How I Write: The Secret Lives of Authors - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0847829421 ISBN 13: 9780847829422

Publisher: Rizzoli, 2007

Synopsis

Have you ever wondered about the creative process of your favorite authors? Ever wondered who loves money more than life? What doors do the secret keys unlock? What old lady wears fur jackets? Who needs to punch a boxing ball before work? With primary evidence from the very private lives of those contemporary authors that are lingering on the doorstep of the literary canon, How I Write is an editorial powerhouse of more than sixty original features by Jonathan Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Moody, Will Self, Nicole Krauss, and many others. Letters, photographs, drawings, even candy wrappers, phone bills, and other scattered mementos will be strikingly presented in this smartly designed volume. Using the same research team that previously published the unknown letters of Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Dickens's notebook, Harold Pinter's blues lyrics, and a nude shot of Alan Ginsberg, How I Write offers unpublished and unseen material illuminating the secret lives of authors. A must-have for the growing fan base of McSweeny's and other literary magazines, the book, designed by legendary and award-winning art director Vince Frost, will also be a perfect gift for all writers, readers, and anyone interested in books, ideas, and design.

About this title

About the Author

Dan Crowe was the editor of Zembla magazine, the award-winning international literary magazine, and is currently the literary editor of Another magazine.

Reviews

Crowe, founding editor of Zembla magazine, and Oltermann asked 67 authors to tell them about meaningful objects in their work spaces. The answers, revealed in this playful and snappily designed book of text and photographs revolve around the things writers use for inspiration or to ward off their demons—insufficient inspiration, procrastination and writer's block. Lucky charms abound. Luis J. Rodriguez keeps a statuette of the Hindu lord of success on his desk; Siri Hustvedt has a set of abandoned keys to symbolically unlock the doors to her stories. Writing implements are important: Hanif Kureishi's pens; John Byrne's old Olympia portable typewriter; Peter Hobbs's generic red and blue notebooks. Furniture matters, too, including Alain de Botton's huge desk and Jonathan Franzen's squeaky office chair. Some writers depend on food or drink—chocolate for Douglas Coupland, tea for Tash Aw and Benjamin Markovits. And there are Arthur Bradford's dogs, Nicholson Baker's earplugs and Jay McInerney's 500,000-year-old hand ax. Each writer's short explanation of his or her relationship to a particular talisman is accompanied by a full-page color photograph of the device, making this handsome coffee-table book an intriguing object in its own right. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rizzoli
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0847829421
• ISBN 13: 9780847829422
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192
• Editor: Crowe Dan, Oltermann Philip