The Writing Life

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Contemporary writers address questions of craft, art, audience, and culture

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Selected from thousands of pages of the daily journals of George Fetherling - the inexhaustible novelist, poet, and cultural commentator - The Writing Life reveals an astute and candid observer of his contemporaries as well as himself. Hundreds of figures in the arts and public life crisscross the pages of Fetherling's journals, from Margaret Atwood and Marshall McLuhan, to Gwendolyn MacEwen and Conrad Black. The book begins in mid-1970s Toronto, a time of cultural ferment, and carries on to Vancouver and a new century. A captivating and intimate narrative, The Writing Life provides a compelling portrait of the last three decades of Canadian cultural life. From the book: Tuesday 4 February 1992 / Toronto Early this morning the latest in a series of strange phone calls from Edmund Carpenter in New York to discuss successive versions of his Canadian Notes & Queries piece on Marshall McLuhan. He falls to reminiscing and at one point says: "Marshall always reminded me of that passage in Boswell in which Boswell says that if you chanced to take shelter from a rain storm for a few minutes in Dr Johnson's company, you would come away convinced that you had just met the smartest man in the world. Marshall was like that too. Of course, if you spent an hour with Marshall, well, that was something quite different."

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The desire to create, to write, to fulfil our artistic dreams is a powerful human need. Yet the number of people who make a living solely by their pen is actually quite small. What does that mean for the rest of us, the self-described writing geeks, who are passionate about writing and who still want to sustain successful literary lives? What does it really mean to find time to build a rewarding writing life while pursuing a career, being a partner or raising a family, in the distracted, time-deprived, 21st-century? In The Geek's Guide to the Writing Life, based on her Huffington Post blog of the same name, Stephanie Vanderslice shares the secrets and tools to developing a successful, rewarding writing practice in a way that inspires the reader to persevere through the inevitable lows and even the highs of a literary life, so that anyone can pursue the path to realizing their artistic dreams.

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Robert R. Bataille demonstrates convincingly that between 1767 and 1777, Anglo-Irish writer Hugh Kelly made major contributions in three areas of British culture: politics, journalism, and theater. Bataille shows how all three activities were integrated in Kelly's life, suggesting that such interrelationships often existed in the rough and ready London culture during the early reign of King George III. When he discovered several newspaper campaigns that Kelly orchestrated as a paid political propagandist for George III and his ministers, Bataille understood in part how important Kelly was to his era. In his capacity as propagandist, Kelly defended Hanoverian colonial policies on the eve of the American Revolution, served as a key opponent of the radical Wilkites, and promoted the acceptance of the 1774 Quebec Bill, which established, among other things, the right of the recently defeated French citizens of Quebec to maintain the French language. A belletristic journalist, Kelly published theater reviews and essays that played a major role in shaping the taste of his era. He wrote in defense of the controversial sentimental drama, and whenever he could, he promoted the major theatrical figure of the age, David Garrick. Under his editorship, the newspaper Public Ledger became a leading source of theater information. Seeking to raise the status of the profession of journalism, he wrote essays and articles that provided his middle-class readers with an insider's view of the operations of the journalist. Assessing Kelly's contributions to the novel and drama, Bataille argues that this powerful journalist stands in the vanguard in the larger struggle against traditional attitudes supporting male superiority and aristocratic privilege. Kelly wrote in favor of gender equality and middle-class respectability, striving to inculcate what modern scholars refer to as the values of sensibility. Bataille also argues, however, that Kelly knew his audience. Instrumental in the rise of professional writing and popular culture, he understood that he had to observe the needs of his audience, detecting cultural trends and using the skills of the rhetorician.

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In this memoir, novelist Craig Nova explores the interconnections between his work as a writer, his personal life, and his passion for fly-fishing. Nova leads the reader into his courtship, marriage, the birth of his children, and his life as a father, husband, writer, friend, citizen, and angler. Just as the author observes the life of the elusive and beautiful brook trout in the tea-colored streams, he finds interconnections to his daily lifehe teaches his daughter to build an igloo; he deals with the disappointment of a very public mean-spirited review of his much-anticipated novel; he gazes at his wife-to-be in her hammock by a stream; he finds himself the victim of a random blackmailer. Unpredictable and keenly observed, Nova leads us through the terrain of the life of an artist. The one constant is the stream and the brook trout which offer both respite from the demands of his life and a wellspring of inspiration and strength. It is a paean to nature and the beauty of the brook trout.

