Fat, juicy plums from the Washington Post Book World's long-running
"Writing Life" column. Book World editor Arana launched her column
in 1993 (Stanley Elkin was the first contributor) in the format it
retains today: a few paragraphs of biography preceding an essay by
the writer of the week on the practice of his or her craft. This
collection, loosely organized around such themes as "On Becoming a
Writer," "Raw Material," and "Hunkering Down," meanders through
everything from practical advice to thoughts of childhood to vague
but entertaining musings on a career. We begin with Francine du
Plessix Gray's four central principles of writing, Joyce Carol
Oates's pointed recollection of bullying and gender roles in
childhood, and James Michener's advice on "how to identify and
nurture young writers." Alice McDermott, Scott Turow, John Edgar
Wideman, Anita Desai, and Julia Alvarez, et al., discuss the roots
of their writing. Wendy Wasserstein gives specific instructions on
how to get a hotel room and write for a New Year's deadline. Ray
Bradbury recalls his long relationship with the movies. Though
there is plenty of discussion of the writer's "self-doubt and wry
paranoia," as Julian Barnes puts it in an intriguing piece about
being literary executor of Dodie Smith's estate, most of the
authors more or less comfortably accept that this is, in fact, the
career that defines their lives. Challenges are myriad, of course:
Michael Chabon fears that readers will too closely identify him
with his protagonists (a homosexual, a frustrated author, a bad
father), and according to Jimmy Carter, co-authoring Everything to
Gain with wife Rosalynn almost broke up their 40-year marriage. A
sprawling, addictive addition to a seemingly bottomless category
that this month also includes the New York Times anthology Writers
on Writing (see below). (Kirkus Reviews)
Featuring a gathering of more than fifty of contemporary
literature's finest voices, this volume will enchant, move, and
inspire readers with its tales of The Writing Life . In it, authors
divulge professional secrets: how they first discovered they were
writers, how they work, how they deal with the myriad frustrations
and delights a writer's life affords. Culled from ten years of the
distinguished Washington Post column of the same name, The Writing
Life highlights an eclectic group of luminaries who have wildly
varied stories to tell, but who share this singularly beguiling
career. Here are their pleasures as well as their peeves
revelations of their deepest fears dramas of triumphs and failures
insights into the demands and rewards. Each piece is accompanied by
a brief and vivid biography of the writer by Washington Post Book
World editor Marie Arana who also provides an introduction to the
collection. The result is a rare view from the inside: a close
examination of writers' concerns about the creative process and the
place of literature in America. For anyone interested in the making
of fiction and nonfiction, here is a fascinating vantage on the
writer's world- an indispensable guide to the craft.
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