The truth is, he's not trying to be anyone's hero. Anthony Castillo needs a new life. His teachers are clueless autocrats except for Mr. Darren, who’s in charge of the rock band program. The girls at school are either shallow cutebots or out of his league. And his parents mean well, but they just make things worse. It’s as if Anthony is stuck on the bottom level of his favorite video game, Liberation Force 4.5. Except there is no secret escape tunnel and definitely no cheat code. Fed up, pissed off, and feeling trapped, Anthony writes his first song for his rock band, the Rusty Soles. His only problem: Arts Night. If he exercises his right to free speech and sings his original lyrics—where his own bombs will drop—he and his band will be through. The clock is ticking. Time for Anthony to pick his battles and decide what’s really worth fighting for.

    The stories she loves most follow other organic patterns found in nature―spirals, meanders, and explosions, among others. Alison’s manifesto for new modes of narrative will appeal to serious readers and writers alike. As Jane Alison writes in the introduction to her insightful and appealing book about the craft of writing: “For centuries there’s been one path through fiction we’re most likely to travel―one we’re actually told to follow―and that’s the dramatic arc: a situation arises, grows tense, reaches a peak, subsides. . . . But: something that swells and tautens until climax, then collapses? Bit masculo-sexual, no? So many other patterns run through nature, tracing other deep motions in life. Why not draw on them, too?”W. G. Sebald’s The Emigrants was the first novel to show Alison how forward momentum can be created by way of pattern, rather than the traditional arc―or, in nature, wave. Other writers of nonlinear prose considered in her “museum of specimens” include Nicholson Baker, Anne Carson, Marguerite Duras, Jamaica Kincaid, Clarice Lispector, Gabriel García Márquez, Susan Minot, David Mitchell, Caryl Phillips, and Mary Robison.Meander, Spiral, Explode is a singular and brilliant elucidation of literary strategies that also brings high spirits and wit to its original conclusions. It is a liberating manifesto that says, Let’s leave the outdated modes behind and, in thinking of new modes, bring feeling back to experimentation. It will appeal to serious readers and writers alike.

    If you’re looking for a deeper connection with your journal, author and artist Kristal Norton sheds light on a more rewarding form of journaling with a brief introduction to art journaling and 20 bonus art prompts. She also shares pages of her creative journal that were inspired by the prompts in the book, showing how each prompt can be used and interpreted in many ways.This book is overflowing with inspiration:• 101 creative writing prompts that encourage introspection, great for traditional journaling as well as art journaling• Visual examples of prompts interpreted by the author• 20 quick and easy art prompts to get you started adding color and imagery to your journal• Bonus video of author and artist Kristal Norton creating an art journal page from start to finish using this book for inspiration• A PDF version of all the prompts in this book so that you can print, cut out, and put them in a jar for easy access when you’re feeling stuck

    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.

    It is also an unprecedentedly revealing and instructive guide to how songs and records are made.Developed from a series of interviews conducted over many months, the book explores in detail some thirty XTC songs--including well-know singles such as 'Senses Working Overtime' and the controversial 'Dear God'--from throughout the group's thirty-year career. It casts new light on the writing of lyrics, the construction of melodies and arrangements, the process of recording, and the workings of the music industry. But it is also filled with anecdotes about Partridge, his XTC bandmates, and their adventures around the world, all told with the songwriter's legendary humor.

    He is regarded as one of the world's great short story writers as well as a great lyric poet, and is credited with inventing the detective story and the modern gothic horror tale. He has been an important influence on many major American and European writers including William Faulkner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Baudelaire, H.P. Lovecraft, and William Butler Yeats, among many others.Poe's poetry, which is collected in this volume, is more personal than his prose. The themes of love, death, and despair which recur throughout reflect the anguish he suffered in his own troubled life. "Annabel Lee" is a haunting lament to his young wife, Virginia, who died of tuberculosis. "The Bells" is an eerie and melancholy meditation which recreates with brilliant musical language the hypnotic, funereal aura of ringing bells. "The Raven" is a comic tour de force in which the protagonist turns his strange visitor into a symbol of his own sorrow and loss. Poe's best poems remain some of the most popular and technically accomplished in the English language.This book features a deluxe cover, ribbon marker, top stain, and decorative endpaper with a name plate.

