Writers On Writing, Volume Ii (Writers on Writing (Times Books Paperback)) - Softcover

The New York Times, .

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805075887 ISBN 13: 9780805075885

Publisher: Times Books, 2004

Synopsis

"Glimpses into writers and the circumstances that shape them . . . Valuable gleanings."-Kirkus Reviews

In a second volume of original essays drawn from the long-running New York Times column, Writers on Writing brings together another group of contemporary literature's finest voices to muse on the challenges and gifts of language and creativity.
The pieces range from taciturn, hilarious advice for aspiring writers to thoughtful, soul-wrenching reflections on writing in the midst of national tragedy. William Kennedy talks about the intersecting lives of real and imagined Albany politics; Susan Isaacs reveals her nostalgia for a long-retired protagonist; and Elmore Leonard offers pithy rules for letting the writing, and not the writer, take charge. With contributions from Diane Ackerman, Margaret Atwood, Frank Conroy, Mary Karr, Patrick McGrath, Arthur Miller, Amy Tan, and Edmund White, Writers on Writing, Volume II offers an uncommon and revealing view of the writer's world.

About this title

About the Author

Jane Smiley is the author of ten works of fiction, including Good Faith; Horse Heaven; A Thousand Acres, for which she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize; and Moo. She lives in northern California.

From Publishers Weekly

The 45 writers who contributed to this second compendium of the weekly column in the Times arts section are nearly all A-list names-and highly contemporary, too, as most of the articles originally coincided with the publication of their latest books. The prosaic headlines ("Fiction and Fact Collide, With Unexpected Consequences") obscure the lively tone adopted by most of the authors, who seem to be enjoying the opportunity to wax anecdotal about various aspects of their career. Thus we have Ann Beattie on the book tour, David Shields about reacting to bad reviews, Elinor Lipman on the perils of getting (and giving) jacket blurbs and Stephen Fry's hilarious account of the questions fans ask about his writing methods. Though some of the authors choose to deal with contemporary events, as in A.M. Homes's eyewitness account of September 11 ("not something you want to remember, not something to want to forget"), nobody strays far from the literary, and quite a few offer insights into the creative process. Kathryn Harrison explains how a photograph seen in childhood led to the writing of The Seal Wife, while mystery writer Marcia Muller reveals that she once built scale models of her protagonist's regular haunts to help her understand the character. And Elmore Leonard offers practical advice on how to write better prose, including this gem: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." Aspiring writers will find plenty of inspiration-and helpful counsel-from this collection, in which the writing is less stuffy and more relaxed than in a similar collection from the Washington Post.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Times Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0805075887
• ISBN 13: 9780805075885
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288