Book picks similar to
Real Mysteries: Narrative and the Unknowable by H. Porter Abbott
lit-crit
writing
a-recommended
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Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991
Salman Rushdie - 1991
Containing 74 essays written over the last ten years, this book covers a range of subjects including the literature of the perceived masters and of Rushdie's contemporaries, the politics of colonialism and the ironies of culture, film, politicians, the Labour Party, religious fundamentalism in America, racial prejudice and the preciousness of the imagination and of free expression.
Take the Mic: The Art of Performance Poetry, Slam, and the Spoken Word
Marc Kelly Smith - 2009
With this book, you'll also be able to link to the PoetrySpeaks.com community to listen to samples, meet poets, and unearth inspirations for your next performance.The Ultimate Guide to Writing and Performing with PowerTake the Mic is an essential guide for lifting your poetry from the page to the stage. Marc Kelly Smith (So What!), grand founder of the Slam movement, serves as you personal coach, showing you how to craft stage-worthy verse and deliver a poetry performance that shakes the rafters and sparks thunderous applause. In Take the Mic, you discover how to... Pen poetry that's conducive to on-stage performance Overcome stage fright Practice powerful performance techniques Rehearse like a pro Shape a loose collection of poems into a killer set Connect with your audience heart and soul Master the art of self-promotion Schedule your own slam poetry tour Transform your hobby into paying gigs Act professional to establish a solid reputation in the Slam communityTake the Mic is packed with practical exercises you can do alone or in class to hone your skills and transform your body, mind, voice, verse, and spirit into an engaging stage presence.You'll also find a brief history of slam, the rules and regulations that govern official slam competitions, and a list of PSI (Poetry Slam, Inc.) Certified Slams, so no matter where you are, you always have a place to Take the Mic!
The Space of Literature
Maurice Blanchot - 1955
From the 1930s through the present day, his writings have been shaping the international literary consciousness. The Space of Literature, first published in France in 1955, is central to the development of Blanchot's thought. In it he reflects on literature and the unique demand it makes upon our attention. Thus he explores the process of reading as well as the nature of artistic creativity, all the while considering the relation of the literary work to time, to history, and to death. This book consists not so much in the application of a critical method or the demonstration of a theory of literature as in a patiently deliberate meditation upon the literary experience, informed most notably by studies of Mallarmé, Kafka, Rilke, and Hölderlin. Blanchot's discussions of those writers are among the finest in any language.
Literature and Evil
Georges Bataille - 1957
“It is guilty and should admit itself so.” The word, the flesh, and the devil are explored by this extraordinary intellect in the work of eight outstanding authors: Emily Bronte, Baudelaire, Blake, Michelet, Kafka, Proust, Genet and De Sade.Born in France in 1897, Georges Bataille was a radical philosopher, novelist, and critic whose writings continue to exert a vital influence on today's literature and thought.
Breakthrough Copywriting: How To Generate Quick Cash With The Written Word
David Garfinkel - 2014
"David Garfinkel is my friend, my mentor, and my copywriting guide. I've hired him in the past, we've coauthored projects together, and I turn to him for advice and guidance. I also send clients to him from time to time. He can make copywriting seem simple because of the way he teaches, explains, and gently awakens the slumbering copywriter inside you. If you have the opportunity to learn from him, take it — your life (and your fortune) will be changed forever for the better.” Joe Vitale, best selling author of "Attract Money Now", "Zero Limits", "The Miracles Manual" and more. "David Garfinkel has generated tens of millions of dollars in sales - and substantial profits - for his clients. To paraphrase the old Dean Witter ad, 'When David Garfinkel speaks or writes, savvy marketers listen and act.'" Alan N. Schlaifer, President, The Wharton School Club, Washington, DC "David, thank you for your copywriting help. With the information you helped me with, I was able to write a brand new website salesletter that sold over 211 CD's in less than 3 days. Because of this new salesletter, I will put a extra $60,000 of cold hard cash in my pocket this month. Your information is invaluable! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!" Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter, powerfulpromoter.com Copywriting is the heart of entrepreneurship and should: (1) produce a bankable return on investment from advertising, (2) generate measurable results and (3) rely on proven direct response methods that work by formula rather than by guesswork. Try getting that from mainstream ad agencies. Good luck. Because their agenda is not to help you make a profit… but… to make a profit for themselves. However, if you want to know what works in the real world… then… "Breakthrough Copywriting" is mandatory. Because you won’t stumble across this amazing stuff anywhere else. Here is just a little of what you will discover inside: • How to apply the secret Breakthrough Copywriting Model I invented! My four-part formula lets anyone write brutally-effective copy that maximizes the response and profits of any ad or website! • What “Copywriting Junction” is… and… why it holds the key to making the most money from advertising… no matter what business you’re in! • How to write better ad copy than 99.5% of all traditional agencies! (Never be at the mercy of another ad agency, consultant or copywriter who doesn’t know what they’re talking about – most don’t - again.) • The forbidden “Eavesdrop” secret - taught to Hollywood screenwriters – guaranteed to warp speed your copywriting ability from novice to expert in no time flat! • The “C” Factor: How it forces people to read your ad, letter or website from top to bottom… whip out their wallet… and… buy on the spot! • How to write emotion-packed copy that generates immediate response! • How to get a flood of customers – in fact, more than you could handle – without the usual frustration, stress and struggle! • How to tap the deep reservoirs of the
The Critic as Artist
Oscar Wilde - 1891
Published originally in 1881, The Critic As Artist is one of Oscar Wilde's major aesthetic statements.
