Barbara Hepworth sculpted outdoors and Janet Frame wore earmuffs as she worked to block out noise. Kate Chopin wrote with her six children ‘swarming around her’ whereas the artist Rosa Bonheur filled her bedroom with the sixty birds that inspired her work. Louisa May Alcott wrote so vigorously – skipping sleep and meals – that she had to learn to write with her left hand to give her cramped right hand a break.

From Isak Dinesen subsisting on oysters, champagne and amphetamines, to Isabel Allende's insistence that she begins each new book on 8 January, here are the working routines of over 140 brilliant female painters, composers, sculptors, writers, filmmakers and performers.

Filled with details of the large and small choices these women made, Daily Rituals Women at Work is a source of fascination and inspiration.

Why wait for inspiration to strike? Ignite it here. Filled with a year's worth of idea-generating prompts and motivating quotations, this journal sparks creativity and provides a place to capture invaluable insights in one convenient place.

'I was so captivated by this book, so utterly drawn in and overwhelmed by the emotional force of it, that it stayed in my bloodstream, it felt, long after I'd finished it.' Nigella Lawson 'Sharp and engrossing' Roxane Gay As the bookish daughter of a travelling salesman, Jami Attenberg was drawn to the road. Her wanderlust led her to drive solo across America, and eventually on travels around the globe, embracing - for better and worse - all the messy life she encountered along the way. As she travelled she was crafting, grafting and honing her work, piecing together a living and career, and wrestling with a deep longing for independence while also searching for community, and eventually, a place she might want to stay in for good. This remarkable memoir reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring and singular story of living the creative life, and finding one's way home.

Combo Split editions include half of the Student's Book content and corresponding sections of the Workbook, with online access to student resources.

"Writer at Work" is the book about writing that somebody had to write. It's a report from the front lines by a working writer with a lifetime of experience in everything from literary fiction to radio and newspaper reporting. "Writer at Work" is full of provocative opinions and unexpected diversions. It combines practical advice, based on the author's long experience as a writing instructor, with lively and often funny reflections on the writing life.

"Writer at Work" gives you the information, the excitement, the debates and the inspiration that you would find at a first-class writers' conference. This is the guide book you need to step up from being an amateur to being an professional writer.

A Spectator Best Book of the Year `There are three rules for writing a novel,' Somerset Maugham once said. `Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.' So how to bring characters to life, find a voice, kill your darlings, avoid plagiarism (or choose not to), or run that most challenging of literary gauntlets-writing a good sex scene? Veteran editor and author Richard Cohen takes us on a fascinating excursion into the lives and minds of our greatest writers-from Balzac and Eliot to Woolf and Nabokov, through to Zadie Smith and Stephen King, with a few mischievous detours to Tolstoy along the way. In a glittering tour d'horizon, he lays bare their tricks, motivations, techniques, obsessions and flaws.

Writing may be a solitary profession, but it is also one that relies on a strong sense of community. "The Write Crowd" offers practical tips and examples of how writers of all genres and experience levels contribute to the sustainability of the literary community, the success of others, and to their own well-rounded writing life. Through interviews and examples of established writers and community members, readers are encouraged to immerse themselves fully in the literary world and the community-at-large by engaging with literary journals, reading series and public workshops, advocacy and education programs, and more. In contemporary publishing, the writer is expected to contribute outside of her own writing projects. Editors and publishers hope to see their writers active in the community, and the public benefits from a more personal interaction with authors. Yet the writer must balance time and resources between deadlines, day jobs, and other commitments. "The Write Crowd" demonstrates how writers engage with peers and readers, and can have a positive effect on the greater community, without sacrificing writing time.

Anxiety is perhaps the defining psychological malady of our age, whereas creativity is seen as an almost unassailable good, its importance heralded and promoted in a range of disciplines and domains. A number of diverse thinkers and researchers have tried to unpick the relationship between anxiety and creativity, and this short book explores and connects some of their ideas and findings. Drawing on psychoanalysis and neuroscience, existential psychology and mindfulness, literary studies and philosophy, this book places a range of different disciplines in dialogue. It explores how creativity and anxiety might impact one another, and argues for the importance of establishing a diverse and inclusive cultural space which everyone can draw from and contribute to.

"Creative Writing in the Digital Age" explores the vast array of opportunities that technology provides the Creative Writing teacher, ranging from effective online workshop models to advances that blur the boundaries of genre. From social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to more advanced software like Inform 7, the book investigates the benefits and potential troubles these technologies afford instructors in the classroom.Each chapter addresses relevant, contemporary theories of creative writing and digital pedagogy through specific classroom practices and draws on direct classroom experience. Written with the everyday instructor in mind, the book includes practical classroom lessons that can be easily adapted to creative writing courses regardless of the instructor's technical expertise. From the absolute beginner to the computer savvy, "Creative Writing in the Digital Age" will challenge and expand readers' notions about the possibilities of creative writing instruction.

The second most common question a writer is asked is, 'where do your ideas come from?' (The first is, 'Do you make any money from it?') Experienced writers don't go looking for ideas; ideas come to them. An experienced writer just has the knack of spotting what makes a good story or what will make a good story once it's been given the right spin, because none of us, if we're honest, will let reality get in the way of a saleable piece of work. Editors are looking for an element of action, drama or surprise, even in non-fiction. It's what catches their attention and makes them pause to read further; and the key to any editor's heart is originality. Not necessarily a new departure in style or genre, but a refreshing and original slant on a popular theme. Life-Writes helps you to find and develop ideas with editor appeal.