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First published in 1992, this book focuses on the oeuvre of S. J. Perelman. Taken together, the essays included serve as an introduction to this important humorist's work, both in terms of the specific short prose pieces, plays, and films examined and as an overview of his lengthy professional career. They provide insightful and in-depth literary analyses as well. The work encourages a better appreciation for Perelman's contributions to American literary history.

Shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay Named a Best Book of 2018 by TIME, Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Wired, Esquire, Buzzfeed, Paste, Bitch, Bustle, The Chicago Review of Books and iBooks As a novelist, Alexander Chee has been described as 'masterful' by Roxane Gay, 'incendiary' by the New York Times, and 'brilliant' by the Washington Post. With How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, his first collection of nonfiction, he secures his place as one of the finest essayists of his generation. How to Write an Autobiographical Novel is the author's exploration of the entangling of life, literature and politics, and how the lessons learned from a life spent reading and writing fiction have changed him. In these interconnected essays he constructs a self, growing from student to teacher, reader to writer, and reckoning with his identities as a son, a gay man, a Korean American, an artist, an activist, a lover and a friend. He examines some of the most formative experiences of his life and America's history, including his father's death, the AIDS crisis, 9/11, the jobs that supported his writing - Tarot-reading, bookselling, cater-waiting for William F. Buckley - the writing of his first novel, Edinburgh, and the election of Donald Trump. By turns commanding, heartbreaking and wry, How to Write an Autobiographical Novel asks questions about how we create ourselves in life and in art, and how to fight when our dearest truths are under attack.

This book, first published in 1955, was written at the request of the BBC in an attempt to help the professional writer to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the television medium. This title will be of interest to students of history, literature and media studies, and will also appeal to the general reader who is interested in knowing how television programmes were constructed.

Screenwriting Fundamentals: The Art and Craft of Visual Writing takes a step-by-step approach to screenwriting, starting with a blank page and working through each element of the craft. Written in an approachable anecdote-infused style that's full of humor, Bauer shows the writer how to put the pieces together, taking the process of screenwriting out of the cerebral and on to the page. Part One of the book covers character, location, time-frame and dialogue, emphasizing the particularity in writing for a visual medium. Part Two of the book focuses on the narrative aspect of screenwriting. Proceeding incrementally from the idea and story outline, through plotting and writing the treatment, the workshop-in-a-book concludes with writing the First Draft. A unique emphasis on the visual elements of storytelling because the camera is always present-the screenplay must act as a guide for the director and the editor. A "workshop in a book" approach that walks the reader step-by-step through a screenplay-focusing on character, location, time frame, visual components, and transitions-with plenty of exercises that generate material for the narrative writing process. A process-oriented approach, combined with a lighthearted tone and approachable style, that allows the reader to ease into the daunting task of writing a First Draft and takes them all the way through to the end- First Draft in hand.

The creative writing workshop has existed since the early part of the 20th century, but does it adequately serve the students who come to it today? While the workshop is often thought of as a form of student-centered pedagogy, it turns out that workshop conversations serve to marginalize a range of aesthetic orientations and the cultural histories to which they belong. Given the shifting demographics of higher education, it is time to re-evaluate the creative writing curriculum and move literary writing pedagogy toward a more inclusive, equitable model. Toward an Inclusive Creative Writing makes the argument that creative writing stands upon problematic assumptions about what counts as valid artistic production, and these implicit beliefs result in exclusionary pedagogical practices. To counter this tendency of creative writing, this book proposes a revised curriculum that rests upon 12 threshold concepts that can serve to transform the teaching of literary writing craft. The book also has a companion website www.criticalcreativewriting.org offering supplemental materials such as lesson plans and course materials.

This invaluable book offers the student of literature detailed advice on the entire process of critical essay writing, from first facing the question right through to producing a fair copy for final submission to the teacher.

NOVELISTA is a friendly, straight-talking writing guide for people who want to write a novel but don't know how to begin. It asks all the important questions and gives a host of reassuring answers that demonstrate that anyone can write a novel - even you! To begin with, what the hell is a novel? It's basically a tiny world, where characters are born, live, and (sometimes) die. To write one all you need is a notebook and a pen - but along the way you'll want to learn about good writing habits, planning, mastering descriptions and dialogue and how to pull it all together. This book will guide you through the process and orient you towards the goal of publication. From absolute beginner to novelista, this book will change the way you write and think about writing.

