Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor - Softcover

Barry, Lynda

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1770461612 ISBN 13: 9781770461611

Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly, 2014

Synopsis

Writing exercises and creativity advice from Barry's pioneering, life-changing workshop

The award-winning author Lynda Barry is the creative force behind the genre-defying and bestselling work What It Is. She believes that anyone can be a writer and has set out to prove it. For the past decade, Barry has run a highly popular writing workshop for nonwriters called Writing the Unthinkable, which was featured in The New York Times Magazine. Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor is the first book to make her innovative lesson plans and writing exercises available to the public for home or classroom use. Barry teaches a method of writing that focuses on the relationship between the hand, the brain, and spontaneous images, both written and visual. It has been embraced by people across North America―prison inmates, postal workers, university students, high-school teachers, and hairdressers―for opening pathways to creativity.

Syllabus takes the course plan for Barry's workshop and runs wild with it in her densely detailed signature style. Collaged texts, ballpoint-pen doodles, and watercolor washes adorn Syllabus's yellow lined pages, which offer advice on finding a creative voice and using memories to inspire the writing process. Throughout it all, Barry's voice (as an author and as a teacher-mentor) rings clear, inspiring, and honest.

About this title

About the Author

Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator, and teacher and found that they are very much alike. She lives in Wisconsin, where she is an Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Creativity at the University of Wisconsin Madison. In 2019, she received the “Genius grant” from the MacArthurs Fellows program.

In addition to What It Is, Barry has written four bestselling and acclaimed creative how-to graphic novels, What It Is; Picture This; Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor; and Making Comics. Her seminal comic strip, Ernie Pook's Comeek, features Marlys, Maybonne, and Freddie and was collected into The! Greatest! of! Marlys!, The Freddie Stories, Come Over Come Over, My Perfect Life, and It’s So Magic. Her other books include One! Hundred! Demons!, Cruddy: An Illustrated Novel, and The Good Times are Killing Me.

Reviews

Gr 10 Up—Structured as a handwritten composition book, this title uses prose within a graphic context to serve as a forum to teach aspiring young authors. It's written as though a creatively minded person were keeping a messy journal filled with ideas, notes, and scribbles. This book presents an inside look into Writing the Unthinkable, the cartoonist's highly popular writing workshop. Neither a graphic or prose novel, it requires readers to jump around to different boxed areas of words, which resemble those in a textbook, but attempts to do so in a hip, visual, new way. The end result is discordant and sloppy and may confuse, rather than inspire, young authors. VERDICT Those unfamiliar with comics guru Barry's previous work may find the format and style of this title extremely jarring. Stick with her What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly, 2008).—Ryan P. Donovan, Southborough Public Library, MA

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

“Lynda Barry [is] one of the greatest visual artists of our time . . . Syllabus makes not only tangible but also practically attainable the idea that keeping a notebook or a diary, whether visual or otherwise, is one of the most consciousness-expanding ways of bearing witness to our experience and our journey through this world.” —Brainpickings

Writing exercises and creativity advice from Barry’s pioneering, life-changing workshop

The award-winning author Lynda Barry is the creative force behind the genre-defying and bestselling workWhat It Is. She believes that anyone can be a writer and has set out to prove it. For the past decade, Barry has run a highly popular writing workshop for nonwriters called Writing the Unthinkable, which was featured inThe New York Times Magazine. Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor is the first book to make her innovative lesson plans and writing exercises available to the public for home or classroom use. Barry teaches a method of writing that focuses on the relationship between the hand, the brain, and spontaneous images, both written and visual. It has been embraced by people across North America—prison inmates, postal workers, university students, high-school teachers, and hairdressers—for opening pathways to creativity.
Syllabus takes the course plan for Barry’s workshop and runs wild with it in her densely detailed signature style. Collaged texts, ballpoint-pen doodles, and watercolor washes adornSyllabus’s yellow lined pages, which offer advice on finding a creative voice and using memories to inspire the writing process. Throughout it all, Barry’s voice (as an author and as a teacher-mentor) rings clear, inspiring, and honest.

Edition details

• Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1770461612
• ISBN 13: 9781770461611
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 200