Dear Ally, How Do You Write a Book?


Ally Carter - 2019
    This is my attempt to change that.But first….I need you help.I NEED REAL WRITING-RELATED QUESTIONS FROM REAL TEENS!If you’re a teen and you like to write… Or if you know a teen who likes to write….PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR WRITING-RELATED QUESTIONS, and I’ll go through them all and–hopefully–yours will end up in the finished book!The book, btw, will be published by Scholastic in the fall of 2018–just in time for NaNoWriMo!If you want your question considered, just go to AllyCarter.com/DearAlly and let me know what you’d like to know. --from Ally Carter's blog

The Writer's Voice


Al Álvarez - 2004
    13,000 first printing.

How to Poo at Work


Mats - 2009
    This hilarious book could save your career and get you the keys to the executive washroom! It is the ultimate guide to going to the toilet at work, and is filled with practical advice for dealing with all sorts of poop-related problems.

The Life of Graham


Bob McCabe - 2006
    He was the policeman's son whose tweed-jacketed demeanour belied his true anarchic nature. More than any other Python he lived the complete lunacy of the show. Chapman was John Cleese's writing partner from their early days at Cambridge Footlights right through the Monty Python years. But it was Chapman's off-screen antics that are closest to the surreal qualities of a Python sketch. Terry Gilliam remembers how he would go into a restaurant and suddenly disappear: "He'd be under somebody's table licking the girl's feet while her date was there!" Chapman was a founder member of an infamous drinking club with The Who's drummer, Keith Moon. Chapman had a wine cellar stuffed full with bottles of gin and at the height of his drinking - which started out as a nerve-calmer for performances - he would consume eight pints of gin a day. He fearlessly flaunted his homosexuality at a time when it was certainly not the done thing. To add further mix to his personal life, Chapman and his partner David Sherlock adopted a 14-year-old boy. Graham Chapman died in 1989 with brilliant comic timing on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the first recording of Python. A huge celebratory Python party was cancelled as a result and Terry Jones harrumphed Chapman's death as "the greatest act of party-pooping in history". Bob McCabe has had the full co-operation of Sherlock and the Pythons in writing this fascinating and revealing account of the life of one of British comedy's best-loved figures.

On Becoming a Novelist


John Gardner - 1983
    With elegance, humor, and sophistication, Gardner describes the life of a working novelist; warns what needs to be guarded against, both from within the writer and from without; and predicts what the writer can reasonably expect and what, in general, he or she cannot. "For a certain kind of person," Gardner writes, "nothing is more joyful or satisfying than the life of a novelist." But no other vocation, he is quick to add, is so fraught with professional and spiritual difficulties. Whether discussing the supposed value of writer's workshops, explaining the role of the novelist's agent and editor, or railing against the seductive fruits of literary elitism, On Becoming a Novelist is an indispensable, life-affirming handbook for anyone authentically called to the profession. "A miraculously detailed account of the creative process."—Anne Tyler, Baltimore Sun

Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process


John McPhee - 2013
    4 is an elucidation of the writer's craft by a master practitioner. In a series of playful but expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he's gathered over his career and refined during his long-running course at Princeton University, where he has launched some of the most esteemed writers of several generations. McPhee offers a definitive guide to the crucial decisions regarding structure, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and presents extracts from some of his best-loved work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from reporting to drafting to revising and revising, and revising.More than a compendium of advice, Draft No. 4 is enriched by personal detail and charming reflections on the life of a writer. McPhee describes his enduring relationships with The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and recalls his early years at Time magazine. Enlivened by his keen sense of writing as a way of being in the world, Draft No. 4 is the long-awaited master class given by America's most renowned writing instructor.

The Bassoon King: My Life in Art, Faith, and Idiocy


Rainn Wilson - 2015
       For nine seasons Rainn Wilson played Dwight Schrute, everyone's favorite work nemesis and beet farmer. Viewers of The Office fell in love with the character and grew to love the actor who played him even more. Rainn founded a website and media company, SoulPancake, that eventually became a bestselling book of the same name. He also started a hilarious Twitter feed (sample tweet: “I'm not on Facebook” is the new “I don't even own a TV”) that now has more than four million followers.   Now, he's ready to tell his own story and explain how he came up with his incredibly unique sense of humor and perspective on life. He explains how he grew up “bone-numbingly nerdy before there was even a modicum of cool attached to the word.” The Bassoon King chronicles his journey from nerd to drama geek (“the highest rung on the vast, pimply ladder of high school losers”), his years of mild debauchery and struggles as a young actor in New York, his many adventures and insights about The Office, and finally, Wilson's achievement of success and satisfaction, both in his career and spiritually, reconnecting with the artistic and creative values of the Bahá’í faith he grew up in.

Making It Up As I Go Along


Marian Keyes - 2016
    There's the pure and bounteous joy of the nail varnish museum. Not to mention the very best lies to tell if you find yourself on an Arctic cruise. She has words of advice for those fast approaching fifty. And she's here to tell you the secret secret truth about writers - well, this one anyway.You'll be wincing in recognition and scratching your head in incredulity, but like Marian herself you won't be able to stop laughing at the sheer delightful absurdity that is modern life - because each and every one of us is clearly making it up as we go along.