Life Writing offers the novice writer engaging and creative activities, making use of insightful, relevant readings from well-known authors to illustrate the techniques presented. This volume makes use of new versions of key chapters from the recent Routledge/Open University textbook, Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings for writers who are specializing in life writing. Using their experience and expertise as teachers as well as authors, Derek Neale and Sara Haslam guide aspiring writers through such key writing skills as: writing what you know, investigating biography and autobiography, using prefaces, finding a form, using memory, developing characters, using novelistic, poetic and dramatic techniques. The volume is further updated to include never-before published interviews and conversations with successful life writers such as Jenny Diski, Robert Fraser, Richard Holmes, Michael Holroyd, Jackie Kay, Hanif Kureishi and Blake Morrison. Concise and practical, Life Writing offers an inspirational guide to the methods and techniques of authorship and is a must-read for aspiring writers.

"Graeme Harper is quite possibly the best person in the country to edit this book" -Richard Kerridge, Bath Spa University College, UK

"T""he Creative Writing Guidebook "is the key text for learning creative writing. Packed full of useful advice, exercises and readings, it sets out an informative and inspiring introduction to writing creatively. Taking a practical, workshop approach to creative writing, this comprehensive guidebook includes: introductions to genres of writing, including the novel, poetry, screenwriting, new media and non-fiction; workshop exercises suitable for each genre; a wide-range of examples and suggestions for further reading and discussions of cross-genre issues such as point of view, character, setting and voice.

Written by internationally renowned experts, this is the definitive textbook on creative writing for students.

Contributors include: Catherine Dent, Ken Dancyge, Adrianne Finlay, Graeme Harper, Gill James, Jeri Kroll, Oliver Mayer, Graham Mort, William S. Penn, Hazel Smith, and Silas Zobal

Previously available as "Before You Write a Word", Before You Write Your Novel sets out the essential techniques and approaches that lay the perfect foundation for writing your first novel. This concise and readable guide addresses the major stumbling blocks of fiction writing: the importance of planning and structure. This book covers the essential components of novel writing including narrative, story, plot, pace, chronology, character arc and engagement techniques, as well as research, story building, plotting and editing. Using an open and honest approach, feeding from his own experience as a published novelist and creative writing teacher, James McCreet offers a guide to the structural mechanisms of the novel, helping you plan a first draft through to a finished novel.

The ESL Writer's Handbook is a reference work for ESL students who are taking college-level courses. Because its purpose is to provide help with the broad variety of writing questions students may have when working on school assignments, the text focuses on English for Academic Purposes. Unlike other handbooks on the market, this book's sole purpose is to address the issues of second language learners. The spiral-bound Handbook complements a student writer's dictionary, thesaurus, and grammar reference book. It would be suitable as a text for an advanced ESL writing course when used together with the companion Workbook (978-0-472-03726-1). The new edition features significant revisions to Sections 3 and 4; in particular, both APA and MLA style guides have been updated and new sample papers for each are included. The new edition includes new and revised exercises and many new samples of student writing. Like its predecessor, the Second Edition has these special features: The topic selection is based on ESL writers' needs as observed by the authors over many years. The coverage of topics is more complete than the limited amount usually provided for ESL writers in first language or L1 handbooks. The explanatory language is appropriate for ESL students, in contrast to the more complex and idiomatic language of other English handbooks. Many of the examples of paragraphs, essays, research papers, and exercise sentences were written by ESL students to help users realize that they too can become effective writers.

Country Writer s Craft: Writing for country, regional and rural publications, covers one of the widest marketplaces for writers in the English-speaking world especially in the UK, Australia and the USA. Here we have examples of previously published materials, together with writers exercises to help build up an impressive portfolio from Suzanne Ruthven, who has written on country topics for over 30 years, as well as being author of A Treasury of the Countryside, Hearth & Garden, Life-Writes and Signposts For Country Living.

Writing Fiction offers the novice writer engaging and creative activities, making use of insightful, relevant readings from well-known authors to illustrate the techniques presented. This volume makes use of new versions of key chapters from the recent Routledge/Open University textbook Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings for writers who are specializing in fiction. Using their experience and expertise as teachers as well as authors, Linda Anderson and Derek Neale guide aspiring writers through such key aspects of writing as: how to stimulate creativity keeping a writer's notebook character creation setting point of view structure showing and telling. The volume is further updated to include never-before published interviews with successful fiction writers Andrew Cowan, Stevie Davies, Maggie Gee, Andrew Greig, and Hanif Kureishi. Concise and practical, Writing Fiction offers an inspirational guide to the methods and techniques of authorship and is a must-read for aspiring writers.

