual preference, and age differ significantly from their own. Nisi and Cynthia collaborated to develop a workshop that addresses these problems with the aim of both increasing writers' skill and sensitivity in portraying difference in their fiction as well as allaying their anxieties about ''getting it wrong.'' Writing the Other: A Practical Approach is the manual that grew out of their workshop. It discusses basic aspects of characterization and offers elementary techniques, practical exercises, and examples for helping writers create richer and more accurate characters with ''differences.''

    Brimming with examples, quotes, and case studies that include an illuminating discussion of Max Perkins's editorial collaboration with F. Scott Fitzgerald on The Great Gatsby, this book proves how fundamental editing is to great writing. Bell also offers strategic tips and exercises for self-editing, and a series of remarkable interviews, that take us into the studios of established authors such as Michael Ondaatje, Tracy Kidder, and Ann Patchett to learn from their various approaches to shaping their work after its initial creation. Much more than a manual, The Artful Edit inspires readers to think about both the discipline and the creativity of editing and how editing can enhance their work. A vigorous investigation into the history and meaning of the edit, this book, like The Triggering Town and The Elements of Style, is a must-have companion for every writer.

    A Writer’s Book of Days is a compilation of all that she’s learned from getting together to write with other people. She says, “the book came about because I saw the difference ongoing, regular practice could make in a writer’s life.” Practice makes perfect, and this book makes practice easy by providing writers and would-be writers with stimulating topics, helpful instruction, monthly guidelines, dozens of inspiring quotes, writerly lore, and tips for special writing sessions such as marathons, cafe writing, and other ways to make the work of writing more creative and fun.

    In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.In his introduction, Saunders writes, “We’re going to enter seven fastidiously constructed scale models of the world, made for a specific purpose that our time maybe doesn’t fully endorse but that these writers accepted implicitly as the aim of art—namely, to ask the big questions, questions like, How are we supposed to be living down here? What were we put here to accomplish? What should we value? What is truth, anyway, and how might we recognize it?” He approaches the stories technically yet accessibly, and through them explains how narrative functions; why we stay immersed in a story and why we resist it; and the bedrock virtues a writer must foster. The process of writing, Saunders reminds us, is a technical craft, but also a way of training oneself to see the world with new openness and curiosity.A Swim in a Pond in the Rain is a deep exploration not just of how great writing works but of how the mind itself works while reading, and of how the reading and writing of stories make genuine connection possible.

    Are you unsure which series structure is best for you? Or are you several books into a series, but you’re stuck? Do you want to expand your literary universe but aren’t sure how to do it? Perhaps you have a series languishing in your backlist, and you need ideas on how to market it.  Get the knowledge you need to make smart decisions about your series with How to Write a Series.  You’ll learn:  The three basic types of series The benefits and drawbacks of writing each type of series Tips for extending your series beyond your original plan Ideas for creating spinoffs and expanding your literary universe How to know when it’s time to end a series How to save time writing your series and how to keep track of details How to deal with the problems that result from being locked into a story world  How to refresh your interest in a series if you’ve grown bored Creative ways to market your series I’ve been writing for fifteen years as both a hybrid and independent author. I’ve published over twenty-five fiction books in four different series. Everything I’ve learned about writing a series has been through trial and error. I hope my lessons-learned will give you a shortcut when it comes to writing your series plus tips for troubleshooting problems and ideas for promoting your series. Unlock the power of a series in your author career with How To Write a Series.

    (Neil Gaiman)Drawn from Gaiman's trove of published speeches, poems and creative manifestos, 'ART MATTERS' is an embodiment of this remarkable multimedia artist's vision - an exploration of how reading, imagining, and creating can transform the world and our lives. 'ART MATTERS' brings together four of Gaiman's most beloved writings on creativity and artistry:❖1❖"CREDO", his remarkably concise and relevant manifesto on free expression, first delivered in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings❖2❖"MAKE GOOD ART", his famous 2012 commencement address delivered at the Philadelphia University of the Arts❖3❖"MAKING A CHAIR", a poem about the joys of creating something, even when the words won't come❖4❖"ON LIBRARIES", an impassioned argument for libraries that illuminates their importance to our future and celebrates how they foster readers and daydreamers.'ART MATTERS' is a stirring testament to the freedom of ideas that inspire us to make art in the face of adversity and dares us to choose to be bold.RUNNING TIME ⇰ 49mins.©2018 Neil Gaiman (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers