The Writing Life Writers On How They Think And Work

by Arana, Marie

• ISBN13: 9781586481490
• ISBN10: 1586481495
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-08
• Publisher: PublicAffairs

Summary

Featuring a gathering of more than fifty of contemporary literature's finest voices, this volume will enchant, move, and inspire readers with its tales ofThe 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 distinguishedWashington Postcolumn of the same name,The Writing Lifehighlights 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 byWashington Post Book Worldeditor 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.

Author Biography

Marie Arana is the editor in chief of The Washington Post Book World. A former publishing executive, she is author of a highly acclaimed memoir, American Chica. She and her husband, Jonathan Yardley, live in Washington, D.C.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. xiii
On Becoming a Writer
The Seduction of the Text	p. 3
The Importance of Childhood	p. 11
Looking for the Spark	p. 19
How to Identify and Nurture Young Writers	p. 25
Touched by an Angel	p. 33
The Leap from Necessity to Invention	p. 39
A Real-Life Education	p. 46
Emerging from Under Your Rejection Slips	p. 52
Being a Product of Your Dwelling Place	p. 58
Doing It for Love	p. 64
Raw Material
Too Happy for Words	p. 73
Using My Father's Story	p. 78
Between Origins and Art	p. 84
The Writer As Outlaw	p. 90
From Memory to the Imagination	p. 95
Can Whites Write About Blacks?	p. 103
In Praise of Silence	p. 111
Bicultural, Adrift, and Wandering	p. 118
On Finding a Latino Voice	p. 126
Living in Irish, Writing in English	p. 134
Hunkering Down
Holidays at the Keyboard Inn	p. 143
The Passionate Researcher	p. 150
From Packrat to Historian	p. 156
Climbing Into Another Head	p. 162
Hunter of Metaphors	p. 168
Following the Script	p. 178
Headbirths: Bookish Midwifery	p. 184
Guided by Voices: The Work of a Ghostwriter	p. 194
Old Bottle, New Wine
From Will-of-the-Wisp to Full-Blown Novel	p. 205
Reincarnation, Translation and Adventure	p. 212
Master of My Universe	p. 221
Sounds and Sensibilities	p. 228
Writer with Scalpel	p. 235
A Chronicle of the Plague Years	p. 242
On Being a Novice Playwright	p. 250
Acting Out, Letting Go	p. 258
Pen Names Galore	p. 264
Summer Lite	p. 270
Facing the Facts
History Is Their Beat: The New Journalist Historians	p. 279
A Novel Approach to Reality: Basing a Story in Facts	p. 289
Making the Truth Believable	p. 297
Describing the World As It Is, Not As It Would Be	p. 304
The Political Memoir: Taking Note of History	p. 312
President in Search of a Publisher	p. 322
Biographer, Get a Life	p. 330
From the Clinic	p. 338
Notes from the Road	p. 344
Natural Selections	p. 351
Speaking Up for the Environment	p. 359
Looking Back
The Trouble with Finishing	p. 367
The Hardest Critics	p. 373
Literary Executions	p. 380
Taking It All Back	p. 387
Writer, Be Afraid	p. 393
In Search of the Next Idea	p. 399
Table of Contents provided by Rittenhouse. All Rights Reserved.