This volume presents new versions of key chapters from the recent Routledge/Open University textbook, Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings for writers who are specialising in writing poetry. It offers the novice writer engaging and creative activities, making use of insightful, relevant readings from the work of well-known authors to illustrate the techniques presented. Using his experience and expertise as a teacher as well as a poet, Bill Herbert guides aspiring writers through such key writing skills as: drafting voice imagery rhyme form theme. The volume is further updated to include never-before published dialogues with prominent poets such as Vicki Feaver, Gillian Allnutt, Kathleen Jamie, Linda France, Douglas Dunn, Sean O'Brien and Jo Shapcott. Concise and practical, Writing Poetry offers an inspirational guide to the methods and techniques of this challenging and rewarding genre and is a must-read for aspiring poets.

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Afterlives of Abandoned Work considers the relevance of unfinished projects to literary history and criticism, looking beyond famous posthumous work to investigate the abandoned everyday, from scrapped plans and rejected ideas to half-written novels or unfinished artistic works. It traces how the reading of abandoned creative endeavor-whether arriving in the form of a rejection letter, a disagreement with a collaborator, or the simple act of walking away from one's desk-can change the way we think about cultural production, the creative process, and the intellectual construction of everyday life. Over five distinct journeys through a variety of archives, from major research libraries to the unique collections of individual enthusiasts, Matthew Harle draws surprising connections between literary studies, media studies, and visual arts, exploring unfinished projects from Thomas Pynchon, Muriel Spark, B.S. Johnson, Harold Pinter, and others. Rooted in literary criticism, Afterlives of Abandoned Work reads unbuilt buildings, unfilmed screenplays, and unpublished novels and radio sketches as forms of text that can help us consider the enduring fragmentation and anecdotal construction of cultural form, as well as expand literary criticism's approach to the archive.

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The Technique of the Mystery Story (1914) is a book by Carolyn Wells. Before she began writing her Detective Fleming Stone series of mystery novels, Carolyn Wells was a published poet, accomplished children's author, and professional jingle writer. In the middle of her career, she heard a mystery story by Anna Katharine Green and was instantly hooked. Through years of practice and attention to the craft, she earned a reputation as a leading fiction writer of her generation, an adept craftswoman whose stories appeared in some of the leading newspapers and magazines of the day. "Why is the detective story? To entertain, to interest, to amuse. It has no deeper intent, no more subtle raison d'etre than to give pleasure to its readers." Writing is a simple act, requiring only the mind, a pen, and a piece of paper. But how does one write well, grabbing the reader's attention and ensuring their time will be rewarded by the end of the story? In The Technique of the Mystery Story, Carolyn Wells cuts to the core of a craft she defined despite coming to it late in her career. Exploring the history of the genre, defining its many different forms, and illuminating the stylistic choices that keep a mystery tale running smoothly, Wells provides an invaluable template for writers looking to follow in her footsteps or for readers looking for access to the mind and process of a woman revered in her field. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Carolyn Wells' The Technique of the Mystery Story is a classic work of American detective fiction reimagined for modern readers.

Weaving It Together helps learners build reading and writing skills through relevant readings and carefully structured writing exercises. By balancing these two necessary competencies, learners seamlessly develop both language and academic skills.

This book offers a unique approach to storytelling, connecting the Enneagram system with classic story principles of character development, plot, and story structure to provide a seven-step methodology to achieve rapid story development. Using the nine core personality styles underlying all human thought, feeling, and action, it provides the tools needed to understand and leverage the Enneagram-Story Connection for writing success. Author Jeff Lyons starts with the basics of the Enneagram system and builds with how to discover and design the critical story structure components of any story, featuring supporting examples of the Enneagram-Story Connection in practice across film, literature and TV. Readers will learn the fundamentals of the Enneagram system and how to utilize it to create multidimensional characters, master premise line development, maintain narrative drive, and create antagonists that are perfectly designed to challenge your protagonist in a way that goes beyond surface action to reveal the dramatic core of any story. Lyons explores the use of the Enneagram as a tool not only for character development, but for story development itself. This is the ideal text for intermediate and advanced level screenwriting and creative writing students, as well as professional screenwriters and novelists looking to get more from their writing process and story structure.