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Compiles ten years of essays from 55 writers, including Ray Bradbury, Stanley Karnow, and John Edgar Wideman, discussing how they write and where their ideas come from.

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In her groundbreaking book The Right to Write, Julia Cameron dismantled the mythology surrounding the writing life in our culture. Tackling issues such as time, mood, inspiration, and support, she revealed that writing is in fact a natural-and crucial-part of life. Questions of how, when, and why yielded to the virtual tool kit of strategies, tips, and tools she provides in this extremely valuable book. With The Writer's Life, Cameron's pivotal insights and pointers are distilled in a tiny, portable companion that will help readers lead a writer's life more easily, joyfully, and powerfully.

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Learn how to take your work to the next level with this informative guide on the craft, business, and lifestyle of writing With warmth and humor, Paulette Perhach welcomes you into the writer’s life as someone who has once been on the outside looking in. Like a freshman orientation for writers, this book includes an in-depth exploration of all the elements of being a writer—from your writing practice to your reading practice, from your writing craft to the all-important and often-overlooked business of writing. In Welcome to the Writer’s Life, you will learn how to tap into the powers of crowdsourcing and social media to grow your writing career. Perhach also unpacks the latest research on success, gamification, and lifestyle design, demonstrating how you can use these findings to further improve your writing projects. Complete with exercises, tools, checklists, infographics, and behind-the-scenes tips from working writers of all types, this book offers everything you need to jump-start a successful writing life.

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Do you want to write but have no idea where to start? Building a Writing Life is the beginner writer’s guide you’ve been looking for! You want to be a writer. You want to start a writing habit, share your story, and make some real progress on your writing dreams. You want to find time to write and make room in your life for everything from daily journaling to writing books and beyond. You want to build a writing life. But how do you start? Building a Writing Life is a straightforward, step-by-step guide to integrating writing into your life so you can make steady progress on your goals. Whether you write for personal reasons or dream of more commercial success, you CAN fit writing into your already busy life. With simple, actionable steps you can start taking today, this easy-to-read guide will take you from an aspiring writer to the real deal. In this book, you’ll… • Make the mental commitment to your writing dreams. • Conquer your fears and doubts to start the story of your heart. • Discover and nurture ideas. • Build a regular writing habit. • Motivate yourself to write on days when you don’t feel like it. • Find and make room in your schedule, even if there’s no time to write. • Battle distractions and productively use your writing time. • Discover your ideal writing circumstances and how to think outside the textbox when they aren’t available. • Fine-tuning your writing process by setting better goals and embracing what works for you. … and, most important of all… • Become a real writer at last!

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Create Your Writer's Life offers a coaching approach to develop a writing practice that actually works. Finally, a resource that allows you to do it your way, and that works.

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First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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With recent advances in digital technology, a number of exciting and innovative approaches to writing lives have emerged, from graphic memoirs to blogs and other visual-verbal-virtual texts. This edited collection is a timely study of new approaches to writing lives, including literary docu-memoir, autobiographical cartography, social media life writing and autobiographical writing for children. Combining literary theory with insightful critical approaches, each essay offers a serious study of innovative forms of life writing, with a view to reflecting on best practice and offering the reader practical guidance on methods and techniques. Offering a range of practical exercises and an insight into cutting-edge literary methodologies, this is an inspiring and thought-provoking companion for students of literature and creative writing studying courses on life writing, memoir or creative non-fiction.

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Thirty inspirational writings from a variety of authors delve into the feelings that winter conjures in us, calling up both the barrenness and beauty of the natural world in wintertime, and helping readers express and understand their own personal reaction to the season, showing them the way from the cold of winter to the warmth of the human soul.