    Reproduced in this beautiful clothbound volume are Curtis's never-before-seen handwritten lyrics, accompanied by earlier drafts and previously unpublished pages from his notebooks that shed fascinating light on his writing and creative process.Also included are an insightful and moving foreword by Curtis's widow Deborah, a substantial introduction by writer Jon Savage, and an appendix featuring books from Curtis's library and a selection of fanzine interviews, letters, and other ephemera from his estate.

    Organized in six parts (Childhood; Youth; Early Marriage and Bachelorhood; Teaching and Work; Fiction; Politics, Religion, Movies, Books, Cities; The Style of Middle Age) Getting Personal tells two stories: the development of Lopate's career as a writer and the story of his life.

    In MILLENNIUM, Hakim Bey both sustains and expands the ideas of his groundbreaking work, THE TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE. Here, Bey suggests that mere detachment from (or even outright rejection of) the monolith of global capital is not enough; that either we accept ourselves as the 'last humans,' or else we accept ourselves as the opposition. The book also contains an illuminating interview with Bey, in which he discusses his body of work and assesses our collective position at the turn of the millennium.

    But how does the artist actually create his or her work? What is the source of an artist's inspiration? What is the force that impels the artist to set down a vision that becomes art? In this groundbreaking book, Edward Hirsch explores the concept of duende, that mysterious, highly potent power of creativity that results in a work of art. With examples ranging from Federico García Lorca's wrestling with darkness as he discovered the fountain of words within himself to Martha Graham's creation of her most emotional dances, from the canvases of Robert Motherwell to William Blake's celestial visions, Hirsch taps into the artistic imagination and explains, in terms illuminating and emotional, how different artists respond to the power and demonic energy of creative impulse.

    According to author and acquisitions editor W. Terry Whalin, this approach is backwards. About 80% to 90% of nonfiction books are sold from a book proposal. This mysterious document called a proposal contains many elements that will never appear in a manuscript―yet these details are critical to publishing executives who make the decision about publishing or rejecting an author’s project. In Book Proposals That Sell, Terry reveals 21 secrets to creating a book proposal that every author needs in order to create one that sells.

    All that's needed is a little determination and this high-octane kit to kick motivation into overdrive and inspire users to produce a 50,000-word book in an exhilarating, invigorating month long Noveling Adventure. Includes: 48-page booklet 31 Daily Noveling Briefsrecommended allowances of writing advice and activities for every day of the noveling month Guided, month long, displayable log for keeping track of progress Motivational materials, pep-talking letters, and commitment coupons The Mighty Badge of the Triumphant Wordsmith

    Baker set out to track the daily comings and goings of a pair of peregrine falcons across the flat fen lands of eastern England. He followed the birds obsessively, observing them in the air and on the ground, in pursuit of their prey, making a kill, eating, and at rest, activities he describes with an extraordinary fusion of precision and poetry. And as he continued his mysterious private quest, his sense of human self slowly dissolved, to be replaced with the alien and implacable consciousness of a hawk.It is this extraordinary metamorphosis, magical and terrifying, that these beautifully written pages record.

    How to maximize your creativity and productivity. How to develop your craft by consolidating techniques. How to read music with your ears. How you can write music without using an instrument. How to write music spontaneously, as your ear guides your hand. How to communicate accurately through music notation. Why you don't need "perfect pitch." Tools to develop your music perception. 140 exercises, many music examples--models for a lifetime of study. Resources for composing, orchestrating, film scoring. Working in the music business. Where to find supplies, organizations, information, inspiration. A definitive guide and reference for composers, orchestrators, arrangers and performers.

    The anthology combines classic essays of great instructional value together with the most frequently anthologized essays of recent note by today's most highly regarded writers. The selections exhibit a broad range of diversity in subject matter and authorship. All essays have been selected for their utility as both models for writing and for their usefulness as springboards for independent writing. An introductory section informs readers about the qualities of the essay form and offers instruction on how to read essays critically and use the writing process to develop their own essays. For those interested in learning about reading, writing and critical thinking by studying examples of great writing.