Film Directing Shot by Shot: Visualizing from Concept to Screen
Steven D. Katz - 1991
Aspiring directors, cinematographers, editors, and producers, many of whom are now working professionals, learned the craft of visual storytelling from Shot by Shot, the most com-plete source for preplanning the look of a movie.The book contains over 800 photos and illustrations, and is by far the most comprehensive look at shot design in print, containing storyboards from movies such as Citizen Kane, Blade Runner, Dead-pool, and Moonrise Kingdom. Also introduced is the concept of A, I, and L patterns as a way to sim-plify the hundreds of staging choices facing a director in every scene.Shot by Shot uniquely blends story analysis with compositional strategies, citing examples then il-lustrated with the storyboards used for the actual films. Throughout the book, various visual ap-proaches to short scenes are shown, exposing the directing processes of our most celebrated au-teurs — including a meticulous, lavishly illustrated analysis of Steven Spielberg’s scene design for Empire of the Sun.
Making a Good Script Great
Linda Seger - 1987
Nor is it a matter of just putting that good idea down on paper. In scriptwriting, it's not just the writing but also the rewriting that counts. Making a Good Script Great focuses on the rewriting process and offers specific methods to help you craft tighter, stronger, and more workable scripts.While retaining all the valuable insights that have made the first edition one of the all-time most popular screenwriting books, this expanded, second edition adds new chapters that take you through the complete screenwriting process, from the first draft through the shooting draft.If you're writing your first script, this book will help develop your skills for telling a compelling and dramatic story. If you're a veteran screenwriter, this book will articulate the skills you know intuitively And if you're currently stuck on a rewrite, this book will help you analyze and solve the problems and get your script back “on track.”
Comics and Sequential Art
Will Eisner - 1985
Readers will learn the basic anatomy, fundamentals of storycraft and how the medium works as a means of expression.
Theory of Prose
Victor Shklovsky - 1929
Now translated in its entirety for the first time, Theory of Prose not only anticipates structuralism and post-structuralism, but poses questions about the nature of fiction that are as provocative today as they were in the 1920s. Arguing that writers structure their materials according to artistic principles rather than from attempts to imitate "reality," Shklovsky uses Cervantes, Tolstoi, Sterne, Dickens, Bely, and Rozanov to give us a new way of thinking about fiction and, in his most impassioned moments, about the world. Benjamin Sher's lucid translation will allow Shklovsky's Theory of Prose to fulfill its destiny as a major theoretical work of the twentieth century. "A rambling, digressive stylist, Shklovsky throws off brilliant aper�us on every page. . . . Sixty-five years after it first appeared, Theory of Prose remains an exciting book: Like an architect's blueprint, it lays bare the joists and studs that hold up the house of fiction." (Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World 5-5-91) "This 1929 book by one of the founding fathers of Russian formalism is one of the most important works in the history of literary theory. . . . Shklovsky's enormously influential work is brilliant, provocative, and, by turn, elliptical and digressive. It is also whimsical and sometimes chaotic." (Choice) "[The] essays published in Theory of Prose reveal why Shklovsky might have become the most important literary theorist of our century, had history taken a different course." (Poetics Today) "Clearly there is a happy congruity between Shklovsky's insights and the modern consensus. His observations on various authors and techniques cause one to ponder. A random paragraph causes sudden illumination. This is not a manifesto but the incisive thoughts of a scholar in the quiet of his study. Dalkey Archive Press is to be thanked for making it available again." (ZYX 9-92)
Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms
Shirley Brice Heath - 1983
'Roadville' is a white working-class community of families steeped for generations in the life of textile mills; 'Trackton' is an African-American working-class community whose older generations grew up farming the land, but whose existent members work in the mills. In tracing the children's language development the author shows the deep cultural differences between the two communities, whose ways with words differ as strikingly from each other as either does from the pattern of the townspeople, the 'mainstream' blacks and whites who hold power in the schools and workplaces of the region. Employing the combined skills of ethnographer, social historian, and teacher, the author raises fundamental questions about the nature of language development, the effects of literacy on oral language habits, and the sources of communication problems in schools and workplaces.
The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry
Walter Pater - 1873
Pater was shocked at the reaction his book inspired: 'I wish they would not call me a hedonist, it gives such a wrong impression to those who do not know Greek.'.The book had begun as a series of idiosyncratic, impressionistic critical essays on those artists that embodied for him the spirit of the Renaissance; by collecting them and adding his infamous Conclusion, Pater gained a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. But The Renaissance survives as one of the most innovative pieces of cultural criticism to emerge from the nineteenth century.
The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction
Dean Young - 2010
How can recklessness guide the poet, the artist, and the reader into art, and how can it excite in us a sort of wild receptivity, beyond craft? "Poetry is not a discipline," Young writes. "It is a hunger, a revolt, a drive, a mash note, a fright, a tantrum, a grief, a hoax, a debacle, an application, an affect . . ."
On Great Writing (On the Sublime)
Dionysius Cassius Longinus
The complete translation, from the Greek of A. O. Prickard's Oxford text, features an introduction by Grube, establishing the historical and critical context of the work, and a biographical index.
Literary Women
Ellen Moers - 1976
Included are discussions of Jane Austen, George Sand, Colette, Simone Weil, and Virginia Woolf.