The Life Writing Class - Softcover

John Patrick Grace

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0967605164 ISBN 13: 9780967605166

Publisher: Publishers Place Inc, 2002

Synopsis

Twenty people coming together in a creative synergy in the Life Writing Tutorial at the Huntington (WV) Museum of Art made for serendipity. The class's work bubbled over into this book of true-life tales, a number of which are headed for publication as books on their own.

Here you will find stories of training to be a champion skater in windswept isolation, of doing a delirious dance on a Florida dock as an antidote to a crushing marital separation, of trembling in bed waiting for a Soviet nuclear attack during the Cuban Missile Crisis, of Ndlazi the witch doctor operating out of a smoke-darkened hut in South Africa, of a child being chased by a cherry-red gobbler turkey, of visiting the cell in a crumbling prison where the writer's grandfather had died -- and considerably more.

For men and women of all ages who aspire to be published, The Life Writing Class is a welcome ray of inspiration and hope!

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From the Introduction:

Once class members had made their choices of what life writing mode they wished to commit to, they worked amazingly well at home. . . . As they were each writing something different, there were, once we got past the warm-up writing exercises, no required word lengths for each week's draftings. It seemed that the dynamic of the class itself inspired serious, and sustained work. . . .

The classic question debated among writing teachers has always been, "Can writing be taught? Or is it 'caught'?" I incline more to the "It's caught" school, but in Huntington we had writing fever in the air, and if class members caught writing from anybody, they caught it from each other.

--John Patrick Grace, Editor

Review

. . . proves again how important stories are to our lives . . . full of insights and memorable images . . . to read and savor -- Lee Smith, author of THE LAST GIRLS: A NOVEL

A common thread of folk wisdom runs through. . . Some are bitter, some uplifting, all well crafted. . . the spirit of America -- The Book Barn, Leavenworth, KS

A marvelous collection with a strong sense of time and place, pain and joy woven through stories of real people. -- Fay Thompson, Pres., West Virginia Writers, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Publishers Place Inc
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0967605164
• ISBN 13: 9780967605166
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224