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Offers advice, techniques, and reflections on the craft of writing

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Death is often encountered in English courses—Hamlet’s death, celebrity death, death from the terrorist attacks on 9/11—but students rarely have the opportunity to write about their own experiences with death. In Death Education in the Writing Classroom, Jeffrey Berman shows how college students can write safely about dying, death, and bereavement. The book is based on an undergraduate course on love and loss that Berman taught at the University at Albany in 2008. Part 1, “Diaries,” is organized around Berman’s diary entries written immediately after each class. These entries provide a week-by-week glimpse of class discussions, highlighting his students’ writings and their developing bonds with classmates and teacher. Part 2, "Breakthroughs," focuses on several students’ important educational and psychological discoveries in their understanding of love and loss. The student writings touch on many aspects of death education, including disenfranchised grief. The book explores how students write about not only mourning and loss but also depression, cutting, and abortion—topics that occupy the ambiguous border of death-in-life. Death Education in the Writing Classroom is the first book to demonstrate how love and loss can be taught in a college writing class—and the first to describe the week-by-week changes in students’ cognitive and affective responses to death. This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to writing teachers, students, clinicians, and bereavement counselors.

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The writing life is solitary and challenging, and it takes far more than creativity to become a commercial success. The Writer's I Ching uses the ancient Chinese divination system to provide writers with help mastering the business of writing and choosing the most propitious times to take action. Because writing educators created the book, it also teaches the storyteller and non-fiction craft with lessons suitable for both beginners and seasoned professionals. This unique presentation of the I Ching features a complete deck of 64 cards bound into the book itself. The writer poses a question about how to proceed on a specific fiction or non-fiction project, negotiation, or business matter. He draws an I Ching card and turns to the proper page for the interpretation of that card. Many cases of writer's block have been cured and flashes of insight gained through this simple technique. The I Ching dates back to before Christ and counts among its devotees Confucius, Albert Einstein, and Bob Dylan.

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The Writing Shop reimagines what writing workshop can be, by borrowing from workshops of all kinds—carpentry, textile, machine, and more. When the essential elements of all workshops are adopted in writing workshop, writers will flourish.

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Dazzling, playful, and intellectually complex examination of personal recollections and archival materials about Kroetsch's poetry.

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Learning to write starts with learning to do one big thing: pay attention to the world around you, even though just about everything in modern life makes this more difficult than it needs to be. Developing habits and practices of observing, and writing down what you notice, can be the first step away from the anxieties and doubts that can hold you back from your ultimate goal as a writer: discovering something to say and a voice to say it in. The Writer's Eye is an inspiring guide for writers at all stages of their writing lives. Drawing on new research into creative writers and their relationship with the physical world, Amy E. Weldon shows us how to become more attentive observers of the world and find inspiration in any environment. Including exercises, writing prompts and sample texts and spanning multiple genres from novels to nonfiction to poetry, this is the ideal starting point for anyone beginning to write seriously and offers refreshing perspectives for experienced writers seeking new inspiration.

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Phillip Caputo, Larry Heinemann, Tim O’Brien, and Robert Olen Butler: four young midwestern Americans coming of age during the 1960s who faced a difficult personal decision—whether or not to fight in Vietnam. Each chose to participate. After coming home, these four veterans became prizewinning authors telling the war stories and life stories of soldiers and civilians. The four extended conversations included in Writing Vietnam, Writing Life feature revealing personal stories alongside candid assessments of each author’s distinct roles as son, soldier, writer, and teacher of creative writing. As Tobey Herzog's thoughtful interviews reveal, these soldier-authors have diverse upbringings, values, interests, writing careers, life experiences, and literary voices. They hold wide-ranging views on, among other things, fatherhood, war, the military, religion, the creative process, the current state of the world, and the nature of both physical and moral courage. For each author, the conversation and richly annotated chronology provide an overview of the writer’s life, the intersection of memory and imagination in his writing, and the path of his literary career. Together, these four life stories also offer mini-tableaux of the fascinating and troubling time of 1960s and 1970s America. Above all, the conversations reveal that each author is linked forever to the Vietnam War, the country of Vietnam, and its people.