Writer's will discover: Why boldness beats blandness in queries every time; The 10 basics they must have in their article queries; The 10 query blunders that can destroy publication chances; How to rocket a query right past the slush pile; What a book proposal is, why itis needed and how to write it; How to dramatize a novel with a query/synopsis package; How to make a big impression with a little cover letter; Wood includes chapter-ending Question & Answer sections that clarify issues concerning the type of letter at hand. He's also packed the book with illustrative examples.

    . . just haven't gotten around to it. No Plot? No Problem! is the kick in the pants you've been waiting for.Let Chris Baty, founder of the rockin' literary marathon National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo), guide you through four exciting weeks of hard-core noveling. Baty's pep talks and essential survival strategies cover the initial momentum and energy of Week One, the critical "plot flashes" of Week Two, the "Can I quit now?" impulses of Week Three, and the champagne and roar of the crowd during Week Four. Whether you're a first-time novelist who just can't seem to get pen to paper or a results-oriented writer seeking a creative on-ramp into the world of publishing, this is the adventure for you.So what are you waiting for? The No Plot? approach worked for the thousands of people who've signed up for NaNoWriMo, and it can work for you! Let No Plot? No Problem! help you get fired up and on the right track.

    Of course, he has given us glimpses in his aphorisms, short essays, articles, and speeches. But, never before has an entire book been devoted to Kurt Vonnegut, the teacher. Here is pretty much everything Vonnegut ever said or wrote having to do with the art and craft of writing - Plus - a wonderful, healing/nourishing expedition, of which McConnell has outfitted us for the journey, and in these 37 chapters, covers the waterfront of how one American writer brought himself to the pinnacle of the writing art; and the result only serves to benefit us.Kurt Vonnegut was one of the few grandmasters of American literature, whose novels continue to influence new generations about the ways in which our imaginations can help us to live. Few aspects of his contribution have not been plumbed - 14 novels, collections of his speeches, his essays, his letters, his plays - so this fresh view of him, written by a former student, is a bonanza for writers, readers, listeners and Vonnegut fans everywhere.©2019 Trust u/w of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (P)2019 Highbridge, a division of Recorded Books

    . . . A masterpiece.” —Margaret Atwood“No one who is invested in any kind of art . . . can read The Gift and remain unchanged.” —David Foster WallaceBy now a modern classic, The Gift is a brilliantly orchestrated defense of the value of creativity and of its importance in a culture increasingly governed by money and overrun with commodities. This book is even more necessary today than when it first appeared.An illuminating and transformative book, and completely original in its view of the world, The Gift is cherished by artists, writers, musicians, and thinkers. It is in itself a gift to all who discover the classic wisdom found in its pages.

    The end point of a story determines its meaning, and one of the main tasks a writer faces is to define the duration of a plot. Silber uses wide-ranging examples from F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chinua Achebe, and Arundhati Roy, among others, to illustrate five key ways in which time unfolds in fiction. In clear-eyed prose, Silber elucidates a tricky but vital aspect of the art of fiction.

    I can call you friend because we've just built up a rapport with my rhetorical questions. This is a book chock full of writing prompts. These are little things that will help you along to writing some amazing stuff that spills out of your mind. You're wondering: "But what kind of prompts are they? I've seen writing prompts before, but they're all lame." That's a good thing to be wondering, friend. I've crafted and homebrewed only the finest of prompts for your pleasure. You won't be confined to any one genre, you'll find a limitless amount of prompts ranging from comedy to serious to horror. I say limitless, but I meant 1,000 prompts precisely. I said 1,000 precisely, but there's slightly more if you count the introduction. Listen, friend, I promise not to fib from this point on. The book is split into a few sections: Beginners Writing Prompts (it's a super short section, don't worry); Constrained Writing (that's where you are forced into absolutely specific criteria for the prompt); Flash Fiction (either a word count or a time count is imposed upon you); Ripper Prompts (you are given a list of items for "Random Item Prompts"); and the bulk of the book ends with basic writing prompts with which you can write as much as you please with no tricks! If you're still reading this description, allow me to tell you more uses for this book: Creative writing classes! Yes, teachers, I've done the work for you. I'll even let you lie and say the prompts were crafted in your mind. Corporate synergy teams! That's right, group building exercise makers, you can relax in your fine leather chair and state that you know just how to get the company working together. Present some of these writing prompts and you'll be a hit. Temporarily disenfranchised millionaire authors in waiting! Your hit novel is contained in one of these prompts, I'm certain of it! Use this book for scripts, for blogs, for journals, for impressing potential clients. Sorry it's not a physical book, otherwise I am sure it would make an attractive door wedge! Have I used enough exclamation marks to convince you? No? Read the free preview then and be dazzled! Section Information: Section 1: Beginners Writing Prompts (20 Prompts) Section 2: Flash Fiction Prompts (80 Prompts) Section 3: Random Items Prompts AKA Rippers (20 Prompts - List of 26 random items) Section 4: Constrained Writing (30 Prompts) Section 5: Writing Prompts (850 Prompts)

    It is the road on which nearly everyone who wants to write—and many of the people who do write—get lost.”So writes Ann Patchett in "The Getaway Car", a wry, wisdom-packed memoir of her life as a writer. Here, for the first time, one of America’s most celebrated authors ("State of Wonder", "Bel Canto", "Truth and Beauty"), talks at length about her literary career—the highs and the lows—and shares advice on the craft and art of writing. In this fascinating look at the development of a novelist, we meet Patchett’s mentors (Allan Gurganas, Grace Paley, Russell Banks), see where she made wrong turns (poetry), and learn how she gets the pages written (an unromantic process of pure hard work). Woven through engaging anecdotes from Patchett’s life are lessons about writing that offer an inside peek into the storytelling process and provide a blueprint for anyone wanting to give writing a serious try. The bestselling author gives pointers on everything from finding ideas to constructing a plot to combating writer’s block. More than that, she conveys the joys and rewards of a life spent reading and writing.

