Book picks similar to
The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms by Ron Padgett
poetry
writing
reference
non-fiction
The Craft of Research
Wayne C. Booth - 1995
Seasoned researchers and educators Gregory G. Colomb and Joseph M. Williams present an updated third edition of their classic handbook, whose first and second editions were written in collaboration with the late Wayne C. Booth. The Craft of Research explains how to build an argument that motivates readers to accept a claim; how to anticipate the reservations of readers and to respond to them appropriately; and how to create introductions and conclusions that answer that most demanding question, “So what?” The third edition includes an expanded discussion of the essential early stages of a research task: planning and drafting a paper. The authors have revised and fully updated their section on electronic research, emphasizing the need to distinguish between trustworthy sources (such as those found in libraries) and less reliable sources found with a quick Web search. A chapter on warrants has also been thoroughly reviewed to make this difficult subject easier for researchers Throughout, the authors have preserved the amiable tone, the reliable voice, and the sense of directness that have made this book indispensable for anyone undertaking a research project.
The Sound on the Page: Great Writers Talk about Style and Voice in Writing
Ben Yagoda - 2004
Our favorite writers often entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say than by how they say it. In The Sound on the Page, acclaimed author, teacher, and critic Ben Yagoda offers practical and incisive help for writers on developing and discovering their own style and voice. This wonderfully rich and readable book features interviews with more than 40 of our most important authors discussing their literary style, including:Dave BarryHarold BloomSupreme Court Justice Stephen BreyerBill BrysonMichael ChabonAndrei CodrescuJunot DíazAdam GopnikJamaica KincaidMichael KinsleyElmore LeonardElizabeth McCracken Susan OrleanCynthia OzickAnna QuindlenJonathan RabanDavid ThomsonTobias Wolff
The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear
Ralph Keyes - 1995
I have to talk myself into bravery with every sentence, agreed Cynthia Ozick, sometimes every syllable. E. B. White said he admired anyone who has the guts to write anything at all.An author who has taught writing for more than thirty years,In The Courage to Write, Ralph Keyes, an author who has taught writing for more than thirty years, assures us that anxiety is felt by writers at every level, especially when they dare to do their best. He describes the sequence of courage points through which all writers must pass, from the challenge of identifying a worthwhile project to the mixture of pride and panic they feel when examining a newly published book or article.Keyes also offers specifics on how to root out dread of public performance and of the judgment of family and friends, make the best use of writers' workshops and conferences, and handle criticism of works in progress. Throughout, he includes the comments of many accomplished writers -- Pat Conroy, Amy Tan, Rita Dove, Isabel Allende, and others -- on how they transcended their own fears to produce great works.
The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression
Angela Ackerman - 2012
When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes:
Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions
A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them
Advice on what should be done beforedrafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent
Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues
And much more!
The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers
Christopher Vogler - 1992
Provides new insights and observations from Vogler's pioneering work in mythic structure for writers.
Let's Get Digital: How to Self-Publish, and Why You Should
David Gaughran - 2011
Packed with practical, actionable advice, the new fourth edition of Let's Get Digital delivers the very latest best practices on publishing your work and building audience.* Boost your writing career with marketing strategies that are proven to sell more books.* Discover expert tips on platform building, blogging and social media.* Learn which approaches are best for selling fiction vs. non-fiction.* Implement powerful ways to make your ebooks more discoverable.* Increase your visibility by optimizing keywords and categories.* Weigh the pros and cons of Kindle Unlimited, and find out exactly how to tweak your promotional plans depending on whether you stay exclusive to Amazon or opt for wider distribution.And that's just for starters...
180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents
Kelly Gallagher - 2018
Two classrooms. One school year.180 Days represents the collaboration of two master teachers-Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle-over an entire school year: planning, teaching, and reflecting within their own and each other's classrooms in California and New Hampshire. Inspired by a teacher's question, "How do you fit it all in?" they identified and prioritized the daily, essential, belief-based practices that are worth spending time on. They asked, "Who will these students be as readers and writers after a year under our care?"What we make time for matters: what we plan, how we revise our plans while teaching, and how we reflect and decide what's next. The decision-making in the moment is the most essential work of teaching, and it's the ongoing study of the adolescents in front of us that has the greatest impact on our thinking. With both the demands of time and the complexity of diverse students in mind, Kelly and Penny mapped out a year of engaging literacy practices aligned to their core beliefs about what matters most. They share their insights on managing time and tasks and offer teaching strategies for engaging students in both whole class and independent work. Video clips of Kelly and Penny teaching in each other's classrooms bring this year to life and show you what a steadfast commitment to belief-based instruction looks like in action. 180 Days. Make every moment matter. Teach fearlessly. Empower all students to live literate lives.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
Robert McKee - 1997
Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience. In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House
Dorothy AllisonD.A. Powell - 2009
Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, Steve Almond, D. A. Powell, Chris Offutt, and others distill elements of writing and share insights into the joys and pains of their own work. They explore a wide range of topics, everything from writing dialogue to the do’s and don'ts of writing about sex. With how-tos, close readings, and personal anecdotes, The Writer's Notebook offers aspiring wordsmiths advice and inspiration to hone their own craft. Included is a CD of workshop discussions and panels
Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction
Brenda Miller - 2003
A series of lessons on writing and creating non-fiction
Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book
Courtney Maum - 2020
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.
Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs
Henry Carroll - 2014
• A bestselling photography book with over 300,000 copies sold! • Learn top photography tips from 50 famous photographers • A must–have guide for amateur photographers and professional photographersRead This if You Want to Take Great Photographs contains no graphs, no techie diagrams and no camera–club jargon. Instead, it inspires readers through iconic images and playful copy, packed with hands–on tips.Split into five sections, the book covers composition, exposure, light, lenses and the art of seeing. Masterpieces by acclaimed photographers – including Henri Cartier–Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Fay Godwin, Nadav Kander, Daido Moriyama and Martin Parr – serve to illustrate points and encourage readers to try out new ideas.Today's aspiring photographers want immediacy and see photography as an affordable way of expressing themselves quickly and creatively. This handbook meets their needs, teaching them how to take photographs using professional techniques.Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs is part of the internationally–bestselling 'Read This' series, which has sold over half–a–million books worldwide and has been translated into over 20 languages.More titles in the 'Read This' series:Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs of People by Henry Carroll (9781780676241)Read This if You Want to Take Great Photographs of Places by Henry Carroll (9781780679051)Use This if You Want to Take Great Photographs: A Photo Journal by Henry Carroll (9781780678887)Read This if You Want to Be Great at Drawing by Selwyn Leamy (9781786270542)Use This if You Want to Be Great at Drawing by Selwyn Leamy (9781786274052)Read This if You Want to Be Great at Drawing People by Selwyn Leamy (9781786275127)Read This if You Want to Be a Great Writer by Ross Raisin (9781786271976)Read This if You Want to Be Instagram Famous edited by Henry Carroll (9781780679679)Read This If You Want to Be YouTube Famous by Will Eagle (9781786275134)
Aspects of the Novel
E.M. Forster - 1927
Forster's Aspects of the Novel is an innovative and effusive treatise on a literary form that, at the time of publication, had only recently begun to enjoy serious academic consideration. This Penguin Classics edition is edited with an introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, and features a new preface by Frank Kermode.First given as a series of lectures at Cambridge University, Aspects of the Novel is Forster's analysis of this great literary form. Here he rejects the 'pseudoscholarship' of historical criticism - 'that great demon of chronology' - that considers writers in terms of the period in which they wrote and instead asks us to imagine the great novelists working together in a single room. He discusses aspects of people, plot, fantasy and rhythm, making illuminating comparisons between novelists such as Proust and James, Dickens and Thackeray, Eliot and Dostoyevsky - the features shared by their books and the ways in which they differ. Written in a wonderfully engaging and conversational manner, this penetrating work of criticism is full of Forster's habitual irreverence, wit and wisdom.In his new introduction, Frank Kermode discusses the ways in which Forster's perspective as a novelist inspired his lectures. This edition also includes the original introduction by Oliver Stallybrass, a chronology, further reading and appendices.E. M. Forster (1879-1970) was a noted English author and critic and a member of the Bloomsbury group. His first novel, Where Angels Fear To Tread appeared in 1905. The Longest Journey appeared in 1907, followed by A Room With A View (1908), based partly on the material from extended holidays in Italy with his mother. Howards End (1910) was a story that centered on an English country house and dealt with the clash between two families, one interested in art and literature, the other only in business. Maurice was revised several times during his life, and finally published posthumously in 1971.If you enjoyed Aspects of the Novel, you might like Forster's A Room with a View, also available in Penguin Classics.
Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University
Mark Kramer - 2007
Telling True Stories presents their best advice—covering everything from finding a good topic, to structuring narrative stories, to writing and selling your first book. More than fifty well-known writers offer their most powerful tips, including: • Tom Wolfe on the emotional core of the story • Gay Talese on writing about private lives • Malcolm Gladwell on the limits of profiles • Nora Ephron on narrative writing and screenwriters • Alma Guillermoprieto on telling the story and telling the truth • Dozens of Pulitzer Prize–winning journalists from the Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and more . . .The essays contain important counsel for new and career journalists, as well as for freelance writers, radio producers, and memoirists. Packed with refreshingly candid and insightful recommendations, Telling True Stories will show anyone fascinated by the art of writing nonfiction how to bring people, scenes, and ideas to life on the page.
Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction
Jonathan D. Culler - 1997
Jonathan Culler, an extremely lucid commentator and much admired in the field of literary theory, offers discerning insights into such theories as the nature of language and meaning, and whether literature is a form of self-expression or a method of appeal to an audience. Concise yet thorough, Literary Theory also outlines the ideas behind a number of different schools: deconstruction, semiotics, postcolonial theory, and structuralism, among others. From topics such as literature and social identity to poetry, poetics, and rhetoric, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is a welcome guide for anyone interested in the importance of literature and the debates surrounding it.About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.