The Writer's Reader: Vocation, Preparation, Creation

The Writer’s Reader is an anthology of essays on the art and life of writing by major writers of the past and present. These essays offer a wealth of insights into how writers approach their craft and represent a practical resource as well as a source of inspiration. The writings collected here range from classic to less well-known, historical to contemporary, and include, for example, essays on the vocation of writing by Natalia Ginzburg, John Berger, Edwidge Danticat, Julia Alvarez, and Flannery O’Connor; thoughts on preparing for writing by Roberto Bolaño, Henry Miller, Jorge Luis Borges, Ha Jin, and Cynthia Ozick; and essays on the craft of writing by authors such as Italo Calvino, Colm Tóibín, Virginia Woolf, Philip Roth, Lydia Davis, David Foster Wallace, and Zadie Smith. Taken together, this collection is a must-read for any student or devotee of writing.

Robert Cohen (1938-2024) was an acclaimed professional and academic stage director, and the founding Chair of Drama at the University of California, Irvine, USA. The author of 24 books on theatre, his major awards included a Claire Trevor Professorship, the UCI Medal, Romania's Honoris Causa Medal, Poland's Medal of Honor, the ATHE Award for Career Achievement and UCI's 2015 Award for Distinguished Professor of Research.

Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, and biographer, author of The Last Station, which was made into an Academy Award-nominated film in 2009. His novels and biographies (Steinbeck, Frost, Faulkner) have been translated into over thirty languages. He is Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College. He has edited many books, including the Norton Anthology of American Autobiography, The Columbia Anthology of American Poetry, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. He is a regular contributor to The Chronicle of Higher Education, CNN, The New York Times, and The Guardian. He has also written for GQ, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, and Salon.com.