    With a "genius for illuminating that sometimes ephemeral apogee in people's lives when they prove capable of generating a brightly burning spark" "(Columbia Journalism Review), " Robert McG. Thomas Jr. commemorated fascinating, unconventional lives with signature style and wit."The New York Times" received countless letters over the years from readers moved to tears or laughter by a McG. Eschewing traditionally famous subjects, Thomas favored unsung heroes, eccentrics, and underachievers, including: Edward Lowe, the inventor of Kitty Litter ("Cat Owner's Best Friend"); Angelo Zuccotti, the bouncer at El Morocco ("Artist of the Velvet Rope"); and Kay Halle, a glamorous Cleveland department store heiress who received sixty-four marriage proposals ("An Intimate of Century's Giants"). In one of his classic obituaries, Thomas described Anton Rosenberg as a "storied sometime artist and occasional musician who embodied the Greenwich Village hipster ideal of 1950's cool to such a laid-back degree and with such determined detachment that he never amounted to much of anything." Thomas captured life's ironies and defining moments with elegance and a gift for making a sentence sing. He had an uncanny sense of the passion and personality that make each life unique, and the ability, as Joseph Epstein wrote, to "look beyond the facts and the rigid formula of the obit to touch on a deeper truth."Compiled by Chris Calhoun, one of Thomas's most dedicated readers, and with a fittingly sharp introduction from acclaimed novelist and critic Thomas Mallon, "52 McGs." will win legions of new fans to the masterful writer who transformed the obituary into an art form.

    And once you've got an idea, what then? Ideas without a plan, without a purpose, are no more than pleasant thoughts. In The Writer's Idea Book, Jack Heffron, former senior editor at Writer's Digest Books and Story Press, will help you find the answer. Utilizing over 400 prompts and exercises, you'll generate intriguing ideas and plumb their possibilities to turn them into something amazing. The Writer's Idea Book will give you the insight and the self-awareness to create and refine ideas that demand to be transformed into greater works, the kind of compelling, absorbing writing that will have other writers asking "where do you get those ideas?"

    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

    In this entertaining and inspirational book you'll hear from 21 top humor writers as they discuss the comedy writing process, their influences, their likes and dislikes, and experiences in the industry. Funny and informative, And Here's the Kicker is a must have guide for aspiring humor writers and simply a great read for fans.

    Now the seven books of nonfiction that appeared between 1968 and 2003 have been brought together into one thrilling collection.Slouching Towards Bethlehem captures the counterculture of the sixties, its mood and lifestyle, as symbolized by California, Joan Baez, Haight-Ashbury. The White Album covers the revolutionary politics and the “contemporary wasteland” of the late sixties and early seventies, in pieces on the Manson family, the Black Panthers, and Hollywood. Salvador is a riveting look at the social and political landscape of civil war. Miami exposes the secret role this largely Latin city played in the Cold War, from the Bay of Pigs through Watergate. In After Henry Didion reports on the Reagans, Patty Hearst, and the Central Park jogger case. The eight essays in Political Fictions–on censorship in the media, Gingrich, Clinton, Starr, and “compassionate conservatism,” among others–show us how we got to the political scene of today. And in Where I Was From Didion shows that California was never the land of the golden dream.

    As the always clear and direct Stein explains here, This is not a book of theory. It is a book of usable solutions--how to fix writing that is flawed, how to improve writing that is good, how to create interesting writing in the first place. With examples from bestsellers as well as from students' drafts, Stein offers detailed sections on characterization, dialogue, pacing, flashbacks, trimming away flabby wording, the so-called triage method of revision, using the techniques of fiction to enliven nonfiction, and more.

    Writing memoir is a deeply personal, and consequential, undertaking. As the acclaimed author of five memoirs spanning significant turning points in her life, Beth Kephart has been both blessed and bruised by the genre. In Handling the Truth, she thinks out loud about the form—on how it gets made, on what it means to make it, on the searing language of truth, on the thin line between remembering and imagining, and, finally, on the rights of memoirists. Drawing on proven writing lessons and classic examples, on the work of her students and on her own memories of weather, landscape, color, and love, Kephart probes the wrenching and essential questions that lie at the heart of memoir. A beautifully written work in its own right, Handling the Truth is Kephart’s memoir-writing guide for those who read or seek to write the truth.

    Malcolm is "among the most intellectually provocative of authors," writes David Lehman in The Boston Globe, "able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight."Here, in Forty-one False Starts, Malcolm brings together essays published over the course of several decades (largely in The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books) that reflect her preoccupation with artists and their work. Her subjects are painters, photographers, writers, and critics. She explores Bloomsbury's obsessive desire to create things visual and literary; the "passionate collaborations" behind Edward Weston's nudes; and the character of the German art photographer Thomas Struth, who is "haunted by the Nazi past," yet whose photographs have "a lightness of spirit." In "The Woman Who Hated Women," Malcolm delves beneath the "onyx surface" of Edith Wharton's fiction, while in "Advanced Placement" she relishes the black comedy of the Gossip Girl novels of Cecily von Zeigesar. In "Salinger's Cigarettes," Malcolm writes that "the pettiness, vulgarity, banality, and vanity that few of us are free of, and thus can tolerate in others, are like ragweed for Salinger's helplessly uncontaminated heroes and heroines." "Over and over," as Ian Frazier writes in his introduction, "she has demonstrated that nonfiction—a book of reporting, an article in a magazine, something we see every day—can rise to the highest level of literature."One of Publishers Weekly's Best Nonfiction Books of 2013