"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
December 29, 2021
As we finish this difficult year, I’m wondering how I can thank my readers for sticking with me. Blogs can’t offer hugs, a place to go scream, a few extra hours of sleep, or stiff drinks. However, I can prescribe books that can help those who have … Read More
December 8, 2021
When you are writing, do you think “This is great!” or do you think, “I shouldn’t have put this off. It’s a mess. I’ll never get it right.” Too often, I find it easy to be with the large number of people who are critical of themselves … Read More
December 2, 2021
This sentence made me stop to wonder if Knausgaard was telling his readers they shouldn’t come to his novel with an agenda for what it should be like. If so, that’s a good start. I would go further, though, and say that this book is not for … Read More
November 19, 2021
The essay “Teaching a Stone to Talk” opens with a description of cranky man named Larry who does, in fact, try to teach a stone to talk. Several times a day, he takes a certain stone off his shelf, removes its cover, and gives it lessons. This … Read More
November 5, 2021
Is this true? To have power, do you need to make everyone feel anxious? According to the author of this essay about Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the answer is “Absolutely.” The play is about an exiled Duke who wants to return to power, even though he … Read More
October 29, 2021
In the 30th Anniversary Edition of this classic book on writing nonfiction, William Zinsser describes how his priorities have evolved over the decades. Known as an advocate for clear, “uncluttered” writing, in his later years, he grew to value “humanity and warmth” even more. As every … Read More
October 18, 2021
The great Russian poet Alexander Block wrote these words in 1902, when he was 22 years old. It seemed as if he knew that in less than 20 years, he would die of heart failure brought on by malnutrition. He lived through Russian revolutions in 1905 … Read More
September 30, 2021
More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle said that logical arguments are always less effective than moving stories. So, if you want to persuade someone to do something, appeal to their heart, not to their brain. I thought of this when reading this book. Brewer argues that if … Read More
September 20, 2021
What an experiment — a novel with no plot, about a woman whose name we don’t know, set in an unidentified location. It’s a collection of descriptions of how the protagonist responds to her surroundings. NPR compared the book to “slow cooking” that requires patience. The … Read More
August 30, 2021
Before Shakespeare invented the soliloquy, actors spoke in monologues and dialogues. Soliloquys are a radical combination of the uninterrupted speech of one person (in monologues) with the tension created by expressing two different perspectives (in dialogues). Soliloquys demonstrate how a character can go back and forth when … Read More
August 20, 2021
I always begin my “How to Write Your Memoirs” classes by asking, “Why do you want to do this?” No one has ever answered the question like novelist Pat Conroy does in this collection of essays about writing memoirs. Conroy said that he was surprised that when … Read More
August 13, 2021
Of course, this character – Astrid – had not done every single thing wrong. But, after watching someone she had known for 40 years get hit by a bus (literally), she suddenly faced the fact that she had made plenty of mistakes and had done things she … Read More
